Billionaire Les Wexner Testifies About Epstein Ties

18:53Ari Melber:Why? Because she's one of Trump's secretaries. So it's a kakasakashi, as the word that gets tossed around. I know it's a word I didn't know well, but it means governance by the inept, and that's what we're suffering through.

19:08Ty Cobb:Yeah, as you say, inept and nepotism and patronage carrying more weight than anything else, which, as you know, is also the opposite of what Trump had famously claimed in his campaigns. He said that because he was wealthy, he would have less corruption incentive, and it was really the public officials that you have to worry about. It's the opposite. I want to show you Christy Noem, who at one point might have been fighting for her job over all the ICE outrage. And she at DHS getting involved in the voting discussion. Take a listen.

19:38Les Wexner:When it gets to Election Day that we've been proactive to make sure that we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders to lead this country.

19:46Ty Cobb:Is that the proper approach of a security official and related? What is your legal view of the limits on ICE under current law to be out in a way that might be voter intimidation in any voting period when we get to the midterms?

20:05Ari Melber:So that's an excellent question. I think we're going to see the courts gradually parse through that. You know, ICE actually has no local law enforcement authority in any of the states. They're only supposed to manage the limited number of federal crimes entrusted to them. And they shouldn't be there, but it's going to take a series of court battles, I think, to prevent them from being there. And it may come down to a conflict between, you know, state national guards and ICE, absent an implication of the Insurrection Act, which I think we will see in advance of the election. So I think people should be very, very concerned and very, very animated about what's coming.

20:49Ari Melber:Kerry Kasparov, of course, has, you know, the noted Russian dissident and former world chess champion, has been very outspoken about, you know, the gulags that are being built around the country and the fact that they're intended not only to house illegally detained immigrants, of which we have thousands now, but also likely dissidents and people of color on a going forward basis. What is happening in this country?

21:12Ty Cobb:You don't think that's just an international parallel gone too far. You believe that's something that Trump would try to do and get away with? So I'll put it this way.

21:25Ari Melber:You know, Trump is deporting people on a trajectory and at a pace that's not very different from the number of deportations that happened under Obama. However, the number of illegally detained people is extraordinarily high. And and he's building, you know, dozens of prisons to house up to 8000 people. We've never needed that before. that's well over 150 ,000 beds. Who are they for? And who are they going to be for when the detainees are gone? This is, as Derek Esparov says, this is not a drill.

22:08Ty Cobb:Yeah, that's powerful coming from his knowledge of the world and your concern about a man you once served in the White House. Ty, stay with me. That brings us to another question here about how people are trying to fight back and thwart this. I want to ask you when we come back. Sure.

22:26Les Wexner:CIDP can make your daily routine feel not so routine. The good news? With a self-injection for chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, you have the option to treat at home. Discover more at CIDPSelfinjection.com and talk to your doctor. That's C-I-D-P Selfinjection.com Brought to you by Argenics OnDeck is built To back small businesses like yours Whether you're buying equipment Expanding your team or bridging cash flow gaps OnDeck's loans up to$400 ,000 Help make it happen fast Rated A-plus by the Better Business Bureau And earning thousands of Five-star Trustpilot reviews OnDeck delivers funding you can count on Apply in minutes at OnDeck.com Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank.

23:18Les Wexner:OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval. If you're a parent and want to help set up your child for success, then IXL is right for your family. As an effective and affordable online learning program, IXL covers math, language arts, science, and social studies, using interactive practice problems for kids from pre-K to 12th grade. Listeners can get an exclusive 20 % off IXL membership when they sign up today at IXL.com slash 20. Visit IXL.com slash 20 to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price.

23:56Ty Cobb:We're back with Ty Cobb, a former federal prosecutor, a White House veteran lawyer under Donald Trump in the first term. We were discussing why you say to take Russian dissident Gary Kastrov's warning about illegal detentions in this country seriously, your concerns about your former boss and client, Trump, pursuing martial law. Some of the pushback we've seen on the election front, Virginia redistricting goes forward, but the Supreme Court's considering an appeal. Florida voters suing to block Republicans trying the mid-decade redistricting, something that may violate the tradition. And different courts are figuring out whether to allow that kind of constitutional hardball.

24:36Ty Cobb:Supreme Court is letting California use what is a Democratic-friendly congressional map, which in that state they won famously only pushing back on what MAGA had tried. How do you view that as a kind of a signal to what courts will do with what could be the more emergency problems on a faster basis going into the midterms that you were outlining?

24:58Ari Melber:So I think that the California decision by the Supreme Court is basically part and parcel of their decision in Texas, which they'd made earlier, allowing the Republicans to move forward with redistricting. And there's really no distinction between the two decisions and the reasoning, even though Trump, of course, championed the Texas redistricting, but, you know, criticized the California because it's, you know, Democrats and Republicans. That's not the way the country is supposed to be governed. It's supposed to be governed as a unified system of people for all the people. With regard to the other patchwork quilt of states, you have maybe five states, maybe six, actually, with things in play.

