Speaker 1: Hey, that folks, it is Friday, May fifteenth. Then woo.
Speaker 1: We know divorce can be ugly, but divorce DC style
Speaker 1: is something else. And with that, welcome to this episode
Speaker 1: of Amy and TJ where we have a divorce that
Speaker 1: pits a congressman against a senator's daughter. Yes, we've got
Speaker 1: the House versus the Senate almost and these are sitting
Speaker 1: active members of Congress we're talking about, and a divorce
Speaker 1: and a daughter in the middle, and serious robes, we
Speaker 1: should say. It's very serious allegations.
Speaker 2: There are, yes, and this could be race altering allegations
Speaker 2: that are taking place because the congressman in question is
Speaker 2: up for reelection midterms this year and so he is
Speaker 2: especially bent out of shape that allegations are being hurled
Speaker 2: at him by a senator's daughter. Yes, their divorce may
Speaker 2: have been finalized, but their custody arrangement.
Speaker 3: Hasn't and that is part of the issue.
Speaker 1: And they have been fighting. Now, this is a pretty
Speaker 1: quick robes and her name is Emily Moreno, but there
Speaker 1: was a pretty quick situation for them. Married in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two, had a baby in twenty twenty three. He
Speaker 1: files for divorce in twenty twenty four, they're divorced by
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, and here in twenty twenty six, he
Speaker 1: has now filed a defamation suit against his ex wife Rhodes.
Speaker 1: How do we go from love to defamation suits in
Speaker 1: four years?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's been quick, and it's been it's been
Speaker 2: fast and furious. As they say, we're talking about Ohio
Speaker 2: Congressman Max Miller. He's a second term congressman trying to
Speaker 2: be reelected for his third term. And yeah, you could
Speaker 2: say that things have escalated between him and his ex wife,
Speaker 2: Emily Moreno. They she is, by the way, the daughter
Speaker 2: of Senator Bernie Moreno. I actually that was not a
Speaker 2: name that was super familiar to me. He is a
Speaker 2: first term senator. He notably is backed by President Trump,
Speaker 2: and some would say because of that beat the Democratic
Speaker 2: incumbent Shared Brown a Shrod Brown. So that certainly is
Speaker 2: a name most of us are familiar with. And Ohio
Speaker 2: we talking about, even though I just mispronounced his name.
Speaker 1: Sure, yes, he's making a comeback right now. Actually, but yes,
Speaker 1: this is in all important Ohio. But he's not one
Speaker 1: of the more high profile members of the Senate, but
Speaker 1: still very important state, very important senator, they all are.
Speaker 1: But yes, it's his daughter that we're talking about.
Speaker 2: Yes, And so what we have is Congressman Miller filing
Speaker 2: this defamation lawsuit this week, and its cites that he
Speaker 2: has suffered considerable reputational and financial harm that was caused
Speaker 2: to him by his ex wife's accusations that he was
Speaker 2: quote a violent and abusive husband and father.
Speaker 1: Rogues, you can't get any worse than that in accusations
Speaker 1: of a guy who puts himself out to his community
Speaker 1: as a man and as a as a man, a
Speaker 1: family man. So even if you lose the wife, they'll
Speaker 1: still forgive you, but they don't want to hear your
Speaker 1: bad father as well. So drove damning of an accusation
Speaker 1: that a politician can get. So, yes, he's coming out swinging.
Speaker 2: He certainly is, and he is alleging that his ex wife,
Speaker 2: along with her attorney and her law firm, spread knowingly
Speaker 2: false information about him to media outlets. And he names
Speaker 2: the tabloids that we are all too familiar with, and
Speaker 2: he says that yes, they just printed verbatim whatever Emily
Speaker 2: Moreno and her attorneys told these tabloids which would not
Speaker 2: be shocking and just wrote it as if it were true,
Speaker 2: and that has undermined his chances of reelection, although he
Speaker 2: just won his primary and he is the front runner
Speaker 2: by the way right now. But he says he suffered
Speaker 2: actual damages in the form of lost business opportunities reduced
Speaker 2: campaign contributions that he says he can show from the
Speaker 2: time the allegations were made to reduce campaign contributions, and
Speaker 2: he needs those to help with his reelection campaign to Congress.
Speaker 1: He's being accused of being an abuser. Yeah, he's being
Speaker 1: accused of being a criminal. He's being accused of beating
Speaker 1: on a woman. He's accused of beating on his wife.
Speaker 2: Is very serious, Yeah, very specifically, he's accused of throwing
Speaker 2: boiling water on her.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's ugly. Yes, he's denying all of this. We
Speaker 1: should make sure we say now he's denying it all,
Speaker 1: But that stuff gets out there wades, and it's hard
Speaker 1: to unring ned bell as we know.
Speaker 2: Yes, so, she Emily Moreno has made several allegations. But yes,
Speaker 2: one of the more notable ones, and the more recent one,
Speaker 2: is that he threw boiling water at her.
Speaker 3: He denies it.
Speaker 2: And she claims she even and she sent this out
Speaker 2: and it was published by some of these tabloids. This
Speaker 2: alleged handwritten apology note that she claims he wrote to
Speaker 2: her after he did this. But in his lawsuit, Congressman
Speaker 2: Miller says he has never hurled boiling water on moreno
Speaker 2: or otherwise battered her, nor has he ever apologized for
Speaker 2: such acts that he never committed.
Speaker 3: That is what his lawsuit states. But she has been
Speaker 3: documenting what she claims.
Speaker 2: Are bruises, red marks, burns, and selfies, and she's gave
Speaker 2: those pictures to the outlets, and she says those show
Speaker 2: and prove that she has been physically abused by her
Speaker 2: ex husband.
Speaker 1: Uh oh props. They said, this is a reckoning for
Speaker 1: Congress here lately with swallwell and how many other resignations
Speaker 1: did we see? They can't remember the guy from Texas
Speaker 1: right now, already forgot his name, the congress one from Gonzales, Florida,
Speaker 1: Gonzales and laid in Florida with all the fraud, And
Speaker 1: they say this is a reckoning drain the swamp. How
Speaker 1: tolerant are the colleague is going to be in a
Speaker 1: midterm year when they have to go back and answer
Speaker 1: questions possibly or attached to this guy who's accused of
Speaker 1: beating on his wife, ropes that he needs to get
Speaker 1: in front of it. He needs to file a defamation suit.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, because the allegations were also that he abused his daughter.
Speaker 2: Now he has said categorically that that is not true
Speaker 2: and claims that the Child and Family Services, because he
Speaker 2: was investigated because she made these claims, all deemed those
Speaker 2: claims unsubstantiated. And that should be pointed out because anyone
Speaker 2: can make any allegation to Child Protective Services and they
Speaker 2: are forced under law to follow up as we would
Speaker 2: expect those investigations. But he said, and these are verifiab well,
Speaker 2: that those were deemed unsubstantiated. He also shared an audio
Speaker 2: recording of his ex wife after this alleged boiling water incident,
Speaker 2: where his ex tells him you are a very kind
Speaker 2: person and I don't think you would ever hurt me physically.
Speaker 2: So he's got recordings, he's got text she has texts,
Speaker 2: But they have literally been recording each other surreptitiously to
Speaker 2: try and then show see I didn't do this, or
Speaker 2: see you're making this up.
Speaker 3: But it's a lot to go through.
Speaker 2: It's a lot of back and forth and unfortunately, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's being hurled and displayed publicly, and that is his issue. Like,
Speaker 2: take me to court, take me take this to the police,
Speaker 2: don't take it to this tabloid who shall not be named.
Speaker 1: It's not far fetched what he's alleging about. We we
Speaker 1: know this happened. This is yes, this is a thing.
Speaker 1: So it doesn't mean the allegations are not true. But
Speaker 1: these tactics too, are something that are unfortunately done and
Speaker 1: they are disgusting.
Speaker 3: It is disgusting.
Speaker 1: What we're talking about is a guy Robes who is
Speaker 1: just being destroyed. He might lose his he's going to
Speaker 1: lose his reputation. Possibly, he's going to lose possibly the
Speaker 1: job he has and loves. I don't know. You could
Speaker 1: say he deserves it because she has to be listened to, right,
Speaker 1: she has to be listened to.
Speaker 2: But here's where I think we stand, just given everything
Speaker 2: we've been through. When you get publicly eviscerated by people
Speaker 2: who potentially have a reason to or have a desire
Speaker 2: to motive, who have a motive to motive, yes, and
Speaker 2: there's nothing more personally motivating than feeling rejected by or
Speaker 2: upset by a divorce or something that happened that led
Speaker 2: up to the divorce. But the point being is that
Speaker 2: should stay for a family court. That should be I
Speaker 2: think limited to a police department. If you've got legitimate
Speaker 2: criminal complaints against someone, take them to the police. If
Speaker 2: you have legitimate concerns about abuse, take them to child
Speaker 2: protective services.
Speaker 3: But when you take them directly to a tabloid.
Speaker 2: That insinuates you are out to destroy and damage someone
Speaker 2: just for revenge.
Speaker 1: Else would you do it.
Speaker 3: There's no other.
Speaker 1: Reason, no other reason. These are just ugly tactics that
Speaker 1: take place to where Robes you don't know what to believe.
Speaker 1: But I'm told, is this not those stance we should take?
Speaker 1: Now we have to listen to her and we have
Speaker 1: to believe her. How can you balance then, Robes as
Speaker 1: maybe a voter in his district, I have to believe
Speaker 1: her as a victim of domestic violence. Then that means
Speaker 1: I'm labeling him. How do I balance or give him
Speaker 1: any kind of fairness in judging him even as a candidate.
Speaker 1: If I have to believe her, I'm always fat What
Speaker 1: do we do? Nothing's been proven, but he's been labeled that,
Speaker 1: and we're always told we have to robes, consider the
Speaker 1: story that's being told. They're never believed. Robes, they're never believed.
Speaker 1: So what do we do now?
Speaker 2: It's tough because obviously you have to as a human being,
Speaker 2: allows space for both of them to be telling in
Speaker 2: part some truth and in part maybe perhaps it's an
Speaker 2: embellishment or it's a complete lie. You don't it's hard
Speaker 2: to know, and that's unfortunately something that the constituents are
Speaker 2: left to grapple with because it is not something that
Speaker 2: is known as.
Speaker 3: Fact or provable by fact.
Speaker 2: And yes, you can show a picture, but you if
Speaker 2: you don't have video of the incident, it's hard to
Speaker 2: know what you're looking at and why you're.
Speaker 3: Looking at what you're seeing.
Speaker 1: Hear this, and we've heard it so many times, actually,
Speaker 1: people in our personal lives. We've heard these things before.
Speaker 1: After the first years of marriage, three years, all you're
Speaker 1: doing is collecting evidence against each other. Sad I had
Speaker 1: to hear they got a picture this, You've got a
Speaker 1: recording of this. Gotta da da da, Like what is so?
Speaker 1: Obviously something broke down pretty quickly and immediately in their relationship,
Speaker 1: But just to hear this is ugly stuff. And yeah,
Speaker 1: a US senator. Well, I haven't seen anything from him
Speaker 1: about it.
Speaker 3: I haven't seen anything from him.
Speaker 2: I know that in the midst of all of this
Speaker 2: he has Miller, in terms of his legal case, has
Speaker 2: called for the senator to be subpoenaed, so he may
Speaker 2: be involved if this actually does go to trial in
Speaker 2: any way. But this is interesting because we're not done here.
Speaker 2: You see, when mister Miller, Congressman Miller filed this defamation
Speaker 2: lawsuit against his ex wife, his ex wife's team spoke
Speaker 2: up pretty quickly and they say that Congressman Miller is
Speaker 2: quote running the same play against a woman with photographs
Speaker 2: of her bruises and burns. Mister Miller will not silence
Speaker 2: miss Moreno the same way he silenced Stephanie Grisham. We
Speaker 2: will tell you, we will tell you who Stephanie Grisham is.
