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- [00:00]
Brooke Baldwin
Foreign.
- [00:06]
Interviewer
Story includes stories of sexual assault that may be triggering for some listeners. An explosive new CNN investigation is pulling back the curtain on what is being called a academy. Let's pop this up. Exposing a global academy and shocking group chats. Men encourage one another to drug and assault their wives and swap tips on getting away with it. And here to discuss this very troubling story with me is Brooke Baldwin. She's an award winning journalist, top substack writer and storyteller devoted to truth and transformation. We all loved watching her anchor on cnn. I was obsessed with cnn. I spent so much time with you before today. And now she's busy building a platform all on her own in independent media where it's all you, sister. Let's go, sis. Okay. This is very troubling.
- [00:57]
Brooke Baldwin
It's incredibly troublesome. I mean, just on so many levels. First of all, just, it's so nice to meet you.
- [01:03]
Interviewer
It's so nice to meet you too.
- [01:04]
Brooke Baldwin
What a way to like, open up a conversation. But let's just dive right in because that's how we roll. Yeah. You know. So Saskia Van Dorn is the Paris bureau chief over at cnn. She produced for me when we covered terror attacks in Europe once upon a time, as one does as a journalist. And so when I saw this story and what she explained to me is it had, it first came out and I don't think it got as much as many eyeballs. And then something happened and it just went poof and it went viral here in the States. And essentially the story is I, I was, I feel so naive. I just had no idea that this even existed. Where it's like these. A lot of times, husbands, partners, in the safety of one's home are taking in one woman's case, Zoe Watts, like the child's, you know, sleeping medication, crunching it up into her nighttime tea, drugging her to be unconscious. And then there are these hashtags on these porn websites. By the way, the website's not the dark web, like just broad daylight where it's called like hashtag eye checks. Where they're like pulling their eyelids up. Yes. So you can see that they're completely. Or they're, or their limbs or, you know, so they're out. And then these men are raping their wives and partners. And then they're uploading the video to the Internet where millions and millions of people are visiting every month.
- [02:21]
Interviewer
That's what I want to talk about. The scale of this. Yeah, the scale of people that viewed this was 60 million.
- [02:28]
Brooke Baldwin
It was like something like 62. And I know it was 80, Sasuke told me it was 80 million visits to this website motherless.com and then within that, like there are all these subsections of, you know, kink and like there is a world of safe and fun kink and then there's a world of kink that's really crime. And that is what the this is. This is rape. Doesn't matter if you're, you know, if you're unconscious, you're not consenting, it's your husband, you're not consenting.
- [02:55]
Interviewer
Of course.
- [02:55]
Brooke Baldwin
And so some people, and I say some, like I was talking to a lawyer out of Texas yesterday who actually represented a lot of the young women who were survivors from Larry Nassar. And she was like, Brooke, 98% of men do not serve time.
- [03:11]
Interviewer
And you know, I was talking to you before we close clicked record my audience. We follow a lot of politics and this is very much linked to the psychological soil that MAGA and autocrats nationwide are harvesting for us. And it is, they're promoting a form of toxic masculinity and they are trying to diminish women's rights and diminish victims rights. Look at the COVID up of the Epstein files. Yes. And I want to just to show how depraved this is, here is just one screenshot from these group chats. Let's pop this up, Kylie. User 1 Been wanting to do this to my Mrs. For ages. I can't get blank. But honestly, scared of overdose. User 2 says always start low. Yeah, you're thinking long game. So if first time ain't enough, up the dose. And user three says blank milliliters in a milkshake. She felt nauseous. She gave her. So gave her a tablet of Imodium, was blank, did her well, but she was not out enough and had no more blank on me. And so yeah, you interviewed some of these women. Were they aware the next morning?
