July 7, 2025 • 31 mins
Peter Schweizer and Eric Eggers are joined by Jeffrey Epstein’s former attorney David Schoen, who reveals why he believes Epstein didn’t kill himself and debunks media myths about a secret client list. Then, the hosts unpack the newly signed “Big Beautiful Bill” and Elon Musk’s announcement of a potential new “America Party” with Mark Cuban and Anthony Scaramucci. Is this political shakeup about American values—or Elon’s bottom line? Don’t miss this deep-dive into policy, politics, and power.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi if Peter Schweizer, that's Eric Eggers. We're filling in
for Sean. We want you to join the conversation, specifically,
a question about this new political party that Elon Musk
might be forming, the so called America Party. Mark Cuban
says he's in the Texas Billionaire and Anthony Scarmucci, the
former spokesman for Donald Trump the first term, both say
(00:23):
they want to join this political party. Would you the audience,
consider joining the America Party. We want to hear from you.
One eight hundred nine for one Shawn one nine one
seven two six.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
There was a moment over the weekend when the idea
of Elon Musk, the billionaire who helped get Donald Trump elected,
announcing the creation of a new political party might have
been considered the biggest story of the weekend. Uh And
then Donald Trump signs this big, beautiful bill, The New
York Times outs the you know, mom, Donnie for cultural appropriation.
And then, of course, last night we get this bombshell
(00:56):
announcement from the United States Government, or at least from Axio,
saying that the United States Government has no evidence of
any attempts by Jeffrey Epstein to blackmail people, essentially saying
there's nothing more to see here. They are shutting down
the investigation. A lot of people are reacting very strongly
to that news, and so we thought who better to
(01:19):
discuss that than former Epstein attorney David Shoon, who joins
us now the Sean Handy Programs to Shoan, how are you?
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Thanks? Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
We're great. We would love to get just your reaction
to the announcement. Last night, Axios gave an excerpt from
this memo that has been on Earth from the Department
of Justice, saying, quote, this systematic review related revealed no
incriminating client list. There was no credible evidence found that
Jeffrey Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions,
(01:50):
and we did not uncover evidence that could predicate an
investigation against uncharged third parties. Your reaction to a that
news and the fact that they're admitting this now.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
I'm not surprised by it whatsoever. I never thought that
there would be a client list or that he was
involved in any effort to blackmail anyone. Remember, you know
I knew him pretty well. He trusts me, he said
once to his in house counsel who said to me
that I was the only person in the world he
trusted with his life, and that's why I hired me
to take over his criminal case. For about a year
(02:25):
before he died, he was asking me to review his
lawyer's work. He had a battery of some of the
top lawyers in the country representing him for a long time.
So I was very flattered when he asked me to
take over the case when he was really facing criminal charges.
But you know, look, if he had information to use
against other people, logically he would have used it in
(02:46):
his case, and that would have been the first thing
that would have used because he certainly could have helped himself.
I know that there have been all of these stories,
that there must be files out there in a client list,
and all that I've never believed it. Frankly, now, listen,
that doesn't Meanybody knows he ran with wealthy and powerful people.
He entertained them in his home, he flew with them,
(03:06):
and so on. Part of what sticks and micro about
all this is by the way that those people really
enjoyed their time with him. They used him also, And
all of a sudden, when the stories came out and
he was charged with a crime, they all cut their
ties with him as if they had never known him,
and so on. I'll tell you one last interesting thing.
I wanted to just mention. He had a very interesting
photo array at his home of some of the wealthy people.
(03:28):
And so for example, he had a picture there of
Bill Gates with a dollar bill in it. So I
asked him, you know, what's this all about. He said, well,
he made a bet with Bill Gates, and what was
he going to bet Bill Gates? So he bet him
a dollar and he won. There's no question he had
close contact with these people, but I don't think there's
any evidence of, you know, anything further than that, and
in terms of any kind of list or blackmail effort.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Yeah, I mean that's the interesting question to me, right,
is there's no question that he has these relationships. So
you said, whatever the extent of those relationships, we don't
fully know. But the fact that there is is the
Department Justice as not a quote unquote client list, doesn't
mean that there isn't necessarily a problem that some of
(04:10):
these people have in terms of what their relationship was
with Epstein. We were talking earlier on the show about this.
JP Morgan situation where you know, apparently they admitted that Epstein,
over the courses his relationship had you know, drawn I
think a billion dollars through JP Morgan accounts. There were
claims that this was related to human trafficking. My question
(04:34):
for you is, what do you think is perhaps the
culpability or the vulnerability that these wealthy individuals have, because,
as you pointed out, they clearly enjoy the relationship. I
don't think it was coercive. I don't think that he
was somehow manipulating them. It was a friendship. Do you
believe that there is any legal culpability or problems not
(04:57):
naming any particular individuals with some the people that he
was spending time.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
With, I don't think so, quite frankly, And I'll say
this about the blackmail effort. Listen. I know people have
painted Jeffrey Epstein as his monster and someone from the
way I knew him, I don't think he was a
kind of person who would blackmail someone had that in mind.
He was a different sort of guy obviously in many ways.
But he enjoyed their company, they enjoyed his, and he
wasn't a guy who wanted to then, you know, get
(05:23):
people in trouble or expose what they did. So much
has never come out about the Epstein story because it
doesn't play well in the media. But you know, you
should be aware of the listeners should be aware. There
was a woman who sent young women to him, who
gave a sworn statement to the FBI, who said Jeffrey
Epstein had one rule, no one under eighteen ever. And
so she told these people you better either have a
(05:44):
fake ID or be over eighteen, because he'll throw you
out if he doesn't think you're eighteen. Now, nobody who
believes the monster story about Jeffrey Epstein would ever believe that.
But this is a sworn statement, you know, under oath
by this woman. So I don't think we've really seen
the full picture of Jeffrey Epstein. But listen, I don't
think these people have vulnerability. I was surprised when organizations
gave back his charitable donations. Quite frankly. I thought they
(06:06):
should have taken them and enjoyed them. And they were
and put them to good use.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
So what do you on the question of the suicide. Clearly,
Epstein's brother says he does not believe that he committed suicide.
He believed that he was killed. FBI is saying conclusively
that he did commit suicide. Any thoughts that you have
on the interactions that you had with Epstein on that question.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Sure, absolutely, Listen, nobody knows for sure, but I've said
all along that I don't believe it was suicide for
two reasons. Primarily one anecdotically, I'd met with him nine
days before he died. He hired me to take over
his case. He also asked me to do some other
work for him, not related to not related to the case,
that only had an impact going forward. The Friday before
(06:49):
he died on Saturday, the people around him told me
he was barking out orders to do the things that
he and I had discussed would need to be done
to go forward with the case. I said to him,
I would take over the case, but the understanding I
would have to meet with his current lawyers and either
they approved it or I would bring in my own team,
and I had already put together another team. All of
that was finding him. We arranged a fee agreement, and
(07:09):
so on. That's one anecdotally. Number two. Michael Boden, in
my view, is the top forensic medical examiner in the world.
He examined Jeffrey Epstein's body with the New York Medical Examiner.
During that independent examination, the medical examiner said to him
she could not this as an assistant, she could not
conclusively say what the cause of death was. Four days later,
(07:32):
they said suicide without any additional evidence. Boden says, in
all of the thousands and thousands of cases he's done,
he has never seen injuries like this consistent with suicide. Period.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
We're talking to you. A former attorney for Jeffrey Epstein,
David shown. David, you are the son of an FBI agent.
I know he died when you were quite young, but
you are you're your father was an FBI agent. What
do you make of then the people who run the
FBI claiming the opposite and trying to Lea's evidence of
this footage of the jail cell showing allegedly no one
(08:04):
entering this door that they offer up as proof that
he did kill himself.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Yeah, I'm disappointed by it because I don't think they
can say with any level of certainty whether it was
suicide or not. And I don't like the idea of
putting their impromater on the idea conclusively that was suicide. Obviously.
You know, I'm a huge fan of the FBI. My
dad was one of my real heroes in the world.
I have all of his memorabilia. But I don't think
in this case that's fair. I think maybe they thought
there was some need for finality all of that. But
(08:32):
if Michael Bodden says otherwise, I take him over the oh,
the FBI on a forensic matter.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Yeah, the question then, David is and I'm not asking
for a list of names per se. But then, if
you believe that he did not commit suicide, what's the
profile of the person you think that killed Jeffrey Epstein.
If he did not commit suicide, who would want him dead?
Speaker 2 (08:54):
That's the puzzling part of it. I don't subscribe to
conspiracy theory, although many people did. He had a lot
of information and so on. Usually in this kind of situation,
it would be someone who wants to get credit for killing,
you know, a sex offender, that sort of thing, especially
a high profile person. That's the odd thing in this case,
no one has come forward for credit. You do know,
I'm sure though, that he was in prison. He was
(09:16):
locked up there at the MCC with a guy who
was a hitman for the Mexican mafia, allegedly former policeman,
huge guy. They moved that guy out and then they
moved him in with a druggie. Was very upsetting to him.
And two weeks before this there was an incident with
the first fellow he was in with in which they
(09:37):
called it an attempted suicide. It was not, but he
didn't want to get the guy in trouble anyway. The profile,
in my view, ought to be someone, you know, who
really wanted the publicity from it. No one has taken
credit for it. So that's the oddity. That's what I
can answer.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
That's one of the oddities. In addition to representing Jeffrey Epstein,
you also represented at a second impeachment trial form President
Donald Trump. His spokes and Carolyn Lovett, was asked about
the FBI's announcement today as it relates to the Epstein case.
Here's what she had to say. Here's that interaction with
a reporter.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
So the FBI looks at the circumstances surrounding the death
of Jeffrey Epstein. According to the report, this systematic review
revealed no incriminating client list. So what happened to the
Epstein client list that the Attorney General said she had
on her desk.
Speaker 5 (10:26):
Well, I think if you go back and look at
what the Attorney General said in that interview, which was
on your network on.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
Fox News, go ahead, and Roberts said, DOJ may be
releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients. Will that really happen?
And she said, it's sitting on my desk right now
to review.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
The DOJ may be releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients. Well,
that really happen.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
It's sitting on my desk right now to review.
Speaker 5 (10:50):
Yes, she was saying the entirety of all of the paperwork,
all of the paper in relation to Jeffrey Epstein's crimes.
That's what the Attorney General was referring to. And I'll
let her speak for but again, when it comes to
the FBI and the Department of Justice, they are more
than committed to ensuring that bad people are put behind bars.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
Just your reaction to how you feel like the FBI
has handled all of this, including since Donald Trump's election
and the promises that were made and now the clear
shift in tone.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Right, Well, that's part of sort of a rush to
go to the media and so on. I think that
Karon Levitt's explanation is perfectly plausible. I do think the
Attorney General is referring to document they file Jeffrey Epstein
file that was on her desk she said to be reviewed.
There's no such thing. I don't believe there's any such
thing as a client list. And by the way, you
can be sure in this day and age, if there were,
(11:42):
it would have leaked out. You know the number of
FBI agents who searched his premises, people in the US
Attorney's office, including mister Comy's daughter who is on the
related case. You can be sure that there would be
leaks about this client list and some names on it
if there really were client lists. That's my view of things.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
We're talking to David Shoon, who is an attorney for
Epstein when he was incarcerated, also has represented Donald Trump
in the impeachment hearings. David, and again, I'm not talking
about particular names here, but it just seems to me
that as you acknowledged Epstein had this let's say, very
destructive lifestyle, these relationships that he had with women, it
(12:22):
seems to me that based on the stuff that came
out from JP Morgan a more than a billion dollars
went through that they said was related to human trafficking.
It's hard for me to believe that Epstein kind of
did this and kept it to himself, right, that none
of the friends that went to the island, no one
at all participated in this except for Epstein himself. So
(12:44):
that seems to me to raise the question. It wasn't
coercion necessarily, as you said, it doesn't have to be blackmail.
It could have just been you know, friends hanging out
of friends doing this stuff together. The problem that I
have with this case is it seems like you had
this massive amount of human trafficing that was taking place
(13:04):
just on this one billion dollar figure. You had Maxwell
go to jail, But there doesn't seem to have been
any other investigation, certainly not any other prosecutions of anybody
else that could have been involved in this prostitution slash
human trafficking. What's your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Well, look, you're is a fair and important point, without
any question. Look, my personal belief is that many of
those wealthy people and so called prominent people engaged in
his activities with him at the various places, but there
may well not be a sufficient proof of it and
so on. You know, I spoke out the other day
(13:42):
and I don't talk about any sort of attorney client
privileged information, but I spoke out the other day when
mister Musk suggested that the reason records hadn't been produced
is because someone was covering up from mister Trump. I
can tell you unequivocally as I have said, that Jeffrey
Epstein had no information whatsoever about any nefarious activity with
(14:02):
Donald Trump, and I thought there was an important point
to make. That's what happens these rumors get out there.
I'm personally not one hundred percent satisfied with the JP
Morgan figure that they can track that money to the
human trafficking and all that. That's a different question. You
ask an important question, why haven't there been any other investigations?
And you can be sure again miss Maxwell would have
(14:23):
spoken about other incidents that she was aware of, and
she would have been aware of them. So I don't
have the answer to that.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Well, we do know, and David Show, we appreciate your
time today. While the FBI is attempting to, I think
end the discussion with their memo yesterday. The fact that
we are talking about as much as we are a
lot of other people are talking about it suggests that
the opposite is true. So David showan thank you for
your time. He's Peter Schweizer. I'm Eric Eggers. We host
the podcast called The Drill Down. You can find at
the drill down dot com. We'll be back with more
(14:51):
Sean Handy Show right after this.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
I'm Peter Schweizer. This is Eric Eggers. We are filling
in for the Sean Hannity Show today. We want you
to join the car Conversation one in eight hundred nine
four one seven, three two six So interesting. The Epstein
bombshell that came out the conversation that we just had
with David shown here's the problem. One of the problems
people don't trust what the government has to say, even
(15:16):
if it is people that they are familiar and comfortable with,
like Cash Battel or like Panbonni. They don't trust the
bowels of government. And one of the reasons, of course,
is we had another revelation break right before the July
fourth holiday, and that was this CIA assessment about Russia
Gate and the fact that they were simply pushing product
that they did not have confidence in. They claimed that
(15:38):
it was high confidence that they had all this evidence
that it was Russia collusion, when they admitted that they
only had one source and low confidence in it. That's
the problem, Peter Schweizer, that is Eric Eggers. We are
filling in for Sean today. We have a podcast called
The Drill Down. Please consider subscribing to it. We want
you to join the conversation. We're going to get a
little political here now right. We talked about the tragedy
(16:00):
in Texas and the heroic efforts of the Coastguard. We've
talked about the attempted killing of ICE agents. We've talked
about the Jeffrey Epstein ruling from the DOJ and the FBI.
Let's talk about the big, beautiful bill. It passed barely
passed by a couple of votes in the House. It
(16:21):
passed in the Senate because Vice President J. D. Vance
had to come in and cast the deciding vote. But
it was signed by President Trump, and it's very interesting
the tensions that have been created. We want to talk
about the details of the bill, but also some of
the reaction the Democrats is kind of predictable. But you
also have Elon Musk out there wanting to start the
(16:41):
America Party.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Yeah, we'll talk about Elon Musk, who's been steadfastly opposed
to this bill, and we'll talk about his desire to
create the America Party. Would love to hear your perspective
on it. Give us a call. One eight hundred nine
four one seven three two six that's nine four one Sean.
Do you support the passage of the bill as in
contrast with Elon Musk? I think there's several fascinating things
(17:05):
about the past of this bill. Obviously a key tenant
of the Trump administration. You know, it's been a massive priority.
They did a whole bill signing ceremony on the fourth
of July. They said they wanted to do that. There
was and it's a credit to him and his political
ability they were able to get it done by these
narrow margins. You also, by the way, I think have
to give Donald Trump credit just as a branding expert.
(17:28):
We were talking about this a little bit earlier. What
was the signature policy accomplishment of the Obama administration.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
The Affordable Care Act, the Obamacare.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Yeah, they called it the Affordable Care Act. No one
calls it that. We all call it Obamacare, and not
necessarily in a positive way. Under Joe Biden, his signature
policy achievement.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Was what the Inflation Reduction Act.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Right again, they try to do that, but we call
it the Green New Deal, the Green New scam.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Right.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
But Donald Trump just calling it the one big beautiful Bill,
like everyone calls it that.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
I mean, what is that? What the name of a
bill is?
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Now?
Speaker 1 (18:03):
I know it doesn't tell you anything about it's just
a big beautiful bill. I actually looked on the congressional
record and that is literally the name of the piece
of legislation. This is not shorthand, that's literally the name
of the bill. So you go on CNBC, You're going
on these news outlets. They are talking about the big
Beautiful Bill.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
So it's sort of just genius that Trump has gotten
news anchors and everyone to call this thing, which they
oppose in many respects, the big beautiful bill. It is big,
and according to depend upon your perspective, it is beautiful.
It extends the tax cuts, It's got a massive increase
in funding for ice and for immigration enforcement. That I
(18:43):
think is the key for many of its supporters. Right,
They say, the number one domestic priority continues to be
enforcing immigration laws in this country and deporting people who
shouldn't be here. This bill gives people funding to do that.
It also, then, I think, tries to enact some of
the efforts of DOGE bringing more security and credibility to
(19:05):
some of these entitlement programs. What some people will tell
you are cuts to Medicaid and cuts to SNAP are
in fact just increases in work requirements or more paperwork requirements,
more validity to make sure that the people that are
receiving these benefits should be receiving the benefits. One thing
I very much like you know you and I have
spent some time talking about the SNAP program, EBT, the
(19:26):
food stamps and how much fraud is there. A big
deal now is that states may have to start in
twenty twenty eight paying a portion of the food benefit costs.
Previously states have only paid administrative costs. I'll tell you
why that's a big deal, because right now, this is
just how much Donald Trump has changed the conversation about
entitlements and eradicating waste, fraud and abuse in those entitlement programs.
(19:51):
The current setup, or at least before Donald Trump became president,
the federal government awarded states who claim to have the
lowest air rate in the administration of these foodstamp programs.
So guess what states were then incentivized to do not
report high error rates and there's been a lot of.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Which is what fraud is regarded as an error.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Rate now absolutely so the states with the most fraud
would pretend it wasn't very much fraudulent, and they got
paid by the federal government for doing so. We now
are trying to reward states and say, no, you guys
have to expose root out the fraud, and you guys
are going to have to pick up a part of
the check on this. So you renounce centivized to make
sure your programs are well run.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Yeah, I mean, here's the bottom line question on all
of these programs, whether it's Medicare or Medicaid or Social Security,
you have to keep them viable, right, You have to
keep them viable. And the problem with Medicaid is you
had millions of illegal immigrants that ended up on Medicaid
program States like California sign them up because they wanted
to take those federal dollars. What this bill basically says
(20:54):
is no, if states want to have illegal migrants on
their medicaid roles, they have to pay for them themselves.
The second thing that they do with medicaid is say, look,
if you're able bodied, that's you know, determined by a
medical doctor. If you are able bodied, you either have
to work eighty hours a week, eighty hours a month, yeah,
(21:14):
eighty hours a month, sorry, and that that's two weeks
out of the month. Or if you can't find a job,
or you're not looking for a job, maybe you're in
a situation where you can't have one, you have to
at least volunteer. The point is you have to do
something constructive if you're sitting around playing video games, if
you're sitting around on drugs and expecting people to just
(21:35):
subsidize you. That's how we got to the point where
where this program is so expensive and it's not sustainable.
So these are really common sense remedies that are being pushed,
and of course what Democrats are saying is no, they're
cutting everybody's program, which is ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
And you know, there's this truism that the federal government
programs never get smaller, and unfortunately that's continued to be true.
We saw massive increase in these spending programs during COVID,
and it took years, even after the pandemic ended, for
some of these programs to start to come back down.
And now you're hearing the screams and the worst case scenarios.
(22:13):
You know, this is always the case with Donald Trump.
Doesn't matter what he does, we're presented with the worst
case scenario. And the thing with Donald Trump is those
worst case scenarios never proved to be true. We didn't
invade Iran. We're able to just go after them and
take out the nuclear capacity. We're able to you know,
we didn't start world a civil war here by enforcing immigration,
despite the best efforts of Gavin News and Karen Bass, right,
(22:36):
And so now it's like, oh, well, you're gonna you're
gonna kill people. You heard Larry Summer suggests that one
hundred thousand people will die over the next ten years
because of this bill. By the way, those work requirements
can be waived if state unemployment goes above ten percent.
Do you know what state has the high Do you
know what the highest unemployment rate is of any state?
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Now, California.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
It's California's close, But even the highest unemployment rates right
now are still in the fives. It's actually Washington, d C.
Interesting highest. California is like the fifth highest unmployment rate.
