Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 7/16/25: Trump Says Bad People Care About Epstein, Alex Jones Meltdown, 3% Satisfied With Epstein Handling

Episode Date: July 16, 2025

Krystal and Emily discuss Trump says only bad people care about Epstein, Alex Jones begs Trump on Epstein files, poll shows 3% satisfied with Epstein handling. To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.comMerch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Welcome to Breaking Points. Crystal, thanks so much for jumping in for Ryan this morning. He is in Dublin. My pleasure. Of course. Where else would he be? Yeah, he's doing some interesting things there too. I don't know if he can reveal yet, but there will be more news on that later.

Yes, absolutely. So we have a show that is, I regret to inform everyone, frontloaded with more Epstein news because the Trump administration continues to flail and MAGA continues to be divided over the Epstein question. So we have more comments from the president to get to, more comments from members of Congress, including the Speaker of the House to get to, and people sort of on the outside, MAGA supporters on the outside, who are having a tough time with this one. And Crystal, new inflation numbers were out yesterday. Some debate over whether they were good or bad for the administration politically and whether they were good or bad for the American people substantively that we will get to. The most depressing article

that I have read in quite a while, Crystal, on why first-time home ownership in the U.S. is at a record low. We're going to break down some of that, along with a viral clip from Tucker Carlson that sort of spoke to exactly this from the Turning Point USA summit. And of course, the Pentagon is now in business with Grok. Did you? That's what you expected, right? Mecca Hitler has taken the Pentagon.

That's what's happening here, apparently. But actually, this is a real story. The Pentagon has signed a contract with XAI to use Grok for government. So we have all of the details on that story and we are very excited. We've been trying for days to get in the Superman block. You can see that on the bottom of your screen because producer Griffin and Krystal have just so very many thoughts. Ben Shapiro has thoughts too. I was gonna say, as does Ben Shapiro, his are a little different than ours,

but we'll get into all of that. Yeah, well, you know, when I see, when I get to see a movie in the theaters, it's a very rare and exciting thing for me. So I have to talk about it. And especially when it's a movie that's, as Hassan Piker put it, two hours of F Israel, is basically, and we're gonna try to keep it spoiler free,

but there's actually a lot of very interesting political dynamics going on in the movie that are worth digging into. So Griffin will join us for that, so that should be fun. And we do always think of producer Griffin as like the Ben Shapiro of our operation. So it makes sense that we'll have him. The parallels are striking on every level.

Yeah, it's incredibly similar. People are rad. So as a reminder, it's a incredibly similar people all around. So as a reminder, breakingpoints.com for premium subscription. If you can't subscribe, no problem. Just subscribe on the channel here, like the videos. We appreciate it so much. And let's start with the president himself weighing in more on the case of Jeffrey Epstein. Donald Trump kept getting questions, of course, because there's so much confusion radiating forth from his administration, partially why these questions are totally fair and will not

go away for the Trump administration. So let's roll A1. This is Trump answering some questions just yesterday. She's given us just a very quick briefing and in terms of the credibility of the different things that they've seen. And I would say that, you know, these files were made up by Comey, they were made up by Obama, they were made up by the Biden, you know, and we went through years of that with the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax with all of the different things that we had to go through. We've gone through years of it.

But she's handled it very well, and it's going to be up to her. Whatever she thinks is credible, she should release. I don't understand it. Why they would be so interested. He's dead for a long time. He was never a big factor in terms of life. I don't understand what the interest or what the fascination is. I really don't. And the credible information has been given. Don't forget, we went through

years of the Mueller witch hunt and all of the different things. The Steele dossier, which was all fake. All that information was fake. But I don't understand why the Jeffrey Epstein case would be of interest to anybody. It's pretty boring stuff. It's fake, but I don't understand why the Jeffrey Epstein case would be of interest to anybody. It's pretty boring stuff. It's sorted, but it's boring. And I don't understand why it keeps going. I think really only pretty bad people, including fake news, want to keep something like that going. But credible information, let them give it. Anything that's credible, I would say let them give it. Anything that's credible, I would say let them have it. All right, so I'm actually going to respond to that clip

with a reaction from Ann Coulter, who said, ex-ante, I'd say Trump did not rape underage girls, but when he slings bullshit like this, you have to wonder. In quotes, Trump's saying, Epstein files were written by Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, the losers and criminals of the Biden administration. Coulter then responds, everything we know about Epstein's teen sex ring comes from the Palm Beach police

and the girls themselves. Dems ferociously protected Epstein, a major Dem donor, but, crystal, that is true. Everything we know about Epstein, for the most part, is coming from the Palm Beach, the local Palm Beach police and the girls themselves. We have gotten trickles of information that are frustratingly limited actually from the federal government. So it's a, I also saw, I don't know if you saw this as well, Megyn Kelly reporting that

she's been told by several people, whether or not it's true, several people have said that the files on Epstein were left in such a way that pointed right at Donald Trump, which can mean a lot of things. It could mean funny business going on. It can mean that there's, they're there when it comes to Donald Trump. But I think that's where this has just opened up

an entirely new chapter in Trump's response to the Epstein chaos of Pam Bondi's DOJ, which is now saying that this is part of actually a different kind of deep state plot to frame Donald Trump. Yeah, I mean, there's so much to say about those two clips we've just played of Trump. First of all, no one is buying the Obama wrote the Epstein files line is just utterly preposterous.

Number two, now he's calling his own supporters bad people for caring about an elite sex crimes ring against young girls with potential intel tie-in and implicating any number potentially of powerful figures says that that is boring and can't understand why that is interesting to anyone. Number three, the optics there of that second clip where he's saying, oh, it's boring and you're a bad person

if you still care about this. You got Howard Lutnick standing there who lo and behold actually purchased one of Jeffrey Epstein's properties in Manhattan was his longtime neighbor. So just optically not the best there. He's sort of like chuckling along with what Trump has to say there. And it really is so perplexing and hard to explain outside of, I mean, Occam's razor is that he's reacting in this frenetic insane and incredibly if he just

wants us to go away, he's doing the polar opposite of making this away, go away, because he's worried about what information might come out. Like that is the very obvious conclusion. The number of people, Sager included by the way, who have said, you know, I didn't really think there was there in terms of Trump until I saw the way he reacted to this. And now it's like, I don't know.

And then you start to go back and think about all of the connections and the videos and the flight logs and the, you know, there was actually civil suit that named him. Now that went away, maybe it's because there was nothing there. And so that just, you know, there was actually civil suit that named him. Now that went away. Maybe it's because there was nothing there. And so that just, you know, sort of disappeared. But you got Epstein saying that they were besties

for a decade. You got Trump on the record in an infamous quote saying, hey, we were good friends for 15 years. And hey, he likes some young, he loves beautiful women. Maybe as much as me, I do. And many of them are on the younger side. So it's not at all preposterous to say, what the hell is going on here?

And as we discussed yesterday, to be perfectly blunt about this, yes, the American people have a direct interest in knowing whether Mossad has pedo blackmail material on the president of the United States. So I don't think this is going away. The other thing I've been thinking about is, you know, Trump likes these sort of like humiliation rituals

for the people in his circle to sort of force them into situations that are like embarrassing, go against things that they previously said. So a couple of examples, you had RFK Jr. eating the McDonald's on the plane, right? You had JD Vance being forced to stand behind him as he announces the Iran strike, obviously something that JD Vance was supposedly going to be against.

And there are many other examples of that. This almost feels like a humiliation ritual for his supporters. You know, like how far can I go in like directly attacking you and gaslighting you that this isn't something that I ran on and that my vice president wasn't out there campaigning on to get elected.

It almost feels like that. It feels like a test of the base of like, how far can I go? Can I really shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and you idiots are still gonna stick with me? That's kind of the vibe that I get from all of this. It's actually quite twisted. That's a really, yeah, I think it's a really interesting take

because there's something, I mean, also Trump, Pam Bondi have known each other, Trump and Pam Bondi have known each other for a really long time. So I wonder also if, I mean, obviously his original plan was to put Matt Gaetz in that role. I don't think any of us are buying the like 4D chess

intentional nomination of Matt Gaetz to like have Pam Bondi come into that role. But I think he also just seems to trust that she's protecting, like, because the way she's doubled and tripled down, it is kind of humiliating, of course, for someone who came in and was promising all of this transparency.

But it is, it's also her demonstrating loyalty over and over again, and being forced to demonstrate that loyalty in more sort of increasingly vociferous terms. Well, and Bon Gino and Cash too. I mean, the reports are Bon Gino is back in the office and whatever mental health day he took has restored him to full Trumpsickafancy. And, um, you know, these are two guys who made a living off of delving into, you know, some of the theories around Epstein. And so for them as well,

like if they'll do this, they will def, they will do anything. So let's move on to this vote in Congress yesterday. There was a vote in committee people may have heard about, um, this was rules committee a day before and we had Ro Khanna on obviously to talk about. He tried to get in a quick vote, a procedural vote basically, to include this, it would have forced disclosure on Epstein files within 30 days and demanded that they start preserving all files related to Epstein. That failed in committee. Then Democrats tried to force vote on a rule

that would have opened debate on another Epstein, very similar Epstein piece of legislation. So we can go ahead and take a look at this next video. On this vote, the yeas are 211, the nays are 210. The previous question is ordered. The question is on adoption of the resolution. Those in favor say aye. Those opposed say no.

And the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. I actually talked to Stubey right after that happened and some other members of Congress and also Marjorie Taylor Greene, Annapollina Luna, some of these super MAGA people who have been all over the Epstein case, Marjorie Taylor Greene certainly, and they said they're more than happy basically to keep voting on this. Paulina Luna, some of these super MAGA people who have been all over the Epstein case, Marcher Chiller Green, certainly. And they said they're more than happy,

basically, to keep voting on this. Like Thomas Massey has a bill, we'll see where that goes. Mike Johnson, yesterday we have more from him too. So I don't think I necessarily, they had this like whole crypto package that they're, it's all very disgusting. The crypto week, have you seen any of their like crypto week stuff?

It's like- Yeah, I hate it, It's terrible. And unfortunately, it's actually doing a little bit less well in the house. Apparently, I haven't followed it super closely, but some of the terrible crypto legislation failed to meet some key procedural hurdle yesterday. So that's good. And Democrats have been more united, not uniformly. I think like Richie Torres and Josh Gottheiber and some of the worst Democrats out there are in favor of it, but there's been less democratic support in the House than there was in the Senate.

So that's at least somewhat encouraging. But listen, on this thing, you had a party line, unanimous vote where Republicans were against even opening debate on the release of the Epstein files. So, you know, I'm sure they're going to spit in, they have their excuses of, oh, this didn't make sense to do with Crypto Week or blah, blah, blah. But at the end of the day, y'all voted against even debating

whether the Epstein files should be released after running around for years, you know, posturing, like, you wanted transparency and you cared about this. So I think it's very hard to see it any other way. Happy Crypto Week to all who celebrate. Just have to get that out here. Well, so let's- Thank you for your attention on this matter.

Yeah. Let's get into Mike Johnson, actually, because this was, I think, this is significant. We'll see. But some Republicans are calling for Gillian Maxwell to testify. Mike Johnson himself, obviously, will have some control over whether or not a bill like Congressman

Connors is passed or Congressman Thomas Massie's is passed. He'll have the ability. I think they're working together on it aren't they? I think it's a Massie Connors effort at this point. Perfect. You love to hear it and that's the type of thing that Mike Johnson will have control over getting to the actual voting process onto the floor of the House. And so he was talking to Benny Johnson yesterday, also Tim Burchett. Let's go ahead and roll A4.

I'm for transparency. We're intellectually consistent in this. Look, Reagan used to tell us we should trust the American people. I believe in that principle. I know President Trump does as well. And I trust him. I mean, he put together a team of his choosing

and they're doing a great job. It's a very delicate subject but we should we should put everything out there and let the people decide it. I mean the the White House and the White House team are privy to facts that I don't know. I mean this isn't my lane, I haven't been involved in that, but but I agree with the sentiment that we need to we need to put it out there and and you know Pam Bondi I don't know when she originally made the statement I think she was talking about documents as I understood it they were on her desk, I don't know when she originally made the statement, I think she was talking about documents as I understood it, they were on her desk, I don't know that she was specific about a list or whatever, but she needs to come forward and

explain that to everybody. I like Pam, I mean, I think she's done a good job. We need the DOJ focusing on the major priorities, so let's get this thing resolved so that they can deal with violent crime and public safety and election integrity and going after ActBlue and the things that the president is most concerned about as we are. So I'm anxious to get this behind him. I'm not an attorney. I just find them guilty and hang them publicly. I mean I'm not that's not over the top either. I'm ready. I'm over it. I'm big on clarity and transparency and you that's a good

reason people don't trust government, either party. Crystal, that was a good one. Just hang him. Is that what he said? Yeah. And then shortly thereafter, votes against even debating the release of the files. I mean, it's hard to take them seriously in their language here when the voting record at this point says something very different. They can put up, I mean, that's like they if they want to dispel people's deep skepticism, they can move to start tackling some of these bills and to start pressuring transparency. Mike Johnson said in a statement towards the end of the day, all House Republicans are for truth and transparency.

And we know President Trump can be trusted to make the right decisions to stand for justice and to protect the innocent. Now, Crystal, what's interesting about that, a couple of things. First of all, the next sentence is literally, I'm thankful for President Trump getting involved tonight to ensure that we can pass the Genius Act tomorrow

and agreeing again to help us advance additional crypto legislation in the coming days. Much more to come! So pivoting, I mean I thought pivoting to crypto was a ridiculous look. Of course, I mean I think that just comes across as ridiculous to a lot of people. But also, this, them saying we're punting to trusting Donald Trump, it's something that we've covered over the last couple of days and it is not going to be enough for their critics in any way whatsoever to just say we don't have to do anything in Congress because Republicans in

Congress trust Donald Trump. That's the party line that they're landing on. That's gonna be a tough one. Yeah, no, that seems like where they are is they'll say out on one side of their mouth, I believe in transparency and on the other side, they'll say, but I trust Trump and Trump is obviously against transparency at this point in time.