Speaker 2: And this is a big part of this story. When
Speaker 2: we come back and welcome back everyone to this episode
Speaker 2: of Amy and TJ, where we are talking about this
Speaker 2: escalating back and forth between Congressman Max Miller and a
Speaker 2: Senator Bernie Moreno's daughter, his ex wife, Emily Moreno. Congressman
Speaker 2: Miller just filed a defamation lawsuit against his ex wife.
Speaker 2: She has been making very public accusations against him of
Speaker 2: physical abuse towards her and towards their daughter, and he
Speaker 2: is fighting back and he.
Speaker 1: Has to go to work every day with his ex
Speaker 1: father in law in the building.
Speaker 3: Awkward.
Speaker 1: That is a little awkward. He did write him a
Speaker 1: little note on X. He's only made a couple of
Speaker 1: comments on X, but the first robes he made was quote,
Speaker 1: it is unfortunate that Bernie Moreno continues to fund and
Speaker 1: enable his daughter's malicious campaign to ruin my life, despite
Speaker 1: his knowledge of her mental health issues. Bernie, this must
Speaker 1: be distracting for your job. These antics harm your own grandchild.
Speaker 1: Anytime you want to put a stop to this. You
Speaker 1: can not the harshest of things that should be kept
Speaker 1: in house to see a family airing this stuff out
Speaker 1: like this. That's it's just unfortunate.
Speaker 2: It really is, And especially through the halls of Congress.
Speaker 2: We talk about things echoing through the halls of Congress.
Speaker 2: This isn't what you want to hear reverberating. It's really ugly,
Speaker 2: and it's pretty nasty. And look, it's kind of a
Speaker 2: similar situation. I say that we end did before the
Speaker 2: break talking about a woman named Stephanie Grisham. Who is
Speaker 2: Stephanie Grisham. She is Congressman Miller's former girlfriend. But it
Speaker 2: was when he was working at the White House, he
Speaker 2: was an aide to President Trump in his first term.
Speaker 2: He was dating the one time White House Press Secretary,
Speaker 2: Stephanie Grisham.
Speaker 3: I don't remember, not at all. I don't remember that at.
Speaker 1: All at all. How did she serve? Long?
Speaker 3: Was it a I don't think so.
Speaker 1: He went through a few, didn't he.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so she was among them.
Speaker 2: So Stephanie Grisham was at one point the White House
Speaker 2: Press secretary, and Congressman Miller was then a White House
Speaker 2: aide to President Trump. He was making his first run
Speaker 2: for Congress back in twenty twenty one, and she wrote
Speaker 2: a book about her time at the White House, and
Speaker 2: in that book she raised allegations about a former White
Speaker 2: House staffer who had physically abused her while they were dating.
Speaker 2: He was later identified as now Congressman Miller, but she
Speaker 2: did not put his name in her book.
Speaker 3: But everyone knew she was talking about him. So what
Speaker 3: did he do? He filed a defamation lawsuit against her.
Speaker 1: As he did. Where'd you get on that one, though.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: He voluntarily dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice in August of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three, just as the case was about to
Speaker 2: go to trial.
Speaker 1: Okay, none of this sounds okay. This is one of
Speaker 1: those things where we go Okay, I know it looks bad,
Speaker 1: but hear me out. That's kind of the position he puts.
Speaker 1: He finds himself in back to back women that he dated,
Speaker 1: back to back women that he had serious relationships with,
Speaker 1: and back to back allegations of violence and abuse in
Speaker 1: that relationship.
Speaker 3: Okay you yes.
