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Smerconish

Justice Dept. Conducting Inquiry Into Pretti Killing; Meta, YouTube Head To Court In Social Media Addiction Case; Fed Agents In L.A. Conduct A Big Immigration Raid At Home Depot. Genes Play A Big Part In Driving Lifespan. Aired 9-10a ET

Aired January 31, 2026 - 09:00   ET

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

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[09:00:28]

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN ANCHOR: Be reasonable. I'm Michael Smerconish in the Philly burbs.

One week ago today, it happened again in Minneapolis. This time it was Alex Pretti dead at the hands of Customs and Border Patrol. Just yesterday, the Justice Department announced that it will conduct a civil rights investigation into Pretti's death. Seventeen days prior, it was Renee Good who was shot and killed by an ICE officer.

Two American citizens engaged in Protestants, both 37 years old, and each shot and killed by federal agents. And that's not where the coincidence ends. In each case, there was something that occurred prior that furthers the public's understanding of the actors, even if it's of no legal relevance.

Seven months before shooting Renee Goode, the same ICE agent was attempting to arrest a man wanted on an immigration warrant who'd been convicted of sexual abuse. The man refused to exit his vehicle. The officer broke a window, reached inside. The driver sped off and dragged the Officer for approximately 100 yards while weaving to shake him off. The officer required medical treatment, including 33 stitches. The driver was convicted of assaulting a federal officer.

Eleven days before Alex Pretti was shot by two officers from Customs and Border Patrol, he was involved in a similar incident, this time with ICE. Video released this week showing Pretty spitting at ICE officers and kicking and smashing the taillight of their SUV, a gun visible tucked into his pants. President Trump certainly thought this video was relevant.

Sending out on Truth Social, "Agitator and perhaps insurrectionist Alex Pretti stock has gone way down with just the released video of him screaming and spitting in the face of a very calm and under control ICE officer and then crazily kicking in a new and very expensive government vehicle." It's true.

In each case, there's a tendency to let the past influence your assessment of the killing. As in maybe the ICE officer who killed Renee Good needs to be evaluated in the context of having been injured in a similar instance. That thinking could cause latitude to be given to his use of deadly force against Ms. Good. After all, he'd been dragged once. Didn't want it to happen again.

Similarly, there's a temptation to look differently at the death of Alex Pretti, where he spat at ICE previously and was violent toward their vehicle. Maybe he's more than just the ICU nurse who treated soldiers.

No doubt in each case the prior events are shaping the court of public opinion, but neither would be relevant in any criminal court. And that's because the standard that applies is one of objective reasonableness. The applicable CBP and ICE use of force policies have the same language and they say that authorized officers may use deadly force only when the officer has a reasonable belief that the subject of such force poses an imminent danger of serious bodily injury or death to the officer or to another person. And that conduct has to be objectively reasonable because if it were subjective, each person could have their own standard, allowing somebody to get off the hook if their conduct was awful but in good faith.

This thinking was shaped in a 1989 Supreme Court case called Graham versus Connor, which applies to federal constitutional claims and which made clear that the reasonable standard is not dependent on the related subjective background or capabilities or experience of a particular officer. As the Supreme Court said in the Graham case, the decision to use force requires careful attention to the facts and circumstances of each particular case, including the severity of the crime at issue, whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officer or others, and whether the suspect is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight.

The court said that the calculus has to make allowances for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split second decisions in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, rapidly evolving. Or as the court put it, the question is whether the officers' actions are objectively reasonable in light of the facts and circumstances confronting them.

Coincidentally, last weekend, as the nation was riveted by the events in Minneapolis, I was reading a new book called Five Bullets. Written by Elliot Williams, the CNN legal analyst and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General.

The book is a deep dive into the 1984 shooting on a New York City subway car when Bernard Goetz shot four teenagers at point blank range. The case of the so-called subway vigilante literally became a global sensation and Goetz's prosecution revolved largely around the question of whether his deadly force was reasonable.

