The Daily Beast Podcast - The Moment Gretchen Carlson Knew She Needed to Expose Ailes

Episode Date: July 8, 2022

Gretchen Carlson joins The New Abnormal along with her Lift Our Voices co-founder Julie Roginsky to talk about her lawsuit against former Fox CEO and Chairman Roger Ailes and the work she’s doing to fix predatory NDAs. Then Mike Collier, the Democrat running for Lieutenant Governor of Texas against Dan Patrick, breaks down the true issues with the Texas power grid, including that it was designed by Enron, and the other ticking time bomb in the state: water. Plus! Hosts Molly Jong-Fast and Andy Levy do a Q&A speed round, sharing who they think are the best and worst accounts on Twitter, what the next QAnon level conspiracy is, and a definitive ranking of the Supreme Court judges from the worst to mildly idiotic. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Molly Zhang Fast, no relationship to Kim Jong-un. I'm a left-wing pundant and a writer at the Atlantic Invo. And I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy and current cable news conscientious objector. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart, conversations with the wisest and funniest and funniest people in science and media and politics that help make what's happening today clearer. Our world has been turned upside down, and on the new abnormal, we'll talk about the people who got us into this mess and how we'll hopefully get ourselves out of it. So we're still on vacation, but we still made you a fantastic show. First, we're going to talk to Mike Collier, who's the Democrat running for Lieutenant Governor of Texas up against Dan Patrick, and he's going to talk about his race. Then we're going to talk to Julie Wriginski and former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson about their organization, Lift Our Voices, and the legislation they're pushing through Congress.

Congress. But first, I asked Molly and Andy even more questions to have some fun, get some political insights, and get to know them better. So let's have some fun. What do you see on the horizon if the GOP retakes Congress in the Senate? We're going to Gitmo. Pain. I mean, maybe Andy won't end up in Gitmo, but I absolutely will. Pain. I foresee Jim Jordan screaming at me telling me I can't handle the truth. Well, they subpoena my email. emails. Yeah, they are going to hold hearing after hearing on everything you've ever heard of. Hunter Biden, Hunter Biden's crack pipe. Benghazi will be back.

It will be 24-7 Benghazi. Strong agree. Okay, best account on Twitter. Probably Molly Jongfest. Oh, shut the fuck up. This is hostile work environment. I feel like you're being ironic. For a compliment? It's an ironic compliment. That's what Twitter makes you. It's so paranoid. Just because I didn't mean it doesn't mean that you shouldn't accept a compliment. Mark Hamill.

Okay. Yeah, yeah. You know, he's liberal. We know he's liberal, but he's like, you know, he's pretty sparing with his tweets, but he's pretty smart and he's kind of in on the joke. Mark Hamill. Andy, go. You now have to think of one.

Yeah, I am at a loss on this one. Which does not mean there are Twitter accounts I like, obviously. I mean. Well, just give us one. I will say... Come on, man. Wild Geeters. Ooh, what the hell is that?

He's a guy who's a political account. He used to have a different screen name, but his stuff is usually really good. Yeah. Okay. Worst account on Twitter. That's easy. Is it? I don't know.

Well, is it me? Yes, obviously you. No, I'm just kidding. By the way, I love that everyone secretly thinks they're the worst account on Twitter. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. For me, at this point, it's either. They're occupied Democrats or Glenn Greenwald.

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's right. Certainly, I think we can all agree that Michael Tracy. Also bad. Yeah, it's pretty bad. A bad account. Yeah. There's a couple of others I really hate, but I won't say them on.

Lips of TikTok. Yeah, but bad. Awful. Now that Marjorie Taylor Green has Milo Yulinoplas as an intern, what other right-wingers do you see getting an internship in an office of government? That's a good question. Thank you. Rudy.

The Rudy Giuliani internship wayward mayors. At the Justice Department. Yeah, DOJ, I could see it. I guess I would say Matt Gates' girlfriends? Official girlfriend, the wife? Or like... I'm talking about his intern-age girlfriends. Oh.

Yeah. That's fun. So everyone's talking about how QAnon is morphing into a new conspiracy theory. What do you think is the next trend that will go up onto and imagine elites are doing? I think the one thing we haven't gotten to is sort of is like cannibalism. Mm, this is good. I was going to go David Ike, lizard people stuff. Lizard people stuff is good.

That's just the Jews, though, for Q people. Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, I have noticed you guys talking about shedding skin on this podcast a lot, you know? Yeah, well, we're curious. No one's ever brought up, like, really, like, rich people eating. at literally eating. Adrenicrow. Yeah, that's the closest.

That's why I think cannibalism comes next. This podcast is not a big fan of New York City mayors. Andy, you recently had a great idea that we should stop having mares. But Eric Adams is particularly no favorite of ours. What's something he could do to get back in your good grace? Resign. Well, that was easy. No, he could resign.

What else could he do? Leave office. Yeah. I would be okay if he quit. Yeah, or at least step down. Yeah, I'm good with that. Yeah, he could not work as mayor anymore. Okay, if you had a decree, you could head down to cable news to make it better.

What would it be? Stop being stupid. Resign? Step down. I'm fine with MS. And, you know, would the other ones stop it? Yeah, don't do what you're doing. Change everything.

Worst Supreme Court judge. Oh, I was just thinking about this. Yes, I may have stolen it from your tweet. Which I soon deleted afterwards. Clarence Thomas, no questions. Yeah. If his wife weren't an insurrectionist, it might be... Alito.

Right, might be Alito. Yeah. Thomas with the wife. I'm going to rank them for you. Thomas, Alito, Amy Comey Barrett. Roberts, because he's how we got here. Gorsuch, because he sucks. and Kegstand is six.

Wow. So you think Gorsuch is worse than Kavanaugh? Yes. Gorsuch is more shitty than Kavanaugh. Gorsuch has one thing that he's a little bit liberal about, which is indigenous people, but everything else he's shitty about beyond, whereas Kegstand, you could see a world where he is perhaps because of his long history of problematic relationships with women, where he is slightly less shitty than Gorsuch.

The thing about Gorsuch is about this is because you're absolutely right when it comes to Native Americans. I assume that's because he grew up mostly in Colorado or a lot in Colorado. And so he has at least a bit of an understanding of what Native Americans have faced in this country. But he can't make the leap to women, anyone. Anyone else. And think that, hey, maybe this country has been shitty to other people too. and I should try to see their perspective the way I do with this one particular group. But he just cannot make that connection in his mind and think, oh, this is why I suck on everything else.

He cannot. Nope. That's interesting. Okay. So Amy Coney Barrett is a nightmare prototype of a Supreme Court justice. But as we know, the bottom is infinite for the right. So what do you envision for the next justice if Republicans can appoint one again? Justice Janine.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think that's right. Why didn't I think of that? Jesus. Justice Piro. You get to pick one elected Republican official to have dinner with. Who do you pick and what do you ask them? Do I get to prepare the food?

That was where I was going to. For sure. Because that changes my answer. I don't know. I'm just, I'm trying to picture having dinner. with any of them. Maybe Kevin McCarthy. Yeah.

And what do you ask them? What the fuck, man? Just over and over. Yeah. No, I'm not playing your horrible game. All right. I got another horrible thought experiment. So Lauren Bobert famously has this gun-themed restaurant.

I personally think this is like fun personal branding for her. Shooters. What other businesses could you see some Republican elected's doing? Pillows. I was the future of Republicans as pillows. But, you know, like the Daily Wire guy, he has his anti-Harrie's razors. You know, you got to own the whips with your business now. Oh, right.

Jesus. Right, right, right. I think they could have, like, uh, wow. I was going to say, instead of a foot locker, they could have fetus locker. Oh, that's nice. Oh, God. Who doesn't like fetus locker? No.

All right. Now I'm sorry I ask this one. I'm sorry I answered. Okay. The year is 2028 and Marjorie Taylor Green has slipped President DeSantis, a special cocktail of cow shingle medication to cure COVID-2020. And he's had an adverse reaction and sadly passed away making her president. Which country do you move to? Oh, God. Oh, yeah, that makes sense.

This is a good hypothetical. Come on. This is way too real, though. For me personally right now, I'm leaning towards maybe one of the Scandinavian states. Yeah, that makes sense. But I could be wrong about that. I need to do some research. Yeah, that makes sense.

I got it. God, I aspire to Google search later. Maybe Iceland, just because I like the music. I'm moving to Ireland. Just Bjork and Sigeroz all day. Yeah. Exactly. See, Ireland, I don't want to be there for the music.

That's not good. Yeah, that'd be like living in Boston. Okay, so last bit of this, follow up on the thought experiment. President Marjorie Taylor Green has mandated that all podcasts are banned. What's your dream job to pivot to? Whoa, wait. What is Ted Cruz going to do? Exactly, man.

He sadly lost that in the debate. Oh, yeah. A nightmare. Is Ted Cruz going to be okay? I'm definitely an astronaut or a cupcake taster. Mm. One or the other. Or a cake taster?

Cupcake taster, not even cake. Oh. Yeah. Cupcake taste. Yeah. That's a good job. Yeah. It's good, right?

Oh, yeah. What about, yeah? I think I would be a party planner. Mm. I like that for you. It's good because you're so social. So it makes a lot of sense. I am.

I'm just, you know. You love having to go out every day. That was kind of the joke, but there's absolutely no reason. Our listeners get that put. Yeah. Yeah. I used to be very social. I am sadly not these days.

Mike Collier is the Democrat nominee for Lieutenant Governor of Texas against Dan Patrick. Welcome to the new abnormal Mike Collier. Hi. So you are running for a lieutenant. You're running as a Democrat in the state of Texas for lieutenant governor. You're going to be running against the worst person in the world, Dan Patrick. Yeah, that's right. So I'm the Texas Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor, which against Dan Patrick,

which for your listeners. I hasten to point out that it's actually because of our unique feature in our Texas Constitution, the lieutenant governor is considered by many that to be the most powerful politician in the state. And so if we're going to change the direction of this state, boy, we've got to. That makes this race awfully important. You've got to explain to us what that means. How exactly the lieutenant governor of Texas is the most powerful elected in the state of Texas, I believe you, but just explain to our listeners.

Well, in our Constitution, the lieutenant governor is not, you know, vice governor, so to speak. The lieutenant governor actually has a constitutional responsibility as president of the Texas Senate. And so as president of the Senate, the lieutenant governor decides, in essence, what the legislature does or doesn't do. Wow. And sets the agenda and the tombs, has complete control over committee assignments, has complete control over what bills make it to the floor. And that gives the lieutenant governor not only the ability to set the agenda, but the ability to set the agenda, but the ability to. negotiate to get things done. And then, and not to diminish the importance of the governor, but the governor really just does not have a role in any of that. The governor has a veto. Right. And that's important stuff. And the governor has an awful lot to do with appointing commissions and so forth around the state. We're very decentralized, almost atomized government. But as it relates to policy and the budget, it's the lieutenant governor is by far the most powerful of the lawmakers in Austin. You got pretty close last time. Explain to us why you think you could do it this time. Yeah. So we got close in 2018. The difference was about 4.8 percentage

points. Dan Patrick, who ran for lieutenant governor. He was running for re-election, had proven himself in his first term to be, in my judgment, an absolute disaster for the state. Yes. And people knew it, and they were angry. And we could see that in the polls. And so I got very close. I got within 4.8 percentage points. But the real reason for the revenge is this. You know, that was the year that, Beto ran for Senate. Beto O'Rourke ran for Senate. And it was quite a good year for all of us. I mean, he does a remarkable job at mobilizing Democrats to the polls, which was just terrific. And it benefited all of us. But when we looked county by county, when the election was over, was surprised to see that in all of the rural slash Republican counties in Texas,

and that happens to be the majority, two-thirds of the counties in the state are considered rural slash Republican. I was the top Democratic vote getter. And I was surprised. But then not surprised when you think about it because people just don't like Dan Patrick. And that includes independence and Republicans. And we went out into East and West Texas. And we talked about schools and water infrastructure and property taxes where ordinary citizens are just getting cheated blind because the big corporations get a pass. And we talked about expanding Medicaid and we talked about criminal justice reform and we talked about things that people cared about. And I had a lot of crossover votes. And so that's the reason for the reason for the reason.

match. We need those votes to win in my judgment, and I felt like I needed. I owed it to myself and the state and to democracy now to stay in the fight. One of the things that I'm really impressed by with Texas and the Republicans and how just unbelievably terrible they are is that you have two really big problems besides the, you know, how Republicans have decided that they want to target LGBTQ kids or they want to, you know, Governor Abbott overturned Roe v. Wade. Okay, those are things that they've done in order to try to win their primaries and to galvanize the Trumpy base.

