WEBVTT - CNN's Jeffrey Toobin Is Not Just a Talking Head 0:00:02.120 --> 0:00:05.320 I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. 0:00:07.120 --> 0:00:11.400 Jeffrey Tuban is such an institution. One imagines him emerging 0:00:11.520 --> 0:00:14.800 fully dressed from the womb and walking straight into a 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:20.720 TV studio. But before CNN and The New Yorker, before 0:00:20.760 --> 0:00:23.840 the books, he was a government lawyer, and before that 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:26.960 a superstar at Harvard, and before that the young son 0:00:27.040 --> 0:00:31.760 of Marlene Sanders, the first major female star in TV news. 0:00:32.680 --> 0:00:37.040 Tuban executive produced the brilliant CNN mini series based on 0:00:37.120 --> 0:00:40.040 his Patty Hurst book. But first I want to ask 0:00:40.120 --> 0:00:43.400 him about a theme that runs through his work, namely 0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:48.360 that he seems to like pissing people off. Fox Studios 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:51.000 was going to make a Patty Hurst movie with Tuban 0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:55.280 until Hurst called the book a hit job. Supreme Court 0:00:55.400 --> 0:00:59.280 justices felt betrayed by the clerks he coaxed into interviews 0:00:59.320 --> 0:01:02.080 for his ex is a The Nine, and when he 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:05.200 wrote a book about his first job, prosecuting Oliver North, 0:01:05.480 --> 0:01:09.560 his mentor Iran Contry Independent Council Lawrence Walsh threatened to 0:01:09.600 --> 0:01:13.440 prefer to to be prosecuted himself if he released the book, 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:17.360 in which Walsh claimed he disclosed strategies and secrets of 0:01:17.400 --> 0:01:21.280 the ongoing investigation. You know, there are people who are 0:01:21.400 --> 0:01:23.280 friends of mine who have said, you were a punk 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:25.000 kid twenty nine years old, What the hell do you 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:27.520 have to write a book right away? And and you know, I, 0:01:27.520 --> 0:01:31.399 I can certainly understand that criticism. That's a that's a 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:34.920 sort of matter of taste rather of legality. But I 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:37.400 think in terms of like legally certainly had every right 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:38.880 to do. In fact, I had to go to court 0:01:39.200 --> 0:01:40.920 to get a judgment that it was legal for me 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:43.119 to do it, which I did. But you know, people 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:46.000 who thought it was distasteful. I can certainly understand that. 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:50.480 The nine another book he wrote about the court. What 0:01:50.720 --> 0:01:54.040 prompted you to write that book? I decided to write 0:01:54.040 --> 0:01:56.600 a novel and it was like a legal thriller, and 0:01:56.600 --> 0:01:59.360 it's about a TV anchor who gets killed on the air, 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:01.640 and it was sort like combining my two worlds, the 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:04.600 legal world in the TV world. And I wrote three chapters. 0:02:04.640 --> 0:02:06.720 And my agents said, you know, there's a famous editor, 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:09.680 Phillis Grant, who wants to who thinks it's a great idea, 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:11.959 wants to read your novels. You send her the chapters. 0:02:12.160 --> 0:02:15.120 So I center the chapters and Phillis invited me to 0:02:15.160 --> 0:02:17.200 her house, gave me a diet coke and said, Jeff, 0:02:17.680 --> 0:02:21.480 your novel is terrible. Your novel, it's like it's never 0:02:21.520 --> 0:02:25.160 gonna be good. You should drop it, and instead you 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:28.079 should write a book about the Supreme Court. Because you've 0:02:28.120 --> 0:02:31.360 written profiles of justices. There hadn't been a real behind 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:34.320 the scenes book about the Supreme Court since Bob Woodward 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:37.359 and Scott Armstrong's The Brethren and the Seventies. I mean, 0:02:37.360 --> 0:02:42.160 the subject was just waiting to be exploited. And it's 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:45.880 still my most successful book, still taught in all sorts 0:02:45.919 --> 0:02:48.600 of school and the nine and it was a great 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:51.600 idea which was not my think. Ginsburg should be able 0:02:51.600 --> 0:02:56.160 to hanging there. Um, you know, I just saw her 0:02:56.240 --> 0:02:59.399 the other day. I mean, she is so stooped over. Uh. 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:04.760 You know, Ruth Ginsburg is about five foot tall, eighty 0:03:04.800 --> 0:03:09.480 pounds and tough as any NFL linebacker. And she's gonna 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:13.800 fighting claw. She's certainly got all her marbles. She's doing 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:16.040 her job as well as she can. She's going to 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:19.240 try to hang in there, but we'll see. You know, 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:21.919 she's eighty four. Eighty four is not the new anything. 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:26.240 Eighty four eighty four. I worked with people for the 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:31.680 American Way Norman Leaders organization, a lot of judicial watching 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:34.000 going on there and just stressing the people over and 0:03:34.040 --> 0:03:36.720 over and over again that the court matters most in 0:03:36.760 --> 0:03:40.320 a way, And and Republicans have recognized that more than Democrats. 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:44.120 And and you know, the fact that the majority leader 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:50.320 was able to stop uh Barack Obama from filling that 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:53.080 seat with Merrick Garland, and the fact that that was 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:56.160 certainly taken for granted and the Democrats sort of put 0:03:56.240 --> 0:03:59.800 up with it, was indicative of the fact that they 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:02.560 were a Publicans care as scared so much. You grew 0:04:02.600 --> 0:04:07.200 up in a household of two very accomplished, smart people. 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:11.240 You're an only child. I am, well, you know, in 0:04:11.240 --> 0:04:14.280 the typical American way, I have a complicated family. I 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:16.320 have a much older half sister. What I was raised 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:19.120 as an only child. Yeah, and she grew up where Philadelphia, 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:21.560 how much older than he was shaved your child in 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:24.160 New York, very much so so she was she wasn't 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:26.800 around so growing up in your house. So obviously your 0:04:26.800 --> 0:04:29.520 father is very accomplished, your mother is very accomplished. Your 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:31.640 mother Marley and Sanders, who was a big pioneer and 0:04:32.240 --> 0:04:35.200 broadcast news. Were you kind of like a latchkey kid? 0:04:35.880 --> 0:04:38.880 I felt like I had a great degree of independence. 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:41.920 I remember visiting my friends in the suburbs, thinking, oh 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:44.280 my god, this is horrible waiting around for your mom 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:46.400 to drive you around somewhere. I mean, you know, I 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:49.840 think I started walking to school when I was like 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:52.240 seven or eight, earlier than kids do it. Now, we're 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:55.120 gonna have guys on like a security detail to tape 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:59.080 my kids to school, who are like X Boomberg security 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:01.440 people and cops with guns driving my kids to school. 0:05:02.640 --> 0:05:05.159 It's because you have so many enemies. It's a different 0:05:06.520 --> 0:05:09.440 but the the uh, who would you say? Would you say? 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:13.200 It was equivalent? Which one of them is responsible for 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:15.520 your great academic success? She did very well in school 0:05:15.520 --> 0:05:18.000 in law school, I did. But one of the lessons 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:19.880 I learned, and again one of the things I don't 0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:22.240 think you learn until you have kids of your own 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:25.680 is sort of what your parents were like, and the 0:05:25.760 --> 0:05:31.960 way my parents acted equally as supervisors, as educators, as 0:05:32.200 --> 0:05:34.200 people who love me. I mean, I really felt like 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:37.800 my parents were equals in ways that I didn't realize 0:05:37.800 --> 0:05:39.560 that the time were so extraordinary. You know, my mother 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:42.240 used to tell a funny story that when I was 0:05:42.320 --> 0:05:45.440 in first grade, for whatever reason, someday I went home 0:05:46.440 --> 0:05:49.200 with another kid at lunch and I came home and 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:50.800 I was talking about my day. I said, mommy' not 0:05:50.880 --> 0:05:53.400 gonna believe this. His mother was home in the middle 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:56.560 of the day. Why wasn't she at work? And that 0:05:56.640 --> 0:06:01.480 to me was like was was a revelation, because you know, 0:06:01.520 --> 0:06:03.520 I had I had a mother who worked. Now also, 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:06.359 you know, they were hardly wealthy, but they had enough 0:06:06.520 --> 0:06:09.640 money to have full time help. So we were cushioned 0:06:09.640 --> 0:06:12.320 in that respect. But you know, my dad was an 0:06:12.320 --> 0:06:16.720 extraordinary intellect. I mean, he was largely self taught from 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:20.039 he was from Philadelphia, and he really grew up in 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:24.359 the classical music business. Wound up running the Symphony of 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:28.479 the Year, which was Stokowsky's last orchestra, which failed under 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:31.279 my father's leadership. It was the days before government subsidies 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:34.040 of the arts, and and it was it was a 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:39.960 heart wrenching experience, fortunately before I was conscious. And and 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:42.640 he then went on to a career in public television 0:06:42.640 --> 0:06:45.560 where he's really one of the founding fathers. But his 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:49.320 love of music was really the great passion of his life. 0:06:49.600 --> 0:06:52.440 In the one disappointment I think that I was to 0:06:52.520 --> 0:06:55.680 my parents is that I have utterly no talent in 0:06:55.839 --> 0:06:58.440 music and not even that much interest in it, which 0:06:58.480 --> 0:07:01.200 is really no know if you don't know, I did, 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:03.719 I took I did take piano lessons, and I was 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:07.640 perhaps the worst piano student in American history. I used 0:07:07.640 --> 0:07:10.320 to have a kitchen timer that like, I had to 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:13.200 practice fifteen minutes a night. My most vivid memory of 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:16.520 playing the piano was pushing the timer forward so it 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:19.200 would end faster. I just was. I just hated it. 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:23.240 And musical tastes, you know, I mean I I like 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:25.480 the music of my youth, and you know I still 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:29.360 love Elvis Costello and but but classical music I don't 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:31.960 really know much about. And my dad could identify any 0:07:32.000 --> 0:07:36.880 piece immediately, opera, anything, and that. Um, for some reason, 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:41.480 that was the one sort of intellectual piece of DNA 0:07:41.600 --> 0:07:45.520 that completely skipped me. Now to jump to the Patty 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:49.320 Hurst project, which is based on your book, eRASS was 0:07:49.360 --> 0:07:51.280 this a pitch from you? Did you say to CNN, 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:55.600 let's make my book into a documentary series. Um, it 0:07:55.720 --> 0:07:58.240 was sort of their idea. How involved were you mean, 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:00.200 do they show you cuts? And they show you They 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:02.840 showed me cuts. But the most important involvement was early 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:08.200 on when I shared with them all my notes, the 0:08:08.320 --> 0:08:10.920 still photographs that I had, the links to video that 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:15.560 I had, UM most importantly really the phone numbers of 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:18.600 the people whom I interviewed so they could contact them directly. 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:24.280 You interviewed Bill Harris, Emily Bill. That's that's a that's 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:26.920 a whole, that's a story on We're going to talk 0:08:26.920 --> 0:08:28.520 about that. The first thing I say to myself is 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:32.840 that Bill Harris is as joyful and unrepentant as can 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:35.480 possibly be about what he did. Is that a mistake? 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:39.080 That is um that that is not not a mistake 0:08:39.120 --> 0:08:41.440 at all? And and was he repented in other ways 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:43.319 that were left out? Or what you see is what 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:45.720 you saw? What you saw is what you get. I mean, 0:08:45.760 --> 0:08:49.160 I spent a tremendous time amount of time with Bill Harris. 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:56.120 Um I um the and I admit tremendous ambivalence about 0:08:56.200 --> 0:09:02.880 Bill because he did really horrible things. He kidnapped Patty Hurst, 0:09:03.000 --> 0:09:07.439 which is an unspeakably wrong act. He was a UM 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:11.040 you know, he tried to set off bombs. Fortunately he 0:09:11.080 --> 0:09:13.600 was incompetent, and he never managed to hurt anybody with 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:17.080 his bombs. He helped rob Banks. I mean this, I 0:09:17.120 --> 0:09:20.120 have absolutely no tolerance for, no respect for it, no 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:27.520 indulgence for but there is he did it for perversely 0:09:28.080 --> 0:09:31.679 decent reasons. He was never in it to make money. 