Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov - Can the DOJ Conceal Parts of the Epstein Files?

Episode Date: November 21, 2025

Jessica Tarlov is joined by special Friday correspondent Aaron Parnas to talk about what comes next with the Epstein files release, now that the bill has sped through. They also look at the dangers of “sane-washing” Trump’s Truth Social threats, the latest legal challenges to midcycle redistricting in Texas and California, and the upcoming meeting between Trump and NYC mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. Follow Jessica Tarlov, @JessicaTarlov.  Follow Prof G, @profgalloway. Follow Raging Moderates, @RagingModeratesPod. Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@RagingModerates  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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That's ODOO.O.com. Before we start today's episode, we're working on an end-of-the-year mailbag episode to answer some of your raging questions on all things politics. Send us a 15-second voice recording to raging moderates at profgimedia.com, and we might include yours. Now here's our episode. Welcome to raging moderates. I'm John. Jessica Tarlove, and my guest today is Aaron Parnas, who's going to become our Friday special. It won't even be that special because Aaron's going to be around a ton of Fridays. Welcome.

I'm so excited to be here. Yeah, it's going to be the best Friday shows. The best Friday shows. Scott will end up getting competitive about it. He does have a crush on you, a remote crush. Not enough to actually come and hang out, but does talk about you and likes you a lot. Scott, if you're watching, come on next Friday. Scott, if you're watching, no, Scott is not watching.

But I'll tell him that there was a shout-out. There's so much stuff going on, and you have been massively on top of what's going on with the Epstein Files doing these incredible interviews with survivors following the story really closely. Obviously, we saw Trump's about face where he says, okay, release them all almost unanimously past the House. Only one person didn't. Clay Higgins gets through the Senate right away. I thought he might stall a bit, but he ended up signing it. I'm curious as to where you think this goes from here. There's a lot of speculation as to what Pam Bondi is going to do,

if she's going to be the one slow walking it, and what do you think the redactions looks like? Yeah, so I think the key phrase in all of this is national security, and then the other phrase is investigation. Those are the two kind of buzz phrases and words that they're going to use to try to conceal certain parts of the files from the public. If you read the actual text of the Transparency Act, it allows Bondi to withhold information.

under the guise of national security, and also under if it would impact any ongoing investigation. And as we know, Trump just reopened the investigation that was already closed by his own DOJ. That's a hoax, but not really a hoax. So it's now open again. And so Pam Bondi is now saying she can't release any more information publicly, at least right now, because of the ongoing investigation. Do I think we're going to get some files? I do. I don't know how many files we're going to get. But I will say in all of this, the other key point that a lot of people are missing is that in the bill, it requires Pam Bondi to provide Congress with an explanation anytime she wants to do a redaction or withhold any documents

under the guise of national security. And those explanations have to be public and not classified. So we're going to get explanations. I mean, I can't promise you they're going to be good explanations, but I think we'll get some files. I don't know that we're going to get all of them, though. What do you think is actually in the Epstein files? Because this is a something that we've been talking about a lot on the five. And yesterday I was going back and forth with Greg Gutfeld, where he's like, this is going to turn into a problem for the Democrats. And I said, which most Democrats have. I don't really care at this point. It's not like Larry Summers is my heart and soul. Like, if you were being disgusting, if you were aiding and abetting

a pedophile ring in some way, I think you deserve whatever is coming to you. But what, from knowing this story so in depth, what do you say? think is actually in these files? I actually think it's a lot of really horrific and graphic material. I mean, that's really what the majority of these files are, a lot of pictures, a lot of videos, a lot of what the government calls child sexual abuse material that actually will never be public and for good reason. I think that's the majority of these files. I think that what you're going to see when they're released is Jeffrey Epstein kind of being this conduit for so many powerful men across the globe, who took part, at least a small part, in this kind of overall

sex trafficking scheme that he and Glane Maxwell engineered. Now, how many of them will ever be tried and indicted? I don't know that any will be, honestly. I don't know that this investigation will bear any fruit in terms of them indicting someone like Larry Summers. I don't think that's the goal. I think the goal is to use the investigation to conceal the files. And ultimately for me, I also, I don't care who's in them. It could be a Democrat, a Republican, independent. I don't care. And I think every time I talk to a survivor, that's the common theme, is that they just

want the truth to come out. They have their own experiences. They know who is in these files. Each of them has kind of their own experiences with a different person, right? So they just want the truth to come out. And they don't want to have to be the ones to give that truth. because over the past several decades, many of these powerful people have worked to try to silence these survivors. They are scared and justifiably so. So I just, I hope for their sake that we get

some semblance of transparency here. Yeah, it's been particularly powerful listening to the survivors who say, I voted for you to Donald Trump. And I want you to release the files, you know, and let the chips fall wherever they may. Anyway, it's a harrowing story, obviously. And there's a new element to it in that Donald Trump is now threatening some sort of punishment for Democrats that have been perpetrating this hoax or pushing it forward, even though this was equally, at least in the House, Thomas Massey, and Roe-Kana. I saw just this morning that he retruthed someone who was calling for him to hang Democrats, just like, quote, George Washington would.

What do you think the revenge tour is going to look like? I mean, I don't know what the revenge. I think this is just the speaking of a 80-year-old man who doesn't really have anyone that's going to listen to him. So he goes and then's on truth social. That's really what this in a lot of ways to me is. He's just very angry. Those on Capitol Hill aren't really listening to him. His advisors are kind of doing their own things.

He goes on truth social, amplifies these random people and says some of the craziest shit that we've ever seen from a president. Yet at the same time, I think it's important to note that we can't just sanewash what we're seeing on truth social. I think a lot of the media and a lot of people online are just going to say, well, this is just Trump being Trump. This is just a random dude who says crazy stuff on truth social all the time. No, this is an American president calling for the execution of opposing lawmakers because simply they said to military members follow your orders, right? Like, just don't follow illegal orders, which is nothing illegal about saying that. And I just worry that the more the president gets isolated, the more he kind of is. cornered in this kind of lane duck status, the more he's going to try to use his executive

powers to lash out at folks like this. I don't know what that looks like. I don't think these folks will ever be indicted, nor should they be. An indictment will never hold up. But just imagine if Joe Biden did this. Just imagine, like, if Joe Biden put out a tweet saying that, I don't know, Jim Jordan should be hung. What would the reaction be from the right? I mean, they would immediately, articles of impeachment will be drafted immediately. And yet here we are. Yeah, and I should, I mean, I haven't gotten to work yet, but I imagine when I bring it up, it'll be like, nobody thinks that that's serious. And then we'll get back into the realm of how serious lunatics are at home when they see people in positions of power use that kind of language and throw around anything from fascists to hang them. Hopefully everything will be nonviolent and not on the side of the five. The set of the five is definitely going to be nonviolent. But his calls for attacking Democratic lawmakers had Gretchen Whitmer almost kidnapped, right? Yeah.

The right is furious that Democrats calling Trump a fascist led to Charlie Kirk's murder. And then now we get this? Come on. Yeah. Well, there are no standards anymore. Only double standards, I guess. The way to frame it. Shifting gears a bit, the newly elected mayor of New York,

Zoran Mamdani is headed to D.C. for a meeting with the president. This will come out Friday morning. He's meeting with him on Friday. What do you expect from that Oval Office meeting? I think it's going to be Zelensky 2. Firecrackers. But Zoran will be in a suit. He will be in a suit. I am curious to see whether or not. I don't know that it's going to be public. I don't know. That's what I'm kind of curious about. Like, will this be behind the scenes? Will this be public? I don't know. I think if it's in front of the cameras, Trump is going to try to try to. to be like this like, I have a feeling Zoran's going to get in there. They're going to be sitting in the Oval Office and Trump is just going to be like praising him, heaping praise on him publicly, saying, wow, you ran a great campaign. Like, yeah, you're a communist, but like we're going to, we're going to fix New York for the better, like completely shifting gears. And then Zoran may say like one thing that Trump doesn't like and then Trump will just go off on his like rants.

I don't know. I think it's going to be explosive. I just wish that it wasn't on a Friday. Like, I want my Fridays to be peaceful. This is not going to be a peaceful Friday. That's not how it works in the Trump administration. It also feels very much like Trump meeting his match in terms of, you know, like a telegenic star type of person. You know, sometimes he has these Oval Office meetings and the other person's a bit of a dud. But we know that Mom Donnie is far from a dud and has a specific agenda. And I'm thinking back to how he was in his Fox News interview with Martha McCallum, how he made sure to like turn to the camera three times and talk directly to specific audience. And I feel like he's doing prep right now as much as he was for the debate, right? Like how this is going to play. For sure. Certainly if it's public. And I think Trump is definitely going to want it to be public.

I think so. I think it'll be public. And I think, I mean, I think it'll be a show for the American people. Ultimately, I don't know. I mean, I'm glad they're meeting. Yeah. Right? Like, I'm glad the president's with the mayor of New York City, the soon-to-be mayor.

I'm glad that I think Mondani reached out to Trump and set up this meeting. I'm sure. He's been on the circuit. Mom, Donnie need Trump a little bit here, right? Like, they need to have a good relationship. So I just, like I said from the beginning, even when Trump was elected, I just, I pray that our country has a good president. I pray that New York has a great mayor. And I pray that they work together.

That's beautiful, Aaron. Thank you. Let's take a quick break. Stay with us. Support for the show comes from Upwork. You're the CEO of your business. you're also the CFO and the IT department and customer service. It's time to find some support.

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I want to talk about gerrymandering now. So big victory for the Democrats or maybe just for the rule of law that the new proposed map in Texas, was thrown out by three judge panel, including a Trump-appointed judge. Now it looks as though the GOP may net no seats and the Democrats may end up netting three to five because Prop 50, they took out the trigger language in it, which they call them greasy gav, but a sneaky gav. So Prop 50 goes through no matter what happens in Texas. How are you thinking about the map right now? And can there be a challenge to that ruling? Yes, there can be. And there is going to be a

challenge to Prop 50 as well. So that's pending the courts. It's going to go up to the Supreme Court, the Texas situation. I think the United States Supreme Court may actually find in favor of Texas here, just in the sense of like, hey, we're just going to keep the status quo. Like, we're not going to just throw out your maps just overnight. We want to have a full hearing on it, full whatever briefing. So I think you may actually see these maps go back into effect before 2026. I don't know what will ultimately happen. It's the new maps or the new maps. Okay. Yeah, it's an interesting legal situation, and not many people are talking about it. It wasn't just one judge who kind of ruled against these maps. It was a three-judge panel of sorts, which is very odd at the district court level. You typically don't have that. So they're only able to appeal directly to the Supreme Court. You're not going to go to the Fifth Circuit first, for example. So it's a very interesting legal situation. I think that the Supreme Court will probably allow these new maps to go into effect for the 2026 cycle. But the entire pending in all of this, is that right now, as you know, the Supreme Court's considering gutting

Section 2 of the BRA, and that will eliminate Black majority districts across the country, especially across the South. And so once that happens, which I predict, it will happen in June of next year, Texas is going to have to redraw its maps already. Louisiana will, I mean, all of these states are going to have to redraw their maps right after that VRA ruling is handed down, assuming that they overturn it, which all signs point to they will. So I think for 2026, Democrats are fine and are looking decent, and I think it'll be okay. But heading after 2026 into 2028 and 2030, there are a lot of kind of alarm bells that should be going off right now. Well, they seem to be going off for those that are paying attention and talking about the Voting Rights Act element of this as much as possible.

How are you, I guess, seeing the landscape? You say Democrats will be fine for the midterms. Do you think that, you know, the latest Marist poll had Democrats up 14 points on the generic ballot, which I think is. insane. But even eight or nine points is a pretty massive blue wave and you have money being spent I hope not stupidly in a race like this special election in Tennessee's 7th district, which was Trump plus 22. What's your view of the map in general for the midterms? I think that it's looking good for Democrats. I don't believe these polls for a second plus 14 is a crazy number. And I think it's going to consolidate closer to November. I think that Democrats,

are going to take back the House. I don't think Democrats will take back the Senate, though. No? No, I think that's a much tougher map. For Democrats to take back the Senate, they have to win in a state like Texas. I don't know that they can do that. Or like Iowa. I don't know that they can do that.

Iowa feels funny to me. I'm not trying to have an Anselzer moment, but it just... Well, listen, if she wants to come back and start polling that race and let us know. I think Anselzer wants to have nothing to do with political life. I mean, congratulations on your win, not the Kamala Harris win in any way, but in court when Trump tried to sue over the latest Des Moines Register poll. But I think that she and Michelle Obama want to have, like, my ties by a beach somewhere and want to be as far away as possible from our political discourse. I do think I do think Democrats are going to have a very good night next election. I will say that. I think that, especially if the economy is where I think it'll be in a year from now, which is not in a good place.

I think that Democrats, and it will effectively cut Trump's term in half, right? He'll be a lame duck president with no control over Congress anymore. And, I mean, terms over. It feels a little increasingly lame to me now, even. I mean, it's a big deal to have gotten the big beautiful bill through at all. Yeah. You know, but. We're careful.

