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The Current Transcript for September 5, 2018

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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VOICE: I felt like a cloud of veil had been lifted after my five day and I could function in the world with better grace and ease and I wanted that for everybody.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: It was a five day intensive initiation course that first hooked her. A young, smart B.C. woman, open to self-improvement and the discipline to get there. Over more than a decade, she would rise through the ranks of the organization only to unwittingly descend into its depths. All the while revering the leader of a group called NXIVM and now she's out. And NXIVM has been exposed as, in the words of the FBI, a cult. So how does someone who seems so savvy, choose to go so far down that path?, In a moment the producers of the podcast, Escaping NXIVM, explain their quest for the answer to that simple confounding question. Also today, another kind of reverence to a leader.

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VOICE: You've restored American credibility on the world stage. You've spurred an optimism in this country that's setting records. I'm deeply humbled as your vice president.

AMT: US Vice President, Mike Pence, famously piled on the praise for his president at a televised cabinet meeting. But ever notice that the VP is rarely around the White House when scandal hits? Some journalists tracking him argue he's got his own agenda for judicial, social and religious change that could far outlast any Trump. In an hour, hear Peter Eisner on the man he calls the "shadow president." And Colin Kaepernick took a knee and made a stand.

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VOICE: How can you stand for the national anthem of a nation that preaches and propagates freedom and justice for all. That is so unjust to so many of the people living there.

AMT: No NFL team wants him, but Nike has made him its public face. So a global athletic wear company and a powerful sports conglomerate square off on social justice. What's that really about? We're asking, in half an hour. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

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What new CBC podcast Uncover: Escaping NXIVM reveals about the alleged cult

Guests: Kathleen Goldhar, Josh Bloch

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VOICE: I'm the first one to arrive and you know I know that I'm going to initiation and I'm going to meet what she's called my sisters for the first time. And she says come upstairs and I've been to her home before, so I feel comfortable. And I went up the stairs and she says go in to the guest room and get get naked. Take off your clothes and wait here. Like what. And she's like Sarah, you have to get over your body issues. Like it's just me and women you know. It's going to be fine.

AMT: Well it was anything, but fine. That night, Sarah Edmondson, would have a man's initials burned into her flesh. It was all part of an initiation ceremony into what she thought was a secret women's empowerment group. And it's just the beginning of her story that is told in a new seven part CBC podcast series called, Uncover: Escaping NXIVM. The series focuses on a group called NXIVM. It calls itself a humanitarian community, the FBI calls it a cult and its leader Keith Raniere, is sitting in a federal prison awaiting trial. The new podcast launches today and it is produced by The Current's very own Josh Bloch and Kathleen Goldhar and they're with me in studio. Hi.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Hi Anna Maria.

JOSH BLOCH: Hi.

AMT: So she agrees to be branded?

KG: She does. She walks in there completely "under her own free will," sees somebody else get branded first and lies down on a table and allows it to happen.

AMT: So the obvious question, how does she end up in that place?

JB: So this is actually 12 years into her involvement in this group called NXIVM. And NXIVM claims to be a self-improvement and a humanitarian organization and they offer these expensive workshops to help people grow and be better people and Sarah was part of this. In fact, she was one of their star recruiters. She opened their Vancouver center, was facilitating these courses, recruiting people into the organization, but she also was very involved in her own personal growth as a member of this organization. And she gets invited 12 years into being a part of the group, by her best friend in the organization, who was a senior ranked member of NXIVM to join the secret women's group. And the idea was that this group would help her in her own personal growth. And part of the initiation to that group was to be branded. At that time she didn't know what the brand, she thought the brand was going to be a different symbol, a symbol representing the four elements and then only later discovers that in fact it includes the initials of the group's leader, Keith Raniere.

AMT: So Keith Raniere is the man who's in prison. Now you were both here a few months ago when he was arrested. Remind us what charges he faces, what's going on with him?

JB: So initially when we were here, he had been arrested for sex trafficking conspiracy, forced labor conspiracy and sex trafficking. And then since that time there have been more arrests and that was a total of six NXIVM leaders that have been arrested, all on the charges of racketeering conspiracy. So basically the FBI is saying that NXIVM is a criminal enterprise. They're engaged in illegal activity to earn money and to gain power.

AMT: And some of them are people they have acting careers. Some of them are names.

KG: Well yeah, I mean Allison Mack is probably the most famous one from Smallville, the actress. Another notable, certainly a big name in this is Claire Bronfman. She is one of the Seagram heiresses, her father was Edgar Bronfman. Her arrest was a big surprise to us, but a huge deal. She actually is out on bail, on a $100 million bail. I should say they've all pleaded not guilty and none of it's been tested in court. And we in fact talked to Keith Raniere's lawyer and the entire episode is dedicated to that conversation. And it's really fascinating to hear a completely different account of what NXIVM was. I mean their story is, the members of NXIVM and the members of DOS, the secret women's group, are consenting adults. And they were part of this willingly and there's no coercion and there's no manipulation. Keith's lawyer was very confident that his client would be exonerated.

AMT: Fascinating. So talk a little bit about NXIVM, but we know about the branding. I guess that's not the spoiler alert, like we've heard about this in the news and now you have a seven part podcast. What are you looking at?

JB: Well one of the things that compelled us to do create this podcast was hearing Sarah Edmondson's story. Sarah actually is someone I've known since daycare. And I ran into her last year and she told me she just left this group. I heard vaguely about her involvement in some kind of bizarre self-help organization. But as I started to learn about how deeply involved she was and the fact that she had agreed to get branded on her body. I started to wonder how is it that someone could make these decisions, that she could go down this path so far and in many ways growing up, we kind of followed a similar path. At some point our paths diverged and how is it that she made these choices and ended up on this table you know agreeing to get branded.

AMT: That's thing I keep turning around in my head. How do you end up down that path?

KG: Well that's what the podcast is about. It takes a look at those 12 years that she was in. It takes a look at who she was when she started. What she was searching for herself and how the group manipulated the way that she thought. I mean she always told us that one of the main messages was that NXIVM taught her to be a critical thinker. When now that she's out of it, she realizes it was doing the exact opposite. That it was manipulating and forcing her to think only one way. It's a question people ask us all the time, when they hear that we're working on this podcast. How did it happen? How did she do that? She seems like you and me. I mean she is like you and me.

AMT: Well I guess that one of the things we learn is that if you really want to control someone, you don't need shackles, you don't need a fence, you don't need a lock and key. You need to control their mind and then you just keep leading them, right?

JB: Exactly and I think that's really what the focus of our first episode is on. Is that Sarah for a good portion of this episode, takes us right inside what she is thinking during this branding ceremony and the whole mental process. The part of her brain that's saying get out, I have to run, I have to leave and the other part of herself that has now been so trained and amplified to say this is your problem. You don't follow through on stuff. You're not committed, you don't have as much character. And so we really get a sense by just hearing what her mental process is at the moment of this branding ceremony, what the kind of thinking was inside this group. We're going to play an excerpt from our first episode of Sarah describing what this branding ceremony looked like.

KG: And just a warning that it can be disturbing.

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VOICE: The hardest part for me is just when I go through it, like recognizing so many opportunities I had just to run. You know, it's so hard to explain to people why I felt like I couldn't. And so there's, while I'm talking about it's just mixed with all this like regret and shame of like everything about making a stupid decision. This feels like this worst, stupidest, most awful decision. I don't like the symbol. I say to Lauren this is a lot bigger than you said. This is not a dime size. And she was like, just brushed it off like she didn't know how to measure it. Like oh, you know I guess it's big. You know like and we asked to see hers and that's when she, didn't take her pants down all the way, but pulled it down far enough so we could see hers. And it was like this awful red scar. It wasn't like the delicate lines of the traced pencil, the stencil. And the first person lies down on the table and Lauren suggests that someone goes to her head and kind of give her you know, go above her like this and hold onto her arm just something to hold onto and grip and suggested the two women go down and help keep her legs down, so she wouldn't you know move and twitch too much so that the Danielle could do a straight line. At this point I'm recognizing there's no anesthetic. And then Dr. Roberts takes out this like a pen that has a laser tip to it. And I find out that it's a cauterizing iron. She's holding it over her skin and the first touch of the first line that she's tracing is about two inches. She takes a cauterizing and just touches a little like just touches her skin and she jumps. Like her whole body like jumps off the table like a dying fish, like she just flops and like flips and like screams and now she has this like little hole of bird flesh where the tip of the cauterizing iron has cut her. Lauren has given us these medical masks to cover our noses because of the smell and I'm looking at the girl who's, the woman who's at her feet. I can only see her eyes and we're both crying. And I'm with a friend who's hurt, who's in pain. You know she's in deep pain and I'm supposed to help her go through this. And at the same time I'm thinking how am I going to get out of here, like literally where is the backdoor? How do I escape? How do I let enough time go by so I can figure out how to get out? And it takes her 40 minutes at least, maybe 45 minutes to go through every line and in between each line, we stop and Lauren reads something about you know commitment and honour. And before we started we started by saying "Master, would you brand me? It would be an honour." That's how disembodied we all became that we had to become to go through that amount of pain. Two things happened. I pulled Lauren aside and I said I don't want this mark on my body and she said, you know why, what do you make it mean? And I said well, it's a mark. It's a scar. I don't have any scars, but I've got a pristine temple here. There's no piercings, there's no tattoos. I don't want this mark on my body. It's ugly. It's atrocious, it's painful and she said this pain is a symbol of your commitment to yourself. To the highest version of yourself. You're going to go through this and this will be a mark on your body that and she's like it's not a tattoo cause tattoos you can take off. This scar you will have forever because you're always going to be committed to your growth and to your highest self in this journey. Blah blah blah. And she also said to me, you're the highest rank here. Show them how to do it. Show them how you don't have to be so indulgent and then like in my head, also like Sarah, you said you're going to do this. You committed, you always you know you back out, you don't follow through. You know, you're looking for the back door, just like he says women do, like just do it. And I did. I lay on the table and I just went the most like relax and like you try to lay as still as possible because I saw what happened to the other women when they moved and how much longer it took and how it was like so much easier if you just didn't move. And so I lay there I thought about childbirth. I thought about how I've already been through pain before and like reached out to touch the top of his head and how loving I was as a mom. I could go through, just went into the most loving best place that I could, while the most searing awful pain was being dragged across my body and I every time I open my eyes there was Lauren staring at me lovingly and reading me the religious scripture about commitment and honour. I just was weeping and I looked at her and I loved her and I had feeling pain and then all these women around me like holding me and it was like awful. And at the same time in those moments, like crazy intense to go through this with a bunch of women that I was like starting to feel close to because we're going through of trauma together. I don't understand that at the time, I just think oh my God, this is crazy and I'm also like pushing myself just to get through it. It's like I can do this. I can do it and like almost competitive side of me, like I'm going to get through it, I'm the fastest and best at it. I'm going to show them all how to do it. I'm gonna just do it. And I did. It was like I think I don't know like 20 or 30 minutes, like it was the quickest. And Lauren was so proud of me and she was like you're amazing and you're so strong and I just was like I did it. I Was proud of myself. And when it was done, I had a moment of like yeah, I can do this, I can do anything.

AMT: Josh Bloch, Kathleen Goldhar just listening to an excerpt from Escaping NXIVM and that is Sarah Edmondson describing what you call "branding." I was kind of thinking it would be like that as that was. You know when you brand an animal with like the design it's on and it's gone. And this is they're tracing and it takes up to 45 minutes. They're wearing masks so they are protected from the smell of burning flash. And she thinks about getting away, but she's rooted in place.

JB: There's this real link in NXIVM between personal growth and suffering. And so, in fact at that point Sarah has told us how the feeling of pain and pushing through that pain is actually a good sign. And you can hear how proud she is there, that she sets it up for herself that I'm going to be the best at this. I'm going to lie there, I'm not going to flop like a fish. And so for her you know she's really equating those two things and I think in leaving the organization, she's having to do a lot of work and figuring out some of these core beliefs that were so much a part of her for so long, to really question is there value in that? Because I mean potentially there is a good idea about pushing ourselves and pushing our limits, but I think a lot of people would have a hard time in seeing the benefit and submitting yourself to that kind of pain.

AMT: It's an alternate reality, huh. It's like she's in another world.

KG: But they really base it in reality and they base it in her job and they base it in her sense of who she is and they base it in her family and her relationships. When she became a real NXIVM insider, she was still developing, I think as an adult and as a person and she was getting married and having a child, all through that. So who is she today? That's one of the things we really explore and that I find has taken us way past the story of the branding. That there's so much more to this story than the absolutely horrific evening where she had a cauterizing pen burn into her flesh for 25-30 minutes.

AMT: It's interesting. I have listened to the first two podcasts, which are out today, but that idea that somehow in the effort to make your world a better place, you keep following these people down. You guys talk about, they had colour coded sashes, they had secret handshakes, they had jargons, they had special prayers, they had all these plans to make everybody better, not just themselves. They're going to fix society.

KG: Trickled down humanitarianism.

AMT: That's what it's called?

