Welcome back to the show.
Thanks for having me back.
Before we jump into the book, let's jump into news
that is just, like, breaking and we're learning about now.
Um, it's funny. The last time you were on the show,
you were... you had written about diplomacy,
specifically in and around Iran.
We spoke about the topic
and how Donald Trump didn't seem to have a plan,
and his plan could backfire.
Are we at that point right now?
Seems like I was wrong. It went great, right?
-Totally the opposite. -It... You know, look,
that-that book, War on Peace-- little plug there--
was about the collapse of diplomacy.
We are strip-mining our diplomatic apparatus.
The State Department is not what it once was.
Diplomats aren't in the room making the decisions.
We're seeing the consequences of that.
We threw out the Iran deal.
It was not perfect, but it was a shot,
a narrow window at preventing what's happening now.
When you look at the strategy
that the administration is taking now--
one that is undiplomatic--
it feels like everyone is hawkish in their approach,
it feels like everyone sees only one way
to resolve this issue.
Do you see a way back from this?
Because many people feel like
Iran has no vested interest in now talking to America,
and America-- because of its commander in chief--
doesn't seem to have a path forward
to negotiating with Iran again.
Look, we're not gonna solve
the confrontation with Iran in this segment, sadly.
If anyone can do it, it's you, but...
-(laughter) -What I can say is,
from a structural standpoint,
we have got to re-empower our diplomats.
These are brave men and women,
the rank and file who keep our embassies running,
and too often, they are not being allowed
to influence these decisions.
And if they were, I think
we'd have a fighting chance of not fighting.
-Mm, it's what diplomats are for. -Yeah.
(applause)
You have been at the center
of one of the largest movements in America.
You know? You've never claimed to spearhead it,
but you have been writing about some of the most powerful men
who have abused power to, in some way, shape or form,
abuse women in and around their lives.
Harvey Weinstein, as fate would have it,
started his trial today.
You've written this book Catch and Kill:
Lies, Spies and Conspiracies to Protect...
to Protect Predators.
Do you think the Harvey Weinstein trial
is going to go in the direction that the public hopes,
or is he powerful enough to somehow escape again?
Look, I wind up saying this a lot:
I am a reporter, not an activist.
I hope that Harvey Weinstein receives a fair trial.
That means a prosecution being tough,
the process being organized and respected and not manipulated,
in the way that powerful people so often are able
to manipulate those processes.
A large part of the reporting in this book
is about how Harvey Weinstein narrowly evaded
-previous attempts to charge him, -Right.
because he was able to hire armies of private investigators
to dig up dirt on his accusers and smear them
and influence the D.A.'s office.
This very D.A., who's advancing this case in Manhattan,
right now is one of the people
who dropped charges against him previously,
after Harvey Weinstein's lawyers made donations to his campaign.
So, you know, they are trying now--
there's a lot of public pressure.
I hope they do a good job,
but this has been a long time coming,
and the track record doesn't make one optimistic.
It's interesting, because this book is really a story,
not just about what happened,
but how it was allowed to continuously happen.
You know, you write in the book about how Harvey Weinstein
was "on a wiretap," you know,
how the police heard him confessing to groping a woman.
You know, you-you-you read in the book
about-about how Harvey Weinstein set up a campaign
to protect himself and to threaten people
who were coming after him, including yourself,
which is a scary place to be in.
Did you learn if there is any way
to hold people that powerful accountable?
You know, the small sliver
of accountability that we have now
is because the women that you just mentioned were so brave.
I mean, yes, I was in the crosshairs of, frankly,
a... an insane international espionage operation.
You know, there were people with false identities following me,
and two Russian guys hanging out outside of my apartment,
and they became sources in some cases eventually,
'cause they objected to it.
But the only reason we know any of this
is because people came forward, and they said, "Enough."
And, overwhelmingly, that's the women
who had gone through these terrible experiences
-and decided to risk everything to speak. -Right.
We actually have here tonight two of the sources
in that very first Weinstein story.
Uh, and, you know, I think it's a bittersweet moment
where this is dredging up a lot of complicated feelings,
-but we're seeing this happen because of them. -Mm-hmm.
One of them is that woman that you mentioned
who wore the wire and got a confession from Harvey
a couple years ago, Ambra Gutierrez.
