From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - Senator JD Vance Is Under Fire For Valuing the Contribution of Grandparents

Episode Date: August 17, 2024

Former President Trump's running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, is facing criticism again — after his opinion on grandparents' contributions was twisted in an out-of-context clip. While on Eric Weinstein's podcast 'The Portal,' in 2020, Vance was expressing gratitude for the relationship his children have with their grandparents when Weinstein interrupted, saying the “whole purpose of the postmenopausal female” is to raise grandchildren.    Since this clip has resurfaced, controversy has sparked, and the Duffys are here to discuss why they believe this is being blown out of proportion, as all of Senator Vance's points seemed to center around valuing grandparents, not devaluing women (as the "postmenopausal" comment wasn't his). They also discuss how they see this backlash as another example of young Americans rejecting traditional values.   Follow Sean & Rachel on X: @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. It's great to be back, Sean. It's another day and another J.D. Vance so-called scandal that the left is trying to gin up to basically separate Donald Trump from his female voters. So this one,

Sean, the last one was the cat lady controversy, which was, you know, they pulled it up from an old, I guess, episode of Tucker Carlson and J.D. Vance was talking about, you know, that there are a lot of women and without babies who make a lot of decisions that impact families. And that was the point he was making.

And they use that now he was talking this again, pulled it up from this one from an old podcast that he did. And he was talking about how his wife, Usha, was getting ready for a big clerkship, had just had a baby seven weeks before. And his mom, her mom, his mother-in-law, who is a biology professor and a provost, I believe, at the University of California, San Diego, my old alma mater, where I went to grad school. She decided to take a one-year sabbatical and help them raise the kid because they knew that that first year with JD working, her clerking was going to be tough because they just had a new baby. And she spent a year living with them and helping with them. And they said it was great for the kid, great for the family, great for the mother-in-law. And let me

just let you, let JD talk about it in his own words. And you can sort of see the effect it has on him to be around them. Like they spoil him. There's sort of all the classic stuff that grandparents do to grandchildren, but it makes him a much better human being to have exposure to his grandparents well i don't know and the evidence on this by the way is like super clear that's the whole purpose of the post-monopausal female in in theory did your in-laws and particularly your mother-in-law show up in some huge way she lived with us for a year right so you know so i didn't know the answer that no so that's this weird unadvertised feature of marrying an indian woman it's yeah it's in some

ways the most transgressive thing i've ever done against sort of the the the hyper neoliberal approach to work in family all right sean so there's a lot to pack in there so first of all he says this has been great for the family sean Sean, you and I both have had the blessing of my parents in particular, helping us out with our kids. And it has been invaluable. No, listen, it's for a family that's been busy, that's doing a lot of things. Your parents have been critical in our ability to build careers like we have. Because at a moment's notice, whether again, I was a prosecutor and you might have a random job when you were still a stay-at-home mom, but your parents would step in and help out. We couldn't have done that otherwise. You couldn't have taken a job when I was in the DA's office, but for the help of your parents. And again, I think what this

is referring to, Rachel, is this family unit that's strong, right? That we actually, we think of families that help each other out, that you can lean on, that support each other, and especially the role of a parent helping their kids with their kids' kids, which is the grandchild. And it seems like Democrats get awfully offended when you have people looking inside the tent at the family for support, as opposed to looking to the government for support and help. for support and help. Yeah, you know, in the podcast that we just played for you, he went on to talk about how in sort of this feminist worldview,

you know, here you have this mother-in-law who is a biology professor. She's, you know, really important. She's making good money. Why would you, and he says this in the podcast, the way that the left thinks is like, why would you take this woman who can obviously make a lot more money on the outside world and use her to raise a one-year-old baby when you could pay someone a lot less money, have her go work, even use the mother-in-law's money to pay for a babysitter or to pay for the child to go to daycare, and financially, you know, they all make out better that way. And what's being lost is that what a grandmother can offer a grandchild is, or a grandparent can offer a grandchild, you can't quantify it. You can't pay someone in a daycare or pay a babysitter to do what a grandparent can do, which is to love and instruct in a way that is completely from the heart, right? Because this is their own flesh and blood. And, you know,