But while they've been doing these culture war things, they've been ignoring the power grid. Can you explain to our listeners what the hell is happening there with your power grid? Well, yeah, the power grid is really, really shaky. It's really rickety. And first of all, the Texas power grid is, for the most part, separated from the rest of the country. So we're on our own. So if we have trouble, we can't wheel in power from other parts of the country. So it better work. And it was deregulated and designed by Enron designed it. If folks remember Enron. I didn't realize that the Texas power grid was designed by Enron. I had no idea. Yeah, they designed it. They designed it to be deregulated. They made the argument that deregulation is good. Yeah, deregulation is good. And they convinced people. It was the politicians that did the convincing. But Enron paid those guys an awful lot of money to say it. And they told people, yeah, this is going to drive our power costs down. You'll love. Well, the problem is it doesn't work. It worked for a while. But what happened is it didn't keep up with growth. And we've reached the point now in the state where the demands we've place on the power grid exceed its capacity to deliver and nobody will do anything about it. And there's a couple of reasons for that. First of all, consumers are not getting a good deal, by the way. Right. Thousands and thousands of dollars, right? We are paying a lot more for power. So this whole idea

that it would be cheaper for us is fraud. Right. We are paying more for power as a consequence. And people aren't coming in and building power plants because they just don't feel like they need to. We don't plan for that. These got folks want to make as much money as they can and they're not building more power plants and now all of a sudden we can't keep up we can't keep up in the summer and it failed catastrophically in the winter in the winter yeah that was when ted cruz went to cabo yeah yeah killed a lot of people and what i'm not sure that everybody understands i know by the time i'm done everyone in texas will understand but we came within about five minutes of an entire statewide blackout in the winter and the reason why in the winter that's right yeah and the reason that's so consequential is

it takes a power plant to start a power plant. And if all of the power plants out, then you can't get the thing restarted. Now, we do have these, they're called Blackstart units and they're sprinkled around the state. But it would have taken them. The engineers tell us it would have taken weeks or months to get power back. And you just can't imagine what that would do. People would starve. You'd run out of water.

You'd run out of gasoline. The state's so big, you can find yourself in Central Texas. You can't get gas. You can't get water. You can't get food. and you can't get out. Right. Wow.

And they won't do anything about the Republicans in the state won't fix the real problems. They've decided they're much more likely to get elected if they fight these culture wars. Right. And that's what they do. And it's absolutely reprehensible. That's why I think that Texans are going to vote and start voting some of these Yahoo's out. So explain to me, the power grid is not the only grid problem in Texas. Explain to me about your water grid.

Well, you know, we have a real, water is really, there's an expression in Texas that, you know, power's worth arguing over, water's worth fighting over. Yeah. And so, you know, there are parts of the state where we don't have enough water where we are depleting the groundwater very rapidly, for example, up in the panhandle, and we're taxing those aquifers. So there's parts of the state where we don't have enough. There's parts of the state where we have way too much where I live in the Houston area. we can't handle the flooding, which is getting worse because of climate change. I mean, we see it's getting worse. And then you have other parts of the state where they have just enough water,

but they can't keep up with growth because the state's growing quite rapidly. And water is a sort of thing where it if you wait until you're out of it, then you're in deep, deep trouble because it takes a long time and a lot of investment to build up and have a water infrastructure that works. And the fact that we ignore it year after year after year, after year after year, means that the day will come when we're in deep trouble. And so we need to invest in water infrastructure. And there's a lot that we need to do. But you can't get the Republicans in the state to lift a finger. They don't waste any time on real problems. They spend all of their time

on these made-up culture war issues. Israel has sort of solved its water crisis with this desalinization, which is something that you could do because you're right on the ocean. The way I look at it is, You know, we have the world's best desalination operation available to us, and it's called sunshine. Right. So, you know, the whole idea is that when those water molecules find their way to earth, without any salt attached to them, that's a very valuable commodity. The desalination's already done. We just need to use it wisely. And to allow, you know, stormwater to run off and go down to the Gulf where it becomes salty, and you can't use it, it's just ridiculous.

There's a combination of conservation, fixing old leaking pipes, which is, you know, we haven't invested in infrastructure, so we lose an awful lot of fresh water that way. Land use, particularly along streams and rivers. So there's so many things that we can do before we turn our attention to desalination, where we can use much more efficiently the fresh water that's available to us. It seems to me, I mean, we saw this in Kansas and in Kentucky that Republicans went so off the, you know, went sort of so out in the mainstream and lost interest in what was happening at the state level that they actually lost their statewide positions. I mean, do you think that's possible in Texas? Oh, absolutely. I'm determined to see it happen in four and a half month. You know, when a Democrat wins a statewide office, the story that will be written will be that, that Republicans, Republicans wandered so far off from what they should be working on to win their primary

that they just could not come back and win a general election. That day is coming. There's no question. The only question is when, and I think it needs to be now for two very profound reasons. One, people are hurting and they're worried. Right. And we don't have time. And then second, there's a real concern that if they have enough time, they'll disable democracy.

