The Megyn Kelly Show - Biden's SOTU Spectacle, and Job Market Reality, with Charles Cooke, Jeremy Peters, and Dave Ramsey | Ep. 489

Episode Date: February 8, 2023

Megyn Kelly is joined by Charles C.W. Cooke, senior writer for National Review, the New York Times' Jeremy Peters, author of Insurgency, and Dave Ramsey, host of The Dave Ramsey Show, to talk about whether we need a State of the Union spectacle at all, Biden's lies in the speech, the spectacle of Marjorie Taylor Greene and others yelling "liar," focusing on cultural issues rather than the economy, lack of commentary from Biden on foreign policy issues like China and Ukraine, the reality of the job market, whether we're in a recession, the true state of the economy, the housing market President Biden's age as a campaign vulnerability, knives out for VP Kamala Harris, the bizarre kiss between Dr. Jill Biden and Kamala Harris' husband, the value of hard work, and more.More from Cooke: https://charlescwcooke.comPeters' book: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/586398/insurgency-by-jeremy-w-peters/More from Ramsey: https://www.ramseysolutions.com Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow 

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. If you missed last night's State of the Union, good for you. You made the right call. They're never interesting. It's only the media that wants you to believe that they're interesting so that they have something to lure you into turning on the television uh there were a couple of moments that are worth discussing and just more generally where this country is going under this president

is interesting uh and there's some other stuff in the political news today that we want to get to so that's where we're going to go did you see the weird display of affection between the first lady and the second gentleman? Jill Biden, Dr. Jill Biden and Kamala Harris's husband. That was a little. OK, that's not the lead. I'm just saying as an aside, it was a little odd. The economy to hot topic. President Biden devoted a fair amount to that last night. And Dave Ramsey will be here in our second hour on that.

This speech coming as President Biden faces strong headwinds in the polls, with many saying he should not run in 2024. In fact, the majority of his own party says that. And the knives are also out for his vice president. They don't want her either, including a brutal article from The New York Times, which went deep with a ton of Democrats, top Democratic leaders, politicians and others, all of whom are expressing disappointment with her. She is not their big hope. So we begin with the perfect guests to break all of this down.

They joined us after last year's State of the Union. So we're developing a bit of a tradition with these two gentlemen, as well as November's election night. We have today with us Charles C.W. Cook, senior writer at National Review and host of the Charles C.W. Cook podcast, and Jeremy Peters, correspondent at The New York Times. Guys, welcome back. Thanks for having me. Glad to be here. I'm not going to lie. I was out to dinner. So on the way home from dinner, I turned on, on Sirius XM and

I listened to the back half of the speech and then caught the transcript and read it, but I'm sorry, they're boring and they never make much of an impact. It was like president Bush's mention of like the uranium cake. Remember whatever that was, that was something that people would remember. Sometimes they remember the outburst. Maybe people remember Marjorie Taylor Greene yelling liar like we did that other guy 12, 14 years ago who yelled. I don't know. You tell me, am I wrong, Jeremy? Isn't this just a media dance to try to get people to pay attention to us, not so much him? You raise a really good point. And I think the punditry around these events, not just the State of the Union, but every kind of major speech or event that a president or the

leader of a political party does is the significance of it gets so exaggerated by the media. I mean, we saw story after story last night about how this is the kickoff to Joe Biden's 2024 presidential campaign, as if any voter is going to remember what Joe Biden said in the speech last night when they go to the polls next year. I mean, it's the inflated significance that many of my colleagues, and I'm sure I've been guilty of this over the years, that we apply to these things is it just doesn't do the public any good. And more importantly, it doesn't tell us anything about how 2024 is going to shake out because we still don't even know who the nominee is going to be for either major party because, you know, a lot could happen in the next year. And although Biden says he's going to run, maybe, maybe he does, maybe he doesn't. And we don't know if Trump is going to see a legitimate and viable challenger to his quest for the Republican nomination. So I don't think this speech settled any of the major

political questions that we as a country are going to be confronting in the next year, year and a half. It's so true, Charles, the to Jeremy's point about like, are we really going to be confronting in the next year, year and a half. It's so true, Charles, the to Jeremy's point about like, are we really going to be basing anything and the next campaign on what happened last night? Will there be anything that resonates or sticks for or against President Biden or for or against his Republican detractors? No. And that's one of the reasons why one of the biggest laughs I've had in the past 14 hours is the pundits saying, aha, he walked them into a trap. Chris Wallace said he literally, I think, walked them into a trap with the getting them to stand and clap for supporting Medicare and Social Security. He they're trapped. They're on record applauding as if some Republicans not going to leader say, you know, we really need to reform those. I know. Oh, they're trapped. They're on record applauding as if some Republicans not

going to leader say, you know, we really need to reform those. I know. Oh, but you stood. You stood and you clapped at the State of the Union. That's that you can't go back on that now. Why do we engage in these absurd lies? Right. That we I guess it's just to drive press coverage for a day or depending on your partisanship, make yourself feel better about your side. Well, as those things, we've also turned the president into a king, an emperor, the pope. This is an event that is at odds with the American constitutional tradition, and in my view, should be abolished. I'm really pleased that you introduced this segment the way you did, Megan, because it makes it easier for me

to say that I hated it. I was primed to hate it because I don't like the State of the Union. The Constitution does not require this sort of spectacle. It could easily be delivered by letter. Frankly, it could easily be satisfied by the president's day-to-day activities. All he is obliged to do constitutionally is from time to time update the legislature about the country. He does that. He does that every few weeks when he talks in public. It certainly doesn't require this sort of spectacle. But that aside, this particular spectacle, I hated. I hated the president. I hated the Republicans who behave like barn animals. I hated the flagrant lying. I hated the pundits who responded to it

with absurd hyperbole. This was the greatest speech he's ever made. This is the pinnacle of his career. In 80 years, he's never had a moment like this, but absolute nonsense. It wasn't informative. He didn't really make any arguments. He did what all presidents do now, which is to cast themselves as the great talisman of the nation. Anything that good happens, they did. Anything bad happens was despite them, was their opponent's fault. He barely mentioned Ukraine. I'm in favor of aid to Ukraine. I think it's important. I also think the president ought to make the case for it if he's going to talk to the legislature that's funding it. He didn't talk much about China, which just sent a spy balloon over the continental United States. He spent about 48 seconds talking about the social issues with

which his administration is obsessed. He told a whole bunch of lies about the economy and his role therein. I found it appalling. This isn't limited to Joe Biden, but last night's was probably the worst one thus far. And I expect from here on out, they're going to get even worse until someone eventually has the good sense to say,

I'm doing the State of the Union as a PDF from now on. As a tweet, that's what we should get next go around, no matter who's the president. People will be a lot happier. Yeah, no, I really maintain it's a media driven event. If they didn't build it up so much, I mean, you could just run it on C-SPAN and we could all go about our merry lives. Nobody's persuaded by this stuff., you are looking for a little drama. I mean, I agree with the barn animal comment that it was absurd to see that moment with Marjorie Taylor Greene was about her. She tried to she's trying to get ink in Jeremy's paper and your paper and my on my show that she wants attention. That's why like they were already, you know, sort of booing him and they

didn't they didn't they were showing that they disagreed with what he was saying a little parliamentary in there. But she she was looking for our attention. And of course, we give it to her. The whole thing gets so tiresome, Jeremy. As if her desire for attention weren't evident from that outfit she was wearing. Well, I mean, it's just like, look at me, look at me. Oh, I was listening to your, your serious colleague Howard Stern this morning and he said she looked like Sharon Stone in casino. Like what was going on there? She wishes.

You know, in all seriousness though, what that moment demonstrated more than anything else, I think, is the difficulty that Kevin McCarthy is going to have with this conference and corralling his members to extend Charles's barnyard animal analogy there. for him to keep members like Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and some of these other hecklers in line, because they showed last night that they are about this kind of performative politics more about that than they are about actual policy. I mean, it's a politics of performance. It's a politics of outrage. And they're quite good at creating spectacles. I mean, there's a reason why Marjorie Taylor Greene was, if not the most prolific fundraiser, one of the top two or three fundraisers in the Republican Party last election cycle. This is what a large swath of the Republican base likes to see. They like to see people who are willing to be irreverent and to stick it to the

powers that be, often in their own party. And they will be rewarded for challenging not just Joe Biden, but challenging leaders like Kevin McCarthy. I didn't mind, Charles. I mean, you're originally from England. I didn't mind some of the like, no, boo, like a little bit of the crowd reaction. It kind of helped the viewer at home keep tabs on, oh, OK, they're challenging him on that. OK, sort of I'm putting a pin in that to remember the parties are at odds on this and what Biden's saying is controversial. That that kind of appealed to me, I have to say. But the individual even like the fact the way you know it was about Marjorie Taylor Greene that moment, I guess I'll play it so the audience can hear it, is that she yelled liar. Right. I could even get on board. Maybe. I don't. Probably not.

