California police release details of Pete Hegseth sexual assault report | The Excerpt
On Thursday's episode of The Excerpt podcast: California police have released details about a sexual assault report on Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump's nominee to lead the Defense Department. Plus, the House Ethics Commission has reviewed records detailing $10,000 in Venmo payments Matt Gaetz allegedly made to two women in the panel's probe. Gaetz is Trump's nominee for attorney general. Paste BN Democracy Reporter Erin Mansfield discusses allegations of sexual abuse against Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy outline plans for 'large-scale firings' in the federal workforce under Donald Trump. Paste BN Education Reporter Zach Schermele takes a look at the future of higher education, and examines Donald Trump's pick to lead the Department of Education - Linda McMahon. House Speaker Mike Johnson announces a transgender bathroom ban in the Capitol.
Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
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Taylor Wilson:
Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson and today is Thursday, November 21st, 2024. This is The Excerpt. Today, a look at sexual misconduct allegations surrounding several Trump nominees, plus, what's next for higher education.
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A woman who claims she was sexually assaulted by Donald Trump's nominee to lead the Defense Department told police in 2017 she remembered Pete Hegseth preventing her from leaving a hotel room and that he was on top of her, according to newly released documents obtained by Paste BN. The woman recounted her hazy memories of the encounter, but told police, she said no a lot and that Hegseth swiped away her phone and blocked the door with his body, according to documents from the Monterey Police Department. Hegseth and his attorneys have denied the exchange was rape. Multiple outlets reported Hegseth paid a financial settlement as a result of the case. His attorney said earlier this week that Mr. Hegseth is completely innocent.
Meanwhile, the House Committee investigating sexual misconduct allegations against former Congressman Matt Gaetz, president-elect Donald Trump's nominee for Attorney General, obtained records detailing $10,000 in payments Gaetz made to two women who were later witnesses in the panel's probe, according to multiple media reports. Documents under review by the House Ethics Committee first reported by ABC News and later The Washington Post outlined 27 payments Gaetz made through Venmo and PayPal between July 2017 and January 2019 to the two witnesses. Both women were over the age of 18 at the time of the payments, ABC reported. An attorney for the two women has said Gaetz paid the two women for sex and that one of his clients witnessed Gaetz having sex with a 17-year-old girl at a party. The Bipartisan Ethics Commission declined to release its report into Gaetz's conduct during a closed-door meeting yesterday with Democrats on the panel voting to publicize it, and Republicans voting against doing so, according to lawmakers present. The investigation is centered on Gaetz's conduct during alleged drug-fueled sex parties he participated in between 2017 and 2020.
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We're also learning about allegations made against Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Donald Trump's nomination for Health and Human Services Secretary. I spoke with Paste BN democracy reporter Erin Mansfield about what Eliza Cooney said in an exclusive interview with Paste BN. Erin, thanks for hopping on today.
Erin Mansfield:
Thank you for having me.
Taylor Wilson:
So, Erin, just would you tell us about Eliza Cooney and her story? What does she say Robert F. Kennedy Jr. did to her?
Erin Mansfield:
So Eliza Cooney, right now she's 49. She lives in New York. About 25 years ago she had a job with RFK Jr. and his family. She spent her weekdays working in his law clinic. She spent her weekends as a babysitter for his kids and as part of that job, she lived in his home. So she had basically three different incidents that she described when she was in that role. One was being in the family kitchen for a business meeting. It was related to the work at the law clinic. Kennedy was famously an environmental lawyer and she said that Kennedy was rubbing her leg under the table. She was about 23 at the time and he was in his 40s.
Another time, she said he came to her bedroom door shirtless and asked her to rub lotion on him and she said she did that, but kind of to get it over with, wasn't comfortable with it. And then she said there was another incident where she was in a kitchen pantry after a yoga practice, and he came up behind her, blocked her from exiting and slid his hands from her hips up to the sides of her breasts. These are three incidents that she actually kept to herself for many, many years and went public with this summer. She first spoke to Vanity Fair and obviously it still affects her.
Taylor Wilson:
Wow. So what has RFK Jr. himself said about this? Have we heard from him about these accusations?