Right. So that we can't hold them out. Yeah. And you probably saw the Republican convention. Yeah, let's talk about that state convention because that was wild stuff. Explain to our listeners what happened there. Well, a lot of bad things happened. And it just goes to show you.

I mean, where do we begin? First of all, the entire party now is complicit in the big lie. Right. It is now Republican Party orthodoxy that Joe Biden was not elected. And the election was stolen. The political leaders, they know exactly what they're doing. They're amping up the Republican primary voter because they want people to lose faith so that they can then manipulate the outcome of future elections. There's no question as to why they're doing this.

So that's one of the terrible things that happened. They're talking about secession, believe it or not, here in Texas. And it just goes to show you how unserious and off the charts they are. They are saying we don't want to teach sex education in the schools. They say that being LGBT is abnormal. And they are going, I mean, they are amping up the culture wars. amping up the big lie. And what's conspicuously absent from their discussion is they're not talking about fixing the grid. They're not talking about funding our schools. They're not talking about expanding

Medicaid. They're not talking about guns and gun safety. The things that are on Texans' minds that we want out of our leaders, they offer nothing. It's 100% red meat for a very, very small fraction of our state. I have two more questions. One is, it seems, And again, I'm not in Texas, so I don't know. But it seems like Beto has a real connection with Texans. Can you talk about that? Oh, well, I mean, the Democrats for sure love the guy. I do.

I mean, I'm one of Beto's biggest fans. We and I've got to know each other. What we saw when he ran against Ted Cruz was nothing short of miraculous. He is our best athlete, particularly when it comes to mobilizing people to go to the polls. And you've heard it said, and I do believe that Texas is not necessarily a red state. We're just a non-voting state. So the Republicans come out and vote with much more predictability and consistency than Democrats. And Beto is our best. And he's got, you know, many years of building his infrastructure, which is for the benefit of all Democrats.

So I think Beto is a very, very important part of this equation. I was absolutely delighted when he decided that he would run for governor. And he and I, you know, our messages are very the same, very, very similar, perhaps are even identical. But, you know, our manner of presenting is different. But that's good because he motivates Democrats. and there's an awful lot of folks out there, independence, and even Republicans that feel underrepresented. They don't agree what's happening with their party. They are receptive to new ideas and new people. And that, in my opinion, is one of my strong suits. So I think we complement each other quite well. We had a Democrat running for Texas's first district, Hank for Texas, running against Louis Gomer. Louis Gomer is now out of Congress because he dropped out of his

race. I'm sure he's being replaced by someone worse. But, I was curious. One of the things Hank told me after he lost was that the polls in some areas were not open. Are you worried about Hanky-Panky with the polls? We're all very worried about that. Hank Gilbert's a great guy, by the way. He and I got to know each other on the campaign trail. Yeah, we're big Hank for Texas fans.

Oh, yeah. So glad that he ran against Louis Gomer. No, I think everybody's worried and we ought to be worried. And because I think, as we mentioned earlier, there's no mistaking that Republicans, I do believe that they see that their days are numbered. They're having a much harder time, summoning voters to the polls to vote for them. That's one of the reasons why in my race I got close and Beto got close. Joe Biden in the race, he didn't win Texas, but he narrowed the gap relative to Hillary four years earlier by three percentage points.

So I have zero doubt that there's an element of the Republican Party that will do everything they can to disabled democracy. And it takes many forms, polling locations that you can't get to. I'm very concerned about poll watchers who are going to show up and harass people, frightened people. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if they show up with AR-15s to try to intimidate people to stay away from the polls. We're going to have to do an awful lot as Democrats to make sure that we counter that with the right measures, with folks that will be there and law enforcement and take all

the other steps to keep things cool, keep them calm, make sure that people can come in and vote and make sure that democracy has a fighting chance in Texas. Thank you so much for joining me. This was super interesting and you have a really good message. And it's, I mean, it's just really good to hear that Democrats are fighting in every state, you know. Well, I can tell you the Republicans have a fight on their hands. You know, we're looking at polls that show in my particular race, we're looking at polls that show us, Rice University did a poll before the Uvali crisis. It had me within six points, had Dan Patrick, my opponent, below 50%. I think he is a particular vulnerable. So we're determined to beat him and the headline's going to be. Democrat beats a Republican,

whether Beto punches through or I do or Rochelle Garza, who's running for Attorney General or with a lot of fine candidates. I think a very high likelihood that one of us is going to punch through and that'll make a world of difference. Not only in our state, but I believe it'll, to a very large extent, begin to reassure people who are worried about democracy, that if democracy can work in Texas, it can work. Yeah, it's a good point. Thank you so much, Mike. Thank you. I enjoyed it thoroughly. Julie Riginski and Gretchen Carlson are the founders of Lift Our Voices. Welcome, Julie, to the new abnormal. Thanks so much for having me, Molly.

