Tara Palmeri: Independent Female Journalist

This week on the podcast, Leslie speaks with independent journalist Tara Palmeri, known previously for her work at ABC News, Politico, Puck, the New York Post, and the Washington Examiner. Leslie and Tara talk about the challenges of being an independent journalist, how to find objective reporting in a politically charged culture, and some of the more disturbing things that have happened to Tara as a female reporter.

Hosted by Leslie Dobson. Produced by Liam Billingham. Executive producers are Paul Anderson and Scott McCarthy for Workhouse Media. The views expressed in this podcast episode are solely those of the guest speaker and do not reflect the views of the host or the production company.

 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I have a literal bitch of a dog. It's time
for you to make your debut on intentionally disturbs.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
She's she doesn't like me. You're here, OK. I'm really
excited that I get to talk to you because politics

(00:32):
are crazy right now and that.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
But it's not just politics.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
It's the misogyny that is so present in our environment.
And what I think is so amazing about you is
that you are a complete badass. You have all of
this deep inside access to the White House, and you've
worked for sincerely credible, amazing news stations, and now you've
chosen to say, get tell me if I'm wrong here,

(00:59):
but kind to fuck it. I'm going out independently and
holding my own voice.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Yeah fuck the man, just do it.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Literally fucked the man. But yeah, not the man.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
It could be a woman jo, you know. And so
I'm no, I'm amazed. It's oh, thank you. I'm amazed
by you. When we first met, I had never I
never felt more powerful in a moment when I felt
really powerless. So we were spoken. I imagine when you
were described to me as a forensic psychologist, I was like, Oh,

(01:29):
this is going to be a snooze, like I'm gonna
have to get through like all these questions and she's
going to tell me at the end like I don't know.
But we ended up talking for hours and I was like,
this girl is my best friend. I never want to
get off the phone with her.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
And we made a list of raunchy words.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
That I should block from my Instagram, which is insane
that I even had to do that. Actually, last night
I was like, I'm putting up a post today on
my Instagram wall about the Big Beautiful Bill that just
passed this on it. But I wanted to be something honest,
something vulnerable. I'm a small business owner. Like you said,
I left a news organization Puck, where I was a

(02:10):
I was a like a I guess you could say
a partner. I had an equity partnership. And before that,
I worked at Politico, and before that, I was a
White House correspondent for ABC News covering Trump. Worked for CNN, CNBC,
basically every network at some point in my life. And
I now I'm on my own and I want to
keep it real, and like part of keeping it real

(02:32):
is being on online and telling people like I am
worried about how the Big Beautiful Bill is going to
impact me and my business, right, Like I am on,
I went on the open healthcare market. I used Obamacare
to get to find health insurance, and to get the
health insurance to be under four hundred dollars a month,
I think I'm paying around like three ninety or something.

(02:52):
I had to agree that I would not get pregnant
and or use any psychological services and so, which is absurd, right.
So I wanted to post this on my Instagram, and
I planned to, but I also had to be aware
that a bunch of bots were going to attack me
afterwards and probably accused me of having mental illnesses or
something related to men don't want to sleep with you, You're

(03:13):
not hot, you are fat, you do this x Y
dizs sexual thing. And so how do I like pre
block all the nasty comments that are about to come
from bots that are paid for by one anonymous person
who I believe I figured out who they are. So
if you're listening to.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
This, yeah, we're really good investigators.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
By the way we're going to we're going to figure
you out. But that's the point is that like I
was not, I was always a little bit hurt. I
was always targeted by Trump's team. Trump send out a
tweet about me over the summer, but his war room
account would constantly go after me. I was one of
the few journalists that they the first journalists that they
said could not attend their victory party for my reporting,

(03:54):
even though it was accurate, and uh, the war room
was so obsessed with me. His warm it's official warrim account,
like both sides have them. In the Harris campaign. You know,
they always have warrems accounts, but they're anonymous warrim accounts,
And I would like tweet back at it. Why are
you so obsessed with me? And so there is this
whole thing I think with women, it's a female thing.

(04:17):
I can't I know that they hate Jim Acosta, and
I know that they don't like others. But I'm not
this liberal warrior. I'm just a female journalist. I'm not
trying to make a point. I'm just trying to get
down to the closest version of the truth. And in fact,
I am very critical of Democrats, and I'm just trying

(04:39):
to get down to it. But my take isn't in
line always with what they want. In fact, I was
one of the few journalists saying that Kamala Harris was
going to lose, which is the ironic part out of
all of this.

Speaker 3 (04:50):
She used to be my neighbor and.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
Really, yeah, yeah, somehow, and you are in the midst
of all of it. I became a target them.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
You scare them enough that you And no, it is
not normal to have like thoughts coming at you talking
about vaginitis. And I know that I have bots coming
at me because the viral shopping cart video. But that
was like, I mean, it had like one hundred million chairs.
But when you put up an Instagram, you shouldn't be

(05:22):
covered in the most disgusting stuff, don't. I can't even
remember what some of it was. It was just nonsensical mansplaining.

Speaker 1 (05:31):
It's always sexual.

Speaker 3 (05:32):
It's all sexual.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
We're fat shaming, always sexual, Oh, fat shaming sexual like
or just like appearance shaming, any sort of like any anything.

Speaker 2 (05:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
I mean I said I had a hole in my floor,
and it was like, you look like the type of
person who would have a hole in your floor. It's like, thanks.
I think this was after we blocked words like bacterial vaginitis.
It was running out of things to say.

Speaker 2 (06:02):
We've blocked the dictionary. No, this laying dictionary, and at.

Speaker 1 (06:06):
Some point you don't want to block too much because
you're like, well, le, you're going to lose all your
engagement online. And it's a it's a pickle because like
I am in the business of information and communicating information.
I don't want to stop the channels of communicating those
that information. I want to keep it flowing. But at
the same time, I can't have it clogged up by that.

(06:26):
Actors so that have used these uses often.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
Actually, yeah, I know what makes you so threatening to
these high profile powerful men, especially in politics.

Speaker 1 (06:40):
I just think it's hard when they know they can't
really control you. Like, at least even when you're at
an institution, there's like a level of control, there's an
editor above you, there's something that kind of But when
you're really truly out there and independent, it's just you
that they're dealing with, and the power of your voice
and the following that you have. I think I think

(07:00):
it's really hard to control a person you can get
in a fight. Other news organizations have boards, right, they
have advertising, they have lots of they have lots of
other employees. They need access to the White House, they
need access, and by access, I mean the ability to
be present when President Trump says something that is on
camera and everyone else can watch at home, but they

(07:20):
still need to have that proximity to be in the room.
I don't necessarily need that, and don't I also don't
even think it really helps. I actually think the best
stories are when you can call and talk to sources
that don't feel comfortable being on the record, because they're
often willing to give you information that they don't feel
comfortable saying one on the record. I mean, if you
listen to everything on the record, it's always the line

(07:41):
is the administration's line. Anyone who goes against the administration's line,
it's like, you know.

Speaker 3 (07:49):
I think that's that's what they want.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
So to me, it feels like you are now more
objective as an independent journalist.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
Yeah, I mean even sometimes I didn't always appreciate it
to what they were like. Sometimes I felt that some
of the some of the newsrooms I worked with, or
at least some of the individuals I worked with, were
too liberal to be honest. And you know, one of
the big stories I broke at Politico was about Hunter
Biden's gun. I mean, there was a his ex girlfriend

(08:20):
who was his wife's I mean, his brother's widow threw
a gun inside of in a garbage across from a school.
And this was all, yeah, it's a crazy story. But
I went and actually reported this. This is sort of
a story that none of the other reporters in the
newsrooms wanted to touch. And I went there and I
did the full reporting. And it's the only thing he

(08:42):
got in dited for.

Speaker 3 (08:43):
Oh I didn't know that.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
And besides the tax besides the tax crime, it was
the gun crime. And I'm really the type of reporter
that's like, I smell the story and I go after it.
I'm not going to be like nope, no, nope, that's
bad for the Bidens. I don't want I need access
with the Biden administration. Yeah, because where's credibility, you know.
And so I'm like, if it's a story, it's a story,

(09:06):
and we can't play those games. Because that's also how
the news media lost a lot of trust. Also, was
one of the reporters saying pretty early on that Biden
shouldn't run for reelection, or at least questioning him and
his motivations were running. And I had this video from
back in like twenty twenty one where it's a podcast
with me and my former colleague Petty Schleifer. He placed

(09:27):
bets on whether right Biden will run for reelection. I
say seventy percent no, and like, you know, it's I
was on Bill Maher and Bill was like, sh say that,
even Bill Maher, Yeah, I mean we were talking about
the state. He was kidding a little bit, but we
were talking about how Biden did after his final State

(09:48):
of the Union for running and I said, well, he
didn't sound like a zombie. I guess, but the bar
is so low, right.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
Yeah, I hate Bill Maher, but I also like appreciate
that he continues to have a voice, even though at
times I think his voice sucks. Ass.

Speaker 1 (10:05):
Why do you hate him so much?

Speaker 2 (10:07):
I think there is a level of just old school
mentality misogyny. The comments he made about the Sean Colms
trial and the victims and disregarding minimizing coerceive control just
showed me a lack of education, but you know, not
crystallized intelligence. It showed me a lack of present day
education that if you're going to have such a large platform,

(10:30):
you need to know what is trending. You need to
know the recent studies in psychology and science, because we've
learned new things just in the past six months that
we didn't know before. And that's where I think people
take these have these platforms, and they're just on it
too long.

Speaker 1 (10:47):
Yeah, I think he reflects a certain time, a certain way,
but I think that also reflects his audience, people that
are scheduled to watch hb out at that hour. And
but he's also he's also a very important voice a
voways that's critical of the far left and while still

(11:08):
being on the left. And I don't think you hear
a lot of that. You're not going to get that
on MSNBC, No, definitely not. No, I appreciate somewhere else.
Are you going to get it?

Speaker 2 (11:18):
That's true. I appreciate that part, and I did listen
to him a lot, and then I think he just
I think he just came so out of his lane.

Speaker 1 (11:25):
But there really isn't There aren't really many voices on
the right either that are critical of the far right.
I mean, there are now Democrats, there are Lincoln projects.
You know they are, but they I think they feel
so politically homeless. There's a sort of politically everyone feels
so politically homeless. Right now in the center, I think
exactly the center left or center right, they're actually the

(11:48):
most targeted in some ways.

Speaker 3 (11:50):
I think that's why I. People on both sides.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
Are constantly reaching out to me to join a campaign
to push something forward, but I always say no, you
can can't pay me. I'm a completely unbiased psychologist when
it comes to my actual case is not the shit
on social media. But when you give me a client,
I'm going to do an unbiased psychological assessment and I
will opine in court to the truth, to the validity, to.

Speaker 3 (12:16):
The reliability of the individual.

Speaker 2 (12:18):
But people don't like that, and like you, people want
to push you into a corner and an opinion and
a place so that they can more easily manipulate you
and know what to do.

Speaker 1 (12:30):
Right. Yeah, No, it's uncomfortable for people that are trying
to stereotype people in boxes, file them away, and then
decide how they think about them because the world is
not black and white. It is gray, and that is scary,
and it's uncertain. There are no quick answers, and all
of that uncertainty is why people feel anxious and nervous. Yes,

(12:52):
and they need self soothing in a lot of ways
the news has become a place for self soothing, or
at least the media has. I listen to this podcast
that tells me all the things I want to hear
all the time, I feel better about myself. And I
found actually when I was doing The Ringer Show, when
I would say Harris isn't doing well, like in the
morning of the election and other times, people were angry.
They didn't want to hear it, and you lose viewers,

(13:15):
and it's like, okay, I could lull you into a happiness,
but then then in the end, you know, some of
the networks like MSNBC, they found that they lost viewership
because people were angry. They felt like they were misled.
My grandmother, for example, she loved Rachel Maddow. She'd said
she's my favorite little lesbian, you know, and she'd watch
her every night. During the Moler investigation, she felt completely

(13:38):
misled when they found nothing. And the Special Counsels report
on Russia and collusion with Trump, and I think we
have to be open about that. It was doosed up
and a lot of journalists went for the ride, and
it's like it's time to be open about those things.
I agree with you. I would stay far away from politics.
The one thing I find that's so interesting is politics

(13:58):
really is psycholoed in so many ways, and the way
that it's turned for men to really identify as the victims. Right,
there's been this big swing, you know, after the Me
Too movement. Now they're saying we're the victims. We're the victims,
and it's really caught on in a very strong way.

(14:21):
We're victimizing you. Now women are minorities others like, we're
victimizing you. I don wouldn't even say minorities because I
think minority men feel victimized as well. So I really
think this has become a gender war. How does this end? Leslie?
I don't I don't know.

Speaker 2 (14:39):
I don't know. I've never felt like I've been in
such a divisive environment in my life. And granted I'm
only forty two. You know, if I talk to people
who have lived way longer lives than me, they've they
understood the division, but it felt different. So where do
we go from here? I'd say we come back center
because there's nowhere else go. So, like I'd say, voices

(15:03):
like yours are people will look to you for guidance.
Like I put a post up on my Instagram and
I think I want to say. Seventy eighty thousand people replied,
and I said, can you point me in the direction
of a neutral political figure to almost mentor me? I

(15:23):
didn't get one single answer that was neutral, I mean
in literal or the most common Bernie Sanders, because I'm
like from California and white, like.

Speaker 1 (15:38):
Love Bernie. He does have a bit of crossover though
with the right, with the populist right. It's I think
there's a little bit of a I'm a bit of
a contrarian, and so I admire the populist movements a
lot of ways because of that. And it is the people.
It is what the people want on both sides, like
there's a there were a lot of points that it

(16:00):
made that were very popular and for good reason, that
attracted Bernie rose Over. And I think a lot of
the political elites in Washington, they don't listen to actual
human beings or talk to anyone who's not in politics
and see what they have to say. It's too much
of a bubble? Can you ask too much of a bubble?

Speaker 2 (16:20):
Can you say more on that? What is it like
being in the bubble? Like, what is the psychology of
the bubble.

