The Recount

In Part One of this special two-part episode, Heilemann talks with his pal Nicolle Wallace, host of Deadline: White House on MSNBC, about the battle between democracy and autocracy at home and abroad.

John Heilemann talks with international affairs and national security guru Tom Nichols, contributing writer at The Atlantic, longtime senior faculty member at the U.S. Naval War College, and author of eight books on foreign policy and politics, including, most recently, Our Own Worst Enemy: The Assault from Within on Modern Democracy.

John Heilemann talks with international affairs and national security guru Tom Nichols about the exemplary resilience and improbable rise of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a wartime leader and international icon.

As with any war, there is a sense of desperation for people to understand what is happening on the ground in Ukraine in real time. In a region where journalists are often targeted as political dissidents and risk death while reporting inside a war zone, we have come to disproportionately rely on first-hand accounts from Ukrainians. Meanwhile, old videos have been posted on TikTok to look like they’re from the current conflict. Photos have been staged to look like attacks on civilians.

John Heilemann talks with Neal Katyal and Robin Lenhardt, two of the sharpest legal minds of their generation, about the Senate confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. Both are longtime friends of Judge Jackson, with whom they share a formative bond as members of the elite club of former clerks to retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, whose seat KBJ is all but certain to fill.

The owners and players that make Major League Baseball reached a deal on a new collective bargaining agreement earlier this month — and as part of it, the sport will finally change a few rules to boost game action. In recent years, games have slowed dramatically — with more dead time than ever — and the number of balls in play slumped as well. The changes on the horizon are expected to be the most consequential in decades.

Continuing from Part 1, John Heilemann talks with international affairs and national security guru Tom Nichols about the debate over whether Russian President Vladimir Putin’s behavior and rhetoric suggest that he is losing touch with reality and becoming unhinged.

Despite making up 13.4% of the U.S. population, Black Americans hold just 4% of total household wealth. Decades upon decades of racist government policies and loan practices have put African Americans at a serious disadvantage for building generational wealth. Now some in the Black community are turning to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin to stake a claim in their financial future.

Where would the NBA be without Larry Bird and Magic Johnson? The two joined the league in an era when the Finals were broadcast late at night, on tape delay. That would change once they showed up and started playing one another, as the duo dominated prime time. Their very first meeting, however, wasn’t a pro ball encounter but a 1979 NCAA Championship Game. And yet it drew 40 million television viewers, garnering a 24.1 Nielsen rating that remains the highest ever for a basketball game of any kind.

In the wake of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearings to the U.S. Supreme Court, John Heilemann talks with Neal Katyal and Robin Lenhardt, two of the sharpest legal minds of their generation and longtime friends of Jackson.