July 18, 2025 • 49 mins
Just the News No Noise on Real America's Voice
Segment A: MIKE BENZ WEIGHS IN ON LATEST EPSTEIN INFO
Segment B: WILL WE SEE ANY ACCOUNTABILITY FROM THE DEEPSTATE ON RUSSIAGATE?
Segment C: THE UPSIDE OF TRUMP'S TARIFFS
Segment D: JUST THE NEWS HEALTH UPDATE
Segment E: WHAT MORE CAN CONGRESS CUT, AND WHEN WILL THE FED LOWER RATES?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Hello, everybody, Welcome to the Friday edition of Just the News.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Now Noise.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
I'm your host, Amanda Head, my co host, and justin
News editor in chief John Solomon is out on assignment tonight,
but as always, I'm reporting to you from Washington, DC
and the wire Toofishcoffee dot com studios. Wire to Fishcoffee
is the official coffee of Just the News. What's what
keeps our motor going all around the office, So head
over to wire toofishcoffee dot com get a fantastic ten
(00:44):
percent discount on all of their great coffee blends and
all their paraphernalia.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Who use the code just news at checkout all right.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Shortly after our show went off the air last night,
the Wall Street Journal decided to drop their bombshell expose
on President Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. And despite rumors floating
around four days that this story would look very bad
for the President, most Americans, after reading the details, simply
thought that's it.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
So we're going to get into all of that.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
With Mike Ben's in just a minute, but I want
to focus on some of the Democrat talking points on
all of this, because they are now getting called out
in a very, very big way. Now the Democrats are
now calling for a full release of all information related
to Epstein. Many Republicans, of course, are too, But these
calls from Democrats are more than a little suspicious.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
To me because they never call for any of this before.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
For example, here's Democrat Senator Dick Durbin a few days ago.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Do you now want to see the files released?
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Absolutely? Leader Jeffries is right.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
Either they misled the American people with this conspiracy theory
for years, or they're covering it up now. I joined
with Senator Chris van Holland from Maryland during the appropriations
process last week. We offered an amendment together, and the
amendments said that they should preserve the evidence so the
Epstein investigation and release it to the American people. It
(02:04):
passed by a voice vote. The Republicans didn't want a
record vote.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
On the issue.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Is so convenient. It's starting to see him say that,
because back when President Biden was in office, Senator Durbin
seemed to want nothing to do with any of this.
In fact, he played questions about releasing the Epstein flight
logs like he didn't even know what they were talking about.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Watch I don't know anything about his flight logs?
Speaker 5 (02:25):
But why won't you subpoena them? Why don't you want
to know the issue?
Speaker 4 (02:30):
I know who Epstein was, but I certainly don't know
anything about the issue.
Speaker 5 (02:34):
Well, he was charged with sex trafficking, so why don't
you want to know who was utilizing his private plane?
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Never been raised by anyone?
Speaker 5 (02:42):
Well, Senator Blackburn has wanted to subpoena them, and there
hasn't been a vote in your commission.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
That a word to me, not a word.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Aren't you curious?
Speaker 5 (02:50):
Like what high profile or powerful people might be closeted
predators and pedophiles?
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Doesn't that concern you?
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Of course?
Speaker 2 (02:58):
So why won't you subpoena them? If you can't?
Speaker 3 (03:00):
It's the first time anyone has raised it.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
What a difference it makes when someone else is in
the oval office. So obviously he didn't care too much
about it back then. Wonder why he does now. I Meanwhile,
Joe Scarborough over at MSNBC actually asked a good question
to Democrat Congressman Jamie Raskin about the Epstein files, namely,
why did Democrats not release them or even talk about
and when they were in power.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
His answer, well, it wasn't really much up one.
Speaker 6 (03:24):
From twenty one to twenty five when Democrats controlled.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
THEOJ Why it was a crisis.
Speaker 7 (03:32):
Then it's a crisis now why didn't why didn't Democrats
call for from twenty one to twenty five? So I
mean you have to go back and look specifically at
particular prosecutorial decisions and what was taking place in terms.
Speaker 8 (03:51):
Of the other cases.
Speaker 7 (03:53):
So I don't know we could try to reconstruct that record.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
What does that answer make any sense to you, because
it definitely does not to me. I don't even know
what he was trying to say there, and I suspect
that Congressman Raskin doesn't know what he was trying to
say either. But I do know what he wasn't trying
to say, and that was the truth. So we are
seeing a lot of political games going on in Washington
about all of this, and none of us really getting
us closer to the truth. And as I said, we're
going to have more on this right around the corner
(04:18):
with Mike Ben's but we also have massive new updates
for you around the Russia Gate hoax, with John Solomon
and Jerry Dunleavy doing some great reporting over at justinews
dot com, the latest of which involved newly to classified
documents that show a key spy was shocked to learn
that the Steele dossier was used in the Obama administration
intelligence assessment on Russian meddling in the twenty sixteen election.
(04:42):
Director of National Intelligence Tulsey Gabberty classified.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
These documents, which show that an intel.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Officer on the US National Intelligence Council learned by accident
about the dossier's impact on the twenty sixteen election assessment,
and it disturbed him so much that he ended up
blowing the whistle to Gabbard personally and to the intel
community's watchhog. And honestly, it's just further proof that the
widely discredited Steele dossier should not have been used for
(05:08):
predicate for any kind of investigation whatsoever, which begs the question.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Why was it?
Speaker 1 (05:13):
I think that that answer is becoming increasingly more clear now.
We also have reporting up on justinnews dot com showing
that the US intelligence community had not made any mention
of Russia backing the then candidate Trump in the twenty
sixteen election as late as September of that year, but
of course after Trump won the election in November, things
changed drastically. D and I Gabbert also brought this to
(05:35):
light earlier today, pointing out that after the election, new
guidance from the intelligence community went out saying that Russia
had hacked the election in favor of President Trump. Remember
we all do well when that was going around. So
I think our first guest is going to have a
lot to say about all of this. So joining us now,
the executive director of the Foundation for Freedom Online, Mike Ben's. Mike,
(05:57):
so good to see you again. Thanks for being here.
Speaker 8 (06:00):
Great to see Amanda Gosh.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
I don't even know where to start, but let's start
with Wall Street Journal's big expose on Trump. Epstein this
very strangely worded letter that frankly doesn't even sound like
President Trump. We all know what he sounds like face
forward and also behind, you know, in more private settings.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
And it's not this.
Speaker 6 (06:18):
Have you ever noticed that enigmas never age what he
wrote to the sort of poetic lines in there. You know,
it's all quite silly, namely because it doesn't move the
needle even if true, and it doesn't seem particularly credible.
Speaker 8 (06:37):
So I think that there's.
Speaker 6 (06:38):
Been a lot of talk about this because I think
Democrats are desperate to try to find something to try
to tip the edge of Trump against his base.
Speaker 8 (06:48):
But you know, the folks who were clamoring.
Speaker 6 (06:51):
To try to put the Epstein thing to bed, I
think are not going to be moved by this that
they should suddenly investigate Epstein in. The folks who are
looking for genuine declassifications and genuine investigations into, for example,
Epstein's intelligence ties, such as myself, are not.
Speaker 8 (07:11):
Moved by this either way.
Speaker 6 (07:13):
So, you know, I think it's a nothing burger other
than this, in the sort of narrow, kind of humorous
sense that you now have Trump versus Rupert Murdoch. I
believe that just today Trump sued Wall Street Journal News Corp.
In the whole sort of family over this, and Trump
(07:35):
is clearly very enraged over it. But other than that,
you know, I think this is just kind of a
humorous episode.
Speaker 8 (07:43):
I should note that even if this were.
Speaker 6 (07:47):
To be true, we have the fact that Trump is
on the Epstein flight logs from the nineteen nineties. I mean,
that was in the binder that was handed out to
social media influencers. Someone came to my birthday party last
week and brought one of those binders and I was
looking through the flight logs and you can see Donald
Trump's name on it. But that was also in the
(08:08):
nineteen nineties, about ten years before there was any conviction.
