Today, Explained - #MeToo's big betrayal

Episode Date: May 11, 2018

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman resigned Monday after four women accused him of physical assault. The news was a rough blow to the #MeToo movement, where Schneiderman was aiding an investigation into Harvey Weinstein. Today news broke that President Trump and his lawyer Michael Cohen were informed of the assault allegations years ago - around the time that Schneiderman and Trump were entangled in a legal battle over Trump University. The lawyer who told Cohen about the alleged abuse later said, “I realized… [Cohen] may want to use that information against his adversary.” Vox’s Anna North take us inside the story of Eric Schneiderman and its impact on #MeToo. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Feels like coming home. Let's jump on some mattresses. New York's Attorney General Eric Schneiderman was one of the biggest thorns in Donald Trump's side. Here's Samantha Bee losing her shit over him late last year. But there is hope on the horizon. A hero who stood up to democracy's nemesis before. Look up in the sky. It's a bird. It's a plane. Oh my God. It's a bird. It's a plane. Oh my God. He's...

He was also one of the biggest champions of the Me Too movement. Here he is in an interview with WNYC last week. I mean, look, the movement is extraordinary. I think it's changing the conversation. It is a part of what I see as this moment of social transformation and of the emergence of a new political movement. And just a few days later. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman built his career as a liberal progressive who stood up for women's rights. But on Monday, in a New Yorker report, the 63-year-old was described as a Dr. Jekyll and

Mr. Hyde who was physically and emotionally abusive in private toward four women. The Democratic Attorney General was one of the first officials to take action against Harvey Weinstein when he was accused of sexual misconduct. If any of these allegations against Eric Schneiderman are true, the hypocrisy is beyond belief. Anna North, senior reporter here at Vox. I mean, I feel like it's always a big deal when an attorney general resigns amid scandal, but Eric Schneiderman's resignation this week is an even bigger deal than usual? Yeah, it's a huge deal. And it's especially a huge deal right now, sort of in the context of Me Too, because Eric Schneiderman has been, you know, this longtime

big champion of women's rights. And specifically, one of the heroes of Me Too for a while there was really going after Harvey Weinstein in this lawsuit in February. And the suit itself, honestly, still remains sort of like required reading on the Harvey Weinstein in this lawsuit in February. And the suit itself honestly still remains sort of like required reading on the Harvey Weinstein case. It's just this really incredibly detailed document, goes through all these details of what different women have alleged and also of the ways that the company really allegedly covered up Weinstein's behavior and sort of enabled him. And so it's this incredible kind of like what not to do of sexual harassment and misconduct. And to see the person who kind of masterminded putting that together and was a crusader on this issue, being accused of these things himself is really difficult.

Before we get into what he has allegedly done, I'm wondering if you could just tell me a bit about Eric Schneiderman, his path, where he came from, where he was headed. Yeah, so, you know, he's New York's attorney general. He has been sort of a longtime progressive and a longtime kind of feminist. He just got an award from, I believe, the National Institute for Reproductive Health for sort of championing reproductive rights. In his acceptance speech for that award, he talked about working at an abortion clinic when he was just 17 years old. And I remember women pleading with doctors that they needed to go home sooner than the medical

staff thought was safe because they had not been able to tell anyone they were going to get an abortion and they had to fly back home before their employer or parents or very often their husband learned that they had left town so i learned an important lesson at a young age if a woman does not have the right to control her own body She is not truly equal. And earlier in his career, he also championed a law that actually involved penalties for strangulation, which is something that he was accused of. We've begun a long overdue reckoning with our culture of violence and silence. You know, so he's been this anti-domestic violence advocate. He's been this reproductive rights advocate, you know, and then as attorney general, of

course, this kind of me too advocate. And he was, I think, probably eyeing bigger office. So what are the specific allegations against Schneiderman and who's making them? There are four women who are featured in this New Yorker story that came out on Monday night, and two of the women have come out under their names. We have Michelle Manning Barish and Tanya Selva Ratnam, and then two of the women in the story are anonymous. But they all basically allege some sort of physical abuse, in most cases in the context of a romantic relationship. Tanya Selvaretnam said she met Schneiderman in 2016 and described her relationship with him as a fairy tale that became a nightmare.

She alleged he would frequently slap her across the face, choke her, and spit on her. It wasn't consensual, she said. This wasn't sexual play acting. Some of the details are really chilling. Barish talks about at one point, she says that Schneiderman choked her and also slapped her in the ear so hard that she had problems with her ear for months. And at one point, blood trickled out of her ear down to her collarbone. And the story paints a picture of a pattern. It's very disturbing. It seems like everything here happened pretty quickly. Tell me about how he responded after these allegations were published in The New Yorker on Monday. He says that he has never assaulted anyone and that he's never engaged in any kind of nonconsensual sexual activity.

