Horrifying Perez Hilton Video, and Disturbing Ariana Grande Appearance, with Glenn Greenwald, Plus Surrogate Fights to Protect Baby | Ep. 1375

24:49If you're not somebody who wants media scrutiny, you don't go and write a book and then go on a major book tour about what it is that you're doing and saying. They marketed him aggressively. And clearly, because of who he is, because of his demographics, and this is something that happens in universities all the time that's i mean it's just such a violation of meritocracy they'll just pass people along because they're afraid in left liberal culture of investigating or scrutinizing people who are in one of those protective classes or in his case kind of the the most protective class because there's no story more kind of heart-tugging or tragic than his even though it's all a lie and that's the issue it's like he okay he's obviously someone met with with pathological lying and mental issues.

25:36How did these universities, again, the leading academic universities in the world, miss all this, promote these fake stories when obviously all the evidence was not that hard to find because some of it is just on its face preposterous like those races?

25:51Glenn Greenwald:Here's to your point how a professor at Cambridge defended him. Professor Baskar Vera, who serves as the pro vice chancellor of education at the University of Cambridge, describes our day as an exceptional scholar. Well, I mean, exceptional for all the wrong reasons, but that's not how he meant it. Quote, he will contribute significantly to Cambridge's research in this area and addressing, he's talking about all of his writings about DEI and so on, addressing the underrepresentation of people from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds, especially those from black, Asian and other minority ethnic communities.

26:35Glenn Greenwald:This is what he's touting as what this guy will bring to Cambridge, that he will address the underrepresentation of people from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds, especially those from black, Asian and other minority ethnic communities. He's saying it with a bunch of dressed up words. He's black and we don't have enough blacks here. That is what he's saying right there. Then he goes on, quote, his experiences highlight the barriers faced by many underrepresented groups across higher education and especially at leading universities. Cambridge has a responsibility to do everything it can to address this by creating academic spaces where everyone feels they belong.

27:14Glenn Greenwald:His experience highlights the barriers faced by many underrepresented groups. That's all. They said it. They hired him because of his skin color. They didn't care about whether he was a legitimate scholar or academic. And then when the questions were raised, he and they played the race card at every turn, trying to make all of his critics look and feel and sound like bigots for questioning the lies they were being told. It's shocking to me. There's one guy in particular whose name is Nathan Kofnes. He's a free speech advocate. He was fired by Cambridge College. And this guy wrote this Substack post that got this started saying, I think this guy plagiarized over 100 different times in his academic works.

28:09Glenn Greenwald:And the university turned around and said, you're racist and you've been a racist for a long time. And therefore, we dismiss everything. Now we find out that Arday himself got not one, but two different police investigations started against his critics. There were at least two different people who raised questions about him that he turned around and got investigated by the cops. One is I have so many, so many articles in front of me. Hold on. I will get you the names. But they they've now spoken out. And one one was investigated by the police. He only found out when the police admitted it that his last name is Grove.

28:57Glenn Greenwald:when the police admitted that they had been conducting an investigation against him for four months for the nerve of looking into Professor Arde. Listen here to SOT1 with his. This is the police commissioner, Sergeant Mark Rowley apologizing. Got to challenge you on this one. The Metropolitan Police is accused of press censorship for investigating a journalist who tried to expose a Cambridge professor who's alleged to committed plagiarism. Jack Grove, a reporter for the Times Higher Education, a four month investigation. Why was that necessary, Commissioner? We dropped the ball on that one, Nick.

29:27Let's not sort of beat about the bush. A report came in, I think it was of harassment or some crime like that. It should have been screened out earlier on as not requiring investigation. When you say screened out, it should have been one phone call, no further action. Nothing requiring police action. It's sat on an officer's workload and he made a couple of phone calls, which in hindsight, we shouldn't have done that. So a big organisation will make the odd mistake. Apology to the reporter involved? Yeah, we shouldn't have made that call to him and said that.

29:54Glenn Greenwald:No, you shouldn't. That was Jack Grove that you investigated. Scotland Yard investigated him trying to expose, as he was trying to expose a plagiarism scandal, told him to stop asking a Cambridge professor questions, meaning our day. He works for the Times Higher Education, T-H-E. He was accused of harassment after he emailed a series of questions to the professor, Glenn. That That was his sin. Mr. Grove said officers told him to stop contacting the professor because the professor's mental health had been affected by the questions. Then Arde also hired the law firm Carter Ruck, which suggested in a letter to T.H.E.

30:33Glenn Greenwald:that its apparent attack on Arde may be racially motivated. And that wasn't even the only time. He also reported a different academic critic to the police. That guy's name was Dr. David Harris, professor emeritus at Plymouth Marjohn University and one of the first scholars to raise concerns about this guy. Our day is a villain. He's a villain. Glenn. You know, I get one of the one of the funniest things I've ever read in my life, and I still laugh about it to this day when I remember it, is that when Elizabeth Warren went to was hired by Harvard Law School, there started to be these articles protesting the lack of women of color or people of color on the faculties of our best law schools.

31:15And there was this survey and this law review article that said things are sort of starting to get better. And there was a footnote saying Harvard Law, for example, recently hired Elizabeth Warren, the first ever faculty member of Native American origin and she got counted as a woman of color at Harvard that showed that the numbers were getting better. There was a time in like 2020 when everybody understood the absolute insanity of wokeness and mostly we've kind of moved beyond the most extreme versions. But in these academic institutions where they came from basically, where they were created and disseminated, they thrive almost as strongly.

31:55And what this basically is, it's so obvious, is that in part these people who made him into an academic star are now the people who are supposed to investigate it. And they don't want to admit that they were part of these gross errors because it's not just him. They'd have to explain themselves. But the much bigger part is so obvious.

32:13Glenn Greenwald:It's like the media and Fauci, by the way. It's like the media and Fauci right now. Exactly. Exactly. And so many other instances as well. But the bigger part of it, which, again, I don't necessarily find there anything wrong or it's not like ill intention. If somebody kind of finds it refreshing or nice or interesting that somebody from a very disadvantaged background overcomes all that and gets to Cambridge, because usually they're from rich families and they have a certain path. And if someone can do that, but it has to be true, right, in order to be celebrated. And because it was somebody who was black, because it was somebody from his background, instantly they started ascribing to the people who were investigating it, racist motives, even though the racist motives were the people who were defending him for no reason other than his race.

33:06And that's always the projection. You know, it's like those are the people who are thinking this is a black person. Other people were thinking this is a celebrated scholar who's getting more famous, but seems to have a whole history of lies. And he would not.

33:21Glenn Greenwald:Race is a factor here, but it's a factor that helped him At every turn. No one was coming down on him because he was black. Exactly. He was promoted because he was black and then defended knee jerk defense. That guy, Nathan Kofnes, again, he's a former Cambridge professor who was one of the first people to detect a fraud here. He came out on X and said, game over now that our day resigned. Now I'd like to hear from the Cambridge University administrators who said this was a, quote, vile campaign against a world class scholar and said that our day had been cleared by the investigations of any wrongdoing.

33:58Glenn Greenwald:They said a victim of a vile campaign to undermine his credibility, which must stop. That's what Cambridge said. They have lost all credibility. they have humiliated themselves. I got to get to Eli Steele, who we love. He's the son of Shelby Steele and is a filmmaker in his own right. One of the early guests, not quite as early as Glenn Greenwald, our podfather. I laid the foundation for him. Totally. He said, Glenn Greenwald goes on this show. Why wouldn't I? I mean, I'm in. So Eli and his dad, Shelby, are very outspoken on the issue of race. Shelby Steele has been an academic scholar. in the, in the vein of Thomas Sowell, um, very well respected and was respected by the academy as well until he started as a black man to write truths about the issues we're discussing here.

34:50Glenn Greenwald:And then he was kicked out of that polite society because he wasn't saying the right things anymore. Glenn Lowry has a similar story about, um, what's happened to him. Um, Carol Swain, she's got an identical story to that. Glenn wasn't kicked out of academia, but he received blowback. Okay. Here's what Eli posted. He said, personally, I couldn't care less about Jason Arday. If anything, he's a kind of victim here, though one that bears tremendous responsibility for his actions. I say victim because his stories and the work he did without rigorous examination that one would expect of a top school like Cambridge, because his stories and the work that he did went without rigorous examination that one would expect there.

35:28Glenn Greenwald:They did this because Arday's black and to check their diversity poster boy's story would run the risk of them being charged with racism. The whites wanted their innocence, however false it was. And it is these whites who claim to care about black excellence. And that is the cruelty here. Now listen to this part. When Cambridge shielded Arday from the kind of scrutiny that nearly all professors face, they did not defend the remaining integrity of academia. Instead, they only confirmed the ugly stereotypes that are whispered about black scholars, that they cannot do the work and that the bar must be lowered.

36:03Glenn Greenwald:This is the price that blacks who choose the path of merit must pay for the cowardice of the weak who play the black power white guilt coin. So good. So true. Yeah. And this is you know, this is something I think you and I've talked about this before. This is something embedded in left wing culture that masquerades is defending marginalized groups, but in reality has a very kind of paternalistic view of them. I remember 10 years ago when I was at The Intercept, we were talking about having journalists participate in the comments section because it builds community. And people came along and said, that's easy for you to say, but we have people of color who are journalists and females who are journalists.

36:46And the comment sections can be really vitriolic, and they shouldn't be expected to confront that. As though women, people of color can't handle critical or harsh comments on the on the Internet. Only white people can. And they didn't realize how actually racist that is. And there's so many examples like that where they'll try and, you know, provide this kind of theory that women are not really strong enough to withstand the normal rigors of political discourse and political argument. And here, this is exactly what this is all based on, the idea that if you have a black academic star and somebody starts scrutinizing their record, it can't be because they're doing it for the same reason academic records get scrutinized all the time, because they might have errors in them, they might have misled, there might be plagiarism.

37:41No, it has to be racism. And this is, as you say, this is what demeans the accomplishments of actual black scholars. They are saying basically improving all the time. We have black scholars climb the ladder, not because they're great scholars, but because they're black. And that's what we want. And then you have, you know, black scholars. And you'll hear this from black people all the time who say the fact that they're doing that demeans my own accomplishments because people assume that I, too, climb the ladder of success, not because I had the merits or accomplishments to do it, but because I was black and it was kind of grease for me and nobody really stood in my way.

38:15It's actually, it's racism masquerading as liberal enlightenment, and it's made me sick for so long.

38:23Glenn Greenwald:Yes, yes. Go back, I mean, I guarantee you, go back and take a look at Thomas Sowell's early academic writings. You're not gonna find a bunch of plagiarism and fraud in his bio. You're just not. You're not gonna find that with Glenn Lowry either. It's take any Supreme Court justice and see how they did in law school or what papers they wrote or their law review articles that they wrote for their journal. They're not going to be full of plagiarism and like white, black, female or male. This is not a thing for true academics. True academics, as they're rising up the ladder, understand the rules perfectly and follow them.

38:55Glenn Greenwald:That's generally how people who are very, very successful in these fields anyway, maybe not in tech, get successful. That's how they do it. They play by the rules. They work harder. They have a need for approval that actually they turn around in this world and make really work for them. And they choose industries where that that's perfect. You know, you you can get promoted based on pleasing others with excellent work. You know, there are a lot of industries where that's still a thing. And that's a great thing. This guy was a fraud and managed to sort of come in sideways to this industry because he has certain qualifications that that women like his boss at Cambridge, who looks like a fool, really enjoyed.

39:36Glenn Greenwald:Do we have this lady? She's, yeah, we got her. You'd play the sound bite. Here she is talking to him. Professor Jason Arday was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder at the age of three. He couldn't speak until he was 11 and read or write until he was 18. Therapists predicted he would need full-time assistance throughout his life. How wrong they were. and now Jason is days away from achieving another ambition. Hi! So much, sweet. Here she is. Here's his new boss at Cambridge. Part of his research will look at new ways to make higher education more accessible for everyone. What can we do to ensure that this isn't a marked appointment in five years' time?

40:19How can this become the norm? We've listened to the voices of our black scholars and our black students and some of it has not been easy to hear, to be honest, but we're able to face up to some of the structural issues that people face. There will be those. I think this is a tokenistic appointment. What are your thoughts on this? The board of electors on your interview day were absolutely unanimous. We are so lucky to have you. You are the best in the world in terms of the research that you do. Oh, my God.

40:58Glenn Greenwald:Glenn, her name is Professor Hillary Kremen, C-R-E-M-I-N. It's oozing off of her, this condescension, this bootlicking, which she would do for no other new professor there. He gets to cross-examine her on how this is not going to be seen as tokenism. It is tokenism. So that's how it will be seen. and you've got professors at Cambridge running around on the record saying that's exactly why you were hired. As for the, it was unanimous, what an amazing, exceptional scholar you are. Here's just a couple of new evidence posts. This is from the UK Times last night. All right. It's important to offer the actual example so people understand this is not just made up shit that he, that he was a fraud, but his stuff was made up, but our criticisms aren't.

41:45Glenn Greenwald:Um, this is again, the UK times they find their analysis of his writings, find his assertions literally impossible in instance after instance. So this is okay. One of his papers in one of his papers, he, he quotes a Latin American academic as saying, quote, my understanding of English is improving daily. Sometimes I struggle to articulate clearly and accurately what I would like to say to the healthcare professionals provided at university. Nice. Okay. Kind of anodyne, whatever. There was just one issue reports, the paper three years prior, he had attributed this exact same quote to an Asian female undergraduate, not a Latin American academic, the exact quote, Glenn.

42:32Glenn Greenwald:Um, we talked about this one yesterday about how he gave a webinar in July, 2020, talking about a paper that he was about to publish. And he referred to a participant who took their own life, reading out this person's quote detailing the violence of these racialized cultures in the academic world. Then he did publish the paper. He used near identical quotes. And weirdly, there was no reference to this person committing suicide. That seems like kind of an important detail where you're talking about the violence of racialized cultures in the academic world. Why would you not then talk about the fact in your written paper, the man wound up taking his own life?

43:06Glenn Greenwald:Seems relevant, no? And then in one paper titled attempting to break the chain, reimagining inclusive pedagogy and decolonizing the curriculum within the academy. He says he interviewed a sample of 17 participants, but a breakdown of their races, genders and jobs adds up to 18. Well, OK, anybody can make a mistake like that, maybe he was just off by one. Further oddities appear, they write. He quotes four distinct academics, but says he only only interviewed three. He quotes five mixed heritage participants, but interviewed only four. He attributes a quote to participant number 21 in a study that only interviewed 17 or 18.

43:42Glenn Greenwald:Similar issues appear in five studies. Pick a paper, any paper, and you will find it littered with these so-called innocent errors, Glenn. Yeah. And there's what I mean, Megan, you know, they weren't just saying like, oh, look at how amazing it is that he made it to the faculty. They were trying to promote him as some kind of like generationally brilliant scholar doing the kind of scholarly work that very few academics ever are able to actually achieve. So in order to, you would think that if you actually were an academic and you were heaping praise on somebody's scholarly work that way, you would have a very in-depth understanding of it.

44:24Clearly, they just looked at him. They thought it was a nice story. It probably word of mouth about how brilliant he is. And then they just went with it. And I think, again, if you go back to any faculty or any campus these days, and again, I think we have passed some of the worst woke insanities, nothing there has changed. If anything, it's regressed. And so this idea that there's some woman using that kind of condescending tone saying, no, you are one of the most brilliant appointees, this is obviously such a fraud. And I actually think that academic institutions are important. I think having great universities is a really important thing for society.

45:03It is so tragic what has been done to our universities, the way in which the cheapest, just kind of most corrupted politics have been have contaminated every component of hiring and rules for discourse and how classrooms are are conducted. And again, I mean, if Cambridge can shoot this guy up the ladder, despite zillions of red flags that basically they chose not to see because they thought it was racist to investigate him. It's such a sad indictment on on our major Western institutions of universities. Completely.

45:39Glenn Greenwald:I want to I want to tell you that. So now some of the people are actually questioning now this origin story, whether he really did have autism, whether it was Asperger's, as he later claimed it was. whether he really was nonverbal entirely until he was 11, whether he didn't he couldn't read or write one word until age 17 or 18. Of course, there's reason to doubt all of this because he's told way too many lies to count. He's obviously a serial fabulist, a pathological liar. That seems clear. Now, as we speak, Benjamin Ryan, who I just mentioned, independent journalist, he posts the following online.

46:20Glenn Greenwald:Does Jason Arday actually have epilepsy? Yet another disability he claims he's been laboring under. In his memoir, Jason Arday claims to have developed epilepsy after being savagely beaten at a bus stop at age 18. He claims he wears a medical alert bracelet that tracks his whereabouts. But I can find no evidence in any photo that he wears such a bracelet. So it does make you wonder whether that, too, is a lie. Yesterday, we touched on this briefly, Glenn, but he also has been since this story broke and what tracks with his resignation letter, you know, poor me, I need to find some peace. It's too high a price.

46:58Glenn Greenwald:This has been relentless time with my family. Yes, he also seems to have been making up stories of harassment that he claims have broken since this story broke, which that seems right on on brand for him. Right. Like now, allegedly, the evil racists who are everywhere are getting even racist story all over him. He claims to have been threatened and assaulted multiple times. A panic button was installed in his office after he claimed this after the alleged first encounter with a masked assailant that weirdly was not reflected on any of the CCTV covering the university. And he claims to have pushed the button, but no one came.

47:42Glenn Greenwald:So Cambridge was now ignoring the panic button calls of its favored black professor who had already said he was attacked. But he passed he pressed the panic button and they were like, eh, eh, similar to how the palace told Meghan Markle when she said, I'm about to kill myself, that they couldn't help her. And she'd have to walk away and deal with it on her own. Yeah, go find some help. But don't you think the same day of the second attack? Yeah. Yeah. Uh huh. Yeah. So I'm almost done. Same day of the second attack and quotes. He continued with his working day and conducted a Ph.D. Viva for a student less than two hours later.

