What Next | Daily News and Analysis

Intertwined with many Americans’ contempt for data centers is their suspicion of artificial intelligence itself, which is being used to spy on you, being forced on anyone who still has a job, and will eventually, we’re promised, put them out of it. Seems like the Democrats easily could stake a claim as the party that won’t let A.I. wreck the economy—alas, there’s a lot of money in looking the other way.Guest: Greg Casar, US Representative for Texas’s 35th congressional districtWant 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 Rob Gunther, Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.Paige Osburn is the senior supervising producer of What Next and What Next TBD.

As the trial of Lindsay Clancy over the murder of her three children goes into closing arguments this week, the reactions to the case reveal just how little the general public understands about postpartum psychosis.Guest: Meghan Cliffel, writer, mindfulness teacher, postpartum psychosis survivor and maternal mental health advocate.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 Rob Gunther, Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.Paige Osburn is the senior supervising producer of What Next and What Next TBD.

Since losing the 2024 presidential election, Democrats have been doing a lot of finger pointing. But with the midterms this fall, it’s time to stop pointing and start saying what you actually believe and why people should vote for you.Guest: Amanda Litman, author of “When We’re in Charge” and head of Run for Something.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 Rob Gunther, Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.Paige Osburn is the senior supervising producer of What Next and What Next TBD.

Nobody objected to Jon Ossoff calling the president disinterested in doing his job. But an off-hand mention of Trump’s “human printer”? That, for some reason, took things way too far.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.

Islamophobia has never gone away. And while it has been wielded as an electoral strategy against Zohran Mamdani, Abdul El-Sayed and even Barack Obama, the shameless nature of the Islamophobia coming from politicians this electoral cycle may be a new low.Guest: Mehdi Hasan, Editor-in-chief and CEO of ZeteoWant 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 Rob Gunther, Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.Paige Osburn is the senior supervising producer of What Next and What Next TBD.

Our Silicon Valley overlords, as they’ll tell you, aren’t huge fans of liberal democracy—and their products that we’ve integrated into our lives reflect that. As we rely on them more and more, this tension is only going to get worse.Guest: Jill Lepore, author of “The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State”, professor of American History at Harvard, staff writer for The New Yorker.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 Rob Gunther, Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.Paige Osburn is the senior supervising producer of What Next and What Next TBD.

The situation aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier is reportedly dire: broken toilets, shortages of water, rationed, lousy food, little access to laundry, or communication with their families, all while engaged with Iran and its proxies. It’s bad enough that at least two crew members have tried jumping overboard. But even though this deployment has been three months longer than usual, over the weekend President Trump said it wasn’t “nearly long enough.”Guest: Ian Prasad Philbrick, Slate politics writer and writer of The Slatest newsletter.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 Rob Gunther, Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.Paige Osburn is the senior supervising producer of What Next and What Next TBD.

A stranger approaching and aiming a gun at you seems like the exact scenario that “Stand Your Ground” laws were made to address. But a case in Florida where the armed strangers were white and the people “standing their ground” were Black demonstrates that the law’s’ protections and application fall along familiar and unequal lines.Guest: Caroline Light, Senior Lecturer and the Director of Undergraduate Studies in WGS at Harvard, author of Stand Your Ground: A History of America’s Love Affair with Lethal Self-Defense.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 Rob Gunther, Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.Paige Osburn is the senior supervising producer of What Next and What Next TBD.

How much should we know about our politicians? This week we found out that even two of the most scrutinized people in America still have their secrets—be it how our president gets where he’s going, or if a certain House member is, in fact, not engaged and is actually...single? 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.