December 4, 2025 • 40 mins
Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall examines Trump’s reckless push to drag America into war.
Then Oversight Committee Chairman Congressman Robert Garcia details the latest tranche of Epstein files.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds. And the FBI has paid over one
million dollars in overtime to redact the Epstein files. I
wonder what they're redacting. We have such a great show
for you today, talking Points Memos own Josh Marshall stops
(00:22):
by to talk Trump's insane adventures to bring America into war.
Then we'll talk to Oversight Committee Chairman Congressman Robert Garcia
about the latest tranch of Epstein files. But first we
have the stories the media is missing.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
So BALI people are perplexed today. There's this Democratic representative, Henriquoilar,
who has been a controversial figure the backbench world of
democratic politics because he's one of the debsoli pro wife congressmen.
A lot of people are very bad at Democratic leadership
for running him in the first place. And then he
got accused with his wife of some little corrupt mistealings.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
And now mister Trump has pardoned him.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Yes, mister Trump has pardoned him because crimes. What are crimes?
Trump is like on a pardoning spree here, pardoning everyone
who does crimes. I mean, maybe not everyone, but almost everyone.
These were several former democratic he granted clemency. So again,
there's been other Democratic elected officials. Which he posted on
(01:28):
truth quote unquote social that the Biden administration had weaponized
the justice system to prosecute Quohlar because he bravely spoke
out against the Biden border catastrophe. That is not true.
You can not like Quahlar, you cannot like Biden. You
can be upset about the border. But none of these
things are connected to each other. Because of these facts
(01:52):
and others, the others being that he loves to pardon people.
I'm hereby announcing my full an unconditional pardon of beloved
Texas Congressman. I'm not sure he's beloved. The President added
he will also pardon his wife, the applely named Amelda,
as well. She was under indictment on the same charges
(02:14):
as her husband, just like another Amelda.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
I got a picture of a shoe closet of my head.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
All right, immediately, parents, don't name your child Amelda unless
you are ready for.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
What less you what people our age here? That was
one of the first news stories you saw. Birded your brain.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
We both are obsessed but you know, let me just
add Melda Marcos's son went on to be the President
of the Philippines.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
True, we should say the accusations were taking six hundred
thousand dollars of bribes. And one of the things I
really find gross about this is a Democratic Minority leader,
Hakim Jeffries, said that the charges were really thin anyway,
And it really is just you got to wonder what
the leadership was doing supporting this guy in the first place,
and then what the hell they're even doing right now
with statements like that.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Well, we know what they're doing, which is because Representative
Quailar is now running for Congress as a Democrat, So
we know the deal that Hikeem is making. It's not
a deal that we might make, but we know what's
happening here.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
The question now is is do we have an Eric
Adams and the House of Representatives that is under Trump's control.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
You wish you had an Eric Adams in the House
of Representatives.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
I don't want any other Eric Adams.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Is you want to turn your haters into waiters at
the table of success.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
I wake up at the boarding. I repeat that as
a meditation about trow to make sure I go it
to each day like that.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
You know, every episode of this podcast, I am contractually
mandated to say, turn your haters into waiters at the
table of success.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yes, well, yes, we can't fix people are contractually mandated
to do. At least, Defodoc is mad dated to try
to call attention to herself because she believes it's very
weird these upstate people who believe that they are destined
for bigger things. Her Andrew Clobo that everybody else looks
at them and they're like, what are you talking about?
Your like a backbench personality at best. She is putting
(04:09):
a lot of signals out that she's coming for leadership
to replace Mike Johnson.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
That is not what I think is happening here.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Tell me what you think is happening, because that seems
to be the conventional wisdom on Twitter right now.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
So what I think is happening here is that at
least Devonic is running for governor of New York State.
Democrats are probably going to win governor of New York State,
even with Kathy Hokeel, who is like not the most popular.
It's still hard for me to imagine with the ships
we're seeing in the electorate that elis devonic can get
(04:41):
a win here. But in order for her to even try,
she needs to fight with Republican leadership. She needs to
look like she's an independent. And so I think what's
happening here is it's very easy to fight with Mike
Johnson and it will give her some you know, if
she starts fighting with Trump, that's going to be that's
like picking a fight with a velociraptor, whereas picking a
(05:05):
fight with good old Mike Johnson. I think this is
theatrics honestly interesting. First of all, Mike Johnson was installed
by Donald Trump, so in order for her to get
him out, she would have to go to Donald Trump.
And maybe Donald Trump decides he doesn't need Mike Johnson anymore.
But so far Mike Johnson has been a loyal servant.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Yeah. I think by one thing is never underestimate the
delusional aspirations of a personality with loser like her.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
But she's running for governor.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
She's tried to elevate her profile into whatever she could
get it right.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
But fighting with him elevates her profile. I just don't
I just don't see it. I think, Okay, I think
this is like one of these plays where she can
go back and be like, look, I'm so independent.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Well, Molly, I welcome you to put up a better'd
be again one of those sites that I will bet
session one of those sites I will never use.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Yes, let's bet on politics, because that is a very
good thing for people will write about politics to do.
Just kidding, we're definitely not doing that. Also, I don't bet.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Yeah, no, I don't either. Okay, we have to talk
about people who delusionally believed in themselves, but we always
saw they had the juice when we saw how much
their yosification of their look worked, which is Christino. She
says that we need more travel bands.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Yeah, that's the problem, is the travel band.
Speaker 4 (06:22):
Look.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
So we had a CIA, a guy from Afghanistan who
worked for the CIA, and he killed a member of
the National Guard. And from this, Republicans they wanted a villain, right,
they wanted to be able to lock down the immigration
from Afghanistan. But here's the problem. This guy was working
(06:43):
for the CIA. So in order to try to make
it make sense, they don't give a fuck. So they're
just like maybe a travel band. Look, here's what we've seen.
The big problems in this country seemed to be coming
directly from the White House and not from foreign countries.
So the tears zipardons that you know, tearing down the
(07:04):
East Wing all originated in the White House. You know,
I don't know what the game here is they. By
the way, she said that she will recommend a travel
ban on several companies which she's claiming are flooding the
US with criminal activities. I mean, by the way, some
of these countries are the Trump administration, right. She said
(07:24):
she met with Donald Trump and decided to suggest a
full ban on every damn country that's been flooding our
nation with killers, leeches and entitlement junkies. Who would that be?
I just am real curious what they're going to do.
On June fourth, they did ban some country.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
You know.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
I mean, the problem is they don't have an enemy,
so they have to make one up, which is so
very on brand for this administration.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Sure is so bali.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
The Wall Street Journal has brought up a article that
says that the Pentagon Signal Gate review finds Pete Heigsith
violated the Defense Department regularly should say put troops at risk.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Yeah, so this is when Pete Hegseth put Jeff Goldberg
in a signal chat by accident. Pete Hegseth didn't do it.
It was Mike Walls from National Security who did it
and then was moved in this administration. So, but the
Defense Department Inspector General has concluded that dependent on Chief
(08:22):
heg Seth has the authority to declassify Defense Department information,
which is fine, but that he violated some department regulations
when he shared sensitive information from his cell phone on
signal earlier this year. And this was according to Senator
Mark Kelly, the Democrat from Arizona. They very clearly state
(08:42):
that he should not be using his cell phone and
putting this kind of information on an unclassified system. Really
you don't say, you know. Eric Schmidt or Republicans said
it was a nothing burger. When you don't care about
classified information, it is a nothing burger. You know, it's
all fine and good until somebody gets hacked. And Schmidt,
(09:03):
who is a big weekend news anchor defender, said the
arc of the story is that it's just a never
ending stream of efforts to undermine Pete hegseyth. Right, I mean,
it's also that Pete Hegseth is stupid and careless.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
That sounds like the right read. Speaking of stupid and careless,
we now get to that the Trump officials are in
panic because this new ADP Private Sector Jobs report shows
that all their policies are horrible for small businesses. Be
who barely knows this could have told you that.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Yeah, so private sector jobs report shows that the Trump
administration is crippling small businesses with its terrible terrors. A
new report from Payroll Processor found that private employees lost
thirty two thousand jobs in November. This is a far
off from the projection that these private employees would gain
ten thousand jobs. Data is a sharp decline from our
(10:00):
October Large companies are still hiring, wrote Heather Long, chief
economist at Navy Federal Credit Union. But smaller firms are
doing layoffs. And this would make sense because you would
see smaller firms have to eat the price of the
tariffs and have more trouble doing it. And you know,
like this is just so stupid. But the goodness is
(10:21):
that you have one of the great geniuses of the
Trump administration, Howard Lutnick. You'll remember Howard Lutnik from being
terrible he was on CNBC and he was asked about
the tariffs, and he said, no, it's not the tariffs.
