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Smerconish
Democrats Set Out To Study Male Voters With "SAM Project"; Trump On Musk: "The Poor Guy's Got A Problem". Trump-Musk Feud Threatens Musk's Business Empire; Is It Time To Reduce Foreign Students Enrolled In U.S. Colleges? Aired 9-10a ET
Aired June 07, 2025 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:00:35]
MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN ANCHOR: Time for Democrats to man up. I'm Michael Smerconish. Today in Washington, D.C. something remarkable happened in 2024 that Democrats still haven't figured out how to fix. Young men, once a key part of their coalition, they bailed. And they didn't just stay home, they went to Donald Trump.
In fact, CNN exit polling shows more than half the male vote nationwide, 55 percent went to Trump, while Harris got just 42 percent. And among men under 30, they went from supporting Democrats in 2020 by 15 points to backing the GOP in 2024 by 13, an enormous swing. No wonder the party is taking a long, hard look inward, which brings me to the Speaking with American Men project or SAM. They've got a $20 billion budget in an urgent mission, win back a generation of men who feel ignored, ridiculed and left behind. Left behind in the classroom.
According to the Pew Research Center, women in their late twenties are now far more likely than men to hold a college degree 47 percent versus 37 percent left behind in the dating pool. Pew data show roughly 6 in 10 men under 30 are single, about double the share of young women.
Men are getting left out of the labor force as well. The Federal Reserve reports that the share of prime age men not participating in the labor force has roughly doubled since the 1970s, reaching 11 percent in 2022. Mental health, another flashpoint. CDC figures reveal men comprise nearly 80 percent of U.S. suicide deaths. The SAM project's findings reflecting a lot of these numbers after conducting 60 hours of focus groups, media analysis and polling.
Here's what they've discovered, young men feel disconnected from civic life. They distrust politics, education, even the job market. They feel shame about their mental health, conflicted about their masculinity. And struggling with economic anxiety even those who are making six figures. And yet, check this out, in the Democratic Party's own Who We Serve platform, which is posted online, they mention a whole list of constituency groups, African-Americans, Americans with disabilities, Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders, Democrats abroad, ethnic Americans, Latinos, faith community, LGBTQ plus community, Native Americans, rural Americans, seniors and retirees, small business community, union members and families, veterans and military families, women, young people and students, but not men.
That's a lot of votes to disregard, new polling shows. It's not that men are shifting hard to the right politically, they're tuning out. Thirty-seven percent of young men now view both major parties negatively, reflecting disillusionment with institutions over partisan zeal. So when Bill Maher joked about the Democratic Party's retreat to figure out the crisis, he struck a nerve.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL MAHER, HOST: So they had a meeting up at the Ritz Carlton at Half Moon Bay, south of San Francisco. I'm not making this up. Where they served Minnesota lobster rolls and had heirloom tomato Carpaccio and seared sea bass in their conclave to decide how to win back the American man.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
And when Joy Behar said this on "The View," the audience applauded, but many men heard something else.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOY BEHAR, "THE VIEW" HOST: Maybe these guys should spend their money on teaching men to not be such sexist. Maybe that's it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But the stats don't bear that out now --
BEHAR: Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Now that we've seen the election results --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SMERCONISH: SAM's research found that comments like that widely shared online feed a perception that Democrats see men as the problem rather than as part of the solution. And when young men do, tune in and look for voices that reflect them, guess who's talking to them? Check out this chart from Media Matters, it compares the total following of left leaning and right leaning online programs. Right wing male influencers, they dominate, Ben Shapiro 25 million, Jordan Peterson 23 million, Joe Rogan 40 million. The left has no comparable reach.
Let's also note the fact that this media is filling a space at a time when socially, men's circles are shrinking. A 2021 survey found that 15 percent of men, 15 percent have no close friends. That's up from 3 percent in 1990. And young men are spending their time with their online friends on YouTube, podcasts, Twitch, Discord with a Rogan or a Shapiro in spaces where Democrats hardly show up.
[09:05:10]
According to reporting from Politico, even progressives who launched the SAM project were mocked by fellow Democrats for taking this demographic seriously. But maybe they should pay attention because as William Galston wrote in the Wall Street Journal, the shift is real. Since 2012, support for Democratic presidential candidates are among Black, Latino, Asian men dropped 16 percent. Galston argues that race isn't the drive -- dividing line anymore, education level and economic status are, and that Trump has built a diverse working class coalition that may outlive him. Just listen to what our own Harry Entin says about this coalition now in.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA ANALYST: Our latest CNN poll, among registered voters, which is the party of the middle class, it is tied. This, I think, speaks to Democratic ills more than anything else. They have traditionally been the middle class. No more. Donald Trump and the Republican Party have taken that mantle away. And now a key advantage for Democrats historically has gone adios, amigos.
And now there is no party that is the party of the middle class. Republicans have completely closed the gap.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SMERCONISH: So what now? Maybe SAM is a start, a serious attempt to listen, not lecture, and to engage young men in the spaces where they already live.
Joining now is one of the people behind this effort, Ilyse Hogue is co-founder of the Speaking with American Men project.
Ilyse, thank you for being here. Let's do the easy part first, we can agree that men ought to be on that list of the constituencies that Democrats are trying to serve, right?
ILYSE HOGUE, CO-FOUNDER, SPEAKING WITH AMERICAN MEN PROJECT (SAM): I would think so. If we're going to be a big tent party, then we absolutely need to include half of the population.
SMERCONISH: Why do you think that there's been this failure until now to say we need to do better with men, we need to do better with young men in particular?
HOGUE: Look, Democrats and men didn't drift apart accidentally. The right put in a tremendous amount of resources and effort to actually take some very real problems that young men are having and turn them into grievance politics. But Michael, I got to tell you, in 60 hours of listening, and by the way, I didn't get an invite to Half Moon Bay, but those lobster rolls look good, and 60 hours of listening, what we found is that men actually care about the same things that progressives care about. Young men want affordable housing, they want better access to health care, but they're not being invited into the conversation and they're not seeing themselves reflected in the progressive coalition that Democrats purport to work for.
SMERCONISH: I think the data bears out what you just said. Tonight, tonight in Newark, New Jersey, I'm going to roll some tape here, here's a scene that I expect to unfold, it's President Trump walking into a UFC event with Dana White at his side. By the way, don't expect that Elon Musk will be at his side tonight, and he will be received with raucous applause. There's no Democratic response. A gathering like this of a group of men coming together, Ilyse, the portrayal among some is, well, that's all toxic masculinity.
I don't buy into that criticism. And I think of a guy like Scott Galloway who says it's got to be about aspirational masculinity. I guess the question is, where's the Democratic response to a gathering like that which will take place tonight?
HOGUE: Yes, it's been absent for a long time. Look, SAM was established to bridge a gap that the co-founders have been sort of screaming into the void about for a long time. You know, John Della Volpe and I wrote extensively in 2024 that Democrats had a young man problem. The party seemed to take them for granted to not actually have the analysis that the right wing had invested millions, hundreds of millions of dollars, actually. And moving these young men right, we're not in the spaces that they're in. And in fact, we tend to deride their interests, right?
Like we assume because they watch sports that they're violent. Joy Behar's response is all too common. When we get reaction to the fact that we're saying this is a cohort worth investing in, $20 million is actually a pretty modest given how much we spend on constituency organizing over a period of two years, the response that we get is all too similar to Joy's. These young men, if they're not already with us, then they're dangerous. Nothing could be further from the truth.
When we sit and listen, they are so grateful that someone wants to hear about their very real problems, problems finding a job, problems for providing for their family. And they're quite honestly, most of them are great with some of the things that we care about. We had one young man say, I love that my wife makes more money than me, I just want to contribute, too. That, to me, does not deserve mocking. That actually deserves care and concern and a hand into the coalition that should fight for progressive values that lifts everyone up economically and socially.
[09:10:07]
SMERCONISH: Can I say that beyond those very serious issues which I used as part of the introduction and you've just made reference to, say what you will about President Trump but he's got a knack for this curb your enthusiasm. Seinfeldian touch of reaching not just men, but a common cord. You know, when he talks about shooting showerhead pressure, when he talks about stop spending on the penny, when he says Pete Rose ought to be in the hall of Fame, when he says the NFL Kickoff rule is weird. And a lot of these things I think get lost on the legacy media. And I pay attention and attentive to them because I think they really resonate with the very people you're now trying to reach.
HOGUE: It's about establishing trust. It's about establishing common interest, right. And when we're in discord or when we're in the subreddits, what we're hearing is young men, like most people actually are sharing their interests. They want to talk about gaming, they want to talk about their investments in crypto, but they also want to talk about, you know, how to make the country a better place. And you know, we kind of got a lot of blowback for saying that we need to actually understand the way that they're speaking to each other, but I got to say, Michael, when I wrote in August of 2024 that we were sitting on a four alarm fire because Trump went on kick with Adin Ross, everyone looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language.
SMERCONISH: Ilyse, thanks for your insight. I really appreciate it. It's going to be interesting to watch the approach that comes from this.
HOGUE: Thank you for having me on, Michael. And thanks for taking this problem so seriously.
SMERCONISH: I do, and I have for quite some time. I don't just mean for Democrats, I'm not one, but I'm worried about our young men.
What are your thoughts? Hit me up on social media. I'll read some responses throughout the course of the program. From the world of X, the Dems believe masculinity is a faulty personality trait. Well, as I said to my guest, toxic masculinity is what they associate with many of the things that I was just discussing.
But I've had this conversation with Prof. G, with Scott Galloway, on a number of occasions and the two of us agree, armed with a lot of data, that's a faulty premise, that there's nothing toxic about many of the men who are struggling. They want to get ahead and they're concerned about the same issues that everybody is on.
One final observation, if I may. The slide that I used for my guest is one that we dusted off because I've used it before. My recollection is at the time of the Democratic National Convention in the last cycle. I stumbled upon it when I was reading the platform and I said, my God, there's something missing. Catherine (ph), can you put it up there one more time?
There's something missing. They list all these different constituencies like here's who we are, here's who we serve, here's who we represent, and men, women are listed because if women -- there we go, like if women weren't there in the lower right of your screen, then OK, then you don't have to put men. But it almost seemed like a deliberate thumb in the eye. We want to reach everybody, but not the men. And candidly, when I went back this week, I thought, surely they've made the change because we shined a spotlight on it.
Now that's still the way it appears. You'll know things have changed Democrats when that slide now is altered on the official DNC webpage.
Up ahead, let's get ready to rumble Michael Buffer. Not something you'd expect to hear when it comes to Elon Musk and President Donald Trump, but here we are days into an escalating feud, which brings me today's poll question at smerconish.com, are they going to -- are they going to make up? Will Trump and Musk make up? Don't forget to sign up for my newsletter at smerconish.com. Scott Stantis drew this for us this week. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:18:03]
SMERCONISH: Well, it was the fight that everybody saw coming, and no one is ready yet to throw in the towel. A battle royale between two of the most powerful men on the planet. Arguably the two most powerful men on the planet, and maybe Mars, too. The only thing that had been missing was Don King or Dana White. Cue Michael Buffer.
Let's get ready to rumble. In the red corner, the President of the United States hailing from Queens, New York, Donald J. Trump. Fighting in the purple corner by way of South Africa, Elon Musk. Here's the tale of the tape. Both men are big in stature and reputation.
Trump claims that his height is 6'3", but you remember that old New York driver's license which had him an inch shorter. He weighs in at 224 pounds, according to an April memo from the White House doctor, who also cited the president's frequent golf victories as evidence of his robust health.
Elon musk, between 6'1" and 6'2", approximately 187 pounds, though in a previously threatened match with Mark Zuckerberg, claimed that he could weigh 300 pounds. Both have big reach. Musk owns X, formerly Twitter. He's got 220 million followers. That's a lot of reach. Meanwhile, Trump owns Truth Social, but more important, he's got the bully pulpit.
