Impolitic with John Heilemann

Latest Episodes:

Introducing: Money Moves with Jill Schlesinger Jul 29, 2026

Show notes

There’s a lot of dopey financial advice out there. Jill Schlesinger is here to call it out, answer your questions, break down the financial news that actually matters, and help you manage your money without losing your mind. No jargon. No judgment. Just clear, actionable financial guidance about saving, investing, buying a home, managing your career, and deciding how to spend your hard-earned dollars. When it’s time to panic, Jill will tell you. When everyone else is panicking and you shouldn’t be, Jill will tell you that too. Your money. Your move. Let’s go.

Jonathan Swan: “He’s Just Gonna Do What He Wants To Do” Jul 27, 2026

Show notes

John welcomes New York York Times White House reporter Jonathan Swan to discuss his runaway No. 1 bestseller, “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,” co-authored with Maggie Haberman, and how the reporting in the book illuminates Trump's inability to bring a tidy end to the war in Iran, fixation on election-related conspiracy theories, and pronounced disinterest in the economic struggles of ordinary voters. Swan also reveals the strategy behind his Emmy-winning TV interview with Trump in 2020—and how a fringe Australian politician with a yen for kangaroo feces fueled his meteoric rise in journalism.

Adam Jentleson: Senate Campaign Sturm und Drang in Maine, Michigan & Beyond Jul 24, 2026

Show notes

John welcomes Senate savant and Searchlight Institute president Adam Jentleson to discuss the Democrats’ fraught path to retaking control of the upper chamber. A former speechwriter for John Kerry and John Edwards, comms director for Harry Reid, and chief of staff to John Fetterman, Jentleson explains Searchlight’s mission of breaking the hold of entrenched interest groups on his party; that rejecting litmus tests and embracing ideological heterodoxy are key to building a stable Democratic governing majority; his confidence that, despite Graham Platner’s implosion, Susan Collins is going down in Maine; his worries that the blue team will fumble the ball in Michigan; and why “nobody is doing it better now” than Zohran Mamdani.

Peter Baker & Susan Glasser: Is Trump Trying to Tank the GOP? Jul 20, 2026

Show notes

John welcomes back the John and Yoko (Ike and Tina? Sonny and Cher?) of Beltway journalistic power couples, the New York Times’s Peter Baker and The New Yorker’s Susan Glasser, to try to make sense of a presidency that increasingly appears to be politically nonsensical. Against the backdrop of Trump's recent actions at home and abroad, Peter and Susan ponder a theory that no one quite believes but for which the evidence—from his mercurial conduct of the war in Iran to his doubling down on ICE’s deadly tactics, obsessive focus on election-related conspiracy theories, and more—is at least superficially compelling: that the president is engaged in a concerted campaign to sabotage the Republican Party.

Jeff Blattner: A Tale of Two Confirmation Hearings — and Two Top-Tier Trump Toadies Jul 17, 2026

Show notes

John welcomes former Senate Judiciary Committee senior staffer and deputy assistant attorney general Jeff Blattner to discuss the confirmation hearings of Todd Blanche and Jay Clayton to be America's next attorney general and director of national intelligence, respectively. Blattner also explains how his friend and former Justice Department colleague Phil Weiser unexpectedly defeated Senator Michael Bennett in the recent Democratic gubernatorial primary in Blattner’s home state of Colorado—and what his mentor and former boss, Ted Kennedy, would have to say about Donald Trump’s America.

Alex Wagner & Will Leitch: Platner’s Implosion & Trump’s Red Card Jul 13, 2026

Show notes

John welcomes back two blue-chip friends of the pod—Alex Wagner, host of Crooked Media’s “Runaway Country” and MS Now senior political analyst, and New York magazine columnist, MLB.com national correspondent, and Deadspin founder Will Leitch—to discuss, respectively, the spectacular self-immolation of Graham Platner’s Senate campaign in Maine and Donald Trump’s unwelcome intrusion into an otherwise wondrous World Cup.

Maggie Haberman: The Hunter & The Hunted Jul 10, 2026

Show notes

John welcomes back New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman to discuss her runaway No. 1 bestseller, “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,” co-authored with Jonathan Swan; why the story of second-term Trump is less about how he’s changed than how he’s the same as ever, only more so; the degree to which retribution and self-enrichment are animating impulses of Trump 2.0; and the challenges of getting to the truth about a president for whom deceit and delusion are default settings.

Tad Devine: 2016 Revisited, Bernie’s Legacy & Democrats’ Wet Hot Socialist Summer Jul 06, 2026

Show notes

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.

Bob Crawford: Avett Brothers, John Quincy Adams, & Other Joys of Americana Jul 03, 2026

Show notes

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.

Chris Van Hollen: Hypocrisy, Complicity & the Democratic Rupture Over Israel Jun 29, 2026

Show notes

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.