Former Vice President Joe Biden's cognitive decline is the subject of a new book and an investigation. Plus, Scott Pelley whines about the Trump administration in a wild commencement speech. Plus the World Premiere of Meghan Markle's Netflix show, With Love, Meghan. featuring Maureen Callahan.
00:04:32.040Like, can we just put—let me put the legality to the side for one second and just start with what an incredible, disgusting dirtbag we're learning he is.
00:04:48.580But witness by witness, what we're seeing is this guy's a monster.
00:04:54.360We've had his former assistants come forward.
00:04:57.060To talk about the abuse they witnessed this week, there was one saying he quit because he just couldn't stand the amount of abuse that he was heaping, not just on star witness Cassie Ventura, but other women, too.
00:05:08.720And just pretty much everybody who takes the stand has another story about Diddy abusing some woman.
00:05:43.420So he comes back with two half gallons, equaling one gallon, but he was savage for that because Diddy wanted the one—so it's like those details.
00:05:52.160But this week has seen so many great characters.
00:06:00.000Okay, the sex worker who is dressed like something out of a Marvel comic, like an S&M Marvel comic, right?
00:06:06.660Like the mask with the spikes on it and then like this and that, and he's got—he's published, it's self-published a book called Freezer Meat.
00:06:14.900That was an interesting moment where they asked him why.
00:06:18.040And the feds had the front and back cover in full color of the illo.
00:06:23.660Like, it's like wild stuff's going on.
00:06:25.740And so the Punisher, who I need to start following on Instagram—
00:07:19.680And I can think of a couple of things.
00:07:21.380But in any event, that is him, I guess, being self-deprecating.
00:07:24.400But yeah, I guess he's had a problem with this, which, I mean, frankly, he's in the wrong line of work because you can get away with that as a news anchor.
00:07:32.600Like, if you're going into the sex worker trade, it does become an issue, I imagine.
00:07:37.040And he was talking about how, I imagine, when you're having, like, forced sex or sex acts with Cassie Ventura and somebody's watching you, what he suggested was he'd been performing oral on her.
00:07:50.440And then Diddy wanted him to, you know, go the next level.
00:07:54.540And so he's writing about, like, this erectile dysfunction problem, talking about it, that he's having in the midst of this so-called freak-off, making him perhaps not the ideal candidate for the freak-off.
00:08:05.740But all of this is just background to, like, the serial, weird sexual obsessions of P. Diddy and his treating Cassie Ventura like she was a piece of meat, like she was his property.
00:08:20.940And some of the more harrowing testimony, I think, came from Cassie's mother, who got on the stand and said, Sean Combs personally called her.
00:08:29.600Like, he could have had one of his henchmen do it, but he personally called her and said, if you don't give me $20,000, I am going to release a sex tape of your daughter.
00:09:45.360Oh, I guess he had, like, an attack of conscience.
00:09:47.360Like, oh, maybe I shouldn't be harassing my girlfriend's mother for money she doesn't have.
00:09:52.160But I think he does enjoy the exercise of just making people subjugate themselves to him and seeing, especially with women, how much he can demean them and demoralize them.
00:10:02.880There's been testimony this week that he had—he sat next to Cassie on a plane, and I can't remember whether it was—it must have been a private jet, but I thought they were saying it was a public jet.
00:10:14.220There were certainly other people around, and he made her look at video he had taken of one of the freak-offs, and he threatened her, saying he would release it.
00:10:23.940Like, he was ready to use this and publicly humiliate her if she didn't do what he wanted.
00:10:29.520So on the one hand, you have that stuff, and you have the video of the beating, and you have had multiple witnesses testify about seeing him beat her.
00:10:39.180Her friend got on the stand and testified to that.
00:10:41.760She just had a makeup artist get on the stand and say she saw her after he had beaten her with knots all over her head, a fat lip, a black eye.
00:11:35.040And separate and apart from the arson charge that he's trying to build, they're trying to build with him.
00:11:39.820He painted Cassie as not all that great because he suggested she was dating him while lying about the fact that she had left Diddy when she hadn't.
00:12:08.920And I just think, yes, that's what they have to argue.
