Show: On The Town Station: KNCO File: 9:23.mp3 Air date: 2026-09-23 Source: OpenAI whisper-1 · shrunk from 27.4 MB to 5.5 MB --- transcript --- Good morning, I'm Tom Fitzsimmons, thanks for joining us here. On The Town is going to be special from ABC News following some of the big stories that are happening this Wednesday, September 23rd, and one of those is back in New York City, of course, the United Nations General Assembly has been meeting and President Trump part of that. Here's that. For years, President Trump's mantra has been America first. He described most foreign wars as mistakes. He expressed skepticism about international alliances like NATO and the United Nations, which meant predictably these big bodies were rather skeptical of him. In this term, though, President Trump has been much more willing, even eager to engage in foreign conflicts. When it comes to, say, the war in Iran, European allies are concerned, but for much different reasons than his first term. You might wonder if they're now thinking, gosh, maybe America just isolating itself would have been fine compared to this, which led to a strange scene yesterday at the annual UN General Assembly as President Trump publicly made the case for a foreign war in front of some very skeptical peers. ABC's chief White House correspondent, Mary Bruce, is in New York. Mary, what do we hear from the president during the speech? Well, look, Brad, he really spent a lot of these annual remarks at the UN arguing that he had to launch this war to prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon. But we are now seven months into a war that he said would last just four to six weeks. And the war is now widening in the region. And there still is no clear end in sight. I call on all nations to join us in enforcing the complete economic isolation of Iran until they stop their attacks on commercial shipping, relinquish their nuclear ambitions and cease their support of terror. Part of this speech seems to be an effort by the president to try to convince global leaders who we know are weary of this war, who are feeling the global economic impacts of this, try to convince them that this will end soon, that a deal could be coming. I believe we'll make a deal right after the election because it doesn't make sense for them not to. He's predicting that the war will end right after the election. But then what? And we heard the president return to that familiar tactic, threatening Iran to make a deal or else. Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again, saying they have to either make a deal that will allow Iran to rebuild or he will, in Trump's word, annihilate the Islamic Republic. Now, the president insists that they're going to make a deal because, as he put it, it doesn't make sense for them not to. But so far, attempts at nuclear talks have gone nowhere. Right. These dire threats that we've seen from the president in the past haven't really forced Iran to change tactics. And of course, all of this is happening while here at home. This war is deeply unpopular. Oil and gas is reaching historic highs. And now, Brad, even some Republicans in competitive races are calling for this war to end to bring down costs. Well, this is what I'm confused by, Mary, is the president goes in front of all these world leaders and says, don't worry, it's going to it's going to end. And he's telling Americans, hey, it's going to end. And yet the playbook from his administration and from the Iranians, for that matter, seems to be the exact same playbooks that we've been staring at for the last couple of months. So, I mean, are we even talking to the Iranians at this point? Is there any sort of forward momentum to change anything? Brad, there were some talks yesterday between top Trump officials and some top Iranian officials. The president said that his team had a three hour long meeting with the Iranian delegation on the sidelines of the General Assembly. And the president said Iran faces, as he described now, potential greatness or obliteration. But the president described it as a very good meeting. The president being clear, he, of course, prefers a diplomatic solution. But he is going to see the fundamental objective that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon be fulfilled one way or another. The administration has suggested that Trump is interested and willing to sit down with the Iranian leader. No signs of a meeting at that level on the books just yet, though. And then the other thing that often happens in these sorts of scenarios, not just the speeches. Right. It's everyone happens to be together in the same room, the same city. And so you see a lot of bilateral, trilateral whatever meetings where you can actually get some diplomacy done. He did end up speaking to leaders from Denmark and Greenland. Greenland, of course, is under the control of Denmark. President Trump thinks it shouldn't be that way. Should be American. Are we going to own Greenland all of a sudden or something? Yeah. As we know, the president has had Greenland in his sights for quite some time now. He's been eager to make it part of the U.S. This is tremendous for Europe and for the United States and for everybody. And for Greenland, it's going to be incredible. And perhaps in an effort to ease some of this tension, the president yesterday did sign an agreement with Denmark and Greenland aimed at strengthening security between the