The Tim Dillon Show - 476 - Epstein Docs & A Culture Of Slop

Episode Date: December 27, 2025

Tim reflects on the year that was 2025: a montage of Epstein files, LA fires, foreign wars, Ai slop, political violence, and gross comfort. Tim also sits down with journalist Ryan Grim from Drop Site ...News for a very informative interview about the life and crimes of Jeffrey Epstein.  American Royalty Tour 🎟  https://punchup.live/TimDillon Check out drop site news! https://www.dropsitenews.com/ SPONSORS:  Lucy Level Up Your Nicotine Routine! Go To https://lucy.co/TIM & Use Promo Code “TIM” to get 20% OFF Your First Order  Ridge Wallet Take advantage of Ridge’s Biggest Sale of the Year and GET UP TO 47% Off by going to https://www.Ridge.com/TIMDILLON #Ridgepod #sponsored Neuro Gum  Go to https://neurogum.com & Use Code “TIM” For 20% OFF Your First Order!  Stash Go To https://get.stash.com/TIM To Get $25 OFF Your First Stock Purchase!  Quince  Go To https://quince.com/TIM For FREE Shipping On Your Order & 365 Day Returns!  ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/@TimDillonShow?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram: https://instagram.com/timjdillon/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TimJDillon Listen on Spotify! https://open.spotify.com/show/2gRd1woKiAazAKPWPkHjds?si=e8000ed157e441c8 Merch:  https://store.timdilloncomedy.com/ For every $400,000 we gross in revenue, we are donating five dollars to end homelessness in Los Angeles. We are challenging other creators to do the same. #TimGivesBack

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Tim Dillon Show. It is our final show of the year and what a year it has been. We are now, when we look on the Spotify charts, number 19 or 20, it has been the biggest year in the show's history. And we thank you all for listening and supporting us. And we do appreciate it. We do appreciate it. And we created quite a little stir last week.
Starting point is 00:00:30 week with our critique of Turning Point USA. Again, not to be rude, just an observation from a observer. That's my job, is to observe. And just a little less dancing with the stars energy is all. That's all. Fun holiday season this year. I mean, you know, I love my family. I'm not super close with my family.
Starting point is 00:01:00 I mean, let's just say the Reiner's had a better holiday season than I had. I mean, let's just, you know, there's still a closer family than mine. That doesn't mean that there's not a lot of love out there, and I still love everyone. And there's elements of my family I like. There's elements of the intelligence community that are good. There's factions that are good. But it is good to be here. And we have a great interview later coming up with.
Starting point is 00:01:28 Ryan Grimm from Dropsite News. He talks about Jeffrey Epstein. Apparently this guy's, that guy was a pedophile. And all of these new revelations are coming out. One of the things I regret not asking Ryan about, because literally it slipped my mind was this allegation from a limo driver that supposedly
Starting point is 00:01:44 Donald Trump got in his limo and got on the phone and started talking about abusing a woman with Jeffrey Epstein. And then the woman was found dead and key for Oklahoma. And the problem with a lot of this stuff right now is that I don't have a way to verify it and like the Larry Nassar letter
Starting point is 00:02:09 that Jeffrey Epstein wrote Larry Nassar, the gymnast, pedophile monster, is widely believed to be fake. There are things in the files that are fake. And there's what's called disinfo where because one thing's fake, it'll cast out on all kinds of things. The FBI is saying the Epstein letter to Larry Nasser was a fake. So it's hard to know what is real or what is not. There's a lot of things that are very disturbing and that are, you know, true.
Starting point is 00:02:38 And like no one's disputing that, right? A lot of the photographs are true. A lot of the people, the flight logs are true. The amount of times people have been on his plane that are in his orbit. But this rape allegation, it's being reported on by media. and it was from a somebody who was driving Donald Trump's limo
Starting point is 00:03:02 and he submitted it in 2020. It's an unclassified intake report summarizing information provided to the FBI related to Jeffrey Epstein and Jislane Maxwell according to the report, a caller relayed secondhand accounts involving a woman who claimed she was raped by Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump in the late 1990s. The intake also notes they include statements attributed to a limousine driver
Starting point is 00:03:27 who said he overheard Trump speaking was someone he referred to as Jeffrey while riding in the back of a limo allegedly making comments about abusing girls. The report describes the caller recounting events from around 1997 through 1999, including claims that the woman and her daughters were introduced to wealthy individuals,
Starting point is 00:03:47 taken to hotels, and provided with money. The intake further states that the woman reported what she said happen. She later died January 2000. Her death was ruled a suicide. But according to the document, responding officers reportedly did not believe it was a suicide at the scene.
Starting point is 00:04:05 This is a document in the Epstein files. Again, I should have asked Ryan about it. I asked him about other things. I asked him about the Epstein, the Mark Epstein letter, whether that's true or not, to the FBI claiming that his brother was about to name names.
Starting point is 00:04:20 and he felt that Donald Trump signed off on his murder. Again, I'm not authenticating these documents. That's not what I'm doing. So a lot of disturbing stuff. And what a way to end the year? Let's just take a minute. Let's take a beat. Let's think.
Starting point is 00:04:36 Let's marinate. Let's, you know, let's grab a tea kettle. Let's sit there. Let's curl up with a book. You see all these beautiful families in the matching pajamas. and I love that. Very pro-family. Always have been. And they curl up in the comfy chair. Let's curl up in the comfy chair and get the hot cocoa and reflect back on a pretty wild year.
Starting point is 00:05:02 This is where we are. This is the end of the year. You know, a lot of people thought that the Trump administration was going to be the most transparent administration in history. That was claimed. But they dragged their feet on releasing this stuff. They said it didn't exist. Cash Patel came out and said there was, you know,
Starting point is 00:05:28 no operation. There's no co-conspirators. Nothing's going on. And then after a revolt led by people like Thomas Massey, Rokana, who's a Democrat, you know, Marjorie Taylor Green, ends up leaving Congress. This is a big deal.
Starting point is 00:05:45 They don't want this out. This unlocks a lot more than, you know, a, you know, a, you know, story about a creepy, wealthy, well-connected pedophile. This unlocks a lot of things about the people who rule us, how governments operate the things you read about in the news. so this is a very big deal and these documents are only starting to come out and supposedly there's like a million more documents
Starting point is 00:06:21 that they found it's like another million documents that could come out so this is how we end the year we end the year you know talking about rape claims and people getting shot in the head and limo drivers
Starting point is 00:06:37 and Bill Clinton in the pool which is Lane Maxwell this is how we end the year for old acquaintance be for God. I mean, this is how we end the year. What a dispiriting and demoralizing way to end the year reading about the ruling class and how they've been behaving.
Starting point is 00:07:09 So it's just to reflect on that. The truth is coming out about a lot of people. And I think it will get worse. I don't know. That's not information I have on any good authority. I just believe things like this tend to get worse. And there's a reason that they didn't want these documents out. This is not, you know, this is not, you know, like, you know, we're all clumsy, you know.
Starting point is 00:07:42 the whole thing with Pam Bondi, she's a kook and she's clumsy and she's bungled it. No, I think she was doing what she was supposed to do, which is, you know, keep it from the public. She's bungled it. She's so disorganized. No, I don't think that's what it is. There was that whole incompetence theory. She's got a bunch of papers on her desk and she doesn't know which ones are which.
Starting point is 00:08:07 And, you know, the idea that it was like a three stooges sketch and she couldn't to figure out what file had the Epstein files in it? Wait a minute. No, I think it was chaos by design. A million more Epstein documents have been found. Justice Department says, and this is in the New York Times, Democratic lawmakers who had criticized
Starting point is 00:08:31 the Justice Department's release to the material accused the Trump administration of violating the law mandating the release of the files. Now, they want Bill Clinton to testify. But Trump came out and defended, Clinton the other day. He was like, I don't like all these photos of Clinton out there. These people are, you know, they didn't do anything wrong. They're just in a bunch of photos. And I don't like that. You know, I don't like that. So you do see there is a bipartisan consensus
Starting point is 00:09:02 amongst some people to keep this hush, hush. And then there's a lot of people that want this stuff out in the open. And it seems to be generational. A lot of the younger people or people that, you know, aren't implicated, don't seem to have a problem with putting this stuff out there. But a lot of people are trying to keep this stuff from public view. And it's pretty obvious. You know, and they want Clinton to testify. Now, behind the scenes in the Democratic Party of Hillary and Bill and other people,
Starting point is 00:09:41 lobby and going, you can't open this can of worms. This is going to be a big problem. There's a lot of dirty deeds. There's a lot of dirty deeds that come to light with this stuff. It's human trafficking, it's pedophilia, it's arms trafficking, it's drug running, it's war profiteering, it's murder. it's assassination, it's Christmas. It's Christmas in America. That's what these documents are.
Starting point is 00:10:20 The documents coming out are everything I just said. Intimidation. And they're coming out a few days before the year ends. And we all have to... What is the year-end montage? of this held year. My father used to love a montage. He used to get, you know, misty-eyed over a montage.
Starting point is 00:10:49 When you grew up, there were things, you know, that the television news networks would do a montage of things that happened. Maybe it would include, you know, in memoriums for celebrities who died. You know, maybe if it was a year where they had the Olympics, there'd be some of that. There'd be some things around the world.
Starting point is 00:11:08 And in Long Island, we sat on our kids, couch and my father loved a montage. God did that guy love a montage. He loved a year-end montage. He hated when people talked over the montage. If my mother was trying to say anything to him during the montage, he hated it. He loved a year-end montage. The man could not get enough of a year-end montage.
Starting point is 00:11:34 Can you find, go to 1998 and see if you can find. I don't even know if they were where you would. Find this. Find a year-end montage from like a news network, NBC, CBS, whatever. I want to show the people what I mean. What are we going to put in the montage this year? It's just people getting killed, wildfires, documents suggesting the president may have raped a woman and then had her shot in the head. What is going in the montage this year?
Starting point is 00:12:08 You know, what is, sometimes it would be like somebody winning an Academy Award or, I mean, what are we going to do? We could have, oh, what's going to be in the montage? It's going to be a bunch of kids in Gaza getting shot while they wait for grain. What's in the montage this year? Is this going to warm everyone's heart? Are they even doing a montage like Russia, Ukraine, this horrible thing that happened in Sydney, Australia?
Starting point is 00:12:36 this is not exactly a great year for to reflect. It started with the fires in Los Angeles, these crazy wildfires where I lost my house and my wife and my children. They were all killed. And they were killed brutally and they were cooked. They were cooked in their home.
Starting point is 00:13:00 They were cooked. And I got my Rolls-Royce and I drove to the desert to start a new life. Nobody wants to have to do this, but I did. I did. I did because it was time. And, you know, I do believe that things happened for a reason. I was at that Airwant eating a breakfast burrito.
Starting point is 00:13:21 The morning the fire started. True. And literally, I watched this tiny little fire grow into this massive thing. So is this? This is a 1998 year in review? Yeah. Let's see what this is like here. Let's see if this is an actual one of the things I was talking about. A new year.
Starting point is 00:13:46 All of us at News 4 wish you and those you love, all the best for 1999. And as we leave you this evening, we take a look back at the year pass. That's right. As prepared by our talented editor, Andrea Torres. Oh, God. Good night. And happy new year. This was my first.
Starting point is 00:14:06 father's favorite thing to watch is a montage. Somewhere along the lines, these kids just haven't been taught somewhere respect for the life of another human. I don't know where that got lost. Say two boys, age is 11 and 13, firing as many as 27 bullets of the student. The rest of the kill in retaliation, the body of one of people's parents was a final count. But by the way, pause this for a minute. Even though these stories, even then were negative, people were just more chill about it.
Starting point is 00:14:41 I'm like dead serious. People were more chill. It was more of an energy of like, well, that happened. Like my father would be sitting on a couch eating a pint of hog and dust, vanilla Swiss almond. It's late. We had a great show on Brea. Thank you for coming out. But it's vanilla Swiss almond.
Starting point is 00:15:00 Excellent. and he'd be eating it and he'd be nodding and taking it all in. He'd be taking it all in. Let's keep watching it. I want to keep watching this. I don't want to skip a minute of this. You're watching special CBS News.
Starting point is 00:15:19 It took place this afternoon at the U.S. Capitol Loan government who somehow made a history of, you know, passionate illness. We are so far and about what I said. Yeah, we're just seeing. Investigators are gathering conflicting details of the attack. Deadly signatures left behind by the terrorist and their opinion in Tanzania.
Starting point is 00:15:53 First time I was with him alone. I saw somebody totally different than I had expected to see. And that's the person I found love. I did not have He has an obligation A lot of this And then this would be a moment Like, as this was happening My dad would nod
Starting point is 00:16:13 And be like, this is, this is But then there were We can get rid of this one This one goes on for a while There were better ones where there was music And there was just kind of images And stuff like that And they would do those on New Year's Eve
Starting point is 00:16:25 But he loved a montage He couldn't get enough of it because people would look back at the year and they'll do them this year. I imagine. I mean, it's going to be ugly. Well, they'll do a montage. But here's the difference back then
Starting point is 00:16:41 when you saw a montage. You believed whatever was being shown to you. So even though these were horrible stories about people getting shot or whatever, you know, Clinton got a blow job, who cares. And then they would show some inspiring stuff later on. Like, see, towards the. end, if there's anything inspiring here.
Starting point is 00:17:01 It's all just kind of... Yeah, Sonny Bono died. They do the in-memorium. Lloyd Bridges. Harry, Carrie. Yeah, I mean... All right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:17:17 But, you know, people believed what they were shown. So even though the stories were bad, people believed that they happened. They were real, that they understood what happened. And that from that, they can draw some conclusion. And it was a shared reality. We all had a shared reality. And you'd watch a montage and go, yep, those two kids shot up that school. Bill Clinton got his dick sucked, Harry Carrey died you know
Starting point is 00:18:00 and then some of the montages were fun every now and then there'd be a fun story like a you know or you'd see someone getting rescued from a hurricane that would go into the montage but again we all shared a reality so you would watch something and you'd go
Starting point is 00:18:19 okay but now when you see a montage of events you're questioning what events are actually the things that people say they are and what events are, you're like, you know, now the Monta, you just sit there, you're like, yeah, what was that one?
Starting point is 00:18:40 What was that? I don't really understand that one. That one was weird. That one went away quick. No one really talks about that one anymore. You're still sitting there eating Hagadas. You're still sitting on your couch. And I don't, you know, the end of the year is a time when you look back
Starting point is 00:19:04 and you go, maybe you've had tremendous personal growth in your life. Maybe you haven't. Who cares? You'll get him next year. Literally, that's a saying. But it's the time of year to look around. your life and go, what is happening? What's even going on?
Starting point is 00:19:30 Like, what's going on? And I think that's the question that most people are asking this year. And that's the question that people weren't asking as much when I grew up. When I grew up, people were like, oh, yeah, this is life. Now people are going, what's happening? When are the machines coming? What's happening? And I think that question,
Starting point is 00:20:02 why does no one have any sex? Why are the young people so angry now? Why are houses millions and millions of dollars? Like all of them. Why can't anyone afford anything? You know, and it's a weird time because it's supposed to have meaning. But it's only the meaning that's, you know,
Starting point is 00:20:30 it's just like, well, it's that time of year. So we're all supposed to look around and go make a New Year's resolution or, you know, like I'm done with this. I'm heading to that. You know, and maybe that's successful. Maybe it's not. Yeah, the astronauts were always in a montage.
Starting point is 00:20:46 They always put like an astronaut in a montage. Big, big. They always do an astronaut. There we go. The shuttle's taken on. You felt good. You felt good. You're like there's astronauts and there's people who played sports and they're winning and Mark McGuire and the astronauts.
Starting point is 00:21:04 And no matter what was going on, life made a little bit more sense than it does right now. What is the montage this year? It's just Peter Thiel talking about Satan. What is the montage? What exactly is the montage? is the Matt Sam Altman telling every late-night chat show host
Starting point is 00:21:26 that, you know, he doesn't know how people raise kids before chat GPT? What is the, there's nothing comforting. Everything now is amazingly uncomfortable to watch, to be, to even look at, to listen to. The theme of everything now is
Starting point is 00:21:46 it's, it's like, it's, it's disconnected. It's, it's, does not bring you joy. It does not bring you pleasure. You don't, you don't connect with it. And it's, it's, you know, people have the term cringe. Everything's cringe.
Starting point is 00:22:04 It's all brain rot. People are just staring at their phone and it's just pumping them full of brain rot. No one has any, no one has attention span anymore. People are chewing Adderall in their. rooms. They're staring at screens. They're gooning. Their d. They're falling off. They can't get hard. They have ED. They're 20 years old. They watch porn that's incredibly violent. You know, they can't find any jobs. They're getting radicalized in political movements. They're, you know, they're rehabilitating Hitler or Mao or whatever. And, you know, people don't go out.
Starting point is 00:22:49 They don't see each other. There's no. human community. We live in these silo digital echo chambers where people just get angry and that's like the new sex is to just be enraged. It's rage bait is this big new word. You know, people watch reality shows
Starting point is 00:23:10 about people looking for homes and they can't afford any and they just watch just 35 shows about people trying to buy houses and it's always these out-of-touch boomers looking for a fucking lake house and you're watching that on your couch, you want to kill yourself. Slop is the word of the year in 2025. Merriam-Webster's dictionary, and by the way, they nailed it. They nailed it. Slop. Eat your slop. And that's what it is. I've been using that word for years. But that's really
Starting point is 00:23:47 what it all is now. It's content. It's garbage. It's grist for the mill. It's slop, it's sludge, it's rot. It's nothing of any value. You don't even know what any of it is. It all bleeds together. It blends. It's amorphous. It's just, it's a clogged toilet is what it is. Truly, everything. Nobody knows what anything. You know, you pass these, you pass like a billboard in L.A. There's a movie with they put 30 celebrities in it. No one's going to see it. No one cares. Nobody even knows what it is.
Starting point is 00:24:25 You know, people, there's no shared cultural moments right now. There's no shared cultural experiences that people are having are great. You know, Disney World's been taken over by morbidly obese pillheads that have gender identity issues. They're all walking around wearing diapers and clogs trying to wedge themselves on it. It's a small world. The kids don't even want to go anymore. or they want to stay in their room and read about Hitler.
Starting point is 00:24:52 Nobody wants to go to Disney World anymore. Every movie Disney makes is about some non-binary snowflake. All of our celebrities are emaciated. Their eyes are sunken into their heads. They're having bucle fat removed from their faces. They all look like skeletons. They crawl onto the set of some interview show
Starting point is 00:25:10 to be interviewed. They're crazy. They speak in like Harry Potter parcel tongue. Those two from Wicked speak in that snake language. and an interviewer, like, ask them questions, you know, about the fucking movie. All of our cultural moments boiled down to nothing. It's all these, you know, forever children, people trying to relive their time at summer camp when they were listening to Taylor Swift or, like, you know, you have, you have, you have, like,
Starting point is 00:25:44 40-year-olds at somber concerts, criticizing the guy, they don't like what he does or whatever. It's like, you know, grown adults have opinions on like what child pop stars are doing and how political chaparone it while she didn't speak out about it. It's all crazy. What a profoundly dysfunctional society we have. There's nothing to look up to. There's no one to be excited about really the least controversial member of this administration is RFK Jr. Can you imagine he's the least scandal-prone member of the administration.
Starting point is 00:26:24 And every three days there's another text leaking from him where he's like, open your mouth, I want to put my seed in you. And that's somehow the best part of this whole thing. His sex are nowhere near as fucking, you know, scandalous. It's like Cash Patel, the FBI director, is sitting there updating you on his girlfriend's country music tour. It's hell. It's absolutely hell.
Starting point is 00:26:51 And Erica Kirk, God bless, tragic, and I'm sorry for what happened. But nobody knows why she's out there in a glittering pantsuit in a recreated tent that her husband tragically was murdered in, throwing merch out. She's out there talking to Nikki Minaj. People are confused. What's going on? Those are the three words that sum up this whole entire mess that we've create it for ourselves.
Starting point is 00:27:21 What is business anymore? It's like, oh, fake. Everybody online is trying to make as much money as they can in any way they can. Crypto or drop shipping or bullshit or looks maxing or smashing. They're smashing hammers into their face to give them a better chance to fuck a hotter girl. They're trying to make more money so that they can, they can compete in the mating game and they can, you know, get some apartment somewhere in an overpriced city. and buy their girlfriend boots.
Starting point is 00:27:50 I mean, nobody's having children. People are just sitting around and, you know, trying to, you know, I identify with, like, some weird movement. I mean, like, Wicked's probably a fine movie. I don't see it. I don't care. But, like, everyone needs to chill the fuck out and relax.
Starting point is 00:28:11 What's the big deal here? Like, people are... making everything into some meaningful moment, and it's not. It shouldn't be. It's a profoundly unhealthy society that we've created. It really is. You know, I just, you know, when you look at it from the outside, you know, all of these people, it's not even political, by the way.
Starting point is 00:28:43 It's not like I'm telling you like, you know, they're wrong or they're right or they're going to fix it. I've never really done that on this show. But like when you look at the society that we're living in, for example, the last two weeks people are screaming about Somalian. Nobody even knows what's happening. People are either like, Somalis are the best part of this country. What?