And I don't think that just because someone has interacted
with Jeffrey Epstein, who was effectively a billionaire and deeply
connected to lots of different transactions around the political donor world,
as well as in all manner of real estate, aviation,
(08:33):
biomedical services, are necessarily tainted by it. And I think
that goes to Trump's point about trying to put the
disclosures in context.
Speaker 8 (08:44):
But at the same time.
Speaker 6 (08:45):
I think the fact that what's typically discussed around Epstein
is the child sex trafficking and underage prostitution elements of it.
You know what kind of gets lost in the shuffle
there is that there was a lot of business that
was transacted from businessmen to businessmen.
Speaker 8 (09:04):
That does not make you.
Speaker 6 (09:07):
You know, a child sex trafficker or something because ten
years before any conviction, you were doing business with this guy.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Yeah. I mean, let's be real.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Even present day millionaire and billionaire circles are pretty small,
and even more so back in the nineteen nineties. But regardless,
I want all of the truth to come out. Now,
what do you make of Democrats? I mean, it actually
was a question asked on MSNBC by Joe Scarborough. He
actually asked the question, why didn't you Why didn't you
Democrats care about this coming to light when Joe Biden
(09:37):
was in office and you were in power. Why do
you think Democrats didn't care about it? Then all of
a sudden they do. Now I know about the dunking aspect,
obviously they want to dunk on Trump, but any other reason, well.
Speaker 6 (09:48):
Of course, I refer to this as the Epstein hot potato,
which is that the you know, for the past fifteen
years or so, there seems to be this hot potato
that's passed around where the out of power party uses
as a cudgel against the inpower party their failure to
do the things that the out of power party did
while they were in power, Like the failure like everyone
(10:10):
has had a chance to do something about this for
about twenty years. But there's what's on both sides of
the aisle here. Jeffrey Epstein started under the Ronald Reagan administration,
doing his deal making with key parts of the Ronald
Reagan foreign policy establishment, especially around policies in the Middle East,
(10:33):
and with Iran having been toppled in a revolution in
nineteen seventy nine, this is exactly when Jeffrey Epstein starts
to make his way into these kind of Saudi and
Israeli and US foreign policy circles around diplomacy with Iran
and all the back channel deals with that. And then
(10:53):
you have, obviously, during the Bill Clinton era, you had
Jeffrey Epstein make seventeen trips to the Bill Clinton White House.
His lawyers provide a statement in court during his trial
that Jeffrey Epstein co founded the Clinton Global Initiative with
Bill Clinton. That Bill Clinton actually in two thousand and two,
(11:15):
right when he was starting the Clinton Foundation, flew on
Jeffrey Epstein's jet not just to Lolita Island, but to
do international diplomacy work with Jeffrey Epstein at his side,
Jeffrey Epstein essentially being an air chaw for Clinton as
he traveled to five different African countries. And then as
(11:37):
I noted the involvement with the Clinton Global Initiative. So
I mean, you have this very very deep interlacing of
the Epstein network with both sides of the US political aisle,
and I think after what came out about Epstein, in
the extent of his dealings, both sides had a joint
interest in preventing any disclosures, and it was almost like
(11:59):
a silent, mutually assured destruction compact that neither party would
do anything. But it is quite humorous to hear Dick
derd and say, well, either it was a conspiracy and
they lied to us, or it's true and they're covering
it up. You know, when I hear him say that,
it's you know, it's kind of one of these, you know,
the worst person, you know, just made a good point
(12:20):
kind of moments, because that is I think the way
a lot of the Trump base feels, which is that
you use this as a sword. Donald Trump talked about
this as early as February twenty fifteen when he was
just running for president with Sean Hannity. He was at Seapack,
I believe, and said, Bill Clinton, nice guy, but he's
(12:42):
going to have a little problem with a little guy
named Jeffrey Epstein and his famous island. And then you know,
JD Vance, Cash, Bateel, Dan Bongino, Pam everybody ran on
this as being we're going to be the ones who
finally do something about it. And to the Admin's credit,
they have been the ones to finally do something about USAID,
(13:03):
to finally do something about NPR, and PBS to finally
do something about so the State Department and the biggest
layoffs in State Department history just this week. And so
I think a lot of the base, given all of
the conspiracy theories that have swirled around Jeffrey Epstein, if
of all those things, this is the great untouchable. What
(13:24):
the heck is really in there that they can't show us?