00:12:11.720But if you look at the greater context of the proof going in on that case, Maureen, it's just so clear that there was an overlying control that he had of her almost from the very beginning.
00:12:23.300I think there's no question about that.
00:12:24.860As for Kid Cudi, it's sort of like, you know, she played me.
00:12:28.240OK, well, you're a grown man, you know, and you're in like a very flashy, fast moving industry.
00:12:33.620I'm sure she wasn't like you're one and only.
00:13:16.800I believe that the prosecution is putting on a witness, much as the prosecution did in the Harvey case, round one, which went to speaking to how victims of sexual violence or domestic violence often are in love with their abuser.
00:13:43.160She hadn't examined Diddy, but she was testifying to that dynamic in domestic abuse relationships.
00:13:48.820And I'll never forget the details in Cassie's lawsuit, her civil filing against Diddy, which went to there were two incredibly violent things.
00:13:56.680One, he had her get breast implants in L.A.
00:14:14.520And then the other one was after they left some awards event, he began stomping her face in the back of an SUV.
00:14:21.420And the driver slash bodyguard tried to intervene.
00:14:24.980And Diddy was like, if I recall correctly, basically, I'll kill you if you don't back off.
00:14:29.660This is my woman and I'll do what I want with her.
00:14:31.420That was one of the rare times someone tried to intervene because what we've seen these past two weeks is people under his employer, under his thumb, not intervening and feeling really bad about it, feeling disgusted with themselves for allowing it to happen.
00:14:46.420But I think they all knew like they were afraid of him.
00:14:57.160I mean, I think, you know, from a legal aspect, I'm really interested in your thoughts because, you know, what I love is that the prosecution has video and you can't lie your way out of video.
00:17:05.380But many, many times and even during certain times on like the back end.
00:17:09.680Maybe she was there voluntarily in the front end.
00:17:11.880But then, you know, but overall, I think they're going to argue that right after the beginning of the relationship,
00:17:16.900things switched to a place where she did not want to be doing this.
00:17:20.700And she was only there because she was afraid of him or he was threatening her or she knew she was going to be publicly humiliated by the tapes getting released or he was going to beat her again.
00:17:31.220And so they're arguing he was forcing her to sex traffic herself in these freak offs.
00:18:20.720Immediately a power dynamic right there.
00:18:23.120She's bringing he's bringing her into this world.
00:18:25.980There was there was that little bit of testimony that I thought was really salient that he brought Britney Spears to her birthday party when they first were dating.
00:18:42.820But I think it was a way of him trying to strip her of that power she had, her own beauty.
00:18:47.960And then the other thing we were reminded of this week was Wendy Williams saying long ago, everyone in the hip hop community knows Sean Combs is gay.
00:19:02.520He beats the shit out of them on the regular.
00:19:04.160And that he tried to have her fired or successfully had her fired from a gig.
00:19:09.560And I mean, that's the kind of level of power he was trying to execute all over the place, like trying to take somebody's livelihood because, you know, I mean.
00:22:29.060Oh, your 16 year old son is backstage.
00:22:31.060You can't tell me she didn't know the stories about Usher.
00:22:33.180A 14 year old Usher who's fed to him for at least a year in that townhouse, who later told Rolling Stone that he would walk around that townhouse and peek through bedroom doors that were left open and see orgies happening.
00:23:01.700But, you know, I think we're all looking at what seems to be the severity of the collateral damage.
00:23:09.880And, you know, we'll see what else comes out.
00:23:13.140You know, when stuff like this happens and people begin, I'm, I'm amazed that Cassie feels emboldened enough at like nearly nine months pregnant.
00:23:19.940Knowing the, knowing this guy, the feds would, he, he tried to get bail three times and every judge said, no, he is a danger to potential witnesses.
00:23:56.020A word about Bieber, um, and through no particular source, but I will say that a source with knowledge of Bieber has suggested to us recently that he may have other issues that are causing the public meltdown.
00:24:11.580Now having nothing to do with Diddy and they did put out that statement saying he's not one of Diddy's victims.
00:24:17.220Now I wouldn't expect them to say he is one.
00:24:50.300If you really search to try to find somebody, but the vast majority, even if they wind up okay in the long run, like a Drew Barrymore, go through the Drew Barrymore addict stage where the mother's taking him to parties and they're taking drugs at age eight or whatever her story is.
00:25:29.340Uh, he thought that they were having problems, Ventura and Combs.
00:25:33.160By 2011, that they weren't dating anymore.
00:25:35.860And, uh, Combs told kid Cuddy by phone in December, 2011, that he wanted to talk to him because he understood there might be something going on with.
00:26:00.240Combs was not there, however, but he found his security cameras had been moved.
00:26:04.700Gifts he bought for his family had been opened and his dog was locked in the bathroom, which he testified was disturbing to him.
00:26:14.660Um, after the break in kid Cuddy spent the holidays with Ventura's family and received a few texts from Combs.
00:26:20.020But the rapper was not interested in talking to him, citing that he believed Combs, uh, and he believed Combs was responsible for the break in, said kid Cuddy, noting that he filed a police report over it.
00:26:32.260He, he definitely thought he was being harassed, uh, by, by Sean Diddy Combs over this blossoming relationship with Cassie Ventura.
00:26:40.520Yeah. Then, uh, this was, okay. December, 2011 in 2011, January, 2012, kid Cuddy said his dog watcher called him from his home to tell him his car was on fire.
00:26:52.580I hate when that happens, right? I mean, that last time we had that argument over space, next thing I knew my Beamer was gone.
00:27:01.220But looking at the photos, kid Cuddy explained, it looked quote, like the top of my Porsche was cut open and that's where the Molotov cocktail was put in, causing further damage that could not be salvaged.
00:27:13.640Combs and kid Cuddy then met in person. Oh, look, this is the picture for the listening audience.
00:27:18.800We're looking at his Porsche, which does not look like a Porsche. I don't even know what that is. I guess that's the top. Is that the soft top of his Porsche? Can't even.
00:27:27.180I can't tell if it's a hard top or not.
00:27:29.060I have no idea, but it no longer looks like a car. Oh, that's the seat. Oh, look, that's like the seat that's been, that been on fire.
00:27:38.220That looks like a hard top. It looks like shattered glass.
00:27:40.280That looks like a hard top that's been ripped open. And I guess a Molotov cocktail dropped in. So this is the, the apex of the testimony here. He says, um, finally, he asked him for a meeting. He said, I figured I better talk to him. Things were escalating.
00:27:55.020And clearly this guy who is like kind of bad-ass in his own right was afraid of Sean Combs because he didn't know what he was capable of. But to your point, or did he?
00:28:04.460Uh, he said Kid Cudi arrived to his meeting who was with him and Combs was alone. He said, quote, Combs was standing there staring out the window at this, uh, Soho house out the, staring at the window with his hands behind his back, like a Marvel supervillain.
00:28:19.740And the pair went on to discuss Kid Cudi's relationship with Ventura from start to finish.
00:28:24.160She testified when Kid Cudi asked Combs about the damage to his car. Combs said, I don't know what you're talking about.
00:28:31.480Kid Cudi didn't believe him. Uh, they ran into each other years later, uh, 2015. So three years later at a club, Combs pulled Kid Cudi aside and Kid Cudi said Combs apologized to him.
00:28:44.220Kid Cudi added, he found peace with the situation after that. Uh, Kid Cudi did testify that Cassie Ventura told him there was physical abuse in her relationship with Combs that he would sometimes hit and kick her, which bothered Kid Cudi, but he did not hear about any sexual abuse.
00:29:04.660But there it is looking like a Marvel supervillain, which by the way, there was no objection to, which I would have objected to had I been interesting. Yeah. Sean's a lawyer, but that image is now it's seared, right? Like with the hands behind the back, you can picture it.
00:29:21.560Oh yeah. And I actually would never have assumed that Combs was alone. He may have been standing alone, but I would assume he's got guys all over that room or like cameras all over that room.