Starting point is 00:29:06 What is how? Nobody even know one? I'm not saying anything bad about them. But like, what is that reaction? And then there's a reaction of like this, they're the greatest threat. that we've ever faced. And then it's like, well, wait a minute. How about that there's like some scheme,
Starting point is 00:29:20 some fraud, some scam that we need to get to the bottom of. Maybe we're just letting too many people into the country. And maybe those people are going to eventually be desperate, like the people that currently live here. Okay? And maybe those people are going to turn to some type of fraud or crime. It's like completely natural and normal. But like every reaction to everything is so dire.
Starting point is 00:29:45 up insane crazy you know lucy 100% pure nicotine always tobacco free lucy breakers are nicotine pouches with an extra surprise each pouch holds a capsule that can be broken up to release extra flavor and hydration set yourself up with a subscription and have lucy delivered straight to your door we all love lucy everyone loves it everyone I know loves it truly I mean people throw it in right in the morning. Let's level up your nicotine routine with Lucy. Go to lucy.co slash TIM and use promo code TIM to get 20% off your first order. Lucy has a 30-day refund policy. If you change your mind. Again, that's lucy.com. Use code TIM to get 20% off. And here comes the fine print. Lucy products are only for adults of legal age and every order is
Starting point is 00:30:37 age verified. Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical. The Ridge wallet is the most secure wallet. I used to have a wallet before Ridge and it was not, it was so easily damaged and it would just rip and things would fall out and I would lose credit cards and money. Made with premium materials like aluminum, titanium, and carbon fiber. Okay? It holds up to 12 cards plus cash and nobody needs more than 12 cards.
Starting point is 00:31:10 over 50 plus colors and styles to choose from. You can even get a wallet that features every NFL Major League Baseball or college team. Perfect for a holiday gifting, especially since Ridge is having their biggest sale of the year right now. Losing your wallet is the worst, but with the Ridge tracker card, you'll always know exactly where it is.
Starting point is 00:31:33 Before panic mode sets in, perfect peace of mind for holiday traveling, gifting. Give the gifts that stay, out of the junk drawer and find their way into morning routines, travels, and adventures. For limited time, Ridge is having their huge holiday sale. Head to R-I-D-G-E.com. Get up to
Starting point is 00:31:50 47% off your order. This is by far the biggest discount they've given all year. That's ridge.com for up to 47% off. Your order during the biggest sale of the year after you purchase. They will ask where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them our show sent you.
Starting point is 00:32:06 It's completely bad shit. All everybody wants to do now is go to like a store and spend $75 on a smoothie. They want to biohack and live forever? Why? God, why? Why do you want to live forever to watch celebrities continue to have fat sucked out of their faces by some machine?
Starting point is 00:32:27 Why do you want to live forever? What exactly are you planning to do? You think this thing turns around? This biohacking stuff, all these guys microdosing everything, trying to level up to the best versions of the, I mean, great, more power to you, do what you want? What exactly is this all for? You want to be here in 30 years?
Starting point is 00:32:48 You want to be here when we're talking about the President Jake Paul's administration and why they're not doing more to stem the, you know, conflict in, you know, the civil war that's happening in our country? Like, what exactly are you people living for, quite frankly, honestly, honestly, rational? Can you explain to me why you want to be here for the next 75 years? Is that exciting? Is it that exciting? It's actually creepy and strange.
Starting point is 00:33:21 The music all blends together now into just a lot. There's some good music for sure. But a lot of the stuff you're listening to, it's just this odd, strange. It's just like corporate drivel. And you're just meant to listen to it while online. at a salad place before you get in the elevator
Starting point is 00:33:46 and it takes you back up to this flex space that you're working in and you get on your MacBook and you just again you float off into the into nothingness you do nothing
Starting point is 00:34:02 people are just filling their time and they're filling their time in the absolute worst way possible There's this idea of what a perfect life is It's been drilled into these people's heads They need the right things all the time The best schools and the right neighborhood West Village girls
Starting point is 00:34:23 Like you know You need the best coffee You need the great food You gotta get the table at the right restaurant Fuck you I'm embarrassed Go to New York I'm embarrassed
Starting point is 00:34:35 These pigs at Carbonium I'm embarrassed Spicy Rigot Tony, I'm embarrassed by what has happened to a great city. Stop. It's disgusting. It's disgusting and repulsive. Your behavior is repulsive.
Starting point is 00:34:50 It really is fucking 10 restaurants you read about on Instagram. You're going to wait four months. So you can drag your friends to go to the corner store. You can eat caviar and think it's something. I mean, it's just, I'm just completely about. Whatever this is is nothing. It's not culture. It's not.
Starting point is 00:35:09 me, trust me, this isn't culture, whatever this is, whatever you think you're participating and it's not, it's not worth your $7,000 a month rent. Whatever you think you're doing is nothing. You know, I mean, truly, now these Epstein documents, say what you want, say what you want about Jeffrey and Juslane and the Trumps and the Clintons, but they had class. They had class. They went to the best places in the world, and they raped, murdered, and tortured people. And yes, a way that I would live?
Starting point is 00:35:49 No. No. Sort of evil. Little demonic. But it was culture. It was culture. And it's a bad cult. It's not a good culture.
Starting point is 00:36:02 It's not ideal. It's less than ideal. Certainly less than ideal. but that was the culture of our world. We have to accept it. We have to accept it. I don't want it to continue and I want the people that participated in it to go to jail.
Starting point is 00:36:18 But that was our culture. We didn't even know it, but we did. Sam Chris has kind of a great article about that. If you read his stuff and you should. But that's the thing. It's like this was our culture. For a very long time, it was domination. evil, exploitation, bad, not good, but it was our culture.
Starting point is 00:36:48 It was our culture, you know, and, you know, we're coming to terms with that. We're coming to terms with that, and it's going to take, it's a little bit of a pill to swallow. Is it not? It's a little bit of a pill to swallow, huh? It's a little bit of a pill. It's a little bit of a pill. You ever get sick as a kid? Your mom's like, you've got to take this one.
Starting point is 00:37:13 And you're like, ugh. She's like, this one is everyone that rules over. He's a satanic pedophile. You're like, oh, no, not this one. It's a little bit of a pill to swallow. But that's where a lot of this comes from. This is the runoff. What you're seeing now is the runoff of people living
Starting point is 00:37:29 to pretend that that isn't true. It is the denial of that culture that has produced this. culture. Listen up. I'll say it again. I'll say it again. I should be paid more for this, frankly. I'll say it again. It is the denial of that culture that has manufactured this culture of nothingness. It is the unwillingness to look that in the face that has produced slop. That's what it is. It is the discomfort that comes from facing the fact that your greatest fears are true and you're unable to process that so you dive into
Starting point is 00:38:18 the eras tour you backstroke through the fucking you know uh restaurant that serves the thing from the app that you saw you try to vacation in the right place to take the edge off you know it is the denial of truth that has delivered you here into nothingness into emptiness into a place where do you want to see the amenities the building is really nice but you've got to see the amenities the amenities are really over the top the HOA is really high but you have to see it because the amenities are so worth it the amenities are amazing there's this amazing room you can use it if you have a party like 12 to 15 people you want to do a dinner
Starting point is 00:39:10 You can bring in a private chef You can bring in a private chef It's so amazing They'll set right up And they'll do a dinner You can actually bring in servers And a bartender I've done it before It's amazing
Starting point is 00:39:18 It actually connects to a terrorist What's great about it Is it's actually for everyone In the building to use You can reserve it But it's very easy You just do it on the app Is the world run
Starting point is 00:39:30 By satanic pedophiles There's also a rooftop garden It's amazing I go up there I have coffee all the time You can go so you get a special key when you come here and it'll only go to your floor
Starting point is 00:39:41 so you don't have to worry about any of the security and at the top of the building there's a rooftop garden and you can sit there and you can even do yoga because actually is super private there's like alcoves Right So let me ask you
Starting point is 00:39:54 Do you think that our civilization is run by like evil pedophiles that are murdering and torturing children And next year the restaurant open So like I don't even want to talk about the restaurant because it's literally so amazing and you can't have it right now but within five months
Starting point is 00:40:11 we have a celebrity chef who's opening a restaurant it's like Mediterranean but it's also kind of like more on the Italian side it's like super perfect it's like amazing it's great for like light bites
Starting point is 00:40:21 in the morning and then you can like even grab like coffee and breakfast and then there's like a lunch and then there's like a dinner and even I've heard this I've actually heard this I've actually heard this
Starting point is 00:40:30 I can't confirm but I've heard can't confirm but I've heard that they can actually cater your party in the private amenity space. Like the restaurant can cater your party in the amenity space. Wow. That sounds really good. Why do you think that
Starting point is 00:40:49 woman got shot in the face in Oklahoma? Well, anyway, if you want it, just speak to your realtor because it's going to go really, really fast. We already have so many people coming back to see it for second and third showing. Cool. And I just heard that around the block that like super exclusive restaurant that nobody can get into tate mcrae was there last night wow well thank you for this info you've given me a lot to think about and it is the denial of that culture that has produced this one okay looking at in the face is very hard to do and when you refuse to do that you refuse to do that
Starting point is 00:41:35 you can only concern yourself with the minutia, the meaningless, the bullshit, the empty signifiers of status that are splashed across social media, ultimately adding up to nothing. But that's the point. Nothing is the point. They don't want you asking any questions about anything real they want you to play the game not for any reward not for a trophy not for glory not for honor not for pride they want you to play the game because it distracts you from the game
Starting point is 00:42:25 that's the whole thing you're playing this game it's called the rat race whatever you want to call it you're distracted from what's really happening where the money's going who's disappearing who's being threatened who's being intimidated who's being murdered on whose behalf it's all happening all the clans and groups and little huddles of people trying to exert power and trying to manifest their reality all of that you ignore because you're playing a very hard game It involves the accumulation of money, the signifiers of status. It involves the right life,
Starting point is 00:43:07 the right friends, the right people, the right taste, the right opinions, the right concerts. It involves all of that, and it's designed, it's curated for you to participate in and only have a small glance at what's actually happening,
Starting point is 00:43:25 what's actually going on, the things that are driving society. off a cliff. That's not by accident. And to think it is, you would have to be incredibly naive. You would have to be incredibly naive. I feel terrible for what happened to Rob and Michelle Reiner. But as a good friend of mine recently said, Ray Kump,
Starting point is 00:43:53 he said, the best thing that can happen in this country is for your kids to kill you. It's truly the win. It's truly the win. Have it be your family. It's coming anyway. Have it be your family. It's coming anyway.
Starting point is 00:44:12 How lovely to die by the hand of your own blood. In a world such as this. Happy New Year, everybody. We'll see you on the other side. Bye, bye. ever feel like you're running on empty, staring at your screen, hitting that afternoon crash, and debating another coffee or energy drink you know you'll regret.
