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- [00:00]
A
From Spider man to a new Steven Spielberg movie. We know the TV and movies you'll want to watch this summer.
- [00:06]
B
I'm excited about this film.
- [00:08]
C
I just know suspense, intrigue, aliens. And I'm like, all right, Spielberg, I'm in.
- [00:13]
A
Check out the summer guide from Pop Culture Happy Hour. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get podcasts.
- [00:24]
C
Hey there. It's the NPR Politics podcast. I'm Myles Parks. I cover voting.
- [00:28]
A
I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I cover the White House.
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B
And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.
- [00:33]
C
Colleagues, it is another Friday. We made it.
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A
We did it.
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C
Congratulations. Well done.
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A
Was it ever in question?
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C
You know, maybe not.
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B
For you, every day is a blessing, right, Miles?
- [00:44]
A
Yeah.
- [00:45]
B
Thank you, colleague.
- [00:47]
C
So we're going to start with President Trump's trip to China. He met with Xi Jinping to work through this laundry list of global concerns, the war in Iran, global trade. Danielle, what do we know about what came out of this trip?
- [01:00]
A
Well, we don't know a lot thus far, but what we do know is that not a lot concrete really changed during, during this visit. So there are a few big topics that they discussed. From what we understand, the US And China talked about Taiwan. It remains a big point of contention. China, of course, maintains that Taiwan is a part of the People's Republic of China. The US Position on Taiwan did not change during this visit. The US Position on Taiwan is an acknowled acknowledgement that the People's Republic of China claims Taiwan, but the US doesn't full on agree with them. That is a very, very summary view of it. Beyond that, we do know some things that Trump says, but we are waiting to hear what China confirms. For example, on the Iran war, Trump afterwards, he talked to Sean Hannity from Fox News. He said that Xi Jinping offered to help with the Iran war, that China agreed not to sell weapons to Iran. But we are still waiting to hear how solid those agreements are. One other big thing, though, is about the economy because that was one of the huge things that this visit was billed as Trump brought a plane full of CEOs at business executives along and did not come away with any major business agreements, any major trade agreements. What Trump told Sean Hannity is that China agreed to order 200 jets from the US but then Trump kind of backtracked on that in the next breath. I think it was a commitment. It was sort of like a statement. So we're not sure how hard and fast that is. One more thing, Trump suggested that China would buy a whole bunch of soybeans from the US that has been a big deal for American farmers. But as far as we know, China has not yet confirmed those purchases.
- [02:48]
B
You know, and I will say it's really fascinating, the fact that Trump himself ran against China during the campaign, really made China a boogeyman even during COVID Right. Called it the China virus. And really tries to point a lot of blame at China for, you know, really economic issues in general, leveraging these high tariffs and creating a trade war with China, really being against how many things are made in China. But really, the leverage that Trump may have had, or thought he had, is certainly declined during this trip, considering what's happened with the Iran war and the fact that China is one of Iran's largest purchasers for Iranian oil. And Trump needs the Strait of Hormuz open and China has a lot of leverage there. So Trump needs China and China has a lot of things it wants from the United States.
- [03:39]
C
It feels striking to me how little at this point has come out of this trip. I mean, even the Boeing deal you mentioned, Danielle, or the potential deal, Boeing stock actually dropped on open today because the deal was smaller. The potential deal was smaller than what many analysts were even forecasting. So I guess I'm wondering this was a big to do for Trump to make this trip to China. Why?
- [04:01]
A
Well, one important thing to remember here is that when Trump first announced this trip, this was last fall. And last fall, various things had not happened. The Supreme Court had not invalidated a whole swath of Trump's tariffs, including the super high ones on China, and the US had not started the war with Iran. So Fast forward to May 2026, and the US is just in a weaker position vis a vis China. The US has less that it can dangle over China, like the threat of 100 plus percent tariffs. And the US needs China's help, or at least would like its help in opening up the Strait of Hormuz. So if you're asking why go? In part, the US Was just in such a different position when Trump decided why he wanted to go.
- [04:44]
C
That makes a lot of sense. I mean, think about how Americans are perceiving all this this week. Domenico, you reported on a new poll that focused in part on China. What can you tell us about the findings?
- [04:53]
B
Well, it's really fascinating because this was a pair of surveys that were conducted by IPSOS over the last couple of months. Some of it looking at the Iran war and China, some of it looking at more broadly Americans views of the country. And when it comes to that 8 in 10American see China as a country that wants world dominance, it wants to be a dominant world leader. Mostly, though, that's economic, not militarily. You know, 56% said that they think that they want to be the dominant economic, you know, country, as opposed to 29% saying militarily is the real threat to the United States. And it's really fascinating because these are the two largest economies in the world, and here they are coming together and you're having some of these tariff issues where Trump really tried to raise those tariffs to sort of flare some muscles. But Americans overwhelmingly say that they are not in favor of these tariffs. You know, 76% said that tariffs are bad for the cost of living, 70% said they're bad for the standard of living, 61% said that they're against tariffs because of the fact that they'd be bad for American creating American jobs. Now, there is a degree to which there's a partisan split because Republicans in many ways are buying into the Trump line on tariffs, where you have 6 in 10 saying that tariffs would be good for American jobs, because the macro theory of Trump's is that, you know, you have fewer things that are offshored and then that would mean bringing manufacturing jobs back, but that's a whole lot harder to do. And certainly something that's not taking place over the next six months to a year, that's something that's more six years to 10, 15, 20, 30 years if it ever were to take place.
- [06:37]
A
Well, and that's what makes it so interesting if you look at what the Trump administration is doing on tariffs right now, because after the Supreme Court invalidated those IPA tariffs, the only country specific tariffs you have on China right now are some leftover 301 tariffs. Those are tariffs that are meant to deal with unfair trade practices. Tariffs that are held over from Trump Won and from the Biden era. So right now, Chinese goods are tariffed way less than they were last year. So Chinese goods are in a better position to sell in the US Than they were not long ago. But right now, the Trump administration is looking into, they have an investigation for more 301 tariffs that could potentially be imposed on Chinese goods. And depending on what trade analysts you ask, the idea could be to use these 301 tariffs as just a sort of backdoor, more legal way to recreate the IPA regime. Now, if that's true, that means that the Trump administration is ignoring the kind of polls that Domenico is talking about here, because American consumers, of course, they don't like tariffs.
- [07:45]
C
Well, the partisanship on these tariffs is so interesting because Domenico, we always talk about. When people talk about backlash to President Trump's policies, generally speaking, in these polls, we see Democrats, we see independents pushing back, but Republicans have been, by and large, with the president. But there was a data point that I saw here that even the majority of Republicans think tariffs are bad for the cost of living. That has to be a blinking red light for Trump or for Republican candidates heading to the midterms.
- [08:12]
B
No, I think there are so many blinking red lights that all they're seeing is red, because we've just seen poll after poll, number after number that have shown a negative environment for Republicans, particularly on the economy. And we've seen a softening among Trump's base, frankly, when it comes to the job that he's doing. On whether it's the Iran war or cost of living or gas prices. These are things that are really hitting people's pockets. And I think where it's gonna really impact the elections is whether or not those folks show up at the polls. I don't think that there's much chance that they're switching parties and they're gonna go vote for Democrats because of culture issues, but it doesn't necessarily make them feel excited to go and vote for the Republican in their congressional district.
- [08:55]
A
I will say it is possible to imagine a true believer Trump voter who can square that circle, who can say these tariffs are bad for the cost of living. But I trust Trump that these tariffs will eventually create more jobs. Now, that that is a lot of faith to put in the president while inflation is going up and while gas prices are, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And so if you do have those voters out there, which I would bet you exist, then the question is, how long do they put that faith in Trump? Because for tariffs to do that kind of massive job creation, not just, you know, a few more investments here and there, but revamping the American manufacturing industry, if you believe that can happen, which might be a stretch, it would take a while.
- [09:47]
B
Yeah. And it's not just theoretical. We did hear from voters in our last survey. When we called back some voters who participated, I talked to one who told me that, yeah, gas prices are certainly a strain, and they can be a strain, and he understands that they're a strain for a lot of different people. But that Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. Right. So that's where the messaging and the talking points really matter.