[09:05:09]

At the time, New York law employed a hybrid evaluation of both subjective and objective. As Williams writes, "In judging the reasonableness of the actions, a jury could consider the circumstances in the subway car, any relevant knowledge he had about the four teenagers, and any prior experiences, his prior mugging perhaps, that could provide a reasonable basis for his believing that deadly force was necessary." Williams writes that the reasonableness of Goetz's actions became a Rorschach test about what safety means in America and even who has a right to feel safe in the first place.

In the end, Goetz was acquitted on all the charges where that standard mattered. He was convicted for only one gun possession charge. Elliot Williams joins me now.

Elliot, the book is terrific. What did the Bernard Goetz case teach us about the meaning of reasonable?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS, DOJ: There's a reason. Michael, and thank you for your kind words about the book. There's a reason why I had a chapter in the book called Reasonably, Reasonable, Reasonableness, because so much in the case hinged on this question of reasonableness.

Now, a little bit different from that Department of Justice standard that you talked about there, this did in the Goetz case require both subjective and objective considerations. Not just how we'd expect other people to act in the same circumstances, but whether the jury believed that in his heart, he actually felt afraid.

I think what the case really teaches us is that all of these questions really, at their core, are inherently subjective. How do we as a public, or how does a jury objectively determine whether someone's action was, quote, unquote, reasonable? We have to impose our own feelings on that. And it's really an entirely human and subjective inquiry. At the end of the day, does.

SMERCONISH: It matter that in the Goetz case? And by the way, I'm not equating Bernard Goetz with any other conduct. I'm looking solely at the legal standard here that applies, and I know you know that. Does it matter, though, that in the New York City subway vigilante case in the 80s, were talking about a civilian using deadly force, and now in these two Minneapolis cases, we're talking about law enforcement.

WILLIAMS: And for the purposes of any of these folks on trial, no, that doesn't really matter. Only because if a jury were assessing, if a jury were ever to assess the actions, they really would be assessing, you know what we think of the action, and was the action reasonable? Now, you ask a very fair question, because the idea of objectivity or objectiveness for law enforcement officers will mean comparing them to other law enforcement officers, right? And saying if under similar circumstances, how would we expect an officer, the universal median officer, to behave based on their training and education and experience and whatever else.

And so, it's sort of the same thing because again, we're subjectively assessing what we think of them, but really comparing them to other officers.

SMERCONISH: Elliot, here's another similarity, a parallel that I see between what you write about in the Goetz case and the current environment. The influence of the media. Now, of course, the influence of the media in 1984 was largely the New

York Post. The influence of the media today is social media. But will you address how you see that similarity?

WILLIAMS: Oh, without question. People, the images they take in the news they consume affects how they see the world. Now, in 1984, as I write in the book Five Bullets, there really were three or four games in town. The New York Post, the Daily News, the New York Times Nightly News at night. Now, the New York Post really whipped people up about crime and safety in New York. It was a rough time in the city, we know that. But the post didn't quite help the situation by sort of getting people angrier.

Now today we are in our homes, doom scrolling with these phones in our pockets. And I would also note the Minneapolis scenario, I think, is compounded the way how people see it because of the fact that everybody's been trapped at home for a week.

People are on their devices a lot, seeing news of these images out of Minneapolis. And regardless of what their political views are or their views about Minneapolis, they're seeing information spread by an algorithm that's sort of whipping them up in their head.

So without question, our minds are shaped by the media we consume. And right now, it's a lot less the traditional media forms that you and I grew up with and a lot more, you know, what's on this telephone right.

SMERCONISH: And quickly, one other observation. Things are so much more tribal today. You have polling data in the book that talks about an even divide in the minority community in terms of how they looked at Bernard Goetz. Today, of course, the definitive question is whether you're a red state, blue state progressive or conservative. Will you say something about that?

