Slate News

This week: CEOs and investors at the Milken Institute Global Conference projected optimism about the economy despite the overall feeling of uncertainty brought on by Donald Trump. Felix Salmon, Elizabeth Spiers, and Emily Peck, discuss Emily’s reporting from the conference, and the way capitalists have adapted to thrive amid the unpredictability of this administration. Then, they discuss GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen’s surprising bid to buy Ebay and how they think it will play out. And finally, grab your Strawberry Açaí Lemonade Energy Refresher or Sprite® Berry Blast because it’s time to talk about drinks! The hosts get into the economics behind the fancy beverages trend as McDonalds hops on board. 

In the Slate Plus episode: What athletes pay for better performance.  

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Podcast production by Jessamine Molli and Cheyna Roth.

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The not-always-beloved-but-indisputably-useful Spirit Airlines has given up the ghost. What does this mean for the airline industry and your summer travel plans? 

Guest: Will Guisbond, senior reporter for The Air Current.

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Podcast production by Evan Campbell, and Patrick Fort.

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This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss how the Iran War is hurting Trump and the Republicans as its economic fallout grows, the sudden revival of abortion pill politics which ended an uneasy equilibrium between federal law and state bans, and early results of a study on school cellphone bans.

For this week’s Slate Plus bonus episode, Emily, John, and David discuss recent reporting on Trump's escalating and self-aggrandizing efforts to remake the landscape of Washington D.C. including the takeover of municipal golf courses, planning for the "Garden of Heroes," and developments in the ongoing White House ballroom saga.

In the latest Gabfest Reads, Emily Bazelon talks with journalist Mark Oppenheimer about his new book, Judy Blume: A Life. Oppenheimer, who spent years with Blume’s papers at Yale and conducted extensive interviews with the author herself, traces how a restless housewife in New Jersey became one of the most beloved—and most banned—writers in American history.

Email your chatters, questions, and comments to [email protected]. (Messages may be referenced by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)

Podcast production by Nina Porzucki

Research by Emily Ditto

You can find the full Political Gabfest show pages here.

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Find out more about David Plotz's monthly tours of Ft. DeRussy, the secret Civil War fort hidden in Rock Creek Park.  

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Donald Trump is spending his second term trying to cement his legacy, but he still hasn’t zeroed in on what that should be: Is it his name on monuments? A ballroom decorated in his specific style? Owning Greenland or whatever?

Credit where credit is due, though, he’s already made a mark on the political discourse that will have the staying power of a jagged scar. 

Guest: Michael Scherer, staff writer at The Atlantic.

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Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.

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Even with all that Democrats having going for them—mid-term elections typically favoring the out-of-power party, Trump’s sinking approval rates, even rising gas prices—it will be an uphill battle to wrest the Senate from GOP control. 

Guest: Jonathan Martin, POLITICO politics bureau chief and host of “On the Road” a podcast about the 2026 midterms.

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Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.

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“Intersectionality” was one of those “DEI terms” that the Trump administration and Project 2025 were eager to do away with once they got back into power. But to understand what just happened to the Voting Rights Act, a little critical race theory would go a long way. 

Guest: Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, civil rights advocate, co-founder and executive director of the African American Policy Forum (AAPF), law professor at UCLA and Columbia, and author of many books including Backtalker: An American Memoir.

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Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.

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Can a Republican Lieutenant Governor be reborn as a Democratic Governor? After failing to create a GOP 2.0, and being harried by Trump for admitting Biden won Georgia in 2020, Geoff Duncan has changed sides—and many of his old political positions.  

Guest: Geoff Duncan, former lieutenant governor of Georgia and a current Georgia gubernatorial candidate who switched parties from Republican to Democrat last year. 

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Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.

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In the early 2020s, Microsoft committed to buying 75 million tons of carbon removal—somewhere between 70 and 90 percent of the entire carbon removal market. But the company just announced it was putting that ambition on pause.. 

Guest: Robinson Meyer, founding executive editor of Heatmap News.

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Podcast production by Evan Campbell, and Patrick Fort.

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Dahlia Lithwick reviews what has been an “exceptionally bad week” for American democracy. Former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade explains why the charges against former FBI director James Comey, rooted in the claim that he threatened to kill President Trump – via the medium of seashells on Instagram – are unlikely to stick, no matter how hard Trump’s Acting (and actively auditioning) Attorney General Todd Blanche tries. A deleted insta post from a beach in North Carolina is just not going to meet the Supreme Court’s true-threat standard as laid out in Counterman v Colorado.  But actually, landing a conviction is not the point, McQuade says –– Blanche has learned from Trump’s longstanding legal playbook that he can always win by losing. And that’s why she is also closely watching the DOJ’s indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center under a dubious fraud theory, warning that Blanche is both more skilled and more ruthless in using prosecutions for political ends, with few accountability mechanisms beyond potential disbarment. McQuade’s new book, The Fix: Saving America from the Corruption of a Mob-Style Government is available for pre-order now. 

Next, Dahlia discusses this week’s devastating SCOTUS decision in Louisiana v Callais with Madiba Dennie who explains how Justice Alito and the 6-3 Republican supermajority set about hollowing out Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, inviting states to redraw maps and entrench racial disenfranchisement, all under the cover of historically distorted “originalism.”

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This week: Google’s parent company Alphabet announced an incredible $110 billion in first-quarter revenue thanks, in part, to the computing needs of the AI boom.  Felix Salmon, Elizabeth Spiers, and Emily Peck, discuss the shocking earnings report and the reasons to doubt it as a sign of future growth, including the internet’s ever-evolving information economy. Then, they get into Bill Ackman once again trying and failing to make a closed-end fund happen, and why he’ll never be Warren Buffet. Finally they’ll examine the utility of corporate merch, such as Palantir’s french chore coat, and company retreats, like the Plex’s disastrous Survivor-themed getaway. 

In the Slate Plus episode: Can you have a Tiktok and a job on Wall Street?

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Podcast production by Jessamine Molli and Cheyna Roth.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.