BUY CAST BREW COFFEE TO SUPPORT THE SHOW - https://castbrew.com/ Become A Member And Protect Our Work at http://www.timcast.com Host: Tim Pool @Timcast (everywhere) Guest: Rep. Ro Khanna @RoKhanna (X) My Second Channel - https://www.youtube.com/timcastnews Podcast Channel - https://www.youtube.com/TimcastIRL Democrat VOWS SECOND Bill To Force Trump To Release Epstein Files
| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| Donald Trump has told his followers to move on and not waste time on the Epstein files. | ||
| They're not happy with it. | ||
| But just the other day, Rep Rokana has called for the release of any files pertaining to Epstein's prosecution and evidence to be published on the DOJ website. | ||
| Republicans have blocked this effort, leading to a bit of controversy. | ||
| Many people are now saying that Trump is dead to them. | ||
| They can't believe he would cover this up. | ||
| The Republicans in the House clearly are hiding this because they could have gotten these files out, but it is a bit contentious. | ||
| In fact, the challenge, I suppose, is a blanket amendment saying release any evidence means the DOJ is going to be publishing child abuse material on the DOJ website. | ||
| Well, my friends, we're kicking off this show a bit with the interview early as we were trying to make time to make sure we can get Rep Rokana in, and we do have him. | ||
| I'll be bringing in the representative who introduced the amendment to get all of the Epstein files and evidence published right now. | ||
| We're going to fix the echo right now. | ||
| We're getting echo. | ||
| It happens. | ||
| All right, let's see what we got to do. | ||
| We figured out what was wrong with it. | ||
| That was... | ||
| Yeah, I can't see you, but I can hear you. | ||
| We're getting it going. | ||
| Sorry about that. | ||
| We had some echo problem the other day that we had to work out. | ||
| Can you see me now? | ||
| I can. | ||
| I can. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Let's bring you in. | ||
| Representative, thanks for joining me today. | ||
| You introduced an amendment to get the Epstein files and evidence published within 30 days, and it was struck down. | ||
| The first thing I want to ask you is, do you think the Trump administration is covering up Epstein's crimes? | ||
| I don't know, but like you, as you had tweeted out in February of this year, I believe that they should release the Epstein client list. | ||
| They should release any of the evidence. | ||
| They promised that. | ||
| Trump promised that. | ||
| The Attorney General promised that. | ||
| Now, I just want to clarify, because you're always fair. | ||
| I do not want any of the victim's identity released. | ||
| I do not want any of the potential child pornography released. | ||
| All of that under the amendment is covered because they, under DOJ policy, do not have to release any of that information. | ||
| I made it clear I don't. | ||
| And in a bill that I'm going to be introducing, a bipartisan bill soon, we're going to make that perfectly explicit that that should not be released. | ||
| So for those that aren't familiar, the amendment was voted down. | ||
| It was seven to five. | ||
| Republicans, I believe the Democrats voted yes to have the files and evidence released within 30 days. | ||
| The Republicans voted no. | ||
| Now, I don't know the exact... | ||
| You're correct. | ||
| Apologies. | ||
| Apologies. | ||
| You're correct. | ||
| I suppose on the surface, the easy out, if you're going to look at this negatively on Republicans as a cover-up, the easy out is, well, certainly the DOJ has its policies about not releasing the child abuse materials and certain evidence that could compromise a case. | ||
| But your amendment did say that any would be released. | ||
| It didn't have a carve-out explaining any kind of special actions they could take. | ||
| The easy argument is, well, of course, you can't vote yes on that. | ||
| It would compromise investigations and it would compromise the victims. | ||
| Well, our understanding from the amendment from legal counsel is that it would not have in any way interfered with the DOJ's policies of protecting victims, and the DOJ has that right. | ||
| But because of that issue that some have raised, we're going to make it absolutely explicit in this bipartisan bill that we're going to be putting forward. | ||
| And the reality is that some people, not you, I believe you because you come from a sincere place, but some people are doing mental gymnastics to try to prevent this release. | ||
| And I want to make it clear, victims should be protected. | ||
| None of the pornographic stuff should be out there. | ||
| But let me ask you, if that was the case, and we have a bill that makes that very clear, will you support the idea that the evidence on any client list, the evidence regarding Jeffrey Epstein, that that should become public? | ||
| 80%. | ||
| Because the answer is simply yes. | ||
| But the challenge is, well, I'll put it this way first. | ||
| They've come out and they've said there's no information that would predicate an investigation of third parties. | ||
| There's not evidence that would implicate them and bring criminal charges. | ||
| If the argument from the DOJ is right now, case closed, then absolutely, let's release it. | ||
