[SPEAKER_00]: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Prejoy's podcast today on the show I'm sitting down with Lindsey Boilin, in December of 2020, Lindsey became the first woman to publicly accuse former New York governor, Andrew Cuomo, of sexual harassment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her courage set off a political firestorm, it led to a statewide investigation and it ultimately led to his resignation as governor.
[SPEAKER_00]: But now, despite everything, just a couple years later Cuomo has come crawling back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, he's running for a mayor of New York City, and Lindsay is sounding the alarm about what type of person he is, and talking about the systems that enable men like this to continue pursuing power.
[SPEAKER_00]: That means we go beyond Cuomo.
[SPEAKER_00]: We talk about the Democratic establishment itself, which I talk about people like Joe Biden, Bill and Hillary Clinton.
[SPEAKER_00]: Kristen Gillibrand, Hakeen Jeffries, and so many more, and how they have navigated allegations of misconduct within their own ranks.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're digging deep talking about things like party loyalty, for profit media, and just name recognition of some of these guys, and how that can leave survivor sideline in the pursuit of justice.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lindsay literally said that she felt like she was a human shield for other people within the organization.
[SPEAKER_00]: This isn't just a partisan story.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is not about left versus right.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is about how institutions on both sides will go to great lengths to protect power, even if it comes at the expense of vulnerable individuals within the organization.
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, this whole story is about Lindsay's courage as a whistleblower sharing her survivor's story and all of the ways that that is impacted her for good and for bad.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had a fantastic time talking to Lindsay on this episode and an air gun enjoy listening to this conversation as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: So without further ado, let's get to my conversation with Lindsay Boylan.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, Lindsay, welcome to the show.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you so much for having me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, really excited chat with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And obviously, as I shared a my intro, you first publicly accused Cuomo,
[SPEAKER_00]: of sexual harassment in December of 2020 via a series of tweets which led to a major investigation, his resignation, and just a lot of swirling controversy since then.
[SPEAKER_02]: Obviously in a highly political matter like this, there are many agendas and there are many motivations at play.
[SPEAKER_02]: If anyone thought otherwise, they would be naive and New Yorkers are not naive.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I want to thank the women who came forward with sincere complaints.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not easy to step forward, but you did an important service.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you taught me and you taught others an important lesson.
[SPEAKER_02]: Personal boundaries must be expanded and must be protected.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've set full responsibility.
[SPEAKER_00]: Take me back to that period when you're pressing post on that first tweet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you have any indication of what the next few years were going to look like?
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I think it's impossible, too.
[SPEAKER_03]: And in a way, it's kind of, you know, it's kind of like childbirth.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's better that you don't know.
[SPEAKER_03]: You don't know what the process is going to be like.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I certainly didn't.
[SPEAKER_03]: didn't tell anyone that I was doing that.
[SPEAKER_03]: I had been generally speaking critical of the governor increasingly so and I think that was a way to kind of unburden myself a bit without going into specifics because when you say sexual harassment as opposed to just tough environment,
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a very different thing in this day and age.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I couldn't have been prepared for that.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was, I think I was sitting in the car with my family as I recall.
[SPEAKER_03]: And my husband was driving, just started tweeting.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it wasn't even like I was, you know, I sat down at my desk.
[SPEAKER_03]: I got all prepared to like blow up my life and New York politics the same time.
[SPEAKER_03]: So to speak, it was, I thought a lot about
[SPEAKER_03]: how troubled I was, you know, a woman had reached out to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: I had spoken about the toxic work environment on Twitter.
[SPEAKER_03]: A woman reached out to me, Charlotte Bennett, who would ultimately become the second one to come forward and she explained that she was actually harassed by him privately.
[SPEAKER_03]: In a DM to me, we spoke.
[SPEAKER_03]: I really felt responsible for what had happened to her because she came after me.
[SPEAKER_03]: She significantly younger than I and I felt responsible for, you know, what had
[SPEAKER_03]: if I had stopped it, it wouldn't have happened to her somehow.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then he was being touted as a potential pick for attorney general in a Biden administration.
[SPEAKER_03]: So being politics, I knew that that was a balloon.
[SPEAKER_03]: They were floating to see if there were really big problems with him like sexual harassment.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so this had been percolating in my mind for a few days.
[SPEAKER_03]: between this outreach I received from a survivor, Charlotte, and then hearing this news, and I just didn't even think.
[SPEAKER_03]: I certainly didn't have a plan that would have to come a way to kind of react to this news coming out and the onslaught of attacks that I would receive.
[SPEAKER_03]: I had to kind of get my ducks in a row, but I wasn't prepared for anything that was about to follow for sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've talked to many people over the last five years in various stages of similar experiences where they're about to come forward and they're nervous or they've gone through the civil system or the criminal justice system and some of those people I started talking to in 2020 when their cases started and 2025 they're just wrapped up.
[SPEAKER_00]: or they're still ongoing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And many of them have said to me, if I had known all this, I don't know that I would have reported.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or I don't know that I would have even started this legal suit process.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm wondering for you, looking back, would you have clicked post-knowing what you know now?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, do you have any kind of sense of, man?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I would have.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I would have.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think I'll address kind of the things you're hearing because I hear them too, and I, you know, I get it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I would have, I wouldn't be me if I hadn't come forward.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just, I think my whole life, you know, we all admire certain things.
[SPEAKER_03]: We all focus our lives in certain ways.
[SPEAKER_03]: What we think is admirable.
[SPEAKER_03]: What we focus on what we fixate on.
[SPEAKER_03]: And for me, I always, for whatever reason, you know, was constantly asking myself, like, what I'd be brave enough in difficult moments to do the right thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I don't think I'm a perfect person.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm definitely not.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm a human being, but, you know, in these moments where it matters, would I rise to the occasion?
[SPEAKER_03]: And for some reason that question has always really animated my life from a very young age.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, makes me emotional thinking about it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I don't think I would be me because that was such a moment for me where I felt like it was necessary for me to do that.
[SPEAKER_03]: So there was no other option for me.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now I do want to address the idea of litigation in here.
[SPEAKER_03]: I decided not to sue.
[SPEAKER_03]: I felt like my coming forward, my speaking out, my being deposed, my.
[SPEAKER_03]: going through this process of accountability, that was enough for me three women who are survivors of the endocrine did decide to sue to have settled for, you know, have settled with the state for damages, and one is going to go to trial and I have been
[SPEAKER_03]: pulled up in those cases legally.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I have been pulled through the court system even just as a potential witness.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that is a heinous system.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is not survivor driven.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is not trauma-informed as much as people like to say it is.
[SPEAKER_03]: I have been traumatized by that system.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I am not plaintiff.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I can completely understand why people feel that way.
[SPEAKER_03]: Judge anyone for feeling like they wouldn't have done that a second time.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now that being said, I think it's important for all of us, even myself, just as an ancillary party to cases as a witness or potential witness, to talk about how bad the system is and how retraumatizing it is, because that's the only way to change it.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I wouldn't do anything different.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just, I would love to have not have these have been my options.
[SPEAKER_03]: but they were my options.
[SPEAKER_03]: I felt at the time and it was a process of pain and trauma and grief and growth.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, what I have liked to have known what you really should have in order before you speak out, which is something I do talk about, which is writing down details proof descriptions.
[SPEAKER_03]: Ex-Temporaneous or, you know, moments where I had told people these things that happened to me in my life.
[SPEAKER_03]: So that was already to go when I spoke up.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that would have been great to have ready.
[SPEAKER_03]: It would have been great to have an attorney because I didn't realize I needed one even just to speak my truth, which I did.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I wish I would have been better prepared, and that is something I get asked to talk about a lot, and I'm always happy too, but I couldn't, I couldn't be me.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's one of those moments, you know, we all have them for different reasons and a different moment, and it's a lot about what, you know, our value systems perhaps and what we grow up with, but I just know that I was always in my life and still.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm always asking like, well, I do,
[SPEAKER_03]: The thing that is required of me, especially when it's difficult, and I do think that that was what was required of me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I'll circle back because I do want to get some more input from you on how to prepare before speaking out.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that might be a great way to close the episode, but I want to get into Cuomo specifics here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was talking about the fact that I was doing some interview with a friend of mine, Rhea Bravo, who wrote a great book called Complicit, She Talks About it, exposing Charlie Rose and
[SPEAKER_00]: she's just echoed to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's like, Cuomo wasn't just abusive, but he was also an awful governor who mishandled a lot of things, notably the COVID pandemic.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then there's 13 plus women that have all come forward and talked about this abuse that he carried out within his circle.
[SPEAKER_00]: How does he still have support?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I know this is the question we're going to ask about a myriad of political leaders, but why him specifically, why does he still have so many people that, you know, go, yeah, yeah, Cuomo.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I think, particularly in the political arena, you know, you see in a lot of different sectors, people have these fans, these supporters who kind of just endlessly
[SPEAKER_03]: Do whatever they can to support and smear victims, but I think particularly in the political arena, we have become so accustomed because of the way campaigns work.
[SPEAKER_03]: the money behind it, the American story of drama, cinema, all of it, where we kind of build up these archetypes of what are supposed to be heroes, and it really draws people in.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I will say in the case of Cuomo specifically, CNN had him on regularly and other stations were airing his
[SPEAKER_03]: news briefs during COVID, and they were painting him like a hero of people as an iconoclast to Trump.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so, and we wouldn't, in my view, have Trump as president if he hadn't been built up by the, I always, I think, oblocked it out mentally, but the show he had.
[SPEAKER_03]: and they make a lot of money for news media.
[SPEAKER_03]: So there's a reason why it's being done, but we build them up.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so of course, they're gonna have people who will follow them through anything like super fans.
[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, they really will follow them through anything.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it's a dwindling number, I will say that because I'm usually kind of like Zormon Donny, I really identify with what he's had to take in coming on in terms of smears and attacks, because it's
[SPEAKER_03]: It's pretty much the same people, but I get smeared in attack by it is a dwindling number and I think less and less fewer and fewer serious people are a part of that but the super fans and they're predominantly it has to be said women predominantly women.
[SPEAKER_03]: it trolls online, for example, that are always just flocking to them.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the majority of, I would say super fans of Andrew Cuomo are women.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think in the political arena, it kind of the way that we, that campaigns in American politics build people up, creates this dynamic.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I also think,
[SPEAKER_03]: particularly, you know, survivors come, they're all sorts of survivors.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's no one type of person unfortunately.
[SPEAKER_03]: In this case, we're talking about women being abused by Andrew Cuomo, and I think that a lot of women
[SPEAKER_03]: don't want to see themselves as being able to be fall victim to an abuser.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so it's less painful for them to think that we're all lying than to think that someone who they have entrusted their faith, their protection with.
[SPEAKER_03]: could be doing these things.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so in a lot of ways, I find that a lot of the super fans of abusers are oftentimes, you know, coming from a place of self-hatred.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I've seen snippets of that sometimes, and I think that's a common experience with survivors being on the receiving end of hatred.
[SPEAKER_03]: The most virulent people are often people who don't want to accept what's inside them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you think there's also a portion of this than political sphere when it comes to parties, especially when you're working alongside someone for a long time or you're in their orbit for a long time, where there's almost something of a blend of a sunk cost fallacy of like like I couldn't have spent that much time working in that organization with someone so high at being corrupt?
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you think there's a piece of that there as well?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, and the other part of that coin is I've invested all this time in this person and if they go down where are my stars and I think you saw a lot of that, you know, not perhaps publicly at least for the same reasons, but with Biden, I think a lot of people stuck by Biden in politics because if he doesn't stay in power, then all the people who built their entire careers around him, you know, they may perceive themselves as kind of screwed and, um,
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that's also, you know, he never, there was never really a true investigation, but you know, women did come forward with really bad experiences fighting and those are really shut down in a very early way.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think for some of the same dynamics at play.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to talk about that because one of the things that comes up all the time in the political sphere, like I talk about Trump a lot because he rub shoulders with evangelicals and I talk about evangelicals.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's going to be a lot of the focus.
[SPEAKER_00]: But a lot of times there is this what about is I'm it's like well what about Biden or what about Clinton what would you say the people that are going like okay well now it's a game of Well, they're less bad, you know, like we'll bite in his less bad than Trump, you know, but there are these serious allegations here or, you know, whatever fill in the like or Trump is less bad then
[SPEAKER_00]: the Clintons, you know, because then some people go like, I go to the bout box and it looks like everybody's got all these sexual rasser.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: It feels a little concerning.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, that's something.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is concerning.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think, you know, one thing that I feel pretty good about is I've never been, I've never shied away from, um, focusing on both sides of the aisle.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm a lifelong Democrat.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm still a Democrat.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I,
[SPEAKER_03]: came forward with allegations against a Democrat.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I do feel like there's an opportunity there to say, listen, this isn't about party for me.
[SPEAKER_03]: And you know, I end up speaking about Andrew Cuomo love because he won't go away.
[SPEAKER_03]: He happens to be my abuser.
[SPEAKER_03]: He happens to be trying to lead my city.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I speak about the other side of the aisle just as much.
[SPEAKER_03]: And you know,
[SPEAKER_03]: I try to shy away from conversations around more or less bad, not because there's not some truth in some cases that I have not experienced.
[SPEAKER_03]: rape.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I would never want to minimize that kind of trauma that a survivor would face.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so do I know that there's a big difference between that and workplace-based sexual harassment?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: I also know that because one is more extreme doesn't mean that the other is less bad.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I also know there's tons of people who want to run for office and want to break through.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, candidly speaking, the majority of which are old men from another time who spent their entire political careers in an environment that degraded women, degraded people, and fostered abusive environments that allowed predation to happen regularly.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I do talk freely about women's survivors, but I want to acknowledge,
[SPEAKER_03]: that men and trans people are just as vulnerable.
[SPEAKER_03]: It just happens very frequently that many of the men in power have been men, and have been heterosexual in many cases, but that doesn't put who is survivors.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was just talking to someone in a prior interview today and they were talking about, you know, people get offended when you say, you know, men or you say Protestant men or wasps women or whatever the label is.
[SPEAKER_00]: But they were just saying, if you can hold on past the label and just look at the trope, you know, there's this type of person.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think there is a type of person who grew up, you know, in a normalized environment where this is normal.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is normal to have
[SPEAKER_00]: but we don't have the conversation about the power dynamics in that relationship and what that actually looks like and so there's a there's a there's a level there of like you can understand how some people get to certain points but also to justify the action continuing once you're made aware of what this is.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, given an example on the other side, my daughter, I took my daughter to a play, you know, she's grown up very aware of me too and very aware of what happened with me because it was on the front page of newspapers, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm a politician, so I talk about it and I try to build something positive from the trauma, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: So she's very aware I took her to see a play.
