Jul 3, 2026
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt suggested that young Americans frustrated with the cost of living should be sent to Cuba or Iran to appreciate what they have back home, during a Fox News appearance Thursday that quickly made rounds on social media. The remark came after host Jesse Watters floated the idea of drafting misbehaving twentysomethings into the military.
"If they misbehave, just make all these young kids join the army," Watters said on "Jesse Watters Primetime." "Shape them up."
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"Or send them to Cuba. Send them to Iran," Leavitt replied. "They'll want to come back real quick."
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Leavitt has spent the last several months as the Trump administration's public voice on Iran. Between February and April, the U.S. and Israel waged a 38-day air and naval campaign against the country, code-named Operation Epic Fury, that killed Iran's supreme leader in its opening hours and ended in a ceasefire that still remains unsettled. Talks between Washington and Tehran were still stalled as of this week, with Iran's chief negotiator saying his country was "currently not negotiating with the United States at all."
Leavitt vs. her own generation
The exchange began when Watters said it was rich that young people were rankled about the economy when they "have never had real jobs," yet complain that "things are expensive." He asked Leavitt if there was any merit to his complaint.
"Unfortunately, I do," Leavitt said. "Because this generation — my generation, I hate to say it — Gen Z and those younger than me have been raised with just silver spoons in their mouths, just getting everything handed to them."
Born in August 1997, Leavitt is 28 and, at 27, became the youngest White House press secretary in history when she took the podium in January 2025.
Leavitt said the U.S. "was built on meritocracy and hard work, pulling up your sleeves, pulling yourself up from your bootstraps." When Watters asked whether the problem was laziness, she answered, "a little bit," before adding, "It's laziness, and it's the liberal indoctrination." She went on to praise parents turning to homeschooling, private education and Christian schools, and credited President Trump's push for school choice.
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The numbers behind the complaints
With regards to the economic frustration Leavitt attributes to “laziness”: The overall unemployment rate held at 4.3% in the June jobs report the Bureau of Labor Statistics released Thursday, but the rate for 16- to 24-year-olds ran far higher — about 9% in recent months, more than double the national figure.
Young workers have long faced steeper unemployment than the general population, but the gap has widened as entry-level hiring cools and AI reshapes the bottom rungs of the white-collar ladder.
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It’s a similar story for housing, where the income needed to afford a median-priced U.S. home jumped roughly 70% between 2019 and 2025, from about $67,000 to $114,000, according to Realtor.com data. Cumulative inflation since 2019 has climbed to about 26%, meaning it now takes $126 to buy what $100 bought before the pandemic. Nearly one in three adults under 35 still live with their parents, as well as about 70% of those aged 25 to 34 who do have jobs.
To be clear, calling young people “lazy” seems to be something that happens with every generation. This is exactly how the media labeled millennials a decade ago, when their supposed penchant for avocado toast was blamed for their inability to buy homes and start families amid a string of financial crises.
Economists have documented that workers who enter the labor market during downturns build less wealth over time and enter the housing market later — an effect that shows up decades later. The median age of a first-time homebuyer hit an all-time high of 40 in 2025.
Bank of America has described Gen Z as "overeducated and underemployed." The same research projects the generation is on track to become the richest in history as the roughly $84 trillion "Great Wealth Transfer" moves from older Americans over the next two decades.
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Dave Smith is the VP of Content at Wise Publishing and Editor-in-Chief at Moneywise and Money.ca. His work has also been published in Fortune, Business Insider, Newsweek, ABC News, and USA Today.
