Slate News

Ongoing civil war in Sudan has left tens of thousands dead, with millions displaced. A country of great natural resources, regional foreign governments have chosen sides—but foreign aid from the US that had mitigated some of the war’s damage is gone.  Guest: David Miliband , president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee, former UK foreign secretary 2007-2010. Want more What Next? Subscri...

You can’t really blame Donald Trump for thinking he could just handwave away the Epstein Files. But for the first time in what feels like forever, his base, the GOP, and his own desires don’t quite align.  Guest: Will Sommer , senior reporter at the Bulwark.  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 po...

Trump can’t seem to decide if the National Guard is needed in American cities to stop violent crime, or to assist ICE deportations, or something else entirely. And the lack of a clear and present crisis is starting to make some Guard members uncomfortable.  Guest: Kat Lonsdorf, news reporter for National Public Radio. Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the...

The parent company of Facebook and Instagram, Meta, doesn’t (just) have a scam problem—with 10 percent of its revenue coming from scam ads, and a third of all successful scams in America using a Meta platform at some point, it’s more an interdependence with scammers. Guest: Jeff Horwitz , tech reporter for Reuters. Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the...

Dahlia Lithwick welcomes retired federal judge Mark Wolf for his first ever podcast interview. The Reagan-appointed jurist made headlines last week with his searing indictment of the threat posed to the rule of law and democracy by the current administration. Judge Wolf opens up about his decision to leave the bench after decades of public service and the challenges faced by judges in the face of...

John Dickerson talks with journalist and author Andrew Ross Sorkin about his new book 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History and How It Shattered a Nation . Recorded live at the 92nd Street Y in NYC, their conversation explores how a decade of optimism, leverage, and moral hazard culminated in the financial collapse that defined modern capitalism. Sorkin details how figures like ba...

This week: FHFA director Bill Pulte convinced Trump to back 50-year mortgages with some posterboard and a photo of FDR.  Felix Salmon , Elizabeth Spiers , and Emily Peck , discuss why Trump’s post about 50-year mortgages angered conservatives – officials and voters alike – and why they’re more of a hindrance than a solution to the housing crisis. Then, the White House is considering limiting the p...

They don’t cut cleanly along party lines, but data centers, and where they get built, became an election issue in Virginia. With so many more data centers to build, are we looking at a new trend?  Guest: Margaret Barthel , reporter covering northern Virginia for WAMU.  Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite S...

This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss why Democrats caved to end the government shutdown and what comes next, the affordability crisis with guest and editorial director for New York Times Opinion David Leonhardt , and the importance of this week’s spectacle of competing Epstein document drops. For this week’s Slate Plus bonus episode, Emily, John, and David discuss the...

In a new, very special, Death, Sex and Money and Slate Money crossover, Felix Salmon and Anna Sale are once again joined by Felix’s financial advisor Adrianna Adams from Domain Money to talk about…parents. They dig into the emotions of trying to take care of your aging parents while also growing your own wealth, the importance of setting goals, and to do with aging children AND aging parents at th...

Why would Elon Musk attempt to replace Wikipedia—which is already quite futuristic, utopian and accurate—with a faulty, hallucinatory A.I.-powered “Grokipedia”? Well, see, he called it “Wokepedia…” Guest: Stephen Harrison , writer, tech lawyer, author of “ Why Editing Wikipedia Is Becoming More Dangerous ” for Slate and The Editors , a novel about Wikipedia. Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate...

It didn’t take long to go from Beyoncé holding for applause in front of the word “FEMINISM” to a headline in the New York Times asking “Did Women Ruin the Workplace?” How long is this backlash going to last? Guest:  Danielle Kurtzleben, political correspondent at NPR.  Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favorit...

It has been the longest government shutdown on record. Why did the Democrats choose this moment—right after elections proved how unpopular Donald Trump and his policies truly are—to cave in and end it? Guest: Jamelle Bouie , New York Times opinion columnist. 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 pod...

