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Impolitic with John Heilemann

Kurt Andersen and Lawrence O’Donnell

Impolitic with John Heilemann

Audacy | Puck

News, Politics

4.84.5K Ratings

🗓️ 7 February 2023

⏱️ 84 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Kurt Andersen and Lawrence O’Donnell first met 46 years ago as undergraduates at Harvard, forming a friendship that’s flourished alongside their careers as two of their generation’s most incisive, insightful observers of American politics and culture. Andersen made his mark in the 1980s as co-founder of the iconic Spy magazine, then went on to serve as editor-in-chief of New York magazine, host of the Peabody Award-winning radio program “Studio 360,” and best-selling novelist and non-fiction author. O’Donnell cut his teeth in Washington as staff director of the powerful Senate Finance Committee and protege to legendary New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then transitioned to the TV business — first as an Emmy Award-winning writer on “The West Wing” and currently as host of “The Last Word” on MSNBC. On this week’s Hell & High Water, Heilemann, a friend of both Andersen and O’Donnell, brings the two men together for their first-ever joint interview. They discuss the performances of Joe Biden and Amanda Gorman on inauguration day, O’Donnell’s insider’s perspective on the January 6 assault on the US Capitol, and Andersen’s “grand unified theory” of modern American life, as sketched out in his recent companion volumes, “Fantasyland” and “Evil Geniuses.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. 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

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:53.8

Hey everyone, John Heilman here and welcome to Hell and Highwater, my podcast about politics and culture on the edge of Armageddon.

1:00.4

It's a determined, if dubious, committed if cuckoo for cocoa puffs, often wrong but rarely in doubt exercise in elevated gas baggery that neither rain nor snow nor heat nor gloom of night nor the

1:14.0

toxic rantings of the nut house right a president attempting to invalidate a legitimate election

1:19.0

and staged an auto coup complete with an armed insurrection at the united states capital nor more

1:24.1

broadly and arguably even more disturbingly the capture of a decent decent-sized chunk of our political, social, and civic spheres

1:30.6

by a cadre of incoherent, insidious, conspiracy addled, autocracy craving,

1:36.8

authoritarian-wors-wisping lunatics, hustlers, grifters, nihilists, and nincompoops,

1:40.8

none of it, none of it, has kept us from our duly sworn duty and obligations,

1:46.4

giving you, our listeners, a fresh episode of this podcast week after week, after week, after week,

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