Hegseth's headache

The Playbook Podcast

POLITICO

News, Daily News, Politics, Government

3.9 • 699 Ratings

🗓️ 2 December 2025

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

President Donald Trump is holding his latest made-for-TV Cabinet meeting today, where all eyes will be on Pete Hegseth. The Defense secretary has captured headlines over the legality of airstrikes the U.S. conducted on the boats of alleged “narcoterrorists” around Venezuela — with a Washington Post report over the weekend raising more questions from Republicans and Democrats. Both Trump and Hegseth in recent days have voiced support for the action but distanced themselves from the report. Playbook’s Jack Blanchard and Pentagon reporter Paul McLeary unpack what to know, plus the latest on Ukraine peace talks.

Transcript

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0:00.0	today on the playbook podcast donald trump hosts a meeting of his cabinet with pete
0:10.0	heggseth and others around the table but one man will be missing steve wickoff his special envoy
0:15.6	who's in moscow today for talks with president putin and tonight we'll all be watching Tennessee for today's
0:22.5	big special election. I'll give you the latest on that. Hello, I'm Jack Blanchard.
0:27.2	And I'm Paul McLeary. It's Tuesday, December 2nd. As you can hear, we've got our Ace Pentecan
0:33.3	reporter with us today, Paul McClary on the podcast and a very timely arrival. Hi, Paul. How are you doing?
0:38.7	I'm good, Jack. How are you? I'm great. Thanks so much for being on. There's so much to talk through
0:42.7	with you today because, of course, foreign affairs and matters of war and peace have been dominating
0:47.6	the news agenda well for weeks now, frankly, and no more so than right now. And I expect, Paul, that we're actually going to see this
0:55.9	storyline play out on our TV screens a bit today because the sort of showpiece event in the White
1:01.5	House this morning is one of Donald Trump's cabinet meetings where he has his cameras in
1:06.6	sometimes for hours while they sit there and sort of pay homage to the president and he talks
1:12.2	through some of the key issues in each of their areas, which is sort of weird and interesting
1:17.4	and fascinating. The bit you and I are going to be most interested in is that we can hear a bit more
1:22.5	between the president and the defense secretary, Pete Hagerth this morning, following the storyline. We've all been reading and writing about, which Higgsath this morning following the storyline.
1:28.0	We've all been reading and writing about, which is the strikes on boats in the Caribbean.
1:32.6	We heard a lot from the White House and from Hegseth on this yesterday, Paul.
1:37.2	Where do you think we're at?
1:38.3	Do you think Hegseth's in trouble here?
1:39.7	Or do you think the White House has sort of done a decent job of shoring up his position yesterday?
1:44.0	I think for the moment he seems okay. The president obviously likes him. I think he trusts him.
1:50.3	I mean, Hague Seth has kind of done what the president wants as far as the DEI initiatives and
	...

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