And let's face it, neither has any trouble getting his word out. So it's a wash. Trump has the eye of the tiger. He'll go after anybody who crosses him. He's even been known to deport people born outside the U.S.
Musk isn't afraid to fight. He can also dodge and duck, dive, dip and doge. As an international businessman, he's comfortable all around the world. He can flee at a moment's notice on his jets or his spaceships.
As for style, both are showmen. Trump, like Ali, delights in taunting his opponents. He's previously dispatched the likes of Low Energy Jeb Bush and Little Marco Rubio and Sleepy Joe Biden, to name a few. Musk, apparently unbothered by the inevitability of his own nickname, drew first blood.
Just days after an Oval Office sendoff, he denigrated Trump's big, beautiful bill as a disgusting abomination, and then went so far as to call for Trump's impeachment. Trump initially went rope a dope posting only, "I don't mind Elon turning against me, but he should have done so months ago. This is one of the greatest bills ever presented to Congress."
[09:20:18]
The clinch followed and both men exchanged body blows. The President said Musk had Trump derangement syndrome. Musk punched back, posting, "Without me, Trump would have lost the election. Dems would control the House and Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate." Trump swung again, "Elon was wearing thin. I asked him to leave. I took away his EV mandate that forced everyone to buy electric cars that nobody else wanted that he knew for months I was going to do, and he just went crazy."
Musk's counter, there are mountains of disgusting pork in the bill. Trump threw a haymaker. The easiest way to save money on our budgets, billions and billions of dollars, is to terminate Elon's government subsidies and contracts. I was always surprised Biden didn't do it.
Yes, it was a brawl. Judges had it even on the scorecard. By week's end, the party seemed headed for a truce perhaps each fighter and their corners, their corner crews, they all realized this was headed for mutually assured destruction. So who could go the distance if it continues? Musk is the richest man alive on paper with around $375 billion, though that number goes up or down several billion based on the market each day.
Trump is pugnacious, he lives for confrontation. He commands the U.S. government, the Treasury and military edge there for Trump. But both have reasons to tap their gloves now. First, Trump, with a tight Congress, he can ill afford to drop any Republican votes for the big, beautiful bill. The measure barely passed the House on a straight party vote.
And that was before the CBO said that it would add 2.4 trillion to the deficit over the next decade. If Musk rattles the cage of just a few go peers, who knows how many will abandon the bill. And Musk is an excellent cage rattler. He was the biggest individual Republican donor in the last election cycle, spending nearly $300 million. A lot of members of Congress might think twice about defying Musk.
Indeed, he's made his threat quite clear, quote, "In November next year, we fire all politicians who betrayed the American people." Musk has even floated the idea of starting his own party. Such a party might not be a winner, could easily be a spoiler.
Here's another factor that might threaten the president, Musk's below the belt punch, quote, "Time to drop the really big bomb. Trump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public.
If false, that's a warning of Musk being willing to fight dirty. If true, could be a knockout. Which is not to say that Trump is the underdog. Elon Musk is himself a flawed fighter. First, his business is in decline.
Tesla shares, which were already down in the last six months, dropped almost 15 percent, erasing almost 150 billion off the company on Thursday, the day the battle spilled into the public. Though the stock rebounded a bit on Friday, it's still well down for the week. And since he's alienated progressives by getting close to Trump and Republicans have not yet warmed to electric vehicles the way the Democrats have, it may take a while to climb off the canvas. In fact, such are the passions about Musk that it was recently reported that 50 percent of Tesla owners have experienced vandalism to their vehicles. You'll remember Michael Jordan famously said that he wanted to sell sneakers to Republicans, too. Well, in a partisan world, who's left to buy Teslas in the future? Here's another Musk vulnerability. His business dependence on the United States, according to one estimate, when you add up the contracts, the loans, the other forms of funding through governmental industrial policy, his companies, particularly Tesla and SpaceX, have received 38 billion in government largesse. Even a man as rich as Musk would miss that amount of money.
