The Gist

On Tuesday's Gist, that old Watergate maxim, "the cover-up is worse than the crime," should be revised to recognize the Michael Cohen effect. Plus, we take a closer look at the vertical merger of AT&T and Time Warner, and why the Justice Department has sued to stop it. Wall Street Journal reporter Brent Kendall walks us through the case so far . And in the Spiel, who is the "famous Houston sketch...

On Monday's Gist, we're counting Pulitzers and powering up. Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms sort power into two categories: old and new. Old power is like Congress: top-down, official. New power is like Facebook: decentralized, crowd-sourced. What is the best way to meld both kinds of influence to improve our lives? Heimans and Timms have the beginnings of an answer. They're the authors of New Powe...

On The Gist, have you heard? Chemistry has been debunked. Thank Russia. Ed Helms is best known for comedic roles—see Andy Bernard on The Office . But in the drama Chappaquiddick , Helms plays Joseph Gargan, the cousin and lawyer of Sen. Ted Kennedy. Gargan found himself in Kennedy's inner circle as the young senator came under scrutiny for his role in the death of Mary Jo Kopechne. In the Spiel, p...

On The Gist, Zuckerberg's hearings got crowded out by bigger news. Too bad. Facts are facts, even in the greatly polarized year that is 2018. Holmes Lybrand writes the Weekly Standard's "Fact Check" series, and even though it isn't all about Trump's latest tweets and utterances, it sometimes gets readers angry. In the Spiel, the president's saber rattling over Syria is classic Trump: The man lies...

On The Gist, Paul Ryan cared about just one thing: cutting taxes. Word choice is not always the most stimulating place to start an interview with an author, but it works when you're talking to Sloane Crosley . The essayist defends metaphors like "Holocaust bunk bed" and the related analogy, "as if the Brady Bunch were filmed in Nazi Germany." Crosley's latest book—a collection of essays—is Look Al...

On The Gist, beware the rise of the despot's son-in-law. In the interview, media scrutinizer Brooke Gladstone wrote a graphic novel about the "Influencing Machines" that we often blame modernity's problems on. Facebook is the latest of these, but this time, it's less scapegoat and more actual problem to be reckoned with. Brooke's book, illustrated by Josh Neufeld, is The Influencing Machine: Brook...

On The Gist, president Trump just doesn't have the ambition to tackle a problem like Syria. It's a critical week for Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg has two dates with Congress, where he'll be answering questions on the company's loss of millions of its users' data to Cambridge Analytica. Slate writer April Glaser tells us what to expect ahead of the hearings. In the Spiel, the least the Trump circus ca...

On today's show, we don't need a whole shadow Cabinet—we just need a shadow Trump. Comedian Hari Kondabolu is back—and this time, he brought his brother. Hari came to comedy after working as a community activist, but his younger brother, Ashok, was a bit more wayward. On The Gist, Ashok recounts his life as a subway vagabond in New York City. Hari and Ashok's new podcast is called Kondabolu Brothe...

On today's Gist, London's enviable crime wave. Plus, what will we think of the Obama presidency in 50 years? Julian Zelizer set out to get really smart people to "take a first cut" at the Obama legacy on an array of issues. One person from his brain trust is Peniel Joseph , who surveys the Obama administration's work on criminal justice. Their book is The Presidency of Barack Obama: A First Histor...

On today's Gist, why the YouTube shooter's use of a handgun doesn't take anything away from arguments to outlaw the AR-15. Plus, Radley Balko tells the story of two men who put innocent Mississippians behind bars using junk science and pseudo-expert testimony. Balko is the co-author, along with Tucker Carrington, of The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist: A True Story of Injustice in the America...

On Tuesday's Gist, an ode to the end of March Madness. Plus, Maria Konnikova returns to play our favorite game. Are parabens really bad for you? Konnikova is a contributing writer to the New Yorker and author of The Confidence Game . In the Spiel, why David Shulkin got the boot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.a...

On Monday's Gist, the White House press corps needs a break. And guest host Mary Wilson knows who should take their place in the interim. Plus, NationalReview.com editor Charles C. W. Cooke explains why he thinks repealing the Second Amendment would be such a losing proposition for gun control advocates. And in the Spiel, Slate's Osita Nwanevu says the media doesn't have a liberal bias problem. Le...

