Failing to through its important to have a book like the one presented tonight that returns to one of the crucial issues when you look at moments like the release of the hollywood takes for example in the campaign what is destined of the executive branch namely the relationship with women and the new jointly authored over president clinton including the National Inquirer to show the relationship with women and including many new allegations of Sexual Misconduct to the previously reported instances and guiding the conversation we are honored to also have with us the executive editor of the atlantic so please join me in welcoming all three of them to politics and prose. [applause] thank you all for being here and for the lively conversation. I apologize for my voice. I think i just have a core will. To get started i want to begin by asking you both by now its wellestablished and yet there is quite a bit intellect that is new. It catalogs beyond the original 2,000 that came forward after the access Hollywood Tape. You think whats more important it is the totality of what we were able to find over the course of the reporting period. I was fortunate to collaborate with the seasoned journalist and author who shaped the narrative while i was reporting on the field with two other reporters who worked for the cnn Investigative Unit and npr radio and they have done an article in bbc so we had an article of reporters, the four of us working with a very small budget but we were able to figure out new information from sources and tips and leads we were able to develop and we were able to find above and beyond so many allegations of the behavior. Can you talk about the sort of spectrum for this behavior because we have especially this way of talking about Sexual Misconduct. Thso talk about the spectrum of what you found. Somebody asked about the range from catcalling to rape in that behavior may have existed that we didnt fall anything that goes into that category in the book. The allegations are serious and range from the sort of most innocent and theres nothing innocent about it a is many womn that said when they were young models they walk into the dressing rooms while they are changing and beauty pageants and all that, then it goes on from there to a wanted touching and kissing and grabbing in the genitals i dont know, all the way up to rape. So they are all very serious crimes. Can you talk about how you approach the thing that these clinics because obviously in the past since the Harvey Weinstein both but th that journalists thk of as the moment, there has been a pretty substantial debate about how to get the claims of Sexual Assault on misconduct and other media to be looked at going forward. There is no question that that played into the daily or hourly process of reporting between the four of us. People didnt have a cell phone camera, they could turn on a video tape to record it but what they have is their memories. These individuals, turn, family but they told after these experiences occurred. And of course we went to all those people because you have to cooperate these accounts and thats what we spent a great deal of time doing. You also look at the circumstances as to where these incidences happened. For instance, today one of the women we write about in the book made a headline today the former apprentice, contestant who is filing a defamation lawsuit against donald trump for calling her a liar after she made allegations in 2016. They have subpoenaed documents that show where he was for instance. All of that is crucial. And again in the allegations we are covering in addition these are not lawsuit so we dont have the ability to subpoena donald trump to try to get his date book or phone or plane receipts and things like that that we could rely on research in terms of finding out he was there when the allegations were made and so forth. If it was an email you sent at the time, there is one particularly striking example i want to talk about in the book because it follows that signup would consider the claimants into the example working in times square. Why dont you describe for us how you chose to include it . This allegation i spent a couple of months on, i could have spent a couple of years on involved in allegation from the early 1980s coming to me after i tracked down this man through sources and questioning other reporters and so forth. He worked for a mob boss in the square and it was a private brothel club. Most of the times square pornography and so forth in those days in the 1980s was run by the mob. Some of course now you visit. Its completely cleaned up, but back in the day it was a very dangerous place and so forth and be allegation went to this particular club and saw a porn star. This was decades before he became involved with Stormy Daniels and from what other porn stars tell us, other relationships over the years, the reason he felt it was important to tell the story is not that he treated on his first wife, that falls into the realm of some of the allegations we have reported on in this book. Achieving all three of his wiv wives, completely widespread and so forth. But what made this allegation important is that it also involved a teenage girl. That you were not able to find her a in account of someone that made this. He not only remembers it but also what is to the incident on a closedcircuit camera. He was the manager of a particular club and the reason he was watching on the closedcircuit camera is because the women who worked in this club were porn stars of the day and they made movies and if any of the men inflicted any type of violence obvious when entering these particular and cultures, the of course could make movies and so forth. So he went there to watch you havent reviewed the video or anything . The video, we dont know what happened to the video. He turned over the video to his boss who was a mobster and is the head of a large crime family and was assassinated in 1986. He was under