Impolitic with John Heilemann

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.

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.

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.