One legacy of the internet is the millions of subcultures that it helps flourish. Another is pornography—and lots of it. At a “gooner meet-up,” the two collide. Guest: Daniel Kolitz, author of “ The Goon Squad ” for Harper’s Magazine. 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/whatnextp...
Oct 31, 2025•26 min
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. 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 whe...
Oct 30, 2025•29 min
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 . Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What ...
Oct 29, 2025•25 min
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 . 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 “Tr...
Oct 28, 2025•26 min
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. 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 cli...
Oct 27, 2025•25 min
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 Turn Lies into Reality” Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus ...
Oct 26, 2025•29 min
The streets are full of ghouls, masked horrors, and terrifying make-up—also it will be Halloween soon. Guest: Luke Winkie , Slate staff writer. 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 Podcasts and Spotify . Or, visit slate.com/whatnextplus to get...
Oct 24, 2025•7 min
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. ” 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...
Oct 24, 2025•28 min
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 Hill Lab . Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-f...
Oct 23, 2025•22 min
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 , staff writer for The Atlantic. Want more What Next? Subscribe to ...
Oct 22, 2025•24 min
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. 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” a...
Oct 21, 2025•29 min
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. 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. Subs...
Oct 20, 2025•29 min
Paying a fraction of a penny per stream and diminishing the value of music were bad enough for Xiu Xiu, but when Spotify owner Daniel Ek announced an investment in a German defense contractor, they decided it was time to take the music back. Guest: Jamie Stewart, musician in the band Xiu Xiu . 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 ...
Oct 19, 2025•18 min
As Trump throws out journalists and outlets that report anything negative about him, he’s limiting access to a group of right-wing influencers who work to further his agenda. Guest: Makena Kelly , tech and politics writer for 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/whatnextplu...
Oct 17, 2025•24 min
In an executive order, Donald Trump declared “Antifa” a terrorist organization. As it isn’t an organization, there aren’t leaders to target, so zealous conservatives took aim at Mark Bray, a Rutgers professor who wrote a book about fighting fascism eight years ago. The clumsy attempts to get him fired didn’t bother him—but the doxxing and death threats were enough to convince him he needed to leave America. Guest: Mark Bray , assistant teaching professor at Rutgers , author of Antifa: The Anti-F...
Oct 16, 2025•32 min
The government shutdown isn’t hitting everywhere equally—infrastructure projects that rely on federal funding have been halted exclusively in states that voted for Kamala Harris. Do blue states have any recourse against a federal government that only functions to punish them? Guest: David Faris , associate professor of political science at Roosevelt University and the author of It’s Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics . Want more What Next? Subscr...
Oct 15, 2025•23 min
Bari Weiss has had a successful media career by any metric, save perhaps for broad appeal. But as she takes over as the head of CBS News, the “mass” part of mass media doesn’t matter as much, and the new order of the day—pleasing a few angry old billionaires—is absolutely her sweet spot. Guest: David Klion , columnist for The Nation and contributing editor to Jewish Currents; author of a forthcoming book on neoconservatism. Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening...
Oct 14, 2025•25 min
While the What Next team celebrates Indigenous Peoples’ Day, please enjoy this episode from our colleagues at Amicus, Slate’s legal podcast. Mary will be back with a new episode of What Next tomorrow. In this week’s episode of Amicus, we delve into the recent Supreme Court shadow docket order in Noem v. Vasquez-Perdomo, which in essence legalized racial profiling by roving ICE patrols, and in practice may have ushered in America’s “show your papers” era for Americans with brown skin, who speak S...
Oct 13, 2025•49 min
At this very moment, police departments can gather more data than they have time to actually go through — audio and video from crime scenes, cell phone and search data, vast digital dragnets. This is where artificial intelligence comes in…as well as the civil rights questions. Guest: Gerrit De Vynck , tech reporter for 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 tod...
Oct 12, 2025•24 min
As troops continue to roll in, unwelcome, to American cities, you can be forgiven for calling the national picture “pretty bleak.” But even now, the news will occasionally let you get off a chuckle or guffaw, even if it isn’t always from your better nature. It’s SchadenFriday; go ahead and indulge. Guest: Alex Sammon, Slate feature writer. 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 ...
Oct 10, 2025•6 min
Though ICE, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services denied their Freedom of Information Act requests, these journalists aren’t giving up without a fight—not until they get their hands on a document that outlines how much information Medicaid is sharing with ICE. Guest: Joseph Cox , cofounder of 404 Media. 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. ...
Oct 10, 2025•22 min
ICE needs more agents to meet Trump’s promised deportation numbers. But is loosening standards and shortening training time to get more agents on the street a good idea, when ICE’s work is becoming more controversial, confrontational, and dangerous? Guest: Robert Klemko , Washington Post reporter covering policing and criminal justice reform. 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. Subscri...
Oct 09, 2025•23 min
It’s clear President Trump wants to send troops to Portland, Oregon. But it’s not clear why—especially to people who live there. Guests: Isaac Stanley-Becker , staff writer for The Atlantic . Elizabeth Lopatto , senior reporter at The Verge . 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.co...
Oct 08, 2025•27 min
It’s been two years since Hamas attacked Israel and set off a devastating war. Since then, talks have fallen apart over and over again. Trump says – this time is different. But should anyone believe him? Guest: Yair Rosenberg , staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of Deep Shtetl , a newsletter about the intersection of politics, culture, and religion. 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 p...
Oct 07, 2025•26 min
The Supreme Court is back in session, and conservative controlled body again has a docket full of cases that look like 6-3 wins for the Trump agenda. Guest: Mark Joseph Stern, co-host of Amicus, and senior writer covering courts and the law for 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 Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at...
Oct 06, 2025•27 min
How one of the largest video game companies was bought for $55 billion by a group that includes Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund and Jared Kushner. Guest: Jason Schreier , Bloomberg reporter 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. P...
Oct 05, 2025•20 min
TikTok exploded to popularity not by giving users what they asked for—but by figuring out what users really were interested in, and serving that. What happens to this algorithm if Bytedance cedes control of it to the U.S.? Guest: Emily Baker White, senior writer at Forbes and the author of Every Screen on the Planet: The War Over TikTok 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 ...
Oct 03, 2025•25 min
Donald Trump’s theory of a government shutdown was that it would give him more power to fire federal employees, and cut benefits and healthcare. Of course, if you claim to be an all-powerful executive, aren’t people going to conclude that the shutdown is your fault? Guest: David Dayen , executive editor of the American Prospect. 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 Ap...
Oct 02, 2025•30 min
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth summoned the military’s top brass from all over the world for a meeting to announce…they need to shave and get in shape? And then Trump followed with a speech about how he wants to deploy them in American cities and also Joe Biden sucks. Good talk, everybody. Guest: Idrees Ali , national security correspondent for Reuters . 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 podca...
Oct 01, 2025•27 min
The president’s case against James Comey doesn’t look very strong to outside legal observers. But even the most spurious accusation against the former head of the FBI would matter when it comes from the sitting president. Guest: Ankush Khardori, senior writer for POLITICO Magazine and former federal prosecutor in the US Justice Department. 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 ...
Sep 30, 2025•25 min
