May 27, 2025: Inside Trump’s ‘destabilize and reshape’ strategy

The Playbook Podcast

POLITICO

News, Daily News, Politics, Government

3.9 • 699 Ratings

🗓️ 27 May 2025

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The biggest story in Washington today isn’t really in Washington; it’s about how Washington is affecting pretty much every place else. With Congress out on Memorial Day recess, the focus in D.C. today is all international — from Iran nuclear talks to trade negotiations with the European Union to the war in Ukraine to Gaza to King Charles’ visit to Canada. And there is a fairly consistent through line connecting it all, chief Playbook correspondent Dasha Burns tells managing editor and author Jack Blanchard: Trump’s strategy of first destabilizing an institution or status quo and then seeking to reshape it. Where will it prove successful, and where will it come up short? We may get a few signs this week. That, and the rest of the news you need to know as the week revs back.

Transcript

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0:00.0	presented by BP.
0:08.5	Hello, I'm Jack Blanchard.
0:10.6	And I'm Dasha Burns.
0:11.9	And it's Tuesday, May the 27th.
0:14.1	Good morning.
0:14.6	This is the Playbook podcast, Dasha.
0:16.6	It is an absolute delight to have you back with us.
0:19.2	How is your Memorial Day weekend, Bessette?
0:21.4	Well, I've missed you.
0:22.8	I've missed everyone.
0:24.6	My Memorial Day weekend was full of convalescing.
0:30.4	So, yeah, I had a bit of a medical emergency.
0:33.6	You took a whole week off Trump's White House.
0:35.4	Can you imagine?
0:36.3	I did.
0:37.0	It was devastating. I had major
0:39.0	FOMO, but I hear Adam Wren held down the fort quite nicely for us. He did. Like a legend, he did.
0:46.1	Yeah. I had, you know, that pesky appendix thing that we have, that scientists don't really know, like, why it exists.
0:52.7	I hear something about your gut microbiome now
0:55.2	they say might do something to help. Regardless, it didn't help me. It kind of hurt me. Got a good old
1:00.6	fashion case of appendicitis. Had to have surgery. Watched all of the mission impossible movies though,
1:09.1	including the most recent one. So that was my recovery plan.
	...

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