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Smerconish

New Podcast Addresses Why Young Men Are Failing To Thrive; What I Learned About "America First" In Pennsylvania Steel Mill; Bill Maher Recounts Time Spent Speaking With President Trump. Should We Be Bringing Back Extinct Species?. Aired 9-10a ET

Aired April 12, 2025 - 09:00   ET

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


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[09:00:24]

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN ANCHOR: If you build it, will they come? I'm Michael Smerconish in Philadelphia. With regard to tariffs, our biggest problem isn't a lack of manufacturing jobs, it's finding people to fill them. On Wednesday, President Trump brought relief to the frenzied markets when he declared a pause for 90 days, leaving in place a 10 percent tariff on most nations, plus a 25 percent tariff for cars, steel and aluminum and 125 percent tariff on China. The Dow soared on the news, gaining a record 2,962 points in one day.

But in the middle of the cheering, some saw a mixed message from the White House. What was the primary purpose of these tariffs? Was it to return manufacturing jobs to the United States or to raise revenue? The president has often said that the U.S. is getting 2 billion a day in tariff revenue, although nobody seems sure exactly where that number is coming from. But maybe he emphasized the profits because he knows the first justification, the return of manufacturing jobs doesn't really hold water.

Not because we haven't lost jobs in that sector, we have, but because we can't fill them even if they do return. Allysia Finley is a Wall Street Journal Editorial Board member who wrote this week about a dirty little secret regarding the employment picture. Our status is not best described by an unemployment rate of 4 percent. Instead, it's all about our labor force participation rate. Writing under the headline of "A Good Man for U.S. Manufacturing is Hard to Find," she noted that good job openings are available, but the labor force participation rate among working age men is 5 percentage points lower than in the 80s, accounting for about 3.5 million fewer men between 25 and 54 in the workforce and 1.3 million between the ages of 25 and 34.

Or, said more simply, fewer men are willing or able to work. It seems strange, considering the median wage of recent college graduates with a sociology degree is about $45,000, while working on an auto assembly line gets you an average of $100,000. But a lot of men today want to work in an office, or maybe at home, or maybe nowhere at all. This observation is borne out in other data.

This week on my Sirius XM radio program, I hosted William Reinsch from the center for Strategic and International Studies because he co- authored a paper published in late 2024 under this headline, "Immigration Policy Solutions to Shortages in Critical Sectors of the U.S. Economy." It mostly had to do with how critical sectors of the U.S. economy are badly understaffed, a situation that will become worse without orderly immigration. That's because we're aging as a society. We're living longer as well, and our birth rates are not keeping up. Yes, in 2024 we had an unemployment rate of about 4 percent, but there were about 8 million open jobs in the U.S. last August, meaning there were almost 6 million more jobs than there were people collecting unemployment.

And no surprise, if you've been paying attention, the tightness in the labor market is most pronounced for physically demanding jobs that require in person presence. Bottom line, even if we're being treated unfairly by our trade partners, we've got a more deep seated problem here at home with our masculine workforce. Or, as Allysia Finley wrote, "The decline in work among young men is a far bigger problem for the nation's economic and cultural vitality than the decline in manufacturing jobs. It can't and won't be solved with tariffs." This is the conversation I think that we need to be having.

Which brings us to our poll question today at smerconish.com, if the United States brings back manufacturing, will Americans be willing and able to fill all the new jobs? In other words, if we build it, will they come?

Because it doesn't matter how many factories you have if men don't show up. And make no mistake, this doesn't just affect our men, it affects our women. It affects everyone. Here's another recent headline that caught my eye. Women are giving up on marriage. Rachel Wolf wrote this also coincidentally, in the Wall Street Journal, "Among the takeaways, American women have never been this resigned to staying single.

They are responding to major demographic shifts, including huge and growing gender gaps in economic and educational attainment, political affiliation, and beliefs about what a family should look like."

This story reported that a 2022 Pew Research survey of single adults showed only 35 percent of single women are looking for romance, compared to 50 percent of single men.

[09:05:03]

And you're saying, wait a minute, the guys are the ones who are seeking romance? Yes. So I tracked down Kim Parker, director of social trends research at Pew, and I asked her on radio what's going on. She told me that women are outperforming men in education and professional attainment. It's often said that women marry up, but right now it's hard for a lot of them to even marry sideways.

So when our young men struggle, so too do our young women. Which should all sound familiar to regular viewers of this program because it's a subject I've discussed repeatedly with guests, most notably Professor Scott Galloway. Prof. G, the NYU professor and host of a podcast of the same name. And as Scott has explained it here, men don't comb their hair. They don't put on a suit.

They don't go to work automatically. They need motivation, they need guardrails. And one of the primary motivators, Scott has said, is sex and companionship. And yet, as Professor Galloway notes, one in three American men under 30 hasn't had sex in the last year. This is not merely about sexual frustration.

This speaks to the formation and functioning of the middle class, ultimately, because a household that mixes the risk taking of a male and the thoughtfulness of a female works well. So if young men and women are having trouble finding each other, that's tragic on a personal level, but also on a social and economic level. And Galloway notes that today, young people are 24 percent less wealthy than they were 40 years ago, while 70 year olds, the young people from 40 years ago, they're 72 percent wealthier. Forty years ago, the average age of a home buyer was 36. Today it's 54.

Are young people opting out of a lifestyle or is it that they can't afford it? So, it's understandable that tariffs are in the headlines, with the President radically changing U.S. policy and the stock market causing whiplash. But there's something else going on beneath the headlines that is far more fundamental. What is going on with the generation that will be taking over the country? Scott Galloway believes we need to be concentrating on this situation facing young men.

His new book is available for pre order, "Notes on Being a Man." And he's so committed that he's recently paired with former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci. And the two of them have launched a new podcast. It's called "Lost Boys," and it'll drop on May 1st. Both of them join me now.

Hey, Scott. I apologize. I hope I didn't just take away all your sound bites. I wanted to make them part of the record of this discussion. What did I miss?

SCOTT GALLOWAY, PROFESSOR OF MARKETING, NYU STERN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS: Michael, it's always good to be with you. And I was looking through my calendar, you first brought me on to talk about this issue three years ago. So thanks for continually, I don't know, being a champion of this issue. Look, the scariest piece of data I've seen recently is that 51 percent of 18 to 24 year old men have never asked a woman out in person. And I had Dr. Anna Lembke on my podcast, the addictions expert professor out of Stanford and something we don't have a lot of peer reviewed research on it because it's not a topic a lot of academics are comfortable exploring is, I wonder, the role that porn is playing?

Eleven of the top 100 sites are porn sites. There's estimates that porn is somewhere between a low of 10 percent and a high of 25 percent of all Internet traffic. And that fire of desire, I would argue when it's captured correctly, I think is a fantastic motivator to be a better man, to be kinder, to take risks approaching someone expressing romantic interest while making them feel safe, having a plan economically, showing some resilience and some persistence, or put another way, the reduction in the fire of that sexual energy or that desire to make to find a romantic and a sexual partner. I think we're losing, if you will, a lot of the mojo or skills for men to become better men. And traditionally marriage, as you talked about, was for the woman was financial support and for the man emotional support.

And one of the wonderful things about our progress is that women are no longer as dependent, if at all, on a man for financial support. But men still appear to really need women for emotional support. And some men aren't kind of holding up their under the bargain and women are deciding that it no longer pays for them. But just to wrap up here, we talk about housing prices, AI, GDP. I would all speak for the three of us on this call, the most rewarding things in our life, this is what it's all about.

Purpose and meaning are the relationships we've established vis-a-vis having kids with a partner. So just on a very emotional level, it's very upsetting to think that this new generation won't get to engage in what has been some of the most meaningful experiences in life. And that is finding a wonderful, competent partner to raise children with.

[09:10:01]

So I think this is more than just an economic problem. It attacks the psyche of a younger generation.

SMERCONISH: Anthony, Scott reminds me, I'm a product, you're a product of an era where there was something called a date. And all of a sudden, I can picture myself circa 1980 something, you know, working the push button phone in the kitchen, calling her house, and being scared to death that the old man would answer the phone and I'd have to talk my way through him in order to get to her. Now, we've got a generation that think they can get it done with their thumbs, but among the lessons they miss the rejection that often came my way. You're a handsome guy, maybe it didn't come your way, but we're losing those social skills, right, and that level of interaction, that is all related. You explain.

ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI, FOUNDER, SKYBRIDGE CAPITAL: Well, the girl I had a crush on in fourth grade, I think her mother said that I'd look like a monkey, try to dissuade her from going to the movies with me. But, I mean, that happens, I guess. But I also didn't have your guts, Michael. I had to go to Jo-Jo's Pizzeria with a quarter because I was embarrassed that my older brother would say, hey, you know, you just got rejected again for like the 90th time. But I think -- I think it is really all connected.

I think -- I think what I've learned from Scott, I've learned from Professor Galloway, and I didn't see it in the beginning, it is about the culture. Something happened, Michael, and I'd love to have Professor Galloway address this, something happened in the culture where we no longer have the advocacy or the flex for men. And I'm not exactly sure what that is, but you can see it in casting. You can see it in places like Broadway. You can see it, frankly, in the media.

And you can see it actually in business and even in places on Wall Street. And Wall Street is typically an alpha place. But I would love for Scott to just explain what he sees in terms of that cultural shift that's happened that has caused this problem. SMERCONISH: Go ahead, Scott.

GALLOWAY: Well, look, some of the progress -- the bottom line is young women are just outperforming men, and quite frankly, they deserve the rewards of that outperformance. It's 60-40 female to male in colleges. Their prefrontal cortex is just more mature, their executive function. The majority of graduate schools now are overpopulated, or not overpopulated, but lean towards more women. So they deserve this economic reward that they're getting.

And men haven't kept up. But also we have a tendency to, when it's a problem facing any special interest group, we have a tendency to move to solutions and talk about societal issues and have empathy. When you're talking about the problems of men, specifically because men had a 3,000 year head start and even our generation had the greatest period of prosperity crammed into one third of the population, specifically white males, even though that's no longer, I would argue, the case, there's just a lack of empathy for these young men. So what do we tend to do when an issue is facing a special interest group? We're in with empathy and programs and solutions.

When there's an issue facing young men, we tend to pathologize them and say things like, well, if you'd only were more in touch with your emotions or, you know, you need to pull yourself up by your -- by your boots. A lot of these things, you can't imagine people saying some of these things and pathologizing this group for any other special interest group. So you have, biologically they're less mature. Socially they've been given messages that they're the predator, they're the problem. And economically young people have just been sequestered from the same opportunities purposely whether it's minimum wage, still at $7.25, a lack of vocational programming, tax policy that favors the older and the rich.

So what do you have? They're less mature biologically. They're told for 40 years that they're the problem and they're starting to believe it. And three, there's just fewer and fewer opportunities as a whole for young people. So it's sort of the perfect storm for men not to be successful.

And as you pointed, and this triggers people, women for the most part are not interested in dating a person or mating with a person that is not their economic equal. In sum, we just don't have enough economically and emotionally viable men to form households in America.

SMERCONISH: Anthony, a critic is going to look at this and they're going to see three white guys on their television set right now bemoaning the troubles of young men. What do we say to them about how we're trying to initiate this dialogue without giving any rise or fuel to toxic masculinity? Because that's not what we're about in this discussion.

SCARAMUCCI: Yes, no, I think -- I think it's really just about self- esteem and it's about a reinforcement of confidence and risk taking. You know, the first time Scott and I sat down and talked about this, got referenced that the suicide rate is like 30 percent higher for white males 18 to 30. [09:15:08]

And so anybody that's compassionate listening to this television program has to know that that is a huge problem and we need to address the problem and we need to reach those people and let them know that they can change their mindset, change their life, change the direction, take more risks. But there's people out there that have gone through trials and tribulations.