But so the point is, these work requirements are going
to be implemented because unemployment is not anywhere near where
you'd be exempted from it. So yeah, if you are
someone who currently is receiving these benefits, you will have
to prove that you are attempting to do something to
(23:20):
contribute to society.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Yeah, and why is that unreasonable? I don't understand. We
know why it's being done for political reasons, but it's
really an eminently responsible reform that ought to be supported
by the way it used to be supported by Democrats.
It was after all, Bill Clinton who back in nineteen
ninety six set up a work requirement to be on
welfare to receive food stamps. So this used to be
(23:42):
the position of at least some Democrats.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
And that's just one portion of the overall big beautiful
bill structure. It's attempting to do three things as we
understand it, right, They're trying to, okay, lower taxes for
many individuals and so not, in addition to kind of
making the tax that's from twenty seventeen, continue them in place.
They lower to stay tax, they have lower tax on
a number of other things, including corporations. So they wanted
(24:04):
to do that. They wanted to cut some spending, which
they're trying to do with getting rid of the waste,
the fraud and abuse, which is what they're attempting to
address in these financial programs here with the entitlements, and
then with the tariffs, which we're expecting more news on
that any day. They're a tempting to bring in new revenue.
So like, those are the three streams they're trying to
do at one time, which they think will ultimately benefit
(24:25):
the economy.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Yeah, and it's all going to come down to revenue
and growth, right because all these estimates are ported by
the Congressional Budget Office, they assume a low level of growth. Oh,
this is going to explode the debt. The fact of
the matter is if you have a high growth, it
brings in large amounts of revenue. That's really going to
help on the debt and on the deficit. And here's
the interesting political jiu jitsu that's going on here. So
(24:49):
you have, on the one hand, Donald Trump's big, beautiful
bill comes and barely passes, but it does and he
signs it. It's got all these good things in it.
You have Democrats who say, oh, the cuts are horrific,
it's going to kill all these people, and these tax
cuts are responsible. And then you have Elon Musk and
some members of the House of Representatives and in the
Senate who said the cuts don't go far enough. In
(25:11):
other words, Trump didn't go far enough in this direction.
So you have these three sort of points of politics.
And Elon Musk has said he apparently took a survey
of his followers on Twitter x and they came out
i think two to one saying they would support the
formation of a third political party. And this is all
(25:31):
based Musk says on the fact that the cuts did
not go far enough. He argues that joj was disrespected,
that all the efforts they took in doage to slash
all of this waste and abuse has now been gutted
by this bill.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
Yeah, I think it's interesting to see people who would
support the idea of a third party. Yet, like in concept,
I could see you being into it. But how many
of the people who support Elon Musks creation of a
third party would support that party being even more aggressive
in terms of cutting government programs and entitlements. I suspect
not very many of your pro cutting government spending. You're
(26:09):
probably much more conservative, And I wonder I don't see
a space in which a third political party is more conservative,
although obviously Republicans haven't been great in terms of fiscal management.
But you know, you get so much criticism, so much pushback,
and it doesn't make sense. It's actually hypocritical, or at
least it's contradictory because on the one hand, people say
(26:30):
that this bill explodes the deficit, while at the same
time people say the bill cuts medicaid for people who
rely on it. You kind of can't say both.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Right, right, And I would say to Elon Musk, there
already is a third political party. It's called the Libertarian Party.
They want to slash government extensively. But here's the thing.
I mean, Elon Musk says it's over principle if it's overcuts.
But let's keep in mind the bill, the Big Beautiful Bill,
did a couple of things that are not great for
Elon Musk's businesses and not great for his bottom line. So,
(27:00):
for example, one of the things in the bill is
after September thirty, if it's ending the seventy five hundred
dollars tax credit for evs for electric vehicles. Tesla produces
large amounts of electric vehicles. The bill immediately scraps the
highly profitable zero emission credits. Other automakers would buy these
credits from Tesla so they could meet the admission requirement, sorry,
(27:23):
the emission requirements from the federal government. In the first
quarter of this year. Tesla would have actually lost money
except for the fact that they were able to get these,
you know, monetize these credits. And then finally the issue
of tarifts. Tariffs are going to dramatically increase the cost
for the Chinese batteries that Tesla actually uses. So maybe
(27:45):
it's partly principle, but there's no question in my mind
that he cannot be happy with some of the details
of this bill and how it's going to affect his
bottom line.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
So you're keeping score at home. Elon Musk is against
the passage of the Big Beautiful Bill. The Big Beautiful
Bill passes. You just mentioned three things in that bill,
it will be very bad for Elon Musk. The bill passes,
he says, he's going to start his own political party.
That's essentially it.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Yeah, and he's got Mark Cuban and Anthony Scarmucci are
two of the people who've said they're interested in joining
this political party. It's interesting, by the way, he announced
this new political party and then people put up documents
from the Federal Election Commission saying that the party had
been formed. They were fake. Elon Musk said, no papers
have been filed, so sounds maybe like a little bit
(28:29):
of a paper tiger. The other thing that's happened is
Tesla stock is down eight percent with the announcement of
this new political party. So maybe the people that have
invested in his business are a little tired of the
politics for Melon, and they're probably saying, get back to
work and build those great businesses that you built in
the past instead of trying to change the party system
in the United States.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
It's you know, just like Donald Trump, it's probably impossible
and not fair to try to put Elon Musk into
a box. You know, not everybody fits as neatly into
a box as something like oh, I don't know, mister mom.
Donnie's race. As we found out over the weekend with
the new York Times coverage is the African American. We're
gonna talk about the New York mayor race, this push
to make Democrats more socialists, what it means for the
(29:10):
future of Democratic Party. We've got a lot more to
get into in the Shawan Handy program. He's Peter Schweizer.
I'm Eric Eggers. We host a podcast called The Drill Down,
which you can find at the drill down dot com.
We've backed with more Sean Handy. Right after this. Eric
Eggers and Peter Schweitzer are filling in for Shawan Handy.
We'd love to have you join our conversation. It's one
eight hundred and nine for one, seven three six nine
(29:33):
for one Shawn. We're gonna talk about the pending disaster
about to impact New York City. That is the Zoron
Mom Donnie mayoral campaign and on the other side of
this break. But first, we've got some interesting news about
one of the people connected to one of the people,
Zoron Mam Donnie beat former aide to former Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Peter Schweizer is a Chinese agent.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Yeah, well, this is Linda Son. She's charged by the
Department of Justice for acting as an unregistered agent for
the Chinese government. That was a case filed a couple
of months ago. They are now accusing her just recently,
alleging that she directed New York government contracts worth approximately
thirty five million dollars to Chinese companies controlled by her
husband and second cousin in exchange for large kickbacks. The
(30:17):
question was she worked for the State of New York.
Her husband was an unsuccessful businessman, but they had a
four million dollar house on Long Island, a two million
dollar condo in Hawaii, and a ferrari and they couldn't
figure out how they made it. This is the explanation. Son,
through an attorney, is denying the charge. But this happened
during COVID, remember when there was a scramble for PPE supplies.
