Impolitic with John Heilemann

John welcomes back David Axelrod — chief strategist to Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, founder of the University of Chicago Institute of Politics, chief political analyst for CNN, host of The Axe Files, cohost of Hacks on Tap, and best-selling author of "Believer: My 40 Years in Politics" — to discuss the results of the midterm elections and their implications for Democrats heading into 2028. Axelrod explains the lessons his party should take from Election Night's blue bloodbath; how the transformation of the electoral map, together with the new Democratic nominating calendar, will impact the coming presidential race; and why November 3 was, “for romantics about politics, a truly great day.”

John welcomes back Nicolle Wallace, host of Deadline: White House on MS NOW and The Best People podcast, for their traditional Election Day hang. After seeing Donald Trump’s homestretch performance on the campaign trail, Nicolle argues that Trump no longer cares about politics or the fate of his party (with the exception of Jon Husted’s rock-hard heine); advises Democrats to resist their usual handwringing and overthinking; weighs in on Haley Stevens’s mental/emotional stability; tosses flowers to Jon Osoff and James Talarico; trashes the “whiny wimps” of MAGA and the manosphere; and predicts that Trump’s inevitable efforts to overturn the results of the midterms will wind up in the Supreme Court.

John welcomes back Tim Miller, host of The Bulwark Daily Podcast, for our penultimate pre-midterms episode. In a discussion broken into four parts – what he’s psyched about, worried about, pissed off about, and what’s cracking him up – Tim waxes rhapsodic about Adam Hamilton; frets that the polls are all wrong; heaps scorn on Mike Rogers, Vivek Ramaswamy, and J.D. Vance; and cackles over Clay Travis’s Cheesecake Factory fabulism and Iowa GOP House candidate Joe Mitchell’s risible effort to ego-fluff Donald Trump (and subsequent leaked-video humiliation). John and Tim also compare notes on a Republican gubernatorial candidate’s investment in a manufacturer of “high-tech penis rings”—only to discover that one of them has come armed with receipts.

John welcomes Des Moines-based Democratic strategist Matt Paul for the second installment of a special two-part episode on the midterm elections in Iowa. A longtime adviser to former two-term Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack who also served as Iowa state director on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, Paul argues that despite all appearances over the past 10 years—during which the Hawkeye State voted three times for Donald Trump (and by a 12-point margin in 2024)—Iowa has simply been masquerading as a red state; that the results on November 3 will, at a minimum, signal its return to its natural purple hue; and may wind up marking the beginning of the end of the Trump era.

John welcomes longtime Republican strategist Dave Kochel for the first part of a special doubleheader on the midterm elections in Iowa—and whether the state that launched Barack Obama may be about to swing back to blue after ten years of dominance by Donald Trump’s G.O.P. An Iowa native who ran Mitt Romney’s caucus operations in 2008 and 2012, confidant to former six-term governor Terry Branstad and current two-termer Kim Reynolds, and adviser to Senate candidate Ashley Hinson and congressman Zach Nunn, Kochel argues that while his party is facing fierce political headwinds, Democrats are too optimistic about their prospects in a state where the blue team’s brand remains borderline toxic.

John welcomes longtime Democratic consulting partners and Clinton 1992 icons James Carville & Paul Begala to discuss their party’s prospects in the midterm elections. James and Paul argue that the House is rapidly shifting from a blue wave to a blue wipeout; that Democratic optimism about flipping Senate seats in deep red states (Alaska, Kansas, South Carolina and even Mississippi) is warranted, even as their side is danger of losing on more hospitable territory (Michigan, Maine, and even Minnesota). They also offer theories as to why Donald Trump can't stop talking about Ohio GOP Senator Jon Husted’s ass.

John welcomes Cook Political Report election guru Dave Wasserman to discuss the outlook for the midterms. Wasserman argues that rising prices, an unpopular war, voters’ increasing focus on government corruption, and Republicans’ failure to distance themselves from Donald Trump have put them in an “impossible position” two weeks out from Election Day; Trump’s record-low approval ratings, coupled with his insistence on making the election a referendum on himself, are making his party’s already dire situation even worse; the GOP’s mid-decade redistricting gambit has ended up yielding next to nothing; and Democrats are all but guaranteed to retake the House (potentially picking up north of 20 seats) and narrow favorites to recapture the Senate, too.

John welcomes Neera Tanden, president and CEO of the Center for American Progress, to discuss the midterm elections and the fierce fights among the Democratic Party’s warring factions. Tanden explains the combination of factors that she believes will lead to a thorough repudiation of Donald Trump and the GOP on November 3; why the unexpected strength of Democratic Senate candidates in ruby red states such as Alaska, Kansas, and Iowa illuminate a path to consigning MAGA to the dustbin of history; and her view of the place the DSA should have in the big-tent coalition her party needs to build. She also offers what she claims will be her final words on her ongoing feud with leftist streamer Hasan Piker.

John welcomes journalist Anand Giridharadas to discuss his new best-selling book, “Man in the Mirror: Hope, Struggle, and Belonging in an American City,” about the death of Jordan Neely on a New York subway train after being placed in a chokehold by another passenger, Daniel Penny. Anand explains what drew him to the headline-making story of Neely, a homeless, mentally ill Black man, and the white Long Islander who subdued him, that became a Rorschach test for the country’s political and racial tribes; and how despite their conflicting views of public order in post-pandemic America, those tribes are animated by a shared sense of abandonment by the institutions meant to protect and serve us all, which Giridharadas argues is the defining emotion of our time.

John welcomes back Skybridge Capital founder and Trump Wall Street apostate Anthony Scaramucci to discuss the president’s mindset and machinations as he barrels towards a brutish repudiation in the midterm elections. Scaramucci—who served an inglorious, 11-day stint as White House communications director in 2017—explains how Trump’s view of his power to save his party sits alongside his barely concealed desire to see its members crash and burn; how his attacks on the Pope earlier this year were a roundabout effort to mess with JD Vance; and why Natalie Harp is more likely to be Trump’s nursemaid than concubine. The Mooch also expounds on his new book, “All the Wrong Moves: How Three Catastrophic Decisions Led to the Rise of Trump.”

John welcomes former UCLA and Milwaukee Bucks star Marques Johnson to discuss his new book, “The Crenshaw Chronicles,” and all things NBA. Johnson explains why the infamy of his high school alma mater as an epicenter of South Central LA's gang culture, though not unearned, is only part of the story; what it was like to be a five-time All Star in the 1980s still overshadowed by Bird, Magic, and the other MJ; his repeated snubs by the Basketball Hall of Fame; and how he wound up playing a blade-wielding playground baller in “White Men Can’t Jump.” He also weighs in, from his perch as a Bucks TV analyst, on Giannis’s Milwaukee exit, Lebron’s Philly relocation, and Wemby's paradigm-shifting potential.

John welcomes Washington Post tech culture reporter Nitasha Tiku to discuss this mind-blowing, deeply unnerving moment in the evolution of AI. Tiku explains the genesis of the fears that the systems being developed by the AI frontier labs could ultimately end the human race; how AI extinction scenarios migrated from fringe Bay Area subcultures into the labs themselves, then into elite institutions, and now to the center of the mainstream political and cultural discourse; how the labs are confronting the ethical and moral implications of what they’re building; and why, when it comes to the debate over AI regulation, we should focus less on what industry leaders are saying and more on what they’re doing.

John welcomes retired three-star general and former U.S. Army Europe commander Mark Hertling to discuss Donald Trump’s turns on the world stage at the United Nations General Assembly and China summit with Xi Jinping. Hertling argues that, contrary to Trump’s claim that the Iran war will end after the midterm elections, it's more likely to go on for years; that his U.N. speech was “anti-American” and his handling of the Xi meeting, deeply unserious; and that America's military leaders saw his performances in both venues as “beyond embarrassing.” Hertling also explains why it will take “generations to rebuild” the armed forces after the damage being done to them by Pete Hegseth.