Starting point is 00:44:34 Neuro's energy and focus gum and mince give you clean focus energy without the crash sugar or sketchy ingredients. It's time to switch to good energy. It's the easiest upgrade I made to my wellness and energy routine. Here's what I made the energy switch. Neuro energy and focus is powered by natural green tea caffeine. L-thenin for calm focus, vitamin B12 plus B6, for better mood and metabolism, no sugar, no aspirin, no crash.
Starting point is 00:44:55 Neuro can be shared or enjoyed on the go anywhere or any time you offer discreet and good energy, just chew and go. Neuro also offers caffeine-free options for all-day wellness support. Neuro's memory and focus gum are made with American jinxing to support mental clarity minus the jitters. Neurosleep and recharge mince or for melatonin and camomile to help you unwind and rest without pills or sugary gummies. For limited time, you can get 20% off your first order at neurogum.com by using promo code TAM. That's neurogum.com. Use code TAM for 20% off your first order. You can also find Euro at CVS and Amazon.
Starting point is 00:45:28 You don't need to overhaul your life to start investing. Just automate it. With Stash, your new year money goals can quietly run in the background while you focus on everything else. Stash isn't just another investing app. It's a registered investment advisor that combines automated investing with expert personalized guidance so you don't have to worry about gambling or figuring it out on your own.
Starting point is 00:45:45 Stash is simple, smart, stress-free. Choose from personalized investments. Let Stash's award-winning smart portfolio do the work for you or pick a combo or both. Stash is there to guide you up to every step of the way. Stash's smart portfolio helps you invest in a diversified balance portfolio and on a regular schedule to help you see growth and consistent annual returns just $3 per month
Starting point is 00:46:06 gets you access to world-class financial advice and personalized guidance so you can start investing in your future today. Join over 1 million active Stash subscribers and finally let your money work as hard as you do. Don't let your money sit around. Put it to work with Stash. That's get.stash.com slash T.m to see how you can receive $25 towards your first stock purchase
Starting point is 00:46:23 and to view important disclosure. That's get.stash.com slash GAM. Get.stash.com slash GIM. Paid non-client endorsement, not representative of all clients and not a guarantee. Investment advisory services offered by Stash Investments LLC, an SEC registered investment advisor. Investing involves risk, offer subject to terms and conditions. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the show.
Starting point is 00:46:45 Ryan Grimm, who writes at DropSight News, which has done the best reporting on the Epstein case. this is not even debatable. We talked about one of their articles a few weeks ago where Jeffrey Epstein was back channeling to try to get a meeting with Vladimir Putin between Vladimir Putin and ex-Israeli, the ex-Israeli Prime Minister to talk about the Syrian Civil War. We talked about that on the show.
Starting point is 00:47:18 And people send me drop-site news all the time ago. You got to read this article. Steve Bannon, And again, you guys aren't ideologically aligned. But Steve Bannon has even praised you as a good journalist. Like people from many different political persuasions, even I think people on the Epstein list are saying this is good. Even the pedophiles are going, he's doing the work.
Starting point is 00:47:44 So, hey, this is legit. So, Ryan, thank you again for coming. I appreciate it. It's the holidays and I appreciate you making time for us. if you could sum up as just an introductory statement for the un-initiated, when you look at this new dump of Epstein files that just came out, number one, tell people, you know, surmise for people what exactly you think the Epstein operation was if there was one.
Starting point is 00:48:16 You know, the FBI says they're, you know, said that there wasn't. But they have all these files suggesting maybe there is. What was this operation? And I don't know how many of these files you've looked through in the new files. Has any of your opinion changed with regard to the scope of the operation, the intent of the operation, or any of the key players? Yeah, I think that my take on this is actually, usually you go into the reporting and you find out that the story you're looking for
Starting point is 00:48:48 isn't quite all the way there. It's not quite as interesting as you kind of imagined that it might be. This kind of has been the reverse. Like this, you keep peeling the layers back and you're like, oh, wow, that was true. That was true. That was true. And on and on. You know, when they say there was no Epstein operation, it's like the guy's been doing a lot of operating for many decades.
Starting point is 00:49:14 And at some point, you're going to have to call that an operation because it's, he keeps becoming involved and he keeps being found from iran contra all the way up to the things that you were talking about the syrian civil war like a lot a lot going on in africa um which was which was a piece of iran contra as well the kind of unspoken piece of it the fact that he focused so much on africa really shows that he really does kind of know where power flows and where money commodities and resources flow. So, yeah, there's an awful lot there. Part of the question with Jeffrey Epstein has always been about definitions.
Starting point is 00:49:57 Is he an agent? Is he an associate? Is he a, what in the murky world of intelligence, what was Jeffrey Epstein? Was he employed by the Mossad or the CIA or MI6? Was he a liaison that worked with all of these different agencies? from your reporting, what would you call him if you had to call him something? Well, we don't have a W-9 or anything from Epstein. And I think that that kind of misunderstands the relationship.
Starting point is 00:50:30 Like, if you think about Mossad, for instance, or the CIA, like running people, yeah, they are organizations and they have ambitions, they have projects, but he was operating at a layer above, I think. The Mossad and the CIA, they're there to serve the major power centers throughout the world, and different factions within them serve different factions at different times. But if you think of the kind of global elite as kind of organized around that Davos conference or, you know, this Davos crew out there, like the CIA, it's more properly understood, the CIA works for them. And Jeffrey Epstein was an integral place. player in that Davos set. And I think sometimes his allies, and he himself was, he was waning. He's not
Starting point is 00:51:20 doing as well. Other times, his power is on the rise. That's how it works inside nebulous organizations like this. But he's right there at the center of this fundamentally undemocratic global institution. It's not even an institution. It's just this amoebic type of entity. He's right there in the middle of it, you know, and he still has to jockey for power. But he is then able to deploy his own assets, whether it's Mossad or whether it's people in the CIA, in order to serve he and his allies own interests, which sometimes align with the interests of Israel, sometimes align with the interests of the U.S., but, you know, they're also self-serving interests. What are the main concerns, the primary objectives of the, quote, Davos set? Is it a monolith? Or do those people have varied interests? I think it's well they're they're in competition with each other for each other's resources for sure
Starting point is 00:52:15 but they're also in competition with the 99.9% of the world that doesn't really want them to exist and so that's and so what they're trying to do is kind of justify their existence and maintain their power and justify their existence that's why when they get together they often talk about the kinds of things that would be wonderful if they delivered on them You know, they're going to end world hunger or they're going to, they're going to end illiteracy around the world. They're going to, you know, they're going to go after disease and malnutrition. They're going to reverse climate change.
Starting point is 00:52:47 And yet some of it, somehow it just all keeps getting worse. And their power continues, continues to grow and their wealth continues to be concentrated at the very top. So their goal is, I think, self-perpetuation and kind of continuing to lock down, you know, their position in the world. and to keep the public at at bay. Because they're fundamentally an undemocratic entity. Someone, Catherine Austin Fitz described some of the people you're talking about
Starting point is 00:53:16 as intergenerational pools of capital. Yes. Does that make sense to you? Yeah, yeah, definitely. They are, yes. And they're also, they're very much transnational. Right. Like they are not American.
Starting point is 00:53:31 They're not Israeli. They're not Chinese. like if they're Chinese they actually have a little bit more strings attached to what they're able to do right but in the western ones you know they're looking for their own sovereignty and what would make and what what it what it appears like is going on with with epstein and his and his work with Israel and also the UAE we're going to have a lot more yeah to come about his his work with Saudi Arabia and the UAE what the UAE and Israel both figured out is that when you're operating in this kind of world that is filled with nation states nation states nation states
Starting point is 00:54:03 have particular rights. They can vote in the U.N., they can set up banks. Those banks can then move money, and those banks are then subject to the laws and the judiciary kind of within those states. And if the national security apparatus controls that judiciary, you can basically be a criminal gang. So the United Arab Emirates, for instance, they're doing enormous amounts of money laundering. like if all of this all this wealth that's coming out of africa uh is you know flows right into into the
Starting point is 00:54:36 uae and then they skim off the top you're like how is this how are they doing this is basically mafia stuff like well they call themselves a state they call themselves a government so they can so they can do that and is a version of that as well where the state is aligned with the companies and they have this protection that they can operate in a way where if they were just private actors like wait you can't do that right so it's kind of a cartel yeah right it's a leader legalized cartel that operates as a state. What role does sexual blackmail play in this? You know, obviously, Epstein spent years engaging in horrific abuses.
Starting point is 00:55:11 And he was, you know, he got a slap on the wrist. You know, he had a very light sentence regard to the crime. They charged him with a very specific crime. There were many victims. He was only charged with one crime. What role does, number one, do you believe it was a blackmail operation? And then if so, when we talk about these cartels, when we talk about money laundering, we talk about, you know, people that are trying to evade the democratic process, the legal process.
Starting point is 00:55:49 What role does Jeffrey Epstein's sexual proclivities, and I don't, I'm not saying it lightly, He proclivities, but his sexual crimes, what role do they play in this larger picture? And your point about them, only charging him with one girl is a key one. And his lawyers were so successful, they got him charged with the 17-year-old, even though there were dozens and some as young as like 14 or even younger. And so then his revisionist friends can say, oh, it was 17-year-old. he didn't know and then you look at it oh that's all he got charged with okay let's go let's get back into business buddy rather than oh dozens like even much younger i mean he's a fully evil man
Starting point is 00:56:36 and i think just lane maxwell's like when you read these documents and and even the prior documents it's very hard to come away with um any other picture than that these were evil people engaging in acts of extreme abuse, rape, perhaps murder, we don't know, things like that. And with total remorse and doing it on a, like, seems like, daily basis. Right, remorseless, yeah, absolutely. 40 to 50 years. But it's interesting, what you need a Jeffrey Epstein for, going back to our kind of transnational cartel operating as a state kind of thing, is that if you want to move money,
Starting point is 00:57:19 guns, let's say you want to move weapons from Iran to Contras in Nicaragua, or you want to move them to some type of rebel group in Africa when Congress has told you you can't fund this rebel group in Africa, or you've got blood diamonds that you've got to get moving out. You can't really go to the white shoe firms for that. Right. They're going to be, you know, let me get your, you know, your client here. Like, how do we know that this person? isn't sanctioned. This appears to be a terrorist organization that you're shipping weapons do. Right. Did you say Iran is involved in this? I thought we're going to war with them. Yeah. So what you need is somebody who lives in the gray area. And those people are very useful.