I think is the feeling of the base right now.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Yeah, okay, before we let you go, we've just got
a few more minutes left. So President Trump has ordered
the Attorney General to release the grand jury proceedings. Is
it's usually really hard to get some grand jury proceedings
released because they're classified.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
And they do that for a lot of different legal reasons.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
But once that's out, first of all, how long is
it going to take for that to happen, because you've
got to go through a process of getting it all
declassified and anything that needs to be reted reducted.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Do you think that that will appease the base. Will
we learn much from that?
Speaker 8 (14:00):
I think it's a good start.
Speaker 6 (14:01):
I think that the motion has been filed today, which
is exciting to see in the sense that Trump effectively
directed it last night and then by the next day
there was a motion filed in court, which I think
shows the speed of the responsiveness to voter grievances. And again,
I think this is the most responsive admin maybe in
(14:24):
US history, to just the sentiment of the electorate. But
the fact is, what troubles me is that there are
so many easy things that can be done that are
easy to do but easy not to do, that would
give direct answers rather than hinging it on the whims
of a judge or having to navigate very very deep
(14:44):
levels of bureaucracy. One of the points that I've been
harping on is this question about whether or not alex
Acosta's reported statements to the Trump transition team in twenty
sixteen that Jeffrey Epstein belonged to intelligence and to leave
it alone, and that that was the reason for the
sweetheart deal. That has been this unanswered question, and there
are some very easy ways to get answers to it
(15:07):
that I do not see the Pambondi Justice Department pursuing
She was asked this at a press briefing just last
week and said, I don't know the answer. I'll look
into it and get back to you, which I think
left everybody feeling, well, you haven't you haven't tracked that
down yet. The fact is is Alexicosta was brought in
for a private interview by the Justice Department to investigate
(15:30):
this very issue in November twenty twenty. But the Justice
Department is squatting on the transcript that's at the Office
of Professional Responsibility, which reports directly to the Attorney General.
So Pam Bondi could walk down the hall, simply get
the transcript from the November twenty twenty investigation, release it
to the public, and then any emails from any Justice
(15:50):
Department insiders like Bill Barr or his deputy Jeffrey Rosen
who worked on that OPR to shape it that OPR review,
and make make that information public so that we know
at least what the Justice Department knows about Epstein's alleged
intelligence ties, at least put that one to bed, at
least give us an answer on that. Did Pam the
(16:13):
Attorney General can authorize a CIA name trace so that
every time Epstein's name or kryptonym or any reference with
his passport number or anything else appears in any historical
CIA files for the past forty years, she could order that.
Today only takes about two weeks to get the results back.
(16:33):
Have these basic things even been done or have they
been banking on a kind of Epstein fatigue to set
in so that they don't need to be responsible to
This is why I think these sorts of specific ass
are important. I think that Pam Bondi, the next time
there's a press conference, should be asked directly, have you
obtained the alex Acosta report transcript with OPR? Why not
(16:58):
after all this time release it to the public. Have
you all have you initiated a CIA nam trace with
the CI's Office of General Counsel. If the answer to
that is no, then that's a problem. If the answer
to that is no, and I'm not even going to
then that becomes a big problem.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
I once upon a time had a souvenir T shirt
from Phoenix, Arizona that had a skeleton propped up against
the fence post, and it said, but it's.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
A dry heat.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
I really hope that I'm not that skeleton leaning against
that fence post hate.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Waiting for the rest of my life for this stuff
to come out.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
But Mike, thank you for being here because you give me,
as the journalist, tools to ask questions and to probe
and to try to get these answers out to the
American people.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
So thank you so much, all right, everybody. After the break,
John and I got.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
The chance to speak with former US Attorney Bud Cummins,
the man who alerted the DJ about the Hunter Biden
bribery allegations back in twenty eighteen, and we asked him
about the FBI's new grand conspiracy case and if we
will finally see any accountability from the beach day that's nice.