But if she just yelled not true like that. OK, she's fired up. She's she's indignant. No, she had to make it personal. An ad hominem attack on the president of the United States while he's doing his duty. And so that's how, know she went low road. And there was no reason to go low road. The Republicans would be so much better served if they tried to look classy and respectful. And then and then heard our friends over the commentary podcast making a very good point in this today. Have somebody I love Sarah Huckabee Sanders, but have somebody take the mic after who can then nimbly and in real time say, this was a lie. This was a lie. Let me tell you what he meant when he was talking about social security. He was talking about Rick Scott, Senator from the state of

Florida, who submitted this proposal to take aim at social security and Medicare, which within two seconds of it hitting the printing press, uh, was rejected by Mitch McConnell, the guy who's actually in control of the Republican agenda. That's all he's referring to this guy, right? Like they didn't have that. And so, and in the moment, they just decided to make a spectacle about it. I'll play the, I'll play the moment just so the audience who missed it, who was wisely eating dinner, like I was, uh, knows what we're talking about. And then I'll give you the floor, Charles. Here it is. Stop1. Instead of making the wealthy pay their fair share, some Republicans, some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset. I'm not saying it's a majority. Let me give you anybody who doubts it. Contact my office. I'll give you a copy. I'll give you a copy of the proposal.

That means Congress doesn't vote. Well, I'm glad to see you. I tell you, I enjoy conversion. I'm not saying it's a majority of you. I don't even think it's even a significant, but it's being proposed by individuals. I'm not politely not naming them, but it's being proposed by some of you. Go ahead, Charles, your thoughts. Well, I think this is a structural question. Clearly, President Biden is a habitual liar on almost any topic that he can lie about. He lies and he did it there. The guy's a demagogue, so I'm not bothered per se by people pushing back, but this is not the British Parliament. If I go back to where I started, we're supposed to have separation

of powers in this country. We're supposed to have a system in which each branch jealously protects its prerogatives. The very fact that we allow the President of the United States to go into the legislative chamber in the first place, I think is a mistake. We don't have a fused system as in Britain. We don't even have an adversarial system. It's entertaining. I grew up watching it. But we have a horseshoe. We're supposed to be more cooperative than that. So the idea that the president would in the first place be put in a position in which he could lecture another branch of government that is run by the opposite party is, I think, absurd, and a reason we should get rid of the State of the Union. But if that

chamber, if the Speaker of the House of Representatives is going to invite, which he has to, the President to address the chamber, then the members of that chamber should not behave like that. And that doesn't excuse Biden for lying throughout, demagoguing throughout, which he did. But I don't like this idea that we need a bit more of this in our politics like the British. The British have a different system than we do. And if you're going to have the president there making his case, then let him do it. One thing about that exchange, Jeremy, was that the booing, the jeering did get him to back off a little. Like, I have to give give them that point that he then was on his heels and said, oh, well, it's not the majority of you.

It's not even most of you. And it left the audience, at least me, asking myself, then why are you raising it? If this isn't really a big push by the Republicans, why did you start off with that sweeping sentence, if not just to scare the bejesus out of the old people who he knows votes vote? It was a moment, Megan, that I found kind of odd, like many other in the speech where the president kind of expressed a lack of self-confidence. He would take these kind of self-deprecating shots at himself and his leadership and say, well, you know, I know that, you know, you don't think I'm capable of, or you don't think

I've done X, Y, or Z. I don't know why he chose to back away from that. I mean, look, was that particular line in the speech a little disingenuous? Sure. As you say, this is Rick Scott's proposal. And it's about sunsetting all federal legislation. And that would, of course, include Medicare and Social Security. But the vast majority of Republicans roundly rejected it when it came out. So this is the kind of trick that people in both political parties do. I mean, let's not pretend that Biden is the only one that has ever taken a sliver of a policy white paper, a sentence, a clause even of a proposal from the other side and exaggerated it. I mean, this is why attack ad makers make millions and millions of dollars.

This is, this is unfortunately how many important issues in our politics get debated. And, and it leaves the public, I think, with a lack of real understanding about what's truly at stake here. But, you know, there were moments in Biden's in his delivery, like we saw in this, this, this excerpt, where he's, he was a little unsure of himself. And I think that that's probably because he's looking at the same numbers that we are. And he's seeing that the vast majority of Americans feel like the country is on the wrong track. And that many, many Americans, including those in his own party, don't think that he should run again. Look, he doesn't get very high marks at this point in his presidency. That doesn't mean that voters dislike him or find him distasteful,

but it does mean that they have questions about his leadership and his ability to take the country in the direction that it needs to go if we're going to pull ourselves out of this slump. And that's where Republicans that I talked to believe that Kevin McCarthy and their colleagues should be attacking the Biden administration on. It's on the economic conditions, his economic record, because that's what's mattering most to people at home, not these kind of theatrical sideshows where you have Republican members of Congress heckling him from from the crowd. What do you make of that, Charles? Because I, of course, I am not woke and I am fully engaged in the in the culture battle over, you know, the racialization of everything and the radical

transgender ideology being shoved on young children. It's like I'm in those wars as a pundit. And so what Sarah Huckabee Sanders said after the fact appealed to me. But but when you look at the polls and what really matters to voters, it is the economy, stupid. It really is. And those numbers that are driving Joe Biden's polls down so low, 42 percent, I think, of the lowest the latest approval rating and And 66% of the population thinking the country's in the wrong direction. That's the RealClearPolitics average, 66% saying wrong direction. It's much higher than that in many polls. And a majority of Democrats saying they don't want him to run again.

It's all very, very linked to the economy. And so what of the culture war response versus just zeroing in on those economic numbers and pounding them relentlessly? Yeah, I suspect that Joe Biden was underconfident in that moment because he knew what he was saying was a lie. He would like it to be true that Republicans wanted to get rid of Social Security and Medicare because those programs are really popular. It's not true. He knows that it's not true. He knows also that the weird social policies that his party seems to be advancing are not popular. And that's why he barely mentioned them yesterday at all. I think from the other side,

Sarah Huckabee Sanders made the same mistake inverted, which is that she decided to focus on the thing that people don't care about as much as the economy. And she did so with a lot of hyperbole as well. My instinct here is that Biden is in one sense showing us that he is the Democrats' best candidate, because not all of the people who might replace him have that grasp of what matters to people. I mean, I thought the speech was wildly dishonest. I thought most of the narratives were false. But he does seem at one level to understand the best cards that he can play. Maybe it's his age, maybe it's because he's

been around democratic politics for 50 years. Maybe there is something to him being, you know, folksy Joe that people who say marinated in universities don't understand. But he did put his best foot forward yesterday. Now, I think it was frivolous often. disgrace, and I include Republicans in this, that we spend minutes of that speech yesterday listening to complaints about ticket master and resort fees and not about our massive $31 trillion debt, our endless budget deficits, our total unwillingness to talk about Social Security, Medicare and other entitlements other than to have stupid, meaningless, irrelevant, out of touch fights about whether we want to end them or not, which nobody does. That's not the question. But Biden has a difficult set of cards in his hand, and I think he played them relatively

well. And I just can't say the same for Sarah Huckabee Sanders. She talked about what Republican base voters care a great deal about at the moment and should. I don't think it's frivolous. I don't think those are irrelevant culture war issues. And I find it quite irritating, in fact, when people say, oh, that's just the culture war. But what do you mean that's just the culture war? That's your children's school. That couldn't be much more important than that. But as you say, at the moment, the biggest weakness for Biden is not the culture war, because for whatever reason, he's actually not seen as a culture warrior. Maybe he's too old. It's the younger people within the party who are seen as culture warriors. He is very vulnerable on the economy. And I do wish we'd seen more of that. So sort of, in one sense, Biden actually did a better job than Sarah Huckabee Sanders because he focused in on his strengths and his opponent's weaknesses. And to the point one of you raised earlier, almost nothing on China. So we're going to talk about Ticketmaster. But I mean,

