November 19, 2025 • 20 mins
BEST OF - Congress has voted to force the Department of Justice to release the Epstein files, a major step toward public transparency. We also break down the Florida House’s plan to redraw congressional maps, and hear why White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt says the public deserves answers about would-be Trump assassin Thomas Crooks. National Correspondent Rory O’Neill joins us with the latest on the Epstein file release.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yesterday, in a near unanimous vote, the House passed a
measure to force the Department of Justice to release the
Epstein files. The yeas are four hundred and twenty seven,
the nays are won two thirds being in the affirmative.
The rules are suspended, the.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Bill is passed and without objection, and the motion to
reconsider is laid.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
On the table.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Then, in a bit of a surprising move, the Senate
passed the measure through unanimous consent, which means the bill
automatically passed without a vote. It's not surprising the Senate
passed it, just how quickly it happened. And I think
because this thing was like a hot potato, they didn't
want to touch it. So what happens now? The bill
goes to President Trump, who says he'll sign it, even
though no, he hasn't used his authority to just release
(00:46):
the files on his own. I mean, he could have
done that without these votes taking place. This is what
the bill does. It orders the release of unclassified records
tied to Epstein, Galaine Maxwell, any referenced go Min officials,
financial networks, and Epstein's death. And what makes this measure
notable is that the Department of Justice can't block material
(01:09):
just because it might embarrass public figures or cause some
kind of political blowback. But the DOJ can redact anything
tied to active investigations, classified information, victims, identities, medical records,
or graphic materials. And the big question is because Trump
basically ordered Attorney General Pambondi to open an investigation into
(01:34):
Bill Clinton and Larry Summers and a few others, and
she agreed to do it even though she said there
was nothing to predicate opening new investigations just a few
months ago. Could that be used to prevent at least
some of the files from being released. And another important
thing to note the Department of Justice they do have
(01:55):
to list what they release, what they withhold, and explain
every redaction to Congress, so it gives you an overview
of kind of where we're at. This must be like
whiplash to you, Dana, because when you were here last week,
you had the White House pressuring Lauren Bobert and Nancy
Mays not to go forward with that discharge petition to
(02:17):
prevent the release of all of these documents, and then
within the span of a couple of days, Trump just
completely did a one eighty and tool, Republicans gout and vote.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
For it and I'll sign it.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Right.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
Well, I think he kind of had to, there's so
much pressure on him he could not keep pushing back
on it. But I do wonder if what you just
said about them opening these investigations, if that's going to
allow them, well open investigation, can't release it, and how
much are they gonna hold.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
On to That's what I brought up the other day.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
I said, look that truth social post pushing for the
opening of an investigation, which of course Pam Bondy ended
up doing kind of a red flag to me. And
also just the fact that we went through this whole
rigmarole over the past twenty four hours, when honestly, and
I've said this time and time again, President could have
(03:08):
just saved us all the time and trouble and just
ordered her, like he ordered her to open investigations into
people like Biklin, he could have disordered her to release
the documents. And that didn't happen. Why So we'll see
where this goes from here. But look, with a near
unanimous vote in the House and then the Senate just
(03:31):
passing it through unanimous consents, there's gonna be a lot
of pressure on the president to release everything here.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
Right, Yeah, it should be interesting to see what he
ends up holding on to and who it looks like
he's trying to protect and.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
All this, and especially because you know, he said time
and time again like I had nothing.
Speaker 5 (03:48):
To do with Epstein, Democrat hope.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Right right, and that there's nothing in there that's going
to implicate him in anything, So there would be no reason.
Plus if he thinks that it would implicate people like
Bill Clinton or Larry Summers, then that would give you
even more reason to want to get everything out there
in the open. So I said, I just want the
whole thing to be done, right, I just want the
(04:13):
chips to fall where they may. I want to see
who knew what and when, because clearly I think all
of these people. And Trump made some interesting comments yesterday.
Hang on, let me pull them up real quick. He
made some interesting comments about Jeffrey Epstein. This is what
he said. Listen to this.
Speaker 6 (04:32):
As far as the Epstein files is, I have nothing
to do with Jeffrey Epstein. I threw him out of
my club many years ago because I thought he was
a sick pervert.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
So he had originally said that he threw him out
of the club because he was stealing employees. Now he's
saying he threw him out of the club because he
was a sick pervert, which would indicate that he knew
what Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Was up to.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Absolutely, but at the time, which isn't surprising, but it's
notable that he's kind of saying that now.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
But was he meaning that he was stealing employees, that
he was stealing them to do creepy stuff with them,
like he was recruiting them for massages.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Yeah, well, I mean, obviously it sounds like, you know,
Trump knew what Epstein was up to, So I thought
that was that was the first time he had said
something like that, so it caught my attention yesterday.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
We're gonna have a bit more on this throughout the work.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
We're not gonna do the whole show on this, I
promise you that, but we will have a little bit
more and we'll go to Capitol Hill and get the
latest from senior reporter for the Hill, Mike Lillis. Let's
bring in our national correspondent, Rory O'Neill, who supports brought
to you by Mark Spain Real estates or Rory we
previewed the House votes on forcing the Department of Justice
(05:39):
to release the Epstein files yesterday. No surprise is there
a nearly unanimous vote. Well, was a bit of a
surprise was how quickly the Senate handled it through unanimous consent.
Didn't even have a vote, just basically Senate right to Trump,
he's going to get it today and then it'll be
up to him to sign it. But yeah, the Senate,
(06:01):
they don't want to touch that thing. They're like, let's
just put downe with it.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
It's interesting though, too, because Speaker Johnson said he had
speaken to Leader Thune in the Senate and said there
were five different areas where they wanted amendments to this
piece of legislation and this discharge petition, and Speaker Johnson
said there were no guarantees to protect the identity of
sexual abuse victims or you know, eliminate some of the
details about the child sex exploitation stuff that was going on.
(06:28):
So Speaker Johnson wanted a significant number of amendments to
the petition that as it's written in the House, under
their rules, you can't amend a discharge petition. So it
would have been going to the Senate for them to edit,
shall we say, and nope. Leader Thune was just like, no,
we're just gonna sort of just pass on this and
not get in the way.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Yeah, because I don't think many people agreed with Johnson's
take on the measure. There's a lot of that stuff
that he was saying wasn't in the bill the way
I read it. It was in there, so yeah, oh yeah, yeah,
protecting the victims is in there.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Now.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
The big issue with this with releasing these files is
that if it were to happen, you're going to have
a lot of people who weren't charged with anything who
are going to be connected to Epstein, and that is
typically not done by the Department of Justice. You don't
release information about people who have not been indicted or
(07:30):
charged with the crime. But they're making an exception here
because there's just such I think curiosity on the part
of the public, and this has been going on for
so long, it involves so many powerful people that that
they just would rather have the transparency and kind of
break that protocol at the Department of Justice than continue
(07:53):
how they would normally do things.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Do you think it's transparency or a flood the zone approach.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Look, I don't I'm ready for this whole thing to
be done. I gotta be honest with you. I'm over it.
I want to know, you know, who was associated with Epstein,
who was potentially doing things they shouldn't have been doing.
I just want the chips to fall wherever they may.
I don't really care who gets implicated who doesn't, yep.
(08:21):
But I want it all out there already, and then
I want to move on to something else because I'm
just done talking about Epstein and this whole scandal and
cover up and conspiracy and just over it. I have
to say a couple of things. President Trump made a
comment yesterday that stood out to me, and this was
during a back and forth in the Oval office.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Let me play it real quick.
Speaker 6 (08:44):
As far as the Epstein files is, I have nothing
to do with Jeffrey Epstein. I threw him out of
my club many years ago because I thought he was
a sick pervert.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Now why that stood out to me is because President
Trump had set up to this point that he threw
Jeffrey Epstein out of the club because he was poaching employees.
Now there he said he threw him out because he
was a sick pervert. Now, look, I believe that Trump
knew what Epstein was up to the whole time, just
like Clinton, just like Bill Gates, just like Clarry except
they all freaking knew well.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
And in those Epstein emails that we just saw last.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Week seem to allude to that past alludes to that.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Yeah, right, but but him making that comment kind of
confirms that. And I just think that that was an
interesting note that came out yesterday.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Well didn't he say it was the sick pervert stuff? First?
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Then he said it was poaching employees, and now we're
back to sick purpose So it really has run back
and forth. And yeah, it'll be interesting, interesting to see though,
what the timeline is here, what documents are withheld? You know,
the Justice Department can doesn't have to release every every everything.
And of course, now that we're launching this new investigation
into the Democrats that they started on Friday and their
(09:53):
ties to Epstein, you know, does the DOJ have an
excuse to say, well, we can't release this because it's
part of an ongoing investigator.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
That's what I'm watching, although I don't think that excuse
is gonna fly. You also have former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers.