Speaker 1 (16:28):
Well, it's interesting that you say that because I don't
live in Washington anymore. I have always sort of lived
in and out of it. I start, I went to
college there, I started my career there. Then I moved
to New York to work at the New York Post.
Then I moved to Belgium to cover the EU for
two years for Politico and CNBC. Then I moved back
to DC to cover the White House for ABC News

(16:49):
as a White House coorspondent. But then I moved back
to New York, and I live in New York, but
I moved between New York and DC. And that's the
only way I think I can be saying. I think
you have to move in and out of it. I
think the bubble it's just a lot of group thing
people looking for the same talking points, repeating them back
to each other, practicing them so that they can be
good on media and on TV. And I think the

(17:13):
best ideas don't come from inside of Washington. They come
from outside. Even some of the strongest leaders. They usually
are governors, business people, people that have different voices and styles.
For so long, the Washington way was to speak in
talking points, never answer the question, say everything in a
roundabout way, and never curse, never sound like a real

(17:37):
human being. And now Democrats are trying to figure out
how to integrate cursing into their commentary. I just had
a congressman Auchincloth on my show. He's a Massachusetts he's
a Democrat, he's a rising star, he really is. The
guy's on the rise. But he said to me, can
I curse on your show? And it's like very kind
of him to ask, because you know, you don't always

(17:57):
want to add the explicit to every show that little
e this podcasters think about that stuff. Listen. He's a
Harvard educated guy, father worked in the Nia. She comes
from a certain class of people, in which most people
in Washington are of that class, and they speak a
certain way, and they they've grown up in a certain way.

(18:17):
They're in the same circles. Like to even penetrate media
to the level that I have, being the daughter of
an electrician and a mother who was born in Poland
came to this country like dirt poor before the Wall fell,
that was not easy to even integrate in those newsrooms
where a lot of the people I was around, there's

(18:38):
a lot of nepotism, and I'm sure in your in
your field as well. I mean it's everywhere when you
get into these into these kind of more elite circles.
But then you and then you start to think, oh,
I have to ask who I am. But the truth
is that who you are brought you to where you are,
and actually who you are probably represents your listeners, probably
more so than you think. That's part of the reason too,

(18:58):
why I wanted to go out my own was that
I just started to realize, like, actually, the things that
make me me are going to attract people, rather than
me trying to fit into the voice of an organization.
I remember when I was at ABC, I had to
speak in a certain voice. Literally, this is Tara Palm
Mary reporting from the White House. Drop the vocal fry,
drop the kind of Jersey accent, No Tara Tara. Like

(19:20):
everything was different. And then when I wrote for other publications,
they wanted me to scrub my sassy attitude from the writing.
But that's who I am. I'm a little acerbic, a
little acidic. This is my style and it might not
be partisan, but it certainly has takes. And I think
you know that that's sort of where I got to
and I realized, like, that's actually probably closer to where

(19:41):
we are is humans, Like we want humans. We're all
about to be replaced by AI soon. So the more
humanity you can inject into your work, I think the better.
And to think about the people who are actually impacted
by the news is probably a better way of going
about it. And that's sort of how I've been thinking.

Speaker 2 (19:59):
But I think it's brilliance.

Speaker 1 (20:01):
Honestlie, It's a weird world. I mean, newsrooms are very political.
Everything is political everywhere, really, corporations are political. Everything is political.

Speaker 2 (20:10):
So where do we go? Where do we go to
hear the truth?

Speaker 1 (20:15):
It's a really good question, I mean, I think unfortunately
at this point you have to sort of look to
a lot of different sources to hear the truth. You
have to also understand that the truth that you're getting
is the closest version of the truth at that moment,
and you also really have to question your sources and
what motivates them and if they're making money from what

(20:37):
their information they're giving you. The Maha movement is very
popular for a lot of good reasons, because we have
a serious problem in this country with the kind of
pesticides and the fact that our food is not regulated
the way it is in other countries like in Europe.
They don't even want to do trade deals with us
because we chlorinate our chicken and we have hormones in
our meat and mothers women. People have a right to

(20:59):
be angry, right, and but let's look at the people
who are leading the movement. Do they have are they experts?
Are they do they have supplement sponsorships? How much money
are they being are they becoming Are they becoming really,
really really rich off of what there is this idea
they're selling.

Speaker 2 (21:16):
Yeah, I mean, I'll give you two examples. I don't
know if I should, but whatever reached out wanted to talk.
Do you want to talk about a pyramid scheme for
supplements to push for me to push on my platforms?

Speaker 1 (21:32):
You know, because I'm super popular and you have a follow.

Speaker 2 (21:34):
I have a very divert like I'm I have both sides,
like nobody. Everybody is confused with who I am and
where I stand politically because I never say it and
it's not my place. I'm a psychologists. I'll be unbiased
and middle But then you know, reached out to start

(21:55):
pushing MAHA forward. And I'm not going to do that either, Right,
I'm not going to follow the money. Even if I
decide to speak on something, it's going to be because
I truly believe it. And this, like you said, there
is science, there's education, there are studies behind what is
being said.

Speaker 1 (22:14):
Yeah, and even then question the studies. Look at the studies.
I mean, this MAHA report came out and it was
so many of the studies were plagiarized. There are also
a lot of places like ground News that can help
you find out which channels are biased or unbiased. You
can sometimes I'll even ask chat GPT what does it

(22:35):
think about this source? I asked chat GPT what people
think about me? And they say that that I'm a
journalist without a political affiliation, which I think is really
great to hear. Yeah, but yeah, it's really good to
hear that. But or there's debate they say over what
my political affiliation could be, because when I go on
to show that's like far to the left, they'll say, oh,
she's maga. If I go on to show that's part

(22:55):
of the right, they say, oh, she's liberal. Like what
if I'm just pushing you and questioning you because I'm
a journalist, and I think that's where we get to
the closest version of the truth there is. Really there
are very few places where they're you know that that
can't be questioned, right exactly, There are very few things
that they can't really be questioned. There's so much spin.

(23:16):
Washington is a big spin factory.

Speaker 2 (23:18):
And people don't have any fucking time to figure out
what the truth is. I mean, people have jobs. I
mean they want someone they can just really believe, which
I think is you.

Speaker 1 (23:29):
Shouldn't have to look and see how many thank you
and it's lacking. They also shouldn't have to look and
see how much money these people are making for what
they say. Like I, for one, do not take any
money from political actors or super packs. But there are
a lot of people out there who call themselves blank
reports or they pose as journalists online, but are taking
money from political actors and super PACs. Now people can

(23:52):
buy advertising through Google et cetera, and they might be
a political ads, but that's the same thing on television.
I have nothing to do with that, but to actually
be taking money from packs from really wealthy donors with intentions,
I mean, I am being a bit of a purist
right now, and I plan to continue to be one
in my business. But I don't want to take money

(24:13):
from donor from donors, but from investors, especially those that
see news organizations as a way to influence people. And
that's concerning. Yes, and you're seeing it. You're actually seeing
this trend. We're very wealthy individuals who feel victimized, like
we talked about, are trying to pluck powerful journalists from
major publications and get them to start news organizations like

(24:36):
what I did and have them be the backers because
they see that as as a way to have influence
in the media. And it's true that people trust individuals
more than institutions.

Speaker 2 (24:45):
Now, yeah, hey, you can get a Golden Globe for podcasting.

Speaker 1 (24:52):
You should definitely submit.

