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July 9, 2025 14 mins
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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's do this.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Let's go once again to my good friend Leland Viverdtert.
I can't imagine how Leland is looking today because usually
I can see him when they do these. He does
these zoom interviews with me, but today he's got his
camera off, so I probably don't even want to know.
Leland Vidtert hosts on Balance on News Nation, which is

(00:23):
my and my wife's single favorite show on cable news.
We almost never miss an episode. It is seven pm
Mountain time and a replay at ten pm Mountain time.
And also Leland puts out a daily newsletter, well daily
on the days that he has shows, called war Notes,

(00:44):
which is basically his show prep. And one of the
things I like about it, besides the fact that it's
very interesting and we'll make you smarter, is that it
comes out in the afternoon because I get bombarded with
stuff in the morning. So if you go to Warnoes
dot com, you can subscribe for free and you'll enjoy it.
Oh there he is looking like Oh he looks like
an FBI agent or se except with a nicer tie. Hi, Leland,

(01:05):
you know.

Speaker 3 (01:06):
The things I do for you ross like pull over
and stop so that you can see me on camera.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
Uh huh, Well you didn't really have to do that.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
You're looking very dapper, I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
At least as good as you look on TV.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Are you What are you doing? I'm on my way
to work. Okay, all right, it's a very snazzy tie.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
So before we talk about all this stuff, and I'm
sorry you had to pull over, you you posted a
very fun looking picture of July fourth grilling.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
I would like to know a little bit about your
grilling skills. And I would like to know because I'm
told there's some question about whether you could actually fit
the chicken on the grill. So what do we need
to know about your July fourth grilling experience.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
I feel as though that this is a loaded question.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
But if what you're getting at is that my sister
said that we could fit all five chickens on the
grill and we did, then she is correct now the
fact that she spent a year in culinary school in
Paris to learn that, and I just figured we'd do
it by trial and error and it still worked.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
I think the ROI on.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
My grilling skills are a lot higher than hers. And
what she didn't tell you either, was that she came up.
She would claim credit for the chicken and the recipe,
and the cherry Coke barbecue sauce is actually my mother's
recipe is things that she left out of this conversation.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
But what I would.

Speaker 3 (02:35):
Say is the real skill is in building the fire
and in cooking the chickens, which is what I did,
and they were most excellent. So I'm a big green
Egg guy. I know there are tragger guys, but I
am a purist, so.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
I'm I may have to try.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
I don't have either one, but I might have to
try it when we move into our new house. I
caught the show yesterday, you know, as usual, and they're
couple things that I wanted to talk to you about,
but just for fun, I wanted to share with you
and listeners a few sentences from a piece just posted
at what is one of my very very favorite news sites.
It's called the Babylon B and the Babylon Bee says,

(03:15):
and I'm putting news in quotes for people who don't
know what the Babylon B is. Attorney General Pam Bondi
explained today that she was really going to release all
of the Epstein files, but some pedophiles asked.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
Her to please not.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
Bondi stated that she understood the disappointment over her not
releasing the client list, which has been quote on her
desk since February, but promised the pedophiles that she wouldn't quote. Sorry, guys,
I told the pedophiles I would keep it under wraps,
said Bondi to reporters. Look, I'm just as bummed as
you are. I had all these great little binders made
up with all the incriminating evidence I promised to release,

(03:49):
and then ugg these pedophiles came along and asked me
not to, which is super sad because now all these
criminals will never be brought to justice. It's too bad.
And it goes on from there. But I'll stop there.
So I want to kind of open this broadly to
you but Leland, but I will just say I've long
ago lost interest in the whole Epstein thing, except that

(04:12):
I'm fascinated how Maga can't let it go.

Speaker 3 (04:16):
I am not Maga, obviously. You know that is one
of the reasons you have me on your show. And
I am still fascinated by the Epstein thing for this reason.

