December 2, 2025 • 58 mins
The newly released Epstein emails offer a troubling look at the people who stayed in his orbit and the ways they interacted with him — including former Harvard president and influential public figure Larry Summers. You may not recognize his name immediately, but Summers has played a major role in shaping tech, academia, and government. We break down what the emails show, why they matter, and what they reveal about power networks at the highest levels.
Bridget tells Samantha and Anney why Larry Summers and his Epstein connection should concern us all.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
There Are No Girls on the Internet, as a production
of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this
is There Are No Girls on the Internet. As the
deadline approaches for the Trump administration to release the Epstein files,
I can't stop thinking about all the wealthy and powerful
(00:24):
people who are entangled with Epstein, men like Larry Summers,
former president of Harvard and a current tenured professor there. Now,
if you're thinking, wait, who exactly is Larry Summers?
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Don't worry. I've got you over on the podcast Stuff
Mom Ever Told You?
Speaker 1 (00:39):
I break down who Larry Summers is, his outsize influence
on tech at academia, Why is connections to Ebstein are
so dang troubling, and what it reveals about the men
currently shaping our collective future.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Hey, this is Anny and Samantha.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
I'm welcome to Stuff Never Told You, production by Hurt Redo,
and we are once again so happy to be joined
by the marvelous the magnificent Bridget Todd.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Welcome, Bridget, Thanks for having me back. Always such a pleasure.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
It is, it really is. I look forward to talking
to you every time, even though the topics we tackle
famously not not so it's not so easy.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
I always say this, I swear I am a happy
person who is drawn to happy things.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Something about let's just cut let's just be real.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
It's there's a lot of misery out there, and sometimes
I end up covering it on podcasts.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
But I am a happy person who is drawn to
happy things.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Don't get in misted exactly.
Speaker 5 (01:51):
The reality is as much as like we would love
to be happy, go lucky, all of the things that
are happening we can't ignore. And it just happens that
these things are really gross and sad. And you know,
if I have to be given sad news or really
gross information, having someone as upbeat as you bringing it
to me, Bridget is kind of nice because I am
(02:12):
a sad person.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
I am drawn to the darkness.
Speaker 5 (02:17):
I am a bit gloomy, so having your perspective which
puts it in such a very factual but also like realistic,
but like here what could be solutions, Here could be
like the good possibilities, and here are the realities. It's
nice to be given those that kind of news from
someone like you. So I appreciate that you bring this
to us.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
That makes me so happy to hear.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
I mean that really is what I try to do there,
Like there's no need for panic, even though things are
tough and scary, but you still need to know what's
going on. And also, I think sometimes the conversations that
are happening these days are so grim that it's tempting
to just sort of check out from them. But we
really do need to understand how these things impact things
(03:00):
like gender and things like identity and who gets to
show up as.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Themselves and who doesn't? You know, I think it's important.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
So thank you, yes, well, thank you. You know, here's
the million dollar question. How have you been rigid?
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Oh god, this is like that broad city? I mean,
how am I? No? Things are good. I actually just
came back from a trip to Spain.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
I was there doing a live show for this other
podcast that I work on called IRL with Mozilla Foundation,
which was awesome.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Was my first time in Spain.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
I went to Barcelona, which was lovely and wonderful.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
I didn't want to come back.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
We was the first time it's ever happened to me.
We were supposed to land in Barcelona. We tried to
land in Barcelona through very atypical lightning storms and it
was one of those situations where you know, we everybody
on the plane looked out the window and just saw
these big bolts of lightning and we all this sort
(03:59):
of made a quiet peace with our gods. Then the
plane went back up in the air and the pilot
was like, yeah, we can't land in Barcelona, so we're
landing in Madrid. So I got to go to a bonus,
a bonus trip to Madrid. First time I've ever experienced
that a plane landing in a different place than where
you thought it was gonna land.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
Okay, I think this is the only time that would
be warranted for y'all to clap.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Somebody is sitting next to me burst into tears like
it was like unfair.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
It really was a moment of like are we gonna
make it right?
Speaker 5 (04:32):
Everybody's quiet and eeriness because they're like, oh god, what
do we Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
That was that was the creepy part, is that people
were like gasping, and a few people like like shrieked
or screamed, But at a certain point everybody just got
very quiet, and that's when you know you're like, oh.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
This we are in a situation because real. But it
ended up being fine. And I got to see Madrid
for the first time.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
So I'm all good, nice, we love a good twist.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Yeah, how have you two?
Speaker 5 (05:01):
Then?
Speaker 4 (05:03):
Well, Samtha's apparently.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
You know my answer was not pretty.
Speaker 5 (05:07):
And for the listeners who have listened consistently and have
just recently heard my happy hour, which was thirty minutes
long of me beaching and whining about adulthood, I think
they know. But you know what, we are together, so
I am doing much better right now than I'll want
twenty minutes ago.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
I will say that.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
More like an unhappy hour.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
It really was.
Speaker 5 (05:28):
We named that specific session and wine because we have
some wine and then we and then I say things.
Speaker 4 (05:36):
Well, there's a power in unloading yourself like that. I'm okay, Yeah,
I'm good. I've had a lot of good times with
friends lately, and I appreciate that. That's a nice. I've
gotten to see some people I haven't seen in a while,
and it's been nice. I'm pretty tired, but it's been good.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Yeah, especially as we go into the dark months.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
I mean, we still have the holidays.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
I feel like after the holidays is when the real
slug begins. But holding onto those small comforts like getting
to see friends, you know, I think that really is
very important.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
Yeah, and especially given some of the news right now
and some of the dark, dark times and dark things
we're going to talk about in this episode.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
That is right, just a content warning up top because
we were talking about convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein, which.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
I feel like it's everywhere in the news.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
You really kind of can't avoid the conversation around him.
Today is November twentieth, so by the time you hear this,
there is some chance that things might have changed. But
here is the latest as of today. So yesterday, the
Senate almost unanimously voted to release the Epstein files, with
only one dissenting vote, Republican Representative Clay Higgins of Louisiana.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
So curious what's going on with him? I know I
looked at it. I was like, oh, you're.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Just a major trumper, even for Republicans. See, he seems
like a quite extreme fellow. So I guess I shouldn't
be surprised, but it is well to be like, oh,
even among Republicans, just one dissenting vote.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
So that bill then went to Trump's desk.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
There were some back and forth of whether Trump was
going to sign it, but he did. So what happens
now is the Department of Justice has thirty days to
release these files.
Speaker 5 (07:24):
I'm trying not to be a conspiracist, but I swear
the more I read, especially in this specific topic, the
thirty days seems too long.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
I know there has to be some jurisdiction and all.
Speaker 5 (07:40):
Of that, but it feels like there's too much happening,
and thirty days is giving them too much time and
including the fight.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Are they actually going to release it? That's my question.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Yeah, that seems to be the big question. I should say.
I am no attorney, so this is somewhat above my
pay grade. But here's a little bit from CNN. Despite
Trump signing the bill, uncertainty remains. Attorney General Pam Bondi
said yesterday that the Department of Justice will quote follow
the law, but some lawmakers and analysts are worried that
the Trump administration may try to hinder the process by
(08:12):
slowing the release or redacting information.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
So I don't know, above.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
My pay grade, but your worries are grounded. You're not
the only person with that question. That seems to be
the question on everybody's mind. And in any event, this
is still all like a very big reversal of the
time very recently, when Trump was calling this entire thing
a Democrat hoax, when Pam Bondy was like, oh, there's
(08:37):
not going to be any additional information release. We looked
into it. We don't need to release any more information.
But then Trump was also recently vowing to investigate any
Democrats accused of breaking the law and the Epstein files,
which like, if the entire thing was just a big
Democratic hoax, why would there be Democrats in the files.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
I'm not fully.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Assured that he thought this one through, but there you
have it. And I do think it's this weird thing
where people, in an attempt to downplay this entire thing,
are saying, well, what if this takes down a prominent
Democrat like Bill Clinton, to which I say, great, like,
get him out of here. If Bill Clinton committed a
(09:16):
crime and that is revealed in the Epstein files, take
them to prison, right Like.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
I don't think.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Anybody is saying, no, we need to protect prominent Democrats
like Bill Clinton from accountability if they are named as
having committed sex crimes in the Epstein files. And also,
do people really think that most leftists are like clinging
to the legacy of Bill Clinton. I saw this great
post that was like, oh no, then I would have
(09:41):
to take down my Bill Clinton yard sign, burn my
Bill Clinton hat and T shirt, take off my Bill
Clinton car wrap. Like what are these people talking about?
This is completely like a fiction.
Speaker 5 (09:52):
It really does baffle me, I guess in the sense
of like the people thinking everyone just because they have
idolized a politician into a way of being like this
is God's son, literally putting pictures of like this, He's
the new Jesus that we all think of that way
for anyone that we voted for, instead of understanding a
lot of the choices that we make is the less
(10:14):
are evil and hoping that we can negotiate and hold
our people accountable to follow through with the promises they made.
Like it's not like this level of like these are
people who work for us. These are people who we
are supposed to be able to like count on to
protect our rights, not people I pray to because I
think you're going to do something to other people that
(10:35):
I don't like or I don't agree with that. That's
the other part to that is like their worship for
him is not because they think he's going to do
something great for them, is that he's going to be
mean to other people for them exactly.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Oh, this is a bit of a non sequitor. But
over the summer, I was at Ocean City, Maryland, which
is just like a kind of a trashy beach town,
but I fully love and I go there every summer
and they have all these boardwalk t shirt shops, and
every one of them has such prominent Trump memorabilia, Trump hats,
Trump shirts.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
It's like Trump Trump, Trump, Trump Trump.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
And I remember thinking I want to go into one
of these stories and be like, excuse me, where's your
Hakeem Jeffrey section, Like there's not.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
You're You're so right that there's.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Not an analogous thing on the left where people are
buying like, you know, Hakeem Jeffrey's car wraps and stuff
like Ocean City boardwalks are not cluttered with memorabilia about AOC.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
It's just an interesting level.
Speaker 5 (11:31):
Also, the again with your non sequit, I love that everyone,
and I mean everyone takes advantage of that level of consumerism,
be like, yeah, we'll buy those key products and sell
it to everybody because they all buy it.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
I'm gonna make money. You're gonna be that ridiculous. I'm
I'm gonna sell it to.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
You get your money. I'm not even mad at it,
to be honest with you. So the thing about whether
or not prominent people, including Democrats like Bill Clinton, would
be involved in the Epstein files is that Epstein, this
is total emmo. He intentionally had deep ties to all
kinds of prominent, wealthy, powerful people on all sides of
the aisle. This is the same thing we saw from
(12:09):
other convicted sex criminal Sean Diddycomb's you know, surround yourself
with wealthy, prominent, powerful people and that both becomes this
shield from accountability for your crimes and then also you
can get dirt on all these other powerful people and
sort of have an extra layer of power and protection.
So it is pretty likely that it's the entirety of
(12:31):
who did what is released. There would be powerful people
on all sides of the political spectrum, and also just
like wealthy, famous, non political people, because that's how Epstein rolled.
But I want to talk about one prominent Democrat who
we know had a connection with Epstein and what that
says about our current tech climate.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
And that person is Larry Summers.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
Yep, who I did not know by name. I knew
of him. I think I just didn't know him, but
now I do, And I'm like, what a way for
people to find out?
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Oh, yes, this is what we wanted to make this
episode in part.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Just as an old these names that come up, you're like, oh, well,
if you're under thirty, you might not know this name,
but if you're over thirty, you might remember a lot
about this person, just from being a person who was
alive when a lot of this stuff was going on.
So Larry Summers, he might not be a flashy name
that you recognize, but if you have any cash dollar
(13:28):
bills that were minted from nineteen ninety nine to two
thousand and one, you are carrying around Larry Summers's signature
in your wallet because his signature is on.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
The money that was mented then.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Because he was the US Secretary of the Treasury from
nineteen ninety nine to two thousand and one under former
President Bill Clinton, and he was also the Director of
the National Economic Council under former President Barack Obama. Basically
that's just a fancy title for the fact that he
was the top advisor on economic matters for the President,
so a pretty big deal. And Anny, you actually I
(14:00):
think we talked about the movie The Social Network one
time on here and how much I like it. He
is actually a fictionalized version of himself is portrayed in
the movie The Social Network.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
He's sort of portrayed.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
As like a good guy when the Winklevoss Twins set
up a meeting with him to complain that Zuckerberg stole
their idea for Facebook while they were students at Harvard,
of which Larry Summers used to be the president of
which I will come back to. But yeah, so you
might have seen like a fictionalized version of Larry Summers
in that movie.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
I'm gonna have to go back and watch it now.
It's gonna be strange. Now I know all this other
stuff that has come out. Yeah, yes, yes, even about Zuckerberg.
At the time, he was bad and now I'm like, oh.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Why don't that.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
I feel like the Winklevoss Twins are the kind of
the ones that history sort of is like, well, there,
I'm not reading about them like in connections with convicted
sex criminals and stuff, or you know, disrupting democracy via
Facebook and meta. I don't know, maybe they turned out
to be. Maybe history will be kinder to the Winklevoss twins,
even though they're sort of portrayed as the villains in
(15:07):
that movie.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
I am played by not.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Who played who played?
Speaker 2 (15:16):
I just put this together.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
It was just Timberlake, But that's wor justin Timberlake.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Is Sean Parker the napster guy.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
Oh okay, okay, Wow, I'm going to rewatch this and
I think I'm gonna have a wild time.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
I've never seen it.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
I just know, such a good movie.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
You ever want to do a rewatch? Like we all
watch it and like recap it?
Speaker 2 (15:39):
You love to?
Speaker 3 (15:40):
Yes, we might, we might need to do this. Oh
my gosh, my first time.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Take cast some characters and that in that hole, both
in the fictionalized version in the Sorkin film and in
real life just a real menagerie there. So folks have
(16:07):
probably seen or heard about some of these emails that
were newly released as part of the Epstein files, because
last week the House Oversight Committee released a new round
of twenty thousand documents and emails from Epstein's estate. And
that is how we know that Larry Summers, who is
currently a very big deal professor at Harvard University is
mentioned as somebody who had a documented, pretty uncool relationship
(16:32):
with convicted pedophile and wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein. And just
in the way of disclosures, before I talk too much
about Harvard University, I should disclose that I am currently
an affiliate of Harvard University's Berkman Clin Center. So I
did want to back up and just give a bit
of a quick and dirty rundown of who Epstein is
for folks who are not myerd in this gu I
(16:52):
have been for the last couple of months.
Speaker 5 (16:53):
So.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Epstein was a wealthy financier who threw his money all
over the place. He was convicted of sex crimes against
a minor in two thousand and eight, and famously got
off on a very lenient sentence for that crime, only
thirteen months with work release. Importantly, both before this and
notably after this conviction, a lot of influential people continued
(17:16):
to associate with Epstein, who by then was a convicted
sex criminal.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Ebstein died in.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Jail in twenty nineteen while awaiting trial on federal sex
trafficking charges, and the New York City Medical Examiner ruled
his death of suicide, but conspiracy theories claiming that Epstein
didn't kill himself began to spread almost immediately in the aftermath.
The idea here is that Epstein was taken out to
avoid details that might incriminate powerful people that he associated with,
(17:44):
And it's one of those theories that kind of works
regardless of what side of the aisle you're on, because
Epstein had ties with all the political parties, and as
I said that, ingratiating himself with like wealthy, powerful spaces
and people was just sort of Epstein's m especially in
the tech world. He gave donations to a lot of
(18:06):
influential tech spaces. We did an episode of my podcast
There Are No Girls on the Internet about the contributions
he made to MIT's Media Lab and the Kenyan, first
year MIT grad student who called for joy Echo ahead
of the Media Lab to step down once this was revealed.
He also had some kind of a relationship with Microsoft
(18:26):
co founder Bill Gates. Bill Gates's ex wife, Melinda, has
given several interviews to the effect that her marriage to
Bill Gates ended in part because of Bill Gates's relationship
with Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
She does this interview with.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Gail King, where Gail is like, well, what exactly happened?
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Like, can you give us more details.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
About what you know made you want to leave your
husband because of Epstein?
Speaker 2 (18:54):
And she was like, you're gonna have to ask Bill Gates.
That not me.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
So it's like a very it seems to me she's
like you eating something and all I guess I'll just
leave it at that. So it's one of those things
where you have a lot of powerful, rich and famous
people having this connection with Epstein and that is how
he designed it. And so when the House Oversite Committee
released these emails and these documents, we got a lot
(19:19):
more insight into what.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
That looked like.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
And I just have to add as a side note,
have you all read any of these emails or exchanges?
Speaker 3 (19:27):
I have not. It makes me sad.
Speaker 5 (19:29):
I've seen things being posted, so I know of blips.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Okay, So this is just a side note. I guess
the way they are written is Sking insane. Like reading
these emails that some of the most prominent, wealthy, important
people in government, tech and media reading in a way
that they emailed each other has absolutely cured me of
(19:54):
my anxiety around needing to word my emails. Just so
I'm writing an email, I'm trying to gauge the exact
right amount of exclamation marks to use to sound enthusiastic
and easy to work with, but not too enthusiastic. Every
email is like, no worry, is it not? I'm happy
to like I go through, so I go through so
(20:14):
much Secon'm guessing this. Meanwhile, Jeffery Emstein was just like, Yo,
what's up.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Want to do some sex crimes later? Lol?
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Like every word miss spell, every word mistyped, every word misspelled.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
Like punctuation absent or completely inexplicable.
Speaker 5 (20:33):
Yes, it's kind of like if a boomer was trying
to be cool and they're like, l ols like that
type of thing no one actually uses, but they think
that's what the kids are doing.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Truly, it is like up number four sex crime question
mark lol, small diz punctuated, insane. He put a lot
of stuff in writing that. I mean, I just don't
think any of this I should have been writing. And
they're so egregiously mistyped that part of me wonders if
(21:04):
this was intentional, if they were trying to like evade
some sort of something.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
I have no.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Idea, but I want to make it clear that he
wasn't writing these in like nineteen ninety nine or something
during a time and we didn't really have a concept
of what email was or what did or didn't belong
in emails and how to write them.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
He was writing a lot of these emails in.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Twenty eighteen, right at a time when email was commonplace.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
The whole thing is just very weird to me.
Speaker 5 (21:30):
Yeah, it does get to the like plausible deniability. I
would never write it that way. That's not how I
speak type of thing.
Speaker 4 (21:37):
Or just even because they tried to index. You know,
you can search how many times a name comes up
or whatever in these and so if there's like a
misspelling or if there's something that would mess up trying
to index something. So I also was kind of like,
are you trying to get around something I don't know about.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Yes, that was my big and I have no idea,
but that was my thought because they're so everything is
so egregiously misspelled that it almost is like this has
to be some rich guy way of not having your
crimes getting found out later or something.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Although wise you just really couldn't type like that. How
do you get those bottom quotation marks? I have to
go what I'm saying.
Speaker 5 (22:24):
I mean, we know the actual like intelligence is not
as intelligent as we think they are when it comes
to white men.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
So hellmo hell I mean they were putting this stuff
in writing anyway, so like, yeah, don't put your crimes
in writing.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
However, I've said this so many times.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
There's nothing when when when it's like, oh, we've released
the emails, I'm like, well, I'm gonna read every single one.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
I I there's just something about people.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Writing emails that they don't realize they're going to be
read later in a deposition or made public in a
deposition or something.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Yeah, so I should give a big caveat that.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Just because somebody knew Epstein and associate with him and
emailed with him does not necessarily mean that they did
something criminal. When a lot of these people have been asked,
people are mostly like, oh, I didn't know him like that.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
But at the same time, it is not like what
Epstein was doing was a secret.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Right in twenty eleven, mind you, this is two years
after Epstein was convicted of a sex crime against a minor.
Bill Gates told The New York Times about Epstein quote,
his lifestyle is very different and kind of intriguing, although
it would never work for me. So you're not going
to ever convince me that Bill Gates had no idea
(23:37):
he was associating with somebody who committed sex crimes against
miners when he was saying, like, you're just not going
to be able to convince me that he didn't know
what was going on, which is what he says now.
When Epstein was donating money too, the MIT Media Lab,
for instance, the staff at MIT had a whole system
for flagging Epstein's donations using the code name Voldemort or
(23:59):
he who shall not be name, aimed specifically to obscure
where that money came from because he had already been
convicted of sex crimes. So, yeah, these people knew this
was not a big secret. People now who were like, oh,
I had no idea, I don't know. I have a
hard time believing some of the people who are going
out of their way to say this now.
Speaker 4 (24:21):
Yeah, And I also think some of the things we're hearing,
especially like Megan Kelly being like there's a difference between
a five year old and fifteen year old. I feel
like that we're also having to confront that older men
do this and have been doing it forever, and we've
(24:42):
kind of societally been like, Oh, that's his lifestyle or yeah,
that's yeah, that's what he's into. Gross.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Yeah, like the way Bill Gates is like, Oh, his
lifestyle is certainly intriguing to me, homie. Those are sex crimes.
It's it's kind of lifestyle choice. We're not talking about
like being vegan. We're talking about a entire network designed
to traffic children for sex crime. Like, I think you're
(25:15):
exactly right, and I do think we should talk about
that because I.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Think when we make Epstein into.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
A solo monster, which she definitely is a monster, but
it makes it easy to not look at some of
the ways these attitudes really do show up all over
the place.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Right, you don't have to.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Be flying in girls on your private plane nicknamed the
Alita Express to have really messed up attitudes about young girls.
I was just reading an article about how a AI.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Company was used to deep fake.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Images of girls to make deep sake nudes and they
had used specifically yearbook pictures, and it was like one
of the headlines I'd read was something to the effect
of women's yearbook pictures used for deep fakes. I got
to thinking, I'm a grown woman. I have not taken
a yearbook photo since I have become an adult. Because
(26:16):
it is not grown adult women who take your book photos.
It's children because they are in school. So why did
this headline say that it was women's yearbook photos, as
if these women were adults. Anybody who's getting a yearbook
photo unless you've got some other situation going on, maybe
you're a teacher. You're usually a child. You're in school,
you're in K through twelve education.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Mm hm oh.
Speaker 5 (26:38):
Yeah, I was looking because I saw that headline too,
and some of the advertisements for those sites.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
Did you see that it said the AI girls will
never say no to Yeah?
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (26:50):
It was so disturbing that obviously there were so many
implications into these things in like date rape culture, but
also coming back to the fact that, yes, these girls
look like they're in school.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Yeah, and something about the way that the Megan Kelly thing.
You know, Megan Kelly has a daughter who is like
fifteen sixteen, and I think especially for a parent or
somebody who spends a lot of time around a fifteen
sixteen year old to make it sound like because because
(27:23):
a lot of people will say like, oh, well she
looked older or seemed older. When you're around a fifteen
year old, you really have a front row seat to
the ways in which they are obviously very much kids.
And I just think it's just it's hard for me
to wrap my head around somebody who could be spending
time with a fifteen year old and not be like,
this is a child. You know, there's it's I just
(27:43):
I really can't. If you spend any time around, if
you've got teenagers yourself, you really see the ways every
day in which.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
They are just kids.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
And it really is shocking to me that someone who
is around a fifteen year old every day, but really
anybody would make it seem like somehow because they're not
a toddler.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
It's it's different, you know, And I know that there
are there are.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
When it comes to like, you know, professionals who study
this kind of thing, they have different designations, but really,
you know, a sex crime against a minor is a
sex crime against a minor?
Speaker 4 (28:21):
Yeah, well, and it just feels like such a if
you have to explain that you're already in the something
has gone wrong, something has gone wrong.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Oh yes, yes, if you.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Find yourself saying something like that something's up, like you
need to you need.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
To like run it back exactly.
Speaker 4 (28:51):
Well, I guess we should get into Larry Summers is
quite pathetic, quite pathetic emails, my yead.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Pathetic is the word for it.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
So in this new drop of emails we get some
more insight until the relationship that Larry Summers had with
Jeffrey Epstein, and it's a fucking weird one. So Summers
described Epstein as his quote wingman. So from these emails
we learn that Larry Summers was really hung up on
trying to pursue a romantic relationship with a student that
(29:24):
he referred to as his mentee, and he consistently sought
advice from Epstein.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
About how to best do this.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
From November twenty eighteen to July twenty nineteen, text messages
and emails show that Larry Summers consistently asked Epstein for
advice about this relationship. Epstein responded eagerly, offering encouragement and tips,
even calling himself Somemmrs wingman in a message from November
twenty eighteen. Maybe don't get a convicted sex criminal against kids.
(29:54):
Maybe don't seek this person out for advice on how
to get your mentee who's also a student, to have you,
especially when you are married, which, by the way, Larry
Summers was.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
When all of this was going down.
