DOJ Launches Antitrust Case Against NFL & Airlines Jack Up Bag Fees

Summary

Morning Brew Daily – Episode Summary

Episode Title: DOJ Launches Antitrust Case Against NFL & Airlines Jack Up Bag Fees
Date: April 10, 2026
Hosts: Neal Freyman and Toby Howell

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Overview

In this episode, Neal and Toby cover several major business stories shaking up the U.S. economy, media, and travel industries. The episode’s main focus is on the Department of Justice's (DOJ) newly-launched antitrust investigation into the NFL and consumers’ burdens due to ever-rising streaming costs. The duo also discusses the rapid increase in airline baggage fees, the inflationary ripple effects of global crises, record-low college admissions rates in the South, and a grab bag of “stock/dog of the week” and rapid-fire headlines about space, demographics, and TV reboots—all delivered in their signature witty style.

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Key Segments & Discussion Points

1. Super El Niño Incoming

• [00:48] El Niño’s Forecast
  • Forecasters are predicting a possible "super El Niño," a rare, unusually intense climate event not seen in 140 years.
    • Quote: “There's real potential for the strongest El Nino event in 140 years.” (attributing atmospheric scientist Paul Roundy, [00:48])
  • Only four super El Niños since 1950; last was in 2015.
  • Expected impacts:
    • Warmer/drier winter in the north, wetter/colder in southern U.S.
    • Higher chance of supercharged summer temps.
    • Possibly quieter hurricane season in the Atlantic.
  • Toby: “Super El Niño pumps me up. I don’t know why. Maybe because they're pretty rare.” ([01:24])

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2. DOJ’s Antitrust Investigation of the NFL

• [02:53] NFL’s Streaming and Leverage

  • DOJ investigating whether the NFL’s slicing and distributing of its TV rights across multiple platforms is illegally squeezing fans with high costs.
  • Watching every NFL game last season would run nearly $1,000 (CBS, NBC, ESPN, Fox, Amazon Prime, YouTube Sunday Ticket).
    • Quote: “Neil, paying a grand to watch all my fantasy players underperform should be illegal.” – Toby ([04:12])
  • NFL defends itself: over 87% of games are on free TV, 100% free in local markets.

• [04:17] What’s Really At Stake

  • League’s 2021 broadcast deals have an opt-out before 2029/30; NFL wants to renegotiate, likely for more money, using huge event ratings as leverage.
    • Quote: “The NFL is more powerful than ever and broadcasters are back on their heels.” – Neal ([06:27])

• [05:16] Antitrust Exemption Background

  • Without its 1961 exemption, TV deals would go on a team-by-team basis, risking revenue disparity and possible league fracturing.
  • Small market teams would struggle to negotiate lucrative deals.

• [06:27] Political and Market Dynamics

  • Scrutiny from both political parties due to fan costs.
  • Broadcasters may push back through political channels to reduce consumer costs.

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3. Inflation Update & Economic Signals

• [06:46] Rising Costs and Stubborn Inflation

  • Early look at March’s CPI: inflation remains well above the Fed's 2% goal.
    • Core inflation (excl. food/energy): 0.4% monthly, 3% yearly.
    • Rising costs in goods (recreational items, clothing); services inflation cooled a bit.
    • Persistent impact from previous tariffs (e.g., “Liberation Day tariffs”).

• [09:11] Household Impact: Tax Refunds vs. Energy Costs

  • Higher tax refunds (~$290/household, up 14%) offer relief.
  • But higher energy (oil) costs could wipe out gains ($350/household).
  • Quote: “You got two clashing forces… all those gains are going to be wiped out by higher energy prices.” – Neal ([09:11])

• [09:35] CPI Report Expectations

  • Full impact of Iran-related oil shocks coming in latest CPI.
    • Economists expect nearly a 1% CPI jump, the biggest since 2022.

