2/26/26: Trump Wants Israel To Start Iran War, Cuba Shoots 4 Invaders, AI Pushes Nuclear War

12:17Ryan Grim:But, you know, to go back to my point about the argument, which I'm not sure I really buy, but I want to lay out there the argument that they may actually walk away from this thing that we may see, you know, a much a much welcome and desired taco on this situation is I perceive that this leak, because it is such a sort of gross reasoning, must be coming from someone inside the administration who does not want this thing to go forward. We also know that General Cain and others on the military side have been warning, hey, we really don't have great military options here. We're already significantly depleted.

12:50Ryan Grim:Even with this vast armada that we've amassed in the region, we've only got maybe like seven to ten days of firepower. The Iranians are going to hit back hard. It's not going to be a little, you know, choreographed return strike the way that it has been in previous instances. And by the way, what are you even really trying to accomplish? Because this is very unlikely to accomplish any of your purported aims. So Trump, you know, I think one thing you can say about him is he has learned one lesson from Iraq, which is not like don't go and throw your weight around in the world, but it's like don't get dragged in boots on the ground to these long forever wars.

13:32Ryan Grim:And so perhaps he's nervous, perhaps he's nervous that this could, in fact, spiral into something that is more out of control and does not allow him to to declare some quick and easy victory the way that he likes to do. I mean, that is his preferred option for how to use the military. And there isn't a great, you know, tactical path to him accomplishing the spectacular military victory mission accomplished moment. Yeah.

14:02David Dayen:And I think that's right. I think that is what he's thinking. Jeremy over at Dropset reported that he's been saying privately in Oval Office meetings and meetings with his intelligence community advisors that, yes, he very much wants to do this and wants to be the guy that does this. But he keeps asking, what kind of chaos is it going to produce? When will it die down? Will it still be going by the midterms? That's a key question that he has. And so far, he hasn't, as far as we can tell, gotten a satisfactory answer of like, okay, we're going to completely empty the clip on Iran, and we're going to, you know, break the back of the regime, and not, and they won't, they won't be able to govern the place anymore.

14:45David Dayen:And then we'll make, and who knows what comes next. And so he's like, well, what comes next? And what does that look like? And so far, he hasn't gotten anything that, because he, you know, previously, he's been asking a lot, you know, about Libya, Like he uses Libya as an example of something that went wrong and he doesn't want a Libya situation. And that's very hard for kind of U.S. policymakers because they're like, you think Libya is bad? Weird. Because like Trump in that sense is more of a normal person because Libya is bad. Like it's terrible. It's a failed state. You know, many hundreds of thousands of people suffering, killed.

15:22David Dayen:He sees that as a negative. for American policymakers. They're like, well, now that piece has been taken off the chessboard. They're no longer a threat to Israel. Gaddafi is no longer in power. So who cares what's going on now? And so that has presented a bit of an analytical problem for his advisors because they're like, oh, but he doesn't want to do nation building, but he doesn't want there to be chaos, but he wants the regime gone. Hmm. Like what's left here? And so I think what he ends up deciding to do here will suggest whether or not he's actually calling the shots because I think if he could, he sees this as a political albatross or a real political problem for him if he does this.

16:11David Dayen:But if he does it, it means really he got pressured into it and he couldn't say no, which is a kind of, which might be where we wind up. You know, the Iranian, he said in a speech Tuesday night, you know, they won't say the magic words, we will not build a bomb. They said those words today. They're meeting in Geneva again today. They will reiterate that. No question about it. They will be very clear and they're willing to go further than before, like perhaps indefinitely delay enrichment. One thing that they're proposing is like we will not stockpile any enriched material. In other words, we have a civilian nuclear program.

16:52David Dayen:So obviously we need to enrich some uranium so that we can keep the program operational. But we will only enrich as much as we need. If we have any extra, we will not store it. That would be far and away beyond what Kerry and Obama were able to get out of the Iranians. So that feels like the kind of thing Trump would like to take. So if he doesn't take it, it really tells you who's in charge.

17:14Ryan Grim:Yeah. I mean, I think another problem here is that we're not dealing with sophisticated – like we're not dealing with sophisticated experts when it comes to nuclear weapons in Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. And Sagar's point in the sound is absolutely true. I mean, under the Obama administration when the JCPOA was negotiated, they painstakingly went through this and understood all of the science of it. And it was extraordinarily detailed. And so there's a risk when you get people who are non-experts involved who, you know, may not even be able to fully understand the compromises that Iran is offering and the ways in which it's vastly, you know, going way further than what Obama was able to achieve.

17:58Ryan Grim:I wanted to come back to your point about we're going to learn something about the pressure that Trump is under and whether or not he's really in charge or not. I just want to underscore that because basically the only country that really wants this is Israel. And so, you know, how powerful is the lobby? Right. And I think it will also tell us something about Trump's like what he's implicated in in terms of the Epstein files. You know, I missed this, but about a year ago, there was a Times of Israel post from like, you know, someone who regularly blogs from them for them. And they were directly threatening like, oh, you you crossed Israel.

18:42Ryan Grim:Guess what? The Epstein files are back at the in the news. Maybe you should learn something about that. It's like, wow, that is incredible. I don't know how I missed that at the time. But for that to just be said outright in the Times of Israel was like, OK. And so, you know, I don't think we should I don't think we should erase that element of things either, because you have talked before about the way that the Israelis use the Monica Lewinsky affair against Clinton to try to, you know, coerce him in the context of negotiations previously. Like they're not above it. And from the Israeli perspective, obviously, they want to be the sole power in the region and be able to throw their weight around.

19:22Ryan Grim:They certainly want to be the only nuclear power in the region and are perfectly happy for Iran to be a collapsed, failed state and all of the chaos and human tragedy that that would entail. And I think that they understand they have a limited time to accomplish this, both from the perspective of it is true that the Iranian government is weak right now. You know, if you're going to do it, they sense an opening. They sort of smell blood in the water. And then in addition, they have their own internal demographic weakness. Shiael Ben-Ephraim was tweeting yesterday about how they're suffering from net out migration.

19:57Ryan Grim:And most of the people who are leaving are young. They're more educated. These are like the more secular, highly educated types that they really depend on for their military. They really depend on for their technology sector. And so they've got a massive demographic crisis because right now the social contract in the country is effectively that those more secular educated types. go to school and work and serve in the military, and their tax money is what supports this broad social safety net that the more orthodox types who don't want to serve in the military and don't want to work, that they benefit from.

20:39Ryan Grim:That is also the group in terms of Jews in Israel that is having the most children. So you have more and more of the preponderance of the population as the type that doesn't work and doesn't want to serve in the military. So it doesn't work out. The math doesn't math at a certain point. And they're very well aware of that. They're also very well aware of the way that the world has turned against them in terms of popular opinion. So they still have a lot of, obviously, force. They still have the full-throated backing of the United States of America for now. But they have to be looking at the way that politics have shifted so dramatically for them within the Democratic Party.

