Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - CREEPY Trump - Epstein Letter REVEALED: MAGA Cries Fake News

Episode Date: July 18, 2025

Saagar, Emily, and Griffin break down the WSJ reporting on an alleged letter Trump wrote to Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday, the MAGA reaction and latest polling, and Stephen Colbert's Late Show cancelled for 'financial reasons'. 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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and Novartis. Just open the free iHeart app and search iHeart Women's Sports to listen now. 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.

Chappaquiddick is a story of a tragic death and how the Kennedy machine took control. 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. Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here.

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and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at breakingpoints.com. Good morning, everybody. Happy Friday.

We have an amazing show for everybody today, a nice Friday lineup. We have an amazing show for everybody today. A nice Friday lineup We got producer Griffin in the house as well as Emily Jushinsky There's nothing going on. So I guess it's gonna be a short show, right? No, no Actually, we have some bombshell news that we're going to react to as well as what's going on with the Stephen Colbert situation For those of you who are premium subscribers, you're going to get access to two very important stories. One is the attack by the Israeli Israeli defense forces on a Catholic church actually in Gaza, it wounded the father actually of that church,

as well as a major reaction from the global Catholic community condemnation from the White House. Very, very interesting. And then there is going to be an exclusive for our premium subscribers early, which is my interview with Andrew Schultz and the entire flagrant crew. I asked them a lot of the burning internet questions. Do they regret their Trump interview? Would they handle things differently?

Does JD Vance pass the vibe check? Is Dave Portnoy only mad about Mamdani because of Israel? So a lot of very interesting subjects that I think people will like. So if you want to sign up and get access to that, breakingpoints.com. But let's go ahead and start, guys, with this Wall Street Journal story. I mean, this is the central story around Epstein. Perhaps it explains a lot of the behavior from Donald Trump over the last couple of days.

So, guys, can we go ahead and throw that up there? We have a new major revelation here from the Wall Street Journal. Now keep in mind, the entire town has been talking about this for the last couple of days, that the Wall Street Journal or one of the major three papers was sitting on new information regarding Donald Trump's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. It turned out that as Trump himself, and we'll get to this later on, has been trying to kill the story and called Rupert Murdoch himself trying to quash this reporting. What they write is that Donald J. Trump, according to them, submitted a letter for Jeffrey Epstein's 50th birthday album. It was a leather bound book, which

included remembrances and congratulations from many of Epstein's friends including Leslie Wexner and Alan Dershowitz but one of the people who included a letter in there is Donald J. Trump the current president of the United States the year was 2003 and allegedly the book was compiled by Ghislaine Maxwell now the actual text and description of the letter is very interesting because definitely, if true, would show quite a bit of open recognition in the community at the time of Jeffrey Epstein's proclivity.

So here's how they describe it. It isn't clear how the letter with Trump's signature was prepared. Inside the outline of a naked woman was a typewritten note styled as an imaginary conversation between Trump and Epstein written in the third person voice over. There must be more to life than having everything. The note began, Donald. Yes, there is. But I won't tell you what it is.

Jeffrey, normalize. And I also know what it is. Donald, we have certain things in common. Jeffrey, Jeffrey. Yes, we do come to think of it. Donald Enigmas never ate. Have you noticed that, Jeffrey? As a matter of fact,

it was clear to me the last time I saw you. Donald, a pal is a wonderful thing. Happy birthday. May every day be another wonderful secret. So yeah, what do we think of this guys? What do we think Emily? So there's a lot to obviously there's a lot for us to untangle here because the allegation is that Donald Trump in the year of our Lord 2003 was doodling naked women and signed his name as the to be crass. This is in the journal story pubic hair on the body and then wrote this interesting, I don't know what you would call it.

It's not a poem. It's not. And I don't know what it it I don't know how you describe that. I do a hypothetical dialogue play, you know, a play in one act. I don't know what it was a play. It's a one act. Yeah. A one man play. But so that is the allegation. Trump has been on a tear. And I know we have some of this saying he is going to sue the Wall Street Journal, vociferously denying it in the story. His denial says, that's not my language. I

never doodle women, something that I extent he does doodle. We do have evidence that he does doodle. And we'll get so basically this dropped last night and the internet immediately sprung into action with some people in who are already skeptical of Trump on Epstein actually saying from MAGAworld this looks like a fake journal hit piece because the idea of Donald Trump doing anything like this is so out of character. It just doesn't comport with the version of Donald Trump. Like he's making doodles and writing fake one-man plays, it is all very odd at the same time, Sager. I know you dug into this reporter and I think it's worth noting.

And we'll get into all of the previous doodling evidence and the evidence of whether or not Donald Trump would ever use the word enigma in just one moment. But I think Sager, one thing that's worth noting here is the reporter's history on the Epstein case. She's got a good track record. Yeah, actually, if you want to go and put that up, Griffin, I have it here. The element is titled track record. So I went and I checked her byline. Her name is Kadida Kadija Safdar. And she has two previous reports from 2023 about the

Jeffrey Epstein case. She actually is the person who published the Wall Street Journal report that showed his calendar from September 8th, 2014, which detailed quote meetings with some of the country's richest men, Bill Gates, Leon Black, Thomas Pritzker. But also inside that story was about how Bill Burns, the CIA director under Joe Biden at the time as he was leaving the Obama administration, actually met with Epstein here in Washington, as well as other high profile individuals.

Keep in mind that all of that was confirmed. There's not a single person in that story who did deny it. She also reported in 2023 about how Jeffrey Epstein allegedly found out that Bill Gates was trying to, was having an affair and then appeared to try to blackmail him for financial purposes. So all I'm saying is that, you know, a lot of that reporting was actually accepted and, you know, even MAGA embraced at the time. And so it's important to keep that track record while while we have it, you know, just for

who this person is. As you said, whenever Donald Trump is basically saying that this entire thing is fake, I think specifically it's really worth. Griff, do you want to read what Trump said from the story? We have it in here somewhere from the journal. Let's see. Yeah, Trump denied writing the letter. Go ahead. I'll let you read it out. It's from the Wall Street Journal piece. It's in the first couple. Yeah, I got it right here. In an interview with the

journal on Tuesday evening, Trump denied writing the letter or drawing the picture This is not me. This is a fake thing. It's a fake Wall Street Journal story. I never wrote a picture in my life I don't draw pictures of women. It's not my language. It's not my words I'm gonna sue the Wall Street Journal just like I sued everyone else And then grip that is his. And those are that part is definitely his language. Uh, let's go and put his, um, his truth social posts up please, which just shows his initial reaction from the story. And uh, basically it's, it is by

the way, this is a very useful picture into how big media and all of that works, uh, with Rupert Murdoch. Keep in mind, the wall street journal is owned by Rupert Murdoch who owns news Corp. So here I'll go ahead and read it. The wall street journal and Rupert Murdoch keep in mind the Wall Street Journal is owned by Rupert Murdoch who owns News Corp So here I'll go ahead and read it the Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch personally were warned directly by President Donald J Trump the supposed letter they were printed by Trump to Epstein was a fake and if they print it they will be sued Mr. Murdoch stated he would take care of it But obviously did not have the power to do so the editor of the Wall Street Journal Emma Tucker was told directly by Caroline Levitt and by President Trump that the letter was fake But Emma Tucker keep in mind Emma Tucker is the editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal, Emma Tucker was told directly by Caroline Levitt and by President Trump that the letter was fake.

But Emma Tucker, keep in mind, Emma Tucker is the editor in chief of the Wall Street Journal. Didn't want to hear that. Instead, they are going with false, malicious and defamatory story. Anyway, President Trump will be suing the Wall Street Journal, News Corp and Mr. Murdoch shortly. The press has to learn to be truthful and not rely on sources that probably don't even exist. President Trump has already beaten George Stephanopoulos 60 minutes, et cetera.

It has turned out to be a disgusting and filthy rag writing defamatory stories like this shows their desperation to remain relevant. If there were any truth at all on the Epstein hoax as it pertains to president Trump, this information would have been revealed by Comey, Brennan, Crooked Hillary, and other radical left lunatics years ago.

There's actually a lot going on here in terms of Trump's reaction and the timeline matters as well. So the White House was first approached for story guys from the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday. Now keep in mind, that's when we started hearing that this was an Obama and a Hillary and a Comey hoax. And also specifically that's when the term

the Epstein hoax was invented by Donald Trump ahead of all of the story that was coming and dropping on Thursday evening. Give some important context to the president's comments. But again, like we've got to stick with some evidence here. And I also want to give some background in terms of how big media works as well. Okay. So here we have the Wall Street Journal printed a fake letter. These are not my words, not the way I talk. I don't draw pictures. I told Murdoch it was a scam. He shouldn't prank this fake story, but he did. Now I'm going to sue his ass off.

That of his third rate newspaper, thank you for this attention to this matter, DJT. So people are, you know, first of all, it shows that Trump has the power to call Rupert Murdoch and basically try to order him around at will. But some interesting background that people may not know is that when at when the Theranos story was being reported in 2015, Rupert Murdoch had personally invested a hundred million dollars actually with Elizabeth Holmes. Elizabeth Holmes called Murdoch and was like, dude, you need to kill this story. It's gonna kill your investment as well as everybody else. And Murdoch was like, look, I'm sorry, I don't interfere with the operations of the Wall Street Journal.

Just keep that in mind, you know, in terms of how the story is able to move forward, even with Trump's immense pressure on the company. I will say the fact. Yeah, go ahead. Well, I was gonna say we should also mention, and maybe this is exactly where you were about to go. Oliver Darcy, who is a media reporter, broke news in a very meta sense that the Wall Street Journal was working on a bombshell story about Trump and Epstein. Yesterday afternoon, the story was then forced to come

to print. In all likelihood, I say forced to come to print. I think that's likely what happened a couple of hours later, which Sagar, your read on this, I'm sure is the same as mine. It indicates there was some type of tussle at the Wall Street Journal, and someone leaked that they were working on the story to force the hand of the paper to go to print. Very, very, very soon.

And yeah, there's actually a brand new, just tweet out right now. I look forward to getting to Rupert Murdoch to testify in my lawsuit against him in his pile of garbage newspaper, the journal. That will be an interesting experience. I mean, in my opinion, Trump is playing with fire here because you know, lawsuits have discovery and discovery means that evidence needs to come out. I will say before we continue

to dig into this, the only mistake right now by the Wall Street Journal is they didn't just print the damn letter because then everybody can just judge not only the doodle, but the actual signature for itself. I mean, at the same time, they do describe a letter here being signed in Sharpie and a heavy marker. I personally have never seen Donald Trump do that. Have I? But let's also get into some of the claims about the doodling. So Trump says I've never drawn a picture in my life. So Griffin, could you want to go ahead and put that up there, where we have

a actual image of a doodle that Donald Trump, we've got images, we've got a gallery. Let's put the gallery image here. So these are multiple actual images and doodles that Donald Trump drew of the New York skyline that he would auction off in the year 2004. And actually what's interesting is Trump actually wrote about it in one of his books about how he would often do

a quick doodle that only took him a couple of minutes Before he would kind of shoot them off. So look, you know, that's not necessarily out of the picture We also you know for that one saying that one's beautiful One of them's not bad. Yeah, one of them is not bad. Yeah, I mean, I mean if you think about it He did it probably in like under 30 seconds. So that's, that's kind of impressive. That's the worst one. That's like a child's that one right there because he gave up on the windows. Yeah.

Consistent window aesthetic here. Some of them are filled in casinos to build. Well said. All right. Let's, but let's stick with this because he's making, there's several claims for why this is not, you know, Donald Trump's authentic letter. He's never doodled, that's just not true. There's also, let's put the enigma thing up there.

Griffin, there was some talk of like, oh, it doesn't even sound like Trump. Trump has literally never even used the word enigma. Actually, we do have video of him using the word enigma from 2015. Yeah, let's go ahead and play it. Let's play the audio, please. Now, Carson's an enigma to me.

I didn't say it. Carson's an enigma. Okay. So that's twice that he says the word enigma, I guess proving he does know the word enigma. I will, I will submit a couple of things. It is weird that it's typewritten. Very rare for Trump to give a typewritten thing. Usually he, you know, writes things by hand or he comments things and kind of writes things on the margins. At the same time, if you combine the of the Wall Street Journal reporters record, the fact that the doodle and, by the way, I forgot to even mention this, the there are two other notes that are described in the journal story. One from Leslie Wexner, where he was like, Jeffrey, I'm just going to give you what you always wanted.

It was literally a drawing of boobs. And then the second one is from Alan Dershowitz, which is some joke about the Vanity Fair article by Vicki Ward that came out in March of 2003 making fun of Bill Clinton. But my point is though, is that Dershowitz did not deny actually writing that. He said, oh, it's been a long time. I don't even know what I would have written there at the time.

Wexner also did not deny the report that he sent in there. So look, I mean, I know MAGA is very wedded to the idea that this is fake. So let's put all of that just like purely in terms of the report itself. But then let's look at the meta conversation. I mean, this is the Wall Street Journal. This is the most successful of the big three newspapers.

Yes, I know it's owned by Murdoch and I'm not saying it very often isn't used, especially the op-ed page as a tool for Israel and for low taxes. But I mean, if you consider the idea that the letter itself is fake, then they burned the entire paper because that actually would be defamation. If you knowingly publish something which you knew

to be fake or which in which you got hoaxed, I mean, you in a discovery process will be found out pretty damn quickly, in my opinion, Emily, that this is done. And, you know, frankly, considering their track record on EPS, I mean, think about it, they've had multiple reports here about Epstein and his connections to multiple billionaire, Leon Black, Bill Gates, none of them ever sued the Wall Street Journal, and presumably they would have if it was fake. And, you know, this is the big question about kind of the source of this information. But, you know, I personally, I know this is going to infuriate a lot of people. I think it's real. I mean, I just think that combining the totality of the evidence of the journal report, the track record of

the reporter itself, the fact that the fact that they knew almost certainly that this would face lawsuit and published it anyways, you're putting your entire reputation on the line. I think I do think it's real. That said, I do think the journal has done a disservice and actually kind of granted MAGA a real out on the story by not just releasing the entire thing in and of itself, which they should have. Like in my opinion, they should actually just release a high resolution photo of every single page of the book because I want to know everybody who's sending Jeffrey Epstein little body letters in a handwritten thing compiled by Ghislaine Maxwell. Your guys' reaction.

Well, it's possible what they're doing, as people have pointed out, is pulling a Jeffrey Goldberg, right? Where they get Donald Trump to make his denial, and then he's on the record denying that it's real. They then release a very, you know, real looking document that was their source for the story and let the public judge. And Trump has sort of gone all hard in the paint, all out denial, saying this is not real. Now, I suspect Donald Trump would say that it was not real either way. Yeah, he'll say no matter what.

So the one thing that I want to point out, and I know we have differing takes on the possible source, we don't know the source of this. Obviously the journal is cagey about how they ended up with this. I think it is very worth noting, as you mentioned earlier, Sagar, that around the time we know Trump talks to the Wall Street Journal because he was asked for comment on the story they were working on, he starts pinning the blame on specifically James Comey. Obviously he mentions Biden and now crooked Hillary is in the mix and all of that. Maureen Comey is fired from the Southern District, New York Justice Department

post Wednesday. It could have had to do with Diddy. She botched the Diddy case. It could have been a long time coming from Pam Bondi. All of that stuff could be possible. Also interesting though that Marine Comey leaves and she was a key prosecutor in the Epstein case and the Ghislaine Maxwell case. And this is around the exact same time that the journal has its hands on. This is the most important part. What it says was part of the Justice Department's files on Epstein. That is early in the Wall Street Journal story. It says that this letter from Donald Trump, which did not leak until right now, nobody ever saw it. Nobody ever leaked it was from the Justice Department. It was among the

Justice Department's files. So to me, that is a very, very interesting timeline. On the other hand, Sager, there's also a possibility it's something of a warning shot from Ghislaine Maxwell, as you and others have pointed out. I'm willing to submit to both. Because, I mean, look, I actually think a lot of this probably did come from Glene Maxwell, but it could have come years ago. Uh, I don't think that all of it was necessarily leaked to the wall street journal by the legal system. I will note, as you said, uh, that it's very possible cause the cope I've

seen for the last couple of days. Didn't Megan Kelly say this? She's like, well, there's like indication that they were altered or assembled in a way to point she said people well this is what's interesting she said people were telling her that sources from the administration were trying to sort of plant the seeds of that narrative yeah and i think i mean look at the end of the day this is trump's fault because if this is a small part of the epstein i mean look let's let's analyze things in two directions first of all the letter

is creepy as fuck. All right, like, there's no getting around it. That's creepy. It's weird. Go at Griffin. You're muted. I think it's it's it's almost like romantic, isn't it? between the two? It's weird. There's there's like some there's very flowery language here. Yeah, it's look, it's odd. And that's saying it kindly. What does he say? Our wonderful secret. Yeah.

It gives me the F*****g heebie-jeebies even just thinking about it. And then the rest of these guys just joking about women's breasts and all this other than guys, 50, 50 year old birthday, creepy, strange, again, combine it with Trump's on the record quote to New York magazine, 2002. I've known Jeffrey for 15 years. He's a terrific guy. He likes beautiful women as much as I do. He likes them young. There's no doubt Jeffrey enjoys his social life. That's on the record quote from Donald Trump 2002 to

New York Magazine. And then this is somewhat one year or so later between the two. If you know, I guess they're positing that it's just not real at all. But I mean, first of all, just kind of demonstrates the extent to which this kind of was an open secret amongst Palm Beach, the Palm Beach, New York circuit amongst Epstein and all of his associates. But if we dig a little bit further and we consider some more things like in the relationship, this is Trump's own fault for not releasing the files, because if this is a small part of the evidence, like this book, right, which is part of the grand jury documents and the

quote black book client, you know, whatever else you want to call it, then of course, people who are partisan, who have access to it are going to be like, yeah, this is why he's acting so weird and covering it up because at this point Trump has now said, I don't want a special prosecutor. You know, uh, now Griffin, let's put the Pam bondy thing up because this is kind of the latest, uh, attempt to try and get ahead of it. This is where, uh, things are currently moving in terms of them trying to appear as if they're having more disclosure.

So Trump tweets last night. Based on the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein, I have asked attorney general Pam Bondi to produce any and all pertinent grand jury testimony subject to court approval. This scam perpetrated by the Democrats should end right now. But let's, let's actually linger on these grand jury documents because this is really important. First, first of all, these are not the Epstein files, guys. The grand jury documents that they are referring to are specifically the 2019 grand jury,

or 2019 indictment and grand jury documents that were used to prepare the indictment against Epstein in 2019, okay? That is not the totality of all of the information that the government has on Epstein. Let's also look very specifically at the word all pertinent grand jury testimony. What does that mean? All pertinent grant? No, no, no, no, no. Release all the grand jury testimony. So we're already kind of scoping it. Second is that the reason that this grand jury testimony and documents have not been released is actually because Maureen Comey, whenever she was the, uh, the SDNY prosecutor on the case, went to the judge

and said, Hey, this needs to remain under seal because Ghislaine Maxwell's process continues to be under review. And if this comes out, it could actually violate Ghislaine Maxwell's right to due process. And the judge actually agreed with her, at least partially in that case. And so there's gonna be all kinds of legal wrangling around this, because it actually could put the Maxwell trial or the subsequent legal appellate stuff that's happening right now in danger.

It will take weeks, if not months, for something like this to happen. You can go to a judge, listen, I mean, does anybody know how the federal court system works? Like, people don't just magically wave a release button. The thing that Trump does have the ability to do is to declassify all of this other information that allegedly they've been working on now for six months. Remember, Cash Patel said that they had dozens of agents working on the case, compiling information. That's something

that is under your purview that could be released. And, uh, yeah, I mean, I just think that this is another misdirect where, you know, MAGA forces are trying to be like, see, like, we're getting transparency. And I'm like, guys, this is just, I mean, to be honest, I'm not saying it's a nothing burger, all information is good information, but it's, it's not the Epstein files in any way that were promised because remember that the government's case against Epstein in 2019 still only really focused on Epstein. Like it's a very narrowly tailored charges that don't implicate a broader circle and they definitely don't get into the source of his money and his finances. Yeah, that's right.

Griffin, I don't know if you had something to say, but I just wanted to add this entire book is well worth the Wall Street Journal printing at this point because one of the things that's most convincing about this document is that it's part of a larger book in which the other notes appear to be well within character. And Trump should be furious at Pampi because the only reason we are now mired in a week plus long news cycle about Jeffrey Epstein is that Pam Bondi, maybe Trump told her to do this, we don't know that yet, but Pam Bondi moved in the most ham-fisted possible way to close the case and say, quote, no further disclosures would be warranted. And if Pam Bondi had handled this with a modicum more, just pure like logic and competence from a public relations perspective, and that's a very cynical way to look at it, but it's from the

politics, it's completely true. The only reason this is now dogging Trump over the last week or so is because Bondi said literally that case close wrapping it up, nothing more to see here, which set all of this off. So it's the understanding the truth of what happened is, and always has been muddled by the politics because people at the Wall Street Journal, Rupert Murdoch, have important powerful relationships with people like Donald Trump and others who are potentially implicated in the Epstein world. And that's just going to be inextricably intertwined with our ability to know what the hell actually happened is that we are seeing this through the

glass of politics. And the glass is cracked and smudged because people want it that way. And this is another example of that. So it's hard to separate the two at this point. But the letter in itself, I think that's an important observation saga is not it's extremely weird. It's extremely weird. It's not directly smoking gun. Yeah. It's not a smoking gun. It's weird as hell. It looks really, really bad. And it seems to be real at this point. Trump probably could have managed this without basically inviting people to leak and prove him wrong.

Yeah. All he had to do was release it. And then, yeah, maybe some of this would have come out, but you know, I mean, I'm assuming that there's probably something in there that's a lot worse for a lot of people, especially with the financial transactions. I mean, one of the things that I, again, I know I'm a broken record, but it's very important to actually understand like what quote Epstein files should mean. Um, here, let me try my, I'm a boomer, but I'm going to try my best to share my screen

because there was a big report yesterday by Ron Wyden and uh, look, I get it. Maga. Yes. He's a Democrat, blah, blah, blah. But you know, Ron Wyden has been actually working on the Epstein case for quite some time. And he is the Senate finance chairman. He says that the government is sitting on secret bank filings showing $1.5 billion in suspicious wire transfers by Epstein involving some of the most powerful people in the world. Now, as I said here, how about we release those?