again, Sean, you mentioned how it helped us out, right, when we were in a pinch. But it was so much more than that. I mean, my mother and my father were these incredible role models and continue to be. You know, they're sitting around and making lunch for the kids. And they're talking about what happened in their, you know, when they were a child. and they're talking about what happened in their, you know, when they were a child. They're talking about what happened, you know, when, you know, when my, you know, whatever happened in Spain in that time when my mom, you know, will give history lessons to the kids. My father will talk about his days in the military. So these are things, you know, family stories are passed on. The food that my parents prepare has cultural, family, traditional meanings in many ways for our kids.

But also, you know, they're yeah, they spoil the kids, but they also discipline them and bring in values that I think a stranger would not be able to do. I think a stranger would not be able to do. And they're able also to, this is so interesting, as I was looking at an article about the benefits of grandparents, and they were talking about how a grandparent can help a child understand their own parent, right? That bridging that happens. And just the emotional intelligence, they've done all kinds of studies that prove that children who have intergenerational connections with their grandparents have greater social intelligence, which of course makes sense, right? They're understanding that there are their parents, and then there are these other people that are connected to them, that love them as much as their parents, but have a slightly different way of interacting

with them. So they're just getting more of that idea. So there's just so much that goes on. And then, Sean, all the studies now about how grandparents live longer when they are around their grandkids. So I think it's important to kind of lay out politically what's happening, right? Because anyone who lives in a family or has the experience like you just laid out with your parents and our kids would go,

of course, if you could have that scenario, and not everyone has it, but if you have it, if you can have it, it is by far the best situation, not just for the kids, but to your point, but for the grandparents as well. And so but take a step back. So the Democrat Party is, I think, doing a very good job of trying to make J.D. Vance look, in their words, weird or extreme. And you mentioned at the start the cat lady comment. words weird or extreme. And you mentioned at the start, the cat lady comment. Now, the left is not blowing that comment up for you, Rachel, a mother of nine, but they're blowing it up for a lot of single women who may not be happy with the economy. Not even single women, just kind of women in general. They're blowing it up because these are people who may not be happy with the economy,

may not be happy with crime because they don't feel safe, you know, walking down the street, you know, after dark. So to blow this up and try to make J.D. Vance look extreme, you can change the viewpoint of the voter. What's important to you? The economy, gas in your car, your safety? Or is it that J.D JD doesn't stand up with women? Because he said, cat ladies. So that's what's happening there. He doesn't like you. It's the equivalent of- He doesn't respect you. Doesn't respect or like you. It's the equivalent of what they do to minorities, right? What they do to minorities is not talk

about issues. They just go, Republicans are racist. They don't like you. And that's essentially what they're saying to women, but particularly single women, is he doesn't respect you. He doesn't like you. He thinks less of you because you don't have a child. And that's to say also the Democrats will say, well, we actually say we like you, but if you look at our policies, you could really see that we actually hate you and don't really care about you. But they're very good at it. So now let's move to what's happening with the podcast we just played. So what you have is, and this is what's interesting, the left is presenting the podcast as if J.D. Vance was the one who made reference to postmenopausal women. That's her job, right? By the way, just as a man, I would not use the phrase postmenopausal. That's

not something I would say and wouldn't recommend that men speak like that. I know you're going to disagree with me. Rachel, give me one moment. Yeah, I don't have a problem with that at all. Wait, it was the host of the podcast that said postmenopausal women. J.D. Vance didn't use that phraseology or terminology, but he took that and then went on to talk about the beauty of this family structure that's so good for the kids, was so good for Usha, J.D.'s wife, and for the kids, was so good for Usha, JD's wife, and for the parents as well. And again, they lie. They lie about what was actually said, because if you listen to the tones of the voice, they sound very similar. JD Vance sounds very similar to the interviewer. But if you listen to it, it's the interviewer who used that phrase, and the left is trying to say,

But if you listen to it, it's the interviewer who used that phrase. And the left is trying to say J.D. Vance actually used that phraseology. But to be fair, J.D. Vance did not say, whoa, whoa, whoa. I don't think we should talk about postmenopausal women. So essentially, again, let's break this down. He said the purpose of the postmenopausal woman is to help raise the grandkid. Well, Sean, if you look at... But J.D. didn't, that was the interviewer. That wasn't J.D. that said that. You're right. The interviewer said that, but J.D. did not necessarily have a huge problem with that.

It appeared like he agreed or concurred, or maybe he was just being polite, but he went on... He understood the meaning of... Right. He understood what that of, he might not have, but if Peter disagreed, he did. And he took it as the true meaning of the comment and said, I'm going to talk about, you know, what is this mean when you have, you know, all of us would be better, all women would be better and more empowered if we acted like men. I mean, that's their problem with everything, Sean. That's, that's, that's the point they're trying to make that Usha's mom is a professional woman making money in a man's world, right? She's a professor of biology and the hard sciences. Why would she waste her time, you know, taking care of her grandkid? And that's her purpose. And the truth is, biologically speaking, evolutionarily

speaking, post-menopausal women, because we all lived sort of tribal, the way we're living disconnected from each other is very, is a very new phenomenon. It's absolutely true that people lived in more sort of tribal, clannish ways. And older women assisted the younger women who were childbearing age. So because because having babies is difficult work. And and and and and so that's always been part of it. And so, you know, she comes from an Indian culture. I come from a Hispanic culture. It was sort of like I wouldn't say it was understood, but my my parents always were willing if they could do it, they were going to step up and help us help us with our kids. And we've always been really grateful for that.

It's always been beneficial. But I think that, you know, I think maybe they're getting freaked out because he said postmenopausal. I mean, every flippant celebrity is talking about menopause. Halle Berry went to Capitol Hill to do a hearing on menopause to say, hey, health care for women is very different than for men. And the way the system set up is we're looking at things through a male prism. We need to talk very specifically about women because our bodies are different, which is true. Rochelle Obama going on podcasts all the time, talking about how difficult menopause is and how Barack is so understanding when he's in a meeting and, you know, a 50 some year old woman

breaks out into a sweat because she's getting a hot flash. And everyone's talking about menopause on the left. But J.D. Vance's podcast person said something about postmenopausal women. And J.D., Broadcast person said something about postmenopausal women. And JD, look, seems to somewhat agree that, you know, that's a wonderful thing that women who are, you know, older would come in and help out the younger generation with some of the child rearing. I see nothing wrong with that. I turned 50. I'm perimenopausal, which means I'm not yet postmenopausal, but I'm getting there.

menopausal, which means I'm not yet post-menopausal, but I'm getting there. And as soon as I turned 50, Sean, I mean, you saw it. I kept going, when are our kids going to have grandkids? I mean, it's the cycle of life. Why are liberals constantly trying to fight biology? We'll be right back with much more after this. I'm Ben Domenech, Fox News contributor, editor at large of The Spectator and editor of the Transom.com daily newsletter. I'm inviting you to join in-depth conversations every week on the Ben Domenech podcast. Listen and follow now at Fox News podcast dot com. Well, I think what's interesting is it's I don't know this biology, what they're what they're running as a party.

