Trump introduces last-ditch effort to bury Epstein files

27:34So can you first and foremost explain what this provision is that was tucked into the CR by these Senate Republicans? Yeah, I mean, this is just a classic corrupt midnight rider that popped out of the Senate. It's a million dollar jackpot provision written specifically for the self-enrichment of eight senators, eight Republican senators who themselves voted on it. It's an extraordinary thing. They've been whining ever since it became news that those eight senators who had been contacted by Trump or Giuliani or other co-conspirators around January 6th. had had their phone records subpoenaed by a grand jury.

28:25And though that grand jury had the power to subpoena records of anybody they thought may have evidence related to crimes being committed on January 6th. And obviously there were hundreds and hundreds of crimes which have led to convictions that were committed on that day. So their phone numbers apparently popped up or their names popped up in different places and the grand jury subpoenaed their phone records. This is something that grand juries have the power to do. And the Department of Justice issued a nondisclosure notice for the fact that it had been obtained. Now, they might not like that, but then they need to introduce legislation to say that either grand juries don't have the power to get people's phone records.

29:11And understand, it's not the record of your conversation. It's not substantive. It's not like a phone tap. It's just like your phone bill, who called who at what time, okay, which helps them reconstruct the chronology of events. Well, if they want to get rid of that, fine, they should get rid of it. If they're suddenly born again ACLU civil libertarians and they think that that's all private information and it should not be obtained by grand juries, then they should go out and legislate against it. But they're not taking that position. They're saying for them, for members of Congress, but not even members of Congress, because it doesn't even apply to members of the House of Representatives.

29:47It's for 100 senators. You can't get those phone records unless those people are personally notified. And if they're not notified, they can sue for five hundred thousand dollars for the grand jury violation of their privacy and another five hundred thousand for the judicial nondisclosure notice. So each of them will get a million dollars at least because that 500 ,000 in each case is a floor. It's not a ceiling. So they could sue for 10 or 20 million dollars. And if they do it like Donald Trump, they'll try to settle with the government. They'll set it up in advance with Pam Bondi and Kash Patel and so on.

30:30But it's at least a million dollar payout for these eight senators. Now, it violates the rules of the Senate, because like in the House and like in every other legislative body in the country, You can't vote on legislation that will directly benefit you financially, you or a small group of people, just like in this case. It is utterly corrupt and it's radically incompatible with every constitutional principle we have. Congress cannot raise its own pay. The Equal Protection Clause says that all of us have to be treated equally so they can't create a criminal procedure right, which applies to senators and not everybody else in the country.

31:10But, you know, they're basically following what the Supreme Court did for Donald Trump. They want to be treated like a special privileged class and they're all going for a million dollar payout. Yeah, I mean, this is this is the new Republican Party, just outright kleptocracy. Donald Trump decides that he's entitled to to two hundred and thirty million dollars from the Department of Justice, basically from the U.S. Treasury to to pay himself a cool quarter of a billion. And these Republican senators feel the same way, that they're all entitled to to become millionaires on top of the fact that they're already millionaires just out of our tax dollars.

31:44This is the party party that beats its chest about how are we going to pay for it and and fiscal responsibility. Now they're just giving themselves million dollar handouts because they feel like they were entitled to it because they were rightly because they were implicated in January 6 and rightly investigated for that investigation, which which uncovered, you know, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of charges for the people that were involved. And so it's worth asking, in light of this, what action had you taken to try and prevent this? And how did Republicans respond? Well, when we saw this, I got immediately in touch with Teresa Legere Fernandez, who's my colleague from New Mexico, because she's been on the corruption thing, too.

32:27We both agreed how outrageous it was. And so we introduced amendments last night to try to stop it. And what we said is, look, whatever else you think, Republicans, about this bargain, you might think it was the greatest agreement in the world. you might agree with us that it's really bad or somewhere in between. But nobody can go along with this. No self-respecting member of Congress who believes in the Constitution and the rule of law can go along with this. It's just utterly corrupt. A number of Republicans started speaking against it, including Congressman Scott. And a number of them expressed real unhappiness that these corrupt Republican senators were willing to pile this baggage even further onto their continuing resolution.

33:11But last night, they ended up unanimously voting to advance the continuing resolution without stripping that provision. So they voted down our amendment. And so is there going to be any way to prevent this from moving? I mean, not that this overt corruption is anything new in the Trump era, but given the fact that the resolution failed. Is there going to be any way to prevent these Republican senators from doing what Trump does and just pilfering the federal government? Yeah. So they rejected our amendment. They're not going to allow us the opportunity to vote on and on the floor. They obviously don't want to put their own members in that squeeze play.

33:49I certainly hope that any Democrat who is even remotely thinking of voting for this agreement would at this point say there's no way they can vote for this agreement with this completely corrupt provision in there. You know what it reminds me of, Brian, is like the Roman Senate, which was said to have been just as corrupt as Julius Caesar or Caligula. I mean, the Roman Senate was a bunch of people who got there and immediately started figuring out ways to make money for themselves. And the Senate is acting like a collection of people more interested in private self-enrichment than at all meeting the needs of the American people.

34:26And, you know, the great irony, the great tragedy of that, of course, is that this is a Republican Party that that got into power on this pretense that they were going to look out for regular people, that they understood the pain of working people, that they were focused on the cost of housing and groceries and rent and eggs. And yet, just like Donald Trump, who swept into office and immediately started building himself a ballroom and buying himself jets and retrofitting them using taxpayer dollars and encrusting the Oval office in gold and throwing great Gatsby parties. Now you've got these Republican senators who see that and it's just monkey see, monkey do.

35:01And they view this as basically a green light to enrich themselves as well. And so it's just outright corruption from the top down. But, you know, as they say, the fish rots from the head. And so this is a this is no surprise. Well, the movement for strong democracy and freedom in America has a very clear target here, which is the complete corruption of our government by MAGA and by Donald Trump. And anybody who thinks it's just Donald Trump, oh, it's not really the Republicans in Congress, I think has been disabused of that notion by virtue of Speaker Johnson shutting Congress down for nearly two months in order to avoid having to release the Epstein file and in order to throw millions of people off health care.

35:46and by the outrageous actions of these senators who are acting like senators in the Hunger Games or something. I mean, it's just this let them eat crypto attitude. We'll leave it there. Congressman Jamie Raskin, thanks as always for your time. Thank you, Brian. No Lie is brought to you by Armour Colostrum. So why are elite athletes, business moguls, and high performers all using Armour Colostrum? Armour Colostrum is nature's first whole food with over 400 bioactive nutrients working at the cellular level to build lean muscle, accelerate recovery, and fuel performance, all without artificial stimulants or synthetic junk.

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36:58Colostrum bioactives have been shown to reactivate hair follicle stem cells and activate collagen production, which promotes hair growth and enhances skin radiance. We've worked out a special offer just for my audience. Receive 30 % off your first subscription order. Go to Armora.com slash BTC to get 30 % off your first subscription order. That's A-R-M-R-A dot com slash BTC. I'm joined now by the governor of Illinois, J.B. Pritzker. Thanks for joining me. Great to see you. So a lot of Illinois and Chicago centric news, and we'll get to that in just a moment. But first and foremost, we have breaking news here on the national scene.

37:34And that is that the Epstein estate has released some documents showing that, in fact, Donald Trump has a much closer relationship to Epstein than we'd even previously known. The news, according to the emails, is that Donald Trump had been to Epstein's plane and his house. And so your reaction to this news today? Well, I mean, it's it's not surprising. I think we've all expected that evidence exists of a lot of close relationship between Epstein and Trump. But it is certainly news that there are actual, you know, emails between different folks around Epstein about Trump and how close they really were.

38:13So, you know, my fear with the release of this information is, and more and more, of course, with the swearing in about Adelita Grijalva, hopefully later today in Congress, is that as they're able to release the rest of the Epstein files from Congress, you're going to see Trump doing everything and anything he can to distract. And that might include going to war with Venezuela, which he's already on the verge of, apparently, not to mention all the other mayhem that he could cause. So I'm deeply concerned about that. But I will say about the Epstein files that that I mean, we've all been demanding this for quite some time, I think, with the understanding that there was, you know, something terrible going on that the women involved have, you know, implied it.

39:03They've been, I think, afraid themselves to talk about it and who was involved. But I think these files are going to tell us a whole lot. And again, it's going to lead to, I think, investigations by Congress into what must include Donald Trump. So switching gears now to Illinois, you and I had spoken about a month or so ago. And prior to Prop 50 passing in California when we were talking about Donald Trump going into these states and basically mandating that they redraw their maps. And you had alluded to this idea of pairing one state with another. And so when we have California neutralizing what's happening in Texas, then those kind of cancel each other out.

39:47But but whether the other Democratic weapons would be used would depend on what happens next. Since our conversation, we have seen, yes, Texas redraw its maps and that get neutralized by what happened in California just a few days ago. But we've also seen maps redrawn in Missouri, redrawn in Ohio and redrawn in North Carolina. Recognizing now that we only have a few weapons at our disposal to, again, neutralize what we're seeing. What can you tell us about how Illinois will be used in terms of neutralizing those other states? Well, if you look at a map, you know, we're neighbors with both Indiana and Missouri.

40:24And I've sort of taken it on as a personal project to focus on what's happening in Missouri, because that can be reversed with a referendum. And so we'll see what happens. There's been some success, I believe, at moving toward that reversal in Missouri. and I'm going to help in any way I can there as well. And then there's Indiana. And, you know, Indiana's been on again, off again about whether or not they're going to redistrict. And I've made it reasonably clear that Illinois will have to move seriously toward the idea of redistricting if Indiana is going to do it, if they back off. I mean, they need to understand that they will get neutralized if we go about redistricting.

