Today on the Playbook podcast, long-awaited inflation numbers will be released this morning

after Donald Trump's big address to the nation last night on his least favorite word,

affordability. We'll talk you through what he said and what's coming next. More U.S. boat strikes

in the Caribbean last night. That's 99 people now killed by U.S. missiles will give you the latest on Venezuela.

And a big gathering of the right in Phoenix, Arizona. We'll talk you through where the right is at.

Hello, I'm Jack Blanchard. And I'm Megan Messerley. It's Thursday, December 18th.

How you doing, Megan? Nice to see you back. Thank you. Always great seeing you, Jack. It's almost Christmas.

It's almost Christmas. We're in the middle of Hanukkah. It's just like the holiday season, Jack. We are here.

What a Christmas gift we got last night, a prime time audience for the president himself.

The news is going to be

dominated very quickly in the next couple of hours when we get the November inflation numbers.

This is the first cost of living stats we've seen since the government shutdown. It's obviously

a big moment given that's where the conversation is at. And very topically, and perhaps not

coincidentally, Donald Trump chose

last night to make his big affordability address to the nation. I'm guessing a lot of our

listeners either watched it or have seen the clips, but just very briefly, he spoke for just

shy of 20 minutes. He gave us one new actual policy announcement in there, which was cash bonuses

for the military checks of $1,776 are going out to something

like one and a half million members of the military to celebrate America's birthday.

That was very brief.

The rest of it, Megan, was basically a whiz through his greatest hits.

It was the state of the country as he saw it when he inherited it in January and all the things he's achieved this year.

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