Transcript

798: Leaving the Fold

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Prologue: Prologue

Ira Glass

A quick warning, there are curse words that are unbeeped in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org.

People are complicated. That's my radical message for you today, America. People contain their opposites. I personally, for example, can be a good listener, helpful to others, and also exactly the opposite, totally inattentive. And I don't think I'm very unusual when it comes to all that.

In fact, something I always find kind of annoying is when people say, I'm a good person. Oh, yeah, sure, I did whatever. But, you know, I'm a good person. Blah, blah, blah, but he's a good person. Really?

I think that says nothing real about you at all. Because most of us are a mix of good and bad, right? We have thoughtful days, and we have annoyed days. To me, somebody who says, "I'm a good person," is somebody who is not taking a very serious look at everything they do, who they look out for and who they neglect, and all the things they could be doing for others if they really were so good.

To be clear, there are good people out there. There are genuinely generous, good people. I've met them. We've all met them. But in my experience, one thing they have in common is that they know better than to sum it up with the words, "I'm a good person." Because one of the things that makes them good people is that they know that they contain kindness and awfulness, light and dark, depending on the moment.

Years ago, I had the unusual experience of having dinner with Tom Hanks. And one thing I loved about Tom Hanks is how annoyed he was at this reputation he has in the press of being such a nice guy. Journalists write entire articles about him, and that is the angle-- he's such a nice guy. If I had to sum up his attitude towards this, at least expressed in that one conversation, he said basically, I'm normal.

And so when I meet a stranger, when I'm in a work situation, I do what normal people do, and I try to act pleasant. And then there were other times in my life when, like anyone normal, I get irritated. I get angry. I'm not so nice. People contain their opposites, which brings me to Jerry Springer, the king of trash TV.

When he died two weeks ago, it made me think of the story that we did about him years ago, about this whole other side of him than the one most of us think of. And that's his political career. This was early in his life. He was deeply idealistic in a kind of John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy kind of way. And I actually found this very moving. Springer had a hard time walking away from that part of himself.

That part of him, as you'll hear when you hear the story, stayed very much alive inside the trash TV host as the years passed. So today on our show, what we're going to do is we're going to play you that story, which we first broadcast 20 years ago when Springer was still in the prime of his daytime TV career. This was part of an episode that we called back then "Leaving the Fold," all about people leaving some world that they had once inhabited, leaving some part of themselves behind, and how they missed it once they were gone.

So we have that. We have some other stuff. From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Stay with us.

Act One: He Contains Multitudes

Ira Glass

Act One, He Contains Multitudes. So let's start today with our story about Jerry Springer, first broadcast in 2004. One of our producers at the time, Alex Blumberg, grew up in the city where Springer was mayor, and he put the story together.

Alex Blumberg

Jerry Springer arrived in Cincinnati in 1969, fresh out of law school with a job at a downtown firm. And in just six months, he announced he was running for Congress against the conservative incumbent. He was 25. He had no experience. Nobody had ever heard of him.

But he was against the war in Vietnam, and he supported civil rights. And here's the thing you might not guess. He was fantastic. Patricia Garry and Jene Galvin are both Cincinnati political veterans. Here's how they remember him.

Patricia Garry

He was absolutely the most gifted, natural politician I ever saw. The grandmothers all loved him. The daughters all loved him. You know, the brothers and sisters-- everybody was a good friend of his. They were great. There was always that kind of a glamour around him, where he was clearly a golden boy.

Jene Galvin

I put Springer at the level of Ronald Reagan, Bobby Kennedy, Bill Clinton. He's that level.

Alex Blumberg

And it's not just local Cincinnati people who feel this way about Springer. Mike Ford met Springer back in the '70s, but has moved up in politics and is today a Democratic political strategist at the national level.

Mike Ford

I worked with Clinton, '90, '92. '88, Dukakis. '80, I worked for Kennedy. '76, I went through Birch Bayh, Mo Udall, and Jimmy Carter. He's the best I've ever seen, bar none.

Audience

Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!

[CHEERING]

Jerry Springer

Hey, welcome to the show. How you doing? My guests today say they're coldhearted mistresses who are proud to be breaking up marriages. Please meet Holly. She says she does more than just babysit her friend's three kids. Holly, what is going on?

Holly

I've been screwing my friend's husband.

Alex Blumberg

It's kind of a long drop from wanting to save the world to hosting TV shows with titles like, "I Have Sex with My Twin" and "I Want to Be a Teen Stripper." The story of Jerry Springer is the story of an act of transformation so complete and so total that most people don't even know what happened. It's really the story of two Jerry Springers-- one known only to a pocket of people in Southwest Ohio as the heir apparent to progressive politics in America, the other known the world over as the king of trash TV.

Jerry Springer

Go ahead. Tell her.

Holly

Theresa, I've been screwing your husband. And he loves having sex with this.

[CHEERING]

[BLEEPING]

Audience

Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!

Mike Ford

Well, he was Kennedy-like, very bright.

Alex Blumberg

This is a comparison that comes up a lot when people talk about the other Jerry Springer. And it's no coincidence. The summer before Springer first ran for office in Cincinnati, he'd worked as a volunteer with Bobby Kennedy's presidential campaign. Here's Jene Galvin.

Jene Galvin

When Jerry got to Cincinnati, he had a Boston/Harvard/Kennedy accent. He doesn't have it anymore. But when he got here, he had it. If you hear any old tape of him from that era, see any video clips, Jerry Springer came to town talking like Bobby Kennedy.

Jerry Springer

My campaign is based upon the proposition that the answers to the problems which currently plague our cities, our towns, and our homes are not to be found in the decisions in Washington. They are instead to be found in the hearts, minds, and resources of our own people here at home.

Alex Blumberg

On old footage from this campaign, Springer looks even younger than 25. He looks like a kid in one of his father's suits, pretending to be Bobby Kennedy. But crowds loved him. He seemed like somebody reaching for something big, even when he's talking about business prosperity and the gross national product.

Jerry Springer

The GNP by itself is no mark of our national achievement, for it includes smokestacks that pollute, drugs that destroy, and ambulances which clear our highways of human wreckage. It includes a mugger's knife, a rioter's bomb, and Oswald's rifle. But if the GNP tells us all this, there is much that it does not tell us. It says nothing of the health of our families, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play.

