From WXXI news.

This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made in August of 2022 at Trump National Golf Club in New Jersey.

President Trump attended the wedding of Congressman Max Miller and Emily Marino.

Both the bride and the groom had worked on Republican political campaigns.

That's where they met, and they were viewed as a power Republican couple, rising stars in the party.

A year after the wedding, they had a daughter.

A year after that, they were headed for divorce.

Emily Marino says that Max Miller physically and emotionally abused her and also abused their young daughter.

Miller has denied the allegations.

He calls his ex-wife mentally disturbed.

Ohio Senator Bernie Marino is Emily's father, and he says that Max Miller has made his family's life a living hell.

And now it turns out that the woman that Miller dated previously, Stephanie Grisham, has filed a restraining order against him, saying that he abused her during their relationship.

There's a reason we're discussing the story today.

We're not here to talk about the politics.

Miller is running for reelection this fall, and he announced this week that he will not drop out of the race.

Many prominent Republicans are supporting his bid for reelection despite the abuse allegations.

President Trump declined to criticize Miller in recent interviews.

We're going to let the political media get into all that.

Instead, what caught my attention was the way that Max Miller himself has talked about the allegations.

He released a video last month saying that while his then wife made dinner for him just days after an alleged incident of physical abuse.

Miller says no woman would make dinner for their husband if their husband was an abuser.

Miller has shared text messages from his ex-wife, some of which show that Emily wrote about their improving friendship and her hope that they could co-parent as friends effectively.

Miller asked, did those texts sound like the words of a woman who's been abused?

Countless women have come forward to answer that question.

They've described the desperation that makes victims behave in certain ways.

This hour, we welcome guests who can discuss patterns of abuse and why victims of abuse might not act in the way that you would expect.

We are not here again to convict anybody in the courts for that, and we're just using this as a jumping off point to understand certain patterns.

In studio Lisa Nolan is director of prevention education at Willow Domestic Violence Center.

Welcome.

Thank you for being with us.

Thank you for having me.

And Jalen Sparks is with us remotely.

She's a survivor of domestic violence, a former congressional press secretary.

The author of the book Surviving Mad Men.

Gerry, welcome back to the program.

Nice to have you, Neal.

Nice to be here.

Thank you.

So I want to start by listening to Congressman Miller, in his own words in that video that he released in an attempt to dispute the abuse allegations made by his ex-wife.

Let's listen.

My former wife has claimed that during a custody exchange at my home that day, I assaulted her.

Here's what actually happened.

And I have the ring doorbell footage that backs it up.

She came to my home in a good mood, and we have text messages to prove it, which you'll have to pick up our daughter early for a friend's birthday party.

She was inside my house for several minutes when she left.

The video shows her walking out carrying our daughter called in the same good mood, showing no distress whatsoever.

And as they left, you can hear me say good bye.

I love you and I love you, Ruthy.

Literally telling my ex-wife that I still cared for her.

Does that sound like somebody who would just walk out and who had been violently thrown a wall and been abused?

She didn't call the police after that.

She didn't go to the hospital.

Ladies and gentlemen.

Do you want to know what she did?

She went straight to a child's birthday party.

The very next day, we had a friendly phone call about our daughter's upcoming hospital procedure.

And I drove in from Washington to be there for it.

Six days later, she offered to cook empanadas for me for dinner.

Just two days later, after this alleged incident.

The day after that, she invited me and my girlfriend and would, you know, having text messages to join her and our daughter at a playground.

And that day, I just went with my former wife to the playground to spend time with our daughter.

A week later, on February 15th, she wrote to me in her own words, which you will see.

I think it's great you and I are in a friendlier place.

That's Max Miller, a congressman running for reelection, describing his take on the allegations of abuse made by his ex-wife, Emily Marino.

Lisa Nolan, let me start with you.

What do you hear in that?

In that video?

There's a lot.

So there there is a lot in that audio clip and in that video, you know, he's talking about sort of a pattern of behavior in explaining, you know, her behavior.

And he's also, you know, explaining his behavior.

I think it's interesting that he says, you know, he's saying that he loves her and he loves his daughter when she's walking out the door.

Anybody can do that after any kind of behavior.

So that him saying, I love you does not make, ade in incident not happen, you know.

And, you know, I think as a parent to thinking about behaving calmly in front of a child, you know, walking in and walking out of a place, you know, if something is just happened, it's very frightening to a child.

So walking out calmly does make some sense there, too.

So, you know, I think I think that there is a lot in there that is he's explaining away.

What did you hear when he says, look, she offered to make empanadas for me and you know, she's going to make dinner for me.

She wouldn't do that if she'd been abused is what he's saying there.

Right.

So I think that that's an interesting statement as well.

Right.

That two days after an incident she offered to make him food.

And what I also hear in that clip is that, you know, six days after is that their daughter had surgery, right?

So if she wants him to maybe show up at the surgery and behave calmly and rationally and be there to support their kid in a time of need.

What is she willing to do to make sure that that happens?

A lot of times when survivors behave in a way that doesn't make sense, like, hey, I'll offer to make you empanadas two days later, it's because they're trying to mitigate the situation, right?

The tension has escalated.

Something has happened.

So I'm trying to either keep a lid on it or bring it down and maybe empanadas are the thing that brings it down.

