Trump’s executive sledgehammer

Photo illustration: Maura Losch/Axios. Photo: Getty Images

What do a White House ban on journalists, a 250-foot arch near the nation’s capital and Greenland have in common? President Trump says he needs all of them for national security purposes, Axios’ Avery Lotz writes. Why it matters: National security concerns have long fueled the expansion of presidential authority. But Trump has leaned on it for an unusually broad set of priorities — clearing obstacles that would otherwise slow him down.Photo: Jon Elswick/AP Zoom in: On the morning that the three outlets banned from the White House (CNN, MS NOW and Politico) sued the administration, Trump posted that “FAKE NEWS” is “a threat to our National Security. “He pitched his proposed “triumphal arch” as a dual-use facility housing snipers, drones and ammunition storage “for National Security purposes. “Trump used the same reasoning for his White House ballroom. He touts a drone port on the roof and a huge underground military bunker. State of play: The other major television networks that make up the White House television pool — CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox News — suspended their participation over CNN’s ban. The New York Times said it wouldn’t “publish or distribute any images taken as part of the White House still photography pool today. “The Washington Post said it wouldn’t “publish any photographs of today’s presidential events … until midnight Eastern Time, joining a collective effort with photographers in other newsrooms covering the White House. “NPR said it won’t use audio from White House events until further notice. The White House argued in a statement titled “White House Access Is a Privilege — Not a Right” that “no President is required to host a hostile operation on the grounds.”Keep reading … How the pool works.

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AI’s red phone

Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios. Stock: Getty Images

A distinctly Cold War calculus is looming over this week’s Trump-Xi summit in Washington, as the U.S. and China weigh an emergency “red phone” for the day AI goes haywire, Axios’ Zachary Basu writes. Why it matters: U.S.-China relations are so brittle that an AI hotline — not a trade pact, strategic slowdown or diplomatic reset — could emerge as the summit’s most meaningful outcome. The big picture: President Trump has spent the past week lashing out at AI “doomers” and boiling the race down to a single imperative: beat China. Trump has called AI-catastrophe fears a “HOAX” and vowed the U.S. would “not in any way hinder or stifle” AI as it fights to preserve its lead over Beijing. America’s leading AI labs largely share Trump’s urgency about China, but not his conclusion: Many argue the intensity of the race is precisely why global safeguards are needed. At the same time, China is every bit as determined to win the AI race, but its leader Xi Jinping — who lands in Washington tomorrow for his first state visit since 2015 — is balancing two competing fears: Falling behind: Xi has no interest in a safety regime that freezes the race with America still ahead. Beijing is pushing cheap, capable open-source models around the world while portraying U.S. chip controls and calls for restraint as a calculated effort to keep China down. Losing control: Xi wants AI powerful enough to transform China’s economy, but never so powerful that it slips beyond the control of the Communist Party. Beijing focuses less on Silicon Valley-style extinction scenarios than on nearer-term dangers, like cyberattacks, malicious use and disruptions to critical infrastructure. Zoom in: That narrow overlap is why Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pitched Chinese officials this weekend on a “notification mechanism” for AI incidents with national-security implications. The Cold War precedent is the hotline Washington and Moscow established after the Cuban Missile Crisis — a direct channel designed to keep accidents and ambiguity from escalating into nuclear Armageddon. Trump and Xi are expected to discuss shared AI risks when they meet at the White House on Thursday. Reality check: So far, nobody has publicly defined what would make the red phone ring. In an AI catastrophe — say, a frontier model launches a major cyberattack on critical infrastructure — the first alarm may sound inside a private company rather than a military command center. #Share this story.

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EU and the World

‘Too little, too late’: Europe’s Arctic gas would arrive two decades too late, new research finds

By Wester van Gaal

Amsterdam

21 September 2026 00:01

A powerful coalition of Norwegian business and political interests has been pushing the EU to drop its 2021 support for a moratorium on oil and gas drilling in the Arctic to ensure future energy security. 

The EU is currently reviewing its Arctic strategy and may well decide to do so.

