The Weeds

By Vox

Social Sciences

What's The Weeds about?

The Weeds is Vox's podcast for politics and policy discussions. Every Tuesday, Jonquilyn Hill and guests take a deep dive into the policies shaping our world — from immigration to climate change to crypto and more.
Produced by Vox and the Vox Media Podcast Network.

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LAST EPISODE

Why Illinois wants to end c...

03.21.2023

This month, the Illinois Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case examining the Safe-T Act. The legislation would bring sweeping reform to the state’s criminal justice system, but one policy in particular has caught the eye and the ire ...

The Weeds episodes:

03.21.2023 Why Illinois wants to end cash bail This month, the Illinois Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case examining the Safe-T Act. The legislation would bring sweeping reform to the state’s criminal justice system, but one policy in particular has caught the eye and the ire ...
03.14.2023 The debt ceiling drama You’ve probably heard by now that President Joe Biden released his 2024 budget proposal. You’ve also probably heard that it has almost no chance of passing through both chambers of Congress. What is likely to come to pass is more ...
03.07.2023 What East Palestine can tell us about the rail industry On the evening of February 3, 2023, a Norfolk Southern train carrying toxic chemicals derailed outside of East Palestine, Ohio. The environmental impact was almost immediate: Residents were forced to evacuate while authorities carried out a controlled release of the ...
02.28.2023 How a 1996 US immigration policy changed everything Almost 30 years ago, President Bill Clinton signed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act into law. This policy would have far-reaching implications and ripple effects that are still present today. Here to explain are two beloved Weeds alumni: ...
02.21.2023 Will the Supreme Court ruin the internet? On Tuesday, February 21, the Supreme Court will hear two cases that could dramatically change the way we use the internet. The cases are against two tech giants, Google and Twitter. More specifically, it hits their algorithms. The big question ...
02.14.2023 The Ukraine war: past, present, and future It’s been almost one year since Russia invaded Ukraine. Since the invasion, thousands have died, millions have been displaced, and the world has felt the ripple effects of the war. After a year of fighting, is anyone winning? What’s next ...
02.07.2023 $14 trillion and no mules Paying the price. One of the typical questions asked during conversations about reparations is how to pay for them. Fabiola talks with economist William “Sandy” Darity and folklorist Kirsten Mullen about how reparations could be executed. The husband-and-wife team lays ...
01.31.2023 The Biden policy that could change your neighborhood One of the most important pieces of civil rights legislation in American history is the Fair Housing Act of 1968. It is also a piece of legislation that has rarely been properly enforced. So, in early January, the Biden administration ...
01.24.2023 Insulin is for the world When insulin was discovered in 1923, the scientists sold the patent for only a dollar, hoping to make it accessible to those who need it. At the time, one of the discoverers said, “Insulin is for the world.” Fast-forward over ...
01.17.2023 Weeds Time Machine: The Voting Rights Act Buckle up for another trip in the Weeds Time Machine! Today, we are going back in time to 1965 to talk about one of the most significant pieces of civil rights legislation in American history: the Voting Rights Act. Once ...
01.10.2023 The great American gerrymander Gerrymandering shapes our political maps, which in turn shape our policies. While there are concerns about how hyperpartisan voting maps are becoming, there’s one state where grassroots organizers have changed the system. On today’s episode of The Weeds, we pass ...
12.27.2022 The scourge of the “time tax” (Originally aired May 2022) Dylan Matthews and Dara Lind are joined by Annie Lowrey (@annielowrey), a staff writer at the Atlantic, to talk about why it’s so hard for people to get government benefits. Frequently called the “time tax,” the ...
12.20.2022 Climate optimism in 2023 In 2022, we saw a lot of climate change news. Europe hit record-high temperatures, Pakistan was devastated by flooding, and in the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency got a little less powerful. While those are major causes for concern, ...
12.13.2022 Our mental health doom loop Last month, New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced a new mental health policy that lowers the threshold for involuntary commitments for psychiatric care. While the Adams administration argues this shift is a solution for growing crime and homelessness numbers, ...
12.06.2022 The bipartisan bill that could protect elections With the 2022 midterm elections mostly over, members of Congress are back on the Hill to wrap up loose legislative ends. One of the bipartisan bills floating through the lame-duck session is the Electoral Count Reform Act, a bill that ...
