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Political Gabfest

Voted “Favorite Political Podcast” by Apple Podcasts listeners. Stephen Colbert says "Everybody should listen to the Slate Political Gabfest." The Gabfest, featuring Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz, is the kind of informal and irreverent discussion Washington journalists have after hours over drinks. Get more Political Gabfest with Slate Plus. Join to unlock weekly bonus episodes—plus ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe directly from the Political…

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Gabfest Reads | Look What You Made Me Do

David Plotz interviews John Lanchester about his new novel Look What You Made Me Do , a darkly funny psychological thriller about two couples in modern-day London whose lives collide in a story of infidelity, obsession, and revenge. The book explores the performance of niceness, class, intergenerational frictions and how technology makes vengeance not just possible but almost exceedingly easy in…

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Air Faux One

This week, Emily Bazelon, David Plotz, and guest host Juliette Kayyem discuss the security calculations behind Trump’s plane switch operation; the White House’s attempts to circumvent Supreme Court rulings in its continued obsession with ‘birth tourism’; and whether ‘burritogate’ reveals the extent of today’s economic anxiety or that young Americans simply aren’t learning to cook anymore. For this…

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Data Center Backlash

This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss what Abdul El-Sayed's Michigan primary win signals about the future of the Democratic Party, Todd Blanche's march toward confirmation as attorney general and how opposition to AI data centers swiftly became a bipartisan political fight. Listener chatter from Francis Creighton in Bethesda, Maryland: UK Parliament: Chiltern Hundreds…

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Unhinged Obsession

This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss the expanding Iran war and what it means for Trump that news of U.S. missile shortages is leaking from the inside, the blend of conspiracy theory and Rand Paul's personal umbrage that drove the show trial of a Senate hearing with Dr. Anthony Fauci, and various developments that brought medication abortion and FDA restrictions back…

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Now We Can Call It a Quagmire

This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss why the war in Iran has flared back up despite the increasing likelihood of political consequences for Trump and his allies, the promises and perils for the U.K.'s newest Prime Minister Andy Burnham with guest Adrian Wooldridge , and the chilling effect of the DOJ's subpoenas of journalists for their reporting on Trump's Qatari Air…

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Gabfest Reads | The Presidency as Pure Pleasure

John Dickerson interviews Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan about their new book Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump . Drawing on extensive reporting from inside the White House, they explore how Trump's second term differs radically from his first, from his decision-making process to the people surrounding him and his relationship with power, money, and the presidency…

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I'm His Lawyer

This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss how the confirmation hearing for Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is yet another example of Trump trying to force Congress to bend the knee, what is behind the horrific ICE killings of two men this week and what can be done about it, and the details of a new multi-state antitrust lawsuit to block the Paramount-Warner Bros.…

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Maybe That Nazi Tattoo Was a Clue

This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss why an insurgent candidate with so many red flags got so far, how shocking new details about Trump's 2025 income show billions in earnings while those who bought his crypto lost billions, and what everyone lost when the president decided World Cup rules didn't apply to us. For this week’s Slate Plus bonus episode, Emily, John, and…

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America Has a King Now

This week, Emily Bazelon, David Plotz, and guest host Ruth Marcus discuss this week's momentous Supreme Court rulings. The FTC/ Slaughter case overturns nearly a century of precedent protecting independent agencies from presidential power while Cook makes a suspicious exception for the Fed, birthright citizenship prevails on constitutional grounds but the close vote further reveals what's broken…

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New York is Red

This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss Tuesday's NY congressional primaries won by three Mamdani-backed democratic socialists and what they could mean for the Democratic Party, two new Supreme Court immigration rulings siding with the Trump administration, and the ongoing Reflecting Pool debacle as the symbol of a presidency of obsessive ego and shiny objects. For this…

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