Norway can do what it wants in its northern waters. The EU has no say. But a friendlier signal from Brussels would offer companies more certainty about future demand, and make the vast investment needed easier to justify.

Read more

‘Do not believe my prime minister’: Youngest-ever Norwegian MP urges EU to resist Oslo’s Arctic-oil lobbying 

Even then, it would take decades. A new report from WWF-Norway, published on Monday (21 September), finds that new Arctic gas would not arrive until the mid-2040s, which it argues is far too late to help Europe’s energy security.

Oil and gas projects in the Norwegian Arctic have historically taken an average of 18.7 years from discovery to production, among the longest anywhere, thanks to the extreme conditions and the near-total absence of infrastructure.

No field in the Barents Sea has ever come in under 14 years. So a gas discovery made in early 2027 would likely only start production in the early to mid 2040s.

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The president is going after the press again.

On Sept. 19, 2026, journalists from CNN, MS NOW, and Politico were denied access to the White House after President Donald Trump revoked their credentials, citing “their constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS!” On social media, Trump posted, “Media Outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President.”

This is not Trump’s first attempt at banning journalists from the White House. During his first term, he sought to ban CNN’s Jim Acosta by revoking his credentials following a contentious news conference about the 2018 midterm elections.

In that conflict, CNN quickly filed a lawsuit, arguing that, “If left unchallenged, the actions of the White House would create a dangerous chilling effect for any journalist who covers our elected officials.”

Journalism organizations also responded. The Committee to Protect Journalists, the Radio Television Digital News Association and even Acosta’s peers at The Daily Caller – a right-leaning news outlet – condemned the White House ban.

A federal court granted CNN a temporary injunction – reinstating Acosta’s press pass. The Trump administration later restored Acosta’s credentials, and CNN dropped its lawsuit.

Many commentators and members of the press have called Trump’s latest ban on the three news organizations a violation of the First Amendment.

White House Correspondents’ Association President Jacqui Heinrich said on X, “Today’s action revoking access for journalists from CNN, POLITICO, and MSNOW violates the First Amendment.”

Even George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, who staunchly supports Republicans and frequently criticizes the press, said on X that the ban “would be an assault on long-honored principles of a free press.”

As Turley and many others have argued over the weekend, Trump’s ban is almost certainly unconstitutional under the First Amendment, which states that “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” Media law professor Frank LoMonte argued in 2018, “The First Amendment guarantees all Americans freedom to speak and publish without government interference.”

But they may be missing a crucial point. In fact, there’s more than one constitutional right involved in such a case. The judge who restored Acosta’s press pass in 2018 primarily based his ruling on the reporter’s Fifth Amendment rights to due process, not on the First Amendment.

And in my view as a constitutional law professor, it is less clear whether the press has a constitutional right of access to the White House even though past presidents have honored and respected the press’s access to the executive branch.

While several Supreme Court cases, such as Richmond Newspapers v. Virginia, unequivocally provide the press with a right of access to criminal trials, there is no Supreme Court precedent that specifically provides a clear constitutional right of access to the White House.

Make that two constitutional rights

In one case from 1977, Sherrill v. Knight, Robert Sherrill, the Washington correspondent for The Nation, was – after holding press passes over several years – denied a press pass because the Secret Service advised he should not be given one. The Secret Service refused to disclose their justification.

Sherrill sued, and the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that the Secret Service cannot deny a White House press pass absent “narrow and specific standards by which applications are to be judged.”

The court required the White House to provide the press with “notice of the factual bases for denial, an opportunity for (them) to respond to these, and a final written statement of the reasons for denial (of a press pass).”

In the court’s view, these requirements – notice and an opportunity to rebut the bases for the denial of a press pass – are protected by two constitutional guarantees working together, the press protections in the First Amendment and the Fifth Amendment’s protections from arbitrary deprivations of “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

In other words, before the federal government can deprive an individual of their life, liberty or property, the federal government must provide that individual with due process, whose purpose is widely accepted as preventing “arbitrary governmental actions.”

Due process is key

There are a number of Supreme Court decisions that could be key in the current journalists’ lawsuit, which was filed on Sept. 21, 2026.

Among them is Mathews v. Eldridge from 1976, in which the Supreme Court stated that due process is flexible depending on the extent of the liberty or property interest at stake. But in general, the justices said, due process requires the government to provide notice to the individual and an opportunity for the individual to present their case before the deprivation occurs.

In Sherrill v. Knight from 1977, the court ruled that the denial of a press pass implicated a First Amendment liberty interest. That interest, the court wrote, “undoubtedly qualifies as liberty which may not be denied without due process of law under the fifth amendment.”

This nuance – the First and Fifth Amendment working in tandem – is what most commentators and critics are missing in their response to the recent ban of CNN, MS NOW and Politico. In fact, these outlets collectively lead with their claim that the Trump administration violated their Fifth Amendment right to due process in their lawsuit to block Trump’s ban.

“Even if attending a White House event is not a constitutionally guaranteed right, that doesn’t mean the government is free to take it away as punishment,” LoMonte argued in 2018.

Based on public reporting, it is clear that the Trump administration did not provide CNN, MS NOW or Politico with clear written notice stating the reasons for the revocation of their press passes. It certainly did not provide the outlets with an opportunity to rebut Trump’s unsupported claim that they report “FICTION and LIES.”

The same Trump-appointed judge who decided the CNN Acosta case has been assigned to the latest press ban case. So, if the CNN Acosta case is any indication, I expect the federal judge to promptly, but temporarily, reinstate the news outlets’ press passes while Trump tries to argue that his actions are constitutional, which in my view, they are not.

Specialist rape courts rolled out across the country

Victims of rape and sexual offences will get the justice they deserve, as their cases take priority and new specialist courts are rolled out across England and Wales, the Prime Minister has announced today. From:Ministry of Justice, The Rt Hon Alex Norris MP and The Rt Hon Andy Burnham MPPublished:21 September 2026

• Courtrooms for specialist rape and serious sex offences to be rolled out across every Crown Court in England and Wales
• Rape cases will be prioritised in the courts, tackling uncertainty and delays for survivors, with specialist upgrades introduced, including private waiting rooms and entrances for victims
• New approach will put victims front and centre of the criminal justice system

Backed by a multi-million cash injection, every Crown Court in England and Wales will get at least one courtroom especially set up to hear rape and serious sexual offence cases over the next two years, helping to hold more perpetrators to account.

Transforming how the justice system treats the survivors of some of the most serious crimes, the changes are designed to encourage more victims to come forward, providing them with private entrances and waiting rooms as well as facilities equipped to pre-record evidence and observe sentencing remotely.  

Rape and serious sexual offence cases will also now be prioritised in courts. These trials will be given a fixed date as opposed to being placed on floating lists where they can be moved at short notice and delayed by many months.

For too long, victims of rape and serious sexual offences have felt they were navigating a system that did not consider their needs for tailored support. In 2025, rape cases took an average of 424 days to complete once they reached the Crown Court, with too many victims withdrawing before their case was heard.

Today’s changes will mean victims get better support and face fewer delays, as the government continues to take decisive action to tackle violence against women and girls and deliver the justice that victims deserve.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham said:

For too long, victims of rape and serious sexual offences have felt let down by our justice system. Prosecution rates for rape remain shamefully low, with many victims waiting years for justice.

This is not good enough. That’s why we are making major changes to rebalance the scales of justice and put victims first. This includes rolling out specialist courtrooms for rape and serious sex offences.

These changes are long overdue and will make a significant difference, but focusing on prosecution alone will not be enough. So as well as ensuring victims get justice, we will step up action to prevent these horrific crimes from happening in the first place.

Lord Chancellor Alex Norris said:

Victims of rape and serious sexual offences have felt they’ve been left alone facing the criminal justice system for too long. They have been treated as cases to process and not as people to support.

The funding we are announcing today will provide that support that victims deserve – delivering courtrooms that are designed with victim needs in mind and providing specialist training for staff to handle these cases with care.