| If they're going to say that there's no evidence Epstein that third parties were involved in any of the crimes he was doing, so long as they're not releasing any images or information that's private to the victims, if they're going to say who he worked for and what he was doing, then so be it. | ||
| Because the argument then is that there will be no innocent fallout. | ||
| There's not going to be some individual who may have met him at a party who will be falsely accused because that won't be in any of the documents. | ||
| No documents will implicate them in any way. | ||
| 100%. | ||
| Now, I suppose the question then is, are they lying about there actually being evidence of wrongdoing that's being covered up? | ||
| In which case, I suppose we have to force their hand because we can't accept that. | ||
| But would the release of any information compromise any investigations in the future? | ||
| I'm curious your thoughts based on, you know, my assessment. | ||
| Look, I don't think it will compromise anything in the future. | ||
| And if there was some case that they thought they were going to bring, they should bring it or give that explanation for why they're not releasing part of it because there's an investigation that's ongoing. | ||
| Here's a legitimate concern. | ||
| Look, the DOJ usually does not release interviews and evidence until they charge someone because you don't want a precedent that the government is investigating you and then they release all this information and they don't charge you and they destroy people's reputation. | ||
| So I get that argument. | ||
| But because you've had, in this case, the president of the United States campaign on releasing the information, because you've had Pam Bondi go on TV and say there is a file. | ||
| I know she's now saying it's a file, not the client list, but she's made those representations. | ||
| Because you have real concerns about foreign leaders being involved and potentially intelligence agencies being involved. | ||
| I think the president should say, in this case, we're making an exception. | ||
| We're releasing all the files to have total sunshine, recognize there may be people mentioned in these files who are not guilty. | ||
| And the American people, we're going to trust their judgment to sort through that. | ||
| And this is not a precedent for the DLJ doing this again, but it's in this case, we're going to do that. | ||
| And that, I think, weighs the legitimate concerns that some people innocent will be caught up in the release. | ||
| But I have confidence in the American people are being fair. | ||
| I agree. | ||
| I think this is great. | ||
| You know, yesterday when we talked about the initial, you came out on the floor, you said you wanted to make this happen. | ||
| On the surface, we get the idea. | ||
| I think I and many people in a similar space completely agree and appreciate the actions you're taking to get this information released to the public. | ||
| And then, of course, the big concern with the vote was clarifying any amendments on making sure they don't just dump everything they have. | ||
| With that being agreed, and I appreciate you say that. | ||
| So with that being said, I think this is fantastic. | ||
| The question then becomes, why aren't they releasing it? | ||
| Why this 180 from all of these people? | ||
| I mean, Cash, Dan, Trump, Pam Bondi. | ||
| She says, you know, they give these binders to people with phase one, Epstein release. | ||
| And then the next thing we know, there is no phase two. | ||
| There's nothing to see or it's all gone. | ||
| Why do you think there's this 180 happening? | ||
| You know, I really don't know other than to say that they're probably influential, powerful people who are donors to politicians, who played golf with politicians, who are caught up in it. | ||
| And let's be clear, some of these people may not have actually visited an island or engaged in illegal conduct with an underage woman. | ||
| Some of these people may just have solicited Jeffrey Epstein for a contribution or may have gone to a party or may have been on a plane. | ||
| And my guess is that they are reluctant to release all of this because they know that a lot of influential, powerful people will be implicated. | ||
| And they probably think, you know, people aren't going to really care. | ||
| The reason people care, though, is this is something deeper than just the Epstein file. | ||
| It's like if a country is not willing to stand up for young girls and protecting her children and willing to provide impunity to rich and powerful men, then what kind of country are we? | ||
| And it speaks to people's fundamental sense that there's something rotten in Washington, that we've gotten to corrupt. | ||
| And that's why ultimately I do think that Trump will be forced to release these things because the argument isn't just coming from people like me. | ||
| It's coming from people like you and people who voted. | ||
| I don't know who you voted for, but people who voted for you. | ||
| I voted for Trump. | ||
| But this is the ultimate bipartisan issue. | ||
| You know, going back even to 2000s, there had been information about Epstein. | ||
| He got these sweetheart deals, even though he was accused of very serious crimes. | ||
| And then even up to like, you know, 2019, the charges they levy against him were light compared to the evidence that was already in the public sphere. | ||
| Notably, there was an individual, I think it was his butler who worked for him, who had been criminally charged for trying to sell off the information of the people he's working with. | ||
| There are concerns, I guess, that I will add this, it's the ultimate bipartisan issue. | ||
| But there are conspiracies. | ||
| Everybody's got a theory. | ||
| What if this implicates U.S. intelligence, the U.S. intelligence apparatus and its allies, perhaps MI6 or Mossad or maybe even anything else out of Europe? | ||
| Some theorize the reason Trump doesn't want to release it is because it's going to compromise in some way national security, not to, you know, and again, I'm not saying don't release it. | ||
| I'm saying release it. | ||
| I get it. | ||
| Well, isn't that more of a reason to release it? | ||
| I mean, look, I don't think anyone would say that our CIA has been innocent in our history. | ||
| There was the whole church commission, right, and the church investigation. | ||
| Some of the intelligence agencies used to be involved in assassinations of overseas leaders. | ||
| Used to be. | ||
| And then the American people said, no, we don't want that. | ||
| And they were exposed and that led to reform. | ||
| So if, and I'm just saying, I have no idea if any intelligence agency was involved. | ||
| I hope they weren't. | ||
| But if they were involved, wouldn't you want to know that? | ||
| I mean, the president could actually do such a public service. | ||
| He could say, I'm releasing this. | ||
| We're getting this information out there. | ||
| And now we're calling for reform if there are intelligence agencies that are involved. | ||
| But the very fact that people are asking these questions, the very fact that you got Tucker Carlton or others saying this about the intelligence agencies, don't you want to make sure that we know the truth? | ||
| Otherwise, these theories are just going to take on a life of their own, and it's undermining the people's trust in government. | ||
| I completely agree. | ||
| The big conundrum that we've talked about the past week or two on TimCast IRL is perhaps the scenario is, and again, I'm not saying it because I really don't know, that when they begin to go through the documents, they realize that it potentially implicates powerful politicians in various countries, potentially in corporations. | ||
| And the U.S. could expose these individuals, but it could cause massive collateral damage to alliances, peace negotiations, and generally the market. | ||
| So this is one theory that Trump is basically saying, we don't want the collateral damage. | ||
| And unfortunately, that means we just can't publish this stuff. | ||
| So I'll ask you this. | ||
| Let's say, and again, completely hypothetically, the release of the information would cause collateral damage between our alliances, trade partners, other countries, world leaders, and our corporations in the stock market. | ||
| Do you think we should still release all that information? | ||
| Yes, because I think we're a very resilient country. | ||
| I don't think that we are reliant just on a few hundred or a few thousand people who may be implicated. | ||
| Many of them, by the way, won't be charged. | ||
| So it's a matter of personal shame and embarrassment more than anything else. | ||
| And we're still the most consequential, indispensable nation in the world. | ||
| It's not like other countries are not going to trade with us or other things. | ||
| In fact, they'll respect the honesty. | ||
| But if there was something truly serious, some aspect that the president couldn't release because he has access to information that you or I may not, then he should just level with the American people and say that, say exactly that. | ||
| Here's what we're releasing. | ||
| Here's information that we can't release because X, Y, and Z. But I think what people don't like right now is they feel like they're in the dark and they feel like people are being protected who did terrible things. | ||
| Do you think there really is a possibility that they were overhyping something that wasn't there? | ||
| And then when they say there is no client list, I don't, but do you think there's a possibility that they're just telling the truth? | ||
| Look, I think there's a possibility that Jeffrey Epstein didn't sit there and write out a client list. | ||
| I mean, it'd be like documenting your own crime. | ||
| But do I think that there are probably memos and investigations that have information about people who were on his plane or gave him money or asked him for favors or were seen in the vicinity of an island where illegal things were going on? | ||
| My guess is there's that evidence out there. | ||
| And again, if it was a traditional case, you would say, if you're not charging someone, then don't release the evidence because you don't want the government destroying people in the press without charging. | ||
| But this is no longer a traditional case. | ||
| We're talking about intelligence agencies. | ||
| We're talking about the word of the Attorney General. | ||
| We're talking about the president of the United States campaigning on this. | ||
| And at this point, I think the president has to say, in this manner, because of the public interest, national security, we're making it an exception. | ||
| We're putting it out there. | ||
| And he can caution, and the attorney general can caution that the American people shouldn't judge just because someone's name is in some interview memo doesn't mean that they engaged in sex with underage women. | ||
| I mean, the American people are smart. | ||