He's resigning from open AI's board. This comes after he
announced this week he'd be stepping back from public commitments.
And he's ashamed of his actions, his connections to Jeffrey Epstein, now.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
That the emails came out, right, yeah, of course, and
now that I've been.
Speaker 5 (10:25):
Caught, yeah, well, and if he knows, there could be
more coming.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
To right exactly. And then you've got this woman, Stacey Plasket.
She is a Delegate to the House from the US
Virgin Islands and it came out in the document dump
last week that she exchanged texts with Jeffrey Epstein during
a twenty nineteen hearing featuring then Trump fixer Michael Cohen.
(10:51):
And in those texts, Epstein floated suggested questions, including one
that she later asked and keep in mind time, Yeah,
in real time, she's texting.
Speaker 5 (11:02):
With Jeffrey Epstein Epstein during this yearing.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Eleven years after his two thousand and eight guilty play,
and after there was a ton of reporting on all
the dark, sick, twisted stuff that he was up to.
And then you've got Democrat Jamie Raskin yesterday defending her, saying, oh,
she simply took a call from one of her constituents
because his like home origin is in the Virgin Islands Epstein,
(11:30):
I mean, what the hell is going on.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
It's it's amazing, it's unbelievable how they're making excuses for
him to be communicating with him that way. And I
think they also said that it wasn't known publicly at
that time that he was under investigation for like the
more recent one, but he already knew the convicted before.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Plus you've got the House Oversight emails showing that Steve
Bannon was in more contact with Jeffrey Epstein than we thought.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
He's got those his reputation.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Yeah, you're trying to help Jeffrey Epstein rehab his reputation.
And we still haven't seen those fifteen hours that he
spent with Jeffrey Epstein that's on video. So again, like
a lot of people trying to make this a Republican
Democrat thing, I mean, Epstein was tied to every both sides.
It just mattered if you were in a powerful position
or if you add money or or access or something
(12:21):
like that.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Yeah, we heard that from Congressman Massy yesterday saying this
is above the political divine when you're a billionaire class,
this is about on a whole different level. And I
think we need to be doing shout outs, by the way,
to Julie Brown the Miami Herald.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
Oh, I mean every time we in so store needs
to be credited and praised and celebrated for one hundred percent.
She does fantastic work.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
And she's been fact checking left and right on X
lately because there's so much misinformation out there. Yeah, she
just swats it down. It's awesome to watch her on
ex she does definitely follow her. Rory, we ran out
of time before we can get to all the economic stuff.
We're gonna have to do that tomorrow. I still love you, okay,
So that's our national chorus on it. Rory O'Neil with
us and speaking to Julie K.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Brown.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
You know, I got a message here from a listener, John,
and John, you got to lay off the coffee in
the morning. I mean it's like one message after another,
like you know, in depth messages. We appreciate you listening,
but dude, you know, take a breath, So he said Biden,
he had the same opportunity to release all of this
information when he was in office, and Julie Brown for
(13:25):
the Miami Herald, she has been pushing back on that,
explaining that there actually was an investigation underway, like these
Department of Justice files. There was an active investigation underway
and a case against Gilain Maxwell that was playing out,
So you couldn't release this stuff. Now, the Epstein estate
stuff that was subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee that
(13:46):
we just got all those documents last week, there could
have been stuff done there. So there are things that
could have been done, but these particular files couldn't be
released then because you did have a legitimate investigation that
was on going and charges being filed in a case
playing out against Gallaine Maxwell. So I just wanted to
note that. And then there was another message I got
(14:09):
about how come the women, the victims, how come they're
not releasing the names? Well, because they're powerful people.
Speaker 5 (14:16):
Yes, yeah, because they're afraid to.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
I mean exactly. You see what happens.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
You see what happened even to Marjorie Taylor Green when
she spoke up how much attack she's under.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Yeah, that's why Florida House leaders quietly scheduled the first
meeting of the Congressional Redistricting Select Committee for December fourth.
