August 8, 2023 • 43 mins
After becoming Miss America and studying at Stanford and Oxford, but before spearheading the estimable nonprofit Lift Our Voices, Gretchen Carlson spent more than a decade as one of Fox News’s eminent hosts. The rest of her story is the stuff of legend: after being fired from network in 2016, the small-town Minnesota native helped bring down the network’s slimy chairman, Roger Ailes, on charges of sexual harassment by her and dozens of other women. Through Lift Our Voices, Carlson is still working to enact change for workers everywhere. On this week’s episode of Table for Two, Carlson details the intricacies of modern workplace harassment—both her own experiences, and those of others—over lunch with host Bruce Bozzi, and shares the requisite steps towards creating safe, and inclusive, workplace environments. Hear a preview of the episode below, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hi, everyone, Thank you for pulling up a chair for
this week's table for two. Today we're back at Via
Carota in New York City's West Village.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
This is so exciting. How are you? So glad to
see you too?
Speaker 3 (00:17):
And a little early because my train came in.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
I'm excited for today's interview because my guest is someone
I've never met.
Speaker 4 (00:24):
She's had a career with many turns.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
She became Miss America in nineteen eighty nine, graduated from
Stanford in nineteen ninety, and then became a broadcast journalist.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
Most notably, she spent eleven.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Years at Fox News before leaving, ensuing then Fox News
chairman and CEO Roger Ales.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
For sexual harassment.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
It would prove to be the first domino that led
to his legendary downfall. Now, our guest runs an impressive
nonprofit called Lift Our Voices Rose.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
That's beautiful, sure, thanks, total pleasure.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
She's smart, determined, and last year the United States Congress
passed a law that she championed.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
A huge feat during these divided times.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
So pull up a chair and grab a glass of rose,
because today we're having lunch with Gretchen Carlson. I'm Bruce Bosi,
and this is my podcast Table for two.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Welcome Gretchen. Thank you for joining me today for lunch.
Speaker 5 (01:37):
Well, thank you for having me. And I love our
little setting here. It is so beautiful. I feel like
I'm on like in Broadway or something. We're like going
to launch intos.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
On it is right, it's like exactly. It feels like
we could be like and damn action. You know, where
do I begin with, Gretchen, Let's maybe just start with
lift our Voices, which this has been a mission of yours,
and if you could explain the mission, and then also
(02:05):
what Biden signed in, because I think it's a very
it's a big deal.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Yeah, well it really is.
Speaker 5 (02:11):
Well, first of all, let me just say thank you
for having this conversation with me. It's really important to
get this information out to people because.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
When they go to work every day, they have no
idea what they're.
Speaker 5 (02:21):
Signing in their contracts, and so it's sort of a
wake up call for everyone to be able to have
a better understanding of that. And also I would just
add that I never expected to be doing this.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
I mean no, I mean I grew up in a.
Speaker 5 (02:33):
Small town in Minnesota and my life has just worked
in really incredibly mysterious ways. You know, I was a
prodigy on the violin as a child, and then I
was Miss America.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
It's like what.
Speaker 5 (02:44):
And then I studied at Stamford and Oxford, and then
I was going to be a lawyer, and then I
ended up in television, and then I ended up at
Fox News with my dream job and unfortunately behind the
scenes the horrors of harassment that was going on at
the same time. So did I ever expect that I
would take a horrible thing that happened to me and
(03:05):
turn it into something really positive for millions of people
that I'll never meet.
Speaker 6 (03:10):
You know.
Speaker 5 (03:11):
That's the beauty of this that I'm helping so many
people that probably don't even know my name, you know,
but they're gonna be They're gonna benefit from the laws
that I've been working on to pass. So, you know,
after I jumped off the cliff by myself ensuing Ladri
Rail's the CEO and chairman formerly a Fox News six
and a half years ago. Now, no, no, Sometimes it
(03:32):
feels like yesterday, and then sometimes it feels like a.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
Long time ago.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
That strength that you did that day to jump off alone,
that's a big deal, Like when was it? Just like
I'm done? Like what was that break? You know we
all have those moments.
Speaker 5 (03:46):
Yeah, I always say that building, the kind of courage
that it took for me to do that wasn't a
moment like that.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
It was years of building.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
You know.
Speaker 5 (03:55):
I always give the analogy of when you walk into
a room and flip on the light switch.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
It's not that easy, you know. It was like this.
Speaker 5 (04:01):
Year's long, you know, really tough decision, biggest decision of
my life, and mainly because I have two children and
I didn't want them to face any scrutiny over their
mom becoming the story. A journalist is never supposed to
become the story. And then just you know, my husband too,
is kind of an uncomfortable situation and I'm not sure
(04:24):
he wanted to be in the limelight for these issues.
And truth be told, my parents, who I'm still blessed
to have in my life, you know, I really wanted
their approval. No matter how old you are, you always
want your parents to be like, hey, I'm with you exactly,
and you know, up until a certain point they weren't. Because,
as I said, I grew up in small town Minnesota.
People don't sue each other in Minnesota, like everyone's really nice,
(04:45):
and so finally they understood that I really had no
other choice, and we.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Had a very emotional conversation on the phone, and that was.
Speaker 5 (04:54):
Sort of what got me to that place where I
was looking over the cliff.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
And then what made me.
Speaker 5 (04:59):
Jump it was that I was fired from my job that,
you know, a career that I had killed myself for
a thirty year career.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
I had reached the pinnacle of it.
Speaker 5 (05:09):
I was hosting the number one morning show on cable
television U and they took that away from me, and
it was totally unjustified. And I decided, if I don't
stand up and tell the truth right now, who who will?
And I had no idea, Bruce, how this was gonna
play out. Like I thought, I was going to be
(05:31):
at home crying my eyes out every day because I
had lost my job, and you know, people were going
to malign me and say that I wasn't telling the truth,
and you know, a lot of that did happen. But
then things started moving swiftly in the right direction, and
I started to realize when I had to travel and
go to the airport and flight attendants would take my
(05:52):
hand and they would have tears in their eyes and
they'd say thank you. You know, I started realizing that me,
maybe this would turn out okay. And a good friend
of mine at the time said to me two things, Gretchen,
you were always supposed to be doing this work in
your life, and.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Something good will come of this.
Speaker 5 (06:10):
And I was like, hmm, not feeling that exactly right now,
but you know now, I've remembered that in recent years, and.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
She was so right.
Speaker 5 (06:20):
And so what propelled me to start doing the work
was that I started hearing from so many other women
across our country and men who had faced similar circumstances
and had been silenced and had been pushed out of
their careers for doing nothing wrong.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Nothing, And I decided I had to do something about it.
Speaker 5 (06:38):
And so I've always been I grew up a Gatzi kid,
and you know, I'm a really hard worker, and so I.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Just decided to roll up my sleeves and get to work.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (06:48):
Yeah, So after I started getting to work, walking the
halls of Congress to try and change some laws around
these silencing mechanisms that are in people's contracts at work
or even in the handbook, or many times they have
no idea. They're even clicking on an email and agreeing
to be in silence.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
You have no idea.
Speaker 5 (07:05):
And so I started working with groups that had been
doing this for a long time. But it was sort
of a perfect storm because they really needed a more
well known person to join the fight, and I needed
all of their expertise that you know, with all the
history of everything. So we joined together and just really
started making headway. We got bipartisan support, which during this
(07:28):
hyper political time that we live in was like unheard
of completely, and so we found enough of what Republicans
and Democrats could hopefully agree on, and then Lift Our
Voices really came out of that because I decided, well,
I really should have an umbrella nonprofit organization to house
all of the work that I'm doing. And so three
years ago we formed Lift Our Voices and launched it
(07:51):
out in California, and we've had just amazing short term success.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Yeah. So in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 5 (07:58):
We passed two federal bipartisan bills into law.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
I know, it's crazy.
Speaker 5 (08:04):
So within a span of eight months, we passed two
of the biggest labor law changes in the last one
hundred years. Yeah, so hopefully our work will be remembered,
but we have a lot more work to do now.
These bills only deal with harassment and assault in the
workplace and these silencing mechanisms, so people know what NDAs
(08:27):
are for the most part, right non disclosure agreements. Our
most recent bill that the President signed on December seventh,
means that you can no longer silence people with NDAs
for harassment and assault predispute, meaning if you sign one
on your first day of work up until you file
a claim. Just to explain these things a little bit,
(08:47):
because the work is a little wonky. People just don't
understand these things. And it's workers, millions workers, three hundred
million workers. I mean, they have no clue what they're
signing on their first day of work.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Myself included, yeah, you know, I happy to get the job. Yeah,
you're just happy to get the job.
Speaker 5 (09:06):
It's like, are you going to say on the first day, Hey,
if something bad happens to happen to me in the
next six years, I want to be able to.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Talk about it.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Right.
Speaker 5 (09:15):
People don't think about that. They're just happy to get
a paycheck. Of course, So I actually had an NDA,
and the second thing that I've been battling called a
forced arbitration clause. At Fox, they put a forced arbitration
clause in my last contract.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Forced arbitration. So explain that.
Speaker 5 (09:34):
Okay, So what that means is, first of all, the
operative word is forced.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
You don't have a choice.
Speaker 5 (09:39):
Yeah, you are forced to go to arbitration, which is
a secret chamber with an arbitrator, instead of being able
to file a public lawsuit and go to a jury
of your peers, which is your constitutional right.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
So people have no clue.
Speaker 5 (09:56):
I asked questions because I had signed a tremendous amount
of contract throughout my career and I'm a stickler for detail,
and so I asked my agent, you know, and I
asked my lawyers, and I'm like, what is this clause?
And unfortunately they said, don't worry about it. It's becoming
the way of the world.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
And they're right.
Speaker 5 (10:16):
By twenty twenty four, eighty four percent of all American
workers will sign forced arbitration clauses on their first day
of work and they won't even understand what it is, don't.
I had no idea what it was when I decided
to file my lawsuit, and I assembled my lawyers. They
looked at my contract and then they looked at me
and said, we got some really bad news for you.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
And I said what, And they.
Speaker 5 (10:37):
Said, you have a forced arbitration clause means we can't
sue Fox News. You have to go over here to
this secret chamber called arbitration, and no one's ever going
to hear from you because it's secret. There are no appeals.
The arbitrator makes the decision. They usually find in favor
of the company because they come back for repeat business.
(10:57):
But you only have one claim, sure right, and only
two percent of the time does the employee actually win.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
So lawyers pretty much don't take the cases.
Speaker 5 (11:08):
And this is how the vicious cycle of silence and
horrible things happening at work has continued over the last
three or four decades, is because these cases just go
off into the ether somewhere and nobody ever hears from
these people ever again. And these were the really tragic
stories I was hearing from people who had reached out
to me.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
It was so eerily similar.
Speaker 5 (11:27):
They all had arbitration clauses, they all had been silenced,
they all didn't win anything, and they all never worked again,
they never worked in and the predator gets off scott
free because nobody knows this.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
Process has happened, because it's secret. What's right with any
of what I just said?
Speaker 2 (11:45):
It's really dark.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
No, So that's.
Speaker 5 (11:47):
Why I sued Roger Ayles personally to try to circumvent
the arbitration clause. And that's the only way my case
became public. We wouldn't be having this conversation right now
if my lawyers wouldn't have been able to think about that.
Speaker 7 (12:02):
Right.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
You know, when you said, oh, I'm gonna shoe als,
is that when the women that you were sitting in
the room with said, okay, we were with you on this.
Speaker 5 (12:23):
You mean other people that I work because I couldn't
tell anyone else because I had an NDA. The second
the second evil course, because there's two ways they silence
you to make sure that nothing ever gets out. They
make sure you have to go to force starbitration. If
you decide to come forward and you go to HR
thinking you're doing the right thing, right right, it is
(12:43):
not your friend.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Let's be clear. They work for the company.
Speaker 5 (12:47):
They've done a marvelous marketing job on making people feel
like you can go tell.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Them anything and they'll help you.
Speaker 5 (12:53):
There's probably tons of great people that work there, you know,
in HR, but they're not your friend.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
If you have a force starbitration clause and you go
to complain, they go, no one will ever know about this, Yeah,
and they immediately try to figure out how to get
rid of you.
Speaker 5 (13:07):
But you probably also have signed an NDA on your
first day, which means that you can't go and warn
anyone else at work about what's happening to you. And
so in my personal experience, or let me talk hypothetically,
because I do have an NDA, so I can't get
into the details, So I always do mental gymnastics when
I'm giving doing interviews, like what can I say?
Speaker 3 (13:27):
What can I do?
Speaker 5 (13:28):
And not get in trouble? Hypothetically. If you have an
NDA like that, you can't You can't warn anyone else.
You can't you can't even really tell your husband.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Or your children what's happening to you at work. Isn't
that crazy?
Speaker 2 (13:45):
That's crazy?
Speaker 5 (13:46):
Or the company can sue you then for breaking the NDA,
even though you were being treated illegally at work.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
You can't go home after a bad day and.
Speaker 5 (13:57):
Say, ostensibly you're not supposed to say anything, honey, this
happened to me. And this includes also not being able
to talk about your pay or not be any kinds
of other forms of discrimination. Yeah, and so this is
really how, unfortunately, companies have been able to cover up
their dirty laundry. And I really I peg it back
(14:18):
to I'll date myself here, but I think you and
I are on the same age.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
You're way younger.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
No, no, no no.
Speaker 5 (14:24):
My first job in television, one of the first stories
I covered was the Anita Hill hearings on Capitol Hill
when she came forward about being sexually harassed by.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
France Thomas, who's now on the Supreme Court.
Speaker 5 (14:37):
And I remember, you know, watching that intently and wondering
why the hell nobody believed her button they didn't. And
I think what happened then is that companies realized that
they had to start being more proactive about providing sexual
harassment training.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
And you know, because this was the talk. Now everyone
was talking about sexual harassment. But they also I.
Speaker 5 (14:59):
Believe that we can't have an Anita Hill at our workplace.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
We have to figure out how to cover this.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Ship up, right, Okay, So now once you shoot Roger,
now that's public. So now you're not saying anything. So
the people you work with now now because you've been fired.
Speaker 5 (15:29):
Well, they didn't know I was fired, So so I
was fired. And then and then I surprised Fox by
filing the lawsuit instead of having like a joint statement
that said why I was leaving.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Right, oh right, yeah, which of course is what they want.
Speaker 5 (15:47):
Yes, yes, So instead, you know, I had already been
planning this quite honestly, my legal team didn't expect me
to be fired because hypothetically that kind of always works
in favor of the person, right, because why were you fired?
Like yeah, So but then we worked very quickly and
(16:10):
so within it was right around over the fourth of.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
July holidays, so there are a few hiccups.
Speaker 5 (16:14):
But we filed a lawsuit on July sixth, twenty sixteen,
and I was fired on June twenty third, but it
wasn't public god, so then it became public with my lawsuit.
But another thing that happened on the first day that
we never expected was that.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
News Corp.
Speaker 5 (16:32):
The parent company of Fox News, decided to conduct an
internal investigation based on my claims, which that was a
huge surprise to us. We never expected them to take
it that seriously, right, So that's good. Yes, they were,
you know, they were standing by their employees, but they
(16:54):
were also saying that, you know, we should pay attention
to what she's alleging. And that's when and other women
then came forward. I would say they probably told twenty
percent of the truth and that was enough. And so
within two weeks, Roger Eils was fired, which is unbelievable.
(17:16):
I never ever expected that to happen, ever, and so
you know, again it every day of my life since
has been surreal. But I just sort of have taken
it as it's come, and I hope people are proud
of the work that I've done since to try and
make workplaces safer.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
Thanks for joining on table for two.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Gretchen Carlson has been telling us about her departure from
Fox News in the resulting lawsuits she filed against chairman
and CEO Roger Ayls, a move that sparked many other
women at the news organization to come.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
Forward with stories of their own.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Gretchen had been with Fox News for over a decade,
and I'm wondering what was it like to endure inappropriate
behavior for so long? So okay, so that happens, and
now you're left to sort of reinvent Gretchen yet again.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Yeah, Like, so here you are.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
You're a brilliant, smart human, and like you have to
subjugate yourself even when you were there, because they wanted
you to look a certain way, act a certain way.
You certainly your coworkers are saying things on air that
were inappropriate. I know there were a couple of times
where you're like, you walked off, but you know you
wanted to work.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
This was your job, You've been really, this is your passion.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
It was a delicate balance.
Speaker 5 (18:54):
Again, I can't get into the nitty gritty of everything
because of the NDAs that I've signed, but I will
just say that I I did lead several silent protests
and some that were more public, like when I walked
off the set three weeks before I got fired. I
came out in favor of banning the assault weapon ban,
and then I actually did a poll at the end
(19:14):
of my show with my viewers at Fox to see
how many of them agreed with me. Ninety seven percent
disagreed with me, which I knew that was going to happen,
but that's how I felt, very strongly that we shouldn't
that assault weapons bans.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
The assault weapons have no place in our society.
Speaker 5 (19:32):
So when I got fired and my story came out,
some people actually thought I got fired for saying that.
Of course, so I point that out because it was
a very delicate balance of how much I could protest.
While I was actually there, there was a tremendous amount
of fear.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
What did you love about that job?
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (19:53):
What I loved about it was, in fact, my mom
said to me on the you know, keep in mind
when I went over to Fox, it's already been now
seventeen years ago. It was a different Fox than it
is today. I had been working at CBS News and
I was doing as a correspondent, international correspondent, and then
I also hosted the Saturday early show, and I had
just had two babies, they were both infants, and Fox
(20:14):
came calling and said, we'd love you to do a
morning show five days a week. Well, that had been
my ultimate goal, to be able to do it, you know,
five days a week instead.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Of just one. And so I jumped at the opportunity.
Speaker 5 (20:26):
And my mom happened to be in New York City
on my first day of that job, and She said
to me afterwards, this must be one.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Of the happiest days of your life. And I said, yeah.
Speaker 5 (20:35):
I mean I had no idea what was about to come, right,
But I went fully for the job opportunity and something
that I had, you know, worked so many different cities
and markets in television, you know, paying my dues to
get to that point. Yeah, And so it was strictly.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Just this was a big opportunity. This was and though
there had been instances prior of just being in situations
that were not appropriate, I ran.
Speaker 5 (21:10):
I was assaulted twice. At the end of my year
as Miss America. I was just twenty two years old.
And actually it was because of my drive to try
and get ahead in the TV business, you know, and
strike when the iron's hot, because being Miss America is
this weird sort of phenomenon where you're a celebrity for
a year and then somebody else.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Comes along and they're the new Miss America and you're toast.
It's like.
Speaker 5 (21:33):
In fact, a very close friend of mine, who was
also a firm Miss America, said she actually overheard a
kid saying when she gave up her crown, he said,
there goes the old one, and it's such a true assessment.
And so because I had always been so driven and
a hard worker, I knew, like, while I'm actually Miss America,
(21:54):
I have to start knocking on doors and talking to
agents and figuring out if I really want to do
this TV thing, how am I gonna do this? And
so I was meeting with a really high level executive
in New York City and he spent almost the whole
day with me, made a bunch of.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
Calls for me, and I thought, wow, he must.
Speaker 5 (22:11):
Really admire my smarts, you know, and my tenacity. And
so we go to dinner, and then we're in the
back seat of a car and he's dropping me off
at my college roommate's apartment, and all of a sudden
he was on top of me in the back seat,
this tunn down my throat and a bunch of other stuff,
and I somehow got away from him and Beryl out
of the car and.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Just immediately like burst into tears.
Speaker 5 (22:35):
But told nobody because I think when whether you're a
manner of woman, you feel so much shaming, unfortunately, and
that's the way that we've socialized these issues. And so
I never told anyone about that experience, and one that
happened three weeks later. Unfortunately as well, until I wrote
my memoir twenty five years later. And it wasn't until
(22:57):
I was come forward about my Fox experience, and I
was writing my second book, Be Fierce, and I was
talking to one of the Trump survivors and I was
telling her these stories and she said, Gretchen, those were assault,
And I said, you know, they weren't. She goes, yes,
And it's so horrible about how we don't even allow
(23:18):
our own selves to believe the truths, because we've been
taught to just shove it down to someplace where you
never ever think about it ever again, and not really
call it what it was and come up with some
reason why you deserved it or you know. So that
was really eye opening for me, even after everything I
(23:38):
had been through and coming forward about Fox, that I
still wasn't even being honest with myself.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Did you think that the me too, I mean, the
me too explosion?
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Were you surprised by that?
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Were you?
Speaker 2 (24:02):
How did that feel?
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (24:03):
So my story was a full fifteen months before the
Harvey Weinstein revelations.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
So that's technically when people say me too.
Speaker 5 (24:11):
Started right, and then there are certainly other women who
came before me, But I guess people would would peg
my very public story as the latest iteration of this movement.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Right.
Speaker 5 (24:25):
But I have to tell you that every time another
big story would come out, I was, on the one hand,
not surprised but also shocked that there was going to
be accountability.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
That's what I was surprised about, the accountability, And you
could see change swiftly.
Speaker 5 (24:42):
So like, for example, with my story, they still paid
Roger Ale's a forty million dollar parachute, right, even though
they could have fired obviously.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Fired him for cause.
Speaker 5 (24:52):
But when you got to Matt Lauer and his story,
they they were not paying out anything.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
When you got to less this.
Speaker 5 (25:00):
Story, they donated his parachute to women's groups.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Right.
Speaker 5 (25:04):
That all happened in a very short period of time,
So you started seeing immense progress with how we handled
these types of things. But still every time I'll never
forget when Bill O'Reilly fell down, I emblematically was by
myself at home.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
I always seemed to be by myself for these.
Speaker 5 (25:24):
Big moments, and I saw it come across the TV,
and I was still shocked because I had worked there,
never thought i'd see that day and a friend of
mine called me and it was a guy and he said, Gretchen,
I said, because are you watching and I said yes, yes.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
And then I just started sobbing and he.
Speaker 5 (25:47):
Said, Gretchen, you did this, you did this, And I
was like, I can't tunt you right now, you know,
So every That's the surprise part of it that I'm
talking about is I never thought we would see this
unbelievable firestorm of other people being held accountable simply because
(26:09):
you know, some people had a few brave actions and
the me too movement. What really I think made that explode.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Was social media.
Speaker 5 (26:19):
You know, as much as I don't love it for
my kids, social media allowed people to come forward with
their name and face or anonymously, right, and it just
exploded globally. Also, the media started paying attention to these stories.
And as a member of the media, I can criticize
us by saying that had I pitched a harassment story
(26:39):
six and a half years ago, nobody in the newsroom
would have wanted to cover it. We just didn't cover
that kind of stuff. So the media started covering the stories,
which was really important, and the American public became engaged
and they were like, how the hell is this still
happening at work?
Speaker 3 (26:56):
I thought we had solved this. But the reason they
thought we.
Speaker 5 (27:00):
Had solved it was because all the cases were going
to secrecy ration.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
They're going to forst arbitration, so you were never hearing
about them.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
The sixties were done, the mad Man arrow was done.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
Yeah, right, no.
Speaker 5 (27:12):
And let me also point out that my efforts at
lift our voices are not just about harassment and assault.
I'm fighting for every marginalized group. So our next fight
with legislation is for all forms of discrimination, whether it's race,
LGBTQ plus, whether it's age, disability.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
We're not done for a long time until we make.
Speaker 5 (27:34):
Sure that all of those groups are not silenced as well.
And imagine the dynamic now at works since we've passed
these two bills. If you're harassed or assaulted, you don't
have to go to the secret chamber anymore, right, But
if you're black and you're discriminated against, you do how
do you think that's going to play out at work?
Speaker 2 (27:51):
Really?
Speaker 5 (27:53):
Because the federal law only says that if you're harassed
or assaulted, you don't.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
Have to go to arbitration anymore.
Speaker 5 (28:00):
So we think organically that other groups are going to
wake up to this. We hope and say what about me?
And I just want to ruin to know I'm fighting
for you and I'm doing the best I can. We
could only get this much done on the hill to
get both parties.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
To come together.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Really welcome back to table for two. Gretchen's nonprofit Lift
(28:44):
Our Voices has made a real legislative change by champion
an ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act,
which President Biden signed into law last year. Still, advocacy
work is full of ten to uphill battles.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
How does Gretchen keep the momentum going?
Speaker 5 (29:04):
I always say in in the advocacy work that I
do now, you have to wake up every day optimistic
because you can't be pessimistic about anything. You're gonna have
a lot of downtime and a lot of downturns and
a lot of no's, But you have to just keep
pushing forward. And so you know, I'm not necessarily incredibly
(29:27):
optimistic about getting more federal bills passed into law now
with the new makeup of Congress. Sure, but we are
active working at the state level, which is having dramatic
impact as well. So your listeners should know that if
they live in New Jersey, California, or Washington State, they
cannot be forced to sign an NDA for anything bad
(29:49):
that happens to them.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
That's that's headline news.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
Yes, right, you cannot.
Speaker 5 (29:53):
So our organization has been instrumental in getting those bills passed.
So only an NDA for trade secrets, right, So every
business should be able to protect their trade secrets, but
you cannot force anyone to sign an NDA for anything
bad that happens to the network right in those states,
And that's that's huge, and it's had a ripple effects
(30:15):
some global companies like Microsoft, for example, they're based in
Washington State, and they thought to themselves, Hm, should we
treat our employees in Washington State different than anyone else
in the world, right, because we're gonna still bind our
people to NDAs in Iowa, for example, right, but not
in Washington State.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
So they decided globally to get rid of NDAs. Wow,
which is exactly what we wanted to happen.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Yeah right, wow.
Speaker 5 (30:37):
So even though we may not have a lot of
federal victories this year, we're having a lot of state
victories that still has dramatic impact on changing the workplace.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
So we're we're kind of working all sides of it.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
This generation that is coming into itself, as the other
older generation is going to be passing and going into
the next will eventually get to this magical place.
Speaker 5 (31:14):
It's such a great point, Bruce, because part of our
efforts that lift our voices is also to educate the
younger people so that when they become the next CEOs
and general counsel they don't use these clauses and they
understand how detrimental.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
Another really important point should I should say is that.
Speaker 5 (31:29):
These clauses push out the exact people that companies want
to retain, women and people of color and diversity, right,
all forms of diversity, and every study has shown that
you increase your bottom.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
Line when you have a more diverse workplace.
Speaker 5 (31:44):
So that's our pitch to companies when we try to
get them on board to get rid of these clauses.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
We say, even if.
Speaker 5 (31:51):
You only care about the bottom line, you should get
rid of these clauses because you're pushing out tons of
people that you.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
Want to stay.
Speaker 5 (31:59):
And so that's really important and getting to our young people.
My kids have witnessed, you know, everything that happened to
me over the last six and a half years.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
And while I said I was very.
Speaker 5 (32:09):
Concerned about their well being, It's worked out like the
best that it possibly could because I've seen my courage
transfer to them.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Yeah, and especially for my son.
Speaker 5 (32:20):
You know, we spend a lot of time saying that
we need to rise girls up and make them empowered
to know that they can be anything they want to be.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
But what I've learned is we really need to focus
on our sons. Yes, because I mean.
Speaker 5 (32:32):
Most Fortune five hundred companies are run by men still,
and so we need to get to them early on
to respect women and all of the diverse groups so
that they treat them fairly.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
And I have seen that.
Speaker 5 (32:46):
In my son where I was on a CNN show
a couple of years back, and I came home and
he was waiting for me in the kitchen and he said, Mommy,
He said, was it true what that other woman said
that once every seventy three seconds in our country that
a woman is a were harassed. And I said, I'm
so sorry to tell you that that's true, And he said,
mom He said, as a twelve year old boy, I
(33:07):
want to.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
Help fix that.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (33:09):
Wow, Yeah, I was like, okay, full stop, work done,
dropped the mic, right, yeah, right completely, I don't have
to do if that's all I've accomplished, right is getting
to this boy, right.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
And hopefully he'll pass it on.
Speaker 5 (33:25):
So it made me realize from that point that I
should be spending all my time at boys schools.
Speaker 7 (33:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
You talked earlier about and I have it here your
memoir getting real. You know, writing a memoir is a
really intense experience I can imagine. And was there anything
in that journey of writing your memoir that you learned
that you didn't need even know about yourself that you thought, Oh,
(34:02):
it was really difficult for you to actually put on
paper and know that your parents were going to see this,
and you know your you know, I always find like memoirs,
so yeah, well I love them.
Speaker 5 (34:16):
Like certain relationships, right, yeah, that my parents didn't like,
right Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
Sure.
Speaker 5 (34:21):
I Also I would just say that we chatted earlier
about the sexual assaults that I went through. I knew
they were going to see that, right, I knew the
whole world was going to see that, So that that
was probably the biggest revelation. And also other experiences in
my television career where I was harassed on the job too.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
I had a lot of great years where I.
Speaker 5 (34:41):
Wasn't but right in my first job, I was also
harassed and then in a scary situation, and then I
would just say that I think the greatest revelation for
me was realizing that.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
It was totally fine to not be.
Speaker 5 (34:57):
Perfect, and that one of my missions in life, besides
changing the safety of the workplace, is to raise our
girls to not be perfect, because we put this huge
curse on them to be smart, to succeed, to run
a family, and to do all the domestic work and
work full time and have it all.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
Remember that phrase, have it all. That's such a demon.
Speaker 5 (35:21):
And I call myself now a reformed perfectionist. And I
tried to do it when I was forty and I
didn't succeed, and I've now accomplished it. I definitely I
work on it every day. But it's really important to
send a message to especially women, that you're not expected
to have.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
It all, and it's okay to color outside of the lines.
Speaker 5 (35:42):
It's okay to f up and you and pick yourself up.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
And we teach our boys to skin their knees.
Speaker 5 (35:49):
And jump off of the fence and be rowdy and
all that and take risks, and we tell our girls
to put bows in their hair and sit over in
the corner and play with dolls.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
Like what how are we ever seeing? Is believing?
Speaker 5 (36:02):
So like we have to start changing the way that
we mold our girls into being these perfect little creatures.
And I'll never forget my daughter when she was two,
she colored outside of the lines. And she took the
paper and she crunched it up and she threw it
into the trash and I said, oh no, I picked
it up and I pulled it back out and I said,
Mommy thinks this is beautiful, and I want you to
(36:25):
color outside of the Lord's right. So, you know, I
think I was being very vulnerable in the book by
actually just saying that I've I'm not perfect, and I've
made a tremendous amount of mistakes and I'm not going
to hold myself to that perfectionism deeming anymore, nor should
anyone else.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Right, you know, I watched Gretchen.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Something, so it came my way like years and years ago,
and that show with Blooper.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
All right, So if you're listening to this.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
Dick Clark and Ed McMahon has a show called like
Bloopers and Blunders and Practical Jobical Jokes.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
And I watched it. It was funny.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
Miriam Mobiley and Gary Collins, who actually I knew because
they were friends with my father's partner. So they played
this practical joke on Gretchen where you're supposed to present
with them to a live like corporate event at this
new weird machine.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
It was a satellite machine for engineers.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
For engineers, and then Gary Collins is like, oh, you
have a phone call Miriam Obile. They're like, oh you,
Mike isn't working, and they leave you there too, and
they played this joke which you handle beautifully.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
I thought they were going to fire me as Miss America.
Speaker 6 (37:43):
Well really, because I want to say I think it
was mean. I think it was a mean show that
really at the end of the day, and even like
when they have you press a button called double D FYI,
Oh yeah, I was like, now am I hearing now?
And I'm sure at the time I didn't think of it,
but you like to sue us this double D button.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
I'm like, oh, this is all long.
Speaker 5 (38:02):
Yes, well this was many years ago, not making excuses
for it. But aside from what I did recently, those
fourteen minutes of having to just add lib about a
system I knew person nothing allowed.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
That was just sheer terror.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (38:17):
And they had cue cards and they all were like
fourteen letter scientific words, and then they were upside down
and then they dropped them right and I'm like, oh shit,
like I'm trying to read off the ground, right, So
I think that this is two weeks into being Miss.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
America, by the way, wow, and I'm like, they're going
to fire me right right.
Speaker 5 (38:36):
I mean, first of all, I'm short, so I never
felt like I lived up to the whole Miss America
thing because I'm this tiny little girl from Minnesota. Minnesota
usually wasn't a pageant state. I played classical violin that
had never won, you know, So I was already facing
like a lot of insecurities. Then they do this horrendous
thing and then it doesn't air for about six or
seven months. Okay, So I'm in my hotel room by
(38:57):
myself because you spend that whole year on the road
and I have like the covers up over my years.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
I'm embarrassed of myself, even though I'm the.
Speaker 5 (39:04):
Only person in the room and I watch it and
I'm like, oh my god, this is the worst thing ever,
even though they were complimentary.
Speaker 3 (39:11):
So you know what happened.
Speaker 5 (39:13):
It's a great lesson about how seemingly bad experiences can
turn into wonderful things. So a couple TV agents saw
that and they called me after they found me, and
they said, if you can do that, you can do TV.
Have you ever thought about TV? That's what got me
into TV?
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Really.
Speaker 7 (39:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
Gretchen is brought to light so many of the ways
that big companies used legal means to prevent sexual harassment
and assault survivors from coming forward. And as our lunch ends,
she goes off to continue her work on behalf of Survivors.
I'm curious what can we do to help her important
cause the.
Speaker 5 (39:59):
More people that decide to come forward, the more we
normalize this, and that the more that that you don't
become the odd person out as having courage. It becomes
just the new way of the world.
Speaker 3 (40:10):
And that's how.
Speaker 5 (40:11):
We work to change things when people have no other
choice other than to accept that this is how we're
going to handle this now.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
Through lift our voices.
Speaker 5 (40:20):
I continue to encourage companies to change their policies. This year,
we're going to be coming out with a corporate rating
system where we're actually going to break companies on whether
or not they silence their people. We believe that all
employees should know before they go to work whether they're
going to a company that silences them. And we also
think that it will nudge companies to.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
Do the right thing.
Speaker 5 (40:41):
If they happen to get a bad grade for me,
that they maybe will reevaluate how they're doing business. I
always say, you know, the train has left the station.
These movements aren't going to stop, So get on the
right side of history before we force you to do it,
you know, which leads me to We're still going to
be active with trying to pass new legis for other
protected classes. We're going to be very active at the
(41:04):
state level. We're introducing new NBA legislation in New York
State coming up in.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
The next few weeks.
Speaker 5 (41:12):
And then just the continued education because people just don't
understand these issues. And then you know, as far as
I since my life has been so weird and mysterious
different directions, I just leave myself open to any possible
opportunity that comes my way.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
Well, Gretchen, thank you for joining me today. I'll table
for two. Thank you for being an advocate. Thank you
for being honest, for putting yourself on the line, for
sharing really intimate you know things that you've experienced, and
it's an honor.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
It's a pleasure to have lunch with you.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
I hope to see and be a part of however
I can help making the world a better place with you.
Speaker 5 (41:58):
Thank you so much, and thank you for allowing me
to drink wine in the middle of our day.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
It's such a lovely half a glass our finish shares
when you're done.
Speaker 5 (42:07):
I wanted to make sure that I that I stayed
above board and all the important things that I'm talking
You're amazing.
Speaker 3 (42:13):
Now. If you want to go and have dinner sometorry.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
I'll let all right.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
Table for two with Bruce Bozzi is produced by iHeart
Radio seven three seven Park and Airmail. Our executive producers
are Bruce Bosi and Nathan King. Table for two is
researched and written by Bridget Arsenalt. Our sound engineers are
Paul Bowman and Alyssa Midcalf. Table for two's la production
team is Danielle Romo and Lorraine viz Our.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
Music supervisor is Randall.