[09:10:04]

WILLIAMS: Yes, absolutely. And the thing that struck me the most when writing Five Bullets is that, yes, black people, you know, still felt regarded criminal justice the way black people often do, with some concern about how it treats them. But it was surprising, given how rough New York was in the early 1980s, how even black folks, many of them really did see some kinship with Goetz being able to say, look, I'm afraid of cops too, but I'm also afraid of guys that I fear might be sort of threatening me.

And they sort of took some skepticism about that and actually somewhat took -- it took a shine to Bernard Goetz. So it's complicated.

SMERCONISH: Elliot, the book's terrific. Highly recommend it. Thank you for writing it and your willingness to discuss it.

WILLIAMS: Thanks, Michael.

SMERCONISH: Amid tensions in Minnesota, White House Border Czar Tom Homan, trying to thread a needle, promising targeted enforcement while warning against what he calls the wrong message to the world? Watch. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everybody I've spoken with agrees that if somebody has a violent criminal history and is a fugitive, they don't want them as their neighbor. But when you're talking about a targeted operation, are you talking about targeting people whose crime is coming to this country, or is it a more specific definition?

TOM HOMAN, WHITE HOUSE BORDER CZAR: Now, operations will be targeted, but the prioritization are going to be criminal aliens, public safety threats and national security threats. I've met with Marcos and his staff. We got a lot of them. We got a lot of them keep us busy. So that would be our focus.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So that is enough that that's what there is not going to be a focus on people who have no other crimes except for their status.

HOMAN: If you're in the country legally, you're not. You're never off the table. But privatization doesn't mean forget, but you forget about everybody. Let me say this.

If the message we send, is you can enter this country illegally, it's a crime, don't worry about it. You can have your due process show up in court, not show up in court, get ordered, move, don't worry about it. Unless you commit a serious crime, you're good to go. If that's the message we send to the world, you're never going to fix this problem.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SMERCONISH: I was watching that exchange and it inspired today's poll question. I'm thinking if everyone is still on the table even without a crimes, crimes beyond coming here or overstaying a visa, the question is, well, where do we draw that line? Here's what I want to know your answer to go to smerconish.com and respond to this. "Should ICE deport people who came to the U.S. illegally or overstayed a visa, but have lived here for years while paying taxes and breaking no laws."

I'll share later in the program something that Greg Bovino said to me on that five months ago. What are your thoughts? Hit me up on social media. I'll read some responses throughout the course of the program.

Follow me on X and scribe to my YouTube channel. "The question is not "should," the question is "have to." Cops don't get to pick and choose who violates the law. Prosecutors and judges do. Change the laws or deport them all."

I guess this is in response to the poll question, right? Change the laws or deport them all. I'm not sure what else to say about that, frankly, because I I'm not understanding what the meaning was. I'll do better in the next one.

Up ahead, social media companies have faced years of criticism, but this time the question is different. Not whether kids use their platforms, but whether the design of those platforms can be proven to have caused real psychological harm.

A landmark trial now testing that claim in front of a jury. Make sure you're signing up for the newsletter@smercountis.com when you're voting on the poll question. We have a new cartoonist, Eric Alley. He's a libertarian. Check out what he sketched.

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[09:18:00]

Los Angeles now the site of a first of its kind trial that could reset how social media companies are held accountable for harm to young users. Snap and TikTok settled just days in TikTok's case, just hours before jury selection. Meta and Google's YouTube did not. Their executives, including Mark Zuckerberg, are expected to take the stand.

The case was brought by a now 19-year-old woman, she's identified as KGM, who started using social media when she was just 10 years old. She alleges that features built into Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and previously TikTok and Snap led to compulsive use, anxiety, depression, body dysmorphia and self-harm thoughts. This is a bellwether case. It's the first of thousands of similar lawsuits. It could shape how all of them are resolved.

For years social media companies have been Shielded by section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a law that generally protects platforms from liability for user generated content. So how did this caught this case reach a jury? Plaintiffs are not suing over content. They're arguing product liability, that the apps themselves were defectively designed.

The claim is that features like Infinite Scroll, Autoplay, push notifications and public likes were engineered to maximize time on the platform and that this design, not just what users saw, caused harm. A California judge agreed that theory could be advanced to a jury trial. And this is where the case turns. Whether the platform's design is defective and if so, whether the defects were a substantial factor in causing harm, not whether teens use social media a lot. Everybody knows they do.

The question for the jury is whether these design choices were a substantial factor in causing this plaintiff's mental health injuries. Plaintiffs say the internal documents show that the companies targeted teens. Here's an internal email from Meta in 2017 quote, "Mark has decided that a top priority for the company in H1 2017 is teens."

So not only are they alleging that Meta and YouTube actively targeted teens as financial targets. They're also arguing that the companies knew adolescents were most vulnerable to a dopamine driven feedback loop.

[09:20:11]

Here are internal slides from a meta in 2019 quote "Instagram is an inevitable and avoidable component of teens lives. Teens can't switch off from Instagram even if they want to." Then there are these slides from Google showing the potentially nefarious impact of autoplay quote, "YouTube autoplay's the next video within seconds, even if it eats in to your sleep. These are not neutral products. They are part of a system designed to addict us.

The defense says that's not enough. The Wall Street Journal agrees and argues that these cases confuse correlation with causation writing quote, "But it's extremely difficult to prove that social media caused any individual's troubles given the complex interplay among personal experience, personality and online exposure. For instance, the plaintiff in the current case was exposed to domestic abuse in her home as a young child, which may have made her more vulnerable to content on the platforms."

The Wall Street Journal editorial called the litigation a shakedown and blamed plaintiff lawyers for never letting a culture problem go to waste. This cynicism, I would say, fails to recognize that this might be yet another instance where those often-malign trial lawyers are all we have when government doesn't protect us from defective products that are put into the stream of commerce. Remember, Ford Pinko -- Ford Pinto fuel tanks, Dowcon shield, Takata airbags, the GM ignition switch, or Monsanto's roundup as just a couple of examples. So this trial isn't just about social media. It's about whether design can be legally separated from content, whether addictive architecture can be treated like a defective product, and whether causation can be proven not in the abstract but for one young woman, but in a courtroom where law, technology and mental health are all now colliding. And why this case matters far beyond Los Angeles.

Joining me now is Frances Haugen, the former Facebook product manager and whistleblower who released internal documents and testified before Congress. She's the author of the Power of How I Found the Strength to Tell the Truth and why I Blew the Whistle of on Facebook.

Frances, thank you for being here. What did matter know and when did they know it? In the context of this case.

FRANCES HAUGEN, FACEBOOK WHISTLEBLOWER: What's been so riveting for the last few years is I brought forward a relatively small number of documents regarding children and what we've seen come out just from these court cases, just the things that came out and things like the indictments, is that Facebook knew They were making these choices intentionally. They knew kids were telling them, when I use the products in these ways, it makes me unhappy, makes it hard for me to sleep focus in school. And they chose to make these choices anyhow.

SMERCONISH: So two of the parties have settled. Were there differences between Snap and tick tock versus YouTube and meta, or do you think the same culpability? If there is culpability, accountability, maybe a better word applies to all four. Do you distinguish between them?

HAUGEN: You know, it's interesting. I think there are design differences between those products, but there are also economic differences between those products. When we look at the profitability of Snapchat or the profitability of TikTok, we're talking about much smaller numbers of dollars than we are in the case of things like Facebook. And I think when the calculus comes down to it, YouTube, Google and

Facebook, you know, Instagram, Meta, they have much more money on the line when it comes to these things. And so I think they're willing to fight it out.

SMERCONISH: Mark Zuckerberg is going to testify. What will we learn from him?

HAUGEN: Probably not much. He has a history of not taking responsibility, not admitting to things. He's been very effectively media trained, so he can say a lot of words and not give a lot of content. But I think it's important that he's actually having to sit for this trial. He needs to face the consequences for the things that he's done, that he's encouraged, he's allowed because remember, he's the only one in charge of Meta. He holds the shares, he's in charge. He deserves responsibility.

