Reporting on Tara Reade's Allegation: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Today we talk about three different publications' approaches to covering Tara Reade's allegation against Joe Biden, the fun topic that everyone enjoys.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Worst Year Ever, A production of I Heart
Radio Together Everything, So don't don't welcome back to the

(00:21):
Worst Year Ever. The President is poisoning himself, and I
think that's clever. Y is a clever ruse on his cart,
that's what I got. No, yeah, no, he's a he's
a tricky guy. He used his brain and he's like,
I'm gonna poison myself and maybe make my heart explode.
So then I plays get the virus a fourth time,

(00:42):
poison yourself to own the lips. Guys. Yeah, I think
I've the longer this all goes on, the more I
think that that that really is that we should just
start a counter conspiracy that convinces a lot of these
people to take as much hydroxy clark quin as they fit. Like,
if there weren't a bunch of people who needed it
for real medical purposes, I would be like, this is fine,

(01:04):
just let it happen. Yeah, but just you know, yeah,
it's like, oh, sure, go choke on money, but people
who need that to buy food. Yeah yeah, yeah, it's
a bummer. There's no good options because it's the worst
year ever. Um, which, yeah, it's fun when we we
we circle back around on our introductions. So how are

(01:25):
y'all doing this week? Everybody happy, everybody having a good time,
everybody really excited that good time. Everything's all right. Never
gonna get out of quarantine. I'm not great. I'm not either.
Um I'm okay. I thought that was great. You guys
don't sell yourself. Shut You guys are awesome. Thank you, Sophie. Um. Yeah,

(01:49):
today feels slow, Today feels weird and groggy. Every day
is a different adventure. But we're here doing it. We
are doing it. I got my pals, you Wales is
here doing it? What the world media is here taking
on the terror Read story. I was worried you would

(02:11):
say that because we planned this episode in advance. We did,
we did, we planned this episode. This is one of
the rare times when we planned an episode. We like
settled on what our topic was going to be on Friday,
and then as the weekend rolled through, this was still
the top subjective discussion. So that's fun. Um Yeah, I think,
as most people are aware, In the last week, three

(02:32):
big articles dropped um investigating the terror Read case and
her allegations against Vice President Joe Biden. Um and her
as a as a person and as a credible witness. Um,
and they were from There was an article in Vox
by Laura McGann. There was an article in PBS News Hour,
and there was an article article in Politico by Natasha Cocky. Um.

(02:55):
And I didn't write down the PBS news article person's name,
which is shitty me, but I'm gonna find it right now.
Public Radio. Yeah, it was written by the radio. Oh,
it just was written by politics. No wait, no, sorry,
I missed stook how they do their byelines. It's by
Lisa de Jardin and Daniel Bush. It's by politics. You

(03:15):
were right the first times. It's by Lison and it's
by those two writers, but they go as politics. Yeah yeah,
they're both the journalistic duo and a d J duo.
Yeah yeah, Well, in this economy, you've really got to
have a backup. That also is what I expect from PBS. No,

(03:38):
you know, actually, Okay, So it's these these articles have
been passed around quite a lot in the last few days,
and the one I'm seeing shared most is the political article,
and I am seeing it shared very frequently by like
kind of standard you know, democrats like the middle of
the road more or less centrist folks. UM, And the
overwhelming sentiment I'm seeing express with it is, uh, puts

(04:00):
an end to the credibility of terror read and her
allegations against Joe Biden. That's how the Politico article is
being UM is being talked about by folks on that
end of things. UM. And I want to say straight
up top so again, these are three reports that we're
gonna be digging into today. So there's there's like this
question we have right where UM, when somebody makes allegations

(04:21):
of this type against a presidential candidate in a race, Uh,
what is the what is the burden of proof? How
how far do we go and what acts do we
take to attempt to vet them? Um? Because it isn't
as simple as just saying, Okay, you made an allegation,
so I believe you. Um. This is national, Like, this
is the future of the entire country when an allegation

(04:43):
like this gets made, Like there always needs to be
an investigation if there's like criminal allegations, But this is
the kind of thing where like it's going to get
looked into, right, it has to be looked into when
you have an allegation like this, UM. And I think
The question then, is what is the appropriate it way
to do that? Um? Because there's there's a right way

(05:04):
and a wrong way to dig into things like this.
And I actually think all three of these articles give
us a good examples of the right and the wrong
ways to do it um. And in my opinion, the
Politico article is basically like a perfect encapsulation of the
wrong way to look out at allegations of this type
and look at the person making the allegations. So that's

(05:26):
kind of going into this. That's kind of how I
feel having read them all. Yeah, is this the to
hear all the people that feel uh personally like spurned
by Tara article? Yeah? Yeah, So the title of the
article by Natasha Correcki is manipulative, deceitful user terror Reid

(05:48):
left a trail of aggrieved acquaintances. Didn't write that. Yeah,
it's it's bad, bad title. Um. I mean it's a
good title in terms of getting the clicks, getting those
sweethet clicks. You know. I'll just say in general, as
I've been talking to people the past several days, including

(06:11):
people in my family about this whole thing, and and yes,
what is the burden of proof? How do you go
about proving this. I don't think that you can. I
don't think that there ultimately is approving one way or
the other. Uh. Perhaps some other piece of information is
yet to be revealed, and that changes my mind on that,

(06:32):
But it seems like there's no way to really find
out for sure, right, and my whole thing, and everyone's like, well,
I don't believe her, I think she's a liar. Well,
why don't you stop for a second, because if it
was reversed, which it was a few years ago, and
the other side had a candidate where there are these allegations, Uh,

(06:55):
what we all said was believe them, or at least
believe that there's possibility that this is true, because we
need to be able to hold our leaders to the
same kind of standard that we hold the people on
the other side. Do you know what I mean? And
it's like that doesn't Again, it doesn't mean that I'm
saying don't vote for Joe Biden because I understand what's

(07:18):
at stake here. But at the same time, why are
you so quick to dismiss this? Why are we so
quick to say no, absolutely didn't happen. I do not
have room in my reality for the possibility that this
could be true, and and and that's so frustrating to
me about the whole conversation. And so now we instead
turned to smear campaigns or what have you. And yes,

(07:40):
here are all the reasons why this woman is is
a villain, you know. Yeah, And I do want to
stay upfront. I don't think these are all bad articles.
I actually think both the PBS article and the vox
armple in particular are are pretty well done and and responsible. Um.
And I think that, like to your your initial question, Katie,

(08:02):
there's no way, um to get like a like you're
not going to buy reporting in a case like this,
get like a clear yes or no. Um, we can
prove that she is telling the truth, or we can
prove that she's lying. But there are some things you
can do. So like obviously, the first thing to establish,
which was established by the the the Ryan Grimm, the
Intercept reporter who broke the initial article, is that it

(08:25):
was possible for these for this to have happened, you know,
just like the mechanics of it work out because these
two were in the same location at the same time. UM.
Like that that is the first step, right, Like you
make sure that Okay, this person is alleged that this
other person assaulted them. Have they ever been at the
same place together at once? Like, that's okay, she actually

(08:45):
had this job. They actually yes, Yeah, that's the very
first most basic thing to do, and that was done
um initially and it it is it is like possible
in the sense that they were both in the same
places at the same times. And she's telling the truth
about the fact that she was employed by the campaign. UM.
And so the next things too, in terms of like
the mechanical stuff, The next things to look into would be, UM,

(09:09):
let's trace down the details about her that that she
claimed about, like how this happened. So, UM, can we
verify that she was anywhere close to that area at
that time? Uh? Can we verify things like, you know,
she says that she was delivering Joe Biden's jim bag
to him. Can we verify that he used that jim
um all that sort of stuff. Uh. So that that
would be the next thing or a responsible reporter would do.

(09:31):
Another thing that responsible reporters would do would talk to
other women who had worked in the campaign UM at
around that same time, earlier and later to get an
understanding of Joe Biden as a boss to women and
what that experience of working with him is like. Um,
And another thing to do would be to speak with
people who knew terror read at the time um or

(09:54):
later and prior to the allegations, UH talked to her
about what had happened. Um. So those are all things
that I would say are responsible things to look into
as a journalist. Yeah, like investigating this case. None of
those are the things that we're done in the Politico article,
And I think we should start there. Yeah, let that, Yeah,

(10:15):
because I I this is like the hideoust hit piece
in all of hit pieceville. Um and it it is.
It is a rough read, and I get why people
who didn't believe Tara from the start are taking this
as a damning indictment of her as a person. Um My,
my broad summary of this article would be Terra is

(10:36):
a bad person to rent a room too, and her
landlords don't like her. Like yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the
sense I get a lot from. I mean, it's the
same with the Krasnstine article, where it's like, yeah, money stuff,
money problems. I don't know, I can't pay rent sometimes,
I don't know, Like it's it a lot of reads
like shaming, like horror people for struggling, Yeah, and shaming

(11:01):
like like this is how I thought when I read
her terrible column about Russia that she posts on Medium.
It's like, yeah, she seems like a person who's got
some issues, but none of none of what's in the
political article makes me question her as a credible witness
to sexual assault because like, none of the things that
people are complaining about, like it's her needing, like asking

(11:23):
for help with finances, it's her being late on rent um,
it's her, yeah, and it will need these things. I mean,
I touched on this when we talked about the Crescency article,
Like none of none of the things that these articles
get into are she has a history of lying about
sexual assault. She has, like it's not specific to any

(11:43):
of the thing that we're dealing with. And also, none
of the ones that do this ever seemed to examine
Joe Biden's history of lying about his history specifically, like
he lies about his career constantly and public Yeah, like unabashedly,
And that's what none of these articles do. Yeah, none

(12:05):
of these, even the ones that I think are reasonably responsible,
none of them talk about the fact that, like Joe's
told really blatant untruths about his like very basic aspects
of his background. So if terror read lying to a
landlord is relevant, why isn't that They also, I mean,
rarely talk about the fact that he's problematic with women

(12:28):
in general. For we've known that for a long time.
And you can write it off as you know, creepy
Joe Biden touching women, sniffing people's necks and all that stuff,
playing with their hair, but it's not that's that's a
misuse of your position in a work situation, in any
kind of an environment that's invading people's personal space. And

(12:49):
that's a really, really, really important conversation and something that
undoubtedly has made people uncomfortable for the entirety of his career,
right And and that alone isn't really grappled with to me,
And I mean, it's just all part of this fabric
that that feels unfair. Also, one point I wanted to
make what we're talking about this it came to my

(13:11):
mind they're trying to pay this portrait of a woman
who's unreliable and all of this stuff, And Okay, I
I hear you, I see Yeah, maybe she's not a
good person to rent to all of this stuff. She
wrote that that that piece about putin Okay, it also
another way to look at it. That is the portrait

(13:31):
of a woman that's had kind of a rough past,
maybe has had some troubles. Also, those are the types
of women that get preyed upon and don't get praved
like like, there's a framing. It's a sexist framing of
who this this these different clues, who does this person
add up to? Well, there's a different way to look

(13:52):
at it, you know. Yeah, that bit from a like
a deposition from her ex husband talking about this, uh
in like like four or so years after the alleged
incident happened, talking about how like she something happened working
in Joe Biden's office that traumatized her and still affects

(14:15):
her to this day. Is like what he said in
the deposition, Um, and that happened that affects people for
a long time and their behavior. I don't know when
was that deposition again, Um, I want to say it
was six or nineties. Sex I have to ask you
that because that isn't something that people talk about very much,

(14:36):
you know, it's not and it. It's um. You know,
some of this is just coming down to this like
frustrating American puritanical thing whereby if you're a victim, in
order to be treated well, you have to be pure.
Where it's like people were willing to believe like the
the Kavanaugh accuser, at least people Democrats were willing to
believe her in part because like she she had like

(14:58):
as clean and like she's she was the ideal victim,
right if we're going to talk about that. But terror
read is is is messy. She's had a messy past.
She's clearly a person who has some some who's got
some ship that she needs to that she's needed to
deal with over the course of her life. And that
doesn't mean she can't be raped. I have known, I

(15:18):
don't want this to sound the wrong way. I've known
some terrible people, male and female, who were rape victims.
The fact that they were terrible people did not mean
that they had not also been victimized by other people,
and it didn't mean that they deserved it either. No,
it did not. It did not. Another way people tend
to look at this, well, they put themselves in that situation. Yeah,
you can be like that there were fucking rapists who

(15:39):
died at Auschwitz. Like, it doesn't mean that was okay either.
Like the fact that someone is flawed doesn't make them
incapable of being a victim. Um. And that is what
that's particularly the political article, because almost nothing about the
political article actually delves into things that that are relevant
to the sexual assault. Um. Uh. Stuff other than that

(16:01):
her landlord, her landlords think she's a liar for not
being able to pay the rent and like kind of
begging for money. She seems like the kind of person
who's like, had some ship going on and gloms onto
people that she feels like um can provide her with
a sense of support. Um. And that doesn't Yeah, it
doesn't mean she's not a victim. Um. And also it's
it's worth noting on some of this stuff at least,

(16:23):
like one of the allegations against her that's not from
a landlorder is from someone who ran Terry Reade has
a thing with horses. Um. Yeah, she likes. She seems
to like being living on horse farms and volunteering at
horse horse boxes whatever you call a place where they
keep horses boxes. Yeah, a horsebox. She's volunteered on horse box. Yeah. Um.

(16:43):
And one of the people that she lived with and
worked with in this regard says that she was a
great person and that she considered her like part of
the family. One of the people in who was just
a horse sectionary owner, not a landlord, which is I
have some issues with landlords because seventy percent of them
are outright eminals. Um. But horse sanctuary people I think aren't.

(17:04):
And one of the horse sanctuary people at a very
bad experience with terror read Lynn Hummer who said she
has a problem. I think she's very clever, manipulative. I
do think she's a liar um. And basically, like some
of this is based off the fact that Reid's car
was being repoed and she begged this person to let
her hide her car on her property, which again I

(17:24):
can say for a fact, I know people who have
been victims of variety of crimes and have also hidden
cars from ripo men, because that's just the thing that
happens when you're poor. Like, I get why maybe a person,
I get why, especially if this lady is like rich Um,
which she owns a horse sanctuary, so probably right, I
get why she might just think that Anyone who does
that is like a dangerous liar. It's pretty common poor

(17:46):
person behavior to have to hide a fucking car from Repo. Yeah,
it's wild, Um that that was that that kind of
stuff was included, Um like going through like this is
just the Crescentine stuff, but like yeah, a few more
of them. Yeah, it's like, oh, no, she asked you
if she could park her car on your land so
she didn't have to pay an extra five bucks to

(18:06):
the REPO guy when she could finally get her ship
together to pay her bill. Like like you want a
laundry list of all the times Christine Lassie Ford like
had to ask for money, Like, yeah, what should we
take a break? Guys? Yeah, you know what? Won't you
know what? Will let you park your car while it's
in danger of being repossessed on its horse sanctuary so

(18:28):
that you can avoid the REPO man. Yeah, well, Rayon, Katie,
I'm glad that you brought that up, because not only
will Raytheon let you hide your car in their parking lot,
Raytheon will ensure that nobody ever has a problem with
REPO men again thanks to Raytheon's new No More People program,
or they just where they just missile everybody. That's the

(18:51):
raytheon dream a world without Repo Man or anyone else.
We're back. Oh my god. So yeah, I don't know,
Like you know, I can't help Whenever I as I'm

(19:12):
going over this, think about Rodrigo du terte Um the president,
you know, quasi dictator. Now if the Philippines, because do
Tarte is um, he's a liar, he's a murderer, he's
a monster. He was also molested by a Catholic priest
um and like we don't have hard evidence of it,
like there's no video of it, but we know that
he was in that priest parish. We know that priest

(19:33):
molested a bunch of other kids, and there is zero
reason to believe that Rodrigo do Tarte would lie about
being the victim of that sort of thing. Doesn't mean
he's not still a monster, you like, And I'm not
saying Tara Read is a monster either. I'm just saying,
like I I don't I don't hear anybody doubting rodrid
Goo do Tarte's story. But anyway, there are other reasons,
like obviously, like she's she's expressed a partisan opinion in

(19:54):
an election which automatically nullifies her as a human being
to anyone who doesn't share that political agenda, because that's
the way politics works. It's gross. Uh so yeah, this
this the horse sanctuary lady who didn't like Read. Um. Yeah,
said that she would beg for money, which is a
pretty common like a common like she seemed to be
renting a lot of rooms from people who were better

(20:16):
off and would regularly like beg for forgiveness on rent
and would also ask for loans of money. And that's
a common thread, which again has nothing to do with
whether or not she's the victim of sexual assault. It's
also like very just like now of all times to
be like, yeah, look at these these poor landlords and

(20:39):
the rent that they like they needed to get. It's
just it's just wild that is happening right now. Yeah,
it's frustrating. Yeah, now this person uh Lynn Hummer also
alleges that Read called a veterinarian to the ranch to
service terror Read's own horse. I guess she had or
has a horse and left Hummer to pay the bill, um,
which would be some shady behavior. Read denies this and

(21:01):
his claim that her lawyer is gonna file a CISA
desist case. I don't know what's actually going to happen
with this. I don't know. So there's one two paragraph
chunk of this that I want to read that I
do think is worth talking about a little bit more
in detail. Quote five of her acquaintances have specific recollections
where Read spoken positive terms about Biden as recently. Still
has an eighteen one year before she lodged an initial
charge against Biden that he had sexually harassed her um.

(21:24):
According to their accounts, Read proactively brought up the former
Vice president's name, pointing to her time in his Senate
offices as a high point in her career. Those interviews
said they were into the impression that Read spent years
in his office or had played a role in helping
write landmark legislation, though she actually served in a junior
level position for less than a year. Now, this is
interesting to me because it could mean a few different things. Obviously,
the author is taking it as a c she really

(21:45):
loves Biden point. But it's super like it's super common
for victims to want to try to salvage something good
from a traumatic event like a rape. UM, and I
don't find it personally suspicious, especially since, and this is
again consistent against all of these articles, they find people
who are like, yeah, she would speak positively of Biden,
but more often she would speak positibively of her time
in his office and the things accomplished by that she did.

(22:09):
It sounds like she's had a hard life. Of course,
working for a famous senator was a highlight of her career.
Are you yeah talking about your career along those lines.
I get frustrated by a lot of the talking points.
And again, maybe something will come out and blow all
of this out of the water and we'll be completely wrong.

(22:30):
But all of these things are so flimsy to me
because it's common for stories of sexual assault victims to change.
You know, there's a lot of reasons why it would
be too hard to remember. It could be that they
don't think that they would be believed. Maybe they don't
want to talk about it. And again, that was clearly

(22:51):
a high point of her career, because you know she
struggled since then there's even Katie, there's a quote from
a one of her landladies who was also a psychologist,
UM that actually speaks to that UM where this woman
noted quote she presented it as I can get my
life together. I worked for Joe Biden, I had a
really high level job. I have that capacity, which totally

(23:11):
makes sense. It's really heartbreaking. Yeah, it's very sad. Um. Yeah.
And also like in some of the situation, especially with
someone like Joe Biden, like a big like you're I
don't know, you're working in this guy's office, Like you're
not necessarily going to perceive it as like a sexual
assault situation necessarily right away, right, a rationalized stuff way yeah. Um,

(23:34):
and just the idea that like, well she didn't tell
everybody right away that she knew kind of um about this,
Like I don't know, it's it's very frustrating to see
that uh go that way when um, if it were
anyone else or about anyone else, that wouldn't be it. Um. Also,
I just find it just one thing. It's it happens

(23:58):
a lot with a lot of these articles. I seeing
a lot of these people. That's kind of contradictory, where
like you were saying, how oh yeah, all these people
heard her talk about how what a great time she
hadn't Biden's office, But she also said that she had
a really high level position and she did a lot
of this stuff when she actually didn't. So like they're

(24:18):
presenting this situation where like, see, she's saying that she
had a great time there, which was the truth, but
she also said that she had a high level position,
which was false. So like, wait, which is she lying about?
Which one? Like? Which one? Maybe which she has a
history of needing to like of She's she's had a

(24:40):
fucking rough few years and she has a history of
building up this chunk of her life because it's something
that she can brag about to other people with a
guy who was very famous at the time. Come on,
do we not know people? Do we not recognize that
instinct in ourselves at some point? Yeah, it's just in
the same breath, presenting those two things as like seeing
here is both and there they oppose each other in

(25:02):
terms of the argument they're trying to make. One of
the things I recognize this from is just people. Trauma
sucks up your your memory. I can say that as
someone who's deck with PTSD. I can also say that
as having I have an experience that I think is
really relevant here. I have a good friend who was
who was a marine and with you know, one of
the first units. I have a couple actually, one of
the first units into Iraq, and I've gone. I went
to their their anniversary hike. They do a hike up

(25:23):
this mountain in San Diego, and they like it was
like them and all of their their comrades and stuff
that who had been like in really heavy combat, a
lot of them wounded together, and they were all just
talking about ship. And one of the most interesting things
was hearing someone tell a story and then going over
to my friend or both of my friends and then
being like, no, it didn't happen that way, like he's
either lying or he's misremembered. This is actually what happened.

(25:44):
And that happening constantly with almost everybody's stories and other
people saying like, no, that's not what happened, or this
happened like oh they've been lying about that for years,
or they just remember that. And like I remember my
friends saying to me like, I don't even think a
lot of them realize that what there's because there's stuff
stuff like people got awards for ship that other people
did and multiple members of the unit would be like, yeah,

(26:05):
that's what he got the award for. But it was
this person who didn't um, and it's just like it's
like and yeah again, my friend was like I don't
even know if they're lying, Like it's just what like
you you tell yourself that's what happened for so long,
Like it was such a chaotic time, like it it's
it's fucking it's traumatic and people people are bad at
remembering things period. That one of the things that Sereal

(26:27):
did best the original podcast, that very first episode is
pointed out like think back to something eight years ago,
how much do you really know about what happened? Then
of course her story has like like people's memories are flawed,
especially in times of trauma. So there's a couple of
things as we finish off the political article that are
interesting to me. One of the things is like, yeah,
the fact that like they go through this article which

(26:48):
is just all about basically landlords that she like either
screwed out of some rent or like loaned money from, um,
all that stuff. Like there's there's people who have those
bad worries that have nothing to do about sexual assault.
And then also a bunch of people like this psychologist
she rented a room from who said that she Tara
confided a lot in her and never talked about sexual assault.

(27:09):
And then in one paragraph, the author of this political
article notes a former neighbor, however, told Business Insider that
Reads spoke of the assault in the mid nineteen nineties.
A work colleague from around the same time told the
publication that Read complained of her sexual harassment in Biden's office.
A document filed by Read sex husband in nine also
states that Read had complained of harassment. That's basically sucking
it um, which is like, oh, so, it's not that

(27:31):
she was only ever saying positive things about Joe Biden.
It's that she didn't confide about the worst event in
her life to every landlord she ever had. That's the tera.
Read is a bad person to rent a room to
and doesn't tell landlords about her sexual assault. Oh no,
that makes that like that has very frustrated by the
Politico article. I think it is a bad article that specifically,

(27:53):
I mean outside of the fact of obviously she wouldn't
confide that to a landlord, you know, something that she
doesn't trust. But yeah, that's a landlords the person that
you would brag about having worked for Joe Biden to,
and especially at that time, Victims of sexual assault or

(28:14):
you know, harassment. We're not respected. That is one of
time when somebody would have said, like, well that makes sense,
you know, I bet you asked for it. Yeah, and
it's it's like, I mean, yeah, I'm just so frustrated
by the whole lying to landlords thing being a mark
against her because like, I have so many friends that

(28:35):
will do ship like photoshop their credit score so that
they can get because she don't want to yet you
want to get the apartment right, Like, it's not uncommon
to light to landlords. Um. And also most of my
landlords were liars. I've had to, like to tell I've
had to talk to like Los Angeles County inspectors and
like convince them not to report things about the building

(28:56):
that were illegal because the rent was low and even
though the place was a fire hazard, I didn't want
to get kicked out. Like that's fucking life, man. Um,
It's I hate this now. The the PBS article, which
we're gonna move on to, is a lot better, um
for one thing. So again, I think fundamentally the political
article is kind of irresponsible because you're you're you're you're

(29:18):
focusing on like random, unrelated bad stuff that this person
might have done that has nothing to do with their
credibility and a sexual assault allegation. The PBS article is
very different. They speak with seventy four former Biden staffers,
of whom sixty two were women, UM, to talk about
his behavior towards women over the course of his career,
how they see the allegations and if there's evidence of
a larger pattern. That is a responsible way to pursue

(29:41):
an article like this, Um, that is something that should
be done when allegations like this are made, especially since
there's already seven or eight women who alleged inappropriate touching
by Joe Biden. So yeah, from the start, I think
this is like a responsible thing for a news outlet
to cover, right. Um. I don't know if there's any
disagreement with that, but it seems like a reasonable set
a questions to ask, Right, Okay, Uh, he's been accused

(30:03):
of inappropriate behavior to women. Let's talk to every woman
who worked for him. We can find and see what
have they think? Like that that that makes sense to me, absolutely, yeah, um,
And I'm gonna quote from that now. None of the
people interviewed said that they had experienced sexual harassment assaulter
misconduct by Biden. All said that they had never heard
any rumors or allegations of Biden engaging in sexual misconduct
until the recent assault allegation made by Terror Reid. Former

(30:23):
staffer said they believed Reid should be heard and acknowledged
that their experiences do not disprove her accusation. Over All,
the people who spoke to The News Hour described largely
positive and gratifying experiences working for Biden, painting a portrait
of someone who was ahead of his time and empowering
women in the workplace. And I think, guys, this is
the point at which we should all talk a little
bit about a former colleague of ours. UM. A guy

(30:46):
who had a reputation for writing very woke articles, including
articles with survivors of sexual assault. UM. A guy who
had a really good reputation online uh, in terms of
being like a progressive and pro women advocate. A guy who,
if allegations about his own sexual misconduct had not come out,
would probably have been trying to get in on the

(31:07):
whole writing about me two stories thing. UM. I think
we all know who that is. I don't know that
we need to share his name, but some we worked
with it cracked, you could find it if, like his
accusers have have made their allegations public, it will not
be hard to track this down if you want. Um,
he was somebody who had a good relations with like
even after so one of the things that made this

(31:28):
situation stressful working with him is that like a chunk
of the office found out that he had sexually assaulted
and physically abused a couple of different UM women, UM
before the other half of the office did, and for
a variety of reasons including um there being laws about
hostile work environments and stuff. Uh, there was a period

(31:50):
of time where not everyone in the office knew about
what had happened, and he continued to have good relationships
with a number of women he worked with in that
office who were shocked when the obligations were made public.
That is a thing that happened, and it happens a lot, absolutely,
you guys. People weren't allowed to talk about it, you know,

(32:11):
it was even even uh, which is so surprising and weird, Like,
because you want to be able to protect people, you
know legally you do, and you also like you don't
want this person that you just learned about doing a
horrible thing to make, you know, a million dollars because
of a hostile work environment suits. So you you listen
to the lawyers and you you hope that that's the

(32:33):
right thing to do, and then you spend the rest
of your life wondering was that the right thing to do.
And that's not to say that that's necessarily what happened
to here, but it easily could have been. You know,
there's you know, it's it's more to make the point,
a lot of women will say, and I don't think
they're liars, are doing this for their career, that Joe
Biden was one of the very best people to work

(32:53):
with on Capitol Hill if you were a woman in
like the nineties, in eighties and stuff like, he was
ahead of his time. He did a great job of
making these women feel valued. And I don't think that
they're lying about that for the sake of their career,
because there's a lot of women who are very consistent
about that. And that is relevant because it does speak
to his character, but it's also it's also something whereby

(33:16):
there have been a number of people who have committed
rape and who have also had great like engaging in
positive work relationships with women that they didn't ripe and
absolutely and you know what else is relevant? Uh, that
doesn't get talked about enough, I think, Katie, because god no,

(33:36):
but it you know who else? Um No, it's the
way he treated and handled Anita Hill, a sexual assault
in the workplace case and this time around is not
often brought up in general, but deafly not in regards

(34:01):
to this again, and I can't say this is enough
around the same time, you know, yeah, and that's you know,
there's the PBS news article. News hour article is much
better than the political article, but it's also very flawed.
And then I think is one of the reasons why
it's very flawed, and others that it doesn't talk about
Joe's own history of lying about his past, although it's

(34:21):
not really Yeah, I think that's relevant, as I find
weird Like in the quote, and forgive me if I
didn't quite catch the exact wording, but like it said
that all the women didn't have any inkling of like
any sort of sexual harassment claims until terror read but
like sexual misconduct. But okay, but that's the year ago.