- [04:39]
Brooke Baldwin
That's a great question. First of all, just on that screenshot that you showed on these websites, it's not just that they are uploading these videos of rape, but they are coaching one another like man to man, like, hey, this, this amount of, you know, Ambien really worked for me and my wife. Like, you should try this or what kinds of drug drugs are you using? Or there's like, you know, ways in which you can procure said sleeping medication to drug drug one's wife. I interviewed Zoe Watts over in England who had been with her husband for like years and years and years. And she and this other survivor described like, kind of feeling extra groggy. But, you know, as women, we gaslight ourselves totally. We were like, oh, we have small kids or we've moved into a new home or it must just be that I'm exhausted or I'm exhausted from work, whatever it is. Like we would never think, ah, my husband has drugged me and is fucking me unconscious. We would never think that. And so what this story does is like sh. Does what great journalism does. It's like shining this light into the darkness of like, oh, fuck. Like this is actually happening. This is called sleep content on these porn websites. And I was talking to an algorithm expert the other day on my substack where it's kind of like the manosphere, where it's like a young man jumps on the Internet and is like, looks up, you know, great protein shake and four clicks down they're in the territory of, you know, Andrew Tate, Nick Fuentes. Exactly. Yeah. It's the same kind of thing on these porn sites. And the porn sites, by the way, aren't liable, so they're not being pulled down. And it's like, all right, strangulation set, whatever.
- [06:25]
Interviewer
Hold up. So these porn sites have evidence of crime on their websites and they're not held liable?
- [06:35]
Brooke Baldwin
It's something to do with, and I'm not a lawyer, but it's the Communications Decency act, like section. It's either 230 or 260, where basically that's correct, they are not liable for what is uploaded because the site itself is not uploading the video. It's these individuals. And so it's up to the individuals. And then the burden falls on the woman to be aware of what's happening to her, to then take it to police, which, which is like, you know, of course it's like on the woman to do everything, to even be aware to know this is happening. I'm changing my vocabulary. It's not being happening to her, it's being done to her.
- [07:12]
Interviewer
Yeah, they're being raped.
- [07:14]
Brooke Baldwin
They're being raped.
- [07:15]
Interviewer
You've since interviewed two drug facilitated marital rape survivors. What stood out most to you about your interviews with these women? What struck you? What is sticking with them?
- [07:26]
Brooke Baldwin
I think it's the fact that understandably, like women, when they find out this is done to them, we don't report it immediately. We're not like, ah, I'm being raped by my husband, let me call police. It's.
- [07:44]
Interviewer
It's denial.
- [07:45]
Brooke Baldwin
It's like the self gaslighting the. I don't want to believe it, that I want to protect my family. A lot of these, you know, women have little children. I don't want them to know that their dad is capable of this and did this to me in the net, like in the one room, room over. So it, it's a slow process and sometimes there's the issues of statute of limitations, but you can, you know, file in a civil case. But it just, I can't even imagine. But it just, a lot of these women are now on the other side. I talked to Zoe and this happened to her for like something like 16 years. And she didn't know until her then husband fessed up like after church as if he was ticking off a grocery list. And oh, by the way, I had an affair when you were pregnant and I've been, you know, raping you. Except he's like, except I've been, you know, giving you our son sleeping medication and I've been having sex with you. And then the man says, but at least I'm not cheating on you or I'm not looking at other women on porn as though that that is some kind of justification for this behavior. That's what. And to your point about like just let's like zoom out 30,000ft. It's like you look at this president. Yeah. You look at the private island and all that happened there. And beyond the lack of any kind of consequences or justice other than like the one woman tied to the whole case is the one serving time. You know, it's like it goes on and on and on and on. Members of Congress behaving badly, this code of silence. And I just hope that through these women speaking up. And I know CNN's not done with the story, I've been in touch with Saskia. I'm like, girl, you got to come over here and talk to some American women. I just think that the more people speak up and out about it, not just about drug induced marital rate, but just sexual assault in general, it just, it's like courage is contagious.
- [09:36]
Interviewer
I completely agree. And I also want to point out the parallels when I heard this story that I think this type of man that is being promoted with this veneer, that they're somehow strong. So if you think about Pete Hegseth, who to me, he reeks of weakness, of insecurity. If you think about Donald Trump, he reeks of weakness and insecurity. If you think about a lot of these men in the cabinet and then these men that are trying to make themselves feel powerful but they have to sedate their own wives in order to dominate them. That there is a psychological flaw in men right now that we keep talking about. We need to lift men up.
- [10:27]
Brooke Baldwin
Yeah.
- [10:28]
Interviewer
And is it. Is it that we need to lift them up or is it that maybe we're not calling them out enough?
- [10:36]
Brooke Baldwin
I think it's a really old, crusty system of how men and women have existed. And go with me here, because I'm going to first relate it to race, and then I'm going to relate it to gender. I think, like, having been a journalist as long as I was having a front seat to the world, you know, from cnn. When I think back to, like, when Obama was in the White House and you think of all the racist, xenophobe fill in the blank, I feel like they all kind of crawled under their rocks and then only got more and more and more furious that this black man was the leader of the free world. And then the second Donald Trump got elected, it was like everyone got a free pass. It's like everyone crawled out from under their rocks and everyone feels free to let their, you know, freak flag fly, their racist massage, all the things. And I feel like something happened with women where me Too happened. There felt like there was this liberation, this movement, this momentum. Then I think the pendulum swung too far. And a lot of the men who watch me to happen were like. And now I feel this. I don't know if you feel this. I mean, I'm sitting in this gorgeous, soft, feminine, pink, luscious, you know, studio of yours. Thank you for that, by the way. And I think women are feeling more and more in charge, embodied permission to exist. And men are like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And in terms of these rapes, it's like they're like, whoa. When you're unconscious. I'm taking my power back. It's about power and control.
- [12:15]
Interviewer
Yeah. And I think.
- [12:16]
Brooke Baldwin
Do you. What do you think?
- [12:17]
Interviewer
I think it's about power and control because inherently they feel weak. I think Pete Hegseth feels incredibly weak and emasculated all the time.
- [12:27]
Brooke Baldwin
And he thinks, where does that come from? Is that like, not to get all. We don't know them and we're not therapists. But I would guess it goes way back for.
- [12:33]
Interviewer
I think it goes way back. I think that even his mother. Mother had written a letter telling him to straighten up that then she had to rectify on Fox News when he was being. I think he's an alcoholic. So it can be addiction. It can be inner childhood Trauma.
- [12:47]
Brooke Baldwin
Yes.
- [12:47]
Interviewer
Be that their dad was the type of dad that say, quit being a.
- [12:50]
Brooke Baldwin
Yes.
- [12:51]
Interviewer
Don't be a. Instead of embracing somebody's emotional character, like, I have two sons, and it's perfectly fine for men to feel emotions and process their emotions, feel vulnerable, feel soft. My dad's generation, he's a boomer. He served in Vietnam. And these poor kids, you know, when my dad was either going to get drafted or he had to sign up to go serve, so he and his friends signed up to go serve in Vietnam. And, you know, I always knew something. There was. There was something locked in there. You just kind of know.
- [13:24]
Brooke Baldwin
Yeah.
- [13:25]
Interviewer
And it wasn't until last summer, my youngest son had a friend that died unexpectedly. He drowned right before their senior year. It was just traumatizing. My dad called me and he said, how's Roman doing? That's the name of my youngest son. I said, oh, my God, this is so hard. He's grieving. He's really struggling. And my dad opened up to me, Brooke, and he's almost 80. And he said, you know, my best friend and I, we signed up to go serve in Vietnam and. Because we were going to get drafted and we were in combat together.
- [13:55]
Brooke Baldwin
Yeah.
- [13:56]
Interviewer
And he got shot in front of me. And he. And my dad said to me, I've never told anybody this, but it bothered me. And it sat with me all these years as friends sitting there, bleeding out. And men, we put this burden on them. You can't be a. You can't feel feelings. Yes. And I told my dad, dad, I wish you would have told somebody. So. Well, we just. We didn't talk about that stuff. So they bury it. And the universal thing is, whether you're a man or your woman, your parents are dysfunctional, and they're going to you up. There's degrees of dysfunction.
- [14:29]
Brooke Baldwin
Yeah.
- [14:29]
Interviewer
You know, there's some degree. Like my husband's parents, him up. The trauma was really bad. Mine was moderate. You know, everybody has some. And instead of embracing these things and openly talking about them, we put this burden on men that they have to be tough guys. And particularly in those type, like maybe an uber religious culture. Like, I think Pete Hegseth is probably a really bad Bible thumper, which is kind of a religious psychosis, in my opinion.
