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 in...
Mark Warner & Rick Wilson: You Cannot Be Serious (But Signalgate Surely Is)
John is joined by Mark Warner, ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Lincoln Project founder Rick Wilson to discuss the story eclipsing all other political news this week: Signalgate. Although Warner is a consensus-seeking moderate Democrat and Wilson a bomb-throwing NeverTrump Republican, in their long careers both have come across their share of recklessness, sloppiness, and stupidity in the realm of national security. But neither has seen a more extravagant display of those defects than the Signal group chat in which Trump 2.0 officials shared sensitive details about the recent U.S. attack on Houthi rebels ahead of the attack. Warner and Wilson try to fathom the unfathomable while cataloging the vast risks involved and the deep lack of seriousness the episode suggests about Trump’s foreign policy team.
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1:22:40
Leigh Ann Caldwell: Capitol Hill as Capitol Hell
John is joined by Leigh Ann Caldwell, Puck’s newly minted chief Washington correspondent, to discuss how congressional Ds and Rs are coping with the new world order of Trump 2.0. Leigh Ann assesses the political aftershocks rippling through the Democratic ranks in the wake of what many in the party see as Chuck Schumer’s disastrous capitulation to the GOP in the government shutdown showdown; the grassroots potency of the Bernie Sanders/AOC road show and its unequivocally populist messaging; the uneasy combination of public denialism and private fear among Republicans about the continuing outbursts of anti-DOGE sentiment at GOP town hall meetings across the country; and the party’s barely concealed lack of appetite for heeding Donald Trump’s calls to impeach federal judges who rule against him.
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49:22
Andrew Weissmann: Law & Disorder
John is joined by former federal prosecutor and FBI general counsel Andrew Weissmann to discuss Donald Trump’s escalating attacks on the judiciary and what it means for the rule of law. Weissmann explains why the showdown between the Trump administration and federal district judge James Boasberg over the deportation of some 200 alleged Venezuelan gang members last weekend amounts to the first genuine constitutional crisis of the Trump 2.0 era; Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts viewed Trump’s call for Boasberg’s impeachment as so improper that Roberts felt compelled to issue a rare public rebuke of a sitting president; and Trump’s recent speech at DOJ headquarters was even more ominous than it sounded. Andrew also reflects on why being targeted directly by Trump—who referred to him in that speech as “scum”—bothers him less than you might assume.
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1:15:19
Liev Schreiber: Slava Ukraini!
John is joined by acclaimed actor Liev Schreiber to discuss his humanitarian aid work in Ukraine, his friendship with Volodymyr Zelensky, and the efforts to bring an end to the war in his ancestral homeland. Schreiber explains why the apparent strategy behind Donald Trump’s efforts to forge a ceasefire and force both sides to the negotiating table strike so many Ukraine allies as baffling at best; in the Oval Office dustup between Zelensky and Trump, it was the Ukrainian president, not the American one, who was standing up for American values; the sharp turn against Zelensky by so his once-steadfast Republican supporters is so shocking and infuriating; and the claims by many on the right that Zelensky doesn’t really want the war to end are so ludicrous—and insidious. Schreiber also breaks news by revealing his plans to return to the stage this spring as part of a new theater company, Together Productions, being founded by his friend, Hugh Jackman.
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1:24:53
Jake Auchincloss: Acquiescing to Chaos & Corruption
John is joined by Massachusetts Democratic congressman Jake Auchincloss to discuss how his party is handling the clash over a government shutdown and the broader challenges of Donald Trump's second term. Jake argues that voting for the Republican measure to fund the government is a mistake in terms of both policy and politics; the freakout in the worlds of business and finance about Trump’s trade war is nothing compared to what we’ll see when (Jake predicts) Trump tries to take over the Fed; the cowering of Speaker Mike Johnson before Elon Musk is “pathetic”; and ordinary voters are “livid” about Trump’s nastiness towards Volodymyr Zelensky and cozying up to Vladimir Putin. Jake also avers that Rahm Emanuel has it right when he says his party should spend more time talking about what goes on in America's classrooms than its locker rooms or bathrooms.
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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.
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