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Smerconish

The Checkbox Question; Lasting Impacts Of Trump Assassination. New Book: The Politics Of Sex Are Shaping Gen Z Desire. Aired 9-10a ET

Aired July 12, 2025 - 09:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: If you see something or someone I should see, tell me. I'm on Instagram TikTok, X, Bluesky. And if you missed a conversation or story, check out our show's website. You can always catch up on all the older episodes there and listen to our show as a podcast.

And thank you for joining me today. I'll be right here next week at 8:00 a.m. Eastern. Smerconish is up next.

[09:00:36]

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN ANCHOR: Mamdani checks all the boxes. I'm Michael Smerconish Today in New York City. It's been 18 days since Zohran Mamdani shocked the political world by taking the Democratic nomination for mayor of New York City. And almost every day since there have been new revelations about the 33-year-old Democratic Socialist, some more significant than others. I would place at the top of the list his refusal to condemn the phrase globalize the intifada.

While he claims it to be a call for Palestinian human rights and says it's not the language he himself uses. Many see these words as an incitement of violence against the Jewish people and their institutions. When Mamdani said the U.S. Holocaust Museum referred to the Jewish resistance against the Nazis with a similar term, the museum said he was exploiting their history to sanitize the phrase. Also problematic his desire to, quote unquote, "Shift the tax burden to richer and whiter neighborhoods." And from an old clip recently resurfaced another one of his goals, seizing the means of production classic Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

In the category of insignificant or at least not disqualifying, in my opinion, I would put the political views that he expressed in his college newspaper giving the finger to the Christopher Columbus statue, forays into international diplomacy such as his wish to arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, opposition to the existence of billionaires while being himself a child of privilege, posting from a tasteless parody called "Punjabi Christmas Album Hits" and one horrendous rap video. But then there's a more complicated matter of his college application to Columbia University. Some found this disclosure damning. To me, it speaks to a much larger issue.

Relying on hacked materials, "The New York Times" revealed that when asked to identify his race, a Mamdani checked the box that he was Asian and also checked the box that he was Black or African-American, he then wrote in Ugandan. Mamdani was born in Kampala, Uganda, the son of an Indian Ugandan father and Indian American mother. They raised him in Uganda, South Africa and New York City. Mamdani told the "Times" that he did not consider himself to be Black or African American but rather an African -- an American, pardon me, who was born in Africa. He said that he was trying to represent his complex background amongst the limited choices he was presented.

And in that regard, he's not alone. Immigration and intermarriage have made it increasingly difficult for many to categorize race and ethnicity as distinguished from nationality. It's all part of being in the midst of a, quote, "diversity explosion." I borrow that phrase from demographer William Frey. Frey wrote a piece last year for the Brookings Institute analyzing the 2020 census data. It turns out the 2010s were the first decade in U.S. history when the white population declined and the second consecutive decade when it declined for the under 18 crowd.

When I interviewed Frey on my Sirius XM radio program, he told me that with continued intermarrying, it's become harder for kids to identify with a particular race. He expected this would mean diminished attention paid to race, which would become less important politically and socially.

In any case, looking at present trends, it's a foregone conclusion that by mid-century, if not sooner, no ethnic group will comprise a majority of the United States, a designation currently held by non- Hispanic whites. Indeed, that's already the case for those who are under 18 nationally and the population of at least seven states Hawaii, California, New Mexico, Texas, Nevada, Maryland, and Georgia. In the year 2000, there were only three such states.

Further backing this up, according to Pew Research, nearly one in five newlyweds in their 30s in the U.S. had a spouse of a different race or ethnicity in 2015. That number was only 8 percent in 1980. Separately, Pew found that one in seven infants in the U.S. was multiracial or multiethnic in 2015. That's nearly triple the share from 1980, and presumably the number is even larger today.

All this is leading to widespread confusion when it comes to filling out forms. As "The New York Times," responding to Mamdani's situation, put it earlier this week, for many Americans, checking a box won't do. The story goes on to note what Mamdani went through, quote, "reflects experiences and decisions that have exasperated people across the country." Moreover, while some complain that institutions ask the wrong questions, they also note that forms can demand too much information. Nothing brings all this home like a trip to the doctor's office.

[09:05:112]

Medical intake forms often today have seemingly endless racial and ethnic choices. Here's a typical one, it's from Mount Sinai. There are 123 choices for ethnicity. That's not a form, that's a Cheesecake Factory menu. And then there's the census, first they ask if you are of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin. If the answer is yes, that's just the start. Does that mean Mexican, Mexican-American, or Chicano, or Puerto Rican or Cuban, or another group, such as Salvadoran, Dominican, Colombian, or numerous others, most of which are included under et cetera. After that, you're broken up into white, which could be German, Irish, Italian, Egyptian, et cetera. That's some et cetera, right? Or black, or African American, which could be Jamaican, Haitian, Nigerian, Somali, and another continent spanning et cetera or American Indian or Alaska Native, wherein you're then asked, to which tribe do you belong?

And the next category includes Asians. That would be Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, along with Pacific Islanders, Native Hawaiians, Samoans, and so on. At a certain point, it starts to feel like a "Abbott and Costello" routine were broken up into so many races, ethnicities and subcategories, you might start to wonder, well, what's the point? And with so many multiethnic babies, it's possible the majority might soon throw up their hands and simply check some other race.

Which is sort of what happened with Mamdani when he applied to college. It's easy to mock his decision to check boxes claiming that he was both Asian and Black. Was he trying to game the system? Certainly others have. But in his case, he was Indian by ethnicity, Ugandan by birth, American by nationality.

How was he supposed to express that? The real issue is not Mamdani's identity, I say it's the form itself. An antiquated framework that assumes race and ethnicity are cleanly divisible, easily checked self- evident categories, when in reality they are often murky, overlapping and deeply personal. For many Americans today, selecting a race or ethnicity on a bureaucratic form feels like self-identification, less like self-identification, and more like forced misrepresentation. We've entered an era in which these categories are less descriptive and more distorting.

They may once have served a purpose, namely to monitor disparities, to promote affirmative action, but now they risk becoming arbitrary and reductive. When someone like Mamdani is asked to pick just one or two labels from a fixed menu, it says more about our outdated system than it reflects about his him. We are measuring the country of today with the yardstick of yesterday. The labels were designed for a binary, or at least a tripartite racial world that would be Black, White, sometimes Asian in an America that no longer exists. We're now a nation of multiple origins, mixed ancestries, and fluid identities.

We should embrace it. It certainly shouldn't scare us. After all, the U.S. motto going back to our founding is E Pluribus Unum, out of many, one. But many -- maybe it's time to admit clinging to check boxes that can't capture that complexity may do more to confuse than to clarify. And by the way, none of this means I'm any less proud of my Karpathos, Rusan, Montenegrin, Calabrese roots.

It brings me today's poll question at smerconish.com, where I'm asking, should racial and ethnic identity categories be eliminated? Go vote. Joining me now to talk about all of this, Staff Writer for the Atlantic, Thomas Chatterton Williams, who just wrote this piece under the headline "Zohran Mamdani Reveals the Absurdity of Affirmative Action." Williams is the author of the book "Self-Portrait in Black and White" and the new book "Summer of discontent, The Age of Certainty and the Demise of Discourse," which will come out next month.

Thomas, thanks for being here. You wrote, "Mamdani unwittingly revealed the absurdity of affirmative action and the racial categorizing it requires. So obviously you see this in a much larger frame than just checking the boxes. Explain.

THOMAS CHATTERSON WILLIAMS, STAFF WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: That's right. Yes. Good morning, Michael.

The absurdity of Mamdani's plight really was driven home to me when I realized that he is essentially making the same point that Justice Clarence Thomas made in 2023 when he argued against affirmative action and against the idea that identity boxes served any purpose in our dynamic and complex society today. When you had -- he used the example, Justice Thomas did, of a Jewish student who's forced to reduce the entirety of his complex ancestry to simply marking white when not so long ago in this nation's history, Jews were excluded from that identity box. That's just one example.

