talk about the notion of trust in

experts.

>> The most important statistic to me in

all of politics

is do you trust government to do the

right thing most of the time? And

through much of the 20th century, 70% of

Americans said, "Yeah, I trust

government to do the right thing most of

the time." Now we're down to what, like

15%.

And the most socially important

statistic is, do you trust your

neighbors? Do you trust the people

around you? And it used to be 60% said

yes. And now that's down to 30%. and 19%

of millennial and Gen Z. So, people have

lost faith in each other.

David, where are you?

>> I'm in Washington DC where my normal

home is.

>> There you go. So, obviously a a tragic

weekend and would love to just get any

kind of initial reactions to the

shootings both at Brown University and

in Australia.

>> Yeah, and I would add the murder of Rob

Reiner and his wife. Um, so now we wake

up to three very violent stories. On the

one hand, we shouldn't overexaggerate

these things. The the number of mass

killings in the US in 2025 was had been

remarkably low. Uh, and so it's not like

we've I don't think it's fair to say

we've entered a new age of violence. If

you look at murder rates, they're down.

You look at suicide rates, they're down.

So you shouldn't ex extrapolate from

these stories. Nonetheless, they are

real. Something has happened, I think,

since 2013. We've just entered dark

world.

uh and uh dark world is distrust. It's

isolation. And as you write about and

talk about a lot, uh the pain of this

moment is not distributed equally.

People with college degrees uh live 15

years longer than people with high

school degrees. They're much less likely

to die of opioid. Uh they're much less

likely to say they have no friends. And

guys, in particular, are getting

hammered. And so if you're a single

male without a college degree,

your rate of having an affectionate

touch, how many times somebody hugs you

or kisses you or just a gentle pat,

large numbers of young guys go through

weeks and weeks and weeks without an

affectionate touch. And that may seem

like a trivial thing, but a I do not

think it is. I think we are mammals who

require touch. uh but it's symptomatic

of a whole series of maladies that are

afflicting people and since 2013 we've

not only seen the rise of social pain

we've seen the rise of conspiracy theory

and what inevitably accompanies that is

anti-semitism

uh and so in Monty Beach um obviously a

clear case of anti-semitism and as

several reminder authors have been

reminding us over the last few hours

when you use the phrase globalize the

inifat this is what you get this is

globalizing the inifat I was in Israel

during the second in Nevada and it was

one of the scariest times I've been.

I've covered wars and done that kind of

thing, but it was really scary cuz you

never know what when the next bus was

blown going to blow up, when the next

pizzeria was going to blow up. Uh and so

some people say in that just means

struggle. But that holocaust when we use

the word holocaust that doesn't just

mean a big fire that has a specific

historic meaning. Uh and so to me this

is an example of globalizing the defa

leads to violence in this way which is

not to be against the struggle for

Palestinian statethood. I'm all for that

but the violent means are

counterproductive.

>> A couple things in there. Um one I can't

help but you say you use a date since

2013 and that's about the time that

social went on mobile. Have you made the

same connection? Yeah, it's very hard to

look at the social indicators which

turns out at the same time and not think

it has something to do with social media

on mobile but it was also a time and

tell me if you think this is connected.

I have trouble seeing the straight line

between that. If you look at the rise of

populism both on the left and the right,

it dates to about that time. And the

initial populist movement was I think in

Spain or Portugal called the indign.

And it was a group of people arguing we

do not accept your authority. And so the

populist movement also happens in 2013.

And was that driven by social media? I

think partially, but I think partially

not. Mostly not.

>> I think it's a chaser effect. I think

the core though the epicenter of the

earthquake is a transfer a slow but

elegant transfer of wealth from young to

old and that economic procarity

across young people is bad for men and

women but it's especially hard on young

men who are unduly evaluated based on

their economic viability. And then you

take them online where they're likely to

find algorithms who will tell them it's

not their fault to blame women for their

romantic problems and blame immigrants

for their economic problems. They become

radicalized. And then you mix in

polarization, access to guns, and it's

this dangerous alchemy. But I would

reverse engineer it at the very core,

the epicenter

to a transfer of wealth from young to

old because old people keep voting

themselves more money. Your thoughts?

>> Well, I've been arguing against old

people who are my base. That's my base.

Old people are my base. PBS News Center,

New York Times column. Uh but but we

have basically taken money that should

be going to young people on the way up

and we've g given it to people who are

dying or old on the way out. Uh and

that's just a stupid way to run the

country and I used to get my AP friends

very upset uh with that. I I want to

focus in on that the notion of procarity

because I think there is procarity but I

think it's a little more I I've begun to

think of it in more fine-tuned ways. So

young people feel that the American

dream is dead and uh some in my own

family and that the old model if you

work hard you get ahead. Uh that just

that's broken. And there are some

studies that show 70% of Americans

overall say the American dream is dead.

So that's pretty terrible. Um, but when

you look at the data, and the the

blogger Noah Smith runs chart after

chart about this, Millennial and Gen Z

have higher wheel real wages than Boomer

and Gen X at the same age.

>> Uh, and they have not two different home

ownership rates. And we're now in a

moment where we have the highest median

uh wages in American history. It's about

88,000 bucks. Uh, and so some of the

economic data are not that bad and yet

the feeling is bad. And so I I was

talking to a CEO a couple months ago and

he said, "When my team comes to me and

says when a a customer says this went

wrong, this is part of your product

sucks." And my team says, "No, they're

wrong. We've got data on this." The CEO

says, "I always believe the anecdote

over the data." And I think there's some

virtue to that. believing the anecdote

over the data or at least trying to

reconcile the two. And I think one of

the things that's changed is when I was

getting out of college, it felt like

there were like nine jobs there. You

could be a teacher, a doctor, nurse,

lawyer, cop, whatever. Now it feels

there are a million jobs. And when I was

getting out of college, there were

pathways to uh the right jobs. And it

was there was a clear steps you took. if

you want to become a newspaper

columnist, you tried to become a very

junior associate editor at a small

magazine and then gradually you worked

your way up and that's exactly what I

did.

>> Uh and now I feel those pathways are

gone or worse there are fewer pathways.

So in a just society the there are many

mountain tops and different people got

to climb different mountain tops

depending on their abilities or tastes.

But now we've rendered into one

mountaintop. You have to get into a

selective college. you have to get a job

at a very small number of firms like

Goldman Sachs or or whatever Bane and

that's the one route and so you have

millions of people trying to get into

that route and so suddenly you have

universities rejecting 96% and then at

Goldman they have 3,000 internships

every summer but 300,000 apply and so

we've narrowed the range of paths upward

and we've made it all chaotic and at the

same time I would say we made courtship

chaotic

>> uh I'm ancient, but you know, I I wasn't

in the age when back in the 50s when

they pinned girlfriends in high school,

but I was at the age where you asked

somebody out, you dated for a certain

amount of time, and you broke up.

>> And that there was a structure to

courtship. And that has been gone for 15

or 20 years. And so I think the

procarity is often the uncertainty and

the lack of clarity, the lack of order,

uh, as much even though the the raw

economic data show millennial and Gen Z

are doing pretty well. I mean, there's

so much there, I would argue. So,

it's undeniable that the average middle

class person is doing better and living

a better life than the wealthiest person

in the world

100 years ago, maybe even 50 years ago.

Like, I'll take Netflix and Novacane

over royalty, right? But the problem is

the human brain doesn't work that way.

It's where it's a comparison culture and

every day 210 times a day young people

have faux wealth vomited on them and it

makes them feel that if I'm not in a

visa at a rave or on a Gulfream I'm

failing even if I'm quote unquote doing

okay. And there is some data that says

they're not as doing as well as their

parents were at 30. And I think some of

the major indicators, housing, the

average age of first-time buyers

is I mean the data I'll give you this

the narrative that all young people are

doing poorly. That's just not accurate,

right? There is some data that just

flies in the way of that. But I think

it's the what do you call I don't know

people call it a vibe session. The thing

I just want to reverse to that you said

that was so powerful and one of the

things I admire so much about you is

you're considered a conservative but I

find you so compassionate

is you said something I hadn't even

thought about and that is the importance

of touch and that we're mammals and that

there are young men I've always said a

lot of young men their first male role

model was a prison guard

>> but the idea and then I go to sex one in

three men under the age of 30 hasn't had

sex in the last year and 60% of

households used to have a kid at 30 Now

it's 27%. But I never really stopped to

think about the importance of touch

where mammals and just how important and

restorative and healthy it is that that

touch. Can you can you speak more about

that? I hadn't heard that before framed

that way.

>> Yeah, there's a guy a scientist named

Reed Monu who studies this and he

studies how powerful touch is. When you

look at uh our nearest animal ancestors,

apes and such, they're constantly

touching each other. It just has a

tremendous calming effect. And I hug my

wife and I hug each other many times a

day and it's not a big deal. It's just

like it's just something you do cuz

intuitively we know it's true. But also

it's a symptom of love. And one of the

things, you know, I think is obvious.

There's a great study called the Grant

Study, a longitudinal study done at

Harvard. And the founder of that or the

director of that study, longtime

director, a guy named George Valiant

said, "After all my years, my lifetime

of studying human flourishing, my answer

is uh human flourishing is love full

stop." And so it pays to just fill your

life with a lot of love. And I mean that

as love for a person, love for another

person. But I also mean that as what are

our most obvious loves? We usually we

love our town. Uh we love our vacation.

People who are religious love God.

uh and with our country. These are the

obvious forms of love. Are any of these

forms doing anything other than

declining? The number of people in

dating relationships is way down. Way

down. The number of people who go to

church is way down. The number of people

who express patriotism, especially among

the younger generations, is way down.

Civic life is less rich. So, in a weird

way, you could just say there's just a

lot of less love in the world. We don't

usually talk in those terms cuz it

doesn't sound very social sciency. But I

do think there's sort of it's just as

simple as that. People are, you know,

you want to love your profession. You

want to love what you do. You want to

love the people around you. You want to

live at full boore. One of my heroes is

a guy named St. Augustine who not pretty

famous. And he says, "Give me a man in

love. Give me a land a man in the desert

who yearns for the pure waters. If I

talk to a cold man, he just doesn't know

what I'm talking about." And I do think

there's wisdom and that Gustinian

uh desire for artor for enthusiasm for

full commitment for all the things that

love entails. And just lack of that is

just a horrible state to be in.

>> I love the study you're talking about

and that's the opening line. U happiness

is love full stop. And I've been

thinking a lot about I had a friend who

passed away and I wasn't close with him

but I was thinking about how much

character one of our fraternity brothers

demonstrated for him calling us raising

funds finding out who has contacts at

Cedars for his care. And there's this

great line in the movie Magnolia and

William Macy as a bartender who's lonely

and he says I have loved to give but I

just don't know where to put it. And one

of the things that came out of that

study that really struck me, you know,

the number of deep and meaningful

relationships is kind of the the the

whole shooting match, right? I think

most people would guess that. What

shocked me or I think the the life hack

is that being loved is great, but the

happiest people find a lot of places to

put their love. It's the people who love

the most who are the happiest, not the

people who are loved the most. And I

thought that was so profound. So I guess

my question would be as someone who

looks at society,

how do we make it easier for people to

find places to put their love, is it how

do we create more opportunities for

people to love something or someone?

>> Well, part of the problem is the self.

Uh I I recently came across a study

where they asked a lot of people, "How

do you know when you're in love?" And

they said, "I know I'm in love when I

don't have to try hard socially. I know

I'm in love when somebody makes me feel

uh warm and appreciated. Uh and they but

the theme through all the comments was I

know I'm in love when I get to feel a

certain way. It's not when I get to

sacrifice and put their desires above

myself. And we have gone in such a

self-oriented culture that love is about

how do you make me feel and that's

really not what love is. Uh love is is

you know when you when you want someone

you want to devour them but when you

love someone you want to serve them and

it's that and one of the things people

say love is love eliminates the

distinction between giving and receiving

because to give to someone you love

feels like as good as it as receiving.

Uh and so I think we partly it's the

large self. Partly

young people just don't aren't dating as

much anymore. And I'm not sure I can

explain that one, but one of the most

educational experiences I had in my life

was falling in love with a woman when I

was 18.

Uh, and I remember it was May 5th, 1979.

We were at a campfire with friends and

she slipped her hand into mine and it

was one of the happiest moments of my

life. I'll remember it forever. And then

I I that year I didn't go to the camp I

just mentioned. I stayed home and worked

as a janitor uh so I could hang go to

her. She worked as a waitress. I'd go to

her restaurant every lunchtime just to

hang around her. Uh and then she came

transferred to my college and dumped me.

But uh and I learned about the suffering

too. But that all that experience of

falling in love and feeling your heart

expand in a way you never imagined it

could

>> and then going through the rigors of a

relationship and then going through the

pain you experience when somebody dumps

you. Uh that is an education. And I

loved my college. I had a great

experience to change my life. But I

would trade my college education for

that romantic education. And it taught

me to put your heart at the center of

your life, not your head.

>> Yeah. The thing there, the the only

thing I would I went through a very

similar experience. I bloomed late. And

having someone that you you think is

impressive, love you, love you is just

so I I feel like if I could give anyone

that gift when they're young, this

builds so much confidence. And I went

through a similar thing. Uh she also

broke up with me. But I think the real

learning is it might take a month, a

week, maybe, you know, even a year, but

then you're fine and you realize that

you can get through these things. And I

worry that a lot of young men choose a

frictionless,

risk-free version of relationships and

never develop the scar tissue or the

calluses or the confidence to know if I

apply for a job I'm not qualified for or

apply to a college I'm not I'm not I

don't have the credentials or approach a

stranger and express romantic interest

who might be perceived out of my way

class that if it doesn't work I'm going

to be fine. Isn't some of it that we're

trying to create and I think it's

through over parenting quite frankly

concierge parenting that we're creating

a generation of people and encouraging

them not to take any real risks.

>> Uh well I certainly the college students

I teach certainly often believe that if

uh I have one failure then my life is

derailed. So one false step and it's

over. And I try to assure them that

that's not true. Uh, and your point of

getting broken up with, I remember when

I got broken up with, I I went up to

Water Tower Place in Chicago and bought

some French cigarettes. If I was going

to suffer, I wanted to suffer like

Albert Kamu. Like I was I was weirdly

proud of my suffering because I'd never

experienced suffering like that. And I

was like, "Wow, I'm a deep guy. I'm so

proud." But it and but I got over it. It

took years, frankly. Uh, but I got over

it. Uh there's a song on country music

these days about a young woman who uh is

is gets crushed by her boyfriend broken

up. She survives it and then he calls

her later and wants to get back

together. And the song is called What

Doesn't Kill You Calls You 6 Months

Later. And I think that's a perfect

country music song.

>> And uh and so you you do learn you can

get over it. But I think the risk thing

is the crucial thing. And I don't know

if it's over parenting or what, but I

think the decline in dating it it's a

you you don't have to take a risk with a

phone. It's always there for you. And

asking a girl out is an enormous risk.

Falling in love is an enormous risk. And

I think there is some sort of social

risk aversion that has settled as we've

come to be more distrustful. And then

the second thing that's happened is uh

professionalization has become an urgent

carve out. Uh, and so my students would

always tell me, "I don't have time to

date. I'm just too busy." And I would

tell them, "You're doing it wrong. One

of, you know, the data is pretty clear

that the quality of your marriage is

more important than the quality of your

career in determining your happiness."

And so, you should focus on that. And I

once had a student tell me, you know,

marriage is a box that'll come in the

mail when I'm 35. And I was like, wrong.

It's it's very important to learn how to

do relations. I don't advise getting

married in college. The statistics show

you should wait till 25. Um, but uh it's

really helps to have had a whole

repertoire of relationships so you're

able to be a good partner to somebody

and it takes practice just like anything

else and it takes skill building. I the

uh the same woman who told me that uh

marriage will came come in the mail uh

she said you know I've had four

boyfriends in my life and they all

ghosted me at the end. Not a single one

of them had the decency to call her up

and have that conversation.

And I think it's because in part nobody

had taught them they had to do that. You

a decent person has a breakup

conversation. And as important, no one

had taught them that it's possible to

break up with someone without crushing

their heart at least more than is

necessary. Uh and I think these are

basic social skills that we have not

passed on. And they're skills like how

to ask for an offer for forgiveness. uh

how to listen really well to somebody,

how to be a great conversationalist.

Uh and somehow social skills are are um

neglected.

>> I've seen some recent studies trying to

understand why young people are so

anxious and depressed. And a lot of it

is uh they claim they have no purpose.

And I sort of for the first time kind of

made that connection to what you were

just saying that the ability to love

others or love something. And as I think

about I think I think of my purpose is I

want to raise patriotic loving men. And

what that means is my purpose is I just

don't get as much back from my boys as

they get from me. And I know that sounds

terrible, but that's my purpose.

I And whether your purpose might be

civil rights, but showing up to

protests, raising money, getting all

sorts of feedback or negative feedback

or getting attacked online, it's because

it's your purpose. You're going to give

more than you're going to get. And I

mean it can you do you make that

connection between purpose that young

people I don't and I don't know how we

inculcate this or teach them that but

the whole point of parenting in my view

or of purpose is you decide to just give

more than you're going to get from this

thing or this person. I encounter this

all the time. I I had a student who was

a great student. I gave him his only A

minus at Yale. Uh, and he was such a

good investor that while he was in

college, he had a Bloomberg terminal on

his dorm room desk. He worked for a firm

and they gave him a terminal which was

an expensive thing. And he got out and

he got and he was an arrogant bro kind

of guy and wonderful guy. I really liked

him. And he got out and he got fired and

he called me and his voice was utterly

different uh because he had done what he

thought. And when he was fired from that

job, he didn't really know what his

tilos was. And I think he never knew. I

think he just was going along with the

system, what the system told him to

want. And the niche has a saying, he who

has a why to live or can endure anyhow.

Uh and if you know why you're put on

this earth, you can endure the setbacks.

But if you don't know your wise, um then

the setbacks are really devastating. Uh

and I found that many young people are

what they call insecure overachievers.

they uh have no foundation. They haven't

discovered their sense of purpose. So,

they build very impressive towers up on

top, but their foundation is rotten and

eventually the towers are going to

crumble. Uh and so, I began teaching

courses really on how to find a sense of

purpose. And the core theory of one of

those courses was that every young

person, not every everyone, but most are

going to make four fundamental

commitments in the course of their 20s

or maybe up to 35 or 40. a commitment to

a vocation with a career, a commitment

to a philosophy or faith, a worldview

they can believe in and hang their guide

their life by. Um, some kind of family

uh and to a community and the quality of

your life will be determined by the

quality of the commitments you make and

how you live up to those commitments.

And a commitment is falling in love with

something and then building a structure

of behavior around it for when love

falters. So Jews love their God, but

they keep kosher just in case. Keep them

on the straight and narrow. I love my

wife, but we have a a legal and

religious marital bond between us. So

that's that's a structure of behavior

for for those moments when love falters.

And that act of commitment making is a

bit countercultural today because we

live in a culture that values autonomy a

lot of freedom of choice. Keep my

options open. Keep my options open. And

commitment is about closing options. But

in my view, there there are two kinds of

freedom. the freedom of no restraint,

which is the way a lot of people define

freedom now. But another kind of freedom

is the freedom to do hard things. So if

I want the freedom to play the piano, I

have to chain myself down to the piano

bench and practice. And in that sense,

sometimes it's your chains to set you

free. But the these are countercultural

concepts these days.

Support for the show comes from

LinkedIn. If you've ever hired for your

small business, you know how important

it is to find the right person. That's

why LinkedIn Jobs is stepping things up

with their new AI assistant. So, you can

feel confident you're finding top talent

that you can't find anywhere else. And

those great candidates you're looking

for are already on LinkedIn. In fact,

according to their data, employees hired

through LinkedIn are 30% more likely to

stick around for at least a year

compared to those hired through the

leading competitor. That's a big deal

when every hire counts. With LinkedIn

Jobs AI assistant, you can skip

confusing steps and recruiting jargon.

It filters through applicants based on

criteria you've set for your role and

surfaces only the best matches so you're

not stuck sorting through a mountain of

résumés. LinkedIn Jobs AI assistant can

even suggest 25 great fit candidates

daily so you can invite them to apply

and keep things moving. Hire right the

first time. Post your job for free at

linkedin.com/prof.

Then promote it to use LinkedIn jobs new

AI assistant making it easier and faster

to find top candidates. That's

linkedin.com/prof

to post your job for free. Terms and

conditions apply.

Support for the show comes from Ripling.

Finance teams can waste weeks chasing

receipts, reconciling spreadsheets, and

fixing errors across a slew of

disconnected spend tools. And it's what

Ripling is here to fix, helping you keep

your spend under control without the

busy work of clunky finance software.

Ripling is the unified platform for

global HR, payroll, IT, and finance.

They've helped millions replace their

mess of cobble together tools with one

system designed to give leaders clarity,

speed, and control. By uniting

employees, teams, and departments in one

system, Ripling removes the bottlenecks,

busy work, and silos your software can

create. Automated perfectly in sync, and

seriously simple to use. With Ripling,

you can run your entire HR, IT, and

finance operations as one, or pick and

choose the products that best fill in

the gaps in your software stack. And

right now, you can get 6 months free

when you go to rippling.com/propg.

Learn more at ripp png.com/provg.

That's rippling.com/provg

for 6 months free. Terms and conditions

apply.

So there's no way to make this altitude

change elegantly. But let's talk about

Trump. Um so consumer sentiment is worse

now than its lowest uh point in the

Biden administration.

Uh how do you view economic anxiety as

as part of this political crisis? Do you

think that um you write about

authoritarian figures that they create

their own realities akin to performance

artists? What try and how do you think

people will look back on this moment in

terms of what it means for broader

society?

Well, in terms I think I think we're

just in a moment of extreme anxiety. Uh

and and that feeds in over negative

economic sentiment even when I think

econ if you look at the University of

Michigan consumer data in information

consumer sentiment is through the floor.

And what's interesting to me is that um

20% of Republicans think Donald Trump is

responsible.

Uh and that's bad news for Donald Trump.

My colleague at the New York Times, EJ

Dion, had a piece where he estimated

that somewhere between 15 and 25% of

Trump voters have changed their mind

about him. Uh, and that's good news for

me cuz I do I've maintained that all

voters are reasonable

>> and that suggests a lot of Republicans

are are walking away from Trump. I think

it's a little too early. Some of the

people are out over their skis in

thinking the Trump presidency is is in

permanent decline. I think he's holding

around 40% approval, 42, which is his is

his historic norm. But we are in a

moment where um people are prepared for

the worst

uh quick to see the worst, I would say,

high threat perception and then quick to

blame the elites and Donald Trump is now

being seen a little more as one of the

elites.

>> You said you could measure

authoritarianism by how high the price

is to oppose it. Uh does the fact that

institutions and voters are it seem

reticent or actually less reticent? It

seems like they're more willing to push

back. Does this reflect it feels like

and I I don't know if it's confirm or

you know I don't know what which bias it

is that I'm I'm imposing here but it

does feel like this is a moment that

there's been a bit of a pivot or that

the dam is beginning to burst in terms

of Trump's ability to hold this

coalition together. Your thoughts?

>> It's clearly fraying. I mean, there's

just been a lot of negative news for

Trump in the last time. The the drop in

his polls, especially the drop in his

polls on economics, drop in his polls on

immigration, the setback in all the

different political races that have been

held over the last year, the Indiana

legislature beginning to rebel. Uh I do

think and then even within the Senate uh

some of the attacks on on or in the

House on Speaker Johnson for basically

disarming the the Senate and the House

both unilaterally disarmed. One of the

things I was taught in political science

class is that people go into politics

because they want power. But I've

learned in as a journalist people don't

want power. Even politicians don't want

power. They're happy to give away power

if they can keep their jobs. And so they

give power to the agencies. They give

power to the president and they give

power to the party leaders. So Congress

is run by four people. The speaker, the

majority leader, the minority leader and

the the the Senate and House minority

leaders. Uh and so they run the place

and all most other people are basically

powerless, which is why so many people

leave. Um and but are they going to be

when we begin to see mainstream House

members bucking the president on

important issues, then I'll believe his

coalition is fracturing. Now I think

it's fraying around the edges but not

really fracturing.

>> Curious what you think about so trust in

media and government all-time lows. Talk

about the concepts more generally of you

know as it relates to media or

government or however else you want to

explain these constructs or these

themes. Talk about the notion of trust

and experts.

>> Yeah. Well trust is faith that you will

do what you ought to do. And so it's a

faith. It's a form of faith because it's

I'm anticipating the future and I have

faith in you. uh and it and it faith

it's a moral kind of faith that you will

do what you ought to do and the ought is

uh relies on the fact that we have a

shared moral sense that we agree what

you ought to do. It also requires that

we have uh shared norms of how to be

considerate to each other. That if two

lanes are emerging in the highway, the

right lane is going to go then the left

lane, the right lane and then the left

lane. And if you bump in line and cut,

I'm going to honk cuz you you uh you

violated the norm. And so over the last

decades, uh that sense of shared faith

and shared moral order and shared moral

norms has deteriorated. And the most dis

the most important statistic to me in

all of politics

is do you trust government to do the

right thing most of the time? And

through much of the 20th century 70% of

Americans said yeah I trust government

to do the right thing most of the time.

Now we're down to what like 15%.

And the most socially important

statistic is do you trust your

neighbors? Do you trust the people

around you? And it used to be 60% said

yes. And now that's down to 30% and 19%

of millennial and Gen Z. So people have

lost faith in each other. And I I've

been persuaded by Robert Putnham at

Harvard that

when you lose faith, it's usually

wellounded. When you are distrustful,

it's usually because people have been

untrustworthy to you. And I just think

there's it's so it's in a weird way,

trust is the moral barometer of society.

And when people betray you, uh, then you

get distressful. And one of the dumbest

things Donald Trump is doing right now

is, uh, going to people at rallies and

saying, "You don't need 32 dolls. You

can get by with two dolls."

That just, um, makes people feel like

he's flippant and he doesn't sympathize.

And if there's one thing Americans want

right now, it's to be seen by their

leaders. And when they go to the

supermarket and they buy like a medium

amount and they walk out of there with

$179 bill and he says buy two dolls

there people are going to feel unseen.

And that's part of uh what's happened

here. And and once you feel unseen then

you uh get more distrustful cuz we we

evolved to be surrounded by 150 other

people who saw us all the time. And when

you get more distrustful you're less

likely to trust others and less people

will less likely to be trustworthy to

you. And so trust is about spirals. You

have a spir a death spiral of distrust

feeding into distrust feeding into

distrust. Or positively you can have the

death upward spiral of people who behave

trustingly find that people are

trustworthy so they trust them more. So

their relationships improve and they

have more trust and more trust. And I

have found in my life I don't know you

that I always lead with trust. I I

exaggeratedly trust people. And often

that burns me. Not often, but sometimes

it burns me. I get socially betrayed. I

get financially betrayed. Well,

whatever. But I think on balance, if you

lead with trust, most of the time people

will behave in trustworthy ways. But you

have to lead with trust in the first

instance. And a lot of people are just

too burned by life to do that. I would

argue that the culprit around the

erosion in trust and faith in our

institutions is that we have attached a

profit motive to algorithms who figured

out a way to get us to mistrust each

other. That we're actually not

that divided, but we have the S&P 40% of

the S&P has a vested interest in

dividing us. I mean, I go online, I'll

go online, I'll read the comments and

you know, everyone has addictions. I'm

convinced everyone has a certain amount

of addiction. I have two addictions. One

is to money and one is to the

affirmation of strangers, which is just

stupid at my age. But I'll go on YouTube

and people will say really aggressive

mean things about both of us. Uh and the

reason why and and then I'll find that

half of them, especially the really vile

ones, are dogm 312 with three followers.

It's a bot meant to create engagement or

from someone who sees a vested intern or

national interest in dividing America,

whatever it might be. But essentially,

we've created porest platforms and an

algorithm and attached a profit

incentive that's gotten so big it may be

the dominant force in our economy that

has an sees an inverse correlation

between trust and profitability. Your

thoughts?

>> I think that's part of it, but the trust

numbers really began to go south about

30 years ago. The the federal trust

numbers began to go south in the 70s. Uh

that do you trust government, but the

social trust began to go 30 years ago.

So I I think that's a big part of it. Uh

but I think it's mostly it's social

disconnection. Uh it's shrinking family

size. It's shrinking friendship circles.

Uh etc. etc. But I'm sort of interested

by the fact that you go on and look at

the reaction to you cuz I am I don't

know. I'm must be psychologically weaker

than you. I avoid that cuz it it's too

psychologically damaging. I can't take

it.

>> It means you're stronger. I I'm the I'm

the heroin addict. It's like just my

last hit. Now, I go on and I look at

them and I I I try to stop at a certain

point, but I think yours is a much

healthier approach and a much more

confident approach. Yeah. I go on and

and look at these things and it takes me

out of my head and I lack presence

around my family, the people who I

should care about. But your data is is

is hard to argue with. Do you think it's

I mean, it's a variety of things. You

talk a lot about this when I when I see

on television. Lack of church

attendance, lack of so Well, let me let

me let's move to solutions. one for one

idea I I love and I'm curious. I would

love to see mandatory national service.

Your thoughts?

>> 100%. I mean, it's astounding to me that

uh it uh doesn't, you know, it's not

there because all you have to do is

mention if you're talking to a group of

people and you mention the phrase

national service, you get applause,

spontaneous applause. And I think we all

have a sense we would be better off. A

people have a sense of purpose if they

got experienced the sensation of giving.

B, it would be great if somebody from

Berkeley, California mets had to room

with somebody from Birmingham, Alabama.

It would just be fantastic. Uh, I

actually in 2017, I la I launched a

nonprofit exactly on this subject on the

idea that social distrust was underlying

a lot of the problems in our society.

And so the project the project is called

Weave, the social fabric project. And we

just go to towns and we say, "Who's

trusted here?" And people list names,

people in the neighborhood. Uh it could

be some some of the people have are just

uh the sort of the people in the

neighborhood who spontaneously organize

things. Uh I we met somebody who said,

"I practice aggressive friendship." And

she's the lady on the black who has the

July 4th parties. She's the lady on the

black hose has New Year's Eve parties.

So everyone looks to her and they know

that she's a community hub. Some people

are just nonprofit leaders. Uh, so the

there, you know, they run the community

organization. They run the homeless

organization. I was in Watts and I ran

into an organization called Sisters of

Watts and it was just like a bunch of

moms and they did whatever the

neighborhood needed. So if the kids were

going home hungry, they had backpacks

filled with food to send them home with.

They cleaned up the the empty lots. They

gave showers to the homeless. They just

did what the community needed. And I

found that whatever town you go into or

whatever neighborhood you go into and if

you say who's trusted here, you'll get a

list of names and everybody they're

everywhere these and we call them

weavers cuz they're weaving communities

together. They are the people who build

trust and trust travels at the at the

speed of relationship. Uh and that's

slow. Uh but if you can shift norms, you

can really produce big change all at

once. So in the '7s we shifted norms

around littering and it used to be

perfectly fine to litter and then it was

not. Then we shifted norms about

smoking. The me too movement shifted

norms about sexual abuse and harassment

and you can shift norms. And so what

we've does is we give financial support

to weavers so they'll be more effective

and we we give them access to each

other. We tell give them chances to tell

their stories on media and then we bring

them together. Uh and the goal is to

create more people's and identity is

really powerful. Uh if people say, you

know, I'm I'm going to be a little more

like those people. A culture changes

when a small group of people find a

better way to live and the rest of us

copy. And so I I've spent the last seven

or eight years around the most beautiful

people in America. And it's kept my mood

up when politics is trying to destroy

it. Uh and if we could shift norms

around that kind of behavior. Just one

final story. We ran into a lady in

Florida and she was helping kids across

the street after elementary school one

in the afternoon and we asked her, "Do

you have time to volunteer in your

neighborhood?" And she said, "Nope, I

have no time." And she said, we said,

"Well, are you getting paid to do this?"

And she said, "No, but I help the kids

cross the street after school cuz it'll

be safer for them." Uh, and then we

said, "What do you do the rest of the

day?" And she said, "Well, on Thursdays

I take food to the hospital so the

patients love some nicer food to eat."

And we said, "Do you have time to

volunteer in your neighborhood?" and she

said, "No, I have no time." And she

didn't see this as volunteering. She

just saw it as what neighbors do. And if

we could shift the norm so people

redefine what a neighbor is, then

suddenly you see a lot more trust in

society. And it has to start at the

ground up, but it also has to happen to

the top down. It's really hard to build

trust to the ground up when somebody in

the White House is trying to destroy it

every day from the top down.

One of the I learn a lot from you and I

like that you challenge my thinking

because you have argued against a purely

material explanation for our political

crisis that throwing money at people

isn't the solve and that there are

moral, relational

um and spiritual issues at hand here.

What do you think that progressives

uh including myself misunderstand about

economic redistribution

that could substitute uh or that it's

not a good substitute for cultural

repair? Yeah. One of the differences

between liberals and conservatives is

liberals liberalism grew up in power.

Like I think modern liberalism grew up

in the New Deal when there was levers of

power that Democrats controlled that

they could advance their agenda.

Conservatism more or less grew up out of

power. And so when I was a young

conservative uh we had neck ties and

some conservatives wore Adam Smith neck

ties, some were St. Augustine, some were

Edund Burke, but the load stars of being

conservative was philosophical

and it was more it was out of power. It

was a group in through the 60s until

Ronald Reagan was in exile. And so I

found it in those days, things have all

changed now, of course, as a more

conservatism was more philosophically

oriented and progressivism was more

programmatical

and more reliant on planning and econom

economics. And if you were in

government, then it's natural to think,

well, what I what do I have in

government that I can use to make

society better? I've got money.

uh and that

under that fed into what really was

descending from Marxism and I think a

lot of people are influenced by Marx

including me who are not Marxists but

Marx was really about economic and

material determinism that material

conditions determine consciousness and

as a conservative I think consciousness

has a large influence on material

conditions or at least the ar the causal

arrow goes both ways and so it was very

easy both in the great society uh and in

the years

to believe if we just throw money at a

problem then that'll go a long way to

solving it. And that has failed in my

view in the school system. We've thrown

a lot increasingly more money at schools

and scores are dropping rapidly. Uh and

it's especially in efforts to create

social mobility. If you give a for poor

family money, they're better off. So,

I'm for it. They can buy more um

groceries or whatever else they need.

But what you were hoping when you gave a

poor family basic income or whatever was

that their long-term uh outcomes would

be different, that they'd have higher

high school graduation rates, they had

higher incomes later on. Uh and that's

not true. That doesn't happen. And

that's been I just saw another study

finding with the same finding today

because if you come from a poor family

and have parents with an extremely

strong work ethic,

you're probably going to do okay. Uh and

it's that work ethic that is necessary

along with some resources. So I I think

it and I think a lot of people don't

want to mention that work ethic because

it seems like you're blaming the poor,

you're blaming the victim here. Uh but

the people who are poor are completely

aware of how important a work ethic is

and they everyone has complexities in

their life to explain their

circumstances. But uh uh I do think it's

it's possible to talk about the things

like work ethic, self-control without

saying oh you people you poor people are

bad which is certainly not true.

Support for the show comes from

Vanguard. To all the financial adviserss

listening, let's talk about bonds for a

minute. Capturing value and fixed income

is not easy. Bond markets are massive,

murky, and let's be real, lots of firms

throw a couple flashy funds your way and

call it a day. But not Vanguard.

Vanguard bonds are institutional

quality. Institutional quality isn't a

tagline. It's a commitment to your

clients. It means top grade products

across the board. The lineup includes

over 80 bond funds. They're actively

managed by a 200 person global squad of

sector specialists, analysts, and

traders. Lots of firms love to highlight

their star portfolio managers. Like,

it's all about that one brilliant mind

making the magic happen. Vanguard's

philosophy is a little different. They

believe the best active strategy

shouldn't be locked away with one

person. They should be shared across the

team. That way, every client benefits

from the collective brain power, not

just one individual's take. So, if

you're looking to give your clients

consistent results year in and year out,

go see the record for yourself at

vanguard.com/audio.

That's vanguard.com/audio.

All investing is subject to risk.

Vanguard Marketing Corporation

distributor.

Support for the show comes from Vanta.

As a founder, you're moving fast toward

product market fit, your next round, or

your first big enterprise deal. But with

AI accelerating how quickly startups

build and ship, your security

expectations are higher earlier than

ever. Getting security and compliance

right can unlock growth or stall it if

you wait too long. Vanta is a trust

management platform that helps

businesses automate security and

compliance with deep integrations and

automated workflows built for fastmoving

teams. So whether you're a startup

tackling your first SOCK 2 or ISO 2701

or an enterprise managing vendor risk,

Mant's trust management platform makes

it quicker, easier, and more scalable.

The results. According to an IDC study,

Vant customers slash over $500,000 a

year in costs. Establishing trust isn't

optional. Vanta makes it automatic. Go

to vanta.com/provch

to save $1,000 today through the Vant

for startups program and join over

10,000 ambitious companies already

scaling with Vanta. That's

venta.com/profg

to save $1,000 for a limited time.

The term I keep hearing and it's become

almost a badge of honor. People are

consistently saying consistently saying

I'm politically homeless. And there's

different levels of homelessness, right?

There's people who don't have a static

address. They're qualified as homeless.

There's people live in their car and

there's people, you know, living under a

bridge. I think of David Brooks as a guy

living under a bridge. Like, I can't

imagine a more politically homeless

person right now. the way you meld

conservative ideology like money doesn't

fix the problem, it's values and at the

same time you talk about the importance

of touch among young men. I mean you

really are sort of an island of one or

let me put let me ask you this. Who do

who in the Republican or the Democratic

party or where do you find a home in

terms of our leadership? Who do you

think I'm just speak who does David

Brooks want to be president? Who are you

impressed by?

