The NPR Politics Podcast - Trump Wants Americans To Have More Babies

Episode Date: May 1, 2025

President Trump has said he wants to be the "fertilization president," urging American couples to have more babies as birth rates decline in the U.S. This stance has also been adopted by right-wing activists that call themselves "pronatalists." What is this movement and how is the Trump administration responding? This episode: political correspondent Sarah McCammon, White House correspondent Asma Khalid, and power and influence reporter Lisa Hagen.The podcast is produced by Bria Suggs & Kelli Wessinger and edited by Casey Morell. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for NPR comes from the Psi Sims Foundation since 1985, supporting advances in science, education, and the arts towards a fairer, more just, and civil society. More information is available at PsiSimsFoundation.org. Hi, this is Dylan from Knoxville, Tennessee, and I'm about to teach my first yoga class ever on my birthday. This podcast was recorded at 1.33 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday, May 1st, 2025. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but know that each and every one of you is a gift. Okay, here's the show.

["The Star-Spangled Banner"] Okay, here's the show. You sound like a pro, actually. You know, I've never done yoga. I do Pilates, but is that a yoga thing? Sorry, I'm sounding like a total newbie. Is it like a words of affirmation thing at the end of yoga? Yeah, it's a vibe. Okay, I like that.

I could get it down for that. I've never tried yoga. Hey there, you're listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Sarah McCammon. I cover politics. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. The Trump administration wants Americans to have more babies. Our society has failed to recognize the obligation that one generation has to another fail to recognize the obligation that one generation has to another is a core part of living in a society to begin with. So let me say very simply, I want more babies in the United States of America. That's Vice President JD Vance speaking at the March for Life in January.

President Trump has said he wants to be the fertilization president. And that's all being cheered by activists who describe themselves as pronatalists. NPR's Lisa Hagen has been covering this movement. She's here to talk about it with us today for the first time on the podcast, I think. Welcome, Lisa. Hi, thanks for having me. So just to start off with what is pronatalism? What is the problem these activists are trying to solve? So the term pronatalism means encouraging people to have more children. And it's a banner that a particular right-wing movement is organizing under at the moment.

I was recently at a small conference put on by some activists in the movement. And they say that they're responding to a global trend of declining birth rates. And statistically speaking, we're seeing that not as many people are having the two or more children you'd need to replace the current population. That's been true in the US since about 2008, but it's been true for some other countries like Japan, Korea, or Italy much longer. And what do pronatalists see as the solution to this problem? Well, there are an incredibly wide range of suggestions from things like increasing the child tax credit

and creating like a national medal for mothers who have six or more children, all the way to things like ending no-fault divorce and ending civil rights protections for women. Lisa, what are some of the reasons for this decline in the birthrate? Some of the reasons for this decline in the birthrate? Some of the reasons that you'll hear from experts who study this sort of thing and survey people about whether or not they want to have children is they definitely do want to have children, but people are worried about being able to provide stability or opportunities or like a safe future for their kids that they're bringing into the world. So that's what you see're bringing into the world. So That's what you see sort of across the board and us but beyond saying that they want more babies

What are members of the Trump administration saying about how they might actually try to achieve that? so one idea that has been floating around is this idea of An expansion of say the child tax credit. That's one way of looking at it. Some people would also call it a baby bonus. But you know the child tax credit is something that the government provides to many families who have children and JD Vance spoke about this idea even during the campaign's buy cycle, you know talking about increasing it to $5,000 which would be a substantial change. Now look, he's gotten some criticism from folks on the left who say that he skipped a vote in the Senate that would have expanded and raised the child tax credit. But this is, I will say, central to something that we have heard from a number of people

in this administration, including frankly, President Trump. He alluded to this idea back in 2023 at this big conference for conservatives known as CPAC. We will support baby boomers and we will support baby bonuses for a new baby boom. How does that sound? That sounds pretty. I want a baby boom. Okay, so that is one idea. The other thing we've seen from the president though since he has come into the office again

on the second term was an executive order he signed back in February to look into ways to expand access to IVF. And this is something I'm curious what you hear, Lisa, but it's not something my sense is that everybody within this movement necessarily agrees on is ideally the best way to increase the birth rate. But that's another idea out there. And then lastly, I will say, look, there are just a lot of kids around in this administration, whether that's the vice president's children, they have traveled with them, they have brought

them to official events, whether that is someone like Elon Musk, the president's advisor, bringing his child into the Oval Office. And that's not something that you traditionally see in circles of Washington. You know, you mentioned IVF and in my own reporting on that, Osma, at least one demographer I was talking to recently said it looks like in most cases IVF doesn't increase the birth rate. It might enable people to sort of delay when they have children, but it doesn't appear to be increasing the number of children people are having. I mean, Lisa, from the

research you've been doing, what are demographers saying about some of these ideas? Are any of them likely to actually work if the goal is to reverse the birth rate decline? So there's very little evidence that there are demography policy changes that reverse the potential need for it. So that's been demonstrated in countries that have been trying to address this way longer than the US has. As we've said, people want kids, they're worried about the future. And so we will hear that geographers are doing that in countries like the Stronger Social Safety Bats, for instance. They may be below replacement rate, but they may be holding them back from even steeper birthrate designs.