- [10:08]
C
Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, it does align kind of this Long game strategy that Trump talks about. The question is whether voters feel so excited about that long game, I guess, that they want to turn out, which leads to me, I guess, to the bigger picture question of how much the economy is going to play into the midterms. It feels like it was the story, if not one of the stories of 2024. Do you all have any reason to believe that's gonna be different in 2026?
- [10:29]
A
No. I mean, a big part of it is not only is the economy bad or good, and how do people feel about it? I mean, people feel bad about the economy right now. That just flat out matters. But also think about what Trump said right before he left for this trip to China. In talking about his negotiations with Iran. He said, I don't think about Americans financial situations. I'm just thinking about whether or not Iran has a nuclear bomb. Now, I'm paraphrasing what he's saying there, but that kind of thing can be distilled down into a sound bite and repeated over and over in every campaign ad.
- [11:05]
B
It's the umbrella issue. I mean, it is the thing that despite all of the other big, major news things that have gone on in the country, whether it's deportations or any other handful of things, the Iran war, you know where it would seem or you would think that the election could pivot on, those kinds of major things have created chaos in the country and really drawn a lot of strong emotions and feelings. Really, at the end of the day, it continues to be the economy prices that are the thing that people continue to say is their number one issue, their most motivating issue. And when you're driving around and those major signs are all around you saying that gas prices are getting toward $5 a gallon in many places, it can make for a really, really psychologically difficult environment for the party in power. And look, I've said many times that presidents get too much credit and too much blame when it comes to the economy because they don't have that many levers to make it better, but they certainly have levers to make it worse. And Trump has gotten blame for putting tariffs in place that have raised prices, and he's gotten blame for raising gas prices because of the Iran war. That's something that he's had direct control over and that people are saying it's his fault.
- [12:20]
C
Yeah, I feel like we were going to do can't let it go later. But I feel like depending on how the next six months go, President Trump saying he doesn't think about Americans Financial situations might be my can't let it go of the year, depending on how things play out.
- [12:32]
A
Right. And to be clear here, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was asked about this in an interview surrounding this China trip. And he, in defending Trump, said what Trump was trying to say is in these negotiations with Iran, I am not going to allow Iran to use American domestic politics and consumer problems as leverage. Even so, the point is, you said those words in that order, and it's a problem.
- [13:02]
C
All right. Well, we have to take a quick break, but more on, frankly, President Trump's messaging style in just a moment.
- [13:08]
A
From Spider man to a new Steven Spielberg movie, we know the TV and movies you'll want to watch this summer.
- [13:14]
B
I'm excited about this film.
- [13:16]
C
I just know suspense, intrigue, aliens. And I'm like, all right, Spielberg, I'm in.
- [13:21]
A
Check out the summer guide from Pop Culture Happy Hour. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get podcasts.
- [13:29]
C
And welcome back. So we are now a decade into President Trump's political career, and I think it's safe to say that one of his trademarks is how very online he is. I mean, this is a guy who posts a lot. Danielle, you recently did a story that looked into many of his posts during his second term. What were your takeaways from this reporting?
- [13:50]
A
All right, so what I did was I took his social media posts on Truth Social from this year, so starting January 1, 2026, and going through the end of April. And what I did was counted them up and categorized them to see what types of posts he's doing, what is he posting about. So there are a few big takeaways here. And to me, it's not that they're surprising. It's just that the scope of them is really telling. For example, in those first four months this year, Trump posted on Truth social more than 2,200 times, which is an average of 19 posts a day.
- [14:22]
B
Wow.
- [14:23]
A
So even if you know that Trump posts a lot now you know how much a lot it is. I am a born poster. And I can't even imagine I was
- [14:31]
C
about to say, I don't know if I've posted 2200 times in like a year.
- [14:35]
B
Yeah, I can't imagine posting 19 times in one day. Never mind. I mean, that would be a major rant for me to be going down one particular rabbit hole to be posting about something 19 times.
- [14:49]
A
You have to have a lot of feelings and a lot of thoughts for
- [14:51]
B
that to happen about a lot of different things. Right. Because it also kind of Ruins your messaging. Because, you know, if you're gonna post 19 things, what should anybody focus on? Right.
