Three weeks on from an underwhelming trip abroad, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and the public seem to have finally put the controversy behind them. In last week’s Gallup Korea polling, Yoon’s approval rate hit 29 percent, a 5-percentage point jump from the previous week. 

But this does not mean that the public has forgotten Yoon’s hot mic moment, in which he appeared to call the U.S. Congress “bastards” moments after meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden.

In the aftermath of that incident, the administration attacked the media for releasing the video and accused them of ginning up