From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - Gen Z's Economic Crisis & The New Middle Class

Episode Date: December 29, 2023

With home prices skyrocketing over the last two decades, young people around the nation face an uncertain economic future. Sean and Rachel's daughter and writer at The Federalist Evita Duffy-Alfonso��joins to discuss Gen Z voters' concerns ahead of the 2024 Election, and why young people are feeling helpless as they look at home prices.   Later, Evita explains why she feels her generation has become radically anti-capitalist and shares her thoughts on what will come out of the next election.    Follow Sean & Rachel on Twitter: @SeanDuffyWI & @RCamposDuffy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everyone, welcome to From the Kitchen Table. I'm Sean Duffy along with my co-host for the podcast, my partner in life and my wife, Rachel Campos Duffy. So great to be back. We've got Evita with us here today because we're talking about the economy, which is a big deal right now, especially coming into this election year, but specifically how it relates to Gen Z. And so there's been some really interesting polling that's come out, Sean and Evita. And that is that what was once considered the middle class making between, let's see the number here, they said,

making between $74,500 and $114,000 was considered middle class. And now a lot of Gen Zers are saying, hey, we're making that much. We don't feel middle class. This is not enough money because everything is so much more expensive. We have an average of $30,000 in student loans. We're not able to make it. And there's a little bit of a debate about that. There's no question that things are more expensive and that it's harder to make ends meet. But is it that all that, or is it that these young people, and this is what Stephen Moore said to me last night when I was hosting on Jesse, he says a little bit of it is that these young kids have high expectations. Yeah, much higher expectations than you and I did when we first

entered into the movement. Before I go to a beat, let me just kind of lay out a couple of numbers here. One, $174,000, not that long ago for us. No, no, $74,000. $74,000. $74,000, not that long ago for us, is well within the middle class. It was challenging when you have six kids, but completely doable. You could buy a house, groceries. A lot of these are single young kids. I know, but we were married with- We were married with kids five or six kids and we did we made half of that

when we first started when we first started but before we ran for Congress it was just a tad bit more than that when I was a DA but things have changed under Joe Biden and just to put the numbers in perspective before we go to a veto

officially the inflation when you add it all up under Joe Biden, is 17%. So on average, prices have increased by 17%. Now you hear that, well, inflation has come down. It used to be up at 8%. Now it's down at 3% and changed. You said 17%. What's that? I thought you just said 17%. In total. So one year it was we're pushing 8%. Another year we were at like 5%.

Right. Right now it's down at like in between 3% and 4%. Just to make this clear, prices still go up. You were up 8%. We had another 5% to that. Now we're adding another 3. a half percent inflation to all the inflation we've had before. So that equals 17 percent. I want to make a point on that, though, because if I go to the grocery store and I shop for our family, I would be delighted if my bill was only

up 17 percent. That would be fantastic. I feel like I'm paying twice as much, almost twice as much in groceries. There's no doubt in my mind that that's the case. Than what we used to pay before Joe Biden was president. And so I know we're seeing the official numbers, but unofficially, I would say it feels like it's a lot higher than 17%. And just really quickly, the average family of four, on average, will be paying $15,000 more a year for the same goods and services they would have had under the Trump era. So way more money is going out of people's pockets. That's a lot of money. So I want to play this TikTok video because this is what sparked the conversation that we had with Evita because Evita has been saying, hey, it's really tough. And we

were a little bit like, well, I mean, because we remember making a lot less than you. But in your defense, Evita, here's what this guy posted on TikTok. Watch. Gen Z doesn't agree that $74,000 is middle class. No kidding. It's not even close. Check this out. If you take $74,000 for a Gen Z, or let's say they have a bachelor's degree and they're 25 years old. First of all, $74,000 is much higher than the average income. Most Gen Zers are probably making anywhere from $40,000 to $50,000, maybe $60,000, but let's use $74,000. The take-home after taxes 401k and health insurance is $4,300. The average college monthly payment on a loan is about $500. You're down to $3,800. Let's say this person is financially responsible, decides to split a two-bedroom apartment in a medium-sized city like Orlando so that their payment is $1,200 a piece, $200 for