(34:43):
There were all these sexual misconduct allegations, well, there were
allegations of inappropriate touching. I guess they might be saying that, like, well,
that's not the same as yeah. Yeah, it's frustrating. A
lot of these articles will not even bother defining these
terms or like making distinctions work, like talking about that

(35:06):
in the right context from Yeah, most of them are. Yeah,
inappropriately touching should be considered sexual miscon that's sexual Yeah,
where are not? Like, Okay, we can have the argument
if you if we must. Yeah, it doesn't understand stand Oh,
I know you're not. I just mean in general. People

(35:27):
can say like, oh, but Joe Biden doesn't He didn't
mean it like that. Yeah, okay, the rules of change, Katie,
did you hear the rules have changed? Weird? But yeah. Yeah,
like walking up to like a colleague from behind and uh,
like putting your hands on their head and then kissing

(35:48):
the back of their head while sniffing their hair. That's
sexual misconduct. That's what that is. Yeah, it is, and
it's um, I don't know. We'll talk more about that
in a little bit. Um. There's allegations from Ben Savage,
who who worked next to read, that she wasn't forced
out of her job in retaliation for sexual harassment, that
she was just kind of bad at the job, um

(36:09):
and flaky, which totally possible. Like, and it's possible that
like again, this not isn't even necessarily an area where
there's there's lying. She may have both. She may both
honestly feel she was forced out because of her sexual
harassment claims, and also her colleagues may feel that she
just wasn't very good at her job. Both of those
things could be true. I don't know. It sounds like

(36:30):
maybe she was a bad worker. She might be. Yeah,
but a perspective thing too, because especially when this allegedly happened, like, yeah,
that guy's not gonna like he's not gonna aware of
sexual harassment going on, like and no one like, no
man in that air, So who's getting you know, I
don't know. It's maybe if she was, if she is

(36:50):
the victim of this kind of trauma, maybe she started
not doing such a great job at work because she
was traumatized, and all this guy would know is like, boy,
she's really not pulling her way, Like she's not gonna
confide in to him. He just a guy who sits
next to her, Like, yeah, that's totally possible. Now. One
of the things that I do think that's interesting is
the her claims about like being asked to um a

(37:11):
period of fundraiser because one of Biden's colleagues thought she
was hot um and serve drinks um. And this is
something that I think is very relevant. PBS News articles
notes quote more than fifty former staffers said they didn't
remember ever attending a fundraiser for Biden in Washington, d C.
Which is where read says this one was when they
were on his Senate staff, and some are called an
office policy banning most of Biden's Senate staff from doing

(37:32):
campaign work. Further, two men who worked as junior staffers
for Biden said the senator specifically did not want women
serve to serve beverages like coffee or perform other menial tasks,
and his Senate office, around the committees he chaired, men
were typically asked to perform such tasks. He didn't want
the image of a young woman's staff or serving him,
said John Earnhardt, who took over reads duties. So yeah,

(37:52):
I don't. I don't know that is that strikes me
as a relevant thing to talk about, like this, this
fact that like other people don't recall the same kind
of event, that she was supposedly at um and that
he didn't have a habit of asking women to serve
drinks at these I do think that's a relevant point
to bring up. It's obviously not conclusive one way or
the other, but I would call that as an example
as opposed to talking to her former landlords. I think

(38:15):
that's an example of a relevant relevant that's slightly more
relevant than whether or not you could make rent twenty
years ago. Yeah, I think it's time to take an
ad break. Yes, yes, you know. It's also relevant to
allegations of Nope, nope, nope, that's not that we no, no, no, Jesus,
oh boy. But products and services are good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

(38:41):
well together ere back were good. They were they were great.
I thankfully not relevant to the topic. No never. So yeah,

(39:03):
there's another quote in here that I find relevant that
I'm gonna read from now. Quote Victoria Nourse, who so
served as Biden's top lawyer in the Judiciary Committee in
the early nineteen ninies, were called Biden's reaction when another
official made a comment about her looks in front of
Biden during a flight in nine. The man said, O
Joe let me sit next to the pretty girl recalled
nurse who later served as Biden's chief counsel in the
White House. Biden told the man off Nor said, making

(39:24):
it clear that we were here for work and that
that was inappropriate in a very no nonsense way. Um.
So that's that's good. That's that's again a relevant thing
to bring up. Um. It is also, however, brought up
in this article, to its credit, that like they're interviewing
a bunch of former and like people who have worked
with Biden and who have a reason to believe they
might get hired in a Biden white House, which is

(39:45):
also irrelevant thing to bring up. So I'm glad they
did bring that up. That's that's a good to day, right,
That's that's what you want out of these articles, where
it's like, yeah, here's this thing, but also here's some
context for you. Um yeah. And there's there's reasons to
critique the people and which we have critique the PBS article.
But again I do want to state I don't think
it is as like an irresponsible article. Um, I just

(40:08):
think it's imperfect. So um yeah, and there's another I
think probably the most relevant thing this article notes is
is it talks with Liz Tanker's Lee, who was Biden's
legislative director from nine to nine nine. Um And was
also part of a group of women who put together
a list of problematic men on Capitol Hill for other women.
It was kind of like, we have one of these
circulating in Los Angeles right where it's like network. Yeah,

(40:33):
these are people in men in the industry that you
shouldn't be alone with, you know, um, because they have
you know, there's been allegations against him with being sketchy
as shit. Um And Liz said, quote, you got to
know which senators you didn't want to be on an
elevator alone with. No one ever said Joe Biden was
one of them. Um on that list in nineteen nine,
according to multiple staffers with Senator Bob Packwood, Republican from Oregon.

(40:54):
He later resigned in nineteen n five after the public
revelation that he had engaged in years of aggressive sexual
behavior towards women. Include staffers. The late Senator Strom Thurman,
Republican South Carolina, was also infamously on the avoid elevator list.
Staffers claim, so was another nats S lawmaker, Senator Ted Kennedy.
Democrat from Massachusetts. No surprises there, um, Joe, Joe Biden's
good buddy strom Thurman. Yeah, and it's it's worth noting.

(41:17):
So one of the things we're talking about is Joe
has this absolute and and documented. We know this to
a point of certainty that he has a history of
touching people in creepy ways, because there's there's no shortage
of pictures of him doing it, so we know that
that's a thing that occurred. But also, I think kind
of the point this makes is that, like maybe one
of the reasons why people thought so positively of him

(41:39):
in relation to this in this period is because he
wasn't a sexual assaulting Yeah, exactly, he was like not
in the same Like the bar was really low because
there were a ton of people who were just outright
grope on an elevator. Um. Which still leaves a lot
of room for Joe Biden to do some terrible things,

(41:59):
um and still be viewed as a good guy by
most of the people who worked with him because it
wasn't hard because most of the men on Capitol Hill
were fucking gross as shit, um, And just like seeming
not that gross was easy. Yeah. Now there are the
the at the end of the PBS article does get
to the fact that some of the people who worked
with Um, including Burne, one of the women who put
together his list, knew that there was a history of

(42:21):
Biden uh he had a habit of touching people when
interacting with them. We knew that about Biden. He was
always massaging somebody's shoulders, but never anything more than that.
There was no vibe about him. Many staffer stress that
people frequently gravitate towards Biden as a kind of comforter
in chief and look for an around the should uh,
an armor on the shoulder, or a kiss on the cheek. However,
staffords agree it was not in Biden's nature to gauge

(42:42):
social signals about whether someone wanted to be hugged or touched.
Many said they learned that he might do so without warning,
though most saw it as an endearing quality that wasn't
sexual in nature. A former staffers said that when Biden
does things like stroking women's hair, there's a complicated dynamic
at play. His behavior towards women can be somewhat infantilizing.
The sta Afford said that doesn't look like a quality, right,
but it was an expression of empathy is a post

(43:04):
of flirtation for others Biden's touching evokes and regret. There
were times I now look back that I think we
messed up. We should have said something about that. A
different former staffer said, we probably should have recognized that
made people uncomfortable. So this is kind of how the
article ends. UM. Yeah, yeah, so it's not conclusive. Um,

(43:24):
there's a lot that you can take out of that. UM.
Obviously flawed in some ways. UM. I think the best
of these articles that I ran across was the Vox
article UM written by Laura McGann. Um. And for a
little bit of the history of Laura McGann, you know,
because again people will look into like whether or not
these journalists have a history of like supporting Biden or

(43:46):
you know, being more liberal or more left to determine
whether or not they can incredibly report on this. Laura
McGan did write an article pretty recently titled Joe Biden
is the only one with a chance of getting this done.
But in April two thousand nineteen, she also wrote an
article Wold titled Lucy Flores Isn't alone. Joe Biden has
a long history of touching women inappropriately. She's also written
several articles about different reasons women don't come forward with

(44:08):
stories of harassment, particularly by powerful men. UM. I think
Laura is a reasonably credible journalist to be writing the story,
and she also has a personal reason to write this
story because she was one of the very first people
interviewing Terror read um before the allegations were made public,
and she was not able to publish the allegations that
she made against Terror read because, like Terror was talking

(44:30):
to a number of different reporters at the time, Laura
wound up not being able to like back it up
enough for her editors to actually write the story, and
someone else put the story out first, which is the
thing that happens. It happens all the time to journalists. Um.
But she continued to talk to Tara, particularly after Tara
started coming forward with stories that like Biden now had
sexually assaulted her. Her article is interesting for that reason

(44:52):
because she's she's clearly very sympathetic to tera Um. She's
also trying to do her due diligence as a journalist here,
and again, as with the PBS story, it ends on
a very inconclusive note, like there's not a smoking gun here,
if that's what you're looking for. But I do think
Laura's Vox article is probably the best analysis of this
that I found. Yeah, hmm, yeah, yeah, because there's not

(45:17):
going to be a smoking gun. No, yeah, and it
wor that's what I echoing what I said at the
beginning of the episode. It's like, yes, I think it's
important to do due diligence and and check everything that
you can, but at the end of the day, it's
hard to believe that we'll have a definitive answer on this.

(45:40):
And to me, I think it's really really important if
we are trying to change the culture where sniffing someone's
hair isn't there's no no longer a question as to
whether or not that's appropriate, or you know, uh, believing women,
believing that powerful men take advantage and abuse women every day.

(46:03):
You know, if this is a lesson that we're actually
gonna have take root as a society, it is very
important that we hold ourselves to the standard that we uh,
you know, preach about, you know what I mean, it's
very important that we say, you know what, there is

(46:23):
a compelling case to be made that she is telling
the truth and Yeah, she might be problematic. Yeah, all
of this stuff, you know, they're they're both of those
things can be true at the same time. And and
if I'm going to vote for Joe Biden, I need
to know who he is or I have to understood,
I have to accept that this might be something that's

(46:44):
a part of him. And I'm not gonna just relax
and let our leaders off the hook, do you know
what I mean? It's lesson that I hope we've metabolized
throughout the last four years. You know, especially as we
criticize Obama more, we look back and we're like, oh,
wait a minute, he wasn't exactly the person that we
said he was. We just got complacent, we were relieved

(47:06):
to not have Bush anymore, and we let this and
we let it. We let it skate, you know what
I mean? And if we win, I need we need
to be able to do that, is my point. Yeah,
I go back and forth, and whether or not that's
going to happen, we're capable of doing that. The discourse
around this seems to indicate that not right away. The

(47:29):
letter next to someone's name is what determines this kind
of thing. Yeah, I remember even talking about like back
in the cabanat days. Uh oh those days. Remember, well
this idea and like it's a lifetime appointment too, so
I think that has a little more bearing on it.
But like this idea, you know, it's not it wasn't
like a court of law about like whether or not

(47:51):
that happened. Yeah, it wasn't this this idea of like,
well it has to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
But in this kind of situation, especially it's a lifetime ointment. Um,
it's more about like public perception. Um, it's not about
being beyond a reasonable doubt. There was doubt. There's still
doubt in people's minds. Uh. An overwhelming number of people

(48:12):
still think he is guilty. It's one of those things where,
like whatever happened with the vote, the responsible thing to
happen in that situation was for Brett Kavanaugh to acknowledge
that there is a lot of doubt in the public
and his position is a lifetime appointment and it's very
important that that integrity is upheld, and the responsible thing

(48:37):
for him to do would be too he can still
say it didn't happen, but because of the ship show,
the responsible thing to do is to step down, not
accept the nomination and let somebody else do it. Literally,
anyone else could have done that, and it would have
upheld some sort of sense of integrity for that. Um.
And I'm not even saying necessarily this has to happen
with Joe, but like if in talking about the me

(49:01):
too movement and like all all the stuff we've talked
about in this episode and other episodes, Um, wouldn't it
be interesting and and uh powerful if Joe stepped aside
because of I know, but like the number of the
number of women in the party who are really struggling
with this and are really uh disgusted that they're even

(49:24):
in this situation where they have to choose between these
two people now and this guy. I know it won't happen,
but it's I keep going back to this that idea
of Kavanaugh, like, well, actually, here's what he should have
done that would have been great, best for everybody. Um,
I don't know, it's frustrating. Yeah, what happened doesn't matter, no, Carol,

