This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss the vivid and impulsive portrait Susie Wiles paints of Trump’s White House in a revealing interview with Vanity Fair, what the new unemployment numbers say about the economy and how Americans are feeling about it, and why some studies show that young Americans are increasingly antisemitic.

For this week’s Slate Plus bonus episode, Emily, John, David, and special guest Stephen Colbert answer listeners’ conundrums of all kinds: the meaningful, the trivial, and the delightfully absurd.

In the latest Gabfest Reads, John talks with journalist and author Andrew Ross Sorkin about his new book, 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History and How It Shattered a Nation — the story of speculation, debt, and the human drives that fueled the Wall Street crash that changed everything.

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/SlateGabfestSlate Political Gabfest on Facebook / https://www.facebook.com/Gabfest/

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

SHEILA GUNN REID | Alberta Kids finally back in school: Kris Sims on the end of the teachers’ strike