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
- 1944
- Years Active
- 2016 - 2025
March 23, 2022: 3 things to watch as Biden goes to Europe
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, President Joe Biden has focused on three policies: (1) sanctioning Russia, (2) bolstering NATO’s defenses and (3) providing security assistance to Ukraine…
00:05:50 |
Wed 23 Mar 2022
March 22, 2022: Friction between Harris and Biden camps revealed in new book
The White House has worked hard to project a united front between President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris and their respective teams.
But the upcoming book, “This Will Not Pass: Trump, B…
00:05:04 |
Tue 22 Mar 2022
March 18, 2022: Scoop — Shelby spending millions to boost Britt
As Rep. Mo Brooks’ (R-Ala.) Trump-endorsed Senate campaign sputters and the Alabama GOP primary descends into chaos, Sen. Richard Shelby is making his move.
Our Burgess Everett and Natalie Allison s…
00:05:44 |
Fri 18 Mar 2022
March 17, 2022: Zelenskyy's appeal falls short — for now
No one was surprised by the request: a no-fly zone — and if not that, then access to those Soviet-style fighter jets in Poland that could help them “close the sky.” But if Ukrainian President Volodym…
00:05:47 |
Thu 17 Mar 2022
March 16, 2022: What Zelenskyy wants vs. what he'll get
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will address Congress virtually at 9 am this morning.
The headlines will likely focus on the red lines that President Joe Biden won’t cross: Zelenskyy’s reques…
00:05:53 |
Wed 16 Mar 2022
March 15, 2022: Zelenskyy’s must-see TV
On Wednesday, Zelenskyy will speak to Congress virtually. According to one person with knowledge of the address, he plans “to name and shame,” meaning excoriating the West for not doing enough to def…
00:03:43 |
Tue 15 Mar 2022
March 14, 2022: Congress to push Biden on Ukraine — again
Something unusual has happened in Washington since Russia invaded Ukraine. Congress — which typically takes a back seat on foreign policy matters — has driven the White House beyond its comfort zone …
00:03:51 |
Mon 14 Mar 2022
March 11, 2022: Baquet addresses NYT staffers about hidden videos
At a Thursday lunch in the New York Times Washington bureau, upset reporters pressed executive editor Dean Baquet about a recent sting operation targeting national security reporter Matthew Rosenberg…
00:04:50 |
Fri 11 Mar 2022
March 10, 2022: ‘This retreat is cursed’
Just after 10 p.m. Wednesday night, the House passed the $1.5 trillion omnibus bill, the first step toward averting a government shutdown and enacting Democratic spending priorities after more than 4…
00:04:38 |
Thu 10 Mar 2022
March 9, 2022: Harris steps in the middle of a NATO standoff
At 7:30 a.m., VP Kamala Harris departs for Warsaw, Poland, where she will be thrust into the middle of the first major standoff between NATO countries since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
With tou…
00:04:45 |
Wed 09 Mar 2022
March 8, 2022: ‘Limited’ no-fly zone gains steam among foreign policy elite
This morning we have a pair of significant Ukraine-related exclusives.
The first is a letter signed by more than two dozen of the nation’s top foreign policy minds calling for a partial no-fly zone o…
00:04:48 |
Tue 08 Mar 2022
March 7, 2022: Russia escalates brutality, Congress steps up response
“Russia answers resistance with firepower,” notes the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen, who is in Kyiv now and covered the conflicts in Chechnya and Syria. “Rather than send in men to fight from house to house and…
00:05:33 |
Mon 07 Mar 2022
March 4, 2022: Can a wider war be prevented?
“Ukrainian firefighters on Friday extinguished a blaze at Europe’s biggest nuclear plant that was ignited by a Russian attack and no radiation was released, U.N. and Ukrainian officials said, as Russ…
00:04:42 |
Fri 04 Mar 2022
March 3, 2022: How gas prices could crush Biden and the Democrats
President Joe Biden's conservative critics — from Fox News to Capitol Hill Republicans — have slammed the administration for exempting Russian oil from the raft of financial sanctions aimed at the Kr…
00:04:57 |
Thu 03 Mar 2022
March 2, 2022: 3 takeaways from Biden’s big night
Here were the three key takeaways and revealing moments that stuck with Team Playbook from President Joe Biden's first State of the Union speech.
1. Biden's cost-free confrontation with Russia — On t…
00:06:54 |
Wed 02 Mar 2022
March 1, 2022: Biden’s SOTU blues
At 9 p.m., President Joe Biden will deliver the type of State of the Union address he never wanted to give. Biden and his advisers had hoped to use this moment to reboot his stalled domestic agenda. …
00:05:03 |
Tue 01 Mar 2022
Feb. 28, 2022: A presidency transformed
Foreign policy crises have a way of reshuffling the priorities of a president. Joe Biden's standoff with Putin happened to come along just when Biden had lost some urgency in confronting his three bi…
00:05:43 |
Mon 28 Feb 2022
Feb. 24, 2022: War in Europe
Just before 6 a.m. Moscow time, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced in a televised speech that his forces were entering Ukraine. Within moments, distant explosions were heard by reporters stat…
00:08:21 |
Thu 24 Feb 2022
Feb. 23, 2022: GOP pans Biden’s first taste of sanctions
The Russian sanctions announced by President Joe Biden on Tuesday made clear the White House is still grappling with the same question he mused about at his Jan. 19 news conference: What is the appro…
00:04:58 |
Wed 23 Feb 2022
Feb. 22, 2022: Today’s Russia conundrum: What’s an ‘invasion’?
It happened. On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops — er, “peacekeepers,” as Moscow’s propaganda machine is calling them — into separatist regions of Ukraine. The move came less than…
00:04:41 |
Tue 22 Feb 2022
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