25:45Ari Melber:I think the reality there, though, is it's coming a little late in the game and there will be appeals and delays. And that gets right up against the Supreme Court's precedent about, you know, they're not going to make changes late in the game. So I'm not sure how consequential any of these current efforts will be. And then you look at Trump's lies about, you know, the perils of mail-in voting. I mean, Florida probably has the most mail-in votes of any state in the country. It's a Republican bastion. I don't think there's any basis for that. And and but the level of election interference isn't just in terms of the SAVE Act, which is, of course, just another fascist brick in the prison that's being built around us.

26:32Ari Melber:But it's in what's going on in the Fulton County case, the Fulton County case where the feds went in and, you know, notwithstanding legal proceedings in the state involving the same ballots, disrupted all that, submitted an affidavit, which I don't know a single legal person who's reviewed the affidavit who believes that there's actual probable cause in there. In fact, the case agent who filed the affidavit noted that, you know, that he was basically relying on deficiencies, you know, cited by a Trump election denier, Kurt Olson, you know, who represented Carrie Lake in Arizona trying to contest her election, failed and has, you know, flailed with a bunch of allegations.

27:19Ari Melber:Back in 2020, Bill Barr told Trump, you know, we're just false. So now he's recycling these. And the case agent pointed out that with regard to the allegations in the indictment, you know, they were only they could only be a crime if there was evidence, not not citing evidence, but saying this is only a crime if there is evidence. And that's that is not the standard for issuing a warrant. So we're seeing a full scale onslaught in the courts and the legislatures and and presumptively, based on what Trump has promised and Bannon has promised, we'll see ice in the streets trying to intimidate witnesses and and prevent the elections from going smoothly in in blue states and key precincts.

28:01Ty Cobb:Well, and as you said tonight, it may take the local activism like we saw in Minnesota backed by the local authorities, National Guard, to say what are local elections mean if not actually physically protecting voters from what could be a federal incursion? I mean, that's where the rubber hits the road, so to speak. As always, Ty Cobb, we benefit from your experience. Thank you very much. I'm going to tell folks what's coming up. Yes, sir. These tech billionaires now are in what some call a new gilded age as we look at the job cuts, the Trump slump, and yet the stock's going up for a lot of folks.

28:33Ty Cobb:The billionaires now spending more on campaigns than ever before. My breakdown is next.

28:41Les Wexner:CIDP can make your daily routine feel not so routine. The good news? With a self-injection for chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, you have the option to treat at home. Discover more at CIDPSelfinjection.com and talk to your doctor. That's CIDPSelfinjection.com. Brought to you by Argenix.

29:07Ty Cobb:OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to$400 ,000 make it happen fast. Rated A-plus by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star Trustpilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at OnDeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank.

29:31Les Wexner:OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota all loans and amounts subject to lender approval. If you're a parent and want to help set up your child for success, then IXL is a right for your family. As an effective and affordable online learning program, IXL covers math, language arts, science, and social studies using interactive practice problems for kids from pre-K to 12th grade. Listeners can get an exclusive 20 % off IXL membership when they sign up today at IXL.com slash 20. Visit ixl.com slash 20 to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price.

30:10Ty Cobb:Today, billionaire tech mogul Mark Zuckerberg faced questions under oath, and this was in a venue that his money could not evade. In court, he took the stand in a major, some say landmark case, depending on what happens, that tries to hold some big tech accountable for peddling addictive products, sometimes to children. The company denies these allegations, but Facebook, Instagram, Meta are but one of several companies that reap profits from all kinds of stuff online. Maybe not all of it is questionable or even harmful, but some of it, according to evidence in this trial, is, and they are reaping a lot of money.

30:50Ty Cobb:Tech-facing criticism that it is essentially now, especially in certain contexts or with children, more like tobacco than just something that you Google to get some information. That they profit off harm. And they profit handsomely. Because that's one piece, what they're doing and whether it's good, even if it's good business, and then how it's affecting our society, inequality. Now let me tell you up top, America has had many evolving debates over capitalism over the years. Over wealth. Over the difference between greed, or the 80s idea that greed is good, said some, and excess, or the bubbles that burst and seem to hurt everyone.

31:29Ty Cobb:Today's Gilded Age, though, is clearly dominated by one industry. Nine of the ten richest people in the U.S. are all in tech, and they have been vastly growing their multi-billion dollar fortunes in just the last decade. So what started as huge is now just bananas. If you just take these people on your screen, some of them famous, maybe some of them less so, they have a combined$2 trillion in wealth. But they're not just sitting on that money to run their tech empires. As you may have noticed, they're increasingly using the money to buy up everything else that they think has power, from major media, MAGA allies buying TV and newspapers, Colbert is in a clash about that this week, to the social media, which is on trial in that courtroom today.

32:12Ty Cobb:Musk famously put his fortune from other tech companies to buy Twitter. and that made him even more relevant as he sought influence over U.S. politics, where he's an immigrant, and with Donald Trump. Remember, Musk is his biggest political donor. Trump might want you to forget that and they had their odd relationship, but Musk spent a quarter of a billion dollars on Trump alone, plus wielding the efforts and influence of X, which got him at least a temporary job atop the administration last year. or Amazon's Jeff Bezos, who has done many things that many people in business say are positive, creating jobs, changing the way commerce works online.

32:55Cool.

32:56Ty Cobb:But lately, as a tech billionaire, he's doing a lot of other stuff, cozying up to Trump, taking the Washington Post, which once said democracy dies in darkness, and now in this new Trump era, absolutely gutting what is one of the last American print institutions laying off close to half of the team there. Or Trump's adult sons who are getting in on tech just from the other direction of government. Today, they did a joint interview about a very controversial walk-in conflict of interest, $500 million investment that they got in their crypto company. Take a look.

33:32Les Wexner:I want to ask you about, you know, the World Liberty Corporation, which has been in the news. And there was this big Wall Street Journal report about the 49 % stake that was sold to an Amradi royal family member after your father was elected president, raising questions about whether they were doing that so they could get access to AI chips?

33:52Ty Cobb:A, my father has nothing to do with. B, it has nothing to do with AI chips. We've been dealing with the conflict of interest stuff for years. I mean, they tried all this nonsense the first time around. Frankly, it's gotten old. They were the ones that put us into this position by creating legislation to try to put us out of business. We just fought back. The answer doesn't even fully make sense. Obviously, the United States has laws that govern business like everyone else. And if laws are passed in our bipartisan process to constrain or regulate business, and remember, after the housing crash and the earlier tech bubble, people wanted more of those kind of regulations so that you, the taxpayer, don't end up having to bail out people like that.

34:31Ty Cobb:Whether or not this was an actual illegal bribe or quid pro quo would have to be investigated, and nobody's waiting on this Trump DOJ. Paul Krugman, Nobel economist, says wealth in America is now more concentrated in a few hands than it was during the Gilded Age, and this increase in concentrated wealth at the top translates into increased power. Remember, it's not enough to just be the richest person in the world. Apparently, the appetite is stoked to then control media and television and other tech. These individuals are flourishing under an American capitalism that we all share, that we all put into, whether or not they are paying their fair taxes or should have control over all our media and our politics are open questions.

35:13Ty Cobb:Buying up media companies, plowing money into campaigns, which make your$50 monthly Bernie Sanders donation look a little quaint. We have been through parts of this before, sometimes pre-crash, sometimes in our culture, 1980s New York, where decadence and excess became not only accepted, but kind of celebrated. What you might see in today's Instagram stunting of people trying to show they are as wealthy as possible or more wealthy than they are has echoes in these other periods in our history. Some of them didn't end that well. Take Bright Lights, Big City, one of my favorites if you happen to watch this show, the novel and movie which looked at all kinds of excesses.

36:01Ty Cobb:Have you ever noticed how the good words start with D? D and L. You know, drugs, delight, decadence.

36:10Les Wexner:Debauchery.

36:11Ari Melber:Dexedrine.

36:14Ty Cobb:Delectable, debilitated, deranged.

36:18Les Wexner:Delinquent.

36:19Ty Cobb:Delirium.

36:20Les Wexner:And L, lush and luscious. Rangorous. Librium.

36:27Ari Melber:Libidinous.

36:30Ty Cobb:when does a little fun become debauchery? When does a habit become an addiction? Whether it was the drinks and other stuff in that novel or today's phones that we're told are just making us smarter, but they might be making us more addicted than we even realize. And who's going to pay the tab? I'm going to put that question to the great author, Jay McInerney, who of course wrote that novel and has insights for us when we come back.

37:04Les Wexner:The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.

37:25Ty Cobb:And if you thought that was a bad guy in business, Well, look where we are today. That was a famous creed from Wall Street of the 80s. We are joined now by another 80s classic, Jay McInerney, who's written 11 books, including the iconic Bright Lights, Big City. Welcome back. Thank you. Thank you. Was that Elon Musk with Charlie Sheen? Exactly. What are you seeing out here among the Bezoses and the Zuckerbergs?

37:50Les Wexner:Well, you know, I'm an early Bezos hater because I made my living from books and selling them mostly. And Bezos was an early disruptor and a very bad player in our industry, in publishing and the book selling industry. And he really cut into a lot of people's livelihoods. And so I wasn't as surprised as some people might be when I saw what he did. I've seen what he's been doing to The Washington Post. I mean, it's just disgraceful. He wrote in as a savior and he's now presiding over the destruction of an incredible media legacy.

38:30Ty Cobb:And you had determined from his business actions that you knew something about his values or his priorities.

38:38Les Wexner:Yeah, I mean, he posed as a liberal for a while, but and a friend of, I don't know if he ever posed as a friend of the common man, but he's now, like so many tech bros, converted to a Trump collaborator, an enabler. And, I mean, it's kind of shocking to see how quickly the tech community has sort of migrated to that side. I know billionaires in the 80s and 90s, they were, first of all, not as numerous. And secondly, I think they were better behaved. You know, they mostly picked on CEOs with the one exception of the Koch brothers. They were always playing this game that these guys are now playing.

39:31Ty Cobb:It would seem that the culture of a society matters. I think we agree on that. Yeah? Yes, absolutely. The culture of tech feels now that it's absorbed different than the finance of the 80s or the old barons who hurt a lot of people in their labor practices, but were actually building things. does it matter that so many of these companies in the culture around them are very top heavy and a few people benefit the things they build though aren't really out here for us they're they're just all a lot of virtual stuff that's feeding people into these algorithms does it matter for our culture that we're ruled by these techies instead of the former elites um well i think

40:17Les Wexner:I hate to be nostalgic for a time that I wasn't really even conscious, but the captains of industry used to be the millionaires, if not the billionaires. They were building brick-and-mortar institutions and systems of distribution. That just feels a lot different than the sources of wealth today. I don't think none of those people that you put on the screen were running a company that provides goods.

40:54Ty Cobb:I guess the Internet. Yeah, most of them are virtual. Bezos would say he's an intermediary for goods. And Musk, of course, famously has a car company among his empire. But yes, most of this is virtual. And a lot of it benefits off just people's use. So everybody Googles and everybody will rise the algorithm one way or another, but they're sort of in control, but not sated. I mean, they're much more political now, we see, than prior robber barons and such. They sort of have decided they got to be in it or they're going to get eaten, is how they look at it.

41:31Les Wexner:Yeah, well, you know, I'm always amused when, even in the segment you mentioned, you know, the greed and the excess of the 80s. And frankly, it just seems incredibly quaint, given the greed and excess that we're talking about now. And the numbers are multiples of what we were talking about in the 80s. And the Dow hit like 3 ,000 when I was a young man in New York. and that was considered a really big deal.

42:02Ty Cobb:Yeah, I want to get your view on the power of public free speech. Colbert is in this fight with his parent company, which is owned by MAGA people. So the fix is in on them saying, okay, we'll do what they want. Here was more of his response.

42:17Les Wexner:Without ever talking to me, the corporation put out this press release, this statement. Now, this is a surprisingly small piece of paper considering how many butts it's trying to cover. I'm just so surprised that this giant global corporation would not stand up to these bullies.

42:35Ari Melber:I don't even know what to do with this crap. Well, hold on.

42:54Ty Cobb:What is the role of the artist in this MAGA corporate moment? And does it matter when people stand up like he does?

43:02Les Wexner:Well, I think it matters greatly that Stephen Colbert stands up. On the other hand, he can because he's Stephen Colbert. And, you know, there are people like him who were created long before Donald Trump thought of running for office who have a kind of residual power. But, you know, younger broadcasters, younger comics, you know, what are they going to do in the current environment? It looks like we're about to have three or four Trump propaganda arms instead of just Fox News now. You know, you've got CBS is on the way, owned by Skydance and, you know, and the Allisons who are Trump apologists and Trump enablers.

43:52Les Wexner:And if they have their way, they will soon own Warner Brothers making CNN another arm of right wing media.

44:06Ty Cobb:Right. What you're telling people, reminding people is that deal's not done. Netflix wanted Warner. It's the same folks that Colbert says are acting like this who want to get their hands on CNN. Let's end on a high note, Jay. Who are you wearing?

44:21Les Wexner:Chiffinelli. Taylor based in Paris.

44:23Ty Cobb:I think it looks good on you. Oh, thank you. You know, we don't like to perpetuate. I'm a fan of blue. You're a fan of blue. We don't like to perpetuate stereotypes around here. Uh-oh. But you clean up pretty well for a novelist.

44:34Les Wexner:I, you know, I slouch around in a t-shirt.

44:38Ty Cobb:Jay McInerney. I'm a fan, which is why it's sometimes fun in this job, even though we talk about serious things, to get to talk to a novelist I've been reading my whole life. We'll be right back.

44:51Ty Cobb:Thanks for watching The Beat with Ari Melber. You can always connect with me online at arimelber.com. That's myname.com. Keep it locked right here. Snoring? Gasping during sleep? Feeling fatigued?

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