Welcome to Beg to Defer.

The Bulwerks Weekly Roundtable discussion featuring civil conversation across the political spectrum.

We range from center left to center right.

I'm Mona Charen, syndicated columnist and policy editor at the Bullock, and I am joined

by our regulars.

Bill Galston of the Brookings Institution in the Wall Street Journal,

Linda Chavez of the Nisk Cannon Center,

and Damon Linker, who writes the sub-stack newsletter

Eyes on the Right.

Our special guest this week is New York Times columnist Brett Stevens.

Well, the GOP gained control of the House of Representatives this week by a very slim margin.

And Nancy Pelosi announced that she will step down as Democratic leader.

Steny Hoyer also will step aside from leadership.

And as the Rupert Murdoch owned New York Post put it,

a Florida man made an announcement this week and then they buried the story on the on page 26 which was kind of amusing

But Trump announced for president in 2024 with all of the usual whining and

grievance and so forth that we have come to know all too well. We are fortunate to have with us this week a man who walked all the way out on the limb,

climbed out on the limb I should say and said Trump is finished and that is Brett Stevens. So Brett, why don't you

tell us what you made of this moment? Well I think it's different from 2016 or past occasions when Trump has been written off,

because what the GOP rank and file most want and what they had most expected in the run up to the midterms was power.

And it's impossible, in fact, to analyze the midterm elections and not see the extent to which the influence of Trump in elections in key battleground states wrecked the party's chances.

So I think the understanding has finally set among a critical mass of Republicans that Trump is yesterday's man, that he's a

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