And welcome Gretchen to the new abnormal. Thanks, Molly. Julie, for some people who may not have been here on the last time you came on the podcast, give us a tiny bit of backstory, how you met Gretchen and what you guys are working on. Well, Gretchen I met many, many years ago at Fox News. I was the Democratic voice of Fox News back when they still had one. I was a contributor there for a long time. About 10 months after Gretchen filed her lawsuit against Roger Ailes,

it really gave me and so many other women the courage to do the same. I remember quite clearly the day that she filed, I was still at Fox, and I remember having two distinct thoughts. The first was that this poor woman was going to be never heard from again and eviscerated by the most powerful man in media. And I'm so happy to say that I was entirely wrong about that. The second thought, which I think a lot of other people felt, was, oh my God, so it wasn't just me. And I think that's the crux of why Gretchen and I started lift our voices to make people understand

that this is not a unique problem to them, that this is a pandemic that has been long rampaging through the American workplace for generations now. And that what we need to do in order to have women, men, specifically, they're disenfranchised among us, whether it's women or people of color or members the LGBTQ community or others. Work with dignity and respect is to be able to air dirty laundry, clean up our workplaces, hold predators accountable, make survivors understand that they can continue to work with dignity and not sweep these kinds of issues under the rug. That is why I am committed to doing this and why Gretchen and I found it Lift Our Voices in 2019. So Gretchen, just give our listeners who are not totally versed on this a tiny bit of your story in

Julie's. Yeah, thanks, Molly. So unbelievably, it's coming up on the sixth anniversary, July 6th, of me filing my lawsuit against Roger Ailes for harassment while I was working at Fox News. And it took me a long time to build the courage to come forward. But when they fired me from a job I had killed myself for, I decided if I don't jump off the cliff, who will? I had no way of knowing, Molly, of course, that this was going to turn into this movement or that I'd be working on passing legislation on Capitol Hill or that I'd be forming a nonprofit lift our voices to try and solve this problem. But, you know, I've always been a hard worker in my life and I just rolled up my sleeves and got started. I heard from so many other women after I came forward and they all

shared with me that they had also been harassed or assaulted at work and then they were silenced. So there was this epidemic of harassment and assault that people were not aware of. But the bigger epidemic was that these silencing mechanisms in people's workplace contracts is what was keeping it all at bay. And so it was really like the perfect storm because my story came out, then others, you know, had the courage to come forward. And reporters started covering these stories. You and I both know we weren't covering the stories before. And then social media allowed it to become this huge deal. And the general public started paying attention and they got mad because they were like, holy shit, This is still going on in our country and why didn't we know about it? And we are here to tell you today that the reason you didn't know about it is because of these silencing mechanisms that we are working so hard to get rid of.

That's amazing. Julie, talk to me about the legislation that you guys are working on right now. So I'm so happy to say that this legislation, which we are very optimistic about, will ban NDA's non-disclosure agreements and non-disparagement agreements for anything related to sexual assault and harassment, which means that if you experience, sexual assault or harassment or critically if you witnessed sexual assault or harassment happening to somebody else, you are no longer bound by a non-disclosure agreement or a non-discharagement agreement. You're able to speak freely about that. That is an incredibly potent change in labor law in the American workplace. It really dovetails with the legislation that was signed into law by President Biden in March to eradicate forced arbitration for sexual harassment and assault. It will mean that people who are harassed or assaulted at work or those who witnessed it are able to actually talk about it because as anybody who's gone through the snows,

one of the worst elements of this is the silence, the culture of silence that's just imposed on you. You can't discuss it with anybody. You can't talk about it with your friends. You can't talk about it with your colleagues. You can't talk about it with your loved ones. You can't warn other colleagues potentially that there's a predator in their midst, which is just putting more and more people through the meat grinder. It makes abusers be able to keep their jobs.