Speaker 1 (04:24):
For a number of reasons.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
Number one, we still don't know why so many people
gave him so much money to quote unquote manage when
he basically put it all in the s and p.
Five hundred and got a percentage or two from these
very rich people.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
Makes no sense. Number one.

Speaker 3 (04:42):
Number two, the fact of the matter is that this
guy molested and victimized dozens of women and had parties
in which there were, shall we say, a number of
people who engaged in behavior at best that is unbecoming

(05:03):
a gentleman with these women. And somehow the only person
who is in jail for all of this is a woman.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
None of these men have ended up in jail.

Speaker 3 (05:16):
There is the fact that a Trump cabinet member made
the point that the reason Epstein was getting the original
sweetheart deal back in two thousand and eight or nine
was because he was quote intelligence. No one knows what
that meant. That has never been explained. So there's absolutely
nothing about the Epstein story that passes even.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
The basic and I mean basic smell test.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
So I agree with you on all that. And I
think even going back when Epstein sort of first really
became in the news bigly, I thought that the deal
that Acosta is his name, Alex gave him when he
was maybe US attorney in Florida. That sweetheart deal stunk
to high heaven. And I've never heard a good explanation

(06:03):
for it. We've heard this intelligence thing that was one
of the worst things I've ever heard. And I said,
you know, I said, I was sorry that Epstein was
dead because I wish he were in prison being treated
by some very large prisoners the way he treated these
fourteen year old girls. And so I am. I'm not

(06:26):
carrying any brief for Epstein.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
But what I'm just focusing very narrowly.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
Do we even know that such a thing as the
Epstein client list exists at all? Because now the federal
government is saying that it isn't so when people are
saying and when you're saying you're at least curious about
the Epstein files, I guess the Epstein files at this
point means all the information the FBI has about him,

(06:53):
rather than Epstein's personal files.

Speaker 3 (06:56):
Well, they would include his personal files, and we know
the FBI hasn't because we have the evidents there are
And Pam Bondy has admitted this, although she may go
back on it, like she did about the quote unquote
client list that the FBI retrieved gigabytes worth of data
from Epstein's home that included video recordings of conceivably his

(07:17):
perverted sec acts because the women said that they were videotaped.
It would include his emails, It would include perhaps indications
of why these people gave him millions of dollars to manage,
and it would perhaps also shed light on whether he
was involved in any kind of compromant, which, by the way,
Alan Dershowitz, his own lawyer, said on my program he

(07:41):
always thought that Epstein was involved in some kind of
nefarious behavior, that there was something else beyond just the
sex and the girls. So the fact of the matter
is that there is no answers to any of the
basic questions, and the Epstein files are everything the FBI had.

Speaker 1 (08:00):
Epstein, as you point out, is dead.

Speaker 3 (08:03):
Why these files would not be released when Pam Bondi,
who's the Attorney General and the president for that matter,
has said they would be again, we as the American publicer,
owed at least a better explanation than oh, there's nothing
to see here.

Speaker 1 (08:17):
On a Sunday afternoon.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
We're talking with Leland Vindard, host of Bond Balance on
News Nation seven pm week nights here in the Mountain
time zone, replay at ten pm.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
It's the cable show.

Speaker 2 (08:28):
My wife and I make sure to see just one
more thing on the Epstein we'll move on to some
other stuff, the political side. It's been really interesting to me,
and I assume to you to watch how much of
MAGA in particular has turned so quickly against a few
of their famous favorite people, including Cash Bettel and Dan Bongino,

(08:50):
and to a certain degree, Pam BONDI, what do you
make of the politics of that, separate from separate from
this or that about Epstein and the Epstein files. What
do you make of that question?

Speaker 3 (09:01):
I think it proves and remember that Bongino especially was
one of the most aggressive in his assertions that there
was a deep state and there was all these cabals
and conspiracies and everything else. What I would say is
that there has always been the understanding that it is

(09:27):
a lot harder to be inside than it is to
be outside. It's a lot easier to be outside this
tent shooting in than it is to actually run things.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
And I think that's what MAGA is finding.