Speaker 4 (42:48):
Poster Our Talent Booking is by James Harkin.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
Special thanks to Amy Sugarman, Uni Schaer, Kevin Yvane, Bobby Bauer,
Alison Kant Graber, Jody Williams, Rita Sodi, and the team
at Via Carota in Manhattan's West Village. For more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Hi, everyone, Thank you for pulling up a chair for
this week's table for two. Today we're back at Via
Carota in New York City's West Village.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
This is so exciting. How are you? So glad to
see you too?
Speaker 3 (00:17):
And a little early because my train came in.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
I'm excited for today's interview because my guest is someone
I've never met.
Speaker 4 (00:24):
She's had a career with many turns.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
She became Miss America in nineteen eighty nine, graduated from
Stanford in nineteen ninety, and then became a broadcast journalist.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
Most notably, she spent eleven.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Years at Fox News before leaving, ensuing then Fox News
chairman and CEO Roger Ales.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
For sexual harassment.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
It would prove to be the first domino that led
to his legendary downfall. Now, our guest runs an impressive
nonprofit called Lift Our Voices Rose.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
That's beautiful, sure, thanks, total pleasure.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
She's smart, determined, and last year the United States Congress
passed a law that she championed.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
A huge feat during these divided times.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
So pull up a chair and grab a glass of rose,
because today we're having lunch with Gretchen Carlson. I'm Bruce Bosi,
and this is my podcast Table for two.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Welcome Gretchen. Thank you for joining me today for lunch.
Speaker 5 (01:37):
Well, thank you for having me. And I love our
little setting here. It is so beautiful. I feel like
I'm on like in Broadway or something. We're like going
to launch intos.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
On it is right, it's like exactly. It feels like
we could be like and damn action. You know, where
do I begin with, Gretchen, Let's maybe just start with
lift our Voices, which this has been a mission of yours,
and if you could explain the mission, and then also
(02:05):
what Biden signed in, because I think it's a very
it's a big deal.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Yeah, well it really is.
Speaker 5 (02:11):
Well, first of all, let me just say thank you
for having this conversation with me. It's really important to
get this information out to people because.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
When they go to work every day, they have no
idea what they're.
Speaker 5 (02:21):
Signing in their contracts, and so it's sort of a
wake up call for everyone to be able to have
a better understanding of that. And also I would just
add that I never expected to be doing this.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
I mean no, I mean I grew up in a.
Speaker 5 (02:33):
Small town in Minnesota and my life has just worked
in really incredibly mysterious ways. You know, I was a
prodigy on the violin as a child, and then I
was Miss America.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
It's like what.
Speaker 5 (02:44):
And then I studied at Stamford and Oxford, and then
I was going to be a lawyer, and then I
ended up in television, and then I ended up at
Fox News with my dream job and unfortunately behind the
scenes the horrors of harassment that was going on at
the same time. So did I ever expect that I
would take a horrible thing that happened to me and
(03:05):
turn it into something really positive for millions of people
that I'll never meet.
Speaker 6 (03:10):
You know.
Speaker 5 (03:11):
That's the beauty of this that I'm helping so many
people that probably don't even know my name, you know,
but they're gonna be They're gonna benefit from the laws
that I've been working on to pass. So, you know,
after I jumped off the cliff by myself ensuing Ladri
Rail's the CEO and chairman formerly a Fox News six
and a half years ago. Now, no, no, Sometimes it
(03:32):
feels like yesterday, and then sometimes it feels like a.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
Long time ago.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
That strength that you did that day to jump off alone,
that's a big deal, Like when was it? Just like
I'm done? Like what was that break? You know we
all have those moments.
Speaker 5 (03:46):
Yeah, I always say that building, the kind of courage
that it took for me to do that wasn't a
moment like that.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
It was years of building.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
You know.
Speaker 5 (03:55):
I always give the analogy of when you walk into
a room and flip on the light switch.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
It's not that easy, you know. It was like this.
Speaker 5 (04:01):
Year's long, you know, really tough decision, biggest decision of
my life, and mainly because I have two children and
I didn't want them to face any scrutiny over their
mom becoming the story. A journalist is never supposed to
become the story. And then just you know, my husband too,
is kind of an uncomfortable situation and I'm not sure
(04:24):
he wanted to be in the limelight for these issues.
And truth be told, my parents, who I'm still blessed
to have in my life, you know, I really wanted
their approval. No matter how old you are, you always
want your parents to be like, hey, I'm with you exactly,
and you know, up until a certain point they weren't. Because,
as I said, I grew up in small town Minnesota.
People don't sue each other in Minnesota, like everyone's really nice,
(04:45):
and so finally they understood that I really had no
other choice, and we.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Had a very emotional conversation on the phone, and that was.
Speaker 5 (04:54):
Sort of what got me to that place where I
was looking over the cliff.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
And then what made me.
Speaker 5 (04:59):
Jump it was that I was fired from my job that,
you know, a career that I had killed myself for
a thirty year career.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
I had reached the pinnacle of it.
Speaker 5 (05:09):
I was hosting the number one morning show on cable
television U and they took that away from me, and
it was totally unjustified. And I decided, if I don't
stand up and tell the truth right now, who who will?
And I had no idea, Bruce, how this was gonna
play out. Like I thought, I was going to be
(05:31):
at home crying my eyes out every day because I
had lost my job, and you know, people were going
to malign me and say that I wasn't telling the truth,
and you know, a lot of that did happen. But
then things started moving swiftly in the right direction, and
I started to realize when I had to travel and
go to the airport and flight attendants would take my
(05:52):
hand and they would have tears in their eyes and
they'd say thank you. You know, I started realizing that me,
maybe this would turn out okay. And a good friend
of mine at the time said to me two things, Gretchen,
you were always supposed to be doing this work in
your life, and.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Something good will come of this.
Speaker 5 (06:10):
And I was like, hmm, not feeling that exactly right now,
but you know now, I've remembered that in recent years, and.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
She was so right.
Speaker 5 (06:20):
And so what propelled me to start doing the work
was that I started hearing from so many other women
across our country and men who had faced similar circumstances
and had been silenced and had been pushed out of
their careers for doing nothing wrong.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Nothing, And I decided I had to do something about it.
Speaker 5 (06:38):
And so I've always been I grew up a Gatzi kid,
and you know, I'm a really hard worker, and so I.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Just decided to roll up my sleeves and get to work.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (06:48):
Yeah, So after I started getting to work, walking the
halls of Congress to try and change some laws around
these silencing mechanisms that are in people's contracts at work
or even in the handbook, or many times they have
no idea. They're even clicking on an email and agreeing
to be in silence.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
You have no idea.
Speaker 5 (07:05):
And so I started working with groups that had been
doing this for a long time. But it was sort
of a perfect storm because they really needed a more
well known person to join the fight, and I needed
all of their expertise that you know, with all the
history of everything. So we joined together and just really
started making headway. We got bipartisan support, which during this
(07:28):
hyper political time that we live in was like unheard
of completely, and so we found enough of what Republicans
and Democrats could hopefully agree on, and then Lift Our
Voices really came out of that because I decided, well,
I really should have an umbrella nonprofit organization to house
all of the work that I'm doing. And so three
years ago we formed Lift Our Voices and launched it
(07:51):
out in California, and we've had just amazing short term success.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Yeah. So in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 5 (07:58):
We passed two federal bipartisan bills into law.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
I know, it's crazy.
Speaker 5 (08:04):
So within a span of eight months, we passed two
of the biggest labor law changes in the last one
hundred years. Yeah, so hopefully our work will be remembered,
but we have a lot more work to do now.
These bills only deal with harassment and assault in the
workplace and these silencing mechanisms, so people know what NDAs
(08:27):
are for the most part, right non disclosure agreements. Our
most recent bill that the President signed on December seventh,
means that you can no longer silence people with NDAs
for harassment and assault predispute, meaning if you sign one
on your first day of work up until you file
a claim. Just to explain these things a little bit,
(08:47):
because the work is a little wonky. People just don't
understand these things. And it's workers, millions workers, three hundred
million workers. I mean, they have no clue what they're
signing on their first day of work.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Myself included, yeah, you know, I happy to get the job. Yeah,
you're just happy to get the job.
Speaker 5 (09:06):
It's like, are you going to say on the first day, Hey,
if something bad happens to happen to me in the
next six years, I want to be able to.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Talk about it.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Right.
Speaker 5 (09:15):
People don't think about that. They're just happy to get
a paycheck. Of course, So I actually had an NDA,
and the second thing that I've been battling called a
forced arbitration clause. At Fox, they put a forced arbitration
clause in my last contract.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Forced arbitration. So explain that.
Speaker 5 (09:34):
Okay, So what that means is, first of all, the
operative word is forced.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
You don't have a choice.
Speaker 5 (09:39):
Yeah, you are forced to go to arbitration, which is
a secret chamber with an arbitrator, instead of being able
to file a public lawsuit and go to a jury
of your peers, which is your constitutional right.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
So people have no clue.