Speaker 4 (30:07):
Yes, and also just a note, he was contacting Epstein
until he went to jail.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Yes, guy finds so wild.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
So to make it clear, this contact was happening well
after Epstein's initial conviction on sex crimes against kids back
in two.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Thousand and eight. And you are so right, Annie.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
The back and forth exchanges that Larry Summers had with
Jeffrey Epstein, they only ended the day before Epstein was
arrested again on new federal sex trafficking charges.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
So that means they were like bud bud buds.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Like if the back and forth about how to get
your mentee to sleep with you only stopped because this
man got arrested on federal sex trafficking charges, y'all were
in deep. They were like thickest thieves as far as
I'm concerned.
Speaker 5 (30:52):
Literally, like because someone was looking at the mail and
you would have to do it by.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Hand, like it that is insane, That is insane.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
I do I want to get into the meat of
some of these messages. Because I think they're very revealing
about what kind of person was actually, you know, at
the Helm at Harvard. So at one point, Summers told
Epstein that he was worried that maybe his Minty didn't
want to pursue a romantic or sexual relationship with him,
because maybe she just wanted to keep things professional. He said,
(31:19):
quote think for now, I'm going nowhere with her except
economics mentor boring, Summers wrote on November twenty eighteen, I
think I'm right now in the seem very warmly in
the rear view mirror category. She must be very confused
or maybe wants to cut me off, but wants professional
connection a lot, so she holds to it.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Summers wrote in March twenty.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Nineteen, basically saying that like, oh, like I like her,
and maybe she likes me, but she just wants to
keep me around for professional reasons. Mind you this, he
self described. He is her mentor. So it's like, oh,
she only wants me to like give her economics guidance
and education lowering.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
So who was this student in question?
Speaker 1 (32:04):
According to the Harvard Crimson and at least some of
his exchanges with Epstein on the relationship, Summers appears to
refer to economist Ku Jin, a tenured professor at the
London School of Economics at the time, who is mentioned
in a series of late twenty eighteen messages between the
two men. So I actually knew who she was before
this all came to life, because she's a pretty prominent person.
(32:24):
She goes on all the big podcasts, like, she has
a pretty prominent career.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
And is a I would say, a public thing here
at this point.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
So I mentioned this because look how grossly Larry Summers
talks about this person who at the time was his mentor.
Larry Summers was forwarding academic work that she would send
to him to Epstein, so like, here's my paper, and
then he's like, I gotta get I gotta get Epstein's
eyes on this. So Summers forwarded Epstein an email from
(32:54):
Jin which she was asking for feedback on a paper
and that she had written, and then Summers used to
Epstein that it was probably appropriate to hold off on responding.
So he's really doing that thing of like, ooh, like
when should I text back? Like is it like should
I give her her paper feedback today?
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Or does that look too eager?
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Epstein replied quote she's already beginning spelled wrong to sound needy,
smiley faced emoji nice now Jin is Chinese, and at
one point Summers wrote quote.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Capital you lowercase are better at.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Understanding Chinese women than at probability theory.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Larry wrote to Epstein. They used to also refer to
her as this nickname peril, right.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
So like when I saw this, I was like, wow,
Like where did this nickname come from? Apparently this nickname
might be drawn from the racist quote yellow peril trope
of the late nineteenth and twentieth century, which was used
to stoke fear that Asian immigrants, especially Chinese and Japanese people,
were a danger or a threat to westerners. Just real cool,
(34:00):
classy conversations to be putting in writing with that convicted
sex criminal.
Speaker 5 (34:05):
Literally during that time is when they also made this
fear that all Asian women were prostitutes. So that that
was that implication of this level of Asian fetishism that
began in that propaganda, Yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
Was continued in these messages from twenty eight That's what I'm.
Speaker 4 (34:24):
Saying, Like, I just like, yeah, it's just like yeah, yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
So Epstein and Larry Summers were also financially entangled, which
is an Epstein classic. Summers traveled on Epstein's private plane,
which was nicknamed the Lolita Express, on at least four occasions,
including at least three times while Summers was the president
of Harvard. Summers also met more than a dozen times
with Epstein and solicited donations from him for his wife,
(34:56):
who was a Harvard English professor, Alisa Knew. The Messa
just released showed that Somers was trying to organize visits
to Harvard on Epstein's behalf to to discuss his wife's
poetry work.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
So just really not smart. I will say.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
That Harvard did put out a report about their connection
to Epstein, and it seems like before Epstein was convicted
in two thousand and eight, he did donate I think
nine million dollars to Harvard, and after he was convicted
did visit campus quite a bit. So it does seem
like the calls were sort of coming from inside the
Ivy League university, if you know what I mean. But
having the president of Harvard associating with somebody who had
(35:34):
already been convicted of sex crimes against miners, it's not
a good look to say the least, it's definitely not
good judgment.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
Now, if only there had been.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Some clue to tip us off that perhaps Larry Summers
was a creep who could not be trusted in positions
of authority around young women and co eds. Oh wait
a minute, because that's exactly what we fink got because
I mentioned that Larry Summers was formerly the president of
Harvard University, not just a professor.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
There, lucky is.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
Now, why was he forced to resign? You ask attitudes
toward women. Where there is smoke, there is fire, My friends,
this should not be surprising to anybody.
Speaker 4 (36:15):
Unfortunately, No, And.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
I guess it's like why I wanted to talk about
this is like we had a whole converse. It was
a national conversation around two thousand and five, two thousand
and six about what kind of person Larry Summers was.
And it's just wild to be like, ohver, that guy's
still in the mix. We're still talking about that guy. Yes,
because these people they're never pushed out when like it's
clear something is going on. The thing that really sunk
(36:41):
Somers's ten year as president of Harvard remarks that he
made in two thousand and five at an economics conference.
So Summers was talking about why there are so few
women in STEM fields, and he wondered if the reason
why there aren't more women in these fields just because
women are just naturally and innately stupid and also bad
at things. Aid out three kind of potential hypotheses for
(37:03):
what's going on. One is that women want more work
life balance than men, so they can't succeed in these
fields as much as men. He was likeain, it's probably
not it. Two gender discrimination, which he basically was like,
h I don't think so. And then the one that
he really kind of double clicked on was the idea
that women are just biologically worse at the traits that
one needs to succeed in STEM, which is basically where
(37:25):
he landed. He argued that the gender gap in STEM
must be biological, specifically differences in intrinsic aptitude, and that
men and women might have different variabilities in certain traits
like math or science ability, meaning that more men would
just naturally occupy more top positions in those fields. He
tried to back this up with like behavioral genetics research,
(37:48):
claiming that some attributes once thought to come from socialization
may actually have you know, biological components.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
I will say he did say.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
When this kind of became a controversy, he was like, oh,
I thought this was meant to be kind of an
off the record safe space for bad opinions about gender.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
So like, my bad.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
I didn't know we were gonna be like telling everybody
about what.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
It was being said here.
Speaker 4 (38:16):
Oh that's another in the long line. We've been talking
a lot lately about and even with you Bridget we've
discussed this before, but about men using those terms like
safe space completely incorrectly. And also it's kind of like,
no wonder women might not want to work with you
(38:36):
who has the power because you treat them as a
dating opportunity, your chance to have sex. Guess what, they
don't want to be involved in that, and you're the
one making these decisions.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
Exactly that, Like, these things are so clearly linked.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
The fact that he got up on a stage and
said this, and the fact that he was creepily pursuing
his men tee and sending her fucking like academic papers
to a convicted pedophile, these things are all linked, right,
And I will just say this, he also picked a
terrible time to say these things, because he said these
things against the backdrop of Harvard facing, according to the Crimson,
(39:13):
widespread faculty criticism following reports that women received only four
of the thirty two ten year offers from the Faculty
of Arts and Sciences that year. Right, so like there
was already like a brew haha about women and whether
or not they were included and represented at Harvard.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
And he gets this. Jack gets on stage and says
these things.
Speaker 5 (39:33):
Right.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
I wish that we could go back to that time
and have a different conversation about it, because I think
we'd be in a different place. Right now, I will
say that Summers apologize and clarify that he does not
believe that women are intellectually inferior. What a nice guy,
definitely a great president at Harvard. But this was also
like not an isolated thing with him. He used to
(39:55):
joke about women's intelligence quite often, apparently, and talked about
what he described as excessive penalties for men who hit
on women in the workplace. Surprise, surprise, he was actively
hitting on his mentee at an academic institution. I was like,
are wething too hard on men who just try to
hit on women at work?
Speaker 2 (40:13):
He would think that.
Speaker 5 (40:15):
He wouldn't me He sounds like the guy who was like,
we can't talk to women at all anymore.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
I can't be like touching them though it's against the rules.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
Now, Like what women, yes, how do you behave that way? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (40:29):
Women these days can't even try to cheat on your
wife with them.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
Or what a good time with them?
Speaker 1 (40:35):
So I should add that when this was going on,
a lot of people in the Harvard community did stick
up for him, but ultimately Harvard's board voted no confidence.
This controversy really lingered until eventually Larry Summers resigned from
his role as president of Harvard the next year.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
But don't worry.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
Two years later, President Obama named Somers as the director
of the National Economic Council.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
Because he always on his feet, This one.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
The like comeback of white men.
Speaker 5 (41:05):
It really is like amazing to say, like we talked
about how women like the bootstrapping theory.
Speaker 3 (41:12):
This this is why that's not.
Speaker 5 (41:14):
A thing, Like bootstrap thing is not a thing because
we see this like men who should be taken down
always bounds back, like they always bound connections no matter
what happens.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
And like some of the stuff that he was saying
to students and around campus, he we know from the
release of these emails that he was also saying the
same stuff to Epstein, which really isn't surprising.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
He retread that same terrain that he got it.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
Years after getting in trouble for this stuff at Harvard,
he continued to say this kind of stuff to Epstein.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
In twenty seventeen, he wrote this old Jim saying.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
That he had a quote observed that half the IQ
in the world was possessed by women, without mentioning that
they are more than.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
Fifty one percent of the population.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
Oh good, one, it's not even a good joke, Like,
if you're gonna there, you shouldn't be making jokes like
this about women.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
But it's not even like, in my opinion, not even
a very good joke.
Speaker 4 (42:05):
No, no, and it's I I mean, all of this
is disgusting and horrific, but it is going back twice
said earlier, very pathetic that you would have to reach
out to a convicted sex predator to get late because
he's very like he has one email that says something like,
(42:29):
I just need to get horizontal help. Yeah, yes, what
is wrong with you?
Speaker 2 (42:35):
Bro?
Speaker 1 (42:36):
You are the president of Harvard show something like act
like it.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
It's something.
Speaker 5 (42:41):
You know.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
A therapist once told me that men in power their
need to have sex with people that they should not
be having sex with.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
It makes them so small.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
And it's so true that like you are the president
of Harvard and you are putting in an email that
you just need to get horizontal bro to Jeffrey Epstein
about your mentee.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
That is a problem that is not like I just yeah, And.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
I think it really speaks to the fact that I'm
sure I've said this before. I don't trust any institution
where there are not women all up and through at.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
The tippy tippy top.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
If it's all men or mostly men left to their
own devices, I don't care if it's an ivy, the university,
the military, the Catholic priesthood.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
The anything in the NFL.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
If you don't got women all up and through at
the tippy top, I don't trust it.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
Something's going on. Some shouldn't put in emails. That shouldn't
be put in any emails.
Speaker 5 (43:29):
What and why does they sell the emails sound like
nineteen ninety five boys, Like it was really like I'm
just the wording, like the faces I have made throughout
this whole episode, Like it's just discussed and shocked because
I'm like.
Speaker 3 (43:41):
Why are you saying? Why are you sounding like my
eighteen year old nephew right now? What is wrong with you?
Speaker 1 (43:47):
Yeah, in the same breath, it'll be like I got
to get horizontal bro.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
Winki face, and then it'll be like, oh, what are
your thoughts on Trump? Don't you think he's a buffoon.
Speaker 1 (43:59):
It's like, I think that might be the buffoon calling
the baffoon a buffoon.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
All one in the saying what is happening?
Speaker 2 (44:06):
It's bad.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
So the fallout from Larry Summers's relationship with Epstein being
made clear, I actually feel like it's been pretty minimal, honestly.
Initially after making that statement, he said that he was
going to be stepping back from public roles, but continue
was going to be continuing teaching at Harvard.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
So he's currently like a faculty member at Harvard. There
was a video. Maybe I'll put the audio in if
I can find it. There's a video of.
Speaker 1 (44:45):
Him starting his class a couple of days ago, basically
with an apology to students, being like, Oh, I'm sorry
that I was friends with Epstein. With your permission, I'd
like to just like continue talking about Economics and class now.
So so after he announced that he was going to
be not stepping back from teaching, he eventually did reverse
(45:06):
course and said that he was going to be stepping
back for the moment. He does have ten years, so
it's not like he was fired and who knows what
will happen, you know next, but Ta's are going to
finish off the rest of his class with a semester.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
He also resigned from the board of open Ai.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
The company that makes chat GPT, and Harvard is launching
an investigation into his connections with Epstein, which, yeah, I'll
say they should. Elizabeth Warren, who is a law professor
at Harvard, has urged the university to cut ties with him.
And I guess the reason that I wanted to talk
about this is because, you know, when I was doing research,
(45:41):
one of the big pieces that I read to prepare
for this conversation was his piece in The Times about
whether or not Summers could mount a comeback since he's
bounced back so many.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
Times in the past.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
Now, this piece in the Time has published the day
that Summers announced that he was going to be temporarily
stepping back from his classes, and I just hated that
the conversation was being framed just a few hours after
he announced he was just stepping down temporarily as like, well,
Kenna's career be saved. He's seventy years old. I don't
(46:12):
think that him being relieved from being in a position
to be around young you know, co eds and students
and to have this relationship where he is inherently of
an authority figure to people like that.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
I don't think that's like ruining his life, you know
what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (46:29):
Like the fact that it was even phrased that way
really bothered me. And Alejandro Carbalo, who is a clinical
instructor at Harvard Law Cyberclinic, commented online quote, it is
not normal for a professor to start a class discussing
how they regret being best buddies with a child sex trafficker.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
And honestly, I have to agree, right like, we cannot.
Speaker 1 (46:55):
This is not an apologize and move on and continue
with the economics lesson kind of thing. This is a
pretty big deal that when we should be treating it
like it's a pretty big deal.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
And I think especially.
Speaker 1 (47:08):
Someone like Larry Summers, who at the very least has
over and over again proven himself to have pretty bad
judgment when it comes to women. Having this person have
roles where he is so involved in hands on about
shaping what the future of technology looks like through things
like a board position at open AI. I just think
(47:28):
that we really have to think about what that means
and whether or not men like this are who we
want shaping the future of how technology shows up in
all of our lives, right, Like, I certainly do not
trust somebody like Larry Summers to be making decisions about
what our shared future is going to look Like.
Speaker 5 (47:47):
I'm honestly so disturbed by the mere fact that people
are ignoring the by the heat for once, Like I'm
sure there's so many other instances of like sexual harassment,
Like she actually said, I don't want to do this?
Can we keep the professional? And her life is probably
being up ended, Like I cannot imagine, was she like
the trauma and the shock she's going through seeing these
(48:08):
emails of not only that having the name of Epstein,
like if she didn't know him, she hadn't met, and
knowing all the things about him, and she like, oh,
I literally was being trafficked. I groom trafficked kind of
in a way with this dude who traffics and grooms
women and like as his profession, Like that's what he
was doing. And this man who I trusted, was getting
(48:33):
like territorial slash predatorial advice for me when all I'm
trying to do is survive and get an education and
move on in this life.
Speaker 3 (48:40):
Like there's so much to this.
Speaker 1 (48:42):
Yeah, and it's not like she asked to be involved
in this, And I should say, and in case it's
not clear, we don't even know that she had any
concept of the fact that this was going on, that
her mentor at Harvard was forwarding her perfectly reasonable emails
and papers and work to Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 2 (49:04):
It is it just is.
Speaker 1 (49:05):
Really we should be treating it as a shocking and
unacceptable thing because it is. And I guess where I
land is that we really cannot keep acting shocked when
powerful institutions protect powerful.
Speaker 2 (49:18):
Men who have these like long.
Speaker 1 (49:21):
And well documented histories of bad judgment, sexist thinking, and
frankly ethically grotesquees associations. Right, It's not like Summer's just
had one bad quote. He had an entire legacy of
things like minimizing discrimination, joking about women, in the workplace,
letting Epstein fund his wife's projects, and treating young women
(49:42):
like his mentee like a conquest that he could gain
theory his way into getting horizontal with and then describing
it in the crudest ways impossible. Right and Harvard, the
US government, tech companies, the media all kept continuing.
Speaker 2 (49:57):
To give him power. The New York Times writing an.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
Article the day that it becomes clear that he's going
to step back temporarily temporarily in teaching, asking about the
state of his career and whether or not he can
come back and bounce it back from this is exactly
what I mean.
Speaker 4 (50:14):
Yeah, And that's like one of the memes that I've
seen going around is like something that finally brings all
men of any religion, of any together, is that they
will use young girls this way. And one of the
things that really frustrates me about this conversation is that, like,
even going back to the Bill Clinton thing, who do
we immediately are like, we got to protect Bill Clinton?
Speaker 3 (50:36):
Who are we like, oh, we got.
Speaker 4 (50:37):
To protect Larry Summers. No, we're not talking about the
people who were hurt by this. You just want to
know that this guy's career is safe. And he's fine,
he's doing fine.
Speaker 2 (50:50):
He is seventy years old. I don't want to sound ageist.
Speaker 1 (50:54):
I just feel like at seventy years old, if you're
this kind of person, maybe we don't need you. Like
what I mean, don't say like maybe you living a
private life with your wife who now knows all about
the emails you were sending about your mentee.
Speaker 2 (51:07):
Maybe that is fine.
Speaker 1 (51:09):
Maybe we don't when you talk about that, like it's
the biggest tragedy that somebody like Larry Summers doesn't get
to have this role of authority and this role of
influential power both over you know, Carverarde students, but also
over all of us, right, because if you're sitting on
the board at open AI, you do have some power
over us. You have you you're making decisions, and you're
(51:30):
you're putting out technology that is going to go on
to shape.
Speaker 2 (51:32):
All of our lives.
Speaker 1 (51:33):
And I completely agree with you, Annie, I just really
it bothers me that when the conversation is framed about
what's going to happen to poor Larry Summers, He's gonna
be fine. He's gonna be completely fine.
Speaker 3 (51:44):
Literally the system was built for him, like for him
to be fine.
Speaker 5 (51:47):
The fact that he can really be like, ah, my bad, bro,
we cool, like that literally was his apology, like yeah,
my bad, not even like conversation about the fact that, yes,
he was using his authority and power to go after women.
That he's like this is this is definitely normal for me,
as a professor and president of a school to try
to be like intimidate women into sleeping with me. And
(52:09):
then you know, there's so many other things, but like
the fact that he can come back and be like,
my bad. But you know, we're moving on, right, let
me talk about economics and seems like okay, that sounds
about right. This is nothing to do that doesn't affect
you as a person, so it's fine as a teacher.
Speaker 1 (52:27):
And so when these rules, when people decide that because
they are powerful or influential, these rules don't apply to them,
I think it's really a problem when you get to say, oh,
well I did this, but I too, just go on
and continue my lesson for today, No, you don't write.
And I think that they're saying that for a long
time the rules did not apply to powerful people. And
(52:48):
the question is whether or not we want to live
in a world where that is the case.
Speaker 2 (52:52):
Right, Do we want to live in a world where.
Speaker 1 (52:54):
Someone like this gets to do things like this and
just go on to finish their economics lesson for the day?
Speaker 2 (53:00):
I say no.
Speaker 1 (53:02):
And so I think, as we watch what comes out
of this Department of Justice release with the Epstein files,
I hope we can like resist this idea of using
it to talk about like whether or not someone's career
is going to be impacted or all of that. I
think truly this will likely touch every corner of power, academia, politics, entertainment, tech, finance,
(53:25):
and we should be talking about accountability, right.
Speaker 2 (53:28):
We should be talking about.
Speaker 1 (53:30):
Like centering the people who were harmed, regardless of the
resumes and power and influence of the people who were
doing the harming.
Speaker 2 (53:38):
I think that is the bare minimum.
Speaker 1 (53:40):
And ultimately, I don't think the people shaping the future
should be taking advice from a convicted child sex predator
on how to pursue women at their age. I think
that is a totally reasonable standard to set.
Speaker 2 (53:54):
And I will die on this hill. I don't know that.
I don't care if it makes me sound like an extremist.
I will die in the hill.
Speaker 5 (54:00):
Oh, I mean, I think a lot of pod bros
are going to be mad at you about that.
Speaker 2 (54:06):
Come at me bros.
Speaker 4 (54:10):
Them in their Pizzagate and now they're like, this is
no information though I know.
Speaker 1 (54:15):
It's if you go back and look at like QAnon
and pizzagate, it's like you have emails that Hillary Clinton
wrote to Podesta that are like, oh, should we get
some pizza later? And people are like, but if you
replaced pizza with children, think about it then.
Speaker 2 (54:31):
And then you have Epstein putting like up for sex
crimes later and it's like, well, no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 3 (54:36):
We don't know what that means, does not what that means.
Speaker 2 (54:40):
That's out of context exactly.
Speaker 1 (54:45):
Uh yeah, So if the Department of Justice releases these files,
I'm sure we're going to have a lot more to discuss.
Speaker 2 (54:53):
But that's where we're at for right now.
Speaker 5 (54:55):
Who yeh, Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton are on that list.
Yeah they should also be locked up.
Speaker 3 (55:00):
Let's go ahead.
Speaker 1 (55:01):
But yeah, if anybody who is shown to have committed
a crime should be locked up. That's the thing is like,
I don't want abusers on my team, and I don't
think that I think I think that we're being sold
this idea of tribalism.
Speaker 2 (55:16):
Of like, oh, are you going to care if it's.
Speaker 1 (55:19):
Your favorite entertainer or your favorite you know, celebrity who
gets taken down?
Speaker 2 (55:26):
No, because I don't want that.
Speaker 1 (55:27):
I don't want a person who is a criminal walking free,
even if it's somebody who I happen to be politically
aligned with or like enjoy their work.
Speaker 5 (55:35):
I mean, I haven't stopped watching many of shows because
many of the celebrities have disappointed me, have shown their
true color. So putting on my bane list, let's go.
Speaker 4 (55:43):
Yes, Yes, well we shall see, we shall see what happens,
and I'm sure we will come back and discuss this more.
And yeah, thank you so much, Bridget for breaking down
such an intense topic for us.
Speaker 2 (56:01):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (56:03):
Uh yeah, you all, even though it's horrifying, you all
made it.
Speaker 2 (56:07):
A little less.
Speaker 4 (56:08):
So yes, and now we might watch the Social Network
together and be kind of horrified about so realities.
Speaker 2 (56:17):
But I'm excited they're making a sequel. They're making a sequel.
Speaker 1 (56:21):
Jeremy Strong is gonna play Zuckerberg like like a later.
Speaker 2 (56:25):
Version of Zuckerberg in the sequel. I know this sounds
look it up. I read it. I read it in
Deadline look it up.
Speaker 5 (56:33):
Are they gonna have the moments where he and Elon
Musk might fight?
Speaker 2 (56:37):
Oh? I was just talking about that on a podcast.
It I mean, say what you will about Mark Suckerberg.
Speaker 1 (56:44):
Zuckerberg would drop Elon Musk like a sack of potato.
Speaker 2 (56:47):
Say what you will? You know, I hate Zuckerberg.
Speaker 1 (56:49):
I hate them both, absolutely, going Zuckerberg on this one.
Speaker 4 (56:53):
I hope they have the scene when he's on the
wakeboard and he's.
Speaker 3 (56:56):
Just hal translation.
Speaker 2 (56:58):
I really want.
Speaker 4 (56:59):
That to be in the and like sad, like adult
midlife crisis music playing. Yeah, that's what I want.
Speaker 1 (57:06):
My partner's mom when we showed her that picture, she
just said, what a dweb?
Speaker 2 (57:11):
And I'll never forget it.
Speaker 1 (57:12):
Because I don't think I've ever heard somebody call someone
else on dweb.
Speaker 2 (57:18):
Yeah, it's like, Yesweb, but.
Speaker 4 (57:20):
You are correct, you are good?
Speaker 1 (57:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (57:23):
Yeah, yeah, florks. Well something to look forward to. Question
in the meantime, Bridget where can the good listeners find you?
Speaker 1 (57:32):
You can listen to my podcast there are no girls
on the Internet. You can follow me on Instagram at
bridget Ryan DC, on TikTok at bridget Ryan DC, and
on YouTube at there are no girls on the Internet.
Speaker 4 (57:43):
And definitely go check that out. If you haven't already listeners.
If you would like to email us, you can. Our
email is Hello at Stuffmannever Told You dot com. We're
on Blue Sky at mom Stuff podcast and on Instagram
TikTok at stuff I Never Told You for us on YouTube,
we have a book you can get wherever you can
get your books, and we have new kurgaince of com Hero.
Thanks as always to our superroducer Christine or executive ducer
(58:03):
my in contributor Joey.