But increasingly, I just trust Trump is where they are landing and certainly where they, we know from reporting, the White House is telling people that's where you need to be. Stop undercutting Pam Bondi. Stop criticizing Dan and Cash. Stop with your even talking about this.

If you're still talking about this, you are a bad person and you're giving cover to Obama and Crooked Hillary and Jim Comey somehow who allegedly now wrote the Epstein files. It's just preposterous. So I think that is where congressional Republicans are hoping, they're hoping this all just sort of goes away and dies down. And now on the other side, you've got partisan motivation from Democrats who I think it's fair to say showed very little at the congressional level. I think this has not been a left right issue at the level of the American people.

It has become a right wing coded issue because it was sort of like lumped in with the QAnon bucket even though that is wildly unfair. But there was mass public interest across the board regardless of political ideology as one would expect with such a horrific and potentially consequential situation. But it's certainly fair to say Democrats in Congress didn't show too much interest when it was Biden in the White House. But now they have, they smell blood in the water. And they have a partisan interest in doing everything they can to keep this thing going. And so Ro Khanna was first out of the gates with that amendment. That got voted down, nearly a party line vote. There was actually one Republican who crossed over, I'm forgetting his name, who crossed

over and voted alongside with Roe. Otherwise it was a party line vote. And you know, we talked to him and he said, no, we're not letting this go. I'm not letting this go. He's working with Thomas Massey to move forward. Massey's already on the ounces. So he's already in yellow mode, you know, having millions dropped on him in a primary challenge, whatever.

So I don't expect there to be a let up for a while, especially since Trump keeps like, Streisand affecting himself to death on this one. Every time he makes some new preposterous comment, you know, gives everyone an excuse to continue talking about it. And as they should, because as I said, like, gives everyone an excuse to continue talking about it and as they should because as I said, like, it can be easy to dismiss this as, oh, he's dad, why do you care, blah, blah, blah, but it has potential current consequences for our foreign policy, not to mention having a system of justice that is not two tier where elites can just get away with the most horrific crimes imaginable and have it swept under the rug. Yeah, that's well said. I mean, I think it's because, first of all, current foreign for

current potential foreign policy implications of this. Secondly, you have this is completely like roiling the administration. So there's questions about what's happening behind closed doors and whether the attorney general is long for this administration, all of those things, completely important conversations. And the story matters to people as a sort of proxy question of trust. That a lot of people, this was one of the issues that brought them along to place their trust in Donald Trump. It's not everyone, and it wasn't anyone's top priority

for the most part, but it was one of those things that said you're an insider versus an outsider. And now Democrats have all kinds of political incentives to start pursuing a question that they will be rewarded by voters with trust if they do a good job holding the Trump administration's feet to the fire. So what happened at Chappaquiddick? Well, it really depends on who you talk to. There are many versions of what happened in 1969 when a young Ted Kennedy drove a car

into a pond. And left a woman behind to drown. There's a famous headline, I think, in the New York Daily News. It's, Teddy escapes, blonde drowns. And in a strange way, right, that sort of tells you. The story really became about Ted's political future, Ted's political hopes. Will Ted become president?

Chappaquiddick is a story of a tragic death and how the Kennedy machine took control. And he's not the only Kennedy to survive a scandal. The Kennedys have lived through disgrace, affairs, violence, you name it. So is there a curse? Every week we go behind the headlines and beyond the drama of America's royal family. Listen to United States of Kennedy on the iHeart radio app,

Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. American history is full of wise people. What women said something like, you know, 99.99% of war is diarrhea and 1% is glory. Those founding fathers were gossipy AF and they loved to cut each other down. I'm Bob Crawford, host of American History Hotline, the show where you send us your questions about American history and I find the answers. Including the nuggets of wisdom our history has to offer. Hamilton pauses and then he says, the greatest man that ever lived was Julius Caesar. And

Jefferson writes in his diary, this proves that Hamilton is for a dictator based on corruption. My favorite line was what Neil Armstrong said, it would have been harder to fake it than to do it. Listen to American History Hotline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just like great shoes, great books take you places. Through unforgettable love stories

and into conversations with characters you'll never forget. I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like butterflies. I'm Danielle Robay, and this is Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club, the new podcast from Hello Sunshine and iHeart Podcasts. Every week I sit down with your favorite book lovers, authors, celebrities, book talkers, and more to explore the stories that shape us, on the page and off. I've been reading every Reese's Book Club pick, deep diving book talk theories, and obsessing

over book to screen casts for years. And now I get to talk to the people making the magic. So if you've ever fallen in love with a fictional character, or cried at the last chapter, or passed a book to a friend saying, you have to read this. This podcast is for you. Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the iHeartRadio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you get your podcasts. I actually want to roll A7, Crystal, because I mentioned it.

It goes along with Mike Johnson. When Benny Johnson asked house Speaker Mike Johnson whether or not Galen Maxwell should testify. He basically said everything people heard. He said everything should be out there. I'm all for transparency. Attorney General Pam Bondi should come forward and explain herself and tell us what happened. Mike Lee also talked to Benny Johnson yesterday and said, Galeen Maxwell should testify. Let's roll A7. You'd be in favor of Galeen Maxwell testifying.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm postive on this. And if she were to testify, I think she could answer a lot of questions that could help put all of this in perspective. Yeah, I know a lot of these players, some of them are disagreeing with each other. Danchino and I have been really good friends the last 14 years and good friends with cash Patel and also with

Pam Bundy I like all of them I think there is a way to to draw a straight line between all of them in a way that will satisfy the public's Both curiosity and legitimate demand to know what happened. Okay, so Republicans control the House and the Senate, and of course the presidency as well. So Ball is in their court. It's in the court of Republican leadership to make some of this happen. Yeah, and there's some interesting things going on

with Ghislaine Maxwell right at this point, because she had an appeal all the way up to the Supreme Court that had gotten sort of pushed off till now, where the government had to respond to how they were handling this appeal. And basically, I mean, it's like, like this woman is a horrifying sex criminal and implicated in every way in this web of, you know, like a pyramid scheme of pedophilia and molestation. She should just justifiably spend the rest of her life in prison. of like a pyramid scheme of pedophilia and molestation, she should justifiably spend the rest of her life in prison. But what she's saying is,

hey, you guys, the government, made this sweetheart deal with Jeffrey Epstein down in Florida under Alex Acosta, who of course ends up being Trump's labor secretary. Part of that deal was that all of the co-conspirators of Jeffrey Epstein are off the hook forever. And I was one of those co-conspirators. So how can you really prosecute me?

How can you throw me in prison? When you guys agreed to this deal that said, anyone who was affiliated with Epstein and implicated in these crimes was off the hook. So that's the appeal that she's making in the Supreme Court. We got an interesting statement from her family that we can put up on the screen here. They say, our sister, Ghislaine,

did not receive a fair trial. Her legal team continues to fight her case in the courts and will file its reply in short order to the government's opposition in the US Supreme Court. If necessary, in due course, they'll also file a writ of habeas corpus in the US District Court, SDNY. This allows her to challenge her imprisonment on the basis of new evidence, such as government

misconduct that would have likely changed the trial's outcome. Following the government's response, David Oscar Marcus, counsel of record for our sister in her petition to the U.S. Supreme Court, had this comment, quote, I'd be surprised if President Trump knew his lawyers were asked in the Supreme Court to let the government break a deal. And this is in reference to that sweetheart deal that Alex Acosta made. He's the ultimate dealmaker. And I'm sure he'd agree that when the US gives its word, it should keep it.