Speaker 2 (24:54):
Oh god, no, I love that. We'll be right back
after that this break. My question for you is, I
want to know about a really disturbing case you've covered
that still sticks with you.

Speaker 1 (25:10):
I think this may sound generic, but I spent a
lot of time on it, and it would have to
be the Jeffrey Epstein case.

Speaker 3 (25:18):
There's nothing generic about that, no, I know.

Speaker 1 (25:22):
It's just generic in the sense that everyone would. It's
like saying, Diddy, you know what I'm saying. But I
actually was entrenched in that. I did two podcasts on
it Broken Jeffrey Epstein, Power the Maxwells there too. If
you're into true crime bingers, I did it. I did
it with Actually I worked with Virginia Giuffrey. We traveled
all over the country trying to find witnesses, corroborate evidence.

(25:46):
A lot of it was used in the case against
Glene Max Virginia. Yeah, she's a good friend of mine too.
Not Gallaine Virginia.

Speaker 2 (25:53):
Virginia sad. Yeah, passed away.

Speaker 1 (25:56):
The beast away. And for everyone who's like she was murdered,
was not. I spoke to her months before she passed,
and she was not well. And it really upsets me
too that these conspiracies haunt her in her death. But
that was really, really, really really hard. And I did
it during COVID in isolation, going through all those files,

(26:18):
talking to so many victims. The thing that was the
hardest for me, Leslie, And I think you probably see
this too. I don't know how you do your job.
I mean, it's I couldn't imagine it.

Speaker 2 (26:30):
I mean, I drink a lot a red bull.

Speaker 1 (26:32):
Yeah, yeah, you do, and then you get a tacked too,
I'm sure, as we talked about. But the thing that
was really hard for me was to think of all
of the people, the powerful people who maybe they didn't
engage in sexual sex trafficking and actually abuse the girls,
but they saw it. They knew there was something weird

(26:54):
about a fifty six year old man hanging out with
teenage girls, some of them who have braces on them,
and they didn't a damn thing about it. And these
are some of the most powerful people in the world
who are still celebrated right now to this day, are
very famous, very wealthy. The women who gave Jeffrey Epstein

(27:15):
a veneer, a palette of a beatina of acceptability in
society after he went to jail for procuring a thirteen
year old for prostitute prostitution. How can a thirteen year
old be a prostitute? I mean, the fact that that
was even a charge is criminal and disgusting, But the

(27:37):
fact that he could be brought back into society so
easily and people would just continue to covort with him.
From Bill Gates, I could keep going. I don't even
want to name everybody because there.

Speaker 2 (27:50):
Are so in every of them.

Speaker 1 (27:53):
It's literally everyone. And so yeah, you can say, oh,
I never engaged in sex trafficking, even the women, but
you you made him an acceptable human being when he
should have been treated like a pariah, like every pedophile
is treated. Pedophiles don't do well in prison for good reason.
Why do they do well in high society?

Speaker 2 (28:14):
It's a very good question.

Speaker 3 (28:15):
And why is it?

Speaker 2 (28:17):
So?

Speaker 3 (28:19):
Why is that the go to crime?

Speaker 2 (28:22):
Is it just the epitome of power and authority and
abuse of the authority a child.

Speaker 1 (28:30):
It's the thing you can't get. It's like you can
buy everything, right and could go that rich. Yeah, but
that's the thing you can fucking go, right, you could
you can just get a go. Yeah, you could just
get a fucking go. It probably costs you one hundred
bucks get a go, maybe a little bit more for shipping.
But you cannot do that. That is the thing you.

Speaker 3 (28:52):
Cannot do, the one societal not.

Speaker 1 (28:57):
Exactly, it is the It's the one thing you can't do,
and it is the sign of being Yeah, like I
guess I don't want to say God, but like a yeah,
I'm not mortal in some ways, so.

Speaker 3 (29:11):
The part for me that's just so horrendous.

Speaker 2 (29:14):
I mean, yes, we've got all like the people who
run this world are complicit, they continue to be complicit.
But you also have the individuals that are engaging in
these pedophilic acts or paraphilic whatever, depending on the age
and what they want, and they are becoming a wrecked
They are raping children and they are taking pleasure in

(29:34):
doing so, and others are aware and doing nothing.

Speaker 1 (29:39):
Yeah, or they're telling themselves, oh, she's sixteen's basically an adult,
or oh she says she's eighteen, or you know, yeah.
But the truth is is, here's what the dark part
about this leslie. The reason it went on for so
long and there were so many girls maybe one of

(29:59):
the biggest sex trafficking operations in the US, was because
these girls were poor. And I'm talking like dirt poor,
like the kind of poor where that two hundred dollars
they got for the massage for Jeffrey Epstein would pay
for the shoes they were wearing because their shoes were
too tight. And the even sadder, darker part about it

(30:20):
is that sometimes the parents drop them off because they
needed the money to And that's where that's where it
gets really sad and really dark. I mean, it gives
me the chills.

Speaker 2 (30:33):
Why isn't this information in the public It is?

Speaker 1 (30:39):
It is, Yeah, No, it's known, it's in public documents.
It's in public documents.

Speaker 2 (30:43):
But it's very dampered by by the media. It's very
dampered because these people run the media.

Speaker 1 (30:50):
Or no, no, no, this stuff about the parents, I mean,
that's in the FBI vault. They don't they might scrub
out the person's name. I mean, I certainly heard this
a lot from the victims. It's the dark part. A
lot of these girls were not first abuse by Jeffrey Epstein.
They were abused by their own families. And that's another

(31:13):
thing you would know about psychology of victims. There are
often targets. And Glene Maxwell was a groomer who hung
out at the malls in West Palm Beach and tried
to find girls there. And you know, in the way
it works in Palm Beach, there's the other side of
the of the Intercoastal Bridge, there's Palm Beach with the

(31:34):
high hedges protecting the mansions, the billionaire lifestyle, and the
other side, Wes Palm is nice. It's gotten a lot nicerlately.
But you go in a little bit further in people
are living in trailers and their parents are on drugs.
They're they're not living. These kids were left for to

(31:55):
fund for themselves. Really, and this is what happens. And no,
this stuff out there, it's it's and it's in podcasts.
It's just dark. It's dark, dark, dark. And the naming
and shaming of these parents, I mean, what is that
going to do? Right? I mean, it's it's, it's it's
the John's, it's Epstein. There was a darkness to one

(32:17):
of these. One of the first episode we did was
The Witness, and it was Virginia and I driving around
to find members of staff, pilot Butler, a few others
and corroborate her story. Some people just wouldn't talk to her,
slam the door in her face, slam the phone down,

(32:39):
incredibly depressing. We got to the we finally got one person,
the butler, to talk to us, and we went to
his house and he opened his door, hugged her, and
you know, he talked a lot about this one victim
who's really critical in the Glene Maxwell case. But she's
a Jane Doe, So I'm not going to mention her,
But the fact that her mom was really aware of
it all along was the heart that really disturbed me

(33:01):
the most when I was listening to him.