Moreover, while he's used to the world of politics, politics is new to him. He's never had to worry that much about popularity, not even when he was in charge. But in politics, you need the people's support. Polling shows he's far less popular than Trump. For instance, according to the latest Economist YouGov poll, 49 percent of Americans disapprove of Trump, 45 percent approve, not great, but considerably better than Musk's numbers.
He's been dropping in popularity this year, and by last month, he looked down for the count. Just 38 percent favorable, 59 percent unfavorable, according to a Marquette University poll.
And then there's the personal question that has decided many a fight. Who's got more grit? Say what you will about Donald Trump, in fact, everything has been said about Donald Trump, but he can take a punch and come back. Two impeachments, four indictments, one conviction, and he's the president of the United States. We still don't know if Musk has a glass jaw, especially when taking the heavy criticism, which Trump can endure but also deliver.
[09:25:09]
If Jimmy the Greek were alive and not canceled, I say he'd be laying odds on Trump by four to five margin. You bet four on Trump, you win five. Of course, in this matchup, there's this looming intangible, will they make up before the next bell sounds?
Trump told Dana Bash that he's not speaking to or even thinking about Musk right now. But when it comes to Donald Trump, you're never really dead to Trump until you're dead. Any number of Trump confidants have gone rogue, only to return to the fold. Meanwhile, Democrats hope the fight continues, maybe the Russians too. So far, with Trump saying no to Musk instead of no mas, they're getting their wish.
My money's on a rematch. Don King might call it the brawl on the red ball. It brings us today's poll question at smerconish.com, will they make up? Go and vote.
Joining me now is Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor of leadership practice at the Yale School of Management and president of the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute. He's the author of seven leadership books. He's been an informal advisor to five U.S. presidents and most recently co-wrote this piece for Time, "Are We Witnessing the Implosion of the World's Richest Man?"
Jeffrey, thank you for coming back. Yesterday my poll question at smerconish.com asked who can do more damage to the other. What's your answer to that question?
JEFFREY SONNENFELD, LESTER CROWN PROFESSOR, YALE SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT: Michael, fantastic lead in by the way. And I think, you know, here in Connecticut we would say WWE as much as UFC, but I guess it's TKO that owns them both. But this is quite the slap down and both of them get knocked around quite a bit. I should say with that lead in, by the way, the great news for CNN is rather than invest in AI or cryptocurrency, the right answer is to invest in news media because this is going to be quite the brawl. But I think your answer is the right one.
At least your viewers answers on your poll yesterday is that this is tougher, it's bad for both of them, but it's much tougher on Musk. Musk is pummeled in so many fronts. And you know, I could elaborate but I can tell you that a lot of the news pundits earlier this week, the political pundits were saying no, this is just another one of these situations where somebody has not shown sufficient loyalty, they're -- they were -- they weren't the sycophantic subordinates to the Dear Leader syndrome, so therefore, like, you know, Mike Pence or Rex Tillerson or Mike Pompeo or Bill Barr or Jeff Sessions, who remembers him, is that it's only that or others were saying the morality story here is CEOs that get too far out of their lane that they start to get involved in public issues and, you know, talking about whether or not it's MyPillow or Goya Foods or something, it's not that either. What this is is this a smackdown between an autocrat and across the oligarchs and the autocrat, the demagogue, is going to win. This is much worse on Musk.
SMERCONISH: Well, you say that Trump has the leverage relative to Musk, but Trump has never had an opponent with so much of a platform of his own and such deep pockets. I know that Kamala Harris outspent the Trump campaign and certainly people would pay attention to anything the Democratic nominee would say. But I would maintain that Musk is a more significant opponent than even the DNC nominee.
SONNENFELD: Something that Donald Trump could say back, President Trump could say back to Elon Musk. If that money were the determinant, they certainly would have won the Supreme Court candidacy that they had in the state of Wisconsin, which --
SMERCONISH: Wisconsin.
SONNENFELD: you know, aim on --
SMERCONISH: Right.
SONNENFELD: -- the face Wisconsin. Wisconsin, right. But also we'd also be, you know, we would have had a term or two of President Hillary Clinton in a term or two, you know, of President Harris if it was money, because they've all outspent Trump. And in fact, Musk's wealth is very much tied up in Tesla stock, as you showed it plummeting 15 percent one day, and Michael, it's down 22 percent on the year. So, and this stock, it's -- there's a good reason it's plummeting.
