The Gist

When the Russian ambassador to Turkey was killed in front of cameras by an assassin, Alexandra Zapruder had one thought: "There's another Zapruder film." Her new book, Twenty-Six Seconds , looks at how her grandfather's film of the John F. Kennedy assassination changed media and American life, and how her family dealt with the grave responsibility of being part of American history. In the Spiel, t...

Movies are out, TV is in, and radio theater is on the rise. Playwright Mac Rogers explains the challenges of creating theater of the mind. Rogers is the writer behind hit podcast dramas LifeAfter and The Message . For the Spiel, The 12 Days of Trumpmas, revisited. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for...

On the Gist, Chris Molanphy takes us back to 1976, the year we learned the true meaning of "booty" and the inherent value of shake-shake-shaking it. Molanphy writes the " Why Is This Song No. 1? " column for Slate . For the Spiel, are Christmas songs good or just familiar? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz...

Actor Bill Camp specializes in subtlety—whether as an earnest Puritan pastor in the 2016 Broadway revival of The Crucible or a veteran homicide detective in HBO's The Night Of . On The Gist, Camp talks about preparing for roles, getting hot after age 50, and how he might fit into a Sex and the City reunion. Camp is narrating the documentary TV series EPIX Presents Road To the NHL Outdoor Classics...

Have blue-collar workers fallen for a Republican bait-and-switch? On The Gist, journalist Steven Greenhouse sets aside globalization and turns to the domestic forces suppressing wages and hammering workers: Republican-backed anti-union laws, a feeble response from Democrats, and cultural amnesia around the labor movement's achievements. Greenhouse is working on a follow-up to his 2008 book, The Bi...

There is virtue in delight! We chanced upon new building materials, better computer software, and a global economy by frittering away our time. On The Gist, author Steven Johnson says our flights of fancy may have driven most of human progress. Johnson's new book is Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World . For the Spiel, the passings of 2016. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoi...

The current world order is fragile, and President-elect Donald Trump has shown himself to be sensitive, antagonistic, and gleeful about turning existing dynamics upside-down. How could this affect the United States' role in defusing international conflicts? Dan De Luce , chief national security correspondent for Foreign Policy magazine, runs through a few scenarios. "The executive branch has expan...

Last summer, the Supreme Court stopped North Carolina from using a strict voter ID law that would likely disadvantage Democrats and "target African Americans with almost surgical precision." Now, the court is facing two more restrictive voter laws that could seriously change American elections. Rick Hasen covers the wild world of election law on his blog . He joins Mike to discuss the new cases, a...

Jon Stewart had a rough time hosting The Daily Show . By 2015, he hadn't had a good night's sleep in years. Exposure to Fox News had taken a toll. Writer Chris Smith chronicles Stewart's reign in a new oral history , which looks at the comedian's broader impact on political culture. For the Spiel, Mike has cat scratch fever! Literally. Today's sponsors: Betterment, the largest automated investing...

As Michael McFaul knows well, sometimes the interests of the United States and the interests of Exxon Mobil don't line up. "You have to find oil where it is … and that tends to be controlled by autocrats around the world, and you have to do deals with them," says McFaul, who was America's ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014. Here, McFaul weighs in on the Rex Tillerson nomination for secretary o...

James Osborne writes about energy and politics for the Houston Chronicle. He's covered Rex Tillerson for years, yet they've never spoken directly. During his time as CEO of ExxonMobil, Tillerson has rarely granted interviews and only gives one press conference a year. For 15 minutes. Osborne says Tillerson has never really had to face the press—a luxury he'll be forfeiting if he's confirmed as sec...

Kyle Kinane doesn't want your agreement applause. Or your voting boosterism. In fact, Kinane is quite prepared to disappoint you—he's kind of built a brand on it. On The Gist, Kinane raises a hand in support of jokes about rich people and racists—just let him explain. Kinane's latest stand-up special is Loose in Chicago , you can see him in the Netflix series Love , and his podcast is called Boogi...

Writer Jeff Chang went to Ferguson, Missouri, on the one-year anniversary of the shooting of Michael Brown. What he saw there helped inspire his latest collection of essays, We Gon' Be Alright: Notes on Race and Resegregation (a book the Washington Post 's Carlos Lozada has called the year's smartest). On The Gist, Chang explains why the calls for police accountability are valid even in cases when...