[09:10:00]

Mamdani's case is very interesting to me because it really wouldn't make a difference if he were ethnically Ugandan. It wouldn't make a difference if he were of African ancestry. If the goal is to -- of affirmative action is to address the fact that descendants of American slaves had been excluded from opportunity in this society, then representation or diversity and treating all people of African descent as though they're interchangeable really doesn't do much for the 13th generation descendant of Mississippi sharecroppers right here, right now.

SMERCONISH: Well, affirmative action largely motivated to try and protect and help those descendants of slaves against discrimination. Are you saying that battle has been won and that that's no longer of concern?

WILLIAMS: No, not at all. I think that, you know, we have to be very clear eyed about the racism that still exists in this society and that the structural inequality that's been passed down from previous oppressions and exclusions. But it would be a much saner policy that I think most Americans could genuinely buy into. If we looked very seriously at socioeconomic status of applicants and tried to make sure that everybody who needs a boost or a leg up can have that not based on some kind of nebulous identity category. You know, Mamdani is also the child of a very successful college professor and an Oscar nominated film director.

It doesn't matter what color he is, it's a kind of scandal if he has a leg up in admissions based on his ethnicity or race. SMERCONISH: Thomas, if we get rid of the boxes, and you and I see this in similar terms in many respects, but if we get rid of the boxes, are we less able to police discrimination?

WILLIAMS: I don't think so. I think that the original purpose of affirmative action under President Kennedy's 1961 executive order was to make sure that race is not used to discriminate. It was never supposed to be about proactively looking to discriminate positively by race or ethnicity. I think that if we pay much more attention to extending opportunity to those who have been excluded, irrespective of their background, of their racial or ethnic background, then we will promote a culture of opportunity that all can buy into.

SMERCONISH: You heard me make reference to my own background, my own ancestry, my own genealogy. I'm totally into that subject and I encourage everybody else to learn, you know, what might be their roots. Are we diminishing that exploration if we do what the two of us are advocating?

WILLIAMS: No, I don't think so. I think that if we all took more seriously the complicated ancestry we all possess and we really thought seriously about how expansive our identities are as opposed to reducing them to four or five color categories on a bureaucratic form, I think that would help us see that we are all of the human race, that we have a large expansive identity that way, and that we have very specific and singular ancestries that we can be proud of without trying to force it into a reductive category in these kind of bureaucratic forms that don't ever take into account the complexity of our experiences.

SMERCONISH: OK, one more attempt at being devil's advocate here, if we're not counting, can some groups still be seen?

WILLIAMS: I think so. I mean, look, there's reasons to take into account what happens to specific types of people. I live most of the year in France where, you know, they don't take race or ethnicity into account on official government forms. So you have just French citizens in prisons in France. So you can't tell if there's some bias in policing.

You can't tell if there's a disproportionate amount of French people of Arab descent in prison. There are uses for trying to understand the complexity of our societies, but it doesn't mean that we have to be. As you very astutely pointed out in your intro, we don't have to be handcuffed to this kind of binary we've inherited from the past. I think we can think more -- we can think more subtly about who we are as a society and as individuals and try to have some flexibility without marrying ourselves to a kind of colorblindness that is impossible to attain, or saying that we can never transcend the past oppressions and ways of seeing that we've inherited from a slave society.

SMERCONISH: Thomas Chatterton Williams, good luck with the new book next month.

WILLIAMS: Thanks a lot, Michael. SMERCONISH: What are your thoughts? Hit me up on social media. I'll read some responses throughout the course of the program. I have no idea how this poll question is going to turn out today, which makes it fun.

It's getting a little complicated and many people would legitimately -- could legitimately check several boxes. We used to be a melting pot and now we're more of a blender. I think we're still a melting pot. By the way, I can't stress enough that while I think the boxes have outlived their usefulness and that they're not necessary to police discrimination, which we're all against, I am completely embracing of everyone's desire to know and to cling to what their roots might be, what their genealogy might be, what their family history might be. I don't think the two are mutually exclusive is what I'm trying to say.

