Consider This from NPR

President Trump turned to the Heritage Foundation help pick his appointee to lead a traditionally non-partisan agency. NPR’s Scott Detrow speaks with political science professor E.J. Fagan, author of “The Thinkers: The Rise of Partisan Think Tanks and the Polarization of American Politics” to understand why Trump’s close relationship with the conservative think tank matters. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or atplus.npr.org. Email us at considerthis@npr.org. This episode was produced by Jordan-Marie Smith. It was edited by Tinbete Ermyas. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy

Paris has increasingly found itself on the frontline of the climate crisis and covering the city and the rest of France now means regularly reporting on deadly climate events. NPR’s Scott Detrow speaks with Eleanor Beardsley about how climate has become core to the Paris beat. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or atplus.npr.org. Email us at considerthis@npr.org. This episode was produced by Noah Caldwell and Jonaki Mehta. It was edited by Adam Raney. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy

This summer, the island of Puerto Rico has been under the thrall of Bad Bunny. His 30-concert residency at a stadium in San Juan is a homecoming for the global superstar. It's also a homecoming for many thousands of people who left home – but are flocking back for the shows. NPR’s Adrian Florido reports on how the concerts are resonating with Puerto Ricans on and off the island. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at considerthis@npr.org. This episode was produced by Kathryn Fink, Elena Burnett, Liz Baker and Marc Rivers. It was edited by Patrick Jarenwattananon and Gigi Douban. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy

American Presidents have been trying to manage Russian President Vladimir Putin since the beginning of this century. There was George W. Bush, who met with Putin 28 times. Barack Obama and Putin sat down together 9 times. Joe Biden met with Putin only once. Past presidents had hoped to strike deals and push Russia toward a more democratic society. Instead, Russia started wars and tried to expand its borders. Soon, President Trump heads here to Alaska for his seventh meeting with Putin – and like his predecessors – he’s trying to get something out of Putin. This time he’s hoping to finally end the war in Ukraine. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy

”The global trading system as we have known it is dead.” Those are the words of former US Trade Representative Michael Froman. He’s now President of the Council on Foreign Relations. If the era of global free trade is over, the question is…what comes next? For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at considerthis@npr.org. This episode was produced by Kathryn Fink and Tyler Bartlam. It was edited by Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy

Two minutes — That’s how long President Donald Trump says it will take him to figure out whether Russian President Vladimir Putin is serious about finding a way to end his war with Ukraine. Details are still scarce — but Putin and Trump are set to meet Friday in Alaska. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wasn’t invited. What does Trump hope to achieve, and can he get it from Putin? Ambassador John Bolton, Trump's national security advisor in his first term, was with Trump the last time Trump met with Putin. Bolton weighs in. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at considerthis@npr.org. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy

President Trump said he’s taking over Washington and announced he’s deploying the national guard to the city. And he made another big promise: that his administration would take control of the DC police. The President also mentioned other cities across the country with what he says are high levels of crime. As President Trump pledges to use his executive authority to control law enforcement in the crime in the nation's capital -- there are questions about what happens now. And - what this might mean for other cities across the country. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at considerthis@npr.org. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy

The Trump administration announced this past week that it has entered talks with the Cook Islands to research and develop seabed mineral resources. The Polynesian archipelago is one of only a handful of countries worldwide that has begun permitting this type of exploration, called deep-sea mining. Deep-sea mining is not regulated. There's no blueprint for how to do it safely, or responsibly. Which is why, for the last decade, the UN's International Seabed Authority has worked to draw up regulations. But President Trump — and one Canadian company — have posed a question: Why wait? For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at considerthis@npr.org. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy

The question of whether Russian interference in the 2016 election was a decisive reason Donald Trump won the presidency is one that has dogged Trump for the better part of a decade. It's also been the subject of numerous investigations. But even though that question has been asked and answered, the current Trump administration is launching another investigation in an effort to reach a different conclusion. Last month, Trump's Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, declassified documents and she leveled an unprecedented accusation: The Obama administration knowingly pushed the idea of Russian interference as false narrative to sabotage Trump's campaign. And this week, Attorney General Pam Bondi has authorized an investigation into the investigation of his 2016 campaign's relationship Russia. What is there left to learn? For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at considerthis@npr.org. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy

The FBI is investigating at least 250 people who may be tied to online networks that target children. These networks encourage kids to hurt themselves, other minors or even animals. In some countries, they have been tied to mass casualty and terrorism plots. NPR's domestic extremism correspondent Odette Yousef has spoken with a family that experienced this firsthand. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at considerthis@npr.org. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy

In 2006, Ari Shapiro reported on how Hurricane Katrina made an already broken public defender system in New Orleans worse. The court system collapsed in the aftermath of the storm. Katrina caused horrific destruction in New Orleans. It threw incarcerated people into a sort of purgatory - some were lost in prisons for more than a year. But the storm also cleared the way for changes that the city's public defender system had needed for decades. Two decades later, Shapiro returns to New Orleans and finds a system vastly improved. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at considerthis@npr.org. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy

Fights over Congressional maps never used to be this intense. On Tuesday, Texas Republicans voted to issue civil arrest warrants for Democrats who fled the state. The GOP is trying to redraw house districts, and the proposed new map could give Republicans as many as five more House seats. That change could easily decide control of Congress. This fight is rippling out to other states too with President Trump urging Republicans to follow the lead of Texas. And Democratic governors saying they might follow the same path. Trump can be this transparent because there are no federal restrictions on redrawing districts for purely partisan gain. The Supreme Court said so in 2019. Gerrymandering has been part of U.S. politics for hundreds of years. How did it become a bloodsport? For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at considerthis@npr.org. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy

Google's AI Overviews feature can deliver an answer to your question before you click a single link. But it spells bad news for the publishers that write the articles that power these AI summaries: their business models depend on site visits to sell ads. And some smaller publishers have already gone out of business as the use of AI summaries grows. "The extinction-level event is already here," said Helen Havlak, publisher of tech news site The Verge. NPR's John Ruwitch reports on how companies are adapting to the artificial intelligence shake-up in Google search. And Google is a financial supporter of NPR, but we cover them like any other company. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at considerthis@npr.org. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy

Some young people are hesitant to start a family because they are worried about the impact it will have on the environment. But some experts argue, there are good reasons to still consider having children. One of them is Dean Spears. He's an economist and demographer at the University of Texas - Austin, and co-author of the new book, "After the Spike: Population, Progress, and the Case for People." Spears argues that depopulation could create a whole range of new problems while still not addressing the driving forces of climate change. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy

The job of a media reporter is to examine the role the press plays in our democracy, and the choices the large corporations operating newsrooms are making every day. It's a tough assignment, even more so when it means covering the place you work. For this week's reporter's notebook series, NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik talks about how he navigates his beat, reporting on his employer and the larger media moment we find ourselves in right now. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at considerthis@npr.org. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy

Thursday night, President Trump announced new tariff rates, and a new deadline. For weeks, the administration said that new, tougher tariffs would go into effect August 1 — instead, most countries won't see the new rates kick in for at least a week. Meanwhile, new numbers from the Labor Department show job growth slowed sharply this spring, as President Trump's earlier, worldwide tariffs started to bite. Shortly after their release, Trump said he was firing the head of the government agency that produced that report. White House correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben and economic correspondent Scott Horsley discuss the consequences of Trump's tariffs so far and going forward. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at considerthis@npr.org. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy

"In an era where false claims are the norm, it's much easier to ignore the fact-checkers." Those are the final words of the final column of Glenn Kessler, who has been The Fact Checker at the Washington Post these last 14 years. Kessler is one of many journalists making high-profile exits from the Post, some of whom cite the new direction the paper's leadership is taking as the reason they're leaving. In an interview, Kessler reflects on the arc of the project, why he's leaving, and the value of fact checkers — even if politicians ignore them. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at considerthis@npr.org. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy

This year, hundreds of employees at the Justice Department have been fired, sometimes over clashes with the Trump administration, and other times for unknown reasons. Those departures are spreading fear across the workforce and transforming the Justice Department. NPR Justice correspondent Carrie Johnson spoke with a few of the career civil servants who have lost their job for reasons they say are illegal or improper. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at considerthis@npr.org. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy

President Donald Trump is aiming to fundamentally shift how the country manages homelessness with a new executive order he signed last week. It calls for changes that would make it easier for states and cities to move people living on the street into treatment for mental illness or addiction, and in some cases, potentially force people into treatment. Consider This: The Trump administration says the federal government has spent tens of billions of dollars on housing without addressing the root causes of homelessness. But critics worry this new executive order won't solve those root causes, either. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at considerthis@npr.org. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy

New light has emerged between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump, with the latter disputing Israel's claim that there is no starvation in Gaza. But Consider This: Even as global outrage and assistance grows, aid agencies say only a total ceasefire will allow all the necessary aid in to get to those who desperately need it in Gaza. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at considerthis@npr.org. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy