The Daily - The Alex Jones Verdict and the Fight Against Disinformation

Episode Date: August 8, 2022

This episode contains descriptions of distressing scenes. In a landmark ruling, a jury in Texas ordered Alex Jones, America’s most prominent conspiracy theorist, to pay millions of dollars to the parents of a boy killed at Sandy Hook for the damage caused by his lies about the mass shooting.What is the significance of the trial, and will it do anything to change the world of lies and misinformation?Guest: Elizabeth Williamson, a feature writer based in the Washington bureau of The New York Times.Background reading: What to know about the defamation case against Alex Jones, the far-right conspiracy theorist who used his Infowars media company to spread lies about the Sandy Hook school shooting.The parents of a child killed in the Sandy Hook shooting were awarded $45.2 million in punitive damages at the conclusion of the trial. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

From The New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tavernisi. This is The Daily. On Friday, in a landmark ruling, a jury in Texas ordered Alex Jones, America's most prominent conspiracy theorist, to pay millions of dollars to a set of parents for the damages caused by his lies about the Sandy Hook mass shooting. I spoke with my colleague Elizabeth Williamson as the jury was deliberating that punishment. It's Monday, August 8th. So Elizabeth, where are we catching you today? Where are you speaking from? So I am in the Travis County Courthouse in Austin for the trial of Alex Jones,

who is on trial here for defaming Scarlett Lewis and Neil Heslin, whose son Jesse, a six-year-old, was killed at Sandy Hook. And Elizabeth, remind us of Alex Jones' backstory and how this trial came about. Alex Jones is a kind of ur-conspiracy broadcaster. He got his start in the 90s here in Austin, where he was a sort of oddball on community access TV and later on a radio show. But he started broadcasting more and more dark theories around the Oklahoma City bombing in the mid-90s, saying that that was planned by the government, the same for 9-11. But he took a particularly dark turn in 2012 when he said that the Sandy

Hook shooting was a conspiracy, a plot by the government as a pretext to confiscate Americans' firearms. And he named individual family members as so-called crisis actors who were complicit in the plot. Right. And that has had real consequences for those parents, as you've told us in the past on the show. Absolutely. Alex Jones has an enormous audience, and that audience increased exponentially after he began talking about Sandy Hook. And in that audience of tens of millions of people, there were inevitably some people

who truly believed what he was saying and targeted the families as liars and as frauds and people participating in an imagined mass shooting for profit. They accused them of faking their children's deaths or that the children never existed. And they began to approach them first online by making accusations against them and tormenting them. And then they began to confront them on the street and in public. So after years of this kind of torment, finally in mid-2018, the families of 10 Sandy Hook victims lodged a civil defamation suit against Alex Jones for the lies he had been spreading for those years. And what happens next?

There were four separate lawsuits filed by the families in Texas and in Connecticut. Over the course of the preparation for the defamation trials, Jones repeatedly stonewalled. He withheld testimony. He failed to submit financial records and business records that were ordered by the court. He built a tremendously successful business over the years by selling products alongside his conspiracy broadcasts. Jones stonewalls on the discovery process in all of those cases for nearly four years. At the end of last year, judges in both

states in all four cases ruled him liable by default, meaning he lost. It was a sweeping victory for the families. That set the stage for three trials for damages, of which this is the first. And in all of those trials, the jury's sole responsibility is to decide how much Alex Jones must pay these families for defaming them. So Elizabeth, tell me about the parents. Who are these two parents making the claim? Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis live near Newtown, Connecticut still. They had a son named Jesse who was six. When he died, he was in first grade at Sandy Hook.

And Jesse played a really specific and special role when the gunman came to Sandy Hook. When he paused for some reason, whether it was to reload or because his magazine jammed, Jesse shouted, run. Nine of his classmates did run and they survived. Jesse was killed moments later. And what was the specific claim of defamation against Jones from Jesse's parents? First tonight, our report on the incendiary radio host Alex Jones. So years later, in 2017, Megyn Kelly was profiling Alex Jones on a show that she had on NBC.

For years, Jones has been spreading conspiracy theories, claiming, for instance, that elements of the U.S. government allowed the 9-11 attacks to happen and that the horrific Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax. And Neil appeared on the show to provide the family's viewpoint of the lies that Jones had been spreading all of these years. I dropped him off in 9-04. That's when we dropped him off at school the family's viewpoint of the lies that Jones had been spreading all of these years. I dropped him off in 904. That's when we dropped him off at school with his book bag.

He told Megyn Kelly about his last moments with Jesse. Hours later, I was picking him up in a body bag. He had gone into the school in the wee hours of the morning on the night of the shooting and he held Jesse's body. I lost my son. I buried my son. I held my son with a bullet hole through his head.

This was obviously a pretty sacred memory to Neil and he shared it with Megyn Kelly on the show that evening. And how did a defamation suit come out of that? What did Jones say? Alex Jones was unhappy

with the way he was being portrayed in Megyn Kelly's broadcast that night. And after the broadcast aired, one of his sidekicks, a guy named Owen Schroyer, went on InfoWars and said that Neil couldn't have held his son that night because according to official reports, which of course conspiracy theorists had picked through and parsed and cherry-picked. The families, quote-unquote, weren't allowed to see their children after their deaths. Jones later picked up on Owen Schroer's false claims and amplified them. And that was the genesis of the defamation

lawsuit that Neil and Jesse's mom, Scarlett, filed against Alex Jones. So this current trial in the courthouse where you're sitting now in Austin, Texas, is to determine how much Alex Jones has to pay the parents of Jesse Lewis. So bring me into the courtroom. What's happening? So the first couple of days, Sabrina, were more what you could expect. Establishing what happened on December 14th, 2012, the day of the shooting. Walking through some of what occurred to the parents. The aftermath of the shooting.

And then Neil and Scarlett took the stand and testified. My name is Neil Heslin. I'm the father of Jesse McCord Lewis, killed at Sandy Hook Elementary, December 14, 2012. So Neil went first. I feel very good about being here today to face Alex Jones, to hold him accountable for what he said and did to me, Jones to hold him accountable for what he said and did to me and to restore the honor and legacy of my son that was tarnished by Mr. Jones. And he's a kind of quiet and soft-spoken man. He broke down several times on the stand, kept apologizing for that while he described, you know, really poignant small vignettes from Jesse's first six years.

In school, they were just learning to add. How Jesse had learned to add big numbers that year. He was so proud of that, that he could add such large numbers. And it's simple as it is, but he was just so proud of that. Jesse had said that he would teach Neil how to do it. One of the biggest, most profitable things for Jesse was collecting scrap metal. You know, they palled around together.

They collected recyclables and scrap metal. They made a pile of that, and they would turn it in for pocket money for Jesse. He was the best. Love of my life. So it was pretty powerful testimony. This trial is the only way I can restore my credibility and reputation. It's been

destroyed and damaged by these constant attacks and this peddling of a conspiracy and a hoax. testified this week, Neil had always said that this was his opportunity, that he was really looking forward to, to confront Jones in the courtroom, to be face-to-face with him and share the damage that his lies had done. But when he got there and took the stand, finally, Jones wasn't there. But he was watching Neal's testimony from his studio across town. Instead of attending the trial, Jones was broadcasting his show. So he was using the live feed from the courtroom to appraise Neal's performance in Jones's vernacular on the stand. performance in Jones's vernacular on the stand. And he was saying Neil seemed slow, as in unintelligent, that he was on the spectrum maybe, and that he had been manipulated by the lawyers and by Jones's political enemies. And can he just do that? Like not show up to the trial? Yeah, he was allowed to do that.

And the families would have been as well. In fact, there was one day during the proceedings where they felt threatened and they didn't come that day. They spent the day in isolation. So they would have had a reason not to come to court. But instead, they came and they kept waiting for Jones to show up. And only sporadically did he come. Ms. Lewis, if you'll come stand in front of me, please. Raise your right hand. These psalms were all formed under the penalty of perjury that the testimony we're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but truth. Thank you so much, ma'am. You can have a seat in the witness chair.

And what about Jesse's mom, Scarlett? Does she take the stand? Yes. So she testified after Neil. My name's Scarlett Lewis, and I am first and foremost the mom of two boys. And she has a kind of quiet authority when she speaks. So she spoke about what she remembered best about Jesse. The first time that I saw him, I actually walked to the nursery. And there were all these nurses gathered around the window taking pictures. How he was a big baby. He was 11 pounds.

There's this enormous baby. He was larger than life. He was loud. He was bouncing off the walls. That's my first memory. And, you know, he was a big kid and a strong kid, and that kind of brought her to the same memory of, you know, what he did in the classroom that day. He actually stood up to the shooter

and he saved nine of his classmates' lives. And she spoke about the hero's funeral that he received. For that act of bravery, he was actually given a commander-in-chief funeral reserved for heads of state and returning war heroes. And she just spoke very eloquently about what he was like, what his life was like. I actually went to my mom's house.

And she spoke about how people were whispering in her mother's house about conspiracy theorists denying the shooting and questioning the official narrative. And they tried to protect her from that. Something they didn't want me to know, so of course I wanted to know. And they were telling me that there was someone saying that the tragedy hadn't happened, which was so crazy to me because I was living it. And that made her afraid. She didn't know what people like that might do or where they were or who they were, how many there were. Do you feel unsafe at your own house?

I have, yes. You own a gun at your house. Is that because of the safety fears that you have? Yes. So shortly after that, it is actually noon. I think we will take our lunch break now. The judge called a break for lunch and it seemed clear that Scarlett's testimony was expected to last only until that lunch break and it further emerged that Jones seemed to be relying on that too

but Scarlett wasn't done and she certainly wasn't done with Jones. But Scarlett wasn't done, and she certainly wasn't done with Jones. All rise! And so when they resumed after lunch, he was in the courtroom because he would be testifying next. So when Scarlett came and sat down again, I think this surprised him. It was an accident of scheduling that did finally place her face to face with Alex Jones. Miss Lewis, can we continue what we were talking about earlier? Yes.

Okay. Before we do that though, are you pleased that you at least now finally get to look this man in the eye? Yes. And this is literally the first time that any Sandy Hook parent has had an opportunity to speak with Jones directly. We'll be right back. So, Elizabeth, what happens when Scarlett Lewis takes the stand with Alex Jones in the courtroom? So Scarlett just begins to address every answer to Jones directly. I wanted to tell you to your face because I wanted you to know that I am a mother, first and foremost. And I know that you're a father. And my son existed.

She starts to tell him, you know, truth is the basis for our reality. It's the basis for our whole system. It's the basis that we build our society around. Truth, truth is so vital to our world. Truth is what we base our reality on. And we have to agree on that to have a civil society. Sandy Hook is a hard truth, hard truth. Nobody would want to ever believe that 26 kids could be murdered. Nobody would ever want to believe that. I understand people not wanting to believe that, actually. I don't want to believe it.

She wasn't angry. She was compassionate sounding. And then to have someone on top of that perpetuate a lie, a lie, that it was a hoax, that it didn't happen, it was a false flag, that I'm an actress. And you get on and you say, oh, sorry, but I know actresses when I see them. Do you think I'm an actress? But she asked him, you know, do. I know you're, I mean, I know you believe me. And yet you're going to leave this courthouse

and you're going to say it again on your show. And he would fidget. He would talk to his lawyer. He'd look down at his hands and she would call him to attention by saying alex i want you to hear this i think you know that sandy hook is real and that it happened i know that you know that it's real but i don't think that you understand the repercussions of going on air with a huge audience and lying and I don't think you will understand unless there's some form of punishment that is significant it seems so incredible to me that we have to do this, that we have to implore you, not just implore you, punish you

to get you to stop lying, saying it's a hoax. It happened. It's like surreal what's going on in here. I think everyone in here probably feels that way. She was calling him to account, and she was doing it in this powerful way, a grieving mom saying, why in the world are you adding not only to my pain, but why are you destroying the whole the whole factual fiber that holds the families together as survivors of this tragedy, that keeps us going, the narratives about our children's last moments that we hold dear. Why are you ripping this apart? I'm so glad that this day is here I'm actually I'm actually relieved and I'm grateful that I got to say all this to you and that I got to speak my truth.

