Mika Brzezinski is very concerned that the women who Mark Halperin groped and harassed don’t want to talk to him now even though he pinky promises he’s sorry:
MIKA BRZEZINSKI (CO-HOST): We also have -- some men who are willing to face the music, who are willing to face the facts, who are willing to admit to their actions 10, 20 years ago, even five years ago. Mark Halperin is more than willing to meet with his accusers and apologize with them face-to-face. I've actually tried to offer him to them. They don't want to talk to him. They don't want to talk to him. There are some -- there are some hypocrisies here. When things happen and men actually want to validate that truth, that's important that we actually allow that, if we want to grow as a society and learn from each other. If we just want to strike people down for political motivation or for anger, we're not going to get anywhere. And I know I said something incredibly -- what's the word -- explosive.
Really, Mika, is it that hard to imagine that a woman might not want to revisit the episode where one of the most powerful men in her workplace rubbed his erection against her or grabbed her breasts or lurked outside a bathroom to proposition her for bathroom sex? He did something wrong to them. Why do they now owe him anything? He can apologize publicly without demanding anything from them—and since he’s the one who did something wrong, he should.
If harassers can’t grow and change without requiring their victims to do something personally painful to publicly anoint that growth and change, then it’s almost like they aren’t changing at all. It’s still all about the harasser and his power. It’s not a damn hypocrisy to reject that. We can and should believe in second chances, but this is not the way to do it.