[09:15:00]

I want to know what you think. Go to my website at smerconish.com, please answer today's poll question, should racial and ethnic identity categories be eliminated?

Up ahead, forget politics ruining Thanksgiving dinner. We look at how it might be cramping Gen Z's game in the bedroom, why an entire generation is having less sex than ever. And it was the moment that shocked the nation and may have redefined Donald Trump's political fortunes. Up next, reflecting on the Butler shooting, the anniversary is one year ago tomorrow. The political aftershocks, they're still shaking American democracy.

Make sure you're signing up for my newsletter when you vote on the poll question comes out daily, it's free, it's worthy. You'll get the work of editorial cartoonists like Jack Ohman.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:20:14]

SMERCONISH: A year ago tomorrow, gunfire erupted at a Butler rally, Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. A would be assassin shot the president. One man, volunteer Fire Chief Corey Comperatore, was killed. He was shielding his wife and daughter. If you're like me, you know exactly where you were when you either watched in real time as I did on CNN, or heard the news, it was an attack that shook the country and in many ways it changed it. The Secret Service suspended six agents this week for security failures, according to reporting from CBS News.

The disciplinary action ranged from 10 to 42 days without pay or benefits. They've been moved to restricted duties as the agency tries to fix what it calls, quote, "The root cause of the failure."

In USA Today, Susan Page laid out how the shooting had immediate political impact. Trump's defiant response fueled a surge of male voters, galvanized his supporters, boosted his standing with big name figures like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. But there's another story to tell, a deeply human one about what really happened that day in Butler, what followed and what it all means now.

Joining me now is Salena Zito, national reporter for the Washington Examiner and author of the brand new book "Butler, The Untold Story of the Near Assassination of Donald Trump and the Fight for America's Heartland."

OK, Salena, you were feet away from the president when he was shot, I'm reading now from your book the following morning. "Good morning, Salena, It's Donald Trump. I wanted to see if you and your daughter Shannon and Michael are OK. And I wanted to apologize that we weren't able to do the interview." And you replied to him, with what?

SALENA ZITO, AUTHOR, "BUTLER": Well, I'm not going to swear on the air, but I did swear like a truck driver. And I said, "Are you bleeping kidding me, sir? You were just shot. I'm not worried about an interview. And that's so nice that you cared about, like, how we were." It was just -- it was not -- the level of expectation that he would call, let alone say that was really remarkable.

SMERCONISH: OK. But perhaps even more remarkable is he called you seven more times that day --

ZITO: Yes.

SMERCONISH: -- the day after he was shot. Why?

ZITO: Well, I think that whenever you're in a traumatic event, when you try to talk to someone who wasn't there, maybe a loved one, a friend, a family member, it's hard to get them to understand what you went through. So I suspect that's why he called, because I had just talked to him four minutes before he went on the stage. I was set to fly to Bedminster to do an interview with him along with my daughter. And so there's this sort of connectivity that you -- I was there, he and I talked about it. We would go on to talk, as you said, seven times.

And, you know, maybe another reporter would have pressed him in that moment, but I thought it was important to just let him figure out what was going on.

SMERCONISH: I have recollection --

ZITO: And he talk a lot -- yes.

SMERCONISH: I have recollection of you telling me, I don't remember if it was on Sirius XM or if it was here on CNN, but I remember speaking with you after the event took place, and you telling me that you thought it had changed him. I'm curious to know, a year later, do you believe it changed him?

ZITO: Absolutely. You see --

SMERCONISH: How so?

ZITO: -- every day, and -- you see it every day in the way he conducts his presidency. You might not agree with it, but you want to know the most granular level of how it impacted him. And he talks about this, this is about purpose. And he believes that he did not die in that moment for purpose and that he has an obligation to live up to that moment. And so that's why you see him sort of urgency of now in everything that he does and everything that he wants to do as president.

You know, traditionally, lame duck presidents, which is technically what he is, are much more slow moving. This is going at the speed of light. It is very, very different than his first presidency 2017 and 2025 look very, very different. And he and I just talked a couple weeks ago. You can see that interview in the Washington Post today.

And he talks about that purpose, and it's still with him, and it still drives what he does every day. And he believed that the hand of God was in there, in the moment. And, you know, he said, look, I survived Lawfare, but that was me, right? This is different. God was in that moment.

[09:25:00]

SMERCONISH: Salena, you could not have been more in the thick of all of this, shielded, covered, I think, by an advance man in the immediate aftermath of the shots being fired. I always found remarkable the crowd reaction generally. In other words, you know, to my eye, watching at home, people didn't scatter, people didn't leave the scene. What's your explanation of the crowd response after the president was shot?

ZITO: Well, I think a couple of things. First of all, they saw that he wasn't taken. They saw that he was hit, but they also saw he was capable of taking himself down. And the other thing, and the most important thing, and this is a nuance I think people really miss, when he said, fight, fight, people saw, put and sort of inserted the reasons why they thought he said that. But I talked to him about that, I asked him about that the next day, and he said to me, you know, Salena, in that moment, I wasn't Donald Trump, I was representing the presidency, I was representing America, right, and all that it stands for and all the strength that it is -- it emotes, right.

I was there because of our -- I stood up because of our grit and because of our exceptionalism, and I had an obligation to do that. And I -- when that happened, if you watch the video, the crowd immediately, it changes.

SMERCONISH: Right? I mean, there was --

ZITO: And then he said, you know --

SMERCONISH: -- there was an eerie -- there was an eerie calm to the crowd reaction.

ZITO: It was.

SMERCONISH: -- is all that I'm -- is all that I'm noting. Congratulations on the book. Good luck with it. Thank you for being here. ZITO: Thank you so much for having me.

SMERCONISH: Let's see what you're saying on social media. You can follow me on all the usual platforms, including X. It really speaks volumes about where we are as a country when half the country hates the president so much they cannot admit the man had several, I think you mean assassination attempts. I didn't -- are you speaking -- you must be -- put that back up. I want to read that again.

I think she misused the word assignation. I think it means assassination. Katherine (ph), throw that up, there.

Kelly Ann, are you referring to the crackpot conspiracy theories that they cannot admit the man had several assassinations? I hope not. I mean, that is just ridiculous. Carry that to its logical conclusion. Maybe shouldn't even get into this.

But to believe in that crackpot conspiracy theory would mean that, that the kid on the roof with such a good shot that he was -- he was aiming to graze and not to kill, that is preposterous.

I want to remind you, go to my website at smerconish.com, answer this question, should racial and ethnic identity categories be eliminated?

Still to come, your social media reaction to my commentary and how political discourse might be affecting Gen Z's willingness to hook up. With interest in sex and romance down, we'll find out what's going on there. Be sure to sign up for my free and worthy daily newsletter at smerconish.com when you vote on the poll question, you will get editorial cartoonists like Steve Breen.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:32:31]

SMERCONISH: You can find me on all the social media platforms. Why not follow me on X? Troy does and he said this.

Ironically, we will never become a nation of individuals with equality of opportunity until we stop classifying ourselves as different based on characteristics which are irrelevant to that. The sooner the better.

OK. I agree with you. Look, those who are under -- you've often heard it said we will soon be majority-minority. The demographers used to say that was going to happen in 2050. Now, they say it will happen in the early 2040s.

Those who are under the age of 18 in this country are already majority-minority. So, it's not as if there's about to be some explosion like, oh, my gosh, all these people are about to come here next year and then we lose the current composition of the country.

No, it's the -- if you look at the youth in comparison to those who are older, you know, attrition among a lot of whites, those under 18 already being majority-minority means it's just a matter of them reaching the age of procreation, and it all shifts. And then you factor in not only immigration, but intermarriage. It's all just too complicated.

And Zohran Mamdani, say what you will about him, I have a lot of criticism of Mamdani, especially with regard to his words about globalizing the intifada, but put that off to the side for a moment. The way in which he filled out the Columbia form I can't -- I can't take issue with. He's Indian by ethnicity. He's Ugandan or African by birth, and he's American by nationality.

