Trump’s teetering economic message
The Playbook Podcast
POLITICO
3.9 • 699 Ratings
🗓️ 20 November 2025
⏱️ 15 minutes
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| 0:00.0 | Extra value meals are back. That means 10 tender juicy McNuggets and medium fries and a drink are just $8. |
| 0:08.4 | Only at McDonald's. For limited time only. Prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska, and California, and for delivery. |
| 0:20.3 | Today on the Playbook podcast, it is done. |
| 0:23.6 | Donald Trump has signed the Epstein Files bill. |
| 0:26.6 | Now can he get back to talking about the economy? |
| 0:29.5 | We shall see. |
| 0:30.5 | We've got the latest on the Ukraine peace plan and the backlash that's building to that. |
| 0:34.7 | And a big funeral happening in Washington, D.C. this morning, |
| 0:37.6 | we'll tell you who's going to be there. Hello, I'm Jack Blanchard. |
| 0:41.5 | And I'm Dasha Burns. It is Thursday, November 20th. |
| 0:45.7 | Dasha, we are crawling towards the end of the week. Are you excited? |
| 0:49.5 | Truly crawling. Yeah, I'm thrilled. |
| 0:53.4 | You are thrilled. Absolutely. Well, it feels like one small saga |
| 0:57.2 | got put to bed finally last night in a way. Well, probably not, probably not, but he's done it. |
| 1:03.0 | It was announced where else on Truth Social yesterday evening that Donald Trump has signed |
| 1:07.5 | the Epstein Files bill that he never wanted to see on his desk. It arrived there yesterday. He signed it last night. Normally when he signs a piece of legislation dash, there's a big ceremony in the Oval Office. He gets people in. He gets the cameras in. He gets all these supporters to cheer when he signs it. We didn't actually see that happening last night. There was no party. There was no party because of course this bill is a sign of Donald |
| 1:27.7 | Trump's weakness because it's been forced upon him by Congress and I guess public opinion |
| 1:32.6 | in a way that we have simply not seen before this year. Lots of people have been asking me, |
| 1:37.1 | when are the files coming out? Are we going to see the files tonight? No, no. We are not going |
| 1:42.6 | to get some big folder arrive in the next hour or so that's like, here is the Epstein files. |
| 1:47.5 | No, and Pam Bondi had a presser yesterday that was really murky in terms of what she was committing to releasing, saying that there's some new information that might complicate things. |
| 1:58.8 | So, you know, the process for these files actually being released to the public and what is going to be released and how people are going to receive it. I mean, this is why when you said put to bed, I laughed because I think we are quite far from any real resolution here, but a big step in the signing of this bill. You're right. The White House would certainly like it to be put to bed. The legislation says they have 30 days to put out what they have. And as you say, there are many, many ways that bits of information may not ever come out. Some of it. Judges have said must never come out. Other bits of it, like nobody thinks should be published. And then other bits again, where if the DOJ says there's an active investigation and that this information might prejudice that case, they're allowed to withhold it as well. And so there's quite a lot of leeway there. But you've got reporting, Dasha, on how they're feeling. We talked about this a bit yesterday morning, but like, when I say they just want to put this behind them, there are people in the White House who want to use this as a tool to clobber their opponents over the head with, right? |
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