federal indictment for child pornography at the time. We dont know if ended up in the hands of the fed or if they were placed in a storage facility, we dont know what came of them but what is important to the story is that it shows a pattern of involvement with interest in younger women over the years and on top of that, donald trump had a true association with the mafia in the early 80s because he was using mob controlled concrete companies to build his buildings in new york at the time. For me this goes to the question of it is interesting. It also raises the question of in this moment the voting mechanism can you talk about the patterns that emerge and can you talk about the overarching pattern that he found another candidate surprised you about what you learned. This is one of the things that as journalists we have to wrestle with this we have these reporting standards if we looked back at the last 20 to 30 years we could see that they have done a disservice to women because so many that have come forward dont have cell phone records or whatever and they are sort of dismissed if not taken seriously and thats when the patterns become important in the individual instances you dont always have that luxury but what we found when you look at the allegations in the aggregate you find a striking resemblance between them so while each woman feels like a one off and many of them blame themselves, the patterns are strong and striking and so i think one of the things we can learn to do when you have a body of allegations which take time. We had a couple that were really out flyers and we thought we didnt include them in the book. How much of what you heard they seem credible or are there any that you were on the same on to not include . There were several we didnt include because they came from the credible sources but they didnt fit the pattern and we just fought than doubled because of the forcing the girl is nowhere to be found. Nobody ever learn her name. There was no way to get people involved except for who himself is a perfect witness who was in the mob and went to prison, but that story does fit the pattern. It do you have any sort of different census way he might treat women the way that he does . You see that really isnt only about i want to be with this attractive woman but how does it look to so its about impressing other men. It is in a way that surprised even me and in the research i stub old across this trove of photographs that somebody found in a palm beach thrift shop and they were old family photos but they were striking a. Of a reminded me of my parents pictures when i was born and they were an adorable couple and their baby was cute and he was contrary changing a diaper they looked like this young family and you think its this sliding doors moment like she could have gone on to be this happy family guy with his kids and pretty wife or interesting life but instead he went a totally different direction and for me that is a tragedy. He became more and more famous into the deterioration of the treatment of women. She felt that really was a turning point for him if it is t is also when he starts talking about hes not just looking at women with talking about taking other mens wives and it does feel like a who is more of a macho kind of thing. In aspen colorado where the incident happened, the incident that we are talking about have ended december 1989 donald trump took his family at the time to aspen colorado to ski over the Holiday Weekend and he had his mistress stashed away in a hotel while he was there with his family. I was there as a reporter in los angeles covering christmas when i met him for the first time i didnt know at the time but he actually had her there that year secretly in a hotel while he was there again with his family and children and it intensified over the course of the year ended than all the parties assembled again in aspen colorado but what happened in december 1989 is that ivana found out in people from town because it is a tiny little ski village, she found out that she was there and they have a shouting match confrontation at a restaurant one afternoon when they went for lunch and she was there with a girlfriend because she was trying to keep tabs on him and she was told she was across the room and said are you the one who is, are you the blonde, argued the woman ive been hearing about and she responded with if you loved him i wouldnt be here and they were the stuff of tabloid legends. It was that event that caused them to divorce. She had had enough. You have a long history in tabloids have certainly covered trump during that era. How many times did you talk with him, tell me a little bit about that. No disrespect to the question i have a policy of not discussing my past jobs its just something that wouldnt be appropriate for me to do. Ive worked at newspapers, magazines, Digital Media and i just dont think its right to discuss previous jobs so im jot going to answer anything. There have been reports the word mandated not to cover the records. I would respectfully decline. Im sorry. Has your view changed over time . I was most interested in this particular book when the Stormy Daniels allegations were coming forward and combining that with the inappropriate behavior i thought can we connect the dots into the entire process everything in the book is new and original material. Nothing comes from the knowledge of past jobs or anything like that its all the information we developed and im very proud of it. Thereve been reports the National Enquirer had i wont use the word. Ca but a list that was taken out and shredded. Lets go for a moment and what surprised you. I was most surprised by how he viewed after this for a year you go back to the incident on the day that he confronted and he was standing between them the next night he went out with a publicist and he spent the entire night pointing out another woman in front of ivana saying who is she, shes gorgeous and beautiful and this will then publicist was shocked and appalled like how can you say this with your wife standing here. I dont know if she knew what happened the day before on the ski slope tha slopes but these f stories we have learned just of the fact that there has been no respect at all for women over the years in terms of disparaging comments but beyond that the wives in particular is most disturbing to me in terms of the cheating and affairs and another pattern money can address a little more the cheating seemed to increase with each of the wives were pregnant. Theres also a part in the book where he says he couldnt be sexually attracted to someone thats a mother. I dont know if that is true but that is a comment. That comes from i think cindy adams. When their marriage was ending, ivana told her that he said he couldnt be attracted to someone that had babies. He was on howard stern talking about women with pregnant bodies and he does cheat on them when they are pregnant so i just think that he has this kind of labeling idea of what a woman should look like and as soon as she doesnt look like that, hes uncomfortable with it. We were talking about the fact that his treatment has something to do with status i want to focus about those that you write about in the book obviously we can see this you write about roy cohn. Do you want to spend time talking about that relationship . He was a huge influence. They met accidentally when he came to new york and one of the first things right at the time his Fathers Company they were being sued by the Justice Department and the lawyers were telling them to settle. They started up a conversation and said i hate lawyers they always want to settle. He said is this an academic conversation and he said i wouldnt settle. It was effective for them and they ended up not admitting any guilt and thats something hes used through his life if somebody attacks you, let it and put them on the offensive. Look at the way that he operates today and its straight out of the roy cohn playbook even if you are wrong just keep hitting back. His friendships with other men associations with Jeffrey Epstein and the Modeling Agency owner and the mistreatment that is described you have an appendix with a whole list of allegations that is overwhelming to read the you look at the scenes and its not just as an outlier doing something are shocked by its a group of men holding the same thing and so i guess my question is how much of the book is about donald trump versus the culture and what is considered permissible plaques thats the important piece of this, the individual stories are important especially for those on the receiving end of them and right now they are kind of the director because he is the president of the United States puts him on the world stage and makes him the most powerful. The. To me thats why these are important and in fact everybody knew who he was and what he was doing. When looking at him as an individual, does the fact of the book coming out into the number of allegations coming from 22 or 23. It certainly has the intention and we have other people here to hear you talk about it but doesnt seem ground shaking in the way that it might have even as a single allegation and another president the. That was pointed out today as we were talking before the discussion with a Washington Post columnist who wrote a piece this afternoon that was posted just on the fact that these allegations or the information that they came out with regarding the tax documents that these would stop another president S Administration but with donald trump nothing seems to stick. Its just the public has grown to accept this type of behavior from him. On the other hand, past president s mistreatment wasnt considered newsworthy because it was considered acceptable or not relevant. And obviously the Media Industry has shed contrast. When kennedy was president they knew what was going on behind the scenes but they chose not to report it. We are going to go to your questions very soon. Reminder that we have a microphone up here and a reminder that the question and as with any questions or peacekeepers into actual questions. Before we do that, i wanted to ask there is an anecdote in the book about models coming to parties i cant remember if it was that trump threw the parties but they would have to sign a nondisclosure agreement when they walked into the parties. And one of the highest ranking women in the Trump Administration has said publicly that she knew half a dozen other women who signed nondisclosure agreements one is aware personally of some women that were paid to have abortions and they were forced to sign ndas and he thought perhaps women would feel empowered to come forward with their stories before the 2020 election. He used ndas over the course over the decades to silence women there are probably dozens i have been made aware of stories through the supporting process we cannot get into because of the ndas. Even goes back to the party telling me a story when i interviewed her in los angeles, a model it wasnt really a party. Donald trump had three actors that held a quoteparty add a mansion off of miami beach in the nineties. Fifty models were recruited to attend this function. Normally when models go to parties there are agents and photographers and things like that. That she said being caitlin as she became aware right off the bat they had to sign a document she doesnt know if it was the ndas were going into the party they had to sign something. She said she did not sign it she sought on the table and walked past it. But of course this was not a party it was donald trump with three men and 50 models they spent the entire time selecting different models from Walking Around the giant living room and each of the men including donald trump took a few women at a time into private rooms. Now this woman was older and hit on and turned him down because she said she had his number of what he was interested in. She said she specifically remembers the younger models coming out of these private rooms with donald trump and the three men looking very disheveled with makeup messed up and looking uncomfortable like something terrible had happened to them in these rooms and this went on through the entire nigh night. I went to college with monique this the first time weve seen each other in 30 years. If hillary one but without trump do we have the Metoo Movement quick. I dont have a crystal ball but i do think absolutely he was the main catalyst of the Metoo Movement. Women were outraged but nobody can say that and still be elected president and yet he was but there was so much anger and outrage among women you saw the day after the inauguration but metoo resurgence absolutely was a reaction to the trump campaig campaign. In a subtle nuanced way. Yes. It changes the way women felt i think it was disbelief a man can say that and still be elected minute maid women reassess everything. Now. It was an open secret. So the same thing wouldve happened if hillary one quick. It would not be carved out in the same way. I was going to say that donald trump was only first running for president in 2020 and the access highly Hollywood Tape had come out at the time of the 2020 election and i with Jeffrey Epstein and matt lauer most recently i do think it would at least hope the public would have reacted differently from the candidacy. Theres a saying like father like son was his father a philanderer . And reading about him how does this affect his behavior quick. Thats what we looked at in the book not his grandfather but his father wandas grandfather had several mistresses down in florida he says you could have mistresses but you cant just have one. Clearly that was an attitude and the dynamic in the house the father was the breadwinner and his mother was a deal because she cooked and cleaned so he grew up in that environment where the attitude was formed and she doesnt seem to change it. Thats exactly right. That is somewhat of the oversimplification because growing up in families a traditional gender dynamics that dont treat women that way. But you are right we talked to a classmate who also said that i left school and realized i had to change what i realized is a lack of self reflection and change exactly right. There is a great book quote talking about the military academy days everybody else grew up but hes been living as 16 and never matured beyond that. I dont know how many fathers would do this but with the military academy of course was an all boys school at the time and on weekends they were allowed to have guest but Donald Trumps father would bring model looking women on the weekends to hang out with his son. He would parade these model looking women around campus. It was very bizarre. They were teenagers at the time and they would be off campus dating girls their own age but he would be parading around campus with older women in those days probably in their early twenties and dressed to the nines wearing high heels which is completely out of character for kids of that age group. Do you expect your book to have an effect on the political realm quick. Do we expect it to our think it should . I havent read the book so i dont know if you address politics at all but are you going to push it to have an effect quick so you trying to get inserted quick. I think absolutely it should have an effect. I fear and cynical belief that it wont because here we are and nothing has as of yet. But where is that Tipping Point and personally i dont think it exist unless we as citizens insist. He is getting the message but i dont think it will change that message i think its republicans that change the message. Again he is asking for another four years if he survives the impeachment inquiry. I think the public deserves the right to know that we are as transparent as possible for the voters after all he is setting policy for men and women across america and you have to consider all of these things that have gone in through his life with examples of Sexual Misconduct and inappropriate behavior to shape the person he is today and he is setting policy. It is extremely important. What i am hoping of course that there is so much else going on in washington with the impeachment inquiry. But im hoping that this book will ignite the Mainstream Media and news organizations who have the money to do investigative reporting to continue to chase down allegations and take the material that we put out there and then see what else they can turn up. Do they believe there is more documentation . We feel very strongly other women have not yet come out forward we have seen how they are treated are under ndas there are other women who didnt speak to us for the book unless more come forward so if you have it all there together in the end the hope is at some point theyre not able to ignore it anymore. It takes a great deal for these brave and courageous women to come forward Sarah Johnson made an allegation at a new Years Eve Party when milania was just his girlfriend. She was at the Party Donald Trump wrote this woman on groped this woman exactly as was described and it took me two months to get her comfortable to open up because she was so emotionally damaged over this for so long. And those that have unique experiences like that it is extremely hard for them to bring these boys to the surface but to allow a book author but to allow a book author trump what it talk to you for the book so we dont have any allegations and then to report. Of course he would not talk to for the book. We tried. We all read the book of the group of Mental Health professionals the dangerous case of donald trump. No but i read trump on the couch but i think is similar. This is a compilation i dont know maybe two dozen professionals. I am wondering the combination of the work that you have all done and the approach from the doctor from Harvard Medical School would be incredibly powerful