Susie Wiles Has No Interest in Slowing or Stopping President Trump

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.

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

Chris Whipple for Vanity Fair: Susie Wiles, JD Vance, and the “Junkyard Dogs”: The White House Chief of Staff On Trump’s Second Term (Part 1 of 2)

Chris Whipple for Vanity Fair: Susie Wiles Talks Epstein Files, Pete Hegseth’s War Tactics, Retribution, and More (Part 2 of 2)

Julia Manchester for The Hill: Wiles slams Vanity Fair interview as ‘disingenuously framed hit piece’ 

Jamelle Bouie for The New York Times (Opinion): The White House Is a Lost Cause

Chao Deng, Harriet Torry, and Justin Lahart for The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Unemployment Rose in November ​Despite Job Gains

Sam Sutton and Victoria Guida for Politico: Jobless rate rises, adding to Trump’s economic messaging woes

Josh Boak for the Associated Press: Trump gives a partisan prime-time address insisting the economy is stronger than many voters feel

Ali Watkins for The New York Times: Trump Announces ‘Warrior Dividend’ For Troops

Jonathan Levin for Bloomberg (Opinion): The Fed Needs Clearer Jobs Data, ASAP

The Editorial Board of The Wall Street Journal (Opinion): Where Are Those Manufacturing Jobs?

Yair Rosenberg for The Atlantic: ‘The More I’m Around Young People, the More Panicked I Am’

Marc Rod for Jewish Insider: JD Vance links youth antisemitism to immigration, demographics of Gen Z

Charles Fain Lehman for The Causal Fallacy (Substack): Actually, Most Americans Are Fine With Jews

Jason Burke for The Guardian (Analysis): ‘The inevitable has happened’: Bondi beach attack follows rise in antisemitic incidents

Noah Rothman for National Review: The New Wave of Violent Antisemitism Was Never About Israel

Will Saletan for The Bulwark: Don’t Blame the Australia Attack on Palestinian Statehood

Dave Zirin for The Nation: Don’t Listen to the Ghouls Exploiting the Tragedy of Bondi Beach

Here are this week’s chatters:

Emily: Alex Marshall for The New York Times: He’s Only 4 Feet Tall, but Paddington Is London’s Biggest New Musical Star; Thasanya Jayasumana for Kveller: The Amazing Jewish Backstory of Paddington Bear

John: Natch by Darrell Kinsey; The Center for Fiction 2025 First Novel Prize, Winner; Richard Fausset and Danny Hakim for The New York Times: ‘Who’s Gonna Stop You?’ Listen to Trump Press Georgia Speaker Over 2020 Vote.

David: Careless People: a Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams

Listener chatter from Sanna Björling in Kyiv, Ukraine: Arm Women Now; Women4Security: two days of inspiration and action for peace and resilience; Rubryka: When will Ukraine update women’s military uniforms to NATO standards?; Rubryka: Uniform matters: women test NATO-tailored military uniforms in Ukraine; Press Service of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine: The Vice Speaker Olena Kondratiuk: New women’s military uniform is about dignity and respect for our defenders

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.

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Find out more about David Plotz’s monthly tours of Ft. DeRussy, the secret Civil War fort hidden in Rock Creek Park.