From New York Times, I'm Michael Bavarro. This is the Daily.

Over the past few days, a routine debate over government funding has exploded into an angry

showdown over the Democratic Party's identity in the Trump era,

and whether its current leadership is right for the moment.

Today, I speak with my colleagues, congressional reporter Katie Edmondson,

and national political correspondent Shane Goldmacher,

about the weekend that rocked the Democratic Party.

It's Monday, March 17th.

Hey there, Katie.

Hey, Michael.

You have many options of how to spend your Sunday.

Appreciate you spending it with us.

Thanks for having me.

So, Katie, pretty much from the moment that Donald Trump was inaugurated for the second term,

there has been this low-grade debate playing out inside the Democratic Party about how to counter him and what Democrats can do and should do

about his really aggressive strategy of firing thousands of government workers, shutting down

agencies, circumventing Congress in the process.

And the question has been, when would that internal debate really come to a head and become a public battle?

And the answer, it seems, is right now, because it all really just became a public brawl over the past few days.

And that all seems to revolve around the actions of the Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York. Yeah, that's right. I mean,

look, I think there was behind the scenes for weeks now a lot of quiet agonizing over how to

counter the Trump administration. And that sort of quiet agonizing turned

...