41:16So, you know, I don't I mean, if they're rational, I think they'll choose not to redistrict. So that's something that I've been very clear about. Now, Indiana has pushed it off till the first week of December that they'll consider it. And so we're going to be watching closely to see what will happen there. And then, of course, we're watching the Voting Rights Act and how it fares in the Supreme Court. But here in Illinois, we follow the Voting Rights Act and we will do so if we have to redistrict. I've said all along, I don't want to redistrict. I mean, I don't think mid-decade redistricting is a good idea.

41:55But we live in a world where they've broken all the rules, the Republicans. And we're going to have to react to preserve our democracy as they are trying to take it away. So we saw what happened in California. One other thing I want to say about this. You know, I think about the history, and I think you probably have looked at this, these independent commissions, which I think in general are a good idea. But I chose, you know, back in 2018 when I was running for governor, I talked a lot about the idea of maybe we should have an independent commission in Illinois. But when I really looked at it, I thought we're unilaterally disarming if we do that.

42:35And California had already unilaterally disarmed. And so had New York. And but I looked at it and said, well, gosh, look what they've done in states like Texas and Florida. Right. Why are we Democrats the ones who are responsible for having independent commissions when they're, you know, districting in a way that clearly is a violation of the Voting Rights Act and are willing to take away people's rights? So so we wanted to be clear that we're going to follow the Voting Rights Act and we're going to do it again if we have to redistrict here. But we don't have to undo what other states, you know, have to now undo in order to fight fire with fire.

43:14So I hear what you're saying in terms of serving as a deterrent for Indiana. But in net, the Republicans are still able to do this in other states. And so if they know, OK, all we have to do is just avoid Indiana and we can still get away with what we're doing and that will still net us more seats in the House. How are you thinking about about Illinois' position in the broader environment? Because it's not like it's not like we haven't already seen this action from Missouri. It's not like we haven't already seen this action from Ohio. It's not like we already haven't seen this action from North Carolina.

43:43And so if you're looking for an impetus for Illinois to serve as as a way to counteract what's already been done, we already have plenty of evidence that would that would kind of warrant a map redraw in Illinois now. And so and so can you can you speak on that idea? Sure. Well, let me start out by being clear with you. And I think you know this. I'm on team fight. I mean, we are going to have to use every tool in the toolbox and maybe some that are not in the toolbox to try to push back on the kind of tyranny that's being brought on the country. So I'm willing to do the things that are necessary.

44:21I also would point out that we start out with a map in Illinois where Democrats have won 14 out of 17 available districts. So if we redraw in Illinois, we probably could come up with one more district. And I understand the desire for everybody to do whatever is necessary. But one more district in Illinois, we'd also be stretching some of the districts. So it's not 100 percent clear that you'd end up with 15 Democrats. Let me also say about Texas that it's clear from the results last Tuesday's election, you know, eight days ago, that we've had a significant move by Latino voters back to the Democratic side.

45:06And if that happens in 2026 in Texas, even the redrawn districts, the five supposedly the Republicans would take, would probably only yield two to them. So just thinking about the entire map of the United States, and if you look at Dave Wasserman has posted about this online, it looks like, you know, all the redistricting that already will have occurred, putting Illinois aside, will be around a net one plus one for Republicans. Right. That's not to say that we shouldn't all do what's required and necessary here. But I want to make sure that Indiana knows that if they go ahead and redistrict and they want to take one or two seats from Democrats, there are only two Democrats in their delegation, that we're going to seriously have to look at it and that they should know that that threat exists.

45:59Let me also say that I'm for independent redistricting. I mean, I think that we should all have a independent redistricting commission, but you need every state to do it. And there was an opportunity to do that back in 2021, the For the People Act. You've heard a lot about this, but we did this. You know, Democrats voted for it. Almost every Democrat voted for it, I think, save for one. And and every Republican voted against it. So it's clear who wants fair maps here and it's Democrats. But again, if they're going to steal seats, if they're going to cheat mid-decade, rather, then we're going to have to unfortunately fight fire with fire.

46:38And I hear what you're saying about the fact that it's largely a wash. I've reported on that on my channel as well. The elephant in the room, of course, is Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act because that would unlock basically 20 seats across the country if Republicans want to redraw those maps and basically eliminate every minority majority district that they have in all of their states. And so we may see fewer, you know, Democratic seats in Alabama and Mississippi and Louisiana and Texas and on and on. And so that opens up an entire new, you know, opportunity to have to fight on a brand new battlefield, unfortunately.

47:18But to that point, we do have to, you know, fight fire with fire and figure out what we can do, where we can do it. And I'm for standing up and fighting in all of those circumstances. It's just that we have a unique situation, I think, here in the Midwest, both Missouri and Indiana. And I think Illinois holding out, I think, might have the result of keeping Indiana out. Last question on this. What are the technical aspects of being able to do this prior to 2026? What are some deadlines that we have to keep in mind? Can you just give some insight into how the process would actually work? and how quickly it would be able to move?

47:55Yeah, good question. Because Illinois is in a kind of a difficult situation. We have our primary very early in March of next year, and the deadline for turning in your signatures has already passed in order to get on the ballot. So what would have to happen would be that we'd have to create a new deadline and have people go collect signatures in those new districts if there was redistricting. And then we'd have to set that deadline so that you could actually print the ballots with the new names that would be on the ballot, because no doubt in redistricting, you'd have some new people running, maybe some people not running.

48:38And so I think a lot of change would have to take place. Remember, March 17th is not very long from now. So a whole lot would have to change. And a lot of people would have to go out in the middle of winter, basically collecting signatures. But it's been done before it could happen again. OK, so switching gears here, finally, I want to hit on one more topic, and that is the idea of ICE having come into Illinois. Can you give any update as to where that stands, especially in light of the fact that not only did Judge April Perry rule against Trump's ability to be able to deploy the troops there, but we had the Seventh Circuit uphold that decision?

49:17That's right. So there are really two big cases that are happening at once. They're ongoing. One of them is the one you just described about the National Guard. And that, of course, is reaching all the way to the Supreme Court. We'll see what they rule. But so far, we've won at every level. They're keeping National Guard out of – federalized National Guard out of the city of Chicago and the surrounding areas. So that's one issue. The other is that there's another case, Judge Ellis. It's a private case in federal court, not one brought by the attorney general. And in federal court, we have been winning there as well in the private case.

49:58We being all of us who know that ICE and CBP have overstepped the bounds of their authority. And in fact, that court is limiting their ability to, for example, use tear gas to, you know, go arrest people without showing any identification, et cetera. We're winning, you know, in every one of those motions that's been brought. But those cases remain and are being actively litigated. Let me add, though, that we're also we've created an accountability commission, the Illinois Accountability Commission, headed by two former federal judges, very well respected and with members of it that are well respected from all walks of life.

50:44And that Accountability Commission is gathering evidence so that people could go to court in order to limit ICE and CBP in their activities going forward. So, OK, that's another thing that's happened. And then there's new news, which has happened in the last 24 hours. News that Gregory Bovino, who's been leading the CBP and ICE effort on the ground here in Chicago and has just been terrible for our communities. I mean, it's traumatized our children. They've done, you know, they brought in Blackhawk helicopters and they've been attacking buildings in our city, really making things very unsafe and frankly, costing the taxpayers of the country a lot, not to mention the economy of the Midwest.

51:32He has announced that he is leaving and taking with him 150 of the 250 ICE and CBP officers that are on the ground. So they'll still have a presence here. It'll be much smaller and we'll still be litigating against their presence here and what they're doing anyway. And so that's been kind of big news, headline news in the Chicago Sun-Times and Tribune. And we're very hopeful that we can bring the temperature down and importantly limit what ICE and CBP are doing. Because remember, I know that Trump wants to bring troops into our cities. He's got aims that are much beyond immigration. He wants to affect the 2026 elections by posting them at polling places.

52:21But meanwhile, he's got troops on the ground with ICE and CBP. They're wearing uniforms. They're carrying automatic weapons. They're frightening the heck out of the citizens of my state. You know, the residents here are people are having to walk around with proof of U.S. citizenship. Do you carry proof of U.S. citizenship? I don't. And you shouldn't have to. But brown and black people literally are just being stopped because of the color of their skin and asked to prove who they are. Now, I believe that Donald Trump is also kind of using the facts of our having reduced crime over the last four years to now say as they're retreating that, oh, look what he's done to reduce crime in Chicago.

53:10It's complete BS. And of course, we've cut the homicide rate in half here. All of the violent crime rates have gone down by double digits every year, by the way, for the last four years. So, you know, Donald Trump now wants to claim victory and go home kind of like Gorbachev in Afghanistan way back when. You know, how do you retreat? We'll just declare victory while you're pulling out. Right. So we'll see. I mean, I'm very concerned, nevertheless, for the people who live in Little Village and Pilsen and throughout the Chicagoland area and, you know, their safety and security. So I'm just, you know, Gregory Bovino is somebody people should pay attention to.

53:50You don't hear a lot about Tom Holman, do you, anymore? He's not on any of the programs. Seems like ever since everybody found out that he was being bribed and has been investigated by DOJ, you don't see him anymore. But Gregory Bovino is the guy you should pay attention to because he's about to go to Charlotte, North Carolina, and attack the people of that community as well. You know, just on the point that you made about accepting bribes, it really is open season in the Republican Party. Not only did Trump try to get$230 million from the DOJ, and we'll wait and see what happens on that front, but that little provision tucked into the CR, the continuing resolution, allowing Republican senators to be able to get anywhere from$500 ,000 to$1 million because they were rightly implicated in the investigation into January 6th.

