Watch: CBS’ Gayle King Dumbfounded After Learning Lindsay Clancy Holdout Juror Is Black

Ah, identity politics.

It’s one of the favorite rhetorical tactics of the modern left. And, admittedly, it can certainly be effective. Just look at the never-ending culture war being waged over diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI. One way or the other, people pretty clearly care deeply about the issue.

But — and this should go without saying — there are also a lot of issues with being so adherent to identity politics.

And no issue may be funnier than when this question lands on the head of an identity politician: “What do you do when two of your most protected classes collide?”

Because the answer will, more often than not, involve wild amounts of unintentional comedy or a pretty embarrassing slip of the mask.

In the case of progressive CBS host Gayle King, it was both.

During an early Friday interview, King spoke to one of the female jurors in the Lindsay Clancy trial.

(If you are somehow unfamiliar with the grisly details of that trial, which saw the 2023 deaths of three beautiful children, you can read more about it here.)

Now, while the trial is specifically about whether Clancy should be held legally criminally responsible for the deaths of her children by reason of insanity, the case itself has somehow transcended into a broader clash between radical feminists and everyday men who are utterly appalled that Clancy was getting as much support as she was. And yes, you could actually put a number on the support.

That clash became exceptionally pronounced when it was revealed that the reason Clancy did not get her desired “not guilty” verdict was that one juror refused to go along with the other eleven. And when it was revealed that this lone holdout juror was a man? You don’t have to have much of an imagination to imagine the vitriol that was being hurled at this faceless male juror.

In fact, you don’t need any imagination at all. Three of the female jurors (there were nine female jurors and three male jurors) went on national television to trash the holdout after the mistrial verdict, and went so far as to describe the man as “very arrogant,” framing him as a stubborn dunce who simply didn’t understand how the justice system works. That was Wednesday.

Then came Friday morning, and that CBS interview with Gayle King happened.

One of the jurors, Paula Devlin (ironically enough, the very one who called the holdout juror “very arrogant”), spoke to King in an interview that aired early Friday morning.

While the interview covered a number of different things, the most interesting tidbit by far from this interview segment was the revelation from Devlin that the dissident juror was a black man.

Uh-oh. What happens when a racial minority collides with radical feminists? Nothing pleasant for anyone involved, I’ll tell you that much.

Or, as Gayle King put it: “Whoa.”

Lindsay Clancy juror Paula Devlin tells @gayleking that the holdout juror was a Black man, whom she estimates is in his 30s. Devlin says after watching a video of an interview with Clancy, the holdout juror “realized that it wasn’t murder in the first degree,” adding the jury… pic.twitter.com/ZxFa2hgSsY

— CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) September 11, 2026

Devlin was explaining to King that the jury included 11 white people and one person of color.

“Was the person of color a woman or a man?” King asked.

“A man,” Devlin said.

“A man,” King repeated back to Devlin. Then, almost as if it were dawning on King that she was about to step into a quagmire, she followed up: “Is the holdout juror a person of … a black man?”

“Yes,” Devlin said.

“A black man is the holdout juror?” King asked again, the disbelief almost dripping from her words.

“Yes.”

“Whoa,” a suddenly quiet King said. “I have to sit with that for just a second.”

This revelation that the holdout juror was not some nefarious white man — which had been the accepted caricature in discourse — seemed to genuinely unsettle King. She literally lost her train of thought before getting the interview back on track.

And this is going to be a real big problem for any Clancy trial observers who are also proud practitioners of identity politics. Which means it’s going to be a real big problem for leftists. It’s #BelieveAllWomen versus #BlackLivesMatter, and as King clearly showed, it’s going to cause them to short-circuit.

That’s the real indictment against progressives here. The point is, it really shouldn’t matter that the holdout juror was a black man. This is the leftist mask slipping off: Their morality is tied to things that should have nothing to do with a person’s inherent worth. Why does anyone, let alone a seasoned television personality, need “a second” to “sit with” the fact that the holdout is black? What does it matter?

It doesn’t. But the fact that it mattered to King — and other progressives who have been really quiet about the fact that the holdout is a black man — is the real takeaway here.

Identity politics is the figurative snake eating its own tail. Reducing people to single, immutable characteristics is flawed, kindergarten-like thinking. And it’s inevitably going to run into itself when some of those singular characteristics start colliding.

And as King showed, it makes for some hilarious television.

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