It's way overvalued. This is a meme stock. It is trading at 200 times earnings. What other company is like that? Nothing other than maybe GameStop.
As you look at some of our best companies, Nvidia or Apple, they're trading at only 30 times earnings. And most good companies on the S&P, they're trading around 20 times. This is 200 times earnings. This is a meme stock with its sales plummeting in just about every country. And the U.S. is down 20 percent, China down 20 percent.
SMERCONISH: Jeffrey, I know --
SONNENFELD: -- Tesla stock.
SMERCONISH: -- I know you pay attention, close attention to Elon Musk and I know about that Rolodex of yours with every CEO on the planet. Say something about this battle on a personal level before you leave me, because Trump's got a stomach for battle. He seems like a guy who sleeps better at night the more controversy that he has created. I don't know that Musk is like that. Musk might have a glass jaw, to use the boxing metaphor.
Do you think Musk has the stomach for what he's now engaged in? That's my final question.
SONNENFELD: It's a fantastic question because you opened up just by asking, are they going to put the gloves away? And, Michael, no, there's no evidence of that is -- just overnight we saw that this guy, you know, who loves a fight with Musk is back in there wanting to start a new party. And Trump is talking about now exerting the regulatory crushes that will -- you know, could destroy Tesla, could have damage to Neuralink. The boring company, which he runs, lives up to its name has done very little.
All these things, you know -- and SpaceX are very much dependent on government contracts, government regulation that could really do a lot of damage. It's like Prigozhin. If you remember Prigozhin who was Putin's great supposed chef, that he was a great oligarch that had tremendous military triumphs and challenged the boss. Or Mikhail Khodorkovsky around Yukos oil, is that is that Putin is the best example of when these consiglieres that, you know, we've seen them before like -- called the Rasputin syndrome with Grigori Rasputin, who was this mystic advising the Tsar Nicholas II. They get so full of themselves on the personal psychological side, as you ask, Michael --
SMERCONISH: Well --
SONNENFELD: -- the grandiosity. I think they're bigger than their boss.
SMERCONISH: I think it was Shakespeare. You come for either that or Omar on "The Wire." You come for the king. You best not --
SONNENFELD: Shakespeare, Iago. Exactly, Othello.
SMERCONISH: Thank you, Jeffrey. Appreciate it very much. Jeffrey's piece is --
SONNENFELD: Thank you. SMERCONISH: -- at time.com, and it's really well done. Let's see what you're saying on social media from the world of, where else, X. You can follow me on that platform.
What if this is a White House version of the WWE? What if it's a fake --
Wait, are you telling me the WWE is fake? What if it's a fake feud? But I've had radio callers on SiriusXM who've said exactly that. And I respond, to what end? What could possibly be in the, oh, it's a shiny object to take our attention from what?
We're talking about all the other things at the same time. I don't buy into that at all. I want to remind you, go to the Web site at Smerconish.com and answer today's poll question.
Will they make up? Go vote. I'll give you results at the end of the hour.
Still to come, your social media reaction and Trump targets Harvard. He wants to slash international enrollment. Harvard is furious. But beyond the politics, is there a debate worth having about our international enrollment?
Please sign up for my Smerconish.com free daily newsletter. You'll get the work of Steve Breen, who drew this. Love that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:37:20]
SMERCONISH: Hey, I enjoy your social media reaction even when you disagree with me, which seems to be most of the time.
Peter, would you make up with someone who accused you of being on the files of a convicted sex trafficker? If you did, wouldn't that be a bit strange?
Peter, you're asking me? I'm not Donald Trump. I mean, Trump has an amazing ability to turn the other cheek and let people come back into the fold. There have been -- there have been any number of individuals who've crossed swords with them, but everything is transactional with him.
And if down the road, you know, it's in his best interest to make up or at least tolerate your presence. He's -- he's willing to -- would I? No, but I'm not Donald Trump. So, my hunch is they do make up. How soon? I don't know but that's my answer to my poll question.