The other question that we have to ask here is, you know, we're asking the wrong question.

Why would she do that?

The real question is, what would happen if she didn't do that, if she didn't reach out, if she didn't extend that olive branch and say, hey, I'm willing to be calm.

I'm willing to do this for you.

What happens?

How does he escalate behavior that is going to impact her and impact their child?

And before I turn to Jerri, what do you make of of Congressman Miller saying, look, I've got a text message from her days after that saying, you know, I'm hopeful that we can co-parent as friends, that we have this improving friendship.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's mitigating the behavior.

Right?

I, I'm hopeful that we can be calm and hopeful that we can raise this child together.

It is not going to help her to start, you know, hurling insults at him if he is dangerous human being and is, harming her or their child.

You know, hurling insults at him and not responding is going to make the situation worse.

So again, that to me sounds like a real attempt at mitigating behavior or bringing tension down, taking that pot from a boil to a simmer.

If you haven't read Jerri Lynn Sparks book, Surviving Mad Men, I'll give Jerri a little bit of time to not only describe your reaction to the video of Congressman Miller, but also, I mean, you can share as much or as little of your own experience.

I mean, this is your your platform today, and the book goes into a lot of detail.

Jerri, I know it's tough sometimes to think about what you went through, but I want to give you the floor here.

Go ahead.

Well, thanks for the opportunity.

I'm always happy to help educate people about things that others say.

Don't make sense.

Actually, Emily Marino's behavior, I would argue, makes perfect sense because I'm a former firefighter.

So I use firefighting terminology.

You want to water down the embers that could flare up again.

You know, you go to a scene of a fire and you think you put out the fire.

And then later at night, people are in bed and an ember catches fire.

That's the same thing with domestic violence.

You you become so acclimated to things that are threatening to you that you don't have a visceral reaction.

You do survival mode.

That's why I called the book Surviving Madmen.

You have to keep the peace.

It makes perfect sense.

It's not something that he can.

Representative Miller can say.

It wouldn't make sense for her to cook me dinner.

It makes perfect sense.

For my own example, I was being.

And my children were being subjected to a year of verbal outburst, but nothing physical.

And I would call a lawyer.

I would call the police, and they would say menacing is hard to prove.

There was nothing you could do.

It's really hard to prove unless there's been physical evidence of physical violence.

And so I learned how to walk on eggshells.

I remember, going down the Massachusetts Turnpike on the way to, a cottage in Maine for a beach vacation.

And I had my kids in the car and my ex-husband was driving.

We were still married, and he got mad because my middle child wanted to buy a little souvenir and a souvenir shop and just began screaming and driving erratically on the road and said, I will kill us all.

Then we get to the beach and I'm trapped in the car.

We're all trapped in the car.

And he acted like nothing had happened.

And I had to, like I was trapped there for a week trying to keep the peace, just not doing anything to further escalate him.

So survivors of domestic violence, and I do not like the term victims of domestic violence ever knows.

That's a trigger for me.

I definitely think of myself as a survivor.

Survivors of domestic violence are just that.

They're they're savvy.

They're survivors.

They know what they need to do to stay safe and to keep their children safe.

Gerry, in sort of in the in the the context of the video that we heard from Congressman Miller and his incredulous ness that a woman who's been abused would act a certain way.

I'm thinking of your family's trip to Maine before you even get there.

You've been threatened.

He says, I'll kill.

I'll kill us all.

You're men.

You get to spend a week there.

He might go back later and say, look, if I really did that, look at the next seven days here.

I've got pictures of us.

We're happy.

We're on the beach.

I mean, does that look like a woman who had her life threatened?

Does that look like a woman who scared?

You know, look, we're out to dinner.

We're swimming in the ocean.

That doesn't look like a woman who's been abused.

I have people say that to me.

They said, well, we saw your vacation photos in Maine.

You're playing football as a family.

You're going hiking as a family.

And I was trapped in this cabin with him, and I was.

I'm five four on a good day.

He was, you know, six foot two.

And the children and I were terrified.

And you do have a weird psychological thing where you just.

It's almost like, an animalistic kind of response.

You just, you kind of freeze and you figure out, how can I get through this?

And sometimes I've even gone back and looked through the photos and it's confusing to me, like, where are we?

We had happy moments, but the children have said to me, but how much of that was real?

And how much of it was us trying to prove to ourselves we were a happy family?

How they've said that, talking to Jillian Sparks, her book is Surviving Mad Men.

She's really been through it all.

And if you haven't picked up the book, whether you're a survivor of domestic violence or not, it's a powerful, powerful read.

And, Gerry, let me also ask you about one other incident, and I'll ask Lisa about this, too.

There's been description from Senator Marino about there is a little blue bunny, a doll that there, Max Miller and Emily Marino's daughter has that helps her sleep at night.

And during a switch out of custody.

He did not send her blue bunny.

And then later, as an explanation for, you know, this idea that while he was withholding a stuffed animal, he said, first of all, well, she forgot to bring it.

He blamed his two year old daughter for forgetting to bring her stuffed animal.

And then he said, you know, look, I can prove that I was willing to hand it over.

I mean, it only took a few days of intermediaries and, you know, texting with the court appointed people instead of just saying, sure, I'll swing by and put it in the mailbox.

Do you view that as as in any certain way when you hear the debate about a stuffed animal?

