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☆ Ronna McDaniel Gets the Trump Treatment - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-20 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Just ask Ronna McDaniel. The chair of the Republican National Committee, McDaniel is responsible for its presidential primary debates, including the one next week at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif. Trump is skipping it. Dismissing her wishes, ignoring her entreaties, he has made other arrangements, just as he did in August, when he jilted McDaniel and pointedly took a pass on the first Republican primary debate, in Milwaukee. When Trump snubs you, he snubs you in neon. That’s why she went by Ronna Romney McDaniel until Trump came along and his contempt for Uncle Mitt complicated the luster of that middle name.

Persons: Donald Trump, Ronna McDaniel, She’s, McDaniel, Ronald Reagan, jilted McDaniel, that’s, Trump, —, Tucker Carlson, Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, Nikki Haley, George Romney, Mitt Romney, Romney, Ronna Romney McDaniel, Uncle Mitt Organizations: Republican National Committee, Ronald Reagan Presidential, Trump, United Auto Workers Locations: Simi Valley, Calif, Milwaukee, Detroit, Michigan

☆ Opinion | Kevin McCarthy, Humiliated Once Again
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-14 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

I watched him and I thought of Mitch McConnell clinging to a different lectern in a different city two weeks earlier, his physical struggle unquestionable but his thirst for dominance still unquenched. I thought of all the other Republicans — Mark Meadows, Peter Navarro, Lindsey Graham, the list is endless — who prostituted themselves for Trump. McCarthy right now is the main character in that story. And what a pathetic character he is. It wasn’t that the accumulated evidence had finally crossed some threshold or reached some tipping point.

Persons: Kevin McCarthy strode, Biden, Mitch McConnell, Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, Peter Navarro, Lindsey Graham, McCarthy, Hunter Organizations: U.S, Capitol, Trump

☆ Why We Are So Obsessed With Biden’s Age - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-11 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Pretty much any interview he gives is a babble bonanza, and his recent lovefest with Tucker Carlson was no exception. He went on wacky tangents, including one about the wages of building the Panama Canal: “We lost 35,000 people to the mosquito. We lost 35,000 people. We lost 35,000 people because of the mosquito. “No, no, it was one of the seven.” Seven, nine – he seemed unable to decide, unwilling to commit.

Persons: Biden, Donald Trump’s, derangement, Tucker Carlson, ”, “, they’re, Trump, Ronald Reagan Locations: Panama

☆ Opinion | Biden Is Old and Trump Is on Trial. Will Anything Else Matter?
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-07 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Thirty-six years in the Senate, eight as vice president, nearly three in the White House — President Joe Biden has a long record to be judged by, a deep familiarity with Washington that Americans can decide to see as an asset or an impediment. In a poll published by The Wall Street Journal on Monday, 73 percent of registered voters said that Biden had too many years on him to seek four more. But that doesn’t mean they won’t give him one, because their alternative would probably be Donald Trump, who has been charged with an array of felonies, 91 in all. It’s an irrefutable measure of his indecency and his rapacity, no matter what jurors decide about the criminality of his conduct. His legal odyssey overshadows everything else about his bid to return to the White House, which could come down to what the small group of persuadable swing voters make of the evidence against him and the spectacle of it all.

Persons: Joe Biden, that’s, Biden, NORC, Donald Trump, It’s, Trump, — Organizations: Wall, Associated Press, White Locations: Washington

☆ Opinion | When I Tell You Nikki Haley Is Pathetic, That’s an Understatement
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-29 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

But I have this thing called a memory, and as one of my favorite classic rock bands pledged, I won’t get fooled again. Past Haley, present Haley, future Haley: They’re all constructs, all creations, malleable, negotiable, tethered not to dependable principle but to reliable opportunism. That’s the hell of her. She has undeniable smarts and formidable talent, as Vivek Ramaswamy learned. She treated his so-called foreign policy as so many nonsense words scrawled with crayon in a toddler’s coloring book.

Persons: Nikki Haley, —, Donald Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy —, Haley, They’re, Vivek Ramaswamy Locations: Milwaukee

☆ The Republican Debate Was an Infuriating Display of Moral Cowardice - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-24 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

“He asked me to put him over the Constitution, and I chose the Constitution,” Pence said. That was an instruction to turn away from Trump. Their debate performances mingled moral cowardice with political malpractice to produce a baffling, exasperating, infuriating spectacle. That was the oxymoronic and utterly moronic position of many of the candidates on the stage. In that sense, they were miniature Trumps, cracked mirrors of the master.

