Truth Podcast - Vivek Ramaswamy - Fatherhood Under Attack with First Class Fatherhood's Alec Lace | The TRUTH Podcast #6

00:00:02.000 All right, Alec.

00:00:18.000 Good to see you.

00:00:20.000 I wanted you to, you know, I had a chance to meet you through your podcast.

00:00:26.000 You're now in mine.

00:00:27.000 But, you know, we were just starting to chat.

00:00:30.000 I didn't actually have much knowledge about what your other background was outside of the podcast, other than knowing your dad of four.

00:00:37.000 And that's what we ended up talking most about was fatherhood.

00:00:40.000 But tell me a little bit about your career, and then we'll get into the topic of self-confidence in America, which is what I wanted to talk to you about today.

00:00:47.000 Absolutely.

00:00:48.000 Well, Vivek, I'm honored to be here with you.

00:00:50.000 It's great to meet you in person.

00:00:51.000 Thank you for coming.

00:00:51.000 So it was an honor to have you on the podcast and now to be here.

00:00:54.000 So I'm a railroad mechanic.

00:00:56.000 I'm a diesel engine mechanic on the locomotives.

00:00:58.000 I've been doing that for 23 years, and it's been like the main gig for my family.

00:01:04.000 I'm married 18 years now, four kids, 16, 15, 12, and eight, three boys and a girl.

00:01:11.000 We got the girl on the fourth try. 1.00

00:01:12.000 If we didn't get her on four, we'd have five by now, but we got her. 0.96

00:01:16.000 And she runs the show at our house. 1.00

00:01:18.000 So she is now eight.

00:01:20.000 Eight.

00:01:20.000 Okay, good.

00:01:21.000 And I've done a lot of hustles throughout the years.

00:01:23.000 I've driven about 21,000 trips for Uber and Lyft.

00:01:27.000 I've done that as a side hustle for a long time.

00:01:29.000 Before that, drove a regular metered cab in the city for quite a while.

00:01:34.000 I had a vending machine business.

00:01:36.000 You had your medallion and everything?

00:01:37.000 I'm sorry.

00:01:38.000 No, no, I don't have a medallion.

00:01:39.000 No, no, no.

00:01:39.000 I drove for somebody.

00:01:41.000 Drove for somebody, I see.

00:01:42.000 Got it.

00:01:42.000 And so I had a little vending machine business that I was operating for a while, and I did a lot of side work as a regular auto mechanic.

00:01:50.000 So anything I could to help support the family along the way.

00:01:52.000 My wife stayed home with the kids for the first 13 years.

00:01:55.000 And that's one of the things too, Vivek, is it's looked down upon by a lot of people, especially like even my wife's friends.

00:02:02.000 I would hear it from mine when the wife stays home to raise the kids. 0.98

00:02:05.000 There's like a bad stigma that comes with that and she would face that too.

00:02:08.000 Like, oh, what do you do?

00:02:08.000 Yeah, when did that start?

00:02:09.000 I don't know.

00:02:10.000 I think you're totally right about it.

00:02:12.000 I don't remember that existing in the 90s.

00:02:15.000 I guess I don't remember when that changed, but I guess it just did.

00:02:18.000 Right, and it's just like now if you're a mother that's – now they stay home as if that's something abnormal, then it's like, well, that's all you do, you know?

00:02:26.000 So that's – In fact, if you're – it's actually an interesting topic.

00:02:32.000 If anything, like I kind of remember, and maybe it was unique to my experience, but tell me if you feel differently.

00:02:39.000 You know, in the 90s, it almost was the other way.

00:02:42.000 Like there was a stigma if you were like a mom with kids, but you were like a, you know, working woman or early 90s.

00:02:49.000 I just remember because my mom, I felt like ran into some of that.

00:02:51.000 Maybe it was in our, more of our cultural norms in our, you know, community, but maybe it was more general.

00:02:57.000 But either way, that was the direction that if there was a stigma, it ran in the other direction.

00:03:00.000 Now it's, now it's in the direction of, I'm just wondering what's going on in the culture.

00:03:06.000 I don't know, but I think it's definitely one of the prime movers in the fact that so many of our family units in this country are broken apart.

00:03:12.000 I mean, you have both—even the families that are intact, you have both—on the average, you have the mother and the father working full-time jobs.

00:03:20.000 And so a lot of times, neither one of them are home, and the kids are being raised a lot of times by the school system, which is atrocious right now.

00:03:26.000 So if you're a family that can't afford to get your kids into the Catholic school or private school and they're subject to this public school system— You're in a lot of trouble with that.

00:03:35.000 So we're seeing that more and more.

00:03:36.000 And I think it's responsible for so much of the chaos we're seeing.

00:03:39.000 But number one being the fact that there's so many fathers not in the lives of their kids.

00:03:43.000 We got a fatherless crisis.

00:03:44.000 I talk about it all the time because even I was down at CPAC there with you over the weekend or last weekend, wherever it was.

00:03:52.000 And everyone talks about policies and changes.

00:03:55.000 But if we don't solve the problem of the fatherless crisis in this country, none of the other stuff that we're going to try to fix is going to matter.

00:04:02.000 It's like trying to fill the Fix the top of the building without strengthening the foundation.

00:04:06.000 It makes no sense.

00:04:07.000 You're building on sand and not on the rock.

00:04:09.000 We got to strengthen our nuclear family units in this country or we're lost.

00:04:12.000 How do we do that, actually?

00:04:15.000 Well, get to how we do that, but can you actually quantify for me the fatherlessness crisis in the US? I'm sure if anybody knows about this, it's you.

00:04:23.000 I have a rough sense of observing it particularly.

00:04:27.000 I've familiarized myself with that being one of the issues in the black community, but let's talk about it more generally in America.

00:04:33.000 Can you educate me on this a little bit?

00:04:35.000 It's in every community, Vivek, and yes, the African-American community.

00:04:39.000 Actually, Barack Obama gave a great Father's Day speech.

00:04:44.000 This was before he became president.

00:04:45.000 He won the nomination, but this was in 2008. It was a Father's Day speech.

00:04:49.000 And it was all focused on fatherlessness in the African American community.

00:04:52.000 And he said, you know, we have it in every community, but nowhere is it more rampant than in the African American community. 1.00

00:04:58.000 And he never spoke about it ever again.

00:05:00.000 That was the only time he ever heard about it because he faced a lot of backlash from the Democratic Party.

00:05:05.000 Oh, he did?

00:05:05.000 Yes.

00:05:06.000 I know Jesse Jackson was caught on a hot mic saying he wanted to cut off his genitals and he was like, we're never going to, you know, they came at him hard after he made that speech, but it was an important one to have. 1.00

00:05:18.000 As far as the fatherless crisis goes, We lead the world in fatherless households, right?

00:05:24.000 Pew Research had a study that was done in 2019 where America is leading the world in single-parent households and the majority, overwhelming majority of our single-parent households are single-mom households.

00:05:37.000 So it goes, and you know what, the impact of this, there's over 20 million kids that are living in this country right now with no father in the home, and it impacts every aspect of our society.

00:05:46.000 So if you want to have the poverty conversation or the homeless conversation, 90% of all homeless and runaway kids are coming from fatherless households.

00:05:54.000 If you want to start having the crime conversation, 85% of all the youths that are sitting right now in a penitentiary or in a facility, a disciplined facility, they're all coming from fatherless households.

00:06:05.000 It's the same thing when you look at the drug abuse, when you look at teenage suicide, teenage pregnancy.

00:06:09.000 Every category statistically at the root of it, you're going to find the fatherless crisis aligning with that.

00:06:15.000 And this goes to – if you look at the four – It's interesting because I think that I spent a lot of time talking to – I mean running for president, educating myself on different facets of how to address the cultural cancer in America.