11.29.2022 The rebirth of industrial policy (Originally aired August 2022) Vox senior correspondent Dylan Matthews sits down with Felicia Wong (@FeliciaWongRI), president and CEO of the Roosevelt Institute, to talk about a new era of industrial policy. They discuss the theory of modern supply-side economics, the ...
11.22.2022 It’s time to regulate crypto The world of cryptocurrency is infamously unregulated, but what happens when a major crypto exchange crashes, uprooting almost the entire crypto ecosystem, and there’s no regulatory body in charge? You have the FTX crash of 2022. And it’s hard to ...
11.15.2022 The Weeds’ weed episode Let’s be blunt: Weed policy is complicated. As with many elections in the past decade, recreational marijuana was on the ballot again during the 2022 midterm elections. After Colorado and Washington voted to legalize recreational use in 2012, more and ...
11.08.2022 How to call an election We did it, y’all – we made it to Election Day! And if you’re like us, tonight you’ll be glued to your TV and constantly refreshing Vox.com waiting for the returns to come in. We’re pretty used to knowing the ...
11.01.2022 How to fix inflation With only a week to go until the US midterm elections, inflation is the issue at the top of most voters’ minds. As Democrats and Republicans make their cases for who can get prices to come down, one thing remains ...
10.25.2022 Why scaring voters works Midterm elections are around the corner, and while voters are concerned about the economy, inflation, and abortion, there’s one other issue jumping to the top of the list: crime. Rising crime comes up in campaigns like clockwork, but during this ...
10.18.2022 The most interesting issues on the ballot The midterm elections are three weeks away, and candidates aren’t the only ones on the ballot. Voters across the country will decide new laws and policy through ballot initiatives, which can include proposals like legalizing recreational marijuana, funding in-state college ...
10.11.2022 The candidates haunting the GOP The midterm elections are four weeks away. Senate control is on the line, and races in battleground states are tightening. Few things say “close election” like an October surprise. The one getting the latest buzz this election cycle comes from ...
10.04.2022 AMERICA HAS A (POLLING) PROBLEM Pollsters are starting to panic. There’s headline after headline after headline ahead of the midterms on whether this election cycle’s polling is accurate or not. How does polling actually work? Is it really representative of how voters are feeling and ...
09.27.2022 Abbott and DeSantis: Stunt queens or policy makers? US immigration policy is complicated. And when Republican Govs. Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis chartered buses and planes to relocate migrants to “blue cities,” it raised a ton of legal questions. But it also ignited the age-old question about our ...
09.20.2022 The fastest growing voting bloc in America For the September issue of The Highlight, the Vox politics team examined the fastest growing voting bloc in the country: Latino voters. But the 32 million voters that make up the Latino electorate are not a monolithic group. In today’s ...
09.13.2022 Who decides how we’ll save the future? How do we make life better for future generations? Who gets to make those decisions? These are tough questions, and today’s guest, philosopher William MacAskill (@willmacaskill), tries to help us answer them. References: What We Owe the Future by William ...
09.06.2022 Vitamin X Today on The Weeds, we are sharing an episode of another Vox podcast, Unexplainable, that originally aired in June 2022. Millions of Americans take dietary supplements — everything from vitamins and minerals to weight-loss pills and probiotics. But because supplements ...
08.30.2022 It’s a policy team takeover! Join editor Libby Nelson (@libbyanelson) and reporters Rachel Cohen (@rmc031) and Madeleine Ngo (@maddiengo) for a summer policy wrap-up. Inflation, the economy, and gas prices were on everyone’s minds, but we have even more policy news to talk about. Both ...
08.23.2022 The rebirth of industrial policy Vox senior correspondent Dylan Matthews sits down with Felicia Wong (@FeliciaWongRI), president and CEO of the Roosevelt Institute, to talk about a new era of industrial policy. They discuss the theory of modern supply-side economics, the passage of the Inflation ...
08.16.2022 Could the war on terror be over? Vox senior correspondent Zack Beauchamp and Vox senior foreign writer Jonathan Guyer discuss the killing of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, one of the organizers behind the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US. His death marks a turning point in ...
08.09.2022 The new politics of abortion In a surprise to many, last week Kansas overwhelmingly voted down an anti-abortion ballot initiative. If abortion rights can win in a deep-red state, what does that mean for the midterms this fall? Join Vox policy editor Libby Nelson (@libbyanelson), ...
08.02.2022 Maybe we’re not doomed? As the Earth swelters through yet another record-breaking summer, a surprise push for climate legislation on Capitol Hill gave us a shimmer of optimism and hope toward fighting climate change. But, while it’s a step in the right direction to ...
