Bulwark Takes - Rep. Jared Moskowitz: “The Epstein Thing Is NOT a Conspiracy”

Episode Date: July 23, 2025

Rep. Jared Moskowitz joins Tim Miller to discuss the House GOP’s inaction on Epstein file disclosures, allegations of a cover-up involving DOJ officials, and MAGA's growing frustration. Also, FEMA��s slow disaster response under Kristi Noem is causing concerns about preparedness heading into hurricane season.

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If you have questions or concerns about gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. Ben MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Hey everybody. Tim Miller from the Bulwark here with Congressman Jared Moskowitz of Florida, who's apparently posting on Twitter instead of coming into this, this YouTube show. What's happening? I was late. I had to get that tweet out. What were you tweeting about? Tell me.

I may have made a Dr. Seuss kind of verse with chat GBT on how Mike Johnson is running away. Oh, a Mike Johnson themed Dr. Seuss book. Well, that's something that I wouldn't read to my child, but I could read myself. This is adult Seuss. This is adult Seuss. Adult Seuss, okay.

Over 18, hopefully, in this Epstein case. What I wanna chat with you about, and it feels like the House has actually made some progress. There's been a lot of frustration by everybody, and you and I have talked about it, just like what is the right way to kind of combat what Republicans are doing in this moment? It turns out maybe trying to get them

to live up to their comments on Epstein is the way to do it. I and Mike Johnson have shut down the house now potentially till September. What's the latest on that and the kind of tactics you guys have been using? Well, Tim, let's go backwards for a second. Right. Like how did we get here? Right. So, you know, during the entire election, president Trump talked about the Epstein

files, he said, Bill Clinton was on it. This goes back actually to the first Trump presidency, right. And what you did in which he said, Clinton's got big problems. He was on the plane and the island, right, and all of that. So this goes back, you know, eight years. Lead up to this administration, right, he's got Dan Bongino, Cash Patel, which he puts into the FBI. These guys made a career on releasing the Epstein files to take on the powerful. We get into the administration, Pam Bondi is attorney general. Let's not forget she was attorney general in Florida during Epstein. Yeah. Right. And had worked on, you know, had people working on that sweetheart deal

that he got. So he's got his full Epstein crew at DOJ, Bongino, Battelle and Bondi. Right. You know, all the A-listers. And what does Bondi do within like her first couple weeks? She creates empty white binders, phase one, like it's a Marvel movie, phase one, right? We're gonna get to the six phases of all of this. In the binders, nothing, nothing new,

everything that's already public. She promises more, then what do we get? Oh, the list is on my desk. I just have to finish reading it, vetting it, and then it's coming out. And then we get a letter quietly, very quiet, posted on there. Oh, there's no list. Not only is there no list, there's nothing more to see. This now spins up Maga, who has bought into this conspiracy theory that they were told that we were gonna finally get to the big and powerful along with you know, a dozen other conspiracy Conspiracy theories we can't even keep up with right? It was we're gonna release the Epstein files

We're gonna find out if there's aliens and you know, I'm having dinner with Hannibal Lecter that literally was the top three you know things that the president talked about in these rallies and And now Magda is furious because now it looks like, guess what? Cover up Deep State, all the stuff that they've been fed for years. And then Trump's reaction now enters in the Don. Right. His reaction to all this is baffling. Overreaction, calling his own people stupid and that they bought into a democratic lie and they're doing the Democrats bidding. Okay. He's just overreaction. You know, there's

nothing to see here. Move on. Why are you so interested? They were the ones telling everyone to be interested. And then we get the old playbook, right? We get distraction. We should deport Rosie O'Donnell. He loves that one. Yeah. Right. I'm surprised she's still here, quite frankly. Yeah.

He's deported her like 12 times. Right? They tried Hillary's emails. People didn't bite on that. They're like, that's so several years ago. So now we're back to Obama. We're resting. I'm in it now.

Right. This is Obama's fault, right? Because now we found the smoking gun that Obama created, you know, the files along with Joe Sleepy, Joe Biden in the basement. And Obama also created Russiagate. I mean, they are throwing everything at this. And I feel bad at the same time. I mean, it got so bad that they finally released health information on the president. He was the healthiest guy of all time

in the history of health documents. And then they were like, this Epstein stuff is bad. What do we do? Tell everyone he's got a minor vein issue. Yeah, it's got a little veins. I was, I'm with you on the whole story. There's just one little thing I want to pick at. And then I want to come back to the democratic strategy

on the hill again though, but just about the actual facts of what happened. Use the word conspiracy a couple of times, kind of, and, you know, through it, lumped in with aliens. Is it a conspiracy though? I, I, isn't, isn't, hasn't there been, uh, associates of Epstein that have been protected? Like, isn't that a truth? The Epstein thing is not, the Epstein thing is not a conspiracy. Obviously you got Maxwell who is in jail, deserves to be there.

