Panic World - Meet the guy trying to release the Epstein files

Episode Date: January 28, 2026

Where are the Epstein files? Representative Ro Khanna joins us to urge listeners why we need to keep asking that question. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Vice President J.D. Vance has said that you are annoying, but you occasionally have interesting ideas. I would love to hear if you think of that as a compliment or not. What do you say to that? I don't spend much time thinking about whether Vice President Vance is complimenting me or insulting me. I think it depends on his mood any single day. This is Panic World. My name is Ryan Broderick. With me sometimes is our producer Grant Irving. And Panic World is a show about how the Internet warps our minds, our culture, and eventually reality. And with us today is a pretty big guest. I'm very excited.

The representative from California's 17th Congressional District. And more importantly, a guy who I've just discovered went to our producer Grant's rival high school, Roe Kana. Welcome to the show. And thank you for making the time. Where did you go, Grant? I went to Council Rock South. Well, it wasn't split when I was there.

It was just Council Rock. Spiritually, you went to the rival high school of mine. This is eventually. Where was Council Rock? I mean, so I grew up in Bent Salem and went to Benzillam Elementary and then I went to Holland Junior High and Council Rock High School. Yeah, yeah, we were neighbors just a couple years apart. So I want to thank you for coming on the show. Welcome.

And so my, where I want to start with this is I want to throw sort of something at you that I've seen online a lot. I saw it even last night, which is that, you know, Grant and I, we just came back from Minneapolis. You're covering the unrest there. And, you know, you see this over and over again where you see people saying the Trump administration is doing something to distract people from the Epstein files. This is a common drumbeat. You're definitely going to see it online. And I want to start with just sort of what are your opinions on how the Trump administration, one, I guess, views the Epstein files. And two, like, do you think that that is possible, that the administration is doing this sort of like authoritarian tap dance to keep.

the masses distracted? Or is this kind of just blue sky chatter for you? No, I don't think we're like, we're killing people on boats in Venezuela to prevent the release of the Epstein file. I think we're killing people on boats in Venezuela because this administration has no regard for human rights. I think we're engaged in regime change wars in Venezuela because people in the administration don't see the dignity and human value of life of civilians in Latin America. have betrayed the Maga Bay. So I think it's almost too flip to just say, oh, they don't want the release of the Epstein files. I wish it was that simple. There's something deeper about disregarding

the humanity of people that's going on. That said, I do think the administration has understands that this Epstein issue is the one thing that has penetrated the popular culture, right? When you have a factory worker in Michigan saying to the president, you're a pedophile protector that says something. I mean, this was his base of people. And what are they protesting him over? They're not protesting him over ICE, though I wish they were. They're not protesting him over the strikes in Venezuela, though I wish they were. They're not protesting him over the irrational tariffs, though I wish they were, were the attacks on universities, though I wish they were. The one thing they're protesting him about is protecting pedophiles. It is the only consequential piece of legislation in Democratic

Democrat passed in all of 2025. It is the only thing that has broken the MAGA coalition. It is the only thing that has given the Democrats a way back in winning over voters who are sick of the corruption, sick of elites getting away with things. That's why it's resonated. Why is it the wrecking ball to the coalition? I've noticed the same thing, which is that, you know, I think from the outside, it's very easy to see the MAGA movement as this one big monolithic thing. but it's a lot of different factions and they all kind of hate each other. And it does, it does to me feel like the Epstein thing is the real break-apart moment. And from where you're sitting, why do you think it has resonated so well with his base,

particularly of, you know, conspiratorial men? There was a legitimate anger that a lot of Trump voters had. And they're angry that there is a group of elites who kind of fly out around the world, who have a ton of money, a ton of power, and get away with things. And that there are no consequences for them. There were no consequences when they got us into war in Iraq. No consequences when they crashed the economy, the bankers in Wall Street. No consequences for them when they piled up money at the expense of the working class.

No consequences where they just shipped off our factories. And Trump ran and he said, you know what? I'm going to take it to these guys. I'm going to tear down these corrupt institutions that haven't cared at all about. you. You built America. They don't care about you. They play by one set of rules. You get a parking ticket. Your car gets booted. They go and rape young girls and they get away with it for their own gratification. This was core to his message to people. And now he's betraying that. Now he's out there saying, well, I don't know. My rich friends may be in those files and I don't need

to protect them even if they are pedophiles, even if they raped underage girls, even if they covered up for that rape. And people are like, this is. why we voted for you. Yeah, what are you talking about? Right. What are you saying that? And I, you know, I was on Sean Ryan's podcast. And Sean Ryan was cheerleading for the president. And now he's so disgusted by the president. This is a place where the Democrats can become the party of elite accountability. The Democrats can become the party that actually are for cleaning up the system, for reform. And that's a very, very powerful place for us to be. When you say like, you know, it is the the most impactful piece of legislation that the Democrats put forward in 2025.

I'd like to just... And that passed. We put forward a lot of things that didn't pass. Yeah. So I want to zero in on that for a second because I think sort of tying back to the online chatter about, you know, Minneapolis, Greenland, Venezuela, like, you know, the Trumpian chaos. There is this attitude from people particularly on the left, which I also think is fairly

reasonable, which is to say, you know, where are the Democrats? I've said it before. I've said, where are the Democrats? And obviously, as a journalist, I understand that, like, the wheels and the machinery of American democracy are not exactly always public. You're not always going to see it. And so, I mean, what has it been like for you on the other side of that trying to get these things fast?

And why do you think there was so much, I mean, is it fair to say bipartisan support for the Epstein list release? Like, why was this the one that finally, why do you have people like Marjorie Taylor Green being like, yeah, I was on the wrong side of this one, my bad. If you take her at face value. Well, first of all, your criticism of the Democratic Party was totally right. I mean, Chuck Schumer needs to step down as a minority leader. Brother, we could do 45 minutes on my figs about Chuck Schumer right now.

I called for it. I got into trouble with the establishment. But that tweet of mine where I called for it went viral, like six million views. And most people in the base agreed with it. It made me unpopular in the Capitol. But we've got to have Democrats willing to call out leadership who had not met the moment. I mean, we had Democrats voting for Lake and Riley.

Now they're on TV criticizing the ICE deportations. You voted for the bill that gave ICE the ability to deport without due process. I was on a debate with Bill Maher with Stephen A, and I almost got booed when I said that I voted against the Lake of Riley Act. But you know what? It takes principle. And then we had Democrats throwing the trans community under the bus. Do you remember this early on?

I mean, that we had Democrats not just condemning Charlie Kicks' murder, which we all should do, and it was unequivocally wrong, but actually celebrating Charlie Kirk is a model for what we want for young men. Really? You want for young men, someone who's called Michelle Obama and Katanji Brown Jackson, saying that they don't have mental capability? So we had a Democratic Party that was acquiescing to Donald Trump. We had a Democratic Party that was voting for Donald Trump's cabinet appointees. We had a Democratic Party that was not pushing back against ICE when they're harassing and killing American citizens.

And yes, the base should be angry. But what we've now seen is I think the Democratic Party, many of us, particularly in the House, step up and step forward and be bolder. And there's more confidence, there's more urgency in the party. We need a new generation. Why did Epstein break through? Epstein broke through because one, I had relationships on the other side of the island. And I've been in Congress now 10 years. I've built relationships with people like Thomas Massey.

And so when Marjorie Taylor Green and I sat down, she was willing to trust me, that I wasn't going to make this just a Democratic punching bag, that I was going to play it straight. And we had her at the press conferences. We gave her respect. Same thing with Lauren Bauer. And so I said, I'm not going to make this about a Democratic win. I'm not going to make this about just landing shots at Donald Trump.

I'm going to make this about the survivors. And by the way, if Donald Trump releases the files based on all our efforts and goes along with it, I'll give him credit. I'll say he did something no other president did. And Marjorie thought, yeah, Roe, okay, maybe I think you're going to see that this president's going to release the files. I said, Marjorie, if he does that, I'll be the first person to praise him. And she was surprised that he cared so much about protecting his rich and powerful friends. And some of it, people say, like, why does Donald Trump really care?

You know, he doesn't care about anything. Why does he care about these folks? He's got a bunch of rich friends that he doesn't want to see embarrassed. And he's gone to the lengths of calling these survivors hoaxes. And it's so, so sad to see because all of his reaction of protecting these people is exactly what people hate about what happened in the first place. That you can really have wealth and power in this country and abuse and rape underage girls and no one cares. If our country has come to that, we've lost our moral soul. When this scandalfully

comes out, it may take a next Democratic president to get everything out. When it comes out, it's going to be a moral reckoning for America. How did we allow this to happen? What does it say about our culture? What does it say about sexual assault that takes place? So you mentioned Marjorie Taylor Green, and I think her role in this has been, I think, somewhat confusing to the public. And I know that I've had plenty of arguments. with other writers, their journalists, other pundits about this. And before we go to our next section where we're going to be kind of talking about the lead up to the release and sort of back feeling there, I would love to just simply ask,

like, do you believe Marjorie Taylor Green when she says, I was on the wrong side of this? Because, you know, I think there is the impulse to say that she's a grifter, that she's, you know, trying to get ahead of something or, you know, playing some kind of, you know, four-dimensional chess. But, I mean, what do you make? of her sort of about face in the last few months? She's deeply moved by this issue. I mean, look, people grow, people change, people are complex.

