Slate News

In this exclusive Opinionpalooza extra, Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern take stock of today’s truly horrendous decisions handed down by a right-wing Supreme Court supermajority that’s marching in perfect lockstep on immigration, gun rights, and almost everything else. Dahlia and Mark sort through the brutalizing, even lethal implications for asylum seekers and more than 1 million recipients...

This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss Tuesday's NY congressional primaries won by three Mamdani-backed democratic socialists and what they could mean for the Democratic Party, two new Supreme Court immigration rulings siding with the Trump administration, and the ongoing Reflecting Pool debacle as the symbol of a presidency of obsessive ego and shiny objects. For this w...

Where do negotiations with Iran stand at the moment? Well, Iran’s out from under a more-than-four-decade-long sanction and could start making bank, plus it controls the Strait of Hormuz and hasn’t agreed to any concessions on its nuclear program. On the American side, JD Vance got to see Switzerland.  Guest: Tommy Vietor, co-founder of Crooked Media and co-host of the political podcasts Pod S...

Most people probably don’t think about the reflecting pool on the National Mall much, but Donald Trump sure does. His efforts to cosmetically raise it to his standards have been staggeringly expensive, and ineffective in surprising ways. It encapsulates the Trump presidency experience pretty succinctly. Guest : Christina Cauterucci , Slate senior writer Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus...

In this Money Talks: Emily Peck sits down with Soumaya Keynes and Chad P. Bown , co-authors of How to Win a Trade War , to discuss how recent conflicts have changed the rules of international trade and which strategy they believe is the key to “winning” a modern trade war.   Podcast production by Jessamine Molli. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

With lethal injection drugs getting harder and harder to procure, states are legalizing death by firing squad. It may seem like a return to a more barbaric time, but there’s reason to believe that execution methods like lethal injection or nitrogen gas are even less humane. But even moreso, it may force us to confront our feelings about the death penalty as a nation. Guests: Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood , C...

It has been 250 years and America still doesn’t know how to talk about the genocide of indigenous peoples that kicked the whole thing off. Guest: Rebecca Nagle, host of Pushkin’s First America podcast , Crooked's This Land podcast, and author of “ By The Fire We Carry: The Generation-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land ”. Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening t...

Emily Bazelon interviews Senator Chris Murphy about his new book Crisis of the Common Good: The Fight for Meaning and Connection in a Broken America . Murphy argues that Trump is not the root cause of America's political crisis—he's a symptom. The real diagnosis: a country ravaged by loneliness, disconnection, and the collapse of community. From gun violence to Jan. 6, Murphy traces our troubles b...

This week: We saw just how many people are willing to invest in Elon Musk. Felix Salmon , Elizabeth Spiers , and Emily Peck , look at what makes SpaceX’s massive IPO so strange and why investors are willing to overlook things like Musk’s obsession with going to Mars. Then, they discuss Donald Trump’s deal with Iran and what the war has done to Iran’s economy. And finally, Emily unpacks the origin...

The Supreme Court handed down a unanimous ruling this week in United States v. Hemani , holding that a marijuana user cannot be stripped of his Second Amendment right to own a firearm simply because he sometimes uses cannabis. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion, leaning heavily on the founders' own well-documented love of alcohol to argue that responsible substance use has never histo...

Everyone needs a hobby. Unfortunately, instead of, say, model trains, the world’s first trillionaire’s seems to unwind by boosting calls for anti-immigrant violence on his social media platform. Guest: Nitish Pahwa , Slate staff writer covering business and tech. This episode is member-exclusive. Listen to it now by subscribing to Slate Plus. By joining, not only will you unlock exclusive episodes...

People are asking artificial intelligence large language models how to do everything—even how to harm themselves and others. And while companies claim there are guardrails in place for those situations, we’ve already seen real-world instances of an LLM’s advice being used to plan a mass shooting. Guest: Mark Follman, national affairs editor at Mother Jones and author of “ Trigger Points: Inside th...

This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss what the U.S. is getting and what it is giving up with the deal to end Trump's Iran war, how Trump's UFC fight at the White House intentionally used the symbols of the presidency to divide rather than unite Americans, and the intensifying conflict between the government and powerful AI companies. For this week’s Slate Plus bonus epi...

Oil prices fell when Trump announced a deal had been struck with Iran, but don’t mistake that for things going back to “normal.” We left “normal” a long time ago. Guest: Justin Wolfers, economist and professor at the University of Michigan, and author and host of Platypus Economics . Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across a...

Both the US and Iran are talking up a deal that will end the war and re-open the Strait of Hormuz. So why is Israel so upset about it?  Guest: Gregg Carlstrom , Middle East correspondent for the Economist 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 click...

From the firing of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Charles Q. Brown Jr., to the removal of the first Black four-star general’s portrait from the Pentagon, to striking Black and women Naval officers’ names from the promotion list, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s vision for the future of the military seems to come at the expense of Black servicemembers and their careers—leading many to que...

Two horror films by two young directors have outmuscled an honest-to-Grogu Star Wars to become the early box office surprises of the summer.   Guest: Justin Chang , film critic at The New Yorker 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 F...

This week: Inflation hit its highest rate in three years thanks to skyrocketing energy prices. Felix Salmon , Elizabeth Spiers , and Emily Peck , parse through what the various inflation numbers mean and discuss the Fed’s and Donald Trump’s blasé reaction to the situation. Then, with the trustees warning of its depletion by 2032, the hosts talk about the possible consequences of losing Social Secu...

The Second Reconstruction is being dismantled piece by piece, and this past month has seen that project attain terminal velocity. On this week’s Amicus podcast, Dahlia Lithwick talks with Stanford law professor and leading civil rights lawyer and scholar Pamela S Karlan, about a series of quick-fire moves from the high court and the Trump administration that, taken together, reveal a rapid disasse...

It’s real: The two great flavors of What Next and What Next TBD together at last. But what’s not real? Where does a sincere speaker using a medium with a motive fall? And how much wolf can you cry before they just take you off shepherd duty? 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...

Is Elon Musk’s SpaceX leading humanity to Mars? Or is that just grandiose window-dressing for an A.I. company leading several other A.I. companies to IPOs?  Guest: Max Chafkin , reporter with Bloomberg Businessweek and cohost of the Everybody's Business podcast. Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favor...

This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss whether this week's resumption of open hostilities in the Iran war has changed the likelihood of an imminent end to the conflict, what to do about how California's slow vote-counting emboldens Trump's cries of election foul, and the most hotly contested D.C. mayoral election in a generation with guest Mike Schaffer from City Cast DC...

How Donald Trump rearranging the White House lawn to accommodate a UFC fight neatly mirrors the way the organization and its parent company have reshaped themselves around the president. Guest: Luke Thomas , MMA journalist and host of the Morning Kombat podcast.  Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favorite...

After being eradicated in the United States in the ‘60s, screwworm is back—at a time when beef is even more in demand and the American herd is already depleted. How long will consumers be forced to choose between high prices and, ugh, turkey burgers? Guest: Kevin Draper , New York Times business correspondent covering the agricultural industry. Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to acces...

Why would Trump choose Bill Pulte to be the new acting Director of National Intelligence? Pulte may not have a background in national security, but since he was already Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, you have to admit it was convenient to hire from the batch of people who were already around. Guest: Andrew Egger , White House correspondent for the Bulwark .  Want more What Ne...