Factually! with Adam Conover - Trump and Elon Want to Force You to Have Babies

Episode Date: May 27, 2025

(In addition to your weekly Factually! episode, this week we're bringing you a monologue from Adam. This short, researched monologue originally aired on the Factually! YouTube page, but we are sharing audio versions of these monologues with our podcast audience as well. Please enjoy, and stay tuned for your regularly scheduled episode of Factually!)The Right's pronatalism movement is darker than you think.Visit https://groundnews.com/factually to stay fully informed, see through biased media and get all sides of every story. Subscribe for 40% off unlimited access through my link.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a HeadGum Podcast. Has anyone noticed that the right wing has come down with a burning case of baby fever? So let me say very simply, I want more babies in the United States of America. I'll be known as the fertilization president, that's okay. That's not bad. That's not bad, but it is disgusting. If Republicans are serious, they'll stop Trump from ever saying the F word again. Fertilization.

Eww. There is a genuine movement on the right wing right now to somehow make Americans have more babies. It's called pronatalism, and it unites the JD Vance wing of the MAGA movement with its ketamine addict billionaire wing. Nothing will make you happier than having kids. Elon Musk has promoted fatherhood

more than just about anyone in Trump world. And that's kind of ironic because objectively he is the world's worst dad. Dude has at least 14 reported kids with at least 4 women and those are just the kids we know of. He's two eunuchs away from becoming a perverted medieval emperor. He calls his son X his emotional support human and drags the 4 year old to every incredibly public media event he goes to. Here's little X with his father and Trump at a UFC fight watching grown men destroy

each other. And here he is in the Oval Office watching grown men destroy democracy. You know, it's not like no one has told Elon that this is a bad parenting move. X's mother Grimes has explicitly told him to stop dragging X into the spotlight. Yeah what better way to advertise the joys of fatherhood than using your son as a political prop and pissing off his mom. Elon has also been straight-up disowned by his daughter Vivian Jenna Wilson in part because he berated her for being queer and doesn't support her transition which is just

classic bad dad stuff. And despite the fact that his own kids hate him, he keeps trying to make more by DMing women he has never met in order to ask them to have his children. Now first of all, can we just acknowledge that this is bizarre behavior? I mean, I thought Elon was supposed to be a genius businessman and engineer. Why is he handing out his sperm for free on Twitter? Well, the answer is that he believes if he doesn't it spells the end of the world There are not enough people. I can't emphasize this enough There are not enough people if people don't have more children civilization. It's going to crumble these guys

Literally believe that you not popping out babies is going to destroy humanity, which is crazy But you know what's surprising? There actually is a small shred of truth to what Musk is saying, because the global birth rate actually is trending down, and that's a trend that is going to have serious impacts on almost every country on Earth. And this is what the pronatalist movement wants to change. So in a sense, this is the MAGA version of climate change. It's an existential threat that they believe is going to destroy humanity. The problem is, the solutions MAGA, Trump, and Elon are offering are laughable and destructive.

Not only will they fail to bring up our birth rate, all they'll accomplish is making the problem worse while taking away your right to live the life you choose. Now real quick before we get into all of this, I want to ask you to consider supporting this channel at Patreon.com slash Adam Conover. And if you want to see me in person, I've got upcoming stand-up dates in Oklahoma and Washington state. We're always adding new dates as well. You can find them all at AdamConover.net. So right now there are 8.5 billion human beings on Earth and many of them are actually really nice. Even your weird neighbor Greg who would love it if you just say hello. But all of these nice people are having less kids than they used to.

The birth rate is falling across the planet and that means 50 years from now the global population is going to start shrinking rather than growing. According to the UN, the global population is set to peak around 10.3 billion people in the 2080s and then will start going down. And this is completely unprecedented. Nothing like it has happened to humanity since the Black Death 700 years ago and that was an apocalyptic event that gave us nothing good apart from those sick plague doctor fits. Blood-borne sequel when? Now this change is coming because of a decline in fertility rates. In 1950, each woman on earth had on average five kids.