Erin Mansfield:
A couple of days after that first story ran, he was on a podcast, he said, "I had a very, very rambunctious youth. I said in my announcement speech that I have so many skeletons in my closet that if they could all vote, I could run for king of the world." He also texted her, and she shared this text message with me, asking her to call him and saying, "I read your description of an episode in which I touched you in an unwanted manner. I have no memory of this incident, but I apologize sincerely for anything I ever did that made you feel uncomfortable or anything I did or said that offended you or hurt your feelings." That was his response. It doesn't appear that he has denied this took place based on what he said in the podcast, but from Eliza Cooney's perspective, she also doesn't quite feel like that counts as an apology because he described sort of a memory issue.
Taylor Wilson:
Okay. President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Kennedy to become Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. What do we know about his next role with this Trump White House in the coming years?
Erin Mansfield:
If he's confirmed and right now it does seem like he has broad support. Kennedy comes from a very famous Democratic family and some of his views are supported by Democrats, but he also seems to have support from Republicans in the Senate. The Secretary of Health and Human Services is really the top healthcare official in the administration. It's a cabinet level position. There's oversight of grants, there's oversight of the agency that oversees Medicare and Medicaid, two huge government programs. He's spoken about a desire to take on pharmaceutical companies. He's talked about a desire to try to get certain chemicals out of food. And Donald Trump said on the campaign trail, he was going to let RFK go crazy on health. So he does stand to be in charge of a very large portfolio of health and human services issues if he's confirmed to this role and it does look like he'll be confirmed.
Taylor Wilson:
All right, Erin Mansfield covers democracy and more for Paste BN. I appreciate your reporting on this, Erin. Thanks so much.
Erin Mansfield:
Thank you.
Taylor Wilson:
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual violence, RAINN's National Sexual Assault Hotline offers free confidential 24/7 support to survivors and their loved ones in English and Spanish at 80656hope and hotline.rainn.org.
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Tech entrepreneurs, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy outlined a plan yesterday for President-elect Donald Trump to oversee a massive reduction in the federal workforce, arguing the employees won't be needed after Trump eliminates thousands of regulations in his next administration. Trump last week named Musk and Ramaswamy as co-heads of a new Department of Government Efficiency. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, they singled out federal employees who view themselves as immune from firing thanks to civil service protections. The pair pointed to recent Supreme Court decisions to argue the incoming president has the executive power to nullify a number of regulations unilaterally without Congress, pursue large-scale firings of federal workers, and relocate some agencies outside of Washington. Although dubbed a department, the Musk Ramaswamy led effort is effectively an outside advisory commission, not a formal agency, and with no legal authority.
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President-elect Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that he would nominate Linda McMahon to serve as secretary of the U.S. Department of Education. I caught up with Paste BN education reporter Zach Schermele to learn more about McMahon's background and discuss a new era for college oversight in America. Zach, thanks for hopping on today.
Zach Schermele:
Hi, Taylor. Thank you.
Taylor Wilson:
So, Zach, just starting with this, who is Linda McMahon and what's her background and career?
Zach Schermele:
So Linda McMahon is a longtime friend of Donald Trump's who's one of a couple of folks who's been leading his transition team since he won reelection. She and her husband started what's now known as World Wrestling Entertainment, or WWE, that's a multibillion dollar media and entertainment company that's pretty well known for its wrestling programming. She's a billionaire, big Trump donor. Like I said, she's been pretty close to the former president, now president-elect for a while, and she actually served as the head of the Small Business Administration during Trump's first term. She told a state legislative committee in Connecticut more than a decade ago that she initially attended a school called East Carolina University in the '60s in hopes of becoming a teacher. But while she was there, she met her husband and she said that changed the course of her life and her professional career. She's also been on the board of trustees for a private college in Connecticut for some time now, and she served a short stint on Connecticut State Board of Education.
Taylor Wilson:
All right, so interesting choice to deal with education here, Zach. Where does she stand on some of the key education-related issues?
