♪ amy: from the sundance film festival in park city, utah, this is democracy now... i was sfrighten. i nt back buffalo i di't llnybody knew. he hadnfluen. he h a lotfoney.

he did a l of adveising in nepapers. nobody would believe anything i said. i wasn't going to go to anybody and complain about that. amy: untouchable. today we look at a remarkable new documentary that takes on harvey weinstein's decades of sexual abuse and the system that allowed it to happen. we will speak to the film's director, ursula macfarlane, actress rosanna arquette who accused weinstein of sexual abuse and to lauren o'connor, a former employee at the weinstein company who wrote a damning internal memo in 2015 exposing weinstein's misconduct. today she speaks out in her first television interview. play sot (sot anchor) >> when i filed the memo i knew it was at great risk to my

career and professional track. potentially at risk to myself as an individual. but i think on some level i really hoped that if something was in writing than when hr it they wouldn't be able to say -- they wouldn't be able to unhear it. amy: all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. the united states has placed sweeping new sanctions on venezuela's state-owned oil company pdvsa in the latest attempt to oust venezuelan president nicolas maduro. the sanctions will cut off an essential source of income for venezuela, which is already facing a massive economic crisis. the sanctions come a week after the u.s. announced it was recognizing opposition leader juan guaido as the president of

venezuela. in a recent interview on fox business john bolton openly said u.s. oil companies could benefit from what'happening in venezuela. we are in conversation with major american companies now ort are either in venezuela were in the case of cgo in the united states. i think we're trying to get to the same end result here. is one of the three countries. it will make a big difference to the united states economically if we can have american oil andanies really invest in produce the oil capabilities in venezuela. it would be good for the people of venezuela. it would be good for the people of the united states. amy: minnesota congressmember ilhan omar tweeted monday, quote: "trump's new sanctions on venezuela are nothing more than economic sabotage designed to

force regime change by starving the very people we claim to be helping. we must lift these, & other sanctions impacting venezuela's poor, & support dialogue between the opposition & government." omar is one of only a handful of lawmakers who have condemned u.s. support for the unelected opposition leader juan guaido. on monday john bolton took questions at a white house press briefing, the first such briefing in 41 days. >> the president has made it very clear on this matter that all options are on the table. amy: john bolton was photographed entering the briefing room holding a notebook which included a note saying "5,000 troops to colombia." meanwhile the commander of u.s. southern command, admiral craig faller, has just returned from colombia. he is scheduled to brief senator marco rubio and others today. this comes as opposition leader juan guaido has called for more protests this week. on sunday, he told the washington post he is in talks with some venezuelan military officials to remove president maduro from power.

he also told cnn he had spoken repeatedly to president trump. as federal employees returned to work monday after a 35 day partial government shutdown, the congressional budget office said the shutdown resulted in an economic loss of $11 billion. $8 billion of those is believed to be temporary, leaving a permanent economic loss of $3 billion. members of a bi-partisan conference committee are starting talks this week, tasked with securing an agreement that both congress and trump will approve to keep the government open. the current temporary funding bill will expire on february 15. trump has threatened to shut down the government again or declare a national emergency if congress does not include border wall funding. house speaker nancy pelosi has invited president trump to deliver the state of the union address on february 5th. the address was initially scheduled to happen today but pelosi refused to extend an invitation to trump during the government shutdown.

the former superintendent of joshua tree national park said recovery from damage to the park during the shutdown could take hundreds of years. -- to recover from. national parks around the country were hit hard by the shutdown, with reports of overflowing toilets and trash piling up, as well as vandalism and damage to wildlife. the u.s. annnced mony it was charging chinese telecom giant huawei and its chief financial officer meng wanzhou with bank fraud and stealing trade crets. the u.s. is seeking meng's extradition from canada where she is out on bail aft her december arrest. the bank fraud charge is related to huawei subsidiary skycom, which is alleged to have violated u.s. sanctions by trying to import u.s. technology to iran. the indictment comes amid ongoing trade negotiations between the u.s. and china, whose tariff truce will expire in march if no deal is made.