John welcomes Naomi Klein, arguably the left’s most prominent and influential public intellectual, to discuss her new best-selling book, “End Times Fascism,” co-authored with Astra Taylor. Klein—whose 2000 book, “No Logo,” became a manifesto for the turn-of-the-millennium anti-globalization movement, and whose 2008 tome, "The Shock Doctrine," introduced the concept of “disaster capitalism”—explains that “End Times Fascism” is the apotheosis of all her work to date; how an unlikely coalition of religious fundamentalists, Silicon Valley tech barons, and far right ethno-nationalists has embraced varying forms of apocalypticism and taken center stage in our politics; and how that alliance can be defeated.

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John welcomes back Alex Wagner, host of Runaway Country for Crooked Media and senior political analyst at MS Now, to discuss her new book, “The Steal: Four Right-Wing Hard-Liners, One Republican Presidency, and the Raid on America's Courts.” Alex examines the half-century genesis of the conservative takeover of the federal judiciary, its resemblance to a heist movie, and the quartet of thieves—Paul Weyrich, the mastermind; Ed Meese, the inside man; Robert Bork, the public face; and Joe Coors, the money—central to the caper. She also assesses a raft of recent developments: James Talarico’s trolling of Ken Paxton in Texas, Hasan Piker’s ongoing bedevilment of Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, and Donald Trump’s blithe reaction to the rampant fears in the AI industry that its products may kill us all.

John welcomes Jacob Weisberg, co-founder of Pushkin Industries and former editor of Slate, to discuss his new book, “Profiles in Cowardice: A Study of Collaboration in the Trump Era.” Weisberg explains how he took the format and framing of “Profiles in Courage,” John F. Kennedy’s classic examination of moral leadership in politics, and turned it inside out, focusing not on the admirable but the culpable; and why some of America’s best-known and most powerful public figures—from Jeff Bezos and Stephen Schwarzman to John Roberts, Megyn Kelly, and Mitch McConnell—became complicit in a signal feature of Donald Trump’s second term: the remarkable degree of capitulation to a president few of them like or respect and many once resisted.

John welcomes back Searchlight Institute president Adam Jentleson to discuss the post-Labor Day Senate battleground map and his new book, “Supermajority: How Democrats Can Build Lasting Power.” Jentleson explains why cautious optimism is in order about his party’s prospects of retaking the upper chamber; how the strength of James Talarico and Rob Sand (in the Texas Senate and Iowa governor’s races, respectively) are rooted in the sort of ideological heterodoxy Jentleson champions in his book; why the razor-thin margins and slim majorities of our time are historical anomalies; and the degree of compromise Democrats will need to accommodate to build governing coalitions broad enough to last.

John is joined by Lawrence Wright, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11,” to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Wright explains what we understand today about 9/11 that we didn't understand at the time, and what we still don’t know; how the war on terror waged in its aftermath changed America, the world, and us; and the terrible possibility that, in the end, Osama bin Laden achieved more of his goals than we care to admit.

John is joined by publisher of The Bulwark and apostate Republican strategist Sarah Longwell to discuss the midterm elections, 2028, and her new book, “How to Eat an Elephant: One Voter at a Time.” Longwell explains how large an albatross Donald Trump has become for GOP candidates up and down the ballot; why Democrats’ strong position in the polls may not be a summertime “sugar high;” and why Gavin Newsom is merely engaging in “performance art” while Jon Ossoff is “president-maxxing." She also lays out what she's learned about the electorate from conducting more than 400 focus groups in the past decade—and how it informs her new book's argument about how to permanently dismantle MAGA.

John is joined by combative California union boss Dave Regan to discuss Proposition 40, his state’s controversial ballot measure to levy a one-time, 5 percent wealth tax on its resident billionaires. Regan, Prop 40's principal architect and advocate, explains its economic benefits, political challenges, and prospects for passage. He also disses the initiative's opponents—from Silicon Valley billionaires such as Sergey Brin to Governor Gavin Newsom and his likely successor, Xavier Becerra—arguing that “they think the rest of us are stupid.”

