Political Gabfest: Trump Legal Traffic Jam

This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz are together again and talking about Donald Trump’s next indictment and the charges against his “false electors” in Michigan; the struggles of candidates Ron DeSantis, Tim Scott, et al.; and Congressional Republicans’ culture war against the U.S. military. 

Here are some notes and references from this week’s show:

James Madison: “Impeachment of the Executive, [20 July] 1787”

FiveThirtyEight: “Who’s Ahead In Republican Primary Polls?” 

Fox News Digital: “Republican presidential candidate Sen. Tim Scott says Donald Trump is ‘overqualified to be my vice president’” 

Manu Raju, Rashard Rose, and Lauren Fox for CNN: “Tommy Tuberville now says ‘White nationalists are racists’ after refusing to denounce them”

Zoë Richards for NBC News: “Arizona Republican refers to Black Americans as ‘colored people’ in House floor debate”

Here are this week’s chatters: 

Emily: Elise White, Basaime Spate, Javonte Alexander, and Rachel Swaner for the Center for Justice Innovation: “’Two Battlefields’: Opps, Cops, and NYC Youth Gun Culture” and Charged: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration by Emily Bazelon  

John: Mona El-Naggar, Johan M. Kessel, and Alexander Stockton for The New York Times: “What Is War to a Grieving Child?”; Jeanna Smialek and Ben Casselman for The New York Times: “The Pandemic’s Labor Market Myths”; and Chris Cameron for The New York Times: “Over 700 Civil War-Era Gold Coins Found Buried on a Kentucky Farm”

David: “Exploring a Secret Fort” with David through airbnb; Steve Bohnel for The Frederick News-Post: “$200,000, or the city burns: The story of the Confederacy’s ransom on Frederick”; and Caity Weaver for The New York Times Magazine: “My Impossible Mission to Find Tom Cruise” 

Listener chatter from Dianne Denton: Harriet McBryde Johnson for The New York Times Magazine: “Unspeakable Conversations” and Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century by Alice Wong

For this week’s Slate Plus bonus segment, David, John, and Emily discuss the Hollywood actors’ and writers’ strikes, artificial intelligence, and the future of work. 

In the next edition of Gabfest Reads, David talks with David Grann about his book, The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder. 

Email your chatters, questions, and comments to gabfest@slate.com or Tweet us @SlateGabfest. (Messages may be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)

Podcast production by Cheyna Roth

Research by Julie Huygen

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