Gerry?

Yeah.

So first of all, he doesn't seem to be taking any personal responsibility as the grown up.

Suppose a grown up and who?

To me, it reads like power and control.

This is a person that is going to have everything to go his way.

The fact that he's not even willing to step down shows it's still about power and control.

He believes that if he has the power, he can push things through.

And in obviously even his description of she made dinner for me, everything is about service.

To him, everything is about his way or no way.

And so it was really dismaying to read about that because when you're parenting and you're divorced, you should still put your child's needs above your own petty issues or even your serious issues.

And he did not do that here.

Lisa, anything you want to add when parents are are not even willing to come to an agreement about stuffed animals or lovers that a child might need to go to sleep.

Yeah, that's a Jerri.

Hit it right on the head.

That is, power and control.

Move big time.

You know, if you have a two year old and they have a favorite stuffed animal, you know what bedtime is like without that stuffed animal and you know it is going to be miserable.

So to, you know, maybe purposely withhold it or make it really difficult to get that back, you know, that the kid's not sleeping and you know that the parent is not sleeping.

And that's a mechanism of control, because after two days of that, I know you're miserable if you haven't slept.

And here's all the things that are falling out because of that.

I mean that that is what power and control looks like.

But again, you know, I think is also interesting is that, you know, he's saying, yes, this did happen, but there's blame somewhere else.

Yes, I did this or yes, this situation occurred, but the blame is shifted somewhere else.

And in this case, a two year old.

And how ridiculous.

Another example of what Lisa is describing is Emily Marino has alleged that Max Miller, threw, very hot water at her in a dispute in the kitchen.

Max Miller later said, well, yes, but that was horseplay.

We were playing around with that.

So again, it wasn't a denial that something happened.

And it was it was an explanation.

Oh, it was no big deal.

I'm minimizing.

I'm downplaying the incident, not denying that it happened, but I'm downplaying.

And that's really classic sort of pattern of behavior with folks who are abusive is that they don't always deny the behavior.

They just will shift the blame or minimize, actually what has happened in this situation.

So let me ask you both about a little bit more about that.

And I'm going to use a term that I'm hesitant to use most of the time, but I think it fits here because I do think sometimes we are over broadly using certain terms or sometimes therapy speak.

But to me, when we talk about what gaslighting is, if, if someone and again, let's get away from Max Miller for a moment, but if someone says, oh, you're saying that I, I threw you down the stairs or I did something violent, you.

Well, we were just playing around and you tripped.

I'm not saying it didn't happen, but you don't understand.

You're the one who doesn't get it.

That to me feels like that's what we mean by gaslighting.

You're crazy.

If you think I was being violent.

I wasn't being violent.

I love you.

Yeah, absolutely.

We hear gaslighting, you know, everybody's thrown that word around in that term around.

But really it's very intentional strategic behavior that is meant to make somebody feel like they're going crazy.

Right.

So if we meet in Wegmans later on today, Evan, and you're like, oh, hey, Lisa, nice to see you.

And I'm like, I don't even know who you are.

Never talk to me.

And you're like, I'm on the show today.

I'm like, nope, nope, must be my twin sister.

I don't have a twin sister.

Right?

If I just flat out deny that, then you're walk away and you're thinking, I thought that was lady.

Wasn't that her?

I don't know, maybe it's just me, right?

It causes you to question yourself and question your own reality.

And that is what gaslighting is, it?

It doesn't have to be big things.

It can be little things is as little is like, I moved your keys over here and you're always looking for them here and now I can't find them.

And you say, oh, well, here they are right here.

This.

I don't even even know where you put your keys down.

Oh, man, I guess I just, you know, put them down over there today.

How weird.

Right.

Gaslighting.

Okay, Jerri, did you go through anything like that?

Yes.

And I think at the heart of it is the three things failure to take responsibility.

Kind of the narcissistic personality element and also fragile ego when you have done something wrong.

I think one of the things that separates people who are mature are those that can say, you know what I own that I did something wrong, and I'm really sorry.

It's only secure.

People that can do that who have a sense of empathy, people that can't do that seem to lack that perspective taking or willfully not take responsibility.

But at the core of it, there is a very weak sense of, responsibility and a fragile ego.

And I don't mean that to be inflammatory because it's fragile.

Ego can be used, you know, overkill as well.

But if you look at the people that are, domestic abusers, they are unable to take that personal responsibility and they don't have the empathy of what the person they're abusing is going through in their mind, and also sometimes a really strong sense of entitlement.

Right?

So especially when folks have, you know, a position of power in the community, an elected official, or some perceived position of power in the community, that entitlement of this is owed to me or you belong to me or this is mine.

That entitlement absolutely plays into these power and control dynamics and the pattern of behavior that we see.

I have a second clip that I want to listen to in just a moment here.

We got time around because let me just reset why we're having this conversation first here.

If you're just joining us, Lisa Nolan is with us in studio director of prevention education at Willow Domestic Violence Center.

And Jerri Lynn Sparks is here, a survivor of domestic violence, herself a former congressional press secretary and the author of the book Surviving Mad Men.

And the reason we're having this conversation for me is the host, the reason the moment that I knew I wanted to have this conversation was watching Congressman Max Miller's denial of the allegations against him.

I'm not here to convict him.

