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
Sept. 17, 2021: Another crisis, where's Jill Biden and 2022 candidate watch
- WaPo’s Arelis Hernández and Nick Miroff report overnight that some 10,000 Haitian migrants have crossed the Rio Grande and congregated under a border bridge in South Texas.
- President Joe Biden an…
00:04:02 |
Fri 17 Sep 2021
Sept. 16, 2021: Moderates fear Pelosi hanging them out to dry
Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a deal with about a dozen skeptical House moderates In late August to win their support on the party’s $3.5 trillion budget. If they backed the fiscal blueprint, Pelosi prom…
00:06:31 |
Thu 16 Sep 2021
Sept. 15, 2021: Scoop — Grisham texts cast doubt on book claim
Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom crushed the recall attempt by a nearly 2-to 1 margin. The coverage: David Siders and Carla Marinucci with how he did it. … AP’s Nick Riccardi with 5 takeaways … LAT’s Steve L…
00:06:35 |
Wed 15 Sep 2021
Sept. 13, 2021: Grisham dishes on Melania
At 1:25 p.m. on Jan. 6, soon after rioters had broken through barricades outside of the Capitol, Melania Trump received a text message from her then-chief of staff, Stephanie Grisham.
“Do you want to…
00:08:41 |
Mon 13 Sep 2021
Sept. 10, 2021: Joe Biden’s Covid 180
On Thursday, President Joe Biden was unsparing about the burdens that the unvaccinated have thrust onto the rest of us: thousands more dead, overflowing hospitals, a rebounding economy showing signs …
00:06:52 |
Fri 10 Sep 2021
Sept. 9, 2021: The Democrats’ trillion-dollar question
They started off with a $6 trillion price tag, then lowered it to $3.5 trillion. Now, there’s reporting suggesting Sen. Joe Manchin wants the total for Democrats’ reconciliation plan to drop as low a…
00:07:28 |
Thu 09 Sep 2021
Sept. 8, 2021: Biden's Senate bias rankles the House
A scoop on the Trump revenge front: Marc Caputo and Alex Isenstadt report that Donald Trump is set to endorse Wyoming attorney Harriet Hageman in her expected primary against GOP Rep. Liz Cheney. the…
00:06:29 |
Wed 08 Sep 2021
Sept. 7, 2021: Biden’s ‘cradle to grave’ agenda
One challenge in covering the Dems’ $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill is conveying the sheer enormity of it.
Nobody really even knows what to call it. Is it a jobs package? A human infrastructure bil…
00:07:10 |
Tue 07 Sep 2021
Sept. 3, 2021: Scoop: It’s Bernie vs. Pelosi on reconciliation
A few reactions and realities the day after the Supreme Court abortion decision... States are already weighing copycat laws on abortions, Covid-19 precautions, and gun restrictions... Democrats feel …
00:06:08 |
Fri 03 Sep 2021
Sept. 2, 2021: SCOTUS ruling puts Roe v. Wade on the ropes
BREAKING OVERNIGHT: The Supreme Court, by 5 to 4, declined to block Texas’s law banning abortions after six weeks — a strong but not final indication that the court will soon overturn Roe v. Wade … C…
00:07:29 |
Thu 02 Sep 2021
Sept. 1, 2021: Biden vs. The Blob
President Joe Biden ended August on Tuesday with a combative speech in which he defended his decision-making on Afghanistan, which has become by far the most controversial turn of his short presidenc…
00:07:14 |
Wed 01 Sep 2021
Aug. 31, 2021: Biden looks to pivot after month from hell
It’s been a month from hell for President Joe Biden. From the Afghanistan pullout mission that led to American casualties, to the spike in Covid-19 hospitalizations — and an accompanying hit to his p…
00:06:50 |
Tue 31 Aug 2021
Aug. 30, 2021: A breathtaking account from inside the Pentagon
Lara Seligman has a breathtaking account from inside the Pentagon that is based on detailed notes of three classified calls in the hours leading up to Thursday’s terrorist attack outside Abbey Gate a…
00:06:13 |
Mon 30 Aug 2021
Aug. 27, 2021: ‘The worst day of your presidency’
When Kabul fell to the Taliban several days ago, rocking President Joe Biden's pullout operation, the White House made a strategic choice: They doubled down, didn’t apologize and crossed their finger…
00:05:19 |
Fri 27 Aug 2021
Aug. 26, 2021: Biden’s Thursday — Kabul terror threat, Iran and refugees
Today is the kind of day that candidate Joe Biden said he was uniquely prepared for.
Congress is gone, domestic policy has been momentarily pushed aside, and global crises are colliding. President Bi…
00:05:19 |
Thu 26 Aug 2021
Aug. 25, 2021: Analyzing Biden’s three big challenges
We try our best around here to sift through the competing narratives each day and present our dear listeners with a coherent story. But this is one of those weeks in American politics when it’s best …
00:05:29 |
Wed 25 Aug 2021
Aug. 24, 2021: Pelosi underestimates the moderates
“How dare you?!” … “I’m pissed off!” … "Please, everybody vote for the damn thing.”
Those were just some of the choice phrases being thrown around in the House Dems’ caucus meeting Monday night as te…
00:05:36 |
Tue 24 Aug 2021
Aug. 20, 2021: Obama douses D.C.’s party scene
A pair of must-reads on Afghanistan overnight:
— A WSJ scoop that casts perhaps the harshest light yet on the administration’s performance, by Vivian Salama: “An internal State Department memo last m…
00:06:02 |
Fri 20 Aug 2021
Aug. 19, 2021: Afghanistan + immigration politics = A divided GOP
Republicans universally agree that President Joe Biden's bungled handling of the Afghanistan pullout has given them fresh ammunition to attack the commander in chief. Many Democrats think the same. B…
00:04:36 |
Thu 19 Aug 2021
Aug. 18, 2021: Biden’s approval rating drops below 50
President Joe Biden's average approval rating is below 50% for the first time this year. 538: 49.8% … RCP: 49.4%
The dip has been driven by a slow erosion among independents that seems tied to the De…
00:06:49 |
Wed 18 Aug 2021
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