Welcome back to the show. Thanks for having me back. Before we jump into the book,
let's jump into news that is just, like, breaking
and we're learning about now. Um, it's funny. The last time
you were on the show, you were... you had written
about diplomacy, specifically in and around Iran. We spoke about the topic and how Donald Trump didn't seem
to have a plan, and his plan could backfire. Are we at that point right now? Seems like I was wrong.
It went great, right? -Totally the opposite.
-It... You know, look, that-that book, War on Peace--
little plug there-- was about the collapse
of diplomacy. We are strip-mining
our diplomatic apparatus. The State Department is not
what it once was. Diplomats aren't in the room
making the decisions. We're seeing the consequences
of that. We threw out the Iran deal. It was not perfect,
but it was a shot, a narrow window at preventing
what's happening now. When you look at the strategy that the administration
is taking now-- one that is undiplomatic-- it feels like everyone is
hawkish in their approach, it feels like everyone sees
only one way to resolve this issue. Do you see a way back from this? Because many people feel like Iran has no vested interest
in now talking to America, and America-- because
of its commander in chief-- doesn't seem
to have a path forward to negotiating with Iran again. Look, we're not gonna solve the confrontation with Iran
in this segment, sadly. If anyone can do it,
it's you, but... -(laughter)
-What I can say is, from a structural standpoint, we have got
to re-empower our diplomats. These are brave men and women, the rank and file
who keep our embassies running, and too often,
they are not being allowed to influence these decisions. And if they were, I think we'd have a fighting chance
of not fighting. -Mm, it's what diplomats
are for. -Yeah. (applause) You have been at the center of one of the largest movements
in America. You know? You've never claimed
to spearhead it, but you have been writing about
some of the most powerful men who have abused power to,
in some way, shape or form, abuse women
in and around their lives. Harvey Weinstein,
as fate would have it, started his trial today. You've written this book
Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies and Conspiracies
to Protect... to Protect Predators. Do you think
the Harvey Weinstein trial is going to go in the direction
that the public hopes, or is he powerful enough
to somehow escape again? Look, I wind up
saying this a lot: I am a reporter,
not an activist. I hope that Harvey Weinstein
receives a fair trial. That means a prosecution
being tough, the process being organized and
respected and not manipulated, in the way that powerful people
so often are able to manipulate those processes. A large part of the reporting
in this book is about how Harvey Weinstein
narrowly evaded -previous attempts
to charge him, -Right. because he was able to hire
armies of private investigators to dig up dirt on his accusers
and smear them and influence the D.A.'s office. This very D.A., who's advancing
this case in Manhattan, right now is one of the people who dropped charges
against him previously, after Harvey Weinstein's lawyers
made donations to his campaign. So, you know,
they are trying now-- there's a lot
of public pressure. I hope they do a good job, but this has been
a long time coming, and the track record
doesn't make one optimistic. It's interesting, because
this book is really a story, not just about what happened, but how it was allowed
to continuously happen. You know, you write in the book
about how Harvey Weinstein was "on a wiretap," you know, how the police heard him
confessing to groping a woman. You know,
you-you-you read in the book about-about how Harvey Weinstein
set up a campaign to protect himself
and to threaten people who were coming after him,
including yourself, which is a scary place to be in. Did you learn
if there is any way to hold people that powerful
accountable? You know, the small sliver of accountability
that we have now is because the women that you
just mentioned were so brave. I mean, yes, I was
in the crosshairs of, frankly, a... an insane international
espionage operation. You know, there were people with
false identities following me, and two Russian guys hanging out
outside of my apartment, and they became sources
in some cases eventually, 'cause they objected to it. But the only reason
we know any of this is because people came forward,
and they said, "Enough." And, overwhelmingly,
that's the women who had gone through
these terrible experiences -and decided to risk everything
to speak. -Right. We actually have here tonight
two of the sources in that very first
Weinstein story. Uh, and, you know, I think
it's a bittersweet moment where this is dredging up
a lot of complicated feelings, -but we're seeing this happen
because of them. -Mm-hmm. One of them is that woman
that you mentioned who wore the wire
and got a confession from Harvey a couple years ago,
Ambra Gutierrez. -Right.