Speaker 2 (33:04):
Yeah, and that, Yeah, that was really dark. It's not uncommon. Yeah,
when you get to that level of sexual perversion and
that level of poverty and that level of survival your children.
And this is in every country, it's just in a
variety of different ways. But your children are monetized. I mean,

(33:27):
you go to India and they will say, honey, you know,
we're going to have to cut your hand off today
because we can beg for more money if you don't
have a hand. Wow. It's every country has something like it,
but in America. It's just fascinating to me that you know,
we're we all are so aware of it, yet it's

(33:48):
still continuing.

Speaker 1 (33:50):
That's that I had no idea that that that's horrible.

Speaker 3 (33:53):
Yeah, I forget the book.

Speaker 2 (33:55):
I can find the book, but it's something about like
the the theories.

Speaker 3 (33:58):
Behind Money and Power.

Speaker 2 (34:00):
It's an incredible book when she talks all about.

Speaker 3 (34:05):
How people do this all throughout the world in just.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
In what you would you know, quote, culturally appropriate ways.

Speaker 1 (34:17):
Yeah, and then you think about the fact that today,
on July first, is the end of USAID. Yes, a
program that kept according to George W. Bush, the Good Republican,
now twenty five million people alive through PEP prep. A
pill costs probably about five bucks for six months to

(34:38):
keep one human being alive. And yeah, this is also
really disturbing. I don't know why. This one also doesn't
give me pause too. I mean the fact that I
was listening to a podcast from the Wall Street Journal,
It's called The Journal, and they had this really moving,
moving podcast. They spoke to HIV people with HIV in

(35:02):
Africa and the Horn of Africa, and they said, we're
actually going and digging our own grapes to prepare for
our deaths.

Speaker 2 (35:08):
Oh God, because.

Speaker 1 (35:09):
We know that our HIV will turn into AIDS without
this life saving drug that has almost entirely destroyed the
AIDS epidemic. And the richest man in the world is
the reason it's over. The richest man in the world, who,
by the way, was happy to cut from Health and

(35:29):
Human Services, National Institute of Health, USAID, Veteran Affairs, everything
that helps some of our weakest and poorest and just
regular people everyday people. Actually we rely on health and
Human Services, and he was happy to cut that, but
not the Defense Department, not Pentagon, where he had lots

(35:50):
of contracts right in subsidies, Not NASA where he rents
space to launch it rents launch pads for a dollar
for twenty years. By the way, do you ever hear
of a of a you couldn't get a you couldn't
get a parking lot, a parking space for a dollar
anywhere for twenty years in America? So it's it's obscene

(36:11):
and it's insane that this is what has happened, and
incredibly depressing. And to bring back pep far is like
it's going to be really really really really really hard.
Government is slow. Yeah, you get rid of something, to
bring it back, it's nearly impossible.

Speaker 2 (36:29):
I think That's why I feel like, and you would
know more than me, but why I just feel and
knowing the psychology of humans, we can't get more extreme.
We have to start coming more central, you know, as
we see people dying from AIDS, as we see all
these clinical trials being you know, defunded or canceled, you know,
all the extra things in the O B Department that

(36:52):
are considered not necessary when you have a baby all
these little things like you, and anybody out there who
has had a baby knows that they like you, basically
need to steal all the shit you can minute you
leave labor and delivery, because they have the best medical
grade shit, like the the bubbles that suck the mucus
out of the baby's throat, the paths they give you
because you have all of this fluid coming out of.

Speaker 3 (37:15):
You for weeks. You steal it, all right, because it's amazing.

Speaker 1 (37:21):
But you are not making This does not sound great,
it's horrible.

Speaker 2 (37:25):
I hated the whole thing, But I love my kids now.

Speaker 1 (37:29):
But how long did it take to love your kids?
After that?

Speaker 2 (37:33):
One was one was immediate because he was in the
nick You, so I didn't get to meet him. I
had to actually go to the nick You and we
talked about pain and women's strength. And I had a
c section and I got up within four hours, and
I walked my ass into that nick You to find
my baby. And I was crying, saying, which one is he?

(37:58):
Because they didn't have the stashing to even orient me
to my fucking child, and now we're making cuts. I
the other one I loved. I think I loved her
after like three months when I got a night nurse
because I had very severe postpartum. So because that shit
is real.

Speaker 1 (38:16):
I just I don't know why anyone would doubt the
realness of postpartum. It's an obvious hormonal change.

Speaker 2 (38:23):
There's a fourth trimester. I was like, it's a real thing.
You will just stand there sobbing and not know why.
And it's because warm ones are leaving your body.

Speaker 1 (38:32):
I think personally it would be terrified of having a child,
mainly for the after. It's like the hangover of having
a baby.

Speaker 3 (38:38):
Oh, it certainly is, and that's why.

Speaker 2 (38:40):
Again, you know, a lot of people disagree with me,
but I waited. I waited until I was thirty eight
to have my final baby because I wanted to be
able to afford childcare. I wanted to have a job.
I wanted my doctor, and I wanted shit together. I
didn't I didn't want use and the perfection that comes
with the being pregnant when you're twenty. I wanted the

(39:02):
profession that comes with a healthy life from my child.

Speaker 1 (39:06):
Yeah, I mean you can. You can provide them a
better life when you have the resources. I would say
I was the daughter my mom was like twenty three.
I think when she had me as she was young,
and yeah, it's young. That was normal though then, but young,
and I think I've been It's funny as I get older,

(39:28):
I judge her less. You know, I love my mom
more every year I get older, which is a good
thing because I think when I was in my teens,
there was a countdown to me going to college to
get out of the house, and I think you start
to realize. I'm like, oh my god, if I had

(39:48):
a kid at I had a kid at her age,
yeaheking nightmare. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:01):
I mean, let's be honest, I would have just moved
back in with my parents, like I couldn't have I
couldn't have coped.

Speaker 1 (40:07):
Yeah. Yeah. She and I always said, oh, Mom, like
you know, everyone complains about their moms in some ways.
She didn't want to be a mom. I wouldn't have
wanted to been a mom too. Frankly. My parents weren't
married actually, but they're together now, which is hilarious. And
they were only together for maybe six months before my
mom got pregnant, but then they had another baby ten
years later when she was thirty three. Totally different baby experience.

(40:32):
Knew it was like a save the marriage baby, new life,
new house. Knew everything, and he's very different than me.
He actually when they moved, he followed them. He's getting married.
He lives around the corner from them, like just much
much more sympatico with them. But they were older. It
speaks to yours and knew how to raise it.

Speaker 2 (40:54):
It also speaks to your grit.

Speaker 1 (40:57):
Yeah, I mean he's a smart kid and he does
a lot, but you're I mean I was a self starter.
He needed more of a push certainly, Like if he's listening,
I mean, he had tutors and he had this and that,
and I was just like making my own sandwiches on
my way out the door to school and kind of
making but I just have to make it happen. But
then again, I had this mother father that we're so

(41:19):
young that you just sort of have to kind of
and you're the firstborn, and firstborns are always gonna have
to like step into that, you know, from birth order psychology,
they're just looking at adults all day long. But yeah,
I just look at her and I'm like, you know what,
she was a really good mom for her age and
for her time in life, and she suffered with depression

(41:43):
too after, but she probably was sad that she lost
her youth. I can imagine, yeah, and which she could
have been. I think that's a part of it too.

Speaker 2 (41:54):
There's there's so much and everybody wants to put it
in a box and shove it in a corner, but
it is so dynamic and ongoing, just choosing to have
families in life and making these decisions.

