What A Day - Gen Z Is Angsty: Here's Why

Episode Date: March 27, 2026

Young voters are one of many groups that pushed Trump back into the White House in 2024. Some researchers saw this as a potentially massive realignment with game-changing implications for our politics — but one year into Trump's second term, it doesn't seem like it. Trump is 34 points underwater according to the Cook Political Report's poll aggregator. And those polls were taken before Trump launched a war with Iran, a decision most young people oppose. So what should Democrats do to reach young voters where they're at? To find out, we spoke to Florida Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost. He's the first Gen Z member elected to Congress.And in headlines, Trump reveals Iran's so-called gift to the U.S, Cuba is struggling amidst the U.S. oil blockade, and you can make your voice heard at a No Kings event this weekend.Show Notes: Call Congress – 202-224-3121 Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/y4y2e9jy What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcast Follow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/ For a transcript of this episode, please visit – crooked.com/whataday

It's Friday, March 27th. I'm Jane Koston, and this is what a day. The show that finds it inspiring that President Donald Trump will be the first president to put his signature on U.S. currency in more than 160 years. We've had some self-absorbed presidents since 1861. I'm looking at you, Warren Harding, but Trump, as usual, is reaching new heights. On today's show, Trump reveals Iran's so-called gift to the U.S. He also said he got $5 under his pillow from the tooth fairy. And if Trump has you feeling some type of way, now is a chance to have your voice heard at a no king's event tomorrow. But let's start with young people,

a category of Americans, which, sadly, no longer includes me. Young voters are one of many groups that pushed Trump back into the White House in 2024. Some researchers saw this as a potentially massive realignment with game-changing implications for our politics. Were young people, traditionally a liberal cohort, moving to the right for real? A year and change later, I think we can safely say, nah. Trump's polls are in the basement with pretty much everyone. But with young voters, Trump is 34 points underwater, according to the Cook Political Reports poll aggregator.

And those polls were taken before Trump launched a war with Iran, a war most young people oppose. It's no wonder that one fresh-faced attendee of the Conservative Political Action Conference, also known as CPAC, wasn't feeling so great about the GOP's chances in November. He spoke to CNN on Thursday. I think they would get destroyed the midterms. I just, I get the vibe. A lot of people I knew who just voted for Trump because they thought it was cool in, like, high school or just now just being like, I can't stand the guy.

Now here's my question and yours too, probably. Why did young voters trust Trump in the first place? Well, if you were 18 in 2024, voting in your first presidential election, Donald Trump had been a part of your political life since you were nine years old. And when Trump promised to bring down the cost of living, remember all the talk about groceries, a lot of young Americans believed him. But now they're pretty pissed off. So what should Democrats do to reach young voters where they're at? To find out, I spoke to Florida Democratic Representative Maxwell Frost. He's the first member of Gen Z to be elected

to Congress. Representative Frost, welcome back to Wadder Day. Thank you. Thanks for having me on. Something I've been thinking about and noticing, obviously, is that young people, a swath of young people, independent young people, helped to elect President Trump in 2024. But now, young Young people are some of the loudest voices expressing their distaste for the president's actions. You are the only Gen Z representative in Congress. What are you hearing from your friends, people around you, young people about their concerns right now? You know, the interesting thing is I think a lot of times, you know, in politics, people

think young folks have like a different set of issues that they care about. But what I've found is young people don't have a different set of issues they care about. They care about the same things everyone, you know, cares about. But they see it through a different lens and the way it impacts them might. feel and seem a little different. And I'll give you an example. I started a satellite office on a college campus, University of Central Florida in my district. And, you know, I think, okay, we're going to have a a lot of young people asking about social issues and, you know, canceling student debt or like getting through student debt, stuff like that. And we do have a lot of that. But actually,

you want to know the top two issues? The top two issues on our college office are people who come and say, I'm hungry and I don't have money for food. It's like food insecurity. I couldn't afford my meal planned this year. I don't have any money to eat. Are there any resources for me? And then number two, housing insecurity, people who are either homeless or they had to move out of their apartment or they were priced out.

Sounds pretty familiar, right? Like this is what everybody's going through in the entire country. It's just young people are disproportionately impacted by a lot of this because we don't have it accumulated a bunch of wealth that we have to help get us through these hard times. and a lot of young people don't have full-time jobs with benefits. And so there's a lot of issues that compound that create this environment where you feel like you've been lied to. Like we were told our whole lives, go to school, get good grades, go to college.

You can go into debt because when you get out of college, you'll have a good enough job to pay off all the debt. And then you'll be able to buy a house. And it's all BS. It's like we were completely lied to. And people are frustrated. And I think that's one of the reasons why Donald Trump got 46% of the youth vote, right, which is the most we've seen a Republican get in modern history. But the thing about it is,

I don't think the majority of those young people are people that would say they are conservatives or even Republicans. I think those are people who are frustrated with this system. And Donald Trump was the person running against that. He was the counterculture. And so he was able to garner a lot of the young people. And so the good news in that is that we can still win them back if we meet the moment with the policies that we're putting forward. It's so interesting to hear you talk about that because I graduated from college during the Great Recession.

And I remember those being like the primary issues we were facing. Like all these companies were failing, everybody was losing their jobs. And it's really tough for me to see that one of the major challenges, again, young people are facing is a stagnant job market.

What can the government realistically do to support young Americans as they navigate such an uncertain economy? There's a lot of different things we can do. I mean, I think number one is we have to do a lot more work in supporting different paths for young people as they graduate high school. College is important. It can be a path for a lot of people. But how are we helping to get people into apprenticeships with unions, right? And getting people the skills they need to go into the trades or other jobs like that. I mean, the fact of the matter is there were a lot of young people that just 10 years ago were told, go learn how to code and go be I'm like a software engineer and you'll have a job forever. And now because of new tech technological advances and AI and stuff, those jobs are being completely decimated. And so the question is, what are we doing? What resources are we putting in to help with job skills training, helping people who spent

all this money getting a degree and getting an education that might not be as useful right now and helping to move them to other work as well? But, you know, I think the bigger part of this is I think we really need to be talking about what a federal jobs guarantee looks like. for all people in this country, especially as technology continues to advance. And especially as we don't know the answers to everything, you know, they talk about AI, for instance. We don't know what kind of jobs will be impacted the most in two years, in three years, and four years.

We just don't know. And so what we have to do as legislators is figure out how do we prepare for that, not knowing exactly what it is. There's a lot of work that needs to be done in this country, right? In terms of energy, in terms of infrastructure, et cetera. let's put people to work. And I think that's a popular thing that we can do, and it would be helpful. Yeah, and you mentioned AI, and one of the threats or potential threats to new job seekers is AI.

On Wednesday, Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced a bill to put a moratorium on new AI data centers until, quote, strong national safeguards are put in place. You've expressed your support for the idea. What AI safeguards would you like to see? The moratorium, I think, is an interesting idea. I did express support for it. However, I will say the more I've looked into it, it seems to be that if we were to do a mortatorium for a year, it would really only halt things for like a month, if that, just because at the speed at which AI is being, number one, funded, and the speed at which these companies are going. And so the whole point of it is to try to halt things as Congress legislates. But it's like, do we think Congress, Congress will come up with AI regulation in a year? I don't know. I don't feel too good about that. I also don't feel very good about that, representative. Yeah, yeah. So I'm not saying no to the idea now. I'm just saying it's like things we have to

think about that, you know, that might be good, but like what else? And I think on the data center part of things, obviously the top concerns are impacts to the environment. Obviously, kind of the macro environment, like our humanity and our species and global warming, etc. But also just the environment of communities that they exist in, and then also energy costs going up for those same communities. And we've actually seen a lot of state legislatures across the country try to move forward legislation to ensure that any additional burden isn't felt by the actual rate payers and by people in those communities,

but those companies have to pay for any hikes that go up as well. I think that's like something we need to do to make sure people aren't paying more for these data centers, and also that we do more to mitigate the fact. that they're bad for the environment. I think those two things are really important. But I think like the issue is even, it's just a lot bigger than that as well. Because I'm very concerned about the fact that we don't know what's coming. We need to set up our government to ensure that the basic things that we believe should be a right of all Americans are provided, right?

Like, Medicare for all is one of the most important things we can do with the ambiguity of the future and the job market. Why? because your health care should not be connected to your job. It should be connected to the fact that you're a human that's alive in this country right now, right? That's one thing. The federal jobs guarantees another one of them. So we do need to have common sense guard rails on AI and we need to get them passed. I'm just concerned about Congress's ability to actually do it and have it not written by some company.

And just to go back to a point you made earlier to clarify, how would a year-long moratorium only slow things down for a month? Part of the argument on that is that a lot of these data centers already exist and a lot of these companies would try to build them outside of the jurisdiction of the United States to continue what they're doing. And so it might not have the full impact that we're thinking it might have. I'm not saying that's a good reason not to do it or, you know what I mean? I'm just saying there might be some other places we need to look at in terms of keeping things. at bay as we figure out, you know, what kind of legislation we're putting forward. And I haven't read the bill that they put forward, but it shouldn't be placed on a timetable like one year, two years, three years, but it would have to be connected to our product, like us legislating on it. That way

it puts pressure on us to actually get something out the door. Because I just feel like if you put a year, two years, or three years on it, nothing will get done. Right. So if, you know, the whole point of it is to add pressure on Congress to legislate on it. I think the best way to do is connected to us actually passing some sort of legislation. Representative Frost, as always, thank you so much for joining me. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

That was my conversation with Florida Democratic Representative Maxwell Frost. Look, I don't have a fun Gen Z thing to say here because I am a millennial. But if you're young and cool or just cool in general, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, watch us on YouTube, and share with your friends. We'll be back after some ads. What a day is brought to you by Delete Me. Delete Me makes it easy, quick and safe to remove your personal data online at a time when surveillance

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Make sure to use our URL so they know we sent you. Reggie, I just sold my car online. Let's go, Grandpa. Wait, you did? Yep, on Carvana. Just put in the license plate, answered a few questions, got an offer in minutes. Easier than setting up that new digital picture frame. You don't say?

Yeah, they're even picking it up tomorrow. Talk about fast. Wow, way to go. So about that picture frame. Oh, forget about it. Until Carvana makes one, I'm not interested. Car selling made easy. On.

Carvana. Pick up these may I apply. Here's what else we're following today. Head of lines. Joining me is Crooked's Washington correspondent, Matt Berg, to talk about the big stories. Hey, Matt. Hey, Jane. Remember how Trump said that Iran gave him, quote, a very big present worth a tremendous amount of money?

Now, I assumed it was a large wooden horse that the administration was going to helpfully wheel into the White House. But it turns out I was wrong. Steve, can I reveal the present? You can do anything. Thank. They said to show you the fact that we're real and solid and we're there, we're going to let you have eight boats of oil, eight boats, eight big boats of oil. This was two days ago.

And they'll sail up tomorrow. That was three days ago. That was Trump and special envoy Steve Whitkoff during a cabinet meeting Thursday. Trump went on to say that it ended up being. 10 boats in the end. Allegedly. Maybe. Here's the thing about that. It's not totally clear whether Trump is actually telling the truth here. Bloomberg tracks tankers that go through the Strait of Hormuz, and there weren't clear signs of the big boats of oil that Trump mentioned, according to the outlet. There is a possible explanation besides Trump made this up. The tankers could have turned off their transponders for security reasons, but boats that have recently passed through the straight have had reliable signals, Bloomberg wrote, adding quote, if this was some of the tankers.

great present, you'd think both sides would want it known for their own reasons. Again, who knows if Trump is telling the truth? Meanwhile, while Trump is making a mess in the Middle East, he's making another mess in Cuba. Cuba hasn't received oil shipment since early January amid a U.S. pressure campaign. And at the end of January, Trump signed an executive order threatening tariffs on countries that send Cuba oil. The ongoing blockade is reportedly part of the Trump administration strategy for, you guessed it. regime change. Matt, you were at the Cuban embassy this week. What did you learn? That's right. I've gone there twice in the past month with our news editor Greg Walters. Officials have told us that daily life in Cuba has become a huge struggle

because the country relies so heavily on oil imports. There have been nationwide blackouts, which have especially hit the health care system hard, according to officials. Here's some of my conversation with the Cuban embassy's deputy chief of mission, Teniras Diego. We have more than 96,000 people waiting for seizures in Cuba. It's a serious thing because for surgeries we need energy. 11,000 of them are children. How you can explain a mother that you cannot make the security for their children because you don't have energy because you don't have oil?

It sounds brutal over there. When will this end? No one really knows. But what I've heard from Cuban officials boils down to this. Cuba is open to negotiating business deals or pretty much anything else that Trump wants, but the country's sovereignty is not up for debate. And you know, speaking of Trump, or at least resisting Trump, tomorrow, Saturday, March 28th, marks a third No King's protest, with over 3,000 events planned across the country. The first No King's protest happened last June

and drew more than 5 million people, according to the ACLU. The second No King's protest from last fall drew more than 7 million, and organizers expect this year to be even bigger. Yeah, I mean, since last fall, we've seen the invasion of Minneapolis by federal immigration enforcement and the killings of two American citizens by federal immigration enforcement, not to mention the war in Iran, which most Americans oppose. And to top it all off, Trump is less popular than ever before in either of his two terms in office. Suffice it to say, there's a lot to protest. But Matt, I would never protest getting to hang out with you to talk about the news. Thanks for hanging out. Thanks for having me. And that's the news.

Before we go, spring break travel chaos has immigration back in the spotlight, and this week, Alex Wagner digs into what's really happening behind the scenes. As Congress clashes over ICE funding and Trump allies reshape DHS leadership, the administration's tactics targeting immigrants aren't slowing down. On runaway country, Alex speaks with Stephanie Villarreal, whose DACA recipient husband has been detained, and the bulwarks Jonathan V last on how quiet bureaucratic moves are reshaping policy and why Trump is dragging voting rights into the fight. For a clear look at how this all impacts real people, don't miss the latest, episode of Runaway Country. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you

subscribe, leave a review. YMCA is not the gay national anthem and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading, not just about how Donald Trump was wrong as usual when calling into the Five on Fox News on Thursday. Now, I think when the United did very well with the gay vote, okay? I even had, I even played the gay national anthem as my walk off, okay, for the campaign. Like me, what a day is also a nightly. newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at cricket.com slash subscribe. I'm Jane Koston, and YMCA by the Village People is Trump's walk-off song. YMCA came out in 1978. I'm aware that Donald Trump exists in the world in which it is always in 1980s, but we've all moved on. The gay national anthem

is Dancing on My Own by Robin, and Kamala Harris won the LGBT vote 86% to 12% in 2024. Thank you for your attention to this matter, J.C. What Today is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producer is Emily Four. Our producer is Caitlin Plummer. Our video editor is Joseph Tutra. Our video producer is Johanna Case.

We had production help today from Greg Walters, Matt Berg, and Ethan Oberman. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our senior vice president of news and politics is Adrian Hill. Our theme music is by Kyle Murdoch and Jordan Cantor. We had helped today from the Associated Press. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. Reggie, I just sold my car online. Let's go, Grandpa. Wait, you did?

Yep, on Carvana. Just put in the license plate, answered a few questions, got an offer in minutes. Easier than setting up that new digital picture, frame. You don't say? Yeah, they're even picking it up tomorrow. Talk about fast. Wow, way to go. So about that picture frame.

Oh, forget about it. Until Carvana makes one, I'm not interested. Car selling made easy. On Carvana. Pick up these may apply.