You know, I wish everyone read Shakespeare instead of just thinking everyone's a villain and not a villain, right? We have such a simplistic view of the world, and Marjorie Taylor-Gream is a complex figure. But I'll tell you this, on Epstein, she showed huge courage, and I'll, I'll, till the end of my life, say that. She took the wrath of her own base. she could have gotten off that discharge petition. She was intimidated by the president.

She was threatened by the president. She was threatened by the Speaker of the House. She risked her political career over it. She basically was forced out of Congress over it. And yeah, are they things she said that I totally disagree with? Absolutely. But am I going to not tell the truth about the courage it took this person to get to the result? That would be wrong.

I do think we're at a place. and you can tell me if I'm wrong here, but I do think we're at a place where the threat to American democracy is so high that there is an argument to be made that Republicans that are not okay with this are useful allies. It's probably as centrist as I want to be with all of that, but I do think that we are at a position where the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And if someone like Marjorie Tether Green can help sort of get accountability for something like the Epstein list and get accountability from the Trump administration, it's like, sure.

If she goes and does some weird scheme later with it, like, fine. But right now, it does seem fine to me. Well, it's issue by issue, right? I mean, if tomorrow Marjorie Taylor Green is out there saying that January 6 was a peaceful demonstration and not a riot, I'll be saying, no, that's crazy. I was in the Capitol. It was a riot. It was an insurrection. But that doesn't mean that because I may disagree strongly on that, that I can't tell the truth about what Marjorie Taylor Green did when the Epstein files. The truth is this thing would never have passed if it weren't for her. The truth is she could have folded if she wanted to just be politically expedient.

The truth is that she demonstrated more courage in terms of risking her seat than the vast majority of politicians. You know, one of the things that I, reason I went on Sean Ryan and one of the things I've had, and maybe I'll, I won't keep it, but I want to try my best, is people see me, even if they disagree with me, someone willing to tell the truth and willing to come at it from a matter of principle, not just partisanship. They may disagree with me on trans rights, but I'm not going to go on Fox News and pretend that to throw the trans community under the bus.

They may disagree with me that billionaires need to pay more tax, but I'm going to say, what I'm going to say, even if I'm in Silicon Valley. They may disagree with me on the fact that I work with Republicans on the other side, but that's what I'm going to do in terms of getting results. It's funny to say that during the Charlie Kirk News cycle, I went on sort of a never-trumper, right-wing podcast to talk about it. And they were with me. Like their audience was with me. And obviously, once I started ranting about like breaking up tech companies with antitrust legislation and how workers need to unionize or protect themselves. They were like, okay, okay, okay, that's enough.

But I got a lot of very heartening feedback about sort of the personal freedoms that we're losing in this second first Trump administration. I get the impulse, you know, online to sort of win the dunk economy by saying, like, you know, all Republicans are subhuman monsters. But in my experience, like, there are people who are open to these conversations that were not open to them five, six, seven years ago. So I agree with you there. And we're going to talk more about sort of how the Epstein list has been used as a wrecking ball against the mega coalition after the break.

But first, a word from our sponsors. You and Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massey have led the effort to congressional pull pressure for the files to be released. And I want to talk about that. But I think it would be helpful to just do a super abridged timeline of how we got here. So in 2016, Epstein isn't really a huge story yet. He's sort of just a figure you might see in like conspiracy theories on 4chan or something. He's not really a main character of culture just yet. But there are rumors of ties to Bill Clinton and Trump, but it's not really brought up during the first election.

2018, during Trump won, the story explodes because of the Miami Herald's excellent reporting. 2019, Epstein is arrested in Manhattan, and on August 10th, he's found dead in his jail cell. Within a day, there's a bipartisan call for an investigation from people like AOC to Matt Gates, and nothing really comes of it. Senator Cory Booker, Representative is Beto O'Rourke and Alexandria O'Caseo Cortez. They all condemn Trump because he blames the Clintons for it. And that kind of puts us into the current landscape we've been in, the holding pattern, I guess you could say we've been in up until last year. And so the big question that I have is what was happening with the EPSC investigation during the Biden years? From the outside, it kind of feels like Democrats are like racing to get their homework in right before like we lose democracy forever.

First of all, I spoke out about this in 2019 with Elijah Cummings, who was the oversight chair, and we were calling for an investigation into Epstein. So we were talking about this well before Donald Trump's second term. Now, during the Biden administration, there were ongoing investigations taking place. So the Biden administration had less discretion to just release the files, nor did Biden ever campaign on that? But if you're asking me a broader question, which is, does the political lead in this country bear responsibility for not releasing these files and not doing justice by,

The survivors, the answer is absolutely yes. We all should have been far louder and far more vociferous in the defense of survivors in the way that Brad Edwards, their lawyer has been for decades or Julie Brown, who's that fearless reporter at Miami Herald has been. And we let down these survivors. And we need to be honest about that, that we should have been doing more in the previous Democratic administrations. But the Republicans use that to say, okay, let's just, we didn't do it then. let's not do anything now. Well, why not? Why not do it now? The president ran on this. We have a law that has been signed, and the survivors finally should get justice. Just because they were denied justice for decades doesn't mean never give them justice. And so I think an honest introspection says the country has let them down.

It was bipartisan letting them down. Donald Trump ran on releasing the files. Now he's become the biggest protector of the Epstein class. And because we've passed a law, there's no excuse. These things should be release and the Epstein class needs to be held accountable. I feel like there's this American, this uniquely American kind of impulse to shy away from looking back at previous conflicts, going all the way back to the Civil War, right? Like we have this sort of thing in us of like, okay, that was crazy. Like, let's not really shake the boat here. We're back to normal. And I, it feels to me like the Biden era was very much characterized by this. So that leads me to to ask, like, was the lack of pressure, as you said, on the Epstein investigation during the

Biden era, at least from the public's point of view, was that part of an urge to not make it seem like political retribution for Trump? Yeah. If there's rumors around Congress that, like, hey, the guy was just president is like friends with Jeffrey Epstein, and we might have, like, evidence of that. Like, I guess, like, why wasn't that, like, on the priority list, I suppose? Yeah. Well, first of all, I think there was a indifference to the.

the fate of these 1,200 survivors. I don't think people really looked into it. They just, ah, that was Epstein. It was a sick pedophile. There's a bunch of conspiracy theories around them. Sure. This isn't serious stuff. It's a distraction. Right when I started to pursue this, people in my own party said, talk about the cost of living. Talk about the cost of food. Don't talk about Epstein. This is a distraction. And so I think there was kind of an elite condescension dismissing this as conspiracy. I got to know these survivors. I met them. I've talked to them. I've seen them in tears. I've seen them talk about how they put their experience in a box, but it never goes away.

I've seen them relive their trauma in my own offices breaking down. To me, this is personal. And I feel ashamed for a country that has abandoned them. And I didn't get like this until I started to meet with them. Until I wasn't enraged in the Biden years because I hadn't met with them. So there was a dismissal of something. It wasn't malicious. It wasn't there was some Biden years any effort to cover.

something up. It was just not prioritizing it. But now that it's been prioritized, now it is malicious. Now the question is why, when you have a law, is Bondi refusing to release these files? Why aren't they just releasing everything? And then they're distracting with bringing in the Clintons. I mean, the Clintons is saying, release all the files. There's one person who should be held in contempt in this country, and that's Van Bondi. She's the only person who has a power to release the files. So, yeah, as you said about sort of the distraction phase, so during the election, Trump goes on the podcast circuit and he starts whipping up his base about the Epstein Files.

And, you know, it's one of the dark ironies, I think, of the 21st century America that there is this completely deranged and incoherent conspiracy theory going around Q and on about the idea of a global cabal of predators and pedophiles and that it was most believed by Trump supporters, right? So it does, I think, make for some really complicated dynamics. But on February of last year, Trump administration starts, I think, in earnest, trying to figure out how to handle this, how to manage this. And so that's when they bring all the right-wing influencers and the new sort of faces of the White House press corps to the White House. And they do the Epstein Files phase one with those stupid binders.

And it made everyone way more interested in it, actually, and it kind of backfired. What was your take on the right-wing influencer circus as they all kind of came out of the White House with those binders? as someone who's, you know, spent time with survivors and who is taking this seriously to see this turn into a, you know, a photo op for X.com. Like, how did you feel about that? I knew that that wasn't going to go well. I mean, here's been the miscalculation that the Trump administration has had. They think they can just gaslight people. And it's not an unreasonable expectation, given that they've been able to gaslight people on so many other issues.

They say they're against the regime change wars. They go into regime change wars. They say they're going to lower prices day one. They don't lower prices day one. They say they're for building manufacturing in hollowed out communities. They've lost manufacturing jobs. So they just thought, okay, look, we'll put out some public documents. We'll say we release the files.

No one's going to care. And what happened is that people have been paying so, such close attention to this, that they said, look, this is complete BS. These are not new files. These aren't the documents we need. And every time Bondi does the same thing, even with the Epstein Transferency Act, they released a small group of documents. They thought that the story would go away. Instead, it fuels the story even more because people say they're being lied to.

And we know what documents we need. We need the survivors' statements to the FBI where they name other men and they haven't released a single one. Yeah. In fact, immediately after that influencer meetup, Republican Representative Anna Paulina Luna put on X.com in all caps, mind you. This is not what we or the American people asked for and a complete disappointment. Get us the information we asked for. And it has only compounded.