Real action to improve our courts. Real action for victims. Real action to deliver the justice they deserve.

The changes announced today will also see all court staff get trauma-informed training and a trial to give victims of sex offences a single point of contact to ensure their needs are met during the court process. The new measures also include a new Rape Justice Taskforce, drawing leaders from across the criminal justice system to tackle the rising rate of postponed rape trials and confront the myths that cause victims to withdraw from their own cases.

The changes follow Charlotte Nichols showing immense strength and bravery in coming forward to tell her own story, calling for these crucial measures to support victims and ensure they receive the justice they deserve.

Ciara Bergman, CEO of Rape Crisis England & Wales says:

This important package of measures represents a significant step forward for our justice system, and includes many of the reforms that Rape Crisis England & Wales have been calling for over many years. Taken together, they reflect the urgency of ensuring that courts are fit for purpose and properly meet the needs of victims and survivors, which is crucial to securing justice.

We’re particularly pleased to see measures that will improve trial efficiency and ensure survivors are better able to participate in, and observe, proceedings. The recognition that suitable separate waiting areas, entrances and exits are essential to prevent survivors from being intimidated and distressed by the presence of perpetrators and their supporters is also significant. This welcome change is both necessary and long overdue.

Today’s announcement builds on the Government’s pledge to halve violence against women and girls in a decade and make sure the justice system put victims front and centre.

Earlier this month, the Prime Minister announced that by the end of 2027, all police forces in England and Wales will have dedicated rape and sexual offence investigation teams, helping to make sure more criminal cases are prosecuted. 

Since coming into office, the government has pledged over £1 billion to support victims of violence against women and girls, announced plans to place domestic abuse specialists in 999 control rooms across every police force in England and Wales, and is rolling out new Domestic Abuse Protection Orders to provide victims with protection for as long as needed.

The government has also committed to use every lever at its disposal to drive down the backlog of victims waiting years for justice through the Courts and Tribunals Bill, which is set to return to Parliament in October.

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This is our exclusive newsletter on the September 21 order in Center for Biological Diversity v. Nesvik. A federal judge declined to block the land exchange between the US Fish and Wildlife Service and SpaceX. We read all 27 pages.

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EXCLUSIVE: SpaceX Cleared to Expand Starbase in Texas

This is our exclusive newsletter on the September 21 order in Center for Biological Diversity v. Nesvik. A federal judge declined to block the land exchange between the US Fish and Wildlife Service and SpaceX. We read all 27 pages.

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September 22, 2026 – Court Ruling Exclusive

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The document: Case 1:26-cv-00831, Document 66, 27 pages, filed September 21, 2026 in the Southern District of Texas. Full citation in Sources.

If you don’t have time to read 27 pages of a federal court order, you can read this newsletter in ~5 minutes.

Quick Bites

SpaceX

• US District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. denied the preliminary injunction on September 21. The land exchange can proceed.
• The court found the plaintiffs “have not established a substantial likelihood that they have standing in this matter.”
• It also found they failed on irreparable injury. It also found they failed on the balance of equities and the public interest. All three go against them.
• The court never reached the merits. Claims under NEPA, the National Historic Preservation Act and the Refuge Act are untouched.
• The Service gives up 715 acres of the Boca Chica Tract. SpaceX gives up 683 acres it already owns.
• About 700 acres of the land going to SpaceX sits inside the Palmito Ranch Battlefield National Historic Landmark.
• SpaceX told the court its only current plans are expanding the Massey Test Site and building a service road eastward.
• Arguing against a pause, SpaceX cited Starship launch cadence, its ability to deploy AI data centers, NASA’s planned 2028 crewed lunar landing and a $102 million Air Force Research Laboratory contract.
• SpaceX has signed a Programmatic Agreement under Section 106 of the NHPA and committed to restrictions on its activity at the site.
• The Service’s own decision memo says SpaceX’s planned development “will result in foreseeable and unavoidable consequences.”
• The Service and SpaceX executed the agreement September 1 and expected to transfer title September 22.
• The Service logged over 25,000 public comments. The order says the majority opposed the exchange.