(49:48):
It's it's frustrating, and it's like so one of the
things that's kind of frustrating, Like there's a lot that's
frustrating about this one of them is just sort of
the fact to which all that clearly matters now is
is what you believe politically. If you're a if you're
a Democrat and a committed Democrat, Joe's innocent. If you're
a Republican, he's guilty. And if you're um on the

(50:09):
left side of the party and are angry that Sanders
didn't get the nomination, he's also guilty. And you know,
there there's an amount of people in there who are
trying to make their decision based on the evidence, but
there's an awful lot of people who are just kind
of looking for like, if you want an excuse to
think that her allegations aren't credible, plenty of chum has
been put out there for that to be possible. If
you want to believe her allegations are credible, there's plenty

(50:31):
to latch onto. And this is kind of the nature
of truth in our society now. It's not it doesn't
exist anymore um, And like, there's a lot that's frustrating
about that. One of the things that's angry is that,
like all of the articles, all of the authors behind
the articles I read today are kind of being attacked
by folks on the left is like being part of
a smear campaign against terror read and that's very fair

(50:52):
for um the political article. There's some criticisms to make
the PBS article. I don't feel like Laura McGann at
vox is smearing terror read I I We'll get into
her article a little bit more. I think it's a
very responsible piece of journalism. And it's frustrating to me
that we can't because of the politicization of this. We
can't even really analyze this without being like people being

(51:13):
attacked all around, Like no matter what you do, you're
going to get torn up in in cases like Laura's
for just the simple act of like, all right, I'm
going to I am someone who reports on this ship.
I am somebody who believes that this is a problem.
I'm someone who is a deep understanding of the fact
of why women don't come forward in cases like this.
And I've been talking with Tara for a while. I'm
going to do my best to write an article about

(51:34):
everything we know and don't know. Oh now I'm being
accused of being part of a smear campaign. Um. It's
very frustrating. Um. She makes a really good point, which
is that. UM. One of the things that you have
to do, since there's not going to be an objective
yes or note of this, is you look at the
corroborating evidence, UM, and including like other allegations. And one

(51:57):
of the points she makes is that like when allegations
were made against Harvey Weinstein or against uh Bill Cosby,
it wasn't he said, she said it was. Here are
a ton of different people over the course of years,
in a lot of cases that whose stories we have collected,
that all line up in a variety of ways, and
that are all very consistent. And you have something similar

(52:18):
with Donald Trump, UM, And it is worth noting, and
it is worth pointing out that that does not exist
with Joe Biden. There's overwhelming evidence that he has touched
people in creepy ways that made them feel deeply uncomfortable,
and that that is not okay or good. UM. Terr
Read is the only person to accuse him of explicit
like something that you could qualify as rape, um, And
that that is a a a worthwhile thing to point out.

(52:41):
And I think I want to read an exit from
Laura's article because the way that she talks about this,
I think is very responsible so I'm going to quote
from that. Now, eight women have now said they've been
made uncomfortable by Biden in public settings. Read is the
lone woman to accuse him of sexual assault. This is
a situation out of her control. But it means that
reporters can't build a story about Biden around a pattern
of behavior where multiple accusers boost one another story. Instead,

(53:02):
reporters are looking at Read's account in isolation, and that
account has changed. Um. And then she notes, you know,
there are a number of ways that accounts changed. And
she also note that that's not uncommon with stories like this,
that people's memories are flawed and perfect, and like, yeah,
that that is that is a thing that happens. That's noteworthy, Um,
And it's noteworthy that like Since then, a former neighbor
of Reads, linnar Lacasse, has come forward. In an every

(53:24):
with Business Insider, she said that Reid spoke about the
harassment and assault claims in I asked Read why she
hadn't mentioned the cast to me a year ago, or
to help her, or to the first few reporters she
told about her assault allegation, including The New York Times,
which is working in a deep dive into her story.
At the same time, she said La Cass hadn't seemed
like a relevant source because she talked to her two
years after the alleged incident took place. Read added that
she told reporters about two other anonymous friends later who

(53:46):
hadn't seemed relevant to her either. When asked a similar
question by the Associated Press, who had been working on
the story, to Read didn't respond. And this is like
number one, Like, I get why people are are poking
at this because again, as as Laura points out, you
have to do like all you have is this one
story to poke into. But also I get that this

(54:07):
traumatic thing you probably talked to a number of people
about and you don't think of all of them immediately. Yeah, yeah,
but then you get to this frustrating thing where like,
um so, when Helper asks Read why she didn't mention
the assault allegation originally, she responds by blaming the media. Quote,
while I was going to tell the whole thing, the
whole history with Biden, but the way I was being

(54:28):
questioned it made me so uncomfortable that I didn't trust it.
And no offense to the reporters out there. But it's
maybe just something that can't be learned how to talk
to somebody who got because I really just got shut down.
And the narrative they really wanted to it to be
was that it wasn't a sexual thing, like I don't
say it's sexual, and so I was like, Okay, I
guess I can't really say the whole story. Um. And again, Laura,
the person writing this article is one of the women

(54:48):
that Read was talking to at this time, and Laura
notes quote, but that wasn't the narrative I wanted. I
wanted the truth, and I certainly had no qualms about
the accusations being of sexual misconduct. Reporters that many outlets,
including the reporters reads folk to have not shied away
from reporting on detailed sexual assault allegations. Um. And that's
a good point for one thing. Just looking at Laura's history,

(55:09):
I have no doubt that she would have been perfectly
happy to have been the one to break this story. Um.
And Laura also notes quote in the interview with Helper,
Read said that she contacted someone at the Washington Post
and then they never really followed up. The Washington Post
said that it interviewed Read on multiple occasions, both this
year and last, as well as people she said she
told of the assault, claiming more than half a dozen
former staffers of Biden's Senate office, a fact Read conceded

(55:31):
to me in an interview. In a recent conversation, I
asked Read why she would say the media was shutting
her down when she was initially so adamant with me
and other outlets this wasn't a misconduct story. The only
answer she gave is that she was speaking about the
response to her claims collectively, and in her opinion, the
added detail still fit her construct that this is not
a story about sexual misconduct, because she told me sexual
assault itself is about power. So I don't know, like again,

(55:54):
this is this is it's complicated as hell, um that
you know, this is conjecture. I just listened to that,
and I think about myself in that situation or her,
you know, you know, like what could be motivations for
with holding some of that information at that point, and

(56:19):
you know, this is somebody that is being lauded as
especial at that time too, people were pushing for a
lot of people wanted Biden to be then not you know,
to to to be running for president and that's a
scary thing to go up against, you know what I mean,
even and and me too was happening, but we hadn't

(56:40):
really seen that much progress with it. Weinstein only recently
got convicted, you know what I mean, Like, I think
that there I can understand a world where even at
that point, not being comfortable sharing the whole story, I can't. Um,

(57:01):
I'm not saying that it isn't also concerned a problematic
element of it. I'm not saying that that isn't an
important point. I'm nearly you know, hypothesizing and trying to
put myself in that position, you know, and be empathetic
and if we're if we're trying to actually look at
this accurately, like there is there are things to be