Which honestly is enough to get you halfway to a TLC reality show these days. Today, the average is a much more reasonable two kids per woman. But for a country's population to replace itself or grow from generation to generation, the fertility rate needs to stay above 2. If it slips below that and nothing else changes, the population starts to shrink. And right now, half of all countries have fertility rates that will result in a falling population. In 2050, that's going to rise to three-quarters of nations, and by 2100 include nearly all of them. The U. The US population is projected to reach a high of nearly 370 million in 2080 before edging downwards to 366 million in 2100. And you know, this is actually pretty good on a global scale because many other countries are in line to have much larger shares of their population fall.

So why is this happening? Well in part it's because of the advance of women's rights and contraception. Women around the world are now more free to get an education, pursue a career, and choose how many kids they have, and when they have them, for the first time in human history. That's a good thing. The decline in birth rate is partially a product of one of the greatest expansions of human freedom ever. And you know what? If that comes along with a decline in the birth rate, I think we should be fine with that rather than yearn for a time when women were forced to be baby factories. But what's really fascinating is that the expansion of women's rights doesn't explain

all of the decline. There are multiple factors that contribute to the birth rate and we actually don't really know which is the most powerful. Some researchers point to how parenting has come to take up more time and resources over the last couple generations, which makes having a kid harder and less appealing to the average person. Another factor is that people are choosing to couple up later in life, if at all, shortening the window to have kids. And a few months back I had the academic Alice Evans on my podcast and she made the case that lower fertility

rates are coming from the rise in smartphone use, which has caused people to be less social and therefore have less sex. Is that true? Could be. The point is we don't know with certainty exactly what is causing the decline. So as much as right-wing natalists like JD Vance love to blame the childless left, this is actually a global trend that has nothing to do with partisan politics. The Islamic Republic of Iran doesn't have a falling birthrate because of woke, okay? left, this is actually a global trend that has nothing to do with partisan politics. The Islamic Republic of Iran doesn't have a falling birthrate because of woke, okay? Something else must be going on. But regardless of the reason, the decline in the global birthrate is going to have massive

effects on every country on Earth. And look, there are some things that are not so bad about having a population that's falling. Less people use up less resources and need less space on the planet. I mean, after all, who hasn't been in a Starbucks drive-thru line and thought, Jesus Christ, about having a population that's falling. Less people use up less resources and need less space on the planet. I mean, after all, who hasn't been in a Starbucks drive-through line and thought, Jesus Christ, there are too many f***ing people here?

But this trend is also going to be incredibly disruptive to how most countries govern themselves and care for their aging populations. And that is why politicians are so freaked out about it. You know, it's hard to overstate how much the economic system of most countries depends on a constantly growing population. I mean, think about it for a second. In America, when you're young, You know, it's hard to overstate how much the economic system of most countries depends on a constantly growing population.

I mean think about it for a second. In America, when you're young, you pay into Social Security and Medicare to support old people who can't work anymore. And then when you're old, younger people pay for you. But to make that work, you need more young people than old people. So if you're not constantly adding new people, you're not gonna have enough money left to buy new dentures for all the aging gam-gams. And if that sounds like a bad way to design an economy,

hey, I think you might be right. But that is the economy and society that we have, and that means a rapidly declining population can easily result in short-term economic catastrophe. But you know, we don't just have to imagine what a rapidly falling birthrate does to a country. We can just check out how things are going in South Korea, a country renowned for its pop culture,

its advanced skin care, and the lowest fertility rate on the planet. South Korea's fertility rate is 0.7 kids per woman. That means that each successive generation will be one-third the size of the previous. The population there peaked at 51 million people in 2020. By the end of the century, that number could be nearly half. If it does, Korea will have 11 million people of grandparent age and just 800,000 kids.

