The Cornell 7: More than a Headline (w. Laura Dunn)

0:06 Welcome to Brief Recess. I'm Michael Foote.

0:08 I'm Melissa Malbrinch.

0:09 Today we're going to talk about Kelly Clarkson's small business adventures. The internet is, a jury is out on whether Melissa likes dogs. I sing happy birthday in Chinese and you're probably wondering why. We discussed the federal raid on Congresswoman Omar's home. Then we sit down with Laura Dunn to get really into the Cornell 7 case. And we're also going to answer all your questions from the DMs and all your comments about why Melissa doesn't like dogs. So stick around.

0:40 Brief Recess is nominated for a Signal Award and you can help us win the Listener's Choice Award. Go to vote.signalaward.com, navigate to categories, select genre, then click activism, public service and social impact to find Brief Recess and cast your vote.

0:57 You selfish bastard.

0:58 No, I could split it in half.

0:59 No, never mind.

1:00 I can break you off a piece of that. I had like an eyeglass wipe and I was like, oh yeah, I have these for one of my glasses. Melissa took her glasses off like, oh thanks. I was like, no, it's for my glasses. What are you talking about? Here, have some.

1:13 Thank you.

1:14 How are you? Welcome to Brief Recess.

1:16 Welcome to Brief Recess, friends.

1:19 Everyone, this is a weird day. It's a weird day. It's going to be a punch drunk episode. I'm kind of a hot mess today.

1:26 Why?

1:27 I don't know. I mean, just like I can't even open my phone anymore without seeing Kelly Clarkson getting in a fight over a bird.

1:34 Oh, yeah. Yeah, I did see that.

1:37 She's just going crazy. She's going wild.

1:41 I think her whole thing was that she went into this store. She just looked like a regular person. And they were just.

1:49 Rude to her. Sure. Right. Happens to me every day.

1:51 Sure.

1:52 It happens.

1:52 So that's the thing though. It happens to a lot of people all the time, but we don't have a platform like Kelly Clarkson.

1:58 Right. Well, what she was trying to do. What? She was trying to buy something that's not for sale.

2:03 Oh, I didn't see.

2:04 I didn't know.

2:05 She was like, I want this. And they were like, you can't buy that. She wanted like some, it was like an artwork.

2:10 Was it the big giant bird?

2:12 Yeah.

2:12 Yeah. It was a tiny little like robot, like a puppet bird.

2:17 Because I did see that they had a big giant raven.

2:20 I don't know if that's what she wanted, but no, it was like this little bird. What, CJ?

2:25 Well, did you see her follow up to their response?

2:27 Yeah. They're like, everyone, like, listen, you know me, I've lost it when I was really unwarranted. I've lost my temper. But there seems to be days old beef. All beef is getting smoked in New York right now because she's still going back at it. She said, and take that. They took that bird. She said, they said, you can't buy that. And then she went off online. She's got how many millions of followers online? And this is a little store in Brooklyn. She's fighting with the guy who works at the store. I mean, I guess so.

3:03 Whatever, meanwhile, the whole world is going straight to shit.

3:06 And I'm just like, this is crazy. They had like one grouchy hungover worker that she's like, we've got the American Idol beeping.

3:17 Somebody was complaining about her. I was just looking at threads or whatever. And somebody was like, you obviously were Team Justin, which I thought was really funny.

3:26 Yeah.

3:29 I thought that was funny. They were like, oh, you must.

3:31 Have been- 25 years later, they're doing Team Justin. From Justin to Kelly to Brooklyn.

3:37 To Brooklyn. No love whatsoever.

3:39 This brooch. Brooch.

3:41 Brooches.

3:42 Brooches. All right, show everyone. Melissa's got, oh, yeah.

3:46 It's uptumnal, a little fall.

3:47 Heavy as the chest that wears the brooch.

3:49 It does.

3:50 The brooch.

3:50 Why are you saying brooch weird like that?

3:51 Brooch.

3:52 Brooch. Brooch. Brooch. Yeah. Get in the comments. Let us know.

3:57 It's definitely not brooch.

3:58 You say potato.

4:00 It's not. Get out of here.

4:01 It's not brooch. No, I said it so many times in my head. Someone's driving down 95 screaming at the windshield, by the way, yelling brooch.

4:12 It's brooch.

4:13 It's brooch. It's brooch. Anyway.

4:18 How was your weekend?

4:20 It was good. Yeah, it was good. It was really.

4:22 What'd you do this weekend?

4:23 Too much. Too much. I saw Rocky Horror again.

4:27 Oh, okay.

4:28 Which was really fun. Was it fun? I really liked that show. I hadn't really seen it. And then I saw it on Broadway. And then they sat us in the front row of opening night when I went. And I told you the Susan Sarandon story. I didn't know that she was in the movie. And it was a whole thing. But this time without Susan Sarandon there, turns out just as good of a show without her in the audience. And I wasn't in the front row. So I actually could– it was a little too close.

4:54 Okay. Sometimes stuff can be too close for sure. Yeah.

4:58 It's a difference between like, yeah. Yeah. It's like going to like an interactive zoo where you can like, like people are like touching. Like it was like, it was too close. Yeah.

5:08 Sometimes I feel like if I've ever been sort of in the very front row, it's so close that you're looking up. So you're sort of looking up the actor's noses, and I would rather be a little bit further behind.

5:22 You're looking at the sweat on the forehead.

5:23 I know, and you're like, how big is the wig?

5:26 All right, so the camera's the face. This is what I'd be doing. Look, I'm right at their wig line. Just like, is that the mic?

5:32 I can see the wig is.

5:39 Let's get into a sidebar about a surprise update from Melissa about something. What is it?

5:43 Do you remember the other day we were talking about you went to go see Paranormal Activity and then there was like a lady.

5:51 And then you were mad because you don't like dogs. That's not. And you hate all dogs. And she wants to close every shelter.

5:57 I like dogs.

6:01 Do you if you have to keep saying it?

6:03 But so a friend of mine whose name is also Michael. Uh-oh. He went to see that show.

6:11 Paranormal Snacktivity?

6:12 Yes, and saw the same lady with the same dog.

6:16 With the broken ankles?

6:18 No, no, he didn't say that.

6:20 There is someone stuck in a loop seeing Paranormal Activity $ 400 tick producer seats with their dog?

6:27 No.

6:28 That's crazy.

6:29 Wait.

6:29 There's some lady addicted to traumatizing her dog at paranormal activity.

6:32 I'm telling you.

6:33 Get the lady from PETA back on the show, CJ, because this is actually, don't take your dog multiple times to see paranormal activity. It's a loud show. I screamed.

6:43 You did?

6:43 There's screaming gay people in the audience. You can't bring a dog there. Melissa.

6:48 Not screaming gay people.

6:49 The whole show is Melissa trying to find something on her phone. I found it.

6:52 I was looking in the wrong place. He said, so my friend Mike, shout out to Michael N., yo, I went to see Paranormal Activity with my cousin and the lady with the poodle was seated behind us. My cousin had a chat with her and turns out that she's at almost every showing with that dog and she's apparently a show producer or related to the producer and takes the dog everywhere even if people tell her that they're allergic.

7:15 Oh.

7:16 So this woman is out here on these streets. Thanks, Michael N.

7:20 This is the producer of the show?

7:22 Or he doesn't know. He was saying it's either like- He was talking to her? His cousin who he was with was talking to the lady.

7:28 It's like the director, like the dramaturg and making sure that every night she's giving notes at the end?

7:33 I guess.

7:33 With her dog?

7:34 With her dog.

7:35 No, that's crazy.

7:36 That is actually- I think that's really funny that, first of all, I also want to say to my friend, Mike, thanks for listening, Mike. I didn't think you were.

7:46 The real horror is that paranormal activity are happening in the audience with this woman.

7:50 Isn't that crazy? When he said that to me, I was like, oh, I got to tell Michael. And then I was like, no, I'm going to wait for the show.

7:55 But yeah.

7:56 So the whole internet thinks you hate dogs.

7:59 Actually, that is not. The majority of the people are not saying that, actually. There are some people who will insist on getting it wrong.

8:09 Yeah. But most people, and a lot of them- People are determined to misunderstand.

8:14 People are just absolutely determined to misunderstand. Most of the people who responded have dogs and were just like, for real, I think my dog should stay home sometimes.

8:23 Jack was following me around the apartment today while I'm trying to get dressed.

8:27 See, but you don't do that with Jack.

8:29 Jack doesn't- He doesn't want to be anywhere. It would be dangerous to the country if I brought him ever. He doesn't like- But he's following me around and I'm like, you got to leave me alone.

8:41 Well, he's.

8:43 He's panting. I know. I'm like, can we hold the breath till I leave, man? Like, you just got to give me a minute. Like, just hold, just give me a fucking second without you panting in my ear. I was just, Monday mornings are tough. It's hard for me to get out of the house. I know I have to look a little bit presentable for this show. So it's tough. It's a tough morning. So anyway, you know what a worse morning? Tell who? Selma Blair.

9:07 What happened to her?

9:09 She allegedly bit a flight attendant and tried to open the door to the plane.

9:14 Let me tell you something. People are not okay.

9:18 We are not.

9:19 Isn't there something? Doesn't she have a health problem? Does Selma Blair have MS?

9:26 I don't know, but we're cutting this if she does.

9:29 I think she does. Wasn't Selma Blair, wasn't she in that movie with Christina Applegate and Cameron Diaz?

9:36 Yes. She does have MS, right?

9:39 She has MS.

9:42 Cut this. Cut, delete this footage. All three cameras, even Melissa's. Cut it.

9:48 She has MS. Not that that's an excuse. Because now I feel like the people with MS are like, I have MS and I've never bitten anybody.

9:57 I don't bite anybody.

9:59 I'm just saying. I'm just saying that there.

10:01 Are people who look at CJ. CJ looks like it. CJ's looking so stressed about this edit.

10:06 No, no, no.

10:07 I'm just saying. No, no, no. We can talk about it. I had not heard that Selma Blair bit anybody before. But apparently she did bite a flight attendant. But what? Oh, sorry. Selma Blair. She's calling. She's pissed.

10:22 I have nothing and I don't bite anyone.

10:24 Oh, wait.

10:25 No, I do. I don't have anything, but I do bite people.

10:28 Who are you biting?

10:29 Every now and then.

10:29 My uncle has MS. He's never bitten anybody.

10:33 You know of.

10:34 It's not a symptom.

10:35 No.

10:35 And Christina Applegate also has MS and she's never bitten anybody.

10:38 I will say I've wanted to open that door on the plane though.

10:41 Have you?

10:41 Yes.

10:42 Yes.

10:43 Look at the handle. It looks so delicious. It looks so appealing. Are you three years old? It's like a wet paint sign. It looks so fun when they do it. Then those sassy little outfits are like, they do the little bend and snap with the door to the plane.

10:59 Did she get arrested?

11:01 I don't think you don't get arrested. Oh. If you open the point, I think it's like a mandatory detention.

11:07 But I wonder if there's something going on. I mean, you know what? I feel like if you bite people, something is happening, right? There's something happening.

11:15 Now we're selling merch because that's the first brief recess tagline. Welcome to season two, folks. Brief recess. Like if you bite someone, you got something going on.

11:25 If you bite somebody, something's happening.

11:26 Something's happening in the hole. I forgot she has MS. You're right. She does.

11:35 Do we know why she bit the person? Was somebody trying to get her to sit down? What was happening?

11:41 There was no... I don't think there was... There wasn't much context.

11:44 We need context.

11:45 Because we don't know. Right. All we saw was bite.

11:48 Did the flight attendant bite her first?

11:50 Right.

11:51 Yo, I was on a plane once and someone lit a cigarette. Like in their seat, a drunk woman lit a cigarette. I think that flight attendant was about to bite that smoker.

12:03 Sure.

12:03 Yeah. You know, there's two sides to every story. It's kind of like the Kelly Clarkson and the animatronic bird. You know, she's at Chuck E. Cheese trying to buy Chuck. We don't know what's going on there. We don't know what's going on. So jury is out until we hear what the full context around Selma Blair and what the altercation was.

12:22 I just wonder where you are in life where you're biting people. Like what's, do you know what I mean? I mean, I will say if my life was on the line and the only way out was to bite.

12:33 Oh, I'm biting. I'll chew through. Put me in a Saw movie. Watch me. I'm out of there before the opening sequence is done. I'll chew through that shit. Let's get into algorithm is showing.

12:44 Oh, my algorithm is out of control.

12:47 Both, both the whipped them both out and they're on the table.

12:50 Have you ever seen this movie by Jennifer Lopez called The Cell?

12:54 I've seen it like four times. Okay. I'm obsessed.

12:57 Okay.

12:58 She's so hot. Oh my God. I'm straight.

13:01 So I had no idea this was a thing. And people were like, this is her magnum opus.

13:07 It is.

13:07 This is like the best thing she's ever done. It's amazing. Yeah. I was talking to my friend Zan on the phone and I was just like, have you ever seen The Cell? And she's like, no. And I'm like, apparently people love that shit.

13:18 So good. Movie from 2000, 2001. I don't know, man. Scared the absolute poop out of me when I was a kid.

13:23 Well, I don't watch scary movies.

13:24 When I was a kid, even just the preview scared me when I was a kid.

13:28 God, you were a child.

13:29 Yeah, but it's real. And she has to find like a serial killer in his mind just to like wade into the, it's a really cool movie.

13:35 Okay.

13:36 It holds up. I'm going to re, I'll rewatch it.

13:38 CJ, have you seen this movie?

13:40 Same.

13:40 I used to watch it in high school with my friends.

13:43 Yeah. It's a really cool movie.

13:45 Yeah.

13:46 I had no idea it had this fun. I'm not going to watch it because I don't like scary movies, but I had no idea that she was in this movie that people loved so much.

13:55 Did I tell you? I promised everyone I would share the birthday story from last week. I forget how it came up.

14:01 Nothing. How does anything come up here?

14:03 I know.

14:03 It just pops in our heads.

14:04 CJ remembers.

14:05 You asked if Clay Aiken could sing on the show, and I said he could sing like.

14:09 A happy birthday. Oh, right. He could sing happy birthday because it's in the public domain. So I went to a weird high school that was unaccredited. I told you this.

14:17 We've heard this before.

14:17 My senior year, they called us into an assembly and told us we got accredited. And we were like, wait, what was the past three and a half years then?

14:23 Useless.

14:24 Anyway, they wanted to appear like super progressive, so they offered Chinese language classes. Mm-hmm. Just so when they're on the tour, they could say, oh, we also offer Chinese language. No one ever actually took the Chinese classes.

14:36 Who was teaching the Chinese? Was Mrs. Dawson teaching Chinese?

14:40 I was the only idiot who signed up for Chinese because I wanted to get it on my college resume.

14:44 Okay.

14:46 They hired a teacher. I don't know where they found her. But they were like, come work here. Teach this one little gay kid Chinese every morning. And it was like at 730 in the morning. It was me and this Chinese teacher. This is where I need to be abundantly clear. I was not in a position of power at this school.

15:09 I'm 38 now, but I was 15 then. Frosted Highlights, Lance Bass was the rage, like... Just please remember.

15:18 What were you smoking?

15:19 Parliament Lights.

15:20 Sure.

15:21 Or Capri's. Whatever I could get my hands on. And so I was not an attorney then. So I could not do anything. I was honestly, I wasn't in, the power dynamic was off. 7.30 a.m. It's first period. I'm the only kid in the class. So it's me and the teacher. They didn't have a special ed teacher for the first period class. So they put. the children with disabilities in the Chinese class and had the Chinese teacher watch the kids. We're going to pause. We're going to pause.

16:01 So insane. I did not make this decision.

16:03 Go ahead, Michael.

16:05 So there was this one girl who had a disability and it was her birthday. Okay. The teacher had me sing in Chinese, happy birthday to this girl.

16:26 Do you still know it?

16:27 Yeah.

16:30 Michael, will you please sing happy birthday in Chinese to me?

16:33 Please.

16:35 I ask so little of you.

16:36 I'm going to look deep, soulfully into your eyes while I do it. That was all he did. Ni sheng zhi kuai le.

16:56 I'm very impressed. I can't decide if people are going to get mad at us or they're going to think this is great.

17:06 But every day I think about that girl. I wake up and I think, what the fuck did she think was happening? She had a mental disability. Right. And they were having me sing to her in Chinese. She had a gay kid singing to her in Mandarin. Every morning.

17:22 Every morning.

17:23 At 7 a.m. on her birthday. Not every morning.

17:25 Oh.

17:25 She is somewhere right now like, what the fuck was that? Like, she is.

17:29 I mean, aren't you like, what the fuck was that?

17:31 We're all like, what was that? And now we just have to live with knowing. We all just have to live knowing that that happened. I can't undo it.

17:42 Well, now I can't unknow it. Now I know that, again, I'm always, whenever you bring up how you went to the school that was unaccredited, I am floored by the decision making of Mr.

17:56 And Mrs.

17:56 Foote, first of all. And I've met Michael's parents and they're lovely and they're smart and they're so like fun to be around. I mean, I wonder if it was a situation where like, you know what? We're just going to wash our hands.

18:12 Of Michael. They really were. No, it's true. I was causing a ruckus at the public school and they were like, we don't really know what to do. We don't know what to do. They were like, let's just throw money at the problem. And he's going to be learning Chinese. I know someone's going to clock me for the Chinese pronunciation.

18:27 And that's okay.

18:28 Well, that's okay.

18:29 It's some pretty old dialect for me. It's been a minute since I sang Happy Birthday. Okay.

18:36 Well, thank you for the serenade.

18:37 Yeah. Anytime.

18:38 I am touched.

18:39 Oh, I missed your... Your birthday's like nowhere near now. But when... I'll leave you a voicemail.

18:43 Our birthdays are the same the day after each other.

18:46 I'm trying to think if she taught me any other like Merry Christmas or anything. No, I don't think there was like a Christmas song.

18:51 You know what I randomly know how to say?

18:54 Don't do it. Don't do it. What is it?

18:56 And I want to say in Mandarin.

19:00 Okay.

19:01 Which means why.

19:01 Yeah.

19:05 Did you know that?

19:06 Yeah. Yeah. I know Taiguela because I go and I haggle in Chinatown. That means too much. That's too much.

19:12 Taiguela.

19:12 And I only know that is because I was working at a law firm.

19:19 You also know Happy Chanuka.

19:21 Happy Chanuka, baby. I was working with an attorney and somebody said something to him and he was just, he went, and I was like, what's that?

19:34 He said, why?

19:36 Just why?

19:36 Why are they making us do this? I know.

19:38 Melissa says, what is it? Jashesh?

19:40 Jashesh.

19:41 It means dry eyes.

19:42 Well, yes, it means dry eyes, but it also, it's not just that. It's also like, oh my God, I can't believe it. Eye roll.

19:50 Yeah. Okay.

19:51 Yeah.

19:52 Okay.

19:52 Anyway. I know one phrase.

19:55 What?

19:56 I used to live in Hong Kong, and I would tell cab drivers how to get me home.

20:00 Hold on a minute. We're always learning new things about CJ.

20:02 CJ's always dropping the fucking bombs.

20:05 Oh, I was a teacher.

20:06 Boom.

20:06 I used to live in Hong Kong.

20:07 Boom.

20:08 He's like, when I wrote Stop Dragging My Heart Around with Fleetwood Mac. Yeah, he does shit like that. He'd be doing that. Yeah.

20:15 So when I would get in a cab late at night, I'd just say, which means fish market by the Gooseneck Bridge.

20:22 Love. That's where you lived, or that's where you used to hang out?

20:26 That's where I knew how to get home from.

20:28 CJ hanging out under a bridge in Hong Kong. If you're ever wondering who's producing our show, if you're ever wondering how we got here.

20:36 How old were you when you lived in Hong Kong, CJ? What was going on in the home?

20:41 What was going on in the home?

20:43 Not CJ, the next guest. I was like 25 to 27.

20:49 Wow, that's a good long period.

20:51 Yeah.

20:51 Did you like it?

20:53 I loved it. It was amazing.

20:55 All Southeast Asia is amazing.

20:57 Nice.

20:58 Look at this. Learning new things about CJ. Okay. What are we talking about?

21:02 What's going on in this country? We've got to vote early. Do you know how to vote early? Because I actually don't. I need help. You know what?

21:09 I've got to figure it out because I am– So remember we were talking about the No Kings?

21:13 Yeah. Right?

21:14 That's happening this weekend.

21:14 Oh, yeah. We're going to protest. Yeah.

21:15 Well, it's actually not a protest. It is some kind of an early voting rally.

21:24 Oh, okay.

21:25 I can do that. Yeah. So I actually definitely want to do that. And I was thinking if anybody's watching who knows anybody who's affiliated with the No Kings movement, we would actually love to talk to them. And I was going to ask CJ if we should reach out to somebody to try and get them to come in. But if you're listening and you are actually part of that movement or you know somebody who is, who'd be a really good person to talk to and explain everything to us, reach out to briefrecess.com.

21:54 Brief Recess Podcast, like the handle, CJ looks at those DMs. My DMs right now, it's just all, you're the stupidest bitch on traders. So just- Send it to the brief recess.

22:10 Or you can send it to me.

22:10 Or Melissa, yeah.

22:11 No one's writing to me at all.

22:13 Normally, I love that, but my DMs are like, why are you such a stupid slut in a castle? And the answer is, if you think if I knew, I would change it. You think if I knew why? Anyway, I can't talk about it.

22:28 Right.

22:30 No Kings.

22:30 No Kings.

22:31 So yeah. No Kings early voter rally. Right.

22:33 Which is what's happening this Saturday.

22:35 Okay. I love that. It's like a bogo.

22:37 October 17th.

22:38 Yes.

22:38 Yes. Love a sale.

22:40 Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. So.

22:42 In Sweden, they call a sale a slut spurt. Yeah, I know.

22:45 You've told us before.

22:46 Okay. But it reminded me of that song you played me.

22:50 The AI. So AI is going to be the end of us. And especially when it comes to things that are ridiculous, there is this a filthy... Irish jig that is being played on.

23:05 Created by.

23:06 Created by AI. I think it's the same people who did Melissa, We're Drunken Outside or I'm Drunken Outside. All of that stuff is AI, which is very, very.

23:14 I didn't know that was AI.

23:16 I didn't know... Initially, I didn't know that it was AI, but somebody put me on and said that.

23:21 It is AI.

23:21 I know. It's actually... We've already lost control of it.

23:26 I know.

23:26 Which is not cool.

23:28 I saw an AI... A guy went to an AI interview and convinced the AI bot that was interviewing him that he was there to terminate the AI contract.

23:41 The AI glitch?

23:42 It was the AI interviewer. He convinced it that it was that they were terminating the contract with the AI company.

23:50 I mean, it's really– it's not– This is bad.

23:53 It's not great.

23:54 I know. This is really bad. I mean, it's one of those things where you, when the first time you try and use like an AI tool, you're like, wow, this is amazing.

24:02 Right?

24:02 Because you get this answer really quickly, whatever. But, you know, art is important.

24:10 Right?

24:10 Art, music, writing, all of that stuff is really important. And I don't think it is going to be in our best interest to farm that out to an AI bot. Remember I told you about the people, the AI attorneys?

24:27 No. Wait, what happened? Okay.

24:29 You don't listen to me when I speak.

24:31 Okay. Well, tell it to me again.

24:34 So the other day in Union Square, there was somebody giving out like flowers and along with the flowers, it's sort of a way to get people to come to them. It's like this new AI law firm.

24:47 Oh, you did tell me this. Sorry. But I think I got held up because what kind of flowers were they?

24:52 Roses. Oh, yeah.

24:54 Okay. So they got that big tech money. They do.

24:56 They got that big tech coin. But I mean, I think it's super dangerous. It's really, really dangerous.

25:02 Yeah. Well- My– okay. Everyone's got like an AI hot take. But I'm sorry. I want like the choice if AI is involved. Like every time I Google something, I get like 400 AI. It's like a whole soliloquy. Yeah, I know. About– I know.

25:19 I don't know.

25:19 And it's also like it is a bubble. It's going to burst. It's going to fail. And then they're going to get bailed out with taxpayer dollars.

25:27 Yeah.

25:27 Like that is what's going to happen.

25:29 Especially under this administration where he feels like, oh, if you– He loves the idea of a data center, right?

25:35 Yeah.

25:35 So that's where all that stuff is sort of coming up from.

25:39 Nobody's buying AI credits to use. No one's buying AI. No one's paying for AI. That's not true. But just like the amount of money they're spending to generate this is not being offset by consumer purchase.

25:54 No, it isn't.

25:55 No, I know.

25:55 Yeah. Do we want to talk about... And also about.

26:00 The dogs thing. Can I just really quickly, I really do like dogs very, very much. I think they should be allowed to go where they are loved and appreciated and all the things. I just don't think that they need to be every place, right?

26:18 I disagree.

26:19 I know you do. That's okay.

26:20 No, I want them fewer places. I love dogs. When I see your dog out with you everywhere, it makes me a little stressed for them. Wait.

26:30 So I think the thing is when I said out, I didn't mean outside.

26:34 Dogs belong outside.

26:35 But I just don't know that we need everyone to bring their dog to the supermarket. That's what I meant.

26:40 Maybe I'm like too empathetic. But when I see a dog at like the Union Square Farmer's Market at high noon on a Saturday, I'm like, I'm stressed out being here. And I chose this. I don't know. Like that is when I get too empathetic. But I mean, especially paranormal activity. But. I do think like, yes, dogs being out and about is like enriching.

27:02 You don't take Jack to the farmer's market?

27:04 No.

27:05 But is it because.

27:07 He doesn't want to. Okay.

27:08 But is it because Jack is. Jack bites and stuff like that.

27:11 And he's old as hell. Yeah. I would like take him around places when he was younger, but he, I mean, he would kind of tell us what he wants and I would listen.

27:22 But.

27:22 I don't know. I just get stressed when I see dogs like.

27:25 Yeah.

27:26 Yeah.

27:26 But people were determined to think that I said that I hate dogs and I don't.

27:29 Is that what that was? The discourse?

27:31 No, I will say the majority of the comments were like, yeah, yeah, I agree with you, Melissa. And then I'm just always really tuned in to the person who is insisting that I'm trying to be an asshole about something. You know what I mean? I mean, it's fine. Knock yourself out. But like, that's you're. Not reading the room person.

27:55 People who don't understand context. Yeah. Whatever, man. They raided a congresswoman's home this morning. That was crazy.

28:03 They did.

28:03 To wake up to that.

28:05 And is it any– I mean, here's the thing, right? They raided a congresswoman's home this morning. Is it any surprise that it's– so, first of all, it's a woman. Right. A Muslim woman.

28:17 Right.

28:17 Who's home they broke into.

28:18 Right.

28:20 And a woman who is Muslim and brown, right? No one's breaking in to see what the fuck is going on in Mitch McConnell's house.

28:28 Senator Hawley, just a harem of twinks in that house. So- Just like poppered up twinks at Senator Hawley's house, passed out, covered in glitter.

28:39 Are they drinking the glitter cocktails?

28:40 You ever do poppers? Never.

28:42 Never.

28:43 No, I'm just curious. I don't know. I mean, sometimes you'll be like, well, it was the 90s. Everyone was doing mop. You'll say something. We all had to clean the BCR at some point. You know what I mean? Like, sometimes you will throw one.

28:55 But I told you, like, I didn't smoke pot until I was like in my late 30s. Like, it's just not.

29:00 Because pot was crack. It was meth to your mother. It's the same drug.

29:05 I was like scared.

29:06 Okay. But yes, it is. Truly reprehensible, and it's so clearly intimidation that they raided her home. Like, there's no reason for DHS to raid any. That's, like, not really a thing that they do that I know of, based off, like, my experience in interacting with DHS as an immigration lawyer.

29:29 Michael, I think that at this stage of the game, I think we need to sort of admit that all bets are off, right? We are in a completely different landscape. Nothing... that used to apply applies now. They're doing whatever they want. Did we get a chance to talk about on the show how Hetzig wants to do a public execution?

29:51 Yeah.

29:51 Oh, yeah. We didn't talk about it on the show, but it came out right after we recorded last week.

29:56 I mean, what do people need to see? What do people need to do? What is happening to us?

30:03 I saw a video. They were like, if they want to show public execution, Suzanne Lambert said it. Our guest from a couple of weeks ago, she said, If you want to show a public execution, release the body cam footage of Renee Goode. That was a public execution.