- [15:00]
A
Supply lowers value. But okay, like, let's talk about what topics he's posting about. Most commonly, he was posting about the midterms and primaries ahead of the midterms. So a lot of those are endorsements of candidates or saying, I would candidate to lose and lose in a huge way. He also posted a lot about Iran and the economy. None of that terribly surprising, but what's really fascinating to me is when you drill down and compare categories. So, for example, he posted more about his various building projects in D.C. like the ballroom, of course. His revamping of the reflecting pool by the Lincoln Memorial posted more about that than he did about tariffs, even during the period that the Supreme Court overturned his tariffs. So even with all that anger, he had a lot more to say about the ballroom and so on. He posted more about Bill Maher nine times than he did about American farmers four times. Now, yes, those are very small numbers in a big universe of posts, but you really just get a sense of this is the President talking without being prompted. This is not him being asked, hey, what do you think about Iran? Hey, what do you think about? Blah, blah. You just get a sense of. Of potentially what is in his head at any given time. And on any given day. He might be thinking about how angry he is at Bruce Springsteen, for example. I mean, one other thing that really struck me is that my takeaway from this feed is that Trump not only cares a lot about being praised, but about showing he's being praised. There are around a hundred posts that I categorized as general Trump praise. This includes all sorts of things. But it's op EDS saying Trump's the best president since whenever. It's. It's that sort of Trump is generally awesome sort of thing. And he does that so much. It includes sometimes posting news articles that are weeks old. Like, there's one article where Lady Gaga's father endorsed Trump in 2024. Why are you reposting this in 2026? I don't know, but he did. And to me, that is telling about what he's thinking about.
- [17:05]
B
I mean, it's clearly someone who wants to be the center of attention. Even before viral was a thing, he wanted to be part of the virality of whether it was in New York with the tabloids and would call in to try to weigh in and be part of the conversation. Now he's clearly doing it on a platform he owns with no filter, no restrictions. Right. I mean, this is somebody who got kicked off of Twitter and Facebook after January 6th because those platforms said that they were afraid that he could incite more violence. And that doesn't matter now. He can say whatever he wants. False, not false, inappropriate, doesn't matter. He controls the platform, and he's going to post on there whatever he wants it to be. He wants to be part of all of it, and he's going to do it because he has the platform.
- [17:54]
C
Well, I feel like you're getting at this idea that this is not inherently new, Danielle. I'm thinking back to Trump's first term, and I remember, at least personally, there was a time where I literally had Twitter notifications on for when the president posted. It feels really different now. Can you talk about that a little bit?
- [18:10]
A
So much has changed. I was talking to one Republican digital strategist about this, asking him what he thinks the difference is. And he described Truth Social as a sort of walled garden. And if you spend any time on Truth Social, you don't see a lot of arguments like you see on Twitter. You see people agreeing with the president. And so he described it as, this is a place not where you go to see everybody discussable, of lights, where you go to get your mega marching orders. And I think that's very true. Two other things, though. One is the type of stuff Trump has at his fingertips to post is so different than it was in his first term. TikTok was in the US just kind of a baby back then. He. He wasn't posting TikTok videos. He was posting videos from Fox News. He. There weren't these AI slop memes out there. Now there is so much of that. And he can just go to Twitter, screenshot it, bring it over to Truth Social and post it, which means sometimes posting things that are amateur, made potentially very offensive, like that video portraying Michelle and Barack Obama as apes. That kind of stuff was just in such shorter supply way back when. And I think the other thing is that I think the political media treats his posting very differently than in his first term. Back then, we paid a lot more attention to it. We had a project here at NPR where for a while we fact checked not all of his posts, but many of them. I mean, they got more individual attention. Now, as I read in my piece, it's kind of background noise, which is kind of why I did this, because it's background noise, but it's made by the president. Maybe we should look at it more.
