The Conversation with Dasha Burns

Dan Conston is the president of the Congressional Leadership Fund, the super PAC aligned with Rep. Kevin McCarthy with the singular mission of making the California Republican Speaker of the House. Most forecasts suggest that Conston and CLF are on the verge of success.In a candid hour-plus interview, Conston took Playbook behind the scenes of CLF’s operation. We talked about the issues and demographics of this election, emerging GOP opportunities in the final days of the campaign and the inside strategies that one of the best-funded super PACs in American politics uses to take down its Democratic opponents.Ryan Lizza is a Playbook co-author for POLITICO.Dan Conston is the president of the Congressional Leadership Fund.Afra Abdullah is associate producer for POLITICO audio.Kara Tabor is producer for POLITICO audio.Brook Hayes is senior editor for POLITICO audio.Adam Allington is senior producer for POLITICO audio.Jenny Ament is executive producer for POLITICO audio. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Robert Draper's "Weapons of Mass Delusion: When the Republican Party Lost Its Mind" focuses exclusively on the GOP during the crucial 18-month period after January 6 and vastly adds to our understanding of the Trump era. Far-right representatives Paul Gosar, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Matt Gaetz are part of a new breed of Republican party fighting with their GOP elders. The subtitle of Draper's book — emphasizing when, not how — Trump-inspired elected officials helped the former president solidify his grip over the Republican party is as important as understanding what has happened to the party.In this week's Playbook Deep Dive, Playbook co-author Ryan Lizza unwinds Draper's chronicle of what has happened to the Republican party, and America, through his character-driven account of the people and events shaping the extremes of American politics today.Ryan Lizza is a Playbook co-author for POLITICO.Robert Draper is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine.  Afra Abdullah is associate producer for POLITICO audio.Kara Tabor is producer for POLITICO audio.Brook Hayes is senior editor for POLITICO audio.Adam Allington is senior producer for POLITICO audio.Jenny Ament is executive producer for POLITICO audio. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Scott Bland is POLITICO’s national politics editor and leading all of POLITICO’s 2022 midterm coverage. To do it, he has a team of about 15 reporters around the country following campaigns.  Despite the cooling temperatures, this is when people like Bland start to sweat. His job is to ensure readers and listeners aren’t surprised on election night — that POLITICO has considered and reported on all possible outcomes, including the outliers — those black swan scenarios with seemingly low probabilities. Not just the most likely ones, according to conventional wisdom.The specter of 2016 still haunts newsrooms. Bland and Playbook co-author Ryan Lizza dissect how 2016 midterm misses can be applied lessons for reporters covering the 2022 elections. Bland also weighs in on pressing questions like; what are the chances of Democrats winning the House while the Republicans take the Senate? Could all of those allegedly flawed Trump-backed candidates sweep their races? And could Biden be the first President since 2002 to avoid a party defeat in the first-midterm election?Ryan Lizza is a Playbook co-author for POLITICO.Scott Bland is the national politics editor for POLITICO.Afra Abdullah is associate producer for POLITICO audio.Kara Tabor is producer for POLITICO audio.Brook Hayes is senior editor for POLITICO audio.Adam Allington is senior producer for POLITICO audio.Jenny Ament is executive producer for POLITICO audio. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sarah Matthews has a political resume similar to a lot of conservatives her age. At Kent State, she joined the College Republicans and made her first pilgrimage to the annual CPAC conference in Washington. Sarah interned on Capitol Hill for John Boehner and Sen. Rob Portman, both of Ohio. And then she got a job doing comms for Republicans on the Hill.But a few years later, in June 2020, she was working for Donald Trump. Like a lot of her colleagues, she was well aware of Trump’s flaws, but she agreed with his policies. When her mentor, Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany invited Sarah to be her deputy, Sarah didn’t think twice. It was a chaotic seven months, marked by the Lafayette Square protest incident, Covid, the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Then came Jan. 6.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           You probably remember Matthews from her primetime testimony to the Jan. 6 committee in July. She testified about her experience in the White House during the insurrection and how Donald Trump’s actions that day so disgusted her that she resigned that night. The January 6 committee is back next week, on October 13th, for its first hearing since the one at which Matthews appeared. Playbook co-author Ryan Lizza sat down with Sarah Matthews, former deputy White House press secretary, to hear the full story of what it was like for a young Republican to publicly break with the president, upend her career, and experience the full wrath of Trump and his supporters by cooperating with the January 6 committee.Ryan Lizza is a Playbook co-author for POLITICO.Sarah Matthews is a former White House deputy press secretary for the Trump administrationAfra Abdullah is associate producer for POLITICO audio.Kara Tabor is producer for POLITICO audio.Brook Hayes is senior editor for POLITICO audio.Adam Allington is senior producer for POLITICO audio.Jenny Ament is executive producer for POLITICO audio. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last Sunday, Italians voted for the most right-wing government since Benito Mussolini. The controversial politician leading the winning coalition, Giorgia Meloni, will become Italy's first female prime minister.Meloni has become a darling of sorts for many Republicans in America, who invited her to speak at this year's CPAC conference. The "Brothers of Italy," co-founded by Meloni in 2012, was a fringe party with neo-fascist roots. It rebranded itself in recent years as a socially conservative, ultra-nationalist party that's also a European voice in the growing trans-national culture wars.From a rooftop bar near central Rome, Ryan Lizza and POLITICO Europe's Rome correspondent, Hannah Roberts, dig into Meloni's history, rise, and how she's likely to lead Italy's government with EU, NATO, and Russian relationships center stage.Ryan Lizza is a Playbook co-author for POLITICO.Hannah Roberts is POLITICO Europe's Rome correspondent.Afra Abdullah is associate producer for POLITICO audio.Kara Tabor is producer for POLITICO audio.Brook Hayes is senior editor for POLITICO audio.Adam Allington is senior producer for POLITICO audio.Jenny Ament is executive producer for POLITICO audio. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s hard to imagine a political event that was covered more intensively in real time than Trump’s two impeachments. But only now, 18 months after the Senate acquitted Trump a second time, we are learning crucial new details about what happened behind the scenes of those proceedings. And only now are we starting to reckon with what those two failed impeachments have wrought for Congress, the presidency, and the Constitution — and who was responsible.That reckoning comes courtesy of Playbook’s own Rachael Bade and Washington Post national security reporter Karoun Demirjian, who on Oct. 18 will publish “Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congress's Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump.” It’s an unsparing look at the characters, the calculations and, frequently, the cowardice that shaped Congress’s dealings with Trump — and how the results have likely changed impeachment forever.On this week’s Playbook Deep Dive, Rachael and Karoun talk extensively about their book and its provocative argument with Playbook editor Mike DeBonis. It’s a reunion for the trio, who covered Capitol Hill together at the Washington Post and watched closely as Congress struggled to hold Trump to account. They discuss why “Unchecked” is an unapologetically “both sides” book, how congressional leaders’ public rhetoric rarely matched private reality, and just how many impeachment articles President Joe Biden might be facing if Republicans take the House.Mike DeBonis is Playbook's editor for POLITICO.Rachael Bade is Playbook's co-author for POLITICO. Karoun Demirjian is a national security reporter at The Washington Post.Afra Abdullah is an associate producer for POLITICO audio.Kara Tabor is a producer for POLITICO audio.Brook Hayes is senior editor for POLITICO audio.Adam Allington is senior producer for POLITICO audio. Jenny Ament is executive producer for POLITICO audio.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

UCLA political scientists Lynn Vavreck and Chris Tausanovitch and Vanderbilt’s John Sides argue that political party identity has become increasingly “calcified” in surprising new ways. Their latest book,“The Bitter End,” describes both the long-term trends and short-term shocks that shaped the 2020 presidential election and continue reverberating today. What’s driving the increasing distance between the parties and the growing homogeneity within the parties? Playbook Co-Author Ryan Lizza met Vavreck on UCLA’s campus to learn why so-called “identity-inflected issues” are the great new dimension of political conflict and present a dangerous direction in America.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kara Swisher has hosted the annual Code Conference for the last twenty years. Recently she announced that this was her final year organizing and running the event, which concluded on Thursday in Los Angeles.At the final big panel on Wednesday evening, Swisher ended things where she started: with a conversation about Steve Jobs.She gathered the famous Apple designer Jony Ive and the widow of Steve Jobs — Laurene Powell Jobs — and the CEO of Apple — Tim Cook — who flew to Los Angeles for Swisher hours after unveiling the new iPhone 14 at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino. The event ended much more poignant than one would expect at a conference about technology and politics.Afterward, Playbook Co-Author Ryan Lizza met Swisher in a suite on the 8th floor of the Beverly Hilton at what was Code's last secret poker party. They talked about the end of her running the Code Conference, her long and winding career … and why she loves saying no.Ryan Lizza is a Playbook co-author for POLITICO.Afra Abdullah is associate producer for POLITICO audio.Kara Tabor is producer for POLITICO audio.Brook Hayes is senior editor for POLITICO audio.Adam Allington is senior producer for POLITICO audio.Jenny Ament is executive producer for POLITICO audio. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Tuesday, Leahy, who is retiring this year after representing Vermont in the Senate since 1975, released “The Road Taken,” an engrossing memoir that covers his long career, from his politically fraught vote against the Vietnam War to his account of rallying his fellow senators back into the chamber on Jan. 6 after they fled the mob that stormed the Capitol. In between, you meet dozens of politicians, Supreme Court Justices, presidents, world leaders, musicians, and Hollywood celebrities. Ryan Lizza is a Playbook co-author for POLITICO.Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) is the president pro tempore of the United States Senate.Afra Abdullah is associate producer for POLITICO audio.Kara Tabor is producer for POLITICO audio.Brook Hayes is senior editor for POLITICO audio.Adam Allington is senior producer for POLITICO audio. Jenny Ament is executive producer for POLITICO audio. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The White House suddenly has a lot to brag about. And the president’s aides, led by chief of staff Ron Klain, are reaching deep into the 20th century to make the case that Joe Biden is a transformational president with “historic achievements.” We ventured over to the White House and sat down with Klain in the Roosevelt Room to review the last 18 months of the Biden presidency and talk about what’s next. At the start of the summer, this conversation would have been vastly different. Now, gas prices have dropped, the last CPI report hints that inflation may finally be trending down after hitting a peak. Election forecasters are writing pieces at least entertaining the idea that Democrats might not suffer the long-predicted midterm wipeout. And there’s that burst of legislative victories that were squeezed out of Congress in July and August that had Biden, a lover of alliteration, calling this period “a season of substance.”Ryan Lizza is a Playbook co-author for POLITICO.Ron Klain is the White House Chief of Staff.Afra Abdullah is associate producer for POLITICO audio.Kara Tabor is producer for POLITICO audio.Brook Hayes is senior editor for POLITICO audio.Adam Allington is senior producer for POLITICO audio.Jenny Ament is executive producer for POLITICO audio. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices