The good news is voters are more persuaded by factual claims than emotional appeals or appeals to fear. But the bad news is that A.I. chatbots, trying to convince you, will keep making factual claims long after it runs out of actual facts. Guest: David Rand , professor of information science, marketing and psychology at Cornell University 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 toda...
Dec 12, 2025•27 min
Today’s TikTok influencers share every aspect of their lives: from their morning routines, to getting ready to go out, to their parents being detained and eventually deported by ICE. Guest: Tony Vara, TikTok creator @itonyvara 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 t...
Dec 11, 2025•28 min
Last Friday, Netflix announced that they would be acquiring Warner Bros. Discovery, a massive megamerger that would let the number one streaming service acquire the third biggest streamer (HBO Max), the entire Warner Bros. film catalog, its cable channels, and the Discovery+ streaming service. But before any shareholders could celebrate, Paramount Skydance, the megaconglomerate led by the Trump-favored Ellison family, launched a hostile takeover. Which company will emerge victorious here…will th...
Dec 10, 2025•26 min
This week, Senate Democrats will hold a vote on extending expiring Affordable Care Act tax credits to try to prevent health insurance premiums from skyrocketing for millions of Americans. That vote is basically guaranteed to fail. Where did these credits come from, and what’s likely to happen when they (almost) inevitably lapse? Guest: Julie Rovner , chief Washington correspondent for KFF Health News and host of the podcast “ What the Health? ” Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to acc...
Dec 09, 2025•26 min
Ten years ago, the alt-right’s talking points about immigration used to be too toxic to even post on the internet under your own name. So how did they turn into something President Trump regularly fires off on social media? Guest: Zack Beauchamp, senior correspondent for Vox. 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 ...
Dec 08, 2025•21 min
Donald Trump—or at least the tech guys who have his ear—is ready to clear the regulatory runway for A.I. but other Republicans aren’t too sure. Can he bring them around? Or will the bubble burst first? 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 today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sig...
Dec 07, 2025•20 min
Olivia Nuzzi’s book, American Canto, is out. Somehow it discloses almost nothing and also way, way too much. Guest: Scaachi Koul , Slate senior 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/whatnextplu...
Dec 05, 2025•4 min
A tech mogul who made bank from Paypal with his Stanford buddies and has endeared himself to right-wing politicians and enriched himself the same way? No not him; this one’s South African..no, not him either. Guest: Ryan Mac , 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 n...
Dec 05, 2025•22 min
Today, the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee will be meeting to vote on recommendations for childhood vaccinations. But under RFK Jr.’s leadership, this committee looks much different now than it did a year ago.How is the impact from the HHS secretary being seen across America today? Guest: Dr. Paul Offit , Director of the Vaccine Education Center and professor of pediatrics in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus...
Dec 04, 2025•27 min
Some presidents use their pardons for large groups of people. Some presidents use them for personal reasons. If you were to sum up Donald Trump’s use of the power of the pardon, the only word for it is “brazen.” Guest: Benjamin Wallace-Wells is a staff writer at The New Yorker. 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 ou...
Dec 03, 2025•27 min
Just after the Trump administration threw a fit over a video reminding the military that they have an obligation to refuse unlawful orders, the Washington Post published reporting alleging the orders to blow up a boat in the Caribbean on Sept. 2 were in fact patently unlawful. Guest: Steven J. Lepper, retired Air Force major general and former deputy legal counsel to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole W...
Dec 02, 2025•25 min
Conservatives have long complained that teaching American history with slavery and genocide and systemic oppression is just too negative, and the Trump administration has gone as far as attacking the Smithsonian for focusing too much on “how horrible our country is.” But omitting the shameful aspects of America’s past doesn’t just distort history—it impairs our ability to understand the present. Guest: Clint Smith, staff writer at The Atlantic and author of How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning Wi...
Dec 01, 2025•29 min
As the U.S. upgrades and updates its defense and military systems, the question isn’t whether A.I. will be integrated, but where, how much, and how much decision-making are we ceding to the machine? Guest: Josh Keating , senior correspondent at Vox and a fellow at the Outrider Foundation where he’s reporting on nuclear weapons and AI. 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...
Nov 30, 2025•25 min
Note: This episode was originally published on July 27, 2025. There’s an entire economy devoted to seeing what products are trending—clothing, skin care, even Greek Islands—and delivering you a cheaper knock-off to buy. Guest: Mia Sato , reporter for The Verge 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 ...
Nov 28, 2025•31 min
While the What Next team works their way from preparingfood to sleeping it off, enjoy this episode on fall’s flavorful favorites fromour friends at Decoder Ring. We’ll be back to regular programming on Sunday. Autumn may have more cozy signifiers than any otherseason—though we all have our own favorites. Maybe for you it’s sweaterweather, football games, spooky season, apple picking, leaf peeping, ormainlining candy corn. Whatever it is, in today’s episode we’re looking closely at three of these...
