This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss the Trump administration’s first 100 days and recent polls, the state of American health policy and underlying DOGE cuts with reporter Dan Diamond, and a potential radical shift in American life if the Supreme Court allows a religious charter school in Oklahoma.
Here are some notes and references from this week’s show:
Jonathan Swan, Maggie Haberman, David E. Sanger, Hamed Aleaziz, Theodore Schleifer, Charlie Savage, Ana Swanson, Ben Casselman, Erica L. Green, Robin Pogrebin, and Shawn McCreesh for The New York Times: How Trump’s Second Term Is Changing Power, Institutions, and More
Aaron Blake for The Washington Post (Analysis): Even a sizable chunk of Republicans say Trump is going too far
Jonathan Chait for The Atlantic: An Unsustainable Presidency
Liz Wolfe for Reason: 100 Days of Trump
The Editors of National Review: The First 100 Days
Eric Lipton, David Yaffe-Bellany, and Ben Protess for The New York Times: Secret Deals, Foreign Investments, Presidential Policy Changes: The Rise of Trump’s Crypto Firm
Josh Boak for The Associated Press: Trump says US kids may get ‘2 dolls instead of 30,’ but China will suffer more in a trade war
Joel Achenbach, Caitlin Gilbert, Carolyn Y. Johnson, Mark Johnson, Sabrina Malhi, Rachel Roubein, Lena H. Sun and Lauren Weber for The Washington Post: How public health has been upended in Trump’s first 100 days
Jim Newell for Slate: Those Medicaid Cuts We’ve Been Hearing About Are Starting to Come Into View
Isabella Cueto for STAT: With one month to go, few details on RFK Jr.’s MAHA commission
Dan Diamond and Hannah Natanson for The Washington Post: Worries grow over risks to Americans as Trump cuts health, safety agencies
Dan Diamond and Dan Keating for The Washington Post: Trump promised scientific breakthroughs. Researchers say he’s breaking science.
Kelsie Hoffman, Sara Kuzmarov, and Michael Sugerman for CBS News: RFK Jr. says he’s “not familiar” with all health program cuts in exclusive interview
Lena H. Sun for The Washington Post: Millions of U.S. measles cases forecast over 25 years if shots decline
Dan Diamond, Hannah Natanson, and Carolyn Y. Johnson for The Washington Post: DOGE takes over federal grants website, wresting control of billions
Amy Howe for SCOTUSblog: Supreme Court to consider bid for first religious charter school
Nina Totenberg for NPR: Can charter schools be religious? If so, what does that mean for public education?
Justin Jouvenal and Laura Meckler for The Washington Post: How religious public schools went from a long shot to the Supreme Court
Adam Liptak for The New York Times: Supreme Court Seems Open to a Religious Charter School in Oklahoma
Here are this week’s chatters:
Emily: Podcast: Wondery: Death County, PA; Time Magazine in partnership with the Center for Policing Equity: Five Years Later: America Looks for a Way Forward After George Floyd.
John: John Dickerson for CBS Evening News Plus: Reporter’s Notebook: Defiance and the Dachau Violin
David: The Pitt (Official Trailer on YouTube); Anne Helen Petersen for Culture Study (Substack): The Pitt is a Show About.
Listener chatter from Matt Gyory in Arlington, Virginia: Ali Watkins for The New York Times: 4 Men Charged With Trying to Smuggle Thousands of Ants from Kenya
For this week’s Slate Plus bonus episode, Emily and David interview John about his professional and personal experience of covering the funeral of Pope Francis in Rome for CBS Evening News.
In the latest Gabfest Reads, John talks with author Maggie Smith about her new book, Dear Writer: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life.
Email your chatters, questions, and comments to gabfest@slate.com. (Messages may be referenced by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)
Research by Emily Ditto