Speaker 5 (09:56):
I asked questions because I had signed a tremendous amount
of contract throughout my career and I'm a stickler for detail,
and so I asked my agent, you know, and I
asked my lawyers, and I'm like, what is this clause?
And unfortunately they said, don't worry about it. It's becoming
the way of the world.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
And they're right.
Speaker 5 (10:16):
By twenty twenty four, eighty four percent of all American
workers will sign forced arbitration clauses on their first day
of work and they won't even understand what it is, don't.
I had no idea what it was when I decided
to file my lawsuit, and I assembled my lawyers. They
looked at my contract and then they looked at me
and said, we got some really bad news for you.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
And I said what, And they.
Speaker 5 (10:37):
Said, you have a forced arbitration clause means we can't
sue Fox News. You have to go over here to
this secret chamber called arbitration, and no one's ever going
to hear from you because it's secret. There are no appeals.
The arbitrator makes the decision. They usually find in favor
of the company because they come back for repeat business.
(10:57):
But you only have one claim, sure right, and only
two percent of the time does the employee actually win.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
So lawyers pretty much don't take the cases.
Speaker 5 (11:08):
And this is how the vicious cycle of silence and
horrible things happening at work has continued over the last
three or four decades, is because these cases just go
off into the ether somewhere and nobody ever hears from
these people ever again. And these were the really tragic
stories I was hearing from people who had reached out
to me.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
It was so eerily similar.
Speaker 5 (11:27):
They all had arbitration clauses, they all had been silenced,
they all didn't win anything, and they all never worked again,
they never worked in and the predator gets off scott
free because nobody knows this.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
Process has happened, because it's secret. What's right with any
of what I just said?
Speaker 2 (11:45):
It's really dark.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
No, So that's.
Speaker 5 (11:47):
Why I sued Roger Ayles personally to try to circumvent
the arbitration clause. And that's the only way my case
became public. We wouldn't be having this conversation right now
if my lawyers wouldn't have been able to think about that.
Speaker 7 (12:02):
Right.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
You know, when you said, oh, I'm gonna shoe als,
is that when the women that you were sitting in
the room with said, okay, we were with you on this.
Speaker 5 (12:23):
You mean other people that I work because I couldn't
tell anyone else because I had an NDA. The second
the second evil course, because there's two ways they silence
you to make sure that nothing ever gets out. They
make sure you have to go to force starbitration. If
you decide to come forward and you go to HR
thinking you're doing the right thing, right right, it is
(12:43):
not your friend.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Let's be clear. They work for the company.
Speaker 5 (12:47):
They've done a marvelous marketing job on making people feel
like you can go tell.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Them anything and they'll help you.
Speaker 5 (12:53):
There's probably tons of great people that work there, you know,
in HR, but they're not your friend.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
If you have a force starbitration clause and you go
to complain, they go, no one will ever know about this, Yeah,
and they immediately try to figure out how to get
rid of you.
Speaker 5 (13:07):
But you probably also have signed an NDA on your
first day, which means that you can't go and warn
anyone else at work about what's happening to you. And
so in my personal experience, or let me talk hypothetically,
because I do have an NDA, so I can't get
into the details, So I always do mental gymnastics when
I'm giving doing interviews, like what can I say?
Speaker 3 (13:27):
What can I do?
Speaker 5 (13:28):
And not get in trouble? Hypothetically. If you have an
NDA like that, you can't You can't warn anyone else.
You can't you can't even really tell your husband.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Or your children what's happening to you at work. Isn't
that crazy?
Speaker 2 (13:45):
That's crazy?
Speaker 5 (13:46):
Or the company can sue you then for breaking the NDA,
even though you were being treated illegally at work.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
You can't go home after a bad day and.
Speaker 5 (13:57):
Say, ostensibly you're not supposed to say anything, honey, this
happened to me. And this includes also not being able
to talk about your pay or not be any kinds
of other forms of discrimination. Yeah, and so this is
really how, unfortunately, companies have been able to cover up
their dirty laundry. And I really I peg it back
(14:18):
to I'll date myself here, but I think you and
I are on the same age.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
You're way younger.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
No, no, no no.
Speaker 5 (14:24):
My first job in television, one of the first stories
I covered was the Anita Hill hearings on Capitol Hill
when she came forward about being sexually harassed by.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
France Thomas, who's now on the Supreme Court.
Speaker 5 (14:37):
And I remember, you know, watching that intently and wondering
why the hell nobody believed her button they didn't. And
I think what happened then is that companies realized that
they had to start being more proactive about providing sexual
harassment training.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
And you know, because this was the talk. Now everyone
was talking about sexual harassment. But they also I.
Speaker 5 (14:59):
Believe that we can't have an Anita Hill at our workplace.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
We have to figure out how to cover this.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Ship up, right, Okay, So now once you shoot Roger,
now that's public. So now you're not saying anything. So
the people you work with now now because you've been fired.
Speaker 5 (15:29):
Well, they didn't know I was fired, So so I
was fired. And then and then I surprised Fox by
filing the lawsuit instead of having like a joint statement
that said why I was leaving.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Right, oh right, yeah, which of course is what they want.
Speaker 5 (15:47):
Yes, yes, So instead, you know, I had already been
planning this quite honestly, my legal team didn't expect me
to be fired because hypothetically that kind of always works
in favor of the person, right, because why were you fired?
Like yeah, So but then we worked very quickly and
(16:10):
so within it was right around over the fourth of.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
July holidays, so there are a few hiccups.
Speaker 5 (16:14):
But we filed a lawsuit on July sixth, twenty sixteen,
and I was fired on June twenty third, but it
wasn't public god, so then it became public with my lawsuit.
But another thing that happened on the first day that
we never expected was that.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
News Corp.
Speaker 5 (16:32):
The parent company of Fox News, decided to conduct an
internal investigation based on my claims, which that was a
huge surprise to us. We never expected them to take
it that seriously, right, So that's good. Yes, they were,
you know, they were standing by their employees, but they
(16:54):
were also saying that, you know, we should pay attention
to what she's alleging. And that's when and other women
then came forward. I would say they probably told twenty
percent of the truth and that was enough. And so
within two weeks, Roger Eils was fired, which is unbelievable.
(17:16):
I never ever expected that to happen, ever, and so
you know, again it every day of my life since
has been surreal. But I just sort of have taken
it as it's come, and I hope people are proud
of the work that I've done since to try and
make workplaces safer.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
Thanks for joining on table for two.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Gretchen Carlson has been telling us about her departure from
Fox News in the resulting lawsuits she filed against chairman
and CEO Roger Ayls, a move that sparked many other
women at the news organization to come.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
Forward with stories of their own.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Gretchen had been with Fox News for over a decade,
and I'm wondering what was it like to endure inappropriate
behavior for so long? So okay, so that happens, and
now you're left to sort of reinvent Gretchen yet again.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Yeah, Like, so here you are.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
You're a brilliant, smart human, and like you have to
subjugate yourself even when you were there, because they wanted
you to look a certain way, act a certain way.
You certainly your coworkers are saying things on air that
were inappropriate. I know there were a couple of times
where you're like, you walked off, but you know you
wanted to work.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
This was your job, You've been really, this is your passion.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
It was a delicate balance.
Speaker 5 (18:54):
Again, I can't get into the nitty gritty of everything
because of the NDAs that I've signed, but I will
just say that I I did lead several silent protests
and some that were more public, like when I walked
off the set three weeks before I got fired. I
came out in favor of banning the assault weapon ban,
and then I actually did a poll at the end
(19:14):
of my show with my viewers at Fox to see
how many of them agreed with me. Ninety seven percent
disagreed with me, which I knew that was going to happen,
but that's how I felt, very strongly that we shouldn't
that assault weapons bans.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
The assault weapons have no place in our society.
Speaker 5 (19:32):
So when I got fired and my story came out,
some people actually thought I got fired for saying that.
Of course, so I point that out because it was
a very delicate balance of how much I could protest.
While I was actually there, there was a tremendous amount
of fear.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
What did you love about that job?
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (19:53):
What I loved about it was, in fact, my mom
said to me on the you know, keep in mind
when I went over to Fox, it's already been now
seventeen years ago. It was a different Fox than it
is today. I had been working at CBS News and
I was doing as a correspondent, international correspondent, and then
I also hosted the Saturday early show, and I had
just had two babies, they were both infants, and Fox
(20:14):
came calling and said, we'd love you to do a
morning show five days a week. Well, that had been
my ultimate goal, to be able to do it, you know,
five days a week instead.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Of just one. And so I jumped at the opportunity.
Speaker 5 (20:26):
And my mom happened to be in New York City
on my first day of that job, and She said
to me afterwards, this must be one.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Of the happiest days of your life. And I said, yeah.
Speaker 5 (20:35):
I mean I had no idea what was about to come, right,
But I went fully for the job opportunity and something
that I had, you know, worked so many different cities
and markets in television, you know, paying my dues to
get to that point. Yeah, And so it was strictly.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Just this was a big opportunity. This was and though
there had been instances prior of just being in situations
that were not appropriate, I ran.