30:15 Yeah.

30:15 Alex Pretty, where's the body cam footage?

30:18 Right? Right.

30:18 So I just feel like, I mean, when I saw DHS rated, I was like, oh, it's the only government agency he still has control over. It's the only one that will actually do his bidding as ICE. That's why I'm like, register and vote early now. Even if you're not an immigrant, you're not worried about your personal voter suppression.

30:35 That way you're out of the line when it's a smaller group of people. If it's A huge crush of people all trying to vote on one day at the same time, that's a target for Trump to send ICE to the polls, that poll, right? If you vote, register early now, it removes that flashpoint. It's not a powder keg anymore.

30:57 Right.

30:58 It's a smaller group of people to target. It's harder. It becomes more disparate.

31:01 Yeah. I think about, especially in 2020, when we voted- For the presidential election, Andre and I waited in line for like four hours.

31:13 I remember that. And that was New York.

31:16 Yeah.

31:16 That was– I remember that. It was absolutely insane. We were all still masked. Like it was– Yeah.

31:21 Yeah.

31:22 Yeah, yeah.

31:22 We were all still masked and just waited. And so I really wonder if there are people now who are just like, I don't want to go vote because it feels unsafe.

31:34 Scary, spooky.

31:35 Yeah.

31:36 Yeah.

31:37 I'm debating on whether or not I want– so if I want to be a poll worker.

31:41 Yeah.

31:42 I did it once before. It sucked. But like there's a part of me that wants to do it.

31:45 I don't know.

31:46 Maybe I should do something where like I go and I film just like what the polls are kind of looking like in different areas.

31:52 You don't want to film inside.

31:54 I can't film inside.

31:56 You can film who's coming in and out, I guess.

31:57 I could like go and then review it. Like once I leave?

32:01 Sure.

32:01 Of like what I saw?

32:02 Of what you saw, yeah.

32:03 I bet like Chuck Goldenson would do something like that with me.

32:05 The thing about it is that think about– so we live in New York City, right? Right. And we both live in pretty liberal areas.

32:17 White.

32:17 Yeah. And I feel like where I'm going to vote, where you're going to vote, it's going to be like a cakewalk. Do you know what I mean? I don't want to sort of, and now I've said it, it won't be. But you know what I'm saying?

32:29 I'm not in the Bronx. I'm not like deep in Queens.

32:32 Yeah. Or like Staten Island. I'm not even talking about the Bronx. I'm talking about places like Staten Island or upstate New York where, you know, there is an element.

32:43 Wait, I actually don't know what you're talking about. What do you mean an element? It's like purple? Like it's red and blue?

32:47 No, no, no.

32:49 Like a certain kind of person who lives there, right?

32:52 What kind of person?

32:53 In Staten Island.

32:54 Oh, yeah. Okay. But upstate?

32:56 Yeah.

32:57 Oh, I'm thinking like Hudson Valley.

32:59 No, no, no, no, no.

33:00 Yes, girl. Like apple picking. If you look at New York State, there are in between. Sorry, I'm so stupid.

33:09 Hit the bell.

33:12 I'm sorry. If you look at New York State, there are pockets of it that are very, very red.

33:17 Yeah, there's like West New York.

33:20 In places like that. So I feel like Staten Island is very much a place like that. Upstate New York is very much a place like that.

33:27 Upstate New York, remember when Kathy Hochul's always up there doing something. She's always like, we need, it's desperate, we need another hockey rink here.

33:35 Do we?

33:37 It's like $ 50 billion for a hockey rink. I'm like, girl, what? Teachers are like buying pencils for the classroom. I'm like crowdfunding for erasers.

33:46 Right, exactly. Meanwhile, we're building the hockey rink. So I saw the other day that Elon Musk has spent something like $ 250 million in terms of donations towards Republicans who are running. And I think about people who have that kind of money and all the things that you could do. With your money, and this is how you decide to spend your money. I know he's a piece of shit, and I'm not really surprised, but that number. Yeah. And I remember also when Mike Bloomberg was running for– what was he running for?

34:21 President?

34:22 And he failed terribly.

34:24 Yes.

34:24 Oh, my God.

34:25 Yes.

34:26 And he also spent a shitload of money on something that he had no chance of winning. And again, he's another one.

34:36 You have to. I'm like, what are you– Elon Musk, you have to remember, he was begging to get on Epstein Island and they wouldn't let him on. They were like, please. He was like, please let me on. They were like, lose our number. We do not want you.

34:51 I remember what I said to you.

34:53 A group of pedophiles was like, this guy, I don't know.

34:57 For me, that was the thing. For Jeffrey Epstein to be such a monster, to be like, oof, I don't know.

35:03 Nope.

35:04 Everyone's got a price, but Elon, we don't want him. Keep him off the island. She ruins the vibe. It's crazy.

35:12 But yeah, so I wonder what, if anything, is going to come of this sort of investigation of Omar's home, of her.

35:22 Nothing. I'm sure they didn't find anything.

35:25 You know what, though? But are we in a place where we can trust what they do find?

35:33 Oh, right. Yes.

35:34 You know what I mean?

35:35 A drop gun with like the smoking gun.

35:36 Right.

35:36 Exactly.

35:37 So, I mean, are they going to– can we trust them to be truthful?

35:42 Right.

35:42 With what they find or what they don't find?

35:44 Just like it's so clearly they're trying to send a message of intimidation to people who speak out, but also of the upcoming election. Like they're very much trying to spook people. They are. Like this was a publicity stunt.

36:00 100%. This was– anyway.

36:00 Yeah. Let's take a break. We've got to get into our conversation with our guest. Laura Dunn is here. We're going to talk about the Cornell 7. We'll be back with Under Oath and our guest, so stick around. Warning, the following interview discusses themes of sexual assault. Please skip ahead to Tales from the DMs right now if this topic is triggering for you. And if you need confidential help, please use the resources on the screen. Now back to the show. Welcome back to Brief Recess. This is Under Oath.

36:36 We are here with Laura Dunn. She is an award-winning civil rights attorney, nationally recognized advocate for sexual violence survivor, and she also previously guest on this show. So please, everyone, welcome back, Laura Dunn.

36:47 It's good to see you, Laura.

36:49 Thank you for coming.

36:49 Thanks for having me again. I know it's a heavy topic, but important to discuss. Yeah.

36:54 So you're a survivor of campus sexual violence and worked with the Obama administration to develop key title nine guidance. Um, so we thought we'd bring you back here today to talk about the Cornell seven. It's been all over everyone's feet, all over every headline. Um, I know that you have been brought into a lot of discussions about this, so we will, you know, take it up to your comfort level and, you know, however you want to sort of manage this conversation with us. But we thought it was important to bring someone who has firsthand, well, experience administratively as an attorney working with the Obama administration, but also lived experience as well, someone who understands, you know, campus violence,

37:31 campus sexual violence. You are an expert to us in that regard. So we appreciate you and your time.

37:37 Yeah, well, like I said, thank you for having this conversation. It is all over everyone's feeds, as it should be, as it always should be, because campus sexual assault is literally happening all the time.

37:48 Right.

37:49 And this happened to me almost 20 years ago. So to see a case that is almost identical, really, you know, you'd have to take a moment. I have expressed it as heartbreak, but a lot of people feel almost a level of hopelessness that these stories keep happening. These cases are still occurring. But I see something a little different.

38:11 And maybe it's because I've had those 20 years and I've been able to have that front row seat as a Title IX attorney working with the Obama administration. speaking out during Me Too and kind of seeing the progress we have made. So the hopeful note before some of the frustrating parts is that our culture is shifting. We are becoming less tolerant. We aren't accepting this story and letting it fade in a week. We are coming back and we're coming back and we're not letting it sit.

38:36 The fact that there is an active effort to still prosecute this case is- Wouldn't have happened 10 years ago. Absolutely correct. These cases were forgotten, swept under the rug. People said, what can we do? And this is a tough case. We'll definitely get into this, I'm sure. But there's issues with New York state law that made it challenging.

38:55 But there's always something that can be done. There are many different statutes. There's many different ways to kind of go after a specific incident. It doesn't have to be only for sexual assault. It could be the facilitation with drugs. Many other things are possible. But for me to see the level of outrage... The engagement of people, the conversation spreading that it's not just New York that has this loophole in law. It's 23 states across the United States.

39:21 This is important. This is the type of movement that actually can change things. Me Too opened our eyes. And now it's time for the legislative and policy change. Right.

39:30 Well, once you say, whenever I hear someone say, well, it's a law, it's like, okay, well, we wrote the law, so we can actually change it. We can amend it. We have amendments to the Constitution. There's no law in America that we like. It's like, oh, well, it's the law. We can possibly change it, especially if we have politicians paying attention.

39:45 Yeah.

39:46 This is a legal podcast. Let's get into it. What is that law? What is that loophole? Let's explain it to our listeners because this isn't like insider baseball in New York. It's like you said, 23 states in America have similar loopholes with campus violence.

40:00 Yeah. So the loopholes are unfortunately not specific to campus. It is broader than that, which means all of us are at danger of those laws not protecting any of us at any given time in at least half the states of the country. So the voluntary intoxication loophole says if someone chooses to drink, do drugs, change their capacitation level, that somehow automatically the law doesn't protect them. And it's just that silly. That idea is just that silly. That all of a sudden you lose protection because of a beverage choice or a substance choice. That doesn't exist anywhere else.

40:32 Shouldn't exist here. Where does that come from? Rape culture. Let's just name it. And you said, like, we wrote the laws... The question is, like, who really wrote the law the first time?

40:41 Yes, exactly.

40:42 And they didn't look like us. We are a diverse group. Right.

40:45 And why hasn't anyone changed it since, right?

40:47 Exactly.

40:48 Like, there are a lot of laws that are on the books that, you know, just never really get prosecuted. And there's not really an issue with it. Like, I'm thinking about, like, a horse and buggy. Like, you know what I mean? Like, but this is still, like, a very common occurrence. Sexual assault and violence is very real in America and in New York.

41:07 So.

41:07 Yeah.

41:08 So the reality is you can be a tourist, come to New York City, drink a little too much because you're having a great time. And someone targets you because you're too drunk, because you're stumbling home, because you look vulnerable. And then we're just not going to prosecute it. If you go to campuses, we know that because of the weird drinking age of 21, people are going to school at 18. They're free. They have that gap. So they're often drinking underage. They're often exploring with drugs. It's their first time at freedom. That doesn't mean they're less protected against violence. So these laws are really problematic. And the thing that really pisses me off the most is that the Speaker of the State Assembly, Carl Hastie, had three

41:47 different opportunities to fix this law, three different years where he could have closed this loophole. And instead, he chose not to call it to a vote. And he did that over protests by advocates that have been speaking out and speaking out for seven years and have enough votes. He has said publicly he doesn't have enough Straight up lie.

42:07 There's only one reason you don't call votes because you want to protect perpetrators of sexual violence.

42:13 To hear you say that out loud, it sounds absolutely insane, right? That there's somebody who is in a position to make a change and is not making that change because they want to protect a perpetrator of sexual violence. I mean, I don't know that you're going to be able to answer the question, but why? To what end and what is the benefit to that person? Why would you not want to prosecute somebody who has committed a crime?

42:40 Yeah, those are great questions. So there's kind of like two big buckets that this tends to fall in. One is, I think, the most horrible. We unfortunately do have lawmakers that have themselves engaged in sexual assault. They want the same freedom they had passed to the next generation. I think we can think of a president who would fall into that category right now who's still avoiding prosecution actively because of his position. So we know that some of it has to do with I got away with this.

43:08 I'm keeping the door open. This is patriarchy, male privilege, entitlement embodied. But some of it is actually far left. And that's perhaps the most confusing for people. So unfortunately, DSA, Democratic Socialists of America members are obstructing closing this loophole. Why on earth would they ever do that? They're worried about black and brown individuals being overly prosecuted while white individuals of more wealthy statuses keep getting away with it.

43:36 That's a flaw with the criminal justice system. That shouldn't obstruct how we fix the laws. That should adjust how we prosecute and enforce the laws. So it's kind of a misguided idea that we shouldn't have any law enforcement because.

43:48 It's so broken. It's like saying that like, okay, well, we shouldn't fix this law because... prosecutors are racist. Yeah. So we couldn't, if we fix the law, it'll just be, it'll show how racist they are. It's like, wait, that's actually crazy.

44:07 Yeah.

44:07 It doesn't mean it's like a fix both maybe.

44:11 Right.

44:11 Yeah, exactly.

44:12 Why is it just the one?

44:14 And I think there is such worthiness in like looking at our incarceration mentality in the United States, which is far above and beyond like every other country in the way we handle crime. And, meaningfully critiquing it, fixing it, changing it. I would love to see peace officers, not law enforcement officers on our street actually giving social work and care to prevent crimes, not just respond to them.

44:36 There's so much we can do in that space, but allowing perpetrators to commit crimes, it's so far off the mark. It's kind of missing the point. And I think people can be principled to a fault. So we have people who are allowing this to occur. That's problematic. And then people who are, I'm so against the brokenness of our system, I don't even want to touch it, let alone try to fix it. So I sympathize with that far left conviction, but it is leaving victims like me, who literally in the state of Wisconsin, when this happened to me, had a loophole. Alcohol was actually excluded as an intoxicating substance under state law. which is just mind-boggling. We all know you can get intoxicated with alcohol. But why was it

45:19 kept out? The alcohol lobby. They didn't want it in there. And that protected bars who over-served. And it was like a whole industry got protected by this exclusion. And so a horrible gang rape had to happen and a survivor had to speak up. And that's the echo we have today. We wait for the horror shows to do the right thing. Right.

45:39 And I was just thinking when you were speaking about that, that drunk people, people who are impaired That's someone who's more likely to be victimized than a sober person. These laws are so strange because it protects people who were roofied or someone who was drugged. Rather, it's just so stupid. These laws really are unbelievably ridiculous.

46:06 Yeah. But that is the history of rape law. So I get to be the legal nerd that I am and tell you that when I was an undergraduate, I did a whole rape law thesis. And it started way back 1800s with the idea that nothing was illegal. And I'm going to use gender and just assume men are perpetrators, women are victims. I know that is not true and not always the norm. But it makes it a quicker discussion that men could do anything they wanted to get sexual contact with women and girls. The law literally did not tell the bad man what not to do, which is a classic principle. If you've gone to law school, you'll hear that a lot. So what they did was require the victim to resist to the utmost and often

46:48 through the duration of the offense. So if you were beaten for hours, you had to physically fight back. And if you gave up, if you shut down, if you froze, if you were scared, not a rape. Just not a rape.

47:01 That was to consider consent.

47:03 And all of that still has echoes. Even today, we still have this idea that we look at the victim to decide, is this a crime? It's like, look at the perpetrator. It's the same idea as white privilege. Look at the actual problem and stop shifting it onto the victimized.

47:18 Right. Yeah. It's like any other crime. You wouldn't look to the victim to determine the mens rea of the perpetrator. You look at the perpetrator.

47:29 There's no mens rea for sexual assault law. Isn't that wild? And some people actually abdicate that there shouldn't be with the idea of it doesn't matter if they know they're committing a sexual assault. What matters is if it is a sexual assault.

47:42 Well, because then you get into a litigation around the perpetrator's mental state at the time.

47:48 And rape culture doesn't help with that because there really is this idea. I've read cases where someone's like, well, it's not rape because they didn't punch him. And it's like, but you drugged them. Right. You locked them up. Like you're still doing this horrible thing.

48:00 Or held them down or whatever it is.

48:02 Right.

48:03 That is. Yeah.

48:05 It really is. I was talking a lot to my girlfriends about what's been going on. And, you know, it's just, it's also just the culture. And I'm going to say this country, but I think I know it happens other places. I can, I don't know any woman. who has not been made to feel uncomfortable. I think the first time a man made me feel uncomfortable, I was 12 years old.

48:35 Do you know what I'm saying? And it's just the leering looks, somebody saying something. And to think that I was a child in my Catholic school girl uniform, 12 years old, and there's a grown man making me feel uncomfortable. And then as a woman gets older, it gets worse somehow because now, you know, when you go to college, now you're in a situation where you're with other young people who are drinking because, and that's the thing too, is like, I understand that not everybody drinks when they go to college, but that, but a lot of that happens in that moment. It's when you are learning about yourself, when you're, it's the first time that you were saying you're away from home, you have this freedom and you're, experimenting.

49:18 And all of that comes from this idea that like, boys will be boys. Oh, he's pulling your hair or he's bothering you because he likes you, right? And we take, as women, we take that with us throughout the course of our lives. And we sort of put up with things that we should not have to put up with. where the lesson should not be on how to teach me or how to teach our girls how to avoid that.

49:49 It's to teach the boys why it's not okay to do that in the first place.

49:52 Yeah.

49:53 Well, let's talk about that group chat with 57 different men.

49:58 That is one of the things that we talked about on our show. I've talked about it with Michael. Anytime I hear about something like that, how many people have to co-sign to a horrible idea, right? And I think a lot about the seven, that's one group of people, but it's the 40 some odd other guys who said nothing.

50:25 And all the reasons why they did not participate, maybe I'm going to be hopeful in this moment and say, I don't want to do that. That sounds like a terrible idea. I have a mom that I love. I have a sister that I love. You had an opportunity to do something. And I stand firm and I say, I want to see some punishment there as well.

50:44 Yeah.

50:44 I really do.

50:45 I really do.

50:46 No, we definitely don't have a concept of failing to aid, but other countries do. Like if you see harm and you do nothing, you can actually get in trouble. That's the cute punchline of Seinfeld, right? They didn't help some guy getting robbed and they mocked him and they Ended up in prison. So we could do that if we wanted to. We could obligate people to care at a higher level. We've chosen not to for whatever reason. But that doesn't change, I think, the ability of teachers, of parents, of communities to say, let's talk about this from that group chat perspective. What if you get a message like this?

51:24 What is your obligation? What could you do? And I think it's so sad that men value brotherhood.

51:31 Mm-hmm.

51:32 Over the life of that individual that they were mocking and raping and inviting further harm to. We really need people to have a little bit of empathy training. So when I was running for Congress, I talked a lot about we need a core curriculum. We need certain things in the classroom. It's not just financial education and technology education.

51:51 Empathy was part of that. We are actively losing it. And I think that's a sad byproduct of technology kind of Reducing interactions are community systems breaking down. I mean, it used to be people were part of veterans clubs and churches and there was more community is becoming less and less. We're becoming so individualized and there are young men who are only playing video games are only on computers and are literally not interacting with other human beings.

52:18 And they're not going to get these lessons unless someone steps up in their life and creates these opportunities. That's why we see the incel movement.

52:26 I was also thinking about the campus police and how they act as sort of a shield to protect the university, not necessarily the students attending the university.

52:39 We could talk about law enforcement so many hours. I have strong feels about law enforcement because I sue them all the time because they are the perpetrators. They are part of the problem. And it's infuriating. The Obama administration, right before it left, I think it was 2015, did a DOJ study about the gender bias within prosecution and law enforcement. So it was like planting the seed that unfortunately did not get taken up. But the whole idea was you guys are actually the problem because people, when they do report, right, we know about 20% of people report.

