Slate News

While the U.S. was busy capturing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, someone online was  busy placing bets on prediction markets on the ouster. And these well-timed bets may have netted a still-anonymous someone more than $400,000. Was this a case of kind-of-legal insider trading? Or is America going all-out on its efforts to make everything a casino? We’re going to be talking to pediatrician Dr...

This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss what the so-called “Donroe Doctrine” means for international order after the US military extracted Maduro from Venezuela amid rumblings over Greenland and Cuba, the background and evolving situation in Minnesota after an ICE agent killed a woman during a raid, and how changes to the federal recommended childhood vaccine schedule dan...

After the Trump administration launched a massive Immigrations and Customs Enforcement operation in Minnesota, protesters gathered to defend immigrant neighbors. Renee Nicole Good, a mother of a six year old, showed up with her wife and dog to film altercations between officers and community members. What happened next changed everything.  Guest: Jon Collins , senior reporter on the Minnesota Publ...

How a mixture of real investigations, wild allegations, evidence of actual fraud, and the right-wing echo chamber ended Tim Walz’s governor campaign in Minnesota. Guest: Deena Winter , Minneapolis City Hall reporter for the Star Tribune.  Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe tod...

The investigation into the 2021 attack on the Capitol was the largest in FBI history. Then Trump came back into office—and started undoing it.  Guest: Ryan Reilly, reporter covering the Justice Department and federal law enforcement for NBC News, author of Sedition Hunters: How January 6th Broke the Justice System . Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the wh...

In this Money Talks: Journalist and author Tarpley Hitt joins Emily Peck to discuss her new book Barbieland: The Unauthorized History which reveals the shady history behind the super-star doll. They’ll get into inventor Ruth Handler’s so-called "inspiration" by a popular German doll, Mattel’s industry spies and many, many lawsuits, and how Handler single-handedly prevented Nixon-era maternity leav...

The Trump administration has a handful of answers to the question “Why did the United States pluck Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela?”—it was for narcoterrorism, or payback, or just oil. They’re even less clear about what’s going to happen with the country now. Guest: Shane Harris , staff writer covering national security and intelligence for the Atlantic.  Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus...

The Trump administration wants NASA to land astronauts on the moon by 2027. They also want them to do it with their budget slashed, a leadership carousel and competing views that Mars is more important.  Guest: Joel Achenbach, freelance journalist and author of Moondoggle If you want to support more of this reporting, in 2026 and beyond, consider signing up for Slate Plus. You’ll enjoy ad-free lis...

In a special new year retrospective, Amicus host Dahlia Lithwick revisits an important episode from early 2025. Back at the beginning of February, Kim Lane Scheppele, the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Sociology and International affairs at Princeton University, pointed to  the speed and viciousness of the very opening legal gambits in Trump 2.0 as evidence that America had already switched...

This week: 2025 ended on high for the US stock market but no one seems too pleased with its performance. Felix Salmon , Elizabeth Spiers , and Emily Peck , unpack the story of the US markets in 2025, why it was outperformed internationally, and the role AI has  played. Then, the hosts discuss how, amid the uncertainty and chaos of Trump’s trade war, Mexico has found a way to come out on top. And f...

Host Mary Harris appeared on stage a few weeks back to speak in response to a night of “Resistance Theater,” considering how she, as a journalist, is preparing to meet this political moment.  This episode is member-exclusive. Listen to it now by subscribing to Slate Plus. By joining, not only will you unlock exclusive episodes of What Next —you’ll also access ad-free listening across all your favo...

Artificial intelligence boosters spent the year wedging the tech into our lives – whether we wanted it or not. But one new product brought A.I. from every app and website into the meatspace, forcing you to face it eye-to-eye. Guest: Nitish Pahwa, staff writer at Slate covering business and technology Want more What Next: TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Ne...

2025 might not have been a great year —but the music sure was stellar. Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Podcast production by...

This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz revisit several favorite segments from Gabfests past to celebrate their 20th anniversary: the consequential and eye-opening “don’t call the police” debate, the segment in which John shows Bill Clinton how to apologize with his characteristic eloquence and grace, and that time a data scientist definitively answered the important question: wh...

With rising authoritarianism, terrifying speech crackdowns, and violence in the streets, this year we found ourselves turning to our friends over at How To for advice on  finding peace and excitement in our lives. Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by c...

If you were to sum up 2025 in a film, which would you pick? The question that nearly wrecked the brain of Slate’s chief movie critic. Guest: Dana Stevens , Slate’s movie critic. Dana’s ten best movies of 2025 . Her review of Sinners . And her review of One Battle After Another . Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all yo...

Canada and the United States usually have a pretty good-natured sports rivalry—but from hockey to baseball, that was not the case in 2025.  Guest:  Alex Kirshner, contributing writer at Slate, co-host of Hang Up and Listen and the Split Zone Duo podcasts.  Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favorite Slate podca...

With so much online content, it can be hard for a meme to stay in the collective consciousness for more than a few days. But one meme this year managed to capture seemingly everyone’s attention - and challenge the definition of a meme altogether.  Guest: Kate Lindsay , host of Slate’s ICYMI podcast.  If you want to support more of this reporting, in 2026 and beyond, consider signing up for Slate P...

Over the past calendar year, the Supreme Court’s center has shifted to the right and then more to the right, and the justices’ decisions have time and again facilitated Trump’s agenda. But the Roberts majority is not simply focused on what the current president wants; it has its sights set on a larger project: voting. Suppressing and constraining and problematizing the core function of democratic...

This week: We’re celebrating a year full of hot takes! Felix Salmon , Elizabeth Spiers , and Emily Peck , debate and rate the hottest takes they’ve heard this year — like Elon Musk’s claim that there will be no poverty in the future , the idea that Trump’s tariffs didn’t matter – and the collection of fire takes Felix gathered from around the Bloomberg news room.  In the Slate Plus episode: The ho...

All this week, What Next and What Next: TBD are re-airing some of our favorite conversations from throughout the year and checking back with the people in those conversations to see how things have – or haven’t – changed. This episode originally aired in September.  We’ve been told that artificial intelligence can write, code, generate images—it can do everything…except feasibly turn a profit. But...

This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, David Plotz, and special guest Stephen Colbert answer listeners’ conundrums of all kinds: the meaningful, the trivial, and the delightfully absurd. Thanks to all Conundrums contributors: Karl, Elodie, Mitchell, Brian, Phil, Eric, Christian, Kyle, Matthew, Katie, Jesse, John, Bjorn, David, Colin, Alan, Emily, Marie, and Liam! Email your chatters, questions,...

All this week, What Next and What Next: TBD are re-airing some of our favorite conversations from throughout the year and checking back with the people in those conversations to see how things have – or haven’t – changed. This episode is from August. More than a thousand rabbis and Jewish leaders have signed a letter calling for Israel to end “the use and threat of starvation as a weapon of war.”...

All this week, What Next and What Next: TBD are re-airing some of our favorite conversations from throughout the year and checking back with the people in those conversations to see how things have – or haven’t – changed. This episode is from August. From the Statue of Liberty to the Golden Gate Bridge, and places in between like Yellowstone and the site of the Battle of Gettysburg, the National P...

All this week, What Next and What Next: TBD are re-airing some of our favorite conversations from throughout the year and checking back with the people in those conversations to see how things have – or haven’t – changed. This episode is from October. In an executive order, Donald Trump declared “Antifa” a terrorist organization. As it isn’t an organization, there aren’t leaders to target, so zeal...