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, it's, it's, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a,
[SPEAKER_03]: to late and sharing this with her.
[SPEAKER_03]: I have an 11 year old.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, and they're learning boundaries, physical boundaries.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're being taught things in the schools and in film and in culture that we were never taught.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I don't know how, you know, you've told me a little bit how you grew up.
[SPEAKER_03]: I certainly know I wasn't taught.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so we can, we can
[SPEAKER_03]: We can say it's not fair to typecast people and not to generalize too much, but we can absolutely say that certain generations, there was a pervasiveness of this kind of abuse of power.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's what it is.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that younger people are being equipped with more tools, maybe not necessarily to fight it because you can't fight this kind of abuse of power alone, but to identify it.
[SPEAKER_03]: If that makes sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: it is so interesting going back in hindsight to perch and I'm a huge fan of film so like I'm constantly watching like from 1920s silent movies, you know, I'm trying to get people to watch with Bay and you know, through the years.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was really interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: I started watching through a lot of the Dean Martin movies, you know, I forget what kick started that going through that filmography, but it was almost like every movie.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, well, that movie was kind of charming and interesting aside from like the explicit rap scene that's played off as a love scene in this movie.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the amount of films, or Sean Connery's early bond films, where it's this moment of resistance before they give into this aggressive push, you know, towards sex.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, there's a lot from comedies to drama.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's never played in a way where it's menacing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And just that is so interesting the way that perspectives are shifted around consent.
[SPEAKER_00]: And considering the material perspective at all,
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean it's concerning but it's also great to see the progress who made talking about these things to wear an 11-year-old nose.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, that's not okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: That feels a little weird.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sometimes she's teaching me.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sometimes she's teaching me or I'll be like, you know, how I was taught.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, give this person.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, you're feeling a burahag or whatever.
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe I shouldn't be like pushing her to physically engage.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, and I and I helped her retrain myself in that way because that's not how I was raised.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so if that's me and we're talking predominantly
[SPEAKER_03]: at least in my experience and the politicians we've mentioned, the generation are so above us, think about that.
[SPEAKER_03]: And again, this is not an excuse, but it is very much important in my view to talk about sexual harassment, sexual abuse, abuse of power, and a broader context of culture.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that's where it's helpful.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the things that comes up a lot in a lot of your interviews is the name recognition thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: This factor is so important.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whether we're talking celebrities, we saw this in Johnny Defe and her trial.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where you've got a really well-known name, a really well-known name, but one is certainly more universally known in the power and gravity toss that that has.
[SPEAKER_00]: you were talking with Medi Hassan in May of this year and brought this up and you said the two reasons that Cuomo does so well is the amount of money getting flooded into his campaigns and the name recognition for someone who's outside of New York politics.
[SPEAKER_00]: What does the name Cuomo mean two voters there?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like paint the picture of how big that name is to listening.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I think it actually has a lot, it predates him.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, this is really about Mario Cuomo.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I, my dad is from Queens, son of Irish immigrants grew very nearby actually to the Cuomo's just not as well off, but similar immigrant stories.
[SPEAKER_03]: And Mario Cuomo was, you know, as known as the liberal lion, he almost ran for president.
[SPEAKER_03]: He he almost had, you know, without the Bill Clinton, you know, public misdeeds that were aware of, had that kind of aura about him through his life.
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, he was a beloved figure in the Democratic Party, particularly the New York Democratic Party, but he was also a national figure.
[SPEAKER_03]: And he, uh, his campaigns were from a early, a point in Andrew Cuomo's career in part, you know, he was strong man behind his dad's campaigns.
[SPEAKER_03]: He was pulling the strings, particularly, um, where kind of the strong man pieces were, you know, the more
[SPEAKER_03]: tactical, I would say abusive tactics were run by Andrew Cuomo from an early age, but that name recognition is multi-generational.
[SPEAKER_03]: He also has a brother as we know who was on scene in for a number of years.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is a prominent, you know, diagnostic political family.
[SPEAKER_03]: He married into the Kennedy family.
[SPEAKER_03]: So this has been
[SPEAKER_03]: you know, a very well-known family and and then he was governor for all these years and then during COVID he was on TV all the time as a foil to Donald Trump and he was very effective at getting coverage and he was also very effective at silencing
[SPEAKER_03]: critique.
[SPEAKER_03]: So all you would see repeated again again again was his name and he had been very focused on, you know, really putting his name on everything that he builds, you know, not that he built, but the state built and things that, you know, any of his team, any of the agencies would work on, he would name out there.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it was really ubiquitous in New York politics.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so,
[SPEAKER_03]: There are a lot of people in Democratic Party I think it's kind of Clinton-esque in that way that will stick with a bad guy they know, simply because they know him, and there's a perception that on certain issues, he will tow the line.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I think that's what that's been about.
[SPEAKER_03]: I will say, I was fearful that when he,
[SPEAKER_03]: first got into the mayor's race.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I knew he would try to, you know, come back to call back to power.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just didn't know when and how that that would be the overwhelming story heard and again.
[SPEAKER_03]: And he did try to do that, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: He tried to lean into the history.
[SPEAKER_03]: He talked about his father a lot.
[SPEAKER_03]: He went to the traditional churches that he would always go to like the main line establishment places.
[SPEAKER_03]: But there was enough pushback and enough consolidation of all these people, myself and other advocates, organizers included and good candidates and a good process and rank choice voting that you could compete with that name.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think the longer he stays in this race, the more that historical legacy name is crumbling.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think now it's kind of an embarrassment for most people.
[SPEAKER_03]: Which I can't say, I don't enjoy it.
[SPEAKER_03]: That would be lying.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the the name thing is so odd to me because it is something where, you know, I think you it's the the trope of the person going in the ballot box and voting for the name they recognize the most, you know, and I think I was guilty of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first time I ever voted, I remember like you're like, okay, this person, yeah, I know them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Check, check, check, you have like three people you know a lot about or at least you think you know a lot about and then it's like, you know, city council, like, uh, sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, like, I don't don't be hard on yourself.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like people who are not in politics should not have to live their lives and politics.
[SPEAKER_03]: In most countries of the world, people get the day off to vote.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we don't, uh, it should be an national work holiday, um, and and actually this is where I have to
[SPEAKER_03]: establishment politicians who are in office don't necessarily want you to come and vote.
[SPEAKER_03]: They don't want high-turned-out always because it may not be predictable in their favor.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, you know, and wherever early voting polling sites and particularly polling sites, ultimately and voting legislation, registration, closed primaries, all of these things typically get designed to support the people who are in office,
[SPEAKER_03]: I am not, and I don't agree with folding anyone for falling to that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, I don't want the system to stay like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I have hoped that there are some things that are changing, but I don't, I don't felt like you shouldn't have to live.
[SPEAKER_03]: People, politicians are supposed to help make your life better.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're not supposed to be people.
[SPEAKER_03]: Palsas are not when people that you're supposed to think about all the time.
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you have a?
[SPEAKER_00]: Gross.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the name, the name recognition side is strange.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it also, it makes it hard for the average voter when they see people that they clearly do know some things about that are concerning.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I, I saw this in,
[SPEAKER_00]: in the Democratic race just this past election cycle, you know, it was bizarre to me as someone like you could run circles around me if we had a quiz show about politics, you know, but I feel like I'm I'm slight I try to be more informed than the average person.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that there's like I would be one of those people that thinks like I know a little bit more than I did know before
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, comedy getting endorsed and touting a, you know, the cheney behind her were perating Bill and Hillary Clinton on stage.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, is the name worth the damage that it's doing to someone like me where, you know, it was quite supportive of Kamala Harris versus Donald Trump.
[SPEAKER_00]: But seeing those things did chip away at my, like,
[SPEAKER_03]: Why are we putting a chaining like that name should be poisoned to anybody's political, you know, you're not alone, I had the same reaction and I'm a lifelong Democrat, I think, you know, another issue that we're running up against here and and and we also see it in the Cuomo, mom, Donnie, yeah, you know, I'm face off is.
[SPEAKER_03]: For far too long, the powers that be in the Democratic Party think that the way to gain support and get more than they have in terms of who's in our tent is to go moderate.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that is such a misnomer in this time when the biggest issues people have are with a fortability, like wondering how they're gonna make their lives work.
[SPEAKER_03]: So many people don't see
[SPEAKER_03]: Many of my generation will never own a home like their parents did.
[SPEAKER_03]: They'll probably the biggest nut of wealth transfer they'll accumulate is when their parents pass or when their parents sell their house.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's living on borrowed time, so to speak, in terms of our expectations for the future.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then we have AI that's going to be coming after jobs.
[SPEAKER_03]: uh uh you know increasing at a scale we can't predict and then we have all these people who Silicon Valley there was Trump today they're getting what they want from him but they were with Democrats the day before and touting Kamala or whomever we want and they're all saying you need to moderate.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think we're having a moment where it just is not working and the message is totally it's like total dissonance and I think at least for me when I hear you say that that's what I think about because I had the same reaction to both
[SPEAKER_03]: the Cheney piece and the Clinton piece.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like, what?
[SPEAKER_03]: Why are you going here?
[SPEAKER_03]: It's fine if Cheney wants to come outside and support Kamla for all these reasons.
[SPEAKER_03]: Let her do that, but you don't need to go and show up here with her.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I don't know that Kamla would have done that on her own, um, but she certainly was establishment pushed her to do that.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I, and I think it was such a mistake.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think all of that kind of moderating in this moment in time,
[SPEAKER_03]: when that has nothing to do with the concerns that people have in their real lives is a complete mistake.
[SPEAKER_00]: You said one quote that I thought was really interesting and we can wrap the name recognition side of this, but you set on a podcast recently.
[SPEAKER_00]: Andrew Cuomo is just like Trump without the money and I thought it was a really funny sentence, but I'm curious if we could unpack that a little bit and what that looked like practically in your experience with them.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, even for years, and I mentioned this, people would ask me what it's like to work for.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, you know, because he's a huge figure in our party, and a huge figure in general, and I think part implicit in that question is he seems like kind of a bully.
[SPEAKER_03]: Even when people would ask me that years ago, before the sex we're asking me like, what is that like to work for him?
[SPEAKER_03]: And you kind of see he's not really an appropriate person.
[SPEAKER_03]: At least in my view, that's part of the implicit question.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I would say that, you know, he's just like Donald Trump.
[SPEAKER_03]: Just one as a lot more money and different letters next their name and if the person was curious they would kind of ask more and I would say, you know, I mean how he treats everyone including women sometimes and I wouldn't go any more, but you know they're both.
[SPEAKER_03]: they abuse power.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm not even sure that their sexual harassment or sexual assault is about women as much as it's about power.
[SPEAKER_03]: They both have daddy issues.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've read books on both of them living up to their fathers.
[SPEAKER_03]: They both have a lot of skeletons in their closets.
[SPEAKER_03]: They both came of age
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, you know, was really, uh, rough elbows and, you know, like pointed shoulders, so to speak.
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, and they both came a time where a certain kind of traditional news media was on the rise.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so they knew how to like take advantage of that, particularly the 24 hour new cycle TV news.
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, I have heard, I've, I've only been in the room with Donald Trump, I think, once a twice, I've never actually met him.
[SPEAKER_03]: But, you know, obviously, he's our president.
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, and so I read extensively about him.
[SPEAKER_03]: I followed, you know, all these things.
[SPEAKER_03]: I read one anecdote that someone had been a very high profile finance guy in New York had been accused of, um, battery against his wife.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it was in the New York post.
[SPEAKER_03]: something like this, I'll get the details wrong, perhaps, but that the next day this guy got a call from Donald Trump saying congratulations, basically all press is good press.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I just have never forgotten that story because it's so illuminating, and it is in a way, so like Andrew Cuomo, he would do anything for press.
[SPEAKER_03]: And he relishes this kind of, you know,
[SPEAKER_03]: pushing down other people, and I think in many ways, as I mentioned the little bit earlier at they both, not only did they come of age in the 25-hour news cycle in terms of their professional lives, but they capitalize on that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Cuomo and COVID and Donald Trump with the apprentice and and they're all always, you know They're not afraid to be extreme and verbally abusive and attack others.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, Donald Trump was at Charlie Kirk's which that's the whole different topic.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't even know if we have to But he's at the memorial yesterday
[SPEAKER_01]: after Charlie Kirk's wife says that she forgives the person who shot and murder has been he says I hate my opponent and I don't want the best of them I'm sorry I am sorry Erica but now Erica can talk to me and the whole group and maybe they can convince me that that's not right but I can't stand my opponent and
[SPEAKER_03]: That is a sitting present at its dates taking this moment to say that.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's just like Andrew Cuomo too.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, when he ultimately left office, because he was going to be impeached and he resigned, he had since spent years attacking all of us for telling the truth legally.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've spent millions of dollars at this point in terms of legal fees just to defend myself.
[SPEAKER_03]: He uses his
[SPEAKER_03]: campaign funds that were left over from governor to, you know, attack us in the press.
[SPEAKER_03]: And now I'm done.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so it's this, I'm not a psychologist, so I don't want to practice without a degree, but it's, it's, it's, it's an unwellness and it's the same kind of unwellness in my view.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was going to mention, you know, Cuomo made it have as much money as Donald Trump, but he certainly has access to no small amount of money.
[SPEAKER_03]: Lots of money.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can't pay money.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then also spent 60 million of taxpayer funds.
[SPEAKER_03]: Probably more like, I don't even know how many millions it is now, but that was in, I think, March or April.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, imagine how that number has risen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that timing?
[SPEAKER_00]: over 60 million is a fair fair fair phrase, you know, defending himself against lawsuits relating to covid, but obviously 47 million of that, at least at the time of the latest reporting on it, was towards sexual harassment claims specifically.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, when I read those numbers, you know, I sit there and I watch the interviews in these puff piece interviews with local New York stations.
[SPEAKER_00]: I look at even the way that the New York Times covers him.
[SPEAKER_00]: A governor spending almost $50 million in aggressively going after people who've come out about sexual harassment.
[SPEAKER_00]: This should be on the front page every single day of this election cycle.
[SPEAKER_00]: This one of those powerful figures in New York politics nationally known name.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then the questions are all about, you know, is Mombani to Socialist, you know, it's about is this other candidate here, you know, which are all fair questions to ask a candidate, but you don't hear anything about this right now, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like why do you think the press is so off the gas when it comes to this conversation?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why do you think there's not more talk about the financial side of this?
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you think that is?
[SPEAKER_03]: First, I felt, I see the same thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I have unfortunately made my job to remind people.
[SPEAKER_03]: So the day he announced, I came out of vanity fair piece that was ready to go, I made the,
[SPEAKER_03]: agreement that the day he announced or there after that piece would be released reminding people about this man and it came out and so I have spent my time that way but I would love to have not spent my time that way because one of the many reasons I decided not to see was because I have a life to live and I have ambition and dreams and things I want to do and they don't relate to this man.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so the less I have to have my name continuously associated with him, especially my abuser, the better, but I don't have faith that media is holding him accountable alone and I don't think they would have writ large and I'll go into why now.
[SPEAKER_03]: let me say that, not journalism.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's always this singular appetite for new.
[SPEAKER_03]: So when I'm reminding people about things that have already been reported.
[SPEAKER_03]: they don't want to report on it unless there's some new hook.
[SPEAKER_03]: So the times where you see what he has done reported, it's because there's some new information.
[SPEAKER_03]: So that's just like a structural issue largely in news media.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that is why I have also found that I need to go back and do that because for whatever reason, there's usually a lane, you know, if I go on a show and explain something, you know, like, okay, well, this is her.
[SPEAKER_03]: She's coming on and talking about this now.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'll do that if that's the way this has to happen.
[SPEAKER_03]: they don't want to report on things that aren't breaking news.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's, you know, I talked a little bit about this breaking news.
[SPEAKER_03]: Cycle 25 news and that is certainly a part of it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think it's an unfortunate thing because that means that people don't naturally get reminded unless campaigns do it themselves or survivors to it themselves about the misdeeds of politicians.
[SPEAKER_03]: So there's that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Secondly, none of all of this happens without
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think it goes back to this issue of the crisis of where we are in this country, monopoly, I think, whether we're talking about media, we're talking about tech, we're talking about the consolidation of food production in this country.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're basically talking about in any industry, just a small number of players making decisions at the very top.
[SPEAKER_03]: And at the very top, those are being run by individuals who are even more
[SPEAKER_03]: That is the same thing we see with owners of the Atlantic.
[SPEAKER_03]: News in New York Times, the Washington Post.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, look at some of the things, oh, you're not gonna weigh on presidential elections, Washington Post.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, you're not gonna weigh on certain types of elections in New York Times.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, you're going to,
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, right, smear pieces on mom Donnie at the Atlantic or at any of these other papers follow the trail up the chain and you will see the same issue with with monopoly and with frankly a small number of really powerful, really wealthy men who have all these incentives to stay with the devil they know so to speak and recall and so I think that is a big part of it too.
[SPEAKER_03]: Those are the two things I think driving this issue.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I mean, we obviously saw this on the national stage with, you know, companies wanting to pursue a merger and getting pressure from the FCC.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, Exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a, it's not an issue of like every journalist that works for ABC news.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I want to draw that distinction because they're being told, they're being told they're being
[SPEAKER_03]: their headlines are being rewritten, um, they're being told with, you know, one of my friends, um, Karen Ottey, it was just fired from the Washington Post for speaking out, essentially about Charlie Kirk in his treatment, you know, just specifics about it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, and, and again, this is another case where Andrew Cuomo Donald Trump find in my view are very similar.
[SPEAKER_03]: What just happened to Jimmy Kimmel?
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, we're, we're talking about the same dynamic at play, the same media players, the same monopoly, the same oligarchy, and the same small cast of characters and politics that they're promoting and supporting.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Name a visa once.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'm going to ask one more aside question that I didn't prepare out of time, but I, you know, I definitely
[SPEAKER_00]: feel deeply what you're saying about, you know, the only way this gets brought up is if, you know, survivors themselves, often are fitting the bill to get the message out there, whether that's the emotional bill or the actual bill for putting this out here, you know, and it's journalists pursuing stories like it's, it's, it's not going to be these mainstream media outlets.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, trying to distinction between the journalists who are really trying to get these stories out
[SPEAKER_00]: But I also do feel, you know, what you've said, you don't want you to be attached to this person for the rest of your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't want to have to talk about it on the rest of your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so as someone who's asked you to talk about Andrew Cuomo, because I think it is a straight needs to get out there and it's not being pursued in the public.
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, how do people like myself, you know, dig out these stories and try to, you know, platform voices like yours in a way that is not exploitative or in a way that is not dragging you back through this traumatic ringer all over again.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you think?
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a great question, but a few things.
[SPEAKER_03]: I do not think you're doing that at all.
[SPEAKER_03]: And secondly, I always prefer to have conversations with someone who is trauma-informed and known as going to be more trauma-informed than a survivor themselves.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so, I don't remember this situation, but a few years ago, there was a rape.
[SPEAKER_03]: survivor who was banned from covering, I think, the Epstein cases, and to me that was such a disgusting perversion of journalism because she's exactly who could actually elicit genuine answers from people.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oftentimes what you're seeing in journalism is people speaking on the record
[SPEAKER_03]: assess the veracity of those statements.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's not as if you can't report because you have personal experience.
[SPEAKER_03]: And in fact, I don't want to talk to a journalist who isn't going to be respectful.
[SPEAKER_03]: So that's the first thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: I actually prefer to talk to people who have personal experience or have somehow conveyed to me that they do.
[SPEAKER_03]: It makes it that much better and it does
[SPEAKER_03]: one blessing that I have received in this time period is that with him running again, which at a point was my worst nightmare, has become such a triumph because I have been able to use the skills that I have.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm a politician.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I'm on the shows.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, communicating the points.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm doing community organizing.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm building coalitions.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm actually doing a lot of the things that I have the skills professionally to do.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm getting to communicate.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's enabling people to see me in a different light again that I I'm good in different settings.
[SPEAKER_03]: So what I was most afraid of.
[SPEAKER_03]: Again, being tied to this man and him winning has not turned out that way.
[SPEAKER_03]: So if I could offer, because I never want to be, you know, I want to always offer hopefulness because I feel that way about life, this has been a redeeming experience that I did not expect because I've been able to use my skills.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, I've also, in doing so, been able to build my confidence back in certain areas.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so now, if someone
[SPEAKER_03]: you know, someone did a piece on the legal bills and they're like, what do you think?
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm like, it was a great piece.
[SPEAKER_03]: I prefer not to have people use accuser and like describing the because of so many things.
[SPEAKER_03]: But one, there were three investigations that found he did these things.
[SPEAKER_03]: So when you headline the accuser, it does it give it the provenance that it deserves.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I know that you're concerned and your legal department's concerned.
[SPEAKER_03]: But find another way to say, call me whistleblower if you don't want to say, you know, survivor, or victim, whatever.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I have been able to push back
[SPEAKER_03]: in these intervening years, because I went through this process of trauma, pain, grief, acceptance, all of it, and now in certain ways growth, and I don't think I would have been in a position.
[SPEAKER_03]: years ago to push back and negotiate on the terminology.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I do feel like in my small part of the world, I'm having influence on that.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't like, I don't want to be called accuser.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've done way too much work.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've been deposed multiple times, including my last deposition was last week in one of the cases.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so we will talk about this as long as it is necessary.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the further away it gets from me in my past,
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not sure I don't think my future looks like never talking about it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it's too much a part of who I am now.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that there are too many people who reach out to me with hope and with fear and with needing advice.
