Political Gabfest

The “Cooper, Taylor, SCIFer, Spy” Edition

Damning new impeachment testimony, Facebook under fire, and taking to the streets against Trump.

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Episode Notes

Here are some of the links and references from this week’s show:

• Ukraine envoy William B. Taylor Jr.’s statement to the impeachment inquiry
• Robert Mackey for the Intercept: “Trump Pressed Ukraine’s President to Act Out a Fake News Script, Live on CNN”
• Matthew Yglesias for Vox: “Impeachment Is Too Important to Leave to Congress—It’s Going to Take Mass Mobilization”
• Michelle Goldberg for the New York Times: “1, 2, 3, 4, Trump Can’t Rule Us Anymore”
• David Leonhardt for the New York Times: “Want Trump to Go? Take to the Streets”

Here are this week’s cocktail chatters:

• Emily: Ben Quinn for the Guardian: “Ireland Paid Trump Resort €100k to Host Police Protecting Him”
• John: Audra D.S. Burch for the New York Times: “ ‘Centrism Is Canceled’: High Schoolers Debate the Impeachment Inquiry”
• David: Erin Durkin and Darren Samuelsohn for Politico: “Trump Lawyer: Trump Can’t be Prosecuted for Shooting Someone”
• Listener chatter from Joe Paille @JoePaill: Aishwarya Kumar for ESPN: “The Grandmaster Diet: How to Lose Weight While Barely Moving”

For this week’s Slate Plus bonus segment, David, Emily, and John take inspiration from Christine Lagarde’s lesson on pretending to drink wine and discuss things they fake doing.

Get your tickets to the Gabfest’s Dec. 18 “Conundrum” live show at the Fox Theater in Oakland, California, here.

And submit your conundrums at Slate.com/conundrum!

You can tweet suggestions, links, and questions to @SlateGabfest. Tweet us your cocktail chatter using #cocktailchatter or post it to our Facebook page. (Messages may be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)

The email address for the Political Gabfest is gabfest@slate.com. (Email may be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)

Podcast production by Jocelyn Frank.

Research and show notes by Bridgette Dunlap.

About the Show

Voted “Favorite Political Podcast” by Apple Podcasts listeners. Stephen Colbert says, “Everybody should listen to the Slate Political Gabfest.” The Gabfest is hosted by Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz. Listen for the debates, stay for the cocktail chatter.

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Hosts

  • David Plotz is a host of the Slate Political Gabfest, an editor at large at Business Insider, and the former CEO of Atlas Obscura.

  • Emily Bazelon is a staff writer at the New York Times Magazine, the author of Charged and Sticks and Stones, and co-host of the Slate Political Gabfest.

  • John Dickerson is a 60 Minutes correspondent, co-host of the Slate Political Gabfest, host of the Whistlestop podcast, and author of Whistlestop and On Her Trail.

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