Barron Trump, the president’s youngest son, isn’t on the public speaking circuit and has no social media presence. But he’s nevertheless become a Gen-Z-aged avatar of Trump masculinity for the MAGA faithful. Where does reality end and speculation begin? Guest: Dan Adler , staff writer for Vanity Fair . Want more What Next? Join Slate Plus to unlock full, ad-free access to What Next and all your other favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the What Next show page on Apple Podcas...
Feb 25, 2025•22 min
In 2011, a Republican majority in the Wisconsin State House faced massive protests to their plans to strip power from public sector workers. State Democrats fled across the border and the possibility of a general strike loomed. But the strike fizzled out and the legislation ultimately passed. And now the situation in the federal government is shaping up in a similar way. Do the workers need to break the glass and do what Wisconsin stopped short of? Want more What Next? Join Slate Plus to unlock ...
Feb 24, 2025•23 min
The crypto industry threw its weight and money behind Donald Trump, in hopes of legitimizing the industry. Before his Inauguration Day was over, Donald Trump was already enriching himself via a memecoin, one of the scammier, least legitimate-looking uses of crypto. Guest: David Yaffe-Bellany, reporter covering cryptocurrency for the New York Times. 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. Subs...
Feb 23, 2025•22 min
As someone whose companies receive billions of dollars from the government, it’s worth asking why Elon Musk is so zealous about cutting government spending. Guest: Max Chafkin , features editor and tech reporter at Bloomberg Businessweek and cohost of the Elon, Inc podcast . 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” at the top of our show...
Feb 21, 2025•30 min
Trump's pick for labor secretary, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, is an outlier: She has experience in federal government, where she was one of three House Republicans to support the “Protecting the Right to Organize Act” to expand employees’ rights to organize and collectively bargain and she was accompanied by the head of the Teamsters when she went to visit Mar A Lago after the election. What did her hearing tell us about how she would approach being labor secretary—while working in an administration th...
Feb 20, 2025•24 min
When enough people opt out of routine vaccinations for their children, diseases that have been all but eliminated can come roaring back, as is the case with a growing measles outbreak in West Texas. Guest: Dr. Adam Ratner , pediatrician of infectious disease in New York City and author of Booster Shots: The Urgent Lessons of Measles and the Uncertain Future of Children’s Health . Want more What Next? Join Slate Plus to unlock full, ad-free access to What Next and all your other favorite Slate po...
Feb 19, 2025•24 min
The Justice Department ordered New York federal prosecutors to drop charges against Eric Adams, claiming his indictment was preventing him from aiding in Trump’s immigration crackdown. The move has prompted multiple high level Justice Department officials to resign, and raised concerns of a quid pro quo. Guest: Jay Willis , Editor-in-Chief of Balls & Strikes. Want more What Next? Join Slate Plus to unlock full, ad-free access to What Next and all your other favorite Slate podcasts. You can s...
Feb 18, 2025•25 min
As What Next celebrates President’s Day, please enjoy this episode from our colleagues at How To . What Next will be back in your feed tomorrow. Jeff and his family lost their home last month in the L.A. wildfires. Since then, he’s been hyperfocused on insurance claims, an epic to-do list, and finding a “temporary” place to live for the next several years. But Jeff hasn’t experienced the emotional punch of the devastation yet. In fact… he just feels numb. On this episode of How To!, Courtney Mar...
Feb 17, 2025•53 min
The infinite scroll has no purpose other than keeping your attention. But that doesn’t mean it’s value-neutral. Guest: Chris Hayes, MSNBC news anchor and author of “ The Siren's Call: How Attention Became The World's Most Endangered Resource.” 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” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/...
Feb 16, 2025•24 min
Is Elon Musk’s $97.4 billion offer to buy OpenAI genuine—or an irresistible opportunity to troll Sam Altman? Guest: David A. Fahrenthold , investigative reporter for the New York Times 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” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Hosted on A...
Feb 14, 2025•21 min
As Donald Trump’s campaign of trans panic and anti-Latin American sentiment buoyed him back to the White House, Emilia Pérez looked like a film to meet the moment. Then audiences started actually seeing it and...yikes. Guest: Michael Schulman , staff writer at The New Yorker and author of Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears . Want more What Next? Join Slate Plus to unlock full, ad-free access to What Next and all your other favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe dire...
Feb 13, 2025•23 min
Among his recent executive orders, Donald Trump moved to halt aid to South Africa over a land law and extended political asylum to South Africa’s white Afrikaner population. Where does Trump’s seemingly spotty understanding of South Africa come from? How could having close advisors who grew up in apartheid-era South Africa, like Elon Musk, influence him? Guest: Chris McGreal , writer for The Guardian US who reported from South Africa during the end of apartheid. Want more What Next? Join Slate P...
Feb 12, 2025•23 min
As Donald Trump has demonstrated, losing an election is no reason to admit you lost an election. In fact, in North Carolina, the Republican challenger, who lost a race for the state’s Supreme Court, is testing a bold new strategy of disqualifying ballots until he gets the result he wants. And if he succeeds, it could start a trend. Guest: Mark Joseph Stern, Slate senior writer covering courts and the law. Want more What Next? Join Slate Plus to unlock full, ad-free access to What Next and all yo...
Feb 11, 2025•22 min
Donald Trump has a lot of similarities—and something of a bromance—with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. And those who wish to resist Trump’s Orbán-like, right-wing strongman tendencies could learn something from the resistance in Hungary. Guest: Gábor Scheiring , former member of the Hungarian parliament and assistant professor of comparative politics at Georgetown University Qatar. Want more What Next? Join Slate Plus to unlock full, ad-free access to What Next and all your other favorit...