On The Gist, Good Friday is actually pretty great, from a cosmic perspective. In the interview, Aparna Nancherla tells us how to go from introverted kid ("my mom was very afraid of how unassertive I was") to making it in comedy. In the Spiel, a deep dive into the world of acronyms. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pc...

On The Gist, the Department of Energy has a chief creative officer? Let's roll with it. In the interview, upstanding Pennsylvanian Amanda Holt updates us on the state's new congressional district lines. In the Spiel, some hyperlinks are all hype, especially when it comes to censoring conservative opinion writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simple...

On The Gist, Sean Hannity doesn't like this podcast. In the interview, Korea expert Bruce Bechtol tells us what might be going on in Kim Jong-un's mind and how to set it on denuclearization. In the Spiel, president Trump might be acting tough on Russia, but he doesn't get what the big deal is. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz com...

On The Gist, forget Stormy Daniels. The Kushners' massive loan deals are where the real dirt is at. In the interview, the world's growing complexity can be measured in dusty cables, useless features, and lines of code. Chris Clearfield and András Tilcsik talk about the problems that snowball when even the smallest thing goes wrong. Clearfield and Tilcsik are the authors of Meltdown: Why Our System...

On The Gist, "affair" is too rich a word to describe anything Donald Trump is emotionally capable of. In the interview, arts reporter Mary M. Lane tells us about the art collection looted by Hitler's art dealer, inherited by that dealer's son, and finally confiscated by the German government. In the Spiel, a survey of Republican bloviating on Sunday's news shows. Learn more about your ad choices....

On The Gist, Donald Trump's presidency brings race relations, at best, to a standstill. Case in point: the police shooting in Sacramento, California. The Americans is back for its final season next week. Showrunners Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg talk about their research into ruthless Soviet tactics, their obsession over historical detail, and why these spies are the good guys. In the Spiel, what s...

On The Gist, what to make of yet another round of White House reshuffling. As mayor of New Orleans, Mitch Landrieu has used his office to take down four of the city's Confederate monuments. His new book reckons with race relations in his city, the South, and the country. Landrieu's book is In the Shadow of Statues: A White Southerner Confronts History . In the Spiel, semantics, sexuality, and Cynt...

On The Gist, even if we get a law to make Robert Mueller unfireable, President Trump could trample all over it. In the interview, sports journalist Mary Pilon tells the story of Olympic sailor Kevin Hall's struggle with the Truman Show delusion (where someone believes he or she is the focus of a reality TV program). Pilon's new book is The Kevin Show: An Olympic Athlete's Battle With Mental Illnes...

On The Gist, before Donald Trump's headline-hogging presidency, things like bridge collapses made news for more than a few days. In the interview, Cass Sunstein's new book asks if the U.S. is fundamentally immune to authoritarianism, or whether president Trump has proved the opposite. His new book— Can It Happen Here?: Authoritarianism in America —puts the question to more than a dozen leading wri...

On today's Gist, we're nixing the Spiel to go on a Slate Podcasts retreat! Shouldn't the White House staff have their own officewide retreat day? Plus, Maria Konnikova considers receipt paper toxicity: Is it BS? Konnikova writes for the New Yorker and is the author of The Confidence Game . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company...

On The Gist, "meddling" is too weak a word to describe what Russia did during in the U.S. election. In the interview, Chris Molanphy walks us through the No. 1 hits of 1969, the year flower power and psychedelic pop went fully mainstream. Chris is the host of Slate's Hit Parade . In the Spiel, our Congress members represent way too many constituents—700,000 on average—to stay in touch with their n...

On The Gist, the Trump administration walks back a line about U.S. trade with Canada. And which American president was the studliest? Kate and J.D. Dobson are out with a book that considers Ulysses S. Grant's quiet charisma, Franklin Pierce's youthful charm, and the distinguished eyebrows of a certain Warren G. Harding. The Dobsons are the authors of Hottest Heads of State, Volume 1: The American...

Well, it's a tough day to be Fox News. On today's Gist, a closer look at the Department of State. It's not that Rex Tillerson was wrong to want to reform how we do diplomacy—it's that he utterly failed to deliver. Tom Hill, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, says the U.S. approach to international relations is antiquated and the diplomatic corps is bloated. Tillerson had a mandate to...