Speaker 3 (09:38):
And I say magat sort of generally, but I think
you're seeing the realization that when you were actually in
these positions of responsibility, there become other considerations than what
gets ratings on your podcast, which is what Dan Bongino's
primary concern was until he became the deputy director of
the FBI. Cash Bettel very smart lawyer and very very

(10:04):
thoughtful about how he exposed and took a part a
lot of really nasty things that were done to Donald Trump.
But once you become director of the FBI, you realize
there are other considerations, and I think Pam Bondi as well,
and it's why when you watch, for example, John Radcliffe,
CIA Director, who has vast and deep experience in government,

(10:28):
when he was asked at the CAB, I think it
was with when he was with Benjaminetti, who a question
about whether the Russians were using chemical weapons in Ukraine.
He weaved this answer that was incredibly thoughtful and committed
the president absolutely nothing and said absolutely nothing, which in
and of itself is a skill to realize that you

(10:50):
don't want to make policy publicly. And that's what I
think you've watched Pam Bondy and to a certain extent
Bongino did before he had the job he isn't given
interviews since, but that you watching people who are learning
in real time that while something sounds good on TV
and may make Maga and maybe even the President happy

(11:10):
to be set on TV, becomes a lot harder to
back up.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
Okay, give me a yes or note of this last
question on this and we'll do one other quick topic.
So yes or no? Do you think that the stuff
that bon Gino and Patel and Bondi have said in
the last few days about there's nothing to see here
as far as let's say, an Epstein client list that
could potentially be a source of leverage, do you think
they're telling the truth?

Speaker 1 (11:36):
I think there is a lot more to come on Epstein.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
All right, let's switch gear just for a couple of
minutes here. You and I are both very much foreign
policy nerds. You were a reporter living in Israel for
many years. You cover global affairs better than anybody else
on television, and you obviously noticed everybody noticed this very
significant change in Donald Trump's rhetoric when it comes to

(12:00):
Vladimir Putin and perhaps sending more weapons to Ukraine, where
just a week ago they were pausing. How are you
thinking about.

Speaker 3 (12:08):
This I'm thinking that Donald Trump is learning the lesson
that every other American president has learned in Courtling and
George W. Bush, who looked Putin in the eye and
saw his soul, Barack Obama's and Hillary Clinton to set
the reset button, and Joe Biden, who, when asked about
questions what he would say to Putin, he said, don't
as if that meant something of Vladimir Putin. Trump is

(12:30):
learning the lesson that Putin is a sociopath and a
former KGB operative who wants KGB always KGB didn't forget
how to be.

Speaker 1 (12:43):
Hyper manipulative.

Speaker 3 (12:45):
And that is what Trump's learning in real time, and
we're seeing him and watching him learning.

Speaker 2 (12:51):
Leland Vennerd's fantastic show is called On Balance. It's News Nation,
which is which has become our favorite. You know what,
give me just one more second, allow you to kind
of pet yourself and your organization on back a little
bit because you've kind of told me privately, and you
guys have mentioned on the air a bit about News
Nation's growth and your show's growth. Can you just give
us a second on that.

Speaker 3 (13:12):
Thanks ross to your great promotion and to your listeners
who have become my viewers. We are now the fastest
growing cable network, not just cable news, cable network in
the country, and our show and I'm grateful for this
and humbled by the responsibility, has had back to back.

Speaker 1 (13:33):
To back number one weeks.

Speaker 3 (13:36):
So we are small, but we are growing and that's
a great place to be to learn that people are
trusting what we're doing and coming back for more.

Speaker 2 (13:46):
Well, you've earned it and you deserve the success, and
I'm sure there's going to be a lot more folks
watch on Balance seven pm weeknights and go to warnotes
dot com to subscribe. Thank you for pulling over, Thanks
for spending time with us.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
We'll talk soon. Thanks Ross. All right,

The Ross Kaminsky Show News

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