The “LIVE from Washington, DC!” Edition

This week, live from Sixth & I in Washington DC to celebrate 20 years of the Political Gabfest, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss the contentious House Judiciary Committee hearing with AG Pam Bondi and the Trump administration’s violations of constitutional rights with guest Rep. Jamie Raskin, how Trump’s assaults on DC have radically transformed the city, and patriotism at the Olympics.

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

Elie Honig for New York (Intelligencer): 6 Big Questions for Pam Bondi on Epstein and ICE

Alfred Ng for Politico: Raskin probes DOJ after Apple, Google blocked ICE tracking app

Sophie Brams for The Hill: Slotkin: Trump administration using legal intimidation ‘to get you to be quiet’

Alan Feuer, Glenn Thrush, and Michael S. Schmidt for The New York Times: Grand Jury Rebuffs Justice Dept. Attempt to Indict 6 Democrats in Congress

Chris Stein for The Guardian: Jamie Raskin accuses DoJ of cover-up after viewing unredacted Epstein files

Andrew Solender for Axios: What Jamie Raskin saw in the unredacted Epstein files

Patrick Maguire and Joe Walsh for CBS News: Bondi had list of a Democratic lawmaker’s Epstein files “search history” during Capitol Hill hearing

Lawrence O’Donnell and Jamie Raskin for MS NOW (The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell): Trump is running a ‘government at war with its own people,’ says Rep. Raskin (video 8:08 long)

Mike Murillo for WTOP News: How Trump reshaped DC’s relationship with the federal government

Dan Diamond, Aaron Schaffer, and Jonathan Edwards for The Washington Post: Legality of Trump’s $400M in private funding for White House ballroom at issue

Gal Beckerman for The Atlantic: Let Trump Keep Building Monuments to Himself

Dan Diamond, Hannah Dormido, and Tim Meko for The Washington Post: Trump wants to build a 250-foot-tall arch, dwarfing the Lincoln Memorial

Ed Pilkington and Jeremy Barr for The Guardian: As goes the Washington Post: US democracy takes another hit under Trump

Gabe Fleisher for Wake Up to Politics (Substack): The Presidents Who Refused to Name Things After Themselves

Steve Buckley for NYT: The Athletic: As political displays emerge at Olympics, U.S. athletes are answering for their country

Barry Svrluga for The Washington Post: U.S. Olympic athletes expressing their views is as American as it gets

Jon Steinman and Michael Angeloni for The Bulwark: Let’s Not Sportswash Trump’s Authoritarianism

Here are this week’s chatters:

Emily: Something Big is Happening by Matt Shumer; Gideon Lewis-Kraus for The New Yorker: What Is Claude? Anthropic Doesn’t Know, Either; Ross Andersen for The Atlantic: AI Is Getting Scary Good at Making Predictions

John: Spencer Howard for Hoover Heads (the blog of the Herbert Hoover Library and Museum): What’s in a Name?  The Saga of the Hoover Dam

David: Your City Could Be Better with City Cast CEO David Plotz; Nicole Rosenthal and Estrella McDaniel for New York Post: New Yorkers forced to dodge mine fields of unscooped dog poop littering weeks-old sidewalk snow: ‘Not a nice sight’; Dana Hedgpeth for The Washington Post: What to know about rats and trash during the cold

Listener chatter from Julian Ozen in Brooklyn, NY: Moltbook.com; Astral Codex Ten (Substack): Best of Moltbook; Reece Rogers for Wired: I Infiltrated Moltbook, the AI-Only Social Network Where Humans Aren’t Allowed; Elizabeth Nolan Brown for Reason: No, AI Isn’t Plotting Humanity’s Downfall on Moltbook

For this week’s Slate Plus bonus episode, Emily, John, and David answer questions from the live audience at Sixth & I in Washington, DC to celebrate 20 years of the Political Gabfest.

In the latest Gabfest Reads, Emily Bazelon talks with author Curtis Sittenfeld about her short story collection, “Show Don’t Tell.” They discuss the recurring themes of the book from troubled marriages and middle age to the passage of time, and characters who are navigating moments of racial privilege and prejudice.

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.

Bonus Episode

Bonus: Signal Your Neighbors into a Network

The hosts answer audience questions about investigative reporting on judicial institutions, the Framers’ assumptions about electing leaders, and new ways to be politically involved.