Today's episode is sponsored by Better Medicare Alliance.

More than 35 million seniors and people with disabilities rely on Medicare Advantage for affordable, comprehensive health care.

But when payment rates fail to keep pace with rising medical costs, seniors can face higher out-of-pocket costs, fewer benefits, and fewer planned choices.

Learn more about what's at stake

for seniors at support medicare advantage.com. The divide in the party now is who believes

that we have to go on offense or that Trump in his second term is an existential threat to our

democracy and who believes we should just wait, like in the first Trump administration,

for things to get bad and he'll lose under his own weight.

Hello, hello, and welcome to The Conversation.

I'm Dasha Burns, Politico's White House Bureau Chief, and every week on this show,

I invite one of the most compelling and sometimes

unexpected power players in Washington and beyond in for a chat to find out how they are navigating

and shaping this incredible era of American politics. And this week, I got the chance to speak with

Democratic Senator Alyssa Slotkin from the great swing state of Michigan.

Slotkin and I spoke the morning after President Trump's State of the Union address, which means

we got to debrief on a range of topics that the president focused on. We talked about affordability,

the cost of living, health care, immigration, national security, and so much more.

But one thing we really dug in on is where her party stands in this political moment,

not just in response to Trump's marathon speech or even his presidency in general,

but looking ahead to the midterms and beyond what is the path forward for Democrats.

Now, she's called for her party to find their, quote, alpha energy.

And she has some ideas for how she would address the party's biggest brand problems.

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