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Hello, everybody, Welcome to the Friday edition of Just the News.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Now Noise.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
I'm your host, Amanda Head, my co host, and justin
News editor in chief John Solomon is out on assignment tonight,
but as always, I'm reporting to you from Washington, DC
and the wire Toofishcoffee dot com studios. Wire to Fishcoffee
is the official coffee of Just the News. What's what
keeps our motor going all around the office, So head
over to wire toofishcoffee dot com get a fantastic ten
(00:44):
percent discount on all of their great coffee blends and
all their paraphernalia.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Who use the code just news at checkout all right.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Shortly after our show went off the air last night,
the Wall Street Journal decided to drop their bombshell expose
on President Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. And despite rumors floating
around four days that this story would look very bad
for the President, most Americans, after reading the details, simply
thought that's it.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
So we're going to get into all of that.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
With Mike Ben's in just a minute, but I want
to focus on some of the Democrat talking points on
all of this, because they are now getting called out
in a very, very big way. Now the Democrats are
now calling for a full release of all information related
to Epstein. Many Republicans, of course, are too, But these
calls from Democrats are more than a little suspicious.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
To me because they never call for any of this before.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
For example, here's Democrat Senator Dick Durbin a few days ago.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Do you now want to see the files released?
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Absolutely? Leader Jeffries is right.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
Either they misled the American people with this conspiracy theory
for years, or they're covering it up now. I joined
with Senator Chris van Holland from Maryland during the appropriations
process last week. We offered an amendment together, and the
amendments said that they should preserve the evidence so the
Epstein investigation and release it to the American people. It
(02:04):
passed by a voice vote. The Republicans didn't want a
record vote.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
On the issue.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Is so convenient. It's starting to see him say that,
because back when President Biden was in office, Senator Durbin
seemed to want nothing to do with any of this.
In fact, he played questions about releasing the Epstein flight
logs like he didn't even know what they were talking about.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Watch I don't know anything about his flight logs?
Speaker 5 (02:25):
But why won't you subpoena them? Why don't you want
to know the issue?
Speaker 4 (02:30):
I know who Epstein was, but I certainly don't know
anything about the issue.
Speaker 5 (02:34):
Well, he was charged with sex trafficking, so why don't
you want to know who was utilizing his private plane?
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Never been raised by anyone?
Speaker 5 (02:42):
Well, Senator Blackburn has wanted to subpoena them, and there
hasn't been a vote in your commission.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
That a word to me, not a word.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Aren't you curious?
Speaker 5 (02:50):
Like what high profile or powerful people might be closeted
predators and pedophiles?
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Doesn't that concern you?
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Of course?
Speaker 2 (02:58):
So why won't you subpoena them? If you can't?
Speaker 3 (03:00):
It's the first time anyone has raised it.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
What a difference it makes when someone else is in
the oval office. So obviously he didn't care too much
about it back then. Wonder why he does now. I Meanwhile,
Joe Scarborough over at MSNBC actually asked a good question
to Democrat Congressman Jamie Raskin about the Epstein files, namely,
why did Democrats not release them or even talk about
and when they were in power.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
His answer, well, it wasn't really much up one.
Speaker 6 (03:24):
From twenty one to twenty five when Democrats controlled.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
THEOJ Why it was a crisis.
Speaker 7 (03:32):
Then it's a crisis now why didn't why didn't Democrats
call for from twenty one to twenty five? So I
mean you have to go back and look specifically at
particular prosecutorial decisions and what was taking place in terms.
Speaker 8 (03:51):
Of the other cases.