SMERCONISH: Frances, when Jean Twenge wrote "iGen," I think it was 2017. That book was very significant for me and put me in the space and has made me pay attention to this issue ever since.

But what I wanted to bring up to you is that when she wrote the book she spoke in terms of correlation and then over time and she's written additional books that now it's causation. And I guess the question that I want to ask Frances Haugen is whether the science is settled.

I know that Dr. Twenge believes that it is and she might testify in this case. Do you think the science is settled?

HAUGEN: You know, it's -- I -- if you look at -- so this is actually not like the first case. We've seen cases internationally around issues of can we attribute Facebook's choices, what experiences on social media to outcomes, for example, the death of children in the UK and each one of these cases is very different. And in reality, I haven't had a chance to look through the file for this case because it's kind of hard to get the court documents.

[09:25:06]

It's going to be interesting to see how it plays out in court because the circumstances are different and the content that these kids see is different. Some of these kids internationally, 50 percent of the content they saw was self-harm content in the week before they died. That's a very different case than someone who maybe saw 10 percent or 5 percent in their feed.

SMERCONISH: Do you share my observation? You know, the Wall Street Journal says, oh, it's these trial lawyers again. And my response is to say, well, if government had done something, but government is doing nothing of any significance in my opinion, maybe you feel differently. So my view is one of I'm glad somebody's doing something about it and let's let a jury decide whether there's responsibility on the part of these platforms. Your thought?

HAUGEN: So I had the pleasure of being in Australia maybe two years ago and really being there. One of these conversations around, should we ban social media? We're just starting, you know, we had headlines being like, should we ban for under 14s?

And I got asked when I was in Canberra, why are you here? Like why aren't you in the U.S. And I said, well, the government's been shut down for like 18 days, right? Our government literally doesn't function to the point where we can't pay our bills.

Sometimes we need the trial lawyers. The reality is we live in a moment where we pass fewer and fewer laws every successive year and the trial lawyers are sometimes the only people we can lean on when the consequences are this big.

When you look at the Facebook files themselves, you have Facebook employees say, we are the tobacco companies. How do you resolve tobacco? We had to turn to the travelers.

SMERCONISH: Frances Haugen, thank you for being here. Appreciate your sentiments.

Let me check in on social media. Follow me on X. Subscribe to my YouTube channel, maybe I'll read yours on air.

All right. I will cheer the day when a hacker group shuts it all down and wipes out all of their algorithms. Social media has divided us, warped our minds and has not allowed us to mingle. Yeah, there's that key word, right? It's isolating. All this activity is actually isolating us.

I just want to pick up on something that Frances Haugen said a moment ago, which is it's the political dysfunction in this country and she made the observation, and she's right, that fewer laws are being passed. And when there's so much friction and so little civility and cooperation. You can't advance the ball on an issue like this.

I don't know how this case is going to turn out. I'm interested to see all the evidence that is advanced. But it's a reminder to me that sometimes when Washington fails or your state legislature is failing, thank goodness we have a civil process that can pick up the slack relative today's poll question. I've already shared with you what Tom Homan said this week.

Well, I now want to show you something from a conversation that I had with Greg Bovino about this issue of, as I like to say it, what do we do with the short order cook in Jersey City? Get rid of the rapists, get rid of those who are committing assault. What do we do about the people who entered the country illegally or overstayed a visa but are otherwise working, paying taxes and raising their families? Watch these exchange.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SMERCONISH: I'm worried about, yes, the person who came here without playing by the rules, they overstayed a visa but have since proven to be a solid individual. They work, they have a family, they pay taxes, and they haven't broken any other laws. What are we going to do about that case? Because I don't want to catch them all under that one big net. You get the final word. GREGORY BOVINO, CHIEF BORDER PATROL AGENT, EL CENTRO SECTOR: Sure,

Michael. Thank you. I enforce federal immigration law. And one of the things that we don't talk about here are what about Ma and Pa in America that are put out of business because of people that they may be hard workers, but that doesn't negate the law. Hard work does not negate the law.

