In a surprising turn, New York Times columnist and longtime Trump critic Bret Stephens admitted that President Donald Trump’s recent string of victories has surpassed even his harshest detractors’ expectations.
“Egads! After a disastrous first 100 days, Donald Trump is starting to have a much more successful presidency. This is not what we, his foam-at-the-mouth critics, had planned,” Stephens wrote in his Tuesday column.
A self-described “Never Trump conservative,” Stephens highlighted several key accomplishments, crediting Trump for both bold policy moves and political wins. Among them, he noted Trump’s success in pushing NATO allies to increase defense spending. “Far from destroying the Atlantic alliance, Trump may wind up being remembered for reviving and rebalancing it,” Stephens admitted.
He also praised Trump’s “courageous policy” in joining Israel to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, which ended the conflict quickly without sparking a larger Middle East war. On Ukraine, Stephens credited Trump for shifting strategy to speed up arms deliveries, calling it “the only way to end the war.”
The columnist acknowledged Trump’s aggressive trade negotiations with the EU and Japan, his hardline immigration policy (while noting enforcement may have gone too far), and his $3.3 trillion spending package, which he said was a “needed” political win despite its flaws.
Even Trump’s legal battle with Columbia University over campus antisemitism drew a nod from Stephens for yielding tangible results, despite what he called “unorthodox” methods.
Stephens urged Trump’s critics to face reality: “If Trump’s opponents want to be someday effective — and let’s face it, we haven’t been — then we have to come to grips with realities that have so far eluded us. Such as: Not everything Trump does is bad.”
It’s a rare admission that even Trump’s fiercest critics can’t ignore his growing list of victories.