00:29:31.380My other question. So first of all, I was talking to the Daily Mail reporter who's in that courtroom every day. And when the, um, the apology came up, I said, well, did Sean Combs offer to pay him back? No. Class does not exist with this guy on any level. You know, I'm sorry. I blew up your car, but I'm not going to give you the money. Okay. Right. Um, but you know, the other thing is sort of like the Kid Cudi stuff is just remarkable to me. Again, I can't believe this guy is testifying.
00:30:00.160I can't believe he's not afraid. And I can't believe that like Usher's name came in this week. I think there are many other people who are very worried about their names coming in. You know, I go back to this LeBron, uh, video that was a zoom between, uh, him and Diddy and Diddy's on the top panel and, and LeBron's on the bottom.
00:30:22.160And LeBron is saying, ain't no party like a Diddy party. And they're all laughing, you know, I, you know, the, the, the amount of people who knew, and, you know, to your point, the last time we talked about it, like perhaps it's just normalized in that world. Like it's a sex party, it's a sex and drug party and stuff gets crazy. And that's it. But I find it hard to, like the way Wendy Williams blanched, he just said, Oh, I met your kid backstage.
00:30:48.420And she, you know, no, it would be terrifying. Yeah. I mean, I remember interviewing Vladimir Putin and, um, it was getting tense between us and he mentioned my children.
00:31:01.100What? Yeah. And I remember like, okay, I see what's happening here. I mean, this is what people do. It's like an implicit threat. It's just letting you know, they're aware of what's important to you. And that's all, that's all it takes. You don't have to be more explicit than that. And, and, you know, it's one thing LeBron to know about sex parties. It's quite another to know about beatings, regular beatings, which are illegal.
00:31:29.480That is one, a sex party isn't necessarily illegal. It is technically if you hire sex workers and if you're allegedly trafficking the other participant, but there's no question that repeated beatings, that's a battery. It's an assault. It can be a lot more. And everybody in the Diddy circle looked the other way and very few of any intervened to help her. They allowed it.
00:31:53.240Here's the next guy, George Kaplan, former assistant to Sean Diddy Combs. He prior to testifying and without the jury present invoked his fifth amendment. Whoa. He was like, I am not saying anything cause I will be incriminated. And the prosecution offered him an immunity deal, which he then took. The judge watched him sign it. And once you sign an immunity deal, you can no longer assert the fifth amendment. So he was forced to take the stand. The jury didn't know he had signed that.
00:32:17.000I think they, I think they thought he was just there voluntarily. And he testified about three incidents, instances where he witnessed violence from Sean Combs twice with Cassie Ventura in 2015 on Combs's private jet.
00:32:30.820Uh, and then another incident later in the year where he said he saw Ventura with visible injuries at one of Combs's homes. He testified to witnessing yet another round of violent behavior where he saw Combs throw a number of decorative or real. He wasn't sure which green apples at another girlfriend hard. He said like really trying to whip her with them. He was unsure if any of them actually hit the woman, but it wasn't for lack of trying.
00:32:56.660Um, he said he was the guy during his period of employment where he had to go clean up the hotel rooms after Combs was in there. He was worried that hotel staff would try to sell content from his room to the magazines to try to make money. Uh, he gave notice. He was leaving in September 15 and finally left in December of 2015. Uh, saying quote, the central reason that I left my job as Mr. Combs assistant was that I was not comfortable or aligned with the physical behavior that had been going on.
00:33:26.100That I had seen pieces of over the course of a couple of months. Uh, and then there's Mila Morales, former makeup artist for Combs and Ventura, who said when she first met Cassie, Cassie was 16. She was so young. This is three years before she was introduced to Diddy. And, um, she was doing her makeup regularly when she signed with Bad Boy Records, his label in 2007.
00:33:47.160And she was like a younger sister to Maya. She witnessed after a party at Prince's house, Ventura and Morales, the makeup artist, went back to a hotel room. This is around Grammy weekend, 2010.
00:34:01.540And Combs made his way to the room where Ventura was, closed the door behind him and yelling and screaming ensued, Morales said. When Combs stormed out, Ventura was distraught with a swollen eye, a busted lip and knots on her head. The makeup artist took Ventura to her home where she stayed for a few days. Morales did not call the police because she feared Combs and she feared for her life.
00:34:21.160She had a doctor friend look at Ventura who said she needed to go to the emergency room. Ventura refused. The pair never spoke of the incident again. And there was testimony by another witness that, um, she saw Combs, um, try to hit Ventura with a cast iron skillet that she was making eggs in.
00:34:41.320And, um, then he whipped, uh, I don't think I'm conflating my two. There's been so much evidence of abuse, but I think that this is the one woman's testimony. He tried to whip a wooden hanger at her head. And then the next thing, uh, she knew Cassie asked to see her. They had lunch together and Cassie had $30,000 for her in a nondisclosure agreement and said, just, you're making too big a deal out of it. And the woman signed the NDA and the friendship ended with Cassie.
00:35:11.320Because the woman just couldn't take the amount of abuse Cassie was getting. And now she'd been dragged into it. I mean, that's what people like, look, people who just want to run cover for Diddy are focusing on the testimony that I've mentioned, you know, that she has emails suggesting she wanted the freak offs from time to time. She testified the lifestyle was important to her and she didn't want to leave it. And there was some strain of materialism in her. Um, she quote played Kid Cudi and Diddy, which the defense is going to try to say what kind she's empowered.
00:35:40.160What, what, what victim who's feeling controlled would cheat on the abuser and be controlling another man. That's where the, but there, there is a tidal wave of evidence that he was abusing her. Everyone saw it over years. We've covered the whole gamut. This is 15 of this abuse, the 16 intercontinental issue, the 2011 and 2012 stuff, Kid Cudi and like it went on for years.
00:36:05.160And this clearly was not an empowered woman who felt comfortable dealing with him from any position of power.
00:36:13.160I couldn't agree with you more. I mean, I think one of the things we're coming to terms with as a culture, and we're really maturing in terms of understanding the nuances of victims of domestic violence is that there is no perfect victim.
00:36:25.520There is no, you, you, you, there is no perfect victim. And the level, the, the violence with which he assaulted her, you know, going for the head.
00:36:35.640So often, he was trying to disfigure her. He was trying to mar her beauty. And that video that we all saw of him kicking her in that hotel elevator bank slash hallway.
00:36:47.320That to me is a woman who's been there so many times before she went limp. She was like a possum. She went like a, she shaped herself like a C to cover her internal organs. She was just going to take it as best as she could. I don't know if it becomes kidnapping once she's, it does leave. Okay, great.
00:37:05.400It does. Him dragging her down the hall and putting her back in that hotel room is kidnapping right there.
00:37:09.360Good. I thought so. And then you're not telling me that he's done this to her and there aren't a legion of women out there. He's also done this too.
00:37:17.340Because guys like this don't do it to just one person. And that says to me, there are many women out there who are still far too afraid of Diddy to file a civil suit or to raise their hand and say, if you want me prosecution, I'll testify, you know?
00:37:32.760Well, think about one of the testimonials this week was from the agent who conducted the raid on his Miami home. Two of his homes were raided. And of course it was tons of baby oil and tons of lube.
00:37:46.020Well, that's where I was going. And, and so the guns, he found parts of guns disassembled. He found a fully intact gun in his security shack. And the Diddy Cross examination was basically, you realize he's one of the most well-known figures in the world and people want to kill him.
00:38:00.200And yes, of course he would have an armed security guard around him, but let's not pretend Diddy is not a violent man for the record. He denies these charges, but he's a violent man. We saw that on that tape. That's why the fact that it is on tape.
00:38:13.680And the jury has seen the level of depravity that this man has when it comes to treating a fellow human being, another one, a woman who's half his size and half his weight and totally powerless to stop him is so important.
00:38:26.520We don't have to wonder. He did it. We saw it. He, he started beating her shortly after they got together in 2007. That's what the proof has been. And all the way through this, the videotape that we watched is 2016. That's almost 10 years later.
00:38:44.960Who, who, who that's empowered, who that has any sort of equality, nevermind equal strength in the relationship stays for nine years of beatings. I don't think they actually broke up until 2018.
