What Next | Daily News and Analysis
The problem with the news right now? It’s everywhere. And each day, it can feel like we’re all just mindlessly scrolling. It’s why we created What Next. This short daily show is here to help you make sense of things. When the news feels overwhelming, we’re here to help you answer: What next? Look for new episodes every weekday morning. Get more of What Next with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of What Next and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the What Next show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or visit slate.com/whatnextplus for access wherever you listen.
Episodes
January 8, 2026 • 31 mins
After the Trump administration launched a massive Immigrations and Customs Enforcement operation in Minnesota, protesters gathered to defend immigrant neighbors. Renee Nicole Good, a mother of a six year old, showed up with her wife and dog to film altercations between officers and community members. What happened next changed everything.
Guest: Jon Collins, senior reporter on the Minnesota Public Radio News race, class and commu...
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January 7, 2026 • 30 mins
How a mixture of real investigations, wild allegations, evidence of actual fraud, and the right-wing echo chamber ended Tim Walz’s governor campaign in Minnesota.
Guest: Deena Winter, Minneapolis City Hall reporter for the Star Tribune.
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January 6, 2026 • 29 mins
The investigation into the 2021 attack on the Capitol was the largest in FBI history. Then Trump came back into office—and started undoing it.
Guest: Ryan Reilly, reporter covering the Justice Department and federal law enforcement for NBC News, author of Sedition Hunters: How January 6th Broke the Justice System.
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January 5, 2026 • 29 mins
The Trump administration has a handful of answers to the question “Why did the United States pluck Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela?”—it was for narcoterrorism, or payback, or just oil. They’re even less clear about what’s going to happen with the country now.
Guest: Shane Harris, staff writer covering national security and intelligence for the Atlantic.
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January 4, 2026 • 36 mins
The Trump administration wants NASA to land astronauts on the moon by 2027. They also want them to do it with their budget slashed, a leadership carousel and competing views that Mars is more important.
Guest: Joel Achenbach, freelance journalist and author of Moondoggle
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January 2, 2026 • 5 mins
Host Mary Harris appeared on stage a few weeks back to speak in response to a night of “Resistance Theater,” considering how she, as a journalist, is preparing to meet this political moment.
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January 2, 2026 • 27 mins
Artificial intelligence boosters spent the year wedging the tech into our lives – whether we wanted it or not. But one new product brought A.I. from every app and website into the meatspace, forcing you to face it eye-to-eye.
Guest: Nitish Pahwa, staff writer at Slate covering business and technology
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January 1, 2026 • 41 mins
2025 might not have been a great year —but the music sure was stellar.
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Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Ann...
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December 31, 2025 • 28 mins
With rising authoritarianism, terrifying speech crackdowns, and violence in the streets, this year we found ourselves turning to our friends over at How To for advice on finding peace and excitement in our lives.
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December 30, 2025 • 34 mins
If you were to sum up 2025 in a film, which would you pick? The question that nearly wrecked the brain of Slate’s chief movie critic.
Guest: Dana Stevens, Slate’s movie critic.
Dana’s ten best movies of 2025.
Her review of Sinners.
And her review of One Battle After Another.
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December 29, 2025 • 28 mins
Canada and the United States usually have a pretty good-natured sports rivalry—but from hockey to baseball, that was not the case in 2025.
Guest: Alex Kirshner, contributing writer at Slate, co-host of Hang Up and Listen and the Split Zone Duo podcasts.
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December 28, 2025 • 26 mins
With so much online content, it can be hard for a meme to stay in the collective consciousness for more than a few days. But one meme this year managed to capture seemingly everyone’s attention - and challenge the definition of a meme altogether.
Guest: Kate Lindsay, host of Slate’s ICYMI podcast.
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December 26, 2025 • 38 mins
All this week, What Next and What Next: TBD are re-airing some of our favorite conversations from throughout the year and checking back with the people in those conversations to see how things have – or haven’t – changed. This episode originally aired in September.
We’ve been told that artificial intelligence can write, code, generate images—it can do everything…except feasibly turn a profit. But investing in A.I. has neverthel...
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December 25, 2025 • 34 mins
All this week, What Next and What Next: TBD are re-airing some of our favorite conversations from throughout the year and checking back with the people in those conversations to see how things have – or haven’t – changed. This episode is from August.
More than a thousand rabbis and Jewish leaders have signed a letter calling for Israel to end “the use and threat of starvation as a weapon of war.” This New York rabbi, who has felt ...
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December 24, 2025 • 31 mins
All this week, What Next and What Next: TBD are re-airing some of our favorite conversations from throughout the year and checking back with the people in those conversations to see how things have – or haven’t – changed. This episode is from August.
From the Statue of Liberty to the Golden Gate Bridge, and places in between like Yellowstone and the site of the Battle of Gettysburg, the National Park Service has been a point of Am...
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December 23, 2025 • 37 mins
All this week, What Next and What Next: TBD are re-airing some of our favorite conversations from throughout the year and checking back with the people in those conversations to see how things have – or haven’t – changed. This episode is from October.
In an executive order, Donald Trump declared “Antifa” a terrorist organization. As it isn’t an organization, there aren’t leaders to target, so zealous conservatives took aim at Mark...
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December 22, 2025 • 31 mins
All this week, What Next and What Next: TBD are re-airing some of our favorite conversations from throughout the year and checking back with the people in those conversations to see how things have – or haven’t – changed. This episode is from April.
The Trump administration’s actions on immigration and firing the federal workforce have drawn condemnation from all sorts of unions—from building trades to graduate students. What happ...
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December 21, 2025 • 34 mins
All this week, What Next and What Next: TBD are re-airing some of our favorite conversations from throughout the year and checking back with the people in those conversations to see how things have – or haven’t – changed. This episode originally aired in March.
Memecoins are a niche type of cryptocurrency with no intrinsic value. But they remain a popular form of crypto, as seen earlier this year with President Trump’s own memec...
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December 19, 2025 • 7 mins
Is the president falling into the very trap that launched him back into office by telling people the economy is actually great when they say it isn’t? Is this partially ballroom’d White House as chaotic as its detractors—and Trump’s chief of staff—say it is?
Guest: Ben Jacobs, political reporter based in Washingon.
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December 19, 2025 • 26 mins
While the A.I. boom has created a data center boom, rich guys are turning their computing dreams to the skies. With its impending IPO, SpaceX stands to lead the extraterrestrial data center boom. Will it work out for Elon and company?
Guest: Eric Berger, space reporter at Ars Technica
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