# Blanche Confirmation Hearing, Iran War And Midterm Politics, Clayton ODNI Hearing Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/up-first-from-npr-7816123/blanche-confirmation-hearing-iran-war-and-midterm-politics-clayton-odni-hearing Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/up-first-from-npr-7816123/blanche-confirmation-hearing-iran-war-and-midterm-politics-clayton-odni-hearing.md Podcast: [Up First from NPR](https://stenobird.com/podcast/up-first-from-npr-7816123) Published: 2026-07-16T10:01:08+00:00 Episode link: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/blanche-confirmation-hearing-iran-war-and-midterm-politics-clayton-odni-hearing--73012530 Audio file: https://api.spreaker.com/download/episode/73012530/default.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/up-first-from-npr-7816123/episodes/blanche-confirmation-hearing-iran-war-and-midterm-politics-clayton-odni-hearing Duration seconds: 970 ## Resource Most senators didn't question Todd Blanche's qualifications to lead the Justice Department at his confirmation hearing, they questioned whether the man who spent years as President Trump's personal lawyer would serve the president or the country. President Trump notified Congress that the U.S. is back at war with Iran, starting a new 60-day clock for military action, though the clock that may matter most is the midterms as gas prices ripple through the economy. And Trump's pick for intelligence chief, Jay Clayton, wouldn't acknowledge the results of the 2020 election at his hearing, leaving Democrats to ask why a man with no intelligence experience won't give a straight answer. Want more analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? Subscribe to the Up First newsletter. Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Anna Yukhananov, Kelsey Snell, Andrew Sussman, Alice Woelfle, and Mohamad ElBardicy. It was produced by Ziad Buchh and Nia Dumas. Our director is Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Neisha Heinis. Our technical director is Carleigh Strange. And our deputy Executive Producer is Kelley Dickens. (0:00) Introduction (02:35) Blanche Confirmation Hearing (06:30) Iran War And Midterm Politics (10:24) Clayton ODNI Hearing See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy πŸ”— ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: πŸ“© Get the full transcript and daily news alerts: πŸ‘‰ https://goo.su/rXoU5U8 πŸ‘ˆ πŸ“Œ Support the show by visiting our sponsors and partners. 🎧 New episodes every morning at 6 AM ET. ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/up-first-from-npr-7816123/episodes/blanche-confirmation-hearing-iran-war-and-midterm-politics-clayton-odni-hearing/transcription-requests` β€” Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/up-first-from-npr-7816123/blanche-confirmation-hearing-iran-war-and-midterm-politics-clayton-odni-hearing.md` β€” 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.