Political Gabfest | Humvees on the National Mall

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Slate Podcasts

News, News Commentary, Politics

4.6 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 15 August 2025

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and guest host Jamelle Bouie discuss the perils of this week’s Trump-plus-Putin (minus Zelensky) summit in Alaska, how Trump’s claimed crime “emergency” provided pretext for National Guard deployment and takeover of D.C. police, and a new presidential memorandum requiring colleges to share admissions data to “verify” that they are not considering race. For this week’s Slate Plus bonus episode, Emily, John, and guest host Jamelle Bouie discuss when and, perhaps more importantly, when not to give advice. In the latest Gabfest Reads, David talks with Carl Hiaasen about his new book, Fever Beach, a political satire for the Trump Era. Email your chatters, questions, and comments to [email protected]. (Messages may be referenced by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.) Research by Emily Ditto You can find the full Political Gabfest show pages here. Want more Political Gabfest? Join Slate Plus to unlock weekly bonus episodes. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Political Gabfest show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or visit slate.com/gabfestplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the Slate Political Gab Fest.
0:06.9	For Thursday, August 14th, the Humvees on the National Mall edition.
0:20.9	I'm Emily Bazlan from the New York Times Magazine and Yale Lost Bowl.
0:24.5	David is out this week.
0:26.2	John Dickerson, the co-host of CBS News, is here with us.
0:30.3	Luckily, thank goodness.
0:32.0	Hey, John.
0:33.0	Hi, luckily because I'm in Anchor, Jalaska for the Putin-Trump summit, and I've survived my first half a cup of in-room coffee.
0:42.4	Excellent work.
0:43.7	You know, the parasites don't really detract from the taste.
0:48.9	And we're also so pleased to be joined by Jamel Bowie, the New York Times columnist and Slate alum, who is even wearing a slate hat this morning to be in the right spirit. Hey, Jamel.
0:59.9	Hello, good morning. I have to have to rep the old employer. So here we are. Exactly. All right. So let's get into the meat of the show. Donald Trump is not letting us have a slow August. John, as he mentioned, is in Alaska for Trump's summit with Putin about Russia war in Ukraine. And that's going to be our first topic. Our second topic is Trump's takeover of Washington, D.C., sending troops from the National Guard into the streets, along with
1:28.7	FBI agents and other federal officers, and then also supposedly assuming command of the actual
1:35.1	police force in Washington. And our third topic is the Trump administration's order to colleges
1:40.6	and universities to start publicly reporting their admissions data broken down by a very
1:46.8	particular choice of categories, race, ethnicity, gender, grades, and test scores. Finally, we'll have
1:52.4	cocktail chatter and our Splight Plus episode will be about a blue sky post from Jamel, about when it is
1:59.5	good and when it is maybe less welcome to offer unsolicited
2:02.8	advice. I've ruled out uni because I want to live at home. I've ruled out uni because I want to earn
2:08.6	money. I've ruled out uni because of my grades. Study with the open university and there's no
2:16.2	need to rule out anything.
2:21.4	With our respected degrees, you can learn from home and work alongside study.
	...

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