Bret Stephens
Do Dumb Ideas Ever Die?
Unlike old soldiers, they don’t even fade away.
By Bret Stephens
Bret Stephens
I’m an Opinion columnist for The New York Times, writing about foreign policy, domestic politics and cultural issues. I also have a weekly published conversation on current affairs with my friend, colleague and sparring partner, Gail Collins.
What I Cover
Since joining The Times in 2017, I have written about everything from China’s long-term decline to the enduring relevance of Edmund Burke to my grandmother’s advice about sex to my misgivings about The Times’s 1619 Project. I’m often described as a conservative, though I’ve been a harsh critic of the direction of the Republican Party. I believe in free enterprise, free trade, free speech, and the need to safeguard the institutions of democracy at home and abroad. I also think it’s healthy to be able to change your mind and to say so publicly — as I have about Trump voters and climate change.
My Background
My hometown is Mexico City. I studied political philosophy at the University of Chicago and comparative politics at the London School of Economics. I worked for The Wall Street Journal in Brussels, where I mainly covered European topics, and was editor in chief of The Jerusalem Post, where I covered Middle Eastern ones. For many years I was The Journal’s foreign-affairs columnist, for which I won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for commentary. I’m the author of “America in Retreat: The New Isolationism and the Coming Global Disorder.” In 2022, the government of Russia barred me for life.
Journalistic Ethics
Every word I publish in The Times is rigorously fact-checked and edited. I am a national judge of the Livingston Awards but recuse myself whenever work is submitted by colleagues or personal acquaintances. The Times alone pays for my reporting trips. I don’t blurb books unless they are excerpts from columns or commissioned reviews. I sit on a few academic and nonprofit advisory boards, from which I derive no income or other benefit. Work I perform outside The Times is approved by The Times. I’m not on Twitter — sorry, “X” — or any other form of social media. Learn more about The Times’s standards.
Contact Me
Anonymous tips: nytimes.com/tips
Featured
CreditThe New York Times The 1619 Chronicles
October 9, 2020
CreditPhoto12/Universal Images Group, via Getty Images Why Edmund Burke Still Matters
August 5, 2020
Creditvia Collection of Howard and Cherry Kaneff. Lessons From My Grandma on Art, Sex and Life
March 21, 2020
CreditDamon Winter/The New York Times Where My Climate Doubts Began to Melt
October 28, 2022
CreditSean Dong I Was Wrong About Trump Voters
July 21, 2022
Latest
- Nov. 4, 2025
- Oct. 30, 2025
The ConversationThere Are So Many Ways to Shut Down a Country
The moderate vs. progressive debate will not be solved on Tuesday.
By Frank Bruni and Bret Stephens
- Oct. 21, 2025
Bret StephensWhy Mamdani Frightens Jews Like Me
A candidate who stands out for his monomania, double standards and affinity for extremists.
By Bret Stephens
- Oct. 16, 2025
The ConversationWhen Vanity Is Your Superpower
Ten years into the Trump era, Democrats still don’t seem to know how to respond.
By Frank Bruni and Bret Stephens
- Oct. 14, 2025
Bret StephensWhy Israel Won the War
Israelis went to war to defeat an existential threat — and an existential lie.
By Bret Stephens
- Oct. 10, 2025
Bret StephensA Worthy Nobel Peace Laureate
And a reminder of the need to depose the regime of Nicolás Maduro.
By Bret Stephens
- Oct. 7, 2025
Bret StephensWhat Israel Should Learn From Two Years of War
The only viable path to a Palestinian state is an end to the fantasy of Israel’s destruction.
By Bret Stephens
- Sept. 25, 2025
The ConversationTrump Will Not Retreat
He’s got the whole world in his hands.
By Frank Bruni and Bret Stephens
- Sept. 23, 2025
Bret StephensNow the Left Cares About Free Speech Again
That’s often not been the case in recent years.
By Bret Stephens
- Sept. 18, 2025
The ConversationAmerica Darkens
After the heartache and fury of the past week, it’s good to talk.
By Frank Bruni and Bret Stephens
- Sept. 16, 2025
Bret StephensOur Vanishing Culture of Argument
What the University of Chicago might have taught Charlie Kirk — and the rest of us.
By Bret Stephens
- Sept. 9, 2025
Bret StephensGesture Politics Won’t Help Palestinians
But diaspora Jews will pay an ugly price.
By Bret Stephens
- Sept. 4, 2025
The ConversationOur Entire Democracy May Be Riding on Democrats. That’s Terrifying.
Is there a way for them to get rid of the scarlet L for “loser”?
By Frank Bruni and Bret Stephens
- Sept. 2, 2025
Bret StephensMass Migration and Liberalism’s Fall
A decade on, Angela Merkel’s immigration disaster has created a right-wing surge.
By Bret Stephens
- Aug. 26, 2025
Bret StephensDonald Trump’s Assault on Capitalism
Trump’s personalized control of growing swaths of the economy will harm American economic freedom and competitiveness.
By Bret Stephens
- Aug. 18, 2025
Bret StephensTrump Just Reminded Me of Why I’m Still a Neocon
By putting the interests of what Trump calls “peace” ahead of the interests of freedom, we are all but guaranteeing that Ukraine will lose both.
By Bret Stephens
- Aug. 12, 2025
Bret StephensA Half-Baked Alaska Summit
The meeting is a bad idea, but there’s an opportunity for Trump to punish Putin’s thievery.
By Bret Stephens
- Aug. 5, 2025
Bret StephensWhere Can Gaza Go From Here?
No thoughtful person can be pro-Palestinian without also being anti-Hamas.
By Bret Stephens
- July 29, 2025
Bret StephensThe Trump Presidency Takes a Better Turn
If Trump’s opponents want to be effective, we have to come to grips with realities that have so far eluded us.
By Bret Stephens
- July 22, 2025
Bret StephensNo, Israel Is Not Committing Genocide in Gaza
The charge isn’t only obscene. It’s also absurd.
By Bret Stephens
- July 15, 2025
Bret StephensMamdani for Mayor (if You Want to Help the Republicans)
Get ready for the G.O.P. to run against “Mamdani Democrats” for several election cycles to come.
By Bret Stephens
- July 8, 2025
Bret StephensFor Israel, It Pays to Be a Winner
Diplomatic breakthroughs in the Middle East are the result of military victories.
By Bret Stephens
- July 1, 2025
Bret StephensWhat ‘Globalize the Intifada’ Really Means
Will liberals keep making excuses for Mamdani?
By Bret Stephens
- June 25, 2025
The OpinionsIs Iran Really a Threat to the United States? A Debate.
A hawk and a skeptic on their shared hope for Iran.
By Bret Stephens, Rosemary Kelanic, David Leonhardt and Jillian Weinberger
- June 22, 2025
Trump’s Courageous and Correct Decision
The president’s responsibility was to deny Iran’s leaders the capability to build a nuclear bomb.
By Bret Stephens
- June 18, 2025
Bret StephensAn Iran Strategy for Trump
First, destroy Fordo. Then make the mullahs an offer they can’t refuse.
By Bret Stephens
- June 13, 2025
Bret StephensIsrael Had the Courage to Do What Needed to Be Done
All the other options have run their course.
By Bret Stephens
- May 5, 2025
The OpinionsGail Collins and Bret Stephens: A Last Conversation
After eight years of weekly chats, one more for the road.
By Gail Collins, Bret Stephens, Aaron Retica and Derek Arthur
- May 1, 2025
The Opinions‘Donald Trump Will Not Be President Four Years Hence’
At least one Opinion columnist is confident about that.
By Patrick Healy, M. Gessen, Michelle Goldberg, Bret Stephens and Alison Bruzek
- April 29, 2025
Bret StephensTrump Is About to Steal My Friend’s Christmas — and Yours
A disappointed supporter reflects on the madness in the president’s method.
By Bret Stephens
- April 28, 2025
The ConversationOne Last Chat About Trump
All good things come to an end. What about bad things?
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
- April 22, 2025
Bret StephensThe Face-Plant President
There’s no better opponent than one who repeatedly trips over his shoelaces.
By Bret Stephens
- April 21, 2025
The ConversationIs This Giving the People What They Want?
Only 1,370 days to go.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
- April 17, 2025
The OpinionsBret Stephens on What Trump Gets Right, Wrong and Really, Really Wrong
The columnist on the value of acknowledging the president’s wins.
By Patrick Healy, Bret Stephens and Vishakha Darbha
- April 15, 2025
Bret StephensIt’s a Mistake to Think the Biggest Problem With Iran Is Nuclear Weapons
An olive branch is easier to accept when it is offered from the tip of a sword.
By Bret Stephens
- April 14, 2025
Two Postscripts on a Column
Two deeper histories on people mentioned in a recent column: a famous orator and a mother and son who survived the Holocaust.
By Bret Stephens
- April 8, 2025
Bret StephensThere’s Nothing Real About Trump’s ‘Real America’
The president’s policies are making the nation unrecognizable.
