Stuart Stevens: Trumpism’s Pickett’s Charge & 2028’s Yawning Chasm

Impolitic with John Heilemann

Audacy | Puck

Politics, News

4.8 • 4.2K Ratings

🗓️ 24 November 2025

⏱️ 75 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

John welcomes former Republican consultant, Lincoln Project/Lincoln Square bigwig, and bestselling author Stuart Stevens back to the show to discuss Donald Trump’s sudden political senescence. Stevens discusses the emerging dynamics and incentives driving GOP congresspeople to break with Trump; the continued risks he poses to American interests at home and abroad, especially in connection with Ukraine; and the vast talent gap between the two parties when it comes to the 2028 presidential race—and the particular problem Republicans are facing in the form of a de facto frontrunner, J.D. Vance, whom Stevens sees as “super creepy.” 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

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Aloha and Namaste, everyone, and welcome to Impolitic with John Hylman, a Puckin Odyssey
0:10.5	Joint, featuring lively, in-depth conversations with the people who cruise the corridors,
0:14.9	power in America, sculpting and shaping the ebb and flow of our politics and culture.
0:20.8	It is Thanksgiving week.
0:24.7	Glory B.
0:26.5	Time for all of us to take a break, give some thanks,
0:31.7	eat some turkey, watch a football,
0:33.9	fall into a triptophan-induced coma.
0:37.6	But before we get to Thursday, there's still a few more days. And given the way the news flow and the news cycle works around here, there's probably going to be all kinds of stuff to talk about. God knows there has been a lot to talk about over the course of the last 10 days or so. And the things that have been transpiring are really, really weird. I mean, like weird, you know, you can say all of the time that Donald Trump's been in the
0:57.8	center stage of our national life have been pretty weird.
1:00.2	But, you know, the, not collapse, but the kind of crack, the big wide giant, not just
1:09.4	hairline fracture, but the big giant crack in the middle of the MAGA movement,
1:12.6	the apparent shift of a lot of Donald Trump's political coalition
1:17.9	to suddenly having some degree of skepticism towards him.
1:20.9	Trump in the Oval Office making like a screwball comedy buddy movie
1:26.5	with Zara Mamdani.
1:28.4	That's all pretty weird stuff.
1:29.8	Marjorie Taylor Green.
1:31.6	After all that, after all that, she quits.
1:36.5	Some of these topics we're going to talk about today.
1:38.3	Some of them we're not going to talk about today.
1:39.9	But the main ones we are going to talk about are pretty central and kind of things that
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Audacy | Puck, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Audacy | Puck and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.