Gutting Our National Parks | 2025 in Review
What Next
Slate Podcasts
4.6 • 2.3K Ratings
🗓️ 24 December 2025
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
All this week, What Next and What Next: TBD are re-airing some of our favorite conversations from throughout the year and checking back with the people in those conversations to see how things have – or haven’t – changed. This episode is from August.
From the Statue of Liberty to the Golden Gate Bridge, and places in between like Yellowstone and the site of the Battle of Gettysburg, the National Park Service has been a point of American pride since its inception. And with a small budget and actually generating revenue, even fiscal hawks had no reason to complain.
So why is the Trump administration cutting their budget?
Guests:
Jon B. Jarvis,18th director of the National Parks.
Kevin Heatley, former superintendent of Crater Lake National Park, Oregon.
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Podcast production by Ethan Oberman, Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Where do you find a clear signal in a world of static? |
| 0:03.2 | In a time of rapid change cut through the noise. |
| 0:06.2 | The Economist goes beyond the headlines to decode the forces shaping today and defining tomorrow. |
| 0:12.7 | Get the full story. |
| 0:14.1 | It's more than news. |
| 0:15.4 | It's a trusted global perspective. |
| 0:17.7 | The Economist know which way is up. |
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| 0:50.5 | It's the day before Christmas, and if you're a certain kind of person, you are celebrating by going outside. |
| 0:59.6 | Jonathan Jarvis is that kind of person. |
| 1:02.7 | Well, one of my wife and I's favorite parks is Point Reyes. |
| 1:07.3 | This is not surprising, since Jonathan is also the former head of the National Park Service. |
| 1:12.5 | There'll be pelicans, you know, soaring on the waves, you know, lots of sea ducks, elephant seals. |
| 1:19.6 | It just gives you a sense of what this country was to 300 years ago, |
| 1:27.9 | that there is still places that you can feel like |
| 1:31.2 | maybe you're the first to see. |
| 1:35.8 | This year has been a rough one at the parks. |
... |
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