The Majority Report with Sam Seder - 3585 - SCOTUS Torpedoes Tariffs; Epstein's Billionaire Rolodex w/ Ryan Grim, Wren Woodson, Mabel Kabani

Episode Date: February 20, 2026

It's Casual Friday on the Majority Report   On today's program:   The Supreme Court has declared trump's emergency tariffs as illegal in a 6-3 vote.   Financial firm Cantor Fitzgerald stands to reap substantial profits from tariff refunds after purchasing potential claims at just 20–30 cents on the dollar. The firm is run by the sons of Commerce Secretary and prominent tariff cheerleader Howard Lutnick.   Ryan Grim of Drop Site News joins Emma to recap the week's news.   Wren Woodson and Mabel Kabani from the NEWSGIRLS join Emma to discuss their work covering the Epstein files.   In the Fun Half:   Joe Rogan calls Zohran Mamdani a psychopath over his city budget, saying that there should be no money for migrants at all.   Tim Pool's heart is breaking over the Chicago Bears leaving Chicago. In the video he really seems to be a die-hard football fan (not at all).   all that and more   To connect and organize with your local ICE rapid response team visit ICERRT.com The Congress switchboard number is [phone]. You can use this number to connect with either the U.S. Senate or the House of Representatives. Follow us on TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@majorityreportfm Check us out on Twitch here: https://www.twitch.tv/themajorityreport Find our Rumble stream here: https://rumble.com/user/majorityreport Check out our alt YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/majorityreportlive Gift a Majority Report subscription here: https://fans.fm/majority/gift Subscribe to the AMQuickie newsletter here: https://am-quickie.ghost.io/ Join the Majority Report Discord! https://majoritydiscord.com/ Get all your MR merch at our store: https://shop.majorityreportradio.com/ Get the free Majority Report App!: https://majority.fm/app Go to https://JustCoffee.coop and use coupon code majority to get 10% off your purchase Check out today's sponsors: LIQUID IV: Go to LIQUIDIV.com and use code  MAJORITYREP at checkout for 20% off your first order. WILD GRAIN: Get $30 off your first box + free Croissants in every box. Go to Wildgrain.com/MAJORITY to start your subscription. SUNSET LAKE: Use code FlowerPower to save 30% on all CBD smokables at SunsetLakeCBD.com  Follow the Majority Report crew on Twitter: @SamSeder @EmmaVigeland @MattLech On Instagram: @MrBryanVokey Check out Matt's show, Left Reckoning, on YouTube, and subscribe on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/leftreckoning Check out Matt Binder's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/mattbinder Subscribe to Brandon's show The Discourse on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/ExpandTheDiscourse Check out Ava Raiza's music here! https://avaraiza.bandcamp.com

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Casual hump day. Thursday. Casual thurs. That's what we call it. And Friday. Casual Shabbat. The Majority Report with Sam Cedar. It is Friday. February 20th, 2020. My name is Emma Vigeland in for Sam Cedar, and this is the five-time award-winning majority report. We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal

in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, USA. On the program today, Ryan Grimm, of DropSight News, will be with us. to break down the news of the week. And later in the show, Ren Woodson and Mabel Cabani, hosts of the Newsgirls podcast, will be with us to have some fun.

Also on the program, breaking the Supreme Court rules that Trump's most sweeping tariffs violate the law, striking down a majority of them. We'll be talking about that in just a second. Oil prices climb as the Trump administration,

and Trump himself publicly muses about striking Iran this weekend. How much telegraphing do you have to do? Like, this is very atypical. It's odd. His administration also says it's going to release alien information now that Obama spoke about it on a podcast. We should trust them. We should trust that the guys that are redacting all the Epstein information

are going to give you exactly what you need to hear about aliens. Maybe Obama should talk about Medicare for all. Exactly. Obama could just say what people need to know about, too. Yeah. Like, this is all nonsense. Or you can shut up. Yeah.

Might be more helpful. Okay. At the Board of Peace meeting, Trump announces a multi-billion-dollar reconstruction plan for Gaza, a thinly-discise colonial operation, led by his son-in-law. The plan includes a construction of a 5,000-person military base in Gaza, and the slush fund is currently recruiting Palestinians

to be a pro-Western police force in the strip. The husband of Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-Dremmer has been banned from the department's facilities after two women say he assaulted them. The Sean O'Brien's pick for labor. Uh-huh. DHS just reached a $1 billion blanket purchasing agreement with, you guess it, Palantir.

An investigation by Newsweek finds that ICE killed a third U.S. citizen last year, Ruben Ray Martinez during a traffic incident in Texas. proposes a rule that would ban non-citizens from public housing, which would mean tens of thousands of evictions. Congresswoman Jan Shikowski withdraws her endorsement of Donna Miller in Illinois's second district because she took APAC money. That's this, that was her biggest endorsement. It's called leadership. Yep. Trump DOJ's hard at work fighting discrimination against men.

They're suing a regional Coca-Cola for hosting an all-female networking event. Me and Brian just high-fived. Do you guys feel like your masculinity is back? Finally, we're being protected. Exactly. I don't like it when you guys get together. Hello. It scares me.

It makes me nervous. What are you up to? You have to publish that. And lastly, the Committee to Protect Journalists finds that at least 59 Palestinian journalists. journalists have been beaten, sexually assaulted, or abused in Israeli prisons. All this and more on today's majority report. Welcome to the show, everybody. It is casual Friday.

What a week so far. Sam will be back on Monday. Hello, Matt. Hello, Brian. Looking forward to our conversations with Ryan Grimm and our friends over the newsgirls. We'll be talking to them at like 1 p.m. But we got to start with the breaking news here that the Supreme Court has found that Trump's emergency tariffs, which is a majority of them that he imposed, violate the law. This is really the first time that this like right wing Supreme Court has ruled against Trump specifically in his second term in a major case like this.

And of course, it's because the economy is impacted. Anybody who runs a manufacturing business in this country is actually not benefited because a lot of the raw materials they needed to get from other countries. So yeah, it's been a disaster for people who run businesses, so the Supreme Court's going to step up. Exactly. But, I mean, it's still a good thing.

It's still good news. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the ruling, and then the three liberals, of course, joined. But the three conservatives that joined were Roberts, as I mentioned, Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, the usual suspects, Alito, Clarence Thomas, and the beer chugger were the ones that sided with Donald Trump. So in this ruling, Roberts invoked the major questions doctrine as his justification to strike down the tariffs. And Gorsuch and Barrett joined him in that justification. But the liberals, the three liberals, did not do so.

important and that's important because if you've been watching this program for a while, you'll be familiar with Chevron deference and the fact that the court overturned the 40-year-old doctrine of Chevron deference, which essentially meant that the courts would largely defer to the expertise of government agencies. But during the Biden administration, the Supreme Court came up with a legal invention, essentially, that had never really appeared in legal text before, even though they're supposed to be operating on precedent and building off previous case law, this activist far-right court came up with this idea of the major questions doctrine to supersede Chevron deference. So what they said was, if there is a major question, which is very

vaguely defined, the Supreme Court can overrule the agency's determinations about how they're going to implement certain policies. It's intentionally vague and designed to give the Supreme Court even more power. They just granted themselves more power if they determine something is a major question. Here, it's being used for something good for like the first time, though, because this was used to kill student loan forgiveness under Biden. This was used to kill the eviction moratorium under Biden. This was also used to roll back a bunch of environmental regulations by the Supreme Court. So that's why the liberal justices are not signing on to the justification being used in Roberts' majority opinion.

I was laughing at this earlier in the show. And Brian was like, what are you laughing about? as I was reading. And I said, I don't even really want to tell you because it's so nerdy. And it is. And so I'm going to incorporate it into the coverage because I just found this a little bit funny. Mark Joseph Stern posted that how Gorsuch tried to conscript Elena Kagan, one of the liberal justices, into signing on to their stupid major questions doctrine in his concurrence.

But Kagan put a footnote in there that showing that she's not going to be. signing on to this stupid legal theory. She writes, I'll let Justice Gorsuch relitigate on his own, or old debates about other statutes, unrelated to the one before us. What matters here is only the IEEPA's delegation refutes the executive's assertion of authority to levy tariffs without any help from the major questions doctrine. So she's kind of making fun of him. I always hate it when people try to conscript me into the major question. camp in their concurrence.