Persons: “, ” Pence, Trump, Christie, Hutchinson, didn’t, they’d, Pence Organizations: Fox News, Trump Locations: Trump

☆ Opinion | Trump’s Shadow Over the Republican Debate
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-24 | by ( ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Debate Stage Was Complete and Utter Moral Cowardice” (Opinion, nytimes.com, Aug. 24):Frank Bruni is on target regarding those candidates who raised their hands in support of a Donald Trump candidacy, even if he is convicted. Sadly, those same candidates have a realistic understanding of the leadership cult that is today’s Republican Party. Donald Trump is a great admirer of the vindictive Vladimir Putin, who demands unconditional, one-way loyalty. Stephen SanderPennsbury Township, Pa.To the Editor:Re “Ramaswamy Seizes Spotlight as DeSantis Hangs Back: 7 Debate Takeaways” (nytimes.com, Aug. 24):Vivek Ramaswamy’s performance at the first G.O.P. presidential debate showed that he learned a lesson from the success of Donald Trump in capturing the Republican Party nomination in 2016: The more outrageous you are, the more attention you will get.

Persons: ”, Frank Bruni, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Stephen Sander Pennsbury, Ramaswamy, Vivek, John A, “ Trump, Tucker Carlson, Carlson Organizations: Republican Party, Rivals, Capitol Locations: Pa, Laurel, N.Y

Frank Bruni: Stuart, I’ve done many of these political roundtables, but never one at a juncture this titanically and transcendently bizarre. The first Republican debate of the presidential election season is tonight, the party front-runner is absent, and he’s running, oh, infinity points ahead of his Republican rivals despite two impeachments, 91 felony counts and unquantifiable wretchedness. Stuart Stevens: If a candidate enters the debate with a strategy of taking out another candidate, it can change a trajectory. In the 2012 primary, Mitt Romney did this to Rick Perry in their first debate and again in a subsequent debate to Newt Gingrich. (I was the campaign strategist for that Romney campaign.)

Persons: Frank Bruni, Ann Coulter, Stuart Stevens, Stuart, I’ve, Donald Trump’s, Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Romney Organizations: Republican

☆ Opinion | The Real, Hidden Truth About College Admissions
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-03 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

But I’ve no idea where those students will be 10 or 20 years down the road. And perhaps the greatest tragedy of all the drama around college admissions is the degree to which it obscures that transcendent truth. They’re honing the best kind of opportunism. They’re honing the worst kind of wastefulness. Where, in all the chatter about the Ivy League and all the debate about meritocracy, is the necessary attention to that?

Persons: Duke didn’t, I’ve, greedily Organizations: Duke, Ivy League

☆ Opinion | A Requiem for Diet Soda
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-27 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

I mean the crunch-woosh of a can of diet soda being opened. It was Tab for a while and then, I think, Diet Rite — I get confused about the chronology. Tab, Diet Rite, Fresca, Diet Coke and their ever-expanding posse transcended mere beverage-dom. If Mom were alive today, would she still be drinking diet soda? Diet soda is at odds with self-esteem as many Americans now extol it, with wellness as they’ve come to practice it and, according to some studies and some critics, with health.

Persons: Mom, —, Coke Locations: Worriedly

☆ Opinion | Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Is Where Paranoia Meets Legacy Admissions
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-20 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

It feels dangerous to write about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: In the lag time between when I put the finishing touches on this and when it becomes publicly available, I could be a conspiracy theory or two behind. He’s a crank who cranks out whoppers the way Taylor Swift disgorges perfect pop songs. Kennedy is where paranoia meets legacy admissions. It’s an exaggeration of inequities and injustices that really do exist, and it simplifies a maddeningly complex world. Ranting about George Soros or Anthony Fauci feels a whole lot better than raging at the vicissitudes of fate.

Persons: Robert F, Kennedy Jr, Ron DeSantis, Taylor Swift, Kennedy, Donald Trump, Kennedy peddle, George Soros, Anthony Fauci Organizations: bulldogs, Trump

☆ Opinion | Democrats, It’s OK to Talk About Hunter Biden
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-13 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Many of your liberal acquaintances will shush and shame you: Speak no ill of Joe Biden! Never mind that you’re examining his behavior, not the year on his birth certificate. You’ll be asked: What do Hunter Biden and diminished vim matter next to the menace of Donald Trump and a Republican Party in his lawless, nihilistic thrall? That’s a fair question — to a point. But past that point, it’s dishonest and dangerous.

