July 25, 2025: Trump goes all-in on the midterms

The Playbook Podcast

POLITICO

News, Daily News, Politics, Government

3.9 • 699 Ratings

🗓️ 25 July 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today, even as President Donald Trump heads to Scotland, his attention lingers stateside — and maybe not for the reason you assume. Trump has fully invested himself into the coming midterms, with high stakes both for his political project and for himself. Looming over it all are the ghosts of 2018, when Trump’s Republicans lost the House and handed the gavel to a new Democratic majority that went to work stymying his agenda and launching investigations into his conduct. What did he learn from that experience and how is that shaping the outlook for the 2026 election? Adam Wren and POLITICO White House reporter Myah Ward break it all down.

Transcript

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0:00.0	presented by BP.
0:07.3	Hello, I'm Adam Wren.
0:09.3	And I'm my award.
0:10.4	It's Friday, July 25th.
0:12.2	And this is the Playbook podcast.
0:15.0	And here are the topics driving the day.
0:18.3	First up, President Donald Trump is getting out of Dodge today. Among the
0:23.3	continuous drip-drip revelations and the Epstein storyline, Trump is headed to Scotland.
0:29.6	Maya, you're going to be on the trip. Talk to me about what's on deck for the president.
0:33.7	Yeah, so Trump lands in Scotland today for a five-day trip. It'll be some golfing. There are some meetings.
0:39.9	I will just note on the plane, notably missing from the press pool this week is the Wall Street Journal, which was removed by the White House after it's reporting on Trump and Epstein. So, you know, even thousands of miles away, there are still going to be plenty of reminders of the story that
0:54.6	he cannot get away from. Yeah, and tell us a little bit about the itinerary. He's going to be
0:59.2	in Turnberry and Aberdeen. How many days of this when will he get back? So today is a travel day,
1:05.5	but as you know with Donald Trump, that does not mean that there will not be news. That is one
1:10.0	thing about this president.
1:11.1	He is very accessible. Oftentimes, he'll chat on the tarmac or come back on the plane during
1:15.9	a long trip like this. And so you can expect there are going to be lots of questions about
1:20.7	Epstein and trade and all of the key topics from this week. And so we'll have the travel day today.
1:27.2	We should expect a couple of golf days.
1:29.5	He will also have a visit with the UK Prime Minister, Kier Starrmer, and he'll be opening another
1:35.9	course in Scotland as well that will be dedicated to his mother who was born there.
1:40.9	So this is somewhat of a business trip for his own personal business as well. Is that
	...

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