And now at Bloomberg Surveillance worldwide and coast to coast, with fourteen out of twelve cable news networks tuned into what will occur here at ten am is most important issues on Judge Kavanaugh, and we will attempt at Bloomberg Surveillance to commit perspective. We do that with Bob Moon and Bob it goes really back within your research to October fourteenth, when Anita Hill had to pass a lie detector test, and I think that picks up your wonderful
perspective you've put together. Yeah, you know, Tom Shakespeare said, what has passed his prologue. So, with the Senate Judiciary Committee set to gabble to order it's high drama hearing into the sexual misconduct allegations against Supreme Court nominee b At Kavanaugh, it is informative to look back twenty seven
years to October. That's when President George H. W. Bush's Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas was called back in his confirmation process to face the sexual misconduct allegations of Anita Hill, his former assistant. The panel's chairman at the time was Democrat Jill Biden of Delaware, This is not a referendum on whether or not whether or not sexual harassment is a grave offense. I said from the beginning, this is
about whether or not sexual harassment occurred. Now we're gonna hear more witnesses are gonna come in and cooborate your position in hers. We'll find out whether there's telling the truth or not, as best as we are capable of doing, just like you, as a judge are when you look them in the eye and make a judgment something. I think this whole affair is sink. I think it's sick to Utah. Republican or In Hatch was one of Thomas's defenders in those hearings, just as he's defending Brett Kavanaugh
as a member of the same Senate panel today. Just as the Clarence Thomas hearing was then, today's hearing is being called a watershed moment. A record two hundred fifty seven women are running for the House and Senate in the ten mid term elections. In twenty eight women were elected to the House of Representatives and four to the Senate, among them Democrat Patty Murray, the state of Washington's first female U S. Senator. I am a United States senator
today because of the way Anita Hill was treated. They called Anita Hill a liar. They said she was coached by special interest groups. They looked for ways to blame her, impugne her, and attack her. They pressed the young professor for explicit details of the harassment she said she had faced on the job. My working relationship became even more strained when Judge Thomas began to use work situations to
discuss sex. On these occasions, he would call me into his office for reports on education issues and projects, or he might suggest that, because of the time pressures of his schedule, we go to lunch to a government cafeteria. After a brief discussion of work, he would turn the conversation to a discuss sh a sexual matters. His conversations were very vivid. Because I was extremely uncomfortable talking about sex with him at all, and particularly in such a
graphic way. I told him that I did not want to talk about these subjects. What happened after Hill's opening statement explains why this time Republicans on the Judiciary Committee have named an outside council who they can choose to have question. Dr Christine Bozzy Ford. Hill was a lone woman facing a panel of fourteen skeptical men, among them Pennsylvania Republican Arlen spect a mere allegation, Senator, I would suggest to you that for me, these are more than
mere allegations. These are the truth to me. These comments are the truth to me. I'm not I'm not questioning h your statement when I use the word allegation. I know about sexual harassment and discrimination against women, and I think I have some sensitivity on it. How reliable is your testimony in October of on events that occurred eight ten years ago? How sure can you expect this committee
to be on the accuracy of your statements? And it wasn't just Republicans who raised the eyebrows and even the ire of many women watching the hearings. She could be living in a fantasy world. I don't know. We're just trying to get to the bottom of all of these facts. Howell Heflin was a Democrat from Alabama and trying to determine whether you are telling falsehoods or not. I've got to determine what your motivation might be. Are you a scorned woman? Do you have a militant attitude relative to
the area of civil rights. No, I don't have a militant attitude. Do you have a model complex? No? I don't. Well do you see that coming out of this, that you can be a hero in the civil rights movement? I do not have that kind of complex. I don't like all of the attention that I'm getting. I don't. I would not even if I liked the attention. I would not lie to get attention. Thomas adamantly insisted the
accusations were not true. I've never been accused of sex harassment, and anybody who knows me knows I am adamantly opposed to that, adamant, and yet I sit here accused, and I'll never be able to get my name back. I know it. The day I get received the phone call on Saturday night, last Saturday night, about seven thirty and told that this was going to be in the press. I had I died the person you knew, whether you
voted for me or against me. He choked back tears as he complained that he, his family, his friends, and the country had been irreparably harmed. In my views, that that is an injustice. And if by going through this, another nominee in the future or another American won't have to go through it, then, so be it. In the end, Republicans on the panel delivered impassioned defenses of the Supreme
Court nominee Wyoming's Allan Simpson confronting Hill directly. Maybe maybe it seems to me you didn't really intend to kill him, but you might have. And that's pretty heavy. I don't care if you're a man or a woman. Kind of a singular, singular torpedo blow below the waterline and he sinks. Within five days, Thomas was confirmed by a narrow centem majority of fifty two to forty eight. Today, Washington Democrat Patty Murray is warning Republicans against a rush to confirm
Brett Kavanaugh. Women are watching. We are not going to allow that to happen again. If Republicans attack Dr Ford and this turns into anything like what we saw back in women across the country are going to rise up, make their voices heard, and Republicans will pay a very huge price. Tom him. A lot of people will be watching in just a few minutes. Just extraordinary. And you go back to Senator Heflin there, who was before Jeff Sessions for Alabama, silver star guy, huge marine track record
in World War Two. And what I went to Bob, within your wonderful history there is Hefflin was born in and here we are almost a hundred years ahead of that. The Jet narrational shifts here have been cultural and generational have been extraordinary. Yeah, and you have to consider that this was just twenty seven years ago. That's not all that long ago, really, And also is it worth noting that the process has now become a political process, not
a legal or judicial process. I think it all began with with that hearing where where it it turned political and has become increasingly political with each confirmation. What was your insight from digging up all of this audio? I mean you go back and folks, for for those of us in the Bloomberg newsroom, Uh, Bob Moon sits in a coveted cubicle with acres of video and in audio reels. What was it like to go through it all? What
what was your take on going thro overwhelming? Take? Is it how much time has changed just in that twenty seven years. I mean a lot of this I don't think would fly today that that was going on back then, and particularly with the Me too movement now, Bob moan, thank you so much, just extraordinary. Will be sure to get that out on Bloomberg Digital