- [14:54]
Brooke Baldwin
Yes.
- [14:55]
Interviewer
And so in this situation, these. You know, there's some. I mean, I think we have to look to Freud. There's some mommy issues, there's some daddy issues, and all of these things are happening at one time. You have the Me too. You have parody Coming.
- [15:10]
Brooke Baldwin
Yeah.
- [15:11]
Interviewer
Men and women. The parody is. Is coming. Like, we've made major progress.
- [15:14]
Brooke Baldwin
Huge.
- [15:15]
Interviewer
And before they get there, this is the final.
- [15:18]
Brooke Baldwin
Totally. It's like, as we're making just that leap forward, there's always that pullback first sit down.
- [15:25]
Interviewer
Right?
- [15:25]
Brooke Baldwin
Totally. Yeah, I totally agree.
- [15:27]
Interviewer
And so I think those. All of these things are kind of happening simultaneously. And you see the worst character defects of masculinity on full display, not just in the United States. You see it in Russia, you saw it in Brazil.
- [15:40]
Brooke Baldwin
Yes.
- [15:40]
Interviewer
You saw. Hungary just threw out theirs. And this is the final push. And so these journalists. And this is why I always tell people, I'm not a journalist, I'm a commentator. Because journalism is the gold standard. Uncovering this and shining a light on this injustice so that people who have sons and have young men in their lives can talk to them. Also, at the same time, I'm very worried about the unmitigated access youth have to porn.
- [16:10]
Brooke Baldwin
That's a whole part of this conversation. But I just want to first say thank you for saying all that, and I am right there with you, sister. Like, I love. I love. I'm from the south too, you know, Like, I love a good, strong, strapping man. I love some vast masculinity and some strength. But I was just saying to my former partner, you know, today on the phone, I was like, I love you vulnerable. I love you ooey gooey. You know, show me that side of you. I know you're tough. I know you can carry the weight of the world on your shoulders.
- [16:36]
Interviewer
It takes more strength to show that.
- [16:39]
Brooke Baldwin
Yes, yes. So permission for men to. To. To be all that they are. And I think with porn, I think it is so prolific, especially with, like, with how we've got to say younger folks, but I think it's just everywhere, all the time, all at once. I think the issue with porn, too, is the algorithm. You know, it's like, I'm not a. This is my tech impersonation. Oh, you're into this. Like, I'm going to feed you this and this and this, and then it's going to get even creepier and even creepier, and then creepier crawls into the crime, and that somehow needs to get fixed. And my hope is that good journalists will then, through exposing stories like this and through literally crime being uploaded to the Internet and thousands of men coaching one another. Like, I was talking to a therapist, and he was saying, it's, It's. It's. A lot of it is about belonging. I think this speaks to also the culture of men and the women making these strides, the men, it's a. It's a. It's a lack of identity structure. It's a belonging issue. And so it's collective abuse. They're all in on it. And literally on this website, the reporter was explaining to me, you know, if you upload X number of sleep content, you know, videos, you get like extra stars on your profile. So it's like a dopamine hit. Sense of belonging. Jesus. And collective abuse.
- [18:00]
Interviewer
Oh, my God. It's just. This is just one of these stories that really shocks the conscience.
- [18:06]
Brooke Baldwin
It should.
- [18:07]
Interviewer
Yeah.
- [18:07]
Brooke Baldwin
Thank you for bringing it to light on your show.
- [18:09]
Interviewer
Absolutely should. And I think there's, you know, if you look at our current president, his ex wife accused him of marital rape.
- [18:18]
Brooke Baldwin
Oh, my gosh.
- [18:19]
Interviewer
She. She retracted it later. Later on, but at some point she made a credible claim. And of course, we know about Eugene Carroll.
- [18:25]
Brooke Baldwin
Yes.
- [18:26]
Interviewer
But there, I believe, is a push to right now to normalize this, to dehumanize women and to put women back into places where we're not sitting in these spaces doing this. And you recently wrote in your substack and you talked about when you were covering the confirmation hearings of Brett Kavanaugh.
- [18:51]
Brooke Baldwin
Yes.
- [18:51]
Interviewer
Who was, you know, very emotional during his. Which is fine. I have no problem with men being emotional. And he was credibly accused. And I want you to share this. And then if you, if you're comfortable.
- [19:03]
Brooke Baldwin
Yeah.
- [19:03]
Interviewer
I read your substack before you got here because I think there is liberation and collective healing in making people feel safe enough to share their stories and normalizing the humanity of women. So if you'll kind of share with my listener that journey, because I really thought it was beautiful. If you're comfortable.
- [19:28]
Brooke Baldwin
I am. I think my emotion is coming because I've never spoken about it out loud. And I really am grateful to you, the timing of all of this. I didn't mean for any of this to happen. But, you know, it's. It's wild when. So I was on. I anchored my show on CNN for so, so, so long. And I was hosting my show. It was 2018 when Dr. Christine Blasey Ford was testifying. And I mean, if we remember to that time, like the country came to a standstill, like we were wall to wall on this coverage as she was testifying against the then nominee for the Supreme Court. And, and I just remember, like, at that time, we can all try to think back to 2018 and watching her testify like men and women were calling into C Span, like, you know, plugging up their phone lines of all these people feeling this need to like share their own story of rape and sexual assault. So that was extraordinary. It was a time of like belief and memory and owning their stories. And so I had like a 20 something year old producer who worked on my show come into my, you know, office at that time and shared her story of rape from college. I had another producer friend of mine call me up and she wanted to tell me. And so I was honored to be this trusted space and also really brought up something that I had buried from when I was 21. And so I had written this monologue that I read on my show at the end of one of those days. And I tiptoed just as a journalist does. It was like I wanted to abide by the rules of journalism, which is you never talk about, you never make it about yourself.
- [21:06]
Interviewer
Ah.
- [21:06]
Brooke Baldwin
So I like tiptoe just up to the edge of telling my full truth. But I. There was one pronoun I intentionally avoided and it was the word I like I experience or this was done to me. And I remember feeling emotional at the time and people who were paying attention. You can hear when you listen to the clip, you can hear it in my voice, you can hear my tone change. My eyes got just watery, but I didn't want to make it about me. We got phone calls to cnn. PR was Brooke talking about herself. And I was like, I don't want to talk to anyone. That's as far as I'm going to go. And I wrote my substack this past weekend because I have been so moved by the courage of these women in this rape academy story. And having interviewed them on my sub stack, something like, you know, the book the Body Keeps a Score? It was like I hadn't thought about this, my intellect hadn't thought about this thing that was done to me when I was 21 until I started doing all this research and my body just started to like vibrate with truth. And I decided that now, 25 years later, you know, I wanted to share the story of when I was a kid. I was a 21 year old, just shy of graduating the University of North Carolina, you know, in my Carolina blue robe and going out in the world to see if I can make it as a TV reporter. And I was sitting at the Beverly Hills Hotel with a good girlfriend of mine at the time and you know, we're on spring break and I was 21 in college and we had had maybe a drink Maybe two. And she wanted to go home and. And I didn't and she left me. And at that time in 2001, there were no, like, there was no texting there. I had like a flip phone with maybe my parents, you know, phone number in it in Atlanta.
- [23:01]
Interviewer
And.
- [23:02]
Brooke Baldwin
And there I was just sitting all by myself, this baby, 21 year old. Like I wasn't a baby, but equally like I was not a wise woman yet. And these two men approached me at the bar and Jen, like I remember they had a drink. I remember I must have drunk it. I am convinced there was something in the drink. And then my memory is like. Like it went from the Polo Lounge to remember sitting in the back of an SUV to then being at the Chateau Marmont. And then suddenly I woke up on the tile floor of my hotel bathroom with this man half just doing a very quick check of. Did I what? Did I. And I was so groggy. And even in that moment, I was still like so southern in that moment that like when he. I sort of hit him and eventually. Please will you leave? You know, I should have kicked his ass off my balcony. And then it wasn't. I never even thought that was sexual assault because I was like. I was young, I was dumb. I must have brought it on myself. Like that wasn't like I wasn't in a dark alleyway. It was like at a fancy. You know, like I just. And. And it was. I don't know what happened. I don't need to know. All I know is something really horrible was done to me. And all these years later, I've never spoken it out loud until you.