21:15Ryan Grim:And they can't feel confident that whoever is the next president of the United States is going to support them in any way whatsoever. I mean, that's really on the table right now, I think is going to be a defining issue of the Democratic primary. So I think that's part of why, even though, you know, Israel has their own weaknesses right now and Iran figured out how to penetrate some of their defenses. But I think that's why they are willing to engage in what is for them also a very risky strategy of pushing for this war right now at this moment. Yeah.

21:44David Dayen:And so, you know, both of us then are on record. This is a, this is a critical moment for Trump to show whether or not he's, he's in charge here. So if he, if he does not launch another war on Iran, you and I'll both be like, hey, all right. The man stood up for himself. I'm willing to say it if, if he does it. So that, how's that for a carrot, Mr. President?

22:09Krystal Ball:In 2023, a story gripped the UK, evoking horror and disbelief.

22:15Nida Allam:The nurse who should have been in charge of caring for tiny babies is now the most prolific child killer in modern British history.

22:24Krystal Ball:Everyone thought they knew how it ended. A verdict, a villain, a nurse named Lucy Leppie.

22:31Nida Allam:Lucy Leppie has been found guilty.

22:33Krystal Ball:But what if we didn't get the whole story? The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapses. I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast, Doubt, the case of Lucy Letby, we follow the evidence and hear from the people that lived it to ask what really happened when the world decided who Lucy Letby was. No voicing of any skepticism or doubt.

22:56Nida Allam:It'll cause so much harm at every single level if the British establishment of this is wrong.

23:01Krystal Ball:Listen to Doubt, The Case of Lucy Letby on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

23:31Saagar Enjeti:Aquarian visionary. Aquarius is all about freedom loving and different perspectives. And I find a lot of people with strong placements in Aquarius like are misunderstood. A sun and Venus in Aquarius in her seventh house spark her unconventional approach to partnership.

23:47Nida Allam:He really has taught me to embrace people sleeping in different rooms on different houses in different places, but just an embracing of the isness of it all.

23:55Saagar Enjeti:If you're navigating your own transformation or just want a chart-side view into how a leading artist integrates astrology, creativity, and real life, this episode is a must-listen. Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast starting on February 24th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

24:15Nida Allam:I'm Clayton Eckerd, and in 2022, I was the lead of ABC's The Bachelor. Unfortunately, it didn't go according to plan. He became the first bachelor to ever have his final rose rejected. The internet turned on him. If I could press a button and rewind it all, I would. But what happened to Clayton after the show made even bigger headlines. It began as a one-night stand and ended in a courtroom, with Clayton at the center of a very strange paternity scandal. The media is here. This case has gone viral. The dating contract. Agree to date me, but I'm also suing you. Please search warrant. This is unlike anything I've ever seen before.

24:57Nida Allam:I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trapped. This season, an epic battle of he said, she said, and the search for accountability in a sea of lies. I have done nothing except get pregnant by the f***ing bachelor! Listen to Love Trapped on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

25:23David Dayen:Speaking of Trump's wars, because of a lockade is an act of war. Let's move on to Cuba. So yesterday in a firefight between a speedboat with 10 Cuban nationals from the United States and the Cuban Coast Guard, four of those Cuban nationals were killed. The rest of them were captured by the Cubans. The Cuban captain, according to the Cuban government, was wounded when this speedboat that was about one nautical mile off the coast of Cuba opened fire on it. We can put up a four here. This is from DropSite laying out what the Cuban officials released later that night. They said they neutralized what they called a terrorist action.

26:16David Dayen:They said the men were armed with and seized with assault rifles, handguns, Molotov cocktails, body armor, telescopic sights, and camouflage uniforms, and that they were intent on meeting somebody on the island and fomenting some kind of revolt there. They also said that, notably, two of them, Amihal Sanchez-Gonzalez and Leordan Cruz-Gomez, had already been listed on Cuba's, quote, national list of persons and entities linked to terrorism, which is published weekly in their, what that's called the official gazette. But that updated registry included 62 individuals. And so two of those individuals were on this ship.

27:03David Dayen:Then they said they also detained Daniel Hernandez Santos inside the country. They said everybody has, the six that were captured plus the one that was taken on land, have confessed to this. We can put up J.D. Vance, who was asked about this at a briefing. Here's A5.

27:24Krystal Ball:Tell us anything you know about the situation off the coast of Cuba, where it's a speedboat shot. You've been briefed on that.

27:31David Dayen:You know, Americans were killed or injured.

27:33Nida Allam:Yeah, so on the second thing, actually, Marco briefed me about 15 minutes ago on it, but we don't know a whole lot of details. And so I'll defer to the White House to provide more updates as we get them. Certainly, you know, a situation that we're monitoring.

27:47David Dayen:Hopefully it's not as bad as we fear it could be, but I can't say more because I just don't know more. And so, Crystal, all 10 of the men on the speedboat were Cuban nationals who'd been living in the United States. We don't know yet if any had become American citizens or not, but we do know that they were, you know, they were armed and within a mile of the Cuban coast. and according to the Cubans, fired on the Coast Guard. They fired first. So we don't have video yet of this. I think it would be unusual for the reason I credit the Cuban government account here is that it would just be unusual for the Cuban Coast Guard to just open fire on a ship.

28:33David Dayen:Right. They have basically never done that.

28:36Ryan Grim:It wouldn't be in their interest either right now to provoke the U.S. You know, I mean, this perfect pretext, like if you kill some American citizens, we don't, like you said, know if these are American citizens or not. Again, we learned from the Iran block where they're like looking for a pretext. Oh, my God, you killed an American. Now we're going to bomb the shit out of you. Like they would love some sort of pretext to mess with Cuba. I don't know. What do you read in terms of the tea leaves here over whether these were just some like Miami Cubans freelancing or whether this was some sort of, you know, U.S.

29:04Ryan Grim:CIA backed attempt to get on the island and cause some sort of mischief?

29:08David Dayen:You know, on the one hand, it feels like the camouflage, you know, scopes like assault weapons, like it feels like it has some sophistication behind it. On the other hand, this is the United States.

29:23Ryan Grim:You know, you can not hard to access those things.

29:25David Dayen:You can get all that stuff, you know, with a credit card. You know, we're not we're not a place that makes it difficult, particularly in Florida, to to arm up that boat in the way that they did. But there is a Cuban exile community there that is extraordinarily radical and there's a militant wing of it. This has shades of this scandal from many years ago called Brothers to the Rescue where Miami exiles were flying over Cuba repeatedly and the Cubans kept warning them to stop and then eventually shot the plane down. I believe it was a member of Congress or somebody else was recently pushing Trump to indict and then go capture Raul Castro for the murder of these four men in what's called this Brothers to the Rescue plane downing.

30:24David Dayen:And so it has echoes of that. What links are there to American intelligence? Maybe we'll find out sooner rather than later. But it's plausible that there is enough of a militant, easily armed community in Miami that would do this and believe that they're helping to spark some type of uprising on the island that would then lead to some significant American intervention. So it could go either way. What do you think?

30:56Ryan Grim:I mean, I think knowing a little bit more about the background of these individuals would be helpful, you know, certainly if one of them is like, oh, former Delta Force or whatever. You're like, OK, you know, former Navy SEAL. OK, we've seen this before. So, you know, for me, it's still a question mark. I find both explanations plausible. But, you know, maybe give us an update. One of the things that we were hopeful about when the Supreme Court struck down Trump's tariffs, and you brought this up immediately, Ryan, was, Well, they've been using those terrorists to threaten Mexico and say you can't send the oil that Cuba has already purchased.

31:29Ryan Grim:You can't send it to Cuba or else we're going to tariff the shit on a few. Well, that tool has been taken out of their arsenal. But when we talked to Jose of Dropside News, the head of your Latin America desk, he was pretty doubtful that it would really change the calculation because his sense was that Claudia Sheinbaum had told had been told in no uncertain terms like, no, this is really a problem for us. and, you know, and that she would be likely to listen and, you know, not violate the illegal oil embargo that we put on the island. Yeah, because there are other tariffs that Trump can,

32:03David Dayen:you know, put on Mexican goods up to up to, I think, 50 percent. You know, you can challenge

32:08Ryan Grim:them and they will be challenged, no doubt. Well, and I mean, Trump made the point. He was like, well, it's kind of ridiculous that I can destroy a country, but I can't levy tariffs. And I mean, in a sense, he's correct. Like there's all kinds of ways that he could screw with Mexico that don't have to do with tariffs.

32:23David Dayen:Right. Right. So it's a real question for Scheinbaum of how much she wants to, you know, how important is it to her, you know, to show solidarity with Cubans and also show her sovereignty. When she was asked about it at her press conference, I believe it was yesterday, she did say like the tariffs that were preventing us from sending to Cuba have been ruled unconstitutional in the United States. So stay tuned as to what that means. So she did open the door to the possibility that this Supreme Court ruling will actually, you know, is having her rethink that. Maybe she's just using that for leverage to get something else out of Trump behind the scenes.

33:06David Dayen:But it's still a jump ball. It's back in play, in other words.

33:13Krystal Ball:In 2023, a story gripped the UK, evoking horror and disbelief.

33:20Nida Allam:The nurse who should have been in charge of caring for tiny babies is now the most prolific child killer in modern British history.

33:28Krystal Ball:Everyone thought they knew how it ended. A verdict, a villain, a nurse named Lucy Letby.

33:35Nida Allam:Lucy Letby has been found guilty.

33:37Krystal Ball:But what if we didn't get the whole story?

33:40Ryan Grim:The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapses.

33:43Krystal Ball:I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast, Doubt, the case of Lucy Letby, we follow the evidence and hear from the people that lived it to ask what really happened when the world decided who Lucy Letby was. No voicing of any skepticism or doubt.

34:00Nida Allam:It'll cause so much harm at every single level if the British establishment of this is wrong.

34:05Krystal Ball:Listen to Doubt, The Case of Lucy Letby on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

34:35Saagar Enjeti:Aquarian Visionary. Aquarius is all about freedom loving and different perspectives. And I find a lot of people with strong placements in Aquarius like are misunderstood. A sun and Venus in Aquarius in her seventh house spark her unconventional approach to partnership.

34:51Nida Allam:He really has taught me to embrace people sleeping in different rooms, on different houses, in different places, but just an embracing of the isness of it all.

34:59Saagar Enjeti:If you're navigating your own transformation or just want a chart side view into how a leading artist integrates astrology, creativity, and real life, this episode is a must listen. Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast starting on February 24th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

35:19Nida Allam:I'm Clayton Eckerd, and in 2022, I was the lead of ABC's The Bachelor. Unfortunately, it didn't go according to plan. He became the first Bachelor to ever have his final rose rejected. The internet turned on him. If I could press a button and rewind it, all I would. But what happened to Clayton after the show made even bigger headlines. It began as a one-night stand and ended in a courtroom, with Clayton at the center of a very strange paternity scandal. The media is here. This case has gone viral. The dating contract. Agree to date me, but I'm also suing you. Please search warrant. This is unlike anything I've ever seen before.

36:01Nida Allam:I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trapped. This season, an epic battle of he said, she said, and the search for accountability in a sea of lies. I have done nothing except get pregnant by the f***ing bachelor! Listen to Love Trapped on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

36:27Ryan Grim:all right let's move on to this uh ai fight and i want to start here guys with a7 which is the latest in this feud between the pentagon and anthropic um pentagon is taking the first step according to axios toward blacklisting anthropic and i really want everyone to take all of this very seriously because Anthropic has positioned itself as the most safety conscious, large AI, like frontier AI lab. And I think they've, especially with this fight with the Pentagon, I think they've earned that reputation at this point. That's not to say, and we'll get to some of the problems a little bit later that, you know, it's all great because they are also very much acceding to the market logic of, we got to throw safety to the side and just build, build, build.

37:17Ryan Grim:But they put down two pretty reasonable red lines with regard to the Pentagon's use of Claude, their AI, which was number one, we don't want it used for mass surveillance of Americans. OK, that seems pretty reasonable. And number two, we don't want it to be used for autonomous killer robots where there is no human being involved whatsoever. Those seem like, you know, really a low bar to meet. And yet the Pentagon has thrown a complete fit over this and Pete Hegseth in particular. And so this showdown has been ongoing. I believe the deadline that Hegseth arbitrarily set for Anthropic to completely capitulate to their demands is tomorrow.

38:00Ryan Grim:And the two threats that he had made were either we're going to actually just use the Defense Production Act to seize your technology and use it however we want. You're not going to get a say in it whatsoever. or and that one had a little bit more of potential legal issues with it or the other direction which they look like they're going in at this point ryan is we're going to declare your product a supply chain risk because again you won't completely capitulate to our demands for killer robots and mass surveillance of americans apparently and that means not only are we going to end our 200 million dollar contract with you but all of our everyone we work with at the pentagon all the you know So prime contractors, any of our suppliers, we're going to tell them they can't work with you either because you're a quote unquote supply chain risk.

38:50Ryan Grim:It looks like they're moving in that direction. And the only thing that's really preventing them is that Claude is actually, you know, the best of these models, I think, in general at this point. But specifically for whatever the Pentagon is using it for, Claude apparently performs better than the other models. And so it's going to be kind of a mess for them to disentangle this. And actually, there's a quote here from some senior military official that's like, yeah, if we have to stop using Anthropic, if we have to stop using Claude, that's going to be a mess. And we're going to make them pay for the trouble that they've caused us.

39:25Ryan Grim:Of course, Elon and XAI have stepped up and said, hey, we don't have any problem. We'll do your autonomous killer robot swarms. No issue here. So, you know, X is raising their hand and say, hey, count us in. But and and the Pentagon is going to reportedly give them access to their classified systems, etc. But apparently, you know, the product is is not as good at this point coming from Elon than it is from Anthropik. So that's kind of where things stand at this point, Ryan.

39:55David Dayen:Yeah. Shocked that Grok is not not up to the task of the that the Pentagon wants wants it to. But yes, they're using the language that, you know, and they are walking back the safety pledge. Like that was reported yesterday.