You know, the demands to see this stuff have only gotten louder. That sort of leads me to wonder, you know, for people who are investigating this, are pushing for it, such as yourself, who are talking to victims, who are taking this very seriously, how do you navigate the conspiratorial side of this? because how do you handle this massive wing of, assuming the massive wing of American voters that are extremely conspiratorial about this specifically? Well, by sticking to facts like Julie Brown, the great reporter at the Miami Herald does. So when people ask me, oh, wow, is this going to show that Donald Trump engaged in

inappropriate conduct with underage girls, I say, I have no idea. There's nothing I have seen that suggests that there's going to be some bombshell concerning Donald Trump. But people say to me, oh, does this show that foreign intelligence was definitely involved? I said, I have no idea. Some survivors believe that that they were, but this is why we need the release of the files. Okay, so those were our questions for the back half of the information. We're just going to ask you, what can you tell us that hasn't been released yet? But okay.

Sometimes some of the podcast is like, you're a little disappointed. They want me to make some news. And I'm not going to malign anyone's reputation or stoke conspiracy theories that may, may or may not be true, because that's going to hurt the survivors. That's not what the survivors want. What do the survivors want? They want closure. They want to see some of these files so they know what happened to them.

Some of them have blocked it out of their memories. They want to be able to read these files for themselves. They want some of the other powerful men who showed up at this island raping young girls. They want them exposed. They want them to have some form of justice. They want them, at least, to be publicly ashamed instead of having public buildings named after them. That's what the survivors want. Someone who does not care about everything that you just said right there is Elon Musk, who in June of this summer was happy to lean into the conspiracy theories that were circulating the Epstein files when he posted on X during his breakup with Trump.

Time to drop the really big bomb. Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day. DJT. The fact that it is this media frenzy and it is this massive cultural story that people are. talking about at the Thanksgiving table or whatever. Does that help your job in this?

Yes, it's the only thing that makes my job possible. It's why the Epstein Transfrancy Act passed. It's why it was the only Democrat to be able to pass consequential legislation and even forced Donald Trump to sign it. It's why we've gotten the release of the files that we had, which is more than we've ever had in the last 20 years. At least we know now that there are other co-conspirators. At least we know that Maria, one of the survivors' sisters,

was telling the truth in 1996 that she complained to the FBI. and the FBI did nothing. For 30 years, she's been called a liar. Now we know she told the truth that the FBI could have prevented the abuse of 1,200 young girls from working class families, had they acted in 1996. All of this is possible because this has become a part of the popular culture. It's no longer just a political issue. And it's also led to Republicans now willing to stand up to the president. Since Massey and I got her discharge petition through, now you have dozens of these discharge petitions. Now you have Hakeem Jeffries successfully leading a discharge petition to extend the health care tax credits. I genuinely believe when historians look back at the Trump

era and the Trump presidency, that they will look at the Epstein Transparency Act as the turning point on Donald Trump, when people in the Congress developed more courage to stand up to him and when he started to lose his mega base. So let's go back to when you and Representative Massey co-sponsors the petition. What is that process like? Is it harder to work bipartisan right now than it used to be? Well, by orders of magnitude, it's harder. I'm one of the few people who have probably 20 Republicans who I can pick up the phone call, have a meal with, have coffee with, and have collaboration. But you need to be able to do that to get something like this done. Massey and I've done a lot to stop overseas wars, to try to stop overseas wars. Most of it unsuccessful. We had a successful

collaboration in getting the Yemen war powers resolution passed. But we were trying to stop the war in Iran. We've tried to stop Biden's unconstitutional strikes just on Houthi ships without coming to Congress. We are used to being on the losing end of these votes. And when Epstein happened, we both were disgusted. We're both people who believe in transparency. And so we said, okay, why don't we team up? Doubt this goes very far. It could be, you know, the media said out there go Kana and Massey again to kind of Mavericks who are willing to shake things up. Are they calling you, they're calling you guys. They call them Mavericks.

They call us Mavericks. That's cool. Do you have a John McCain pen? Yeah, do you? Yeah, well, but for Mavericks are not for bombing overseas. Right, right. The non-bombing. The non-maverick.

But so, you know, we thought we'd give it a try, and then we started to build momentum. And then the survivors, we got the survivors to come to the Capitol, and that changed The Republicans that oppose the release of the list, what on earth are they saying to you? And if you want to name names as explicitly as possible, go for it. But I guess I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of a Republican politician right now. And who's saying like, I don't think this is the right time to release this list and not have that sentence end with because all my friends are on it. Like I don't like what is the rationale that you're here? Well, that is the rationale.

