May 20, 2025: The book Washington can’t stop talking about

The Playbook Podcast

POLITICO

News, Daily News, Government, Politics

3.9 • 699 Ratings

🗓️ 20 May 2025

⏱️ 14 minutes

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Summary

The year’s most anticipated book in Washington has finally arrived: Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s “Original Sin” dropped overnight, just as Joe Biden’s physical and cognitive health as president is the topic dominating the D.C. discourse. And the din of that conversation is likely to only grow louder. Partly, that’s because the Biden story isn’t going away. But it’s also because Republicans are eager to keep the focus there rather than the politically risky proposed cuts to Medicaid that have now taken center stage in the debate over the House GOP’s Big Beautiful Bill. President Donald Trump heads to Capitol Hill this morning to try and win over Republican holdouts. Playbook contributing author Adam Wren joins managing editor and author Jack Blanchard to unpack it all.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Presented by BP.
0:08.2	Hello, I'm Jack Blanchard.
0:10.0	And I'm Adam Wren sitting in for Dasha Burns.
0:12.5	And it's Tuesday, May the 20th.
0:14.4	And this is the Playbook podcast.
0:16.9	Let's get into what is driving the day.
0:19.7	Adam, the countdown is over.
0:21.1	The Most Anticipated Book in Washington this year.
0:24.2	Original Sin by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson on President Biden's decline.
0:28.7	And as they put it, it's cover up.
0:30.2	It's out today.
0:31.2	It's out this morning.
0:32.4	We've all been talking about it for the past week.
0:34.3	But of course, the new context of the questions being asked about President Biden's physical health, given the horrible news about his cancer diagnosis this
0:42.2	weekend. We'll get into that in a minute. Other big story, Adam, that's been rumbling all week and
0:46.9	continues to today is up on Capitol Hill, where Donald Trump is going to meet some of the holdouts
0:53.5	from the GOP today in person to try and change their minds on his big, beautiful budget bill.
0:59.7	It feels to me like this bill is going to happen eventually.
1:02.9	It's pretty tortuous process watching it happen.
1:05.0	Now, what I'd love to ask you, Adam, is you're much more in touch with Real America than I am.
1:10.3	You know, for one step away, this is a party, the Republicans,
1:13.6	that are about to make big, deep cuts to Medicaid,
	...

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