It's so annoying. My face when people try to conscript me into the major questions doctrine. No, sir. Do you think that I'm in this industry because I'm cool? Anyway, so, but here's the money quote from the opinion on the terrorists from Roberts, declaring that the I-E-E-E-P-A, which is an acronym for the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, it's a 1977 law, go to the screenshot here. Here it is.

Held. I-E-E-E-P-A does not authorize the president to impose tariffs. The judgment is vacated, blah, blah, blah. So, there you go. I mean, that's unequivocal. And that law, the IEPA, is significant because it's a huge blow that Trump's ability to impose these tariffs because it was by far his most sweeping authority. He still has other options, but now he has to go through a bit of a process. You have to provide notice.

You have to provide justifications. It's a lot more narrow. notably the Canada tariffs actually are the ones that were granted under the authority that is not deemed illegal by the Supreme Court, the ones that they're on steel, aluminum, lumber. So they're not going to be impacted by this ruling. But that Trump would have to go through that process over and over again and not just say, I'm imposing a tariff on Brazil because I don't like that their court system prosecuted my buddy. or Bolsonaro, for example, for trying to do a coup, which was one of the things that he was doing. Or just saying he didn't like the tone of the voice of a woman in Switzerland.

Right. Or making up something about fentanyl, like as with Canada. Like, these are all, this is all fantasy. And I'll just say, like, in a better world, tariffs are a tool in the toolbox that should be used, like, very, like, I guess, consciously instead of, like, you know, accusing Canada. The way Biden was doing it. Yeah, and, like, it's kind of a shame now.

I mean, now this power has to be back in Congress's hands, and Congress isn't very functional right now. But we do actually need to have economic policy geared towards, you know, reshoring certain things and that sort of thing. And Trump has completely, like, I mean, made that a stupid conversation. Biden was using tariffs, but in conjunction with his infrastructure policy, because you have to have the capacity to manufacture the cheaper goods here before you make it more expensive. for foreign goods and materials.

That was what the infrastructure bill was designed to do that the Trump administration is totally scrapping. You can do tariffs and escalate them, but first you have to build out the capacity to manufacture the goods here before you make it more expensive for everybody else. So there's been like an estimate that the federal government collected around $200 billion in tariffs at the start of last year. what this impacts is

like 170 billion of that 200 billion is what is overturned here by the Supreme Court. Now, the court did not say whether or not importers are going to be able to get refunds. And they punted that to the lower courts. But that's going to be something

that's really important here because there's one more angle to this when we're looking at these tariff-free funds. I bring you an article from Wired July 2025. Trump's Commerce Secretary loves tariffs. His former investment bank is taking bets against them. Cantor Fitzgerald, a financial services company, led by the sons of U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik,

is creating a way for investors to bet that President Donald Trump's signature tariffs will be struck down in court. Traders at the firm's investment banking subsidiary, Cantra Fitzgerald and Company, say they have the capacity to buy the rights to hundreds of millions of dollars in potential refunds from companies who have paid Trump's tariffs, according to documents viewed by Wired. Lutnik ran Cantor Fitzgerald for nearly 30 years until he was confirmed by the Senate in February when he turned over control of the firm to his sons, Kyle and Brandon, who are both in their 20s.

Since joining the Trump administration, Lutnik, has emerged as one of the most vocal supporters of the president's tariff policies. Isn't that amazing? He is such a, like, snake. He's the slimyest guy a lot. I almost respect it. I almost respect it. Like, when he was, like, totally brazenly lying about his relationship with Epstein,

and he does it with a smile, and you almost believe him. Makes him happy to lie. Exactly. It's a sickness. I mean, but he's a much better liar than the president. Since joining the Trump administration, Lundick has emerged as one of the most vocal supporters. of the president's tariff policies, which Lutnik has said would raise hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue for the United States, eventually eliminating the need for Americans

to make less than $150,000 to pay taxes. Oh, yeah. Once we expect that. But the investment bank that made Lutnik a billionaire is now letting certain clients wager that Trump's tariffs will eventually be ruled unlawful, at which point companies that have paid the import duties can apply to get their money back. So the Lutnik family is very happy, right? now because their firm is going to get rich off of all of this.

Just a note for, we're live on Rumble today for all of our free speech independent platform and join watchers on Rumble. People should know that Cantor Fitzgerald is also the owner of Rumble. Yes. So, yeah. What's up, guys? Love the independent media. In the moment, we'll be talking to Ryan Grimm, but first a word from our sponsors.

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slash majority or you can use promo code majority at checkout. link down below in the video and episode descriptions and at majority.fm. Quick break and when we come back, we'll be joined by Ryan Grimm. And we are joined by, you know, one of our favorite guests. Let's be real. Ryan Graham, author, journalist. I mean, for me, I'm not, you're higher than top 25 for me. Not to suck up to you too much, but.

For Sam, top 50. Yes, yeah, yeah. And that's why we made sure to have you on when he wasn't here because we know that you guys sometimes have such a difficult relationship. But co-founder of Dropside News, Ryan Grimm, thanks so much for coming on the show. A pleasure. I wanted to start with this amazing story

that DropSite has that you and Murtaza Hussein have written. I mean, we could rant about how the mainstream press is deliberately ignoring the most important elements of the Epstein files, and they're just focused on the salaciousness of certain allegations, if that, if anything. But your story at drop site is entitled, the Israeli government installed and maintained security system at Epstein apartment.

Tell us about your reporting on this and what you and Murtaza have found. Just more of nothing to see here. It would be funny if they did start including just seating their articles with some of this or mentioning it in cable news and then trying to explain how that fits into everything that they've told their audience, you know, up to that point. So the best way I've seen this framed as a nothing to see here goes back to the proximate cause for the surveillance and the security system being put in the apartment,

which is that Ehud Barak, former Israeli prime minister, was staying there for such long stretches of time that they basically considered it to be. Barack's resident, you know, a place he's staying. So they put in the security equipment, they drilled holes in the wall, they set up a hotline to the consulate. They did background checks on all of the maids and other housekeepers that were going in and out. And then any guests who wanted to come over, you had to clear them with the Israeli government ahead of time. And, you know, for the home of a former prime minister, that's a, you know, reasonable precaution that most states would take, this was Jeffrey Epstein's apartment. So it's like, it's kind of interesting.

And, you know, so it suggests at a minimum, a enormous amount of awareness of the, by the Israeli government, who Jeffrey Epstein is and what the relationship was with him. This would have been approved at the time by Netanyahu. Netanyahu was prime minister in 2016, 2017, when we have these records. Yoni Corrin was a kind of high-profile Israeli intelligence official and a kind of protege of Barrax also stayed in this apartment,

as we had reported before. I think like three different times for like very long stretches. That's at least of what we know. So yeah, that's just more of nothing going on, just a little, you know. So this is, you know, we all have Israeli surveillance installed at our home, but most of which just don't know it. Like, this was voluntary. And this is a separate apartment that he had in New York that is different than that enormous mansion that he had. Because I saw this is also like on 66th Street.

I don't remember where his other residences. But God, it's amazing how everything is happening. Like all of these wealthy people or, you know, on the Upper East. side, these connections. I mean, Lutnik's right next door. And then I guess Epstein had a second apartment on 66th Street. Yeah, this was, and a lot of the, it's, it was legally owned by Mark Epstein, but it was controlled by his brother, but was controlled by Jeffrey Epstein. Mark appears to own his,

or a development company of his, appeared to own like two thirds of this building or something like that. It's in a more downscale neighborhood. It's maybe a 20, 25 minute walk. from the mansion. I think it's over around 2nd Avenue. Right. And, uh,

and he's 66th. So it's, it doesn't have the, the glam of being, you know, that, that famous mansion is like 50 feet from central park. Right.

There's, Lutnik is not living more than 50 feet away from, uh, central park. And it's across the street from the Frick Museum, which is ironic because, you know, Frick made his money.

violently crushing, you know, workers' rights in the 19th century. So every time Epstein would look out of his window, he'd see, you know, the virtues of that crime being being kind of shown off across the street. So, yeah, it's a separate apartment. And he had an apartment in Paris, too, that he would use for similar circumstances where people would be like, hey, Jeffrey, I'm going to be in town. I'm going to be in Paris. Can I stay at your apartment?