You know, Michael, I'm sure your career wasn't a straight line. My career has definitely not been a straight line. I barely meet the height requirement for the roller coaster that my career frankly has been on. So, I would just say that we've got to get people meeting the Scott Galloways of the world or the Michael Smerconishes to realize that you got to take risks, you've got to get, you know, beaten up a little bit in a career but it will fortify your self-esteem. And so it's not about toxic masculinity, it's just about, you know, confidence and self-esteem and feeling better about yourself so that you can have a happy life and do the things that we'd like to do.

The important things which are not money related guys, I think we both know that as well. You know, the real source of happiness is in the connectivity.

SMERCONISH: And their relationships.

Hey Catherine (ph), quickly put up on the screen the social media reaction so that I can lean on these two before they have to leave me. Quote, "Only 30 percent of Americans go to college or equivalent after college so where are the workers?" Asks Nancy. Scott Galloway, quick response to that.

GALLOWAY: Well, this nonsense that we're going to bring back jobs. The assembly line worker or the assembler in a Chinese factory at Apple in China starts at $500 a month. The marketing, design or product manager at Apple in the U.S. makes $200,000 a year. So this myth and romanticization that we're going to bring back manufacturing and that's going to solve problems for our young men. It's just that, a myth.

Eighty percent Americans want more manufacturing, but only 20 percent Americans want to work in a factory. We don't want these jobs. Manufacturing is not going to solve this problem. If you want to move to solutions, increase minimum wage to $25 an hour and start leveling up economically, young people and more vocational programming. But we do have to address the fact that 2/3 of our kids will not get a college degree.

SMERCONISH: Anthony, thank you. Scott, thank you as always, appreciate both of you and I wish you good things on the -- on the podcast which drops on May 1. It's called "Lost Boys."

For everybody else, go to smerconish.com right now. Scott, just answered today's poll question. What's your answer? If the United States brings back manufacturing, will Americans be willing and able to fill all the new jobs? Up ahead, how are the tariff wars playing out with the working class voters who helped Trump win reelection? Salena Zito here to talk about that. And comedian Bill Maher sharing more details about his private dinner with President Trump. You've got to hear this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL MAHER, "REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER" HOST: To all the people who treated this like it was some kind of summit meeting, you're ridiculous. Like I was going to sign a treaty or something. I have no power. I'm a fucking comedian. And he's the most powerful leader in the world.

I'm not the leader of anything except maybe a contingent of centrist minded people who think there's got to be a better way of running this country than hating each other every minute.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SMERCONISH: Amen to that. But put me in that centrist contingent that is disgusted to everybody who just wants to hate on the others at the extremes. More later on what Bill Maher had to say about his Trump dinner. It's really good stuff.

And don't forget, sign up for my free and worthy daily newsletter at smerconish.com when you are voting on the poll question. Steve Breen drew this for us. And also Scott Stantis drew this for us this week.

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[09:23:16]

SMERCONISH: My next guest's editor at the "New York Post" used to call her the Trump Whisperer. She's the one who popularized the words used by Republican Brad Todd that with regard to President Trump, the press takes him literally but not seriously. His supporters take him seriously but not literally. And she was just four feet from Trump when he was shot at Butler. That's the subject of her forthcoming book, which I've already pre ordered.

For the "Washington Post," Salena Zito just took a deep dive into a Pennsylvania steel mill to understand how the tariff wars are being received by the workers that Trump says that he's fighting for. Her latest piece was the most read story at the "Washington Post" when it dropped "What I learned about "America First" in a Pennsylvania steel mill." The focus was on how a steel processing plant near Pittsburgh is playing a central role in Trump's second term agenda. The facility is owned by U.S. Steel, the country's primary steel producer, and employs nearly 1,000 workers in West Mifflin, P.A. Of these workers, she writes the following, "I wanted to hear from the employees themselves, many of whom have multigenerational ties to the facility, about their hopes and fears and what the often bloodless business headlines mean to communities whose identities are wrapped in steel, who consider their work part of the fabric of the nation itself.

