Slate News
Daily news updates from across the Slate Podcast network.
Episodes
July 19, 2025 • 54 mins
This week: A judge has blocked a Biden era rule that would prevent medical debt from affecting credit scores. Felix Salmon, Elizabeth Spiers, and Emily Peck discuss the logic behind the proposed rule and the economic consequences of this decision. Then, the French Prime Minister has proposed eliminating two national holidays as a way of reducing the national debt. The hosts discuss the likely efficacy of the plan, as well as Trump’...
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July 19, 2025 • 58 mins
Over the last six months, life has been upended for millions of people in America as Stephen Miller's extreme immigration policies have been unleashed. And while the first weeks of the second Trump administration saw some genuine pushback from the Supreme Court, six months in, that feint at checking and balancing has fallen away. On this week's Amicus podcast, Dahlia Lithwick welcomes Aaron Reichlin Melnick, Senior Fellow at the ...
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July 18, 2025 • 32 mins
The MAGA world has been waiting for Jeffrey Epstein’s client list to be released since the first Trump administration. But with those like Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, who stoked interest in the list literally in power, the administration is now saying that no such list exists. For some MAGA fans, this is finally a bridge too far.
Guest: Anna Merlan, senior reporter at Mother Jones.
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July 17, 2025 • 77 mins
This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss the epic MAGA meltdown over the DOJ’s “there’s nothing to see here” Epstein files memo, how the Supreme Court is using the “shadow docket” to bolster Trump’s efforts to dismantle the federal government, and whether rescission will kill NPR and PBS.
For this week’s Slate Plus bonus episode, Emily, John, and David discuss what they are enjoying reading, watching, and...
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July 17, 2025 • 29 mins
For years, Donald Trump was often the only Western leader with anything nice to say about Vladimir Putin.But with Russia and Ukraine still fighting six months into his term, their friendship is on the rocks. Are we seeing a temporary spat – or a real policy shift?
Guest: Michael McFaul, U.S. ambassador to Russia 2012-2014, author of the upcoming book “Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder.”...
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July 16, 2025 • 31 mins
His client, Nyo Myint, is a refugee from Myanmar who was deported by the Trump administration—first to Djibouti, then to South Sudan—along with seven other men. His lawyer is now reaching out to the United Nations to intervene.
Guest: Jonathan Ryan, San Antonio-based immigration attorney and author of the Firewall Substack.
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July 16, 2025 • 52 mins
Kate Lindsay and Candice Lim parse through the annoying practice of logging in and downloading apps. From hiking in the woods to brushing our teeth, it seems like we can’t do anything online these days without being prompted to make an account or download an app. Why do tech companies pressure us to log in all the time? And if we log out, why do they shame us into downloading apps for fast food places and refrigerators? But first, ...
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July 15, 2025 • 31 mins
Why the Democrats’ electoral strategy of “hire consultants to tell you which positions poll well enough to take” has run its course—and where they should look to start rebuilding.
Guest: Ben Mathis-Lilley, Slate senior writer and author of “How Strategist Brain Took Over the Democratic Party”.
Cited in this episode:
The Hollow Parties: The Many Pasts and Disordered Present of American Party Politics (Daniel Schlozman and Sam Ro...
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July 14, 2025 • 31 mins
This week, the Senate Judiciary Committee prepares to vote on Emil Bove, who has been promoted from Trump’s personal lawyer to his current nominee for a lifelong appointment to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. In any other administration, Bove would be a real outlier. But here? He’s par for a very strange course.
Guest: Jay Willis, editor-in-chief of Balls and Strikes.
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July 13, 2025 • 25 mins
He started using ChatGPT to help with spreadsheets. But their relationship took a turn, and before long it was telling him he could leap off a 19-story building and fly.
Guest: Kashmir Hill, features writer at the New York Times.
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July 12, 2025 • 59 mins
This week: Trump's supersized “One Big Beautiful Bill” is now one big BS act. Felix Salmon, Emily Peck and Elizabeth Spiers the economic ramifications of congress passing the controversial megabill. Then, Trump’s trade war continues to shock and confuse. The hosts discuss the logic, or lack thereof, of his latest tariff proposals. And finally, buried in the big ol’ spending bill is something called a Trump Account which includes $1...
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July 12, 2025 • 51 mins
In this episode of Amicus, Dahlia Lithwick sits down with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse to dissect the most recent Supreme Court term and its implications. They explore Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson's emerging role and influence, the patterns of bias within the court that she’s calling out, and the broader systemic issues facing the judiciary. Their conversation also delves into the “worst possible nominee” for a lifetime appointment ...
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July 11, 2025 • 29 mins
It’s a record-breaking year for America: we’ve now had the most reported cases of measles since the disease was declared “eradicated” in 2000.
How did public health backslide so hard that it undid decades of progress—and is there any hope we can get back on track?
Guest: Dylan Scott, senior health correspondent at Vox.
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July 10, 2025 • 72 mins
This week, David Plotz and guest hosts Mike Pesca and Susan Glasser discuss what to make of Elon Musk’s quixotic attempt to start a third political party in America, how Trump’s conflation of national interest with self-interest creates an incoherent foreign policy, and the tedious but impactful “summer rerun season” of Trump’s tariff folly.
Here are this week’s chatters:
Mike: ABC7 New York: Traffic deaths across NYC at recor...
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July 10, 2025 • 33 mins
In the wake of #MeToo, Hollywood productions began hiring “intimacy coordinators,” people who work to ensure sex scenes are safe and comfortable for performers. How are they working out so far?
Guest: Jennifer Wilson, staff writer at the New Yorker.
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July 9, 2025 • 27 mins
After one of the deadliest floods in American history in central Texas, people are looking at cuts to the National Weather Service and FEMA’s absence contributing to the devastation. But one looming problem is much, much bigger.
Guest: Jeff Goodell, writer covering climate change, author of The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet and The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of t...
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July 8, 2025 • 26 mins
A federal force—often defying local governance—coming to take people away without due process has happened before. What lessons can be drawn from parallels between a law that led to the Civil War and what’s happening today with Trump’s hardline immigration enforcement?
Guest: Jamelle Bouie, columnist at the New York Times
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July 8, 2025 • 48 mins
In this Money Talks: Elizabeth Spiers is joined by journalist Brian Goldstone to discuss his book There is No Place for Us on the rising homelessness crisis and how a huge swath of the US population can be working and still lack stable housing. They’ll dive into the misconceptions around who makes up the homeless population, the many ways people like the subjects of Brian’s book were put into precarious situations beyond their cont...
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July 7, 2025 • 30 mins
Built in just eight days, Donald Trump and Kristi Noem toured “Alligator Alcatraz,” a migrant detention facility built on a disused airstrip in the Florida Everglades. Even before Trump touched down in South Florida, branded merchandise was being sold. Soon after he headed back to Washington, the first detainees were brought in.
Guest: Sommer Brugal, Miami reporter for Axios.
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July 6, 2025 • 30 mins
As the One Big Beautiful Bill bounced around Congress, one provision—the 10-year moratorium on states making laws to regulate artificial intelligence—fell out. But AI-fans don’t need to worry, there’s still plenty of industry support in the bill.
Guest: Will Oremus, technology news analysis writer for the Washington Post.
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