Slate News
Daily news updates from across the Slate Podcast network.
Episodes
December 23, 2025 • 35 mins
In this Money Talks: Planet Money’s Mary Childs joins Felix Salmon to share what she learned reporting on how private philanthropy is trying to cope with the influx of need now that USAID is gone. They’ll get into the headaches and heartbreaks charitable organizations Givewell and ALIMA are experiencing after the loss of billions of dollars of humanitarian aid, the practical costs of saving lives, and what you can do to give effect...
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December 22, 2025 • 74 mins
Hosts Alex Kirshner, Lindsay Gibbs, and Ben Lindbergh look back on 2025, picking their top sports stories from each month—from the Luka trade and torpedo bats to a Trumpy Ryder Cup and OKC’s championship. It's been a year!
On the bonus episode available exclusively for Slate Plus members, the panel unpacks Trump’s proposed Patriot Games.
January - April (3:51): CFP - Rory
May - August (26:58): Coco Gauff - Belichick
September -...
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December 20, 2025 • 47 mins
This week: The European Commission pushed back its timeline for all EV Europe. Felix Salmon, Elizabeth Spiers, and Emily Peck are joined by Bloomberg’s Global Automotive Editor Craig Trudell who helps understand how and why the global electronic vehicle transition is unraveling. Then, in a twist move, Truth Social parent company, Trump Media & Technology Group, merged with TAE Technologies, a fusion power company. The hosts and C...
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December 20, 2025 • 63 mins
In mid-March of 2025, ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt and his colleagues started hearing that the Trump administration might attempt a flagrantly lawless publicity stunt, involving migrant men, secret flights to El Salvador, a notorious gulag, and a total disregard for due process. Despite getting word that something was about to happen, and rushing into a Saturday night hearing, and then securing a TRO from DC judge James Boasberg, Lee ...
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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
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. S...
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December 18, 2025 • 55 mins
This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss the vivid and impulsive portrait Susie Wiles paints of Trump’s White House in a revealing interview with Vanity Fair, what the new unemployment numbers say about the economy and how Americans are feeling about it, and why some studies show that young Americans are increasingly antisemitic.
For this week’s Slate Plus bonus episode, Emily, John, David, and special gue...
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December 18, 2025 • 30 mins
It’s not that antisemitism ever went away, but it’s still jarring to watch people spread its oldest and most vile tropes on social media in a way that would’ve been unthinkable ten years ago.
Guest: Isaac Saul, politics reporter in Bucks County, Penn., author of the Tangle newsletter
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....
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December 17, 2025 • 31 mins
Even though the economy looks to be slowing down, prices are still rising. And while presidents don’t have a ton of control over the economy, there is something in Donald Trump’s power that could help reverse these trends.
Guest: Catherine Rampell, economics editor at The Bulwark and anchor at MS NOW.
Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favori...
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December 16, 2025 • 27 mins
In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder, the right-wing commentator Candace Owens didn’t simply blame liberals. Her antisemetic conspiracy theories have become so toxic that Kirk’s widow has called for a private summit this week.
Guest: Will Sommer, senior reporter for The Bulwark.
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December 15, 2025 • 31 mins
Are “boot camp” clinics that treat kids and teenagers with chronic pain symptoms helping or inflicting more damage on patients who have trouble advocating for themselves?
Guest: Isobel Whitcomb, science journalist based in Portland, Oregon.
If you want to support more of this reporting, in 2026 and beyond, consider signing up for Slate Plus. You’ll enjoy ad-free listening across the Slate network, early access to tickets for liv...
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December 13, 2025 • 56 mins
This week: Disney has agreed to make a $1 billion equity investment in OpenAI along with a licensing deal setting limitations on the use of it’s IP on Sora. Felix Salmon, Elizabeth Spiers, and Emily Peck discuss this is a precedent-setting deal and how well OpenAI will actually be able to enforce the terms of the licensing agreement. Then, the hosts examine the likelihood of rumored tech IPOs that could be more than $1 trillion ea...
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December 13, 2025 • 67 mins
Trump decided this past week that there was no downside to fully embracing the racist “shithole countries” rhetoric he denied seven years ago; but this mask coming fully off is just the latest chapter in a decades-long campaign to gut a very specific part of the constitution: the reconstruction amendments. On this week’s Amicus episode, Dahlia Lithwick talks to civil rights attorney Sherrilyn Ifill about the critical role the 14th ...
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December 12, 2025 • 30 mins
The good news is voters are more persuaded by factual claims than emotional appeals or appeals to fear. But the bad news is that A.I. chatbots, trying to convince you, will keep making factual claims long after it runs out of actual facts.
Guest: David Rand, professor of information science, marketing and psychology at Cornell University
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December 11, 2025 • 60 mins
This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss what will happen as the Supreme Court considers whether a president can remove leaders of independent agencies without cause, how the overt signals about immigration and “erasure” in the new National Security Strategy are meant to stir up cultural anxiety in Europe, and the high-stakes merger drama between Netflix, Paramount, and Warner Bros. with guest Tim Wu, profe...
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December 11, 2025 • 31 mins
Today’s TikTok influencers share every aspect of their lives: from their morning routines, to getting ready to go out, to their parents being detained and eventually deported by ICE.
Guest: Tony Vara, TikTok creator @itonyvara
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December 10, 2025 • 29 mins
Last Friday, Netflix announced that they would be acquiring Warner Bros. Discovery, a massive megamerger that would let the number one streaming service acquire the third biggest streamer (HBO Max), the entire Warner Bros. film catalog, its cable channels, and the Discovery+ streaming service. But before any shareholders could celebrate, Paramount Skydance, the megaconglomerate led by the Trump-favored Ellison family, launched a ho...
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December 9, 2025 • 39 mins
In this Money Talks: Elizabeth Spiers is joined by Tim Wu to discuss his new book, The Age of Extraction, which breaks down how we ended up with an economy dominated by Big Tech and its purely profit-seeking mindset. They’ll get into the slow erosion of optimism around the internet as a democratizing force, the state of antitrust enforcement in America, and what it might look like if we stop allowing big companies to nickel and dim...
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December 9, 2025 • 29 mins
This week, Senate Democrats will hold a vote on extending expiring Affordable Care Act tax credits to try to prevent health insurance premiums from skyrocketing for millions of Americans. That vote is basically guaranteed to fail.
Where did these credits come from, and what’s likely to happen when they (almost) inevitably lapse?
Guest: Julie Rovner, chief Washington correspondent for KFF Health News and host of the podcast “What ...
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December 8, 2025 • 72 mins
Hosts Alex Kirshner, Lindsay Gibbs, and Ben Lindbergh discuss last week’s bizarre and pandering World Cup draw with The Athletic’s Adam Crafton. Next, the team talks about the obviously controversial College Football playoff rankings, and finally the latest in an antitrust trial that involves NASCAR and Michael Jordan.
On the bonus episode available exclusively for Slate Plus members, the gang talks about the Oklahoma City Thunde...
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December 8, 2025 • 24 mins
Ten years ago, the alt-right’s talking points about immigration used to be too toxic to even post on the internet under your own name. So how did they turn into something President Trump regularly fires off on social media?
Guest: Zack Beauchamp, senior correspondent for Vox.
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. Subscrib...
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