Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker | Holy War | 3

American Scandal

Wondery

True Crime, Exhibit C, Society & Culture, History, Documentary, History Daily, American History Tellers, Lindsay Graham

4.6 • 18.7K Ratings

🗓️ 25 June 2024

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 1987, the empire that Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker spent their lives building is falling apart. When Jessica Hahn comes forward and alleges Bakker sexually assaulted her, he’s forced to resign as PTL’s leader. Then, Bakker goes through one of the most publicized trials of the decade, exposing his lifestyle and business decisions to the intense scrutiny of evangelical leaders, the press and the federal government.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Wundry Plus subscribers can binge new seasons of American scandal early and ad free right now.
0:05.7	Join Wundry Plus in the Wundery app or on Apple Podcasts. Wonder. It's April 17th, 1987 in a hotel conference room in West Palm Beach, Florida.
0:29.2	Jerry Falwell is seated at the end of a long conference table watching as members of PTL's board of directors
0:34.7	sit down around him.
0:36.2	Much like Falwell himself, the men have graying hair and sour expressions.
0:41.1	None of them want to be here right now, but Falwell has called them in today to help with an unpleasant but necessary task cleaning up another man's mess.
0:49.0	Last month, the Charlotte Observer revealed that PTL President Jim Baker cheated on his wife
0:55.0	with a church secretary named Jessica Hahn.
0:58.1	Han claimed that Baker sexually assaulted her, and to keep her from going public, members of PTL's leadership arranged for Hahn to receive
1:05.2	a six-figure hush money payout.
1:08.0	When Falwell first heard the news, he was sickened, but what happened next was truly surprising.
1:14.0	Baker and his executive vice president Richard Dorch reached out to him begging for help.
1:21.0	They said that Baker would need to resign from PTL until a scandal blew over, and they
1:25.4	asked Falwell to step in as acting president. Falwell agreed, confident he'd be up to the task.
1:32.4	Falwell is one of the nation's most respected televangelists,
1:35.6	host of the long-running old-time Gospel hour.
1:38.4	Surely he could redeem PTL in the eyes of the public, but he quickly learned it would not be so easy.
1:44.8	Once installed as PTL's new president, Falwell reviewed the company books and saw that
1:49.3	the ministry is not just in a moral crisis, but a financial one too. The figures just don't add up,
1:55.0	but a financial one too. The figures just don't add up. Jim Baker's salary was outrageous.
1:58.0	The PTL's lifetime partnership program was a disaster and possibly illegal.
2:03.4	Falwell came in believing PTL was a ship that drifted from its righteous course, but now it's
	...

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