KG: That's what it's called. And so Josh and I kept saying so what did you do? What did you do? And they all said, we had to fix ourselves first and then we'll all speak the same language. And then the next person will be fixed and the next person will be fixed.

AMT: So in hindsight, that's the hook they use right and that's you start to follow them down that tunnel. But the question is how does someone who's smart and a critical thinker, how do they get into that they keep walking down that tunnel to the point where even when Keith Raniere, when people were doing articles on Keith Raniere, they were questioning what this organization was, but it was like fake news right?

KG: It's not a new thing. They keep them in a classroom for five full days or 16 full days. They keep them hungry till the end of the day. They talk to them until they can't think straight anymore and then they send them home and then they bring them back. I mean that is what these groups do. So that isn't particularly new or surprising. What I find we did in this podcast that gives us better insight into those five days, into the way your brain and your thinking allows you to do exactly what you find so surprising.

JB: And Sarah does talk about how from very early on they kind of inoculate their members against criticism, especially from the press. With this idea that, look the media can say anything and you can write anything about anyone. So if you don't see it firsthand, how do you know it's true? It appears what Sarah suggests that it was already kind of a plan in place that if there was serious media criticism or if the government came after them, the membership would stick by Keith. I mean his take was look I'm a radical thinker. He would liken himself to Martin Luther King and say when someone comes along with new ideas, there's going to be pushback. No one likes change and that's a good sign. If you see people pushing back, that means we're doing something different, doing something radical and we're going to change the world.

AMT: I'm so interested in hearing how this unfolds, in terms of again, someone you might pass on the street who's living a completely different reality, but you can't tell.

KG: And she looked very successful. She was very successful. She made a lot of money. Her group in Vancouver was popular. People were coming in. She was very tapped into the acting world and the yoga world and it was great and.

AMT: She belonged.

KG: She totally belonged and when she had a problem, they helped her. This blew up, which meant that her support system, her friends, the people she would call on when she needed help have completely pushed her out. There's a lot of grief and mourning for her. And there's a lot of sense of responsibility and guilt. I mean there's a lot going on with somebody who's walking away from this.

AMT: So you released the first two episodes of the podcast today?

JB: That's correct. And then we're going to be releasing two a week for the month of September.

AMT: Escaping NXIVM. Thank you.

JB: Thank you.

KG: Thank you.

AMT: Josh Bloch and Kathleen Goldhar are co-creators of CBC's new podcast series, Uncover: Escaping NXIVM. The first two episodes as you heard of the series, now available. Subscribe to the podcast for free by going to cbc.ca/uncover or wherever you get your podcasts. The CBC News is next and then Nike and Colin Kaepernick just did what? Parsing the endorsement deal that has divided Americans, right after the news. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current. On CBC Radio One, Sirius XM, online on cbc.ca/thecurrent and on podcast.

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Nike needs to learn how to 'become more like Kaepernick,' not just profit off him, author says

Guests: Morgan Campbell, Charles Robinson, Anand Giridharadas

AMT: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

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Coming up in a moment, putting the just in "Just Do It." But first, on tomorrow's program we are returning to Humboldt, Saskatchewan. With a new season getting underway for the Broncos hockey team, we'll hear how the community is learning to move on or trying to move on from this past spring's tragic bus crash. And we'll also hear how grief and loss made time stop for one family.

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VOICE: They grew up on the farm, they grew up where they work. So every time you do something that's a memory and that's another memory. Like that old truck that I just drove in the yard, that was like his favorite truck. He learned how to drive with that truck.

AMT: And he loved this farm, didn't he?

VOICE: Just this morning, coming down the road and there was a big bull moose just on the other side of my yard here. And that's kind of the thing he loved to see. You know a big bull moose just walking across the field or you know we have deer come right in the yard, that kind of thing. He loved the farm and it's, there's just a lot of memories. It's harvest has been, the whole year has been tough. Who wanted to put a crop in the ground even?

AMT: Well we'll hear more on tomorrow's program, as I share my visit to Humboldt, Saskatchewan. But right now, the gamble on Kaepernick.

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[American National Anthem]

VOICE 1: Overnight, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, refusing to stand during the national anthem. Again. This time, he took a knee, right behind hundreds of service members being honoured on Military Appreciation Night.

VOICE 2: And he's receiving heavy boos here.

VOICE 3: The crowd booing every time he took a snap.

AMT: Colin Kaepernick may not have played in the National Football League since 2016, but he's front and center once again as the NFL starts its new season tomorrow. This week he became the face of Nike's 30th anniversary "Just Do It" ad campaign. It's a controversial choice. He took a need to protest police brutality against African-Americans, he inspired others to join him, but his stance appeared to cost him dearly. And now he's suing the NFL, alleging team owners colluded to keep him unsigned to any team. The combination of this controversial quarterback with the world's largest sports, footwear and apparel company has been combustible. Sometimes literally.

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VOICE 1: Sorry, Nike. I've been buying you for the past 20 plus years. Not anymore. Not am I only burning my favorite pair of Nike's, you are burning your sales. Have a good day.

VOICE 2: Five pairs of shoes and they're all going to let them burn. Because Nike decided to make Colin Kaepernick, their ambassador. Well he doesn't share the same opinions as the people.

AMT: There's been plenty of support online for the Nike deal too.

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VOICE 1: I think Nike did an amazing job and I think they did the right move by signing Kaepernick. Whether it's a money grab for them or not because they know there is a big, big fan base that would support them for signing Nike, to me that's not the issue.

VOICE 2: His story is starting to become a narrative, where you're seeing heroicism. You're starting to see him as a hero, in the same room that people did Muhammad Ali back in the day. Because remember Muhammad Ali was like I ain't going to no Vietnam. And so now, that narrative is changing for Colin Kaepernick. It's making people uncomfortable because they were like no we thought we finished him. What is he doing getting a Nike ad? Why is he the face of anything?

AMT: Positive or negative, the endorsement has garnered Nike a tremendous amount of free publicity. More than $40 million U.S. worth in just 24 hours, according to one estimate. But with Colin Kaepernick set to become a prominent face for the company for years to come, it suggests Nike has concluded a player's political protests could be a winner for its bottom line or at least worth the risk. I'm joined by two guests who've been tracking the reaction to this deal. Morgan Campbell is a reporter with The Toronto Star, who writes about the intersection of sports and business. He's with me in our Toronto studio. And Charles Robinson is a senior NFL reporter for Yahoo. He's in Houston, Texas. Hello, gentlemen. Welcome.

MORGAN CAMPBELL: Great to be here.

CHARLES ROBINSON: Thank you for having me.

AMT: I have to ask you. Nike has this big ad campaign with Kaepernick. It also and Charles you've written about this, it also has the contract for most of the NFL franchise uniforms. Are we being played here?

CR: Well it's definitely strange bedfellows. You know they've extended that contract actually out to 2028. So it's a 10 year deal, but at the end of the day, Nike and the NFL both know that this is about the bottom line and I think the NFL put out a statement yesterday, essentially saying that a whole lot of nothing. You know the issues that are being raised by Colin Kaepernick are important and they should be recognized. I think both sides here at least in this business deal know that the bottom line is lucrative for each of them and it makes no sense for either to attack each other on this landscape, even though it's clearly awkward that Nike has signed Colin Kaepernick and I'm not entirely sure that they gave the NFL the heads up. It looked like the NFL was a little bit on its heels with its statement.

AMT: Morgan what are you thinking, as you watch all this?

MC: Well as far as the NFL and the Nike deal and Colin Kaepernick are concerned, we also have to remember the NFL, no one at the NFL or the owners of any of these various teams are in a position to criticize this deal in public because their official public position, especially as this lawsuit is concerned is that there's nothing wrong with Colin Kaepernick as a guy. The whole reason he's not in the NFL is simply because he's not good enough. This is what they're saying. Now if they come out and say this is a bad deal because Colin Kaepernick is controversial, then that lends credence to Colin Kaepernick's argument that the reason he's not in the NFL is because of his politics, not because of his ability to play the game. So from Kaepernick's perspective, whatever critics he might have in the NFL or among NFL owners, have been kind of checkmated and muzzled by this move because they can't say anything bad about it in public because that helps him.

AMT: Other people can however. I want to play a clip for you, which sums up a lot of the criticism of the deal. This is former Republican governor Mike Huckabee speaking on Fox Business Network yesterday.

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VOICE: So why are they somehow elevating him to some hero status. I mean they used to have guys like Michael Jordan and the top athletes in their field and now they got a guy who nobody wants to have him on their team and he's primarily known for his protests and wearing socks with policemen depicted as pigs. I'm wondering if Nike is going to sell those socks as part of their new deal with him. And it's also a way to wave the middle finger at half the American voters and half the American public, who are leading the NFL in droves, not only in television ratings, but in the purchase of merchandise and tickets. And there are a lot of empty seats in NFL games right now cause people are just fed up.

AMT: OK. So that is former Republican governor Mike Huckabee, father of Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who speaks for Donald Trump. Charles Robinson, what do you think of what he's saying? Does this ad campaign risk further alienating NFL fans?

CR: It's not even factual. I mean look I'm just going to be honest here. It's what he's saying, the NFL's own private research data does not back up what he said. So about a year ago, the NFL commissioned a study through GPG, which is a Washington-based consultancy firm and they asked fans do you think Colin Kaepernick should have a job in the NFL? And what they got in terms of data when it came back was overwhelmingly minorities and liberals supported Kaepernick. And I think you know so much of what we expected, the aging demographic and in particularly, white males did not. Now what was really interesting was when you looked at the data in terms of age demographics, by far millennials I think it was almost a 3 to 1 margin, supported Colin Kaepernick. And for both the NFL and also Nike, guess what demographic they're seeking out for the next wave? The NFL and Nike are both seeking out millennials. They're seeking out minorities. They're seeking out a larger broader base than frankly the aging white male that currently exists as a primary you know ticket buyer. Primary merchandise buyer. I heard the clip when we came in, you had someone saying well, geez I bought Nikes for 20 years and now I'm going to burn them. Well guess what, Nike is not concerned about the 40 year and overcrowd, the 50 year and overcrowd. They're aiming for the younger demographic, the same demographic they were aiming for when they put Michael Jordan and Spike Lee in a very, very forward Mars Blackmon themed campaign. The Charles Barkley, "I am not a role model" campaign, which was highly unpopular. This is not new ground for Nike. And I think this is something that politicians fail to understand. They're very good at this.

AMT: Morgan, what do you think?

MC: One thing, we're not going to do is get me to engage Mike Huckabee and take him seriously on anything. Cause we're not doing that this morning. But what I will say is this, further to Charles's point, look the guy has been, the cranky old white guy conservative, probably racist or at least racist white guy who's burning his Nike's and he's been buying them for 20 years allegedly. He's about to he's aging out of Nike's demographic. He's about to start buying you know Rockports anyway and New Balance mall walkers right. So it really doesn't matter. And the thing about.

CR: Ooh those are fighting words, keep going. Mall walkers.

MC: But Nike, here's what people miss. And this is the calculation Nike made, which is the exact opposite of the calculation that ESPN made with Jemele Hill, when Jemele Hill called Donald Trump a white supremacist, which is the only thing you can call the guy that defends white supremacists. But ESPN said well we will listen to this small, but really loud group of conservatives who may or may not even be our customers, but we will buckle to them anyway and discipline Jemele Hill over this. And what Nike has said is the opposite. Like OK you guys can make noise, burn your shoes online. You guys already paid for the shoes by the way, so we got your money. I mean the other thing is the NFL and Nike are not selling the same thing. Right? The NFL is selling you know violence wrapped in pageantry and performative patriotism and show business and all this. Nike is selling performance, but Nike is also selling cool. So you can try to align yourself with Donald Trump. Do things that will make him happy. Do things that will please his constituents, but for all those things those guys are the thing they are not is cool. So it really doesn't matter if you do something that riles them up because they're not cool. They're not the people you're looking to sell to anyway.

AMT: Morgan what do you think of that? And when we heard those clips go by somebody talking about Muhammad Ali, making him, putting him in that sort of that category.

MC: Yeah. And it's really fraught territory to compare Ali to Kaepernick directly. But the bigger point is Ali is a guy who was very controversial in real time. You know his marketability really suffered in real time. That's one of the reasons he wound up fighting here in Toronto against George Chuvalo in 1966 is because closed circuit venues and different arenas didn't, one they didn't want to license him in a lot of states and two closed circuit venues said we're not going to sell this fight. This guy is controversial. So his payday was shrinking, he had to come here. But years past, history vindicates Muhammad Ali. Turns out he was on the right side of the Vietnam War conflict. So what Nike has done is made this calculation and said well why don't we be the guys who side with the controversial figure in real time, knowing that 20 years from now, we will look like geniuses for having sided with the guy that history is going to wind up vindicating.

AMT: There's another aspect to this. Nike also faces blowback from some of its long-time critics. This is Madeline Ochabillo below. She's a member of the United Students Against Sweatshops and they campaign for workers rights and they've specifically campaigned against Nike.

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VOICE: This ad shows that Nike is trying to pick and choose what side of justice they're choosing to stand on. So from our point of view, it's like if Nike wants to support racial justice in the US, like they're doing with this ad. They have to support racial justice abroad too, which includes their workers that work in factories in Indonesia and other countries. And if they're choosing to produce their apparel under sweatshop conditions then it's obvious that they are not being consistent.

AMT: What do you guys think of that, Charles?

CR: I think that's absolutely a fair criticism. It's awkward. It's always been awkward territory for Nike, when it's come to taking a moral or social stance in the world because the backdrop, the silhouette behind Nike, has always been overseas conditions and factories. And it's no different than when Apple takes a stand or you know any multinational, I don't want to say any multinational corporation, but many multinational corporations that choose to wade waist deep into you know socially conscious behavior. The first question is well, where are you when you have you know far below minimum wage workers overseas, when factory conditions are poor. Nike has had to deal with that and Apple's the same. It's an awkward space that Nike has to coexist in. It's similar to other corporations and I think people who want to criticize them for that are absolutely right to do so.

AMT: Morgan, how do you think this deal might change the calculation for athletes who weigh the risks and rewards of speaking out about politics and controversial issues?

MC: I think for guys in the NFL and in the NBA especially this season, these two upcoming seasons, they'll feel more empowered to speak out because like LeBron James for the last five years has not made any effort to hide where he stands on politics and race. But he's already under contract with Nike. What Nike has shown now that they'll resign Kaepernick, not in spite of it, maybe because of the stances he's taken. So people don't have to be afraid that being, well certain people don't have to be afraid, that being politically engaged and explicitly pro black is necessarily going to cost you money. Now all of this depends though on the individual. Again like Lebron James, he can criticize the president, he never has to worry about losing any job. Kaepernick has gotten this new partnership, you know, but other guys can't be quite so explicit, but there's definitely a lot more room to breathe and to speak on this issue than there was two weeks ago.

AMT: Charles, what do you think?

CR: Yeah, I agree. I think there's still a risk reward that everyone has to the process they have to go through of weighing out. Look LeBron under contract, Colin Kaepernick, you can argue that there were certain aspects of his football career that at the time were dipping. But you know again, I still think this is a guy who belongs in the NFL, but in terms of the risk factor, it doesn't go back to say a Michael Jordan, who was someone who became a billionaire because of his relationship with Nike and always protected that and obviously there's the famous Republicans buy shoes too, when he was always asked, you know why are you not more political? So there's a risk reward process that everyone has to go through in their mind, but I do want to mention there's one really interesting thing about this and I think Nike knows this. The further that we get away from a protest like this, historically whether it's 10 years or 20 years, we tend to look back more favorably on protests.

MC: Absolutely.

CR: Where someone lost something right in the process. So I think Nike knows that in the longer view, this side of the ledger is going to be the favorable side of the ledger historically.

AMT: OK we'll leave it there. Thank you both for weighing in on this.

MC: Anytime.

CR: Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

AMT: That's Morgan Campbell, reporter at the Toronto Star, who writes about the intersection of sports and business. He's in our Toronto studio. Charles Robinson is a senior NFL reporter for Yahoo. He's in Houston, Texas. When it comes to corporations involving themselves with political causes, things get complicated very quickly. In this case, consider that just as Nike was making Colin Kaepernick one of its most prominent endorsers, the company was also reinking a billion dollar deal with the NFL to supply the team uniforms. Anand Giridharadas has been watching this unfold. He is the author of, Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World. He's in New York City. Hi.

ANAND GIRIDHARADAS: Thanks for having me.

AMT: Well what are your thoughts as you listen to our last two guests and as you sort of keep turning over your head what's been going on with Colin Kaepernick.

AG: You know I'm not a sports journalist and I'm not even a very good athlete. But I come at this from a different angle, which is I've spent the last three years writing this book, winners take all about what happens when wealthy corporations and individuals try to take over social change and the quest for justice. And one of the things that I found is that you have this Nike you know embrace Kaepernick is in no way unique. Every corporation in America seems to be trying to get in on the game of changing the world and making it a better place. They have you know so you know McDonald's maybe builds playgrounds for people. And Pepsi has some exercise program and Goldman Sachs you know creates green bonds and tries to create recidivism bonds to help prisoners and donates to a charter school in Harlem and you know every rich person is setting up foundations and the whole mess of it. And the question is, in the United States this also happens to be the most unequal and angry time in a very very long time as we are reminded every day by our dumpster fire president and the conditions that enabled him. So the question is why is it that we live in this age where companies are seemingly trying to do so much as Nike is and yet we're living in the kind of awful time we are. And what I found in reporting the book is that this corporate elite helpfulness is not only not enough, it's actually sustaining the problem. Because what happens when companies like Nike try to get in on social change is they try to water social change down. Kaepernick is someone I truly deeply respect and a real warrior for social change. My concern is that when Nike tries to associate itself with him, it is trying to do so on the cheap. It's trying to essentially have his glow reflect on Nike. What it is not trying to do, but what I would think it would be very interesting if it tried to do, would be to actually learn from Kaepernick. How could Nike actually become more like Kaepernick. How could it actually learn to practice what he preaches around and that slogan around you know believe in something so you'd be willing to sacrifice everything. If they actually had that ethic as a company, well wow then the woman that I met and interviewed at the Nike store some years ago, perhaps wouldn't be employed in the way she is. The way millions of Americans are employed precariously. She was, this particular woman was employed 18 or 19 hours a week. She wanted you know full time employment. They kept her hours low so they wouldn't have to give her benefits. They told her to keep her full week free. So you know because they don't know when they're going to call her in, so she can't take a second job, even though she's only getting 18 or 19 hours from one company. And the reality is they change her schedule as is again typical, the way many American corporations behave, you know with very little notice. And I asked her you know why, what do you say. And she said you know we all complain, we're disposable, they don't care. Nike has also had the sweatshop problems that you referenced and by the way, it's had sexual harassment problems where while it was doing another charitable change the world initiative called The Girl Effect, trying to lecture societies around the world about how to treat their girls better, it was harassing its own grown women who worked for Nike.

AMT: So you have actually.

AG: Social change is often about companies wanting to "change the world" without wanting their world to change.

AMT: I think that the phrase you've used is the arsonists have rebranded themselves as the firefighters.

AG: That's exactly right. I mean and again, it's not just Nike. The people who caused the financial crisis in the United States and which rippled around the world, are now staffing the boards of the antipoverty organizations that help the people reeling still from the financial crisis whose recovery they have not yet experienced. The people who have helped fatten and give diabetes to America's children you know fund public health institutes that push anti-obesity campaigns, even as those same companies lobby against laws to improve nutrition for children and regulate them.

AMT: But hang on a second. Let me just ask you though, given despite that you know Nike's VP of Brand Marketing Gino Fisanotti says, Colin Kaepernick is "one of the most inspirational athletes of this generation who's leveraged the power of sport to help move the world forward and we want to energize its meaning." Is this even given what you say, is it better that they did this and that they have put their weight behind him with this campaign versus not?

AG: I have no problem with them putting their weight behind you know a good cause. But what often happens is coopting. So I just want to make sure, for me it's just not enough that Nike associates its brand and therefore sells more running shorts because they're associated with a genuine hero. What would be more important, would be for that hero to teach Nike something. I want Nike to not just you know profit from you know Kaepernick taking the knee, I want them to actually sit at Kaepernick's knee and learn from him and become more like him and actually show the rest of corporate America, an ethic where you actually believe in something enough to sacrifice for it. If there are companies that are doing that, I don't see them.

AMT: I was just going to ask you, before I let you go. Is there a company that took on a social or political issue and got it right in your view?

AG: I think if you look in a not too different space, you look at Patagonia. Patagonia is a company that actually doesn't do this kind of huge branding and getting its name out there in the same way. But you know from from all the reporting that I've seen, is a company that has thought about these issues of justice and sustainability et cetera and embedded them through everything they do. It doesn't, it's not one of these companies that has you know five-year-old kids stitching things, while also branding social justice campaigns. I think the challenge when you do this kind of coopting of these social movements, but you're not actually willing to change yourself as a company. The challenge is you end up helping the same people you are screwing. You end up standing up let's say for young African-Americans dealing with police brutality, which is what Kaepernick is protesting and that's great that Nike is standing with those young African-Americans. But some of those young African-Americans are probably employed by Nike in its stores and bring precariously employed, underpaid and prevented from forming a career.

AMT: OK. Anand, we're out of time. We have to leave it there. We hear you. Thanks for sharing those thoughts.

AG: Thanks to be here and check out the book, Winners Take All.

AMT: OK. Anand Giridharadas, author of, Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World. He joined us from New York City. Let us know what you think. Tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook. Go to our website cbc.ca/the current. Click on contact. And stay with us, in our next half hour, speaking of a divided America.

SOUNDCLIP

AMT: Thanks to the leadership of President Donald Trump. Welcome to the beginning of the end of ObamaCare.

AMT: What would a Mike Pence presidency look like? Journalist, Peter Eisner, joins us. He's the author of, The Shadow President.

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How Mike Pence plans to become the next U.S. president: author

Guests: Peter Eisner

AMT: Hi. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you are listening to The Current.

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VOICE: America has elected a new president and it's almost hard for me to express the honour that I and my family feel that we will have the privilege to serve as your vice president of the United States of America.

AMT: Well that was the other acceptance speech on US Election Night of 2016. Mike Pence is now one heartbeat away from the highest office in the land. Compared to his commander in chief, the vice president keeps a fairly low profile and the devoutly Christian socially conservative former governor of Indiana remains popular with most Republicans, although not with all.

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VOICE: He is a titanic and I mean titanic fraud. We've listened to this guy for many, many years in this country on his moral high horse. Assaulting the dignity of gay people. Across the board, his moral preening is famous throughout the land, yet he is the most obsequious of all of Trumps cultists in the cabinet.

AMT: Well that unvarnished assessment comes from Steve Schmidt, former senior campaign strategist to Senator John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. Steve Schmidt has left the Republican Party now and with all the scandals enveloping the Oval Office right now, Mike Pence may yet end up taking his boss's place as president of the United States. So what to make of this somewhat elusive figure. Journalist Peter Eisner is the co-author with Michael D'Antonio of a new book. It is called, The Shadow President: The Truth About Mike Pence. Peter Eisner joins me from Washington. Hi.

PETER EISNER: Hi. How are you?

AMT: I'm well. I'm really interested to hear what you have to say. So let's just go with that clip right now. What does it say about the internal politics of the Republican Party that you have people like Steve Schmidt who feel that way about Mike Pence?

PE: Actually, I think people like Steve Schmidt, Michael Gerson, George Will actually present something that you can draw as being optimistic and positive. That the election of Trump was more or less 52 card pickup. Throw it up in the air, see how it comes down. What's coming down is that people of conscience in the Republican Party, are saying vote Democrat. Let's have a centrist alternative and let's get away from this craziness. And so Steve Schmidt reacts to that and that's one of the good parts of this, if we come out of it. We realign things based on such quaint notions as patriotism and decency, rather than the chaos that we seen in Washington instead.

AMT: Well let me just ask about chaos Washington is abuzz over the impending release of Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward's book on Donald Trump, Fear. It shows a dysfunctional out of control White House. Where does Mike Pence fit into that chaos?

PE: He operates under the radar in a very interesting way. He's sometimes in the Oval Office cajoling and gently saying things to the president and obviously he's the only one in the White House that can't be fired. And he presents a sense of stability. Beyond that, there's a couple of things going on. One is that there's no discernible difference between policies, between the president's office and the vice president's office. And the other thing that's going on is besides the obsequiousness, which Steve Schmidt has it quite right, what's going on is like an undercurrent more or less of Pence using his office to quietly communicate with the base of those people connected to Trump and the evangelicals that listen to him. Going around the United States speaking to small groups giving speeches under the agents of the Trump political apparatus, which is already Trump 2020 and giving local interviews, talking to reporters, talking to his precinct captains. This could easily be, the first thing he says always as one of your clips said, you know how proud I am. I'm here on behalf of the president of the United States, the greatest president ever. But this could easily flip over to Mike Pence's benefit if the moment comes.

AMT: And you make the point quietly because he's just not on the radar in Washington a lot of the time, especially when there's chaos.

PE: Right. The danger I think and one reason that we wrote this book was, that he's become kind of a joke for late night television. Watching his his fawning praise of the president, standing several steps dutifully behind him looking adoringly upon him and then giving at every moment praise and normalizing the president. But beyond that, he has a base. He actually has impacted significant portions of the United States government and is operating in areas that Trump doesn't pay attention to, such as in healthcare, medicare, medicaid, which amount to about trillions of dollars and a large portion of the budget. So he's doing things out there and he has a large role in choosing judges, such as supporting heavily Brett Kavanaugh who's being interviewed these days as the possible next justice of the Supreme Court.

AMT: I was just going to ask you about that because the news today of course is what happened yesterday. Thousands of pages of documents were released the night before the hearing. Democrats were very angry as that hearing began. And you talk about sort of the long game with Mike Pence and how Supreme Court justices play a really big part of this. He's very public that he's a man of faith. Why is it important to understand the role religion plays in his world outlook?

