Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), who ran to be vice president on the Democratic ticket alongside former Vice President Kamala Harris, said he believes the next leader of the party is going to be “the voting public.

Party leaders opted for a soberly delivered, centrist counter to the president’s speech, but the dominant image of Democratic pushback was a liberal congressman waving his cane in protest.

The freshman senator from a swing state, a former CIA analyst, scrutinized Donald Trump’s handling of Russia’s war on Ukraine, saying that he “would have lost us the Cold War.”