As Donald Trump’s second term comes into focus, most news organizations are snapping up the most experienced reporters in D.C. to bolster their political coverage. Politico, however, is putting its flagship product, Playbook — the newsletter that markets itself as “the unofficial guide to official Washington” — in the hands of an unconventional choice: a foreigner.
It’s been just over a week since Jack Blanchard took over Politico’s early-morning newsletter, which reaches 300,000 subscribers and in theory provides the ultimate insider intel. But the 45-year-old Brit was still processing his visa when he made his debut on Inauguration Day. He has been charmingly open about his newbie status, writing of the wave of Trump pardons, “It probably shouldn’t take a Brit to tell you that none of this is remotely normal. At all.” Still, that hasn’t stopped the knives from coming out in Washington’s famously vicious press corps. “It’s really strange that they brought a Brit in to explain U.S. politics to people who know it best,” a former top Politico editor said. “It’s like Washington for dummies.”
John Harris, the editor-in-chief of Politico, doesn’t seem worried. “He’s both a foreigner coming to Washington with fresh and curious eyes and, in some profound sense, he’s a native,” he said. “He inhales politics. The drama, the interplay of people and ideas, jostling for influence — that’s his native language.” And Blanchard knows it will take some convincing to win over Playbook’s highly exclusive, highly demanding readership. “I’m planning on working on becoming an insider while I’m here,” Blanchard told me.
Politico’s email tip sheet has driven the Beltway day since early 2007, when Mike Allen would distill the news of the nation’s capital into bite-size tidbits that became a must-read for lawmakers and journalists alike. Over the years, as Playbook has evolved into a revenue driver for Politico, the franchise has expanded, with afternoon and evening editions as well as Playbooks in other places, from California and Florida to Paris and Berlin. The D.C. newsletter has changed hands a few times with relative success, though in recent years it has faced stiff competition from nimble upstarts — including Punchbowl News, founded by former Playbook writers Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer — that have launched insider-focused newsletters of their own. This fall, when two of Playbook’s three writers stepped away — Ryan Lizza took a leave of absence and Rachael Bade became a columnist and bureau chief — Playbook seemed destined for its next incarnation.
Politico hired Blanchard — a 20-year veteran of “the Lobby,” as the press corps in Westminster is known — in 2017 to found the London edition of Playbook, which he ran for three years before eventually taking over the entire U.K. operation. Harris said Blanchard understands “the magic” of Playbook, which is giving the audience a sense that “they feel like they’re actually listening to a person that they know.” Blanchard “produced, I think, the best Playbook that we had globally,” said Harris. “It just had Westminster by the throat.”
He added, “I felt that he would delight in the vast carnival of Washington, and that people would delight in reading his perspective.” Blanchard jumped at the chance. “My first love for Politico was always Playbook,” he said. Having Blanchard at the helm would also be a way for Politico to differentiate itself from its rivals. “There was a feeling internally that it was a good moment to bring in a slightly outside voice, a slightly fresh point of view, at such a big moment of change,” Blanchard told me. “I’m always going to be a slight outsider looking in here as a Brit in Washington.”
It’s not like Blanchard is a total newcomer. He studied American history at university, he said, and has “followed American politics incredibly closely from afar my whole adult life.” He has also been to D.C. multiple times. “I’ve been on numerous White House trips with British prime ministers, where you spend a few days here, but I’ve never done a really intensive period of covering it like this,” he said.
There is an inevitable learning curve that hasn’t gone unnoticed by Playbook readers, who are naturally obsessed with the minutiae of Washington. One of the biggest things to watch last Tuesday was a private meeting between Senate Majority Leader John Thune, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and Trump about the president’s legislative agenda. Punchbowl devoted some 800 words to the meeting at the top of its morning newsletter; Politico’s congressional newsletter also led with news of the meeting. But in Playbook, Blanchard seemed unsure whether the meeting would happen at all. “There was some suggestion Trump would also hold more intimate talks with just Johnson and Thune, but let’s see how the day pans out,” Blanchard wrote.
“No one will remember this in the long run, but that’s what people need to know who read Playbook,” said one Politico staffer of the oversight. “If you look at these newsletters side by side, it’s like a game of inches. And this is the kind of nuance that he’s going to constantly miss.” Since Blanchard took over, the staffer continued, “the feedback I keep getting is this is the ‘gee-whiz’ view of Washington. Which could be a really interesting way to cover Washington — as a letter back home about how bizarre this is — but that’s not his audience.” There have also been a number of corrections in Playbook since Blanchard took over, including misstating Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s title and misspelling Billy Ray Cyrus’s name.
There is a sense that Blanchard’s hire represents the globalization of Politico at the expense of its roots in Washington. Now backed by German conglomerate Axel Springer, Politico is endeavoring to compete not only in the narrow arena of Capitol Hill but also on the world stage. Harris sees Playbook as “the front porch of Politico” and thinks its authors should “be both ambassadors to the outside world and ambassadors to the world of Politico” more so than they have in the past. “It became kind of an island,” he added. When I asked whether that means being less scoopy — Blanchard’s Playbook so far has been mostly aggregation — Harris dismissed the idea, saying he considers it “a kind of navigator’s guide for the day ahead.” Blanchard insisted that Playbook “must remain a real insider’s tip sheet.”
The change at Playbook comes amid internal frustration around new editorial leadership in Rosslyn and a notable talent drain, all of which has raised further questions about Politico’s standing in Washington, as the upstarts nibble at its heels and Establishment institutions like The Atlantic rapidly expand. Some see Blanchard’s appointment as yet another move away from the provocative, punch-throwing style that Politico helped pioneer. “It hasn’t been relevant in years,” said one media executive. “And they’ve somehow made it less relevant by hiring an author who is essentially a political tourist. This guy doesn’t even have basic knowledge of how American government and politics works.”
But for all the venom coming Blanchard’s way, that doesn’t mean his version of Playbook can’t work. “I don’t see anything wrong with an unconventional pick, embedded with very experienced Washington-based journalists who can help shape the approach,” another Politico staffer said. Eugene Daniels, who had been co-writing the newsletter alongside Lizza and Bade, will continue to contribute as Politico’s chief Playbook correspondent.
Blanchard is looking forward to the adventure. “People say how welcoming America is to people when they arrive. That has been my experience absolutely in spades,” he said, “both here at Politico with all my colleagues, but just generally — out in the street, you go to a party, you go to a drugstore, whatever. Everyone wants to talk to me about my accent, where I’m from. They’re pleased to see me here, and that’s really nice.”
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