-Another is Rosanna Arquette. These are heroic people who helped us understand
terrible crimes. (cheering and applause) And we wouldn't be having
the conversation without them. NOAH:
The... You know, one of the scary parts
of-of these stories, one of...
one of the scariest things about-about reading, you know,
about the story is-is not just
the predators themselves, but it's about the systems
that helped enable them to keep on being predators. You know,
you-you write in the book about how you went
to your bosses at NBC, and you said, "Guys,
I have this story on Harvey." And that story was shut down, and they said,
"Oh, you don't have enough. It's-it's not
a good enough story." Why did you keep on even though many of your bosses
told you in the news world, "Oh, there is no story here"? You know,
we've seen a lot of people go up against their bosses
to expose the truth now, including, after this body
of reporting about NBC, which revealed a lot
of misconduct at that company, people on NBC's airs. Jour-Journalists
like Rachel Maddow getting up and saying,
"There needs to be an independent
investigation there," -which still hasn't happened.
-Mm-hmm. Look, this was a company with a lot of secrets
of its own. -Right. -It was a company
with a lot of alliances with Harvey Weinstein,
and I lay out, you know,
reams of transcripts of calls -that they were secretly having
with Harvey Weinstein. -Right. But the point is not about NBC. The point is
this happens all the time. And I think the moral
of the story is you have to keep going. And when sources are as brave as the sources were
in this story, there was no room
for me to be cowardly. I mean, I-I... They set the bar really high,
and I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep at night
if I failed them. Do you-do you think there's been
a certain element of the liberal media being protected
by being liberal in a way? And I say that because, like,
you-you look at the stories that have come out now
about Fox News, you know, with Bombshell the movie, you
know, Loudest Voice, etcetera. The one thing that we see
there is that at some point, Fox said, "Hey, we're gonna
bring in these independent "investigators to investigate
what has happened here and get to the bottom
of it all." As you said, though, it feels
like the NBCs of the world haven't been as transparent. They've said, "Oh, we'll,
we'll figure it out," but it hasn't become
a real investigation. They haven't gone after
everybody who's been involved. And it feels like
the accountability hasn't been at as high a level,
you know, that, I mean, you're one of the few isolated
people writing about this. Do you think that has
something to do with it? It-it's interesting. I break stories about Democrats and I get people howling
at me on Twitter. -You know, "You're a, you're a
plant for the right!" -Right. And I break stories
about Republicans, and I get the opposite. We live in these siloed worlds
where we're only seeing news we agree with, and people
aren't conscious of the fact that sometimes you're
just reporting on crimes. And those don't have
a partisan nature to them. And I truly believe these
stories that I've been fortunate enough to do
reporting on about sexual abuse, know no party--
this is about corruption. This is about
the abuse of power. When you, when you look
at these stories, they must have a common thread
beyond just the person. What are the, what are
the steps that we could take? What are the moments that people
missed where somebody could be held accountable, where
something could've been stopped, where somebody could've
been listened to? Is there anything where you
notice in your reporting that that's where society,
we're dropping the ball? The story is full of moments where it could've been
stopped earlier. You know, where people
had taped confessions of crimes, and whether
they were in law enforcement or they were in the media, they decided it wasn't
worth the fight. You know, it doesn't always
look like someone, uh, twirling their mustache
in a dark backroom and saying, you know, "I'm gonna
cover up a crime." Usually, it's people saying, "Is it really worth
a confrontation?" And all these TV executives,
you know, Noah Oppenheim, the head of NBC News
just says point blank to me at one point, you know,
"Is this worth the fight? -We got to decide if
it's worth it." -Right. And they decided it wasn't,
so I think the moral of the story is
it's worth the fight. -Powerful, man.
-(applause, cheering) It's an insane story. If we weren't living it, I
wouldn't believe it was true. Thank you so much for coming
back on the show. -Always a pleasure, Trevor.
-I hope everyone reads this. Catch and Kill, a fascinating
book is available now. And the new episode
of the Catch and Kill podcast will be available next week--
Ronan Farrow, everybody.
