Political Gabfest - Portland is Not Actually Burning
Slate Daily Feed
Slate
3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 9 October 2025
⏱️ 67 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss the extremely consequential new Supreme Court term beginning this week, the facts on the ground and the legal questions at play behind Trump’s escalating deployments of troops to US cities, and the likely legal defeat of state bans on conversion therapy.
For this week’s Slate Plus bonus episode, Emily, John, and David discuss the Treasury Department’s unironic plans to release a $1 coin featuring the current president to celebrate the 250th anniversary of America’s independence from monarchy.
In the latest Gabfest Reads, Emily talks with author and Yale professor Judith Resnik about her new book, Impermissible Punishments: How Prison Became a Problem for Democracy. They discuss the history of the prison system’s use of punishments like whipping, how the practice came to an end, and more.
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.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Here we go. Here we go. |
| 0:05.5 | Hello and welcome to the Slate Political Gab Fest. |
| 0:17.2 | October 9th, 2025. |
| 0:19.8 | The Portland is not actually burning edition. |
| 0:22.7 | I'm David Plotz of CityCast, or CityCast. |
| 0:26.0 | I don't know why I said CityCast. |
| 0:27.5 | Citycast in Washington, D.C. |
| 0:29.7 | From New York City, where he is the co-anchor of the CBS Evening News, |
| 0:33.2 | and the anchor of CBS Evening News Plus is John Dickerson. |
| 0:36.1 | Hello, John. |
| 0:37.5 | Hello, David. |
| 0:38.5 | I'm very low energy. |
| 0:40.1 | That's not me. |
| 0:40.9 | That's the cop's description of the protests in Portland. |
| 0:44.6 | The protest in Portland, truly. |
| 0:47.5 | Then, that's another phrase that Trump entered into the lexicon. |
| 0:51.0 | He invented that phrase. |
| 0:52.0 | Low energy. |
| 0:52.8 | Low energy. |
| 0:53.6 | And it's now become a... Low energy Jeff, low energy Portland. Never low energy. She better not be |
| 1:01.4 | low energy because she's going to do 95% of the talking on this episode is Emily Bazelon of the |
| 1:05.7 | New York Times Magazine and Yale University Law School. Hello, Emily. Hello, David. And hey, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Slate and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.