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:35.040 He was never in it for um, you know, any 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:39.280 sort of personal gain. This was a twisted kind of 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:42.000 altruism that was behind the whole s l a that 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:46.800 they were not to freeze as well. They were twisted 0:09:46.880 --> 0:09:49.600 and wrong. But you know, in my line of work, 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:51.400 I dealt with a lot of criminals. I've been thinking 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:53.760 about O. J. Simpson lately with this horrible interview. That's 0:09:53.800 --> 0:09:57.120 I mean, that is a true sociopath. Bill Harris is 0:09:57.160 --> 0:10:00.840 not a sociopath. He is a deeply, deeply mis guided person, 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:09.199 but there is something about him that is not entirely evil. 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:13.400 And the reason why I guess I had perhaps more 0:10:13.440 --> 0:10:15.840 tolerance for Bill than I should is that I got 0:10:15.880 --> 0:10:18.880 into the seventies as a subject, and and you know, 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:20.920 I was alive in the seventies, but I was a kid, 0:10:21.440 --> 0:10:24.320 and the degree to which the country was really falling 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:28.280 apart in the seventies was something I did not remember 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:32.760 or recognize. I mean, the statistic that that haunts me 0:10:32.920 --> 0:10:36.000 because it's just so amazing. In the early and mid 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:39.319 nineties seventies, there were two thousand political bombings a year 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:41.959 in the United States. Consider what it's like now when 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:45.640 we have one political bombing, and and the fact that 0:10:45.679 --> 0:10:49.160 the country was convulsed in this way. It wasn't just 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:51.160 Bill and Emily Harris and the s l A setting 0:10:51.160 --> 0:10:54.400 off bombs. It was the weather underground, and you had Watergate, 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:59.520 and you had the energy crisis, and and then and 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:02.640 then you had the Zodiac Killer in San Francisco, which 0:11:02.640 --> 0:11:05.320 I had never even heard of, where these African Americans 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:07.680 were just killing random white people on the street. And 0:11:07.720 --> 0:11:10.079 then you have Jim Jones, you know, the People's Temple 0:11:10.120 --> 0:11:13.360 where nine people committed suicide. I mean, it's just those 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:18.800 convulsions Bill and Emily Harris look less aberrational when you 0:11:18.800 --> 0:11:20.800 see what was going on in the country at the time. 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:23.120 You know, you can't help but come out of this 0:11:23.200 --> 0:11:27.480 thing with a real concern about what a fraud Patty 0:11:27.520 --> 0:11:30.760 Hurst was. I mean, one of the most harrowing moments 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:33.840 is and I think you're narrating at the point when 0:11:33.840 --> 0:11:36.400 they say she's in the room and the FBI guys 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:38.280 come in to take her out of that room, and 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:41.079 rather than rushing into their arms and saying thank God 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:44.760 you're here, they cover and she could do in the salute. 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:47.520 And and when when when they come in the door, 0:11:48.600 --> 0:11:53.160 she's heading to the bedroom where the guns are. And 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:57.200 and you know the reason why I think the Patty 0:11:57.240 --> 0:11:59.960 Hurst case still compels people so much is so interesting 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:02.720 to people. It is because it's a mystery about what 0:12:02.800 --> 0:12:07.040 goes on in a person's head. And the arguments about 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:10.000 whether Patty Hurst was simply coerced to do all that 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:12.400 she did or that she actually joined the s l 0:12:12.480 --> 0:12:16.040 A is a rich, complicated subject, and I don't pretend 0:12:16.080 --> 0:12:19.640 that it's an easy question to answer. She claims that 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:22.079 she was she was coerced by them. When she makes 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:24.400 that claim as a defense, I'm sure she opens herself 0:12:24.480 --> 0:12:30.520 up in California law to have detailed forensic psychiatric examinations 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:33.240 correct well. In fact, her trial was very much the 0:12:33.240 --> 0:12:36.960 battle of experts. There were six psychiatrists to examine her, 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:40.680 three from the