>> Yeah. Uh well, first just weren't my

home. Uh you know, I I'm I think I'm

pretty consistent. I'm now I'm a person

of faith, but until my 50s, I had no

faith. But I did read the Bible. And the

idea that the the

strong should serve the weak and the

rich should serve the poor was pretty

squarely in the center of the both Old

and New Testament. And so that seemed

like a good value to embrace. Uh and

then I um uh then my one of my heroes is

Edund Burke. Uh and the key phrase for

Burke is epistemological modesty. Uh

that the world is really complicated and

you should be very humble about what you

think you can know. And so you should do

change but you should do it cautiously

and incremental. You should perform on

society, Burke wrote, the way you would

perform surgery on your father very

carefully. And I think a lot of the

planning that progressives did and the

plan big projects that the progressives

did over the course of the 20th century,

a lot of them just backfired because no

one is smart enough to to ma navigate

complex change. And then my third hero

is Alexander Hamilton who's a Puerto

Rican hiphop star from New York City. Uh

now Hamilton uh there are three

traditions in American life even though

we only have two parties. One of them is

a progressive tradition believes in

using government to enhance equality.

very legitimate tradition. The other is

a more libertarian tradition that

believes in uh reducing government to

enhance freedom. And then historically

we've had a third tradition which starts

with Alexander Hamilton. It goes up

through Henry Clay and Daniel Webster

and the Wig Party uh with the American

system. And then it goes up through

Abraham Lincoln who was a wig who who

gave more speeches on banking than he

did about slavery in the course of his

career. And then it goes up to the

Roosevelt and then it goes up and

probably dies with John McCain at least

the first McCain race of 2000 and would

include the Rudy Giuliani version the

two the 2000 version of Rudy Giuliani

not the contemporary version and that's

that tradition believes in limited but

energetic government to enhance social

mobility. As Hamilton or Lincoln would

have said it's about creating a world in

which poor boys and girls can rise and

succeed. If we don't have social

mobility, if we divide into a class

structure, then that's curtains. And so

the way you do that is you use

government in limited but energetic ways

to help people become good capitalists

uh or good whatever they want to be. And

that's good human capital policies,

that's good education policies, that's

job training, that's earned income tax

credit, that's baby bonds, whatever to

help people rise and succeed. And to me,

my tradition, the wig tradition, is a

legitimate tradition in American life.

It just happens to have no political uh

partisan home. But I I I think I see

bits of it on the the moderate side of

the Democratic party, which is where I

now consider myself. I'm just watching,

for example, Rahm Emanuel begin his

presidential campaign, and some people

think Rahm is, you know, he's he's the

old guard. He doesn't have a chance. And

maybe that's true. I think he's very

realistic about what his chances are.

But he is talking about the American

dream and he is talking about education.

And the way Democrats have walked away

from that issue is astounding to me.

Democrats like Bill Clinton and Barack

Obama wanted education reform. And now

the Democrats Kla Harris basically do

not have an education plank in her

platform cuz she didn't I don't know. I

don't know. She didn't care. She thought

it would be divisive for the party. And

the problem with that is right now

Republicans are kicking Democrats asses

on education. The best education states,

as has been written about a lot, are

Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee,

uh, Florida, Georgia, they're those are

the states where the gains are being

made. And one statistic should upset

every Californian. That in California,

28% of black kids are reading at grade

level. 28%. In Mississippi, a much

poorer state, 58% of black kids are

reading at grade level. So, what's the

hell's going on? California. uh and

somehow so my party would if it existed

would care a lot about that.

So I used to think the best way to

predict the future was to make it which

is sort of this ego-driven

actionorientation like Tarzan uh trope

but I now think it's the best way to

predict the future is to look at

incentives

and do you believe that so I think as a

percentage of of GDP generally speaking

across the uh across the west especially

in Europe we've seen social service

spending go up and and at some point the

incentives are quite frankly not to take

risks, not to work. Do you think that

part of the failure of progressives is

that we've uh in an attempt to grab

social virtue and show empathy for our

brothers and our sisters that we've

created an incentive system that creates

a smaller tax base and slowly but surely

inspires this downward spiral?

>> Yeah, I guess I would uh I do believe

obviously in the power of incentives,

but again, we look at issues somewhat

differently. It's interesting because I

think you and I agree on a lot but we we

think differently and so I think what

matters is your intrinsic desires and

ext incentives to me feel like

exttrinsic desires like a performance

pay plan sounds like an exttrinsic

desire and I think one of the things the

research shows if you pay kids to read

they'll begin to regard reading as work

uh and do less of it and I think this is

even true among you know bankers that

some of the performance pay programs

that they thought would boost

productivity didn't really boo boost

productivity and I would say what uh

what really makes people work hard is to

get back to our original subject is

doing the thing they love to do doing

the thing they are wired to do uh I read

this biography of Walt Disney recently

and when he was making Snow White the

first fulllength feature animated movie

he he hired artists and art historians

to come to Disney studios and teach his

draw his cartoonists to draw like

Michelangelo and Rambr runs and people

like that. And he he worked on this

movie three years before even drawing

this first cell and it was hour upon

hour, seven days a week of doing the

voices. What should the look of the

movie be? Uh what do we do with with

Grumpy? You know, and and that three

years of prep work bringing in he

brought in um I think Franklidd Wright

to come to the studio to talk to the

artists about lines. And it was it made

no economic sense to do all this stuff,

but he did it because he he just wanted

to do the thing he wanted to do. He

loved drawing and he wanted to do the

great project and it made no economic

sense. But he was totally driven and

frankly it economically eventually paid

off. But so I think people will become

entrepreneurs when it seems challenging

and cool to be entrepreneurs. I think I

again I I gravitate a little more to the

um to the incentive uh to the cultural

piece than to the incentive piece. I

don't know if you think I'm wrong about

that.

>> I just grew up in an environment where I

you know not having money then being

very focused on econ economic security

teaching at a business school being an

entrepreneur raising capital being on

boards. I one of my real weak points is

I tend to think of things through an

economic lens. And also I and by the way

I think the idolatry of the dollar in

America I think America is basically

becoming a trading platform. It's it's

like losing almost any sense of self

around what it means to be a society.

