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
November 7, 2025 • 25 mins
Nick Fuentes—an openly antisemitic, openly racist, openly sexist type who once was persona non grata in all but the unseemliest of online spaces—sat down with former Fox News star Tucker Carlson this week, setting off a debate between the “whoa whoa whoa, we’re not Nazis over here” branch of conservatives and the “well now, hold on a minute” wing.
Guest: Ali Breland, staff writer for The Atlantic and author of “The Firewall Agai...
Mark as Played
November 6, 2025 • 28 mins
Trump’s tariffs went before the Supreme Court this week and even the extremely accommodating Roberts court was having trouble seeing how the president’s vast and capricious application of tariffs is constitutional. But that doesn’t mean they’re going away.
Guest: Justin Wolfers, economist and professor at the University of Michigan.
Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next fa...
Mark as Played
November 5, 2025 • 25 mins
How Virginia Giuffre’s accusations of a decade ago finally brought His Royal Highness Prince Andrew, Duke of York, down to simply Andrew.
Guest: Imogen West-Knights, Slate contributing 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. Sign u...
Mark as Played
November 4, 2025 • 27 mins
She won a special election on Sept. 23 but still hasn’t been sworn into the House of Representatives—even though new members have been sworn in during government shutdowns in the past. What explains Speaker Mike Johnson’s now record-long delay?
Guest: Adelita Grijalva, representative-elect for Arizona’s 7th congressional district.
Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next fam...
Mark as Played
November 3, 2025 • 29 mins
Fearing a Democratic-led House of Representatives, Donald Trump set off a state-redistricting arms race when he asked Texas to find him five more safe GOP seats. This triggered California to go hunting for five more Democratic seats, and states like North Carolina and Missouri to search for other seats in the margins. But in some states, Trump’s demands are running into rare Republican resistance.
Guest: Ari Berman, voting rights ...
Mark as Played
November 2, 2025 • 30 mins
President Trump pardoned Changpeng Zhao, the former CEO of Binance who had been convicted for violating anti-money laundering laws, after months of Zhao boosting Trump’s own crypto company. The crypto industry has really nailed the path to Trump’s heart: it was something Joe Biden didn’t like, and it feeds directly to the president’s bottom line.
Guest: Alex Kirshner, contributing writer at Slate.
Want more What Next TBD? Subscr...
Mark as Played
October 31, 2025 • 29 mins
One legacy of the internet is the millions of subcultures that it helps flourish. Another is pornography—and lots of it. At a “gooner meet-up,” the two collide.
Guest: David Kolitz, author of “The Goon Squad” for Harper’s Magazine.
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 Fr...
Mark as Played
October 30, 2025 • 32 mins
Why SNAP benefits potentially won’t be replenished Nov. 1, and what happens to the people who depend on them to eat.
Guest: Dr. Lindsay Allen, health economist and policy researcher at Northwestern 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 podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our ...
Mark as Played
October 29, 2025 • 28 mins
Having successfully gotten their photo ops, the National Guard receded from the streets of Los Angeles, but an aggressive border patrol, with an eye on raising arrest numbers, has taken their place. In the South Bay, an activist group has formed to monitor where raids are happening, who’s conducting them, and try to help residents keep themselves safe.
Guest: Alexander Sammon, politics writer for Slate.
Want more What Next? Sub...
Mark as Played
October 28, 2025 • 29 mins
Last week, the FBI indicted more than 30 people in a series of NBA gambling scandals. The sports leagues are promising drastic action – but with everyone from the states to the owners getting rich off legal sports gambling, is the game rigged?
Guest: Jay Willis, editor-in-chief of Balls and Strikes.
Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favorite...
Mark as Played
October 27, 2025 • 28 mins
Isn’t a government shutdown supposed to be a crisis? The Republicans, in control of the White House, Congress and Supreme Court haven’t taken steps to end it on their own, and the ship may have already sailed on the only real ask from the Democrats. So what now?
Guest: Jonathan V. Last, editor at The Bulwark.
Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all you...
Mark as Played
October 26, 2025 • 32 mins
For years, conservatives claimed that the Biden administration was pressuring tech companies to censor conservative speech with no solid evidence.
In Trump 2.0, the administration is explicitly bragging about doing the very same thing they accused democrats of. What gives?
Guest: Renée DiResta, Associate Research Professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown and author of “Invisible Rulers: The People Who T...
Mark as Played
October 24, 2025 • 6 mins
The streets are full of ghouls, masked horrors, and terrifying make-up—also it will be Halloween soon.
Guest: Luke Winkie, Slate staff writer.
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 A...
Mark as Played
October 24, 2025 • 31 mins
This week’s AWS outage illustrates just how fragile and vulnerable our interconnected world really is—and how far we’ve fallen from the vision of a decentralized internet.
Guest: Samanth Subramanian, author of “The Web Beneath the Waves: The Fragile Cables That Connect Our World.”
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. Subsc...
Mark as Played
October 23, 2025 • 25 mins
Thousands of children may be avoiding peanut allergies thanks to research indicating that early exposure to—rather than avoidance of—the legume is key. Now there’s reason to believe this is true for tons of allergens – and that the great “pandemic” of kid food allergies never needed to happen.
Guest: Dr. David Hill, attending physician with the Division of Allergy and Immunology at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and The Hil...
Mark as Played
October 22, 2025 • 27 mins
Right after JD Vance was done dismissing concerns about racism in a group chat of GOP staffers and Young Republicans, POLITICO released messages from Trump nominee Paul Ingrassia that were so explicitly racist it may cost him the support of what has been an extremely compliant congressional GOP. And lest any vice presidents tell you otherwise, racism is as evident in policy proposals as it is in the chats.
Guest: David A. Graham,...
Mark as Played
October 21, 2025 • 32 mins
The whole spectrum of Trump’s foreign policy is on display when it comes to South America: The US Navy is gathering off the coast of Venezuela, while the Treasury Department prepares to send tens of billions of dollars to Argentina.
Guest: Brian Winter, editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly.
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 ...
Mark as Played
October 20, 2025 • 32 mins
Off-cycle elections generally favor the party that isn’t in the White House. And with a large voting bloc of federal employees, Virginia Democrats were feeling good about the upcoming elections for governor and attorney general. Then texts from their AG candidate hit the news.
Guest: Eva McKend, correspondent covering national politics for CNN.
Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole ...
Mark as Played
October 19, 2025 • 21 mins
Paying a fraction of a penny per stream and diminishing the value of music were bad enough for Xiu Xiu, but when Spotify owner Daniel Ek announced an investment in a German defense contractor, they decided it was time to take the music back.
Guest: Jamie Stewart, musician in the band Xiu Xiu.
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 po...
Mark as Played
October 17, 2025 • 27 mins
As Trump throws out journalists and outlets that report anything negative about him, he’s limiting access to a group of right-wing influencers who work to further his agenda.
Guest: Makena Kelly, tech and politics writer for WIRED.
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”...
Mark as Played
Popular Podcasts
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com