prosecution, three from the defense, sure, and 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:44.520 and and they all testified and and frankly it was 0:12:44.559 --> 0:12:47.000 not a great moment for the psychiatric profession. It was 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:50.120 a lot of gobbledygook that sort of canceled each other out. 0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:56.400 But what really moved the jury was her behavior during 0:12:56.440 --> 0:12:58.040 the year and a half she was on the road, 0:12:58.360 --> 0:13:00.520 on the run with the s l A. And and 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:03.760 you know, I never missed, I never minimized, you know, 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:06.080 the terror of her kidnapping and the fact that she 0:13:06.120 --> 0:13:08.760 had sex in a closet, which you know the s 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:11.040 l A said was consensual. But I don't believe people 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:14.560 who are you know, who who are you know, kidnapped 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:17.160 in a closet, are capable of consent in the way 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:20.080 that we understand it today. But when you look at 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:24.040 her behavior over that year and a half, three bank robberies, 0:13:24.040 --> 0:13:27.040 including one where a woman was killed, as you mentioned, 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:30.560 Rna hoppsle Uh where she shot up a street in 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:33.440 Los Angeles, and male sporting goods, which to me is 0:13:33.480 --> 0:13:36.720 the defining event of her period as a kidnapper, where 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:39.559 she tried to set off bombs under police cars in 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:42.840 San Francisco, When when she was by herself for long 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:46.520 periods of time where she could have made made no 0:13:46.559 --> 0:13:50.760 attempt to escape. When you add all that up, I think, 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:53.319 you know, the the the only verdict I could come 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:56.760 to is that she did, actually she did go over 0:13:57.000 --> 0:13:58.880 what was in her past, what was in her youth? 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:04.640 Did she hate? You know not? You know, the interesting 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:07.320 thing about Patty's youth, first of all, was how young 0:14:07.360 --> 0:14:10.840 she was. She was only when she was kidnapped. Uh. 0:14:10.880 --> 0:14:13.040 But you know, even though she came from a very 0:14:13.040 --> 0:14:17.280 wealthy family, it was very typical of the era. You know, 0:14:17.400 --> 0:14:20.760 she piste off from mother. Her mother was a Catholic 0:14:21.440 --> 0:14:25.640 southern Southerner, you know, very concerned about appearances and propriety 0:14:26.040 --> 0:14:28.600 and and you know, Patty like boys, and she moved 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:31.840 in with her boyfriend, which horrified her mother. But I mean, 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:35.360 these were the kind of conflicts that were utterly routine. 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:38.640 You know, she was not a particularly political person. She 0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:41.360 you know, she had worked as a clerk under you know, 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:44.080 without people knowing where she was for a few months. 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:46.080 She got a sense of a little bit of how 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:49.360 the other half lived. But this was not a budding 0:14:49.400 --> 0:14:54.120 political activist. This was not a huge rebel. You know, 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:57.080 there were signs that she was somewhat more rebellious than 0:14:57.160 --> 0:15:01.240 most kids. You know, she she uh, she she was 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:03.640 very tough on the nuns, and she kept getting thrown 0:15:03.640 --> 0:15:06.280 out of Catholic schools. But I mean this is very 0:15:06.320 --> 0:15:09.800 minor stuff by the standards of the of the era. 0:15:10.480 --> 0:15:14.120 So the idea that she was some sort of radical 0:15:14.200 --> 0:15:17.120 in embryo, they really just wasn't much proof for that. 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:20.040 Is it assumed that the Freeze and his organization, everything 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:24.040 they did, they were super effective in this brainwashing. You know, 0:15:24.320 --> 0:15:26.040 to know the s l A is to know they 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:29.720 weren't super effective at anything. I mean, they were not competent. 0:15:29.800 --> 0:15:32.800 They didn't have a plan to brainwash her. You know, 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:36.640 quite no one thought she was actually going to join 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:38.960 up with them. They basically wanted to get rid of 0:15:38.960 --> 0:15:42.760 her after a certain period of time. But but I 0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:45.880 think the best way to describe her her behavior is that, 0:15:46.280 --> 0:15:49.240 you know, she sort of adapted to her surroundings and 0:15:49.400 --> 0:15:53.840 and you know she she had a thing for authority figures. 