So the thing is, the story is extraordinary. And by the way, because I know a lot of people in Washington do listen to the show. If you are one of the people who was able to review these documents, please contact me. I've been dressably trying to get into contact with you. So the way that this all went down, is last year, the Treasury Department allowed Ron Wyden and members of the Senate Financial Services Committee to sit and review suspicious activities reports filed by four of the biggest banks in the world.

Those suspicious activities reports detail $1.5 billion in suspicious transactions by Epstein in and out of his accounts, very often to Russian banks, to Eastern European women. It fits exactly with the pattern laid out by the New York financial services department in their fine against Deutsche Bank, except the totality of the money is insane because we're talking about 1.5 billion in wire transfers. The Treasury department right now is sitting on that information. Whenever they allowed the Senate to look at it, they refused to let them make copies and only let them make handwritten notes in a classified setting, which have yet to be released. All we know is the number of 1.5 billion. So again, if you're one of the people who saw those, please contact me.

I would like to talk to you. And if you're at Treasury. But yeah, if you're in the Treasury Department and you have at one point, I will protect your identity. But the point is that the government is sitting on that right now. That is not subject to any private, like they could, they could release that today if they wanted to. Same with the IRS, which has all of this documentation around all of these trust accounts and other things that were linked to them release, even just one or even review one of the guy's tax returns.

How did, where did the money come from? It's all in there. This is America. You are, I forget it's from the wire, but it's something that's like in this country, somebody's name is on somebody's piece of paper somewhere. It just is, okay? You can follow the paper trail if you want to,

if you're actually motivated. And in the words of Lester Freeman, if you start to follow the money You don't know where the fuck it's going to take you and i read that this is one of those where What we're watching Is a bastardization of like what the alleged epsiine files and all that were and then like you said politically It's just pretty obvious That this is entirely a fault of their own making like they said the case was closed

Which reignited public interest which exposed a cover-up which then had people digging even more I mean is there any reality where this book report or whatever would have come out if Trump had actually released much of the information No, it would have been it would have been like a WikiLeaks dump You know everybody would have gone deep into it. So yeah, I think that the whole thing is really crazy, but it is also proof to me of how at the end of the day, MAGA will fall in line. And I think that's important as well

for people to understand with the Iran thing. This is gonna be a job of people who are actually independent minded. And yes, unfortunately now because it's polarized Democrats and the mainstream media, like I don't really see a way out of this. Yeah, exactly. Here we have JD Vance's tweet. He says, Forgive my language, but this story is complete and utter bullshit. The Wall Street Journal should be ashamed for publishing it. Where is this letter? Would you be shocked to learn they never showed it to us before publishing? Does anyone honestly believe this sounds like Donald Trump?

Follow-up, Griffin. He had a reply there as well. I forget exactly what it was. If you just scroll down. Okay, go ahead. If we scroll down and look at it. Doesn't it violate some rule of journalistic ethics to publish a letter like this without showing it to the victim of this hit piece will the

People who have bought into every hoax against president shum showing ounce of skepticism before buying into this bizarre story and so again, I mean I don't think that the I really don't think that the Journal that the journal did anything quote wrong except for not publishing it. And it's not even about showing it to Trump. It's for all of us because in a sense they have just invited this reaction. Yeah. Here example, representative Anna Paulina Luna, please don't show this to a Wall Street Journal.

It's a hand sketch. They may think I'm a sex trafficker. You know, I've seen even many people who are extraordinarily critical of Trump's handling of the Epstein files immediately just being like, Hey, this is complete bullshit. There's no way this is real. It's obviously a hoax. I mean, again, look, I'm open to it. It would be a pretty extraordinary journalistic scandal if it was. But at the end of the day, the fact that they ran with it and it went through standards and Murdoch and the entire Murdoch empire is putting their entire financial future on the line. I guess it's possible they did it with dominion, but you know, um, Trump's going to have to prove it. I just see, I see a bungling here of just epic,

epic proportions. I mean, wouldn't it be like, wouldn't it be like career suicide to like post your dad? I mean, you're dead, you're coming, you're coming at the king with birthday letters and you best not miss. I mean, I guess my question for you guys is like, why haven't they not released it? Like, shouldn't they just turn it into like a coffee book or something and start selling it? Like, you know, on top of that, like it might even at this point, help Trump for it to all be released because it's not just Trump in there. There's like 50 other names in there. And there's like a lot of other smoke and a lot of other ways to kind of take it with with other letters from other people. So like, I don't see like it seems like it would help almost both sides for it to just all be released at this point. Trust and release it. The Justice Department has it. I mean, that's the watch your journal says

it's part of the Justice Department document documents. Here is my theory. And this is a quote from the story pages from the leather bound album assembled from Epstein were first arrested in 06 are among the documents examined by Justice Department officials who investigated Epstein and Maxwell years ago according to people who have reviewed the pages. It is unclear if any of them are part of the Trump administration's review. The Justice Department documents so called Epstein files and who are in them are at the center of the storm consuming that. But here's my theory. The journal doesn't have the book. The Justice Department has the book. Somebody in the DOJ leaked a photo or a filing of the

book and the paper to the journal. This is just my theory. It's pure speculation. That is the source and why they had to print it by hand. So like for example, remember that whole reality winner scandal whenever the NSA sent those doc or she sent those documents from the NSA or whoever she was working for to the intercept and the way that she got caught was by distributing the screenshots of the printout. So very often guys just to explain this for classified settings or legal documentation, they'll have distinguishing marks actually on the pages themselves. And that way, if that word ever come out, it would be easy to identify whoever leaked that, like a unique

identifier or something. Think about like a, what's it called? Like a, a page mark or something like that, you know, whenever it's like not for public consumption, that type of thing. That's my theory as to why they have not released it. A watermark. Yeah, exactly. That's my personal theory for why it has not yet been released. I think that's a very strong theory. I think that's yeah, right. Which means the Justice Department could could show us the whole book right now. Right. And that's the thing about Trump is now it well, it sets up a very interesting incentive because now Trump's gonna be like, I'm under attack by the deep state and all this. And it's like, bro, you

can just release it. You know, it's like, you could have just released it. And again, it would have just been one of many different stories that are that are in there. And yeah, the whole thing is very interesting. Yeah, be like, I also numbers kind of right, like others, right? So many other people to look at here. But it just seems like Trump is having an incredibly emotional reaction to what seems like a very intimate, almost loving relationship with Epstein to like a level that I don't think we've really fully seen before. I mean, we've heard about them being best friends.

We've heard about them playing like weird games in an elevator, I think from a woman in the past. But this seemed to be just the most kind of like they are partners in crime. I mean, it kind of felt like a if I did it, OJ Simpson type of moment, like it's like where everyone's really, you know, suspicious, man. And I'm telling you, I genuinely didn't believe most of the trial. I thought alright Trump is a sleazy guy

Not a surprise to anybody right? Trump you know had the on-the-record quote Trump is a philanderer and for years bragged about his sexual prowess with young women to the tabloids So I was like okay I mean You know I thought that was baked in and then to the extent that the whole Epstein thing is like, yeah, you know, Epstein and all these like pretty Victoria's secret model girls and all that Trump was involved with the beauty pageant,

but nothing beyond what kind of was already out in the open. I was like, you know, but the thing is now is his reaction is just so sketchy and weird that it really kind of does make me think that there might be something else there because you have Elon saying it right. And then that's another theory of mine is that the reason that the FBI and the attorney general went so hard in the paint about shutting things down was maybe like a political response to Elon Musk. I think that's very probable. Yeah, I'm not 100% sure. And that may have nudged Bondi to do it that way. Right.

Yeah. And then like, that's maybe why they did it. But yeah, I mean, I mean, do we want to play Griffin? If you want to go on YouTube, you can find this. It's like a 2002, no, sorry, 1992 package of Trump and NBC, the video of let me see if I can find it actually. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time. Have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this Taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple.

Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad.

Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes one, two, and three on May 21st, and episodes four, five, and six on June 4th. Ad free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple podcasts. Welcome to Pretty Private with Ebene, the podcast where silence is broken

and stories are set free. I'm Ebene, and every Tuesday Tuesday I'll be sharing all new anonymous stories that will challenge your perceptions and give you new insight on the people around you. On Pretty Private, we'll explore the untold experiences of women of color who faced it all, childhood trauma, addiction, abuse, incarceration, grief, mental health struggles, and more, and found the shrimp to make it to the other side. My dad was shot and killed in his house. Yes, he was a drug dealer.

Yes, he was a confidential informant, but he wasn't shot on the street corner. He wasn't shot in the middle of a drug deal. He was shot in his house, unarmed. Pretty Private isn't just a podcast, it's your personal guide for turning storylines into lifelines. Every Tuesday, make sure you listen to Pretty Private from the Black Effect Podcast Network. Tune in on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. The summer of 1993 was one of the best of my life. I'm journalist Jeff Perlman and this is Rick Jervis. We were interns at the Nashville Tennessean, but the most unforgettable part? Our roommate, Reggie Payne from Oakley, sports editor and aspiring rapper. And his stage name? Sexy Sweat. In 2020, I had a simple idea. Let's find Reggie. We searched everywhere, but Reggie was gone. In February 2020, Reggie was having a diabetic episode.

His mom called 911. Police cuffed him face down. He slipped into a coma and died. I'm, like, thanking you. But then I see my son's not moving. No headlines, no outrage, just silence. So we started digging and uncovered city officials bent on protecting their own.

Listen to Finding Sexy Sweat on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Yeah, this is- While you're looking for that and we talked a little bit about some of the MAGA defense we put up Anna Paulina kind of doing a jokey drawing, but we have some new polling here about the Trump's handling of this 63% of voters disapprove of the Trump administration's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files Quinnipiac University National Poll finds nearly half of voters disapprove of the Trump administration's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files. Quinnipiac University

national poll finds nearly half of voters would consider joining a third party, just not one created by Elon Musk. Sorry, buddy. Yeah, well, that's this this also contrasts with numbers that Harry Enton was analyzing on CNN yesterday, there was a new CNN poll. And it's similar in the Quinnipiac poll that shows Republican support for Donald Trump increasing two to three percentage points, which is very close to the margin of error in both of those polls over the course of the Epstein, the latest chapter in the Epstein

saga. So like the last week or so. And yeah, go ahead and roll this Griffin. This one surprised me a bit because of all these complaints online going after Trump and the X team files you might think his approval ratings were going down. Republicans, if anything, they're going up. Republicans who approve of Trump look at our CNN poll, the prior one 86%, the one out this week 88% were Republicans.

How about Quinnipiac, the prior poll, 87% approval of Republicans. This week out, 90% with Republicans. If anything, Donald Trump's approval rating has gone up since this whole Epstein saga started. Okay, so the margin of error there was plus or minus six. So if you're thinking about that, it means there could be no movement or there could have been a slight drop potentially in the numbers. But this is very easy to reconcile. Like say this is accurately gauging Republican support for Donald Trump. It's very easy to reconcile with the numbers in the exact same poll that shows 65% of Americans

don't support his handling of the Epstein files, which is that to most Americans, and this is always worth saying when you're talking about Jeffrey Epstein, do most people care about the Epstein story? Yes. Are most people disgusted by the Epstein story because they believe that it reflects a sick and corrupt ruling class? Yes. Is it most people's top priority? No. It's many people's, it's high up on the list of many people's priorities. It's a very powerful proxy issue. It's a powerful symbol and there are substantive questions of justice that

still needs to be served in and of itself. But I think it is always worth saying that this is a story. People in media who know some folks that might be implicated, who can think about this as a meta media story at the same time, are always going to be more interested in it than most members of the public. That does not make the story unimportant though. Yeah, totally.

To your point, like, yeah, Emily, like even in that Harry Entenpole, there was only one person who responded saying that it was like a top priority issue, not 1%, but just one person only said that it was a top priority issue. Yeah, I would just caution this type of analysis though, cause it's like, it's about a vibe. You can't quantify it. It's just, it all compounds on itself. It's like Epstein, Iran, the Israel situation. You can feel it happening.

And yet you could say that that's stupid. But by the way, guys, did Trump not get elected on a vibe? I think he did. I mean, I think that's a huge part of it. Uh, if you guys watch my interview with Andrew Schultz, that's, uh, for our premium subscribers early, we talk about this. I go, Hey, did you guys feel like you maybe voted on vibes and you didn't vote on policy? And, um, you know, I mean, I, I'm, I, it's not a call out. I think most people vote that way. I'm just saying, like, I think that was pretty important for this whole idea of like the outsider versus the insiders and a new way of doing business.

And like, this all just screams just, you know, very classic way. I also, you know, I mean, this footage is genuinely crazy. Like when you watch this, this is archive footage from NBC at Mar-a-Lago in 2002. I mean just like what you're watching is Trump 1992. Yeah 1992. You can see this is at Mar-a-Lago but one thing I also hate about Epstein is he's always dressed down. I know it's a small small complaint but he always wore tracksuit. That's his greatest sin. It's one of his great sins and it by the way just shows you that not dressing properly is often a indication. A sign of moral ill.

Of moral ills, yes. So everybody else there is dressed well. You can see Ghislaine there in the background and Jeffrey and Trump having an animated conversation. But yeah, I mean, look, there. I knew that this all existed. I always was like, yeah, you know, they definitely knew each other. I don't think it, you know, went beyond anything like too crazy, but it's really the behavior of Trump since then that just has me being like, I mean, it's mystifying. It really is mystifying. But what's also important for everybody to understand, as you pointed out in that CNN poll, for all of that mag

is mag has got his back. All right, this is now a media story. It's a hoax. They will never believe it. It genuinely helped him internally in there in the internet scene squabble it absolutely helped him because 100 because now it looks like he is under attack, but they didn't print the picture. If they had printed the picture, it would have been different. I'm not saying the Wall Street Journal by any means should dictate it to allow the politics of Magda dictate its reporting.

Of course, that's not true. But hypothetically, if the journal had printed the story, it would have looked obviously a lot less like a major media hit piece on Donald Trump that drove everyone back into Trump's arms because he's embattled which is exactly what he has been trying to do all week brilliant on Trump's part I mean genuinely when he started saying that this was coming from Comey and Biden and whomever else. Obama. Like, yes, all of us look at that and we're like, okay, but he knew what was coming, which was a Justice Department file that had been sat on for a while

that he can now say, huh, isn't that interesting? It's coming out in the Wall Street Journal, just me, there's all these other people in the book. And so he was cleverly, obviously, trying to point in that direction, probably the best defense that he can muster. And it's obviously still not good enough. But what it does do is stigmatize people in MAGA who continue to raise questions and make them look like they're doing the bidding interlope homie in the Wall Street Journal. Yeah, right. And that I mean, she's so stupid. But do

you guys think anything that we're gonna do? But yeah, go ahead. Do you guys think that there would be an outlet that they could have gotten this to that MAGA would have accepted more as opposed to like the mainstream media? Like, could they have gotten this to Rogan or to some independent outlet that they could have just land, make it land a little bit better? They could have just dropped it themselves. I'm serious. Like if Trump had said, uh, the Wall Street Journal is about to release the story on me writing a letter to Jeffrey Epstein,

uh, here's the whole book as a joke. Uh, yeah, here, here's the book. Here's the letter that the Wall Street Journal is trying to make into some bombshell. Yeah, here's the book. Here's the letter that the Wall Street Journal is trying to make into some bombshell. And then it would have looked way less. I think it would have looked like this locker room talk locker room. Talk 2.0. Here's all the sketchy Democrats. Here's all the other sketchy Democrat demon crats who are in the book. Okay, done. Yeah, exactly. And then like Sager mentioned that it's about vibes and this hurts Trump's vibe But you know, we're not in like an election time unless we're thinking about a Trump third term So like what does this really affect in terms does this affect Trump's governance over this current term?

Like does this affect his political power going forward with like other endorsements like because if soccer you're saying this hurts the vibe forward with like other endorsements like, because if soccer you're saying this hurts the vibe, then what is what does Trump need the vibe for at this point? Great point. It's about mind space. So can we all submit the Lewinsky story was important? Like in terms of politics, right? Can we can we agree with that? Well, I'll submit to that.

All right. Yeah. But but it was fucking stupid at the end of the day, like the entire investigation and the country's obsession and all of that over Lewinsky and the all the details and the Ken star report and Congress. Well, what did that do? I mean, I've read multiple accounts of Clinton's presidency. It consumed every moment of every day from the legal stuff to the subpoenas to the spin to the press

conference to the extent that Clinton is distracted in major meetings involving NATO intervention in Serbia. And there's a lot of conspiracies that he actually bombed Serbia to distract from the Lewinsky scandal. So the point is, is like, what do you need a vibe for when you're president so So you can govern. There's only so many hours in the day. And by the way, this is a capricious guy who's obsessed with cable television in the news, which means he's going to be monitoring this and thinking about nothing else. So every single, every moment of a president's time is a zero sum game.

Every single moment that a president spends is time that he could be spending doing something else. And it's the job of his staff and of himself to keep himself well ordered. This is true of any extremely highly powerful individual and especially true in the case of the president. Yeah, that's true. And to the point that Sager was making, I just want to, this is what I, how I put it earlier this week. I wrote about it. Will Epstein files become Trump's cobble moment? And I think that's the way I was thinking about it on the vibe level is if you look back at the Biden presidency, he never recovered after cobble. Like that's the moment that his, his

favorability like never ever recovered from. And I think part of it is because he campaigned on being this president for decency and bringing back, like restoring the nation. Uh, and. Trump like ran on draining the swamp. Uh, and it just, this makes him look so weak that while it's nobody's top priority in the same way that nobody went to the polls in 2022 or 2024 and said, I want to vote against the party that, uh, botched the Afghanistan withdrawal. Almost nobody did that. Um, I don't think people are party that botched the Afghanistan withdrawal. Almost nobody did that. I don't think people are going to be going to the polls for the most part in the

midterms saying, I'm going to vote against the party that seems to be hiding something on Jeffrey Epstein. But what it does do is make Trump look weak. It makes him politically damaged. He's on defense. Yeah, he's on defense. Yeah, absolutely. And all of that, by the way, total unforced error because Bondi handled it and maybe she was handling it this way because of Trump. But the way that it was handled, put them on defense because they said case closed, which was never, ever, ever going to suffice or to be satisfactory period. And just lastly, to Sager, those of those people out there who may be right of center, like we are, just imagine in all honestly, if Joe Biden had a pattern like this, how it would imagine that this was a letter from Bill Clinton.

Imagine it seriously. Yeah, it's just be real, be honest. All right. And, and just listen to listen. The case that I think I presented is one that it's about the denial is I've never doodled. It's like, okay, well, here's all these doodles. It's I've never said the word. It's like, well, here's the word. Well, he did. I don't did he say that he said it was his language. And then Maggie's like, it's not my language. Yeah, but other people say enigma. Yeah. And it's like,

dude, yeah, he said he he said, he said it. All right. And then you have to also, I mean, I know everybody, you know, listen, nobody hates the media and all those people more than me. Okay. But I, you know, because we're in this business, you don't just publish it.

Like, especially when you're the Wall Street Journal or others, you know, I would, you have to have them dead and stone cold on something like this before you go to print. I've been involved with much more minor stuff where, oh my God, the level of review. And I mean, Griffin, you were here for Signal Gate, remember? You remember how much fucking sweat we had to put into that?

Yeah, it was so much homework. It wasn't fun at all. Yeah, it's not, it's honestly not fun. To report this, Because you have to sit there and be like, okay, is it responsible? You know, you see comment from the Justice Department or from the Pentagon, you know, in response to this stuff. And then that's just, you know, little breaking points. Okay, this is the, this is one of the premier world newspapers. So it's, you know, they knew lawyers, they were the best lawyers in the world. Oh my God. Like lawyers upon lawyers upon lawyers. Like at the end of the day, when you hit publish

on something like this, there's an entire apparatus that is going to back you up. It's like, okay, you want to sue them like fine. Um, and don't forget, this is probably a good segue to the coal bear thing. It's not like Trump had CBS dead to rights on 60. Absolutely. If 60 minutes had fought this in court, Trump was the one who was going to lose. They ended up caving because they want their merger with Skydance to be approved. Let's be very clear. Same with ABC news and Disney. ABC settled with Trump, basically just be like, let's make this go away. There is no scenario zero where any of these people do not prevail in court. Their own lawyers would tell you that they're going to win a hundred percent and Trump would have

to pay their legal fees. I think the ABC one would have been that that one actually would have been more of a fight but CBS joke. I don't know. I mean, come on, Emily. I mean, the bar for defamation. Yeah, I yeah, it's fucking true. Although Stephanopoulos wasn't. Yeah, looks, he got over. Yeah, look, the guy got over his skis. Fine. That's not defamation. Like, you have to be able to prove that he knew what he was saying was false. Same with my you've proved damages like you can't do that. Right, right. There's a but

there's a magnitude difference between the bullshit CBS one and 100% I agree. Yeah, but I'm what I'm more saying is like in every single one of these cases, every single one, in my opinion, there's no way that they don't win. Yeah. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time. Have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this Taser the revolution.

But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season One,

Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes one, two two and three on May 21st and episodes four, five and six on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Welcome to Pretty Private with Ebene, the podcast where silence is broken and stories are set free.

I'm Ebene and every Tuesday I'll be sharing all new anonymous stories that will challenge your perceptions and give you new insight on the people around you. On Pretty Private, we'll explore the untold experiences of women of color who faced it all, childhood trauma, addiction, abuse, incarceration, grief, mental health struggles, and more, and found the shrimp to make it to the other side. My dad was shot and killed in his house. Yes, he was a drug dealer. Yes, he was a confidential informant, but he wasn't shot on the street corner.

He wasn't shot in the middle of a drug deal. He was shot in his house, unarmed. Pretty Private isn't just a podcast, it's your personal guide for turning storylines into lifelines. Every Tuesday, make sure you listen to Pretty Private from the Black Effect Podcast Network. Tune in on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Sometimes it's hard to remember, but. Going through something like that is a traumatic experience, but it's also not the end of their life. That was my dad reminding me and so many others who need to hear it, that our trauma is not our shame to carry and that we have big, bold and beautiful lives to live after what happened to us. I'm your host and co-president of this organization, Dr. Lea Traetate.

On my new podcast, The Unwanted Sorority, we wade through transformation to peel back healing and reveal what it actually looks like and sounds like in real time. Each week, I sit down with people who've lived through harm, carried silence, and are now reshaping the systems that failed us. We're going to talk about the adultification of black girls, mothering as resistance and the tools we use for healing. The unwanted sorority is a safe space, not a quiet space. So let's walk in. We're moving towards liberation together. Listen to the unwanted sorority new episodes every Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your

podcasts. So you mentioned Monica Lewinsky earlier, which kind of leads me to like my final question on the subject, which is sort of like the culture and sort of how different parts of Trump's cultural coalition are reacting to this. I've got a clip here from Shane Gillis recently where he espy's from the espy's yeah so let's play this clip here so good Donald Trump wants to stage a UFC fight on the White House lawn the last time he staged a fight in DC Mike Pence almost died it was fine I didn't write it. It was supposed to be an Epstein joke here, but as it got deleted, it must have probably

deleted itself, right? Probably never existed, actually. Let's move on as a country and ignore that. Let's move on as a country and ignore that. Let's move on as a country. So yeah, I mean, I guess my question for both of my MAGA hosts here is, you know, I do see a big difference. Yeah, I was like, don't put that label on me, but go ahead. Sorry.

You can call us fascists, just don't. Okay, yeah, yeah. To my two GROIPER hosts here. I don't. OK, yeah, yeah. To my two gripper hosts here. So I would like gripper with, you know, I do see sort of like a delineation or a schism between the sort of MAGA influencers like your Charlie Kirk's versus the bro sphere, the Rogan sphere podcasters that have been a lot more confrontational about this subject. I see, you know, Shane Gill's a joke. I've seen Rogan talk about

it. I've seen Theo von, uh, kind of demand for there to be more. So like, what does that mean in terms of Trump's like cultural coalition in terms of what do you guys think? Yeah, that's kind of what I was talking about with the vibe. And that's also why that poll was really dumb because it said it was about Republicans. It's like, who cares about Republicans? There's not that many Republicans. That you think everybody who voted Republican is a Republican? No.

You think everybody who voted Democrat is a Democrat? No. And it's very rare. There's a huge independent swing to Donald Trump in the 2024 election. And to the extent that culture is being driven here and to affect Donald Trump those Podcast reactions in my opinion are way more impactful than the Charlie Kirk I mean actually I'll give Kirk credit. He has young maggot people who listen to him He's probably the only one of that who actually has like a real young audience

But the rest of us to colleges, it. Right. Every college event does is packed out. But the rest of you're just preaching to a bunch of boomers who love Trump anyway. I know those people are never going to stop voting for Trump. They're never going to stop voting for Republicans. So that's why it's important to distinguish exactly like who all these subgroups are. Yeah. The last thing that I just want to say is I don't think it's implausible. Sager mentioned the Megan Kelly reporting this week suggesting that people, her sources inside the administration said that the files had been left in such a way that points to Donald Trump.

I don't want to discredit the possibility that there was some funny business going on. What that doesn't do is negate the veracity of the potential file itself. So two things can be true at once, right? That the holdovers at the Justice Department and at the Biden era Justice Department, which did have a Marine Comey as part of it, and there are all kinds of people who have despised Trump that were in career positions at justice and FBI, we all know that. It is not impossible that there was actually some maneuvering behind the scenes to make it more difficult for the Trump administration to release files and to do their transparency without implicating Donald Trump.

That's possible. I have no idea what that would look like. Maybe it looks like, you know, leaving the Trump page and that book right at the top and moving the other pages somewhere else. I genuinely don't know. But I just want to say again to people who are listening to that and are deeply suspicious of the intelligence community, two things can be true. That the intelligence community was engaging in significant funny business, and that the Trump letter is real and massively suspicious, and that there are potentially other pieces of information that the administration is sitting on that do implicate Donald Trump.

And lastly- Right. And then the easiest way to get around that is just release it all. And then nobody cares what's on top or whatever, you know, you can reorder it. We want to. And lastly, I know this is a, uh, probably a decent teaser for the second half of the show, which is premium. But the reason that we are talking about all of this and, and on the show, we try to

cover topics that are not the sort of mainstream media outrage bait. The reason that this is important is because there's substantive justice questions and also it could be affecting our foreign policy literally right now. Yes, exactly. Every single day. Totally. Yeah. Well, may every new piece of information be a new wonderful secret. You know, we were talking a lot about all these lawsuits against news media organizations uh... and you know

that kind of leads us i think naturally to the steven colbert thing uh... which uh... just announced last night that the late show with steven colbert has been canceled why don't we take a listen to what he has to say right here oh hey everybody we got a great show for you tonight. Senator Adam Schiff was my guest. We harmed him on Kevin Bridges Road. What a voice! I cried. But before we start the show, I want to let you know something that I found out just last night.

Next year will be our last season. The network will be ending the Late Show in May. And. Yeah, I share your feelings. It's not just the end of our show, but it's the end of the late show on CBS. I'm not being replaced. This is all just going away. And I do want to say, I do want to say that the folks at CBS have been great partners. I'm so grateful to the Tiffany Network for giving me this chair and this beautiful theater to call home. And of course I'm grateful to you, the audience, who have joined us.

And that audience has been growing smaller and smaller by the day You know a lot of people I mean I saw Elizabeth Warren I saw Adam Schiff after his interview say or question if there was political pressure from the Trump administration behind this cancellation, what do you folks make of this I really don't know because apparently the justification from CBS is That it's no longer financially sustainable So I'll read here the genre has experienced a sharp decline in advertising revenue in recent years in

2018 network late-night shows took in four hundred thirty nine million dollars in ad revenue By last year the figure had dropped to 220 million, a 50% drop in just seven years. The cancellation of the Late Show raised immediate questions about the ties to the government's review of Paramount's merger with Skydance or the recent settlement with Mr. Trump. So I think both things could be true.

It's convenient to get rid of him. But also, I mean, what was Stephen Colbert's salary at the Late Show? Probably 30 million. That's my guess. It's got to be something like that. Let's see. I can't find. Yeah. His annual salary is about $15 million. So if we submit that the total amount of advertising revenue is 220 million. How many late night shows are there? There's the late night, there's the late show. There is, um, Kimmel, I don't know.

Kale mill Fallon. So that's three shows, but there's also daily show. Seth Meyer, all those people are all lumped in. So 220 million divided by all those shows. Obviously it's not equal, but it's like somewhat dispersed 15 million just for Colbert. Anybody even know what the operating costs for a studio and a staff size of 25 people pulling full corporate Benny's, I can kind of see it right. Like I could see a case where the show doesn't pencil and where at the end of the day, like

where the show doesn't pencil and where at the end of the day like kind is just not really worth it financially anymore I also could see you know this whole thing a lot of people are saying that it is about Donald Trump but you know shout out to like Clippenstein and others who are like guys I'm sorry like he's not funny like it's just a bad show and I think it's just bad he is funny but he's not funny anymore. He was. No, it's heartbreaking. You know, I mean, like the Colbert report was, you know, cutting edge at the time. And I even before that, thank you, Emily. Straight candy.

That was cutting edge. I went to the rally to restore sanity into Oh, my God. Front row seat. Yeah, I think I'm actually in a package from Craig Ferguson. That's awesome. Because he was going around with it. If anybody wants to pull that clip, I was there. So what was that? I don't know when I started doing this,

but whatever it is, my like student stump speech, when I'm trying to explain what happened to the media is literally juxtaposing the Colbert report with Johnny Carson, because I think it's the story of media really neatly. It's like your perfect arc. When Johnny Carson was the king of late night, you're pulling in north of 10 million people every night. And in order to do that, you're competing with two... I think more. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, it depends. I mean, his tenure was very long and the genre went through a lot. And so you're competing with basically two other networks and the way to maximize your ad revenue is to appeal to as many Americans as you possibly can. So Carson was not at all a political, he talked about politics all the time, but what he was, was not partisan. So that's because you, you know, Republicans buy sneakers too, as the saying goes for Michael Jordan. And so at the time, that's the way to beat your competitors is to just get the biggest

slightest of the pie. Colbert was the number one host in late night during the Trump era, Trump 1.0. And actually right now, if you compare him, this is very interesting, Gutfeld is beating him on cable, which would have been unthinkable in the latter Carson era, because first of all, that was a new thing relatively. And secondly, not everybody had cable. So Gutfeld is actually pretty handily destroying everyone else on a cable network. Colbert was number one in Trump 1.0, despite being the least funny and the most political host. You heard him in that monologue about the show being canceled that Adam Schiff was his

guest a comedy show with Adam Schiff as the guest. Does that sound appealing to you? No. But the way to win the competition now is the niche. So if you can get resistance wine moms coming back night after night, you have the best shot at selling really specific ads that are easy for the business people to understand and maximizes the audience loyalty, all of that. So what's getting buried in all of this is Colbert said that they're actually retiring or CBS said they're actually retiring the late night brand. They're retiring the show after he leaves. So that can only mean one thing.

