No. 47 in America · Week of November 9, 2026
New York Times columnist
Bret Stephens is a conservative opinion columnist for The New York Times.
Photo: Grant Wickes, CC BY 2.0
Score breakdown
Nine parts, measured fresh each week. This is where Bret Stephens's points came from, and the evidence behind each one.
Debate record
Argued at the Munk Debates that American foreign policy was emboldening its enemies.
Stephens was a foreign affairs columnist and deputy editorial page editor at The Wall Street Journal, and editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post.
He is the founding editor-in-chief of SAPIR.
On the record
2024
October 9, 2024
Formal debateLost the audience vote
Against Matt Taibbi and Lee Fang · The Free Press and FIRE, Symphony Space, New York
Stephens and James Kirchick argued for American leadership abroad. They started with 81 percent of the audience but lost the vote on minds changed.
2014
November 5, 2014
Formal debateLost the audience vote
Against Anne-Marie Slaughter and Fareed Zakaria · Munk Debates, Toronto
Bret Stephens argued for the motion with Robert Kagan. The con side won the audience vote, swinging 11 percent.
The people on this list argue in public for a living. At SuperDebate you get the same stage: one question, a clear structure, and a room that votes. It is how you learn to win an argument without making enemies.