it had to be less than 100 words on China. And he just sort of this passing reference to the balloon like and we did, you know, show them who's boss or however you put it. So China is a massive problem facing the United States right now. And there's a lot of criticism going his way that he doesn't know how to deal with them, especially in light of our positioning in Ukraine with respect to Russia and so on. And I don't think anybody who's got those concerns, and it should be everybody, is feeling better about them today because he just blew it off. I mean, it's like, what did we learn? We learned about, I guess, burger shop workers who are allegedly under non-competes. I mean, where? Okay. But perhaps there's been a case here or there that got time

in the state of the union. He called attention to Tyree Nichols, who I've said yesterday, God love the family of Tyree Nichols, but that those cops have yet to be tried. And there's something as a lawyer that makes me very uncomfortable with the president United States calling attention to it and call it and painting it as a thing before the jury and the justice system has had their say. You know, he already did this with Kyle Rittenhouse and other cases to Jacob Blake. He and Kamala Harris. Same thing. Like, just be quiet. All right. I know you want to say something. Just be quiet. When a case that's the justice system has not yet played out. All this time, I've had nothing on China. Who wants to take that? speech at time seemed a little off. And that's because these culture war issues are not in Biden's wheelhouse. It's not who he is. He's not a progressive. And Republicans will try to paint him that way. That's what they did in 2020. It didn't work then. And I don't see it working

for them again. This is why it's so important of Republicans I speak to believe to talk about the economy. People know the economy isn't working for them. They know that the country doesn't feel like it's at its best and that it's moving in the right direction. Republicans hammer those points instead of focusing on what gets them cable news time or gets them applause from Twitter. I mean, you know, the Ron DeSantis playbook here. I don't know that anybody really can replicate that. And to Charles's point, Sarah Sanders attempt to do that last night really fell kind of flat. And that's because when all is said and done, people are going to be more concerned about the economy. And that's Biden's, that's where he can make the most effective case

for his reelection. It's also his biggest vulnerability because the economy is not good right now. What he needs to be able to do is tell people, look, you should trust me and the Democratic Party over these Republicans who, frankly, didn't look like they were in much of a position to govern last night with all of that catcalling and hooting and hollering from the House floor. If I could take the China question. Yeah, go. This is why I hated the speech. And this is why I hate most of those speeches. The constitutional responsibility is to update the legislature. Foreign policy is a role the president legally is obliged to spearhead. He

doesn't get to decide whether or not we go to war. But outside of that, he is instrumental in our foreign policy. I know that he doesn't want to talk about China. I know that he knows as well as anyone else that the American public is not as interested in China as it should be. But I think he had a responsibility to address what happened last night, whether he wanted to or not, whether it made him look good or not, whether it would fit into a campaign speech or not. I think he should have spent some time explaining where we are with China, what the balloon they sent represented, why he decided to shoot it down. That is the point of the State of the Union. But he didn't. I think the same on Ukraine, as I said earlier, I think it would have been a good use of his time. And I'm broadly aligned with President Biden on Ukraine. This

isn't a criticism of the policy. I think it would have been a good use of his time to make for two, three, four minutes, a case for why we are sending them so much money and getting involved and slowly escalating up the chain with what we're sending them. The latest seems to be tanks. That would have been a public service. And of course, I'm not naive enough to think this is going to happen. But I think the same thing is true on entitlements, and should be under Republican presidents as well. It would be a public service for a US president to say to the country, in a primetime address like this, and to the legislature that controls the budget, here is the problem we have with social security. Now, you can argue all day as to how we should fix it. You can say if you're a Democrat, we have to raise taxes. You can say if you're a Republican,

we need to reform or cut or not. Many Republicans don't want to reform or cut. They want to either do nothing or raise taxes or a combination of the three or run away. But it would have been a public service. So why didn't he address China? He didn't address China because he did not see this as a presidential function. He saw it as a campaign event. And the upshot of it is that it was a pointless event and worse. China's not a winner. This is, I think, all he said. It's 13 seconds long, as cut in the following soundbite, SOT 8 on China.

I'm committed to work with China where we can advance American interests and benefit the world, but make no mistake about it. As we made clear last week, if China threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country, and we did. By the way, it was an attack that threatened our sovereignty? Because that's not really the messaging we were getting from the administration last week. It was like, Oh, get over your obsession with the damn balloon. Would you move on? It's like, wait, what could,

could you talk more about that? How did it threaten our sovereignty? Exactly. Go on, go. But you're right. Cause he, as much as he wants to say, I get it, I get it. Then don't be afraid to go to the difficult topics and like, show us that you actually do get it and you're wrestling with it. The thing about Social Security and Medicare is a great one, Jeremy, because I've been talking about these issues long enough on the news that I remember the whole generation when I first joined Fox in 2004, that was a lot younger then. And they were talking about these things are going to have to be managed. They're going to go bankrupt. It's our elderly parents things are going to have to be managed. They're going to go bankrupt. It's, you know, our elderly parents who are going to have to deal with

this and then us as a result. And then that whole group is now aged into retirement age. Now they don't want to talk about it. Now the young people today are like, well, this is a problem to deal with in 15 years. They're going to age out. They're not going to want to talk about it. But sooner or later, we're going to be left with this massive problem. And all these politicians who skated through by just getting reelected by never touching it are going to be gone. And someone will be left to pay the bill at some point. You're exactly right. It's a crushing problem that we're facing on the horizon here. But it's not just that Republicans don't want to talk about this anymore.

It's that the ones who were front and center in the debate over public entitlement spending, I'm thinking of former Speaker Paul Ryan, were driven out of the party. And they were replaced by the likes of Donald Trump and Republicans who were much more comfortable saying they wanted to spend more money on Social Security, on Medicare. And remember Trump, he famously said, he said this over and over. I remember interviewing him once when I was writing my book, and we talked about his position on entitlements. And he told me about the time he told Paul Ryan that he thought Republicans had a death wish for continuing to pursue cuts to these really popular programs. Now, politically, of

course, he was correct. The question of what that means for the future stability of our economy is another thing altogether. And you're right to point out it is a very real problem. But at a time when political courage is really lacking in our leadership in Washington, I wouldn't expect anyone in either party to do anything about this anytime soon. Courage. What you saw, the courageous moment last night was with the woman in the casino coat, Howard Stern. He's right. That was the most courageous moment we had last evening, unfortunately. When we come back, I wanted to spend a minute on the media. You mentioned it in passing, Jeremy, that, you know, the greatest ever. We've got some of that. And I want to get

into some of the spin because I found that almost more interesting than the actual remarks. Standby as Charles and Jeremy stay with us. OK, so the media, not surprisingly, everyone I saw on CNN and MSNBC, the main channels loved it.. They were delighted. You could tell that he exceeded their expectations and they were relieved. Here's just a little sampling of Wolf Blitzer of CNN and Joy Reid on MSNBC. I've heard President Biden, going back to his 36 years in the U.S. Senate, deliver a lot of speeches over the years. I've covered him for many, many years. I've gotten to know him a bit. I think this was the best speech I have ever heard him deliver. He was passionate.

It was extremely well written. He clearly had practiced it. And he delivered a powerful message to the American people. Remember the argument that went into this is there's a lot of anxiety in the Democratic sort of political world about Biden's age. He shattered that tonight. You think? Jeremy, your thoughts? Well, I think part of the issue is that Republicans have set the bar so low, the expectations for Biden so low, as one of them said to me, you know, they spent the last couple of weeks talking about how Biden was basically going to fall off the stage. And then when he doesn't do that, he ends up looking okay. I mean he ran one sentence into the next, but it certainly wasn't as devastating a performance as much of a bomb as many on the right were hoping that it

would be. I mean, I was listening to your friends, Megan, who do the Ruthless podcast, you know, Josh Holmes and his buddies, Mitch McConnell's former chief of staff. And I like those guys. I think they give smart political analysis. But yesterday they were talking basically about how it would be, you know, Biden was going to split his pants on the stage. And they're talking about him as if he's this senile guy who's who's got one foot in the grave. Well, you know what? He's not dead yet. And if Republicans keep talking about him like he is, I think he's going to continue to beat the spread here on nights like this and in debates. I mean, remember, one of the moments when he really rebounded in the 2020 campaign was after that first debate when everybody expected him to be this doddering, stammering old fool. And he didn't look like that at all. So I think Republicans, again, would be wise to stop talking about some of these more superficial issues and get on to

substance and attack the Biden administration over its policy. See, I disagree profoundly with that. I don't think this is a question of expectations. And I also don't think for what it's worth that Republicans and conservatives, and anyone who doesn't like Joe Biden pointing out his age and inability to speak is a problem. I'll take this one by one. If you look at the quotes that we just heard in the clips that were played. The argument being made was not Joe Biden did better than expected. Joe Biden was supposed to blow this and didn't. Joe Biden was more on the ball than some anticipated. The argument was this was objectively a terrific speech. This was, I think Wolf Blitzer

said, the best speech he's ever given the best speech he's given in 80 years during which time he's been vice president he's been a senator since what 1973 four that is an absurd claim and it's a claim that was contrived before this speech was ever given he could have come out last night ripped his shirt off and thrown water balloons at all of the members of the supreme court and they would still have said, wow, what a great speech, the best speech he's given in 80 years. On the broader question of Republicans pointing out that Biden has passed it, I think it's imperative. I don't think it's imperative from some cynical, amoral political perspective. I think it's imperative because it's true.

