‘CBS This Morning’s Norah O’Donnell Lands Sen. Martha McSally Interview After Rape Revelation
CBS This Morning’s Norah O’Donnell landed Arizona Sen. Martha McSally’s first and only TV interview since revealing Wednesday she had been raped by a superior officer while serving in the U.S. Air Force.
The CBS morning program, which is on quite a tear these days, will air a segment of the interview Thursday, with more to follow Friday. Tomorrow’s program will juggle that big get with more of Gayle King’s exclusive sit-down with embattled R&B singer R. Kelly.
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O’Donnell sat down with McSally, the first female fighter pilot to fly in combat, in Washington D.C. During the interview, the senator told O’Donnell she believes sexual assault in the military poses a threat to America’s national security.
“If you have a predator, if you have a rapist who is serving in uniform, you don’t deal with it by keeping a woman out of their unit,” McSally said, “because that predator is going to go assault someone else.”
O’Donnell has reported extensively on sexual assault in the armed services and won a News Emmy for her reporting on sexual assault at the U.S. Air Force Academy.
The freshman senator made headlines Wednesday, revealing she had been raped while she served in the military, during a Senate Armed Services subcommittee hearing on sexual assault in the military.
‘Like you, I am also a military sexual assault survivor,” she told witnesses who had come to speak to the committee about their experiences. She said she did not report the attack because did not trust the system.
“Like many victims, I felt the system was raping me all over again. But I didn’t quit, I decided to stay,” she said.
In her interview with O’Donnell, McSally said, “If anybody last night or 50 years ago has also been through a sexual assault, I just want to give them some hope. I want to shine a flashlight for them – that today can be a new day… Don’t let your assaulter rob you of your future. Don’t do it.”
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