April 1, 2020 • 56 mins
Cody, Robert and Katy discuss the allegations of sexual assault and misconduct against Joe Biden.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Worst Year Ever, a production of I Heart
Radio Together Everything, So don't don't don't. Hello, kids and cats,
(00:23):
Welcome back to our aptly named show, Worst Year Ever.
My name is Katie Still. I am also in the
Worst Year Ever and I Can't escape. And my name
is Robert Evans. Hi Robert as a fellow resident of
Worst Year Ever. My name is Cody Johnston. Johnston. Can
we just all take another lap? Another lap in this
(00:47):
time where we don't get a lot of victory laps
to celebrate. Really nail in the name of this show,
I mean, just out of the park. It will, yeah
for ever be something I'm most proud of it. I mean,
this is you. Kudos to you, Robert All. We all
talked about this a lot, though, you know, we had
to really and forth. We went back and forth about
whether or not this would be the name. Um yeah,
(01:10):
but we did it well fucking nailed. It's important and
uh and true. Oh yeah, keep that song in mind, Cody,
you get your your mandolin nearby. I can get it.
That's that's good, Cody. Because we're gonna start this episode.
We're gonna be talking about the allegations of sexual assault
against Joe Biden this episode and I hate this story. Uh,
(01:34):
not just in the way that like rape stories are
always I hate them all, but this is like, I
hate this story so much. Uh, it's got to be
a bummer. And at the end of it, I'm gonna
promise the audience that you will reward them with a song,
a freestyled song, and now it's on tape, so you
can't back out. Smart move asking that on well after
(01:57):
we were recording. I've heard your promise, I've internalized your promise,
and we will find out what I do with that promise. Yeah. Yeah,
there's no way to know. There is one way to
know by finishing the episode. So let's get it started. Um. Obviously,
(02:18):
have been really focused on everything that's happening with the
pandemic and bidely important, but it was also like, whoa,
there's still an election going on and it's important for
us to continue to cover that as well. So here
we are. Um. Yeah, these allegations are pretty alarming. If
(02:40):
you guys have not seen it, it goes beyond just
the just I mean, all of our conversations that we've
all been having for years about how touchy Joe Biden
is how hair smell. Yeah, this is a this is
a very serious allegation of serious assault. Um and that cord. Yeah,
(03:03):
I've got it written. I've got it all written out here,
and I kind of feel like we might just want
to go through it pretty granularly because I think a
lot of people just haven't heard much about this at all,
and we should probably lay it out to start with. Um,
So it all kicked off in nineteen three. Um, But
that's not the best place to actually like start talking
about it. So let's let's talk about two thousand nineteen first,
(03:26):
because yeah, two that's the year that Lucy Flores, a
former candidate for lieutenant governor of Nevada, wrote an essay.
It was March of that year wrote an essay for
The Cut alleging that Biden had kissed her on the
cheek or on the back of the head at a
campaign event in two thousand fourteen. She wrote, I couldn't
move and I couldn't say anything. I wanted nothing more
(03:48):
than to get Biden away from me. And in the
wake of her report, UH, seven other women came forward,
including Amy Lapos, who said that in a two thousand
nine fundraiser Biden touched her face and rubbed noses with her.
Um and a woman named terror Read and not the
not the not the famous terror Read, but like a
different terror Read with a different spelling. That confused me
(04:10):
at first, and I thought this was a very different story.
Uh yeah, I mean the same story, but just with
a very different person in it. Um. So yeah, and
and reads allegations which she she told to The Union,
which is a local California paper, where that Biden had
touched her several times in ways that made her feel
very uncomfortable when she was working in his Senate office
(04:32):
in nineteen She said that he had reduced her duties
for his Senate office after she refused to serve drinks
for an event because he thought she had nice legs.
So like that was kind of the allegation at the time.
Um and Biden didn't respond directly to any of these allegations,
but he released a video statement in April of that
year where he said, I shake hands, I hug people,
(04:53):
I grabbed men and women by the shoulders and say
you can do this, while acknowledging that the boundaries of
protecting personal space have been reset and promising to change
his behavior, but he also stated that he didn't apologize
for this or anything else he'd ever done, so that
that is what happened in two thousand nineteen. Question in
two thousand nineteen, did she say that there was more
(05:16):
to the story at that point? She sure did, Katie.
That's what I wanted to um to draw attention to
because everybody, I think, when they were just seeing this
in the midst of other headlines, assumed that it was
simply another story of inappropriate touching. And I do not
mean to diminish the effects of inappropriate touching, but on
(05:39):
the surface, people looked at it and thought it was that. Yeah,
And it's because that's what she said it was, because yeah,
she wrote a medium post in these so in the
wake of coming out of these, I'm actually just going
to read what she wrote in a blog post about
what the aftermath of coming out um and saying that
Joe Biden had inappropriately touched her and flirted with her, Like,
(05:59):
what the aftermath of that was? Uh? Quote? There was
an immediate brutal fallout attack on me. I received threats
on my life via phone or email. A thread started
on Twitter calling me a trader. I lost income, slash
freelance work from the negative viral tweets, A writer from
the Atlantic and a law professor Ford and former Biden
staffer in the White House Richard Painter teamed up for
hit pieces the viral articles calling me out as a
(06:19):
Russian agent sworld on the internet. So it was a
bad fallout. It sucks probably for women to come forward
and stuff like this. Yeah, I'm not going to defend
the Russian agent allegations. I will simply for the context
of clarity, add that by her own admittance, she comes
(06:41):
from a family that's very anti establishment, anti uh United
States imperialism, and has been working on a Russian novel
and has uh said things that praised President on the
Russian agent stuff. Um, this is based. Are you gonna
get to the blog post about it? Yeah? Yeah, I'm
gonna read all I've got. I've got absolutely everything laid out. Okay, great,
(07:03):
I've got opinions about it. So I just want to
make sure popping in before no no, no, yeah. Um
so yeah, like that sucked. And she also wrote in
that medium post like that's what you were talking about, Katie.
Like later in that post, she made it clear that
there was more to her allegations. She wrote, what Joe
Biden didn't his interactions with me is not really is
really not much different than what happens in other workplaces.
(07:26):
I have not told the whole story of what occurred
between Joe Biden and myself after the threats threats last time.
I will not tell it here either. I was told
back then that if I continued to speak out, I
would be fucking destroyed. So yeah, oh, she added, Um,
I was destroyed not once but twice. Perhaps one day
there will be a safe way to express what happened.
So that that's kind of what she teased as the
(07:47):
wrong word, but she she she mentioned that there was
more to the story, right, So that's the tale. Uh.
In two thousand nineteen, um, fast forward to a little
less than a week ago, and Ryan Grimm of The
Intercept publishes an article containing allegations of sexual assault by
read against Biden. And I think before we go into
what he wrote, we should talk a little bit about
(08:08):
who Ryan Grim is and kind of his level of
credibility as a reporter. I think it's important when you're
talking about a story like this, because you're kind of
trusting him to have done an amount of vetting, you know,
inasmuch as it's possible. So Grim is the Intercepts DC
bureau chief. Before that, he worked for The Huffington Post,
where he was twice part of reporting teams that were
nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. His most recent piece of
(08:30):
opinion based election coverage was a March fifteenth article with
Jeremy SKay Hill titled a Biden Sanders ticket the unthinkable
maybe the only path forward. And I'd like to quote
from that because it gives you an idea of kind
of where Ryan lands politically. To avoid a scenario in
which President Donald Trump uses the pandemic to his advantage
while risking the lives of millions of Americans, the Biden
and Bernie Sanders campaigns could broker a split ticket of
(08:52):
Biden Sanders with a clear, publicly announced, historically powerful role
for Elizabeth Warren, presumably Secretary of the Treasury. Such an
arrangement would be infuriating of vast numbers of people in
all three camps. It would anger the authors of this
very article, um, but they also state that it might
work for the election, and YadA YadA, um, it's a
It just kind of gives you an idea of where
this guy is. He's definitely on the Bernie Sanders progressive
(09:13):
wing of the party, but he's also clearly like not
someone who rejected the idea of Biden in the White
House completely out of hand when compared to Trump. I'm
not going to Donald Trump. No, because SKay, Hill and
Grim argue that the severity of the coronavirus epidemic basically
had necessitated a Democratic unity ticket. Grimm's biggest story to
(09:34):
date prior to this was a two thousand eighteen piece
where he broke the news that Diane Feinstein had received
a letter related to Brett Kavanaugh, who was then being
confirmed by the Supreme Court. Uh. This is what turned
into the Christine Blassie Ford allegations against Kavanaugh. So he
is the journalist who broke the first story and that
that story. So he's certainly a dude. The Democratic establishment
(09:55):
has has trusted on stories before, right. Um. A lot
of the people who were saying that, like, these allegations
brought up by read are not credible, um, and that
the intercept isn't credible earlier tweeted articles that Grim wrote
out about that whole thing. So that's a factor in
this too. In general, I would say that like Ryan
grimm Is is about as credible a reporter as he gets,
(10:16):
you know, his his he's definitely got his biases and
his personal political beliefs, but he's he's got a really
good history as a journalist, right in terms of actually
like publishing the work, Like yeah, yeah, there's not a
whole lot of people I would say are like much
more credible in terms of like breaking a story, Like
it's really hard to not have a bias these days. Well,
(10:39):
I would like to talk about some of that a
little later on. UM. But yeah, so yeah, that's that's
that's Terror's background prior to and that's the background of
the journalist. That's the history of Terror Read and her
allegations UM. And then obviously last week that article gets
published and it reveals a bunch of really interesting information.
(10:59):
One of the of that story is that Read kind
of decided late last year that she was going to
come forward with her additional allegations against Joe Biden. UM,
And she went looking for legal aid first and approached
times Up, the nonprofit formed as a result of the
Me Too movement. Now times Up has received a pile
of money as big as the sky. Over the last
couple of years, as me to his you know, continued
(11:22):
to expose abusers and whatnot in in public life. They
helped fund the legal cases of some of Harvey Weinstein's
accusers and have to date put about ten million dollars
into funding cases. Now, Reid spoke with a representative of
times UP who seemed to think that her allegations were
credible um, and referred her to outside attorneys and suggested
their legal Defense fund might be able to help. Once
(11:43):
that request was made, a series of conversations started within
times UP, and eventually the organization's director, Sharon Tage Honey,
made the call that they could not provide assistance to
terror read. Their justification was that, since Biden was a
candidate for federal office, assisting a case of it's him
would jeopardize their nonprofit status. Um, yeah, is that even true?
(12:07):
Because then I was reading that that it's it's not true,
like it should not jeopardize their Yeah, that that's should
not as about the strongest, so like this isn't one
of those things where like there's a law that says
it's okay to sue a presidential candidate for sexual assault. Um.
(12:30):
But lawyers who have been contacted about whether or not
they would lose their five and one see three status
have been pretty consistent about saying like, that's probably not accurate, like,
and that's the way that Like Ellen April, the professor
of tax al at Loyalist Law School, was asked about this,
and her answer is, um, pretty pretty standard. She said
(12:52):
that times up analysis was too conservative. Um, and that's
usually how you'll see it. Frame. Not like they're wrong,
but they're being too conservative sendo that law. Yeah, I
mean it just basically feels uh some editorializing like this
seems like an excuse that we can use to side
step this mess. It feels like an excuse someone suggested
(13:14):
in a meeting, and I'm it probably was right, right,
And then everyone's like, well, our lawyers aren't saying that
it's not not not true. So yeah, Yeah, it's like
saying you could you didn't do something because you could
be sued. It's I mean, technically you can be sued
for anything in the United States, Like there are very
almost no limitations. Um. Also to what you're saying earlier,
(13:38):
maybe there should be a law that says that you
can just sue a president for second assault. I support
all laws allowing people to sue presidents, um even ones
that might inherently seem unreasonable and like they would make
governance impossible. Let's give it a shot, hard agree, Why not? So?
(13:58):
Now grim in the Inner Up to make a point
in their article of noting that the PR firm that
works for times Up Legal Defense Fund is s k
D Nickerbocker, and the managing director of s k D
nicker Bocker is Anita Done, who was one of Joe
Biden's top advisors. Now, this is where we get to
one of the pieces of what I think is kind
of disinformation I'll call it light disinformation spreading around the internet.
(14:21):
People are saying that like Anita Dunn, who headed Harvey
Weinstein's uh PR defense after you know, the allegations came up,
that she is and that is not that that's Biden.
That's not what happened. She was consulted, along with a
bunch of other PR people for free by Weinstein at
the very beginning of this and she did, Yeah, he's
(14:45):
a big Democratic donor. Somebody who knew her was like,
will you give Harvey some advice, and she did at
the very very beginning of this. She was not paid,
and she was certainly not You can argue like that
wasn't a good thing to do at all. She should
have read the article and been like, fuck you, Harvey. Um,
totally fair, but it's it's a it's a stretch to
say she directed his defense. He did have a paid
(15:08):
team of assholes for that job. We know who those
people are. Don't take the credit away from them. Yeah, Yeah,
totally fair to be like, hey, this she kind of
that's kind of gross, isn't it. And it is kind
of gross, but let's not state it. Let's not pretend
it's something other than what it is. Yeah, we don't
need to pad the grossness. She visits Harvey every day
(15:29):
in prison and says, I'm so sorry about what's happened
to you. It is, though, like, and there's no evidence
that she waited on the call about whether or not
to take these allegations. And I suspect that, at least
on paper, someone in her position has no decision making
power for that. That said, do I think that nobody
talked to her about it, or that she didn't weigh
into anyone with influence at the at the the NGO
(15:52):
about that, like, no, I would be very surprised if
she didn't. To be fair, uh, this is the response
that she received from the times Up employee that contacted her.
They said, please know how much I appreciate your courage
and speaking out and appreciate what you shared over the phone.
That you are speaking out so that your daughter and
other young people can start their careers free of harassment.
(16:13):
It genuinely seems to me when I read that that
there was a lot of remorse at not being able
to help her. Yeah, I would agree. I think I
don't think there's like it. From what I can understand,
the actual employee at times up who dealt with her
case did nothing wrong, took it seriously, escalated it, and
was told no from higher up. So people, Yeah, there's
(16:34):
a lot of criticism of times Up that we should
be having right now. But I don't want to like
pretend that it's not full of people like that employee
who legitimately wanted to do something. You know, let's um
And what I I don't want to pretend anymore is
that it's not time to take a quick break. Yes
for ads, you know, who won't harass women who come
forward with allegations about vice presidents. Oh, Robert the services,
(17:04):
Yeah together, we're back. Oh my god, those ads are
great less horrible that we're going to talk in detail
now about the allegations of sexual assault made by terror
(17:26):
read against Joseph Biden, Joseph Robinette Biden. So this um,
this all happened in nine when she was working as
a legislative aid and in her retelling of events, so
she talked to the Intercept and then she was on
the the podcast of a woman named Katie Helper, who's
a very pro bernie uh journalist. So that that Helper,
(17:47):
that's the context of that. So she says that she
was while she was working as an aid for Biden,
she was approached by another Biden employee who gave her
a jim bag and said that Joe needed his jim bag,
and she went in to see Mr Biden, and then
the things that we're just going to play this clip.
(18:07):
It's about two minutes from her from her recollection of events,
and this is what she says happens. After she met
Joe with the gym bag, we were alone and it
was the strangest thing. There was no like exchange, really.
He just had me up against the wall, and um,
I was wearing like a skirt and you know, business skirt,
(18:31):
but I wasn't wearing stockings. It was kind of a
hot day that day, and I was wearing heels, and
I remember my legs had been hurting from the marble,
you know of the capital, like walking, and I remember
that kind of stuff. I remember like I was wearing
a blouse and he just hug me up against the
wall and the wall was cold, and I remember he
(18:51):
It happened all at once. The gym bag, I don't
know where it when I handed it to him was gone.
And then his hands were on me and underneath my
clothes and um, yeah, and then he went, um, he
went down my skirt but then up inside it and
he uh kind of traded me with those singers whatever,
(19:13):
and I uh, he was kissing me at the same time,
and he was saying something to me. He said several things,
and I can't remember everything he said. I remember a
couple of things. I remember him saying, first before like
as he was doing it, do you want to go
somewhere else? And then him saying to me when I
pulled away. He Um, I got finished doing what he
(19:35):
was doing and I kind of was pulled back and
he said, he said, come on, man, I heard you
liked me. And it's that phrase did with me because
I kept thinking what I might have said. And I
can't remember exactly if he said I thought or if
I heard, but it's like he implied like that I
had done this, like I don't know, And for me
(19:55):
it was like everything everything shattered in that moment because
I knew like we were alone, it was over right.
He wasn't trying to do anything more. But it's I
looked up to him. He was like my father's age.
He was this champion of women's rights in my eyes,
and I couldn't believe it was happening. It didn't see
(20:17):
it seems for real. So yeah, that's some Those are
the allegations, the bulk of them, like like that's the
allegations of actual like physical We'll talk about some of
the stuff he said later, but yeah, yeah, they're not good.
As the clip goes on, as she says something that
really really stuck with me, Um, she had mentioned, you know,
(20:39):
there are things that he said that I don't want
to repeat. And then Katie pressed a little bit and said,
are you sure you don't want to share that? And uh,
she acquiesced and said what he said to her in
that moment was you're nothing to me. And then she
goes on to say and he was right, uh, because
that's how everybody treated her. You know, people I didn't
(21:00):
want to know what happened to her. They didn't want
to hear it. And and she just ends by making
that point like, you know, you want to know why
people don't come forward, Well, this is a great example why.
And that really hit me. Man, you know nothing to me. Yeah,
and he she alleges at least that in the wake
(21:20):
of this, he kind of created her career in politics,
working in the campaigns, like because he thought, uh, and
he thought that she liked him. Someone had told him.
That's his allegance that he thought she liked him. And yeah,
And in that interview when she also she talks about
that and she's like, I don't know if somebody had
(21:41):
said it or if it was something that I'd done
to make him think that I liked him, which is
just the most grotesque. Uh, It's like it's just a terrible. Obviously.
This is what we've talked about in workplace environments, the
the onus on a woman to start questioning what did
they do wrong? Yeah? Uh, and it's uh. I don't know,
(22:04):
like I don't have a truth detector. Um. People lie
all the time, um, and it's it's I I think
that one of the debates that's going on right now
is like over believe women as a slogan, UM, And
I agree with the essence of it, which is that
like you should assume as a rule that allegations of
(22:24):
sexual assault are true, which does not mean that you
have to assume without vetting, that every single allegation of
sexual assault is accurate. Um. You just assume the same
way that like when someone says my home was broken into,
that they're not. This isn't some con game they have.
You offer them sympathy and you take it seriously because
most people who have their homes broken into are have
(22:45):
their homes broken into. And it's worth it's worth reminding
everybody that statistically, the vast majority of sexual assault allegations
are in fact true, because why would a woman want
to put herself through this? But also very unfortunately and
understandably considering what's going on in the vast majority of
(23:06):
sexual assault allegations, there's no like evidence that's smoking gun
or anything like. The evidence in this is that like, yes,
definitely Biden and the and and read would have been
in a position to be alone together. Like we can
say that, and well, and it is. This is not evidence,
but it is uh corroborated by her friends, her brother, UM,
(23:28):
who's who's gone on record as saying at the time,
I didn't think she should do anything about it, and
I regret that. Um. And you know, so the people
close to her in her life are like, yeah, this
absolutely happened. Yeah, yeah, the people could and say that
she brought it up at the time. UM. And some
of you know, Biden has had surrogates, a couple of
(23:48):
women who have worked for him a long time be like,
you know, I was working for him at this time.
I never heard of him doing anything like this. Um.
And that's kind of all you're gonna get on this.
You're not going to get no videotape is going to
a merge of Joe Biden being like I should do
love being a sex crime guy. Um. We're just like,
this is the information that exists. Hey man, hey man,
(24:12):
I like to grab him by the lady bit Trump.
Trump's like, I'm the best sex crime president there ever
was the absolutely I hate him. Sorry, I I kind
of Katie. Maybe maybe that's what we need in America
is for this debate to come down to the president
who calls them lady bits and the president who calls
(24:32):
it a pussy. That's that's our good. Yeah, let's let's
if Biden got up there and just called it cunts.
I'd respect that Trump just had a fucking race to
the bottom, Like I mean, I will say so. One
of the things that really strikes me about everything that
(24:53):
happened here is that I am I suspect that Donald
Trump knows that he has had unconsensual sexual relationships with women,
his wife, his ex wife. I don't think Joe Biden
thinks that this was anything other than like I think
he probably if he was totally honest, to be like, yeah,
I was flirting a little bit aggressively. I think that's
(25:15):
how it's gone down in his head. And I suspect
that is how he which doesn't make it less of
a of a sexual assault, but I think that is
probably how Joe really thinks about what happens. That's how
he It's what he was apology was originally about the
hair sniffing and all that. He when he said that,
like the rules of like personal space have been reset,
(25:38):
that implies that he thought that his behavior was fine
and acceptable were different are different now, So I'm going
to change but behavior, I'm not gonna do that anymore,
which means that he thought it was okay. Um. And
I think that speaks, that speaks to sort of what
his attitude would be in general. But and I guess
his general evolution as a politician where you're like, looking
(26:01):
at the stuff that he's up there defending, I just
didn't know it's it's it's very very I would say,
it's a very serious, credible allegation. And it needs to
be um, at the very least, confronted seriously by the
Biden campaign and acknowledged and and answered. Um. And the
(26:23):
same thing needs to be done by the mainstream media. UM.
Because that is how we as a society should treat
credible allegations of sexual assault by presidential candidates. It is
not being treated that way now. The Biden campaign has
released a statement saying basically this is untrue. We respect
women who come forward, but this didn't happen. Um. But
(26:43):
and I that's actually less gross than what has happened.
And kind of the mainstream press where there has been
almost a blackout on this story. Um, it is just
not reaching mainstream traction. And like it has, it has
been popular on the far left. People are sharing it,
and a lot of far right sources have been sharing it.
But that said, even on the right wing it hasn't
(27:04):
really picked up that much steam yet. And I think
a lot of that does have to do with the
fact that we're in this nightmare pandemic that dominates all
discussion of everything. Like, yeah, I guess in a little
bit of fairness to everyone, not many other stories are
getting through right now. But even with that taken into account,
it seems like it's been black Yeah, because even even
(27:26):
the even people who do who aren't like outright ignoring
it and pretending like it doesn't exist. If they address it,
it does come down to like, oh, it's a conspiracy,
she's a Russian plant, or like it gets into that,
or dismissing it outright. A lot of a lot of
weird behavior. If you compare it to other allegations about
(27:48):
other people. It's disappointing, um in so many ways. I mean,
I you're right, there's this uh pandemic going on. Anything
that's election related, even that is having a hard time
penetrating that our collective consciousness right now. I just this
is normally when stories like this I get into immediately,
(28:10):
And it was two or three days after this came
out before just because like there's I mean not so
much sexual assult's less as serious, but like this is, like,
I just I can't it's hard to think about anything else.
But even if this wasn't going on, I think it's
safe to assume nothing that it would still be getting
it wouldn't be getting traction. You know, we using this
(28:33):
time to cover their tracks, and and and people don't
want to believe it. They don't want to see it.
And I find it so disappointing because one point, if
Joe Buden's the nomine I'm going to vote for Joe Biden. Um,
I feel like I'm gonna have to. But it's it's
really truck tricky for me because all along there's a
lot of reasons why I hate Donald Chump, but from
(28:53):
the beginning when just seeing the laundry list of women's
allegations against him, and it was like, I am so
glad that I'm not a Republican and I don't have
to make that choice. I don't have to face that
moral choice. Do you know what I mean? Like, yeah,
Like if I was them, I wouldn't have been able
to vote for him. I wouldn't have been able to
stomach it. I resent being in this position. Yeah, I
(29:16):
don't know what I will do voting was we should
talk about that at the end um. But one of
the things that's been coming up is like comparing the
number of allegations against Trump to the ones against Biden,
because there's a lot fewhere for Biden. But it's I've
literally that I don't want to do that. I'm not
going to do I feel like, well, they're if they're
both rapists, vote for the one with the best policies.
(29:37):
Like unbelievable that we're having that conversation. I mean, it's
like when other candidates try to run against Bernie by
talking about how they only attempted to shoot President Reagan
while Bernie is actually killed. Go for the It's exactly
like that yeah, go for the real ship. Do not
(29:58):
vote for Senator Jim Imhoff, who I am alleging now
is the real shooter that attacked Ronald Reagan. That up, Jim,
you guys were mentioning. Uh, you guys were mentioning that
on somebody's timeline. They retroactively went and deleted all of
their support their tweets times up. There's a couple of
(30:24):
people who have done that, some of whom have been like, no,
my tweets auto delete after three months, which a lot
of people do. But then on a couple of those cases,
folks have been found like, well this tweet from four
years ago still like happened. Yeah, They're just just some
some of the people who seem to be doing this.
Whether or not it's it is autobly. Um. Simone Sanders
(30:45):
she was actually the press secretary for Bernie Sanders in sixteen. Um.
She's now an advisor for Joe Biden. Jill Filipovic. I
believe it is another one, um, And again it's just
you know, we went through a period like one and
a half years ago, two years what it was two
years ago through and it was it nine years ago. Um,
with the whole Kavanaugh stuff, and uh, the argument about
(31:10):
like whether or not her accusation was credible, Uh, whether
or not we should believe her what like all all
the things that we're hearing now from people in the
mainstream media who are completely ignoring this. It is completely flipped,
um from what they were saying just a few just
a few short years ago. Yes, yes, and that's it's bad.
(31:34):
It's blatant too. It's so obviously what's going on. And
maybe you get into this a little later, but like
with the whole, just the whole, the Biden of it
all in general, it seems like that like there is
a joke down at all. It's uh, there is a
lot of gas lighting I feel about and things about him,
(31:58):
problems people have had with him, literally like candidates who
now endorse him, things that they've said about him. All
of that is gone. Uh, we were not allowed to
mention any of that anymore. Well, it's very it's very first,
it's just our I mean, I understand the desire to
rally around your candidate and start doing I understand that
(32:19):
from one perspective, but it's also like, God, we want
better than this, and we want also well that's the
thing because Joe Biden is nobody's candidate. Everyone and every
one of these people would be like, well, no, he's
not my first choice or my second choice or my third.
He's nobody's first or second or third choice. Um, but
there's this sense that like, but yeah, now, one of
(32:40):
the things that makes this very frustrating is that. And
it's hard to phrase this in a way that doesn't
sound like I'm victim. Blame me because I'm not what
I'm That's not what I'm getting at here. Because of
aspects of her personality and beliefs, terror read feels like
someone crafted in a lab to be the person the
Democratic establishment could most ease a ly try to discredit
(33:01):
for her allegations. Um, she's an outspoken Sanders supporter for
one thing, but really the biggest part and she was
pro Warren first. Um. But the thing that is really
drawing a lot of ire and that is being used
to sort of immediately kind of um deny the seriousness
of her allegations is what I would describe as an
(33:23):
outrageously shitty blog post that she wrote back into as
an eight team for medium dot com. And it is bad,
and her opinions in it are bad, and I'm going
to read you a relevant section. Now. I love Russia
with all my heart. I love the people, the history,
the culture, and even my attempts to learn the language.
I could not stand to watch the deception in xenophobia
that came from my own American government. It is so
sad and destructive to revile into their cultural country for
(33:44):
no reason but economic gain. President Putin scares the power
elite in America because he is a compassionate, caring and
visionary leader. President Putin has higher approval ratings in America
than the American president. President Putin is beloved by Russia
and he not going anywhere. Instead of being ensnared in
the recent political intrigues in America, trying hard to set
that trap, President Putin is keeping a calm focus on
his own country's development in future without America, the President Putin,
(34:07):
I say, keep your eyes to the beautiful future, and maybe,
just maybe America will come to see Russia as I
do with eyes of love. Ye man, horrible, horrible, horrible post.
You know, I I really hate the knee jerk Russian
bought accusations or Russian but Jesus Christ, this is a Foundation.
(34:34):
But like I see where some of that is coming
out just because like, because of the Russian situation, there
is a I do see a lot of xenophobia about
Russian citizens, um from a lot of like resistance type folk.
But man, everything else not great. But also let's say
you're like a Russian plant and operative uh uh accuse
(34:59):
the front runner of sexual assault when you worked in
their office. I don't think that that blog post would
be published by that person if they were trying to
do that. Yeah, this is not I know. I also
(35:19):
don't know that if a secret Russian agent, if planted
to take down Biden, would be publicly That's what I mean, Like,
they wouldn't. They wouldn't publish that article. They wouldn't have
done that, because that's the one point, unless they just
wanted to cause Yeah, I mean, so he would cause
the chaos. Sure, Yeah, so this doesn't feel like a
(35:39):
Russian agent to me. I would say the Russian government
is absolutely going to do their best to um boost
stories about this. Yeah, which doesn't mean that the information
shouldn't get out there, just means that they have a
vested interest in everyone in America arguing and fighting as
much as possible. It doesn't mean there aren't things to
argue and to fight about. It's just that's what they do.
They don't in bed sleeper cells in nine to be
(36:04):
in a position next to Joe Biden so that they
can then have them flawlessly live a quiet life and
then come forward to disrupt an election after making only
one mistake, and that mistake being to really ridiculously bad blog.
And they're not playing that kind of long game. Also,
she has acknowledged, you know, that she grew up that
(36:25):
that that it was bad, But you know, she's like,
I'm I grew up in an anti imperialist household, very liberal.
She's immersed herself in Russian culture because she's writing a
book that's set there, all all sorts of stuff. Sure,
it was a bad post. It was a bad post.
It was a bad but also I know people who
(36:46):
are I know people who believe the kind of stuff
she believes, and I think they're all very frustrating. But
I would take it very seriously if any of them
came to me and said that they were sexually assaulted,
Because you have a right to believe frustrating dumb things
in this country. You also have a right to not
be sexually assaulted exactly. You know what else you have
a right to do. You have a right to remain
(37:07):
silent and listen to these ads. And you know what, Katie,
I think we can all agree that's the only real
right that anyone has to listen to advertise legally together everything,
don't you're back? How are we all feeling about this?
(37:34):
Fucking not great? Not feeling great about that? You know
what else? I'm not feeling great about our upcoming election
for a variety of reasons, um, but one of it
is this matchup of Biden and Trump. I think it's
important to talk about where we're standing right now. We're
(37:55):
operating under the assumption that things continue and Biden gets
the nomination with maybe not maybe something. This world this
year is wild, anything could happen. Um. But you know
Trump's approval rating is up right now? Uh? Well is it?
(38:15):
It is of a bit he's a wartime president. Um.
And I've been looking into this a little bit. I
mean it seems like world leaders in general are getting
a bump because of the response around this. I mean,
not like Balsa Naro apparently, but in general, people are
getting a little bit of approval bump, and it's hard
(38:37):
to it's hard to exactly pinpoint why, Uh, there's so like, Okay,
it could be the fact that, you know, Trump really
underwhelms and the fact that he's doing literally anything at all.
My people might be like, well, he's doing a little better,
you know, if you're comparing to disapproval rating hasn't still
(39:00):
not gotten under fift So there is that bump, but
still like he's still not doing great. He's still not
doing great. But now the when you match up Biden
and Trump, the it's it's you know, depends on the poll,
but it's getting closer and closer. Like the gap between
(39:21):
people saying that they would vote for Biden over Trump
is diminishing. It's just diminishing. And it's just something to
be paying attention to as we're looking at this um,
especially since we're going to be comparing them, we're comparing
them inherently throughout this episode right now. Yeah, and I
want to I think one thing that is important to
keep in mind when we look at the I almost
(39:44):
think there's not going to be much of a point
in paying attention to any numbers for the next three
to four weeks. UM, because one of the realities of
the of our moment is that COVID nineteen is moving
a lot faster than polling does. So the reason I
was shocked when you said that his his approval was up.
I obviously heard those stories, but I came across the
(40:05):
story last week on the so late last week UM,
which was comparing polls from March, UH two posts from
March and Marche. And in March Marche, according to the
Hill Harris x poll, UM, fifty six percent of Americans
approved of the president's handling of COVID nineteen, but in March,
(40:29):
just three days later, UM, only fifty of registered voters
said they approved of the presidents. Look, I'm not saying
put undue amount of stock in any polling, and you're right,
it's absolutely right. This is moving so fast and it's
really hard to track. But I think it goes with
that saying he's labeled himself a wartime president. He is
a wartime president. There is historical context for why that
(40:53):
behooves him to have a crisis. UM. And UH, there
has been some uptick in his polling and maybe that's
not going to last very long. UH. It's just something
to to keep in mind, but not too much stock
in because, like you said, things are changing, Like I
even said a minute ago, who knows what's going to
happen in the next month or two two months. Yeah,
(41:13):
there's now data from ipsos UM on how much Americans
are trusting the information the President's telling them. Um of respondents,
including of Republicans, say it's not true that anyone who
wants to get tested can get tested. Um only of
the public and the Republicans said that they believed a
(41:35):
vaccine would be ready soon. Um of respondents, including a
plurality of Republicans, said that it was false that the
virus would go away on its own in warm weather,
and of respondents said that they thought COVID nineteen was
deadlier than the flu. So um. That is separate though,
from whether or not people want to vote for Donald
(41:56):
Trump again. Yes, yes, absolutely, And it's just it's just
something that I'm I am keeping in mind. I urge
people to not freak out about or just yet anyway, um,
except that vote for Bernie if you still can. Um. Uh.
(42:16):
The other thing I wanted to touch on as part
of why it's it's it's just this is nothing new
This is something that we've discussed a lot. But part
of why it's so hard to hold him to account
during this isn't that indeed the media. Earlier I'd said
that it's hard. Journalists inherently have their biases, but they
(42:37):
go out of their way to not seem like they
have a bias, you know. Instead of saying, like Trump
had a press conference and he did he said fifty
lies about coronavirus, they say, uh, you know, Trump had
a confusing presser, you know, or they say he makes
claims that obviously, which is I hate that and it's
(42:58):
should be fucking a league, especially right now. Fuck your objectivity. Yeah,
you know who I like to talk about when we
talk about journalistic objectivity is William Shier. Now, William Shier
was one of the great American reporters of the twentieth century.
He was in Berlin, UM. I forget which news agency,
(43:20):
but he was like an American reporter in Berlin for
basically like a huge chunk of the the Weimar era
and most of the rise of the Nazi Party to
power UM. And so he interviewed all of these hot,
top ranking Nazis and then when the war started, he
was back in the US and he started making propaganda
reels for the US government that informed people about realities
of the Nazi regime. And he wrote Rise and Fall
(43:42):
of the Third Reich, which is an utterly indispensable book
of the history of the rise of the Nazis, and
was a very good journalist who also didn't for a
second pretend that his job was to be to do
anything but condemned the Nazis. As Nazis, you can report
objectively and what are doing and also never leave anyone
(44:02):
in doubt that it is wrong to be a note
that these people are shit. And that's what we need
right now, not just your opinion pieces. I want the article,
the article that that is getting circulated that people are
going to for facts needs to be really clear. And
I'm just I'm disappointed. Yeah, I am honestly for the
(44:23):
first time in this election, the allegations against by the
sexual assault allegations. I'm honestly not certain what I will
do as a result of that, because, um, I have
two things that I've held to his hard lines when
people ask like based on my my personal beliefs, which
are kind of much more in the anarchistic tradition, like
why I still think people should vote, And my same
(44:45):
argument is why I think people should I don't like
crystal meth, but I think people should understand the effects
it has on their health if they're going to do it. Um,
it's harm reduction. Yeah. I think about voting the same
way about doing dangerous drugs. It's a danger, it's a bad,
dangerous thing in a lot of cases to do to yourself. Um,
but doing it allows you to reduce the amount of harm.
(45:06):
So I think it's important. And I believe two things
since I kind of held my nose and voted for
Hillary Clinton in which is that, um, at least I'm
not voting for a rapist the wife of a rapist,
and that's not ideal. Yeah. And and also I am
voting for someone who, though I agree with her on
very little, meets a basic minimum amount of competence that
(45:28):
I don't think she will botch an extinction level event
in the response to it, yeah, like a pandemic. And
those two things are at war right now because I
still regard like, regardless of whether or not Joe Biden
committed sexual assault, he would do a better job on
a mechanical level of dealing with the response to a pandemic,
(45:49):
which doesn't mean yeah, yes, actually might be better than
both of them, And yeah it is a they're very smart.
They are very smart, and a panda bear would have
started rolling out tests and fucking January. But yeah, um,
(46:10):
it's just I know, I hear your point. I I
strugg too, because that's what I was trying to say
intimating earlier is like, yeah, I I just don't want
to be put in that position. I don't want to
have to make that kind of a moral choice. On
the other hand, I look at you know, if a
handful more more than a handful. But like everybody that
didn't vote for Hillary Clinton because you know, X, Y
(46:33):
or Z or because they like percentagely, it's not because
people people didn't vote for her her because it's not Bernie.
I mean some people did, but that's not a huge
moving factor. But like whatever reasons that people didn't vote
for her or just vote for anybody. Um, And then
you look at what's happening now and you're like, very yeah,
(46:54):
this is this is tough. You know, do I want Biden?
I don't. Do I want four more years of Trump? Fuck? No,
I don't. Yeah, I don't know what I like. I
honestly don't know what I will do at this point
because I do take the allegations against Biden seriously, and
I don't know if I can vote for someone who
(47:15):
did that. That said. Right now I'm looking at it,
it looks like President Trump had the Mike Man. Wait,
who's the my pillow guy? He is the guy one
of the few guys who running a company who kept
their ads after the he sells pillows on Fox News.
(47:38):
He is addressing the nation about the coronavirus epidemic. Everything, Like,
I I don't know what I will do, and I
I hope the audience can forgive if some of our
responses are like ulling this one over, y'all frustrated and
like all this kind of stuff we've been talking about
for men of I mean the media, but like the
(48:02):
Democratic Party, it's so obvious. It's it's it's it's like
they're holding their nose and they're doing the same thing
that that happened. We're going to ignore all this stuff
and we're gonna pretend like it doesn't even exist with Trump,
And I don't want, I obviously wish with all of
(48:22):
my heart, and being that there was no pandemic. But
if there were a pandemic, I wish it had a
hit like three or four weeks earlier, just a few weeks,
just in the a little bit earlier in our primary season.
I think that if that had happened, we would be
looking at a very different race. We can all hope
(48:45):
all sorts of things. I am not thrilled that right
now I'm thinking, which rapist do I want to deal
with a natural disaster? Because yes, the rapist, I would
pick that, wor yeah, I you know what what what
the core of it is? I I don't know that
(49:06):
I want to contribute to the system that exactly uh
puts me with that choice. And I also know that
like by choosing not to, I am potentially making a
decision that would make life a lot more dangerous for
people in vulnerable situations, which is why I voted for
Hillary Clinton. You know, um, because there are things that
are worse. One of the things people need to fucking consider,
(49:27):
which I I don't think can be said enough. But
like everyone's like, well, Obama bombed people too, They're not
really all that different civilian casualties as a result of
US air strikes jumped a hundred and six in Trump's
first year. He does everything but worse and more like, yeah,
like there's a difference. Yeah where, Yeah exactly. Um, you
don't have the leve Obama to see that there is
(49:49):
a difference. And I'm not trying to I hope this
isn't coming across with us being like, so, this is
why you should vote Joe Biden. I don't know if
I'm going to vote for Joe Biden, but this is
what's going on in our head. Yeah, it's just another
another another thing on the pile of Yeah. I mean, look,
(50:09):
I'm gonna end up. I'm going to end up voting
Vermin Supreme, I think and less. I don't know. You're right,
it's really hard. I do think. I still hold in
my mind that just having Trump and in charge obviously
puts so many people at risk, and um, yeah, and
(50:30):
I don't want that. And four more years of it
will unleasse untold horrors because he is you know, the
the safety safety will be off you know. Shame on
everybody for allowing this decision to be a thing that
voters have to deal with. Shame on the media, Shame
(50:51):
on the DNC. Shame on everyone who is gas lighting
and lying about all the stuff that everyone talked about
a year ago. I I'm gonna see what happens throughout
the rest of the primary. I'm gonna see what more
information we have. I'm going to see who he picks
as his running mate. Um. I'm not given up quite
hope on Bernie, although it's really hard to see a path. Um. Yeah,
(51:14):
I don't. I don't know what I'm going to do.
I don't think I can make much in the way
of political conclusions until we are past the worst of
this pandemic. Um. And I don't want to leave like
I think it is important. I don't. I don't like
it when people pretend like they they have such a
clear understanding of what the right thing is to do.
(51:36):
I don't think that's clear. Um, there's a there's a
real strong moral argument for refusing to vote for Biden
because of what he did. There's also a real strong
argument that says, but what about all the additional people
who will die also? So I think I see it
a lot in a different form, which is that anyone
who criticizes Joe Biden US tons of people will swarm
(51:59):
them and say, well, are what are you going to
vote for him? Are you gonna vote for him? You're
gonna vote for him though? Uh and this sort of
like you're not never You're not going to like vote
for a third party or anything like that. And it's uh,
it's very frustrating to not be able to criticize someone,
especially given these allegations and things like that. But the
idea of like why are you having that conversation now,
(52:22):
Like why are you like haranguing people and like bothering
them about their vote in like in November. It's March.
And these are the things like if anything, that people
asking that question should be considering what they're doing, Like
all these things that people are saying about Joe Biden,
consider those instead of hopping on and being like, but
(52:45):
are you but you're gonna vote for him in like
seven months or whatever? Um. It's it's why it's wild
to like force that conversation when I understand I I
do completely agree with you about that, but I years talking.
I I sit here and I'm like, I do understand
people's anxiety. I do understand like some subset of those people.
(53:08):
For example, my mom, who's begged me. She voted for Bernie,
but she's begged me, please do what you can, Like,
I don't want. I can't have another four years of
Donald Trump. I know, I know what he's like. And
I was like, Mom, well, we'll get to that bridge
when we when we come to it, you know, but
like people that are desperate to end this nightmare and um,
(53:32):
and so I do understand the impetus, but I also
think people need to have some space and say like, yeah,
we're all coming to our opinions right now, we're to
conclusions and we want what's best for the country as well.
Uh and and and some people it might be hard.
I mean the same reason, like the whole conversation of
like Warren Bernie voters like. I mean, it's slightly different,
(53:53):
but it's like, like you know, I like, I I
do understand people needing to um, yeah, yeah, I totally
get that anxiety. Um. And I just think that, uh,
it's the conversation needs to be flipped in the other
direction because if people are saying all these things and
like making a lot of pretty like fair comparisons to
(54:16):
what happened, and if people are like but all the
it's the Bernie Brosho who lost the election in maybe
that should give you pause about what you're doing. In
regards to Joe Biden, Um, I don't know. Yeah, you know, Cody.
(54:37):
I think the only thing we can do to to
lead everyone out of this awful episode is to provide
them with a little song and to help you out, Cody,
I I can freestyle the lyrics if you'd like. I got.
I mean, it's up to you. You're the only talent here.
But we we got we gotta leave them with something.
(54:59):
Maybe we should just like end the episode just a
hot no no, no no. We made a promise, alright,
and all of this stays in. Every bit of this
stays in. No say saying, oh are you gonna do
(55:21):
with Cutty for Joe? We might fail? Oh well sorry,
(55:48):
it kind of sucks. Thank you. I think we saved
everyone with it. I couldn't agree more. Thank you, Thank
you cut Um, and and thank you guys for listening
always and for all of your support. Uh. You can
check us out online at Worst Year Pod on Instagram,
on Twitter and hey man, come on man, hey check
(56:12):
get out and vote and you can everything so everything,
so dum man, it's got Again. I Tried Dan. Worst
Year Ever is a production of I heart Radio. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
(56:34):
favorite shows.
Welcome to Worst Year Ever, a production of I Heart
Radio Together Everything, So don't don't don't. Hello, kids and cats,
(00:23):
Welcome back to our aptly named show, Worst Year Ever.
My name is Katie Still. I am also in the
Worst Year Ever and I Can't escape. And my name
is Robert Evans. Hi Robert as a fellow resident of
Worst Year Ever. My name is Cody Johnston. Johnston. Can
we just all take another lap? Another lap in this
(00:47):
time where we don't get a lot of victory laps
to celebrate. Really nail in the name of this show,
I mean, just out of the park. It will, yeah
for ever be something I'm most proud of it. I mean,
this is you. Kudos to you, Robert All. We all
talked about this a lot, though, you know, we had
to really and forth. We went back and forth about
whether or not this would be the name. Um yeah,
(01:10):
but we did it well fucking nailed. It's important and
uh and true. Oh yeah, keep that song in mind, Cody,
you get your your mandolin nearby. I can get it.
That's that's good, Cody. Because we're gonna start this episode.
We're gonna be talking about the allegations of sexual assault
against Joe Biden this episode and I hate this story. Uh,
(01:34):
not just in the way that like rape stories are
always I hate them all, but this is like, I
hate this story so much. Uh, it's got to be
a bummer. And at the end of it, I'm gonna
promise the audience that you will reward them with a song,
a freestyled song, and now it's on tape, so you
can't back out. Smart move asking that on well after
(01:57):
we were recording. I've heard your promise, I've internalized your promise,
and we will find out what I do with that promise. Yeah. Yeah,
there's no way to know. There is one way to
know by finishing the episode. So let's get it started. Um. Obviously,
(02:18):
have been really focused on everything that's happening with the
pandemic and bidely important, but it was also like, whoa,
there's still an election going on and it's important for
us to continue to cover that as well. So here
we are. Um. Yeah, these allegations are pretty alarming. If
(02:40):
you guys have not seen it, it goes beyond just
the just I mean, all of our conversations that we've
all been having for years about how touchy Joe Biden
is how hair smell. Yeah, this is a this is
a very serious allegation of serious assault. Um and that cord. Yeah,
(03:03):
I've got it written. I've got it all written out here,
and I kind of feel like we might just want
to go through it pretty granularly because I think a
lot of people just haven't heard much about this at all,
and we should probably lay it out to start with. Um,
So it all kicked off in nineteen three. Um, But
that's not the best place to actually like start talking
about it. So let's let's talk about two thousand nineteen first,
(03:26):
because yeah, two that's the year that Lucy Flores, a
former candidate for lieutenant governor of Nevada, wrote an essay.
It was March of that year wrote an essay for
The Cut alleging that Biden had kissed her on the
cheek or on the back of the head at a
campaign event in two thousand fourteen. She wrote, I couldn't
move and I couldn't say anything. I wanted nothing more
(03:48):
than to get Biden away from me. And in the
wake of her report, UH, seven other women came forward,
including Amy Lapos, who said that in a two thousand
nine fundraiser Biden touched her face and rubbed noses with her.
Um and a woman named terror Read and not the
not the not the famous terror Read, but like a
different terror Read with a different spelling. That confused me
(04:10):
at first, and I thought this was a very different story.
Uh yeah, I mean the same story, but just with
a very different person in it. Um. So yeah, and
and reads allegations which she she told to The Union,
which is a local California paper, where that Biden had
touched her several times in ways that made her feel
very uncomfortable when she was working in his Senate office
(04:32):
in nineteen She said that he had reduced her duties
for his Senate office after she refused to serve drinks
for an event because he thought she had nice legs.
So like that was kind of the allegation at the time.
Um and Biden didn't respond directly to any of these allegations,
but he released a video statement in April of that
year where he said, I shake hands, I hug people,
(04:53):
I grabbed men and women by the shoulders and say
you can do this, while acknowledging that the boundaries of
protecting personal space have been reset and promising to change
his behavior, but he also stated that he didn't apologize
for this or anything else he'd ever done, so that
that is what happened in two thousand nineteen. Question in
two thousand nineteen, did she say that there was more
(05:16):
to the story at that point? She sure did, Katie.
That's what I wanted to um to draw attention to
because everybody, I think, when they were just seeing this
in the midst of other headlines, assumed that it was
simply another story of inappropriate touching. And I do not
mean to diminish the effects of inappropriate touching, but on
(05:39):
the surface, people looked at it and thought it was that. Yeah,
And it's because that's what she said it was, because yeah,
she wrote a medium post in these so in the
wake of coming out of these, I'm actually just going
to read what she wrote in a blog post about
what the aftermath of coming out um and saying that
Joe Biden had inappropriately touched her and flirted with her, Like,
(05:59):
what the aftermath of that was? Uh? Quote? There was
an immediate brutal fallout attack on me. I received threats
on my life via phone or email. A thread started
on Twitter calling me a trader. I lost income, slash
freelance work from the negative viral tweets, A writer from
the Atlantic and a law professor Ford and former Biden
staffer in the White House Richard Painter teamed up for
hit pieces the viral articles calling me out as a
(06:19):
Russian agent sworld on the internet. So it was a
bad fallout. It sucks probably for women to come forward
and stuff like this. Yeah, I'm not going to defend
the Russian agent allegations. I will simply for the context
of clarity, add that by her own admittance, she comes
(06:41):
from a family that's very anti establishment, anti uh United
States imperialism, and has been working on a Russian novel
and has uh said things that praised President on the
Russian agent stuff. Um, this is based. Are you gonna
get to the blog post about it? Yeah? Yeah, I'm
gonna read all I've got. I've got absolutely everything laid out. Okay, great,
(07:03):
I've got opinions about it. So I just want to
make sure popping in before no no, no, yeah. Um
so yeah, like that sucked. And she also wrote in
that medium post like that's what you were talking about, Katie.
Like later in that post, she made it clear that
there was more to her allegations. She wrote, what Joe
Biden didn't his interactions with me is not really is
really not much different than what happens in other workplaces.
(07:26):
I have not told the whole story of what occurred
between Joe Biden and myself after the threats threats last time.
I will not tell it here either. I was told
back then that if I continued to speak out, I
would be fucking destroyed. So yeah, oh, she added, Um,
I was destroyed not once but twice. Perhaps one day
there will be a safe way to express what happened.
So that that's kind of what she teased as the
(07:47):
wrong word, but she she she mentioned that there was
more to the story, right, So that's the tale. Uh.
In two thousand nineteen, um, fast forward to a little
less than a week ago, and Ryan Grimm of The
Intercept publishes an article containing allegations of sexual assault by
read against Biden. And I think before we go into
what he wrote, we should talk a little bit about
(08:08):
who Ryan Grim is and kind of his level of
credibility as a reporter. I think it's important when you're
talking about a story like this, because you're kind of
trusting him to have done an amount of vetting, you know,
inasmuch as it's possible. So Grim is the Intercepts DC
bureau chief. Before that, he worked for The Huffington Post,
where he was twice part of reporting teams that were
nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. His most recent piece of
(08:30):
opinion based election coverage was a March fifteenth article with
Jeremy SKay Hill titled a Biden Sanders ticket the unthinkable
maybe the only path forward. And I'd like to quote
from that because it gives you an idea of kind
of where Ryan lands politically. To avoid a scenario in
which President Donald Trump uses the pandemic to his advantage
while risking the lives of millions of Americans, the Biden
and Bernie Sanders campaigns could broker a split ticket of
(08:52):
Biden Sanders with a clear, publicly announced, historically powerful role
for Elizabeth Warren, presumably Secretary of the Treasury. Such an
arrangement would be infuriating of vast numbers of people in
all three camps. It would anger the authors of this
very article, um, but they also state that it might
work for the election, and YadA YadA, um, it's a
It just kind of gives you an idea of where
this guy is. He's definitely on the Bernie Sanders progressive
(09:13):
wing of the party, but he's also clearly like not
someone who rejected the idea of Biden in the White
House completely out of hand when compared to Trump. I'm
not going to Donald Trump. No, because SKay, Hill and
Grim argue that the severity of the coronavirus epidemic basically
had necessitated a Democratic unity ticket. Grimm's biggest story to
(09:34):
date prior to this was a two thousand eighteen piece
where he broke the news that Diane Feinstein had received
a letter related to Brett Kavanaugh, who was then being
confirmed by the Supreme Court. Uh. This is what turned
into the Christine Blassie Ford allegations against Kavanaugh. So he
is the journalist who broke the first story and that
that story. So he's certainly a dude. The Democratic establishment
(09:55):
has has trusted on stories before, right. Um. A lot
of the people who were saying that, like, these allegations
brought up by read are not credible, um, and that
the intercept isn't credible earlier tweeted articles that Grim wrote
out about that whole thing. So that's a factor in
this too. In general, I would say that like Ryan
grimm Is is about as credible a reporter as he gets,
(10:16):
you know, his his he's definitely got his biases and
his personal political beliefs, but he's he's got a really
good history as a journalist, right in terms of actually
like publishing the work, Like yeah, yeah, there's not a
whole lot of people I would say are like much
more credible in terms of like breaking a story, Like
it's really hard to not have a bias these days. Well,
(10:39):
I would like to talk about some of that a
little later on. UM. But yeah, so yeah, that's that's
that's Terror's background prior to and that's the background of
the journalist. That's the history of Terror Read and her
allegations UM. And then obviously last week that article gets
published and it reveals a bunch of really interesting information.
(10:59):
One of the of that story is that Read kind
of decided late last year that she was going to
come forward with her additional allegations against Joe Biden. UM,
And she went looking for legal aid first and approached
times Up, the nonprofit formed as a result of the
Me Too movement. Now times Up has received a pile
of money as big as the sky. Over the last
couple of years, as me to his you know, continued
(11:22):
to expose abusers and whatnot in in public life. They
helped fund the legal cases of some of Harvey Weinstein's
accusers and have to date put about ten million dollars
into funding cases. Now, Reid spoke with a representative of
times UP who seemed to think that her allegations were
credible um, and referred her to outside attorneys and suggested
their legal Defense fund might be able to help. Once
(11:43):
that request was made, a series of conversations started within
times UP, and eventually the organization's director, Sharon Tage Honey,
made the call that they could not provide assistance to
terror read. Their justification was that, since Biden was a
candidate for federal office, assisting a case of it's him
would jeopardize their nonprofit status. Um, yeah, is that even true?
(12:07):
Because then I was reading that that it's it's not true,
like it should not jeopardize their Yeah, that that's should
not as about the strongest, so like this isn't one
of those things where like there's a law that says
it's okay to sue a presidential candidate for sexual assault. Um.
(12:30):
But lawyers who have been contacted about whether or not
they would lose their five and one see three status
have been pretty consistent about saying like, that's probably not accurate, like,
and that's the way that Like Ellen April, the professor
of tax al at Loyalist Law School, was asked about this,
and her answer is, um, pretty pretty standard. She said
(12:52):
that times up analysis was too conservative. Um, and that's
usually how you'll see it. Frame. Not like they're wrong,
but they're being too conservative sendo that law. Yeah, I
mean it just basically feels uh some editorializing like this
seems like an excuse that we can use to side
step this mess. It feels like an excuse someone suggested
(13:14):
in a meeting, and I'm it probably was right, right,
And then everyone's like, well, our lawyers aren't saying that
it's not not not true. So yeah, Yeah, it's like
saying you could you didn't do something because you could
be sued. It's I mean, technically you can be sued
for anything in the United States, Like there are very
almost no limitations. Um. Also to what you're saying earlier,
(13:38):
maybe there should be a law that says that you
can just sue a president for second assault. I support
all laws allowing people to sue presidents, um even ones
that might inherently seem unreasonable and like they would make
governance impossible. Let's give it a shot, hard agree, Why not? So?
(13:58):
Now grim in the Inner Up to make a point
in their article of noting that the PR firm that
works for times Up Legal Defense Fund is s k
D Nickerbocker, and the managing director of s k D
nicker Bocker is Anita Done, who was one of Joe
Biden's top advisors. Now, this is where we get to
one of the pieces of what I think is kind
of disinformation I'll call it light disinformation spreading around the internet.
(14:21):
People are saying that like Anita Dunn, who headed Harvey
Weinstein's uh PR defense after you know, the allegations came up,
that she is and that is not that that's Biden.
That's not what happened. She was consulted, along with a
bunch of other PR people for free by Weinstein at
the very beginning of this and she did, Yeah, he's
(14:45):
a big Democratic donor. Somebody who knew her was like,
will you give Harvey some advice, and she did at
the very very beginning of this. She was not paid,
and she was certainly not You can argue like that
wasn't a good thing to do at all. She should
have read the article and been like, fuck you, Harvey. Um,
totally fair, but it's it's a it's a stretch to
say she directed his defense. He did have a paid
(15:08):
team of assholes for that job. We know who those
people are. Don't take the credit away from them. Yeah, Yeah,
totally fair to be like, hey, this she kind of
that's kind of gross, isn't it. And it is kind
of gross, but let's not state it. Let's not pretend
it's something other than what it is. Yeah, we don't
need to pad the grossness. She visits Harvey every day
(15:29):
in prison and says, I'm so sorry about what's happened
to you. It is, though, like, and there's no evidence
that she waited on the call about whether or not
to take these allegations. And I suspect that, at least
on paper, someone in her position has no decision making
power for that. That said, do I think that nobody
talked to her about it, or that she didn't weigh
into anyone with influence at the at the the NGO
(15:52):
about that, like, no, I would be very surprised if
she didn't. To be fair, uh, this is the response
that she received from the times Up employee that contacted her.
They said, please know how much I appreciate your courage
and speaking out and appreciate what you shared over the phone.
That you are speaking out so that your daughter and
other young people can start their careers free of harassment.
(16:13):
It genuinely seems to me when I read that that
there was a lot of remorse at not being able
to help her. Yeah, I would agree. I think I
don't think there's like it. From what I can understand,
the actual employee at times up who dealt with her
case did nothing wrong, took it seriously, escalated it, and
was told no from higher up. So people, Yeah, there's
(16:34):
a lot of criticism of times Up that we should
be having right now. But I don't want to like
pretend that it's not full of people like that employee
who legitimately wanted to do something. You know, let's um
And what I I don't want to pretend anymore is
that it's not time to take a quick break. Yes
for ads, you know, who won't harass women who come
forward with allegations about vice presidents. Oh, Robert the services,
(17:04):
Yeah together, we're back. Oh my god, those ads are
great less horrible that we're going to talk in detail
now about the allegations of sexual assault made by terror
(17:26):
read against Joseph Biden, Joseph Robinette Biden. So this um,
this all happened in nine when she was working as
a legislative aid and in her retelling of events, so
she talked to the Intercept and then she was on
the the podcast of a woman named Katie Helper, who's
a very pro bernie uh journalist. So that that Helper,
(17:47):
that's the context of that. So she says that she
was while she was working as an aid for Biden,
she was approached by another Biden employee who gave her
a jim bag and said that Joe needed his jim bag,
and she went in to see Mr Biden, and then
the things that we're just going to play this clip.
(18:07):
It's about two minutes from her from her recollection of events,
and this is what she says happens. After she met
Joe with the gym bag, we were alone and it
was the strangest thing. There was no like exchange, really.
He just had me up against the wall, and um,
I was wearing like a skirt and you know, business skirt,
(18:31):
but I wasn't wearing stockings. It was kind of a
hot day that day, and I was wearing heels, and
I remember my legs had been hurting from the marble,
you know of the capital, like walking, and I remember
that kind of stuff. I remember like I was wearing
a blouse and he just hug me up against the
wall and the wall was cold, and I remember he
(18:51):
It happened all at once. The gym bag, I don't
know where it when I handed it to him was gone.
And then his hands were on me and underneath my
clothes and um, yeah, and then he went, um, he
went down my skirt but then up inside it and
he uh kind of traded me with those singers whatever,
(19:13):
and I uh, he was kissing me at the same time,
and he was saying something to me. He said several things,
and I can't remember everything he said. I remember a
couple of things. I remember him saying, first before like
as he was doing it, do you want to go
somewhere else? And then him saying to me when I
pulled away. He Um, I got finished doing what he
(19:35):
was doing and I kind of was pulled back and
he said, he said, come on, man, I heard you
liked me. And it's that phrase did with me because
I kept thinking what I might have said. And I
can't remember exactly if he said I thought or if
I heard, but it's like he implied like that I
had done this, like I don't know, And for me
(19:55):
it was like everything everything shattered in that moment because
I knew like we were alone, it was over right.
He wasn't trying to do anything more. But it's I
looked up to him. He was like my father's age.
He was this champion of women's rights in my eyes,
and I couldn't believe it was happening. It didn't see
(20:17):
it seems for real. So yeah, that's some Those are
the allegations, the bulk of them, like like that's the
allegations of actual like physical We'll talk about some of
the stuff he said later, but yeah, yeah, they're not good.
As the clip goes on, as she says something that
really really stuck with me, Um, she had mentioned, you know,
(20:39):
there are things that he said that I don't want
to repeat. And then Katie pressed a little bit and said,
are you sure you don't want to share that? And uh,
she acquiesced and said what he said to her in
that moment was you're nothing to me. And then she
goes on to say and he was right, uh, because
that's how everybody treated her. You know, people I didn't
(21:00):
want to know what happened to her. They didn't want
to hear it. And and she just ends by making
that point like, you know, you want to know why
people don't come forward, Well, this is a great example why.
And that really hit me. Man, you know nothing to me. Yeah,
and he she alleges at least that in the wake
(21:20):
of this, he kind of created her career in politics,
working in the campaigns, like because he thought, uh, and
he thought that she liked him. Someone had told him.
That's his allegance that he thought she liked him. And yeah,
And in that interview when she also she talks about
that and she's like, I don't know if somebody had
(21:41):
said it or if it was something that I'd done
to make him think that I liked him, which is
just the most grotesque. Uh, It's like it's just a terrible. Obviously.
This is what we've talked about in workplace environments, the
the onus on a woman to start questioning what did
they do wrong? Yeah? Uh, and it's uh. I don't know,
(22:04):
like I don't have a truth detector. Um. People lie
all the time, um, and it's it's I I think
that one of the debates that's going on right now
is like over believe women as a slogan, UM, And
I agree with the essence of it, which is that
like you should assume as a rule that allegations of
(22:24):
sexual assault are true, which does not mean that you
have to assume without vetting, that every single allegation of
sexual assault is accurate. Um. You just assume the same
way that like when someone says my home was broken into,
that they're not. This isn't some con game they have.
You offer them sympathy and you take it seriously because
most people who have their homes broken into are have
(22:45):
their homes broken into. And it's worth it's worth reminding
everybody that statistically, the vast majority of sexual assault allegations
are in fact true, because why would a woman want
to put herself through this? But also very unfortunately and
understandably considering what's going on in the vast majority of
(23:06):
sexual assault allegations, there's no like evidence that's smoking gun
or anything like. The evidence in this is that like, yes,
definitely Biden and the and and read would have been
in a position to be alone together. Like we can
say that, and well, and it is. This is not evidence,
but it is uh corroborated by her friends, her brother, UM,
(23:28):
who's who's gone on record as saying at the time,
I didn't think she should do anything about it, and
I regret that. Um. And you know, so the people
close to her in her life are like, yeah, this
absolutely happened. Yeah, yeah, the people could and say that
she brought it up at the time. UM. And some
of you know, Biden has had surrogates, a couple of
(23:48):
women who have worked for him a long time be like,
you know, I was working for him at this time.
I never heard of him doing anything like this. Um.
And that's kind of all you're gonna get on this.
You're not going to get no videotape is going to
a merge of Joe Biden being like I should do
love being a sex crime guy. Um. We're just like,
this is the information that exists. Hey man, hey man,
(24:12):
I like to grab him by the lady bit Trump.
Trump's like, I'm the best sex crime president there ever
was the absolutely I hate him. Sorry, I I kind
of Katie. Maybe maybe that's what we need in America
is for this debate to come down to the president
who calls them lady bits and the president who calls
(24:32):
it a pussy. That's that's our good. Yeah, let's let's
if Biden got up there and just called it cunts.
I'd respect that Trump just had a fucking race to
the bottom, Like I mean, I will say so. One
of the things that really strikes me about everything that
(24:53):
happened here is that I am I suspect that Donald
Trump knows that he has had unconsensual sexual relationships with women,
his wife, his ex wife. I don't think Joe Biden
thinks that this was anything other than like I think
he probably if he was totally honest, to be like, yeah,
I was flirting a little bit aggressively. I think that's
(25:15):
how it's gone down in his head. And I suspect
that is how he which doesn't make it less of
a of a sexual assault, but I think that is
probably how Joe really thinks about what happens. That's how
he It's what he was apology was originally about the
hair sniffing and all that. He when he said that,
like the rules of like personal space have been reset,
(25:38):
that implies that he thought that his behavior was fine
and acceptable were different are different now, So I'm going
to change but behavior, I'm not gonna do that anymore,
which means that he thought it was okay. Um. And
I think that speaks, that speaks to sort of what
his attitude would be in general. But and I guess
his general evolution as a politician where you're like, looking
(26:01):
at the stuff that he's up there defending, I just
didn't know it's it's it's very very I would say,
it's a very serious, credible allegation. And it needs to
be um, at the very least, confronted seriously by the
Biden campaign and acknowledged and and answered. Um. And the
(26:23):
same thing needs to be done by the mainstream media. UM.
Because that is how we as a society should treat
credible allegations of sexual assault by presidential candidates. It is
not being treated that way now. The Biden campaign has
released a statement saying basically this is untrue. We respect
women who come forward, but this didn't happen. Um. But
(26:43):
and I that's actually less gross than what has happened.
And kind of the mainstream press where there has been
almost a blackout on this story. Um, it is just
not reaching mainstream traction. And like it has, it has
been popular on the far left. People are sharing it,
and a lot of far right sources have been sharing it.