I want to recognize that there's a world, and maybe we're in that world where he actually is innocent.

I don't know myself.

I'm not in that house.

I'm not in that relationship.

What I want to understand is how he could have believed that making the claims he's made are exonerating, especially with what we know about abusers and survivors.

And I appreciate Jerri's point on that term.

Because none of what he's saying in the video struck me as exonerating.

In fact, it it felt the opposite.

It felt like someone who was trying to convince you by blaming everything on everybody else, especially the person that you have victimized.

So, I wanted to understand that because there are probably countless people who have been abused and there are people who love them, who don't believe them, or might say at least, who might say, like, look, you're my friend, but wouldn't I have known why you say something?

How long has this been going on?

How could you not have called police?

How could you not have told me?

How often does that happen?

All the time.

Every day?

Every day in the work that we do, you know, we we see this, you know, all the time when we, especially when something tragic happens, right?

How could we have not known?

How could we have seen, not seen all the pieces.

And what happens?

You know, domestic violence is a pattern of behavior and it is about power and control.

And what happens with abusers is that we see those little blips of concerning behavior very often as a loved one or a friend, and just these little bursts, we see 1 or 2 things that make us uncomfortable or, you know, just put us off or we get real judgy and say, well, don't put up with that, right?

But that's it.

And it's it's almost like being on vacation.

And we get the postcard, you know, that says, hey, this trip to Maine was really great.

But when we zoom out and we look at like the whole movie and we put together that pattern of behavior, we see these concerning behaviors over here and these ones over here and here, and here and here.

And we start putting the pieces together and we go, oh, this is bad.

But until we start asking those questions and looking at that behavior, we often don't see the pattern because abusers work really, really hard to mask that behavior in front of other people.

It's how they're able to perpetrate for so long.

And nobody believes people because they create that persona.

Jerri, do you want to add to that?

Absolutely.

So survivors also want to create things that feel, acceptable to their other family members or even for their children, even to themselves?

For a long time, I was in denial that this was happening, and I thought, okay, it's just a one time thing.

It's not going to happen again.

When we were in, our first year of marriage, I had come home and he was really upset.

His car had broken down on Sunset Boulevard because we both went to UCLA and we worked together and we could share a car to work.

And I said, oh, it's not a big deal.

You know, that car was held together by rust.

Not a big deal.

So I was a fixer.

I'm the oldest child.

He was the youngest.

I was trying to just let him know that the piece of junk car.

It's okay.

I'm sorry.

Broke down, but he was freaking out over it, and I said, we can ride to work together.

And he was literally freaking out.

And so I leaned down and I said, look, focus.

It's okay.

We work together, we can ride together.

And he backhanded me across my mouth.

And his ring, his wedding ring hit me in the mouth.

I don't think he meant to hit me with his wedding ring, but he just kind of flippantly did it.

And I remember just running to the bedroom and he chased me.

He's like, oh no, no, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that.

He landed on me and we got run burn.

I got a rug burn from him, landing on me across the bedspread.

The next day, we had a flight to North Carolina to see my family.

And my mom came into the bathroom and I was putting on makeup, and she said, what happened to your face?

And I said, oh, I just bumped in.

I lied to my own mother because I didn't want her to see my new husband as this abuser.

And in my own mind, I wasn't sure he really meant to do that.

So I was playing psychological games with myself before we ever had children, and it was so few and far between these incidents, I really didn't think that this was going to ever end up becoming physical 20 years later.

It was a very slow burn, but even with my friends, I tried to keep the peace.

I would do Facebook photos, look at our happy family because I needed it.

I had childhood things I was trying to heal with my beautiful quote unquote white picket fence, perfect family.

There's lots of, people out there that just won't even accept it themselves.

And then when I finally did go to people, it was downplayed.

His family.

His mother downplayed it.

His sister downplayed it.

The the lawyer and the police officer said many things are hard to prove.

So we all do it as a collective society.

We don't believe them.

And I make it as my mission to believe them.

Well, let's listen to what Senator Bernie Marino said.

So again, he is the father of Emily Marino, the woman alleging this abuse.

He was the father in law of Max Miller.

So Marino is a Republican senator in Ohio.

Max Miller is a Republican congressman.

And what's happened since the allegations, people are going well.

Senator Marino, you endorsed your son in law his reelection this year.

If you really thought he abused your daughter, why would you have endorsed him?

Why wouldn't you have said something publicly?

You've got all this power.

Why wouldn't you have done something?

I want to listen to what he told reporters.

I don't care about the politics of this.

I hope that you guys understand.

Maybe.

I hope you never have to understand what my daughter's been through, what my daughter is going through, what my life is going through, my, two other, my my two boys and my other daughter going through this is truly the seventh level of hell.

This is been a horrific experience for my entire family.

My my daughter specifically did not want this to be out in the public.

That's why she asked me to say lower the temperature.

You gotta remember when you don't have kids and you get divorced, you can just say farewell and never have to see each other again.

Well, you have a child.

You have to co-parent with that individual for the rest of your life.

That means scheduling pickups, scheduling drop offs.

This is not something that you can just say, I'll never have to deal this guy again.

My daughter lives in constant fear of this man, so I, I want to say, I don't care what anybody's politics are.

I hear a dad there and that to me is very compelling.

What do you hear, Lisa?

I hear a dad who's terrified for their kid.