With all the talk about who's being prosecuted and who isn't, it's especially unfair that Glenn Maxwell remains in prison based on a promise the US government made and broke. These are sentiments the family says with which we profoundly concur. So a sort of direct appeal there to Trump himself, who of course we played, you know, some of the footage from yesterday whenever he's got out and gotten asked about Galeen Maxwell and what he wants to happen for her trial or for her being in prison. He always says, well, I wish her well.

And we also have, you know, reporting that allegedly he was considering a pardon for her because he was concerned about what potential information she may have. Yeah. This is a really interesting development because if she can successfully make this case and people have questions, I think rightfully about the way her trial was conducted, not because it was too harsh on Ghislaine Maxwell and too focused on locking her up, but rather in the other direction. So either way, if she's able to get this taken seriously, that this opens up a lot and it actually comports with the story in The Daily Mail that we covered earlier this week, Crystal, about how

Ghislaine Maxwell is telegraphing through an anonymous source in the Daily Mail that we covered earlier this week, Crystal, about how Ghislaine Maxwell is telegraphing through an anonymous source to the Daily Mail that she would be willing to talk. Again, you have to take it with a giant grain of salt, but it seems more and more like this is actually plausible that we would start to hear directly from her. Yeah, well, I mean, if she does have some damaging information about the president, it's an intelligent chess move.

Because if she's, she's obviously looking to posture to try to get that pardon from Trump. And so this is sort of the threat of, hey, I could testify to Congress. And you know, right now, sure, Republicans have control of the House and the Senate, but very, very, I would say likely after the midterms, Democrats are going to at Republicans have control of the House and the Senate, but very, very, I would say likely after the midterms, Democrats are gonna at least have control of the House. So that opens up a whole other world of possibilities.

And so I think there's some tactical chess playing going on here from the Ghislaine Maxwell side. And the last thing I'll say about this is it just underscores how absolutely absurdly, outrageously disgusting that sweetheart deal was, that it would even be theoretically possible that this woman could get off the hook because of this deal that was made. And just so people recall, I mean, Epstein got a slap on the wrist. You know, it was the charges were pretty minor charges. He served his sentence out, being able to leave on quote unquote work release for 12

hours a day, where he was able to go and do whatever he wanted. I think he served about 13 months on that cushy work release situation where his cell door was open, he had a TV, he could come and go. And then after 13 months, he just was out. I mean, he reporting suggests that even though he was supposed to be just in his house, like under, you know, home confinement, he was traveling the world and right back to doing everything that he wanted to do. And when the law enforcement like maybe that I'm not sure if it was the FBI, I don't want

to implicate the wrong law enforcement agency here. But when they were told, Hey, this guy is leaving. He's not staying on home confinement. They're like, yeah, he's a celebrity What can we do? Mm-hmm? He's a celebrity. What can we do many such cases? many such cases sadly, so let's Take a look at a nine. This is Scott Jennings Crystal we were talking about how some people who are sort of in situations where yeah I feel like you can tell people who just don't care about I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question.

I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question.

I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question.

I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's or wherever. And I think maybe you could put Scott Jennings in that category. And here's where Scott Jennings and other Republicans are landing. This is A9. Take it as an article of faith for many years that the idea that there's information that we're not seeing as the general public.

And people said that, bought into it. And so Donald Trump wins the election. He appoints Pam Bondi. He appoints Dan the election. He points, Pam body points, Dan Bongino points cash to tell these are all people that the same audience has you know confidence and we trust their judgment. And it I think it's just hard sometimes to believe something for a long time and then be told you know what what we believe is is not the case or certainly people that have legitimate questions about what

happened, I mean I've heard now two lawyers, both your guest tonight and Arthur Ayadala, who I was on with Friday night, both raised questions about whether they believe he even committed suicide. So you can see they're actually in the know people who are still raising legitimate questions about this case. You can see why the general public

would also have those questions. At the same time, if you vote for Donald Trump and you have trust in his judgment and the people he's appointed, at some point you have to trust their judgment. I mean, you put them in charge of this. And I think what Doug said is important to know the Biden people had this stuff. If there was something incriminating about Trump, it would have come out. And also now the Trump people have this stuff and if there was something incriminating about, you know, Bill Gates or Bill Clinton, it would certainly have come

out. And so I guess it's some juncture. If you trust the people that you voted for, you trust the people that you voted for. Well, and just quickly on that point, Crystal, I've heard it a couple of times that if the Biden administration had something on Donald Trump, don't you think it would have come out? That's a line actually that a lot of Republicans have used in recent days. And I think you can, logically, it's like, okay, maybe there's something to that but then it's like actually they're I mean these political elite circles are fairly small and it's possible that whatever implicated Donald Trump would also Implicate Democratic donors would also implicate Power brokers who are in Dem circles Donald Trump himself was in like Dem

Powerbroker circles in the the 80s and 90s. Like he was somebody who was giving money to Democrats. So it's actually there's I see why they're rolling with that line. But if there's a bunch of information in the files that are devastating for the Clintons at the same time that they're devastating to Donald Trump potentially, that to me actually doesn't make a lot of sense. Well, not to mention if it is in fact a massade blackmail ring operation, then yeah, Joe Biden is not going to be part of exposing that because he's a dyed-in-the-wool Zionist.

So I think there are... Even if, and this is the point, even if it is what they always thought they had in the steel dust, yeah, even if it's like Trump doing something disgusting and whatever, they're still, we've talked about this, they're still being asked to say, if you're, you know, Biden and you are an establishment Democrat and you are thinking you protect Mossad and protect the state of Israel or you expose Donald Trump doing something sexually horrifying, they're going to choose in one direction over the other even though that seems insane given all of the different political maneuvers they took.

It's just a question of like their personal cost-benefit analysis and I actually feel like we know where they come down on that when we're talking about like potential nuclear war and world affairs and foreign policy. Joe Biden was willing to lose his reelection in order to continue backing Israel's genocide. There is apparently nothing that he is not willing to do for that country. And so I don't think it's hard to imagine

that if that, in fact, is the truth of what's going on here, that, yeah, he would not be the one to expose that. And it's also worth remembering too, I mean, Joe Biden was in Washington for a long ass time before he was president of the United States, including in the capacity as vice president of the United States. So it's very plausible that he has known the truth of what is going on there for a long time and also wouldn't want it exposed that nobody has ever, like he didn't show up in the flight logs or anything, but perhaps he's implicated in terms of knowing for a while

that this was the truth of what was going on. Now this is all, now I'm really getting out there in terms of speculation land, but I'm just trying to make the point that it's not hard to imagine a set of circumstances in which Joe Biden is also not interested in exposing the truth of what's going on here and where he would himself take on some political damage for doing so, or at the very least undercut his favorite national ally. So what happened at Chappaquiddick? Well, it really depends on who you talk to.

There are many versions of what happened in 1969 when a young Ted Kennedy drove a car into a pond. And left a woman behind to drown. There's a famous headline, I think, in the New York Daily News. It's, Teddy escapes, blonde drowns. And in a strange way, right, that sort of tells you the story really became about Ted's political future, Ted's political hopes. Will Ted become president? Chappaquiddick is a story of a tragic death and how the Kennedy machine took control. And he's not the only Kennedy to survive a scandal. The Kennedys have lived through disgrace, affairs, violence, you name it. So is there

a curse? Every week we go behind the headlines and beyond the drama of America's royal family. Listen to United States of Kennedy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. American history is full of wise people. Well, women said something like, you know, 99.99% of war is diarrhea

and 1% is glory. Those founding fathers were gossipy AF and they loved to cut each other down. I'm Bob Crawford, host of American History Hotline, the show where you send us your questions about American history and I find the answers, including the nuggets of wisdom our history has to offer. You send us your questions about American history and I find the answers, including the nuggets of wisdom our history has to offer.

Hamilton pauses and then he says, the greatest man that ever lived was Julius Caesar. And Jefferson writes in his diary, this proves that Hamilton is for a dictator based on corruption. My favorite line was what Neil Armstrong said, it would have been harder to fake it than to do it. Listen to American history hotline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just like great shoes, great books take you places through unforgettable love stories and into conversations with characters you'll never forget. "...I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like butterflies." I'm Danielle Robay, and this is Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club, the new podcasts from Hello Sunshine and iHeart Podcasts.

Every week I sit down with your favorite book lovers, authors, celebrities, book talkers, and more to explore the stories that shape us on the page and off. I've been reading every Reese's Book Club pick, deep diving book talk theories, and obsessing over book to screen casts for years. And now I get to talk to the people making the magic. So if you've ever fallen in love with a fictional character or cried at the last chapter or passed a book to a friend saying, you have to read this. This podcast is for you. Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the

iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Joe Rogan reacted to this fiasco from the Trump administration in recent days where there's just been a seesaw ping-pong back and forth what is actually going on what they said was going on and let's take a look at how Rogan reacted to the chaos in recent days we can roll this a 10 they've got videotape and also they don't you know you had the director of the FBI on the show saying there's no tape. If there was, nothing you're looking for is on those tapes. Like, what?

Why did they say there was thousands of hours of tapes of people doing horrible shit? Why did they say that? Right. Didn't Pam Bondi say that? Are you talking about Epstein or Diddy? Yeah, Epstein. Yeah, she said it literally, I think a week before you had the FBI director sitting here telling you there was nothing

Right. She said something about that. There was like thousands of hours of tapes of people doing horrible crime There is and didn't the FBI dude say that there was nothing Cash Patel said there's nothing you're looking for. Oh, okay Okay, I mean what am I gonna do? I'm gonna push back. No, of course. I obviously I understand saying what he has to say Right mystery surrounds the Jeffrey Epstein files after bondi claims tens of thousands of videos tens of thousands. Jesus Christ Tell you what? Chill oh my god was reviewing tens of thousands of videos the wealthy financial financier with children or child porn wealthy financier with children or child porn. The comment made to reporters at the White House days after a similar remark to a stranger with a hidden camera raised the stakes for President Donald Trump's administration to

prove it has in its possession previously unseen compelling documents or just bombing ran. And everybody forgets about it. Just bombing ran. Yeah. Everybody forgets about it. Crystal, what do you make of that? Well, that last piece, I'm fearful he may be correct about because I think it's entirely possible that Trump does do something wild,

like potentially bomb Iran or something equivalent, in order to get people to change focus because that is his approach. But yeah, I mean, someone like Rogan, I think the bro podcasters, they are not going to be on board for this level of gaslighting on something that they also, you know, were focused on for a long time. Now, does that make a full turn on Trump? We know that Joe just had dinner with Trump and expressed some concerns about the direction with regard to the immigration policy concerns that were apparently immediately ignored. But, you know, I think people who are diehard, MAGA Republicans are likely ultimately gonna buy

the like, we just got to trust Trump because he's Trump and that's who we voted for. And this is our guy. But I think people who are more in the sort of like independent, and they voted for Trump for the first time or, you know, whatever, or less like die-hard MAGA cultist. I think this really does speak to this administration's not going the way I thought. This man is not the man I hoped he would be. This cuts so hard against his I'm the outsider posture, which of course, you know, I've always thought his positioning himself as an outsider was sort of preposterous, but that is the way that he positioned himself and that is the way that he was able to gain so much traction. And this for anyone who

has their eyes open just utterly destroys that positioning. We played with Sagar on Monday. I don't know if you saw this guy at the TPUSA conference who was talking to Steve Bannon. And he was like, Trump is the deep state now. He is the deep state. And Bannon was like, what? But there are going to be some number of people who just feel completely jaded. And I think it probably gets channeled into a significant amount of nihilism. If there isn't a competing political project that people really can believe in. You know, I have a couple of thoughts on that. One is there are, I mean, yes, like some hardcore MAGA people, we played the Scott Jennings clip earlier.

I wouldn't consider him hardcore MAGA. He's like comes from the McConnell world. Yeah, he's Mitch McConnell guy. But he's just going to do what he needs to do. Yeah. Yeah. So like normie Republicans who embrace MAGA now, you guys are like, we're moving on, it's about trusting Trump. Like a Mike Johnson, Scott Jennings, those types of guys

moving in that direction. On the other hand, I don't think we should discount that some of these podcasters, I'm not talking about Rogan, we have a Candace Owens clip that we're about to play, but I think some of these podcasters have put significant personal, like personal reputational stakes on the line for years about Epstein. They know there's hours of them talking about Epstein on the internet.

And even just like from a cynical calculated perspective, they are like aware that they have to keep on the same consistent point about Jeffrey Epstein, otherwise, I mean, it's just, it's too glaring of, it's too glaring of a contrast. So I think there is something to be said for that. I think even like Benny, Benny is an example who has been on the Epstein case like a dog with a bone for years, and let's just say from a cynical perspective,

Benny was like, this is bad for the Trump administration, I really love Donald Trump, I've always trusted Donald Trump. Now there are weeks, months, years of tapes of him talking about how serious the Epstein case was in very specific terms about why Democrats and why the FBI, why the feds don't want more information to come out. So it just also is like, I just don't think people on the outside should underestimate

how powerful that is because it has been such a fixture of the podcast world. And that's also why in substance it matters to people because it has been seen rightfully as the ultimate proxy issue of the insider versus outsider dynamic. And NBC News talked to a girl at the Turning Point Summit who said it exactly like that, basically put it exactly in those terms,

just saying, I thought he was the outsider, now it looks like he's protecting the insiders. Trump pitched himself as this outsider who was the most compelling outsider because he was also kind of an insider who knew where the bodies were buried and would know where to look and would be able to direct people to say,

transparency here, transparency there. And again, you and I can debate whether or not that was ever plausible or legitimate, but people who work in jobs that don't involve doing what we do and obsessing over this stuff because they have normal, wonderful lives are like, okay, this guy is right. He tells me that I shouldn't trust any of these other people.