Of course, is not the tariffs. Lutnick said, it's the
democratic shutdown. And you know what happens to small businesses
(10:43):
when democrats. Yeah, good luck Lutnick, Good lucky Lucknick. Excited
to see how Costco suing the administration goes. Josh Marshall
is the editor of Talking Points Memo. Welcome back to
Fast Politics.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Josh Marshall, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
It's a hard time in celebrity journalism, but it's also
a hard time in political journalism. Let's talk about political journalism.
I think we start by talking about the Pentagon, because
the Pentagon got rid of all it's real journalists and
has replaced them with such luminaries as Macates, who is
technically not a journalist. I mean he's a.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Lot of I mean officially, yeah, officially, he's.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
A lot of things. He was almost our attorney general,
he was a congressman from the Ruby Red district of
Florida's first and he is a sex predator. I don't
know it, accused sex something.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Bad, Yes, I guess, I guess he is in that
category like many many men today of sort of clearly
did very as predator things. But but you don't have
like a signed warrant from the government, right, so everybody
kind of tiptoes around it or something. I mean, you know,
this is it's a it is a not good. It's
(12:12):
part of Trump world. It's like in the mafia, where
you need to you need to have done a stint
in prison and you need to have killed at least
one person before you can be sort of like a
a made man in the mafia. And in the maga
world you need to have some sexual assault or rape
or something, you know, something like that on your collar
to to really be you know, Corey Lewandowski Trump.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
That guy, Yeah, I mean I think Gates. Uh no, no,
I I think that's correct. So let's uh, let us
go and journey into You had Laura Lumer, you had
Pizza Jack, most famous for spreading Pizzagate. That guy is
(12:54):
now right Pentagon.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Yeah, what is it? Pussy?
Speaker 1 (12:57):
What is his last nay puss pusso beec Oh.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Yeah, I've never I've never I've always just left it
unstated since I've never knew how to yeah, how to
pizza Jack diseaser. I can remember that.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Okay, yeah, Laura Lumer. So those guys are in the
Pentagon press pool, which is they were. That's pretty interesting,
and there was a press conference yesterday at the Pentagon.
This is all I think so important and relevant because
the member of Trump's cabinet who strikes me as being
(13:29):
in the worst state. And remember, it's always a sort
of it's a gang, it's a murderer's row of people
who are perhaps.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Not It's sort of like in a reality show or
like you know, or Real Housewives or something there there
is where you know, it's always changing who the baddie is, like, right,
so sometimes that person she's bad, she's super bad, she's scheming,
and then she turns out to be good and someone
else's That's kind of like the Trump cabinet.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
I'm writing that down the Real Housewives because uh it is,
it's correct. I think the real housewives of the Trump cabinet.
So anyway, usually it's bestn't time in the barrel, especially
when it comes to fed and the economy cratering. A
lot of reasons to focus on Scott Essen, but this
week it's everyone's favorite weekend cable news host whiskey Pete.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
It's always strange what sort of gets through. Obviously they
are in some version of trouble now for these kind
of like I don't know what you want to call them,
sort of like boat snuff film things or assassinations or
you know.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Boat snuff films.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
Yeah, and the fact that there was this second attack,
you know, just killing the survivors. And just to be
clear with everybody, I see it as very bad. But
the administration does lots of very bad things. And it's
and and and these attacks have been have been going
on for since September month, you know, or maybe more
(15:01):
than a couple months. This recent reporting has sort of
upped the volume on that. And the other thing that
is only that it hasn't gotten that much attention yet,
is that the Signal Gate Inspector General's report. I remember
signal Gate. That sounds like what was that in the
BC era? I mean, how you know, kind of it's
like ancient history. Now, just this.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Shorthand Mike Wall's actually accidentally put Jeff Goldberg j che
editor in chief of the Atlantic, And is it not
some randoh security journalists, but the editor and chief of
the Atlantic who actually hosts a PBS show in his
signal chat continue.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Well, you know how what does it make? I guess
it's on text too, but you know how in signal
like if you haven't identified someone, it'll just put you
down as your MJ or I'm j M right, you
know where it just puts it. And I think that
was the thing where he was just you know, uh JG.
And there's some other like you know, Jonas George that
he thought he was putting on who does work crimes
(16:00):
analysis for them or so in any case, that is
finally done and they are apparently going to give it
to Congress. There's going to be a public version of
it now. I think where you can kind of see
this coming together is if the boat snuff film things
gets a little too hot, this Inspector General's report would
(16:21):
be sort of a convenient way for them to remove
him from the stage, even if you know, even even
if that wouldn't really be the reason. So it does
put him in a kind of I doubt anything is
going to happen, because I'm sure Trump loves the boat attacks,
and I just don't you know, we've seen there's there's
(16:41):
already been a couple times where the White House and
or Trump wanted to drop Pete Hegzeth. It happened at
the very beginning when he was when he was nominated, right,
there was a point at which Joni Ernst was, you know,
was was against him because he had.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Done work on on sexual assault and the military and
had found.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Which in a funny way, so had Pete Heggsath. Just
to any different sense, yeah, sort of Famously, JD. Vance
was sort of squiring him around Capitol Hill and he
like intentionally got into this shouting match with some reporters
and Trump loved it. And after that, Trump apparently went
to Susie Wilds or whoever and said, like, I want
(17:25):
this guy. That was awesome, and that got him the thing.
And then there was a brief period where after the
signal Gate thing first happened where he seemed like he
was in a little trouble, but he did a similar thing.
So Pete Heggsath knows how to tickle Donald Trump in
the right way, let's put it that way, to you know,
to bring him on side. So I don't expect any
(17:46):
I didn't expect him to get canned. But if things
moved in the wrong direction, that ig report is a Again,
it's sort of like a trapdoor under him. They could
choose to yank at any moment and would you know,
kind of bring everything together.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
It is interesting just this thing you say about Trump
loving people fighting, because that is absolutely true and it
is such a great example of how Trump makes everyone worse,
right like, so the you're incentivized by Trump to be
worse than you might otherwise.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
Be, which is which is challenging. I think with Pete
Hegzeth he does know, yeah he does a he does it.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
It's a miracle. But yeah, so no, I think that's
very interesting. So the question of whether he stays is
a real one. I agree. I think he ends up
staying because Trump's whole thing is that he just keeps
everyone no matter what, and he doesn't care. But you
could see a world where you could see a world
where Trump decides it's too much.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
He also remember he he They didn't present it as
that they sort of exiled him to the UN, but
they did fire Mike wals over that, I mean, And
it was interesting how it was sort of a what
was Connie's husband's name? And the godfather? Am I remembering this?
You know, the guy who gets it at the end
of Godfather One where they strangle him in the car,
(19:13):
where that was sort of like the Mike Walls thing
that you you don't exact the punishment at the time,
you let it ride. It was the same thing with
Apple with Fredo, right. These things ride for a long
time until the convenient moment comes, and then it was
time for Mike Waltz because he was he wasn't he
wasn't fired at the time he was. It was I
(19:34):
didn't know a month or maybe two months later or
something like that, and so you know, who knows. But again,
it does seem like Pete Hegzeth is sort of doing
all the things that you know, the Trump wants and
doing it. You know, did the Department of War, he
could get the reporters, he does the snuff films. Although
you know, it's interesting, Like many people, I have been
genuinely mystified, like what are we doing with Venezuela? Like
(19:57):
what And I don't mean that in like a rhetorical sense,
like what is the plan here? And why are we
you know, what is happening here? And my understanding is
is that even though we sort of associate this with
the Pentagon, that it's really Marco Rubio who is who
is the driver, the driver of this and that that
makes sense because of his you know, connection with Cuban
(20:19):
exile politics, which obviously has a heavy overlap with Venezuela
and exile politics. And also Marco needs a brand, a
post Trump brand, other than being thirsty or sweaty or
looking awkward small, yeah, or looking small, being little little
Marco or what I think that was it. So I
assume this is also, you know, because this this with
(20:43):
certain elements of the right and certainly a lot of
the expatriate Latin American right. This is good stuff. This
is like, you know, this is like universal health care
for the DSA crowd. It gets him going.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
So let's do a minute on this special election Democrats.
It was it Tennessee's seventh district. It's an R plus
twenty two. It ended up being an R plus eight
point nine. It is you know, there's a lot of
Monday morning quarterbacking on this. The line that I read
(21:15):
in Politico, so I know it must be true is
that Republicans will freak out if it's a less than
double digits. So it's less than double digits.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
Yeah, I mean, this is it's sort of the story.
We know Trump is super unpopular, the Republicans are super unpopular.
We have seen you know, direct proxies ie special elections
that we've seen other things like the elections in November
that weren't federal elections, but you still get a sense of,
you know, kind of how each party's doing. They all
tell a pretty consistent story, which is that you're set
(21:47):
up for something at least like twenty eighteen, and quite
possibly bigger than twenty eighteen, and you still have this
confounding factor that the congressional generic ballot people usually use
as a proxy for that stuff is does not show
the Republicans that far behind, and that has sort of
thrown people and kind of you know, complicated people's analysis.
(22:10):
I think there's a few reasons why that may be
the case. But if you look at it in these
special elections, this is an approximation. I think that you know,
the average over performance of the Democrats in the twenty
eighteen cycle was something like six and now it's ten
or something. But again this is from memory. I'm just
just trying to give you a sense of scale. It
(22:31):
is substantially substantially more. I don't think there's any question
they're very freaked out. I think the only reason that
people in the house, maybe you're slightly less freaked out
is that they've figured they're losing the house for a while.
But if you talk about shifts in the very low
double digits, that starts to be the thing where people
are not just worried, Oh, we're not going to be
(22:51):
in the majority anymore, and it's not going to be
fun like I may actually lose my seat, like I'm
in a you know, in an R plus ten R
plus fifteen day strict. And you know, if you're an
R plus fifteen district, you're probably okay, because you can't
just take I mean, just for everybody to under understand,
you can't just take a special election and just you know,
directly apply it.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Except this there's high high turn special It was the
same turns.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
The mid YEA, yeah, no, it's so that does but
still again it is it is different. You can't just
make it a focus. Yes, you can't make it. You
can't just say, okay, so it's going to be identical.
That said, incumbent presidents and their parties generally get less
popular in the second year, so you've already got another
(23:39):
another year to go. And when you talk about for
congressional Republicans, if you say, you know, let's just say,
for instance, someone is in a a R plus fifteen
district or even in an R plus twenty district. Someone
in an R plus twenty district is quite likely to survive.
But you actually have a race, right and people generally
(24:00):
speaking in our twenty districts are not used to have
ever having a race. I expect you will see a
substantial number of Republican retirements over the next three months
or so, just because that's what happens when when when
a party figures it's going to lose, lose the majority.
I mean, in some ways from the outside, it looks
like it you kind of be more fun to be
(24:21):
in the minority because you get the yack a lot.
You don't have to carry the water for the speaker
and stuff. But I guarantee you anybody who's ever they
hate it. They hate it. You get the crappy offices,
you don't get budgets. They really really hate it.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
So what we know we're seeing right now are a
lot of resignations and or we have resignations like Marjorie
Tailer Green or retirements where they're not going to resign,
but they're not going to run again. And when you
don't run again, that means that this seat is more
expensive to keep usually and.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
Harder to keep. You have you have this is this
is this always happens when you always have this amplifying
effect when you when you have a you know, a
wave or a sub wave election in the offing that
people say all right, I don't have you know, I'm
not up for this, they retire and then the race
(25:12):
that they probably could have, you know, they probably could
have held onto their seat maybe sixty seventy percent chance,
suddenly they lose that seat. So you know, you it
just it's it's it has a self fulfilling effect.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
I want to get into redistricting. So Trump had this
brilliant idea that he was going to redistrict and get
more seats, and it works if Trump has the Trump
turnout that he did before. So when you have an
around a ten point shift, that means that you are
seeing a seed that was So say you have a
safe R plus twenty, you make that R plus nine,
(25:47):
you think you're going to be fine, but in a
in a general, in a midterm where everything shifts ten points,
you're not fine, right, you have to fight to keep
that seat.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
It's it's it is as it's the classic issue always
with with kind of an over gerrymanderin right that you
I mean, think of it this way that you take
the you take the levee right, and you want to
cover more territory with it, so you carve up the
top few feet of the levee and you move it over.
If you have a really big storm, the levee is
going to fail. And that's it's. It's it's just basic math. Now,
(26:19):
I I have I have been told to people who
really know districts well that the Texas jerry mander apparently
is pretty smartly done. It kind of yeah, that it's
there's kind of no way it can be overwhelmed. And
again these are people who really know districts.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Yeah, that's what I have also been told that very
thing by other Texas district ee people.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
Yeah, but some of these other states where you're in,
they're eking out like they're think they're eking out one
extra seat. But you know, overall, it looks like the
effect of all of this is likely to turn out
to be a wash in terms of because Democrats are
them elves being so are being so aggressive. So it's
you know, it's a.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Newsome and by the way, you know, again Newsome politically
not totally my vibe, but he did really save Democrats here.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Yeah, well he he, and I can't remember what I
think they're gonna They think they get five seats, you know,
kind of equal equal to Texas. But in some ways
an even more important part of it was that he
gave sanction to every other blue state to do the
same thing. And that is something it's it's always been
very uncharacteristic for Democrats to act in this way, but
(27:37):
he sort of set a different standard, and so you
have people like the governor of Maryland saying, hey, we're
doing it too, which you know, yeah, so it And
the thing is is that I said before that it
seems like it's likely to be a wash. You know,
let's say if it ends up being you know, two
or three seats in either direction, you have a big
(27:58):
you have a big election, and you're probably talking about
twenty or thirty seats moving. So yeah, two or three
seats is not gonna is. I mean, put it this way,
if the election comes down to Republicans were saved by
adding three seats, it'll that will mean it was a
disaster of an election for Democrats, quite apart from any jerrymanderin.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Yeah, and again we don't know what Trump's going to
try to do just put sand in the gears, but
it sure feels like he is going to would have
to do a lot. Josh Marshall, will you please come back.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Yes, of course, whenever you call me.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Congressman Robert Garcia represents California's forty second district and is
the head of the Oversight Committee. Welcome to Bass Politics.
Congressman Garcia, how are you ranking member of Oversight? So
tell us what do you have?
Speaker 5 (28:50):
I mean, we continue, obviously to get a ton of documents, pictures,
photos from all sorts of sources, and right now we
are going through an enormous amount of documents, about five
thousand pages of photos and videos from it, such as
Jeffrey Epstein's Island that were given to us by the
US Virgin Islands. Those photos and videos are quite disturbing
and pretty creepy, to be honest, just to never kind
(29:12):
of before seen look at what some of the rooms
look like, and video of the estate itself on the island.
Speaker 4 (29:19):
And then more importantly, we also have received.
Speaker 5 (29:22):
Pretty significant amount of financial documents from both JP Morgan
as well as Dortchy Bank, and these are two of
the institutions that are really critical in the investigation to
understand how the money was transferred within Epstein's sexual trafficking
ring and who was paying who, where Jeffrey Epsten was
getting his money from, and there's a lot there. What's
(29:44):
important is while we have this information from these two banks,
they've just given us a first of batch and that's
where our focus is right now, which is really on
all the financial documents.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Are these videos that the Virgin Islands took of the
house or are they videos that they seized?
Speaker 4 (29:59):
These are video that they.
Speaker 5 (30:00):
Took and so there are many more videos and photos
than the ones we released today. We'll be releasing all
of those in the days ahead. We have to be
very careful. Even with the pictures that we put out today.
We had to make some reactions in the photos. There
were photos, for example, of Jeffrey Epstein's phone and some
of the numbers that he had pre programmed.
Speaker 4 (30:21):
So we had to redact some of those names.
Speaker 5 (30:22):
There were names of possible victims on this large chalkboard
that he had in one of his living rooms, so
we had to redact some names from there.
Speaker 4 (30:31):
And so there is a process going on. But we
will release all the photos.
Speaker 5 (30:35):
In the videos in the days ahead of the Virgin
Islands documents.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Now there are more videos that are Jeffrey Ebstein's videos,
but you don't have those yet.
Speaker 4 (30:46):
That's right.
Speaker 5 (30:46):
I mean, look, the vast majority of the evidence for
this investigation, and vast majority of the Epstein files are
at the.
Speaker 4 (30:53):
Department of Justice.
Speaker 5 (30:54):
The Department of Justice, as we understand, has an enormous
amount of videos and photogs that are actually of Jeffrey
that were in his possession and that investigators put together
at the FBI. We understand that many of those videos,
of course, contain images of parties that he had and
of women and girls, and in some cases, of course,
(31:15):
some of these goals, as we know, were minors. We
are demanding that all of the files, whether it's the videos,
the photographs, all get turned over to our committee, which
has a subpoena on the full EPs files, and Congress
has also passed as we know just recently an actual
law that requires the president to get all these files
out the door, but they continue to cover up the
(31:36):
Epstein files and they have to understand it. We will
continue to hammer away and if anyone that's out there
to get and put together all of these different documents
that the DOJ should be giving us directly.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Let's talk about the financial documents. So you have these
documents from Deutsche Bank and from JP Morgan in the documents.
Have you looked at them and are are their names?
You know? Are their numbers for account? How hard is
it to figure out where the money is coming from
or going to?
Speaker 5 (32:07):
It is going to take us a couple of weeks
to actually these documents are actually pretty complicated financial documents.
Some of them are transfers, some are from organizations and
names that we need to deciphered exactly what is being
said in some of these documents. Others are just financial
ledgers like you've seen the you know, checking account or
(32:27):
someone's basic checking our savings account.
Speaker 4 (32:30):
It is pretty significant.
Speaker 5 (32:31):
The amount of money that moved in and out of
Jeff Westein's essential criminal empire that he had, and what
we heard from the survivors directly. Multiple times I've heard
from this from them one on one meetings and round
tables we've had, is they have said to follow the money,
that continue to follow the money. There was an enormous
amount of money that was paid for these horrible things
(32:53):
that were done to these children and these women, and
these financial records should.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
Help us unlock a lot of that information.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
So they have thirty days because this discharge petition set
the clock going on thirty days to release this stuff.
We know that the Justice Department has it. Do you
think they're making We know they paid a million dollars
in overtime to FBI agents to redact, So that would
make me think that the information is ready. Is that right?
Speaker 4 (33:20):
We think that the information is ready to be released.
Speaker 5 (33:22):
We know that when Trump first got into office, there
was a review done by the DOJ. I mean Pembondy
talked about that has been reported in the media that
Pembondi went to Donald Trump and said, hey, you are
in these files. Pambondi claimed that they were on her desk.
They made a decision early on to not release anything
or essentially give up these kind of maga social influencers
(33:43):
kind of limited amount of documents.
Speaker 4 (33:45):
We remember it was kind of a joke.
Speaker 5 (33:47):
Since then, they have been determined to not release anything
else and to downplay the actual files. And now we
know that they have a significant amount of document in
their possession and there have to be compelled to release them.
And what we're concerned about now is that somehow this
sham new investigation that Trump has demanded through the Southern
(34:08):
District of New York around you know, Democrats or others
that he believe are involved in the files, is going
to somehow be used as an excuse by Pambondy to
not release the documents of the Congress. And what I've
reminded the DJ and we've done this directly, is that
the subpoena that we put in place a few weeks
ago doesn't have any language about ongoing investigations. So they
(34:32):
have to provide all the documents to us, whether they
want to or not, and we'll see if they comply.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
There's some talk that Pambondy would testify about this. Could
that happen, Will that happen.
Speaker 4 (34:44):
It's something that we definitely want to do.
Speaker 5 (34:47):
We want to have a conversation with her, and we
have a lot of questions not just about the Epstein files,
but about Glen Maxwell. And you know, when are we
going to find out how the hell who made the
decision to transfer her to that lower security prison. She's
been now transferred to this prison. She's getting all these
secret meetings, she's meeting with Todd blanch to the DOJ,
(35:10):
and no one is giving the Congress any information about
how this all happened, Who directed the transfer, why was
it done, what was Glene Maxwell promised? Did Pambondi authorize
this transfer? These are basic questions that any normal administration
or responsible administration would answer.
Speaker 4 (35:30):
To the public and to the Congress.
Speaker 5 (35:31):
And so it's all part of this broader cover up
that is clearly, in our opinion, being directed by Donald Trump.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
It feels like the Oversight Committee is I mean, I
know that there's controversy, but it feels like the House
is weirdly united on the ebscene stuff and that it's
not as partisan as everything else. Is that true or
is that just vibes? And also can you use that
in any way right? Because we're seeing members get more
(35:59):
involved in discharge petitions, We're seeing a lot of pushback
on Speaker Johnson. He clearly does not have control of
the caucus. I mean, is there opportunity there for Democrats?
Speaker 4 (36:09):
There is?
Speaker 5 (36:10):
I mean, look, I think clearly Republicans have been on
board in some of our efforts on the closure, but
they've also had to be almost forced or pushed into
it and have a lot of Republicans signed the Dishart petition.
It wasn't until we forced the vote that you saw
the wave on the Oversight Committee.
Speaker 4 (36:26):
We haven't had a lot of Republicans supportive.
Speaker 5 (36:29):
It's been a couple but once we've forced votes on subpoenas,
or once we've pressured the majority into getting bank documents,
or once we've publicly called on actions to be taken
and have essentially shown the majority that we do have
some Republicans with us, that's when there has been action.
I mean, it hasn't the Republicans have clined, oh, we've
(36:49):
released X amount of documents. They've only released documents after
Democrats have essentially forced their hand or released a few moments,
then they released the rest. And so they have been
I think kind of dragged along. There have been a
couple of them that have been principled from I think
the start, but a vast majority have, I think reluctantly
come forward and we encourage that support that we want
(37:11):
more folks to do the right thing. And as the
President continues to get weaker and his power seems to
be diminishing within his own party and base, I think
you're going to continue to see more Republicans stand up
and do the right thing. And in many ways, the
Epstein files and this investigation, I believe, is what's going
to break. That's really a bond that somehow Donald Trump
(37:34):
has created over years with his magabase.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Are we going to see the Epstein files.
Speaker 4 (37:40):
I think we will. I hope that we're able to
sooner than later.
Speaker 5 (37:43):
Certainly, when we get into the majority, the power that
we're going to have of subpoena and getting documents will
be dramatically different than what we have now in our ability.
But absolutely, I mean, these women, these survivors, they deserve justice,
they deserve the truth.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
Thank you, Thank you, Congressman Garcia.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
They're no more perfect.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Jesse Cannon my jug fast.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
So you may remember some of the members of the
New York Young Republican Club is having their tech leaked
and well, let's be real here, sounding like a bunch
of Nazis, bigots and racists and saying things that, well,
we're obvious to people like us, but shocked a lot
of people. Well, I'm going to shock you here. They've
invited this German leader who had an I Love Hitler
(38:28):
chat who amongst us?
Speaker 1 (38:30):
Yeah, who could have seen these young people, they're basically
children in their thirties and forties, who had a group
chat where they mused about all the anti Semitism. In
case you are Jewish and you think these people are
not hugely anti Semitic, they in fact are.
Speaker 4 (38:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
New York Republicans GALA will recognize this guy. He's from
a political parties called the Alternative for Germany. They are
far right. I know you'll be shocked to hear this statement.
To Letico, The group defended inviting the German politician, saying
the AfD is a model for fighting the far left.
(39:09):
That's right, Antifa. Remind me who fought Antifa? What's the
faugh for?
Speaker 2 (39:15):
I just never remember this part. The thing I think about,
though with this that really does make me quite angry
is while groups like the ADL set up tip lines
about Zoron, this is happening in New York City, right,
in their fucking backyard. One of my other favorite things
is this club has removed their address from Oddline so
that they don't get protested anymore.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Great stuff, great stuff, the best. That's it for this
episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday,
and Saturday to hear the best minds and politics make
sense of all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast,
please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
(40:00):
Thanks for listening.
