Impolitic with John Heilemann The Recount

John is joined by the legendary guitarist, singer, songwriter, producer, arranger, and all around rock-and-roll legend Steve Van Zandt, equally famous for his roles as Bruce Springsteen’s longtime sidekick and as Silvio Dante in The Sopranos. In their freewheeling conversation, Stevie reflects on how his remarkable, up-and-down, 60-year career as a musician, actor, and activist has, time and again, placed him at or near the center of modern culture — and how his proudest achievement to this day is the unlikely, ultimately heroic part he played in freeing Nelson Mandela.

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John is joined by Jen O’Malley Dillon—the legendary Democratic field organizer for Al Gore, Jon Edwards, and Barack Obama, manager of Joe Biden’s general-election campaign in 2020, and deputy chief of staff in Biden's White House from 2021 to 2023—in her first extended, on-the-record interview since taking over as chair of his reelection effort. The two discuss next week’s debate, the state of the presidential race, Team Biden’s battleground-state strategy, and the nagging questions around the president’s age and fitness for office. Jen also addresses the anxieties of the myriad Nervous Nellies in her party and pledges, “Joe Biden is going to win.”

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John is joined by the legendary restaurateur Danny Meyer—whose Union Square Hospitality Group has built a fine-dining empire in New York City (Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern, The Modern, Manhatta, Ci Siamo, and more) and spawned the multinational fast-casual juggernaut Shake Shack—to mourn the shocking, bewildering loss of a mutual friend, the fast-rising culinary superstar Jamal James Kent, at just 45. Danny also reflects on what has and hasn’t changed in restaurant culture since the heyday of bad boy celebrity chefs, the extent to which the industry has recovered from the pandemic, and the crucial differences between mere service and genuine hospitality.

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John is joined by Kara Swisher—celebrated chronicler of the titans of tech, host of the podcast On With Kara Swisher and cohost of the Pivot podcast with Scott Galloway, and author of the best-selling memoir Burn Book—to discuss Apple's embrace of A.I., Elon Musk's broadsides against the company, and Silicon Valley's newfound enthusiasm for Donald Trump. Then renowned political scribe and Primary Colors author Joe Klein stops by to mourn the passing of his and John's friend and former colleague, Howard Fineman.

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John is joined by ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos—co-anchor of Good Morning America, host of This Week, and author of the recently published New York Times No. 1 best-seller, The Situation Room—to discuss their industry’s ongoing failure to cover Donald Trump, the GOP, and this political moment for what they are: radically abnormal. George also reflects on his time in the White House, the similarities (and differences) between Trump and Bill Clinton, and how transcendental meditation “saved my life.”

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John is joined by Maggie Haberman, the heralded Times reporter and Trump scholar, to discuss the bubbling retribution fantasies of the former president and the wider MAGA-sphere. Maggie also reflects on her seven weeks covering the hush money trial, and the two dig into the Trump campaign's strategy and the potential electoral fallout from his 34-count felony conviction.

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