Return to Transcripts main page

Smerconish

DOJ Releases Epstein Files, Including Photos & Court Docs; U.K. Police Arrest People Who Chant "Globalize The Intifada". Study: Rising Online Connectivity May Be Driving Division. Aired 9-10a ET

Aired December 20, 2025 - 09:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:00:33]

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN ANCHOR: An unsatisfying but predictable ending. I'm Michael Smerconish in the Philly burbs. That's my takeaway after yesterday's release of a batch of the so called Epstein files. The Department of Justice production of more than 100,000 pages it came one month after President Trump signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act. That, of course was passed after initial Republican opposition.

The vote was ultimately 427 to one in the House and then unanimous consent in the Senate. It was a mammoth task to be performed in 30 days and not everything was produced on time. More documents are still to be released, causing Republican Representative Thomas Massie to say the release grossly fails to comply with the law. And Democratic Representative Ro Khanna said there's already talk in the House of impeaching President Trump.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said to Congress in a letter that more than 200 DOJ lawyers work to identify those materials responsive to the act and that they reviewed the following, the 2018 FBI New York investigative file for child sex trafficking, the 2019 Maxwell criminal case, the FBI Miami investigative file for the 2006 Epstein criminal case for child prostitution, the FBI Miami investigative file for the 2009 Alfredo Rodriguez criminal case for obstruction, the FBI investigative file for 2019 Epstein's death, and the FBI New York investigative file for a threat made against one of Epstein's victims. The documents contain reference 1,200 victims or their relatives according to Blanche, who further told Congress this review did not reveal credible evidence that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals, nor did it uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.

Perhaps unsurprising in our visual social media world, it was the photographs of celebrities that garnered much of the initial attention, Bill Clinton, Michael Jackson, Mick Jagger, Diana Ross, President Trump too, in many photographs that had already been made public. Notably, the documents included a 1996 complaint, a decade before Epstein's initial prosecution, made by Maria Farmer, noting Epstein's interest in child pornography. Still, nobody seems happy with the result. Yesterday's documents were heavily redacted. Jay Clayton is the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. According to the New York Times, he wrote a letter to the judges overseeing the Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell cases and said, quote, "There were challenges and tensions in the redaction process of the documents released on Friday and that any such review of this size and scope is vulnerable to machine error, instances of human error, insufficient information about a victim, and the possibility the media or others will piece together information to identify a victim."

Friday's document dump came on top of other recent revelations. You'll remember on December 3rd, Democrats on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee released pictures from Epstein's private island that showed a variety of rooms and items found throughout the island. And then on December 12, the House Democrats released 89 images, which included photos of sex toys and bondage gear and, separately, snapshots of Epstein with big names like Trump and Clinton. On December 18, the same group of lawmakers dropped another batch of images, including some with foreign passports sans identifying information and phrases from the book "Lolita" written on parts of a woman's body.

Nothing produced so far has resulted in any new criminal probes. And despite the hopes and expectations of many, that seems unlikely to change. The case is too big, too old, too traumatic, and too legally constrained to ever deliver the kind of Hollywood ending that many desire. Liam Neeson was never coming to achieve vengeance in this instance.

When you're dealing with 1,200 victims, multiple investigations spanning decades, a dead defendant, and mountains of evidence that must be weighed against the privacy rights of people who may have crossed paths with Epstein without committing a crime, and above all else, the interests and protection of minors, transparency has its limits. Real justice doesn't look like a perp walk or a neat list of names. It looks like redactions and delays, imperfect disclosure and frustration. We should, of course, continue to demand further disclosure and accountability. But this is a case where full disclosure, clean resolution, and universal satisfaction were never really on the table.

[09:05:03]

Not because the government doesn't care, but because the law, the facts, and the human cost make that kind of ending impossible.

It all brings me to today's poll question at smerconish.com, will the release of the Epstein files result in new criminal charges? Joining me now is former federal prosecutor and senior writer for Politico, Ankush Khardori. His most recent piece, "Five Rules for Reading the Epstein Files."

Ankush, let's run through them. Your five rules for reading the Epstein files, don't read the files. Kind of curious. Understand what kinds of documents you are reading. Remember, sleazy behavior isn't criminal.

Be skeptical of early releases and ask yourself, where's Trump? What stands out most to you the morning after the release?

ANKUSH KHARDORI, SENIOR WRITER, POLITICO MAGAZINE: Well, it's that last bit, where is Trump? But I also, with respect to the very first one, don't read the files, that was really directed more at the sort of average American. And my encouragement to them is to let media outlets sort through this and try to contextualize it for them rather than to go rifling around in raw material themselves for the reasons that you really kind of hit on already. But the thing that really stands out to me is where is Trump in these documents? You know, we know that he is in this material from Susie Wiles and from prior reporting.

There seems to be some body of material that he's been very concerned about becoming public all year long, whether it pertains to him or someone else. On top of that, he has made very clear publicly in his statements to Attorney General Pam Bondi that he will not be within the scope of any sort of ongoing criminal investigation related to Epstein. So the Justice Department does not have the excuse to say that they can't release the material related to Trump because it would impede some sort of ongoing investigation. So that is the thing that really, really sticks out. I mean, we are still waiting to see that material, I think.

SMERCONISH: So my experience last night, of course, I was -- I was waiting to take a look at what the documents consisted of and the accessibility, so immediately my first search was Trump. I'll put it up on the screen. Here's what it yielded. It was reminiscent of the Affordable Care Act when the ACA first came online and there were glitches, it showed me no results. It showed no results for any number of people that I put into the search engine.

This morning before coming on air, I put Trump's name in again. Here's the result of that, 625 different entries and I -- I perused a bunch of them before coming on air.

Let me stick with this theme as a matter of fact, the mechanics of the website. I'm going to scroll through what you get when you go to DOJ. So there's that search function initially where you can put terms into the entire lab -- into the entire search function, and then thereafter you'll see that you get court records, DOJ disclosures, the Freedom of Information Act and the House Oversight Committee.

Ankush, you're a former federal prosecutor. This was a mammoth task. I know we're all frustrated with the level of redactions and the complexity of the site, but it was not an easy task for them to achieve in 30 days. I think that needs to get said, right?

KHARDORI: Yes. You know that -- yes, I agree with that, actually. I'm a little less, you know, upset about the fact that there's going to be a rolling production than I think a lot of people are.

But look, I will say, you know, a lot of people are, I would say, upset and disappointed about what is -- what is emerging and what looks like it will emerge in subsequent productions, we shall see. You are right though, right. This was -- this exercise was never going to produce new credible information that any of us could rely upon. I think it's important to remember that the people who created this expectation that a release of the so called Epstein files would answer a whole bunch of questions and address a whole bunch of conspiracies and reveal a bunch of secrets were conservatives, Donald Trump, the sitting president, J.D. Vance, Kash Patel, Dan Bongino and then Pam Bondi after she entered office. And so, you know, there's a huge, I think, swell of disappointment this morning. And I think it's the result of people, the president and all those other people playing politics with an issue that they never should have played politics with. This is a tragic situation that should not have been handled in such a cavalier fashion.

SMERCONISH: I want to give another example of redaction. Catherine (ph), put up the so called massage page and you'll see what I'm making -- there we go. OK. So visitors massage, PB, I assume that means Palm Beach, up in the upper left, redacted to protect potential victim information. I don't know what information was there.

Somebody who got a massage or somebody who gave a massage because I also looked at his address book and it was pretty remarkable just how many different cities had massage lists, presumably of people that he would go to perform a so called massage. But to the extent there are minors names on that, or even if they aren't minors names, Ankush, you can understand how they would have had to have made reductions so as to not compromise the privacy, in particular, of people who are underage.

[09:10:02]

KHARDORI: Oh, absolutely. I mean, this whole process, not just the redaction process, but I mean, the more broad -- the broader process that you and I are engaged in sort of talking about this whole issue, the victims need to be first and foremost in terms of how we -- whose concerns we're interested in and whose priorities we're elevating. So absolutely there needs to be -- and it looks like there has been, judging from what we've seen so far, a rigorous attempt to ensure that victim information is handled correctly and particularly the information of minors.

SMERCONISH: And finally, I made sure that introducing you, I went through not only what was revealed as best we know because there's still so much there, but also the recent revelations, the three other document drops that there have been. My point being there's a tremendous amount now in the public domain pertaining to Jeffrey Epstein, but nothing that we've seen so far suggests criminality on the part of anyone else, including President Trump.

KHARDORI: That is correct, right? And I don't think people should have really expected that, again, for the reasons you identified. Because a criminal investigative file is going to generate just as many questions as it will answers, and it's not designed to answer questions. So what we have now and what we're going to continue to get from this process is decontextualized raw information that the government collected. It is now being put into the public domain in a way that now people sort through, try to make some sense of it. You know, what is it, this date or that date and who's in this picture or that picture. It's not a terribly productive exercise, but it's one that's been foisted upon us by the government. But it's not the sort of thing where we can go rifling around and say, oh, I figured this out or that out. I just -- I don't think this is likely to produce a whole set of reliable new information.

SMERCONISH: Ankush Khardori, thank you so much. I highly recommend your five tips for how you approach this, including perhaps you might not want to read it at all.

At home, what are your thoughts? Hit me up on social media. I'll read some responses throughout the course of the program. This comes from the world of X. Hey, lefty, Smerconish. Is that how I'm supposed to read it? Why did Biden, Harris and Garland cover up all these crimes in your theory?

I'm just trying to read it with the attitude with which I suggest that it was written because there was still an open probe. I hear this all the time. Like, oh, they didn't release it. It was an open probe at the time and they weren't able to release it. And all you're is confirming for me that the Epstein files heretofore are a Rorschach test.

There's something in there for each side to read and say, I told you. And I'm here smack dab in the middle to tell you there were unrealistic expectations and that there are some things to be gleaned and a whole host that we'll never get to see, many for legitimate reasons, not the least of which are the interests of minors.

I want to know what you think. Go to my website at smerconish.com. Answer today's poll question at smerconish.com, will the release of any Epstein files result in new criminal charges?

Up ahead, globalize the intifada. You've heard that expression. It's a controversial phrase to say the least. Check this out. If I were to say it aloud in England, I might go to jail.

Just what effect will the U.K.'s new plan to limit anti-Semitic hate speech have? Make sure you're signing up for my newsletter at smerconish.com. When you're voting on the poll question, you'll get the work of illustrators like Scott Stantis.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:17:44]

SMERCONISH: Perhaps the biggest story of the week in a week filled with lots of big stories, the horrific terror attack at Bondi beach in Sydney, Australia. It took place in the context of a stunning rise in anti-Semitic incidents in both Australia and around the globe over the past few years. This time at the commencement of Hanukkah season, about a thousand people were there. Two terrorists shot at the crowd and killed 15.

Criticized for his failure to respond to anti-Semitism, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has put forth a wide ranging legislative plan that would broaden the definition of hate speech offenses and bolster punishment for crimes related to hate. In trying to limit harmful speech, Albanese is simply following the example already set by Australia's mother country, Britain. For a while now, the U.K. has had an aggressive approach against hate speech.

And following the Bondi attack, two of Britain's largest police forces in London and in Manchester declared that they would arrest protesters for shouting "globalize the intifada." It's not an empty threat. They've already arrested four people at a protest.

Ephraim Mirvis, the U.K.'s chief rabbi, called the decision an important step toward challenging the hateful rhetoric that we've seen on our streets, which has inspired acts of violence and terror. However, many claim the phrase globalize the intifada is not a threat, but rather a show of support for Palestinians and a call for justice. Outlawing a phrase punishing people for shouting, it sounds very foreign to American ears. While most countries have laws against hate speech, our country is a proud outlier, with the First Amendment protecting all political speech, no matter how offensive, unless it's meant to incite imminent lawless action.

So many Americans are curious as to how the authorities administer such a law, as well as how effective it is in preventing violence while also balancing free speech concerns. Joining me now is Chris Phillips, the former head of the United Kingdom's National Counterterrorism Security Office, the founder of the International Protect and Prepare Security Office.

OK, Chris, I love coming to London. And when I come to London, there are three things I always do. I go to the Cabinet War Rooms, which everybody ought to see. I go get a straight edge shave at Trumper of Mayfair. And on Sunday morning, I go to Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park.

Now, if I go to Hyde Park to Speakers' Corner and someone is there and they say, "globalize the intifada," are they going to get arrested?

[09:20:07]

CHRIS PHILLIPS, FOUNDER, IPPSO: INTERNATIONAL; PROTECT AND PREPARE SECURITY OFFICE: Well, it's highly unlikely they will get arrested at Speakers' Corner. I mean, the whole point of Speakers' Corner is there is a freedom of speech. And we do have freedom of speech in the U.K., but of course, there is a balance between what is said and its meaning. And of course, our communities, in the Jewish community, quite rightly are in particular fear at the moment, have been attacked.

And certainly the way this globalizing intifada and also the jihad, the term jihad, that means -- that means something different to different people. But I think in the U.K. at the moment, we're taking it that it is a threat. And to threaten someone --

SMERCONISH: OK.

PHILLIPS: -- with that thing is against the law. SMERCONISH: I'm personally offended by the phrase, so please don't misunderstand my questioning, but I think I'm hearing you say context matters, that I could do it at Speakers' Corner. And for those who don't know, it's a gathering place where people literally on a soapbox for a long, long time have felt comfortable expressing their political views, that might be OK, but not in a rally setting. But doesn't therein lie the problem of subjectivity in all of this?

PHILLIPS: Yes. And, you know, the term can mean different things to different people. The way it's being expressed in rallies, in demonstrations, as we would call them, is -- has been very threatening. And of course, what we saw in Bondi Beach was a result of that kind of rhetoric. It is, it is being viewed upon as being threatening and the Jewish community feel threatened by it.

So it is time that police took action.

SMERCONISH: So here in the States, as you know, we have a First Amendment. We also have a line of Supreme Court cases that stem from 1969, a case called Brandenburg and imminency. There's got to be a threat of imminent violence. Is there an imminent aspect as you here globalize the intifada?

PHILLIPS: Well, it depends case by case. And the big issue has been that the Crown Prosecution Service, of course, the police don't make the laws, the government makes the laws, the police enforce the laws, and then the Crown Prosecution Service decide whether to take action in a court of law. They've edged towards this not being a criminal offence up until now, but I think you have to take into account the fears of the Jewish community. Sometimes there is a real imminency about this, but also it's stoking up racial tensions that really don't need to be stoked. And the Jewish community is feeling vulnerable and needs to be protected.

SMERCONISH: To your point, I'm going to put on the screen something from the Free Press. Rabbi David Wolpe and Deborah Lipstadt published this. In a part of their statement -- put it back up and show that to everybody. In a part of the statement, it says this, "What the world has seen over the past two years is a continual, often systematic attempt to terrorize Jews. Lately, the pretense that calling for universal intifada or the erasure of the Jewish state somehow constitutes normative criticism of particular Israeli policies has largely been dropped, at least by emboldened protesters whose venomous rhetoric goes far beyond the bounds of political discourse. When political leaders fail to condemn rather than merely discourage chants of "globalize the intifada," even in New York, the city with the largest Jewish population in the world, we are seeding the ground for Bondi," as in Bondi Beach.

I guess that expressed from this side of the pond what you're saying.

PHILLIPS: Yes. And in the context of the Middle East, of course, intifada does mean something different. It means -- it means destroying Israel. And if you globalize that, then of course you're bringing in the Jewish communities across the world. And listen, you know, we've got some useful idiots out there that are doing the work of extremists and the police have a duty to keep people safe. And I think they're making the right decision now to arrest these people and let them face the court of law.

SMERCONISH: Chris Phillips, we have our share of useful idiots as well. Thank you so much for your time.

PHILLIPS: Thank you.

SMERCONISH: Let's see what's coming in on social media via the world of X, formerly Twitter. Follow me on X subscribe to my YouTube channel. Perhaps I will be reading your comment and responding to it here in 2026.

It's a slippery slope with regard to free speech. Does speech cross a line when it invokes violence or death to another person? I mean, the New York City mayor agreed with this.

Right. He -- Zohran Mamdani, refused, I think, to be literally correct, he refused to condemn it back in a podcast that I want to say was in June. But of course I have Mamdani on the brain as I'm asking the question of my British friend in terms of their decision to criminalize it. It would never stand here in the United States. I'm not to say that the government wouldn't try to criminalize that aspect of speech, but the Brandenburg decision wouldn't permit it.

[09:25:10]

There's a degree of imminency here that is necessary, as the Supreme Court has put forth in a whole line of cases. But it's intriguing, isn't it? It's intriguing to think that in the U.K., in the aftermath of Bondi Beach, they feel it necessary to go so far as to say it, if you're in a setting -- and they arrested four people earlier this week, if you're in a setting like that and chanting that phrase, we will arrest you.

I want to remind you, go to my website at smerconish.com. Answer today's poll question, will the release of any Epstein files result in new criminal charges?

Still to come, your social media reaction to today's program and as we look ahead to Christmas. Why does it seem like we're more divided than ever? A very interesting new study explains why. I encourage you to sign up at smerconish.com when you're voting for the free and worthy daily newsletter. You'll get the work of prize winning illustrators like Rob Rogers.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [09:30:31]

SMERCONISH: Here are some of the social media that has come in so far on today's program. Follow me on X, formerly Twitter. Follow my YouTube page. Maybe I'll read yours.

The reality is that the press left, right, center, local, national did far too much to fan the flames of an Epstein story release than it merited.

I think there's truth in that, Dennis. I think that there were, as I discussed with Ankush Khardori earlier in the program, I think, there were some unrealistic expectations, and that people unfamiliar with the litigation process and the legal system probably had some fantastical idea that these files would be opened and there would be some image of criminal wrongdoing instead of a well-known figure sitting in a hot tub. Right?

For anybody who's ever been involved in the process, and I've been involved in the process in a civil context and been involved in the process of having to make public massive amounts of documentary evidence in response to a request for production or a subpoena, I always expected that there would be a lot of redactions. And I completely understand how now that there are, you know, you go back to -- can we, Catherine, put that massage page from the Epstein records up?

You look at this one particular page and you say, oh, who are they protecting here? Like somebody is getting a massage. You know, it's one of those celebrities that that rode on the Lolita Express. Maybe, but more likely is the fact that there's some minor whose name was reflected in that information, and they decided they can't do it. They can't compromise, you know, the identity of somebody who was underage at the time and who may not have even been victimized.

I'll give you another example of when you really get into the weeds on this. I don't know if we pulled this gang, but the Epstein address book, if you have the Epstein address book. I spent some time looking through that, and there are a lot of familiar names. There are a lot of household names that are -- that are -- I won't name any one of them, because to name any one of them, to single them out, I don't even like putting them in that context. They're in his address book.

OK. Is that evidence of criminal wrongdoing? I'm not looking to carry the water for anybody here, but to draw a connection to say, well, you were in Epstein's address book, and therefore we're going to presume that you've conducted yourself in a criminal way. No, that's not the way that our system works.

So, there was a deliberative process involved in this for the last 30 days. And yes, I'm disappointed that they haven't fulfilled all of their statutory responsibility. But I also get the gargantuan task that that Todd Blanche was explaining in his letter to Congress.

OK, more social media reaction. What else came in?

With the damning pictures of Bill Clinton being released with Epstein victims -- well, let me stop -- let me just stop right there. Can I just stop right there?

They're embarrassing pictures. Yes, I saw the cover of "The New York Post" today. And of course, you know, you knew the post was going to put President Clinton on the cover, but do -- and now we're showing it. OK. But notice that -- notice that what that person just said. Can you go back to that social media response? Go back to that social media response. With damning pictures of Bill Clinton being released with Epstein victims, and they put that in quotation marks. OK, a little bit of a caveat, I guess. You don't know that there's any victim in that picture. I mean, does it -- does it look seemly and unseemly and embarrassing? Of course, it does.

But this is the leap to conclusion that people are so eager to make, like, oh, I saw Clinton is in the hot tub and he's there with the Epstein victims. No, you saw Clinton, and he's in a hot tub. And I'm sure he's embarrassed as hell about that. Here's more social media reaction. By the way, if you get the address book, shout in my ear that you have the address book.

If people see your name in these documents, you will be found guilty.

That's exactly right. Not public appeal, but the court of public opinion. Yes. If you see your name in these documents, you will be found guilty.

There are a number of celebrity names, some of whom are female celebrity names in that address book. It doesn't mean that they were engaged in any wrongdoing so -- and by the way, the address book, the phone numbers were redacted, but the names are all there.

One me social media reaction. I love this part of the program. Thank you for responding.

Calling for violence is illegal. Why don't we see it as that simple?

[09:35:00]

No conspiracy theories required. I told my guest -- this is on a different subject now. This is non Epstein. I told my guest, I personally am offended by the words globalize the intifada because to me, I was in Israel in the midst of the second intifada.

I know what intifada means. It means wipe Israel off the face of the earth, and nobody ought to be shouting or holding on a placard, globalize the intifada. So, I understand why the Brits are offended by it. I'm offended by it too. But I relish our First Amendment in this country, and I respect the Brandenburg decision in this country, and I think the court got it right. Unless you're advocating for some imminent threat of violence that is protected speech, however disgusting many of us may find it.

OK, don't forget to vote on today's poll question at Smerconish.com. Here is what I'm asking. With the release of any Epstein files, will there be new criminal charges? Go vote on that. I'll give you results as they exist at the end of the hour.

Still to come, political polarization. It didn't rise by accident. Researchers now pointing to a very specific moment when it accelerated. So, what changed and why may it be so hard to reverse? All that is coming up. Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, author of that bestselling book "The Anxious Generation," is going to join me right after the break. Make sure you're signing up for the newsletter at Smerconish.com when you're voting on the poll question. Steve Breen sketched this for us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:40:40]

SMERCONISH: A group of researchers recently set out to answer a question that a lot of us feel in our bones namely, why does it seem like we're more divided than ever?

So, they built a computer model, essentially a simulated society, to see how our social connections affect polarization. And they found that in the last 20 years, both connectivity and polarization have spiked at the same time.

Here's the counterintuitive part. The more close connections people have, the more polarized the society can become. And why might that be the case? Because tight knit networks, fueled in online communities, they tend to reinforce the same views over and over, pushing likeminded people closer together while driving them further away from those who think differently. It's never been easier to associate with the like-minded and to avoid those with whom you disagree.

This new study puts data and structure around a concern that my guest has been raising all along, and recently tweeted about in commenting on this study. Joining me now is social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, author, of course, of the bestselling book "The Anxious Generation, " and now co-author of a wonderful new bestselling children's book, "The Amazing Generation: Your Guide to Fun and Freedom in a Screen-Filled World."

Jonathan, welcome back. From the summary of that study that I just referenced it said, we showed that empirically, polarization started to increase exactly with the advent of smartphones and social media.

And I know that you, in your capacity as a professor, actually saw this in your classroom. Explain.

JONATHAN HAIDT, SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGIST, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY'S STEM SCHOOL OF BUSINESS: No. That's right. So, I teach at NYU. I've been a professor since 1995, and it really felt like there was a glitch in the matrix in 2014. Something changed.

On campus -- it was very clear on campus, students were more fragile, more reactive, more explosive, more -- charges against professors for saying a word or an idea that they didn't like. And this came on very suddenly in 2014, 2015. It wasn't like this in 2010, 2012. And I've been trying to understand, what happened to people born after 1995? Why are they so different?

And all signs point to this very rapid transition that we underwent between about 2010 and 2015, when by 2015, we all had smartphones and social media. In 2010, the iPhone was out, but it wasn't universally used and we didn't have social media on it. So that change -- that period rewired childhood and it rewired democracy.

SMERCONISH: You've already highlighted the concerns that you have for adults. And now the new book, "The Amazing Generation." Tell me what's going on with this.

HAIDT: So, I published my book, "The Anxious Generation," in March of 2024. And parents around the world read it, embraced it. They're making changes. Governments are making changes. Schools are going phone free.

So it's been spectacular to see what's happening. But the fundamental problem we're all facing is that within our families, we're all having the same fight, you know? No, you can't have this. But all my friends have it. Put your phone down. But I've got to do this or that.

It's constant fighting. We're all sick of it. How much better would it be if we bring the kids along?

Because Gen Z, the young people, they're not in denial. They understand. They see the harm that these -- that being on a smartphone, in Instagram, they see the harm, but they feel trapped. They feel they have to be on it because everyone else is.

And so in "The Amazing Generation" Catherine Price and I teamed up to write a book that really explains to kids, what's going on? What are all the tricks that the tech wizards are doing, the fact that they don't let their kids on it, but they want you to be on it, and kids seem to love it.

It's got a graphic novel. It's got all kinds of activities and call out boxes along with the main text that explains the science, actually, in a way which is ideal for kids. Nine to 13 is the age range.

SMERCONISH: So, I read the book as an adult and it reminded me, and I know we have her in common. She's a friend of yours as well, Lenore Skenazy. You know, the whole "Let Grow" movement and the idea of let them get outside and return to the type of a youth that we enjoyed

HAIDT: Well that's right. And that's the key to this whole thing is that this isn't just the adults saying, you know, put down your phones, I'm not giving you a phone. This is about restoring childhood. This is about, look, human childhood is there for a reason.

[09:45:02]

Humans have a really long childhood. And the reason is because we've got these big brains that have to be wired up very gradually based on millions of experiences. And we all used to have that.

When you're out in the afternoon with your friends, nobody's telling you what to do. You figure out what to do. If someone offends someone else, you work it out. All that stuff is necessary.

And in the great rewiring of childhood, 2010 to 2015, kids stopped doing that. Most kids now -- the average is around eight to 10 hours a day they spend on their phones. Most of that is short videos. They don't really have experience. That doesn't really tune up the brain except as a result from these weird -- you know, weird videos.

So what we're saying is, open the front door, let the kids out. Now, it's scary if you're the only one. I'm not saying be the only one, but if you and a few other families agree, you know, every Friday the kids are running around together. You know, they can go to your house. They can go to my house. We got five families that are cooperating.

So, I urge listeners to go to Letgrow.org. It's an organization I co- founded with Lenore Skenazy, who wrote the book "Free-Range Kids." And also go to Anxiousgeneration.com, which is the Web site for the anxious generation with a lot of activities and advice for adults.

SMERCONISH: So, as you know, I embrace everything you've said. The word that I like to use is mingle. Both for our adults and for our kids, we've got to mingle with one another. I embrace you and Lenore. And also Jean Twenge deserves a shout out.

But for parody, here's a contrarian viewpoint. Tyler Cowen, writing for the "Free Press," stop trying to ban teens from the internet.

He name checks you earlier in the piece, but then says, note that U.S. college student anxiety and depression have been declining over the last three years, even though smartphone use remains robust. That is further evidence that smartphones are only a modest-size cause of the problems we have. Teen suicide rates have been relatively high, but they were very high in the 1980s too.

Furthermore, most of the mental health trends supposedly attributed to smartphones, a ubiquitous product around the globe, are strongest in the Anglosphere and Scandinavia. Maybe culture is more at fault than the phones.

You would reply to him how?

HAIDT: Oh, but first, I love Tyler. He's a very unusual and heterodox thinker. I had a really interesting conversation with him.

He is a libertarian. He's technophilic. He loves technology. And he thinks that kids are going to be using the technology to become chess masters and learn science. Yes, there are some kids who have done that, but that's a vanishingly small percentage.

Tyler is listing the standard critiques, which is, oh, things are complicated. Oh, it's just correlation. But people on his side cannot explain why the rates of anxiety, depression, suicide, why all those things went up so quickly at the same time. Events in the United States did not cause girls to check into psychiatric wards in New Zealand or Iceland in the early 2010. This was a synchronized change in mental health across the west.

Furthermore, a Meta talking point is, oh, it's just correlation. There's no evidence of causation. That is completely not true.

There have been dozens and dozens of experiments in which people get off social media for a little while, and those show mental health improves. Meta itself has done a lot of experiments. Dozens and dozens of experiments which they've hidden. But we know this from whistleblowers, they've done experiments where they get people off of -- off of Meta products and their mental health improves.

So, there are -- there are at least seven different lines of evidence showing the link, and several of them are direct evidence of causality. So, this is a debate I'm having with Tyler, but it's interesting in the comments to Tyler's article, it's clear that the great majority of people agree with me because every parent sees it, and most kids see it.

SMERCONISH: Jonathan Haidt, the new book is titled "The Amazing Generation." You co-wrote it with Catherine Price. Thank you again for being here.

Can I just mention that --

HAIDT: Thanks so much, Michael.

SMERCONISH: -- on my Web site? I've never -- I've never mentioned this on CNN before, but I think this is pretty awesome. You've heard my mingle themes throughout the course of this year and last year. I'm trying to get people to reestablish common experience. Common experience is what we most need.

Check out what I'm scrolling on the screen. These are mingle meetups. I deserve no credit for this other than I'm the one giving them platform.

These are spontaneous gatherings all across the country. More than three dozen cities represented. They're listeners of my radio program, and they attract people, frankly, who've never even heard of me, and they're getting together in a communal setting, sometimes over beers, sometimes not, sometimes talking politics, sometimes not. But they're getting out of the house and meeting people they otherwise would not have met. And I love it.

There's a woman in California. Her name is Bonnie Gluson. She deserves a shout out. Thank you, Bonnie.

If you want to go to a mingle meetup or start one of your own, go to my Web site at Smerconish.com. I just think it's wonderful and very necessary.

[09:50:00]

OK. You still have time to vote on today's poll question at the Web site. Will the release of any Epstein files result in new criminal charges? Subscribe while you're there. Check out the mingle meetups while you're there. You'll get exclusive editorial cartoons from the likes of Jack Ohman.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SMERCONISH: OK. There's the poll result so far, 84 percent of 29,056 saying no to the question of, will the release of any Epstein files result in new criminal charges?

I was in the majority for the first time in a long time on one of my own poll questions. So, thank you for the voting. We'll leave it open. Keep voting if you haven't voted yet.

More social media reaction to today's program. From the world of X or Twitter.

Robert, we knew about Trump and we knew about Clinton. We wanted to know what we didn't already know and that seems fully redacted so far.

[09:55:04]

Well, I have a lot of thoughts in response to that. I don't know what you think you knew about Trump and what you knew about Clinton, other than they had an association with a bad guy. But it needs to be said, even in light of the hot tub picture, there's no -- there's no evidence of any criminality on either of their part.

And as for other individuals, there are a whole host of names and a whole host of pages in there redacted as well. But you can't just throw somebody in because of their association and assume that they were engaged in criminal contact -- criminal conduct, pardon me.

It's complicated, is what I'm trying to say. And if you think about it -- if you think about it logically, you've got more than 100,000 documents. They pertain to a bad guy and the universe around him. But you don't want to incriminate minors, right? You don't want to have minors identities revealed, and you don't want to have individuals who may have had a very benign association all of a sudden caught up in this in a nefarious looking way, complicated.

OK. If you missed any of today's program, know that you can always listen anywhere you get your podcasts. Thank you so much for watching. Have a very merry Christmas, a very happy holiday season. I will see you in 2026.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)