The NPR Politics Podcast

What did Trump accomplish in China?

33 min
May 15, 202615 days ago
Listen to Episode
Summary

The NPR Politics Podcast discusses President Trump's trip to China, which yielded minimal concrete results despite being billed as a major diplomatic and economic initiative. The episode examines polling data showing Americans overwhelmingly oppose tariffs, explores Trump's prolific social media presence on Truth Social (19 posts daily), and analyzes the political implications for upcoming midterm elections.

Insights
  • Trump's negotiating leverage with China has significantly weakened due to the Iran War and Supreme Court invalidation of tariffs, forcing the U.S. into a dependent position rather than a dominant one
  • American voters across party lines oppose tariffs despite Republican messaging, with 76% saying tariffs hurt cost of living—a critical vulnerability for GOP midterm candidates
  • Trump's unfiltered social media presence on Truth Social creates a 'walled garden' effect with limited reach compared to Twitter, reducing political media amplification but enabling direct messaging to base
  • The economy remains the dominant voter concern for 2026 midterms, overshadowing foreign policy crises like the Iran War in terms of electoral impact
  • Future politicians are attempting to replicate Trump's crass, direct online communication style, but authenticity and platform dynamics make replication difficult for non-Trump figures
Trends
Tariff policy backfiring politically as Supreme Court invalidation and consumer price impacts undermine Trump administration's trade war messagingShift from Twitter to proprietary platforms (Truth Social) fragmenting presidential communication reach and reducing mainstream media amplificationEconomic anxiety overshadowing foreign policy as primary voter motivation, threatening base turnout for party in powerIncreasing use of AI-generated content and memes in political social media, lowering production barriers but raising authenticity concernsPoliticians adopting more casual, confrontational online personas post-Trump, signaling broader shift in political communication normsPartisan divergence on tariff benefits widening, with Republicans increasingly skeptical despite party leadership supportDiplomatic negotiations becoming more transactional and less outcome-focused, with leaders claiming victories without substantive agreementsWomen's underrepresentation in high-level diplomatic delegations remaining systemic despite modern governance expectations
Companies
Boeing
Trump claimed China agreed to order 200 jets, but later backtracked; stock dropped on smaller-than-expected deal anno...
Fox News
Trump gave post-China trip interview to Sean Hannity discussing Iran agreements and trade claims
Truth Social
Trump's primary social media platform where he posts 19 times daily; described as 'walled garden' with limited reach ...
Twitter/X
Compared to Truth Social as Trump's former primary platform with broader reach; Trump was kicked off after January 6th
TikTok
Referenced as new content source Trump uses to find and repost videos to Truth Social, including AI-generated memes
People
Miles Parks
Co-host of NPR Politics Podcast discussing Trump's China trip and midterm implications
Danielle Kurtzleben
Co-host reporting on Trump's China trip outcomes and analyzing his social media posting patterns
Domenico Montanara
Co-host discussing polling data on tariffs, China views, and midterm election implications
Donald Trump
Subject of episode; visited China, made claims about trade deals and Iran agreements; posts 19 times daily on Truth S...
Xi Jinping
Met with Trump to discuss Taiwan, Iran, and trade; reportedly offered help on Iran War but details unconfirmed
Mark Rubio
Defended Trump's statement about not thinking about Americans' financial situations in Iran negotiations
Sean Hannity
Interviewed Trump post-China trip about Iran agreements and trade claims
Gavin Newsom
Referenced as politician attempting to replicate Trump's crass, confrontational social media style
Ari Daniel
NPR reporter who broke story about 59,000-year-old Neanderthal root canal discovery
Barack Obama
Referenced for his buttoned-up Twitter use and 'Obamacans' coalition-building approach vs. Trump's style
Quotes
"not a lot concrete really changed during this visit"
Danielle KurtzlebenEarly in episode
"I don't think about Americans' financial situations, I'm just thinking about whether or not Iran has a nuclear bomb"
Donald Trump (paraphrased)Mid-episode discussion
"This is a place not where you go to see everybody discussable. It's where you go to get your mega marching orders."
Republican digital strategist (quoted by Danielle)Social media section
"76% said that tariffs are bad for the cost of living. 70% said they're bad for the standard of living."
Domenico MontanaraPolling discussion
"Supply lowers value. But okay."
