Off-the-Record: Neil the Seal’s Whole Deal
What Next | Daily News and Analysis
Slate Podcasts
4.3 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 10 July 2026
⏱️ 4 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ah high summer—time for Emmy nominations, giant aquatic mammals to take over seaside towns, and Democrats to point fingers as they frantically try to swap out candidates at the last minute.
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Podcast production by Rob Gunther, Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme and Patrick Fort.
Paige Osburn is the senior supervising producer of What Next and What Next TBD.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Happy Friday Slatersters. This is the time we go off the record just for you, our Slapluss friends and neighbors. |
| 0:06.3 | This week was kind of a rough one. We were tasked with explaining the absolute mess up in Maine where Graham Platner finally dropped out of his Senate race. |
| 0:14.8 | Yeah, so a ton of unanswered questions out there, but we have a few more, and that's why Lizzie and I are here to let you inside |
| 0:22.1 | our brains after a week of absorbing the news environment. And Lizzie, we're going to start |
| 0:28.5 | somewhere. I got to say, I think the listeners are going to be surprised. With a 2,000 pound seal in Tasmania. |
| 0:41.8 | Lizzie, I mostly keep tabs on this seal because of your Instagram. |
| 0:44.9 | So I'm going to demand that you explain to the people why we are discussing Neil the Seal this week. |
| 0:52.3 | Neil the Seal is my id. Neil the seal is my id. |
| 0:55.2 | Neil the seal is everything I want to be. |
| 1:00.1 | Disrupting town infrastructure, lying on a beach in Tasmania. |
| 1:06.5 | Neil is a young 2,000-pound elephant seal who has basically been terrorizing the beaches of Tasmania. |
| 1:16.6 | Why? What is his motivation? Okay, so it's very complicated. But he's a complicated |
| 1:21.9 | seal. He's a complicated pin-a-ped. And no one understands him like his woman. Did you get |
| 1:25.4 | pit-a-ped? Excuse me. What? |
| 1:27.9 | Yes. |
| 1:30.7 | Hi. He brought the vocab. |
| 1:33.3 | Hi. I'm a nerd out today. |
| 1:36.3 | Okay, so elephant seals molt. |
| 1:37.3 | Yes. |
| 1:40.0 | Like snakes? Like they like lose a full layer? |
| 1:42.3 | They lose a full layer. And so a lot of what. |
| 1:44.9 | I wish I could molt. Can we just have that moment? |
... |
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