What is he supposed to do in the -- in the confines of this form? And there are many, many like him and will be even more so. It doesn't mean we're surrendering and waving a flag on discrimination. It just means we're not going to bind people to check boxes like this.

Sorry I got long-winded. More social media reaction.

Julie -- if racial and ethnic categories are eliminated, how will we collect data to ensure equity and equality?

Well, I just made the point. I think we can still police matters of discrimination, but you're not going to be able to do it by forcing people to join particular groups where the labels don't apply. I don't think it has to be either or.

More social media reaction. This comes from That Reeling Blaze.

I didn't vote for the guy, but I know a courageous mofo when I see one. OK. And Trump was that --

Trump would love that for you to call him a courageous mofo. Mr. President, I know you're watching and I know you love that comment.

I also know conspiracy theories from both sides, and the left's it was staged as far nuttier.

[09:35:01]

Guys, what is with all the social media reaction about it being staged? I always was critical -- Catherine, you need to give me an extra 20 seconds to make this point. I was always critical of the O.J. closing argument. Oh man, am I nutty to bring this up. Because I think that Marcia Clark and Darden and the prosecutors should have stood up and said, if you believe in conspiracy, just imagine what it would have taken to carry out this conspiracy to frame O.J. for the murder.

And I feel this -- you know, Vannatter, I forget all these guys names, would have to call Lange, and he would have to call Fuhrman in the middle of the night, like, oh, Nicole Brown Simpson was just murdered. Hey, this is our opportunity to go get O.J.

You know, 3:00 in the morning, they're all going to wake up and have their wits about them to go frame the guy? It's ridiculous. And this is ridiculous. So, some kid is on the roof. He talked about taking out Biden and Trump. I mean, it wasn't the political execution that people thought he was planning. And what? He's going to graze the president, I'm not going to hurt him because I want to make him look strong.

That is preposterous. Get out of your cave. Live a life. Don't forget to vote on today's poll question at Smerconish.com. Should racial and ethnic identity categories be eliminated? I can't wait to see the result of that.

Still to come, are politics and cancel culture preventing young Americans from having more sex? Yes, you're going to want to hear this. The author of a fascinating book is here. Carter Sherman is her name. The book is called "The Second Coming." Something tells me there's a pun in there somewhere.

Make sure that you're checking out my Web site at Smerconish.com. While you're there, sign up for the newsletter. You'll get the work of Rob Rogers. Look at that cartoon.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:41:03]

SMERCONISH: What if Gen Z is having less sex, not because they're less interested, but because of politics? That's the argument journalist Carter Sherman lays out in her compelling new book. It's called "The Second Coming: Sex and the Next Generation's Fight Over Its Future."

According to Sherman, Gen Z, defined as those born between 1997 and 2012, are having far less sex than previous generations. She writes, "In 2021, when the CDC again conducted its Youth Risk Behavior Survey, only 30 percent of Gen Z respondents said they'd had sexual intercourse, according to data released in 2023. That's a 17 percent drop from when I was in school."

Sherman says that decline is due to a cultural backdrop shaped by conflicting political forces. She writes, quote, "Over the course of reporting this book, I have come to understand that the battle between sexual conservatism and progressivism is the defining feature of young Americans' sex lives. And while they started off the twenty-first century as casualties of this clash, they are increasingly its warriors."

And young people today aren't just caught in that clash, they're being raised inside it. The overturning of Roe versus Wade, the backlash of hashtag MeToo, the flood of political rhetoric around sexuality, gender and abortion rights have all created a culture of anxiety around intimacy. And yes, the internet plays a part, but in ways that might surprise you.

Sherman argues that porn has warped expectations, normalizing rough sex while eroding emotional intimacy. Meanwhile, adolescents exposed to constant social comparison on screens are also increasingly isolated and untrained in the language of boundaries, consent, or desire. Gen Z, described as both hypersexual and sexually conservative spoon-fed performative sexuality online yet unable to mingle in real life.

So, what happens when a generation is raised to see sex as dangerous, intimacy as risky, and pleasure as political? Joining me now is Carter Sherman, reproductive health and justice reporter at "The Guardian," who interviewed over 100 young people for her new book. As I said it's called "The Second Coming."

