{"podcast":{"title":"Impolitic with John Heilemann","slug":"impolitic-with-john-heilemann-1329107","podcast_index_feed_id":1329107,"rss_url":"https://feeds.megaphone.fm/hell-high-water","website_url":"https://www.audacy.com/podcast/hell-high-water-with-john-heilemann-d7e64","image_url":"https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/108bfb12-07b8-11ef-b10d-3f1fb921fd98/image/9891952d967ce5e13366277337abe869.jpg?ixlib=rails-4.3.1&max-w=3000&max-h=3000&fit=crop&auto=format,compress","author":"Audacy | Puck","episode_count":379,"summary":"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.","last_synced_at":"2026-06-13T08:19:32.336590+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/impolitic-with-john-heilemann-1329107"},"episode":{"title":"Robert Kagan: Only Bad Options in Iran & Nothingburgers in Beijing","slug":"robert-kagan-only-bad-options-in-iran-nothingburgers-in-beijing","published_at":"2026-05-18T17:14:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/impolitic-with-john-heilemann-1329107/robert-kagan-only-bad-options-in-iran-nothingburgers-in-beijing","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/impolitic-with-john-heilemann-1329107","url":"https://tracking.swap.fm/track/v9Uiw3bGr54f6BVZKSyc/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.megaphone.fm/CAD7507208288.mp3?updated=1779124432","audio_url":"https://tracking.swap.fm/track/v9Uiw3bGr54f6BVZKSyc/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.megaphone.fm/CAD7507208288.mp3?updated=1779124432","summary":"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. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices","meta_description":"John welcomes Brookings Institution fellow and erstwhile neocon luminary Robert Kagan to discuss his buzzy recent piece in The Atlantic about the inevitab…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":5280,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/impolitic-with-john-heilemann-1329107/episodes/robert-kagan-only-bad-options-in-iran-nothingburgers-in-beijing/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/impolitic-with-john-heilemann-1329107/robert-kagan-only-bad-options-in-iran-nothingburgers-in-beijing.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}