(30:38):
Linda's son now has been charged with taking kickbacks in
addition to acting as an agent for the Chinese government.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
Linda Sun, by the way, was the chief Diversity officer
for Governor Quovo's office. And what I like is that
when the New York Office was trying to get PPE
equipment from China, they decided to reach out via Linda Sun.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Yeah, we're going to pick the Chinese aide. She's the
one to do it. Uh So, in the next hour
we are going to talk about the political tsunami about
to hit New York. Join the Conversation one eight hundred
nine four one seven, three, two six
Hi if Peter Schweizer, that's Eric Eggers. We're filling in
for Sean. We want you to join the conversation, specifically,
a question about this new political party that Elon Musk
might be forming, the so called America Party. Mark Cuban
says he's in the Texas Billionaire and Anthony Scarmucci, the
former spokesman for Donald Trump the first term, both say
(00:23):
they want to join this political party. Would you the audience,
consider joining the America Party. We want to hear from you.
One eight hundred nine for one Shawn one nine one
seven two six.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
There was a moment over the weekend when the idea
of Elon Musk, the billionaire who helped get Donald Trump elected,
announcing the creation of a new political party might have
been considered the biggest story of the weekend. Uh And
then Donald Trump signs this big, beautiful bill, The New
York Times outs the you know, mom, Donnie for cultural appropriation.
And then, of course, last night we get this bombshell
(00:56):
announcement from the United States Government, or at least from Axio,
saying that the United States Government has no evidence of
any attempts by Jeffrey Epstein to blackmail people, essentially saying
there's nothing more to see here. They are shutting down
the investigation. A lot of people are reacting very strongly
to that news, and so we thought who better to
(01:19):
discuss that than former Epstein attorney David Shoon, who joins
us now the Sean Handy Programs to Shoan, how are you?
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Thanks? Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
We're great. We would love to get just your reaction
to the announcement. Last night, Axios gave an excerpt from
this memo that has been on Earth from the Department
of Justice, saying, quote, this systematic review related revealed no
incriminating client list. There was no credible evidence found that
Jeffrey Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions,
(01:50):
and we did not uncover evidence that could predicate an
investigation against uncharged third parties. Your reaction to a that
news and the fact that they're admitting this now.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
I'm not surprised by it whatsoever. I never thought that
there would be a client list or that he was
involved in any effort to blackmail anyone. Remember, you know
I knew him pretty well. He trusts me, he said
once to his in house counsel who said to me
that I was the only person in the world he
trusted with his life, and that's why I hired me
to take over his criminal case. For about a year
(02:25):
before he died, he was asking me to review his
lawyer's work. He had a battery of some of the
top lawyers in the country representing him for a long time.
So I was very flattered when he asked me to
take over the case when he was really facing criminal charges.
But you know, look, if he had information to use
against other people, logically he would have used it in
(02:46):
his case, and that would have been the first thing
that would have used because he certainly could have helped himself.
I know that there have been all of these stories,
that there must be files out there in a client list,
and all that I've never believed it. Frankly, now, listen,
that doesn't Meanybody knows he ran with wealthy and powerful people.
He entertained them in his home, he flew with them,
(03:06):
and so on. Part of what sticks and micro about
all this is by the way that those people really
enjoyed their time with him. They used him also, And
all of a sudden, when the stories came out and
he was charged with a crime, they all cut their
ties with him as if they had never known him,
and so on. I'll tell you one last interesting thing.
I wanted to just mention. He had a very interesting
photo array at his home of some of the wealthy people.
(03:28):
And so for example, he had a picture there of
Bill Gates with a dollar bill in it. So I
asked him, you know, what's this all about. He said, well,
he made a bet with Bill Gates, and what was
he going to bet Bill Gates? So he bet him
a dollar and he won. There's no question he had
close contact with these people, but I don't think there's
any evidence of, you know, anything further than that, and
in terms of any kind of list or blackmail effort.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Yeah, I mean that's the interesting question to me, right,
is there's no question that he has these relationships. So
you said, whatever the extent of those relationships, we don't
fully know. But the fact that there is is the
Department Justice as not a quote unquote client list, doesn't
mean that there isn't necessarily a problem that some of
(04:10):
these people have in terms of what their relationship was
with Epstein. We were talking earlier on the show about this.
JP Morgan situation where you know, apparently they admitted that Epstein,
over the courses his relationship had you know, drawn I
think a billion dollars through JP Morgan accounts. There were
claims that this was related to human trafficking. My question
(04:34):
for you is, what do you think is perhaps the
culpability or the vulnerability that these wealthy individuals have, because,
as you pointed out, they clearly enjoy the relationship. I
don't think it was coercive. I don't think that he
was somehow manipulating them. It was a friendship. Do you
believe that there is any legal culpability or problems not
(04:57):
naming any particular individuals with some the people that he
was spending time.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
With, I don't think so, quite frankly, And I'll say
this about the blackmail effort. Listen. I know people have
painted Jeffrey Epstein as his monster and someone from the
way I knew him, I don't think he was a
kind of person who would blackmail someone had that in mind.
He was a different sort of guy obviously in many ways.
But he enjoyed their company, they enjoyed his, and he
wasn't a guy who wanted to then, you know, get
(05:23):
people in trouble or expose what they did. So much
has never come out about the Epstein story because it
doesn't play well in the media. But you know, you
should be aware of the listeners should be aware. There
was a woman who sent young women to him, who
gave a sworn statement to the FBI, who said Jeffrey
Epstein had one rule, no one under eighteen ever. And
so she told these people you better either have a
(05:44):
fake ID or be over eighteen, because he'll throw you
out if he doesn't think you're eighteen. Now, nobody who
believes the monster story about Jeffrey Epstein would ever believe that.
But this is a sworn statement, you know, under oath
by this woman. So I don't think we've really seen
the full picture of Jeffrey Epstein. But listen, I don't
think these people have vulnerability. I was surprised when organizations
gave back his charitable donations. Quite frankly. I thought they
(06:06):
should have taken them and enjoyed them. And they were
and put them to good use.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
So what do you on the question of the suicide. Clearly,
Epstein's brother says he does not believe that he committed suicide.
He believed that he was killed. FBI is saying conclusively
that he did commit suicide. Any thoughts that you have
on the interactions that you had with Epstein on that question.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Sure, absolutely, Listen, nobody knows for sure, but I've said
all along that I don't believe it was suicide for
two reasons. Primarily one anecdotically, I'd met with him nine
days before he died. He hired me to take over
his case. He also asked me to do some other
work for him, not related to not related to the case,
that only had an impact going forward. The Friday before
(06:49):
he died on Saturday, the people around him told me
he was barking out orders to do the things that
he and I had discussed would need to be done
to go forward with the case. I said to him,
I would take over the case, but the understanding I
would have to meet with his current lawyers and either
they approved it or I would bring in my own team,
and I had already put together another team. All of
that was finding him. We arranged a fee agreement, and
(07:09):
so on. That's one anecdotally. Number two. Michael Boden, in
my view, is the top forensic medical examiner in the world.
He examined Jeffrey Epstein's body with the New York Medical Examiner.
During that independent examination, the medical examiner said to him
she could not this as an assistant, she could not
conclusively say what the cause of death was. Four days later,
(07:32):
they said suicide without any additional evidence. Boden says, in
all of the thousands and thousands of cases he's done,
he has never seen injuries like this consistent with suicide. Period.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
We're talking to you. A former attorney for Jeffrey Epstein,
David shown. David, you are the son of an FBI agent.