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds. And the FBI has paid over one
million dollars in overtime to redact the Epstein files. I
wonder what they're redacting. We have such a great show
for you today, talking Points Memos own Josh Marshall stops
(00:22):
by to talk Trump's insane adventures to bring America into war.
Then we'll talk to Oversight Committee Chairman Congressman Robert Garcia
about the latest tranch of Epstein files. But first we
have the stories the media is missing.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
So BALI people are perplexed today. There's this Democratic representative, Henriquoilar,
who has been a controversial figure the backbench world of
democratic politics because he's one of the debsoli pro wife congressmen.
A lot of people are very bad at Democratic leadership
for running him in the first place. And then he
got accused with his wife of some little corrupt mistealings.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
And now mister Trump has pardoned him.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Yes, mister Trump has pardoned him because crimes. What are crimes?
Trump is like on a pardoning spree here, pardoning everyone
who does crimes. I mean, maybe not everyone, but almost everyone.
These were several former democratic he granted clemency. So again,
there's been other Democratic elected officials. Which he posted on
(01:28):
truth quote unquote social that the Biden administration had weaponized
the justice system to prosecute Quohlar because he bravely spoke
out against the Biden border catastrophe. That is not true.
You can not like Quahlar, you cannot like Biden. You
can be upset about the border. But none of these
things are connected to each other. Because of these facts
(01:52):
and others, the others being that he loves to pardon people.
I'm hereby announcing my full an unconditional pardon of beloved
Texas Congressman. I'm not sure he's beloved. The President added
he will also pardon his wife, the applely named Amelda,
as well. She was under indictment on the same charges
(02:14):
as her husband, just like another Amelda.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
I got a picture of a shoe closet of my head.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
All right, immediately, parents, don't name your child Amelda unless
you are ready for.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
What less you what people our age here? That was
one of the first news stories you saw. Birded your brain.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
We both are obsessed but you know, let me just
add Melda Marcos's son went on to be the President
of the Philippines.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
True, we should say the accusations were taking six hundred
thousand dollars of bribes. And one of the things I
really find gross about this is a Democratic Minority leader,
Hakim Jeffries, said that the charges were really thin anyway,
And it really is just you got to wonder what
the leadership was doing supporting this guy in the first place,
and then what the hell they're even doing right now
with statements like that.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Well, we know what they're doing, which is because Representative
Quailar is now running for Congress as a Democrat, So
we know the deal that Hikeem is making. It's not
a deal that we might make, but we know what's
happening here.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
The question now is is do we have an Eric
Adams and the House of Representatives that is under Trump's control.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
You wish you had an Eric Adams in the House
of Representatives.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
I don't want any other Eric Adams.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Is you want to turn your haters into waiters at
the table of success.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
I wake up at the boarding. I repeat that as
a meditation about trow to make sure I go it
to each day like that.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
You know, every episode of this podcast, I am contractually
mandated to say, turn your haters into waiters at the
table of success.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yes, well, yes, we can't fix people are contractually mandated
to do. At least, Defodoc is mad dated to try
to call attention to herself because she believes it's very
weird these upstate people who believe that they are destined
for bigger things. Her Andrew Clobo that everybody else looks
at them and they're like, what are you talking about?
Your like a backbench personality at best. She is putting
(04:09):
a lot of signals out that she's coming for leadership
to replace Mike Johnson.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
That is not what I think is happening here.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Tell me what you think is happening, because that seems
to be the conventional wisdom on Twitter right now.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
So what I think is happening here is that at
least Devonic is running for governor of New York State.
Democrats are probably going to win governor of New York State,
even with Kathy Hokeel, who is like not the most popular.
It's still hard for me to imagine with the ships
we're seeing in the electorate that elis devonic can get
(04:41):
a win here. But in order for her to even try,
she needs to fight with Republican leadership. She needs to
look like she's an independent. And so I think what's
happening here is it's very easy to fight with Mike
Johnson and it will give her some you know, if
she starts fighting with Trump, that's going to be that's
like picking a fight with a velociraptor, whereas picking a
(05:05):
fight with good old Mike Johnson. I think this is
theatrics honestly interesting. First of all, Mike Johnson was installed
by Donald Trump, so in order for her to get
him out, she would have to go to Donald Trump.
And maybe Donald Trump decides he doesn't need Mike Johnson anymore.
But so far Mike Johnson has been a loyal servant.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Yeah. I think by one thing is never underestimate the
delusional aspirations of a personality with loser like her.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
But she's running for governor.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
She's tried to elevate her profile into whatever she could
get it right.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
But fighting with him elevates her profile. I just don't
I just don't see it. I think, Okay, I think
this is like one of these plays where she can
go back and be like, look, I'm so independent.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Well, Molly, I welcome you to put up a better'd
be again one of those sites that I will bet
session one of those sites I will never use.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Yes, let's bet on politics, because that is a very
good thing for people will write about politics to do.
Just kidding, we're definitely not doing that. Also, I don't bet.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Yeah, no, I don't either. Okay, we have to talk
about people who delusionally believed in themselves, but we always
saw they had the juice when we saw how much
their yosification of their look worked, which is Christino. She
says that we need more travel bands.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Yeah, that's the problem, is the travel band.
Speaker 4 (06:22):
Look.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
So we had a CIA, a guy from Afghanistan who
worked for the CIA, and he killed a member of
the National Guard. And from this, Republicans they wanted a villain, right,
they wanted to be able to lock down the immigration
from Afghanistan. But here's the problem. This guy was working
(06:43):
for the CIA. So in order to try to make
it make sense, they don't give a fuck. So they're
just like maybe a travel band. Look, here's what we've seen.
The big problems in this country seemed to be coming
directly from the White House and not from foreign countries.
So the tears zipardons that you know, tearing down the
(07:04):
East Wing all originated in the White House. You know,
I don't know what the game here is they. By
the way, she said that she will recommend a travel
ban on several companies which she's claiming are flooding the
US with criminal activities. I mean, by the way, some
of these countries are the Trump administration, right. She said
(07:24):
she met with Donald Trump and decided to suggest a
full ban on every damn country that's been flooding our
nation with killers, leeches and entitlement junkies. Who would that be?
I just am real curious what they're going to do.
On June fourth, they did ban some country.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
You know.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
I mean, the problem is they don't have an enemy,
so they have to make one up, which is so
very on brand for this administration.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Sure is so bali.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
The Wall Street Journal has brought up a article that
says that the Pentagon Signal Gate review finds Pete Heigsith
violated the Defense Department regularly should say put troops at risk.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Yeah, so this is when Pete Hegseth put Jeff Goldberg
in a signal chat by accident. Pete Hegseth didn't do it.
It was Mike Walls from National Security who did it
and then was moved in this administration. So, but the
Defense Department Inspector General has concluded that dependent on Chief
(08:22):
heg Seth has the authority to declassify Defense Department information,
which is fine, but that he violated some department regulations
when he shared sensitive information from his cell phone on
signal earlier this year. And this was according to Senator
Mark Kelly, the Democrat from Arizona. They very clearly state
(08:42):
that he should not be using his cell phone and
putting this kind of information on an unclassified system. Really
you don't say, you know. Eric Schmidt or Republicans said
it was a nothing burger. When you don't care about
classified information, it is a nothing burger. You know, it's
all fine and good until somebody gets hacked. And Schmidt,
(09:03):
who is a big weekend news anchor defender, said the
arc of the story is that it's just a never
ending stream of efforts to undermine Pete hegseyth. Right, I mean,
it's also that Pete Hegseth is stupid and careless.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
That sounds like the right read. Speaking of stupid and careless,
we now get to that the Trump officials are in
panic because this new ADP Private Sector Jobs report shows
that all their policies are horrible for small businesses. Be
who barely knows this could have told you that.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Yeah, so private sector jobs report shows that the Trump
administration is crippling small businesses with its terrible terrors. A
new report from Payroll Processor found that private employees lost
thirty two thousand jobs in November. This is a far
off from the projection that these private employees would gain
ten thousand jobs. Data is a sharp decline from our
(10:00):
October Large companies are still hiring, wrote Heather Long, chief
economist at Navy Federal Credit Union. But smaller firms are
doing layoffs. And this would make sense because you would
see smaller firms have to eat the price of the
tariffs and have more trouble doing it. And you know,
like this is just so stupid. But the goodness is
(10:21):
that you have one of the great geniuses of the
Trump administration, Howard Lutnick. You'll remember Howard Lutnik from being
terrible he was on CNBC and he was asked about
the tariffs, and he said, no, it's not the tariffs.
Of course, is not the tariffs. Lutnick said, it's the
democratic shutdown. And you know what happens to small businesses
(10:43):
when democrats. Yeah, good luck Lutnick, Good lucky Lucknick. Excited
to see how Costco suing the administration goes. Josh Marshall
is the editor of Talking Points Memo. Welcome back to
Fast Politics.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Josh Marshall, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
It's a hard time in celebrity journalism, but it's also
a hard time in political journalism. Let's talk about political journalism.
I think we start by talking about the Pentagon, because
the Pentagon got rid of all it's real journalists and
has replaced them with such luminaries as Macates, who is
technically not a journalist. I mean he's a.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Lot of I mean officially, yeah, officially, he's.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
A lot of things. He was almost our attorney general,
he was a congressman from the Ruby Red district of
Florida's first and he is a sex predator. I don't
know it, accused sex something.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Bad, Yes, I guess, I guess he is in that
category like many many men today of sort of clearly
did very as predator things. But but you don't have
like a signed warrant from the government, right, so everybody
kind of tiptoes around it or something. I mean, you know,
this is it's a it is a not good. It's
(12:12):
part of Trump world. It's like in the mafia, where
you need to you need to have done a stint
in prison and you need to have killed at least
one person before you can be sort of like a
a made man in the mafia. And in the maga
world you need to have some sexual assault or rape
or something, you know, something like that on your collar
to to really be you know, Corey Lewandowski Trump.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
That guy, Yeah, I mean I think Gates. Uh no, no,
I I think that's correct. So let's uh, let us
go and journey into You had Laura Lumer, you had
Pizza Jack, most famous for spreading Pizzagate. That guy is
(12:54):
now right Pentagon.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Yeah, what is it? Pussy?
Speaker 1 (12:57):
What is his last nay puss pusso beec Oh.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Yeah, I've never I've never I've always just left it
unstated since I've never knew how to yeah, how to
pizza Jack diseaser. I can remember that.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Okay, yeah, Laura Lumer. So those guys are in the
Pentagon press pool, which is they were. That's pretty interesting,
and there was a press conference yesterday at the Pentagon.
This is all I think so important and relevant because
the member of Trump's cabinet who strikes me as being
(13:29):
in the worst state. And remember, it's always a sort
of it's a gang, it's a murderer's row of people
who are perhaps.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Not It's sort of like in a reality show or
like you know, or Real Housewives or something there there
is where you know, it's always changing who the baddie is, like, right,
so sometimes that person she's bad, she's super bad, she's scheming,
and then she turns out to be good and someone
else's That's kind of like the Trump cabinet.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
I'm writing that down the Real Housewives because uh it is,
it's correct. I think the real housewives of the Trump cabinet.
So anyway, usually it's bestn't time in the barrel, especially
when it comes to fed and the economy cratering. A
lot of reasons to focus on Scott Essen, but this
week it's everyone's favorite weekend cable news host whiskey Pete.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
It's always strange what sort of gets through. Obviously they
are in some version of trouble now for these kind
of like I don't know what you want to call them,
sort of like boat snuff film things or assassinations or
you know.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Boat snuff films.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
Yeah, and the fact that there was this second attack,
you know, just killing the survivors. And just to be
clear with everybody, I see it as very bad. But
the administration does lots of very bad things. And it's
and and and these attacks have been have been going
on for since September month, you know, or maybe more
(15:01):
than a couple months. This recent reporting has sort of
upped the volume on that. And the other thing that
is only that it hasn't gotten that much attention yet,
is that the Signal Gate Inspector General's report. I remember
signal Gate. That sounds like what was that in the
BC era? I mean, how you know, kind of it's
like ancient history. Now, just this.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Shorthand Mike Wall's actually accidentally put Jeff Goldberg j che
editor in chief of the Atlantic, And is it not
some randoh security journalists, but the editor and chief of
the Atlantic who actually hosts a PBS show in his
signal chat continue.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Well, you know how what does it make? I guess
it's on text too, but you know how in signal
like if you haven't identified someone, it'll just put you
down as your MJ or I'm j M right, you
know where it just puts it. And I think that
was the thing where he was just you know, uh JG.
And there's some other like you know, Jonas George that
he thought he was putting on who does work crimes
(16:00):
analysis for them or so in any case, that is
finally done and they are apparently going to give it
to Congress. There's going to be a public version of
it now. I think where you can kind of see
this coming together is if the boat snuff film things
gets a little too hot, this Inspector General's report would
(16:21):
be sort of a convenient way for them to remove
him from the stage, even if you know, even even
if that wouldn't really be the reason. So it does
put him in a kind of I doubt anything is
going to happen, because I'm sure Trump loves the boat attacks,
and I just don't you know, we've seen there's there's
(16:41):
already been a couple times where the White House and
or Trump wanted to drop Pete Hegzeth. It happened at
the very beginning when he was when he was nominated, right,
there was a point at which Joni Ernst was, you know,
was was against him because he had.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Done work on on sexual assault and the military and
had found.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Which in a funny way, so had Pete Heggsath. Just
to any different sense, yeah, sort of Famously, JD. Vance
was sort of squiring him around Capitol Hill and he
like intentionally got into this shouting match with some reporters
and Trump loved it. And after that, Trump apparently went
to Susie Wilds or whoever and said, like, I want
(17:25):
this guy. That was awesome, and that got him the thing.
And then there was a brief period where after the
signal Gate thing first happened where he seemed like he
was in a little trouble, but he did a similar thing.
So Pete Heggsath knows how to tickle Donald Trump in
the right way, let's put it that way, to you know,
to bring him on side. So I don't expect any
(17:46):
I didn't expect him to get canned. But if things
moved in the wrong direction, that ig report is a Again,
it's sort of like a trapdoor under him. They could
choose to yank at any moment and would you know,
kind of bring everything together.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
It is interesting just this thing you say about Trump
loving people fighting, because that is absolutely true and it
is such a great example of how Trump makes everyone worse,
right like, so the you're incentivized by Trump to be
worse than you might otherwise.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
Be, which is which is challenging. I think with Pete
Hegzeth he does know, yeah he does a he does it.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
It's a miracle. But yeah, so no, I think that's
very interesting. So the question of whether he stays is
a real one. I agree. I think he ends up
staying because Trump's whole thing is that he just keeps
everyone no matter what, and he doesn't care. But you
could see a world where you could see a world
where Trump decides it's too much.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
He also remember he he They didn't present it as
that they sort of exiled him to the UN, but
they did fire Mike wals over that, I mean, And
it was interesting how it was sort of a what
was Connie's husband's name? And the godfather? Am I remembering this?
You know, the guy who gets it at the end
of Godfather One where they strangle him in the car,
(19:13):
where that was sort of like the Mike Walls thing
that you you don't exact the punishment at the time,
you let it ride. It was the same thing with
Apple with Fredo, right. These things ride for a long
time until the convenient moment comes, and then it was
time for Mike Waltz because he was he wasn't he
wasn't fired at the time he was. It was I
(19:34):
didn't know a month or maybe two months later or
something like that, and so you know, who knows. But again,
it does seem like Pete Hegzeth is sort of doing
all the things that you know, the Trump wants and
doing it. You know, did the Department of War, he
could get the reporters, he does the snuff films. Although
you know, it's interesting, Like many people, I have been
genuinely mystified, like what are we doing with Venezuela? Like
(19:57):
what And I don't mean that in like a rhetorical sense,
like what is the plan here? And why are we
you know, what is happening here? And my understanding is
is that even though we sort of associate this with
the Pentagon, that it's really Marco Rubio who is who
is the driver, the driver of this and that that
makes sense because of his you know, connection with Cuban
(20:19):
exile politics, which obviously has a heavy overlap with Venezuela
and exile politics. And also Marco needs a brand, a
post Trump brand, other than being thirsty or sweaty or
looking awkward small, yeah, or looking small, being little little
Marco or what I think that was it. So I
assume this is also, you know, because this this with
(20:43):
certain elements of the right and certainly a lot of
the expatriate Latin American right. This is good stuff. This
is like, you know, this is like universal health care
for the DSA crowd. It gets him going.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
So let's do a minute on this special election Democrats.
It was it Tennessee's seventh district. It's an R plus
twenty two. It ended up being an R plus eight
point nine. It is you know, there's a lot of
Monday morning quarterbacking on this. The line that I read
(21:15):
in Politico, so I know it must be true is
that Republicans will freak out if it's a less than
double digits. So it's less than double digits.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
Yeah, I mean, this is it's sort of the story.
We know Trump is super unpopular, the Republicans are super unpopular.
We have seen you know, direct proxies ie special elections
that we've seen other things like the elections in November
that weren't federal elections, but you still get a sense of,
you know, kind of how each party's doing. They all
tell a pretty consistent story, which is that you're set
(21:47):
up for something at least like twenty eighteen, and quite
possibly bigger than twenty eighteen, and you still have this
confounding factor that the congressional generic ballot people usually use
as a proxy for that stuff is does not show
the Republicans that far behind, and that has sort of
thrown people and kind of you know, complicated people's analysis.
(22:10):
I think there's a few reasons why that may be
the case. But if you look at it in these
special elections, this is an approximation. I think that you know,
the average over performance of the Democrats in the twenty
eighteen cycle was something like six and now it's ten
or something. But again this is from memory. I'm just
just trying to give you a sense of scale. It
(22:31):
is substantially substantially more. I don't think there's any question
they're very freaked out. I think the only reason that
people in the house, maybe you're slightly less freaked out
is that they've figured they're losing the house for a while.
But if you talk about shifts in the very low
double digits, that starts to be the thing where people
are not just worried, Oh, we're not going to be
(22:51):
in the majority anymore, and it's not going to be
fun like I may actually lose my seat, like I'm
in a you know, in an R plus ten R
plus fifteen day strict. And you know, if you're an
R plus fifteen district, you're probably okay, because you can't
just take I mean, just for everybody to under understand,
you can't just take a special election and just you know,
directly apply it.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Except this there's high high turn special It was the
same turns.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
The mid YEA, yeah, no, it's so that does but
still again it is it is different. You can't just
make it a focus. Yes, you can't make it. You
can't just say, okay, so it's going to be identical.
That said, incumbent presidents and their parties generally get less
popular in the second year, so you've already got another
(23:39):
another year to go. And when you talk about for
congressional Republicans, if you say, you know, let's just say,
for instance, someone is in a a R plus fifteen
district or even in an R plus twenty district. Someone
in an R plus twenty district is quite likely to survive.
But you actually have a race, right and people generally
(24:00):
speaking in our twenty districts are not used to have
ever having a race. I expect you will see a
substantial number of Republican retirements over the next three months
or so, just because that's what happens when when when
a party figures it's going to lose, lose the majority.
I mean, in some ways from the outside, it looks
like it you kind of be more fun to be
(24:21):
in the minority because you get the yack a lot.
You don't have to carry the water for the speaker
and stuff. But I guarantee you anybody who's ever they
hate it. They hate it. You get the crappy offices,
you don't get budgets. They really really hate it.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
So what we know we're seeing right now are a
lot of resignations and or we have resignations like Marjorie
Tailer Green or retirements where they're not going to resign,
but they're not going to run again. And when you
don't run again, that means that this seat is more
expensive to keep usually and.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
Harder to keep. You have you have this is this
is this always happens when you always have this amplifying
effect when you when you have a you know, a
wave or a sub wave election in the offing that
people say all right, I don't have you know, I'm
not up for this, they retire and then the race
(25:12):
that they probably could have, you know, they probably could
have held onto their seat maybe sixty seventy percent chance,
suddenly they lose that seat. So you know, you it
just it's it's it has a self fulfilling effect.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
I want to get into redistricting. So Trump had this
brilliant idea that he was going to redistrict and get
more seats, and it works if Trump has the Trump
turnout that he did before. So when you have an
around a ten point shift, that means that you are
seeing a seed that was So say you have a
safe R plus twenty, you make that R plus nine,
(25:47):
you think you're going to be fine, but in a
in a general, in a midterm where everything shifts ten points,
you're not fine, right, you have to fight to keep
that seat.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
It's it's it is as it's the classic issue always
with with kind of an over gerrymanderin right that you
I mean, think of it this way that you take
the you take the levee right, and you want to
cover more territory with it, so you carve up the
top few feet of the levee and you move it over.
If you have a really big storm, the levee is
going to fail. And that's it's. It's it's just basic math. Now,
(26:19):
I I have I have been told to people who
really know districts well that the Texas jerry mander apparently
is pretty smartly done. It kind of yeah, that it's
there's kind of no way it can be overwhelmed. And
again these are people who really know districts.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Yeah, that's what I have also been told that very
thing by other Texas district ee people.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
Yeah, but some of these other states where you're in,
they're eking out like they're think they're eking out one
extra seat. But you know, overall, it looks like the
effect of all of this is likely to turn out
to be a wash in terms of because Democrats are
them elves being so are being so aggressive. So it's
you know, it's a.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Newsome and by the way, you know, again Newsome politically
not totally my vibe, but he did really save Democrats here.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Yeah, well he he, and I can't remember what I
think they're gonna They think they get five seats, you know,
kind of equal equal to Texas. But in some ways
an even more important part of it was that he
gave sanction to every other blue state to do the
same thing. And that is something it's it's always been
very uncharacteristic for Democrats to act in this way, but
(27:37):
he sort of set a different standard, and so you
have people like the governor of Maryland saying, hey, we're
doing it too, which you know, yeah, so it And
the thing is is that I said before that it
seems like it's likely to be a wash. You know,
let's say if it ends up being you know, two
or three seats in either direction, you have a big
(27:58):
you have a big election, and you're probably talking about
twenty or thirty seats moving. So yeah, two or three
seats is not gonna is. I mean, put it this way,
if the election comes down to Republicans were saved by
adding three seats, it'll that will mean it was a
disaster of an election for Democrats, quite apart from any jerrymanderin.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Yeah, and again we don't know what Trump's going to
try to do just put sand in the gears, but
it sure feels like he is going to would have
to do a lot. Josh Marshall, will you please come back.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Yes, of course, whenever you call me.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Congressman Robert Garcia represents California's forty second district and is
the head of the Oversight Committee. Welcome to Bass Politics.
Congressman Garcia, how are you ranking member of Oversight? So
tell us what do you have?
Speaker 5 (28:50):
I mean, we continue, obviously to get a ton of documents, pictures,
photos from all sorts of sources, and right now we
are going through an enormous amount of documents, about five
thousand pages of photos and videos from it, such as
Jeffrey Epstein's Island that were given to us by the
US Virgin Islands. Those photos and videos are quite disturbing
and pretty creepy, to be honest, just to never kind
(29:12):
of before seen look at what some of the rooms
look like, and video of the estate itself on the island.
Speaker 4 (29:19):
And then more importantly, we also have received.
Speaker 5 (29:22):
Pretty significant amount of financial documents from both JP Morgan
as well as Dortchy Bank, and these are two of
the institutions that are really critical in the investigation to
understand how the money was transferred within Epstein's sexual trafficking
ring and who was paying who, where Jeffrey Epsten was
getting his money from, and there's a lot there. What's
(29:44):
important is while we have this information from these two banks,
they've just given us a first of batch and that's
where our focus is right now, which is really on
all the financial documents.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Are these videos that the Virgin Islands took of the
house or are they videos that they seized?
Speaker 4 (29:59):
These are video that they.
Speaker 5 (30:00):
Took and so there are many more videos and photos
than the ones we released today. We'll be releasing all
of those in the days ahead. We have to be
very careful. Even with the pictures that we put out today.
We had to make some reactions in the photos. There
were photos, for example, of Jeffrey Epstein's phone and some
of the numbers that he had pre programmed.
Speaker 4 (30:21):
So we had to redact some of those names.
Speaker 5 (30:22):
There were names of possible victims on this large chalkboard
that he had in one of his living rooms, so
we had to redact some names from there.