And I mean, again, the same question.

What would happen if he didn't follow his daughter's direction?

She's begging him not to.

Again, like Jerri Lynn said.

And we've talked about she is begging her dad not to throw gas on that fire.

I need you to maybe endorse him so that he doesn't freak out or, you know, so he gets reelected and we maintain sort of this homeostasis with employment and status in the community.

So it doesn't raise the temperature in our home.

You know, that is a really tough choice for a parent to have to make, in an effort to keep their kids safe.

That's a dad who is scared.

What do you hear there, Jerri?

I agree with Lisa.

I'm thinking about the last, year of my marriage.

We got married in August, and so for our last anniversary, we, gave each other cards, and we chose the same card, and it was a joking card.

Everything light and fluffy.

And we made.

We both chose the exact same card at the store, and I remember just thinking, why am I even given this man a card?

But it was because I knew if I didn't, if I didn't give him an anniversary card, that that would spiral into something else.

But I also think what, Mr.

Marino said makes me wonder if there's any value in endorsing, like, how many times have we seen political endorsements and it's all politics, all, you know, party machinations.

It just doesn't give you a lot of confidence and, the value of endorsements.

But for the father part, what I heard is a father who deeply loves his daughter and is willing to, push down his own principles, for the love of her, he.

That's a man that as true empathy.

Unlike her spouse.

That seems.

Yeah.

Jerri.

Again, so much of what you describe about your past marriage and the way you acted, kind of affirms this idea that we need to understand what it means to be a survivor.

Again, that's that word is very intentional in the title of your book.

And for people on the outside, they could have easily listened to your ex saying it if she was so scared.

Me why you get me an anniversary card?

We got the same card.

We thought it was funny.

It was this cute little jokey moment and that would be used as evidence against you.

Well, not only that.

So he had a very sparkling personality and he would go to church every Sunday, and after church they played basketball.

He had this, kind of Jekyll and Hyde personality where he was wonderful in public.

And that's the man I married.

He had a great, funny, very incredibly intelligent man, and I was very drawn to that.

But his sense of humor and his love for animals, the man loves animals.

I loved all those things.

And yet if he had his ego threatened at all, he could just turn it up to, you know, 0 to 60.

Very quickly.

And the people at church were really surprised that that man that they knew was the sparkling personality, who loved animals and was very funny and intelligent, could have done this to me, could have done this to our children, and I don't even know if it was intentional on him to try to be one way or the other.

I think those two types of lightness and darkness exist within him, even to this day.

He does love his children, but he doesn't know how to love them in an adult way so he can, you know, still explode.

I'm glad I don't have him in my life anymore.

But my adult children, I've even had moments where he still has yelled at them.

To the two that speak with him.

So it's there's this.

You know, I use the art term chiaroscuro.

I think I'm saying that right of chiaroscuro, the lightness and the dark it exists within.

And that makes it really hard for people who only see that lightness to believe that that darkness could also exist inside of them.

I'm going to jump in there, too.

I think what's interesting about the light in the dark here, too is that, you know, when we're light everywhere else, that maybe is intentional.

But the darkness, if you're not dark everywhere, that is definitely intentional.

You know, whether that is sort of subliminal in the back of your head, you know, I can sit with you and have a conversation to be sparkling, right?

And I can control any kind of outbursts or anger in these and all of these environments to be maybe more sparkling, but I'm not controlling it over here.

And not only am I not controlling it, you know, I'm very often blaming it on like, you know, anger management or substance use or something else.

But this is the only place and the only person that I'm behaving with in this way.

And that is not accidental.

That is on purpose and strategic.

What I also think is really interesting.

And, Jerri, you said something about, survivor behavior.

And his comments too.

And he also in in his audio clip, Max said he called his ex-wife mentally disturbed.

I wrote that down.

Right.

If she is mentally disturbed and they're sharing a child together, then you know, why is he not fighting for sole custody?

And why is there this custody arrangement?

And if that's really, really the concern, then we should be looking at that.

And we don't seem to be that that's a different conversation altogether.

That is just weapon.

I'm going to just go for that mental health thing.

I'm going to go for that disturbed thing because people are going to buy the trope of like, oh, she just a crazy lady.

He wants people to say, I guess she's crazy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Go ahead.

Jerri.

Yeah.

For the the part about him saying that she's mentally disturbed his classic projection and trying to obviously victim shame.

But I think in their minds they believe it.

I think that they have such little respect for the people that they claim to love, that it's nothing for them to call them names or, you know, make people think that they're crazy.

It's nothing to them.

They don't have empathy for that person.

They don't have the true deep love like they don't say to themselves, well, if I say she's crazy to people, they don't think that's really going to hurt her.

They're thinking, this is going to protect me.

It's all about narcissistic, fragile ego.

And I really think if you were to do brain scans of people that are, you know, domestic violence abusers, you will find some real brain differences, especially in frontal lobe and planning.

And then the empathy centers, I really do I do believe that, well, we've got to get our only break of the hour and then I've got some emails from listeners connections.

A sign at org is the email address.

As always, you can join the chat on YouTube if you're watching on the news YouTube channel.

If you want to call the program, it's 844295 talk.

It's (844) 295-8255.

You just heard Jerri Lynn Sparks, a survivor of domestic violence, a former congressional press secretary and the author of Surviving Mad Men.

