The Girls Chat about Lindsay Clancy, Ms. Rachel & Kids Living at Home | the Girls

the Girls

In this debut episode of 'The Girls,' the hosts engage in a wide-ranging conversation covering heavy news and lighthearted lifestyle topics. The

Key takeaways

• The Lindsay Clancy trial resulted in a mistrial due to the actions of a lone juror, Michael Desrenville.
• The hosts debate whether postpartum psychosis should serve as an excuse for criminal accountability in child murder cases.

Main topics

• Lindsay Clancy criminal case
• Political influence in children's media

Notable quotes

The wedding was the best part of the marriage.

Conclusion

The episode serves as a multifaceted cultural commentary, blending int

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:01) Wow, your day just got better. Because we're in it! The girls, Fox News' the girls. Welcome aboard the party. Kat, Rachel, and Melissa and Sam are here. And we're glad to be with you today. Sam, your thought. Speaker 5 (0:17) I want to start by saying my first thought is it's Melissa's birthday today. Birthday. Speaker 1 (0:20) Happy birthday. That's awesome. I Speaker 2 (0:23) turned Speaker 5 (0:23) 27 today. Speaker 2 (0:24) You look it. You look it. What are you doing for your birthday? Every year, since I got divorced, every year on my birthday, I go out with my eight best friends from college. Speaker 1 (0:32) Yeah, we have marriage kept you from celebrating your birthday when I Speaker 2 (0:36) was married I felt pressure to spend my birthday with my husband looking back which you should have known then Speaker 1 (0:40) That's Speaker 2 (0:42) right. It's you. Yeah, I say all the time. The wedding was the best part of the marriage Was Speaker 3 (0:47) it Speaker 1 (0:47) beautiful I bet it was Speaker 1 (0:50) I'll send you pictures. Speaker 3 (0:51) Of your ex Speaker 2 (0:53) in a wedding? No, Speaker 3 (0:54) no, him. Speaker 2 (0:54) Just the wedding. Just the actual dress. Speaker 3 (0:57) I'm so happy to be here, you guys. I mean, we've been talking about wanting to do something like this for a long time and overdue. It's overdue and they picked a great group. Speaker 4 (1:05) Yeah, I'm excited to be here, obviously, and have the kind of conversations that we can't always have on the news. Speaker 1 (1:10) That's a really good point. Yeah, the conversation. When the camera's not rolling. We're chasing the news. It's Speaker 2 (1:16) the commercial Speaker 1 (1:16) break conversation. But the audience doesn't get to see that, though. Well, let's get going. Yeah, let's get to it. Speaker 1 (1:26) We have a lot to talk about because it's been and will be a big day, as we know. Lindsay Clancy, anybody have an opinion about the case of the mom who admits she killed her three kids? Her attorneys in the first trial said that she did it for insanity reasons, specifically postpartum psychosis. It was a mistrial because of the loan holdout juror, which, by the way, Fox got an exclusive with his attorney and that video. on Hannity, too. So now we've heard from both of them, because he got outed by the defense attorney. Right. I Speaker 4 (2:00) mean, can we just take a moment Speaker 1 (2:02) for Speaker 4 (2:02) how wild his attorney is as a phrase? I mean, obviously, I think this is going to be retried. I think it kind of has to be retried. Three kids are dead. But it's going to be hard to find a jury, I would think, to retry it, right? Because look at what happened. to a juror needing an... Generally, you don't need an attorney after you're a juror on a trial. And also, who are you gonna find who's non-biased on this case at any point? I mean, this case is unavoidable. I don't know anybody who doesn't have strong opinions about it at this point. Speaker 1 (2:33) Yeah. One of the motions that they tabled recently to put on the next time they meet in court, Rachel, has to do with whether or not, A, there's a gag order, but also, do they investigate the one juror that the defense attorney... doxxed because he didn't agree with everybody else, with the 11 jurors. They're going to go after him. So Speaker 3 (2:52) from the get-go, I have been fascinated by the lone juror. Before I even knew what his race was, it turns out he's this really devout Catholic. I didn't know any of that. And I was like, this guy is brave. I always love people who are willing to just kind of get out there and go against the grain because they genuinely, not just to be a contrarian, but because they genuinely have a moral... reason to and one of the things that I learned is that he would go into the jury room and he would put an exercise band around the water bottle and pull it, you know to kind of remind everybody that that's what he was thinking about in that moment. I'm gonna say this you guys what really fascinates me is the the after effects like that there has been such a gender divide and all of a sudden all these young men are saying This is a litmus test for if I'm going to date this woman. Like, are you going to, if you sympathize with Lindsay Clancy, I'm out. And I think that's really fascinating. doing all kinds of TikTok videos, and they're talking about it. Speaker 2 (3:59) I don't know. The drama and the sub-drama and then watching the defense attorney sort of get his, the defense attorney for the juror get his five minutes and this subplot that's developing. I keep going back to what you said, Harris. At the beginning, I keep thinking about those three children and how the longer this goes on, the further it's going away from the actual victims here and then devolving into all these other subplots, which, I don't know, gets under my skin a little bit. It's culture, though. I Speaker 3 (4:24) mean, Speaker 2 (4:24) in the end, there is something I Speaker 3 (4:27) think important culturally about the way people are landing on this case. I just think Speaker 5 (4:34) there can be an in-between. Like, you can sympathize with the issues that she had. Like, all of us that have had children, you don't even have to have kids to understand. Like, your hormones are going crazy. Like, I've got three kids. The postpartum after each one was totally different. I can sympathize that, man, that's hard. And... Like, you don't get to say, because of that, I can murder my children. Like, I don't think this is that complicated. Like, I think we should simplify. For me, the way I looked at this case was I put myself in both scenarios. Okay, if I'm a mom and this has been done to my kids, I want this woman put away forever. Like, you can say things were hard. You still got to be in prison. If I'm her, and God forbid... I did this horrible thing, there is no chance on earth I am pleading not guilty. Put me under the prison. Like, I don't want to live a regular life. After I've killed my kids, even if I was technically insane in that moment, you will never catch me saying, not guilty, let me go off and live freely while my children are dead. Like, no, no chance. I am pleading guilty and maybe I'll start a little prison ministry or something, but like, I am not. going to let myself go free if I've done that to my kids. But what do Speaker 1 (5:48) you think? You know what, when you say prison ministry, it makes me think about what this lone juror, this Michael Desrenville, said, again, in that video that we had exclusively on Fox, on Sean's show. He brought up his Catholic faith. He talked about religion. And one of the things I've thought about during this entire trial is that faith element. I mean, for me, in my Christian belief, thou shall not kill. Right the Ten Commandments. It doesn't parenthetically say oh, but if this oh and if this happens Oh, by the way, if you feel this way and you're going through this don't Speaker 3 (6:23) you Speaker 1 (6:23) think Speaker 3 (6:23) we're here in a place where we're debating? Whether she is Nobody's debating whether she did it We're debating whether she should pay a price for it and I think part of it is because whether she's gonna say something that maybe Exactly. Yeah, Speaker 1 (6:39) I Speaker 3 (6:39) think it has a lot to do with abortion I think we have desensitized the murdering of children on a level and excuse making around it. And I think it has a lot to do with it. Yeah. Speaker 1 (6:49) I mean, it's it's the agency that we each have. And in the life taking, whether it's what you just said about abortion, whatever it is, you I would imagine every woman must have their own belief about life. Right. You don't get your own. You don't get to have your own Speaker 3 (7:06) belief about our Speaker 1 (7:07) bodies are doing things our whole lives, whether we. we deliver a baby or not. So we understand our place kind of in nature. And I'm just wondering how it is that she went to Speaker 1 (7:20) Brigham Women's Hospital in Massachusetts 200 plus times and saw the chaplain and others on that staff and no one flagged maybe she should not be going back home to her kids. You know what I'm talking about? But this is the other Speaker 2 (7:32) thing, right? That's the other thing that this trial is putting at the forefront, right? Is are we getting women the help that they need when they're going, when they're struggling with this? The real help. I don't think she wanted to kill her children. I mean, I don't have children. but I'm an aunt and my sister has two gorgeous children. My brother has two little kids. All of my friends have children. And nobody wants to hurt their children. I think she was genuinely sick. And to me, it's not a question of should she go to prison or should she go to the mall? It's should she go to prison or should she be in a mental facility getting the help that she needs? I mean, I have to imagine there's no punishment greater than the punishment she's going to put upon herself having to live for the rest of her life. facing the fact that she killed her three children. But Speaker 5 (8:17) how can we know that? Some people do want to kill their kids. Like, there are some people who saw real evil all along the way. Sure, but at the end of the day, like, I don't know her heart. I don't know what's on the inside. She may very well, in that moment... have decided I've had enough. And I just don't think there is any excuse. Just like I think if someone is insane on the street, we live in New York, like we see it all the time. If someone is insane on the street and they have some horrible life story and they were raped or abused or whatever, and they take that out on someone else, you're still responsible for your actions. I don't think, look, I don't think if you had kids or any of your friends or do I think any normal person? Generally wants to kill her kids. Speaker 3 (9:05) No, but there are Speaker 5 (9:05) some Speaker 3 (9:06) evil people. What role did Big Pharma play in this? I mean she was on a wild concoction Speaker 1 (9:11) of drugs. Yeah, that cocktail was Speaker 2 (9:13) vicious. Speaker 1 (9:13) And you could make the argument that she was somewhat doctor shopping because of all the scripts. She was trying to figure out something about herself that she wanted to change. And, you know, I mean... when she hit that one hospital 200 plus times, I'm just wondering, when you say the adequate care, I don't know what that looks like. Like we know somewhat about postpartum depression, but psychosis is something different. So, I mean, it's worth, I think you're right. You can do two things. You can talk about that lane in the medical and you can still say, but the question is, is she responsible, accountable for the deaths of those children? And Speaker 4 (9:47) I think so much of the conversation has gotten so far beyond just her and what she did, right? Because there's been reaction and then there's been reaction. to the reaction and reaction to the reaction. And I think that a lot of women maybe had postpartum experiences of their own that were very negative and very sad and they didn't kill their kids, but maybe they felt that they weren't believed in those experiences. And so then they're saying, well, I'm going to believe her or it's about something more than just her actions and what she did. And then there's the reaction to some of... people going so far in the other direction. The internet is the worst thing ever. I mean, it's the best thing and the worst thing ever. You see people, well, you know, now there's going to be an epidemic of women killing their children, which I have, I'm not going to kill my kid. It's not because I'm worried I won't get away with it. There were copycats. There are, there are individual situations. There are the vast, I think that the vast majority of women, we're not going to kill our kids, regardless of what happens in this case. And I also think that there's some reaction to men coming online and saying postpartum depression isn't real. And then there's the reaction to that. And there's the reaction to that. And then there, of course, are those TikToks that women are making holding their baby saying, I feel you, Lindsay Clancy, which is inadvisable at best. I mean, if you understand that's great to me, that's if you understand what it's how someone could kill her kids, then it does creep me out to see you holding your baby like that. But that. was how many women, it was a few women. And we just keep having, you know, well, this, this, this, this. I think so much of the conversation that we're having isn't even about... Lindsay, it's people internalize their own experiences. I Speaker 1 (11:25) wonder if because the reason I asked that question about what do you think it all means? I think people jump in because they want the flex and the attention. I don't even know if those women are really thinking like Speaker 3 (11:34) the ones that have the time to like show up outside the courthouse with this. I mean, is it just all Speaker 1 (11:39) part of the pomp and circumstance around it? I mean, we saw it with Luigi Mangione here in New York. And we haven't even mentioned the fact that she tried to kill herself. Right. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah. So it's interesting. because in some of the court records and the police documents, she, yeah, there's some debate about whether or not she really tried to kill herself. She did jump out of a window. She is partially paralyzed. She did have some injuries. Speaker 1 (12:10) But they're just you've got to read kind of deeper and why what's Speaker 3 (12:13) the Speaker 1 (12:13) debate? Well, just when they showed up to help her, you know, I mean and and I don't want to get too far into the judgment here because we weren't there but my first question would have been my babies are my babies, okay, I mean does she even have Context of what people would have found inside that house in that moment and then in fact they would have found her first likely You know what I mean? Like, it wasn't even the children first. I've jumped out this window. I survived. It's complicated. Speaker 5 (12:41) I'm curious to see Speaker 1 (12:42) how that fits into the actual trial, if we get a second trial. She just Speaker 5 (12:45) had the awareness, though, to the end. Look, this is so dark. I almost hate talking about this because it is all so dark when you think about it. But, like, she had the awareness in that moment to strangle those kids and then think, well, now I've got to kill myself. Like she at least was aware enough. She wasn't so insane that she wasn't thinking about repercussions. She immediately was like, well, now I got to go. If we're believing that that's exactly what she was. Speaker 3 (13:10) Except unless it's the drugs. I mean, all of us have seen these mass shootings with, you know, students and schools. I mean, I always wonder, are these kids, are they having a psychotic episode where things just don't make sense? I have no idea. I don't know why she was on so many drugs. And I there's no excuse I think evil exists and it could just be that I said this on air on Fox the friends I said it could be a demonic possession that happens too. I have no idea what happened But it is interesting. The cultural reaction to it has been fascinating. And Speaker 2 (13:43) then the question coming out of this for me is, is something larger going to change, right? Like, for example, what you just raised, Harris, that she was doctor shopping, that she was on all of these different drugs. Speaker 1 (13:53) I Speaker 2 (13:53) mean, Speaker 1 (13:54) we don't Speaker 2 (13:54) know it. But I don't mean to say that in a negative way, but I'm saying, like, did each of the doctors know what they were prescribing? Like, here in New York, we changed the law that if you get a certain level of a prescription, it goes into a database. So if you go to another doctor, that doctor sees what you're on before they prescribe. you can't end up with a cocktail of drugs that when they all get put together, something really terrible happens. Will they make that a national registry? Will some change come out of this? So Speaker 1 (14:21) just a couple of years ago, many people were on those platforms. I don't know specifically for every single doctor in this case. And of course, now there's a civil lawsuit going on. And I