I Have To Ask

Quinta Jurecic is the managing editor of the website Lawfare. She sits down with Isaac Chotiner to discuss what Anthony Kennedy’s retirement means for abortion rights, what John Roberts’s travel ban decision signaled about his views of the Trump administration, and the future of a Supreme Court that had already stopped checking Trump. Email: ask@slate.comTwitter: @IHaveToAskPod  Podcast production by Max Jacobs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

James Wood is The New Yorker’s chief literary critic, and the author of the new novel Upstate. He sits down with Isaac Chotiner to discuss the complicated legacies of Philip Roth and Tom Wolfe, whether a critical eye is helpful in fiction writing, and the complications involved in reading the novels of very bad men. Email: ask@slate.comTwitter: @IHaveToAskPod  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Anthony Bourdain—the late chef and author—talks about his mistakes, the #MeToo movement, and Harvey Weinstein. Email: ask@slate.comTwitter: @IHaveToAskPod  Podcast production by Max Jacobs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Judd Apatow is a comedian, writer, director, and producer. He sits down with Isaac Chotiner to discuss his new documentary on the life of Garry Shandling, which comedians are actually “normal” people, and having your friends accused of bad behavior in the age of #MeToo.Email: ask@slate.comTwitter: @IHaveToAskPod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Harry Enten is a polling expert and a political writer at CNN. He sits down with Isaac Chotiner to discuss California’s crucial importance to the 2018 election, where Trump is and isn’t politically vulnerable, and whether pollsters have corrected the mistakes they made in 2016. Email: ask@slate.comTwitter: @IHaveToAskPod  Podcast production by Max Jacobs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ta-Nehisi Coates is the author of Between the World and Me, and now, We Were Eight Years In Power: An American Tragedy. He sits down with Isaac Chotiner to discuss the costs of writing off your fellow citizens as “deplorable,” why he chose writing over activism, and how Trump is both uniquely dangerous and a predictable consequence of American racism. This interview was first published November 8, 2017. Podcast Production by Audrey Dilling. Email: ask@slate.comTwitter: @IHaveToAskPod  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cecilia Muñoz was the director of the White House Policy Council Under Barack Obama, and an expert on immigration policy. She sits down with Isaac Chotiner to talk about the mechanics of the Trump administration’s war on immigrants, the future of the Dreamers, and the campaign to abolish I.C.E. Email: ask@slate.comTwitter: @IHaveToAskPod Podcast production by Max Jacobs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maggie Haberman is a White House correspondent for The New York Times and an analyst at CNN. She sits down with Isaac Chotiner to discuss why Trump fears the Michael Cohen investigation, reporting in the age of Twitter, and whether the White House beat is changing Trump—or the people covering him. Email: ask@slate.comTwitter: @IHaveToAskPod  Podcast production by Max Jacobs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Michelle Dean is the author of Sharp: The Women Who Made an Art of Having an Opinion. She sits down with Isaac Chotiner to discuss how a group of 20th century intellectuals—including Susan Sontag, Pauline Kael, Hannah Arendt, and Nora Ephron—changed the way we think about women in public life, and what they can tell us about today’s debates over feminism. Email: ask@slate.comTwitter: @IHaveToAskPod  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Amy Chozick is the author of Chasing Hillary, a memoir about her experience covering the Clinton campaign for the New York Times. She sits down with Isaac Chotiner to discuss how the press and the Clinton campaign exacerbated one another’s worst instincts, whether the media has learned from the 2016 debacle, and what really drives Hillary Clinton. Email: ask@slate.comTwitter: @IHaveToAskPod  Podcast production by Max Jacobs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Adam Davidson is a staff writer at The New Yorker who has been examining the president’s tangled business dealings. He sits down with Isaac Chotiner to discuss why people misunderstand Trump’s business skills, the real threat the Michael Cohen raid poses to Donald Trump, and whether we have reached the beginning of the end of the Trump presidency. Email: ask@slate.comTwitter: @IHaveToAskPod  Podcast production by Max Jacobs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer. She sits down with Isaac Chotiner to discuss why Americans thinks “mindfulness” will make them happy, whether smoking bans are a form of condescension towards the working-class, and the problems with Oprah’s very real ideology. Email: ask@slate.comTwitter: @IHaveToAskPod  Podcast production by Max Jacobs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Parul Sehgal is a book critic at the New York Times. She sits down with Isaac Chotiner to discuss the daily life of a book reviewer, looking hard at the novels of very bad men, and the current state of cultural criticism. Email: ask@slate.comTwitter: @IHaveToAskPod  Podcast production by Max Jacobs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ross Douthat is an op-ed columnist at the New York Times, and the author of the new book To Change the Church: Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism. He sits down with Isaac Chotiner to discuss what the pope and the president have in common, whether liberals are declaring too much commentary “beyond the pale,” and whether the Times should hire a pro-Trump columnist.  Email: ask@slate.comTwitter: @IHaveToAskPod  Podcast production by Max Jacobs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Judd Apatow is a comedian, writer, director, and producer. He sits down with Isaac Chotiner to discuss his new documentary on the life of Garry Shandling, which comedians are actually “normal” people, and having your friends accused of bad behavior in the age of #MeToo. Email: ask@slate.comTwitter: @IHaveToAskPod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

David Corn and Michael Isikoff are the authors of Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump.  In a wide-ranging conversation with Isaac Chotiner, they discuss what new details of Trump's trip to a Vegas nightclub can tell us about the Steele dossier, the history of Trump’s Putin crush, and why reporting on the Russia scandal is such a minefield. Email: ask@slate.comTwitter: @IHaveToAskPod  Podcast production by Max Jacobs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Josh Barro is a senior editor at Business Insider, as well as contributor to MSNBC, and the host of KCRW’s Left, Right, and Center podcast.  In a wide-ranging conversation with Isaac Chotiner, they discuss how Trump uses comedy to sugarcoat his cruelty, how to think about the president’s intelligence, and why centrism has been on such a political losing streak.    Email: ask@slate.comTwitter: @IHaveToAskPod Podcast production by Max Jacobs. Please fill out the Slate podcast survey at slate.com/podcastsurvey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Benjamin Wittes is a writer and national security expert, and the editor-in-chief of Lawfare. In a wide-ranging conversation with Isaac Chotiner, he discusses how to read the tea leaves of the Mueller investigation, why people are too critical of James Comey, and why even the Trump administration hasn’t changed his (positive) opinion of the national security state.    Email: ask@slate.comTwitter: @IHaveToAskPod Podcast production by Max Jacobs. Please fill out the Slate podcast survey at slate.com/podcastsurvey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chuck Klosterman is a writer and essayist. In a wide-ranging conversation with Isaac Chotiner, he discusses the costs of politicizing pop culture, the roots of Trump’s shamelessness, and why music is such a subjective art form.    Email: ask@slate.comTwitter: @IHaveToAskPod Podcast production by Max Jacobs. Please fill out the Slate podcast survey at slate.com/podcastsurvey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Steven Pinker is the author of the new book Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. He sits down with Isaac Chotiner to discuss why he thinks life is improving despite the worldwide rise of demagogues, what Trump tells us about America’s relationship to Enlightenment ideals, and whether global warming and nuclear weapons should call into question our notion of progress. Email: ask@slate.comTwitter: @IHaveToAskPod  Podcast production by Max Jacobs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices