TACO Tuesday
Political Gabfest
Slate Podcasts
4.6 • 242 Ratings
🗓️ 9 April 2026
⏱️ 67 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss the state of the U.S. war with Iran including what Tuesday night's abject ceasefire means, a deeply unsettling profile of the internet fringe group "Groypers" that shows how they are affecting Republican politics with guest Antonia Hitchens, and legal and moral arguments over mandatory school reading lists being considered in Texas which contain Bible passages.
For this week’s Slate Plus bonus episode, Emily, John, and David discuss the ins and outs of a strange story in which a FEMA official claims to have miraculously teleported to a Waffle House in Georgia, including the media treatment of the story and what it means that some U.S. officials are reporting such experiences.
In the latest Gabfest Reads, David Plotz talks with journalist Gabriel Sherman about his new book Bonfire of the Murdochs: How the Epic Fight to Control the Last Great Media Dynasty Broke a Family—and the World. Sherman, who also wrote the bestselling biography of Fox News chief Roger Ailes, spent 15 years reporting on the Murdoch empire. In this book he turns his lens on the family itself — the rivalries, the wounds, and the secret Nevada courtroom battle that finally forced Rupert’s hand.
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.
Follow
@SlateGabfest on X / https://twitter.com/SlateGabfest
Slate Political Gabfest on Facebook / https://www.facebook.com/Gabfest/
Need to set up your Slate Plus feed? If you subscribed through Slate.com, check out our FAQ at slate.com/podcastfaqs for easy instructions. Members subscribed via Apple Podcasts get automatic access—no setup required.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the Slate Political Gab Fest. |
| 0:07.0 | April 9th, 2026, the Taco Tuesday edition. |
| 0:20.5 | I am David Plots of Citycast. |
| 0:22.1 | I'm in Washington, B.C., from the New York Times Magazine and Yale University Law School, |
| 0:26.6 | Emily Bazelon in New Haven. |
| 0:28.1 | Hello, Emily. |
| 0:29.2 | Hello, I'm all mixed up because it's actually Thursday. |
| 0:32.0 | But I did get your joke. |
| 0:35.4 | Good. |
| 0:36.6 | I'm glad one of the hosts of the show got the extremely basic joke at the start of the show. |
| 0:42.5 | I was like, which joke is she talking about? |
| 0:45.6 | Surely she can't be talking about Taco Tuesday. |
| 0:48.6 | That's only one. |
| 0:49.9 | It is Thursday, everybody. |
| 0:51.2 | Yes, it is. |
| 0:52.4 | Where we are, it's Thursday. |
| 0:54.1 | From New York City, of course, that's John Dickerson. |
| 0:56.3 | John has a new AI model trained exclusively on American historical texts, presidential speeches, congressional debates, the works of Grant and Frederick Douglass, everything pre-World War I. |
| 1:10.4 | John, I noticed that you named it Hickory, |
| 1:12.3 | which I think is a cool name for a model, but I guess it's some echo of Andrew Jackson's |
| 1:16.7 | old Hickory nickname, which I thought was, like, politically, I thought that was kind of a Trumpian choice. |
| 1:22.5 | Well, you know, you've got to go, you've got to try to expand your market in this new Dan age. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate Podcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Slate Podcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.