48:19Glenn Greenwald:Not to mention the intruder was not picked up on any campus cameras. So these are two alleged incidents. And then he claimed that a severed pig's head was sent to his home that he immediately threw it away. He had no evidence of it, Glenn. But trust him, someone sent a severed pig's head to him and only told the police about it months later, but then claimed that they did conduct an investigation. The Guardian, because all of this is being dismissed as a right wing press operation. The Guardian. OK, that's basically as left as the intercept. The Guardian went to all the butchers in town. No one knew anything about a severed pig's head.

48:53Glenn Greenwald:Didn't sell one. Didn't none of that. And went to the police who said, absolutely not. We have never investigated such a thing. This guy watched too many episodes of The Godfather. He believed the thing with the horse's head in the bed. He He changed it to a pig's head outside of his front door. But now this is a defense mechanism. And he's suggesting like suicidal thoughts. You've the university. Others have come out saying they're worried he's going to commit suicide. Stop. Back off. They're playing that card, Glenn, as though we're the villains for looking into this. It's really the worst expression of left-wing culture.

49:27The thing that has alienated so many people. I mean, if you go, I was just listening to all of the different examples you cited of where he either lied or seems to have made claims about something that happened to him that have no evidence. Each one of them, what they have in common is it's a form of victimhood, right? Like even the autism, even all these diseases he claims he has, these attacks on him, because victimhood, this kind of victimhood is the currency of how you get social capital in academic circles and academic institution and left-wing circles. You know, I don't know how often you interact with people in Gen Z.

50:02My kids are basically like kind of on the border of Gen Z. So many of their friends who are in Gen Z constantly have all these ailments, you know, that that people have never really heard of before. It's kind of like it's partly a way of excusing your failures or excusing anything that's happened or generating sympathy. But part of it is just like victimhood is the thing that everybody craves and is taught to crave because that's the thing that generates the most benefits. And it seems like he's just a very extreme case of where he built his entire biography on the most extreme victimhood possible.

50:36And the universities ate it up. And so did the media that was turning him into a star. I think that's what is a big part of what's happening here.

50:45Glenn Greenwald:I think he's only 37 years old now. And in that time, he wants us to believe that he had autism Asperger's, epilepsy, nonverbal to 11, couldn't read or write until 18, was also dyslexic, that he suffered a brain tumor, some sort of lung infarction, that he had a broken leg as he was running 30 miles and 30 marathons in 30 days, that he was beaten up so badly at a bus stop that he got epilepsy, that he was attacked on the University of Cambridge and threatened multiple times, but CCTV never caught it. And, um, that now they're dumping severed pigs heads in his yard. I mean, it's, it's beyond. Okay.

51:29Glenn Greenwald:We got to go. We're coming right back though. There's much more for Glenn. Don't go away. We'll get to Ariana Grande and Perez Hilton. A lot of thoughts on that. Stay tuned. You might already own a firearm, but what if you could start with less lethal methods to avoid the financial and mental repercussions of pulling the trigger. Wouldn't you like to have the full panoply of choices in your self-defense plan? This is where Burna comes in. That's B-Y-R-N-A. Burna's less lethal launchers are equipped with tear gas and kinetic ammunition, and they are designed to incapacitate an attacker for up to 40 minutes.

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53:33Glenn Greenwald:Glenn Greenwald is back with me now. He is the host of System Update, which you can find on his sub stack. Okay, Glenn, let's talk about, I guess we'll do Ariana Grande next. Ariana Grande's people are saying, well, there's a report that concern is growing behind the scenes about her with multiple insiders telling Naughty But Nice, that's our friend Rob Shooter, that they are quietly exploring treatment options for her and wellness facilities once she completes her tour later this year. rob is like formally of the in on the inside of hollywood he represented a lot of very like household names um people who you know just by their first names for many many years as their pr uh person and now he's uh doing this sub stack which is actually very popular naughty but nice and he's been on the show a few times and goes on maureen callahan's the nerve in any event so this is rob reporting that concern behind the scenes is growing for her multiple insiders telling naughty but nice that her inner circle is quietly exploring treatment options when she completes her tour.

54:40Glenn Greenwald:Grande has never said that she has an eating disorder, but you take one look at her, Glenn, and you'd be crazy not to suspect she does. Look at this picture here we are showing where she is skin and bones. I mean, the clavicle, just all of the bones on the torso are protruding above her v-neck dress. Her arms look skeletal. Her face has looked skeletal for quite some time. This is from her most recent musical music video. And I want to show you something. We actually, we started looking into this, this problem and this report came across her latest music video. Um, it's incredible. Not only does she look incredibly skinny, But in this music video, she murders a panel of judgmental talent scouts and entertainment executives with a chainsaw.

55:43Glenn Greenwald:Are we is it just VO, Deb? It's not a shot. Let's yeah, let's play it. Watch.

56:01My God. you

56:06OMG.

56:08Glenn Greenwald:She is covered in blood. You can see her with a chainsaw hacking off the heads and the bodies of these executives. And their blood is spewing everywhere. She's got she's got problems, Glenn. Obviously, this woman's got problems. And what's really crazy about this report is that they they reportedly her people reportedly are they're not going to rush her off to rehab or whatever she's going in for right now. They want to wait. They think that she should be allowed to complete her tour and, you know, sort of finish her public appearances. And then then they're going to encourage her to go into some sort of wellness program or treatment program, because let's face it, everyone needs to get paid off of the juggernaut that is Ariana Grande.

57:06Glenn Greenwald:day. You know, what's amazing to me is that it'd be one thing if she just showed up at some talk show or a word show and her extremely emaciated condition were noticeable. This happened in a music video that was produced, obviously, with all kinds of money and very well accomplished people. They could have edited it. They could have, you know, I don't know, covered it up. did not did no one notice that she was it was like it wasn't just like oh she looks a little thin it was shocking to watch i don't she almost looked like an auschwitz victim you know when you've seen them come out and every bone that shouldn't be uh visible is visible yeah that scene is it with that dress and also they dressed her in a way that made it visible too so why would they do that now obviously i don't know for sure what the eating disorder is obviously People speculate it's anorexia.

58:03It could be a different kind of health problem that causes that kind of severe weight loss. But there's clearly something going very wrong. And how many times have we seen that celebrities of this stature who are just constantly working in the public eye, you know, put it, as you said, so many people depend on them for all kinds of money and profit, want to keep them, you know, running like a workhorse like they did with Michael Jackson. How many of them end up in these kinds of debilitated conditions? it's really kind of a sad indictment of our celebrity industry and everything else but at the end of the day she's an adult and it's just very hard to understand how somebody surrounded by all these management teams and studios and directors could have allowed it to get to this point where not just she saw and that and that is her condition but the the whole public saw

58:48Glenn Greenwald:yeah you you know um she's 33 years old now she was of course a former child star We talked about her last year when the whole Nickelodeon scandal became household news with that one executive having sexualized every young girl, Jamie Lynn Spears, Ariana Grande, many others who came on Nickelodeon, these young, sweet girls who he tried to turn into soft porn stars. And of course, they were so young, they didn't realize half the time what he was having them do. Maybe they did realize. I don't know. But either way, it was completely exploitative. And then, of course, there were actual pedophiles running around Nickelodeon as well.

59:29Glenn Greenwald:Actual pedophiles as well. And she came up at Nickelodeon. And she was one of the girls they asked to do very inappropriate scenes. We have the one cut. I mean, it almost requires a viewer warning. Not really, but it's from Nickelodeon. And here's a very young Ariana Grande being completely exploited in Sot 13. Sometimes I wonder if you can get juice from a potato.

59:59Did that air on Nickelodeon? Come on, give up the juice! Yikes! I'm thirsty! In another video, Ariana's pouring water on herself in what seems like a very sexual manner. And people started saying this feels inappropriate for children.

1:00:18Glenn Greenwald:Oh, my God. Alexa Nichols was another one. She came on the show and told us everything. We'll get the episode number if you guys want to go back and watch it. But that was a documentary called Quiet on Set. But this there's a reason. Ninety nine percent of parents say no to putting their child in front of the camera at a very young age or in front of a microphone, as was done to Justin Bieber, etc. et cetera. You could not pay me enough money to put my kids in, especially in the Hollywood machine, given everything we know about the just utter immorality and the exploitation that takes place on every last level there and has for decades.

1:00:56And all you have to do is look at the people who became child stars in some way or another. It's almost inevitable that they end up, you know, in a kind of tragic adulthood. I remember one of the times that was on your show, you talked about the you had just seen the michael jackson movie and really liked it i happened to watch it on a plane i was in the u.s this week came back and i i watched it as well and that was the thing that again struck me is you take these people and put them to work at the age of 10 and 11 their whole family depends on their income major corporations need them to to to perform well that kind of pressure a child is not ill-equipped for to say nothing of the fame that goes along with it.

1:01:35How many child stars have actually ended up doing quite well? There are some, but most of them end up getting out of Hollywood. And I'm sure that's like Jodie Foster.

1:01:45Glenn Greenwald:That's it. And that's it. She's the exception that proves the rule. Exactly. She turned out extremely well. But even she took time off. Like she went to Yale. She got out of the business for like 15 years. So, yeah, it's it's it's kind of tragic to watch that. Here is a different take. Link Lauren, who's part of our MK Media podcast network and has a great show. He has a different take. And I always love checking in with Link to see he's got his finger on the pulse when it comes to cultural phenoms like Ariana. Here's what he has to say in SOT 15. I got a message this morning from a mom whose daughter went to Ariana Grande's concert and came home and said she was so sad.

1:02:23She was concerned. She felt like Ariana's energy wasn't there. When millions of her fans are saying, we're concerned. We love you. Are you OK? Tell us you're OK. She says nothing, but she has her publicist go out there and tell the public, how dare you? How dare you question her? All of this endless scrutiny. You can't play smart and dumb at the same time. She wants to put out a music video on a Friday showing off how thin and skinny she is. And then two days later, her team is going to put out a statement saying, how dare you talk about her weight? We're the bad guys. We're the bad guys. Don't play me for a fool.

1:02:58Ariana Grande is a grown ass woman. I would bet my bottom dollar that is not how she talks when she's in her business meetings. She is very shrewd. She's very strong. But she wants to play this little petal, this little petal flower character where she's pulled from piece to piece and she's barely hanging on by a thread. I think it's all propaganda. I think it's all part of a marketing campaign. I'm just not buying any of it.

1:03:22Glenn Greenwald:The name of that song is Petal. But, you know, he may be onto something there, Glenn. I definitely think so. And it reminds me of the story we talked about first with that Cambridge academic. She had been saying for several years now, stop talking about my body. Stop talking about the body of female celebrities. It's very degrading, whether you think it's good or bad. It's just not healthy. We shouldn't be doing it. I mean, come on. Hollywood is an industry where your physical appearance plays an absolutely crucial role in pretty much everything. If you don't want people commenting on your physical appearance, don't don't go into Hollywood.

1:03:59But even if you are kind of sympathetic to that, we shouldn't be like micromanaging women's bodies or whatever. Sorry, but if you stick a very well-known figure who has millions of fans in front of a in a music video that everybody sees. and it's actually quite shocking and horrifying to see a human being that thin who's not, you know, suffering from some kind of terminal disease. People are going to talk about it. But you're right. Then they come out, as Link said, and he's like, how dare you? This is not a matter for public discussion. Actually, it really is because women like her and the way she looks influences huge numbers of young girls, especially all over the world.

1:04:40And that is an extremely sickly and unhealthy look. Of course, we should be talking about that.

1:04:45Glenn Greenwald:And look, I'm sorry. I was just saying to the team in the break, like if you want if you want to not have anybody comment on your looks, there are so many jobs in which that will absolutely be easy. You know, I worked as a telemarketer before I went to law school. I loved it. It was actually I made a decent amount of money and I was not bad. And nobody commented on my looks. Nobody had a thought of my looks. no one could even see me. It was on the telephone. I could have kept doing something like that. But if you're going to put yourself on camera for a living, you have to expect that some people are going to make comments about your looks.

1:05:21Glenn Greenwald:I think the general bargain most people are thinking is they either won't comment or to the extent they do comment, the majority of comments will be nice or neutral concern or concern, not like malicious, but yes, I'm worried about her. Not like percentage won't be, of course. Welcome to the Internet. Right. That's life. It's not really a you thing. It's a it's a life thing. And you really especially if you're going to be as big a star as Ariana Grande. Like you're going to have to expect it. Thin fat. They'd be saying the same things if she were fat, like whatever. But her appearance is striking now.

1:06:01Glenn Greenwald:It's striking when you see somebody's bones protruding, like what's happening with Demi Moore. You have to comment. I mean, it's like, what's, I see it. And if you don't call it out, it does feel a little like normal, helping her normalize it, which we definitely do not want with a bunch of young impressionable women who are her biggest fans. That's what her fan base is, all these young girls. Okay, so this is actually a good lead-in into the Perez Hilton discussion. So Perez Hilton two nights ago went on TikTok and filmed himself. It was a live stream and he was sort of writhing, semi-dancing on camera, covered in blood.

1:06:47Glenn Greenwald:He looked like Ariana Grande looked in that video. Exactly, exactly, exactly. Right, in terms of the blood coverage. Everywhere, yeah, exactly. Everywhere. He had one of those knives that we all use to cut like an uncut loaf of bread, like a long, you know, 10 inch blade. I did not see a serrated edge, but there may, there may have been before we show you the video. I'm just going to tell you that it's disturbing. We're not showing you the raw video. We blurred it, but you can see enough that it's, you get what happened. And, um, here it is. We took the sound out cause it's, it's just extra disturbing.

1:07:27Glenn Greenwald:He's taking this knife and he's rubbing it across his stomach, his neck, the back of him. And he's making sounds that sound almost sexual while he does it. It's not exactly like cries of pain. To me, it sounded almost sexual. And I think that's by design he's trying to make it sound sort of titillating. And the soundtrack on what was aired is as follows. I'm surprised TikTok lets this stay. Fuck, he yells. You fucking ugh. Stay, he means online. And he says, ah, ah, as he's cutting himself. Yeah, it hurts, but it feels so good too. Then this is the part we have to discuss. I'm a fucking parasite loser, he says.

1:08:17Glenn Greenwald:This is what you all wanted. then he goes on to say you know it would be interesting interesting to see what happens after you die then he has three people join him on on his live stream maybe this is a show he does because three other people come on and seem absolutely shocked they know him they clearly work with him to see what he's doing they say Perez what the f are you doing and he says committing suicide and they say no no no that's not what we're doing here and and he says yes it is. And then they called the authorities. The authorities came, were in, I don't know if we should use the word standoff, but they were in a situation outside the house for quite some time where they thought it would only escalate the situation if they went in.

1:09:00Glenn Greenwald:So they must have heard or known something to lead them to that conclusion and eventually did go in after quite some time, got him, he was alive and brought him to the hospital where he remains. His family says that they are relieved he's talking. They said he's able to communicate, which has given them hope. They say information about his condition remains limited. He continues to recover. Now, to me, Glenn, this is like, it's very sad, and I absolutely wish Perez well. And I feel very sad about how he got here and what he did, and that he felt that he had no other option. but this is obviously the meltdown of a human being.

1:09:43Glenn Greenwald:But I also can't help but notice that it is in a way the perfect period at the end of, not the end of a life, but at the end of a chapter, a long chapter of what I hope will be a long life. And that chapter is life on the internet, life almost solely on the internet where rather than touching grass and walking through woods and swimming in lakes, you are online all the time doing the lowest thing possible for your spirit, which is viciously, viciously mocking random celebrities, right? It's fine. I mean, they put themselves out there again, as I'm saying, it's their fair game, but Perez Hilton really has made a business of going to the lowest places, outing various LGBT people, posting naked photos of like Jennifer Lawrence that she did not bless or sanction.

1:10:49Glenn Greenwald:He's gone after so many huge celebs so pointedly that it's really impacted them. Like Jennifer Aniston called him out and she's been the subject of nonstop tabloid coverage and so but he is the one who got to her and he's he's apologized for it many times only to then start doing it again he's i'm not trying to demonize Perez in any way i'm saying this is his journey and he himself seems to have you know he said he found god not long ago he had a bad case of sepsis and said i found god and it's real and he found me but then he kind of goes back and i just think there's a consequence to one's mental health in spending your life day after day after day in a toxic industry online where the clicks, the likes and all that are never going to be enough for you.

1:11:35Glenn Greenwald:And the vitriol will always feel like it outweighs the kindness. Yeah, I could not agree more. He was one of the kind of OGs of the who became an internet celebrity through this kind of blog. You know, it was like a blog about celebrities, about the entertainment industry, very gossipy, lots of speculative blind items and stuff, not exactly rewarding or fulfilling work. And as a result, he became very polarizing. So he's not only been on the internet for a long time, he's been doing a kind of work that, as you say, is just kind of like the bottom of the barrel. It can't be very rewarding. but then also it produces a lot of hate from people in Hollywood, from people who think what you're doing is kind of scummy.

1:12:19He's been at the middle of a lot of internet controversies. And when you have a life that is almost entirely emerged from the internet first and then social media, and it doesn't seem like you have much else going on, while I think the internet has been a net plus, social media and people who are just always online, especially in the middle of things that they may not handle very well, right like in in our profession you get attacks and negative uh criticism and insults all the time that can be pretty vicious but you develop a thin skin and it's not really the only thing you're doing thick skin yeah sorry a thick skin uh and you learn how to deal with it and not take it really personally he just seems to be the kind of person who was such a child of the internet like almost inextricably linked with the worst parts of it obviously i don't know what else is going on in his life.

1:13:11I unfortunately saw that video before it was blurred when it first came. And I don't think, I can't remember the last time I've seen something so viscerally horrifying. I mean, that was a state of human existence that is very rare and very difficult to get to. And I can't help also, as you suggested, think that there's a strong component of it that Is this social media, like just the dregs of the Internet in which he's resided for so long?

1:13:41Glenn Greenwald:Yes, yes. One must rescue oneself from that place. As he's spoken out over the years about his depression, which he has admitted has been extreme, severe at times. That was the time for people around him. And I understand his mother is still in the picture and helps him raise his three kids who he had. They're his biological children who he had via surrogate. He's a gay man. His mother's still around. Like somebody needed to go to him and say, Perez, you got to find a different way to make a living. The internet is not for you. You know, it's, it was Scarlett Johansson, pretty sure. Scarlett Johansson, who when asked why, why don't you have a big like Instagram or online presence said, I'm not strong enough for that.

1:14:33Glenn Greenwald:Like I'm too tender hearted. I love that answer. I totally get that. It's not for everyone. This business that we do, certainly where you're in politics, basically, which is not beanbag. His business, celebrity commentary can get very ugly too. These PR people are just as vicious as the commentators are and they will cut you. It's not for everyone. And I think somebody needed to go to Perez earlier and say, Perez, there are other ways to make a living. You know, he just moved from Las Vegas to Miami, where I guess he grew up. And it's not his real name. But I hope that's the message he walks away with.

1:15:13Glenn Greenwald:And I hope he genuinely just unplugs and says, you know what? The Internet is a toxic stew that we are not forced to consume. You know, without invading his privacy and whatever he wants to keep secret, he has the right to. I do think it's worthwhile to try and understand why that happened because it's not just that he did something. He was depressed or even ended up killing himself. The state of human existence that he was in that you watched if you watched that video, that is something, I mean, genuinely terrifying. It's like you have to be pushed very, very far mentally to do what he was doing.

1:15:48And I do think it's worth trying to figure out whether there's something about social media and the Internet and the entertainment industry and the kind of Internet precincts in which he resided for so long that caused that. Because that was not just a breakdown. That was something, I don't know, I haven't seen many things like that before.

1:16:08Glenn Greenwald:No, it was a next level meltdown and cry for help. Yeah. My team sent me this Scarlett Johansson quote. uh i honestly am too fragile a person to have social media i can't my ego is too fragile my brain is too fragile i'm like a delicate flower i actually really appreciate that good for her realizing that you know like yeah for accepting that and not needing the constant attention of social media i i respect that me too totally um i'm sure it's he is not a delicate flower, but it's one of the reasons I think Tucker no longer goes on social media because though he's not a delicate flower, he doesn't enjoy consuming all the nonsense and the hatred.

1:16:55Glenn Greenwald:And I think he wants to protect his brain too. He doesn't want to be like misguided or misled. And he wants to curate his sources of information more. I don't think our brains are constructed or designed or our mental health is to have this endless, you know, continuous, intense receipt of extremely hateful and critical attacks on your character, on the things you said. I do think protecting yourself from that is important because I just don't think our brains are designed to handle that well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I get asked that question all the time. Like, how do you take it? How do you take it?

1:17:30Glenn Greenwald:And I say the truth, which is I don't enjoy it. And it's, I am not immune to it. Like I, I'd love to be able to tell you like, Oh, it doesn't affect me at all. Whatever. No, it does affect me. I don't like it at all. It bothers me, but that's kind of not the test in our industry. The test is, do you keep going or not? And you do have to keep going. You must keep going. You cannot let people who are attacking you silence you. That's a different story. Um, okay. So speaking of people in our industry, Whoopi Goldberg would like you to know She gets a huge paycheck, huge over at The View, but she's still just a common person who works for a living.

1:18:07Glenn Greenwald:I'm not sure where she's going with this, but let's listen together. SOT 23. What made you even want to get on that show? I needed a job. You know what I mean? I needed a job. Barbara offered me a job. She said, we just lost one of the people on the show. Would you consider coming over? And I had been doing a radio show. Yeah. And I said, absolutely, yeah. And so she brought me over, and it's like I've been crazy glued to that chair. Oh, my gosh. What do you love about it? Because, I mean, first of all, the show is called. I love the check. I can only imagine what that check is. No, no. It's fabulous.

1:18:46No. Trust me. You can.

1:18:50Glenn Greenwald:I love it. You would be shot. Listen, you would be shot. And welcome to the view. I can play her, guys. No. yeah but as soon as they showed you that check you'd be like what the that's incredible yeah i love it you know it is what it is okay i can't totally tell there she's suggesting it's incredibly large or incredibly small um but yashara lee independent journalist is reporting that he did reporting on whoopie not long ago and she was getting paid $6 million a year. So if she's lamenting it's too strong, she's a fool. It's too low. She's a fool. And if she's lamenting or bragging that it's too big, she's unlikable.

1:19:37Glenn Greenwald:I mean, either way, this is not a great comment, but she actually goes on to just suggest she understands the plight of working people out there right now, Glenn, because she's just a working girl and she needs to work. This is the point that she was making in this podcast. I work for a living and therefore I understand people who are having a hard time. I appreciate that people are having a hard time. Me too, I work for a living. If I had all the money in the world, I would not be here, okay? So I'm a working person, you know? My kid has to feed her family. My great granddaughter has to be fed by her family.

1:20:14Glenn Greenwald:I know it's hard out there. I don't think she does a thing, Glenn. your thoughts you know i i saw they got yashar ali post too and it was based on this hollywood reporter article that summarized that interview you just showed and it was very definitive that she was saying my salary is so incredibly abundant and gigantic at the view that you would be shocked if you actually saw it like that was just the interpretation they assumed she meant and who goes around saying that like you won't believe how much money i'm making it would shock you I'm so rich. There was like, yeah, I'm so rich. I have infinite money.

1:20:53But the reason why I wasn't sure that it was that was because about a year ago or a year and a half ago, and I noticed this. I don't know why I noticed things that are gross about The View. She was talking at that table, and she was saying, I understand the plight of the working people and the groceries and the inflation that they're facing. And someone was like, how do you understand that? You haven't had that in 50 years. And she's like, you're absolutely wrong. I don't have to make enough money here to retire. I have to work. I have people to support. So she was there claiming for my stature as an Oscar winning woman, a woman who used to be on the A-list in Hollywood.

1:21:32I make very little here to the point where I can't even quit, which also is quite disgusting because she makes between six and seven million dollars. And I'm not saying that that year, a list a year for just sitting at that table doing an hour show. I'm not saying that is an A-list kind of salary like Jennifer Anderson making$30 million, whatever. But if you're going to go on the air and say, I make$6 and$7 million, which makes me part of the working class to the point where I understand their plight. So I don't know which is worse, Megan. Was she boasting about how much money she makes or lamenting that she didn't make more, even though it's like so much more than anybody ever makes?

1:22:11Glenn Greenwald:Yeah. Yeah. No, I just watching the whole context, it sounds like she was bitching that it was too small. And Yashara is a good reporter. If he's got it a couple of years ago at six million dollars a year, that's probably about where it is. Right. She's been doing it for 20 years. So I think she's not, you know, in the in the poorhouse. I think she's doing just fine. But I guess thinks she's entitled to more. I would I would beg to differ. I mean, it's just the ratings of that show do not support paying her anymore. She can't no one there can solo. It's an ensemble cast. No one's running to offer whoopie her own talk show.

1:22:43Glenn Greenwald:Never mind a sunny Austin who's never been able to single in her life. So, you know, you're making you're making six million dollars a year. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I just I just just go back and watch that one. If you haven't seen it from 18 months ago where she was like, I am part of the working class. I understand the struggles of working people because I also have to come into work every day to make a paycheck. I also can't afford to retire. And it's the most out of touch thing you've ever heard anybody say. It's so ridiculous, except perhaps for Meghan Markle's comments about how small her castle is and we should feel sorry for her.

1:23:19Glenn Greenwald:And that's what I want to do next. So this isn't a Meghan Markle soundbite, but it is a latest development and a story that we've been following here on the MK Show about Meghan Markle trying to make herself into the new Martha Stewart. As you know, Maureen Callahan and I did a whole parody of her attempts to do this and her ridiculous Netflix show, With Love, Megan. And in it, we made one pot pasta that she promoted in that series. And we had no trouble finding the recipe because we just went to Martha Stewart's website and it was right there. It's one of her most famous recipes, which Megan Markle very clearly stole and like maybe added one ingredient to call her own.

1:24:02Glenn Greenwald:We put the two recipes side by side. They were identical. I mean, it was the same thing. So Martha Stewart might not like that. You know, she's like, she's a tough old bee. And I say that respectfully. And she got asked about Meghan Markle by People Magazine and revealed that the two of them had just been at a dinner together, not like one-on-one, but they were both invited to the same function where there was dinner. And listen to this. I had dinner with Meghan Markle the other night. Well, she was at the same table. So I can't say, she wasn't my guest. We were both guests at a dinner party in California.

1:24:42And she had just gotten back from the palace.

1:24:45Glenn Greenwald:And I think, I didn't talk to her really, more than to say a couple words, but I know she was talking about it. If you're an actress, it's hard to then transition to a princess and then from a princess into a homemaking guru on a television show. it doesn't sort of follow so go from there uh shots fired glenn totally you know my perception of megan markle and my knowledge of her comes almost exclusively from maureen sullivan's show because there is nobody for whom callahan maureen sullivan was a great actress back in the day yeah yeah she won academy award i think i don't know what's going on with the brain today but yeah maureen maureen callahan because there's nobody for whom maureen has more contempt than megan Markle.

1:25:31And it's just like, I just sit there. It's so cathartic. It just like seeps into my veins. So it's so I think everybody has come to that point where just Megan Markle for whatever reason

1:25:41Glenn Greenwald:subscribe to the nerve immediately, by the way, as we go into the weekend, it's especially a great time in the summer to listen to Maureen. Listen to the nerve. Keep going. Yeah. And it's actually it. The reason it's good to watch is because it combines reporting with with just the most acerbic, insightful, well-expressed and hilarious cultural criticism of hatred directed at all the people who most deserve it. There's never been someone she's attacked where I was like, I don't think she should be attacking that person. That person seems okay. No, me neither. And the other thing that's so great about Maureen is she's very intelligent.

1:26:12Glenn Greenwald:She has a great vocabulary. Like she comes at it from like this elevated level, but with no gloves on whatsoever. So there is something, it's like shoot it in my veins. This is what I think being addicted to heroin would feel like, only very much healthier. Yeah. And she's a real reporter, as you said. So it's not like she's just ranting and raving with speculation. It's always so well researched, too. So it's actually reliable celebrity cultural criticism. Yeah. The best show. And it definitely has turned me into a Megan Markle. I just couldn't resist. You know, it's just so persuasive. but don't you think i think it's actually kind of cool that martha stewart who's now in her 80s she just doesn't give an f glenn she's like i'm gonna cut this bitch and i don't care if you if you don't like it she clearly mocking her she got back from the palace and she was talking about it oh back from the palace and how difficult it is to try to jump from these different roles right into making yourself a homemaking guru and was telegraphing to us all.

1:27:12Glenn Greenwald:It ain't as lazy as it looks. And she's failing. Like, that's really what she was saying. That's my Martha Stewart decoder for you. Yeah, I've seen comments from her similar, not maybe as harsh about Meghan Markle, because I don't think she respects the fact that Meghan Markle is a worthy competitor of everything Martha Stewart has done. And I love Martha Stewart because she is just so direct. As you said, she's a very, I mean, she went to prison and she came out and built this whole second career, seemed to do very well in it. Obviously built a gigantic business too. Yeah. She is not somebody to play around with.

1:27:48And, and that passive aggressive criticism, Megan Markle, that was so enjoyable and so deserved.

1:27:55Glenn Greenwald:I wonder if she might, she might be a listener to this show or, or to the nerve and, or to the nerve. Oh, you've got to find it out. We need to know more Glenn. So great to see you. Always a pleasure, my friend. Always good to be with you, Megan. Talk to you soon. Okay. When we come back, a powerful legal story that you're going to want to hear about. This woman, my next guest, is a surrogate pregnant with another couple's biological baby, and they wanted to abort that baby, and she has refused. That's next. When it comes to supplements, there are two things that matter, that it works, and that you can trust it.

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1:29:25Glenn Greenwald:this next story is extraordinary McKenna West agreed to become a surrogate for a couple that needed her help but at 20 weeks the baby she was carrying was diagnosed with HLHS which stands for hypoplastic left heart syndrome a serious condition in which the left side of the heart does not develop properly. The intended parents of this little baby wanted McKenna to have an abortion, but she refused. And now she is in a shocking legal fight with this baby's biological parents. McKenna joins us now along with her attorney, Lincoln Wilson, and Lila Rose of Live Action, a group devoted, as Lila is, to the cause of life.

1:30:14Glenn Greenwald:Welcome to you all. So great to have you here. Lila, great to see you again. So McKenna, this is, I have not heard a story like this. I have to say you, did you know this couple when you agreed to become a surrogate for them? No, we met through an agency, surrogacy agency. Okay. And as I understand it, you did sign a document saying that if the parents wanted at some point to abort the pregnancy, they could. Is that right? Yeah. Going into this, we had talked about it when we first met, and I asked them kind of their views on termination. And it was a reassuring conversation that really they wanted a baby.

1:31:04They weren't exactly sure what decision they would make if

1:31:08Glenn Greenwald:something came up, but they ultimately just wanted to be parents. And so I felt confident moving forward with them that termination would not be their first choice. Okay. So the contract said they had the right to do it, but you, based on your conversations, didn't foresee them actually doing it. And then the baby, was it a 20-week amniocentesis? Is that what happened? There was no amniocentesis. It was an ultrasound that the cardiac defect was identified a couple days after 20 weeks. So then they said they wanted to abort their child, but you are pro-life. And so what did that bring up for you?

1:31:51Glenn Greenwald:It brought up a lot of fear.

1:31:58Glenn Greenwald:and I just didn't know what to do. I felt very trapped due to this contract and felt like I had no voice, but I knew in my soul and my heart that I wanted to protect this little boy. um and thankfully my brother was um it was put on his heart to to call me and just speak hope and courage into me um and he and his wife even offered to adopt this baby if it meant me not having to go through this late-term abortion wow right because at this point the baby's almost five months in utero and this is you know you start to feel the baby moving it's like this is a very special time for a mother and i can't imagine what it would be like to be told that you must abort the baby like that you must yeah so you didn't um which is extraordinary and it must have taken a lot of a lot of prayers and courage on your part and now it's devolved into a legal battle.

1:33:12Glenn Greenwald:So let me bring in Lincoln at this point, your lawyer. So Lincoln, was the legal battle, did the parents try to force the abortion? Has a court ruled on that? Because McKenna did not abort the baby. She is pregnant right now. No, they didn't try to force an abortion in court. What really happened was that after McKenna had resisted and they'd put on essentially a pressure campaign to force her to abort, They even enlisted her own prior counsel to serve her with a demand of$250 ,000 with a process server in the middle of the night. And when they were unsuccessful in doing that, what they did was they pivoted to California, and they filed a lawsuit in California.

1:33:53Even though the contract requires any litigation in Alaska where McKenna lives, they said, we're filing suit in California, and we want an expedited judgment of parentage. and our basic understanding is that what they want to do is if they're declared the parents and unfortunately the california court did declare them to be the parents then they can make the decision about medical care and they can decide when this baby's born that they won't give him any care and he'll be dead in a matter of days without it um mckenna is unequivocally willing

1:34:23Glenn Greenwald:to fight for his life though oh my god lila we see this all the time in these cases where there's some sort of medical deformity, quote, defect, I'm using air quotes around those words, with an unborn child where, you know, parents choose to abort their child. But this, this is a much trickier situation. And McKenna held the line. What do you make of it? I mean, what do you say to the people out there who aren't that tuned into choice, life, all that issue, who say, well, the poor child wasn't going to have any life anyway. So the parents are doing something humane here? Well, first of all, Megan, thank you for covering this.

1:35:03McKenna is a hero. Huge shout out to Lincoln for ADF support of this incredibly important case on this baby. I mean, this is a life at stake. And the reality is, I mean, the hospital that does deal with cases like this little boy's heart condition can get up to an 80 % success rate with a life-saving surgery that can give this boy decades of life, of a wonderful life ahead of him. Medical technology is amazing. We have ways to care for life, to help life, and medicine should never be used to destroy life. But because we have abortion on demand in America through all nine months, we have this search and destroy mission, these search and destroy missions that happen, Megan, in healthcare, where they look for a defect, they look for any problem with the baby, a genetic condition like trisomy 18, Down syndrome, and then they say, well, we should terminate.

1:35:51So we throw away life that is seen as inconvenient or not perfect, which is eugenics, by the way. Eugenics is trying to create the perfect race, the perfect genetic code. And this is what's happening here. He's not perfect. So we should let him die or otherwise destroy him. So I'm really proud of McKenna. I think this case is so important. And I think that the fact that surrogacy contracts are basically slavery contracts today, like I own your body now, I can do with it as I please. And the baby you're pregnant with is basically my property too. And I can kill that baby at will. It's completely unethical.

1:36:26And we shouldn't be allowing this any longer.

1:36:29Glenn Greenwald:I mean, as for this particular condition, our understanding is there have been cases of children who have lived with this condition. You have to have at least three operations when you're very young on your heart. But we found the case of Ben, who was treated at CHOP, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. This is from February of 2015. He's about four in this video. Let's watch. We went for the routine ultrasound and they checked everything. They said, we see a heart defect. They said his condition was hypoplastic left heart syndrome. And it was really a very bleak picture that they painted for us.

1:37:09A part of me gave up hope that I would have a baby to bring home. Benjamin's diagnosis is hypoplastic left heart syndrome. It's essentially a condition where the heart that normally has two pumping chambers, one to send blood to the lungs and one to send blood to the rest of the body, only has one chamber, which is the right side of the heart. Our main goal is to convert that pumping chamber so it really serves to pump blood to the entire body. So we're talking about a very complex surgery. You have one chance to do it right and after that hopefully you have two more operations to get this child to a healthy and productive childhood.

1:37:50I'd like to think that although I don't have my own children I have hundreds of them and Benjamin is one of them. It's amazing to see him as just a normal kid. You would never guess he has heart disease. People will tell us you know if we didn't know that he had a a heart condition, we would never believe it. He's, he's very active, very, very normal. And, um, you know, he, he's very bright, very, has a great sense of humor. It's just an amazing kid.

1:38:24Glenn Greenwald:McKenna, have you talked about cases like that with the birth parents or someone representing the birth parents or not, not that whatever the biological parents? yes um after the diagnosis was made i spent that weekend watching videos like that on youtube um i personally know somebody she'll be 16 in a couple of months with the same diagnosis and it's not this hopeless diagnosis whatsoever and that's part of why i want to fight so hard for this little guy is, yes, the beginning isn't going to be easy. There's surgeries. It's complicated, but he absolutely can go on to live a full life and he deserves that opportunity.

1:39:11Glenn Greenwald:And have you spoken with them? Did they respond to you directly or did you hear their justification? Everything once the diagnosis was made started going through the agency liaison. So I have not spoken to them directly since April 17th or that weekend. But you just got word. Yeah. Did you get word from the surrogacy agency that they wanted you to abort? Yes. The liaison is who called to tell me and their fears are that he's going to have a horrible quality of life and just be born into pain and suffering, which I do not agree with at all. And now we're in a fight, Lincoln, about, because she's having the baby now, that decision has been made.

1:40:05Glenn Greenwald:Now we're in a fight over where will the baby be born, because this may have direct effects on whether he gets care and who will have the decision-making power once he is born. and then there's the question of who will raise this baby if he does live after birth as a result of medical interventions or otherwise we're going to pick it up there after we take a quick break more with McKenna Lincoln and Lila Rose right after this what a story we will be right back and before we go to break just want to remind you it's youtube.com slash Megan Kelly you can hit join. You can get exclusive content there.

1:40:42Glenn Greenwald:And today we will be dropping our second installment or our behind the scenes tour documentary. Be right back. Every season change seems to come with the same realization, a closet full of clothes and absolutely nothing to wear, right? Haven't you been there? Between work, travel, family commitments, and everything else, you might not have the time or frankly, the desire to spend hours and hours shopping. That is why I'm so excited to tell you about Daily Look. You've got to check these guys out. It is the number one highest rated premium personal styling service for women. With Daily Look, you get your own dedicated personal stylist, a real person, not an algorithm, who curates a box based on your body shape, your preferences, and your lifestyle.

1:41:27Glenn Greenwald:And you get the same stylist every time so she knows what you're building up in your closet. You can try up to 12 premium pieces at home, keep what you love, send them back the rest. with free shipping both ways. It's time to get your own personal stylist with Daily Look. Head to dailylook.com to take your style quiz and use the code Megan for 50 % off your first order. Once again, that's dailylook.com for 50 % off and make sure you use our promo code Megan so they know we sent you. Hey everyone, it's me, Megan Kelly. I've got some exciting news. I now have my very own channel on Sirius XM. It's called the Megyn Kelly Channel, and it is where you will hear the truth, unfiltered, with no agenda, and no apologies.

1:42:12Glenn Greenwald:Along with the Megyn Kelly Show, you're going to hear from people like Mark Halperin, Link Lauren, Maureen Callahan, Emily Jashinsky, Jesse Kelly, Real Clear Politics, and many more. It's bold, no BS news, only on the Megyn Kelly Channel, Sirius XM 111, and on the Sirius XM app. On May 22, 2002, more than a year after Chandra Levy disappeared, a man named Philip Palmer walks his dog in Rock Creek Park. Palmer is a furniture maker who has collected antlers and animal bones since he was a boy, so he thinks nothing of leaving the trail and working his way down a slope. That morning, he sees a scrap of red fabric, then something pale and rounded in the leaves, about the size of a silver dollar.

1:43:01Glenn Greenwald:He brushes the leaves away. What he finds is a human skull. He ties his dog's blue leash to a branch to mark the spot, climbs back to a nearby road, borrows a phone from a construction worker, and calls 911. Here's a bit of that phone call. I was walking my dog in wood this morning, and I came across to him in skull. That was a clip from our MK Confidential series airing this week on Chandra Levy of the moment her remains were finally found. And that was an important moment in that investigation. A lot of people don't remember that aspect. As the story disappeared on 9-11-2001, She went missing May 1st, 2001.

1:43:48Glenn Greenwald:We dive into what happened next in the investigation tonight and tomorrow, an arrest and a conviction, but that was not the end of the story. This is part of a new series that we have launched called MK Confidential, where we take on one case per week. We started with JonBenet Ramsey. We did Klaus von Bülow, and now we are in the middle of Chandra Levy. You can join us for this coverage already this week. Each episode is only about 30 minutes long, so it's easy to catch up if you're not there yet. And we will see out Chandra Levy over the next few nights and then start another case on Monday. You can check it on our Megan Kelly Show podcast feeds and on our YouTube channel every weeknight this summer.

1:44:31Glenn Greenwald:Okay, back with me now. McKenna West, her attorney Lincoln Wilson, who is with the Great Alliance Defending Freedom, and Lila Rose of Live Action. So before we went to break, Lincoln, we were wondering what the legal posture of this case is now, because obviously McKenna is having the baby. So now they're fighting over where where she delivers the baby. And then what, who controls the care that he gets when he's born or where the care will be provided? So there have been fights over where the care will be provided, but now it seems that it's likely that it's going to be happening in Texas, where McKenna is now, at a hospital that has a 100 % success rate in providing the surgery.

1:45:12The big fight now is who's going to control that care. And the other side obtained a judgment in California that says they are the parents and that they get to make those decisions. And that judgment will become effective on the child's birth. We are fighting to overturn that judgment and then also to say that while the court is working out those questions, really the surgery needs to happen and McKenna needs to be making these decisions. Because if the baby dies and then she wins on an appeal, you know, you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. You can't unring the bell at that point. It's really like the biggest case of irreparable harm that you could ever see.

1:45:52Yeah.

1:45:52Glenn Greenwald:But now, does that mean undoing that California judgment? Or how are you going to get a ruling that allows McKenna to make those decisions in the way you just outlined? That's part of it. Part of it is undoing the judgment, and we have appeals that are working our way through the California courts and up to the U.S. Supreme Court that raise some important questions about due process. For one, the attempt to bring McKenna into California court on two days' notice and finding that she actually consented to jurisdiction. And also the fact that the California courts are deciding what they admit are life and death questions for this child, and this child has no representation in the proceedings.

1:46:30We think that's a due process problem.

1:46:33Glenn Greenwald:That's what I was going to ask you next. Does he have any rights? Does this baby boy have any rights at all? I should hope so. And California law actually says that a child, an unborn child, is a person under California law if that child is going to be born. We think the answer is the same under the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution. And we're going to be taking that issue up to the U.S. Supreme Court if we have to. But right now, we're in the California courts. And in the meantime, we're hoping that we can get relief that ensures that he gets the care that he needs when he's born so that he stays alive and that there's not an opportunity to leave him to die just minutes after he comes into the world.

1:47:11Glenn Greenwald:Has anyone indicated to your side, you, McKenna, or anybody else on your side, Lincoln or anybody else, that what they intend to do with the baby's health care once he's born? They've been very coy about it. They've actually told us that we're not entitled to know what their decision making is. But there's enough clues. For one, they immediately sought an abortion. They aggressively sought an abortion. For another, they have kept asking questions about palliative care, which is basically no care. Just let the child die, even though there's 100 % success rate in giving this surgery. And last, they're still suing McKenna in Alaska, demanding that she be held liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages because she refused to get an abortion.

1:47:58They're saying because she breached their contractual requirement to get an abortion, she should have to pay them. We don't think that this shows a commitment to actually letting this child live.

1:48:07Glenn Greenwald:And that now they're going to be saddled with this defective child. Is that basically the argument? Yeah, I think there's a tendency in this situation to treat children as a product. You know, you paid to get something. It was defective. It wasn't what you wanted. So send it back. Give me a new one. We think that's repugnant. We think it's offensive to California law. We think it's offensive to federal law. And we don't want to see it stand. Is there an issue about health care insurance? Like if the baby's born in Texas with McKenna Lincoln and the parents say, well, we don't have the insurance to cover all these surgeries.

1:48:45Glenn Greenwald:Is that an argument or no? Because would the state provide those surgeries? I don't think there's any question that there are the resources out there to get this child the care that he needs. I can speak from my own personal experience. Our child was born with a cardiac condition and ended up in the NICU for three months and we had to get surgery. and we got unbelievable care and unbelievable resources to support that. And it was absolutely worth it. And that's why it's very personal for me to be engaged in this fight, going after the same thing here. And I know there's abundant resources that Lila and her team have provided and would provide to save this child's life.

1:49:21Glenn Greenwald:Well, that's the thing, Lila. There's literally not someone in the country who fights more for life than you. So you must know people or have donors who would help McKenna with these surgeries or help her get this baby through those first challenging, well, it looks like it could be a couple of years, but as we saw with Ben's story, it really is survivable. Yes, yes. And there are thousands of pro-life advocates who want to help McKenna. There are thousands more who want to even adopt. I mean, the waiting lists right now to adopt are long, including families that are willing to adopt children, newborns that have special needs or special care is needed for them.

1:49:59And as McKenna even said, her brother has stepped up. heroically to say, I want to even adopt and help this baby. So the problem is not that people don't want to help. There are tons of people in line to help right now. The problem is that there is a couple who believe that this baby is their property and that they can kill this baby or order this baby to be left to die without care because this baby in their eyes is defected and unwanted to them. And they don't want another family to care for this baby and provide care and help this baby live. That's the issue. And that violates this baby's fundamental human rights, which is why I'm so grateful for the hard work of Lincoln and the team at ADF, because this case deserves to go to the Supreme Court and to be won decisively in favor of this baby's right to life and McKenna.

1:50:45Glenn Greenwald:So what would be the ideal ruling then, Lincoln? Like what's your plan? What court are you going to go into and what are you going to ask for specifically? Because the baby's due soon, right? Yeah, we're fighting in three different courts right now. There's the California proceeding that the other side filed. There's an Alaska case that McKenna filed. And we just learned that the other side has now filed a case in Texas, again, in violation of the contract, seeking to get a decision for them. we don't link and froze but your due date is september 2nd mckenna right so that's i mean that's coming up and what's your ideal i'll ask you to phrase it not legally but what is your ideal ruling that you would get um i just want this little boy to be able to get surgery um because that's what he needs so you want him to get the care that he needs and if you if you had your way, would you then have your brother adopt this baby?

1:51:45Glenn Greenwald:Really just any loving household, loving parents, whether that were me, my brother and my sister-in-law or another family that, you know, I'm not aware of right now. I just want him to have parents fighting in his corner. Have you found out, like, are the parents at all entertaining that idea that somebody, you know clearly they didn't want this baby when they found out about the heart defect so this is a solution that's it's not with the one they wanted but they they don't have to have anything to do with this baby but they're not interested in that not from what i understand at all which is really unfortunate this is so this is just so fraught i'm sure this is keeping you awake day and night are you how are you feeling mckenna are you this must have been very stressful for you?

1:52:34Glenn Greenwald:Yeah, physically I feel pretty good, but it is stressful, especially as I am in my final month now of pregnancy and there's still so much happening and developing. But I genuinely believe that God has orchestrated this and this little guy is going to get what he needs and what he deserves, which is a chance at life. We've done too much. We've come too far for another outcome. So I just, that's really what I'm praying for. Lila, I was just online before we got started today and I was on Instagram and I saw my old friend and colleague from Fox News, Brett Baer, with the following post. Let's watch it.

1:53:26Hey, everybody.

1:53:27Glenn Greenwald:Thanks for the birthday wishes. I appreciate it. Big five, six today. And I am off. I am taking my son to Ireland to play in a father-son golf tournament. It's kind of the last hurrah before he heads to college in a few weeks. happy birthday to brett bear by the way but the reason i play that as you might know is paul bear who was born in june of 2007 and i was very close to brett at the time had multiple heart defects he has a condition um that's that's the the short form is um hold on a second. Let me give you the actual name of it. It's called D transposition of the great arteries or D T G A in which the heart's two main arteries are reversed, which causes oxygen, poor blood to circulate through the body instead of being sent to the lungs for oxygen.

1:54:26Glenn Greenwald:Paul was also born. So, so he had that, that was his primary defect, but he had a total of five complex congenital heart defects. He was also born with two holes in his heart and interrupted aortic arch and an abdominal coronal artery. So Paul had multiple serious, very serious, complex heart defects. And this heart problem is usually fatal in the first few days, weeks, or months of life because of that oxygen-poor blood that circulates throughout the body. Babies do require emergency medical treatment soon after birth. And I remember when Paul was born, Brett sent on an email and that the subject was not what we expected.

1:55:14Glenn Greenwald:And we were all stunned and scared. And we all thought that Brett and Amy might lose their baby. And they didn't lose their baby. That baby is the son that Paul, getting emotional, that baby is the son that Brett and Amy are delivering off to college. before next month. And he hasn't had it easy. He's had at least 12 surgeries, I think more than 12 surgeries. He had an emergency surgery not long ago that was very scary. That family, not for one second, would regret Paul being born into this world and all the moments they've had with Paul through thick and thin, through the difficult surgeries and the scary times and the great times on the golf course and otherwise.

1:56:03Glenn Greenwald:I just think, Lila, too many people feel overwhelmed by these scary diagnoses. And we also have a media that refuses to highlight stories like that of little Ben and Paul Bear. You're so right, Megan. I mean, life is worth fighting for. And a child's life is worth fighting for the most. This is an innocent, defense, this little one that's entrusted to adults. And what's the responsibility of adults? You know, how can we build a civilization that's strong and healthy? You got to care about kids and you've got to put their needs first. And sometimes that requires sacrifice, but there's often a way, and that's the power of medical technology and coming alongside families.

1:56:45And it's amazing what we've been able to accomplish with new medical technologies, but regardless of the ability of medical technologies, a life's always worth fighting for, you know, one way or another, you never leave someone to just die, especially a baby. You never go and kill a child in utero. And I will say, Megan, the only reason we're in this predicament that McKenna is in this extremely unjust and abusive situation. I mean, it's legal abuse that they're threatening her with. I think it's physical abuse to try to demand her to have a late term abortion. The reason this is happening is because abortion on demand is legal still in our country.

1:57:19I mean, there's some states that protect life, but we have the majority of states now that permit abortion. And what is abortion? It's the direct and intentional killing of an innocent human life. And under no circumstance is it acceptable to kill an innocent human life. But that's what many laws in our states permit. And that is the crux of the problem here. And that's why McKenna is in this predicament. That's why this little boy's life is at risk. So we need to change our legal system. We need to shift our culture here. And I'm really proud of McKenna and the work of ADF and the work of live action, because that's what we're working here to do together.

1:57:52Glenn Greenwald:Mm hmm. I mean, there's no there's no question that abortion is the killing of a life. And if like you can debate, I always say this, you know. You can say that you are pro-choice and you're in favor of the mother making that decision and all that stuff. You we cannot have the debate unless you admit that like you have to admit that that's obviously a life. Then you then you can make your argument about I should be allowed to end it. I'm the mother. I created we can have that debate. We've been having that debate for a long, long time. but there's just no debate that that's a life. There's just, there isn't, that is a life that you are ending if you have an abortion.

1:58:27Glenn Greenwald:Um, so McKenna, what, what happens now? What if, what if you don't get the legal relief that you're looking for? What if you have to, what if you get a judgment saying you have to have this baby in California? Is that a possibility that you'd have to, that you might not be able to have the baby at the Texas facility with all the life-saving measures that are available there? Not at this point. Traveling after 36 weeks is really never recommended by OBGYNs. Okay. Good. So you're staying in Texas? I'm here in Texas. Yeah. And what if a ruling comes down that what happens to this boy when he's born is up entirely to these parents and he is born and he is not on your chest.

1:59:18Glenn Greenwald:He's not bonding with you. He's not having the skin to skin. Instead, he's being given palliative care as he dies. I pray that if they are the ones who make the decision once he's born, that simply seeing him and realizing just how real this baby boy is. I've been feeling him for months now. He's very, very real to me. I just pray that their hearts would soften. They're the ones making that decision when they see this little guy and that they want to fight as hard as I am and other people would absolutely be willing to fight for him. Yes, I'm praying for those parents right now, tonight. I think we should all pray for those parents to see it this way, to see him born, to feel the connection and to understand that getting him the help he needs is the right thing to do.

2:00:16Glenn Greenwald:And that there'll be a ton of people who I'm sure Lila Rose, you would help them too. If they said that they want to be the ones to shepherd him through these surgeries and so on. And this can still have a happy ending. Praying God that it happens. McKenna, please keep us updated. Please stay well and take care of yourself. Lila, thanks for the story and for all the great work you do. Thank you so much, Megan. Thank you, Megan. Wow. Wow. That's like, that's heavy. That is a heavy story. These, you know, the parents, it's like you, clearly they've, they desperately wanted a child. You don't go to a surrogate unless you desperately want a child.

2:00:57Glenn Greenwald:And I understand there are a lot of families. I don't know what their financial situation is, but there are a lot of families who don't have the financial means to take on a massive health care battle. That's a whole other problem in this country that deserves discussion. But in this particular case, it sounds like they will be helped and will be provided with the resources to get this little boy through. So maybe that will soften them on this. I don't know. They're anonymous. I don't know their names. I don't know really more than I've told you about their end of the story. They have a contract that's on their side and they wish to enforce it.

2:01:31Glenn Greenwald:I'm sure they're angry that it won't be enforced, but they brought another person into this decision. And there's a written contract and then there's your contract with God. And there are the rights of this child, whether a court is willing to recognize them or not. This is a viable baby at this point. I should tell you, we got a statement from the lawyer for the parents, whose name is Victoria Ferrara, and she writes as follows. The team at Worldwide Surrogacy Specialists, LLC, is saddened by the turn to litigation in this matter. The team supports and has always supported the gestational carrier's right to make medical decisions for herself and for her bodily autonomy.

2:02:13Glenn Greenwald:The team also supports the right of the intended parents to legal parentage of the child after his birth. The owner of Worldwide Surrogacy, attorney Ferrara submits that this matter should have been referred to mediation where all parties would have been urged to consider the best interests of the child who will face severe hardship upon his birth and to reach a settlement so that upon his birth, the child would be surrounded by love, not lawyers and litigation. That's where it stands for now. So I'd love to know your thoughts on it. Please email me. It's Megan at Megan Kelly.com. Thank you all so much for listening and for watching, and we will see you next episode.

2:02:50Glenn Greenwald:Thanks for listening to the The Megan Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.