The playlists of dozens of high-level government officials and tech executives were suddenly broadcast to the world on a website called “the Panama Playlists.” But the information wasn’t taken by sophisticated hackers infiltrating any mainframes—it was all already publicly available. Guest: Mike Isaac , New York Times Silicon Valley correspondent. 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...
Aug 29, 2025•24 min
Blood has a very short shelf life, even under the best of conditions—and you can picture the less-than-ideal conditions where blood is frequently needed—which is why scientists have been working on a blood alternative. The results are promising. Guest: Nicky Twilley , host of “ Gastropod ” podcast and author of Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet and Ourselves . Want more What Next? Join Slate Plus to unlock full, ad-free access to What Next and all your other favorite Slat...
Aug 28, 2025•24 min
John Bolton isn’t exactly beloved by the right or the left. But sending the FBI to raid his house fits a pattern: Either tell the president what he wants to hear, or face the consequences. Guest: Shane Harris , staff writer covering national security and intelligence for The Atlantic. 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 to...
Aug 27, 2025•24 min
Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte has led investigations into Senator Adam Schiff, New York Attorney General Leititia James, and the Federal Reserve’s Lisa Cook for mortgage fraud. With a background a lot like Trump’s—and a little like Mr. Beast’s—who is Pulte? And what kind of damage could a vengeful FHFA director do? Guest: Rachel Siegel , reporter covering the economics of real estate and housing for the Washington Post. Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ...
Aug 26, 2025•27 min
Katie Miller, whose husband Stephen Miller is Trump’s right-hand man, launched a new podcast to join the growing ranks of content made specifically for conservative women. But is there enough demand—in listeners and supplement sponsorship—to make the same impact that the conservative manosphere has? Guest: Emma Goldberg , business features writer at The New York Times. Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favor...
Aug 25, 2025•27 min
President Trump has proposed cutting $2.5 billion from the National Cancer Institute, which in addition to cuts to the National Institutes of Health and research universities almost makes you wonder: whose side is he on in the fight against cancer? Guest: Angus Chen , cancer reporter for STAT news 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”...
Aug 24, 2025•27 min
Two weeks ago, a gunman fired over 500 bullets at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention building in Atlanta. Between the anti-public health rhetoric coming from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the top, personnel cuts and firings, and now a literal shooting, many employees are reaching their breaking point. Guest: Lauren Weber , health science accountability reporter for the Washington Post. Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next fami...
Aug 22, 2025•21 min
Donald Trump was able to take over the Metropolitan Police Department and send in National Guard troops and federal agents to patrol the streets due to Washington D.C.’s strange, not-a-state status. One of the district’s (non-voting) Congressional representatives believes D.C. statehood could come in the backlash. Guest: Ankit Jain , U.S. Senator for Washington, D.C. since 2024. Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all ...
Aug 21, 2025•27 min
Donald Trump returned from his meeting with Vladimir Putin convinced that mail-in voting is how he was cheated from winning the 2020 election. Though he’s come to this conclusion without evidence, how much damage can he do to American democracy? Guest: Rick Hasen, UCLA School of Law, Director , Safeguarding Democracy Project, Election Law blog Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Aug 20, 2025•24 min
After visiting with Vladimir Putin, Volodymyr Zelensky, and European leaders, where does Donald Trump stand on the Ukraine-Russia war—and where does that leave Ukraine? Guest: Tim Mak , editor of the Kyiv-based publication The Counteroffensive . 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 up now at slate...
Aug 19, 2025•23 min
Characteristic of this administration’s over-the-top but never-thought-out immigration enforcement, Trump traded more than 250 Venezuelans who had been deported to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison for 10 Americans who were being held prisoner in Venezuela—including a man convicted of a triple homicide. Guest: Jonathan Blitzer, staff writer at the New Yorker and author of Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis . Want more What Next? Subscr...
Aug 18, 2025•24 min
The scam du jour arrives via a text message, offering you a job. What happens when you accept? Guest: Alex Sammon , Slate features writer. 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 Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more informati...
Aug 17, 2025•30 min
The scam du jour arrives via a text message, offering you a job. What happens when you accept? Guest: Alex Sammon , Slate features writer. 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 Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more informati...
Aug 17, 2025•30 min
A patron and perhaps foremost practitioner of “anti-woke comedy,” Tony Hinchcliffe sits atop his own thriving comedy kingdom in Austin. And when you’re on top, you’ve got nowhere to punch but down. Guest: Luke Winkie , staff writer at Slate , author of “ The Cult of Kill Tony ” 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 po...
Aug 15, 2025•4 min
Jensen Huang, cofounder of NVIDIA, finds himself president of a $4 trillion company, at the forefront of A.I. technology, and, consequently, something of an international diplomat, as he charms President Trump and negotiates to sell his powerful chips to China. Guest: Amrith Ramkumar , reporter for The Wall Street Journal in Washington covering tech and crypto policy. Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite ...
