Impolitic with John Heilemann

John is joined by New York Times columnist, podcaster, and idea merchant extraodinaire Ezra Klein to chop up his latest conversation-sparking Times essay “Don’t Believe Him” about Donald Trump's initial blizzard of executive actions, grifts, and power grabs. Ezra argues that, although Trump's flurry legal and constitutional trespasses has thrust us into dangerous new territory and poses risks to t...

John is joined by Jonathan V. Last to discuss The Bulwark editor's contention that, less than three weeks into Trump 2.0, “we are in a constitutional crisis already.” JVL argues that the new administration’s early moves reflect a strategy of subjugating the legislative branch and daring the courts to stop it, then raises the question of whether the White House will comply with the judiciary’s ruli...

John is joined by Brian Schatz, the senior U.S. senator from Hawaii, to discuss the second week of Trump 2.0 and where Democrats go from here. Schatz pulls no punches in describing Trump’s attempt to politicize the tragic midair collision over the Potomac by blaming DEI initiatives as“disgusting” and in arguing that “millions could die” if RFK Jr. is confirmed as HHS secretary; but he also warns f...

John is joined by longtime Democratic communications strategist—for Bill Clinton, John Edwards, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and, in the 2024 campaign, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff—to discuss the first week of Trump 2.0 and how Democrats are coping. Palmieri explains why her team’s loss in November didn’t feel as bad as in 2016, but the sucking-up to him by so much of the corporate and media est...

John is joined by presidential historians Michael Beschloss and Jon Meacham for a much-needed group therapy session at the end of the first week of Trump 2.0. The historians weigh in on Donald Trump’s decision to issue pardons and commutations to each and every one of the nearly 1600 individuals criminally implicated in the January 6 insurrection; Joe Biden’s eleventh-hour preemptive pardons of se...

John is joined by Joe Scarborough, co-host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, to discuss the kickoff of Trump 2.0 Joe riffs on the contradictions within Trump’s official, State of the Union-style inaugural address, and between that speech and the backward-looking, aggrieved oration he uncorked immediately thereafter; the tension between Trump’s yearning for establishment approval and his inclination to stoke...

John is joined by two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Time scribe Michael S. Schmidt on the eve of Donald Trump’s second inauguration to discuss the road ahead. Proceeding from the premise that what Trump says matters less than what he actually does, Schmidt details the myriad ways in which 45/47 attempted to weaponize the government against his enemies in his first term; analyzes the confirm...

John is joined by Scott Galloway to discuss the impending Tech Bro tableau at Donald Trump’s inauguration and Joe Biden’s warning about America’s incipient transformation into an oligarchy. Galloway—professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business, host of the Pivot and Prof G podcasts, and author of The Algebra of Wealth, The Algebra of Happiness, and The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Faceboo...

John is joined by Democratic Michigan state senator Mallory McMorrow to discuss the commencement of Trump 2.0 and where her party goes from here. Mallory opines on the Pete Hegseth confirmation hearing and explains why women are greeting Trump's second term so differently than his first, despite the profusion of appointees and advisers accused of sexual misconduct; the importance of paying less at...

John is joined by his pal Tim Miller—OG Never Trumper and host of The Bulwark Podcast—for an extended therapy session a week out from the start of Donald Trump’s second term. Tim explains why he finds it impossible to care about Trump non-sentence sentencing or the impending release of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report on Trump’s role in January 6; his take on the collective tongue bath being gi...

John is joined by Jim Fallows—former Atlantic national correspondent, National Book Award winner, and author of Breaking The News on Substack—to discuss Jimmy Carter’s life and legacy. Fallows, who served as Carter’s chief White House speechwriter, discusses the qualities that made Carter an initially mesmerizing but deeply flawed and historically misunderstood figure; his long-underrated policy a...

John is joined by Jiore Craig—next-gen Democratic digital strategist, counter-disinformation specialist, and senior research fellow at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue—to discuss the role of social media in the 2024 election and where the political information ecosystem is headed in 2025. Jiore argues that, for all the focus on deep fakes, A.I., and foreign influence operations in last year's...

John is joined by Kara Swisher—longtime chronicler of the Silicon Valley cinematic universe, host of two hit podcasts, and author of the bestselling Burn Book: A Tech Love Story—to discuss why 2025 will be the year of slap fights among bitchy tech billionaires competing for Donald Trump's affections. Swisher analyzes the relationships between Trump and Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and o...