The move comes a week after House Speaker Daniel Perez
said redistricting hasn't been a conversation, even as Governor Ron
De Santis publicly signaled the opposite and told people to
(14:46):
stay tuned now. Perez created the redistricting committee earlier this year,
but hasn't said what changes he wants or how far
the House will go. The White House has been pushing
Republican led states to re draw maps to maximize Republican
seats before the midterms, and President Trump is publicly pressured
lawmakers multiple states, blasting Indiana Republicans last week for refusing
(15:11):
to reconvene on redistricting. Florida's current congressional map, which was
drawn by Governor Desantus' office and upheld by the state
Supreme Court, gives Republicans a twenty to eight advantage in
the state. Now why this matters is because a federal
judge blocked Texas's newly redrawn congressional map, ruling their solid
(15:35):
evidence that it was racially jerrymanner. Jeffrey Brown, a Trump appointee,
wrote that the legislature acted based on race and even
rejected Texas's claim that undoing the map would cause chaos.
He said any disruption with the state's own fault for
trying to overhaul district lines so close to the election cycle,
(15:55):
and he ordered the state to revert to its twenty
twenty one map for the upcoming midterm elections. Now that
case is going to go to the Supreme Court next
so the battle isn't over yet. If the ruling is upheld,
Democrats could hold on to the five seats in Texas
(16:16):
and end up gaining.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Around three seats overall.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Now there are still questions about, again, what will Florida do,
And I would anticipate Trump putting a lot of pressure
on politicians here in Florida to do a mid term
a pre mid term redistricting. Plus you've got Louisiana and Virginia,
they remain wild cards. If the Supreme Court overturns that ruling,
(16:41):
right now, Republicans will have maybe picked up a seat overall.
So I said at the beginning of this whole redistricting effort,
this wasn't going to become that big of a deal
when it was all said and done, because you know,
once Texas moved forward, then California was going to move
forward and you know, another red state was going to
do something that a blue state was going to try
to do something, and it would like cancel itself out.
(17:04):
That's essentially what's happened, except if this Texas decision again
is upheld, then it could just completely backfire on Trump
and Republicans and Democrats could end up in a situation
where they've.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
Got three more seats than they had at the start
of this.
Speaker 5 (17:22):
Oh yeah, yeah, it doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
A lot of time and energy for asting.
Speaker 5 (17:26):
What does that mean with all of this?
Speaker 4 (17:27):
Did they did the Democrats get more seats in California
now because of that?
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Oh yeah yeah, I think I think about four to
five more seats in California can be. There's a lawsuit
in California about all of that. I don't necessarily think
it's going to go anywhere. Uh. There was also something
initially in the California legislation that that said if something
like went wrong with Texas, if they didn't end up
(17:53):
you know, being able to uh to make that shift
and have Republicans gain a couple of seats, and then
automatically California wouldn't do what they're trying to do, but
that language was taken out of the final measure, so
California is moving forward again.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
I think this whole thing was a.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Lot of wasted time and energy, and I don't think
it's gonna have much of an impact on the midterms
one way or another. White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt
says Americans deserve straight answers about what drove Thomas Crooks
to try to assassinate Donald Trump in twenty twenty four.
Her comments follow a new report from The New York
Post showing Crooks left a long trail of online posts
(18:34):
embracing political violence, material the FBI hadn't previously disclosed. Levitt
says the President also wants those answers and has asked
for updated briefings from the Secret Service and FBI. The
post tied to Crooks include calls for terrorism style attacks,
political assassinations, and swings from pro Trump rage to anti
(18:57):
Trump hostility. Investigators and I believe he operated at least
seventeen online accounts, and apparently he conducted a lot of searches.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
I mentioned this yesterday.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
For muscle Mommy content and videos of muscular women. Wow,
it was one of the interesting Yeah, one of the
odder anecdotes to come out of these new reports. I
didn't even know muscle mommy content was a thing.
Speaker 5 (19:24):
You need to keep going across it.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
If you look it up, it's a thing, and it's well, well,
I have to know what he was searching. The FBI,
they insisted crooks had almost no online footprint, which doesn't
appear to be the case. And the question I asked
yesterday and I'll ask it again now, especially in light
of the White House Press Secretary saying that Americans deserve
(19:46):
straight answers, Well, why are we learning about this from
the New York Post and not the FBI or the
Secret Service? What is going on? And why isn't the
President demanding that they be straight with him first of
all and.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
Then also with us.
Speaker 5 (20:00):
Yeah, he's the one who was shot at.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
And this follows that story I did a couple of
weeks ago, that soldier who blew up a cyber truck
outside of Trump's hotel in Vegas. The Department of War
made information on that case classified.
Speaker 4 (20:15):
Yes, so I'll never find out what was going on.
Speaker 5 (20:17):
With him either.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
What is going on with the lack of transparency here?