What I found was a nuanced conversation, one that has divided workers, unions, politicians and investors over the future of American steel and a debate in which the "America First" position, according to the workers whose gloved hands actually touch the steel, might mean welcoming Japanese cash and leadership rather than shutting the company off from the world.

Salena Zito joins me now.

Salena, wonderful to see you. I get the generational pride of those that you interviewed. Many, you know, follow their fathers into the steel mill, but do they want their sons tied to the same industry?

[09:25:07]

SALENA ZITO, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, WASHINGTON EXAMINER: Yes, absolutely. That's part of the big reason why they're fighting for this deal with Nippon, whether deal, partnership, whatever it ends up being. Because as one guy told because over there, I'm not doing this for me. I'm going to retire in a couple years. I'm doing this -- and he's -- he was the union head, I'm doing this for that guy that started here two weeks ago.

I'm doing this maybe my teenage son gets to work here. You know, this -- I'm doing this for the next generations. And that's that sort of nuance that people don't understand. There is great pride in working there. They feel as though they are part of something bigger than self.

What they make there makes Americans lives better, safer. It secures the national security. And they also want it -- being there also keeps those communities from dying, as you've seen in towns like McKeesport, Aliquippa, Duquesne, Pennsylvania, where the mills that once employed 10, 15, 20,000 people are just gone.

SMERCONISH: I want to shout out Justin Merriman, who took the phenomenal pictures that accompanied your piece. And I don't know if you have return monitor, we've been showing them as you're speaking. Put up on the screen some of what Salena wrote in her piece. "Trump spoke to them about the things they cared about, the border, the economy, most important of all, tariffs, which in this part of the country means their jobs are not on the loser side when people more powerful than them pick winners and losers."

This perspective is not one that we're hearing a great deal about. I think this week it's all been a market driven conversation. Everybody's scared to death about their 401ks. By the way, a lot of these workers have 401ks as well. So what are they saying given all of the opposition that President Trump is facing because of the market volatility?

ZITO: They want Trump to keep going. The tariffs are very, very important to them. It's part of a layered reason why so many mills left. It wasn't just bad trade deals, it wasn't just tariffs, but it was a big part of it. And yes, they do have 401ks.

And there was a guy I talked to who had a PhD in chemistry, his name was Anthony. And he said, look, I know I'm going to take a hit on my 401k. I know my industry might even take a hit. However, this is better for the country and sometimes you just have to take a hit when something is better than the greater good.

And that is a nuance that is so missed in reporting and in the conversation about tariffs, but also in the conversation about what we have done to people to live in the industrial Midwest, the Great Lakes Midwest and in Appalachia, but also in Carolina and the textile industries. And look at the boating industries --

SMERCONISH: Salena, I'm cutting you short for time reasons because I have to take advantage of the fact that the Trump Whisperer is with me. You know, that last night Bill Maher revealed, you know, a lot of what went on with his dinner with the President. I want to run a clip and then have you respond to it. Roll it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAHER: There were so many moments when I hit him with a joke or contradicted something and no problem. At dinner, he was asking me about the nuclear situation in Iran in a very genuine, hey, I think you're a smart guy. I want your opinion sort of way. And I said, well, obviously you're privy to things about it, I'm not. But for what it's worth, I thought the Obama deal was worth letting play out because we made Iran destroy 98 percent of the uranium and they were 15 years away from a bomb.

And then I said to him, but we got rid of that. You got rid of that. He didn't get mad or call me a left wing lunatic. He took it in. I never felt I had to walk on eggshells around him.

And honestly, I voted for Clinton and Obama, but I would never feel comfortable talking to them the way I was able to talk with Donald Trump. That's just how it went down. Make of it what you will. Me, I feel it's emblematic of why the Democrats are so unpopular these days.

A crazy person doesn't live in the White House. A person who plays a crazy person on T.V. a lot lives there, which I know is fucked up. It's just not as fucked up as I thought it was.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SMERCONISH: Salena Zito, a crazy person doesn't live in the White House. A person who plays a crazy person on T.V. a lot does. Quick reaction from you, the Trump Whisperer. I think you're going to say to me, that's the Trump you know.