Speaker 3 (58:04):
Thank you and thanks to you for listening.
Speaker 4 (58:06):
Stuff Never Told You hisspruction by heart Radio. For more
podcasts from my heart Radio, you can check out the
heart Radio app podcast where if you listen to your
favorite shows
There Are No Girls on the Internet, as a production
of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this
is There Are No Girls on the Internet. As the
deadline approaches for the Trump administration to release the Epstein files,
I can't stop thinking about all the wealthy and powerful
(00:24):
people who are entangled with Epstein, men like Larry Summers,
former president of Harvard and a current tenured professor there. Now,
if you're thinking, wait, who exactly is Larry Summers?
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Don't worry. I've got you over on the podcast Stuff
Mom Ever Told You?
Speaker 1 (00:39):
I break down who Larry Summers is, his outsize influence
on tech at academia, Why is connections to Ebstein are
so dang troubling, and what it reveals about the men
currently shaping our collective future.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Hey, this is Anny and Samantha.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
I'm welcome to Stuff Never Told You, production by Hurt Redo,
and we are once again so happy to be joined
by the marvelous the magnificent Bridget Todd.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Welcome, Bridget, Thanks for having me back. Always such a pleasure.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
It is, it really is. I look forward to talking
to you every time, even though the topics we tackle
famously not not so it's not so easy.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
I always say this, I swear I am a happy
person who is drawn to happy things.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Something about let's just cut let's just be real.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
It's there's a lot of misery out there, and sometimes
I end up covering it on podcasts.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
But I am a happy person who is drawn to
happy things.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Don't get in misted exactly.
Speaker 5 (01:51):
The reality is as much as like we would love
to be happy, go lucky, all of the things that
are happening we can't ignore. And it just happens that
these things are really gross and sad. And you know,
if I have to be given sad news or really
gross information, having someone as upbeat as you bringing it
to me, Bridget is kind of nice because I am
(02:12):
a sad person.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
I am drawn to the darkness.
Speaker 5 (02:17):
I am a bit gloomy, so having your perspective which
puts it in such a very factual but also like realistic,
but like here what could be solutions, Here could be
like the good possibilities, and here are the realities. It's
nice to be given those that kind of news from
someone like you. So I appreciate that you bring this
to us.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
That makes me so happy to hear.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
I mean that really is what I try to do there,
Like there's no need for panic, even though things are
tough and scary, but you still need to know what's
going on. And also, I think sometimes the conversations that
are happening these days are so grim that it's tempting
to just sort of check out from them. But we
really do need to understand how these things impact things
(03:00):
like gender and things like identity and who gets to
show up as.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Themselves and who doesn't? You know, I think it's important.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
So thank you, yes, well, thank you. You know, here's
the million dollar question. How have you been rigid?
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Oh god, this is like that broad city? I mean,
how am I? No? Things are good. I actually just
came back from a trip to Spain.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
I was there doing a live show for this other
podcast that I work on called IRL with Mozilla Foundation,
which was awesome.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Was my first time in Spain.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
I went to Barcelona, which was lovely and wonderful.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
I didn't want to come back.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
We was the first time it's ever happened to me.
We were supposed to land in Barcelona. We tried to
land in Barcelona through very atypical lightning storms and it
was one of those situations where you know, we everybody
on the plane looked out the window and just saw
these big bolts of lightning and we all this sort
(03:59):
of made a quiet peace with our gods. Then the
plane went back up in the air and the pilot
was like, yeah, we can't land in Barcelona, so we're
landing in Madrid. So I got to go to a bonus,
a bonus trip to Madrid. First time I've ever experienced
that a plane landing in a different place than where
you thought it was gonna land.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
Okay, I think this is the only time that would
be warranted for y'all to clap.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Somebody is sitting next to me burst into tears like
it was like unfair.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
It really was a moment of like are we gonna
make it right?
Speaker 5 (04:32):
Everybody's quiet and eeriness because they're like, oh god, what
do we Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
That was that was the creepy part, is that people
were like gasping, and a few people like like shrieked
or screamed, But at a certain point everybody just got
very quiet, and that's when you know you're like, oh.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
This we are in a situation because real. But it
ended up being fine. And I got to see Madrid
for the first time.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
So I'm all good, nice, we love a good twist.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Yeah, how have you two?
Speaker 5 (05:01):
Then?
Speaker 4 (05:03):
Well, Samtha's apparently.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
You know my answer was not pretty.
Speaker 5 (05:07):
And for the listeners who have listened consistently and have
just recently heard my happy hour, which was thirty minutes
long of me beaching and whining about adulthood, I think
they know. But you know what, we are together, so
I am doing much better right now than I'll want
twenty minutes ago.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
I will say that.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
More like an unhappy hour.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
It really was.
Speaker 5 (05:28):
We named that specific session and wine because we have
some wine and then we and then I say things.
Speaker 4 (05:36):
Well, there's a power in unloading yourself like that. I'm okay, Yeah,
I'm good. I've had a lot of good times with
friends lately, and I appreciate that. That's a nice. I've
gotten to see some people I haven't seen in a while,
and it's been nice. I'm pretty tired, but it's been good.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Yeah, especially as we go into the dark months.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
I mean, we still have the holidays.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
I feel like after the holidays is when the real
slug begins. But holding onto those small comforts like getting
to see friends, you know, I think that really is
very important.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
Yeah, and especially given some of the news right now
and some of the dark, dark times and dark things
we're going to talk about in this episode.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
That is right, just a content warning up top because
we were talking about convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein, which.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
I feel like it's everywhere in the news.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
You really kind of can't avoid the conversation around him.
Today is November twentieth, so by the time you hear this,
there is some chance that things might have changed. But
here is the latest as of today. So yesterday, the
Senate almost unanimously voted to release the Epstein files, with
only one dissenting vote, Republican Representative Clay Higgins of Louisiana.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
So curious what's going on with him? I know I
looked at it. I was like, oh, you're.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Just a major trumper, even for Republicans. See, he seems
like a quite extreme fellow. So I guess I shouldn't
be surprised, but it is well to be like, oh,
even among Republicans, just one dissenting vote.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
So that bill then went to Trump's desk.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
There were some back and forth of whether Trump was
going to sign it, but he did. So what happens
now is the Department of Justice has thirty days to
release these files.
Speaker 5 (07:24):
I'm trying not to be a conspiracist, but I swear
the more I read, especially in this specific topic, the
thirty days seems too long.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
I know there has to be some jurisdiction and all.
Speaker 5 (07:40):
Of that, but it feels like there's too much happening,
and thirty days is giving them too much time and
including the fight.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Are they actually going to release it? That's my question.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Yeah, that seems to be the big question. I should say.
I am no attorney, so this is somewhat above my
pay grade. But here's a little bit from CNN. Despite
Trump signing the bill, uncertainty remains. Attorney General Pam Bondi
said yesterday that the Department of Justice will quote follow
the law, but some lawmakers and analysts are worried that
the Trump administration may try to hinder the process by
(08:12):
slowing the release or redacting information.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
So I don't know, above.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
My pay grade, but your worries are grounded. You're not
the only person with that question. That seems to be
the question on everybody's mind. And in any event, this
is still all like a very big reversal of the
time very recently, when Trump was calling this entire thing
a Democrat hoax, when Pam Bondy was like, oh, there's
(08:37):
not going to be any additional information release. We looked
into it. We don't need to release any more information.
But then Trump was also recently vowing to investigate any
Democrats accused of breaking the law and the Epstein files,
which like, if the entire thing was just a big
Democratic hoax, why would there be Democrats in the files.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
I'm not fully.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Assured that he thought this one through, but there you
have it. And I do think it's this weird thing
where people, in an attempt to downplay this entire thing,
are saying, well, what if this takes down a prominent
Democrat like Bill Clinton, to which I say, great, like,
get him out of here. If Bill Clinton committed a
(09:16):
crime and that is revealed in the Epstein files, take
them to prison, right Like.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
I don't think.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Anybody is saying, no, we need to protect prominent Democrats
like Bill Clinton from accountability if they are named as
having committed sex crimes in the Epstein files. And also,
do people really think that most leftists are like clinging
to the legacy of Bill Clinton. I saw this great
post that was like, oh no, then I would have
(09:41):
to take down my Bill Clinton yard sign, burn my
Bill Clinton hat and T shirt, take off my Bill
Clinton car wrap. Like what are these people talking about?
This is completely like a fiction.
Speaker 5 (09:52):
It really does baffle me, I guess in the sense
of like the people thinking everyone just because they have
idolized a politician into a way of being like this
is God's son, literally putting pictures of like this, He's
the new Jesus that we all think of that way
for anyone that we voted for, instead of understanding a
lot of the choices that we make is the less
(10:14):
are evil and hoping that we can negotiate and hold
our people accountable to follow through with the promises they made.
Like it's not like this level of like these are
people who work for us. These are people who we
are supposed to be able to like count on to
protect our rights, not people I pray to because I
think you're going to do something to other people that
(10:35):
I don't like or I don't agree with that. That's
the other part to that is like their worship for
him is not because they think he's going to do
something great for them, is that he's going to be
mean to other people for them exactly.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Oh, this is a bit of a non sequitor. But
over the summer, I was at Ocean City, Maryland, which
is just like a kind of a trashy beach town,
but I fully love and I go there every summer
and they have all these boardwalk t shirt shops, and
every one of them has such prominent Trump memorabilia, Trump hats,
Trump shirts.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
It's like Trump Trump, Trump, Trump Trump.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
And I remember thinking I want to go into one
of these stories and be like, excuse me, where's your
Hakeem Jeffrey section, Like there's not.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
You're You're so right that there's.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Not an analogous thing on the left where people are
buying like, you know, Hakeem Jeffrey's car wraps and stuff
like Ocean City boardwalks are not cluttered with memorabilia about AOC.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
It's just an interesting level.
Speaker 5 (11:31):
Also, the again with your non sequit, I love that everyone,
and I mean everyone takes advantage of that level of consumerism,
be like, yeah, we'll buy those key products and sell
it to everybody because they all buy it.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
I'm gonna make money. You're gonna be that ridiculous. I'm
I'm gonna sell it to.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
You get your money. I'm not even mad at it,
to be honest with you. So the thing about whether
or not prominent people, including Democrats like Bill Clinton, would
be involved in the Epstein files is that Epstein, this
is total emmo. He intentionally had deep ties to all
kinds of prominent, wealthy, powerful people on all sides of
the aisle. This is the same thing we saw from
(12:09):
other convicted sex criminal Sean Diddycomb's you know, surround yourself
with wealthy, prominent, powerful people and that both becomes this
shield from accountability for your crimes and then also you
can get dirt on all these other powerful people and
sort of have an extra layer of power and protection.
So it is pretty likely that it's the entirety of
(12:31):
who did what is released. There would be powerful people
on all sides of the political spectrum, and also just
like wealthy, famous, non political people, because that's how Epstein rolled.
But I want to talk about one prominent Democrat who
we know had a connection with Epstein and what that
says about our current tech climate.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
And that person is Larry Summers.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
Yep, who I did not know by name. I knew
of him. I think I just didn't know him, but
now I do, And I'm like, what a way for
people to find out?
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Oh, yes, this is what we wanted to make this
episode in part.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Just as an old these names that come up, you're like, oh, well,
if you're under thirty, you might not know this name,
but if you're over thirty, you might remember a lot
about this person, just from being a person who was
alive when a lot of this stuff was going on.
So Larry Summers, he might not be a flashy name
that you recognize, but if you have any cash dollar
(13:28):
bills that were minted from nineteen ninety nine to two
thousand and one, you are carrying around Larry Summers's signature
in your wallet because his signature is on.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
The money that was mented then.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Because he was the US Secretary of the Treasury from
nineteen ninety nine to two thousand and one under former
President Bill Clinton, and he was also the Director of
the National Economic Council under former President Barack Obama. Basically
that's just a fancy title for the fact that he
was the top advisor on economic matters for the President,
so a pretty big deal. And Anny, you actually I
(14:00):
think we talked about the movie The Social Network one
time on here and how much I like it. He
is actually a fictionalized version of himself is portrayed in
the movie The Social Network.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
He's sort of portrayed.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
As like a good guy when the Winklevoss Twins set
up a meeting with him to complain that Zuckerberg stole
their idea for Facebook while they were students at Harvard,
of which Larry Summers used to be the president of
which I will come back to. But yeah, so you
might have seen like a fictionalized version of Larry Summers
in that movie.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
I'm gonna have to go back and watch it now.
It's gonna be strange. Now I know all this other
stuff that has come out. Yeah, yes, yes, even about Zuckerberg.