Nov 27, 2025•51 min
With the release of Wicked: For Good , spectacle is back in theaters and back on the press circuit: Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo are again “holding space” along with each other’s individual fingers and other quirks they picked up along the way. This is, apparently, how movies are promoted now. Guest: Michael Schulman , staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears . Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free l...
Nov 26, 2025•26 min
The Trump administration has announced a 28-point plan to end the war in Ukraine that involves ceding territory, giving up on joining NATO and reducing its military—in essence an extremely, even suspiciously, friendly deal for Russia and Russian demands. How does Ukraine play this without losing a powerful ally or the war? Guest: Fred Kaplan , Slate’s War Stories correspondent. Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all y...
Nov 25, 2025•21 min
Between the drastic budget cuts and provisions in the Big Beautiful Bill, the Trump administration has found a way to drain Planned Parenthood and other reproductive health centers and cut off access to abortion services—as well as any other health care those clinics provided. Guests: Shefali Luthra , reproductive health reporter at The 19th, author of Undue Burden: Life and Death Decisions in Post-Roe America . George Hill, President and CEO of Maine Family Planning. Want more What Next? Subscr...
Nov 24, 2025•29 min
Tracking a license plate across the country has never been easier, which is good news if your car has been stolen, but in an era of ICE and Border Patrol raids, these warrantless searches feel increasingly invasive—and unconstitutional. Guest: Joseph Cox , co-founder of 404 Media and host of the 404 Media 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 cl...
Nov 23, 2025•28 min
You can have enough ICE recruits or you can have standards for the shape that they’re in, but you can’t have both—this was just one lesson Donald Trump could have learned this week, in between hosting a summit of McDonald’s franchise owners and calling a reporter “piggie.” Guest: Rebecca Onion, Slate senior 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-fre...
Nov 21, 2025•6 min
Trump promised to stop the “persecution” of the cryptocurrency industry. He did call off the SEC investigations that began under Biden, and pardoned Binance cofounder and ex-CEO Changpeng Zhao. But is the crypto industry ultimately better off because of that? Guest: David Yaffe-Bellany , tech 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 Pod...
Nov 21, 2025•21 min
People have been talking about how the penny is more trouble than it’s worth for 50 years—so why drop it now? And—other than having nothing to put in our loafers—will it be missed? Guest: Caity Weaver , writer at 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 top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus t...
Nov 20, 2025•22 min
Ongoing civil war in Sudan has left tens of thousands dead, with millions displaced. A country of great natural resources, regional foreign governments have chosen sides—but foreign aid from the US that had mitigated some of the war’s damage is gone. Guest: David Miliband , president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee, former UK foreign secretary 2007-2010. Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favori...
Nov 19, 2025•26 min
You can’t really blame Donald Trump for thinking he could just handwave away the Epstein Files. But for the first time in what feels like forever, his base, the GOP, and his own desires don’t quite align. Guest: Will Sommer , senior reporter 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 clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up ...
Nov 18, 2025•27 min
Trump can’t seem to decide if the National Guard is needed in American cities to stop violent crime, or to assist ICE deportations, or something else entirely. And the lack of a clear and present crisis is starting to make some Guard members uncomfortable. Guest: Kat Lonsdorf, news reporter for National Public Radio. 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...
Nov 17, 2025•25 min
The parent company of Facebook and Instagram, Meta, doesn’t (just) have a scam problem—with 10 percent of its revenue coming from scam ads, and a third of all successful scams in America using a Meta platform at some point, it’s more an interdependence with scammers. Guest: Jeff Horwitz , tech reporter for Reuters. 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 c...
Nov 16, 2025•29 min
They don’t cut cleanly along party lines, but data centers, and where they get built, became an election issue in Virginia. With so many more data centers to build, are we looking at a new trend? Guest: Margaret Barthel , reporter covering northern Virginia for WAMU. 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. S...
Nov 14, 2025•22 min
Why would Elon Musk attempt to replace Wikipedia—which is already quite futuristic, utopian and accurate—with a faulty, hallucinatory A.I.-powered “Grokipedia”? Well, see, he called it “Wokepedia…” Guest: Stephen Harrison , writer, tech lawyer, author of “ Why Editing Wikipedia Is Becoming More Dangerous ” for Slate and The Editors , a novel about Wikipedia. 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...
Nov 13, 2025•23 min
It didn’t take long to go from Beyoncé holding for applause in front of the word “FEMINISM” to a headline in the New York Times asking “Did Women Ruin the Workplace?” How long is this backlash going to last? Guest: Danielle Kurtzleben, political correspondent at NPR. 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...
Nov 12, 2025•29 min
It has been the longest government shutdown on record. Why did the Democrats choose this moment—right after elections proved how unpopular Donald Trump and his policies truly are—to cave in and end it? Guest: Jamelle Bouie , New York Times opinion columnist. 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...
Nov 11, 2025•24 min
