How do we make this a nonpartisan issue? This is an apolitical issue. Look at how long it took [women] to be able to vote. How do you respond to those charges? Editorial staffs at every establishment as a group are in charge of putting together the stories. And maybe they were subtle, but I had to approach it with a scalpel not a dagger. I was in a tough position.
My moments of protest are all public out there. I walked off the set one day when they said woman have too many rights. Well, then, you guys handle it. I said that at Fox. Do stories on women no one has heard about. And why do we almost immediately talk about redemption for the perpetrators?
I would love to see more focus on these invisible women. Bakhtiar, who moved to the U. The only TV news opportunities Bakhtiar could find after she left Fox were in local news, which felt like a step down. Bakhtiar reported in Iraq and Syria, entering Aleppo after Al Jazeera had pulled its staffers and journalist Marie Colvin had been killed.
She stood within 1, yards of ISIS troops. That I was still a real journalist I guess. To myself, to the world. While her untimely, quiet departure from Fox News in had damaged her reputation in TV news circles, her status nine years later as a woman at the center of a national story about sexual harassment brought new problems. When the Times story ran, a male colleague at Reuters who had been training Bakhtiar to use a video editing system asked not to be assigned to work with her. My mom would have better care.
I would have a k plan. And I would be a big shot. I will say I do believe we will see a woman elected president in our lifetime. So back to Trump. I was one of the very few journalists who said not only will he be the Republican nominee, he will be president of the United States.
On the show he would say, Well you know The Apprentice is the No. And he would say, Yes it is. And people at home would think, Well, I should watch the No. And before you know it he had the No. What happened with that?
Not really. I remember the day that he got fired, that was the first extensive conversation that I had with my father [since filing the suit]. It was really hard on my family. What really buoyed my spirits in those days of dark despair was all these other women that started reaching out to me.
And, by the way, they never worked again — they just were stripped up their lives, and they went off into oblivion. I realized that one of the things that was holding women back — and not just women, but people of color and other disenfranchised groups — were arbitration clauses.
I would have been forced into the secret chamber of arbitration, and nobody would have ever heard from Gretchen Carlson again. It really proved my point that this was apolitical, and why we should come together. In an incredible gesture of bipartisan unity, we introduced the bill in December , and then all the Trump stuff started to happen, so it really got lost in the shuffle. When this passes, this will be my greatest achievement in my life besides my children.
This will be a gamechanger for people in the workplace. What that was like for you to watch? Incredibly emotional. My phone rang, and it was a close male friend of mine.
You did this. You did this! Can you talk about what that was like at the time, or is that off limits? For example, I walked off the set during one of those times.
That was not something I planned, but that was just me getting bolder. Three weeks before I got fired, I came out in favor of reinstating the assault weapons ban. In fact, when I got fired, people actually thought on social media I got fired because I came out in favor of that. Were there repercussions? What was it like watching Fox News during the Trump administration, when the two were in lock-step with one another? I think to a certain extent, Fox became rudderless. I never planned to do it, but my kids wanted to see it.
I went incognito, because it just was uncomfortable for me, and kind of surreal. Obviously, it was surreal for me to watch it on the screen, my story playing out. And having these amazing actresses who decided to take on these roles.
Thank you for kicking this whole thing off. And I got a funny little experience with my kids out of it.
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