Speaker 1: Hey, this is Emily and you're listening to stuff Mom
Speaker 1: Never told you. And at the top of today's show,
Speaker 1: I want to share a little bit of personal news.
Speaker 1: It is obviously very sad and devastating to me on
Speaker 1: so many levels that Bridget and I's magic won't continue on.
Speaker 1: But I'm confident that Bridget Todd is going to carry
Speaker 1: the baton forward for stuff Mom Never told you with
Speaker 1: new hosts in a fabulous fashion. But I'm actually heading
Speaker 1: on to start my own show, which you can now
Speaker 1: find and subscribe to in Apple podcasts. So search for
Speaker 1: bossed Up. That's b O S S E. D. A
Speaker 1: is in Dog and then up as in the direction up.
Speaker 1: Find bossed Up in Apple podcasts. Now you can listen
Speaker 1: to a preview trailer that I've put out there that
Speaker 1: tells you all about the show I'll be leaving to do.
Speaker 1: So that's premiering March first, and I hope you will
Speaker 1: join me. There sminthy listeners, especially if you are looking
Speaker 1: for career advice. But today's podcast topic not so happy,
Speaker 1: not so uplifting, not at all bossed up. And first
Speaker 1: of all, we have to state a trigger warning to
Speaker 1: those who are sensitive about issues relating to intimate partner
Speaker 1: violence domestic abuse. Today we have to talk about the
Speaker 1: kinds of abusers who are in our White House. So
Speaker 1: major Trump alerts ahead. It's been a little while because
Speaker 1: we have some Trump alerts. It's been a nice break
Speaker 1: from talking about To be honest, I know, we've just
Speaker 1: sort of ignored the disaster after disaster that he's been
Speaker 1: a part of. But not today, not today's sminty listeners.
Speaker 1: Today we are talking about domestic violence in our house,
Speaker 1: our White House. After all, this is our government, this
Speaker 1: is our taxpayer funded staff who are being hired to
Speaker 1: run things in our nation's capital, in the White House.
Speaker 1: So let's break this issue down. Who is Rob Porter. Well,
Speaker 1: you may have heard his name before he was Trump Secretary,
Speaker 1: and basically he has been accused of awful, awful domestic
Speaker 1: violence against women. And it seems like this is a
Speaker 1: situation where people knew this was happening, and rather than
Speaker 1: sounding of the alarm bells and doing something instead, they
Speaker 1: chose to protect him exactly. So, the domestic violence in
Speaker 1: and of itself is pretty horrifying, and we're going to
Speaker 1: talk more about that in a second. But the story
Speaker 1: that's turned this into a scandal. Really pertains to how
Speaker 1: the Trump administration responded to the news, or when they
Speaker 1: knew about this news, or when they discovered that one
Speaker 1: of their impending hires had a seriously messed up past,
Speaker 1: and what they decided to do about it. In the
Speaker 1: Washington Post, colde Holderness, Rob Porter's first ex wife, describes
Speaker 1: a time when Rob Porter's now ex girlfriend had actually
Speaker 1: reached out to both her and Jenny Willoughby, Rob Porter's
Speaker 1: second ex wife, on Facebook, asking for advice for how
Speaker 1: to extricate herself from this relationship that had turned in
Speaker 1: many ways abusive. She ends her description by saying, am
Speaker 1: I crazy? Which if you are a woman dating someone
Speaker 1: who reaches out to that's someone's two ex wives for
Speaker 1: confirmation that you're not crazy, that's a pretty dramatic cry
Speaker 1: for help. Yeah, that's a grim situation. And honestly, what
Speaker 1: it really does illustrate is the way that women often
Speaker 1: create these networks of support reaching out when they're in
Speaker 1: these abuse of situations. And so I'm happy that she
Speaker 1: felt like she could reach out to them to get
Speaker 1: some support, but I am so sad and angry that
Speaker 1: she was in that position In the first place. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Colbe Holderness describes to The Daily Mail how Rob was
Speaker 1: angry because we weren't having sex when he wanted to
Speaker 1: have sex on their honeymoon. Mind you, this is when
Speaker 1: the abuse physically started. Oh my god, and so he
Speaker 1: kicked her. She writes, this was the first time he
Speaker 1: hurt me, and then the doors opened. I didn't do anything,
Speaker 1: and it continued. And she goes on to describing the
Speaker 1: Daily Mail a few really disturbing forms of abuse, including
Speaker 1: him getting into screaming matches with her, and granted she
Speaker 1: would scream back at him, but then the fights turned
Speaker 1: physical in ways like he would jab her with his
Speaker 1: limbs like elbows to sort of emphasize what he was
Speaker 1: yelling to her about. Once he grabbed her out of
Speaker 1: the shower, she had walked away, disengaged with the fight,
Speaker 1: to take a shower, and he pulled her out of
Speaker 1: the shower, yanking her by her shoulders, only to be
Speaker 1: kind of alarmed at what he had done and to
Speaker 1: apologize profusely. And it culminated in this photo that apparently
Speaker 1: Poured himself took. She says she made him take it
Speaker 1: wow of her black eye that he had given her. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that photo was pretty alarming. I also think it's worth
Speaker 1: noting that he he waited to introduce physical violence into
Speaker 1: their relationship on their honeymoon, so a pattern that was
Speaker 1: heated by the way on his second marriage. So clearly
Speaker 1: this was part of his pattern of abusive behavior, of
Speaker 1: getting these women to feel that they were locked in,
Speaker 1: they couldn't leave, we're married, all of that, and really
Speaker 1: introducing physical violence at that moment. And to me, that
Speaker 1: just that just seems so clearly the pattern of a
Speaker 1: serial abuser. It's really disturbing. These are the kinds of
Speaker 1: behaviors that Holderness reports started happening after marriage. This included
Speaker 1: things like throwing her on the bed and forcefully pushing
Speaker 1: one of his limbs into her body in anger, and
Speaker 1: choking her. She writes, quote, the thing you would do
Speaker 1: most frequently is he would throw me down on a
Speaker 1: bed and he would just put his body weight on
Speaker 1: top of me, and he'd be yelling at me. But
Speaker 1: as he was yelling, he'd be grinding an elbow or
Speaker 1: knee into my body to emphasize his anger. Jesus, I
Speaker 1: mean that sounds like someone who really cannot control their
Speaker 1: rage that they can't have a conversation about something. The
Speaker 1: only way they can get anything across is through these
Speaker 1: physically violent expressions of rage, Like this is not someone
Speaker 1: who should be in the flight house, is really what
Speaker 1: it comes down to. Yeah, well, it just goes to
Speaker 1: show you, a this is behavior that we shouldn't condone anywhere,
Speaker 1: but be this is the kind of behavior that should
Speaker 1: be flagged as a potential hire for any employer, but
Speaker 1: especially for our federal government. This is someone who's going
Speaker 1: to have access to national secrets. You know, this is
Speaker 1: supposed to be the best of the best. Absolutely. I
Speaker 1: also think it really highlights a way that we've been
Speaker 1: trained to think about domestic violence, where it's something between
Speaker 1: a couple, it's a it's a family issue. What happens
Speaker 1: in your home should stay in your home. But if
Speaker 1: this just goes to show that that line of thinking
Speaker 1: isn't right. Someone who abuses their wives in the privacy
Speaker 1: of their own home cannot be trusted in public. That
Speaker 1: should be a public issue, particularly when they're in the
Speaker 1: White House, particularly when they have access to all kinds
Speaker 1: of sort of information, but really in any capacity. I
Speaker 1: remember a story a few years ago when national security
Speaker 1: agency employees were caught using secret government surveillance tools to
Speaker 1: spy on the emails and phone calls of their current
Speaker 1: and former lovers. And I just think when you have
Speaker 1: access to privileged information about everyday citizens, there needs to
Speaker 1: be an extra level of scrutiny and trust in terms
Speaker 1: of what you're gonna do with that information. And I
Speaker 1: think that no matter where you work, if you have
Speaker 1: a history of domestic violence, that should be an issue,
Speaker 1: but specifically especially if you're in the White House. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is not an everyday job. This is
Speaker 1: why we have clearances for federal government workers, which will
Speaker 1: talk more about after this quick break, Because the bigger
Speaker 1: story here, besides what this creepy, violent, clearly unhinged man
Speaker 1: has done too many of the women in his life,
Speaker 1: is how our government, how our leaders, how our White
Speaker 1: House responded to that knowledge and information. So let's get
Speaker 1: into that story after this point break and we're back,
Speaker 1: And I want to first site this great piece that
Speaker 1: Jenny Willoughby, one of Rob Porter's ex wives, penned for
Speaker 1: Time magazine. She says, quote, on Friday, a friend and
Speaker 1: I watched as the President of the United States sat
Speaker 1: in the oval office and praised the work of my
Speaker 1: ex husband, Rob Porter and wished him future success. I
Speaker 1: can't say I was surprised, but when Donald Trump repeated
Speaker 1: twice that Rob declared his innocence, I was floored. What
Speaker 1: was his intent in emphasizing that point. My friend turned
Speaker 1: to me and said, the President of the United States
Speaker 1: just called you a liar. Yes, and so he did.
Speaker 1: And that was the beginning of the Rob Porter scandal
Speaker 1: in my opinion, because the President of the United States decided,
Speaker 1: when letting Rob Porter go, when signing off on his
Speaker 1: own self penned resignation letter, to emphasize the potential of
Speaker 1: innocence here that he said he's innocent, and to remind
Speaker 1: us all once again, women who speak out against violence
Speaker 1: against women, women who share their stories, who hashtag me
Speaker 1: to it up aren't to be trusted. Now, this doesn't
Speaker 1: surprise me in the least. We know who Trump is.
Speaker 1: He's shown himself to us many, many times on many
Speaker 1: different levels. It's not surprising to me at all that
Speaker 1: he would get up on this huge public platform and
Speaker 1: essentially called the victims of domestic violence liars. Doesn't surprise
Speaker 1: me at all exactly, But what does surprise me, and
Speaker 1: what surprised a lot of members of the press was
Speaker 1: the almost calculated and calibrated messaging attack that the entire
Speaker 1: White House staff went on, including and especially their chief
Speaker 1: of Staff, John F. Kelly, the guy who was supposedly
Speaker 1: brought in to be the grown up to keep Trump
Speaker 1: from messing himself up, to try to, you know, steer
Speaker 1: the ship properly, and want to turn it over now
Speaker 1: to Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus to give us the
Speaker 1: rundown on why this behavior from John F. Kelly was
Speaker 1: especially surprising. Then General Kelly issued this remarkable and appalling
Speaker 1: statement describing Rob Porter as a man of true integrity
Speaker 1: and honor. A man of true integrity and honor, go
Speaker 1: look at the photographs, the horrifying photographs of Rob Porter's
Speaker 1: first wife and the bruise under her eye. General Kelly,
Speaker 1: thirteen hours, by the way, after that photograph came out,
Speaker 1: changed his assessment of Rob Porter sort of and announced
Speaker 1: that he was shocked. If he was shocked by the photograph,
Speaker 1: that's only because he didn't go check it out because
Speaker 1: she had given that photograph to the FBI, not this January,
Speaker 1: but last January. So just to reiterate, the FBI had
Speaker 1: images of what he had done to her, allegedly seven
Speaker 1: days is after the inauguration, So this wasn't something that
Speaker 1: they just found out, you know that, it's only now
Speaker 1: when has come to the surface. They've had some time
Speaker 1: to deal with this and process how they were going
Speaker 1: to respond, and this is what they chose to do exactly. So,
Speaker 1: whether this White House is completely dysfunctional in terms of
Speaker 1: all personnel management, which is possible for sure, or had
Speaker 1: knowingly seen these photos and had knowingly looked past his
Speaker 1: abusive record and said whatever, we don't care. We like
Speaker 1: Rob Porter. He's a man of true integrity and honor.
Speaker 1: As General Kelly said, does it really matter, you know,
Speaker 1: to mean like, either this is a sign of mass dysfunction,
Speaker 1: which to me seems like a very plausible possibility, or
Speaker 1: they looked past spousal abuse because this is something that
Speaker 1: Donald Trump can relate to. Quite frankly, honestly, I think
Speaker 1: it's both. I think it's both. That this is a chaotic,
Speaker 1: dysfunct sational White House where nothing gets done and no
Speaker 1: one knows what anyone is doing, and everyone is blaming
Speaker 1: everyone else for all of these missteps and everything is overlooked.
Speaker 1: And I also think they aren't particularly keen on taking
Speaker 1: domestic violence seriously because that implicates Donald Trump, and the
Speaker 1: more we talk about domestic violence, the more that keeps
Speaker 1: the issue in the consciousness of the American people, particularly
Speaker 1: women who are now having this big me too reckoning moment.
Speaker 1: And so I think it's both just complete ineptitude and
Speaker 1: also a conscious thing of we can't deal with this
Speaker 1: too loudly or make too much noise about this, because
Speaker 1: that gets people thinking about the other creeps that are
Speaker 1: in the White House. But if they are not being
Speaker 1: kicked out, who probably should be. I was also especially
Speaker 1: disappointed to hear how the women of the Trump White House,
Speaker 1: not that I should expect more from them, but truly
Speaker 1: to hear how Kelly am Conway and Sarah Huckabee standers
Speaker 1: dealt with this situation too. And granted they were they
Speaker 1: were following marching orders from General Kelly, but it shocked
Speaker 1: me to hear that Kelly A. Conway said quote, I
Speaker 1: have no reason not to believe the statements that the
Speaker 1: victims who were speaking out, the X wives of Rob Porter.
Speaker 1: It's like the least helpful thing you could say, while
Speaker 1: still plausibly coming across as being on their side. I mean,
Speaker 1: it doesn't sound like she's on their side. It's that
Speaker 1: saying I have no reason not to believe them. To me,
Speaker 1: that's one step below saying you're a liar. What reason
Speaker 1: would she have not to believe them? They don't have this,
Speaker 1: they don't have a history of public lies. Is just
Speaker 1: such a weird thing to say. That seems to suggest, Oh,
Speaker 1: I believe you, Like I bet Kelly a Conway thought
Speaker 1: she was being very you know, support, But it sounds,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like saying like, well, it will be
Speaker 1: like if I said, Emily, I have no reason to
Speaker 1: believe you stole my purse the whole thing. Of course
Speaker 1: you don't. I've never stolen anything from you before. It
Speaker 1: would be a weird thing to say, totally. But it
Speaker 1: gets worse. She goes on to say. When she's on
Speaker 1: CNN's State of the Union, she was asked if she
Speaker 1: fears for the safety of White House Communications director Hope Picks,
Speaker 1: who was apparently dating Rob Porter but two days ago,
Speaker 1: according to the News, is now not dating him. Not surprising,
Speaker 1: quite frankly, I would get out of that headline relationship too,
Speaker 1: And when asked if she should be worried about Hope Picks,
Speaker 1: she said, and I quote, I've rarely met somebody so strong,
Speaker 1: with such excellent instincts and loyalty and smarts. So therefore
Speaker 1: she's not worried about Hope as though the victims of
Speaker 1: domestic violence are not strong or you know, strong, loyal,
Speaker 1: smart women can't become victims of domestic violence. Also, loyal
Speaker 1: is a weird thing to throw in there, like what
Speaker 1: is she trying to say? That's the Trump doctrine coming here,
Speaker 1: and she's very loyal, Like what does it have to do?
Speaker 1: What is loyalty being a victim of domestic violence? Is
Speaker 1: it such a weird thing to say? And again, all
Speaker 1: kinds of people, men, women, strong women, as sort of women,
Speaker 1: women who are less assertive, anybody can be the victim
Speaker 1: of domestic violence. Doesn't even do with any of these qualities,
Speaker 1: and her highlighting them as a reason why she wouldn't
Speaker 1: worry about Hope Hicks. It's just very bizarre. Exactly the
Speaker 1: other thing that came out of Sarah Huckaby Sanders mouth,
Speaker 1: which was jarring, but also says a lot I think
Speaker 1: about this administration when explaining away, or trying to explain away,
Speaker 1: the allegations that they knew about Rob Porter's abusive background,
Speaker 1: didn't care, didn't do much about it. She was basically
Speaker 1: giving a press briefing, you know, explaining the timeline, explaining
Speaker 1: that they had taken action swiftly, and went on to say,
Speaker 1: above all, the President supports victims of domestic violence and
Speaker 1: believes that everyone should be treated fairly and with due process.
Speaker 1: So she can't just say the President completely rejects domestic violence.
Speaker 1: She can't just say that like the President himself, who,
Speaker 1: by the way, she later told the media, he literally
Speaker 1: dictated that to me. So the President cannot, in the
Speaker 1: same breath, resist from saying, yeah, I support victims, but
Speaker 1: like also, these guys who might be falsely accused are
Speaker 1: worthy of due process. So that's a bull. I find
Speaker 1: it fascinating that Trump is all of a sudden so
Speaker 1: invested in due process. This is a man that's spent
Speaker 1: eighty five thousand dollars of his own money taking out
Speaker 1: an ad condemning the youth involved in the Central Park
Speaker 1: five jogger case. If you don't know what that is. Basically,
Speaker 1: in the late eighties. Trump really rose to political fame
Speaker 1: by taking out this ad saying, this is why we
Speaker 1: need to bring us the death penalty. These kids are guilty.
Speaker 1: Blah blah blah. It turns out all of these youths
Speaker 1: were exonerated. They were all proven innocent by DNA evidence.
Speaker 1: They had been pressured to say they were guilty, and
Speaker 1: they weren't. To this day, Trump has never taken back
Speaker 1: what he said, and so he is someone who gleefully
Speaker 1: gets into the mix when it comes to condemning people
Speaker 1: without due process. He's in publicly proven wrong on that
Speaker 1: front time and time again, and so it's it's very
Speaker 1: interesting to me that when it comes to this situation,
Speaker 1: he's all about reminding us about due process, but in
Speaker 1: so many other very public situations where nobody frankly even
Speaker 1: asked him what he thought, he felt the need to
Speaker 1: get in the mix. We'll think about how he launched
Speaker 1: his campaign. The very first press conference he held as
Speaker 1: he launched his campaign and made that renowned sort of
Speaker 1: escalator debut, he basically called Mexicans rapists. So this is
Speaker 1: a man who is swift in condemning people who don't
Speaker 1: look like him as rapists. As abusers, as violent men.
Speaker 1: But you know he's swift to come to the defense
Speaker 1: of white men who have been accused of assault, like
Speaker 1: Roy Moore of Alabama. Exactly. I think with Trump, you
Speaker 1: really see a pattern of making it clear that he
Speaker 1: believes that if you're brown, are black, you are an abuser.
Speaker 1: You cannot be rehabilitated, you should be thrown in jail
Speaker 1: or criminalized, or we should build a wall to keep
Speaker 1: you out or deport you. But if you're a white guy,
Speaker 1: then you're an upstanding person. And it's interesting who he
Speaker 1: gives the benefit of the doubt. For whom these issues
Speaker 1: are just matters of the home, private matters, stay out
Speaker 1: of them, and for whom they become issues of national security.
Speaker 1: And it's clear that when it's a Latino or an
Speaker 1: African American, it is an issue of national security. Build
Speaker 1: the wall, more cops, blah blah blah, deck penalty. When
Speaker 1: it's a white guy, totally give him access to secret
Speaker 1: government files, He's fine, he's white. Exactly. So he not
Speaker 1: only didn't denounce accused child minister Roy Moore, who ran
Speaker 1: for Senate in Alabama, he endorsed him. And before that
Speaker 1: he defended Bill O'Reilly as a great guy and Roger Ales,
Speaker 1: two men ousted from Fox News after it was revealed
Speaker 1: that they'd paid off millions of dollars and settlements to
Speaker 1: women who had accused them of harassment and assault. And
Speaker 1: we have to give a shout out to our out
Speaker 1: Liz Playing friend of the show, who wrote an excellent,
Speaker 1: incisive piece for l magazine called when Donald Trump protects
Speaker 1: a white man accused of assault, He's protecting himself. It's
Speaker 1: a great piece. Will include it in the show notes.
Speaker 1: And I want to talk more about the President's response
Speaker 1: directly to the Rob Porter scandal after this quick break
Speaker 1: and we're back. And we've been talking about why President
Speaker 1: Trump might be so quick to come to the defense
Speaker 1: of someone like Rob Porter, perhaps because he reminds him
Speaker 1: of a younger him in many ways. And it's interesting
Speaker 1: to hear how Trump has changed his tune on the
Speaker 1: Rob Porter scandal as the news story about it has developed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's almost identical to what happened with the Roy Moore situation,
Speaker 1: where at first he didn't say much about it on
Speaker 1: the record, wouldn't really make a public comment on it,
Speaker 1: but then in the days that followed would only respond
Speaker 1: by highlighting his pristine record and saying, Oh, he's done
Speaker 1: a great job and blah blah blah. I think it
Speaker 1: really is a pattern of support for an abuser, and
Speaker 1: it shouldn't be surprising because creep support other creeps totally.
Speaker 1: It took a whole week after the Rob Porter News
Speaker 1: really broke um, and after Rob Porter himself resigned, for
Speaker 1: Trump to actually say on the record that he was
Speaker 1: quote totally opposed to domestic violence. And in response to
Speaker 1: the people who were like, damn, that took a long
Speaker 1: time for you to come around and just say out loud,
Speaker 1: he basically turned the question back on his critics by saying, quote,
Speaker 1: I'm totally opposed to domestic violence of any kind, and
Speaker 1: everybody here knows that, and it almost wouldn't even have
Speaker 1: to be said. So now you hear it, but you
Speaker 1: all know, like you've known all along, Like, screw you
Speaker 1: for making me have to say this. You known this
Speaker 1: whole time. Don't tell me you didn't know that about me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it really is gaslighting. We listened to him, it met
Speaker 1: his own despicable acts against women, and then he's gonna
Speaker 1: turn it around on us and be like you guys know,
Speaker 1: I champion women. Come on, you're crazy for thinking otherwise. Exactly,
Speaker 1: And honestly, it really reminds me of when people were
Speaker 1: calling on Trump to denounce Nazis. I didn't know we
Speaker 1: were in a situation now where one publicly saying that
Speaker 1: you're against domestic violence and to publicly saying that you're
Speaker 1: against Nazis is all of a sudden a controversial thing
Speaker 1: that we have to hold our breath to see if
Speaker 1: it's actually going to happen. Where I come from, domestic
Speaker 1: abusers and Nazis are squarely in the bad category and
Speaker 1: there's not really a lot of gray area about it.
Speaker 1: Just see Indiana Jones. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And now we're
Speaker 1: in a new place where apparently asking the President of
Speaker 1: the United States to publicly denounced Nazis and abusers is tricky,
Speaker 1: and it involves more nuanced than just saying, of course
Speaker 1: they're awful. Next question, well, not all nuts. These some
Speaker 1: are very fine people. Exactly. God, yeah it, but really,
Speaker 1: you see who gets that Trump benefit of the doubt
Speaker 1: about being a fine person or a good worker or whatever,
Speaker 1: And it's white men. Yeah, it's not good. And I'm
Speaker 1: no psychologist. But it feels like maybe there's a little
Speaker 1: bit of projecting going on, a little bit of defensiveness
Speaker 1: that our commander in chief feels given his own record
Speaker 1: with domestic abuse. And honestly, we don't have time on
Speaker 1: a single podcast to review every horrifying thing Donald Trump
Speaker 1: has ever said about women, But I do want to
Speaker 1: draw our attention to and excerpt from a book by
Speaker 1: former Texas Monthly and Newsweek reporter Harry Hurt the Third,
Speaker 1: which describes how things basically fell apart between Donald Trump
Speaker 1: and his ex wife Ivana Trump. In this really harrowing
Speaker 1: scene in the book, Trump comes back home after painful
Speaker 1: scalp reduction surgery to remove a bald spot. I'm so
Speaker 1: I shouldn't laugh. I mean, it's it's it's absurd. And
Speaker 1: apparently he was very mad at Ivana because Trump had
Speaker 1: used the same plastic surgeon that she had, or maybe
Speaker 1: like she recommended the doctor to him, and so he said, quote,
Speaker 1: your king doctor has ruined me. And according to reports,
Speaker 1: what followed was a violent assault, during which time Donald
Speaker 1: held back Ivanna's arms began to pull out fistfuls of
Speaker 1: hair from her scalp as if to mirror the pain
Speaker 1: that he felt from his own operation. He tore off
Speaker 1: her clothes and unzipped his pants quote. Then he jams
Speaker 1: his penis inside her for the first time in more
Speaker 1: than sixteen months. Ivanna is terrified. It's a violent assault
Speaker 1: her rights. He goes on to say, quote according to versions,
Speaker 1: she repeats to some of her closest confidants, he raped me.
Speaker 1: That is harrowing. I have no trouble believing that that happened.
Speaker 1: And again it goes to show why perhaps Trump doesn't
Speaker 1: want to come down on condemning these abusers too hard,
Speaker 1: why he does feel the need to say they're upstanding people,
Speaker 1: because he's really saying about himself. Yeah, a lot of
Speaker 1: that I think is happening here for sure, And we
Speaker 1: have to ask ourselves, you know, from a national security standpoint,
Speaker 1: from a national personnel standpoint, do we want taxpayer dollars
Speaker 1: to pay the salaries of people like Rob Porter? I mean,
Speaker 1: clearly not the majority of us wanted our taxpayer dollars
Speaker 1: to pay the salary of Donald Trump. But that's a
Speaker 1: different issue for now. There's an interesting security element here
Speaker 1: that comes into play, and granted it's very nuanced, so
Speaker 1: we're paraphrasing here, but this is now something that our
Speaker 1: committees in the Senate and House are investigating because Rob
Speaker 1: Porter was not given a security clearance. He did not
Speaker 1: pass the VET, he didn't pass the background check basically
Speaker 1: to get the kind of clearance that most people in
Speaker 1: the White House need to get to be able to
Speaker 1: do their jobs. And so now six Senators have asked
Speaker 1: Christopher Ray, the FBI director, for the names of other
Speaker 1: employees at the White House who were working quote, without
Speaker 1: being able to obtain a permanent security clearance. When you
Speaker 1: look at the number of people in this administration who
Speaker 1: don't have permanent clearances, it is shocking. And actually watchdog
Speaker 1: organizations agree citizens were responsible and ethics in Washington otherwise, though,
Speaker 1: as Crew has basically pointed out that the fact that
Speaker 1: high level White House staffers, including folks like Jared Kushner,
Speaker 1: not having their permanent clearance, that's a really dangerous precedent. Exactly,
Speaker 1: this whole idea of an interim clearance, which is the
Speaker 1: kind of clearance that somehow allowed Rob Porter to continue
Speaker 1: doing his job, it wasn't designed for that, It wasn't
Speaker 1: a workaround, It was really just intended for giving folks
Speaker 1: clearance for the first few weeks of the new president's
Speaker 1: administration while they were waiting for approval from the Personnel