Speaker 7 (03:53):
So I don't know we could try to reconstruct that record.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
What does that answer make any sense to you, because
it definitely does not to me. I don't even know
what he was trying to say there, and I suspect
that Congressman Raskin doesn't know what he was trying to
say either. But I do know what he wasn't trying
to say, and that was the truth. So we are
seeing a lot of political games going on in Washington
about all of this, and none of us really getting
us closer to the truth. And as I said, we're
going to have more on this right around the corner
(04:18):
with Mike Ben's but we also have massive new updates
for you around the Russia Gate hoax, with John Solomon
and Jerry Dunleavy doing some great reporting over at justinews
dot com, the latest of which involved newly to classified
documents that show a key spy was shocked to learn
that the Steele dossier was used in the Obama administration
intelligence assessment on Russian meddling in the twenty sixteen election.
(04:42):
Director of National Intelligence Tulsey Gabberty classified.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
These documents, which show that an intel.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Officer on the US National Intelligence Council learned by accident
about the dossier's impact on the twenty sixteen election assessment,
and it disturbed him so much that he ended up
blowing the whistle to Gabbard personally and to the intel
community's watchhog. And honestly, it's just further proof that the
widely discredited Steele dossier should not have been used for
(05:08):
predicate for any kind of investigation whatsoever, which begs the question.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Why was it?
Speaker 1 (05:13):
I think that that answer is becoming increasingly more clear now.
We also have reporting up on justinnews dot com showing
that the US intelligence community had not made any mention
of Russia backing the then candidate Trump in the twenty
sixteen election as late as September of that year, but
of course after Trump won the election in November, things
changed drastically. D and I Gabbert also brought this to
(05:35):
light earlier today, pointing out that after the election, new
guidance from the intelligence community went out saying that Russia
had hacked the election in favor of President Trump. Remember
we all do well when that was going around. So
I think our first guest is going to have a
lot to say about all of this. So joining us now,
the executive director of the Foundation for Freedom Online, Mike Ben's. Mike,
(05:57):
so good to see you again. Thanks for being here.
Speaker 8 (06:00):
Great to see Amanda Gosh.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
I don't even know where to start, but let's start
with Wall Street Journal's big expose on Trump. Epstein this
very strangely worded letter that frankly doesn't even sound like
President Trump. We all know what he sounds like face
forward and also behind, you know, in more private settings.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
And it's not this.
Speaker 6 (06:18):
Have you ever noticed that enigmas never age what he
wrote to the sort of poetic lines in there. You know,
it's all quite silly, namely because it doesn't move the
needle even if true, and it doesn't seem particularly credible.
Speaker 8 (06:37):
So I think that there's.
Speaker 6 (06:38):
Been a lot of talk about this because I think
Democrats are desperate to try to find something to try
to tip the edge of Trump against his base.
Speaker 8 (06:48):
But you know, the folks who were clamoring.
Speaker 6 (06:51):
To try to put the Epstein thing to bed, I
think are not going to be moved by this that
they should suddenly investigate Epstein in. The folks who are
looking for genuine declassifications and genuine investigations into, for example,
Epstein's intelligence ties, such as myself, are not.
Speaker 8 (07:11):
Moved by this either way.
Speaker 6 (07:13):
So, you know, I think it's a nothing burger other
than this, in the sort of narrow, kind of humorous
sense that you now have Trump versus Rupert Murdoch. I
believe that just today Trump sued Wall Street Journal News Corp.
In the whole sort of family over this, and Trump
(07:35):
is clearly very enraged over it. But other than that,
you know, I think this is just kind of a
humorous episode.
Speaker 8 (07:43):
I should note that even if this were.
Speaker 6 (07:47):
To be true, we have the fact that Trump is
on the Epstein flight logs from the nineteen nineties. I mean,
that was in the binder that was handed out to
social media influencers. Someone came to my birthday party last
week and brought one of those binders and I was
looking through the flight logs and you can see Donald
Trump's name on it. But that was also in the
(08:08):
nineteen nineties, about ten years before there was any conviction.
And I don't think that just because someone has interacted
with Jeffrey Epstein, who was effectively a billionaire and deeply
connected to lots of different transactions around the political donor world,
as well as in all manner of real estate, aviation,
(08:33):
biomedical services, are necessarily tainted by it. And I think
that goes to Trump's point about trying to put the
disclosures in context.
