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For this month’s edition of Gabfest Reads, John Dickerson interviews Angela Duckworth about her new book, Situated: Find the People and Places That Bring Out Your Best. Her previous best-selling book, Grit, explored the idea that passion and perseverance drive success. This new book argues that grit is not enough to succeed. Yes, grit matters, but the real game-changer is your situation, that is, the objects within reach, the people around you, the physical and social environment that you inhabit.

Duckworth reveals how the most successful people don't just grind harder; they reshape their circumstances to make success feel automatic. The conversation with host John Dickerson ranges from the "three boxes model" of human behavior to the power of finding your tribe and mentors. Whether you're struggling to be present, trying to build better habits, or wondering why willpower alone hasn't delivered, this book offers a framework for understanding and changing the situation that shapes you every single day.

Tweet us your questions @SlateGabfest or email us at gabfest@slate.com. (Messages could be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)
Podcast production by Nina Porzucki.
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On Monday, the Justice Department raided a sitting congresswoman's D.C. home to build a denaturalization case. Andrew Weissmann joins Dahlia Lithwick to explain the new depths being plumbed by Trump’s DOJ.
ICE executed an early morning search of Rep. Ilhan Omar's D.C. home—apparently targeting immigration statements made when she was 12 years old, by a father who is now deceased—all in service of a reported plan to strip her of her citizenship and deport her. Weissmann, lead prosecutor in Robert S. Mueller’s Special Counsel’s Office from 2017 to 2019 and chief of the Fraud Section in the Department of Justice from 2015 to 2019, walks Dahlia through what is shaping up to be another case of selective and vindictive prosecution, why it violates the department's own 60-day election rule, and what it signals when post-Watergate guardrails established to prevent exactly these kinds of abuses have been dismantled.
Weissmann and Lithwick also discuss the administration's lawsuit against California over mail-in ballots—a case in which the evidence, like every prior non-citizen voting claim, collapses under scrutiny but serves its purpose before the courts can intervene. Plus: Trump’s ballroom grift, and why the only thing standing between another mid-term presidential pardon spree and total impunity for all the president’s men might be state criminal law.
Andrew Weissmann is a professor of practice at NYU School of Law, legal analyst for MSNOW, and author of Liar's Kingdom: How to Stop Trump's Deceit and Save America.

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The new AI agents from Meta and OpenAI have one thing in common: they look like children’s cartoons. At the same time these companies are warning that AI will kill us all, they’re trying to convince users to try even more products by making them look as cuddly and innocent as possible. On today’s episode, host Kate Lindsay is joined by writer and Slate columnist Steffi Cao to talk about just how much access these AI agents want in our lives, and what they’re hiding behind their fuzzy facades.

This podcast is produced by Vic Whitley-Berry, Daisy Rosario, and Kate Lindsay.
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This week: Inflation is going bananas (unless you’re talking about the actual fruit.) First up, hosts Felix Salmon, Emily Peck, and Elizabeth Spiers dig into what is causing inflation and why bananas should actually cost more than they do. Then, Meta wants everyone to play with its new A.I. model but is the cuteness covering up something sinister? Finally, why Kelly Clarkson really doesn’t get that Brooklyn magic shop’s whole deal.

Mentioned in the episode:
‘America’s Favorite Fruit Is Being Bruised by the Iran War’, from The New York Times
‘What If New York Just Loves a Fancy, Complicated Bird?’, from Vulture
‘With flying Roadster, Tesla waves goodbye to the car business’, from Axios

Podcast production by Jessamine Molli and Cheyna Roth.

In the Slate Plus episode: Not a Girl, Not Yet A Lawyer

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Perimenopause’s journey from little-understood phase before menopause to the subject of every ad on social media for women of a certain age was quick—and impossible to imagine without the internet.

Guest: Kate Knibbs, senior writer for WIRED.

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Podcast production by Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.

Paige Osburn is the senior supervising producer of What Next and What Next TBD.
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