- [19:50]
B
Yeah, I was just thinking about that project that we created where we brought in all of Trump's posts into a spreadsheet and then decided which ones to annotate. To say that these are false or these are true or here's the context that you need. It's a little different this time around because his truth social posts don't spread quite as much as they did when they were on Twitter, because Twitter was just a bigger platform. It could go further. What's happening now is it's kind of like he's talking in a room by himself with a limited number of people who are there to hear him. And whether or not we or other people with some influential audiences, whether they're journalists or not, decide to put them out there, those are the times when they get attention. Right? Otherwise, they don't get as much attention. And I think a lot of it is, number one, Trump was novel as a president back in 2017. No one had ever seen anything like this. I mean, we're used to the Bush administration, the Obama administration, having fact sheets and rollouts and these very kind of organized ways of putting a message out. This was totally different with Trump, and he was saying a lot of really highly controversial things that needed to be dug into. Now it's kind of like, yep, that's a thing that he's doing. It's what he's talking about. But when you're again posting 19 things in a day, what of those things do you focus on and decide to amplify? But I do think Danielle's analysis here really sheds some light on things that are important. For example, like talking about Bill Maher putting on Truth Social. Nine different posts about him versus only four about farmers and the issues that they're having. You think about how that translates to the actual races. A state like Iowa, where a lot of the farmers are upset about the tariffs on soybeans and they feel like they're not being paid attention to. And it's why, in many cases, Republicans I talked to say that they're concerned about the potential for a race like that to come on board.
- [21:56]
C
So it almost feels like the political liability here is less about the offensive things that he's posting, necessarily, and more about maybe just this general feeling that that someone who's posting 19 times a day might be distracted from issues like the cost of living and things like that.
- [22:12]
B
Well, I think it's offensiveness is one thing that clearly you have to pay some attention to, depending on its level of it with Trump. But the other is, what is your focus? Not necessarily like a distraction, but what do you Value, Right? Show me your values. Right. What are the things that you think the country should be focused on? And if he's saying, I want to focus more on Bill Maher than on farmers, then that tells you something that I think is important to the political landscape.
- [22:40]
A
I mean, Trump's social media presence has always played a sort of ambiguous role for him, even among his own voters. Now his voters, I remember talking to a bunch of them during his first term and I would ask them, how do you feel about this post or that post? And often they would say, you know, I don't love his tweets, but I like his policies. Now, they may or may not have been being totally truthful. I think sometimes people might just say, I don't like the offensive post, because you might not want to tell a reporter, I love the offensive post, that sort of thing. But I do think that quite often a lot of Trump supporters even liked him in spite of his posts.
- [23:20]
B
I think that there are some people in Trump's base who not only put up with it, but like it. Because what we heard from a lot of them in 2016, and we continue to hear now, is that they have this real disdain for the elites, for people who are kind of always clutching pearls about the things that this president does.
- [23:40]
C
Yeah, it fits cleanly with the cancel culture kind of narrative, this idea that people are trying to silence our speech. And so this is kind of a way to push back against that.
- [23:48]
B
We don't hear a lot about it now, but Trump, you might Remember, ran in 2016 on anti political correctness. And I think that that's changed in some ways, but it's to be able to say whatever you want, want, regardless of how offensive it might be.
- [24:01]
C
Last thing before we go. I just want to get your guys thoughts on where this goes from here. Because President Trump is not going to be in office forever, and yet he has changed the way future presidents will think about communicating with the public. I mean, he is a singular force in many ways. But are there things that you think other politicians will try to replicate from President Trump's communication style online? Danielle, why don't you start?
- [24:25]
A
I think definitely other politicians will try to replicate what Trump is doing. I think we are already seeing California Governor Gavin Newsom try to do some of this. He has put out some flat out crass posts over on X that have upset quite a few people, even people that might be in his constituency. To me, looking at that sort of thing makes me wonder though, like when you ask if Trump's social Media presence is replicable. I mean, it brings back that whole amorphous question of authenticity. I have no doubt that Trump's posts are authentic. They are authentically him. Do people see Gavin Newsom or whoever's crass, mean, funny, whatever, posts as authentic, or do they see it as you're just trying to reinvent the wheel that Trump sort of invented? I'm not sure. Yeah.
