February 15, 2021 • 20 mins
For the second time, former President Trump has been acquitted of impeachment charges against him. Seven Republican senators voted with Democrats to convict Trump, but it was not enough to make the two-thirds majority needed. With this win, President Trump maintains his control of the GOP, but the party is still divided, where does it go from here? Also, what did the Democrats achieve in all of this after twice failing to convict Trump? Ginger Gibson, deputy Washington digital editor at NBC News, joins us for a breakdown of impeachment part 2.
Next, a story straight out of Hollywood about an acting coach, turned life coach and energy healer, who became a toxic influence to her followers that leveraged personal information against them. Candace Silvers, daughter of comedian Phil Silvers, has been accused by some former students of claiming success for other actors' accomplishments, using students' private stories in class discussions, and promoting unsafe health advice to her followers. Silvers, for her part, chalks it all up to a small group of disgruntled clients. Gary Baum, senior writer at The Hollywood Reporter, joins us for more on the guru of Toluka Lake.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Monday, February. I'm Oscar Ramirez in Los Angeles and
this is the Daily Dive. For the second time, former
President Trump has been quitted of the impeachment charges against him.
Seven Republican Senators vote to Democrats to convict Trump, but
it was not enough to make the two thirds majority needed.
(00:22):
With this win, President Trump maintains his control of the GOP,
but the party is still divided. Where does it go
from here? Also? What did the Democrats achieve in all
of this after twice failing to convict Trump? Gender Gibson,
Deputy Washington Digital editor at NBC News, joins us for
a breakdown of impeachment Part two. Next, a story straight
(00:42):
out of Hollywood about an acting coach, turn life coach,
and energy healer who became a toxic influence to her
followers that leverage personal information against them. Candice Silver's, daughter
of comedian Phil Silver's, has been accused by some of
her former students of claiming success for other actors, accomplishments,
using students private stories and class discussions, and promoting unsafe
(01:03):
health advice to her followers. Silver's, for her part, talks
it all up to a small group of disgruntled clients.
Gary Baumb, senior writer at The Hollywood Reporter, joins us
for more on the Guru of Tuluca Lake. It's news
without the noise. Let's dive in. I give credit to
the seven Republicans who stood with us, who followed the facts,
(01:26):
who looked at the law, who looked at the evidence
and found this president guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors.
Joining us now is Ginger Gibson, Deputy Washington Digital editor
at NBC News. Thanks for joining us, Ginger, thanks for
having me. Well, it's all over again. The second impeachment
trial of President Trump has concluded, and once again he
(01:49):
was acquitted. The vote came down fifty to forty three,
with seven Republican senators voting with the Democrats to convict
him of the impeachment charges. But obviously, you know, you
need a two thirds majority, so they did not get that.
Let's take a look at some of the big takeaways,
starting with President Trump himself. He ended up winning the fight.
(02:09):
He's maintaining control of the Republican Party as it stands
right now. He can run again in four if he wants.
So how is this whole thing played out for him. Yeah,
I think most people would say that President Trump, former
President Trump, came out on tap here he was not
convicted of the impeachment charges and could run again if
(02:29):
you wanted. Although let's be clear, this was the most
bipartisan vote to convict that we've ever seen. Even if
it wasn't successful, there were, as you said, seven Republicans
who voted guilty. That is just really unheard of in
previous impeachment proceedings, and des send a message that there
are Republicans who think that Trump shouldn't be the face
of their party anymore. But I think that he will
(02:51):
be able to say that he um was able to
avoid the conviction that he was, as he said the
last time, exonerated, even if that wasn't the case. I mean, um,
we heard from Republicans who even voted not guilty talking
about how they thought that he was in fact at
fault for what had happened. They just thought it was
not constitutional. But I would definitely say that President Trump
got what he wanted, which was um he could run again.
(03:13):
I think there's a big question mark about will he
run again and how he would build that support given
the fact that he's lost things like his Twitter and
other social media, but he could if he wanted to
in in four years. And what's next for him right now?
In the media, Senator Lindsey Graham on the Sunday Shows
were saying that, you know, the president is ready to
move on from all of this and ready to rebuild
the GOP. For two, As president, Trump did not really
(03:38):
spend much time campaigning for Republicans around the country. Even
when he would go and hold an event somewhere where
there was a Republican who needed the help from the President,
he would talk about him for about two minutes in
an hour long speech. So it's not really in his
nature to spend a lot of time campaigning or trying
to help other people in the party. So it would
(03:58):
be surprising to see him hit the campaign trail for
the mid terms. But I do think we're going to
see him trying to work on his businesses, startink that's
going to properly be his immediate focus, and then figuring
out politically what he does next. I mean, running for
president is a big job, and he might just decide
to retire, or he might decide he wants another round.
(04:20):
Let's talk about Democrats and all of this, uh and
have two questions. So, first off, what happened with the
calling of witnesses. That seemed to be something that was
going to happen. It could have potentially extended the trial
for weeks, people were saying, but that quickly fell apart
at some point. And the second question is what did
Democrats achieve with all of this? You know, they made
(04:42):
their case. Representative Jamie Raskin, who was the lead impeachment manager,
said that President Trump was found guilty in the court
of public opinion, in the court of history, but Trump won.
They lost this one again, So what did they achieve
in all of this? There are going to be a
lot of questions about what the point was that We'll
start with that they appeared to be heading to a
quick end on Saturday. They were going to have some remarks,
(05:04):
they were going to vote, they were gonna go home,
and then all of a sudden, rask And got out
there and asked for witnesses and then got the votes
he needed to call witnesses. Then they took a break
to try to figure out what they were doing, and
then they came back and said, okay, never mind, we
don't need witnesses, we'll just move on. And what was
a really meticulously laid out and planned case. It was
a moment that appeared to not have a strategy or
a point, and they knew they were going to lose,
(05:25):
and they really knew that even if they called a
hundred witnesses, it wasn't going to change the minds of
the senators who were not going to vote with them.
I think in the long run, Democrats are going to
try to make the case that they couldn't get to
sixty seven votes to convict the president, but that was
a pretty remarkable number, and that as the most bipartisan
vote to convict even if it wasn't successful, that that
(05:47):
is noteworthy. And I think Democrats want to be able
to say they did everything they could, they took every
step they could to try to stop Trump, and you know,
not on them, they'll say going forward, on Republicans. Republicans,
how they featured in all of this. So we had
seven GOP senators who voted to convict Trump. A lot
(06:08):
of them are either not coming back, or you know,
they're retiring after this, or they don't face reelection for
many years, so politically they're not necessarily in danger. And
then kind of one of the interesting moments, Mitch McConnell.
Obviously he voted not to convict President Trump, but then
he went on the floor and gave a speech basically
nailing the whole thing on him, saying that you know,
(06:29):
he was practically and morally responsible for provoking the incidents
that he basically orchestrated. This was orchestrated by an outgoing
president who was either determined to overturned the voters decisions
or towards the institutions on his way out. So I mean,
the blistering speech from him basically blaming him for everything,
but he still voted against it. We saw McConnell moments
(06:53):
moments after voting not guilty on the floor of the Senate,
stand in the same place and just give this blistering
speech that Trump was at fault. He had before announcing
that he was going to be voting that guilty. Also
suggested that Trump could face criminal charges for what had
happened once no one thinks is actually going to happen,
but really just giving this blistering speech, and I think
(07:15):
what it is sort of this difficult political place that
this whole process put them in UM, he wasn't going
to vote to convince, even though, as he said in
his own world words, he thought Trump was morally and
practically responsible for everything that had happened. So I think
that we're going to see a Republican Party, as displayed
by Mitch McConnell's sort of reversal in tone or at
(07:37):
least intact on Saturday, play out over the coming weeks.
And you mentioned those seven senators who voted to convict,
who voted guilty, UM, some of them in states where
they're the Republican counterpart. The other senator from their state
voted guilty. So we saw that in Louisiana Bill Cassidy
was a bit of a surprise. People weren't expecting him
(07:58):
to vote guilty. In North Carolina, NA Senator Burr who
was retiring, but the other Republican till Us, They're voted
not guilty. So I think we're going to see, especially
in Cassidy's case and Susan Collins and Maine in her case,
maybe in Ben sas in Nebraska, Republicans in their state
mounting up primary challenge, even if it's six years from
(08:19):
now that they're facing that challenge. Yeah, and you know,
this goes to that larger question, you know, where does
the Republican Party go from here? How much do they
go back to Trump or or you know, how much
do they kind of rebuild this maga faction of the
Republican Party. You know, going back to Lindsay Graham, he
said that, you know, Richard Burr obviously is gonna be retiring. Uh,
this just opens up the Senate seat for Laura Trump,
(08:41):
President Trump's daughter in law. So they're already kind of
laying the groundwork. He's saying that she's the future of
the Republican Party. You know, I think that anyone in
Trump in their last name is going to struggle to
win office. I mean I think that they will have
money and some support, but there will also be a
lot of opposition even within the party sort of even
at a quiet structural of well can make it difficult
(09:01):
to run. But I think that the party doesn't know.
I think the leadership of the party doesn't know. And
I think you've got the Josh Holly's and the tech
cruises of the world whom would be happy to continue
sort of in that populist Trump approach. And then You've
got the Ben Sasses and the Mitt Romney's who want
to abandon that and find a new way forward, and
(09:21):
I think they're really going to be fighting it out
over the next several years. President Biden largely stayed out
of this. He did release a statement saying that the
substance of the charge was not in question. We know
where he stands on all this, obviously, but you know,
how did he fare throughout all of this? As I mentioned,
he just largely stayed out of it. He has stayed
out of it, and it's kind of funny to think
(09:42):
about it. It was his election certification that Trump was
trying to stop, so he was quite at the center
of it. But you're right, he has said he's focused
on getting the country through the COVID pandemic, on other
big policy priorities, that he wasn't going to get entangled
with this. And as you said, quite obviously he doesn't
think drop us qualified to be in office, so he
(10:02):
doesn't think you should run again either. But um, I
think Biden knew that this was sort of best left
to the Senate to decide, and he has tried to
stay out of the way. Ginger Gibson Deputy Washington Digital
editor at NBC News. Thank you very much for joining us,
Thanks for having me. She took her approach which is
(10:29):
very much about finding your authentic self and your performance um,
which is a view of acting, and applied it to
larger life lessons and began to move into the domain
of the life coach and really expected her actors to
also join her life coaching sessions. Joining us now is
(10:52):
Gary Baum, senior writer at The Hollywood Reporter. Thanks for
joining us, Scary, Thanks for having me. I wanted to
talk about a story you wrote, the Grew of Toluca Lake.
This is about Candice Silver's. She's the daughter of late
comedian Phil Silver's. She's an acting teacher and life coach.
She turned into this kind of energy healer, and you know,
she had a lot of students, a lot of followers,
(11:13):
but they said that what happened after studying with her,
they were being poisoned emotionally. Let's say tell us a
little bit about Candice Silver's and you know how she
was as an acting teacher and kind of the complaints
that people were throwing out there about her. So, Candice
Silvers is a well known acting teacher in the Los
(11:34):
Angeles area, and she's had quite a bit of success
over the last several decades. Um. A number of prominent
actors were with her, people like Josh Radner and Chris
Evans before they were well known. But over the years
she was kind of a controversial figure because she would
do things like take credit for their careers ways that
(11:55):
they felt like I was inappropriate. And she would also
go to some actors and request commissions on their earnings
in a way that was, let's just say, unorthodox, in
a way that was traditionally the domain of talent agents
and managers. You mentioned that she would take credit for
some of the successes of some actors. You recounted a
story in your article about her running into actor Jason
(12:18):
Siegel and then kind of taking credit for his success.
Is not necessarily because he worked with her, but because
she worked with Josh Radner and basically said that, you know,
he would have been nothing if not for him and
him working with her. Yeah, she's a very brash personality.
She's got a lot of hut spot it appears tell
us about some of her methods because in the article
(12:38):
it said she had a blunt manner with ample profanity,
So how did she work this into her sessions and classes?
So she's just larger than life figure. People have compared
her to other figures and the acting teacher domain from
you know, Stanislovsky, Meisner, etcetera. You think of the HBO
(12:59):
show Barry Henry Winkler character that's based off of Stella.
But she has a charisma to her. She has this
kind of brassy type of quality. She is very confident.
But over time she took her approach which is very
much about finding your authentic self in your performance, which
(13:21):
is a view of acting, and applied it to larger
life lessons and began to move into the domain of
the life coach and really expected her actors to also
join her life coaching sessions and also began to take
on life coaching students separate from the actors. And over
(13:45):
time the domain of her practice has expanded. So that's
where it seems to have gone a Riolet's say you
spoke to more than three dozen people who claimed that
she was this toxic guru and kind of leverage their
personal information against them, you know, brought it up during
classes as examples. You made mention of actress Lindsay McKeon,
(14:07):
who she said she had to go to a cult
debriefer to understand what she had really gone through. The
accusations are pretty serious about people feeling as though they
were taking advantage of that they were manipulated in essentially
a kind of a quasi therapeutic way, in a reckless
way over time, that Candice has over time taken on
(14:30):
a role with people that is really beyond the domain
of her experience and her professional ability. Before we move on,
you did reach out to her, obviously for a statement.
I guess we're representatives set a statement saying, you know,
this is just a small group of people. They were
just kind of unhappy with what was going on. You know,
what did they have to say? For their part, Kenda
(14:51):
Silver's representatives felt that they felt that these were disgruntled
individuals or that these issues were somewhat overblown, and some
times they agreed that with the work that she does
is difficult. Often I spoke with a number of people
that had civil dozen people that she put forward who
are adoring clients, and they oftentimes would say, look, quite
a bit of what the critics are saying is true.
(15:14):
It's just that they're not looking at Candice's work correctly,
there perhaps rejected her work. They rejected the journey of
her work, and therefore they're rejecting themselves and they reject her,
and that she is somebody that they are unfairly villainizing,
because it's easy to do that when you are going
(15:34):
through an experience where you can become a target. That
she does dangerous work. You mentioned that, and some of
her students had mentioned that she took a trip to
India to study with some group some more spiritual type stuff.
She was looking for something. I guess she ended up
learning something similar to raiky things like that. So this
is where she kind of transitioned into this more of
(15:56):
a healer spiritual type person, and that's when she kind
of started, you know, doing these other life coaching classes
and and taking on those types of students. But they
alleged that she was doing some dangerous things like telling
people to adjust her medication. I know that was a
huge one that people were complaining about. Yeah, that, you know. Overall,
the general concern is that she's moved beyond the expertise
(16:22):
that she initially acquired and that people initially went to
her for, which was to be an acting teacher, and
that she's moved to various spaces of expertise, that that
she is not the allegations that she's she's not legitimately
able to to offer UM, and that she's dealing with
(16:43):
an increasingly vulnerable client population and people are concerned that um,
the people that go to her don't know what they're
getting into. You know, money is always a curiosity with
these types of things. You know, do we know how
much acting classes were, how much how much these life
coaching sessions were. And I know there was situations where
(17:06):
she was encouraging people to take trips to other countries
for to study, you know, more of these techniques and things.
Over time, some people would say that they would go
into tens of thousands of dollars of debt to experience
the work with her over periods of years. UM. Some
of these trips to places like Bali would cost seven
(17:26):
thousand dollars for you know, a ten or loving day
trip to go with her to study with a healer
to learn some of these techniques that she was offering
that she felt were breakthrough techniques of self improvement. Is
there anybody that is putting forth any type of lawsuits
or anything like that. I mean, they're just kind of
(17:47):
voicing their opinions right now on what their experiences or
how is this playing out, not at this time. At
this time, What what people are trying to do is
the surfaces their concerned that a situation that they feel
has long been a point of knowledge and an inner
community needs to be UM more publicly recognized. I was
(18:09):
speaking after the coverage came out last week to a
casting director who said that Candice is somebody that was
widely known throughout the UH community UM and that there
have been concerns about her. And I've also spoken to
trained therapist at UM in town who also said that
(18:29):
on that end UH they would deal with patients who
had been through her work UM. And so what this
was was an inquiry into the work that she has
been doing, which some people feel is very important and
has had a lot of positive gains in their life.
(18:51):
That's important to say that UM many feel that she
has really helped them out and helped them in their
personal and professional lives achieved UM que elipse UM, while
others just though she UM has caused them various kinds
of ruin and that they did not know what they
were getting into, um with somebody who they feel Uh,
(19:15):
it's not in a position to offer these types of
really tricky work. Gary Bomb, Senior writer at The Hollywood Reporter.
Thank you very much for joining us, Thanks for having me.
That's it for today. Join us on social media at
(19:37):
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a comment, give us a rating, and tell us the
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The Daily Divers produced by Victor Wright and engineered by
Tony Sargantino him Oscar Ramirez from this Your Daily Dive
(20:00):
U
It's Monday, February. I'm Oscar Ramirez in Los Angeles and
this is the Daily Dive. For the second time, former
President Trump has been quitted of the impeachment charges against him.
Seven Republican Senators vote to Democrats to convict Trump, but
it was not enough to make the two thirds majority needed.
(00:22):
With this win, President Trump maintains his control of the GOP,
but the party is still divided. Where does it go
from here? Also? What did the Democrats achieve in all
of this after twice failing to convict Trump? Gender Gibson,
Deputy Washington Digital editor at NBC News, joins us for
a breakdown of impeachment Part two. Next, a story straight
(00:42):
out of Hollywood about an acting coach, turn life coach,
and energy healer who became a toxic influence to her
followers that leverage personal information against them. Candice Silver's, daughter
of comedian Phil Silver's, has been accused by some of
her former students of claiming success for other actors, accomplishments,
using students private stories and class discussions, and promoting unsafe
(01:03):
health advice to her followers. Silver's, for her part, talks
it all up to a small group of disgruntled clients.
Gary Baumb, senior writer at The Hollywood Reporter, joins us
for more on the Guru of Tuluca Lake. It's news
without the noise. Let's dive in. I give credit to
the seven Republicans who stood with us, who followed the facts,
(01:26):
who looked at the law, who looked at the evidence
and found this president guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors.
Joining us now is Ginger Gibson, Deputy Washington Digital editor
at NBC News. Thanks for joining us, Ginger, thanks for
having me. Well, it's all over again. The second impeachment
trial of President Trump has concluded, and once again he
(01:49):
was acquitted. The vote came down fifty to forty three,
with seven Republican senators voting with the Democrats to convict
him of the impeachment charges. But obviously, you know, you
need a two thirds majority, so they did not get that.
Let's take a look at some of the big takeaways,
starting with President Trump himself. He ended up winning the fight.
(02:09):
He's maintaining control of the Republican Party as it stands
right now. He can run again in four if he wants.
So how is this whole thing played out for him. Yeah,
I think most people would say that President Trump, former
President Trump, came out on tap here he was not
convicted of the impeachment charges and could run again if
(02:29):
you wanted. Although let's be clear, this was the most
bipartisan vote to convict that we've ever seen. Even if
it wasn't successful, there were, as you said, seven Republicans
who voted guilty. That is just really unheard of in
previous impeachment proceedings, and des send a message that there
are Republicans who think that Trump shouldn't be the face
of their party anymore. But I think that he will
(02:51):
be able to say that he um was able to
avoid the conviction that he was, as he said the
last time, exonerated, even if that wasn't the case. I mean, um,
we heard from Republicans who even voted not guilty talking
about how they thought that he was in fact at
fault for what had happened. They just thought it was
not constitutional. But I would definitely say that President Trump
got what he wanted, which was um he could run again.
(03:13):
I think there's a big question mark about will he
run again and how he would build that support given
the fact that he's lost things like his Twitter and
other social media, but he could if he wanted to
in in four years. And what's next for him right now?
In the media, Senator Lindsey Graham on the Sunday Shows
were saying that, you know, the president is ready to
move on from all of this and ready to rebuild
the GOP. For two, As president, Trump did not really
(03:38):
spend much time campaigning for Republicans around the country. Even
when he would go and hold an event somewhere where
there was a Republican who needed the help from the President,
he would talk about him for about two minutes in
an hour long speech. So it's not really in his
nature to spend a lot of time campaigning or trying
to help other people in the party. So it would
(03:58):
be surprising to see him hit the campaign trail for
the mid terms. But I do think we're going to
see him trying to work on his businesses, startink that's
going to properly be his immediate focus, and then figuring
out politically what he does next. I mean, running for
president is a big job, and he might just decide
to retire, or he might decide he wants another round.
(04:20):
Let's talk about Democrats and all of this, uh and
have two questions. So, first off, what happened with the
calling of witnesses. That seemed to be something that was
going to happen. It could have potentially extended the trial
for weeks, people were saying, but that quickly fell apart
at some point. And the second question is what did
Democrats achieve with all of this? You know, they made
(04:42):
their case. Representative Jamie Raskin, who was the lead impeachment manager,
said that President Trump was found guilty in the court
of public opinion, in the court of history, but Trump won.
They lost this one again, So what did they achieve
in all of this? There are going to be a
lot of questions about what the point was that We'll
start with that they appeared to be heading to a
quick end on Saturday. They were going to have some remarks,
(05:04):
they were going to vote, they were gonna go home,
and then all of a sudden, rask And got out
there and asked for witnesses and then got the votes
he needed to call witnesses. Then they took a break
to try to figure out what they were doing, and
then they came back and said, okay, never mind, we
don't need witnesses, we'll just move on. And what was
a really meticulously laid out and planned case. It was
a moment that appeared to not have a strategy or
a point, and they knew they were going to lose,
(05:25):
and they really knew that even if they called a
hundred witnesses, it wasn't going to change the minds of
the senators who were not going to vote with them.
I think in the long run, Democrats are going to
try to make the case that they couldn't get to
sixty seven votes to convict the president, but that was
a pretty remarkable number, and that as the most bipartisan
vote to convict even if it wasn't successful, that that
(05:47):
is noteworthy. And I think Democrats want to be able
to say they did everything they could, they took every
step they could to try to stop Trump, and you know,
not on them, they'll say going forward, on Republicans. Republicans,
how they featured in all of this. So we had
seven GOP senators who voted to convict Trump. A lot
(06:08):
of them are either not coming back, or you know,
they're retiring after this, or they don't face reelection for
many years, so politically they're not necessarily in danger. And
then kind of one of the interesting moments, Mitch McConnell.
Obviously he voted not to convict President Trump, but then
he went on the floor and gave a speech basically
nailing the whole thing on him, saying that you know,
(06:29):
he was practically and morally responsible for provoking the incidents
that he basically orchestrated. This was orchestrated by an outgoing
president who was either determined to overturned the voters decisions
or towards the institutions on his way out. So I mean,
the blistering speech from him basically blaming him for everything,
but he still voted against it. We saw McConnell moments
(06:53):
moments after voting not guilty on the floor of the Senate,
stand in the same place and just give this blistering
speech that Trump was at fault. He had before announcing
that he was going to be voting that guilty. Also
suggested that Trump could face criminal charges for what had
happened once no one thinks is actually going to happen,
but really just giving this blistering speech, and I think
(07:15):
what it is sort of this difficult political place that
this whole process put them in UM, he wasn't going
to vote to convince, even though, as he said in
his own world words, he thought Trump was morally and
practically responsible for everything that had happened. So I think
that we're going to see a Republican Party, as displayed
by Mitch McConnell's sort of reversal in tone or at
(07:37):
least intact on Saturday, play out over the coming weeks.
And you mentioned those seven senators who voted to convict,
who voted guilty, UM, some of them in states where
they're the Republican counterpart. The other senator from their state
voted guilty. So we saw that in Louisiana Bill Cassidy
was a bit of a surprise. People weren't expecting him
(07:58):
to vote guilty. In North Carolina, NA Senator Burr who
was retiring, but the other Republican till Us, They're voted
not guilty. So I think we're going to see, especially
in Cassidy's case and Susan Collins and Maine in her case,
maybe in Ben sas in Nebraska, Republicans in their state
mounting up primary challenge, even if it's six years from
(08:19):
now that they're facing that challenge. Yeah, and you know,
this goes to that larger question, you know, where does
the Republican Party go from here? How much do they
go back to Trump or or you know, how much
do they kind of rebuild this maga faction of the
Republican Party. You know, going back to Lindsay Graham, he
said that, you know, Richard Burr obviously is gonna be retiring. Uh,
this just opens up the Senate seat for Laura Trump,
(08:41):
President Trump's daughter in law. So they're already kind of
laying the groundwork. He's saying that she's the future of
the Republican Party. You know, I think that anyone in
Trump in their last name is going to struggle to
win office. I mean I think that they will have
money and some support, but there will also be a
lot of opposition even within the party sort of even
at a quiet structural of well can make it difficult
(09:01):
to run. But I think that the party doesn't know.
