What Next | Daily News and Analysis

Back in 1991, when a 35-year-old law professor named Anita Hill accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment, it was Joe Biden who got to decide how to handle the allegation. Why does Hill think Biden failed her and all subsequent women who would bring a harassment allegation before the Senate? And what does Biden owe those women now, as he seeks the Democratic nomination for...

At Brigham Young University, students and alumni are forcing a conversation about the severe enforcement of the school’s strict Honor Code. How did BYU’s high standards lead to some students feeling less safe?  Guest: Erin Alberty , reporter for the Salt Lake Tribune .  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The NRA is in a financial mess of its own doing. A number of executives, vendors, and contractors have used their positions to enrich themselves, extracting hundreds of millions of dollars from the organization in the process. How did secrecy, poor judgement, and sweetheart deals toss the NRA into an existential crisis? Guest: Mike Spies , reporter at The Trace. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/priv...

Back in 2014, a mysterious hashtag started trending on Twitter: #EndFathersDay. The accounts tweeting the extremist sentiments appeared to be the accounts of black women. But black feminists on Twitter knew something was amiss. So they got to the bottom of the hashtag—and used their own to fight back.  Guest: Rachelle Hampton , Slate writer.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more informa...

Immigration judges walk into work everyday knowing that the system they operate in is broken. It has been for decades, through multiple administrations. So what’s the fix? The answer isn’t as radical as you might think. Guest: Judge A. Ashley Tabaddor, immigration judge in Los Angeles and president of the National Association of Immigration Judges. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more i...

In this episode April Glaser is joined once again by co-host Siva Vaidhyanathan, director of the Center for Media and Citizenship at the University of Virginia. They start by talking about the Sri Lankan government’s shutdown of Facebook and WhatsApp after the Easter attacks on churches and hotels.  Then they talk to Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, a staff writer for Motherboard and producer for CY...

The Trump administration wants to add a citizenship question to the U.S. Census, and the proposal has former Census directors up in arms. If the Supreme Court votes to allow the citizenship question, what could happen to the nation’s decennial headcount? Guest: NPR correspondent Hansi Lo Wang .  Podcast production by Mary Wilson, Jayson De Leon, and Anna Martin. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/priv...

For a long time, Brandon Flood kept his criminal history quiet: He worked in the Pennsylvania state government and didn’t want his former convictions to detract from his career success. But now, that history makes him uniquely suited for his new job as secretary of the state’s Board of Pardons. How did he go from submitting his own pardon application to, one year later, leading the body that helps...

You’ve heard the legal argument for starting impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump. Maybe you’ve heard the moral argument supporting impeachment. But what is the political case for impeachment? What could House impeachment proceedings possibly achieve, given that the Senate is controlled by the President’s party? Guest: Jamelle Bouie , New York Times opinion columnist. Podcast pro...

What is Washington to do with a report that is damning, but doesn’t condemn? Slate’s legal team takes a look at the case made by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Guests: Dahlia Lithwick , Jeremy Stahl , and Mark Joseph Stern . Tell us what you think by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or sending an email to whatnext@slate.com . Follow us on Instagram for updates on the show. Podcast production by...

The new head of the Department of the Interior has close ties to industry and a penchant for relaxing environmental regulations. He’s also the subject of an ethics investigation. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt represents a new phase in the Trump administration: the shift from a cabinet of flashy, venal outsiders to savvy, ideological insiders. Guest: Lance Williams , senior reporter for Reveal...

In this episode April Glaser is joined by guest host Siva Vaidhyanathan, director of the Center for Media and Citizenship at the University of Virginia and author of several books about social media and the internet, including a recent one on Facebook, “Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy.”  First they talk about the ongoing elections in India and how fake news a...

