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What Next - No One Knows the Truth About the Iran Deal Jun 25, 2026

Show notes

Where do negotiations with Iran stand at the moment? Well, Iran’s out from under a more-than-four-decade-long sanction and could start making bank, plus it controls the Strait of Hormuz and hasn’t agreed to any concessions on its nuclear program. On the American side, JD Vance got to see Switzerland.

Guest: Tommy Vietor, co-founder of Crooked Media and co-host of the political podcasts Pod Save America and Pod Save the World.

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. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.

Podcast production by Rob Gunther, Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.

Paige Osburn is the senior supervising producer of What Next and What Next TBD.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What Next - What the Pool’s Reflecting Jun 24, 2026

Show notes

Most people probably don’t think about the reflecting pool on the National Mall much, but Donald Trump sure does. His efforts to cosmetically raise it to his standards have been staggeringly expensive, and ineffective in surprising ways. It encapsulates the Trump presidency experience pretty succinctly.

Guest: Christina Cauterucci, Slate senior writer

Podcast production by Rob Gunther, Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.

Paige Osburn is the senior supervising producer of What Next and What Next TBD.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Slate Money - Money Talks: The Art of Trade War Jun 23, 2026

Show notes

In this Money Talks: Emily Peck sits down with Soumaya Keynes and Chad P. Bown, co-authors of How to Win a Trade War, to discuss how recent conflicts have changed the rules of international trade and which strategy they believe is the key to “winning” a modern trade war.

Podcast production by Jessamine Molli.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What Next - The Return of the Firing Squad Jun 23, 2026

Show notes

With lethal injection drugs getting harder and harder to procure, states are legalizing death by firing squad. It may seem like a return to a more barbaric time, but there’s reason to believe that execution methods like lethal injection or nitrogen gas are even less humane. But even moreso, it may force us to confront our feelings about the death penalty as a nation.

Guests:

Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood, Catholic priest and founder of the Execution Intervention Project.

Maurice Chammah, staff writer for the Marshall Project and author of “Let the Lord Sort Them Out, The Rise and Fall of the Death Penalty.”

Podcast production by Rob Gunther, Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.

Paige Osburn is the senior supervising producer of What Next and What Next TBD.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What Next - America Before 250 Jun 22, 2026

Show notes

It has been 250 years and America still doesn’t know how to talk about the genocide of indigenous peoples that kicked the whole thing off.

Guest: Rebecca Nagle, host of Pushkin’s First America podcast, Crooked's This Land podcast, and author of “By The Fire We Carry: The Generation-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land”.

Podcast production by Rob Gunther, Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.

Paige Osburn is the senior supervising producer of What Next and What Next TBD.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts - Guns, Weed, and the Forgotten Framers Jun 20, 2026

Show notes

The Supreme Court handed down a unanimous ruling this week in United States v. Hemani, holding that a marijuana user cannot be stripped of his Second Amendment right to own a firearm simply because he sometimes uses cannabis. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion, leaning heavily on the founders' own well-documented love of alcohol to argue that responsible substance use has never historically disqualified Americans from bearing arms. Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern unpack the ruling, note what it does not settle about the still-murky Bruen test, and reflect on how dramatically the justices’ posture toward marijuana has shifted since the "Bong Hits for Jesus" case they decided less than two decades ago.

Then, Dahlia sits down with David Gans, director of the Human Rights, Civil Rights, and Citizenship Program at the Constitutional Accountability Center, to discuss his forthcoming Stanford Law Review article, Forgotten Framers: Black Conventions and the Second Founding. Between 1864 and 1869, Black Americans gathered in more than fifty conventions in packed churches and meeting halls across the country to demand equal citizenship, voting rights, bodily autonomy, protection from racial violence, and access to education. These conventions molded the Reconstruction amendments in ways that originalist jurisprudence ignores.

Gans explains how the Roberts court's colorblind reading of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments distorts this history by ignoring the explicitly race-conscious vision the conventions—and the amendments themselves—championed. He also explains how the Guarantee Clause, long a "sleeping giant," could still offer a constitutional path to combat partisan and racial gerrymandering after Calais and Milligan. Gans wrote about this facet of the history recently in Slate.

This is part of Opinionpalooza, Slate’s coverage of the major decisions from the Supreme Court. The best way to support our work is by joining Slate Plus. (If you are already a member, consider a donation or merch!)

Want more Amicus? Join Slate Plus to unlock weekly bonus episodes with exclusive legal analysis. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Amicus show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Slate Money - Investing in SpaceX’s Future on Mars Jun 20, 2026

Show notes

This week: We saw just how many people are willing to invest in Elon Musk. Felix Salmon, Elizabeth Spiers, and Emily Peck, look at what makes SpaceX’s massive IPO so strange and why investors are willing to overlook things like Musk’s obsession with going to Mars. Then, they discuss Donald Trump’s deal with Iran and what the war has done to Iran’s economy. And finally, Emily unpacks the origin of tobacco-bonds and why they’re now failing.

In the Slate Plus episode: What if your digital secrets got out?

Want to hear that discussion and hear more Slate Money? Join Slate Plus to unlock weekly bonus episodes. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Slate Money show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/moneyplus to get access wherever you listen.

Podcast production by Jessamine Molli and Cheyna Roth

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Political Gabfest - Gabfest Reads | Why America Is Spiritually Broken and How to Fix It Jun 20, 2026

Show notes

Emily Bazelon interviews Senator Chris Murphy about his new book Crisis of the Common Good: The Fight for Meaning and Connection in a Broken America. Murphy argues that Trump is not the root cause of America's political crisis—he's a symptom. The real diagnosis: a country ravaged by loneliness, disconnection, and the collapse of community. From gun violence to Jan. 6, Murphy traces our troubles back to a spiritual unspooling, a loss of meaning and purpose. But his book offers solutions. Murphy lays out a provocative agenda for Democrats to call Americans to national service, break up corporate power, rebuild local communities, and create a bigger tent that reaches disaffected conservatives hungry for change.

Murphy makes the case that fixing America's spiritual crisis is not just morally necessary—it's the only way Democrats win. Winning by being against Trump is not enough. Democrats must offer a proactive vision of an America where people feel powerful in their economy, connected to their communities, and called to something greater than themselves. The book isn’t about policy prescriptions, but rather a fundamental reimagining of what Americans want from their government and from each other.

Tweet us your questions @SlateGabfest or email us at gabfest@slate.com. (Messages could be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)

Podcast production by Nina Porzucki.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What Next - Elon, Please Log Off Jun 19, 2026

Show notes

Everyone needs a hobby. Unfortunately, instead of, say, model trains, the world’s first trillionaire’s seems to unwind by boosting calls for anti-immigrant violence on his social media platform.

Guest: Nitish Pahwa, Slate staff writer covering business and tech.

This episode is member-exclusive. Listen to it now by subscribing to Slate Plus. By joining, not only will you unlock exclusive episodes of What Next —you’ll also access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the What Next show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.

Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What Next: TBD | Tech, power, and the future - Can ChatGPT Be a Criminal Accomplice? Jun 19, 2026

Show notes

People are asking artificial intelligence large language models how to do everything—even how to harm themselves and others. And while companies claim there are guardrails in place for those situations, we’ve already seen real-world instances of an LLM’s advice being used to plan a mass shooting.

Guest: Mark Follman, national affairs editor at Mother Jones and author of “Trigger Points: Inside the Mission to Stop Mass Shootings in America.”

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 Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.

Podcast production by Rob Gunther, Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.

Paige Osburn is the senior supervising producer of What Next and What Next TBD.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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