Aloha and Namaste everyone and welcome to Impolitic with John Heilman, a puck and

Odyssey joint featuring lively in-depth conversations with the people who cruise the corridors

of power in America, sculpting and shaping the ebb and flow of our politics and culture. Happy New

Year, everyone, And here is hoping

that your recovery from your New Year's hangover is proceeding more painlessly and rapidly than

mine. Yish, man, all these days later, still suffering. My God. But I had a really fun new year's Eve um it's the price you

pay uh although we're now a few days into 2026 we still have a couple more episodes to go on our

retrospective series on 2025 the first of which we bring to you today as platinum tier friend of the

pod Andrew Weissman joins us to talk through the state of the rule of law

as we head into the second year of Donald Trump's second term after a first year in which the president,

his DOJ and his FBI, unleashed an unprecedented and relentless assault on America's once hallowed and once glorious

institutions and system of justice. Andrew's assessment is not pretty, but it also is an entirely

bleak, and you'll get the special and unexpected treat of hearing Andrew Weissman, that man,

talk about his love for Joni Mitchell.

It doesn't wholly alleviate all of the gloom and doom as we hear him address the topic at hand,

but it does provide a little ray of sunshine on this all-new episode of The Politics with John

Heilman, the first of 2026. That is coming at you in three, two, one.

This whole thing is with Epstein is a way of trying to deflect from the tremendous success

that the Republican Party has.

Like for instance, today we're building the biggest ships in the world, most powerful

ships in the world, and they're asking me questions about Jeffrey Epstein.

I thought that was finished.

...