Release the Earhart Files

The White House issues an official denial that Stephen Miller plays with porcelain dolls, which is definitely a normal thing for government press releases to address. The New York Mets complete baseball's most expensive faceplant, turning a three hundred forty million dollar payroll into zero playoff appearances. And President Trump promises to declassify all the files on Amelia Earhart's disappearance from nineteen thirty-seven - because apparently aviation mysteries from ninety years ago are a pressing national priority. Everything gets declassified except the Epstein Files, naturally.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Callaroga shark media from Washington, d C. Where we don't
play with dolls. This is ballot, that's right, And the
only thing that wastes more money than the federal government
is Mets owner Steve Cohen. Let's hit this. The White
House has issued what might be the most unusual official

(00:24):
denial in political history, insisting that Deputy Chief of Staff
Stephen Miller does not, in fact play with dolls. This
clarification came after a Rolling Stone profile revealed that Republican
staffers on Capitol Hill used to whisper that Miller liked
to play with porcelain dolls during his time working for
then Senator Jeff Sessions, which raises the immediate question, how

(00:46):
exactly does one get a reputation for doll collecting in
Washington politics. A White House official called the characterization inaccurate
and baseless gossip, which is the kind of statement you
never expect to see in an official government press release.
Somewhere in the White House Communications Office, someone had to
sit down and craft a formal response about their colleagues's

(01:08):
alleged hobby preferences. The doll rumors apparently date back to
Miller's Capitol Hill days when conservative staffers viewed him as
little more than a punchline or an obscure cautionary tale
of what happens when you read too many far right
hate websites. Those same staffers probably never imagined they'd one
day need the White House to officially deny their porcelain

(01:29):
doll gossip. Miller, now forty years old, continues to be
the target of nicknames among Trump world insiders, including Shadow
Sect Death, Prime Minister Miller, the real Attorney General, and
President Miller. So apparently, when you're not being accused of
playing with dolls, you're being accused of running the entire government.
Even President Trump himself has reportedly insulted Miller behind his back,

(01:52):
with biographer Michael Wolf claiming Trump calls him weird Stephen,
which means Miller has achieved the rare distinction of being
both defended and mocked by his own boss. Simultaneously. Rolling
Stone noted that Miller inspires a unique mix of admiration
and unease among Maga Republicans, with one longtime Trump advisor
describing him as one intense, well, let's just say a

(02:15):
very intense person. Attempts by Miller's friends to make him
sound gentler, kinder, or funnier often fall flat, which suggests
his public relations team faces some unique challenges. We've now
reached the point where the White House communications team has
to issue formal denials about staff members alleged toy preferences,

(02:35):
and somehow in the grand scheme of Washington politics, this
doesn't even crack the top ten strangest things that have
happened this week. The New York Mets just completed what
might be the most expensive face plant in baseball history.
Three hundred and forty million dollars in payroll, Juan Soto's
record breaking contract and a team that made it to
the National League Championship Series last year, and they couldn't

(02:58):
even limp into the expanded playoffs. That's not a collapse.
That's a demolition derby where you paid extra to watch
your own car get crushed. Two months into the season,
the Mets were the best team in baseball. By the end,
they were the punchline. One veteran player summed it up perfectly.
On paper, we are a much better team this year

(03:18):
than we were last year, and I don't think it's
necessarily close. Just didn't work, which is like saying the
Titanic was a much better ship than a rowboat, technically true,
but you still end up at the bottom of the ocean.
The clubhouse vibe went from immaculate in twenty twenty four
to whatever. The opposite of immaculate is mediocre, tepid a

(03:38):
dentist's waiting room. Players kept insisting everything was fine, which
is what you say when everything is definitely not fine.
Brandon Nimo actually said, we didn't have OMG or a
pop superstar on our team. We don't need to try
to make that happen. My man, you have Juan Soto.
If he's not a pop superstar, what is he a

(03:59):
traveling salean. The chemistry issue was delicate. You've got Francisco Lindor,
who basically told the fans to go to hell his
first year, and then you bring in Juan Soto, who's
all business. Two different leadership styles, neither one wrong, but
together they're like oil and water, or more accurately, three
hundred and forty million dollars in disappointment. Club sources kept

(04:21):
saying they'll grow more comfortable with one another over time,
which means they spent this entire season and in the
final assessment from the article says it all last year
was magic. This year was just an illusion, and that
illusion cost Steve Cohen three hundred and forty million dollars.
At least, when you go to a magic show and
realize it's all tricks, you only paid fifty bucks for

(04:43):
the ticket. President Trump announced that he wants to release
the files. Finally, that's right. The president wants to unseal
all classified files on Amelia Earhart's disappearance, which happened nearly
ninety years ago. At this point, Trump has promised to
declassify more government secrets than a wikileak's convention, except, of course,

(05:05):
the Epstein files. The president posted on truth Social that
he's been asked often about Earhart's life and times, which
raises the question who exactly is asking the president about
aviation mysteries from nineteen thirty seven. Are people just walking
up to him at mar A Lago saying, Hey, what's
your take on that whole Earhart situation? Or maybe he
can't hear when everyone is asking him about the Epstein files.

(05:28):
Trump wrote that Earhart made it almost three quarters around
the world before she suddenly and without notice, vanished, never
to be seen again, which sounds like he's describing someone
who ghosted him after a dinner party. She was doing
so well, flying around the world, having a great time,
and then nothing, not even a text back. Now, most

(05:50):
historians believe Earhart simply ran out of fuel and crashed
into the Pacific Ocean, but apparently there are classified government
files about this, which suggests either there's more to the
story or the federal government has been keeping really detailed
records about everything since the nineteen thirties. The executive director
of the Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum said she was surprised

(06:11):
by Trump's announcement, which is diplomatic museum speak for we
had no idea this was coming. She did note that
the original search for Earhart cost more than four million dollars,
making it the most expensive federal search in history at
the time. Adjusted for inflation. That's like spending fifty million
dollars today to look for someone who ran out of gas.

(06:33):
This latest declassification promise joins Trump's previous orders to release
files on JFKRFK and Martin Luther King Junior. At this rate,
he's going to declassify everything from the Roswell incident to
the recipe for McDonald's special sauce. The White House hasn't
said how many Earhart records are actually classified or where

(06:54):
they're located, which means we could be looking at someone's
grocery list from nineteen thirty eight. But here's what we know.
Somewhere in a government filing cabinet, there are apparently classified
documents about a woman who disappeared over the Pacific Ocean
nine decades ago, and the President of the United States
thinks the American people deserve to know what really happened

(07:15):
to her and navigator Fred Noonan. Either we're about to
solve one of history's greatest mysteries, or we're going to
learn that the government has been classifying everything, including lost
luggage reports from the Roosevelt administration, well, everything except the
Epstein files. Portions of today's show were made with the
help of AI