53:18 Sexual violence.

53:19 Sexual violence. Thank you. Which is very low, just for the record. Nothing is reported 100%, not even car theft. So like there's always some unreporting, but this is exceedingly high. A lot of it's because they know law enforcement's not going to take it seriously.

53:33 Right.

53:33 And I see so many of these cases. And what I see across the board is reasons not to prosecute. They actually go in saying, how can we break this and prove it's not a sexual assault rather than actually just saying, let's start with seeing if this is a crime. So there's a whole campaign.

53:50 Interesting. Because I'm thinking like if you try. Right. Okay. So a victim comes into a police office and says, I was raped. The line of inquiry of the officers is, okay, well, let's sort of test the theory of this rape to see if it will actually get prosecuted and ultimately get... God, that's so crazy because it's like the reason why it's only 20% is because people know that that's going to happen when they go talk to a cop, right? They know that the conversation, right? And that if it isn't...

54:25 completely infallible, it won't ever actually get referred to a prosecutor.

54:29 Absolutely. Because these are already cases where they say he said, she said, they're really hard to prove. So it's kind of like, how can we get this off our plates? How can you move to a different crime where we will have higher success rates?

54:40 But I'm thinking like, sorry to cut you off. I'm sorry. The case in Cornell, it wasn't a he said, she said. There was digital evidence. There were timestamp text messages. This is hard evidence. This is like a prosecutor's dream.

54:56 Except for the fact that she consented at the beginning with two individuals. Now, I'm progressive.

55:04 I'm evolved.

55:05 There's nothing wrong with that, if anything.

55:07 Awesome.

55:08 Glad she's having the life experiences she wants. But a prosecutor could see that and say, how can I ever possibly, with rape culture affecting every juror, prosecute the rest of it? And that just keeps rape culture alive. Like, let's just be very clear. If you're a prosecutor and you're caving to rape culture, you're making it worse.

55:27 I'm just thinking like, okay, if I'm not prosecutor and I'm like, okay, how am I going to do voir dire? How am I going to get 12 people on a jury who are going to be cool with someone consenting to sex with two people? But then at a certain point during the interaction was no longer giving consent, right?

55:43 Because there were drugs. There was like, she didn't take the drugs allegedly, or like, They were forced upon her. So the fear of potentially losing a case, you don't pick up that prosecution. Now you have reinforced the structure that led to this rape, right? So now you've just sort of like reinforced this entire infrastructure of rape culture that allows this to continue to happen. Because you were afraid of potentially losing that case.

56:17 Yeah, and you'll hear prosecutors say all the time, well, unless I have evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, I can't prosecute. You just failed your ethics log.

56:25 Yeah, no.

56:25 I hate to break it to you, but if you actually read the ethical rule, it's probable cause.

56:29 Yes.

56:30 That's actually the ethical standard. So this idea of it's not beyond a reasonable doubt, I can't bring it, that makes no sense to me. That's a cop-out.

56:37 No, that's the threshold to win the case. That's not the prosecutorial level for ethical conduct.

56:44 And some of that's how prosecutorial offices are set up. I actually interviewed to be a sex crimes prosecutor in Manhattan. They set it up to burn you out. They want the law school grad that doesn't have any work boundaries that can be woken up at 1 a.m., 3 a.m. There's no paralegals. There's no support. And it's like, how are you going to get the best of the best when you have literally the worst working conditions? Like you're creating your own problem. Not to mention sex. That they delayed the interviews for months and it became a whole thing.

57:14 So some of it's the offices. And in this case, we had the prosecutor go live on television and actually say that he thought the victim had changed her story. Hmm. And I literally, I don't talk to myself out loud a lot at home. I was in a rage. I was like, what is this man doing? Because I'm a lawyer.

57:36 I would never in a million years, if I was given that public responsibility, comment on a case. And it turned out he hadn't even looked at the case. He actually didn't know what he was saying. He was actually wrong and he didn't realize. But yet he came out with confidence and boldness because he was more worried about defending his office. than actually serving justice.

57:55 His own reputation.

57:55 Yeah.

57:56 Yeah.

57:56 Well, now Letitia James is involved.

57:58 Whoever's appointed, they should be looking at it with the lens of my job is to represent the state of New York.

58:04 Right.

58:04 And in New York, we do not want sexual offenses occurring with impunity, period. And from there, everything else should follow. But this idea that I have to be neutral as in maybe it didn't happen, like that is not neutrality.

58:17 Right.

58:18 Just for the record, people get that wrong all the time when I do campus trainings. Neutrality is not Second guessing neutrality is, I don't want this crime here. Let me see if it happened. And if so, let me do something about it.

58:29 Right. Prosecutors have always had platforms, politics, their elected officials. So the notion that you're biased because you've been on the record in the court of public opinion about a topic... That you now are precluded from prosecuting any of those cases. That's crazy.

58:56 Yeah.

58:56 Well, the wild thing is there's ethical rules for prosecutors that prohibit them from commenting on defendants and potentially biasing entire communities against defendants. And yet there's no equivalent for victims. So I don't just do civil rights. law i do victims rights law and we believe that it should be fair um for all the parties because especially with sexual assault we have reports that jane doe and her lawyer are being threatened they're being intimidated people are trying to expose who they are um it's it's It's unimaginable to be on that side. I've been on that side. The hate mail, the hate messages, the people who will forever, you know, think poorly of me. I remember years after

59:34 I graduated, I was once just laying in a park enjoying the sun and I heard a group of now current UW students being like, oh, I know who that is. Let's move so we can talk about it. My rape case was still being talked about years later as if I was a false victim. Oh my God. because there wasn't a prosecution. And the reason there wasn't a prosecution, the prosecutor met with me and he said out loud, what happened to you is reprehensible, but not illegal. And almost the identical thing was said to Jane Doe. This is morally wrong, but not illegal. And it's like the law is broken then. It is out of touch and our society knows it's out of touch.

1:00:13 So we looked it up. CJ looked it up. There've been 1200 reports of sexual violence on Cornell's campus in the last seven years. clearly the law is broken if those are what the reports are. And we are now seeing a lot of public attention that you and I, I think we can agree would not have happened 10 years ago. There would not be this entire nationwide public discourse on this. This is a pure nightmare for the university.

1:00:39 I mean, the name Cornell is now synonymous with rape. That's crazy and terrifying for what I'm sure is a, president that's about to get a vote of no confidence from the faculty. It seems like the consequences at Cornell are non-existent for students like this in these situations. We've talked about how change is on the way. What is on the way? What is different this time that might prove to be some form of justice?

1:01:12 Yeah.

1:01:12 So just to piggyback off of that, so is there anything out of this sort of horrendous situation that makes you feel it's slow, it's too slow, but there's something coming that is hopefully better?

1:01:28 Absolutely. So a really quick point, because you mentioned how many reports, something I've seen wrong in media coverage is saying high reports is bad. It's good. Interesting. We have an underreported crime. If you have a campus that has high reports, they're doing it right. I promise you they are doing it right. So like Utah is an example.

1:01:47 The reason University of Utah has such high reporting rates is one of their students, Lauren McCluskey, was stalked and murdered on campus and had been reported to be in an intimate violence relationship and the university kept letting the offender back on campus and she was beaten to death. That's a case I worked on. So the fact that they have high rates, I know is because they fixed it all and stopped hiding the problem and was bringing it to the surface. But the problem that you're touching on is with these 1,200, what's the level of expulsion?

1:02:18 It's probably what, under 10 or something?

1:02:20 The Cornell 7 had to write an essay as punishment.

1:02:23 Yeah.

1:02:25 And so this gets to highlight a case that I'm working on right now, Roe versus Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Where they actually set the standard of expulsion for sexual assault on campus. They, of course, didn't follow it, which is why there's a lawsuit. But most schools can do anything they want with discipline and you can't sue them over it. You can't say, hey, it should have been an expulsion, should have been this. The law has decided that schools have autonomy when it comes to discipline and that they will not second guess. In this case, because they had said in the public space and advertised the school as being hard on sexual assaults, We brought contract claims, marketing claims.

1:03:03 This is an icon school of medicine. Okay.

1:03:05 So I think all schools should set the standard of expulsion for sexual assault, period. And not just for rape. I'm saying all sexual assaults. And I mean that very sincerely because we need people to know sex offenses are unacceptable and that there are dire consequences. You should be lucky just to lose a diploma and not your life, the prison sentence. So I want that standard, but I've already given you the hint of why it'll never happen because lawyers like me are then, haha, I can hold you to this when you fall short. So schools have created this dynamic of wherever the law is, we have a choice to go above it and be as strong as you want, but then we're going to have legal challenges.

1:03:45 So there are unfortunately a lot of general counsel at schools who are making choices that protect perpetration because they just don't want lawsuits. They just want to mitigate risk and liability. But the SUNY school system here, the State University of New York system, used to have amazing general counsel back during the Obama era that was pushing to say no sexual assault on our campuses. We'll go to bat.

1:04:09 We'll go to court. We don't care. And one of my clients went through that process and they were ferocious at standing by what the school did and they didn't back down and settle, which is what so many schools do. And so I've had cases where someone's been expelled for sexual assault, has sued, and then privately settled and hidden the outcome, which violates federal law, as they found out when they got in trouble. But that's how a lot of schools are doing it.

1:04:35 And the sad reality- This is literally just like stop raping people. Like, I don't know. Like, this is like so complicated and so much work just because like men can't stop raping women. Like, this is, that's insane. I just like, I'm sorry. I'm not to be like the white man in the room who's like, learning what rape is.

