Author: Slate Podcasts

Jensen Huang, cofounder of NVIDIA, finds himself president of a $4 trillion company, at the forefront of A.I. technology, and, consequently, something of an international diplomat, as he charms President Trump and negotiates to sell his powerful chips to China. 

Guest: Amrith Ramkumar, reporter for The Wall Street Journal in Washington covering tech and crypto policy.

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Podcast production by Evan Campbell, Ethan Oberman, Patrick Fort, and Elena Schwartz.

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On Sunday, Al-Jazeera’s entire team in Gaza City were killed by an airstrike. Almost immediately, Israel said it targeted one of them on purpose – Anas al-Sharif. The strike fits a pattern, growing both in Israel and across the world, of targeting journalists—and holding no one accountable afterwards.

Guest: Jodie Ginsberg, head of the Committee to Protect Journalists, a nonprofit organization promoting press freedom worldwide.

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

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Jimmy Carter sent his daughter to its public schools; pictures of Obama still grace businesses’ walls; and now Trump has taken an interest in Washington, D.C…by deploying the National Guard, reassigning FBI agents, vowing to evict the city’s homeless population.

Guest: Jenny Gathright, reporter at the Washington Post covering the D.C. region.

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

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After using a Trump-stand-in during his first administration, South Park has come back from hiatus as vulgar and confrontational as ever, with its aiming firmly fixed on MAGA. Contrary to government sources, the show’s enjoying a renewed cultural relevance in its 27th season.

Guest:  David Mack, contributing writer to Slate.

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

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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.  

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

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It’s hard to make money in the music industry. But if you could flood every streamer with hundreds of “original” songs without having to, you know, write or produce it yourself, there’s money there—and less for everyone else. 

Guests: 

Chris Molanphy, host of Slate’s Hit Parade podcast.

Kate Knibbs, senior writer at Wired

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In January, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta was moving from employing professional fact-checkers to letting its users fact-check each other. If you’ve heard that it’s going perfectly, then you, too, have been exposed to misinformation.

Guest: Geoffrey Fowler, tech columnist with the Washington Post

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Donald Trump’s never been all that committed to the truth. But experts are warning that by firing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and appointing loyalists across the judiciary, he’s taken his war on facts to another level. How long can he attempt to remake reality before the truth—someday, eventually, but inevitably—hits back?

Guest: David A Graham, staff writer at the Atlantic.

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

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