- [24:51]
Interviewer
Well, first of all, thank you for sharing because I think it's really important in light of what is happening to the country right now, specifically a lot of legislation targeted towards women. The way Blasey Ford was treated, especially now we know the FBI had a lot more cases that they didn't even investigate. And you have a. A government that is institutionalizing, being dismissive of victims of sexual assaul. And you have sycophants of this regime buying the media, media that you used to work for that are going to assist in this. But we have these spaces and everybody is quitting. You and Don Lemon left at the right time. Everybody's quitting corporations, they're quitting corporate media. And I think several things, Brooke. I mean we both grew up in the south and I think that there is a. A time now that we have to teach people when they're young what autonomy is a lot of people where you and I grew up in the Bible Belt. I was. I didn't grow up religious, but my friends did. And their number one thing was, you can't have sex until you're married.
- [26:07]
Brooke Baldwin
Yeah. Yeah.
- [26:08]
Interviewer
So they don't know what consent is. They just know if something happens, it's their fault.
- [26:13]
Brooke Baldwin
Yeah.
- [26:13]
Interviewer
You mentioned this when you spoke about these victims and you wrote this in your substack. And I thought it was really important you use the phrase you gaslight yourself, which to me is deeper than denial. It's intentionally. It's almost like dangerous, willful denial.
- [26:32]
Brooke Baldwin
Yeah.
- [26:32]
Interviewer
Where you're. Where you're gaslighting yourself to not feel as a means of self preservation, I would assume.
- [26:41]
Brooke Baldwin
Yes. I mean, as I was just coming to you. I'll get back to me in a second. But I just. My. You should see my DMS from women, but also men who have, you know, endured some sort of sexual assault. In this. I was just reading this one. This woman has been married to her husband for 52 years and has never shared with him what was done to her when she was 18. And what she is still working with and wrestling with is she said she was. So. It happened in silence, and she felt so much shame, she didn't want to scream. And all these years later, she's still so angry at her self for not screaming all those years ago. So it's like instead of being so angry at the man who did this to her, she's still working through the anger at herself that she didn't scream. And that's what. That's what I'm talking about. Like, I think that's part of why maybe on some subconscious level, I wanted to talk about this. And even for me, this was 25 years ago and only now, like, it wasn't naivety that I didn't come out and talk about it. It was like, we live in this culture where we're taught that it's really girls and women who are to blame. And fuck that. Yeah, fuck that.
- [28:02]
Interviewer
Yeah.
- [28:03]
Brooke Baldwin
And in this self gaslighting, like, we have to stop that. And I am guilty. I think literally from the moment I asked that man to please leave my room. And I was with my friend, who is no longer my friend. I'll never forget her sitting with me by the pool. And I was curled up and feeling gross and dirty and what had happened? And I didn't know. And she was like, oh, my God, Brooke. Like, you can have aids. I was like, I could have. I didn't even think, like, how gross and cringeworthy and shamey that was. And then I started shaming myself, and then I started lashing myself and Jen, like, ask any man I've dated. Like, I'm a strong woman. I know how to not know as a full sentence. And also, I lashed the out of myself. And I, as I was writing my substack, realized, oh, my God, did that start because of that day, because of what was done to me? And I think a lot of women were so tough on ourselves. And even when it comes to, like, sexual violence being done to our body, we're like, we excuse it away or we gaslight it away, or we're just assholes to ourselves, and we have to stop that. And I think talking to myself.
- [29:13]
Interviewer
No, I agree. And I think that the larger issue is you can have people that are shy. You can have people that are assertive. You can have people that are gregarious. You can have people that are wallflowers. Everybody can fall prey to sexual abuse. Everybody. And then you just tried to say actively here, and I'm strong.
- [29:34]
Brooke Baldwin
Yeah.
