Impolitic with John Heilemann
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.
Episodes
December 19, 2025 • 74 mins
John welcomes The Daily Show’s Jordan Klepper back to the show for a fond remembrance of the lives and legendary film and television careers of Rob and Michele Singer Reiner. Klepper also discusses his latest Daily Show special, which took him from Mississippi to Norway to Portland, Oregon, where he took part in a naked anti-ICE protest and got pepper-sprayed in the process; the challenges of finding the funny amid the fear and loa...
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December 15, 2025 • 74 mins
John welcomes lapsed Republican strategist and Lincoln Project cofounder Rick Wilson back to the show to discuss the mounting signs that, less than one full year into his second term in office, Donald Trump has reached his sell-by date – and the implications of Trump's political decline for the MAGA-fied Republican Party.
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December 12, 2025 • 72 mins
John welcomes retired four-star U.S. Army General Barry McCaffrey to discuss the rapidly escalating conflict between America and Venezuela. McAffrey argues that Donald Trump appears to be hellbent on regime change in Venezuela; that his stated motivations related to narco-terrorism make virtually no sense at all; and that his primary motivations instead revolve primarily around seizing the South American country’s oil reserves. McC...
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December 8, 2025 • 71 mins
John welcomes retired Major General Steven Lepper, a former Deputy Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Air Force, to discuss the legal dimensions of the Trump administration’s Venezuelan boat strikes. Lepper contends that there is no basis in domestic or international law for any of the 23 boat strikes and 87 related fatalities that have taken place so far; that the now infamous second strike on September 2 is more likely to have be...
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December 5, 2025 • 79 mins
John welcomes retired Lieutenant General Mark Hertling to discuss the Trump administration’s air strikes against alleged Venezuelan drug boats and the mounting charges that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth may be guilty of a war crime – or just plain murder. Hertling, who served as commander of U.S. Army Europe among other posts, offers a withering perspective on Hegseth’s explanations of his role in the disputed strike and his leade...
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December 1, 2025 • 82 mins
John welcomes ABC News chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl to discuss his new book, “Retribution: Donald Trump and the Campaign That Changed America.” The author of three previous bestsellers about 45/47, Karl describes how Trump has – and hasn’t – changed in the 30-plus years since the two first met; how Trump's desire for vengeance against his political foes became the driving force of his 2024 campaign and has dominated...
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November 28, 2025 • 80 mins
In this special episode taped live onstage in New York, John interviews his pal Jonathan Freedland – Guardian political columnist and co-host of the Unholy podcast – about his new book, “The Traitor’s Circle: The True Story of a Secret Resistance Network in Nazi Germany – and the Spy Who Betrayed Them.” Freedland, the author of nine thrillers under the pen name Sam Bourne, describes how "The Traitor's Circle," like its predecessor ...
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November 24, 2025 • 78 mins
John welcomes former Republican consultant, Lincoln Project/Lincoln Square bigwig, and bestselling author Stuart Stevens back to the show to discuss Donald Trump’s sudden political senescence. Stevens discusses the emerging dynamics and incentives driving GOP congresspeople to break with Trump; the continued risks he poses to American interests at home and abroad, especially in connection with Ukraine; and the vast talent gap betwe...
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November 21, 2025 • 84 mins
John welcomes Tim Miller, host of The Bulwark Podcast, back to the show to discuss the signs this week that Donald Trump’s fabled base — and broader political coalition — may be starting to unravel. Tim dissects the two main stressors creating fissures within MAGA: Trump's efforts to deep six the Epstein files in the face of his coalition's concerns about pedophilia among the political and financial elite; and the normalization of ...
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November 17, 2025 • 57 mins
John welcomes Democratic congressman Pat Ryan—a 43-year-old West Point grad and Iraq War vet whose 14-point victory in his deep purple upstate New York district in 2024 elevated him to national rising-star status—to discuss the lessons of his party’s off-year election gains and signs that Donald Trump’s lame duck era is at hand. Ryan also explains his crusade to end the scourge of sports TV blackouts in the age of streaming, and wh...
