2/11/26: Ro Khanna Exposes Epstein Co-Conspirators, Epstein Biohacking, Shock Jobs Numbers

11 Feb 2026 · 52 min · 29 chapters

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In short

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

Episode Summary

2/11/26

Episode Title

Ro Khanna Exposes Epstein Co-Conspirators, Epstein Biohacking, Shock Jobs Numbers

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Overview In this episode, Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti engage in a multifaceted discussion led by hosts Ryan and Emily. The main topics cover:

  • Ro Khanna's revelations about Epstein's co-conspirators.
  • The implications of Epstein's biohacking project.
  • A surprising jobs report released that day.

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Key Discussions

  1. Ro Khanna and Epstein Exposures
  2. Ro Khanna's Actions: Representative Ro Khanna recently accessed unredacted Epstein files, uncovering names of powerful individuals previously redacted by the DOJ.
  3. Names Revealed: Six powerful men mentioned include:
  4. Salvatore Navora
  5. Zorab Mikolads
  6. Leopig Leonor
  7. Nicola Caputa
  8. Sultan Ahmed bin Suliam (CEO of Dubai Ports World)
  9. Leslie Wexner (notable businessman, connected to Epstein)
  10. Impact of Revelation: Khanna and Congressman Massey, who also accessed the files, are praised for their transparency and dedication to uncovering the truth behind Epstein's network.
  1. Epstein's Biohacking and Eugenics Interest
  2. Biohacking Plans: Epstein's interest in gene editing and eugenics was discussed, highlighting his desire to "hack" human DNA, which reflects a deeper obsession with racial superiority theories.
  3. Connections with Biotech: His interactions with influential figures, such as Sergey Brin (of Google) and Bill Gates, suggest a broader connection between elite tech and eugenicist ideologies.
  4. Manhattan Project Analogy: Epstein's New Mexico ranch was described as a potential hub for experiments related to DNA modification.
  1. Jobs Report Surprises
  2. Jobs Numbers: The U.S. payrolls rose by 130,000 in January, surpassing expectations and causing mixed reactions from political figures.
  3. Political Spin: The Trump administration framed the report as a victory for their economic policies, despite previous cautions against overly optimistic job forecasts.
  4. Healthcare Dominance: It was noted that most job growth was concentrated in healthcare, raising concerns about the overall health of other sectors.

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Key Takeaways

  • Ro Khanna's access to unredacted files marks a significant step in holding powerful figures accountable for their connections to Jeffrey Epstein.
  • Epstein's interests in biohacking and gene editing reveal broader ethical implications, especially regarding eugenics and power dynamics in society.
  • The jobs report indicates economic growth but raises questions about the sustainability and quality of the jobs being created, primarily rooted in healthcare.

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Closing Thoughts This episode of Breaking Points emphasizes the interplay between political power, ethical concerns surrounding biotechnology, and the economic landscape. It highlights the significance of independent media in fostering accountability and informed discussion.

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Additional Resources

  • [Breaking Points Premium Membership](http://www.breakingpoints.com/)
  • [Merch Store](https://shop.breakingpoints.com/)
  • Follow Analilia Mejia on [Twitter](https://x.com/Analilia_Mejia) for updates related to her political endeavors.

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Note This episode illustrates the critical role of transparency in governance and the necessity for vigilance regarding the ethical implications of emerging technologies.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.

Chapters

Tap a time to open that second in VO

Welcome to Breaking Points

1:19 to 1:50

Krystal and Saagar introduce the significance of independent media.

“And at Morehouse College, the students make their move.”

Current News Overview

1:50 to 2:24

Discussion about recent news, including job reports and political events.

“Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show.”

The Impact of Recent Job Reports

2:24 to 3:21

Analyzing the implications of the latest job reports on the economy.

“Emily, the guy in charge of safety over at Anthropic says that he is quitting to go write poetry and that we are all in peril.”

Discussion on U.S.-Cuba Negotiations

3:21 to 3:57

Insights into the ongoing negotiations between the U.S. and Cuba.

“We are going to talk about Jeffrey Epstein, piano player.”

Netanyahu's Visit and U.S. Relations

3:57 to 4:50

Details about Netanyahu's recent visit and its implications for U.S. relations.

“is completely shutting down basically all things going into Cuba.”

Nancy Guthrie's Case Update

4:50 to 6:03

Updates on the case of Nancy Guthrie and its media implications.

“We also have a really odd new development in the case of Nancy Guthrie.”

An interview with Annalilia Mejia

6:03 to 6:17

Annalilia Mejia talks about her win and future plans in Congress.

“to Anlilia about what she plans to do when she gets to Washington and her reflections on the race now that she's been declared the winner.”

Ro Khanna Exposes Epstein Files

6:31 to 7:50

Ro Khanna discusses viewing unredacted Epstein files and names key individuals.

“Now, Ryan, let's get on to the news that yesterday Representative Ro Khanna went, and you may be seeing more of this, was able to view unredacted Epstein files.”

Discussion on Powerful Figures in Epstein's Case

7:50 to 8:27

Exploration of the powerful men linked to Jeffrey Epstein.

“These men are Salvatore Navora, Zorab Mikolads, Leopig Leonor, Nicola Caputa, Sultan Ahmed bin Suliam, CEO of Dubai Ports World, and billionaire businessman Leslie Wexner.”

Analysis of Epstein's Connections

8:27 to 11:15

Deep dive into Epstein's connections and their implications for global power.

“This is from Aaron Parnas who said he spoke with Ro Khanna who, quote, confirmed that most of the unredacted files remain redacted because the FBI scrubbed them in March and then gave the DOJ redacted copies.”
Show all 29 chapters

Impact of Independent Media on Politics

11:15 to 14:00

How independent media shapes political awareness and public sentiment.

“We're telling you what's actually happening.”

Howard Lutnick's Encounters with Epstein

16:17 to 19:16

Discussion about Howard Lutnick's interactions with Epstein.

“and he did this incredible story one time about it.”

Exploring Trump and Epstein's Connections

19:16 to 22:14

Analysis of the connections between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein.

“It's like but still to like say that in 2005 this is his neighbor by the way that you sensed he was a total creep and then he gets convicted and then you bring your kids to the island for lunch.”

Ohio State University and Epstein's Payments

22:14 to 25:57

Discussion on Epstein's payments to Ohio State University's head of gynecology.

“And you can tell oftentimes that this is a mentally ill person who's just making like wild allegations.”

Epstein's Controversial Aspirations

25:57 to 28:00

Exploration of Epstein's bizarre ambitions regarding human DNA.

“many people probably are familiar with this, quote, the wealthy financiers accused of sex trafficking had an unusual dream.”

Exploring Mind Control and NLP

28:00 to 29:10

Discuss the concept of mind control and the principles of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP).

“this on there because it does appear to be credible.”

Epstein's Obsession with Eugenics

30:54 to 32:28

Discusses Jeffrey Epstein's interest in eugenics and his connections to influential figures.

“Ryan, you and Moz over at DropSite did this incredible report.”

The Science Behind Epstein's Genetic Ventures

32:29 to 34:21

Details Epstein's attempts to connect biotechnology with elite society and his personal genome research.

“So he wanted to connect NSA hackers to biology.”

Epstein's Networks and Eugenics Theories

34:22 to 36:51

Examines Epstein's theories on racial and genetic superiority through his connections.

“In December 2006, before Epstein was jailed for prostitution of a minor in Palm Beach, H.”

Controversies Surrounding Epstein's Eugenics Ideology

36:52 to 41:39

Explores controversial statements and actions of Epstein regarding eugenics and the societal implications.

“Another thing here from the report where you guys say, the files released by the DOJ and oversight committee have shown Epstein deeply preoccupied with theories of racial and genetic superiority.”

Epstein's Intelligence Connections

41:40 to 42:00

Discusses Epstein's relationships with intelligence circles and how they benefitted his ventures.

“actually is because I was searching the DOJ library for NSA.”

Epstein's Connections and Technological Influences

42:00 to 43:50

Explore Epstein's ties with intelligence and tech figures, revealing his network.

“She brags to him about getting a CIA award from John Brennan.”

Unpacking Job Numbers and Economic Implications

43:51 to 45:20

Analysis of recent job reports and their implications for the economy, especially under Trump.

“130 ,000 jobs, which is beating expectations, which is actually going to make Trump mad.”

Analyzing the Jobs Report's Impact

46:43 to 49:22

Detailed discussion on the implications of the jobs report amidst political narratives.

“Much anticipated jobs report just out this morning and beating expectations.”

Healthcare Jobs and Economic Growth

49:23 to 56:00

Examination of healthcare job growth and its conflicting role in economic measures.

“One of the best ones in here, the number of people who are part-time involuntary.”

Exploring Domestic Production and Economic Indicators

56:00 to 57:00

Discusses the challenges of domestic production in various industries and the implications for the economy.

“Like, you want to just go through, like, the Rockies and just chop down all the trees?”

Analyzing Job Reports and Economic Growth

57:00 to 58:20

Breaks down the latest jobs reports and differing perspectives on economic growth under Trump.

“It's another broad economic indicator to bring in here.”

The Intersection of Trade Wars and AI

58:20 to 1:00:20

Explores the simultaneous impacts of trade wars and the AI revolution during Trump's presidency.

“And if you want to do that, why are you making the cost of their inputs go up?”

Implications for Recent Graduates

1:00:20 to 1:01:00

Discusses the potential unemployment crisis facing recent college graduates.

“And so you have the trade war and the AI revolution happening at the same time that I don't think anybody is prepared for, let alone this administration.”
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Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

0:00This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

0:31a.k.a. neurolinguistic programming. Is it a self-help miracle, a shady hypnosis scam, or both? Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Bowen Yang. And I'm Matt Rogers. During this season of the Two Guys Five Rings podcast, in the lead-up to the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games, we've been joined by some of our friends. Hi, Bowen. Hi, Matt. Hey, Elmo. Hey, Matt. Hey, Bowen. Hi, Cookie. Hi. Now, the Winter Olympic Games are underway, and we are in Italy to give you experiences from our hearts to your ears. Listen to Two Guys, Five Rings on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:191969, Malcolm and Martin are gone. America is in crisis. And at Morehouse College, the students make their move. These students, including a young Samuel L. Jackson, locked up the members of the Board of Trustees, including Martin Luther King Sr. It's the true story of protest and rebellion in Black American history that you'll never forget. I'm Hans Charles. I'm Menelik Lumumba. Listen to The A-Building on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show.

1:57This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you, please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at BreakingPoints.com.

2:22Good morning and welcome to breaking points. Emily, the guy in charge of safety over at Anthropic says that he is quitting to go write poetry and that we are all in peril. Just FYI. We're not going to cover that though today because we like to keep it light here. Actually, it'll be relevant to the job segment that we're doing. So this big job support will be out by the time we talk about it. Right now, as we tape this, waiting for about another 10 minutes. But that's actually going to be perfectly relevant to the whatever these numbers are. Poetry jobs for very rich people are doing still doing okay though.

2:58Do you want to hear a secret? Let's hear it. I have a degree in creative writing with a concentration in poetry. That does not surprise me believe it or not. It's pretty shameful actually. So anyway we're not going to talk about that. We actually invited the guy on to do an interview and he's like no no no I said that we're all in peril as humanity and I'm quitting to go do poetry I'm not going to give any more details. If you're all in peril, good luck. This is not a show for poets, Ryan. Actually, we welcome all poets. We are going to talk about Jeffrey Epstein, piano player. Yes. Extraordinaire.

3:30We're going to talk about his interest in eugenics. That's why it says eugenics underneath there. We should explain that, actually. We should just ask him some questions about, you know, eugenics. Jobs report. Administration saying we have to revise down our expectations. You know, everybody always hopes that there are more jobs in the jobs report, but work sucks. And so there should be fewer jobs. We've got a good clip. You're going to want to stay around for this block. We're going to talk about the story in DropSite that we did about whether or not negotiations between Cuba and the United States are actually happening as the U.S.

4:05is completely shutting down basically all things going into Cuba. All things. Rubio is claiming their talks. You broke some people's brains with this story. This is a weird story. Yeah, we're going to go through it. Also, Netanyahu moved up a trip. He's in town here today. Meeting actually closed door for now with Donald Trump around 11 a.m. That's also as Trump is weighing whether to keep escalating in Iran, potentially what a second aircraft carrier group on the table right now. Yeah, Barack Ravid called him up and he's like, man, maybe I'll send another one. So now that's news. Something to think about.

4:42This is Netanyahu's seventh trip in Trump's second term. And we're a year in. We're a year in. Seven trips. Yeah. We also have a really odd new development in the case of Nancy Guthrie. So that's Savannah Guthrie's mom, obviously, who appears to have been abducted. The FBI released new photos and video of a suspect yesterday. Interestingly, though, some of it is from a Nest camera, and it appears that Nancy Guthrie did not have a Nest camera subscription. So what does that mean? Well, it means that Nest may be recording constantly and saving the files, whether or not you have a subscription files on that creepy ring Super Bowl commercial.

5:21So we're going to talk about all of that. And Ryan, you interviewed a candidate in New Jersey. That's right. Annalilia Mejia was yesterday declared the official victor in New Jersey 11 because Tom Malinowski, her chief opponent, who's only behind by less than a thousand votes, conceded. This is the race where APAC spent two plus million dollars to stop Malinowski from winning and accidentally elected Mejia, who's a Bernie AOC wing Democrat who has been calling out Israel's genocide and calling for all weapons shipments to be stopped for two years, two plus years now. So big L for AIPAC. And so we'll talk to Anlilia about what she plans to do when she gets to Washington and her reflections on the race now that she's been declared the winner.

6:11And don't forget to subscribe if you haven't yet. It's super helpful. You can go to breakingpoints.com for a premium subscription. That's also where if you get the premium subscription, you get the show early in full in your inbox every day. And also the second half of the Friday shows are paywalled for premium subs only. No problem. If you can't just like and comment and subscribe, it helps us so much. Now, Ryan, let's get on to the news that yesterday Representative Ro Khanna went, and you may be seeing more of this, was able to view unredacted Epstein files. Thomas Massey has been doing this as well, and Ro Khanna used his privilege of speaking on the House floor to name the people who are in Can't sue a member of Congress for something they say on the floor, which, what's her name?

6:58Nancy Mace. Nancy Mace used for her own messy drama. Ro Khanna using for the public. For the public's messy drama. So let's go ahead and roll this. This is going to be a shot of them talking about who's behind these redactions. Congressman Massey and I went to the Department of Justice to read the unredacted Epstein files. We spent about two hours there and we learned that 70 to 80 percent of the files are still redacted. In fact, there were six wealthy, powerful men that the DOJ hid for no apparent reason. When Congressman Massey and I pointed this out to the Department of Justice, they acknowledged their mistake, and now they have revealed the identity of these six powerful men.

7:50These men are Salvatore Navora, Zorab Mikolads, Leopig Leonor, Nicola Caputa, Sultan Ahmed bin Suliam, CEO of Dubai Ports World, and billionaire businessman Leslie Wexner. Leslie Wexner. Oh, interesting, Ryan, who I believe is actually going to sit for questions. Yeah, we'll see if he actually answers anything, but yeah. Unless, yeah, you could obviously always. But he was subpoenaed by Congress. Subpoenaed by Congress. The guy who just turned over his fortune to Jeffrey Epstein for no reason. And we can put the next element up on the screen. This is from Aaron Parnas who said he spoke with Ro Khanna who, quote, confirmed that most of the unredacted files remain redacted because the FBI scrubbed them in March and then gave the DOJ redacted copies.

8:39Now, the FBI is under the DOJ. So kind of a process question there about what that means, Ryan. but Parnas says DOJ seemingly never asked for new unredacted versions of those files. Big names. Now, you all at DropSite have done reporting on the Sultan, who plays a rather interesting role in all of this. I feel like they're going to throw him under the bus. He's going to be a kind of sacrificial lamb. Sultan Suleyem is the chair of Dubai Ports World, DP World, which is an Emirati company, which is extremely important for you to understand how the world works. This is a company that for decades has been, you know, inserting itself into the flow of commodities and oil throughout the world.

9:31And Epstein has been friends with this guy for a very long time. Like the, you know, the ports are the arteries of power. Like if you control the ports, you control the flow of diamonds out of Angola where Epstein was operating. Or basically all commodities. Like that Epstein very fluidly understood power. And not just power at a like cocktail circuit level, but how wealth actually moves around the world. And who controls it and how. And so the Israelis and the Emiratis also very deeply understand this, and they are very closely allied. Suleyem was one of his, seems like, closest associates, deeply involved in all of this predatory, perverted stuff that they were doing, as you see in the emails.

10:29And so, yeah, we wrote about him mid-January. and his connection to Israel and to Epstein. There's been further reporting now on him since then, basically exposing him for being a creep. And it's interesting to see the difference between the kind of mainstream coverage of him and ours, which is like, we're going to tell you how he and his company fit into world power and also that he's a creep. The rest of the media, they're just going to like flag that he's a creep and then they're going to eject him. You know what they're going to do then? Put another chairman of Dubai Ports World in there. Right.

11:07Who will continue the same system that will be just as corrupt. Right. No, I think that's actually true of most of the drop site covers when you're contrasting it with. We're telling you what's actually happening. Yes. And where it fits into the story of the world. You can do both at the same time. You can. It turns out you can. Yes, absolutely. Or you cannot, which is the other way of doing it. Well, so speaking of how power fits into the bigger picture, Howard Lutnick was testifying Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in front of the Appropriations Committee yesterday and got some big questions about what seems to be a massive gulf between his earlier explanation of any relationship with Jeffrey Epstein he may have had and what is actually in the files.

11:49Real quick before we move to that, let's just give Ro Khanna and Massey their flowers again. Oh, absolutely. These are the first two members of Congress where I'm like, I'm kind of worried about these guys. That's a good point. That's how hardcore they're being in their pursuit of this. I'm like, ooh, watch yourself, Ro. Watch yourself, Thomas. I mean, they're trying to get, they're spending millions to get Massey out of office. The oligarchs are trying to get Ro Khanna out. Are they too late? We'll see. We'll see if they can orchestrate that. But I'm worried even beyond that. But Ro Khanna, more than any other Democrat, has been paying attention to independent media for the longest time.

12:30Everyone who watches this show knows this. And it's not a coincidence, I don't think, that he had his finger on the pulse of where people were on this issue long before his colleagues. Because his colleagues are following the New York Times and CNN. And that's where they're taking their cues. So they're like, oh, Epstein, nobody cares about this. And Ro Khanna, he's following this show. He's following the broad podcaster universe. He's like, oh, I see what people care about. And people come up to him all over the country now because he's been out on so much independent media and talked to him about stuff.

13:07So he has, like, he, interestingly, is, like, one of the more in-touch politicians because he's been able to, because he kind of chose, like, I'm going to see what this independent media space is all about. Yeah, and he learned quickly because he's told us this before. When he was going out to airports, whatever, people would say, oh, my gosh, I've seen you on Breaking Bad. But that gives you a sense of, like, really the... People don't say that about CNN. Probably not. Not really. Probably not. Probably not. What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have?

13:43Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. NLP, aka Neuro Linguistic Programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology. Fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain. It's about engineering consciousness. Mind Games is the story of NLP. It's crazy cast of disciples and the fake doctor who invented it at a new age commune and sold it to guys in suits.

14:26He stood trial for murder and got acquitted. The biggest mind game of all? NLP might actually work. This is wild. Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

14:43What do you do when the headlines don't explain what's happening inside of you? I'm Ben Higgins, and if you can hear me, it's where culture meets the soul. A place for real conversation. Each episode, I sit down with people from all walks of life, celebrities, thinkers, and everyday folks, and we go deeper than the polished story. We talk about what drives us, what shapes us, and what gives us hope. We get honest about the big stuff. Identity when you don't recognize yourself anymore. Loss that changes you. Purpose when success isn't enough. Peace when your mind won't slow down. Faith when it's complicated.

15:21Some guests have answers. Most are still figuring it out. If you've ever felt like there has to be more to the story, this show is for you. Listen to If You Can Hear Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

15:41I'm Bowen Yang. And I'm Matt Rogers. During this season of the Two Guys Five Rings podcast, in the lead-up to the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games, we've been joined by some of our friends. Hi, Bowen. Hi, Matt. Hey, Elmo. Hey, Matt. Hey, Bowen. Hi, Cookie. Hi. Now, the Winter Olympic Games are underway, and we are in Italy to give you experiences from our hearts to your ears. Listen to Two Guys, Five Rings on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

16:16Anyway, Howard Lutnick, a guy can spin an amazing yarn. and he did this incredible story one time about it. The first time he met Epstein, and he can really tell a good story. He imagined him at a dinner party. Didn't work yesterday. And so he told this incredible story about the first time he met Epstein, and he just had this visceral disgust at him. Never saw him, never wanted to see him ever again. Cut him out of his life. So let's see where that ended up. Yeah. Did you have a dinner in Epstein's New York City home in 2011? No. So the information that suggests that there was a dinner with Woody Allen and Woody Allen's spouse at the Epstein residence, there's nothing to that.

17:02Is that right? I actually don't know what you're referring to. There was, look, I looked through the millions of documents for my name, just like everybody else. And what I found was there was a document that says that I had a meeting with him in May, I think, for an hour at five o 'clock. Not dinner or otherwise, for an hour at five o 'clock. When you visited the private island, did you see anything inappropriate during that visit? the only thing I saw with my wife and my children and the other couple and their children was staff who worked for Mr. Epstein on that island. And you realize that, you know, this visit took place after he'd been convicted, right?

18:01I mean, you made a very big point of saying that you sensed that this was a bad person in 2005. And then, of course, in 2008, he was convicted of soliciting prostitution of a minor. And yet you went and had this trip and other interactions. So it turns out, Howard Lutnick claims, cut off contact in 2005. These emails are released. And And lo and behold, there's a 2012 message showing that Howard Lutnick obviously visited the island for lunch. Ryan, that's a listen. He's Cantor Fitzgerald. He is jet setting going all over the world. I don't know that he actually forgot about that one. I feel bad for these billionaires, you know, they're just getting busted for doing billionaire things.

18:50Look, who hasn't been out on their yacht in the Caribbean and stopped in on Jeffrey Epstein's island for lunch and then forgotten about it? now to his in his defense i will say if you went to the island with your kids and your wife uh and you had lunch and like there's nothing there's no partying he actually was you can see in the emails a lot of messages where epstein is offering people to bring their families by when they're on vacation in the caribbean for whatever reason oftentimes epstein wasn't there he was you can see him organizing with his staff in these emails obviously trying to ingratiate himself with them right so I don't think that Howard Butnick participated in any of this Bacchanalia with children or whatever.

19:33It's like but still to like say that in 2005 this is his neighbor by the way that you sensed he was a total creep and then he gets convicted and then you bring your kids to the island for lunch. I've never like yachted around the Caribbean so I don't know how hard is to find a lunch spot. You know, maybe that's a real challenge. It's the only place, really. Everything else is closed or like half an hour to get a table. Yeah. Epstein's like, come on over. Sex Island. It's one of the only places. Pizza. Get a good. Serving pizza. Yep. Oh, dark. Just picked up on that one. All right. Let's say, let's put this quote from Jimmy Raskin up on the screen.

20:18He said yesterday that in the unredacted Epstein files, Donald Trump's name came up, quote, more than a million times. That is according to Axios. Now, important to note, a lot of what is in the DOJ's obscene files is from Trump's first presidency and subsequent years, meaning people were calling in tips about high-profile politicians, including Donald Trump. So a lot of that is probably from unredacted tips. But there are plenty of mentions of Trump between Bannon and Epstein, between at one point there's all kinds of weird stuff, obviously, as people know already. But at one point they're talking about getting Bannon to kind of woo Kushner to the populist side.

21:06So there's conversations about policy. There's conversations about I mean, there's conversations about Trump that predate even his administration. So it's not shocking. That number is actually not shocking to me at all. Right. I think that's right. I'd call this kind of a misleading number in that sense because if anybody sent an email or called the FBI at any point, even after Epstein died, and said, hey, I think Trump killed Epstein, boom, that would go into the files. And that doesn't actually tell us anything. It's just some random person said that other than that random person is kind of being funny or like maybe they actually had some information.

21:46Yeah, and some of those tips, I mean, that's what's unfortunate. Some of those tips are probably legitimate. Some of them are clearly from mentally disturbed people, and that doesn't make them less legitimate. But it does make them, you know, you take them with a grain of salt when people are talking about all kinds of different strange stuff that's mixed up in this. And you can, if you search the files, you will find that immediately. If you're spending like a half an hour, you'll see all kinds of tips like that. It doesn't go. You probably get a lot of these, right? Like just emails from the public.

22:16And you can tell oftentimes that this is a mentally ill person who's just making like wild allegations. If out of context, somebody screenshotted that and was like, look what this person, look what this says. It's in FBI files. Like, well, hold on a second. Yep. Like, easy now. Well, and there's a... Here I am defending Trump and Epstein. Yeah. I think it was Tucker who was floating the theory that some of these tips are just getting mixed into the files. I mean, there's still 3 million files that haven't been released according to their own numbers. So are these tips being mixed in intentionally to discredit the entire batch?

22:52Absolutely. Absolutely. Because what the FBI could have done is released them as unverified public allegations. Every single one could be called that. But because they redact everything that gives it any context, give it no additional context, you look at it, you're like, Department of Justice says, wow. I think it is a deliberate misinformation strategy. Well, they're also keeping, again, like 3 million documents to themselves. Is it dis? It's dis. But they're also keeping like 3 million to themselves so they could have just not released. If they're planning to not release things, the thing that you would not release is the unvetted tips.

23:32That's pretty obvious. Meanwhile, crazy story here. This is A5. So local media in Ohio, this is their NBC affiliate in Columbus, said convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein paid Ohio State University's head of gynecology quarterly payments of thousands of dollars. Department of Justice files show. So this is what local reporters found in the files. Mark Landon, a physician and professor at OSU and the chair of the OBGYN department, received quarterly payments of thousands of dollars from Epstein in the early 2000s. Records show, according to released files, Landon received as much as$25 ,000. We're talking early 2000s,$25 ,000, too, every few months.

24:14He told NBC4 the payments were for, quote, consulting work, and he had no knowledge of Epstein's crimes. Ryan, Columbus, Ohio, Lex Wexner, Victoria's Secretland. Yeah, and the story that we're about to tell you about in the next segment is going to provide some useful context that Emily and I and Maz wrote. But for, yes, for more context on the Wexner part, as if you've been following along with our reporting, you know that, and other people have done this reporting as well. that Jeffrey Epstein brought the CIA's Iran-Contra airline, the plane they were using to ship drugs and weapons and diamonds and everything, when the heat was on, they needed to lay low a little bit.

25:00Epstein moved the planes to Columbus, Ohio, to be used by Wexner for his lingerie business. And this was in Columbus, Ohio. Now, Wexner is like the don of Ohio State University, so it's not surprising that there would be links there. Now, what Landon says he did, he said, I was a paid consultant for the New York Strategy Group regarding potential biotech investments from 2001 to 2005. I had no knowledge of any criminal activities. I find them reprehensible and I feel terrible for Epstein's victims. that Epstein would have this guy on a consulting contract looking at biotech investments from 2001 to 2005 actually checks out fully.

25:45It doesn't make what Epstein was doing any less creepy. It actually makes it much worse. But we'll talk about that in the next segment. Well, and here's the New York Times in 2019 reported Epstein. many people probably are familiar with this, quote, the wealthy financiers accused of sex trafficking had an unusual dream. He hoped to seed the human race with his DNA by impregnating women at his vast New Mexico ranch. Mr. Epstein over the years confided to scientists and others about his scheme, according to four people familiar with his thinking, although there's no evidence that it ever came to fruition.

26:17That's a hell of a line. Oh, you're saying the human race has not been seeded with his DNA? Thank you. Elon Musk isn't even original on that one. No, he's always one step behind. He is. All right. Trump thing real quick and then move on. Yeah, let's see it. This is interesting, A6. This is a heavily redacted document that appears to come from the Palm Beach Police Department. This is a guess. We can't really tell because these jerks redact so much. Palm Beach Police Department is not a victim here. so on what grounds are you not letting us know whether or not this is from the palm beach because if it is from the palm beach police department this is interesting and if it is it they they say at the end uh that trump was somebody who called the palm beach police after they started investigating epstein and said i'm glad you got this guy he was a creep yeah and and that you should look into galane because she's evil and even worse um but again i don't know is this palm Beach police?

Read the full transcript

27:23Is this credible? It appears like it's Palm Beach police, but in this, what I think is a deliberate effort to confuse all of us, um, and make it impossible to grab onto anything, the DOJ is not explaining. Uh, I'm actually, we'll ask, uh, uh, Rochon and Thomas Massey, if they can actually look at this one privately or some other members. And so the, actually the former police chief, his name is, uh, Michael Ryder. He told the Miami Herald that the call with Trump occurred in July of 2006. So I think he told Julie K. Brown that. Yeah. So there is contemporaneous reporting to back up that that's that's why we wanted to put this on there because it does appear to be credible.

28:04Yes. It's a very interesting bit of information. Like what are you redacting the police chief there? It's so completely ridiculous. For whoever it is. Yeah. What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of Anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious.

28:39NLP, aka Neuro Linguistic Programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology. Fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain. It's about engineering consciousness. Mind Games is the story of NLP. It's crazy cast of disciples and the fake doctor who invented it at a New Age commune and sold it to guys in suits. He stood trial for murder and got acquitted. The biggest mind game of all? NLP might actually work. This is wild. Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

29:20What do you do when the headlines don't explain what's happening inside of you? I'm Ben Higgins, and if you can hear me, it's where culture meets the soul, a place for real conversation. Each episode, I sit down with people from all walks of life, celebrities, thinkers, and everyday folks, and we go deeper than the polished story. We talk about what drives us, what shapes us, and what gives us hope. We get honest about the big stuff. Identity when you don't recognize yourself anymore. Loss that changes you. Purpose when success isn't enough. Peace when your mind won't slow down. Faith when it's complicated.

29:58Some guests have answers. Most are still figuring it out. If you've ever felt like there has to be more to the story, this show is for you. Listen to If You Can Hear Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

30:36Winter Olympic Games are underway, and we are in Italy to give you experiences from our hearts to your ears. Listen to Two Guys, Five Rings on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

30:52Let's move on to our eugenics block, which is also an Epstein block, because Epstein, as it turns out, we just covered this basically, is very interested in eugenics. Ryan, you and Moz over at DropSite did this incredible report. And I dropped in at the last minute and added like 100 words. But this was fantastic reporting. You guys went back years and painted, I think, a really important piece of this overall picture. Yeah, team effort over at DropSite, though. Moz and I are slapping our names on it. But it's hard to even explain what the heck this guy is doing here because it's so far kind of advanced and advanced into like just like – I keep using the word creepy.

31:40But there isn't really a better one. This is somebody who understood that he himself was not of the kind of brilliant mind that was going to understand and code break either DNA or Bitcoin or things like that. But he understood it enough to understand who the people were and to be able to connect them and to finance them. And then to try to, like, I think he talks about wanting to clone himself. Who among us. Who among us. and to do DNA experiments. And so the headline of the article refers to how he wanted to turn his new, he built his New Mexico ranch, he said, to be this Manhattan project for basically kind of hacking the genome.

32:29So he wanted to connect NSA hackers to biology. That's why I said in the last segment that this biotech research thing actually tracks. Like this is the kind of thing that he was into. And he's arguing that once you get into the world of code, you know, now you're talking about math. And you actually can try to maybe somebody can answer some of these questions that maybe you can get in there and manipulate DNA and reshape humanity. And like he was trying to do nothing less than that and had the resources and the connections to do it. It's like you sound crazy even talking about it, but that's what it happened.

33:14We can put up the first element up here. It's from, sorry, that's the headline of the story. You can put up the next element, read a little bit from it. Like many of his ultra wealthy peers, Jeffrey Epstein was fascinated by gene therapy and life extension technology. He once suggested to news anchor Katie Couric to her shock and disgust that he even planned to clone himself. but his interest in genomics was more than a passing fancy it was an enduring obsession during the final decades of his life and that the key point is that he's not alone at all like there's something about this and you've got you guys have seen it you see it from Peter Thiel and all these other oh yeah Brian transhumanists like that he was way ahead of it yeah like he was he was a pioneer in creating this space that the Thiels and the Johnsons have kind of moved into um And they're really making this their obsession that they're going to live forever.

34:12Tim Dillon has had a good couple of bits on that. Like, why? Yeah. Your life? You want this life to go on? You don't seem happy. Yeah. What are you doing? You want to do the next? Yeah. Let's move on to the next element here. I'll read from this. This is from the Drop Site story. In December 2006, before Epstein was jailed for prostitution of a minor in Palm Beach, H. Ghislaine Maxwell invited Google co-founder Sergey Brin and his then-girlfriend Anne Wojcicki to Epstein's Little St. James Island, according to emails in Epstein's hacked Yahoo inbox vetted and published by distributed denial of secrets.

34:45Wojcicki had founded a personal genomic startup called 23andMe. You may have heard of that. And Maxwell encouraged Epstein to cultivate a relationship with her. Be very nice to her, not stupid, Maxwell wrote. She's interested in mapping DNA, et cetera. She is key. Smiley face. She is key. I mean. It is interesting that her, his sort of girlfriend, best friend, has to remind him, look, we know that you're a disgusting creature. Reel it in a bit. Try not to be a disgusting creature around this particular woman because you need her for your other disgusting venture, which is this hacking of the world's DNA.

35:28So he was so lucky to have Galen by his side. Yeah, everyone needs a Galen. You put up the next element here. Epstein's interest in gene editing was not purely intellectual. It was personal. Joe Thakoria, Church's Harvard Medical School colleague, helped Epstein conduct research on his own genome. In June 2014, the courier sent Epstein$193 ,400 invoice for a package deal to mutate his adult stem cells, quote, to increase longevity, noting that, quote, if we do this, he, like George Church, would be one of very few people in the world to have this done, unquote. Later that year, Epstein tried to arrange a meeting between Church and Bill Gates to discuss, quote, anti-aging and genetic fabrications.

36:14This is 2014. this is when this this brian johnson's what in middle school you know he jeffrey epstein um walked he's going to be in middle school in about 20 years brian johnson could do whatever it is he's doing yeah well yeah i mean you just see the levels of people who are being wrapped into this big picture scheme and also to go to the lengths of having this sprawling new mexico ranch where you can work on these things, like it's a Manhattan project. You can see, and that's why I think your story is so important, you can see how important this was to Epstein's broader project of wrapping up powerful people together.

36:51We can put the next one up on the screen. Another thing here from the report where you guys say, the files released by the DOJ and oversight committee have shown Epstein deeply preoccupied with theories of racial and genetic superiority. In an anonymous essay recovered from Epstein's files titled, Africa, Parasites, intelligence, the writer mused that for Africa, the environmental factors, parasites, disease, known to exert a strong negative effect on intelligence. Quote, and what is special about Jewish intelligence? The author asked, surely it is that it emerged in mercantile settings, natural home of numbers, logic, and mathematics.

37:25You guys go and write calculations about the long-term viability of the Israeli state and anxieties about the demographics of its Jewish people formed a backdrop to Epstein and Barak, Ehud Barak's engagement with Vladimir Putin In the last years of Epstein's life, Ehud Barak shared grave concerns with Epstein about Israel's looming demographic crisis. During a dinner at Epstein's New York mansion in February 2013, Barak told former Obama economic advisor Larry Summers that Israel needs to solve its Jewish population shortage, quote, before it's too late and stop the, quote, slippery slope to a one-state nation with an Arab majority.

37:58And so, yeah, so there you can see how Epstein's kind of eugenics and supremacy, you know, flow, are held and are shared by his good friends. So Ehud Barak, former prime minister of Israel, that's in that three and a half hour conversation that was released by the Department of Justice. And Barak makes this argument that right now it's too difficult for you to convert to Judaism and then become an Israeli citizen. So what they need to do is take control from the rabbinical institutions that currently guide it, make it more liberal so that you can then get a bunch of Russians who are not Jewish but would rather, he says like they'd rather be Jewish than Russian or something like that.

38:48He got some silly line. So you can leave Russia, come to Israel, convert to Judaism, and then that's his counterweight to the Arab population. And he complains that the early Zionist settlers had to rely on the undesirable brown Mizrahi and Ethiopian other Jews from Africa and the Middle East who, you know, Jewish. So like the Jewish state had to take them in. But Barak is saying that was deeply unfortunate. So disgusting. The Mizrahi bigotry in Israel is that there's this undercurrent of it. It's not discussed a lot. Um, but there is a, a lot of Mizrahi Jews in Israel complain about being treated as, um, as second class citizens there.

39:43And this shows that Ehud Barak, who is considered to be like on the left of the Israeli political spectrum, like completely holds that bigoted view that, uh, they would rather have non-Jews from Russia who are white. But wait till he learns that like lots of Russians are pretty brown. Maybe he's going to make sure they're like from the western part of Russia. Also, the entire state of Israel is supposed to be, in theory, an anti-eugenics bulwark. It's, yes. Every accusation is a confession. It's on and on and on, all the way down. And Ryan, finally, take us to Ukraine here. And so, yeah, so last one here.

40:25On our world tour of Epstein eugenics. Yeah. So put the last one up. In the final year, this will bring us to modern day. In the final year before his death, Epstein supported a biolab in Ukraine for the production of, quote, designer babies led by hacker Brian Bishop. On July 21st, 2018, Epstein wrote to Bishop, I have no issue with investing. The problem is only if I am seen to lead. Now, because already at 2018, the heat is on him at this point. Bishop wrote back, I have always envisioned there would be anonymity requirements about babies. Obviously. We can't publicly identify who these are or their parents or benefactors.

41:02It would brand the child as essentially and sadly a freak for life in the media. Anyway, you know, Ukraine bio labs to make designer babies. And let us not forget a 2013 email with a redacted sender to Epstein that says, quote, you offered to buy my baby six months into our relationship. ship. Yeah. And none of this would be worth talking about if this guy wasn't operating at the very upper echelons of elite global society. That's what you hear everything we said for the last 10 minutes and you'd be like, all right, this is a total crank and kook. Well, I wish. I was, yeah, I was going to say, I mean, the reason that I got into some of these emails actually is because I was searching the DOJ library for NSA.

41:45I was just typing in all the like three-letter agencies. And when I got to NSA, you see the former White House counsel, Kathy Rumler, is talking like there's a calendar invite for Kathy NSA signal intelligence. There's some like fairly open conversation that seems to imply Epstein is aware she's NSA or CIA affiliated. She brags to him about getting a CIA award from John Brennan. And so he's moving in intelligence circles. There's a former CBS News producer named Dan Dubnow in these emails who Epstein meets. And I think they formally meet in 2009 or their relationship begins in 2009. You can see it in the emails.

42:26And Epstein asked him to connect him to NSA code breakers and Israeli hackers. And Dubnow offers that up on a silver platter. He's kind of a technologist. But a CBS News producer, I think a PBS producer as well, Emmy Award winner, goes into technology and is openly trying to help Epstein in these emails get connected to people at NSA and in Israeli hacker world. So the odds that Epstein had, also Boris Nikolic, who was working like a top Bill Gates advisor, this is like Bill Gates' top scientific advisor, is offering to help connect Epstein with NSA people. So the odds that he actually was in connection with NSA people are very...

43:17Although, yeah, but he needed help to get there, so he clearly wasn't working for them. But just to say that the odds that he actually ended up having access to some folks in these spaces is high. And as you read the story, you'll see what his real key skill is. He connects MIT, Gates, and the Russian, you know, the Skolnick or Skolnovik, whatever it's called, basically the Russian MIT, Russian tech incubator for this technology transfer project that was very influential. And he's kind of key to that. So anyway, worth the read. Job numbers are out. We'll talk about that later. 130 ,000 jobs, which is beating expectations, which is actually going to make Trump mad.

44:06We'll talk about why that is next. What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. NLP, aka Neuro Linguistic Programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology. Fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain.

44:45It's about engineering consciousness. Mind Games is the story of NLP. It's crazy cast of disciples and the fake doctor who invented it at a new age commune and sold it to guys in suits. He stood trial for murder and got acquitted. The biggest mind game of all? NLP might actually work. This is wild. Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

45:15What do you do when the headlines don't explain what's happening inside of you? I'm Ben Higgins, and if you can hear me, it's where culture meets the soul. A place for real conversation. Each episode, I sit down with people from all walks of life, celebrities, thinkers, and everyday folks, and we go deeper than the polished story. We talk about what drives us, what shapes us, and what gives us hope. We get honest about the big stuff. Identity when you don't recognize yourself anymore. Loss that changes you. Purpose when success isn't enough. Peace when your mind won't slow down. Faith when it's complicated.

45:53Some guests have answers. Most are still figuring it out. If you've ever felt like there has to be more to the story, this show is for you. Listen to If You Can Hear Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

46:12I'm Bowen Yang. And I'm Matt Rogers. During this season of the Two Guys Five Rings podcast, in the lead-up to the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games, we've been joined by some of our friends. Hi, Bowen. Hi, Matt. Hey, Elmo. Hey, Matt. Hey, Bowen. Hi, Cookie. Hi. Now, the Winter Olympic Games are underway, and we are in Italy to give you experiences from our hearts to your ears. Listen to Two Guys, Five Rings on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

46:48Much anticipated jobs report just out this morning and beating expectations. We can put this headline up on the screen from CNBC, which says U.S. payrolls rose by 130 ,000 in January, more than expected, unemployment rate at 4.3 percent. Now, quote, more than expected in the headline is doing some work because it was the Trump administration explicitly trying to downplay the jobs report to temper expectations and making an argument for why people should temper their expectations about the jobs report just yesterday. day. So we have the Trump administration reacting now, this is going to be C1B guys, to the jobs report by saying, this is the Trump economy.

47:33New job growth surged in January, adding 130K totaled on-farm jobs and 172 private sector jobs, shattering expectations once again. The unemployment rate fell, wages grew, federal employment is now at its lowest level since 1966. Okay. So before we get analysis from Ryan Grimm, let's roll Peter Navarro just yesterday responding to questions about what the administration expected to see from the jobs report when it was released today. The jobs report's going to come out tomorrow. Yeah. We have to revise our expectations down significantly for what a monthly job number should look like. When we were letting in 2 million illegal aliens, just they're coming in, coming in.

48:18We had to produce 200 ,000 jobs a month for steady state. And by the way, all of the jobs that we were creating in Biden years were going to illegals. Americans were going to the unemployment lines. That's totally reversed. And now 50 ,000 a month is going to be more like what we need. So Wall Street, when this stuff comes out, they can't rain on that parade. they have to adjust for the fact that we're deporting millions of illegals out of our job market. But it sounds like you're expecting a weak number tomorrow. No, not expecting a weak number. I'm just saying that going forward, when we see a number under 100 ,000, we don't wring our hands.

48:59We say, yeah, that's going to be steady state. Okay. So, Ryan, today then, they're now saying this is a great jobs report, beats expectations. This is the Trump economy. They're the ones who set those expectations, interestingly enough. I think they're going to regret saying this is the Trump economy. But at some point, you just have to own it anyway. So digging into the numbers a little bit more, there are some other positive developments of Dean Baker flagging a few here. One of the best ones in here, the number of people who are part-time involuntary. Involuntary. In other words, they want more work than they can get.

49:41Fell by 450 ,000 people. That's great. That's great. So that means people who are part time are have been able to get more work. Says the share of job quitters among the unemployed rose to 13.7 percent. You want you want the unemployed to be people who quit their jobs rather than people who got fired. Like as for somebody who wants to support workers, like you want people to feel the confidence in an economy to be able to quit and then find a new job. So the fact that it rose slightly to 13.7 percent, it's not high. That means like 80 plus percent, you know, were forced into joblessness. But to see that number go up is good.

50:22And people holding multiple jobs, that number fell back a little bit. So those are all good things. The negative, I would say, is that 86 ,000 of the jobs, which is two-thirds of the gain, are, and this is if the numbers are accurate and we can get all these revisions down the road, are in healthcare. And healthcare is a very interesting component of GDP. So my wife, when she was going through treatment, like one of the chemo sessions was$117 ,000. Jeez. that's that's what they build the insurance i don't want the insurance eventually one session paying one session that's the antibodies and chemotherapy one day that is a sign of a completely shattered economy but to the gdp if if the insurance company paid that entire amount gdp would reflect a growth of 117 000 that's like wait a minute really that i'm not so sure about that that like not so sure that that's what we think of when we think of economic growth.

51:30Right. And so we are an aging society. We're also to his point, you know, if we have deported several million people, we're mostly deporting people under 40 and under 30. So not only are we seeing declining birth rates and an aging population, our immigration policy would also tilt our numbers older, which is going to mean more and more spending on healthcare as we go month to month. And so my point is that that's not really people's idea of a growing economy, spending more money, taking care of sicker, older people. But it's good that there or more jobs. Yeah, obviously true. But Ryan, this also included the annual revisions to the year.

52:20Oh, and one other stat from Dean. And then over the last year, healthcare accounted for 122 % of job growth. So other than healthcare, that means we have lost jobs over the last year. Right. So if you're out there and you don't work in healthcare and you're like, wait a minute, jobs are booming. I don't know. That doesn't make sense to me. Right. Well, jobs are actually down over the last year, except for health care. Yeah. Well, and what the Trump administration is obviously trying to do with tariff policies and Howard Lutnick, Commerce Secretary, was not just asked about Epstein yesterday in front of the Appropriations Committee.

52:56He was also getting questions about the administration's tariff policies, which came up for a vote in the House. At the end of the day, we put C6 up on the screen, skip ahead here, because Mike Johnson, tried to wrangle Republicans to block an effort that would allow for Congress to vote on the tariff policies. It failed. Spoiler alert, it failed. This is from earlier in the day, quote, Johnson says it's full steam ahead on tariff vote ban. Well, three Republicans ended up voting with Democrats. The Senate, I think it's been four Republicans in the Senate who have voted against the Trump administration's tariff policies.

53:32Now, this is not veto-proof majority space, so there's no serious legislative will to overturn the Trump tariffs. But let's listen to Howard Lutnick answering questions just yesterday in front of the Appropriations Committee, C5. President Trump ran on lowering folks' costs, and the cost of housing is not going down. We need to build millions more homes, and the home building boom we need is in part not happening because of tariffs on lumber, drywall, kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanities. I think the home builders estimate they're raising the cost of a new home by more than$17 ,000. Would you support legislation to temporarily halt or provide for a tariff exemption process for specific tariffs on home building supplies?

54:25it's a broad, complex issue. If we want to make furniture in America, you have to protect furniture makers. That type of question is a very detailed and complex one and worthy of discussion, and I'm glad to sit with you in your office to talk about it. What do we want to make in America? And whatever we don't want to make in America, we should try to do inexpensively to the extent we care. Well, thank you. I look forward to the conversation. My concern is that overwhelmingly the supply of things like softwood lumber from Canada and a wall board or gypsum board from Mexico are being constrained by tariffs.

55:03These are close allies that work with us through the USMCA framework. They've pushed back hard on the tariffs that are being imposed on their products that are exported into our market. Canada is the largest export market for most American states. I think at a time when there's very little we can actually do in the short term to reduce the cost of housing, this is something we might work together on. This is actually a pretty interesting exchange because obviously the Trump administration's answer to that is they want to initiate a transition period that might be painful. But to what? We're going to grow more trees?

55:40Like, this is the like brain dead part of it that kills me. It's like tariffing maple syrup. Like, we're going to have Georgia grow a bunch of maple trees and start making maple syrup? Like, Vermont's doing what it can. Otherwise, we're getting it from Canada. Same is true with lumber. Like, you want to just go through, like, the Rockies and just chop down all the trees? Like, what's the domestic wood alternative that he's trying to incubate here? What are they doing to, to the other part of that is, what are they doing to potentially nurture the domestic production of industry X, Y, and Z? And is the method...

56:29Right, and if it's raw materials like wood, it's like, you either have it or we don't. And if it's the... We're not growing bananas in like Seattle. Well, and if we need it too, like, and this is why, yeah, like they eased, what do they use? Coffee tariffs. Yes. Yeah. It's like, we have Hawaiian coffee. Like, that's it. Like, we're not. Yeah. Saga said there's like one guy in California who tried to go to California, grow coffee in California. It was terrible. It doesn't sound good. So it's like, what do you, like, stop. Like, we're not going to have a like continental US coffee industry. It's not going to happen.

57:01It's another broad economic indicator to bring in here. Holiday retail sales. This is C4. We should put this up on the screen. Actually, kind of interesting. Holiday retail sales, according to Lisa Abramowicz, were the highest consumer delinquencies since 2017. Those paints, she says, a bleep picture for lower income and younger Americans. So you have disappointing holiday retail sales and then highest consumer delinquencies since 2017, according to Commerce Department numbers that just came out. So, again, piece of the puzzle about where the economy really is. The Trump world spin, this is from E.J.

57:44Antony, who was the heritage guy plucked to run BLS and then was kind of kicked out of the administration. He says the real story of today's jobs reports, quote, Trump was handed an economy that was losing private sector jobs and adding government payrolls. But he successfully flipped the script. And one year later, it's all private sector growth while cutting government jobs. But Ryan, where they want private sector growth is the key question. And that's the question that comes to the table when Lutnik is talking to Chris Coons. Because do they want private sector growth all in healthcare or do they want it in manufacturing?

58:18Do they want it in particular industries that they're trying to revitalize and what's their timetable for that? Right. And if you want to do that, why are you making the cost of their inputs go up? Yeah. Like I'm not against helping American manufacturers. manufacturers I think would be great they're hurting them like what are you doing like we'll say that's their I mean meatheads the process disentangling the process too from the end goal um which actually I think almost all of us Ryan you Crystal Sagar and I are all fairly protectionist on an ideological level um but so the end goal being separated from the process is important and Trump's process has been wacky to say the very least.

59:07To say the very least. So interesting numbers today, interesting. Oh, and I was saying the reason Trump could be upset by this is that you're already seeing interest rates go up a little bit. This is a good point. Because the Fed is expected by the markets to be less likely to reduce interest rates. You're already seeing 10-year notes are up, 30 years up a little bit. because they're saying, oh, the economy is actually pretty good. So we don't want to cut interest rates because the economy is good. And Trump's like, this is the greatest economy ever. You should cut rates. It's like, well, those things are in conflict with dogmatic, conventional understanding of how the economy is supposed to operate.

59:48Yeah, and just final point on all of this is you mentioned at the top of the show the Dario Amode essay that was super viral, a 20 ,000-word essay. And there's another one that's going super viral right now from a guy in AI called Matt Schumer. He just titled it Something Big is Happening. It's linked everywhere. And Andrew Yang has a new post on his sub stack called the AI Meltdown. So this is the Trump administration that has been paddled to the metal on the AI boom and is now in the middle of a generational, by its own description, historic trade war. All of that is happening against the backdrop of a labor revolution that is accelerating literally by the day and is going to accelerate to proportions I don't think anybody fully yet understands through the rest of the Trump administration.

1:00:42And so you have the trade war and the AI revolution happening at the same time that I don't think anybody is prepared for, let alone this administration. And it's happening in the backdrop right now, moving very quickly to the foreground. people are about to graduate from annual college graduations coming up in a few months, likely to see historic levels of unemployment among recent college graduates. So we're already seeing that. Yeah.

1:01:25If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. Mind Games, a new podcast exploring NLP, a.k.a. neurolinguistic programming. Is it a self-help miracle, a shady hypnosis scam, or both? Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:02:04I'm Bowen Yang. And I'm Matt Rogers. During this season of the Two Guys Five Rings podcast, in the lead-up to the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games, we've been joined by some of our friends. Hi, Bowen. Hi, Matt. Hey, Elmo. Hey, Matt. Hey, Bowen. Hi, Cookie. Hi. Now, the Winter Olympic Games are underway, and we are in Italy to give you experiences from our hearts to your ears. Listen to Two Guys, Five Rings on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:02:381969, Malcolm and Martin are gone. America is in crisis. And at Morehouse College, the students make their move. These students, including a young Samuel L. Jackson, locked up the members of the Board of Trustees. including Martin Luther King Sr. It's the true story of protest and rebellion in Black American history that you'll never forget. I'm Hans Charles. I'm Menelik Lumumba. Listen to The A-Building on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.

From the publisher

Ryan and Emily discuss Ro Khanna exposes Epstein co-conspirators, Epstein biohacking project, shock jobs report.

 

Analilia Mejia: https://x.com/Analilia_Mejia 

 

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