2/9/26: New Epstein Revelations, Clintons To Testify, Bibi Pushes Iran War

23:31This is the legal equivalent of a last resort. It asks the court to overturn the conviction on the grounds that it's so fundamentally unfair or unconstitutional and can't stand. So just to show that she has a lot of other stuff that she can point to. And in that petition that 25 accomplices, she also asserts that the four Epstein employees were co-conspirators and never charged like herself. If you will all remember, this is tracing back to the non-prosecution agreement. But if you combine this with some of the other reporting, let's put A7 up there on the screen just to give you an example. The FBI at one point had actually posted a 21-page presentation of all the evidence they've gathered in the case, including a summary of allegations against 11 men.

24:10And the list was then taken down after this was flagged by Julie K. Brown over at the Miami Herald. So just to show you again, like the idea that the FBI didn't have information, maybe they didn't have prosecutable information. I'm just telling you, though, that at this moment, the idea that they did not have information or potential leads and all of that on various, it's just completely not true. Yeah. Completely not true. You won't be surprised that a number of the names in here and one of the names identified by the FBI as a prominent man for whom significant allegations have been leveled against was President Trump.

24:47So, look, to your point, does any of this like is this meet the evidentiary standard that would have to hold up in court? No, it doesn't appear based on what we have publicly. Were these things investigated? You know what happened with all these tips? Were they investigated? Where's that information? Were you able to dispel all of these allegations against all of these various powerful men? And then I think the Ghislaine Maxwell thing is worth dwelling on because, again, where does she sit right now? She sits in a club-fed minimum security prison that's supposed to be for white-collar criminals.

25:19She is not supposed to be there at all as a sex offender, number one. Number two, even within that, she's getting all kinds of special cushy treatment with her puppy and her access to, you know, electronic communications and her private ability to wander the grounds by herself and get visitors and the warden saying that he's sick of being her bitch. OK, so she is playing some sort of a game here. And now this, to me, reads like a shot across the bow. Right. Who are these 25 men that apparently struck deals, according to her in this legal filing, that apparently struck deals with our government to be able to make this whole thing go away?

26:03Who are they? And why did our government have an interest in striking those deals with those individuals if what she is alleging here is true? That would be a significant thing to know. So Thomas Massey, I believe today, says that he is going to be reviewing a number of the unredacted files. He's supposed to have access to the entire cache of unredacted files. And he was asking people, OK, what should I look for in this limited time that I have to go in? So he's continuing to push forward. And, you know, let's go ahead and take a listen to the aggressive posture he is taking. He's saying he will use the nuclear option if the DOJ refuses to unredact the names of, you know, the powerful men that are associated with this.

26:45Because remember, in this release, according to the law that Massey and Kanna pushed through and were able to get passed and signed into law by President Trump, there are very limited reasons that you are allowed, legally permitted, to redact, okay? They have clearly gone far beyond that while screwing up and leaving unredacted a number of the victims' names and likenesses. So let's go ahead and take a listen to Thomas Massey and the way he's continuing to try to fight here. I'm ready to do that if the victims want me to. They believe that the best way to get justice is to force the DOJ to release these names.

27:23I've already read one name in a committee with the FBI director there. That's Jess Staley. And again, he may or may not be guilty, but he's been accused by these victims, the lawyer tells me. And there are other names. I don't have them in my possession. But if the victims want to give them to me, I've expressed that I'm willing to do that. But again, the best way is to force the DOJ to release those names on those 302 forms. And I just can't give enough credit to both Roe Conum, but Thomas Massey. I mean, he is taking so much incoming from president, from APAC over his unwillingness to sign on to these like Zionist speech codes.

28:04He was I don't know if you saw this video floating around. He was back in Kentucky at an Olden County, which is like a suburb of Louisville, Republican Party event. And he was speaking and he was saying, you know, some just very basic things about how he doesn't serve, you know, any one party. He serves the people of the country and they pulled his mic from him. So, you know, clearly he has really touched a nerve. And the fact that he's a Republican and he has a large following, too, and like a lot of credibility. And I think people like myself who don't agree with him on any number of issues like night and day when it comes to economics, for example, you have to respect this man and his integrity because he is truly risking, you know, risking it all here to to push for the truth and to push for more transparency.

28:50It's a very rare breed, very rare breed in Washington. And, yeah, I mean, I've disagreed with him plenty, plenty of times in the past. But on this, it's just it's unbelievable to see somebody stand. And, you know, really, this is what the house is for. You need an Ilhan Omar. You need a Thomas Massey. That's what the house is designed for is to have the actual full spectrum. They end up sometimes being our best members. So there you go.

29:16What 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 is 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. Some guests have answers.

29:56Most 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.

30:13This is Ryder Strong, and I have a new podcast called The Red Weather. It was many and many a year ago in a kingdom by the sea. In 1995, my neighbor, Anna Trainor, disappeared from a commune. It was hard to wrap your head around. It was nature and trees and praying and drugs. No, I am not your guru. And back then, I lied to my parents. I lied to police. I lied to everybody. There were years right where I could not say your name. I've decided to go back to my hometown in Northern California, to interview my friends, family, talk to police, journalists, whomever I can to try to find out what actually happened.

30:52Isn't it a little bit weird that they obsess over hippies in the woods and not the obvious boyfriend? They have had this case for 30 years. I'll teach you sons of to come around here and my wife. Boom, boom. This is The Red Weather. Listen to The Red Weather on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You know Roald Dahl, the writer who thought up Willy Wonka, Matilda, and the BFG. But did you know he was also a spy? Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been. Our new podcast series, The Secret World of Roald Dahl, is a wild journey through the hidden chapters of his extraordinary, controversial life.

31:31His job was literally to seduce the wives of powerful Americans. What? And he was really good at it. You probably won't believe it either. Okay, I don't think that's true. I'm telling you I was a spy Did you know Dahl got cozy with the Roosevelt's Played poker with Harry Truman And had a long affair with a congresswoman And then he took his talents to Hollywood Where he worked alongside Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock Before writing a hit James Bond film How did this secret agent Wind up as the most successful children's author ever And what darkness from his covert past Seeped into the stories we read as kids The true story is stranger Than anything he ever wrote Listen to The Secret World of Roald Dahl on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

32:15All right, let's get to the next part here. This is about Ghislaine Maxwell and her relationship with the Clintons. Let's put this up here on the screen. Epstein files reveal scope of Ghislaine Maxwell's role in the Clinton circle, and specifically raising some$1 million for the Clinton Global Initiative. And they specifically say that she took part in the budget discussions related to the first CGI conference, talked through challenges with both Clinton aides, the company that produced the inaugural event, and arranged to wire a million dollars, quote, for the work on the Clinton project. The source of the money is unclear, including whether Mr.

32:49Epstein provided the funds. However, the emails show that he was aware of the payment. Epstein at one point wrote to her, quote, ask him to tell you why I million now and where it will be going. Hmm, so maybe it was his money, wasn't it? So all of this took involvement, took place in 2004 before the 06 indictment. But it shows how deeply – I mean, remember, this is a woman invited literally to the Clinton wedding in that infamous photo. And how deeply she was enmeshed with the Clinton family who after they lose the White House – or after they lose in 2000 – sorry, not lose, but they leave the White House.

33:25They're obsessed with one thing. How do I become generationally wealthy as quickly as humanly possible and whitewash my image from the Lewinsky scandal? So what do they do? Hillary runs for Senate. She becomes the carpetbagger in chief from New York. And Bill, who moves to New York, is like, I'm going to double down on all this humanitarian work with my Clinton Global Initiative. Except the Clinton Global Initiative, I covered so much of this during the Clinton campaign, becomes a slush fund basically for the Hillary administration in waiting, wiring tens of millions of dollars from across the globe.

33:58In many cases, different governments are sending them money expressly to set up meetings with Hillary because she was a former secretary of state. She's going to become potentially the next president, which is what everybody thought back in 2016. and Clinton himself also use it as a reputational machine, which he can fly across the world private, you know, in jets for the rest of his life, basically, for humanitarian work. Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein, very critical nodes in all of that, sourcing sketchy money. That's what they do. So this just proves already the depth of their relationship, which, of course, we did know that, but it's pretty amazing to see Epstein there being like, yeah, ask him, you know, tell him, ask him to tell you why I'm sending you a million dollars.

34:36Like, that's crazy, crazy stuff. It's interesting in all of this. I mean, clearly Ghislaine was really on the inside with the Clintons. Yes, she was. And Epstein recognized, obviously, that this is another powerful, you know, node of power that he wants to be in with. And so, you know, the CGI money and fostering this relationship appears to have been a strategic play from him, unsurprisingly. And, you know, the other thing that's interesting in this reporting is that, and again, this is not surprising, but it's interesting to see it lay down. Bill Clinton saw Davos and how much influence it had and how powerful it was and what a brand builder it was.

35:14And he was like, ah, that's what I want to do. I want to do my own version of Davos with like a, you know, liberal, more overtly liberal humanitarian bent rather than Davos is focused around like business elites exclusively. He's like, let me do that. I'll have the business elites, but I'll also have like the global humanitarian class as well. And so that's really the birth of the Clinton Global Initiative. So not only did they want to amass money, but they also wanted to amass power and be the central node in this sort of like global influence network. That was that was the whole thing. So, of course, Jeffrey Epstein is going to want to get involved with that.

35:51Right. He's like, this is my this is my whole bag. This is what I do. Let me see how I can get myself involved here. Now, the other thing to keep in mind is, like Sagar was saying, you know, Ghislaine being there at Chelsea's wedding. And weren't Hillary and Bill at Trump and Melania's wedding as well? And Ivanka and Chelsea were friends. You know, we think of them as these bitter rivals. They were in the same social circles. They were going to each other's events, supporting each other's thing, going to each other's weddings, etc. They are all part of the same class. the Epstein class. And Ryan was saying, like, in some ways, the class solidarity of the billionaires and the global elites is rather inspiring.

36:36You know, they really are there for each other. They really have this tight network. And I think that's important for all of us to keep in mind. And that came out very clearly in this recent Trump comment where he gets asked about Bill Clinton. Now, the backstory here is Clinton has been subpoenaed to come testify before Congress. Initially, he was saying, no, I'm not going to do it. And, you know, I guess was willing to risk jail time the way Steve Bannon went to prison for, you know, refusing to appear in spite of being subpoenaed. He has now changed his mind. We can put this up on the screen and say, OK, fine, I will testify.

37:12And he says here, I have called for the full release of the Epstein files. I provided a sworn statement of what I know. Just this week, I've agreed to appear in person before the committee. Still not enough for Republicans on the House Oversight Committee. He goes on to say, now, Chairman Comer says he wants cameras, but only behind closed doors. Who benefits from this arrangement? It's not Epstein's victims who deserve justice, not the public who deserve the truth, serves only partisan interests. This is not fact-finding. It's pure politics. I will not sit idly as they use me as a prop in a closed-door kangaroo court by a Republican party running scared.

37:41If they want answers, let's stop the games and do this the right way in a public hearing where the American people can see for themselves what this is really about. So Bill Clinton is set to testify after having been subpoenaed. And again, Clinton, Trump, same circles, same contacts, et cetera. Big question what Bill might be able to say about Trump and his associates and what exactly is going on with this whole Epstein situation. And so now when Trump gets asked about Bill Clinton and about Hillary Clinton, suddenly, you know, they're good people, actually. I actually really kind of like these guys.

38:14Let's take a listen to that. It bothers me that somebody's going after Bill Clinton. See, I like Bill Clinton. I still like Bill Clinton. What do you like about him? I liked, well, I liked his behavior toward me. I thought he got me. He understood me. I like Bill Clinton. He understood me. He says Hillary's just a very accomplished woman, ultimately. You know, very different tone here. It sort of reminds of when he got asked about Ghislaine Maxwell in the first administration. He said, you know what? I wish her well. Well, first of all, I do want to say I support Bill Clinton for publicly testifying.

38:47I support that 100%. Let's do it out in the open. With the camera, there's nothing better. to see Bill. Look, he's smart. He's a wily fox. He had plenty of Lewinsky dodging and white, what was that scandal? Is it Whitewater? Man, it's a throwback. The Rose Law Firm, Google it if you're interested, if you want to go relive some of the 1990s. But the whole point with the Clintons, obviously, is that I'm glad that they're going to testify publicly. And ultimately, it's nice that they are being forced to actually have to come and answer some questions. But, you know, the bigger point is it reminds me of that George Carlin quote.

39:22Like, it's a big club and you're not in it. And that's really what it is actually all about. And it's like that famous photo of George W. Bush in that selfie with Michelle Obama. And they're like, kindness. I'm like, there's nothing cool about that. Yeah. Like, sorry, no, actually. Like, Bush, no. We don't do that with people like George W. Bush. And this is why the whole Dick Cheney thing bothered me. I'm like, they're like, oh, he died a hero. I'm like, oh, because he stood up to Trump. I'm like, oh, he died a hero? Really? I guess it's been long enough. I could speak ill of the dead. If you remember, whenever we had to react to his death, we're like, well, you know, yeah, he's dead.

39:54Okay. But yeah, that's how I feel about Dick Cheney. That's how I feel about Fauci. They're like, there's like a small list of people who I'm like, no, fuck you till the day you die. Like, I literally don't care about you at all. And we shouldn't, you know, be resuscitating your image or any of that. No. George W. Bush? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. And again, to, you know, George, the Bushes and the Trumps, supposedly this bit of rivalry. I mean, remember Bill Barr, who is attorney general at the time that Epstein dies, he also served in the H.W. Bush administration. Like, that's where he comes from.

40:27And his dad, of course, famously, is the one who hires Jeffrey Epstein at the Dalton School, in spite of the fact that Epstein had no qualifications to be put in, you know, to that position at this very prestigious school. Donald Barr also wrote a very strange... Oh, I know. ...sci-fi book about, you know, Some sex slave enterprise, et cetera. So you can go look that one up too if you really want to go super down the rabbit hole. But in any case, so much more connectivity and so much more shared interests between all of these people than the enmity that they like to portray publicly. Very, very true.

41:01All right, let's continue. This one is so wild. So I had known, and Ryan did a story about the Rothschild relationship with Epstein, obviously significantly important just because it's one of the most powerful banking houses in all of Europe, long, of course, been connected to the rise and falls, many of the power brokers on the continent. But their relationship with Epstein was not only deeper, but directly tied to our own country and our government. Let's put this up here on the screen. I had no idea about this. It says how the House of Rothschild became entangled with Epstein. What they specifically point to is that back in 2015, in December, after months of turmoil, the Swiss private bank owned by the Rothschild dynasty was closing in on a multi-million dollar settlement with the U.S.

41:46Department of Justice for its part in helping rich Americans hide their assets. Behind the scenes, the group's French chief, Ariane de Rothschild, had tasked Jeffrey Epstein and the lawyer he had introduced her to, Kathy Rumler, who you will all remember, former Obama White House official, deputy White House chief counsel, with closing the deal. Here's how the exchange went. 45 Mio, question mark, as we casually throw around these numbers, Rothschild asked Epstein in December 2015. He replied, counting a$10 million fee for the lawyers and$25 million for him, quote, I think you will find all less than 80 pretty good.

42:23She responds, deep thanks for your help. Days later, this gets announced. The Department of Justice, literally just days later, puts out this announcement saying, Justice Department announces joint resolution with two banks under the Swiss bank program. The Department of Justice announced today that Edmond de Rothschild and Edmond de Rothschild SA have reached a joint resolution under the Department's Swiss Bank program. EDR Switzerland will pay a penalty of more than$45 million, make a complete disclosure of the cross-border activities, etc. There is no public reporting at the time to indicate Epstein's role.

43:02But you will remember here, we now have a deal brokered by a private Swiss bank, the Rostrom, and literally one of the richest families in the history of Europe, who is working with Jeffrey Epstein days before and pays him$25 million, potentially for what reason, not just Kathy Rumler, but maybe for the connection, finder's fee, some sort of influence where he is able to negotiate this deal on behalf of this bank and the U.S. Department of Justice to the point where you can all see it and go back and read. There's no mention of him. What role did he play? Who did he call? I mean, that, if anything, shows the extent of influence.

43:36That right there is true influence. A private Swiss bank, some of the richest people in Europe who call you and they're like, hey, man,$25 million for what? For a$45 million settlement that's announced? But you've got to be pulling some serious strings to merit more than half of what the overall settlement is going to be on top of the legal fees, which are already factoring for this. What were they paying for? Nobody knows. Yeah. Nobody knows. But it was announced just like they said, cool 45 mil. Exactly what he was saying, 45 mil. This is how it's going to go. I can make sure that this all happened.

44:09I'm assuming you don't just get paid somebody$25 million for nothing. So that is a very, very significant one. Yeah. It shows his level of influence. Seriously, like what, who did he call and what was he able to do to secure something like this? Because they'll pay anything to make something like that go. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, you look at these emails, you see elaborate communication with Ariana de Rothschild. You know, they clearly had a very friendly relationship where she's downplaying. The bank is downplaying at this point, et cetera. You can read their statements. But they were really chummy.

44:38You know, she was asking for advice on all kinds of personal, messy matters that were going on within the family. And he's there as the, like, sounding board and, you know, reliable friend for her to, you know, bounce ideas off of, et cetera. and then is involved in this very direct, extremely significant, important way. I just saw this one that just Murtaza Hussain just pulled up that it looks like Epstein may have met with MBS three days before Jamal Khashoggi was murdered. Wow. And then we also had those other emails where he was talking about it and he was, oh, I think those were with, were those with Bannon, I think where he was texting back and forth in that particular exchange where he's talking about his theories about what happened there, you know, And that's another question that you have inside knowledge on that one as well.

45:22But you just can see all of these connections with the most powerful people in the entire world. And you can also see from his communications, for example, with, you know, with Peter Thiel and with others and how they sort of view the world as just their plaything to exploit, you know, with Libya. Like, oh, let's, you know, I think there's all kinds of money that can be had there and talking about how the most financially profitable thing for them is global collapse and chaos and war. And that's, you know, what they're what they actively hope for and wish for. I mean, you just see the way that they view things and how he ends up somehow ends up in connection with all of these really powerful people at all these extraordinary moments in history.

46:02And, you know, with this one with the Rothschilds, why it's so significant is because he directly appears to have had a hand in exactly what this settlement looked like down to the dollar amount. So it is completely wild. One more here. Let's put A15 up on the screen. You guys will recall because we played it for you before. Howard Lutnig. Oh, my God. I met my wife and I met Epstein, our next door neighbor in New York City. Yeah. One time, and we were so disgusted that we said we will never have anything to do with him whatsoever. Well, he lied. I mean, there's just blatant, blatant lie. Now, I guess the best, maybe he forgot all of these interactions that he had with Epstein over the years.

46:47But let me go ahead and read this from the New York Times. Howard Lutnick, President Trump's billionaire commerce secretary, interacted with the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein regularly over at least 13 years while they lived next door to one another on Manhattan's Upper East Side. They invested in the same privately held company together. Okay, so they were not just casual. They happened to be in the same social circles. No, I mean, there was that too, but they literally were business partners. You think that escaped his memory? He just forgot about that little detail with regards to his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

47:20Then it goes on to say they dealt with one another on neighborhood and philanthropic issues and appear to have socialized in New York and in the Caribbean, the records show. Mr. Epstein at one point even sought to meet with Mr. Lutnick's nanny. The records directly contradict Mr. Lutnick's assertion on a podcast last year that he had been so disgusted by Mr. Epstein during a 2005 visit to his townhouse that Mr. Lutnick had never set foot in a room with Mr. Epstein again. Quote, so I was never in the room with him socially for business or even philanthropy, Mr. Lutnick said in an interview on the podcast Pod Force One.

47:56Reached briefly by phone last week, Mr. Lutnick said, I spent zero time with him. In any functioning society, this man would be fired. He would resign in disgrace, caught brazenly in a lie around this criminal pedophile sex trafficker, and he would never be heard from again in public life. That's what a functioning society would look like. Instead, we know he will bear no price for this. There will be no problem. If anything, his associations with Epstein helped him get the gig, if anything, right? So the fact that we now know dead to rights, this man was lying to our face in the most shameless way will have zero, zero consequence for him and his future trajectory.

48:41Yes, that is, I mean, not only do I agree, but look again at the UK government and how they're, I mean, Keir Starmer, a labor leader this morning is calling for him to resign over the Epstein scandal. The Mandelson thing has blown up their government. I saw that a Norwegian senior official was removed because of her links to Epstein. I mean, these, way less than what we're talking about here with Lutnick, right? Because these people are just embarrassed by what happened. They didn't come out and say, oh, I never saw him again. And then you have all of these negotiations behind the scenes. You have the fact that he is a neighbor, which had already had raised questions.

49:14I had found an email where Epstein wanted to hire Lutnik's butler or something like that from back in the day. And I was like, oh, well, you know, you couldn't prove whether any of that happened. Well, now you put it all together. And you're like, of course they knew each other. They knew each other very, very well, which just goes to the point about how it's a big club. None of us are in it. We can now just tiny glimpse into how power and all of that operates. If you have enough money, people will look the other way or they'll actively participate or they'll have knowledge and just kind of be quiet about it as it's all an internal protection club.

49:45You can be a genius when in fact all you're really doing is insider trading. That's one thing for the Epstein defenders. Prove to me how he made his money. Prove to me how he made his money. Was he really, really good at what he did? Find me a great financial. find me like who's the guy who we cover Renaissance who I'm I can't Jim Simon right a Jim Simon figure or Ray Dalio to sit down and be like here's why he was a master trader nobody said any of that nothing he was just a criminal that's it period blackmail and then you know insider trading and social connections that's it that's all it took to make all these billions and then you know the bigger question is like where'd all the money go who was it wired to and remember there's literally over a billion dollars in suspicious activity reports sitting in the U.S.

50:30Department of Treasury right now, which has yet to been released. That's where the real stuff is. And it seems that insider trading nexus seems like the easiest place actually where you could get prosecutions. And I think that's playing out in the U.K. for sure. And the last thing I want to say is we don't talk as much about the Epstein Ranch in New Mexico. And it appears they never rated it. They never investigated there, even though we know from significant reporting and more details added through this latest release that he wanted to use that ranch as this sort of like, you know, as his spread his seed eugenics breeding ground project.

51:08That was what he wanted to do. Now, did he accomplish that? And who was involved? And was it, you know, by good, was it consensual or was any of this against their will, et cetera? We're never going to probably know. And the other thing is he had connections in the same way that he, you know, on his private island, he also was deeply enmeshed with a number of New Mexico politicians, including the former governor. So, you know, I think that angle has been wildly, you know, invisibilized and unexplored as well. So it's just, I mean, it's sick. What else can you say? And you see the way that it operated as there was this sort of like mutually assured destruction among all these powerful people.

51:52And that's how they sort of built these. I mean, it's sick, But that's how they built these relationships of trust is like, I know you can't leave. You can't blow the whistle because I know you know what I did and I know what you did. And, you know, and Epstein seems to have been a master at manipulation. You know, in so many of these communications, whether it's with business partners or world leaders or with, you know, girls or women that he's exploiting, the emotional blackmail and manipulation is very clear in his communication. So he seems to have been a master of manipulating this elite power circle that he was one note of.

52:30All right. Let's get to Iran. Speaking of elite power circles.

52:37What 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 is 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.

53:15Some 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.

53:34This is Ryder Strong, and I have a new podcast called The Red Weather. It was many and many a year ago in a kingdom by the sea. In 1995, my neighbor, Anna Trainor, disappeared from a commune It was hard to wrap your head around It was nature and trees and praying and drugs No, I am not your guru And back then, I lied to my parents I lied to police I lied to everybody There were years right where I could not say your name I've decided to go back to my hometown in Northern California Interview my friends, family, talk to police, journalists Whomever I can to try to find out what actually happened Isn't it a little bit weird that they obsess over hippies in the woods and not the obvious boyfriend?

54:17They have had this case for 30 years. I'll teach you sons of bitches to come around here and my wife. Boom, boom. This is The Red Weather. Listen to The Red Weather on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You know Roald Dahl, the writer who thought up Willy Wonka, Matilda, and the BFG. But did you know he was also a spy? Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been. Our new podcast series, The Secret World of Roald Dahl, is a wild journey through the hidden chapters of his extraordinary, controversial life. His job was literally to seduce the wives of powerful Americans.

54:56What? And he was really good at it. You probably won't believe it either. Okay, I don't think that's true. I'm telling you, the guy was a spy. Did you know Dahl got cozy with the Roosevelt's? Played poker with Harry Truman and had a long affair with a congresswoman. And then he took his talents to Hollywood, where he worked alongside Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock, before writing a hit James Bond film. How did this secret agent wind up as the most successful children's author ever? And what darkness from his covert past seeped into the stories we read as kids? The true story is stranger than anything he ever wrote.

55:29Listen to The Secret World of Roald Dahl on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Turning now to the situation with Iran. Things fast moving here in Washington, some potential signs of a deal, though Trump really all over the place. He was asked about it aboard Air Force One. Here's the latest about talks as Benjamin Netanyahu is heading to the White House. Let's take a listen. We likewise had very good talks on Iran. Iran looks like it wants to make a deal very badly. We have to see what that deal is. But I think Iran looks like they want to make a deal very badly, as they should.

56:05last time they decided maybe not to do it, but I think they probably feel differently. We'll see what the deal is. It'll be different than last time. And we have a big armada, we have a big fleet heading in that direction. It'll be there pretty soon. So we'll see how that works out. With Iran, is there a deal that only covers nuclear that would be acceptable to you? Because they just want to have nuclear, they don't want to have anything else. It would be acceptable. But the one thing right up front, no nuclear weapons. If we could have made that deal two years ago, we would have made that deal.

56:39But they weren't willing to do that. Now they are willing to do it. So they're willing to do much more than they would have a year and a half ago or even a year ago. Don't forget, we've only been doing this for exactly one year. And we started with them a few months after the beginning of this term. This term has been amazing. But the results could surprise people. If they would have offered this deal originally when we first started, it would have been accepted immediately. We'll see what happens. So somewhat positive signs there from the president about talks with Iran, very good talks. They want to make a deal.

57:18If they present whatever, they basically did present this. But we can move past that if it means that there is some deal that will be had. However, we will know from the Iranian side that the talks in Oman were, quote, exclusively nuclear. The Iranians are trying to make it clear, we will talk nuclear all day long. The supreme leader has his fatwa. However, we're not talking ballistic missiles, period. And the reason why is because that's our regional security deterrent against the state of Israel. Well, who happens to hear this and immediately calls the president and says, I need to come and see you immediately?

57:50Benjamin Netanyahu. Let's put this up here on the screen from the Times of Israel. Netanyahu to meet Trump in Washington Wednesday says U.S.-Iran talks must deal with Iran's missiles and proxy. President Benjamin Netanyahu will fly to Washington this week to meet with President Trump on Iran. The meeting will take place on Wednesday. Quote, the prime minister believes that any negotiations must include restrictions on ballistic missiles and an end to support for the Iranian axis, indicating concerns about the progress of the U.S.-Iran talks thus far. The U.S. and Iran talks that happened last week were immediately met with great alarm in Tel Aviv because they want – or in Jerusalem, sorry.

58:29What they want, of course, is for the talks not to happen at all and for us to progress to war. Now, here's what's really stunning about these. Netanyahu was originally already supposed to be here nine days from now, next week, for the AIPAC summit, which is happening here in Washington. But the meeting was then moved a week earlier at the premier's request specifically to try and to derail this deal and to say any meeting has got to involve these ballistic missiles. Put B3 up here on the screen, confirming more of this from Barack Ravid. And what he talks about here is that the announcement of the urgent visit comes after the Trump, Steve Wyckoff, and Jared Kushner negotiations in Oman, and specifically that they're very concerned about anything that might actually deal with a nuclear element that does not address at all any of these regional security measures.

59:18So you can see very, very clearly here. To the extent that America has any problems with Iran, it is regional in terms of its threat to our bases, which seems manageable if you don't attack them too, but okay. So there's that. And then second is a nuclear weapon, which would be capable of hitting the continental United States, like something that North Korea has developed the theory. The regional ballistic missile threat is a serious and existential threat only to one country, Israel. And so they're saying any deal you do must take our existential security threats as seriously as you take your existential security threats.

59:53And they're basically it's the most classic tail wagging the dog situation in terms of power disparity, in terms of I mean, in terms of everything that could possibly exist. And yet it has a very, very high chance of succeeding because he has succeeded at every term in twisting and turning Trump to whatever direction that he wants to go. Not only that, but you also have people inside of the administration who are pushing the same direction. And then you have Trump, who's kind of like put his ego on the line, as he did as well with Venezuela. And the problem with the deal that's only nuclear, I mean, you know, for all of the talk about the Iranians are so hard line and they would never give up this or that.

1:00:26Like we literally had a deal under the Obama administration. They're clearly willing to negotiate a deal that they stayed in after we got out. So the problem with that for Trump is, you know, people like Netanyahu and others in the administration that want a war and want some sort of regime change or regime collapse and say, oh, you're going to just go back and do the Obama deal. It has to. They'll push for it to be somehow significantly different. And, of course, the ballistic missiles are an absolute red line for the Iranians, I mean, which I completely understand. Like you're going to leave yourself completely defenseless when you have these absolute psychos who are bent on your destruction in the region.

1:01:04Like you would be crazy to agree to that. There's another Times of Israel piece this morning. We don't have an element for this, but they say Iran again rules out giving up uranium enrichment suggests U.S. not taking talk seriously. This is the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Aghrachi, on Sunday ruled out Tehran ever giving up uranium enrichment in its negotiations with Washington, insisting it will not be intimidated by the threat of war. He told a forum in Tehran, why do we insist so much on your enrichment and refuse to give it up, even if war is imposed on us? Because no one has the right to dictate our behavior.

1:01:36He goes on, their military deployment in the region does not scare us. He referred to the buildup of US forces. And then they go on to talk about some of the background here. And he says, they fear our atomic bomb. Well, we are not looking for one. Our atomic bomb is the power to say no to the great powers. So, I mean, that's all very rational calculus on their part for all the talk of how they're so, you know, crazy and irrational and out of control. The approach has been very rational given the landscape that we in Israel have created for them. Yeah, exactly. Let's put B4 up there on the screen.

1:02:11And this is some of the danger here about reverting to diplomacy, but the road is narrow. And what Trita Parsi flagged for all of us in this article, but also, you know, more importantly, like really whenever you dig into a lot of this, is that there are some serious problems whenever it comes to the path that he has now had. So like what they say is that the quote, there's a strong view on the Iranian side that Trump has an excessive and exaggerated view of Iranian weakness. If diplomacy is to work, many Iranians believe a short, intense war may be necessary to correct Trump's perception and compel him to adopt more realistic demands.

1:02:49Even if they take large losses, so will the Americans and the Israelis and quote, Trump has less tolerance for losses or for a protracted war. So that's part of, I mean, vindicating for their current strategy. So, for example, per what he was telling us, is that there was apparently a back channel from Washington after the protests. And they're like, hey, we need to do another strike. Token strike, you token strike back. And the Iranians were like, nope, if you strike, it's on. And what happened? Oh, the carrier all of a sudden has to be brought from the South China Sea. C-17s all the way across the Middle East.

1:03:24Base is on high alert. and for a second there, we're like, oh my God, this could be a real problem. And what did he do? He backed off and we ended up having talks. They canceled the talks, they put them back on, off. It all happened in a three-day period. You can watch our show from last week if you're interested. But the point remains that we're actually kind of afraid of a full-blown conflict because will we win? Yeah, obviously. But that's not, I mean, what does winning mean? Did we win the war in Vietnam? We killed more of them. That doesn't mean we won. We killed more Taliban than they ever killed of us.

1:03:52Doesn't mean that we won. Same in Iraq, right? So the point remains - Did we win the war with the Houthis? Theoretically, yeah, right. We killed a lot of them, right? Does that mean that we won? No, right, because there's a difference between strategic and tactical victory. Well, here you go, the exact same situation playing out with the Iranians. They know, they're like, look, yes, we will lose for sure. Many of our people will die. It's a diabolical strategy. However, we can destroy the price of oil with the Straits of Hormuz and we can probably kill a decent number of you and we could definitely kill a decent number of Israelis.

1:04:22So if that's what you want to do, then let's go. And both, you know, maybe the Israelis will sign up for that bargain. Maybe, as long as Big Brother America is there to support all of them. Do really any of us have a tolerance for a single loss of American life in a theoretical problem for Israel's security? I don't. I got zero tolerance for it. And I'm thinking that there are a lot of other people out there too. Absolutely. There has been very little effort to build up any sort of, or manufacture any sort of consent around this theoretical war. I mean, they just haven't really bothered. They just don't see it as necessary to get buy-in really from the American public.

1:04:55We've had all sorts of shifting explanations for why we should be so concerned about Iran, most of them built on a pack of lies. Let's go ahead and put B5 up on the screen, treat his actual quote that was there in the New York Times article. He says, I told the New York Times there is a strong view on the Iranian side that Trump has an excessive and exaggerated view of Iranian weakness. If diplomacy is to work, these Iranians believe a short, intense war may be necessary to correct Trump's perception and compel him to adopt more realistic demands, even if Iran takes large losses in such a war.

1:05:24So will the Americans and Israelis. And Trump has less tolerance for losses or a protracted war. I mean, that seems entirely logical to me in terms of what the Iranians are likely thinking here and the calculation that they have made. Because in the past, the calculation they made is basically like, yeah, we'll do this choreography with you. We'll do this dance, right? Okay. You want to strike our nuclear facilities. You do that. And we're going to, we have to retaliate, but we're going to do it in a more limited and coordinated fashion that you can manage and that, you know, that allows you to get your defenses in place.

1:06:00And what happened that it did not deter us at all. What Trump learned from that is, oh, when I need a quick ego boost, I can go and mess with the Iranians, right? And get another win on the board at a time when, you know, his approval ratings here are tanking the economy shit and all kinds of, you know, everybody's revolting against the ISIS salts and all of that, right? So that's what he took from that. And so they realized like, okay, well, that was apparently not the way to get them to leave us alone. So we're going to have to take a harder line. So when Trump, you know, when they threw this back channel, reach out and like, hey, let's do a little bit like of a fake pretend war here so Trump can have his ego stroking.

1:06:36They're like, no, we're not playing along this time. We have to take a different approach. And, you know, that's why this is this is a very dangerous situation. And I find it hard to imagine that. And again, I have no idea what the timing will be. I have I find it very hard to imagine with all of the forces within the administration and with Netanyahu pushing and with Trump having backed himself once again into a bit of a corner here with regard to his own ego that we are just going to sort of put this all aside and pretend it never happened and move forward without any more kinetic action. That's very, very true.

1:07:14All right, last thing I wanted to put, B6, let's put that up there on the screen. Trump's, this was very subtle, by the way, Wyckoff and Kushner visited a U.S. aircraft carrier immediately after the talks, just so everybody knows, in terms of what they're trying to signal to the Iranians, too, about what's coming potentially your way. Which, again, I don't think that they're all that, I think they know. I think they know that they will take probably, what, tens of thousands of losses if there was going to be any sort of conflict. I mean, unfortunately, they just don't seem to care, which, you know, it's diabolical and they may be right.

1:07:45But that's, look, it's tragic. Like, it's one of those things where let's not find out. How about we just avoid it, you know, for all of our sakes. But apparently that's not the way that people want to think. Okay, let's get to Trump.

1:08:11you can scroll the headlines all day and still feel empty i'm ben higgins and if you can hear me is where culture meets the soul honest conversations about identity loss purpose peace faith and everything in between celebrities thinkers everyday people some have answers most are still figuring it out. And 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. Over the last couple years, didn't we learn that the folding chair was invented by black people because of what happened in Alabama?

1:08:50This Black History Month, the podcast Selective Ignorance with Mandy B unpacks black history and culture with comedy, clarity, and conversations that shake the status quo. The Crown Act in New York was signed in July of 2019, and that is a bill that was passed to prohibit discrimination based on hairstyles associated with race. To hear this and more, listen to Selective Ignorance with Mandy B from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Ryder Strong, and I have a new podcast called The Red Weather. In 1995, my neighbor, Anna Traynor, disappeared from a commune.

1:09:23It was nature and trees and praying and drugs. so no I am not your guru back then I lied to everybody they have had this case for 30 years I'm going back to my hometown to uncover the truth listen to The Red Weather on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts this is an iHeart Podcast guaranteed human