Veteran conservative writer Kevin D. Williamson called President Donald Trump "stupid and lazy," arguing that the president's personal shortcomings may be the only thing preventing him from inflicting far more damage on the country.

Williamson, a national correspondent for The Dispatch and a former writer and editor at National Review, made the remarks in an interview with Corey Nathan on the Talkin' Politics & Religion Without Killin' Each Other podcast, released Tuesday. The Dispatch, a conservative outlet founded in 2019 by former National Review editors Jonah Goldberg and Steve Hayes, places his criticism within the right-of-center press rather than outside it.

"But the saving grace of the Trump administration and Donald Trump as a politician has always been that he's stupid and lazy," Williamson said, adding, "And the fact that he's stupid and lazy means that he doesn't do as much harm as he could."

In his view, a more intelligent and capable politician who shared Trump's popularity and ideology would pose a far greater threat. "An intelligent, energetic person in his position with his kind of demagogic abilities and his cult of personality could do a lot of damage," he said.

Williamson used President Woodrow Wilson as a historical example, describing him as an intelligent man who did considerable damage without commanding Trump's level of celebrity.

The columnist also accused the Trump administration of squandering its opportunity to enact major changes through Congress, saying it has no "legislative agenda" beyond the Big Beautiful Bill, the sweeping tax-and-spending law signed in July. Rather than imposing tariffs "willy-nilly," he argued, Republicans could have rewritten sections of the tax code or legally altered U.S. trade policy through legislation. That route exists because Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution assigns Congress, not the president, the powers to lay taxes and regulate commerce with foreign nations.

His criticism extended across the aisle as well. Williamson said Democrats do not have much of an agenda either, "although there are some things that they'd like to change, but they haven't spelled that out in any kind of detailed way."

Williamson's warnings went beyond the president's style of governing. He argued that the country's constitutional system is facing a serious test on war powers and congressional oversight. Pointing to the war in Iran and U.S. military operations in the Caribbean, he questioned whether Congress is still exercising the power conferred upon it by the Constitution. Article I gives Congress the power to declare war, a step lawmakers have not formally taken since World War II.

"The real question is, does Article 1, does the Constitution still matter?" he asked.

Looking ahead, Williamson predicted that if Democrats win the Senate, they will "certainly" impeach Trump, a process he expects would drag out for the rest of the president's term. Control of the chamber will be decided in the November 2026 midterm elections. He doubts, however, that they will get enough Republicans to vote with them. The House impeached Trump twice during his first term, in 2019 and 2021, with the Senate falling short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict both times. Even so, the conservative author believes the president should face the legislative process.

"In addition to whatever impeachment there is, and there should be, by the way. There's like 11 good reasons to impeach Donald Trump," he said.