You may have read the news in Axios or seen me blabbing about it on Morning Joe, but in case you’ve been preoccupied with more pressing matters—the NBA playoffs (R.I.P., my Lakers 😣; L.F.G., my Knicks 🙏); Zendaya serving up ace after ace in Challengers; Aaron Sorkin revealing that he’s working on a Social Network sequel about January 6; Donald Trump spurring a pitched debate over whether chronic narcolepsy or wanton flatulence is the more apposite of his courtroom afflictions—here’s the deal: I’ve just joined Puck as chief political columnist and host of a new podcast. 

The column I’ll be writing and the podcast I’ll be hosting will share the same name: Impolitic. From this weekend forward, the column will be published every Sunday and will anchor Puck’s kick-ass daily political franchise, The Best & The Brightest. As for the podcast, many of you were loyal listeners (thanks!) of Hell & High Water, the weekly pod I hosted for The Recount from 2020 to 2023. The new show will essentially be a Puck-ish reboot: still centered on in-depth interviews with influential figures, still focused on politics and culture, but now posting twice per week instead of once, and rechristened as Impolitic With John Heilemann.

I have a lot to say about what drew me to Puck, why I’m thrilled to be here, and what I have in mind for Impolitic, but I’ll leave all that for my first proper column this Sunday.

To begin with, if you’re on this list, it means you’re a friend, family member, subject, source, collaborator, or competitor of mine—or, at least, that our paths have crossed, however fleetingly, at some point (long enough for me to snag your email address and pleasantly enough that the encounter didn’t end in bloodshed or incarceration). Because you’re on this list, you’ll start receiving Impolitic in your inbox on Sundays, plus a shorter missive that I’ll be sending out during the week.

You’ll also receive the daily editions of The Best & The Brightest if you don’t already, in which my crackerjack new colleagues—Julia Ioffe, Peter Hamby, Abby Livingston, Tara Palmeri, and Tina Nguyen, a murderers’ row of veteran reporters with years of experience, hard-won wisdom, and peerless source networks—cover what’s really going down in D.C., from the White House and Capitol Hill to Foggy Bottom, the Pentagon, K Street, and, of course, The Palm.

And oh, hey, one last thing: Did you know Puck offers group subscriptions? I thought not. If you’re interested, email Fritz@puck.news. You can start a group sub with as few as five users. 

Thanks for reading—and see you here on Sunday!

JH