Impolitic with John Heilemann

Latest Episodes:

Figliuzzi & Weissmann: Trump’s Rough Justice & The Looming Kash Clash Dec 04, 2024

Show notes

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 qualifications for the job, his ideas for radically restructuring and reorienting the FBI, his vows to use federal law enforcement to target Trump’s adversaries, and his espousal of a panoply of far-right conspiracy theories. The two former G-men also assess Pam Bondi, Trump’s replacement pick for Attorney General after the withdrawal of Matt Gaetz; Joe Biden’s blanket pardon for his son, Hunter; and Steve Bannon’s focus on seeing Weissmann jailed for unspecified Deep State transgressions.

Griffin Dunne: All in the Family Nov 27, 2024

Show notes

John is joined by the actor, director, writer, and producer Griffin Dunne to discuss The Friday Afternoon Club, his recent memoir about his famous literary family. Dunne offers intimate portraits of his sister Dominique, an actress on the rise four decades ago (having starred in Steven Spielberg's Poltergeist in 1982) who was strangled to death by her ex-boyfriend; his father, Dominick, whose coverage of Dominique’s murder trial in Vanity Fair turned him into the marquee chronicler of celebrity true-crime cases of the Eighties and Nineties, from O.J. Simpson to Claus von Bulow to the Menendez brothers; and his aunt, the legendary Joan Didion, about whom Griffin made an acclaimed Netflix documentary. Dunne also discusses the highlights of own acting career, from playing the lead in the Martin Scorsese cult classic After Hours to his memorable cameo in the first season of Succession.

David Remnick: Fear & Loathing Over Trump, Israel & the Dylan Biopic Nov 25, 2024

Show notes

To kick off Thanksgiving week, John is joined by David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, to discuss what, if anything, we have to be thankful for. Remnick observes that, on the basis of all early evidence, the most alarmist prospective fears about Donald Trump’s second term are looking more prescient than paranoid; there are encouraging signs that Democrats understand the urgency of changing their tune regarding class and identity politics; the near-term future in Israel and the Middle East promises little but “horror all around;” and while art and culture can be a balm in troubled times, Remnick harbors scant hope for the forthcoming Bob Dylan biopic starring Timothee Chalemet—in fact, ”I’m dreading it,” he says.

Julian Castro & Paola Ramos: How Trump Turned “Si, se Puede” On Its Head Nov 22, 2024

Show notes

John is joined by Julian Castro, former mayor of San Antonio and secretary of Housing & Urban Development, and Paola Ramos, award-winning journalist and author of Defectors: The Rise of the Latino Far Right and What It Means for America, to discuss Donald Trump’s gains with Latino voters in 2024. Castro and Ramos argue that, given the inroads Trump made with Hispanics between 2016 and 2020, his improved performance with them this year is less surprising than it seems; that his appeal to the Latino community wasn’t simply about high prices or economic anxiety but culture, crime, and even immigration and race; that the jury is out on whether we’re witnessing a lasting realignment or a Trump-specific phenomenon; but that, either way, it should serve as a wake-up call to a Democratic Party that for years has taken brown-skinned voters for granted.

Tom Nichols: Incendiary Nominations, Global Conflagrations, & Presidential Pyromania Nov 20, 2024

Show notes

John is joined by Tom Nichols, professor emeritus of national-security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College and staff writer for The Atlantic, to discuss Donald Trump’s foreign policy appointments and the challenges he will face upon his return to the Oval Office. Nichols offers a tour d’horizon of global hotspots, from Ukraine to the Middle East, that will test Trump’s mettle immediately and with huge implications for U.S. vital interests; his assessment of how America’s foreign adversaries, from Vladimir Putin to Xi Jinping, view his return to power (spoiler alert: not unhappily); and his argument as to why, amid a raft of objectionable Trump appointments, the selection of Pete Hegseth to run the Department of Defense is the most irresponsible and dangerous, both abroad and at home.

Beschloss & Meacham: No One Should Be Surprised Nov 18, 2024

Show notes

John is joined by America’s best-known presidential historians, Michael Beschloss and Jon Meacham, to discuss the first two weeks of the transition to Donald Trump’s second term. Beschloss and Meacham assess the most head-spinning of Trump’s initial appointments and their prospects for confirmation; why the sense of shock these picks have elicited, even among Republicans, is ludicrous on its face; the role of Steve Bannon as the intellectual architect of Trump’s radical governing agenda and its central goal of what Bannon calls the “deconstruction of the administrative state;” and why it’s safe to assume that what we’re seeing now is what the next four years will look like.

Seth Moulton & Ritchie Torres: What Dems Can (Must) Learn From 2024 Nov 15, 2024

Show notes

John is joined by two up-and-coming Democratic congressmen—Seth Moulton, of the North Shore of Massachusetts, and Ritchie Torres, of the Bronx—to discuss what went wrong for Democrats in 2024. Moulton and Torres have little in common besides their relative youth; Moulton, 46, is white, straight, and holds multiple degrees from Harvard, while Torres, 36, is Afro Latino, openly gay, and never graduated from college. But their diagnoses of what ails their party (and, in particular, what allowed Donald Trump to make dramatic inroads with non-white working class voters) and their prescriptions for how to cure it are in sync: preach less and listen more; stop pandering to the left, especially on cultural issues; embrace pragmatism, competency, and open debate over purity tests, identity politics, and Ivory Tower condescension.

Claire McCaskill: Trump Staffs Up, Dems Hunker Down, & Musk Runs Amok Nov 13, 2024

Show notes

John is joined by Claire McCaskill, former Democratic U.S. senator from Missouri, to discuss the fallout from the election and transition to Donald Trump’s second White House term. McCaskill assesses Trump's first batch of cabinet and White House staff appointments, calling it a “mixed bag," with some picks mildly reassuring and others decidedly not; the practical and political challenges of mass deportation; the potential for (or inevitability of) friction between Trump and Elon Musk; and the internal debates and internecine finger-pointing now consuming the Democratic Party as it seeks to apportion blame for, interpret the meaning of, and find a way forward from the shellacking it suffered on Election Day.

Douglas Brinkley: Extreme Incaution, Enemies Lists, & The Age of Trump Nov 11, 2024

Show notes

John is joined by political and cultural historian—and literary executor for Hunter S. Thompson—Douglas Brinkley to discuss the end of the 2024 election and Donald Trump’s return to the White House. Brinkley explains the harsh impact of Kamala Harris’s defeat on Joe Biden’s legacy, and how Biden only has himself to blame; how Trump managed, despite his clear political liabilities, to increase his share of the vote all over the country; why Harris’s extreme caution was her greatest weakness and Trump’s extreme incaution his greatest strength; and how much we should fear Steve Bannon and his pledge to deliver “rough, Roman justice” to MAGA’s foes.

Trumpocalypse Now, Again: Puck Superfriends on 45 Becoming 47 Nov 07, 2024

Show notes

John is joined by his Puck partners Dylan Byers and Peter Hamby to discuss Donald Trump’s reelection: the remarkable scale of his victory and the unexpected breadth of the coalition he assembled to achieve it; whether anyone paying attention to the campaign—or the Trump era in our politics and culture more broadly—should have been surprised; the Democratic finger-pointing that’s already begun in the wake of Kamala Harris's loss; whether VP Harris or President Biden bears more responsibility for the failure to dispatch Trump; and what might happen within the two parties, as well as the mainstream and upstart media, when Trump and his allies reassert themselves in the capital.

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Impolitic with John Heilemann

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected