October 14, 2025 • 49 mins
Krystal and Saagar discuss Ghislaine secret meeting, Kamala blames voters for 2024 loss, foreign leader pushes Trump business deal on hot mic.
Ken Vogel: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/devils-advocates-kenneth-p-vogel?variant=43110856097826
Trita Parsi: https://x.com/tparsi
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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Speaker 1 (00:25):
We need your help to build the future of independent
news media and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints
dot com. Turning now to my hometown, Brian, Texas, literally
where I was born, but for our purposes let's put
this up here on the screen. It is the scene
of a true mystery where Glaine Maxwell is currently being
kept in a federal prison camp despite Bureau of Prisons
(00:47):
regulations that say sex offenders shouldn't be at minimum security prisons.
And in this investigation from The Wall Street Journal, they
describe lockdowns in a mysterious meeting a quiet Texas prison
adapts to life with Glaine Maxwell, and they say that
some two months ago. In mid August, hundreds of inmates
at a minimum security prison in Brian were locked down
(01:08):
during their usual time for strolling the grassy campus and
visiting with family and friends. All but one, Gallaine Maxwell,
while her fellows inmates were confined to their dormitories after breakfast.
Maxwell Maxwell met with several visitors in the Federal Prison
Camp Chapel. Less than three weeks earlier, the Justice Department
(01:29):
had moved her to the Federal Prison Camp Brian from
that higher security facility in Tallahassee. That interview followed that
transfer was followed with an interview with the Justice Department
senior official Todd Blanche during that whole transcript that they
released from the Department of Justice, where we learned absolutely
nothing and she actually told multiple verifiable falsehoods. They say
(01:49):
her unexpected arrival has upset the camps usually relaxed atmosphere,
leading to more frequent lockdowns. The addition of armed guards,
current and former inmates set in interviews that she appeared
to receive quote unusually favorable treatment at times, sparking resentment
and other inmates. Some prisons prisoners heard that the lockdown
was needed to accommodate important visitors, including some including her lawyers.
(02:13):
But what other important visitors were there? And you know,
one inmate recalled seeing her return to the dormitory that
day with a smile on her face. When they asked
her about the meeting, she said it went really well,
but shared no other information. So what was so important
to lock down the entire prison so that she could
(02:34):
have a meeting in club? All right, this is club fed.
They're supposed to be able to just do whatever they want.
Lockdowns are apparently very rare in these facilities because people
aren't stabbing and killing each other. Those people are over
at maximum security prison. So what's going on, Well, you
get a whole lockdown. She has this meeting with an
important figure, she's got a smile on her face. This
(02:54):
is around the same time of the interview. What's happening. Yeah,
we don't know, We don't know anything her.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
This is someone who should not be in this particular
prison to begin with. And there's been upset among the
other inmates there and other sex offenders around the country
who are like, hey, we aren't supposed to get these perks.
So just her being in that facility is already preferential treatment.
Then what this article also documents is that she's allowed
(03:22):
to go and shower by herself. After all, then she's
got her own room, whereas most of the inmates.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Have to share.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
She gets, you know, all sorts of special perks. They've
stationed additional officers around the facility. She's gotten special treatment.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
Why why?
Speaker 2 (03:39):
And then you've got this meeting where you know, they
have locked down the entire facility, so none of the
other inmates who normally during that time would be able
to walk around the grounds. This was also the time
when they can normally have visitors and visit with family
and friends. That all stops so that Glaine can have
her special little meeting, Like, what the hell is going
on here? They also mentioned that there's been an absolute
ban on any of the other prisoners talking to the press,
(04:04):
and there have been punishments meted out because of them
talking to reporters. They've been transferred. You know, it's considered
a big perk to be at this facility. So there
was one instance that they documented where this individual talked
to the press and then they were moved out of
this facility to a higher security prison. So, you know,
as a consequence, it appears as punishment for daring to
(04:25):
speak to the press about Galaine's treatment and what life
is like on the inside. There was also another incident
that they mentioned here which was sort of sketchy, where
there were gun shots right near the facility, and again,
you know, they came in the middle of the night,
and you know, they secured Glaine first and foremost, and
then what the official story was was, oh, this was
(04:48):
some sort of shots fired, like away from the facility,
like in the direction away from the facility, had some
sort of gang activity. There were no injuries reported, and
inmates were very skeptical of that story that the official
or it was actually what happened there. So just really
insightful about the way she's getting all of this incredible,
incredible preferential treatment. Again, why this is a convicted sex offender,
(05:12):
Why is she getting all the special treatment? What is
going on there? Why does the government want to coddle
this lady. Great question that you know, I think people
can can ponder. And then the specifics of this secret
meeting and whatever the hell.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Went down there, nobody knows. That's all. Like, as you said,
there's some very sketchy stuff they have. She has special protection.
She apparently is you know, guests being ordered to lock
down returning to their bunks. She gets treatment extra security.
You have people who in the facility who spoke to
Wall Street Journal reporters getting transferred within an hour of
(05:46):
the phone call, a single hour of phone call to
the Wall Street Journal, and they got transferred to a
higher security facility for what for talking to a reporter
about the special treatment that Gallene maxwell. So they are
going to extraordinary links right now to make her life comfortable,
to get her everything that she needs. She gets to
pick and choose who her you know, the people in
her room are. I mean, this is not normal for
(06:08):
anybody who's in one of these prisons, even though it's
club fed like it's still prison or it's supposed to be.
And man, this is as good as it gets. At
the same time, we've got CBS News out with a
new Honestly, I want to give them credit. They've been
late to it, but give them credit. They showed up
big time on the suicide investigation of Epstein's cell. I
(06:29):
know you guys talked about it a little bit, but
they talked specifically about how the crime scene was not preserved.
There was no proper investigation into this in the way
that a murder or suicide investigation should be conducted. So
here's Scott McFarlane. He's a journalist over there. Let's take
a listen.
Speaker 5 (06:44):
CBS News has spent years investigating what happened in that
cell where Epstein died in New York in twenty nineteen,
and a series of ninety photos from the scene obtained
by sixty Minutes and CBS News do raise questions about
the initial handling of the scene and the initial wave
of the response. The photos show at least they indicate
(07:06):
items having been moved around. Some of the items from
the cell, the mattress Jeffrey Epstein's body had been moved
before FBI investigators were able to respond. A former NYPD detective,
a private investigator who spoke with CBS News says that
does complicate things that it appears this was handled as
if it were a suicide scene and not necessarily a
(07:29):
possible crime scene or murder scene. Also noted lack of
evidence markers in the photos. The former NYPD detective said,
not the clumsiness, but the lack of thoroughness with the
photo taking itself is an issue that there seems to
be a failure to follow some basic or traditional forensic
(07:54):
tests and exams. All of that can complicate an investigation
and questions. You know, our investigation does not contradict the
official determination of suicide, but it does seem that there
were some insufficiencies through the process. And all of that
means that now we are six years later, six years
(08:14):
after the fact, it's going to add potential fuel as
there's more considerations of broadening the investigation of Epstein case files,
releasing more documents, and as Maxwell is poised to sit
down with congressional investigators soon.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Props of Scott did a good job with that report.
They continue not to drop it. And look, there's still
a lot more out there, and I know it's frustrating. Drip, drip, drip,
but I remain hopeful though we'll get there eventually. Let's
get to Kamala, shall we?
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Failed presidential candidate Kamala Harris has been on her book
tour and we got a couple of I guess we'll
call them highlights for you. She had a guest appearance
from Hillary Clinton, also took some protesters on Let's go
Ahead and take a lism.
Speaker 6 (08:57):
You debated him once, he wouldn't debate you again.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
We beat him four times. Do you think we're the
reason he is so unhinged today?
Speaker 7 (09:08):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (09:10):
They basically say to me, we didn't tell you, but
she's been talking about people eating cats and dogs. And
I was like what, And they said, we think we
need to tell you because his propensity is to say
the last thing he heard. And sure enough, on the
(09:33):
debate stage he said it.
Speaker 8 (09:34):
Your You know what, I am not president of the
United States.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
I'm not president.
Speaker 6 (09:53):
And if you want to talk about legacy, let's talk
about the legacy of mass importation.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
People.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Nasty portations, and people not voting. I mean, there's I
guess we'll start with Hillary. You know, the cope of
we beat him four times in a bay. Well, dud
did such a great job. Why why did not the president.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Seeing these two ladies and who were able to apparently
lose to Trump? Yeah, I don't know. I'm curious for
your I mean, this is a crystallizing things.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
I don't know why. So her response there, she's got
two parts of her response. Number one, she says, well,
I'm not president, go talk to the guy who is
as if there hasn't been protests of the Trump administration
for their progenocide policy. I mean, he was confronted by
protesters just down the street here when he was eating
(10:50):
dinner actually in a pretty pretty wild failure of the
Secret Service, frankly, and how close these protesters protesters were
able to get. But there's this mythology that as soon
as Trump came into offer, people stop caring about Palestine,
and that's just insane. I mean, I will say I
think for a variety of reasons, the protests were not
as heightened as they were, you know, while she and
(11:10):
Biden were in office. I think number one, because there
was a sense like these are people that we may
be able to actually influence, were part of their theoretical coalition.
Number Two, you have a level of fatigue. And number three,
this government has been very authoritarian and cracking down on
protesters and increasing the cost of actually going out there
and exercising your First Amendment rights. So that's number one,
(11:31):
this fiction and this lie and this insinuation that low
key people, if you were pro Palestine, you actually wanted
Donald Trump to win, and then you're happy with the
mass deportations which she name checks here, you know that
she's like blaming them for number like the other piece
here that just of course discuss me and drives me absolutely.
Baddy is blaming the voters who didn't vote for her,
(11:56):
who had and those specifically who had a moral objection
and a red line around a literal genocide and could
not bring themselves to vote for someone who was actively
supporting and complicit in and refused to separate herself from
even like this in the smallest level from the execution
(12:17):
of that genocide. She's laming them rather than taking any
responsibility for the active choices she herself made, including I
mean just there were such small things that people were
asking for, just to let someone who's Palestinian Americans speak
at the DNC, even that was a bridge too far.
A glaring problem in her campaign, very clear from the beginning,
(12:40):
was Joe Biden's unpopular how are you going to separate yourself?
This was the obvious place to do it, and she
never ever did it. So for her, Hillary did her
own version of this after she lost, Like it's always
someone else's fault, It's always the voter's fault.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
The voters are too stupid or.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Make the wrong choices or immoral it's never them. They
never take responsibility for themselves. And last thing, I don't
get you get away and like, I'm not like, I
think Kamalo's delt a very difficult hand here, right, coming
in late and saddled with the unpopular presidency and you know,
all of those things like cost of living being very high.
I think it was very difficult for even a great
(13:18):
candidate to come into that situation. So I'm not saying
everything that happened was on her shoulders, but there is
no doubt that she made some critical errors, one of
them being that she refused to separate herself from an
ongoing genocide and show even a shred of moral principle
(13:41):
around that. So that's my thoughts on this.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Yeah, well, let's let's really break it down. She you said,
it's not entirely her fault, and that's true. It is
almost mostly Joe Biden's fault. Let's let's start with that.
He is the chief villain, as Daryl Cooper said, you know,
the chief villain of the twenty twenty four election. He
is a chief villain. He's one of the great narsis
in American history. However, However, and this is where it
(14:04):
starts to fall on kamalaw, Nobody forced you to go
on the view and say, Nobody forced you to listen
to Biden. He was a dead literate maybe functionally like
dead president right at that time. No one forced you
to go on the on the View and listen to
his phone call about no daylight Kid. All you had
to say is, there's a lot of things I would
do different from Joe Biden to actually inject some energy.
Nobody forced you to, you know, repeatedly not distance yourself
(14:29):
from the administration. Nobody forced you to listen to him
from the point of which you are the candidate. And
but this also gets to me about the weakness of
the process, and in a way, maybe one of her
great errors was immediately accepting the nomination and not at
least trying to make it a seem as if people
could jump in and that there would be some process,
because you know, if we think back to it, do
(14:49):
you want to be handed something or do you want
to earn it? Like you know, there's there's a lot
of theory behind that about the satisfaction and the you know,
you know, the confidence that you get in something I
mean I could say, even from us starting this business, right,
I feel confident in some of my judgment that I
would not have previously in the past when we were
just w two employees, because you took a bet and
it worked out and through your own work and all that.
(15:10):
They're bumpy and stuff along the way, but you could
prove your decision making and it kind of gives you
a confidence in your ability to try and sell something,
to do something, and to take risks. She never had
that because she was handed it. I think she shouldn't
have done that. But on the Gaza things specifically, and
this gets to the voter. I just can't be in
a situation where I blame the voters. Now we can
(15:30):
talk to the voters and I will say, if you
voted for Trump because you were anti I mean, I
guess Israel, like, you're honestly a fucking idiot. And I
think I said that at the time. I was like,
do you remember, I'm pretty sure I did that. Monogue.
I was like, listen, if you're pro if your one
issue is Israel, I was like, you should vote for Kambla.
You honestly should, you would honestly being dumb.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
People who voted for Trump. She's saying people who just
didn't vote.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Okay, Well, yeah, see, I'm not in that because if
that was your number one issue, you kind of made
the right call because at the end of the day,
both would have probably kept the war going. To be honest,
I'm not sure we get this ceasepire under a Kama
administration because you know, I never saw the backbone and
all of that behind that. They probably would have been
more rhetorical about un and all of that, But like,
(16:14):
I don't I'm not so sure we end up here
without somebody like Trump just going full retard and be like, hey,
actually it's over. I never saw Kama or Biden with
that ability. Maybe you know, it's unfalsifiable at this point,
but the point really gets to this whole you didn't vote.
Let's go back to Hillary. We cover this extensively at
the time. If the same number of black people vote
(16:34):
in twenty sixteen that voted in two thousand and eight
and twenty twelve, Hillary wins the election. And what did
the Democrats say, Instead of why didn't these people come
out to vote? It was how dare you not come
out to vote? It's your fault. Well, why let's do
some analysis. Why do they not come out to vote?
They thought by voting for Obama and for twice that
(16:54):
their lives would get a lot better, and they didn't,
And they didn't think that Hillary would do much about it.
Whose fault is that? To me, it's Hillary's fault. For Kamala,
it's the same thing. I mean, if you look at
some of the stats, if you drive out let's say
you're talking about Israel, if you drive out you young people,
she lost young men, remember that. I mean, that's a
huge deal. Gen Z, a lot of new voters. They
swung to Trump. That is a systematic failure of the
(17:16):
Democratic Party and of Kamala Harris despite all the coconut
memes and all this other bullshit turned out to be fake.
So I just you know, we can't absolve these people
of responsibility. And like you said about go protest Trump,
it's like, first of all, anyone who's like rabidly pro
Palestine is not pro Trump at this point, it doesn't exist.
So it's like calling out a coalition which is entirely fake.
(17:39):
And then also to put this whole legacy of if
you think it's so bad well, I mean you also
didn't give them the path or at the very least
make a convincing argument, because the argument and all of this,
you know, we debated to hear a million times about
leading up to Trump, about what the legacy of all
that would look like. I think you were a lot
more clearer than a lot of other shit heads on
(18:00):
the left, frankly, who are like, oh, it will be
all that bad. I'm like, no, from your perspective, it's
going to be fucking hell, let's be honest, And it
is from their perspective, which is kind of what a
lot of people in the right vote for. But that's
my point though, is that there was an entire ecosystem
of people who wanted to convince them that Trump was
going to be the one who was going to be
anti israela pro palaesign or whatever. And I think those
(18:22):
people can be condemned. But to say not voting, like
at least from a pro pales sign perspective, to say
not voting should be condemned is preposterous. It's just absolutely
absolves all the responsibilities and the systematic failures going back
like thirty years inside the Democratic Party. So I need
to see somebody grapple with that, and I don't see
a single person. That's what I don't get about the Democrats.
(18:45):
You're so pathetic and weak. You're nothing.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
And here's the thing, is like a couple things on
that there is such a deep psychological helplessness to these people. Yeah,
like nothing's ever in their control, nothing ever in their power.
And the upside of that is if nothing's ever in
your control or in your power, then nothing's ever your fault.
And so you know, there's always you know from the
(19:09):
Obama administration, all the excuses about why the Affordable Care
Act really kind of sucks, you know, I mean the
whole fight over a corpor and I talk to Corbin
Truent yesterday.
Speaker 4 (19:18):
He used to work with AOC and he was saying.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
We really need to internalize that the whole fight that
Democrats are picking over the shutdown is like we can't
let normal Obamacare come back, Like we have to keep
these subsidies going, because normal Obamacare is so insanely unaffordable, like.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
It is unacceptable.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
That's the fight that they take, so all sorts of
excuses around why that was the best thing they could
and get a public option was impossible and by administration
and all kinds of excuse, we can't get minimum ways
of parliamentary and this and that, like there's always some
either villain within the Democratic Party or the Republicans, even
when they're out of power and the opposition they're just
so powerful, can't possibly overcome them. And there's all this
(19:58):
learned helplessness. And I think I genuinely think that the
reason why they choose to take that mental tactic of
pretending like everything is out of their control and out
of their hands, even when you know, you're the president
of the United States and you control the set of
the House or whatever, it's because they don't want to
have any responsibility for their actions. And this is, you know,
(20:20):
to go even one layer deeper, it's kind of a
core ideology of neoliberalism actually, of which both parties have
been you know, we're very involved with supporting because what
neoliberalism is at bottom is outsourcing your thinking to the markets.
So you now ever have to make a decision, it's just, oh, well,
the markets did their thing and this is what they want,
and that's just.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
How it went.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
So I think it's very deeply ingrained in the psychology
but I've also been thinking about the other thing that
you just said, Soccer, which is part of why Democrats
have even in Trump two point zero now that they're
you know, they aren't the ones who are sending the
bombs directly, and many of them are still voting for it.
But why they've had such a hard time separating from
(21:02):
Israel and calling it a genocide and saying this is
unacceptable and we have to stop it and forcefully resisting
it is because they know that they were complicit and
they don't want to take responsibility for that. They don't
want to have to go back and say, you know what,
we fucked up, and you guys like you guys who
were protesting us, you were actually right, you were correct.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
That I think would go so far.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
I actually think it would be so like powerful for
people to see genuine accountability, genuine reckoning with what they
were complicit in. I think it would do so much
to see that. And they're just thoroughly incapable of acknowledging
that there was any error there. And so now you
have a situation where you know, we're in a cesfar.
(21:45):
We'll see whether it lasts or not. A lot of
questions about that. There was you know, hostage exchange which
all the Israeli hostages are now released. Palestinians got two
thousand of their hostages back from the Israelis. And you've
missed your moment really to be able to have that right.
You've missed your moment to be able to really take
a moral high ground over you know, what the Trump
(22:06):
administration has done here. Maybe it would have been concluded
more quickly Underkammala. Maybe it would have been maybe they
wouldn't have had the complete starvation. We know the Biden
administration did push and you know, maintain some higher level
of aid than was maintained under the Trump administration, where
you didn't have the total and complete starvation.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
We'll never know.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
And you never took the time you Kamala, Harris and
you know others in the Democratic Party, but specifically, you
never came out and said, I object to this thing
that the Trump administration is doing in Gaza. Here's what
I if I was president, Here's what I would have
done differently. You never did that, so we have nothing
to go on that you would have been different or
better in any way.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Yeah, and you know, if you want pitch perfect proof
of all this Obama and Mark Maren from Mark Maroon's
last podcast, Let's take a listen, and.
Speaker 7 (22:54):
As you get older, I'm gonna show up my joke
about this, no matter how much you want to pretend otherwise.
You're starting to get a little out of touch. You're
not completely you know, plugged into the zeitgeys. It happens naturally,
It just happens. Yeah, I mean, look, I don't My
(23:17):
brain doesn't register TikTok. Yeah, mine either, the same way
that it does my sixteen year old niece, right right,
You got to get a guy to do it for you.
It's not just the technology itself. It's that I'm not
(23:38):
plugged in. I'm not relating to the cultural you know,
stream in the same way that somebody who's twenty or
twenty five or even thirty five is.
Speaker 9 (23:50):
But the brains have been you know broken, you know,
through exploiting grievance and anger. And you know, in talking
about the left, that the fact that so many decided
to not vote out of protest because they didn't feel
that the situation in Israel, the ethnic cleansing of Gaza
(24:10):
and whatnot, was not going to be dealt with by
Kamala or however that goes. So you get this protest
vote of people not willing to make a compromise for
what you used to talk about is the incremental progress.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Yeah, the incremental I got an email recently said, you
seem very worried about the destruction of norms, yet you
always talk about how during that time period you talked
about how those norms are bad. And that's why, because
I lived through this shit George W. Bush and Obama
who lectured me about the norms as the whole. Meanwhile,
(24:47):
what was happening. The entire apparatus of American life collapsed
around us. We sacrificed our empire abroad for what for Iraq?
We sacrificed our economy in two thousand and eight for
the bankers, and that entire time we captive give him.
We said, please save us. We're gonna vote for you.
This said, Oh, don't worry, We're gonna pass the Affordable
Care Act. I love your point. We can't let Obamacare
(25:10):
return to normal Obamacare because that will fuck people over.
What does that tell you about OBAMACA? You know, we
voted for the homeowners. What happened? We voted for prosecution.
What happened. We voted for more regulation, we got fucking
DoD Frank And now look at our economy right now.
Same with getting out of Iraq. So that they're high
minded liberalism or they're high minded conservatism destroyed this country.
(25:33):
And that's why I'm like, as bad, yes, I've become
an acceleration, as as scary, and all these things may seem,
I don't know. For me, I still have some faith
that will turn on the other side because I lived
twenty five years under their regime. You know, I was
born under Bill Clinton. Consider the progress of the United
States economy and a US foreign policy since that time
(25:56):
that I was born in nineteen ninety two. How can
you still worship at the altar of these norms? You cannot.
And so we can argue about what the norms and
new norms and all that right should be. But I
cannot live in a world or have this motherfucker lecturing
at me with his chin up again about how fine
things are and about the better angels of our nature
while shit just continues to get worse every single year.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
That is the thing that is very jarring. I listened
to this whole conversation and I wanted to pull that
TikTok point he made about how he's out of touch
because I thought it was very I mean, it was
one of the more honest parts of the podcast.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
He's like, I don't really get it that. I'm like,
I'm kind of on a touch.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
So that's why I don't say that much about politics
because I don't really I'm not really in touch with
what people are thinking anymore. And I was like, wow,
that that's actually interesting level of self awareness. But I
also want to say, I think being out of touch,
like that's a choice, you know, like you could go
It's not like TikTok is not that hard to understand.
You could go on TikTok, you would understand.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
I'm not on TikTok, and I fully am understanding what's
going on. It's not.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Yeah, And also, you know, you choose who you interact with,
like you sir on it yourself with a bunch of
like celebrities and rich people, and so yeah, you're gonna
be on a touch. I mean that that is a
choice that you have made. So that was that was
one piece, and then the other part. It's very jarring
to see him still doing like a twenty twelve style
(27:17):
of politics while the world is burning around you.
Speaker 4 (27:20):
You know, you said, his vibe is like, oh, everything's.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Fine, and well, you know, we'll all compromise and we'll
take the high road when they take the low road.
It's like that shit is so far we are so
far past that. So yeah, it felt like listening to
him talk, it really did feel like a relic from
another era. And I know we joke about like, let's
say they got rid of termlaments and you get the
Trump Obama matchup, and you know, we've always said like
(27:45):
Obama would crush him, and I think Obama would.
Speaker 4 (27:47):
Have beat him in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
I'm not so sure anymore because watching that, he just
felt so so far removed from the actual energy and
the concern that people have. You know, this thing that
he's always been accused of, which has always been true
of sort of like standing aloof that's what's an observing
society from afar and not really feeling like he has
(28:10):
a stake in it. That was one thing in twenty twelve.
It's another one right now. Like when the shit is
hitting the fan and you know, kids are being autistic,
kids are being stolen from their parents on the streets
of Chicago and apartment building rated and we just oversaw
a genocide, like in the moment of right now to
do your just remove I'm above it all and I'm
(28:31):
just going to tell you from on high where things
have gone astray, especially when you are a significant part
of the reason that things went on this track because
you promised a hopeful a different politics and you didn't
deliver for people in the way that people thought that
you would. Yeah, I don't know how that would go
over with the American people at this point.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
I'm not so sure.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Look, that was from a left perspective. From the right,
it's like, who flouted this country? Obama? You all right,
you're the one who chose all like basically cultural politics.
He is literally the everything that went wrong. He was
elected on a class anti war message and he turned
it to become the cultural war president. That's who he was.
That's ultimately his only real legacy is like DHAKA, the
(29:14):
Affordable Care Act, Oh, fantastic little contribution that you did there,
and the woke era it began under him in twenty fourteen.
It was a disaster. Now again, there's a lot of
blame and all that stuff to go around, but you
did not fulfill those core promises, and so the latter
stage of your administration that set up the Trump victory
is ultimately like those problems were not solved under your administration.
(29:38):
You could have headed off a lot of this. And
so I think you're right. I don't think he would
be Trump today in twenty twenty four. I don't think
there's a chance that he could actually come because.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
Because Trump is a creature of the moment exactly, and
he's a monster, in my opinion, monster of the moment,
but he is. He is a creature of the moment,
and Obama is the relic of the past.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Obama is a symptom and a relic of a time
when we still had hope. If you're young, you actually
don't remember that, you know. I was talking to a
journalism class recently. These kids are like nineteen, right, They
didn't know what the Mueller investigation was, Crystal. They literally
didn't even remember Mueller. So that was eight years ago.
So imagine trying to talk to them about Obama in
two thousand and eight. Literally ancient history. They have no
(30:21):
memory of a time when we still had actual faith
in our political institutions. And it's because of him that
I don't personally between Bush and him, I said, this
shit is rigged, it is fake. There is nothing redeeming
left inside of these people, the Washington establishment or any
of that. Now, yeah, I think there's a lot of
criticism and stuff to go around, but like you really
have to remember how much faith everybody put in withdrawing
(30:43):
from Iraq and two thousand and eight and how things
would go to where we ended up in what is
it January of twenty seventeen when Obama left office. If
you didn't live through that, you can't understand how we
actually got to where we are right.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Well, and this is again where the neoliberal impulse words
zero responsibility and helplessness comes in, because like you can't
help but look, your two terms in office were followed
by Donald Trump, So you did you know you were
somewhat now part of it. I do think there was
like a you know, mass racial backlash to him, Like
(31:17):
I do think that was part of what fueled the fire,
and Trump was part of that, right with the Birtherism
conspiracy and all of that. But that doesn't absolve you
of like there was clearly there were a lot of
exits off the highway of where we were headed to now,
and one of the biggest ones was two thousand and eight.
And then and then also he you know, he has
(31:39):
stuck his hands back in our politics at strategic points
to also make sure that the Democratic Party doesn't become
a party of the now like creatures of the now,
to make sure that the specifically the Burnie wing of
the party is blocked. Whether it was his intervention in
the DNC race obviously intervened extraordinarily in twenty twenty. He
(32:00):
also is a big part of the reason why he's
the one who anointed Hillary Clinton for twenty sixteen like
she was his choice. So his fingerprints are all over
the present day Democratic Party, which is such a failure.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
And there's there's no reckoning.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Not who presided over the largest loss in black wealth ever,
first black president. I mean, nobody ever grapples with that one.
You know, you talked about racial backlash. Sure, a lot
of white people in twenty twelve voted for him in Ohio.
A lot of the white people all over America, you know,
a lot of Red states today put their faith in
Barack Husain Obama after four years. Okay, no one forced
(32:35):
you man to do this. Man wanted to go to Hio. Yeah,
that's why everyone always talks about that race thing.
Speaker 4 (32:41):
I go.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Yeah, maybe in Alabama and all these places. She still
won a lot of red states today and even in
twenty twelve, you know, before all this happened. So like,
let's like, these people have agency, and they could have
done a lot of stuff if they wanted to to
actually fix the country. So anyway, this is a long
way of saying a lot of it Obama as well.
You can see why eight her so much. All right,
(33:02):
let's get to Ken Vogel.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Very lucky to be joined in the studio this morning
by Ken Vogel. He is a phenomenal reporter for the
New York Times and also author of this new book
right here. It is called Devil's Advocate, The Hidden story
of Rudy Giuliani, Hunter Biden, and the Washington Insiders on
the payrolls of corrupt foreign interest. So something that we
are certainly very interested in here can We've relied on
your reporting so much on the show over the course
(33:28):
of the year, So thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (33:29):
It's great to have you in studio.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
Yes, you're to be with you. I'm a big fan
of the show.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (33:32):
It means a lot.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Well, we had an abundance of examples of foreign influence
just sort of out in the open. I mean, this
is one thing about Trump two point zero. We always
already covered the comments he made about Mary Maddelson, like, hey,
this lady, you know, gave me a bunch of money
and then I did the stuff that she wanted me
to do. So he tends to wear it on his
sleeve a bit more. And we have another example of this.
We can put this up on the screen. So this
was from you know, his recent trip in Egypt, and
(33:55):
you can see him here with the Indonesian president who
asked him if he can meet with his son Eric
in particular. Now Eric is not a member of the administration.
Eric is running the Trump organization, or is among those
running the Trump organization. Trump says, yeah, sure, Eric's such
a good boy. I'll have him give you a call.
What did you make of this particular moment and the
(34:18):
import here, Yeah, I mean it.
Speaker 10 (34:19):
Really shows the degree to which Trump and the folks
around him have kind of dropped the pretense. They are
openly blowing the line between their foreign policy, US foreign
policy and their business interests. And you know, there was
a telling quote that Eric Trump gave one of my
colleagues Ben Protests at the beginning of the administration. He said,
in the first term, we did everything imaginable to avoid
(34:40):
any appearance of impropriety, and frankly, we got crushed anyway,
and said that we had lost an absolute fortune.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
Quote, we can't just sit out in perpetuity, and I won't.
Speaker 10 (34:51):
I'm not in government, I'm in private industry. And he
is again he's wearing it on his sleeve. He's admitting,
like this is what we're doing. And you can see
why someone like the president of Indonesia or any other
foreign leader or interest would want to do business with
the Trump you know, with the Trump family, with the
various crypto interests, with the real estate business, because there
(35:12):
is this thinking that it is going to get you
at the front of the line in terms of your
asks on foreign policy, that is, being able to shape
the US government by doing business with Trump or the
people around it.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
If anything, this is a language they speak. Well, They're
like pay off the guy's son easy, you know, like
we do that here all the time. You know, we
set up shell companies or any of that. That's like
a natural way. But one of the things I've always
appreciated about your reporting is that you dive into the
way that it sneaks its way through Washington. So some
of the examples that you find here in the book
are paying off of these various lobbyist shell companies and
(35:47):
other things that will funnel around in order to obfuscate
possibly what that influence is. Throughout your reporting, what did
you find as the countries which are the best at
their foreign influence operations?
Speaker 10 (35:57):
I mean it is to your point, soccer is like
this mindset that you see in the developing world and
parts of like the post communist world in the Middle
East where they have this. You know, this is the
way that politics works. If you want something from government,
you pay the people in the government or the people
around them.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
They're gatekeepers.
Speaker 10 (36:17):
And so we've always sort of had this conceit in
the US said oh no, no, no.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
We're different, we don't do that.
Speaker 10 (36:22):
We have all these ethics rules and disclosure rules and
campaign finance rules and lobbying disclosure requirements that essentially are
the firewall that prevents that type of activity from happening here.
And what I found is I reported the book that no, actually,
we're not that different, and it's not just the Trump
administration and the Trump family. It goes back to democratic
administration's past and Republican administration's past, and the places in the.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
World that are best at it are those that have
that mindset. So they're the.
Speaker 10 (36:49):
Ukraines of the world, where it's this you know, post
Soviet country where like, how do you get what you want?
How do you become super rich or an oligarch who's
able to like cozy up to the state and essentially
privatize state assets and make them your own, And so
how do you get that?
Speaker 3 (37:04):
In the US? If you're a Ukrainian oligarch.
Speaker 10 (37:06):
You pay Rudy Giuliani, or you pay Hunter Biden, or
you pay Paul Manifford, you pay someone like that. And
the thing that surprised me, particularly in Ukraine, but in
a lot of these other countries is the bi partisan
nature of this. It's not just that like you would
pay you know, a campaign aid for John McCain or
for you know, Bob Dole or for John Kerry. You
(37:29):
pay them all at the same time, they would be
all on the same team working for Victor Yanakovich in
the case of Ukraine, where he had Paul Manifort and
Tony Podesta and Tad Devine.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
Who are in the US.
Speaker 10 (37:41):
They're like taking these principal stands and posturing about how
they have all these you know, how they're involvement of
politics is guided in shape by some like overarching set
of principles that align them with the red team or
the blue team. Well know, in Ukraine it's the green team,
and that green team unites the red and the blue team,
and that's the money team.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Yes, talk a little bit more about Ukraine example, because
this one obviously is very big in the public consciousness
Hunter Biden, you know, Burismo, all of that.
Speaker 4 (38:07):
Like he claims, Oh, I was just on.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
The board because I have this expertise, had nothing to
do with my father. I didn't give them any favors.
I mean, what do you actually find in the book
about the way that these relationships work, in particular when
you have someone who is just selling basically their proximity
to an administration.
Speaker 10 (38:23):
Yeah, I mean that's exactly what he was doing, and
that is you know, the mindset there was this oligarch,
Mikola Zoltchevsky, who is the head of Barisma, And it's
the quintessential oligarchic fact pattern where like he was in
the administration of this corrupt strong man president that the
US wanted gone, Victor Yanikovic, who, by the way, is
the guy who was represented by Paul Mannaford and Tad
(38:45):
Devine and you know Tony Podesta, and they as a
result of this fact pattern where he's essentially privatized these
state assets and made a fortune off of them, the US,
the UK and the Ukrainian prosecutors were like looking at
this guy and identifying him as like a poster child
(39:06):
for the type of corruption that they were trying to
root out under the new government. And so he hired
a bunch of people, not just Hunter Biden, but former
Polish president Kwasnewski. I think is how you say his
name to try to signal to prosecutors and international officials
that like, hey, like, don't mess with me because I've
got protection, you know, again, thinking in the way that
(39:27):
like you think in Ukraine that this is going to
back away the you know, the government officials from coming
after you, and you know, we do see examples. You know,
the question is like, what did Hunter Biden actually do.
We do see examples where he did recruit a lobbying
firm that was going to do the lobbying, and they
did meet with people, and he actually met with people
(39:48):
in his father's government India Obama Biden administration. What did
he actually deliver It's questionable. I mean the prosecutor who
they did want gone.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
And this is.
Speaker 10 (39:58):
Sort of getting in the weeds little bit, but there's
this prosecutor who has been at the center of the
Barisma stories, a guy they named of Victor Choken and
like the Democrats have suggested, oh no, no, they didn't
want you know, Barisma was okay with this guy because
he wasn't actually investigating him.
Speaker 3 (40:14):
Well no, that's not actually accurate.
Speaker 10 (40:16):
He wasn't really investigating him in the traditional sense, but
in the Ukrainian sense, he helped open the possibility of investigations
and used that to elicit bribes from the from Zolcewsky,
the oligarco own Barisma. So they did want him gone,
and whether it was Hunter Biden or the people he recruited,
they were certainly helpful in effectuating that end result. Uh,
(40:38):
and he was fired and ultimately the investigations into Bearisma
were dropped by the subsequent prosecutor. Before you had then
flipping sides and going into bed with Vigiliati.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
It's been years since I've dealt it. Even hearing his
name again, I'm like, oh man, it's been a long
time since we've come.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
All what I said, write about it.
Speaker 10 (40:55):
My editors will be like, can we write a story
that doesn't really like it's like a game recap of
the Poles hockey?
Speaker 1 (41:01):
It is? Yeah, it is what it is. Yeah. One
of the things we talk a lot about here on
the show is pro Israel influence. But one of the
things that they will often say is, well, you never
cover Katari influence, and so you are quite literally one
of the experts on this. We pulled one year older
stories F two covered Yeah, right, we have. But anyway,
all right, so you wrote this story after Pam Bondi
(41:24):
was selected as the Attorney General. You said, as lobbyist,
Bondi had clients including Amazon, GM Uber and Qatar. In
the book, you also dictate some of the Katari influence
you've watched here in Washington. Tell us a little bit
about that. What what how sophisticated is it? What is
the money and to what end are they trying to buy? What?
What type of influence do they want?
Speaker 10 (41:44):
Yeah, I mean they threw around huge sums of money,
as you guys have noted, particularly in the first Trump
administration when they were locked in this regional andmbrolio with
Saudi and with the UAE over this this boycott, right
and so, and it was it was multi pronged. I
mean they had sort of set the seeds, sort of
laid the foundation by cultivating a business relationship with Jared Kusher,
(42:08):
who was the point person on on sort of Middle
East policy during the first Trump administration now arguably again
in the second Trump administration.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
But then that wasn't enough for them.
Speaker 10 (42:18):
That was sort of the you know, the approach that
I was talking about before with the Indonesian president where
they're going straight to the top. But they also did
a very traditional influence campaign where they threw around a
ton of money to lobbyists on both sides of the
aisle and including Brian Ballard's firm which was where Pam
Bondi was employed before she was tapped as Attorney General.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
And you know, they they did.
Speaker 10 (42:40):
They did sort of curry favor with, you know, with
the administration and managed to get the administration to help
resolve that that boycott in a way that was to
their to their liking. And you know, there were a
number of cases that came out of that where there
was this it's sort of ironic now, but there was
a clamp down on this type of foreign lobbying during
(43:00):
the first Trump administration as a result of the Mueller
investigation and some of the spillover investigations, and it ended
up leading to a deferred prosecution agreement in the case
of a prominent Trump connected lobbyist, Barry Bennett, where he
didn't exactly plead guilty, but he admitted that he had
violated Farah while he was representing the Kutars. And so
it's ironic now that Pam Bondi is Attorney General. One
(43:23):
of the first things that you did was decriminalize the
prosecution of the Foreign Agents Registration Act and say we're
not going to be allocating prosecutorial resources to going after
these types of cases.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
So it's really take note of that.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
Actually it's a.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
Free for all right now, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
Exact, so much stuff going on.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
I think you know, oftentimes there's definitely a lot of
division between the two parties in Washington, but the place
where they tend to come up together the most is
actually on foreign policy, and oftentimes in a way that
American people are not particularly pleased about. How much of
that owes to this, you know wash, this amount of
foreign cash that this city is a washing in, and
you know, Ukraine is a perfect example.
Speaker 4 (44:03):
You talk about Tad.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
Devine and Paul Maniford, this is a Democratic strategist and
Republican strategist, like very bipartisan. The way that this money flows, Yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (44:10):
Think a lot of it.
Speaker 10 (44:11):
A lot of what you're talking about where we're making
these you know, bargains with the devil, where it's like
this particular country or leader or interest is not really
aligned with our ideals about democracy and human rights and
free speech and religious freedom, but they're kind of our
best friend in the region. And a lot of the
(44:31):
sort of casting of these entities as aligned with US
foreign policy is because of these lobbyists. You go back
to Paul Maniford, who is really like the godfather of
this industry, and what he would do during the Reagan
and Bush administrations was go around the world and find
you know, sometimes really blood so brutal, you know, opposition leaders,
(44:53):
guerrilla leaders, or you know, dictators, and take them to
Washington and say, like, this person can be or bulwark
against communism in whatever part of the world, whether it's
in you know, Marcos in the Philippines or Jonas Savimbi,
the bloody guerrilla leader in Angola. Paul Manifort helped them
win US support, bipartisan US support and funding by taking
(45:16):
them to Washington and casting them as like a bulwark
against communists. And well, fast forward till now we have
a very similar thing happening. But it's not about any
particular ideological alignment. Rather, it's about like casting these people
as like this person is the Trump of the Balkans,
and it's and this person is the Trump of the
buck Is because yeah, because they have been prosecuted by
(45:39):
you know, prosecutors in their home country, or they've been
sanctioned by the Biden administration, and therefore you President Trump
should take their side and you know, give them the
US government funding and remove sanctions because.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
They are twenty billion dollars bailout for example, a huge
amount of Silicon Valley guys where friends with him, pushed
his administration. Now he needs a bailout. They're the same
people who backed Trump and he gets this like sweetheart
deal from the US government. It's I mean, have you actually,
I'm curious, have you heard anything about that? How exactly
did all that come up?
Speaker 3 (46:11):
Yeah, we're doing some reporting that I'm running at reveal,
But I mean, there are lots of examples.
Speaker 10 (46:16):
Yes, South America's is a going because certainly Bolsonaro, they tried,
they tried to help bol Sceonnaro, like you know, overturn
the election results, and then they tried to Trump tried
to back off the Supreme Court. And Bolsonnaro has a
lot of these Trump allies, including Donald Trump Junior, who
he's cultivated, and there was there were reports about Bolsonaro's
(46:36):
son being in the White House early in the early.
Speaker 3 (46:38):
In this term.
Speaker 10 (46:39):
So it's another example where like some of the framing
has changed, like the way that these lobbyists and others
try to cast these people as allied with the US.
Speaker 3 (46:49):
It's not like a Cold War type of framing.
Speaker 10 (46:51):
It's really like a cult of personality that they are
aligned with Trump and therefore they deserve US government support
and funding.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
And then the other pieces you mentioned before is just
like direct cash infusions and how much has his crypto
coin and you know, crypto holdings and the company associated
with that, Like how much has that fuel just inflows
of potentially corrupt cash influences administration?
Speaker 3 (47:15):
Yeah, hugely. I mean, you know, democrats and critics. I'm
not like dismissing this criticism.
Speaker 10 (47:20):
During the first administration made a huge deal of like
foreign interest staying at the Trump hotel that was a
violation of the emoluments cause you know, maybe it was,
maybe it wasn't.
Speaker 3 (47:29):
Courts ultimately decided it wasn't.
Speaker 10 (47:30):
But you know, but at least there there was like
some service, There was some pret they were actually getting something.
They were getting a knight in the hotel or whatever.
Now it's like just money compared to I mean the
crypto stuff. It's I mean, I don't know where you
guys stand. I know a little bit about where you
stayed up, but like where your audience stands. Like, but
(47:51):
like it's arguable that like there's there's some value there,
the values in the IV beholder, but certainly like you're
not getting so you're not getting a physical service or
something like that, that you are literally putting money in
the Trump family's pocket because you believe in them or
you think you can get something out of them.
Speaker 3 (48:07):
And we saw this most acutely with World Liberty Financial.
Speaker 10 (48:10):
Where Finance and the UAE finance a two billion dollar
deal using World Liberty Financial, and like, what do they
get out of that? They certainly get on Trump's good side.
I mean, we'll see maybe if the deal goes through
and is a great success, but there's an open question
as to whether they're actually getting something other than the
favor of the president for that two billion dollar investment.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
Can please keep it up? Everybody, go and buy the book.
We will have a link down in the description for
you to purchase it. Thank you very much, sir, rely
on you and we thank you.
Speaker 3 (48:40):
It's pleasure.
Speaker 1 (48:41):
Thank you so much for watching. We appreciate you, guys.
I'll be on with Ryan tomorrow Bro Show, and then
I'll see you all on Thursday.
Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election,
and we are so excited about what that means for
the future of the show.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
This is the only place where you can find honest
perspectives from the left and the right that simply does
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So if that is something that's important to you, please
go to Breakingpoints dot com. Become a member today and
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Speaker 1 (00:25):
We need your help to build the future of independent
news media and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints
dot com. Turning now to my hometown, Brian, Texas, literally
where I was born, but for our purposes let's put
this up here on the screen. It is the scene
of a true mystery where Glaine Maxwell is currently being
kept in a federal prison camp despite Bureau of Prisons
(00:47):
regulations that say sex offenders shouldn't be at minimum security prisons.
And in this investigation from The Wall Street Journal, they
describe lockdowns in a mysterious meeting a quiet Texas prison
adapts to life with Glaine Maxwell, and they say that
some two months ago. In mid August, hundreds of inmates
at a minimum security prison in Brian were locked down
(01:08):
during their usual time for strolling the grassy campus and
visiting with family and friends. All but one, Gallaine Maxwell,
while her fellows inmates were confined to their dormitories after breakfast.
Maxwell Maxwell met with several visitors in the Federal Prison
Camp Chapel. Less than three weeks earlier, the Justice Department
(01:29):
had moved her to the Federal Prison Camp Brian from
that higher security facility in Tallahassee. That interview followed that
transfer was followed with an interview with the Justice Department
senior official Todd Blanche during that whole transcript that they
released from the Department of Justice, where we learned absolutely
nothing and she actually told multiple verifiable falsehoods. They say
(01:49):
her unexpected arrival has upset the camps usually relaxed atmosphere,
leading to more frequent lockdowns. The addition of armed guards,
current and former inmates set in interviews that she appeared
to receive quote unusually favorable treatment at times, sparking resentment
and other inmates. Some prisons prisoners heard that the lockdown
was needed to accommodate important visitors, including some including her lawyers.
(02:13):
But what other important visitors were there? And you know,
one inmate recalled seeing her return to the dormitory that
day with a smile on her face. When they asked
her about the meeting, she said it went really well,
but shared no other information. So what was so important
to lock down the entire prison so that she could
(02:34):
have a meeting in club? All right, this is club fed.
They're supposed to be able to just do whatever they want.
Lockdowns are apparently very rare in these facilities because people
aren't stabbing and killing each other. Those people are over
at maximum security prison. So what's going on, Well, you
get a whole lockdown. She has this meeting with an
important figure, she's got a smile on her face. This
(02:54):
is around the same time of the interview. What's happening. Yeah,
we don't know, We don't know anything her.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
This is someone who should not be in this particular
prison to begin with. And there's been upset among the
other inmates there and other sex offenders around the country
who are like, hey, we aren't supposed to get these perks.
So just her being in that facility is already preferential treatment.
Then what this article also documents is that she's allowed
(03:22):
to go and shower by herself. After all, then she's
got her own room, whereas most of the inmates.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Have to share.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
She gets, you know, all sorts of special perks. They've
stationed additional officers around the facility. She's gotten special treatment.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
Why why?
Speaker 2 (03:39):
And then you've got this meeting where you know, they
have locked down the entire facility, so none of the
other inmates who normally during that time would be able
to walk around the grounds. This was also the time
when they can normally have visitors and visit with family
and friends. That all stops so that Glaine can have
her special little meeting, Like, what the hell is going
on here? They also mentioned that there's been an absolute
ban on any of the other prisoners talking to the press,
(04:04):
and there have been punishments meted out because of them
talking to reporters. They've been transferred. You know, it's considered
a big perk to be at this facility. So there
was one instance that they documented where this individual talked
to the press and then they were moved out of
this facility to a higher security prison. So, you know,
as a consequence, it appears as punishment for daring to
(04:25):
speak to the press about Galaine's treatment and what life
is like on the inside. There was also another incident
that they mentioned here which was sort of sketchy, where
there were gun shots right near the facility, and again,
you know, they came in the middle of the night,
and you know, they secured Glaine first and foremost, and
then what the official story was was, oh, this was
(04:48):
some sort of shots fired, like away from the facility,
like in the direction away from the facility, had some
sort of gang activity. There were no injuries reported, and
inmates were very skeptical of that story that the official
or it was actually what happened there. So just really
insightful about the way she's getting all of this incredible,
incredible preferential treatment. Again, why this is a convicted sex offender,
(05:12):
Why is she getting all the special treatment? What is
going on there? Why does the government want to coddle
this lady. Great question that you know, I think people
can can ponder. And then the specifics of this secret
meeting and whatever the hell.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Went down there, nobody knows. That's all. Like, as you said,
there's some very sketchy stuff they have. She has special protection.
She apparently is you know, guests being ordered to lock
down returning to their bunks. She gets treatment extra security.
You have people who in the facility who spoke to
Wall Street Journal reporters getting transferred within an hour of
(05:46):
the phone call, a single hour of phone call to
the Wall Street Journal, and they got transferred to a
higher security facility for what for talking to a reporter
about the special treatment that Gallene maxwell. So they are
going to extraordinary links right now to make her life comfortable,
to get her everything that she needs. She gets to
pick and choose who her you know, the people in
her room are. I mean, this is not normal for
(06:08):
anybody who's in one of these prisons, even though it's
club fed like it's still prison or it's supposed to be.
And man, this is as good as it gets. At
the same time, we've got CBS News out with a
new Honestly, I want to give them credit. They've been
late to it, but give them credit. They showed up
big time on the suicide investigation of Epstein's cell. I
(06:29):
know you guys talked about it a little bit, but
they talked specifically about how the crime scene was not preserved.
There was no proper investigation into this in the way
that a murder or suicide investigation should be conducted. So
here's Scott McFarlane. He's a journalist over there. Let's take
a listen.
Speaker 5 (06:44):
CBS News has spent years investigating what happened in that
cell where Epstein died in New York in twenty nineteen,
and a series of ninety photos from the scene obtained
by sixty Minutes and CBS News do raise questions about
the initial handling of the scene and the initial wave
of the response. The photos show at least they indicate
(07:06):
items having been moved around. Some of the items from
the cell, the mattress Jeffrey Epstein's body had been moved
before FBI investigators were able to respond. A former NYPD detective,
a private investigator who spoke with CBS News says that
does complicate things that it appears this was handled as
if it were a suicide scene and not necessarily a
(07:29):
possible crime scene or murder scene. Also noted lack of
evidence markers in the photos. The former NYPD detective said,
not the clumsiness, but the lack of thoroughness with the
photo taking itself is an issue that there seems to
be a failure to follow some basic or traditional forensic
(07:54):
tests and exams. All of that can complicate an investigation
and questions. You know, our investigation does not contradict the
official determination of suicide, but it does seem that there
were some insufficiencies through the process. And all of that
means that now we are six years later, six years
(08:14):
after the fact, it's going to add potential fuel as
there's more considerations of broadening the investigation of Epstein case files,
releasing more documents, and as Maxwell is poised to sit
down with congressional investigators soon.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Props of Scott did a good job with that report.
They continue not to drop it. And look, there's still
a lot more out there, and I know it's frustrating. Drip, drip, drip,
but I remain hopeful though we'll get there eventually. Let's
get to Kamala, shall we?
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Failed presidential candidate Kamala Harris has been on her book
tour and we got a couple of I guess we'll
call them highlights for you. She had a guest appearance
from Hillary Clinton, also took some protesters on Let's go
Ahead and take a lism.
Speaker 6 (08:57):
You debated him once, he wouldn't debate you again.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
We beat him four times. Do you think we're the
reason he is so unhinged today?
Speaker 7 (09:08):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (09:10):
They basically say to me, we didn't tell you, but
she's been talking about people eating cats and dogs. And
I was like what, And they said, we think we
need to tell you because his propensity is to say
the last thing he heard. And sure enough, on the
(09:33):
debate stage he said it.
Speaker 8 (09:34):
Your You know what, I am not president of the
United States.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
I'm not president.
Speaker 6 (09:53):
And if you want to talk about legacy, let's talk
about the legacy of mass importation.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
People.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Nasty portations, and people not voting. I mean, there's I
guess we'll start with Hillary. You know, the cope of
we beat him four times in a bay. Well, dud
did such a great job. Why why did not the president.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Seeing these two ladies and who were able to apparently
lose to Trump? Yeah, I don't know. I'm curious for
your I mean, this is a crystallizing things.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
I don't know why. So her response there, she's got
two parts of her response. Number one, she says, well,
I'm not president, go talk to the guy who is
as if there hasn't been protests of the Trump administration
for their progenocide policy. I mean, he was confronted by
protesters just down the street here when he was eating
(10:50):
dinner actually in a pretty pretty wild failure of the
Secret Service, frankly, and how close these protesters protesters were
able to get. But there's this mythology that as soon
as Trump came into offer, people stop caring about Palestine,
and that's just insane. I mean, I will say I
think for a variety of reasons, the protests were not
as heightened as they were, you know, while she and
(11:10):
Biden were in office. I think number one, because there
was a sense like these are people that we may
be able to actually influence, were part of their theoretical coalition.
Number Two, you have a level of fatigue. And number three,
this government has been very authoritarian and cracking down on
protesters and increasing the cost of actually going out there
and exercising your First Amendment rights. So that's number one,
(11:31):
this fiction and this lie and this insinuation that low
key people, if you were pro Palestine, you actually wanted
Donald Trump to win, and then you're happy with the
mass deportations which she name checks here, you know that
she's like blaming them for number like the other piece
here that just of course discuss me and drives me absolutely.
Baddy is blaming the voters who didn't vote for her,
(11:56):
who had and those specifically who had a moral objection
and a red line around a literal genocide and could
not bring themselves to vote for someone who was actively
supporting and complicit in and refused to separate herself from
even like this in the smallest level from the execution
(12:17):
of that genocide. She's laming them rather than taking any
responsibility for the active choices she herself made, including I
mean just there were such small things that people were
asking for, just to let someone who's Palestinian Americans speak
at the DNC, even that was a bridge too far.
A glaring problem in her campaign, very clear from the beginning,
(12:40):
was Joe Biden's unpopular how are you going to separate yourself?
This was the obvious place to do it, and she
never ever did it. So for her, Hillary did her
own version of this after she lost, Like it's always
someone else's fault, It's always the voter's fault.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
The voters are too stupid or.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Make the wrong choices or immoral it's never them. They
never take responsibility for themselves. And last thing, I don't
get you get away and like, I'm not like, I
think Kamalo's delt a very difficult hand here, right, coming
in late and saddled with the unpopular presidency and you know,
all of those things like cost of living being very high.
I think it was very difficult for even a great
(13:18):
candidate to come into that situation. So I'm not saying
everything that happened was on her shoulders, but there is
no doubt that she made some critical errors, one of
them being that she refused to separate herself from an
ongoing genocide and show even a shred of moral principle
(13:41):
around that. So that's my thoughts on this.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Yeah, well, let's let's really break it down. She you said,
it's not entirely her fault, and that's true. It is
almost mostly Joe Biden's fault. Let's let's start with that.
He is the chief villain, as Daryl Cooper said, you know,
the chief villain of the twenty twenty four election. He
is a chief villain. He's one of the great narsis
in American history. However, However, and this is where it
(14:04):
starts to fall on kamalaw, Nobody forced you to go
on the view and say, Nobody forced you to listen
to Biden. He was a dead literate maybe functionally like
dead president right at that time. No one forced you
to go on the on the View and listen to
his phone call about no daylight Kid. All you had
to say is, there's a lot of things I would
do different from Joe Biden to actually inject some energy.
Nobody forced you to, you know, repeatedly not distance yourself
(14:29):
from the administration. Nobody forced you to listen to him
from the point of which you are the candidate. And
but this also gets to me about the weakness of
the process, and in a way, maybe one of her
great errors was immediately accepting the nomination and not at
least trying to make it a seem as if people
could jump in and that there would be some process,
because you know, if we think back to it, do
(14:49):
you want to be handed something or do you want
to earn it? Like you know, there's there's a lot
of theory behind that about the satisfaction and the you know,
you know, the confidence that you get in something I
mean I could say, even from us starting this business, right,
I feel confident in some of my judgment that I
would not have previously in the past when we were
just w two employees, because you took a bet and
it worked out and through your own work and all that.
(15:10):
They're bumpy and stuff along the way, but you could
prove your decision making and it kind of gives you
a confidence in your ability to try and sell something,
to do something, and to take risks. She never had
that because she was handed it. I think she shouldn't
have done that. But on the Gaza things specifically, and
this gets to the voter. I just can't be in
a situation where I blame the voters. Now we can
(15:30):
talk to the voters and I will say, if you
voted for Trump because you were anti I mean, I
guess Israel, like, you're honestly a fucking idiot. And I
think I said that at the time. I was like,
do you remember, I'm pretty sure I did that. Monogue.
I was like, listen, if you're pro if your one
issue is Israel, I was like, you should vote for Kambla.
You honestly should, you would honestly being dumb.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
People who voted for Trump. She's saying people who just
didn't vote.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Okay, Well, yeah, see, I'm not in that because if
that was your number one issue, you kind of made
the right call because at the end of the day,
both would have probably kept the war going. To be honest,
I'm not sure we get this ceasepire under a Kama
administration because you know, I never saw the backbone and
all of that behind that. They probably would have been
more rhetorical about un and all of that, But like,
(16:14):
I don't I'm not so sure we end up here
without somebody like Trump just going full retard and be like, hey,
actually it's over. I never saw Kama or Biden with
that ability. Maybe you know, it's unfalsifiable at this point,
but the point really gets to this whole you didn't vote.
Let's go back to Hillary. We cover this extensively at
the time. If the same number of black people vote
(16:34):
in twenty sixteen that voted in two thousand and eight
and twenty twelve, Hillary wins the election. And what did
the Democrats say, Instead of why didn't these people come
out to vote? It was how dare you not come
out to vote? It's your fault. Well, why let's do
some analysis. Why do they not come out to vote?
They thought by voting for Obama and for twice that
(16:54):
their lives would get a lot better, and they didn't,
And they didn't think that Hillary would do much about it.
Whose fault is that? To me, it's Hillary's fault. For Kamala,
it's the same thing. I mean, if you look at
some of the stats, if you drive out let's say
you're talking about Israel, if you drive out you young people,
she lost young men, remember that. I mean, that's a
huge deal. Gen Z, a lot of new voters. They
swung to Trump. That is a systematic failure of the
(17:16):
Democratic Party and of Kamala Harris despite all the coconut
memes and all this other bullshit turned out to be fake.
So I just you know, we can't absolve these people
of responsibility. And like you said about go protest Trump,
it's like, first of all, anyone who's like rabidly pro
Palestine is not pro Trump at this point, it doesn't exist.
So it's like calling out a coalition which is entirely fake.
(17:39):
And then also to put this whole legacy of if
you think it's so bad well, I mean you also
didn't give them the path or at the very least
make a convincing argument, because the argument and all of this,
you know, we debated to hear a million times about
leading up to Trump, about what the legacy of all
that would look like. I think you were a lot
more clearer than a lot of other shit heads on
(18:00):
the left, frankly, who are like, oh, it will be
all that bad. I'm like, no, from your perspective, it's
going to be fucking hell, let's be honest, And it
is from their perspective, which is kind of what a
lot of people in the right vote for. But that's
my point though, is that there was an entire ecosystem
of people who wanted to convince them that Trump was
going to be the one who was going to be
anti israela pro palaesign or whatever. And I think those
(18:22):
people can be condemned. But to say not voting, like
at least from a pro pales sign perspective, to say
not voting should be condemned is preposterous. It's just absolutely
absolves all the responsibilities and the systematic failures going back
like thirty years inside the Democratic Party. So I need
to see somebody grapple with that, and I don't see
a single person. That's what I don't get about the Democrats.
(18:45):
You're so pathetic and weak. You're nothing.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
And here's the thing, is like a couple things on
that there is such a deep psychological helplessness to these people. Yeah,
like nothing's ever in their control, nothing ever in their power.
And the upside of that is if nothing's ever in
your control or in your power, then nothing's ever your fault.
And so you know, there's always you know from the
(19:09):
Obama administration, all the excuses about why the Affordable Care
Act really kind of sucks, you know, I mean the
whole fight over a corpor and I talk to Corbin
Truent yesterday.
Speaker 4 (19:18):
He used to work with AOC and he was saying.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
We really need to internalize that the whole fight that
Democrats are picking over the shutdown is like we can't
let normal Obamacare come back, Like we have to keep
these subsidies going, because normal Obamacare is so insanely unaffordable, like.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
It is unacceptable.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
That's the fight that they take, so all sorts of
excuses around why that was the best thing they could
and get a public option was impossible and by administration
and all kinds of excuse, we can't get minimum ways
of parliamentary and this and that, like there's always some
either villain within the Democratic Party or the Republicans, even
when they're out of power and the opposition they're just
so powerful, can't possibly overcome them. And there's all this
(19:58):
learned helplessness. And I think I genuinely think that the
reason why they choose to take that mental tactic of
pretending like everything is out of their control and out
of their hands, even when you know, you're the president
of the United States and you control the set of
the House or whatever, it's because they don't want to
have any responsibility for their actions. And this is, you know,
(20:20):
to go even one layer deeper, it's kind of a
core ideology of neoliberalism actually, of which both parties have
been you know, we're very involved with supporting because what
neoliberalism is at bottom is outsourcing your thinking to the markets.
So you now ever have to make a decision, it's just, oh, well,
the markets did their thing and this is what they want,
and that's just.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
How it went.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
So I think it's very deeply ingrained in the psychology
but I've also been thinking about the other thing that
you just said, Soccer, which is part of why Democrats
have even in Trump two point zero now that they're
you know, they aren't the ones who are sending the
bombs directly, and many of them are still voting for it.
But why they've had such a hard time separating from
(21:02):
Israel and calling it a genocide and saying this is
unacceptable and we have to stop it and forcefully resisting
it is because they know that they were complicit and
they don't want to take responsibility for that. They don't
want to have to go back and say, you know what,
we fucked up, and you guys like you guys who
were protesting us, you were actually right, you were correct.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
That I think would go so far.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
I actually think it would be so like powerful for
people to see genuine accountability, genuine reckoning with what they
were complicit in. I think it would do so much
to see that. And they're just thoroughly incapable of acknowledging
that there was any error there. And so now you
have a situation where you know, we're in a cesfar.
(21:45):
We'll see whether it lasts or not. A lot of
questions about that. There was you know, hostage exchange which
all the Israeli hostages are now released. Palestinians got two
thousand of their hostages back from the Israelis. And you've
missed your moment really to be able to have that right.
You've missed your moment to be able to really take
a moral high ground over you know, what the Trump
(22:06):
administration has done here. Maybe it would have been concluded
more quickly Underkammala. Maybe it would have been maybe they
wouldn't have had the complete starvation. We know the Biden
administration did push and you know, maintain some higher level
of aid than was maintained under the Trump administration, where
you didn't have the total and complete starvation.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
We'll never know.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
And you never took the time you Kamala, Harris and
you know others in the Democratic Party, but specifically, you
never came out and said, I object to this thing
that the Trump administration is doing in Gaza. Here's what
I if I was president, Here's what I would have
done differently. You never did that, so we have nothing
to go on that you would have been different or
better in any way.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Yeah, and you know, if you want pitch perfect proof
of all this Obama and Mark Maren from Mark Maroon's
last podcast, Let's take a listen, and.
Speaker 7 (22:54):
As you get older, I'm gonna show up my joke
about this, no matter how much you want to pretend otherwise.
You're starting to get a little out of touch. You're
not completely you know, plugged into the zeitgeys. It happens naturally,
It just happens. Yeah, I mean, look, I don't My
(23:17):
brain doesn't register TikTok. Yeah, mine either, the same way
that it does my sixteen year old niece, right right,
You got to get a guy to do it for you.
It's not just the technology itself. It's that I'm not
(23:38):
plugged in. I'm not relating to the cultural you know,
stream in the same way that somebody who's twenty or
twenty five or even thirty five is.
Speaker 9 (23:50):
But the brains have been you know broken, you know,
through exploiting grievance and anger. And you know, in talking
about the left, that the fact that so many decided
to not vote out of protest because they didn't feel
that the situation in Israel, the ethnic cleansing of Gaza
(24:10):
and whatnot, was not going to be dealt with by
Kamala or however that goes. So you get this protest
vote of people not willing to make a compromise for
what you used to talk about is the incremental progress.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Yeah, the incremental I got an email recently said, you
seem very worried about the destruction of norms, yet you
always talk about how during that time period you talked
about how those norms are bad. And that's why, because
I lived through this shit George W. Bush and Obama
who lectured me about the norms as the whole. Meanwhile,
(24:47):
what was happening. The entire apparatus of American life collapsed
around us. We sacrificed our empire abroad for what for Iraq?
We sacrificed our economy in two thousand and eight for
the bankers, and that entire time we captive give him.
We said, please save us. We're gonna vote for you.
This said, Oh, don't worry, We're gonna pass the Affordable
Care Act. I love your point. We can't let Obamacare
(25:10):
return to normal Obamacare because that will fuck people over.
What does that tell you about OBAMACA? You know, we
voted for the homeowners. What happened? We voted for prosecution.
What happened. We voted for more regulation, we got fucking
DoD Frank And now look at our economy right now.
Same with getting out of Iraq. So that they're high
minded liberalism or they're high minded conservatism destroyed this country.
(25:33):
And that's why I'm like, as bad, yes, I've become
an acceleration, as as scary, and all these things may seem,
I don't know. For me, I still have some faith
that will turn on the other side because I lived
twenty five years under their regime. You know, I was
born under Bill Clinton. Consider the progress of the United
States economy and a US foreign policy since that time
(25:56):
that I was born in nineteen ninety two. How can
you still worship at the altar of these norms? You cannot.
And so we can argue about what the norms and
new norms and all that right should be. But I
cannot live in a world or have this motherfucker lecturing
at me with his chin up again about how fine
things are and about the better angels of our nature
while shit just continues to get worse every single year.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
That is the thing that is very jarring. I listened
to this whole conversation and I wanted to pull that
TikTok point he made about how he's out of touch
because I thought it was very I mean, it was
one of the more honest parts of the podcast.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
He's like, I don't really get it that. I'm like,
I'm kind of on a touch.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
So that's why I don't say that much about politics
because I don't really I'm not really in touch with
what people are thinking anymore. And I was like, wow,
that that's actually interesting level of self awareness. But I
also want to say, I think being out of touch,
like that's a choice, you know, like you could go
It's not like TikTok is not that hard to understand.
You could go on TikTok, you would understand.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
I'm not on TikTok, and I fully am understanding what's
going on. It's not.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Yeah, And also, you know, you choose who you interact with,
like you sir on it yourself with a bunch of
like celebrities and rich people, and so yeah, you're gonna
be on a touch. I mean that that is a
choice that you have made. So that was that was
one piece, and then the other part. It's very jarring
to see him still doing like a twenty twelve style
(27:17):
of politics while the world is burning around you.
Speaker 4 (27:20):
You know, you said, his vibe is like, oh, everything's.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Fine, and well, you know, we'll all compromise and we'll
take the high road when they take the low road.
It's like that shit is so far we are so
far past that. So yeah, it felt like listening to
him talk, it really did feel like a relic from
another era. And I know we joke about like, let's
say they got rid of termlaments and you get the
Trump Obama matchup, and you know, we've always said like
(27:45):
Obama would crush him, and I think Obama would.
Speaker 4 (27:47):
Have beat him in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
I'm not so sure anymore because watching that, he just
felt so so far removed from the actual energy and
the concern that people have. You know, this thing that
he's always been accused of, which has always been true
of sort of like standing aloof that's what's an observing
society from afar and not really feeling like he has
(28:10):
a stake in it. That was one thing in twenty twelve.
It's another one right now. Like when the shit is
hitting the fan and you know, kids are being autistic,
kids are being stolen from their parents on the streets
of Chicago and apartment building rated and we just oversaw
a genocide, like in the moment of right now to
do your just remove I'm above it all and I'm
(28:31):
just going to tell you from on high where things
have gone astray, especially when you are a significant part
of the reason that things went on this track because
you promised a hopeful a different politics and you didn't
deliver for people in the way that people thought that
you would. Yeah, I don't know how that would go
over with the American people at this point.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
I'm not so sure.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Look, that was from a left perspective. From the right,
it's like, who flouted this country? Obama? You all right,
you're the one who chose all like basically cultural politics.
He is literally the everything that went wrong. He was
elected on a class anti war message and he turned
it to become the cultural war president. That's who he was.
That's ultimately his only real legacy is like DHAKA, the
(29:14):
Affordable Care Act, Oh, fantastic little contribution that you did there,
and the woke era it began under him in twenty fourteen.
It was a disaster. Now again, there's a lot of
blame and all that stuff to go around, but you
did not fulfill those core promises, and so the latter
stage of your administration that set up the Trump victory
is ultimately like those problems were not solved under your administration.
(29:38):
You could have headed off a lot of this. And
so I think you're right. I don't think he would
be Trump today in twenty twenty four. I don't think
there's a chance that he could actually come because.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
Because Trump is a creature of the moment exactly, and
he's a monster, in my opinion, monster of the moment,
but he is. He is a creature of the moment,
and Obama is the relic of the past.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Obama is a symptom and a relic of a time
when we still had hope. If you're young, you actually
don't remember that, you know. I was talking to a
journalism class recently. These kids are like nineteen, right, They
didn't know what the Mueller investigation was, Crystal. They literally
didn't even remember Mueller. So that was eight years ago.
So imagine trying to talk to them about Obama in
two thousand and eight. Literally ancient history. They have no
(30:21):
memory of a time when we still had actual faith
in our political institutions. And it's because of him that
I don't personally between Bush and him, I said, this
shit is rigged, it is fake. There is nothing redeeming
left inside of these people, the Washington establishment or any
of that. Now, yeah, I think there's a lot of
criticism and stuff to go around, but like you really
have to remember how much faith everybody put in withdrawing
(30:43):
from Iraq and two thousand and eight and how things
would go to where we ended up in what is
it January of twenty seventeen when Obama left office. If
you didn't live through that, you can't understand how we
actually got to where we are right.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Well, and this is again where the neoliberal impulse words
zero responsibility and helplessness comes in, because like you can't
help but look, your two terms in office were followed
by Donald Trump, So you did you know you were
somewhat now part of it. I do think there was
like a you know, mass racial backlash to him, Like
(31:17):
I do think that was part of what fueled the fire,
and Trump was part of that, right with the Birtherism
conspiracy and all of that. But that doesn't absolve you
of like there was clearly there were a lot of
exits off the highway of where we were headed to now,
and one of the biggest ones was two thousand and eight.
And then and then also he you know, he has
(31:39):
stuck his hands back in our politics at strategic points
to also make sure that the Democratic Party doesn't become
a party of the now like creatures of the now,
to make sure that the specifically the Burnie wing of
the party is blocked. Whether it was his intervention in
the DNC race obviously intervened extraordinarily in twenty twenty. He
(32:00):
also is a big part of the reason why he's
the one who anointed Hillary Clinton for twenty sixteen like
she was his choice. So his fingerprints are all over
the present day Democratic Party, which is such a failure.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
And there's there's no reckoning.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Not who presided over the largest loss in black wealth ever,
first black president. I mean, nobody ever grapples with that one.
You know, you talked about racial backlash. Sure, a lot
of white people in twenty twelve voted for him in Ohio.
A lot of the white people all over America, you know,
a lot of Red states today put their faith in
Barack Husain Obama after four years. Okay, no one forced
(32:35):
you man to do this. Man wanted to go to Hio. Yeah,
that's why everyone always talks about that race thing.
Speaker 4 (32:41):
I go.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Yeah, maybe in Alabama and all these places. She still
won a lot of red states today and even in
twenty twelve, you know, before all this happened. So like,
let's like, these people have agency, and they could have
done a lot of stuff if they wanted to to
actually fix the country. So anyway, this is a long
way of saying a lot of it Obama as well.
You can see why eight her so much. All right,
(33:02):
let's get to Ken Vogel.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Very lucky to be joined in the studio this morning
by Ken Vogel. He is a phenomenal reporter for the
New York Times and also author of this new book
right here. It is called Devil's Advocate, The Hidden story
of Rudy Giuliani, Hunter Biden, and the Washington Insiders on
the payrolls of corrupt foreign interest. So something that we
are certainly very interested in here can We've relied on
your reporting so much on the show over the course
(33:28):
of the year, So thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (33:29):
It's great to have you in studio.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
Yes, you're to be with you. I'm a big fan
of the show.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (33:32):
It means a lot.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Well, we had an abundance of examples of foreign influence
just sort of out in the open. I mean, this
is one thing about Trump two point zero. We always
already covered the comments he made about Mary Maddelson, like, hey,
this lady, you know, gave me a bunch of money
and then I did the stuff that she wanted me
to do. So he tends to wear it on his
sleeve a bit more. And we have another example of this.
We can put this up on the screen. So this
was from you know, his recent trip in Egypt, and
(33:55):
you can see him here with the Indonesian president who
asked him if he can meet with his son Eric
in particular. Now Eric is not a member of the administration.
Eric is running the Trump organization, or is among those
running the Trump organization. Trump says, yeah, sure, Eric's such
a good boy. I'll have him give you a call.
What did you make of this particular moment and the
(34:18):
import here, Yeah, I mean it.
Speaker 10 (34:19):
Really shows the degree to which Trump and the folks
around him have kind of dropped the pretense. They are
openly blowing the line between their foreign policy, US foreign
policy and their business interests. And you know, there was
a telling quote that Eric Trump gave one of my
colleagues Ben Protests at the beginning of the administration. He said,
in the first term, we did everything imaginable to avoid
(34:40):
any appearance of impropriety, and frankly, we got crushed anyway,
and said that we had lost an absolute fortune.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
Quote, we can't just sit out in perpetuity, and I won't.
Speaker 10 (34:51):
I'm not in government, I'm in private industry. And he
is again he's wearing it on his sleeve. He's admitting,
like this is what we're doing. And you can see
why someone like the president of Indonesia or any other
foreign leader or interest would want to do business with
the Trump you know, with the Trump family, with the
various crypto interests, with the real estate business, because there
(35:12):
is this thinking that it is going to get you
at the front of the line in terms of your
asks on foreign policy, that is, being able to shape
the US government by doing business with Trump or the
people around it.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
If anything, this is a language they speak. Well, They're
like pay off the guy's son easy, you know, like
we do that here all the time. You know, we
set up shell companies or any of that. That's like
a natural way. But one of the things I've always
appreciated about your reporting is that you dive into the
way that it sneaks its way through Washington. So some
of the examples that you find here in the book
are paying off of these various lobbyist shell companies and
(35:47):
other things that will funnel around in order to obfuscate
possibly what that influence is. Throughout your reporting, what did
you find as the countries which are the best at
their foreign influence operations?
Speaker 10 (35:57):
I mean it is to your point, soccer is like
this mindset that you see in the developing world and
parts of like the post communist world in the Middle
East where they have this. You know, this is the
way that politics works. If you want something from government,
you pay the people in the government or the people
around them.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
They're gatekeepers.
Speaker 10 (36:17):
And so we've always sort of had this conceit in
the US said oh no, no, no.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
We're different, we don't do that.
Speaker 10 (36:22):
We have all these ethics rules and disclosure rules and
campaign finance rules and lobbying disclosure requirements that essentially are
the firewall that prevents that type of activity from happening here.
And what I found is I reported the book that no, actually,
we're not that different, and it's not just the Trump
administration and the Trump family. It goes back to democratic
administration's past and Republican administration's past, and the places in the.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
World that are best at it are those that have
that mindset. So they're the.
Speaker 10 (36:49):
Ukraines of the world, where it's this you know, post
Soviet country where like, how do you get what you want?
How do you become super rich or an oligarch who's
able to like cozy up to the state and essentially
privatize state assets and make them your own, And so
how do you get that?
Speaker 3 (37:04):
In the US? If you're a Ukrainian oligarch.
Speaker 10 (37:06):
You pay Rudy Giuliani, or you pay Hunter Biden, or
you pay Paul Manifford, you pay someone like that. And
the thing that surprised me, particularly in Ukraine, but in
a lot of these other countries is the bi partisan
nature of this. It's not just that like you would
pay you know, a campaign aid for John McCain or
for you know, Bob Dole or for John Kerry. You
(37:29):
pay them all at the same time, they would be
all on the same team working for Victor Yanakovich in
the case of Ukraine, where he had Paul Manifort and
Tony Podesta and Tad Devine.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
Who are in the US.
Speaker 10 (37:41):
They're like taking these principal stands and posturing about how
they have all these you know, how they're involvement of
politics is guided in shape by some like overarching set
of principles that align them with the red team or
the blue team. Well know, in Ukraine it's the green team,
and that green team unites the red and the blue team,
and that's the money team.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Yes, talk a little bit more about Ukraine example, because
this one obviously is very big in the public consciousness
Hunter Biden, you know, Burismo, all of that.
Speaker 4 (38:07):
Like he claims, Oh, I was just on.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
The board because I have this expertise, had nothing to
do with my father. I didn't give them any favors.
I mean, what do you actually find in the book
about the way that these relationships work, in particular when
you have someone who is just selling basically their proximity
to an administration.
Speaker 10 (38:23):
Yeah, I mean that's exactly what he was doing, and
that is you know, the mindset there was this oligarch,
Mikola Zoltchevsky, who is the head of Barisma, And it's
the quintessential oligarchic fact pattern where like he was in
the administration of this corrupt strong man president that the
US wanted gone, Victor Yanikovic, who, by the way, is
the guy who was represented by Paul Mannaford and Tad
(38:45):
Devine and you know Tony Podesta, and they as a
result of this fact pattern where he's essentially privatized these
state assets and made a fortune off of them, the US,
the UK and the Ukrainian prosecutors were like looking at
this guy and identifying him as like a poster child
(39:06):
for the type of corruption that they were trying to
root out under the new government. And so he hired
a bunch of people, not just Hunter Biden, but former
Polish president Kwasnewski. I think is how you say his
name to try to signal to prosecutors and international officials
that like, hey, like, don't mess with me because I've
got protection, you know, again, thinking in the way that
(39:27):
like you think in Ukraine that this is going to
back away the you know, the government officials from coming
after you, and you know, we do see examples. You know,
the question is like, what did Hunter Biden actually do.
We do see examples where he did recruit a lobbying
firm that was going to do the lobbying, and they
did meet with people, and he actually met with people
(39:48):
in his father's government India Obama Biden administration. What did
he actually deliver It's questionable. I mean the prosecutor who
they did want gone.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
And this is.
Speaker 10 (39:58):
Sort of getting in the weeds little bit, but there's
this prosecutor who has been at the center of the
Barisma stories, a guy they named of Victor Choken and
like the Democrats have suggested, oh no, no, they didn't
want you know, Barisma was okay with this guy because
he wasn't actually investigating him.
Speaker 3 (40:14):
Well no, that's not actually accurate.
Speaker 10 (40:16):
He wasn't really investigating him in the traditional sense, but
in the Ukrainian sense, he helped open the possibility of investigations
and used that to elicit bribes from the from Zolcewsky,
the oligarco own Barisma. So they did want him gone,
and whether it was Hunter Biden or the people he recruited,
they were certainly helpful in effectuating that end result. Uh,
(40:38):
and he was fired and ultimately the investigations into Bearisma
were dropped by the subsequent prosecutor. Before you had then
flipping sides and going into bed with Vigiliati.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
It's been years since I've dealt it. Even hearing his
name again, I'm like, oh man, it's been a long
time since we've come.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
All what I said, write about it.
Speaker 10 (40:55):
My editors will be like, can we write a story
that doesn't really like it's like a game recap of
the Poles hockey?
Speaker 1 (41:01):
It is? Yeah, it is what it is. Yeah. One
of the things we talk a lot about here on
the show is pro Israel influence. But one of the
things that they will often say is, well, you never
cover Katari influence, and so you are quite literally one
of the experts on this. We pulled one year older
stories F two covered Yeah, right, we have. But anyway,
all right, so you wrote this story after Pam Bondi
(41:24):
was selected as the Attorney General. You said, as lobbyist,
Bondi had clients including Amazon, GM Uber and Qatar. In
the book, you also dictate some of the Katari influence
you've watched here in Washington. Tell us a little bit
about that. What what how sophisticated is it? What is
the money and to what end are they trying to buy? What?
What type of influence do they want?
Speaker 10 (41:44):
Yeah, I mean they threw around huge sums of money,
as you guys have noted, particularly in the first Trump
administration when they were locked in this regional andmbrolio with
Saudi and with the UAE over this this boycott, right
and so, and it was it was multi pronged. I
mean they had sort of set the seeds, sort of
laid the foundation by cultivating a business relationship with Jared Kusher,
(42:08):
who was the point person on on sort of Middle
East policy during the first Trump administration now arguably again
in the second Trump administration.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
But then that wasn't enough for them.
Speaker 10 (42:18):
That was sort of the you know, the approach that
I was talking about before with the Indonesian president where
they're going straight to the top. But they also did
a very traditional influence campaign where they threw around a
ton of money to lobbyists on both sides of the
aisle and including Brian Ballard's firm which was where Pam
Bondi was employed before she was tapped as Attorney General.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
And you know, they they did.
Speaker 10 (42:40):
They did sort of curry favor with, you know, with
the administration and managed to get the administration to help
resolve that that boycott in a way that was to
their to their liking. And you know, there were a
number of cases that came out of that where there
was this it's sort of ironic now, but there was
a clamp down on this type of foreign lobbying during
(43:00):
the first Trump administration as a result of the Mueller
investigation and some of the spillover investigations, and it ended
up leading to a deferred prosecution agreement in the case
of a prominent Trump connected lobbyist, Barry Bennett, where he
didn't exactly plead guilty, but he admitted that he had
violated Farah while he was representing the Kutars. And so
it's ironic now that Pam Bondi is Attorney General. One
(43:23):
of the first things that you did was decriminalize the
prosecution of the Foreign Agents Registration Act and say we're
not going to be allocating prosecutorial resources to going after
these types of cases.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
So it's really take note of that.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
Actually it's a.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
Free for all right now, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
Exact, so much stuff going on.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
I think you know, oftentimes there's definitely a lot of
division between the two parties in Washington, but the place
where they tend to come up together the most is
actually on foreign policy, and oftentimes in a way that
American people are not particularly pleased about. How much of
that owes to this, you know wash, this amount of
foreign cash that this city is a washing in, and
you know, Ukraine is a perfect example.
Speaker 4 (44:03):
You talk about Tad.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
Devine and Paul Maniford, this is a Democratic strategist and
Republican strategist, like very bipartisan. The way that this money flows, Yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (44:10):
Think a lot of it.
Speaker 10 (44:11):
A lot of what you're talking about where we're making
these you know, bargains with the devil, where it's like
this particular country or leader or interest is not really
aligned with our ideals about democracy and human rights and
free speech and religious freedom, but they're kind of our
best friend in the region. And a lot of the
(44:31):
sort of casting of these entities as aligned with US
foreign policy is because of these lobbyists. You go back
to Paul Maniford, who is really like the godfather of
this industry, and what he would do during the Reagan
and Bush administrations was go around the world and find
you know, sometimes really blood so brutal, you know, opposition leaders,
(44:53):
guerrilla leaders, or you know, dictators, and take them to
Washington and say, like, this person can be or bulwark
against communism in whatever part of the world, whether it's
in you know, Marcos in the Philippines or Jonas Savimbi,
the bloody guerrilla leader in Angola. Paul Manifort helped them
win US support, bipartisan US support and funding by taking
(45:16):
them to Washington and casting them as like a bulwark
against communists. And well, fast forward till now we have
a very similar thing happening. But it's not about any
particular ideological alignment. Rather, it's about like casting these people
as like this person is the Trump of the Balkans,
and it's and this person is the Trump of the
buck Is because yeah, because they have been prosecuted by
(45:39):
you know, prosecutors in their home country, or they've been
sanctioned by the Biden administration, and therefore you President Trump
should take their side and you know, give them the
US government funding and remove sanctions because.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
They are twenty billion dollars bailout for example, a huge
amount of Silicon Valley guys where friends with him, pushed
his administration. Now he needs a bailout. They're the same
people who backed Trump and he gets this like sweetheart
deal from the US government. It's I mean, have you actually,
I'm curious, have you heard anything about that? How exactly
did all that come up?
Speaker 3 (46:11):
Yeah, we're doing some reporting that I'm running at reveal,
But I mean, there are lots of examples.
Speaker 10 (46:16):
Yes, South America's is a going because certainly Bolsonaro, they tried,
they tried to help bol Sceonnaro, like you know, overturn
the election results, and then they tried to Trump tried
to back off the Supreme Court. And Bolsonnaro has a
lot of these Trump allies, including Donald Trump Junior, who
he's cultivated, and there was there were reports about Bolsonaro's
(46:36):
son being in the White House early in the early.
Speaker 3 (46:38):
In this term.
Speaker 10 (46:39):
So it's another example where like some of the framing
has changed, like the way that these lobbyists and others
try to cast these people as allied with the US.
Speaker 3 (46:49):
It's not like a Cold War type of framing.
Speaker 10 (46:51):
It's really like a cult of personality that they are
aligned with Trump and therefore they deserve US government support
and funding.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
And then the other pieces you mentioned before is just
like direct cash infusions and how much has his crypto
coin and you know, crypto holdings and the company associated
with that, Like how much has that fuel just inflows
of potentially corrupt cash influences administration?
Speaker 3 (47:15):
Yeah, hugely. I mean, you know, democrats and critics. I'm
not like dismissing this criticism.
Speaker 10 (47:20):
During the first administration made a huge deal of like
foreign interest staying at the Trump hotel that was a
violation of the emoluments cause you know, maybe it was,
maybe it wasn't.
Speaker 3 (47:29):
Courts ultimately decided it wasn't.
Speaker 10 (47:30):
But you know, but at least there there was like
some service, There was some pret they were actually getting something.
They were getting a knight in the hotel or whatever.
Now it's like just money compared to I mean the
crypto stuff. It's I mean, I don't know where you
guys stand. I know a little bit about where you
stayed up, but like where your audience stands. Like, but
(47:51):
like it's arguable that like there's there's some value there,
the values in the IV beholder, but certainly like you're
not getting so you're not getting a physical service or
something like that, that you are literally putting money in
the Trump family's pocket because you believe in them or
you think you can get something out of them.
Speaker 3 (48:07):
And we saw this most acutely with World Liberty Financial.
Speaker 10 (48:10):
Where Finance and the UAE finance a two billion dollar
deal using World Liberty Financial, and like, what do they
get out of that? They certainly get on Trump's good side.
I mean, we'll see maybe if the deal goes through
and is a great success, but there's an open question
as to whether they're actually getting something other than the
favor of the president for that two billion dollar investment.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
Can please keep it up? Everybody, go and buy the book.
We will have a link down in the description for
you to purchase it. Thank you very much, sir, rely
on you and we thank you.
Speaker 3 (48:40):
It's pleasure.
Speaker 1 (48:41):
Thank you so much for watching. We appreciate you, guys.
I'll be on with Ryan tomorrow Bro Show, and then
I'll see you all on Thursday.
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