We're just a trading platform to try and

get rich is and it you know character

seems to take in a distant second and

character and grit are conflated with

the size of your bank account. Full stop

is how I see it. And so the incentives

among young young people is just

disproportionately towards doing

whatever is required

uh to find money and skipping over the

purpose the relationships the things you

were talking about touch that are so

important and you end up maybe with some

economic security but you end up

economic end up anxious obese and

depressed at the age of 35 with an

inability to to attach to anything. Uh

so yeah I do I think about incentives a

lot and that is whenever I look at a

situation where the behavior just I

can't figure it out I go right to the

economic incentives but part of that

again is proximity bias. Those are the

people I teach at a business school. I

don't teach at the sociology department.

What do you What do you make of

And I hate even using his name because I

I I worry I'm adding to the problem by

platforming him and I think that I'm

hoping like Andrew Tate is just going to

fade into the distance when people

realize just how how how stupid and

nihilistic he is. But what do you think

of Nick Fuentes and does it say anything

about the Republican party or is it

going to be like an Andrew Tate or Yanni

Monopol forget his name was just kind of

the algorithms love him for the short

term and then he goes away. Do you think

this is something bigger?

>> Yeah, I do. I mean, I I I do think we're

in a moment of of sort of nihilism which

produces a right-wing reaction which is

fascist comes close to fascism.

And so the I think we entered a stage in

the 1980s or 1990s of what we call moral

relativism. The the prevailing ethos as

Alan Bloom wrote in the closing of the

American mind is you do you, I'll do me.

We we each come up with our own values.

And I think that led to a lot of people

with no shared values. If you tell

everybody to come up with your own

values, unless your name is Aristotle,

you can't do it. You come up with

nothing. And so I think we entered a

phase where people were just morally

inarticulate and unclear on values and

everything was kind of wishy-washy. Uh

and they were weak. And there's a and

then when you get a counterreaction to

that, there's a book by a guy named

Rusty Reno called uh The Return of the

Strong Gods. And his argument was that

after World War II people wanted weak

belief because they thought strong

belief produces the Nazis. And so they

went for weak belief. Carl Popper open

open society. Everything should be open.

And so there's a reaction against that

to have strong gods, strong nation,

strong man, uh strong orthodox faith. Uh

but with that goes the bad boy. I with

that goes true fanaticism because if

you're trying to trying to shock the

bourgeoisi, the weaklings, the elites,

the uh one of the things you wanted to

do is have a strong position and you

want it to be somewhat dangerous and

romantic and manly.

And so then you had that love for Rome,

Roman Empire that spread throughout the

alt-right, but it's inevitably going to

lead you to conspiracy theories. It's

inevitably going to lead you to racism.

it's inevitably going to lead you to

anti-semitism because once you adopt

that logic that I'm going to have the

strong belief that the establishment

doesn't like then you've got to keep

upping the dosage and that would that's

what Nick Fuentes is he's he ups the

dosage and the audience demands the

higher grade of heroin they want the

pure stuff and he offers some a little

more pure Andrew Tate offers a little

more pure pure but you can't return to

the earlier dosage because it seems

boring and so you have this cycle of

self-radicalization

with these young guys rising uh spewing

the most hateful stuff

and it still somehow seems cool to

people I guess um because and I think

the alt-right and my friends and family

members who are really in that world um

they say it's just getting crazier and

crazier

>> and you brought up a word just as we

wrap up here manly and we think about

this a lot and again uh this is a

genuine question not a question posing

as a comment But I tend to reverse

almost everything, including the

instability in our society, to a lack of

economic and romantic opportunities for

young men. And that's not to say that

it's not terrible for young women, but

young women don't pick up AR-15s or

start revolutions typically. I mean,

they're they're part of the movement,

but I would argue the most unstable

violent societies in the world all have

the same thing in common, and that is a

disproportionate number of young men who

are economically or or from relationally

challenged, if you will. Isn't I mean

can't a lot of our problems be reverse

engineered to young men feeling no sense

of purpose? And again I'll use the term

economic procarity. Absolutely. I agree

with that a thousand%. Um and you know

this is not a new problem. Dustki wrote

a book notes from the underground about

a nihilistic young man who feels

invisible to society and draws the right

conclusion that if society

>> started World War I.

>> Yeah. Right.

>> A 19year-old. Anyway, sorry. Go Right.

And and so if society hates me, I'm

going to hate right back. And I think

that's part of it. Just supplement that.

So some I would say some of the lonely

young men do the they basically want to

commit suicide and take others with them

when they go. That's basically what a

mass killing is. Uh and so there there's

that segment, but there's another

segment that's reacting. I was really

struck by this in a survey I saw

sometime in the last couple weeks uh

where they asked young people

uh if you want to have a successful

life, what are the most important pieces

of that for you? And for Trump voting

young men, the number one answer was

having children.

And uh the number three answer was was

getting married.

>> And it was 11 for progressive women. And

so the

>> it was didn't even make the top.

>> It was it was second and third from the

bottom. And so to me that this is like I

think it's frankly healthier. I think

the people who think marriage is not

important. Listen a lot of people don't

get married. A lot of people marriage is

not for them. A lot of things life

happens. But as I said earlier, dating

and marrying uh are vastly more likely

to make you happy. uh the I saw a study

I think the in in the institute for

family studies um that among liberal

liberal women who get married 96% say

they're happy and among unmarried 66%.

So it doesn't mean you're going to be

unhappy if you're unmarried. It's

certainly not I we all have single

friends who have built great lives for

themselves but the odds are a little

better if you if you have a life

partner.

>> The odds are a little better if you have

a life partner. David Brooks is one of

the nation's leading writers and

commentators. He's an op-ed columnist

for the New York Times and writer for

the Atlantic. He's a best-selling author

of The Second Mountain, The Road to

Character, The Social Animal, and How to

Know a Person. Uh David, you are you are

I don't know if you feel this heat or if

you can sense it. You are such a role

model for me because I love how you you

are just unafraid and you bring this

peanut butter and chocolate that I don't

see anywhere else and that is

conservative values or what are thought

of as conservative values wrapped in

emotion, wrapped in love, wrapped in

character. I don't see anyone I don't

know if it was the last person to do

this was W. I I just don't see anyone

doing this and I think you're just such

an important voice and such a great role

model for young people, specifically

young men. very much appreciate your

time today and your voice.

>> I have never been compared to a Reese's

Peanut Butter Cup, but I I take it as a

great honor

>> and so I thank you. And I one of the

nice things about doing this show is for

the next several weeks lots of people

are going to come up to me and say,

"Hey, I saw you on the Professor G Oh.