And I think that it's imperative because it is true and the American public know it's true. And I think that it's imperative because it is true. And the American public know it's true. Look at the NBC poll from last week. 28% of Americans think that he is capable of being president of the United States. They think that he is able to do the job at his age. 28%, less than a third think that he can do it. 31, I think, said that he would be able to handle his job in a crisis. You can't con people into thinking that. If Republicans had said that Barack Obama was incapable of doing the job in a crisis, that he was too old, that he was too senile, that he was too ineloquent, no one would have believed it because it wasn't true. They didn't go down that road because it would have been unprofitable to do so. I think it's really important for people to say this

because it's correct. He's too old for the job. It's really clear that that is getting worse as he proceeds. And to pretend as the press did that what we saw last night was a masterclass, I think it's farcical and irresponsible. Can I tell you, this is reminding me a little bit of, forgive me for this sidetrack,

but Madonna looked bizarre the other night at the Grammys. She's clearly done something to her face that she's crossing over. She looks like the cat lady right now and just like so much filler. And her response has been on Instagram to say, that is ageist. I'm sick of this ageist society in which we live. And that is not, I'd be the first to say that's ageist. It's not, it's no one has a problem with her age, except for Madonna, clearly, who's doing bizarre things

to herself to avoid looking 64, which she is. The criticisms on Joe Biden and his moments of senility are not about people object to his age per se, that he's 80. Look at Alan Dershowitz. You'd be hard pressed to find somebody who is more on point or intellectually nimble than Alan. He's still got it full bore. And he's four or six years older than Joe Biden. It's not about Joe Biden's age or his stutter as the media was, you know, the other side of the media, Jeremy, like the Republicans are like, he's going to fall down and split his pants. But a lot of these Democrats were like, he's got a stutter going into last night. Like, remember, he's worked hard to overcome it, right? It's like, no,

it's not about his age and it's not about his stutter. It's about him. And he's clearly losing his grip. He wanders, he mumbles. He didn't last night know that Chuck Schumer was the majority leader now and not the minority leader. He couldn't remember the name of that ambassador. He messed up Tyree Nichols name like that. It's a pattern for him. And it's a huge vulnerability. I mean, nothing I said earlier is is should suggest that I don't know for a fact that Democrats are very worried about this. And in Biden's own, you know, focus groups, what Democrats have seen in their poll numbers, they know that his age is a major concern for a

lot of voters and that when they see when Americans see him speak, they don't feel comfortable when he wanders off topic when he slurs his words when he can't finish his sentences, because it reminds them that yes, he is in his 80s. And that is something that, you know, it's why we didn't see him a whole lot in 2020 on the campaign trail. As one Republican strategist put it to me, that this was a really effective democratic strategy, because all Biden really needed to do was issue a proof of life video every six weeks or so. And he was probably going to beat Trump anyway. So it's it's not going away. And I don't know what the answer is, how you you can't you can't explain it away. You can't tell the public that they're not seeing what they are seeing with their own eyes. You know, they can't tell the public that they're not seeing what they are seeing with their own eyes.

You know, they can't pretend that Biden is a spry 65 year old man. And if Democrats try that, if they try to ignore it or downplay it, it's it's not going to work because voters don't like being told that they're stupid. Well, you raise a good point, which is the Democrats know, too. They're not going to run and say it out on the air, but they know, too. And they would love, according to these polls, to exchange him for somebody else. But they don't want Kamala Harris, according to your newspaper, which had a fascinating report this week on her called Kamala Harris is trying to define her vice presidency. This is the headline. Even her allies are tired of waiting. It goes risen to the challenge of proving herself as the future leader of the party, much less the country. Even some Democrats whom her own advisors referred reporters to for supportive quotes confided privately that they had lost hope in her. They used the term quiet panic setting in among key Democrats. What do you make of that,

Jeremy? Because it doesn't seem like it seems like for the New York Times to write this kind of article says something. It's interesting because you picked up on the key sentence, the one that I was going to mention, I'm glad you did, is that the people that her office suggested New York Times reporters get in touch with, people who were presumably going to vouch for Kamala Harris and say what a good job she was doing and how she wasn't getting the benefit of the doubt, those people privately told my colleagues that they have lost faith in her and that they don't think that she's doing a great job. That's significant in and of itself, but it also speaks to the lack of competence that she and her staff project. And people across Washington that I talked to have picked up on this. They've complained about it a lot. It's not just that she doesn't have a national profile or that people don't really know what her identity is or her political brand. It's that they don't think that she's very good at her job. And that's a really hard image to correct. I will say just one last point here. What I found

most interesting was not necessarily the article itself, but what I read in the comments from New York Times readers about Kamala Harris. And it was overwhelmingly, almost to a person, hundreds and hundreds of people, New York Times subscribers and readers who said, we don't think she's doing a good job. She had a chance. She blew it. And that tells you about where, you know, a certain core constituency, presumably of Kamala Harris's and the Democratic Party, you know, a New York Times reader that tells you what they really think of her and that her standing among, you know, people who are left of center is is actually pretty low. What are they going to do about this problem, Charles? Because if Biden I mean, he's expected to announce that he's running, but maybe he won't. And even if he does, there's significant fear that he won't be able to serve

out a second term were he to win one. Never mind his first term. He's got a couple of years left on that. And the Times points out accurately that some did not feel she could win the presidency in 2024, but some felt the party's biggest challenge would be finding a way to sideline her without inflaming key Democratic constituencies that would take offense. Which leads me to what Ron Klain told the paper, the president's departing chief of staff, which I think is just so telling. He talks about how she carries the expectations that are upon her as the first vice president who, vice president, who's a female, who's a person of color, who's got, she checks a bunch of identity boxes. She carries these expectations, not as a burden, but with grace and an understanding of how much her history making role inspires others. I mean, my lay person interpretation of that is it's enough that

she's diverse. You're welcome. She's diverse is it's enough that she's diverse. You're welcome. She's diverse. Just be glad that she's diverse. She's breaking barriers left and right just by being diverse. Nothing more is really required. Well, that was my favorite part of the piece because I think that it is deliciously awkward and it shows the limits and the well-deserved limits of identitarian

politics, which judges people based on their immutable characteristics and not the content of their character while pretending to do the opposite. What that essentially means is that if the Democratic Party wants to defenestrate Kamala Harris, it's going to have to tell a whole bunch of people why it was profoundly inspiring to have a half-Black, half-Indian woman as vice president, but it wouldn't be inspiring to elevate that person to the nomination for president. Now, you can say, if you want and should say, it's because she's not good enough. But then you have to admit that that was true all along. On the question of who could succeed Joe Biden, this is Biden's greatest strength.

I was asked at an event I did recently, how can it be in a country of 330 plus million people that Donald Trump and Joe Biden seem to be the front runners for the presidency. And the answers are actually very different between the parties. The answer for Trump is that Donald Trump has a hold on primary voters. They like him. They've rejected the Republican parties that previously existed, and they're attached to Trump. I personally don't think Trump's going to be the nominee. I think that that attachment is dwindling. But if he is, it will be because he came in and reformed the party and the primary voters liked it. The reason that Joe Biden is the front runner is that the Democratic Party's bench has been chopped up over and over and over again for 10 to 12 years. It got destroyed in 2010. It got destroyed in 2014 and 2016. And to a lesser extent in 2020, even though Biden won the presidency, Democrats did not do as well as they had hoped in the Senate, in the House and in the States.