I'm going to be in New York. can I stay at your apartment. So it was one of the extra things that he would offer to his friends and his potential or future business partners or other allies. You know, it's depending on what you want to do, it's better to have a private apartment than have some set to have a hotel. You know, you know who's bugging the apartment. You never know who's bugging the apartment.

hotel. And what's fascinating about this too and almost funny is that Netanyahu has been trying to go on the messaging offensive and saying that there's no way that Jeffrey Epstein could have ties to the state of Israel. And your reporting indicates that he literally approved this surveillance. You know, ironically, Netanyahu's making a funny argument because Netanyahu has his grand ambitions regionally. He's got his relationship that he works on with the United States. And then he's got his internal, you know, domestic, co-itutional intramural battles that he engages in. And sometimes those take precedence over, you know, his regional or global concerns. And he and Ehud Barak, you know, they don't like each other. They are in opposite camps inside this intramural fight

domestically. And so Nanyahu has said the reason that we know that Jeffrey Epstein has no links to Israel is because of his tight relationship with Ehud Barak. And he said, Ehud Barak is a, you can look it up, his quote is hilarious. He's an anti-Zionist radical, you know, who has done everything to destroy and overthrow the Israeli government. Ehud Barak. So, it didn't, weren't there conversations that we've, that had recordings? about, was it Barack that was talking about the, oh, hello kitty. That was talking, oh, my goodness, about the, like the possibility of a one, one democratic state and one state being an issue. I mean, so I guess that's anti-Zionists, apparently.

Yes, yes. So what he had said in this conversation with Summers and Epstein, he was like the you know, he said the problem is, and this, it goes back to the coalition politics, too. He said the problem with the early Zionist effort, which then bled into the post-formation of the state of Israel, was that they had to let anybody who was Jewish from around the world come to Israel. They couldn't, they couldn't pick and choose based on what he was, what he was saying or kind of superior races. So, you know, you had to take Somalians, Ethiopians, Mizrahi, Jews from around the Middle East, which they kind of, like, you know, from Iraq or wherever else, which, that's a separate story,

but Mizrahi Jews talk about the discrimination that they face constantly. I'm sure you guys have talked about that a bunch of years. And so he's saying, like, they had to do that for demographic reasons. Otherwise, there would be, you know, too many Arabs. But if they would take away control from the rabbinical cohort that currently was deciding, like, who is and is not able to be Jewish, then, and they could take it, take it to the government, they could then tell all these Russians and Eastern Europeans who are not Jewish, here's the process that you can go through. That's rather simple to convert to Judaism. And as he said in that tape, I think they'd rather be Jewish than Russian.

So basically saying, look, you want to come live in a first world country, then all you have to do is like, memorize this, and here's how you do it, and you become Jewish, and then we let you in as an immigrant. And then they can fight the demographic battle against the browner Jews in Israel and also against the Arabs. And Barack also believed that that would benefit his, spectrum of the political coalition. It's just like any kind of ethnic supremacist project, there's always, there's no bottom

to the barrel of how they will try to restrict and say that you are not sufficiently pure, whether it's whiteness or Jewishness. And obviously, Epstein was a major Jewish supremacist, as the emails have shown that he genuinely believed biologically the Jewish people were more intelligent, more superior. He wanted to work with people who were more purely Jewish. And so that that is, I think, a fairly instructive anecdote about Zionism for people that want to understand it a little bit more. Lastly, on this, like, what do you make of, you know, I saw that Morning Joe has been running a little bit with the angle of the fact that Epstein had worked also for Russian intelligence or has

ties with Russian intelligence, I should say. It's amazing that they're, that's the angle. I mean, it pales in comparison to the litany of Israel connections, but it's still there. He was clearly some sort of like, you know, fixer espionage type person for hire for a variety of different governments, but the Israeli government seems to be his primary client. Yeah, and for sure, I think it's an indication to how the kind of morning Joe types understand that they can't kind of hold back the public's understanding that this guy had connections to intelligence agencies and to the intel world. So now it's not a yes or no question.

And it's a, okay, yes, he did, but who? So now we've got to, now we'll channel it over towards Russia. And he had a lot of context with Russians, absolutely. A lot of the oligarchs, Russian oligarchs, whose circles he swam in are actually Russian-Israeli or Israeli-Russian. That part's interesting. You know, we had reported that, that, yes, he did create a back channel, you know, during the Syrian civil war for negotiations with Russia.

Yeah. And you've even seen that referenced by, like, Politico, which, but, awkwardly, like, didn't mention that he did it on behalf of Israel. Yeah, with Ehud Barak, emailing about it. Like, which back, like, it's a back channel, but it's too Russia, but who, who's doing the channeling? So trying to explain all that without mentioning Israel, just, like, contorts people into these weird knots. I mean, and the like overarching point about media, I mean, it's honestly accelerating, I would say, the, like, for anybody that's under 45 years old or something like that, the reliance on more independent media because, I mean, it's just a chasm in terms of the understanding of Epstein's actual power. If you're somebody that's engaging in online independent media or reading things like DropSight versus people.

I know say in my family that maybe only read the New York Times in the Wall Street Journal. And there's just, it's actually quite striking. I don't know if I can think of a story. I mean, although the journal's been doing, perhaps the journal is not the right example, the Washington Post or whatever. I don't know if I can remember a story, a major story like this, where there is such an enormous gap in understanding and in honest reporting of just the basic facts of what this guy was. when you look at mainstream coverage versus online coverage. Although there is another one actually that comes to mind. You're not going to like this analogy probably. If you poll people now in the United States on whether COVID leaked out of the lab or was a natural origin,

overwhelmingly the public now says that they believe it was a lab leak. And that comes despite mainstream press, really never coming around to that. kind of conclusion. Now, some people I know disagree with... We disagreed in the past, but I'll keep an open mind if you, you know, just send me some stuff. I'll send me some good stuff. It's an interesting, interestingly similar dynamic in the sense that the mainstream press never really... There's been some articles in the Times, been like, okay, actually, maybe it could have been a lab league and here are the reasons.

and there's emerging reports of like actually like pretty early in the summer it was already out there so the idea that it could have come from this wet market in the winter doesn't make sense a wet market would have been more of a super spreader but the point being the mainstream press never really said okay yeah it was a lab leak mainstream press if anything is still organized pretty much they've moved on but they're organized around the consensus around a natural leak but the public is like no LabLeak so whether they're right or wrong it's like the same

kind of understood right because I think if you poll the American public like yeah he had he had links to espionage networks and like a lot of them would say Israel and despite the fact that the mainstream so in other words you can now get a public consensus

around an issue around and over the media like the mainstream mainstream media They don't ever have to come around. I said, yeah, I had a Normie friend text me. Does not pay attention to politics at all. Do you think Epstein is still alive in Israel?

Like, whoa, right? Like, I mean, it's just completely, it's completely broken through. That's funny. That's that among a lot of Normies, including my 12-year-old twins. Like, they were telling me what the sixth graders are talking about. Like, the debate among sixth graders is, is he alive or not? and like the more serious people of the sixth graders are like, no, he's probably dead. Right.

Yeah, yeah. The more conspiracy minor, like, no, no, no. He's definitely alive and here's why. None of them remotely would like question the fact that he was like, you know, if they know what like Israel is or what a spy agency is. Like, but they're so far beyond that. Right. So your friend who's like, yeah, he's alive playing Fortnite in Israel. That's like, that's a non-trivial subset of people.

And I think what it says about the lack of faith in our institutions from establishment press to our government is the story of American politics right now. And it's just demonstrated in that example. I wanted to turn to asking you about this board, that board of peace meeting yesterday. Obviously, it's this very thinly disguised effort to. to colonize the Gaza Strip, to build casinos and hotels over the bodies of dead Palestinian children. And I should have headlined this. But Lancet came out with an analysis yesterday about how dramatically the death toll is undercounted. So this is also an evidence destruction operation.