Speaker 1: Security Office. That's the office that receives all the background
Speaker 1: information from the FBI determining whether officials should be clear
Speaker 1: to have access to sensitive information. And as someone who
Speaker 1: has gone through this process, which by the way, is
Speaker 1: hellish when I was trying to join the Obama administration
Speaker 1: a few years back, let me tell you, if you
Speaker 1: are not able to get your permanent clearance, the assumption
Speaker 1: is not that, oh, you're probably fine, it's just a backlog,
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. The assumption is that something is up
Speaker 1: and that you shouldn't have that clearance, right, And the
Speaker 1: fact that these people are running around the White House
Speaker 1: with temporary clearances probably fills anybody with any inside knowledge
Speaker 1: of that process with a lot of dread and fear,
Speaker 1: as it should. And now everybody's pointing to everybody else's
Speaker 1: office and the administration. It's really it's a real show,
Speaker 1: to be quite honest. The FBI is saying that they'd
Speaker 1: sent the White House a preliminary background report on Mr
Speaker 1: Porter in March, so less than three months after the
Speaker 1: new administration took office. They sent them a full investigation
Speaker 1: in July and a more detailed accounting in November, closing
Speaker 1: its inquiry in January. So basically a year later, we
Speaker 1: don't know what's in those reports, but we do know
Speaker 1: that the FBI did a thorough investigation. Meanwhile, the White
Speaker 1: House says we never got it. We might have gotten it,
Speaker 1: but we're gonna not acknowledge getting it, saying that the
Speaker 1: Security Office, by the way, which the White House manages,
Speaker 1: it's the personnel Security Office under the administration, never made
Speaker 1: a final recommendation. A lot of folks are saying that
Speaker 1: this entire process is highly unusual and dangerous for people
Speaker 1: at Mr Porter's level of access, of clearance, of responsibility
Speaker 1: to do their jobs indefinitely without the proper clearance. Well, Emily,
Speaker 1: all I have to say is thank god there's not
Speaker 1: a woman in there checking her email in a private server,
Speaker 1: because that would have really been a dangerous situation. Can
Speaker 1: you imagine soon what a security fail? I know act
Speaker 1: they are used private servers. So the whole thing is,
Speaker 1: the whole thing is bananas. We could do a whole
Speaker 1: episode on that, and honestly, sminty listeners. We have to
Speaker 1: keep our eye on this story because, and this is
Speaker 1: the most tragic part of how this story is ending
Speaker 1: is as all of this is coming to a head,
Speaker 1: the pressures on the White House, Sarah Huckaby Sanders is
Speaker 1: supposed to hold a press conference with the administration addressing
Speaker 1: these hard hitting questions on Wednesday, but it gets postponed
Speaker 1: and then all bets are off because the shooting in Parkland, Florida,
Speaker 1: completely changes the conversation and the news cycle. And as
Speaker 1: of right now, as of this recording Friday, the administration
Speaker 1: just canceled it. The whole press briefing was scrapped. So
Speaker 1: this is my thing. I think the administration is counting
Speaker 1: on us to lose focus on this story. They're counting
Speaker 1: on us to have this story pushed out of our
Speaker 1: our consciousness as we move on to other important stories,
Speaker 1: and I think we can't let that happen. We owe
Speaker 1: it to not only these thick women who were victims
Speaker 1: of abuse, but two victims of abuse large everywhere. We
Speaker 1: owe it to the country to show that this is
Speaker 1: a serious issue. Think about all the people in your
Speaker 1: life who could be victims of domestic violence. You owe
Speaker 1: it to them to make sure that we hold abusers accountable.
Speaker 1: These are people that you probably see every day and
Speaker 1: you don't even know. It's important that we not let
Speaker 1: this issue just fall by the wayside and we, you know,
Speaker 1: focus on something else. I think we really got to
Speaker 1: be intentional about holding these abusers accountable because they work
Speaker 1: for us there in our house. The White House isn't
Speaker 1: their playground to do with what they want and to
Speaker 1: fill with all kinds of creeps that they want. We
Speaker 1: have a say in this, and I think we have
Speaker 1: to make that clear. Minty listeners, what is your take?
Speaker 1: Send us a tweet at mom Stuff podcast, hit us
Speaker 1: up on Instagram at stuff Mom Never Told You, and
Speaker 1: as always, you can reach us via email at mom
Speaker 1: Stuff at how stuff works dot com. Two