'the Girls' podcast debuts as co-hosts take on Lindsay Clancy case, Ms Rachel's political activism

The debut episode of FOX News Podcasts’ "the Girls" delivered an unfiltered conversation where no subject was off-limits, as the hosts discussed the Lindsay Clancy trial, Ms. Rachel's political activism, the realities of grief and more.

Each episode features a rotating cast of women with distinctive voices and experiences spanning news, politics, sports, comedy and culture. Thursday’s premiere brought together Fox News’ Harris Faulkner, Rachel Campos-Duffy and Kat Timpf, former secretary to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo Melissa DeRosa and former ESPN host Samantha Ponder.

The conversation got intense as Ponder weighed in on Clancy, the Massachusetts woman charged with murdering her three young children, whose trial ended in a mistrial last month.

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Co-hosts are seated for a discussion on the debut episode of FOX News Podcasts' "the Girls," which debuted Thursday. (Fox News Media)

"If I’m a mom and this has been done to my kids, I want this woman put away forever," Ponder says in a preview clip.

"You can say things were hard, [but] you still gotta be in prison."

The group also debated whether children’s entertainer Ms. Rachel is a bad influence because of her political activism, with Timpf defending her and Faulkner questioning how much parents should know about the political views of children's entertainers.

"Is Ms. Rachel bad for kids? I don't think it's that deep," Timpf said.  "She just sings songs... I still listen to Michael Jackson. Where do you draw the line? I grew up listening to Nirvana. I love Kurt Cobain. I wore flannel. I've yet to shoot up heroin," she added.

Faulkner said that parents should consider the political views children may absorb from online personalities.

"When she says she wants to do away with ICE, when she says that she’s more for letting those people come across our border illegally, when she says those things — why do I know that about her?" Faulkner said.

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Ms. Rachel appears on NBC's "Today" on Sept. 24, 2024. (Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty Images)

The premiere also took a more personal turn when Timpf opened up about losing her father shortly before becoming pregnant with her second child.

"Not to make it weird, but I think about death pretty much all the time because my dad died," Timpf said.

Timpf said she had spoken to her father the morning he died and later learned from a doctor she had never met that he had suffered an aortic dissection after initially going to the hospital with a stomach ache.

Her father had been intensely focused on his health, which made his sudden death especially difficult for her to process.

"He was very fit. He would not drink out of a plastic water bottle," Timpf said. "When he died, he was going up north for a day of sailing."

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Timpf said the loss left her questioning whether people have any real control over their health or fate. She noted that her mother also died before turning 60 and that she battled cancer during her first pregnancy.

"I almost learned the wrong lesson of like, ‘What can you do?’" she said. "Do I want to live forever? I’m scared so much to die."

Fox News' "the Girls" podcast debuted Thursday, touching on an array of culture, political and personal topics ranging from Gen Z and avocado toast to Ms. Rachel and the Lindsay Clancy case. (Fox News Media)

The conversations capture the podcast's freewheeling nature, covering an array of topics across news, politics, sports, comedy and culture.

"the Girls'" is available on Fox News Digital, Apple, Spotify, YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.

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Fox News' Brian Flood contributed to this report.

Taylor Penley is an associate editor for Fox News Digital and contributor to FOX Business and Fox Nation who covers media, culture and Flash