The Gist

On The Gist, Good Friday is actually pretty great, from a cosmic perspective. In the interview, Aparna Nancherla tells us how to go from introverted kid (“my mom was very afraid of how unassertive I was”) to making it in comedy. In the Spiel, a deep dive into the world of acronyms. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, the Department of Energy has a chief creative officer? Let’s roll with it. In the interview, upstanding Pennsylvanian Amanda Holt updates us on the state’s new congressional district lines. In the Spiel, some hyperlinks are all hype, especially when it comes to censoring conservative opinion writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, Sean Hannity doesn’t like this podcast. In the interview, Korea expert Bruce Bechtol tells us what might be going on in Kim Jong-un’s mind and how to set it on denuclearization. In the Spiel, president Trump might be acting tough on Russia, but he doesn’t get what the big deal is.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, forget Stormy Daniels. The Kushners’ massive loan deals are where the real dirt is at. In the interview, the world’s growing complexity can be measured in dusty cables, useless features, and lines of code. Chris Clearfield and András Tilcsik talk about the problems that snowball when even the smallest thing goes wrong. Clearfield and Tilcsik are the authors of Meltdown: Why Our Systems Fail and What We Can Do About It. In the Spiel, any census that asks people about their citizenship status will be pricey and inaccurate.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, “affair” is too rich a word to describe anything Donald Trump is emotionally capable of. In the interview, arts reporter Mary M. Lane tells us about the art collection looted by Hitler’s art dealer, inherited by that dealer’s son, and finally confiscated by the German government. In the Spiel, a survey of Republican bloviating on Sunday’s news shows. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, Donald Trump’s presidency brings race relations, at best, to a standstill. Case in point: the police shooting in Sacramento, California.    The Americans is back for its final season next week. Showrunners Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg talk about their research into ruthless Soviet tactics, their obsession over historical detail, and why these spies are the good guys.       In the Spiel, what sound does a giraffe make? Also: It’s time for the Lobstar of the Antentwig.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, what to make of yet another round of White House reshuffling.    As mayor of New Orleans, Mitch Landrieu has used his office to take down four of the city’s Confederate monuments. His new book reckons with race relations in his city, the South, and the country. Landrieu’s book is In the Shadow of Statues: A White Southerner Confronts History.   In the Spiel, semantics, sexuality, and Cynthia Nixon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, even if we get a law to make Robert Mueller unfireable, President Trump could trample all over it.  In the interview, sports journalist Mary Pilon tells the story of Olympic sailor Kevin Hall’s struggle with the Truman Show delusion (where someone believes he or she is the focus of a reality TV program). Pilon’s new book is The Kevin Show: An Olympic Athlete’s Battle With Mental Illness.  In the Spiel, Stormy Daniels might win the right to talk. But can her story trouble Trump’s presidency, or would it just be tabloid fodder? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, before Donald Trump’s headline-hogging presidency, things like bridge collapses made news for more than a few days.  In the interview, Cass Sunstein’s new book asks if the U.S. is fundamentally immune to authoritarianism, or whether president Trump has proved the opposite. His new book—Can It Happen Here?: Authoritarianism in America—puts the question to more than a dozen leading writers.  In the Spiel, Betsy DeVos is totally incompetent, but at least that’s made obvious every time she speaks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today’s Gist, we’re nixing the Spiel to go on a Slate Podcasts retreat! Shouldn’t the White House staff have their own officewide retreat day? Plus, Maria Konnikova considers receipt paper toxicity: Is it BS? Konnikova writes for the New Yorker and is the author of The Confidence Game.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, “meddling” is too weak a word to describe what Russia did during in the U.S. election. In the interview, Chris Molanphy walks us through the No. 1 hits of 1969, the year flower power and psychedelic pop went fully mainstream. Chris is the host of Slate’s Hit Parade.  In the Spiel, our Congress members represent way too many constituents—700,000 on average—to stay in touch with their needs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, the Trump administration walks back a line about U.S. trade with Canada. And which American president was the studliest? Kate and J.D. Dobson are out with a book that considers Ulysses S. Grant’s quiet charisma, Franklin Pierce’s youthful charm, and the distinguished eyebrows of a certain Warren G. Harding. The Dobsons are the authors of Hottest Heads of State, Volume 1: The American Presidents. In the Spiel, the world’s greatest toy store goes down.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Well, it’s a tough day to be Fox News.  On today’s Gist, a closer look at the Department of State. It’s not that Rex Tillerson was wrong to want to reform how we do diplomacy—it’s that he utterly failed to deliver. Tom Hill, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, says the U.S. approach to international relations is antiquated and the diplomatic corps is bloated. Tillerson had a mandate to rethink our State Department. He blew it.  In the Spiel, why the special election in Pennsylvania’s 18th Congressional District was not so special.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today’s Gist, the lesser-known story of Colombia: Maria McFarland Sanchez-Moreno has written a moving account of Colombia’s post–Pablo Escobar years, when the illegal drug trade was taken up by one of the factions in the country’s long-running civil war. Her book, There Are No Dead Here, spotlights the work of Colombians who risked their lives to wrest their country back from lawlessness. It also reveals the incoherence of the United States’ war on drugs, which indirectly fueled so much of Colombia’s suffering. McFarland is the executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance.  In the Spiel, why a surprise primary win in Texas makes complete sense when you learn the victor’s name.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, is it OK to ape a Russian accent when saying Russian names? And we revisit an interview with filmmaker Bryan Fogel, whose documentary, Icarus, recently won an Academy Award. In the Spiel, a short conversation with author Steven Pinker about the state of academia. Is it really doing that badly? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, if sitting down with North Korea wasn’t a good idea for past U.S. presidents, how is it a good idea for our current one?        In the interview, Slate’s Fred Kaplan and former Ambassador to the U.N. Bill Richardson are both cautiously optimistic about upcoming negotiations between Trump and Kim Jong-un.  In the Spiel, some miscellaneous (positive!) news. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, it’s a Jon Favreau–flavored mash-up: Swing Wars. In the interview, the walls cave in, the props catch fire, the actors stammer and forget … and it’s all part of the plan. Kevin McCollum, one of the producers of Broadway’s longest-running play, tells Mike how The Play That Goes Wrong makes audiences laugh.  In the Spiel: By breaking them, at least the Trump administration is making us bone up on obscure but important rules. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, who’s left to work for Trump when even the nincompoops are quitting?    In the interview, Richard Aborn has helped get gun control laws on the books. As president of the Citizens Crime Commission of New York City, he has the data on what works, what doesn’t, and how New York City got so safe.  In the Spiel, the average Joe has no idea how tariffs actually work. That makes it tough to reason with him. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, Lego business is hurting.  In Steve James’ latest documentary, the bank is the good guy. New York’s district attorney brought charges against a Chinatown-based bank after the 2008 financial crisis, even though the bank had little to do with subprime mortgages. James is the director of the Oscar-nominated Abacus: Small Enough to Jail. In the Spiel, the unpersuasive handwringing over putting Sam Nunberg on live TV.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, if iHeart Media wants to do better, they really ought to change their name.    Did you watch the Oscars? Did you think they were a little lame? Writer Catie Lazarus provides a safe space for your Academy Awards–related shade. Lazarus is host of the Employee of the Month Show. Come see it live on March 15 in New York with guests Hannibal Buress, Emily Mortimer, Alex Lacamoire, and the Resistance Revival Chorus.  In the Spiel, don’t let Ben Carson’s $31,000 fiasco distract you from the ongoing travesty that is the White House. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices