What A Day - How Sexual Misconduct Became Part of the MAGA Cause

Episode Date: November 23, 2024

If there’s something that many of Trump’s cabinet nominees have in common, it is being credibly accused of sexual assault. Why is Trump—and MAGA world more widely—so enthusiastic about not just tolerating but elevating men with sordid, even criminal, pasts? There’s Matt Gaetz, Trump’s pick for US Attorney General, who withdraw from consideration on Thursday after yet another allegation of sex trafficking Then there’s Pete Hegseth, Trump’s slimy nominee for Secretary of Defense—not to mention Trump himself! Kavanaugh, RFK Jr., Herbster…the list goes on. This week on How We Got Here, Erin and Max interrogate why MAGA is appealing to sexually abusive men, and to what extent voters pulled the lever for Trump despite his rampant misogyny, versus because of it.

So Max, I was looking through the Trump cabinet nominees and administration hangers on so far, and I noticed a trend. Is it middle-aged male divorces with court-limited custody rights? No, try again. Are they collectively the majority shareholders in an obscure cryptocurrency named for one of the January 6th insurrectionists? Is there a cryptocurrency name for the January 6th insurrectionists? We could become really rich.

I know, but it's not that either. It's not that either. No, if there's one thing that so many Trump nominees already have in common, it is being credibly accused of sexual misconduct. Oh yeah, there's Matt Gaetz, Trump's nominee for attorney general. And while Gaetz did withdraw himself from consideration on Thursday, there's also Pete Hegseth, his nominee for secretary of defense. And there are others.

Oh, there are others. We are only two weeks in and it's already like Trump's transition team. Better hope there aren't any government buildings located within a thousand feet of an elementary school. I'm Max Fisher. I'm Erin Ryan. And this is How We Got Here, a series where we explore a big question behind the week's headlines and tell a story that answers that question. And a quick content warning before we get to the question. Today we discuss sexual misconduct

and assault. And so if those are sensitive topics for you, please take care while listening. Our question this week, why is Trump and MAGAworld more widely so enthusiastic about not just tolerating, but it seems to me like seeking out and elevating male sexual assaulters. Because it's not like Trump didn't know Gates was accused of, among other things, paying for sex with an underage girl. Gates, a congressman from Florida, has been an utter pariah in the House ever since it opened an investigation into the charges a few years ago.

Right, and not only did Trump pick him anyway, he then turned around and nominated Pete Hegseth for defense Secretary. And it's not like Hegseth had some glowing military career that made him a natural for the job. The most notable things about him are that he was the third chair on the weekend episodes of a Fox News show, and that in 2017, a woman who helped run a conservative conference accused him of luring her up to his hotel room and raping her. Oh, and there are others too who we will get to. And the one thing that gets me is that Trump and his team have given no real indication that they have an actual problem with this. Like, yes,

Gates dropped out, but that was only after Senate Republicans made clear they were not going to approve him. We're a long way from the 2016 election when Trump's team at least made a show of downplaying the more than two dozen allegations of sexual misconduct against him. And it doesn't feel like a coincidence that they keep elevating men with these records. I'm not saying they're picking these guys because they are credibly accused of sexual assault or other sexual crimes, but there is something going on here. And that something is what we're talking about this week. I had no interview this episode because, you know, Erin, we've already got the world's

leading expert in and chronicler of sexually abusive men in positions of power, otherwise known as the institutional misogyny beat, the rape culture beat, or simply the shitty man beat. Oh my God, Max, unfortunately, I am not the world leading expert on this, but this was and is my beat. So hit me. All right, well, let's start by going back to the 2016 Access Hollywood tape. I've got to use some Tic Tacs just in case they start kissing her.

You know, I'm automatically attracted to beautiful, I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. I just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a a star they let you do it you can do anything whatever you want grab them by the pussy do anything and I was sure that this would sink Trump if not by horrifying voters generally that at least by turning women against him and I was not alone there's reporting that a lot of prominent Republicans like Mitch McConnell thought and even hoped that Trump getting caught bragging about sexual assault would make him

unelectable. Even people in the Trump campaign thought it was unsurvivable and we were all wrong. What was your reaction to the tape when it first came out? What did you think it was going to do? Well, I can tell you one thing. I knew that I wasn't going to be able to go to the Cigarose concert that I had tickets to that night in Brooklyn. It was my first week working at the Daily Beast and it was a Friday and it came out in the afternoon and I remember thinking, oh, this guy is completely toast. It was only not long after Michael Cohen went on, I want to say CNN, and had that really funny exchange with an anchor where he said polls showed that they were winning the election and everybody laughed.

I had forgotten about that. Right. Yes. Because Trump was down everywhere. Right. And everyone thought, oh well. This is the nail in the coffin. This is the nail in the coffin.

And honestly, I think that there are some people now in retrospect who after this came out were like, you know what, I wasn't that enthusiastic about Hillary Clinton anyway, so now I definitely don't have to go to the polls and vote for her because she's definitely going to win now because it's over. Everyone was so confident and we were so wrong. And that tape is so gross. It's still, listening to it eight years later, it's still really upsetting. Well, we are going to get to what we got wrong or what changed, but I feel like a big turning point in both the politics around sexual assault and how we thought about it came two years

later during the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation hearings when several Republican senators initially expressed concerns when sexual assault allegations came out against him. I am here today not because I want to be. I am terrified. I am here because I believe it is my civic duty to tell you what happened to me while Brett Kavanaugh and I were in high school.

I believed he was going to rape me. I tried to yell for help. When I did, Brett put his hand over my mouth to stop me from yelling. This is what terrified me the most and has had the most lasting impact on my life. It was hard for me to breathe. And I thought that Brett was accidentally going to kill me.

That was Christine Blasey Ford testifying at Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings. I think back to the hostile questioning that she got during those hearings and the accusations that she made it up for attention or money. I think about Kavanaugh not just denying it, but portraying himself as the victim

of these evil accusers and promising revenge against Democrats. This confirmation process has become a national disgrace. The Constitution gives the Senate an important role in the confirmation process. But you have replaced advice and consent with search and destroy. And then all those senators who had expressed so much concern over the accusations against Kavanaugh voted to confirm him anyway. Aaron, what did you take away from that episode?

Did it feel like a change to you in right-wing attitudes on sexual assault? Oh, gosh. I remember it being really upsetting to watch the whole thing go down, and I think a lot of women were really upset by watching it as well. What it felt like to me was that it was a great example of Republicans trying to do the thing where they give voters permission to continue supporting them by doing a sort of concern kabuki. When it comes to sexual misconduct allegations, people like Susan Collins just kind of frowning as hard

as she possibly could in the direction of Kavanaugh, but then voting to confirm him thinking that like she gets to, you know, shaker, wagging the finger is going to be enough punishment. And, you know, and we see this time and time again also where accusers like Kavanaugh's accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, they're accused of seeking money or fame. And you know, if that was the case, there would be a lot more rich and famous sexual assault accusers. Like, what is she doing now? Is she a billionaire? No. And he sits on the Supreme Court. And yet that argument is deployed every single time a powerful man is accused of sexual misconduct and the

woman who is accusing him comes forward publicly and identifies herself. It's always, oh, she's looking for fame. Who has gotten rich and famous off of this? I actually think that that is really instructive for how this fits into the, I think a really important turning point in the larger story of attitudes in our politics towards sexual assault because Susan Collins and other senators, not just her but she was someone who really put herself out in front on this. Part of her pivot, which she initially expressed a lot of concern and part of how she justified

and couched voting to convert Kaminah in the end was that she really felt that he was the victim here and terrible injustice had been done to him. And I think there was this sense in that he conveys in his testimony too and a lot of the rallying around him on the right was the mere fact of trying to hold someone accountable is the real injustice and kind of the real crime. And I think that this, to my mind, this fits into a larger backlash against MeToo. And I think this, you know, the refrain you always hear is like, oh, well, he's no Harvey Weinstein. And I think there was this sense that there is something wrong. It's that line that when you're used to privilege your whole life, equality feels like...

that when you're used to privilege your whole life, equality feels like... Oppression. Oppression, right. And I think that when it's like, oh, if men like Brett Kavanaugh are going to be, quote-unquote, targeted by accountability for sexual assault or for sexual indiscretion, then that is oppression. And that there's something wrong and evil about that. And I think that led to this backlash and this sense that I don't even know that it was a sense that he was innocent. I think it was a sense of like, well, you know, he was in college and boys will be boys. And how, you know, how far are we going to go here? Mm hmm.

100%. And actually, you just when you were talking just now, it made me remember where my head was at back then. And I think I misinterpreted what was going on on the Republican side, because I thought that they were alleging that Kavanaugh never did those things. Like, that, oh, he didn't do that, she's making it up. But I think now, and what we'll get into more of this, it's sort of like, he did, but it doesn't matter. Like he did, but so what? Because whatever he did is like something that guys just do.

And if he can get, like you said, if he can get nabbed for it, then anybody can. Well, you can only get nabbed for it if you did something like that, right? It's not like any guy can just, you know, it's like if somebody said, oh, if, you know, I don't know, if this woman can be nabbed for a hit and run, then anybody can.

It's like, no, because I've never hit and run anybody. I'm understanding now that there was a disconnect between what they wanted Democrats to believe, which is like, well, we don't think he did this at all, and what Republicans actually believe, which is that it doesn't matter if he did it. Right. And that the real evil here and the real crime is that someone might try to hold him accountable. The real evil and the real crime is saying that that is not acceptable. Because it is acceptable because like, just suck it up, buttercup, and live your life

and get over it. Because the only thing that matters is not impeding the advancement of powerful men to the roles that they're entitled to occupy. Well, I think something that really speaks to that change is that when the Access Hollywood tape had came out in 2016, Trump downplayed it as locker room talk that didn't represent how we thought about women and, oh, it was, you know, we were just guys being guys. But by the 2020s, he was defending the Access Hollywood tape, including, and I still cannot believe this is true,

in a taped deposition in 2022 for a lawsuit brought by the writer E. Jean Carroll, who says that Trump raped her in the mid-'90s. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything. That's what you said, correct? Well, historically, that's true with stars. It's true with stars that they can grab women by the pussy, you could do anything. That's what you said, correct? Well, historically, that's true with stars.

It's true with stars that they can grab women by the pussy? Well, that's what, if you look over the last million years, I guess that's been largely true, not always, but largely true, unfortunately or fortunately. And you consider yourself to be a star? I think you can say that, yeah. Unfortunately or fortunately. Or fortunately.

Yeah. Later in that same deposition, Carroll's attorney played a clip of Trump at a rally, mocking another journalist who had accused him of sexual assault, saying that she, quote, wouldn't be his first choice. Say, oh, I was with Donald Trump in 1980. Nothing changes. I was sitting with him on an airplane. And he went after me on the plane. Yeah, I'm with Donald Trump in 1980. Nothing changes. I was sitting with him on an airplane and he went after me on the plane. Yeah, I'm going to go after him.

Believe me, she would not be my first choice, that I can tell you. Man, you don't know. That would not be my first choice. And in response to being played this clip at his deposition, Trump then, you know what, I'm not even going to tell you, let's just play it. When you said in that video that Ms. Leeds would not be your first choice, you were referring to her physical looks, correct? Just the overall, I look at her, I see her, I hear what she says, whatever.

You wouldn't be a choice of mine either, to be honest with you. I hope you're not insulted. I would not, under any circumstances, have any interest in you. I'm being, I'm honest when I say it. She, I would not have any interest in. So to be clear, he is saying that he would not want to sexually assault the lawyer who is deposing him. Ugh, well how insulting to her. Are we supposed to, sorry, are we supposed to take it as a compliment?

Yes. Like getting sexually assaulted? Assaulted is, well, that's the rightful order. Is men, is powerful men sexually assaulted women? So it feels like at some point Trump went from treating sexual assault allegations or sexual assault itself as a political liability to be downplayed to something to be proud of. What do you think changed in those four or five years, Erin? I think he started saying it in front of crowds and getting laughs. I think Donald

Trump is lacking the part in his brain that can differentiate between good attention and bad attention, and that is his superpower because he understands that attention is attention is attention. If Donald Trump were a character in Veep, those would be like very funny, like I can't believe he's saying that. They're funny lines. But this is real life. And I feel like there's a detachment when people process political news, like we're just watching a performance rather than watching somebody talk about something that they really did to another human being that hurt them. And I think that that is a realization that Trump has embraced and gone with over the last four years.

I think Trump in his first term gave a lot of people permission to brush sexual assault under the rug to commit it and to say it doesn't count because I'm a powerful man so I deserve to. And then I think a lot of his supporters and people at his rallies gave him permission to turn that into a badge of pride and to say, not just am I going to get away with it, but fuck you, I actually think it's great that I did it. And like- Isn't it funny?

Right. Isn't it actually funny that I commit sexual assault? Yeah. Isn't it funny? Right, isn't it actually funny that I commit sexual assault? Yeah, and I think that part of the evolution of Trumpism has gone from promising to do terrible things to being proud of the fact that it makes people scared and upset, and I think that's part of why people like it. I think that's part of why people are drawn to it, because it's a promise that you can do whatever you want

and you get to feel powerful, and if they try to come for you or hold you accountable, then just promise to threaten, make a joke about sexually assaulting them during your own deposition. Well, Trump is filling out his new administration, Aaron, and so far it is looking like a lot of men who are credibly accused of sexual harassment, assault, and rape. We mentioned the Matt Gaetz and Pete Hegseth allegations at the top of the show, and we're going to talk more about Hegseth allegations at the top of the show. And we're going to talk more about Hegseth because the details there are absolutely horrifying. But Erin, can you run through some of the others for us? Oh my God.

Okay. I'm just going to give you an overarching Trump, like, thousand foot view. First of all, Trump has a bag of trick, right? He only knows how to do one thing and he does it over and over again in like his business ventures everything. In his first administration, he had a history of defending people credibly accused of sexual misconduct almost to the point of like it feel it felt like a waste of time. Like, why are you fighting for this person so hard? The one I think of most specifically was there was like a mid-level White House aide named

Rob Porter, who was not that important, but it came out that two of his ex-wives, he had two ex-wives who both had accused him of domestic violence, and Trump like went to the mat for him. It was so bizarre at the time. And- That was the thing he was expending political credibility on. Yes, exactly.

And he expended political credibility on nominating Alex Acosta to be the secretary of labor after his wife had gone on, I believe, Oprah in the 80s to talk about the abuse that she'd suffered at the hands of her powerful husband, who she did not name at the time. It feels like part of Trump's pattern is to be an avatar for men who want to be free to just be sex pests.

And that even extends to this administration, right? So now we have RFK Jr., brain worm-infested whale surgeon, who is on the cusp of becoming the secretary of health and human services. But you know, in addition to all the weird shit he's done to animal carcasses, he has done things that are not great to women. He's a serial philanderer and you know, there's also some other stuff I told my wife the other day I said I got so many skeletons in my closet that if they could vote I could be king of the world

Why would the skeletons vote Skeletons can vote no, but if you have skeletons in your closet Why would they be like we're voting for the guy who put us in the closet, who turned us into skeletons? That makes no sense. And also, you know, Elon Musk has a history of just, he's a pronatalist, which is like an aggressively creepy stance anyway. Pronatalists are people who are like obsessed with the birth rate. Okay, in fairness, you and I did record an entire episode on the birth rate.

I am not a pronatalist. I think it is an interesting economic question. You would say that you're just asking questions. I'm just asking questions, yeah. But you know, Elon Musk has multiple exes who have accused him of being like being there when their first son passed away of Sid's when he was just a baby. Like there's all this awful stuff and awful ways that Musk has treated women, awful ways that Musk speaks about women. According to a Wall Street Journal report, Musk has had sexual relationships with several of his employees and has engaged in sexual harassment once exposed himself to a flight attendant. There is also Trump is reportedly considering appointing business executive and donor Charles

Herbster as his Secretary of Agriculture. During his 2022 campaign, Herbster was accused by nine different women of forcibly groping and kissing him. Let's list a few more. Herman Cain, he aligned himself with. Herman Cain had some pretty credible accusations against him. He's also gone to the mat for Elliott Broidy, a prominent Republican donor. He has defended Steve Wynn, who I remember when Steve Wynn had all those allegations come out against him back during Me Too, and nobody really cared because the people he was alleged to have assaulted were disempowered employees at his casinos and hotels.

It would take less time for me to talk about people who have not been credibly accused of sexual misconduct in Trump's inner circles than it would be for me to go through all the people who have. Well, Erin, we're going to talk about the bottom-up part of this and why we think voters are okay with or maybe even supportive of this, but let's talk about the top-down piece of this. Why do we think it is that Magelworld attracts and empowers men who have these records of sexual assault over and over again? Is it just that Trump tends to collect political outcasts, or do you think there's something more about his politics that is specifically appealing to sexually abusive men?

I think that Donald Trump is essentially someone who is running to be the avatar and head of a patriarchal structure that is going extinct and causing many of the people who were depending on that for self-worth to spiral into a panic over that. The Make America Great Again that Trump is advertising is one where men, white cis men with property are in charge of literally everybody and everything around them and can do whatever they want to whoever they want at all times. And even though a lot of the people that vote for Donald Trump would never be the people that were at the top of the pyramid, you know, I think

the old joke is, you know, a lot of hundred heirs are supporting these billionaires. These are people that fantasize about having the right to have dominion over things in their life that they don't have power over, that they think they're entitled to have power over. And it feels like a feature and not a bug. And I also think that there's something very performative about how Donald Trump does everything. You know, he, he appoints his cabinet like he's casting a reality show. And I think that he wants to surround himself with a cast of people who do things that can be rooted for by his fans. Like people who don't understand that what is happening is real and the things that they're happening to are real people.

Like people who don't think that women are full human beings and so what happens to them is funny. Right. Um, and, and the only thing that matters is that men get what they want all the time. I think for me it feels like it is very much of a piece of his embrace of dictators and how much he seems to really, really admire strong men rulers who also are very cruel to their people. I think that he sees interpersonal cruelty as a sign of strength. And I think that he sees it, I think he sees corruption the same way. I think that he sees it as all part of this club of like, we are the rightful, like you were saying,

we're the kind of rightful people who are in charge, whether that's by gender, race, just being culturally conservative, and that if you take by force whatever you want from other people, that shows that you're strong and that you're powerful. And if you're not part of that group, the only way for you to not be the people most victimized is to align yourself with the powerful people, to like get under their skirts, essentially hide behind them. And you know, as we're going to see as we continue talking about this, that just simply isn't the case.

Yeah. Well, I think you could also argue that Trump nominating accused sexual assaulters is of a piece with the campaign that he ran this year. At rallies, he called Nancy Pelosi a bitch. He joked about making Kamala Harris fight Mike Tyson, agreed with the rallyer who called Harris a prostitute, said he would protect women, quote, whether the women like it or not. Elon Musk's Super PAC ran an ad with the tagline, Kamala Harris is a C word, the very funny joke there, of course, being that the word was communist.

And Trump picked as his VP Senator, J.D. Vance, who has a now well-documented fixation on women most famously by calling liberal women, quote, a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable in their own lives and the choices that they've made. I think what surprises me even more than Trump campaigning on misogyny is that voters went for it. Erin what is your read on that? To what extent were voters pulling the lever for Trump despite the misogyny and the proud embrace of sexual assault versus because of it. I think there is a distinct portion of Trump voters who are attracted to Donald Trump because he is a sex pest who surrounds himself by sex pests and has made it clear that it doesn't

really matter if you're a sex pest because that means that you take what you want, right? But I also think that it's not necessarily about people wanting to vote for Trump, it's about people not wanting to vote for Kamala Harris. And the reason for that comes from the same root as Trump's feeling entitled to women who he finds attractive. It is misogyny and racism. I think that people couldn't bring themselves to vote for Kamala Harris because in their minds they could not fathom having a woman who is black being above them.

And I don't think that's something that will ever be represented in polling data because people don't admit to that. I think most women, especially black women, know that there are a lot of people in this country that have a huge problem with women and specifically women of color being elevated above them because they believe that their station is naturally higher than somebody like Kamala Harris no matter how smart she is, no matter how well she does in a debate, no matter how good her plans are that would like directly benefit them economically, they just cannot square the idea of a black

woman being higher in station than them. Yeah. I think my read, and to be clear I'm not here referring to all people who voted for Trump or maybe even the majority of people voted for Trump, but I think this would, I think this applies to a real like core, hardcore MAGA constituency based on interviews with them, based on talking to them myself, based on a lot of the reporting that you read from the rallies. I think that there is a part of the base that likes the misogyny and likes the sexual assault, even if it's not specifically for that, then for what it says and for what it gives them

permission for, which I think is the same thing with the promise of mass deportations, the same thing with the promises that he made in 2016 to impose a Muslim travel ban, which is that if you are one of us, you get to do whatever you want. You get to be the oppressor, you get to treat people however you want,

you get to be cruel, mean, take whatever you want from the world, and you get to do whatever you want. You get to be the oppressor. You get to treat people however you want. You get to be cruel, mean, take whatever you want from the world, and you get to be selfish. And I think that is exciting to some people. I feel like we're both a little bit web poisoned that we need to qualify what we're saying by saying, of course we're not talking about every single Trump voter. No. It's millions and millions of people. But to deny that we live in a country where racism and sexism

impact the way that people vote or impact the reason that they would show up to a Trump rally, that's just delusional. There are racists and sexists in this country, and even those of us who think that we are immune from it, probably have a little touch of it. And that's just reality. Well, that brings me to an important question, because one of the many tanks of copium that I was huffing in the run-up to the vote was... Sorry. I love any opium wordplay.

I had the copium, I had the hopium, I had it all going. And then you got hit with some nopium. Well, the copium that I was huffing was that all of this would lead women to turn out in huge numbers against Trump. And boy was I naive because women did turn out against Trump, but by narrow margins that they had in previous elections. In 2020, women voted 55 to 44 for Biden according to AP Votecast surveys. And in 2024, that narrowed to 53

to 46 for Harris. So the gender gap shrank from 12 points to seven points. Erin, what do you make of that? I am perpetually disappointed in white women as a voting block. I gotta say. But it wasn't just, it was Latino women also polled many points in his direction. Millennial women stayed pretty much the same. It's true. And women over 65 actually flipped.

They did. So I gotta hand it to the boomers for once. What I make of that is that the Trump campaign successfully changed the subject about what it means to be protected as a woman and what we need to be protected from. The Trump campaign made the conversation be about protecting women from trans women being in locker rooms and bathrooms, which is so silly because like, how would you know? That's my question.

Like if you go to the bathroom and there is a trans woman also in the bathroom, how would you know? That's my question. Like if you go to the bathroom and there is a trans woman also in the bathroom, how would you even know? I know. How would you know? Why are you even, what are you looking at? Why do you care? Why are you thinking about what I, when I am like in the stall, I'm not like, what are the other pussies in here look? How does every, how does everyone's junk look? I'm picturing your junk right now. Like I'm not- Well, that's why you're not Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace.

Yeah, it's really weird. And so they changed the conversation to make it about safety is about closed borders and closed bathrooms instead of safety is about not filling the government with sex pests. Because if you are somebody who's been victimized by a sex pest, first of all, boys will be boys. And second of all, you probably, as the victim, could have been doing something differently to prevent it from happening. And that's what I think probably happened. And I also think, you know, also don't want to just like harp on this too much,

but also like racism and internalized misogyny is something that impacts a lot of women and a lot of women who vote. Yeah. Gates, as we mentioned, is out after a lot of Republican senators made noise about not confirming him. But as best I can tell, none of them are expressing the same concern over any of Trump's other nominees facing their own accusations, particularly Pete Hegseth. Do you want to walk us through the allegations against Pete Hegseth? I don't want to, but I do feel like that Gates stepping out of the AG race is eclipsing the fact that

the accusations against Pete Hegseth, the police report, was released earlier this week by a couple of different outlets. And so it's publicly accessible, you can read the whole thing. It's horrifying. Names are redacted and everything. But I'm just going to run, you know, obviously if you have some sensitivities, I'm going to be talking about sexual assault content warning. Take care of yourself. And the allegations are that a woman who was helping to run a Republican women's conference in Monterey, California, went out on the last night of

the conference with Hegseth, who was a speaker at the conference and several other attendees at the conference. And during the course of that night, she was texting somebody that Hegseth was acting creepy with women who had been attending the conference. He was trying to coax them up to his room. Yeah, yeah. He was like touching their legs and he was acting like a real creep. Now the Jane Doe accuser of Hegseth is married

and has small children as evidenced by the report. The allegations are that she confronted Hegseth about being creepy. They got into kind of a shouting altercation near the hotel pool. And then she says the night got fuzzy. After that, she went up to, she must've gone up to his room.