Trump's going to attack you on truth social if you call him lame. I've been through worse. I love how regularly people post in my comments, like, oh, remember when Donald Trump said this, and I call me a real loser, and I'm like, yeah, no, of course I remember that, but. At least you didn't get shit on by him in a AI fighter jet. No, I, poor Harry. I feel like that must have really, I asked him if he was really upset, but he was, I think, being a little macho about it, because I was like, oh, I cry, like, when he posts about

me, but hey, no, no, no, tough guy. And it was just a big pile of AI shit. So it looks like, this is not even a smooth segue. So Elon Musk has reappeared this week. He was at the dinner for MBS, the Saudi Crown Prince. It looks like he's going to be talking, you know, at the Saudi AI summit with Johnson Wong. Do you think, like, Musk is back to stay? He's just here to make some money and kind of use the business environment as the bromance rekindling. Yeah, I think that's what it is. I think he's going to make some money. He's trying to get back in the good graces. he, I would have been surprised if he wasn't there and Jensen was there.

I mean, at the end of the day, these are two of the world's biggest business leaders, so it's like they should be there. I think that Elon is trying to get back into Trump's good races. I will say it is interesting. I think that Elon is like, I don't know if you've seen on Twitter, but Twitter is now amplifying Democrats again, and a lot of Republicans on Twitter are upset. And at the same time, Elon's kind of pulled back in, like, public life.

Like, doesn't really talk about the White House that much anymore. I feel like he's just trying to, like, he's realizing that everything he's done over the past two years just was wrong. And so he's just trying to become like a normal citizen again, a normal business leader. He's about to be a trillionaire, too, at some point soon. So, like, if I'm about to make a trillion dollars, I too would also just like take a step back and chill. And let Democrats be amplified on Twitter and maybe hang out with your children. Exactly. Well, yeah, I mean, for Elon, that's a little bit more difficult as we have.

I don't want to push him too far. I, what did you think about having MBS at the White House? I mean, you know, I want to be realistic about also the future of the Middle East and what kind of partner Saudi can be in normalizing relations with Israel and implications for Abraham Accords and stuff like that. But I was just so blown away by the whitewashing of the Jamal Khashoggi bone sawing and feel like there was, I don't expect this from. Trump, but there was a way to have that meeting and to have that relationship without acting like that kind of murder was justified or that we're just going to ignore what kind of country Saudi Arabia actually is. Yeah, I mean, I think, and I'm never going to go to Saudi Arabia so I can say this. I really am concerned, and it wasn't just this Oval Office meeting, just a normalization of Saudi Arabia. The hosting these large comedy shows, hosting these large large sports event. They're having a flag football event featuring Tom Brady next summer.

This idea that we should be normalizing a country that the United States of America, Trump's own State Department, says conducts brutal executions, has one of the worst human rights records in the world is very concerning to me. Do I think that we need to work with the Saudis? Of course, they have oil, which Trump loves. But they also are playing a big role in the Middle East. Yet at the same time, we can't just say, okay, Saudi Arabia is now just like a NATO-adjacent ally, which is what Trump said. I think there's a huge difference between Poland and Saudi Arabia in terms of human rights. And I think that we need to recognize where Saudi Arabia's place is in the world.

Just take a minute and imagine if, like, Trump had Xi Jinping and kind of said, oh, China's not doing anything to the Uyghurs. I mean, I feel like he just doesn't even know about the Uyghurs. But he would say that if he did. But he would say that and Republicans would go crazy over that. For a few cable news hits. Correct. I don't think it would go that far, honestly. Fair.

Still waiting for the breaking moment, because even with the snowballing, like, on the Epstein files, that was like, let's all go together. Yeah, I know. And, like, he kind of gave the go-head. All right, last question. What's one thing that makes you rage and one thing you think we should all calm down about? Oh, you asked me this every Friday, and every time I'm not prepared. One thing.

What's that about? You know, you have answers to everything. It could be, like, airport travel, you flew recently. I had miserable flying experience. That's where I'm actually going with this. One thing that makes me rage is airlines, selling tickets and giving people bin space overhead and then saying that you have to check your bag because there's not enough bin space overhead. If you're going to have enough bin space, please, that makes me furious.

Or make everyone check their bags. Well, that would make me even more furious because I don't want to check my bags. But at least it would be a policy. That's true. Okay. What should we calm down about? What should we calm down about? But I do think we should calm down about this whole hoopla that we're never going to see in that obscene file.

I do think we will see some files. I don't know what, but I do think we'll see some. Okay. Aaron Parnas, thank you for being here. I won't see you next Friday because it's Thanksgiving, even though you and I are happy to do a recording. But our producers do not want to be here. Enjoy the rest of your vacation. And thanks for taking the time.

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