00:06:29.000 And I'll hear – I believe and I'm persuaded by accounts of the role of social media, accounts of the role of toxic ideologies taught in our schools, but you would actually pin a lot of those to be just symptoms of a deeper crisis of – Fatherlessness.

00:06:49.000 A hundred percent.

00:06:50.000 Very interesting.

00:06:50.000 A hundred percent.

00:06:51.000 So do you have like stats on that or, you know, just in terms of like how many – how do you define fatherlessness and then what does that – well, what does that mean actually?

00:07:00.000 What you call – does it mean dad is in the family but it's just not present or do you just literally mean dad's out of the house?

00:07:03.000 Dad's out of the picture.

00:07:04.000 Dad's out of the picture.

00:07:05.000 So you're not talking about the dad's – Working too much and comes home too late before the kids go to bed.

00:07:09.000 I'm talking about dad not being in the picture.

00:07:11.000 That's still the zone of being pretty good.

00:07:12.000 You're talking about dad out of the picture.

00:07:14.000 How many families?

00:07:16.000 What percentage of families have a dad out of the picture?

00:07:19.000 26-27%.

00:07:20.000 Really?

00:07:21.000 Yeah.

00:07:22.000 I probably should have known that.

00:07:25.000 A quarter of families in America?

00:07:27.000 Yep.

00:07:28.000 One quarter have no dad in the home.

00:07:31.000 That's correct.

00:07:31.000 Now, also, too, if you look at prior to the civil rights movement in this country and prior to the feminism movement in this country, the two-parent household was intact.

00:07:40.000 You had only 9% in the 1950s.

00:07:43.000 It was at only 9%.

00:07:44.000 This is why, Vivek, when they start talking about the shootings that are going on and they right away have the gun conversation— The percentage of gun owners in this country hasn't changed since 1972. 44%, 45%.

00:07:57.000 It's the same percentage.

00:07:58.000 That's a good point.

00:07:59.000 So it's about 45% since 1972. Yes.

00:08:01.000 But the amount of kids that have no father in the home has tripled.

00:08:05.000 Now, believe it or not, the African- It's tripled. 1.00

00:08:09.000 Tripled.

00:08:09.000 So it used to be 8%.

00:08:11.000 It used to be 8-9%.

00:08:12.000 In 1972. Yes.

00:08:13.000 Great facts, man.

00:08:14.000 The African American community was some of the strongest.

00:08:17.000 I think they were at like 13% back in the 50s.

00:08:20.000 They had some of the strongest nuclear families in our country since the civil rights movement.

00:08:24.000 And when you had the no man at home started to come in and you started to have moms become married to the government or co-parent with the government, co-parent with the taxpayer in a sense, all of a sudden you saw the shift happen in the African American community.

00:08:38.000 And that's why President Obama addressed it.

00:08:41.000 And that's why it needs to be talked about.

00:08:43.000 So also, too, if you look at this, Vivek, if you look at – it has the other effect, too, the positive effect.

00:08:48.000 If you look at the top four demographics – Let's get those facts on black Americans for a second. 0.92

00:08:54.000 So – That number was as low as 12% in the 50s?

00:09:00.000 Yes.

00:09:01.000 Yeah, 12-13% in the 50s.

00:09:03.000 For fatherlessness?

00:09:04.000 Yes.

00:09:05.000 And what is it now?

00:09:06.000 I'm like bracing myself to hear this.

00:09:08.000 Right now, it's almost 70%.

00:09:10.000 No way.

00:09:11.000 Born out of wedlock, yes.

00:09:13.000 Born out of wedlock in the African-American...

00:09:15.000 You know, I did...

00:09:16.000 Michael Irvin, who's in the hot seat right now for some nonsense that they dropped him from the NFL Network in the whole bit over something he's suing them about.

00:09:23.000 Okay, whatever.

00:09:24.000 Okay.

00:09:24.000 Right.

00:09:24.000 But anyway, I spoke to him at the Super Bowl, and he was so passionate about it.

00:09:28.000 He was talking about- So greater than 70% of black kids are born.

00:09:31.000 70% born out of wedlock.

00:09:32.000 But just to go apples to apples here, what's the fatherlessness?

00:09:35.000 Because if some of those dads are sticking around, okay, fine.

00:09:37.000 They're not married, but they're there.

00:09:38.000 Right.

00:09:38.000 So you have to get more accuracy on the numbers.

00:09:41.000 Born out of wedlock, it's 70%, 73%. 0.94

00:09:43.000 Barack Obama, when he gave the speech in 2008, put the number of dads not in the home at 50%.

00:09:50.000 That's what he gave it as.

00:09:51.000 It's grown since then.

00:09:52.000 That was in 2008. It's a majority.

00:09:54.000 Right.

00:09:54.000 It's gotten dramatically worse since then.

00:09:56.000 Okay.

00:09:56.000 But that's what he put it at.

00:09:58.000 Born out of wedlock is 70-73%.

00:10:00.000 Okay, guys.

00:10:00.000 Somewhere between maybe 50-70%.

00:10:02.000 In the Hispanic community, it's 50-53%, 55%. 0.86

00:10:05.000 Somewhere around that mark.

00:10:06.000 In the Caucasian... 0.88

00:10:07.000 Fatherlessness in Hispanic. 0.96

00:10:08.000 Yes.

00:10:09.000 That surprises me.

00:10:09.000 In the Caucasian community, it's 33%, 35%, somewhere around that mark.

00:10:14.000 Those numbers are all way higher than I expected.

00:10:16.000 And what about the Asian American community?

00:10:18.000 Very small.

00:10:19.000 I don't know the number, but it's less than 10%.

00:10:21.000 It might be single digits.

00:10:22.000 Yeah, it's less than 10%.

00:10:23.000 And if you look, who's the top earners in the country?

00:10:25.000 And who's the top scholastic achievers?

00:10:27.000 Right.

00:10:27.000 And if you look at all of those things, how much homelessness do you see in the Asian community?

00:10:33.000 How much crime do you see in the Asian community? 1.00

00:10:36.000 And if you look at it, the top earners, they go Asian, Caucasian, Hispanic, African American.

00:10:41.000 It goes right down the line.

00:10:43.000 That holds true with teenage pregnancy.

00:10:45.000 At the top, African American, Hispanic, Caucasian, Asian.

00:10:48.000 All of these numbers all coincide, and there's one...

00:10:52.000 We are filling up the prison systems in this country, Vivek, with one particular type of character, and that is a young man who grew up with no father in the home.

00:10:59.000 I've talked to wardens of prisons.

00:11:01.000 I've talked to the prisoners themselves.

00:11:03.000 They're all saying the same thing.

00:11:04.000 These kids are coming in because they didn't find that positive male role model in their life.

00:11:09.000 Now, you have guys that grew up without a dad, and I've interviewed a lot of them, that found the father figure through a coach.

00:11:15.000 They found it through a teacher.

00:11:16.000 They found it in the military.

00:11:17.000 It's the ones that are finding it on the street is the reason why we are filling up these prisons with fatherless kids.

00:11:23.000 I love that clarity, actually.

00:11:26.000 I mean, it's a sad reality, but there are certain problems I work on that are very complicated.

00:11:34.000 The facts are complicated.

00:11:36.000 They're blurry.

00:11:36.000 What you're talking about is not blurry.

00:11:39.000 That's black and white.

00:11:42.000 What's causing it?

00:11:44.000 Why has father...

00:11:45.000 I mean, your point is since 1972. Now, it's really interesting.

00:11:50.000 I know what the last guy who was sitting here in this chair would say.

00:11:55.000 He was talking to about monetary policy and he pins it to...

00:12:02.000 I don't know.

00:12:06.000 Put that to one side.

00:12:07.000 That's an outside of the box theory.

00:12:09.000 What's your perspective on what's driving this?

00:12:13.000 Okay.

00:12:13.000 Well, you have to look at a number of factors here.

00:12:15.000 And like I said, it goes back to the civil rights movement.

00:12:17.000 It goes back to the feminist movement that happened in the 60s and 70s when you started to have the no man at home laws that started to come in where women, mothers were getting farther reimbursements For not having a man. 0.82

00:12:31.000 They would even have people do the no man at home check.

00:12:33.000 They'd go to the house to make sure there's no man living in the home. 0.99

00:12:36.000 So that kind of was the beginning where we saw this happen.

00:12:38.000 You also have- So you're saying we subsidized it?

00:12:41.000 Yes.

00:12:41.000 Right.

00:12:41.000 So we gave moms the economic incentive to not keep the dad around.

00:12:45.000 100%.

00:12:46.000 They were incentivized to not have the father in the home.

00:12:49.000 And so also too, here's the other big one that's happening, Vivek, and it's the family court system.

00:12:54.000 The family court system in this country is heavily slanted against men.

00:12:58.000 I get one email more than I get from any other dad in this country.

00:13:01.000 It's dads that reach out to me and tell me their horror story about how they got humiliated, how they went broke, trying to get custody or some type of time with their kids through a custody battle.

00:13:12.000 And it is a nightmare for so many dads.

00:13:13.000 The entire family court system is corrupt.

00:13:15.000 It needs to be revamped because, you know, we talk about equality in this country quite a bit, but in family court, there's no such thing.

00:13:22.000 We don't hear the words toxic masculinity in the family court system. 1.00

00:13:26.000 There it's, oh no, he's the breadwinner.

00:13:28.000 We can't live without his salary.

00:13:29.000 We need him.

00:13:30.000 He's the guy that we can't survive without him.

00:13:32.000 You don't hear that rhetoric anywhere else but inside the family court system.

00:13:35.000 So many good dads who have been removed from their kids' lives because lies have been made up about them and they are trying to fight these cases.

00:13:45.000 They don't have the money.

00:13:46.000 That's in a case where there's a marriage that's gone awry.

00:13:49.000 Yes.

00:13:50.000 But in the divorce, there's too much of a custody.

00:13:54.000 Favoritism.

00:13:54.000 Bias in favor of the woman.

00:13:57.000 There's no doubt about that.

00:13:58.000 Because of this toxic masculinity mythology. 0.98

00:13:59.000 Right.

00:14:00.000 They try to fight back against that and say, oh no, everything is fair and square.

00:14:03.000 Any guy that's been true to family court system knows that's not the truth.

00:14:06.000 It is not the case.

00:14:07.000 So you have that as a major issue as well.

00:14:09.000 Also, prison.

00:14:11.000 When you have prisoners being sentenced...

00:14:14.000 Men are sentenced 50-60% longer for the same crime than women are. 0.99

00:14:20.000 So judges will always take into account- 50-60% more?

00:14:22.000 Yes, than the same crime.

00:14:23.000 How does that compare to the- because there's a lot of this sort of hand-wringing about the difference between black Americans and white Americans.

00:14:32.000 For the same crime being sentenced more.

00:14:34.000 It's much more heavily between men and women.

00:14:36.000 Between men and women. 0.99

00:14:36.000 56% longer sentences. 0.99

00:14:38.000 Right.

00:14:38.000 The average federal crime sentence for a man is 49 months.

00:14:41.000 For a woman, it's 29. So, it's a... 0.74

00:14:45.000 For the same...

00:14:46.000 For the same crime.

00:14:48.000 Okay, okay, got it.

00:14:48.000 Yes.

00:14:49.000 So you're seeing a big – and judges will take into account whether the mother is – if the woman is a mom and has kids or not.

00:14:55.000 They don't consider that as – and I'm not talking about violent offenders here.

00:14:59.000 I'm talking about low-level criminals.

00:15:02.000 And what you're doing is when you're sentencing that man who has kids, you're sentencing the whole family.

00:15:06.000 You're sentencing his kids as well because now you're just feeding into this cycle.

00:15:10.000 So the war on men is almost a war on the family and the children.

00:15:12.000 100%.

00:15:13.000 The families have been deliberately destroyed in this country.

00:15:16.000 If you want to destroy any country in this world, you only got to do two things.

00:15:19.000 Remove God from the society and take the father out of the home. 0.99

00:15:22.000 You don't have to fire a bullet.

00:15:24.000 The whole society will fall apart.

00:15:26.000 All throughout history, there's never been a successful civilization that has thrived when the nuclear family fell apart. 0.94

00:15:32.000 And you're seeing one happen right here in America today.

00:15:35.000 So back to what caused this.

00:15:38.000 So you think part of this story talking about civil rights, the rise of 60s style feminism, that was an incentive structure?

00:15:46.000 That said, I can get more money if you're not around.

00:15:48.000 That part of the court system or the government, yes.

00:15:53.000 But also that feminism movement, a Marxist movement, which you have a number of known feminists outright against the male. 0.54

00:16:02.000 It was the whole I am woman movement.

00:16:04.000 I don't need a man in my home. 1.00

00:16:05.000 Okay, okay, yeah, yeah.

00:16:06.000 That whole thing.

00:16:08.000 So that, you think, it was a combination of kind of the economic incentives and the culture that was created for it to be cool, for there not to be a man around.

00:16:16.000 Also, too, you started to see entertainment change and start to glorify that kind of stuff, right?

00:16:21.000 And even a man's conception of himself was that, too.

00:16:25.000 Men have been emasculated in this country.

00:16:27.000 You know that.

00:16:27.000 I mean, they have been just beaten down.

00:16:28.000 It's almost bad to be a man today.

00:16:30.000 It's like you feel ashamed that you're a man.

00:16:32.000 You're supposed to apologize for it. 0.96

00:16:34.000 Particularly if you are a white, Christian, heterosexual male, you're the lowest guy on the rung right now. 0.92

00:16:39.000 You know what I mean? 0.90

00:16:39.000 You have no say in the matter whatsoever. 0.90

00:16:41.000 The intersectional ladder.

00:16:42.000 Yeah.

00:16:43.000 The hierarchy.

00:16:44.000 Yeah.

00:16:45.000 So what do you...

00:16:46.000 Get to the solution orientation part of this.

00:16:50.000 What do you think we should do about it?

00:16:52.000 Well, the solution set is going to be multifaceted.

00:16:55.000 It's going to take a lot of effort to do this.

00:16:57.000 And it's not so much to try to fix what's happened right now.

00:17:00.000 It's to try to prevent it from coming through the pipeline again as the younger generations are coming up.

00:17:05.000 Because where we are now, it's almost impossible to try to fix it.

00:17:09.000 I mean, as the guy who's given this as much thought as you have, right?

00:17:14.000 And you're so passionate about it.

00:17:18.000 We'll get to the future part in a second, but take our best crack.

00:17:23.000 I mean, what could we actually do about this?

00:17:25.000 Well, you know, I had Governor Ron DeSantis on my podcast when he passed the Fatherhood Initiative Bill down in Florida, which is something I hope many more states are going to follow through with.

00:17:34.000 Because even like he said, like, you can't legislate fatherhood.

00:17:39.000 There's only so much you can do from a political podium.

00:17:41.000 I agree with that.

00:17:42.000 But what he did do was pass this initiative where it gave these organizations access to resources to fund these programs that are trying to educate fathers, that are trying to help fathers and mend these families.

00:17:55.000 So they have a resource to go to now to help build the father back up in the family.

00:18:00.000 So that's one part of it that is something that I wish every state should have.

00:18:04.000 You know, we see a lot of resources for moms all over the place. 1.00

00:18:07.000 You don't see anywhere near as many as that for dads.

