Political Gabfest - Now We Can Call It a Quagmire
Slate News
Slate Podcasts
4.5 • 6K Ratings
🗓️ 23 July 2026
⏱️ 49 minutes
🔗️ Recording | Apple Podcasts | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss why the war in Iran has flared back up despite the increasing likelihood of political consequences for Trump and his allies, the promises and perils for the U.K.'s newest Prime Minister Andy Burnham with guest Adrian Wooldridge, and the chilling effect of the DOJ's subpoenas of journalists for their reporting on Trump's Qatari Air Force One.
Here are this week’s chatters:
Emily: The Emilys: A Novel by Heather Abel
John: Kiuko Notoya and Francesca Regalado for The New York Times: It’s So Hot That Japan Needs a New Word for It; Miriam Waldvogel for The Washington Post: Bam! See these killer whales explode fish into pieces.
David: Heavy Metal Parking Lot; Tom Cole for NPR: 30 Years Of 'Heavy Metal Parking Lot,' The Classic 'Cult Classic' Film
Listener chatter from Phoebe Saltzstein in Albuquerque, New Mexico: Ray Delahanty | CityNerd on YouTube
For this week’s Slate Plus bonus episode, Emily, John, and David discuss whether Trump and his Republican allies will break the Smithsonian after a White House report accused the head of the Museum of American History of pushing "radical activist ideology." They also examine the Smithsonian's uncertain legal status, and whether the museum's real problem is chaotic organization rather than ideology.
In the latest Gabfest Reads, John Dickerson interviews Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan about their new book Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump. Drawing on extensive reporting from inside the White House, they explore how Trump’s second term differs radically from his first, from his decision-making process to the people surrounding him and his relationship with power, money, and the presidency itself.
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.
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.
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. |
| 0:06.5 | July 23rd, 2026, the now we can call it a quagmire edition. |
| 0:20.4 | I am David Plotz of Citycast here in Washington, D.C. |
| 0:23.9 | Nobody can see the blank shells behind me because I'm about to move, but we'll still be in Washington, D.C. |
| 0:28.7 | From the New York Times Magazine and Yale University Law School, away from which she will never move. |
| 0:34.8 | Emily Bazelon. How are you, Emily, New Haven? I'm fine. It's always a lot to contemplate one's |
| 0:40.5 | final destination. I'd like to keep a little question mark there. I can tell you, as someone who's in the |
| 0:46.0 | midst of moving, moving is the effing worst. Terrible. It's terrible. I know. On the other end, when you don't move, then you accumulate. |
| 0:56.4 | Yeah, it can be cleansing, sort of, you know, get your pencils back in order and straighten |
| 1:03.5 | things out. |
| 1:04.8 | That is true. |
| 1:05.7 | That is true. |
| 1:06.7 | That is true. |
| 1:07.8 | I mean, once I was, when I was moving out of my last test, I did this, which I lived in for 20 years, I was calculating, well, every week we bring like 50 pounds of stuff into this house and but only take 48 pounds of it out. And over time, like if you add all that up, that turns out to be thousands and thousands of pounds of extra stuff over time. And it just, it's accumulates. It's like the fat on my belly. |
| 1:29.6 | John Dickerson, that was John Dickerson in New York. Hello, John. You already spoke. I already spoke. |
| 1:35.5 | Hello to both of you. Yes, I'm still reeling under that image. You know, that's why people get |
| 1:40.9 | fat. It's just your caloric intake is slightly more than your excretive intake. Outtake. I was going to say, is it extraceous. Yes. Yes. I once |
| 1:52.4 | kind of growth. That's not. Mahondi did that. I did once see excretive intake at the cellar |
| 1:58.6 | door. |
| 2:04.1 | CBTVs. |
| 2:07.3 | There's some tough days in the early 80s. |
| 2:11.7 | This week on the Gab Fest, the Iran war is back and it's worse than ever. |
... |
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