Alex Blumberg

Springer was running in one of the whitest and most conservative parts of a very conservative city against a 10-year incumbent. And he lost that first race. It was the last time he would lose an election for the next decade. One year later, he ran for and was elected to the Cincinnati City Council. Tim Burke was his legislative aide on the council.

Tim Burke

Jerry could go into a VFW hall and talk about why he was opposed to the war in Vietnam. And that was not a popular thing to do. He wouldn't convince VFW folks, at least not the majority of them, that they should come out against the war in Vietnam. That wasn't in their nature. But he'd walk out of that room, and they'd like him.

Jene Galvin

And this is the remarkable thing about Jerry Springer the politician.

Alex Blumberg

Again, longtime friend Jene Galvin.

Jene Galvin

He has connectability that transcends specific viewpoints of people. He'd get votes from West-siders saying, I don't agree with anything you say, but I just like your style. I like your guts.

Alex Blumberg

The result of this was that on City Council, Springer had an uncanny ability to bring a marginal message without actually marginalizing himself. Again, here's Tim Burke, Springer's legislative aide.

Tim Burke

In 1971, when Jerry was elected to City Council, there was a proposal to build Riverfront Arena. And the proposal was to do it with public dollars. And the original vote on council as to how that was going to go was an 8 to 1 vote. Jerry was the only one who opposed it.

Alex Blumberg

Opposed doing it?

Tim Burke

Opposed doing it with public dollars. The day of a critical vote, two members of council were away. And it needed seven votes in order to meet certain procedural requirements. Jerry refused to give them the procedural vote, which had been the tradition.

You don't hold something up on a procedural vote. You're free to vote against it on the merits, but you don't hold it-- well, Jerry bucked tradition and then started just talking about why this was a bad thing to do, and we ought not to be publicly financing these things that ought to be supported by private business. And in the end, he captured the attention of the citizens of Cincinnati.

They rallied to his side. The other politicians on council got that message. And Riverfront Coliseum was built with private dollars, with very little public subsidy involved. And you don't see that happening in stadiums and arenas today.

Guy Guckenberger

Oh, he really got you going, I'll tell you.

Alex Blumberg

Guy Guckenberger is a Republican and was one of Springer's council opponents on Riverfront Coliseum funding. He says it wasn't any fun being on the other side of an issue from Springer.

Guy Guckenberger

I mean, he'd, you know, make a public appeal and state a public position for an issue. And you were either-- you either went with him or you were the bad guy. I mean, you didn't have any choice then.

Alex Blumberg

In 1974, Springer got elected to a second term with more votes than anyone else on City Council. Six months later, he resigned in a scandal. An FBI investigation into an illegal massage parlor across the river in Kentucky revealed that he'd been a repeat customer. How did they know? He'd paid for a prostitute with a check. Tim Burke was his legislative aide at the time.

Tim Burke

We went something like 10 days in a row with the headline story in the Cincinnati Enquirer. Jerry was going through all kinds of personal hell. So was his wife, obviously. So was his family, as he had to call them and explain to them what he had done, and what it was doing. And this was a young man with an absolutely terrific career ahead of him. And it looked like it had all been destroyed.

Alex Blumberg

And you personally, what were your thoughts?

Tim Burke

Part of it was, what the hell were you doing? Why would you throw away this terrific political career you had in front of you for a few minutes?

Alex Blumberg

At the time, it seemed that people weren't angry at the act as much as they were at the sheer stupidity of paying for it by check. But Springer was clearly shaken. The minute the facts became public, he resigned from council, so quickly, in fact, that his colleagues seemed a little shocked.

Tim Burke

I think Jerry would tell the story that his initial thoughts were, I'm going to resign. I'm disgraced. I'm leaving town. I'm going to go start a new life someplace else.

Within about 24 hours, he and his wife Micki and his other friends decided that wasn't the way to do it. And he held another press conference. And he just said, here's what happened. Here's what I did. I'm ashamed of it. I apologize. And just came absolutely-- and bared his soul to the Cincinnati public. And they rallied to him again. It was amazing.

Some of the nuns out of the College of Mount St. Joseph started a thing where they were sending stones and little pebbles to members of Cincinnati City Council, trying to encourage them to reject Springer's resignation with the message, "He who is without sin should cast the first stone." It was just-- it was tremendous the way that people responded to him. And that was really what started his comeback.

Alex Blumberg

After a few months, Springer took tentative steps to get back into public life and manages another run for city council. The Democratic Party wouldn't endorse him, but they did leave a spot open for him on the ballot. Jene Galvin went with him to campaign.

Jene Galvin

The St. Patrick's Day parade in Cincinnati at the time was huge, huge. Ran through the downtown streets. Thousands of people would come. You'd hope for great weather. And on this day, we had great weather, a tremendous crowd.

And as Jerry would come down through the crowd, they jeered him. They mocked him. And some of it didn't mean they wouldn't vote for him, but they mocked him.

Hey, Jerry, you got a check on you? Hey, Jerry, you're really stupid, aren't you? Why did you write a check? Just yelling all this stuff.

And he would just sit there and smile, and laugh, and take it. And, boy, my heart was breaking for my buddy up on that back seat because I'm down driving this car. He just took a beating.

Alex Blumberg

Still, the campaign worked. 18 months after resigning from City Council in disgrace and admitting publicly that he'd paid for a prostitute with a check, Jerry Springer was elected by the citizens of Cincinnati to a third term on City Council. Two years later, back on the Democratic ticket again, he was elected mayor, this time with the largest vote total in the city's history. It's not going too far to say that less than four years after being caught writing a check to a prostitute, Jerry Springer had become the most popular politician in Cincinnati ever, partly because he was able to mock his own stupidity. A rock and roll radio station convinced him to record a spoof commercial, a takeoff on a popular credit card ad at the time.

Jerry Springer

Hi. Do you know me? My face is seen all over Cincinnati constantly. But when I travel, say, across state lines, people don't know the difference between Jerry Springer and Jerry Ford.

So that's why I carry this, the American Expense Card. It's the card that's good at thousands of clubs and motels across the river. I can even get instant, hassle-free check approval for quick, enjoyable entertainment that can't be beat, just like me.

Alex Blumberg

Most people, if they know the story at all, they know it wrong. They think Jerry Springer was mayor, there was a prostitution scandal, he resigned, and then had nothing else to do but become the Jerry Springer of The Jerry Springer Show. The truth is much stranger and more complicated. Jerry Springer became mayor after the prostitute. And The Jerry Springer Show was a full decade and a half after that, during which time Springer left politics more or less on his own terms and then rose again to the top of an entirely different field, television journalism.

Jerry Springer

The president of the local Teamsters Union in Cincinnati in Northern Kentucky is warning trucking companies to send trucks out in convoys after midnight on Monday.

Alex Blumberg

This is Jerry Springer as he was known to Cincinnati throughout the '80s, local news anchor. Here's how he got there. In 1980, he stepped down as mayor to run for governor and lost in a tough three-way race. When it was over, he was out of money and jobless. So he accepted an offer to anchor the local news at Channel 5, the lowest-ranked local news program. In a fairly bold programming move, the station also let him end the broadcast with his own nightly commentaries, which were often of a liberal bent-- pro-union, anti-Reagan and Bush. He ended the broadcast each night with his signature phrase, "Take care of yourself and each other."

Springer spent 10 years at Channel 5, during which he brought the nightly news from last to first in the ratings and earned 10 Emmy Awards. He attracted notice, including offers to host his own show. In September of 1991, the first Jerry Springer Show was taped. Soon afterwards, Jerry Springer left Cincinnati for good. His final commentary on the local news is legendary.

Jerry Springer

OK, bear with me. This will be a little tough. You should know, this isn't the first time I thought about leaving. I thought about it some 20 years ago when a check that would soon become part of Cincinnati folklore made me see life from the bottom.

To be honest, a thought about ending it all crossed my mind. But a more reasonable alternative seemed to be, hey, how about just leaving town and running away, starting life over someplace else? You see, in political terms as well as human, here in Cincinnati I was dead.

But then in probably the luckiest decision I ever made, I decided, no, I'm staying put. I would withstand all the jokes, all the ridicule. I'd pretend it didn't hurt. And I would give every ounce of my being to Cincinnati. Why, in time, I was thinking, you'd have to like me, or if not like me at least respect me. And I'd run for council, even unendorsed. And I'd prove to you I could be the best public servant you ever had, or I'd die trying.

Be it as a mayor, an anchor, or a commentator, whatever it took, I was determined to have you know that I was more than a check and a hooker on a one-night stand. But something happened along the way. Maybe it's God's way of teaching us. I don't know.

But you see, in trying to prove something to you, I learned something about me. I learned that I had fallen in love with you, with Cincinnati, with you who taught me more about life, and caring, and forgiving, and also, most importantly, giving, giving something back, which is part of the reason I have been-- excuse me-- so sad this week, why it's so hard to say goodbye. God bless you. And goodbye.

Audience

[CHEERING]

Jerry Springer

Amy, you have a friend, Rusty. Let's now welcome him to the show. Here is Rusty.

Man

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Woman

Go, Rusty!

Man

'Sup, tough guy? What's up, tough guy?

Audience

Uh-oh.

[THUD]

[AUDIENCE SCREAMING, EXCLAIMING]

Man

Come on.

[BLEEPING]

Alex Blumberg

It wasn't immediate, the switch from the nightly news to this. Originally, The Springer Show was meant to be the successor to Phil Donahue. And indeed, the first year's topics included homelessness and gun control. Springer booked political guests like Oliver North and Jesse Jackson. And the show seemed innocent and upstanding.

One early show bares the quaint title "Single People-- On the Outside Looking In." But the ratings tanked. A new producer was hired. And, well, you know the rest.

[AUDIENCE SHOUTING AND FIGHTING]

[BLEEPING]

For those from Cincinnati, those who know the other Jerry Springer, watching the show can be bewildering. Again, here's Patricia Garry, who used to work with Jerry back in his City Council days.

Patricia Garry

Well, first off, that doesn't look like Jerry.

Alex Blumberg

What is it about him, do you think, when you see-- what do you see when you're looking at him on the television?

Patricia Garry

I don't know. I mean, is he even in there? Where is Jerry? But he's still got that outward-- he can be happy with the microphones and smiling, and all that. And then he does that little pseudo-commentary at the end.

Where's that positive energy? Where's that belief that he can make a difference? Where is that wanting to make a difference that's driving that? He was always shooting upward. I don't think that person-- I don't know if that person is around.

Alex Blumberg

That's the thing that seems to me is that somebody with this gift clearly--

Patricia Garry

It's a Greek tragedy, isn't it? It's really a Greek tragedy, yeah. Couldn't have written a better one, to end up being-- to end up being the joker instead of being the king.

Alex Blumberg

Yeah.

Jerry Springer

I'm not conflicted because I'm not-- I know there's me, and then there's the show.

Alex Blumberg

Jerry Springer might be the only person intimately familiar with Jerry Springer, who claims to feel no ambivalence about the place Jerry Springer has ended up. I talked to him in his office before he taped his show. It's hard not to like him. He's engaging, funny. But there's a certain practiced quality to the way he answers questions about his career choices.

Jerry Springer

You know, I create this persona for the show. And that's what it is. You know, I'm an act. It's like I'm in movies. Look, no one goes after some actor because, let's say, he played Hitler in the movies.

Alex Blumberg

I mean, I'm not saying anybody should have a-- yeah, have an issue with it at all. Here's a person who every stage of their professional career, it's been imbued with a sense of trying to make a difference until you get to The Springer Show.

Jerry Springer

Well, we've certainly made a difference in television. I'm not sure people are happy about it. I try not to think about it too much.

Life is what it is. And you take what's handed, and you work as hard as you can, and hopefully you'll be successful. But I just don't spend too much time worrying about that. I mean, I do my show.

