Americans die by the thousands, and Trump gloats about his television audience. They face financial ruin, and he chides governors for inadequate adulation. This is more than a failure of empathy. It’s a failure of basic humanity. My column >>>
Please tell me why I should care whether Joe Biden is declining mentally when Donald Trump bottomed out morally long ago. I’m serious. I’d rather drink milk past its expiration date than arsenic. My column >>>
If I hear one more disgruntled, Biden-blasé Democrat tell me that he & Trump are almost equally unappealing, my head will explode. The difference between 4 more years of Trump & 4 years of Biden is everything. Their speeches perfectly demonstrated that.”
Americans who take any comfort from the nightly "briefings" were Trump-drunk long ago. The un-besotted see and hear the president for what he is: a tone-deaf showman who regards everything, even a mountain of corpses, as a stage. My column >>>
Another night, another overwrought aria of self-congratulation and self-pity from President Trump. It's surreal -- and utterly repugnant -- how self-obsessed he remains in the midst of a once-in-a-generation crisis. No, it's heartbreaking.
It's not a scientific poll, but the enthusiasm of
@PeteButtigieg
fans here at the Iowa Steak Fry, where the Democratic field is gathered today, stands out.
On an Amtrak train today, a woman hadn't struggled with her suitcase for 5 seconds when a nearby man in his 20s noticed, zoomed over and insisted on hoisting it for her. Two hours later, he retrieved the bag for her before she could even ask. Can he be our president?
Actual cheating and bribes to get into the Ivy League and the Ivy-like? Having written a book about the college admissions madness, I can't say I'm surprised. But we should all be saddened and outraged. My column,
Some of the country’s best doctors can’t tell me definitively why I ended up losing sight in my right eye, but one of my column’s readers figured it out. It’s because I’m gay. His email to me, and so many others like it, are a lesson in hate. My column >>
“It takes a lot of spine to be a centrist in America today. You get whacked from the left and whacked from the right. That’s my life. I get whacked"--Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo, in my new column,
Dogs are useless to Trump. They can’t play golf with him and tell him what a manly drive he has. That’s lucky for Lindsey Graham, who would otherwise be swapped out for a Labradoodle. My column >>>
Whatever else you make of Biden's denial of sexual assault allegation, note difference from Trump: No "woe is me" claim of persecution, no denigration of the woman, no wild speculation about motives. Planned that way, sure, but still it matters.
Donald Trump snuffed out my confidence, flickering but real, that we could go only so low and forgive only so much. With him we went lower — or at least a damningly large percentage of us did. My essay on what we lost during this presidency >>>
Undertaking a bid for the White House at Buttigieg’s age indeed suggests hubris. But getting this far reflects a phenomenal work ethic, a stubborn optimism, extraordinary intelligence and preternatural poise: not bad traits for a president.
The
@NYTOpinion
section asked different columnists to make the cases for different Democratic candidates. I made the case for
@PeteButtigieg
. It wasn't hard to do >>>
Who better to ask about the probable course of this pandemic than someone who saw it coming? Here, in my Sunday column, is a conversation with Laurie Garrett, coronavirus Cassandra.
Let Trump tweet and bleat to his heart’s content about Biden as some demented wreck. It’s not just cruel and over the top; it’s irrelevant. At least Biden has a moral compass. My column >>>
The anti-vaccine hysterics reflect a broader horror that has flared in everything from the birther movement to “Pizzagate." This isn't just a public health crisis. It's a public sanity one, emblematic of too many people’s willful estrangement from reason.
Wisely and graciously, Biden keeps communicating that we, not he, are the focus, the story, the point of all of this. Coming after Trump, it's a radical humility. My column >>>
What you want from restaurants is a proxy for what you want from love and from life. And all of these change as you age, reflecting the arc that you’ve traveled, the peace that you have or haven’t made. My column on dining out after 50,
When it comes to babysitting this president, congressional Republicans are a lost cause. There's scowling from Mitch McConnell, mewling from Paul Ryan. But Trump could put a babushka on the Statue of Liberty and they’d pronounce her prettier than ever.
For the last hour, in this Upper East Side restaurant, the three guys at the table beside mine have not said a WORD to one another, each tapping into his smartphone. We are toast.
"The therapist ordered me bound to a table to have ice, heat and electricity applied to my body. I was forced to watch clips on a television of gay men holding hands, hugging and having sex."
Mike Pence mirrors Trump more than you realize, plus he believes he's on a mission from God. A kleptocracy or a theocracy? Pick your poison. Heaven help us.