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4. Stock of the Week: Vanderbilt University

• [10:26] Vanderbilt’s Surging Selectivity

  • Regular decision acceptance rate hits 2.8%, even more exclusive than Yale or Columbia.
    • Total acceptance: 4% (down from 32.8% in 2004).
  • Factors:
    • Elite academics, strong sports, appealing Southern location and weather.
    • Less politicized climate compared to Northeast campuses.
    • Ease of applying (Common App, test-optional policies).
    • Toby: “Vanderbilt doesn’t require students to submit those standardized test score[s], so that could have juiced up their application numbers.” ([11:43])

• [12:37] Southern Schools On the Rise

  • Schools like Duke also cutting admissions rates.
  • Vanderbilt expanding: plans for satellite campuses in NYC, San Francisco, and West Palm Beach.
    • “What if we just open more schools and had like this chain mentality when it comes to higher education.” – Toby ([13:09])

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5. Dog of the Week: Airline Bag Fees Soar

• [15:46] American Airlines Leads Fee Hikes

  • First checked bag now $50 for regular, $55 for basic economy.
  • Other majors (United, JetBlue, Delta, Southwest) also raised fees, driven by surging jet fuel costs (up to $4.80/gal).
  • “People are going to get hurt. It was already bad and now they’re charging even more to check a bag.” – Neal ([16:59])
  • Industry made $7.2B from bag fees last year.

• [17:53] Airfare and Airline Strategy

  • Fares are also up (United: 15–20%; Delta: higher fares “will stick”).
  • Premium cabins are focus for growth; economy experiencing higher fees and “nickel and diming.”

• [18:49] Delta’s Unique Move: Owning a Refinery

  • Delta’s Pennsylvania refinery (acquired 2012) looks smart as crack spread widens—unique advantage over rivals.
  • “Delta said that the refinery is going to boost its second quarter earnings by $300 million.” – Neal ([20:13])

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6. Rapid-Fire Headlines & Notables

Artemis 2: Homecoming

• [20:13] Orion spacecraft returns from moon orbit; first human flyby since Apollo.
• [21:15] Re-entry is dangerous due to known heat shield issues; NASA adjusted the reentry angle to minimize risk.
  • Quote, NASA Flight Director: “It’s 13 minutes of things that have to go right.” – relayed by Toby ([21:15])
  • Inspiring astronaut tweet: “I used to think I was scared of heights, but now I know I was just scared of gravity.” – paraphrased from Reid Wiseman via Neal ([22:15])

U.S. Fertility Rate Hits New Low

• [22:53] Current fertility rate is a record low: 53.1 births per 1,000 women.
  • For the first time, women in late 30s outnumber early 20s in birth rates.
  • Teen birth rate down 72% since 2007.
  • Many demographers say this may be a postponement (not a true long-term drop), as more women become mothers at older ages.
  • “Quick, go mingle at a bar.” – Toby, jokingly nudging Neal ([23:46])

Malcolm in the Middle Reboot

• [25:06] Show returns on Hulu, main cast back except for “Dewey,” Eric Per Sullivan (now studying Victorian Literature at Harvard).
  • “He turned them down and he will not be there because he’s doing more erudite things.” – Neal ([25:55])
  • Trend noted: slew of 90s/2000s TV reboots as “stuck culture.”

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Notable Quotes

• On NFL antitrust exemption:
  “It’s just amazing how the balance of power has shifted since 1961.” – Neal Freyman ([06:27])

• On airline fees:
  “Overhead bin space is going to be an absolute disaster. I mean, people are going to get hurt. It was already bad and now they're charging even more to check a bag.” – Neal Freyman ([16:59])

• On space exploration:
  “While spacewalking, I realized something. I used to think I was scared of heights, but now I know I was just scared of gravity.” – astronaut Reid Wiseman, quoted by Neal ([22:15])

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Timestamps Quick Reference

• 00:48 – Super El Niño forecast and impacts
• 02:53 – DOJ launches NFL antitrust probe
• 05:16 – How loss of NFL’s antitrust exemption could reshape the league
• 06:46 – Inflation updates, tariff aftershocks, PC & CPI indicators
• 10:26 – “Stock of the week”: Vanderbilt’s exclusive status
• 15:46 – “Dog of the week”: Airline bag fee hikes
• 18:49 – Delta's refinery advantage
• 20:13 – Artemis 2 return, reentry risks
• 22:53 – U.S. fertility rate news
• 25:06 – Malcolm in the Middle reboot / stuck culture

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Episode Takeaways

• NFL’s media model is under real scrutiny, and changes could ripple across pro sports and consumer wallets.
• Inflation and travel costs remain stubbornly high, squeezing Americans despite higher tax refunds.
• Elite southern universities are now rivaling Ivies in exclusivity.
• Delta’s refinery play pays off in a volatile fuel market.
• Cultural shifts: Americans are postponing childbirth, and nostalgia reigns on TV.

Hosts Neal and Toby keep the coverage brisk, packed with business context, and regularly sprinkled with humor and self-deprecating banter.

Transcript

[Toby Howell]

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[Neal Freyman]

Good morning, Brew Daily Show. I'm Neal Freyman.

[Toby Howell]

And I'm Toby Howell.

[Neal Freyman]

Today, the Southern College, more exclusive than the Ivy league.

[Toby Howell]

Then the DOJ has opened an investigation into the NFL. It's Friday, April 10th. Let's ride.

[Neal Freyman]

Good morning and Happy Friday. El Nino is coming, but not just any El Nino. This week forecasters updated their models for an increased chance of a super super El Nino, an unusually intense version of the climate altering pattern. El Nino is when a warming patch of water in the Pacific Ocean influences climates all over the globe, causing more stormy activity in some places while drying out others and sparking storms, floods, droughts and typhoons. Later this year, those effects could be multiplied with a super El Nino we haven't seen in a long time. One professor of atmospheric science, Paul Roundy wrote, there's real potential for the strongest El Nino event in 140 years.

[Toby Howell]

So super El Nino pumps me up. I don't know why. Maybe because they're pretty rare. There have only been four since 1950. The last one was a decade ago in 2015. A super El Nino doesn't necessarily mean that we're going to get like end of world storm level intensity. It just means that the normal impacts of El Nino, which are that warm, dry winter in the northern part of the country and then the wetter, colder winter in the southern states, is just a higher chance that that happens. Also, also supercharged summer temperatures. So we just had our winter from hell in the north. Now everyone in SoCal and Texas and Florida in the Sun Belt, they are going to get their bad winter, their wet winter. It's coming for you next. One positive A super El Nino could also mean an especially quiet Atlantic hurricane season. So there's always two sides of the El Nino coin. And now a word from our sponsor, TaxAct. Neil, what are taxes?

[Neal Freyman]

Another classic Toby bit.

[Toby Howell]

Yes, this is certainly one of my famous bits. I totally know what taxes are then.

[Neal Freyman]

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[Toby Howell]

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[Neal Freyman]

Just head to taxact.com business-returns to get started. That's taxact.com business-returnswalks Football is America's sport,

[Toby Howell]

but watching football also feels like a sport in and of itself. With all the streaming services you got to pay for an unexpected single high. Safety, though, is looking to lay the boom on the rising cost of viewership. The Department of Justice, the DOJ has opened an antitrust investigation into whether the NFL is squeezing fans and harming consumers with all these subscription fees. Back in the day, to see the jets suck, you flipped on your TV and watched the game. Then in 1961, Congress passed the Sports Broadcasting act, which gave sports leagues a hall pass on some antitrust rules so they could negotiate media deals as a package. Fast forward to today and the league has used that leverage to chop up its schedule and sprinkle games across a dozen platforms, each with a monthly bill attached. That bill has gotten very big. Watching every NFL game last season, as Senator Mike Lee, the chair of the antitrust subcommittee, points out, would run you nearly $1,000 and requires access to CBS, NBC, ESPN, FO, Amazon prime, and YouTube Sunday Ticket, which alone runs 240 bucks a season. The NFL points out that over 87% of its games air on free broadcast TV and that 100% of games are free in the local markets of the teams playing, which is great, but also not really the point if you're a Bills fan living in Miami. Neal, paying a grand to watch all my fantasy players underperform should be illegal.

[Neal Freyman]

Talk about an unstoppable force meeting in a movable object. This is the US Government versus the National Football League. I saw someone say it's just, just America versus America, a true heavyweight battle. There is growing scrutiny of the high cost to consumers of watching sports, especially the NFL, on both sides of the aisle in D.C. just very they're very much on the hot seat right now. And there's a very important dynamic lurking in the background of all this, which is that the NFL back in 2021 signed all these rights deals with CBS, NBC, Fox, all its broadcasting partners. And there's an opt out ahead of the 2029, 2030 season where Roger Goodell, the commissioner can go, can basically renege on all these agreements say we want to renegotiate them and they want to get a lot more money because they're looking at the super bowl and they're saying 134 million people watch this in the second quarter. We think we can go back and get even more money from these broadcasting partners. So they want to rip up these agreements and get more money. And that's what's kind of lurking in the background. This is what the. This is what has D.C. really looking at this antitrust exemption.