John is joined by two first-time Democratic office-seekers — Adam Hamilton, the party’s Senate candidate in Kansas, and Denise Powell, its House candidate in NE-02 — to discuss their upstart campaigns. Hamilton, a Methodist minister who runs his state’s largest mega-church, debunks charges from the right that he’s “too woke for Kansas,” and explains why GOP incumbent Roger Marshall resembles the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion from “The Wizard of Oz” all rolled into one. Powell, a self-styled “pissed-off baseball mom,” describes the fury of Omaha voters at Trump’s mockery of "affordability" and her plan to win one of only a handful of congressional districts that voted for Kamala Harris and a Republican House member in 2024.

John is joined by Democracy Forward CEO Skye Perryman to discuss Donald Trump, Todd Blanche, and the threats they pose to America’s elections and the rule of law. Perryman explains why, for all Trump’s talk about federalizing or even canceling the midterms, he has no legal authority to do anything of the kind; why Blanche is such a dangerous deviation from past Attorneys General; and the lasting damage being done to the Justice Department by Trump 2.0. She also talks about her new book, “Ordinary People, Extraordinary Times: How to Reclaim Your Power, Fight for Freedom, and Reimagine Democracy,” which lays out practical steps citizens can take to beat back the authoritarian tide.

In the second installment of a two-part episode with best-selling author Kurt Andersen, John and Kurt continue their discussion of Andersen's new novel, “The Breakup." Kurt assesses how the book—set in 2045, following a second American Civil War—fits into his formidable body of work, from acclaimed novels such as “Heyday” and non-fiction hits including “Fantasyland” to the editorial voice he helped fashioned at Spy magazine and the satirical sci-fi web video series he created with Steven Soderbergh. Kurt also explains the challenges AI poses to writing about the future, and how "The Breakup" handles the (fictional) death of the president he famously co-christened a “short-fingered vulgarian."

John welcomes bestselling author, Spy magazine co-founder, and Peabody Award-winning radio host Kurt Andersen for the first installment of a two-part episode focused on his extraordinary new novel, “The Breakup.” After laying out the premise of his first work of speculative fiction—in 2045, two Americans edge towards ending their marriage just as their country, in the wake of a second Civil War, prepares to end its own, much longer union—Andersen discusses how such a national divorce could come to pass, what America might look like in its aftermath, and whether that outcome would actually be so terrible, after all.Bayer is empowering American farms with the smart tools and accurate data needed to confidently advance regenerative agriculture, improving soil health for a sustainable future.

John welcomes New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez to discuss his landmark litigation against Meta and his new crusade against the Justice Department over the Epstein files. Torrez explains his recently filed lawsuit against Todd Blanche and the DOJ for obstructing his investigation of sex trafficking at Epstein’s Santa Fe outpost, Zorro Ranch; his office's role in drafting a new piece of federal legislation, the Epstein Files Transparency II, introduced last week; and his courtroom victory over Mark Zuckerberg's company, which yielded a nearly $1 billion judgment and may serve as a blueprint for similar cases across the country aimed at holding tech firms liable for harms from their platforms.Bayer is empowering American farms with the smart tools and accurate data needed to confidently advance regenerative agriculture, improving soil health for a sustainable future.

John welcomes David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, to discuss his recent viral podcast interview with DSA co-chair Megan Romer and his latest magnum opus on Israel. Remnick confesses to being "startled" by Romer's glaring “lack of fluency” with DSA’s official positions. (He also confesses to having worn a Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee button in college.) And he offers a vivid account of his fifth reporting trip to Israel since October 7, 2023; a portrait of Bibi Netanyahu's main opponent, Gadi Eisenkot, in the forthcoming Israeli election; and an analysis of the campaign's stakes for the Jewish state and the Palestinians.Bayer is empowering American farms with the smart tools and accurate data needed to confidently advance regenerative agriculture, improving soil health for a sustainable future.