PE: Well one thing that goes on is that any criticism is deflected by saying, well I'm a man of faith. I'm a Christian first. I'm a conservative second and then I'm a Republican. But what does that really mean, other than trying to create a forcefield around himself, so that if anybody starts to criticize him, he would say, he says well these are people who are criticizing me for my faith and I'll turn the other cheek and put my faith in Jesus. Well many people do. Jimmy Carter puts his faith in Jesus too, but he has different policies. So we're trying to cut beneath what the religion means and into policy. And he's very adept at deflecting such attempts, certainly doesn't give long interviews to anyone. Certainly was not willing to talk to us, but he will talk to right wing radio and television, if he thinks they're safe. So what he's really doing is avoiding deep questions and he didn't come to the vice presidency, particularly well backgrounded as a government official that accomplished much. So it's all faith will take us through.

AMT: Well he was a fairly controversial governor of Indiana when it came to issues of religion. What did he do?

PE: Well the most famous thing he did was pass a so-called Religious Freedom Act, which masqueraded as declaring that all religions are privileged to practice freely. But really what it was and was recognized immediately was, it was giving right wing RepublicansRight. right wingers in the state, the right to expel gay people or anybody else they thought didn't match up with their opinions about religion and marriage and such things. The reaction to that was massive. It put Pence on the national scene and he backtracked quickly and this law, so-called religious freedom law was diluted and abandoned as sports teams and everyone else started to say we're not going to Indiana anymore.

AMT: So when it comes to then the courts. How do his religious interests blend into the issue around Supreme Court?

PE: Well front and center is Roe v. Wade. The famous quote from Pence is I look forward to the day coming soon that Roe v. Wade will be relegated to the ash heap of history where it belongs. He opposes abortion. He will legislate against it, as he did in Indiana and he'll do the most he can to do to change a woman's right to choose. Even though a majority of Americans disagree with him and that's really where it's item number one on the agenda, should he ever come to the Oval Office. Roe v. Wade is going out and that's why Brett Kavanaugh is a safe bet to tip the scales in the Supreme Court.

AMT: So how do evangelicals like Mike Pence view the election of Donald Trump?

PE: They see Trump as the herald to the future. You know, there's a circular feeling to it. In other words, if you're a person of faith, in Pence's view and the view of the people around him, everything is preordained. God has chosen this moment. God has chosen them. And by fiat, that means that all is part of the plan and if all is part of the plan, Trump is part of the plan. And if Trump is part of the plan, then anything he does is acceptable. And that's certainly playing out with the way Mike Pence reacts to a man who lies at a rate described by my former paper, The Post, The Washington Post, at 7.5 times a day. Thousands of times so far in the administration, but it's all good. Babies being taken away from their mothers on the border. Any change that even with Pence's previous stance on some issues. Any change that Trump takes and moves in one direction, Pence is right with him.

AMT: What are you saying that he has a larger agenda. He's looking at a bigger picture beyond Trump.

PE: Yeah, no question. This is a design that that says, OK. Talk to Trump, to Pence's advisers and Pence himself would say this, we've only spoken to Pence's advisers behind the scenes. Pence believes that Trump will be re-elected, serve eight years and then there is the younger Mike Pence ready to move in. So potentially we could have eight years and then eight years again. For that matter, should Trump not make it to the end of 2020, you could see more than two terms of Mike Pence in his view and he's ready for that.

AMT: Can you explain why evangelicals are such a potent force in American politics?

PE: Books have been written about why that's the case and there's a couple of things that one has to remember. Evangelicals, it's an umbrella term, which embraces a lot of different people. A younger crowd of evangelicals, a break in Southern Baptists beliefs, Jimmy Carter and among others, but also young evangelicals don't necessarily agree with the evangelical brand that the generation of Mike Pence is presenting. They don't necessarily believe that political is the right way to go. You know they exist in another sphere. Why is religion important in American politics? It has to do with safety. It has to do with traditional values. It has to do with looking for something that people feel they don't have. So you know there's massive societal questions about the United States, as we all know that goes beyond what you and I could possibly talk about it in half an hour, but it has to do with structure. It has to do with feeling safe and comfortable. Compare the difference between how, I always think about Michael Moore, comparing Canada and the United States how people sometimes don't lock their doors in Canada like Michael Moore said. Let's look at the United States, there's a paranoia and the paranoia is answered in part by religious answers in the homeland, in the heartland. And it's a deep troubling question and it has to do with you know what is pluralistic governance in the United States? Where some evangelicals would say that this country began as a Christian nation. Did it begin as a Christian nation or did it begin as a nation that believed in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all? So these kinds of questions are crucial and again the only good thing is things thrown up in the air after November 2016, asks all Americans what does democracy mean to you?

AMT: Well I'm asking because I mean you're making the point that he's very religious. He has very like a religious agenda, essentially on big social issues. Your book was discussed on Fox News. In particular, they take offense to what they say is you're raising the idea of Mike Pence wanting to bring a theocracy to America. Listen to Ben Shapiro, the conservative commentator on this.

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VOICE: The folks who are saying that Mike Pence wants to run a theocracy, ignore the fact that Mike Pence is a constitutional conservative who wants to limit the size and scope of government. The only theocrats, the only people who actually want to rule from above by instituting their moral preferences on society from the top down, are the folks on the left, who actually want to invade rights on a regular basis and force people to do things that they don't want to do. It's a lot more common on the left, than it is on the right. They're actually using their own theocratic tendencies toward government, which a lot of folks on the radical left see as a quasi godlike figure. They're using their own theocratic tendency and then projecting it onto people like Mike Pence. It's really quite disgusting.

PE: Peter Eisner, you want to respond to that?

AMT: Yeah, there's a nonsensical fast flimflam way of talking about theocracy, coming from the left because people are saying that while those who disagree with Mike Pence must be anti-religion. That they must be attacking Mike Pence on religious grounds. Here's a man who said in Congress that he doesn't necessarily believe in Darwinism and that creationism is an equally acceptable theory. Here's a man of course/ Roe v. Wade. A woman's right to choose is not acceptable. Here's a man who says that cigarette smoking doesn't cause cancer. Anti-science, anti-majority really in many senses. So it's very easy on Fox News to make charges about people criticizing someone based on their faith when we're really saying is that the faith is a smokescreen. We accept the fact that you know believe what you like. And besides who says that I don't believe what I like. You know what does it have to do with governance and what we're trying to do is get underneath the platitudes about I believe in X. I believe in Y. And say you know where is a multicultural pluralistic country going and how do you government and is a majority allowed to emerge. And also what about the concept of compromise? Mike Pence being one of the least compromising people as measured by Richard Lugar, a former colleague of his from Indiana, who measures bipartisanship in Congress. Mike Pence being one of the least bipartisan people in Congress in recent decades.