The simple answer there is there isn't really anyone else. Kamala Harris is a disaster. Pete Buttigieg is a joke. There are some other figures around the edges, perhaps Gavin Newsom. But I'm not convinced the Democratic Party wants to nominate a Californian in 2024, especially if Ron DeSantis is the nominee. I don't think a California v. Florida fight is going to go very well in the rest of the country. Joe Biden may well be their best option. So the question, well, who can replace him? I don't know. And they don't know.

And that's why you're seeing this panic. And it's also why you're seeing people tell the New York Times that Kamala Harris isn't up to it because they're aware that they may not get the choice to re-nominate Joe Biden. And they're going to have to start thinking about what they're going to do instead pretty quick. Two things,

two things quickly. My favorite part of the piece was the times discussing the challenges posed by having a woman VP, foreign leaders wanting her to meet with first ladies. That's BS. That would be annoying, but talking about how she's even revolutionizing the office chair, her top or her recently stepped down communications director

saying he learned that the desk chairs in the office needed to be changed to suit her. She's only five foot two. Instead of average male height, like her predecessors, she forces us, quote, to recalibrate our assumptions. By being short? Okay. I'm sure we can do better than that.

Quickly before we go well why people should not be mouth kissing ever if it's not your husband your mouth or your or your spouse it here's kamala's husband and joe biden's wife kissing on the mouth i'm sorry secondhand uncomfortable feeling should it be done or shouldn't it? Charles, quickly. I had no idea what's going on in that clip. Jeremy, would you like to weigh in? Not in flu season. Not ever. Don't kiss me on my mouth. Don't do it. In fact, don't kiss me and probably don't hug me either. Just, you know, like the wave, like the pat. I'll take that. Definitely no mouth kissing. Gross. I don't know where your mouth's been and I don't want to know. Charles and Jeremy, what a pleasure. Thanks, guys.

Thanks, Megan. Biden spent a large portion of his boring State of the Union address talking about the economy, but what is the real state of the economy? My next guest knows and is here to tell you. Dave Ramsey is host of The Dave Ramsey Show. He joins me now knows and is here to tell you. Dave Ramsey is host of the Dave Ramsey Show. He joins me now. Dave, great to see you. Thanks for coming back. Well, thank you. Good to talk to you. So what'd you make of it last night? What was your impression? Well, I mean, presidents always take credit for the economy, whatever that is, unless it's bad. And it's not really their fault one way or the other.

So this president, and generally speaking, Washington's pretty much out of touch with what's going on with real people. And so for a president to stand up and say things that indicate that he's out of touch is not unusual. And to take credit for things that he didn't do is not unusual. But in my opinion, President Biden took that to a whole new level. He's extremely out of touch and completely just looked to me like he was just making up numbers. I don't know where they got these ideas. I understand he inherited an economy in which businesses were shut down. So saying that they can start up again isn't really job creation. Well, I mean, let's be clear. No president creates jobs. Businesses create jobs. The only thing a president can do is to cast a vision over the country, give the country a belief that things are going to go well. And then in the environment of strong leadership, stable, predictable leadership,

then business people will create jobs. But government has never created a job ever, except a government job. And he didn't create 12 million government jobs. We know that. 80,000 extra IRS people, apparently, but not 12 million. So government doesn't create jobs. And Trump didn't create jobs. I mean, nobody, my governor in Tennessee, I got a great governor here, is a friend of mine, but he doesn't create the jobs. He just creates an environment where those of us that hire people actually create the jobs. And so what of that, though? Because even his policies, like it ties together with another beef I had with the remarks, which was he kept saying how COVID shut things down. COVID shut down the economy.

COVID shut down businesses. And that was, I mean, the passive COVID. COVID didn't do anything. Politicians decided to shut things down. Democrats, Democrats, for the most part. And Joe Biden was chief among them in wanting to keep businesses shuttered. It's part of the reason why there's so much resentment of him in many business corners. So he's out there saying it was covid that shut things down. But it was Joe Biden that opened things back up and created jobs. Yeah, which is absolutely absurd. I mean, we just ran the COVID. Whatever element of truth was around COVID and whatever element of mythology was around COVID that caused a the greatest economic shutdown in the history of the United States never happened before. And I pray it never happens again, that we, uh, all willingly go along with these idiots and do this again ever, but the flattening of the curve and all the garbage we went through, um, yeah, to reopen after that is no, you didn't

create anything and you didn't, you know, where was the part where you did us a favor? I, again, we just got back business people. We just get back to going, what we do, which is run businesses. And, uh, thank God we're able to do that again. But the, the, the COVID ran its course, whether the mythology ran its course, our unwillingness to comply ran its course, uh, or, uh, the actual disease ran its course, but it ran its course, our unwillingness to comply ran its course, or the actual disease ran its course, but it ran its course. And no one gets to take credit for that. The only thing we can do is learn from the thing that happened and look back and go, going forward, are we ever going to be

willing to be told to comply like that again? the um she should not storm the capitol she was just there to attend the trump speech but this is a woman who was a single mom a new mom and um had a chain of businesses she had built dave you would appreciate this it was like a hair salon uh maybe tanning salon i'm testing my memory but she had like maybe five or six small shops that she had recently opened and they were doing pretty well and was told to shut them down during COVID. COVID told her to shut them down. And I think she was living in the state of Oregon, blue state, you know, extreme measures.

And because I was kind of going in depth with her on what brought you to the Capitol on January 6th. And she, well, though she didn't storm, she was a believer that somehow they were going to reinstate Trump, you know, like they were going to reverse, you know, she did't storm, she was a believer that somehow they were going to reinstate Trump. You know, like they were going to reverse. You know, she did sort of get sucked down the rabbit hole. And what the government did to her in the shutting down of her business and basically making it impossible for her to support her new baby and her lifestyle is what drove her there. She started to lose her tether on what was real, what was appropriate for her and her position as this mom, and got there, got spun up. This woman was hurt by politicians who made bad decisions that directly affected her. She was not hurt by, quote,

COVID. And she is, I guarantee you, not sitting there feeling grateful to Joe Biden for now creating jobs by letting her salvage what's left of her business, if she even can. She moved, I think, to Arizona after all this happened. Well, and I mean, it's old news, but we can vary. It's easy to look at the correlation between who opened up and when. And the correlation does run down political lines. It runs down party lines. And so, you know, you, you, the, the most draconian and longest shutdowns were in blue

States, uh, and red States opened up faster. I mean, you can argue about why, or you can say, I don't like them because of that, or I do like them because of that. But the actual data is there that, you know, California stayed shut down. Oregon stayed shut down. Michigan stayed shut down. Tennessee opened up. Florida opened up.

New York stayed shut down. Texas opened up. And so you can run it right down the lines of what happened there. And it is a party line thing so in that sense politicians do uh if they're driving something like the quarantine um or or the shutdown or the draconian measures or whatever whatever we want to name that stuff in that sense they're they are uh not creating anything but they're creating the problems and when they finally get out of the way i don't know why you get to take credit for that. Right. No, it's true. Forgive me. I just

wanted to mention this one moment to the audience, Dave. This isn't exactly in your wheelhouse, but I did think it was worth mentioning while we're on the subject of January 6th. There was a moment in which Joe Biden once again referred to that as the greatest threat our nation has faced since the Civil War. All right. Three thousand Americans died on 9-11. But this was the greatest threat we faced since the Civil War. Jan 6.

He said it. And when he said it, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy did not clap for that. I'll show you the moment. Here it is. First, here's the moment. It's not six. Two years ago, democracy faced its greatest threats in the Civil War, and today, though bruised, our democracy remains unbowed and unbroken. Now you can see in the background, Kevin McCarthy did not stand. Kamala Harris did stand. And here

was CNN, Jamie Gengel, I think, reacting to that later in the evening. Listen to this. I do want to point out one thing. When he spoke at the beginning of the evening about January 6th, and he said, our democracy faced the greatest threat since the Civil War. Kevin McCarthy sat there, and he did not clap. He did not clap. Because it's asinine. Yes. That's why he didn't clap.

