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Smerconish

Why Young Men Are In Crisis; Male Loneliness: The Unspoken Struggle For Men; Is The American Dream Unaffordable? Why The Modern Male Is Struggling, And Why It Matters. Aired 9-10a ET

Aired September 20, 2025 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:05]

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN ANCHOR: A man has got to have a code. A line attributed to John Wayne. I'm Michael Smerconish in the Philly burbs. Omar Little, the magnetic criminal in the wire, he said the same thing. But where does that code come from?

You're not born with a code. You have to learn it from mentors, from life experience. Young men today, where is their code coming from? From social media, from video games, from porn? From a home without a father. Because people seem to agree young men are in crisis. And the data bear this out.

Girls graduate on time from high school at higher rates than boys. Women easily outnumber men in college enrollment.

In the spring of 2025, 58 percent of all undergraduate students in the U.S. were women. Boys have significantly more behavioral and developmental issues than do the girls. And teenage boys, they have fewer close friends than teenage girls. Only 15 percent of young men say they have no friends at all. 15 percent say they have no friends at all. That's quintupled since 1990.

Male suicides. They've risen faster than female suicides in recent decades. And at present, men commit suicide at more than four times the rate of women. Men's participation in the labor force, it's been going down for decades, while women's participation has steadily risen. 1 in 10 men, 20 to 24. 1 in 10 aren't in school, don't have a job effectively unengaged. That's twice the rate from 1990. And that's just a sample of the data.

There's a lot more data and statistics showing a downward arc for boys and for men. And all the while society celebrating young women doing better. But young men are more likely to get lectures on toxic masculinity. But think of it this way.

Women suffer by extension, when so many men are off track. We owe it to the women to help the men. And all the data may be having an effect that's all too evident and gruesome from the local and recent news.

For instance, look at this. Thomas Matthew Crooks, who shot President Trump at that Butler, Pennsylvania rally, was 20 years old at the time. Luigi Mangione, 26 years old when he allegedly killed the United Health Care CEO Brian Thompson. Robin Westman, the shooter who killed two and injured 21 at the annunciation kill Catholic Church before committing suicide, was 23 at the time. And Tyler Robinson, suspected of shooting Charlie Kirk, suspected in that assassination, is 22 years old.

Every news cycle, there's more evidence that something is going wrong, which is why today we're doing a special program. This hour, we'll go in-depth into the crisis facing young men. And you should know we plan to do this program before the Charlie Kirk assassination. But in some ways it was inevitable. Not that particular crime, but that something would happen between the planning and the airing of this program.

And if anything, the death of Charlie Kirk, a young man himself whose life before it ended perhaps pointed toward a solution, makes the issue more urgent than ever. So in the following hour, we'll have three guests, a powerhouse team of experts looking at the issue from three different angles.

Richard Reeves, the founder of the American Institute for Boys and Men. He wrote the book of Boys and Men, which investigates why the modern mayo is struggling. He co-wrote a recent piece in the New York Times comparing today's problems to the boy problem of 1900.

Rahm Emanuel, former White House chief of staff, mayor of Chicago, ambassador to Japan, will be here to discuss the housing crisis and how the inability to buy a home is creating despondency in young men. As he notes in a recent piece in the Washington Post, young people used to believe that if they worked hard, they'd enter the middle class. Not so much anymore.

But we start with Scott Galloway. He's been prescient in this area, an academic and entrepreneur, a noted speaker, co-host of the Prof. G Markets and Raging Moderates podcasts, on top of which, he's the author of the upcoming book Notes on Being a Man, where he presents a path forward for men and parents of boys. The book comes out in November.

Scott, I'm not going to give away the new book, but I need to read something from the introduction. You say, "I teach a course called Brand Strategy, not the issues facing boys and men. I'm not an athlete, a politician, an ex-seal or an evangelist. I have no training in the subject of boys and men, either as an academic or therapist. I haven't devoted my life to being a good man, a good citizen. When I was younger, my sole focus was on becoming wealthy. Being rich makes you rich.

[09:05:05]

But having spent the past six decades in a male body while watching a parade of fake men selling distorted versions of what it means to be a man, I have some thoughts. Why do you care so much about this issue?

SCOTT GALLOWAY, PROFESSOR OF MARKETING, NYU STERN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS: Well, first off, Michael, I just want to recognize that you have been on this issue more than any person on television. So I appreciate it. June 11, 2020. Alex Kearns is trading options on Robinhood inherently gets a mistaken email saying that he owes $730,000. And after furiously trying to contact the company and getting a series of automated emails back, he leaves a note saying he didn't want to burden his family with that debt and throws himself in front of a train. And that was -- I went sort of down a rabbit hole on that. And some of the data you brought up, which is so overwhelming, and it's really a larger metaphor for what is happening of the relationship between big tech and our youth.

And that is we now have essentially 40 percent of the S and P are the most powerful companies in the world. 40 percent of the S and P by market value is essentially companies that have figured out that what we thought in marketing, that sex sells is second to something else, and that is rage. And they've essentially built the largest rage machines in history.

And what we have is a series of young men who are extremely online, who have a lack of relationships and are up against this godlike technology with the deepest-pocketed companies in the world trying to convince them that they don't need friends, they have Robinhood and Discord, they don't need to get a job. Right. They can trade crypto.

And why would they go through the effort of trying to work out, have a plan, demonstrate kindness, demonstrate excellence, demonstrate resilience, to establish a romantic relationship when they have porn.

So in some ways, Michael, I feel like Alex Kern's death is a larger metaphor for what I believe our society at the hands of shareholder driven big tech, that we're planning our own extinction.

60 percent of people age 30 used to have a kid in the house, one child, 40 years ago. Now it's 27 percent. We're not having sex. The number of young people, 18 to 29 who haven't had sex in the last year. It used to be 1 in 8, now it's 1 in 4. And any mammal that is put alone, you put an orca in a tank alone, it goes crazy. The worst thing you can do to a human is solitary confinement.

And you know, if you have dogs, you know the worst thing you can do is leave them alone. And we have a profit incentive to drive rage and convince young people that it's okay to be alone. And it takes an especially big toll on men.

When women don't have the guardrails of a romantic relationship, they oftentimes pour that additional romantic energy into their friendships and into their professional lives. When men don't have it, they pour it into going extremely online, into conspiracy theory, into misogyny, and can oftentimes be radicalized. There's a cartoon, and it is a cartoon of the poor woman in her 30s that hasn't been able to find a man. It's a myth.

Men need relationships more than women. Widows are happier after their husband dies than when they were married. Widowers are less happy. Men live four to seven years longer when they're in a relationship. Women two to four years longer. It ends up that men need relationships much more than women. And the most powerful companies in the world are essentially trying to convince us that we can have a reasonable facsimile of life on a screen and with an algorithm, and it is enraging us and dividing us.

SMERCONISH: There's a biological aspect to this that you've noted in the past, and I know we'll note in the forthcoming book about brain development, make that point.

GALLOWAY: So two seniors in high school applying to college, and I'm going through this right now with my oldest, essentially the girl who's applying to college, a senior is competing against a sophomore. The prefrontal cortex of a male is 18 months behind. It doesn't catch up until he's 25.

He's also much more risk-aggressive. He's also more likely to pursue DOPA. He's just biologically at a disadvantage. And then you couple that with an educational complex that is biased against men.

Boys are twice as likely to be suspended for the same behavior. Black boys, five times as likely. Three-quarters of people in K through 12 are women. Who are they more likely to champion? Seven to 10 high school valedictorians are girls. So your next guest, who has really been my inspiration, my role model around this, has some fantastic ideas around red shirting.

[09:10:00]

But the reality is some of that risk aggressiveness that has served our country well, whether it's scaling beams to build the Empire state building in 12 months, or quite frankly, some of that masculine energy you want when Russians pour over the border in Ukraine, some of that heroism and valiance and risk aggressiveness and entrepreneurship we want from our young men.

Quite frankly, it's been turned into something very toxic online. But men, biologically, quite frankly, just less advanced. Let me give you a scary stat.

Two 15-year-olds, a boy and a girl, both sexually molested. One crime is no less heinous than the other. The boy is ten times more likely to kill himself later in life. It ends up that while boys are physically stronger, they're emotionally and mentally much weaker than girls.

SMERCONISH: I want to say this, and I don't know that it'll matter that I say it or how many times I say it. We shouldn't be misunderstood. We are all for the success of women. I was raised by --

GALLOWAY: 100 percent.

SMERCONISH: -- and am married to a strong and successful woman. You say in the book there's no such thing as toxic masculinity. That's the emperor of all oxymorons. What do you mean by that?

GALLOWAY: Well, there's cruelty, there's abuse of power, there's violence. But we need to restore masculinity as a potential code that you were referencing in your opening. And everybody needs a code. Some people get it from religion. Some people get it from their family. You can get it from work and get it from the military. I'd like to think that masculinity can serve as a code for young men

who are struggling to find some guidelines, some guardrails. And for me, masculinity is really three legs of a stool. One being a provider.

Men are disproportionately unfairly parents evaluated based on their economic success. And they get a lot of their purpose and their self worth from their economic success. I know you do. I do. And the reality is that 75 percent of women say that economic viability is important in a mate. It's only 25 percent of men.

Men don't really care if a woman is economically viable in kind of the mating game. Protector. Think about the most masculine jobs being the military, being a fireman, being a cop. At the end of the day, the whole point of problem --

SMERCONISH: Did I lose Scott, because I'm not hearing the feed. He's gone. Okay, okay. We lost Scott.

Let me just say this, something you don't know. His book comes out in November, but he's, as I said, been prescient and so important on this subject. And I love the fact that there wasn't the -- well, I'll talk about these things. Well, I'm just, I'm praising Scott. So I want him to hear this. I want him to hear it. Is he back? Can hear me?

I'm thanking Scott and his publicist for not playing the game of, hey, that book comes out in November. I want Scott to come back in November, and people can pre-order his book right now. Notes on Being a Man. He owns this subject, and it's a privilege for me to have Scott and to have Rahm and to have Richard Reeves.

So I don't know if you can still hear me, Scott, but props to you and thank you, my friend. What are your thoughts? Okay, well, good. Thank you for that.

Hit me up on social media. I'll read some responses throughout the course of the program. Go pre-order his book. Pre-order his book.

For so long, men had the advantage. We focused on bringing other demographics higher, and lost the men.

Well, Corinne, Corinne, you take me right to the poll question today because it's time now, right, to identify in my opinion, it's time now to identify the plight of our men and as a group in need alongside so many other groups that we've singled out at different times in our history and said, wow, what can we as a society? What can we as a government do to boost this group among us? Because it has ripple effects on everybody.

Here's the poll question at smerconish.com. Go and vote today. Ready? Do we need government programs that specifically address the struggles facing young men? I'll give you results at the end of the hour.

Still to come, what does the housing crisis, specifically homeownership, have to do with the success of young men? And what happens when the American dream becomes unaffordable and inaccessible?

Former Obama chief of staff Ambassador Congressman Rahm Emanuel sees this as the real issue. He'll be here in a moment.

As always, don't forget, sign up for my newsletter when you're voting on the poll question for which Scott Stantis drew this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:18:50]

SMERCONISH: Welcome back to our deep dive into the problems facing young men. Joining me now, Rahm Emanuel, CNN senior political and global affairs commentator and so much more.

Former Obama White House chief of staff, member of Congress, mayor of Chicago, ambassador to Japan. He's authored the Washington Post oped. What's really depressing America's young men, noting only 30 years ago the median age of a first-time home buyer was 28, and today it's 38.

Ambassador, welcome back. I pulled your second inaugural --

RAHM EMMANUEL, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR: Thanks, Michael.

SMERCONISH: -- address as mayor of Chicago. I'm going to put on the screen, words that you spoke. You said, "Be a role model for the young people in your life. Share the values that made you who you are with someone who wants to grow up to be like you. Give an adolescent who was born without a prayer his first prayer at getting ahead. Find a way to let young men, invisible for too long, see hope, belief, and expectation in your eyes." Why was that the focus back in 2015 of your second inaugural?

EMMANUEL: Well, thank you for reading it. I mean, I was working, obviously increasing high school graduation. I was looking with Dr. Janice Jackson, the chancellor of our schools at Data and also doing things in our after-school program, summer jobs program. And it was becoming quite evident to me just looking at this. We had a massive crisis.

[09:20:18]

We had not only in the sense of what the data was saying, interacting with kids. And I would participate in this program called "Becoming a Man". And we blew it up to from 100 to about 8,000 young men in a mentoring program.

It's the largest mentoring program in the country. It was the inspiration for President Obama as my brother's keeper. And these were just empty souls yearning for somebody to emotionally connect to them.

And so when I looked not only at the data, but also what I was experiencing as mayor, that we had a crisis on our hand. And if it was any other group, any other kind of downtrodden group, we'd be screaming as a country and also as Democrats. But these were boys.

And so therefore they didn't have the kind of, you know, we didn't have the same kind of predisposition to care in that same way. And I realized that I didn't want to speak about pensions. I didn't want to speak about fiscal health. I got yelled at when I told my staff I'm going to do the entire inaugural dedicated to one subject, the lost men of our city and the lost young boys. They thought I was crazy, and I was crazy back a decade ago.

But to me, what you could see early on, the echoes of what we're talking about in Richard Reeves' books, in obviously your prior great interviewer.

SMERCONISH: Scott Galloway.

EMMANUEL: This topic. Yes, Scott, is the idea that we have young boys becoming men. And in one subject, I say, and I think in that speech, you don't send young boys off to prison hoping they become men.

And I am who I am because of the greatest man I ever met, my father. And we have young boys growing up without that. And we have to provide that in some way.

SMERCONISH: Well, something went right in that Emanuel household because I know the doctor, I don't know the agent, but I've read all about the interconnectedness. To your political observation in 2024, during the course of the campaign, I talked here about how I stumbled on the DNC website, and they listed all of these constituent groups that they were serving.

16 different groups, and one of them was women. I think I shamed them into taking it off the website. But talk about the politically incorrect aspect of sitting here and being an advocate for men.

EMMANUEL: No, it was -- listen I mean, again, I don't, I want to get back to this. It was not either or. And then this group that I helped with the University of Chicago and others, we took from 100 boys. I participated in this, their group, and we blew it up to 8,000 young men. It has a group called WOW, Working on Womenhood.

It's not an either or choice, but we have clearly among young men this yearning to be emotionally connected to a role model that allows you to become not only the human being, but the male that you want to be. And we are raised to be both providers and protectors.

And one of the things that we're seeing, and I write about this in this last piece in the Washington Post, is that home ownership has a mythological economic hold, and men have internalized their own failure. And if we don't grab them and make them, help them realize themselves in the way that I try to do with my own son, and also as my brothers have done, Ari has done, he has three boys. We will lose a generation that have so much to give, and they have the thing that kind of drove me in this effort was to see this not only alienation, but this self-hate internalized.

And it was so wrong on so many levels. And a little drop of love, affection, and admiration allows these young men to realize themselves and their full potential, or at least get on the road to it.

SMERCONISH: I get -- I get that it's a complicated subject. We can't appropriately address all of the factors involved in the span of an hour. But you point to the economy, and one of the things that jumped out from your recent op-ed is you said the problem is that real generation-over-generation prosperity is harder to achieve today. And I know that Scott Galloway often says the best way to help men and everybody else we've got to restore the middle class.

EMMANUEL: Yes, 100 percent. Look, the American Dream over the last 20 years, 2000 starts to recede. Owning a home, saving for your retirement, saving for your kids education, affording your health care without going into the poor house. And every piece of that, the foundational pillars of the American dream erodes, recedes. We don't score in America. The American dream, whether the Emanuel children will be okay. They're going to be fine.

[09:25:07]

You know why? They come from a loving home with two parents. They're going to be fine.

But when 90 percent of the American public is locked out from the American dream, that's not how we keep score. And we have to say that's unacceptable. And we, all of us, have accepted each pillar. As long as our kids were okay or were okay, we've accepted the erosion of the American dream and the accessibility of the American dream. And people have know the system is rigged. It's rigged against their success.

And it's most hardest on young men, and we can't deny that. And it's hardest because they are raised with a value of principle of both provider and protector. And they are failing at the most fundamental test of their own self-identity. And it can't be that hard to just say what I just said without some sense of political correctness.

And so to me, there's an economic component. There's other components to this. Yes.

SMERCONISH: Can I say that it also cuts across all demographics of young men? Because what struck me about your second inaugural address, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that you were speaking in particular to inner city African American men in Chicago. And more recently, what this data speaks to is a whole lot of white young men. I mean it's all of young men for different reasons who seem to be struggling.

EMMANUEL: Well, look, I mean, obviously you know the demographics of the city of Chicago, but you catch on a point. And again, there was participating probably the best thing I did as mayor was participating, and then hearing these young boys talk for themselves in bam. I took other athletes, other people to participate. And again, becoming a man then becomes the inspiration for, because I asked President Obama to participate at Hyde Park High School, which he does in 2012. And it becomes the inspiration for My Brother's Keeper.

But when I started looking at the data with the chancellor of our public schools, one of the things that caught my attention wasn't just African American and Hispanic men, but you were seeing Hispanic women start to surpass white males, boys educationally.

And when you look at kind of the demographics of Chicago public schools, et cetera, that was like. And then I started being the weirdo that I am, started delving into the data, started listening to the echo of these young boys, things that they had said, and it became quite clear to me that this was a crisis. And then again, it became the inspiration to dedicate the entire second article to one subject. Not the cross currents of crime, education, fiscal health, economic development, et cetera.

I just wanted to talk about this subject. And look, I took my own advice besides growing this group up. I brought in and mentored a young man as mayor. He worked in the mayor's office. We all have a role to play. And it's not based on your title.

It's based on who you are, what you've done, what you've accomplished. And, you know, I look at this kind of, as my dad used to say, two points. One, no child's ever been spoiled by being told they're loved too many times a day. No child.

And a government program, while I believe fundamentally in the goodness of government, cannot do that. Cannot do that. Only an individual, a parent or a father, or a mother can do that. Or an uncle, or coach, or a mentor, or somebody running a summer school program, an after-school program. And that, to me, is the fundamental that our young men are missing and understanding. No, don't internalize that self-hate. Realize your potential.

And that is a responsibility on all of us. Every one of us.

SMERCONISH: For two minutes, they've been telling me, you got a rap, but there was no way I was interrupting that. Thank you, Mayor. I really. Ambassador. Whatever the hell I should call you have so many titles. I just really appreciate you. So thank you, thank you.

EMMANUEL: I answered a crap head and a lot of other things from my own children, who I love dearly.

SMERCONISH: Yes, that's not the way you said it to me, but that's okay. But that's okay.

SMERCONISH: Thank you.

EMMANUEL: I'm cleaning it up. Well, with the FCC today, who knows? So I'm cleaning it up.

SMERCONISH: Right, True. Thank you.

Okay, Rahm Emanuel, ladies and gentlemen. Let's see what you're saying via social media. That was really incredible, the way that he just voiced it.