John welcomes author Jim Windolf to discuss his new book, “Where the Music Had to Go: How Bob Dylan and The Beatles Changed Each Other—and the World.” Windolf details the revelations and insights unearthed during the five years he spent researching and writing the first full-scale dual biography of two musical acts whose artistic and cultural impact is unparalleled in pop music history—and the surprising degree to which they motivated, inspired, and transformed each other in the process.Bayer is empowering American farms with the smart tools and accurate data needed to confidently advance regenerative agriculture, improving soil health for a sustainable future.

John welcomes back former Wisconsin Democratic Party chairman Ben Wikler to discuss this week’s headline-making Senate primary in Michigan, next week’s gubernatorial primary in Wikler's home state, and his new book, “This Is The Plan: How to End America’s Meltdown and Save Democracy.” Wikler examines Abdul El-Sayed’s narrower-than-expected win over Haley Stevens; the startling rise of 37-year-old state representative and Democratic Socialists of America stalwart Francesca Hong to frontrunner status in the Badger State's governor’s race; and just how freaked out mainstream Democrats should feel about their party’s ongoing wet, hot, DSA summer.Bayer is empowering American farms with the smart tools and accurate data needed to confidently advance regenerative agriculture, improving soil health for a sustainable future.

John welcomes Rolling Stone writer Jonathan Bernstein to discuss the life, music, and legacy of Irish singer-songwriter Glen Hansard, who died tragically last week in a motorcycle crash at 56. Bernstein, who published a moving tribute to Hansard in the wake of his death, traces Glen’s rise from Dublin busker to Oscar-winning star of the movie “Once” — and wrestles with why the death of this particular artist unleashed an unexpectedly large and intense outpouring of grief and appreciation across generations and around the world. Bayer is empowering American farms with the smart tools and accurate data needed to confidently advance regenerative agriculture, improving soil health for a sustainable future.

John welcomes back Democratic strategist Lis Smith to discuss the intra-party factional civil war playing out in the Michigan Senate primary. Best known as the communications guru who helped turn Pete Buttigieg into a national figure, Smith served as a key adviser in the primary to state senator Mallory McMorrow, who left the race a month ago, giving Lis a prime, up-close perspective on the two remaining candidates—former public health official Abdul El-Sayed and congresswoman Haley Stevens—and why their heated, bitter, lavishly funded fight has turned into a microcosm of the burgeoning ideological battle among Democrats from coast to coast.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

John welcomes back Democratic Senator Chris Murphy to discuss his new book “Crisis of the Common Good: The Fight for Meaning and Connection in a Broken America.” Murphy lays out his book’s argument that America is in the grip of a set of interlocking cults (the Cult of Profit, Cult of Everywhere, Cult of Technology, Cult of Consumerism, Cult of Credentialism, and Cult of Corruption) that have undermined our culture and democracy—and suggests creating a Cult of the Common Good to remedy what ails us. He also weighs in on the diplomatic quagmire in Iran and Donald Trump’s wildly prolific, deeply suspicious penchant for day trading.

John welcomes back Politico’s Jonathan Martin to discuss the Texas Senate race: how scandal-soaked Attorney General Ken Paxton thrashed incumbent Senator John Cornyn in the GOP primary run-off; Democratic nominee James Talarico’s “race against time” to define himself before Paxton's effort to cast him as a weak, weird, ultra-woke vegan sinks in with voters; and whether Democrats are once again chasing fool’s gold in Texas or the race is a genuine toss-up. JMart also unpacks the latest episode of his “On The Road” YouTube series, featuring Pennsylvania governor and likely 2028 presidential candidate Josh Shapiro.

John welcomes author James Traub to discuss his latest book, “The Cradle of Citizenship: How Schools Can Help Save Our Democracy.” Traub describes the year he spent reporting in K-12 classrooms across the country; the fierce culture wars after the Covid-19 pandemic in many school systems around race, gender, curricula, and library collections; the debate over the 1619 Project and 1776 Report; and other signs of politicized rot in primary and secondary education. He also points to signs of hope, including the rise of so-called "classical" charter schools—and explains why the reflexive liberal opposition to them is misguided.