Speaker 5 (21:10):
I was assaulted twice. At the end of my year
as Miss America. I was just twenty two years old.
And actually it was because of my drive to try
and get ahead in the TV business, you know, and
strike when the iron's hot, because being Miss America is
this weird sort of phenomenon where you're a celebrity for
a year and then somebody else.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Comes along and they're the new Miss America and you're toast.
It's like.
Speaker 5 (21:33):
In fact, a very close friend of mine, who was
also a firm Miss America, said she actually overheard a
kid saying when she gave up her crown, he said,
there goes the old one, and it's such a true assessment.
And so because I had always been so driven and
a hard worker, I knew, like, while I'm actually Miss America,
(21:54):
I have to start knocking on doors and talking to
agents and figuring out if I really want to do
this TV thing, how am I gonna do this? And
so I was meeting with a really high level executive
in New York City and he spent almost the whole
day with me, made a bunch of.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
Calls for me, and I thought, wow, he must.
Speaker 5 (22:11):
Really admire my smarts, you know, and my tenacity. And
so we go to dinner, and then we're in the
back seat of a car and he's dropping me off
at my college roommate's apartment, and all of a sudden
he was on top of me in the back seat,
this tunn down my throat and a bunch of other stuff,
and I somehow got away from him and Beryl out
of the car and.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Just immediately like burst into tears.
Speaker 5 (22:35):
But told nobody because I think when whether you're a
manner of woman, you feel so much shaming, unfortunately, and
that's the way that we've socialized these issues. And so
I never told anyone about that experience, and one that
happened three weeks later. Unfortunately as well, until I wrote
my memoir twenty five years later. And it wasn't until
(22:57):
I was come forward about my Fox experience, and I
was writing my second book, Be Fierce, and I was
talking to one of the Trump survivors and I was
telling her these stories and she said, Gretchen, those were assault,
And I said, you know, they weren't. She goes, yes,
And it's so horrible about how we don't even allow
(23:18):
our own selves to believe the truths, because we've been
taught to just shove it down to someplace where you
never ever think about it ever again, and not really
call it what it was and come up with some
reason why you deserved it or you know. So that
was really eye opening for me, even after everything I
(23:38):
had been through and coming forward about Fox, that I
still wasn't even being honest with myself.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Did you think that the me too, I mean, the
me too explosion?
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Were you surprised by that?
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Were you?
Speaker 2 (24:02):
How did that feel?
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (24:03):
So my story was a full fifteen months before the
Harvey Weinstein revelations.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
So that's technically when people say me too.
Speaker 5 (24:11):
Started right, and then there are certainly other women who
came before me, But I guess people would would peg
my very public story as the latest iteration of this movement.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Right.
Speaker 5 (24:25):
But I have to tell you that every time another
big story would come out, I was, on the one hand,
not surprised but also shocked that there was going to
be accountability.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
That's what I was surprised about, the accountability, And you
could see change swiftly.
Speaker 5 (24:42):
So like, for example, with my story, they still paid
Roger Ale's a forty million dollar parachute, right, even though
they could have fired obviously.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Fired him for cause.
Speaker 5 (24:52):
But when you got to Matt Lauer and his story,
they they were not paying out anything.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
When you got to less this.
Speaker 5 (25:00):
Story, they donated his parachute to women's groups.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Right.
Speaker 5 (25:04):
That all happened in a very short period of time,
So you started seeing immense progress with how we handled
these types of things. But still every time I'll never
forget when Bill O'Reilly fell down, I emblematically was by
myself at home.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
I always seemed to be by myself for these.
Speaker 5 (25:24):
Big moments, and I saw it come across the TV,
and I was still shocked because I had worked there,
never thought i'd see that day and a friend of
mine called me and it was a guy and he said, Gretchen,
I said, because are you watching and I said yes, yes.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
And then I just started sobbing and he.
Speaker 5 (25:47):
Said, Gretchen, you did this, you did this, And I
was like, I can't tunt you right now, you know,
So every That's the surprise part of it that I'm
talking about is I never thought we would see this
unbelievable firestorm of other people being held accountable simply because
(26:09):
you know, some people had a few brave actions and
the me too movement. What really I think made that explode.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Was social media.
Speaker 5 (26:19):
You know, as much as I don't love it for
my kids, social media allowed people to come forward with
their name and face or anonymously, right, and it just
exploded globally. Also, the media started paying attention to these stories.
And as a member of the media, I can criticize
us by saying that had I pitched a harassment story
(26:39):
six and a half years ago, nobody in the newsroom
would have wanted to cover it. We just didn't cover
that kind of stuff. So the media started covering the stories,
which was really important, and the American public became engaged
and they were like, how the hell is this still
happening at work?
Speaker 3 (26:56):
I thought we had solved this. But the reason they
thought we.
Speaker 5 (27:00):
Had solved it was because all the cases were going
to secrecy ration.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
They're going to forst arbitration, so you were never hearing
about them.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
The sixties were done, the mad Man arrow was done.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
Yeah, right, no.
Speaker 5 (27:12):
And let me also point out that my efforts at
lift our voices are not just about harassment and assault.
I'm fighting for every marginalized group. So our next fight
with legislation is for all forms of discrimination, whether it's race,
LGBTQ plus, whether it's age, disability.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
We're not done for a long time until we make.
Speaker 5 (27:34):
Sure that all of those groups are not silenced as well.
And imagine the dynamic now at works since we've passed
these two bills. If you're harassed or assaulted, you don't
have to go to the secret chamber anymore, right, But
if you're black and you're discriminated against, you do how
do you think that's going to play out at work?
Speaker 2 (27:51):
Really?
Speaker 5 (27:53):
Because the federal law only says that if you're harassed
or assaulted, you don't.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
Have to go to arbitration anymore.
Speaker 5 (28:00):
So we think organically that other groups are going to
wake up to this. We hope and say what about me?
And I just want to ruin to know I'm fighting
for you and I'm doing the best I can. We
could only get this much done on the hill to
get both parties.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
To come together.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Really welcome back to table for two. Gretchen's nonprofit Lift
(28:44):
Our Voices has made a real legislative change by champion
an ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act,
which President Biden signed into law last year. Still, advocacy
work is full of ten to uphill battles.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
How does Gretchen keep the momentum going?
Speaker 5 (29:04):
I always say in in the advocacy work that I
do now, you have to wake up every day optimistic
because you can't be pessimistic about anything. You're gonna have
a lot of downtime and a lot of downturns and
a lot of no's, But you have to just keep
pushing forward. And so you know, I'm not necessarily incredibly
(29:27):
optimistic about getting more federal bills passed into law now
with the new makeup of Congress. Sure, but we are
active working at the state level, which is having dramatic
impact as well. So your listeners should know that if
they live in New Jersey, California, or Washington State, they
cannot be forced to sign an NDA for anything bad
(29:49):
that happens to them.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
That's that's headline news.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
Yes, right, you cannot.
Speaker 5 (29:53):
So our organization has been instrumental in getting those bills passed.
So only an NDA for trade secrets, right, So every
business should be able to protect their trade secrets, but
you cannot force anyone to sign an NDA for anything
bad that happens to the network right in those states,
And that's that's huge, and it's had a ripple effects
(30:15):
some global companies like Microsoft, for example, they're based in
Washington State, and they thought to themselves, Hm, should we
treat our employees in Washington State different than anyone else
in the world, right, because we're gonna still bind our
people to NDAs in Iowa, for example, right, but not
in Washington State.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
So they decided globally to get rid of NDAs. Wow,
which is exactly what we wanted to happen.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Yeah right, wow.
Speaker 5 (30:37):
So even though we may not have a lot of
federal victories this year, we're having a lot of state
victories that still has dramatic impact on changing the workplace.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
So we're we're kind of working all sides of it.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
This generation that is coming into itself, as the other
older generation is going to be passing and going into
the next will eventually get to this magical place.
Speaker 5 (31:14):
It's such a great point, Bruce, because part of our
efforts that lift our voices is also to educate the
younger people so that when they become the next CEOs
and general counsel they don't use these clauses and they
understand how detrimental.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
Another really important point should I should say is that.
Speaker 5 (31:29):
These clauses push out the exact people that companies want
to retain, women and people of color and diversity, right,
all forms of diversity, and every study has shown that
you increase your bottom.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
Line when you have a more diverse workplace.
Speaker 5 (31:44):
So that's our pitch to companies when we try to
get them on board to get rid of these clauses.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
We say, even if.
Speaker 5 (31:51):
You only care about the bottom line, you should get
rid of these clauses because you're pushing out tons of
people that you.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
Want to stay.
Speaker 5 (31:59):
And so that's really important and getting to our young people.
My kids have witnessed, you know, everything that happened to
me over the last six and a half years.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
And while I said I was very.
Speaker 5 (32:09):
Concerned about their well being, It's worked out like the
best that it possibly could because I've seen my courage
transfer to them.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Yeah, and especially for my son.
Speaker 5 (32:20):
You know, we spend a lot of time saying that
we need to rise girls up and make them empowered
to know that they can be anything they want to be.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
But what I've learned is we really need to focus
on our sons. Yes, because I mean.
