“The vibes have been immaculate” for Trump. Until now.
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 31 January 2025
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Trump’s extraordinary news conference on the plane crash near Reagan National Airport, his administration’s freeze and unfreeze of all federal funds, and the Senate hearings for three more of his controversial Cabinet picks.
Senior political reporter Aaron Blake talks through another chaotic week of political news with Congress reporter Liz Goodwin and White House economics reporter Jeff Stein. They break down Trump’s baseless claims that DEI could be the cause of the fatal plane crash in the Potomac, why the administration reversed its decision to halt the flow of all federal funds, and whether Trump’s picks for FBI director, director of national intelligence and health and human services secretary have enough support to be confirmed.
Today’s show was produced and mixed by Ted Muldoon. It was edited by Lucy Perkins and Rachel Van Dongen.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From the newsroom of the Washington Post. This is Post reports. I'm Aaron Blake, |
| 0:15.6 | senior politics reporter and host of Post Report's Weekly Politics Roundtable. It's Friday, January 31st. I'm joined this week by |
| 0:24.1 | the Post White House economics reporter Jeff Stein. Hey, Jeff. Hey, thanks for having me. And we're also |
| 0:29.3 | here with congressional reporter Liz Goodwin. Hey, Liz. Hello. So this week, we're starting to |
| 0:37.2 | see some familiar chaos from the new Trump administration |
| 0:40.7 | as it seeks to follow through with his campaign promises and upend longstanding norms along the way. |
| 0:46.9 | So today we're going to dig into three really important stories. |
| 0:50.4 | One is the political fallout following the tragic plane crash this week in Washington, D.C. |
| 0:55.8 | The second is the confusion and backlash caused by the Trump administration's call to freeze and then unfreeze all federal grants. |
| 1:03.8 | And finally, the Senate confirmation hearings of three controversial nominees, Cash Patel for FBI director, Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National |
| 1:12.0 | Intelligence, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for Health and Human Services Secretary. All three |
| 1:17.3 | testified, and there is a lot to unpack. So, guys, let's start with that horrific accident |
| 1:22.8 | Wednesday night. To recap, a military helicopter and a commercial airplane that was about to land at Ronald |
| 1:28.2 | Reagan National Airport crashed and fell into the Potomac River. There were no survivors. |
| 1:34.0 | During appearances on Thursday, President Trump quickly blamed Democrats and diversity, equity, |
| 1:39.1 | and inclusion policies for the accident, even though he provided no evidence and admitted |
| 1:43.9 | that he didn't actually have any. |
| 1:45.6 | My administration will set the highest possible bar for aviation safety. We have to have our |
| 1:50.2 | smartest people. It doesn't matter what they look like, how they speak, who they are. It matters, |
| 1:56.9 | intellect, talent, the word talent. They have to be talented, naturally talented geniuses. |
| 2:02.6 | You can't have regular people doing that job. They won't be able to do it. |
| 2:07.6 | But we'll restore faith in American air travel. I'll have more to say about that. |
... |
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