John welcomes former Bloomberg Businessweek editor and current Atlantic staff writer Josh Tyrangiel to discuss his new book, “AI for Good: How Real People Are Using Artificial Intelligence to Fix Things That Matter.” Tyrangiel, who until recently wrote a column on AI for The Washington Post, weighs in on the verdict against Elon Musk in his $150 billion lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI; why the wannabe kings of the AI industry are less interesting than the question of what—today and in the future—AI is actually good for; and why, despite enraging both the left and parts of the military establishment, Palantir isn’t so bad, after all.

John welcomes Brookings Institution fellow and erstwhile neocon luminary Robert Kagan to discuss his buzzy recent piece in The Atlantic about the inevitability of American defeat in Iran. Kagan argues that the U.S. is not only losing the war now but has no plausible path to victory; that simply throwing in the towel is the least bad option available to Donald Trump, though its implications are beyond grim; and that the Trump-Xi Jinping summit in Beijing was a “ratification of the new reality” as to the relative power and prestige of their countries in the world today.

John welcomes back Pod Save America cohost and Obama White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer to discuss the forbidding political climate facing Republicans six months out from the midterm elections. Pfeiffer weighs in on Donald Trump’s avowal this week that he doesn’t think about how the Iran war is affecting Americans (“not even a little bit”); the shifting fortunes of Ds and Rs in the redistricting wars; the slew of key primaries, from California to Iowa to Louisiana, in the weeks ahead; the prospects of Graham Platner, Dan Osborne, and James Talarico; and the brewing battle between J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio for the 2028 GOP presidential nomination.

John welcomes Council on Foreign Relations president Michael Froman to discuss the three central topics in American foreign policy today: the war in Iran, U.S.-China relations, and the war in Ukraine. Froman offers his interpretation of the Trump administration’s mixed messages, glib metaphors, and ever-shifting strategy in its military campaign against Tehran; previews this week’s summit in Beijing between President Trump and Xi Jinping; and tries to make sense of why Trump has effectively sided with Vladimir Putin over Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the very moment when Ukraine seems better-positioned than ever to prevail in combat over Russia.

In the second installment of this week’s special two-part episode featuring Wu-Tang Clan’s sonic Svengali and de facto leader, RZA discusses the seminal hip-hop collective’s recent, first-ballot inclusion in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame; the group's ongoing farewell tour and lasting cultural legacy; how RZA’s self-described dictatorial tendencies were key to making it all happen; and why it’s still so important to “diversify your bonds.”

John welcomes acclaimed rapper, producer, composer, actor, filmmaker, and Wu-Tang Clan prime mover RZA to discuss his new movie “One Spoon of Chocolate,” which opened in theaters across the country last week. In Part One of this special, two-part episode, RZA describes the decade-plus odyssey of the film, which he wrote and directed, from idea to premiere; how the shifting state of race relations in America affected both it and him; and the transition of his career as an artist away from music and towards film.

John welcomes Pennsylvania Democratic congresswoman Chrissy Houlahan to discuss Pete Hegseth’s testimony before the House and King Charles’s address on Capitol Hill this week. Houlahan, a former active duty Air Force officer and member of the House Armed Services and Intelligence committees, also weighs in on the state of the war in Iran as it passes the 60-day mark—and Donald Trump’s increasingly incomprehensible strategy and tactics in waging it.

John welcomes The Economist's editor-in-chief, Zanny Minton Beddoes, to discuss the economic fallout from the war in Iran, her magazine’s midterm election special issue, and more. Zanny outlines the scale of the coming global oil supply shock due to the two-month closure of the Strait of Hormuz; why the U.S. stock market has remained buoyant regardless; whether Kevin Warsh will be an independent Fed chair or a toady to Donald Trump; and the prospects that Trump will succeed in interfering with the midterms.