0:15:53.840 --> 0:15:56.040 When you think about you know, her boyfriends and lovers 0:15:56.080 --> 0:15:59.520 over this period, Uh, Steve Weed, her fiance had been 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:01.760 a math to chure in her high school, an authority figure. 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:05.720 Steve Um. Uh, Well, that's that's that's that becomes her 0:16:05.800 --> 0:16:08.920 husband Um, and he's not just a copies her bodyguard 0:16:09.280 --> 0:16:12.440 UM and the two boyfriends she had while she was 0:16:12.440 --> 0:16:14.480 with the s l A. The first one was Willie Wolfe, 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:17.640 was sort of her bodyguard within the s l A. 0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:21.000 And then later in in her period where she acknowledges 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:24.920 she has a consensual relationship with Steve Salia, another who 0:16:24.960 --> 0:16:28.440 was sort of a protector within what became the later 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:31.400 s l A. And then of course, her lawyers hire 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:34.600 a bodyguard for her when she's out on bail and 0:16:34.720 --> 0:16:39.240 off duty cop UM named Bernie Shaw, and they they 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:41.800 fall in love and they have a long and successful marriage. 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:44.880 So she had a thing for sort of authority figures, 0:16:44.920 --> 0:16:49.560 and she adapted to her surroundings with them. And that's 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:52.600 sort of the best way I can characterize, at least 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:59.360 her relationship with Matt legal expert Jeffrey Tuban. Another smart 0:16:59.480 --> 0:17:03.920 kid who turned into a journalistic superstar is George Stephanopoulos. 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:06.679 But when he left the White House where he was 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:10.760 domestic policy adviser to President Clinton, he wasn't sure where 0:17:10.880 --> 0:17:13.920 he'd land. I knew I didn't want to be someone 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:17.080 who just hung around Washington trading off of what he 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:19.760 had done forever, and I knew that in order to 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:22.560 feel my age again, I had to start a different career. 0:17:24.080 --> 0:17:26.960 The rest of that interview is that here's the Thing, 0:17:27.160 --> 0:17:31.080 Dot Org coming up, Tuban and I go deep on 0:17:31.240 --> 0:17:45.040 o J. I'm Alec Baldwin, and you were listening to 0:17:45.160 --> 0:17:49.840 Here's the Thing. New Yorker writer and CNN legal analyst 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:53.919 Jeffrey Tuban wrote the definitive book on o J. The 0:17:54.000 --> 0:17:56.119 thing about o J that was so rich and it 0:17:56.280 --> 0:18:01.000 was so complicated was that Johnny Cock and who again 0:18:01.800 --> 0:18:06.680 a complicated person, but someone basically I just loved, understood 0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:11.080 the context of the story and understood what it meant 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:14.880 to blame white cops in Los Angeles and how there 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:19.200 were so many justifiable reasons to be for black people 0:18:19.240 --> 0:18:21.600 to be pissed at the at the l a p D. 0:18:22.320 --> 0:18:25.360 And he took that history and put it to use 0:18:25.440 --> 0:18:29.320 in favor of the least deserving person in America. And 0:18:29.320 --> 0:18:34.480 and so you had this crazy juxtaposition of Cochrane pointing 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:38.439 out all these injustices and and then you know, like 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:42.760 Manna from Heaven, Mark Ferman appears, who is the personification 0:18:43.000 --> 0:18:44.920 of all that's wrong with the l a p D. 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:48.320 And he puts it to work for the benefit of 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:52.160 of O. J. Simpson, who is basically just a wealthy 0:18:52.200 --> 0:18:55.240 wife beater, that's all he is. This was a domestic 0:18:55.359 --> 0:18:59.040 violence homicide. Happens all the time in the United States. 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:01.479 He's just spoiled, Brad. It was a was spoiled, you know. 