07.26.2022 Weeds Time Machine: The ADA Dylan Matthews, Dara Lind, and special guest Ari Ne’eman (@aneeman) fire up the Weeds Time Machine for a special episode on the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ADA was signed into law 32 years ago today, and while the legislation ...
07.19.2022 What the hell is up with SCOTUS? Dara Lind is joined by Vox senior correspondent Ian Millhiser (@imillhiser) to discuss the major decisions handed down by the Supreme Court this term. They talk about the Court’s emphasis on historical narrative, its move away from settled legal doctrine, ...
07.12.2022 The legal limbo of abortion rights Vox Supreme Court correspondent Ian Millhiser (@imillhiser) speaks with Michele Goodwin, a law professor, bioethicist, and leading expert on reproductive health policy, about the future of abortion rights in a world without Roe. References: Policing the Womb by Michele Goodwin ...
06.28.2022 Pregnancy in a post-Roe America Dylan Matthews and Dara Lind are joined by Vox senior reporter Keren Landman, M.D., (@landmanspeaking) to discuss the extremely high maternal mortality rate in the United States. Breaking down those numbers by socioeconomic factors like race or income, the rate ...
06.21.2022 ConGRADulations, fellow kids Hey, Weeds listeners: Today, we are bringing you an episode of Today, Explained that originally aired in early June. Ten months ago, the faculty of Cramer Hill Elementary set out to get their kids back on track after a year ...
06.14.2022 How the world became rich Dylan Matthews sits down with economic historians Jared Rubin and Mark Koyama to discuss their new book, How the World Became Rich. It tries to answer one of the hardest questions in history: Why, roughly 200 years ago, did parts ...
06.07.2022 Does the US need a National Guard of nurses? Dylan Matthews and Dara Lind are joined by Vox senior correspondent Dylan Scott (@dylanlscott) to discuss the shortage of nurses in the American health care workforce. The nursing shortage goes back many years, and not only did the pandemic exacerbate ...
05.31.2022 The gun control stalemate, explained Dylan Matthews and Dara Lind are joined by Vox politics reporter Nicole Narea (@nicolenarea) to talk about gun violence. They discuss the findings of three different research studies related to gun policy, which gun control policies are effective, the outcomes ...
05.27.2022 The Most Dangerous Branch: A well-regulated militia This episode originally published in October 2021 as the second installment of our “Most Dangerous Branch” miniseries about the Supreme Court. Vox senior correspondent Ian Millhiser (@imillhiser) talks with law professor Joseph Blocher and historian Carol Anderson about the Second ...
05.24.2022 Immigration, democracy, and the rise of the Western far right This special episode of The Weeds was taped live at TruCon 2022! Join Dara Lind, Zack Beauchamp, and Jen Kirby for a live panel discussion about the state of global democracy. They discuss the complicated relationship among migration, the threat ...
05.17.2022 The scourge of the “time tax” Dylan Matthews and Dara Lind are joined by Annie Lowrey (@annielowrey), a staff writer at the Atlantic, to talk about why it’s so hard for people to get government benefits. Frequently called the “time tax,” the administrative burden of applying ...
05.10.2022 Ukraine and the global food supply crisis Dylan Matthews and Dara Lind talk with Washington Post economic columnist Heather Long (@byHeatherLong) about the global food supply crisis spinning out of the war in Ukraine. The crisis is so bad that the United Nations said it could be ...
05.05.2022 What the Alito leak means for Roe — and everything else Dara Lind sits down with Vox Supreme Court correspondent Ian Millhiser (@imillhiser) for a deep dive into the leaked draft opinion on abortion written by Justice Samuel Alito. They discuss the text of the opinion itself; why Alito was chosen ...
05.03.2022 The Most Dangerous Branch: Roe v. Wade This episode originally published in October 2021 as the first installment of our “Most Dangerous Branch” miniseries about the Supreme Court. Vox senior correspondent Ian Millhiser (@imillhiser) talks with NYU professor Melissa Murray about the future of Roe v. Wade, ...
04.26.2022 Why do we go to war? Dylan Matthews interviews economist Chris Blattman (@cblatts) about his new book Why We Fight, which examines the root causes of war and what can be done to stop it. In a wide-ranging discussion that touches on conflict all over the ...
04.19.2022 Weeds Time Machine: The Clean Air Act Buckle up! The Weeds Time Machine is back. Today, Dylan Matthews, Dara Lind, and special guest Maureen Cropper, economist and professor at the University of Maryland, travel back in time to the 1970s to discuss one of the most important ...
04.12.2022 Tax time at the culture wars Dylan Matthews and Dara Lind are joined by Washington Post reporter Toluse Olorunnipa (@ToluseO) to talk more taxes for our hot! tax! policy! episodes this month. Today’s topic: Sen. Rick Scott’s 11-point plan to rescue America. Dylan, Dara, and Tolu ...