Arctic and the North Atlantic. And this day represents a milestone in our longstanding cooperation. Keep in mind, the U.S. has had a presence in Greenland for decades. There's a preexisting security relationship. This cements some of that going forward. But it also I think when you look at the big picture is a chance to try and maybe calm some of the president's calls for for Greenland to become a part of the U.S. I was going to say, you could you could be like, wait, we're getting a larger military base. Is this what the president was after? Not, not quite, perhaps. And yet it may be a thawing in relationships in this very icy part of the world. President Xi Jinping from China, big summit today with the president. We'll see what comes of that. Mary Bruce in New York. Thank you. Thanks, Brad. Ready to brighten your day? Grass Valley Provisions is where you'll find a wide range of products designed to support your well-being from stress relief options to healing topicals. Enjoy a welcoming, relaxed space where you can browse, learn and find what helps you refresh and recharge at Grass Valley Provisions. They believe in giving back every month. A portion of their Sunday sales supports a local Nevada County nonprofit organization. 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But in the looks-maxing community, which is a thing, younger and younger people, particularly young men, are even altering their bodies to achieve a certain aesthetic. Incredibly high cheekbones, glowing skin, full heads of flowing hair. One of the most prominent looks-maxers in America goes by the name Clavicular, because of his pursuit of the perfect collarbone. If it all sounds amusing, well yesterday we learned Clavicular has been charged with rape. And the men and boys who have been following him for years now, they have questions. ABC's Ashan Singh has actually been following the rise of looks-maxing for ABC's Nightline, so Ashan, you're the best person to explain this to me. Who is Clavicular, and what is looks-maxing? So let's start with your second question first, Brad. Looks-maxing is sort of this term that has developed in the zeitgeist over the past several years where the algorithm just sort of awards these extremities, right? You may have heard of smell-maxing, of tan-maxing, now looks-maxing has been one of the most prevalent sort of cultures that has developed from the internet that has encouraged this worldview that men are categorically disadvantaged in today's society, and so it's this idea that if men do anything at all costs to achieve a particular look, a send is basically what looks-maxers refer to it as, they will start to reap the benefits of society that they claim that women currently are already receiving. Oh, so like you gotta go from a six to an eight, bro, something like that. Exactly, or a six to a ten. The idea of ascension is constantly working on your physical appearance, and what has been fascinating, you asked me who Clavicular is, he's this self-described cultural leader of this movement. Looks really are going to determine the quality of your life to a high degree, so if you're not doing everything you can to maximize them, you're missing out. He's this 20-year-old kid from Hoboken who really has blown up over the past several years. It kind of started in the aftermath of the pandemic where he became a streamer on Kick who was advocating for looks-maxing, and a lot of the things that he was advocating through our reporting we learned is not just scientifically untrue and not proven, but it's genuinely unsafe things that he's advocating for young men to do. So people were saying, well Clav, you promote things that have some risk, some side effect profile, and it's like, yeah, absolutely, but we're looking at risk to reward ratio. What I did was I basically blasted a ton of different Adderalls and amphetamines for about three days and stayed awake. Some of those things, Brad, are things like bone smashing, where you literally take a hammer to your face to try and create micro fractures in your skull in order to allow your bones to heal in a way that will create a perfect jawline. Plastic surgery but with a hammer in your own house sort of a thing? Yes. Exactly what we're talking about is with a hammer, and so he's literally telling young boys and young men at home to grab a hammer and take it to your face to literally achieve this look that will help you get to ascension. One of the other things that he advocates for is the use of peptides. He advocates for the use of plastic surgery. Bone smashing, the idea that you can smash your bones and make you look more masculine based on what they call Wolf's Law, it's not based on Wolf's Law. It actually doesn't increase the amount of bone you make. We talked to Dr. Terry Dubrow about some of the things that that clavicular actually advocates for, and he basically scoffed at any of them. He basically said they're ridiculous, it's unsafe, and no one should be doing this. Not only are these things dangerous, they don't work, they have potential long-term side effects, and at the end of the day, you're not going to stop aging. He's really become the most outward-facing individual with regards to this movement, and his whole mindset is stream, stream, stream everything. Clavicular rushed to the hospital after an apparent overdose, the disturbing moments all happening on a live stream. We have our clavicular in court today