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Post Reports

The Campaign Moment: Hegseth and Bondi go to Washington

Post Reports

The Washington Post

Daily News, Politics, News

4.45.1K Ratings

🗓️ 17 January 2025

⏱️ 26 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Aaron Blake, senior political reporter and author of The Campaign Moment newsletter talks with national security reporter Abby Hauslohner and national politics reporter Hannah Knowles about the most heated exchanges that Trump’s picks for defense secretary and attorney general, Pete Hegseth and Pam Bondi, faced during their Senate confirmation hearings. They also talk about what to expect if the historic ceasefire deal goes into effect over the weekend and what to watch for at Trump’s inauguration on Monday.

Today’s show was produced by Laura Benshoff and Rennie Svirnovskiy, who also mixed the episode. It was edited by Lucy Perkins and Rachel Van Dongen. 

Subscribe to Aaron’s newsletter, The Campaign Moment, here

Subscribe to The Washington Post here.

Transcript

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0:00.0

So President-elect Donald Trump is being inaugurated on Monday, and it's supposed to be cold, like 20 degrees cold, cold enough that they decided to move the festivities inside.

0:16.3

So are you guys going to be around the Capitol, and how do you guys hold up in the cold weather?

0:21.7

I am not trying to pull a William Henry Harrison on Monday, so I will – I mean, I will be inside the Capitol where it tends to be overheated this time of year.

0:30.7

Okay, there we go. We probably need to explain William Henry Harrison for people.

0:34.1

Right. Sorry, that was a dark reference. He was a president who I think died after a month in office.

0:41.7

He caught pneumonia, right, at his inauguration?

0:45.4

Yeah, I mean, important lesson to be taken from that.

0:48.2

Don't take these things lightly.

0:49.8

Yeah.

0:50.3

Hannah, are you going to be there?

0:51.4

I will be there.

0:52.3

But I was also at the Iowa caucuses in January of last year, and that was much worse.

1:04.8

Welcome to the campaign moment.

1:06.4

It's Friday, January 17th.

1:08.5

I'm Aaron Blake, senior political reporter and author of the Campaign Moment

1:12.0

newsletter. Today I'm joined by Abby House Loner, a national security reporter who focuses on Congress

1:17.3

here at The Post. Hey, Abby. Hello. And I'm also joined by national politics reporter Hannah

1:22.4

Knowles. Hey, Hannah. Hey. So, guys, we are in the final days of Joe Biden's presidency and the final days before

1:32.5

President-elects Donald Trump takes office for the second time.

1:36.7

Today I wanted to talk about what they've both been up to in the home stretch before the

1:40.3

administration changes over.

1:43.1

And among those things is an historic ceasefire and hostage deal

...

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