ZITO: Yes. You know what I thought, Maher really nailed it when he talked about the president's curiosity. Wanting to know how people see things, wanting to know how people feel about things, wanting to know about people's lives. I've seen him have those conversations with janitors, with elected officials, and with people like Maher. That is his superpower is his intellectual curiosity.

SMERCONISH: Salena Zito, thank you for being here. Appreciate it. That piece in "The Washington Post" was just terrific. By the way, to everybody else, you can watch the full episode of "REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER." You've got to see the recap of the dinner, 8 p.m. tonight eastern on CNN.

I want to remind you, go to my Web site at Smerconish.com poll question I'm asking today, if the United States brings back manufacturing, will Americans be willing and able to fill all those new jobs?

Still to come, your social media reaction, my commentary today, plus the dire wolf story. Yes, a symbol for the house of Stark in HBO's "Game of Thrones." Now it has been resurrected through science.

George R.R. Martin, author of the fantasy novels the show was based on, he had the chance to hold one of the pups before they were revealed to the rest of the world. The female's name, Khaleesi, of course. Dire wolves, they were once a huge part of the American ecosystem. Many are excited they're back, but others have criticized their de-extinction. Nature made its call. Maybe we shouldn't be messing with it.

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[09:35:46]

SMERCONISH: You can find me on all the social media platforms. I love reading and responding to some of your stuff in real time.

You aren't a centrist -- oh, come on, I feel like stopping right there. Really?

And neither is Maher. You are a Republican. Maher is a libertarian. Both of you are on the right.

You know what, Gregster? You spend so much time like trying -- is he over here? Is he over there? You know why? Because you're so unaccustomed to seeing people -- and I'll put myself in Bill's category if he'll have me who just approach every issue one at a time.

I thought that his revelations last night were really worthy, and I hope people will look at it. Especially the point where he made that even though he voted for both Clinton and Obama, he could never have had the kind of conversation that he had with Trump at the White House.

I totally get it. I've had similar conversations with Trump, including at the White House just one time. It reminds me this week all the time spent on tariff -- do you know one of the big issues of the week is in the rest of the country, outside the bubble? Shower water pressure. Yes, because Trump has made that his cause. He has got a knack for these things.

Paper straws, bad. NFL kickoff rule, bad. Eating a hot dog, good. Democrats do not have anything that approaches his populist appeal. Here's more of Maher last night. Roll it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL MAHER, HOST, "REAL TIME" ON HBO: Moving Israel's embassy to Jerusalem, loved it. The border did need to be controlled. I'm glad the cops are getting their morale back. DEI had gone too far. Biological men shouldn't be playing women's sports. Europe should pay for their defense, and of course, it makes sense that Arab countries should take in Arab refugees like the million Syrians who wound up in Germany when Saudi Arabia took none. He said to me, you're right. They took none.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SMERCONISH: Yes. I mean, I agree with everything that he just said there. And by the way, of course, Maher is critical of Trump constantly. He took into Trump like 50 statements of negativity that Trump has directed his way. And Trump signed it for him.

It doesn't mean like, you know, that you're now drinking the Kool-Aid. It means that you're nuanced and you apply logic to every one of these issues that comes down the pike. We need more of that thinking. That's what I'm trying to say.

All right. I want you to check something out. An A.I. generated video mocking the prospect of average Americans, this ties into the poll question, in factory jobs. It has gone viral. It has been viewed millions of times. The video shows large, I guess I should say, obese middle-aged Americans slumped over sewing machines. Other scenes in the A.I. video show what's supposed to be U.S. workers struggling to build iPhones on an assembly line. It ties in well to today's poll question at Smerconish.com.

If those jobs come back, if we get back manufacturing jobs, can we fill them? Go vote at Smerconish.com. Sign up for the newsletter when you're there.