in northern yemen, the u.n. said monday that the shelling of a camp for displaced people in the north of the country killed 8 civilians saturday, and wounded 30 others. an attack earlier this month in the same area killed six children and two women. u.n. officials are in yemen for ongoing peace talks as the fragile ceasefire in hodeidah agreed to last month by houthi rebels and saudi-backed government forces has been delayed. meanwhile, british aid agencies, including the red cross and oxfam, sounded the alarm on the situation in yemen, calling for the international community to pay more attention to the world's worst humanitarian crisis, and for the swift implementation the ceasefire in the port of hodeidah. this is oxfam's awssan kamal. >> people are struggling to buy their daily rations to be able to feed their children. women are having to travel vast differences to get to water. fathers and mothers are having to make the choice where they have to marry their daughters at a younger age to be able to provide for the family.

amy: back in the united states, a polar vortex is hitting the midwest this week, bringing the coldest arctic outbreak in at least 20 years. wisconsin has declared a state of emergency. wind cll temperatures could plummet as low as minus 50 in chicago and minus 60 in minneapolis. medil professionals have warmed that extreme temperatures could cause frostbite and hypothermia after as few as 5 minutes of exposure. many schools are closed. on capitol hill, senators have voted 74-19 to advance bill s.1, which contains a controversial provision aimed at preventing opposition to the israeli government by allowing state and local government to sanction u.s. companies which are engaged in a boycott against israel. the bill was temporarily blocked by senate democrats earlier this month in the midst of the government shutdown, but is now expected to pass later this week. acting attorney general matthew whitaker said monday that special counsel robert mueller's

investigation is "close to being completed" and that he has been briefed on the report. on monday, a bipartisan bill was introduced in a bid to make mueller's findings available to the public. in virginia, thousands of teachers and supporters took to the streets monday to protest low wages and demand more funding for education. the march comes in the wake of the los angeles teacher's strike, which ended last week in a deal between the teachers' union and the school district, and a planned strike by teachers in denver. and in new york city, outspoken immigrant rights activist and executive director of the new sanctuary coalition, ravi ragbir emerged to a crowd of supporters and local leaders monday after he was required to report to ice for a check-in. one year ago, a federal court ordered ice to release ragbir after he was detained at a similar check-in and threatened with deportation. this is ragbir addressing supporters outside of federal plaza in downtown manhattan.

>> they want to break our spirit. they want to destroy our humanity. byy want us to give up threatening anintimidating us. how could you sleep? how could you live with yourself when you're trying to take away water from people who are dying of thirst? amy: and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm y goodman. we're broadcasting from the sundance film festival in park city, utah. while hollywood continues to be a male-dominated industry with just a fraction of the top-grossing films in 2018 directed by women, this year's sundance celebrates representation with films about the rise of the women's movement following the 2016 election. but it also features a film about the rise and fall of a movie titan that once used sundance as a hunting ground:

movie mogul harvey weinstein, who has been accused of rape, sexual assault or misconduct by more than 75 women. the film is called "untouchable." it takes on harvey weinstein's decades of sexual abuse and the system that allowed it to happen through the stories of survivors of his abuse, from his time as a young music promoter in buffalo in the 1970s all the way until a series of investigations toppled weinstein in 2017. the stories of accusers from gwyneth paltrow to salma hayek to angelina jolie rocked hollywood, sparking the me too movement. more than a year after this public reckoning, weinstein now faces five charges that could land him in prison for life, including rape and predatory sexual assault. weinstein has just hired the former lawyers of one of his most public accusers, actress rose mcgowan, who says weinstein raped her right here at sundance in 1997.

his trial is expected to begin in may. just two years after harvey weinstein joined the women's march in park city, "untouchable" premiered here on friday. i sat down with the film's director ursula macfarlane the day after the premiere. she began by talking about how it felt to make this film. >> it felt personal. i can't say i've in the position of those women. there are shades of if this happened to me and all of my friends and my mom and so many women that i know. it's personal. it feels in a collective way very personal. i wanted to try and understand how we got to this point. how he got away with it for so long. that was my question. i wanted to understand how he got away with it. amy: let's go back to 1978.

a person he met way back in his career in buffalo, new york. >> harvey was not harvey weinstein the movie mogul at that point. he was a very successful music promoter. buffalo was a big town on the concert stop. he had made a lot of money in was a younghope university student and she worked with him on a fleetwood mac concert. he said i'm thinking of setting up a movie company with my brother. she loved the movie so she did. she was a very young woman. they ended up on a trip to new york and he said come with us. we are going to do some movie deals down in new york. come along. she said sure. that sounds really exciting. she's a young woman. why wouldn't you want to do that?

they check-in and he comes back and says, there's only one room. there's been a mistake. we are going to have to share a room. and she's a college student so she thinks -- we bunk up in and he might time boast that he slept with me when he didn't. that's fine. i can deal with it. he raped her that night. she tells that story in huge kind of upsetting detail. of hope's go to a clip from the documentary. i waso fritened. i wentack to bfalo. i didn't tell anydy inew. it used to say h owned the cops in buflo becau they wo concer they worked curity whethey re off dy. had infence. he had aot of moy.

indid a lot of advertising newspapers. nobody would have believed anything i said. i wasn't going to go to anybody and complain about that. describing hope returning to buffalo after she was raped by harvey weinstein in new york. >> she said she was terrified because -- and this is a pattern of many women. she thought she couldn't tell anybody because she thought she wouldn't be believed because as far as she knew, harvey had the cops sewn up in buffalo. he hired the cops when they were off duty to do security work on the concerts. also he had power in the local newspapers and he did a lot of advertising. so she felt no one's going to believe me. that is part of a larger truth of so many women. they think they just won't be believed. amy: why did you call the film untouchable? it felt really appropriate

because he had been untouchable for decades and decades. and we tried to show why that had happened and we don't know what the end of the story is. he could possibly remain untouchable. is not yet over. there have been many twists and turns. the case is vulnerable for the women at the moment. to rosannaed to go arquette. for her to tell her story after the film mirrored at sundance and she was one of the guests who came up afterwards. we talked to her about her experience in the 1990's. >> it was many years ago. i was told there was a great movie with gary oldman. we talked on the phone. dosaid i really want you to

this. you're going to love it. i have the new script. why don't we have dinner at the beverly hills hotel. gary oldman my favorite actor in the world. so i showed up and they said mr. weinstein would see me upstairs. and i was like. my heart was racing. he probably has the penthouse apartment. i didn't -- that first instinct is your right instinct. don't go. danger. he opened the door. he had a white bathrobe on. he said, i can't move my neck. i said, i've got a great masseuse for you. i started to back up. he said no. he grabbed my hand. he pulled it down to his erect whatever. he was wearing just a bathrobe and he was out -- at the door of his hotel room.

i pulled away and he goes you know, you're making a very big mistake. i said i will never be that girl. so i left. and slowly things started to fall apart for me. i worked but suddenly it was like the tv movie. i was always doing features. there was this a rap about me that ias difficult. who is saying that? >> did he say he would destroy you? >> you didn't say those words to me. he said it to many other people. >> there's a part in the fil where someone is in dark shadow and their voice is disguised. they work with black cube. showednt in the film people to be gone after and you are one of them. because my computer is

going down. i know my phone has been tapped. i think they heard a lot of conversations that were amongst the women. amy: that's rosanna arquette who speaks in the film untouchable. well-known actress who starred in desperately seeking susan. very much feels that her career was derailed by harvey weinstein and the psychological effect of what happened to her. it was when she saw this film for the first time that she came to understand just how seriously he took the possibility of her describing him attacking her somehow at getting out. this story of black cube. can you talk more about it? apparently had a number of spies who were the friending women. i don't know if you know the story of rose mcgowan who was befriended by somebody who said