Persons: Biden, Joe Biden, MAGA, ’, You’ll, Hunter Biden, Donald Trump, thrall Organizations: Democratic, White, Fox News, Republican Party

☆ Ron DeSantis’ Campaign of Contempt - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-06 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The version of most politicians that we need to worry about is the one that they don’t want us to see. That’s why campaign reporters dog them; they’re waiting for the veil to slip. But the version of Ron DeSantis that we need to worry about is the one that he proudly shows us. That’s one of the morals of a provocative anti-gay, anti-trans video that the DeSantis campaign shared late last week. But while his viciousness comes through precisely as planned, so does something unintended: an undercurrent of homoerotic kink.

Persons: Ron DeSantis, That’s, Donald Trump, coddling L.G.B.T.Q, DeSantis’s, Brad Pitt, Troy

☆ Opinion | Chris Christie Is Doing Something Very, Very Important
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-21 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

It’s about the hugely valuable contrast to other Republican presidential candidates that he’s providing. And about this: The health of American democracy hinges on a reckoning within the Republican Party, and that won’t come from Democrats saying the kinds of things that Christie is now. If at any point before the search in August of ’22 he had just done what anyone, I suspect, in this audience would have done, which is said, ‘All right, you’re serious? “The Republican nomination campaign cannot — and will not — be about anything but Donald Trump, and the media is not going to invite them on TV to talk about topics other than Donald Trump,” Barro wrote. “So, since they are going to talk about Donald Trump all the time, they had better talk about why he should not be nominated.” Christie is getting invitations and attention because he is doing precisely that.

Persons: Christie, They’ve, It’ll, ” Trump, ”, Josh Barro, “, Donald Trump, ” Barro, ” Christie Organizations: Republican Party, CNN, ’, Trump, Republican

☆ Opinion | The Brotherhood of the Philandering Oligarchs
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-15 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

I covered Donald Trump’s political ascent more than a decade before most other journalists did, which is another way of saying that I covered Silvio Berlusconi. That was from 2002 to 2004, during the second of his four stints as prime minister of Italy. He was arguably at the peak of his power. I was then The Times’s Rome bureau chief, and I twice met at length with Berlusconi. How well would his shtick play in another country, one with greater weight in the world and more at stake?

Persons: Donald, Silvio Berlusconi, Trump, Berlusconi, squawked, he’d Organizations: Trump Locations: Italy, Rome

☆ Opinion | Casey DeSantis Is Your Obsession. Jill Biden Is Mine.
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-08 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

And I challenge you to find me one voter, just one, whose pro or con decision about Trump hinged on his third wife. I’d forgotten all about her until she came up the other day in a Daily Beast headline that called Casey DeSantis “the Walmart Melania.” Better than “the Bergdorf Melania,” which would be redundant. But while we tend to exaggerate the importance of what a spouse does in public, we sometimes shortchange the relevance of what a spouse does in private. That’s where and how Casey DeSantis probably matters most. The political spouse I observed most closely, Laura Bush, was much more consequential behind the scenes than in front of the cameras.

Persons: Casey DeSantis, They’re, they’re, Michael Kruse, Laura Bush, George W, ’ Organizations: Trump, Walmart, Politico, verve

☆ Chris Christie: Columnists and Writers Discuss His 2024 Candidacy. - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-07 | by ( New York Times Opinion | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

As Republican candidates enter the race for their party’s 2024 presidential nomination, Times columnists, Opinion writers and others will assess their strengths and weaknesses with a scorecard. This entry assesses Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey. Candidate strength averagesHow seriously should we take Chris Christie’s candidacy? Michelle Cottle As a potential president, not very. As someone who could rough up Trump for the entire field — a political picador of sorts — he has potential.

Persons: Chris Christie, Chris Christie’s, Frank Bruni, Donald Trump, he’s, Jane Coaston, Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat Organizations: Republican, veep, Trump Locations: New Jersey, He’ll, Jersey

☆ Chris Christie Will ‘Do Some Vengeful, Spiteful Jersey Jitterbug on Them.’ Our Columnists and Writers Discuss His Candidacy. - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-07 | by ( New York Times Opinion | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

☆ Mike Pence Is ‘a Rebuke of Trump’s Presidency’: Our Columnists and Writers Weigh In on His Candidacy - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-06 | by ( New York Times Opinion | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

As Republican candidates enter the race for their party’s 2024 presidential nomination, Times columnists, Opinion writers and others will assess their strengths and weaknesses with a scorecard. This entry assesses Mike Pence, the former vice president. He is polling well enough to be part of the Republican primary debates. Ross Douthat On paper, a former vice president known for his evangelical faith sounds like a plausible Republican candidate for president. But in practice, because of Pence’s role on Jan. 6 and his break with Donald Trump thereafter, to vote for Trump’s vice president is to actively repudiate Trump himself.

Persons: Mike Pence, Mike Pence’s, Frank Bruni, Kamala Harris, Chris Licht, Jane Coaston, Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Donald Trump, Trump Organizations: Republican, CNN

☆ Opinion | A Peek Behind the MAGA Curtain
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-02 | by ( David French | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

It is President Biden, not Trump, who mishandles classified documents. False narratives are often sustained by a few kernels of truth, and so it is in MAGA America. Moreover, not all of Trump’s opponents possess the cleanest of hands. Given these facts — and Thursday night’s peek at MAGA America — my colleague Frank Bruni’s warning to Democrats yesterday was timely and important: Democrats should not hope to face Trump in 2024. All too many Trump opponents — in both parties — have spent so long building their voluminous cases against him that they’ve forgotten how he looks to the other side.

Persons: Biden, Trump, he’s, Trump’s, isn’t, Hunter Biden, MAGA, MAGA America —, Frank Bruni’s, — Organizations: Trump, MAGA America, — Locations: Ukraine, Afghanistan, United States, MAGA America, Russia

☆ Opinion | Democrats Want Trump? They’re Out of Their Minds.
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-01 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

That, you may recall, was when Donald Trump’s emergence as the Republican presidential nominee seemed like some cosmic joke. And yet some Democrats are again rejoicing at the prospect of Trump as his party’s pick. The stakes of a second Trump term are much, much too high to wager on his weakness and hope for his nomination. And the circumstances in November 2024 are neither predictable nor controllable — just as they weren’t in November 2016. If Trump is in the running, Trump is in the running.

Persons: Donald Trump’s, exulted, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Trump, megalomania, Biden, Ron DeSantis, Tim Scott Organizations: Republican, U.S, Capitol, Gov, Trump

☆ Opinion | Republicans Are Running Wild in My State
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Political colorists can be promiscuous in calling states purple, but my state is true to that hue. Donald Trump prevailed in North Carolina that same year, but only barely. Nearly 2.6 million North Carolinians declare themselves unaffiliated, while just over 2.4 million identify as Democrats and just under 2.2 million as Republicans. That’s a huge comedown from what Republicans wanted and from what they’ve repeatedly tried to get for nearly 15 years. Without any fear that the state’s Supreme Court will foil them before the 2024 congressional elections, they don’t have to settle for it.

☆ Opinion | We Were Wrong About President Biden
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

On this airborne ego trip, he had a bed, and I don’t mean a seat that flattened into one. He had an office, with a desk bigger than those of some earthbound executives. President.” He’d upgraded from his old surname, as illustrious as it was, to a kind of divinity. I never flew with President Barack Obama. But I visited him in the White House several times.

☆ Opinion | Marjorie Taylor Greene and the Thick, Cracked Goggles of Grievance
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

“Teixeira is white, male, christian, and antiwar,” she tweeted, capitalizing on her professed faith without properly capitalizing it. Or the administration that is waging war in Ukraine?”President Biden isn’t waging war in Ukraine. Either way, their predetermined sense of grievance is the prism through which all is passed and all is parsed. can see the lefty secularism and reverse racism — the wokeness, in a polarizing word — in any turn of events. Witness their conspiracy theories, their militias, their actions on — and then revisionism about — the Jan. 6 rioting.

☆ Opinion | Ivanka Trump Is Pained
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-06 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

We’ve talked plenty about how Donald Trump’s indictment and arraignment might affect his latest presidential bid. Whither Ivanka? Right here, right now, does she stand by Daddy? At times, the coordinates and calculations have been easy: Daddy’s going to the White House; I will not be left behind. And then Daddy was dethroned, and the traipsing just wasn’t what it used to be.

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