And, look, I've always said it's a stupid show. I've had a wonderful life because of it and all that, but I've never for a second thought that it's important. It's trivial. It's chewing gum. And I recognize that once you do something that's significant in life, all this other stuff is just a way to eat.

Alex Blumberg

From talking to Springer and his friends, I think the best answer to the question, how did this idealistic, political guy end up in a job where he helps no one, is partly he stumbled into it and was surprised as anyone about how big it got. Once the show started what they euphemistically referred to as "targeting the youth market," its success was both instantaneous and breathtaking. Within the span of a couple of years, Springer went from being just another talk show host to a worldwide phenomenon. The Springer Show can be seen on televisions in over 40 countries worldwide, including Tunisia.

And when the show is named after you, you get a lot of the money. And the money really meant something to him. He'd come to this country when he was five, the child of Jewish refugees who escaped to America from Nazi Germany. But there is some evidence that Springer is more ambivalent about his current job than he's willing to let on to a reporter. About four or five years ago, he started making phone calls to his old friend Mike Ford, who ran several of Springer's political campaigns, just to chat about politics. The more notoriety the show attracted, the more popular it became, the more frequently, it seemed to Mike, Jerry would phone him.

Mike Ford

We talked, I would say, maybe once a month. And it was always almost getting back in. He would call me. And he would say, so what are we going to do? And I would say, well, I'm doing it. I don't know what you're going to do, but it's not happening on the show. And then we'd talk about options. And we looked at everything.

I went down to Mississippi to look at running against Trent Lott. We looked in New Orleans. We looked everywhere, but especially in Ohio.

And he was feeling it out for years. I mean, he was empty, OK? That's the issue here. The show does not make him happy. It didn't fill his needs as a person.

Alex Blumberg

If you follow the news very closely, you may recall stories in early 2003 that Jerry Springer was considering a run for Senate in Ohio. Much of the national news reported this as a joke, a talk show fool trying to dress up as a statesman.

But the small band of Jerry's friends from before knew the story was actually the opposite-- a former statesman was trying to shake off the costume of a talk show fool. What this meant for Jerry was going around the state and speaking in front of as many Democrats as he possibly could. Jene Galvin went with him.

Jene Galvin

People say, would you come down to Hawking College and speak? Yes. Will you come to the Mercer County Democratic Party dinner and speak? Yes. Will you come down to Athens County and help a young Ohio University woman running for city council win an election? Yes. He goes.

Tim Burke

I introduced him to the State Democratic County Chairs Association back in January.

Alex Blumberg

Again, Tim Burke.

Tim Burke

And as I introduced him, you could just see that there was a great deal of skepticism in that room. Because for the most part, the county chairs from around the state of Ohio only knew Jerry for this crazy television show he has.

Many of you know him only as a host of some goofy television show. I know him as somebody who cares deeply about people, about politics. I'm proud to introduce you to my longtime friend, Jerry Springer.

[APPLAUSE]

Jerry Springer

Thank you very much. May you never be on my show.

[LAUGHTER]

Tim Burke

You could literally watch the audience change from skepticism to an audience that was laughing with Jerry.

Jerry Springer

The tax cuts proposed by the president are obscene. What the hell is he giving someone like me a tax break for?

[APPLAUSE]

The argument for the tax package-- and you've heard it on the-- you hear it all the time. The argument for the tax package is to give people back their money so they'll spend it and will help the economy.

Here's what's stupid. Rich people can already afford anything they want to buy. Do you think if I get a check back in the mail, suddenly I'm going to buy something?

If I want to buy something now, I'll go out and buy it. Don't give me the money. Take that money, and make sure that every citizen in the United States of America has health insurance. That's where you spend the money.

[APPLAUSE]

If we would get that message across so the citizens of Ohio-- I don't care how Republican your district looks-- they will say, aha, that relates to me. Now there's a reason to sign up and vote Democrat. We got to give them a reason. That's what we stand for.

We are right on the issues. It drives me insane when I watch the news and I see this garbage. Look, I'm the king of garbage, so I know garbage.

Tim Burke

And at the end of the speech, he had them all up on their feet. These are a bunch of hard-bitten politicians who have heard lots of political speeches in their lives, and he had them on their feet at the end of the speech. He turned the room just like that.

[APPLAUSE]

Alex Blumberg

You don't have to be a political strategist, however, to design the attack ad against the Jerry Springer Senate campaign. He airs one himself, twice a day in most markets, for an hour each time. So along with the speeches and the candidate appearances, Mike Ford tried to research the question, could Jerry Springer the man get beyond Jerry Springer the show? Put another way, had Springer forever blown his chance to do the one thing he truly loved doing?

Mike Ford

We put together, more or less, focus groups. And we sat them in a room. And instead of asking them questions directly about Jerry, we decided what we should do is, in effect, run a campaign before their eyes that was completely honest about all the things he'd ever done wrong or were distasteful and then mixing them with a bio of the guy, and then letting him talk to camera about issues.

We had impressive voices reading mean, horrible, nasty editorials. They had clips from the show. They had headlines about bad things. They saw all the bad, but then they saw a lot of the good.

In every market, we started horribly. And every single one of them turned around, in every audience, in every market. And the key thing there was that information is received in inverse proportion to its predictability.

So if you said Jerry Springer is dating a llama, they would go, yeah, yeah, I saw that in the Enquirer. But then you start to unroll this other stuff. And when he looked at camera, instead of talking about what's going on in the state and in the country, it was completely persuasive because it was all new.

Alex Blumberg

But there was one other thing they told Mike Ford. All the people in all the focus groups said the only way they could vote for him was if he quit his show. The voters, it turns out, could get beyond Springer the show to Springer the man, as long as Springer the man did it first, which is what killed his exploratory bid in the end. He couldn't get out of his TV contract in time to start a Senate race. But he's still out there giving speeches. If you go to the website runjerryrun.com, you'll see five events with Ohio Democratic organizations scheduled next month alone.

Springer has been thinking a lot about his message. He hits it in every speech he gives. And it goes something like this. We all believe, Republicans and Democrats alike, that the purpose of government is to provide protection. No one disputes that government should maintain a military or a police force, or try to stop terrorists. But Democrats believe that government should protect its citizens from another form of violence as well.