No. Why did the solution always seem to be more government? Okay, so Beebee Sunshine is speaking now to the poll question, and I respect that view, Beebee. You just heard Rahm say it comes from the home, right? It comes from the community. It comes from mentoring. So maybe if you

vote no to the poll question, you're not disregarding the need. Put the poll question up on the screen, Catherine, so that everybody sees what I'm talking about.

Do we need government programs that specifically address the struggles facing young men? What Beebee is saying is she's a no vote, doesn't need a government program, but that does not ignore the problem as Rahm just defined it.

[09:30:08]

Still to come. More of your social reaction. By the way, follow me on X and subscribe to my YouTube channel. That's how you can reach me and get on the program yourself.

And did you know that according to the most recent numbers from Pew research, as of 2021, 28 percent of 40-year-old men, 28 percent of 40 year old men have never been married compared to 22 percent of the women. And more important, the percentage of unmarried 40-year-olds has been going up regularly and dramatically since 1980, when it was in single digits at 6percent.

Have traditional roles in marriage become a choice more than a necessity, and is that good for society? We're going to get into that.

Sign up for my newsletter when you're voting on the poll question. Steve Breen drew this for us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:35:22]

SMERCONISH: Please follow me on X, subscribe to my YouTube channel, then I can read some of your comments live on the air.

Kris says, there are tons of awesome women out there. Young men need to get off their social media and video gaming asses and meet them in the real world. And don't be a hateful PoS. I get it. That's it. Oh, and having a job and education also helps. The crisis is completely self-imposed.

I disagree with the last line. I totally get your point. Absolutely, there are awesome women out there.

And let me say what I said to Scott Galloway. We are letting them down. If we don't figure out what the hell is going on with young men and give them a boost and get them on track we are letting down the young women because we're interrupting the natural flow of relationships.

The part of your comment that I disagree with is when you say, it's totally self-imposed. You've got to listen more carefully to what Scott had to say. Algorithmically, these 10 companies that are driving the economy in a good way for the stock market, they've got a stranglehold. It's an unfair fight. They've got a stranglehold on our young men. That's -- that's the problem that we've got to deal with as well. I mean, it's like a choice you've got to make, you know, if acting in the best interest of your 401(k) or acting in the best interest of your -- of your -- your sons and your nephews and your grandchildren.

One more if I've got time for it. I think I do. Catherine, what have we got?

Alan, education system favor a more feminine learning style. The world we live in demonizes everything masculine. Yes, we need adjustments to help men before the pendulum swing back violently.

I don't know that the education system favors a more feminine learning style but I -- but I agree that there's been a lot of effort placed on so-called toxic masculinity instead of addressing, well, what are the factors that are driving men to be receptive to those kind of messages? And then, you know, you throw in the violence.

I mentioned those incidents at the outset. Obviously, we've all got the assassination of Charlie Kirk on our minds. You know, all a bunch of young 20 somethings. It's all interconnected. It is all interconnected.

Please make sure you're voting on today's poll question at Smerconish.com. Do we need government programs that specifically address the struggles facing young men?

Up ahead, fewer people are dating, marrying, or having kids. Some commentators argue that there aren't enough suitable bachelors to meet the standards of accomplished modern women. Is that true?

My next guest is the author of "Why the Modern Male Is Struggling." Nobody knows this like Richard Reeves. He's got some interesting findings. He'll be here in a moment.

Make sure you're signing up for the newsletter at Smerconish.com when you're voting on the poll question. Jack Ohman drew that for us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:42:22]

SMERCONISH: Welcome back to our hour-long analysis of the problems facing young men. My next guest, Richard Reeves, founder of the American Institute for Boys and Men, the author of "Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It." He has highlighted how younger generation American males are feeling increasingly hopeless. He has recently written with Robert Putnam of "Bowling Alone" fame in "The New York Times," "Boy Crisis of 2025, Meet the Boy Problem of the 1900s."