00:38:58.220I mean, if you even just think about the, the humiliation that's involved and how, like how regularly Sean Combs had been beating Cassie in front of other people that he thought nothing of beating her in a public space.
00:39:13.060Those elevators could have opened at any time when that security guard shows up on that new footage that we've just seen. And I was listening to you talk about, cause I didn't realize this and it was so enlightening, you know, that's enough.
00:39:25.100So I'm like, okay, so a third party saw this and what happened, what happened? And I believe it was the same security guy who was told we don't do anything about this. And he took video on his own phone of the video because he kind of knew it would disappear.
00:39:42.100He said he was going to show it to his wife that he was going home on a Friday and, uh, he wanted to show it to his wife. And it was a good thing because by Monday when he got back to work, it was gone. The original was gone.
00:39:54.020And thank God he did tape that, you know, I mean, we never found out who was the source of the CNN leak. That's how we came to know that tape. CNN got their hands on it and aired it. And it was a game changer in the narrative around Diddy. Um, but one presumes he got it from this guy. I mean, I don't know, but where else did it come from? Didn't come from Diddy. We know that.
00:40:14.720But thank God he got it because we don't, we don't have to wonder what kind of a man he is now. We don't have to wonder whether this is an Amber Heard, Johnny Depp situation. We know, we know what kind of a man he is. And the evidence is overwhelming.
00:40:27.420And by the way, a source close to the case told me that it's not going to come down to Cassie because there's so much corroborating evidence that he was a serial abuser, bully.
00:40:40.060Kingpin of what looked like a crime ring all around his desire to do drugs, to use illegal prostitutes, to run these freak offs and to bully.
00:40:53.740And another word is sex traffic, his so-called love into being the star of his ill conceived sex romps, you know, by threatening her, by threatening her mom, by extorting her, by extorting her mom, by blowing up the cars of anybody she dared try to get away from him with.
00:41:13.860And by the way, to prove Rico, back to the discussion of the elements and the crimes, so we discussed coercion, like sex trafficking by coercion, but the big, big claim against him, count number one, is Rico, racketeering.
00:41:27.680And for that, you have to show two underlying predicate acts, they're called. It's two underlying crimes that your so-called mob boss or crime boss has committed or ordered committed in the context of this big crime organization you're accusing him of running.
00:41:41.480And typically it's used against crime bosses, but it's been used now in these more lurid sex cases too, like R. Kelly.
00:41:48.720And there are many crimes you can show, but bribery, like offering that security guard $100,000 to kill that tape.
00:41:56.900They've got testimony to prove bribery. Kidnapping, we watch that on tape.
01:12:44.000So, you know, you have to wait in the line to get your red shot, your red carpet shot.
01:12:49.920And I was going to get that red carpet shot because that was the reason to be there.
01:12:53.520You know, like I just felt like it was an F you bitches moment to like my old pals at NBC.
01:12:57.740It was just kind of nice from that standpoint.
01:12:59.520So I was waiting and, um, we were in front of, we were right behind.
01:13:05.360I forget, you know, I don't, I know nothing about the music industry, which I'm learning as I try to talk about the DJ, the Diddy trial, but I know very little.
01:13:12.420Um, but a big star, big music star and his wife.
01:13:16.460And, um, we'd all been waiting our turn, but this guy, forgive me for not knowing his name, but he was like the marquee talent for the night and everybody knew who he was, but not me.
01:36:12.680And that we all see her as that because what she's she feels guilty about the hundred and fifty million dollars she grifted off of being a fake royal.
01:37:36.360And also, I'm curious as to how she was going to give said speeches with a baby on her hip when Prince Harry has said the reason they left was largely to keep their children completely out of the public eye.
01:37:45.580Which she wants us to remind us of that she's a princess and she was part of the royal family.
01:37:49.520That's why she couldn't give the speeches, because there was a lot going on in my personal life at the time my babies were born.
01:37:54.360There was so much going on, like when you're slinging allegedly baseless accusations of racism against two of the most famous monarchs on the planet.
01:39:02.140I come off the golf course, and we were just chatting about different things, and that's when she said that she wanted to know how far Danvers was.
01:39:11.620And I was like, oh, are you getting married?