The Cut Sheet brings Rosie O’Donnell’s Jimmy Kimmel guest-hosting stint before we get to 16-year-old lifeguard Ryder Williams, who is honored at the White House after rescuing 10-year-old Nathaniel Rai in Santa Cruz. Trump then responds to Jon Ossoff’s criticism by reviving his Pee-wee Herman comparison, setting off a discussion of Ossoff’s 2026 Senate race and possible 2028 ambitions. The hour closes with a woman introducing her chatbot child “Lumen,” fired Detroit anchor Taryn Asher’s newsroom blowup and Ana telling her own story about getting fired from a customer-service job.
Matt Rooney is supposed to join at 8:30, which means the first order of business is naturally Rooney’s latest late arrival. We then hear Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud recount having a gun pulled on him as a Muslim child after 9/11, and the crew debates both the story and the political framing surrounding it. New York Assemblywoman Emily Gallagher’s claim that theft involving items such as soap and toothpaste can be a “crime of poverty” produces another heated response.
Gretchen Whitmer tells Gavin Newsom she shuts politics out after Trump wins Michigan in 2024, watches eight seasons of Dexter and then gets back to work. The crew fixates on the staged-looking beers before discussing Whitmer’s decision to work with Trump on Michigan priorities and why Republicans so often struggle to replicate Trump’s performance in battleground states.
The final stretch centers on Lindsay Clancy, who admits killing her three children while her defense argues severe postpartum mental illness leaves her without criminal responsibility. The crew reacts to a huge fundraiser benefiting Clancy’s parents and a viral defense of the sympathy surrounding the case. Rooney finally joins the legal discussion and explains mens rea, criminal intent, the insanity defense and why prosecutors place so much importance on Clancy’s searches, planning and behavior before the killings.
Aug 18, 2026
