Political Gabfest Creators & Guests

David A. Plotz is a journalist. Currently, he He appears on the weekly Slate Political Gabfest podcast with John Dickerson and Emily Bazelon.Previously, Plotz was C.E.O. of the online magazine Atlas Obscura. He began his career in journalism at the Washington City Paper. He then joined Slate when it launched in 1996.Plotz's work has appeared in Slate, The New York Times Magazine, Harper's, Reader's Digest, Rolling Stone, New Republic, The Washington Post, Business Insider, and GQ. His first book, "The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank," was published in 2005, and his second book, "Good Book: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, and Inspiring Things I Learned when I Read Every Single Word of the Bible," was published in 2009.Plotz received his A.B. from Harvard University, where he also wrote for The Harvard Crimson.He has been a writer with Slate since its inception in 1996. Before that Plotz was a paralegal for the Department of Justice, then switched to journalism and wrote for the Washington City Paper.He hosts the Slate Podcast "Political Gabfest."

John Dickerson is a co-hosts of CBS This Morning.

Emily Bazelon is a journalist.

Jared Downing is a multimedia journalist and podcast producer. Currently, he is a podcast producer for Slate Magazine.Downing spent covered climate change for Climate & Capital Media and Health Affairs Journal, including two original podcast series, The Climate & Capital Podcast for Climate & Capital Media and The Earth Disease for Health Affairs Journal. His work has appeared in Slate, VICE, Nieman Reports, Saveur, Asian Geographic, Roads & Kingdoms, OpenDemocracy, and others.

Cheyna Roth is a journalist and audio producer. Currently, she is a podcast producer for Slate and frequent host of its gender and feminism podcast "The Waves." She is also an adjunct professor of journalism and law at Aquinas College.Roth began her career as a prosecuting attorney. She left the practice of law to in 2016, earned her masters degree, and became a documentary filmmaker, podcaster, and freelance writer. She began her journalism career as Capitol reporter for the Michigan Public Radio Networka, and she hosted the podcast "MichMash."Roth's work has appeared in Broadly, Bustle, and on NPR. Her first book, "Cold Cases: A True Crime Collection," was published in 2020.Roth received her J.D. from Michigan State University College of Law and her M.A. in Journalism from Michigan State University.

Jayson de Leon is an audio producer. Currently, he is a producer for “99% Invisible.”Previously, de Leon was a producer for Slate, where he produced seasons 5 and 6 of “Slow Burn,” launched and led production of Slate’s daily news program “What Next,” and was the founding producer of “Trumpcast.” Before joining Slate, he produced season 1 of “Family Ghosts.” Before that, he was an intern at NPR’s “Planet Money.”de Leon  received his B.S. in Business Economics from the University of Central Florida.

Ethan Oberman is a freelance audio producer.Previously, Oberman was a Senior Producer for the WNYC show "The Takeaway," where he produced much of the show’s movie and television coverage. He began his producing career as an intern with The Takeaway in 2016. Before that, he was an intern at WBAI in Brooklyn and a volunteer at WFMU.

Azmat Khan is an award-winning investigative reporter, and contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine.

Malcolm Turnbull is a retired politician who was the 29th Prime Minister of Australia from 2015 to 2018.

Benjamin Wittes is a journalist. He focuses on issues of national security and law.

Lulu Garcia-Navarro is the host of National Public Radio's Weekend Edition Sunday. Previously, she was a foreign correspondent, serving as NPR's Jerusalem bureau chief from April 2009 to the end of 2012.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat is a historian and cultural critic. She is a scholar on fascism and authoritarian leaders.

Mat Johnson is an American fiction writer who works in both prose and the comics format. In 2007, he was named the first USA James Baldwin Fellow by United States Artists.

Christine Coulson is an author.Coulson started her writing career at The Metropolitan Museum of Art as a summer intern, and became a full-time writer there in 1994, where she stayed for 25 years.Coulson's fiction has appeared in The New York Times and Lit Hub. Her first book, the novel "Metropolitan Stories," was published in 2019. Her second novel, "One Woman Show," was published in 2023.

Adrienne LaFrance is the executive editor of The Atlantic.

Gautam Mukunda is an expert in leadership and innovation. Currently, he is a Research Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Center for Public Leadership. He is author of "Indispensable: When Leaders Really Matter," and the host of NASDAQ's "World Reimagined" podcast.

Dr. Christopher Miller is Associate Professor of International History at the graduate school of global affairs at Tufts University, where he teaches about US-Russian relations, Russian foreign policy, and the history of US foreign relations.Miller's first book, "My first book, The Struggle to Save the Soviet Economy: Mikhail Gorbachev and the Collapse of the USSR," was published in 2016. He has published four nonfiction books.Miller received his B.A. in History from Harvard University, his M.A. in Turkish from onEducation Boğaziçi University, and his Ph.D. in History from Yale University.

David E. Sanger is the Chief Washington Correspondent for The New York Times.

Will Oremus is a journalist who specializes in technology. He is a senior writer for Medium's OneZero.Formerly, Oremus was Slate Magazine's technology writer. He has interned at The New Yorker and was a reporter at Newsweek.Oremus received his B.A. in Philosophy from Stanford University and his M.A. in Political Journalism from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.