she was putting money into women's empowerment got toations and rose know this woman. she told her her whole story. a journalist who called her up and got her to tell the whole story. amy: and they were in journalists. and they weren't a friend. >> at all. it was only discovered months later this was someone who was working for a private intelligence organization. this was a very carefully orchestrated campaign with many tentacles. sometimes i think how on earth was he running a company? were different people running different departments. ronan farrow talks about this in the film. some of the highest powered most

highly paid lawyers in new york city were working for harvey weinstein and running these contracts for him. think a number of women were targeted. obviously rosanna according to this contract in the film, she becomes a target. even the use of that kind of military language target, that harvey weinstein believed were involved in the campaign to wage this backlash against him. amy: can you explain what black cube is? >> it is one of the private intelligence organizations harvey weinstein hired. they are an organization. their headquarters are in israel. they are largely run by former members of mossad which is the israeli secret service who are known to be amongst the top intelligence agents in the world. they also have a network of intelligence officers around the world. they work for an awful lot of

people. current president included i believe. --: anotherevastating tart part of untouchable is the story of paz de la huerta. she early in the film has claimed that weinstein raped her. horrible. she felt powerless. she also like many of the women felt unable to tell anybody and she felt very strongly that if she went to the police that they wouldn't believe her and that harvey weinstein was so powerful that he would tell the police she was lying and she would get called a whore. was absolutely terrified. so she didn't go to the police at that point. she did later on. at this point in the film she and for me it's very

poignant. ronan farrow talks about the fact that harvey weinstein and his investigators have dug up a lot of photographs of women looking friendly with harvey after the alleged assaults. right? and what she explains is that you have to go to these parties if you are a working actor is. you have to go to the premiers. you ha to put nice dss on and look goo. but insi you areying. amy: let's go tpaz de l huertan untoucble. ace butt on a ppy insideou areying. it madme feel ke i hado reclm my sexlity allver ain. so wanted do photo shoots where couldeel beauful. d take iback.

take bacwhat i bieve he stole from me. that's the actress paz de la huerta. dream destroyer is putting it mildly. to soarvey weinstein did many women. certainly erica rosenbaum is an example of that. introduce us to erica. >> i just love her. she's a mom. she just had her fourth baby. she's a beautiful actress from canada. she met harvey when she was really young. she came to l.a., she didn't have an agent or any money. to she came to hollywood hopefully get a career and she met harvey weinstein at a party and she said she didn't know who he was which might seem a bit unbelievable. she was very freshfad and ve youn amy: l'o to eca rosenbm.

>> i had bn connted wit thisovely model and s sort of took under h wing. e had vited me tcome alo to ts party where i sat dn to dner nextarvey weinstein and i dinot knowho he waat thtime. heas very ease. casuly chaing abouamily and lifen a smaltown. abouturd ssionate instry. filmed abt ilike a nerd. likeomebody o just led stytellingnd was s proud t be ae to do . as quite of he sure tt i was ing to do very well. he cou help meut. i rely belied that ias seng this geus who cld .u st awyneth palow

we we both leang and he beckon me or and id,'m not donealking tyou. we have to talk about what comes next. he said n you givee a lift back tmy hotel? rosenbaum. erica >> he says to her, we need to talk. would you come back to my hotel. it was a risknew but she felt quite confident in herself. if you are a young actress in this town where it is so hard to get a break you take risks. so she goes back to his hotel off and he takes his top and he tries to make her do the same. he tries to make her do a massage. it.is very sensible around she manages to negotiate herself out of the situation and she leaves having just given a massage but nothing else and

feels very shaken up by it. but also quite confident that she handled it well. and then she keeps in touch with him because she says, that was a difficult situation but i handled it ok and i've been very clear about going to sleep with him. so i'm going to get what i wanted out of my meeting which was he promised me work. so she keeps in contact with him and then she goes back to meet him again a few years later at the toronto film festival. amy: she meets him once early on in her career and she negotiates her way out of a very bad situation though she does have to massage him in some way. then take us to the next time. again at thets him toronto film festival. she sets up a meeting with a young assistant who is very kind and friendly to her. mr.young assistant says weinstein would like to meet you