Jerry Springer

The violence of a pink slip on a Friday afternoon that says, you've been laid off, and now you don't have enough money to take care of your family-- job insecurity, the inability to get health insurance, that you have to choose, should I take my medicine this month, or do I buy my kid a coat for the winter? So the Democratic Party exists in America today to provide protection for middle and low-income America, particularly against economic violence, as well as military violence.

Alex Blumberg

Has doing the show for these last eight, 10 years, has it informed your political thinking in any way?

Jerry Springer

No, it's just confirmed it. I mean, any job I've ever had, it's been the same constituency. It's been middle and low-income people that need a voice, that need help, that need whatever. So even in my entertainment, that's my base.

In politics, it certainly was my base. When I practiced law, it was my base. I mean, this is who I am.

[APPLAUSE]

Jerry Springer

54 years ago this week, I came to America. I was five years old. Most of my family had been killed in the Holocaust in the camps in Germany and Austria during World War II.

Alex Blumberg

The speech that you're hearing now is one Springer delivered back in January of 2003 to a group of Ohio Democratic County chairs. There was no press there. And the only reason we have it on tape is because an audience member recorded the whole thing on a personal tape machine from his chair. Probably thought it would be a joke. But he was so moved by the speech that he took the tape and had it duplicated at his own expense. He sent it around to all the county chairmen around the state.

The idea being, here's a guy with a message for us. In the speech, Springer gives his standard economic spiel and also condemns America's current foreign policy as arrogant and bullying. And then he ends with his own story of first coming to America with his refugee parents on a boat from Europe.

Jerry Springer

We came over on the Queen Mary, January 19 to January 24, a five-day voyage over to America in 1949. And when we arrived, my very first memory was my mom waking me up and saying, Jerald, we have to go up on the top deck there, one of the decks of the Queen Mary. And all I remember-- because the rest has been told to me. I was only five.

But I vividly remember everyone standing out on top of the ship on the deck there-- there were about 2,000 passengers on board-- packed together, packed together. And what I remember other than being freezing is that nobody said a word. It was absolute quiet. And we were passing the Statue of Liberty.

And my mother told me later on as I got older-- because, obviously, I wouldn't remember exactly what I had said. But she remembers me asking her, what are we looking at? And what does it mean? And she said in German, [SPEAKING GERMAN], one day everything.

The Statue of Liberty means everything. We take it for granted today. We take it for granted. Remember, the Statue of Liberty stands for what America is. We, as Democrats, have to remind ourselves and remind the country the great principles we stand for. This is a place of protection.

This is not a country of bullies. We are not an empire. We are the light. We are the Statue of Liberty. Thank you for having me.

[APPLAUSE]

Alex Blumberg

The elements aren't new-- the immigrant experience, help for working people, the Statue of Liberty. But the fact is somehow electrifying for the people in that hall and the people passing around this tape. Wouldn't it be funny if in the end what the world really needs is more Jerry Springer?

[APPLAUSE]

Ira Glass

Alex Blumberg, he is one of the producers of our show. Springer, like I said earlier, died last week at the age of 79. He was on TV until 2021 and did a weekly podcast until just a few months ago. Since the story first aired, Mike Ford, who's the political advisor in Alex's story, has also died.

Coming up, so two women, an Orthodox Jew, and Donald Trump walk into a bar. Actually, they walk into the second half of our show. And that happens in just one minute on Chicago Public Radio when our program continues.

Act Two: God and Hockey

Ira Glass

It's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Today's program, "Stories of People Leaving the Fold," and like Jerry Springer, having one part of them that stays stuck back in the old days before they left.

We have arrived at Act Two of our show-- Act Two, God and Hockey. Shalom Auslander and his wife were raised in religious homes, but they were wobbling away from it, thinking of leaving the fold. But still, living in an Orthodox Jewish community in Teaneck, New Jersey, they were huge fans of the hockey team the New York Rangers. And in 1994, the Rangers had an incredible season-- beat the Islanders, beat the Devils in a seven-game double overtime win, went to the playoffs against Vancouver. And during one of these away games, fans could go, while the team was in Vancouver, for $5 and sit in Madison Square Garden and watch the game on the jumbotron with other fans.

But the problem for this couple was the game was on a Saturday, and religious Jews don't drive on Saturdays. It's against the rules of their religion. Shalom and his wife really, really wanted to go.

Shalom Auslander

So this was push coming to shove in terms of the whole God existence thing. We kind of looked at each other. And I was all for going. I just said, to hell with it. My argument was if God got them in that position, and--

Ira Glass

[CHUCKLES] God made the Rangers winners.

Shalom Auslander

Look, he brought over Messier from Canada. He brought over Kovalev from Russia. He really went out of his way to get these guys into this position to win. It's probably a mitzvah to go watch them, this commandment to go watch them.

Ira Glass

What was her argument?

Shalom Auslander

Her argument was fear, terror, God revenge. So her feeling was, let's walk. It's about 14 miles from what we judged.

Ira Glass

Wait a second. You actually thought that if you drove instead of walked that God would actually make the team lose?

Shalom Auslander

I did.

Ira Glass

That would be his revenge on you, really?

Shalom Auslander

Yeah, yeah. Well, I certainly knew that if it did happen, there would be a part of my head that went, oh, nice going, nice going. They play all season, and then you've got to go get in a cab, and now look what happened.

Ira Glass

So let's walk from New Jersey into Manhattan, literally?

Shalom Auslander

Yes, literally.

Ira Glass

Across the bridge.

Shalom Auslander

Down Teaneck Road, walk along the side of Route 4, which is this eight-lane super slab highway, cross the George Washington Bridge, walk down the highway, cross through Harlem, hit Broadway, and then it's 100 blocks down to Madison Square Garden.

So we go. And as we're heading along, it's turning out to be quite a longer walk than we thought it was, particularly in our Sabbath finest. And those are hard shoes. But her feet are slowly blistering. And it's just getting worse and worse, and she's complaining more and more.

It's at the point where she's taking her shoes off and walking. And I don't know how many of you have been in Manhattan, but that's a huge commitment to walk down a Manhattan street in just your socks. You've got to be in a lot of pain.