So he essentially denies the allegations in the story. And then also saying that they, you know, relate to personal conduct and not professional conduct, but that they were just going to impede his ability to do his work as attorney general. So because of that, he was resigning. Was he asked to resign by the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo? Yeah. I mean, the governor of New York tweeted about that, so we do know. Do you know what he tweeted? I don't follow Cuomo on Twitter. Oh, you should. It's the good stuff, gold mine. On Monday night, Governor Cuomo did tweet a statement saying, you know, no one is above the law, including New York's top legal officer.

He mentions that he will be asking for an investigation. And then he says, given the damning pattern of facts and corroboration laid out in the New Yorker article, I do not believe it is possible for Eric Schneiderman to continue to serve as attorney general and for the good of the office, he should resign. What does that mean for Eric Schneiderman's work for his Harvey Weinstein investigation and all the other cases he was pursuing? Yeah, that's a really good question. And that was actually the first one of the first questions that came to my mind when I saw that he had resigned, according to the AG's office, they are going to continue work on the civil rights lawsuit against Weinstein. Cuomo had directed Schneiderman's office to investigate the Manhattan DA's office because it was the Manhattan DA, Cy Vance, who had been in charge of investigating when Harvey Weinstein was accused of sexual assault in 2015.

And that was just spinning up. I mean, Schneiderman had announced the beginning of that investigation like last week. I'm not sure what's going to happen with that, especially since now the DA's office is going to investigate Schneiderman. It's obviously a bizarre turn of events, and I don't think we know what's going to happen with that state investigation. Is there something about New York where, you know, you had Eliot Spitzer, Anthony Weiner, and now Eric Schneiderman, like something in the water, the high profile Democrats who all get in the same kind of trouble, it seems? I mean, look, New York politics is famous for

criminals. The state does not have a good record when it comes to its elected officials. And a few years back, Trump actually tweeted, quote, Wiener is gone. Spitzer is gone. Next will be lightweight AG Eric Snyderman. Is he a crook? Wait and see. Worse than Spitzer or Wiener. That was March of 2013. Wow. And has the president tweeted since Schneiderman resigned? Well, a number of the president's associates have been really crowing about this. You know, Kellyanne Conway, I think, tweeted something like, gotcha. Donald Trump Jr. has tweeted multiple times about Schneiderman, including making some jokes about Schneiderman's eyeliner that I don't fully understand. Does he wear eyeliner? I'm sorry, I know it's not relevant, but it looks like he does. I've looked into this issue, Sean.

I don't feel like it looks that much like he's wearing eyeliner. I don't know. Maybe I'm not like eyeliner sensitive. Is the reason Kellyanne Conway and Donald Trump Jr. are tweeting about Schneiderman because he was something of like a thorn in the president's side? Yes, he was a big thorn in the president's side. So he was involved in litigation around Trump University that resulted in a multi-million dollar settlement against Trump. He was one of the first attorneys general to come out and start explaining the powers that state attorneys general have to confront this presidency, even before there was a special prosecutor on issues like the Muslim ban that the president tried to introduce and other policies.

Eric Schneiderman was one of the attorneys general leading the resistance to the Trump presidency. So he's caused problems for the president in the past and potentially was going to cause problems for him in the future. Is there a special place in hell for men who act like feminists and treat women like trash? That's after the break. This is Today Explained. Jamal, this is a great store you've got here. Absolutely. Upstairs. Second floor. That is a great store you've got here. Absolutely. Upstairs.

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I love it. The thing that's obviously shocking about this, Anna, is that Eric Schneiderman seemed like a quote unquote good guy in this Me Too movement. How do we make sense of people being such aggressive advocates for women and then having these really, really terrifying sort of demons in their closets, allegedly? You know, I don't know how someone reconciles doing public work against violence and then committing violence in private. I don't know how you compartmentalize those things. To me, the biggest takeaway seems to be that no one is immune to this.

And just because someone has good politics in the public sphere, just because someone has been like a really active advocate for women or a really active advocate against sexual violence, against sexual harassment, unfortunately does not mean that they don't engage in this stuff in their private lives. And he's not the only example of this, right? Like a high-profile man who purports to be a feminist who then has these allegations made against him?

No, I mean, you know, we've seen this time and time again. You know, we saw it with Al Franken, who had worked on a lot of legislation that was good for women. And at the same time, he was accused of groping women or trying to kiss them or forcibly kissing them. Goes back to Bill Clinton, too. You know, he was a supporter of reproductive rights. He, you know, signed the Family Medical Leave Act. He did a lot of things that, you know, could be seen as very pro-woman. And he also had a sexual relationship with an intern while he was the president. And then he was also accused of rape and he was accused of sexual misconduct by a number of other women. And he has denied those accusations. He's always denied that, but they're out there. Liberals do that again and again. Why? What's that about? I would contend these are

mechanisms for their own power. They use them. And on the left, you get protected because you've already convinced everyone else that you're not the enemy. There's sort of examples among cultural figures, too. So you can look at Junot Diaz about how he sort of called out toxic

masculinity, and then he's been accused of forcibly kissing someone, he's been accused of bullying women. And then you have someone like Louis C.K. How do women still go out with guys when you consider the fact that there is no greater threat to women than men? We're the number one threat to women. Globally and historically, we're the number one cause of injury and mayhem to women.