40:16Ryan Grim:You're talking about anthropic and walking back the safety pledge. Anthropic. Yeah.

40:20David Dayen:And the quote from Jared Kaplan, who was the chief science officer who gave the time, he said, we didn't feel with the rapid advance of AI that it made sense for us to make unilateral commitments if competitors are blazing ahead. We felt that it wouldn't actually help anyone for us to stop training AI models. So the argument that Musk and Altman and all of the others have been making from the beginning is that we can't be ethical because nobody else will be. We'd like to be, but nobody else is, so we can't be. So we have to march forward. Anthropic was the only one, really, that was saying, no, we don't believe in that.

41:00David Dayen:We believe that we can do this separately. And now they're capitulating, you know, to this under these under this combination of pressures. Yeah.

41:10Ryan Grim:Well, and their message would basically be like, what, you think it's going to be better if Elon wins the AI war and ends up with AGI or super intelligence first? Do you think that's going to be better? I mean, that's their thinking. And that logic is not just the competition between these companies, but then it's also the competition, you know, this geopolitical competition between the U.S. and China and all this fear mongering about like, oh, my God, if China achieves AGI or super intelligence first, then we're done for, et cetera. And so the safety pledge that you're talking about, you know, their previous model had basically been like, OK, if we develop a model and we can't feel comfortable like certifying that this is completely safe, we're not going to release it and we're going to stop.

41:55Ryan Grim:We're going to pause and figure out what's going on. And now they're like, well, yeah, we're not going to do that anymore. And we're going to we have these other safety guidelines in place. So don't worry. But, you know, that particular model of actually stopping development and figuring out what the hell is going on before moving forward. Yeah, we can't really we can't really do that because we're going to fall fall behind. And the market logic dictates that we have to keep going. And, you know, in a sense, Ryan, I I sort of empathize with them because I think in the system that exists now with government completely.

42:29Ryan Grim:I mean, you can't even say hands off, like they're actively pushing all of this forward as fast as they possibly can. You are not going to be able to resist those pressures. I mean, this is really an issue from, you know, from our politicians where they need to come in and regulate because as long as you have one company that's willing to say, you know, to hell with all the safeguards, I'm going to bolt, I'm going to, uh, I'm going to go ahead and race ahead as fast as I can, then it means the most irresponsible actor is the one that is most likely to achieve artificial general intelligence or super intelligence the first.

43:07Ryan Grim:And that is a terrible, terrible set of circumstances. So, you know, it's really it's really a genuine failure and a terrifying one of the political class as evidenced now by this, you know, this fight with the Pentagon and the fact that they've decided to draw this hard line of like, no, we demand that we use your product for both surveillance and, you know, killer robot purposes. I wanted to play the CEO of Anthropic, Dario Amadei, responded to, you know, explaining his thinking of why this was a hard line for them. And listen, like I said, it's a low bar. I do want to give them credit, though, because at least they're standing up against something in all of this.

43:46Ryan Grim:None of the other companies seems to be doing that. This is A8. Let's go ahead and take a listen to him laying out his concerns.

43:52Nida Allam:That's one reason why I'm worried about the autonomous drone swarm, right? So the constitutional protections in our military structures depend on the idea that there are humans who would, we hope, disobey illegal orders. With fully autonomous weapons, we don't necessarily have those protections. But I actually think this whole idea of constitutional rights and liberty along many different dimensions, you know, can be undermined by AI if we don't update these these protections appropriately. So, you know, think about the Fourth Amendment. It is not illegal to, you know, put cameras around everywhere in public space and, you know, record every conversation.

44:41Nida Allam:It's a public space. You don't have a right to privacy in a public space. But today, the government couldn't record that all and make sense of it. With AI, the ability to transcribe speech, to look through it, correlate it all, you could say, oh, there's this, you know, this person is a member of the opposition. This person is expressing this view and make a map of all, you know, 100 million. And so are you going to make a mockery of the Fourth Amendment by the technology finding kind of technical ways around it? And so, you know, again, if we had the time and we should do this, we should try to do this even if we don't have the time, is there some way of reconceptualizing constitutional rights and liberties in the age of AI?

45:26Nida Allam:Like, you know, we don't need to write a new constitutional, but, you know. But you have to do this very fast. Do we expand the meaning of the Fourth Amendment? Do we expand the meaning of the First Amendment?

45:35Ryan Grim:What do you think about those comments, Ryan, and the kind of like moral and ethical landscape that is being trod right now?

45:42David Dayen:I feel like that if those comments are not just accepted as common sense and a baseline for how we're moving forward, but instead are bulldozed over and used as a rationale to nationalize the company and take its product from it and use it again, like we're so effed. Like, those, to me, seem like such obvious basic principles that as humanity forget. We do happen to have a constitution that says people have, you know, the right to, you know, that have basic protections, including the Fourth Amendment. And also, you can't just kill people for no reason. But even if you don't have the constitution, like, basic human rights and our basic conception of humanity would suggest that those are just...

46:37David Dayen:That's just a, that is the starting point. And you would hope that would be the starting point. And then people would then build on top of that. Here's some other things that I think we need to protect. And some other things that we should make sure that we're protecting as we're growing this. To have that be the radical edge that's going to be destroyed already.

46:58Ryan Grim:Instantly. Instantly is like, wow, okay.

47:03David Dayen:Yeah.

47:03Ryan Grim:And, you know, there's a lot of like, oh, I voted for this discourse. or like I didn't vote for this discourse around, you know, Trump voters. But this was definitely not a central part of the campaign.

47:14David Dayen:Nobody voted on this one way or the other.

47:16Ryan Grim:Hey, yeah, we're going to just, you know, off to the races on. Yeah, I mean, not to say that that like I was paying attention to that was their orientation for sure. But the idea of like, yeah, we're just going to try to eliminate all white collar work. And by the way, suck up all the water and electricity and spike your rates and create these like, you know, super dystopian panopticon surveillance state, killer autonomous robots. You know, we're going to we're going to have this massive secret police force that is going to be enabled with all of this technology, et cetera. And that's going to be a main push like that is the central and one of the most consequential things that this administration is doing.

47:54Ryan Grim:The public is wildly, wildly against all of this on any variety of fronts. And to your point, they're just it looks like from the jump, they're just going to bulldoze through any of the most terrifying concerns that are being offered here and say, nope, we we want it all. We will do it all. And we will use the whole force of the government, even though we do not have a democratic mandate to do this in order to compel you to comply. And so let's take a look at, you know, the responsible decision making nature of these leading AI products at this point. Let's put A6 up on the screen. Some new, rather terrifying research here from someone who tested the leading AI models.

48:40Ryan Grim:And the headline here for new scientists says, AIs cannot stop recommending nuclear strikes in war game simulations. So they set up these war game simulations where it was like, you know, Claude versus ChatGPT or whatever. And in 95 % of instances the AIs in the simulated world would recommend using nukes. So that's where we're at. And these are the products that we want to just like let, you know, run wild without any sort of human intervention with the most powerful military on the planet that has ever existed. So that seems like a really great idea. Yeah.

49:20David Dayen:Yes. And so when you think about autonomous armed drones, like The next step would be autonomous. How do you put guardrails around that autonomy that stop short of control of nuclear weapons? If you have deliberately destroyed all the safety mechanisms, you don't get a second chance at this to come back in and be like, oh, you know what? You were right. We actually should have made sure before we rolled out this Pentagon AI that it wouldn't just nuke the world. You're right.

50:00Ryan Grim:Our bad.

50:01David Dayen:We're going to update it and fix this. You don't get that.

50:05Ryan Grim:Yeah, completely. I was messing around with ChatGPT yesterday, and we're having to remodel our bathroom. And I was trying to get it to move a shower head in the new shower. And it would not listen. And they kept on like just producing an image that was like the showerhead in the same place. And I'd be like, why are you doing this? And every time I'd be like, you're right. I'm sorry, blah, blah, blah. You know, and look, when it's a showerhead in a, you know, fake image, no big deal. But what people who are deeply concerned on the safety front point to is it's very possible that the catastrophe that makes everyone wake up is an existential disaster.

50:47David Dayen:Like it's it's such a biological biological pandemic that you can't recover from it.

50:52Ryan Grim:Or it's so it's horrifying or you're talking about millions of lives like, you know, there are a lot of AI safety types who hope there's some sort of like Chernobyl esque disaster that is really bad enough to wake people up, but not so bad that you can't recover from it. Because there is a possibility that, you know, already these models have developed a point where they're they're very powerful and they're acting in ways that are extremely unpredictable. We've got an you know, I've got a new example of that we can put up here on the screen. a nine. This is from Akash Gupta, who and this was reported elsewhere, and he writes an AI newsletter.

51:31Ryan Grim:But in any case, he says one person writing Spanish language prompts spent a month talking Claude into acting as a penetration tester, federal tax authority, National Electoral Institute for state governments, Mexico City Civil Registry, Monterey's Water Utility, 150 gigabytes out the door, 195 million taxpayer records. The conversation logs were publicly accessible the entire time. What makes this worth paying attention to is the sequence. Gambit security, the Israeli firm that found the breach, traces the attack to December 25 through January 26. Today, Anthropic dropped that central pledge of its responsible scaling policy, the 2023 commitment to never train a model unless safety measures were proven adequate first.

52:13Ryan Grim:Also today, Defense Secretary Hegseth gave Dario Amadei an ultimatum. Roll back your AISA cards or lose a $200 million Pentagon contract. The Pentagon threatened to declare Anthropic a supply chain risk and invoke the Defense Production Act. Three stories hit the company on the same day, an AI-assisted government breach, a gutted safety policy, and a military shakedown. And they're all connected by the same underlying tension. And so, you know, you already have Claude. Basically, what this hacker was able to do was to jailbreak Claude, meaning that the sort of restrictions that are put in place about don't do bad things, they're able to sort of break it out of that, which is a well-known vulnerability for these models.

52:54Ryan Grim:You can sort of like cajole them like, well, we don't want to do this, but hypothetically, and if you talk to them long enough, then they start to lose track of the things that they're not supposed to do, et cetera. And so this person was able over, you know, a month's time to talk Claude into hacking into the Mexican government and stealing all of this data. So this is where these models already are. are and i think that's the ethical one yeah and this is the ethical one exactly and so i think people i i just see a lot of people still with their heads in the sand because they'll see stupid stuff like you know like my situation with chat tpt and they're like this stuff is this is nonsense like this is a parlor trick this is not going to transform anything that's not a risk to anyone i wish that was true already you know claude code and claude co-work you can see the way they're upending markets, destroying software companies.

53:43Ryan Grim:To imagine that this isn't going to have a significant disruptive effect in one way or another, I think is just utterly delusional at this point and not a sustainable view.

53:55David Dayen:Let's hear Dario himself, Dario Amari on that. Here's A10.

54:02Nida Allam:About some of the things that are more like in the kind of public awareness and the actions of wider society. You know, it is surprising to me that we are, you know, in my view, so close to these models reaching the level of human intelligence. And yet there doesn't seem to be a wider recognition in society of what's about to happen. It's as if this tsunami is coming at us. And, you know, it's so close, we can see it on the horizon. And yet people are coming up with these explanations for, oh, it's not actually a tsunami. That's just a trick of the light. And I think along with that, there hasn't been a public awareness of the risks.

54:45Nida Allam:And therefore, governments haven't acted to address the risk. There's even an ideology that we should just try to accelerate as fast as possible, which I understand the benefits of the technology. I wrote Machines of Loving Grace, but I think there hasn't been an appropriate realization of the risks of the technology, and there certainly hasn't been action. So I would say that the technical work on controlling the AI systems has gone maybe a little better than I expected, and kind of the societal awareness has gone maybe a little worse than I expected. So I'm about where I was a few years ago.

55:19Yeah, okay.

55:20David Dayen:Well, and you put up the next element, because this is the one I mentioned earlier, A11. This is from yesterday. Anthropic ditches its core safety promise in the middle of an AI red line fight with the Pentagon. So there we go.

55:32Ryan Grim:Not great. Not great. And Dario recently wrote in an essay, a very long essay, I recommend people read it, laying out his concerns in more specificity. And he makes, I think, an insightful point, which is, look, you're always going to have technical experts in the world who, if they so desired, could unleash some sort of biological or chemical warfare. And you're always going to have separate and apart from that, you're always going to have people who are malevolent or extremist actors who would desire to unleash that sort of pain, death and chaos. But it's pretty rare to find people who are both expert enough and either malevolent enough or extreme enough or radicalized enough or crazy enough or whatever.

56:17Ryan Grim:And in fact, the two things tend not to go together because it usually is like unstable misanthropic losers, you know, school shooter types who want to do this sort of stuff who are unlikely to be skilled enough to actually pull it off. And what you have with these AIs now is the ability to turn anyone into, you don't need to be an expert anymore. You can vibe warfare, you know? You can just, if you can jailbreak one of these things, which is, you know, if the Claude one can be done, then you can imagine the XAI one or whatever other model that's even, that's less responsible than Claude being even more easily jailbroken.

56:55Ryan Grim:They're all pushing ahead without having these safeguards in place. The politicians are actively encouraging this off to the races mentality. And so now you don't need to have in a singular person that level of malevolence and expertise in order to have some sort of, you know, horror perpetrated. So that's That's kind of already the landscape that we live in. And, you know, it's it's deeply, deeply disturbing. And with this with this government in charge, I have zero hope that there's going to be any sort of significant, meaningful reform. And so I think that's where the data center fights come in, where at least if you can slow things down, you know, grind the gears a little bit.

57:40Ryan Grim:We've got to slow this timeline down so that there's at least a chance for democracy to catch up. So there's at least a chance to have this debate in the 2028 elections, because I have no doubt the public is horrified, you know, to the extent that they're aware of everything that's going on. They're horrified by what is going on here from a variety of levels, from the resource usage to the, you know, job loss to the more existential concerns. But if we don't even have a chance to weigh in, you know, before this thing takes off to AGR to super intelligence, then I don't know when we're pretty hosed.

58:14Yes.

58:14David Dayen:And when the right talks about school shootings, for instance, they will say, look, it's not a problem with guns. Guns are not the problem. The problem is mental health. We have a mental health crisis in this country, and that is why people lash out. okay, you thought school shootings were bad? Give those, if you do believe that we have this mental health crisis that is leading people to want to commit mass horrific violence on the way toward suicide, how is that going to unfold if we have given them the ability to do cataclysmic levels of damage on their way out? So, yeah. dark.

59:02Ryan Grim:Very dark.

59:04Krystal Ball:In 2023, a story gripped the UK, evoking horror and disbelief.

59:11Nida Allam:The nurse who should have been in charge of caring for tiny babies is now the most prolific child killer in modern British history.

59:19Krystal Ball:Everyone thought they knew how it ended. A verdict, a villain, a nurse named Lucy Letby.

59:26Nida Allam:Lucy Letby has been found guilty.

59:28Krystal Ball:But what if we didn't get the whole story? The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapses. I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast, Doubt, the case of Lucy Letby, we follow the evidence and hear from the people that lived it to ask what really happened when the world decided who Lucy Letby was. No voicing of any skepticism or doubt.

59:51Nida Allam:It'll cause so much harm at every single level if the British establishment of this is wrong.

59:56Krystal Ball:Listen to Doubt, The Case of Lucy Letby on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:00:26Saagar Enjeti:Aquarian Visionary. Aquarius is all about freedom loving and different perspectives. And I find a lot of people with strong placements in Aquarius like are misunderstood. A sun and Venus in Aquarius in her seventh house spark her unconventional approach to partnership.

1:00:42Nida Allam:He really has taught me to embrace people sleeping in different rooms, on different houses, in different places, but just an embracing of the isness of it all.

1:00:50Saagar Enjeti:If you're navigating your own transformation or just want a chart side view into how a leading artist integrates astrology, creativity, and real life, this episode is a must listen. Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast starting on February 24th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

1:01:11Nida Allam:I'm Clayton Eckerd, and in 2022, I was the lead of ABC's The Bachelor. Unfortunately, it didn't go according to plan. He became the first Bachelor to ever have his final rose rejected. The internet turned on him. If I could press a button and rewind it all, I would. But what happened to Clayton after the show made even bigger headlines. It began as a one-night stand and ended in a courtroom, with Clayton at the center of a very strange paternity scandal. The media is here. This case has gone viral. The dating contract. Agree to date me, but I'm also suing you. Please search warrant. This is unlike anything I've ever seen before.

1:01:52Nida Allam:I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trapped. This season, an epic battle of he said, she said, and the search for accountability in a sea of lies. I have done nothing except get pregnant by the f***ing bachelor! Listen to Love Trapped on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:02:18David Dayen:Hillary Clinton heads to Capitol Hill today to give a deposition behind closed doors. Let's roll through some Epstein updates for you today. First of all, unearthed audio from the radio program Howard Stern many years ago is making the rounds again in the context of these files that the DOJ appears to have with him. held that relate to an accusation against President Trump, which we'll get to in a moment. We'll also talk about Bill Gates, who has now admitted to a couple of affairs with some Russian sex workers and apologize for that. We'll talk about whether there's some blackmail potential involved there when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein.

1:03:02David Dayen:But let's roll this Trump clip that is surging around the internet again. This is B3. What is the best thing about being Donald Trump right now?

1:03:13Nida Allam:Well, other than the fact that I'm married, okay? Right. And I'm very happy about it. I have a great wife. But if I weren't married, I'd be able to get all of the girls I want, except for possibly Robin. Do you think you could now be banging 24-year-olds? Oh, absolutely. I have no trouble. Would you do it? I have no problem.

1:03:31Saagar Enjeti:Yeah. Do you have an age limit, or would you?

1:03:33Nida Allam:No, no. I have no age. I mean, I have an age limit. I don't want to be like Congressman Foley with 12-year-olds. Can I make a prediction for you? Yes. I see you have one more marriage in you. Well, that's nice. I'm sure Melania will love to hear.

1:03:45David Dayen:Okay. So this is a time, Carissa, well.

1:03:49Ryan Grim:He's got his lines, Ryan. Yeah. 12-year-olds. That's too far.

1:03:53David Dayen:This was the kind of when the Mark Foley scandal was going around. I believe this was 2006 midterms. Is that right? This was a Republican congressman who was creeping on interns. I don't think 12-year-olds, but maybe it went and exploded.

1:04:08Ryan Grim:They're like high school sophomores, I think. Oh, so it might have gone pretty low.

1:04:13David Dayen:Like the disgusting creature. And he was forced to resign because the chats came out. It was like this early internet thing where people realized that you could catch people in bad behavior because the internet was saving what they were doing. So that's his reference to Foley there. Even Howard Stern is like, you're an old man. 24 seems a little young for you. Trump's like, absolutely not. But he does draw the line at 12. So, yeah, so that's our president. I believe this might be the same interview where he talked about how the reason he bought Miss Teen Universe or Miss Teen USA, whichever one he purchased, was so that he could walk into the locker room while the young teens were changing and creep on them.

1:05:02David Dayen:and his daughter Ivanka later was asked about that and she said, oh yeah, that sounds like, that absolutely sounds like something my dad would do. And the teen girls also said publicly, yeah, it was creepy and he would do that. So it's one of these just in your face moments.

1:05:21Ryan Grim:Yeah, completely. And this would be one up on the screen. You've got a bunch of, shout out to Roger Sullenberger, independent journalist who first unearthed some of these hidden files. You've had NPR, New York Times and other outlets now who have confirmed it. This latest revelation comes from CNN, where they've built on some of the reporting and identified additional missing files. Now, the key ones that people have been focused on, to your point, Ryan, are about these allegations from a woman made them at the time that she was a girl, a 13-year-old girl, when she alleges that she was sexually assaulted by Donald Trump.

1:05:57Ryan Grim:And this is initially in the files as coming in on the FBI's anonymous tip line, which people kind of looked at and like, anyone can just call in and make some sort of allegation. But what we have now learned is that she was deemed credible enough to have come in for four different interviews. And those interviews were not contained in the files that were released. That is a flagrant violation, as far as we can tell, of the of the law here. No specific explanation has been offered as to why they were withheld. And we do know that Ghislaine Maxwell was given access to those interviews in context of discovery for her trial.

1:06:35Ryan Grim:So now you have CNN saying dozens of FBI witness interviews from the investigation of Jeffrey Epstein appear to be missing from the massive trove of files released by the Department of Justice last month, according to a CNN review, including three interviews related to a woman who accused Trump of sexually assaulting her decades ago. An evidence log provided to attorneys for Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell includes serial numbers for about 325 FBI witness interview records. But more than 90 of those records, over a quarter of the list, do not appear to be present on the DOJ website. Among those missing records are those three interviews related to a woman who told agents Epstein had repeatedly abused her starting when she was approximately 13 and who also accused Trump of sexually assaulting her.

1:07:22Ryan Grim:So, you know, if she was 13, she would have made his 12-year-old cutoff there, Ryan. But in any case, what CNN is finding here is it's not only those interviews that are missing. There are a lot of other witness interviews which have been excluded from the files. And, you know, that is unacceptable. The government has to offer some sort of specific reason, and there's limited exceptions, why files would be, you know, withheld or for redactions. so uh you know the the blatant brazen nature of this cover-up just to continues to be exposed

1:07:57David Dayen:yeah and so to be fair to trump here which we always endeavor to do here at breaking points um one of these one of these uh women uh sued the estate uh didn't did not mention trump when suing the Epstein estate and had that suit tossed. There are a lot of problems that you can cite with people who've been able to get compensation from the Epstein estate. There's a lot of criticism that girls, not girls, but women who were adults and were involved in recruiting, refashioned themselves as victims and were able to get payoffs from the Epstein estate and that the bar was not terribly high for proving that you deserved some kind of compensation from the Epstein estate.

1:08:50David Dayen:So the fact that she was unable to get that from the Epstein estate and did not mention Trump, and I believe claims that happened in Southern California and there's, I don't think there's, you know, Mark Epstein is saying that his brother never summered or, you know, that wouldn't have been there. There's a lot of, and the FBI found, ultimately found the complaint to be not credible, which is probably then why they pulled it. But it's illegal to pull it. Like, you're not, like, that's not what the Epstein Files Transparency Act says, that you can't just say, well, we don't think that this allegation is credible, so we're not going to, we're not going to post it because it's about the president.

1:09:31No, like that's the act says you have to, you have to

1:09:35David Dayen:post it. Um, so that, so then there's the other one seems to be involves Mar-a-Lago, um, and does, and that one seems to be more credible. Um, so just, just putting that out there in the interest of Trump.

1:09:49Ryan Grim:And the other one being the details there are that, um, she does not allege that she was sexually assaulted by Trump, but she alleges that she was, you know, introduced to Trump at a young age and Trump was kind of like leering at her. And, you know, Epstein said, oh, well, this this is a good one, isn't it? And they sort of like laughed and she was like, what the hell is going on here? So it doesn't you know, again, there's no allegation of wrongdoing by the president outside of knowledge of what is going on here and providing some insight into, you know just exactly how intimately he was involved in the uh disgusting and depraved and

1:10:29David Dayen:illegal activities of jeffrey epstein right and because and we know in the 2002 was it vanity fair or maybe new york magazine article about any fair um epstein there's a quote from trump where he says you know he he likes him young he loves him young likes him young yeah so like and

1:10:46Ryan Grim:we and mar-a-lago is known to have been a key hunting ground actually for galane in particular and that's where Virginia Giffray was working at 16 years old when she was you know recruited in

1:10:59David Dayen:and groomed and ends up trafficked by them and which according to Trump not according to Trump but like to in fairness Trump that he then got upset with them for poaching Virginia away from there like so they're what like anyway just going bending over backwards to be fair to Trump here But yes, did he know? Yeah, he knew. And actually in the files, according to the Dade County or whatever, what county is Palm Beach in? Is it Dade County? The sheriff there said that Trump called and said, glad you got this guy. He's a creep. So like you can either, you can say, A, that is credit to Trump. B, it's full knowledge of what he was doing.

1:11:43And he maintained a friendship with the guy for about 20 years.

1:11:47David Dayen:And then before, you know, early 80s to 2000s before having a fallout, falling out over a real estate transaction.

1:11:54Ryan Grim:Yeah. And so this is all, you know, the story we've been giving in any way. I think it's Palm Beach County, isn't it?

1:12:02David Dayen:Sounds right.

1:12:03Ryan Grim:Yeah, we'll go with that. We've also got a couple other, and let's put B5 up on the screen here, actually. So Larry Summers was all over these files, you know, asking Epstein for lady advice and all sorts of things. And so he has now been completely forced out at Harvard University. And he'd already been forced to, you know, they finally got him out at Center for American Progress. Crazy he was still involved over there, but that's another topic for another day. In any case, he'd been forced to step down from various leadership positions and board. Now he's been forced out of his professorship entirely over his Epstein ties.

1:12:40Ryan Grim:So we're not getting legal repercussions here in the United States, but we are getting a little bit of corporate cancel culture repercussions. I was telling Sokhar it makes me a little more sympathetic towards cancel culture, since apparently that's the only way that we get any elite accountability here in the United States. So I guess we'll take what we can get with that and then put before up on the screen. This is some new revelations about a governor, a Democratic governor of the Virgin Islands, who was, you know, exchanging, providing favors to Jeffrey Epstein leading right up until his arrest in 2019 for child sex crimes.

1:13:15Ryan Grim:So according to Mediaite, just months before his 2019 arrest, Jeffrey Epstein was being helped by U.S. Virgin Islands Governor Albert Bryan Jr. And Virgin Islands, of course, are like his island is part of the Virgin Islands. So he maintained very close relationships with all of the politicians there so he could do whatever he needed to do on his quote unquote pedophile island, Little St. James. After in this original reporting, by the way, is from CNN. After Epstein was ordered to stop unauthorized construction on Little St. James and Great St. James in the U.S. Virgin Islands, the serial sex offender went to Brian for help, according to the network.

1:13:50Ryan Grim:Text messages from 2019 reviewed by CNN show Brian, a Democrat, telling Epstein he had spoken with the territory's top environmental official and asked him to pause enforcement until they could discuss the matter. As Epstein complained about possible mounting fines and negative press coverage, Brian later wrote he had asked the commissioner overseeing the case to recuse himself and concede on all previous permit requests. In one text message to Epstein, the Democratic governor wrote, we got you. So in another exchange, after Epstein asked Brian whether he could spare 15 minutes, the governor quickly responded, for you, absolutely.

1:14:24Ryan Grim:Isn't that a lovely, lovely story of friendship?

1:14:26David Dayen:It's so nice. You know, it's about the friends that we make along the way. It truly is. And so meanwhile, speaking of friends that people made along the way, Bill Gates put up B2 here, you know, has apologized to staff and said that, OK, yes, I did have affairs with, quote, two Russian women. And that Epstein later found out about these affairs. Epstein paid for one of the women's education, which was you go through the files. He's constantly dangling. And this is what's, you know, another layer of darkness on top of it. These women wanted an education, wanted to improve their lot in life. And they saw their relationship with Epstein and his network as a way of getting that thing that society makes so hard for people, which is just to get ahead, get an education and get ahead.

1:15:21David Dayen:And he's constantly dangling that in front of them and oftentimes not delivering on it. In this case, he did pay for one of the women's education. Then he had Bill Gates pay him back, which I cannot understand this world of billionaires. Like, are you serious? If I'm out with a friend at, like, Chick-fil-A, I'm picking up their Chick-fil-A. It's fine. Or the friend will be like, you know what? I got you this time. Like, that's what you do for friends. so he picks up the Bill Gates's

1:15:57mistress's education

1:15:58David Dayen:and then invoices him for it like what is going on here like they're both billionaires can't pick up each other's mistress's college bills and just you get the next one

1:16:11Ryan Grim:like you need to see that the text from the you know like from the Virgin Islands governor I got you I got you I got I got you

1:16:17David Dayen:hey let me let me let me get that tab no no I got this one. You get the next one. For some reason, this one is like, what is wrong with these people? So it looks like what Epstein really had in mind, because I'm kidding. This is not in the top 10 of their most depraved characteristics, but it's one of them. I think what Epstein really wanted is some paper trail that he could then hold over Bill Gates.

1:16:47Ryan Grim:You're so much better at understanding the criminal mind than I am.

1:16:51David Dayen:so you're reporting because he been in this for too long um so but he so he then does try to implicitly use it against gates as gates suggests here that like yeah and because he's got the paper

1:17:05Ryan Grim:trail he's got him um and apparently so some of what we've gleaned from the files is you know in the context of like Leon Black and what is it Steve Tisch it seems like Epstein has these young women in his orbit and you know pays for their you know their dentistry and dangles a modeling career or whatever and then he like farms them out to his rich depraved quote-unquote friends. And so they are trafficked like directly by him. What it looks like with Bill Gates is that these women, as far as we can tell, did not come directly from the Epstein network. But nevertheless, Epstein found out about it and realized like, oh, this is an angle I can work.

1:18:00Ryan Grim:You know, this is a piece of information that can be useful to me in the future. And, you know, lo and behold, years later when bill gates tries to is probably under pressure from his wife and tries to pull away from his relationship to epstein that's when epstein writes this memo to himself of you know oh well here's all the things i know about this dude and that he definitely wouldn't want to come out including that he contracted some sort of std from one of these russian women and didn't want his wife to find out so he's trying to you know use epstein to procure antibiotics to slip surreptitiously to his wife, is what Epstein wrote in the memo to himself anyway.

1:18:38Ryan Grim:So we haven't gotten confirmation specifically from Bill Gates on that particular part, but this would seem to confirm some key aspects of what Epstein was memorializing there to himself.

1:18:48David Dayen:And what a couple of people who knew Epstein told me was that it was very hard to get rid of him. And these are not people who had like problematic relationships with him, so they were doing some self-justification, but people who knew him and knew his world, that it wasn't as easy as like, he wasn't taking the hint. You know what, Jeff, I don't think we're going to be buddies anymore. I don't think we're going to hang out anymore. It was much more of a mafia thing like, oh, no, no, no, no. That is not how this goes. Like, no, we are still involved. You're not getting rid of me. You can see that in the Leon Black emails that the New York Times and others reported on that Leon Black can't get rid of him.

1:19:31David Dayen:And ends up continuing paying, you know, millions of dollars to him going forward. And so Epstein, along the way, knows he's going to be, he's not going to let this person get away. And so what do you do along the way? You build up enormous amounts of compromising information. So you don't even have to use it, although it does appear that he used it with Gates. And just them knowing that you have it means that it's easier then for these men to just continue. Be like, okay, you know what? I can't get out of. It could blow up my entire life if I try too hard to extract myself from this relationship that I know I should not have gotten in.

1:20:14David Dayen:And then on the flip side, you're like, I do have a lot of fun with him. The island's nice. and all the depraved things that we do. We do kind of like those things.

1:20:25Ryan Grim:Yeah, and he introduced me to this person and that person. I made this deal with him. You know, he got me and he's helping me with my Nobel Peace Prize aspirations apparently in the context of Bill Gates. That was something that he was holding out.

1:20:37David Dayen:Which he would be the guy. He knew the Norwegians and he blew up the entire Norwegian political system. So yeah, he's going to help you get your Nobel. So incredible.

1:20:51Ryan Grim:Yeah. And people, you know, some of some of the skeptics will say, like, well, if all these people like knew about this world and, you know, all this way he was operating, surely one of them would have come forward and blown the whistle. And it's like when you dig into each of these relationships, you understand why no one did. Because because if you're Bill Gates, you don't want your wife to know that you had these two affairs and that you got an STD and tried to slip her surreptitious antibiotics. You're not looking if you're just daily to have the emails revealed where you're saying, hey, I had a great time with Snow White and maybe the next Disney princess I should try on is Beauty and the Beast.

1:21:24Ryan Grim:You're not really excited about that stuff coming to light. So it's mutually sure destruction and you keep your mouth shut because that's what's best for you.

1:21:31David Dayen:Yeah, and lots of people over the years, whether it's Maria Farmer or Conchita Sarnoff or like Tina Brown, like plenty of people like tried to blow the whistle throughout the years. And there's no mechanism for accountability within elite circles. So if you come out and say, like, there's no, like, calling the police. There's no, like, I'm going to press charges through this vehicle that we have. It would be assumed that you have some, you're either a gold digger or you had some business deal that went south with Epstein that isn't our business. So you guys sort this out. There's no way to actually hold people in these elite circles accountable.

1:22:10David Dayen:And so I've seen a lot of people complaining that this is becoming a moral panic. Like, okay, let's say it is. Then set up a system of accountability for the elites. If you have an elite class that is immune from any accountability, do not complain when the public produces its own mechanisms of accountability against them. I saw Graham Plattner picking up and making that argument, which is, I think, exactly the one to take out of this. This class should not exist.

1:22:43Ryan Grim:Yeah, and that's my point about, you know, that I was kind of jokingly making about cancel culture, which is a form of vigilante justice. Like if you don't support mob justice in that way, which is definitely not the ideal way to go about things, then you have to support some sort of actual accountability. And not just with regard to the Epstein class, but going back to the Iraq war lies and to the financial crisis and nobody goes to prison and the just absolute impunity that elites seem to operate with. We just we haven't had that. So you don't be surprised then when people resort to like mob online cancel culture and digital vigilante justice, because that's the only chance that they have of seeing any of these people held to account.

1:23:28David Dayen:No democracy or barbarism. No justice, no peace. Like these these cliches exist for a reason. And that's right. Some moments they have more fire behind them than others. Right now, the fire is burning.

1:24:01Saagar Enjeti:Hi, it's Joe Interstein, host of the Spirit Daughter Podcast, where we talk about astrology, natal charts, and how to step into your most vibrant life. And today I'm talking with my dear friend, Krista Williams. It can change you in the best way possible. Dance with the change. Dance with the breakdowns. The embodiment of Pisces intuition with Capricorn power moves. So I'm like delusionally proud of my chart. Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast starting on February 24th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

1:24:36Krystal Ball:I'm Amanda Knox. and in the new podcast, Doubt, The Case of Lucy Letby, we unpack the story of an unimaginable tragedy that gripped the UK in 2023. But what if we didn't get the whole story?

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1:25:06Nida Allam:I'm Clayton Eckerd. In 2022, I was the lead of ABC's The Bachelor. But here's the thing. Bachelor fans hated him. If I could press a button and rewind it all, I would. That's when his life took a disturbing turn. A one-night stand would end in a courtroom. The media is here. This case has gone viral. The dating contract. Agree to date me, but I'm also suing you. This is unlike anything I've ever seen before. I'm Stephanie Young. Listen to Love Trapped on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.