July 30, 2025: How to gerrymander your way to a House majority
We’re halfway between the usual once-in-a-decade redrawing of congressional maps. So why are we talking about redistricting in 2025? As the White House looks for ways to keep its Republican House majority in the 2026 election, it’s pressuring red states to shift their maps and squeeze out a few more GOP seats. And that risks setting off a redistricting arms race, with big red and blue states threatening to one-up each other and remake the 2026 electoral map — literally. Playbook’s Adam Wren and Zack Stanton game out the scenarios in key states, and tell you what else you need to know today.
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July 29, 2025: Trump’s turning point on Gaza
For a decade, President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement has bulldozed through GOP orthodoxy on everything from the national debt to immigration to trade to Russia. Now, there are fresh signs that it could be careening toward its last standing shibboleth: The U.S. special relationship with Israel. With the humanitarian disaster in Gaza sparking global outrage and a public split between Trump and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, Playbook’s Adam Wren and Dasha Burns check in on what’s animating the president’s new posture — and what we can expect from here.
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July 28, 2025: JD Vance’s stealth-mode approach to being VP
Vice President JD Vance’s first six months in office have been an exercise in stealth. Yes, he has a very public role. But to understand how Trump’s Washington truly works, you need to pull back the curtain on how Vance has approached his job — and what that tells us both about the MAGA’s present and its future. Adam Wren and Dasha Burns go inside the inner workings of the Trump White House and share their reporting. Plus, President Donald Trump’s Scotland trip continues as he prepares for a meeting with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who is expected to press him on the spiraling humanitarian disaster in Gaza.
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From 'The Conversation': FDA Head Marty Makary on Food Dyes, Ultra-Processed Foods and the MAHA Agenda
Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Martin Makary is getting lobbied by the MAHA movement to restrict food dyes and ultra-processed foods, as well as by the food, agriculture and pharmaceutical industries to reduce government oversight.
“We want to go bold and there are a lot of things to do,” Makary tells POLITICO’s Dasha Burns. “But we also want to find common ground and work incrementally.”
At the same time, he says, “The amount of pressure I feel from industry or other branches of government is zero.” Makary also discusses how the agency is addressing women’s health and access to mifepristone, what he calls a “child vaping epidemic,” and explains the rationale behind FDA staffing cuts as well as some controversial hires.
Plus, White House reporter Jake Traylor joins Burns to discuss the mood inside the White House amid the fallout over the Jeffrey Epstein story, why President Trump is “itching” to get back on the campaign trail ahead of the 2026 midterms and whether GOP candidates in swing districts will welcome him.
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July 25, 2025: Trump goes all-in on the midterms
Today, even as President Donald Trump heads to Scotland, his attention lingers stateside — and maybe not for the reason you assume. Trump has fully invested himself into the coming midterms, with high stakes both for his political project and for himself. Looming over it all are the ghosts of 2018, when Trump’s Republicans lost the House and handed the gavel to a new Democratic majority that went to work stymying his agenda and launching investigations into his conduct. What did he learn from that experience and how is that shaping the outlook for the 2026 election? Adam Wren and POLITICO White House reporter Myah Ward break it all down.
POLITICO’s Jack Blanchard and Dasha Burns bring their fresh insight, analysis and reporting to the biggest story driving the day in the nation’s capital.
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