I closed the year with a book tour that ends as Christmas comes. It was sheer pleasure to talk to journalists about their preoccupations, to go to bookstores and signings and meet readers and hear what’s on their minds. When asked why I wrote the book I’d say it was because I wanted to give a second life to columns that gave me special pleasure in the writing or subject matter. But many questions reflected the political moment we’re in, and often circled back to Donald Trump.
Which was the more important election, 2016 or 2024?
Absolutely ’24, and it felt that way even on election night. It felt fateful. The 2016 election was a Hail Mary pass, voters didn’t know if he’d catch it, weren’t even sure he knew where the end zone was. Mr. Trump had a presidency, it ended with “stop the steal” and 1/6, he was gone for four years, and finished. Then the voters take the field in ’24 and call exactly the same play, throw the long ball, but this time they know exactly who the receiver is, how he’ll catch it, how he’ll run and in what direction. Twenty sixteen always felt like something that happened. Twenty twenty-four was a decision.
Is Mr. Trump an irrevocable break with the past?
He isn’t the old-style president who allows you to say to the kids, “I’d like you to be like that man.” Jimmy Carter with his personal rectitude, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush with their virtues—Mr. Trump is a break with that, and the way he spoke when he first announced in 2015 made it clear. When he spoke of Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists, “and some, I assume, are good people,” which is a very Trumpian formulation, I thought, that’s not how presidents talk, you have to be measured, thoughtful, kindly.
I thought: That’s bad. But my sister and uncle thought it was good. They understood what he was saying and why he was saying it, they agreed with him, but they also knew he couldn’t walk it back. He couldn’t be elected and then say, “Oh, I changed my mind, on second thought we need more illegal immigration.” They felt the crudeness of his language meant that he was actually telling them the truth. It was a relief to them. “Forget eloquence, close the border!” They felt if the right policy requires a brute, get the brute.
Could a Lincoln become president today, a Reagan?
Our current politics came from extremity. Things this century seemed so extreme—the wide open borders, DEI, boys on the girls’ team. The American people would love it if in the future their top candidates classed the joint up. Mr. Trump and his generation of political followers came from broken politics and a broken culture and things not working. With all that breakage, politics got outlandish. The American people would love to see the return of a certain kind of elegance and dignity. But things would have to get more settled down first, more regular and normal.
What do you expect from Trump 2.0? Nonstop 24/7 Hellzapoppin.
What would be your advice to Republican senators in the cabinet confirmation battles?
Take it seriously. It isn’t about short term loyalty to MAGA, it’s about life-and-death appointment to such critical American agencies as defense, intelligence and health. Senators would best show loyalty to Mr. Trump by voting down those who are unsuited to various roles and would cause harm. They would best serve him by operating in a way that shows they are people of stature, not vassals. Urge him to find assistant-secretary jobs for some of those who don’t deserve confirmation.
Mr. Trump should show his new cool and calm by doing what he did when Matt Gaetz was forced to step down from his nomination: accept it as if it were nothing. He took his shot, it didn’t work, he offered a better replacement, next. In the end he looked good. But Republican senators must approach the hearings with gravity because, again, they’re life-and-death appointments. If Mr. Trump is making a mistake save him from it, as a friend would.
Advice for Democratic senators?
The confirmation hearings will be the first time people see you since the November defeat, after which you got drunk and hid behind rocks. Now you’re out in the open again, in clean shirts and leaning into a mic. You think you’ve got a bonanza—all these rich targets, all these sketchy nominees! You hope to carpet-bomb Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. That would be a mistake. You’ll look obstructionist, vengeful, merely partisan. The country won’t be in the mood for it. Democrats too should be cool. Draw the nominees out with respect, get a real handle on their views, bring the research and receipts. Accept who you can, giving due deference to a new president. But again, life and death. Be serious.
The biggest threat to the coming administration? “We have a huge mandate, we can do anything!” They’re high on their own supply. It was a mandate, not an overwhelming one—popular vote carried, narrowly, both houses of Congress won. But we’re a 50/50 country, and claiming otherwise doesn’t make you look bold, it makes you look cruisin’ for a bruisin’. They are going to make bad mistakes here. They’re making them.
What’s a helpful attitude going forward?
Trump supporters should shock themselves with magnanimity. Victors should grow taller, not smaller. They shouldn’t act like losers—truculent, resentful. If that’s how you act, everyone else will think you’re just losers at heart, losers who won’t last. Accept not triumphing in some of the confirmation battles, some of those battles deserve to be lost, and if they’re not they’ll come around and bite you later, badly.
For Mr. Trump’s opposition, if you believe in democracy you accept with as much good grace as you can muster—and after more than two centuries of this you ought to be able to muster a lot—the decision the people have made. If you’re an American you wish America to prosper, and part of its prospering will involve successful presidential leadership, so you want Mr. Trump to be successful. In the Catholic faith you take a moment during Mass to pray for leaders at home and abroad. It has to be sincere when you say it or you’re messing with God. Don’t do that.
If you’re an opinion columnist you should watch for what’s good and say so, watch for what’s bad and say that, and be afraid of neither observation. If you lose your temper, lose it; if you find yourself unexpectedly moved, admit it. Keep your tools, compass and gyroscope, clean, dry and level.
Are you an optimist?
Optimists tend to think the right, nice thing will happen, and I don’t necessarily. But I have faith and I have hope. Life takes guts. Don’t let all the bad news enter you and steal your peace. Keep the large things in your head. Two millennia ago a baby was born and the whole ridiculous story—the virgin, the husband, the stable, the star—is true, and changed the world. Compared to which our current concerns are nothing.