The Bulwark Podcast - Jane Coaston: The Epstein Revelations Keep Getting Worse

Episode Date: February 10, 2026

Not only did Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick go to the Epstein island, a sultan from the UAE, who sent a “torture video” to Epstein, also attended Trump’s first inaugural. That would be the same country where the royal family secretly bought half of the Trump family’s crypto venture—right before he was inaugurated a second time. For some reason, Sultan bin Sulayem was one of six powerful and wealthy men whose names were redacted in the Epstein files by the DOJ. Thank you, congressmen Khanna and Massie. Also, Lauren Boebert saw something in the unredacted files that led her to call for Ghislaine Maxwell to be moved back to a higher security prison. Plus, the administration wants to be feared but also loved, the benefits of being on Bluesky, and a eulogy for The Washington Post’s sports section.Jane Coaston joins Tim Miller.show notes Jane's podcast, "What A Day" Barron's on how there's only one enforcement lawyer left in the Chicago CFTC Crooked Media on Substack Tickets are now on sale for our LIVE shows in Dallas on March 18 and in Austin on March 19. Plus, a small number of seats are still available for our second show in Minneapolis on February 18. TheBulwark.com/Events. Get 20% off when you go to trustandwill.com/BULWARK

Hello and welcome to the Bullard podcast. I'm your host to Miller. Delighted. Welcome back to the show. The host of Crooked Media's What a Day podcast, a Michigan football superfan, liberalitarian icon. It's Jane Koston. Hello. It's been a minute and a half. I'm thrilled to be back. Yeah. What have I been doing? What's been happening in the booking department at this podcast? You know, we're going to get you in the heavy rotation. I guess let's see how you do. Well, you know, I've got a couple more applications and we'll see how this goes. Okay. We're going to start by talking about a friend of the podcast, Howard Nutlick. He was testifying this morning in front of the Senate, and they were discussing the myriad times that he was mentioned in the Epstein files. I want to play for you a little audio of Senator Chris Van Holland of Maryland asking him about the details. The way you described very emphatically your first encounter with him in his apartment. said you were disgusted, would never have any contact with him again. Did you, in fact, make the visit to Jeffrey Epstein's private island?

I did have lunch with him as I was on a boat going across on a family vacation. My wife was with me, as were my four children and nannies. I don't recall why we did it. Oh, he's a nanny. I don't recall why we did it. Just to add a little bit to what Chris Van Hollen said there, just like the exact quote of what Nutlick had previously said about his relationship with Epstein. He said that he went to his house, that there was a massage table in the defining room.

I told a fantastical story about how weird it was. And then he said this, in the six to eight steps it takes to get from his house to my house, my wife and I decided that I will never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again. After that, they did go to the island, though, it sounds like. And they kept emailing. One of my favorite things about Howard Lutnik is that he, whatever it is, he's the most emphatic person in any direction. He's like Lindsey Graham level emphatic, but if Lindsey Graham felt the way he feels about bombing Iran on like absolutely everything. So the story about him being like, this was disgusting, repulsive.

This allegedly took place in 2005. I was on the boat. Did we get off the boat? Why was I there? my nanny was there my children were there that would have been like 2012 and then they kept emailing and we're like having nice times i mean the thing i mean we've talked about this a little bit tim like at a at a baseline level there's like one reason you spend this much time with geoffrey upstein and if it wasn't for that reason what were you doing he was terrible at emailing

most of his emails don't make any sense i had the extreme misfortune of watching part of the documentary Steve Bannon was working on with him to a pro-Epteen documentary to counter the Netflix documentary Jeffrey Epstein Filthy Rich because Bannon was like, oh, we got to get your set of the story. And they spent like a long time discussing the fact that Jesus never wrote anything down. And I'm like, this year, sex offender king, this guy, this is what we're doing. This was worth all of this. this guy, maybe the lunch was really good. Yeah, I want to kind of answer your rhetorical there a little bit.

What else could you have been emailing Jeffrey Epstein about besides child sex trafficking? Well, in 2018, 13 years after Lutnik said he would never be in the room with a disgusting person again, he tried to enlist Jeffrey Epstein in a NIMBY campaign to block a museum from expanding near them. So that was one reason that they reached out. They got into a business partnership acquiring a tech company. between 2012 and 2014. Yeah. He was in the room with this disgusting person a lot after 2005, a lot.

And I don't know, you know, maybe he thinks it makes it better that he brought his children to the island. Not really so for me. Yeah, it kind of makes it worse for me. Also, I love that he needed to. It was like, and the nanny, just to be clear. Because I'm like, the poor nanny didn't ask for any of this. Yeah. Because I didn't parent.

I wasn't parenting. Just to be clear, I wasn't actually parenting on this boat trip to the Caribbean. Not quite like Elon. Musk level, I will say the Elon Musk emails from like Christmas morning being like, get me the fuck out of here. I hate all these people. What's going on in your island? What's the craziest day slash night where I could be not near anyone I am allegedly

genetically related to? I can't imagine what Elon Musk Christmas is like. I'm horrified by the thoughts. I just may imagine like, I don't know, some sort of Android illusion. But like every email, it would just like. you're all terrible. You're all terrible. Except for like Tina Brown.