She kind of came to in a situation where she sensed that Hegseth had recently engaged in sexual contact with her, that they had had sex. A few days later, she went to a hospital to get a rape kit done. She initially did not want to report who had done it to her, and she didn't want to give her name.

So any allegations that she was trying to take him down or seek fame are absolutely ridiculous. You can read the report. The nurse who did the rape kit talks about how she didn't want his name to even be included. Over the ensuing days, she remembered more details, and those are in the report as well. But Hegseth acknowledges that they did have a sexual encounter, but he alleges that the

sexual encounter was consensual. And I think he also acknowledges paying her as part of a nondisclosure agreement. Exactly. A few years later, he acknowledged paying her as part of a nondisclosure agreement. That amount has not been disclosed and we haven't heard from her at all. But the point is the report itself is pretty bleak. And even if the only thing that we can know is true is what Hegseth acknowledged is true, he is definitely a scumbag and definitely a creep from the report. And if what she said is true, he's a rapist. And

so that is something that people are just kind of deciding is okay. Well, a lot of Senate Republicans who opposed Matt Gaetz said they are fine with this. Here is Senator Mark Wayne Mullen, one of the Senate Republicans most vocally opposed to Gaetz's nomination saying that he supports Hegseth despite the allegations against him. And he fits the role of defense, secretary of defense. I think he's a good pick. But once again, as allegations come out, we'll figure out if as the Senate moves forward with the advice and consent to the president of the United States and doing our constitutional duties, we'll figure out if he can get confirmed or not. And I do think that Pete's a good

pick for this position. And just to follow up with you, because you had said you absolutely planned to vote for him. Do you still absolutely plan to vote for him? Well, I do. As of right now, I start with yes. Oh, start with yes. That's a bad answer when we're talking about

people alleged to have violated, oh, Mark Wayne. Yeah, I know. Oh, that was a Freudian slip. Well, Erin, what do you make of Republicans being so opposed to Gates but not having a problem with the other Trump nominees? There is nothing better for men who have done moderately bad things than men who have done very,

very, very bad things, who make them look good by comparison. The Hegseth allegations are very bad, but they are not underage girl sex trafficking. And I feel like Republicans think that they can get their, oh we definitely care about women, brownie points by, you know, sternly shaking their head in the direction of Matt Gaetz, hoping that the public forgets about what's happening with all of the others. And yeah, that's what I think is going on. Matt Gaetz very famously alienated most of his Republican colleagues. And it seems like that is the starting point for the decision not to approve his nomination.

And then they are backing into it's because of the sex pestery. And it seems like if it's someone who's in good standing with MAGA, then they're kind of okay with it, which seems like I think in many ways is the big norm shift that has happened because of all of this. Exactly. If you know the secret handshake, then you're allowed to do whatever you want, basically. Well, let's go out with one of the many clips of Matt Gaetz, who will not be attorney general, defending himself against the allegations against him by saying weird off-putting and

occasionally self-incriminating things. This is from an interview he gave to Tucker Garlson in 2021. fact that somehow I was involved in some pay-for-play scheme that she could face trouble. And so I do believe that there are people at the Department of Justice who are trying to smear me. I don't remember the woman you're speaking of or the context at all, honestly. Creeping out Tucker Carlson, that's impressive. Yeah, you did it though. Yeah. How we got here is written and hosted by me, Max Fisher, and Erin Ryan. Our producer is Emma Ilic-Frank. Evan Sutton mixes and masters the show.

Jordan Cantor sound engineers the show. Audio support from Kyle Seglen, Charlotte Landis, and Vasiliis Fotopoulos. Production support from Leo Duran, Raven Yamamoto, and Adrian Hill. Thank you.