What a time in American life. Our President initiates a trade war, the markets tremble, and then he pulls back on most of it. But the damage is done.

Who leads the Democratic Party? No one knows, and that void is forestalling any attempt to have a meaningful conversation about the future of the party.

What a disaster. I’ve never seen so much value destroyed deliberately. Global markets have lost $10 trillion in the past days because of Trump’s trade war.

Who among us hasn’t mistakenly texted someone? Of course, we’re not the National Security Advisor adding a national journalist to a military thread.

Whether government is bigger or smaller is the wrong question. What it needs to be is better. It needs to justify itself not through the rules it follows but through the outcomes it delivers.

When I was running for President, many were dubious about government’s ability to solve big problems. Why can’t we get big things done anymore?

Trump seems more than ready to inflict economic pain on the country he leads. It’s bizarre. This self-inflicted trade war is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen.

The answer is almost certainly ‘Yes,’ if not in the way that you think.

When the obvious needs defending or restating, we’re in trouble. These are strange times in the U.S. when you can’t take much for granted.

I was invited to speak at my alma mater, Brown University, last week. It was my first time on campus since I ran for President.