on charges stemming from a live stream in the Everglades. You'll learn that clavicular pretty much doesn't go anywhere without streaming, and so much of the way the algorithm operates now through stories related to this that we've done is the algorithm is rewarding extremities, and with an individual like clavicular who is constantly streaming his life, he is looking to put these extremities on display to gain a reaction and gain a following, and if nothing else, Brad, it's worked. This kid is incredibly media-savvy, and it's allowed him to build this massive following, harmful or not. Okay, so then that brings us up to yesterday, because you would have done a ton of reporting on just the rise of looks maxing and whatever it says about modern society, but then we find out that clavicular has been accused of some pretty terrible stuff. What are the charges he's facing? So yeah, Brad, he's been charged with one count each of rape, drugging a person for sex, and providing alcohol to a minor in Massachusetts. This all stems from a case back in 2025 of May where the victim, who basically alleged that Braden Peters, who goes by clavicular, injected her with Aqualix, this fat-dissolving substance that is not approved by the FDA, and it was during a live stream in 2025 without the victim's consent. So the lawsuit also accuses Peters of non-consensual sexual encounters with the victim at his parent's home in Cape Cod while she was a minor at the time and was actually intoxicated. So how is he responding to it? He's basically denying, denying, denying. He actually wrote in a post on X saying, trying to get my attention in any way possible. Happens to all successful young men. People try to come for your money. Greed is evil. Basically, he's weaponizing his masculinity again in this way of basically saying that, oh, if I'm a young, rich man, this is what society does, and I'm next. Well, this is my question, Ashan, because asides from people altering their bodies, there has been this, you kind of alluded to it, this undertone of criticism that says almost at the base of a lot of looks maxing lies a kind of toxic masculinity, right? That has been the dig about this, that there is a certain way men should look. Does this criticism only grow louder now because of these charges? I think so. I also think like we're coming towards the tail end of the popularity of this movement in the way that we knew it in the past kind of couple years, and when serious charges kind of resurface or surface like this, you're obviously going to have the apologists that are deep in Peters and Clavicular's corner that are going to kind of defend him. It remains to be seen what will actually come to light and whether or not Clavicular is actually guilty of these charges, but when it comes to the looks maxing movement, Brad, it really is founded on this idea of male victimization and that society is categorically unfair to the man, which I think statistics and years and years of reporting suggest the exact opposite. But the idea is that Clavicular has basically been able to garner an audience that is sympathetic to this cause. But I do think a lot of what we speculated and what we understood and we heard from medical professionals and psychologists for just how harmful a lot of the stuff that this young man was advocating for. Now you're seeing it enter the realm of the law. This isn't Clavicular's first trouble with the law. He was charged this past April with unlawfully discharging a firearm after he was seen in a video shooting an alligator in the Florida Everglades. But this is a whole new height and we kind of have seen it happen with the Tate brothers who are kind of often seen as the forefathers of this movement. They're not looks maxers, so to speak, but they definitely advocate for this metaverse of toxic masculinity. And so now that the charges have escalated to something as serious as rape, it really does remain to be seen how the looks maxing movement lives on and how Clavicular's career lives on. All right, Ashan Singh, great reporting and analysis on this because I think it can be super confusing to people who aren't like deeply online, but that's really clarifying. Thank you so much. Appreciate you, Brad. Ready to check glass flowing off your bucket list? At Bear River Glassworks in Grass Valley, their three-hour intro classes let you create something truly unforgettable. Make a hollow-blown jellyfish using gold and silver fuming to create beautiful shimmering colors or create your own hollow-blown glass pumpkin just in time for fall. Get hands-on, play with fire, and take home something amazing you made yourself. Book your class today at BearRiverGlassworks.com. That's BearRiverGlassworks.com. You know what people say? If you've got your health, you've got everything. But what if it's your health or feet or ankles that are keeping you from enjoying life? Hi, I'm Dr. Mark Clayton with Foot and Ankle Surgeons of Northern California. 