Starting point is 00:58:09 And so when the New York Times, for instance, says, you know, there's all these conspiracies about Jeffrey Epstein, but in fact, he's just actually a giant con artist. That's missing. the point, to work in that realm of the spy world in the shadows, you're going to be a con artist. You're going to be the kind of person that pushes things to the edge and then over it. And so that's what you see time and time again with Epstein is that, for instance, we wrote about, actually, I don't know if we've written about this one yet, but George Mitchell, former senator who was Secretary of State under Clinton, he needed to go to Sudan back in the 2000s because he was running for president and he wanted to broker some look like he was going to
Starting point is 00:58:54 broker a truce in Sudan and in order to get in there he reached out to Jeffrey Epstein he's like who's got the jets you know who can who can who can you know move me into a warlord zone and it's somebody like Epstein he ended up not using Epstein but Epstein was able to put it together and then he announced a completely fake truce that fell apart a day later and used it in his presidential campaign but that's the kind of thing you need him Like, I need to move money. I need to move guns, diamonds, minerals, you know, commodities. We need, we need, things have to happen.
Starting point is 00:59:28 It has to happen quickly. And it has to be done off the books. And that's what people like Epstein are for. And the sexual blackmail, is he blackmailing these people and keeping the information himself? Is that information then going to another state like Israel? Is it going to the highest bidder? He's photographing and recording people. Where is all this information going?
Starting point is 00:59:54 We don't yet have evidence of, hey, I've got footage of you. Right. You need to do X. We do have him being just absurdly aggressive to people like Leon Black and Les Wexner in emails in a way where you're like, this is not how the power dynamic between an accountant and a multi-billionaire. These are two billionaires. Les Wexner, Leon Black, billionaire.
Starting point is 01:00:17 Right. So when he's being uber aggressive in those emails, as a journalist, does that lead you to believe that he has some leverage? What you can say for sure is that there is implicit blackmail going on under there. Right. Because they allegedly are engaged in all of these types of activities. So just by definition, Epstein would know, and they would know that Epstein knows. what he's involved with. Now they deny that, but, you know, there's been plenty of reporting that he, that all his friends and, quote-unquote, friends, like, knew what he was up to. Right. Even Ehud Barak in one of the emails, he's asking how he can, how he can win over this banker that he wants to work with for this one, this deal. And he says, ladies, is your forte to Epstein.
Starting point is 01:01:14 Right. It was like, and people who I've talked to who met him within like 30 seconds are like, this guy's complete and total creep. Right. Like he's just, he's just oozing creep vibes. So the people that stayed in his life, like very much understood that. And so they know in the back of their mind that he knows that. Now, at the same time, what the emails and the documents that we've gone through show is that he was
Starting point is 01:01:39 actually effective at doing the things he said he was going to do. Like he's going to get you your tax breaks. He's going to get you your meeting with Putin. I just ordered a Mongolian cashmere crunex sweater from Quince. And you should too. Are you nuts? Cold mornings? Holiday plans?
Starting point is 01:02:02 This is when I need my wardrobe to just work. That's why I'm all about quince. They make it look easy to look sharp, feel good, and find gifts at last. From Mongolian cashmere sweater to Italian wool coats. Quinn's pieces are crafted from premium. materials and are built to hold up without the luxury markup. I'm telling you everyone that I know is using quince. They'll love it.
Starting point is 01:02:21 You're cutting out traditional middlemen markups. They deliver the same qualities of luxury brand at a fraction of the price. People will ask you, what is that? What are you wearing? And you'll go, it's quince. Get your wardrobe sorted and your gift list handled with quince. Don't wait. Go to quince.com slash t-im for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns.
Starting point is 01:02:40 Now available in Canada. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com. slash TIM free shipping and 365 day returns. Quins.com slash Tim. Chime. Chime. Hold on. Chime is changing the way people bank. Fee free and smarter banking built for you. Not like old school banks that charge you overdraft and monthly fees.
Starting point is 01:02:59 Built for you not to 1%. Chime isn't just another banking app. They unlock smarter banking every day for everyday people with products like my pay, giving you access to up to $500 off your paycheck any time and getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit. Some old banks don't do this. Forget overdraft fees, minimum balances and monthly fees,
Starting point is 01:03:17 chime trends everyday spending into real rewards and progress. Bank fee-free plus overdraft coverage you can count and helps you build your credit history, stress-free, get paid when you say up to $500, earn up to three and a half percent APY on savings eight times higher than a traditional bank. Rated five stars by USA Today for customer service. Real human 24-7.
Starting point is 01:03:38 Chime. God, I love Chime. I'm telling you, chime is not. just smarter banking. It is the most rewarding way to bank. Join the millions who are already banking fee free today. It just takes a few minutes to sign up. Head tochime.com slash Jim. That is chime.com.com slash tim. Chime is a financial technology company, not a bank. Bank. Bank My pay line of credit, provided by the Bank, N.A. or Stride Bank, any my pay eligibility requirements apply in credit limit ranges $20 to $500. Option. Optional services and products may have fees or charge at see chime.com slash fees info. Advertise annual percentage yield with
Starting point is 01:04:10 chime plus status only otherwise 1% APY applies no minimum balance required chime card on time payment history may have a positive impact on your credit score results may vary see chm.com for details in applicable terms applicable terms Ryan this is the real question Jeffrey Epstein is a math teacher at the Dalton school which is a prep school in New York City very expensive very well regarded he's hired by Bill Barr's father Donald Barr right Donald Barr wrote a novel about as fiction novel about the elites of a fake planet using sex slaves on that planet. There was a class of people on the planet that were sex slaves. He was a novelist.
Starting point is 01:04:53 Whatever. Is it a right? You know? We don't know. But so Jeffrey Epstein is working for this man who's written some questionable literature, whose son then becomes the attorney general. He's at Dalton, which is a private school. He's not a math genius.
Starting point is 01:05:11 It's not the guy from a beautiful mind. He's not winning Nobel Prizes in mathematics. He somehow links up with Les Wexner, billionaire owner of Victoria's Secret, the limited brands of Gap, things like that. Then, you know, fast forward, he's got Jislane Maxwell, whose father Robert Maxwell.
Starting point is 01:05:31 You know, it's widely believed and written about that this man was an Israeli super spy, that he was a, you know, a hugely influential member of the intelligence community. He was a media mogul. But, you know, he was given high honors with his burial in Israel. I mean, Mount of Olives, this is all real stuff. So this story for a lot of people feels like, okay, the guy's Epstein's clearly a pedophile, he's a monster. How does a guy like that, who just gets a job at a high school, go to back channeling between Vladimir Putin and the ex-prime minister of Israel. That's the question that a lot of people are having a
Starting point is 01:06:19 problem with. Who made that happen? Who allowed that to happen? I'm sure Epstein was an enterprising person. But from your research, what is the story? How does he get to be in this position, this rarefied air with the quote-unquote Davos set. Yeah. Yeah, so he winds up at Bear Stearns out of that Dalton thing, like that Barr's dad gets him that also gets him that job at Bear Stearns, which was known as like, as I've researched it more like kind of the trashiest investment bank, like the one that would kind of cut corners the most.
Starting point is 01:06:56 He cut too many corners, gets edged out of that. But as he gets edged out, and this was in our most recent piece, he goes into business. he goes into business with this guy, Stan Pottinger. Stan Pottinger was a lawyer who is now known to be former Nixon attorney, deputy attorney general, known to be at the center of Iran Contra. He was setting up, he was helping to do a lot of the moving of the money and setting up the structures for the Iran-Contra deal, which should probably be called like Iran-Israel Angola Contra. Right.
Starting point is 01:07:27 Because people might not realize it kind of gets written out of it. the U.S. didn't send the weapons right to Iran because that would have been completely illegal. So they came up with this scheme where they're like, okay, Israel will send weapons to Iran, which is thinking back, it's like comical. Are you like, are you serious? Right. Israel's arming Iran. It's insane.
Starting point is 01:07:47 So Israel's arming Iran. And then we're replenishing their stocks. And then Shimon Perez, David Barack and the CIA are taking the loot from the profits from Iran and funding the Contras and then also funding. these Angola rebels that the CIA was backing, but that they weren't supposed to be backing because Jimmy Carter is saying, we're not doing this anymore, and we're not doing all these terribly legal things with these terror groups. And so Epstein is in business with that guy. He's also associates with Adnan Khashoggi at the time. That's actually, coincidentally,
Starting point is 01:08:25 Jamal Khashoggi's uncle, one of the biggest weapons dealers of the, like, 1980. in the 90s, he was also a central banker for the Iran-Contra scandal. And the New York Times mentioned this in their early article. He also knew Douglas Lees, who was this British arms trafficker, who also had ties to Iran-Contra. So Epstein is right in the middle of this, and this is a seminal kind of global intelligence scheme. Right. That now we all acknowledge, like, oh, Iran-Contra was a thing. Like, they did all these things. And actually, They did more than they've acknowledged. But even what they've acknowledged is completely insane.
Starting point is 01:09:05 And how does he end up in business with Stan Pottinger? Do you think it's that Jeffrey Epstein is just a morally questionable guy who doesn't mind blurring the lines of what is and isn't appropriate? Is there some other connection? Do they know each other socially? Like, what about Epstein makes him, you know, there's probably a lot of people at Bear Stearns? What about Epstein makes him the guy? I think that I think he was I think they knew each other socially that's that's my sense from the reporting so far and also Epstein was building a lot of connections at that time so he was going back and forth to London a lot he'd met Khashoggi he'd met leaves he's he's really starting to be somebody Maxwell Maxwell's like later later in the 80s okay did he know her father knew of I don't think they met I actually the somebody like a Whitney Webb who knows this
Starting point is 01:09:59 more in a more encyclopedic fashion. But no, I don't think so, because I think they met when, yeah, so they met when she came to New York and she came to New York because, you know, things were not going well for her over there because he had fallen off or got pushed off his yacht or whatever. Is it possible they met when he was going back and forth to London? Yeah, but I don't actually know the details of that early part. But and when it comes to Wexner, there's, this is something else we had reported on there weren't the first. People were like, wow, he does power of attorney for this random accountant? How on earth did this happen? Turns out that about a month before Wexner agreed to
Starting point is 01:10:39 give Epstein power of attorney, the local police and the local attorney general, the state attorney general there in Ohio, were looking very closely at all at Wexner's organization as linked to this like mob-connected assassination of an attorney who was linked to a Wexner company. He was about to testify this attorney. Right, yes. So the heat is on big time against Wexner. And so whether or not that had something to do with the decision, we don't know. But shortly after that, the very plains that the CIA was using to do Iran-Contra,
Starting point is 01:11:18 Epstein then transitions from that to running Victoria's Secret lingerie and Abercrombie and Fitch stuff from Hong Kong and China. So, like, that's another connection where you're like, hold on, Jeffrey Epstein brought the CIA's, like, airline to Ohio to work for Wexner. And then when it's done, it goes to Angola, where they were also shipping weapons. So when we're talking about the CIA, we're talking about obviously a very large agency with a lot of power. But as you rightly said, they are not usually the author of the story. they are working for very wealthy people, business interests, things like that. We're talking about the CIA. We're probably talking about a faction within the CIA or many factions.