Media Matters

1. What the court decided. And what it did not

Rodriguez ruled on one question. Does the swap pause while the case runs. He did not rule on whether the Service broke the law.

The order says so plainly. The court resolved the motion on a single contested issue and “does not reach the other challenges that Defendants advance.” Rule 65 asks four things of anyone seeking an injunction: likelihood of success, a substantial threat of irreparable harm, a balance of equities in their favor and the public interest. The third and fourth merge when the government is on the other side.

The plaintiffs lost all three that the court reached.

Worth holding onto: the claims under the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Historic Preservation Act and the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act are still live. Headlines calling this a win for SpaceX are describing the injunction, not the case.

2. The evidence gap that decided it

The standing fight split in two.

On access, the plaintiffs lost outright. Members said the swap would cost them access. Rodriguez found the property was already legally closed to the public, so nobody loses a right they never held. The Service also said it would keep the land closed either way, which defeats redressability.

On observation, they got further than most coverage suggests. Mary Angela Branch and Jim Chapman described watching wildlife on the property from Highway 4 and from the Rio Grande. Rodriguez found their declarations “establish that these two individuals have enjoyed the aesthetic and recreational value of the Property, in a manner that they intend to continue, and in an area subject to immediate activity by SpaceX upon the transfer of title.”

Then the case turned on evidence.

Rodriguez wrote that in support of their beliefs about future harm, “neither Branch nor Chapman offer any evidence.” He added that the plaintiffs submitted no assessment of the environmental impact from SpaceX’s immediate plans near the Massey Test Site.

The Final Environmental Assessment cut the other way. Both declarants named the ocelot as a species they enjoy seeing there. The assessment concluded “it is unlikely that ocelots occur in lands proposed for divestiture.” On another species they raised, it found that none of the divestiture lands south of SH 4 contain piping plover habitat.

His summary: “The competing evidence weighs heavily in Defendants’ favor.”

One passage cuts toward the plaintiffs. The Service’s own decision memo concedes that SpaceX’s planned development “will result in foreseeable and unavoidable consequences.” Rodriguez noted that concession “may bear relevance were this case to reach trial,” then set it aside as carrying little weight on immediate impact at this stage.

3. What SpaceX told the court a delay would cost

This is the part nobody is reporting. The passage is the clearest public statement of how SpaceX frames Starbase inside its wider business.

Arguing against an injunction, the company said a delay to the Massey expansion would hurt Starship’s launch cadence. From there it listed four consequences.

It would impair the company’s ability to deploy artificial intelligence data centers to meet accelerating demand for computing power. It would pressure milestones tied to NASA’s planned crewed lunar landing in 2028. It would affect compliance with a $102 million contract with the Air Force Research Laboratory to investigate “rapid point-to-point military cargo transportation using Starship.” And it would cost the local community, by removing the need to hire employees, contractors and suppliers.

SpaceX also said an injunction would force it to “redirect engineering, permitting, and construction to less suitable land it already owns,” meaning the parcels the Service wants, which would steer building onto the higher-value conservation land.

Rodriguez did not take all of it. He wrote that the court “shares some of Plaintiffs’ skepticism” that a modest Massey expansion and an access road are a lynchpin to enterprise-wide efforts. He still found a pause would create uncertainty, force changes to development plans and add hardship to meeting milestones and contractual obligations.

4. What changes hands. And how it was scored

The Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge dates to 1979 and covers over 103,000 acres. The Boca Chica Tract is 11,500 of those, in Cameron County.

The land going to SpaceX sits between State Highway 4 and the Rio Grande. The order describes coastal prairie and thornscrub, with clay lomas, wind tidal flats and native brushland.

SpaceX hands back ~200 acres adjacent to or inside the Boca Chica Tract, which cuts fragmentation, plus 476.4 acres next to the Laguna Atascosa refuge several miles north.