But that said, even on the right wing it hasn't
(27:04):
really picked up that much steam yet. And I think
a lot of that does have to do with the
fact that we're in this nightmare pandemic that dominates all
discussion of everything. Like, yeah, I guess in a little
bit of fairness to everyone, not many other stories are
getting through right now. But even with that taken into account,
it seems like it's been black Yeah, because even even
(27:26):
the even people who do who aren't like outright ignoring
it and pretending like it doesn't exist. If they address it,
it does come down to like, oh, it's a conspiracy,
she's a Russian plant, or like it gets into that,
or dismissing it outright. A lot of a lot of
weird behavior. If you compare it to other allegations about
(27:48):
other people. It's disappointing, um in so many ways. I mean,
I you're right, there's this uh pandemic going on. Anything
that's election related, even that is having a hard time
penetrating that our collective consciousness right now. I just this
is normally when stories like this I get into immediately,
(28:10):
And it was two or three days after this came
out before just because like there's I mean not so
much sexual assult's less as serious, but like this is, like,
I just I can't it's hard to think about anything else.
But even if this wasn't going on, I think it's
safe to assume nothing that it would still be getting
it wouldn't be getting traction. You know, we using this
(28:33):
time to cover their tracks, and and and people don't
want to believe it. They don't want to see it.
And I find it so disappointing because one point, if
Joe Buden's the nomine I'm going to vote for Joe Biden. Um,
I feel like I'm gonna have to. But it's it's
really truck tricky for me because all along there's a
lot of reasons why I hate Donald Chump, but from
(28:53):
the beginning when just seeing the laundry list of women's
allegations against him, and it was like, I am so
glad that I'm not a Republican and I don't have
to make that choice. I don't have to face that
moral choice. Do you know what I mean? Like, yeah,
Like if I was them, I wouldn't have been able
to vote for him. I wouldn't have been able to
stomach it. I resent being in this position. Yeah, I
(29:16):
don't know what I will do voting was we should
talk about that at the end um. But one of
the things that's been coming up is like comparing the
number of allegations against Trump to the ones against Biden,
because there's a lot fewhere for Biden. But it's I've
literally that I don't want to do that. I'm not
going to do I feel like, well, they're if they're
both rapists, vote for the one with the best policies.
(29:37):
Like unbelievable that we're having that conversation. I mean, it's
like when other candidates try to run against Bernie by
talking about how they only attempted to shoot President Reagan
while Bernie is actually killed. Go for the It's exactly
like that yeah, go for the real ship. Do not
(29:58):
vote for Senator Jim Imhoff, who I am alleging now
is the real shooter that attacked Ronald Reagan. That up, Jim,
you guys were mentioning. Uh, you guys were mentioning that
on somebody's timeline. They retroactively went and deleted all of
their support their tweets times up. There's a couple of
(30:24):
people who have done that, some of whom have been like, no,
my tweets auto delete after three months, which a lot
of people do. But then on a couple of those cases,
folks have been found like, well this tweet from four
years ago still like happened. Yeah, They're just just some
some of the people who seem to be doing this.
Whether or not it's it is autobly. Um. Simone Sanders
(30:45):
she was actually the press secretary for Bernie Sanders in sixteen. Um.
She's now an advisor for Joe Biden. Jill Filipovic. I
believe it is another one, um, And again it's just
you know, we went through a period like one and
a half years ago, two years what it was two
years ago through and it was it nine years ago. Um,
with the whole Kavanaugh stuff, and uh, the argument about
(31:10):
like whether or not her accusation was credible, Uh, whether
or not we should believe her what like all all
the things that we're hearing now from people in the
mainstream media who are completely ignoring this. It is completely flipped,
um from what they were saying just a few just
a few short years ago. Yes, yes, and that's it's bad.
(31:34):
It's blatant too. It's so obviously what's going on. And
maybe you get into this a little later, but like
with the whole, just the whole, the Biden of it
all in general, it seems like that like there is
a joke down at all. It's uh, there is a
lot of gas lighting I feel about and things about him,
(31:58):
problems people have had with him, literally like candidates who
now endorse him, things that they've said about him. All
of that is gone. Uh, we were not allowed to
mention any of that anymore. Well, it's very it's very first,
it's just our I mean, I understand the desire to
rally around your candidate and start doing I understand that
(32:19):
from one perspective, but it's also like, God, we want
better than this, and we want also well that's the
thing because Joe Biden is nobody's candidate. Everyone and every
one of these people would be like, well, no, he's
not my first choice or my second choice or my third.
He's nobody's first or second or third choice. Um, but
there's this sense that like, but yeah, now, one of
(32:40):
the things that makes this very frustrating is that. And
it's hard to phrase this in a way that doesn't
sound like I'm victim. Blame me because I'm not what
I'm That's not what I'm getting at here. Because of
aspects of her personality and beliefs, terror read feels like
someone crafted in a lab to be the person the
Democratic establishment could most ease a ly try to discredit
(33:01):
for her allegations. Um, she's an outspoken Sanders supporter for
one thing, but really the biggest part and she was
pro Warren first. Um. But the thing that is really
drawing a lot of ire and that is being used
to sort of immediately kind of um deny the seriousness
of her allegations is what I would describe as an
(33:23):
outrageously shitty blog post that she wrote back into as
an eight team for medium dot com. And it is bad,
and her opinions in it are bad, and I'm going
to read you a relevant section. Now. I love Russia
with all my heart. I love the people, the history,
the culture, and even my attempts to learn the language.
I could not stand to watch the deception in xenophobia
that came from my own American government. It is so
sad and destructive to revile into their cultural country for
(33:44):
no reason but economic gain. President Putin scares the power
elite in America because he is a compassionate, caring and
visionary leader. President Putin has higher approval ratings in America
than the American president. President Putin is beloved by Russia
and he not going anywhere. Instead of being ensnared in
the recent political intrigues in America, trying hard to set
that trap, President Putin is keeping a calm focus on
his own country's development in future without America, the President Putin,
(34:07):
I say, keep your eyes to the beautiful future, and maybe,
just maybe America will come to see Russia as I
do with eyes of love. Ye man, horrible, horrible, horrible post.
You know, I I really hate the knee jerk Russian
bought accusations or Russian but Jesus Christ, this is a Foundation.
(34:34):
But like I see where some of that is coming
out just because like, because of the Russian situation, there
is a I do see a lot of xenophobia about
Russian citizens, um from a lot of like resistance type folk.
But man, everything else not great. But also let's say
you're like a Russian plant and operative uh uh accuse
(34:59):
the front runner of sexual assault when you worked in
their office. I don't think that that blog post would
be published by that person if they were trying to
do that. Yeah, this is not I know. I also
(35:19):
don't know that if a secret Russian agent, if planted
to take down Biden, would be publicly That's what I mean, Like,
they wouldn't. They wouldn't publish that article. They wouldn't have
done that, because that's the one point, unless they just
wanted to cause Yeah, I mean, so he would cause
the chaos. Sure, Yeah, so this doesn't feel like a
(35:39):
Russian agent to me. I would say the Russian government
is absolutely going to do their best to um boost
stories about this. Yeah, which doesn't mean that the information
shouldn't get out there, just means that they have a
vested interest in everyone in America arguing and fighting as
much as possible. It doesn't mean there aren't things to
argue and to fight about. It's just that's what they do.
They don't in bed sleeper cells in nine to be
(36:04):
in a position next to Joe Biden so that they
can then have them flawlessly live a quiet life and
then come forward to disrupt an election after making only
one mistake, and that mistake being to really ridiculously bad blog.
And they're not playing that kind of long game. Also,
she has acknowledged, you know, that she grew up that
(36:25):
that that it was bad, But you know, she's like,
I'm I grew up in an anti imperialist household, very liberal.
She's immersed herself in Russian culture because she's writing a
book that's set there, all all sorts of stuff. Sure,
it was a bad post. It was a bad post.
It was a bad but also I know people who
(36:46):
are I know people who believe the kind of stuff
she believes, and I think they're all very frustrating. But
I would take it very seriously if any of them
came to me and said that they were sexually assaulted,
Because you have a right to believe frustrating dumb things
in this country. You also have a right to not
be sexually assaulted exactly. You know what else you have
a right to do. You have a right to remain
(37:07):
silent and listen to these ads. And you know what, Katie,
I think we can all agree that's the only real
right that anyone has to listen to advertise legally together everything,
don't you're back? How are we all feeling about this?
(37:34):
Fucking not great? Not feeling great about that? You know
what else? I'm not feeling great about our upcoming election
for a variety of reasons, um, but one of it
is this matchup of Biden and Trump. I think it's
important to talk about where we're standing right now. We're
(37:55):
operating under the assumption that things continue and Biden gets
the nomination with maybe not maybe something. This world this
year is wild, anything could happen. Um. But you know
Trump's approval rating is up right now? Uh? Well is it?
(38:15):
It is of a bit he's a wartime president. Um.
And I've been looking into this a little bit. I
mean it seems like world leaders in general are getting
a bump because of the response around this. I mean,
not like Balsa Naro apparently, but in general, people are
getting a little bit of approval bump, and it's hard
(38:37):
to it's hard to exactly pinpoint why, Uh, there's so like, Okay,
it could be the fact that, you know, Trump really
underwhelms and the fact that he's doing literally anything at all.
My people might be like, well, he's doing a little better,
you know, if you're comparing to disapproval rating hasn't still
(39:00):
not gotten under fift So there is that bump, but
still like he's still not doing great. He's still not
doing great. But now the when you match up Biden
and Trump, the it's it's you know, depends on the poll,
but it's getting closer and closer. Like the gap between
(39:21):
people saying that they would vote for Biden over Trump
is diminishing. It's just diminishing. And it's just something to
be paying attention to as we're looking at this um,
especially since we're going to be comparing them, we're comparing
them inherently throughout this episode right now. Yeah, and I
want to I think one thing that is important to
keep in mind when we look at the I almost
(39:44):
think there's not going to be much of a point
in paying attention to any numbers for the next three
to four weeks. UM, because one of the realities of
the of our moment is that COVID nineteen is moving
a lot faster than polling does. So the reason I
was shocked when you said that his his approval was up.
I obviously heard those stories, but I came across the
(40:05):
story last week on the so late last week UM,
which was comparing polls from March, UH two posts from
March and Marche. And in March Marche, according to the
Hill Harris x poll, UM, fifty six percent of Americans
approved of the president's handling of COVID nineteen, but in March,
(40:29):
just three days later, UM, only fifty of registered voters
said they approved of the presidents. Look, I'm not saying
put undue amount of stock in any polling, and you're right,
it's absolutely right. This is moving so fast and it's
really hard to track. But I think it goes with
that saying he's labeled himself a wartime president. He is
a wartime president. There is historical context for why that
(40:53):
behooves him to have a crisis. UM. And UH, there
has been some uptick in his polling and maybe that's
not going to last very long. UH. It's just something
to to keep in mind, but not too much stock
in because, like you said, things are changing, Like I
even said a minute ago, who knows what's going to
happen in the next month or two two months. Yeah,
(41:13):
there's now data from ipsos UM on how much Americans
are trusting the information the President's telling them. Um of respondents,
including of Republicans, say it's not true that anyone who
wants to get tested can get tested. Um only of
the public and the Republicans said that they believed a
(41:35):
vaccine would be ready soon. Um of respondents, including a
plurality of Republicans, said that it was false that the
virus would go away on its own in warm weather,
and of respondents said that they thought COVID nineteen was
deadlier than the flu. So um. That is separate though,
from whether or not people want to vote for Donald
(41:56):
Trump again. Yes, yes, absolutely, And it's just it's just
something that I'm I am keeping in mind. I urge
people to not freak out about or just yet anyway, um,
except that vote for Bernie if you still can. Um. Uh.