And that is the optimistic scenario. That's right, it's going to be all squid game, no kid game. And the ultra-low birth rate is already transforming the country. According to the New Yorker, a baby formula brand has retooled itself to manufacture muscle retention smoothies for the elderly. About 200 daycare facilities

have been turned into nursing homes, and last year, strollers for dogs outsold those for babies. That's right, they literally have more dog moms than regular moms. And South Korea is not even that much of an outlier globally. It's just the K-pop canary in the coal mine. One fifth of the planet has an ultra-low fertility rate right now. Look at China. China has 1.4 billion people,

but a fertility rate just a little over one kid per woman. And that means its population is projected to fall by more than half by the year 2100 to just 633 million. That's right, China is set to lose nearly twice the entire population of America this century alone. So again, there is a shred of truth to Trump and Vance and Musk's push to increase the birth rate. They are responding, in part, to a real trend that is happening around the world and they've

made addressing it a major part of their political program. But addressing it is going to be a lot harder than they think because, here's the problem, efforts to raise the birth rate always fail. I mean, think about it. It's not like South Korea and China or other low birthrate countries aren't trying to do anything about this. South Korea has already spent over $200 billion to try and increase its birthrate. Authoritarian Hungary, which also has a birthrate problem and is the model for US pronatalists like Trump and Vance, spends 5% of its GDP trying to boost its birthrate.

That's more than the U.S. spends on defense. But it's not working. Countries all over the planet have tried every possible inducement to get people to make more babies. And what they have found is that nothing f**king works. This isn't my opinion, okay? This is the experts talking. Trent McNamara, a historian who studies fertility at Texas A&M, wrote that "...even the richest, savviest, most committed governments have struggled to find policies that produce sustained bumps in fertility. If such policies were discoverable, I think someone would have discovered them." Pretty bleak.

And even when these policies do work, they are wildly expensive compared to the infinitesimally tiny effect that they have. One study found that for every 1% of America's GDP that we devote to childhood and early childhood education, we could get 0.2 more children a year. Great, but this would mean that America could spend a hundred billion dollars over three years and only raise our fertility rate from 1.66 to 1.69. Nowhere near replacement level. That's a drop in the bucket compared to an enormous expenditure.

The fact is, no matter how much money we throw at the problem, it is simply not possible to get people to have more babies when they do not want to. But you know what? There actually is something we could do as a society to adjust to lower birth rates. It's just something that Trump refuses to try. The answer is immigration. See, when you bring more young people into the country to work and live, they pay into the social safety net for everyone.

And even if immigration won't push up the birth rate, it will buy you more time to adjust to a lower one and avoid the tumult of a more drastic decline in population. When economists talk about how immigration is a boon to an economy, this is what they're talking about. Those new people generate new income that supports everyone. And as a bonus, it'll also make the food better. You like POTS-EU? You owe that one to immigration.

And we should remember that immigration is historically something that America does incredibly well. Better than any other nation in history, in fact. It's basically our economic superpower. And that means that we can manage the declining birth rate better than just about any other country on Earth just by continuing to do what we've been doing all along. In fact, our population growth already depends on immigrants. If we were to stop immigration tomorrow, our population would begin to fall

and shrink much more quickly, from 340 million today to around 226 million by 2100. So immigration is important to solving this problem no matter what. But you know, something you might know about Donald Trump is, well, immigration is not a solution he's open to considering. We're a dumping ground. We're like a garbage can for the world.

Yeah, and as president of that garbage can, what does that make him? Fascist the Grouch? At the very moment that American immigration is more important to America's future than ever, Trump has promised the largest deportation in U.S. history, including the hiring of 20,000 new deportation officers. And before we go on, I want to point out that that last source comes from this video's sponsor, Ground News. We work really hard to write these videos on complex topics, and Ground News makes our

job a lot easier by rating each story for factuality and bias. For instance, in this story about Trump's deportation force, you can see that it's mainly being reported on by sources in the center and on the right. You can also click on the bias comparison bar to see how each side reports the story. That's so helpful for understanding the biases in our news, especially when reporters are talking about charged

and polarized issues like Trump's immigration policy. So if you wanna understand how bias affects your news, check out Ground News. You can get 40% off if you use my special code, FACTUALLY. Just go to groundnews.com slash factually. Okay, so let's recap. Trump and Vance desperately want to increase the birth rate, but instead of doing the one thing

that would help America manage the problem in a way other countries can't, Trump is constructing a fascist anti-immigrant police state. So what's the big solution to the birth rate crisis he's offering instead? Well predictably, it's unlikely to deliver anything but a big wet queef. One Trump proposal, this is a real proposal, it would reserve 30% of Fulbright scholarships for applicants who are married or have kids.