By Bret Stephens
- April 7, 2025
The ConversationTrump Has Everything Under Control
Will President Trump’s tariffs go down as one of the 100 worst decisions in presidential history? 50? 10?
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
- April 6, 2025
A Coda on Syria’s Chemical Weapons
New reporting on how extensive Assad’s deception on chemical weapons seems to have been makes clear that critics were right to be skeptical of Obama’s deal.
By Bret Stephens
- April 1, 2025
Bret StephensHere Is the Real Route to Freeing Palestinians
Protests in Gaza against Hamas are the first necessary steps on the road to real peace.
By Bret Stephens
- March 31, 2025
The ConversationTrump Really Likes It When Things Go Wrong
The problem is that competence and execution matter.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
- March 24, 2025
The ConversationTrump Has Had Enough. He Is Not Alone.
This is certainly an administration that reminds us why the framers decided on separation of powers.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
- March 21, 2025
David Brooks, Ross Douthat, David French and Bret StephensTrump Voters Love Him More Than Before. Four Conservative Columnists Pinpoint Why.
More registered voters think America is on the right track than at any other point since 2004, a new poll says. What does that mean about Trump?
By David Brooks, Ross Douthat, David French and Bret Stephens
- March 18, 2025
Bret StephensChuck Schumer Isn’t Jewish Like the Pope Isn’t Catholic
Derided by the MAGA right and yelled at by the far left, the Senate Democratic leader is inhabiting a very Jewish place right now.
By Bret Stephens
- March 15, 2025
M. Gessen, Tressie McMillan Cottom and Bret Stephens‘It Is Facing a Campaign of Annihilation’: Three Columnists on Trump’s War Against Academia
What went wrong for higher education?
By M. Gessen, Tressie McMillan Cottom and Bret Stephens
- March 11, 2025
Bret StephensDemocracy Dies in Dumbness
Until Donald Trump, no president had been so ignorant of the lessons of history, so incompetent in carrying out his own ideas.
By Bret Stephens
- March 10, 2025
The ConversationTrump Gave Us a Piece of His Mind
The official and unofficial languages of the White House, decoded.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
- March 4, 2025
Bret StephensThe (Fatuous) Case for Betraying Ukraine
The organizing principle of Putin’s reign has been the restoration of Soviet power at the expense of people power.
By Bret Stephens
- March 2, 2025
Justice, 40 Years Late, for Kiki Camarena
This was featured in live coverage.
By Bret Stephens
- Feb. 28, 2025
Bret StephensA Day of American Infamy
A dreadful moment for Ukraine, for the free world, for the legacy of an America that once stood for the principles of the Atlantic Charter.
By Bret Stephens
- Feb. 27, 2025
Earth to Barnard College: Enough
After more than a year of incessant rule-breaking by pro-Palestinian protesters, including this week, the school has to take more decisive action.
By Bret Stephens
- Feb. 25, 2025
Bret StephensAmerica’s Most Shameful Vote Ever at the U.N.
What happens when we stop “living within the truth.”
By Bret Stephens
- Feb. 21, 2025
M. Gessen and Bret Stephens‘The World Is There for the Carving’: Two Columnists on the Trump-Putin Alliance
We’ve never seen anything like this: a president who appears aligned with a Russian dictator in targeting the weak and the vulnerable.
By M. Gessen and Bret Stephens
- Feb. 18, 2025
Bret StephensVance’s Munich Disgrace
The vice president’s speech was a monument of arrogance based on a foundation of hypocrisy.
By Bret Stephens
- Feb. 17, 2025
The ConversationNothing to See Here. Everything Is Exactly as It Should Be.
The problem is that if we have another three years and 11 months of this, there won’t be a rule of law left in the United States.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
- Feb. 11, 2025
Bret StephensThe Horror Show of Hamas Must End Now
The region needs to be put to a choice about Gaza’s future.
By Bret Stephens
- Feb. 10, 2025
The ConversationTrump Is On the Move
The dangers of living in an unrecognizable republic.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
- Feb. 6, 2025
Frank Bruni, Michelle Goldberg and Bret Stephens‘The Damage to the Party Is Profound’: Three Opinion Writers on What Happened to the Democrats
How do Democrats build trust and faith in them and effectively counter Trump?
By Frank Bruni, Michelle Goldberg and Bret Stephens
- Feb. 4, 2025
Bret StephensIs This the End of Pax Americana?
We should aim to be a great power, not a big one.
By Bret Stephens
- Feb. 3, 2025
The ConversationA Presidency That’s Off the Rails. It Took Only Two Weeks.
But we’ve underestimated Trump’s political strength many times before.
By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
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