utilities, so $1,400. Now, unless they're going to have Lucky Charms and peanut butter and jelly, their groceries are going to cost about $600 if they're trying to get chicken, beef, and some healthy stuff. You have a $400 car payment, $200 insurance, $150 for gas, $100 for a cell phone, leaves you with $950. This is no savings investment, no emergency fund. Let's give them at least $300 to go on a couple dates or hang out with their friends for the month so they can enjoy life a little bit. They're left with only $650. A bachelor's degree, 74k salary. You are splitting a two-bedroom apartment with a friend and only have $650 left a month. It would take you years to save up to $30,000 that you would need for a down payment on a house with the closing cost. But even if you could get that down payment saved, you would still need to make $120,000 a year to be considered for a $400,000

loan. The middle class, the goalpost has been moved from $70K to $120,000 in just the past two years. Okay, Evita, that feels pretty true to you. Yeah, so I think that there is a real tendency among the boomer generation. I'm not a boomer. I'm a Gen Xer. Sometimes boomers, Gen Xers are sometimes the same. There's a tendency. Every time I do anything that's like annoying, especially as it relates to tech or I make a joke, all my kids go, okay, boomer. That's out of boot work.

There is a boomer tendency to say Gen Z or they're lazy. They are entitled. And sometimes that's true. But dad laid out the numbers really well. And you have grocery prices going up. You have gas going up. Rent is going up. It's unattainable to get a house. I agree with that. Interest rates are through the roof. Yes. Young people are struggling to attain the American dream that Gen Xers had and that boomers had.

Boomers, they could raise a family on one income. That's not possible now. I agree with that. That's not a thing anymore. And so I think, and this is why I think it's unwise to dismiss the concerns of Gen Zers when they say, hey, we can't afford to buy a house. We can't afford our groceries. No, it's not because they have a Netflix subscription. It's because of inflation. It's because of the mismanagement of our country. And when you have a group of a generation of young people who are that disillusioned, really bad things happen.

Almost half of Gen Zers have a favorable view of socialism because they feel like they're struggling. People turn to alternative and sometimes very bad economic strategies to deal with the problems that they're facing in their lives and trying to survive. And so I think to dismiss them and to say that they're just lazy and that they have too many Netflix accounts is really a stupid thing to do. Well, so a couple of points here. So one, a lot of these kids have been taught that socialism is beautiful. They've been taught that in commie camp, which is our education system. But there's another thing that happens. Really smart communists and socialists in America have realized that if you can help collapse the system, people will be attracted to some radical change. So we've had a great capitalist,

you know, democratic republic in this country that's worked really well. And these nutjobs want to change it. And the way you get people to buy into the change is collapsing the border, collapsing the currency, seeing sky high inflation. The reason it's not working is because they've begun to inject their collectivist, socialist, globalist ideas and policies into the system. And that is where we're seeing the negative impacts. Half the problem, Sean, that we have in terms of why we've seen such a shift from the absolutely greatest, most record-breaking, awesome economy in our lifetime under Donald Trump before COVID hit and to where we're at now is not because of COVID. That obviously put a hamper on some of the progress, but we were coming right back to it. And then Joe Biden was elected and they decided to wage a war on American energy. And so much of the inflation that we're seeing has to do with strangling,

shutting down, and again, waging war on American energy. But as well as the massive amount of money that's been spent and the continued printing and borrowing of money has also... Donald Trump has some blame for the amount of money that was spent. But he is a minor leaguer compared to Democrats in how much they've spent. And so I guess my point comes back to, Evita, when you say there's almost half of Gen Zers see socialism favorably. They haven't been taught the horrors of socialism and communism and the beauty of capitalism, number one.

But also also when they see a system collapse, housing is collapsing. I'm being a little bit extreme in my language, but when most average families can't buy a home right now because prices have skyrocketed, which is what's happening is a lot of families don't want to sell their homes and go from a 3% mortgage rate, which they have in their current home, to a 7% mortgage rate on a new home, so keeping their homes longer, so less homes on the market, which are keeping prices high, as well as then the interest rates for these mortgages are at, what, a 25-year high. So that's what's happening, and it's a collapse that gets, I think, young people to go, there has to be a better way. How do we have prosperity again? And they look for

these age-old arguments of socialism that have been tried for a long time and never work. So here we are. I mean, regardless of whether these Gen Zs and even millennials are genuinely all of it, feeling all this pain or not. The reality is they think they're feeling it. I think they're feeling it, frankly. I do think opportunities are less than they were when we were younger. I do think it's harder to get ahead today than it was then. But regardless of whether it's perception or reality, perception is reality. And the fact is that Joe Biden and Donald Trump were the two likely nominees are going to have to deal with a generation of kids who are unhappy coming into this election. And I think it's really an interesting situation because, you know,

