Impolitic with John Heilemann

First, John welcomes Arizona Democratic senator, retired U.S. Navy captain, and former combat pilot Mark Kelly to discuss the Trump administration's shifting rationales for, and the huge strategic risks of, the war in Iran. Then John’s Puck partners Leigh Ann Caldwell and Abby Livingston assess the domestic political reaction to the unfolding conflict, plus the results of Tuesday’s Senate primaries in Texas and Kristi Noem’s travails on Capitol Hill ahead of her ouster as DHS secretary. 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

John welcomes back podcasting Ubermensch and personal-finance guru Scott Galloway to discuss his recent foray into activism with Resist & Unsubscribe—an “economic strike targeted at the companies driving the markets and enabling” President Trump. Galloway also weighs in on Sam Altman’s apparent preference for machines over humans; A.I. founders loudly fretting over the technology they created after cashing in and peacing out; and the critiques of his New York Times No. 1 bestseller, “Notes on Being a Man.” 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

John welcomes former Republican Senate staffer Amanda Carpenter, who currently works for the non-profit Protect Democracy, to discuss the first State of the Union address of Donald Trump's second term — the interminable length and apparent aimlessness of which, she argues, obscured the ways it was designed to further lay the groundwork for Trump to interfere with the 2026 and 2028 elections. 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

John welcomes former Treasury Department chief of staff and Quadrangle Group cofounder Josh Steiner to discuss his new book, with former Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton, “From Mistakes to Meaning: Owning Your Past So It Doesn’t Own You.” Currently a partner at SSW Partners, Steiner delves into the news-making screwup that headlined his career in government and the broader topic of life-altering blunders – how and why we make them, what they tell us about ourselves, and the importance of confronting rather than suppressing them. 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

John welcomes Reverend Al Sharpton, founder and president of the National Action Network, to discuss the life and legacy of Reverend Jesse Jackson. Sharpton, whose relationship with Jackson – his friend, political mentor, personal taskmaster, and father figure – stretched back nearly 60 years, reflects on Jackson’s place in history as the preeminent civil rights leader of his time and pathbreaking political figure whose campaigns for president in 1984 and 1988 paved the way for Barack Obama's election. 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

John welcomes back Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias to discuss Donald Trump’s recent slew of suggestions about changing the way elections are run in the U.S.—and his apparent plans to mess with the November midterms. Elias also analyzes Attorney General Pam Bondi’s cringeworthy performance last week before the House Judiciary Committee, the Justice Department’s failure to secure indictments (at Trump’s behest) of the half-dozen congresspeople who released a video reminding soldiers that they had no obligation to follow illegal orders, and the Republican push to enact Voter ID. 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

John welcomes acclaimed sportswriter and bestselling author Sally Jenkins to discuss the twin mega-stories this week where politics, culture, and elite athletics invariably come crashing together: the Super Bowl and Winter Olympics. Jenkins also weighs in on the heedless obliteration of the Washington Post’s vaunted sports desk, where Jenkins worked for three decades before joining The Atlantic last year. 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

John welcomes Bulwark economics editor and MS Now host Catherine Rampell to discuss the fragile state of the Trump 2.0 economy and how the president’s policies — on China, tariffs, tech, manufacturing, and more — are undermining it in both the short and long term. Catherine also explains why Wall Street’s collective view that Trump’s pick to be the next Fed chair, Kevin Warsh, is an inflation hawk and fierce defender of the Fed's independence may prove to be wishful thinking ... or downright delusional. 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

John welcomes back his pal Alex Wagner, host of the new Crooked Media podcast “Runaway Country” and author of “How The Hell with Alex Wagner" on Substack, to discuss the week’s three biggest political stories: the ongoing saga of Operation Metro Surge, which Alex covered on the ground in Minneapolis; fallout from the DOJ’s release of three million documents from the Jeffrey Epstein files; and Donald Trump’s ominous suggestion that the midterm elections be nationalized in 15 blue states. 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

John welcomes Harvard legal eminence Laurence Tribe back to the show to discuss the constitutional dimensions of the chaos in Minneapolis, the fragile state of the rule of law in the Trump 2.0 era, and whether the Supreme Court will salvage or sacrifice what remains of its public legitimacy with its rulings on a handful of key cases in the months ahead. Tribe also discusses his new essay in the New York Review of Books critiquing his colleague Jill Lepore’s recently published history of the U.S. Constitution. 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

John welcomes former Democratic U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill back to the show to discuss the execution-style shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis and its political and cultural fallout. 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

In the second installment of John’s two-part talk with Patrick Gaspard, the former Obama political director, DNC executive director, and U.S. Ambassador to South Africa explains how he came to be Zohran Mamdani’s political sherpa; the qualities that fueled the new mayor’s rise; his similarities to Obama (and how they differ); why his advocacy of abolishing ICE makes political sense (for him); and how his impact on the Democratic Party could be as disruptive—and transformative—as Donald Trump’s on the GOP. 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

John welcomes longtime Democratic strategist, former White House adviser and U.S. Ambassador to South Africa for Barack Obama, and current Zohran Mamdani political sherpa Patrick Gaspard back to the show for a special two-part episode. In this installment, Gaspard assesses the first year of Donald Trump’s second term; how Democrats are faring in their efforts to counter and cope with a pathological president; and what the national party can learn from Mamdani’s refusal to tamp down the loftiness of his rhetoric or the scale of his policy ambitions. 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

John welcomes pop culture savant and bestselling author Chuck Klosterman back to the show to discuss his new book, “Football.” Klosterman explains how America football went from overtaking baseball as the country’s favorite sport and national pastime to utterly dominating its cultural landscape – and why, despite its power, pervasiveness, and influence today, football is all but certain in the next few decades to become a marginal, more or less irrelevant enterprise. 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

Ahead of Donald Trump's return to Davos next week, John welcomes Harvard professor and former Council of Economic Advisers chair Jason Furman to discuss the DOJ’s bungled attack on the Fed, Jerome Powell’s unlikely emergence as an anti-MAGA paladin, and the state of the American economy under Trump’s second-term stewardship. 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

In the second installment of a two-parter with former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul on American foreign policy in Donald Trump's second term, Mike and John look back on 2025 and ahead to 2026, focusing particularly on the president's approach to Russia, Ukraine, and China. McFaul also discusses his new book, “Autocrats vs. Democrats," which examines the struggle between authoritarianism and classical liberalism among the world's great powers, and argues that this is also the central battle taking place within the United States in the Trump 2.0 era. 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

John welcomes back Michael McFaul, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia and the author of “Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America, & The New Global Disorder,” for a special, two-part deep dive into Donald Trump’s foreign policy. In the first installment, McFaul weighs in on the headline-making, world-shaking events of the past week — from America’s invasion of Venezuela and exfiltration of Nicolas Maduro to Trump’s increasingly insistent (and apparently serious) intimations that Greenland could be next. 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

John welcomes former federal prosecutor and top Justice Department and FBI official Andrew Weissmann back to the show for a look back on 2024 and look ahead to 2026 when it comes to the rule of law – in particular, its prospects for surviving the sustained assault by Donald Trump and his administration. 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

John welcomes New York Times columnist and podcasting dynamo Ezra Klein back to the show for the second installment of a two-part, year-end review of the national political scene in 2025 See all the ways bp is investing in America at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠bp.com/InvestingInAmerica⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ . 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

John welcomes two of the Pod Save America dudes, Jon Favreau and Jon Lovett, to the show for the first installment of a two-part, year-end review of the national political scene in 2025. See all the ways bp is investing in America at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠bp.com/InvestingInAmerica⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ . 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