7/30/25: Trump Says Epstein 'Stole' Girls From Him, Publisher Of Black Book Speaks Out, Jon Stewart Rips Israel Gaslighting

24:01It's not happening. Right. Because let's say, I mean, the Ghislaine testimony Tony obviously is a joke because she's self-interested. She wants a pardon. So she has no, her incentive is to put forward whatever information is convenient for this particular administration. And I think, you know, at this point, the two biggest questions are what are the implications for Trump? Like what happened? What ways was Trump involved? And number two, the intel ties. We're not getting that from this administration. That ship has sailed. And whatever information they put on at this point, there's, you couldn't trust that it would be a complete reflection of what was going on whatsoever.

24:37So it really is left to journalists to try to dig. It's left to whistleblowers from within, you know, the government who want to expose what is really going on here, because certainly, you know, you're not getting it from Trump, Cash, Dan Bongino, Pam Bondi, not Ghislaine Maxwell, not happening at this point.

24:56Emily Jashinsky:Yeah, it's not going to be I really like how you said that it's not going to be a complete picture. I mean, to save their own asses, let's put A5 on the screen. They may put out drips and drabs. So this is polling. This is new CVSU GoF polling that shows Trump's approval rating among younger voters. So this is 18 to 29-year-olds absolutely cratering. It's down 27 points. And one of the interesting things to take a look at here is that he actually was above water with younger voters when he took office. So as of February, he had 55 percent approval. That is now down to 28 percent approval with 18 to 29 year olds.

25:38Emily Jashinsky:And, Crystal, it doesn't take a time machine to reflect on how powerfully Republicans were celebrating those numbers just a couple of months ago. This was seen as the kind of key that unlocked the future of the Republican Party, what happened in November. And then as Trump took office and it felt like kind of the cultural wind was at his back to Republicans, that there had been a vibe shift. You have a Republican president with 55 percent approval ratings for people, voters under the age of 30. Very unusual and felt like a new era for Republicans. And all of that has all those gains have been erased for Republicans.

26:16Emily Jashinsky:Now, to be clear, this was this dip had been happening steadily since he took office. So it was going down basically just on a – if you look at the graph, it's not like a sudden jump in any way in his disapproval or a dip in his approval. But I can't imagine that this is going to help those numbers. A month from now, Crystal, it could be – the bleeding could be even worse. Yeah, I think that's right. And, you know, 18 - to 29-year-olds, Zoomers, I think that's entirely Zoomer cohort there. they're up for grabs you know they're they're not diehard democrats by and large they're not diehard republicans by and large you know the and i always thought the appeal with trump was limited to trump not necessarily to the broader republican party because he is this sort of singular cultural figure um and so they're up for grabs and i think they like most of the country it's also a real danger that with the incredible failings and disappointments of both of these political parties that there's a real slide just into nihilism where, you know, they I think there's a danger.

27:27They sort of give up on the possibility of politics, electoral politics delivering for them whatsoever, which is how you end up with this sense of like voting just on vibes when you don't believe that it really matters for your material condition, which party is in power. Then you just vote for whoever seems like cooler is like pissing off the people that you want to piss off. So, yeah, I think it's I think it's very I think it's very interesting, important and relevant, the shift among young voters. And then we're going to talk later in the show about how enthusiastic young voters are about Zoran and young men in particular.

27:59He's winning young men in these polls by like he's getting like 85 percent of young men in New York City. So, again, it just shows you the anti-establishment, the desire for change, for true change and the desire for, you know, true sort of anti-establishment politics among a younger generation that is being shut out of, you know, sort of normal trajectories to basic prosperity in this current status quo.

28:29Emily Jashinsky:Well, in New York City is obviously also one of the places that Republicans are really excited to see a change among anti-establishment younger voters, voters from different minority groups. And now I bet there are some Trump Zoran voters. In fact, actually, when we talked to Zoran in this point, it was November. I think it was later in November, early December. He had just been out on the streets talking like AOC had done after the election to people who voted for Trump, who may be up for grabs for him. And I don't think it's crazy to imagine that he snatched some of them crystal at all. Yeah, no, not at all.

29:08And I have to say, and this does obviously connect to Epstein, you know, Israel is becoming a real lightning rod sort of litmus test among these types of voters because it stands in for are you an independent person? Do you have principles? Are you willing to go up against entrenched interests? And so if you're towing the AIPAC line on Israel, you are automatically going to be greeted with skepticism from the vast majority of young, unaffiliated voters. And so, you know, I think we see that it's certainly in the Democratic Party, but we really see that becoming an important signaling and dividing line within the American electorate in a way that I think politicians haven't wrapped their head around.

29:55Because if you ask people what's your number one issue, very few people are going to say Israel, Palestine. But I think it's become this sort of like litmus test gatekeeping issue where if you can't get past that hurdle of showing you have some level of independence principle and just like basic morality, then people are not really going to hear you on whatever is the rest of what you're trying to sell them.

30:18Emily Jashinsky:You know, the way you just put that, I think, applies almost exactly to Epstein because it is a litmus test question for people who followed it closely, which is in a lot of cases like the younger cohort. Because, you know, a lot of these documentaries, I mean, everybody cares about this, but nobody's going to say that it's their top issue that they're voting on, just like you mentioned, Crystal, in that case. But it is sort of a key vibe litmus test if you're being and this is it may sound ridiculous to people like us who are cynical, but it is that type of test as to whether you are being authentic, whether you're being genuine.

30:59Emily Jashinsky:if you can't come to the table and open up about Epstein. And this was, I think, for Kash Patel and Dan Bongino and others on the right who are now having to face what the administration is actually doing, even Pan Bondi. They understood that looking like you cared about the Epstein case. And by the way, I think they did until they got into government. I don't know about Pan Bondi, but I think Dan Bongino and Kash Patel, You know, they they were ready to expose the deep state and went in to the deep state and realized that that's a little bit harder than it seems because some of your own people are going to be implicated.

31:40Emily Jashinsky:There's no question about it. And they sort of understood that because it's a litmus test, you can get out ahead of it and pass with flying colors by saying, I'm getting to the bottom of this. And then for that to be kind of baked into the anti-establishment cake, which the Epstein case absolutely was, and to fail the litmus test, it's just I think it's devastating to and I'm not saying this in a goofy way. I think it's devastating to the vibes, like it's devastating to the cultural momentum that Republicans thought that they had. And again, like cynically, I think both of us would have predicted that was never going to actually last.

32:17Emily Jashinsky:But you are going to see, I think you are going to see some information be released from the Trump administration that is described as or framed as revelatory and framed as solving the case and revealing new details and being transparent in the name of full disclosure and all of that. But at this point, Chris, I think it's pretty clear there's no benefit of the doubt whatsoever. This is not going to be you can't trust that any of it's complete. They've lost it. It started with the binders. Now there's the video. There's the flip flops. And we're going to get to the video actually with Nick Bryant as well, because there's new details on that front.

32:59Yeah. And just really quickly, last thing before we get to Nick, just to clearly draw out the connection I was claiming between, you know, the issue of Israel and the issue of Epstein. I mean, people are noticing that the in the influencer world, the people who are most in the like nothing to see here. Let's move on camp are also some of the biggest Israel defenders. And obviously you have the Epstein Mossad connection. So they're they are related. They are linked issues. And so I don't think it's a surprise that in, you know, anti establishment circles, which is a broad swath of American society at this point, that these two things are connected and both of them serve as these sort of litmus tests of whether you are honest, truthful, principled, you know, and not not captured by entrenched interests that are going to keep you from truly, you know, serving people and doing what you claim that you're there to do.

33:46Emily Jashinsky:Well, and I think it's the other way around as well, in that some of the staunchest defenders of Israel have said, OK, the people asking questions about Jeffrey Epstein are also the staunchest opponents of Israel. So I no longer care about the Epstein case or this is all sort of the Epstein case is just smoke and mirrors, which is also a really unfortunate situation for everybody who cares about getting to the bottom of this case and understanding exactly. I mean, first of all, getting justice for the victims and understanding the way that our government and our foreign policy actually works. Yeah, that's right.

34:23Emily Jashinsky:All right. Let's go ahead and bring in Nick Bryant now to help us break down the story further. When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months. I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files. I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, shut up, don't say anything. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me. I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.

35:09They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories about what's taken from them. They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.

35:47I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place.

36:21Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. On the new podcast, Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I chose option B. I'm Julie Pinheiro, and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word solita, trading the pity for possibility. Every time I tried to be alone, I kept meeting people and they were like, you smiled at us.

37:01Not a lot of people smile around here. It's when you're alone that you're most receptive to the world as it is and not the lies you're sold about it. It can be a time where you push your limits, change your mind, or wake up to a new version of yourself. So whether you're a solo travel veteran or you're too nervous to book your first trip, I hope you listen to Solita on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

37:30Emily Jashinsky:Well, Crystal and I are pleased now to be joined by Nick Bryant, author, activist. You can head over to EpsteinJustice.com to find information on Nick's nonprofit. You can buy his books as well. There'll be links in the descriptions. Nick, thank you so much for being here. It's great to be with you. Can you actually start just by telling us about Epstein Justice, the nonprofit that you run, and all of the work that you guys are doing? I wrote a book about a child trafficking network. I started researching in 2002, 2003, and it was Epstein before there was Epstein. And publishers and editors really didn't want to contend with it.

38:10I would pitch them, and then I could see their cognitive dissonance playing out right before me. They would think to themselves, this is a really horrible story. I need to help Nick Bryant. Or I can just write Nick Bryant off as crazy and have a nice meal with my family tonight. So I worked seven years on that book. And I went as deep into that type of a realm as someone can go. I mean, I talked to blackmail photographers and other people that generally wouldn't give interviews. And I couldn't get the book published in New York City, where I live. I live in the Mecca of publishing, about four blocks away from Times Square.

38:49I live in the heart of the insanity. But I could not get the book published here. So I finally got it published by a small press on the West Coast in 2009, 2010. And in the interim, I had become an activist regarding anti-child trafficking. I'd spoken at a lot of conferences. The National Center on Sexual Exploitation has an international summit every year, and I've spoken at three of those. And I've spoken at a lot of conferences. I really got involved in this particular subject. And then I was reading about someone named Jeffrey Epstein in 2011. And he seemed to have an insatiable appetite to molest underage girls.

39:38But then I also saw that a grand jury had said that he hadn't molested a single child. And that was the exact same thing with the book that I wrote. There were two very corrupt grand juries that said not a single child was molested, like the grand jury that looked into Jeffrey Epstein, said that not a single child was molested. And I don't know if your audience is familiar with how grand juries work, but a special prosecutor is chosen to oversee a grand jury. And grand jurors are just citizens that have shown up for jury duty, have been funneled to a grand jury. And the special prosecutor is solely responsible for calling the witnesses and showing the grand jurors exhibits and of evidence.

40:22And there was a New York Supreme Court judge that said grand jurors have so much or special prosecutors have grand jurors, special prosecutors have so much power over grand jurors that they could get them to indict a ham sandwich. So I saw that a ham sandwich was indicted in Florida. And then I went down there and ultimately went down there in 2012. And so before the infamous influencer binder moment from Pan Bondi, where they claimed, oh, this is the Epstein files phase one. And they claim to be releasing all of this new information. You actually had published even more of that information. You were the first person to put out the Epstein black book.

41:06In fact, I think it's fair to say that you are the person, journalist or non-journalist government agency or, you know, anyone on the planet who has exposed the most information about Jeffrey Epstein. So can you take us back and talk to us about his black book, what it contained and what you take to be the import of that and what it exposes about the way that he operated? well actually i was first guy to publish the flight logs too and when i was in florida 20 2012 investigating this i do my thing i was knocking on doors talking to people making calls and then i had a fortuitous experience where i was able to acquire the black book and how the black book came into being as far as being able to access it.

42:00Alfredo Rodriguez, Jeffrey Epstein's house manager, stole it. And he was trying to sell it to one of the attorneys that were representing Epstein victims. And he was trying to sell it for$50 ,000. And he called it the grail. And the attorney called the FBI. The FBI did a sting. and then attorneys for the victims ultimately got the black book, and that's how I got it. But I can remember the day that I got it. I was staying near Naples, and most of my beat at that point was Fort Lauderdale, Miami. So I woke up really early one morning. Lawyers generally like to have meetings early in the morning.

42:44So I wasn't on too much sleep, and I drove there, And then he handed me the black book and I just went like, whoa. And then I went to a Dunkin Donuts and had a couple of cups of coffee and looked through it all. And I was I was I was really stunned. But what was really edifying to me, and I think that this is I might have been the first journalist to know this, is there's well over 100 victims in the black book. Well over 100 victims. I started calling them. And most of them did not want to talk to me, which I understand. I've taken on this topic before, and a lot of victims just don't want to talk because they've been so badly burned.

43:31But I did talk to a few of them, and they talked about being flown around, and they talked about an island. And at that point, I realized that Epstein was running a nationwide pedophile network and that he had an island where he would fly girls. And I came back to New York City in 2012. And again, editors and publishers really weren't enthusiastic about that information.

43:56Emily Jashinsky:And in your experience, I mean, there's that famous video, I think, that Project Veritas got of Amy Robach back in the day saying they killed her Epstein story. She had it all. In your experience, Nick, what obstacles have you noticed? I mean, everyone has a million theories on this, but what do people tell you? What did people tell you back then when you were trying to get this information out? They provided a number of disingenuous responses, like it was too old. I mean, one editor told me it was too old. Like a month later, they published an article on the Revolutionary War. So obviously, but they just didn't want to touch it.

44:43It was radioactive. And because I was the fond head of it, they looked upon me as radioactive. And if you look at how the media has covered Epstein, they've been good at dating up salacious dirt on Jeffrey Epstein and his co-conspirators. But I'm not aware of one major media outlet that has called for justice because so many little girls were molested by the machine that Jeffrey Epstein and Glenn Maxwell built. And why don't we have outrage in the media? I mean, why don't we have people in the media demanding that there be a congressional investigation? I just think that that's bizarre. Yeah. Let's put a seven up on the screen.

45:30This is excuse me, with regard to this video that was released, you know, when the Department of Justice under Trump puts out this two page memo saying nothing to see here. Case closed. Jeffrey Epstein killed himself. And they put out this video that purported to show Jeffrey Epstein's cell that they claimed was completely unaltered. Well, it turned out there was at least one minute that was missing from the video. Pam Bondi gave an explanation of, oh, well, it's just like that. It always resets at that time. CBS dug in and they found a number of instances where the video appeared to have been altered and edited.

46:07And they also had a source that told them that's not true, that there was this minute originally missing, you know, and that there's some weird reset every night that leads to this minute being missing. So, yeah, I'm curious your reflections on the way that this Trump administration has behaved and, you know, what you make of the the extraordinary moves of, oh, we're going to release the files. And here's this these binders that expose nothing new. And the client list is on our desk. Pam Bondi says we're reviewing hundreds of thousands of hours of footage. And that's why it's taking so long to all of a sudden there's nothing to see here.

46:46We're closing the case. here's a video, everyone shut up. And now Trump is saying, well, there are files and my name may be in them, but it was put in them by, you know, Hillary Clinton or Brennan or Comey or some other of my adversaries. How are you making sense of all of this? Well, let me address the prison. The Bureau of Prisons took an unbelievable amount of heat in 2019 when Jeffrey Epstein apparently killed himself. And if the Bureau of Prisons could have exonerated themselves with any kind of cogent footage, they would have done it in a heartbeat, but they didn't. And then all of a sudden, this footage just magically appears.

47:27And what's interesting is Dan Bongino, the number two guy at the FBI, had a podcast where he was continually questioning Epstein's, whether Epstein committed suicide or whether he was murdered. And then he gets behind this ridiculous footage. I mean, I mean, really, really ridiculous footage and thinks, yeah, Jeffrey Epstein murdered himself. I've got no doubts now. It's amazing what happens to people once they get a little power and they get into office. And I don't know why he's done a 180 on that. There's there's various explanations for it, but he's definitely done a 180. And with the Bondi debacle, I can kind of walk you through it.

48:16On February 26, Bondi was on Fox and she said, I'm going to release the Epstein files. Everything that you will ever need to know will be released. And then a few days later, she released some files and it was essentially a nothing sandwich. And then she declared that she'd been bamboozled by the FBI's New York field office. I forgot about that part. Yeah. So we can we can say that she was either lying on national television or she was inept. And I'm a charitable person, so I'll just call her inept, at least at this point. That's what I was thinking. And then she further tarnished her credibility by saying that, yes, there was tens of thousands of videos of Epstein with children or child porn.

49:10There are hundreds of victims. But then she said, and this kind of amazes me. she said that the FBI was looking through it for the first time and when Epstein got arrested in July of 2019 the very next morning the very next morning the FBI drove through a safe now the safe was the size of a closet and his safe held many many disks there was a lot of child abuse material and Business Insider reported, New York Times reported that there was a lot of discs and a lot of child abuse material. And Business Insider reported that there were two, that there were hard drives too. So the FBI and whatever dark malignant corner of the government that deploys people like Epstein, they were looking at that stuff that day.

50:10So for Bondi to come out and say that the Epstein safe was opened up and it hadn't been looked at for six years, that was kind of her crescendo of mendacity. I mean, because I followed this case so closely, I've been able to kind of see these lies in real time. But yeah, she really got herself into a hole. And then the Trump administration continued to get itself in a hole when they said it was a conspiracy by the Democrats. Well, what happened was it was actually a conspiracy started by the Republicans. Jeffrey Epstein got his sweetheart deal in 2007, and he got it via the Department of Justice, the Southern District, Florida.

51:02Alexander Acosta was the U.S. attorney, and he was going to panel a grand jury to look into the allegations about Jeffrey Epstein. Actually, they had a list of 34 victims. I have that list. But they knew of 40 underage victims. And what happened there was a major travesty of justice. So Alexander Acosta vowed that he was going to exact justice. And then what happened, the Department of Justice then went radio silent. And then they started negotiating with Epstein's attorneys clandestinely. I have some of their emails. And then they cooked up a deal that was so dirty they didn't want anybody to look at it.

51:50And I've got an email between Epstein lawyer Jay Lefkowitz and U.S. Assistant U.S. Attorney Anne-Marie Villafana where Villafana says there's one magistrate that will sign off on this. And we have to get to him on Monday. So a magistrate is just – and the judiciary is one notch below a judge and he can serve the functions of a judge. So between the judges and the magistrates, they found one magistrate that would sign off on it. And then they sealed it so no one could take a look at it. And attorneys representing Epstein victims and the Palm Beach Post appealed the sealing. And Judge Kenneth Mara of Florida said that the document should be unsealed.

52:35And then the Department of Justice appealed that. And then finally, the 11th Circuit said, OK, let's unseal it. And what was unsealed was beyond egregious. That document gave, we talk about Epstein's sweetheart deal, but actually that document gave blanket immunity to all of his co-conspirators. All of them. and it also trampled on the Victim Crimes Rights Act, which is a federal law, and if you're a victim of a crime, you have to be apprised of the adjudication of your perpetrator, and you get to confront your perpetrator, and that was denied all the victims, and that's another reason why they wanted to steal it.

53:25And then to make sure that that didn't come back to bite them, They had the state put Epstein in a county jail for 18 months, and he did 13, but he was allowed to go out during the day and molest children. So that was all done under the Bush administration. When Trump says it's a Democratic conspiracy, he seems to have forgotten who gave Jeffrey Epstein the sweetheart deal.

53:54Emily Jashinsky:So on that note, let's roll a—this is a point that was— raised about Trump and Epstein on CNN. Want to get your reaction to this, Nick? Research shows from investigative reporting from the Miami Herald that Jeffrey Epstein was actually still on the Mar-a-Lago membership logs up to 2007. OK, so Trump was still getting money from Jeffrey Epstein up to 2007. Jeffrey Epstein was still paying for his membership at Mar-a-Lago, according to the Miami Herald. And that, of course, is a year after Jeffrey Epstein's arrest in Florida in 2006. So despite... So if he kicked him out for being a creep... Yes.

54:37That would have even been a year after that would have been established through a legal suit. Correct.

54:43Emily Jashinsky:And so, Nick, just yesterday, Trump seemingly confirmed that Jeffrey Epstein, in Trump's words, quote-unquote, stole Virginia Jaffray from him at Mar-a-Lago. that the contention seemed to be that Epstein was kicked out because he had been poaching Trump's employees, like Virginia Giuffre, obviously a very young woman, from Mar-a-Lago. What more should people know about that type of connection between Trump and Epstein? There's two reasons why Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump got divorced. One is that Trump or Epstein was poaching young girls at Mar-a-Lago or one girl. And then the other one is the real estate deal.

55:29I mean, a lot of people seem to put their chips on the real estate deal instead of Mar-a-Lago. Virginia Gouffre was, I knew Virginia and we'd become friends. And that's a very sad story, but people that are sexually trafficked as children, their suicide rate is three times higher than the general population. But Virginia was working at Mar-a-Laga. She was 15 years old and she was working in the spa. Her goal was to be a therapeutic masseuse. And that's where Maxwell got her. So it wasn't Epstein that was the one who conscripted Virginia. It was actually Maxwell. What else do we know about the Trump-Epstein relationship and how close it was?

56:20Let me actually play for you. I think this is A6, guys. Michael Wolff is one of the few journalists who spent a lot of time with Epstein. He's got a lot of recordings of Epstein. He makes makes a lot of claims about, you know, their relationships. Let me play a little bit of what he said about these photos that he he says he was shown of Donald Trump with young girls. Let's go ahead and take a listen to this. At one point after Trump had been elected and I was sitting talking to Epstein and he said, wait a minute, I got to show you something. And then he went into his safe and he came out with photographs.

57:05They were Polaroids, I think. And he kind of spread them out like playing cards. And it was Trump. I mean, I think there were a dozen of them. And it was Trump with girls of an uncertain age at Epstein's Palm Beach house, where all of the things that he would ultimately be accused of took place. And I remember very vividly three of them. There are two in which Trump is the girls, topless girls are sitting on Trump's lap. And then a third in which he has a stain on the front of his pants. And the girls are kind of kind of pointing at it, sort of bent over laughing, you know, cover, you know, you know.

57:57covering their mouths. Exactly. Exactly. And pointing three or four girls. And those are the ones I specifically remember. It's certainly not unlikely that they were in the safe when the FBI came in after his arrest and took everything from from the house. How much credence do you give to those allegations? And what can we say for sure about the nature of the relationship between Trump and Epstein? Trump and Epstein were best of friends. They did have that falling out. We don't know exactly why they had the falling out. There's conflicting stories about that. But I know that Wolf has said that before about the pictures of topless girls on Donald Trump's lap.

58:42And I don't know what to make of that. I mean, he seems like an honest person. So and what's really troubling to me is that the FBI and Department of Justice know exactly what was taken out of that safe because they took a lot of the safe. And there was that crazy document that they came out with on July 6th that said there was there was a couple of things I agreed with that there were over 300 gigabytes of child exploitation material. and that there were over 1 ,000 victims. I do agree with those two things. I agree that Jeffrey Epstein had a huge cache of child abuse material, and I agree that there are well over 1 ,000 victims.

59:31But then that strange document, and no one signed it. It had the logo of the Department of Justice and FBI, but no one was going to take a fall for that document, so nobody signed it. But then it said that Jeffrey Epstein acted alone by himself, that he didn't pander girls. I mean, there's so much evidence about perpetrators and pimps in the Epstein network that it's an overkill, actually, and that he didn't blackmail anyone. So that document was really horrible because the best thing that you can say to someone who's been sexually abused as a child or someone who's been sexually assaulted is, I believe you.

1:00:21The worst thing that you can say to someone that's been trafficked as a child or sexually assaulted is, I don't believe you. And the Trump administration was, with that document, the Trump administration was saying, I don't believe you to hundreds of victims. And that's really troubling. That's really troubling.

1:00:44Emily Jashinsky:So I have a sort of strange question, Nick, and credit to Breonna Joy Gray, who did a good interview of Whitney Webb the other day. But they mentioned, Whitney mentioned something quite interesting, which is around the time that Hulk Hogan, the recently deceased Hulk Hogan, started suing Gawker for the sex tape, which we now know was bankrolled by Peter Thiel. That lawsuit was bankrolled by Peter Thiel, who had been outed by Gawker. That's actually around the time that your little black book story was published by Gawker. And so the connection there is somewhat interesting. I wanted to get, there are all kinds of connections that could be absolutely nothing in this case or could be compelling.

1:01:30Emily Jashinsky:But what is your take on, since you're the one who published the story, have you ever heard anything since that there might be, that Thiel may have been irked about that reporting? No, Thiel, who's a natural born fascist, was irked about Gawker outing him. He had initiated that lawsuit before I wrote my article on Gawker and released the Black Book. So there isn't a correlation there. OK, that's good to know. One last question for you, which is, you know, you've you've studied not only, you know, as a journalist, not only have you studied this case and this pedophile ring, which obviously, you know, involves many elites in America and around the world.

1:02:16you've studied the history of other pedophile rings of blackmail in the country. And I wonder what you've been able to dig up or ascertain with regard to potential intelligence ties. And sometimes, you know, that aspect of this is framed as this like really wild conspiracy, which is why I think your work is so important, exposing that, you know, compromise is actually par for the course for the CIA, for Mossad, for MI6. And it would not be some wild, insane thing to imagine that if he does have this compromising material on powerful people, that there would be numerous intel agencies who would be very interested in leveraging that.

1:03:00People ask me this all the time, and they say Jeffrey Epstein is working with the Mossad, and I say Jeffrey Epstein very well might have been working with the Mossad, but I believe that there's no way the CIA is going to let the Mossad compromise American politicians on American soil without getting a cut of that intelligence. I just don't think it's going to happen. I think the dark side of the CIA and the dark side of the Mossad are kind of like the Gambino family and the Genovese crime family. They work together. And I also wrote a book called Confessions of a D.C. Man, the Politics of Sex, Lies and Blackmail.

1:03:40And I co-authored it with Henry Vincent and he ran the largest gay escort service that's ever been uncovered in D.C. And the CIA assets were using his escorts to out-closeted politicians, and we name a number of them in the book. So blackmail or compromise is as old as our republic. There was a muckraking journalist that came across a story of Alexander Hamilton having an affair with a married 23-year-old. And her husband was blackmailing Alexandra Hamilton. And then the muckraker wrote a story about Hamilton's woes. And then Jefferson and Hamilton had a lot of antipathy towards each other. And the muckraking journalists thought that Jefferson would give him an appointment in his administration because he helped Scully or Solly Hamilton's.

1:04:39And what happened there was he did not. Jefferson didn't let the guy in his administration. And then he wrote a book or article or some articles about Jefferson having sex with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings, which DNA has shown to be the case. So Compromat is as old as our republic. And there are a lot of our politicians that are compromised. Mike Johnson, last week, he adjourned to Congress early. so it couldn't vote on investigating a child abuse network. I mean, what's that about? That's very strange. And he's got, and I did some research into him. I wrote an article about him. He's got this software called Covenant Eyes that he and his 17-year-old son have.

1:05:33And it enables them to keep track of their pornography consumption, which I thought was very strange and extremely cringeworthy. So why is Mike Johnson holding this up? The decent thing to do would to investigate Jeffrey Epstein and the child molesters. But because blackmail is so integral to our system, And Johnson might even be blackmailed or someone whose blackmail is putting pressure on him. That's why our system is so dirty. And there's Republicans and Democrats that are compromised. They're both. I mean, this is a partisan effort. Yeah. Well, Nick Bryan, thank you so much, first of all, for your work.

1:06:28And again, everybody go to EpsteinJustice.com to support your work there. And thank you so much for joining us this morning. Thank you. Can I just add one thing here? Of course. The Centers for Disease Control did a study and found that 25 % of underage girls in America and 5 % of underage boys in America have been molested. Now, people in the field think that that's slightly conservative for underage girls and very conservative for underage boys. But if you just go with the CDC numbers, you've got over 50 million Americans that have been molested when they were underage. And the Department of Health and Human Services commissioned a study that found that 240 ,000 to 325 ,000 women and children were sexually trafficked in the United States every year.

1:07:19So we're talking about millions of people. And according to the Federal Human Trafficking Report of 2023, the last one that we can have that we have access to, six hundred and sixty four people were charged with child trafficking in the United States. So if we go with the Department of Health and Human Services lowest number, two hundred and forty thousand, six hundred and sixty four people are being prosecuted. And that's one place where our society really, really has to do a lot of work because only a fraction of one percent. And if we allow the Justice Department to be unresponsive to victims in the Epstein case, a proven trafficking case, that sends a message to millions of victims in this country that they have no voice and no hope for justice.

1:08:06I think that's so important to underscore. And I think it's also a big part of why this case has been so important to so many people and getting justice for these victims has been so important. That's right. Thank you, Nick, so much. Hey, have a great day. When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months. I survived and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files. I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, shut up, don't say anything. Every week, I'm with survivors who lived through the unthinkable.

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1:10:49Every time I tried to be alone, I kept meeting people and they were like, you smiled at us. Not a lot of people smile around here. It's when you're alone that you're most receptive to the world as it is and not the lies you're sold about it. It can be a time where you push your limits, change your mind or wake up to a new version of yourself. So whether you're a solo travel veteran or you're too nervous to book your first trip, I hope you listen to Solita on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:11:23So obviously, guys, we've been closely covering the famine and starvation that is unfolding at the hands of the Israelis in the Gaza Strip. And there's been an effort to erase those horrific conditions by Israel's defenders. We covered some of that yesterday. President himself, though, saying, no, it's real. The hunger is real. Let's take a listen to that. I want to ask about the first lady. You mentioned a couple of weeks ago her role in talking to you about the war in Ukraine and perhaps a big part of your evolution in thinking. Have you discussed the crisis in Gaza and the terror? I have. She thinks it's terrible, and she sees the same pictures that you see and that we all see.

1:12:04And I think everybody, unless they're pretty cold-hearted or worse than that, nuts. There's nothing you can say other than it's terrible when you see the kids. And those are kids, you know, whether they talk starvation or not, those are kids that are starving. I mean, they are starving. And you see the mothers, they love them so much. There's just nothing they seem to be able to do. They got to get them food. So he acknowledges the starvation. Of course, the most critical part that's left out of that, Emily, is the culpability, which is both Israel and ours. And so, you know, he claims he wants to get aid in.

1:12:43We also have reporting that he's done absolutely nothing to pressure Netanyahu on any point and indeed has told him numerous occasions, do what you got to do. and has backed this ethnic cleansing plan that is being implemented right now, of which the starvation is a key component.

1:13:03Emily Jashinsky:The Wall Street Journal actually did a graphic yesterday of food getting into Gaza. And you can see under Donald Trump's watch over the last six months that this is a problem particularly for his administration, as harsh as we were on the Biden administration. These problems are happening under Donald Trump's watch now, even as last summer he criticized Netanyahu for his, quote-unquote, public relations problem in this case. So right now, if Donald Trump does not want to see these images coming out of Gaza, even as journalists aren't allowed into Gaza, that's another important point, then he actually has a lot of power to pressure Benjamin Netanyahu to make it stop.

1:13:47Emily Jashinsky:So that's the the test that's been failed under the Trump administration recently, but it's the test that's continuing to run that he can prove us wrong. He can change course. Yeah, no doubt about it. And I think it's worth reminding people that we did have a ceasefire deal, you know, in the terms of which were sort of originally laid out by the Biden administration, the Trump administration is able to secure it. And Netanyahu was always saying when he agreed to that deal, well, we're not going to go past phase one. Basically, we're going to have a pause. We're going to regroup. And then we're going to go right back to war, death, destruction, starvation.

1:14:22The only person who could have made sure that that deal was actually enforced and a ceasefire to this genocide was actually, you know, took hold and we moved to something other than genocide, ethnic cleansing, starvation, et cetera, was Donald Trump. And instead, he greenlit the Israelis backing out of that deal, blowing it up and going right back to, you know, effectuating what we're seeing right now. It seems, Emily, like there's been and we've covered some of this before, but it does seem like there's been a real break in the culture and you hear voices, you know, people who are willing to speak out and speak out more stridently.

1:15:03One of those people is Jon Stewart, who had on Peter Beinart to talk about what was unfolding in Gaza. And it's not that Jon Stewart hasn't been critical at all before, but I think some of the strength of his language here was notable. So let's take a listen to that. I feel like I'm watching something that is so self-evidently inhumane and horrific and to be told that I have to shut up because I risk the Jewish state by speaking out, I would say the opposite. I think they're putting the likelihood of a surviving Jewish state much more at risk with this type of action. I think they're the ones that are being anti-Semitic.

1:15:52if you wanted to find Netanyahu, with the definition of anti-Semitism, would probably have to bomb himself. But there's an urgency about it now because, like, right now in this situation, we can't be like, but Jews are not getting along with other Jews. Like, that's not the important thing right now. How is the world not stepping in and stopping this atrocity? I don't understand this in any way, shape, or form. It's boggling my mind. It's worse than just not stepping in. It's our weapons that are enforcing this siege, that is enforcing this mass starvation. It's a siege. It's a military siege.

1:16:27Yes, that we are deeply complicit in. It could not happen without us. And, you know, Jon Stewart's a liberal, Peter Beinart's a liberal. I think that's part of why, you know, Peter Beinart is accepted in these sort of like mainstream liberal spaces, which is, I think, part of why he's been such an important voice. and there's a portion of this interview where you know Jon Stewart says something like basically like listen I don't know every single in and out of what's happened over all of these many years but I know what I'm seeing and I have a moral clarity around it and I think that part is very important because that has previously been the way that liberals have been sort of shut down it's very easy to say like you don't know it's it's complicated and you just don't understand all the ins and the outs and you need to study eight, you know, history for 18 years before you can dare have a, an opinion on this.

1:17:20And I just think at this point, Emily, the, that has been so thoroughly rejected because people go, no, I can see what's happening. It's wrong. And I don't need to know what happened in, you know, June of 1948 or whatever to understand that bombing and murdering children and starving them to death and denying baby formula and medicine and turning the entire Gaza Strip into rubble. I don't need to know everything about this to know that that thing that I'm seeing right now is wrong. It actually reminds me of the Tim Dillon bit on this, where he's talking about Miss Rachel. And he's like, you know, when I see children being bombed, I think, huh.

1:17:59And I read a book and I get to the end and somewhere in that book, I'm going to learn why these children are being bombed. And he's obviously mocking the idea that there is some like nuanced historical perspective on why it's acceptable to starve infant babies to death and bomb them in their tents.

1:18:19Emily Jashinsky:So I think when the history of the post October 7th foreign policy is written last week will have to be pinpointed as the turning point. I think you're exactly right, Crystal, that something changed last week. And I know people like yourself who've been covering this very closely since October 7th would say, you know, too little too late at this point for a lot of people who came around last week. But, you know, I guess you probably wouldn't say it exactly like that, Crystal, because I'm sure, you know, everyone appreciates people coming and recognizing what's happening. But it just seemed like last week, the images that were flooding everybody's social media were what changed.

1:19:09Emily Jashinsky:It sort of created a, gave people permission culturally to feel like it was okay. I don't know, is that your read on it? Because so much of this is from the left. I know we have a pod save clip, but we're about to roll. To me, that's what it seemed is that it started to become acceptable, in fact, unacceptable on the left. This was, I think, one of our takeaways from the Alyssa Slotkin interview you did yesterday, she was not running at all from condemning. She said she didn't want to use the word genocide, or at least that she was ambivalent on the word genocide. But she was forcefully condemning what had happened in the last week, almost eagerly condemning what had happened in the last week.

1:19:47Emily Jashinsky:I think there's Democrats now realizing it's actually politically advantageous to lean into condemnations of what's happening right now. And that's, to me, one of the big changes. And I think it came from a lot of the images flooding people's social media last week and it created maybe a permission structure. I don't know. What do you make of that? Yeah, I think I think that's right. Let me put Alyssa Slotkin to the side for a second and get back to that. I think that when babies are being starved to death, there's no, oh, they're Hamas. There's no Hamas was hiding under the baby formula. Like there's just no way of excusing it.

1:20:26Mass starvation, all 2 million or however many people are left in the Gaza Strip are being starved. And they every 100 % of them are at some level of hunger and famine conditions. And that is not, you know, an accident of nature, the way the Western media, you know, often portrays it of like hunger rises as if that just came out of nowhere. You only get to 100 % famine through man-made intentional actions over many months, by the way. And so it just becomes undeniable. There's no cover story. And then when you see these images of these skeletal babies and children, it evokes the worst horrors from the history books that you can possibly imagine.

1:21:11Oh, but Crystal, they have pre-existing conditions. Oh, right. So then it's fine if we kill them. It's fine if they starve to death, if they have pre-existing conditions. I mean, that's just so utterly grotesque. It's like, okay, so not only are you keeping out the food, but yes, thank you for reminding us that you're also keeping out the medicine to protect and to be able to help children, the elderly, everybody who is there. And so I think that is part of why you're seeing this turning point in terms of the rhetoric right now, in terms of it's one thing if you are a commentator, and you, I think it's not enough to say, okay, now things are bad.

1:21:51I think you need to make amends. I think you need to, I think there has to be a, God, I got this wrong. You know, I really thought the Israelis had good intention. Like I, having covered this so closely and you, you as well, Emily, like, I don't know how you went all these many months without seeing this for what it was when you have Israeli ministers announcing it publicly, like it's, and the president of the United States announcing it publicly. I don't know how you ignored that. And so I do think there has to be not just a, oh, now it's bad, but a mea culpa about how you got it wrong and the way that you helped feed into propaganda and lies to enable what we see before our eyes right now.

1:22:30If you are a person in power, if you are a senator like Alyssa Slotkin, you didn't just, it wasn't just your words. It wasn't just the fact that you spent your time condemning protesters who were trying to protest this versus condemning, you know, the monsters who were murdering babies. You took votes like you used your power to help effectuate this outcome. And so what are you going to do now to make it right? I mean, you really it goes a lot more than further than, you know, oh, I put out a tweet or, you know, I'm willing to come on and condemn them or say this is wrong. But, you know, well, I won't go so far as to call it ethnic cleansing and I won't go so far as to call it a genocide.

1:23:12I mean, even if she was willing to call it a genocide, it's like you voted for the weapons that went and did this and created this. What are you going to do to make it right? And so for me, that was kind of the, you know, going into that interview, that was the important question remains for me the important question, even as Democrats start to realize slowly, vastly, belatedly, the political writing on the wall about how incredibly damaging this has been to their political prospects and political prospects of their party.

1:23:43Emily Jashinsky:In the long term, by the way, just as you're saying that, I'm thinking to the safety also of people, if you're just purely from a cynical perspective, if you're Alyssa Slotkin, and I guess this isn't necessarily cynical, but or categorically cynical, but if you're Alyssa Slotkin, the situation that has been created for the country that you've been defending for however long now, the long term safety of the people there, is that better now? Is that on a better trajectory? Is that what this was all for? Do you feel as though the future of Israel has now been preserved because of what's happened over the course of this war?

1:24:24Emily Jashinsky:I mean, it's just that that question, I think, is going to haunt particularly Democrats who were always wary kind of of Netanyahu and Likud but supported the war itself. I mean, there wasn't a lot of hesitancy in the Republican Party about Netanyahu and Likud. Obviously, still among some people, there isn't on the Republican side. So many people on the Republican side. So I just think that question for Democrats who were wary of Netanyahu is going to hang over their heads for a really long time and over their consciences as well. Yeah, no, I agree with that. I mean, if your goal was to like protect the Jewish state, this is what Jon Stewart talks about.

1:25:04You failed miserably. I mean, it sort of irritates me that it always has to be framed in the context of like, well, what's good for the Israelis? and the Palestinians themselves don't get to be, you know, full humans and their just basic right to like live in dignity and have self-determination, that can never be the central discussion. But that is, I think, the reality and the nature of American politics. Go ahead. And then I wanted to throw to the pod save side, which I think is important. Well, no, I was just going to say,

1:25:34Emily Jashinsky:I mean, it obviously, to me, at least it goes hand in hand, that if you have peace in the region, it's better for everyone. And if you are not creating famine and destruction and rubble, and as Trump says, cleaning swaths of land that people have died and fought for for decades, then you are more likely, no matter how difficult it is, it's difficult, I'll be saying it's easy, but you're more likely to create a more peaceful and prosperous region. Of course. It's just it's obvious. So, yeah, there's there's no military option here. You know, there's there's only, you know, your ability to to leave live peacefully with your neighbors.

1:26:16And, you know, the the idea that Israel is like keeping even their own citizens safe, let alone, you know, Jewish people around the world is just utterly preposterous at this point. The PodSafe guys have been pretty good on this issue. And I think it's there. You know, they come out of Obama world. and also I think just the fact that they're not on a mainstream network, that they're online, also creates a different ecosystem that they're swimming in. They own their company, don't they? Yeah, they do, yeah. I mean, I don't know all the financing structure and the ins and outs of that, but they came out very strongly in favor of, hey, you have to cut off all aid and we need to look at sanctioning Israeli officials.

1:26:58And we can't like whenever this ends, we can't go back to what this relationship was before. Like this is over and done. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that. And I don't think Democratic candidates should take money from AIPAC or vote to fund military support for Israel anymore. Like I really don't. This government, absolutely not. And that especially includes, I think, the next Democratic nominee for president. Things I want to see Democrats at least calling for is cutting off military assistance to Israel. It's a rich country, by the way. They don't need our$3 billion a year. And hands up, right?

1:27:26Barack Obama signed a 10-year MOU for$3.3 billion a year. Like, so we're part of the problem here. Let's correct it. I would like to see talk about sanctioning Israeli government officials who use genocidal rhetoric or talk about ethnic cleansing openly. We should support a ceasefire resolution at the UN. We should demand that international press be allowed into the Gaza Strip to report on what's happening without an IDF minder. It's insane. The press still can't go into Gaza and cover what's happening. And I also think, like, there has to be a total mindset change in the Democratic Party. When the war ends, we are not going back to the pre-October 7th status quo.

1:27:55Because it's not where the party is. It's not where the world is. We're not going to shovel billions a year in military aid. We're not going to veto every effort to recognize the Palestinian state at the UN. We should not take money from AIPAC. And, like, I will hold out hope for better political leadership in the U.S. and in Israel. But we have to also recognize that the Biden era, hug-Bibi Netanyahu's strategy has to be thrown in the trash can for fucking ever. Netanyahu's a bad actor. He's continuing a war for political purposes. He bombs Lebanon when he wants to. He bombs Iran when he wants to.

1:28:22He bombs Syria when he wants to. This is not a partner we can count on. This is not someone who is like leading to calm and stability in the region, which should be a core interest. Like at this point, cutting off military funding for a government that is starving 2 million people and advertising how they're ethnically cleansing the Palestinians seems like the least we can do. Especially if we're going to head into a primary, like table stakes is going to be no more military aid for Israel. So there will just will have to be a shift. And I do think that will mean putting far more pressure on Israel.

1:28:49And that's what I think Democrats want. By the way, that's what the country wants. And when you pull Israelis, they say they want a fucking ceasefire. Israelis want the hostages returned through a negotiated settlement. And by the way, that's the way in which the vast majority of hostages who were returned were able to be returned. And they are way more in line with where Democrats are. I mean, there's like 8 percent of Democrats who have a favorable view of Netanyahu and what's happening in Israel right now. I mean, it's nearly unanimous. And I think the 8 percent that are like favorably inclined towards what's happening are all basically serving in the Congress, the United States Senate, apparently.

1:29:25Emily Jashinsky:Yeah, well, I mean, in that clip, too, I think it's and it's been going viral kind of paying around the Internet. I think it's hopefully becoming clear to Democrats that it is like whether they want it to be a different era or not, the page has been turned. And I do think, Crystal, some of it from those guys, I'm curious what your take is on this. I do think some of that is a little bit cynical because they are so immersed in like they have a really popular podcast. So they're kind of in the new media space and the new media space tends to be super anti-establishment. It's not all anti-establishment, but a lot of it is because, frankly, that's where a lot of younger Americans are.

1:30:07Emily Jashinsky:And when I say younger, I mean like people under 40, not just talking about like Zoomers here. And so I think you've seen them respond to what they've seen and it's taken them to that place. But obviously they're calling for policy consequences, concrete policy consequences. So maybe I'm being too cynical in this case. I mean, I don't know exactly, but I think that they I mean, I don't know. It seems pretty genuine to me. I think that the difference is that they don't have these other competing pressures to keep them from saying what is like abundantly obvious to anyone who's paying attention.

1:30:43Emily Jashinsky:People want access to them, if that makes sense. Right. Like they're not the ones that are dying to interview congressmen. Right. I mean, you know, usually interviewing congressmen is not interesting oftentimes. So, you know, when you're existing in this ecosystem, it just it doesn't have to be your your number one priority. And I do think that a lot of Democrats still will want to go on with them just because they've established themselves as sort of like, you know, the Democratic independent media central hub. But, yeah, they you know, I think they are an important signal of where the Democratic base is.

1:31:20And I don't think anything they said will be controversial among anyone outside of like the Beltway, basically. um what where they are is oh we're gonna cover this with soar on like 67 percent of democrats in new york were like you're right we should arrest netanyahu if he comes to new york you are absolutely right about that some 80 percent are like it is a genocide i mean this is just consensus now among a lot of the public but certainly inside of the democratic base and the gulf between the democratic leadership and where the base is is not something that can persist and over time, it won't persist.

1:31:57The only question is whether or not that, you know, makes any sort of political difference for Palestinians who are right now, you know, being starved and displaced and, you know, having this genocide committed against them. There were a couple other things we wanted to note quickly in this block. First of all, Randy Fine, the most disgusting member of Congress, I think it's fair to say. I think we could probably unanimously agree on that. He said that Palestinians should starve away. He called his colleague Ilhan Omar a Muslim terrorist. He said Gaza should be nuked. He has gotten a Republican primary opponent who is calling him out.

1:32:32We can put this before up on the screen. He's calling him out specifically on some of these things. He says, I do not support. This is Aaron Baker is his opponent. I do not support starving children. I do not support punishing citizens for having the worst government in existence. It's my goal to make you a one term congressman. If you agree, please consider supporting me to represent Florida six. I know nothing about this man. He's a Republican. I'm sure I disagree with him on many things. It is a very heavily Republican district. I don't know, like R plus 32 or something Republican district.

1:33:01Uh, there is no way that he's not better than Randy fine. No way support. I don't know who he is. Support him. He's gotta be better than Randy fine. He could not possibly be worse. The fact that he's willing to say, you know what? I don't support, I don't actually support starving children. That already puts him like miles, head and shoulders above Randy Fine. So that'll be an interesting one to watch play out because even though it's this overwhelmingly Republican district, Randy Fine didn't win by that much. The Democrats vastly, vastly overperformed because he's just such a disgusting, grotesque, monstrous figure that even Republican partisans were like, I don't know about this guy.

1:33:39Emily Jashinsky:Yeah, and he's already hitting Randy Fine on APAC. So I'm on Aaron Baker's X right now. So this is 12 hours ago. People can go look it up. But he seems to have gotten a lot of support in the last 24 hours, particularly since he went after Randy Fine on this issue. And that's just interesting in and of itself. You almost don't even need to say it. The fact that you have a Republican candidate in a deep red district saying what he's saying right now is fascinating. And I would say as red as this district is, it's one to watch because it seems like it'll probably involve a whole lot of outside money in order to try and make a point.

1:34:21Emily Jashinsky:A lot of these races become, even if they're not super competitive, it's going to be a Republican seat no matter what. They become proxy competitions to see, you know, in some sense it's almost not that useful because it'll be an outlier in terms of money that probably goes in if that's what happens for Randy Fine from groups like APAC and others. But we'll see who ends up supporting Aaron Baker in this race against Randy Fine, who's been called out. Fine has been called out by people like Tucker Carlson and others on the right in recent days. So this is one to watch for sure. Yeah. And there was a whole flap.

1:34:55Apparently, APAC took him down off of their list of endorsed candidates. And people were wondering, like, oh, did he go too far even for APAC? APAC put out a statement saying, no, no, we just haven't, you know, I don't know. They said basically they're still behind him. But I do wonder if, you know, when you've got this guy out there just saying these horrifically monstrous genocidal things like starve away, if APAC doesn't find him particularly all that helpful to their cause, it might be too out there even for them to really go to the mat to try to keep him in place. I don't know. Maybe they do, maybe they don't, but that's just a question for me.

1:35:27Emily Jashinsky:He's asking Mike Johnson whether he'll remove Randy Fine from the Foreign Affairs Committee. That's another sizzling hot post from Aaron Baker 15 hours ago. So that's a good question, actually. It's a good question for when they come back from August recess because when even APAC was taking a step back, at least in the public realm from Randy Fine. There you go. It's a question for Mike Johnson. Yeah. One last thing just quickly that I really is very important that I wanted to get to Chris Smalls, who's the president of the Amazon Labor Union, who Sagar and I have known for years at this point and, you know, interviewed him multiple times.

1:36:03I've met him and spoken with him in person. He went on Gaza aid flotilla. That flotilla, you know, the Israelis seized in international waters, wildly illegal, basically kidnapping them off of the ship with no right to do it. And we can put B5 up on the screen. Chris Smalls in particular, it appears, was singled out for direct physical abuse. The Freedom Flotilla Coalition confirms that upon arrival in Israeli custody, U.S. human rights defender Chris Smalls was physically assaulted by seven uniformed individuals. They choked him. They kicked him in the legs, leaving visible signs of violence on his neck and back.

1:36:39the Freedom Flotilla Coalition wrote in a statement posted on Instagram on Tuesday morning. So this is an American citizen. And they go on here. They say when his lawyer met with him, Chris was surrounded by six members of Israel's special police unit. This level of force was not used against other abducted activists. We condemn this violence against Chris and demand accountability for the assault and discriminatory treatment that he faced. Smalls was the only black person on board the boat, and he was one of 21 members of the group who were detained. So, again, Chris Smalls singled out for violent abuse at the hands of Israelis.

1:37:15Obviously, Chris is not only an American citizen. He is a labor leader. Amazon Labor Union is under the Teamsters at this point. Sean O 'Brien has been cozying up to Trump. As far as I know, he hasn't put out any statement in support of Chris Smalls. But this is disgusting and outrageous behavior from the Israelis that deserves condemnation from every American, certainly every American leader, you know, when an American citizen is kidnapped and violently abused by our supposed ally there in the Middle East.

1:37:49Emily Jashinsky:Hope Chris is recovering and back to back to health. Awful story.

1:38:08I survived nine months in captivity, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.

1:38:53Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions. Yeah, I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the new podcast, Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus, or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I chose option B. I'm Julie Pinheiro, and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first.

1:39:31I'm on a mission to reclaim the word solita, trading the pity for possibility. Listen to Solita on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:39:45This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.