How did a March speech by Rep. Ilhan Omar get shrunk down to a single phrase and turned into an attack on her character? Guest: Aymann Ismail , Slate writer and host of the upcoming podcast, Man Up.  Podcast production by Mary Wilson, Jayson De Leon, and Anna Martin. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

President Donald Trump has floated the idea of nominating former presidential candidate Herman Cain and conservative pundit Stephen Moore to policy seats on the Federal Reserve’s board. Would Cain and Moore alone swing interest rates? Probably not. But their appointments could erode non-partisan standards that make the Fed one of the most important economic institutions in the world.   Guest: Jord...

Last week’s Wisconsin Supreme Court race got ugly, fast. The Republican favorite, Judge Brian Hagedorn, eked out a win by about 6,000 votes. Our guest today says it’s hard to overstate the political fallout from this result. It could mean that conservatives dominate Wisconsin for years to come. Guest: Mark Joseph Stern, covers the courts and the law for Slate. Tell us what you think by leaving a r...

To understand what’s happening on the border, you have to look at the policies and leaders on both sides of it. So, how has Mexico, under its new president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, changed its approach to refugees and migrants fleeing north? And how has the Mexican president changed, himself? Guest: León Krauze, columnist for Slate, co-host of Trumpcast, and news anchor for Univision. Tell us...

Here’s something you may not know. You (listener) are a member of the global trash trade. Every time you recycle a Coke bottle or throw a banana peel away, you’re entering a market of buyers, sellers, and fierce competition. Today on the show, why the market for your trash crashed and how American recyclers are course correcting. Guest: Meleesa Johnson, president  of the Associated Recyclers of Wi...

April Glaser is joined by Gizmodo investigative reporter, Kashmir Hill, to talk about an ambitious British proposal to regulate content on social media sites. Then they discuss Airbnb’s efforts to kick White Nationalists off its platform ahead of a national summit in Tennessee.  After that they talk to Pat Brown, CEO and founder of Impossible Foods, about his company’s eerily realistic fake meat p...

Bernie went from virtual unknown in the 2016 election to front-runner with the highest campaign contributions in the first quarter of the 2020 race. And while some things have changed since he last ran four years ago, a lot about his campaign looks pretty much the same. Do voters appreciate someone who sticks to the issues? Or will Bernie’s resistance to getting personal hurt him this time around?...

Nogales is the biggest port in Arizona, and has been a focal point of Trump’s increasingly aggressive tactics on the border. How do the president’s efforts to shut down the border change a place like Nogales? Note: We first aired this episode on February 2, 2019.   Guest: Mayor of Nogales, Arturo Garino. Tell us what you think by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or sending an email to whatnext@s...

Stephon Clark was shot and killed by police officers in his grandmother’s backyard on March 18th, 2018. He was black. He was unarmed. Last month, the Sacramento DA decided not to press charges against the two officers who fatally shot Clark citing an honest and “reasonable” threat to the police officers' safety. In California, and across much of America, the word “reasonable” is enough to get offi...

This week, we learned something: A messy, “no-deal” Brexit is likely off the table. This means that Britons can look forward to a slightly less messy, negotiated Brexit – provided that government officials can agree on what that looks like. With Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn in charge of negotiations, reaching that consensus will be tough. Guest: Anne McElvoy , senior editor at the Economist , hea...

President Trump’s naked disdain for Puerto Rico’s struggles might be rhetorically jarring. But it reflects long-standing U.S. policies toward the territory. Guest: Yarimar Bonilla , political anthropologist and author of the book, Aftershocks of Disaster: Puerto Rico Before and After the Storm . Tell us what you think by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or sending an email to whatnext@slate.com...

April Glaser and Will Oremus discuss a recent report in Bloomberg that says executives at YouTube ignored employees who raised concerns about the spread of harmful videos. The company’s algorithm often recommends conspiracy videos, which lead viewers down rabbit holes they might not otherwise explore.  Then journalism professor Emily Bell talks about Google and Facebook’s recent efforts to revive...

Late last month, someone paid a call to Congress. She wanted to talk about the Trump administration’s disregard for established national security protocols. The call was coming from inside the house -- inside the White House, that is. Guest: Ned Price , Director of Policy and Communications at National Security Action.  Tell us what you think by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or sending an ema...