It's asinine. I mean, you can say it's a horrible event and you can put drama on it. But if you're going to say civil war, you should fully enunciate your words so we can hear them. Don't sound like you've got mush in your mouth. But that's just horrible. It's just, again, it's just this drama queen version of of politicians and and the problem with that back to where you know it does have an impact on things like the economy because a business leader is sitting and saying this guy can't shoot down a balloon and he's he's got this ridiculous set of the greatest threat

since the civil war i mean mean, that's a, that's a ridiculous. So that, that does not elicit confidence saying, okay, in the next three years, my business is in a stable environment. I can make forecasts and predictions and higher into that.

Instead. I'm like, Oh God, what are we in for next? I know. Like what? Bigger than like world war one or world war two, like bigger. Okay for next? I know. Like what? Bigger than like World War I or World War II? Like bigger?

Yeah. Okay. All right. It does make you ask, how am I supposed to take these people seriously? Are these people not getting into the street? The guy in the buffalo hat is our biggest threat. I mean, seriously. Bigger than like Hitler?

Stalin? Okay. The unemployment rate. Let's talk about that because it's, it is at a historic low 3.4%. It was at 3.5%, I think when he, under president Trump, uh, and then COVID. Um, and so he was definitely taking a victory lap on that. You're welcome.

Historically low job, uh, unemployment rate. Is it true? Does he get credit for the unemployment rate and for at least helping to create a climate in which it could be so low? Well, again, Washington takes credit for things, both sides of the aisle do it all the time, that they're not responsible for. And so what we've got is, number one, we have a problem with how we measure unemployment. The unemployment rate, as we measure it today, is the statistical processes from the 1930s. And it's missing so many elements now. So it creates a false picture. So yes, we have full employment,

no question about it. Actually, we have a labor shortage that's very dramatic right now. But what is that from? Well, it's from the labor pool having an existential crisis during COVID, during a quarantine. It says, oh, not only they might just shut my job down at any moment and people might comply to that. Not only that, but on top of that, I might die. And I never thought about dying before. And so now I'm going to go do work that I want to do. I'm not going back to a job or a boss I hate.

So we've had the great resignation and the great movement. Uh, we've got a great work from home movement that has exploded, uh, and, uh, employers have complied to, uh, but also the thing that nobody's talking about in the mix of this is, and Mike Rowe, my buddy's been Dirty Jobs, has been covering this a bunch. And several other people have picked up on the research that's out there on it. We currently have about 6 million unfilled jobs. and that the unemployment statistics, the way we do them now, doesn't cover the fact that for the first time in American history, we have 7 million able-bodied males between 25 and 54 that are not looking for work.

So they're sitting on the couch playing video games for whatever reason, and someone else is supporting them, whether it's the government, their girlfriend, their mother, but someone else is supporting them, and they're not looking for work, and we've got a shortage of labor. This is affecting the economy in a different way than unemployment would affect the economy. So all this stuff is mixed into this right now. And again, it does come off the back of the psychological reaction to COVID.

This existential crisis, people said, I'm not working there anymore. And we've had the largest level of resignations from companies, from jobs in the history of keeping records in the last two years. And it has slowed down finally, but all of that enters into this. So my point is, it's an incomplete picture to say, oh, 2.7%, which most economists would call full employment. We're there. Great job. The economy's booming. No, there's all kinds of problems under that. You know, I was talking to a friend of mine who's a doctor the other day, was saying that in New York City, if you take a job as a nurse in the ICU,

you make about $100,000, between $80,000 and $100,000. This doctor was trying to hire somebody to work at his front desk. You don't have to work overnight at the ICU. You don't have people throwing up on you. You don't have people dying all the time. You work nine to five and it's great benefits and it's controlled and it's air conditioned and all that's great stuff. And he was paying something like 125. Couldn't get anybody to take the job. Could not find anyone to take that job. And he was speculating that this problem is basically going to lead potentially to the end of cities. You know, like there are no restaurant workers anymore in New York, that you can't find the nurses, you can't find the cab drivers.

Their businesses were wiped out during COVID. And now we have all these people staying at home and not wanting to go into the office. Like all of these little things are erosions in the way we used to live. And really, we're at the beginning or maybe slightly past the beginning of this massive sea change that I don't know that we willingly wanted or accepted or even that we're walking into it with eyes open. Well, it's the unintended consequences of overreach by government help. I mean, government tried to step in. Trump did it and so did Biden, and help people during the quarantine. And they just started throwing government money, throwing checks at them, checks at them, checks at them. Biden bucks, we called them,

but there were Trump bucks too. Both of them did it. And the unintended consequence is people got used to that, not working and getting money we conditioned uh segments of each generation to no longer want to work and instead of uh trumpeting success and controlling your own destiny and hustle and grind and hard work is where success comes from and uh you know nothing of gain of great value comes to anyone unless they're willing to get up, leave the cave, kill something and drag it home. Instead of trumpeting that kind of a thing, we said, hey, listen, we'll take care of you.

And people sat on their couch and it's going to take a little bit of leverage to get them back up off their couch. Well, the fact that it's still ongoing is so interesting, right? When the checks were still being doled out, it made more sense to me. Okay, I get it.

They don't want to work. They want to sit on the couch and take the paycheck. Wouldn't have been my choice, but not everybody's like me. The fact that now there's no more money being handed out. The government's not still handing out those checks to people. And they're still sitting on the sidelines.

I don't understand, first of all, how are they paying their bills? Like who who is supporting those seven million guys? But I also think there's a deeper societal problem going on here. And I think it has to do with what we're doing to American men. You know, the lectures on how they're toxic, the elevation of women over men. It wasn't enough to get equality. Now it had to be something like subjugation of men and demonization of men in many cases. And they're just the knee jerk. You don't matter unless you're, quote, diverse, unless you're a woman or you're a person of color or you're trans or your sexuality is in the minority, one of those things. And if not, you don't matter. In fact, you're probably something close to the

devil. In fact, you're so awful just by your skin color and your maleness. We're going to start wiping you off of the syllabi in college courses. I'm going to tear statues down of people who look like you. And I just like, they're only human. These guys have got to be feeling kind of depressed and accepting the message that maybe, maybe I don't matter. Maybe this isn't a society that wants me. Well, we have the highest level of obesity. We have the highest level of anxiety, depression, suicide that we've ever had in the history of record keeping. And it's because we don't do anything. Whether it's because you're demotivated by being called the devil all the time or whether you're demotivated by the fact that someone else is carrying you you've been coddled and um you know we don't do anything we

don't have any calluses on our on our minds and we don't have any calluses on our hands uh men and women out there today and so instead of worrying about identity whether it's uh white maleness or worried about being demonized or whether, you know, uh, someone, a minority of some sort getting their rights, it would be a nice change to shift back to the idea that, uh, we're going to respect you for what you do. We're going to respect you for what you accomplish. We're going to compensate you for what you do and what you accomplish, not what your identity is. We're not going to spend any more time on your identity, whatever it is, or whether you are, you know, you know, discriminated against because you're a Christian or persecuted against.

I'm not going to spend any time on that. Let's just start talking about, hey, we need to get back to respecting accomplishment. We need to get back to respecting and paying for anything but identity. Let's go back to if you move something down the road, that's what we're going to be excited about. And are you helping people? Are you serving people? Are you making a difference in your community? And those kinds of things matter a whole lot more than whether you got your feelings hurt or what is it, triggered, right?

Right, triggered. This reminds me of the debate, not directly between them, but sort of between them, between Michelle Obama and Sheryl Sandberg, who is a COO of Facebook. And Sheryl had written that book, Lean In. And it was basically about work hard, you know, get your seat at the table and fight for your seat at the table. And don't be afraid to volunteer despite the fact that you have other things pulling at your time. And then Michelle Obama felt the need to take a shot at it, you know, saying that shit doesn't always work, right? Better to lean back and claim that you're a victim and that bad things happen to you because bosses are mean. That's a better place rather than Sheryl's book, which whatever,

I'm sure it wasn't perfect, but it was a more empowering message of like, lean in, get to work, do it. If you're going to change your life, you need to do it. No one's coming to save you. No one feels sorry for you. Two very different mindsets there. And it feels like Michelle Obama has won. uh squeaky wheel minority uh you know having a voice on social media that they wouldn't have normally had a voice otherwise in other cultures and other time frames um is it sounds like they're winning and yet the reality is out here that man i this new generation Z, they are amazing. There is a percentage of them. I've got 19 and 20 year olds watching us on YouTube calling me and they're within a month or two of having their first home paid off. And there's a dirty little secret that there's a section of Gen Z that is absolutely the most productive and amazing young people I've seen in years. They're amazing.

