Gail Collins: Gee Bret, our first presidential debate — coming soon! Next month, in fact.
Bret Stephens: If President Biden gets through the debate without committing a gaffe, he’ll surpass expectations. If Donald Trump gets through it without committing a felony, he’ll surpass expectations.
Gail: Was sorta hoping for a little more down time to mull important issues like the gold bars found in the home of Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey. Or hey, even the dead worm in Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s brain.
Think we’ve got to refocus?
Bret: I bet a lot of people read about the brain worm and thought, “Well, that explains it!” But it shouldn’t be a cause for mocking anyone.
Gail: Agreed, no more worm talk today.
Bret: About the debate, it should be … clarifying. Has Trump learned anything from his obnoxious debate performances four years ago? Will he dwell on his bogus claims that the election was stolen? Will he try to broaden his appeal to non-MAGA voters? As for Biden, will he give people confidence that he can go the distance for another four years? Or will he stumble and refer to his close working relationships with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau of Canada or President José López Portillo of Mexico?
Gail: Hey, imagine him bragging about his inspiring meeting in the Vatican with Pope Pius XII.
But seriously, on the domestic front here’s hoping Biden reminds the world that Trump plunged the nation further into debt. It’s always nice when alleged fiscal conservatives have to explain the red ink their tax cuts produced.
Bret: Unfortunately, Biden will probably add even more debt than Trump. And a lower inflation rate can’t disguise the fact that daily life has become much more expensive under Biden than it was under Trump. The safer course for Biden is to remind voters that Trump was the first president in American history to champion the violent obstruction of the peaceful transfer of power. And that there is nothing he won’t lie about. And that another four years of him will tear the country apart.
Of course, by the time the debate happens the president could be a felon. Do you think the prosecution will get a conviction?
Gail: I think there’s a very good possibility in the Stormy Daniels case they’re now trying in New York. But of course, Trump will try to appeal his way to the White House.
Bret: Appeals can take a while. My problem is that, as much as I despise Trump, I hope he’s acquitted, because this entire case, as our colleague David French has explained, is dubious.
Gail: There’s a very good chance this whole ungodly election saga will wind up in the hands of the Supreme Court. I’ve been wondering how you reacted to the amazing story, uncovered by our colleague Jodi Kantor, that one of the justices, Samuel Alito, had an upside-down flag flying in his yard after the 2020 election. That’s a symbol, for Trump people, of Biden stealing the presidency.
Bret: I’m troubled by the story, but maybe not for the reasons you’re troubled by it. I’ve never met either of the Alitos, but I have a pretty good idea that Justice Alito — whatever I think of his jurisprudence — would not be so colossally stupid as to risk his entire reputation, and maybe even his ability to rule on important cases, by hanging an upside-down flag. Ruth Bader Ginsburg got herself into trouble back in 2016 by making some overtly anti-Trump remarks, and Alito would have remembered that.
That means his claim that it was his wife who did this in the course of a neighborly spat has the ring of truth. And Mrs. Alito has both the constitutional right to express whatever political opinions she pleases, whether I like them or not, as well as a moral right to express them independently of her husband and his position on the court.
Or should our default assumption be that wives can reliably be assumed to have the same political opinions as their husbands? That seems … kinda sexist.
Gail: We’re in a my-wife-did-it moment, what with Mrs. Alito’s alleged flag flipping and Senator Menendez’s claim that it was his wife who stashed away all those gold bars. Which prosecutors claim were among the many, many gifts Menendez got as a reward for doing favors for everyone from hometown supporters to the governments of Qatar and Egypt.
Bret: Maybe so, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything about the Alitos. I’m sensitive to this because my wife certainly doesn’t deserve to be held responsible for the many, many stupid things I say and do.
Gail: I know spouses can’t be blamed for everything their significant other does. But I’m gonna go out on a limb and argue that if you’ve got an appointment to one of the most powerful posts on the planet, you should be responsible for making sure your home isn’t displaying a potent political symbol — like that upside-down stop-the-steal flag — which relates to a matter you might someday have to rule about.
