Governor Cuomo said that he has
never propositioned anybody.
Do you believe that he
was propositioning you?
>> Yes.
>> For what?
>> Sex.
>> That was Charlotte Bennett.
Charlotte Bennett was formerly
Governor Cuomo's executive
assistant and a health policy
adviser which, considering other
Governor Cuomo related scandals in
the news, is an amazing bit of
political symmetry there.
She did a sit-down interview
with Norah O'Donnell.
Now, we've known quite a bit about
the accusations against
Governor Cuomo.
But there is always something
powerful about seeing someone speak
about their experiences.
And so, we want to show you a bit
from that interview.
>> You think all this national
attention may have emboldened him?
>> Absolutely.
I think he felt like he was
untouchable in a lot of ways.
>> Bennett says their professional
relationship took a turn on May 15
when she alleges the governor
started asking her about her love
life, and then became fixated,
repeating over and
over again her history as a sexual
assault survivor.
>> So, he goes you were raped,
you were raped.
You were raped and abused and
assaulted.
Another key encounter happened on
June 5th, when Bennett says she was
called into Cuomo's office take
dictation and he told her to turn
off the tape recorder.
>> And then, he explains at that
point that he is looking for
a girlfriend.
He's lonely, he's tired.
>> You've just finished
dictation and the governor is
telling you he's lonely and
looking for a relationship?
>> Yes.
He asked if I had trouble enjoying
being with someone because of my
trauma.
>> This seems highly inappropriate.
>> Yeah.
The governor asked me if I was
sensitive to intimacy.
>> In his office?
>> Yes.
During the work day.
>> You have been quoted as saying
that he also asked you about if
you'd ever been with an older man.
>> Yeah.
He asked me if age difference
mattered.
He also explained that he was
fine with anyone over 22.
>> And how old are you?
>> 25.
>> Wow.
So, similar in some ways to some of
the other allegations against him,
but also going very hard into that,
focusing on her past traumatic
experiences while producing
a new one.
What are your thoughts?
>> I think that what is very
revealing, at least what we know so
far about these allegations and the
various women who have come forward
with very similar circumstances,
is that, with the exception of one
detail that I've read, this doesn't
seem to be about violating touch.
And I feel like certain spaces,
specifically with #MeToo literacy
and understandings of power
dynamics and harassment and
violation, I watched, especially
when I was I don't like this
phrase, so I'm quoting, but this
#MeToo moment, sort of landing in
this hypersensitive terrain of not
touching, not hugging, not leaning.
This very thin protective measure
by which very powerful people,
mostly powerful men,
can secure their positions and
their money without young women
coming forward to say that somebody
leaned in too close to them.
But I think that with Cuomo and
what Bennett has shared about her
experiences, this is very tactful.
In the sense that you're talking
about taking down somebody's
boundaries, who is considerably
less powerful than you, trying to
gauge where there are openings by
which you can manipulate them in
professional settings.
And more specifically, I think that
there's a lot of tact there.
I think that a frustration that
myself and a number of other
journalists who I've worked with
throughout my career have felt,
specifically around news cycles of
sexual harassment and assault and
violation, is that, in some ways,
powerful organizations,
powerful people, they're able to
sort of adapt with the times in
terms of the rhetoric they use.
And then, also, fun measures like
NDAs that make sure that they can't
talk about anything that happened.
And yet, the actual power dynamics
at the core by which your boss can
call you in to do dictation and
then ask you in this roundabout way
to potentially be his mistress, and
if that's appealing to
you while you're sitting there with
your work, the dynamics that are at
the core of that have not
necessarily changed.
What I'm often hearing when there
are cases like this is that we've
built in a sort of cultural
framework by which you can skirt
those same dynamics and perhaps
prey on a young woman or a young
man who doesn't have as much power
as you in an organization, and yet
still be able to say that you
didn't touch them, that you didn't
break any rules, that you were
just mentoring them, which we've
heard Cuomo say in this case.
And so, I think that's really
pertinent that, when it comes to
Bennett and I think a few other
women, we're not necessarily
talking about violating touch.
And I think that should
really be top of mind for people
as they're interpreting this story.
>> Yeah.
So, a couple of things here.
First of all, Cuomo has
not denied any of the specifics.
So, he has said a generic statement
about if he'd offended people with
joking around,
that he's sorry for that.