[SPEAKER_03]: I thought that I would go back to my real life and not do this.
[SPEAKER_03]: and it's just not what it's going to be.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I don't want that now because I feel so thankful of the survivor community that has really uplifted me and trusted me and been with me and and it's, I was, I think you and I both know way more number of people than ever come forward.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't want to run away from that.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think it took me years of
[SPEAKER_03]: trauma therapy.
[SPEAKER_03]: I always like to mention trauma therapy because I believe in it.
[SPEAKER_03]: It took me years to get to that point.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I don't think I am going to ever stop talking about this, but I think increasingly I'm doing it with power.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm doing it with my ability to push back on narratives, which is I hope helpful in the broader context of survivors and change.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then also using it for good.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like if we're going to talk about what work looks like in the rest of the
[SPEAKER_03]: how we treat people is gonna be part of that.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I never really thought about what I went through and what I continued to go through in the broader context of that, but the number of people who come to me, needing help or advice or just to commiserate, I'm not gonna stop talking about this.
[SPEAKER_03]: I hope that that clown isn't part of it.
[SPEAKER_03]: But now I feel differently about that place, that piece of my life.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I feel better, better.
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel more confident.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am curious with people like Senator Gillibrand who, you know, in 20, and this is what's really mind boggling is like, it's not like, oh, this story from the 70s and we can put, because because my favorite apologies are 30 years ago, I did this like distancing yourself from this moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is 2021.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is four years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she was saying, you know, due to multiple credible sexual harassment misconduct allegations, it's clear he has lost the confidence of his governing partners and he should resign.
[SPEAKER_00]: And just a couple months ago, this is a country that believes in second chances, you know, and the voters are going to have to decide.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you go from this, you know, I wouldn't even say it was strong condemnation, but condemnation to, yeah,
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you know, it's up to people if they want that or not, and second chances are a good thing, you know, like what why this and this isn't the only one this isn't the only about face that's happened here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it's been plenty.
[SPEAKER_03]: I can't get freeze all of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why this passiveness in this situation.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I think they're afraid of him.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think one of the biggest signs of how abusive someone is is when powerful people themselves are afraid of them.
[SPEAKER_03]: And now, I think I've never seen a better example than
[SPEAKER_03]: going back to endocrine when Donald Trump, you know that you're facing a powerful abuser when powerful people are afraid of their abuse.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that is why she didn't speak up.
[SPEAKER_03]: She didn't want the blowback from him, his people, his supporters.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so she thought, I'll just stay on the sidelines, and it won't be a big deal.
[SPEAKER_03]: but it's a very big deal because she's built her career on supporting survivors.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, hers is that's why I included hers because it's particularly frustrating.
[SPEAKER_00]: But do you think it's a, do you think they're hedging their bets that like, okay, he might get back into office?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And do you think?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think they were, and I think
[SPEAKER_03]: How convenient, how privileged to be that powerful and hedging your bets against someone.
[SPEAKER_03]: So basically what that meant and what that has meant is that I was a human shield for them.
[SPEAKER_03]: I and the other women.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're literally human shields for these people who didn't want to stand up because then we had to, you know, she's like, oh, I'm not going to get involved in this.
[SPEAKER_03]: This isn't my place.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to stay on the sidelines.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: What do you think he's going to do next?
[SPEAKER_03]: What did he do next to start smearing and attacking the very women he's actually harassed.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I like to be very visceral about it because that's how it felt emotionally.
[SPEAKER_03]: I am a human shield for Kirsten, jella brand and that is disgusting.
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe you said that there were some people in one of your research, so there's some people that hate women and some of those people are women and I'm interested in this on two levels.
[SPEAKER_00]: One, I'm really, really perplexed like in patriarchal systems that some of the lattice voices are women, whether we're looking at, you know,
[SPEAKER_00]: in churches where, you know, women are reinforcing that like women shouldn't lead and see a female leaders that are pushing that narrative in an ironic way.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm also really like fascinated by the fact that you're obviously a very intelligent, great at your job, like you're not, I think the perspective people have of cult survivors, sexual abuse victims, is that like this person is not intelligent or they're a dormant or they're an easy, easy prey and we know
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, there is no perfect victim, there is no perfect, you know, oh, they, they were, they opened themselves to this, powerful women are finding themselves in the orbit of this, this, this predator.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why do you think these guys feel confident enough in themselves to surround themselves with some of the most powerful women in the country?
[SPEAKER_00]: And think that they're going to get away with like, what do you think the mentality is there?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, well, I'll just stare also when in it just not everyone saw during the the primary Stephanie minor who is the mayor of Syracuse, New York at the at the time when he was governor actually shared that he forcibly kissed her.
[SPEAKER_03]: in one moment.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that was exactly what had happened to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: And she was the mayor of Syracuse.
[SPEAKER_03]: She was a, you know, a rising star in the state party.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I don't think it gets more kind of incidious than that kind of example.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that is just so bold.
[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, people say, you know, how was Kathy Hogan all this?
[SPEAKER_03]: He was a nice to her.
[SPEAKER_03]: He didn't know how to
[SPEAKER_03]: So in a different kind of abusive way than women he didn't you know think about that way But it was all kind of inappropriate and mean spirit and abusive and harassing and one way shape or another So there's that but you know, I think the more distance I get from this it is so sad It is clearly so sad when you see Women say well, I wouldn't put up with that or that you know That's just how it is
[SPEAKER_03]: because you know deep inside if there's any self reflection, this is coming from a place of, there's nothing I want less than to be her.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I felt that in my life, I have felt that.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that's why I like to take the time to talk about it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, oh, I don't want to be her.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't want to be put through what she's being put through.
[SPEAKER_03]: And you have to find a way to rationalize that that couldn't happen to you.
[SPEAKER_03]: that you couldn't be victimized, that you couldn't be harassed by an abuser.
[SPEAKER_03]: But let me tell you, I was a very senior, very powerful woman, and it was no easier for me than if I had been a secretary.
[SPEAKER_03]: Because for me, it was humiliating to have this happening.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: I worked so hard.
[SPEAKER_03]: I went to Aussie college.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was student buddy president.
[SPEAKER_03]: I went to Columbia Business School at all these perfect jobs.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was always doing well, you know, in terms of the professional a cent and working very hard.
[SPEAKER_03]: How humiliating to have the person who you worked for split time between treating you professionally and and treating you like.
[SPEAKER_03]: shit, like a Barbie doll.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know if I'm allowed to say it like a Barbie doll.
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, and it, it, I think it's scary for people to think that that could happen or the other thing that happens with certain people who are so against this is they were sexually harassed.
[SPEAKER_03]: They were abused as a child and they don't want to think that there has this is anything to do with that.
[SPEAKER_03]: It allows them to stay in their lives
[SPEAKER_03]: what was he doing, praying on whatever the dynamic was?
[SPEAKER_03]: With the 24 year old intern, I have had tons of 22 24 year old interns work for me.
[SPEAKER_03]: That is a such an abuse of power that those two would even find
[SPEAKER_03]: their way in the same space, I don't care what else you say.
[SPEAKER_03]: But we, there are so many people in our party that had to rationalize Bill Clinton for far too long because that's who was in power.
