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While the U.S. was busy capturing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, someone online was busy placing bets on prediction markets on the ouster. And these well-timed bets may have netted a still-anonymous someone more than $400,000. Was this a case of kind-of-legal insider trading? Or is America going all-out on its efforts to make everything a casino?
We’re going to be talking to pediatrician Dr. Lauren Hughes about the major changes to the CDC vaccine schedule. We want your questions! Hit us up via email at whatnextTBD@slate.com or leave us a voicemail at 646-582-0091.
Guest: Alex Kirshner, Slate contributing writer
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Podcast production by Evan Campbell, and Patrick Fort.
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After the Trump administration launched a massive Immigrations and Customs Enforcement operation in Minnesota, protesters gathered to defend immigrant neighbors. Renee Nicole Good, a mother of a six year old, showed up with her wife and dog to film altercations between officers and community members. What happened next changed everything.
Guest: Jon Collins, senior reporter on the Minnesota Public Radio News race, class and communities team.
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Podcast production by Ethan Oberman, Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme and Rob Gunther.
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How a mixture of real investigations, wild allegations, evidence of actual fraud, and the right-wing echo chamber ended Tim Walz’s governor campaign in Minnesota.
Guest: Deena Winter, Minneapolis City Hall reporter for the Star Tribune.
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Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.
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The investigation into the 2021 attack on the Capitol was the largest in FBI history. Then Trump came back into office—and started undoing it.
Guest: Ryan Reilly, reporter covering the Justice Department and federal law enforcement for NBC News, author of Sedition Hunters: How January 6th Broke the Justice System.
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Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.
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The Trump administration has a handful of answers to the question “Why did the United States pluck Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela?”—it was for narcoterrorism, or payback, or just oil. They’re even less clear about what’s going to happen with the country now.
Guest: Shane Harris, staff writer covering national security and intelligence for the Atlantic.
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Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.
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The Trump administration wants NASA to land astronauts on the moon by 2027. They also want them to do it with their budget slashed, a leadership carousel and competing views that Mars is more important.
Guest: Joel Achenbach, freelance journalist and author of Moondoggle
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Host Mary Harris appeared on stage a few weeks back to speak in response to a night of “Resistance Theater,” considering how she, as a journalist, is preparing to meet this political moment.
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 access wherever you listen.
Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.
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Artificial intelligence boosters spent the year wedging the tech into our lives – whether we wanted it or not. But one new product brought A.I. from every app and website into the meatspace, forcing you to face it eye-to-eye.
Guest: Nitish Pahwa, staff writer at Slate covering business and technology
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2025 might not have been a great year —but the music sure was stellar.
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Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme and Rob Gunther.
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With rising authoritarianism, terrifying speech crackdowns, and violence in the streets, this year we found ourselves turning to our friends over at How To for advice on finding peace and excitement in our lives.
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If you were to sum up 2025 in a film, which would you pick? The question that nearly wrecked the brain of Slate’s chief movie critic.
Guest: Dana Stevens, Slate’s movie critic.
Dana’s ten best movies of 2025.
Her review of Sinners.
And her review of One Battle After Another.
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Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.
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Canada and the United States usually have a pretty good-natured sports rivalry—but from hockey to baseball, that was not the case in 2025.
Guest: Alex Kirshner, contributing writer at Slate, co-host of Hang Up and Listen and the Split Zone Duo podcasts.
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Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.
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With so much online content, it can be hard for a meme to stay in the collective consciousness for more than a few days. But one meme this year managed to capture seemingly everyone’s attention - and challenge the definition of a meme altogether.
Guest: Kate Lindsay, host of Slate’s ICYMI podcast.
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We’re on a mission to get 100 people to join Slate Plus before the new year—and we’re even offering a 50-percent-off deal to folks who join us right now. Visit Slate.com/whatnextplus and use the code TBD50 to get a year of Slate Plus for $59.
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All this week, What Next and What Next: TBD are re-airing some of our favorite conversations from throughout the year and checking back with the people in those conversations to see how things have – or haven’t – changed. This episode originally aired in September.
We’ve been told that artificial intelligence can write, code, generate images—it can do everything…except feasibly turn a profit. But investing in A.I. has nevertheless become a pillar of the U.S. economy. Where is this leading us?
Guest: Ed Zitron, author of the newsletter Where’s Your Ed At and host of the podcast Better Offline.
If you want to support more of this reporting, in 2026 and beyond, consider signing up for Slate Plus. You’ll enjoy ad-free listening across the Slate network, early access to tickets for live events, and you’ll never hit the paywall on the site.
We’re on a mission to get 100 people to join Slate Plus before the new year—and we’re even offering a 50-percent-off deal to folks who join us right now. Visit Slate.com/whatnextplus and use the code WHATNEXT50 to get a year of Slate Plus for $59.