Starting point is 01:12:05 I don't know. You could maybe illustrate this where there's probably a ton of people that show up at Langley every day. They're typing, you know, these reports of their analysts and they're saying, well, did the guy in Pakistan in the cafe say, whatever? Who are the people in the CIA working with EPSI? not saying you even know their names, but can you illustrate who these people are? Are they currently members of the CIA? Are they ex-CIA? Are they in other parts of the government, maybe the State Department, but actually are deep cover CIA agents? Who is helping him
Starting point is 01:12:42 arrange air transport with this CIA front company, this airline, and, you know, with Les Wexner, in your estimation? There's this like amoeba-like overlap between the leadership of the CIA and the kind of ex-CIA types, you know, who are the former CIA directors, former CIA officials who are now doing, you know, consulting or they're running foundations that have enormous amounts of money, like Wexner's Foundation, for instance, is one of the biggest funders of pro-Israel causes. Or Leon Black is, you know, donating enormous amounts of money. money. Allison, it's the biggest donor to like friends of the IDF. So even if you're not directing
Starting point is 01:13:25 a CIA budget, like if you can, you know, through your friends or through your board positions, you can still be moving kind of many millions of dollars. And so it's those people that are former CIA, but they're now in private practice, but they're still associated with the leadership of the CIA, plus then the people who are in the administration, in the White House itself. So like the political appointees. And that's the kind of network. that comes together to do it. Oftentimes, you know, lots of different operations at the same time, and some of them almost at cross-purposes. And the ones we learn about are the ones that either blow up or are like eventually successful. But you'll get people together. Like, okay, here's something
Starting point is 01:14:05 I'd like to do in Afghanistan, which is another place they were spending the Iran profits, by the way. And so, all right, how are we going to fund this Afghan project? We got obviously now, we're not going to go to Congress. We're not going to go to the public and say, here's an idea we have. Would you like to use your taxpayer money for it? No, we're going to like find our own sources of money, whether it's through black ops through this like CIA hedge fund, you know, venture capital fund, or through our foundations that are that are friendly with us. And then we're going to see if it sticks. If it doesn't, we'll just deny it. And if it does, we'll deny it. So Epstein in your mind, this is somebody who obviously establishes all these connections with arms traffickers and, you know, billionaires,
Starting point is 01:14:50 people like Les Waxner. Then he begins to facilitate operations between former government officials, billionaires, arms traffickers, and he's in this world. And so is he a free agent? Meaning like, is this guy working at the behest of Israel? Is he working at the behest of a foreign government? This is something that I know, and I've talked to some smart people,
Starting point is 01:15:19 you talk to more people than I do. I talk to a lot of people that are mentally ill, but they're very interesting, and it's hard to know what's what. And some of the mentally ill people actually sound really credible now. But there is this belief that Epstein was working for Israel,
Starting point is 01:15:35 or at least Israeli interests. And it dovetails with the Wexner of it all, the Maxwell connection. Do you think there's credibility to that belief that he's not just a completely free agent that he is working on behalf of, at least Israeli interests? Well, he also is politically aligned. So it's, you know, you wouldn't have to twist his arm to do it.
Starting point is 01:16:05 But just from like a matter of fact of what he actually did, like we can we can count a number of different instances where he was doing things on behalf of either a barak when he was minister of defense uh or the state of israel like i you know i think you've talked about this in your show before like we started we started simple with a little story about a security agreement they helped cut with mongolia like not a big not the hugest deal in the world sure but like it's it's to show like how this how this thing unfolds he and he and Ahud Barak, use their connections to get a meeting actually literally at Davos with the president of Mongolia and Larry Summers was there. You know, you know, you got to impress the guy,
Starting point is 01:16:50 show them that you, you know, are friends with powerful people. Then they cut some weapons deals. And then from there, you get a security agreement. Same thing happening in other states as well. So you you see like other countries perceiving him. and perceiving Ehud Barak, whose private citizen but going back and forth in and out of government as representative of Israel,
Starting point is 01:17:15 of the state of Israel. Funny thing is that Netanyahu would agree with that. In fact, he shared some of our reporting and it created this big scandal in Israel because our reporting
Starting point is 01:17:27 connects Epstein more closely to the kind of opposition in Israel. Ehud Barak and what used to be the Labor Party and all that. Progressive. And so Netanyahu's like, ah, see, Epstein, there is an Israel connection, but it's my, it's my adversaries. Now, we'll have a story out next week about how he connected J.P. Morgan Chase and Netanyahu as part of this, what looks to be this, like, giant gas pipeline deal.
Starting point is 01:17:55 So it wasn't just, he wasn't only on the opposition side. But yeah, so, but also Ehou Barak, yes, he's adversarial, like, you know, in the intramural league, you know, with Nets. Yahoo, but he's still out there representing Israel's interests. Right. But now, was he doing that first or foremost, or was he, you know, was his greater allegiance to the CIA or something we don't know, but we do know that he was carrying out missions on behalf and that served the state of Israel? Like, that's, that's not a controversial statement.
Starting point is 01:18:27 Now, what do you make of his relationship with Jislane Maxwell? You know, you've studied this, you've looked at this. She's looking for a pardon, I believe. she was moved to a much more, I guess, a low security or a lower security prison. She's clearly angling to be pardoned. What is the relationship with Jisland Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein from your reporting? Also, what do you think Jis Lane Maxwell may or may not have on the president of the United States? Yeah, I mean, they were tight for so long, that, you know, and I think there could be, you know, they knew Melania for a long time as well, like almost separately.
Starting point is 01:19:17 Who? The, like Epstein and Galane. How did they know her? I think through John Luke Brunel, some of the, who killed himself? Yeah, yeah. He was a, well, John Luke Brunel died, right? he was a photographer he was a
Starting point is 01:19:35 fashion industry fashion industry guy tycoon and a sex trafficker and then how did he die he's dead right jail cell also yeah yeah a lot of depression
Starting point is 01:19:48 so he knew Melani because she was a model that that's that's my memory yeah okay that at very early stages and and Melani is very sensitive about
Starting point is 01:20:01 this subject. I think she sued who, Michael Wolfe, or she sued somebody. Okay, yeah. She sued Michael Wolf, I believe, yes. Yeah, and I think she sued, like, this is another book that was saying that she and Epstein dated or something, so she sued over that. So I think that Trump and Melania are probably worried about what's in there as well. What do you think is in there? I mean, I know that you're a reporter, so you don't usually, you know, you know, extrapolate or say things that you can't. But if you could, and I'm not asking to make wild claims, what would the, what does the fear originate from? Well, so did you see the email that came out just the other day in the latest tranche where it was, there was one federal prosecutor
Starting point is 01:20:48 writing to others where he said, just as a situational awareness or whatever the words are they use, looks like President Trump, and this was during the first term, flew on Epstein's airplane, you know, significantly more times than was previously known. And he was also on there twice with Maxwell while there were victims on the plane during the time that we're investigating her for sex trafficking. Right. Just a heads up. Like, this is something you all might want to know, because this is our boss, like, at this particular moment. Like, that right there in any normal world would be utterly devastating.
Starting point is 01:21:28 Like the, so this is a convicted sex trafficker, Maxwell, forget Epstein. She's not convicted at that time, though. Not yet, but was getting, was getting investigated. Now we know she's a convicted sex trafficker. And there were victims on the plane while the president, or wasn't the president yet, but while Trump is on the plane. And so, you know, at best at that point, you can be like, well, I didn't see anything. But everybody else who's ever been around these folks are like,
Starting point is 01:21:58 No, this was like debauchrous, disgusting stuff. There's no way you didn't see this. And also we know that, you know, he did that whole thing where he's like, what do you say on Howard Stern? He bought Miss Teen USA so we could like creep into the locker room. Not an ideal statement. For sure. So do you...
Starting point is 01:22:19 Not secretly recorded either. Did you see the email from Mark Epstein saying my brother was about to name names and I think his murder was authorized by the president? I hadn't seen that, but... I don't know, you know, that's in there, I guess. There's fake stuff in there, right? Right, I will say that it's hard to believe that with the amount of power and the number of friends that he had, that he felt like he had no way out. Like, he considered himself to be a smooth operator, a very powerful person.
Starting point is 01:22:52 He's got lots of damaging information about almost everybody in positions of power. Yeah. Like, I've never seen, I don't know anybody who can get you meetings with Putin, Bill Clinton, Sarkozy, like, you know, Netanyahu. So you don't believe he killed himself. So it's just hard to see. Anything's possible, but like, he was still fighting the charges. And there was no reason to think he was going to spend the rest of his life in prison, given the power that he had. Right.
Starting point is 01:23:22 And what he could offer. But that's dangerous. But then, you know, it's also. very hard to figure out how they could pull it off, but it's very hard for me to get my head to a place where he's ready to just end it. He's at Chelsea Clinton. I'm sorry, Jisleine Maxwell is at Chelsea Clinton's wedding.
Starting point is 01:23:41 Right. Bill Clinton, there's photos of him swimming in a pool with Jisleine Maxwell. Yeah. Bill Clinton's not a rube. He knows that he knows what's going on. Right? I mean, he knows who Jislai Maxwell is and what they're up to.
Starting point is 01:23:55 why is and I know the answer I think I know the answer why is Bill Clinton so cool with hanging out with these people yeah I think yeah you probably know the answer it's like yeah yeah yeah so yeah
Starting point is 01:24:13 yeah so we have a problem here I mean this is truly a real problem right we have a problem if we're supposed to have a democratic society and now let's say it's hijacked by money we all believe that. Right. Hidjacked by business interests.
Starting point is 01:24:27 We all believe that. It's hijacked by oligarchs. Nobody's, nobody who listens to this show is shocked to hear any of that. What I do think people are shocked by, surprised, by disgusted, by enraged at is how many of these people seem to be either pedophiles or very tolerant of pedophiles. What about the ruling class? in your estimation makes that the case. That they, if they're not partaking, they're hanging out with human traffickers and that's okay.
Starting point is 01:25:04 I think if I had to put them on the couch, the way they have lived their life suggests to them that there are no rules. And I also think partly that once you are a billionaire or once you've been president of the United States or president of whatever country you're from, there's probably a lot of boredom that creeps in. Right. And you, and I imagine, like, they start getting their thrills by pushing into the forbidden.
Starting point is 01:25:32 Right. Like, in a world where almost everything is available to them with ease, with just, and everyone is nice to them, even the people that hate them. Right. Like, that's got to be unsettling. Well, you have Prince Andrew in the UK, who's, this has been a huge crisis for them. right, because Prince Andrew has been named by multiple witnesses, very credibly and accused of a very heinous behavior. The UK police, which was just reported,
Starting point is 01:26:03 are now going to ask the FBI for information on some of these UK sex parties where somebody is alleging that he was abused as an underage boy by Jis Lane Maxwell and Prince Andrew and, like, tortured, right? Like with electric shocks and everything like this in the UK. Now there's been, there was a scandal at the King Cora Boys' Home in, I believe, Ireland. You know, the Franklin scandal was another scandal in the 80s in Omaha, Nebraska,
Starting point is 01:26:34 where Franklin Credit Union was laundering money on behalf of a human trafficker who was peddling children to wealthy and powerful people. Is this something that has been going on forever, and this is something that people are now just kind of waking up to the depravity of some of these people. Like, you know, is this something that you think is, you know, do you have to go back? All the people who said, you know, pedophile shape-shifting lizards run the world, do you have to go back and apologize to them now? Yes, I think you do.
Starting point is 01:27:18 Yeah, I think this level of power. also like corrupts people's like souls and their minds yeah sure which which is another argument for like actual democratic checks on their power on their own behalf too you don't like we're trying to prevent you from being shriveled up pedophile reptiles is there a quasi religious element to this and i mean not and i don't get into the woo woo stuff all the time um in the sense that like defiling and abusing innocence and and and innocent children and and committing these horrible acts this obsession with death
Starting point is 01:27:57 you see it with the skull and bone stuff and I always thought I always kind of wrote it off as kind of like a childish and kind of trying to be edgy and whatever it is but this obsession with death and these images of somewhat of the occult and the weird Bohemian Grove stuff
Starting point is 01:28:14 where it's like we all stand there and everyone goes well it's just a frat party and it's a bunch of guys blown off steam and they're standing there and they're worshipping the owl of Molo and Moloch is a biblical symbol and it's talking about child sacrifice. Truly. Now I'm not trying to sound like crazy. And I know that you're a reporter
Starting point is 01:28:30 and you're only going to talk about what you've sourced and what's out there. But like, is there some strange, you know, I mean, genuinely, like is there some strange belief system where these symbols keep popping up and these people have this weird upset? And Tony Podestas got weird art in his house. It's just very odd.
Starting point is 01:28:50 I mean, truly, right? It's like odd. It's like I've been in a lot of wealthy people's homes and I've never seen a picture of a demon holding a baby or this art is very strange. Where the artist literally said, I'm working through my own trauma with this art. I don't know.
Starting point is 01:29:06 I'm not trying to draw all of these, you know, associations, but like, do you look at any of this stuff, you're reporting, do you look at any of this stuff in a new light now where you go, oh yeah, they believe certain people are disposed, expendable, expendable. If you're a 14-year-old girl that grows up on the wrong side of Palm Beach, your life is meaningless to them and they can do anything they want to you with impunity. Is there some overarching belief system that that fits into? I do think so. I think it is
Starting point is 01:29:37 like one of the strongest arguments against inequality, against this runaway, like insane level of inequality that produces a class of people that is unique, separate. distinct from the rest of the population and it and it's got to mess with them it's got to get in their heads because they don't have to worry about the pedestrian concerns that people have of like making your mortgage and like just staying alive and and like keeping your marriage healthy and like spending enough time with your kids and like this the normal things um so then they have to like develop all of these pathologically, like, depraved activities to just keep them, to let themselves know, to let them know they're alive.
Starting point is 01:30:27 And this has happened to over generations. This is just a generational problem. And it's happened also for thousands of years. Like, if it was just legalized with, you know, harems and all the, you know, over, over, you know, the long arc of history, the difference then was like, it was like, oh, that's what they do. How bad does this get for the Trump administration? I mean, they're saying that there's a lot more files that. still have not been released.
Starting point is 01:30:50 Looking at the material, do you think this gets much worse? Do you think this makes him a lame duck president? Do you think there are calls for impeachment or resignation? What do you think happens? I mean, I don't think we're looking at impeachment or I think it's deeply damaging. I think, you know, there are a lot of people who are like single issue. Right.
Starting point is 01:31:14 No pedophiles, voters. That makes sense. You think Bill Clinton's going to be called to testify? And I think, yes, they're trying to get him to. And it would be, you know, Steve Bannon went to jail for refusing a subpoena. Right. To testify to Congress. It'd be wild if they refuse and like.
Starting point is 01:31:31 What do you make of that relationship? You know, people talk about Steve Bannon advising him and there's hours of. That's a very good question. Wow. A cat, it's a black cat who comes in. Watch out. It's Massad. Uh-oh.
Starting point is 01:31:44 That's what they do. All right. So Bannon and him, What's that deal? He, I think, I think Bannon, I mean, obviously, this is deep into people knowing what Epstein was all about. Yeah. I think Bannon understood, like, what an operator this guy was. Right.
Starting point is 01:32:00 Like, Bannon was, if you remember after 2017, he's trying to go to Europe and become this, like, right-wing kingmaker and turn Europe into this, you know, right-wing utopia. and he's often working with Epstein who Epstein's connecting him to all these guys but then he's also giving him all this advice about like how he's going to you know his public image and then he's like when Ehud Barak wants to run for Israeli Prime Minister again
Starting point is 01:32:33 he and Epstein like Bannon and Epstein are talking about like Bannon wants to work for Barack like to support Barack which is like wild also So, yeah, and he has successfully dodged a lot of the scrutiny around this. I think – and I think it's because there's no evidence that he was, like, partying with the guy or involved in, like, that part of the depravity. Right. He was just kind of having some, I don't know, advising him to whatever degree. Yeah, he's – like, because he, I think he correctly understood how powerful a role he was playing in the world at that point, which is what so many people, like, deny. as a reality.
Starting point is 01:33:14 Do you think there's any chance that Jeffrey Epstein isn't dead? No, that would be wild, though. That'd be a nice ending to this. I was told by someone, I was told by someone very high up that it was that they didn't think this was the case, but there's a small possibility that he's living on Wexner's estate in Ohio. Because it's so big. I would assume they'd kill him again.
Starting point is 01:33:41 Interesting. Like, what's the point of letting him live? Right, right. The old double. Yeah. Like, all right. Hey, we saved your life. We're taking a waxer to the state.
Starting point is 01:33:51 Oh, and then we're killing you right here. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. Right. They don't want him. He's dangerous. They can't have him around.
Starting point is 01:33:58 He knows too much. He certainly. He certainly knows enormous. Like, as a reporter, it's been, it's been interesting to get such a window into the type of machinations that are usually shielded from. the public. Right. Yeah, he, he had, there were so many things he could have shed light on. Do you think this scandal, and I think it does, but would you agree that this really sheds light on the way the world actually works in a way that maybe no other scandal has before?
Starting point is 01:34:29 I think so. And I think, and I think when he was arrested in 2019, people got the, got this hope that they were going to get that look at the way the world actually worked. and then it was slam shut. And now the window is kind of being forced back open a little bit. But I do think that's right. I think that this is the way that this Davos set operates globally. And the more we know about it, the better. But would you say that this is also the way the countries like Russia operate and China
Starting point is 01:35:06 and all of these big powerful countries? Yes, I think because. we are because we in western europe are you know nominally democratic we have a slightly greater need for people operating in the shadows right whereas i think that you know paradoxically russia and china can be a little bit more explicit about how they're going to manage their operations right because like what are you going to say about it like this is what we're doing right right but i imagine that you know when he's back channeling or supposedly trying to back with Putin or backchat?
Starting point is 01:35:40 Like, he, this is a guy who's, there's no one, he's working with everybody. Right. Yeah, he immediately got Barack this like $2 million deal with Victor Vexelberg, big oligarch in Russia. Like as soon as he leaves the minister of defense position, he's like, I need money. Like, I got your guy.
Starting point is 01:35:56 Right. We're going to hook you up with Renova. He's tight with Putin. And it's like how, like what? You have to think about it. Like that alone is like, he's tight with the Clintons. It's tight with Trump. or falling out, supposedly, with Trump.
Starting point is 01:36:11 And he's tight with Putin. Like, what, how does that square with our understanding of what they tell us the world is? It's still tough, and you've done such a brilliant job of reporting, and I've read a lot of your stuff. It's still difficult for me to fully understand how that becomes the case, right? It's still, like, when you say, oh, he's building connections, and I'm, he is, clearly. But it's still difficult for me to understand. how this happens in the sense of like, you know, he seems to, you know, how many people in history do you think are, have been like Jeffrey Epstein,
Starting point is 01:36:53 are currently like Jeffrey Epstein? Like, how many Jeffrey Epstein's do we not know about? Right. Is he a one of one? Is he a one of a hundred? Is he who, how many people are, would you say, with that deeply connected? and, you know, how does that, how many people? It's a good question because it takes decades to build those connections up
Starting point is 01:37:17 and to build that trust up to get both sides to believe that this person is going to actually make this thing happen. You probably saw the one email that, to me, there was actually two that were striking to me, where Putin wants to meet with Epstein at this conference. Yeah. He wants to meet him on the sidelines of a conference. And Epstein tells Putin's aide, no, you know, if Putin wants to meet, like, it's got to be at his palace and, like, we need to set significant amount of times that we can really hash things out.
Starting point is 01:37:49 Right. I'm not doing, like, a little brief catch-up at this conference. And meanwhile, he set up Barack, and I think it was Sarkozy, not Macron, and a banker for dinner in Paris. And he just blows it off. Epstein's supposed to be there. He's like, I'm not feeling well. God only knows what he was doing instead that night, but he's just blowing off presidents around the world.
Starting point is 01:38:15 And so how many people in the world are doing that? It can't be that man. Didn't Nicholas Sarkozy have his own sex scandal, or am I completely wrong? Yeah, and he's in prison right now for something. I mean, so it's just, again, it's like this, he's this figure that is, you know, obviously he's a pedophile, he's a monster, he's trafficking women.
Starting point is 01:38:41 What is this island? You know, he's got this strange island. He's got Phoenician symbols all over. It's like an odd. What is this, what role does this island play? Getting high-level scientists, people in the tech community to this island. What is this guy, you know, what is he doing? Is he, is that island?
Starting point is 01:39:04 Do you think it's like a pleasure island where these business? billionaires are going and they're, you know, meeting underage people. What is he doing with his island? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, he's definitely doing, like, what we think he's doing. Right. There's lots and lots of evidence of that. And I think it's a way to set yourself apart in that billionaire class.