Still to come, it's the art of de-extinction. Scientists resurrecting a mammal that died out over 13,000 years ago. Could this be our answer to preventing more endangered species? Or is it better to let sleeping dogs lie?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD ATTENBOROUGH AS JOHN HAMMOND: Our scientists have done things which nobody's ever done before.

JEFF GOLDBLUM AS DR. IAN MALCOLM: Yes, yes, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[09:43:09]

SMERCONISH: Could the world's first successfully de-extincted animal be a step too far from mankind? Dallas researchers at Colossal Biosciences have resurrected dire wolves, a prehistoric canine species that roamed the Americas and then died out nearly 13,000 years ago. Scientists used ancient DNA from dire wolf fossils and gene editing technology to alter the cells of a gray wolf, the closest living relative to dire wolves.

The DNA material of the most promising gray wolf cells then transferred into donor eggs of domestic dogs and developed into embryos. Scientists then used large mixed breed hounds to carry the dire wolf embryos as surrogate mothers.

The outcome? Three adorable dire wolf puppies that look like household pets but are actually much larger, stronger, more wild, and fearful of humans.

The biotech company has also produced two litters of red wolves, the most critically endangered wolf species. Their other projects include resurrecting the woolly mammoth, Tasmanian tiger, and dodo bird.

Joining me now is Robert Klitzman, a professor of psychiatry and director of bioethics' master's program at Columbia University. In the piece, Dr. Klitzman, that time used to break this news, you were quoted as expressing concerns. As a matter of fact, you shared some of those concerns with me on radio. But tell the CNN audience what worries you the most about this?

DR. ROBERT KLITZMAN, PROFESSOR OF PSYCHIATRY, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: Well, there are a few concerns, both about the animal's well-being that we're creating and everyone else's well-being and other animals' well-being. So, these are going to be big animals. These are the dire wolves are 150 pounds. They come up to maybe your belly button and they're hyper carnivores. They're going to eat cows, horses, house pets, et cetera. And you can think of the film "Jurassic Park," where scientists brought back dinosaurs, thinking how nice we'll have them in a zoo, everyone will look at them.

[09:45:01]

The dinosaurs ran amuck and they started to attack the humans. We're messing with nature. We're genetically engineering these wolves. It turns out that we learned that there were 80 genes that these wolves have that no longer exist. And so, scientists chose 15 to put back into the ghost wolf.

Five they didn't use because they caused problems like deafness in the -- in the wolf. And we don't know enough about genes. So, if we start tinkering with genes, there may be unexpected problems. These animals may end up with cancer. And where are they going to live?

They roamed over 1,000 square miles in many cases. And now we have them in three square miles. It's like we're going to bring you back a gorilla and keep it in a one room apartment.

There's also problems in that -- when we in the past introduce new species into areas, it's been difficult. So, we had red wolves in the past, we brought into Great Smoky Mountain National Park. They start to die of Lyme disease and other diseases that didn't exist or they hadn't seen before. And then they started roaming around outside the park, 40 miles outside killing other animals.

And we have limited budgets now to conserve animals that are still alive but about to go extinct. And they need places to live. And I think our money is better spent trying to save animals that are still here, but not yet gone, as opposed to bringing back ones from 13,000 years ago who ate different things. If we bring back the woolly mammoth, where is it going to live?

SMERCONISH: Here's what I think -- here's what I think would be the company's response from that time piece that broke the news. We'll put it on the screen.

If all this seems to smack of a P.T. Barnum, the company has a reply. Colossal claims that the same techniques it uses to summon back species from the dead could prevent existing but endangered animals from slipping into extinction themselves. What they learn restoring the mammoth, they say, could help them engineer more robust elephants that can better survive the climatic ravages of a warming world.

Don't they have a point?

KLITZMAN: Mixed because there's a lot of species where we have five members of the species left. What they need is not tinkering in a lab, what they need is a place to live.

Now, if anything, with drill, baby, drill, we're losing a lot of lands. And the technology, it's not that we need to bring back a woolly mammoth or do that in order to get the technology to help an elephant today. Helping an elephant today is a much easier task. Why not just focus on that directly? I don't think they -- I think there's more money and more PR value in bringing back the mammoth and the tiger.