because you have to think this man is obviously not mentally well hes a predator. Talk about the philandering especially the sexual violence. Maybe now he has destabilized the middle east but im wondering if you look at the work at what doctor lee has done and then combined that because that would be important. If we stop them after the second or third time he would go i was somebody. You have a specific question quick. I already asked of what people do to women. From the allegations in this book hopefully to draw something for the public because the more we can find out spank the president s Mental Wellness is something we are very focused on and whether there is a sense among them that this is something we are very focused o on. I have a question of the complacency of all of this or people that regretted to be complicit or if you ask them why didnt you Say Something or why did you let that happen quick. I would say the head of the elite model agency Johnny Casablancas that is a very good friend of donald trump and i would like to say a partner in crime to victimize a lot of the younger models has passed on. So we obviously could not get to him. There were other individuals from the modeling high up that would not talk for the book. He had selected models at a particular agency but i dont want to say which one he was interested in targeting. He had someone high up in the agency that had these models go to a doctor to be tested for std because he wanted to know in advance their medical status before he would pick them up. So i wish some of these people would be willing to allow us to speak to them. Several people talk to me about the women that were complicit and i think that is interesting thats not the mission of the book. Thank you. Monique is my cousin through marriage. So if donald trump were to walk into the room now would he recognize you quick. Probably not. I dont think im that important person. He has a lot on his mind. If you were introduced what he remember quick. I think he would certainly know. Do you worry about the repercussions for writing this book i would have much rather have written about Ernest Hemingways six tow cats but as a generalist after 40 years in the business, you cant think about that. I was told that i was pursuing the mob story that to stay away from these people because people carry grudges and things like that i tried to be as careful as i could. You want to talk about your time at the National Enquirer . [laughter] if you are committed to Investigative Journalism you have to be willing to go the extra mile for whatever comes up if it is a valid story. If you feel it is something that is corroborated and the lawyers are accepting of that information. We cannot secondguess ourselves as journalist. And then to embrace this book or not so the work that we did on this book is important for a man who wants to remain president. I agree Investigative Journalism is very important. But i suspect you have written the book but how do we get this across to people to vote for democrats . What about the women in the midwest that probably dont rea read. What do you expect as a journalist to get out of the book quick. I am very thankful to see because we are in a social Media Society that people can tweet stories and the outpouring on twitter has been phenomenal when you have people whether elvis milano or Rosie Odonnell and they are re tweeting interviews from the Huffington Post or esquire magazine it reaches people all across the country it will be published in london even the Jerusalem Post in israel. Just to tack onto that i do find it interesting there has been no mainstream tv or media coverage. And it is surprising given those 43 additional allegations. So my main question after reading the book is it is clear we have a predator in the white house in a powerful positio position, the most powerful in the world why do so many men and women , especially women still support donald trump knowing all of this . You mean on the right. I know you have a background of the previous book of evangelical christians so they seem to be mismatch between the values of the evangelicals and those of the predator. Yes george w. Bush was a staunch evangelical and in retrospect he gave them what they wanted and now we want to find someone can do what they want to do and trump is doing that. I call the source of mine and said he couldnt be further from evangelicals he says he gives them what they want so to put through more judges than any president in recent memory. So they are single issue so he gives them what they want so it still baffling how women can watch and think its okay during kavanaugh a woman was standing with her two kids like no big deal. But i think the value system it is very patriarchal and women are told to be submissive and in that world questioning of men because they arent supposed to and i also think because the male leaders of the Church Support trump i heard a lot of rationalization. Is a long time ago. It doesnt matter. He has changed and it really boiled down to the specific community and women will go along with the leaders of their community. So i will add quickly. With our colleagues who out to the field i specifically asked her to attend a trump rally last year. This past year in texas to specifically interview the women that support trump. We came back from that that the women that she interviewed blamed to the women or the people making the allegations to victimize them. That they put themselves in that position with donald trump. Who knows what they were saying to him are coming on to him because he was a celebrity at the time. There are a million explanations. There are 200 women aid to see. I am curious what people think when they see it all together. It is important for people who support the president it is harder to dismiss. We could talk about numbers all night or allegations and with the totality of this when you read the narrative and then to see one after another