At the time, he was bad and now I'm like, oh.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Why don't that.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
I feel like the Winklevoss Twins are the kind of
the ones that history sort of is like, well, there,
I'm not reading about them like in connections with convicted
sex criminals and stuff, or you know, disrupting democracy via
Facebook and meta. I don't know, maybe they turned out
to be. Maybe history will be kinder to the Winklevoss twins,
even though they're sort of portrayed as the villains in
(15:07):
that movie.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
I am played by not.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Who played who played?
Speaker 2 (15:16):
I just put this together.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
It was just Timberlake, But that's wor justin Timberlake.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Is Sean Parker the napster guy.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
Oh okay, okay, Wow, I'm going to rewatch this and
I think I'm gonna have a wild time.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
I've never seen it.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
I just know, such a good movie.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
You ever want to do a rewatch? Like we all
watch it and like recap it?
Speaker 2 (15:39):
You love to?
Speaker 3 (15:40):
Yes, we might, we might need to do this. Oh
my gosh, my first time.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Take cast some characters and that in that hole, both
in the fictionalized version in the Sorkin film and in
real life just a real menagerie there. So folks have
(16:07):
probably seen or heard about some of these emails that
were newly released as part of the Epstein files, because
last week the House Oversight Committee released a new round
of twenty thousand documents and emails from Epstein's estate. And
that is how we know that Larry Summers, who is
currently a very big deal professor at Harvard University is
mentioned as somebody who had a documented, pretty uncool relationship
(16:32):
with convicted pedophile and wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein. And just
in the way of disclosures, before I talk too much
about Harvard University, I should disclose that I am currently
an affiliate of Harvard University's Berkman Clin Center. So I
did want to back up and just give a bit
of a quick and dirty rundown of who Epstein is
for folks who are not myerd in this gu I
(16:52):
have been for the last couple of months.
Speaker 5 (16:53):
So.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Epstein was a wealthy financier who threw his money all
over the place. He was convicted of sex crimes against
a minor in two thousand and eight, and famously got
off on a very lenient sentence for that crime, only
thirteen months with work release. Importantly, both before this and
notably after this conviction, a lot of influential people continued
(17:16):
to associate with Epstein, who by then was a convicted
sex criminal.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Ebstein died in.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Jail in twenty nineteen while awaiting trial on federal sex
trafficking charges, and the New York City Medical Examiner ruled
his death of suicide, but conspiracy theories claiming that Epstein
didn't kill himself began to spread almost immediately in the aftermath.
The idea here is that Epstein was taken out to
avoid details that might incriminate powerful people that he associated with,
(17:44):
And it's one of those theories that kind of works
regardless of what side of the aisle you're on, because
Epstein had ties with all the political parties, and as
I said that, ingratiating himself with like wealthy, powerful spaces
and people was just sort of Epstein's m especially in
the tech world. He gave donations to a lot of
(18:06):
influential tech spaces. We did an episode of my podcast
There Are No Girls on the Internet about the contributions
he made to MIT's Media Lab and the Kenyan, first
year MIT grad student who called for joy Echo ahead
of the Media Lab to step down once this was revealed.
He also had some kind of a relationship with Microsoft
(18:26):
co founder Bill Gates. Bill Gates's ex wife, Melinda, has
given several interviews to the effect that her marriage to
Bill Gates ended in part because of Bill Gates's relationship
with Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
She does this interview with.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Gail King, where Gail is like, well, what exactly happened?
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Like, can you give us more details.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
About what you know made you want to leave your
husband because of Epstein?
Speaker 2 (18:54):
And she was like, you're gonna have to ask Bill Gates.
That not me.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
So it's like a very it seems to me she's
like you eating something and all I guess I'll just
leave it at that. So it's one of those things
where you have a lot of powerful, rich and famous
people having this connection with Epstein and that is how
he designed it. And so when the House Oversite Committee
released these emails and these documents, we got a lot
(19:19):
more insight into what.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
That looked like.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
And I just have to add as a side note,
have you all read any of these emails or exchanges?
Speaker 3 (19:27):
I have not. It makes me sad.
Speaker 5 (19:29):
I've seen things being posted, so I know of blips.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Okay, So this is just a side note. I guess
the way they are written is Sking insane. Like reading
these emails that some of the most prominent, wealthy, important
people in government, tech and media reading in a way
that they emailed each other has absolutely cured me of
(19:54):
my anxiety around needing to word my emails. Just so
I'm writing an email, I'm trying to gauge the exact
right amount of exclamation marks to use to sound enthusiastic
and easy to work with, but not too enthusiastic. Every
email is like, no worry, is it not? I'm happy
to like I go through, so I go through so
(20:14):
much Secon'm guessing this. Meanwhile, Jeffery Emstein was just like, Yo,
what's up.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Want to do some sex crimes later? Lol?
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Like every word miss spell, every word mistyped, every word misspelled.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
Like punctuation absent or completely inexplicable.
Speaker 5 (20:33):
Yes, it's kind of like if a boomer was trying
to be cool and they're like, l ols like that
type of thing no one actually uses, but they think
that's what the kids are doing.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Truly, it is like up number four sex crime question
mark lol, small diz punctuated, insane. He put a lot
of stuff in writing that. I mean, I just don't
think any of this I should have been writing. And
they're so egregiously mistyped that part of me wonders if
(21:04):
this was intentional, if they were trying to like evade
some sort of something.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
I have no.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Idea, but I want to make it clear that he
wasn't writing these in like nineteen ninety nine or something
during a time and we didn't really have a concept
of what email was or what did or didn't belong
in emails and how to write them.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
He was writing a lot of these emails in.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Twenty eighteen, right at a time when email was commonplace.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
The whole thing is just very weird to me.
Speaker 5 (21:30):
Yeah, it does get to the like plausible deniability. I
would never write it that way. That's not how I
speak type of thing.
Speaker 4 (21:37):
Or just even because they tried to index. You know,
you can search how many times a name comes up
or whatever in these and so if there's like a
misspelling or if there's something that would mess up trying
to index something. So I also was kind of like,
are you trying to get around something I don't know about.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Yes, that was my big and I have no idea,
but that was my thought because they're so everything is
so egregiously misspelled that it almost is like this has
to be some rich guy way of not having your
crimes getting found out later or something.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Although wise you just really couldn't type like that. How
do you get those bottom quotation marks? I have to
go what I'm saying.
Speaker 5 (22:24):
I mean, we know the actual like intelligence is not
as intelligent as we think they are when it comes
to white men.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
So hellmo hell I mean they were putting this stuff
in writing anyway, so like, yeah, don't put your crimes
in writing.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
However, I've said this so many times.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
There's nothing when when when it's like, oh, we've released
the emails, I'm like, well, I'm gonna read every single one.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
I I there's just something about people.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Writing emails that they don't realize they're going to be
read later in a deposition or made public in a
deposition or something.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Yeah, so I should give a big caveat that.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Just because somebody knew Epstein and associate with him and
emailed with him does not necessarily mean that they did
something criminal. When a lot of these people have been asked,
people are mostly like, oh, I didn't know him like that.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
But at the same time, it is not like what
Epstein was doing was a secret.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Right in twenty eleven, mind you, this is two years
after Epstein was convicted of a sex crime against a minor.
Bill Gates told The New York Times about Epstein quote,
his lifestyle is very different and kind of intriguing, although
it would never work for me. So you're not going
to ever convince me that Bill Gates had no idea
(23:37):
he was associating with somebody who committed sex crimes against
miners when he was saying, like, you're just not going
to be able to convince me that he didn't know
what was going on, which is what he says now.
When Epstein was donating money too, the MIT Media Lab,
for instance, the staff at MIT had a whole system
for flagging Epstein's donations using the code name Voldemort or
(23:59):
he who shall not be name, aimed specifically to obscure
where that money came from because he had already been
convicted of sex crimes. So, yeah, these people knew this
was not a big secret. People now who were like, oh,
I had no idea, I don't know. I have a
hard time believing some of the people who are going
out of their way to say this now.
Speaker 4 (24:21):
Yeah, And I also think some of the things we're hearing,
especially like Megan Kelly being like there's a difference between
a five year old and fifteen year old. I feel
like that we're also having to confront that older men
do this and have been doing it forever, and we've
(24:42):
kind of societally been like, Oh, that's his lifestyle or yeah,
that's yeah, that's what he's into. Gross.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Yeah, like the way Bill Gates is like, Oh, his
lifestyle is certainly intriguing to me, homie. Those are sex crimes.
It's it's kind of lifestyle choice. We're not talking about
like being vegan. We're talking about a entire network designed
to traffic children for sex crime. Like, I think you're
(25:15):
exactly right, and I do think we should talk about
that because I.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Think when we make Epstein into.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
A solo monster, which she definitely is a monster, but
it makes it easy to not look at some of
the ways these attitudes really do show up all over
the place.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Right, you don't have to.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Be flying in girls on your private plane nicknamed the
Alita Express to have really messed up attitudes about young girls.
I was just reading an article about how a AI.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Company was used to deep fake.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Images of girls to make deep sake nudes and they
had used specifically yearbook pictures, and it was like one
of the headlines I'd read was something to the effect
of women's yearbook pictures used for deep fakes. I got
to thinking, I'm a grown woman. I have not taken
a yearbook photo since I have become an adult. Because
(26:16):
it is not grown adult women who take your book photos.
It's children because they are in school. So why did
this headline say that it was women's yearbook photos, as
if these women were adults. Anybody who's getting a yearbook
photo unless you've got some other situation going on, maybe
you're a teacher. You're usually a child. You're in school,
you're in K through twelve education.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Mm hm oh.
Speaker 5 (26:38):
Yeah, I was looking because I saw that headline too,
and some of the advertisements for those sites.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
Did you see that it said the AI girls will
never say no to Yeah?
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (26:50):
It was so disturbing that obviously there were so many
implications into these things in like date rape culture, but
also coming back to the fact that, yes, these girls
look like they're in school.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Yeah, and something about the way that the Megan Kelly thing.
You know, Megan Kelly has a daughter who is like
fifteen sixteen, and I think especially for a parent or
somebody who spends a lot of time around a fifteen
sixteen year old to make it sound like because because
(27:23):
a lot of people will say like, oh, well she
looked older or seemed older. When you're around a fifteen
year old, you really have a front row seat to
the ways in which they are obviously very much kids.
And I just think it's just it's hard for me
to wrap my head around somebody who could be spending
time with a fifteen year old and not be like,
this is a child. You know, there's it's I just
(27:43):
I really can't. If you spend any time around, if
you've got teenagers yourself, you really see the ways every
day in which.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
They are just kids.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
And it really is shocking to me that someone who
is around a fifteen year old every day, but really
anybody would make it seem like somehow because they're not
a toddler.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
It's it's different, you know, And I know that there
are there are.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
When it comes to like, you know, professionals who study
this kind of thing, they have different designations, but really,
you know, a sex crime against a minor is a
sex crime against a minor?
Speaker 4 (28:21):
Yeah, well, and it just feels like such a if
you have to explain that you're already in the something
has gone wrong, something has gone wrong.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Oh yes, yes, if you.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Find yourself saying something like that something's up, like you
need to you need.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
To like run it back exactly.
Speaker 4 (28:51):
Well, I guess we should get into Larry Summers is
quite pathetic, quite pathetic emails, my yead.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Pathetic is the word for it.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
So in this new drop of emails we get some
more insight until the relationship that Larry Summers had with
Jeffrey Epstein, and it's a fucking weird one. So Summers
described Epstein as his quote wingman. So from these emails
we learn that Larry Summers was really hung up on
trying to pursue a romantic relationship with a student that
(29:24):
he referred to as his mentee, and he consistently sought
advice from Epstein.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
About how to best do this.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
From November twenty eighteen to July twenty nineteen, text messages
and emails show that Larry Summers consistently asked Epstein for
advice about this relationship. Epstein responded eagerly, offering encouragement and tips,
even calling himself Somemmrs wingman in a message from November
twenty eighteen. Maybe don't get a convicted sex criminal against kids.
(29:54):
Maybe don't seek this person out for advice on how
to get your mentee who's also a student, to have you,
especially when you are married, which, by the way, Larry
Summers was.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
When all of this was going down.
Speaker 4 (30:07):
Yes, and also just a note, he was contacting Epstein
until he went to jail.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Yes, guy finds so wild.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
So to make it clear, this contact was happening well
after Epstein's initial conviction on sex crimes against kids back
in two.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Thousand and eight. And you are so right, Annie.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
The back and forth exchanges that Larry Summers had with
Jeffrey Epstein, they only ended the day before Epstein was
arrested again on new federal sex trafficking charges.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
So that means they were like bud bud buds.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Like if the back and forth about how to get
your mentee to sleep with you only stopped because this
man got arrested on federal sex trafficking charges, y'all were
in deep. They were like thickest thieves as far as
I'm concerned.