SMERCONISH: Where does this end? Where does this end? I have a cocker spaniel, my first dog buried in my backyard.

I'm sure people are looking at this and they're thinking of, I don't know, Abe Lincoln. You know, if they could do it with dire wolves, why couldn't we extract DNA from a bone of Lincoln?

Speak to me. Just take our final 30 seconds and talk to me about the long-range possibilities.

KLITZMAN: So, genetics and technology -- we're at the infancy of understanding it. I wrote a book called "Am I My Genes?," a book called "Designing Babies." It looks at some of this. It's some of how little we now know but the future is immense.

So, we now do clone house pets. Barbra Streisand cloned our house pet, for instance. Some problems there. Bringing back Abe Lincoln -- you know, we're 99.99 the same. You may be able to find a few genes, and people are looking for genes for intelligence that maybe we can insert.

And again, these are all things we will be seeing soon. And I'm sure discussing on shows like this, your show and others. And I think we need to be careful. We need to be careful what we are doing and what the long-term implications may be, because a lot we don't know, and we may bring back Abe Lincoln --

SMERCONISH: Thank you, doctor.

KLITZMAN: -- or we may bring back someone who's intellectually disabled.

SMERCONISH: Thank you, Dr. Klitzman. Appreciate it. Fascinating subject.

Checking in on social media reaction to all of this. What do we have?

Smerconish, those so-called dire wolf puppies will never get out into the wild. They're basically just a promotion for a company attempting to boost its stock value. It's a scam.

I took a look, David, at the number of employees. I think it's 130 that they have. And I'm wondering, like, apart from a "Jurassic Park" environment, what's the business model? Where in lies the return unless it's something touristy, like we all saw in the several of the movies

You still have time to vote on today's poll question at Smerconish.com. Here it is. If we build it, will they come? If the United States brings back manufacturing, will Americans be willing and able to fill all those jobs?

I've got a great daily newsletter. It's free. It's worthy. Jack Ohman, a Pulitzer Prize winning artist, sketches for us. Check this out. Good day to have that given the tournament this afternoon. Rob rogers as well. Here's Rob's work.

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[09:54:08]

SMERCONISH: OK. There's the voting so far, 41,388 votes cast. Pretty decisive outcome. If you build it, will they come? No. If the United States brings back manufacturing, will Americans be willing and able to fill all of the new jobs?

Overwhelmingly, we are saying, because I'm in the majority, not going to happen. I mean, the key -- the key data point is the labor force participation rate. For a variety of reasons, we've got a number of people who have just checked out. And consequently, we've got manufacturing jobs today that are unfulfilled.

That doesn't mean that we should be treated unfairly by trade partners. It just means that if the playing surface is leveled, the problems that we face are not going to go away.

Social media reaction that has come in during the course of the program includes -- I'm a high school teacher in New Jersey. Good luck getting this generation to adopt the mindset and mantras of work hard, work smart, work steady. [09:55:02]

Most want nothing to do with anything that resembles a traditional job. Tom, I hear you. You and I now become, you know, Mr. Wilson, get off my lawn. But I think there's a lot of truth in it. I think there's a -- there's a lot of truth in it and the causes are multifaceted.

But this is the conversation that we need to be having. And I just thought that the tariff discussion was the proper impetus to bring in Scott, to bring in Anthony, and to talk about the trouble with our young men that, by extension, is impacting our young women who are doing a lot better than are our young men. So, I feel -- I feel fortunate that we've had an hour to do so today.

More social media reaction. Quickly because I know I'm limited on time.

Bill was great last night. Very interesting perspective and so sad that the public Trump isn't what we saw -- isn't what he saw at dinner.

Yes, I mean, Dave, that's a really good observation. Why doesn't Trump reveal to the public that side of his personality? To be continued.

If you missed any of today's program, remember you can always listen anywhere you get your podcasts. Thank you so much for watching. See you next week.

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