Appearing on MSNBC Live With Katy Tur Friday afternoon to promote his latest article – a fictitious look into a future in which President Trump has won reelection – New York Times columnist Bret Stephens warned Democrats not to “lose their marbles” in 2020 and stated the obvious fact that he joined liberal paper in 2017 specifically to oppose the president.
Explaining the premise for Stephens’ imagined “November 4, 2020" op/ed, Tur explained: “So in this column, and again for our viewers, this is you predicting the future, making it up. It’s not real. But you predicted an Elizabeth Warren/Sherrod Brown ticket that focuses more on morality, and the morality of this president and the outrages that he has perpetrated, and less on the economy.”
Stephens cited Bob Dole losing to scandal-plagued Bill Clinton in 1996 as evidence, due to “a robust economy and Americans feeling pretty good.”
Moments later, he feared that Democrats were losing their minds over Trump:
So I think Democrats may be – Donald Trump may be doing what I – doing his greatest disservice, which is he may be making Democrats lose their marbles. If Democrats are gonna win, they need message focus, they need an optimistic strategy for the American people, and they want – they need to show that they’re not just interested in humiliating Trump, they’re interested in making things better for Americans.
Tur then laughably asked: “Why would a Democrat listen to Bret Stephens, conservative columnist?”
Any regular reader of Stephens in the Times or viewer of him on MSNBC would be stunned to learn that he’s still considered “conservative” by anyone.
Stephens assured leftists that he hated Trump as much as them:
Well, I know how conservatives think and I’ve seen many of these elections before. Look, one of the reasons I’m at The New York Times is I’m a never-Trumper....I do not want to see Donald Trump re-elected. I want to make America sane again. I want a president that I can respect. And I’m offering genuinely friendly advice.
His hope is that the prospect of Trump winning another term in office will so terrify Democrats that they will suddenly develop a winning campaign strategy. Stephens is actively rooting for liberal victory while still masquerading as a conservative.
Here are excerpts of the July 27 segment:
2:50 PM ET
KATY TUR: After a rather trying week, President Trump had some good news to share today. The GDP grew an impressive 4.1% in the second quarter of 2018. And the president wasted no time taking credit for it.
DONALD TRUMP: Since I was elected, we’ve created approximately $7 trillion of new wealth. The year before I came into office, private business investment grew at only 1.8%. Last year, it jumped to 6.3%. And this year it’s growing at 9.4%. So that’s a very tremendous increase. There hasn’t been an increase like that in many, many years, decades.
TUR: A bit of hyperbole there, but to the president’s credit, the economy is doing well. And according to a hypothetical op-ed from The New York Times’ Bret Stephens, with a faux futuristic dateline of November 4, 2020, the president’s re-election will be simple: it’s the economy, stupid. Bret Stephens, opinion columnist for The New York Times, and an MSNBC contributor, joins me now. Bret, I thought your column was completely fascinating because it seemed completely plausible.
(...)
TUR: So in this column, and again for our viewers, this is you predicting the future, making it up. It’s not real. But you predicted an Elizabeth Warren/Sherrod Brown ticket that focuses more on morality, and the morality of this president and the outrages that he has perpetrated, and less on the economy. You say in exit poll interviews, and again this is fictitious, “Mr. Trump’s supporters frequently cited the state of the economy to explain their vote. “What part of Dow 30,000 do the liberals not understand, Kevin O'Reilly of Manchester, N.H., told The Times.” Again, that’s a fake quote, but it sounds plausible.
STEPHENS Listen, you know, I don't know if you or how many of our viewers remember the 1996 election. But Bob Dole was going around saying, “Where is the outrage in America? Where’s the outrage?” Well, you have this robust – a robust economy and Americans feeling pretty good.
TUR: And this was a president at the time, Bill Clinton, who was facing some serious morality charges.
(...)
STEPHENS: So I think Democrats may be – Donald Trump may be doing what I – doing his greatest disservice, which is he may be making Democrats lose their marbles. If Democrats are gonna win, they need message focus, they need an optimistic strategy for the American people, and they want – they need to show that they’re not just interested in humiliating Trump, they’re interested in making things better for Americans.
TUR: Why would a Democrat listen to Bret Stephens, conservative columnist?
STEPHENS: Well, I know how conservatives think and I’ve seen many of these elections before. Look, one of the reasons I’m at The New York Times is I’m a never-Trumper. I want to see Donald Trump – I do not want to see –
TUR: You came from The Journal, we should say, Wall Street Journal.
STEPHENS: Yeah, I do not want to see Donald Trump re-elected. I want to make America sane again. I want a president that I can respect. And I’m offering genuinely friendly advice.
(...)
TUR: Don’t impeach?
STEPHENS: Don't impeach.
TUR: Bret Stephens, New York Times columnist. Bret, thank you for coming in. And read that article, it’s – or that fictitious article, I should say. It’s really interesting. Bret, thank you.