On Tuesday, President-elect Donald Trump decried the cost of a very important plane, tweeting , "Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!" Boeing then disputed Mr. Trump's numbers, saying their contract was worth only $170 million . Turns out, unlike other Twitter rants, Trump was kind of right this ti...

Ezra Edelman wasn't planning to make a documentary about O.J. Simpson. But then ESPN offered him five hours of airtime. Edelman's movie (which eventually grew to nearly eight hours) explores a variety of themes through the lens of Simpson's life and trial. O.J.: Made in America has just been named to the Oscar shortlist for Best Documentary . For the Spiel, Mike goes to school on the Electoral Col...

With the nomination of Tom Price for health and human services secretary , it's clear that Donald Trump wants to repeal Obamacare and replace it with a more conservative plan. Sarah Kliff has spent weeks looking through the health care plans put forward by Republicans such as Price and Paul Ryan. Her conclusion? Good news for healthy people, not so much for sick people. Sarah is a co-host of The W...

Tidiness is tyranny, and Tim Harford is here to set you free. The author of Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives makes the case for routine-busting labor strikes, cluttered desks, and leaving your emails unsorted. He also explains why we're smart to want scatterbrained musicians and orderly accountants. Harford writes the Undercover Economist column for the Financial Times . For the...

Aaron Renn says the PEOTUS made a smart move by keeping Carrier in the United States. But saving one company is not an economic policy. Renn is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He recently argued Trump could fall into a "mayor trap " if he doesn't start thinking about the big picture. For the Spiel, Mike Pesca enters the (admittedly off-brand) Shark Tank. Today's sponsors: Placemakers ,...

Does brainstorming light a creative fire or smother the sparks of invention? Our regular guest Maria Konnikova looks at the merits of spitballing. Konnikova writes for the New Yorker and is the author of The Confidence Game . For the Spiel, Donald Trump saves a thousand manufacturing jobs! Great. Now, what about the other 311,000? Today's sponsors: Placemakers , a new Slate podcast made possible b...

For years, Thomas Frank has been the Cassandra of the Democratic Party, arguing that it had long since sold out working Americans and was using a socially liberal agenda to paper over its new corporate allegiances. Like Cassandra, he was largely ignored—until the election of President-elect Donald Trump. Frank is the author of Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People? Ray...

Tell Me Something I Don't Know is a new podcast game show from Stephen Dubner, the journalist behind Freakonomics . While radio quiz games are nothing new (in fact, Mike has hosted one himself ), Dubner wants to do something different with this program, where experts have to engage with people from a field they are totally unfamiliar with. TMSIDK debuted at No. 1 on the iTunes podcast chart earlie...

Our favorite cultural cabal in Cleveland has spoken. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has announced its nominees for induction in 2017—and the picks are incomparable as always, with Chic, Pearl Jam, and Kraftwerk in the running. Chris Molanphy discusses shoo-ins and long shots. He writes the " Why Is This Song No. 1? " column for Slate . For the Spiel, a special holiday message from Mike Pesca. Toda...

Ben Shapiro is a pretty conservative guy. He's written books like Bullies: How the Left's Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences Americans and The People vs. Barack Obama , and he's a former contributor to Breitbart . But earlier this year, Shapiro quit the site over his editor's unwillingness to defend reporter Michelle Fields , and he declared himself a never Trump-er . Now, he's facing waves...

As Nigel Farage described it, the election of Donald Trump was "Brexit times three." Comedian Josie Long knows this all too well. The comedian and radio host has a new stage show, Something Better , where she takes on the gloomy nationalist politics of her homeland and the scary parallels between Brexiteers and Trumpites. The show is playing in New York until Dec. 3, and in Los Angeles and San Fra...

Hillary Clinton was supposed to have the most sophisticated digital ground game ever, while all Trump had was a ramshackle data bunker in San Antonio . We all know how that turned out. Sasha Issenberg is a Bloomberg contributor and author of The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns . He says there are many explanations for what happened, including the Clinton campaign's inadvertent...