Some presidents use their pardons for large groups of people. Some presidents use them for personal reasons. If you were to sum up Donald Trump’s use of the power of the pardon, the only word for it is “brazen.”
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Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.
Just after the Trump administration threw a fit over a video reminding the military that they have an obligation to refuse unlawful orders, the Washington Post published reporting alleging the orders to blow up a boat in the Caribbean on Sept. 2 were in fact patently unlawful.
Guest: Steven J. Lepper, retired Air Force major general and former deputy legal counsel to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
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Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.
Conservatives have long complained that teaching American history with slavery and genocide and systemic oppression is just too negative, and the Trump administration has gone as far as attacking the Smithsonian for focusing too much on “how horrible our country is.” But omitting the shameful aspects of America’s past doesn’t just distort history—it impairs our ability to understand the present.
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Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.
As the U.S. upgrades and updates its defense and military systems, the question isn’t whether A.I. will be integrated, but where, how much, and how much decision-making are we ceding to the machine?
Guest: Josh Keating, senior correspondent at Vox and a fellow at the Outrider Foundation where he’s reporting on nuclear weapons and AI.
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By design – and also by dint of unbridled, undisciplined extremist exuberance – Donald Trump’s second stint in the White House is thus far a tricky thing to characterize. While many of the administration’s moves seem copy/pasted from a manual for authoritarian takeover, they’re also deeply rooted in longstanding structural democratic deficits in America. For their part, The administration’s boosters argue this whiplash-inducing dismantling of institutions, norms and precedents are simply the right’s answer to similarly seismic constitutional shifts in the New Deal and Civil Rights eras. In a recent piece in the Boston Review, What Are We Living Through?, law professors Jedediah Britton-Purdy and David Pozen try to puzzle through these conflicting narratives of change. They join Dahlia Lithwick on this week’s Amicus to map this moment and to plot paths through it.
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Note: This episode was originally published on July 27, 2025.
There’s an entire economy devoted to seeing what products are trending—clothing, skin care, even Greek Islands—and delivering you a cheaper knock-off to buy.
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Podcast production by Evan Campbell and Patrick Fort.
While the What Next team works their way from preparing
food to sleeping it off, enjoy this episode on fall’s flavorful favorites from
our friends at Decoder Ring. We’ll be back to regular programming on Sunday.
Autumn may have more cozy signifiers than any other
season—though we all have our own favorites. Maybe for you it’s sweater
weather, football games, spooky season, apple picking, leaf peeping, or
mainlining candy corn. Whatever it is, in today’s episode we’re looking closely at three of these autumnal staples.
First, we get to the bottom of a recurring complaint about the taste of the pumpkin spice latte. Then we gaze deep inside the enigma hiding inside colorful fall leaves. Finally we ask some hard-hitting questions about the seasonal availability of an elusive cookie. Snuggle up and enjoy!
We’d also like to thank Brian Gallagher, Tom Arnold, Sylvie
Russo, and Laura Robinson.
This episode was produced by Katie Shepherd. Decoder Ring
is also produced by Willa Paskin, Max Freedman, and Evan Chung, our supervising producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director.
With the release of Wicked: For Good, spectacle is back in theaters and back on the press circuit: Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo are again “holding space” along with each other’s individual fingers and other quirks they picked up along the way. This is, apparently, how movies are promoted now.
Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplusto get access wherever you listen.
Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.
It wasn’t long after Melody Warnick moved to Blacksburg, Va., that she realized its nickname—“Bleaksburg”—wasn’t a joke. Feeling stuck, she devised a research-based experiment to acclimate to her new city. On this episode: Melody explains how she went from hating Blacksburg to loving it (and how you can deepen your connection to the place where you live).
Do you have a problem that needs solving? Send us a note at howto@slate.com or leave us a voicemail at 646-495-4001 and we might have you on the show. Subscribe for free on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
The show is produced by Rosemary Belson and Sophie Summergrad. Our technical director is Merritt Jacob and our supervising producer is Joel Meyer.
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The Trump administration has announced a 28-point plan to end the war in Ukraine that involves ceding territory, giving up on joining NATO and reducing its military—in essence an extremely, even suspiciously, friendly deal for Russia and Russian demands.
How does Ukraine play this without losing a powerful ally or the war?
Guest: Fred Kaplan, Slate’s War Stories correspondent.
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Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.