Richard, welcome back. We had a boy crisis in the early 20th century. How did we solve that?

RICHARD REEVES, AUTHOR, "OF BOYS AND MEN": Thanks for having me. Thank you for the show, Michael.

Well, we responded with the civic institutions that you've just been talking to Rahm Emanuel and others about, which is Big Brothers Big Sisters, Boy Scouts, et cetera. I loved what you've been talking about this morning, about the fact that we need men to help boys to become men, and that doesn't happen accidentally. And so, in the early 19th century, that's when actually Boy Scouts, Big Brothers, Boys Clubs were all created in response to what was seen as a crisis of boys in our cities. And we need a similar civic response today.

It's really striking to me that these institutions, YMCA, Big Brothers, they are desperate for more male volunteers because they have huge waiting lists for the boys. So, we have in our country thousands, if not millions of boys looking for mentors, looking for role models. And we don't have enough for them.

And so, this is a call to men similar to the one we had 100 years ago which is we need you, our young men and our boys need you.

SMERCONISH: You say that --

REEVES: And maybe we need each other.

SMERCONISH: You say that today danger -- I'm paraphrasing, but I'll get it straight, today, danger lurks more from an algorithm than an alleyway.

REEVES: Yes, that's right. So, it's a different kind of protection that we need now. It's a different -- we need different skills. Anybody who thinks that it isn't a different world in 2025 to what it was 100 years ago hasn't been paying attention.

So, yes, different skills for sure. And we're losing too many of our boys and young men now to those algorithms which you talked to Scott about earlier to the internet, et cetera. And so, it's more of a digital world that we're losing our boys and young men to now than perhaps the real world. But no less dangerous for that, Michael, it's also very isolating, can be radicalizing. And so, sure, the dangers are different, but the need for men to help boys is as great as ever.

SMERCONISH: I've tried to make today's program really devoid of the politics, because I think this goes above and beyond the political conversation. But I want to point something out that you highlighted, which is that the Democratic National Committee listed every possible group in the world, but they didn't list men.

[09:45:01]

But more recently, Gavin Newsom -- in fact, I was just reading a story supplied to me by a friend engaged in a mentoring program. Gretchen Whitmer seems to get it. Wes Moore climbing on board. You've written about those three and others. Speak to that issue.

REEVES: A year ago, I was saying that the Democrats were deafeningly silent on this issue of boys and men. And at worst, those on the left generally basically couldn't get their head around the fact that boys and men might have problems because they were committed to the idea that boys and men were the problem.

But in the last few months, the last year or so, really, I think that has changed very significantly. You've mentioned some of the governors and there are executive orders being signed by these governors, real progress. Just this week, we've seen a call to service from Governor Newsom in California, Governor Moore in Maryland. Governor Newsom in California, along with Josh Fryday, his service head has said, 10,000 men, come, we need you. That is not something that was happening two years ago.

And so, I do think that this issue is becoming more mainstream. Thank God for that. But we are just at the beginning. And in the meantime, the crisis continues to grow.

SMERCONISH: Relative to relationships and marriage, Richard Reeves, you've also said that the women who least need a man are still the ones marrying one. What does that mean?

REEVES: What it means is actually college educated women and men are actually still marrying at pretty high rates. The marriage crisis is not among the women that went to a selective college. The marriage crisis among men and women with less economic power, the ones that Scott says, those with less economic viability.

The crisis is really in lower income and working-class communities. And what we do find is that when men are doing better in those communities, the marriage rates are higher. And so, whatever your politics, if you think that it is better for men to be more viable, for women to be more viable, for kids to have parents in their lives, then you have got to focus on the challenges of men, and especially men who right now are struggling the most economically.

SMERCONISH: OK. Let's offer something tangible to an audience member who's been watching for the last 47 minutes and says, you've convinced me we have a crisis among our men. What can I do? I want to help fix this.