The two sides built a scoring system together. Service specialists assigned each parcel a Biological Importance Score from 0 to 1. The land being given up scored 0.33 to 0.60 and was classed poor (497 acres) or medium (215 acres). The land being received scored 0.73 to 1.00 and was classed high quality (692 acres).

On the historic land, the assessment found that transferring federal property inside the Palmito Ranch battlefield would count as an adverse effect under Section 106 unless enforceable preservation conditions were put in place. The Service’s answer was the Programmatic Agreement SpaceX signed.

Sources

Primary document

Center for Biological Diversity, Save RGV, The Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas, Inc. and South Texas Environmental Justice Network v. Brian Nesvik, et al., Civil Action No. 1:26-CV-831. United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Brownsville Division. Order and Opinion, Document 66, 27 pages, filed September 21, 2026. Signed by United States District Judge Fernando Rodriguez, Jr. Motion for Preliminary Injunction (Doc. 24) DENIED.

Record cited inside the order

• Plaintiffs’ Motion and Memorandum in Support, Doc. 24 and Doc. 24-1
• Amended Complaint, Doc. 48
• Final Environmental Assessment, Doc. 26-4
• Draft Environmental Assessment, Doc. 26-19
• USFWS Decision Memorandum, Doc. 26-21
• Biological Assessment for the Proposed Boca Chica Land Exchange, February 2026, Doc. 26-12
• Member declarations: Branch, Doc. 24-3 and Doc. 53-2; Hinojosa, Doc. 24-4; Mancias, Doc. 24-5; Chapman, Doc. 24-6 and Doc. 53-1; Hartl, Doc. 24-7
• Bradley Declaration with satellite imagery exhibits, Doc. 25
• Styer Declaration and Expansion Map, Doc. 52-1 and Doc. 52-2
• Service Response, Doc. 51; SpaceX Response, Doc. 52; Reply, Doc. 53; SpaceX Sur-Reply, Doc. 61

Procedural history

Filed June 10, 2026 in the District of Columbia. SpaceX intervened by the end of that month. Transferred to the Southern District of Texas on July 28. Hearing held September 3, with no witnesses called by any party.

Parties

• Plaintiffs: Center for Biological Diversity, Save RGV, The Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas, Inc., South Texas Environmental Justice Network
• Defendants: United States Fish and Wildlife Service and Brian Nesvik, in his official capacity as Director
• Intervenor Defendant: Space Exploration Technologies Corporation

Supporting public record

US Fish and Wildlife Service, Finding of No Significant Impact and Decision for the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge Boca Chica Land Exchange, June 2026.

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Patrick Clancy opens up about grief, the memory of his children and moving forward

By Ross Douthat, Michael Karzis, Katie Kerbstat, Kit Ramgopal, Deanna Lowe

Updated on: September 20, 2026 / 8:02 PM EDT / CBS News

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Patrick Clancy said he felt he had no purpose after his three children were killed.

“There was a time where I didn’t think I would live to see my 35th birthday,” Clancy, 36, said in an interview with 60 Minutes.  “And I was completely fine with it.”

His interview with correspondent Ross Douthat comes after his ex-wife’s mistrial earlier this month. The court has yet to determine whether Patrick’s ex-wife, Lindsay Clancy, will be retried for the killings of their children: 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan. It also comes as Patrick and his wife, Rachel Danis, face intense public scrutiny, becoming the subjects of online suspicion and speculation on social media. 

What happened after Callan was born

In October 2022, five months after Callan’s birth, Patrick said Lindsay told him she had gone a few nights without sleeping. 

Over the next two months, Lindsay made repeated emergency room visits. She admitted herself to a program for patients with postpartum depression and was discharged after a day of treatment. Lindsay was also prescribed an escalating number of prescription drugs. 

Patrick said he struggled to help his wife navigate the medical system and did not know how to manage a postpartum illness.

“I think mental illness has this ability to be tragically deceptive,” he said.

December was the low point, Patrick said. “It was a big struggle for her — just a huge lack of sleep, deep, deep depression, intrusive thoughts.”

