Speaker 1: And now at Bloomberg Surveillance worldwide and coast to coast,
Speaker 1: with fourteen out of twelve cable news networks tuned into
Speaker 1: what will occur here at ten am is most important
Speaker 1: issues on Judge Kavanaugh, and we will attempt at Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Surveillance to commit perspective. We do that with Bob Moon
Speaker 1: and Bob it goes really back within your research to
Speaker 1: October fourteenth, when Anita Hill had to pass a lie
Speaker 1: detector test, and I think that picks up your wonderful
Speaker 1: perspective you've put together. Yeah, you know, Tom Shakespeare said,
Speaker 1: what has passed his prologue. So, with the Senate Judiciary
Speaker 1: Committee set to gabble to order it's high drama hearing
Speaker 1: into the sexual misconduct allegations against Supreme Court nominee b
Speaker 1: At Kavanaugh, it is informative to look back twenty seven
Speaker 1: years to October. That's when President George H. W. Bush's
Speaker 1: Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas was called back in his
Speaker 1: confirmation process to face the sexual misconduct allegations of Anita Hill,
Speaker 1: his former assistant. The panel's chairman at the time was
Speaker 1: Democrat Jill Biden of Delaware, This is not a referendum
Speaker 1: on whether or not whether or not sexual harassment is
Speaker 1: a grave offense. I said from the beginning, this is
Speaker 1: about whether or not sexual harassment occurred. Now we're gonna
Speaker 1: hear more witnesses are gonna come in and cooborate your
Speaker 1: position in hers. We'll find out whether there's telling the
Speaker 1: truth or not, as best as we are capable of doing,
Speaker 1: just like you, as a judge are when you look
Speaker 1: them in the eye and make a judgment something. I
Speaker 1: think this whole affair is sink. I think it's sick
Speaker 1: to Utah. Republican or In Hatch was one of Thomas's
Speaker 1: defenders in those hearings, just as he's defending Brett Kavanaugh
Speaker 1: as a member of the same Senate panel today. Just
Speaker 1: as the Clarence Thomas hearing was then, today's hearing is
Speaker 1: being called a watershed moment. A record two hundred fifty
Speaker 1: seven women are running for the House and Senate in
Speaker 1: the ten mid term elections. In twenty eight women were
Speaker 1: elected to the House of Representatives and four to the Senate,
Speaker 1: among them Democrat Patty Murray, the state of Washington's first
Speaker 1: female U S. Senator. I am a United States senator
Speaker 1: today because of the way Anita Hill was treated. They
Speaker 1: called Anita Hill a liar. They said she was coached
Speaker 1: by special interest groups. They looked for ways to blame her,
Speaker 1: impugne her, and attack her. They pressed the young professor
Speaker 1: for explicit details of the harassment she said she had
Speaker 1: faced on the job. My working relationship became even more
Speaker 1: strained when Judge Thomas began to use work situations to
Speaker 1: discuss sex. On these occasions, he would call me into
Speaker 1: his office for reports on education issues and projects, or
Speaker 1: he might suggest that, because of the time pressures of
Speaker 1: his schedule, we go to lunch to a government cafeteria.
Speaker 1: After a brief discussion of work, he would turn the
Speaker 1: conversation to a discuss sh a sexual matters. His conversations
Speaker 1: were very vivid. Because I was extremely uncomfortable talking about
Speaker 1: sex with him at all, and particularly in such a
Speaker 1: graphic way. I told him that I did not want
Speaker 1: to talk about these subjects. What happened after Hill's opening
Speaker 1: statement explains why this time Republicans on the Judiciary Committee
Speaker 1: have named an outside council who they can choose to
Speaker 1: have question. Dr Christine Bozzy Ford. Hill was a lone
Speaker 1: woman facing a panel of fourteen skeptical men, among them
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania Republican Arlen spect a mere allegation, Senator, I would
Speaker 1: suggest to you that for me, these are more than
Speaker 1: mere allegations. These are the truth to me. These comments
Speaker 1: are the truth to me. I'm not I'm not questioning
Speaker 1: h your statement when I use the word allegation. I
Speaker 1: know about sexual harassment and discrimination against women, and I
Speaker 1: think I have some sensitivity on it. How reliable is
Speaker 1: your testimony in October of on events that occurred eight
Speaker 1: ten years ago? How sure can you expect this committee
Speaker 1: to be on the accuracy of your statements? And it
Speaker 1: wasn't just Republicans who raised the eyebrows and even the
Speaker 1: ire of many women watching the hearings. She could be
Speaker 1: living in a fantasy world. I don't know. We're just
Speaker 1: trying to get to the bottom of all of these facts.