We're the worst thing that ever happens to them. That's true. You know what our number one threat is? Heart disease. That's the whole thing. That's it. Just our own heart going, dude, I can't. You can't keep doing this.

Certainly he was lauded as someone who was like really woke and understood sort of gender politics and you know, while his show got criticized sometimes, he seemed like someone who really got it to a lot of people. He was accused and in fact, he has admitted to

almost all of the allegations that he was accused of in terms of basically masturbating in front of women without their consent. These allegations against Eric Schneiderman, his victims allege abuse that's years old. I wonder when your abuser is someone who purports to be a feminist and is doing work that is important in this case, the Harvey Weinstein investigation, does that make it that much harder to come out and speak on the past abuse? Yeah, and I mean, some other women talk about that directly. Like they'll say, you know, it was hard to talk about this

because he was this champion for women. I wasn't sure if I should come forward. The New Yorker writes about one accuser saying, quote, it's torturous for me to do this, as she puts it. But what do you know, thinking like this is such hypocrisy. I don't want this to be able to continue. And we've seen, you know, these kinds of decision processes happening a lot. I think with women who have spoken out as part of Me Too, it's always really difficult to call out a high profile person, especially a high profile man for these kinds of things. It's doubly hard

to call that person out under your own name. You know, you're going to get harassment, you're going to get second guessed. And calling out in the case of Say Schneiderman, someone whose work is really highly regarded. How can women evaluate like purported male allies? Is that even possible to, I don't even know if this question makes sense. Does that – is there a way to know if you're a woman, like whether you can trust the men around you or not? I mean, Jesus Christ. I think it's a really good question.

I think we should talk about it. I think – this is such an important question and it's hard to answer. I don't think that it's like men are uniquely bad and I don't think women are uniquely good. I think if we saw women, you know, in all the high profile powerful positions that we saw men in in society and if we like were raising women the way that we raise men

to be like, you deserve to get what you want, I think we'd see the same kinds of things. So I think a lot of this is really a question of power. I don't know how you decide how to trust someone on a personal level, but I do think it's good to have a healthy suspicion of people who are powerful. And I think we can sort of broaden that out and say less, you know, like, we should mistrust powerful men and more, let's look at the ways that we give power to people in the society, right? Let's look at how people in government are treated. Let's look at how people in corporate America are treated.

And let's say, you know, if we've instituted systems where, like, there are enormous power imbalances between a few men at the top and everybody else down below, that's going to breed abuse, even in progressive organizations and even by people who might think of themselves as, oh, I could never be an abuser. How about this?

It's really hard to know who's good and who's bad. But since you've been covering this forever, I wonder if you've picked up on any patterns for men to know whether their purported feminism is bullshit or authentic or ways to be a good male feminist without fucking it up. Yeah, I mean, I can totally give advice on that. Sweet. Don't abuse or harass people. That's one. That's easy. No, no, no.

You think that's easy. But I mean, I think it's easy not to do the things that Eric Schneiderman is accused of. But I think I've heard from men a lot of confusion about what is harassment and can I do anything these days and whatever. And I do think like, you know, the message that I want to send is like a pretty basic sort of golden rule of how would you want to be treated in the workplace or in a relationship. And you'll hear people say like, well, can I compliment someone's shoes or whatever? And it's, you know, I don't think anybody's going to try to throw you in jail because you said nice shoes. A lot of what we've seen as part of Me Too is women really coming forward and saying I couldn't do my job because of the way that this man was treating me or I felt afraid in my relationship

and I did not feel safe because of the way this man was treating me that's what you have to ask yourself and it's okay to check in about that stuff and it's okay to communicate about it and it's hard but I think that's been one of's okay to communicate about it, and it's hard. But I think that's been one of the really good things about the last few months, is that people are talking about this. And as awkward as it is, I think it's fine to ask the women in your life if you're screwing up, and they'll tell you. If they like you, they'll tell you.

Anna North writes about gender for Vox. I'm Sean Rottmisfirm. This is Today Explained. And as for men like Eric Schneiderman, we really don't need them. You know who's a better advocate for women? Women! The future... The future really is female,

or at least it better be, because I am done with this shit. Jamal, I'm so glad we came in here today and met you. Thank you. You seem like such a great character. You didn't welcome us by saying like, hey, why are you yelling in my matches firm? You welcomed us by yelling back. You guys, I love you guys, man. We love you too, man.

Thanks. We love you a lot. I'll take one of each. Yeah. Please send your friends. Okay, dude. We're telling a lot of people, I promise.