Advertiser (5:38)

Look, I know that you inherited a.

Luke Vargas (5:40)

Mess and you said, I've only been here.

Aaron Zitner (5:42)

Are you expecting a recession this year?

V. Paul Manga (5:46)

I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition because what we're doing is very big. We're bringing wealth back to America. That's a big thing. And there are always periods of it takes a little time. It takes a little time.

Luke Vargas (6:05)

Trump's cabinet officials have offered differing opinions on the economic outlook, with Commerce Secretary Howard Ludnick ruling out a recession yesterday, while Treasury Secretary Scott Besant said last week the economy could be in for a rough patch. Coming up, the Democratic Party is torn over what its path back to power looks like. We've got that story after the break. Democrats need to fight back against President Trump. That much they can agree on. But how to do it is a question causing some of them to fight amongst themselves as the party reckons with the options at its disposal given Trump's command of the national political debate and Republican control of Congress. Journal reporter Aaron Zitner is in Washington. Aaron, it's great to have you back on the pod. I'm trying to think about the last Democrat that we mentioned here, and I believe it was Representative Al Green, who was yelling at President Trump during his address to Congress last week and got himself censured for it. I take it that's maybe one of the strategies, confrontation that Democrats think they should be embracing here.

Aaron Zitner (7:14)

Well, that's right. Democrats have a very restive, liberal base. We've seen people showing up at town hall meetings, in fact, so many that House Republican leaders said, hey, we don't want to have any more town hall meetings. Too many angry people are showing up. Whether that's organic or driven by Democratic groups seems irrelevant. People are getting out of their houses and going to these town meetings and they've been flooding the Hill, the members of Congress with phone calls. But there are centrists in the party who say, wait a second. Our path back to winning the House of Representatives and having any hope in the Senate depends on moving to the center and winning. Those swing voters who swung toward President Trump in 2024, and they don't like this performative stuff. They don't like partisan politics. In our last poll in January, Democrats had the worst image rating that we had ever found in Wall Street Journal polling in three decades. This is a party that voters do not trust. And it's this is what the centrists say Democrats have to make sure that voters understand what they would do with power if they got it back. And the way to do that, they say, is not through protest. Instead, focus on how you would handle power differently than President Trump if voters gave power back to you.

Luke Vargas (8:36)

Just looking at the people you spoke to for this piece, Aaron, emotions really are running high. You've got the confrontationists feeling some true catharsis, it seems like in getting out there and being vocal now, while those centrists really feel like a lack of Discipline right now could make an already bad hand that much worse.

Aaron Zitner (8:54)

Well, that's right. The confrontation crowd, they think they're having an effect. They think that by showing up at all these town meetings and by showing that they have some fight, they've spooked Republican lawmakers. And now you're seeing Republican lawmakers push back in some ways against President Trump and saying, look, you got to rein in Elon Musk. You made us not nominate all these Cabinet members, and we can't even go to these Cabinet members to ask what's going on in our home districts and home states with these layoffs, because you've created an alternative power center with Elon Musk. And maybe these tariffs aren't such a good idea. You're seeing Republicans speak up a little more. And the confrontational Democrats say that's partly their doing. And also when you get someone to make a phone call, when you get them to show up at a meeting, they've taken an action, they've become engaged. And if they're going to show up in a meeting, they're also likely to vote when it's time to vote and to get their friends to vote. So it's engagement. One problem for Democrats is that Trump is doing so much stuff, and Democrats risk putting out a kind of diffuse and unfocused message if they react to everything. Rahm Emanuel was most recently ambassador to Japan, which has a big USAID installation. He says, I would not die on the Hill of usaid. If you're going to protest something, go out and get the governors, Democratic governors, to hold a meeting about why 8th grade reading test scores are so low. Protest that, make it a contrast with Trump. You're not going to build housing in Gaza. We're going to build housing right here. So make sure that whatever you do comes back to pocketbook issues.

Luke Vargas (10:32)

Our final seconds, Aaron, obviously Democratic rank and file. This is, you know, how to proceed here is in many ways a decision they get to make individually. But have we seen any clues from Democratic leaders about the approach they'd prefer to take here?

Aaron Zitner (10:45)

Democrats are gonna be a cacophony of voices for a few years. The party will not really have a single voice guiding it until the next presidential election. But the question is, what should the party do in the interim? And we are seeing different points of view out there. Gavin Newsom very prominently said he thought that trans athletes should be barred from women's sports, breaking with the liberal wing of the party on that. And he criticized the use of terms like Latin, X and defunding the police. That's part of the effort among some Democrats to show that they understand that voters don't want that liberal point of view and they want it to be more centrist. Alyssa Slotkin gave the Democratic response to the State of the Union and gave a very centrist, Midwestern focused kind of meat and potatoes speech. That was immigration, national security, basic economics. It was an unfancy statement of core values. Nations should be secure, the border should be secure, and we should focus on your pocketbook. That's what the centrists think is the way forward.

Luke Vargas (11:51)

I've been speaking to Wall Street Journal reporter Aaron Zitner in Washington. Aaron, thanks so much.

Aaron Zitner (11:55)

Good to be with you, Luke.

Luke Vargas (11:56)

And we may not have to wait long to see how Democrats choose to fight back ahead of a showdown this week over a Trump endorsed proposal to avoid a government shutdown and reduce spending as well, what is shaping up to be a heated debate over a giant Republican backed tax bill later this year. And that's what's news for this Monday morning. That clip of Mark Carney you heard at the top of the show came from Reuters, courtesy of cpac. Today's show was produced by Daniel Bach and Kate Bullivant. Christina Rocca and Sandra Kilhoff were our supervising producers. And I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal. We will be back tonight with a new show. And until then, thanks for listening.