They want to hide the bodies and the skulls because it's in the hundreds of thousands in true death toll. And so, you know, that you have Trump is. appointing Jared Kushner to lead this. FIFA pledged tens of millions of dollars to build soccer facilities. The Guardian reported that the plan for Gaza includes this construction of a 5,000 person military base. But overall, outside of just the naked ethnic cleansing and war crimes that this entails, it's also a way to undercut the authority of the UN. And the Biden administration started this. The Biden administration started this with the insane attacks on UNRWA and in the, of course, repeated disregard for the United Nations resolutions basically begging Israel in the United States

to reign this genocide in a little bit. When we're talking about the breakdown of whatever rules-based order there was, however immensely flawed, I don't think we can tell that story without talking about how this is a way to kind of completely neuter any power that the United Nations may have had. Yes. Yeah. And Trump has been kind of explicit about that. You know, he's and he's going around saying like, you know, why do I have to end all of these wars? Isn't that the UN's job? You know, while he's out like vetoing efforts to, uh, to end these wars. You know, so it's also, he appointed himself chairman for life of this thing. And he also gave himself the power to appoint the next chair. So it's this like almost hereditary, you know, situation where he runs this board of peace. He's now supposedly extracted $7 billion from a handful of countries who was back to stay, Morocco.

U.A.E. etc. To go allegedly towards, you know, Gaza reconstruction, he's saying that the U.S. is going to put in $10 billion. Like,

it's funny to cover, like, Washington and Congress for years and see people, you know, fight about appropriations, battles and, like,

how are we going to spend money and, and, you know, do horse trading, like, do an earmark here, if you vote for this, spending for that.

And he's like, actually, I'm just going to take $10 billion dollars and send it to myself over at the Board of Peace. It's like, oh, you can do that? You can just write a check from the treasury for $10 billion to the Board of Peace.

Meanwhile, it's so crazy that this is happening while Israel is still bombing Gaza. They're bombing Gaza yesterday and like killing people. It's utterly incredible. You know, as you know, Hamas did not agree to disarm as part of this ceasefire. and now Trump is saying you have, you know, what, 60 days or whatever to give up Netanyahu says they have 60,000 AK-47s, which is, feels kind of, it feels like pitiful, like from, for a country that is aside from the United States, maybe the most well-armed in like world history. Right. To be like whining about 60,000 like automatic weapons. Like really, like that, you can't, you can't come to some type of terms of coexistence with the,

with 2 million people who have 60,000 and no access to bullets. Like they're making them up, making them themselves. I mean, you guys have AI systems that can map exactly where any Palestinian is at any time. I mean, remember a few months ago when they assassinated that doctor? I think he was like high up in surgery at one of the hospitals. And they had a drone just go down, find his exact location in the hospital, just killed him. just killed him. I mean, you know, I still sometimes wonder if the average American understands the complete disproportionate nature of this. That's whining about AK-47s as, you know,

there's, Hamas doesn't have missiles. Gaza certainly doesn't have an air defense system like the Iron Dome. It is shooting fish in a barrel. Right. Right. And so that, so, so, so they're saying they're going to have this, they're going to build five military bases that are going to be home to this international stabilization force, 20,000 troops from all over the place, Indonesia, Albania, et cetera, that will be coupled with 12,000 Palestinian police forces. Now Israel is working extremely hard to make sure that it is like these like drug traffickers and organized criminals that they're funding and arming that take on this. this role rather than the actual kind of Palestinian police force that is in Gaza.

So that remains to be a, you know, an open, an open controversy. That, you know, Israel is clearly trying to keep things static, you know, prevent phase two and reconstruction from kicking in, doing as much as they can to then, you know, shrink the population and divide it as much as they can so that these clans that they, these organized crime operations that they arm are the ones that have more control than anybody else. And it's just a replication of their previous tactic prior to the act of genocide post-October 7th, which was openly bragging about funding Hamas because they found them to, or at the very least, openly allowing the Qataris to send money to Hamas. Netanyahu admitted this. There

or quotes of him talking about it because they want to factionalize the Palestinian resistance. It's why Barguti is still imprisoned. And they also want to be able to talk about Hamas as a more Islamist organization versus, say, like, secular and a group that's less difficult to demonize. And they're doing this just in an even more slap down. ashway, but Hamas is on the other side of things now. Right. And Israel kind of put them there because up until 2023 or so, the Netanyahu idea was Hamas is considered to be too toxic of an organization for the international

community to move forward toward a Palestinian state if Hamas is in control. After two and a half years of genocide, they've they've kind of transformed how the how the public and and even like global leaders, you know, think about that question. Because it's like, they are, they were fending off an actual genocide. Like that is that is how they are now seen by, you know, huge portions of the world. And they've come to negotiations in good faith. We should also say that.

I mean, they have been at least abiding by the terms of negotiations as the Israelis wipe their ass with it. right doesn't right right not to be so graphic sorry and saying ahead of time no but saying ahead of time that's what they were going to do with it and then and then and then following through with it still if you poll in europe as as israel has done and we we got leaked we got their leaked polling data Israel is still

you know ahead of hamas when it comes to public opinion but not by much like they they have that's that's how badly they have damaged themselves that it's close. Right. Speaking of toxic names, organizations, I wanted to ask you about this news. I headlined it, but it's actually, it's really significant. Congresswoman Jan Shikowski withdrew her endorsement of Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller. Donna Miller is running in Illinois' second congressional district.

And this is a fairly crowded. primary, but this was her most high profile endorsement, certainly, because Chikowski, gosh, she's like a staple of democratic politics for quite a while. And it was over Donna Miller taking APAC money. Yeah. I mean, this is pretty amazing. Yeah, everybody there loves Jan Chikowski. And that might be a slight exaggeration. Your Chicago, suburban Chicago viewers can put some nuance on that, but it's quite popular. And everybody wants her endorsement in that race. and for her to publicly withdraw her endorsement and explicitly say she was doing it because of Miller's alliance with APAC is kind of a seismic moment electorally. Because also they, and Dave Dane and I reported on this a while ago, and I saw the Washington Post picked it up a couple days ago, which is good.

It's like good for the mainstream press to cover it before. usually they wait until after the election and they'll do a splashy investigation that's like aha, that person that won they were actually funded by APEC. Like, well, good. Good to know, but like, could you have told me that before the election? And so now it's out.

Like, it's public. So, because they, I think it was elect Chicago women is the name of the super PAC that AAC created. They did two. Elect Chicago women. And the other one was like, make Chicago women. affordable or something like that.

So they're literally biting Mamdani's messaging to put on their fake pop-up super pack that is trying to seal that it's A-PAC money. You don't care if Chicago is affordable. And they don't care if they elect Chicago women or men or whatever, like, whatever. But this elect Chicago women has spent millions and millions of dollars and trying to do it in a way where the disclosures wouldn't come out until too late so that nobody would know that it was APEC because if you know it's APEC, then a lot of voters are like, okay, I know now who not to vote for.

Let's look at the rest of the candidates and figure out who I am going to vote for. And it didn't work because they've done this before. And they're the only ones that do this. Like the crypto crowd, like they'll let you know. Like we're coming in with millions of dollars. And you better agree with us on crypto policy. or we will destroy you. And they do it with their chest out.

Because they want people to know, like, who shot this person. And crypto is not toxic enough in primaries. Like, it's not polarizing enough. Like, a lot of people are like, crypto, whatever, everybody uses crypto. You have to be really plugged in to kind of understand and be motivated by that. Meta is dropping 60 million in primaries, but they're telling you, who's doing it. You know,

so basically nobody else does this kind of, we're going to spend all this money and not tell you who it is. So if a dark money operation comes in, and it comes in, the way that we were, they and I were able to figure it out is that all the candidates that they were, that these secret groups were getting behind had one thing in common, which was that they had like 150,

like donors in common or 200 donors in common who are maxing out to all of them and then also to like Josh Gottheimer and like Steve Scalice. So it's like... Who could this be? Who could this possibly be? Yeah. Like and when you see the Republicans thrown in there too, it really helps. It's like, oh, okay, this is like these donors are not in.

They're not in this because of, because it's democratic politics or Republican politics. They're, they're A-PAC donors who are just being told, like, here are the candidates that we're endorsing. So give them money. So then you look at that and it's like, oh, that's the same, those are the same candidates that these PACs are spending all this money behind. And then DMFI, to their credit, that's Democratic majority for Israel in APAC offshoot, they're now out publicly spending. And they're backing these same candidates. So like at least DMFI, they don't run on Israel. They don't put in their ads.