[Toby Howell]

Yeah. In 2025, the NFL had 83 of the top 100 Nielsen rated shows. So they certainly have the leverage to rip up those agreements. So what would happen if this exemption that was handed down to them back in 1961, what would happen if it disappeared? The NFL would have to market their TV rights on a team by team basis. They can't say, like, hey, we are a league as a whole. You have to pay. You have to negotiate with us if you want to broadcast our games. Instead, it's the Jaguars now offending for themselves and saying, hey, anyone want to pay us money to broadcast our TV games? Likely the demand wouldn't be there. It wouldn't be the same, at least that the Cowboys would get, for instance. So it makes. Teams have to start to fend it for themselves would. Which makes, you know, maybe the pie that the revenue the league is bringing in a little bit smaller. It would make salary cap a little harder for the smaller teams to deal with, which could lead to, you know, two leagues fracturing from each other. One with the Cowboys in it, one with the Jaguars down. I'm beating up on the Jaguars right now. But small market teams, let's just insert small market teams there. It's more difficult for them to negotiate their own rights.

[Neal Freyman]

It's just amazing how the balance of power has shifted since 1961. That antitrust exemption was put in place to help out the NFL, which was a fledging league and it wasn't doing so well compared to the very strong broadcasters. And now we're living in a world in 2026 where the NFL is, is more powerful than ever and broadcasters are back on their heels. So. But right now, the law is sort of tilted toward the NFL. So it's unclear what's going to happen toward this antitrust exemption, whether it's going to go away or not. It would. It would change the NFL as we know it. But I think they'll probably come to some sort of agreement, could be some sort of power play by the broadcasters here. Putting pressure on politicians to put pressure on the NFL to work out some sort of agreement that lowers costs for all of us who just want to watch games. Moving on this morning we'll get our first look at the inflationary impact of the war in Iran from the Consumer Price Index. Report data released yesterday showed inflation was already a problem leading up to the conflict. The Personal Consumption Expenditures Index, what you would call the opening act to today's CPI headliner, showed prices remained elevated in February even before the biggest oil shock in history. Core inflation, which removes food and energy, jumped 0.4% from the month prior and rose 3% from a year earlier. Reminder that the Fed's Target inflation rate is 2%. So we've been well above those comfortable levels for five consecutive years. Inflation has that gnarly effect of draining Americans purchasing power. The PC showed that consumer spending rose 0.5% in February, which sounds healthy until you factor in inflation which shows spending basically stagnating at 0.1%. That continues a six month trend of a more cautious consumer as they contend with higher inflation and a creaky job market. Toby, all eyes are on the inflation report coming out in just a few hours. And if that's the entree, this appetizer was a soggy plate of fries.

[Toby Howell]

Yeah, not so appetizing. I think that what we' seeing is some residual effects of tariffs still filtering through the economy right now because a lot of the price firmness came from goods in this PC index. Drop prices of recreational goods, clothing, all picked up from the start of the year. Services, inflation actually cooled a little bit. That is excluding, excluding energy and housing of course. So you are seeing just more physical things costing more money which a lot of people did expect when you know, the Liberation Day tariffs were kind of announced. There are some potential tailwinds though. Like this wasn't all bad because a lot of economists are looking at higher tax refunds as a potential boon to help support spending in the coming months. Again, that risks being offset by, you know, the higher inflation ticking in. But that is one thing that people looked at and said there is some hope here that spending will remain robust because of the increased amount of tax refunds people are getting.

[Neal Freyman]

You got two clashing forces coming to household finances. Their tax refunds which are running about 14% higher than last year. But not for me. Apparently that translates to about $290 per household. But then at the same time we have elevated oil prices and we don't know exactly where they're going to go. But at current levels that would amount to a loss of $350 per household. So it looks like all of those gains are going to be wiped out by higher energy prices.

[Toby Howell]

And you set the table well saying that the CPI report is dropping today. The reason why a lot of people are very excited for that is because we're going to see some of the impact of rising gas prices from the Iran war. Again the, the PC, even though the Fed loves looking at it to make their rate decisions. That does not reflect, you know, these volatile food and energy costs. CPI report does.

[Neal Freyman]

Well that was February, this is March.

[Toby Howell]

Yeah. And in addition that that is pre war that that we're getting. So we are getting a more up to date report and we're getting one that does bring in oil and gas prices. So it's not going to be pretty. I mean there are some pretty dire expectations going into this. Economies are expecting, economists are expecting almost a 1% increase in the CPI. That is the biggest advance since 2022. So a little bit nervous ahead of this drop later today.

[Neal Freyman]

Let's head to stock of the week. Dog of the week, the segment where Toby and I pick one stock that wrapped up their taxes already and another that's scrambling to the deadline. I win the pre show drag race, so I get to go first. And my stock of the week is Vanderbilt University which has become more selective than some ivies. I literally did a double take when I saw this. For the upcoming fall, Vanderbilt admitted just 2.8% of regular decision applicants. 1382 students out of 48,720 applications, itself a record high. Combined with early decision that comes out to a total Vanderbilt admissions rate of 4%. To put that in perspective, Vanderbilt's acceptance rate about 20 years ago was 32.8%. And the 4% currently makes it more exclusive than Yale and Columbia which accepted about 4.2% of applications. So what the heck is going on in Nashville? Why has Vandy become the Southern belle of the ball? There are a bunch of factors driving Vandy's rise to near ivy status. One is that it's got an enviable mix of elite academics and great D1 sports culture that work hard, play hard mentality attractive to high high achieving high school seniors. Another reason is that in general, Southern universities are seeing heightened interest due to better weather, typically lower prices and there are less political campuses after the upheaval of the past few years. Toby, the Commodores are rising.

[Toby Howell]

Commodores are ripping. They kind of screwed me in March Madness though. So I still Have a bone to pick with them. One other factor that is leading to the influx of applications is it's just easier to apply these days. The common app is a lot easier for a lot of people to fill out. Also, standardized testing is a massive factor when you have to consider applications. Vanderbilt doesn't require students to submit those standardized test score. So that could have juiced up their application numbers a little bit. That is kind of the overthinking approach to this story. The other approach is what you said is just Vanderbilt. It's an awesome school. It's, it's located in an awesome part of town. It's warm there. You know, again, a lot of people are attracted to southern schools because of the air of apolitical ness that are in some of those campuses. So sometimes you don't have to overthink a story. Vanderbilt is a sick place to go to school.

[Neal Freyman]

But we're also seeing this happen across similar kind of southern schools that want to vault into the exclusive Ivy League status. And one other one is Duke University. This year it has an overall acceptance rate of 4.7%. And that acceptance rate, Duke's acceptance rate has been cut by about half over the past decade. So Duke, Vanderbilt, other sort of private southern schools are really wanting to become this, the, they're all vying to become the Ivies of the south. And they're lowering their acceptance rate to the point where I wouldn't even think of applying. Now if I was a high school

[Toby Howell]

senior, as I was reading about all these stories, I go, I would have literally no chance. What do you mean? The, the regular Decision rate is sub 3%. Like it does seem very difficult to get in because there's just a lot of demand right now. Vanderbilt is looking at that demand though and going what if we just expanded our entire campus? They have plans for new campuses in New York, San Francisco and West Palm Beach, Florida. They actually are breaking ground on the San Francisco one by 2027. And this is going to be a full blown four year undergraduate college. It's not going to be just a satellite outpost. So that is maybe something we could see become more common as the demand is there. What if we just open more schools and had like this chain mentality when it comes to higher education. All right, we're going to take a quick break and come back with our dog of the week. Neil, let's make a deal.

[Neal Freyman]

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[Toby Howell]

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[Toby Howell]

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[Neal Freyman]

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[Toby Howell]

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[Neal Freyman]

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[Toby Howell]

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[Neal Freyman]

Overhead bin space is going to be an absolute disaster. I mean, people are going to get hurt. It was already bad and now they're charging even more to check a bag. You're obviously bringing more suitcases on the plane. Jet fuel prices have about doubled since late February, climbing to about $4.80 a gallon. This is, this is airlines second biggest cost coming after labor. New projections say that at current jet fuel prices, airlines would be on the hook for about $40 billion more in fuel spending alone this year from the rise in jet fuel. So obviously they're going to turn on this switch, and it's a very lucrative switch because they make billions of dollars in bag fees and people are willing to pay them. So last year, airlines made $7.2 billion on bag fees alone. So you can easily split the switch and just say, okay, do we want to make another couple hundred millions of dollars to offset jet fuel prices? Okay, let's just charge $5 more for bag fees.