Aug 15, 2025•23 min
On Sunday, Al-Jazeera’s entire team in Gaza City were killed by an airstrike. Almost immediately, Israel said it targeted one of them on purpose – Anas al-Sharif. The strike fits a pattern, growing both in Israel and across the world, of targeting journalists—and holding no one accountable afterwards. Guest: Jodie Ginsberg , head of the Committee to Protect Journalists, a nonprofit organization promoting press freedom worldwide. Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free list...
Aug 14, 2025•26 min
Jimmy Carter sent his daughter to its public schools; pictures of Obama still grace businesses’ walls; and now Trump has taken an interest in Washington, D.C…by deploying the National Guard, reassigning FBI agents, vowing to evict the city’s homeless population. Guest: Jenny Gathright , reporter at the Washington Post covering the D.C. region. 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. Subscr...
Aug 13, 2025•25 min
After using a Trump-stand-in during his first administration, South Park has come back from hiatus as vulgar and confrontational as ever, with its aiming firmly fixed on MAGA. Contrary to government sources, the show’s enjoying a renewed cultural relevance in its 27th season. Guest: David Mack , contributing writer to Slate. 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 ...
Aug 12, 2025•30 min
From the Statue of Liberty to the Golden Gate Bridge, and places in between like Yellowstone and the site of the Battle of Gettysburg, the National Park Service has been a point of American pride since its inception. And with a small budget and actually generating revenue, even fiscal hawks had no reason to complain. So why is the Trump administration cutting their budget? Guests: Jon B. Jarvis ,18th director of the National Parks. Kevin Heatley, former superintendent of Crater Lake National Par...
Aug 11, 2025•25 min
It’s hard to make money in the music industry. But if you could flood every streamer with hundreds of “original” songs without having to, you know, write or produce it yourself, there’s money there—and less for everyone else. Guests: Chris Molanphy , host of Slate’s Hit Parade podcast . Kate Knibbs , 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 Podca...
Aug 10, 2025•27 min
In January, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta was moving from employing professional fact-checkers to letting its users fact-check each other. If you’ve heard that it’s going perfectly, then you, too, have been exposed to misinformation. Guest: Geoffrey Fowler, tech columnist with the Washington Post 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 ...
Aug 08, 2025•25 min
Donald Trump’s never been all that committed to the truth. But experts are warning that by firing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and appointing loyalists across the judiciary, he’s taken his war on facts to another level. How long can he attempt to remake reality before the truth—someday, eventually, but inevitably—hits back? Guest: David A Graham , staff writer at the Atlantic. Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and...
Aug 07, 2025•24 min
More than a thousand rabbis and Jewish leaders have signed a letter calling for Israel to end “the use and threat of starvation as a weapon of war.” This New York rabbi, who has felt a connection to Israel her whole life, explains why she signed. Guest: Sarah Reines , rabbi at Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan. 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 clickin...
Aug 06, 2025•28 min
How Texas redrawing its election maps could set off a gerrymandering arms race across the country—a race the Republicans are likely to win. Guest: Ari Berman is a voting rights correspondent at Mother Jones. 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 up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherev...
Aug 05, 2025•25 min
Belief in democracy was, until quite recently, taken for granted in America. But what if democracy is less a static noun, and more of a dynamic ideal we (could be) working towards? Guest: Osita Nwanevu, contributing editor at The New Republic, columnist at The Guardian, author of “ The Right of the People: Democracy and the Case for a New American Founding .” 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 ...
Aug 04, 2025•23 min
OpenAI’s Sam Altman, flanked by President Trump and Softbank’s Masayoshi Son, announced a hugely ambitious investment in data centers across America to support all the artificial intelligence we’re going to be using. Months in, the project has been scaled back to a single, power-hungry data center in Ohio. Guest: Berber Jin , reporter covering A.I. for the Wall Street Journal Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your f...
Aug 03, 2025•24 min
Some disputes resist an easy “good vs. evil” dynamic, but when one side calls their plans “Operation Satanique,” it’s not too hard to figure who “the baddies” are. Guest: Dan Kois , Slate writer. Articles mentioned in this piece: The Last Days of the Rainbow Warrior Why We Keep Putting Up With Martin Short Who Killed the Segway This Is the Correct Way to Divide Public Bathrooms Who Won the World Cup of Arm Folding? Also mentioned: What Next: The Lawsuit Scaring Protesters . This episode is membe...
Aug 02, 2025•5 min
A shadow app for the dating world had its data hacked and exposed, and it laid bare the perils of creating safe spaces for women online — and of relying on tech companies. Guest: Kate Lindsay, host of Slate’s ICYMI 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 wh...
Aug 01, 2025•25 min
How an Obama-era decision to invest in space capitalism handed Elon Musk a monopoly on space. Guest: Franklin Foer , staff writer at the Atlantic, author of “ The Last Politician ” and “ World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech .” 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 up now at slate....
Jul 31, 2025•28 min
As Trump came back to the presidency, one of the first warnings liberals began repeating was “Do not obey in advance.” But from government-agency heads to university presidents to news organizations, people are opting to simply leave their jobs, rather than do the uncomfortable work of standing up to authoritarianism. Guest: Jonathan Last , editor of The Bulwark. Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favorite Sl...
Jul 30, 2025•26 min