Maybe some mailers to like a pro-Israel neighborhood, but, or to like the targeted list. But their TV ads don't mention Israel. But at least it says DMFI. I mean, listen to the insanity of the conversation that we're having. I mean, one, it's legal in this country to spend an unlimited amount of money as long as you classify it as an independent expense. thanks to the Supreme Court and that time amount of and you don't need to disclose it we have dark money groups spending you know billions in probably in this country in total like um I don't have the numbers in front of me but since Citizens United just it's been an explosion of dark

money an explosion of this kind of super PAC money and it's not even required that you that you have like like pharmaceutical ads have more have way more disclosures about side effects. You shouldn't be able to create a pop-up super pack and conceal that it's actually a pack. I mean, that we don't even have that level of campaign finance law where it's required that you disclose which group and the money's dark, but the group can lie about who they are in TV ads. It's amazing to me. Elect Chicago women. And my guess is that it's going to get worse before if it ever gets better. I think you're going to see

as you get more and more heat on donors because people are getting so sick of this. Even if it's after the election, people are going to find out who gave the money. And then people are going to complain. Right. Like this person sucks. They spend

$100,000. They live in California. They messed up this primary. They suck. We should boycott their company or like they'll write a bad Yelp review or something. And those people are then going to complain that they shouldn't have to suffer any criticism whatsoever for participating in the democratic process. And so I think you'll see even more and more opacity added to the current dark money system so that the thing that we were able to do now of like

cross-check these donors, who knows if we'll be able to do that in 10 years or less? All right. You're putting Grimm and Ryan Grimm here, buddy. It would be the court. I would imagine the Supreme Court would be like, yeah, you know what? This is... We're violating their privacy rights by forcing them to disclose. Yeah. The corporate persons.

And last topic here, before we let you go, Ryan, because it's just still not getting enough attention. The United States is still murdering people in the Caribbean and in the Pacific and off the coasts of this country with these strikes on. on what they claim are drugboats and they provide no evidence to that fact. And in fact, we have evidence to the contrary because there is a lawsuit that's being brought against the Trump administration for one of their previous murders of two men who were working in Venezuela. And I believe they were from Trinidad and Tobago. And they were just workers that were coming back, I think, either home, from a long stint in Venezuela where they were working.

And they brought a lawsuit against the Trump administration. That lawsuit hasn't deterred them. They've resumed these strikes. Yeah. And my co-host Emily made an interesting observation this week that I hadn't thought of, though I think. And I think I didn't think of it because I never took the administration's rationale for their legal rationale for their strikes remotely seriously. but if you if you do take it seriously for a second it has unraveled because of the medoro kidnapping like the original like legal argument on behalf of the strikes is that this these are this is a

terrorist organization that is using drugs to make profit and then funneling its profits into this this maduro terrorist organization that is that war with the united states and it's the war with the United States is that it's sending like migrants or whatever to the U.S. That was how they claimed that this was some kind of combat and that you can get the Pentagon involved. So the lynchpin of that argument was Maduro and that he was overseeing this giant, you know, terrorist enterprise that was at war with the United States. According to Trump, he recognizes Delci Rodriguez as the legitimate ruler of Venezuela.

She's doing a fantastic job. That's what he keeps saying. doing everything that we want her to do. She's in constant communication with Rubio and his subordinates. And so who are the drug dealers sending their financing to that would justify this as a legal measure? So they have completely evaporated there. And I'm... Their own idiotic, unfounded legal rationale.

And, and, I mean, we could also talk about how they don't have any authority on this, like the 2001, 2002 AUMFs are supposed to be about, even in their broadest definition, the Middle East. I mean, this is a, how is this a claim that this is in response to 9-11? Because that's what would have to happen if you were using the authorizations for these military force. So, I mean, it's insanity, but I'm also now even confused as to, like, what this sadism is designed to. to provoke because I, the theory, before we kidnapped Maduro was that I thought that they were trying to provoke Maduro into a response to justify action in, in Venezuela, military action. Like, what is your theory on what the, the motive is about this? I'm killing for the sake of killing at this point.

You know, I think killing takes on its own moment. men, like Hegseth and Trump are like, it's your bloodthirsty people. Like there's no, there's no other, really explanation for it. Yeah, I guess so. Like what, like, they're not stopping cocaine from getting into the country. I mean, like by taking out a couple boats, like what? Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's totally insane.

It's totally wild. And yeah, it doesn't even slow them down that they, that they undercut their own rationale for doing it. Shows how they didn't even believe remotely their own rationale for it. I mean, were they emboldened by, you would say, the momentum of Congress failing to reign in the wartime authority? Like, I mean, this is also a way to just basically throw the middle finger up at, at, like, at the legislature. which they have neutered very effectively and say, you know, you want to try to say that like under the Constitution that Congress is supposed to give the authorization for war,

well, you failed at that and we're going to keep doing it. Yeah, I think at a higher level, it's like, and Trump has spoken about this kind of publicly, in his mind, he held back in Trump one. out of respect for like institutions, norms, and rules. Like that's his and frankly, comparing Trump one to Trump too, he actually did hold back what he was capable of. Like clearly.

Yeah. Well, he had handlers that held him back. Like, I mean, unlike now. Yeah. Right. And he feels like his payback for that was, you know, the fake news media calling him terrible things and the Democrats charging him with zillions of crimes and trying to throw him in prison.

So this time around, he's just going to do whatever he wants. And what he realized is that he can. Like he can bomb a boat and kill a bunch of people and go to his next meeting and wake up the next day a free man and do it again. And again and again and again. He can bomb Iran. He can kidnap the president of Venezuela. He can, you know, he can do tariffs. the Supreme Court will tell him he can't.

He's going to put him right back on through some other on validity legal mechanism and just outrun everybody. So yeah, what he realized is where everybody else is saying, wait, you can do that.

He's like, yeah, watch me. I'm going to do it. And I think that's where, you know, to tie a bow on this, Epstein, the lack of accountability, the lack of justice for this class of people. It's the story of everything since Iran-Contra.

It's the story of the creation of the Epstein class. It's the story of the devolution of American democracy because it has created an impunity for those in power, and they have taken full advantage in Trump's the best example. Indeed. All right. Well, Ryan Grimm and Kitty, adorable. cat. I got two cats, Ryan. I'm a first time cat owner.

For the first time in my life, I always grew up with dogs. But I'm, I see, I see what, I realize I loved them the other day when I saw a movie and there was a cat in it and I started crying. And I'm like, okay, wow, they've gotten my heart now. We have a dog and the dog is not a fan of the cats. I'll tell you that. Oh, wow. All right. Wow, that's some rancor in the grim household.

I appreciate you coming on today. Everybody, of course, please support DropSite News, essential in this time period. And also, of course, breaking points. Check out breaking points as well. Thanks so much, Ryan. Support it all. Do it. Throw all your money at it.

Exactly. Exactly right. Thanks so much. Talk to you later. See you. All right. Quick break, folks. And when we come back, we will be joined by our next guest, Newsgirls.

We are back and we are joined now by Ren Woodson and Mabel Kobani, hosts of the News Girls podcast. They've been covering a lot, including the Jeffrey Epstein saga. Hey, guys, thanks so much for coming on the show. Yeah, thanks for having us. Yeah, I'm happy to have you. I didn't know this. I was getting a little bit of rundown from producers over here that you guys had previously worked at CBS and 60 Minutes. just reflect and maybe,

Ren, you can take this first on what you're seeing now out of CBS News after the Zionist takeover. I mean, it's really tragic to watch because we still care so much about the network. And Mabel and I send each other articles all the time, like we are so glad

we don't work there anymore because, and we talk to our old colleagues, and they all feel like they feel like they feel so shut down from the journalism they used to be able to do. Their freedom is like being kind of stripped away. So it's really sad. It's really hard to watch. Mabel, what was the environment there previously? And what are you hearing maybe from people that you used to work with about what it's like now? I mean, the restrictions on them, for example. Yeah, Ren and I were there for like five years.

and the environment was super different. You would think of CBS as pretty like in the middle, down the center when you were thinking of like other networks. And when we were there, it was this very old fashioned place. We'd always refer to CBS as this like dinosaur we were working at because everything was just very old fashioned. Even if you wanted to get something out of archives, you would have to get like a physical tape ship like bought on on a truck from New Jersey to CBS.

