Slate Money - Christmas Adjacent Inciting Incident
Slate Money
Slate Podcasts
4.1 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 20 December 2025
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week: The European Commission pushed back its timeline for all EV Europe. Felix Salmon, Elizabeth Spiers, and Emily Peck are joined by Bloomberg’s Global Automotive Editor Craig Trudell who helps understand how and why the global electronic vehicle transition is unraveling. Then, in a twist move, Truth Social parent company, Trump Media & Technology Group, merged with TAE Technologies, a fusion power company. The hosts and Craig unpack the motivations behind the deal for these strange bedfellows. And finally, don’t you just love a familiar, non-threatening protagonist who falls in love with a someone who embodies local virtue thanks to a Christmas adjacent inciting incident? You’re not alone! The hosts and Craig discuss the booming business of Hallmark movie tours in CT and the key factors that go into these wildly popular made-for-tv movies.
In the Slate Plus episode: What’s your dream gift?
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Podcast production by Jessamine Molli and Cheyna Roth.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Slate Money, your guide to the business and finance news of the week. |
| 0:13.7 | I'm Felix Salmon of Bloomberg. I'm here with Emily Peck of Axios. |
| 0:17.9 | Hello, hello. I'm here with Elizabeth Spires of the New York Times. |
| 0:21.2 | Hello. |
| 0:22.1 | And especially wonderfully, I have Craig Trudeau beaming in from the Bloomberg offices in London. |
| 0:33.1 | Craig, welcome. |
| 0:34.9 | Hi, thank you for having me. |
| 0:36.3 | Craig, introduce yourself. |
| 0:37.4 | Who are you? |
| 0:38.3 | I am the Global Automotive Editor for Bloomberg. |
| 0:41.3 | What that means is that you are covering the big picture in cars. |
| 0:46.3 | And so that is what I want to talk about this week with you. |
| 0:49.3 | There was big news from Ford, but it turns out, for those of us who notice the rest of the planet, |
| 0:55.2 | that there's big news from the European Union, there's lots of stuff going on in China, |
| 0:58.5 | so we are going to talk about what is happening with EVs, what is the big picture, is this |
| 1:04.0 | the death knell of the American automotive industry? We are also going to, of course, talk about |
| 1:09.6 | the fact that Trump Media and Technology Group is now a nuclear fusion company for reasons. |
| 1:14.8 | Emily is going to wax lyrical about the wonders of Hallmark Christmas movies. |
| 1:20.4 | We have a Slate Plus segment where we reveal the one gift we wish that someone would give us. |
| 1:27.9 | It's a happy holiday episode of Slate Money. |
| 1:32.5 | It's coming right out. |
| 1:38.7 | Think about cheese. |
... |
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