And there's a portion of them are just completely, you know, useless. Right. But I guess that's true of every generation. We've always had a generation that was productive portion that's productive. And then we stereotype. Yeah. We stereotype the millennials, you know, avocado toast or whatever crap. Right.

And so, but, but i've got a bunch of millennials on my team and they when they believe in something they'll charge the gates of hell with a water pistol man they are they are passionate they go for it and they're the opposite of these narrative wells that we're talking about and it's so interesting to me that i mean cheryl sandberg is like radical feminist i mean she's like an icon for that and comes out and then, and then comes out and says, okay, the answer though is hard work. So yeah, it is the answer. So thank God somebody's out there, you know, doing that.

But, um, and you know, Ms. Obama's wrong. Uh, it does always work. It never always works perfectly, and it might not work this time, but it works better than the other thing, which is doing nothing. So this idea that you work your butt off, you become excellent instead of embracing your mediocrity with quiet quitting and I'm going to sit back and I'm going to let you know, the way I'm going to, uh, fight a toxic boss is I'm going to stay on his payroll or her payroll and do nothing and quiet quit instead of going, wait a minute, this is a jerk. I don't want to work here anymore. I'm going to go work for somebody that gets it. And I'm going to give my excellence to a different place in the marketplace. And instead of trumping that or instead of trumpeting that on Tic Tac,

we go the other way, right? And we go, oh, we're going to worship the victim. And so, again, it's just messaging and narratives that are flowing through the culture. And the concern is that when we get a State of the Union address that doesn't lift us into our best version of ourselves. Instead, all we can do is point fingers and act like, okay, we got you. Washington's going to carry you. You don't have to do anything. You can sit there and play video games three hours a day.

You spend too much time thinking about your own mortality and good things do not follow. I'm momentary, like life is short. Am I making good choices? That's good. But getting too mired in it, it really just leads to apathy and immobility. And this thing that you talk about, the light bulb of, oh my God, I have to live my best life. This is an existential crisis. You could die at any moment. That's not really the best thinking. It's really not like sometimes you just need to get a job. And sometimes it's not your dream job. It's not giving back to society in any profound way that was going to change the world, but it's an honest day's work and it helps pay your bills and it will have the day-to-day effect of making you feel good about yourself and like a responsible citizen.

And before you know it, your mood has improved and you're with other people, which is also important to happiness. Like this younger generation, I think it's the younger ones, who are thinking, I've got to wait until like the perfect job that checks all the boxes comes along to get off my couch are really misguided. You know, the idea of apprenticing for something rather than just starting to do it as a master craftsman is beyond a lot of people. And that's, you know, like we're supposed to skip all the steps of the hard part and

only get to the good part. No, the hard part, you know, you need to embrace the suck. There's part of this that there's a journey here. And that's when you develop your world-class talent. when you develop your, uh, world-class talent. Uh, you don't start out as a world-class talent. No one does. They're a natural, no such thing, no such thing. They swing that golf club 1000 times till their hands bleed. And then we call them a professional, you know,

10,000 hours of practice Malcolm Gladwell says, and then we call them the best in the world. Uh, but it wasn't, you know 10 000 hours of practice malcolm gladwell says and then we call them the best in the world uh but it wasn't you know when they started they sucked i mean the first time i got on the radio i sucked i was awful the only reason i got to stay on the air is a bankrupt radio station and they were i was working for free any any good broadcaster would have thrown me off but uh but thank god i got to hang hang around and got better and got better and listened to my own tapes. And they were horrid, cringeworthy, horrible. I'm like, who is listening to this hillbilly? No one's going to listen to this hillbilly. I've got to clean this up. But you embrace the suck and you go through the grind part, the hustle part, and then you evolve

into world class. But you don't get to skip those steps. And you're not doing anything for yourself, sitting on the couch, playing on the iPad. You know, when you're talking, it's reminding me of my sister. My sister sadly died in October at 58 suddenly. And I told the audience at the time, thank you, that she had for a period of time been sucked into the opioid crisis. She'd been given a prescription drug that she was told was not addictive. That was and hit a downward spiral for some years there. And she was a teacher.

She had a college degree and she was a teacher of young kids when she was working. And she did not want to take a job in retail. You know, like this is post a lot of her troubles. And she felt like, oh, if I take a job, you know, at whatever, you know, just work in the stand at the Sunoco, you know, or like at the little shop that sells the mugs and the frames and all that.

It's somehow a surrender of my prior life as a teacher. Like I'm giving something up and maybe it's beneath me. And I, you know, if I could just work harder and get back to the teaching role, I'll feel better about myself. And we urged her to think about it differently. And ultimately she did. And she took a job at the grocery store, you know, as a, as a cashier on the checkout aisle. And it was honest work and her mood improved and she did lick her addiction issues and she felt better. It was, it was like an elixir Dave, you know, and she was so happy that she got back out there and, and forgive me to all the cashiers out there, but in her mind, she felt like she was humbling

herself. Right. But in making that choice, she felt so much more uplifted and of course, developed a newfound respect for how hard that job is. And it really did help her. Yeah. There, there is a dopamine release when you engage in activity versus sitting around discussing engaging in activity. And, uh, and, and the, it's one of the problems that we're seeing with the screens, uh, the too much time on the screens. There's tons of research coming out that, uh, the screens are not only do you have friends on Facebook that aren't real friends, but you're having experiences that aren't real experiences.

And, uh, so there's a dopamine release. And so, oh, I posted my thing on Instagram. Now I get to go check and read the comments and I get to see how many likes I get. And that's not a real experience, but your brain is fooled into thinking it is and gives you a dopamine experience or release. But also if you go into the marketplace and you embrace something, anything, whether you're driving for Uber, whether you're working as a cashier, whether you're digging a ditch, whether you take a job in the trades and learn to be in take an apprentice position so that you can become a master craftsman. Whatever it is you're embracing, when you engage in that activity, there's all kinds of chemical release.

Huberman's talking about this. Everybody's talking about this versus the fake release that the screen fake life creates. And so the real release there, we see depression go down. We see anxiety and panic attacks start to move away. And I guess it's probably tied back a little bit to the common sense of you're actually doing something about your life rather than discussing it. But also there is just this simple thing of when you start doing something,

your brain fires off and you feel better. Oh, guess what? That sets you up for the next thing versus sitting on your couch, discussing it with someone on your face in your Facebook group does not set you up for the next thing. Uh, I remember when we were growing up, mom and dad owned a real estate company, and we went to a nice steakhouse, and we had this waitress that was unbelievable. I was probably 12 years old, and I remember to this day, she was just sparkly. I mean, smiling, active, working the table, just became your best friend, just an incredible service experience. Well, you know what happened? My dad hired her to go to work selling real estate.

And the first year in the real estate business in the seventies, she sold a million dollars worth and she became a rock star sales. And now she's a sales trainer today, lives in Chicago and trains women in sales. But she wasn't sitting at home. She was waiting tables and opportunity came along and put its arm around her and said, I'm going to walk you to the next thing. That doesn't happen if you're not the cashier or the waitress. Yeah, that's such a great story. It gave me the chills. And I will also just put a period on it with this. Part of the reason some of those 7 million are at home is most likely drugs and alcohol, which shot through the roof during the pandemic, drug and alcohol use and overdoses and so on. And it's yet another reason to just get busier. Addiction is one thing, but a lot of

these folks are not addicted. They're just abusing. And getting out there and getting busier and getting into a job like sitting for eight hours at the cashier. You know, you can't you can't you can't booze it up all day. So it's just one small way of taking care of that issue, too, which so many fell into. or otherwise, work does. Work affects obesity. Work affects your mental state. It affects anxiety. And when you take the dignity of work away and you make it evil to be working and accomplishing things, instead you say, take the victim role, you're setting up a society that looks a lot like the problems in our culture right now. That's such an interesting discussion. It's so fun talking to you, Dave. All right, stand by, quick break, and then I do have to run Janet Yellen's thoughts by you.

Janet Yellen is like, I think she might be three feet tall. She's very tiny. We'll talk about it right after this. So, Dave, Janet Yellen had some thoughts on Monday about our booming economy and whether or not we are in a recession. Here she is. Jobs numbers seem to defy predictions of a recession this year. Do you still think one is likely?