00:18:10.000 So there has to be a part of that.

00:18:12.000 But one of the things, what I try to do on my show, and which I hope is important and has been making an impact as far as I know, is that I bring out all these guys that are known for other things.

00:18:22.000 Super Bowl MVPs, Academy Award winners, Navy SEALs, whatever they accomplish great things in life.

00:18:28.000 But when they come on the show, they'll testify that the only thing that's given them any real fulfillment in life Is being a father.

00:18:35.000 That's the message that needs to get out there from these guys.

00:18:37.000 They're influencers, Vivek.

00:18:39.000 They call them that for a reason.

00:18:41.000 They have a heavy influence.

00:18:42.000 They need to start talking about this stuff.

00:18:44.000 All of our major ones.

00:18:46.000 What kind of figures would you put on that list?

00:18:49.000 Beyond presidential candidates.

00:18:51.000 Like Matthew McConaughey was one who came on my show.

00:18:54.000 Athletes.

00:18:54.000 Instead of getting up on the podium at the Academy Awards and saying, oh, climate change is coming, guys.

00:18:59.000 Get an umbrella.

00:19:00.000 Maybe get up there and talk about the importance of raising a family and telling them the truth about how it's given you the most fulfillment in your life.

00:19:06.000 You have that platform and that podium.

00:19:08.000 Shoot for it there, especially the African American actors.

00:19:11.000 Get up there and talk about the importance of fatherhood.

00:19:14.000 It could do so much for the community.

00:19:15.000 It could do so much more because their voice, it carries so much farther and it means something.

00:19:19.000 Barack Obama, again, never talked about it again.

00:19:22.000 Look at what he could have done to help heal the families in the African American community had he gave that speech every six months.

00:19:28.000 I mean, what a difference it would make.

00:19:30.000 What an impact.

00:19:31.000 Totally.

00:19:31.000 Never heard it again.

00:19:33.000 You think he's browbeaten?

00:19:34.000 Yeah, 100%.

00:19:36.000 And even just now, you know, Vivek, I just- I'm trying to think about how we can actually encourage more of these guys to do this.

00:19:41.000 You think, I mean, there's different kinds of fear I could imagine, right?

00:19:45.000 There's the fear of the political backlash.

00:19:49.000 I think Barack Obama is more likely to have encountered that because of where the left is and was than a guy like Matthew McConaughey or, you know, Peyton Manning or whatever.

00:19:58.000 I'm just thinking about cultural icons.

00:20:01.000 I think for them, what do you think is stopping them?

00:20:04.000 Or is it just that they're not thinking about it or do you think that it's a little bit of that cultural fear or is it that they're going to be caught being hypocritical and someone will bring something up in their own life?

00:20:12.000 I think they're more willing to talk about their own fatherhood but not to talk about the issue of fatherlessness.

00:20:17.000 Right.

00:20:17.000 Because then you know what happens is it makes – and I run into this.

00:20:19.000 Every time you talk about the fatherless problem – It's looked at as a slight on single moms, like you're attacking single moms.

00:20:26.000 So I get that a lot.

00:20:28.000 I get a lot of single moms that reach out and they'll state to me, hey, Alec, I raised two boys by myself with no man and they turned out to be this and they turned out to be that and they're successful.

00:20:37.000 And so you're wrong.

00:20:38.000 And I'll say, well, you know, my grandfather smoked till he was 87 years old and never had a health problem.

00:20:43.000 Does that mean that that's the right thing to do?

00:20:46.000 Yeah.

00:20:46.000 No.

00:20:46.000 There are outliers here, yes.

00:20:48.000 But, you know, not every kid that grows up without a father is going to end up in prison.

00:20:51.000 But 85% of the kids in prison had no father in the home, and there's something to that.

00:20:55.000 So I think that may be the reason why they don't speak.

00:20:58.000 85% of the kids in prison.

00:20:59.000 In juvenile detention or correctional facility are from fatherless homes.

00:21:04.000 How many of them are from motherless homes?

00:21:06.000 I don't know the stats on that, but you know...

00:21:08.000 Mostly single mother homes.

00:21:09.000 It's mostly single mom homes, yeah.

00:21:11.000 And so just getting back to like...

00:21:13.000 Interesting.

00:21:14.000 I just went to the Super Bowl to interview the players again about fatherhood.

00:21:18.000 So I talked to Patrick Mahomes, asked him about his...

00:21:21.000 You're a legend in the NFL. You're building a legacy in the NFL, but what kind of legacy are you building as a father?

00:21:25.000 And he spoke about how that's the only thing that's going to matter.

00:21:29.000 That's what he's going to leave behind, and that's what's going to be really remembered about him.

00:21:32.000 So he talked about his own fatherhood journey, and it's important.

00:21:36.000 The NFL tried it, and you heard an analysis from the NFL try to say, we have two black quarterbacks in the Super Bowl for the first time playing against each other, and they both had a father in their life.

00:21:47.000 This dispels the myth about black fatherhood.

00:21:50.000 It doesn't dispel anything.

00:21:52.000 It's almost the exception that proves the rule.

00:21:53.000 Exactly.

00:21:54.000 Right.

00:21:55.000 Exactly.

00:21:55.000 So they try to play that off.

00:21:57.000 But again, going back to the point, I think the reason why they won't speak about the issue is I think it looks as if it's an attack on single moms, which it's not.

00:22:04.000 Mm-hmm.

00:22:06.000 So your answer is more kind of cultural, making it cool to be a dad in the household again, both from the standpoint of the dads but also in the standpoint of even women and the culture to say that this is – this isn't some sort of weird antiquated idea.

00:22:21.000 It's kind of a progressive thing.

00:22:23.000 Well, that's why I even started the show.

00:22:24.000 Like I said, I'm a railroad mechanic but drive a lot of Uber.

00:22:27.000 And when I was driving Uber, I was listening to all these young guys that would come into the cab.

00:22:32.000 I would tell them I have four kids.

00:22:33.000 They looked at me like I had four heads.

00:22:35.000 And they'd be like, four kids? 0.99

00:22:36.000 What are you crazy?

00:22:37.000 I could never imagine this. 0.99

00:22:38.000 And I'd be like, it's not the end of the world.

00:22:41.000 To get married and start a family.

00:22:43.000 Who would have ever thought?

00:22:44.000 They have a warped vision of what it is to start a family.

00:22:46.000 They look at it like it's going to ruin their life.

00:22:49.000 That's it.

00:22:49.000 If I have a kid, my life's over.

00:22:51.000 And it's the wrong mentality.

00:22:53.000 So the whole idea is what I'm trying to do is change that narrative around.

00:22:56.000 I'm just trying to change that mindset around for these young guys that are coming up now and saying, hey, listen, this is the only thing there is.

00:23:02.000 This is what you need to shoot for in life.

00:23:04.000 It's not something to avoid.

00:23:05.000 This is something you got to embrace.

00:23:07.000 Yeah, I love that.

00:23:08.000 I mean, I think the...

00:23:12.000 You saying it is probably one of the more impactful things that somebody's doing in America about it because I think a politician, you can't legislate that into existence.

00:23:19.000 You can lead by example.

00:23:21.000 I think people running for president of the United States have some cultural attention they get or whatever, media attention, etc.

00:23:30.000 But I think everybody talking openly about that I think sounds like a simple enough place to start.

00:23:39.000 Yeah.

00:23:41.000 We're talking a lot of stats at the high level, but let's go into the family.

00:23:44.000 One of the themes of this podcast, by the way, is rebuilding self-confidence in America.

00:23:49.000 I just think America has lost as a nation our sense of self-confidence.

00:23:54.000 But I think a nation loses its self-confidence when the people who live in that nation individually don't have confidence in themselves anymore.

00:24:03.000 And I think that – I think reading between the lines of what you're saying, a big part of that starts with fatherless homes where kids lack the kind of grounding, the kind of certainty in themselves, the kind of self-assuredness, that self-confidence that you get from growing up in a two-parent that self-confidence that you get from growing up in a two-parent Talk to me in your thoughts.

00:24:26.000 I'm a father, but you're a father, but the difference is you've also made this your, you know, an important part of your life's work.

00:24:34.000 Talk to me about what you think it is about the nature of that connection, not the statistics, but actually what is it about having a dad in the home?

00:24:42.000 What impact does that have on a kid's ability to believe in himself and what he's able to achieve in life?

00:24:48.000 It has got a major impact on self-confidence.

00:24:52.000 There's no doubt about it.

00:24:54.000 What fathers do is so much more important than what they say, right?

00:24:58.000 Living by the example.

00:24:59.000 And it even goes, you know, if you say Proverbs 22.6, raise up a child the way he should go and when he gets old, he'll never depart from it.

00:25:08.000 The father not only is the leader in the household, but he's also the spiritual leader for the family.

00:25:12.000 When you look at just the spiritual journey of kids in this country, if the father takes the kid to church, they're three times or four times more likely to go to church when they're adults.

00:25:26.000 Far more than they are if just the mom takes them to church.

00:25:30.000 The father has such an impact on what the children are doing.

00:25:32.000 That applies to even if it's a daughter, not just father-son.

00:25:35.000 Yes.

00:25:35.000 Father and daughter.

00:25:36.000 Yes.

00:25:37.000 So what they do, it's important.

00:25:39.000 Nothing builds self-confidence more than having that male role model in your house to look up to and to respect.

00:25:45.000 And we're missing that in this country.

00:25:47.000 We don't have that right now.

00:25:48.000 When you don't have it to model for you, then who are you getting your modeling?

00:25:52.000 You're going to learn from somebody.

00:25:53.000 You're going to be influenced by somebody.

00:25:54.000 That's a fact.

00:25:55.000 They say you become the average of the five people you hang around with the most.

00:25:58.000 So if you're hanging around with the wrong crowd and you don't have somebody to pull you back and say, hey, that's the wrong crowd, you shouldn't be hanging out with that crowd.

00:26:05.000 I wouldn't hang out with that crowd.

00:26:07.000 Then you have no confidence.

00:26:09.000 Steve Harvey, when he came on the show, he said a boy, especially a boy without a father, is like an explorer without a map.

00:26:16.000 How do you know where to go?

00:26:18.000 You don't have that guidance.

00:26:19.000 And we have so many young men trying to figure it out on their own.

00:26:21.000 And what do they do?

00:26:22.000 They get with the local guy that's in a similar situation.

00:26:25.000 Now he feels like he's a part of something.

00:26:27.000 He feels like he has someone to look up to, a male role model to look up to.

00:26:30.000 That's why I say to single moms, the most important thing you could do, especially for your young man, is to find a father figure for him to get around.

00:26:37.000 He's going to find a male role model.

00:26:39.000 You may as well make it a positive one, right?

00:26:42.000 Yeah, I like that.

00:26:42.000 I mean, I think that – I think there's the self-confidence in the kids component.

00:26:46.000 I think that's totally right.

00:26:50.000 I've got two things – two questions, actually.

00:26:52.000 Both of them are hard.

00:26:55.000 I think they're both important.

00:26:58.000 For the kids who didn't – I mean, it sounds like in the black community, even in the Hispanic community, the majority of kids growing up in these fatherless households – Yeah, we've got to fix that problem for the future.

00:27:15.000 But for those kids, based on what we know of what they're missing, what can we do to help them?

00:27:23.000 Yeah.

00:27:23.000 Well, what you can do- We can't make up a father when one doesn't exist, but what can we at least do to fill the void?

00:27:28.000 You can give back to your community.

00:27:30.000 You can become a coach, become a spiritual leader.

00:27:33.000 You can become a mentor in your own community.

00:27:35.000 You don't have to go very far.

00:27:37.000 In your own community, you can become a father figure to these kids.

00:27:40.000 And we need more men to step up in those roles and in those positions.

00:27:43.000 And a lot of guys are.

00:27:45.000 Like, I know I had Buster Douglas on the podcast who knocked out Mike Tyson 30 years ago.

00:27:50.000 And he's one that now has a boxing gym.

00:27:52.000 And he says a lot of the people that are coming in are single moms that are bringing their young men in to the boxing facility so they can learn some discipline, learn some self-defense, but also have positive male role models around them.

00:28:05.000 So Teddy Atlas is another guy that's done a ton of this work.

00:28:08.000 He's a Hall of Fame boxing trainer.

00:28:11.000 Another guy that's done it.

00:28:12.000 But a lot of guys have been able to open the door up for these kids that have no father in the home.

00:28:17.000 And we need more of that from the local guys, not just the guys that have the ability to open businesses, but the ones that can help steer the kids.

00:28:24.000 There's a lot of programs that are involved.

00:28:25.000 I know Dads of Great Students is one down in the South that does that, where dads in the school will come into the school and be that father presence for kids that don't have it.

00:28:34.000 So there's a lot of good work being done.

00:28:36.000 We just need to maximize it and highlight it more Yeah, I like that a lot.

00:28:44.000 I mean, I think that that allows the people who are already doing a good job of that to double down on it.

00:28:49.000 Maybe even men who had veered at different parts of their life, they don't have to just wallow in their guilt.

00:28:53.000 They can in some ways make up for it.

00:28:55.000 We didn't actually cover a lot of the ground here on – The responsibility of the men who choose to leave, right?

00:29:01.000 You talked about the cultural factors.

00:29:02.000 You talked about the government.

00:29:04.000 I agree with all those things, but I mean I think it's a self-confidence problem in a lot of men who are fathers who just decide to engage in reckless abandon instead.

00:29:15.000 The deadbeat dad part of this.

00:29:16.000 Yeah, the deadbeat dad.

00:29:16.000 Yes, there's a portion of that too.

00:29:18.000 How much of this crisis of fatherlessness, if you had to divvy it up between people who would have – who's – Hearts and intentions were in the right place, but due to custody disputes or otherwise were taken out of the picture versus the deadbeat dads.

00:29:31.000 Yeah, I don't know the exact portion.

00:29:33.000 What's your gut instinct?

00:29:34.000 I mean, you've been around this.

00:29:36.000 The deadbeat dad problem is real.

00:29:38.000 It's a big problem.

00:29:39.000 It's a massive problem.

00:29:40.000 It's a big part of the problem.

00:29:41.000 And part of that problem is, too, is our culture has made it acceptable now.

00:29:45.000 Especially when men see other men do it, it makes them feel like, well, that guy did it.

00:29:48.000 I can do it.

00:29:49.000 Especially when they're higher profile guys.

00:29:51.000 Yeah, I mean, what do you say to those guys?

00:29:56.000 You're a toxin in our society. 1.00

00:29:58.000 You're a poison in our society. 0.99

00:29:59.000 I'm trying to hold myself back from saying what I feel like I want to say. 0.99

00:30:01.000 Yeah, you're killing or you're crippling our country by not sticking around for your responsibility.

00:30:06.000 That's what you're doing.

00:30:07.000 I mean, just like, isn't there a component of this?

00:30:09.000 I mean, I know you're this way.

00:30:10.000 I'm this way.

00:30:12.000 I want to.

00:30:13.000 I'm not doing it.

00:30:14.000 In the first instance, I spend time with my kids equally, not just because I know they need me there.

00:30:20.000 I don't want to miss out on that experience, right?

00:30:23.000 I mean, life gives you that experience once you relish it for every ounce of it you get.

00:30:30.000 Don't these guys feel this way?

00:30:32.000 I can't get in the mindset because I can never put myself there.

00:30:34.000 I just don't understand it.

00:30:35.000 I don't understand it either.

00:30:36.000 I do know that it exists and it's a poison in our country.

00:30:39.000 It exists big time.

00:30:39.000 And I think a lot of it too, like I said, I think because, you know, back in the day, if there was a girl that was pregnant out of wedlock, It would be like, oh my god, it was a big deal.

00:30:50.000 Today you have TV shows dedicated to it.

00:30:52.000 Teen mom, and we glorify these things. 1.00

00:30:55.000 And more men feel...

00:30:56.000 How we got to the point where men feel like it's okay to abandon their responsibility as a father is beyond me.

00:31:04.000 I don't know how we got to that point where men feel like it's okay.

00:31:07.000 It's a self-confidence crisis too, right?

00:31:08.000 You're hiding from your own...

00:31:10.000 It's a selfish kind of...

00:31:12.000 It's a selfish kind of loss of self-confidence, right?

00:31:16.000 It's just like you're self-indulgent.

00:31:18.000 But you don't actually respect yourself enough to do what you're supposed to do, right?

00:31:23.000 It's a loss of self-respect in a certain sense, right?

00:31:26.000 Because I think anybody who respects themselves will respect the responsibilities that come with having that sense of self.

00:31:33.000 That's what you miss.

00:31:34.000 But I mean other than just wanting to give a little spank to get people in line when they're like teenagers and think that this is cool.

00:31:44.000 You know, men in their 20s, 30s, whatever, father these, you know, not really father, but, you know, whatever, have these children, get a woman pregnant, get out of the picture. 0.98

00:31:53.000 Like, how do we deal with that?

00:31:55.000 Yeah, I don't know how you get those guys back.

00:31:57.000 The only thing you can do is try to have somebody get to them.

00:32:00.000 You know, you got to start from the beginning.

00:32:02.000 You got to get this into the kids that this is not okay.

00:32:04.000 You know, that behavior is not right.

00:32:06.000 That's not what you do.

00:32:07.000 But we got it to the point where we make a joke out of it, like, oh, you are not the father.

00:32:10.000 And we make jokes out of it.

00:32:12.000 There's a whole show, Maury.

00:32:13.000 Oh, we're going to open the envelope and see which guy this girl slept with. 1.00

00:32:16.000 We're glorifying it.

00:32:17.000 We're making it sound like, oh, you know, and so now that's a common thing to say.

00:32:21.000 You are not the father.

00:32:22.000 Like, it's a joke.

00:32:23.000 And you know what's interesting, too, is we look at dads like the joke, right?

00:32:25.000 Even in entertainment, the dad is the butt of the joke all the time.

00:32:28.000 You don't see mom as the butt of the joke in entertainment. 1.00

00:32:30.000 You see the father as the butt of the joke.

00:32:32.000 That all shifted.

00:32:33.000 You used to have like that little house on the prairie dad, like that Brady Bunch father who was never the butt of the joke.

00:32:38.000 He was a responsible guy.

00:32:40.000 Even the girls that weren't his kids, they were in a blended family in the Brady Bunch. 0.94

00:32:43.000 They could come to Mike Brady because he was going to be able to help them responsibly and know what to do.

00:32:48.000 Now you have the dad who's always the butt of the joke.

00:32:50.000 He sits on the couch. 0.95

00:32:51.000 He's a load.

00:32:51.000 He's not dependable.

00:32:53.000 And we've seen that shift.

00:32:54.000 And we've got to get away from that in entertainment as well.

00:32:57.000 If you put in on TikTok, hashtag dad jokes, you're going to get 13 billion hits.

00:33:03.000 If you put in mom jokes, you're going to get less than a million.

00:33:06.000 Because it's not funny.

00:33:07.000 But it's funny, and I'll tell you what's not funny, is when a kid grows up without a father in the home.

00:33:11.000 There's nothing funny about it.

00:33:13.000 Yeah, so you're saying the culture just reinforces that expectation.

00:33:17.000 Yeah, make it seem like it's okay.

00:33:18.000 Like, it's okay if you abandon your responsibility as a dad.

00:33:21.000 Can I ask you, it seems like a random question, I'll tell you where I'm going with that.

00:33:23.000 I mean, do you mind if I ask you, what's your position on abortion?

00:33:27.000 Pro-life, pro-choice, do you have a strong view?

00:33:30.000 I'm pro-life, yeah.

00:33:31.000 I do believe that that's another component of this.

00:33:35.000 Now, I had Father Frank Pavone on the show.

00:33:38.000 We talked about this in depth.

00:33:40.000 I met him.

00:33:40.000 Yeah, great guy.

00:33:42.000 I think he was down there, too.

00:33:43.000 Yeah, I talked to him down there.

00:33:45.000 But there's nobody bigger in the pro-life movement, really, than him.

00:33:48.000 I mean, he's been at it for a long time.

00:33:49.000 Maybe we should have him here, yeah.

00:33:50.000 You should.

00:33:51.000 He'd be a great guest.

00:33:52.000 Do you mind connecting us, actually?

00:33:54.000 Yeah, no problem.

00:33:54.000 Yeah, we met in passing, but I didn't.

00:33:56.000 Yeah, I'll hook you up with that.

00:33:58.000 But in saying that, this is part of the same thing where, let's face it, the high percentage of abortions in this country are not the ones that they point out where they'll say, oh, what about rape?

00:34:08.000 What about the mom's going to die on the operating table? 1.00

00:34:10.000 What if it's...

00:34:11.000 It's your brother that knocked you up.

00:34:12.000 Those are the small, minute things.

00:34:14.000 That's right.

00:34:14.000 The majority of the abortions, 90% of them, I would say, or more, is girls that got pregnant with a guy at the bar, or they want to be able to have the sex without the responsibility.

00:34:25.000 That's the abortion issue. 1.00

00:34:26.000 It's, can I have sex and not have to be responsible?

00:34:28.000 That's the issue.

00:34:29.000 Where I was going to go with this, because we were just talking about the deadbeat dad who needs to just be shaken up a little bit and just say, get in the picture, dude.

00:34:36.000 Get back with the program.

00:34:38.000 So I was having a conversation with another friend of mine who's also pro-life.

00:34:41.000 We share the same views.

00:34:43.000 But I think we would bring a lot more people along with us, right?

00:34:49.000 Because I think most human beings have a basic intuition that the unborn life is worthy of basic dignity and respect.

00:34:56.000 I just think they do, right?

00:34:57.000 If you think about the argument that Clarence Thomas made, right?

00:35:00.000 If a woman's assaulted – And the baby dies, should there be an added level, or the unborn fetus dies, should there be an added level of criminal liability?

00:35:12.000 Almost everybody says yes, right?

00:35:14.000 When does life end?

00:35:16.000 Well, when you have brainwaves and you kill somebody who still has brainwaves late in life, That's a moral affront.

00:35:24.000 It's the same way, well, your brainwaves at six weeks.

00:35:26.000 Why is it any different?

00:35:27.000 So I think most people's intuitions are there, but I think the reason they don't is because of this imbalance between the treatment of men and women.

00:35:34.000 So where I'm going with this is just related to the conversation we were having, an idea from a friend of mine, and I'm still wrapping my head around it, but I thought it was pretty interesting, was like, what if you had state-level laws that That said, you know what, if you're, you know, hard pro-life protections ban abortions,

00:35:52.000 but you give the woman an equalizing vote at the end, where if the child's born, you get to opt for the father to raise the child at his age.

00:36:10.000 And with genetic tests, et cetera, we can establish exactly who it is.

00:36:13.000 Does that – on the men side of this, does something like that – because I'm also pro-life, but I also deal with struggling with these issues of male abandonment.