Right. So it makes you wonder if there's any reason to think that if it hasn't worked elsewhere, it would work here. But nonetheless, it's really clear that there's a desire, especially on the right, for efforts to increase the birth rate. Okay, it's time for a quick break. We'll have more in just a moment. Support for NPR comes from the PsySims Foundation since 1985, supporting advances in science, education, and the arts towards a fairer, more just, and civil society. More information is available at scysimsfoundation.org. And we're back. Now there's been this argument that as the

birth rate declines it could be offset by immigration. Lisa, is that an argument that's making its way into the pro-natalist movement at all? Not really from what I've seen. This is a movement that either explicitly or less explicitly can tend to lean toward more conspiratorial thinking about white populations being quote unquote replaced by immigrants. And so while that's not true of every pro-natalist advocate, it's really been a theme of American fears about birth rates going back to like the early 1900s and Teddy Roosevelt. Lisa, I am curious if this movement, if that conference you went to has a dimension of race or ethnicity behind any of this? And the reason I ask that is anecdotally a number of immigrant families tend to have a lot of children. That's just sort of culturally the

norm amongst people. I, friends and family. I think there's some mixed data, first of all, about what happens when immigrants move to a new country in terms of the changes to their fertility. But overall, I would say that this is at least at the conference that I was at. This was a small conference, but it was almost all white people, absolutely. And it's important to say that one of the major sponsors of this conference that I went to, for instance, is a hard-write book publisher. They publish current works today that promote ideas like scientific racism. This is a false idea that things like intelligence or inherent criminality are baked into certain races.

That gives you a sense of some of the themes that are running through this movement. You know, Lisa, one thing I'm wondering is, is this just a concern on the right or are there folks on the left and the center who also worry about the implications of falling birth rates? There are totally legitimate economic concerns that you'll see being discussed across the political spectrum. You know, you're talking about an aging labor force, what happens there, challenges to our social security system, things like that.

But I think a lot of the left would argue that supporting people having the size and style of families they want is something they'd refer to as reproductive justice. And Democrats also would say that everything from forgiving college loan debt to funding childcare or environmental protections are all policies that would help families survive and grow. So it's really about the label that you're putting on these ideas. It seems like there's sort of different camps within what you might call the pro-natalist movement or certainly on the right when it comes to how to think about gender roles, family formation, and the birth of children. And so I'm wondering, you know, do most pro-natalists want a return to traditionalist gender roles

to this idea that, you know, women should be in the home? Or are they imagining something different, something more in line with some of the highly visible working moms we see in the White House now, like Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt, who I think as Osmond mentioned, you know, brings her baby to work. What's the vision of society that pronatalists are trying to create? I think it's hard to pin it down. There's definitely a spectrum, although across that spectrum is Although across that spectrum is an idea that something about modern culture, whether you attribute that to feminism or

equal rights or whatever, has messed up the way that our culture works and produces children. On the other hand, I will also say, yes, there are lots of contradictions like the ones you're talking about that were visible at the pro-natalism conference. There were educated women up there. There were ambitious women up there. And I think that's always been a part of some right-wing movements. Think of Phyllis Schlafly and the opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment. As long as you're down for the cause, there's a willingness to have you on the team.

And, you know, to that point, it seems like there's also some tension in terms of what kinds of policies we might see from the White House. Asma, you were just talking about some of the ideas that have been floated. You know, when I was talking to a demographer a few weeks ago about IVF and about some of these questions, this was a fairly conservative demographer. You know, he said one policy that is anti-datalist that's likely to discourage people from having more children is forcing a return to work or return to the office because that is a policy he said that sort of supports working parents particularly

working moms. I mean do you have any sense of how the White House plans to move forward here? I mean thus far there really has been a return to work mandate across the federal government and we've seen no indication that they are wanting to change that. And so I am really curious to what degree sort of the messaging that we see from the White House matches substantive policy that helps encourage people to have more children. Look, I mean, it's hard to be a mom or dad, I think, at this moment, of young children. And I wonder what policies either Republican or Democrat is substantively offering to make that a little bit easier. But politically, look, it's smart if you start talking about it because a lot of people,

I would argue, regardless of their politics, feel that the current system isn't working for them. And we're seeing that reflected in the fertility rate. All right. Well, we're going to leave it there. Lisa Hagen, thanks so much for sharing your reporting with us. Thank you. I'm Sarah McCammon. I cover politics. And I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.

Support for NPR comes from the Psi Sims Foundation since 1985, supporting advances in science, education, and the arts towards a fairer, more just, and civil society. More information is available at PsiSimsFoundation.org.