REEVES: I'm going to give a policy response first, which is we do need more men in our schools. My own son is a fifth-grade teacher in Baltimore City. God bless him. The 10-percentage point drop in the share of men in our classrooms is something that we should all be doing something about.

But on a personal level, I'm just telling you, like if you're a man, especially listening to this, there is a boy or a young man in your life who needs you more than you know. Call them now. Text them now. Ask them how are you doing? And then ask them again, how are you really doing?

Do not underestimate how important you are to the well-being of the boys and men in your life. We need you. We need all of us. It takes a village to raise a child, and especially a boy into a man. But some of those villages have to be men. So, don't underestimate how important it is.

So, get your phone out. Don't scroll on it. Think about that boy or young man. It could be a cousin. It could be a nephew. It could be a friend. It could be -- there's a -- there's a -- there is a young man or a boy in your life right now who needs you. And this is going to take all of us to solve this crisis, not just government, not just policy, but each and every one of us.

So, if we all do our bit, then we can help save a generation of young men. And the time is now.

SMERCONISH: Richard Reeves, that was beautifully said. Thank you so much.

Checking in now on more social media reaction. Follow me on X, subscribe to my YouTube channel where, by the way, I'm offering much more of this type of thematic program.

I am fortunate to work with a number of young men, mostly Black and Hispanic. They have to work. I see none of the loneliness. Maybe not having a safety net forces these kids to get out of the basement. Between work and school, they don't have time to fall down rabbit holes.

Lynne, I think that makes sense. I mean, what's the expression? The idle hands are the devil's workshop. I agree with you.

You still have time to vote on today's poll question by going to Smerconish.com. And here's the way we worded it. Do we need government programs that specifically address the struggles facing young men?

We got to do something. Should there be a government response? Subscribe to the newsletter while you're there. You'll get the exclusive editorial cartoons from the likes of Rob Rogers.

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[09:53:41]

SMERCONISH: OK. There's the poll result -- oh, come on, 50/50. Catherine, come on, come on. Somebody has got it by a whisker. Which side has it by a whisker? Just whisper it in my ear. Tell me. The noes. OK, noes by a whisker. Noes by a whisker.

Do we need government programs that specifically address the struggle? So, 30,000 have voted. It's evenly divided.

I got to say that social media comment earlier in the program from BeeBee -- BeeBee, who said -- like she recognizes it's a problem, but the government shouldn't solve it. I'm not taking the 50 percent who voted no as a repudiation of the thesis.

The thesis is our young men are in trouble, and maybe it's not a government response. Maybe it's what Richard Reeves -- I love what Richard Reeves just said a moment ago. You're a degree of separation away from somebody in need. Reach out for them. Try and help them.

More social media reaction. What do we have? Back in the day, the term was pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. I know. I know, McCainIn4. Yes, that was -- things have changed. There are some modern dynamics. However, they got where they are simply saying, you know, get out of the basement isn't working.

Here's another social media reaction. What do we have? The boy crisis is fueled by porn warping boys views of women, true, while girls surpass them in school, work, and life.

[09:55:07]

Falling behind, they grow insecure and resentful and without respect and purpose they -- resentment festers.

Kristin, I totally -- based on everything that I've read about this subject and the interviews that I've conducted, I think that you're -- you're on to something. And it also -- how do I say this? It also creates an expectation issue.

If your introduction into sex is porn and you're 15 years old, it sets an expectation standard for you that's unrealistic putting girls older in a horrible position. So, it's -- it's all interconnected. Yes. The accessibility -- I'm not a prude, but the accessibility of porn is a -- is a big part of this dynamic.

Hey, I think this was worthwhile. Thank you, Scott Galloway. Thank you, Rahm Emanuel. Thank you, Richard Reeves.

I thought they were extraordinary. And we've done a small part here to try and educate people about a group among us, a big group who are suffering.

If you missed any of today's program, you can always listen anywhere you get your podcasts. Thank you for watching. I'll see you next week.

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