Speaker 3 (42:06):
And you're so right.

Speaker 2 (42:08):
The political climate is we are making a massive shift.
I mean we should say we're recording.

Speaker 3 (42:14):
This today on the day of the big beautiful bill.

Speaker 1 (42:19):
Passage.

Speaker 2 (42:20):
So you know, there's a heavy weight to the conversation
and a fear of the future.

Speaker 3 (42:26):
But I think once people realize what happened.

Speaker 2 (42:29):
Do you agree though, that once people realize how extreme
this is and when it finally touches their personal lives,
they might alter their views of it.

Speaker 1 (42:41):
Yeah. The thing is, though, the way that they did
it smartly for political reasons, that they phase in and
out a lot of these programs and cuts so that
you won't feel it right now, you won't feel it
until after twenty twenty six, after the midterm elections, or
you won't feel it and you'll forget why your coverage

(43:02):
is a little bit more expensive, or you forget why
your premiums are higher, or you'll forget why your rural
hospital is falling apart because and it's harder to pinpoint
the source. And this is the kind of kaboogie kind
of rejiggering of politics. And it's all about the phase
in They use the words sunsetting a lot in in

(43:24):
uh politics.

Speaker 2 (43:26):
That's funny because we use the word sundowning in psychology.
What is sundown that people with dementia tend to decline
in the evening?

Speaker 1 (43:36):
Oh is also that's gonna yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:40):
Political, it's very similar. I mean, you have to anticipate
your audience and the timing right totally.

Speaker 1 (43:47):
I mean a big part of passing these bills is
to keep these guys in in there in the Senate
chambers for so long that they just are worn out
and break down. John Fetterman goes, I should be at
the beach right now, bro come on, But I also
still work for the people in Pennsylvania.

Speaker 2 (44:03):
I also think that there are young women in our
politics that are making women look like idiots, And I like,
are we really arguing about false lashes on this public stage?

Speaker 3 (44:19):
I mean like it's gone to a level of.

Speaker 1 (44:22):
Wait, wait, did I miss a false lash?

Speaker 3 (44:24):
Oh there was a I forget our name.

Speaker 2 (44:26):
I can't remember anyone's names right now, but no, there
was a full like let's let's break down each other's appearance.
It was probably Marjorie, I'm not sure. Yeah, but yeah,
there was a full mean girl girl's lash style thickness
to makeup, greasy hair out, and it was like, are
you kidding me?

Speaker 3 (44:47):
Like we are, we are showing that we deserve.

Speaker 2 (44:52):
A place here amongst these men who have owned it
for so long. Can we please just keep it at
a level of of intellectual conversation rather than these tirades.

Speaker 1 (45:08):
Yeah, we need to like beat each other up in
the girls room. I think you and I should just
ride a bunch of fools. Yeah, but also the men
act like a bunch of fools too, so I don't
want to just be tough on the women because they
do the same stuff.

Speaker 2 (45:21):
Oh.

Speaker 1 (45:24):
Also, there are really not any There are really no
young women in the Senate. I mean Katie Britt, she's
my age, she's weirdly like my senate doppelganger. I was
at an event for her and people kept coming up
to me and being like Senator Britt and I was like,
not me, but wish I had her acting skills. But yeah,

(45:45):
it's she's maybe the youngest woman in the Senate. Correct
me if I'm wrong. Somebody probably will. But even on
the Democratic side, I'm thinking, And that's kind of a
how old is she's She's she's thirty nine. Now, let's see,
she was a Senate staffer. She's a very good friend
of my friends Katie Britt, and there's a lot of

(46:09):
hope for her that she'd be the forty three squeeze
me forty three. Yeah, and I'm coordinated to say that,
but yeah, no, she's forty three. But still yeah, h
like you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (46:19):
So, would you ever consider running for any kind of
political office?

Speaker 1 (46:24):
People asking us all the time, It's like, no, I
couldn't even run for either party. I would just be
dadily grow stout. And the whole process of having to
raise money from people making promises I know I can't keep,
and then being conflicted by knowing that the people who
give me money are going to want things that are
very different than what the people want. Wanting to run
a grassroots campaign but also knowing that the things I'm promising

(46:45):
during my grassroots campaign will probably never actually happen because
of all the about because of all the people that
you actually have to work with to make anything happen,
and the fact that they're all being controlled by people
who are being funded by wealthy donors. And if you
want to be honest, that's the truth.

Speaker 2 (47:04):
Z Ron.

Speaker 1 (47:06):
He's saying he's going to lower taxes. He can't do that.
That's the state.

Speaker 3 (47:11):
What do you think about him?

Speaker 1 (47:11):
You know, I, you know, I find him be impressive, energizing,
amazing communicator. I like that he kicked the shit out
of the Cuomo dynasty because I personally just think that
Cuomo is obviously so entitled that he thinks that he
could run for mayor without even addressing how he killed

(47:32):
Grandma during COVID and the things that he did to women,
and the fact that he thought he could just ignore
the press, which, by the way, when I see politicians
treat the press poorly or ignore them, I think that
they are treating the people poorly and ignoring them because
they are not willing to take questions from the press,
which represents the constituents right. And he just like to me,

(47:58):
that's I would just happy to see him and his
twenty four million dollars from all the billionaires be sort
of knocked out, not because I don't agree with him politically,
just because I don't like his vibe now, Zorn, I
don't think he understood he was an assemblyman from Queen's Fine.
Running a city is really really hard, not that I

(48:18):
think that Build Wazuo did a good job or Eric Adams,
but it's not easy, and you have to build coalitions,
you have to work with people and see what he does,
see how he does. So in some ways, Como was
a decent governor because he didn't really work with people.
He ruled with an iron fist. He was able to

(48:40):
get things done that way. But it also hurt him
in the end because he lost touch completely. He flew
too close to the sun and he was and he
abused his power. He abused the power that he used.

Speaker 2 (48:53):
It's so interesting because you say, you like, flew too
close to the sun, and it's so true. There are
so many scientific psychological psychiatric articles of how you need
this level of narcissism and psychopathy to get to the top,
and then what happens when you get there, right like
the personality of a leader, the personality of an authoritarian leader.

(49:16):
It is very striking. Who can like, you need this
shit to rise? And then what happens when you get there?
What do you do?

Speaker 1 (49:26):
They all crash out and burn the same way. It's inevitable.
The power intoxicates them. They start acting recklessly. They think
there are no consequences for what they do, and they
inevitably get involved in a scandal of their own making,
and they blame everyone else around them and all of

(49:47):
their fall men, the people around them who thought, I'm
riding the train all the way to the top with
this person. Some of them men have in prison, a
lot of them do. It's a tragedy. But at the
same time we're all trying to hitch Everyone in politics
is trying to hitch their ride onto the person they
think we'll get them closest to power and to a

(50:07):
career that is lucrative afterwards, either as a consultant working
for a big fortune fifty company, whether it's uber Donald's
or Lyft and Brinton repeat.

Speaker 2 (50:22):
And not one moment of that was about the people
about the country. Maybe there were moments, maybe just leading
until they were overwhelmed by the power dynamic.

Speaker 1 (50:37):
It can be intoxicating. I think they are aware that
they want to be remain popular because it feeds their narcissism.
So I think when they see in polling that they're unpopular,
but it's usually at the height of their popularity that
they'd make that big mistake, that huge wrong term. Because
remember Clomo was incredibly popular during COVID for those briefings

(51:00):
that he was doing. Do you remember that people were
talking about him for twenty twenty Yeah, and he was
well spoken for twenty twenty twenty twenty four. They felt
like he looked like he was in command. He's giving
these COVID briefings every day, he's got it all going on.
At the same time that he was doing these performative
COVID briefings, he was letting Grandma die in these nursery

(51:26):
nursing homes. So it was kind of the duality of
the performance. And that's the problem with politics. And actually, sadly,
what has always attracted me to politics as a former
theater nerd is that like it's like the famous Shakespeare saying,
all the world of stage and all the men and
women are merely players. And no world is more like

(51:47):
that than politics. I mean, it's all theater. It's all
the Even the bombing of Iran was theater. And then
Iran's retaliatory attack in which they called the US and said,
we're about to bomb this airspace and cutter just to
give you a heads up, but we have to do
it for political reasons, to make it seem like we
did something. Oh and by the way, we obliterated around

(52:10):
nuclear capabilities. Oh wait, something leaks. By the way, it
was only pushed back three months. So what just happened
last week? A bunch of nuclear theater, I mean ballistic theater?
Was it fireworks? Is that what it was?

Speaker 2 (52:23):
No?

Speaker 1 (52:23):
People die, people died from stray missiles in Israel. This
is like these are real people.

Speaker 3 (52:32):
Not because I mean, but that's.

Speaker 1 (52:34):
Really old men want to stay in power, really really
really old men want to stay in power.

Speaker 3 (52:38):
That's exactly it.

Speaker 2 (52:39):
It's the people stop becoming the people at some point,
and that's what's scary to me.

Speaker 3 (52:46):
Yeah, that's also why I love forensic psychology.

Speaker 2 (52:48):
Because I find attorneys to be fascinating and I can
read them like a book and one.

Speaker 3 (52:55):
Hundred percent and it is theater.

Speaker 2 (52:57):
I mean, if you look at the closing arguments and
the Shawn Combs case, it was a pure theater, like
if you could touch on every component of how to
manipulate a human being, they made sure to do it.

Speaker 3 (53:07):
They brought you in, they.

Speaker 2 (53:08):
Complimented you, They talked about something that was super low IQ,
something that was super high IQ. They went through the
whole range of topics and anything that could potentially be relatable.
The attorney made humbling, gullible statements.

Speaker 3 (53:20):
There was smirking, like.

Speaker 2 (53:22):
Every facet of psychological behavioral manipulation was used in those
closing arguments. I still think they're going to fucking fail.
But like it's theater, it doesn't have to do with
the client, it doesn't have to do with the people
that have been harmed.

Speaker 3 (53:37):
It has to do with winning.

Speaker 1 (53:40):
I love watching trials sometimes for that reason. I love
watching a really good defense attorney like Abby Lowell. He's amazing.
I was actually talking to him this morning. I watched
him do the John Edwards trial and I was just like, wow, yeah,
killer killer, And then he represents all.

Speaker 2 (53:59):
The top They all go have lunch together, like they
look like they want to just like cut each other.
They just go hang out.

Speaker 1 (54:06):
Well that's politics, although they don't go to lunch together anymore.
But that is politics. That is the theater too, because
they're not as talented, some of them, or at least
the really talented ones are no longer in the game anymore.

Speaker 2 (54:19):
We're going to take a quick break and we'll be
right back. Okay, I've got some lighting round questions for you.
If you could commit a crime.

Speaker 1 (54:28):
Wait, wait really quick, before we do it, can I
ask you one question? Do you think Diddy will get off?

Speaker 2 (54:35):
I think he gets off on himself. But will I mean,
he's a boyeur, he's thoroughly enjoyed having his own masturbation
being shown to the entire world.

Speaker 1 (54:48):
We shoudn't even think about that. So cool.

Speaker 2 (54:51):
Oh yeah, his masturbatory stimulate stimuli is his daily life
in court. And he's probably just jacking off in his cell,
I would imagine. I'm sure his sell meat. No, he's
probably alone, right, he's in single. Will he get off?
They are having problems with one of the juror jury members,
and it seems to be because that jury member is

(55:12):
not willing to engage in discussion about evidence and they
do have an alternatures that can be brought in. I
think they are literally at home and they have to
like derive through New York to get back or Connecticut.
But I think he will be found guilty. I just
don't think it'll be as thick as we wish. I

(55:32):
think it would be guilty of some not of others,
and then then we wait for they are one hundred
percent they're gonna ask for a mistrial, one hundred percent
We're gonna have to go through all these appeals and
then sentencing will be later. So the question would be
is he going to sit in prison while this all happens.
If there's a mistrial or hung jury, will he sit

(55:53):
in prison?

Speaker 1 (55:57):
Or And also if he's actually found guilty of like
one or two counts, is it just house arressed some
nice prison somewhere six six months to a year.

Speaker 2 (56:07):
But I personally believe that the reason this has been
singled he's been singled out is because other individuals will
be now indicted and brought in, so they've separated out
the crimes.

Speaker 1 (56:23):
Do you think that's going to happen with Glene Maxwell too?
In that case that they're still working.

Speaker 2 (56:27):
I thought it would have a while ago, I thought
it would have, but they time it very well. Now
that Shawn Colmbs trial felt more rush than federal trials
i've seen. I think with her it's slow and study
and that's probably because they are such powerful players involved.

(56:49):
I mean, I've been a part of court cases of
people that you probably know, and I can't say anything
about it. So there's a lot of settling, there's a
lot of sighting, there's a lot of money.

Speaker 1 (57:02):
Because they know they're going to be up against the
best lawyers in the world, and the government doesn't want
to bring a case unless they know they can win.

Speaker 2 (57:07):
Yeah, you know, tons of witness intimidation and witness tampering
that you'll never even know about.

Speaker 3 (57:14):
But you know, that's why I think it's.

Speaker 2 (57:17):
So important for individuals to follow people who know what
they're talking about, rather than just people who are trying
to interpret things that they're seeing on the news or
seeing in the media. Because like the cases that you've seen,
the cases that I've been on I don't talk about,
but I have that awareness and I have that understanding

(57:38):
of how things play out and how theatrical law is. Yeah, okay,
so you're ready for your lightning round.

Speaker 1 (57:48):
Yeah for sure.

Speaker 2 (57:49):
Shoot, okay, if you could commit a crime and get
away with it, what would you do.

Speaker 1 (57:57):
I'd like to rob Elon muss Ooh how would you
do it? I don't know. It just like a transaction
thing where all of a sudden all of his money
ends up in my bank account.

Speaker 2 (58:09):
Okay, quick and easy.

Speaker 1 (58:10):
Quick and easy.

Speaker 2 (58:12):
You wouldn't be you wouldn't marry him, get out of
a prenup and then take it all.