That was just kind of the style. People were working there for like 30. 30 years their whole lives. And so when we were there, that was kind of the culture. So it's sad to see how an institution that's been around for so long can change within like less than a year because it seems like it's completely different now. And it, I mean, they've, what's that guy, Peter Attia? Oh, wait, no, that was the health guy. He's the health guy. Barry Weiss has decided despite his involvement in the Epstein saga that that just he's too essential. I guess providing health guru stuff.

Longevity advice. Yeah. Longevity advice to fire. I mean, unbelievable, he was in those Epstein emails like a lot. And including, didn't he have an anecdote in his book

about how he couldn't be with his wife and his child who was experiencing health difficulties right after being born? Because he was on his grind set. And then people put it together that in the emails he was with Jeffrey Epstein. Oh, no. Yeah.

Apparently, CBSHR wanted to fire him. That's what we're hearing. We know staffers really wanted him gone right, run, but apparently Barry Weiss just like really didn't want to give into this woke mob mentality of trying to fire him and wanted to keep him. Yeah, that's part of her whole ethos is being against the grain. But I guess keeping him, there's some insider reporting that that's one of the reasons that Anderson Cooper is leaving, kind of like driven away.

obviously the whole Barry Weiss presence and what she's been doing in the company is probably the main reason, but that Atio was kind of the cherry on top. Well, Anderson Cooper leaving, if maybe you can take this. What does that mean? I mean, he's kind of a staple of 60 Minutes at this point. He works for both CNN and 60 Minutes. But does this portend, I don't know, other hosts maybe abandoning CBS News, even though 60 Minutes, an institution if they don't have the editorial control that they want, I would imagine that this is

going to be an exodus that's broader. Yeah, we have seen reporting actually that Barry Weiss wants to push two other correspondents out, Sharon Alfonzi and Scott Pelly, which are, they've been there for a really long time. Scott Pelley was, if there is a leader of 60 minutes where there really isn't, but he's kind of the main face of it. And so, yeah, we're presuming 60 minutes just won't be the same. Anderson leaving. There's another reason. I mean, he says it's because he wants to spend more time on CNN. He has like three projects there.

He has young kids. That's what his public statement is. But like Ren mentioned, obviously Peter Attia is saying the new leadership is impacting this. Apparently, they also got involved with one of his 60 Minutes pieces and kind of axed them. He was going to do an investigative piece into Trump allowing like white South African refugees to come to the U.S. And Barry Weiss axed it saying, you know, this is not ready to take. air. And so that's probably another big reason that he's leaving. And I would guess, and Ren, I'd love your thoughts on this, that they're going to be elevating and just

increasing the workload of their most reliable mouthpiece. Tony two cuts, Tony Dockapol. Oh, my God. Tony DeCopal is such an embarrassment at this point, which is sad because I actually really, I used to watch when we worked there out of loyalty. I watched CBS mornings every morning. And I actually really liked him on there. He did a good job. But it's like ever since having this opportunity to be promoted, he's kind of sold out to this, their new ethos, which is very much kind of of of both sides.

Like that's what we've seen. They're trying to make everything a both sides issue. When Renee Good was shot, that was his hit a viral clip where he was saying, you know, people think different things. We just have to understand each other, which is just so not what CBS has historically been and even the reporting he did. So I don't know if he saw dollar signs. I don't know why

he personally shifted so much. I would imagine the dollar signs had something to do with it. I wanted to get your guys' reaction to this. Trump yesterday was asked about Prince Andrew's former Prince Andrew, although the people that

are removing Prince from it are trying to absolve the royal family. No, no, no. This guy, brother of the king. Brother of the king, okay? So he's former prince, sure, Andrew. Trump was asked about his arrest over his ties to Epstein. And the charges that are being brought against him for misconduct are not, we should be clear, related to, you know, say Virginia Jufre's accusations against Prince Andrew of him, that, you know, raping her. and it's about misconduct.

And so it's about similarly to the other Labor Party guy who's named Peter Mandelson. It's about providing inside information to Jeffrey Epstein, which is like, you know, whatever. It's like getting Al Capone on taxes, that kind of thing. So Trump is asked about this and he expresses sadness. And I think you guys can probably guess who he's sad for. I got a question about something big overseas today, the former Prince Andrews, arrested by the police there, related to something with Jeffrey Epstein.

Do you think people in this country at some point, associates of Jeffrey Epstein, will wind up in handcuffs too? Well, you know, I'm the expert in a way because I've been totally exonerated. That's very nice. I can actually speak about it very nicely. I think it's a shame. I think it's very sad. I think it's so bad for the royal family.

It's very, very sad. And to me, it's a very sad thing. When I see that, it's a very sad thing. To see it and to see what's going on with his brother, who's obviously coming to our country very soon, and he's a fantastic man, the king. So I think it's a very sad thing. It's really interesting because nobody used to speak about Epstein

when he was alive, but now they speak. But I'm the one that can talk about it because I've been totally exonerated. I did nothing. In fact, the opposite. He was against me. He was fighting me in the election, which I just found out through the last.

last three million pages of documents. Yeah, please. You, he always wants to control the narrative. And frankly, he's almost a savant in that, in that area. I mean, it's been his political talent. Is his, like, he's a PR savant.

This isn't going to work. I've been totally exonerated without, like, there being any news story that would even justify it, like, slightly. There's been, the opposite of exoneration, the more information that we get, the more guilty Donald Trump looks. And him not expressing sadness for the victims there, but reflexively expressing sadness for the royal family is, I mean, how much more do we want to say about it? Mabel or Ren, either of you

guys react to that. I mean, it was, he did the same thing when Bill Clinton popped up in the first drop in December. He was like, oh, I feel so bad for Bill Clinton. Like, he doesn't deserve this. he actually like hopped across the aisle to rush to Bill Clinton's defense. So it seems like anyone that's, you know, being persecuted in his words for the Epstein files, he just finds an immediate ally. So this is not surprising, but it's very disappointing that he's continuing to go on this narrative that's just like working against him. Yeah, I mean, exactly. It's working against him, but also he's just cornered on this.

And I do think it's impacting him a little bit because, um, This is him quite literally showing class solidarity with the elites. And he's defending royals. And that's what the Epstein story, I think, always was a stand-in for, was just this, this anger that people have about elite impunity. And Trump is demonstrating it right there on Air Force One. Yeah, which is really a nonpartisan issue. Like, we see even in our coverage, people on both sides are really fired up right now and trying to get justice for what we're. we're reading in these files. So it's really, if he is normally so good at PR, this is not going to

help him. This is going to backfire even within his base. Right. And you guys, is this, is it right that you've interviewed some survivors? Yeah, we interviewed a Trump survivor who also met Epstein and Epstein attempted to traffic her. Yeah. Can you tell us a bit about that? Yeah, her name is Beatrice Kuhl. She was basically invited to participate in one of Trump's beauty pageants. And she actually reached out to us in the midst of all of our reporting because Ren and I decided when these files came out to kind of just contribute all of our time to digging through them and reporting exclusively on Epstein for the past couple weeks. And yeah, it was a really sad story because we have, she's from Switzerland. So this is, you know, an example of a victim from overseas that was basically brought to the U.S. under the guise of this pageant. and she basically met

or she met Trump and he invited her up to his room and allegedly attacked her. She says that her height actually saved her. She's like really tall. What is she like 5.11? She's like six feet. Six feet tall, yeah.

And she said she was able to kind of get away but this was something that really scarred her. Yeah. And then after the attempted assault, she says he immediately was like if you tell anyone about this, like your life is over basically. was immediately threatening her into silence. And then so she ended up keeping quiet until a couple years ago

when a lot of Trump allegations were coming out before the last presidential election, she finally felt comfortable speaking. And then she also said at that same pageant, Epstein was also there on the prowl going up to women and had approached her and was like, you need to come to Mar-a-Lago with us. And she was getting a really creepy vibe from him. And she said he actually was not charming, Whereas Trump was very suave and charming, Epstein wasn't.