Miles ParksSocial media posting frequency discussion
Full Transcript
On Consider This, NPR's afternoon news podcast, we cover everything from politics to the economy to the world. But every story starts with a question. And NPR, we stand for your right to be curious, to make sense of the biggest story of the day and what it means for you. Follow Consider This wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting. I'm Danielle Kurtz-Levin. I cover the White House. And I'm Domenico Montanara, senior political editor and correspondent. Colleagues, it is another Friday. We made it. We did it. Congratulations. Well done. Thank you very much. Was it ever in question? You know, maybe not for you. Every day is a blessing, right, Miles? Yeah. Thank you, colleague. 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? Well, we don't know a lot thus far, but what we do know is that not a lot concrete really changed during this visit. So, there are a few big topics that they discussed. From what we understand, the U.S. 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 U.S. position on Taiwan did not change during this visit. The U.S. position on Taiwan is an acknowledgement that the People's Republic of China claims Taiwan, but the U.S. 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 and 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 U.S., but then Trump kind of backtracked on that in the next breath, saying, I think it was a commitment. It was sort of like a statement. 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 U.S. That has been a big deal for American farmers, but as far as we know, China has not yet confirmed those purchases. Now, I'll say it's really fascinating, the fact that Trump himself ran against China during the campaign, really made China a boogeyman, even during COVID, called it the China virus, and really tries to point a lot of blame at China for really economic issues and generally 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. 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. It feels striking to me how little at this point has come out of this trip. Even the Boeing deal you mentioned, Daniel, 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? 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 U.S. had not started the war with Iran. So fast forward to May 2026, and the U.S. is just in a weaker position vis-a-vis China. The U.S. has less that it can dangle over China, like the threat of 100-plus percent tariffs, and the U.S. 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 U.S. was just in such a different position when Trump decided why he wanted to go. 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? 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, eight in 10 Americans see China as a country that wants world dominance. It wants to be a dominant world leader. Mostly though, that's economic, not militarily. 56% said that they think that they want to be the dominant economic 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 flex some muscles, but Americans overwhelmingly say that they are not in favor of these tariffs. 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 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 six in 10 saying that tariffs would be good for American jobs because the macro theory of Trump's is that you have fewer things that are off-shored, 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. 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 IEPA 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. Right now, Chinese goods are tariffed way less than they were last year. 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. Depending on what trade analysts you ask, the idea could be to use these 301 tariffs as just a backdoor more legal way to recreate the IEPA regime. 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. 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. 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, 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. 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 going to 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 going to 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. 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. 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. 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? Four tariffs to do that kind of massive job creation, not just 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. 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. That's where the messaging and the talking points really matter. Yeah, that makes sense. It does align 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 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 going to be different in 2026? No. I mean, a big part of it is not only is the economy bad or good and how do people feel about it? How do people feel about 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 soundbite and repeated over and over in every campaign ad. 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, where it would seem or you would think that the election could pivot on those kinds of major things that 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. Yeah, I feel like we're 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 with a year depending on how things play out. Right. And to be clear here, Secretary of State Mark 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. And so the point is, you said those words in that order and it's a problem. All right. Well, we have to take a quick break, but more on frankly, President Trump's messaging style in just a moment. 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? Right. So what I did was I took his social media posts on TruthSocial from this year. So starting January 1st, 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 compelling. For example, in those first four months this year, Trump posted on TruthSocial more than 2200 times, which is an average of 19 posts a day. 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 about to say, I don't know if I've posted 2200 times in like a year. 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. You have to have a lot of feelings and a lot of thoughts for that to happen. And a lot of different things, right? Because it also kind of ruins your messaging because, you know, if you're going to post 19 things, what should anybody focus on? Right. 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 midterm. So a lot of those are endorsements of candidates or saying, I would like ex-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 DC, 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 and 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 Blasey Blah? You just get a sense 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. And 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 100 posts that I categorized as general Trump praise. This includes all sorts of things, but it's op-ed 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. 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 culture, whether it was in New York with the tabloids and would call in to try to weigh in and be part of the conversation. And 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. 