But this is not joking around,
it's, in the most advantageous
framing for Cuomo, which I don't
agree with, it was flirting, right?
And I know that a lot of guys out
there, especially from the old
school, are like okay, he asked and
it didn't work out, right?
No, guys, you can't do that in
a work environment.
So, it's one thing if you think
you're flirting, although none of
that sounded like flirting to me.
I mean, asking you about our
sexual assaults?
Jesus Christ,
what are you doing, right?
And so, but you certainly cannot do
it in an office context.
And when you're the boss,
he's making it so clear,
I will have sex with anyone over
the age of 22, how old are you?
You're over 22, golly gee, right?
I mean it's so obvious.
And again, he hasn't denied it.
And so, look,
all of this is bad enough.
It's all layered on top of one
another, right?
So, one of them that shocks me
is the abruptness of it.
To me, that signals arrogance.
And what I'm worried about is it
signals, I'm worried how many times
has he done this?
What results has it produced?
Because when you come into a person
you barely know, and they she just
started working there.
So, I've read the whole story,
we've covered it in the past.
And you just come in with,
basically, I'm your boss, I just
told you to turn off the tape,
I barely know you and
I want to talk to you about sex,
sex, sex.
And are you willing to have sex
with older men?
Wow!
Do people do that?
That's unbelievable to me.
And, look, it's just every part of
it is wrong.
If you've got somebody working for
you who's a sexual assault
survivor, you don't bring that up
in a way that is massively
uncomfortable, right?
If you've known each other for
a long time, and
that person brings it up and
wants to talk about it, you could
do that in respectful way.
But this ain't it.
And she didn't bring it up,
you brought it up.
And you brought it up in
the context of sex,
not in the context of abuse.
It's just, I don't know,
every part of it is really bad.
Yeah, go on.
>> Well, I think, Czenk, a good
point that you bring up with this
is, when I hear these questions and
what Bennett has recalled, to me,
it sounds like he's trying to
extract consent from her.
Have you ever thought about sex
with an older man?
Have you ever thought about,
he's trying to, at least is what it
sounds like to me,
make her an active participant in
this predatory behavior.
And to me, that signals a kind
of awareness for what he's doing.
He's not trying to be physically
forceful with her,
at least not in that instance that
she's decided to share publicly.
So I think, again, it's the power
dynamic that is really grotesque
here, in that clearly that's being
sanitized in that he's calling her
into his office and asking.
But truthfully, if you're a junior
woman and a powerful man calls you
into his office and
wills your consent for something,
is it actually consensual?
And I think that's an important
takeaway from the story.
>> Yeah. >> Yeah, and sometimes,
I explained it from the context of
different groups, conservatives,
older generations, etc.,
because there's different cultural
contexts, and I want to be able
to communicate to everyone,
not just to progressives.
So, guys, a lot of people react to
this with what, hey, we're not
allowed to have an office romance?
No, actually, you are allowed to
have an office romance.
But yet, there are very
understandable guidelines for it.
Very, very understandable.
You should be able to get that
pretty easily, right?
And so, when, let's say,
Joe Scarborough and
Mika Brzezinski,
eventually got married, right?
And they had some sort
of relationship, and
it was perfectly consensual and
they did it all the right way.
So don't let people trick you into
false analogies, okay?
That is not this.
This is a very senior person who's
the boss of everyone in
the building with a very junior
employee.
They barely know each other.
And he blunders into
a sex conversation,
which now there's two women who
accuse him of that at the office.
One, at a wedding, the third
accuser does not work with him, but
he put her hands on her face
in a way that made her
super uncomfortable.
The first employee says that he did
try to kiss her.
So, it's like Koah said, it feels
like he's trying to figure out what
his sense of the boundaries are and
get right up to the edge of it.
And so, yeah, and look,
it's not cute, and
playing with the boundaries like
that isn't working.
Your intent seems clear.
>> Yeah, >> I was going to say,
I think another good point coming
off of what Czenk said is that if
you are working in analogies,
I mean, as far as I know, Mika and
Joe are peers.
I mean,
they are both household names and
have immediate recognition.
And so, that seems to bring about,
to me on the outside,
very different
interpersonal dynamics than, again,
a very junior employee being
summoned into a boss's office.
That is a very specific predatory
dynamic.
Versus a actual colleague who you
collaborate with and who is a peer,
at least as far as we can tell from
the outside.