Bret: OK. On a different subject, what’s your reaction to the latest Times-Siena polling, showing Trump still beating Biden in most battleground states? I know you’re confident that Biden will prevail in the end, but how do you explain his persistent political weakness, particularly among minority voters?
Gail: Biden is so boring it’s not a lot of fun talking about being on his team. The election is basically about whether the country feels a colorful egomaniac is better. I’ve got faith that at the end of the road, people are going to go for sluggish sanity.
Bret: There’s a long and winding road before Election Day and all kinds of things could happen — like Trump winding up in an orange jumpsuit on Rikers Island. But unless the Biden team understands how much trouble they’re in, they’re on track to lose. And that means doing something that really shakes up the race. The most obvious one to me is to dump Kamala Harris from the ticket and replace her with someone who could inject a lot of enthusiasm into the race.
Hello, Michelle Obama?
Gail: If Biden was veep-shopping for the first time there’d be plenty of good female politicians to consider. But Harris is there. Dumping her would be a huge insult; she’s been good at her job and improving along the way. I seriously think it would be a disaster. Unless she slips up big-time and, say, shoots her pet dog.
Bret: Great political parties have never been afraid to dump vice presidents in the service of nominating a winning ticket. The Democrats tossed aside Henry Wallace as F.D.R.’s veep for Harry Truman, which turned out to be very fortunate for the country. Lincoln dumped Hannibal Hamlin for Andrew Johnson, which may have been, well, less fortunate. But it helped secure Lincoln’s re-election, which was vital.
And speaking of vice presidents: thoughts on who Trump should pick? Or who he will pick?
Gail: I used to think it’d be a woman, but now I’m feeling Trump would be happier with somebody boring, who looks the part but won’t upstage him — like Doug Burgum, the governor of North Dakota.
Bret: A terrible debater and pro-life fanatic from a politically inconsequential state that Trump has in the bag anyway. If he wants to get someone in the MAGA camp, he might go for Ohio’s J.D. Vance or New York’s Elise Stefanik. If he wants to expand his base, he’d ask Nikki Haley, assuming she’d agree to take it. She would attract more moderate voters, though it might also enrage people in his base who didn’t appreciate her digs at him during the primaries.
My own guess is that loyalty will be Trump’s principal criterion. Is there a Constitutional ban on his choosing Ivanka, Eric, Lara or Don Jr., just to, you know, keep it in the family?
Gail: Wow. Shades of the Bushes — or, if you want to be fancy, John and John Quincy Adams. Neither duo were superstars but certainly not a laughingstock like — well, you know. There’s a reason the presidency isn’t a hereditary office.
Speaking of, um, laughing, did you catch Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s latest dust-up? During the House hearing on Attorney General Merrick Garland, when Greene told Representative Jasmine Crockett of Texas that her “fake eyelashes are messing up what you’re reading.”
Or maybe I should be crying. Do hate it when women in Congress behave the way super-sexists imagine they’re behaving all the time.
Bret: Both, I think. On a lighter note, Gail, I don’t want to leave readers without giving them a heads-up on the most delightful piece in The Times last week, by one of our great food writers, Tejal Rao.
Turns out, a judge in Fort Wayne, Ind., has ruled that, for purposes of permitting a restaurant called “The Famous Taco” to open in a strip mall, a ruling had to be made as to whether the taco could qualify as a “Mexican-style sandwich.” The judge, Craig J. Bobay, agreed, which allowed the place to open. But that ran contrary to a 2006 ruling by a Massachusetts judge that a taco was not a sandwich — a ruling that also allowed a different taco restaurant to open.
As someone who grew up in Mexico, I think I can settle this debate. The taco isn’t a sandwich; it’s the sandwich that’s a taco. And no taco should ever have to fight for the right to be eaten.