Like she didn't even know who he was, obviously, but she could tell something was wrong, like off about this guy. And she just kept saying, no, no, no, but he kept pushing. And actually, she said at the end of the conversation, he looked pissed off that she was not, like, willing to go with him or even give him her number. And that's a really important anecdote, the fact that he was not charming, because we are hearing the excuses from Les Wexner from yesterday in his testimony to the oversight committee that gosh, I just fell under this guy's spell.

I mean, what could I do? I just had to have him live in my house. I had to give him power of attorney over all of my finances. I had to give him millions and millions of dollars. I mean, like, he was living in Wexner's apartment, I believe, then also like kind of shacking up with him in in Ohio, if I'm remembering correctly. Like, and, and that is what the convenient excuse is for the elites that are implicated in this, is that Epstein was just so charming, but it's, it doesn't seem to be the case.

It's the trafficking. Yeah. Yes. No, we were surprised here that too. We hadn't heard anyone come out and say he wasn't charming before. And you think because he was luring in all of these. people that he would be like just Mr. outgoing, Mr. Charisma, but we see. No, it seems like the power that he had over these elites was potentially the information, obviously, that he had on them. We did this deep dive into kind of Bill Gates' relationship

with Epstein. And there were some emails going back and forth that showed that Bill Gates and Epstein were really close at a certain point. And during their falling out, Epstein was basically threatening Bill Gates saying, I'll expose your affair. If, because, because Bill Gates had an affair at the time and Epstein was very involved. I'll expose your affair if you know, you cut ties with me. So it was clear that Epstein wanted to keep powerful, rich people closed, had information on them and was willing to sell them out if they cut ties. What else did you guys find in regard to these pageants?

Because Trump's involvement in pageants and modeling sort of events and Epstein's closeness with him during. that time period feels very much like, you know, there's a lot of evidence that this, yeah, may have been modeling agency sort of or whatever, but it's also a vehicle for trafficking. Yeah, that's actually a topic we're still, we're actively working on an investigation about. But it does seem like that was a huge gateway for him to come across women, kind of have a constant influx of women and that he allowed, at least this is how Beatrice put it when she was talking to us, another predator to hunt on his territory and would invite Epstein in. And she even said there were

other men who were kind of doing the same thing, kind of predating basically on women at these pageants. So it seems like... Did that involve girls as well, not just women? I mean, when you spoke to Beatrice, did she speak about there being underage girls there? No, she didn't speak about it at that pageant. We do know that underage girls were involved because within this model sphere, we know that Jean-Luc Brunel was involved. And he was obviously Epstein's best friend. He had a modeling agency, MC2 models. And that was also part of this entire tangled web of, you know, trafficking girls, bringing them to New York, giving them apartments that Epstein owned.

And being like, here, this is a model apartment, but it's basically just 10 blocks from Epstein's Upper East Side Town. house and they would just be taken back and forth to Epstein's townhouse. We found emails that were like, pick the girls up from this apartment and bring them to my townhouse at 10 a.m. So we know that this was all going on. And when you guys have been doing your deep dives into the files, how many other billionaires are implicated here besides Bill Gates, Wexner, some of the other people we've mentioned? Oh my goodness. I am so happy you ask that question because I I spent a whole week of my life looking into this.

And the total and just the most recent files was 25. Wow. Which just in the most recent tranche, so that's the last three million, that's almost 1% of the world's billionaires. I was just about to look up how many billionaires are there and do a little quick math. So thank you. It's hard to mentally grab. And that's people he's actively communicating with.

Like I don't understand how someone has this much social stamina. because that's just a drop in the bucket for who Epstein socialized with. But yeah, it was 25 other billionaires. And I want to say the allegations, there's quite a spectrum of things that they're accused of. It's like from Mark Zuckerberg just sitting next to Epstein at a business dinner, all the way to Leon Black, who is accused of sexually assaulting countless women. So we don't want to treat all of the billionaires like the same level of guilty or like their accusations of the same level of bad, but some of them are.

But I mean, fraternizing with him in and of itself is obviously suspicious, but like, okay, so you got Leon Black on one side of the spectrum. Like, what would you say are the billionaires that they're not getting enough attention for more glaring evidence of misconduct and perhaps criminality? He is definitely number one. Yeah. And I'm glad to see, I know he owns Shutter Sock. Mabel just did some reporting on this yesterday that people are boycotting Shutterstock

and its subsidiaries because of Leon Black. Yeah, we found out that school districts are canceling their class picture days because Shutter. So Leon Black was the CEO of like a global fund manager that owns Shutterfly that owns LifeTouch, which is the company that takes school pictures. And so these school districts in Texas, one in Arizona, a couple in Michigan, canceled their school picture days because parents were concerned that Lifetka. would basically get access to their students' pictures, and Leon Black was involved,

and obviously he's implicated in all of this. So the ripple effect is like insane that it's reached, you know, this point, but it's valid because we're not getting answers. So everyone's speculations are kind of at like the highest level of what could possibly be happening. Yeah. So he's number one. I would say the Dubens are number two. I don't know if you're familiar with them. Glenn and Ava Dubin were really close friends of Epstein's. And one of the emails that has honestly haunted me the most was one that Ava Dubin sent Epstein after he was already a convicted sex offender. He emailed Epstein that her teenage daughter was having five friends over next week and that he should come by. That was him. Wow. Okay. Yeah. Wow. So Dubin is a billionaire

and hedge fund manager who has donated to Democrats. So just, you know, when we're talking about some of the bipartisan nature of this and why this was not revealed and why justice was not pursued. There you go. And there's another, and Mabel, you should, you can get into this way more than I can. Ava Dubin is a doctor, very high up, very powerful at Mount Sinai. And Epstein had some, like, privileges at these hospitals because of her, right? Mabel? Yeah, so she was, her and her husband started like the Dubin Breast Center at Mount Sinai. And because they're the these billionaire donors, Epstein had special access to Mount Sinai doctors who would treat the girls that would come stay with him. They helped him get ambulances for his island and his ranch in New Mexico.

And just all of this special access, he had a VIP line to the hospital and just all of these, again, privileges because of his contacts to these billionaires. I mean, this is where when we talk about why all of these freak billionaires prefer philanthropy, It's, I was naive about it, I guess, in the sense, like, I just thought, oh, this is, it's vanity and it's in their control and it's much less than they would be taxed. But it's not just that. It's special privileges like the girls that were trafficking and raping get medical attention for the wing that we've donated, for example. No, exactly. Like, seeing the people and the institutions, like hospitals, you know, universities that were all a part of this and kind of giving him this like, okay, you're a.

convicted sex trafficker, but we'll just be close with you anyway, is something that was really, really shocking to us because there's just so many people involved. Right. Yeah, he visited the Harvard campus about 40 times a year. He had an office there because he was really close to the guy who oversaw the evolutionary studies program. And Epstein had a personal interest in a certain type of eugenics called transhumanism. So it was like a side project passion for him.

Can you elaborate on that? Sure, what transhumanism is? Yeah, just for, because I mean, we kind of touched on in our previous interview about his obsession with, you know, he was a Jewish supremacist. Yeah, so transhumanism is using computer science and AI to edit DNA, basically edit parts of the human body to make humans better, superior. And he did, I guess, I don't know how into the eugenics you went in your last segment. But he thought he had, yeah, superior seed, and he wanted to impregnate up to 20 women at a time at his New Mexico branch.

I mean, this is Elon's belief system, by the way. I know. I mean, eugenics is a widely held belief by the billionaire class, the Epstein class. Yeah. And to tie back to the institutions, we learned from the latest files. It's up to now 30 top scientists that Epstein, like in addition to the almost 30 billionaires. he was also talking to 30 top scientists,

and they've said off the record the reason they even entertained him because he, as they said, wasn't an intellectual imposter. He did not have a lot to say, and his ideas were pretty ludicrous, but he could give them millions of dollars, and he did, and that's how he got this office at Harvard, and they were just so blinded by the money

that they were willing to go along with it. And we're seeing reporting now that he was really close to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee. It's everyone. Like that's the highest, you know, level of honor you can get in the world. And he was using his contacts there as like leverage to, we saw an email with Bill Gates. Like to someone from Bill Gates staff, Epstein was like, I can get him a Nobel Peace Prize for his work on polio because I'm close to the Norwegians. So just seeing how he leverages these contacts is insane.