- [25:12]
B
I mean, a lot of what Newsom does is troll the right, you know, but it's with a bluntness that you haven't necessarily seen before. Trump exists. Right. I mean, it's hard to think you would hear, hear, you know, someone say stone cold racism on a scale I've never seen in my lifetime. Right. With one of Newsom's recent posts, maybe from some people, but most of the time the people are trying to build alliances and they're trying not to offend people on the other side to say that they want to placate them, that they're actually running for all people. Right. I mean, Obama used to run on this idea of having Obamakans, he said, having Republicans who were with him, whether that was a tiny number or what, he was trying his best not to offend and stir up the other side. And that's not what we're seeing now because that's not social media culture. I think that that's one reason for the crassness of our politics. I think that is gonna continue, certainly. Cuz presidents have always tried to get around the media filter and to try to speak directly to their constituents without having to be asked tough questions.
- [26:17]
A
And I think it's just gonna keep evolving. I mean, if you zoom out, Trump is the second or third president, depending on how you look at it, to be on Twitter or truth Social. So you had Obama using Twitter in his much more, you know, buttoned up way than Trump ever has. And so you have Trump very much changing things. And I think that you're just gonna see presidents and other politicians more and more try to figure out how to put themselves, put their voices online. You've seen some of that with younger politicians like Aoc and Ilhan Omar. I remember, I think it was during the pandemic, seeing some of them playing video games and, you know, streaming online while they talk to their constituents, cooking while they talk to their constituents. I think you're gonna see more of that attempt to be casual, but maybe not with as much attacking as Trump uses.
- [27:10]
C
All right, let's take one more break and then it's time for can't let
- [27:13]
A
it go from Spider man to a new Steven Spielberg movie. We know the TV and movies you'll wanna watch this summer.
- [27:21]
B
I'm excited about this film.
- [27:22]
C
I just. Suspense, intrigue, aliens. And I'm like, all right, Spielberg, I'm in.
- [27:28]
A
Check out the summer guide from pop culture happy hour. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get podcasts.
- [27:35]
C
And we are back and it's time for Can't Let It Go. The part of the show where we talk about things from the week that we just cannot let go of, politics or otherwise. Domenico, why don't you start us off?
- [27:45]
B
Well, I think the thing that really struck me this week when we were thinking about the China US Summit, there was this photo that kind of was making the rounds that had about two dozen members of the Chinese and US delegation. This is the two largest economies in the world and there was something missing. There were no women at the table at all. There very well may have been women behind the scenes doing diplomacy on this trip. But this photo really struck me because you're talking about high up government officials, the people who are supposed to be at this table at this very important meeting. And this photo shows no women of the two dozen people who were there between China and. And the United States.
- [28:26]
A
I'm just doing some performance art by not talking. I thought that would really add to the conversation. I have nothing to add. That is absolutely wild. I hadn't seen this.
- [28:34]
C
Me neither.
- [28:34]
A
I mean, to me it's one of those fun things that falls under shocking but not surprising, like. Yeah, you're kidding.
- [28:42]
C
You're kidding.
- [28:43]
A
The men are making the economic decisions. Great, great, great, great, great, great. Yeah. Which is how it's always been. And it's what? Domenico is showing me the picture right now.
- [28:54]
C
Can I see it?
- [28:54]
A
Long table. Wow. There's a lot of people in those pictures.
- [28:57]
C
Oh my God.
- [28:58]
A
There's a lot of non women people in those pictures. Well, thank you for illustrating it.
- [29:02]
B
It's just so striking.
- [29:03]
C
All right, sigh. I'm just gonna. Big sigh. That one.
- [29:05]
A
It's story of my life.
- [29:07]
B
Well, Miles, what can't you let go of?
- [29:10]
C
I wanna say mine is better news. I'm not sure it is. It's different. Let me just ask you guys, just a guess, trivia question here. When do you think the first root canal was performed?
- [29:24]
B
Oh, I wasn't prepared for this, but
- [29:28]
C
I know I didn't prepare either of you.
- [29:30]
B
Something like 1960 maybe.
- [29:32]
C
Danielle, any guesses?
- [29:34]
A
I was gonna say like, I don't know, a thousand B.C.
- [29:38]
C
i mean, honestly, okay, now we're getting somewhere, because NPR reported this week. Ari Daniel, who's a great reporter, I love every story he does that scientists found evidence of a root. What seems to be a root Canal performed 59,000 years ago by Neanderthals with stone tools. They found a tooth that seemed to indicate. I know. Well, that's. So this is what's so interesting. I was, like, obsessed. I read the story, and I was like, oh, my God, this is amazing. Like, I'm just, like, imagining these cavemen figuring this out. And then I got, like, really bummed out at the idea of, like, a caveman who was, like, in so much pain that he had to, like, get his friend to, like, help him with a rock. I don't know.