Carter, I'm surprised that desire, lust, if you want to call it that, doesn't trump all these, no pun intended, all these political concerns. Why not?

CARTER SHERMAN, AUTHOR, "THE SECOND COMING": I think we are living in a time where sex is politicized, frankly, like it's never been before. And when you constantly think about the role that politics is playing in the bedroom, it makes you anxious. It makes you not want to have sex, and it makes good sex harder to come by. So, when all of that is in the air, when there's this miasma of concern about the consequences of sex, about the implications of sex, it makes it difficult for people to feel lust.

In addition, it's kind of difficult right now to get connected to people thanks to things like social media and smartphones and the internet. People just aren't, to use your word, mingling like they used to.

SMERCONISH: I saw an amazing graph. We'll find it and we'll put it up on the screen. And the graph speaks to the number of times that those -- there it is. This is the percentage of 12th graders going out with friends two or more times a week, courtesy of Jean Twenge by the way. So, you know, it's like 75 -- 85 percent back in the 80s. Look at it now. It's below 60 percent. How can you have sex if you're not physically together?

SHERMAN: I mean, you can have internet sex. That definitely exists. But I think that there is indeed a lot of real concern around what it means to not be in person with one another, what it means when sex disappears. Is that a proxy measure for the disappearance of vulnerability and connection and risk?

You know, sex and romance are one of the main ways, I think, people learn about empathy. And so, what does it mean for a generation to lose out on that?

SMERCONISH: So, let's talk about the role of porn in my era. I'll date myself. You know, porn was a world of "Playboy," maybe of "Hustler" as well. If you were lucky, you'd find one left behind by somebody. But today, the accessibility of porn on the internet, as you write in the book, has changed expectations and has caused many to just check out of the real thing. Talk about that.

[09:45:01]

SHERMAN: Well, I should say, first of all, that the science on porn is incredibly muddy. You can find studies on porn that probably say anything you want to find about porn, that porn is always degrading, or that porn can stoke desire in relationships. However, what I found through talking to young people is that they felt that porn was bad for them. In sociology, there's this concept of the, quote, unquote, "deep story," and it's the story that feels real. And the story for young people is that porn is bad for them regardless of what the facts might actually be about porn scientific effects.

SMERCONISH: I had a conversation based on some of these same thoughts with a 20 something female recently. And she was explaining to me the world of "Love Island." I'm going to put up on the screen for those who are unfamiliar with this hit TV show, this comes from the "Free Press."

But this year, "Love Island" USA is booming. It has now become the second most-watched streaming show in the U.S., after the first nine episodes scored 1.2 billion minutes of viewing time. "Love Island" is actually one of the only spaces where young people get to rehearse the emotional connections we can't actually pull off in real life. It models basic flirtation and promotes habits we avoid in real life, initiating conversation, formalizing relationships. Basically, it is intimacy education.

You get dumped? Chat with someone else. A new person walks in? Ask their type. "Love Island" is a pristine sandbox of dating in your 20s, dress up, flirt, get rejected, try again.

I guess, Carter Sherman, the point I wanted to make to you is there's great interest in watching people have sex, or at least attempt to have sex. What explains that?

SHERMAN: Well, I can say from my interviews that young people are interested in sex. It's not that they're not, for lack of a better word, horny. It's that they don't necessarily know how to make those connections.

And actually, I would push back against this idea that "Love Island" is necessarily a great sandbox for dating. "Love Island" is reality television, and reality television is narrativizing things. And I think that that is something that young people are constantly doing these days through their online experiences.

They're balancing their online persona, their online brands against their selves. And I think, in fact, living for the plot, doing things for the plot, constantly being aware of how things are going to look to other people, that is not good for relationships. It's not good for desire.

SMERCONISH: OK. What happens when looking forward we introduce more artificial intelligence and dare I say, robots?