[SPEAKER_03]: So there's that larger dynamic of buy-in and then I think it's the steeper either it happened to them, with women where they can't accept that it's happening again, that it's happening with their favorite that it could happen to them.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's such a deep-seated self-hatred and that is a tool of patriarchy is to make women feel that everything about them is wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's the, it's that shame dynamic, I know in religious circles where, you know, it, it, you know, well, I'm not pure in that context, you know, like this was damage.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the shame is put on to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think culture has a lot to answer to that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think of Monica Lewinsky, you know, specifically, every late night host was jumping on the
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, and of course, yeah, there was people in person being flented or that, but I think the majority of people were projecting the shame on to her when that was my middle school that was my I think my elementary to middle school years that was my first experience of politics and yeah and then I was a congressional intern in high school you can bet that I did not want to see any similarities.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: What works that way?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, and you mentioned, you know, you've had interns that are 20 something year old, and the power differential there, and you were not president of the United States, you know, like it's like now imagine that dynamic, and how much further that goes, like it's hard, it's hard looking with the goggles of understanding these situations more now, and then watching these clips and how it was presented at the time.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's heartbreaking.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I talked to most of my interns and they're like, I'm moving on.
[SPEAKER_03]: I have a new boyfriend.
[SPEAKER_03]: I love a new city.
[SPEAKER_03]: I got my masters.
[SPEAKER_03]: What a betrayal of trust to totally disrupt all of those dynamics.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it just are breaking for me to think about, honestly.
[SPEAKER_03]: And to see how not even thinking about one individual, it's just like, how dare you abuse the public's trust that way.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's such a precious thing that you should work to try to, you know, I don't always get it right.
[SPEAKER_03]: I know I don't.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm sure I've had to probably like, I'm sorry, you know, to one of my interests.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's gonna be that day, but like to do the opposite is just so gross.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well, to create a culture, you know, versus like a motor, you know, like there are moments that all of us are abusive to one another in the context of lashing out because we're upset about a deadline or something.
[SPEAKER_00]: but there's a big difference between that moment and creating a culture of abuse and behavior where that is the status quo.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like that is always the culture.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's the culture.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think far too often, now I'm kind of like listen, let's not give Cuomo and Trump too much credit because they're all these systems around them and I like what we got into media is one of them that enables it.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, it's there's all these other people in culture and to your, you know, your experience and talking about certain church environments, the same thing and, you know, I grew up Catholic and the Catholic church, there have been a lot of, there's been a lot of sex abuse that we all know about and that was enabled by the Catholic church for far too long.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well, and I think that it's the same thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's meant in positions of power.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's, you know, and we could get into a long diet tribe about, quote, most speaking in churches, just a few weeks ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and who's being platformed in these environments.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I am curious as we get near the end here, looking ahead, you know, obviously this is an a political show, but I am curious myself, saw a question.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you make of the the rumors of Trump reportedly helping Cuomo with this new arc race?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is there validity to that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you think that's kind of a little tin foil hat like because I wish I wish no, I think so they do.
[SPEAKER_03]: I knew when I worked for Cuomo because I had read, you know, the
[SPEAKER_03]: not the books that he wrote himself, not the book that he wrote about himself because that's you know, BS, but the books written about him.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think the contender by a, maybe a vanity fair writer is a very good Michael Shinerson something like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it talks about Cuomo in the early years and I found that instructive when I work for him.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think maybe in that book or somewhere else, I mean Cuomo and Trump knew each other.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think he sent a video about Cuomo's
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, they go back kind of in the same way that the Epstein Trump world this, you know, a little swamp goes back.
[SPEAKER_03]: So they do have an existing relationship and as much as they may battle back and forth.
[SPEAKER_03]: No other politician helps Cuomo build his national profile more than Donald Trump.
[SPEAKER_03]: as a foil.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so then they do talk when Trump was first elected, Cuomo went and met with him in Trump's towers.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so they have existing lines of communication.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think
[SPEAKER_03]: for Cuomo he is very much trying to do that behind the scenes they share donor base so it's very easy for them to get in touch and actually there has been reporting that the mark 10 and another pollster who have done work for I think fix I think fix the city but don't correct me like don't
[SPEAKER_03]: economy in that, but I have had no Cuomo and no Trump and have the same kind of support base in this moderating Democrat world in the now Republican space met with Donald Trump to say to Cuomo's the best chance.
[SPEAKER_03]: So there is that that Trump knew that this was the best chance to beat Mombani.
[SPEAKER_03]: His perception was Cuomo from those meetings, from donors and high profile
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, you know, I think it's absolutely something that Cuomo has been back channeling in my view.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think Donald Trump, um, do I think it's his biggest issue?
[SPEAKER_03]: No.
[SPEAKER_03]: Do I think he likes to play in New York politics where he's originally from.
[SPEAKER_03]: He likes to treat.
[SPEAKER_03]: places like real estate holdings.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it's how in how he talks, I think he absolutely has tacitly considered how best to help.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, that's originally, I think we all know why Eric Adams, the Eric Adams, with prejudice charges with prejudice went away as I understand it.
[SPEAKER_03]: He was trying to make it possible for someone else to be, you know, Mamdoni and, or even earlier than that for Eric Adams to, you know, focus on running for reelection before they can clear that Mamdoni might be the best way to beat him.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I do think that is absolutely happening.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not ten-foil.
[SPEAKER_03]: Do I think that, I think Cuomo is relying on it.
[SPEAKER_03]: discreetly much more than Donald Trump is probably likely to actually engage in it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, mainly because I think they both know at this point that the more Trump engages in it, the more harmful is to intercoolment those chances, which I actually think he has next zero chance of winning and it makes me very happy to know that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, well, my next question was, do you think as a chance of winning?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I don't.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't.
[SPEAKER_03]: In politics, you know, in politics anything can happen.
[SPEAKER_03]: I usually does.
[SPEAKER_03]: I can't prove so that famous phrase, but it's true.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, you know, everyone just counts.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm doing canvassing.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've donated to maxed out to Zoron.
[SPEAKER_03]: I am doing more canvassing.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm doing a lot of organizing with friends and folks in anti-quimal work.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'll probably be doing a few more media things to remind people of Interquimal.
[SPEAKER_03]: So the work still needs to be done, but now, you know, in the primary mom done, he didn't have these establishments.
[SPEAKER_03]: He didn't have the burrow-based parties supporting him.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now he does.
[SPEAKER_03]: He has the unions supporting him.
[SPEAKER_03]: So all the people that were,
[SPEAKER_03]: the kind of mainline strongholds that were holding on to Andrew Cuomo in the primary and whatever that power that gave him, whatever numbers that gave him have all for the most part moved away from him and to Mamdoni.
[SPEAKER_03]: So he's doing all the things he needs to do.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's got an increased coalition.
[SPEAKER_03]: Does he have Chuck Schumer, Kirsten Gillibrand, Hacking Jeffries coming out and supporting him?
[SPEAKER_03]: No, but at this point I'm not sure they're really going to help him.
[SPEAKER_03]: his name, rock ignition, his campaigning, his retail politics are way above anything they could offer him in terms of support.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I think it's next to zero chance that Andrew Cuomo can win, but we should never act like that for those who are organizing in the space.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, there tends to be a, uh, the sin of just going off of polls and thinking everything's in the bag and then, you know, letting the hand off the reins, you know, for the rest of the period.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, um, no, this is all been so helpful.