[Toby Howell]

Yeah, it's easier to charge for bag fees than for fares alone because fares are also going up in price. United said that they're going to raise prices 15 to 20%. Delta said that higher fares would stick around. A lot of the CEOs have also said people are willing to pay them. I guess people are just willing to pay any prices at this point to go the places where they want to go. But this is definitely. American is unique in this sense that they are specifically penalizing regular economy flyers because they think that they've gotten the reputation of not being the premium airlines that, you know, Delta and United are trying to push into at this point. So I really do think that they're trying to discourage or even, you know, overtly punish this lower economy flyer by charging, you know, $5 extra to try to differentiate themselves and say, hey, we do have, you know, premium offerings. You're going to pay a little bit less if you book with our normal economy fares.

[Neal Freyman]

Let's talk about Delta because they've an interesting ace in the hole to help mitigate these rise in jet, this rise in jet fuel costs. And that's because they own a refinery in 2012, they bought a refinery in Pennsylvania to process crude oil into kerosene or jet fuel. And it's been a very interesting move. It's the only airline in the United States that has their own refinery. And sometimes in some years it looks absolutely genius. In other years, it looks like a money pit boondoggle. But right now it looks like a very savvy, forward looking move as jet. Jet fuel prices go up and they can actually just make their own in Pennsylvania.

[Toby Howell]

Yeah, everyone roasted this when they first bought it because it was a ConocoPhillips plant and they were planning to shut it down. And Delta's like, hey, we'll buy it. And everyone's like, why would you buy something that in literal oil and gas companies said is not worth it to run anymore? And. And yeah, it ebbs and flows on whether this is a smart move or not based off of a thing called the crack spread, which is the difference in price between crude oil and jet fuel. The larger that crack spread is, the smarter it looks to have your own refinery. And United CEO Scott Kirby actually is a little bit jealous right now. He said, over the life of the refinery, the benefit is shared by everyone because you can sell that fuel to everyone. But right now, the crack spend is much higher. So they'll get real benefit from the higher crack spread that will be unique to them. So I think he's got some green with envy in his eyes right now.

[Neal Freyman]

Yeah. Delta said that the refinery is going to boost its second quarter earnings by $300 million. They're also pouring, you know, $1.6 billion into this thing for maintenance and repair since they bought it in 2012. But it would just be funny to drive on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and just see, like, a big refinery and with a big Delta sign on it. I'll take a look next time I'm over there. Okay, let's sprint to the finish with some final headlines. Home sweet home. The four astronauts on the Artemis 2 mission will, if all goes according to plan, complete their historic journey tonight with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. When they looped around the moon earlier this week, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen traveled further from Earth than any other humans have gone before. They also became the first astronauts to visit the moon in more than five decades, testing key systems ahead of a planned lunar landing a couple of years from now. Toby, this won't exactly be a gentle reaction. Reentry. The Orion spacecraft will reenter Earth's atmosphere in a fireball of 5,000 degrees, going about 24,000 miles per hour, or about 31 times the speed of sound.

[Toby Howell]

Oh, re entry. Jeff Ratigan, NASA's flight director, said it's 13 minutes of things that have to go right. And that is especially true for this specific Orion capsule because this spacecraft's heat shield has known flaws in its design. This is not the first time that Orion has gone to space. There was an unmanned mission a few years ago. In 2022. NASA found unexpected damage to the spacecraft's heat shield when it reentered re entered. But unfortunately, the Artemis 2 capsule had already been built, so they couldn't change the heat shield at that point. So the risk is still there. So what NASA did instead was actually change the path of re entry to minimize risks. It is now descending at a steeper angle to kind of quicken the amount of time it has to withstand the most extreme temperatures. So they're literally bringing this thing down even faster through the atmosphere. So I'm sure there'll be some very nervous people at NASA. They say it's fine, like, we've done all the math, it's going to hold up okay. But I mean, it's nerve wracking for sure.

[Neal Freyman]

Yeah, we need these guys back home because I think these four astronauts over the course of this mission have just inspired a lot of people. They've had so much grace and wisdom. And if you just go through Reid Wiseman's Twitter, you just see these like, unbelievable gems of wisdom. One of them that I saw yesterday was he had tweeted before when he, when he, after he spacewalked a few years ago. He said, while spacewalking, I realized something. I used to think I was scared of heights, but now I know I was just scared of gravity.

[Toby Howell]

I saw that too. And I don't quite understand it, like, but it's deep. You're just scared of the effects of like, potentially. I think that's what.

[Neal Freyman]

Don't analyze. I know, just, just let it wash over you.

[Toby Howell]

It does sound deep for sure. All right, moving on. No one is having kids these days. The general fertility rate hit a record low of 53.1 bursts per 1,000 women, continuing a slide that's been consistent since 2007. According to the CDC's provisional birth report, for the sixth year in a row, the US clocked in at right around 3.6 million babies born. Why is that curve flattening? For the first time ever, women in their late 30s had a higher birth rate than women in their early 20s. The teen birth rate is also in freefall down 72% since 2007, thanks to Better sex ed and longer acting contraceptives. Karen Benjamin Guzzo, a researcher at UNC Chapel Hill, pointed out that for the past decades, teens were hammered with a don't ruin your life messaging when it comes to pregnancies. And once you know it, it lowered the pregnancy rate. But Neal, the US Is below replacement rate right now. Quick, go mingle out of bar.

[Neal Freyman]

I'm working on it. This may not be as ominous as it sounds because when you see declining fertility rates in the United States, you're, you're thinking, oh God, we're going to have a baby bust. And like, like what's happening in South Korea and Japan, we're going have this demographic crisis coming down the pipeline. Some demographers say this could be a lull, what they call a postponement transition. It's not that women are having fewer babies, but they're having fewer babies in their 20s. So this is a very interesting statistic. In 2024, 49% of women who were 30 had given birth to at least one child. That's down from 6, 63% a decade ago and 69% two decades ago. But today's 45 year olds are more likely to be mothers than women who were that age two decades ago. 88% of 45 year old women are now mothers, up from 84% in 2004. So they may just be delaying things. Finally, for the first time in 20 years, a new Malcolm in the Middle episode is on tv. Tonight, the beloved family sitcom is being revived on Hulu with mostly the same cast, including Frankie Muniz and Bryan Cranston and Jane Kaczmarek as his parents. In the reboot, Muniz is now a parent to father to a teen daughter, Leah, played by Keely Karsten. Suddenly it seems like all your favorite shows of the 90s and early 2000s are getting a second life. Along with Malcolm in the Middle, reboots of Scrubs, King of the Hill, Prison Break, Baywatch, and Phineas and Ferb are all back on the telly or coming down the pipeline.

[Toby Howell]

Apparently we have Bryan Cranston to kind of thank for this, despite the fact that he became a very large star powered by Breaking Bad after Malcolm in the Middle. And he kept in touch with the crew, he kept in touch with the actors. And basically when the serious creator said we want to do this, he jumped fully in and said, I'm, I'm game. The first episode features Cranston standing completely nude. As you know, his wife Shaves his back in, you know, nether region. So he's not afraid of being, you know, Bryan Cranston now. He's very much still Malcolm in the Middle Bryan Cranston. So it will be fun. I do just think about stuck culture again, though. You listed all of those shows that are coming back. It feels like the only way to make something popular is to just find something that was popular a couple of decades ago, reboot it today, and this show will work like it is going to be popular.

[Neal Freyman]

We'll see. Some of those reboots haven't been so successful. Some have been more than others. But my favorite anecdote about this revival is I said most of the cast is coming back, but one person isn't. That's Eric Purse Sullivan, who played Dewey, Malcolm's younger brother. So Eric is now 34 years old and he's just in a different place in life. He's studying Victorian literature at Harvard for his master's. So they approached him and said, hey, would you like to make buckets of money? You'd probably make millions of dollars from this. And apparently he just said, nah, like, I'm just. I'm just studying Dickens here at Harvard, and that's something that I want to do. So he turned them down and he will not be there because he's doing more erudite things. Okay. That is all the time we have. Thanks for starting your morning with us. Have a wonderful Friday and an even better weekend. If you like to reach us, send an email to Morning Brew daily at Morning Broadcom or DM us on Instagram @MD Daily Show. Let's roll the credits. Emily Milian is our supervising producer. Raymond Lu is our senior producer. Our producer is Olivia Graham and our associate producer is Olivia Lake. Hair and makeup is Turing Vanderbilt. Devin Emery is our president and our show is a production of Morning Brew.

[Toby Howell]

Great show today, Neil. I wish you all well. Hablas espanol spriest du dzoitsch com de nosk.

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