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Impolitic with John Heilemann

Robert Kagan: Only Bad Options in Iran & Nothingburgers in Beijing

Impolitic with John Heilemann

Audacy | Puck

News, Politics

4.84.5K Ratings

🗓️ 18 May 2026

⏱️ 87 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

John welcomes Brookings Institution fellow and erstwhile neocon luminary Robert Kagan to discuss his buzzy recent piece in The Atlantic about the inevitability of American defeat in Iran. Kagan argues that the U.S. is not only losing the war now but has no plausible path to victory; that simply throwing in the towel is the least bad option available to Donald Trump, though its implications are beyond grim; and that the Trump-Xi Jinping summit in Beijing was a “ratification of the new reality” as to the relative power and prestige of their countries in the world today. 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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Some follow the noise.

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And when you see the money side, you understand what others miss.

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Subscribe now at Bloomberg.com.

1:00.0

Thank you. Now at Bloomberg.com. Aloha, Namaste, and welcome to Impolitic with John Heilman, a puck and Odyssey joint.

1:05.5

Even in an age when long-form journalism plays an increasingly, depressingly diminished role

1:10.6

in the national conversation.

1:12.5

And when magazine journalism in particular is hooked up to a ventilator to keep it just barely breathing,

1:18.0

every so often a piece gets published that still gets everyone talking.

1:22.7

Not everyone in America, God knows, but then that was probably ever the case,

1:25.9

even in the glorious of glory days in the business that I came up in. But everyone involved in what remains of the well-informed

1:32.2

substantive discourse over national affairs. The kind of piece that's analytically bold,

1:37.7

embracing, and at the same time nuanced and sophisticated. A piece that pulls together the

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