John welcomes back U.S. Naval War College professor emeritus and Atlantic staff writer Tom Nichols to discuss the Iran war at the eight-week mark—where things stand, what comes next, and whether there’s any end in sight. Tom weighs in on Donald Trump’s strategic incoherence and tactical flailing; the embarrassing spectacle of Iran jerking J.D. Vance around; Pete Hegseth's holy roller cosplay and ongoing purge of the military's senior ranks; and Tucker Carlson’s public apology for his role in Trump’s reelection.

John welcomes author Sebastian Mallaby to discuss his new bestselling book, “The Infinity Machine: Demis Hassabis, DeepMind, and the Quest for Superintelligence.” Mallaby explains why Hassabis, the leader of Google’s efforts in artificial intelligence, remains an obscure and under-covered figure compared with Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, and Elon Musk, the poster boys of the A.I. revolution; why, despite his relative public obscurity, Hassabis may prove more important in shaping our future than any of them; and whether he is, at bottom, the kind of person we should comfortable entrusting with such power.

John welcomes his partner and Puck Superfriend Peter Hamby to discuss former California congressman and gubernatorial candidate Eric Swalwell’s ignominious implosion and its implications for the race to succeed Gavin Newsom. Hamby also weighs in on Donald Trump and J.D. Vance’s ongoing battle with Pope Leo XIV and whether it might cause lasting damage to MAGA with Catholic voters—and Hamby’s highlights (Geese!) from his latest sojourn to Coachella.

John welcomes longtime Silicon Valley chronicler, bestselling author, and host of two hit podcasts—“On with Kara Swisher” and “Pivot” with Scott Galloway—to discuss her new, six-part CNN docu-series “Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever” on the science, culture, and business of longevity. Swisher weighs in on what’s real and what isn’t in the wellness industry, the narcissism driving the tech bro fascination with immortality, and why Steve Jobs was right that accepting the inevitability of death is essential to living a good life.

John welcomes former NeverTrump Republican gadfly and current New York Democratic congressional primary candidate George Conway to discuss Donald Trump’s behavior this past week viz a viz the war in Iran and its implications for his presidency, the world, and the future of the MAGA movement. Conway also lays out the single-issue thrust of his campaign: removing Trump from office asap.

John welcomes NYU law professor, co-host of the Strict Scrutiny podcast, and MS Now legal analyst Melissa Murray to discuss Donald Trump's firing of Pam Bondi as attorney general and the future of the Justice Department. Murray weighs in on Bondi’s tenure, legacy, and potential replacements as AG—as well as the oral arguments before the Supreme Court last week in the birthright citizenship case.

John welcomes Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey to discuss his city’s harrowing battle this winter with ICE, CBP, and Donald Trump. Frey explains what it was like living under violent federal occupation; the combination of fierce resistance and neighborly love that enabled Minneapolis not just to emerge triumphant but set an example for other cities around the country; and why the embrace of Bruce Springsteen—who kicked off his spring No Kings tour in the Twin Cities this week—was so vital and important.

John welcomes Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal to discuss the ongoing impasse on Capitol Hill over funding D.H.S. (and the resulting T.S.A-related chaos at America’s airports) and reforming ICE, as well as the fierce debates over the SAVE Act and the war in Iran. Regarding the war, Blumenthal argues that “Donald Trump is boxing himself into putting troops on the ground”—and that the only winners in the conflict so far are Russia and Vladimir Putin.

John welcomes John Ellis, founder and editor of the newsletters News Items and Political News Items, to discuss the military, economic, and political dynamics at play in the war in Iran; how Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's political stature has been enhanced by playing David to Donald Trump's Goliath and its influence on America's allies in Europe; and why the question of Trump’s mental fitness is the most important story in the world that journalists aren’t covering.

