One-on-One.

With John Heilemann.

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John Heilemann is a bestselling author and former staff writer for Wired, New York magazine, The New Yorker, and The Economist. He created (and hosted) the Emmy-nominated docuseries ‘The Circus: Inside the Greatest Political Show on Earth’, which ran for eight seasons on Showtime. Currently, he’s a national affairs analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, and a mainstay of the Sunday edition of Puck’s ‘The Best & The Brightest’.

Two weeks ago, John and I talked about the war and the politics of the war on his podcast, ‘Impolitic”. Wednesday, we continued the conversation on The News Items Podcast.

We started by discussing the “ceasefire” in the Gulf, its impact on President Trump specifically and American politics more generally, the state of play in American politics as the mid-term elections approach and, at the end, a brief discussion about consciousness. It’s actually a brief discussion about a book about consciousness.

Below is the link to the podcast. Click on the forward arrow. It’s ~50 minutes long:

(The News Items Podcast. A conversation with John Heilemann. Produced by Dale Eisinger. Recorded 8 April 2026)

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You can find this podcast, and previous News Items podcasts, on most of the major platforms, including Apple, Amazon and Spotify.