I think the Democrats thought they had the youth vote locked in. And now we're starting to see some polling showing that Gen Z. And I don't think it's because of the Palestinian situation. I actually do. I think some of it is, but I think a lot of it is they can't get ahead. It's both. It's both. So tell me about why is it the Middle East? So tell me about why is it the Middle East? with other movements in the United States, indigenous rights, black rights, women's rights. It's the same thing. Only now they've they've blanketed in this language of of of genocide. And even if you look at what happened to Starbucks, Starbucks gave money to to I think it maybe perhaps the families in Israel who were victimized. They did something to donate to

to the Israelis. And they have lost like millions, if not billions in revenue. I mean, the numbers were astronomical of young people boycotting Starbucks because they were so angry about what what what their support of Israel. They are enraged at Joe Biden as well for not calling for a ceasefire and any other Democrat who is they are disillusioned. And this is on top of the fact that young people didn't even like Joe Biden to begin with. They felt duped that he was a candidate and the Democrats have much more control over who they pick as their party nominee. The Republicans, for all of their problems, have a lot more say over.

It's 11 billion dollars of market value lost since the war in Gaza. Interesting. So as you lay this out, again, these kids have been taught these radical ideas in our school system, no doubt, and that could be coming into play. By the way, I don't know if anger at Democrats or anger at Joe Biden is going to turn into votes for Republicans. I don't think it will turn into votes for Trump. But if they stay home, that's what's key. I want to bring up a different point, though, kind of pushing back on this narrative that $74,000, you know, isn't, you know, you're struggling to get by. And here's the thing, there is a different mentality where, you know, what

your mom and I, I got out of law school and we didn't make that much money at all. It was really, I mean, I think we qualified for. We qualified for welfare. We didn't take it because I never would do that. I don't believe in being dependent in any way. And we just decided we're going to work harder and cut back. And figure out ways to make money. But we had nothing.

Now, we were able to buy a house, though. We bought a house. That house cost us in Hale, Wisconsin, $65,000. I could probably buy a shed for that now. Right. Exactly. Yeah, that's fair not much money, that are putting the sacrifices and they've climbed the economic ladder and they make more money now and they have more things. And a lot of Gen Zers are like, I think I should have that right now. I just got out of school a couple of years ago, but I want the house. I want the nice car. I want the vacation.

I want the Starbucks and the dinner and the like, okay, but you know what? Someone who's, you know, 55 or 45 is in a different economic bracket than someone who is 26 or 28. And oftentimes I think they believe, these young people believe that they should be the managers and the bosses and the high salaried employees. I don't know if that's true. What I'll say is if you look at inflation and if you look at the price of houses, they are not rising at the same rates. The cost of housing and land in this country has gone up astronomically more than wage increases and even has not come up with inflation at all. It's crazy. And the way to build wealth is really to own a home and to have assets. Gen Z cannot attain that. And millennials cannot attain that. If you actually can look at Gen Z is a little too young. If you look at millennials, they they are much older than boomers were when they were able to buy their first house or haven't bought a first house and boomers have. There is a wealth disparity between these two

groups that is undeniable. And it's not up to laziness. It's that there is a difference in our system. The American dream does not exist for the younger generations in the same way that it did for yours and your parents. I'll tell you one thing. I'm really torn. And I'm not trying to be Switzerland here, but I feel a lot about what you're saying, Evita, is true. I mean, I looked at this stat. In 2023, they had a survey of 10,000 workers that were Gen Z, and 40% of the Gen Z employees were working another job on the side. They had a side gig. Now, Sean, you were talking about when we were making total $30,000 a year for our little family when we first started out. And you had to do side gigs. You were doing lumberjack shows and making little wood chairs to sell on the side so we could have some extra cash. So we were doing that kind of gig economy as well. I'll tell you what didn't exist that exists now with this generation is our words like, or phrases like quiet quitting, or, you know, this kind of mentality of, you know,