The things that she did are actual crimes. No, the conspiracy they were told, right, is that the only people on the list were Democrats. Right. Got it. Right? That it was Democrats that were on the list. It was the Clintons, right? It was going to be Bill Gates. It was all of these- The basement of the pizza parlor. Yeah. Right. The pizza parlor was all these liberal people. It never dawned on anyone that, oh, there might be some very powerful Republicans and maybe the most powerful.

Even though of course there's ton of video evidence and photo evidence and interviews that they spent a lot of time together. Because it seems to me, and so I'm interested in your thought on this from your oversight experience. Seems to me like there's a cover up. If you believe what is in the Dick Durbin letter that was written, that they actually

did have FBI agents going through the Epstein files and that they were flagging anytime Trump was mentioned in there, it seems likely to me they have a file with Trump. Think about that, right? That just sounds logical for these folks. Right. Dan Bongino, who I don't think we've heard from. Is he okay? We haven't heard from him in weeks. We had a picture of him with a newspaper with the date.

They're going through this and every day they're like, shit, page 11, page 19, page 25, page 29. Look, I'm not saying he was on the island. I'm not saying he did anything wrong. We don't know, right? But clearly the reaction to this necessitates more questions, more concerns. And it, you know, as they always say, it's not the crime, it's the coverup. In this instance, it's definitely both.

And so, yeah, look, this seems to be that they are keeping this quiet as much as they can and now the late-breaking News of today is oh DOJ has been talking to miss Maxwell who has been begging for a pardon And now you know, they're gonna work. They're working it out, you know, she's gonna reveal the truth, right? And now we get into the truth is we'll give you a pardon if you say Donald Trump never knew Jeffrey Epps. Right. So, you know, just imagining you get that oversight gavel, let's say the Democrats win next time, you have experience with the committee. Like what and where are you going with this? Like to me, it's straight to Patel and Bongino.

And like, what were these agents doing? And can we see the documents that they reviewed? But I don't maybe that's wrong. I don't know. What like What would be a worthwhile use of resources do you think in the future to Democrats? Yeah, Democrats challenge getting the oversight gavel will be not to be squirrels. And by that, I mean, they can't do 20 things, right?

I mean, there's so much to do oversight. So would this be one of the things? That's a legit question. Would this be one of the things? Listen, I don't know if it would have been one of the things, but at this juncture, Tim, I think it has to be one of the things? That's a legit question. Would this be one of the things? Listen, I don't know if it would have been one of the things, but at this juncture, Tim, I think it has to be one of the things because the responses and the moves that they have made since they took office have not made any sense other than they found stuff that

they can't let get out. I mean, maybe there isn't a list, but there's gotta be names. Who are the names? This is an ad by BetterHelp. Workplace stress is now one of the top causes of declining mental health with 61% of the global workforce experiencing

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at betterhelp.com slash bulwarktakes. That's betterhelp.com slash bulwark takes that's better. H E L P.com slash bulwark takes. Fair enough. Real quick. We had Mike Johnson. So as I mentioned at the top, so they're shutting down the house, apparently I think in large part due to the tactics.

He has a quote out today, like Johnson, we have an equal moral responsibility to protect the innocent. I guess that's only if Donald Trump's the innocent. It's not, you know, I don't remember him talking about the moral responsibility to protect the innocent? I guess that's only if Donald Trump's the innocent. It's not, you know, I don't remember if talking about the moral responsibility to protect the innocent that we rounded up in immigration roundups, but what do you make of what Mike Johnson's been doing? And what is his choice about?

Should always protect the victims of what happened here, right, who were victims of crime. Yeah, the victims, not the innocent who were accused. Yeah. Right, of course not. Okay. Well, they never thought it was innocent every time they said Bill Clinton was on the plane. Yeah, the victims, not the innocent who were accused. Right, of course not. Okay. Well, they never thought it was innocent every time they said Bill Clinton was on the plane. Yeah, right. He wasn't innocent just by being on a plane.