Tina Brown. Julie K. Brown, who was indeed a problem, just as they thought. We're going to get to Julie K. Brown. Yeah, a couple of thoughts there. This is probably an unnecessary side, but it's something that I just can't help but obsess over. Small correction. Elon did suggest to Epstein that he wanted to bring whatever woman he was attached to at the time to the island, to the wildest party. That ex-wife is now married to the little boy from the Peter Pan movie.

Did you know this? What? I'm getting an open chat message from the producer. I don't know what's happening. Hold on. We're going to stop. Yeah, so it turns out the producer message there was not correcting me on the husband of Elon Musk X. It was to ask you to put your headphones on.

But during that period, we get your headphones on. I have to correct myself. He was actually, he's the drummer boy from Love Actually. Wait, really? Yeah, Thomas Sankster. Yeah, so Elon's had so many wives. It's hard to remember which number she was. But, yeah, Elon's at the time spouts, Tallulah Riley, left Elon and got together with the kid that was the drummer in Love actually.

With the kid who runs through the airport? Yeah. Liam Mason's son? Yeah, yeah. He has a crush on the black girl. Yeah. Yeah. That's him. They're married now. Maybe we can get them on the show.

I have so many more questions along that direction, but let's stay. Okay. Let's stay focused. I have two closing thoughts and note. One was, you know, if you're the type of person that has a boat in the Caribbean with a nanny and have that kind of resources, there are a lot of good lunches to be had. Like great food there in the Caribbean, a lot of other rich people, many potential options, you know, over on St. Barts. Other private islands. Other private islands that do not like, I kind of like the implication that Jeffrey Epstein was just like the only possible option for lunch. Like, you know,

like you were on like the drive between Cincinnati and St. Louis and it was either you turn over at the turnpike or you just go hungry. It's not like that. It's like from St. Barts to St. Martin. The only good lunch you can find is on Little St. Jeff's Sex Predo Island. Anyway, I have a question for you related to this. like testimony. And I hate to, like, give these guys any ideas. So I apologize in advance. But why is he doing it? I don't like, on the one hand, they've broken every norm imaginable. Like they don't really seem to care about following the laws. Like Donald Trump just makes rules be executive fiat. They've completely neutered Congress in every imaginable way. But in this

specific area of where they get called to testify and humiliated, they're still doing it. And at some level, I enjoy that because it's good for those of us who want to watch them, be humiliated. It doesn't seem like what you would do if you were planning on becoming Mussolini. Like, why would Mussolini send the people in his circle to get pantsed, you know, in front of the Liga? Yeah, I think that there's a sense I have some semblance of hope in just like basic, not institutional norms because those fell away a while back. But I do think that the one thing this administration cares a lot about, though they will pretend that they don't. They care a lot about perception management, a lot about it.

And so you can see that with Christy Noam saying that the Department of Homeland Security, once they figure out the budget stuff, because obviously that, you know, they're still debating about DHS reforms, they will send federal immigration officers body camps, which you would think that there's a version of this story. where Stephen Miller is running all of this. And he just says, fuck all of you. I hate you. I hate everyone.

Nobody can't. But that's not what they're doing. And there does seem to be a sense. Like, yes, Donald Trump will invent polls in which he's doing amazing. Like, I think that over the last couple of days, he was posting about how, like, you know, I'm doing so great in this poll. But it was like a poll of Trump supporters, which like, sure, like, whatever. But I think that the perception management is still key.

There is a sense of like, we want to be liked. And I think that that actually, in a funny way, ties back to, you know, I've been thinking a lot about the alleged conservative uproar over the Bad Bunny halftime show, which unless you are being paid to be mad about it, you are not actually mad about it. Like, there are people who are getting their checks. There, and I'm like, God bless you, that mortgage payment came and you were like, well, looks like I'm going to discover what I'm mad about today. But there is nothing, I think, the American right wants more, even with having political power. Elizabeth Brunig made this point years ago, she writes for the Atlantic, that the left has cultural power but wants political power. And the right has political power, but what's cultural power? They want so badly to not just be feared, but also liked, which are not the same thing.

You know, their DHS, 8chan white nationalist posting, they will do that all day. but they also very much want everyone to like them also. They want a story of this in which they are a besieged victim, but also an overwhelming army of strength, but also everybody loves them. And it's a complicated story to try and keep telling yourself that, but I think that that's why they keep sending these people to do hearings. And also why, I think especially on this particular story,

they recognize that like this isn't good. You know, Fox News has tried to spend this by just simply never discussing it. I think that there is some new data reflecting. I think mediaite had it today talking about how like basically right wing media just has stopped covering this story. Unless it is amusing, though, national review was like, well, you know, let's talk about Epstein and Kier-Starmer, which I was like, all right, guys. Like, come on, this time zone, or actually these time zones. do think that there's a sense of like perception matters to this administration. They want to be perceived as strong and popular. And this entire story, I think, gives away the game that they are

neither. To that point, like, hiding from Congress would also reveal very clearly that you're neither strong nor popular if you, if you have to run from Chris Van Holland. Yeah, which like, you know, I like Chris Van Holland, but like not the most terrifying person I've ever met my life. I do have to correct myself for the second time already on this podcast. I, uh, I just kind of somewhere in my brain was like, who would Mussolini's guys have to testify to it? And I was like, the league, thinking that was what the parliament is called. That's not true. Actually, that's what the soccer league.

