Degenerate Gambler
Political Gabfest
Slate Podcasts
4.6 • 242 Ratings
🗓️ 19 March 2026
⏱️ 65 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss how policies of anger and dominance structure President Trump’s approach to adversaries, allies, and the independent press alike, how the dangers of the online sports-betting industry are outrunning limited guardrails with guest McKay Coppins, and how a federal judge just handed RFK Jr.’s war on vaccines its biggest setback yet.
For this week’s Slate Plus bonus episode, Emily, John, and David discuss what the conventional postmortems of USAID are missing and where global development might go from here with guest Tim Hirschel-Burns.
In the latest Gabfest Reads, John Dickerson talks with Father James Martin about his new book, Work in Progress: Confessions of a Busboy, Dishwasher, Caddy, Usher, Factory Worker, Bank Teller, Corporate Tool, and Priest. They discuss the spiritual lessons learned through eight different jobs, Martin’s controversial LGBTQ ministry that made him a target of criticism within the Catholic Church, and what the Gospels demand about welcoming strangers and caring for the marginalized.
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. |
| 0:06.4 | March 19th, 2026, the Degenerate Gambler edition. |
| 0:19.9 | I'm David Flats of Citicast here in Washington. |
| 0:22.5 | See? From the New York Times Magazine and Yale University Law School and still Puerto Rico, |
| 0:29.0 | Emily Basilon. Hello, Emily. Envy is a terrible thing. Hi, David. Are you saying that I am envious of you? |
| 0:39.8 | It certainly sounded that way. |
| 0:42.1 | Maybe somebody, maybe being defensive about one's extended, extended working vacation. |
| 0:49.7 | I think I'm being smug, not defensive. |
| 0:52.3 | But I could be defensive and smug. |
| 0:55.0 | I feel stuck. |
| 0:56.5 | Those of you playing at home, if you could chart this out, the smug, defensive, and envious |
| 1:01.1 | through line. |
| 1:03.0 | My question is just, why am I going home? |
| 1:05.6 | Why can't I stay forever? |
| 1:07.0 | Anyway, continue on. |
| 1:08.5 | You can. |
| 1:09.7 | From New York City, maybe. Yeah, New York City. John Dickerson, |
| 1:13.8 | unemployed still. But John, heard you got funding for your new nonprofit this week. Congratulations. |
| 1:19.1 | What is that? As you know, Emily John's passion is human connection, human physical connection. |
| 1:24.1 | He is a new organization that's going to train people to walk around. |
| 1:27.8 | American City's giving out hugs. He's calling it the free press, which I just love, I love that |
| 1:32.8 | name. That's great, John. I don't know how to respond to that, David, except to thank you for |
... |
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