And so, of course, the rules are always different when it comes to them. But look, Marjorie Taylor Greene's not having it anymore, right? They've lost Marjorie Taylor Greene. She said, stop dangling the red meat and give us the red meat. You know, you know, Matt Walsh is out there talking about, you know, Barack Obama needs to be in handcuffs. Otherwise what Tulsi Gabbard put out is a lie. And so Maga has finally said, and is saying, put up or shut up, right? Either do the things you said you're going to do, or stop dangling

this stuff in front of us. It really is one of the first schisms. Who knew protecting a pedophile, right, would be the line too far for some Republicans? As you know, not too far for other Republicans. Some Republicans are like, let's move on. We got the big, beautiful bill. But apparently, some in MAGA are holding firm. And so, yeah, they want to get to the six-week break as fast as possible.

That's clearly the strategy. Mike Johnson running away because he doesn't want to have a vote on the floor. He doesn't want to have more motions in committee. I mean again, what do they have to hide? What is it that they're hiding? They're definitely not protecting Joe Biden. No, they're not. Okay, last thing you got to run to get votes, but you have expertise in emergency management. After watching what happened in Texas, I live down here on the Gulf Coast in New Orleans. I'm a little nervous about the FEMA changes and some of the cuts and their plans,

the fact the new FEMA head didn't know about hurricane season apparently. You know this stuff better than I do, but what is the thing you're worried about the most? What kind of oversight do you think is needed on these guys with regards to FEMA and emergency management? Yeah, the FEMA head didn't know about hurricane season. Can you imagine the briefing when they told them about the five categories? Yeah.

Listen, FEMA is in worse shape than we know and we're being told. And I actually think the White House is finding out how bad a shape it's in. And that's all because of Kristi Noem. Kristi Noem didn't do reform, she did deletion. And the emergency management industry has known that FEMA has needed reform. I have a number of reform bills taking FEMA out of Homeland. I have that, you know, in a bipartisan bill with Byron Donalds filed that three years in a row.

There's other reforms to different programs. But Homeland has been disabusing FEMA for a long period of time, making them do all of the grant writing for the 22 other agencies in there. But Noem came in, she got rid of 20% of the personnel, the experts, the people with experience. Then they forced buyouts of other folks. You got regional offices that are 20-30% empty.

She then held on to $10 billion of previously declared presidential declarations, money for reimbursements, right? That money can't get down to cities and counties. So that means they don't have a capital as they go into the next hurricane season. She created a rule that said anything over $100,000 had to come to her. Does that make FEMA more efficient? Did that make FEMA faster? I thought we were trying to make FEMA faster. No, that made everything slower, has slowed down response. And that's what happened, unfortunately, in Texas. First of all, what happened in Texas

is one of the worst flooding disasters I've ever seen being in the emergency management industry. Obviously, all those innocent kids that were killed, it breaks your heart. It's just, it's unimaginable. I saw what it was like in Marjory Stoneman Douglas watching all those parents bury their kids when they sent them to school. Here, these parents sent their kids to summer camp and

they're not coming home. Tim, I can't even fathom what those families are going through. But people depend on their first responders and government response when disasters happen. And there needs to be an after action review. It's why I called for an investigation to figure out what worked and what didn't work. You do that after every disaster. The idea that the secretary says, this is the fastest response in the history of responses, bullshit. This was the slowest response from FEMA since Katrina.

And that was solely with the secretary. The idea that she didn't put the federal search and rescue teams on the road for 72 hours is ridiculous. It is a violation of protocol. FEMA would usually move these search and rescue teams without even talking to the emergency management director. They would just pre-position them, get them ready.

These guys should have been in the water within 24 hours, not 72. At 72, it's a recovery mission. It's not a, it's not search and rescue. Um, and so that needs to be investigated. If the Biden administration did that, my Republican friends would be saying it's a recovery mission. It's not search and rescue. And so that needs to be investigated. If the Biden administration did that, my Republican friends would be saying it was criminal and that people died because of what the Biden administration did. Look, it's tough to make that analysis and I'm not going to do that because I'm not getting

involved with what happened to the families. But government did fail those families. Government did not respond the way it should have responded at at the federal level. And so FEMA is not ready for hurricane season. We don't know if they're going to do pre landfall declarations, which helps you, you know, pre position assets and equipment before a hurricane comes. We've seen them really slow with the other declarations even in Arkansas, right? Where the governor there worked in the previous Trump administration took her two weeks to get her declaration. So yeah,

like I'm really worried about it. And the only thing I can pray for is that we don't get a bad hurricane this season because FEMA is not ready. Wolf, that's bleak. All right. Congressman Jared Moskowitz, thank you so much for your time today. We'll be talking to you again soon, brother. Thanks, Tim.