It’s the Alt-Right’s GOP Now

What Next | Daily News and Analysis

Slate

News, Daily News, News Commentary, Politics

4.6 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 8 December 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ten years ago, the alt-right’s talking points about immigration used to be too toxic to even post on the internet under your own name. So how did they turn into something President Trump regularly fires off on social media? Guest: Zack Beauchamp, senior correspondent for Vox. 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 Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:31.7	Hey, everyone, before we get started, this episode contains some really racist language from the president and his allies, plus a couple
0:39.8	curses on the side. You've been warned.
0:48.2	Everybody ready? Nice to be with you. Welcome to the final cabinet meeting of 2025, a year that we'll go down.
0:56.6	Last week, the White House hosted a two-hour-long televised cabinet meeting that I think you could only describe as bizarre.
1:07.1	The president bragged about his West Wing decorating projects, then about the IQ scores of his AIDS.
1:13.8	Now, but I want to thank we have a great cabinet, an amazing cabinet, amazing people.
1:18.4	As his cabinet secretaries took turns briefing him, the president seemed to have trouble staying awake until at the very end, when there was a round of applause.
1:34.3	So after that, do you want to ask any questions?
1:38.3	It was at this point that President Trump snapped to attention in the worst possible way.
1:46.9	Somalians.
1:48.2	He launched into a racist tirade against Somalis.
	...

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