In this Money Talks: Elizabeth Spiers is joined by Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman , to discuss her book The Double Tax: How Women of Color Are Overcharged and Underpaid . They discuss Anna’s extensive research into how racism and sexism create real economic barriers in the US, why it’s not just women of color who should be worried about this disturbing trend, and what can actually be done about it. Join...

Children with disabilities' place in public schools—though legally mandated—has often been tenuous at best. Now the Trump Administration is targeting the department that oversees special ed. What does that mean for kids and their parents? Guest:  Pepper Stetler , author of A Measure of Intelligence: One Mother’s Reckoning with the IQ Test and professor at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Want mor...

Tesla shareholders just approved a trillion dollar (with a t!) pay package for Elon Musk. Is it enough incentive to keep him around the company and away from verbal spats with government officials? Because the whole Musk empire is still reeling from that dalliance. Guest: Faiz Siddiqui , tech reporter at The Washington Post and author of Hubris Maximus: the Shattering of Elon Musk . Want more What...

The Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices have been treating the Trump administration with such extreme deference that we were honestly a little flummoxed listening to this week’s arguments over his “Liberation Day” tariffs. Shockingly, during Wednesday’s arguments in Learning Resources v. Trump and Trump v. V.O.S. Selections , it seemed like the justices were in fact, concerned with preside...

This week: Trump’s team has argued to the Supreme Court that his tariffs weren’t about raising revenue, despite his many previous claims to the contrary. Felix Salmon , Elizabeth Spiers , Emily Peck , and guest Jeff Horwitz of Reuters, discuss whether this argument will hold against the law that says only Congress has the right to raise revenue via tariffs and taxes, or if the Supreme Court will a...

Well well well. Looks like being a truculent, aging sex pest who clearly hates the constituency he aspires to rule only works in national elections. In New York City, Zohran Mamdani overcame the longshot odds that came from being charismatic, energetic, and actually interested in government. Guest: Aymann Ismail , Slate staff writer and author of “ Mamdani’s Win Is a Reminder of What’s Possible. ”...

Nick Fuentes—an openly antisemitic, openly racist, openly sexist type who once was persona non grata in all but the unseemliest of online spaces—sat down with former Fox News star Tucker Carlson this week, setting off a debate between the “whoa whoa whoa, we’re not Nazis over here” branch of conservatives and the “well now, hold on a minute” wing. Guest: Ali Breland , staff writer for The Atlantic...

This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss how Tuesday’s decisive election results give a legitimate boost to Democrats’ prospects as they work toward the midterms, whether the Supreme Court justices will finally draw a line on presidential power and protect Congress’s power of the purse in the consequential tariffs case, and how the Trump administration is using SNAP recipi...

Trump’s tariffs went before the Supreme Court this week and even the extremely accommodating Roberts court was having trouble seeing how the president’s vast and capricious application of tariffs is constitutional. But that doesn’t mean they’re going away. Guest: Justin Wolfers , economist and professor at the University of Michigan. Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free l...

In a new, very special, Death, Sex and Money and Slate Money crossover, Felix Salmon and Anna Sale dig into the stressful world of financial advice and planning for retirement. How do you know if you’re set up financially to retire? Is it possible to think about retirement without having a panic attack? How much should you track your 401k? What apps should I delete? They’re joined by Felix’s finan...

How Virginia Giuffre’s accusations of a decade ago finally brought His Royal Highness Prince Andrew, Duke of York, down to simply Andrew. Guest: Imogen West-Knights , Slate contributing writer. 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” a...

She won a special election on Sept. 23 but still hasn’t been sworn into the House of Representatives—even though new members have been sworn in during government shutdowns in the past. What explains Speaker Mike Johnson’s now record-long delay?  Guest: Adelita Grijalva, representative-elect for Arizona’s 7th congressional district. Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free lis...