Kamala Harris and Tim Walz as it's a campaign of joy they're running on joy but if you look at this rachel what truly gives joy to the human heart joy comes from getting to a stage in your life you're like i can enjoy my grandkids because you know what i'm not there yet but i imagine i get to play with them i get to feed them things they probably shouldn't have and then i send them back to their parents that's joyful you don't have to but in the case of of usha's mom she lived with them for a year. And I think that's really, it's sort of the rub, right? But joy comes from that as well, right? That oftentimes for many people will satisfy the human heart, being able to spend that time with your grandkids and actually having a desire

that your kids want you to spend that time with their children. I hear grandkids. I hear grandparents say a lot. If I had known that having grandkids was going to be this great, I would have had them first. I see my own parents who come and live with us periodically a few months at a time at different periods during the year. And I feel like they are, they act younger. They seem like they have more spring in their step. They seem healthier and more, I think, balanced when they're around the grandkids. And I think part of that is that, you know, the idea of, you know, living in sort of a, because they live in a condo with a lot of other people who are retired

in Arizona. And I think that that environment is not as, I can see how it's relaxing, but I think I look at my parents, they seem more youthful when they are living intergenerationally. And truly, Sean, again, it goes back to what we talked about before. Living intergenerationally was how humans always lived. This idea of sort of siloing off people by generation, where now, you know, you retire, you go to Florida, you live among only old people. That's a very new, weird concept

when you look at it in the scope of human history. But again, it comes to this larger point of, again, why are Democrats angry about it, about this conversation? Because Democrats are promoting ideas and changing to structures that are unhealthy, that don't make people happy. We can go whether it's intergenerational living, whether it's having 14-year-old boys be genitally mutilated to become girls or vice versa, girls to become boys, whether they're encouraging young women to pursue careers and not get married and not have a family. encouraging young women to pursue careers and not get married and not have a family.

The list is long, letting criminals, violent criminals out on the street to terrorize their communities. All these things are so disruptive to human nature and how societies actually function and function well. Democrats embrace all of the dysfunction, right? And then wrap it in the gift wrapping of joyful campaign and what's best for you. They're liars. And I want to go back. This was a lie from the Democrats about J.D. Vance because he didn't use the phraseology that, again, that gets them so upset. That's coming from a party who their vice presidential candidate lied about the DWI he got 29 years ago. They've lied to the media. They've lied about the circumstances around the OWI. They said that actually was dismissed and Tim Walz wasn't drunk. He was actually, he was hard of hearing and the

trooper who arrested him had to apologize. All of that was false. The stolen valor, Rachel, him how to apologize. All of that was false. The stolen valor, Rachel, lying about his rank and his service in combat, which he did not serve in combat. This is a party and candidates that are liars. They lie on policy. They lie about families. And they lie about their vision for America. And I'm sick of being lied to. And I think I love your comment. You're like, you know what? No matter where I'm at, I'm not going to let the lie pass through my lips. I'll speak the truth on anything that comes up. I'm not going to be a liar.

And you haven't been. I don't think I have either. But you have a platform where it can be a little harder. And you've been a force for truth, which I love. I appreciate that. Sean, do you think that these attacks on JD are going to be effective? Does it even matter what the left says about J.D. Vance? He's the vice president and people are really voting on the presidency. if I ask you and me and our circle of friends,

I'd be like, no, this is stupid. However, I think there's a, a, a generation of mostly young women, but also young men who the attack truly appeals to them. Right.

They've been raised to be social warriors, right? Social justice, lawyers or gender warriors. They're like all of this crap they've been fed and they see the failure of it in the economy and in their safety but when it comes up in and presented to them like the democrat party is presenting it to them now i think i think it moves them i think it brings them um away from trump and to kamala i'm sorry and i i hate that

but i think with this younger group of voters, it actually works, which is why they're doing it. But they are really good at it. They're really good, sadly, at doing this. Yeah, it's interesting. What do you think? I don't know. I mean, I see what they're doing, right?