Lisa Nolan is with me in studio, director of prevention education at Willow Domestic Violence Center.

Your feedback next.

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All right.

Let me start with some of the feedback c y writes to say, do you think that the abusers who are not necessarily always men or in heterosexual relationships with their partner, fully understand the severity and the impact of their actions or do the abusers often think that, yes, what I did was wrong, inappropriate, offensive, but not necessarily unforgivable.

And I can and will change.

Is that perhaps in part how they justify their actions to themselves?

Jerri, I'll start with you, because this is where you were kind of going down this road before we got our only break in here.

What would you say to see why?

I can't speak for everyone.

From my perspective, it feels like, with my ex-husband.

He cried after he hurt us and mean after, he said, I'll kill us all.

He cried once we got back to Rochester and beg forgiveness because I was trying to leave him.

And, you know, people say, why does she just leave?

It's incredibly difficult to leave a relationship when you have four children.

I'll just say that, especially when you're bossy.

Congressman had resigned on national TV.

I was unemployed at the time.

But he my ex.

The last answer that we had was in February of 2012, and I had come home and he had, like a glazed look in his eye, and I could tell he was on drugs.

And I was shocked that he was on drugs.

His eyes were dilated and I quickly, quietly grabbed the kids and got them out of there.

And there was a snowstorm outside, and I get to the minivan, load the kids in, and he'd run all the gas out of the car.

So like, oh my God, I've got the kids in the garage.

It's snowing like crazy.

So I drove to the gas station and I called everybody I know my phone's about to die.

No one that I knew was home, and so I had no way to.

I had no money, no way to buy gas, know where to go.

He had isolated me, wouldn't move to North Carolina, where I'm from.

So I lived in, you know, way up here in New York State.

I was completely trapped.

And so I called him with the last bit of the battery on my phone, and I told him, we will come back home, but if I do, you have to do x, y, and Z. And so I gave him conditions.

When we walked in the door, the kids were pulling into me so scared and I didn't want to be there.

I just literally had nowhere else to go.

And I didn't know about Willow back then.

And I walked into the, the big living room that we had, and I had a knife in my hand.

He didn't know it.

I had a little pocket knife in my hand in case you were to try anything.

And he was crying and he begged forgiveness, and he was really, the best behavior from February until July 4th when he, attacked me.

So I think in his, you know, immature mind, he was emotionally underdeveloped.

Neatness, brain.

He really did, feel sorry for what he was doing, but he didn't know how to do the change.

You know, I got him, treatment.

I got him a therapist.

I got him prescriptions, and he didn't like the way that made him be perceived by the community.

He didn't want to be seen as someone who was a domestic violence survivor.

He was.

It was a shame.

There was shame in that.

And I didn't want to be seen as that either.

Shame has a big role in this from both sides, and he also just didn't know how to take personal responsibility and accept the therapy and the medication.

Listen to.

And what would you say to c y in his email?

It's a complicated question.

I think it, the behavior is a mix of behavior that is, ingrained maybe from birth and community and how people were raised.

And also it is intentional behavior as well.

So I do think it's a mix of that.

Can people change?

I'm a glass half full kind of girl.

So I'm always going to say I think people can change.

But like Jerri already highlighted, this is a behavior that's about accountability for an abuser to change.

They have to say, I did this, I did it, I chose to do it.

And not because you did or push the blame somewhere else.

You have to say I did it and work really hard to change.

And that is a behavior.

And, that we don't see a lot and we don't see successful long term.

See why I appreciate that email.

It's a really important question.

And again, to be fair, as fair as I can be to Congressman Miller, who we've been talking about, in the case of the allegations against him, you not only now have his ex wife, you have a past girlfriend.

Yep.

Who who wrote about Max Miller in a book without naming him and then later has now said, yeah, I was talking about Max.

He was the abuser that I was dating back in 2019, 2020.

But all of these things are out there.

And to see his point, does he think he's done anything wrong?

Lisa has pointed out that abusers will often say, yeah, I did that, but it wasn't the thing that you think it was.

It wasn't, it wasn't.

I threw a hot pot of water on you.

We were playing around in the kitchen and you were enjoying it, you know, that kind of stuff.

And so I don't see any accountability.

So that's been on my press secretary.

Yeah.

For a moment.

Yeah.

So, so I used to have to run press responses for the congressman in New York 29.

And he sometimes said things that were just outrageous.

If I were advising Max Miller as a press secretary, here would be a suggested response to show empathy when he when is brought to light that he is a domestic violence survivor, he would say, oh my gosh, I am so sorry.

I take full responsibility for this and I will step down.

I don't see him doing that, but taking that empathy and responsibility would just show he is capable of change and capable of empathy.

I don't see it happening and what we see is a pattern of behavior.

There's more than one person that is said.

Something has happened to me at his hands or at his, you know, emotional vitriol.

Right?

So, you know, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.

Now, do we judge people on their behavior when we're 18 years old?

I hope not for your whole life, but when we see that pattern of behavior continue over and over and over, and what we have is did something not great.

I'm so sorry.

I'll never do it again.

I'm getting help.

Did something not great again and again and again.

And it's a constant cycle of apologies.

That is the pattern of abusive behavior.

It runs in a cycle.

And that's exactly what it sounds and looks like.

