The Weeds

By Vox

Social Sciences

What's The Weeds about?

Politics is how people achieve power. Policy is what they do with it. Every week on The Weeds, host Jonquilyn Hill and guests break down the policies that shape our lives, from abortion to financial regulations to affirmative action to housing. We dive deep and we get wonky, but we have fun along the way. New episodes drop every Wednesday.
Produced by Vox and the Vox Media Podcast Network.

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NYC’s not-so-sudden migrant...

09.27.2023

Earlier this month, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said the current migrant crisis would “destroy the city.” Since April 2022, more than 115,000 migrants have arrived in New York City, many fleeing hardship from their home countries. In response, ...

The Weeds episodes:

09.27.2023 NYC’s not-so-sudden migrant surge Earlier this month, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said the current migrant crisis would “destroy the city.” Since April 2022, more than 115,000 migrants have arrived in New York City, many fleeing hardship from their home countries. In response, ...
09.20.2023 What’s up, doc(ket)? Summer is over, school is back, and the Supreme Court is getting ready for a new term. The term starts in early October, and the docket is stacked. Host Jonquilyn Hill sits down with Vox senior correspondent Ian Millhiser to ...
09.13.2023 Who protects workers from extreme heat? No matter where you live in the US, this summer was hot. Extremely hot. Temperatures soared all over the country, breaking records almost daily. Even Arizona saw unprecedented heat: Phoenix baked under 110º heat for 31 days straight, with little ...
08.30.2023 Why isn’t school lunch free? The problem of school lunch debt is not a new one. But during the early days of the Covid-19 public health emergency, Congress had a solution: universal free school lunch. Suddenly, federal waivers were available to public schools around the ...
08.23.2023 Trump’s RICO problem In case you missed it, Donald Trump was indicted once again, this time for his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia. But this indictment is different from the others, because it involves a RICO charge. ...
08.16.2023 Biden messed with Texas In early July, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott installed a chain of buoys and barbed wire in the Rio Grande as part of his “Operation Lone Star” plan to crack down on illegal border crossings. Then, a few days later, the ...
08.09.2023 Biden wants YOU (to go to therapy) Finding a therapist can be exhausting. Between connecting with a clinician you like and locating someone who takes your insurance, it can be a daunting process. And despite a 2008 law that requires parity between mental and physical health care, ...
08.02.2023 A new era for birth control For the first time ever in America, a birth control pill will be available over the counter. In July 2023, the Food and Drug Administration approved Opill, a progestin-only form of daily oral contraception. This move could open the doors ...
07.26.2023 Who broke student loans? Last month, the Supreme Court struck down President Biden’s student loan forgiveness program. Student loan debt these days weighs in at about $1.7 trillion. Leah Litman and Josh Mitchell join us on the latest episode of The Weeds to dive ...
07.19.2023 Expecting: Weed and Pregnancy Many states have extremely punitive policies around cannabis and pregnancy. But researchers don't actually have great data on cannabis's harms. This episode of Unexplainable originally aired in May 2023. Read More: Weed in pregnancy: Is it safe? - Vox Submit ...
07.12.2023 It's an HOA world; you're just living in it If you’re buying a new home, there’s a good chance it’s part of a homeowners association. HOAs are a form of common interest housing, and roughly a quarter of Americans live in communities with one. These private entities work as ...
06.28.2023 The Republican plot to defund public libraries A popular saying is that public libraries are the last bastion of true democracy. But in recent months, Republican state lawmakers and local elected boards in states including Texas and Missouri have threatened libraries as a way to control what ...
06.21.2023 A conversation with Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield In this live taping of The Weeds from TruCon 2023, host Jonquilyn Hill sits down with Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the United Nations, for a conversation about the role of Africa in the current geopolitical landscape. They discuss ...
06.14.2023 We need to rethink discipline in schools For many Black children, their first encounter with the discrimination that will trail them their whole lives comes from the school system — a system where they are five times more likely to attend a segregated school than their white ...
06.07.2023 The kids suing their state for climate change Do Montanans have a constitutional right to a clean and healthy environment? According to the state constitution they do. And a group of young people are using that language to sue the state over its energy policies. The case is ...
05.24.2023 The fate of affirmative action Summer is around the corner, which means the latest rulings from this Supreme Court are as well. Two cases will take on affirmative action. In this episode of The Weeds we go on a deep dive with Vox reporters Fabiola ...
05.17.2023 Why is child labor making a comeback? The first child labor law in America went on the books almost 200 years ago, and federal labor protections were enshrined in the Fair Labor Standards Act nearly 100 years later in 1938. So almost a century after the passage ...
05.10.2023 The Weeds, Live – Anti-trans legislation, explained In recent years, there’s been a dramatic increase in the number of anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in state legislatures across the country. The ACLU is currently tracking 474 such bills, the majority of which target transgender rights. Meanwhile, trans people are ...
05.03.2023 Policymaking on the high seas Question: What is the world’s largest habitat? Here’s a hint: It also takes up about half of the Earth’s surface. Any guesses? It’s the high seas, the parts of the open ocean outside any single country’s jurisdiction. And for the ...
04.26.2023 How Secretary Buttigieg wants to make America’s roads safer On this week’s episode of The Weeds, we sit down with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to talk about transportation policy in America. From subways and buses to cars and safer roads, listen for more about the future of public transportation ...
04.18.2023 Mifepristone and the FDA’s exhaustive approval process, explained It’s been 10 days since a federal judge in Texas issued an unprecedented ruling that nullified the 2000 Food and Drug Administration approval of mifepristone, the first medication in a two-pill combination for medication abortion. A confusing legal battle ensued, ...
04.11.2023 How corporations got all your data Sean Illing speaks with Matthew Jones, historian of science and technology, and co-author (with data scientist Chris Wiggins) of the new book How Data Happened. They discuss the surprisingly long history of data from the 18th century to today, in ...
04.04.2023 Do assault weapons bans work? After the shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville in late March, President Biden once again called for reinstating the federal assault weapons ban. The United States banned new sales of assault weapons from 1994 to 2004, but the law ...
03.28.2023 Medicaid’s “Great Unwinding” On April 1, 2023, a Covid-era Medicaid policy called continuous enrollment will end. The policy allowed recipients to retain their benefits, even if they were no longer eligible, throughout the federal public health emergency and prevented lapses in coverage. Now ...
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 ...
01.16.2023 Reintroducing The Weeds Politics is how people achieve power. Policy is what they do with it. Every week on The Weeds, host Jonquilyn Hill and guests break down the policies that shape our lives, from abortion to financial regulations to affirmative action to ...
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 ...

Older episodes

The Weeds

What's The Weeds about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

The Weeds episodes:

NYC’s not-so-sudden migrant surge

What’s up, doc(ket)?

Who protects workers from extreme heat?

Why isn’t school lunch free?

Trump’s RICO problem

Biden messed with Texas

Biden wants YOU (to go to therapy)

A new era for birth control

Who broke student loans?

Expecting: Weed and Pregnancy

It's an HOA world; you're just living in it

The Republican plot to defund public libraries

A conversation with Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield

We need to rethink discipline in schools

The kids suing their state for climate change

The fate of affirmative action

Why is child labor making a comeback?

The Weeds, Live – Anti-trans legislation, explained

Policymaking on the high seas

How Secretary Buttigieg wants to make America’s roads safer

Mifepristone and the FDA’s exhaustive approval process, explained

How corporations got all your data

Do assault weapons bans work?

Medicaid’s “Great Unwinding”

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

Reintroducing The Weeds

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?

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