Here's another social media reaction from today so far. They can't even agree what or who a man is. The Dems are pathetic.
This is in response to the opening segment of the program today, where this initiative now is taking a look at what do Ds need to do to reach men? For so long I would say it this way, they've been -- they've been afraid to pursue that constituency as if there's something wrong in saying -- I mean, they would never have a problem in saying we need to do better with women or we need to do better with not gender, but a particular, you know, racial group or ethnic group. Like that's all acceptable.
I showed the Democratic platform like, here's who we serve, but like men. Ooh, we better not say that we're for men or that we're worried about men. There's great reason I've laid out all the data. I did it today, and I've done it with Scott Galloway. There's great reason to be worried about and a champion for men in this country.
If the data were the same about women, I'd be saying it about women. And by extension, it impacts women.
As always, don't forget to answer today's poll question at Smerconish.com Will Trump and Musk make up? Still to come, should U.S. colleges reduce foreign enrollment to better preserve American social mobility and promote national unity?
Princeton professor David Bell joins us on his much-discussed opinion piece from "The Times" titled "Don't Let Trump's Brutality Fool You. The Internationalization of American Schools Is a Real Issue." Sign up for my newsletter when you go to Smerconish.com to cast your vote. We have the work of editorial cartoonists, including Rob Rogers.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:44:04]
SMERCONISH: Is it time to reduce the number of foreign students enrolled in American universities? President Trump has made it a big issue. He has previously tried to limit new student visas and is now attempting to restrict international students from attending Harvard.
According to a proclamation that he recently signed Trump believes, quote, "Harvard's conduct has rendered it an unsuitable destination for foreign students and researchers."
Needless to say, this has not gone over well at Harvard. They released a statement saying this is yet another illegal retaliatory step taken by the administration in violation of Harvard's First Amendment rights.
And on Thursday, a federal judge temporarily blocked Trump's proclamation. The academic world has been defending its international students from the Trump onslaught.
But David Bell, a professor of history at Princeton, has a piece in "The New York Times" where he goes in a slightly different direction. He doesn't agree with Trump's approach, but says we need a serious conversation about this matter. Yes, there are potential pluses to hosting over a million foreign students at our colleges, more diversity, more cultural understanding, and so on.
[09:45:04]
But we can't ignore the downside, including how it's harder than ever for high quality homegrown students to get a slot at our elite institutions. So, let's talk to Professor David Bell, author of this much discussed essay, "Don't Let Trump's Brutality Fool You. The Internationalization of American Schools Is a Real Issue."
Dr. Bell, that the Trump administration is handling this, I'll use the word associated with your piece, crudely doesn't mean it's not a real issue. How so?
DAVID BELL, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY: Well, thank you, Michael. Good morning. You know, the number. of international students in this country has been rising at a very steep rate. It's about four times what it was in the 1980s when the total number of people enrolled in American universities has only gone up about 50 percent.
And it means that the competition, as you say, for getting into particularly the top schools, is much, much harder. Is this something we really need? So, I do think this is something we need to have a discussion about is should this trend continue? Should it -- should we be favoring having international students?
They do bring a great deal to the United States. They bring -- you know, they bring their talents. They also bring tuition money, which American universities badly need. They bring -- they often stay in this country after they graduate which going into high powered jobs, which is good for the American economy. It drives American productivity.
But at the same time, again, it simply increases inequality within our university system. And it makes it harder than ever for Americans particularly who don't come from elite backgrounds themselves, to actually have the opportunity to attend these institutions.
SMERCONISH: You acknowledge those virtues in the piece. You say that they are generators of knowledge. If we really want to make a campus a generator of knowledge, then we need international students. You recognize the economic growth because they come and they spend money and they usually pay full freight, and that they are also an instrument of soft power with the tip of the hat to the late great Joseph Nye, who left us recently.
But in terms of reevaluating this issue, you say, what about the cost of social mobility for American students? Will you speak to that specifically?