So by the time we get there, the euphoria of the game took over. And it was just really great to be there. But we didn't really consider God much after that until the Rangers lost. I think they lost 4-1. It was ridiculous.

And the game just ended, and everyone just starts filing out miserably. And we're just standing there just dumbfounded. I mean, not only do we now hate the Rangers, but we're just-- theologically, we're spiraling. And the moment that final buzzer rang, my wife looked at me and said, we should have driven.

It was just that kind of, all right, if this is the way he's going to play, if this is the kind of game He's playing, then we're not having any of it. And we left the Garden. I had a sidewalk dog. I was like, I'm strictly non-kosher from now on.

Ira Glass

[CHUCKLES] Take that.

Shalom Auslander

Yeah, how do you like that? Where can I get a Slim Jim around here?

Ira Glass

And a milk.

Shalom Auslander

Yeah, exactly.

Ira Glass

I never thought about this is the downside of having a personal relationship with God, is that you'd constantly be bearing a grudge. I thought it was all just like reassurance and stuff from God all the time. He's there in times of need. I never thought that you could actually just feel a grudge against him for something like this.

Shalom Auslander

Well, it depends what kind of God you're picturing. I came from a normally, incredibly dysfunctional family with a pretty overbearing father. So as a kid, you go into these Hebrew schools. You're hearing, "Our father who art in heaven," and I'm going, oh, God, tell me there's not another one up in heaven. He's bad enough at home. He's bad enough at home.

Ira Glass

Wow, it's so interesting. I realized as you said that, my image of God is exactly-- I've never put this together in my life-- is exactly my image of my father, but bigger, which is, he's usually not around. Sometimes he'll take an interest. He means well. But mostly he's kind of like, you're on your own.

Shalom Auslander

Yeah. That wasn't mine. I wish that were mine. Mine was a God in heaven lumbering around in his underpants half drunk on Kedem wine, looking to yell at somebody.

[LAUGHTER]

So I picture that guy watching the Ranger game going, to hell with you, buddy.

Ira Glass

Yeah. So you have this moment with the team. Does this actually have consequences past that week?

Shalom Auslander

You know, I think it helped hasten the slide. I think it was-- the week after was the first time that we just ignored the fact that it was Sabbath. And I think our big God revolution at that point was to get in our car and go to a mall. And that was the big one for us. Sabbath was the big one. That's the hard one to get past.

Ira Glass

So this happened a decade ago. Have there been times that you missed being religious, having that life, having that community? Is there some part of it that you've missed along the way?

Shalom Auslander

No, because I gave up the practice of it. But it's funny. My family or the people from that community or anybody I went to school with would look at me and say, oh, he's completely irreligious and not spiritual at all. But the truth is, I feel like the most religious person I know because I still haven't quite gotten that God out of my head. He's still there. He still makes comments.

There's always the picture of a big, old, frowning man in the back of the room shaking his head, saying, you're going to pay for this. So I could say I don't believe in it, but that's not going to get that character out of my life. And I don't know why I can't just give it up. I wish I could.

Ira Glass

Shalom Auslander. This story appears in his memoir, Foreskin's Lament. His most recent book is a novel called Mother for Dinner.

Act Three: Would You Like to Come Up to First Class?

Ira Glass

Act Three, Would You Like to Come Up to First Class? Sometimes, something happens to you that you'd like to walk away from and never think about again, but you find you can't. For instance, you had an indelible experience with Donald Trump. That's what the journalist E. Jean Carroll says happened to her. These last two weeks, she's been in court. She's the accuser in the rape trial of Donald Trump that's been happening in New York City.

Carroll says that back in the 1990s, Donald Trump raped her in a dressing room at the department store Bergdorf Goodman. He says she's lying, that her case is a, quote, "complete con job," "a hoax." She's suing him for defamation and for battery. She's one of dozens of women who've accused the former president of sexual assault and harassment over the years. The former president denies all their allegations.

These stories have been so widely covered, and everybody is so used to them that a few years back, to Carroll, it felt like at that point they were just being ignored, which seemed incredible to her. It killed her that these stories just somehow didn't seem to matter. And so she decided to try to do something about it.

She had a bunch of conversations with other women who have accused the president, and she published them in a series of stories in The Atlantic. And her idea was, most people only have a vague sense of these stories and don't really have much of a sense of what these women say actually happened. And her thought that was that by diving into the details of the story, she would restore them to human size and full color.

She adapted one of the articles that she wrote back then for us. We first aired this back in 2020. This particular one is with one of Donald Trump's accusers named Jessica Leeds, who actually testified in E. Jean Carroll's trial these past few weeks. Warning about content before we start. This is a frank conversation about alleged sexual assault. Here's E. Jean Carroll.

E. Jean Carroll

Let me set the scene-- midsummer twilight and Jessica Leeds and I are letting down what's left of our hair. Jessica's in her elegant crib in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I'm in my little shack just off the Appalachian Trail. And we're Zooming like two old screech owls, discovering how much we have in common, which includes our love for Mr. Paul Newman, our age, and our height.

E. Jean Carroll

How tall are you now?

Jessica Leeds

Well I'm 5' 7" now. I was 5' 9" at the-- I've lost 2 inches.

E. Jean Carroll

Me too. I've lost 2 inches.

Jessica Leeds

I don't know where they've gone, but I've lost them. I love being tall. When I was working, I was always so thankful--

E. Jean Carroll

Yeah, me too.

Jessica Leeds

--that I was tall.

E. Jean Carroll

About 40 years ago, when Jessica was working as a salesperson for a company that sold newsprint to publications like The Washington Post, she sat down next to Donald Trump on an airplane. Let me just say that if you have never Zoomed with a silver-haired, soigné 78-year-old woman who describes what it's like being strapped in a seat on a Braniff Airlines flight with a future president of the United States trying to fasten his lips on her like a 6' 2" suckfish, well, in my opinion, you have not lived, let alone Zoomed at all.

But before we board that flight, a refresher. Jessica was one of the first women to publicly accuse Trump of sexual assault in 2016. It was on the front page of The New York Times.

Jessica Leeds

I knew if the story did get any attention that the first thing Trump would say is that I wasn't pretty enough.

E. Jean Carroll

Right.

Jessica Leeds

I knew instinctively that that's what he was going to say.

E. Jean Carroll

How did Jessica know? Because Jessica is an old bat. Old bats are the best, even better than screech owls. I'm an old bat myself. We old bats don't kid ourselves. And in fact, one day after The New York Times published a story about what happened to Jessica on that plane in 1980, Trump yammered about her accusations at a rally.

Donald Trump

(MOCKINGLY) Oh, I was with Donald Trump in 1980. I was sitting with him on an airplane. And he went after me on the plane. Yeah, I'm going to go after-- believe me, she would not be my first choice, that I can tell you.

[AUDIENCE LAUGHING AND CHEERING]

You don't know. That would not be my first choice.

E. Jean Carroll

I told Jessica the same thing happened to me.

E. Jean Carroll

I knew it was coming too. I knew it, of course. And then he said it about me-- she's not my type. Because they're running pictures of me when I'm 75 years old. And it's not fair. If they had run pictures of me as I looked, you and I caught tons of shit because we're older women.

For the honor of Jessica Leeds and old bats everywhere, Jessica is a beauty now, and she was a beauty 40 years ago when she got on that flight to New York. And as she remembers it, it was a Braniff flight. Braniff was the chic airline. Her seat would have been full grain leather. Her flight attendant would have been clad in Halston. And her plane, it would have been painted in Perseus Green, Mercury Blue, or Sparkling Burgundy.

E. Jean Carroll

And so what were you wearing? Do you remember when you got on that plane?

Jessica Leeds

Yep. I had my best suit. It was a brown tweed. Oh, I loved that suit. And it was a jacket and a skirt. It was a fabulous outfit. It really was. I never wore it again after that day, though. I hung on to it for quite a while, but I never wore it again.

E. Jean Carroll

I know exactly what she means. It was the same for me with the dress I had on at Bergdorf's.

E. Jean Carroll

I didn't want to throw it away because it was a beautiful Donna Karan. I would never throw it away. But I couldn't put it on because bad things happened.

Jessica Leeds

Yeah, exactly.

E. Jean Carroll

OK, so isn't that interesting? We have so much in common. All right. So you were-- now, tell me what happened. You get on the plane.

Jessica Leeds

I get on the plane. I was sitting in the back. And I remember watching the stewardess come walking down the aisle. And she saw me, and she said, would you like to come up to first class? We have space.

It never occurred to me not to say yes. And I gathered my purse, and I went up to first class. That had had happened before.

E. Jean Carroll

Yeah, it's happened to me too.

Jessica Leeds

Yeah. I kind of accepted the fact that it was entertainment for the big honchos up in first class.

E. Jean Carroll

Now, I don't understand if people understand what we're talking about, but that's what they did. They chose the best-looking, best-dressed people and put them up in first.

Jessica Leeds

That's right.

E. Jean Carroll

What we're talking about is how things used to be-- buying a ticket, putting on our best clothes, hopping on a cocktail party, heading for New York, or Chicago, or Miami, or any jazzy city, USA. And this party lacked zip unless somebody very rich or very pretty was present. Men in first class would size up the female passengers before boarding and hold a brief conference with the check-in crew. Or alternately, a helpful flight attendant would simply stand in the aisle, waving people away and rearranging the seating chart so that an extremely tall chap, for instance, with black hair like greased felt could have the spot by me, which is what I told Jessica had happened on a jumbo jet to LA.

After the plane took off, following the meal, the chap shows me a photo of his private plane. Then he shows me a photo of his Rolls-Royce. Then he shows me his erection.

E. Jean Carroll

It would never have occurred to me to call anybody and say anything. We grew up expecting men to make a pass at-- I was not surprised. I expected it from men.

Jessica, you and I were born during the Second World War. We did not report. We expected it. And we laughed.

But, you know, we were wrong. We were wrong. We should have spoken up like they're doing now.

Jessica Leeds

Well, we were so thankful, though, to have--

E. Jean Carroll

Oh, I know, to have the fucking job.

Jessica Leeds

Yeah. Oh, absolutely.

E. Jean Carroll

Oh, my lord.

The flight attendant escorts Jessica to the front of the plane. She sits down in the aisle seat beside Donald Trump.

Jessica Leeds

As I recall, he introduced himself. The name meant nothing to me.

E. Jean Carroll

It wouldn't have. This was 1979, 1980. Jessica wasn't a native New Yorker. And she was not yet aware of all the levels, the ranks, the spheres of New York society that Trump, a young rat out of Queens, was chewing his way through.

E. Jean Carroll

He was very good looking in 1980. Do you agree?

Jessica Leeds

Well--

E. Jean Carroll

I found him very attractive in 1996. He was very pretty.

Jessica Leeds

Yeah, I guess.

E. Jean Carroll

He was not ugly.

Jessica Leeds

I can remember-- I don't remember my reaction. He was perfectly reasonable when I first sat down. I mean, he was blonde, tall, good-sized man, that sort of stuff. But I don't remember being overwhelmed by his looks or--

E. Jean Carroll

Did he ask you about yourself?

Jessica Leeds

What did we talk about? We talked about him. I remember we took off, and they served this wonderful meal. And then they came, and they picked up everything. And within a short amount of time, all of a sudden he's on me like a wet blanket.

E. Jean Carroll

Did he try to kiss you first?

Jessica Leeds

Yes, yes.

E. Jean Carroll

She glances away from the screen with a revolted wince.

Jessica Leeds

It was such a shock. It was like all of a sudden, he's like on me.

E. Jean Carroll

Jessica is ladylike. Therefore, allow me, for I have experience with Trump, to say in plain English what I believe Trump is about to do. I believe he will go straight for the crotch, just like he brags on the Access Hollywood tape, this man who today claims that he has never kissed or groped a woman without consent.

Jessica Leeds

It's like he's got four extra hands because he's grabbing my breasts. He's trying to kiss me. I'm trying to get his hands off of me. And this struggle went on for a little while. And then it's when he started to put his hand up my skirt that I got a jolt of strength and managed to wiggle myself out of the seat.