54:36And so really, again, just open season, if any Republicans want to pill for the federal government or take money or take bribes, you know, clearly they see that in Trump's new kleptocracy, they have carte blanche to do exactly that. One last question on the pulling out out of Chicago. Do you have any indication as to why they did that? Is that related to the Seventh Circuit decision or is it for a separate reason entirely? It's unclear. I mean, it is true that they have been losing time and time again. We have done everything that we can to push back, and they've been unsuccessful here the way that they had hoped to.

55:15You know that Stephen Miller set a quota for arrests and detainment and deportations, and they haven't been able to meet that in Chicago, in part because of the work that we've done to support people on the ground so they would know their rights and to take them to court and limit their ability. You know, look, I want them to take the criminals away. We got violent criminals. Trust me, I would like them out of my city, out of my state. That's not what they're doing. This is not about the worst of the worst. They are going after just regular folks, people who are holding down jobs, paying taxes, law abiding, some undocumented people who've been here for decades.

55:54Yeah. And yet, you know, and, you know, these are people that we ought to be protecting. They ought to go after the worst of the worst. If you're undocumented and you're committing crimes, I don't want you here. They're not coordinating with us. They're not working with us to make that happen. I'd like them to help us get criminals off the streets. But again, Donald Trump isn't doing that. We'll leave it there. Governor Pritzker, thanks so much for your time, as always. Thank you. I'm joined now by the co-host of Pod Save America, John Lovett. Lovett, thanks for joining me. Thanks, Brian. So we have just seen Donald Trump engage in yet another effort to figure out his way to wiggle out of the Epstein situation.

56:33He posted onto To Social. Now that the Democrats are using the Epstein hoax involving Democrats, not Republicans, to try and deflect from their disastrous shutdown and all of their other failures, I'll be asking AG, Pam Bondi and the DOJ together with our great patriots at the FBI to investigate Jeffrey Epstein's involvement with Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, Reid Hoffman, JPMorgan Chase, and many other people and institutions. So basically what he's looking to do is focus all of the attention, not on him, but on a bunch of Democrats. So is he trying to negatively polarize this thing so it devolves into the usual D versus R fight?

57:04I don't know. Who knows? He's flailing. They've been all over the place. I do think part of this is that they underestimate Democratic partisan loyalties. They underestimate how much Democrats would care about this threat. Because I bet if you asked most Democrats, including most Democrats in Congress, would you take a bipartisan, full-throated expose by the Justice Department, investigation by the Justice Department into everybody? It'd be like, yes, if it affects Democrats or don't, like who cares? Like, we don't we don't care about that. Like, we take that deal. Like, yeah, go after everybody who is involved in Jeffrey Epstein.

57:44Now, I do think it's worth saying, like, if they are trying to smear people to draw attention away from what is a very deep and long relationship that Donald Trump had with Jeffrey Epstein to go after people because they have a D next to their name or their big Democratic donors. Like, you know, that's gross. But yeah, man, investigate anybody and let the chips fall where they may. I think it betrays his worldview, too, because he thinks that because he exists within this cult of personality around him, that the same is true of everybody else. Like this is a very egocentric worldview where he's like, no matter what I do, I'll always have people who will defend me no matter what.

58:29I mean, he himself said I can shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue. I won't lose any fans. And so he thinks if he confers that same ideology onto the other side, it's like, oh, if if if I throw Bill Clinton into the mix, then like these people are going to just immediately run to his aid in the way that anybody runs to a politician's aid, because that's how I've that's how I've created this worldview. Yeah, totally. And so it's both like it's it's so it's both that like he thinks this is some kind of a threat. It's also a bluff. Right. Because that's Caroline Levitt is in the briefing room saying this is a distraction.

59:05This is like, is it a hoax or is it something that needs to be investigated by the Department of Justice? If if Donald Trump wants people to move on, a really great way to do the opposite of that is to suggest you're going to bring DOJ resources into investigating aspects of it. The the the House Republicans have been trying to do this. Comer has been trying to do this, make it about Democrats like I don't think it's going to work because if you're talking about Epstein, the facts are the facts. They're out in front of us. You can try to make it a story about just a subset of the names in the trove of fucking emails.

59:42But like we all have eyeballs. We're all seeing this. The news is covering this. It's not going to work. And so, you know, there is the fact that there are a few people in the right wing media ecosystem who have come out and opted to defend him. Benny Johnson reduced it to just a naughty offense. That's literally the word that he used. Mike Johnson, of course, continues to call it a distraction. Here's what Megyn Kelly said. As for Epstein, I've said this before, but just as a reminder, I do know somebody very, very close to this case who is in a position to know virtually everything. Not everything, but virtually everything.

1:00:14And this person has told me from the start years and years ago that Jeffrey Epstein, in this person's view, was not a pedophile. This is this person's view, who was there for a lot of this, but that he was into the barely legal type. He liked 15 year old girls. And I realize this is disgusting. I'm definitely not trying to make an excuse for this. I'm just giving you facts that he wasn't into like eight year olds, but he liked the very young teen types that could pass for even younger than they were, but would look legal to a passerby. And that is what I believed. And that was what I reliably was told for many years.

1:00:55And it wasn't until we heard from Pam Bondi that they had tens of thousands of videos of alleged, forgive me, they used to call it kiddie porn. Now they call it child sexual abuse material on his computer that for the first time I thought, oh no, he was an actual pedophile. I mean, only a pedophile gets off on young children abuse videos. She's never clarified it. I don't know whether it's true. I have to be honest. I don't really trust Pam bondi's word on the epstein matters anymore yeah so i don't know what's true about him but we have yet to see anybody come forward and say i was a like a i was under 10 i was under 14 when i first came within his purview i look it's you can say that's a distinction without a difference no it's not i think there is a difference there's there's a difference between a 15 year old and a five year Such an important point, Megan.

1:01:54Thank you so much. It is genuinely upsetting to me to see this turn for a couple of reasons. One, I know we're all bored to death of hypocrisy, but these are people that have been saying girls aren't safe in locker rooms. These are people that are going after fucking drag queens for reading stories. These are people claiming all kinds of ridiculous, fantastical, horrible things about trans people. And now we're dancing on the head of a pin as to whether or not someone is technically a pedophile, if they like pubescent fucking girls who are still children. And what an interesting intellectual exercise.

1:02:39A story came out this week that looked at the girl that Matt Gaetz allegedly had paid for sex. And it was the first time we got this level of detail about her life. And it turns out that she was a junior in high school who was 17, who was at times living in a homeless shelter because one of her parents was homeless, who was trying to save up money for fucking braces, whose life was chaotic and insecure and who ends up in this disgusting sex party where there are drugs and where she is being exploited by these adult men. No, she wasn't eight years old. She was 17. Okay. Fucking disgusting. It's monstrous.

1:03:39And it like, why now are we like, this is an important point to you in this moment. Now that it's sort of casting a pall over the Trump administration, this is depraved conduct. This is a, like a collection of people who are willing to, whether participate in or look past evil and allow this person into polite society because he had money, even though he had pled guilty to charges related to this. This is someone with access to some of the most powerful people in our society who just clearly dehumanized these fucking girls and young women because the culture said that was okay. If you can't, like, I find it like so disturbing that these people are casting about for excuses and caveats like this.

1:04:35Like, what are we doing here? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, the, like, talk about a straw man. Like, as if anybody's out there saying that anybody is eight years old to begin with, like, that's never been the issue at hand. There's never been any doubt about the age other than just to recognize that these are minors and that what happened at the hands of Epstein was rape. And so this notion that Megyn Kelly needs to come out and say, well, technically he wasn't a pedophile, he was an ephebophile, is so backwards. And I guess it raises the question, why die on this hill? Especially given the fact that we watched an entire campaign cycle where they stake so much of their brands on this idea that they needed to expose this very degree of corruption and depravity.

1:05:23I mean, we heard from damn near everybody, whether it was Cash Patel, whether it was Dan Bongino, Pam Bond, I mean, on and on, J.D. Vance, every single person in this administration has come out and staked their reputation on this idea that these files need to be released. It was important enough for them to bring it out on the campaign trail, to trot it out so many times. And so why die on this hill of whether you're doing what Megyn Kelly is doing, which is like, well, technically they weren't pedophiles, they were aphibophiles, or whether it's what Benny Johnson's doing, which is just to say, you know, oh, okay, this was like some naughty email, whatever, or Mike Johnson saying that it was a distraction.

1:06:01Look, I think everybody's got their own like strange motivations. I mean, Megyn Kelly in that moment does say it's disgusting. I think even as she's saying it, She's kind of introducing this almost like, well, let's we can say the truth and this is the truth. And it's worth saying, even if it like that, that that like we are fearless in the face of the actual facts here. And so it still sounds like a hedge. Of course, of course. But but I do think it goes to something deeper right now on the right. And it's something Megyn Kelly has been pretty explicit about. Put aside this specific story. Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson were both on Megyn Kelly's show.

1:06:41in back-to-back conversations. And Ben Shapiro actually did an excellent job of just tearing apart the ways in which Tucker Carlson has become a vehicle for introducing far-right fucking Hitler apology historians and all of this disgusting shit, including a very soft conversation with Nick Fuentes. And in Meghan trying to defend Tucker Carlson while claiming she's not defending Tucker Carlson, what you see is someone who is willing to bend over backwards for people who she views as ideological allies. She has such an endless amount of generosity and openness and forgiveness for people who she views as on her team.

1:07:35and she's said explicitly that she wants to not punch right, she wants to not do, that she views the left as such an organizing threat that she doesn't want to do anything to antagonize her own side. Not in so many words, but that is the gist of what she's been saying. And so you have this person who is willing to say, to just to cast all Democrats in this terrible light and to describe the left in these Manichean terms. Meanwhile, on her own side, you have this disgusting and depraved story. And she's looking for all the ways in which she can talk around it. And what I would say, and maybe this is a lesson for everybody, which is we got to be willing to be generous with our opponents and hard on our allies when like the moral stakes are so fucking clear.

1:08:23Like she's somebody who posted, she feared for Virginia because Jay Jones, who had sent some fucking awful texts, had won the attorney general's race. And it's like, I don't need anybody to like Jay Jones. If you think Jay Jones shouldn't be attorney general, even though he apologized, fine. But he's a menace whose forgiveness is impossible, whose apologies can't be real, who deserves no quarter. But when it comes to your own side, when it's Tucker Carlson talking to someone who's like Churchill was the real villain of World War II or that it was like anti-Christian to wanna fucking kill Hitler, it's like, let's think about all the ways in which we can see the full spirit of Tucker Carlson as a human being worthy of our generosity.

1:09:04And it's like, at some point, like you're saying the quiet powder out loud, which is the right can do no wrong and the left can do no right. And it's fucking shitty. You know, when we look back at the war in Iraq stuff, it became clear after the fact, a little, quite a bit after the fact, that the people who voted to, you know, in favor of this thing were on the wrong side of history. and the people who voted against it, few though they may be, or few though there were, they were on the right side of history. And so Massey had kind of alluded to that as it relates to the Epstein files. He basically said there's going to come a point where Trump isn't going to be there to defend you.

1:09:42And so while you're casting your vote on the upcoming discharge petition vote to release the files next week in the House, you have to remember that, that Trump won't be on the campaign trail with you and on, you know, 2028, 20, 2030, 2032. And so how are you thinking about that in relation to this Epstein situation? Like, do you think that it matters for these people or is the threat of Trump looming over them and the threat of being the subject of his ire so great that they would ignore the fact that they will be casting a vote basically to run cover for a pedophile, a pedophile ring? Like, are they thinking about it in the same lens as the Iraq war and how they'll be remembered for a depraved vote?

1:10:29Or are we just so calcified in our polarization and so afraid of daddy Trump that even if it means we have to literally protect a pedophile ring, that's a vote that they're perfectly willing to take? I think we're going to learn a lot next week. It's very interesting that Trump brought Lauren Boebert to the White House to try to buttonhole her into voting no, because once Grijalva was seated, they needed to pull one person off. They couldn't get her, right? They can't get Marjorie Taylor Greene. They can't get Thomas Massey. Massey and Conor did an interview, and they thought the defections could be as high as 30, 40, 50.

1:11:08Some people have estimated the defections could be as high as 100 from the Republicans, which would, by the way, also be a veto proof majority out of the House because this would still have to go to the Senate and then go to Trump. It is amazing what a week and a half can do. Two weeks ago, Trump was joking about never leaving. He's never been more of a lame duck than he is right now. If he can't hold like he's going to lose this vote, that's done. And because he's going to lose this vote and it's going to be on the record, Mike Johnson tried to do what's called unanimous consent to try to get it through without anybody having to be on the record.

1:11:44I think that is both because he knows a lot of his members are afraid to vote yes and he knows a lot of his members are afraid to vote no. But I think that the floodgates could really open and that is going to make Trump look incredibly weak. It's also then going to go to the House, to the Senate, where all of a sudden a bunch of these senators can be like, what the what what what equity is there for me in voting no on this fucking thing? um so i i think it really exposes that like it's in a strange way like kind of normal politics trump is just not as powerful uh to these guys and that's the point massey's making right it's not yes these guys don't history votes for history these guys are barely able to think one yeah and it's been interesting too like what issues can people break with trump on one of them for a long time has been budget, right?

1:12:33That especially in his first term, there were Republicans, House Freedom Caucus members who said, look, they are MAGA all the way through and through, but they won't vote for increasing the deficit. That's an ideological conviction that is deep for them. And I think quite real as misguided in some ways, as I think it is. And that was hard for Trump. He had to navigate that because there were people that were willing to buck him. And it's interesting how Epstein becomes that too, right? Because it almost gets at the like the deep motivations beneath the right, one of which is a kind of anti-tax, anti-government spirit.

1:13:11And the other is a conspiratorial anti-establishment spirit. And those are things Trump has tried to harness. But it's very dangerous for him to bucket. And this is an issue where clearly like, look, just step all the way back. Donald Trump is doing the worst fucking politics on earth for him, which is fighting the release of the Epstein files when everyone thought he was the guy that they were sending to undo the fucking deep state cabal that was protecting Epstein and his powerful friends. Or is it the second worst politics for Trump, which is whatever's in this shit is worse. It is worth what the what they're doing here, which is so suspicious.

1:13:52Boebert said this. Boebert is like, why are they fucking pushing me so hard against this? It makes me only more sure that we've got to undo, you've got to get this information into the light because it sure reeks of a conspiracy. And it's like, Lauren, babe, I'm with you. Like, I can't believe how much this has made all of us conspiracy theorists because for years, this was, you know, Pizzagate and secret codes and emails and a cabal of Hollywood Democrats and fucking Jews protecting a ring of high-level Mossad pedophiles, whatever the full breadth of the conspiracy was. Then all of a sudden, Donald Trump is president, and there really is a group of people inside the Department of Justice preventing us from understanding what is going on with Epstein.

1:14:32As Ghislaine Maxwell, one of the most despicable fucking sex traffickers of notoriety in American history, like Epstein's girlfriend pimp, is being, what, given a dog to pet and transferred to a minimum security fucking prison with no explanation? Are you kidding me? Dodd Blanche goes and interviews her and does a softball interview that these emails now clearly make us, these emails now make clear either he was trying to avoid the truth, didn't know how to get at the truth, or was snowed by this person. Like, Lauren Boat, like, how bad has Trump managed this? How fucking deep does this go? Lauren Boebert and I are equally conspiratorial at this point.

1:15:18Last question here on this. I'm mad. And that is on Dan Bongino and Kash Patel specifically. They're in the same space. They specifically predicated their identities, their whole persona on this idea. How do they stay a part of an administration that is right now orchestrating the largest cover-up of a pedophile ring in the history of this country and then come out on the other side of this thing having even a scintilla of credibility, having any of their reputation intact. No, I mean, with their reputations, I have no fucking idea. They're really in it. They're really in it. And they don't know what to do.

1:15:56They're posting through it. They're trying to figure out how to get to the other side of this thing. There's no way, like even if one of them left today, I mean, we are 10 months into this thing. There's no way for them to preserve any modicum of their branding, is there? Well, I the the problem, right? I have I have no I don't think so. I mean the problem right is like You know, they do an interview where they're like, okay, we've looked at it We're now on the inside Epstein did kill himself and

1:16:25They are really trapped right because Their assertions of what the conspiracy is, okay We're probably never going to put them in a position to deliver for the base while at the same time, the actual conspiracy is one that they now are complicit in. Right. Right. And so on the one end, they told a story that they were never going to be able to prove. On the other hand, they do have access to a way to tell everybody what happened, but they can't, but they fucking can't. So they are pretty well stuck. It is, it is like a remarkable, it is a remarkable thing that, that, that, I mean, And I definitely feel don't you feel stunned by like just how like these emails you're finding out that we don't yet know the details and we don't know.

1:17:14We can't confirm this is based on Epstein's fucking emails. And obviously he's a scumbag and a liar and alive. But now there's an email where he implies that he saw Trump after Trump became president on Thanksgiving of 2017, which is, if true, like a total obliteration of every excuse and story we've heard so far. So shockingly, a decade into this scandal or more, like we're still kind of at the beginning. And it puts Trump in the unenviable position of being on the wrong side of the conspiracy theory in which Democrats and everybody who wants the truth, including Thomas fucking Massey and Marjorie Taylor Greene, can be out there saying, what did he know and when did he know it?

1:17:58How know it? How deep does it go? What is the truth? Release the information. And that can go on for fucking ever. Yeah. The irony of the fact that emails would end up being Trump's unraveling, his undoing. And at some point, somebody will find out what the fuck Merrick Garland was doing over there for a couple of years. Yeah. Just sort of protecting the institution. Yeah. That very quickly on that point. That is that is the you know, when I think about the failures of this administration and even when Republicans rightly say, why wasn't this stuff released? I agree. Why wasn't this stuff released?

1:18:29What was Merrick Garland doing? And I think he is the perfect microcosm for the impotence of not just that administration, but a democratic mentality more broadly of being circumspect and judicious and not giving the optics of politicization to a fault. Yes, that legitimacy isn't born by a fucking consensus between the parties. Legitimacy is born of executing the laws in a way that is not worried about the optics. And they got that completely backwards. James Comey, Merrick Garland, Mueller, all of them. And we live in the wake of what they chose to do, which is to put the appearance of propriety ahead of actually defending the legitimacy of these institutions.

1:19:20and now we have a bunch of hacks and frauds and goons abusing their power and politicizing these agencies because when they had the moment to protect our democracy, they chose avoiding criticism over doing the hard thing and letting history judge. And a good lesson for all of us, I would say. We'll leave it there. For anybody who's watching right now, if you're not yet subscribed to Pod Save America's YouTube channel, I'm going to put the link right here on the screen and also in the post description of this video. If you're listening on the podcast, check out the show notes. Love it. As always, thanks for your time.

1:19:54PTC, love ya. Thanks again to Bernie Sanders, Jamie Raskin, J.B. Pritzker, and John Lovett. That's it for this episode. Talk to you next week. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen. Produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesley, and interviews edited for YouTube by Nicholas Nicotera. If you want to support the show, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app and leave a five-star rating and a review. And as always, you can find me at Brian Tyler Cohen on all of my other channels, or you can go to BrianTylerCohen.com to learn more.