Rep. Krishnamoorthi Responds to Trump’s Botched Cover Up

18 Feb 2026 · 17 min · 5 chapters

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The MeidasTouch Podcast - Episode Summary

Episode Title

Rep. Krishnamoorthi Responds to Trump’s Botched Cover Up

Hosts

  • Ben Meiselas
  • Brett Meiselas
  • Jordy Meiselas

Overview

In this episode, Ben Meiselas discusses the fallout from Donald Trump's associations with Jeffrey Epstein following the release of numerous references to Trump in Epstein's files. Ben interviews Democratic Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, who provides insights on the implications of these revelations and the ongoing challenges of transparency and accountability.

Key Themes and Discussions

  1. Trump and Epstein Revelations:
  2. Fox News Response:
  3. Hosts like Mark Levin downplay Trump's connections to Epstein.
  4. Levin accuses Democrats and media of attempting to libel Trump.
  5. Trump's Previous Statements:
  6. Trump initially claimed ignorance of Epstein's activities but later acknowledged that "everybody knew" about them.
  1. Fox News Tactics:
  2. The network attempts to divert attention from the Epstein coverage by focusing on lighter stories, such as a MAGA hat controversy.
  3. Ben critiques the trivialization of serious issues surrounding Epstein's criminal activities by Fox personalities like Jesse Waters and Greg Gutfeld.
  1. Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi's Insights:
  2. Victim Advocacy:
  3. Krishnamoorthi emphasizes the lack of justice for Epstein's victims over the past two decades.
  4. Congressional Investigation:
  5. Krishnamoorthi has reviewed unredacted files and identifies potential co-conspirators who should be called for testimony.
  6. Concerns over redactions in documents that obscure important information and names.
  1. Government Oversight and Accountability:
  2. Discussion about the role of the DOJ in protecting certain documents under the guise of privilege.
  3. The conversation touches on the need for transparency and how the current administration’s actions negatively impact public trust.
  1. Current Political Climate:
  2. The episode also tackles the state of government shutdowns and negotiations, particularly concerning Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
  3. Krishnamoorthi argues for stronger regulations and oversight on ICE and Border Patrol activities to prevent voter intimidation and uphold constitutional rights.
  1. Call to Action:
  2. A plea to listeners to stay informed and engaged, highlighting the importance of holding public officials accountable and advocating for victims of injustice.

Key Takeaways

  • The revelations regarding Trump’s connections to Epstein continue to provoke serious discussions around accountability and transparency.
  • Fox News’ attempts to trivialize these issues reflect a broader strategy to distract from real accountability.
  • Congressman Krishnamoorthi's insights underscore the ongoing struggle for justice for victims of Epstein's crimes and the challenges posed by political machinations.
  • The episode is a call to action for listeners to engage in the political process and advocate for democratic principles.

Additional Resources

  • [MeidasTouch Network Podcasts](https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast)
  • [Raja Krishnamoorthi's Campaign Website](https://raja4il.com)

Conclusion

This episode of the MeidasTouch Podcast provides a deep dive into the implications of the Epstein revelations concerning Donald Trump, the responses from media outlets, and the ongoing fight for justice as articulated by Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi. The combination of humor, critical analysis, and serious advocacy embodies the unique approach of the Meiselas brothers in addressing political issues.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.

Chapters

Tap a time to open that second in VO

Analyzing Fox News Coverage of Epstein Files

0:48 to 2:28

Discussion on Fox News' coverage and its implications regarding Trump and Epstein.

“Epstein files are released with over 38 ,000 references to Donald Trump in the redacted files, potentially a million references in the unredacted files that we know about.”

Mark Levin's Defense of Trump

2:28 to 5:07

Exploring Mark Levin's comments defending Trump amidst Epstein revelations.

“Donald Trump was like best friends with the guy says he's a great guy who liked women on the younger side.”

Congress Member Krishnamoorthy on Epstein Victims

5:07 to 7:38

Congress Member Raja Krishnamoorthy discusses the plight of Epstein's victims and the investigation.

“who were victims of this child sex trafficking ring that Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell perpetrated and conspired on for years.”

Redacted Files and Congressional Oversight

7:38 to 10:34

Krishnamoorthy explains his findings on redacted files and the need for transparency.

“redactions because I can't figure out why certain emails would be privileged or have anything in them that would merit being redacted.”

ICE, Border Patrol, and Negotiation Challenges

10:34 to 12:53

Discussion on negotiation challenges with ICE and Border Patrol amidst political tensions.

“have MAGA Republicans saying that it's non-starters for them to ever even consider a negotiation where ICE agents would have to remove their terrorist masks.”
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Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

0:005 a.m.

0:01Ben Meiselas:I'm up with a crisp Celsius energy drink. Running 12 miles today. Grab a green juice, quick change, and head to work. Meetings, workshops. One more Celsius, no slowing down. Working late, but obviously still meeting the girls for a little dancing. Celsius. Live. Fit. Go. Grab a cold, refreshing Celsius at your local retailer or locate now at Celsius.com. from unsolved mysteries to unexplained phenomena from comedy goal to relationship fails amazon music's got the most ad-free top podcasts included with prime because the only thing that should interrupt your listening is well nothing download the amazon music app today

0:47Ben Meiselas:State regime media, which calls itself Fox, is absolutely losing it as more information from the Epstein files are released with over 38 ,000 references to Donald Trump in the redacted files, potentially a million references in the unredacted files that we know about. And now we've learned that there are potentially 50 terabytes of information that remains missing, 50 terabytes of files. In other words, the million or 3 million records that were produced in unlawfully redacted form may only constitute 2 % of the files. So what is state regime media, which calls itself Fox doing? Well, hosts like Mark Levin, who hosts the Mark Levin show, who's just a full propagandist for Donald Trump.

1:36Ben Meiselas:Here's what he posts. Now, finally, stop the bullshit trying to link POTUS to Epstein. The woke Reich grifters, congressional Democrat hacks, and media thugs continue to libel POTUS from Russia to Epstein. Weave a country to save from these reprobrates and others. That's what Mark Levin says. And he cites a former police chief who investigated Epstein in the mid 2000s, told the FBI that he received a call from Trump at the time to say, thank goodness you're stopping him. Everyone has known he's been doing this. That's not exculpatory, you idiot. Donald Trump previously claimed he did not know what Epstein was doing.

2:22Ben Meiselas:And the fact that after Epstein was arrested, Donald Trump said everybody knew what he was doing. Donald Trump was like best friends with the guy says he's a great guy who liked women on the younger side. And of course, we saw the other allegations and references to Donald Trump in the files. So that's what Mark Levin is saying, like implicating Donald Trump, apparently. And then you have Jesse Waters, along with Greg Gutfeld, say some of the most disgusting things to try to downplay the sex trafficking ring run by Jeffrey Epstein, which the Trump regime officials are in these files over and over again, whether it's Phelan, the Navy secretary, Lutnik, Trump, you name it, Bannon, they're all there.

3:08Ben Meiselas:Here's what Jesse Waters and Greg Gutfeld said about Epstein. Let's play it. It looks like he's mostly just a fixer, a guy who advises. He helps people with their problems. Sometimes those problems are, you need a girl and or some penicillin or some if you need it he's got it he's a sex rabbi he should perform at the halftime show yes the fact that that's how they're referring to child sex trafficking that they're joking about it they're laughing about it they call him a sex they call epstein a sex rabbi and a fixer that's what's going on on state regime media so clearly they needed to change topics right away, right?

3:49Ben Meiselas:So they bring on somebody named Katie Zakaria, who they say is a political legal strategist. Like, all right, what are we talking about? What are we talking about? We're talking about, okay, Katie, talk about your hat. You wear a MAGA hat, you're at a gym and people were mean to you. And let's make that with everything that's going on in the country right now, with everything that Americans are going through, we're going to focus on the following story. Here, play this clip. Here we go. Put the screen up on the thing. New York Post, why my gym cave to anti-MAGA bullies and how I fought back. Trump forced Captain Katie Zachariah.

4:24Ben Meiselas:They said at the gym, you can't wear it. And you said what? I said, I can't wear this. I earned this in Michigan, Dearborn, Michigan. We flip Michigan for President Trump. Happy to be part of that. And he said, you can't come to my gym and wear this hat. And because I have all these liberal women. The hell are they talking about? Let's bring in Democratic Congress member Raja Krishnamoorthy, you know, with all of these very serious issues going on, as we learn more about the cover up of the Epstein files. I mean, that's literally one of the top stories that they're talking about on Fox. I mean, it's ridiculous, Congress member.

5:01Raja Krishnamoorthi:Your viewers already know this, but, you know, there were a thousand plus then girls, now middle-aged women who were victims of this child sex trafficking ring that Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell perpetrated and conspired on for years. These middle-aged women have not had a single measure of justice in 20 years. And now we're finally, we're finally after having met them, after having heard their stories, seeing some files being produced, but we learned that there's millions and millions of pages, more files that have not been produced, and the files that have been produced are so heavily redacted that it's very hard to tell what's in them.

5:50Raja Krishnamoorthi:Now, I had a chance to actually review these unredacted files last week, and so I started that process. I'll be going back next week, I'm sure. And I got to tell you, like, there's a lot of names in there of people who should come before our committee, who should be part of the investigation, who should be cooperating, because they could be co-conspirators. And we should, the whole public should be able to see who they are, actually.

6:17Ben Meiselas:I heard from Congressman Walkinshaw, from Congress Member Goldman and Congress Member Raskin, that there are emails that are sent from Trump's lawyers to Epstein lawyers that are in the unredacted files that are not public, that actually referenced that Donald Trump was allowing Epstein to remain in the club and that Epstein was never actually even a member to begin with, but that he was a guest. And then Epstein forwarded that email to Ghislaine. And now the DOJ is claiming that there is a privilege, that this is somehow privileged and can't be produced. Did you see records like that or documents?

6:55Ben Meiselas:What did you see like that?

6:56Raja Krishnamoorthi:Well, I saw stuff that was, sometimes you couldn't tell if it was an attorney that was part of the exchange. But one of the things that I had a hard time figuring out was why things were even redacted. But what I also saw, which was really bizarre, is that there were certain pages in the quote unquote unredacted form, which were redacted as well. And I'm still trying to figure out why that is. In addition, there are just all kinds of bizarre email chains that I think one challenge here is I don't understand the rhyme or reason behind the redactions because I can't figure out why certain emails would be privileged or have anything in them that would merit being redacted.

7:49Raja Krishnamoorthi:There's just no explanation. So it's just a mess. But But I also think that part of it is what I'm really worried about is they also unredacted, you know, victims names, maybe as a brush brushback pitch to kind of get them to see, well, look, you're asking for transparency. This is what happens when you get transparency.

8:09Ben Meiselas:You know, then, you know, it's not just how Fox is covering, you know, the Epstein files that we showed you. It's also what the Trump regime is doing in hoisting Fox up as their preferred state regime media, also hoisting up CBS as their backup state regime media. And even what CBS just did to James Tallarico and Stephen Colbert and basically said, you can't do this interview with James Tallarico. And the lawyers threatened Colbert. And so Colbert had to play the interview on YouTube, which probably got more attention, frankly, than it would have anyway if it aired on CBS. But I mean, that level of FCC intervention over you can't have James Tallarico, who's running for the United States Senate in Texas as, you know, as a guest.

9:01Ben Meiselas:But but then when Trump does these things, he like, you know, it's it's the Streisand effect or like he brings more attention to it. Everybody wants to watch the Tallarico interview. Exactly.

9:11Raja Krishnamoorthi:Exactly.

9:12Ben Meiselas:People hate this stuff.

9:13Raja Krishnamoorthi:They hate this. I think, by the way, this is one of those things that I personally think strikes a chord with many Americans. They don't want their government telling them what they can watch, what they can't watch in terms of this type of content, especially if it feels very political. You know, remember what happened with Jimmy Kimmel, as you recall, when, you know, Trump didn't like what he said. He basically got the FCC to come down hard on Jimmy Kimmel, or it's his employer, I should say. And then, you know, Jimmy Kimmel went off the air. But then, lo and behold, there's a huge groundswell of support for him, including even from certain Republicans and conservative circles.

9:59Raja Krishnamoorthi:And that public pressure got the administration to relent. He was back on the air. So I think that these types of things really backfire in the end. But we have to shine a light on them.

10:10Ben Meiselas:You know, Congress is shut down right now or MAGA Mike sent everybody home until, I guess, the state of the union, at least. Department of Homeland Security is a partial government shutdown. I feel like when you and I do these interviews, it's like deja vu. It's like, wait a minute, weren't we just talking about a government shutdown like a few months ago and then a few months before that? And now you have MAGA Republicans saying that it's non-starters for them to ever even consider a negotiation where ICE agents would have to remove their terrorist masks. The masks must stay on. That's a non-negotiable, they say.

10:48Ben Meiselas:And also Republicans say it's a non-negotiable that you would require ICE and Border Patrol, Gestapo to get judicial warrants. The administrative warrants that they basically fill out for themselves is enough. How dare you ask about judicial warrants? That's not feasible, like literally in our constitution. But what do you say to this moment that we're in before we go, Congressman, that that's where they're taking the stand. You gotta, they gotta have their masks. I mean, to me, my own view, I don't think the Democrats are going far enough on the Democratic negotiables. I want to see ICE and Border Patrol abolished and everybody prosecuted.

11:29Ben Meiselas:But, you know, the Democrats are like, okay, judicial warrants, body cams, take off the masks and don't go around polling stations. Republicans are like, no way. How do you even talk to these people if they're like no way to those things.

11:42Raja Krishnamoorthi:I think you hit on a great point. Those are very reasonable. Look, all, you know, one way of summarizing what I think the Democrats, at least at the bargaining table, are saying is, look, ICE and CBP at least, at the least, need to abide by the same standards, rules, and regulations that local law enforcement do. And that means no masks, ID on, body cameras on, no warrantless arrests. There have to be third party investigations of the use of force. And there can't be roving gangs of ICE and CBP agents who are basically stirring up trouble throughout the country. That's just basic stuff to me. And I also included in my list of demands, and I think that the current list of negotiating demands reflects this, you can't have ICE and CBP agents at polling places, because my fear is that they're going to use ICE and CBP as paramilitary almost to discourage voting, to intimidate voters, and basically to monkey around with the 2026 elections.

12:52Ben Meiselas:I want to remind people, you are running for the United States Senate seat there in Illinois. Where can people learn more about the campaign before we go?

13:00Raja Krishnamoorthi:It's R-A-J-A-F-O-R-I-L, raja4il.com.

13:10Ben Meiselas:Check it out. Thanks as always, Congress member Raja Krishnamoorthy, we appreciate you. Thank you, Ben. Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to 6 million subscribers.

From the publisher

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on Fox News panicking over Trump’s references in the Epstein as they try to distract with other stories and Meiselas interviews Democratic Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi about Trump digging the whole deeper for himself.

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