John welcomes Jason Zengerle, author of the new book “Hated by All the Right People: Tucker Carlson and the Unraveling of the Conservative Mind,” to discuss Carlson's opposition to Donald Trump's war in Iran. Zengerle explains Tucker's evolution from conventional (if contrarian) Republican to a leader of the nationalist, nativist, America First faction of the MAGA movement; how his embrace of racist and anti-Semitic tropes have only increased his influence in forging the post-Trump future of the G.O.P.; and why the prospect of him running for president in 2028 seems more plausible every day.

John welcomes erstwhile neocon stalwart and current Bulwark seditor-at-large Bill Kristol to discuss the war in Iran, amid mounting signs that it is spiraling out of control. Kristol weighs in on the economic and military dynamics propelling the conflict; whether the U.S. is in danger of being ensnared in an escalation trap; the resignation of Trump’s top counterterrorism adviser, Joe Kent; Israel’s role in the war’s inception; and the rapid unraveling of Donald Trump’s rationales for why he started it in the first place.

John welcomes acclaimed documentarian Ken Burns to discuss his latest PBS magnum opus, “The American Revolution.” Burns recounts the 10-year gestation of the six-part, 12-hour series, culminating with its fortuitous (but entirely coincidental) debut on the eve of the U.S. Semiquincentennial; how he assembled the remarkable array of Hollywood stars—Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, Morgan Freeman, and dozens more—who voice the story’s key historical figures; and the case for George Washington as the revolution’s indispensable man, without whom America would not exist. Burns also reveals the five (yes, five) embryonic series on which he’s currently at work.

John welcomes former Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman to discuss the war in Iran. Sherman, who led the U.S. team that negotiated the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran, assesses the current state of the conflict as its scope widens and economic reverberations intensify; the ever-shifting rationales offered by Donald Trump and his administration for attacking Iran and their miscalculations as to how it would respond; and scenarios for what might come next, including the possibility of American boots on the ground.

John welcomes Jake Sullivan, former National Security Adviser to Joe Biden and a key architect of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, to discuss the war against the regime in Tehran as it enters its second week — with no clear plan, strategy, or end game in sight, and having blown the lid off a Pandora’s Box of potentially calamitous unintended consequences.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 .

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 .

John welcomes celebrated photojournalist Christopher Anderson to discuss the controversy over his portraits of Donald Trump’s inner circle in Vanity Fair. Anderson explains his trepidation over taking the assignment and his approach to it once he did; why the outrage over his pictures in some quarters is a result of a growing confusion between political figures and celebrities, the proliferation of photo filters and A.I. image distortion on social media, and a lack of comprehension that photojournalism is, in fact, journalism; and why no one should be shocked that he didn’t conceal signs of Karoline Leavitt's cosmetic enhancements or shoot Stephen Miller as if he were Brad Pitt (beyond the obvious, that is). See all the ways bp is investing in America at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠bp.com/InvestingInAmerica⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ .

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 loathing that have typified the Trump 2.0 era; and the sword of Damocles that hung over late night comedy in the year of Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension and Stephen Colbert’s cancellation. See all the ways bp is investing in America at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠bp.com/InvestingInAmerica⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ .

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. See all the ways bp is investing in America at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠bp.com/InvestingInAmerica⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ .

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. McCaffrey also assesses the recently unveiled official U.S. National Security Strategy, the elements of which he regards as ranging from incoherent to farcical to flat out “horrifying.” See all the ways bp is investing in America at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠bp.com/InvestingInAmerica⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ .

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 been straight up murder than a war crime on the part of Pete Hegseth (and others in the chain of command); that the firing of the top Army, Air Force, and acting Navy JAGs early in Trump’s second term was the first sign of an concerted and ongoing effort remove the rule of law from the armed forces; and that the boat-strike scandal portends more (and worse) lawless military orders to come. See all the ways bp is investing in America at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠bp.com/InvestingInAmerica⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ .

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 leadership of the Pentagon writ large; a stark assessment of where the metastasizing story is headed next; and a fraught view of the fragile state of civilian-military relations in Trump 2.0. See all the ways bp is investing in America at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠bp.com/InvestingInAmerica⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ .