McCarthy left the hearing room shortly after Moss's testimony began, leaving his chief counsel Roy Cohn to handle the rest of the questioning. Moss was a small, soft-spoken, and seemingly timid woman who appeared to be a far cry from the intellectuals and political activists who were usually the target of McCarthy's investigations. She stated that she rarely read newspapers and had not even heard of Communism until 1948. She had difficulty with multisyllable words when asked to read a document before the committee, and responded "Who's that?" when asked if she knew who Karl Marx was, evoking laughter from the audience. She denied the charges, saying, "Never at any time have I been a member of the Communist Party and I have never seen a Communist Party card", and "I didn't subscribe to the "Daily Worker" and I wouldn't pay for it".