Deborah Vance is coming in. No, I'm kidding. But that's what it's like. That's actually, I think, even more significant than Colbert being pushed out is that they're retiring the franchise of the show. And that show is a staple of Hollywood culture. Griffin's literally in Hollywood, so he can speak more to this. But I think it's possible that Colbert was overpaid and was needling the network over the settlement. And that's the straw that broke the camel's

back. But this is not about politics. It has nothing to do. I totally agree. It's like, guys, it's an insane system. It airs at 11 35 PM Eastern to watch interviews live and Colbert's monologue and various sketches. Who the fuck is watching that in 2025? I'm being serious. Like anybody who is remotely interested in comedy or to the extent that it has any cultural cache left at all, who is remotely interested in comedy or to the extent that it has any cultural cachet left at all, people are watching it on YouTube or on Twitter the day after they don't. No one is watching this live. Like they're just not. Maybe some people in California at eight

30 whenever it also happens to air live. Like I, and there's a great book. Uh, I think it's called the late shift. I read it a few years ago. It's the history of late night television and specifically the war between Jay Leno and David Letterman. And people need to understand that it was a very specific moment in time, pre-internet, in which was the only way to get access to comedy as a genre that everybody could experience.

It was the platform through which Leno and Letterman could have all of these like guys on and to debut. It goes back to the history of The Tonight Show in the 1970s as like the convening ground. It also was a really good way to get publicity out about a movie. But effectively, like basically the moment YouTube and the internet and all that stuff starts to come around, these shows just become obsolete overnight I mean in my opinion the greatest to ever do it Conan. He couldn't even make it work. What is Conan doing now? He's a podcast host and a very successful

Host and it's very successful. I love I love team cocoa. It's a good show I have great interviews and he gets good guests But my point is just like that genre of like 25, 30 people on your staff staying up every night to do jokes. I mean, even Jon Stewart, he's only on the air guys once a week, right? Once a week. Like this, that is just,

it was such a specific moment in time that even I don't understand it. I can only read about it for what it was like for mass culture. Yeah. That post 19, that like 1990s mass media culture right before the internet and YouTube and all that came out. And the only reason it even stayed around was because of all this legacy advertising. But look, the world has moved on.

So yeah, if you ask me, that's the main reason is you have to just keep signing these mega deals. You have this massive burn rate, you know, on the show. But I mean, I'm not going to be stupid and deny that it's an easy thing to hand to the Trump administration to also get the sky dance to, or to also get the sky dance merger. So I think it's both a hundred percent, but I think that a lot of liberals are really ignoring like, but guys, the show was bad. Like it was a bad show.

Yeah. The ratings were bad. And like, I was thinking a lot, you know, you know, Emily mentioned that he was a star in Trump 1.0 and like we already knew like before Trump won 2024 that the talk show format was dying culturally. But even I thought that Colbert would get like a shot in the arm from Trump being back, that it would gin the resistance people back up. But really in my view, the age range now for the Colbert audience is like 60s and 70s.

Yes, exactly. And you'd think that those people, well, would still just be watching cable and the old things they're used to. But I see my dad who's in his 60s. I mean, he's he's looking at TikTok. He's looking at Instagram reels. When I go over to my dad's house, we're not watching cable. He's playing me a YouTube video now. And I really think that like even that age range of like 60s and 70s

just have so many more entertaining distractions and watching a five-minute interview, like these really short bite interviews with really boring people or like some, you know, modern family actor is just not really hitting anymore. And it really goes to show that these, but the talk show format, I do believe people still like if you revolutionize it, if you make it interesting again. Kelly Clarkson. Like, oh, I'm looking at shows online like Kill Tony is essentially a talk show that

gets like hundreds of thousands of live incursions on YouTube. It's massive. I'm looking at people like the Adam Friedland show, which is much styled in like a 70s talk show. I do think people still like something about the format, but you have to keep it modern. You have to update it. And I look at an organization, Sager mentioned the 25 employees,

probably on the writing staff, the massive crew, and they saw the ratings go down for years and they refused to innovate. I mean, I've worked at a lot of media companies where the writing's on the wall. The downward trajectory is obvious, and they just don't update, they don't modernize with the times. There was a way for them to save this show. They could have brought in new writers, they could have cleared house, they could have made it interesting and changed things, but when you're in that level of Hollywood like cemented

Tradition you just it's almost impossible unless someone gives you the mandate to go in and kind of fire everyone Hire new staff and like challenge the format. I think it was savable, but I just think I agree with There's only their own ways. Yeah, right. I mean, this is the problem. They don't know how to streamline They don't know how to you, you know, innovate or any of that for the future. And by the way, this is coming from the legacy. I mean, franchise is a sign that they are coming to it lately. I think it's too baked in the burn rates too high. For example, my prediction Saturday night live, it'll be dead in 10 years. That's my, I don't disagree with that. I don't just mean maybe if Lauren dies, like that's when it'll die. I just think at this point, NBC is just keeping it around for Whatever say I don't know

Ten years emeritus, you know like a merideth thing and then when Lauren is gone, they're like look, let's just end the show I mean, there's no horror like yours not good anymore. It becomes a clip show. I mean it already could be a clip show Yeah, basically, but yet no, I think they're realizing this a decade too late And that's why I think one of like my hottest takes ever is that CNN plus was actually a good idea. I mean, they executed it. It's a hot take. It's a system. I understand what you're trying to say. The concept, the concept shouldn't have been abandoned because Fox News invested early in Fox nation, whatever you think about it, it's now a huge part of the Fox News business. And that's because they were able to bring people in with these documentaries and

subscriptions and blah, blah, blah that makes up for the fact that even you know, okay, so Gutfeld trouncing Colbert, okay, but that's 3 million people on average watching Gutfeld a night, it doesn't compare to the 10 million or the 5 million that you would have had on a late night show a long time ago. So anyway, all that is just to say that a lot of these networks are 10 years too late and are trying to adapt. They're just doing it in a very poor way and they're doing it late. And to the SNL point, just because SNL was mentioned, and I am a sicko and I still watch

every episode of SNL. I watch every single sketch. There's at least one good sketch an episode, but you got to suffer through a lot. I say get rid of Lauren, bring in Tina Fey and let Tina Fey revolutionize the show, let her update it for the next era. And I do think there's a ton of life there. Anyways, if you're listening, NBC, 30 Rock. Yeah, Tina, if you're listening, we love you. Tina is on the record as having burner accounts. So in my fantasy, she does listen.

Incredible. I love Tina Fey. Perhaps the most lib thing about me. Nothing better than 30 Rock. Oh my God. Absolutely. So to this day. The greatest network show of all time. All right. And Baltimore is just incredible. The entire time on that. But yeah, let's, why don't we kick it over to the second half now

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