Impolitic with John Heilemann
Impolitic with John Heilemann
Audacy | Puck
Join Puck’s chief political columnist, MSNBC/NBC News national affairs analyst, and best-selling author John Heilemann as he roams the corridors of power and influence in America on this twice-weekly interview show, taking you behind the scenes and beyond the headlines with the people who shape and shift our culture: icons and up-and-comers, incumbents and insurgents, moguls and machers in the overlapping worlds of politics, entertainment, tech, business, sports, media, and beyond. The conversations are rich and revealing, unrehearsed and unexpected … and reliably impolitic. A Puck-Audacy joint, new episodes drop every Wednesday and Friday.
Tad Devine: 2016 Revisited, Bernie’s Legacy & Democrats’ Wet Hot Socialist Summer
John welcomes longtime Democratic strategist Tad Devine to discuss his new book “How the Democrats Screwed Bernie” and the long shadow cast by the 2016 primary between Sanders and Hillary Clinton. Devine, who served as Bernie’s chief strategist in that race, argues that his party has failed to learn its lessons, why it must, and how that failure helps explain the recent primary wins of democratic socialist insurgents against establishment Democrats. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Jul 6
1 hr 17 min
Bob Crawford: Avett Brothers, John Quincy Adams, & Other Joys of Americana
John welcomes Avett Brothers bassist Bob Crawford to discuss his new book, “America’s Founding Son: John Quincy Adams, From President to Political Maverick.” Crawford explains how JQA, after a mediocre single term in the Oval Office, blossomed into America’s “most extraordinary ex-president” and arguably its greatest all-around public servant; the evolution of his popular history podcast The Road to Now; and the genesis of the recent, seemingly unlikely collab between The Avett Brothers and Faith No More frontman Mike Patton. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Jul 3
1 hr 12 min
Chris Van Hollen: Hypocrisy, Complicity & the Democratic Rupture Over Israel
John welcomes Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen to discuss the increasingly deep fault line among Democrats over U.S. policy towards Israel. Van Hollen, who published a recent New York Times op-ed about why his party must abandon its “reflexive and unconditional” support for Israel, argues that Joe Biden’s handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was a stain on his foreign policy record; that Democratic presidential contenders who voted to fund Bibi Netanyahu’s war on Gaza will pay a steep political price; and that Democratic foreign policy hands who “refuse to acknowledge their complicity” in what he sees as a genocidal campaign should have no role in future Democratic administrations. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Jun 29
1 hr 22 min
Guy Cecil: Democratic Senate Math + Mamdanistan Goes National
John welcomes Guy Cecil, former chairman of Priorities USA Action and executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, to discuss his party's prospects for taking control of the US Senate -- and the national implications of Zohran Mamdani's endorsement trifecta in the New York Democratic primary. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Jun 26
1 hr 34 min
Eddie Glaude: Storybooks, Fairy Tales & America 250
John welcomes Princeton professor Eddie Glaude, Jr. to discuss his new book, "America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation’s Anniversaries.” Glaude lays out the historical pattern of evasion and erasure that the impending MAGA-soaked Semiquincentennial celebration fits into; the meaning of the book’s incendiary opening sentence (”I do not love America, and never have, especially now”); and Juneteenth's place on the commemorative calendar. On the heels of the Obama Presidential Center's opening, Glaude offers another controversial take: that 44’s tenure was little more than “Clintonism in blackface.” To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Jun 22
1 hr 27 min
Tim Miller: Trump’s Surrender & J.D.’s Blitzkrieg
John welcomes back Bulwark podcast host Tim Miller to discuss the putative deal to end the war in Iran and the efforts of J.D. Vance to sell it (and himself). Tim dissects the blowback to the deal within the GOP, Donald Trump's senescence, and Vance’s weeklong media blitz as he hawks his new book about Catholicism. Meanwhile, John describes his visit to the algae bloom on the Washington Mall, Tim sings Olivia Rodrigo, and both weigh in on the Knicks victory parade and Wemby’s turn in the barrel. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Jun 19
1 hr 22 min
Maya Wiley: “Trump’s DOJ Ain’t the Knicks”
John welcomes back Maya Wiley, president and CEO of the Leadership Council on Civil and Human Rights, to discuss the assault on the nonprofit sector by Donald Trump’s Justice Department. Wiley explains why the recent indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center isn’t just baseless and transparently political but part of a broader pattern. She also weighs in on Trump’s intent to undermine the midterm elections through bogus claims of fraud, his nomination of Todd Blanche to be Attorney General, and why his DOJ is everything the New York Knicks are not — inglorious, ill-motivated, and screamingly inept. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Jun 15
1 hr 20 min
Pablo Torre: How the Knicks Saved Their Season (and Sports Itself) by Reversing the Trump Curse
John welcomes back Pablo Torre, the Pulitzer Prize-winning host of Pablo Torre Finds Out to discuss the collision between the New York Knicks and Donald Trump—and why the team's electrifying Game 4 comeback was even more meaningful and miraculous than it looked. Pablo also explains why the World Cup has generated scant excitement so far, the long-run threat to the cultural primacy of sports posed by runaway financialization, and yet more evidence of Steve Ballmer’s flagrant efforts to skirt the NBA salary cap. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Jun 12
1 hr 27 min
Jonathan Weber: Booms, Bubbles, Busts & Doom Loops in the City by the Bay
John welcomes former Reuters head of West Coast news and global technology coverage Jonathan Weber to discuss his new book “City on the Edge: Technology, Politics, and the Fight for the Soul of San Francisco”—along with last week’s California primary, the rivalry between (and presidential ambitions of) Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom, and the rise of San Francisco’s popular new mayor, Daniel Lurie. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Jun 8
1 hr 24 min
Andrew Weissmann: Lies, Damned Lies & Lying Liars (Todd Blanche Edition)
John welcomes back former top Justice Department and FBI official Andrew Weissmann to discuss his recently published New York Times No. 1 best-seller  “Liar’s Kingdom: How to Stop Trump’s Deceit and Save America.” Weissmann lays out the book’s proposals to criminalize election lies or disqualify politicians found guilty of them from seeking office again. He also weighs in on the Trump administration’s push for a $1.8 billion slush fund to pay off supposed victims of lawfare, its own pattern of politically motivated prosecutions, and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s central role in both. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Jun 5
1 hr 34 min
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