One of my favorite stories about Barbara Bush is one from her granddaughters about her lecture to them on White House etiquette. The twins tell it here,
It must have been wild for Ivanka Trump in the DMZ, finding herself next to an egomaniacal autocrat like that. It must have been something to meet Kim Jong-un, too. My column,
Have read tons and written some about
@PeteButtigieg
. This new take on him by
@MrWalterShapiro
has fresh observations and insights. Very much worth reading >>>
I promise not to become all dog all the time, but this was wild. My border collie mix happened upon her border-collie-mix doppelgänger in the park this morning. Just try to tell them apart. And they fell instantly in love. Paging Narcissus.
Kamala Harris has a powerful story. She needs to tell it better than she has to date, because she and Biden must use every arrow in their quivers to end this wretched presidency. My column >>>
Since this column on my imperiled eyesight went online, I've been so moved by responses in The Times's Comments section and here on Twitter, especially from people generously sharing their own struggles & wisdom. I give you my heartfelt thanks,
The president's desire to convert the Fourth of July into the Fourth of Trump says everything about his equation of national interest with self-interest. A national holiday is just another tall building on which to slap his name in gold. My column,
"Trump is staffing his administration and his legal team with familiar personalities from his preferred cable-news channel—much like an imperious child demanding that his crib be stuffed with his TV-cartoon favorites." Damn,
@davidfrum
, that's good.
For all his flaws, all his bobbles, Biden reliably projects a fundamental generosity of spirit that separates him from Trump and is like a tall, cold glass of water to Americans thirsty for decency. My column >>>
"Within six hours, President Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr. had tweeted versions of it." During a normal presidency, this would be the scandal of the year. During Trump's presidency? A blip. Another 4 years of this amorality & madness cannot happen.
You're not a perfect man, Joe Biden, but you're an earnest and deeply empathetic one with great and genuine respect for this country. Congratulations to you. More than that, congratulations to America, which needed and needs this. And owes you thanks.
Trump doesn't want to run against Biden or Warren or Harris. He wants to run against Ocasio-Cortez, Omar and the Squad. He wants them front and center. And so he put them there, with that disgusting, racist tweet. My column,
We humans take pills to sleep, buy special bedding, need optimal darkness, contrive maximal silence, must be positioned just so. Then there are dogs . . .
Happy birthday to my father, Frank Bruni Sr., who turned 85 today and won't get the big party he deserves. He and I (and Regan) will have a quieter toast in our lockdown mode, as I describe in my
@NYTOpinion
newsletter this week >>
Is there another Republican whose journey from anti-Trump outrage to pro-Trump obsequiousness is even half as sad as Lindsey Graham's?
@frankbruni
doesn't think so.
Why major in philosophy or English or history? Because college is more than an onramp to the job market. It's ideally about the mind and the soul and enlightened citizenship and so much else. My column,
There are lucky turns in this life and then there's getting to hang out with Betty White: pure class, lotsa sass, all talent. Thank you, Betty, for decades of making us smile widely, laugh loudly and tear up from time to time.
John McCain, in his forthcoming book, says he's grateful that he “made a small place for myself in the story of America.” A small place? I sometimes forget, thanks to Donald Trump, what the music of understatement sounds like.
On a night when the viability of a female presidential candidate was an actual topic of discussion, the two women onstage gave the most commanding performances.
Too many of the tributes to John McCain aren't really about John McCain. Then again too many of the tributes to Aretha Franklin weren't really about Aretha Franklin.
Buttigieg would be the youngest-ever American president. I asked him why that shouldn't concern voters. He noted that Trump is the “most extreme example of the fact that while wisdom and age may be related, they’re very much not the same thing."
The 2020 election isn’t about getting everything that Democrats want and that Americans deserve. It’s about getting rid of Trump, because the price of not doing so could be this nation’s very soul.
The White House belatedly introduced a policy of mask-wearing — but it exempted the president. See what I mean about mask as metaphor? Trump demands protection from everybody around him, but nobody is protected from Trump. Story of America.
To live in N.C. right now, especially in Chapel Hill (me) or Durham (many friends), is to think the state is essentially one ginormous basketball court, fringed with fans whose heads are about to explode.
One explanation for Donald Trump's eccentric campaign and unethical governance? He never really wanted this. Was never really serious about it. It was supposed to be a time-limited adventure in egomania. And here we are. My column,
This past year was so sadly and infuriatingly far from America’s best. All the more motivation for 2019. Let’s honor these blessings, not squander them. That will make for a happy new year.