Opinion | ‘We Must Be Big and Unafraid’: 3 Writers Size Up Newsom, Pritzker and Other Democrats

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By Frank BruniLauren Egan and Adam Jentleson

Mr. Bruni is a contributing Opinion writer. Ms. Egan writes about the Democratic Party at The Bulwark. Adam Jentleson is a former chief of staff to Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, a former deputy chief of staff to Senator Harry Reid of Nevada and the author of “Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy.”

Frank Bruni, a contributing Opinion writer, hosted a typed online conversation with Lauren Egan, the writer of a newsletter about Democrats at The Bulwark, and Adam Jentleson, the head of the new Searchlight Institute and a onetime aide to Senator John Fetterman and the former Senate majority leader Harry Reid. They discuss which Democrats are mounting the most effective response to President Trump’s second term — and how Democrats should proceed in the midterms and in 2028.

Frank Bruni: Lauren, Adam, thanks for joining me. Because President Trump’s autocratic, kleptocratic, erratic and vengeful behavior makes even his first wild stint in the White House look tame, the stakes of containing him are agonizingly high. Democrats must get this right.