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All this week, What Next and What Next: TBD are re-airing some of our favorite conversations from throughout the year and checking back with the people in those conversations to see how things have – or haven’t – changed. This episode is from August.
More than a thousand rabbis and Jewish leaders have signed a letter calling for Israel to end “the use and threat of starvation as a weapon of war.” This New York rabbi, who has felt a connection to Israel her whole life, explains why she signed.
Guest: Sarah Reines, rabbi at Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan.
If you want to support more of this reporting, in 2026 and beyond, consider signing up for Slate Plus. You’ll enjoy ad-free listening across the Slate network, early access to tickets for live events, and you’ll never hit the paywall on the site.
We’re on a mission to get 100 people to join Slate Plus before the new year—and we’re even offering a 50-percent-off deal to folks who join us right now. Visit Slate.com/whatnextplus and use the code WHATNEXT50 to get a year of Slate Plus for $59.
Podcast production by Ethan Oberman, Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
All this week, What Next and What Next: TBD are re-airing some of our favorite conversations from throughout the year and checking back with the people in those conversations to see how things have – or haven’t – changed. This episode is from August.
From the Statue of Liberty to the Golden Gate Bridge, and places in between like Yellowstone and the site of the Battle of Gettysburg, the National Park Service has been a point of American pride since its inception. And with a small budget and actually generating revenue, even fiscal hawks had no reason to complain.
So why is the Trump administration cutting their budget?
Guests:
Jon B. Jarvis,18th director of the National Parks.
Kevin Heatley, former superintendent of Crater Lake National Park, Oregon.
If you want to support more of this reporting, in 2026 and beyond, consider signing up for Slate Plus. You’ll enjoy ad-free listening across the Slate network, early access to tickets for live events, and you’ll never hit the paywall on the site.
We’re on a mission to get 100 people to join Slate Plus before the new year—and we’re even offering a 50-percent-off deal to folks who join us right now. Visit Slate.com/whatnextplus and use the code WHATNEXT50 to get a year of Slate Plus for $59.
Podcast production by Ethan Oberman, Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
All this week, What Next and What Next: TBD are re-airing some of our favorite conversations from throughout the year and checking back with the people in those conversations to see how things have – or haven’t – changed. This episode is from October.
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-Fascist Handbook.
If you want to support more of this reporting, in 2026 and beyond, consider signing up for Slate Plus. You’ll enjoy ad-free listening across the Slate network, early access to tickets for live events, and you’ll never hit the paywall on the site.
We’re on a mission to get 100 people to join Slate Plus before the new year—and we’re even offering a 50-percent-off deal to folks who join us right now. Visit Slate.com/whatnextplus and use the code WHATNEXT50 to get a year of Slate Plus for $59.
Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
All this week, What Next and What Next: TBD are re-airing some of our favorite conversations from throughout the year and checking back with the people in those conversations to see how things have – or haven’t – changed. This episode is from April.
The Trump administration’s actions on immigration and firing the federal workforce have drawn condemnation from all sorts of unions—from building trades to graduate students. What happens when labor speaks as one?
Guest: Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL–CIO.
If you want to support more of this reporting, in 2026 and beyond, consider signing up for Slate Plus. You’ll enjoy ad-free listening across the Slate network, early access to tickets for live events, and you’ll never hit the paywall on the site.
We’re on a mission to get 100 people to join Slate Plus before the new year—and we’re even offering a 50-percent-off deal to folks who join us right now. Visit Slate.com/whatnextplus and use the code WHATNEXT50 to get a year of Slate Plus for $59.
Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, Ethan Oberman, Isabel Angell, and Rob Gunther.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
All this week, What Next and What Next: TBD are re-airing some of our favorite conversations from throughout the year and checking back with the people in those conversations to see how things have – or haven’t – changed. This episode originally aired in March.
Memecoins are a niche type of cryptocurrency with no intrinsic value. But they remain a popular form of crypto, as seen earlier this year with President Trump’s own memecoin. And if it worked for him, then why not our little podcast?
Guests:
Azeem Khan, advisor to UNICEF’s crypto fund and cocreator of the blockchain Morph.
Nitish Pahwa, Slate staff writer covering business and tech.
If you want to support more of this reporting, in 2026 and beyond, consider signing up for Slate Plus. You’ll enjoy ad-free listening across the Slate network, early access to tickets for live events, and you’ll never hit the paywall on the site.
We’re on a mission to get 100 people to join Slate Plus before the new year—and we’re even offering a 50-percent-off deal to folks who join us right now. Visit Slate.com/whatnextplus and use the code WHATNEXT50 to get a year of Slate Plus for $59.
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Is the president falling into the very trap that launched him back into office by telling people the economy is actually great when they say it isn’t? Is this partially ballroom’d White House as chaotic as its detractors—and Trump’s chief of staff—say it is?
Guest: Ben Jacobs, political reporter based in Washingon.
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 access wherever you listen.
Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.