Wow. Incredible policy. The Fulbright program awards just 9,000 scholarships a year. So how are scholarships for 3,000 people who are already married or have kids going to increase the birth rate for a country of 340 million? Is there some hidden world of Fulbright fertility influencers on TikTok? Does Bravo have a sleeper hit with real fertile Fulbright wives of Oxford? Another completely nonsensical plan they have is to educate women about their menstrual cycles in order to help them conceive.

Hey ladies, did you know you have a period? Well, the fertilization president is going to tell you all about it, and maybe if you're good, he'll also explain where you put the peepee to make the baby. The Trump administration has also made a big show of considering ways to make in-vitro fertilization cheaper and accessible to more people. That'd be great. IVF is super expensive and opening it up to more people is good social policy. But you know why I don't actually believe that Trump is going to do anything good on

IVF? Because he just destroyed the CDC office that studies it. Great work, Fertilization President, you just blew up the thing you're trying to grow. But you know, there is one major policy that Trump administration has actually enacted that's connected to the pro-natalist movement. And that is destroying women's rights. You know, not a lot of people realize this, but the origins of the anti-abortion movement is in racist fears of white Americans being replaced because of their falling birth rates.

In the 19th century, immigrants from Ireland, Italy, and other European countries were coming to America, and elites started worrying that these immigrants and newly freed black Americans were going to replace white people because of how many babies they were having. And they believed that if they put in place laws limiting abortion, that would force white women to have more kids. In fact, one of the founders of the American anti-abortion movement, a surgeon named Horatio Robinson Storer,

wrote of white women that, quote, "'Upon their loins depends the future destiny of the nation.'" That was the birth of the anti-abortion movement. And today, that movement has won. Since Trump's conservative Supreme Court overturned Roe versus Wade, 12 states have passed complete abortion bans, and another 10 have enacted severe restrictions.

Hundreds of women have faced criminal charges for abortion, and law enforcement has started surveilling women. That is the right-wing plan to address falling birth rates. Taking away your rights and forcing you to have kids you don't want. And you know what? It still won't f**king work. States with aggressive abortion bans have seen their birth rates fall like all the rest. Oppressing women and immigrants isn't going to reverse the decline in the birth rate or

even in the racial makeup of America. It's a pointless expression of racial anxiety and hatred that hurts everyone and helps no one. It is a handmaid's flail. No matter how much the right whines and flails about, the birth rate is going down and the global population is along with it. This trend will define the century ahead of us, the same way an exploding population defined the last one. And we're all simply going to have to adjust, even right-wingers like Trump and Vance. They can't just wish

or oppress this change away. And that adjustment is going to mean throwing out some long-held beliefs, even for the right wing. I mean, look, even Hungary, the anti-immigration right-wing authoritarian country that serves as the model for American pronatalism, even Hungary has started taking in more immigrants to address this issue. The kind of democratic pressure that is about to bear down on us is going to make the impossible seem possible. And that's why I think it's something we shouldn't be scared of. It's an opportunity. Because think about this.

It means at some point our entire economic system is going to have to change. The fantasy of constant growth will have to end because the human population is simply not going to keep growing. So we are going to need a new system that does not assume that it will. And it's up to us to decide what that system is. Hey, maybe with less people, we'll realize that we need less resources,

so we don't need to fight over resources quite as hard. And maybe that means we can devote some of the money we used to use for war to taking care of old people instead. Hey, maybe we can come up with an entire new economic system that doesn't require endless growth at all. Just a thought, I'm just a f***ing comedian. But what I do know is that change is only bad if you refuse to accept it and blindly cling to the past or the past as you imagine it to be. The world is changing whether we like it or

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