. he's got to squeeze you in between a screening and a dinner or something like that. amy: and says actually we will meet you. >> so she thinks, i handled myself before. from what we know that was another sort of pattern that young women assistance would be used apparently to set these meetings up and the young actresses would feel there was safety in numbers because it was going to be with this other person and then she would disappear and that's what happened in that case. the hotel suite and then the assistant leaves. and then she's left alone with harvey weinstein and apparently he's just wearing a shirt with nothing on under leaf -- underneath. she tries to leave. he tells her to stay. she's very frightened. amy: she sees blood in the bathroom and this woman who left

and said goodbye to her quickly seemed very stressed. harveyrly she feels that is very angry for some reason and she's actually frightened i think because of the anger he seems to be expressing. he asks her to come into the bathroom and she tries to get away from it but she actually is frightened that trying to leave might be more dangerous so she follows him into the bathroom and she sees a toilet seat that's been smashed and there's blood on the seats. i find it so distressing to listen to that. you just think what on earth has happened? it takes a lot of power to smash a solid toilet seat and there's blood on it. and he gets her to perform something very humiliating and frightening. and while this is all going on she notices that there is blood on his hands. butmanages to get away

obviously it's a very devastating experience. amy: not before he pushes her head new the mirror and masturbates behind her. -- nearly into the mirror and masturbates behind her. how did hollywood prop up harvey weinstein? this is not just one as rose mcgowan put it monster. >> no. i think it's in the context also of the casting couch. this horrible tradition that somehow has been romanticized in the annals of hollywood history that it is expected and it's got this romantic notion that somehow it is pleasant for the women as well. i think in some ways harvey seems to have been modeling himself on those old silver screen moguls who ran studios in the 30's. i think there's a kind of almost

like it wasn't that bad feeling around it. it seems that harvey was able to compartmentalize himself as well and stop people from knowing things. i think it's clear that a lot of people didn't know things and jody and megan did a lot of work and looked to the agents in particular and they were agents who knew what was going on and they still send young women into those hotel suites. so people knew. a lot of people knew. a lot of people knew something even if they didn't know everything. ursula macfarlane, director of the new documentary "untouchable" a damning documentary that tells the story of weinstein's abuse of power through the eyes of the women he targeted. when we come back, we speak with lauren o'connor. stay with us.

amy: "nameless, faceless" by courtney barnett. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. we turn now to the story of a woman who helped to topple harvey weinstein and expose his rampant sexual abuse, but has remained largely behind the scenes until now. her name is lauren o'connor. in 2015, she was a literary agent at the weinstein company who worked closely with harvey weinstein. she penned a memo to weinstein executives saying, "i am a 28

year old woman trying to make a living and a career. harvey weinstein is a 64 year old, world famous man and this is his company. the balance of power is me: 0, harvey weinstein: 10." this memo would eventually become the bedrock of the new york times investigation that first exposed harvey weinstein's decades of abuse. lauren o'connor tells her own story for the first time in "untouchable," a damning documentary that tells the story of weinstein's abuse of power through the eyes of the women he targeted. i sat down with lauren this weekend. >> i wrote the memo after i had been at the company for about two years. i started at 26.

i joined the weinstein company as a literary scout. i basically get to find books to make into movies and tv shows. it was a dream job. i like to work hard. i respond to rigor. au get a phone call from company that changed the way movies are made and it's a total dream. there,ted when i started i went in with my eyes wide open. i expected rigorous hours, late-night phone calls. to travel a lot. i was really ready for it. i hoped to work closely with him because you really would be taking a master class. you would learn things that are unteachable through exposure. and surviving an environment like weinstein. being able to handle the intensity of that company equipped you with skills to walk into any room and any area of your field for the rest of your life.

what i didn't expect was the abuse i'd be exposed to. the abuse that i would see others have to withstand. amy: was there a precipitating event that led you to sit down and write this memo >? >> there was one particular event in which things i may be perceived were going on became undeniably clear. i talk about it a bit in untouchable as well. i was on a trip with harvey. i traveled a lot with him. middle of the night a young room who comes to my hotel pounding on the door and she is crying and shaking. i ask her to come in and ask her what's wrong. there's hesitation before she tells me and starts explaining a massage incident had occurred. amy: explain what that means.

that she had been with him in his room and probably taking a meeting. and he asked for a massage. she said no. he kept pushing the subject matter. eventually i think she got scared and gave him the massage and got out he comes saying no is starting to escalate the scenario rather than neutralize it. she came to the room and she was really distraught. and when something like that happens, when you are a secondhand witness to something, you really can't forget that. and you are presented with a really clear choice that at the end of the day doesn't feel like a choice at all. are you going to do something about it or not?

and that isn't a choice to make. the question is how do you do something about it. amy: so explain what you did. >> it took me some time to how to speak up. i filed a pretty complaint-- extensive detailing that allegation and other instances with hr which has since been referred to as the memo. when i filed the memo i knew there was a -- it with human relations at the weinstein company. >> yes. i knew it was at great risk to my career and my professional track. essentially a risk to myself as an individual.

but on some level i really hoped that if something was in writing than when hr read it, they nknow that. able to u i really thought there was a bence that the system would driven by humanity in an instance like that. that there would be some repercussion and some sort of change would be made. so we haven't seen the whole memo. the new york times had it leaked to them. one of the things you say that they quote is suspecting that you and other female weinstein employees were being used to facilitate liaisons with vulnerable women who hope you will get them work. explain what you meant. the best way i can explain

the dynamic at that company and the way female employees were example, there's one that really readily comes to mind regarding a flight attendant. i think it really exemplifies how difficult it was for the left-hand to know what the right hand was doing at every step of the way. he wieldedverly internal systems to that end. i traveled with harvey a lot and i remember we were getting off a flight. we get down to the bottom. or did off the plane. he sends me back up on the plane alone to get the number of the young flight attendant under the auspices that she had done a great job on the plane and he wanted to employ her again. fair enough, right? your bosses asking you to help him hire someone. i go back on the plane. i remember early in the flight they had been talking. i remember her age was 21.

for whatever reason i clocked that she didn't have a wedding band on. on some level i was picking up on something. what are you going to say to your boss who has given you a perfectly reasonable ask? this person did a great job, i would like to hire them. take the phone number. hope that your spidey sense is way off and that it is your compass that is askew. where the systems of workflow come into play in a way that completely confuses the intention. so the resin was i took the number down. sent it to the new york office to be filed in contacts. that passed to another person's hands to be put in the file. in the database. later be assistant who was on the trip with him but did not hear or see him tell me to get her phone number is told

separately by him, please find the phone number of the woman i met earlier today. i'm meeting her for a drink. that phone call goes in separately to the office into one of four people who don't have context. so by the time a reach out is made to the flight attendant to set up a cocktail meeting no one knows that she's a flight attendant. there's no context for how or why he met her. there's no understanding of the purpose. and he could give that person any reason and present it professionally or within understandable personal means. and quite literally it was a game of telephone. there's a lot of times i look back like, what meeting was i setting up? i have no idea. you sent the memo to hr. did you send it to your boss? >> yes -- no.

hr got in touch with me. to this day i still do not know if any change was made inside the company. i do not know if there was any effect on the work and the task given to the female employees and male employees. i have no idea. amy: do you think he was told? >> i don't know. i have no idea what happened next. there is a toxic environment for women at this company. can you talk about his interactions with you? >> it's funny. harvey and i actually had a really strong working dialogue. we had really productive meetings together. we were able to work long hours. it was really quite a paradoxical thing i was learning a lot and i was excelling in my role at the company.