So in all the years since the families have filed these lawsuits, they would say many times what it would be like to confront Alex Jones in a courtroom. This was something they really wanted to do. They wanted to call him personally to account. They wanted to have that public conversation. And so it kind of took on a mythic quality, you know, what would this confrontation be like? And it was riveting and it was extremely moving. And the air was kind of electric with sort of a shared realization of all of us that this is exactly what these families have been seeking all these years. And how is Jones reacting to this testimony?

He was extremely uncomfortable. He could not sit still. He couldn't seem to hold his eyes on her when she would say, I want you to hear this. He kept looking away. He was squirming. All right, you may all be seated. squirming. So Elizabeth, bring us to the moment when Jones takes the stand. What happens? Mr. Reynolds, do you have a witness? I do. The defense would call Alex E. Jones. All right, Mr. Jones, come stand in front of me, please. So when he first took the stand, Sabrina, it was kind of like Alex Jones in a comfort zone because he's being questioned by his own lawyer, and it becomes almost a version of his show in which he tries to present his version of events. Alex, would you please introduce yourself to the ladies and gentlemen of the jury?

Hi, I'm Alex Jones. How are you feeling today, Alex? I actually feel good because I get a chance to, for the first time, say what's really going on instead of the corporate media and high-powered law firms manipulating what I actually did. One thing he tried to do was establish

that free speech was protecting his broadcast. So, Mr. Jones, one of the instructions I just gave you is that this is not a conversation. Question and answer. So she got the monologue and not me. I got it. And so you have to only answer questions that are asked of you. But the judge kept shutting him down because defamation,

which is what has already been established in these cases, is not covered by the established in these cases, is not covered by the First Amendment. No, no, no. I remember him currently. He has lied about this shooting for years, and he harmed these people. That was already adjudicated, and he was there in court for a jury to decide how much he must pay the families for doing that. And what happened during the cross-examination? So this was really an unbelievably difficult series of moments for Alex Jones.

I've never really seen him this uncomfortable. Whose messages are those? Whose phone is this taken from? I don't know whose phone it's taken from. Whose phone is this taken from? I don't know whose phone it's taken from. The biggest thing that happened, though, was when the family's lawyer revealed that... You didn't give this text message to me. You don't know where this came from. Do you know where I got this?

No. They had gotten, by mistake, from Alex Jones' own lawyers, the entire contents of his cell phone. Jones' own lawyers the entire contents of his cell phone. Did you know that 12 days ago, 12 days ago, your attorneys messed up and sent me an entire digital copy of your entire cell phone with every text message you've sent for the past two years and when informed did not take any steps to identify it as privileged or protect it in any way. And as of two days ago, it fell free and clear into my possession. And that is how I know you lied to me when you said you didn't have a text message about Sammy Hogan. Did you know that?

See, I told you the truth. This is your Perry Mason moment. I gave them my phone. Mr. Jones, you need to answer the question. Did you know this happened? No, I didn't know this happened. And what did those texts reveal? Essentially that Alex Jones is an inveterate liar.

You said in your deposition, you searched your phone. You said you pulled down the text, did the search function for Sandy Hook. That's what you said, Mr. Jones, correct? And I had several different phones with this number, but I did, yeah. I mean, that's why you got it. First, he had said that he didn't have any text messages, and he had told the families that their request to see his text messages

couldn't be met because they didn't exist. And here were more than two years worth of hundreds, if not thousands, of Alex Jones text messages. Mr. Jones, in discovery, you were asked, do you have Sandy Hook text messages on your phone? And you said no, correct? You said that under oath, Mr. Jones, didn't you? I mean, if I was mistaken, I was mistaken, but you got the message. It was right there.

You know what perjury is, right? I just want to make sure you know before we go any further. You know what it is? Yes, I do. I mean, I'm not a tech guy. I told you I gave, in my testimony, the phone to the lawyers before or whatever, and so you got my phone, but we didn't give it to you. No, Mr. Jones. One more time. There were also references to his financial condition. We've heard a lot of in this courtroom

is how you've lost millions, lost everything. He had told the jury and the families that he was bankrupt. And in those revenue figures, you would agree with me that generally, generally speaking, between 2016 and 2018, InfoWars was making somewhere between $100,000 and $2,000 a day in sales. Yes. Okay.