Speaker 5 (30:52):
Literally, like because someone was looking at the mail and
you would have to do it by.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Hand, like it that is insane, That is insane.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
I do I want to get into the meat of
some of these messages. Because I think they're very revealing
about what kind of person was actually, you know, at
the Helm at Harvard. So at one point, Summers told
Epstein that he was worried that maybe his Minty didn't
want to pursue a romantic or sexual relationship with him,
because maybe she just wanted to keep things professional. He said,
(31:19):
quote think for now, I'm going nowhere with her except
economics mentor boring, Summers wrote on November twenty eighteen, I
think I'm right now in the seem very warmly in
the rear view mirror category. She must be very confused
or maybe wants to cut me off, but wants professional
connection a lot, so she holds to it.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Summers wrote in March twenty.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Nineteen, basically saying that like, oh, like I like her,
and maybe she likes me, but she just wants to
keep me around for professional reasons. Mind you this, he
self described. He is her mentor. So it's like, oh,
she only wants me to like give her economics guidance
and education lowering.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
So who was this student in question?
Speaker 1 (32:04):
According to the Harvard Crimson and at least some of
his exchanges with Epstein on the relationship, Summers appears to
refer to economist Ku Jin, a tenured professor at the
London School of Economics at the time, who is mentioned
in a series of late twenty eighteen messages between the
two men. So I actually knew who she was before
this all came to life, because she's a pretty prominent person.
(32:24):
She goes on all the big podcasts, like, she has
a pretty prominent career.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
And is a I would say, a public thing here
at this point.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
So I mentioned this because look how grossly Larry Summers
talks about this person who at the time was his mentor.
Larry Summers was forwarding academic work that she would send
to him to Epstein, so like, here's my paper, and
then he's like, I gotta get I gotta get Epstein's
eyes on this. So Summers forwarded Epstein an email from
(32:54):
Jin which she was asking for feedback on a paper
and that she had written, and then Summers used to
Epstein that it was probably appropriate to hold off on responding.
So he's really doing that thing of like, ooh, like
when should I text back? Like is it like should
I give her her paper feedback today?
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Or does that look too eager?
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Epstein replied quote she's already beginning spelled wrong to sound needy,
smiley faced emoji nice now Jin is Chinese, and at
one point Summers wrote quote.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Capital you lowercase are better at.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Understanding Chinese women than at probability theory.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Larry wrote to Epstein. They used to also refer to
her as this nickname peril, right.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
So like when I saw this, I was like, wow,
Like where did this nickname come from? Apparently this nickname
might be drawn from the racist quote yellow peril trope
of the late nineteenth and twentieth century, which was used
to stoke fear that Asian immigrants, especially Chinese and Japanese people,
were a danger or a threat to westerners. Just real cool,
(34:00):
classy conversations to be putting in writing with that convicted
sex criminal.
Speaker 5 (34:05):
Literally during that time is when they also made this
fear that all Asian women were prostitutes. So that that
was that implication of this level of Asian fetishism that
began in that propaganda, Yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
Was continued in these messages from twenty eight That's what I'm.
Speaker 4 (34:24):
Saying, Like, I just like, yeah, it's just like yeah, yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
So Epstein and Larry Summers were also financially entangled, which
is an Epstein classic. Summers traveled on Epstein's private plane,
which was nicknamed the Lolita Express, on at least four occasions,
including at least three times while Summers was the president
of Harvard. Summers also met more than a dozen times
with Epstein and solicited donations from him for his wife,
(34:56):
who was a Harvard English professor, Alisa Knew. The Messa
just released showed that Somers was trying to organize visits
to Harvard on Epstein's behalf to to discuss his wife's
poetry work.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
So just really not smart. I will say.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
That Harvard did put out a report about their connection
to Epstein, and it seems like before Epstein was convicted
in two thousand and eight, he did donate I think
nine million dollars to Harvard, and after he was convicted
did visit campus quite a bit. So it does seem
like the calls were sort of coming from inside the
Ivy League university, if you know what I mean. But
having the president of Harvard associating with somebody who had
(35:34):
already been convicted of sex crimes against miners, it's not
a good look to say the least, it's definitely not
good judgment.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
Now, if only there had been.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Some clue to tip us off that perhaps Larry Summers
was a creep who could not be trusted in positions
of authority around young women and co eds. Oh wait
a minute, because that's exactly what we fink got because
I mentioned that Larry Summers was formerly the president of
Harvard University, not just a professor.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
There, lucky is.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
Now, why was he forced to resign? You ask attitudes
toward women. Where there is smoke, there is fire, My friends,
this should not be surprising to anybody.
Speaker 4 (36:15):
Unfortunately, No, And.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
I guess it's like why I wanted to talk about
this is like we had a whole converse. It was
a national conversation around two thousand and five, two thousand
and six about what kind of person Larry Summers was.
And it's just wild to be like, ohver, that guy's
still in the mix. We're still talking about that guy. Yes,
because these people they're never pushed out when like it's
clear something is going on. The thing that really sunk
(36:41):
Somers's ten year as president of Harvard remarks that he
made in two thousand and five at an economics conference.
So Summers was talking about why there are so few
women in STEM fields, and he wondered if the reason
why there aren't more women in these fields just because
women are just naturally and innately stupid and also bad
at things. Aid out three kind of potential hypotheses for
(37:03):
what's going on. One is that women want more work
life balance than men, so they can't succeed in these
fields as much as men. He was likeain, it's probably
not it. Two gender discrimination, which he basically was like,
h I don't think so. And then the one that
he really kind of double clicked on was the idea
that women are just biologically worse at the traits that
one needs to succeed in STEM, which is basically where
(37:25):
he landed. He argued that the gender gap in STEM
must be biological, specifically differences in intrinsic aptitude, and that
men and women might have different variabilities in certain traits
like math or science ability, meaning that more men would
just naturally occupy more top positions in those fields. He
tried to back this up with like behavioral genetics research,
(37:48):
claiming that some attributes once thought to come from socialization
may actually have you know, biological components.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
I will say he did say.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
When this kind of became a controversy, he was like, oh,
I thought this was meant to be kind of an
off the record safe space for bad opinions about gender.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
So like, my bad.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
I didn't know we were gonna be like telling everybody
about what.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
It was being said here.
Speaker 4 (38:16):
Oh that's another in the long line. We've been talking
a lot lately about and even with you Bridget we've
discussed this before, but about men using those terms like
safe space completely incorrectly. And also it's kind of like,
no wonder women might not want to work with you
(38:36):
who has the power because you treat them as a
dating opportunity, your chance to have sex. Guess what, they
don't want to be involved in that, and you're the
one making these decisions.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
Exactly that, Like, these things are so clearly linked.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
The fact that he got up on a stage and
said this, and the fact that he was creepily pursuing
his men tee and sending her fucking like academic papers
to a convicted pedophile, these things are all linked, right,
And I will just say this, he also picked a
terrible time to say these things, because he said these
things against the backdrop of Harvard facing, according to the Crimson,
(39:13):
widespread faculty criticism following reports that women received only four
of the thirty two ten year offers from the Faculty
of Arts and Sciences that year. Right, so like there
was already like a brew haha about women and whether
or not they were included and represented at Harvard.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
And he gets this. Jack gets on stage and says
these things.
Speaker 5 (39:33):
Right.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
I wish that we could go back to that time
and have a different conversation about it, because I think
we'd be in a different place. Right now, I will
say that Summers apologize and clarify that he does not
believe that women are intellectually inferior. What a nice guy,
definitely a great president at Harvard. But this was also
like not an isolated thing with him. He used to
(39:55):
joke about women's intelligence quite often, apparently, and talked about
what he described as excessive penalties for men who hit
on women in the workplace. Surprise, surprise, he was actively
hitting on his mentee at an academic institution. I was like,
are wething too hard on men who just try to
hit on women at work?
Speaker 2 (40:13):
He would think that.
Speaker 5 (40:15):
He wouldn't me He sounds like the guy who was like,
we can't talk to women at all anymore.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
I can't be like touching them though it's against the rules.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
Now, Like what women, yes, how do you behave that way? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (40:29):
Women these days can't even try to cheat on your
wife with them.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
Or what a good time with them?
Speaker 1 (40:35):
So I should add that when this was going on,
a lot of people in the Harvard community did stick
up for him, but ultimately Harvard's board voted no confidence.
This controversy really lingered until eventually Larry Summers resigned from
his role as president of Harvard the next year.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
But don't worry.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
Two years later, President Obama named Somers as the director
of the National Economic Council.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
Because he always on his feet, This one.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
The like comeback of white men.
Speaker 5 (41:05):
It really is like amazing to say, like we talked
about how women like the bootstrapping theory.
Speaker 3 (41:12):
This this is why that's not.
Speaker 5 (41:14):
A thing, Like bootstrap thing is not a thing because
we see this like men who should be taken down
always bounds back, like they always bound connections no matter
what happens.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
And like some of the stuff that he was saying
to students and around campus, he we know from the
release of these emails that he was also saying the
same stuff to Epstein, which really isn't surprising.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
He retread that same terrain that he got it.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
Years after getting in trouble for this stuff at Harvard,
he continued to say this kind of stuff to Epstein.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
In twenty seventeen, he wrote this old Jim saying.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
That he had a quote observed that half the IQ
in the world was possessed by women, without mentioning that
they are more than.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
Fifty one percent of the population.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
Oh good, one, it's not even a good joke, Like,
if you're gonna there, you shouldn't be making jokes like
this about women.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
But it's not even like, in my opinion, not even
a very good joke.
Speaker 4 (42:05):
No, no, and it's I I mean, all of this
is disgusting and horrific, but it is going back twice
said earlier, very pathetic that you would have to reach
out to a convicted sex predator to get late because
he's very like he has one email that says something like,
(42:29):
I just need to get horizontal help. Yeah, yes, what
is wrong with you?
Speaker 2 (42:35):
Bro?
Speaker 1 (42:36):
You are the president of Harvard show something like act
like it.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
It's something.
Speaker 5 (42:41):
You know.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
A therapist once told me that men in power their
need to have sex with people that they should not
be having sex with.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
It makes them so small.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
And it's so true that like you are the president
of Harvard and you are putting in an email that
you just need to get horizontal bro to Jeffrey Epstein
about your mentee.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
That is a problem that is not like I just yeah, And.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
I think it really speaks to the fact that I'm
sure I've said this before. I don't trust any institution
where there are not women all up and through at.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
The tippy tippy top.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
If it's all men or mostly men left to their
own devices, I don't care if it's an ivy, the university,
the military, the Catholic priesthood.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
The anything in the NFL.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
If you don't got women all up and through at
the tippy top, I don't trust it.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
Something's going on. Some shouldn't put in emails. That shouldn't
be put in any emails.
Speaker 5 (43:29):
What and why does they sell the emails sound like
nineteen ninety five boys, Like it was really like I'm
just the wording, like the faces I have made throughout
this whole episode, Like it's just discussed and shocked because
I'm like.
Speaker 3 (43:41):
Why are you saying? Why are you sounding like my
eighteen year old nephew right now? What is wrong with you?
Speaker 1 (43:47):
Yeah, in the same breath, it'll be like I got
to get horizontal bro.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
Winki face, and then it'll be like, oh, what are
your thoughts on Trump? Don't you think he's a buffoon.
Speaker 1 (43:59):
It's like, I think that might be the buffoon calling
the baffoon a buffoon.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
All one in the saying what is happening?
Speaker 2 (44:06):
It's bad.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
So the fallout from Larry Summers's relationship with Epstein being
made clear, I actually feel like it's been pretty minimal, honestly.
Initially after making that statement, he said that he was
going to be stepping back from public roles, but continue
was going to be continuing teaching at Harvard.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
So he's currently like a faculty member at Harvard. There
was a video. Maybe I'll put the audio in if
I can find it. There's a video of.
Speaker 1 (44:45):
Him starting his class a couple of days ago, basically
with an apology to students, being like, Oh, I'm sorry
that I was friends with Epstein. With your permission, I'd
like to just like continue talking about Economics and class now.
So so after he announced that he was going to
be not stepping back from teaching, he eventually did reverse
(45:06):
course and said that he was going to be stepping
back for the moment. He does have ten years, so
it's not like he was fired and who knows what
will happen, you know next, but Ta's are going to
finish off the rest of his class with a semester.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
He also resigned from the board of open Ai.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
The company that makes chat GPT, and Harvard is launching
an investigation into his connections with Epstein, which, yeah, I'll
say they should. Elizabeth Warren, who is a law professor
at Harvard, has urged the university to cut ties with him.