I know he died when you were quite young, but
you are you're your father was an FBI agent. What
do you make of then the people who run the
FBI claiming the opposite and trying to Lea's evidence of
this footage of the jail cell showing allegedly no one
(08:04):
entering this door that they offer up as proof that
he did kill himself.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Yeah, I'm disappointed by it because I don't think they
can say with any level of certainty whether it was
suicide or not. And I don't like the idea of
putting their impromater on the idea conclusively that was suicide. Obviously.
You know, I'm a huge fan of the FBI. My
dad was one of my real heroes in the world.
I have all of his memorabilia. But I don't think
in this case that's fair. I think maybe they thought
there was some need for finality all of that. But
(08:32):
if Michael Bodden says otherwise, I take him over the oh,
the FBI on a forensic matter.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Yeah, the question then, David is and I'm not asking
for a list of names per se. But then, if
you believe that he did not commit suicide, what's the
profile of the person you think that killed Jeffrey Epstein.
If he did not commit suicide, who would want him dead?
Speaker 2 (08:54):
That's the puzzling part of it. I don't subscribe to
conspiracy theory, although many people did. He had a lot
of information and so on. Usually in this kind of situation,
it would be someone who wants to get credit for killing,
you know, a sex offender, that sort of thing, especially
a high profile person. That's the odd thing in this case,
no one has come forward for credit. You do know,
I'm sure though, that he was in prison. He was
(09:16):
locked up there at the MCC with a guy who
was a hitman for the Mexican mafia, allegedly former policeman,
huge guy. They moved that guy out and then they
moved him in with a druggie. Was very upsetting to him.
And two weeks before this there was an incident with
the first fellow he was in with in which they
(09:37):
called it an attempted suicide. It was not, but he
didn't want to get the guy in trouble anyway. The profile,
in my view, ought to be someone, you know, who
really wanted the publicity from it. No one has taken
credit for it. So that's the oddity. That's what I
can answer.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
That's one of the oddities. In addition to representing Jeffrey Epstein,
you also represented at a second impeachment trial form President
Donald Trump. His spokes and Carolyn Lovett, was asked about
the FBI's announcement today as it relates to the Epstein case.
Here's what she had to say. Here's that interaction with
a reporter.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
So the FBI looks at the circumstances surrounding the death
of Jeffrey Epstein. According to the report, this systematic review
revealed no incriminating client list. So what happened to the
Epstein client list that the Attorney General said she had
on her desk.
Speaker 5 (10:26):
Well, I think if you go back and look at
what the Attorney General said in that interview, which was
on your network on.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
Fox News, go ahead, and Roberts said, DOJ may be
releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients. Will that really happen?
And she said, it's sitting on my desk right now
to review.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
The DOJ may be releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients. Well,
that really happen.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
It's sitting on my desk right now to review.
Speaker 5 (10:50):
Yes, she was saying the entirety of all of the paperwork,
all of the paper in relation to Jeffrey Epstein's crimes.
That's what the Attorney General was referring to. And I'll
let her speak for but again, when it comes to
the FBI and the Department of Justice, they are more
than committed to ensuring that bad people are put behind bars.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
Just your reaction to how you feel like the FBI
has handled all of this, including since Donald Trump's election
and the promises that were made and now the clear
shift in tone.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Right, Well, that's part of sort of a rush to
go to the media and so on. I think that
Karon Levitt's explanation is perfectly plausible. I do think the
Attorney General is referring to document they file Jeffrey Epstein
file that was on her desk she said to be reviewed.
There's no such thing. I don't believe there's any such
thing as a client list. And by the way, you
can be sure in this day and age, if there were,
(11:42):
it would have leaked out. You know the number of
FBI agents who searched his premises, people in the US
Attorney's office, including mister Comy's daughter who is on the
related case. You can be sure that there would be
leaks about this client list and some names on it
if there really were client lists. That's my view of things.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
We're talking to David Shoon, who is an attorney for
Epstein when he was incarcerated, also has represented Donald Trump
in the impeachment hearings. David, and again, I'm not talking
about particular names here, but it just seems to me
that as you acknowledged Epstein had this let's say, very
destructive lifestyle, these relationships that he had with women, it
(12:22):
seems to me that based on the stuff that came
out from JP Morgan a more than a billion dollars
went through that they said was related to human trafficking.
It's hard for me to believe that Epstein kind of
did this and kept it to himself, right, that none
of the friends that went to the island, no one
at all participated in this except for Epstein himself. So
(12:44):
that seems to me to raise the question. It wasn't
coercion necessarily, as you said, it doesn't have to be blackmail.
It could have just been you know, friends hanging out
of friends doing this stuff together. The problem that I
have with this case is it seems like you had
this massive amount of human trafficing that was taking place
(13:04):
just on this one billion dollar figure. You had Maxwell
go to jail, But there doesn't seem to have been
any other investigation, certainly not any other prosecutions of anybody
else that could have been involved in this prostitution slash
human trafficking. What's your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Well, look, you're is a fair and important point, without
any question. Look, my personal belief is that many of
those wealthy people and so called prominent people engaged in
his activities with him at the various places, but there
may well not be a sufficient proof of it and
so on. You know, I spoke out the other day
(13:42):
and I don't talk about any sort of attorney client
privileged information, but I spoke out the other day when
mister Musk suggested that the reason records hadn't been produced
is because someone was covering up from mister Trump. I
can tell you unequivocally as I have said, that Jeffrey
Epstein had no information whatsoever about any nefarious activity with
(14:02):
Donald Trump, and I thought there was an important point
to make. That's what happens these rumors get out there.
I'm personally not one hundred percent satisfied with the JP
Morgan figure that they can track that money to the
human trafficking and all that. That's a different question. You
ask an important question, why haven't there been any other investigations?
And you can be sure again miss Maxwell would have
(14:23):
spoken about other incidents that she was aware of, and
she would have been aware of them. So I don't
have the answer to that.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Well, we do know, and David Show, we appreciate your
time today. While the FBI is attempting to, I think
end the discussion with their memo yesterday. The fact that
we are talking about as much as we are a
lot of other people are talking about it suggests that
the opposite is true. So David showan thank you for
your time. He's Peter Schweizer. I'm Eric Eggers. We host
the podcast called The Drill Down. You can find at
the drill down dot com. We'll be back with more
(14:51):
Sean Handy Show right after this.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
I'm Peter Schweizer. This is Eric Eggers. We are filling
in for the Sean Hannity Show today. We want you
to join the car Conversation one in eight hundred nine
four one seven, three two six So interesting. The Epstein
bombshell that came out the conversation that we just had
with David shown here's the problem. One of the problems
people don't trust what the government has to say, even
(15:16):
if it is people that they are familiar and comfortable with,
like Cash Battel or like Panbonni. They don't trust the
bowels of government. And one of the reasons, of course,
is we had another revelation break right before the July
fourth holiday, and that was this CIA assessment about Russia
Gate and the fact that they were simply pushing product
that they did not have confidence in. They claimed that
(15:38):
it was high confidence that they had all this evidence
that it was Russia collusion, when they admitted that they
only had one source and low confidence in it. That's
the problem, Peter Schweizer, that is Eric Eggers. We are
filling in for Sean today. We have a podcast called
The Drill Down. Please consider subscribing to it. We want
you to join the conversation. We're going to get a
little political here now right. We talked about the tragedy
(16:00):
in Texas and the heroic efforts of the Coastguard. We've
talked about the attempted killing of ICE agents. We've talked
about the Jeffrey Epstein ruling from the DOJ and the FBI.
Let's talk about the big, beautiful bill. It passed barely
passed by a couple of votes in the House. It
(16:21):
passed in the Senate because Vice President J. D. Vance
had to come in and cast the deciding vote. But
it was signed by President Trump, and it's very interesting
the tensions that have been created. We want to talk
about the details of the bill, but also some of
the reaction the Democrats is kind of predictable. But you
also have Elon Musk out there wanting to start the
(16:41):
America Party.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Yeah, we'll talk about Elon Musk, who's been steadfastly opposed
to this bill, and we'll talk about his desire to
create the America Party. Would love to hear your perspective
on it. Give us a call. One eight hundred nine
four one seven three two six that's nine four one Sean.
Do you support the passage of the bill as in
contrast with Elon Musk? I think there's several fascinating things
(17:05):
about the past of this bill. Obviously a key tenant
of the Trump administration. You know, it's been a massive priority.
They did a whole bill signing ceremony on the fourth
of July. They said they wanted to do that. There
was and it's a credit to him and his political
ability they were able to get it done by these
narrow margins. You also, by the way, I think have
to give Donald Trump credit just as a branding expert.
(17:28):
We were talking about this a little bit earlier. What
was the signature policy accomplishment of the Obama administration.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
The Affordable Care Act, the Obamacare.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Yeah, they called it the Affordable Care Act. No one
calls it that. We all call it Obamacare, and not
necessarily in a positive way. Under Joe Biden, his signature
policy achievement.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Was what the Inflation Reduction Act.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Right again, they try to do that, but we call
it the Green New Deal, the Green New scam.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Right.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
But Donald Trump just calling it the one big beautiful Bill,
like everyone calls it that.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
I mean, what is that? What the name of a
bill is?
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Now?
Speaker 1 (18:03):
I know it doesn't tell you anything about it's just
a big beautiful bill. I actually looked on the congressional
record and that is literally the name of the piece
of legislation. This is not shorthand, that's literally the name
of the bill. So you go on CNBC, You're going
on these news outlets. They are talking about the big
Beautiful Bill.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
So it's sort of just genius that Trump has gotten
news anchors and everyone to call this thing, which they
oppose in many respects, the big beautiful bill. It is big,
and according to depend upon your perspective, it is beautiful.
It extends the tax cuts, It's got a massive increase
in funding for ice and for immigration enforcement. That I
(18:43):
think is the key for many of its supporters. Right,
They say, the number one domestic priority continues to be
enforcing immigration laws in this country and deporting people who
shouldn't be here. This bill gives people funding to do that.
It also, then, I think, tries to enact some of
the efforts of DOGE bringing more security and credibility to
(19:05):
some of these entitlement programs. What some people will tell
you are cuts to Medicaid and cuts to SNAP are
in fact just increases in work requirements or more paperwork requirements,
more validity to make sure that the people that are
receiving these benefits should be receiving the benefits. One thing
I very much like you know you and I have
spent some time talking about the SNAP program, EBT, the
(19:26):
food stamps and how much fraud is there. A big
deal now is that states may have to start in
twenty twenty eight paying a portion of the food benefit costs.
Previously states have only paid administrative costs. I'll tell you
why that's a big deal, because right now, this is
just how much Donald Trump has changed the conversation about
entitlements and eradicating waste, fraud and abuse in those entitlement programs.
(19:51):
The current setup, or at least before Donald Trump became president,
the federal government awarded states who claim to have the
lowest air rate in the administration of these foodstamp programs.
So guess what states were then incentivized to do not
report high error rates and there's been a lot of.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Which is what fraud is regarded as an error.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Rate now absolutely so the states with the most fraud
would pretend it wasn't very much fraudulent, and they got
paid by the federal government for doing so. We now
are trying to reward states and say, no, you guys
have to expose root out the fraud, and you guys
are going to have to pick up a part of
the check on this. So you renounce centivized to make
sure your programs are well run.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Yeah, I mean, here's the bottom line question on all
of these programs, whether it's Medicare or Medicaid or Social Security,
you have to keep them viable, right, You have to
keep them viable. And the problem with Medicaid is you
had millions of illegal immigrants that ended up on Medicaid
program States like California sign them up because they wanted
to take those federal dollars. What this bill basically says
(20:54):
is no, if states want to have illegal migrants on
their medicaid roles, they have to pay for them themselves.
The second thing that they do with medicaid is say, look,
if you're able bodied, that's you know, determined by a
medical doctor. If you are able bodied, you either have
to work eighty hours a week, eighty hours a month, yeah,
(21:14):
eighty hours a month, sorry, and that that's two weeks
out of the month. Or if you can't find a job,
or you're not looking for a job, maybe you're in
a situation where you can't have one, you have to
at least volunteer. The point is you have to do
something constructive if you're sitting around playing video games, if
you're sitting around on drugs and expecting people to just
(21:35):
subsidize you. That's how we got to the point where
where this program is so expensive and it's not sustainable.
So these are really common sense remedies that are being pushed,
and of course what Democrats are saying is no, they're
cutting everybody's program, which is ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
And you know, there's this truism that the federal government
programs never get smaller, and unfortunately that's continued to be true.
We saw massive increase in these spending programs during COVID,
and it took years, even after the pandemic ended, for
some of these programs to start to come back down.
And now you're hearing the screams and the worst case scenarios.
(22:13):
You know, this is always the case with Donald Trump.
Doesn't matter what he does, we're presented with the worst
case scenario. And the thing with Donald Trump is those
worst case scenarios never proved to be true. We didn't
invade Iran. We're able to just go after them and
take out the nuclear capacity. We're able to you know,
we didn't start world a civil war here by enforcing immigration,
despite the best efforts of Gavin News and Karen Bass, right,
(22:36):
And so now it's like, oh, well, you're gonna you're
gonna kill people. You heard Larry Summer suggests that one
hundred thousand people will die over the next ten years
because of this bill. By the way, those work requirements
can be waived if state unemployment goes above ten percent.
Do you know what state has the high Do you
know what the highest unemployment rate is of any state?
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Now, California.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
It's California's close, But even the highest unemployment rates right
now are still in the fives. It's actually Washington, d C.
Interesting highest. California is like the fifth highest unmployment rate.
But so the point is, these work requirements are going
to be implemented because unemployment is not anywhere near where
you'd be exempted from it. So yeah, if you are
someone who currently is receiving these benefits, you will have
to prove that you are attempting to do something to
(23:20):
contribute to society.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Yeah, and why is that unreasonable? I don't understand. We
know why it's being done for political reasons, but it's
really an eminently responsible reform that ought to be supported
by the way it used to be supported by Democrats.