So I just I thought it was really alarming The
New York Post. There's all this new information and we
got a completely different story from the FBI and the
Secret Service.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
It's time for them to answer some questions about this
Yesterday, in a near unanimous vote, the House passed a
measure to force the Department of Justice to release the
Epstein files. The yeas are four hundred and twenty seven,
the nays are won two thirds being in the affirmative.
The rules are suspended, the.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Bill is passed and without objection, and the motion to
reconsider is laid.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
On the table.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Then, in a bit of a surprising move, the Senate
passed the measure through unanimous consent, which means the bill
automatically passed without a vote. It's not surprising the Senate
passed it, just how quickly it happened. And I think
because this thing was like a hot potato, they didn't
want to touch it. So what happens now? The bill
goes to President Trump, who says he'll sign it, even
though no, he hasn't used his authority to just release
(00:46):
the files on his own. I mean, he could have
done that without these votes taking place. This is what
the bill does. It orders the release of unclassified records
tied to Epstein, Galaine Maxwell, any referenced go Min officials,
financial networks, and Epstein's death. And what makes this measure
notable is that the Department of Justice can't block material
(01:09):
just because it might embarrass public figures or cause some
kind of political blowback. But the DOJ can redact anything
tied to active investigations, classified information, victims, identities, medical records,
or graphic materials. And the big question is because Trump
basically ordered Attorney General Pambondi to open an investigation into
(01:34):
Bill Clinton and Larry Summers and a few others, and
she agreed to do it even though she said there
was nothing to predicate opening new investigations just a few
months ago. Could that be used to prevent at least
some of the files from being released. And another important
thing to note the Department of Justice they do have
(01:55):
to list what they release, what they withhold, and explain
every redaction to Congress, so it gives you an overview
of kind of where we're at. This must be like
whiplash to you, Dana, because when you were here last week,
you had the White House pressuring Lauren Bobert and Nancy
Mays not to go forward with that discharge petition to
(02:17):
prevent the release of all of these documents, and then
within the span of a couple of days, Trump just
completely did a one eighty and tool, Republicans gout and vote.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
For it and I'll sign it.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Right.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
Well, I think he kind of had to, there's so
much pressure on him he could not keep pushing back
on it. But I do wonder if what you just
said about them opening these investigations, if that's going to
allow them, well open investigation, can't release it, and how
much are they gonna hold.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
On to That's what I brought up the other day.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
I said, look that truth social post pushing for the
opening of an investigation, which of course Pam Bondy ended
up doing kind of a red flag to me. And
also just the fact that we went through this whole
rigmarole over the past twenty four hours, when honestly, and
I've said this time and time again, President could have
(03:08):
just saved us all the time and trouble and just
ordered her, like he ordered her to open investigations into
people like Biklin, he could have disordered her to release
the documents. And that didn't happen. Why So we'll see
where this goes from here. But look, with a near
unanimous vote in the House and then the Senate just
(03:31):
passing it through unanimous consents, there's gonna be a lot
of pressure on the president to release everything here.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
Right, Yeah, it should be interesting to see what he
ends up holding on to and who it looks like
he's trying to protect and.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
All this, and especially because you know, he said time
and time again like I had nothing.
Speaker 5 (03:48):
To do with Epstein, Democrat hope.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Right right, and that there's nothing in there that's going
to implicate him in anything, So there would be no reason.
Plus if he thinks that it would implicate people like
Bill Clinton or Larry Summers, then that would give you
even more reason to want to get everything out there
in the open. So I said, I just want the
whole thing to be done, right, I just want the
(04:13):
chips to fall where they may. I want to see
who knew what and when, because clearly I think all
of these people. And Trump made some interesting comments yesterday.
Hang on, let me pull them up real quick. He
made some interesting comments about Jeffrey Epstein. This is what
he said. Listen to this.