If you rob a bank and you're a hard worker, does that make it okay to rob a bank? Absolutely not. So we have a lot of these folks that are unlicensed vendors. We actually apprehended several of those at that Home Depot.

So immigration is not a victimless crime. It affects all of Ma and Pa America and the 30 percent to 40 percent. We're definitely going after those. But everyone else has to do it right. If they don't, then and we come into contact with them, we're going to arrest them.

And they have an out here. Mike, it's called the CBP Home app. Do it right, we'll pay you $1,000 and a free plane ticket, fly home, do it right. That's all we're asking here.

SMERCONISH: Okay, so you've heard from Tom Homan, you've heard from Greg Bovino. That's one perspective relative to this issue. Now, I want to hear from all of you.

Go to my website@smerconish.com and answer today's poll question. "Should I support people who came to the U.S. illegally or overstayed a visa, but have lived here for a period of years, have paid taxes and have broken no other laws?" Cannot wait to see the result at the end of the hour.

Still to come, your social media reaction today's program. Plus, if longevity is more than half genetic, does that mean the rest of us have been working too hard for too little payoff? The science and what it does and does not give you permission to do, we'll deal with that.

Sign up for the newsletter when you vote at Smerconish.com. You'll get the work of editorial cartoonists, including Steve Breen and Jack Ohman.

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SMERCONISH: So, I have a friend. His name is Peter Meltzer. He's a Philly lawyer, smart guy. And his social media reaction will be the first that I'll deal with today.

[09:35:01]

He sent me a note in the course of the program and said, you put your thumb on the scale in the way that you worded the poll question. David, can you put the poll question up on the screen? I'll share with you the criticism.

Should ICE deport people who came to the U.S. illegally or overstayed a visa, and now here's the part that Peter objects to, but have lived here for years while paying taxes and breaking no laws? Or maybe I could have said breaking no other laws.

What I'm trying to get at in the way that I've worded it, and he thinks that it will be a very lopsided result because of my thumb on the scale, I'm trying to articulate, I'm trying to frame out the case of what I describe to -- described on radio as the short-order cook in Jersey City, the person who came years ago, yes, came illegally or overstayed a visa, but ever since has been a solid citizen.

Now, you heard -- and I've tried to be fair to Tom Homan and Greg Bovino. You've heard what each of them have to say on this issue. You can't set that precedent. You can't give carte blanche. You can't put the word out to the world that we're going to make an allowance for those individuals.

But that's not how I see it. I'm appreciative of President Trump for closing the border in the way that he has, needed to be done. I just think it's impractical that we're going to now deport 10 million, 12 million people.

So, I think there needs to be a path. And maybe it's not a path to citizenship. Maybe they never get citizenship, but a one-time exception that if you come forward and you come clean, you'll be permitted to continue -- and no criminal record, apart from the original sin, you get to stay so long as you've been paying your taxes. You haven't committed any crimes. You're a productive member of our society.

And guess what? You're never going to vote. You're never going to vote. And if you want something beyond that, then you have to leave and you can try and come back in through the, you know, through the front door. That's what I'm getting at in the poll question today. So, Peter, respectfully, I like my wording even if it is lopsided.

Here's more social media reaction. Sorry if I ate up all the time. What else do we have?

You send them back. Not doing so encourages others to come here illegally.

Well, Vodka Martini, love your name. That's what Tom Homan says. You know, he and Greg Bovino say, well, that's the kind of a precedent that you'll be establishing and the green lighting -- I'll tell you what will be interesting.

What will be interesting is, is what happens when a Democrat follows President Trump. I'm not thinking Rubio or Vance. I'm talking about when a Democrat follows President Trump. What happens now relative to the border?

More social media reaction. What else do we have?