AMT: I'm wondering about his vice presidential record compared to others as well. How is he different from the ways past vice presidents have related to presidents?

PE: Well as we know, the role of the vice president in the United States is extremely limited. They've got the role of serving as president of the Senate, which is almost ceremonial to break ties in the Senate and to stand in waiting as being eligible to be president, should the president leave office for any reason. The rest of what goes on is kind of like coming up with an agenda that's somewhat submitted by the president or not. And some people have been very powerful vice presidents some not. Donald Trump Jr. came to John Kasich, the governor of Ohio, and offered him the vice presidency in 2016 and said you would be the most powerful vice president in history. Kasich rejected it and rejected Trump, but Pence went along after praying as he said and knowing the good and the bad after praying and was all in for it, which is fine. But what we come up with is that Donald Trump Jr. was largely correct. Mike Pence is showing himself to be functioning behind the president in a quiet way, doing the kind of work that Trump through his bluster and through his lack of attention span, is not really operating or interested in doing. So Pence really is showing himself to be one of the more powerful vice presidents in history. You can't leave out Dick Cheney, but there's a different quality to this. And there's also a different possibility and possibly a larger possibility that he'll accede to the presidency.

AMT: We didn't see Dick Cheney going quietly into outside the beltway and talking to people and speaking to local media and local communities that no one was covering though, right. That part of what you're talking about too, that sort of that he goes off and solidifies the political base and no one's paying attention.

PE: Sure. Cheney while he was blustering his way through the George W. Bush presidency and controlling large decision making issues that changed the world obviously, was never really considered a contender to be the president. He was there for a different reason. He was never campaigning to be president. Mike Pence has been on the road campaigning for it from the beginning and also wanted to be president since he was in college, telling people I will get there.

AMT: What about NAFTA? Top of mind for Canadians right now. Mr. Trump is vocal, tweeting every day about it. Why have we heard so little from Mr. Pence about this policy?

PE: An excellent question and one case in point, Mike Pence has two masters. One is the religious right. The second is the libertarianism of the likes of the Koch brothers. The Koch brothers tenets are free trade on all levels and they would tend to be opposed to all the trade sanctions and trade negotiations that Trump has entered into, whether trying to renegotiate NAFTA, whether imposing tariffs on China and on the EC. So the one place where it's very clear that Pence has aligned himself with libertarians and doesn't agree with the types of trade policies that the Trump administration is going after, he remains silent. Why does he remain silent? Because he's waiting for something greater. I would say that item number two in Pence presidency would be to restore open trade deals, reinstitute NAFTA, reinstitute full and open trade policies with EC and change the adversarial trade policy with China as well. So he's completely opposed to that throughout history and he's remained silent because there's something greater and the great prize that comes in the future.

AMT: And the great prize is?

PE: The presidency.

AMT: OK. Well given all the talk about impeachment, how actively has he been preparing for one day becoming president?

PE: Active is in some ways being silent. He has tried in every possible way to avoid comments on probes and on the outrages that Donald Trump might express. His speeches are what they've always been. He comes across as an extreme conservative, but he likes to say that he does all of his speaking on decaf. That is that he's gentle. He's quiet. And again, going around the country, representing the president on international trips. The president doesn't necessarily like getting out of his routine going to South America. Famous trip to Israel when Trump decided that the U.S. embassy would be moved to Jerusalem, that was Pence's trip. South Korea. And what he's out doing both for the base, but also for world leaders. He's trying to show that he's the well-behaved boy in the group. You know, I don't know if he's gone to Toronto, but I'm sure that it would be more comfortable and easier for Canadian officials to have Mike Pence there with a smile and saying well yes, I know, but and there's kind of like a wink and a nod, we'll get through this and I'm here and I'm a friendly decent guy. And beyond that, the policies with the exception of trade, don't really change because Trump is not is really an ideologue. Mike Pence is.

AMT: You're telling me he's biding his time.

PE: Absolutely. He's there. I spoke to one of his aides on background extensively. How can Mike Pence and how can you all, sit and watch as the president of the United States commits outrageous, curses, his people curses the opposition. Disassembles entire programs that have been the essence of American policy. How can you do it? Mike prayed. He came in. He knew what was going to be happening. He has to be quiet, go along. And should the time come, to come to the presidency, he'll be ready and then he'll take, he'll put his own flavor on things, they say. But I don't think the flavor is going to be very different.

AMT: OK. Peter we have to leave it there. Thank you for all your insights.

PE: My pleasure. Thanks a lot.

AMT: Peter Eisner, his new book is, The Shadow President: The Truth About Mike Pence. He joined us from Washington, D.C. That's our program for today. Stay with Radio One for Q. Tom Power is speaking to Paul Simon today. Remember to join me tomorrow as we return to Humboldt and we're going to leave you with some more from the new CBC podcast, Uncover: Escaping NXIVM. The first two episodes are out now. This is from Episode 2. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Thank you for listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

JB: How does someone join a self-help group and end up in an alleged sex cult? I want to understand the bait and switch. I want to try and step inside Sarah's brain and see how she experienced it. Why she kept saying yes to stranger and stranger things. And why she kept pulling in others. And why it took 12 years before there was a breaking point. Can you hear me?

SARAH EDMONDSON: Yeah. Can you hear me?

JB: I can hear you. Sarah and I talk frequently and I've been recording our conversations, as I investigate how this group pulls in celebrities and millionaires and people like Sarah.

SE: Josh my phone is blowing up.

JB: Sarah grew up in Vancouver. She's an only child. Her parents divorced when she was young. They're both former hippies, who always encouraged her to be open minded. Her love of yoga and smoothies and organic salads, makes her a bit of a West Coast stereotype. She's always been into acting. She was a drama dork in high school and she studied theater at Concordia University. After graduating, she returned to Vancouver to try to make a go of it. Her first encounter with NXIVM goes back to 2005. She's living in a basement apartment in Vancouver and feeling unfulfilled.

[Clip from television show]

SE: Yeah like doing vampire TV shows and doing beer commercials and like it just doesn't really fill the soul. You know?

JB: But then, her boyfriend Tony's film is accepted into a spiritual cruise film festival in Florida, which is exactly what it sounds like.

SE: That was a really into setting intentions at that time and that we stayed at this shitty Howard Johnson in Fort Lauderdale.

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Sept. 5, 2018 episode transcript

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