That's how he kept this very, you know, tight bubble of powerful people. back to a little bit of your guys's history with CBS. What was your interaction with this story when you were at CBS? Yeah, my first story at 60 Minutes was actually on Epstein, and it was before he even died. So it was before people really knew about him. We were investigating his crimes in Florida specifically, and so we were focusing a lot on victims, testimony, and deposition. and it was kind of crazy to see this guy that nobody talked about being kind of given a handoff from the Department of Justice and from, you know, the Florida Justice Department.

So that was what that piece was about when I was there. But Epstein died in the middle of the work that we were doing. And everyone was obviously talking about, you know, did he kill himself? Was this a murder? So we at 60 minutes got special autopsy photos that nobody had yet. So we had just like hundreds of naked pictures of Epstein. and we were like, we need to kind of address this conspiracy that the country is debating right now. And so we switched the piece at the last minute and it kind of became about Epstein's death.

You guys saw photos of Jeffrey Epstein naked? Mabel. Mabel saw it all. She saw it all. So is the corksure thing real? I asked the same question. It's hard to tell because he was dead. But it seemed pretty normal.

So I, sorry to everybody. Don't need to know more. Don't need to know more. I just, I mean, that's like, I mean, the fact that Mabel, you get to say that that's a pretty, pretty crazy story that you have on your belt. It's unfortunate, yeah. Unfortunate. But, I mean, that kind of puts to lie the more crazy conspiracy theories that he's still alive in Israel, for example. Do you guys have a take on what happened on the day that you died? Yes. Now that, like, given, I don't know, any recent revelations?

Well, I do have the pin Mabel gave me that says Epstein did not kill himself. And I thought about wearing it today, but I decided to be more professional. Well, I mean, you're on the wrong podcast for being professional. But what's, yeah, I would love to know your guys is just take, given the fact that you've done such a deep dive on his death. Well, because the piece was basically evaluating from these autopsy photos, whether he had killed himself or not, We had experts come on and basically analyze the way that he died and came to the conclusion that he did kill himself. You know, the specific neck break that he had indicated that he was using this rope to try

to kill himself. There was no, there were no bruising or dirt under his nails or on his skin that would indicate any kind of struggle. So I'm still of the belief that that is what happened. But of course, the circumstances under his death are suspicious, the security guard, the missing tape. The fact that we haven't really been able to talk to the security guard, why were you the, like, what was happening in that environment is still suspicious. So we also know that he was under suicide watch at the time. Like he had tried to kill himself

before. And so he was put under specific watch like extra security to make sure he didn't do that. So how was he allowed to do that? I think that's really suspicious. I think you can also foresee a scenario where it's like, you have five minutes. Do you do this? we do it for you and that figure that was seen walking up the stairwell with extra betting according to, I think it was like the FBI report on it

that was cut out of the footage that the Trump administration released would indicate that perhaps it was somebody saying like you know what's up now. Like you do it or I do it for you. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's what I believe.

Yeah. They like just gave him the opportunity and he he did it. Yeah, it's not that easy to kill yourself in prison, especially if you're no, no. And I just, and reading all of this and getting a dive into his psychology, it's just it maybe, I mean, you got, you know more than me, maple given what you've seen, but it just, I, he, he, this was somebody who had like immense confidence in, in his impunity and his ability to get out of stuff. And so I wonder like how he could have felt cornered because it doesn't seem like this sociopathic narcissist even had the ability.

ability to feel like he was a cornered man. I completely agree. He was so arrogant. He thought the rules did not apply to him. And I think the way that he got out of his first arrest and conviction so easily, he barely served any jail time. Why would he think this would be any different than that? That's my, that's, you know, those are the questions that remain. But I really appreciate you guys coming on today.

Thank you so much. And where can people listen to your podcast and, and follow your work specifically even, you know, on Epstein and all these deep dives you guys are doing. Yeah, we do. We come out with daily reports on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, so you can follow us, newsgirls dot reports. So we come out with daily bite-sized kind of information and then longer form interviews and kind of analysis on CBS and Epstein on our YouTube. So you can follow us there. Awesome. We'll put a link to that down below wherever people are listening to or watching this. Thanks so much for coming on, Mabel and Ren. I appreciate it.

your time. Thank you so much. Of course. All right guys with that we're going to wrap up the free part of this program head into the fun half in just a second. As a reminder, this show relies on your support. If you go to join the majority report.com you can become a member. You can IAM the show. Keeps us resilient in the case of deep-platforming and things like that. So you, not YouTube, join the majority report.com. Also want to say, we'll put a link to this down below. I don't know if we have it there. Next week, I'm doing a, I'm going to be a part of this David Griscombe's book launch, which I'm really excited about.

David Griscombe has a book that is coming out, The Myth of Red, Texas. I'm going to be hosting and moderating the panel on that. And I think it's sold out, but that there's still a. like a standing room option. I'm forgetting exactly what it is. But check the link if you want to go to that in New York City. It's next Wednesday. So I wanted to make sure I plug that.

And then of course... Yeah, looks like you can still reserve a spot on a Ben Brite, but I think it might be sold out. Yeah. So there's still... Just wanted to plug that in the, in case people haven't heard about it. I'm really pumped and honored to have been asked by David. And then also, of course, if you're in L.A. and you want

to come to the Bituation Room live, it is in like a month and a few days now. The 22nd of March, I'm going to be at Dynasty Typewriter in L.A. When we're going to have special guests, myself and Francesca Furentini. It should be a really awesome show.

So link down below for that Dynasty Typewriter, March 22nd. Matt, what's happening on Left Reckoning with Jacobin? Yeah, speaking of David Griscombe. He had Cornell West on earlier, and that aired this morning on the Jacobin Meg YouTube channel, go subscribe to Jacobin. It was very funny because it was just a chance to get Cornell West on the Jacobin show, but Cornell heard about

David's book, and Cornell's from Oklahoma himself, so it has a very keen interest in Texas politics and kept the conversation back to David's book and a helpful way for promotion. So shout out Cornel West for that. Go check out that interview over at the Jacob and Meg YouTube channel. All right. We are

going to head into the fun half. See you there. Okay, Emma, please. Well, I just, I feel that my voice is sorely lacking in the majority report. Wait, what? Look, Sam is unpopular. I do deserve a vacation at Disney World. So, ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to welcome Emma to the show. It is Thursday.

I think you need to do it for Sam. That's police. Sir, I'm going to pause you right there. Wait, what? You can't encourage Emma to live like this. And I'll tell you why. So it's offered a twerk, sushi, and poker with the, Boys.

Twerk, sushi and poker with the boys. Who's offered boys? What? Twirp? Suci and pooh. That's what we call biz. I just think that what you did to Tim Poole was mean. Free speech.

That's not what we're about here. Look at how sad he's become now. You shouldn't even talk about it because I think you're responsible. I probably am in a certain way, but let's get to the meltdown here. Twirp. Oh, sushi and poker with the boys. Oh my God. Twirl.

Wow. Sushi. I'm sorry. I'm losing my fucking mind. Someone's offered a twir? Sushi and poker with the boys. Logic. Twerp.

Sushi and like a little kid. A little kid. Add this debate seven thousand times. A little kid. I think I'm like a little kid. Little kid. I think I'm not trying to be a dick right now, but like I absolutely think the U.S. should be providing me with a wife and kids.

That's not what we're talking about here. It's not a fun job. twerk. That's a real thing. That's a real fit. That's a real fit. Boy. Willie Walker.

That's a real thing. That's a real thing. That's a real thing. That's a real thing. Sam has like the weight of the world on the shoulders. It was so much easier. One of the majority of the majority of report was just you. You were happy.

Let's change the subject. Rangers and Nick are going right. Now, shut up. Don't want people saying reckless things on your program. That's one of the most difficult parts about this show. This is a pro-killing podcast. I'm thinking maybe. is best.

Violet twerk. Emma is cuck. To the right of the unsle of policy. We already fund this real dude. Incredible theme song.

I bumbler. Emma Viglin, absolutely one of my favorite people. Actually, not just in the game. Like, period.