[SPEAKER_00]: I, I said at the very beginning, um, I wanted to circle back to this as, you know, I, I,
[SPEAKER_00]: struggle so nice with how to even brand this show to people, but I've really centered around, I want to be essentially survivor-focused true crime, as I think the genre that it's in, there's tons of listeners to the show that are survivors themselves, some we've come forward, some who have not.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you could go back to 2021, Lindsey, and tell yourself a piece of advice, get these things in order, keep this in mind, what would your advice be to that person and to
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, well, first I'd send love because I do have so much love every time I meet someone and I don't want them to feel alone because you're never alone as much as you feel alone and I have felt very alone at times and I wish I didn't so I can tell you most the experiences that people have had at least in terms of the public profile aspect of it, you're not alone.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've been there.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I would say.
[SPEAKER_03]: I had never had an attorney first of all and I needed to get one, so this whole world was hugely different for me.
[SPEAKER_03]: But the first thing I tell people to do is remember the things that you've probably tried to forget.
[SPEAKER_03]: So all of the ways that he sexually harassed me, all of the emails, all of the examples I had, all the texts I had, I mostly tried to obliterate those out of my life as they happened because it was traumatic to think about.
[SPEAKER_03]: When I initially tweeted, I then had to come back and actually try to rebuild forensically all of that information.
[SPEAKER_03]: I had to go to my mom and say, hey, did I ever share it?
[SPEAKER_03]: Did I ever text you a lot of the emails that I had or from my mom?
[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't save any of that stuff because it was traumatic to think about and
[SPEAKER_03]: in trauma, we do different things, but one of the things that I would do is avoidance, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: So obliterate, avoid, delete.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so it took me a while and it was difficult to come back and start to forensically say this happened and then with details.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I first came forward on tweets, but then I did a medium piece.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so it came forward in, I think, December 20 and then did a medium piece and
[SPEAKER_03]: that I released in February 2021.
[SPEAKER_03]: So in between that time I was putting all the data together and I was there's a million ways I feel that I was sexually harassed by Andrew Cuomo and this toxic work environment that things I've shared are the things that I could put details behind as proof and that is a very specific kind of thing you need to do and when you're saying something in the public or for legal reasons, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: If you're going to sue or if you're just going to
[SPEAKER_03]: be deposed or you're going to have someone investigate criminally whatever it is, and it was emotionally hard to go back and do that.
[SPEAKER_03]: So if you could predate everyone else knowing that you've been sexually harassed and you've come forward by actually saying, hey, I talked to someone so when this happened, do you remember I talked to you about this Amanda or friends family members?
[SPEAKER_03]: and then get your, you know, get those details and find dates around them.
[SPEAKER_03]: What when was it that I was on the plane that he said, do you want a playster poker?
[SPEAKER_03]: I had to go back and figure out what the dates were based off of certain number of things that I remembered.
[SPEAKER_03]: So if I would be able to do all that before I came forward, it would have been less traumatic and I would have been in more control.
[SPEAKER_03]: So that's the first thing I would do.
[SPEAKER_03]: go back and put details in order accounts that you told people in your life because that is proof.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you told someone, he said this to me on the plane five years ago and they remember that you said that that's part of your proof.
[SPEAKER_03]: You need to get those things in order.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, depending on what path you might take,
[SPEAKER_03]: I would highly suggest even have the very least having a consultation with a lawyer.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, again, we can't not talk about this type of thing without my privilege.
[SPEAKER_03]: I am comparatively a wealthy white woman with a big platform.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I understand when I say these things, everyone doesn't have access to.
[SPEAKER_03]: But if you do getting at least a preliminary advice from an attorney is probably good.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now you may be thinking, I'm not gonna, I don't wanna see where I don't do this.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just good to have someone,
[SPEAKER_03]: the forensic details that I had, right, because they're thinking about it from a proof standpoint.
[SPEAKER_03]: So putting the details in order, having a consultation or a conversation with someone legal in your life, and there are all sorts of organizations that should be able to help in terms of not having to bear a lot of costs around that.
[SPEAKER_03]: And there are organizations that help you fund legal fights like this.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then I would say consider who you're talking about in hand.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's always going to be so powerful in some context.
[SPEAKER_03]: In my case, it was in the political world.
[SPEAKER_03]: Keeping your circle very small on who you can trust, I think you will be surprised by who comes through and is on your side and you will also be heartbroken, maybe, by who doesn't speak up and come to you.
[SPEAKER_03]: I would.
[SPEAKER_03]: When I had to do, and I did it too late because I was running for office at the time, I couldn't just delete all my social media and I wasn't going to because I didn't, you know, I'm a politician, but I would think very carefully about going off social media if you decided a certain point you're going to come forward so that you don't have to see any, like, smearing stuff and, and I stopped reading the news.
[SPEAKER_03]: for the most part, for better part of a year, and I'm an avid news reader.
[SPEAKER_03]: So staying away from information that you don't need for the time period if and when you do decide to come forward.
[SPEAKER_03]: And there's a lot more that you can and may want to do.
[SPEAKER_03]: So,
[SPEAKER_03]: If this is sounding overwhelming, I say the first thing you do is you reach out to a survivor, you know who has gone public.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I have never had someone say, oh, I don't have time for you.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't want to talk to you.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're usually very willing to do that.
[SPEAKER_03]: So if all this seems very overwhelming, maybe the first step is to talk to a survivor.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I have never
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, never say never, but I've never encountered a survivor that I didn't feel like I could trust.
[SPEAKER_03]: I wouldn't go around telling your story to a bunch of people until you know what you want to do with it, unless they're really trusted folks in your life.
[SPEAKER_03]: So those are the kinds of early things I would say.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really appreciate you sharing that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And for sharing about this in general, like I said, it's something that has really bothered me in the last, you know, it's lately has bothered me every election cycle, you know, as we go into November this year.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we're always so impuser.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're like, what is this?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, and even seeing, you know, a, I saw a video on the sidewalk of Anthony Weiner trying to get on to the console and it's like, you just went to prison and you're climbing your way into this and it's just, it's the audacity is what you think about, but then, you know,
[SPEAKER_00]: It's one thing to be frightened by the audacity of predatory people pursuing power, but it's far more frightening that there are people willing to hand it over to them, you know, with very little pressure.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the part that I think we need to keep talking about is like, you know, how do we move past platforming these same times of people over and over again?
[SPEAKER_00]: Across sides.
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, there's a lot of the Republicans side that I talk about quite often.
[SPEAKER_00]: like we've mentioned at the DNC we're seeing that happen time and time again and it's so unfortunate because there's so many good people out there that are struggling to build campaigns.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, well when I was saying that front two is and I always like to be hopeful as
[SPEAKER_03]: This is not separate and apart from fascism and the fight against abuse of power, like obeying in advance, which is what you basically were just illustrating, like supporting someone, fighting back against all of this is exactly
[SPEAKER_03]: what is required at this time.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so these fights are all connecting.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, you know, I think people should take hard if that's a part of what you're having to fight that you're part of a much bigger battle and it's an important one and it's a worthwhile one.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think,
[SPEAKER_03]: If it were easy for people to hold powerful accountable, we would be in a lot better of a position and if more people were brave to stand up against their abusers like a lot of the survivors are that would that listen to and follow your podcast.
[SPEAKER_03]: Then we would be in a much better place as a country so I am hopeful in that sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, Lindsay, thank you so much for joining me on the show.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure won't be the last time that we chat, but I really really appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I enjoyed it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you very much for your time.