Speaker 4 (30:31):
And so there is a process going on. But we
will release all the photos.
Speaker 5 (30:35):
In the videos in the days ahead of the Virgin
Islands documents.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Now there are more videos that are Jeffrey Ebstein's videos,
but you don't have those yet.
Speaker 4 (30:46):
That's right.
Speaker 5 (30:46):
I mean, look, the vast majority of the evidence for
this investigation, and vast majority of the Epstein files are
at the.
Speaker 4 (30:53):
Department of Justice.
Speaker 5 (30:54):
The Department of Justice, as we understand, has an enormous
amount of videos and photogs that are actually of Jeffrey
that were in his possession and that investigators put together
at the FBI. We understand that many of those videos,
of course, contain images of parties that he had and
of women and girls, and in some cases, of course,
(31:15):
some of these goals, as we know, were minors. We
are demanding that all of the files, whether it's the videos,
the photographs, all get turned over to our committee, which
has a subpoena on the full EPs files, and Congress
has also passed as we know just recently an actual
law that requires the president to get all these files
out the door, but they continue to cover up the
(31:36):
Epstein files and they have to understand it. We will
continue to hammer away and if anyone that's out there
to get and put together all of these different documents
that the DOJ should be giving us directly.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Let's talk about the financial documents. So you have these
documents from Deutsche Bank and from JP Morgan in the documents.
Have you looked at them and are are their names?
You know? Are their numbers for account? How hard is
it to figure out where the money is coming from
or going to?
Speaker 5 (32:07):
It is going to take us a couple of weeks
to actually these documents are actually pretty complicated financial documents.
Some of them are transfers, some are from organizations and
names that we need to deciphered exactly what is being
said in some of these documents. Others are just financial
ledgers like you've seen the you know, checking account or
(32:27):
someone's basic checking our savings account.
Speaker 4 (32:30):
It is pretty significant.
Speaker 5 (32:31):
The amount of money that moved in and out of
Jeff Westein's essential criminal empire that he had, and what
we heard from the survivors directly. Multiple times I've heard
from this from them one on one meetings and round
tables we've had, is they have said to follow the money,
that continue to follow the money. There was an enormous
amount of money that was paid for these horrible things
(32:53):
that were done to these children and these women, and
these financial records should.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
Help us unlock a lot of that information.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
So they have thirty days because this discharge petition set
the clock going on thirty days to release this stuff.
We know that the Justice Department has it. Do you
think they're making We know they paid a million dollars
in overtime to FBI agents to redact, So that would
make me think that the information is ready. Is that right?
Speaker 4 (33:20):
We think that the information is ready to be released.
Speaker 5 (33:22):
We know that when Trump first got into office, there
was a review done by the DOJ. I mean Pembondy
talked about that has been reported in the media that
Pembondi went to Donald Trump and said, hey, you are
in these files. Pambondi claimed that they were on her desk.
They made a decision early on to not release anything
or essentially give up these kind of maga social influencers
(33:43):
kind of limited amount of documents.
Speaker 4 (33:45):
We remember it was kind of a joke.
Speaker 5 (33:47):
Since then, they have been determined to not release anything
else and to downplay the actual files. And now we
know that they have a significant amount of document in
their possession and there have to be compelled to release them.
And what we're concerned about now is that somehow this
sham new investigation that Trump has demanded through the Southern
(34:08):
District of New York around you know, Democrats or others
that he believe are involved in the files, is going
to somehow be used as an excuse by Pambondy to
not release the documents of the Congress. And what I've
reminded the DJ and we've done this directly, is that
the subpoena that we put in place a few weeks
ago doesn't have any language about ongoing investigations. So they
(34:32):
have to provide all the documents to us, whether they
want to or not, and we'll see if they comply.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
There's some talk that Pambondy would testify about this. Could
that happen, Will that happen.
Speaker 4 (34:44):
It's something that we definitely want to do.
Speaker 5 (34:47):
We want to have a conversation with her, and we
have a lot of questions not just about the Epstein files,
but about Glen Maxwell. And you know, when are we
going to find out how the hell who made the
decision to transfer her to that lower security prison. She's
been now transferred to this prison. She's getting all these
secret meetings, she's meeting with Todd blanch to the DOJ,
(35:10):
and no one is giving the Congress any information about
how this all happened, Who directed the transfer, why was
it done, what was Glene Maxwell promised? Did Pambondi authorize
this transfer? These are basic questions that any normal administration
or responsible administration would answer.
Speaker 4 (35:30):
To the public and to the Congress.
Speaker 5 (35:31):
And so it's all part of this broader cover up
that is clearly, in our opinion, being directed by Donald Trump.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
It feels like the Oversight Committee is I mean, I
know that there's controversy, but it feels like the House
is weirdly united on the ebscene stuff and that it's
not as partisan as everything else. Is that true or
is that just vibes? And also can you use that
in any way right? Because we're seeing members get more
(35:59):
involved in discharge petitions, We're seeing a lot of pushback
on Speaker Johnson. He clearly does not have control of
the caucus. I mean, is there opportunity there for Democrats?
Speaker 4 (36:09):
There is?
Speaker 5 (36:10):
I mean, look, I think clearly Republicans have been on
board in some of our efforts on the closure, but
they've also had to be almost forced or pushed into
it and have a lot of Republicans signed the Dishart petition.
It wasn't until we forced the vote that you saw
the wave on the Oversight Committee.
Speaker 4 (36:26):
We haven't had a lot of Republicans supportive.
Speaker 5 (36:29):
It's been a couple but once we've forced votes on subpoenas,
or once we've pressured the majority into getting bank documents,
or once we've publicly called on actions to be taken
and have essentially shown the majority that we do have
some Republicans with us, that's when there has been action.
I mean, it hasn't the Republicans have clined, oh, we've
(36:49):
released X amount of documents. They've only released documents after
Democrats have essentially forced their hand or released a few moments,
then they released the rest. And so they have been
I think kind of dragged along. There have been a
couple of them that have been principled from I think
the start, but a vast majority have, I think reluctantly
come forward and we encourage that support that we want
(37:11):
more folks to do the right thing. And as the
President continues to get weaker and his power seems to
be diminishing within his own party and base, I think
you're going to continue to see more Republicans stand up
and do the right thing. And in many ways, the
Epstein files and this investigation, I believe, is what's going
to break. That's really a bond that somehow Donald Trump
(37:34):
has created over years with his magabase.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Are we going to see the Epstein files.
Speaker 4 (37:40):
I think we will. I hope that we're able to
sooner than later.
Speaker 5 (37:43):
Certainly, when we get into the majority, the power that
we're going to have of subpoena and getting documents will
be dramatically different than what we have now in our ability.
But absolutely, I mean, these women, these survivors, they deserve justice,
they deserve the truth.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
Thank you, Thank you, Congressman Garcia.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
They're no more perfect.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Jesse Cannon my jug fast.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
So you may remember some of the members of the
New York Young Republican Club is having their tech leaked
and well, let's be real here, sounding like a bunch
of Nazis, bigots and racists and saying things that, well,
we're obvious to people like us, but shocked a lot
of people. Well, I'm going to shock you here. They've
invited this German leader who had an I Love Hitler
(38:28):
chat who amongst us?
Speaker 1 (38:30):
Yeah, who could have seen these young people, they're basically
children in their thirties and forties, who had a group
chat where they mused about all the anti Semitism. In
case you are Jewish and you think these people are
not hugely anti Semitic, they in fact are.
Speaker 4 (38:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
New York Republicans GALA will recognize this guy. He's from
a political parties called the Alternative for Germany. They are
far right. I know you'll be shocked to hear this statement.
To Letico, The group defended inviting the German politician, saying
the AfD is a model for fighting the far left.
(39:09):
That's right, Antifa. Remind me who fought Antifa? What's the
faugh for?
Speaker 2 (39:15):
I just never remember this part. The thing I think about,
though with this that really does make me quite angry
is while groups like the ADL set up tip lines
about Zoron, this is happening in New York City, right,
in their fucking backyard. One of my other favorite things
is this club has removed their address from Oddline so
that they don't get protested anymore.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Great stuff, great stuff, the best. That's it for this
episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday,
and Saturday to hear the best minds and politics make
sense of all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast,
please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
(40:00):
Thanks for listening.
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
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