# Week Ender: Verhofstadt on "Trumpism", plus summer must-reads Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/brussels-playbook-podcast-730322/week-ender-verhofstadt-on-trumpism-plus-summer-must-reads Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/brussels-playbook-podcast-730322/week-ender-verhofstadt-on-trumpism-plus-summer-must-reads.md Podcast: [Brussels Playbook Podcast](https://stenobird.com/podcast/brussels-playbook-podcast-730322) Published: 2026-08-07T02:00:00+00:00 Episode link: https://www.politico.eu/podcast/brussels-playbook-podcast/ Audio file: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/POLL7975022962.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/brussels-playbook-podcast-730322/episodes/week-ender-verhofstadt-on-trumpism-plus-summer-must-reads Duration seconds: 2102 ## Resource It’s August in Brussels, which means it’s vacation time. Whether you’re heading off to the beach or holding down the fort in town, this episode is brimming with book recommendations from our newsroom and from you, our listeners. Whatever your genre preference, from true crime thrillers to deep political dives, we've got your summer holiday covered. But this installment is not just a book chat. We're also tackling the rise of populism and the crises facing liberal democracies around the world. That’s the topic of “Defeating Trumpism,” a new book by former Belgian Prime Minister and European Parliament Member Guy Verhofstadt. The book is a self-diagnosis from one of Europe’s most passionate centrists about the failures of his movement. And his prescription? A new political paradigm he calls “Citizenism.” We’re on a break for two weeks, so expect us to pop back up on your feed with the daily Brussels Playbook Podcast on Aug. 24 and the Week Ender podcast on Aug. 28. Questions? Comments? Get in touch! You can message us or send a voice message to our WhatsApp here or at +32 491 05 06 29. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/brussels-playbook-podcast-730322/episodes/week-ender-verhofstadt-on-trumpism-plus-summer-must-reads/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/brussels-playbook-podcast-730322/week-ender-verhofstadt-on-trumpism-plus-summer-must-reads.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.