A major test of Trump’s grip on the GOP

The Playbook Podcast

POLITICO

News, Daily News, Politics, Government

3.9 • 699 Ratings

🗓️ 31 March 2026

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We’re a quarter of the way through 2026, and the Trump administration is facing challenges at home and abroad. The president is at a critical moment on Iran as military pressure ramps up and the effect of diplomatic efforts remains murky. Meanwhile, the DHS shutdown drags into record territory with no clear end in sight. And a wave of Republican primaries could test just how strong Trump’s grip on the party really is. Dasha Burns and Jack Blanchard break down the big inflection points to watch.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for the show comes from Anthropic, the team behind Claude.
0:04.2	In this town, the best prepared person in the room is the one who can argue the other side's case better than they can.
0:10.3	Claude helps you do that.
0:11.9	Stress test your position, anticipate the counterargument, find the holes before someone else does.
0:17.2	It won't flatter your thinking.
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0:19.8	Try Claude free today at clod.a.ai slash
0:22.7	Playbook.
0:28.9	Today on the Playbook podcast, we're a quarter of the way through the year. How did that happen?
0:34.3	And how's it going for the president? We'll give Donald Trump the bad news. It's day 46 of the DHS shutdown. Will it ever end? And a big test of Trump's power over Republicans looms next month. We will run you through the moments to watch. Hello, I'm Jack Blanchard. And I'm Dasha Burns. It is Tuesday, March 31st.
0:55.0	Dasha, how you doing? Great to see you. Great to see you. You know, I'm staying above
1:00.1	water for now. Looking in good form. You're looking in good form. We are a quarter of the way through
1:04.3	the year. Where did the first quarter of 2026 go? Can you believe it? I, um, you can't
1:09.9	believe it. I know.
1:11.2	I'm bewildered.
1:12.7	I have no words.
1:13.8	Seems like only yesterday we were talking about the big White House plan for 2026 to stay away from foreign affairs and isn't that going well.
1:21.6	We will hear this morning from Pete Hager at press conference at 8 a.m.
1:25.3	He'll be doing one of those early morning things with the top military official Dan Kane.. And I'm sure we'll hear from them, Dasher, just how well the war in Iran is going, just how many targets they've hit, just how fantastic the US military is. Yeah, we heard some of that from Caroline Levitt, the press secretary yesterday. We certainly did hear some of that from Caroline yesterday. Do you share
1:44.5	their positivity as we sort of take a step back and look at the year so far. Is it going well for
1:48.7	the president? Well, that's a loaded question. Um, I think on Iran in particular, there is a
1:56.9	distinction between the sort of military, tactical, operational piece of this and then
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