Speaker 1: Howell Heflin was a Democrat from Alabama and trying to
Speaker 1: determine whether you are telling falsehoods or not. I've got
Speaker 1: to determine what your motivation might be. Are you a
Speaker 1: scorned woman? Do you have a militant attitude relative to
Speaker 1: the area of civil rights. No, I don't have a
Speaker 1: militant attitude. Do you have a model complex? No? I don't.
Speaker 1: Well do you see that coming out of this, that
Speaker 1: you can be a hero in the civil rights movement?
Speaker 1: I do not have that kind of complex. I don't
Speaker 1: like all of the attention that I'm getting. I don't.
Speaker 1: I would not even if I liked the attention. I
Speaker 1: would not lie to get attention. Thomas adamantly insisted the
Speaker 1: accusations were not true. I've never been accused of sex harassment,
Speaker 1: and anybody who knows me knows I am adamantly opposed
Speaker 1: to that, adamant, and yet I sit here accused, and
Speaker 1: I'll never be able to get my name back. I
Speaker 1: know it. The day I get received the phone call
Speaker 1: on Saturday night, last Saturday night, about seven thirty and
Speaker 1: told that this was going to be in the press.
Speaker 1: I had I died the person you knew, whether you
Speaker 1: voted for me or against me. He choked back tears
Speaker 1: as he complained that he, his family, his friends, and
Speaker 1: the country had been irreparably harmed. In my views, that
Speaker 1: that is an injustice. And if by going through this,
Speaker 1: another nominee in the future or another American won't have
Speaker 1: to go through it, then, so be it. In the end,
Speaker 1: Republicans on the panel delivered impassioned defenses of the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court nominee Wyoming's Allan Simpson confronting Hill directly. Maybe maybe
Speaker 1: it seems to me you didn't really intend to kill him,
Speaker 1: but you might have. And that's pretty heavy. I don't
Speaker 1: care if you're a man or a woman. Kind of
Speaker 1: a singular, singular torpedo blow below the waterline and he sinks.
Speaker 1: Within five days, Thomas was confirmed by a narrow centem
Speaker 1: majority of fifty two to forty eight. Today, Washington Democrat
Speaker 1: Patty Murray is warning Republicans against a rush to confirm
Speaker 1: Brett Kavanaugh. Women are watching. We are not going to
Speaker 1: allow that to happen again. If Republicans attack Dr Ford
Speaker 1: and this turns into anything like what we saw back
Speaker 1: in women across the country are going to rise up,
Speaker 1: make their voices heard, and Republicans will pay a very
Speaker 1: huge price. Tom him. A lot of people will be
Speaker 1: watching in just a few minutes. Just extraordinary. And you
Speaker 1: go back to Senator Heflin there, who was before Jeff
Speaker 1: Sessions for Alabama, silver star guy, huge marine track record
Speaker 1: in World War Two. And what I went to Bob,
Speaker 1: within your wonderful history there is Hefflin was born in
Speaker 1: and here we are almost a hundred years ahead of that.
Speaker 1: The Jet narrational shifts here have been cultural and generational
Speaker 1: have been extraordinary. Yeah, and you have to consider that
Speaker 1: this was just twenty seven years ago. That's not all
Speaker 1: that long ago, really, And also is it worth noting
Speaker 1: that the process has now become a political process, not
Speaker 1: a legal or judicial process. I think it all began
Speaker 1: with with that hearing where where it it turned political
Speaker 1: and has become increasingly political with each confirmation. What was
Speaker 1: your insight from digging up all of this audio? I
Speaker 1: mean you go back and folks, for for those of
Speaker 1: us in the Bloomberg newsroom, Uh, Bob Moon sits in
Speaker 1: a coveted cubicle with acres of video and in audio reels.
Speaker 1: What was it like to go through it all? What
Speaker 1: what was your take on going thro overwhelming? Take? Is
Speaker 1: it how much time has changed just in that twenty
Speaker 1: seven years. I mean a lot of this I don't
Speaker 1: think would fly today that that was going on back then,
Speaker 1: and particularly with the Me too movement now, Bob moan,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, just extraordinary. Will be sure to
Speaker 1: get that out on Bloomberg Digital