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:03.159 I mean when he was at Galile High School in 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:07.119 San Francisco, he was a football prodigy. He goes to USC, 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:12.760 superstar at at USC, the first you know, Heisman Trophy winner, 0:19:12.920 --> 0:19:16.320 first pick in the draft, and and you know, he 0:19:16.400 --> 0:19:21.399 led this gilded life, insulated not just from the the 0:19:21.440 --> 0:19:28.320 broader African American struggle. Yes, the perfect setup for someone 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:33.240 who who had this sense of entitlement um that led 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:36.680 him to have expectations about his wife that when they 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:38.760 were not met, he beat the hell out. What do 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:41.439 you think happened? I mean, I mean I hate to 0:19:41.640 --> 0:19:45.480 ask you specifics like this, Like you watched the program, 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:47.080 you know, the one based on your book. You know, 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:49.920 you watch this program in five episodes, go by seven 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:52.200 and a half hours, and you're still stopping you and 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:53.520 I want to get you in a room and I 0:19:53.560 --> 0:19:55.960 want to go do you still think O J. Did 0:19:55.960 --> 0:19:59.760 it so all the all the DNA evidence, the DNA 0:19:59.840 --> 0:20:03.199 of is it? That's it. It's not just the DNA evidence. 0:20:03.280 --> 0:20:07.080 I mean, you know, there are some glove planted. The 0:20:07.160 --> 0:20:12.760 glove wasn't planeted, the the the there are one set 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:15.800 of bloody footprints walking away from the crime scene. They 0:20:15.840 --> 0:20:19.520 are size of Levin Bruno Molly shoes that O J owned. 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:22.320 I mean, what more do you need to know? And again, 0:20:22.440 --> 0:20:26.520 you know, people talk about this case as if you know, 0:20:26.880 --> 0:20:30.840 he it's inexplicable, why would he do this? He was 0:20:30.920 --> 0:20:35.280 a domestic violence perpetrator. These is this is how these 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:38.600 stories escalate. This was not a random crime. This was 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:42.280 a domestic violence homicide. And and that I think, I mean, 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:44.840 you know, the whole me Too movement I think, you know, 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:51.119 has illuminated just how per I mean, obviously that's a 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:54.439 somewhat separate subject, but it just shows, you know, how 0:20:55.720 --> 0:20:59.159 people could discount the domestic violence aspect of the story 0:20:59.760 --> 0:21:02.320 when it's the core of the story. I mean, it's 0:21:02.400 --> 0:21:05.880 why this murder took place, and poor Ronald Goldman sort 0:21:05.920 --> 0:21:08.480 of stumbled on the scene. You know. One of the 0:21:08.520 --> 0:21:13.240 dirty little secrets of of particularly homicide investigations, is that 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:16.440 in the vast, vast majority of the time, it's completely 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:18.480 obvious who the perpetrator is. I mean, you know, there 0:21:18.680 --> 0:21:22.960 a lot a lot of homicides are what people called disputes. 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:26.800 And I did a story in Milwaukee about the prosecutor's 0:21:26.840 --> 0:21:30.800 office there and it said, of the crime victims, of 0:21:31.000 --> 0:21:36.400 the murder victims in um Milwaukee have criminal records their 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:40.000 disputes between criminals. And it's like it's pretty easy to tell, 0:21:40.200 --> 0:21:43.000 you know, who killed whom and why. When you have 0:21:43.680 --> 0:21:46.800 cases where you have an aggressive defense, where you have 0:21:46.960 --> 0:21:49.840 cases where people are going to challenge the evidence. The 0:21:49.880 --> 0:21:53.040 cops aren't used to that, and um, you know that 0:21:53.320 --> 0:21:56.240 when you had a genius like Barry Shack challenging the 0:21:56.320 --> 0:21:59.840 DNA evidence and and talking about the possibility of planning, 0:22:00.280 --> 0:22:02.600 was the blanket over the bodies? Yeah, I mean it 0:22:02.640 --> 0:22:07.240 was just this stuff. Was the Asian guy. It was 0:22:07.280 --> 0:22:09.679 just a criminalist. I mean, you know who was just 0:22:09.720 --> 0:22:12.320 you know, supposed to be collecting the evidence. And you know, 0:22:12.400 --> 0:22:16.399 because most most cases ending guilty. Please, that's sort of 0:22:17.080 --> 0:22:20.119 and the vast majority of cases don't have lawyers the 0:22:20.640 --> 0:22:24.119 caliber of Barry Check. None of that behavior has ever challenged, 0:22:24.400 --> 0:22:26.399 but it was and there you see, did she do 0:22:26.480 --> 0:22:29.399 everything she could have done to protect herself? Did she 0:22:29.480 --> 0:22:31.720 really really do what a lot of women do and 0:22:31.760 --> 0:22:34.080 they just knuckle under and hope things get better? Well, no, 0:22:34.200 --> 0:22:36.639 I mean she left, she divorced him, She called the 0:22:36.640 --> 0:22:39.680 police eight times at least, I mean, you know this, 0:22:40.280 --> 0:22:42.520 she did more than a lot of women do under 0:22:42.600 --> 0:22:46.879 under these circumstances. And also remember you know when she 0:22:47.040 --> 0:22:50.960 called the police, she knew that the police socialized with OJ, 0:22:51.160 --> 0:22:53.160 that they went, and that they were as star struck 0:22:53.200 --> 0:22:56.280 as anybody else by o J. So where was she 0:22:56.320 --> 0:22:59.200