Speaker 6 (04:32):
As far as the Epstein files is, I have nothing
to do with Jeffrey Epstein. I threw him out of
my club many years ago because I thought he was
a sick pervert.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
So he had originally said that he threw him out
of the club because he was stealing employees. Now he's
saying he threw him out of the club because he
was a sick pervert, which would indicate that he knew
what Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Was up to.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Absolutely, but at the time, which isn't surprising, but it's
notable that he's kind of saying that now.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
But was he meaning that he was stealing employees, that
he was stealing them to do creepy stuff with them,
like he was recruiting them for massages.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Yeah, well, I mean, obviously it sounds like, you know,
Trump knew what Epstein was up to, So I thought
that was that was the first time he had said
something like that, so it caught my attention yesterday.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
We're gonna have a bit more on this throughout the work.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
We're not gonna do the whole show on this, I
promise you that, but we will have a little bit
more and we'll go to Capitol Hill and get the
latest from senior reporter for the Hill, Mike Lillis. Let's
bring in our national correspondent, Rory O'Neill, who supports brought
to you by Mark Spain Real estates or Rory we
previewed the House votes on forcing the Department of Justice
(05:39):
to release the Epstein files yesterday. No surprise is there
a nearly unanimous vote. Well, was a bit of a
surprise was how quickly the Senate handled it through unanimous consent.
Didn't even have a vote, just basically Senate right to Trump,
he's going to get it today and then it'll be
up to him to sign it. But yeah, the Senate,
(06:01):
they don't want to touch that thing. They're like, let's
just put downe with it.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
It's interesting though, too, because Speaker Johnson said he had
speaken to Leader Thune in the Senate and said there
were five different areas where they wanted amendments to this
piece of legislation and this discharge petition, and Speaker Johnson
said there were no guarantees to protect the identity of
sexual abuse victims or you know, eliminate some of the
details about the child sex exploitation stuff that was going on.
(06:28):
So Speaker Johnson wanted a significant number of amendments to
the petition that as it's written in the House, under
their rules, you can't amend a discharge petition. So it
would have been going to the Senate for them to edit,
shall we say, and nope. Leader Thune was just like, no,
we're just gonna sort of just pass on this and
not get in the way.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Yeah, because I don't think many people agreed with Johnson's
take on the measure. There's a lot of that stuff
that he was saying wasn't in the bill the way
I read it. It was in there, so yeah, oh yeah, yeah,
protecting the victims is in there.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Now.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
The big issue with this with releasing these files is
that if it were to happen, you're going to have
a lot of people who weren't charged with anything who
are going to be connected to Epstein, and that is
typically not done by the Department of Justice. You don't
release information about people who have not been indicted or
(07:30):
charged with the crime. But they're making an exception here
because there's just such I think curiosity on the part
of the public, and this has been going on for
so long, it involves so many powerful people that that
they just would rather have the transparency and kind of
break that protocol at the Department of Justice than continue
(07:53):
how they would normally do things.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Do you think it's transparency or a flood the zone approach.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Look, I don't I'm ready for this whole thing to
be done. I gotta be honest with you. I'm over it.
I want to know, you know, who was associated with Epstein,
who was potentially doing things they shouldn't have been doing.
I just want the chips to fall wherever they may.
I don't really care who gets implicated who doesn't, yep.
(08:21):
But I want it all out there already, and then
I want to move on to something else because I'm
just done talking about Epstein and this whole scandal and
cover up and conspiracy and just over it. I have
to say a couple of things. President Trump made a
comment yesterday that stood out to me, and this was
during a back and forth in the Oval office.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Let me play it real quick.
Speaker 6 (08:44):
As far as the Epstein files is, I have nothing
to do with Jeffrey Epstein. I threw him out of
my club many years ago because I thought he was
a sick pervert.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Now why that stood out to me is because President
Trump had set up to this point that he threw
Jeffrey Epstein out of the club because he was poaching employees.
Now there he said he threw him out because he
was a sick pervert. Now, look, I believe that Trump
knew what Epstein was up to the whole time, just
like Clinton, just like Bill Gates, just like Clarry except
they all freaking knew well.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
And in those Epstein emails that we just saw last.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Week seem to allude to that past alludes to that.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Yeah, right, but but him making that comment kind of
confirms that. And I just think that that was an
interesting note that came out yesterday.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Well didn't he say it was the sick pervert stuff? First?
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Then he said it was poaching employees, and now we're
back to sick purpose So it really has run back
and forth. And yeah, it'll be interesting, interesting to see though,
what the timeline is here, what documents are withheld? You know,
the Justice Department can doesn't have to release every every everything.
And of course, now that we're launching this new investigation
into the Democrats that they started on Friday and their
(09:53):
ties to Epstein, you know, does the DOJ have an
excuse to say, well, we can't release this because it's
part of an ongoing investigator.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
That's what I'm watching, although I don't think that excuse
is gonna fly. You also have former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers.
He's resigning from open AI's board. This comes after he
announced this week he'd be stepping back from public commitments.
