What Next | Daily News and Analysis

The second, and likely final, debate of this presidential election was between JD Vance and Tim Walz, two Midwestern men with two very different visions of what government should do—and perhaps what America is. Guest: David Faris , politics professor at Roosevelt University and contributing writer for Slate.  Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole Wha...

How Tim Ryan looks back on debating JD Vance in the 2022 Ohio Senate race—and how he would coach Tim Walz to win. Guest: Tim Ryan , former representative from Ohio who lost a Senate race to JD Vance in 2022. 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 clickin...

The federal indictment of Eric Adams is just the latest in a long line of embarrassing blow-ups, scandals, and unforced errors by the New York Democrats. Can they pull themselves together and deliver for the national party this time? Guest: Ross Barkan , journalist, essayist, and contributing writer to many places, including Slate, the Nation, and the New York Times Magazine.  Want more What Next?...

America is caught in a vicious cycle of trying to alleviate traffic by expanding and building more highways, only for them to clog right up with more cars. How do you beat the traffic? Guest: David Zipper , Senior Fellow at the MIT Mobility Initiative who writes about transportation policy. Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family a...

A throwback week in politics finds New York’s Boss Tweed of Swagger in trouble, a Republican bucking the party line for his constituents and a name Democrats thought they were done with. Guest: Jim Newell , Slate’s senior politics writer , who writes the weekly newsletter The Surge . This episode is member-exclusive. Listen to it now by subscribing to Slate Plus. By joining, not only will you unlo...

Over the last decade, the European Union has been the vanguard regulating Big Tech, and the push has been led by Margrethe Vestager. As she steps down, Vestager is looking both back at the battles she’s fought, and how the fight will continue.  Guest: Margrethe Vestager , European Commissioner for Competition. the European Commission’s Executive Vice President on a Europe Fit for the Digital Age....

Winning North Carolina would make Kamala Harris’s path to the White House much easier. And to judge from the huge campaign push, Democrats think the state is in play. Can a strong ground game—and a major Republican scandal—sink Donald Trump’s re-election bid? Guest: Michael Bitzer, professor of politics and history at Catawba College Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free l...

Why are more liberals taking up arms? And how could the trend change the conversation about guns in America?  Guest: Cameron McWhirter , national affairs reporter for The Wall Street Journal covering mass shootings, violent protests, and natural disasters across the South and co-author of American Gun: the True Story of the AR-15 with Zusha Elinson. Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to...

How universities and colleges are trying to keep student protests under control—or embracing a raucously political campus. Guests:  Sophie Hurwitz , politics and social movements reporter at Mother Jones . Michael S. Roth is the president of Wesleyan University. 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...

What message was Israel sending to Hezbollah, its backers, and the population of Lebanon, by blowing up pagers and walkie-talkies last week? And does the international community view this act as a violation of the laws of armed conflict? Guest: Shane Harris , intelligence and national security reporter at the Washington Post.  Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listenin...

Given Laura Loomer’s history of saying outright offensive and often bewildering things, how did she get into the Trump campaign’s inner circle?   Guest: Ken Bensinger , New York Times politics reporter . 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. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try...

It’s just 45 days until election day—and the polls are telling us…a little bit of everything. In our first Slate Plus exclusive crossover, Mary sits down with one of the nation’s foremost experts on political nonsense. Guest: Jim Newell , Slate’s senior politics writer , who writes the weekly newsletter The Surge . This episode is member-exclusive. Listen to it now by subscribing to Slate Plus. By...

Instagram’s new default privacy settings for teenagers are designed to keep kids safe from strangers online. It’s a worthy endeavor, but are privacy settings enough? And what about all the other hazards teenagers face on social media?   Guest: Natasha Singer , New York Times tech reporter , focused on how technology is affecting childhood and schooling. Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate...

Scores of Jews from around the world are visiting Israel to tour the grounds of the Nova music festival and burned out kibbutzim, bearing witness and reflecting on the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks. The trips are shoring up Israel’s tourism industry after the war brought it to an abrupt halt—but critics say the narrow focus on this tragedy pushes the suffering of Gazans to the periphery, even as bombs drop...

The story of Springfield, Ohio—as told by the people who live there—is nothing like the one heard from the debate stage.  Guest: Aymann Ismail , Slate staff 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” at the top of our show page....

Law enforcement units looking to prevent voter fraud are popping up from Texas to Virginia—but are they trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist—or simply targeting groups they’d prefer didn’t vote? Guest: Ari Berman, national voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones, author of “ Minority Rule: The Right Wing Attack on the Will of the People and the Fight to Resist It. ” Want more What Nex...

When Taylor Swift stated she was voting for Kamala Harris, a large segment of Swifties breathed a sigh of relief. How did Swift’s politics become so important—and will her endorsement make a difference in November?   Guest: Brian Donovan, professor of sociology at the University of Kansas who teaches a college course called “The Sociology of Taylor Swift.”  Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate...

Boeing’s Starliner has now landed successfully—but Butch and Sunny weren’t on it. With a pair of astronauts still stuck on the ISS, when will NASA be ready to bring them back? And how? Guest: Micah Maidenberg , space business reporter for the Wall Street Journal . 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...

The law has been passed and signed by the president: TikTok’s parent company must sell or divest from the app. But that’s not happening without a legal fight.   Guest: Emily Baker-White , investigative reporter at Forbes . 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. Subscribe today on Apple Podcast...

Rather than coming out of the pandemic with a new toolkit of public health measures or even personal habits, the response to this summer’s long wave of COVID infections has mostly been to continue with business as usual. But business as usual seems inadequate with mpox and bird flu crises on the horizon.   Guest: Apoorva Mandavilli , science and global health reporter at the New York Times. Want m...

How did the first debate—with these particular candidates—go? Were minds changed? Guest: David Faris, politics professor at Roosevelt University and a contributing writer for Slate.  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 o...

After 12 years of “pretrial proceedings,” and 23 years after the crime in question, prosecutors announced that a plea deal had been reached with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and two of his accomplices, who were accused of planning the Sept. 11 attacks. When Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin canceled the deal, some relatives of those who died on 9/11 were devastated. Guest: Terry Kay Rockefeller , foundi...

After the school shooting in Georgia last week, charges were brought against the 14-year-old alleged gunman—and also against his father. Who’s really responsible? Guest: Josie Duffy Rice , journalist focused on prosecutors, prisons, and other criminal justice issues and host of What A Day. Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and ac...

An outbreak of eastern equine encephalitis in the northeast made headlines, but as far as mosquito-borne illnesses go, EEE is serious but still rare. What’s getting way too common is the mosquito itself. Guest: Amesh Adalja, doctor and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next f...

A month after a federal judge declared that Google was operating as a monopoly because of its search engine, the Justice Department has alleged that Google’s ad business was breaking antitrust law as well.  What if Google loses again? Guest: Leah Nylen, Bloomberg antitrust reporter. Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all y...