157. When Will Trump Stop Protecting The “Epstein Class”?

17:12Anthony Scaramucci:And so there's much less of a pushover. Donald Trump has much more of a grip over the Republican Party than Starmer has over the Labour Party. I don't know that there is massively more moral superiority in the UK than there is in the US, but the systems as they are at the moment with a weaker leader in the UK and a dominant leader here in the US seem to make it that people, not just in politics, by the way, I mean, there are the titans of Silicon Valley, who basically are the most powerful people in the world. And somebody like Bill Gates, very friendly with the Democrats, who the Democrats love.

17:48Anthony Scaramucci:He's mentioned many times in the Epstein files, not in a favorable light at all. Doesn't mean he committed a crime, but he certainly doesn't come out of it looking very good. Hill and Hillary Clinton, they've been subpoenaed. They are going to testify. And actually, Democrats are seeing that as kind of a win because if Hillary and Bill Clinton testify, that will set the precedent if Democrats win the midterm elections for more investigations and more testimony. I mean, it's possible that if Democrats win back the House of Representatives, then you could see more investigations and more testimony and more people taking the hit for this.

18:22Anthony Scaramucci:I think one thing that's happened is that in this awful polarized tribal world we live in, each party has protected their own. And I think that's the awful thing about this whole story. No one was protecting the victims. No one was putting the victims first. They were putting their political tribe first. So Democrats were worried, if we do too much about the Epstein files, what's that going to do to Bill and Hillary Clinton? What's it going to do to Bill Gates, who we see as one of ours? We see him as a good guy. Republicans were worried about what's it going to do to Donald Trump? Now, what's it going to do to Howard Lutnick?

18:58Anthony Scaramucci:And the polarization means that people are more interested in protecting their political tribe than they are in protecting these girls. But hopefully, there are enough bold members of Congress and congratulations to Ro Khanna, Democrat, and Thomas Massey, Republican, who have worked together tirelessly to get as many of these files released as we have done so far. So, kudos to them, right, for working together.

19:22Katty Kay:Before we switch to the other topic, I want to ask this question because, you know, we talk about incentives being one thing, but there's also process and the respect for process. And there's also civil servants or whatever you'd call them in the United Kingdom that are in the permanent government. You know, the joke in the 1950s was that the deep state called the president the Christmas help, you know, because he was so temporary and they were there forever. Right. This is my interpretation. It's sort of a leading question, but I want to ask it. the process seems to be respected still in Europe and especially in the United Kingdom.

19:59Katty Kay:It's certainly respected in Australia. But I feel like Trump's power over his party has caused us to lose a grip on our process because under normal processes, lots of these people would be gone, including potentially the president.

20:17Anthony Scaramucci:I think you're onto something there, that the process is holding better. There is still more of a sense of shame. And maybe also in these social democracies, there is more of a social contract that suggests that people who are paid for by the state, politicians, civil servants, ambassadors, members of the royal family, owe something back to the people. that they are there by the grace and favor of the public. And therefore, if they fiddle their expenses, if they behave egregiously, if they make too much money, for example, they can quickly fall out of favor with the public in a way that the social contract in America has always been different.

21:05Anthony Scaramucci:There isn't that outcry when the government or government employees do something nefarious in the same way that there is in the UK where people take it very personally. And I think that's also true of those Northern European social democracies as well. So the social contract has been breached by the Epstein scandal in a way that the public feels they have a right to demand that these people step down. And I think here there's a sense of helplessness that lots of people would like some of these guys to be held accountable because they see, as you've said on the podcast, Anthony, they They see the rich and powerful have one set of rules and the powerless have another set of rules and nobody is being held to account.

21:48Anthony Scaramucci:And I think, as you so smartly pointed out the other week, that's the problem.

21:51Katty Kay:And that's the irony. They hiring a populace to prevent that. Right. Just have one last question. Howard Lutnick, Secretary Lutnick. Father of the year. Father of the year. He's lasted 35.1 Scaramucci's. Now, unless you throw me off the podcast like you did on Monday and we're back next week, is he going to be the Secretary of Commerce? He's going to be the Secretary of Commerce next week. What about in four weeks, Katty Kay? Is he going to be the Secretary of Commerce?

22:19Anthony Scaramucci:I think that Donald Trump will hope this dies down. It's the muzzle velocity theory that we also saw when we've been recording our podcast series on Donald Trump. When there is a controversy, you distract, you flood the zone, you bring up other stories, I think we're going to see more of that because he doesn't want to see one of his guys sacrificed.

22:41Katty Kay:So barring any more facts, this will stick around, right?

22:45Anthony Scaramucci:Yes, this sticks around and it doesn't go and people will still demand accountability. And they're not sure they're going to get it.

22:51Katty Kay:Anything happen to Trump?

22:53Anthony Scaramucci:I don't know. I think at the moment there is no smoking gun. And it depends how much more is released and how much more is redacted and what is in there that either suggests that Donald Trump. I mean, the really interesting story about Epstein is, did he have a pedophile ring? Did he traffic these girls out to other people? And my understanding, having spoken to a couple of legal experts who've gone through the files so far, is that there's no evidence of that at the moment. There is this story going around that Trump called the chief of police down in southern Florida and said there's something really bad going on with this guy.

23:29Anthony Scaramucci:The White House is trying to spin that as Trump saying, look, he tried to do the right thing and contacted the police. And the chief of police has come out and said he remembers having that conversation. I don't know that anything happens to Trump, but I think the longer they stall on redacting the names of the men who are complicit, the story doesn't go away because American voters still think that he's involved. 52 % of Americans say Trump is trying to cover up Epstein's crimes and overwhelming majority say they want the files released.

23:57Katty Kay:Do you think it's significant that the Senate majority leader, Senator John Thune, said yesterday that he wants the full transparency? Let's have the full transparency. Is that significant or is that just a throwaway line?

24:13Anthony Scaramucci:I think it is significant. I think it's a little bit like Loomis when I said that you're having a drip drip of Republicans looking at the off ramps. They've sailed past a whole load of them and they are now deciding to put themselves in the position where they are at crosshairs with Donald Trump over this. Thune has been very careful. I've known Thune for years. You've known Thune for years. He comes across as a moderate, decent, upstanding Republican. If you want to be Senate majority leader under Donald Trump, you've got to make some compromises. And he's sure made some compromises. But it's interesting to hear him just in the last couple of weeks, he said a couple of things that have made him crosshairs with Donald Trump.

24:55Anthony Scaramucci:He objected to the release of that video portraying the Obamas as apes. He said that was wrong and there should be an apology. It should be taken down. He's now standing up and saying, let's have transparency on the Epstein file. So he's hearing it. He's not doing this for nothing. He's hearing it from his members, the Senate body, and he's hearing it from his constituents. So I do think when Thune says something like that, it's worth listening to, don't you? I think that that is important.

25:18Katty Kay:I think it's hugely significant. And I think it's a message that, hey, man, don't bring me down with your nonsense. You know, I got to get my team over the line with the midterms coming up.

25:28Anthony Scaramucci:We're recording this Wednesday morning. Pam Bondi, the head of DOJ, is going to testify in front of the House Judiciary Committee today. She's obviously going to be asked questions about the Epstein file. So it's going to be interesting to hear how she answers those specifically on this issue of why so many men's names are redacted and whether they're going to unredact some of those names. Also, she'll be asked about why they didn't redact some of the names and faces of some of the victims of Jeffrey Epstein. She's going to be asked about that as well. But she's also going to be asked about ice shootings in Minnesota.

26:02Anthony Scaramucci:And I think there have been a couple of hearings this week and a couple of things have happened this week that have put the whole ICE story back in the center of American politics. So we're going to catch you up on all of that. But first, let's go to a break.

26:20Anthony Scaramucci:Welcome back to The Rest is Politics US. We're going to talk about ICE and whether ICE is actually pulling back. but we want to start with a story that is catching global attention and I think needs more attention here in the US too. It's the story of an Irishman, an Irish citizen who is being held in an ICE jail, has been held for four and a half months despite having a work permit. It's Seamus Coulton. He's been held in Texas for almost five months and he's now done an interview with an Irish broadcast station in which he says that the conditions that he's being held in are incredibly harsh.

27:00Anthony Scaramucci:They're not getting enough food. He's hardly been outside and seen daylight in five months. The family has decided to come public with this now and for him to do this interview to try and make sure that his case is heard and that the Irish authorities try and push the White House for his release. And it's worth stressing that he came to America, overstayed his initial tourist visa, married an American citizen. And when he married the American citizen, he got a valid work permit. He doesn't have a criminal record and he is pursuing a green card. And in October, after he was detained, he was meant to have his final interview for the green card.

27:48Anthony Scaramucci:So and doing everything by the book, but has now been hauled up into an ICE facility for five months. And he is describing it as psychological and physical torture. Let's play you a quick clip of Seamus Coulton on Irish radio.

28:04Katty Kay:The best way I could describe it is probably like a modern day concentration camp. It's a bunch of temporary tents.

28:15Anthony Scaramucci:there's probably room for a thousand detainees in in each tent i believe there's like five tents i've been locked in the same room now for four and a half months i've had barely any outside time no fresh air no sunshine um i could probably count on both hands the amount of times i've been outside um so just locked in this room all day every day so caddy you have left out the elephant

28:41Katty Kay:in the room. So what is the elephant in the room? He's white, Caddy Kay. He's Blanco the Blanco. Okay. And these guys are on tape saying, well, I don't like your accent. If it sounds like a Hispanic accent, I don't like your skin color. These guys are on tape in their masks, okay, aggressively glowing after brown and black people. Trust me, when this surfaces to Donald Trump, He's going to look at the guy and say, this guy's white. What the hell are you guys doing? And that's the facts. Now, we can skirt around them and we pretend that's not happening, but it is happening. And I'm wondering out loud, because this did happen in New York City.

29:22Katty Kay:We had these search and seizure things going on in New York where the government took the position that if they stopped you in your car, they could get you out of the car and pat you down to see if you had a gun. You know, this was something that's very controversial. Mayor de Blasio banned it once he came into office. But at the end of the Bloomberg administration, they were searching a lot more white people than they were at the beginning of the Bloomberg administration to try to show that it was more arbitrary and random as opposed to it being racially profiled. but here we go caddy okay and he will likely get released and he and the irish government will likely make an appeal on his behalf and it'll likely be accepted that'll be threading the needle or getting the camel through the eye of the needle for that family with this sort of administration so so you know i don't understand how it benefits the country so do your best caddy get your you know maga let's not use a maga accent because that'll really you know be on the ground i'll need cpr but do your best and explain to me how this sort of stuff

30:33Anthony Scaramucci:is helping the country well what's interesting is that we did this week because it's been it's been hearing central up on capitol hill this week because we did have the ice bosses um and the head of the Border Patrol were up on Capitol Hill this week, they were being hauled in for hearings and they were being accused of having blood on their hands because people have been killed, as we've reported. One Democrat member of Congress said, if you don't want to be called a fascist regime or secret police, stop acting like one. But you should have heard, Anthony, the reaction from Todd Lyons, who's the acting director of ICE, and Rodney Scott, who's Border Patrol, they were not apologetic at all.

31:17Anthony Scaramucci:I mean, they refused to apologize to the families of the two American citizens who've been killed in Minneapolis. They said that the people protesting ICE are paid agitators. I mean, if they went up there with any sense of contrition, I certainly didn't hear. I thought it was a really striking hearing that they've got the Donald Trump memo. You just never back down. You never apologize.

31:40Katty Kay:Noam is telling him Trump is listening. You're talking to an audience of one. Do not back down. He'll flip out. You'll get fired. I'll get the heat. Don't back down. Yeah.

31:50Anthony Scaramucci:I had a really interesting conversation this morning. I interviewed Senator Chris Murphy, who has just come back actually from Texas. He was down there trying to see these detention facilities like the detention facility that Seamus Colton is in. First of all, he was not allowed in, even though he's on appropriations, which is where the money comes from to fund these operations. And he said we'd given them plenty of warning. They still didn't allow us in, which he says is illegal for a senator. but he said that there is one he spoke to lots of people while he was down there he said there's one jail in texas in dilly texas which has hundreds not a dozen or so but hundreds of children in it under the age of five like that little boy liam who there was the photo of but we only saw the photo of the one little boy right there's actually lots of little boys like liam who are being picked up and put into these detention facilities he said they call it down there the baby jail because there are so many kids in these jails.

32:50Anthony Scaramucci:He says the ICE officers are acting with total impunity. They are making up the law as they go along. So you've got, he couldn't get into the facility, so he went to the courthouse where they're hearing these immigration cases. He says outside the courthouses, they've got ICE buses waiting to pick people up as they come out of their court hearings. And these are people who are going through the process legally. These are the people who are turning up for their hearing when they're asked for, they've applied for asylum, they're doing everything by the book, they go in for their hearing, a bit like Seamus would have gone in for his green card hearing or lots of people you and I know who are going through the process would go for their hearing or go for their interview and they go in for their hearing and what happens?

33:32Anthony Scaramucci:They walk out of the building, they get swiped up by ice straight away and they get put into these horrendous detention facilities. And it's worth reminding people, this is not an actual criminal offense. Coming into the United States illegally or being in the United States illegal is not a felony. It's a civil violation. It's a misdemeanor, civil misdemeanor. And yet these people are being held in conditions that are the kinds of conditions you would put the worst possible criminals in. I mean, the stories coming out of some of these detention centers of women being forced to wear diapers because they can't go to the bathroom, of there being feces on the floor, of there not being, as Seamus said, there not being nearly enough food of getting kid-sized portions of food.

34:15Anthony Scaramucci:Look at Cato, the libertarian think tank, hardly a kind of touchy-feely hippie think tank and a think tank on the right that came out with data recently showing that only 7 % of the people who have been rounded up and deported have violent criminal convictions. 73 % of the people rounded up have no criminal convictions. The ICE people down in Texas told Senator Murphy that they have been told to round up everybody, including legal migrants. Of course. He said it's just it's lawless.

34:48Katty Kay:Trump's America. And again, America first is America alone. And the walling off of America, this is now the literal walling off of America, is going to have consequential damage to the country. And it's just going to slow down businesses because, you know, think of the lost tourists, the Canadian tourists in Florida or New York City. Just think of the people that are looking around saying, you know what, I'm not going to the U.S. anytime soon.

35:12Anthony Scaramucci:Can I ask you a question, though?

35:14Katty Kay:Yeah.

35:14Anthony Scaramucci:You know the business world. Up until about 10 years ago, the loudest voices in favor of immigration into the United States came from the business community because they needed the workers. we know the birth rate is declining in the US. So what are you going to do about a declining birth rate, a declining tax revenue rate at a time of growing deficits? You're going to have to expand your tax revenue base and you're going to have to expand your worker base. How do you do that? The obvious way is to bring in more people into the country, right? If you're not going to get Americans to make more babies, which is what J.D.

35:50Anthony Scaramucci:Vance is trying to get them to do, if they can't make more babies here, you're going to have to bring them into the country. So where is the business community right now in standing up for more immigration into the states?

36:02Katty Kay:So it's a great question. I think it's already bifurcated. You know, they want the astrophysicists from Germany. They want the, you know, marine biology scientists from Norway. But in Trump world, they're hoping that those people will pay for it the way Nicki Minaj did. It's sort of like a Nicki Minaj Trump gold card into America. but for the rest of the people bye-bye that's all folks you know that's the end of the cartoon they also need the farm workers they do the construction workers and trump made a very big

36:36Anthony Scaramucci:industry workers the service industry workers and we know you know the data is all there the proportions of people who work in those industries who are here undocumented is very high And in the past, I feel like you'd have had business, you'd have had farmers saying, we haven't got people to come and pick our citrus crops. We haven't got people to build those data centers you're building at such high speed along Route 50 in Virginia. I mean, why is the business community not trying to protect the unskilled workers because they're not replacing them with American workers?

37:10Katty Kay:I think on the margin now they are. On the margin, you're getting the pushback. You had the very famous Hyundai assembly line pushback. You're getting quiet pushback by different business executives saying, hey, man, we need these people. These are not jobs the American people want to do. You have willing people at these salaries that we can afford and we want the people. And so I do think you're going to see a slow roll in the other direction because as Trump gets past the midterms, his indifference is going to kick in. His avarice is going to go exponential, you know, but he'll be fairly indifferent to those sorts of things, you know.

37:50Katty Kay:and but but you know listen you know anything can happen of course in the united states caddy but i i am aghast that we've got the irish guy in the jail for four and a half months you and i don't know about i know i didn't know about it maybe you did but i didn't know about it i didn't know

38:10Anthony Scaramucci:about it yeah and i'm just sitting here saying right exactly thank you very much how many more

38:16Katty Kay:are just like him. Caroline, love it. Caroline, hey, how are you? Yeah, great. Yeah. How many more just like him?

38:23Anthony Scaramucci:Okay, we're going to leave it there. Thank you so much for listening, everybody.

38:27Katty Kay:Well, thanks for inviting me back, Caddy, because I was nervous. It was really good.

38:31Anthony Scaramucci:Dave's free. So he's around the next few weeks. But if you could come again, like mid-March, could we get you on again then?

38:39Katty Kay:Okay, sure. Have your agent talk to my agent. Okay. So, Kat, in addition to doing that wonderful episode with McCluskey this week, didn't you also do a question and answer session with him?

38:53Anthony Scaramucci:We did. And again, had you been there, Anthony, we would have done it with you. But David and I did a great question and answer session. And it was really interesting to have him on on that because he talks about the intelligence community, morale in the intelligence community, and how the intelligence community at the moment is feeling pretty broken. All right.

39:10Katty Kay:So listen, the Q &A was phenomenal. I will give you both that. And so if you guys want to hear it, go to TheRest is Politics, US.com and sign up and become founding members. Just want everybody out there to know that I have eyes on three women right now that are loving the fact that I'm jealous of David McCluskey. They're just loving it. And I can see my two producers. If you're listening to this in your car or you're hiking somewhere, I can see my two producers in great solidarity with you. Watching me twist and turn here. I don't know if that'll make the podcast, but I am enjoying the looks on your faces.

39:52Anthony Scaramucci:We cannot do it without you.

39:54Katty Kay:Well, we're going to leave it right there on that last sentence. Before she says something really offensive, we're going to leave it right there that I was missed.

40:01Anthony Scaramucci:I missed you so much.

40:02Katty Kay:All right. We'll see you guys next week.

40:04Anthony Scaramucci:Bye, guys.