Speaker 8 (08:44):
But at the same time.
Speaker 6 (08:45):
I think the fact that what's typically discussed around Epstein
is the child sex trafficking and underage prostitution elements of it.
You know what kind of gets lost in the shuffle
there is that there was a lot of business that
was transacted from businessmen to businessmen.
Speaker 8 (09:04):
That does not make you.
Speaker 6 (09:07):
You know, a child sex trafficker or something because ten
years before any conviction, you were doing business with this guy.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Yeah. I mean, let's be real.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Even present day millionaire and billionaire circles are pretty small,
and even more so back in the nineteen nineties. But regardless,
I want all of the truth to come out. Now,
what do you make of Democrats? I mean, it actually
was a question asked on MSNBC by Joe Scarborough. He
actually asked the question, why didn't you Why didn't you
Democrats care about this coming to light when Joe Biden
(09:37):
was in office and you were in power. Why do
you think Democrats didn't care about it? Then all of
a sudden they do. Now I know about the dunking aspect,
obviously they want to dunk on Trump, but any other reason, well.
Speaker 6 (09:48):
Of course, I refer to this as the Epstein hot potato,
which is that the you know, for the past fifteen
years or so, there seems to be this hot potato
that's passed around where the out of power party uses
as a cudgel against the inpower party their failure to
do the things that the out of power party did
while they were in power, Like the failure like everyone
(10:10):
has had a chance to do something about this for
about twenty years. But there's what's on both sides of
the aisle here. Jeffrey Epstein started under the Ronald Reagan administration,
doing his deal making with key parts of the Ronald
Reagan foreign policy establishment, especially around policies in the Middle East,
(10:33):
and with Iran having been toppled in a revolution in
nineteen seventy nine, this is exactly when Jeffrey Epstein starts
to make his way into these kind of Saudi and
Israeli and US foreign policy circles around diplomacy with Iran
and all the back channel deals with that. And then
(10:53):
you have, obviously, during the Bill Clinton era, you had
Jeffrey Epstein make seventeen trips to the Bill Clinton White House.
His lawyers provide a statement in court during his trial
that Jeffrey Epstein co founded the Clinton Global Initiative with
Bill Clinton. That Bill Clinton actually in two thousand and two,
(11:15):
right when he was starting the Clinton Foundation, flew on
Jeffrey Epstein's jet not just to Lolita Island, but to
do international diplomacy work with Jeffrey Epstein at his side,
Jeffrey Epstein essentially being an air chaw for Clinton as
he traveled to five different African countries. And then as
(11:37):
I noted the involvement with the Clinton Global Initiative. So
I mean, you have this very very deep interlacing of
the Epstein network with both sides of the US political aisle,
and I think after what came out about Epstein, in
the extent of his dealings, both sides had a joint
interest in preventing any disclosures, and it was almost like
(11:59):
a silent, mutually assured destruction compact that neither party would
do anything. But it is quite humorous to hear Dick
derd and say, well, either it was a conspiracy and
they lied to us, or it's true and they're covering
it up. You know, when I hear him say that,
it's you know, it's kind of one of these, you know,
the worst person, you know, just made a good point
(12:20):
kind of moments, because that is I think the way
a lot of the Trump base feels, which is that
you use this as a sword. Donald Trump talked about
this as early as February twenty fifteen when he was
just running for president with Sean Hannity. He was at Seapack,
I believe, and said, Bill Clinton, nice guy, but he's
(12:42):
going to have a little problem with a little guy
named Jeffrey Epstein and his famous island. And then you know,
JD Vance, Cash, Bateel, Dan Bongino, Pam everybody ran on
this as being we're going to be the ones who
finally do something about it. And to the Admin's credit,
they have been the ones to finally do something about USAID,
(13:03):
to finally do something about NPR, and PBS to finally
do something about so the State Department and the biggest
layoffs in State Department history just this week. And so
I think a lot of the base, given all of
the conspiracy theories that have swirled around Jeffrey Epstein, if
of all those things, this is the great untouchable. What
(13:24):
the heck is really in there that they can't show us?
