Shocking Busfield Allegations, Oprah's Obesity Spin, and Kohberger and Sinema Lawsuits, with Maureen Callahan | Ep. 1232

23:58And I thought it was very, when you listen to the way he tells, he's very bemused. Okay. You know, he's like, I know it was a pain in the ass. So he says a few more about himself. It's a plot hole. It's a logical plot. It just doesn't make any sense. Yes. The premise of the whole movie makes no sense. Well, I enjoy it. His leftist politics are definitely a turnoff to me. And I know that Matt Damon shares them. We're comparing them because they kind of came up together, of course, and they made a splash together in Good Will Hunting and both starred in it. But I know that Ben Affleck is a leftist.

24:26I just don't think he's as far left as Ben Affleck. But I could be wrong because he was showing up at the Golden Globes the other night with a be good pin. Which is Matt Damon. That was. I'm like, oh, please. And I guarantee you, Matt Damon doesn't know shit about everything that went down. I really, I believe he doesn't know shit. Yeah. Just like Mark Ruffalo. Yeah. Oh, he's the worst. He thinks he knows. He's such a dope. He's the worst. Have you ever heard that guy like interviewed about real, like he doesn't know a thing. He's so stupid. It's painful. But I mean, it's also not a shock. But in any event, okay.

24:56So wait, while we're on the subject of movies, where did I want to go with this? Oh, to Timothy Busfield. Oh, yeah. On the subject of Hollywood stars. So there's developments in the Timothy Busfield child molestation accusation case where he was, I don't know if we call it on the lam, when you're just not turning yourself in. The arrest warrant went out Friday, and he didn't turn himself into authorities until, well, Friday was day one, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, day five, Tuesday. He says it's because he was driving cross-country 2 ,000 miles. That's bullshit. You can, A, get on a plane.

25:34B, if you really just didn't want to like get onto a plane for whatever reason, you would call the authorities and say, I'm coming. I'm going to drive cross country and I will be there on whatever. But he was his he was whereabouts unknown. Yeah. I don't know what he was doing, but that is not the behavior of an innocent man in my view. But now he's hired some expensive defense lawyer who has come out and this guy claims that he has passed a, quote, independent examiner's polygraph, that his lawyer hired an independent polygraph examiner and that Timothy Busfield has allegedly passed it. Period.

26:13End of report. Absolutely no additional details. I don't believe it. I'm just going to be honest. There's no way that this lawyer would have hired somebody who they couldn't control to do something like this. But that's what they're using to make us believe that he's innocent. And here's a bit of, okay, this is TMZ with video from Timothy Busfield's lawyer's office in Albuquerque. Is this a video we saw the other day where he denies it? Okay, yeah, we already saw this. Never mind, we already played this. He had his first court appearance the other day. And meanwhile, so that case is going to play out, Maureen.

26:49But meanwhile, his wife, Melissa Gilbert, is on her brand website. She's like a Meghan Markle wannabe with her little home style brand, like Home on the Prairie or whatever it is. She's still posting. So she's deleted her personal socials, though she was very active using them, trying to shame people like me, who she didn't feel talked about abuse in the proper way. Hello, heal thyself, preacher. Now she's posting on her lifestyle brand all about what's in her refrigerator and having the brand people point out that Melissa has nothing to do with the allegations against Timothy, which is not true.

27:31She is repeatedly referenced in the police affidavit in support of the charges accusing her of being part of the grooming by taking these two seven-year-old boys out for dinners and buying them presents, not specifically saying that she knew they were being abused, but definitely pointed to her as fostering the close relationship. So it's not true that she has nothing to do with it. And she has nothing suddenly to say about abuse, Maureen. Absolutely nothing. She's deleted the socials. So what do you make of this whole thing? I don't mean to be superficial, but I look at the two of them and they look like a colossal mess.

28:08They look like very heavy drinkers to me. Yeah, they look unhygienic to me. Yes, they do look unhygienic. It speaks to just a sort of chaos, like an emotional, intellectual chaos. That guy was missing for five days. If law enforcement knew where he was, we would have known. And I think the feds raiding the House upstate, ramming their way in. I think that was an F you to those two for him being wherever he was. As you said, innocent people don't run. No, no. My opinion, innocent people don't run. She then deletes her Instagram account, but then reactivates the modern prairie, whatever her thing is, to show us the contents of her refrigerator as one does when one's husband is facing multiple accounts of child abuse.

29:02That police affidavit, by the way, I believe the part where Melissa—well, Melissa's involved, too, because when the police in Albuquerque were interviewing Timothy in New York via speakerphone, he said, Melissa is here with me. She heard everything, November 3rd. Heard everything. You read his denial, it's like it's all over the place. Yes. Yeah, I definitely would have touched those kids. Are you allowed to touch those kids is the question from the authorities. Well, no, you're definitely not allowed to touch the kids. I mean, there's no protocol for it. I mean, there may be a protocol for it.

29:36I don't know. You know what happened? The father of those boys wanted me to hug them. I didn't want to hug them. And then - Oh, wait, I don't know who those boys are. Yes. I don't remember them. Yes, I don't remember them. Yes. Okay. Wait a minute. The ones that you just admitted playfully tickling? You don't remember them suddenly? Highly likely you touched. Yeah, so which is it? And honestly, like, it's a no. Can you imagine someone playfully tickling your seven-year-old boy? There is no reason an adult should be putting hands on a child that is not their own. That's right. And especially everybody knows that, quote, playful tickling of another man's son is inappropriate for you to be doing as a grown man and is considered a grooming behavior.

30:16It is absolutely grooming behavior. I had a distant relative, distant, distant, who we all knew there was something deeply wrong with him. And clue number one, he lived in Southeast Asia and, you know, never came back. But when he would come over and this was, this was again, this was before like this conversation was like just part of our, like we all are very fluent in what this stuff is now. Would love to tickle me. And I was a highly ticklish child. And I knew it was so fucked up and disturbing because it's like you're laughing, but it's an involuntary reaction. But inside you're in agony.

30:52and the longer it goes on, you can't stop yourself. And you can tell the sadistic glee that the adult, like they're violating you. It's an utter violation. And you find out that any stranger is tickling your kid. That's step one. Oh my God. Step one. Alarm bells everywhere. I mean, you would never allow this. And for him to have admitted, oh, yeah, I might've tickled. It was a very playful set. What? As they're admitting that the woman who was responsible for keeping eyes on those children, was off gallivanting and talking to the crew elsewhere, not doing that job. And that right about the time that Timothy came on as director is when they got rid of the iPads that the parents were allowed to look at and watch the children at every moment.

31:37Somehow they decided that those, he claims it wasn't his decision, but it happened right when he came on board. He's only the director. Yeah. He's only running that set, not his decision. So now coincidentally, no one can watch the children if the woman's not got eyes on them and she's admitted that she hasn't. And at the same time, Maureen, there was a complaint made by a hair and makeup person about conduct. She saw Timothy Busveld do toward the boys in the trailer where she saw him kissing their faces and touching like their heads, their hair in a way that made her uncomfortable without knowing any of this.

32:12This is before any of this had broken. Women always know. She knew and she complained, which is an act of bravery, anonymously, but she did complain saying there's something off about this guy. He's creepy. And I don't like the way he's interacting with these boys long before the mother came forward. It doesn't mean he's guilty. He deserves his day in court, but it's ridiculous that Melissa Gilbert thinks she can just post pictures of butter and milk and have us go buy her lifestyle brand while her husband's accused of genuinely hurting two little boys. One of whom the therapist says has constant nightmares, bedwetting, and PTSD to this day.

32:51They're only 11 now. There's a third accuser that just came forward. The father, this broke, he filed on Wednesday. So several years ago, his then 16-year-old daughter was auditioning for Timothy Busfield's theater company in San Francisco or something. Children's Theater. Oh, is it a children's theater? Children's Theater. Okay, we know exactly who we're dealing with. I'm sorry. My opinion, my opinion. Mine too. So the father alleges that Timothy Busfield got this girl alone, kissed her, no doubt under the guise of it's a scene. Yeah. It's a scene. Kissed her, jammed his hands down her pants.

33:30She was 16. And progressed from there. And when the father found out, went to Timothy Busfield, who, according to him, begged the family not to press charges and said he would go get therapy. And this is why these conversations are so important. There is zero therapizing a child predator. There is zero rehabilitation for sex criminals. They have to be put away for life. That's it. The recidivism rate is like 100%. Yes, you can take it to the bank. And now Timothy's new expensive lawyer is saying, oh, that's totally unrelated. You know, anything that happened 25 years ago with a 16-year-old bears not at all on the accusations here.

34:05Now, they're different, obviously. 16-year-old girl, and there's also an allegation involving a 17-year-old girl, is different than a 7-year-old boy. They're both disgusting. They're both abuse. They're both taking advantage of a minor in a totally inappropriate way. And the fact that this guy and his daughter let him off the hook from going to the authorities and turning him in does not mean it was a nothing burger. It means he someone had grace for him 25 years ago, who probably is really regretting that now that they see these allegations brought by these then seven year old now 11 year old boys.

34:38Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And I just, God. So this was what was really, really just under my skin watching the Globes red carpet and the likes of Mark Ruffalo, like hop over to the media, like Mark, what's the button? Oh, the buttons for, you know, you got white supremacists and blah, blah, blah. Pedophilia is so effing rampant in Hollywood. Why don't you guys who kept your mouth shut throughout the Diddy trial? Yeah. Yes. Watching Cassie on a loop and you kept your mouth fucking shut. Why don't you address your backyard? Yes, where's that pin? Clean that up. What is that pin? Clean that up and then get back to the rest of us about how we should live and vote and think.

35:14A hundred percent. We got to go through some of this Nickelodeon stuff that we have pulled and I've been meaning to get to. So we have been covering this. We had Alexa Nicholas on and she was a child star on Nickelodeon. She starred in Zoe 101. And she talked to us about a number of things that happened on Nickelodeon. But Nickelodeon had multiple child molesters. I mean, actual child molesters on set molesting children like they they they molested one of them molested Drake Bell, who shared in this documentary what happened to him from at the hands of this guy, Brian Peck. Viewer warning, this is disturbing.

35:53But this is from a documentary that we discussed with Alexa. Let me just show you Alexa first, discussing the most disturbing episode of Zoe 101 that involved Jamie Lynn Spears. It's SOT 26. There are these goo pops and my character can't get it open. It's not coming out. And it ends up squirting onto Jamie's face. so the prop a person comes onto set with a syringe we all like stood behind the camera to watch it lands on her face so first it was dan roaring laughing and then everyone kind of giggling we heard the boys saying it's a shot and i had no idea what that meant once i saw it again as an adult was when that memory came back i was like oh oh oh oh wasn't funny it still isn't funny to me to be honest it's just like that's a kid And it's so obvious what they were.

37:13Let me give you another one. This is Ariana Grande got her start on Nickelodeon, which a lot of people don't know, but she became a child star over there acting and singing. And I'm sorry, this is so vile, but this is all at the hands of this guy, Dan Snyder, who is running Nickelodeon. He was the man over there. He was never accused of molesting anybody, just to be clear, but he was accused of creating extremely vile setups for young girls over and over and young boys too, and fostering an environment in which actual child predators worked all over the set. So no one's been able to get Dan Snyder on actual charges of molestation, but there's Schneider, but it's very clear that he created a very inappropriate atmosphere.

37:55And here is Ariana Grande, his biggest star in you tell me whether these are appropriate scenes for this young girl. Sometimes I wonder if you can get juice from a potato.

38:14Did 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. Oh my God. And there's just one more Maureen, one Maureen. Drake Bell. What's the name of this film again, you guys, that we highlighted from Nickelodeon? It was very dark, quiet on set. Drake Bell appears in it and shared what happened to him. There was a guy named Brian Peck on set, who I think was the voice coach or the dialect coach. And this guy slowly, according to Drake, drove a wedge between Drake and his father, who was his primary caregiver.

39:00And like, your dad doesn't understand you. Your dad's not taking care of you. He doesn't care about your career, whatever. And Drake was 15. He got Drake to sleep over at his house one night. And ultimately on, in this movie, Drake shared what happened. Here it is. I was sleeping on the couch where I would usually sleep. And, uh, I woke up to him,

39:28I just opened my eyes I woke up and he was

39:35sexually assaulting me and

39:43I froze and was in complete shock and had no idea what to do no idea how to get out of the situation I had no car, I didn't drive. I was 15 at this time. He's so apologetic. Oh, this will never happen again. I'm so sorry. I don't know what got into me. And I crossed the line. And this will never happen again. The abuse was extensive.

40:15And it got...

40:20pretty brutal. Why don't you do this? Yeah. Why don't you think of the worst stuff that someone can do to somebody as a sexual assault? And that'll answer your question. That's so dark. That man who molested him, Brian Peck, was the dialogue coach at Nickelodeon. He was found guilty of lewd acts with a child in 2003. and then unfortunately, Drake Bell was sentenced much later to two years of probation after pleading guilty to two charges against him relating to a girl he met online who attended one of his concerts in Cleveland in 2017 and the charge was child endangerment. So clearly that was an underage girl because this can turn into a cycle and that's what was going on the set of America's premier children's programming network for years.

41:17And I'm sorry, but it's like you, your reaction when I said that Timothy Busfield was running a children's theater was exactly the same reaction I had, which is okay. The same way you like, they become Boy Scout leaders and they volunteer to help at children's charities. Um, and the pedophiles go where children are. I'm not saying Timothy Busfield is a pedophile. He's got charges against him that he'll fight in court. He says the mother is a money-grubbing revenge artist who's pissed that he was the director of the show when her two seven-year-old twin boys were fired from it. That's his story.

41:52And he has a star of the show, a female actress, who told the Warner Brothers investigator that the mother said that to her, that the mother said, I'm gonna get revenge on Timothy Busfield. And he claims he has a clean polygraph. That's where he's going with his defense. But we're broadening it out now. And you and I both know the way Warner Brothers conducted this investigation and failed to cooperate fully, in my view, with the police looking into Busfield is par for the course in Hollywood. How did Nickelodeon get away with this for all those years, allowing so many children to get hurt? I was going to say the same thing about the Warner Brothers, quote unquote, investigation in the Warner Brothers lawyer.

42:31once this was brought to their attention. I don't necessarily believe Nickelodeon's cleaned up their house. Why would I believe that? There were rumors about Dan Schneider forever, way before this documentary. Way before, everybody knew. Everybody knew. And it's the same with Bryan Singer, allegedly, the director, who allegedly had lots of sex parties in Hollywood. He's an out gay man. All these young actors who would cycle through, who wanted entree into Bryan Singer's world, into Bryan Singer's movies. He was the X-Men director. Very powerful guy. Nothing's ever happened to him. By the way, we just not, well, no, actually, Diddy does have allegations of child abuse against him.

43:20And he's serving two years, you know? Yep. Like, so. Here's another one. This is Saw 21. It's Leon Frierson of the show All That. Let's watch it. There's a new character for me on All That named Noseboy. Naturally, I'm in a superhero costume, which is just tights and underwear. They gave me a prosthetic nose, like an enlarged nose, and they put this same nose on the costume. I'm Captain Victor! What are your special powers? You can't help but notice that it looks like penis and testicles on my shoulders. Yeah, it does. I'm allergic to asteroids.

44:13And the joke in that sketch is effectively a shot joke. Frankly, it was just uncomfortable. In the moments to myself, you would just be thinking like, hey, this is what we got to do to be on the show. I always did my best to be a trooper, never complain, because we knew being close to Dan could mean an extra level of success. Mm-hmm. This is sick. It sounded like when he entered that room in the costume, I don't think that was the character's name, but it was very close to it. It sounded like he said, I'm Captain Dildo. It's Captain Big Nose. Oh, okay. But yeah, and look, this is why, this is as serious as a heart attack.

44:57It's not time to be posting pictures of the butter in your refrigerator. You cannot distract us from the absolutely vile allegations against your husband that you were made aware of on November 3rd, two months ago, by trying to redirect us to the quote, modern Prairie brand. And by the way, you and your husband have sullied that brand beyond repair just by getting involved in this. And by the way, also, I don't see a clear denial of the charge from 25 years ago. I hear your lawyer saying it's not related to the current charges. I don't look. Where is the explicit? She's a liar. My team will correct me if he has explicitly denied it.

45:38But there was that 16 year old girl. There was a 17 year old who sued him and threatened him for allegedly molesting her. He sued her law firm saying you've defamed me. He lost. He had to pay them$150 ,000 and then settled with a 17-year-old. There was a 28-year-old young woman. He took out to the movie theater on a date back in like 2012, right before he married Melissa Gilbert, who said he, okay, started kissing her in the theater. Many women have been there, but then got so aggressive with her that she considered it a sexual assault, shoving his hands down her pants. She didn't want it. She actually went to the cops.

46:11They said, no, there's not enough here to pursue anything because, you know, you're on a date, whatever. They didn't buy it. But there's a pattern. Most men do not have at least three females accusing them, 116, 117, 128, of aggressive, inappropriate sexual assault, and then followed up with now this latest allegation. Most men don't have one. Right. Most men don't have one. And by the way, I was talking about this with Arthur Idalla the other day. The New York Times a few years ago did like a real estate piece on Timothy Busfield and Melissa Gilbert's house in upstate New York. And I'm just going to be a bitch about it because I think these people are disgusting.

46:51It was a dump. Yeah. It was a dump. It is a dump. It's still there. It's still there. It's the same house that the feds raided. And the New York Times was even snobby about it. They were like, if we're going to be honest, it's more World of Interiors than Architectural Digest. But the salient part for our discussion is in the living room, there was a wall and the art on the wall was a series of still photographs and Polaroids of multiple people. And there were some younger people on that wall. And I wonder if like many predators, some of those photos are trophy photos. I wonder if some of those photos.

47:27I hope that the feds are looking at every single individual that Timothy Busfield and Melissa Gilbert, I'm not saying she was involved in anything, but I don't know that she didn't know anything. Also, by the way, in that affidavit, I believe it says that both Timothy and Melissa also took the parents out with the young kids. And that's also a way of trying to develop trust with the parents to say, you could trust us with your kids. You could leave them alone with us. Okay, we haven't even touched on Jared of Subway fame. Oh, right. And what did Jared do on his downtime? He would go from school to school to talk to kids about diet and eating.

48:08And he would do whatever he could to get himself in front of children. And we interviewed the woman who worked with the FBI for years and getting him on tape. She was a radio host and she met him. She got alarmed early on and she started to tape Jared and work with the FBI on taping Jared. And she got his grooming on tape where she was not offering up her children for his pleasure, but she was playing as though she would just because she was trying to get him on tape. She wanted people to know what he was. And it is the most stomach turning stuff you will ever hear. But he talks about how, yeah, get him talking about like R-rated things so that they can get used to hearing that.

48:50You know, like it is, groomers do. They often will involve other adults with whether they're knowing or not about like getting this inappropriate talk in front of them or getting the child used to the predator being around them so that they let their guards down. This is all. And I totally agree. This is rampant in Hollywood. I think we're only scratching the surface right now, but we must continue to go. And we can't be ashamed to ask these questions, offering the appropriate defenses and qualifications. We are not condemning Timothy Busfield before there's been a jury trial. He says he's passed a polygraph.

49:25We'll see. All right, stand by. There's a lot more to get to, including an explosive piece in the New York Times today on a horrific IVF story. I like teared up several times when I listened to this this morning on their podcast, The Daily. Stand by. A new year means new financial goals like making sure your savings are secure and diversified. Will this be the year you decide to talk to someone from Birch Gold Group? They use an educational approach with a deep understanding of macroeconomics. There are forces pushing the dollar lower right now and gold higher, which is why they believe every American should own physical gold.

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50:48It's a Maureen Callahan day here at the MK Show. She's back. She's the host of The Nerve. Go and subscribe to it right now on YouTube, all podcast platforms, and at thenerveshow.com, which is really your central receptacle for all of the offerings. It's a huge hit. Do yourself a favor, subscribe now on a Friday, because then you can take in The Nerve, the mini-Nerve over the weekend, catch up on some old nerves. It's been a very hard-hitting two weeks of news, and The Nerve is exactly what we need to have a couple of laughs, make fun of ourselves, and more importantly, others. And Maureen is our leader.

51:22So she will take us through all of that. And we have some of that coming. But first, while we're on the more serious topic of like abuse and terrible things happening to children, we've got to get to Megan Rapinoe. Megan Rapinoe, who, according to most estimates, is worth several million dollars. I mean, she's probably worth 15, 20 million bucks, probably more given all the endorsements that she's made and so on, and got to the top of the sports ranks and decided to pull up the ladder behind her because she no longer has to play on these soccer fields against biological boys, but she wants my daughter to have to, and she's made that perfectly clear.

51:58So now in the wake of Tuesday's Supreme Court hearing, no ruling yet, but it's clear the high court is going to rule that the 27 states that have bans against boys participating in girls' sports, it's going to uphold those bans. Now in the wake of that, the ACLU, which argued, of course, against the bans, has released an ad starring Megan Rapinoe, Elliot Page, who is Ellen Page, Naomi Watts, who has a child who's declared himself a her, and Chase Strangio, which is the perfect last name for this person. who is a, it's a woman pretending to be a man who is also somebody who's argued before the Supreme Court and lost because they let their ideology drive their argument and the Supreme Court saw right through that shit.

52:47Here's a collection of them in an ad from the ACLU trying to push for boys and girls sports. When you're young, you believe that you can do anything. And then the world tries to set limits for you. Tell you what's allowed. What's normal. Who you're supposed to be. But on the field, the track, the court. Here, you get to be exactly who you are. Because at our core, we're still the kids who just want to play. The go big game changers. The living, breathing fabric of this country. Supporting trans youth isn't just about sports. It's about freedom. On and off the field. It's more than a game. Shame on you, Naomi Watts.

53:24Shame on you. And shame on you, Megan Rapinoe. Because of all those people there, you above all know what you're asking to do to little girls. She doesn't care. No, they don't care. That makes me so angry. It is the insistence. They insist upon this messaging that this is all just about being American. They said it's the fabric of the country. It's the fabric of the country that is a woman and our young girls have to have their rights violated, have to be placed in danger of sexual assault. That story you ran like a week or so ago. Yes. Equinox. Yes. No, Planet Fitness. the guy jerking off in the women's stall, claiming to be a woman.

54:04And the staff at Equinox was like, well, we don't really know what to do. Are you kidding? Yeah. Yeah, because they'll get sued. Yeah. They'll get sued. No, so it was like we had Tish Hyman on yesterday. She got it in Gold's gym. We had that video. That was Planet Fitness. I'm sure it's Equinox too. You can't go anywhere in California without this happening to you because it's the law, thanks to Gavin Newsom, that these men are allowed to parade right into our locker rooms and our gyms and into our daughters. Thanks to people like Megan Rapinoe who have pushed for laws in the other 23 states that allow this.

54:34And it's honestly like Naomi Watts. Okay, so she said, I guess I think she's standing up for her quote daughter, who's really a boy without any thought for, maybe I just try to support my child to whom I've allowed this to happen, but without trying to hurt anybody else's child. Yes. But she's not a thought for anybody else's child. She's gonna roll in her millions and let poor kids deal with boys going into the girls' locker rooms and onto their fields and stealing their medals and jerking off in front of them. And they featured in here the athlete that was the plaintiff in one of the Supreme Court cases.

55:11There was one from Idaho, which involved a college student, and there was one from West Virginia, which involved a high school student, a middle school slash high school student. And that West Virginia plaintiff was a young woman, a teenager, whose first name is Becky, BJP they were calling her. She's outed herself and himself. It's a boy. Okay. And that boy dressed as a girl is featured in this ad. And you know what they forgot to mention in this ad, Maureen? They forgot to mention what this so-called boy has been saying, according to the other girls on the team, to the girls. But we happen to have it because we know Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing the girl.

55:55And they have a video that they put out of this young girl, the actual girl named Adelia Cross, who talks about the inappropriate sexual remarks. Again, this boy posing as a girl in this video made to the actual girls on the team, including Adelia. Watch. I started doing track in middle school, and a male student joined the girls' team and made really inappropriate comments and took me out of my own sport. And she lost out on her equal opportunities to compete. She lost out on opportunities to move up in competition. But at the same time, she was also being subjected to sexual comments from this male athlete.

56:35And so that forced her to change in a bathroom stall because she felt so uncomfortable with this male having access to her locker rooms. I didn't really know if I even wanted to say anything at first because I was told that everything was like this is normal and that you're transphobic if you don't think it should be happening. Adelaide is telling us about the bullying that that she's enduring from him. And she tells us one of the sexual comments involving his male genitalia that he is saying to the girls. And we were horrified by that. Things that were, you know, really vile, really vulgar. You would hope that your daughter would never have to hear.

57:15It would be from walking to the middle school to the track field. He might come up behind and whisper it to her. He would say it in the locker room. And in the girls' bathrooms were said, which is just the worst place to hear it. Like, that's supposed to be my safe space. And it's just not safe at all. Good for you, Adelia, for coming forward. You're going to win your case. Here, they were too polite to say it, but I'll tell you what they said, because she did detail it in her Supreme Court brief. The comments range from BPJ telling Adelia that she had a nice butt to remark so vulgar that merely repeating them, they write, is incredibly embarrassing to Adelia.

57:55During the end of her eighth grade year, about two to three times per week, BPJ would look at her and say, forgive me, audience, suck my dick. There were usually other girls around who heard this. Adelia heard so-called Becky say the same thing to her other teammates. BPJ also made other more explicit sexual statements that felt threatening to Adelia. At times, BPJ told her quietly, I'm going to stick my D into your P word. And BPJ sometimes added, and in your backside as well. That's who Megan Rapinoe and Naomi Watts chose to appear in an ad next to, talking about being kind and standing up for human rights, Maureen.

58:37This is why it's so important to completely, you know, a celebrity comes out and says, absolutely, this is 100 % the right way to be, think, feel about something. Really, you should probably think the exact opposite. You know, this is such bullshit. This girl, and this stuff trickles down. Like, it's not just like, oh, a celebrity said it. Who cares? It's like an idiot. No, this helps this sort of become institutionalized thought. She's at a school where she's told like so many of these girls, you're the problem. You're transphobic. Suck it up. The real victims over here grappling with their identity.

59:13The real victims over here saying to a young girl, I'm going to rape you. That's what he's saying. Get out. Get out. And demanding access to her bathroom and her locker room where she changes and gets naked as a young middle school girl. What the F are we doing? What are we doing to these young girls? And the nerve of these Hollywood celebrities, these multimillionaires to appear out there. Never touch them. It'll never touch them. Screw them. I will never watch another Naomi Watts film ever in my life. Fuck her. Never mind Megan Rapinoe, who I can't stand anyway. She makes my stomach turn. All right, I want to keep going.

59:50On a lighter note, when we're still in the field of celebrity, you had some issues with, well, that's when I get mildly, Sarah Jessica Parker's, her latest iteration of Sex and the City. I've been enjoying your take. I never have seen one episode of the reboot, but I totally love listening to you talk about it anyway. Thank you. And then I know prior to this, I know your love of Carol Burnett. I know I've heard you, you revere her. Revere her. And unfortunately, these two things came together at the Golden Globes where SJP got the Carol Burnett Award. And here is some of her acceptance speech in Sop 38.

1:00:34My parents, who made certain they found the money and the time equally valuable to take me and my seven siblings to the theater, the ballet, the symphony, the movies, museums, and to make sure we never left the house without a book. Who grew our imaginations and our dreams. Who insisted that curiosity was the gateway to a rich world. Who birthed my love of acting and provided a path to my 50 year, 52 year old career. Birthed. She's so pretentious. She's so precious. She made her name and her money playing a sexually promiscuous woman who was sleeping with half of Manhattan. And as I said on there, hey, I don't judge, like live your life.

1:01:23But like none of these women ever caught so much as an STD, like a mild one, you know? And they sort of - You know, anybody who behaved that way in real life would be swimming with crabs. You're at least getting harpies. Like you're at least like, you know, you're at least maybe getting an HPV screening. And on top of that, then they're glamorizing materialism and spending beyond your means and the idea that buying$500 shoes you can't afford is just how it is. I've discussed this many times. I met way too many young women who came to New York City from points elsewhere and were like, I'm a Carrie.

1:01:55And I'd be like, you're fucked. Yeah, right. Exactly. You're never going to make it here. But so she's been making the rounds. That was the inaugural Carol Burnett Award. and much as there is online theorizing that Kris Jenner is buying Timothee Chalamet all these awards, including an Oscar. Yes, right. I believe Carol Burnett, I'm sorry, I believe SJP purchased that award. That was the inaugural. There's no way. These awards are bought and paid for. We discussed this. We talked about it in the context of the podcast award, which we were on the short list for that, but we had to pay all this money if we wanted to actually be considered.

1:02:31And also it was made clear to me, Then you actually have to go out to L.A. and meet with all these Golden Globes voters and executives and try to razzle dazzle them and then pay more money. And, of course, I said at the time on my show, go fuck yourselves. Absolutely not. It's my worst nightmare to have to spend time like that with people like that. We pulled our show from the consideration. Amy Poehler won it. And at the time I did this on the show, I didn't realize the New York Times did this whole expose on the amount that Spotify is believed to have had to spend to get her the award. What was it?

1:03:04It was some huge number. Steve, you looked at it. Do you remember what it was? But they were. Like over$100 ,000. Yeah, over$100 ,000 to get her. So you can imagine what SJP had to pay to get the first inaugural, I guess, whatever, the first Carol Burnett Award. And then they go out there and Maureen, it's acting, right? Like, oh, my parents and they birthed me and my love of the arts. And even though we were dirt poor, I went to the ballet and the opera and the theater. No, you didn't. Because if you were dirt poor, you did not go to any of those events. The symphony. You fucking lie. You're so dirt poor.

1:03:44You have seven kids in your family. Your parents are taking you to the symphony, the opera, and like where? Like, they were sorry. They grew up in like bumfuck somewhere. No offense. But like, we're not living in like midtown Manhattan where, you know, you're getting part of like a free, you know, developing adolescence in the arts, whatever. Then my favorite thing about, so she's always breathless. She's always, she's breathless. So we bought and paid for this award allegedly, and we didn't know it was coming. And then we get up there and we're breathless and we just sound like she's always like doing this tick where she's moving her hands out from her womb.

1:04:18Oh, God. Like, it's like this is I'm being really authentic here because I'm talking to you from my gut. I'm being authentic. Where I birthed my babies, except the other two that were surrogates. No, no shame. But like it's coming from here. It's coming from my solar plexus. And then she's going on the Today Show and New York Live and all this bullshit. And, you know, she's really hawking after doing her victory lap for this bullshit. But she is hawking, Megan, I kid you not, a line of prescription. It's a brand of prescription. Oh, eye drops. Eye drops. Eye drops. Called Viz. Okay. Which is a little too close to a slang word for things we were discussing earlier.

1:04:54It is. Yeah. So wait, now there is, what is, did you say, what is the number of the site, Steve?

1:05:0340B is the Today Show. Okay, let's take a look at her hawking those. you probably don't know this but sarah jessica perker reads more than anybody i know more than you yeah yeah well we're close maybe now we're back because i was judging a literary word so she said i was sort of on adrenaline um we read about the math really i think comes back out to like 172 books but that's rereading yes long and short list wow and also reading along with it. But anyway, so as you were reading and recently I learned about these prescription eye drops, went to my eye doctor. He was excited about it and he had been waiting for it.

1:05:42And I, I started using them and it changed the course of my day, you know, just in the ways in which those of us who reach for glasses all the time, I've read that every room. I've heard exactly. So I'm done with Sarah Jessica Parker. I really am like so over her, but I do want to stay on the Today Show for one second, you'll be shocked, shocked to learn who showed back up on the Today Show this week. Oh, is it my favorite? Yeah. Who just wants to spend time with her daughters? Oh, yeah. She doesn't really want to be in TV anymore. I know. Here she is. Let's roll it. Sat 36. Okay. It is our first official day together.

1:06:21And right now, Chanel and I have no idea what's about to happen. They said just read the prompter. So here we go. This is literally in real time. Our producers wanted to celebrate the premiere of the new fourth hour by passing the torch. Oh!

1:06:42There's Hoda! Kathy Lee! It's really sweet! It's really sweet!

1:06:56It's Hoda and Kathy. Oh my God.

1:07:05Can you believe I ever thought I could have a career there? You know, it's, I think you had to go through that crucible to get to this. But this is the cheesiest. It's, it's the most brain dead. So I have so, so like, I, you know, I watch this stuff with like morbid fascination. I really do. Cause I wonder what the actual conversations in the control room and the, and the C-suites are about the talent down there. Chanel, the new, the new diversity hire, let's just be honest. That's what this is. She's a dud. She's a dud. She has a charisma vacuum. We're going in on the, we went on in on a thing on the nerve on Friday today.

1:07:42But so then Hoda, who is not going to let anybody else have that seat. She will not. And it's such an F you. And you know, like the, I think the exact, I think that there's resentment about having to put this woman in that chair, Chanel. I really do. Because I think they all fucking hate Hoda too. But they're letting Hoda come back on Chanel's first day in that chair. It's mine. To put her stink bomb there. Be like, it's my, don't forget me. I'm coming back for the Olympics. She'll never be me. You'll never, you'll never last. You'll never last. It's amazing. They're fighting over this chair next to Jenna Bush Hager.

1:08:13Oh my God. Who's also an idiot. Honestly, the dumbest dirt. Like, let's face it. Never has anything clever to say. I know I worked across from her for a year. There was never anything clever whatsoever. I don't know. She claims to be reading all these books. They must be very surface level books because she's learning very little. They're awful. You go into the bookstore and you see like a book with it's got the read with Jenna stamp. Like, you know, to just bypass it. That's how I feel. I just steer clear. If I see that, if I see the Reese Witherspoon, if I see Oprah, oh, hell no on the Oprah.

1:08:39Okay. And speaking of Oprah, now we've got to talk about her. This is incredible. Okay. Oprah Winfrey has decided, hold on. I need my glasses because I really do have to read this. You should get Viz, Megan. Yeah, I need Viz. I need the viz. Yeah. Yo, Doug. Okay. So here's the story. Oprah is on a book tour again. Oprah is opening up, writes USA Today or People, we got it from both, about her weight loss journey, Maureen. You don't say. She never talks about it. Never. It's like pulling teeth. She's opening up about her weight loss journey in a new book, sharing how she overcame the shame of not being able to manage my weight.

1:09:21It's called Enough, Your Health, Your Weight, and What It's Like to Be Free. Enough is a collaboration between Winfrey and Dr. Anya M. Jostiboff, an endocrinologist and professor at Yale, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay. In Enough, Winfrey recalls, quote, one of the most humiliating moments of her life when Joan Rivers asked her how she gained weight on The Tonight Show in 1985. From there, Winfrey became a running joke. Winfrey has previously credited GLP-1s for more than just weight loss. She said it's helped her strengthen her relationship with her longtime partner, Stedman. Where's Stedman?

1:09:58Where is Stedman, Maureen? Where is Stedman? We did a whole episode on this on the nerve. We're still investigating. Yeah, we don't know. We've got the little dog looking for him. I have updates. Oh, okay. So, but allegedly, allegedly Oprah has strengthened her relationship with the, we believe, missing Stedman. Winfrey, let's see, it's given her more energy and it's helped her consume less alcohol. Now, here's this. This is the best part. This is why we're doing this segment. She says, you all know, to People Magazine in December, I've been on this journey for most of my life. My highest weight was 237 pounds, which I have to say, I call bullshit in.

1:10:36I think it was higher. I don't know if there is another public person whose weight struggle has been exploited as much as mine over the years. Oh, please. Exploited? It's her narrative. It's her favorite narrative. It's her favorite moneymaker. Who is she kidding? Like, oh, mean Joan Rivers set her up for this, and then the terrible industry just kept exploiting it. I'm just going to, like, quickly toss to a soundbite of the exploitation that she seems to have forgotten about. this is what 67 pounds of fat looks like i can't yeah we're looking at a skinny oprah now when you talk about jimmy is this gross or what it is amazing to me that i can't lift it but i used to carry it around every day who were the people who exploited her maureen you know that was before a glp one existed yeah she did it she did it somehow you know oh but now the whole theory this book is obesity is a disease that happens to you.

1:11:39And all those efforts were for not, not because she doesn't have willpower, but because she has a disease that made her eat. By the way, this book is bullshit because she didn't, she didn't collaborate on it. I got the book. She wrote a forward that's like three and a half pages long. And the doc who like is kind of in her shadow at all of these, like, you know, media appearances, she wrote the actual book. Oh, no way. Oh, of course. What am I saying? Graphics. So Oprah, again, is shilling a bunch of bullshit. And you can't also posit yourself as like and as Gail will frequently remind us as America's foremost influencer.

1:12:14And like the person who moves the needle culturally and be like, Joan Rivers victimized me. You know, if you can't take Joan Rivers, you have no business being in the spotlight. Joan Rivers victimized all of us. It was a badge of honor to be made fun of by her. I like Don Rickles. Yes. She was a legend. You wanted it. She was so smart. Like, yeah. I'll never forget this one episode. She was on Fox and Friends, and I was hosting America's Newsroom with Hammer, and they said, you know, we got to go, Joan. She was the last said we were going to have Fox and Friends, so it was like a moment before I came on, and they were like, we got to go.

1:12:43And we're tossing now to Bill Hammer and Megyn Kelly. And she was like, Megyn Kelly, that bitch. I was like, I've arrived. I've arrived. It was a compliment. It's a total compliment. I don't know if I told you this, but when I was back at the New York Post, I did a phone an interview with Don Rickles once. And he got on the phone. I said, hi, this is Maureen Callahan at The Post. He goes, Maureen Callahan? He's like, where's your father right now? Falling off a bar stool somewhere? I died. I died. I mean, we're talking about the Irish now, so I believe you mean to say, talking about my dad falling off the bar stool somewhere.

1:13:16Oh, yeah, yeah. We have to slip into the dialect just like A. Martinez. Exactly. Little lassie. You know that guy on News Channel 4? This makes me think of that. His name is Gabby Acevedo. Okay, he's been doing news for New York City for like 25 years. His accent is so thick. You're like, dude, come on. It's a put on. Right. Like, you know how Anna Wintour has this mix of like a British and an American accent. Yes. You live here long enough. Oh, come on. It gets diluted, you know, but it's always like very, very thick. We're always very, you know, you're like, okay. It's an affectation. It's affectation.

1:13:49Yeah, even last night we were tracking AM Update. And I said to my producer, Julia, who I love, I'm like, Julia, because we're naming these illegals who attacked the ICE officer with a shovel. And she's got like four or five names for each one of these guys. They're from Venezuela. You know, they take the mother's last name. They take the father's last name. And they have four middle names. I'm like, they get two. Choose your best two. I don't really give a shit which ones they are. But we are certainly not bending over backwards for the illegals to get their middle name, their second middle name, their grandpa's name.

1:14:21Fucking two. That's what you get. You're in America now. Okay, so that's Oprah. And here she is. There's one more of her. What is it? It's up 35. This is her on The View on Wednesday. So this is what I wanted everybody to know, that all these years I thought I was overeating. I was standing there with all the food noise, what I ate, what I should eat, how many calories was that, how long is it going to take. I thought that that was because of me and my fault. Now I understand that if you carry the obesity gene, if that is what you have, that is what makes you overeat. You don't overeat and become obese.

1:14:58Obesity causes you to overeat. Obesity causes you to have all of that food noise. And what the GLP-1s have done for me, and I know a number of other people, is to quiet that noise. Okay, let me just, and then she adds the following. Okay, she writes, the medication helped her quiet the food noise. That relentless voice in your head urging no, demanding that you eat another cookie or chip even after you finish the whole bag or constantly distracted by trying not to eat. This is what people without obesity felt like all their lives, she writes. That's a fucking lie. That's a lie. I have not been obese my whole life, though I was a little heftier when I was younger, for sure.

1:15:50I constantly think about food, too. It's called being human. I know. It's a reward. We all love it. You eat out of boredom. Millions of Americans who have never been obese have that food conversation in their head, but they manage to say no. Some have greater self-discipline. Some are more vain. Some just find a way to channel their energy into something else. but I remember talking to Tanya Zuckerbrot who started the F-Factor Diet, which I used to follow for years. And I love Tanya Zuckerbrot. And she's got a rocket body. And she said that her number one irritant was people in her family or friends who would be like, you're so lucky.

1:16:27And she was like, luck has nothing to do with it. You don't think I want that dessert? You don't think I want those French fries? I say, no, I beat myself up to walk away from the table and it's not easy. And look, I have nothing against the GLP-1s, but I do think this like, it's a disease and I had no personal responsibility in my morbidly obese body is a cop-out. Well, I also think she's just flattening the conversation in a way that's highly irresponsible. I actually have a lot of questions about GLP-1s and I hear from people all the time who are like, my side effects were so severe, I wound up in the hospital.

1:17:07I thought I was gonna lose an organ. It means it says he thinks they're going to be recalled. I would not be surprised at all. And I think she's highly irresponsible pushing the shit. One question nobody's asking her is, hey, Oprah, you know, you had to sell all of that stake you had in Weight Watchers when you were representing them on the points system. What's your stake now in GLP-1? Yeah. You're such an evangelist for it. You're sitting here going, I got an email from a registered nurse that I read on The nerve the other day in which she said, we saw the shift. We never used to see people coming in at 400 pounds, 500 pounds, 600 pounds.

1:17:43And it started in like the nineties, two thousands. And she said, you wouldn't believe the way the patient rooms were left after these people left two liter, empty two liter bottles of Coke, just bags of like junk food. Like you're telling me Like morbid obesity somehow alights upon you. It is, her narrative is always shifting with whatever set of circumstances benefits her. I know. She saw yet another way to get herself into the news and get her face back on camera, which is the only thing that makes her happy. 100%. And she used it. All right, we've got to get to Brian Kohlberger and this IVF story.

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1:19:54Maureen Callahan, host of The Nerve with Maureen Callahan is my guest today. Okay, we have like so much goodness to get to. We just discussed during the break how we're going to have to go over today because there's too many, too many good stories. We haven't done culture in forever. We've been talking about Minnesota and Venezuela and Iran. Okay, here we are back where We belong. Crazy update in the Brian Kohlberger case. So the families of the victims have filed a lawsuit against Washington state. And my sincere apologies to all of the alums from the University of Washington, which I keep saying is the relevant university and it's not.

1:20:36And the grads of University of Washington are like, for the love of God, would you say where he actually was a teaching assistant, which was Washington state. You are right. And I was wrong. And that was loose language, which I now humbly correct and apologize for. So they have filed a lawsuit against the university claiming that the university knew Brian Kohlberger was a predator, a dangerous person to have on campus, and nevertheless, not only had him as a PhD student, but went so far as to employ him as a TA in this PhD program of criminology. And they go through the litany of complaints that were made about Brian Kohlberger by, I mean, more than a dozen female students and fellow teachers and professors within his department.

1:21:35Brian Enten went through the whole complaint of News Nation. He does a great job. And he outlined it in great detail. Excuse me. Here's some of that. Listen to Brian. In August 2022, early in the semester, a fellow graduate student began leaving her office door open because she believed this guy was going to do something inappropriate with a student and said that Koberger struck her as a stalker or sexual assaulter type. Another fellow graduate student described him as a possible future rapist. He was noted to be obsessed with studying sexually motivated burglars and serial killers. One female graduate student reported that Koberger would trap her in her office and try to talk to her about the Ted Bundy murders.

1:22:16Multiple female students and staff members were so uncomfortable with Koberger's behavior that security escorts were arranged for them after 5 p.m. One sophomore student reported that Koberger had followed her and told her bosses at WSU about the incident. In response, they told her she should not be alone with Koberger, suggested that campus security should escort her out, and commented that she was not the first to report such problems. During one of several faculty meetings where Koberger was discussed extensively, one faculty member remarked, Mark my words, I work with predators. If we give him a PhD, that's the guy that in many years, when he's a professor, we will hear is harassing, stalking, and sexually abusing his students.

1:23:01Wow. Okay. So they now are accusing Washington state of negligence and of violating title nine, which is an interesting way in. They, uh, they argued that the university loaded, located just across Idaho's border, uh, with Washington state failed to take meaningful action after receiving complaints about Kohlberger at the time, a criminology graduate student, they called the murders a foreseeable and in fact, predictable tragedy. The lawsuit claims the university received 13 formal complaints about Kohlberger's inappropriate, predatory, and menacing behavior. Just a couple of more things. Students, okay, they said he, according to the lawsuit, he repeatedly blocked exits, invaded women's personal space, followed multiple women to their vehicles to the point that they requested personal campus security escorts.

1:23:49You heard some of that. Students fled into bathrooms to hide from him. One WSU employee even advised other employees to email them with the subject line 911 if they were in a situation with Kohlberger where they felt threatened by him. WSU employees would often stay in the room where Kohlberger was meeting with students in fear of leaving them alone together. These types of predatory occurrences happened from the moment he arrived in Washington state. Maureen, this is very dark and there is a real question here. At first I was like, oh, I don't, how can you blame the university? And the more I read, the more I was like, oh my God, the university knew a lot.

1:24:28Yeah, several things. I think also Brian Enten had talked about even local businesses had a sort of alert system amongst each other about this guy. One, I think it was a local bar that had an alert because he would come in and he would speak in very sexist, misogynistic ways to the women. That, you've got at least two reports, one of like breaking and entering. It's believed he stole a young woman's underwear and perfume. And perfume, yep. Okay, and then another woman called her boyfriend and was like, there's a white car outside. He's been stalking. This guy's been stalking. Staring in her windows.

1:25:04Staring in her windows. So, you know, it sort of ties in a little bit to that clip you were playing earlier, the Megan Rapinoe, Naomi Watts clip, where why this guy wasn't removed instead of having 13 young women come and say, he's stalking me. He's following me out to my car. He broke into my apartment. This guy's got like, you know, a no fly. He's on the no fly list at the local bar. He looks crazy. It's like Nick Reiner. It's in the eyes. He looks it. Instead of removing him because they were worried about a lawsuit. Well, now you got a fucking lawsuit. Okay. Yeah. We're going to we're going to make sure that we just keep him.

1:25:47You know, we don't offend him. And girls, you know what? Call us when you want to leave for the day and wait around till somebody can walk you to your car. Are you kidding me? It was to the point where when the four students at the University of Idaho right across the way were killed, more than one of these women said, according to the lawsuit, it was him. Like he was a suspect on the minds of some of these women who knew he was a creep, who felt their exit had been blocked by him. One woman, he stared down in his class to the point where she felt so uncomfortable, she went and complained. It was described as like an act of dominance over her.

1:26:26I mean, quite clearly, misogynist doesn't cover it, but he had a deep hatred of women to the point where, I mean, Ethan Chapin was killed too, but he was just there with his girlfriend. He was out to kill women that night in that house. And they knew it. These women were saying he will be the sexual predator we're writing about years from now. And they're saying it to the university. They're saying you're teaching him how to do this. Yes. This is the criminology. How the criminology department hasn't had his doors closed permanently over there is beyond me. It is an obscenity that it exists still.

1:27:04He came in the morning after the murders or the school day after the murders. He had a slash on his face. His hands were cut up. Oh, who do you think could have done this? Are you kidding me? Yes. And these women are sitting there like, oh, my God, look at him. His face is slashed. He's got cuts on his hands. And now, by the way, that new detail, which we didn't know beforehand, does shed some light on the creepy selfies he was doing with the thumbs up in the mirror. Remember in the bathroom, he's all in white. He looks like an albino and he's like taking his photographs with his thumbs up. He's trying to get his hand on camera to make it look like it's not scratched up at all.

1:27:39But you can't see the other hand and possibly he put makeup on it. But now it makes more sense. he was trying to create some sort of weird alibi, like, I'm fine. What do you mean? There wasn't a scratch on me. And who knows what he had done to make himself look like he was fine. Brian interviewed a camp, not at, not at these universities, but a campus security expert, because every universe, most universities have experts who come on and they actually run down threat profiles of anybody on campus about whom they get a complaint. And he was talking about how his university, which went unnamed when I think he said it was a small university in California, had a ratio of about one of these campus officers who would assess threats and prediction on threat levels per every 10 students.

1:28:27So one per 10 students, which sounds manageable to me, and how the ratio at Washington State was grossly out of whack with that. It was like one per several hundred. And he was like, there's no way they could keep up with things under those levels, and then went on to offer a bunch of insights. Here's one of them. We've got two reports of a stalker, and they're both this guy. And this guy is studying and getting a graduate degree, basically getting a graduate degree in sexual assault. In the complaint, I found that the university's threat assessment team uses a protocol called the waiver 21, which is what we use.

1:29:10And it is a series of potential behaviors that you rate the person on, like has he professed violence? Is it mild, none, medium, or is it prominent? And you take all these things, you give them number values, and you finish up with a score. I went through the waiver 21 just on what I saw in the complaint. And this guy was way up there in threat potential. Yeah, that's disturbing. I did this just off a complaint. These guys had this information years ago. I'm looking at the waiver that they would have used. He had violent fantasies, preoccupation with it, stalking, menacing behavior, job problems, lack of conscience, anger problems, substance abuse, isolation, history of violence, criminality, or conflict.

1:30:08I mean, you got it. You've got to realize this person is the ticking time bomb. And not only did they have him as a student, but again, they chose to employ him and in a way forcefully subject groups of young women to him and underneath him, like he was in an authority position over them. Yes. I mean, they need to settle this case. I mean, I would, God, I would really love to know the institutional failures here. And I really would love to know, you know, I think you and I talked about this, but what makes this so, it makes me furious because women are, these things are still not taken with the seriousness with which they should be taken.

1:30:55I don't understand what more these girls and women could have done. I don't know where you go when the university's response is, we'll just get a male escort for you. Instead of saying, we're going to get rid of this guy and we're going to have him on the no-fly list and security will be all over this campus making sure he has no access anywhere. Are you, I mean, I just don't get it. No, right. That's not okay. It's not good enough. And you had the one, I think it was a professor teaching in the criminology department who was creeped out by him. It doesn't sound like he was her TA, but she made sure she, according to the complaint, it's an allegation.

1:31:26All these are allegations. The university has yet to respond. We should keep an open mind for their defense. But this professor, according to the complaint, would keep her door open because she was worried that when young women had to go visit Brian Kohlberger in his TA office, something might happen to them. And she wanted to be able to like save them. So she kept her door. I'm like, first of all, terrible, terrible position to put this professor in this female professor. But how about these young girls? Remember in college, like you had to see a TA fair amount. Getting direct access to the professor was a lot harder.

1:31:58Yes. And so they were forced to deal with this creep while at this university. And they're all talking to themselves about how they're afraid of him. And the university, according to the complaint, knew it. So I don't know, Maureen. And like, how did they wind up catching Brian Kohlberger? Well, it was because of the touch DNA, you know, that he left, he touched that knife sheath. He left that knife sheath in the murder house and they then gave it to the FBI. They found the touch DNA. They uploaded the results to private databases ultimately and found a match to his dad. And that's how they found Brian Kohlberger.

1:32:36Then they started looking through old files or complaints that they had received. And they put together that the university, sorry, that the, that Washington State University, a campus police had said there is somebody with a Hyundai between the relevant ears that matches the description of bushy eyebrows. Anyway, So they find Brian Kohlberger. Imagine if the university had said, why don't we look to see what predators we have on our campus? Let's look to see if there's anybody here who's been accused of being a serial misogynist. They would have had a file from the sound of it, you know, as big as the Webster's Dictionary.

1:33:13They could have caught him a lot sooner. I mean, the family's not exactly alleging they would have caught him sooner. They're alleging he wouldn't have been on campus to commit these crimes if the university had done its duty to protect the community by not inviting and then fostering the continuing presence of a female predator. This is why I kind of don't want the suit to be settled, because I want as much discovery as possible, because you can't tell me that there weren't people in positions to know at that university who, upon hearing of that crime, thought, holy fucking shit. It's Brian Kohlberger.

1:33:46It's Brian Kohlberger. And we ignored every single glaring, waving, enormous red flag because we were worried that he would sue us. Yeah. And now four co-eds are dead and the blood is also on our hands. And I hope that family, those families get everything they ask for. He was saying, the security expert was saying, because there is an allegation in the complaint that that is the reason they didn't do anything about it. They were worried about getting sued, that there was actually a conversation about that, that they were worried about getting sued. And yeah, it would have had to be sued by him for getting kicked off, for being accused of being a predator.

1:34:22We've seen this at other schools. sometimes you just got to take the risk of getting sued. You know, Washington State University has plenty of money. Yeah. They have plenty of money. And this is not going to be a multimillion dollar lawsuit that this guy gets. It's like, all right, you're going to have to pay probably at most a couple hundred thousand dollars. How is that not worth it? And maybe you do, but you've got 13 students and no shortage of teachers and administrators at your university and men who are forced to escort young girls to their cars because he's stalking them on their way out.

1:34:56And teacher, like half the courage, what kind of criminology department are you running? What kind of institution of higher learning is this? This, okay, so another point on this. I talked about two weeks ago, I don't know, since New Year, that interview that Brian Kohlberger's sister gave to the New York Times. And, you know, she's all like, oh, we didn't know. We just, in retrospect, we thought he was kind of autistic, but that's it. The New York Times did not ask, it appears, because they certainly did not report on any Q &A or attempt to get information on the allegations that this sister, Melissa, who gave the interview, knew that she suspected Brian of the murders and had raised it with her dad prior to him getting caught.

1:35:35That's completely glossed over, not a mention of it in the New York Times. But so all these women, pretty much anybody who came in contact with Brian Kohlberger on this campus thought he was a perverted creep sex pest. But the sister had no idea. The sister was completely clueless that he was just this sweet brother who had reformed his, you know, heroin addiction ways and was flabbergasted, just shocked, Maureen, shocked. That's what the New York Times would have us believe. I don't believe a word of it. You know, it's as we're learning, it's tangential. But as we're learning more about that, the Nick Reiner case in the house, that that was a very sick house.

1:36:14That Reiner house was a very sick house. Now we're learning he was placed in a conservatorship back in like 2020. 20, you know, that he had had violent outbursts that he had been threatening before, you know, I don't buy for a second that the sister had no idea that her brother, I would imagine that that was, that was one of those moments when a sibling leaves the nest where like a sigh of exhale of relief was like, thank God he's gone. And I didn't know until listening to your show that he had called the mother, like demanding to speak to the mother within hours and was talking to her allegedly from outside the crime scene, which he went through.

1:36:55Three hours, starting two hours after the crimes were committed from two hours after the crimes were committed, he spent three of the next five hours on the phone with his mother. You can't tell me she didn't know. She knew. That's our allegedly reportedly. Allegedly reportedly she knew. Yeah, I agree. And now, but the New York Times wants to do a whitewashing for this family. I'm not saying it's their fault. I'm just saying they know more than they're letting on. And the New York Times should not have led the sister get away with this. The New York Times should have spiked that piece. It was journalistic malpractice.

1:37:25Who's in the business of rehabilitating the Kohlberger family? Aren't we all in the business of actually getting to the bottom of what the fuck happened in the Kohlberger family? Well, you know, over at the New York Times, everybody's a victim. Yeah. Except like the ones you cannot at all defend, like the likes of Brian Kohlberger. I mean, I'm sure they probably tried eight ways to Sunday to contextualize this within the world of autism and drug addiction and, you know. They let her get away with that. Now, in retrospect, we think he was autistic. What? How dare you? And she wants to work in mental health.

1:37:53Oh, yeah. Okay, sure. If you ever walk in and see a therapist with blue hair and it's a female who's like in the mid-20s or pushing 30, you should ask whether her name has always been whatever it is and say, Was there ever a connection to the Poconos and the last name Kohlberger? All right. Now we have a couple more stories that we want to get to, including this incredible IVF story that we've got to talk about. And then we will take the time to talk about this explosive allegation against Kyrsten Sinema that has now just broken. Stand by for that. We continue this right after this break. If you are looking to make smarter choices for your health this year, consider Riverbend Ranch.

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1:39:55more. It's bold, no BS news only on the Megan Kelly channel, Sirius XM 111 and on the Sirius XM app.

1:40:07My guest today is Maureen Callahan, host of The Nerve with Maureen Callahan. Check it out. Go to wherever you get your podcasts and just type in The Nerve. It'll come up. Check her out on YouTube. And thanks to all of you for joining us for this discussion. All right. I want to kick it off here with Kyrsten Sinema, one time Democrat, then turned independent. Then she left the Senate because of bullying altogether. I was actually reliably informed by a very prominent U.S. Senator that the Democrats, once she went independent, would make her sit alone. Like there's a little area in the Senate where they sit and they eat lunch.

1:40:41Oh my God. Yes. No one would sit by her. It's ridiculous. But she's in the news for not such great behavior. uh, alleged behavior. She's being sued by the ex-wife of Sinema's bodyguard. And this woman is accusing her of having an affair and basically stealing this woman's husband, who was Sinema's bodyguard. Former independent Democrat, uh, Senator, they're saying, let's say, okay. Accused of having a relationship with her bodyguard when she was in office. The lawsuit, followed by Heather Amel, A-M-M-E-L, claims Sinema engaged in an intentional and malicious interference in Amel's marriage to Matthew Amel, an Armory veteran who began working on Sinema's security detail in 2022.

1:41:30By January 2024, Heather Amel found that her husband was receiving signal messages from Sinema that were of a romantic and lascivious nature. She originally filed suit in North Carolina state court. Sinema removed it into federal court in North Carolina because North Carolina has a cause of action, not every state does, called alienation of affection, where you can potentially get punitive damages. It gives a spouse legal grounds to sue a third party for interference in a marriage. Here are the elements of the claim. The elements are that the plaintiff and their spouse were happily married and that a genuine love and affection existed between them.

1:42:17Two, that the love and affection so existing was alienated and destroyed. And three, that the wrongful and malicious acts of the defendant produced and brought about the loss and alienation of such love and affection. Now, this actually seems tough to me because you got to prove that the affair partner ruined a previously loving, happy marriage. And typically, if somebody is straying from their marriage, it's really not that happy a marriage. Exactly. So we'll see. But it's at least a claim that you could bring. And they are saying, oh, by the way, they point out that this is from Law 360. there was a case in North Carolina involving someone named Brene Canard and a state court jury ordered Canard, a TikTok star to pay 1.75 million to Akira Montague who said Canard broke up her marriage.

1:43:10In 2011, Betty Devin was ordered to pay 30 million to Carol per year, the ex-wife of a man who at the time owned a trucking company. So they're not kidding around in North Carolina. Like if you get in front of one of these North Carolina juries, which again, that's why Kyrsten Sinema removed it to federal court. It doesn't tend to go well. OK, so it's kind of scary. OK, anyway, the wife is seeking damages for her alleged lengthy sexual conversations with her husband and coordination of trysts around the globe, all of which led to their divorce. And I'll just give you one other thing. A couple of details from the complaint.

1:43:49The wife, Heather, claimed she found cinema wrapped in a towel and texts, I guess, pictures of cinema wrapped in a towel and texts between them, in which cinema called the idea of having missionary sex, quote, boring. Said she, cinema and Matthew frequently attended concerts together, and she encouraged him to bring MDMA on Senate-related travel so that she could, quote, guide him through a psychedelic experience for the lawsuit. I mean, at concerts together, hello, Coldplay. Sinema eventually began paying for psychedelic treatments for Matthew for his PTSD from his military service. She also purchased him a Theragun so she could, quote, work on his back.

1:44:28This is all according to the lawsuit. We'll see how Sinema responds on the merits. Their public displays of affection were so frequent that Amel allegedly stopped wearing his wedding ring so it wouldn't look like Sinema was putting her hands all over a married man while they were at their concerts. Heather Amel confronted her husband in October of 2024. she texted Sinema on her husband's phone. Are you having an affair with my husband? You took a married man away from his family. The two separated later that year. Heather Amell's complaint centers on allegedly lascivious behavior, but she includes instances like accompanying her husband, she did, and Sinema to a Taylor Swift concert and to Las Vegas.

1:45:05Sinema and Matthew Amell's relationship is ongoing. According to Heather, they're still at it. And so your thoughts on whether this should be something you can sue over. And just on the thought of a sitting U.S. senator getting it on with her married bodyguard. Oh, worse has happened. I don't know. It's not a deal. Bill Clinton. Yeah, yeah. Epstein. Yeah. So I have several thoughts. Okay, so I read this whole complaint. You know, I love a legal document. The thing about the missionary sex is so funny. There's actually another detail in there that like she was talking about missionary sex with the lights on as being boring.

1:45:47Oh, wow. Yeah. I mean, any sex with the lights on is not boring. And then, so I noticed the original two, they were women who were successfully sued for alienation. Where are the men in this? Yeah. Okay, the married person in this scenario is the one at fault. Yeah, the one who broke the vow. He broke the vow to you. He betrayed the vows of your marriage. He's the problem. Where's his agency? Misdirected anger. You know what I mean? Like I'm going to go after her and think about that because do you really, really want your dirty laundry made public? They have two young kids. You know, what struck me as really vile, I mean, Kirsten Sinema, Kristen Sinema, however you say it, she, according to this filing, when Heather was in mediation with her husband to separate the marriage, she sat in the driveway.

1:46:41She sat in the parking lot while they were in there. Pearson Sinema did? Yeah. Oh, that's weird. Working it out. And then I think when he was like, he was moving out or he was coming to get one of the kids at the home, she sat in the car in a cul-de-sac. Again, she's really inserting herself there. Like they took one of the children out to like, you know, do something together. That's really fucked up and it's vile. But I don't think, I mean, if you could sue for alienation of affection, like as a federal law, the course would be clogged. Nothing would ever get done. I mean, let's be adults here.

1:47:14I have to say, though, the thought of sharing children with someone and then having the marriage breakup because of an affair, and then having to see your husband's affair partner with your children. It's awful. Like at Christmas or Thanksgiving or a birthday is infuriating. I cannot imagine the anger that someone would feel. I know. I think if you could have a lawsuit, I think I can understand how people would lash out with whatever they could. Listen, I think if she's going to sue, ask for more than 25K. You know what I mean? Well, no. So in order to get into federal court, there has to be a dispute worth at least$50 ,000.

1:47:57Oh. Actually, I think it's now$75 ,000. so yeah that's she has to allege that those are the minimum damages okay um we have one picture of matthew ml my team is telling me it's a little weird it shows him at a hearing and it shows cinema looking at him that's cinema with her darker hair this is the guy with the beard this guy they're fighting over this guy he's kind of a schlub according to the new york post that's him all right uh like ladies this is not worth the fight i mean i feel like really not whether Whether she may have done you a favor, you should just. Consider it. Yeah. Consider it.

1:48:31She did you a favor that you want that guy back. I mean, it's sort of the nature of a marriage that has an affair that it's probably over. You know what I mean? Like whether you knew it was over prior to the affair. Yeah. It's probably over. Yeah. So it's like, I'm not actually saying she did her a favor, but in a way a favor was done. I'll just put it. And to your point, like the beginning of that motion, you know, she says this was a happy, loving, emotionally fulfilling, well, maybe to her or delusion it was, but maybe to him it wasn't. You know, I don't know how you prove what goes on in the human heart.

1:49:10I think you'd have to have a scenario where like it was indisputably loving and happy, at least according to every witness around and texts and notes and like objective behaviors you could point to. And then you'd have to show, I think in my mind, the best like scenario for this lawsuit would be a woman who was conniving to steal your husband, which does happen. There are definitely husband stealers out there who are like, I want him. And, you know, like Jolene, she could have taken anyone's husband from the Dolly Parton song. How does the song end? Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene. Yeah, she does.

1:49:48But I'm just saying, she could have had anybody at the point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I know what you're saying. And really all Dolly could do is beg Jolene not to set her sights on her man. Okay. But so think about this, Diana and Camilla, right? Charles, Diana, Camilla. Yes. And Diana's the gorgeous young, has everything going for her. And Camilla is sort of the more homely, you know, whatever. And Camilla won, you know, like Charles was healable. He was never in love with Diana. That's what I mean. Like, short of like a minority report level where like they can get in your brain and your heart and your gut, how do they ever prove?

1:50:27I guess it would have to come down to whether the woman who steals the husband is a conniving bitch. Like if there's evidence, she's like, I'm getting him, you know, like somehow I'm getting sort of what Meghan Markle did to Harry. But in this scenario, Harry would be married. But don't you think Harry's already paying that price? Like I just think, let it happen. Go, go and let it all happen. It all sorts itself out. So just a quick diversion on those two. She's in the news today. Hold on. Because she, hold on. This is an exclusive from Rob Shooter, who appears on The Nerve and his sub stack.

1:51:01Meghan Markle's planning her first return to Britain in four years, but insiders say it will only happen if her strict personal conditions are met. She's expected to join Prince Harry at the one-year countdown for the 2027 Invictus Games in Birmingham this July, but only on her terms. According to his source, she wants four kind of four floors of the Hyatt completely shut down just for her. Extra security outside. Staff not allowed to look at her. She's in total control. Another insider adds anyone who has any interactions with her has to call her her royal highness, the Duchess of Sussex. No exceptions.

1:51:33I totally believe that. Security arrangements are said to include 24-7 drivers, a fleet of luxury cars and a police escort from the airport to the hotel. This is not just protection. She's asking for a fortress. Bulletproof glass at the games, armed security everywhere she goes. She is also flying her own chef, assistant, hair and makeup team, and four separate rooms for her PR staff alone. Nothing will be left to chance. Who travels with their chef? I mean, that's next level. And bulletproof glass, of course, because she really thinks that people are much more focused on her than they are. I'm sorry, I believe every word.

1:52:10I believe every word of that. I do as well. And I think that means that this trip is going to go really well for her. She's really going to convince those Brits that she's a changed woman and they should really love her. She's no longer drunk on her own wine. She's humbled herself. She's a woman of the people. Yeah. I love the HRH detail because she's not allowed to use it. The queen, that was, that was the, I don't know if it was memorialized in writing, but that was part of the deal of Megxit. HRH off the table. She can use the Duchess of Sussex, but she's not supposed to use HRH. Right. Whatever.

1:52:43I feel like people are over her. Don't you think? She's like, they're over this bitch. I do, but I feel, to your point, like, it's a dig. It's further aggression against William and Catherine. Oh, you say we can't use the HRH? Guess what? I'm going to use it. I'm just doing it. You can't control me. Yeah. F you. You know, it's so, everything about this woman is aggression. It's just insufferable. She's petty. She's a petty person. She's a miserable person. Yeah. And the title, my God. She's the kind of person who would pay to get a Golden Globe. Absolutely. All right. Now we've got to move on to the story that I have been dying to do.

1:53:15Like an hour before airtime, I was like, Maureen, we've got to talk about this. And we've both now gotten up to speed. So about, it was like November of 2024. Hold on. I actually have it right in front of me. Yeah. November of 2024, the New York Times dropped this piece. But today, January 16th, 2026, they dropped the podcast with live interviews. Well, not live interview, but on tape interviews of the parents involved. and it is a riveting piece of work. I highly recommend everybody listen to today's The Daily. It was an excellent episode. And it is an episode about two parents whose names are, hold on, Daphna and Alexander, who goes by Xander.

1:54:00They're married to each other. And they were trying to conceive a baby. They already had one daughter. And they went to the IVF clinic because I think the mom was in her 40s, needed help. and she conceived another child. She gave birth to the child, a girl. And they did notice shortly after the baby was born that the baby did not look like them. They are, the mother is, I think, they said she has red hair or she comes from like a long line of redheads and her hair's more like light brownish red and the husband's more fair too. Their skin seems very fair. And their baby, it would come to look more so over the first three months, looked darker skinned and looked Asian.

1:54:45And, you know, dark skinned Asian is not something a Maureen Callahan or a Megyn Kelly could produce if we're married to guys who look anything like us. So they started to get a little nervous as I think any IVF parent would, because let's face it, it's not like having a baby naturally. We're like, you know damn well who fathered your child. Um, so they were getting nervous and eventually they did decide to do a parent test, like a genetic test where they sent in for results and they sent their baby's like cheek swab in. Then think of it like, what a scary thing to do? Because like, what if the outcome is not what you want?

1:55:30Then, then what, what are you going to do next? I think a lot of parents would just like, never ask, but they felt like they had to. They felt like, what if this is not our child and we've effectively stolen somebody else's child without any fault of our own? And also what if the child we conceived in a Petri dish, we all know that's how IVF is done, is out there being raised by someone else. So they sent the cheek swabs into this company that will run the tests. And the mother talks about how she called and said, when am I getting the results? And they were like, oh, you know, we have them, but you'll get them sometime next week.

1:56:12And the mother's like, please don't do that to me. And the woman was like, we'll have them to you in an hour. And somehow they got like an envelope to them. Maybe it was just an email. I don't know. But here is that piece of the daily podcast. Listen.

1:56:30So I open it up. it's a jumble of words and numbers at first there's two pdfs i lock in on one for the you know father one for the mother so i open up the father one and i'm going through the numbers and i'm going through the letters and the words and i'm trying to make sense of it and then at the bottom there it is 99.9 positive that the subject is not the father and your reaction was really quick it was just like what about me what about me yeah i'm in full panic mode i'm like pacing with the baby You're holding her and you're like, okay, well, what about me? Let's click on the other attachment for the mother.

1:57:06Then he has a big, long sigh without any words. Yeah, and it said 99.9 % chance you're not the mother.

1:57:20Neither one of them is the genetic parent of Maymay. She's not the biological mom. He's not the biological dad. And this beautiful baby who has made their lives so whole and feels so complete and has brought them so much joy is really, in a sense, a genetic stranger. oh maureen it was you know i i i couldn't understand how the mother in particular was so composed in retelling the story because i think your mind could go to some very dark places like if the embryo wasn't accidentally destroyed if it's not sitting in a freezer it's been implanted in someone else and who are these people and where is my baby?

1:58:12Yes. And I think the very first thought I would have, which would be someone's going to take my baby, like my baby that I carried and I birthed and I use Sarah Jessica Parker's favorite word. And that I've been raising and nursing for three months. They've had this baby. Someone's, I'm going to lose this baby. I'm going to have to give this baby to somebody because it turns out she's not mine. And the thought of that for any mother would be totally devastating. You know, I know it's a shorter episode, but I wish they had touched on this now that you bring it up. She did give birth to that child.

1:58:52She carried that child for nine months, 10 months, gave birth to it, nursed it, stayed up with it all night. You know, that child was hers in so many ways. That child was hers. And when you get to the point where they figure out what's happened and the grief that comes along with knowing, even though they knew evolution kicks in, this is not our child, but this is our child. I mean, it's the same as an adoptive mom and dad 100 % feel that this is their child. They know biologically it's not their child, But every adoptive parent I know says, you lose that very soon after you get that child. Like there's a little bit in the beginning, like, okay, this is not ours genetically, but very soon after it's forgotten.

1:59:41This is your child. And also knowing for this baby, you are the only mother. Yes. And you know in your heart, you are going to be torn apart from this child. Like this child's going to lose the only mother it's ever known. It's so devastating. Honestly, I listened to this episode several times I teared up and I have to give credit to the New York Times. They did a great job with the storytelling. And then, so now they know and they hire a lawyer who contacts the fertility clinic to say, oh my God, you know, you implanted someone else's baby in Daphna. and the fertility clinic goes back and checks its records and figures out what other transplants, transfers, they call them, when they put the embryo inside of you.

2:00:36We're done that day, and they do figure out whose baby this is. And now the question is, okay, we found, they call their daughter Maymay, we found Maymay's real parents, her biological parents. where's our embryo? Because we fertilized an embryo too. Did it not take? Because you can fertilize an embryo and it can not take. I mean, for lack of a better term, it kind of melts or it has enough genetic defects that it doesn't work out. Or you discarded it accidentally? Or did you put it in Maymay's biological mom? Which is what happened. So Maymay's biological mom, who is Asian, I think, no, no, she's Latina and Maymay's biological dad is Asian.

2:01:29So indeed, the baby that they're raising as Maymay looks Latina and Asian because she is. They've been raising a white, you know, fair, I don't know if she had red hair, but like obviously much more light skinned and light haired baby, who's a lot larger too than little Maymay. They've been calling their baby Zoe. And it turns out they had similar worries about their baby. Because they too realized that this is a picture of Zoe, who doesn't look Asian or Latina. I know, but as sweet as they come. And they had this worry in the back of their heads, but they, unlike the first couple, had not done anything about it.

2:02:15I'm sure they were living in fear. The babies were only about a month or two old, right? I think they were three months old. When they began, okay. Yeah. But they didn't have to go through the hellacious period that Daphna and Xander had to go through because they did not do genetic testing. They just got a call one day from the fertility clinic saying, oh my God. I mean, they had a terrible dose of news, but they didn't have like the anticipatory period that Daphna and Xander did. They got the call saying, your baby's not your genetic baby. You do have a biological child. It was implanted in Daphna, who now would like her baby back and would like to give you her baby.

2:02:55Although it wasn't really clear what the remedy was gonna be. I don't know, the clinic didn't actually say that, but it was just like, hey, FYI, made a mistake, take care. And then they talk about how things would go down. Like they decided to meet the four parents with the babies. Trying to remember the second thought that we have, Deb. Is it from the meeting? Stand by. Hold on. It's.

2:03:28Okay, let's hear about, let's hear it. Here's a second sound bite from the daily. so we have some information we found the lab has found her parents they think they know who her parents are they are pretty sure they have identified who may may's biological parents are wow now that couple also is raising a young girl who is the same age as may may we don't know if that's another embryo of theirs, if that is your embryo, if that is someone else's embryo, we don't know anything about that other baby. But we are pretty sure that this is May's parents. So it turned out to be the case that their child, Zoe, was being raised by, the Latina mom is going by Annie for purposes of the story, and the dad, I think, is unnamed.

2:04:26So Annie, who's Latina, is raising Zoe, but Zoe's not hers. Daphna, who's the fair-skinned redhead, is raising Maymay, who's not hers. And now they have to decide what to do. And they say this. Listen, this is in the article that was written up back in November of 24. On the last day of the year, Daphna and Alexander stood in their living room waiting to meet Zoe, their biological baby, for the first time. They could hear her crying as Annie and her husband approached their front door. The sound was eerily like Olivia's cry because Daphna and Alexander have an older sister named Olivia, you know, a first child.

2:05:03The sound was eerily like Olivia's cry at that age as if emerging from a time capsule. Listening to it crystallized everything Daphna and Alexander had been feeling for the past two weeks, that there was a child out there in the world so close, but whom they couldn't see or hold her comfort. They lived 10 minutes away from each other. Daphna bounced Maymay in her arms as they waited for the doorbell to ring. Alexandra swore a nervous curse and May stared at him, a look of consternation on her face, reaching for her father with her tiny hand. Both couples had made other plans that day for their older children because little Zoe had an older sister too.

2:05:40Their parents knew it would be hard enough to manage their own emotions without having to manage the siblings too. The bell finally rang and then Annie was inside, smiling at the baby in Daphna's arms, reaching for her. I'm sorry, she said, weeping, her breath ragged. She kissed May's cheek twice, this is the baby she's been raising that isn't hers, and buried her face in the crook of the baby's neck. She sat down on the couch, her backpack still on. How are you? How are you? She asked, holding May in her lap so she could marvel at her face through tears. So this is, let me correct myself, this is Annie meeting her own biological daughter for the first time.

2:06:21then they talk about about Daphna holding her baby who's Zoe for the first time she was shocked by how different Zoe felt how big Zoe was compared to May she realized that none of the clothing she had bought for this daughter would fit soon the husbands were holding the babies both mother mother's gazes veered from the sight of their own child and someone else's arms think of this moms out there. It's your baby. You've raised the baby. You carried the baby. You gave birth to the baby. You've been nursing the baby for three months. Now another woman is holding your baby and you're going to have to give this baby up.

2:06:57You are not going to be able to keep this baby. It's so fucking devastating. Veered from the sight of their own child and someone else's arms to the sight of the other child in their husband's arms. Each was doing the best she could to let the other mother have all the psychic space she needed with her daughter. For almost two weeks, the families visited every other day, sometimes at Daphna's house, sometimes at Annie's house. Often the two mothers did what Alexander came to think of as the mama dance. Each would go to change a child's diaper, then step back for a moment. Is it okay if I, like I'm getting emotional, I'm thinking about this.

2:07:30Can you imagine like asking for permission if you could change your own baby's diaper because you didn't know your baby because somebody else carried it. Would you rather that you? They had endless tiny details to discuss. Does she use a binky? How long does she nap? Do you hold her until she falls asleep and then put her down or just put her down? What's her favorite bedtime music? How much did she weigh? The couples were inventing a new kind of relationship as they went. And it was far from a given that the transition would go smoothly. Um, then they write this on January 16th, the families each had their babies January 16th, which is two years ago.

2:08:05I think exactly. I think this was, yeah, the families each held their babies overnight for the first time. And Daphna started to feel the connection she'd been longing to feel. When she gave Zoe, again, this is her biological childhood, she's just getting to know, a bath before bedtime, she took her daughter in her arms, inhaled the scent of her head, felt her soft downy hair. Somehow she smelled like home, like their towels, like their shampoo, maybe even their pheromones. Daphna couldn't help thinking of May, 10 minutes away, now at Annie's and her husband's home. May seemed farther along developmentally than Zoe and Daphna worried that the change would be harder for her.

2:08:45You know, worried that like her May May is going to know she's been switched. That night, in fact, May over at Annie's house was crying inconsolably. Annie was distraught that she could not comfort her, her heart breaking for a baby she already loved, but who was sobbing she was sure for a mother Annie could not possibly be at that moment. Oh my God. This is so heartbreaking. Ultimately, they wind up thinking that they're just going to switch the babies and they're going to have to go cold turkey because it's just too hard on the families to do this half in half out thing. And they try that and it doesn't work.

2:09:30The mothers miss the babies and they wind up coming up with like a way to live. It was around COVID, almost like on a family compound or in a way that's very integrated. And like they, Annie allows her child, her biological child to call Daphna Mama D. And they find a way to keep the relationship alive for both parents with the daughter that is not actually theirs, which like is a, is a relief somehow. I mean, like as a mother, I'm just like, oh my, thank God. Cause you like, it just raises the question. What is motherhood? Like what is parenthood? You know, is it, you'd want your biological child back.

2:10:17There's no question you'd want your biological child, but who is the mother of the little baby at three months in? Is it that other mother 10 minutes away who's got the biological claim or is it you who carried the baby, gave birth to the baby, have been nursing the baby and love the baby and the baby loves you? What is parenthood? And Aureen, I have to tell you, it made me think about surrogacy for like gay men. This has become more and more controversial. And I have lots of gay men friends in my life who've used surrogates to have babies. And I have celebrated with them and sent them baby gifts.

2:10:58And I never really gave a lot of thought to what it was doing to a baby to take it away from its biological mother. I mean, the surrogate carries the child. Sometimes the surrogate is the biological mother and it's her eggs. And sometimes it's not. Sometimes they use a donor egg and you just find a surrogate who will carry the baby. But you think about the baby who gets taken out of the mother, like the one who birthed it, her arms and given to two people who are strangers to the baby. I don't know. I love my gay friends too much to weigh in negatively on it. You know what I mean? It's too painful for me to think of, what if one of my sons ever turned out to be gay?

2:11:41They're not gay. I already know they're straight. But would I be okay with them just never having children. And I know people in the Catholic faith and the Christian faith feel very strongly about this, that it's deeply immoral and wrong. But anyway, the whole thing just raises so many questions about IVF, which I'm also biased on because I use. I know my kids are mine. Raises questions about surrogacy. Raises questions about messing with God's will. And then just raises questions about whether these fertility clinics need to be much, much better regulated because the lawyer in the piece points out that they say, um, he's, they did file a lawsuit against the clinic for medical malpractice negligence and breach of contract.

2:12:20I don't know where it landed, but this lawyer who specializes in these claims says, um, while he's encountered fewer than 10 cases in which an embryo was transferred to the wrong woman, which is, what do you mean? Like how many more are there? Okay. You've encountered fewer than 10. That but he believes that the public becomes aware of only a fraction of the errors that occur in these labs. And he points out that they're under-regulated relative to most medical procedures, or says, this is what a law professor says in the piece. And also they point out that the reason it was uncovered here is because the race of the children was different.

2:12:57Exactly. Exactly. That was my point. That was exactly what I was going to say. You're definitely right. They need to be regulated with far more scrutiny. I believe there's been at least one case of a fertility clinic where the actual physician running it was replacing the sperm with his sperm. With his own. You know? Yeah. There's that. I'm pro-surrogacy for whoever wants it. I think it is complicated. It is emotionally painful. It's not easy. I think when all parties go into it willingly and know that, you know, heartbreak is there, yes. But also for people who are so desperate to have a child, and this is their only recourse, and there are angels among us who do it.

2:13:47And you know what I learned recently? Often women who are surrogates tend to get pregnant in their own relationships shortly thereafter. Oh, interesting. Yeah. It's the experiences. I don't know if it's a replacement. That might be the incorrect word, but it has created a sort of a need to have a baby. I actually found this story at One of Hope, and I found it actually quite heartwarming because the way they build the story, and you're with these people, but Daphna and Xander in particular, because the other family doesn't really talk, the agony. There's a moment where Daphna talks about she's got Zoe back, and Maymay's 10 minutes away, but she would keep it together during the day.

2:14:35And then she would go into the shower and she would weep. And her husband describes the sounds as like a wounded animal. Like weaning. Yeah. And that at some point she had like a moment where she said to herself, I have to be there for Zoe, you know, because Zoe got very, Zoe started crying when Daphna left the house for a minute to throw the trash out. And she came back and Zoe was hysterical and she was like, that's it. But that they, like every person in the story seems like a wonderful person. They do. They seem like really good people. They came together. The mothers each, it could have, one of the mothers could have been like, you know, completely acrimonious, bitter.

2:15:10I'm not giving you any access to this kid. It's mine. You know, all of those horrible thoughts. And instead these girls will grow up knowing each other. They said they're like sisters now. Yes. And it's such a wonderful, beautiful, it's like the best of humanity. It's the best possible outcome It could be under the circumstances. Yeah, I mean, they were very lucky. Here's a picture of the two girls for the listening audience. It just shows a girl with blonde hair on the left and a girl with darker hair on the right playing with a little doll setter. Barbie said, I can't quite make it out from the pic from here.

2:15:42But in a way, it's like, God forbid they had found out that their biological daughter, that her embryo had been lost. I know. Right? Like, and they just had to give up their baby. Yeah. And not have a baby. Yeah. You know, that's the worst case scenario, I'm sure, for the parents when they find out they're not the biological parents. Now they're asking what happened to our embryo. There had to be that period where they're like, oh, my God. Oh, definitely. We could have nothing. We could have no daughter. But there's something in them that just wanted to know. You know, they talk about, like, pulling the trigger to get the genetic test done.

2:16:25And, you know, to your point about like this raising questions about surrogacy and technology and reproduction, long before surrogacy was a thing and were similar ages. So you probably remember it. I think it was a tri-state story. I think it was in New York, a New Jersey woman. Remember it was like. Switched at birth. Well, there were switched at birth stories. That was the greatest story ever told. I mean, it was terrible, but like most riveting. Yeah. No, the switched at birth stories that happens in hospitals, too, where, you know, parents get go home and like, you know, a week later, they're like, this doesn't feel right.

2:16:53but they're like gaslighting themselves because how could that happen? You know? And one of the very first surrogacy stories, I think, in America was the surrogate Mary Jo who was like, I want the baby back. Oh, God. Remember? Oh, my God, yes. And it was like this long, protracted lawsuit, and it went to like ideas of should we federalize this? Should we outlaw it? Like is this what's going on? You know, but humans want families. They want babies. And, you know, everything's imperfect. but I actually really did find this story beautiful. I can't get over the thought of, and anybody who's ever had a child is thinking of this too, like three months in, you're totally bonded to this child.

2:17:35Three months is when they really start smiling and becoming much more interactive and less of like a blob that you love, but it's not as interactive with you. And so that's when you truly, you're falling in love with your child. I mean, deeply in love with your child. and like, you've got to give it away. And then I just don't know when you get a child given to you, you know, sort of in return, that's yours biologically. Do you love it instantly? Or do you have to start a new falling in love with that child? Because the child you love that you are in love with is out of your house and now is going to be calling someone else mother and mama.

2:18:12And like, when she cries in the night, you won't be there. You have to rely on another mother's generous, loving nature, which you believe in. They both say that they, these moms fell in love with each other too. But like the thought that I bet you, she did wail like an animal in the shower because I'll bet it took a while to, to fall in love. It's just called being human with the new baby who is yours biologically, but like, I don't think you just fall in love immediately. No, I don't think so either. And I think it also goes to, you know, in some ways this is like, I think this story is so illuminating because even mothers who give birth biologically to their own child conceived naturally, people don't talk about it because there's stigma around it, whether it's postpartum or whether it's something else.

2:18:58Sometimes it doesn't click in right away. Yeah, sometimes it takes them a while. And you're made to feel like you're a freak. What do you mean you don't love your infant instantly, your newborn instantly? And it just goes to how complicated love is and maternal love. And I just, her mourning this baby while she's got her own biological baby who she's having trouble bonding with and who she's probably worried she's failing in some way. And is she going to imprint on this baby some sort of, you know what I mean? Yes. And then you look at that photo and they have, they actually like, they have a sibling they never would have had before.

2:19:35Well, I really hope that those girls are playing with the greatest Barbie set known to mankind because their parents got ideally an eight-figure settlement from the IVF clinic. I mean, the negligence in this field is completely unacceptable. It just cannot happen. There are certain fields in which there just cannot be negligence or medical malpractice. It's just a hard no because there are real lives at stake. And, you know, you are playing God. You are. And I say this, yeah, with some judgment, but it's not like I'm condemning IVF. I'm a big fan of it because I used it myself and I wouldn't have my kids without it.

2:20:12So I don't know. I'm sure it's raising a lot for a lot of people listening. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. You can email me, megan at megankelly.com. I always pause because I always almost give out my actual personal email. No offense to you, members of the audience, but like that would be overwhelming if we filled up that one with the show emails. Anyway, I would love to hear from you. And also Maureen, what's your email? Maureen at devilmaycaremedia.com. Yeah. All right. Listen, what a Friday show. Thank you all so much for listening. This has been a long one and a great one. I needed this one, Maureen.

2:20:46It feels very cathartic, doesn't it? I love you so much. It's great to see you. I love you too. God, everybody have a great weekend. Thanks to you all for joining us. And we'll see you on Monday. Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda and no fear.