How should we make sense of the Trump era? On the first anniversary of President Trump’s second inauguration, please join ALOUD and New York Times Opinion for a conversation taking stock of the administration’s most consequential actions and what it all means for our country and ultimately the world order. The Opinion columnists Ross Douthat and Jamelle Bouie will be joined by Kathleen Kingsbury, head of Opinion, to discuss the future of the Republican Party, the failures of Congress, and how they think about covering the Trump administration.
Featured Speakers:
Jamelle Bouie
Jamelle Bouie is an Opinion columnist for The New York Times. He covers history and politics. He co-hosts the Unclear and Present Danger podcast on the political and military thrillers of the 1990s. Before joining The Times, Bouie was the chief political correspondent for Slate Magazine. He began his career at The American Prospect and also spent time as a writer for The Daily Beast. Bouie has also contributed essays to volumes such as Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 and The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story. In 2021, he received the Hillman Prize for opinion and analysis journalism, and in 2024 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Ross Douthat
Ross Douthat is an Opinion columnist for The New York Times. He is the host of the Opinion podcast Interesting Times. Previously, he was a senior editor at The Atlantic and a blogger on its website. He is the author of Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious, which was published in 2025. His other books include The Deep Places: A Memoir of Illness and Discovery (2021) and To Change the Church: Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism (2018). He is the film critic for National Review.
Kathleen Kingsbury
Kathleen Kingsbury leads the Opinion report for The New York Times. For The Times, Kingsbury was a 2018 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for a series on guns and domestic violence, and she oversaw the paper’s Pulitzer-winning editorials on race and culture in 2019. Before joining The Times, Kingsbury worked for The Boston Globe, where she last served as managing editor. While at The Globe, Kingsbury was awarded the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished editorial writing for a series on low wages and the mistreatment of workers in the restaurant industries. She also edited The Globe’s 2016 Pulitzer Prize-winning commentary on race and education. Kingsbury has also worked as a New York-based staff writer and Hong Kong-based foreign correspondent for Time Magazine.