I think is the feeling of the base right now.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Yeah, okay, before we let you go, we've just got
a few more minutes left. So President Trump has ordered
the Attorney General to release the grand jury proceedings. Is
it's usually really hard to get some grand jury proceedings
released because they're classified.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
And they do that for a lot of different legal reasons.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
But once that's out, first of all, how long is
it going to take for that to happen, because you've
got to go through a process of getting it all
declassified and anything that needs to be reted reducted.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Do you think that that will appease the base. Will
we learn much from that?
Speaker 8 (14:00):
I think it's a good start.
Speaker 6 (14:01):
I think that the motion has been filed today, which
is exciting to see in the sense that Trump effectively
directed it last night and then by the next day
there was a motion filed in court, which I think
shows the speed of the responsiveness to voter grievances. And again,
I think this is the most responsive admin maybe in
(14:24):
US history, to just the sentiment of the electorate. But
the fact is, what troubles me is that there are
so many easy things that can be done that are
easy to do but easy not to do, that would
give direct answers rather than hinging it on the whims
of a judge or having to navigate very very deep
(14:44):
levels of bureaucracy. One of the points that I've been
harping on is this question about whether or not alex
Acosta's reported statements to the Trump transition team in twenty
sixteen that Jeffrey Epstein belonged to intelligence and to leave
it alone, and that that was the reason for the
sweetheart deal. That has been this unanswered question, and there
are some very easy ways to get answers to it
(15:07):
that I do not see the Pambondi Justice Department pursuing
She was asked this at a press briefing just last
week and said, I don't know the answer. I'll look
into it and get back to you, which I think
left everybody feeling, well, you haven't you haven't tracked that
down yet. The fact is is Alexicosta was brought in
for a private interview by the Justice Department to investigate
(15:30):
this very issue in November twenty twenty. But the Justice
Department is squatting on the transcript that's at the Office
of Professional Responsibility, which reports directly to the Attorney General.
So Pam Bondi could walk down the hall, simply get
the transcript from the November twenty twenty investigation, release it
to the public, and then any emails from any Justice
(15:50):
Department insiders like Bill Barr or his deputy Jeffrey Rosen
who worked on that OPR to shape it that OPR review,
and make make that information public so that we know
at least what the Justice Department knows about Epstein's alleged
intelligence ties, at least put that one to bed, at
least give us an answer on that. Did Pam the
(16:13):
Attorney General can authorize a CIA name trace so that
every time Epstein's name or kryptonym or any reference with
his passport number or anything else appears in any historical
CIA files for the past forty years, she could order that.
Today only takes about two weeks to get the results back.
(16:33):
Have these basic things even been done or have they
been banking on a kind of Epstein fatigue to set
in so that they don't need to be responsible to
This is why I think these sorts of specific ass
are important. I think that Pam Bondi, the next time
there's a press conference, should be asked directly, have you
obtained the alex Acosta report transcript with OPR? Why not
(16:58):
after all this time release it to the public. Have
you all have you initiated a CIA nam trace with
the CI's Office of General Counsel. If the answer to
that is no, then that's a problem. If the answer
to that is no, and I'm not even going to
then that becomes a big problem.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
I once upon a time had a souvenir T shirt
from Phoenix, Arizona that had a skeleton propped up against
the fence post, and it said, but it's.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
A dry heat.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
I really hope that I'm not that skeleton leaning against
that fence post hate.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Waiting for the rest of my life for this stuff
to come out.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
But Mike, thank you for being here because you give me,
as the journalist, tools to ask questions and to probe
and to try to get these answers out to the
American people.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
So thank you so much, all right, everybody. After the break,
John and I got.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
The chance to speak with former US Attorney Bud Cummins,
the man who alerted the DJ about the Hunter Biden
bribery allegations back in twenty eighteen, and we asked him
about the FBI's new grand conspiracy case and if we
will finally see any accountability from the beach day that's nice.
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