I think the leadership of the party doesn't know. And
I think you've got the Josh Holly's and the tech
cruises of the world whom would be happy to continue
sort of in that populist Trump approach. And then You've
got the Ben Sasses and the Mitt Romney's who want
to abandon that and find a new way forward, and
(09:21):
I think they're really going to be fighting it out
over the next several years. President Biden largely stayed out
of this. He did release a statement saying that the
substance of the charge was not in question. We know
where he stands on all this, obviously, but you know,
how did he fare throughout all of this? As I mentioned,
he just largely stayed out of it. He has stayed
out of it, and it's kind of funny to think
(09:42):
about it. It was his election certification that Trump was
trying to stop, so he was quite at the center
of it. But you're right, he has said he's focused
on getting the country through the COVID pandemic, on other
big policy priorities, that he wasn't going to get entangled
with this. And as you said, quite obviously he doesn't
think drop us qualified to be in office, so he
(10:02):
doesn't think you should run again either. But um, I
think Biden knew that this was sort of best left
to the Senate to decide, and he has tried to
stay out of the way. Ginger Gibson Deputy Washington Digital
editor at NBC News. Thank you very much for joining us,
Thanks for having me. She took her approach which is
(10:29):
very much about finding your authentic self and your performance um,
which is a view of acting, and applied it to
larger life lessons and began to move into the domain
of the life coach and really expected her actors to
also join her life coaching sessions. Joining us now is
(10:52):
Gary Baum, senior writer at The Hollywood Reporter. Thanks for
joining us, Scary, Thanks for having me. I wanted to
talk about a story you wrote, the Grew of Toluca Lake.
This is about Candice Silver's. She's the daughter of late
comedian Phil Silver's. She's an acting teacher and life coach.
She turned into this kind of energy healer, and you know,
she had a lot of students, a lot of followers,
(11:13):
but they said that what happened after studying with her,
they were being poisoned emotionally. Let's say tell us a
little bit about Candice Silver's and you know how she
was as an acting teacher and kind of the complaints
that people were throwing out there about her. So, Candice
Silvers is a well known acting teacher in the Los
(11:34):
Angeles area, and she's had quite a bit of success
over the last several decades. Um. A number of prominent
actors were with her, people like Josh Radner and Chris
Evans before they were well known. But over the years
she was kind of a controversial figure because she would
do things like take credit for their careers ways that
(11:55):
they felt like I was inappropriate. And she would also
go to some actors and request commissions on their earnings
in a way that was, let's just say, unorthodox, in
a way that was traditionally the domain of talent agents
and managers. You mentioned that she would take credit for
some of the successes of some actors. You recounted a
story in your article about her running into actor Jason
(12:18):
Siegel and then kind of taking credit for his success.
Is not necessarily because he worked with her, but because
she worked with Josh Radner and basically said that, you know,
he would have been nothing if not for him and
him working with her. Yeah, she's a very brash personality.
She's got a lot of hut spot it appears tell
us about some of her methods because in the article
(12:38):
it said she had a blunt manner with ample profanity,
So how did she work this into her sessions and classes?
So she's just larger than life figure. People have compared
her to other figures and the acting teacher domain from
you know, Stanislovsky, Meisner, etcetera. You think of the HBO
(12:59):
show Barry Henry Winkler character that's based off of Stella.
But she has a charisma to her. She has this
kind of brassy type of quality. She is very confident.
But over time she took her approach which is very
much about finding your authentic self in your performance, which
(13:21):
is a view of acting, and applied it to larger
life lessons and began to move into the domain of
the life coach and really expected her actors to also
join her life coaching sessions and also began to take
on life coaching students separate from the actors. And over
(13:45):
time the domain of her practice has expanded. So that's
where it seems to have gone a Riolet's say you
spoke to more than three dozen people who claimed that
she was this toxic guru and kind of leverage their
personal information against them, you know, brought it up during
classes as examples. You made mention of actress Lindsay McKeon,
(14:07):
who she said she had to go to a cult
debriefer to understand what she had really gone through. The
accusations are pretty serious about people feeling as though they
were taking advantage of that they were manipulated in essentially
a kind of a quasi therapeutic way, in a reckless
way over time, that Candice has over time taken on
(14:30):
a role with people that is really beyond the domain
of her experience and her professional ability. Before we move on,
you did reach out to her, obviously for a statement.
