De-ICEing
Political Gabfest
Slate Podcasts
4.6 • 242 Ratings
🗓️ 29 January 2026
⏱️ 76 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss how the shocking killing of Alex Pretti by federal agents could represent a real turning point for Trump’s immigration enforcement policies, the cognitive dissonance about constitutional rights and conservative principles displayed by political leaders in the wake of Pretti’s killing, and a new book by guest Jason Zengerle: Hated by All the Right People: Tucker Carlson and the Unraveling of the Conservative Mind.
For this week’s Slate Plus bonus episode, Emily, John, and David discuss a landmark trial starting in California that aims to adjudicate between children and families who say that social media caused them immense harm because companies intentionally engineered addicting platforms, and social media giants like Meta who argue they’re not responsible for content protected by the First Amendment.
In the latest Gabfest Reads, Emily Bazelon talks with author Curtis Sittenfeld about her short story collection, “Show Don’t Tell.” They discuss the recurring themes of the book from troubled marriages and middle age to the passage of time, and characters who are navigating moments of racial privilege and prejudice.
Email your chatters, questions, and comments to gabfest@slate.com. (Messages may be referenced by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)
Podcast production by Nina Porzucki
Research by Emily Ditto
You can find the full Political Gabfest show pages here.
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Find out more about David Plotz's monthly tours of Ft. DeRussy, the secret Civil War fort hidden in Rock Creek Park.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the Slate Political Gab Fest. |
| 0:06.6 | January 29th, 2026, the D-Eicing Edition. |
| 0:20.4 | I am David Plotz of Citycast in Washington, D.C., icebound, literally icebound, and on a kind of |
| 0:27.9 | a raft that is my house pinned in ice the way Erno Shackleton's boat was pinned in ice. |
| 0:35.9 | From New Haven, Connecticut, the New York Times Magazine, Yale University Law School, Emily Bazel. |
| 0:39.6 | Hello, Emily. |
| 0:40.8 | Hello, hello. |
| 0:42.7 | And from New York City where he's just launched a new podcast about aircraft carriers, battleships, and submarines. |
| 0:49.0 | It's called Naval Gazing, John Dickerson. |
| 0:53.4 | It's so funny. |
| 0:55.3 | Lots of people have spelled it, |
| 0:57.1 | navel gazing with AL, |
| 0:58.7 | and that's very funny. |
| 1:02.9 | Hi, |
| 1:04.0 | we are also encased in ice and snow here up in New York. |
| 1:10.4 | I have only left my house in the last few days to walk my dog. |
| 1:14.0 | Like, that's it. |
| 1:15.2 | I left my house to go to Chicago, which was talk about frying pan into fire or whatever |
| 1:20.2 | the obverse of that is. |
| 1:23.4 | Igloo into ice flow. |
| 1:28.3 | This week on the Gab Fest, will the killing of Alex Preti and the mass protest movement in the Twin Cities chasten Trump and stop restrain ICE's worst abuses? |
| 1:40.4 | Then ISIS raids and Pretty's killing created a constitutional cognitive dissonance for conservatives around the first, second, and fourth amendments, maybe even the 10th, too. |
... |
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