All right, Dallas Rose to say, you could have used Graham Platinum as an example for this hour.

I mean, for the most part, Dallas is right.

I mean, the reason we're talking about Congressman Miller is it's so specific what's in the public.

And his reaction is so I hate to say this, but studying what Willow has taught us on this program over the years, it's so classic.

And again, journalistically, I'll say maybe Max Miller's right, and he's telling you the truth, but what he is saying is classic, and that we've heard years and years and years of Graham Plattner is a Democrat who ran for U.S.

Senate in Maine.

He actually did drop out of the race recently after, another woman came forward and said that in a past relationship, he was sexually abusive to her.

Plattner came out and said, that's not true.

I didn't do those things, but I'm going to drop out of this race because it's become kind of a circus.

So he didn't agree or take accountability if he, in fact did those things.

But he's out of the race.

And a lot of the Democrats who had endorsed him pulled their endorsements when this woman came forward.

I will say this, Jerri Lynn Sparks, you've worked in the world of Congress.

You were just talking about that.

The woman who came forward in Maine and made the allegations against Graham Plattner that got him out of the race.

She was not the first woman to make allegations against Graham Plattner.

I mean, everybody who was advising him knew that he had acknowledged not only some wrongdoing, although it was kind of vague, but also there are other allegations.

So I don't know why that was what broke the dam, but he did drop out.

I wonder what you think about that.

So I'm disappointed in the Democrats as much as the Republicans.

And what I said to you when we were talking about this is, I wish that we had people that had backbones before the camera was on them.

Why can't we have backbones?

Because we have an ethical meter.

Why can't we vote count?

Can't we do the right thing before it becomes a public problem?

I'm going to jump in on that too, because what I also I went deep down the research hole on this before coming in today to and what I also hear is that, you know, it wasn't bad enough.

Well, you know, he didn't sexually assault her.

He didn't, like, beat her.

Right.

Why does it have to get that bad?

We have a pattern of behavior.

It is clear with many people out there.

Why do we have to wait until it is so bad that we have to go?

And we're shocked, and there's headlines and somebody is seriously, seriously harmed before we make a decision about, you know, endorsing somebody or putting somebody in a public position or really any position of authority, why do we have to wait?

And I will say this, too, about the Graham Plattner story.

This is where it's a little different.

So the allegations against Plattner are not as uniform as they are against Max Miller.

One of the allegations that he sort of acknowledged is that he was sexting other women when he was married, and that he and his wife have gone through therapy and that they've both agreed that, you know, he needed to change and that they they were owning that moving forward.

And so, you know, Jerri, you've seen, you know, sort of the firestorm of politics, but also as someone who is I mean, I would think that you're kind of a centrist Democrat.

You understand, the, the delicate nature that especially people on the political left have a sense of saying, you, you may have to be held accountable, but, you know, if you've acknowledge that you want to change people like redemption stories.

A lot of people were looking at Graham Plattner thing like, well, maybe that's a redemption story.

Like he and his wife are getting past that weird stuff that he did.

And I don't know exactly what the other allegations were, but he says he wasn't perfect and he was drinking too much.

And who among us.

And there was that kind of stuff happening on the left, I think, to justify not pushing him to drop out.

What do you make of that?

I wish that there was a lot more vetting.

So what I do, in my, my business life is somewhat related to vetting, clearing things, making sure it's the right fit, making sure that they have, longevity and governance.

We need to have more governance of our care, of our candidates.

We need to do more research.

You know, at least said you did a deep dive.

We we've got to stop using the cult of personality to determine who our candidates are.

And it's, you know, you look back through who's won the presidency.

It's always the the guy, the guy with the great winning personality.

It's never the quiet, head down policy walk that was, you know, loving to his life.

We are choosing the right people.

We're choosing who we want to have at a party for that sparkling personality I mentioned earlier.

Well, and so I said, we're going to keep politics out of this, but I got to ask you this, Jerri.

I'm not going to put Lisa on the spot with this.

Lisa's professional responsibilities are different, but you've been in politics.

So one of the questions that people have, whenever there are allegations or, you know, sort of moral issues and I hope we can draw a line at physical abuse, sexual abuse, abusing children.

I mean, I do hope that that's disqualifying, but there are Republicans right now in Ohio who say what Max Miller did is between him and his wife.

That's a personal matter.

And there are there were Democrats in Maine who said, yeah, there's allegations against Graham Plattner.

That's in the past.

He said that he's a reform person.

I think he's a good person.

Why is he dropping out?

So why does that morality, the way you treat a partner, the way you treat a spouse, the way you treat your family?

For the people were saying, that's just a personal matter.

We can still endorse Max Miller.

We can still endorse Grand Platter.

Why does it matter to you?

To me, it's a litmus test.

Are you a good person?

If you're running for public office, there's a sense of trust.

And if you're willing to skirt the law or, you know, skirt the rules, be unethical in your private life, then I don't want you in my public life.

That's just how I feel about it.

If we look at some of the past behaviors of even you have Democratic President Bill Clinton, I lost so much respect for him.

And he's actually here in Rochester, and I didn't want to go.

I didn't want to go and go to the event.

I know that's going to be controversial.

I do believe in redemption, and I think hope that he's, you know, done a lot to, you know, redeem himself.

But I'm just so sick of making excuses for bad behavior.

