Democrats grapple with their own message in Trump 2.0

Washington (CNN) — President Donald Trump is already testing the limits of Hill Democrats who have vowed to be less antagonistic the second time around.

Privately, Democrats have largely agreed it’s time to end the capital-R resistance to the newly sworn in president. Then on Trump’s first 24 hours in office, he freed those who violently attacked police officers protecting the Capitol four years ago.

Suddenly, the party’s attempt to usher in a new era of receptiveness with the White House is turning out to be more complicated in practice. Just days into his second term, Trump is once again baiting his political opponents and scrambling their playbook in real time.

“The natural inclination is to fight, fight, fight, fight,” said Rep. Tom Suozzi, a centrist Democrat who represents a Trump-won district on Long Island. Suozzi stressed that Democrats need to be more disciplined in their politics to avoid their more reactionary tactics: “That’s what’s got us to this point.”

Even so, he and others acknowledge they can’t ignore when Trump allows January 6 rioters to go free at the same time he is pushing to deport other violent criminals. “I mean, come on,” an exasperated Suozzi said.

“He makes it pretty hard to want to work with him,” added Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia, who released a scathing statement on the pardoned January 6 rioters, some of whom used tasers, bear spray and other weapons to physically assault multiple police officers who live in his district.

Top Democrats like Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries have been urging members to stick to substantive policy differences, rather than personality clashes and social media clapbacks with a man who won the popular vote. But there remains internal tension in the party about where to draw the line on Trump. Democrats in Trump-won turf are traveling to Mar-a-Lago and voting for GOP bills on immigration and trans athletes, while others are protesting his inauguration and grilling his Cabinet picks in made-for-TV moments.

On the pardons specifically, Jeffries privately told Democrats on Wednesday that they should hammer Trump’s decision to free January 6 rioters in a way that makes clear how it risks the safety of the American people, according to two people in the room. And the focus was less on Trump but on the complicity of House Republicans — the ones who will be on the ballot in two years.

Democrats have also tried to contrast how what Trump is doing isn’t actually helping the Americans who voted for him.

“I think he’s trying to flood the zone,” with executive orders, Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, said. “Trump got hired because he thought he was going to help bring grocery prices down, what does pardoning literally hundreds of criminals who attacked police officers have to do with bringing grocery prices down?”

Democrats search for a message

With their party still in retreat, some Democrats are eager to discuss a unified message for Trump’s second term — preferably one that doesn’t revolve around him. The plan is to drive an economy-focused vision, attacking the GOP almost exclusively on issues of cost, while ignoring all but the most egregious Trump actions. Jeffries himself said on the first day of the new Congress that he would work with Republicans when possible but “push back against far-right extremism whenever necessary.”

“We should not just have knee-jerk reaction to be opposed to everything. We really should focus on what it is they’re trying to pass,” said Rep. Susie Lee of Nevada, who is one of many centrist Democrats encouraging the party to be more strategic about how it responds to Trump this time around.

And there’s a key reason why: “I think the main difference is, Trump did win the popular vote. He certainly won my district.”

But that change in tune is complicated, with an emboldened Trump who is taking on bigger-than-expected promises in his first days in office. Then there’s the Democrats’ own struggles, including the lack of a clear message or messenger to deliver it, according to interviews with dozens of lawmakers, campaign operatives and senior aides.

“It’s not like everybody has surrendered,” said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri, describing his party as being in a holding pattern as they engage in “cerebral” questions over the lessons learned from Trump victory.

“People are sitting around in circles quietly talking about what the strategy ought to be,” he said. “Are there changes that we need to make? Do we hold Trump accountable on everything that we don’t like that he does? Or should we be selective?”

Confirmation hearings in the spotlight

The way Democrats are grappling with how to handle the second Trump administration is playing out in real time in confirmation hearings.

While a hearing for Defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth saw blistering questioning about Hegseth’s personal life, including one particularly tough exchange with Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia on Hegseth’s marriages and an unexpected pregnancy, other hearings — including those for Treasury secretary nominee Scott Bessent and Department of Homeland Security pick Kristi Noem — were relatively civil by partisan standards, and focused far more on policy disagreements than personal animus.

Several Democrats say they are trying to find nominees they can vote for even if they don’t agree entirely with them on policy.

“This guy is clearly not qualified,” Warner said of Hegseth. “I’m supporting a number of Trump’s nominees. I voted for (Trump’s nominee to lead the CIA John) Ratcliffe, I voted for Bessent, but there are some of these that are way beyond the bounds.”

But some Democrats are privately cringing as they watch the more explosive moments of these hearings, particularly the Hegseth hearing, when they said the tone felt much more like 2017.

“We’ve gone back to our playbook which is, ‘attack him,’ instead of actually dealing with the fact that the party doesn’t have a message, doesn’t really have a spokesperson,” one senior House Democrat said of the strategy. “We’re just going back to the shrill attacks.”

As that messaging debate continues, Democrats are also grappling with how to play in a social media landscape they feel like they’ve fallen behind on.

In a private Senate Democratic luncheon last week, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey led colleagues through the shifting dynamics of a media echo chamber that conservatives are thriving in. Democrats scoured examples of how conspiracy theories like one about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, spread rapidly in the conservative media sphere and how Democrats needed to try to harness their own tools to get their messages out better.

One of the bright spots Democrats highlighted, according to a source familiar, was a viral video from the pandemic of Warner making a tuna melt in his kitchen that led to the lawmaker being cheered and jeered by people who questioned his culinary leanings.

“The communications ecosystem has changed profoundly in ways that most people in their 60s and 70s don’t grasp,” one Democratic senator said of the message of the presentation.

Senators talked about the need to repost each other’s social media posts to try and organically get their message out. But they also argued they can’t abandon traditional media altogether.

At one point, a Democrat in the meeting asked if their party had their version of conservative influencers, according to a person who attended. Booker responded that the party didn’t have one.

“They have a permanent information ecosystem. We don’t,” Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, said following the lunch. “They define us and we don’t get to define them. No matter how good our messaging is here, it doesn’t get reflected, reverberated and amplified like theirs does.”

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