And that's correct. He is correctly saying you can't trust the Clintons, you can't trust the Bidens, you can't trust the Bushes. And because he earned people's trust by saying correctly that they couldn't trust those people, some people just by default put their trust in Donald Trump. And this is something that actually undermines that very pitch from him about why you should trust him and not them.

Well, and that's why I call it as another sort of humiliation ritual. It really is another test. How far will you go? Do you have any principles? Do you have any consistency? You've got hours of tape out there of you saying this is a big deal and this is a coverup and we have to get to the truth of what's going on. And there's, this is an elite sex crimes ring where powerful people have been skating by and we need accountability and we need justice. Can I get you to over the course of a week, just turn on a dime and repudiate all that

and say I trust Trump. The other thing that makes me think of Emily, and I wonder if you see any parallels here as well, is go way back to grab her by the pussy, where Republicans at that time had been posturing for years, really going back to the Clinton's impeachment of like, morals and character in a presidential candidate matters. You know, we are the ethical party of family values. And you've got Mike Pence on the ticket, who is like the emblem of that sort of, you know, evangelical Christian coalition and the, you and the importance of family values.

And they go to all these family values conferences every year. And it's like, all right, here's your guy. What are you going to do? And there was turmoil. I mean, this is at a time when it looked like Trump was going to get walloped by Hillary Clinton. That's what the polls suggested was that he was going to go down in flames. And so that was, you know, okay, well, are you going to push aside your decades long supposed commitment to like morals and ethics, specifically around family values and a presidential candidate? Are you going to suck it up and get on board and say this

is a locker room talk and there's nothing to see here. It's a great point. We know ultimately where they all fell. Now, here's one thing I will say to your point about what is a little different now. First of all, the media landscape is completely transformed from that moment. It is not the same media landscape whatsoever. Right. Second of all, Trump may be a lame duck.

We don't know, but I think many people probably assume that he only has a few more years in the presidency and then there's going to be some post-Trump Republican party. I personally think that's actually foolish to think that that's the case, but I'm sure many people think that that's the case. Number three, you have now a lane sort of like the, you know, the Jimmy Dore lane on the left of like, I'm just gonna be critical of everyone all the time and like sort of like a nihilistic lane that has opened up on the right as well. And Fuentes is a perfect example of that. And I think Candice is flirting with that lane as well.

And so in terms of just sort of where can I go and get an audience, they have demonstrated, Fuentes in particular has demonstrated, and I think Tucker also is starting to demonstrate that as well, though I questioned his actual independence from Trump, but we'll put that aside for the moment. Fuentes has demonstrated like, oh, you can have an audience, you can make money, and you can be influential and have clout without always towing the line.

And so that opens up a new sort of business possibility for the podcast, the right wing podcaster world that didn't necessarily exist before where it really was just sort of like you have to support whatever Trump does. And that's your best way to make money, have power, have influence, have clout, etc. So those things do create some different dynamics than we saw back in 2016. But that is what it reminds me of is that grab her by the pussy moment where Republicans were forced to completely do a 180 on their vociferously held, purported, long time values. What's interesting about that too is it, I think goes a long way towards explaining Trump, who's a very media savvy man,

landing on this new line of defense, which is the files were cooked up by the Biden administration, by Comey, by the deep state, essentially, because the effort there is to muddy the waters. A lot of these podcast world people are very sympathetic to Trump in that sort of quest to take down people, or let's just say in his war against the so-called deep state,

and some of this is for legitimate reasons. There was a lot of funny business going on, and we've covered a lot of it here. So they're already kind of primed to see that as true, to believe that as true because of the last decade. And that means if Donald Trump just sort of, he thinks he can plant that seed, money the waters, and say, hey, maybe actually this is all coming

from the deep state. It's something that Alex Jones was talking about a little bit last week, saying that he saw, and we're gonna get to Alex Jones in just a moment, he saw a possibility, an evidence of the situation where Trump was in control of the Epstein dirt and using that to control the deep state. He was sort of reverse blackmailing the deep state

with his Epstein information. Classic 8D chess move from Trump. Let's actually get to a 12 here. This is more reaction from Alex Jones who has really been going through it in the last week. I'm getting really concerned here at this point because the flip-flopping and the 180 and then going back and going back is just the biggest train wreck I've ever seen and it's not in character for you to be acting like this. So we want your agenda to succeed. I've done deep research, I've ever saw you involved with FTE criminal activity. So why are you acting like this? You made a deal with the establishment to leave you alone? Have they rolled over? US intelligence we know is involved,

Mossad, CIA, MI6, we already know that. But instead you just continue to say nothing to see here, move along, though go ahead and release information, but there's no information to release. Contradiction for contradiction, flip-flopping and flip-flopping, 180s on 180s on 180s. Jesus, I'm on a roller coaster here. And then, oh, it's only fake news that's concerned. Oh, like MTG and Tucker Carlson and myself and Joe Rogan and the American people.

This is something that finally got our attention. People finally woke up to this. People finally understand a window in the deep state with all this. And so you signing on to this and flip-flopping is just self-harming. I mean, please, President Trump, stop. If you want it to go away, just be quiet. It's like there's a gun to his head saying, you better come out and say, no, this exists or we'll release it.

It's bad. It's getting worse by the minute. And I support you, but we built the movement you wrote in on. You're not the move, but you just surfed in on it. And I'm telling you, man, the Democrats, we know we're pure evil. My God, they promote pedophilia and everything openly. So why the hell are you acting like this? Please stop now.

So Crystal, let's go ahead and roll Candace Owens as well, and then break down what we're seeing from both of them. This is A11. Nothing to see here, Jeffrey Epstein. You see, we're not saying that you're guilty, but you are right now guilty of gaslighting the public. We're not saying that you are in the files. And again, I would like to stress,

I certainly don't believe that, but it is very clear that you are not calling the shots on the Jeffrey Epstein debacle, and you're essentially being used to try to control the public reaction to those files not being released. What is happening now is it seems like you think your base is stupid.

That's how I feel. I feel like Trump thinks his base is stupid, or again, because I don't think he's pressing send on these messages, the people around him certainly think that Trump is stupid. And that shouldn't surprise you, given the fact that all of these people were never Trump. And they think, as they thought, that Trump was too stupid to be president, that his base

is too stupid to see through the lies that they are telling right now. And so what are they going to do? What is the last thing they're going to do now with Epstein's stuff while we're still reacting to it? Oh, operation. Just give them more war. Yeah, war as a distraction. Never mind.

We can't talk about Epstein because guys, guess what? Look at this headline. Trump announces an aggressive or Trump is to announce an aggressive Ukraine weapons plan. Yeah, he already indicated that in that same press conference that there's just going to be more weapons sent to Ukraine. They're going to attack Russia. We're just going to have to have a world war and another resets, I guess. Do you guys just stop talking about Jeffrey Epstein? And I am telling you that I will be the very last person that will stop talking about Jeffrey Epstein. When it comes to children, I'm telling you guys the left and the right, we have definitely got

to come together on this and not let it go. So yeah, the very last person who will stop talking about Jeffrey Epstein, one of Donald Trump's daughterunchest supporters. Yeah, and it's interesting she and Rogan both come to the same like, oh, I guess they're just gonna start another war or escalate some of the wars we're already involved with to distract from this.