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Lots of Americans heard that and said, case closed, lock her up. Others, though, heard her defense that she had been driven mad by postpartum psychosis, that her medical team hadn't intervened despite cries for help and said, oh, you can't convict her of murder in that case. It's an insanity case at best. As women, we are treated very unfairly. We get dismissed. We, um, things are minimized. The jury overwhelmingly agreed with that second argument. In fact, Clancy was apparently one vote away from being acquitted. One juror refused, though. What I'm asking for is time to file a single justice appeal for this travesty. That's what I'm asking for. So you're asking for an emergency stay at this point? Yes. The judge declared a mistrial. You remember the rest. They know that they were robbed by one man for whatever his agenda was, who stole seven weeks of the life of these other jurors. The issue now is, as prosecutors stand ready to take Clancy back to trial, her defense wants this lone holdout juror questioned. ABC's chief investigative correspondent Aaron Katursky tracked the entire trial in Plymouth, Massachusetts. He's with us now. Aaron, Lindsay Clancy has another hearing scheduled for later this month. What is her defense asking for now? They're asking for several things. One, they want the holdout juror, the one juror who opted not to vote with the other eleven and acquit Lindsay Clancy by reason of insanity, and they want him to be thoroughly questioned because the defense says, according to the other jurors, he was having doubts about Lindsay Clancy's guilt, but yet voted to convict her anyway. According to the note from the forelady, that he had doubt, but he would not apply the law of reasonable doubt as presented by the judge. That's not right. They question whether the juror was following the law that says a conviction requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Now we've heard from the holdout juror. His name is Michael Desronville. He's 48 years old, and in a statement issued through his attorney, he said he didn't have any doubts. He said he kept getting cut off in the deliberation room, but he believed that prosecutors did in fact prove the case. The other thing the defense wants is a look at his cell phone records, because one of the jurors, Nick Dargy, told us when I interviewed him in Plymouth shortly after the mistrial, this juror said that the holdout was scrolling on his phone and not really paying attention during deliberations. How long did that go on for? I mean, I think it was just about every day we were in that room. And being on your phone isn't something that's really allowed. So what is the response then from this, from this juror's lawyer? I mean, I'm shocked that a juror has to get a lawyer to basically litigate his actions in the deliberation room, but how does his team now respond to this? Well, the holdout juror's attorney is calling what the defense is asking for here, disgusting. And beyond that, Brad, dangerous, because if the defense gets what it wants, the holdout juror's attorney says it would undermine the jury system. The liberations are supposed to be behind closed doors for a reason. We're not really supposed to have a window into how the deliberations are going. There wasn't a single piece of evidence or witness testimony that he used to prove why he was thinking the way he was, which is why we ultimately sent in that note. It's only because the foreperson sent a note to the judge accusing the holdout of not following the law that we even know about any of this, that in a couple of interviews that jurors have done after the mistrial. Did he see the note? Did he know? Oh no, he knew. From my knowledge, he knew. And did he react at all? Uh, no, he's just kind of sitting there cold, like, on his phone. And so the judge was asked during the trial, during the deliberations to get involved, and the judge declined. He said he didn't want to put his thumb on the scale by pushing back too hard against the holdout juror. He simply reminded the entire panel to follow his instructions. But the defense says that means the question of whether this holdout was actually following the law about reasonable doubt has never been fully explored. It's really interesting though, because A, you wouldn't have been able to do this 30 years ago, right? And be like, well, what was the juror doing? Just having a phone in your pocket constantly monitoring you, that's bizarre in itself. The other thing is, it's so high stakes for the law, right, in how much are you allowed to ask jurors about their thinking in the liberation room, but it's high stakes for Lindsay Clancy too, Aaron. I mean, she sounds like, in her mind, I imagine she thinks she's already proved her innocence. That's what the defense believes, that if you go by what this foreperson says, there was doubt, she should have been found not guilty by reason of insanity, and this should be over. We're anticipating the 29th, I'm hoping that Judge Sullivan allows the termination of the case. I mean, it's just a case that needs to be done, it needs to be done. And in fact, the defense attorney, Kevin Reddington, is hoping that the judge, before prosecutors even decide whether to put her on trial again for first degree murder over the deaths of her three children, the defense is hoping that the judge will just throw out the case now, because they say they proved the case, they proved that she was suffering from psychosis and putting her on trial again, the defense is now saying would amount to double jeopardy. And yet you can say that, that like, we proved the case, but I mean, the law says you gotta get 12 jurors, not 11 on your side, and so if you're saying, we got 11 plus this other guy wasn't doing his job, you'd imagine that's a higher bar the judge would want them to --- end of transcript ---