The Playbook Podcast
POLITICO’s Jack Blanchard and Dasha Burns bring their fresh insight, analysis and reporting to the biggest story driving the day in the nation’s capital.
- Update frequency
- every day
- Average duration
- 6 minutes
- Episodes
- 1941
- Years Active
- 2016 - 2025
August 5, 2025: August heats up
Today, the biggest story in Washington is about what’s happening everywhere else: from redistricting fights in Texas and California, to town halls in Nebraska and Michigan, to just a general unsettle…
00:12:46 |
Tue 05 Aug 2025
August 4, 2025: The mess with Texas
Today, you can find Texas’ Democratic state legislators in Illinois, New York and Massachusetts. Where you won’t find many of them is Texas. That’s because they fled the state yesterday in an attempt…
00:11:33 |
Mon 04 Aug 2025
From 'The Conversation': Rep. Sarah McBride Won’t Be Baited by GOP ‘Provocateurs’
Freshman Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.) is the first out transgender member of Congress. Within days of her election this past November, she faced attacks from Republican colleagues who tried to draw he…
00:52:12 |
Sun 03 Aug 2025
August 1, 2025: Liberation Day, Part III
With the markets closed and the August 1 deadline having passed overnight, President Donald Trump followed through on his pledge to impose a wave of new tariffs. But Trump is far from finished. The p…
00:14:30 |
Fri 01 Aug 2025
July 31, 2025: Joe Biden’s next act
For more than five decades, Joe Biden led an incredibly public existence. But now, in his post presidency, he’s entered a quieter, lonelier stage of life. He’s staffed by only one or two aides and Se…
00:15:41 |
Thu 31 Jul 2025
July 30, 2025: How to gerrymander your way to a House majority
We’re halfway between the usual once-in-a-decade redrawing of congressional maps. So why are we talking about redistricting in 2025? As the White House looks for ways to keep its Republican House maj…
00:09:48 |
Wed 30 Jul 2025
July 29, 2025: Trump’s turning point on Gaza
For a decade, President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement has bulldozed through GOP orthodoxy on everything from the national debt to immigration to trade to Russia. Now, there are fresh signs that it cou…
00:14:38 |
Tue 29 Jul 2025
July 28, 2025: JD Vance’s stealth-mode approach to being VP
Vice President JD Vance’s first six months in office have been an exercise in stealth. Yes, he has a very public role. But to understand how Trump’s Washington truly works, you need to pull back the …
00:14:29 |
Mon 28 Jul 2025
From 'The Conversation': FDA Head Marty Makary on Food Dyes, Ultra-Processed Foods and the MAHA Agenda
Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Martin Makary is getting lobbied by the MAHA movement to restrict food dyes and ultra-processed foods, as well as by the food, agriculture and pharmaceutical…
00:50:32 |
Sun 27 Jul 2025
July 25, 2025: Trump goes all-in on the midterms
Today, even as President Donald Trump heads to Scotland, his attention lingers stateside — and maybe not for the reason you assume. Trump has fully invested himself into the coming midterms, with hig…
00:11:40 |
Fri 25 Jul 2025
July 24, 2025: Trump’s Epstein crisis explodes
It’s the biggest story in Washington: Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal dropped a bombshell report that Attorney General Pam Bondi briefed President Donald Trump in May and told him that his name — …
00:10:37 |
Thu 24 Jul 2025
July 23, 2025: The Epstein crisis reaches escape velocity
For more than two weeks, the Jeffrey Epstein saga has blotted out the sun in Washington. But it’s only now — with the House heading out for a monthlong recess as GOP leaders adjourn the chamber rathe…
00:12:48 |
Wed 23 Jul 2025
July 22, 2025: The questions that could decide 2026
With no new enterprise journalism published recently on the “Epstein files” front, President Donald Trump’s allies are catching their breath. Democrats are riding what could be a sugar high, having a…
00:10:19 |
Tue 22 Jul 2025
July 21, 2025: Dems close the ‘attention gap’
As the Epstein storm bears down on the White House, some of the same dynamics that contributed to the president’s rise to power now threaten his administration. Among them is the attention economy, w…
00:10:40 |
Mon 21 Jul 2025
From 'The Conversation': Sen. Eric Schmitt on being a White House whisperer and Senate budget reformer
Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt is a lawyer, former state attorney general and a skilled navigator of the old — and new — wings of the Republican Party. He also has another title: White House whisperer.
…
00:42:04 |
Sun 20 Jul 2025
July 18, 2025: Trump, Epstein and ‘another wonderful secret’
The longtime friendship between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein came in for a close-up in a much-anticipated Wall Street Journal report last night that detailed a long-ago “bawdy” birthday greeting …
00:09:46 |
Fri 18 Jul 2025
July 17, 2025: Trump’s Epstein woes go mainstream
The Jeffrey Epstein news cycle is here to stay. And that’s increasingly frustrating President Donald Trump, who has grown accustomed to being able to exert control over the news cycle for much of the…
00:11:16 |
Thu 17 Jul 2025
July 16, 2025: Trump’s Epstein conundrum
There’s a glut of action from Republicans throughout Washington — from new economic messaging from the White House to a big rescissions vote in the Senate to a new crypto bill in the House. But the b…
00:10:57 |
Wed 16 Jul 2025
July 15, 2025: A political Bizarro World
What do Republicans need to do to outperform expectations in the coming midterm elections? According to new polling obtained exclusively by Playbook, the answer may in part rest in touting their supp…
00:15:43 |
Tue 15 Jul 2025
July 14, 2025: Why Trump’s Epstein headache won’t go away
For years, prominent voices from Trump world have agitated for the release of all files in the case of Jeffrey Epstein, the wealthy and well-connected financier and convicted sex offender who died by…
00:16:29 |
Mon 14 Jul 2025
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