Author: Slate Podcasts

On Monday, the Washington Post published a damning account of America’s war in Afghanistan. Titled “The Afghanistan Papers,” the report features dozens of interviews with people directly involved in the war, detailing the lies, deception, and misleading of the public that kept the war going. At once shocking and completely unsurprising, the papers are a secret history of America’s longest war.

Guest: Fred Kaplan writes for Slate and is the author of the forthcoming book The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War, due out in January 2020.

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Two maps can help tell the story of a looming public health problem in rural America. One, published by the CDC, shows 220 of the most vulnerable counties in America either experiencing or at risk of an HIV outbreak. The other, published by the Washington Post, shows where pharmaceutical companies sent most of their pain pills at the height of the opioid crisis. These maps almost perfectly matchup. And in Cabell County, West Virginia, a place acutely affected by the opioid crisis, 80 new cases of HIV have been diagnosed since last year. Today on the show, what’s going on in West Virginia and what can be done to help?

Guests: A. Toni Young, AIDS activist and founder of the Community Education Group. Dr. Steven W. Thrasher, professor of journalism and LGBTQ health at Northwestern University. He recently wrote an op-ed in the New York Times.

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Underneath the Oval Office there’s this room. It’s a windowless place with terrible cell phone reception but, right now, it’s home to a team crafting President Donald Trump’s impeachment defense strategy. Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi and former Treasury aide Tony Sayegh started the effort to protect the president only in the past few weeks, but they’re already seeing results. How has this team circled the wagons for the president? And why is one senator in particular pleased to see the White House mount a proper defense?

Guest: Sarah Ellison, reporter covering media and politics for the Washington Post.

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Former U.S. Senator Harry Reid thinks the expected impeachment trial in the Senate will fail to convict. And Reid should know -- he was in the Senate during the last impeachment trial.

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On Tuesday, Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page announced that they are stepping down from their respective roles as president and CEO of Alphabet, Google’s parent company. The move will leave Sundar Pichai in charge of both Google and Alphabet. 

 

With pressure mounting from unhappy employees, antitrust regulators in Europe, and the Trump administration, Pichai takes the helm at a crucial moment in the company’s history. Will he be up to the task?

 

Guest: Mark Bergen, technology reporter at Bloomberg

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Residents of Opportunity, Montana have a problem: their town is infected with a century’s worth of toxins from copper mining. The responsible company, Arco, and the E.P.A. have come up with a plan to fix that, but the community members say it’s woefully inadequate and doesn’t guarantee “a clean and healthful environment.” Now, the case has escalated all the way to the Supreme Court.

Guest: Kathleen McLaughlin, reporter based in Montana

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Podcast production by Mary Wilson, Jayson De Leon, Danielle Hewitt and Mara Silvers.

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The next impeachment hearing will be in the House Judiciary Committee, where Corey Lewandowski made a mockery of Democrats in September. So perhaps it’s by design that the testimony planned for Wednesday seems rather low-stakes: Four professors will speak about the constitutional grounds for presidential impeachment. 

Guest: Jim Newell, Slate’s senior politics writer.

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Senator Cory Booker still hasn’t made the cut for the next Democratic debate, despite having all the moderate bona fides that a suburban voter could want. Why has Booker failed to pop up in the polls? 

Guest: Slate’s Jordan Weissmann. Read his piece, “Dear Moderates: Please Give Cory Booker a Chance.”

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When she was a staff writer at Breitbart News, Katie McHugh exchanged hundreds of emails with Stephen Miller, who is currently one of President Trump’s senior advisors. Then, McHugh was a champion of the alt-right and a supporter of white nationalist ideology. Now, she wants the world to know that those same ideas are what motivate Miller to craft hard-line anti-immigration policies. And she has the receipts to prove it.  

Guest: Katie McHugh, former Breitbart staff writer

Podcast production by Mary Wilson, Jayson De Leon, Danielle Hewitt, and Mara Silvers.

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