And it's a clever point that Candice makes there to say there are like, that's already happening. And we covered, of course, the Ukraine escalation yesterday and Trump's plans to ship these long range weapons and the fact that apparently he asked Zelensky and it was leaked. He asked Zelensky like, Hey, can you hit Moscow? Can you hate hit St. Petersburg? So I think that's a that's a savvy point that Candace is ultimately making there. I can't help but notice. Oh, Emily, she's still like, he's being controlled. Like it's never him. Who's the actor? It's he's being controlled. Like it's never him who's the actor.

It's who's controlling you. And same thing with Alex Jones. Like Alex seems genuinely tortured. You know, we played that video where he was crying and he said he was going to puke. Like I believe him. I believe that he probably vomited and is like genuinely tortured over what the fuck year

because he is the O.G. conspiracy guy, right? And so for Trump to completely flip on Epstein and say, you are a bad person if you still are talking about this. And to put out there this most outlandish explanation that it was Obama who wrote the Epstein files, which just doesn't even make any sense. Alex is trying to reckon with this in some way that

doesn't lead to the conclusion, oh, Trump is implicated in these files. He always says the same thing of, like, I did deep research and I know there's nothing there in terms of you and kids. But you know if it was any Democrat, actually if it was anyone other than Trump, even another Republican, he would come to the obvious conclusion,

you're trying to cover something up that must look really bad for you because and that's why he's so tortured and wrapping himself around this thing. Because how do you look at the fact pattern and not come to the conclusion as Ann Coulter was hinting at like, oh, maybe there is some there there because otherwise, why are you behaving in this completely preposterous way? And now Alex Jones is begging him not even to, this is also interesting to me, he's not even begging him at this point to release the files. He's just begging him to stop, stop talking about it, stop doing what you're doing, like just please stop. Which is kind of wild. You would think that, you know, he would be calling for the release of the files, but he'd know, just please stop talking about this. You're just drawing more attention. You're just making things worse. Just stop everything that you're doing right now. And so it's pretty wild to behold, but there's no doubt if it was certainly any Democrat,

he, Candice, the whole cast of characters would immediately go, oh, they're guilty. That's why they're behaving this way That is the most logical explanation I mean people are getting closer people not side of it are getting closer and closer to thinking that and your point about Sager Saying you know I never thought there was any there there with with Trump and Epstein I still think it's probably likely that Trump is Covering up for someone close to him rather than him himself, but the more that he talks, this is what Alex Jones is getting at, the more absurd and desperate

he looks. And that is suspicious. Of course it's suspicious. I mean, everything around Trump and Epstein is already suspicious enough. But yeah, I mean, it's just, it's going to get, the Donald Trump that they're painting a portrait of, whether it's Alex Jones or Candace Owens, or Joe Rogan actually, it is so incredibly dark. This idea that you would have a president who says he's going to drain the swamp and purge corruption, who is hiding, covering up for political elites

in the case of a sex predator in order to protect himself and then deflecting by sending more weapons into a conflict that he also said he would get elected to end. I mean, that is what they are, the portrait that they're painting for their listeners is an incredibly dark and powerful one. So what happened at Chappaquiddick?

Well, it really depends on who you talk to. There are many versions of what happened in 1969 when a young Ted Kennedy drove a car into a pond. And left a woman behind to drown. There's a famous headline, I think, in the New York Daily News. It's, Teddy escapes, blonde drowns. And in a strange way, right, that sort of tells you.

The story really became about Ted's political future, Ted's political hopes. Will Ted become president? Chappaquiddick is a story of a tragic death and how the Kennedy machine took control. And he's not the only Kennedy to survive a scandal. The Kennedys have lived through disgrace, affairs, violence, you name it.

So is there a curse? Every week we go behind the headlines and beyond the drama of America's royal family. Listen to United States of Kennedy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. American history is full of wise people. Well, women said something like, you know, 99.99% of war is diarrhea and 1% is gory.

Those founding fathers were gossipy AF, and they loved to cut each other down. I'm Bob Crawford, host of American History Hotline, the show where you send us your questions about American history and I find the answers, including the nuggets of wisdom our history has to offer. Hamilton pauses and then he says, the greatest man that ever lived was Julius Caesar. And Jefferson writes in his diary, this proves that Hamilton is for a dictator based on corruption. My favorite line was what Neil Armstrong said, it would have been harder to fake it than to do it.

Listen to American history hotline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just like great shoes, great books take you places. Through unforgettable love stories and into conversations with characters you'll never forget. I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like butterflies. I'm Danielle Robay and this is Bookmarked

by Reese's Book Club, the new podcast from Hello Sunshine and iHeart Podcasts. Every week I sit down with your favorite book lovers, authors, celebrities, book talkers, and more to explore the stories that shape us, on the page and off. I've been reading every Reese's Book Club pick, deep diving book talk theories, and obsessing over book to screen casts for years. And now I get to talk to the people making the magic. So if you've ever fallen in love with a fictional character, or cried at the last chapter, or

passed a book to a friend saying, you have to read this, this podcast is for you. Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Crystal, that's probably a good note on which to transition to the politics of all of this. We have numbers, so let's put A5 on the screen. This is new polling data. Should the government release all documents related to the Epstein case? This is from YouGov.

Yes, 79%. No, 5%. It's not even close. Those 79% all bad people, Emily. Bad people. The only noble ones are the 5% who say no. And most of them are apparently in Congress, Republican members of Congress. Yeah. And here's Harry Enton going through some polling numbers on CNN, A6.

Take a look here, Epstein case, amount of info released. The winner here, 50% dissatisfied. Doesn't matter, 29%, not heard enough 17%. But look at the bottom of your screen. The percentage that are satisfied is just 3%. That's one, that's two, that is just 3%. I feel like the count on Sesame Street, just 3% of Americans are satisfied so far with the amount of information released.

The clear winner in this particular case is 50%. Half of the public is dissatisfied, at least so far. You see this 50% dissatisfied, and let's break it down by party. Okay Epstein-Kenneth's amount of info released. Look at this you get 43% of lean GOP that's Republicans and independents who lean towards the Republican Party who are dissatisfied. Look at this just 4% satisfied my goodness gracious when you only have 4% that is with Donald Trump on a particular issue that is ridiculously low I've never seen anything quite like it. How about lean Democrat?

60% dissatisfied. Compare that to 3% who are satisfied. Again, 4%, 3% Republican, Democrat. You rarely ever see this type of agreement. Whites with a college degree, whites without a college degree. But in this particular case, we see agreement. What are we talking about this Epstein case,, amount of info released dissatisfied 55% of white college graduates and 53% of white non-college graduates, Donald Trump's historic base, yet the majority are dissatisfied.

Look at Donald Trump uniting the country. It's healing the grand education divide. Look at that, Emily. One of the numbers that Enten didn't mention specifically, but was on the screen, you could see was most interesting to me. Twenty nine percent of people saying that it doesn't matter. Right. So if that number were higher, then Trump

would be able to get away with this. Right. Like Trump could. There are all kinds of things that don't matter to voters. They might disagree with the president on, but it doesn't really matter. You know, we're not talking right now about Donald Trump's position on abortion at all.