I only want to work from home and explain quality of life. And what quiet quitting is. Quiet quitting is, well, why don't you explain it? So when you're working a job and you're not going to actually go, hey, I'm giving you two weeks notice, I'm going to leave. You're just going to start not paying attention, maybe coming in late, not working hard at your job. Collect your salary. You're collecting your salary, but you're quietly just not doing the work that you're

getting paid for. And eventually you're probably going to get fired, but you're quietly protesting the job that you have. And I've seen quiet quitting. Even at Fox, I've seen some of that happen. Well, I've seen quiet quitting too. But can I just make another? So first of all, the TikTok video that we showed, this was in Miami. So Miami is not a cheap place to live either. So if you're listening and you're in Minneapolis or you're in rural America.

Minneapolis. I'll just say this. Madison, Wisconsin has so much audacity for being as expensive and as crappy as a place to live as it is. I'm just kidding. If you live in Madison, Wisconsin. That's where you were living. I was. I don't live there anymore, but it was so expensive.

And for what? It's a terrible place to live. The way that... At least Miami has some right to be expensive. Like if you're Minneapolis or Madison, Wisconsin, there's no right to be that expensive. Okay. Well, I'm not going to debate. You can't debate that either.

Don't, don't. Again, it's Madison. I know it's crazy, radical, you know, commies, but it's still my homestead. So stand down, Evita. We'll have more of this conversation after this. From the Fox News Podcast Network. Stay on top of the latest news and information from Fox News. Listen and download the Fox News hourly update on your time.

The trending stories you need anytime you want it. Listen and download now by going to Fox News Podcasts dot com. You can get a loan through Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac that, you know, you're putting, you know, 5%, 8%, 10% down as a new homebuyer. One of the best rates, it's guaranteed by the federal government, which means you get then a much lower rate, even though you're a credit rating. Loan for what? Your house, a mortgage. And so, like, I know when we went, I wasn't able to get a Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac loan. The average kid has $30,000 in student loans right now. I had way more than that. I know you did.

I know you did. I know you did. I had 30,000 and he had like 80 or 90, almost a hundred thousand. Give me a break from his law school. And so I mean, now all these kids haven't been paying student loans for how long because of COVID. And now they're talking about, you know, giving them loan forgiveness. Yeah. I mean, there's stuff on both sides. I'm sorry. It's true. Here's what I see. Can't tell you what frugality matters. So you know what? You got to cramp down on your budget. You got to spend less. You got to save more. And that kind of delayed gratification is going to work for every single American. I still believe that if you came here as an

immigrant and you're actually, you can't speak the language, but you're painting houses, that if you came here as an immigrant and you're actually, you can't speak the language, but you're painting houses, you can make it in America. You can save up. But it has become harder to be in the working class and in the middle class and make it and get ahead and achieve the American dream. And so I think the question now is, what do you see, Evita, happening with the youth vote moving into the 2024 election. So Trump is going to be the nominee and they hate him. I mean, they're nobody. Gen Z women in particular, they're like the most radical demographic in America. And the men aren't that much better. What I think I think we can hope for is what dad said, that they stay home from the polls because they're so annoyed at what Joe Biden has done and their lives aren't aren't.

So you don't see their economic situation, which is deteriorating, being enough for them to go, you know what, I'm just going to vote for Trump. No, I don't know. No, because, you know, because the problem is that they don't understand the roots of all their problems. The problem is that they don't understand the roots of all their problems. They think that the solution, if I don't make a lot of money and I can't afford my rent payment, universal basic income, doing that in Canada right now, their solution to all of our problems is actually what the problem is. And so they look at Trump, who is offering an alternative, but not the one they see as a solution. They say, no, we don't want a Joe Biden. He's not enough for us. We want to go even more radical.

We want to go to a Bernie Sanders. They're not voting for Trump. They're going to maybe potentially sit this one out to then go even more radical in the next election. But that's the only that's the only real, you know, upside to this whole situation. So I on the bottom line, last night, my co-host Dagan is off between Christmas and New Year. So Kelly O'Grady, she's a Fox Business reporter. She sat in with me and she went to Harvard. And I asked her in between the breaks, we had a Harvard segment, but it was Harvard as radical as we're reporting that it is right now, is it as leftist as it is. And I don't think I'm throwing her under the bus.