Well, look, you don't have a recession when you have 500,000 jobs and the lowest unemployment rate in more than 50 years. So what I see is a path in which inflation is declining significantly and the economy is remaining strong. And really, that's a path I believe is possible. And it's what I'm hoping we will be able to achieve. Do you agree with that? No. No. A recession hasn't got anything to do with jobs. There's a technical textbook definition of a recession.

It's two consecutive quarters of reduction in the GDP, and the GDP can actually go down. The gross domestic product, the total of all goods and services produced in the U.S., it can actually go down and still have this level of employment. We've been talking about that. You don't find businesses right now that are all excited and feeling prosperous and feeling bullish about the future. You find them that are hoarding cash. They're pulling back. They're holding.

They're waiting to see, A, what inflation does, and B, what some of these other political nightmare things are going to do. And whether the stinking Fed is going to continue to monkey with this economy or not. And so we don't, I mean, the problem is economics is really psychology at its core. People react based on what they believe, how they feel about the future. Do I feel good about the future? Do I feel bad about the future? And then based on that,

I expand my business. I hire people or I contract my business. I don't hire people and I pile up cash to get ready to weather a freaking storm. And so right now what we've got is a whole bunch of business folks on the sidelines. We are not expanding. They're not blowing up. They're not feeling bright and sunshiny. And so that's the definition of a good economy. When there's a sense of prosperity in the air, a sense that this is my time that we can go out into the marketplace and, you know, create new products, create new services. And this is the time to do that. And very few businesses are doing that right now. So that is what leads us towards a recession, because if they're not creating that movement, then we don't have an increase in the gross domestic product.

So, you know, is it going to be a deep, dark recession? No, it's not. But this this is just malarkey to run around, regardless of your political persuasion, to run around saying everything's great out there. Not when you talk to people about the price of eggs or even still the price of gasoline. It's still $4 and something a gallon to fill up your stinking car. And still we've got these issues. And so, no, they haven't somehow magically made everything okay.

And talking about it like it's OK doesn't make it OK. know that the Fed rate hikes are working. That's what they think, that they're battling inflation. It's a slow battle. They would claim it's not a problem of their making. We've heard them say that many times from COVID to Putin, it's somebody else's fault. But there has been some progress versus June. So is that cause for optimism? But it wasn't caused by increased interest rates. What it was caused by was the supply chain smoothed out. And, you know, we've gotten back to a normal rhythm. And when you create extreme shortages, 100% of the time prices go up. This is seventh grade econ.

And when you create extreme shortages, because all the factories are not producing cars, they're not producing wire, they're not producing drywall, they are not producing cars. They're not producing wire. They're not producing drywall. They're not producing lumber. A hundred percent of the time, the commodities are going to go up. The services are going to go up a hundred. You know, guess what? The cost of labor has gone through the roof.

Why? There's a shortage of labor. Like we were just been talking about for the last 30 minutes. And so why has inflation calmed down it calmed down because it was caused by extreme shortages which drove prices up now once the shortage once people went back to work and the the factory started producing again the drywall starting to come out the wire is coming off the line. The mines are open. The lumber mills are running again. Well, guess what? The cost of lumber came back down to where it was pre-COVID. And so increased interest rates didn't do that. Production just caught up and supply diminished price because there wasn't a shortage anymore.

And that's where it came from. We still have enough of a shortage that gas has created this, but that's an artificial shortage created by a pro-green administration that wants to cut the gas prices off. So that sticker on your gas pump with Biden's picture says, I did that, is actually accurate. He did do that. What about that moment last night where he said, well, we're going to be dependent on oil for another 10 years? And it was open laughter in the House chamber at, oh, really? 10 years?

We're going to be off oil? Great. What's your plan? They're so out of touch. And it's the same bunch that said Miami is going to be flooded by now. I mean, come on guys, you've, you've lost all credibility with these ridiculous statements. And, and again, yeah, it's, uh, it,

it, it enters into the process. So the other side, the other side's guilty of doing it too. So, I mean, we can't say like no Republicans ever been a drama queen because they sure have.

Yeah. No, but what about, uh, because his plan right now i'm not exactly sure how he's going to tackle the remaining economic problems but he did mention higher taxes and he always says it's just gonna be the billionaires which makes it feel good right because very few of us are billionaires so like yeah like let's get them get the billionaires i i want them to suffer and uh but he it's always light on details and then you think it through and you realize, wait a minute, who are the billionaires again? They tend to be the best job creators. And what the buzz on this is, Dave, is that there are a few details, but it sounds kind of close to the plan that he revealed last March

when he called for a 20% hike on Americans who take in at least 100 million a year and said that rate would apply both to income and to unrealized gains. Like the future measure of your unsold gains gains like you haven't cashed in the stocks but on paper you've earned and now you have to start paying taxes on it it's it's um impossible to administer so it's not going to occur i mean when the wonks when the wonks get down into that legislation they're going to explain to him you't, there's no mathematical way to figure that out. So that's, it's not,

that's just ridiculous. That, that, that is a, a, a Paula, a politic that's political speak. It's not going to occur, but here's the thing about,

okay, how I'm going to fix the economy. How am I going to do that? I'm going to raise taxes on the rich. I'm so confused about the disconnect here. It sounds weird when you're not rich you're like yeah get them yeah but i mean how's that fix the economy is my point because where what piece of historical data do you have anywhere in the history of the united states that increasing taxes Increasing taxes caused the economy to boom.

There's not one. It has never occurred. Now, we have increased taxes periodically and decreased them periodically, but you cannot find a single example in actual data that says Washington, or for that matter, a state, increased their taxes and the economy boomed as a result of increasing taxes of any kind. Property taxes, income taxes on the rich, capital gains taxes on the rich, taxes on everybody. You can't find any increases ever that followed, that followed. The thing following it was a booming economy. So that's just ridiculous. I'm going to fix the economy by raising taxes, said no one ever. Well, he also was like, well, we're going to get teachers a raise.

Well, how are you going to do that? Because you don't control the salaries of teachers. Teacher raises. You have nothing to do with education except screwing it up with policies. It was like this random wish list. All right, before we go, I got to ask you about housing because a lot of people worry about the housing market and where that's going. How do you see it? Housing has scared people to death. This is an example of the self-fulfilling prophecy I was talking about a while ago, that economics is psychology.

So what happened was everyone said there's going to be a housing collapse. Everyone, being Washington, started yakking and yakking and yakking. Oh, and interest rates go up, and interest rates go up, and interest rates go up. And we've gone from this white-hot economy on housing, where if you put your house up for sale, what, two years ago, you got 87 offers over one weekend. Well, that has never happened in the history of real estate except for one little short period of time, and that was two years ago. So now what has happened is the market has slowed and it's kind of normal right now.

House prices continue to go up, but very little. Four or five percent is probably what we're going to see in 23. And when you put a home on the market today, there's still a shortage of houses. There's still a shortage of inventory versus the number of buyers that are out there, even though the number of buyers are diminished right now. A lot of them are sitting on the sidelines, but still when you put a house on the market, it's selling right now, national averages, 90 to 120 days. I got my real estate license in 1978, 90 to 120 days to market a single family residence in a metro area has been the standard since 1978,

except for a short time when it was white hot. But we got used to this white hot, huge jumps in prices, and huge numbers of offers coming in. And so now, I mean, it's kind of like when you're driving down the road, if you ever get in a wonderful car and there's no one around and you can get out there and you get up to 100 miles an hour and you let it run for about 30 minutes at 90 or 100 and then you slow down to 55 it feels like you're crawling because of what you were doing before i've had mr ramsey no no i am not a thrill seeker in that way but anyway the bottom line is it was it was running 100 miles an hour now we're at 55, and it feels slow.

Yeah. And it's just normal. That makes sense. That's some optimism. Think about it. I mean, in 1982, interest rates were 14% to buy a house. Wow. I mean, and we used to tell people when I first went on the radio, we'll never see single digit housing interest rates again.

I remember when it went from 10 down to nine because everybody started ragging on me because I said it would never go down there. And so and here we are at six and seven acting like the dadgum world's coming to an end at six and seven percent interest. That is not a high interest rate in the unless you compare it to 3% a few years ago, two years ago, three years ago. So the market in real estate is fine. It's not going to crash. If you're getting ready to sell your house, you need to put it on the market and you need to put it on the market at a price that's reasonable and you need to expect it to sit

there for 90 to 120 days. It's all relative. Dave Ramsey, such sage advice in there. Thank you so much for being here. It's great to have you. Always honored to be with you, my friend. Anytime. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.