What Next | Daily News and Analysis

Even factoring in late-breaking stories in Alaska and Michigan and a reflexive distrust—on both sides—of any polls that look good for Democrats, all signs are pointing to a big day for the opposition party. What’s at stake today—and how worried should everyone actually be?

And join Mary Harris and a team of Slatesters covering the election on Wednesday (11/4) at noon eastern time by signing up here.

Guests:

G. Elliott Morris, pollster, journalist, author of Strength in Numbers substack.

Alan Elrod, president & CEO of the Pulaski Institution, columnist and Contributing Editor at Liberal Currents

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Podcast production by Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.

Paige Osburn is the senior supervising producer of What Next and What Next TBD.

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The hit movie of the fall is…a three-hour documentary about investor fraud? Technically yes, but there’s more to it than that.

Guest: Thomas Flight, media critic.

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Podcast production by Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.

Paige Osburn is the senior supervising producer of What Next and What Next TBD.

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It’s the last Friday before the midterms and Democrats have every reason to finally stop panicking and start….merely fretting. This episode originally aired as a Slate Live on YouTube, produced in collaboration with Slate’s politics newsletter The Surge.

There’s going to be another one of these just for Slate Plus listeners next Wednesday (11/4) at 12P ET! To register, click here.

Guests:

Jim Newell, Slate’s senior politics writer.

Patrick Reis, Slate’s politics editor

Lizzie O’Leary, What Next: TBD host

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 Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.

Paige Osburn is the senior supervising producer of What Next and What Next TBD.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

What is AGI—and is it crazy to say it’s already here? Anthropic’s targeted IPO valuation indicates that many don’t think it’s far off.

Guest: Kevin Roose, author of “The AGI Chronicles”, former NYT host of “Hard Fork,” current host of NPR’s “Machine Gods.”

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Podcast production by Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.

Paige Osburn is the senior supervising producer of What Next and What Next TBD.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why did House Judiciary Democrats wait until this week to release a report outlining Donald Trump’s appearances and behavior alleged in the Epstein files?

Guest: Rep. Jamie Raskin (Maryland-D), ranking member of House Committee on the Judiciary, former head of Oversight committee.

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Podcast production by Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.

Paige Osburn is the senior supervising producer of What Next and What Next TBD.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Turn on a TV just about anywhere in America and get ready to see some of the most unhinged political ads of your life. But with more money being spent on ad buys than ever before, it’s worth asking: do they make any difference?

Guest: Molly Jong-Fast, host of the Fast Politics podcast.

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Podcast production by Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.

Paige Osburn is the senior supervising producer of What Next and What Next TBD.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Even as anxiety rises over the price of gas, Americans still have the capacity to worry about their health care costs. This is one issue the Democrats have the public’s trust on—and it’s an area where they could make a big difference from Congress.

Guests:

Jonathan Cohn, senior national correspondent at The Bulwark

Julie Rovner, Chief Washington Correspondent for Kaiser Health News

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Podcast production by Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.

Paige Osburn is the senior supervising producer of What Next and What Next TBD.

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Arizona’s 6th congressional district has been one of the most hotly contested races for several election cycles. JoAnna Mendoza, a former marine, is running as a Ddemocrat and could be part of the blue wave polls are predicting.

Guest: JoAnna Mendoza, Democrat running for congress in Arizona’s 6th district.

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Podcast production by Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.

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Live from Virginia Public Media in Richmond, Mary Harris sat down with Reveal's Al Letson and On the Media's Micah Loewinger to discuss contentious interviews, Pentagon influencers, sifting through the Trump news cycle, and the journalism cliches they love to hate.

Guests: Al Letson, host of Reveal

Micah Loewinger, co-host of On the Media

This episode is a Slate Plus exclusive. 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 athttp://slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.

Podcast and live show production by Madeline Thames-Ducharme.

