Slate News

This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz continue to debate if Joe Biden should stay in the presidential race and who might replace him if he goes; discuss Project 2025; and ponder if Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett deserves a strange, new respect.   Here are some notes and references from this week’s show:   George Clooney in The New York Times:  I Love Joe Biden. But We...

Air-conditioning can feel like the only way to get through increasingly hot summers, but it’s an expensive, power-hungry way to keep cool.  How necessary is it? And how necessary is it to raise our thermostats up from 72 degrees? Guest: Adam Clark Estes , senior technology correspondent at Vox. Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family a...

Should Joe Biden still be the Democratic nominee in this presidential race? Elected Democrats have almost all said Biden is still the man. But Rep. Mike Quigley put his misgivings on the record. Guest: Rep. Mike Quigley , Democratic representative for Illinois’ fifth district.  Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all you...

France’s far-right looked ready to take control of the National Assembly after the first round of snap elections. But when the dust settled after the second round, the left and center had held.  Though French progressives are celebrating for now, the right-wing National Rally party still took more parliament seats than it’s ever held before.  Guest: Harrison Stetler , freelance journalist based in...

For this Money Talks, former Teen Vogue executive editor Samhita Mukhopadhyay speaks with host Emily Peck about the false promise of the “girl boss” myth. In her book “The Myth of Making It,” Samhita recounts her own grueling climb to the top — a road paved with double standards and toxicity for women — and why she left it all behind. In her conversation with Emily, she discusses enduring hurdles...

What the fight against the “Briggs Initiative” in 1970s California tells us about the fight for gay rights—and the fight to keep those victories in place. Guest: Christina Cauterucci , senior writer at Slate and host of Slow Burn Season 9: Gays Against Briggs . 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...

The downsides of the streaming era are coming into focus for movie fans—uncontrollable, changing libraries; lower fidelity; lack of extras and features. Can all of these be solved with a return to physical media?  Guest:  Ash Nelson , journalist and author of “ The Lost Art of the DVD Extra ” for Slate.  Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What...

What just happened??? Despite going into June clear-eyed and well informed about the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority, the number of huge cases before it, and the alarming stakes in so many of those cases…we are, nonetheless, shocked. The October 2023 term came to a shuddering end on Monday July 1st and Dahlia Lithwick, Mark Joseph Stern, Steve Vladeck and Mary Anne Franks are here to he...

This week, Felix Salmon , and Elizabeth Spiers are joined by Shira Ovide , who writes the newsletter The Tech Friend for the Washington Post , and Peter Thal Larsen of Reuters, who demystifies the wacky state of European and British politics. Also: Are Chipotle burritos getting smaller? And why did Warren Buffett, top ally of the Gates Foundation, give his money to a not-yet-existing charity, hypo...

The world’s population has never been bigger, and it’s still growing. but there’s a movement of “pronatalists” who see the slowing birth rate in wealthy, educated populations as a doomsday scenario in the making—and they’ve found their spokesman in one Elon Musk. Guest: Sophie Alexander, reporter for Bloomberg Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whol...

This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss the Supreme Court decisions on presidential immunity in  Trump v. United States  and the administrative state in  Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo  as well as the future of Joe Biden’s nomination to be re-elected president.   Here are some notes and references from this week’s show: Supreme Court of the United States:  Opinions...

Last week the Supreme Court ruled a $6 billion settlement between Purdue Pharma and victims of the opioid crisis could not move forward, because it granted immunity to the Sackler family, the principal owners of Purdue. For one of the litigants, a mother who has lost two sons to overdoses, the decision felt like “a sucker punch.” Guest: Cheryl Juaire, part of the bankruptcy settlement with Purdue...

When Roe v. Wade was overturned, a near-total abortion ban was triggered in Idaho, allowing for health exceptions only when “necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman.” But a case that found the ban in conflict with a federal law known as “EMTALA” went all the way to the Supreme Court, before being sent back to lower courts—neither overturning nor upholding Idaho’s ban.  Guest: Dr. Stac...

The Supreme Court has ruled that presidents enjoy “substantial immunity” from prosecution for crimes committed while in office, which includes absolute immunity for “core constitutional duties” and “presumptive immunity” for “official acts.”  All good news for one Donald J. Trump. How bad is it for the rest of us?  Guest: Richard Hasen , law professor at UCLA and director of UCLA Law’s Safeguardin...

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority rounded out the term by gifting massive unprecedented power to commit criminal wrongdoing to presidents. A court that already put a thumb on the scale for former President Donald J Trump by slow talking and slow walking the immunity case in exactly the way he hoped, has now thrown out the scale in favor of a brand new sweeping, monarchic immunity ruling in...

If you’re questioning the choice of Joe Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee after his debate, uh, performance last week, you’re not alone. But how do you swap candidates this late in the calendar—and who do the Democrats even have as an option? Guest: David Faris , associate professor of political science at Roosevelt University and author of The Kids Are All Left and It’s Time to Fight D...

The story of IUDs is a story of technology, reproductive rights, shortcomings in communication about women’s health, and politics.  Guest: Mia Armstrong-Lopez, managing editor at ASU Media Enterprise and author of a recent piece on IUDs for Slate .  Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subsc...

This week, Slate Money goes to court. Felix Salmon , Emily Peck , and Elizabeth Spiers discuss two big Supreme Court rulings: One that stripped government agencies of regulatory power, and another that struck down Purdue Pharma and the Sacklers’ bankruptcy plan. Also: Giant “megacap” companies rule the stock market. Is that good? In the Plus segment: the once-popular potato has fallen out of fashi...

While most everyone was reacting to Thursday’s Presidential debate, we had our eyes trained on the Supreme Court. It was again (surprise!) bad. SCOTUS determined that sleeping outside was illegal in Grants Pass v Johnson. They limited the scope by which insurrectionists could be charged for their actions on January 6, 2021 in Fischer v United States. The unelected robed leaders then laid a finishi...

The morning after, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss the first presidential debate of 2024 and President Joe Biden’s disastrous performance.    Here are some notes and references from the show:  CNN Presidential Debate: President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump Will Weissert for AP:  Here’s why it would be tough for Democrats to replace Joe Biden on the presidentia...

Saying any one storm or heat wave or weather in general was “caused by climate change” is tricky—summer is, after all, usually pretty hot, and storms happen. But researchers are working on a model that brings “climate change” from abstract into the particular.   Guest:  Daniel Swain , climate scientist at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, studying how extreme events are cha...

What’s this? A bonus Opinionpalooza episode for one and all? That’s right! The hits just keep coming from SCOTUS this week, and two big decisions landed Thursday that might easily get lost in the mix: Ohio v EPA and SEC v Jarkesy . Both cases shine a light on the conservative legal movement (and their billionaire funders’) long game against administrative agencies. In Ohio v EPA , the Court struck...

This week, Emily Bazelon and David Plotz discuss the recent Supreme Court rulings on emergency abortions and guns with Yale Law School’s  Linda Greenhouse  and Congressman Jamaal Bowman’s loss in a New York Democratic primary. Here are some notes and references from this week’s show: Supreme Court of the United States:  Moyle v. United States ;  United States v. Rahimi ; and  Murthy v. Missouri Gr...

It’s Trump vs. Biden—again. But CNN promises, this time will be different. Guest: Margaret Sullivan , columnist covering media, politics and culture for The Guardian 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....

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court issued two important decisions in its traditional fashion: a box of printed copies for those journalists in the press room, and furious SCOTUS website refreshing for those who were not.  Murthy v Missouri was one of the closely watched social media cases of the term, about “jawboning” or when and if the government can ask/prod/urge private social media companies to...