You can almost see the hamster collapse in real time as it tries to run on the ol' exercise wheel. This poor young lady never stood a chance.

Martha MacCallum, host of Fox News' “The Story,” sat Democratic Socialists of America national co-chair Megan Romer down after DSA-backed candidates scored midterm gains and asked the question socialists never want to answer.

How much does all of this cost, and who pays for it?

With these folks, who imagine money does, in fact, grow on trees, it didn't compute.

MacCallum laid out the White House math — canceling student debt, open borders and amnesty, Medicare for All — about $350,000 per household. Medicare for All alone, she noted, is $47.4 trillion.

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“How are you going to pay for that?” she asked.

Romer didn't counter with facts and figures. Who needs that noise, amirite? Instead, she suggested the figures were simply "made up."

"Yeah, I mean, we understand that the White House, who does not like us very much, managed to come up with some math that made us look bad," the peppy, albeit intellectually handcuffed, Romer said. "Yeah, it’s a made-up number.”

“You say it’s a made-up number, but it was done by economists. Your number versus their number," MacCallum countered.

“What’s your number when you add up everything on that list? What number did you come up with?” she continued pressing.

This is where it gets embarrassing. A national co-chair of a movement that just helped send people to Congress could not, or would not, price her own wish list.

“There’s no like, one solid number because it depends on what pieces we can build in the meantime," said Romer.

MacCallum asked again for "a basic number," but Romer simply kept referencing the White House's actual math as "outrageous," or alternately, "ridiculous."

So much squirming.

"I’m not going to give you a solid number. That’s not what I’m here to do.”

Well, what are you there to do, hon? And if you're going to blast actual economic figures as fabricated, then you better have your own number, or at least some sort of math showing why the other side miscalculated. Instead, Romer showed up to an intellectual gunfight with a foam lawn dart.

Better luck next time, Meg. Maybe bring somebody who knows what they're talking about so your group doesn't look like lightweights when Fox comes a-calling again.

What she’s “here to do,” Romer added, is talk about how we can “collectively” and “democratically” decide how to spend “our money.”

The figure she waved off as “made-up” did not fall out of the sky. The White House Council of Economic Advisers scored the DSA agenda in October, including Medicare for All and a billionaire wealth tax. 

Over 2027 through 2036, the net fiscal burden is $48.90 trillion — about $355,000 per American household. Medicare for All alone is $47.41 trillion. The wealth tax the DSA likes to brag about raises $3.94 trillion. That’s about 8 cents of every dollar on the $49 trillion tab.

Even if you shook down the billionaire class the way Romer sells it, you’d still be staring at more than 90 cents on the dollar with no payer in sight.

This isn’t Romer’s first time coming up empty on camera. In August, as RedState’s Nick Arama noted, she was out there talking about “taxing the hell out of millionaires” — and then couldn't explain what that slogan actually meant. Simple questions appear to be the bane of her existence.

Embedded tweet continues:

... shouldn't you?" Romer: "Ummmmm, that's a good question." Remnick: "If you're the co-chair of the DSA, shouldn't you be more specific than just taxing the hell out of something? What exactly do you mean?" Romer: "So again, it's democracy, right?…" This is the Democrat party 'Big Tent.'

And don’t wait for the so-called moderates to straighten her out. After she called for abolishing the Senate, the Supreme Court, borders, and even the presidency, NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo asked whether Democrat operatives had been ringing her up to say, 'love the energy, but relax on the radical suggestions.'

Romer’s answer was pretty revealing.

“Not a single phone call from a Democratic operative has come to my phone.” 

Not from the radicals. And not from the moderates. Not from anyone.

They aren’t asking her to tone it down. They’re letting her keep talking.

It's unclear which party benefits from it.