And we see here that that's not always true, is it? That some days you're making $800,000, $745,000 a day, right? Yeah, you guys cherry-picked the best numbers we ever had. That's why I remember this. He was basically established by the family's lawyers as someone who, even in his smallest dealings or even under oath, could not be trusted. Thank you, Mr. Jones.

I appreciate your time and testimony. You may return to counsel. Thank you. So with that, in the aftermath of that damaging cross-examination, the jury goes off to deliberate, and they come back with an award to Neal and Scarlett for compensatory damages of $4.1 million. And that is basically, as the name implies, to compensate them for any actual costs that resulted from this defamation,

whether it would be therapy or a security system or something concrete that they had to spend money on as a result of defending themselves or being attacked by people who believed in Alex Jones's lies. And is that a lot for Jones? Taken in strictly monetary terms, no, it's not. The original ask was for $150 million, and even that would represent only three years' worth of Jones' annual revenues. So in that context, no, $4 million was not a lot. So if the damages aren't going to break Alex Jones, will this actually stop Alex Jones or anyone like him from telling the next big lie? Will Alex Jones change his nature and stop lying?

Would he change his business model and stop profiting from spreading lies? No, probably not. But it's important to know that there are a lot of other people who want to be the next Alex Jones. And for them, a $4 million judgment would be life-changing. Those people would be dissuaded by a judgment like this. How should we think about the significance of this trial? I mean, it is the first real effort, as you said, to really hold a conspiracy theorist to account. So will this change anything about the world of lies and misinformation that

we are all living in, in part, thanks to Alex Jones? I think that this accomplishes the broad goal that the families have expressed from the start, and that's to make a comment and send up a warning that this isn't just Alex Jones, although he's a big part of it. This is about the kinds of lies that erode the bedrock of truth that our democracy rests on. That by spreading these lies, you aren't just harming vulnerable families whose children were killed in a mass shooting. Alex Jones has had his fingerprints all over the most pernicious and damaging conspiracy theories that have circulated in our national discourse over the past decade since Sandy Hook. It was Pizzagate. It was the Great Replacement Theory expressed in Charlottesville. It was coronavirus myths. And it was the Stop the Steal conspiracy theory in 2020 that brought

a mob to the Capitol on January 6th. This is the point that the Sandy Hook families want to make with these lawsuits. And this really is the warning that they're sending to the rest of us. That if these lies have come for grieving parents like us, be careful in your own community. What is the destructive power of these lies? What is the destructive power of these lies? Whether it's our elections, our public health, our democracy itself. If this can happen to them, if these conspiracy theorists can come for them, they can come for all of us. Elizabeth, thank you.

Thank you, Sabrina. On Friday, after I talked to Elizabeth, the jury in Texas awarded an additional $45 million in punitive damages to Scarlett Lewis and Neil Heslin. But the Times reports that the verdict against Jones may ultimately be mostly symbolic. The state of Texas puts a strict cap on punitive damages, so Jones may only have to pay a fraction of the dollar amount that the court awarded. However, those caps do not apply outside Texas. And next month, Jones will be tried in Connecticut. We'll be right back.

Thank you. On Sunday, the Senate passed sweeping legislation that would amount to the largest investment in countering climate change in the country's history by injecting nearly $400 billion into climate and energy programs. The legislation was initially pitched last year as a massive social safety net bill that was the centerpiece of President Biden's domestic agenda. But that version failed to garner enough votes and Democrats later scaled back the legislation and rebranded it. Sunday's bill could allow the U.S. to cut greenhouse gas emissions substantially by the end of the decade. It would also allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices for the first time, using its clout as the country's biggest buyer of medicines to drive down costs. Until now, the federal program has been barred by law from bargaining directly with drug makers, whose prices in the United States are some of the highest in the world.

The bill, which is all but assured passage in the House in the coming days, will be the subject of tomorrow's episode of The Daily. will be the subject of tomorrow's episode of The Daily. Today's episode was produced by Ricky Nowetzki, Diana Nguyen, Lindsay Garrison, Michael Simon-Johnson, and Eric Krupke. It was edited by Patricia Willans, MJ Davis-Lynn, and Mark George.

Contains original music by Marian Lozano and Dan Powell and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Sabrina Tavernisi. See you tomorrow.