Zach Schermele:
When Trump nominated her this week, he said she'd be a "fierce advocate" for parental rights and she's going to fight tirelessly to expand the school choice movement. So school choice just refers to the very partisan issue of whether every kid should go to public school as well as whether public money should be used to fund non-public schooling. She's also a big supporter of apprenticeships and has touted their importance in recent days on her social media platforms, and she supports a bill that's working its way through Congress that would expand Pell Grant funding. Pell Grants are forms of free federal money that go to lower-income students to help pay for college, and she wants to help expand those to shorter educational programs. That legislation is bipartisan, but some critics say it could ultimately end up actually giving away money to the types of businesses that can sometimes be predatory towards students. While supporters like her say it would make college alternatives more affordable.
Taylor Wilson:
Zach, I know you focus on higher education as part of your beat, as you write, we're likely entering a new era of college oversight. How so?
Zach Schermele:
The GOP has made crystal clear that it wants to police colleges in new ways. They want to end what they see as wokeness and liberal indoctrination on college campuses. They also want to end or radically change the college accreditation system and have ideas about how they want to change civil rights enforcement on college campuses. There's also this giant bill that's sitting in Congress right now that could dramatically change the student loan repayment system. Virginia Foxx, who's a Republican congresswoman from North Carolina, actually told me this week that she wants to get that bill on the floor of the House before the end of the year. And on top of all of that, President-elect Donald Trump wants to abolish the Education Department, the very agency that he said Linda McMahon is going to be leading entirely. So we'll see how that shapes up over the course of the confirmation hearings that may or may not happen for Linda McMahon.
Taylor Wilson:
And of course, the GOP is not a monolith. Are Republicans aligned on their vision for the future of education, Zach, or might we see some competing ideas at play over the next couple of years in particular?
Zach Schermele:
Yeah, I reported on this this week that there is sort of an irony to how some Republicans in Washington are thinking about policing the nation's colleges. So on one hand you have conservatives who believe in small government and fewer regulations, right? That's a long-standing piece of party orthodoxy for the GOP. President Trump in 2017 directed every federal agency, including the Department of Education to alleviate unnecessary regulatory burdens that comes right from the order that he issued. On the other hand, Republicans have become increasingly critical of colleges and they have these big ideas about reforming how colleges work.
President-elect Trump has said that he actually wants to create a new tuition-free university funded entirely by taxes on the richest schools, which you heard me correctly, it seems like Donald Trump is in favor of some form of free college. Others in his party have also demanded that the federal government intervene to curb anti-Semitism on campuses. So I think that Republicans' plans to overhaul higher education are kind of on a collision course with their other efforts to limit the federal government's authority. And it's going to be really interesting to see how they end up walking that line.
Taylor Wilson:
Zach Schermele covers education for Paste BN. Thanks as always for breaking it all down for us, Zach. Appreciate it.
Zach Schermele:
Sure thing. Thanks, Taylor.
Taylor Wilson:
House Speaker Mike Johnson yesterday announced a policy banning transgender people from using restrooms that correspond with their gender in parts of the Capitol. Contention surrounding restrooms on the Capitol grounds erupted after representative Nancy Mace introduced a resolution Monday that would bar transgender women from using women's restrooms, less than a month after incoming representative Sarah McBride was elected as the first openly transgender person to Congress. But it's not clear how Johnson's Wednesday announcement will be enforced. Thousands of people work in the halls of Congress and the policy does not just apply to lawmakers. Johnson's statement came on Transgender Day of Remembrance honoring transgender and gender-nonconforming people killed by violence.
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And today is the American Cancer Society's Great American Smokeout, a chance to improve your health by quitting smoking.
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Yesterday we brought you an episode looking at AI's promise in global agriculture. Today, we're looking at its environmental costs as its footprint brings into question its long-term sustainability. Can we afford the industry's huge price tag? Landon Marston, an associate professor at Virginia Tech, joins my colleague Dana Taylor to discuss how engineers are hoping to mitigate AI's growing energy needs. You can find that episode right here beginning at 4 P.M. Eastern Time on this feed.
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And thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your audio, and if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. Sara Ganim is in for me the next couple of days and I'll be back Monday with more of The Excerpt from Paste BN.