E. Jean Carroll

Jessica grabs her purse and storms to the back of the plane.

E. Jean Carroll

Now, wait, so did he make it all the way to your panties or not?

Jessica Leeds

No, no.

E. Jean Carroll

Because you had, by that time, started to stand up, right?

Jessica Leeds

Right.

E. Jean Carroll

Was there anybody else?

Jessica Leeds

Yeah, there was the guy across the aisle whose eyes were about the size of a saucer. And I kept thinking, why don't you say something? Or where is the stewardess on this whole thing? Why doesn't somebody come and rescue me? And that's when I realized there's only me that was going to rescue me. So that's when I--

E. Jean Carroll

Well, I'm glad you thought of-- see, some women freeze in this situation.

Jessica Leeds

Yes, yes, I know.

E. Jean Carroll

You didn't freeze.

Jessica Leeds

No, no, but I certainly didn't say anything.

E. Jean Carroll

I didn't say anything either. I didn't scream. I didn't do-- I laughed. Did you laugh?

Jessica Leeds

Yeah. No, I don't recall laughing. No. I took it seriously. I mean, I-- this was a real physical attack. And--

E. Jean Carroll

Oh, I know it's an attack, an assault.

Jessica Leeds

Yeah.

E. Jean Carroll

Although we talk about Trump groping women, most people don't understand how brazen Trump really is because no one knows what groping means. It's one of the reasons I wanted to talk to the Trump accusers. Who knows what the heck Trump is actually doing or on what part of the female body he is doing it?

One of Trump's accusers described for me Trump putting his hand up her skirt and onto her vulva. And she used the plain English. It was like a squish, she said, a squeeze. And she made a motion with her hand like squeezing a rubber duck. That is groping. So why does Trump do it? Jessica and I ponder.

E. Jean Carroll

Let's try to figure this out. The main question is, he knows he's not going to be able to have intercourse with you on the plane. He knows this. Why does he do this? What did he think he was going to gain? Was it sexual? Were you turning him on to such an extent that he couldn't stand it? What was it?

Jessica Leeds

Well, personally, I can't-- I thought he was bored.

E. Jean Carroll

Oh.

Jessica Leeds

Nothing happening, so let's grab a little pussy here.

E. Jean Carroll

This is such an insight to me. This is such an insight. Got it.

Jessica Leeds

But it goes along with his Hollywood tape.

E. Jean Carroll

And he has no attention span.

Jessica Leeds

No, no.

E. Jean Carroll

Was he reading at all beforehand? Did he have a book?

Jessica Leeds

No, no.

E. Jean Carroll

Newspaper?

Jessica Leeds

No.

E. Jean Carroll

Who'd get on a plane in 1980 without a ton of magazines, newspapers, or The Wall Street Journal?

Jessica Leeds

Exactly.

E. Jean Carroll

And he had nothing to read?

Jessica Leeds

No.

E. Jean Carroll

You thought he was bored. That is an insight that I think-- it really sends it home. Because some people have claimed he does it for power. I don't think it has anything to do with power.

Jessica Leeds

Well, it could be. But I really just chalked it off to him being bored.

E. Jean Carroll

So Trump grabs one woman, then he grabs the next woman, and the next woman. And pretty soon, we start thinking Trump grabbing women is normal. Then Trump grabbing women becomes so normal, it's boring.

Jessica Leeds

It is old news, and there's so much that he's done.

E. Jean Carroll

But Jessica, it's not old news. We're the most current thing. We tried to warn people. We tried to warn America this is who he was. And so now we seem to have been forgotten. We've been pushed-- well, we've been ignored. And this drives me crazy. This is why we're doing this.

Women like Jessica and I, we'll never forget.

E. Jean Carroll

How often did you think about this between then and 2015 when he came to the fore again?

Jessica Leeds

I probably would not have had it so emblazoned in my mind if it hadn't been for the gala at Saks Fifth Avenue.

E. Jean Carroll

The gala at Saks Fifth Avenue. This is a year or two after the flight. And it's a benefit for the Humane Society of New York and a few other charities. Jessica is the assistant to the president of the Humane Society and is handing out table assignments.

Jessica Leeds

I had this fabulous dress.

E. Jean Carroll

Oh, what was it? Let me hear.

Jessica Leeds

Mary McFadden--

E. Jean Carroll

Oh, I love Mary McFadden.

Jessica Leeds

--pleated, all these little pleats in a taxicab yellow. And I show up at Saks. And I've got this great dress on. And I'm doing my thing. And I'm meeting Geoffrey Beene. I'm meeting Bill Blass. I'm meeting all of these designers for this party. And in fact, Mary McFadden came up and looked at me, and said, that's my dress. And I said, yes, it is. So it was really a fabulous evening.

And then Trump with his wife Ivana came up. She was pregnant, very pregnant. And he looked at me when I handed him his table assignment. And I'm looking at him, thinking, you're the asshole from the airplane. I remember you.

E. Jean Carroll

The future president of the United States remembers Jessica too.

Jessica Leeds

And he looked at me, and he said, "I remember you. You're the cunt from the airplane."

Ira Glass

E. Jean Carroll is a journalist and the author of the memoir What Do We Need Men For? Her series of conversations with women who accused Donald Trump of sexual assault is at the atlantic.com website. It's called, "I Moved on Her Very Heavily." Her story was produced for our show by Susan Burton.

Credits

Ira Glass

Our program was produced today by Alex Blumberg and myself with Diane Cook, Jane Marie, Starlee Kine, and Sarah Koenig. Senior producer for today's show is Julie Snyder. Production on the rerun from Matt Tierney, Stowe Nelson, and Alaa Mostafa. Special thanks today to Greg Flannery, John Kieswetter, Rick Pender, Joe Moss, Adam Rosenberg, Sally Ford, Bill Wood, Robin Wood, Scott Gamfer and the Cincinnati Historical Society.

This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange. Thanks, as always, to our program's co-founder Mr. Torey Malatia, who reminds you--

Jerry Springer

Until next time, take care of yourself and each other.

Ira Glass

Well said. I'm Ira Glass, back next week with more stories of This American Life.