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. Also, lawmakers in Florida are advancing legislation that would ban children under the age of 16 from using social media. 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.
Mike Papantonio: Lawmakers in Florida are advancing legislation that would ban children under the age of 16 from using social media. Studies have found that social media, well, it causes a chemical reaction. It’s a dopamine reaction in the brain just like any other addictive process. Just like Oxycontin. Just like any of those. They know that. This isn’t guesswork anymore. You know, it used to be kind of a joke. Well, I wonder whether this is affecting their brain. Is this why they’re in front of their phone 12 hours a day? Well, no, it’s a little more complicated. It’s the same analysis that you would use for any addiction. And it’s, I love the term. It’s not my term. It was given to somebody, digital fentanyl. Digital fentanyl is what it’s called. One of the Florida legislators came out and said that we gotta do something about it.
Farron Cousins: It’s really interesting to me, because when I first saw this story, I thought, okay, this is kind of ridiculous. This is overstepping. There’s no way they’re gonna ban social media for people under 16. But when you actually read it, and you actually look at the science behind it, and you look at the studies that have been done, this might be the first time we’ve ever talked about legislation in Florida where we’re like, you know what? This is actually a smart idea. This is a good important thing here, because the studies are overwhelming. Even the US Surgeon General has come out and said, listen, these social media apps for these young people in this country are as addictive as drugs. It’s doing the same thing to the brains.
Mike Papantonio: What it does is it opens a whole new avenue. Okay. You have something called constitutional police power. That is where government has the right to say where health, safety and welfare is concerned, if we have enough evidence that something’s affected, it overcomes a lot of the obstacles, such as First Amendment obstacles. It can actually overcome that. And so here you’ve got, it’s an entire body of science. They’ve done PET scans, they’ve done all types of studies, and they see there’s a difference taking place in the brain that’s exactly like you see with dopamine, with Oxycontin. It’s a dopamine change. And so this isn’t guesswork. And so with this right, I think the police power, they’re gonna be able to make some inroads. New York is way ahead on it. Right now they’re pulling out all their guns. Utah ahead on it. And they’re trying to say, listen, why are we ignoring this? We don’t ignore it with drugs. Do we? We don’t ignore it with alcohol. We say, yeah, these are items that affect the addiction problem for children. So we’re not going to allow you to drink until you’re 18 years old. So that’s the same analysis here. I think this, I’m like you. You know, most of the stuff that comes outta Florida these days, the legislator, I mean, just a bunch of boneheads, man.
Farron Cousins: Right.
Mike Papantonio: But you see something like this and you go, wow, maybe there’s hope.
Farron Cousins: It’s got bipartisan support, which is rare. And again, it’s addressing an issue that has kind of festered for far too long to where, as usual with these social media companies, we’re once again playing from behind. But we have a chance to make a real difference with this.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. New York is really jumping into this with both feet. And I think we’re behind Utah, but this could happen here. It absolutely could happen.