Speaker 5 (32:32):
Most Fortune five hundred companies are run by men still,
and so we need to get to them early on
to respect women and all of the diverse groups so
that they treat them fairly.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
And I have seen that.
Speaker 5 (32:46):
In my son where I was on a CNN show
a couple of years back, and I came home and
he was waiting for me in the kitchen and he said, Mommy,
He said, was it true what that other woman said
that once every seventy three seconds in our country that
a woman is a were harassed. And I said, I'm
so sorry to tell you that that's true, And he said,
mom He said, as a twelve year old boy, I
(33:07):
want to.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
Help fix that.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (33:09):
Wow, Yeah, I was like, okay, full stop, work done,
dropped the mic, right, yeah, right completely, I don't have
to do if that's all I've accomplished, right is getting
to this boy, right.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
And hopefully he'll pass it on.
Speaker 5 (33:25):
So it made me realize from that point that I
should be spending all my time at boys schools.
Speaker 7 (33:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
You talked earlier about and I have it here your
memoir getting real. You know, writing a memoir is a
really intense experience I can imagine. And was there anything
in that journey of writing your memoir that you learned
that you didn't need even know about yourself that you thought, Oh,
(34:02):
it was really difficult for you to actually put on
paper and know that your parents were going to see this,
and you know your you know, I always find like memoirs,
so yeah, well I love them.
Speaker 5 (34:16):
Like certain relationships, right, yeah, that my parents didn't like,
right Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
Sure.
Speaker 5 (34:21):
I Also I would just say that we chatted earlier
about the sexual assaults that I went through. I knew
they were going to see that, right, I knew the
whole world was going to see that, So that that
was probably the biggest revelation. And also other experiences in
my television career where I was harassed on the job too.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
I had a lot of great years where I.
Speaker 5 (34:41):
Wasn't but right in my first job, I was also
harassed and then in a scary situation, and then I
would just say that I think the greatest revelation for
me was realizing that.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
It was totally fine to not be.
Speaker 5 (34:57):
Perfect, and that one of my missions in life, besides
changing the safety of the workplace, is to raise our
girls to not be perfect, because we put this huge
curse on them to be smart, to succeed, to run
a family, and to do all the domestic work and
work full time and have it all.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
Remember that phrase, have it all. That's such a demon.
Speaker 5 (35:21):
And I call myself now a reformed perfectionist. And I
tried to do it when I was forty and I
didn't succeed, and I've now accomplished it. I definitely I
work on it every day. But it's really important to
send a message to especially women, that you're not expected
to have.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
It all, and it's okay to color outside of the lines.
Speaker 5 (35:42):
It's okay to f up and you and pick yourself up.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
And we teach our boys to skin their knees.
Speaker 5 (35:49):
And jump off of the fence and be rowdy and
all that and take risks, and we tell our girls
to put bows in their hair and sit over in
the corner and play with dolls.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
Like what how are we ever seeing? Is believing?
Speaker 5 (36:02):
So like we have to start changing the way that
we mold our girls into being these perfect little creatures.
And I'll never forget my daughter when she was two,
she colored outside of the lines. And she took the
paper and she crunched it up and she threw it
into the trash and I said, oh no, I picked
it up and I pulled it back out and I said,
Mommy thinks this is beautiful, and I want you to
(36:25):
color outside of the Lord's right. So, you know, I
think I was being very vulnerable in the book by
actually just saying that I've I'm not perfect, and I've
made a tremendous amount of mistakes and I'm not going
to hold myself to that perfectionism deeming anymore, nor should
anyone else.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Right, you know, I watched Gretchen.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Something, so it came my way like years and years ago,
and that show with Blooper.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
All right, So if you're listening to this.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
Dick Clark and Ed McMahon has a show called like
Bloopers and Blunders and Practical Jobical Jokes.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
And I watched it. It was funny.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
Miriam Mobiley and Gary Collins, who actually I knew because
they were friends with my father's partner. So they played
this practical joke on Gretchen where you're supposed to present
with them to a live like corporate event at this
new weird machine.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
It was a satellite machine for engineers.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
For engineers, and then Gary Collins is like, oh, you
have a phone call Miriam Obile. They're like, oh you,
Mike isn't working, and they leave you there too, and
they played this joke which you handle beautifully.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
I thought they were going to fire me as Miss America.
Speaker 6 (37:43):
Well really, because I want to say I think it
was mean. I think it was a mean show that
really at the end of the day, and even like
when they have you press a button called double D FYI,
Oh yeah, I was like, now am I hearing now?
And I'm sure at the time I didn't think of it,
but you like to sue us this double D button.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
I'm like, oh, this is all long.
Speaker 5 (38:02):
Yes, well this was many years ago, not making excuses
for it. But aside from what I did recently, those
fourteen minutes of having to just add lib about a
system I knew person nothing allowed.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
That was just sheer terror.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (38:17):
And they had cue cards and they all were like
fourteen letter scientific words, and then they were upside down
and then they dropped them right and I'm like, oh shit,
like I'm trying to read off the ground, right, So
I think that this is two weeks into being Miss.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
America, by the way, wow, and I'm like, they're going
to fire me right right.
Speaker 5 (38:36):
I mean, first of all, I'm short, so I never
felt like I lived up to the whole Miss America
thing because I'm this tiny little girl from Minnesota. Minnesota
usually wasn't a pageant state. I played classical violin that
had never won, you know, So I was already facing
like a lot of insecurities. Then they do this horrendous
thing and then it doesn't air for about six or
seven months. Okay, So I'm in my hotel room by
(38:57):
myself because you spend that whole year on the road
and I have like the covers up over my years.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
I'm embarrassed of myself, even though I'm the.
Speaker 5 (39:04):
Only person in the room and I watch it and
I'm like, oh my god, this is the worst thing ever,
even though they were complimentary.
Speaker 3 (39:11):
So you know what happened.
Speaker 5 (39:13):
It's a great lesson about how seemingly bad experiences can
turn into wonderful things. So a couple TV agents saw
that and they called me after they found me, and
they said, if you can do that, you can do TV.
Have you ever thought about TV? That's what got me
into TV?
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Really.
Speaker 7 (39:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
Gretchen is brought to light so many of the ways
that big companies used legal means to prevent sexual harassment
and assault survivors from coming forward. And as our lunch ends,
she goes off to continue her work on behalf of Survivors.
I'm curious what can we do to help her important
cause the.
Speaker 5 (39:59):
More people that decide to come forward, the more we
normalize this, and that the more that that you don't
become the odd person out as having courage. It becomes
just the new way of the world.
Speaker 3 (40:10):
And that's how.
Speaker 5 (40:11):
We work to change things when people have no other
choice other than to accept that this is how we're
going to handle this now.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
Through lift our voices.
Speaker 5 (40:20):
I continue to encourage companies to change their policies. This year,
we're going to be coming out with a corporate rating
system where we're actually going to break companies on whether
or not they silence their people. We believe that all
employees should know before they go to work whether they're
going to a company that silences them. And we also
think that it will nudge companies to.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
Do the right thing.
Speaker 5 (40:41):
If they happen to get a bad grade for me,
that they maybe will reevaluate how they're doing business. I
always say, you know, the train has left the station.
These movements aren't going to stop, So get on the
right side of history before we force you to do it,
you know, which leads me to We're still going to
be active with trying to pass new legis for other
protected classes. We're going to be very active at the
(41:04):
state level. We're introducing new NBA legislation in New York
State coming up in.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
The next few weeks.
Speaker 5 (41:12):
And then just the continued education because people just don't
understand these issues. And then you know, as far as
I since my life has been so weird and mysterious
different directions, I just leave myself open to any possible
opportunity that comes my way.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
Well, Gretchen, thank you for joining me today. I'll table
for two. Thank you for being an advocate. Thank you
for being honest, for putting yourself on the line, for
sharing really intimate you know things that you've experienced, and
it's an honor.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
It's a pleasure to have lunch with you.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
I hope to see and be a part of however
I can help making the world a better place with you.
Speaker 5 (41:58):
Thank you so much, and thank you for allowing me
to drink wine in the middle of our day.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
It's such a lovely half a glass our finish shares
when you're done.
Speaker 5 (42:07):
I wanted to make sure that I that I stayed
above board and all the important things that I'm talking
You're amazing.
Speaker 3 (42:13):
Now. If you want to go and have dinner sometorry.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
I'll let all right.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
Table for two with Bruce Bozzi is produced by iHeart
Radio seven three seven Park and Airmail. Our executive producers
are Bruce Bosi and Nathan King. Table for two is
researched and written by Bridget Arsenalt. Our sound engineers are
Paul Bowman and Alyssa Midcalf. Table for two's la production
team is Danielle Romo and Lorraine viz Our.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
Music supervisor is Randall.
Speaker 4 (42:48):
Poster Our Talent Booking is by James Harkin.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
Special thanks to Amy Sugarman, Uni Schaer, Kevin Yvane, Bobby Bauer,
Alison Kant Graber, Jody Williams, Rita Sodi, and the team
at Via Carota in Manhattan's West Village. For more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
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