It was after all, Bill Clinton who back in nineteen
ninety six set up a work requirement to be on
welfare to receive food stamps. So this used to be
(23:42):
the position of at least some Democrats.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
And that's just one portion of the overall big beautiful
bill structure. It's attempting to do three things as we
understand it, right, They're trying to, okay, lower taxes for
many individuals and so not, in addition to kind of
making the tax that's from twenty seventeen, continue them in place.
They lower to stay tax, they have lower tax on
a number of other things, including corporations. So they wanted
(24:04):
to do that. They wanted to cut some spending, which
they're trying to do with getting rid of the waste,
the fraud and abuse, which is what they're attempting to
address in these financial programs here with the entitlements, and
then with the tariffs, which we're expecting more news on
that any day. They're a tempting to bring in new revenue.
So like, those are the three streams they're trying to
do at one time, which they think will ultimately benefit
(24:25):
the economy.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Yeah, and it's all going to come down to revenue
and growth, right because all these estimates are ported by
the Congressional Budget Office, they assume a low level of growth. Oh,
this is going to explode the debt. The fact of
the matter is if you have a high growth, it
brings in large amounts of revenue. That's really going to
help on the debt and on the deficit. And here's
the interesting political jiu jitsu that's going on here. So
(24:49):
you have, on the one hand, Donald Trump's big, beautiful
bill comes and barely passes, but it does and he
signs it. It's got all these good things in it.
You have Democrats who say, oh, the cuts are horrific,
it's going to kill all these people, and these tax
cuts are responsible. And then you have Elon Musk and
some members of the House of Representatives and in the
Senate who said the cuts don't go far enough. In
(25:11):
other words, Trump didn't go far enough in this direction.
So you have these three sort of points of politics.
And Elon Musk has said he apparently took a survey
of his followers on Twitter x and they came out
i think two to one saying they would support the
formation of a third political party. And this is all
(25:31):
based Musk says on the fact that the cuts did
not go far enough. He argues that joj was disrespected,
that all the efforts they took in doage to slash
all of this waste and abuse has now been gutted
by this bill.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
Yeah, I think it's interesting to see people who would
support the idea of a third party. Yet, like in concept,
I could see you being into it. But how many
of the people who support Elon Musks creation of a
third party would support that party being even more aggressive
in terms of cutting government programs and entitlements. I suspect
not very many of your pro cutting government spending. You're
(26:09):
probably much more conservative, And I wonder I don't see
a space in which a third political party is more conservative,
although obviously Republicans haven't been great in terms of fiscal management.
But you know, you get so much criticism, so much pushback,
and it doesn't make sense. It's actually hypocritical, or at
least it's contradictory because on the one hand, people say
(26:30):
that this bill explodes the deficit, while at the same
time people say the bill cuts medicaid for people who
rely on it. You kind of can't say both.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Right, right, And I would say to Elon Musk, there
already is a third political party. It's called the Libertarian Party.
They want to slash government extensively. But here's the thing.
I mean, Elon Musk says it's over principle if it's overcuts.
But let's keep in mind the bill, the Big Beautiful Bill,
did a couple of things that are not great for
Elon Musk's businesses and not great for his bottom line. So,
(27:00):
for example, one of the things in the bill is
after September thirty, if it's ending the seventy five hundred
dollars tax credit for evs for electric vehicles. Tesla produces
large amounts of electric vehicles. The bill immediately scraps the
highly profitable zero emission credits. Other automakers would buy these
credits from Tesla so they could meet the admission requirement, sorry,
(27:23):
the emission requirements from the federal government. In the first
quarter of this year. Tesla would have actually lost money
except for the fact that they were able to get these,
you know, monetize these credits. And then finally the issue
of tarifts. Tariffs are going to dramatically increase the cost
for the Chinese batteries that Tesla actually uses. So maybe
(27:45):
it's partly principle, but there's no question in my mind
that he cannot be happy with some of the details
of this bill and how it's going to affect his
bottom line.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
So you're keeping score at home. Elon Musk is against
the passage of the Big Beautiful Bill. The Big Beautiful
Bill passes. You just mentioned three things in that bill,
it will be very bad for Elon Musk. The bill passes,
he says, he's going to start his own political party.
That's essentially it.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Yeah, and he's got Mark Cuban and Anthony Scarmucci are
two of the people who've said they're interested in joining
this political party. It's interesting, by the way, he announced
this new political party and then people put up documents
from the Federal Election Commission saying that the party had
been formed. They were fake. Elon Musk said, no papers
have been filed, so sounds maybe like a little bit
(28:29):
of a paper tiger. The other thing that's happened is
Tesla stock is down eight percent with the announcement of
this new political party. So maybe the people that have
invested in his business are a little tired of the
politics for Melon, and they're probably saying, get back to
work and build those great businesses that you built in
the past instead of trying to change the party system
in the United States.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
It's you know, just like Donald Trump, it's probably impossible
and not fair to try to put Elon Musk into
a box. You know, not everybody fits as neatly into
a box as something like oh, I don't know, mister mom.
Donnie's race. As we found out over the weekend with
the new York Times coverage is the African American. We're
gonna talk about the New York mayor race, this push
to make Democrats more socialists, what it means for the
(29:10):
future of Democratic Party. We've got a lot more to
get into in the Shawan Handy program. He's Peter Schweizer.
I'm Eric Eggers. We host a podcast called The Drill Down,
which you can find at the drill down dot com.
We've backed with more Sean Handy. Right after this. Eric
Eggers and Peter Schweitzer are filling in for Shawan Handy.
We'd love to have you join our conversation. It's one
eight hundred and nine for one, seven three six nine
(29:33):
for one Shawn. We're gonna talk about the pending disaster
about to impact New York City. That is the Zoron
Mom Donnie mayoral campaign and on the other side of
this break. But first, we've got some interesting news about
one of the people connected to one of the people,
Zoron Mam Donnie beat former aide to former Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Peter Schweizer is a Chinese agent.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Yeah, well, this is Linda Son. She's charged by the
Department of Justice for acting as an unregistered agent for
the Chinese government. That was a case filed a couple
of months ago. They are now accusing her just recently,
alleging that she directed New York government contracts worth approximately
thirty five million dollars to Chinese companies controlled by her
husband and second cousin in exchange for large kickbacks. The
(30:17):
question was she worked for the State of New York.
Her husband was an unsuccessful businessman, but they had a
four million dollar house on Long Island, a two million
dollar condo in Hawaii, and a ferrari and they couldn't
figure out how they made it. This is the explanation. Son,
through an attorney, is denying the charge. But this happened
during COVID, remember when there was a scramble for PPE supplies.
(30:38):
Linda's son now has been charged with taking kickbacks in
addition to acting as an agent for the Chinese government.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
Linda Sun, by the way, was the chief Diversity officer
for Governor Quovo's office. And what I like is that
when the New York Office was trying to get PPE
equipment from China, they decided to reach out via Linda Sun.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Yeah, we're going to pick the Chinese aide. She's the
one to do it. Uh So, in the next hour
we are going to talk about the political tsunami about
to hit New York. Join the Conversation one eight hundred
nine four one seven, three, two six
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