meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
The Playbook Podcast

Pete Hegseth in the hot seat, the latest Fed drama, and King Charles goes to NYC

The Playbook Podcast

POLITICO

Government, Daily News, News, Politics

3.9699 Ratings

🗓️ 29 April 2026

⏱️ 12 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Starting today, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth takes the hot seat in two rare back-to-back sessions with Congress–the Iran War will be top of mind for the lawmakers meeting with Hegseth. Meanwhile, Trump's pick for Fed Chair, Kevin Warsh, is set to inherit high interest rates and rising energy costs as Jerome Powell gets ready to leave the post. And in New York City, King Charles meets with Mayor Zohran Mamdani at a 9/11 ceremony. Playbook’s Jack Blanchard and Megan Messerly dive into these key developments driving the day.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Support for the show comes from Anthropic, the team behind Claude.

0:04.2

In this town, the best prepared person in the room is the one who can argue the other side's case better than they can.

0:10.3

Claude helps you do that.

0:11.9

Stress test your position, anticipate the counterargument, find the holes before someone else does.

0:17.2

It won't flatter your thinking.

0:18.8

It'll sharpen it.

0:19.8

Try Claude free today at clod.a.ai slash

0:22.7

playbook.

0:28.9

Today on the Playbook podcast, two days of rare public grillings on the hill for Defense Secretary

0:34.8

Pete Hegseth kickoff this morning. and of course Iran will be top of mind.

0:39.9

Trump's picked for Fed Chair, Kevin Walsh, should be confirmed by the Senate Banking Committee this morning before outgoing chair.

0:45.4

Jerome Powell gives his final press conference.

0:48.3

And King Charles heads to New York.

0:50.1

And yes, he will be meeting Zohan Mamdani.

0:53.0

Hello, I'm Jack Blanchard. And I'm Megan Messerly. It's Wednesday, April 29th.

0:59.9

Megan, have you been enjoying all the royal action? Oh my gosh, have I, Jack? The question is, have you been

1:05.2

enjoying it, Jack? Who called it? Was it you who called it the Blanchard Super Bowl? This confluence of Royal

1:10.6

Royal Action and American politics together at last. Yes, it's been great. It's been absolutely great. The dream. We'll talk more about Charles in a minute because he was at the state banquet last night. And he was pretty funny, by the way, in his speech. So we'll come to some of the best jokes he made. And of course, the trip to New York today. But we've got to talk about Peter Hex at first because this is a really big moment for American politics because it's so rare, Megan, that the defence actually goes to the hill and makes a public appearance at a committee. He's hardly done it at all since his confirmation way back in January last year. Yeah. He had some hearings in the summer. But this is the first time since the war

1:44.9

broke out. So lots of questions the committee are going to have for him. It is. I mean, here we are

1:49.3

now. The war has now been going on for two months. There's no clear resolution. Gas prices are

1:55.8

still high. There's so many questions about where the war is headed and what it's actually costing, right?

2:02.8

There's just like so much that is going to be on lawmakers minds today.

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from POLITICO, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of POLITICO and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.