Speaker 2: One could look at it as that is a pattern
Speaker 2: of abuse, this is who he is, and another could
Speaker 2: look at it as his now ex wife was currently
Speaker 2: with him when this was all going on. She talked
Speaker 2: badly about Grisham, saying that she was a vile and
Speaker 2: evil person who was making up lies. But she certainly
Speaker 2: knew that this hurt her then husband, bothered him was
Speaker 2: actually taking he was. His reputation was being at least
Speaker 2: chipped away at by these allegations, and so she knew
Speaker 2: how to get him. You could argue, if she was
Speaker 2: angry about the divorce, if anything didn't go well, she
Speaker 2: knew that this was his achilles heel. Another woman had
Speaker 2: already made these accusations. So if I make them, I
Speaker 2: will certainly be believed and I can bring him down
Speaker 2: because of it.
Speaker 1: That we should know, nothing was ever proven in that case.
Speaker 1: It was investigated as well, the allegations in that first relationship,
Speaker 1: so that must be noted. But Roode, that's going to
Speaker 1: now come up, and all of this is getting This
Speaker 1: is going to get uglier and ugly. I haven't seen
Speaker 1: his opponent if they're using this against them yet.
Speaker 2: Not well, I don't know if he's doing it yet.
Speaker 2: But his opponent is Democrat Brian Poindexter. He is a
Speaker 2: five term local councilman. He's a union iron worker, and
Speaker 2: yet he's trying to take Miller's seat. He wants to
Speaker 2: flip Ohio seventh congressional district in November from Republican to Democrat.
Speaker 3: And look that's not.
Speaker 2: Anything, of course, that the Trump administration would like to
Speaker 2: see happen. So he you know, we're talking about Representative
Speaker 2: Miller is now the Republican primary opponent going into November.
Speaker 2: Right now, he is ahead, what will this potentially do
Speaker 2: to him? And certainly this had to be part of
Speaker 2: his motivation for filing this defamation lawsuit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is I don't know what it looks like
Speaker 1: in his in his district, grobes, but I just we
Speaker 1: hate that these things get aired out in an ugly way.
Speaker 1: Tabloids involved, divorce involved, emotion involved, and a kid is
Speaker 1: involved with get three two three.
Speaker 3: Two years old, little girl two years old.
Speaker 2: That's that's the biggest tragedy of it all, just to
Speaker 2: see this all unfold, like they can't even hand off.
Speaker 2: He's got a restraining order against her and she's got
Speaker 2: allegations against him. So it's just one of these really
Speaker 2: difficult things. How do you even share custody in that
Speaker 2: type of environment. That poor little girl is absorbing all
Speaker 2: of that energy. She is the biggest victim of it all.
Speaker 2: And certainly you always would hope and wish that parents
Speaker 2: who are divorcing and parents who even hate each other
Speaker 2: can at least put that aside for the betterment of
Speaker 2: their child, but we rarely see that actually happen.
Speaker 1: Took the words right out of my mouth, that'll be
Speaker 1: in there, and with that, I'm going to leave you
Speaker 1: Robes with this as a reminder. I was curious didn't
Speaker 1: remember Stephanie Grisham at all as the press secretary. He
Speaker 1: had secretary, He had four during that first term. I
Speaker 1: forgot about several of them. Kaylee Mcinanny, Oh yes, I
Speaker 1: do remember that. Okay. Stephanie Grisham was before that, Sarah
Speaker 1: Huckabee Sam.
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, the current governor of Arkansas.
Speaker 1: And then Sean Spicer, he was.
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, it's funny fifteen.
Speaker 2: Interestingly, I know I remember all of those names except
Speaker 2: for Stephaniemers.
Speaker 3: How long did she last?
Speaker 1: Does it just O for a No, not quite a year.
Speaker 3: That's longer than I would have even thought.
Speaker 1: It was like ten months.
Speaker 3: Maybe I guess she was no. Carolyn Levitt, Carolyn.
Speaker 1: Levitt doing a thing. Congrats again on the baby. Get back.
Speaker 1: They need you there in the briefing room. I with that, folks.
Speaker 1: I always appreciate you spending some time here with us.
Speaker 1: I'm TJ. Holmes On. I have of my dear Amy Robot.
Speaker 1: We'll talk soon.