Lindsay checked herself into McLean Psychiatric Hospital on New Year’s Eve. She was treated for depression and released days later, making it home in time to celebrate Cora’s birthday on Jan. 7. 

The deaths of Cora, Dawson and Callan

Less than three weeks later, Patrick said he came home from an errand to find Lindsay lying in the backyard, her throat and wrists cut, paralyzed after jumping from an upstairs window. 

He said he found his children strangled in the basement. Cora and Dawson were dead. Callan  was airlifted to Boston Children’s Hospital. 

“I really thought there was a chance that Callan would live,” Patrick recalled. “I remember just thinking, ‘Just give me one. Just give me one kid, and I would raise him as best I could, and I would give him the best life I possibly could. I’d tell him about his brother and sister.’ And I was holding out hope for that.”

Callan’s heart kept beating for four days. 

“I got to hold him. I got to lay down next to him. And he died in my arms,” Patrick said. 

Patrick Clancy forgives his ex-wife

In the days after the tragedy, Patrick wrote tributes to each of his three children and decided to publicly forgive Lindsay. 

“I saw headlines that said, you know, ‘Killer Mom,’ and ‘Baby Murderer,’ ‘Monster.’ And none of them were accurate,” Patrick said. “I think if people said, ‘She did a horrible thing,’ I think everyone could agree with that. …But I believe that it was her mental illness that caused that.” So I shared those words.”

Lindsay never asked for forgiveness, but Patrick said he gave it to her. They’ve both brought medical malpractice lawsuits against health care providers who treated Lindsay. Some have denied wrongdoing, and others have yet to respond to the claim.

Patrick said he thinks he “did the best I could with what I had at the time. And I live with the outcome. I live with it every day.”

Patrick said he realized he could no longer stay in Duxbury and moved to New York City that April, seeking anonymity.

Trial in court — and in the court of public opinion

In July, Lindsay Clancy’s trial began. Her lawyers argued she was suffering from dangerous postpartum psychosis and couldn’t be held criminally responsible for her actions. 

The trial became a national obsession – generating furious arguments about the relationship between mental illness and criminal fault, how the medical system fails mothers and how men and women understand one another. 

Patrick testified and found himself at the center of an online swarm of sleuths and influencers dissecting every detail of the case, developing theories that portray him as uncaring, unfaithful and even the murderer of his children. 

“It’s painful to see. And it makes it difficult to be in public and it’s possible that some of those people, after seeing lie after lie after lie, they start to believe it and that’s what we’re left with,” he said.

One of the catalysts for the theories about Patrick was his apparent stoicism on the witness stand. Patrick said that testifying was difficult for him and that he had a “massive, traumatic” panic attack on the second day of his testimony.

“They put me in an ambulance,” Patrick said. “They offered me some medication, but I said, ‘I don’t want it, because I want to go back and I want to finish this so I can be done with this.’ And I went back and I finished the testimony.”

Lindsay’s trial ended with a hung jury earlier this month.

Moving forward

Patrick says reaching out to survivors and experts in the field of postpartum health has helped him move forward. He remarried this April to Dr. Rachel Danis, a fertility doctor in New York City. 

Danis said the pair met in January 2024 in a New York City run club and got to know each other over coffee. 

“Pat pulled out his phone to pay, and I noticed this adorable photo of children as the wallpaper,” Danis said. ” I just asked, ‘Who are those cuties?’ And Pat said, ‘Those are my kids.’ And then I think I asked if they live in Massachusetts, and Pat said, ‘They died.’ And this is just at the cashier.”

Danis said she tried to “take some of the weight from Pat.”

“I can’t bring his kids back,” she said. “But if I can honor them and allow Pat to grieve but also just continue to honor them in the present, it, I guess that’s all I can do.”

The pair are starting a family, and Patrick is preparing to one day tell his future child about their older siblings, Cora, Dawson and Callan. 

“I think every parent can agree, you have different relationships with your kids, but they’re all your kids,” he said. “And I can’t wait to tell them about their brothers and sister.”