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What Next: TBD | Tech, power, and the future - The AI & Crypto Czar’s Conflicts Dec 05, 2025

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A tech mogul who made bank from Paypal with his Stanford buddies and has endeared himself to right-wing politicians and enriched himself the same way? No not him; this one’s South African..no, not him either.

Guest: Ryan Mac, reporter for the New York Times.

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Podcast production by Evan Campbell, and Patrick Fort.

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Political Gabfest - Kill Them All Dec 04, 2025

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This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss why the killing of survivors in a US military strike on an alleged drug boat is so dangerous for Pete Hegseth and the Trump administration, what the results of this week’s special election in Tennessee could portend for the upcoming midterms, and the adoption of self-driving cars as a public health measure.

For this week’s Slate Plus bonus episode, Emily, John, and David discuss the complexities of free speech, academic freedom, and consequences in the controversial case of a University of Oklahoma instructor who was put on leave after complaints from a student who flunked a gender essay.

In the latest Gabfest Reads, John talks with journalist and author Andrew Ross Sorkin about his new book, 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History and How It Shattered a Nation — the story of speculation, debt, and the human drives that fueled the Wall Street crash that changed everything.

Email your chatters, questions, and comments to gabfest@slate.com. (Messages may be referenced by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)

Podcast production by Nina Porzucki

Research by Emily Ditto

You can find the full Political Gabfest show pages here.

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What Next - The Year of Vaccine Backsliding Dec 04, 2025

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Today, the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee will be meeting to vote on recommendations for childhood vaccinations. But under RFK Jr.’s leadership, this committee looks much different now than it did a year ago.How is the impact from the HHS secretary being seen across America today?

Guest: Dr. Paul Offit, Director of the Vaccine Education Center and professor of pediatrics in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

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

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What Next - Pardon Me, Mr. President Dec 03, 2025

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Some presidents use their pardons for large groups of people. Some presidents use them for personal reasons. If you were to sum up Donald Trump’s use of the power of the pardon, the only word for it is “brazen.”

Guest: Benjamin Wallace-Wells is a staff writer at The New Yorker.

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

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What Next - A Textbook Example of an Unlawful Order Dec 02, 2025

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Just after the Trump administration threw a fit over a video reminding the military that they have an obligation to refuse unlawful orders, the Washington Post published reporting alleging the orders to blow up a boat in the Caribbean on Sept. 2 were in fact patently unlawful.

Guest: Steven J. Lepper, retired Air Force major general and former deputy legal counsel to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

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

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What Next - What Kids Aren't Learning About US History Dec 01, 2025

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Conservatives have long complained that teaching American history with slavery and genocide and systemic oppression is just too negative, and the Trump administration has gone as far as attacking the Smithsonian for focusing too much on “how horrible our country is.” But omitting the shameful aspects of America’s past doesn’t just distort history—it impairs our ability to understand the present.

Guest: Clint Smith, staff writer at The Atlantic and author of How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America and the new poetry collection Above Ground.

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

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What Next: TBD | Tech, power, and the future - If You Give A.I. a Nuke Nov 30, 2025

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As the U.S. upgrades and updates its defense and military systems, the question isn’t whether A.I. will be integrated, but where, how much, and how much decision-making are we ceding to the machine?

Guest: Josh Keating, senior correspondent at Vox and a fellow at the Outrider Foundation where he’s reporting on nuclear weapons and AI.

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Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts - The Three Faces Of Trumpism Nov 29, 2025

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By design – and also by dint of unbridled, undisciplined extremist exuberance – Donald Trump’s second stint in the White House is thus far a tricky thing to characterize. While many of the administration’s moves seem copy/pasted from a manual for authoritarian takeover, they’re also deeply rooted in longstanding structural democratic deficits in America. For their part, The administration’s boosters argue this whiplash-inducing dismantling of institutions, norms and precedents are simply the right’s answer to similarly seismic constitutional shifts in the New Deal and Civil Rights eras. In a recent piece in the Boston Review, What Are We Living Through?, law professors Jedediah Britton-Purdy and David Pozen try to puzzle through these conflicting narratives of change. They join Dahlia Lithwick on this week’s Amicus to map this moment and to plot paths through it.

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Slate Money - The Coolest Thing in the World for an Econ Nerd Nov 28, 2025

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This week: Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee joins Felix Salmon, Elizabeth Spiers, and Emily Peck for an in-depth discussion on what exactly the Fed does. They’ll get into how voting and deliberation works at the FOMC, the different eras of the Fed’s communication strategy, his response to the Fed haters, and Data Dogs vs Data Cats.

In the Slate Plus episode: Austan Goolsbee Interview Post-Mortem.

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Podcast production by Jessamine Molli and Cheyna Roth.

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What Next: TBD | Tech, power, and the future - Rebroadcast: Dupes! Nov 28, 2025

Show notes

Note: This episode was originally published on July 27, 2025.

There’s an entire economy devoted to seeing what products are trending—clothing, skin care, even Greek Islands—and delivering you a cheaper knock-off to buy.

Guest: Mia Sato, reporter for The Verge

Podcast production by Evan Campbell and Patrick Fort.

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