I guess we're representatives set a statement saying, you know,
this is just a small group of people. They were
just kind of unhappy with what was going on. You know,
what did they have to say? For their part, Kenda
(14:51):
Silver's representatives felt that they felt that these were disgruntled
individuals or that these issues were somewhat overblown, and some
times they agreed that with the work that she does
is difficult. Often I spoke with a number of people
that had civil dozen people that she put forward who
are adoring clients, and they oftentimes would say, look, quite
a bit of what the critics are saying is true.
(15:14):
It's just that they're not looking at Candice's work correctly,
there perhaps rejected her work. They rejected the journey of
her work, and therefore they're rejecting themselves and they reject her,
and that she is somebody that they are unfairly villainizing,
because it's easy to do that when you are going
(15:34):
through an experience where you can become a target. That
she does dangerous work. You mentioned that, and some of
her students had mentioned that she took a trip to
India to study with some group some more spiritual type stuff.
She was looking for something. I guess she ended up
learning something similar to raiky things like that. So this
is where she kind of transitioned into this more of
(15:56):
a healer spiritual type person, and that's when she kind
of started, you know, doing these other life coaching classes
and and taking on those types of students. But they
alleged that she was doing some dangerous things like telling
people to adjust her medication. I know that was a
huge one that people were complaining about. Yeah, that, you know. Overall,
the general concern is that she's moved beyond the expertise
(16:22):
that she initially acquired and that people initially went to
her for, which was to be an acting teacher, and
that she's moved to various spaces of expertise, that that
she is not the allegations that she's she's not legitimately
able to to offer UM, and that she's dealing with
(16:43):
an increasingly vulnerable client population and people are concerned that um,
the people that go to her don't know what they're
getting into. You know, money is always a curiosity with
these types of things. You know, do we know how
much acting classes were, how much how much these life
coaching sessions were. And I know there was situations where
(17:06):
she was encouraging people to take trips to other countries
for to study, you know, more of these techniques and things.
Over time, some people would say that they would go
into tens of thousands of dollars of debt to experience
the work with her over periods of years. UM. Some
of these trips to places like Bali would cost seven
(17:26):
thousand dollars for you know, a ten or loving day
trip to go with her to study with a healer
to learn some of these techniques that she was offering
that she felt were breakthrough techniques of self improvement. Is
there anybody that is putting forth any type of lawsuits
or anything like that. I mean, they're just kind of
(17:47):
voicing their opinions right now on what their experiences or
how is this playing out, not at this time. At
this time, What what people are trying to do is
the surfaces their concerned that a situation that they feel
has long been a point of knowledge and an inner
community needs to be UM more publicly recognized. I was
(18:09):
speaking after the coverage came out last week to a
casting director who said that Candice is somebody that was
widely known throughout the UH community UM and that there
have been concerns about her. And I've also spoken to
trained therapist at UM in town who also said that
(18:29):
on that end UH they would deal with patients who
had been through her work UM. And so what this
was was an inquiry into the work that she has
been doing, which some people feel is very important and
has had a lot of positive gains in their life.
(18:51):
That's important to say that UM many feel that she
has really helped them out and helped them in their
personal and professional lives achieved UM que elipse UM, while
others just though she UM has caused them various kinds
of ruin and that they did not know what they
were getting into, um with somebody who they feel Uh,
(19:15):
it's not in a position to offer these types of
really tricky work. Gary Bomb, Senior writer at The Hollywood Reporter.
Thank you very much for joining us, Thanks for having me.
That's it for today. Join us on social media at
(19:37):
Daily Dive Pod in both Twitter and Instagram. Leave us
a comment, give us a rating, and tell us the
stories that you're interested in. Follow us and I Heart Radio,
or subscribe wherever you get your podcast. This episode of
The Daily Divers produced by Victor Wright and engineered by
Tony Sargantino him Oscar Ramirez from this Your Daily Dive
(20:00):
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