BELL: Well, sure. You know, I'll take the example of my own PhD program, which is an elite PhD program in history at Princeton. When I -- when I started in that program myself back in the 1980s, we had about two people out of 17 who were international students. Last year, we had 10 out of 21 who were international students.
And in many ways, this is terrific. These are wonderful students. They're a privilege to advise. But on the other hand, it has become harder than ever for people, particularly from public universities, particularly from four-year colleges, to get into the to get into this program. And I'm not against having international students. In the least, I think it's really important that we have international students in the United States for all the reasons you just mentioned. But there is a trend which has been very sharply in favor of taking more and more international students every year. And I think we have to ask, is this a good trend -- is this a good trend to see continue, or should we be thinking about putting the brakes on a bit?
SMERCONISH: Dr. Bell, I'm curious as to the reaction that you've received, because oftentimes people hear that Trump's for it and they're automatically against it or vice versa. Everybody seems to suit up in their usual armor based on it having come out of his mouth.
In this case, you know, I love the approach. You said, well, wait a minute, there is a real conversation to be had here. Have you gotten blowback? What has been the reaction to that which you published?
BELL: Well, I've gotten a lot of blowbacks, absolutely. I mean, I thought the piece was actually -- I tried to be balanced in the piece. I tried to be even handed to point out both the advantages and the disadvantages of having lots of international students.
But of course, a lot of people simply read past the parts that they -- that they agreed with and simply hit me for the parts they disagreed with. And particularly a lot of people said that I was being discriminatory against international students, which is not at all the intent of the piece.
What I wanted in the piece was to show that the trend, which has been so sharply upwards, is problematic, and we should be thinking about it. But not to simply get rid of international students altogether. That was obviously not the intent of my piece, nor was it the attempt -- my intent to agree with Trump.
SMERCONISH: I encourage people to read it and judge for themselves, because I thought it was balanced and terrific. Thank you, Dr. Bell. Appreciate your time.
BELL: Thank you very much, Michael.
SMERCONISH: To everybody else, you still have time to vote on today's poll question at Smerconish.com. Pretty straightforward. Are Trump and Musk going to make up?
Subscribe to the newsletter while you're there. You'll love it. We put it out every day. It's free. And you get the exclusive editorial work of the likes of Jack Ohman. Check that out.
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[09:54:10]
SMERCONISH: OK, there's the result -- whoa. There's the result so far, 32,467 have voted. Will Trump and Musk make up? Sixty-two percent say, no, they will not. Thirty-eight percent say, yes. Both are right. I predict that they will make up and then break up again. But we'll see what the future holds. Some of the social media reaction that came in during the course of this program includes this.
Is it me or does Trump seem a bit reserved over this spat? That's why I said rope-a-dope. That's right.
I would have thought by now he'd have called him moron Musk but it's almost like this little breakup hurt Trump's feeling.
You know, I sense that too. And I agree with that. And I think before Elon Musk, there was no first buddy. He's got an orbit of friends. He's got a lot of acquaintances. But I have never seen, you know, the person who went to grade school with him.
[09:55:02]
Like, I've been friendly with Donald ever since. I've never seen the Wharton classmate at his side. He's, as I say, a lot of friends, but not deep friendships. And I was thinking the same thing that maybe he feels a little, you know, wounded, as we all would if we lost a good buddy. One more if I've got time for it. I think that I do.
They spent over a decade lecturing about toxic masculinity and the patriarchy. Good luck reversing that boat.
So, Kelly is talking about my opening discussion today about Democrats now saying, hey, we got a -- we got a real problem with men. I agree with you. They've been far too quick to cast, you know, the men who show up at UFC tonight like, oh, it's all toxic masculinity. And the answer is, no, it's not. And a lot of those men are struggling and they need help.
Be sure to tune in tonight, 7:00 p.m. eastern for a live first of its kind broadcast of the Tony nominated Broadway play "Good Night, and Good Luck" starring George Clooney. You can watch it here on CNN. You can stream it on CNN.com or Max.
And if you missed any of today's program, you can always listen to it anywhere you get your podcasts. Thanks, everybody. See you next week.
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