John is joined by Wright Thompson, master of long-form narrative non-fiction and author of the book Heilemann adjudges the best of 2024 — The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi. Wright explains how he came to write The Barn, in which he blends history, journalism, and memoir to offer a new account of the 1955 torture and murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till a few miles from Wright’s...

John is joined by Deadspin founder, New York magazine columnist, and rising-star novelist Will Leitch, and Pablo Torre, former ESPN tyro and current host of the endlessly entertaining podcast Pablo Torre Finds Out to discuss the year in sports and sports culture. The guys discuss Caitlin Clark and the rise of the WNBA; the remarkably hitch-free, thoroughly engrossing, perfect-for-streaming Paris O...

John is joined by his partner and Puck Superfriend Dylan Byers to look back on the year that was on the Byers beat. John and Dylan shake their heads and let the brickbats fly at the sight of a procession of mega-rich entertainment and tech CEOs bowing and scraping before Donald Trump. They also dig into Dylan’s year-end lists of the media industry’s most significant macro trends, its three biggest...

John is joined by Rob Sheffield—longtime Rolling Stone writer and author of the recent bestseller Heartbreak Is The National Anthem: How Taylor Swift Reinvented Pop Music—to size up the past year in music. Sheffield discusses the final show of the Eras tour (which, naturally, he attended), the otherworldly success of the tour and the album it spawned, The Tortured Poets Department, and Swift's vas...

John is joined by Democratic Senator Chris Murphy to discuss Murphy's view that the events of this week are a preview of the assault on the rule of law that Donald Trump intends to wage once he takes office. Murphy connects the dots between House Republicans’ call on the FBI to launch a criminal investigation of Liz Cheney, Trump’s lawsuit against pollster Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register, E...

John is joined by Pod Save America cohost, Message Box author, and former top Obama adviser Dan Pfeiffer to discuss Donald Trump’s flood-the-zone transition strategy and the Democratic Party’s future. Pfeiffer argues that the Biden administration’s failure to address the mystery drone story is part of a larger abdication that has let Trump present himself as if he’s been president since Election D...

John is joined by writer/editor/producers Kurt Andersen and Michael Hirschorn—longtime friends, former business partners, and intellectual entrepreneurs extraordinaire—to take stock of the Trump Era in our politics and culture. The three old friends discuss the once and future president’s reelection, his cabinet picks (one of whom, Kurt reveals, was his college cocaine dealer), and the ways in whi...

John is joined by Alex Wagner, MSNBC primetime host and Heilemann’s former co-star on The Circus, to discuss the big news stories of this past week and cultural touchstones of this past year. Wagner explains how Trump’s efforts at appearing reasonable in his recent Meet The Press interview were foiled by his “spikes of insanity” around freeing imprisoned January 6 rioters, jailing Liz Cheney, and...

John is joined by House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries to discuss this year’s election, next year’s Congress, and the agita about his party’s future. Jeffries argues that although the Democratic performance on November 5 was undeniably “disappointing,” it was hardly catastrophic; that of all of Donald Trump’s disconcerting appointments, RFK, Jr. as secretary of Health and Human Services may be...

John is joined by Pete Wehner—veteran of the Reagan, Bush 41, and Bush 43 administrations turned eloquent Never Trumper—to discuss the once and future president's transformation of the GOP, his perplexing appeal to the Christian Right, and more. Wehner explains why the best summation of Trump’s agenda comes from Michel Caine as Alfred in The Dark Knight (“Some men just want to watch the world burn...

John is joined by Tina Brown, the legendary magazine editrix and his former boss at The New Yorker, to discuss American politics and media at the end of a year of convulsive upheaval in both. Tina riffs on Donald Trump’s reality show transition and its freak show appointments; the soap operatic, still largely untold story of Joe Biden’s family and how it has driven him (notably but not solely by m...

John is joined by two renowned veterans of the Federal Bureau of Investigation—Frank Figliuzzi, former FBI assistant director for counterintelligence, and Andrew Weissmann, former FBI general counsel under Robert Mueller—to discuss Donald Trump’s plan to appoint one of his most controversial loyalists, Kash Patel, to be the bureau’s next director. Figliuzzi and Weissmann weigh in on Patel’s qualif...