New Poll Results Show Democrats With An Edge, Topping Off Tough Week For Trump
The NPR Politics Podcast
NPR
4.5 • 24.9K Ratings
🗓️ 21 November 2025
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This episode: voting correspondent Miles Parks, senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.
This podcast was produced by Casey Morell and Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye.
Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, this is Sherry in Sioux City, Iowa, and I'm cooking lots of Adobe-style chicken for a tailgate |
| 0:07.1 | we'll have this weekend in Iowa City when the Hawkeyes play and my family will be together for a |
| 0:12.4 | tailgate. This mom cannot wait. This podcast was recorded at 12.36 p.m. on Friday, November 21st, |
| 0:20.6 | 2025. Things may have changed by the time you hear it, |
| 0:24.1 | but hopefully the Hawkeyes will have won and I know will have enjoyed a sweet weekend of family |
| 0:28.6 | time together. Enjoy the show. Food times stands are the best. Interesting, a Sioux City hawkeyes fan because, you know, Iowa is pretty far east the University of Iowa, |
| 0:44.0 | and a lot of the more conservative portion on the state roots for Iowa State. |
| 0:48.5 | But that's just some deep Iowa local stuff for those of us who've covered a lot of politics there. |
| 0:53.5 | I just, I haven't eaten lunch yet, so I feel like they should have to ask permission before they do a food time stamp. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics podcast. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting. I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And I'm Mara Liason, senior national political correspondent. And today on the show, we are unpacking another very busy political week. |
| 1:13.1 | I want to start with the Jeffrey Epstein case. President Trump signed a bill to allow for the release of |
| 1:17.9 | thousands of files related to the convicted sex offender. But this is something that President |
| 1:22.6 | Trump was fighting up until very recently. Domenico, why do you think he changed course here? Well, he's going to lose. |
| 1:30.8 | And, you know, he really waived the white flag. You know, he tried to pressure Republicans. There were |
| 1:35.2 | four of them who continued to hold out for a very long time because they wanted to have these files |
| 1:40.0 | fully released. He campaigned on saying that he would release them. The Justice Department |
| 1:45.1 | tried to say that they didn't have enough evidence to charge people over the summer and said, |
| 1:50.6 | you know, they're not going to release whatever other things are to protect the victims. |
| 1:54.2 | And that was a line that the White House tried to continue to push with Republicans. And then |
| 1:59.0 | he waived the white flag. It gave an openness to allow other people |
| 2:03.8 | to go and vote in favor of the full release. And it passed almost unanimously in the House with only |
| 2:10.0 | one person objecting, which really raises a lot of questions for me on what people privately |
| 2:15.1 | believe versus what they publicly will do if they're a Republican |
... |
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