1:04:52 It's not what's happening here. I'm acutely aware. I've taken every criminal law course, but I'm just like, this is so insane that we're just like, we have to do all this stuff just to keep men from raping women and not even keep them from that, just to hold them accountable or have some sort of justice after they do because they can't stop. This is crazy.

1:05:10 But that's why we need accountability. So a lot of schools are like, we do prevention. I always say prevention and accountability are full circle.

1:05:17 Right.

1:05:17 So you can do whatever program you want, but if a sexual assault happens and there's no consequence.

1:05:22 What the fuck was the point of the prevention?

1:05:23 There's no value.

1:05:24 Instantly.

1:05:25 And so schools often encourage students to leave. And unfortunately, under the Trump regulations for Title IX, if an offender leaves, schools can drop cases. I fight that all the time in my legal work. There's also situations where if a victim leaves campus because they're horrified and they want to be traumatized. Again, Trump administration gave schools a loophole. Well, if they're not going to access education, they're not protected.

1:05:50 And so all these problems with Title IX were exposed in 2020 when the regulations changed under the first Trump administration.

1:05:58 Can you walk us through that change?

1:06:00 So Title IX is a federal civil right that prohibits sex discrimination within educational settings. And we're talking about pre-K all the way up through higher ed if they've taken federal funding. So private schools- unless they're taking federal money through student loans, are not covered.

1:06:17 So that's how a school can say, this is an all-girls school.

1:06:20 Yes.

1:06:21 If they're a private school.

1:06:22 There are some exceptions for historically gender-segregated schools under Title IX. But the big trick is, are they taking federal funding or not? So a lot of these private Christian schools that people think are safe because it's religious– Hate to break it to you, it's actually probably less safe and you have less rights when you access it. So when Title IX was passed, the purpose was to make sure women could actually become doctors and lawyers and literally get accepted into graduate school because they were being denied on the basis of their gender. And we got past that.

1:06:53 But what happened when women showed up? Well, then they were sexually harassed, often by professors. And we have what we call quid pro quo sexual harassment of if you kind of– flirt with me, entertain me, allow me to abuse you, you get an A, or at least I don't fail you, whatever the threat variety is. So that was happening. And so Title IX got extended to address sexual harassment. And then we call sexual violence the most extreme form of sexual harassment. It is a way to make someone feel unwelcome, literally unsafe on campus because of their gender and the sexual exploitation of that through violence.

1:07:28 So sexual violence has been covered under Title IX since the 90s. And it's really been a wonderful tool that lawyers like me have used to hold schools accountable for looking the other way, for protecting perpetrators that are employed by them or attending school under them. And also just make sure that survivors who stay on campus can just do basic things like change classes, change dorm rooms. I have literally had a case out of Texas where a male student punched my female client before sexually assaulting her and they made Both of them live on the same floor of the same dorm and refuse to take action, which is just mind boggling.

1:08:08 Why?

1:08:08 I mean, honestly, why?

1:08:11 Not to get into that one.

1:08:13 No, no, no, no, no.

1:08:14 We can try.

1:08:14 But I mean, because I'm sure you asked, well, you know, at the very least, can she move? What is the reason?

1:08:23 Well, I'm going to hearken back to the Steubenville case. If you guys can remember, that was a high school case. I believe it was football players who sexually exploited an intoxicated girl who was completely unconscious. They literally carried around and sexually abused her. And put it out, I believe, on Twitter. It was a huge case. And when two of the men were criminally charged, I believe it was a reporter from one of the major news outlets who said, oh, the lives of these young men, they're going to be ruined.

1:08:52 And everyone in my camp exploded and said, excuse you? What about the life of this girl? They only got two years because they were juvenile. Their lives are not destroyed by any means. I mean, think about the Emily Doe case out of Stanford, where that individual, I believe, was in jail less than a year. And his father, when he was making the plea to the court for a lesser sanction, called the rape in an alley that was stopped by two strangers.

1:09:19 A as action, right?

1:09:21 So we have this history of boys will be boys. Maybe they cross the line, but just tap on the wrist. And we wouldn't want to harm their education. It's a complete eraser of women and their value and their place in society.

1:09:36 I'm just like floored. I'm sorry. No, I feel like- But I'm also just like someone of you, like honestly. I've known you for a minute. You've been on the show a couple of times and like, I don't know.

1:09:47 You do a lot of hard, this is really, really difficult.

1:09:50 It's hard work, but also like you lived this, like you literally went through this yourself. So like, can I ask you like personally, like how do you do this work when it's your literal core trauma? Like I, like I've experienced sexual violence in my life and I couldn't have it be part, a huge part of my career because I don't want to relive that every day.

1:10:14 I can appreciate that. I will say my core trauma wasn't so much the rape as the failure of my family to support me during my rape. The failure of my community, the failure of the church, the failure of the school, the failure of police. It was actually the community failure.

1:10:29 You feel so alone.

1:10:30 That's why I see so much change right now and that's why I'm so hopeful in the face of this because I actually know it was much, much worse. Not to say it's better, but it is moving in the right direction. So I face it every day. I don't know. It feels like a calling. I was raised an evangelical pastor's daughter, and I do think everyone's given a talent in this life, a calling, something they can add value and make the world a better place. For me, this is that. I look at something horrific. I look at choke marks on victims, bruising, rape kits. I mean, you name it. I have had to look at it. I've had to hear recordings of rapes, watch videos. But all of this is to make sure that survivors get justice.

1:11:11 I can look at this. And the thing that I think has set me apart from other lawyers that work in sexual assault cases is we so often focus on the victim. That's what the law did. That's what society does. I put perpetrators in full view. And I do not back down and I do not back off. And the amount of perpetrators, especially in K through 12, who themselves have been victimized and have turned around and become these monsters.

1:11:37 It's extraordinary. It's not 100%, but it is more than 50%. It is noticeable. And so I think we fail young men who are sexually abused. We do make it a women's issue. I did that today talking about men as perpetrators, women as victims. It has become such a quote unquote women's issue, but it's a men's issue because they're committing most of the violence even against other men and boys. Yes.

1:12:02 So it exists everywhere in society. And I think the more that we talk about it in a way that meets people who've been victimized of any background, like, right, we know ICE detentions have sexual violence rampant in them right now. It's a way to oppress people. It's just a tool of oppression.

1:12:22 It's literally like I go to court sometimes representing people where I'm like, okay, you can't deport this person back to this country because they were victim of sexual violence. It was a military tactic where children were raped as part of a military regime of controlling the people. Absolutely. So it's a literal military tool.

1:12:44 Yep. We know it's being used in the Israel-Gaza conflict. We know it was used in Egypt when they had the uprising, the Arab Spring. It appears everywhere where people are fighting for power and control. So I do see it in the dimension of it's not just individuals acting badly. It is society still telling women, you don't have a place.

1:13:03 And I keep saying women, but it's also transgender individuals. It's individuals from the queer community. It's immigrants. It's anyone who. Needs to be put down according to the dominant class, right? So it's my honor to.

1:13:17 Find these cases. But it's true. I mean, I'm thinking about it like if you are here doing the work, that victim's not alone the way you felt so alone. Yes. You know what I mean? Yes. There is real power to that.

1:13:28 And my favorite thing in the entire world is watching a survivor take the stand and doing cross-examination because that's normally what survivors fear.

1:13:38 In my clients, ugh. I'm sure, yeah.

1:13:41 I'll tell you one in North Carolina, K-12 victim who was raped, I'm sorry, kidnapped first from a K-12, a high school, when she was 17. Oh, my God. Was texting for help. The school resource officer and the assistant principal knew that she was taken into the woods around the camp. I'm sorry, around the school. And there had been numerous girls taken into the woods by boys for sexual abuse. This was not the first time. And they failed to intervene. And she was sexually assaulted. And when she got on the stand, I told her, it's just like boxing. You know, your mitts are up because the other person's wailing on you. Yes, no, I don't know, I don't remember. Those are your only answers unless they're

1:14:23 dumb enough to ask you why. And if they ask you why, I want you to knock them out just like all your fury. And this girl who could not finish a sentence without breaking down when we started preparing her testimony said, just went after this defense attorney and was like, cause the defense attorney had said, well, why aren't you pursuing a criminal case? She said, well, Terry, and everyone sat up, you know, and she's like, cause you messed it up so bad. Like, well, you didn't keep evidence. You didn't do this. They had literally destroyed videos.

1:14:57 They had lied. There was like forensic evidence that was hidden. Like, it was out of control how much they had done to prevent criminal prosecution. And she just let it fly. And the defense attorney was like, your honor, your honor. And the judge was like, order in the court, you know, called a recess. And there was no reason. There was no actual objection.

1:15:14 Let her answer the question. You asked the question. You got to let the witness answer.

1:15:18 That's how amazing she was. That's great. And at the end of that case, I wish I could say that we won under Title IX. We did not. They did not think the school could have prevented the sexual assault. And that was a key issue in that case.

1:15:30 So in this case, the court was like, so if you go to this school, it is within your expectation to be raped or assaulted.

1:15:39 Well, the court had made some interesting decisions about the previous sexual assaults that were initially hidden. The city of Charlotte had hidden the evidence. We actually got them sanctioned. They paid a fine to us because they hid evidence. But the judge would not let some. Very limited testimony from the other victims. So we couldn't paint a full picture of how systemic it was.

1:15:59 Okay.

1:16:00 And that was part of it. We did appeal. We didn't win on appeal. There was a Trump judge appointee.

1:16:05 Yeah.

1:16:05 Sure.