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November 14, 2025 • 70 mins
John welcomes four-time Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Carol Leonnig to discuss her new book with Aaron C. Davis, “Injustice: How Politics and Fear Vanquished America’s Justice Department.” Leonnig, a 25-year Washington Post veteran now serving as a senior MSNBC correspondent, explains how Donald Trump’s first-term impairment of the DOJ, followed by Merrick Garland’s failure to meet the moment after January 6, not on...
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November 10, 2025 • 75 mins
John welcomes the longtime host of Hardball—for 23 years on MSNBC, now on Substack—Chris Matthews to discuss his new book, "Lessons From Bobby: Ten Reasons Robert F. Kennedy Still Matters." The author of three previous bestsellers on the Kennedy clan, Matthews lays out the qualities that made RFK so special and today's Democrats should emulate as they seek to rebuild the party's national brand and majority status. He also assesses ...
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November 8, 2025 • 9 mins
Otherworld tells real stories of people who have experienced something paranormal or unexplainable. Host Jack Wagner takes an open minded and journalistic approach to the subject matter and aims to uncover some of the biggest mysteries of the world and how people react to it.
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November 7, 2025 • 76 mins
John welcomes Morning Joe co-host and Atlantic staff writer Jonathan Lemire to discuss the resounding triumphs this week of two very different Blue Teams: the Democratic Party and the LA Dodgers. Lemire assesses the key factors driving the Democratic drubbing of Donald Trump’s Republican Party in Tuesday's off-year elections; what comes next for the day’s big winners, from Zohran Mamdani in New York City to Gavin Newsom in Californ...
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November 3, 2025 • 73 mins
John welcomes his pal and Hacks On Tap co-host David Axelrod to preview November 4's marquee contests. The former Obama chief strategist, current CNN chief political analyst, and bestselling author of "Believer: My Forty Years in Politics" explains why he’s confident Democrats will run the table in tomorrow's off-year elections — with victories for Zohran Mamdani in the New York mayor’s race, Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill i...
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October 31, 2025 • 70 mins
John welcomes conservative legal eminence and former U.S. Court of Appeals judge J. Michael Luttig to discuss his new piece in The Atlantic about the prospect of Donald Trump remaining in office after his second term ends. Luttig argues that Trump isn’t joking or trolling when he floats the notion of running for president again in 2028, despite the Constitution’s clear proscription against him doing so; that in the past nine months...
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October 28, 2025 • 98 mins
In the second installment of John’s conversation with Cameron Crowe about his new memoir, “The Uncool,” the Oscar-winning writer-director explores his relationship with legendary rock critic Lester Bangs (and casting Philip Seymour Hoffman to play him in “Almost Famous”); the previously unacknowledged teenage suicide of his elder sister and how it fed into the complex family dynamics that compelled him to spend much of his adolesce...
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October 27, 2025 • 81 mins
John sits down for an epic conversation with Oscar-winning writer-director Cameron Crowe about his new memoir, “The Uncool,” which covers his years as a teenaged rock music writer for Rolling Stone in the 1970s — years that served as the inspiration for his classic movie, “Almost Famous.” In the first installment of this special two-part episode, Crowe details his seminal experiences on the road with The Eagles, The Allman Brothers...
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October 24, 2025 • 76 mins
John welcomes California Democratic congressman Ro Khanna to discuss a raft of headlines this week—from Donald Trump seeking $230 million in compensation from the Justice Department for its past investigations of him to his demolition of the East Wing of the White House to make space for a 90,000 square foot ballroom—that bolster Khanna’s argument that Trump and the GOP majority are running a government “of, by, and for the billion...
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October 20, 2025 • 77 mins
John welcomes former CNN primetime anchor and current YouTube prospector Don Lemon to discuss Trump 2.0 and life after cable news. Lemon offers his take on the No Kings Day protests, Donald Trump’s efforts to prosecute his perceived political foes, the situation on the ground in Chicago, and the pros and cons of Zohran Mamdani. Lemon also discusses his testy interview with Elon Musk last year, which killed his nascent partnership w...
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