- [29:35]
Interviewer
As though, like, somehow the way you handled it was weak. And I think we have to set up a permission structure. There is no perfect way to handle this. There is no perfect way to sift through your story about it coming up a couple of decades later. Seems to be the feature, not the bug. You're not an outlier. It is so traumatizing. What happens when somebody abuses you and takes advantage of you and drugs you. And the fact that we now have a culture online where people are doing this to their wives and somehow fill a permission structure because they're raping their wives. And that these websites are able to do this and allow people to upload crimes with impunity shows us this is, you know, systemic, cultural, legal, all sorts of things. So as you head into this independent space, is this your focus? Women? And are you gonna let the stories.
- [30:40]
Brooke Baldwin
Yeah, I think, you know, it's. I came back to New York because I'm ready to lean back into journalism. I think I needed a minute after cnn, I needed to, like, go live by the oce, Heal and surf.
- [30:51]
Interviewer
Yeah.
- [30:51]
Brooke Baldwin
And I am feel called to this work. I think I have always, like, the biggest compliment anyone can give me is that I'm a woman's woman. I wrote a book all about the collective power of women in the throes of the first Trump White House. I needed to fuel my soul on the weekends interviewing these women. And I don't know. I don't think it'll necessarily be solely focused on women and sexual assault. But I think a lot of my audience will be women, and I hope also men. But I do plan to build a platform. I mean, look at you, look at Dawn. Look at, like, all these ways we are trusted, how we can break the rules. My whole, like, what I say is I want to do journalism, but on my own terms. You know, every day I would wake up and God bless, like, thank you, cnn, for hiring me. Thank you for, you know, employing me all those years. And what a blessing. And I learned so much. And I wouldn't be sitting here had I not done that. And also, I never want to be told what to cover. I never want to be giving given bullet points. I want to be able to choose what the fuck I want to cover, when the fuck I want to cover it, and who the fuck I want
- [31:52]
Interviewer
to talk to and save that.
- [31:53]
Brooke Baldwin
Pardon my nsa, pardon my bridge. I've worked in a newsroom for too long. No, but. So I don't know yet. I just know that, like, I listen to my intuition and my intuition talks to me about what I think a lot of people are interested in. Like, let the news outlets cover the. The, you know, straight up news.
- [32:11]
Interviewer
Yeah.
- [32:13]
Brooke Baldwin
And I'm gonna cover news also, but on my own terms. So, like, stay tuned.
- [32:18]
Interviewer
And the people want for us to cover news on our own terms because in a world where it appears nobody believes in anything, where you watch these people that have bank accounts that could choke a bull, bend the knee to Trump, you're like, did these people believe in anything? You will find the people that come to your space, they love you because you're covering what you want to because you have conviction and you believe in it. Brooke, it's been a pleasure meeting you.
- [32:46]
Brooke Baldwin
Same.
- [32:47]
Interviewer
Thank you for being so vulnerable and sharing your story.
- [32:50]
Brooke Baldwin
Because on my hand, I'm a hand
- [32:52]
Interviewer
know in a space where this regime is telling these Epstein survivors that it's a hoax and they don't matter.
- [33:00]
Brooke Baldwin
Yes, you matter. You matter.
- [33:01]
Interviewer
You coming out and everybody coming out and is supporting each other and explaining what happens in the brain and with your body and how it can come out two decades later. And that's okay.
- [33:12]
Brooke Baldwin
Yes.
- [33:12]
Interviewer
When it comes out, it comes out. So thank you. I look forward to this friendship. We're both in New York now.
- [33:18]
Brooke Baldwin
Yes, we'll collab. Yes, thank you.
- [33:21]
Interviewer
Tell my listeners how to find your substack, how to find you on social media.
- [33:24]
Brooke Baldwin
Sure, sure, sure. So you can find me. And my substack is called unraveling. With Brooke Baldwin. Just follow me on Instagram Brooke, underscore Baldwin and then you'll find all the links and all the things there. But I think you rock. Thank you for being entirely you like. I'm taking notes girl. I'm taking notes.
- [33:43]
Interviewer
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- [34:40]
Brooke Baldwin
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- [34:42]
Interviewer
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