This is just like I explained before. It's like, how I see what they're doing, right? This is just like, like I explained before, it's like, how do you separate, you know, how do you make sure that young people who are actually suffering under Bidenomics and Kamala-nomics, whatever you want to call it, suffering under the Biden-Harris policies, can't, can't buy a home, can't even start their lives. Many of them aren't married because of this, you know, because of how bad the economy is and they don't feel like they can launch and some of them have moved back into their mother and father's basement. So this is a way to distract and say, see, he's judging you because you're not married or he's judging you because you don't have children and he doesn't like you. But I just, I don't know. I hope it doesn't work because in the end, I think

they're presenting what he's saying in a really negative way, but what he's saying makes sense. When I heard him talk about how great it was for his grandkids. I mean, for his kids to be raised by, you know, to have that interaction day to day with, with the grandmother and that kind of intergenerational support system that they seem to have. It was very relatable to me. Um, then Southeast Asians, Hispanics also very, very family oriented, very, very much about like sort of helping each other. I also think, you know, I saw it in your family. We did a whole podcast on watching your family come together to support your mom and help your mom when she was sick and all the way to the very end. So I just think on so many families,

whether they are experienced, have experienced the importance of that family support or, or like JD Vance, you know, even in negative situations, his family in some way came together, or maybe it's people who would just wish they had more family support because I mean, no one wants to depend on a soulless bureaucrat to get through life. You know, That's such a great point, Rachel. You're right.

Because you're a child of the eighties. Right. And I think that you're, cause I'm married to you maybe as well. I think you're very normal. Right. And you have a very healthy perspective on, on work and family and culture. I think it's a very healthy perspective on work and family and culture. I think it's a very healthy perspective. But I wonder if this is happening. Because, again, I want to go to make this point.

The Democrats keep calling J.D. Vance weird. But there couldn't be anything more normal in the comment that he made about families working together. What's really weird is that the Democrats would attack families working together. They're the weird ones in our viewpoint. I wonder if, have they so warped the culture, so warped the minds of these young people in the K through 12 little commie camps that we send the kids to or in our universities? little commie camps that we send the kids to or in our universities? Have the young people become so warped through culture that they actually look at what J.D. Vance said and think that's actually weird?

Right? Do you understand my question? No, no. That's the heart of the question, right? That's the heart of the question. Who is America, right? That's the heart of the question. Who is America, right? Have we become so detached from normalcy and family because of what they've done that they can actually make the argument that J.D.'s comment about a grandma helping her daughter with the children through a big opportunity of hers, Usha's, that's odd. That's weird.

We shouldn't do that in America. And I know that's a deeper question that I have an answer for, but maybe just America's gotten weird. Well, right. Not the whole, the young people have gotten weird, maybe. We're now weird, but these young people, and I don't think our kids are weird. I think they're pretty well-based, but they were raised with you as their mom. But I wonder if a lot of these kids have just become oddballs because of the culture in which they were raised in. I don't think that. I think that ultimately what's true speaks to your heart. I think we,

our hearts are made for truth. And when people hear truth, even if they didn't maybe experience, um, many of these wonderful things in their own life, they're still sort of longing for that, um, hoping for that. And so I think that, are they though, are they, because I think there's a lot of forces competing for that. No, I do. I do. And look, I think that the pandemic was an interesting time, Sean. So many negative things about the pandemic, about what they did to us, about the tyranny. But what did happen when they said two weeks to slow the spread, it turned into two years of like, you know, working from home and kids being home and parents, dad's not going to work and mom's not going to work. And I think something really fascinating happened. I think there was a national sort of reflection on all of our lives because people sort of got off the hamster wheel. It was almost like for the first time in our lifetimes, the world stood still for a second.