Earlier on, look, people like Mike Johnson, the speaker would make the argument, well, we're trying to protect the due process of people in these files. And to some extent, he's right in that, you know, if someone has just had a meeting with Jeffrey Epstein or showed up to a party or has a picture that they shouldn't be tarred for life, they shouldn't lose their job. But I think the American people are capable of making that distinction. And we have, right? There were some salacious photos released of people who are just,

journalists or technology or business leaders because they happen to be at some party with Jeffrey Epstein. And they haven't lost their jobs, nor should they. The point is, though, that people who actually witnessed underage girls being raped and said nothing, they should lose their jobs or people who engaged in sex trafficking or abusing and raping underage girls should lose their jobs and face justice. And so the people initially were opposed to it, thought it would be mob justice. But it's turned out the American people actually just won real justice.

So before we go to our next break, I have to admit that I did have a bet running last year. That I, that has, that did not go for, that I did not win, that the EPSC files were a big enough deal that we could be looking at least the conversation of another impeachment process for Trump. And I lost that bet. I still think, you know, when and if that ever happens, EPSCN files will be involved in some capacity. but it leads me to ask, what does accountability look like for the Trump administration if and when we get the full release of the files in a way that, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to try to lead you into saying like Trump is in them, but like what does accountability look like?

Is there a plan from Democrats to like turn this into something actionable? And what does that look like? Well, first of all, there needs to be accountability for the rich, powerful men who raped these underage girls, right? It's for the Epstein class that we need accountability. In some cases, accountability theme means prosecution, where the statute of limitations hasn't run. In some cases, accountability means they lose their jobs,

they lose their prestige in society. But for the Trump administration, what accountability looks like is people who violated the law, who obstructed justice need to be prosecuted. They need to be prosecuted by the next Democratic administration. If you're a part of hiding and protecting the pedophiles, if you're part of not releasing documents required by the law, then you're obstructing justice. And the Congress and the Democrats should make it clear that the future president will prosecute them. And we're going to talk about, you know, where this goes next right after our next break.

But first, a word from our sponsors. How would you say the Democrats have adapted as a party to the existential threat of, of the Trump administration, because I don't know how you go back to politics as usual after this. So, like, how would you say the inner workings of the party have changed? I mean, I feel like every day I'm trying not to have an existential crisis when I read the news. Well, the party is understanding that we need to stand up and fight and fight for our values, that you can't just go and be in committee hearings and engage in a bipartisan politeness and pass legislation and ignore the fact that Donald Trump is literally to.

declared war on Minnesota. Ignore the fact that ice agents are literally shooting and killing American citizens. Ignore the fact that ice agents are dragging out a disabled woman from her car who's going to a doctor's appointment. I mean, we have got a mobilization of force at the whims of the president in a way that's compromising our very freedoms. And so in face of this, what we need is moral clarity, what we need is courage, what we need is the courage to stand up, of course, against Trump's lawlessness, but also this group of powerful, rich people who are concentrating power, the unholy aligns of wealth and power in America. And a true progressive populism that builds a movement of royal people in this country.

That's what we need. I believe we need a realignment and new deal for our times. And of course, that's why I supported Bernie Sanders twice in 2016 and in 2020. So, yeah, I mean, you brought up Minneapolis, and, you know, we hit at the top of the episode that it is not like some sort of whack-a-mole where the Trump administration is just creating crises to distract people. I think that is sort of a simplified view. But I do think theory is sort of this overwhelming chaos that the American voters being presented with every morning when they open their phones. And, you know, you look at Venezuela, you look at Greenland, you look at Minneapolis, you look at these sort of, background radiation of of news trickling in about the Epstein files list. And speaking personally,

like the frustration that I have, you know, when I start screaming to myself in my kitchen, where the fuck are the Democrats is this feeling like things are ramping up and that we're only sort of getting incremental suggestions or policies. Like Representative Torres this week was like, we could put QR codes on ICE agents so you can scan them and get their information right before they break the windows of your car and pull you from it. And so as someone who has been working with Republicans and talking to them and trying to find a way to pass petitions and policies and laws in this environment, how do you take big swings, like pushing for the release of the Epsian files without making it look like you're acquiescing

to sort of the larger chaos? Does that make sense? Well, by speaking forcefully for our values, right? So I'm pushing for the release of the Epstein files, working in a bipartisan way on that. But then I'm also going on Sean Hannity tonight, where he's going to grill me about why I've called for the ICE agents to be arrested. So I'm not pulling punches. I'm not saying, okay, I'm going to work on Epstein. And so I'm not going to speak out very clearly against the ICE abuse when it comes to American citizens and those who are immigrants.

I'm not going to pull punches when it talks about the president's attack on universities. I'm going to be out there speaking my truth and my values. But if it happens that there are people in the Republican coalition who agree with those values, I'll work with them. And wouldn't it be a problem if they weren't? Because then we would be a perpetual minority party. It's a good thing that there is the possibility of rebuilding a Democratic coalition with a slice of MAGA voters. Well, Blue Sky Leftists are very afraid of winning things and they get really alienated when that happens. you know, so I don't know if I can agree with you on that one.

But yes, I think you're right that, you know, if we are in a situation where every Republican has been brainwashed and they are not going to work with any Democrat, yeah, if you take that logic further, that's a really scary place to be in because we are now essentially a one-party state. And I want to hit two last sort of pieces of the Epstein Files story before we close today. So in November of last year, the House Oversight Committee releases the Epstein emails. I spent a lot of time digging through them with my team. And it was a troubling and fascinating look at the politics of the last decade. So if you're not familiar with my work, my beat for about 15 years has been right-wing populism and sort of the radicalization of democracies around the world. I went to. Yeah, no, I've read your stuff.

It's pretty good. Thank you. Thank you very much. 22 elections in four years is what I used to say. And I kind of covered the spread of this stuff. And I was shocked at how I guess I didn't understand the Epstein story as being linked to the Trump and Bannon and right-wing radicalization story. I didn't understand that these people were all communicating with each other. And so how do you view that?

And I guess very simply, like, do you feel like that is too much to say that like these worlds? are so much more connected than I expected. I think the through line of right-wing populism, and you know more about this because you have written so extensively is a feeling of loss of economic voice, political voice, and identity. And people feel

like they can't assert identity. And so the right-wing movement say, no, you can be part of our group. And that gives you value. You may not have as much money. You may not understand your town, changing cultures. But you know what? You're a real American. You're part of the good guys. You're part of the people who built this country. You're part of us. And that's about status and pride. And they point to the villain. And the villain is these corrupt elites who fly

all over the world, who take it for their own gratification, rape our young girls, and are totally out of touch with what it means to be a good American, totally out of touch with basic Christian or values of faith. And that's how they are linked. That's how Trump and others around him linked these things, because they ran obviously an ingenious populist campaign, a dishonest one, but a clever one. And they've been as the ones taking on this corrupt elite and standing up for forgotten abandoned Americans. What we need to do is to say, no, we are actually the voice of the forgotten. And that the real villain, to the extent that there's a villain, is a system. controlled by wealthy and powerful people who have rigged a system so that you don't have

basic economic independence and security, and you don't have an ability to have a strong political voice for your families. And that was FDR. And so the question is, are we going to embrace a populist progressivism, a populism that acknowledges people's anger at a system where I've lost control, or are we going to embrace an identitarian authoritarianism? But what we'll not fly and why we've lost two presidential elections is an incrementalist centrism. Let's just tinker with institutions as they are. That's the worst place to be.

I just need you to say that last sentence over and over again on every podcast and TV show you can for the next year and a half. Yeah. I almost said amen. Yeah, I was about to hoop and clap. No, it is shocking to me how, you know, okay, so I've brought this up on the show before. My dad is still a Trump supporter and we've had a decade of arguments about this. And we were talking about the obscene emails and I definitely saw him sort of waiver, you know, definitely saw him sort of question it.

But my real takeaway from those conversations was how crazy I sounded describing the like just basic details from the emails from the photo dump of, like, like his island from the conversations we know that he's been having with powerful men. And to think about the idea of incremental centrist change up against what is very clearly some sort of genuine global conspiracy of pedophilic elites, I sound like the QAnon person now. I sound like the crazy person. And so we just pulled this up on the screen. And these are some of the estate photos.

And again, I want to ask, you know, your emotional. reaction as someone who has been working on this, as you said since 2019, to start to see these images come out and see how people are processing them. And obviously, there is a pop cultural contingent to how we're processing this, the memes and all the rest. But I mean, do you, what is your take on what we've seen so far from these file dumps? Well, first, just to be factual, while I raised the issue in 2019, I really didn't get emotionally invested in working on it until 2025. It's only when Massey and I started partnering and I really met the survivors that this became something personal for me and something

that I'm so deeply committed to now. But when I see that and have seen some of these photos, I mean, it's just chilling because it's almost these sterile rooms with the sexual toys, knowing powerful rich people use these young girls for gratification, knowing how cynical they were, that they plucked out of women or young girls at the time, who didn't have fathers, who didn't have wealth. When they wanted to complain to the police or the FBI, they were told, don't bother this person knows too many politicians and rich people. And then having heard the stories of some of these survivors,

that's what I think about. I think about survivors I know and what them being in these rooms and them being abused in that way. And then I think about what our culture is, that, yes, there's Epstein, which is the most horrific scandal. And I think it will be considered one of the most horrific scandals in American history, but people going to an island being raped as underage girls by the most powerful and rich

people around the world in this country. But then I also think how many Epstein's there are, which we don't talk about, which we don't know about, which aren't at that scale. And what does it happen to our culture that has allowed this to take place and allow people to get away with it? And to me, yes, I care so deeply about this economic agenda that I'm talking about of giving people a place in a global economy and an automated economy where they've lost a sense of place. But I care more deeply almost about a morality. It seems that the country has veered away from basic morality and how we get that back. What has happened with our country? And I think that's beyond a politician. It's beyond a party. But it's something as a spiritual crisis that our country needs