-Right. -Another is Rosanna Arquette.
These are heroic people
who helped us understand terrible crimes.
(cheering and applause)
And we wouldn't be having the conversation without them.
NOAH: The...
You know, one of the scary parts of-of these stories,
one of... one of the scariest things
about-about reading, you know, about the story
is-is not just the predators themselves,
but it's about the systems that helped enable them
to keep on being predators.
You know, you-you write in the book
about how you went to your bosses at NBC,
and you said, "Guys, I have this story on Harvey."
And that story was shut down,
and they said, "Oh, you don't have enough.
It's-it's not a good enough story."
Why did you keep on
even though many of your bosses told you in the news world,
"Oh, there is no story here"?
You know, we've seen a lot of people
go up against their bosses to expose the truth now,
including, after this body of reporting about NBC,
which revealed a lot of misconduct at that company,
people on NBC's airs.
Jour-Journalists like Rachel Maddow
getting up and saying, "There needs to be
an independent investigation there,"
-which still hasn't happened. -Mm-hmm.
Look, this was a company
with a lot of secrets of its own.
-Right. -It was a company with a lot of alliances
with Harvey Weinstein, and I lay out,
you know, reams of transcripts of calls
-that they were secretly having with Harvey Weinstein. -Right.
But the point is not about NBC.
The point is this happens all the time.
And I think the moral of the story
is you have to keep going.
And when sources are as brave
as the sources were in this story,
there was no room for me to be cowardly.
I mean, I-I...
They set the bar really high, and I knew I wouldn't be able
to sleep at night if I failed them.
Do you-do you think there's been a certain element of the
liberal media being protected by being liberal in a way?
And I say that because, like, you-you look at the stories
that have come out now about Fox News, you know,
with Bombshell the movie, you know, Loudest Voice, etcetera.
The one thing that we see there is that at some point,
Fox said, "Hey, we're gonna bring in these independent
"investigators to investigate what has happened here
and get to the bottom of it all."
As you said, though, it feels like the NBCs of the world
haven't been as transparent.
They've said, "Oh, we'll, we'll figure it out,"
but it hasn't become a real investigation.
They haven't gone after everybody who's been involved.
And it feels like the accountability
hasn't been at as high a level, you know, that, I mean,
you're one of the few isolated people writing about this.
Do you think that has something to do with it?
It-it's interesting.
I break stories about Democrats
and I get people howling at me on Twitter.
-You know, "You're a, you're a plant for the right!" -Right.
And I break stories about Republicans,
and I get the opposite.
We live in these siloed worlds where we're only seeing news
we agree with, and people aren't conscious of the fact
that sometimes you're just reporting on crimes.
And those don't have a partisan nature to them.
And I truly believe these stories that I've been
fortunate enough to do reporting on about sexual abuse,
know no party-- this is about corruption.
This is about the abuse of power.
When you, when you look at these stories,
they must have a common thread beyond just the person.
What are the, what are the steps that we could take?
What are the moments that people missed where somebody
could be held accountable, where something could've been stopped,
where somebody could've been listened to?
Is there anything where you notice in your reporting
that that's where society, we're dropping the ball?
The story is full of moments
where it could've been stopped earlier.
You know, where people had taped confessions
of crimes, and whether they were in law enforcement
or they were in the media,
they decided it wasn't worth the fight.
You know, it doesn't always look like someone, uh,
twirling their mustache in a dark backroom and saying,
you know, "I'm gonna cover up a crime."
Usually, it's people saying,
"Is it really worth a confrontation?"
And all these TV executives, you know, Noah Oppenheim,
the head of NBC News just says point blank to me
at one point, you know, "Is this worth the fight?
-We got to decide if it's worth it." -Right.
And they decided it wasn't, so I think the moral
of the story is it's worth the fight.
-Powerful, man. -(applause, cheering)
It's an insane story.
If we weren't living it, I wouldn't believe it was true.
Thank you so much for coming back on the show.
-Always a pleasure, Trevor. -I hope everyone reads this.
Catch and Kill, a fascinating book is available now.
And the new episode of the Catch and Kill podcast
will be available next week-- Ronan Farrow, everybody.