August 21, 2025: Vance’s big, beautiful sales job

The Playbook Podcast

POLITICO

News, Daily News, Politics, Government

3.9 • 699 Ratings

🗓️ 21 August 2025

⏱️ 9 minutes

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Summary

President Donald Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill” Act is in for one big, beautiful rebranding effort. Today in Georgia, VP JD Vance will seek to reframe the Republican megalaw as primarily “working families tax cuts.” In part, that’s a reaction to weak poll numbers for Trump’s signature legislative accomplishment heading into the midterms. But the new approach is also a reflection of a divide within the GOP over whether congressional Republicans have been sufficiently proactive in promoting the policy to voters. Playbook’s Adam Wren and Politico White House reporter Irie Sentner break down what to watch.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Adam Wren.
0:07.2	And I'm Iry Settner. It's Thursday, August 21st.
0:10.6	And this is the Playbook podcast. Today I have the pleasure of welcoming White House reporter and West Wing Playbook co-author, Irie sentner, to the show.
0:20.6	Good morning, Iry. Good morning, Adam.
0:22.9	Iry, typically, I am slacking you a question about the vice president, so it's good to actually
0:29.0	have you in full 3D color here today. It's great to see you, too. Let's get right to what's
0:37.2	driving the day. First up, Vice President J.D. V's get right to what's driving the day.
0:38.2	First up, Vice President J.D. Vance heads to Peach Tree, Georgia today to talk up the one big, beautiful bill act.
0:45.3	And that could present some challenges.
0:47.2	To start, the polling on the law suggests an uphill battle for Republicans.
0:51.5	The headlines are a challenge, too.
0:53.5	In Georgia, I kind of did a scan of what
0:55.5	Georgians have been reading this week, a lot about cuts to rural hospitals, and quite frankly,
1:02.5	a little bit of rough sledding for the VP messaging this. He's gone to Pennsylvania. He's gone to
1:08.4	Ohio, and you've had a lot of coverage of this year.
1:11.8	We're kind of hearing a little bit of pushback from the Maggi universe, particularly Steve
1:16.3	Bannon, who spent a lot of time on his podcast yesterday, talking about how he doesn't
1:21.0	think Congress is selling this signature accomplishment by the president in a way that
1:26.7	befits the scope of it. And so I'm curious,
1:29.2	how do you see Vance coming into this and can he make the pitch here? So Vance's superpower in the
1:36.9	White House is that he is great at staying on message. And he has this hillbilly elegy background that
1:43.8	he can use to talk about this. So I think
	...

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