What Next | Daily News and Analysis

While the What Next team enjoys the holiday, hear this episode from our friends at Question Everything. Mary will be back in the feed with a new episode of What Next tomorrow.In June, disgraced former Florida Congressman turned right-wing One America News Network anchor Matt Gaetz peddled a novel and dangerous conspiracy to his audience: that using sunscreen causes skin cancer. Gaetz’s guest was Nicholas Hulscher, a prominent voice in the COVID anti-vaccination movement and co-author of one of the most prolific medical disinformation newsletters in America. Within days, this false claim had reached millions of viewers and dozens of countries – and was popping up in the comments of innocuous mommy blogger videos about applying suntan lotion to kids. NewsGuard health editor John Gregory explains how Hulscher’s false claim metastasized throughout the internet, and how he sold it to the world by twisting the surprising findings of a legitimate scientific study.

Extraditing someone who was arrested in one state for a crime committed in another state is an extremely routine process—or at least it was. But an ICE officer charged in a shooting in Minnesota was arrested in Texas and, rather than being sent to Minnesota for trial, he was simply released 90 days later.Guest: Quinta Jurecic, staff writer at The Atlantic.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 Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.Paige Osburn is the senior supervising producer of What Next and What Next TBD.

Inflation is up, borrowing is up, debt is rising. If the bond market is offering a review of the new US Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, it seems to be saying “This guy may not know what’s going on.” Guest: Catherine Rampell, economics editor at The Bulwark, author of the Receipts and anchor at MS 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/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 WNBA is enjoying its most profitable and popular season in league history. At the same time, it’s become another front in the culture war. Guest: Matreyi Anantharaman, staff writer at Defector. 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 Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.Paige Osburn is the senior supervising producer of What Next and What Next TBD.

Donald Trump, Supreme Court justices, states, and even the Post Office are all trading legal salvos over mail-in voting. Where does it stand now? And what’s Trump’s end goal in making mail-in voting—something rural and elderly voters rely on—more difficult?Guest: Richard Hasan, Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law, Professor of Political Science, Director, Safeguarding Democracy ProjectWant 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 idea of a big ol’ group of friends taking a vacation sounds so fun…in theory. In practice, though, the museum friends and the beach friends are forming opposing factions, and the vegetarian friend is hovering between malnourishment and total banishment. But these problems have one elegant solution: the parallel play vacation.Guest: Luke Winkie, Slate staff writer and author of “There’s Only One Palatable Way to Travel With Friends.”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.

From the trade war with Canada to the literal war with Iran, US foreign policy seems to have become “flail at whatever Trump says to flail at, no matter the cost.” But the American people are the ones left holding that bill—and it’s adding up.Guest: Adam Kinzinger, former Republican congressman and an Air Force veteran, host of The Kinzinger Report, writes about news, politics, and Trump on adamkinzinger.com.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.

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.