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Ryan Seacrest Was Investigated, Cleared After Harassment Claims – Why Is He Still Under Fire?

February 28, 2018
Staff

WRITER

What’s going on?

Longtime TV personality Ryan Seacrest is set to host the E! News coverage of the 2018 Academy Awards this Sunday. Why is that controversial? Because old allegations about sexual harassment have resurfaced even though Seacrest was already cleared in an E! News investigation.

Glenn, Pat and Stu talked about this story on today’s show. What happens in a world where people are cleared after allegations, but we’re all still expected to believe the accusers?

Catch me up:

NBC Universal, which owns E! News, said that an independent counsel “interviewed more than two dozen people” following the harassment allegations by former stylist Suzie Hardy. She worked for Seacrest between 2007 and 2013 and accused him of touching her inappropriately, asking sexual questions and otherwise harassing her.

What are people saying?

“E!’s Ryan Seacrest Situation Is Getting Complicated,” Vanity Fair said in a headline, while a Daily Beast opinion piece demanded that “It’s Time for E! to Pull Ryan Seacrest From the Oscars Red Carpet.”

Hardy’s claims resurfaced this week after an anonymous source told NBC News that the stylist’s claims were accurate; however, a video clip of Seacrest and Hardy from the time contradicted that story.

“Over the course of a two-month process, our outside counsel interviewed more than two dozen people regarding the allegations, including multiple separate meetings with the claimant and all firsthand witnesses that she provided,” NBC Universal said in a statement. “Any claims that question the legitimacy of this investigation are completely baseless.”

 

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

Pat Gray, welcome to the program. On your mind today.

PAT: Many things. But maybe the top of my list right now is Ryan Seacrest.

First of all, Ryan Seacrest was accused by his hairstylist or the person that does his makeup at E!.

GLENN: For six years.

PAT: Yeah.

And she claimed that he sexually harassed her on a regular basis. So quietly, E! did an investigation. I think they handled it right. They didn't suspend him. They just waited to see what would happen. They found zero evidence that what she said was true.

GLENN: Zero.

PAT: And he kept going. And Seacrest talked about it. He put it on his Facebook post. Put out a story.

GLENN: And he said, this is not true, but I'm cooperating.

PAT: Right.

GLENN: Whatever the company wants to do, I'll cooperate.

PAT: And he did.

GLENN: He did.

PAT: And they found no evidence.

GLENN: Zero.

PAT: And now it's everywhere all of a sudden. And now they're talking about public relations people are advising their clients not to go anywhere near him at the Oscars because he has the red carpet thing. The interviews that he does.

STU: Oh, jeez.

PAT: And so the PR people are saying, why would you even take that chance? He's been accused. So go to the other person, or go to some other outlet.

GLENN: He's been accused.

PAT: And he's been cleared. And he's been cleared.

GLENN: He's been accused. Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party? My gosh.

PAT: If this isn't a worse McCarthyism than we had in the '50s -- I mean, it's getting as bad.

GLENN: It's getting as bad. Except that did have the power of the government to put you in jail.

PAT: Very true. So that's worse. That's true.

GLENN: This is just destroying your life.

PAT: And, I mean, witch hunt is appropriate on this. There's an ABC star. Bellamy Young. She's on Scandal. She said, I think this is the time for Ryan Seacrest to step aside and let someone with equal talent that is beyond reproach that is in charge. First of all, the guy has every job in the world. There is nobody of equal talent.

GLENN: I'm sincere about that. I think he's one of the most talented, smartest guys around.

PAT: He's really good. He just is really good.

GLENN: Yeah, he's really good.

PAT: And how -- aren't you above reproach if you've been cleared of any wrongdoing? That seems to be --

GLENN: No, you never get to go back.

PAT: I guess not. I mean, you're just totally tainted now forever because somebody accused you.

GLENN: It's wrong.

PAT: Anybody can accuse anybody else of wrongdoing. And then --

GLENN: I have a llama in the wings right now that will swear out of testimony about Pat. And you want me to bring the llama out, I will.

PAT: If you actually had a llama, I would be nervous.

GLENN: But once that llama does what llamas do.

PAT: Yeah.

GLENN: Baas or barks or whatever they do. It can't be unbarked, Pat. It can't be unbarked.

PAT: Scary.

STU: You know what's interesting. You're talking about how people can be accused. And it's always -- they're always tainted with it. And it's over.

PAT: And it's over.

STU: We're in the me too era. Right? It's over. You know what's one accusation that has had no attention since the me too movement has started?

GLENN: I bet I'll say the same thing.

STU: Are you really? I was going to say Al Gore's second chakra. Remember?

PAT: Oh, wow. That's a good callback.

GLENN: Oh, wow.

STU: Remember the accusation by the masseuse who said that Al Gore was constantly trying to get him to touch her.

PAT: Yeah.

STU: To --

PAT: I want you to adjust my second chakra.

STU: Right. Remember this?

PAT: Because of our SUVs that my chakra is out of place. So, yeah, he was trying to get her to do things to him in regions she didn't want to touch.

STU: And she complained about it. And it was brushed off by the media completely. He has not faced word one of a second thought on this over that time. And Bill Clinton has. Right? There have been a lot of people on the left, who said, okay. We handled that Clinton thing wrongly. But one accusation has been enough for almost everybody.

PAT: And that wasn't 30 years ago. That was eight years ago. That was in 2010.

STU: Was it 2010? I knew it was late 2000s.

PAT: Yeah. Yep.

GLENN: Let me go where I was going to go.

Jimmy Kimmel. Jimmy Kimmel is hosting the Oscars. Not outside like Ryan Seacrest. He's hosting the Oscars.

PAT: Has he been accused?

GLENN: Have you seen any of the videotapes of what he's done?

STU: He used to host a show called The Man Show.

PAT: Oh, man. Wow.

GLENN: Yeah, he did a, I'm going to put something in my pants, and you can feel around to see what it is. You might want to use your mouth.

Okay?

PAT: Oh, yeah. Wow.

GLENN: He's on video doing that.

STU: Yep. Over and over. It was part -- that show -- look, and I defend that show at that time. And, you know, they did things --

PAT: No way.

STU: It was funny, right? It was funny. And it was totally fine --

PAT: Sorry. It's retroactively inappropriate.

STU: It's retroactively inappropriate, however.

PAT: Yeah.

STU: Remember, this is the show that ended every episode with girls jumping on trampolines in their underwear. Every episode end the same way. That was literally --

GLENN: And he's --

STU: Now girls jumping on trampolines.

PAT: Wow.

GLENN: And he's the guy that's totally okay to host the Oscars.

PAT: Yeah. Nobody said a thing.

Glenn: What I saw on the ground in Asheville gave me hope

Melissa Sue Gerrits / Stringer | Getty Images

The government can’t save us. Washington is too slow and too bureaucratic, and quite frankly, the government doesn’t care.

I’ve seen a lot of destruction in my life. I’ve walked through war zones and cities torn apart by riots, and I've stood at the sites of natural disasters that leave communities devastated. But what I saw in Asheville, North Carolina, after Hurricane Helene was unlike anything I’ve ever witnessed.

Houses were washed down rivers, upside down and crushed. Train tracks, strong enough to support locomotives, were left suspended in midair after the earth beneath them was eroded away. Semi-trucks, rolled by the force of the floodwaters, now lie like children’s toys, tossed and overturned hundreds of feet from the road. Whole towns have been uprooted and scattered — debris from homes miles away, stacking up like dominoes, bridges that stood for decades washed out by water so high that it flowed six feet over their tops.

'You tell everybody you know — even if they don’t care — we’ll take care of our own damn selves if nobody shows up.'

I stood there, looking at this idyllic small town in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and I thought, “This will take years to rebuild. Maybe even decades.” But I didn’t just see destruction. I saw something far more powerful than nature’s wrath: the resilience of the American spirit.

My expectations for the government’s assistance were low before I arrived in Asheville, given its failing track record in previous natural disasters, but its response to Hurricane Helene victims — or lack thereof — was a new category of negligence. But the people in Asheville weren’t waiting on FEMA or the federal government to swoop in. They knew no one was coming.

The bridges were out, roads were destroyed, and the mountains had isolated them from outside help. But instead of despair, I saw hope. Instead of panic, I saw action. People were taking care of each other, and that is the America I remember, like in the days after 9/11 when we came together regardless of political party, race, or background. We didn’t care about who voted for whom. We just saw our neighbors hurting, and we asked, “Are you OK? What can I do to help?”

I saw that again in North Carolina. I saw it in the man who turned his Harley-Davidson dealership into a helicopter landing zone, shoveling mud out of his showroom just so rescue teams could land. I saw it in the volunteers flying missions across treacherous terrain, getting the elderly and the injured out of danger. They weren’t asking for government permission. They were doing what needed to be done.

Adam Smith, a retired Special Forces veteran who is coordinating the landing of helicopters in Asheville, told me that the FAA is trying to shut down the operation because it isn’t federally regulated. He told the feds that they’re going to leave because he has a helicopter landing in a few minutes that will actually help people while they are barking orders from Washington.

One story stood out to me. We landed to help evacuate an elderly woman with a broken hip and a severe infection. She just had surgery, but because her family didn’t have insurance, the hospital pushed her out as fast as it could. Her wound became infected, and her leg was on fire. We helped airlift her to get her desperately needed antibiotics and treatment. There were no government resources to help her to an emergency room.

As we loaded the woman into the helicopter, her grandson turned to me and said, “You tell everybody you know — even if they don’t care — we’ll take care of our own damn selves if nobody shows up.” That hit me hard because it’s the truth. It’s the way America used to be, and it’s the way we need to be again.

As I flew through those mountains in the helicopter, I couldn’t help but think of Billy Graham. I’d visited Asheville about 10 years ago to see him, and I remember thinking how beautiful and peaceful the town was. Today, it’s unrecognizable. The destruction is overwhelming. But the people are stronger than ever.

The government can’t save us. Washington is too slow and too bureaucratic, and quite frankly, the government doesn’t care. I saw it firsthand. We found a FEMA truck parked under a tree, its workers sitting at a card table in the shade. They weren’t doing anything to help.

But we’re Americans. We can take care of ourselves. We don’t need Washington to save us. We need each other. This is the America that Billy Graham spoke to me about — the America that will rise again in times of trouble. And while the government might fail us, we will not fail each other. And that’s exactly what I saw in North Carolina — Americans stepping up, taking care of their neighbors, and rebuilding their communities.

This is what I told the people of Asheville: You are not forgotten. There are millions of Americans who love you, who are praying for you, and who are ready to help. Because that’s what we do. We don’t wait for permission. We roll up our sleeves and take care of our own.

And to the rest of America, I say this: It’s time to remember who we are. It’s time to stop looking to Washington for solutions and start looking at each other. Because when the chips are down, it’s not the government that’s going to save us. It’s you and me, and if we stand together, nothing — no hurricane, no flood, no disaster — can break us.

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com.

UPDATE: Will Florida survive Hurricane Milton?

Handout / Handout / Getty Images

For the second time in two weeks, Florida is in the path of a major hurricane.

Hurricane Milton is expected to make landfall sometime tonight, Wednesday, October 9th, somewhere near Tampa Bay. This will mark the first time in a hundred years the city has been hit directly by a hurricane, raising concerns about the preparedness of the city's infrastructure. Milton, which was rated a category five hurricane earlier this week, has been reduced to a category four as it approaches land and is expected to make landfall as a powerful category three.

The Sunshine State has already begun to feel the effects of the historic storm, with strong winds and heavy rains battering Tampa Bay this morning. Many are still trying to evacuate or prepare for the storm as conditions worsen. Highways have slowed down, and gas has run short. Residents are preparing for the worst.

The federally recognized "Waffle House Index" is in red, meaning that several Waffle House locations in the Tampa Bay area will be shut down. Waffle House prides itself on being open 24/7, no matter the conditions, so for them to shut down, if only for a brief time, indicates that severe damage to the area is anticipated.

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

In short, Milton is anticipated to be a disaster, and as we have learned, FEMA is unlikely to be much help. Fortunately, Floridians have Ron DeSantis, who has continued to prove himself a capable governor, and the aid of good-hearted Americans from across the country. If you want to lend a hand to your fellow Americans you can donate at Mercury One and rest assured that your money will be used to step in to help hurricane victims where the government is failing.

'Call her Daddy'? Kamala Harris keeps dodging important questions

TING SHEN / Contributor | Getty Images

Kamala Harris has been making her rounds on talk shows and podcasts in order to increase her poor recognition amongst voters, but all we're hearing is more of the same.

Just in the past few days, Harris has appeared on "60 Minutes" and the popular podcast "Call Her Daddy" to help Americans get to know her. But instead of bold answers to hard-hitting questions, Harris delivered rambling responses to soft-ball questions and squirmed her way out of the few tough questions thrown at her. Overall, it is unlikely that any voter who tuned in to get a solid grasp on Harris's policies was left with a better understanding after either one of her interviews.

Below is a summary of Harris's most recent interviews:

"Call Her Daddy" podcast

Antony Jones / Stringer | Getty Images

Despite this podcast's unsavory name, it consistently ranks among the most popular podcasts in the world, right up there with Joe Rogan's show, and is especially popular among women. Shortly after releasing the interview with Harris, Alex Cooper, the host of the podcast, received backlash for her extremely soft treatment of the presidential nominee. After watching the interview, it's not hard to see how that impression might have come across.

The interview consisted of several surface-level, gimme-type, questions on common Democrat talking points. Harris said she was—surprise—pro-choice. Who would have thought? She also expressed her desire to dump taxpayer money into student loan forgiveness along with other government "aid" programs, which is pretty standard amongst the Left. Overall, nothing new was revealed.