And he's ashamed of his actions, his connections to Jeffrey Epstein, now.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
That the emails came out, right, yeah, of course, and
now that I've been.
Speaker 5 (10:25):
Caught, yeah, well, and if he knows, there could be
more coming.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
To right exactly. And then you've got this woman, Stacey Plasket.
She is a Delegate to the House from the US
Virgin Islands and it came out in the document dump
last week that she exchanged texts with Jeffrey Epstein during
a twenty nineteen hearing featuring then Trump fixer Michael Cohen.
(10:51):
And in those texts, Epstein floated suggested questions, including one
that she later asked and keep in mind time, Yeah,
in real time, she's texting.
Speaker 5 (11:02):
With Jeffrey Epstein Epstein during this yearing.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Eleven years after his two thousand and eight guilty play,
and after there was a ton of reporting on all
the dark, sick, twisted stuff that he was up to.
And then you've got Democrat Jamie Raskin yesterday defending her, saying, oh,
she simply took a call from one of her constituents
because his like home origin is in the Virgin Islands Epstein,
(11:30):
I mean, what the hell is going on.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
It's it's amazing, it's unbelievable how they're making excuses for
him to be communicating with him that way. And I
think they also said that it wasn't known publicly at
that time that he was under investigation for like the
more recent one, but he already knew the convicted before.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Plus you've got the House Oversight emails showing that Steve
Bannon was in more contact with Jeffrey Epstein than we thought.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
He's got those his reputation.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Yeah, you're trying to help Jeffrey Epstein rehab his reputation.
And we still haven't seen those fifteen hours that he
spent with Jeffrey Epstein that's on video. So again, like
a lot of people trying to make this a Republican
Democrat thing, I mean, Epstein was tied to every both sides.
It just mattered if you were in a powerful position
or if you add money or or access or something
(12:21):
like that.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Yeah, we heard that from Congressman Massy yesterday saying this
is above the political divine when you're a billionaire class,
this is about on a whole different level. And I
think we need to be doing shout outs, by the way,
to Julie Brown the Miami Herald.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
Oh, I mean every time we in so store needs
to be credited and praised and celebrated for one hundred percent.
She does fantastic work.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
And she's been fact checking left and right on X
lately because there's so much misinformation out there. Yeah, she
just swats it down. It's awesome to watch her on
ex she does definitely follow her. Rory, we ran out
of time before we can get to all the economic stuff.
We're gonna have to do that tomorrow. I still love you, okay,
So that's our national chorus on it. Rory O'Neil with
us and speaking to Julie K.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Brown.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
You know, I got a message here from a listener, John,
and John, you got to lay off the coffee in
the morning. I mean it's like one message after another,
like you know, in depth messages. We appreciate you listening,
but dude, you know, take a breath, So he said Biden,
he had the same opportunity to release all of this
information when he was in office, and Julie Brown for
(13:25):
the Miami Herald, she has been pushing back on that,
explaining that there actually was an investigation underway, like these
Department of Justice files. There was an active investigation underway
and a case against Gilain Maxwell that was playing out,
So you couldn't release this stuff. Now, the Epstein estate
stuff that was subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee that
(13:46):
we just got all those documents last week, there could
have been stuff done there. So there are things that
could have been done, but these particular files couldn't be
released then because you did have a legitimate investigation that
was on going and charges being filed in a case
playing out against Gallaine Maxwell. So I just wanted to
note that. And then there was another message I got
(14:09):
about how come the women, the victims, how come they're
not releasing the names? Well, because they're powerful people.
Speaker 5 (14:16):
Yes, yeah, because they're afraid to.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
I mean exactly. You see what happens.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
You see what happened even to Marjorie Taylor Green when
she spoke up how much attack she's under.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Yeah, that's why Florida House leaders quietly scheduled the first
meeting of the Congressional Redistricting Select Committee for December fourth.
The move comes a week after House Speaker Daniel Perez
said redistricting hasn't been a conversation, even as Governor Ron
De Santis publicly signaled the opposite and told people to
(14:46):
stay tuned now. Perez created the redistricting committee earlier this year,
but hasn't said what changes he wants or how far
the House will go. The White House has been pushing
Republican led states to re draw maps to maximize Republican
seats before the midterms, and President Trump is publicly pressured
lawmakers multiple states, blasting Indiana Republicans last week for refusing
(15:11):
to reconvene on redistricting. Florida's current congressional map, which was
drawn by Governor Desantus' office and upheld by the state
Supreme Court, gives Republicans a twenty to eight advantage in
the state. Now why this matters is because a federal
judge blocked Texas's newly redrawn congressional map, ruling their solid
(15:35):
evidence that it was racially jerrymanner. Jeffrey Brown, a Trump appointee,
wrote that the legislature acted based on race and even
rejected Texas's claim that undoing the map would cause chaos.