00:36:22.000 What's your reaction to that?

00:36:23.000 I was just thinking through it.

00:36:24.000 Somebody mentioned it to me yesterday, so it's on my mind.

00:36:26.000 Well, what's interesting about that is that's something that's never considered during these cases too.

00:36:31.000 The man's aspect is not considered.

00:36:33.000 He has no say.

00:36:34.000 It's always like, you know, he has no choice.

00:36:37.000 So he ought to have more say, and he ought to have more responsibility, both.

00:36:41.000 Right, right.

00:36:41.000 Say and responsibility.

00:36:43.000 100%.

00:36:43.000 And, you know, the thing that bothers me, and believe me, I'm not somebody that doesn't show compassion to these issues.

00:36:50.000 I know that they're very delicate issues.

00:36:52.000 I think you do.

00:36:53.000 Here's the thing.

00:36:54.000 What troubles me is when you see these pro-choice movements where they are holding up plastic baby dolls covered in blood and spiking them like it's a football and talking about...

00:37:06.000 And you see the Freedom Tower in New York get light up pink in celebration of the late-term abortion laws.

00:37:12.000 I think we are losing sight and losing our moral compass in the country when you see things like that.

00:37:17.000 This is not something to be celebrated at any level.

00:37:20.000 There's no winning and losing here when you're talking about Ending the life of the unborn.

00:37:24.000 And how do you think that our societal attitudes towards unborn life relate to the fatherlessness crisis?

00:37:37.000 It feels to me like there's a linkage there.

00:37:40.000 At a moment we live in that says it's okay for the right model for relationships is guy knocks girl up.

00:37:51.000 Girl decides she gets to have the sole say on whether or not to abort the unborn fetus. 0.99

00:37:57.000 Guy also has no responsibility.

00:38:00.000 I guess the absence of responsibility component in the abortion discussion, which just favors abort the fetus as the right answer...

00:38:09.000 I'm just talking through this and thinking through this myself, but it sort of feels like it creates the conditions for, okay, well, if it's an unborn fetus, no responsibility.

00:38:19.000 If it's a born child, great!

00:38:20.000 I still have no responsibility.

00:38:22.000 Like, it feels to me like that's the...

00:38:24.000 That's the linkage here.

00:38:26.000 Is this like a popular topic in the world you're in to think about the linkage between these things, or is this a sort of out-of-the-box idea?

00:38:33.000 I think they do go together, but I would put it this way.

00:38:36.000 How could you continue to press this heavy sexual presence on our culture without the abortion and without the fatherlessness? 0.91

00:38:43.000 Mm-hmm. 0.95

00:38:43.000 You have to have that if you're going to keep pushing pornography down everybody's throat. 0.95

00:38:47.000 TikToks with young girls dancing with no clothes on. 0.90

00:38:50.000 Everything is geared sexually in this country.

00:38:53.000 So if you're going to continue that to go, you have to have free abortions. 0.98

00:38:56.000 You have to have fatherless homes.

00:38:57.000 You can't have that exist without it.

00:38:59.000 A big part of this too is the pornography industry.

00:39:02.000 Let's face it.

00:39:03.000 My kids now have access to stuff.

00:39:05.000 When we were a kid, if somebody had a Playboy magazine, they were like the man in school.

00:39:10.000 Everyone got to take a look at a picture of a naked woman. 1.00

00:39:13.000 It was like, Holy cow!

00:39:14.000 Yeah, I went all-boys school.

00:39:15.000 I remember that culture.

00:39:16.000 All my son has to do is put in Google naked woman and he's going to get 50,000 hits and he's going to see images that he shouldn't see until he's well into a much older individual.

00:39:27.000 He's going to see them at a young age.

00:39:28.000 So we are exposing these kids to all this sexual stuff.

00:39:32.000 Now, obviously, we know that they're pushing sexual orientation, sexual identity onto kids' kindergarten.

00:39:38.000 First, second, they're exposing to it.

00:39:40.000 So you can't keep pressing sex on the culture and then not have abortion be a good thing and fatherlessness be a good thing because it's going to be a byproduct of that. 0.85

00:39:50.000 So what would you do to the – I mean, let's put you in a conversation.

00:39:53.000 Have you ever been on the podcast, by the way, in conversation with one of the deadbeat dads?

00:39:59.000 No.

00:39:59.000 We've got to get one.

00:40:00.000 We've got to get – I mean, it's not on the podcast.

00:40:02.000 Maybe it's all fair.

00:40:03.000 It would be a great idea because we can learn from them.

00:40:04.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:40:05.000 And you've got to understand a problem if you're going to solve it.

00:40:10.000 And we're talking about us together here.

00:40:12.000 What do you tell that guy, right?

00:40:14.000 The guy who's just, all right, nah, I mean, you know, it's not my job.

00:40:19.000 Yeah, my baby mama, she's got a handle on it. 1.00

00:40:22.000 She's good.

00:40:23.000 She wasn't for me.

00:40:24.000 They're not for me.

00:40:25.000 Being a dad isn't for me, but she's got a handle on it, and I'll write her a check.

00:40:30.000 You know, I do my part, pay her two grand a month, whatever it is.

00:40:34.000 What do you say to him?

00:40:35.000 You know, unfortunately, what I say wouldn't mean anything.

00:40:39.000 It would have to be somebody who's close to him, a buddy of his, a relative, an uncle, a brother, a friend, somebody that he cares about.

00:40:49.000 To talk to him and say, hey, your life may be better if you get involved in your kids' lives.

00:40:53.000 And that's the thing, too, is a lot of the selfishness will come from, well, what am I getting out of this?

00:40:58.000 And the important thing to ask, the important question to ask about fatherhood, about family life, about marriage is not, what are you getting out of it?

00:41:04.000 It's, who are you becoming from it?

00:41:07.000 And that's the important question to ask.

00:41:09.000 And it will make you a much better man.

00:41:10.000 It will make you a much stronger individual by going through and fulfilling your responsibility as a father, as a husband, as a family man.

00:41:18.000 I know politicians aren't going to solve this for sure.

00:41:22.000 That much is certain.

00:41:25.000 But from a policy perspective, nonetheless, like if you had one wish list, I'm running for president of the United States now, right?

00:41:34.000 If you had one wish list for what the next president could do to help address this fatherlessness crisis we have in our country, what would it be?

00:41:45.000 I'm all ears.

00:41:46.000 Well, I would think, number one, talk about it more.

00:41:48.000 I would think- Oh yeah, I'm doing that.

00:41:49.000 Definitely talk about it.

00:41:51.000 But I would say, I would try to do something with the family courts because I know that the family court, and I learned this through dads that have been screwed over in the process, is that the state gets money from the federal government almost on a dollar per dollar portion of the child custody.

00:42:07.000 So there's dads that are paying into this and the states are getting reimbursed for On a dollar-for-dollar basis.

00:42:13.000 So there's a lot that goes into...

00:42:15.000 I just talked with Sean Parnell about this.

00:42:17.000 Sean Parnell was running for senator in Pennsylvania.

00:42:20.000 Donald Trump endorsed him.

00:42:21.000 He was favored to win that seat.

00:42:23.000 And then all of a sudden, they unsealed his court documents in a divorce case where the mom, his ex-wife, was lying about him mistreating her, mistreating the kids, and threw all shade on him.

00:42:33.000 And it forced Sean to have to withdraw his campaign for Senate.

00:42:36.000 It was false.

00:42:37.000 It was all false, yes.

00:42:38.000 Do we know that now?

00:42:39.000 Yes.

00:42:40.000 Okay.

00:42:40.000 But they forced him in a situation where now he was going for custody, and then what it came to was they said, well, if you're running for senator, you can't be there for your kids, so therefore either run for senator or not.

00:42:53.000 And that's what ended up having him withdraw, because you make him choose between being senator or being a father.

00:42:59.000 Right.

00:43:01.000 So I would just say family court has – if there's anything politicians can do, it has to be in the family court system because you can't legislate a deadbeat dad.

00:43:09.000 What would you do?

00:43:10.000 Basically, don't create a presumption that the dad is supposed to be the one that isn't around.

00:43:14.000 Right.

00:43:15.000 100%.

00:43:15.000 Yeah.

00:43:16.000 And you got to look – here's the thing.

00:43:18.000 I doubt.

00:43:18.000 I doubt if that were a woman running for Senate, that would have been used against her.

00:43:21.000 You're also talking about, Vivek, a multi-billion dollar industry that you're going against.

00:43:27.000 The family court system is a multi-billion dollar industry, and it's been set up and run for years.

00:43:33.000 So to come in there and try to upset the apple cart, you're going to tick off a lot of people by doing that, because a lot of people are making money off it.

00:43:39.000 Yeah, that's my specialty, though.

00:43:40.000 Well, that's what needs to happen.

00:43:42.000 It sounds like a place to do it.

00:43:44.000 Yeah, because if you could do this one thing and get dads back in the home, if you put dad back in the home and God back in society, 90% of all these things we're trying to solve would take care of themselves.

00:43:54.000 Totally.

00:43:54.000 Culture, economic productivity.

00:43:56.000 100%.

00:43:56.000 That's where it lies.

00:43:58.000 That's the answer to everything.

00:43:59.000 I'm actually pretty sold on this, man.

00:44:01.000 It's not a hard sell.

00:44:03.000 Doing it's a little bit harder.

00:44:05.000 Wouldn't be worth it if it wasn't though.

00:44:06.000 I mean, of course it's going to be hard, but what's easy to do is easy not to do, right?

00:44:11.000 So, I mean, something has to be done and anything is better than nothing.

00:44:14.000 We can't keep letting it go like this because the whole society is going to crumble because of it.

00:44:17.000 So you've got three boys.

00:44:18.000 I've got three boys and a girl.

00:44:19.000 Yeah, but for your three boys, right?

00:44:21.000 Your oldest one's what?

00:44:22.000 16. Junior in high school, yep.

00:44:25.000 You talked about this stuff?

00:44:27.000 I talked about all of it, yeah.

00:44:29.000 We eat dinner together every night at 6 o'clock.

00:44:32.000 We pray together, we eat together, we talk together.

00:44:34.000 They're my biggest fans.

00:44:35.000 They love what I'm doing.

00:44:36.000 How much do you think...

00:44:37.000 We've tiptoed around a little bit, but how much do you think...

00:44:41.000 Belief in God makes a difference here.

00:44:45.000 It's everything.

00:44:46.000 I mean, I guess I believe that if you believe in God, you believe in your obligation to live out your duty as a father more than if you...

00:44:58.000 Don't believe in God.

00:44:59.000 I don't have the stats to back that up, but that's got to be right.

00:45:02.000 100%.

00:45:02.000 But the problem is, too, it's not cool to believe in God anymore.

00:45:07.000 I think it is cool to believe in God.

00:45:09.000 I'm Catholic, right?

00:45:10.000 And 17% of practicing Catholics or Catholics attend Mass on Sunday.

00:45:15.000 Only 17%.

00:45:16.000 So no one's going to church anymore.

00:45:19.000 Nowhere near the way that they used to back in the day.

00:45:21.000 So if you're not going, the chances of your kids going is forget about it.

00:45:26.000 So you have to try to have a relationship with God or say, hi, I'm a recovering alcoholic and addict as well.

00:45:33.000 So one of the things when you're going through the program...

00:45:36.000 Higher power, right?

00:45:37.000 And that's one of the things.

00:45:38.000 So whether that be God for you or whatever it is, it's an important step in that program because you can't go to the next step without it.

00:45:46.000 And it's the most – your relationship with God or your relationship with whatever you want to call your higher power, for me it's God, for me it's Jesus Christ.

00:45:53.000 Without that, you don't have a compass, you know, you're lost.

00:45:57.000 And I think it's imperative for kids to have that.

00:45:59.000 Yeah, I'm religious too, and it almost brings me back to that earlier conversation to – You know, the kids who didn't, I mean, who didn't grow up in a father-anchored household.

00:46:10.000 We talked a little bit about others like you and I stepping up in our community to fill that void.

00:46:15.000 But I think God can play a role there too.

00:46:18.000 I mean, it's the last best hope we'll have to fill the void that those kids have.

00:46:25.000 Are left with because of the decision their father made.

00:46:28.000 I mean, you could say our father in the heavenly sense, I think, is always going to be there anyway.

00:46:34.000 And I think the revival of that, I think, might be our last best chance.

00:46:37.000 Gotta have it.

00:46:38.000 To at least undo the damage that's been done.

00:46:39.000 Yeah.

00:46:41.000 Also, to the culturally, look at the music industry and the movies that are being pumped out.

00:46:45.000 Number one, just going back to the whole thing with, say, guns, Hollywood is so against gun, anti-gun.

00:46:51.000 Every actor tells you, oh, we should take your guns away.

00:46:53.000 No, your point about 1972, the gun ownership remains the same.

00:46:55.000 What else has actually changed?

00:46:56.000 But yet, Hollywood can't make a movie without a gun in it.

00:46:58.000 Why doesn't Hollywood say, hey, you know what?

00:47:00.000 We're never going to make a movie with another gun in it.

00:47:02.000 No, because you make too much money.

00:47:03.000 They make more money off gun violence than the gun distributors do.

00:47:07.000 And then in the same sense, you look at like the music.

00:47:10.000 In the African-American community, like 50 years ago, in 1955, the number one song by a black artist was Earth Angel, right?

00:47:18.000 Last year, it was Wet Ass Pee, right?

00:47:21.000 Wow.

00:47:22.000 Look at that.

00:47:23.000 I mean, look at what's happened.

00:47:24.000 I mean, the whole thing has changed.

00:47:25.000 It's rotted out.

00:47:26.000 And how do you try to get something good out of that?

00:47:29.000 You know what?

00:47:29.000 I think it is good.

00:47:30.000 I think it is cool to be a dad.

00:47:32.000 I think it is cool to believe in God.

00:47:34.000 And you know what?

00:47:35.000 I don't think we need to apologize for that.

00:47:37.000 And you know what?

00:47:37.000 I think people – what's culturally cool is what people don't apologize for.

00:47:41.000 And I think the more we just embrace that without having to feel like we apologize for it, it's probably the biggest cultural contribution we can make.

00:47:49.000 And you're doing that every day, man.

00:47:51.000 I appreciate you.

00:47:53.000 I do.

00:47:53.000 I think that – You're going to probably drive more change in the family in America if more people are hearing from you than any politician ever will.

00:48:03.000 And all I can say is keep doing what you're doing.

00:48:06.000 I'm grateful for it, man.

00:48:07.000 Thank you for coming out.

00:48:08.000 It's good to meet you in person and we'll keep this going.

00:48:11.000 Thank you, Vivek.

00:48:12.000 Yeah, it's been an honor to be here.

00:48:13.000 And you know what?

00:48:14.000 Every day is Father's Day on First Class Fatherhood.

00:48:16.000 So come check it out.

00:48:17.000 I love that.

00:48:18.000 We'll come back on there.

00:48:19.000 Thank you, man.

00:48:20.000 I'm Vivek Ramaswamy, candidate for president, and I approve this message.

Truth Podcast - Vivek Ramaswamy - April 05, 2023

Fatherhood Under Attack with First Class Fatherhood's Alec Lace | The TRUTH Podcast #6

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