Vince McMahon has resigned from his position as the head of the entertainment group that oversees most of professional wresting after a former staffer accused him of sexual assault and sex trafficking. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: Vince McMahon has resigned from his position as the head of the entertainment group that oversees most of the professional wrestling after a former staffer accused him of sexual assault and sexual trafficking. This goes beyond, this is worse than anything we’ve heard from the Weinstein case. It’s kind of in line with the Epstein case. This woman was trafficked. I mean, this guy McMahon, who a billionaire thought he could own this woman to where he was actually sending her out to have sex with people that, it’s no different than prostitution. Only this is an unwilling woman when you hear what she did to try to get outta this. Go ahead.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. This is a truly disturbing story that’s really, we’re only scratching the surface of it at this point. It’s only been out for less than a week at this point. But what we know about so far from this woman’s lawsuit is that she went, she wanted to get a job with the WWE that McMahon was running at the time. Not even becoming a professional wrestler. Just, this is a good organization. I wanna work here. Put me in the office. And he had different ideas with this woman. Brought her up to his penthouse, routinely made her perform sexual acts, take photographs that he then had hung up in his home.
Mike Papantonio: Sent to his friends.
Farron Cousins: Exactly. And so then when the other people would see those photographs, whether through text messages or in his home, he would force her, according to this lawsuit, to go to these people’s homes and perform sexual acts for them. He went as far as to tell her he owned her.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Physically owned her.
Farron Cousins: And when she would get a little, you know, reluctant maybe trying to escape, what did he do? Showered her with gifts and cash.
Mike Papantonio: Well, you wonder, people are gonna hear this story and they say, well, hell, she could have left anytime. No, it doesn’t work like that. Human trafficking, matter of fact, I’m taking one of the biggest depositions in the country tomorrow on human trafficking with just one of the most awful companies up in Canada called MindGeek. But when you understand what happens, the psychology of the whole trafficking thing, he was selling her to other people. He actually, they reached an agreement when he knew that hey, she had all the letters. I will allow you to have sex with her, pay us some money, work with our company. And so he would just, he’d hire her out like that. So, overwhelming material she had. So he settles with her. He’s supposed to pay her $3 million. Well, he makes one payment for $1 million. He didn’t make that payment because this is made up. He made that payment because this conduct was just so reprehensible. And then he failed to make any more payments.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And he got her, and this is also typical what we see with trafficking cases, he got her at a time in her life when she was very vulnerable. Both of her parents had recently died. She was out on her own, had no support network whatsoever. I’ve talked to people that have been trafficked, people that have handled the cases. And that is, we’re talking about almost textbook what this man did to her and how he manipulated her, going to her at that vulnerable time and forcing her to do these things.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. His emails to her as well, I effing own you. I effing on you. And oh, by the way, I have to sell you basically, because that’s part of the effing deal I made with this contractor or this, whoever it may be. And the story just, sometimes you read, you know, there’s so many of these stories that come out. I mean, it’s like every week there’s some character like this billionaire who believes that they’re just beyond the law. That there is no law. That they are king. They’re gonna do whatever the hell they wanna do. This particular story, people ought to go take a look at it and see just how badly this woman was abused. It’s ugly, ugly, ugly.
Farron Cousins: Right. Well, and she also alleges that some of the professional wrestlers with the WWE were part of this as well. They were not named in the lawsuit. But that’s why I say we’re barely scratching the surface.
Mike Papantonio: Oh yeah.
Farron Cousins: By the time this is over, there’s gonna be a lot more names on that list. And you’re right, I think we’re looking at Epstein territory here.
Mike Papantonio: Well, he’s going to prison. If the prosecutor will do their job, if they’ll take this and do their job and not make this into a civil case. This goes way beyond a civil case. This is trafficking, this is human trafficking. And they ought to go after him for that. You know, if we had a Department of Justice that had some guts, this is what that case would be.