but harvey is a notoriously passionate person to put it lightly. there's a lot of gold purity. a lot of yelling. -- full garrity. a lot of yelling. back andr when i look i can't tell you why or when this shifted, i did stop wearing makeup and doing my hair very early on in my time there.

this is democracy now. i'm amy goodman. we continue with lauren o'connor. on october 5, the new york times comes out with their piec i assume your life was very different after that day and it was before. what happened for you? interesting. sitting where we sit today there seem to be two paths.

when it comes to standing up to abuse, standing up to power. one is localized and a little more private. go to hr. go to the system. the localized powers that be that you would think would be able to affect immediate change. you're often left wondering if any change occurs. you are also often silenced. the other path that is its public and whether you move forward on a private path or public path it's a devils trade. positionedu are publicly it's very difficult to conceive of just how high the cost of purge is and just how literal the tax on integrity is. thinking about my own experience. the new york times featured my

name, my memo. i was still handcuffed by very strict nda. amy: nondisclosure agreement. which said? i guess it's a nondisclosure agreement. >> it restricted me from talking about any of my experiences are my memo or a knology it. so i remember in the lead up to the new york times article publishing that featured my name and my memo sitting for an hour and a half in a walgreens parking lot with a burner phone crying because i couldn't figure backow to call mom and dad on the east coast. i was living in l.a. at the time . and told him that their daughter was likely going to end up in the newspaper, in a major article about sexual assault, sexual harassment tied to a very powerful man. i was too scared to say anything.

there was just such a clear demarcation point of life before and life after. one of the most trivial examples and yet something really lasting , grilled cheese is my favorite food. and when the article published i was at work. i was downstairs doing a grilled cheese sandwich. the timing -- i had no idea the article was publishing that day. so i'm standing there waiting for my food and i black out and it was the smell of the grilled cheese that brought me back to my senses. and i can't eat grilled cheese anymore. silly thing. level there are practical impacts. when we talk about cost and tax, those are real things.

it harvey me to retaliate. i have read in the papers that there is someone following me since 2016 who knows. amy: just to say what you are referring to at least according to untouchable, this documentary about weinstein and pieces written in the new yorker and the new york times, this is really company that harvey weinstein employed that used former is really assad agents to investigate people like rosanna arquette. you will could be on that list. a guardian report that suggested i was. when we talk about retaliation, harvey has not come after me financially or legally and i still have hundreds of thousands of dollars in bills that i cannot pay from the last year and half. amy: why? >> there are a lot of legal situations surrounding this.

amy: because of the many women who have come forward? >> yes. that have required participation or eagle support on my end. there's also therapy. i think when you go through trauma, therapy is crucial both in weathering it and in recovering from it. those bills are expensive. blown through my entire savings in a year and a half. i'm in debt. i haven't figured out how i'm going to pay for therapy past month and i'm employed full-time. i have a good job. there's a real literal cost to all of this. and there's a very personal cost. when you are positioned publicly whether you choose to go public or are made public and

regardless of whether you do or don't have power or platform. defined by aafter single instant. you're are called a victim or a survivor. you are called a whistleblower or complicit. you have to then operate for the rest of your life every time you walk into a room whether it's a business meeting, a first date or making a new friend. you have to assume that one moment of time in your life precedes you. that somebody has already decided who you are. and it's ironic. we are in a moment right now consent.bout it's about ownership of voice. it's in direct protest to objectification. and yet when you are made into a public figure you risk being objectified all over again by a label. to see the human behind the headlines and that's a tricky thing.