I don't know why the Dems aren't pounding the point now that Trump has the House and Senate, why aren't the Republicans putting a com --

Well, that's my point. By the way, Jeff, I did a commentary here, I feel like it was six months ago, where I came on at the top of the show and I tried to make a logical argument directed right at the White House and say, this is your unique opportunity.

I have to say this, for balance and fairness, President Trump, when he was candidate Trump, you know, put the kibosh on what would have been a comprehensive immigration reform package put together by the Biden White House. And I think that would have been problematic for Trump in the campaign and he didn't want it to pass.

But to this person's point, you control the Senate, you control the House. You have a unique opportunity. So, why not do what I've laid out?

You could say you have to have been here, I don't know, five years, seven years. I don't know where the Mendoza Line is. If you came on Biden's watch, we're not going to let it happen. That's probably what Trump would say.

OK, fine. You've been here for X years. You've been a solid citizen. You've, you know, raised a family. You're paying taxes, you have a job, you haven't broken any laws. We're going to give you a path, not to citizenship, not to voting, but you're going to get to stay. There, I said it.

Still to come, genes versus lifestyle. It's the age-old debate which determines longevity. A new study released this week has a definitive answer. Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel will weigh in next.

Sign up for my newsletter at Smerconish.com. When you're voting on the poll question, you'll get the work of editorial cartoonists like Rob Rogers.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:43:31]

SMERCONISH: Some people smoke and drink. They live to be 100. Some eat well. They exercise. They still die young.

It may not seem fair, but it's part of the lottery of life. Some people, they say, are simply blessed with good genes. And a new article in the journal "Science" seems to back that up.

Using data from studies of twins, it appears that the genetic contribution to longevity may be as much as 55 percent, which is a startling number considering that previous estimates have suggested the role of genetics in one's lifespan is somewhere between six and 33 percent.

But in a way, this new number makes sense, you inherit things like height and build from your parents. Why shouldn't you inherit their longevity as well? You might not want to pick up the cigarette just yet, because even if aging is 55 percent inherited, there's still that other 45 percent.

Joining us now and looking pretty healthy himself is bioethicist and former White House health policy adviser under President Obama, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel. Dr. Emanuel is the author of the new bestselling book, "Eat Your Ice Cream: Six Simple Rules for a Long and Healthy Life." Nice to have you back.

Doc, my former internist, he's retired, but he was terrific. Dr. Bradley Fenton, I'll give him a shout out. At my annual physical he would say to me, well, congratulations, you were dealt a good hand and you've yet to screw it up. Make sense to you?

DR. EZEKIEL EMANUEL, VICE PROVOST OF GLOBAL INITIATIVES, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA: Yes. Look, it's not nature or nurture here. It's both nature and nurture. And we know that nature plays a role, genes play a role.

[09:45:03]

Previously, we had thought it was 25 to 33 percent or so. And the main reason that we got it wrong, and these people say it's 55 percent, is that people died of lots of other things. And so the previous studies were contaminated by infection, accidents, violence and other things.

It's about half and half. And that means that, yes, your parents contribute, but you contribute too. And leading a dissolute life, drinking, smoking, eating ultra processed foods, not socializing with people and being a social -- lonely, those are all going to contribute to a shorter life, even if you come in with good genes.

And then there's a random event from the environment. One of the things the study showed is that cancer, getting cancer, is less genetically linked than, say, heart disease.

SMERCONISH: The short version from you, don't be a schmuck. Talk to people. Or, as I like to say, mingle. Expand your mind. Eat your ice cream. Move it. Sleep like a baby.

Your father lived to 92. Thank God your mother is still with us. You say he never --

EMANUEL: Yes.

SMERCONISH: -- exercised in a formal sense.

EMANUEL: Right. He didn't go to the gym. He wasn't part of any organized, you know, pickup basketball game. But he walked super-fast. He was always known as speedy. He walked everywhere he could. And he, you know, talked to people.

I would say the single defining characteristic of my father is that he was an extrovert. He would talk to anyone. He was curious about people. And it paid off. People loved him.