That's what the Italian soccer league is called. So probably Mussolini's guys would not be testifying in front of the football players. But, you know, it was a poll. That's an amusing mental picture. Yeah, it was a poll. Yeah. I'm doing my best. Other news on the Epstein front.

Geline Maxwell, she took the fifth on Monday. She refused to answer questions during a deposition before the House over, side committee, taking more of the route that I thought maybe not like might have taken. Her lawyer says she will talk, though, if she gets clemency from Donald Trump. And she also has just said, by the way, the one thing she will say to the lawyer going ahead is, if you give me the clemency, one of the things I will say is that I will totally clear Donald Trump and Bill Clinton of any wrongdoing. So just FYI.

I got other stuff, too, that I'll say. But that's the one little carrot I'll give you in case you decide to give me clemen. This was very predictable because, yeah, but I also will say that, one, refusing to say anything until you are pardoned for sex trafficking, which, you know, that's what clemency would imply. I am trying to imagine a world in which even Donald Trump, even Donald Trump, somewhere in his lizard brain of like maintaining some sort of illusion of popular stuff. Even Donald Trump understands that pardoning Galane Maxwell would be a really bad idea, like a really bad idea. I think my favorite thing about Galane Maxwell, the convicted sex trafficker who will go to hell. Child sex trafficker who will go to hell is that it's not a good sign for you that the best defense of you was written in The Spectator, which is a British newspaper, where the author just kept talking about how beautiful she was at Oxford. And I was like, oh, no, that's not going to help you.

Every Galane Maxwell story is, like, her father, like, blindingly wealthy, right-wing media magnate, fell off a yacht, maybe? Maybe he was murdered. Who could say? The yacht was named the lady Galane. Like, every detail about Galane Maxwell was the most, like, do not, you know, like, dead bird do not touch. Like, do not, do not go anywhere near her.

If I were Galane Maxwell, which I wouldn't be. I also would not have just been, like, just so you know, here's what part of my testimony is going to be. That testimony that's totally truthful, and I am asking for a pardon for my totally trustworthy testimony. Like, no, no, no. Yet to know. You know how big of a no it is?

Even Lauren Bobert of hand a job during Beetlejuice to musical fame, looked at that and was like, I don't think so. The DOJ shared some unredacted material with a few members of Congress, including Bobert. She was walking out of Capitol yesterday and was asked about what she saw and about the possible Maxwell pardon. And let's listen to Lauren Boper. Any reaction on what you've seen so far? I think that there's folks who are definitely implicated in co-conspirators.

And, you know, I don't think everyone there that was talking about underage girls being trafficked are victims. Got it. And do you support any clemency for Galane Maxwell? She was saying that she was... I do not. I think Galane Maxwell should get more time and she should definitely be in a harsher prison than what she's in. It's absolutely disgusting. It's absolutely disgusting.

One cheer for Lauren Bobert. I know. I'm like, I also agree that she should not be at a facility where she's allowed to like train puppies, which I'm like, what are the puppies do to, the puppies didn't do anything here? Allowing Galeigh Maxwell to train a dog. My God. She deserves more of like a pet tarantula. Among the other things we learned, so Rokane and Thomas Massey, we got to keep shouting out on this. They had a news conference yesterday. Well, just back in one second, what I've continued to say about this, you have to set a bar for, like, what could people possibly be satisfied for? What could victims be satisfied for and what would demonstrate that there's at least some effort to be transparent and be good faith and have accountability when it comes to the Epstein question?

And to the answer to that is that we have to learn about the other co-conspirators, right? Like, obviously, it wasn't just Jeffrey Epstein, Glein, Maxwell and Andrew formerly known as Prince. like, well, they were not the only people that were involved in the sex crimes. So there needs to be more information provided and hopefully indictments and accountability for the other people that were involved in the sex crimes. We made a little progress on that front yesterday. Kana and Massey said that they saw the names and photos of six men likely implicated. Massey later divulged two of them. Les Wexner, Victoria's Secret, and Epstein's patron.

That's a not surprising one. and then Sultan Ahmed bin Suleum of the UAE. He was apparently the one that sent Epstein the torture video. Julie Brown, he mentioned earlier Miami Herald reporter has been so good on this, wrote that she knows of two survivors who say they were trafficked by Epstein to that Sultan. They don't know each other, but their stories are similar. They won't go public because they are afraid. So some baby steps towards co-conspirator accountability from Brown, Massey, Kana there.

We knew several years ago that Wexner was like, why doesn't Jeffrey Epstein deal with my entire fortune for reasons? Just because, you know, I love just giving a guy all of my money to do something with who could say. A lot of people could have your power of attorney if you're the Victoria's Secret founder, former company CEO, somebody in your progeny, someone with the last name Wexner. But choosing Jeffrey Epstein did raise some eyebrows. Like, why would I give Epstein total control over my fortune? This episode of the Bullwark podcast is brought to you by Wild Grain. Wild grain is the first baked from frozen subscription box for sourdough breads, artisanal pastries, and fresh pastas. Plus all items conveniently bake in 25 minutes or less.

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when you visit wildgreen.com slash the bulwark or you can use promo code the bulwark at checkout. The other thing I just want to flag here is the crypto corruption connection. There's a number of different angles here. I want to start first with this Sultan from the UAE. And I don't know if the Sultan and the Sheikh are friends. The UAE's a big country, a lot of people there,

but it does raise some eyebrows for me, that the Sheikh that was the Point Man for putting half a billion dollars into the Trump and Whitkoff's families' private crypto company was also from the UAE, the country that then we gave access to the AI chips that are supposed to be key to our competitiveness in the future global marketplace. Even at the Sultan and the Shake aren't friends, it's kind of like why presidents aren't supposed to be doing half a billion dollars of shady private businesses with other countries' leaders and oligarchs,

because it looks not great. Nope, nope, not good. To his credit, Andrew McCarthy, who's a very, very, very conservative writer for National Review has been working on a five-part series about Trump's corruption for National Review. And I have been entertained by all of the comments just being like, well, Biden also did things.

And it's like, it's not even the scale is just coming. I mean, Hunter Biden's hideous paintings were sold for overmarket value, for sure, for sure. I mean, I definitely, I think that's fair. Yeah. I don't think he netted 495 million on them. No, no, he did not. And I'm not sure.

I guess we're not sure. Maybe somebody in the Epstein files about them, but it's like, it is. I will note that as far as we couldn't tell, Hunter Biden, not in the Epstein files. Yeah, because he didn't need anybody's help. Nope. Nope. He was, he had that part handled. But do you remember a couple of years ago during the Super Bowl where like every ad was for

crypto? And like Sam Beckman-Fried's company, which currently Sam Beckman-Fried is writing long Twitter threads about how mean Joe Biden was to him tagging Donald Trump on everyone being like, please, I really hate prison. But like, it is indicative to me that one of the main challenges of cryptocurrency is that you appear to not be able to use it without doing something sketchy and illegal, i.e. Donald Trump and sultons. We should say also the sultan was at Trump's first inaugural. So just kind of kind of wrap this up from what we are knowing so far from the Epstein class, the Epstein files. One of the one of the first co-execkels,

conspirators being named, alleged co-conspirators, is a UAE sultan that has been pictured with Donald Trump went to his inauguration and is from the country that just did a corrupt, crooked deal with Donald Trump's cryptocurrency. So we'll keep an eye on that. There is a barren story about crypto, no one to talk to you about, that I think is a nice encapsulation about where we are in the late republic. Here's the scoop. There is only one enforcement attorney left at the CFTC's Chicago office. This is known as a group of heavy-hitter, attorneys, investigators that have had a role in most of the enforcement actions of the CFTC. Many of the attorneys were pushed out, were mid-career, investigators, went after prime, you know, kind of financial crimes in the past. One of them told Barron's on

background, if I were a different person, I would launch a crypto scam right now because there's no cops on the beat. I mean, yeah, absolutely. And, And we can look at Trump's own family of people who all just putting at meme coins from which only they benefit. And I think that, like, again, cryptocurrency keeps just being predominantly used for scams and for shady businesses that are themselves in some way scams. It's kind of like a Russian nesting doll of scams. Exactly. I think I'm a little bit torn on this because on the one hand, I do think that crypto is, like, like almost entirely a scam and fake and a house of cards that will collapse.

I understand that there are some use cases for blockchain and stablecoin that smart tech people, you know, I trust, I trust their analysis that their use cases. I understand there's some use cases for aftermarket trading, you know, things of this nature. I recognize that. But like the vast majority of it is a scam. I think that the Democrats can hurt themselves politically by not familiarizing themselves enough with crypto to even be able to talk about it. I think that the impression of the Biden administration was that they were just fully hostile to crypto and that nobody even knew what they were doing. And I think that there was like a political cohort of young podcast bros that this was like one of the things that attracted them to Trump 2.0.

And so I'm a little bit torn about what to do now if you're the Democrats because I'm kind of frustrated that it seems like raining in, you know, the thieves would be, should be a pretty important part of their agenda. But I do wonder if that's, I don't know, if that's a mistake. Maybe maybe they should also just kind of pretend like we're on Treasure Island and let everybody run wild too. What do you think about that? This goes to you, I've been thinking a lot about like kind of the, you're already starting to see the 2028 pasturing from Democrats. And there was a lot of talk in 2024 about like, oh, the crypto bros. Like the crypto bros were so critical to this. And like I get that there was like, there were multiple pods of people who supported Trump for various reasons because they believe that he could be wielded to their purposes, which is what people thought in 2016.

People keep thinking that they can wield Trump in some way. Like, oh, if he could be turned, he would be a powerful asset. And then it's like, no, he's just going to fuck up your life. He's just going to fuck up your life in every single way. you're starting to see that on crypto from these crypto bros. And I think that we're starting to see this from, say, Georgia Senator John Alsoff. Like there is a strong anti-elite message that can be used that I think would prove effective. Now, granted, I do not look to me for like political guidance.

But I do think that like the kind of these people are scammers and they're trying to take your money is a far more effective message. then we will help you make money through this thing that we don't entirely understand Pokemon go to the pulse. Like I just feel like this seems scamy. Asaf used the term, I think, over the weekend. One, he's been lifting and it's working for him. And if somebody who likes to do push-ups, I'm like, game recognizes game. But also he started talking about the Epstein class. It's an easy shorthand to refer to all of these people. And I think cryptocurrency billionaires would be decidedly of that class, especially given now what we know. And so I do think that populism is incredibly dangerous to me, in my view, more accurately. I think that populism is a weapon. It's not

actually a politics. Steve Bannon, who loves Jeffrey Epstein and thought that he was, quote, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, has been like wielding or kind of using populism as a vehicle to gain power for himself for like 11 years now. But I do think that the sentiment of like these people are trying to benefit from your hard-earned money, time, energy, and they're doing so through these corrupt means, that can be a very effective message. And I would far rather personally see Democrats use that than try to be like, we're going to help you use crypto, especially because it just seems like time and time and time and time again. Somebody makes a lot of money out of crypto.

They make actual currency that can be actually wielded or used. and then a bunch of people get left holding the back. Yeah, maybe one answer to that, just kind of listening to those was rolling over my head is maybe they just Democrats need to nominate one person who understands this world and can use the language authentically. Maybe this is a job for Ruben Gallego. He comes to mind to just be like, guys, you know,

if you're a legit Ethereum holder, your life is being made worse by these guys. Like the market is crashing. You know, there's going to be huge investigations next time. They're stealing from you. You know, there's an insider class that is getting rich while you're holding the bag. I do think that that might be something worth doing. Let's talk about something nobody wants to talk about.

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Go to trust and will.com slash bulwark and get 20% off. That's trustinwill.com slash bulwark to get 20% off trust and will. com slash bulwark. Your comment on fitness culture there made me wonder if you had any takes on Peter Attia. I figured you probably do. Peter Thier, for people who don't know, is a new CBS. Longevity doctor. Yeah, longevity doctor.

At this point, I think we can officially say that if you're a. famous doctor. Nothing good. Nothing good. There's not a single good famous doctor. Let's think about them. Dr. Oz.

Dr. Drew. Dr. Jill Biden. I mean, technically, technically, look, if you got your doctorate, it took you a really long time. My sister has her doctorate. I will never say anything against people who have doctorates. They are beloved in the eyes of God. But Peter Ittia, you know, I joke.

in the show that he's very big with on Instagram and TikTok with people who know what Zone 2 training is and who like count their macros of which I am one of those people. His emails to Epstein, it's not just like emailing Epstein. Like Deepak Chopra was emailing Epstein gross things. Like all these disgusting people were emailing Epstein. But Atia's emails are so like a besiequious. He emailed his assistant like, oh, you know, I go into J.E. Jeffrey Epstein, withdrawal when I don't hear from him. And I'm like, that's not even getting into the even more disgusting things that he said, but just also being like, you know, the hardest thing about being friends with you is that I can't even tell anyone about how crazy your life is. I'm just like, what are we doing here?

Like, what is it? And especially because he's claiming, like, you know, he just asked for me for medical advice. But it just like the degree of obsequiousness here. That's the thing is like, you see all of these incredibly powerful people who are powerful, who are wealthy, who do have a lot of, you know, the time and energy of others placed on them. Atea hosts a podcast or hosted, I don't know, seeing him or getting like having appointments with him cost $100,000. And based on the quality of his emails, I don't know what you're getting. But like the degree to which all of these people, I know, we kind of went back. I know. Now that we back at Epstein, I had one more thing on Epstein. I was like, I haven't

done another thing on Epstein, but you finish. No, no, no. But just the degree of obsequiousness all towards this one guy is just like, it's desperately repulsive. Just desperately like, I mean, we see this with RFK. There's a deep hollowness in fitness culture, because fitness culture at its best can be about like community. Like over this past weekend, I competed in like an ultra marathon relay where we were raising money. to help rebuild Altadina, which is one of the neighborhoods that was destroyed during the fires last year. And, like, that was a really cool community event. And at no point was anyone thinking about looks maxing or putting such extraordinary focus on the individual.

I think Peter Attia really praise on people for whom, like, the only thing they can control is the self. And he basically was one of those people who made the self into the only entity that matters. and no one did that more than Jeffrey Epstein. Jeffrey Epstein believed firmly that what he wanted and his desires were the most important thing in the entire world, and he was willing to consume and throw away so many young women and girls in order to get what he wanted. And I think that that selfishness is reflected in the emails with all of these people, all of these people who were so willing to be like, yes, Jeffrey Epstein, it's so sad what's happened to you, Jeffrey Epstein. No, Chomsky?

Trying to help him? Let, come on. Come on. I promise you I want to move on, but that rant forced me to bring up the email that has been haunting me that I have not got a chance to mention on the podcast. And that is from Bill Clinton's top aide in his post-presidency, Doug Bant. This is an exchange between him and Glein Maxwell. Maxwell writes to Bandoob, are you around? I'm very ill and require immediate medical attention.

I am suffering from boobooitis, a very serious condition. Without a boo-boo fix, these symptoms become very pronounced. She referred to cries in the night that sound like Shakespeare sonnets, that sound like this. Oh, Douglas, O Douglas, wherefore art thou, Douglas? Doug Band replied, my boo-bootitis is also reaching epic proportions. Lots going on, but will be in boo-booville the second you arrive. I wanted to kill myself when I read that email.

And so I obviously had no choice, but to share it with you and the listeners. So many of these emails, it's like the photo of Peter Mandelson, former UK ambassador to the United States standing in his underpants, which was featured in these DOJ things. Like all of these are like the ring video. But actually, if I really hope that that lady from the ring comes out of the television suit because I'm like, I'm good. like you know you don't need to take your six days or whatever i'm i'm good to go our friend of the show adam surwer actual friend of the show not like howard nutlick uh he was on a couple weeks ago he gave us an assignment i posted this on social media and i move on to talk about Minneapolis a little bit and i thought this is pretty insightful he said we need to talk

about the rise of small bean fascism where you're on the side that has all the guns and the immunity but really scary people are the ones with the whistles and they're giving you generational trauma and PTSD by filming you killing people for no reason. And I do think we should talk about that. Yes. I think that that is such a good point. You see that everywhere. It kind of goes to my point about how the Trump administration wants to both have

overwhelming power, but also be the sad victims of somebody else who has more power. For example, I saw that yesterday the Rasmuson account, which I was like, if you left that company, you should tell everybody you did that. Now they're posting about how, like, did Trump get Jeffrey Epstein out of the country and fake his death and send them to Israel? And all the replies to that are like, well, you know, Trump doesn't run the FBI. You know, that's where the deep state is. I'm like, bitch, it's been two terms. It has been two terms.

Cash Patel is in charge now. Yes, like literally. Now, granted, Cash Patel just wants to watch hockey and hang out with his girlfriend. And I, for one, support him doing that and not doing any actual work. But the degree to which this administration. and so many of its supporters want the power but want no responsibility, that is that small being fascism of like, you want to be able to kill people,

but you don't want people to be mad at you for killing people. You want to believe as if your victimhood takes center stage, but also you have all of the power. And so it's a real sense. I was talking to the host of Pod Save the UK for the show that came out today, And we were talking about how there's kind of an overroaching sense that Democrats have to always be the adults. Democrats and progressives always have to be the adults. Like there's a sense of like Trump is allowed to be a wheedling child and he's allowed to be a wheedling child.

And then you'll get the excuses like, well, Candy Crowley was mean to Mitt Romney. Oh, yeah. And I'm like, that was 14 years ago. I have had it explained to me multiple times by people who worked on the Obama campaign. And each time I'm like, I still don't understand what they're pretending to be mad about. But I do think like that small bean fascism, it doesn't even have the hutspot to be like, we are il duce. We are, you know, ein volk, a en rach, en fuhr. It's like, we are enfure, but please don't be mad at us.

We'd be so sad if you were mad at us. Like the most. Whistling, hurting my little ears. I know, like, the whistles are so mean. But also, like, the ways in which people are describing, like, the signal groups that protesters are using Minneapolis, which I'm like, this all sounds kind of like how you would organize. I don't know. A pretty decent bake sale at a private grade school.

Like, they're like, oh, there are thousands of people on these signals and organizing drop points. And then like the photographs are like, it's like boxes of hot hands. It's a box of hot hands. And some cocoa and some coats. And you guys are dressed like you're invading Fallujah. I know. I know.

And I'm just like, it's that complete unwillingness to take responsibility. but to so desire the power. So not only are you convincing yourself that actually you don't have real power because someone somewhere is doing something you don't like. And if you had real power, they just wouldn't. But also this idea of like, I am actually the victim here. You made me do this. This is also very difficult.

People are being very mean to me and I don't like it. And I think that that small bean fascism is such a really eloquent way of putting in. I noticed you sent a skeet on Blue Sky about the, AEW fuck ice chant and it kind of made it seem like you're familiar with the AEW and I am not. People miss AEW is a kind of an alt wrestling league I guess and people were shouting fuck ice during the match which I took to be a good sign because it kind of doesn't seem to me like the AEW audience would map over the audience for like the Lawrence O'Donnell show or anything like that but maybe but I don't know but so I'm hoping you can educate me a little bit.

One of the people who was in that match is Brody King. He's been wearing like abolished ice stuff. He was the one who was kind of like nodding in approval. And I think that there really is a small L. Libertarian viewpoint that I think you see throughout wrestling fandom. There's very much a sense of like a distrust and distaste with authority. And you see that in both fans of. you know, AED or WWE. You know, this match was in Vegas, obviously.

A lot of people who are going to go to an AEW match in Vegas are going to be people who work in the service industry and are probably like, yeah, fuck us. Fuck these people who are ruining our lives and ruining the lives of people we care about. That's an interesting you say that, though, but just kind of put my political nerd hat on for a second. That's specifically the group that Trump tried to win over with the no tax on tips. And that's like literally the demo. Yeah.

So it's noteworthy. Exactly. Yeah, no, it is noteworthy, but I also think, like, the politics of wrestling are actually very equivalent to kind of, you know, when people talk about like kind of the bro podcasters, they can tell who the underdog is and they can tell who's being an asshole. They will only root for the asshole in a wrestling sense, but they kind of, they understand what power looks like and the misuse of power and they do not like it. Wrestling is great because it's both a sport and theater. It's very, very hard and also you're acting through the entire thing. But there are so many tropes that are so easy to understand. And one of the easiest tropes in wrestling is like rich asshole guy.

Rich asshole guy who's a heel. Everybody gets that. And then the face is, you know, nice underdog guy you're rooting for. People get that. Now, yes, sometimes people root for the rich asshole, which is why Trump is in the WWE Hall of Fame. But, you know, people wanted to see Vince McMahon get his head shaved. People wanted to see Vince McMahon get hit with a chair. There's a real theme here of people wanting to see Vince McMahon get hurt in various ways because he's a terrible

person who's kind of responsible for multiple deaths, but that's a different story altogether. That is the American populism, not the like Steve Bannon anti-elite bullshit in which he's trying to take over Europe with the health of Jeffrey Epstein, but it kind of like, we don't like rich assholes. We don't like rich assholes and we don't like being told what to do. You know, I think you and I may have talked about this, but a challenge for Democrats and Progressives has been, that Democrats and Progressives have been viewed as the combination of rich assholes who want to tell you what to do. Yes. And I think that the further you can get away from that, the further you can get towards like, look, we want you to have, you know, be able to access the best things in life for your family and the best things in life for people who care about you. And fuck anybody who's going to get in the way of doing that.

And also fuck these people who are out here trying to tell you how to live your life, trying to tell you what to do, trying to take away your right to marry because we're doing that again. It does show just how bad of a place the Democratic brand got themselves into where they were like losing the rich asshole test kind of to Trump. Not in the way that like Trump was obviously more of an asshole. But like there was a sense, I think, among the types of folks that we're talking about here. that like he was kind of self-aware of it that's the thing Trump was a rich asshole that was on their side yes and the Democratic rich assholes were like

you know Ivy League types that were sniffing their farts and running the tech companies and running the wars and like the Democrats kind of ended up because you know Trump was so anti-establishment like representing like the establishment elite and I do think that that is where like the ice thing is like presented an opportunity for the Democrats like for the first time really since the Iraq war

and the surveillance state that the Democrats can be now on the side of, wait a minute, no, they are the ones that are masked and have the jackboots. They're the ones that are spying on you. Like, they're the ones that are in the Epstein class, right? They're the ones that are covering up crimes for rich people. That sort of ties the kind of ICE and Epstein and other stuff together and gives the Democrats an opportunity to, like, once again, take that mantle. And I think they kind of failed to do that during this kind of Clinton to Harris era. I mean, I mean, I mean, that's kind of where, you know, not to get into this, but like that kind of criticism of neoliberalism. There are some people who took that as being like everybody's very mad about NAFTA or I don't know, something else.

But like what it actually was was like, hey, it feels like the concerns of people who don't get to do any of this are being ignored for people who spend a lot of time going to Davos. Which was kind of funny how Trump was supposed to be like the anti-Davos person. And then he's just like, I'm going to go to Davos and scream about Greenland. Yeah. One of the hard things about politics will always be that you are going to have more people who are of the elite who are heavily invested in politics than people who are not. And I wish that weren't true. And I hope someday that I think that there's a lot of work to be done to make that less true to get a politic of the many, even though it will not look the way anyone ever thinks it will. I think that there's this idea that people have that like the working class would either simultaneously be like way more.

are liberal or way more conservative than they actually are, but like they're neither. It's kind of like a weird juxtaposition, a weird combination. Like I understand people for whom, you know, the years between 1995, like Republican Revolution, 94 and 95, and like basically through the financial crisis. And then going to like 2016, I can understand for people that they're just like, that was just a whole lot of time where nobody listened to me. Two more things I do want to pick your brain about and I'll let you go. One is just, I looked through your blue sky feed. And looking for the blue sky feed made me wonder,

why you're blue skying. And one of the posts that you reposted said this, too many people on blue sky think that relentless expressions of despair are a sign of intellectual sophistication. I liked that. That's something that bugs me. Some people get mad at me that I'm still on, you know, the hellscape with Elon.

I can feel like my rationale for doing that is different than maybe regular persons. I'm not trying to speak to people in the echo chamber. like my point is to try to reach people outside the echo chamber. So that's why I'm there. But I want you to make the pitch to me for why. Why skeet? I think it is a useful place to be, one, honestly, a lot of the sports people who I know and really respect moved over there.

And so there's a section of blue sky, which is magical where it's just nice people talking about sports. And at no point is anyone screaming about like whatever Clay Travis had to say about anything. And I'm like, ooh, this is nice. Like it's just a nice place to be like. The Olympics, it's been great. My good friend Roger Sherman is covering the Olympics, and he posts every day about stuff to watch and fun things that are happening. Like, you know, the U.S. is in the gold medal match and curling. He's super pumped about it. And I'm like, yes, there's a real, I think, because it is less algorithmically determined, there is some real,

like, beautifully organic things that can happen, especially around sports, which makes me happy. But I would also say that I think Blue Sky offers an opportunity to people who are either, and this is an important separation, people who are either on the political left or people who really fucking hate Donald Trump. And I think that those two groups are weirdly have been at loggerheads for a really long time. And it drives me nuts. But political left, do you mean like in the sense, just for listeners? Because this stuff is all getting like slice and dice.

You mean like leftists, like burying? It's like Bernie-ish. I mean, as a shorthand, kind of the Bernie crowd. Yes, Bernie crowd. There's a version of the United States in which we have a different political structure and we have lots of political parties and technically we do, but we don't. And so you see how often, I think there was a great visual, I believe, in the New Yorker, where it's like it's comparing conservatism and liberalism.

And it's like, you know, with conservatives, you've got all the red arrows pointed to one direction just screaming at Democrats all the time. and then you've got this image of all these blue arrows, all pointing in different directions, all screaming at each other. And that is not helpful. But you also have this sense of like a dumerism of like, if everybody just had the politics I have,

then we wouldn't be in this mess. That is the view of a child. Well, it's also kind of the view of a fascist. It's like not democracy. You can't be part of the pro-democracy movement and but say that you don't want to hear from 89% of people that don't agree with you on everything. Right, exactly.

But I want to counter the leftist doomerism and also the leftist sense that if people just did things their way, everything would be so much different. And everyone is doomed because people will never understand how to do things the correct way, which is their way. Interesting. So in that your way, in that way you're saying that like, you don't see it as a bubble because you have a meaningful disagreement with them

and you're doing and you're trying to offer some influence in that sense. Oh, yeah. But I think that there's also, you know, something that I want to disrupt on blue sky and elsewhere is leftism or, you know, any political cadre as a club as kind of like, if you don't do things this way, you can't hang out with us. And leftism as an identity rather than as a like a politics you're trying to get somewhere towards. Like, do you want to be in power or do you want to yell at people who are in power? Because those are two different things. And you see that already with people being like, oh, you know, why isn't Zoramem Dani? I don't know. Liquidated the Kulaks yet. And I'm like, it's only February. But like there's a sense of like, if we are going to do this thing, we can't just have a politics of anti-Trump. We are going to need to have a pro something else politics for 2028.

You have to be forward looking. And so on Blue Sky, what I am attempting to do, one, is just like, enjoy myself talking about sports and stuff with people I like. But also, I am attempting to ask people to create a pro something politic, not just a, I really hate liberals. Like, there are people in blue sky for whom, you know, they would have Trump stay at their house before they would ever entertain, like some liberal who they're annoyed by who worked at, I don't know, Center for the American Progress once. Like, if you are a leftist, I want to see a pro-leftist politic from you. I do not just want to hear an anti-everything else politic, because that just seems like the politic of last resort.

I want to go towards something. That just flees something. Last thing you mentioned you're on the blue sky and the sports. And one of the things you were posting about was the Washington Post Sports section and how revealing it was that a lot of maga types made fun of that. And we're like, there's nothing. That's not even real, blah, blah, blah. Washington Sports section actually has just a really storied history.

And I just want to do the kind of wax poetic about it for about a minute now that we've lost it. my favorite thing about the Washington Post Sports section was how closely it covered high school sports in the DMV. There are so many people, like my friend and editor at the New York Times, Catherine Miller, she went to high school in the DMV. And, you know, when she was, I can't remember what sport it was. I think it may have been softball. But like, she was featured in the Washington Post. They did such great coverage. Like they had multiple people covering high school sports.

And if you've, you know, you live in New Orleans, you're aware that in many places, especially in the South, which D.C., weirdly enough, kind of counts. And in the Midwest, high school sports is so important to people. It's so important to community. It's so important to how people think about themselves. And so the Washington Post sending reporters to go to like a Gonzaga football game or talking about how, you know, this player was like gatorade national player of the year. like that would mean so much to you if as a high schooler. And that's also somewhere where like Kevin Durant is from the DMV. And that's somewhere where like you could start to track the careers of people who would go on to like change sports.

And so I think it's little things like that. It's little things like there are so many people for whom the Washington Post exists only as a thing they're mad at for politics for reasons. It's like they refuse to believe that D.C. contains anything but like the capital, the White House and people they hate. But, like, D.C. is a beautiful, rich community full of so much stuff, including so many people who care so deeply about sports. You know, I know people for whom when the Nats won the World Series in 2019, they've still got that front page framed. Then the capitals, when the Stanley Cup, they've got that. And the investigative reporting that went into helping to change the leadership of the now Washington commanders from the grossest set of people in the history of time who made women walk up. up clear stairs, so everybody could look up their skirts. Like, that's the Washington Post's legacy

of sports reporting, where it was not just about, like, highlighting the highlights, but also highlighting the lowlights of some of the wealthiest, creepiest, worst people in the world. And I'm really glad to see that there have been a lot of efforts to ensure that DC sports will continue to be covered. There's a couple of new substacks coming from people in DC sports. But, you know, it's tough to know that the nationals currently will have one full-time person covering them. And that's from MLB.com. Some limits there. Yeah, you've got so many amazing sports franchises with such storied histories.

And now it will be as if they don't matter, even though when they matter to millions of people. And it's just, it's really sad. RIP, what a section. Michael Welbon, Tony Cornheiser, John Feinstein, Sally Jenkins. It's just, it's been quite a crew. over there. Jane Koston, appreciate you so much. We'll be doing it again soon. All right. Everybody go check out, What a Day

on Crooked Media. We get to let Jane go long on this podcast. What a day is tight. You know, you wake up in the morning and it's like your tight five of news. You know, it's like Trump during the National Prayer Breakfast. You're just going to get a tight five making fun of Mike Johnson. Actually, it's very similar to Trump with a National Prayer Breakfast. Concerning. Everybody else, we'll be back tomorrow with one of our pals. We'll see you all then. Peace. See you, Jane.

tired. She broke out in me. No more struggle. No more energy. No more patient. The Borg podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brow.