I think she's okay with me telling the conversation that we had. She said, well, I think that the real cutoff was in 2016 when Donald Trump was elected. And that Hillary Clinton, they all thought she was going to win. She didn't. They were losing their minds. And again, you guys will all recall this. Many schools let kids not come in the next day after the election because they were probably mentally stressed because Donald Trump had won. I think that she said they had a forum at Harvard where they wanted to allow people to speak about what happened. And they're all like, again, outraged as students that Donald Trump won. But one kid from Canada, I guess, stood up and was like, I can't vote in America. But I love Donald Trump and made the case for why he thought Donald Trump was so great.

So one kid with one different point of view at Harvard in this forum said, I would have voted for Trump. He turned out to be Canadian. And he was Canadian, but got skewered by everybody at Harvard that he dared to have a different opinion. And that's a problem. Again, it was like Chicago. They're literally fascists. I cannot explain how horrible it was. Explain that because I think people want to understand. There is when they say there's an orthodoxy on campus, there is you say anything in the classroom, people there's like snide, there's like snide there's like snide comments dirty looks people then getting upset and and fighting you like you're not allowed to have civil discussions

in the classroom uh there's there's there's one opinion but then on a social level everybody that you're surrounded with is a leftist and if you are not one it's not just that oh she has a different opinion i don't agree with her it's that actually you you're a bigot and you're a hater. You pose us because this is also really weird. So many young people identify as LGBTQ and they're not LGBTQ. Most of them are bisexual and they're actually just straight and they want to seem like they're cool. So they're all they also they're LGBTQ. And if you vote for Trump or if you're a conservative, they say you're a threat to their existence.

You're actually somebody who wants to see them dead. And that's what they're fed to the Democrats, right? That Republicans are trying to literally destroy them. Exterminate you. Yeah. They think that you're like, it would be like, I'm a Jew in Nazi Germany and they think that there are Jews in Nazi Germany and I'm trying to actually eradicate them. You're not that radical.

Which, by the way, is not true at all. However, that's their mentality against the Jewish people right now. Yeah. Fascinating. But what's interesting is Evita was at University of Chicago, which claims to be a free speech college. college. They have the Chicago Doctrine of Principles, which is supposedly among all the elite universities in America. This is supposed to be the template, the one that has the most free speech and diversity of thought. And this is your experience. So just imagine what it's like at Yale. And they also they also have something called the Calvert, which says that the university

administration is not allowed to impose any sort of politics or ideology on the students, which they did during BLM. They violated their own report that they created. So they are not pro-free speech. They are not going to not like the Hillsdale of Chicago or something. And actually, there were really good, smart, conservative libertarian students that I met, created the Chicago Thinker with. It would not have been possible at other schools because we were all kind of duped into thinking this was a free speech university and went there. So there's this minority of really strong students who could have gone to Harvard. They could have gone to Princeton or Stanford. They're like, you know what? I'm going to pick UChicago because of its

commitment to free speech. And so there was this minority of really strong-willed, really good people at the university that I don't think are at the other Ivy Leagues. But that's not because of the university itself. It's almost in spite of them. So we're laying out, again, we're having a conversation about how much people make and their viewpoint on what you can buy with $74,000 as a young person. And the answer to that problem for young people is more socialism, more government, the train to communism. And we brought it back to this isn't universities. This is what they've been taught. And so I, again, I, I always think we need to talk about solutions and there's so much power in Washington. It's been so centralized there, but the one place

you actually still have a lot of power is in your states and your state education system. And if we had more governors and more legislatures that said, not in our state, we are not going to do this here. We will go to war with the university system in our state. We will defund you. We will take all your money away. We will have that fight or you're going to take out these radical ideas. You're going to teach a true history of capitalism and socialism and communism. And if you don't, we're not going to make our taxpayers fund this radical indoctrination. That can happen at a state level. And I'm disappointed. Ron DeSantis has one university that he took over in Florida where they're doing this. Chris Ruppo is on the board of that university in Florida. But I'm so shocked and surprised that more legislators, more governors that are conservatives

aren't doing more to root this crazy, which is, but listen, this is the death of America. This is the death of the idea of what we have been. It's going to change moving forward because of these school systems. And that we don't have legislators and governors stepping in to save us. I'm like, that blows my mind. Let me say what the bare minimum is. Getting rid of DEI. I was just going to say, DEI is the problem. It's so easy.