(57:23):
concerned about in her Like one of the things that's
been brought up believing the PBS article is that the
specific place where she alleges the assault took place is
incredibly crowded, um and has been forever and always has
a heavy amount of tourist and foot traffic. And that
doesn't mean it didn't happen because also like details get
muddled up, especially of location over time. Um. But like

(57:45):
it's it's that's a worthwhile thing to point out, UM.
And Laura McGann points out that UM quote. A few
weeks before Reid spoke to Helper, she applied to a
tweet from grim the guy who wrote the Intercept article
about this, semi to tease that a story was coming out. UM,
and the tweet was Ryan said, Um tweeted I had
to had Biden v Sanders contest were forced voters to
take a close look at Biden again that went very

(58:06):
badly for him last time. And Tara responded to this, UM, yep,
timing wait for it, tick talk uh. And this was
posted on March three, and Grimm says that he didn't
speak with her for the first time until until March eighth,
a week later. That's a thing to note, like it
and it doesn't. That doesn't look great for her, So like, yeah,

(58:27):
that's that's worth noting. It's also possible, like I don't know,
people have said that. That's like, yeah, I don't know,
it's a thing worth noting. Yeahs noting. I guess it's
just like if she she's trying to get this story out,
I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's but see that's
a that is a fair approach to this, and I

(58:50):
think that for me is what I want to take
away to be because again we're not I don't know
that we're going to have an answer, but I'm talking
about how we have this conversation, how we treat people
that come forward. There's this whole believe women articles circulating,
and it's just so frustrating how we approach believe women
and you know, the character assassinations feel irrelevant, something like

(59:15):
that a discerpancy that is something to fuck that political
article and funk the person who wrote it. It's difficult,
and like I don't want to just be blanket saying
you know, she's not lying because we don't have the answer.
But I don't want to be somebody that sees the
worst in people and uses that as a weapon either,

(59:39):
And you know anyway, end of sentence. I mean, yeah,
like it's it's you, uh, take these allegations seriously and
don't like just try to rip the woman apart. Yes,
which is I do think if you are if you
are interested in journalism and like what what good journalism

(01:00:02):
versus bad journalism is? These three articles are a really
good illustration because they run the gamut of On the
On the irresponsible journalism side, you have the political article,
which is a hit piece, um and very gross for
that and I I think provides almost no information that
is relevant and evaluating um uh this case. Then you

(01:00:25):
have a want to hear the repossessed car story A yeah, yeah, yeah,
I don't care. Yeah. In the middle, you have the
PBS article, which starts from a very good position, has
some serious flaws because it doesn't take some things into
account that it really ought to have, including Anita Hill,
and including you know, the fact that if you're going
to talk about um, Terry read being in consistent, let's

(01:00:47):
talk about Joe Biden's own inconsistencies. And then at the
other end of it, I think, and this is, you know,
the Vox article is almost more of a column because
it is written in this author's voice, and it is
based in part on her personal experience talking to Tara
for a very long time, and her experience in general
covering stories like this and very much caring about telling
these kinds of stories. And I think it is a
very responsible article. And it's worth noting that the most

(01:01:11):
responsible article in the bunch doesn't lead you to really
feel one way or the other about the truth of
the case. It's just it's it's this is like it
which is frustrating, and I know is like not the
place anyone wants to end this on, UM because you
want to, you want to know, but we won't. And

(01:01:32):
acknowledging how frustrating it is and that we won't is
I think part of what needs to uh yeah be
mentioned when you're reporting on this kind of thing. Yeah, absolutely, Yeah,
A point of certainty will never be like for example
of how hard it is to get certainty. There is
still a debate among scholars about the extent to which

(01:01:54):
Hitler was aware of the Holocaust, because Adolf Hitler was
was was very um committed to not putting certain shipped
down on paper like the annihilation of multiple in ethnic
groups UM. And so his name is not on a
whole lot of documents tied to the Holocaust. UM. Now,
I I think of credible historians at this point agree

(01:02:17):
that he knew and was very involved and understood exactly
what was happening and was in fact a major advocate
for it and devoted military resources to um uh to
allowing the Holocaust to continue, even when those resources were
needed up at the Eastern Front. There's very little debate
about that now, but there were decades of debate, and
it was decades of people trolling through archives and building

(01:02:39):
the case because he had just been kind of careful
about not sticking his name on documents, building the case
that he knew exactly what was going on. That was
the work of lifetimes. Um, and that's you know, it's
the truth is a shitty business to be in. It's
the only place I can end this on these days. Yeah.

(01:03:03):
I finally popped up on Facebook and gotten to a
conversation so don't do that person, and it really turned
into Q and on stuff really quickly. Oh great, Yeah,
that's a problem. You did this to yourself, Cody. I well,
and that's what really hurts. A friend of mine was like, hey,
sold for from my school is talking about this stuff.

(01:03:25):
Do you want to have some fun? I was like, no,
I was right, it wasn't fun. No Ah, good job guys,
we made it the episode. Good job. Everybody clear on
what to do now? No crystal clear everything everything is
in order. Yeah, well, you guys can check us out online.

(01:03:50):
It can give you that. That's kind of fun and
positive way to end it online at worst, your pot
and the inctant that the Twitter and this stuff like that. Um,
yeah you can believe that for sure. Yeah I am.
I am excited, um because I I think there are

(01:04:12):
things in here that are going to piss off everybody,
which is never my goal. Actually, I'm not one of
those things that people who's like, if you're if everyone's
angry at you, you're telling the truth. Yeah, but this
is one of those things where I don't know how
to actually tell how I feel having analyzed all these
stories and not have there be something in there that
pisces off everybody, um, which I don't like. I wish

(01:04:32):
that wasn't the case, but this is how I feel
about these articles. Well, we live in a very complicated
time where there are where it's too complicated. It's it's
sometimes too complicated to have a definitive opinion on something.
But you can do your very best and you can
sort through what you're presented and be critical of it. Yeah,

(01:04:53):
and it's okay to say I don't know. Yeah, I
don't know. It's okay to say I don't know. I
sure wish we had a candidate who was selfless enough
to be like, but also like, yeah, I don't know.
Fuck it funk all of this ship. I hate everything.
You know. We got a big Trump, Yeah, Roxy clor Quinn. Yeah,

(01:05:19):
I feel like that drug maybe yeahs might be the
answer to our question. Hi, Droxy Clark quin becomes the
big hero of the year. We build a statue to it. Yeah,
cover a Time magazine. He might not be the hero
we need, but it's the hero we got. Yeah, the
drug that made Trump's heart explode. Thank you, comrade Hydroxy
Clark Quinny. You live long enough, become the villain or

(01:05:43):
you die. Then this just all becomes the Democrats long
game to trick him into having his heart explode. Yeah,
boy got him? Yea God. I wish the Democrats were
capable of a long game. Yeah, I don't. I wish
they were any game. Yeah right, even as I don't think.

(01:06:06):
I don't think I would like the goals of their
long game, don't yeh. Didn't we end this episode like
five minutes ago? We did, but we're all still frustrated
by the year. Yeah, alright, bye later, everything everything so

(01:06:28):
dull again. I tried Worst Year Ever is a production
of I Heart Radio For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
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