well, it makes people who've been abused by them have to leave their jobs. And when not only when they leave their jobs, can they not discuss it with anybody. When they speak to their prospective employer, and a prospective employer says, hey, Molly, why did you leave that job where you worked for the last 10, 15 years? You have one or two choices because you can't say it legally. You can't tell the truth. You have to either say, I can't discuss that with you, which of course makes it look like you did something wrong,

or you have to just lie, which of course is no way to start a new job or a new career. So of the thousands of women, Greg Chen and I've spoken to, over the last five, six years, the vast majority don't just lose their jobs. They lose their careers because of these kinds of issues. They can't do anything about them. So the reality is that this will allow dirty laundry to be aired. It will allow people to hold their abusers accountable. It will allow workplaces to prevent this exodus of survivors who can't talk about why they're leaving their jobs, but nevertheless can't remain in their jobs because they don't want to be harassed assaulted anymore. And it really shines a spotlight on these kinds of abuses. And this is just the

beginning. Look, we could only get this done in Congress for sexual harassment and assault, but as a principle and as a general matter, lift our voices, supports, getting rid of NDAs for all toxic workplace issues, racial discrimination, gender discrimination, and so on. This is really the next fight in the Me Too movement, but it's also the next big step in labor law to making our workplace is much more respectful. Gretchen, I remember you told me that you were NDA. Is that right? Oh yeah. No, Julie and I both have NDAs still. I had two NDAs at Fox. I had an NDA upon employment, which this bill and eventually law, would get rid of. So one third of all Americans, unbelievably right now, when you start your first day at work, you're signing an NDA,

probably without knowing it, that's doing much more than just protecting trade secrets for the company, which we agree companies should be able to do. But these NDAs are now, upon unemployment telling you that you can't talk about anything that hasn't happened to you yet. It's crazy. So I had one of those at Fox. Then I had an NDA upon resolution with Fox. We have asked, of course, to get out of those NDAs because Fox has claimed that they've cleaned up their shop, but we've never had a response back from them about that. And actually, that was the impetus for forming Lift Our Voices was when we decided to demand that we got out of our NDAs and that they didn't respond. So we decided to work on our own to do something about it. So we are, Julie and I are still

bound by, you know, I worked there 11 years and I can barely tell you anything about my experience there. However, I was given the ability in my resolution to talk about the issue in general, and I have taken full advantage of that to make workplaces safer for millions of other people. So, and I also got a public apology, which back in the time was incredibly rare. But Julie and I both would have never signed our NDAs if we would have known that we were going to help to ignite a movement and that we'd actually be having a discussion six years later about not having to have NDAs anymore. It was just common practice before. So there's been a huge evolution. And look, if we pass this next bill right now, we passed the forced arbitration bill. I was with the president

on March 3rd when he signed it. This will be monumental in reshaping the workplace. It'll be two labor law changes bigger than anything in the last 100 years. So this is huge and tantamount to continuing the movement. Will this get you guys out of your NDAs? Nope. Oh, wow. It's not retroactive. So very important to note that if you have already entered into an NDA, this bill will not take care of that, unfortunately. I don't think anything has ever been signed or even brought to, to, Julie, maybe you know more about this. I don't even think that's ever been an option that would just open up a whole new can of worms for policies. But it is retroactive in this way, Molly, and it's very important to note this. Same with my arbitration bill that passed into law.

If you currently have a contract at work that has a forced arbitration clause, and when this new bill passes if you have an NDA that you signed on the first day of work, if you are harassed or assaulted, you do not have to abide by what your contract says. It's retroactive in that sense. You can know, and you have to tell your lawyer who will hopefully know, that you don't have to go to arbitration if you want to bring a case. You can go to an open jury process, and you also can now talk about it if this NDA bill passes. That's really important to know. Companies, unfortunately, will not be forced, in new contracts to put in a new clause that actually lets you know that you don't have to be forced into those things. So really, the onus is still on all of the employees across the country to

understand these new laws. But there are also pre-dispute NDAs in the sense that you will no longer be bound by an NDA for sexual harassment and assault if you don't sue. If you sue in an NDA is part of your settlement, then you're bound by the NDA. This bill is silent on NDAs through resolutions or settlements. So in other words, this bill only affects the NDA that you may have signed on your first day on the job. So go look at your contract. Do you have an NDA clause that says you cannot talk about anything that ever happened to you at work? That will no longer apply if this bill passes if you want to talk about harassment or assault.