And it's actually, not only is it unethical, it's potentially- DEI is diversity, equity, and inclusion, which by the president is the president of harvard that's now under fire because she she's a diversity hire she's well claudine gay who plagiarized carol swain's work um first came under fire because she couldn't bring herself to say that you know genocide calls for genocide among protesters at harvard university among harvard university students you know should be condemned. And then the spotlight was on her and they found out that she was plagiarized a lot of her so-called academic work. She's under fire. She doesn't call it DEI. She calls it DIB,

diversity, inclusion, and belonging. Okay. Diversity, inclusion, and belonging. But I should say this. She's under fire for her job. And here's the moment of hope that I think is existing. I think people are starting to come onto the system and starting to, they're opening up their eyes. She's about to get fired. She's on the hot seat. And who has come out to defend her? Barack Obama. Oh, my God. Those are big guns? Barack Obama. Oh, my God. Those are big guns. Barack Barack Obama has come out to defend her. Those are big guns. That shows you that the system is beginning to crack, that you need Barack Obama to save your job as this. You know, she's clearly not qualified. She's clearly not intelligent enough to have that position at Harvard. She plagiarized another black woman's work um she she has no morals no ethics this yeah good well i was

just gonna say the the big the big argument against dei is that it is institutionalized racism the dei departments are the ones where they bring in all the kids and and have these pointless diversity lectures before they start school. They're the ones that have black-only dorms, black-only convocations. These are the institutions that have institutionalized not only racism, but actually cultural Marxism on campus.

They've made the universities not an institution of truth-seeking where we can debate and discuss and explore different ideas, but instead they implement an orthodoxy on campus. There is one idea. And if you do not accept this DEI programming, then you are a bigot. And these ideas are, and they've twisted words. I mean, what they've done is they've taken a word, Equity is a great word. It's not about equality. Equity is just as an affirmative action term.

It means equal outcomes. But everything that they do, I mean, even the idea that in medical schools now you can't teach biological sex because it's not even that the teachers don't want to do it. The teachers know that they will get that feeling that you said you had in your classroom of all these students, you know, ganging up on anyone who has a different point of view. In this case, biology teachers trying to teach biological, scientifically based, you know, sex, gender sex that we all know exists, will get their own students will organize against them and so they're walking on thin ice talking about basic scientific facts the whole system is based on lies and what anti yeah and i talked about this last night it's based on a yeah you're sitting on a throne of lies remember i know you sit when he told santa claus you sit on a throne of lies. Remember when he told Santa Claus, you sit on a throne of lies. Well, that really very much describes most of our universities. And in communist countries, the school system was run by the state.

The lies that the state wanted to tell were enforced, you know, through the state into the school system. And people would turn out little commies who believed the lies of the state. In this case, the system... It's this conversation, by the way, survived the greatest mass psyop in modern history, which was the entire COVID. I'm proud of that too. I'm proud of that too. But the truth is, you know, 5%, 10% of the population could see through this and the rest were sheep who went along with all the lies being told. In our university system, it is, you know, university administrators of which, by the way, Harvard, they have over 7000 administrators. Those are not teachers. These are administrators.

Yale has more administrators than students. That is so gross. And you think that's the cause of a lot of it. Oh, it's a major cause. So, first of all, administrators make schools more expensive. That's my main beef with them. But the administrators also make life more difficult. If you want to like do a liberal arts course, you want to take an independent study, you

got to go to like five different administrators. Colleges used to be run by the professors and the students. There was no administration, but the administrators are also part of the DEI programs, part of the COVID protocol, right? But the administrators are also part of the DEI programs, part of the COVID protocol, right, where they basically enslaved students during COVID, had them live under just utter tyranny, not allowed to visit each other in dorm rooms, had to take out lunches. I mean, literally, they destroyed the university. Some were quarantined. Some students were quarantined. And they're not academics.

