What Next | Daily News and AnalysisDaily News

What Next | Daily News and Analysis


What Next | Daily News and Analysis

Shutting Down and Finding Out

Mon, 27 Oct 2025
Isn’t a government shutdown supposed to be a crisis? The Republicans, in control of the White House, Congress and Supreme Court haven’t taken steps to end it on their own, and the ship may have already sailed on the only real ask from the Democrats. So what now?

Guest:  Jonathan V. Last, editor at The Bulwark.

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


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TBD | Did The Trump Administration Censor Speech?

Sun, 26 Oct 2025
For years, conservatives claimed that the Biden administration was pressuring tech companies to censor conservative speech with no solid evidence. 



In Trump 2.0, the administration is explicitly bragging about doing the very same thing they accused democrats of. What gives? 



Guest: Renée DiResta, Associate Research Professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown and author of “Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality”



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Bonus: The Scariest Halloween Costume

Fri, 24 Oct 2025
The streets are full of ghouls, masked horrors, and terrifying make-up—also it will be Halloween soon. 

Guest: Luke Winkie, Slate staff writer.

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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TBD | The AWS Outage is Only the Beginning

Fri, 24 Oct 2025
This week’s AWS outage illustrates just how fragile and vulnerable our interconnected world really is—and how far we’ve fallen from the vision of a decentralized internet. 

Guest: Samanth Subramanian, author of “The Web Beneath the Waves: The Fragile Cables That Connect Our World.”

Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and 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/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.

Podcast production by Evan Campbell, and Patrick Fort.


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Is the Peanut Allergy Dead?

Thu, 23 Oct 2025
Thousands of children may be avoiding peanut allergies thanks to research indicating that early exposure to—rather than avoidance of—the legume is key. Now there’s reason to believe this is true for tons of allergens – and that the great “pandemic” of kid food allergies never needed to happen.

Guest:  Dr. David Hill, attending physician with the Division of Allergy and Immunology at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and The Hill Lab.

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/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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