SHERMAN: Oh. I mean, I think that we're on a very slippery slope when it comes to A.I. And no one knows what's going to happen next. I think that it's going to further decrease people's ability to build that kind of intimacy. And I don't think that it's going to lead to the building of a better civil society.

That's why I think that sex and its role in this society is so important to pay attention to, because it's not just about, oh, do I get to have sex with who I want to? It's about, who do I get to meet? How do I get to bridge across these differences? And how do I get to feel embodied in myself in a way that can help build political power and help make the future I want to have in the world and in this country?

SMERCONISH: Final question. Not fair to you to do it in 30 seconds but tell me something positive about how we fix this, which sounds kind of funny because I'm saying, fix what? Fix young people not having enough sex.

SHERMAN: I'll try to make this quick, but one of the things that I was very heartened by was the degree to which young people were engaged in activism and fighting for the rights that they believe in, whether that was fighting for abortion rights or for LGBTQ plus rights, or fighting to end sexual assault. Many of the young people I was speaking to were very aware of the downfall that could be facing their generation, and they were working to fix that.

SMERCONISH: OK, but maybe when you go to that rally, you strike up a conversation with someone, you find attractive. That's not so old school, is it?

SHERMAN: No. I mean, there were many young people I talked to who were getting into relationships with people whose politics they shared and revered, and I felt that those young people were really on a positive track.

SMERCONISH: How long did you work on the title?

SHERMAN: You know, it actually came to me very quickly. I wrote a line called, we're living through the second coming, nothing less than the second coming of the sexual revolution. And there we go.

SMERCONISH: Carter, good luck with the book. Thank you.

SHERMAN: Thank you.

SMERCONISH: Checking in on your social media comments. What do we have? From the world of X again.

When you have porn that shows a warped fantasy combined with social media figures like Andrew Tate, it's no wonder why the 80/20 split is reality now.

Well, yes, I mean, I addressed with my guest that the accessibility of porn also creates -- for many, it's their first introduction to the world of sex. That then becomes their reality, that becomes their expectation if they ever have sex.

I can't believe were having this conversation on a Saturday morning on CNN. But why not? There's a whole conversation in Carter's book about physical violence in the course of choking and the role that it plays. Where are they getting that from? They're getting it from porn. And it's putting women in a horrible position. Read the book and you'll know what I'm talking about. You still have time to vote on today's poll question at Smerconish.com. Should racial and ethnic identity categories be eliminated?

Go vote. And while you're there, please check out my daily newsletter. You'll also get editorial cartoons from the likes of Scott Stantis.

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[09:54:19]

SMERCONISH: OK, there's the poll results so far. Should racial and ethnic identity categories be eliminated? Once again, I am in the minority of the voting. Thirty thousand plus have voted and it's running essentially two thirds, one third saying, no, we should not eliminate those categories. Very interesting.

Social media reaction that has come in during the course of the program. What do we have?

Gen Z obviously doesn't know how to mingle.

Isn't that the truth? I mean, did you see -- did you see that graph? When you look at the comparison from my era, you know, the 1980s in terms of how often those who were in their senior year of high school, two times a week -- can we throw that back up?

Look at this. Just check this out. Percentage of 12th graders who are going out with friends two or more times a week.

[09:55:04]

Back in the day, as they say, the boys, more than 80 percent. The girls more than 75 percent. And today, look at where we are under 60 percent for the boys, closer to 55 percent for the girls.

How are they going to have physical relationships if they're not in one another's company? It's a real problem and it is all about mingling. And if you don't know the reference to that word as it relates to me, it's because I am all about the identification of this societal disconnect brought about largely by what they call connectivity. We've got to put back the pieces.

Forty years ago, this summer, rock stars Bob Geldof, Bono, Sting and more performed at a landmark music event to raise money for famine relief in Africa. See how the legendary concert came together and how the movement continued in the new CNN original series "LIVE AID: WHEN ROCK 'N' ROLL TOOK ON THE WORLD." It premieres Sunday, tomorrow night, 9 p.m. Eastern time, Pacific time, only on CNN.

And if you missed any of today's program, know that you can always listen anywhere you get your podcasts. Thank you so much for watching. See you in a week.

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