- [30:21]
B
It just, like, just take the tooth out of it.
- [30:23]
C
Exactly. I was just like. I don't know. I went through an entire emotional experience with the story. Shout out to the scientists. Also, I feel like I read every story about a new fossil. So I don't know. Interesting story.
- [30:34]
B
I was thinking about the first, you know, like, modern one where, you know, it's. It's, like, done correctly.
- [30:42]
C
But even that, apparently, it's not done. Well, it's done. Okay. I'm sure this came. I was happy after it finished. I don't know.
- [30:48]
B
Dude, how long can you be happy?
- [30:50]
A
I define happy.
- [30:51]
B
I mean, how long does it take for that pain to go away?
- [30:53]
A
I mean, on the one hand, I'm surprised and impressed at, I guess, that these Neanderthals apparently had the dental know how enough to be, like, you know what you need, sir? A root canal.
- [31:06]
B
But also, like, I'm impressed that archaeologists, like, knew what to look for. Was there, like, a former dentist who was, like, an archaeologist was like, I love these teeth.
- [31:15]
C
There's a whole story that goes into how they figure this out. But one of the takeaways was kind of. To your point, Danielle, about, like, one of their takeaways is that this clearly wasn't done by himself or him or herself. I'm not sure what the gender of the Neanderthal was, but, yes, you need about three people to hold it down as a community. Oh, my God. But I just think. I mean, that's kind of nice that, like, basically. Basically, they're still learning about the way humans that long ago were kind of interacting in communities, and that for them to be able to do this together implies some level of trust, probably. Danielle, what can't you let go of?
- [31:46]
A
Well, I have more horror to bring to you guys. I have two Words monster wolf. Have you guys read about this? Okay, so in Japan, there is a product that starts at around $4,000, according to popular Science. It is called, called the monster wolf, as it has been described in various articles and headlines, a robot wolf. And it, it was made to scare bears away because Japan has had a real problem in recent years, like really bad of bears attacking people. And so the idea is to put these robot wolves, monster wolves out there to scare the bears away. Essentially, it's a high tech scarecrow. Now here's the thing. I cannot do this justice. I need you guys to later go Google videos of the monster wolf because whatever you're imagining, it is not what you're imagining.
- [32:39]
C
It's like, worse.
- [32:40]
A
It is both scarier and funnier than anything you can possibly think of. It's a glorious combination of funny and scary because what you have is a. Apparently they're handmade. It's a wolf body covered in fur and glowing red eyes. And it makes noises that are not necessarily wolf noises. It makes siren noises. In one video I looked up, it inexplicably made a noise that went, oh, my God. Yeah, we were looking at a.
- [33:08]
B
We just googled it.
- [33:09]
C
It goes,
- [33:12]
A
the video I saw made a weird noise.
- [33:15]
B
Does it scare the bears?
- [33:16]
A
Scare, yes. Apparently it's wildly effective. The whole reason the story is a story right now is the company that makes them cannot keep them in stock because people need so many of them.
- [33:25]
C
I like scarecrows just as they are. They seem to be working fine. What I don't want to do is like, I think about, like, my great grandfather's house and he had a scarecrow. Worked fine. Didn't freak me out at all. But imagining me at like age 6 showing up and then there's like an animatronic guy being like, go. Crows are sirening out of his mouth with red eyes. Hate it. So let's just leave the scarecrows as is.
- [33:43]
A
I can't imagine a scarecrow doing nothing against a bear.
- [33:46]
B
Yeah, exactly. Just some straw these bears are gonna go up to swallow its eyes out.
- [33:51]
C
All right, let's leave it there for today. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Our producers are Casey Morell and Bria Suggs. Our editor is Rachel Bay. Special thanks to Christianev Calimer. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting.
- [34:04]
A
I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I cover the White House.
- [34:06]
B
And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.
- [34:09]
C
And thank you for listening to the NPR politics pod.