Slate News
Daily news updates from across the Slate Podcast network.
Episodes
November 1, 2025 • 55 mins
This week: OpenAI has moved away from being run as a non-profit. Felix Salmon, Elizabeth Spiers, and Emily Peck discuss the stated reasons behind the move and what it actually means to be a not-for-profit company. Then, the rates for next year's Affordable Care Act marketplace insurance have come out, and the prices have skyrocketed, reflecting an increase in healthcare costs across the board in the US. The hosts examine the reaso...
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November 1, 2025 • 67 mins
“The Chief Justice… is presiding over the end of the rule of law in America”. That quote did not come from host Dahlia Lithwick, but this week’s guest, former Federal Circuit Court Judge and George H. W. Bush appointee, J Michael Luttig. On this week’s show, Judge Luttig explains the unprecedented split we’re seeing between the federal courts and the highest court in the land in response to Trump’s lawlessness on everything from ta...
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October 30, 2025 • 79 mins
This week, live from Chicago to celebrate 20 years of the Political Gabfest, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss the Trump vs. Chicago showdown and the dynamics between progressive and centrist Democrats with former Chicago Mayor and Obama White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, what threat President Trump poses to the future of American elections and how to push back, and memorable moments from Gabfest history....
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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.
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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.
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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.
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October 28, 2025 • 46 mins
In this Money Talks: Emily Peck and Felix Salmon are joined by legal scholar Ray D. Madoff to discuss her new book The Second Estate: How the Tax Code Made an American Aristocracy. Ray lays out how the US tax code favors the wealthy to an unbelievable degree, helping them to essentially opt out of the system altogether.
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October 27, 2025 • 58 mins
Hosts Alex Kirshner, Lindsay Gibbs, and Ben Lindbergh discuss the federal indictments of NBA players and coaches for gambling incidents and how the ubiquity of online betting plays a role.. Then the panel is joined by the host of the Ringer’s F1 podcast, Megan Schuster, to discuss the excitement and drama heading into the final stretch of the Formula 1 season. Finally, they finish with a mid-season NFL check-in.
On the bonus episo...
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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.
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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...
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October 25, 2025 • 56 mins
This week: A spectacular heist unfolded at the Louvre, with thieves stealing priceless jewels within 7 minutes in broad daylight. Felix Salmon, Elizabeth Spiers, and Emily Peck unpack what happened, why the world was so delighted by this particular crime, and the reasons the thieves might not get that big of a big score in the end. Then, ADP has decided to refrain from giving the Fed special data access, exacerbating the data shor...
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October 25, 2025 • 50 mins
On today’s episode, host Kate Lindsay is joined by writer and streamer Laura Kate Dale to talk about what happened to Emiru at this year’s TwitchCon. The streamer was assaulted during a meet-and-greet, after a number of female streamers had already dropped out of the convention in fear for their safety. What is it about TwitchCon that makes creators feel unsafe, and why are female streamers, in particular, still paying the price?
...
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October 25, 2025 • 55 mins
Bulldozers and bulwarks are the twin themes of this week’s show, as Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Joyce White Vance, a longtime federal prosecutor and clarion voice in defense of the rule of law, despite its flaws. As Pam Bondi’s Justice department chases down the President’s opponents, Congress walks away from its constitutional duties, and the highest court in the land struggles to find a presidential demand too outrageous to rubb...
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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.”
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October 23, 2025 • 58 mins
This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss how President Trump reacted to the No Kings protests by embracing his own “cult of the ruler” in particularly dramatic fashion, whether the shutdown will eventually break enough government functions to force more urgency in negotiations, and why Young Republicans are fawning over Hitler in group chats.
For this week’s Slate Plus bonus episode, Emily, John, and Dav...
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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...
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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,...
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October 22, 2025 • 42 mins
On today’s episode, host Kate Lindsay is joined by Slate staff writer Luke Winkie to talk about Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who some viewers have accused of shocking his dog on his livestream. Winkie spent time with Piker and his dog, Kaya, for Slate earlier this year, and helps debunk the misinformation currently being spread by cloutchasers and right-wing media figures alike. He also answers the most important question of them a...
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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.
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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.
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