The rest of the interview was little more than gossip. Cooper and Harris chatted about a comment made by Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders and the "at ladies" comment made by J.D. Vance. This was not the deep dive on Harris that voters wanted.

60 Minutes

CBS Photo Archive / Contributor | Getty Images

On Monday, October 8th, Harris sat down with CBS's Bill Whitaker for an interview on 60 Minutes. While Whitaker defiantly upped the ante in comparison to "Call Her Daddy," Harris still managed to dodge several questions. When asked about foreign policy, Harris parroted the same tired schtick we've heard for the past four years, which clearly hasn't worked. Like Biden before her, she called for an end to the Israel-Hamas war, primarily out of concern for the Palestinians, while simultaneously maintaining Israel's right to self-defense.

Harris also deflected Biden's failure at the Southern Border onto the House Republicans, citing a single instance where a border security bill failed to pass. Even Whitaker pointed out the obvious: The Biden-Harris administration has had four years to solve the problem, and the blame does not fall on this single instance. Harris didn't waver, and doubled down on her excuse, again blaming Congress.

Harris went on to repeatedly dodge questions about her three trillion-dollar economic plan and offered little explanation of what might be included in such a plan, or how it will be paid for. These interviews have repeatedly failed to define Harris or her platform in any meaningful way, though they were successful in concealing just how radical of a candidate she actually is. She is still just a vaguely left-wing, Joe Biden replacement in the eyes of many voters, which might be the best she can do.

The Howard Stern Show

Kevin Mazur / Contributor | Getty Images

In her recent interview on The Howard Stern Show, Harris once again demonstrated her signature combination of evasiveness and unreliable platitudes. Rather than offering substantive answers to Stern’s pointed questions, Harris deflected with awkward humor and vague talking points, sidestepping any real discussion on critical issues like the border crisis or inflation. Her attempt to portray herself as relatable felt painfully out of touch, especially when she pivoted the conversation to her fondness for music and cooking.

Harris’s inability to confront pressing national concerns only highlights her growing reputation for evading accountability during her term in the Biden administration. Stern, typically known for drawing candid responses from guests, seemed unable to penetrate the wall of superficiality that Harris maintained throughout the conversation.

"The Late Show" with Stephen Colbert

CBS Photo Archive / Contributor | Getty Images

We saw a similar performance from Harris on Stephen Colbert's "The Late Show." Colbert teed her up for questions about inflation, the southern border crisis, and the administration’s plunging approval ratings, but Harris stuck to her well-worn script of platitudes and vague promises. Instead of addressing the economic pain felt by millions, she laughed nervously through softball questions, leaving viewers with nothing but empty rhetoric about “working together” and “finding solutions,” while the country watches the consequences of ineffective leadership.

Moreover, when Colbert pressed her on issues like the administration's immigration policies or lack of legislative victories, Harris deflected with hollow talking points, refusing to engage in any serious reflection or accountability. Her awkward attempts at humor felt like a shield against real criticism, confirming the impression that she remains detached from the gravity of the crises unfolding under her watch.

PHOTOS: What Glenn saw in North Carolina was INSANE

Sean Rayford / Stringer | Getty Images

Last Thursday, October 3rd, Glenn traveled to North Carolina to join Mercury One as they provided critical aid to those devastated by Hurricane Helene.

What Glenn saw during his brief visit looked like scenes straight out of an apocalypse movie: houses torn from their foundations and tossed to the side, sometimes entire towns away from where they were built, semi-trucks rolled, railroad tracks swept away, bridges washed out. It was a level of destruction Glenn had never before seen.

But perhaps the most shocking encounter of his whole trip was when Glenn discovered a lone FEMA crew. It was a miracle that Glenn even spotted the FEMA truck, as it was parked away from the main road without any signs or markers to indicate to any passerby in need of its existence. Glenn and Congressman Cory Mills decided to talk to this FEMA crew, the only one they had encountered on their trek, and see what they were up to. As it turns out, not much. The FEMA workers admitted that they had only arrived the day before (nearly a week after the hurricane) and still did not have any sort of supplies. They claimed that people would know where they were located via the local news, despite the fact that most people did not have access to power, cell service, their home, or even their cars. Moreover, there seemed to be confusion about whether they were to go door-to-door in order to render aid to those in need.

FEMA dropped the ball on this entire affair, and it is only going to get worse. FEMA is claiming they blew their yearly allowance on aiding illegal immigrants. Meanwhile, another hurricane is approaching Florida and is expected to make landfall on Wednesday. It seems unlikely that FEMA will be of any use to Floridians in need, and they will have to rely on the aid of their fellow Americans.

Want to help out your fellow countrymen where our government has failed? You can donate at Mercury One and rest assured that your money will be used to step in to help hurricane victims where the government is failing.