(42:16):
The other thing I wanted to touch on as part
of why it's it's it's just this is nothing new
This is something that we've discussed a lot. But part
of why it's so hard to hold him to account
during this isn't that indeed the media. Earlier I'd said
that it's hard. Journalists inherently have their biases, but they
(42:37):
go out of their way to not seem like they
have a bias, you know. Instead of saying, like Trump
had a press conference and he did he said fifty
lies about coronavirus, they say, uh, you know, Trump had
a confusing presser, you know, or they say he makes
claims that obviously, which is I hate that and it's
(42:58):
should be fucking a league, especially right now. Fuck your objectivity. Yeah,
you know who I like to talk about when we
talk about journalistic objectivity is William Shier. Now, William Shier
was one of the great American reporters of the twentieth century.
He was in Berlin, UM. I forget which news agency,
(43:20):
but he was like an American reporter in Berlin for
basically like a huge chunk of the the Weimar era
and most of the rise of the Nazi Party to
power UM. And so he interviewed all of these hot,
top ranking Nazis and then when the war started, he
was back in the US and he started making propaganda
reels for the US government that informed people about realities
of the Nazi regime. And he wrote Rise and Fall
(43:42):
of the Third Reich, which is an utterly indispensable book
of the history of the rise of the Nazis, and
was a very good journalist who also didn't for a
second pretend that his job was to be to do
anything but condemned the Nazis. As Nazis, you can report
objectively and what are doing and also never leave anyone
(44:02):
in doubt that it is wrong to be a note
that these people are shit. And that's what we need
right now, not just your opinion pieces. I want the article,
the article that that is getting circulated that people are
going to for facts needs to be really clear. And
I'm just I'm disappointed. Yeah, I am honestly for the
(44:23):
first time in this election, the allegations against by the
sexual assault allegations. I'm honestly not certain what I will
do as a result of that, because, um, I have
two things that I've held to his hard lines when
people ask like based on my my personal beliefs, which
are kind of much more in the anarchistic tradition, like
why I still think people should vote, And my same
(44:45):
argument is why I think people should I don't like
crystal meth, but I think people should understand the effects
it has on their health if they're going to do it. Um,
it's harm reduction. Yeah. I think about voting the same
way about doing dangerous drugs. It's a danger, it's a bad,
dangerous thing in a lot of cases to do to yourself. Um,
but doing it allows you to reduce the amount of harm.
(45:06):
So I think it's important. And I believe two things
since I kind of held my nose and voted for
Hillary Clinton in which is that, um, at least I'm
not voting for a rapist the wife of a rapist,
and that's not ideal. Yeah. And and also I am
voting for someone who, though I agree with her on
very little, meets a basic minimum amount of competence that
(45:28):
I don't think she will botch an extinction level event
in the response to it, yeah, like a pandemic. And
those two things are at war right now because I
still regard like, regardless of whether or not Joe Biden
committed sexual assault, he would do a better job on
a mechanical level of dealing with the response to a pandemic,
(45:49):
which doesn't mean yeah, yes, actually might be better than
both of them, And yeah it is a they're very smart.
They are very smart, and a panda bear would have
started rolling out tests and fucking January. But yeah, um,
(46:10):
it's just I know, I hear your point. I I
strugg too, because that's what I was trying to say
intimating earlier is like, yeah, I I just don't want
to be put in that position. I don't want to
have to make that kind of a moral choice. On
the other hand, I look at you know, if a
handful more more than a handful. But like everybody that
didn't vote for Hillary Clinton because you know, X, Y
(46:33):
or Z or because they like percentagely, it's not because
people people didn't vote for her her because it's not Bernie.
I mean some people did, but that's not a huge
moving factor. But like whatever reasons that people didn't vote
for her or just vote for anybody. Um, And then
you look at what's happening now and you're like, very yeah,
(46:54):
this is this is tough. You know, do I want Biden?
I don't. Do I want four more years of Trump? Fuck? No,
I don't. Yeah, I don't know what I like. I
honestly don't know what I will do at this point
because I do take the allegations against Biden seriously, and
I don't know if I can vote for someone who
(47:15):
did that. That said. Right now I'm looking at it,
it looks like President Trump had the Mike Man. Wait,
who's the my pillow guy? He is the guy one
of the few guys who running a company who kept
their ads after the he sells pillows on Fox News.
(47:38):
He is addressing the nation about the coronavirus epidemic. Everything, Like,
I I don't know what I will do, and I
I hope the audience can forgive if some of our
responses are like ulling this one over, y'all frustrated and
like all this kind of stuff we've been talking about
for men of I mean the media, but like the
(48:02):
Democratic Party, it's so obvious. It's it's it's it's like
they're holding their nose and they're doing the same thing
that that happened. We're going to ignore all this stuff
and we're gonna pretend like it doesn't even exist with Trump,
And I don't want, I obviously wish with all of
(48:22):
my heart, and being that there was no pandemic. But
if there were a pandemic, I wish it had a
hit like three or four weeks earlier, just a few weeks,
just in the a little bit earlier in our primary season.
I think that if that had happened, we would be
looking at a very different race. We can all hope
(48:45):
all sorts of things. I am not thrilled that right
now I'm thinking, which rapist do I want to deal
with a natural disaster? Because yes, the rapist, I would
pick that, wor yeah, I you know what what what
the core of it is? I I don't know that
(49:06):
I want to contribute to the system that exactly uh
puts me with that choice. And I also know that
like by choosing not to, I am potentially making a
decision that would make life a lot more dangerous for
people in vulnerable situations, which is why I voted for
Hillary Clinton. You know, um, because there are things that
are worse. One of the things people need to fucking consider,
(49:27):
which I I don't think can be said enough. But
like everyone's like, well, Obama bombed people too, They're not
really all that different civilian casualties as a result of
US air strikes jumped a hundred and six in Trump's
first year. He does everything but worse and more like, yeah,
like there's a difference. Yeah where, Yeah exactly. Um, you
don't have the leve Obama to see that there is
(49:49):
a difference. And I'm not trying to I hope this
isn't coming across with us being like, so, this is
why you should vote Joe Biden. I don't know if
I'm going to vote for Joe Biden, but this is
what's going on in our head. Yeah, it's just another
another another thing on the pile of Yeah. I mean, look,
(50:09):
I'm gonna end up. I'm going to end up voting
Vermin Supreme, I think and less. I don't know. You're right,
it's really hard. I do think. I still hold in
my mind that just having Trump and in charge obviously
puts so many people at risk, and um, yeah, and
(50:30):
I don't want that. And four more years of it
will unleasse untold horrors because he is you know, the
the safety safety will be off you know. Shame on
everybody for allowing this decision to be a thing that
voters have to deal with. Shame on the media, Shame
(50:51):
on the DNC. Shame on everyone who is gas lighting
and lying about all the stuff that everyone talked about
a year ago. I I'm gonna see what happens throughout
the rest of the primary. I'm gonna see what more
information we have. I'm going to see who he picks
as his running mate. Um. I'm not given up quite
hope on Bernie, although it's really hard to see a path. Um. Yeah,
(51:14):
I don't. I don't know what I'm going to do.
I don't think I can make much in the way
of political conclusions until we are past the worst of
this pandemic. Um. And I don't want to leave like
I think it is important. I don't. I don't like
it when people pretend like they they have such a
clear understanding of what the right thing is to do.
(51:36):
I don't think that's clear. Um, there's a there's a
real strong moral argument for refusing to vote for Biden
because of what he did. There's also a real strong
argument that says, but what about all the additional people
who will die also? So I think I see it
a lot in a different form, which is that anyone
who criticizes Joe Biden US tons of people will swarm
(51:59):
them and say, well, are what are you going to
vote for him? Are you gonna vote for him? You're
gonna vote for him though? Uh and this sort of
like you're not never You're not going to like vote
for a third party or anything like that. And it's uh,
it's very frustrating to not be able to criticize someone,
especially given these allegations and things like that. But the
idea of like why are you having that conversation now,
(52:22):
Like why are you like haranguing people and like bothering
them about their vote in like in November. It's March.
And these are the things like if anything, that people
asking that question should be considering what they're doing, Like
all these things that people are saying about Joe Biden,
consider those instead of hopping on and being like, but
(52:45):
are you but you're gonna vote for him in like
seven months or whatever? Um. It's it's why it's wild
to like force that conversation when I understand I I
do completely agree with you about that, but I years talking.
I I sit here and I'm like, I do understand
people's anxiety. I do understand like some subset of those people.
(53:08):
For example, my mom, who's begged me. She voted for Bernie,
but she's begged me, please do what you can, Like,
I don't want. I can't have another four years of
Donald Trump. I know, I know what he's like. And
I was like, Mom, well, we'll get to that bridge
when we when we come to it, you know, but
like people that are desperate to end this nightmare and um,
(53:32):
and so I do understand the impetus, but I also
think people need to have some space and say like, yeah,
we're all coming to our opinions right now, we're to
conclusions and we want what's best for the country as well.
Uh and and and some people it might be hard.
I mean the same reason, like the whole conversation of
like Warren Bernie voters like. I mean, it's slightly different,
(53:53):
but it's like, like you know, I like, I I
do understand people needing to um, yeah, yeah, I totally
get that anxiety. Um. And I just think that, uh,
it's the conversation needs to be flipped in the other
direction because if people are saying all these things and
like making a lot of pretty like fair comparisons to
(54:16):
what happened, and if people are like but all the
it's the Bernie Brosho who lost the election in maybe
that should give you pause about what you're doing. In
regards to Joe Biden, Um, I don't know. Yeah, you know, Cody.
(54:37):
I think the only thing we can do to to
lead everyone out of this awful episode is to provide
them with a little song and to help you out, Cody,
I I can freestyle the lyrics if you'd like. I got.
I mean, it's up to you. You're the only talent here.
But we we got we gotta leave them with something.
(54:59):
Maybe we should just like end the episode just a
hot no no, no no. We made a promise, alright,
and all of this stays in. Every bit of this
stays in. No say saying, oh are you gonna do
(55:21):
with Cutty for Joe? We might fail? Oh well sorry,
(55:48):
it kind of sucks. Thank you. I think we saved
everyone with it. I couldn't agree more. Thank you, Thank
you cut Um, and and thank you guys for listening
always and for all of your support. Uh. You can
check us out online at Worst Year Pod on Instagram,
on Twitter and hey man, come on man, hey check
(56:12):
get out and vote and you can everything so everything,
so dum man, it's got Again. I Tried Dan. Worst
Year Ever is a production of I heart Radio. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
(56:34):
favorite shows.
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