to grapple with. Yeah, I find the, um, the resignation of, of Marjorie Taylor Green and, and the, the, the resignation of, uh, Dan Bongino, who's going to be returning to podcasting, I guess, after being at the FBI, a normal career transition, very normal. Um, I plan to join the FBI from podcast. You plan to run the FBI in the next Democratic administration is that, are you announcing your candidacy? It's a real revolving door between the two worlds. Let me tell you. Um, but I find, those seemingly genuine changes of heart, I think they're heartening. I think that there probably are a lot of people who were sucked into this stuff. Like we've done episodes about it.

Everyone kind of knows someone who got duped by Trump at this point. And some of those people were able to amass a lot of power. And some of those people have looked at the Epstein files or at least what we've seen at them and said, okay, like I got this one wrong. That's all well and good. And I think that that is a good thing. But are you concerned about further retaliation from Trump? Now, we're recording this on January 15th.

This morning, Trump has threatened using the Insurrection Act against Minneapolis over the ICE protest there. He's musing about canceling the midterms in a Reuters article that was published last night. We are not sort of dealing with a normal administration. So are you personally worried about retaliation for being one of the faces of the Epstein list? being released? Well, look, I've taken on a lot of fights this last year. I've stood up to the Epstein class. I've stood up to the head of the Justice Department, Pan Bande. I've stood up to billionaires in my own district, in my own state, saying that they need to pay higher taxes. But my grandfather spent four years in jail alongside Gandhi's movement in the 1940s. And

he's my hero. My career will never come to that courage. And if he could stand up to a British king, then I certainly can stand up to an American president who's trying to become a king. And anytime I have fear, or I think maybe I'll take the easier route, just put my head down, vote, put out bland press releases, not pick fights, not make enemies. I think of my grandfather. And what if he had done that? We probably, India would probably still be a British colony. So the people who make change are the ones who are willing to fight power with truth. I'm not the only one. There are millions of people like that in this country. And we need those people to be lifted up and continue to do what they're doing if we're going to take back our democracy.

Do you worry about the transmission of the files? And this isn't actually a dimension we've talked about so much this episode, but the sort of information environment as it stands, right? You know, you have Elon Musk lording over what used to be Twitter. You have algorithms on places like Facebook and Instagram and TikTok, not really being hospitable to breaking news or, you know, anything other than kind of brain rot. How do you sort of see the Silicon Valley part of this? Like, which controls so much of how American voters understand things now.

Well, that's such a broader issue, and we can have that as a full conversation. One of the reasons I like blue skies, blue sky is an old. open social web. What does that mean? You can move your followers. You can move people who you're communicating with. One requirement we need is for all tech platforms to have that so that you can build and keep your following and communicate with your following without being subject to algorithmic manipulation. And there's definitely a need to have reform of Section 230 for algorithmic recommendation. So we're not bombarded with algorithmic junk, which basically gets us divided against each other or addicted to outrageous content.

But with the Epstein files, there are many people who've seen it. And so it will be hard for it to be damaged. And ultimately, the next president should just release all of it. I mean, I think we're going to keep pushing for, well, it gets released. So you do think we're going to get another president. You do think that we will be able to have another? Not only do I think we're going to get another president. I believe we're going to have a mass of realignment in this country and that the next

president's going to be one of the most consequential presidents in American history, having a new deal of our time, reasserting the working in middle class economically and politically in an America that has had wealth and power in the hands of two few. Do you want to announce on our show? Yeah. Do you have some news that you would like to share about what? Ryan is going to announce. The way to get into politics these days and succeed is to be a podcaster.

And you are right about Section 230 being a whole other episode. In fact, Panic World listeners, keep an eye on your feeds. We have an episode coming about my. It's essentially a very long argument about Section 230. I have complicated feelings about it. And I want to end here, I think, because I think what you said is right. Like, we are gearing up for a massive realignment. I try not to be too optimistic, but I am optimistic, actually, even though everything is horrifying right now.

And so I want to thank you for coming on the show. This was as nice of a conversation about pro-examination. prolific sex predators that I could imagine having. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your leadership, your voice. The grant will have to get a meal in Bucks County. Newtown's Farmers Market, the best farmers to market in the world.

All right. Panic Whirl is a production of Courier. It is written and produced by Grant Irving and hosted by me, Ryan Broderick. Josh Fielstead is our production coordinator. And our amazing researcher is Adam Bumis. From Courier is Shane Verkest, who edits our video episodes, along with our producer. David Maroney and National Managing Director and Executive Producer Kevin Dreyfus. R.C. de Mezzo is their VP of Brand and Social.

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