That's such a great point. And I think what happened, Sean, is that people realized they did love their families. They did want, and people made a lot of really long-term changes in their life. You know, there's a lot of women, millions of women that said, you know what? I'll take a paycheck. of women that said, you know what? I'll take a paycheck. I'd rather work part-time or work from home and take a paycheck so I can have more time with my kids. There are a lot of dads who said, I'm not going to take a promo. I'm not going to work that hard at work. I don't care about the promotion. I'm not missing any more of these games or spring concerts at school.

or, you know, spring concerts at school. You have, you know, what happened to old people during the pandemic, Sean, was devastating. People who had made the decision to send their parents for a variety of reasons, some good, some not so good, into nursing homes, suddenly their grandparents were trapped in nursing homes. And many of them didn't die of COVID, Sean, they died of loneliness. And so a lot of people die of COVID, Sean, they died of loneliness. And so a lot of people are like, I'm never letting that happen again. And they made arrangements for the grandparents to come live with them. People are intergenerationally homesteading. That's back in style. There's record numbers of people homeschooling. I do think people are changing the way now. Not everybody.

There's still like a lot of single young girls who have bought into the lie that their job and Taylor Swift concerts and cocktails after work are good. And, you know, vacations, Instagrammable vacations, you know, because of more disposable income is going to make them happier. And you see the rise of dinks, right? Dual income, married, no kids. So people have purposely said we're not going to have kids. So our paychecks can go just to us. There is that. That is happening.

But at the same time, there's a lot of people. You also see the rise of trad wives and people on farms and homesteading. I think there is a lot of soul searching and reflection going on. That's what I think. So. So. So I think I think we see about Sean. We see the world from where we sit. Right. And I agree everything you just said. I we the world similarly, and I agree with you. But think about the kids that were in high school that are now of the age to vote that went through COVID, or the ones that were in college that went through COVID. We have kids that age, Sean. We have kids that age.

I know. And I think ours are unique in how they analyze it because it's similar to us. But a lot of them bought into the mandates, bought into the COVID testing, bought into the masks, bought into the vaccine. And I don't think a lot of them have come back the other side and said, maybe we shouldn't have done it. You or our generation did because we're like, hold up, hold up, hold up. This is everything contrary to freedom. And this is everything about government overreach as it relates to my life and my freedom. But those young people, they didn't grow up in the 80s. This is all they know. They think this is very normal, which is why the Kamala Harris campaign's effort to warp what J.D. Vance was saying can work not with you, but with this young group of voters who they need to energize and mobilize and get them to the polls.

It can work with them. I'm not saying it's going to, but I think we have to be honest. Who is this focused at? It wasn't going towards you. It's going toward these young people who have completely bought in to this weird, crazy crap that's coming to you from the Democrats. There will definitely be a lot of people that fall for it. I just think also, Sean, that there's a nervousness among the regime. I mean, how stressed out they were about, for example,

I mean, if they could do what dictator Maduro in Venezuela did, shut down X, they would do it. They're not that confident in their ideas. They still rely on censorship. They still rely on propaganda. They still rely on vilifying, whether it's J.D. Vance, Tucker Carlson, Elon Musk. Just name the person of influence and prominence on the right. And they want to censoror them vilify them they don't want those ideas to spread because they'll call it misinformation but what they really are are challenges to their worldview challenges to their power so i also see sean a lot of insecurity and nervousness in the way the way they are trying to control speech and debate.

And so- Well, that is authoritarian government, right? That's what they always do. Correct. And so if they felt confident in their ideas, you wouldn't need to censor it, right? Again, we were having a debate about, you know, how should family structures be? I mean, it's incredible to me, for example, Sean,

the way they twist things. So, for example, there was a headline that said, in a stunning new leaked video, J.D. Vance claims that childless adults should pay more in taxes. It's clear that J.D. Vance wants to wage war against Americans. Then the same thing, they said, Kamala Harris just announced that if she's elected, she'll restore the child tax credit. This is huge. Okay. They're basically advocating for the same thing. You know what I'm saying? advocating for the same thing. You know what I'm saying? They're both advocating for child tax credit, but they are going, the way the media presents it is all in a way, he's bad, he hates you. Oh, she's got this great new idea. There's just, I think we're just fighting this information war. And I think if the Democrats are actually very confident in their ideas,

I don't think they would be trying to censor and control debate and speech in this country. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think if we had a debate about a really honest, open debate, which we should be having right now in our country, Sean, J.D. Vance should be debating right away Tim Walz. And we should have already had a debate with Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. We should be able to talk about all these different worldviews, all these different ways that we can or support families or not. But to me, it's really obvious that they don't want to have that debate. No, because you can't get a radical transformation of your government if you're honest with the voters about what kind of transformation you want to give them, right?