And I guess the reason that I wanted to talk
about this is because, you know, when I was doing research,
(45:41):
one of the big pieces that I read to prepare
for this conversation was his piece in The Times about
whether or not Summers could mount a comeback since he's
bounced back so many.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
Times in the past.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
Now, this piece in the Time has published the day
that Summers announced that he was going to be temporarily
stepping back from his classes, and I just hated that
the conversation was being framed just a few hours after
he announced he was just stepping down temporarily as like, well,
Kenna's career be saved. He's seventy years old. I don't
(46:12):
think that him being relieved from being in a position
to be around young you know, co eds and students
and to have this relationship where he is inherently of
an authority figure to people like that.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
I don't think that's like ruining his life, you know
what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (46:29):
Like the fact that it was even phrased that way
really bothered me. And Alejandro Carbalo, who is a clinical
instructor at Harvard Law Cyberclinic, commented online quote, it is
not normal for a professor to start a class discussing
how they regret being best buddies with a child sex trafficker.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
And honestly, I have to agree, right like, we cannot.
Speaker 1 (46:55):
This is not an apologize and move on and continue
with the economics lesson kind of thing. This is a
pretty big deal that when we should be treating it
like it's a pretty big deal.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
And I think especially.
Speaker 1 (47:08):
Someone like Larry Summers, who at the very least has
over and over again proven himself to have pretty bad
judgment when it comes to women. Having this person have
roles where he is so involved in hands on about
shaping what the future of technology looks like through things
like a board position at open AI. I just think
(47:28):
that we really have to think about what that means
and whether or not men like this are who we
want shaping the future of how technology shows up in
all of our lives, right, Like, I certainly do not
trust somebody like Larry Summers to be making decisions about
what our shared future is going to look Like.
Speaker 5 (47:47):
I'm honestly so disturbed by the mere fact that people
are ignoring the by the heat for once, Like I'm
sure there's so many other instances of like sexual harassment,
Like she actually said, I don't want to do this?
Can we keep the professional? And her life is probably
being up ended, Like I cannot imagine, was she like
the trauma and the shock she's going through seeing these
(48:08):
emails of not only that having the name of Epstein,
like if she didn't know him, she hadn't met, and
knowing all the things about him, and she like, oh,
I literally was being trafficked. I groom trafficked kind of
in a way with this dude who traffics and grooms
women and like as his profession, Like that's what he
was doing. And this man who I trusted, was getting
(48:33):
like territorial slash predatorial advice for me when all I'm
trying to do is survive and get an education and
move on in this life.
Speaker 3 (48:40):
Like there's so much to this.
Speaker 1 (48:42):
Yeah, and it's not like she asked to be involved
in this, And I should say, and in case it's
not clear, we don't even know that she had any
concept of the fact that this was going on, that
her mentor at Harvard was forwarding her perfectly reasonable emails
and papers and work to Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 2 (49:04):
It is it just is.
Speaker 1 (49:05):
Really we should be treating it as a shocking and
unacceptable thing because it is. And I guess where I
land is that we really cannot keep acting shocked when
powerful institutions protect powerful.
Speaker 2 (49:18):
Men who have these like long.
Speaker 1 (49:21):
And well documented histories of bad judgment, sexist thinking, and
frankly ethically grotesquees associations. Right, It's not like Summer's just
had one bad quote. He had an entire legacy of
things like minimizing discrimination, joking about women, in the workplace,
letting Epstein fund his wife's projects, and treating young women
(49:42):
like his mentee like a conquest that he could gain
theory his way into getting horizontal with and then describing
it in the crudest ways impossible. Right and Harvard, the
US government, tech companies, the media all kept continuing.
Speaker 2 (49:57):
To give him power. The New York Times writing an.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
Article the day that it becomes clear that he's going
to step back temporarily temporarily in teaching, asking about the
state of his career and whether or not he can
come back and bounce it back from this is exactly
what I mean.
Speaker 4 (50:14):
Yeah, And that's like one of the memes that I've
seen going around is like something that finally brings all
men of any religion, of any together, is that they
will use young girls this way. And one of the
things that really frustrates me about this conversation is that, like,
even going back to the Bill Clinton thing, who do
we immediately are like, we got to protect Bill Clinton?
Speaker 3 (50:36):
Who are we like, oh, we got.
Speaker 4 (50:37):
To protect Larry Summers. No, we're not talking about the
people who were hurt by this. You just want to
know that this guy's career is safe. And he's fine,
he's doing fine.
Speaker 2 (50:50):
He is seventy years old. I don't want to sound ageist.
Speaker 1 (50:54):
I just feel like at seventy years old, if you're
this kind of person, maybe we don't need you. Like
what I mean, don't say like maybe you living a
private life with your wife who now knows all about
the emails you were sending about your mentee.
Speaker 2 (51:07):
Maybe that is fine.
Speaker 1 (51:09):
Maybe we don't when you talk about that, like it's
the biggest tragedy that somebody like Larry Summers doesn't get
to have this role of authority and this role of
influential power both over you know, Carverarde students, but also
over all of us, right, because if you're sitting on
the board at open AI, you do have some power
over us. You have you you're making decisions, and you're
(51:30):
you're putting out technology that is going to go on
to shape.
Speaker 2 (51:32):
All of our lives.
Speaker 1 (51:33):
And I completely agree with you, Annie, I just really
it bothers me that when the conversation is framed about
what's going to happen to poor Larry Summers, He's gonna
be fine. He's gonna be completely fine.
Speaker 3 (51:44):
Literally the system was built for him, like for him
to be fine.
Speaker 5 (51:47):
The fact that he can really be like, ah, my bad, bro,
we cool, like that literally was his apology, like yeah,
my bad, not even like conversation about the fact that, yes,
he was using his authority and power to go after women.
That he's like this is this is definitely normal for me,
as a professor and president of a school to try
to be like intimidate women into sleeping with me. And
(52:09):
then you know, there's so many other things, but like
the fact that he can come back and be like,
my bad. But you know, we're moving on, right, let
me talk about economics and seems like okay, that sounds
about right. This is nothing to do that doesn't affect
you as a person, so it's fine as a teacher.
Speaker 1 (52:27):
And so when these rules, when people decide that because
they are powerful or influential, these rules don't apply to them,
I think it's really a problem when you get to say, oh,
well I did this, but I too, just go on
and continue my lesson for today, No, you don't write.
And I think that they're saying that for a long
time the rules did not apply to powerful people. And
(52:48):
the question is whether or not we want to live
in a world where that is the case.
Speaker 2 (52:52):
Right, Do we want to live in a world where.
Speaker 1 (52:54):
Someone like this gets to do things like this and
just go on to finish their economics lesson for the day?
Speaker 2 (53:00):
I say no.
Speaker 1 (53:02):
And so I think, as we watch what comes out
of this Department of Justice release with the Epstein files,
I hope we can like resist this idea of using
it to talk about like whether or not someone's career
is going to be impacted or all of that. I
think truly this will likely touch every corner of power, academia, politics, entertainment, tech, finance,
(53:25):
and we should be talking about accountability, right.
Speaker 2 (53:28):
We should be talking about.
Speaker 1 (53:30):
Like centering the people who were harmed, regardless of the
resumes and power and influence of the people who were
doing the harming.
Speaker 2 (53:38):
I think that is the bare minimum.
Speaker 1 (53:40):
And ultimately, I don't think the people shaping the future
should be taking advice from a convicted child sex predator
on how to pursue women at their age. I think
that is a totally reasonable standard to set.
Speaker 2 (53:54):
And I will die on this hill. I don't know that.
I don't care if it makes me sound like an extremist.
I will die in the hill.
Speaker 5 (54:00):
Oh, I mean, I think a lot of pod bros
are going to be mad at you about that.
Speaker 2 (54:06):
Come at me bros.
Speaker 4 (54:10):
Them in their Pizzagate and now they're like, this is
no information though I know.
Speaker 1 (54:15):
It's if you go back and look at like QAnon
and pizzagate, it's like you have emails that Hillary Clinton
wrote to Podesta that are like, oh, should we get
some pizza later? And people are like, but if you
replaced pizza with children, think about it then.
Speaker 2 (54:31):
And then you have Epstein putting like up for sex
crimes later and it's like, well, no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 3 (54:36):
We don't know what that means, does not what that means.
Speaker 2 (54:40):
That's out of context exactly.
Speaker 1 (54:45):
Uh yeah, So if the Department of Justice releases these files,
I'm sure we're going to have a lot more to discuss.
Speaker 2 (54:53):
But that's where we're at for right now.
Speaker 5 (54:55):
Who yeh, Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton are on that list.
Yeah they should also be locked up.
Speaker 3 (55:00):
Let's go ahead.
Speaker 1 (55:01):
But yeah, if anybody who is shown to have committed
a crime should be locked up. That's the thing is like,
I don't want abusers on my team, and I don't
think that I think I think that we're being sold
this idea of tribalism.
Speaker 2 (55:16):
Of like, oh, are you going to care if it's.
Speaker 1 (55:19):
Your favorite entertainer or your favorite you know, celebrity who
gets taken down?
Speaker 2 (55:26):
No, because I don't want that.
Speaker 1 (55:27):
I don't want a person who is a criminal walking free,
even if it's somebody who I happen to be politically
aligned with or like enjoy their work.
Speaker 5 (55:35):
I mean, I haven't stopped watching many of shows because
many of the celebrities have disappointed me, have shown their
true color. So putting on my bane list, let's go.
Speaker 4 (55:43):
Yes, Yes, well we shall see, we shall see what happens,
and I'm sure we will come back and discuss this more.
And yeah, thank you so much, Bridget for breaking down
such an intense topic for us.
Speaker 2 (56:01):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (56:03):
Uh yeah, you all, even though it's horrifying, you all
made it.
Speaker 2 (56:07):
A little less.
Speaker 4 (56:08):
So yes, and now we might watch the Social Network
together and be kind of horrified about so realities.
Speaker 2 (56:17):
But I'm excited they're making a sequel. They're making a sequel.
Speaker 1 (56:21):
Jeremy Strong is gonna play Zuckerberg like like a later.
Speaker 2 (56:25):
Version of Zuckerberg in the sequel. I know this sounds
look it up. I read it. I read it in
Deadline look it up.
Speaker 5 (56:33):
Are they gonna have the moments where he and Elon
Musk might fight?
Speaker 2 (56:37):
Oh? I was just talking about that on a podcast.
It I mean, say what you will about Mark Suckerberg.
Speaker 1 (56:44):
Zuckerberg would drop Elon Musk like a sack of potato.
Speaker 2 (56:47):
Say what you will? You know, I hate Zuckerberg.
Speaker 1 (56:49):
I hate them both, absolutely, going Zuckerberg on this one.
Speaker 4 (56:53):
I hope they have the scene when he's on the
wakeboard and he's.
Speaker 3 (56:56):
Just hal translation.
Speaker 2 (56:58):
I really want.
Speaker 4 (56:59):
That to be in the and like sad, like adult
midlife crisis music playing. Yeah, that's what I want.
Speaker 1 (57:06):
My partner's mom when we showed her that picture, she
just said, what a dweb?
Speaker 2 (57:11):
And I'll never forget it.
Speaker 1 (57:12):
Because I don't think I've ever heard somebody call someone
else on dweb.
Speaker 2 (57:18):
Yeah, it's like, Yesweb, but.
Speaker 4 (57:20):
You are correct, you are good?
Speaker 1 (57:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (57:23):
Yeah, yeah, florks. Well something to look forward to. Question
in the meantime, Bridget where can the good listeners find you?
Speaker 1 (57:32):
You can listen to my podcast there are no girls
on the Internet. You can follow me on Instagram at
bridget Ryan DC, on TikTok at bridget Ryan DC, and
on YouTube at there are no girls on the Internet.
Speaker 4 (57:43):
And definitely go check that out. If you haven't already listeners.
If you would like to email us, you can. Our
email is Hello at Stuffmannever Told You dot com. We're
on Blue Sky at mom Stuff podcast and on Instagram
TikTok at stuff I Never Told You for us on YouTube,
we have a book you can get wherever you can
get your books, and we have new kurgaince of com Hero.
Thanks as always to our superroducer Christine or executive ducer
(58:03):
my in contributor Joey.
Speaker 3 (58:04):
Thank you and thanks to you for listening.
Speaker 4 (58:06):
Stuff Never Told You hisspruction by heart Radio. For more
podcasts from my heart Radio, you can check out the
heart Radio app podcast where if you listen to your
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