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Everyone wants A.I. to be regulated—including the major A.I. companies like Anthropic and OpenAI. There’s just one problem… they want to have a say in what regulation looks like for their industry. Doesn’t that defeat the whole point?

Guests: Cal Newport, Full Professor of Computer Science at Georgetown University

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Podcast production by Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme, Patrick Fort and Micah Peters.

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The sexual assault allegations against seven Cornell fraternity members has sparked a debate about the role of Greek life on college campuses. But maybe the solution is to get rid of it, full stop?

Guests: Susan Matthews, executive editor at Slate.

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Podcast production by Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.

Paige Osburn is the senior supervising producer of What Next and What Next TBD.

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Trump has long harbored resentment towards Ukraine. But his latest olive branch to Putin marks a turning point in how he views the region—and how Ukrainians view us.

Guests: Romeo Kokriatski, managing editor of New Voice of Ukraine

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Fill out our listener survey at slate.com/whatnextsurvey

Podcast production by Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.

Paige Osburn is the senior supervising producer of What Next and What Next TBD.

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One thing that’s clear about this midterm cycle? Voters are mad about Trump. The war in Iran and an affordability crisis back home are paving the way for a blue wave. And yet, despite his universally loathed policies, Trump’s core base still loves him… which puts the GOP in a tight spot if the Democrats retake congress and beyond.

Guests:

Isaac Saul, founder of Tangle News

Jamelle Bouie, columnist at the New York Times

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The last time Nebraska sent a non-Republican to the US Senate, George W. Bush joked that his nickname was “Dino”—for Democrat-in-name-only. But this year, independent Dan Osborn has a narrow lead on the GOP incumbent. But don’t call Osborn a Democrat-in-all-but-name.

Guest: Dan Osborn, independent running for US Senate in Nebraska

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Podcast production by Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.

Paige Osburn is the senior supervising producer of What Next and What Next TBD.

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Perimenopause’s journey from little-understood phase before menopause to the subject of every ad on social media for women of a certain age was quick—and impossible to imagine without the internet.

Guest: Kate Knibbs, senior writer for WIRED.

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Podcast production by Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.

Paige Osburn is the senior supervising producer of What Next and What Next TBD.

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Our current fascists are obsessed with the apocalypse—it drives everything they do, from stoking anti-immigration fervor around the world to wanting to colonize Mars. But why run from our beautiful planet when we can still fight?

Guest: Naomi Klein, co-author of End Times Fascism: And the Fight for the Living World.

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Podcast production by Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.

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Democrats are excited about the prospect of a blue wave, with their Senate candidates leading races in Texas and Georgia. But beyond the races, there’s a separate issue in those states—how your vote gets counted.

Guest:

Greg Bluestein, Chief Political Reporter at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Jessica Huseman, Editorial Director at Votebeat

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Podcast production by Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.

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Up against #Resistance superstar Alexander Vindman, Angie Nixon overcame a huge spending gap to win the Democratic primary to run for a US Senate seat in Florida. As she now runs in a state-wide election in ruby-red Florida, her message remains the same: addressing people’s needs.

Guest: Angie Nixon, Democratic member of the Florida House of Representatives and DSA-affiliated candidate for U.S. Senate.

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Podcast production by Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.

Paige Osburn is the senior supervising producer of What Next and What Next TBD.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

While the What Next team recovers over the holiday, enjoy this episode from our friends over at Platypus Economics. Mary will be back to her usual feed tomorrow.

Americans feel almost exactly as gloomy today as they did in 1980 — when inflation was near 14% and unemployment was close to 8%. Today those numbers are a fraction of that, yet consumer sentiment hit an all-time low. Justin Wolfers treats this like a detective case: the standard economic statistics predict sentiment should sit around 82, but the actual reading is 52 — a 30-point gap begging for an explanation.

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How the Cornell University rape allegations show we’re not really “post-MeToo.”

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 Rob Gunther, Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.

Paige Osburn is the senior supervising producer of What Next and What Next TBD.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.