amy: let me ask you. an organization like time's up that just grew up in response to the whole me too movement that has raised tens of millions of dollars particularly for situations like yours. are you reaching out to them? >> i've been in touch with time's up. ishink that there mission hugely admirable. i'm really grateful they exist. i wish they had in 2015 when i was filing a harassment complaint. from my under station right now is singularly on active harassment cases which is not the system -- situation i'm in. is sexualer it assault or dealing with it by seeing other people like the woman who came to your room or what you experienced yourself. in the film about harvey weinstein in describing your

experience when you got something wrong. how harvey responded. what happened? >> there was one time that i talk about in untouchable where . made a mistake we have been working in his hotel room which was actually quite common. i was getting up to leave the room. it was the end of the evening. and he was very angry. still care member the mistake i made. we'll never be able to forget what he said to me. he was yelling at me. big man. a couple inches away from my face. my back is up against the wall. the doors to my right through the rest of the room is to my left i can't really get past him. he says to me -- it was almost a compliment thrown in there. he says to me, you are smart enough to be me one day. me,if you don't want to be maybe should just go marry some

fat rich jewish -- because maybe all your good for is making babies. and you are sitting there like, ok. i need to get out of here. i don't believe that's true about me. but you can't forget that. so 2017 the article comes out and your memo is joined with the awareness that came out in both these pieces and subsequent reporting and then women coming forward themselves. whether we're talking about angelina jolie organ culture -- paltrow, rosanna arquette, rose mcgowan talking about being raped right here at the sundance film festival in 1997. , how did after another this affect you and were you shocked by it? >> i am so grateful for all of those women who came forward. and the ones who continue to.

when the article published, it was the very first story on any of this. media were a powerful figure you can bury one story. you can't bury hundreds of stories. so the solidarity provided by each woman that came forward actually protected me, too. and i'm so grateful for that. and i think one of the post beautiful things that happened over the last year and a half is that rape is often a word associated with shame. in the place of shame we have seen the word rape come out of the closet. in the place of shame there is solidarity. and that's not something i could have conceived of and i think it's brilliant. and what i would love to see rise topolicy really meet social change.

amy: i want to go back to that quote from your memo. i'm a 28-year-old woman trying to make a living and a career. you can take it from there. is me balance of power zero, harvey weinstein 10. amy: talk about the balance of power and what that means. >> power operates on multiple levels. in professional hierarchy, you have juniors and seniors and presidents and ceos. power operates across the media. you have a platform, do you have voice? finances.ates across do you have money, do you not have money? and it operates across gender. so when we talk about harvey being stacked at 10

and me stacked at zero, those are the measurements. when he was charged last , onefrom may through july crime after another for which you will go to trial apparently in something like may. pretrial hearings in march. charged with rape, charged with auditory sexual assault. charged with sex crimes. faces more than life in prison. your thoughts? i'm really grateful to see due process at play here. think that onet man losing his job or going to trial meets that the world has changed. arei think what people seeing men and women alike stand up for here through the last year and a half is for a system

to change an assistant to change in that it protects the abused and a systembuser that resets the balance of power. amy: are you suing harvey weinstein? >> now. -- no. amy: you saw the film untouchable for the first time last week. zelda perkins like you worked for harvey weinstein and was spurred into action when another young woman was abused by him and she resigned over that. to zelda, thank you. it's hard for me to articulate how isolating my own experience has been both when i worked there, after filing the memo and being silenced. and still being restricted by an volume corrupted in the last year around harvey.

when i learned about zelda's story it was deeply reassuring. i don't know zelda and i feel kindred with her. amy: how did you make the decision to come forward to actually be filmed? your namehad printed and excerpts of this leaked memo that you didn't leak. what made you decide to come forward? moment and aa movement that is about ownership of voice ultimately. i think it's an important part of healing. i think it's a really important part of healing to use your voice and it was time for me. lauren o'connor is featured in the new documentary untouchable about the movie mogul harvey weinstein who is rumored to be here in park city now. the film premiered here at the

sundance on festival. this marked lauren o'connor's first time speaking on television. her 2015 internal memo helped expose weinstein's misconduct. that does it for our show. democracy now! is accepting applications for a full-time one year paid news fellowship. details are online at de

♪ ♪ thank you for joining us on nhk news line. the heads of american intelligence say north korea is unlikely to give up its nuclear weapons. a statement that contradicts their commander in chief. top security officials gave their testimony before the senate intelligence agency on tuesday. >> our assessment is bolstered by our observations of some

activity that is