Impolitic with John Heilemann

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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