His memorial service had more than 350 people. And everyone talking about how nice he was, how personal, how much he helped them. And I still get stopped. Literally three weeks ago I was at the Philadelphia Free Library talking about my book and a lady in the audience says, your dad was my pediatrician.

You know, she remembered it was so important to her. I can't tell you who my pediatrician was. So it -- he actually had that social element, which I think was critical to living a long and engaged life.

SMERCONISH: By the way, mine was Dr. Laudenslager. Something else that I circled in your book that I think -- that I think bears mention. You write, in popular culture, the most important wellness and longevity behaviors, the social and mental, are forgotten or de-emphasized in favor of the physical. Expand on that.

EMANUEL: Yes. If you read all the influencers on longevity and the gurus up on Instagram and TikTok, they talk about eating well, which is important, exercise, which is important, sleeping, which is important. We tend to underestimate the importance of sleeping. And they almost all leave out social interaction, which is far and away the most important, and has a huge impact.

So if you're 55, 65 years old and you look at people over the next six to eight years, those people who have robust social lives, they have good friends, they eat with other people a number of meals during the week, those people have a reduced risk of dying of 22 to 33 percent. That far exceeds what they would get if they were just exercising.

So, it's the most important thing. And I think your point mingle, mingle with people, mingle with your close friends, but also mingle with the casual person you happen to meet in a grocery store or sitting at a bar. We don't do enough of that.

I love to talk to people who are sitting in the next seat with me on an airplane. Why are you going to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Philadelphia? And then you find out a lot about their lives.

SMERCONISH: That's a great message. The book is terrific. Thank you, Dr. Emanuel. We appreciate it.

And everybody watching you still have time to vote on today's question at Smerconish.com. Should ICE deport people who came to the U.S. illegally or overstayed a visa, and then the part that my buddy Peter says I put my thumb on the scale, but have lived here for years while paying taxes and breaking no laws?

While you're voting, subscribe to the daily newsletter. You'll love it. You'll get exclusive editorial cartoons like this from Eric Allie and this from Steve Breen.

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[09:53:47]

SMERCONISH: OK. There's the poll results, so far. Well, and my buddy Peter would say, well, yes, because of the way you worded it, 47,000, that's a lot of votes, 341. Should we deport, I'm going to phrase it my way, the short-order cook in Jersey City? And 85 percent say, no, that guy shouldn't be deported.

Here's more social media reaction to today's program. What do we have?

Your continual both sides arguments are screams into the void. Two people were killed by federal agents. We have video. Just stop. Stand up for right versus wrong. Are you afraid of arrest now?

What that note ought to say, what that note ought to say is, Michael, thank you so much for being so nuanced, for taking the time to try to explain to us the legal lens through which we should be evaluating both the horrific death of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. We wish they were alive, but thank you for telling us how the system is now going to look at these cases.

There's a misperception going on out there that I felt the need to correct in my opening commentary, which is to say that you look at the Renee Good case and you look at that officer and you say, jeez, he got dragged six months prior, he needed all those stitches.

[09:55:04]

Of course, when he approached her vehicle, he had that in his mind. But our legal system doesn't allow consideration of that. And similarly, many are now looking at Alex Pretti and they're saying, oh, wow, 11 days prior to losing his life, he's spitting at agents and he's kicking out their tail life. Maybe he's not the soft soul ICU nurse who took care of our veterans that he's been made out to be. Right?

And again, my point is to say, that doesn't come in. That is not the lens, the objective standard, unless, unless you had the same officers 11 day prior, and they weren't because some were border protection and some were ICE, it doesn't come in. It's irrelevant. It's relevant in the court of public opinion. But it's not relevant in terms of the legal analysis.

I probably just ate up all the time with that. Anyway, you're welcome. You're welcome, is what I wanted to say.

If you missed any of today's program, you can always listen anywhere you get your podcasts. Thank you for watching and I will see you next week.

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