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? So much has changed. I was talking to one Republican digital strategist about this, asking him what he thinks the difference is. Describe 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. It's 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 wasn't posting TikTok videos. He was posting videos from Fox News. 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. We're furrowed while. We fact checked not all of his posts, but many of them. They got more individual attention. Now, as I write on 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. 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 true 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. 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 shed some light on things that are important. For example, talking about Bill Maher putting out on 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 and 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. 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 someone who's posting 19 times a day might be distracted from issues like the cost of living and things like that. 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? Show me your values. 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. 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. 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 always clutching pearls about the things that this president does. It fits cleanly with like 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. 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, regardless of how offensive it might be. 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? 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 has 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 has sort of invented? I'm not sure. Yeah, 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, 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 Obamacans, 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 going to continue, certainly, because 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. And I think it's just going to 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 buttoned up way than Trump ever has. And so you have Trump very much changing things. And I think that you're just going to 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 streaming online while they talk to their constituents, cooking while they talk to their constituents. I think you're going to see more of that attempt to be casual, but maybe not with as much attacking as Trump uses. All right. Let's take one more break and then it's time for Can't Let It Go. 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? Well, I think the thing that really struck me this week when we're 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 the United States. 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. Me neither. To me, it's one of those fun things that falls under shocking but not surprising. Like, yeah, you're kidding. You're kidding. The better making the economic decisions. Great. Great, great, great, great. Yeah, which is how it's always been. And it's what, oh, Domenico is showing me the picture right now. Can I see it? Long table. Wow, there's a lot of people in those pictures. Oh my God. Two dozen, yeah. There's a lot of non-women people in those pictures. Thank you for illustrating. It's just so striking. All right, sigh. I'm just going to big sigh that one. It's a story of my life. Well, Miles, what can't you let go of? I want to 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? Oh, I wasn't prepared for this. I know. I didn't prepare either of you. Something like 1960, maybe? Any other guesses? I was going to say like, I don't know, 1000 BC. I mean, honestly, okay, now we're getting somewhere because MPR 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 seems to indicate. They didn't even have a whiskey. This is what's so interesting. I was obsessed. I read the story and I was like, oh my God, this is amazing. I'm just imagining these cavemen figuring this out. Then I got really bummed out at the idea of a caveman who was in so much pain that he had to get his friend to help him with a rock. I don't know. Just take the tooth out at that point. Exactly. 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. Interesting story. I was thinking about the first modern one where it's done correctly. No, it's not. Even that, apparently. Just because it's not dead well, it's done. I'm sure this caveman was happy after it finished. I don't know. How long can you be happy? Define happy. How long does it take for that pain to go away? On the one hand, I'm surprised and impressed that these Neanderthals apparently had the dental know-how enough to be like, you know what? You need Sarah Root Canal. But also, like ... I'm impressed that archaeologists knew what to look for. Was there a former dentist who was an archaeologist? I love these teeth. There's a whole story that goes into how they figure this out. One of the takeaways was your point, Danielle, about 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. Yes, you need about three people to hold you down. The fact that it's just a community. Oh my God. But I just think that's kind of nice that basically they're still learning about the way humans that long ago were kind of interacting in communities. For them to be able to do this together implies some level of trust, probably. Danielle, what can't you let go of? I have more horror to bring to you guys. I have two words. Monster wolf. I 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 the Monster Wolf. As it has been described in various articles, it headlines a robot wolf. And 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. It's like worse. It is both scarier and funnier than anything you could possibly think of. It's a glorious combination of funny and scary because what you have is 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 way. Oh my God. Yeah. We're looking at it now. Sorry, we just Googled it and that is... It goes, wha. It goes, wha. The video I saw made a weird noise. Does it scare the bears? 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. I like scarecrow just as they are. They seem to be working fine. What I don't want to do is I think about my great grandfather's house and he had a scarecrow, worked fine, didn't freak me out at all. But imagining me at age six showing up and then there's an animatronic guy being like, go, crows! They're siren-ing out of his mouth with red eyes. Hate it. So let's just leave the scarecrow as is. I can't imagine a scarecrow doing nothing against a bear. Yeah, exactly. Just some straw. These bears are going to go up to the closet's eyes out. Alright, let's leave it there for today. Our executive producer is Mathoni Mottari. Our producers are Casey Morel and Brea Suggs. Our editor is Rachel Bay. Special thanks to Christian Dev Callimer. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I cover the White House. And I'm Domenico Montanero, Senior Political Editor and Correspondent. And thank you for listening to the MPR Politics Podcast. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.