Starting point is 01:39:26 It's like, you've got to have an island. Right. You got to have jets. You've got to have a helicopter. You've got to have an island. The ranch in New Mexico, I think, is, like, serves some of the same purpose. right but that's a little bit more pedestrian like having your own island he also as we found in a lot of his correspondence was was figuring out these like tax loopholes and tax incentives for
Starting point is 01:39:49 like these island based biopharmaceutical like you can call something like a biomedical company and then all of a sudden you can move billions of dollars through it and it's and then it's completely laundered and so and people have not said oh like he does he's he's not a real accountant. It's like, because he wasn't a real accountant. He was willing, I think, to break the law in a way that other accountants wouldn't. So he was actually able to find like genuinely innovative, quote unquote, innovative solutions for these billionaires to be like, hey, the U.S. Virgin Islands, you can move your money right here. And I know people and I can, I can shelter it here. And then all of a sudden now it's not taxable. And you also get these
Starting point is 01:40:33 incentives and so he's he's constantly blending and and as his survivors will tell you he's he was like often on the phone um while he's like getting these you know starting with the massages and moving into the abuse so like people are often like how do you have time to like be a part such a global operator when he was also like on a near daily basis of using girls it's like well he was literally doing them at the same time right and you read his emails if you've looked at some of those there's not a single sentence that doesn't have isn't shot through with typos and grammatical mistakes right like you can you imagine him just like engaged in abuse and just like firing off emails to like prime ministers um and arranging these meetings and what do you think this how does this
Starting point is 01:41:21 shape the political reality uh going forward of the u.s israel relationship does it have no impact at all? Is it, is there, is there a slight impact? Is there no impact? Does, you know, because that was one of the questions. Obviously, people are very unhappy about what Israel was done in Gaza and people are very happy about, unhappy about people like Maria Madelson and whatever. Do you think there's political, diplomatic fallout from this tranche of documents that's going to come out where people go, you know, this is a damaging, you know, this is damaging the U.S.-Israel relationship, or do you think it won't? I mean, I think so because I think eventually the rest of the press is going to have to start reporting on the reality of it.
Starting point is 01:42:15 Because it'll end up being similar to the lab leak question, actually, where you still, still, maybe to this day, do not have mainstream media approval for the idea that COVID leaked out of the lab in Wuhan. Yet if you do a survey of the American public, something like 80% I think at this point, maybe higher, are like, yeah, it came out of a lab. And so even if, I think you could see the same shift here. Like, even if the mainstream media refuses to touch any of the like public information, public documents and correspondence that connect him to working on behalf of Israel, a year or two from now, you poll the public. You know, was he working on behalf of Israeli interests? I think you'll get like a 70, 80 percent. Doesn't mean it was solely working
Starting point is 01:43:09 on behalf of Israeli interests. Of course. But yeah, so I think that they won't be able to hold that back. And so, and it coming in the context of both the genocide and also this like insistence that you're not allowed to criticize the genocide is just going to add up to be just too much. I don't know what I don't like what political party is going to be unapologetically pro-Israel going forward. Neither of them really. Yeah, it doesn't feel like it'll be a popular position. Two more questions and I appreciate it doing this. Having done all the reporting you've done on Epstein, on his connections, on the extent to which he was involved in. in global politics and the way that that network of people,
Starting point is 01:43:57 you talked about ex-intelligence, X, you know, leaders of countries. Do you feel at a certain point, and again, this is asking you to kind of pontificate that that system is going, there's going to be a threat to that system and that is that because we have more technology, we have a new media landscape, the, you can't control the narrative as much as you could. Is there going to be a threat to that system? Or, and I would be the cynic and say not really because they don't really care.
Starting point is 01:44:42 Like that, that's my thing. My thing is they don't care. They know that we know. we know that they know that we know it doesn't seem to matter to them do you think it matters to them that we can get millions of people to watch this or listen to this
Starting point is 01:44:58 or Rogan can get do they care at all or not really I think it bothers them a little bit because anything that they can't control unsettles them I think that you're right that they still have things firmly under control but they don't have everything under control
Starting point is 01:45:16 And so I think that bothers them. And I think, and it's no secret. I'm not a huge fan of Donald Trump. But I think a lot of the public thought that Donald Trump was actually going to be a threat to this system. Well, that's, yeah. And I think it's been extremely demoralizing to people
Starting point is 01:45:30 to see the opposite come about, to see him be an obstacle. What do you make of J.D. Vance out of curiosity? Well, since he's not connected to this, he could at least make hay out of it, right? Yeah. But I think he's probably boxed in because he can't get ahead of Trump on this. So he's kind of stuck as well.
Starting point is 01:45:52 You know, he can speak in generalities. And now he's probably unleashed a little bit now that Trump has been pressured into releasing the files. So he can, but before that, he had to, like, walk this fine line where he wants transparency, but he can't contradict his boss either. What do you think? Yeah, how do you think he's handled this? Well, I think he's in this interesting position, right?
Starting point is 01:46:12 because he has, he's got to have loyalty to Trump. But I also think that he's seeing his own political aspirations get negatively impacted by this, right? I mean, that's obvious. So I don't really know, but it seems to me that he's in a weirdly untenable position because Trump's not running again and Trump's old and Trump's made his money. I mean, and I don't know. You know, I don't know what exactly how far he'll dis. I don't know how damaging this gets.
Starting point is 01:46:42 That's the real question, right? How bad does it get for the White House? And then is J.D. willing to go, hey, not me. You know, you know? Final thing, there have been lots and lots and lots of, there's been lots of speculation about two events. Now, I don't know how much you've looked into any of these events. One was the attempted assassination on Donald Trump.
Starting point is 01:47:10 The second is the assassination of Charlie Kirk. These have inspired lots of discussion across multiple platforms with many high-level people weighing in. And they've caused massive, you know, problems within the conservative movement. And even to a lesser extent, but even, you know, on the other side, you have, I think, certain fissures over issues like this where you have people that are accused of conspiracy mongering and doing it for profit
Starting point is 01:47:54 and you have people that are like, well, no, I'm going to accept the official narrative of the FBI, which is now being run by Cash Patel. And I think you find a lot of people somewhere like I find myself in the middle of not being an investigative, journalist, but also having no faith in Cash Patel and the FBI. On those two issues, where would you put yourself?
Starting point is 01:48:19 I've actually found it really interesting that in the two cases, like the one, the Charlie Kirk one to me does actually seem pretty straightforward. The FBI bungled it from start to finish, and some of it is like weird, but it does seem like to me like what looks like to have happened like mostly to to me is right is what happened whereas on the butler one with trump that is a complete mystery like this it's a ghost of a person who doesn't exist on social media for the most part um nicks the guy's ear from and climbs up there casually from 150 yards out um and that one is the one that was just kind of moved everyone's kind of moved on
Starting point is 01:49:04 from it and instead focuses on the Kirk one that that part to me is kind of an interesting that's not how I would have expected them to take out. And Trump never really brings it up.
Starting point is 01:49:17 Yeah and because I guess they never were able to like if it would have been a liberal kid then or even if it had been a right wing kid. Like you need something. There was nothing to grab onto. Does Israel bomb Iran
Starting point is 01:49:32 before the midterms? They certainly want to. Right. They're agitating. Netanyahu will be here on Monday for, what, his sixth trip? What do they have on? Why is the president so docile when it comes to Benjamin Netanyahu? I don't know.
Starting point is 01:49:52 He doesn't seem to like, like him interpersonally. Like when you look at their body language. Right. And it's truly amazing. I actually I saw your clip about him and Maryam Adelson which was delightful it is lovely. I mean they are friends
Starting point is 01:50:08 here's the thing with him and Miriam they're just butts you can tell they you can tell he actually likes there's very few people you can tell Donald Trump actually likes I think he really likes Miriam Adelson I think he's also I think he's also amused by her
Starting point is 01:50:25 and by her late husbands like obsession with Israel he's always he always like negs them about it. Like, man, you really love Israel. That's like the only thing you care about. Yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:50:36 It just seems very interesting to me that he's such a, you know, you know, like, you know, wildly unpredictable guy on every single issue except this one issue. Like, he's been for and against things. He'll go, we're doing this. We're not going to do it. I like this person. I don't like this person. He gets infudes quickly.
Starting point is 01:51:00 He fires. people, but he loves Miriam Adelson. I mean, he's got 250 million reasons in counting. That's right. Yes. His whole selling point was that wasn't who he was. And it's like, we can't even get that. Is anyone going to be the president when that's not who they are? I don't know if it's, if like, right, I guess the whole problem with, you know, he was so
Starting point is 01:51:25 over leveraged and struggling in 2016. Like, he wasn't an actual billionaire. So we need some actual billionaires, I guess, if we're going to... That's what you've heard it here first. Ryan Grimm's, more billionaire leaders. More billionaires. Well, listen, enjoy the holiday. Put it up in one place.
Starting point is 01:51:43 We can put bars around the place. Happy New Year. Where can people follow your work? You're doing some of the best reporting right now in the country on this. That's, yeah, very kind of you. Yeah. We're at dropsite news.com. And then, you know, Monday through Fridays, we're, we're,
Starting point is 01:51:59 putting up shows at breaking points. But yeah, we're reader funded. So let me put in a plug. Reader funded over at DropSite. So if you can, everything is free, but if you can become a subscriber or a donor, it's a nonprofit. Hey, you still have a few days to get your charitable contributions in. Get your charitable contributions in.
Starting point is 01:52:19 I wish I could subscribe. I've given my yearly charitable contribution to Israel in the form of my agent. And that's where I, my. money will go. Ryan, thank you again for making time to do this on a holiday weekend. I appreciate it. Yeah, it was my pleasure. All right. Thank you so much. Chime. Chime. Hold on. Chime is changing the way people bank, fee free and smarter banking built for you. Not like old school banks that charge you overdraft and monthly fees built for you, not to 1%. Chime isn't just another banking app. They unlock smarter banking every day for everyday people with products like my pay,
Starting point is 01:52:54 giving you access to up to $500 off your paycheck anytime and getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit. Some old banks don't do this. Forget overdraft fees, minimum balances and monthly fees, charm trends everyday spending into real rewards and progress. Bank fee-free plus overdraft coverage you can count and helps you build your credit history, stress-free, get paid when you say up to $500. Earn up to three and a half percent APY on savings eight times higher than a traditional bank. Rated five stars by USA Today for customer service. Real human 24-7. Chime. God, I love chime. I'm telling you. Chime. is not just smarter banking. It is the most rewarding way to bank. Join the millions who are already
Starting point is 01:53:33 banking fee free today. It just takes a few minutes to sign up. Head to chime.com slash Jim. That is chime.com.com slash tim. Chime is a financial technology company, not a bank. Bank. Bank Chime fees of credit card, my pay line of credit provided by the Bank, N.A. or Stride Bank, any my pay eligibility requirements apply in credit limit ranges $20 to $500. Option. Optional services and products may have fees or charge at seechime.com slash fees info. Advertise annual percentage yield with Chime. Plus, status only otherwise 1% APY applies, no minimum balance required. Chim card on-time payment history may have a positive impact on your credit score results may vary.
Starting point is 01:54:05 CCHM.com for details in applicable terms. applicable terms.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.