They can't be honest. So they have to lie to you. They have to lie about their policies, lie about what they really want to do. I mean, that's why Kamala Harris has walked back her policy on open borders. She's walked back her policies about trying to grab everyone's gun, to confiscate guns. She's walked back her ideas on single-payer healthcare, which is government-run healthcare. I mean, she's walking back her policies, not because she's rethinking those policies, or that she doesn't believe those

earlier radical policy ideas that she's espoused in the Senate. And when she ran for president in 2020, it's that she knows the voters don't want it. So she'll she'll roll them back on paper or for the campaign. But when she wins, make no mistake, it's those crazy policies that you will have in the White House that will have great impact on and control of our future. You know, before we go, I just really think it comes down and we have to bring it back down to these very tangible issues about essentially what it means to be a woman. Right. What does it mean to be a woman and what is the value of womanhood? And I just fundamentally, fundamentally believe that liberals tell women that the way to be valued is to be more like a man. It's why they have so many problems with fairy tales, for example. They want to rewrite them all. Disney wants to rewrite them. Like in the case of Snow White, you know, she was the hero of the

Snow White movie, but she did it with very feminine qualities um with this sort of you know cleaning cleaning the kids cleaning the the house for the dwarves because at first she thought they were orphans and and um you know she had this this very soft feminine touch and um and in the end you know she was the hero because of that but they wanted to rewrite these stories because you can't you have to be more like a man. And you saw the new Snow White woman come out and say, you know, the new Snow White, she wants to be a leader, you know, and like, she has to be more like a man. And I think this is all kind of tied into all of this. Like, what does it mean to be a woman? And I think the real offense that J.D. said is he said something out loud that is offensive to the left, which is that women are there.

So much of who they are is tied to theirbearing years to help the next generation, because that really is the purpose of being a human is to live, to have a of a lot of feminists, a lot of liberals. And and and it's like the purpose is to, you know, you know, GDP and to, you know, support the the politics and the policies and the ideology of the state. I mean, you know, in communist countries, the state is preeminent, not the family. And so I think these are very fundamental questions. I think that's why they're upsetting people. We'll have more of this conversation after this. So, and I don't want to let this just be about women because grandfathers truly, you might say you're, you're supposed to go fishing.

I mean, I want to teach my kids, my grandkids how to fish or fly a model airplane, or there's a need. There's a human need, not just a female need. And as we get older, some of the needs that we have. And so again, this was about, it was specifically about, you know, a woman because it was Usha's mother that came to help them out. That's why the father was left out. But older men have the same desire. Look at your grand, your father and your mother interact with our kids very differently, but with as much joy that comes from it. And they do different things.

They have different conversations, but you can't say only your mom enjoys and your dad doesn't. No, your dad does enjoy it as well. He has a different pep in his step with the kids as well. Let's make one other point. You talked about the role of women and trying to make women be men. Just a pet peeve of mine, you and I don't watch the same movies. Rachel likes foreign films and i don't and she likes old movies uh foreign films foreign oh my god i thought you said porn no foreign

foreign films what do i like no foreign films and you like older movies and so i like i kind of like the war movies right that the like the male war action hero movies maybe a john wick ask you know series like ron comes to sean but hold up but the jason born right um those are the movies that i like as a 50 you know two-year-old man what they're doing now rachel is they're ruining these movies they're making the jason bourne star of the movie a woman and i'm sorry i just like i can't watch that i'm like they they promote the hell out of him like i can't i'm not gonna watch a movie as this you know superstar you know 25 year old action hero girl is kicking the crap out of you know guys the size of the rock i mean i can't like that it's like it's not real and i hate hollywood is ruining action movies