Feb 10, 2025•23 min
Using Github, you can watch as government websites are brought into compliance with Donald Trump’s executive orders. Out goes the word “equity;” in comes “fair.” And health and science data, once publicly available, disappears. Guest: Jason Koebler, cofounder of 404 Media . Jeremy Prokop, data science advisor in the Midwest 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 Podc...
Feb 09, 2025•23 min
Elon Musk is supposed to be running several companies and a new government department—so why is he also spending money to pretend to be good at video games? Guest: Drew Harwell, tech reporter for the Washington Post . 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 TBD—you’ll also access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the What Next show...
Feb 07, 2025•7 min
Elon Musk is supposed to be running several companies and a new government department—so why is he also spending money to pretend to be good at video games? Guest: Drew Harwell, tech reporter for the Washington Post . 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 TBD—you’ll also access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the What Next show...
Feb 07, 2025•7 min
You can’t doubt the enthusiasm of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. You can question the legality of some of their early moves. Guest: Makena Kelly , senior writer at 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” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Podcas...
Feb 07, 2025•24 min
You can’t doubt the enthusiasm of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. You can question the legality of some of their early moves. Guest: Makena Kelly , senior writer at 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” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Podcas...
Feb 07, 2025•24 min
Last week, Donald Trump announced that Guantanamo Bay would be used to house the “worst criminal illegal aliens” and claimed that it would be drastically scaled up to hold as many as 30,000 people. In addition to its infamous role in the War on Terror, it’s the latest use of Gitmo as an immigration deterrent—and legal grey zone. Guest: Andrea Pitzer , author of One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps . Want more What Next? Join Slate Plus to unlock full, ad-free access to What Ne...
Feb 06, 2025•23 min
Why did the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which gives money to humanitarian causes around the world and accounts for roughly half of one percent of the federal budget, end up in DOGE’s crosshairs? And is its abrupt closure legal? Guests: Franco Ordoñez , White House Correspondent for NPR. Fred Kaplan , Slate’s war stories correspondent. Want more What Next? Join Slate Plus to unlock full, ad-free access to What Next and all your other favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe...
Feb 05, 2025•26 min
America hadn’t had a major commercial airline crash since 2009 until the mid-air collision over the Potomac. Is this a sign of a larger problem that will require government intervention—and will Congress prioritize safety over convenience for their constituents and themselves? You can read Dan’s 2023 article, “ Everyone Seems to Agree a Major Plane Crash is Coming. Why?” on Slate. Guest: Dan Kois , writer at Slate and author of five books. Want more What Next? Join Slate Plus to unlock full, ad-...
Feb 04, 2025•25 min
Trump and his allies in the House’s flurry of anti-trans legislation and executive orders will soon run into both the law and the reality that our institutions like the military really rely on trans people. Guests: Major Alivia Stehlik, Director of Holistic Health and Fitness for the 101st Airborne Division. Kate Sosin, LGBTQ+ reporter at The 19th. Want more What Next? Join Slate Plus to unlock full, ad-free access to What Next and all your other favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe direct...
Feb 03, 2025•29 min
The artificial intelligence industry was thrown for a loop when the Chinese start-up DeepSeek rolled out a product that was more energy efficient, cheaper to produce, and open source. Where did DeepSeek come from, and are Silicon Valley and Washington right to be panicking? Guest: Zeyi Yang , senior writer at 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 ...
Feb 02, 2025•22 min
Did the Chinese artificial intelligence start-up Deepseek just blow up the A.I. world as we know it? Or is it just a cheap knock-off? Guest: Lizzie O’Leary , host of the Slate podcast What Next TBD . 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 Apple Podcast...
Jan 31, 2025•4 min
Tapped by Trump for the role of health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. presents himself as someone willing to say what other politicians won’t. But during his Senate confirmation hearings, both Democrats and Republicans questioned his previous statements about vaccines—and questioned whether he even knows what the job he’s trying to get entails. But his nomination signals that maybe it isn’t about vaccines - it’s about wanting to blow up the whole healthcare establishment. Guest: Dan Diamond, W...
Jan 31, 2025•24 min
Tulsi Gabbard’s political career is truly singular: once a young progressive Democrat on the rise, then a gadfly taking surprise meetings with Bashar al-Assad, now she’s Donald Trump’s nominee to head up National Intelligence. Along the way, Gabbard has given almost everyone a reason not to vote for her. Guest: Elaine Godfrey , staff writer covering national politics for The Atlantic . Want more What Next? Join Slate Plus to unlock full, ad-free access to What Next and all your other favorite Sl...
Jan 30, 2025•25 min
Trump’s Office of Management and Budget sent a memo directing federal agencies to “temporarily pause all activities related to … disbursement of all Federal financial assistance,” which threw everything from Meals on Wheels to the rebuilding of a Rhode Island bridge into a state of confusion. What seems clear is that Congress has already stipulated how this money should be spent—and the president doesn’t have the power to change that. For more on the legal mess that’ll follow this news, head ove...
Jan 29, 2025•24 min
The Trump administration’s fight against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs is underway, and it’s proving to be even broader and further-reaching than anticipated. What’s at stake for these programs—and why are so many Americans glad to see them go? Guest: Farah Stockman , member of the New York Times Editorial Board , author of American Made: What Happens to People When Work Disappears Want more What Next? Join Slate Plus to unlock full, ad-free access to What Next and all your othe...
Jan 28, 2025•26 min
Between Trump’s broad pardon for January 6 rioters and Facebook loosening restrictions on its platforms, it’s looking much easier for militia groups like the Oathkeepers and Proud Boys to recruit members, organize, and carry out violence. Guest: Josh Kaplan , reporter for ProPublica. Want more What Next? Join Slate Plus to unlock full, ad-free access to What Next and all your other favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the What Next show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify . Or...
Jan 27, 2025•24 min