It's not like the high priority for many voters at this given moment, or let's say Donald Trump disagrees on like the Jones Act. You can show all of these scary poll numbers about how voters are in total disagreement with Donald Trump on the Jones Act. Nobody cares about the Jones Act. So when you have-

Aukus. Are you an Aukus voter? Yes. Yes. You know, Sager probably cares a lot about the Jones Act, but 29% of people saying doesn't matter. Wow. Like that's, that number is a bit low for the comfort of the Republican party. I'm actually curious for some more polling about how closely people have been and are following the Epstein case. Because in some ways it does feel like kind of an internet phenomenon. And certainly it has been podcasters who have most focused on it and delved into it and

explored the various avenues, you know, mainstream media, basically once he was dead, just sort of dropped it like a hot potato and there wasn't a lot of additional reporting, etc. Some may say that was the point. In any case, it has been largely a sort of podcast phenomenon. But because it touches on some of these core themes of just like, do you trust this guy? You know, did he is he a con man, which of course I think he is, I've thought that he was, but you know, he presented himself as a sound sider. Is he really that or was this all just, you know, a giant con of the American people and most directly of his own supporters. So because, and also look, it's, you know, it's sort in tawdry and those things also grab people's attention. So I have a feeling

that there is a lot of significant normie public interest in this. And I, but I, you know, I don't have a strong feeling about I'm curious to see more numbers as to just how closely people are following this, just what they make of it, just how important they think it is. And we'll see over time, how it impacts his approval rating. You know, like I said before, I don't think that this causes MAGA to the MAGA base, right? I think they'll still be there. I think, you know, Dinesh D'Souza and others who have this, like, oh, but let's focus on the great work he's doing, like, you know, imprisoning people in alligator Alcatraz or whatever. I think that will probably be successful

with most of his base, because it's certainly not the first time he's been caught in a blatant hypocrisy. It's not even the first time like this month that he's been caught in a blatant hypocrisy. But for independence, you know, I think he'll probably start rapidly receding towards his floor, like the type of numbers that we saw, independence, you know, I think he'll probably start rapidly receding towards

his floor, like the type of numbers that we saw, you know, after January six, for example, I don't know, it will get quite that low, but I think we'll start heading more in that direction. I know that I saw already whole numbers of his approval ratings declining significantly on this because it just does really cut against the identity that he's tried to forge for himself in politics. Yeah, there's one final thought I have. Some smart analysts of the Biden presidency

were looking at his favorability and his numbers. And after the botched Afghanistan withdrawal, which by the way, in principle, most Americans agreed with getting out of Afghanistan, Biden's poll numbers never really recovered from that moment. That's sort of like when things in terms of the politics started to go downhill for Joe Biden.

And you could potentially make the case that this is possibly a parallel moment for Donald Trump. It's one of those things where you just lose trust. And once you lose trust and you look, I mean, we were talking about the humiliation rituals that Donald Trump likes to put his deputies through, but it's humiliating for Donald Trump to, and he doesn't see it this way of course, but to talk such a tough game about the deep state and transparency and draining the

swamp and then to be a guy who comes out there and can't get tough on the Epstein case, the case that most people want, the case that's most important to people who want toughness from a outsider president, an outsider president who pledged to take on the swamp. So that, I actually think that is sort of a humiliating moment for Trump, and I do wonder if it causes trust with, you know, 5% even of people who generally give him the benefit of the doubt.

It's one of those things where it's a proxy issue. It just, I sensed actually, the Republican Study Committee did a new media row yesterday and I was talking, so I was talking to a bunch of members and I got the sense from them that they know their districts care about this and They know people are gonna ask them about this

They know they're gonna actually answer questions about it And so it Trump is not really going to be able to hand wave it away Not just because of how Alex Jones and Candice Owens are reacting but also because it's going to stick in the minds of regular people but also because it's going to stick in the minds of regular people. Yeah. And Trump is a political Teflon and is able to write out a bunch of crises and already has written out a bunch of crises. But there's been massive blowback against the Republican Party in midterm elections in particular as a consequence of things that he has done that has sunk the party's chances. So when you think about the midterm elections, which is still a ways down the road, we're

going to have 85 more like scandals and outrageous things happen, wars and whatever the hell we're going to see over the next year and a half, but between now and then. But this is the sort of thing that contributes to apathy amongst your base where, you know, they may still say, yes, I approve of what he's doing and I'm glad he's in there and I trust my guy. Am I going to go out and vote for this Republican member of Congress who voted against the release of the Epstein files? Maybe not. Maybe I've got other things going on that day.

It only takes a couple points of depressed turnout on the Republican side to really remake the landscape in terms of what those midterm elections ultimately look like. Yeah. And nobody really agrees that Jeffrey Epstein, that there's no there there. really remake the landscape in terms of you know what those midterm elections ultimately look like. Yeah, and you know nobody really agrees that Jeffrey Epstein, like that there's no there there. I mean everyone pretty much is like, yeah this is this is suspicious. So it's not like there are people in Trump's camp who are like, you know, I bet I bet it's all in the up and up and you know like that just doesn't even, that doesn't make sense and now Trump has introduced this other scandal like

that he was framed by the Biden administration, you know, James Comey to be implicated in Epstein, which is, this is significant allegations. So he's open, that's why Alex Jones is like, dude, stop, because now there's this basically fabricated out of thin air new theory that Trump is using to kind of muddy the waters. And maybe there's something to, I mean, maybe they did. If you were a partisan operation and you knew Trump is using to kind of muddy the waters. And maybe there's something to, I mean, maybe they did.

If you were a partisan operation and you knew that there was stuff on the other guy to prevent it from being released, if Democrats are implicated, you might point the fingers at him and leave the files in such a way that points right. There could be truth to it, but the idea that they are the only ones who cooked up the Epstein theory is obviously not true. Well, and also it's not what the administration was saying five seconds ago when they were like there are no files and there is no client list and the case is closed and we need to move on.

If you uncovered this giant conspiracy where Democrats wrote you into the Epstein files and deleted themselves or whatever the fuck he's arguing even, then why don't you reveal that instead of saying, there's nothing to see here and everyone should move on and you're a even, then why don't you reveal that instead of saying, there's nothing to see here and everyone should move on and you're a bad person if you don't. So there's that glaring problem with that theory as well. And the last thing I'll say about this, Emily, is the people who are backing him up the hardest

are like the Ben Shapiro's, are the pro-Israel neocon types. And that concerns me because, not only because of potential implications there, but it concerns me because of who may gain influence through this. And we all know the people come through as like the loyal most loyal servants of Donald Trump are more likely to get access and favor and have their viewpoints listened to. And so the fact that it's the, you know, the pro-Israel pro-war faction that may be gaining more power and credibility and access through all of this is also really concerning to me. I knew I wanted to obey and submit, but I didn't fully grasp for the rest of my life what that meant. For My Heart podcasts and Rococo Punch, this is The Turning, River Road.

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