Older episodes

The Weeds

What's The Weeds about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

The Weeds episodes:

Why Illinois wants to end cash bail

The debt ceiling drama

What East Palestine can tell us about the rail industry

How a 1996 US immigration policy changed everything

Will the Supreme Court ruin the internet?

The Ukraine war: past, present, and future

$14 trillion and no mules

The Biden policy that could change your neighborhood

Insulin is for the world

Weeds Time Machine: The Voting Rights Act

The great American gerrymander

The scourge of the “time tax”

Climate optimism in 2023

Our mental health doom loop

The bipartisan bill that could protect elections

The rebirth of industrial policy

It’s time to regulate crypto

The Weeds’ weed episode

How to call an election

How to fix inflation

Why scaring voters works

The most interesting issues on the ballot

The candidates haunting the GOP

AMERICA HAS A (POLLING) PROBLEM

Abbott and DeSantis: Stunt queens or policy makers?

The fastest growing voting bloc in America

Who decides how we’ll save the future?

Vitamin X

It’s a policy team takeover!

The rebirth of industrial policy

Could the war on terror be over?

The new politics of abortion

Maybe we’re not doomed?

Weeds Time Machine: The ADA

What the hell is up with SCOTUS?

The legal limbo of abortion rights

Pregnancy in a post-Roe America

ConGRADulations, fellow kids

How the world became rich

Does the US need a National Guard of nurses?

The gun control stalemate, explained

The Most Dangerous Branch: A well-regulated militia

Immigration, democracy, and the rise of the Western far right

The scourge of the “time tax”

Ukraine and the global food supply crisis

What the Alito leak means for Roe — and everything else

The Most Dangerous Branch: Roe v. Wade

Why do we go to war?

Weeds Time Machine: The Clean Air Act

Tax time at the culture wars

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