They're just bureaucrats. Okay, so listen, I want to go back to this point on the state control. So the Supreme Court came out with a decision that said affirmative action is unconstitutional. So you can't just allow people into your university based on the color of their skin. Just like the Supreme Court said that Joe Biden couldn't forgive student loan debt. Joe Biden four times now has gone around the Supreme Court decision to forgive student loan debt to Joe Biden four times now has gone around the Supreme Court decision to forgive student loan debt to the tune of like $52 billion. But also, universities are also getting around the Supreme Court trying to find tools in which they can still keep

affirmative action in place despite the Supreme Court's ruling. So you talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion and rooting it out. I agree with both of you. Also, affirmative action has already been rooted out. But you almost need massive oversight within these universities to make sure this is completely gone. Or what you have to do is, again, the whole system is rotten. Cut all state funding. If you can change the top, if you can change the leadership, that really is the start. Because then the leadership can start to pluck out and pull out all of the people who will not comply with what the legislature and governor has said the university is going to have to do. And you can start to fire people. But short of that, this country's doomed. It really is. Because you can't pump out little Marxists, little communists, and think that you're going to have a free enterprise system in America. It's not going to happen. And that's the system that we have now. And we're seeing the beginnings of the consequences of not stopping this out 20 years ago. And we're all waking up and we're all shocked. There's still time, but not much time to fix this.

One of the best ways to fix this is for Donald Trump to win in 2024. And I guess that comes back down. But my only concern with that is, is Donald Trump thinking through who he needs to put in place to take a wrecking ball to what this craziness they built? I'm not sure yet. take a wrecking ball to what they've, what this craziness they built? I'm not sure yet. Here's why I think they know that he and the people around him know what to do, Sean. The amount of effort, lawfare, lies, the weaponization of government to take him down is such that they understand that in his second term, he is a bigger threat. His eyes are wide open. I believe he's going to fix it. Bottom line is, if he does not win

and Joe Biden or whoever they put in his place wins, we're all screwed. Let's just be honest. The activists, attorneys and judges is directly correlated to the Marxism that they get in school. Marxists do not believe in truth or protocol. They believe in doing anything that they can. The ends justify the means. Right. Always. They will they will commit any kind of atrocity, destroy any kind of norms or or or or value systems that we have in order to achieve their Marxist goals. That's the problem that Trump's facing right now. And that's why it's directly related to the school system. This is all related. And again, that's why this election is so important. That's why this fight is so important. That's why there's a theme we have in our podcast, because all of us have to work together.

You can't sit back and think someone else is going to fight the fight for you. It's all of us working together to root this cancer out of our system. Listen, I, and we're, this is a great conversation. We have a Vita home over the Christmas holiday. All the kids are home.

All the kids are still home. Yes, but all of them are not on the podcast just to Vita. So we appreciate home. Yes, but all of them are not on the podcast, just Abita. So we appreciate that. Listen, I want to thank you all, Abita, thank you as well for joining us on the podcast from the kitchen table. If you like our podcast, you can rate, review, subscribe, wherever you get your podcasts. You can always find us at foxnewspodcast.com. Abita and I are flying out today.

We're going to my dad's 90th birthday party, your grandpa's 90th birthday party tomorrow. All the Duffies are going to be there. We're looking forward to it. It's going to be a blast. So we're going to figure out how we do Q&A tomorrow. It's going to be interesting. We're going to figure that out. I'm going to be on the 5 on Friday, and then I'll be hosting Fox & Friends Saturday, Sunday, and

Monday. Tune in for that. We're going to do steaks on. Rachel's done a New Year's Eve special for the last four years, so I get her home on New Year's Eve. We're going to do steaks, fake champagne, and a lot of

kids, so it's going to be fun. We want to wish you all we'll talk to you before the podcast tomorrow, but we want to wish you all a happy New Year if we don't. Keep enjoying that Christmas season. It's still here. It's still upon us. Just the season, but not the food. Because you're like me, you've eaten way too much. So you've got to ramp that down. But Christmas spirit stays alive and well. Thank you, Bita. Thank you, Rachel. All right. Hi, everybody. Listen ad-free with

a Fox News Podcast Plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. And Amazon Prime members can listen to the show ad-free on the Amazon Music app. From the Fox News Podcast Network. I'm Janice Dean, Fox News Senior Meteorologist. Be sure to subscribe to the Janice Dean podcast at foxnewspodcast.com or wherever you listen to your podcasts. And don't forget to spread the sunshine.