because they're trying to make women be men and they're not sorry that's a side note but it just i didn't really think that up it's been working me for for some time it's a fair point but to your original point about grand uh grandfathers it's so important i just think you know the way i when i watch my parents with my with our kids there's just they're just more patient um in many ways they're just uh there's just something so beautiful about those relationships and and the way they feed off of each other um the way they just you know my parents are just very routine oriented and our little valentina because she has downs loves routines and in some ways she just thrives under their schedule i think in a way that i it's just it's a it's, it's a predictability that I can't

provide for her because I have so many other kids and so many other things going on. And so the months that they spend with us in our house, I really think if anyone more than anybody, Valentina benefits from their love, from their sort of care and just that sort of low grandparent energy. But even our other kids, you know, Sean, we would they would go to my parents house, you know, for weeks at a time in the summer, sometimes a month at a time. And they would just, you know, fall into that grandparent routine. You know, they'd get up, they'd go to daily mass, then they go out for coffee, then they come home, they relax, they take a nap, they get up, they go to an early dinner.

I mean, they were on like the retirement schedule and it was good for them too, you know? And so I just, I love that we're having this conversation, Sean, because the politics of it, they want to distort the conversation and not really have what's at the heart of it, which is the love of grandparents, the love of the foundational, beautiful things that happen when families live and interact intergenerationally. These are beautiful things. We should be talking about it. We should be talking about how government can work for families instead of the other way around. How can we make it easier for families to live intergenerationally? How can we make, how can we make it, how can we incentivize grandparents to care for their grandkids? Because we know that's superior than strangers in a daycare. So these are conversations

we should be having. And the science backs up how powerful it is for the children, for the parents, but most interestingly, also for the grandparents. They live longer, they have better blood pressure, they have better health outcomes. And you and I have seen it firsthand that they just seem more joyful when they're around the grandkids. Well, I couldn't agree more. And it's important to go. We were not going to let that lie stand. Right. When we see the lie, we have to push back on it, which is the purpose of this podcast. And I think I think we've made our point clear intergeneration cool, grandparents with grandkids, cool

and good for everybody so love this topic Rachel I love you embracing whatever your menopausal state is, whatever you keep bringing that up and embrace it I keep telling him I'm very menopausal, he doesn't want to accept it we're going to do a whole episode on it

yes we are menopausal. He doesn't want to accept it. We're going to do a whole episode on perimenopause. No, we're not. Yes, we are. I start to get uncomfortable talking about all these topics. I'm good. Maybe you and Avita can do that together. Oh, no. We are going to have this talk. I'm going to bring someone on, an expert on perimenopause,

and we're going to talk about it. Fine. Listen, thank you all for joining us on this podcast. Listen, if you like our podcast, rate, review, subscribe, wherever you get your podcasts. Always find us at foxnewspodcast.com, Spotify or Apple, wherever you get your podcasts, you can find us there. And again, if you subscribe or share us with your friends

and family and neighbors, we would be grateful and we always are grateful that you would tune in for our conversation around the kitchen table. I hope you all have a great weekend and enjoy your families, your grandparents, your kids. Dive into it. Enjoy it. And thanks for being with us. Have a good weekend. Bye. Listen ad free with a Fox News podcast plus subscription on Apple podcast. And Amazon Prime members can listen to the show ad-free on the Amazon Music app. This is Jimmy Fallon inviting you to join me for Fox Across America,

where we'll discuss every single one of the Democrats' dumb ideas. Just kidding. It's only a three-hour show. Listen live at noon Eastern or get the podcast at foxacrossamerica.com.