Personally, I am privately.

I'm just sick of it.

Well, here's Roger who emails to say, from what I understand, Congressman Miller admitted to injecting steroids for fitness purposes.

Those of us who are past and present gym rats know that steroids can make a person very angry and aggressive.

This is not to excuse Miller, but to help support the case against him.

Steroids probably make him.

This is Roger's words, a even worse dirtbag.

Okay, so I I'm not an expert on how different substances and steroids affect your body, your workouts, your moods, etc.

anything you want to add to the point there, Lisa, that you're hearing from Roger?

Yeah, absolutely.

Because there's also, you know, if you look back at, previous accusations, you know, there's a lot of alcohol and drug use as well.

So again, that's where we start looking at that pattern of behavior.

Well, okay.

Is he treating everyone this way.

Is he shoving everybody up against the wall.

Is he calling everybody names?

And if the answer is no, that's not a steroid or the substance that he's using.

That is a choice.

Now does the substance that he's using maybe make that behavior worse, you know, maybe more violent, more frequent?

Sure.

But we have to look at that pattern and who that behavior is directed at.

And when we see it directed at only one person or only a couple people, that is not like blanket.

You have a substance use issue or this is a steroid issue because steroids.

I'm not a medical expert, but I'm pretty sure steroids do not discriminate like that.

Like alcohol doesn't either.

If you if you are using too much, drinking too much, you can't distinguish between the people.

You're just going to behave how you're going to behave.

We can't link it to that substance like that.

It's not a Coors risk factor.

Yeah, cause absolutely not.

Okay, Jerri, anything to add?

There?

Can I say yes?

So I'll just take the example of my ex-husband.

When his car died on Sunset Boulevard, I was the only person he lashed out at that day.

He didn't lash out at the people that gave him a ride home.

He didn't lash out at the gas station attendant.

He didn't lash out at the cars behind him on Sunset Boulevard.

He waited till I got home.

We're alone in our apartment in Brentwood, and he lashed out at me.

And I don't accept the fact that people can be made to do something selectively.

He made a choice, and he didn't own that behavior.

So as we get ready to wrap here, I want to ask Lisa Nolan, director of prevention education at Willow Domestic Violence Center, to tell the audience how they can get in touch with you, your organization, and what you want people to do if they have a need for this kind of help?

Absolutely.

Willow is here in the community.

You can call or text our hotline 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

We do not use any AI or chat bots or anything like that.

Our people are local, so we're also not kicking you to a call center somewhere else and bouncing back.

Our phone number is (585) 222-7233.

You can call or text that number.

But we want people to know is that unfortunately domestic violence, intimate partner violence, dating violence is really common.

There are many, many people who are going through this in our community right now.

We want you to know that you're not alone, that you have support and services here in our community to help you.

Well, we also want people to know is that if it's not you, if it's your friend, if it's your family member, if it's your brother, your sister, whoever, we're here for you to call us or text us.

We know that we're not always the front line.

It's the people that we love and trust the most in our life who we're going to tell.

We need you to believe people, and then we need you to call us, and we're happy to debrief with you, give you the resources so that you can give that to that loved one safely.

And they can make choices about where to go in their life.

But nobody deserves to be treated like this.

And if this is you that you don't have to be alone.

We're here for you, Jerri.

What would you want to leave with the audience in this conversation?

So 24 people and men in this country are impacted by intimate partner violence.

That translates to 12 million men and women a year.

Not just men have three sons who are also domestic violence survivors.

I don't want people to think that this is anti male.

Even though they are the ones largely reported to have done it, but it's so common, and I hope it doesn't happen to someone in your life or you before you realize how common it is and that there's help.

I didn't know about Willow.

Please, if you are experiencing any type of abuse, reach out to Willow.

They are literally life savers.

Well, I want to thank our guests for being here and let me close with this for Lisa.

You know, someone may be hearing your words today and they may be hearing Jerri story, and they may be seeing the the national news stories and thinking, yeah, I'm the person who hasn't called because I'm scared.

I'm the person who didn't call police, etc.. What would you say to the people who have been too scared to make that first call?

Well, what I want people to know is that those people know how to survive, right?

They're doing it every day.

They have the strength to get up, put their feet on the floor every single day, get through the day and get up tomorrow.

They're strong enough to be able to do it.

You have to do it in your own time, when you're ready and when you're safest and when you are, you call us and we'll be here for you.

And I'm going to re characterize the way I ask that question.

I think the stereotype is that you're too scared to call sometimes.

Maybe sometimes it's a survival choice.

Yeah.

Sometimes it is a strategy.

Yeah.

Of when you're going to make that move.

Emily Marino again I don't know exactly what happened, but I do know she waited till her husband was in Washington, didn't say anything.

And she moved out.

She's gone.

That's the strategy.

And that was a choice.

On when she was going to act.

So important characterization.

Lisa Nolan, you and the team at Willow do such important work.

Thank you for sharing this resource with the community.

Thank you.

In our show notes, we'll have information on how anyone can get in touch with Willow if you need them.

Jerri Lynn Sparks the Book of Surviving Madmen, survivor of domestic violence herself, former congressional press secretary.

We always appreciate your perspective, Jerri.

Thanks for being with us and thanks for having me.

More connections coming up in just a moment.

And.

I'll.

Be.

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