1:16:06 There's always some Trump judge waiting for the appeal. Yeah.

1:16:09 But what I loved at the end of her case, the school had said she lied, that she was never kidnapped. It wasn't a rape. It was consensual sex that she wanted it and was hiding it. The jury 100% believed that she was kidnapped and raped. There was no question that was part of the jury verdict form. And when I looked at her devastated that we had just lost this four year long case, she was smiling because she was finally believed. And that was the most important thing to her.

1:16:34 Just the jury piece of paper. Yeah. Just being able to be heard and like how people actually believe you is so much more valuable sometimes. I mean, you want the settlement, sure.

1:16:42 Yes, I was going to say you want that, but there isn't anything like somebody believing your story, right? Somebody believing and trusting that the thing that you said happened. Did happen. Yeah.

1:16:56 And every prosecutor needs to hear that because it's not about the win. It's about the opportunity to tell your truth.

1:17:02 Yeah. So Cornell 7's everywhere all over the news. Everybody's seeing it in their feed. We see the surge of change. What can people do to get involved to help? We've got a very engaged audience. So if there is something that people can get involved with, I'm sure they would love to know.

1:17:17 So whether you're at a K-12 school, undergraduate, graduate school, push the administration to have sexual assaults. be a default expulsion with very few exceptions. That's a huge thing because students have always been able to change their campus policies. Will they stay there? That's a different question, but that's why alumni donations matter. So if you're an alum and you're a little miffed at your school for not handling sexual violence better, you can actually restrict your donation and put that it is limited for Title IX and prevention education.

1:17:49 You can put conditions on your donations. That sends a huge message when tens of thousands of dollars they wanted to funnel into sports all of a sudden has to be Title IX. You can also just withhold your donations, get the alumni group together, and again, force change on the administration. In New York, we need Speaker Hastings to call a vote. Don't let him say there's not enough votes.

1:18:10 I promise you there are. These advocates and I have been working for a while now.

1:18:14 Or just like prove it. Call it and show us that there weren't enough votes.

1:18:18 Yeah, let it fail.

1:18:18 Exactly, let it fail.

1:18:19 Let the consequences of the political choices be known because then we'll have new legislators.

1:18:25 We'll know who voted what and what.

1:18:26 Yeah.

1:18:27 So let that come to a vote in all 23 states. This is not just in New York that this is problematic. So don't wait for your horror show in your state. Check your state law. If it allows voluntary intoxication loophole, write to your legislator, the assembly member, the senator, whoever it is, and really push for this to be changed proactively.

1:18:46 And last but not least, remember who you're voting for. Actually ask them what their positions are on sexual violence and whether they take this seriously and look at their history. Have they avoided this issue? Have they stood against this issue? There are leaders out there who care deeply about this issue.

1:19:02 There are survivors who are running. I'm one of them who recently ran. And I think we'll have a better world when the people who have been harmed by the failures of our system become the leaders that change the system.

1:19:14 Agreed.

1:19:14 Yes.

1:19:15 Thank you for joining us. Thank you for being here. We'll be right back with Tales from the DMs. Stick around. Thank you for joining us.

1:19:22 Of course.

1:19:25 Welcome back to Brief Recess. This is Tales from the DMs. I'm Michael.

1:19:29 I'm Melissa. And friends, what do I always say? While Michael is a lawyer, he's not your lawyer. So, you know.

1:19:36 Yeah.

1:19:36 Get one from somewhere.

1:19:37 Okay. Kate from Michigan writes, Michael, don't you dare feel bad about donating one shoe. Honey, I'm not going to feel bad about it.

1:19:45 Wait, what?

1:19:46 Remember when I bought one shoe on eBay and then I donated it? Thus perpetuating the cycle. People need them more than you think. She's an occupational therapist who works in acute patient rehab for years.

1:20:00 Wow.

1:20:01 And often needed just one shoe for patients who had cast some boots. Wait, I've been in an orthopedic boot and I was wearing one shoe. That makes sense.

1:20:08 It does make sense.

1:20:09 Wow.

1:20:10 Well, now you know.

1:20:11 The more you know.

1:20:12 The more you know.

1:20:13 The next time I buy one shoe on eBay, I'm going to be sure to donate it.

1:20:18 Yeah. Just tell me about it so I could be sure to rip into you like I did the last time.

1:20:22 She said to get one shoe, I often had to go to a prosthetics department because they usually had the mate to a shoe that had been used to make a prosthetic foot.

1:20:30 Oh.

1:20:31 Imagine being a prosthetic maker. That's got to be such a cool job.

1:20:34 Yeah, it probably is really, like, very gratifying as well, right? Like, here you are. I'm doing a really good thing.

1:20:39 And it's, like, kind of artistic.

1:20:41 I think we need to get somebody who makes those, the prosthetics, to ask them how artistic it feels.

1:20:47 Scientific. I said artistic, not autistic.

1:20:49 I said, I know.

1:20:50 I said artistic. Wow.

1:20:53 Oh, no.

1:20:54 You are getting in all kinds of trouble.

1:20:55 I know.

1:20:56 Just shenanigans.

1:20:56 Well, honestly, the... The dog people will probably still be worse than all the people I pissed off with this episode. Dog people are going to come.

1:21:06 Let me just say something really funny about the dog people. So the messages were, like I said, most of the messages were cool. Except for this one. But at Six Foot Photos, who I know, that's TJ. That's TJ.

1:21:21 TJ, the person that yelled at me? Yes. And I didn't answer her.

1:21:25 So she said to me, do you though like dogs? And here's the reason why TJ.

1:21:30 Because you don't like TJ's dog.

1:21:31 No, no, no, no, no. So TJ had a dog, Cody, who I did not like. Cody was a little dog. He was weird looking. He was a Pomeranian with alopecia.

1:21:44 Okay.

1:21:47 Wait, Pomeranians are all fur. Not this one. So this is just dust.

1:21:52 And he always, and every time, I have a really good picture of me and Cody where I'm sitting in a chair and I am giving Cody. The eyes, the eyes. I didn't like Cody, but Chakala, I do like. He's also a little dog, but he's not a Pomeranian. He's like some kind of a Chihuahua.

1:22:15 I think.

1:22:16 He's cute and I like him. He did.

1:22:21 Cody Code.

1:22:23 Not the autoimmune Pomeranian.

1:22:25 I did not like that dog at all.

1:22:27 I dated a guy with alopecia once.

1:22:29 Did you like him?

1:22:30 It's the end of our episode, folks. We'll be back. We'll see you next week.

1:22:38 Somebody said... Nicole says, to add to the problem, these people think that, I guess the hardcore dog people, these people think they're the only ones bringing a dog everywhere. And somehow you end up in a dog fight.

1:22:53 They started a dog fighting ring inadvertently. A paranormal activity.

1:22:59 Amanda says, my Yorkie is a medical alert dog. She's been trained and certified to alert for my chronic illness. That said, I 100% agree with you.

1:23:12 I think that's actually cute. I would love to see a Yorkie, a medical alert Yorkie just barking because someone's having a heart murmur. I think it's actually really adorable.

1:23:19 Because they're so little.

1:23:20 I know.

1:23:21 You could bring a Yorkie. I wouldn't even know if you had a Yorkie with you.

1:23:24 I think I was clear when I said I'm not talking about people who have a medical alert dog or like that's not who I'm talking about.

1:23:33 Yeah. No.

1:23:34 I'm talking about Michael who brings Jack to the supermarket.

1:23:38 Yeah, I don't do that. No, I know you don't. Because now people are going to be like, Michael, why'd you do that? Okay.

1:23:42 Oh, you know what I did want to mention?

1:23:44 Do it.

1:23:45 This whole Krista Pike, real quick.

1:23:48 Yeah.

1:23:48 So Krista Pike, she woke up. What I thought was really interesting, the first news thing that I saw when Krista Pike woke up is that Krista Pike woke up and she's pissed off.

1:23:59 And I don't blame her.

1:24:00 She asked for her iPad.

1:24:01 No, she didn't.

1:24:02 She asked for her iPad. Did she?

1:24:04 Yeah.

1:24:05 I wonder what's going to happen to her. Genuinely. I'm very curious. And I also wonder, are they going to, because I can't imagine what her body must be going through. Are they going to try and make her better to try and execute her once more?

1:24:21 I think probably.

1:24:22 That is a legitimate question.

1:24:23 Let's reveal it and we'll do it next week. Okay. So join us back here next week. We'll talk more about Krista Pike because I do want to get into it.

1:24:29 I am curious about that. Okay.

1:24:32 Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for joining us today. This will air on Thursday. You can watch me on Traders, 8 o'clock on NBC. And I'll see you in hell. See you next week.

1:24:46 Thanks, everybody.

1:24:47 Thanks, everybody. Bye. This has been an Exactly Right production recorded at iHeart Studios, hosted by me, Michael Foote.

1:24:56 And me, Melissa Malbranch. Our producer is CJ Ferroni.

1:24:59 This episode is edited by Mark Schroeder.

1:25:02 Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain, and our guest booker is Patrick Kottner.

1:25:06 Our theme song was composed by Tom Breyfogle with artwork from Charlotte Delarue and Vanessa Lilac, with photography by Brad Obono.

1:25:13 Brief Recess is executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark, and Danielle Kramer.

1:25:18 You can find me on Instagram at Department of Redundancy Department or on TikTok at Michael Foote.

1:25:23 And I'm on both Instagram and TikTok as Melissa Malbranch.

1:25:26 Got legal questions? Reach out at briefrecess at exactlyrightmedia.com. Listen to Brief Recess on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And of course, we're a podcast with video. Search for Brief Recess on YouTube.