Speaker 1 (58:17):
Oh gross, Now that involves sexual transactions. Hell no, Now
I'm talking like some dark web scam where all of
a sudden all of his money is gone, and then
it's been like even like the stocks and everything, it's
been liquidated. Okay, maybe I'll let him keep the houses
because then you will be able to pay for them,
and then it help me in default, which would be

(58:37):
pretty property to all the other Yeah, exactly. Like then
I would just go into default and it would be
a very you know, he'd have a lot of problems,
but I'll take everything else and then I'll just hold
onto it and then I'll fix everything that he sucked
up with that much.

Speaker 3 (58:52):
Oh that's great, I love it. I'll be a part
of your board.

Speaker 1 (58:55):
Keep some for myself. I'll buy more blazers. I'm joking.
Get a real studio, not my dining room.

Speaker 2 (59:03):
You and Kaitlyn Collins have the best blazers. I mean
you guys just wear it well. I love it.

Speaker 1 (59:09):
We used to actually share dresses back in the day
when we were both in the White House briefing room.

Speaker 2 (59:14):
I think that's hilarious, the ins and outs that people
would never know.

Speaker 1 (59:17):
TV girls we share dresses. When I left ABC News,
I gave all the girls my dresses. I was like,
just take my stuff. Oh, I'll never wear these like
pink dresses around town.

Speaker 2 (59:28):
I mean they do, they really do do it up. Yeah, okay,
next question, if you had to die by death penalty,
how would you want to go? Now?

Speaker 3 (59:42):
The average or common ones?

Speaker 2 (59:44):
What in America are firing, squad, injection, and electrocution. Definitely injection,
I think I would agree. But it's actually funny how
everyone has a very different opinion on this.

Speaker 1 (01:00:03):
Okay, well, I don't want to think about it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:04):
I did have one keep a scientist on who said
she'd want to at least look at the clinical studies
around what was being injected in her before.

Speaker 1 (01:00:13):
What does it matter if your debt, Well, if it's not,
I hope there's some hallucinogen in it. I'd ask them
to put it a little hallucinogen in there so I
could have like a little trip before I die.

Speaker 3 (01:00:21):
Yeah, and like see all your friends and family.

Speaker 1 (01:00:25):
Yeah, it's just like a little mushroom trip. Yeah for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:00:28):
Okay, if you could, there's a big one for you.
If you could change a law, what would it be
and why?

Speaker 1 (01:00:37):
Oh, oh my gosh, this is a lot to ask.
If I could make the world. God, I could change
a law. I mean I probably read like I would
get rid of Dobs, the Doob's decision.

Speaker 2 (01:00:53):
Yeah, well, would that?

Speaker 1 (01:00:57):
I think that it disproportionately affects poor women. That would
probably be the one I choose.

Speaker 3 (01:01:02):
I like that, Yeah, would there be.

Speaker 1 (01:01:05):
I'm not for abortions, by the way, personally, I've never
had an abortion, but and honestly, if I got pregnant
at this age of my life, probably have the child,
just because it'd be like a miracle. I mean, I
am thirty seven, but still I just still I still
think it disproportionately impacts poor people, because if you're a

(01:01:27):
rich woman and you want to have an abortion. You
can just go to a state that gives you an abortion, yeah,
or you can go to Europe, or you can go
anywhere in the world to get it done. But if
you're a poor woman, you might end up in a
back alley getting an abortion.

Speaker 3 (01:01:39):
Oh and they do all the time, die or they
have the babies and they.

Speaker 1 (01:01:42):
And also you hear all these horrific stories of women
just dying in the hospitals because doctors can't give them abortion.

Speaker 2 (01:01:48):
So Dobbs, Yeah, I've never had an abortion either. I've
had miscarriages, but I do. I mean, you know, just
the reports of the child rescue mission that happened last
month where they rescue thirty kids, no sixty kids, some
some are pregnant. I mean, it's you have to be

(01:02:08):
able to make the decision on your own. That's just
my personal stance, because I also understand that psychopathy is genetic,
and someone who rapes there are genes that are transferred
into the child, just like schizophrenia, a lot of mental disorders. Okay,
that's an interesting one. No one's ever who never imagined that,

(01:02:30):
no one's ever picked that law before. That's good, I
like it. Okay, last question, can you tell me a
secret that you haven't reported on or can't report on.

Speaker 1 (01:02:49):
A secret, like you want to know some like political
gossip or news that I've never reported on before.

Speaker 2 (01:02:55):
Sure, whatever comes to mind that you're thinking of right
now that you're not saying, as you smile, Well.

Speaker 1 (01:03:04):
You're killing me. There's a reason why it's a secret.

Speaker 2 (01:03:07):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:03:11):
I have to be careful because people tell me things
off the record all the time and I can't break that.
So the difference, there's got to be a difference between
a secret and an off the record, right.

Speaker 3 (01:03:24):
What if it's a blurred off the record.

Speaker 1 (01:03:25):
No, A very prominent person who is around like Trump's
inner circle during his first term was very very very
inappropriate to me. But I don't think probably is surprising
during the first term, and I never forgot that what happened.

(01:03:47):
It was just like made a suggestion that if I
wanted to get some sort of papers documents from them,
I'd have to go to their hotel room to get it.
And you know, you never really forget that. Yeah, I
was really turned off by it, and I just didn't
passed and I walked out and listen, I'm not going
to say that they're still close to Trump or not

(01:04:08):
a lot of people come in and out of those circles, right,
But I just found it was really it was really jarring,
and I kind of never forgot it. And I and listen,
I'm used to this kind of stuff. I'm a journalist,
like I've dealt with it before, but that was just

(01:04:28):
so obvious.

Speaker 2 (01:04:30):
It's like it was so entitled, you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:04:34):
Yeah, It's like it was just really really messed up.

Speaker 3 (01:04:36):
So is that the only time that it's come to
that level.

Speaker 1 (01:04:42):
No, But it was just so Another one was like
if you gave me a kiss, I'll give you information.
I was like, no, this is kind of I've had
a lot of stuff like that, but it was just
so transactional, like this is here. You have to go
there and imagine. Once you're in.

Speaker 2 (01:04:59):
The yeah, then you've do you know what I mean,
then they interpret it as you have asked for.

Speaker 1 (01:05:06):
It, or once you're in there. There's really no safety
really in somebody's room. You look at the stories from
Harvey Weinstein and all that, you know, it's like.

Speaker 2 (01:05:14):
There's no safety and you have met an expectation in
their cognitive distortion. We're going to take a quick break
and we'll be right back. I really appreciate you coming
on the podcast and taking time, and I think I
think the most important way to leave this is with

(01:05:35):
how people can contact you, because you are someone that
I think, especially young women in America and need to
follow and track right now.

Speaker 1 (01:05:45):
Thank you, Leslie, that is huge praise coming from you.
I you can find me at the Terror Paul Mary Show.
It's on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts.
You can also go to my website Terrapolmary dot com.
I write a newsletter called The Red Letter on Substack,

(01:06:05):
and if you want to support my independent journalism, you
can become a paid subscriber. You'll find me on all
the socials at Tara Paul Mary and it's t A
R A p A L M E. Ri I, Leslie,
I really appreciate you having me on and introducing me
to your fans and all the people that follow you.
I'm so impressed with everything that you felt. You're probably,
if not one of the smartest women I know.

Speaker 2 (01:06:27):
So oh geez, thank you right back at you really
are so this was great. It was wonderful. Thank you.
Cures