He said any disruption with the state's own fault for
trying to overhaul district lines so close to the election cycle,
(15:55):
and he ordered the state to revert to its twenty
twenty one map for the upcoming midterm elections. Now that
case is going to go to the Supreme Court next
so the battle isn't over yet. If the ruling is upheld,
Democrats could hold on to the five seats in Texas
(16:16):
and end up gaining.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Around three seats overall.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Now there are still questions about, again, what will Florida do,
And I would anticipate Trump putting a lot of pressure
on politicians here in Florida to do a mid term
a pre mid term redistricting. Plus you've got Louisiana and Virginia,
they remain wild cards. If the Supreme Court overturns that ruling,
(16:41):
right now, Republicans will have maybe picked up a seat overall.
So I said at the beginning of this whole redistricting effort,
this wasn't going to become that big of a deal
when it was all said and done, because you know,
once Texas moved forward, then California was going to move
forward and you know, another red state was going to
do something that a blue state was going to try
to do something, and it would like cancel itself out.
(17:04):
That's essentially what's happened, except if this Texas decision again
is upheld, then it could just completely backfire on Trump
and Republicans and Democrats could end up in a situation
where they've.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
Got three more seats than they had at the start
of this.
Speaker 5 (17:22):
Oh yeah, yeah, it doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
A lot of time and energy for asting.
Speaker 5 (17:26):
What does that mean with all of this?
Speaker 4 (17:27):
Did they did the Democrats get more seats in California
now because of that?
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Oh yeah yeah, I think I think about four to
five more seats in California can be. There's a lawsuit
in California about all of that. I don't necessarily think
it's going to go anywhere. Uh. There was also something
initially in the California legislation that that said if something
like went wrong with Texas, if they didn't end up
(17:53):
you know, being able to uh to make that shift
and have Republicans gain a couple of seats, and then
automatically California wouldn't do what they're trying to do, but
that language was taken out of the final measure, so
California is moving forward again.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
I think this whole thing was a.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Lot of wasted time and energy, and I don't think
it's gonna have much of an impact on the midterms
one way or another. White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt
says Americans deserve straight answers about what drove Thomas Crooks
to try to assassinate Donald Trump in twenty twenty four.
Her comments follow a new report from The New York
Post showing Crooks left a long trail of online posts
(18:34):
embracing political violence, material the FBI hadn't previously disclosed. Levitt
says the President also wants those answers and has asked
for updated briefings from the Secret Service and FBI. The
post tied to Crooks include calls for terrorism style attacks,
political assassinations, and swings from pro Trump rage to anti
(18:57):
Trump hostility. Investigators and I believe he operated at least
seventeen online accounts, and apparently he conducted a lot of searches.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
I mentioned this yesterday.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
For muscle Mommy content and videos of muscular women. Wow,
it was one of the interesting Yeah, one of the
odder anecdotes to come out of these new reports. I
didn't even know muscle mommy content was a thing.
Speaker 5 (19:24):
You need to keep going across it.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
If you look it up, it's a thing, and it's well, well,
I have to know what he was searching. The FBI,
they insisted crooks had almost no online footprint, which doesn't
appear to be the case. And the question I asked
yesterday and I'll ask it again now, especially in light
of the White House Press Secretary saying that Americans deserve
(19:46):
straight answers, Well, why are we learning about this from
the New York Post and not the FBI or the
Secret Service? What is going on? And why isn't the
President demanding that they be straight with him first of
all and.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
Then also with us.
Speaker 5 (20:00):
Yeah, he's the one who was shot at.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
And this follows that story I did a couple of
weeks ago, that soldier who blew up a cyber truck
outside of Trump's hotel in Vegas. The Department of War
made information on that case classified.
Speaker 4 (20:15):
Yes, so I'll never find out what was going on.
Speaker 5 (20:17):
With him either.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
What is going on with the lack of transparency here?
So I just I thought it was really alarming The
New York Post. There's all this new information and we
got a completely different story from the FBI and the
Secret Service.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
It's time for them to answer some questions about this
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