However, if you then decide to bring a lawsuit, which you now can, because you can't be forced into arbitration, thanks to the other law passed, and you come into some sort of a resolution with the company, and they ask you to sign an NDA. Depending on what state you live in, you might have to choose that you want to do that. Of course, you always have the option that you don't have to sign the NDA. But in some cases, you know what companies will do, Molly, is they'll say, well, we'll give you a million dollars if you sign an NDA, and we'll give you $1 if you don't. So we are against NDAs upon settlements as well as an organization.

Congress cannot tell states what to do with regard to nondisclosures, and it gets very much into the weeds here, but that's why this is as far as the bill can go. But, Julie, why don't you talk about the efforts that we've been doing at the state level, which have are much more expansive and totally part of our strategy based on what I just said? Yeah, so, Molly, this all began on the state level partially as a result. of my personal situation. So I've been banned by two NDAs in my life. One was obviously with Fox News as a result of settlement, but one was also as a consultant to the governor of New Jersey, Phil Murphy,

who made me and other sign incredibly broad NDAs upon the first day of employment without us really understanding how broad they were. He had a pretty awful scandal that happened in his administration in 2018 when a woman, a young volunteer, came forward to allege that one of his senior aides had sexually assaulted her. This young woman who I didn't really know called me for advice and for help. And to my eternal regret, I was threatened with legal action by his attorney, so I couldn't help her. I couldn't tell her what I knew. I couldn't tell her which pitfalls to look out for. I couldn't tell her anything because I was threatened with lawsuits. If I were to speak to her for violating an NDA that I didn't really realize was as extensive as it was. As a result of

that, that really got me very much motivated to make sure that nobody else was ever going to be put in the position that she was put in as a survivor or that I was put in as a witness. And it was truly probably the darkest day of my life when she called me in tears and I could not help her to the extent that I wanted to. And as a result of that action, New Jersey passed the strongest and the first, it's not the strongest now, but the first NDA ban in the nation that banned NDAs for all toxic workplace experiences, not just sexual harassment and assault, but everything to do with anything from retaliation to discrimination. California then in 2019 passed similar legislation called the

Silence No More Act, which was enacted on January 1st of this year. And then Washington State followed suit and passed their own Silence No More Act, which gets rid of both non-disclosure agreements and non-disparagement agreements for all sorts of toxic workplace issues. And that's the strongest bill in legislation in the nation right now. We introduced legislation recently in New York state to do the same. It didn't pass this session, but we're hopefully will pass next session. And our belief is that when states act in this way, companies and organizations pay attention. And a great example of that is what happened when Washington State passed the legislation that it did. Microsoft then moved very quickly to eradicate NDAs and non-disparagement agreements

and a whole host of other silencing mechanisms for their workers, not just in Washington State where they had to, but worldwide. Salesforce did the same in California. And so as a result of that, companies are paying attention and it's affecting not just workers in the states that pass this legislation, but all workers who work for that company anywhere in the country or maybe even the world. That's incredibly important. That's the kind of legislation that will have lasting impact for generations of people all across the country. And that's why we're so committed to doing this not just at the federal level to the extent that we can, but also at the state level where it's even more important. Thank you guys so much. This was so interesting. Do either of you have any last thing? you want to say about this legislation. It's very exciting that you guys are getting done. I would just say that if people want to look it up, it's so brand new that the text isn't posted

yet, but eventually you can go to Congress.gov, and it's HR 8227. It's really easy to read. It's only two or three pages. You can also go to Lift Our Voices.org to learn much more about our work and how we're trying to help millions of people make workplaces safer. And then just the last thing I would add is for clarification on those state NDA laws. So if you were harassed or assaulted in New Jersey, California, or Washington State, that means that nobody can force you to sign an NDA when you start work, in the middle of you work, or if you settle a lawsuit. So that's why those state laws are so important.

If you live in other states, that's where it gets more dicey, where they're. could still try to force you to sign an NDA upon settlement. But our federal bill will get rid of it upon employment. That makes all sense. So just really important to point that out about how important the state work is because it really does matter where you live with regard to these types of things. And we're going to continue to work to put these into many more states. Thank you so much, you guys.

Yeah. Thanks so much, Molly. On that note, we'll wrap this episode of the new abnormal from The Daily Beast. In future episodes, we'll be talking to smart folks from The Daily Beast and beyond from media, culture, politics and science. We'll help us understand what's happening to our country and the world. We hope you'll subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app and share the show on social media. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll see you again on the next episode. Want more great listens?

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