| I think they will be fair. | ||
| I agree. | ||
| I agree. | ||
| I feel like the answer to this is probably obvious, but why do you think it is? | ||
| There are many prominent Trump supporters coming out now and saying, you know what, nothing to see here, guys. | ||
| Let's just let it go. | ||
| Look, I think they like the policies that Donald Trump is doing. | ||
| I don't agree with them, but they may think we agree with him on his tariffs. | ||
| We agree with him on his deportations. | ||
| I'm totally opposed to deportations without due process, but some people obviously support him on that. | ||
| They like the tax breaks that he's instituted. | ||
| I totally disagree with that. | ||
| And they like that he won. | ||
| And so they see that this is something that is splitting some of the MAGA base, and they don't want him to be ineffective as a president. | ||
| But I think this goes to the core of Trump's brand and his persona, because what he said is, look, the system is corrupt. | ||
| He even said, I'm part of this corrupt system. | ||
| You know, let me tell you, I used to give all these politicians money myself. | ||
| I used to hand it out and I want to change the system. | ||
| And him now saying, look, no, I'm going to protect the system becomes undermining his very rationale. | ||
| And for that reason, Trump's a very smart politician. | ||
| I would be shocked if he does not rethink this and push for some of the release the more he hears. | ||
| And I would, if he does that, I would come back and I'd give him credit. | ||
| I'd say, okay, he heard the people and now he's releasing it. | ||
| They are floating the idea. | ||
| I think Laura Trump said recently they're looking at more documents. | ||
| According to documents obtained by Judicial Watch, I think there are still some Epstein files that may come out. | ||
| But I suppose the question is, two questions. | ||
| The first is, should your bill, which you mentioned will clarify to make sure that's not going to target victims or anything like that, should that actually make it to a floor vote? | ||
| Do you think you will get enough votes to have it pass? | ||
| Will your colleagues in the Democratic Party approve of it? | ||
| And more importantly, will it ever be allowed to get out of committee and even go near the floor? | ||
| I do. | ||
| There's something called a discharge petition, which means if 218 House members sign it, it has to come to the floor. | ||
| And I think there's going to be so much press interest in this that we will get enough people to sign on to that discharge petition and get a vote. | ||
| So I am quite optimistic as long as it's bipartisan, as long as it clarifies this point very, very explicitly. | ||
| I'd hope if after this, if you can tweet out or make that clear, because you raise a very important point and you have a large following, and I want to make it clear to people that what we're going to push and in the bill, it'll be explicit, is going to protect victims and make sure none of the child pornography or any of that gets released. | ||
| I think that's fantastic. | ||
| I mean, again, that was the principal concern in that the initial A, B, and the amendment you had, the two paragraphs, it just said any evidence. | ||
| And I get it. | ||
| Clearly, I understand what your intent was. | ||
| We were actually saying this is a great move from you. | ||
| When it comes to the vote, I'm like, the Republicans are clearly going to say no to that, and they're going to cite the victims. | ||
| So I welcome and encourage you that it's going to be great to get this bill forward. | ||
| But I guess ultimately, you know, there's a couple of thoughts people are going to have. | ||
| I see these Trump supporters, the diehards, saying, you know, Trump says, let's not, we're going to move on from this. | ||
| And I think the mentality of a lot of these guys, it's going to be something like, why do Democrats all of a sudden care about this when they could have brought this up during the Biden administration? | ||
| Now it seems like it may just be a political tool against Trump because it's splitting his base. | ||
| Look, we could have brought it up in the first Trump administration, right? | ||
| No one brought it up when William Barr said that there's not much to see. | ||
| And then it's fair that people didn't bring it up during the Biden administration. | ||
| But the stakes were raised when the Attorney General is out there saying that there's a client list on her desk, when the President of the United States is campaigning and the Vice President of the United States is campaigning explicitly on the release of these files. | ||
| And then they win the election. | ||
| So now there's a public outcry and it's about trust. | ||
| And everything I'm trying to do is in a bipartisan basis. | ||
| Even this bill, I'm not going to introduce unless I get Republicans, because I don't want this to be seen as just going after Trump. | ||
| I want this to be seen as answering the outcry of the American public. | ||
| And if they, look, the Democrats lost the last election, probably because we didn't listen to people. | ||
| Now we're listening to people. | ||
| So you can't have it both ways. | ||
| You can't say, okay, Democrats were out of touch and now listen to people. | ||
| Now we're listening to people and say, well, now you're being political. | ||
| No, yeah, Trump won. | ||
| We were listening. | ||
| There's an outcry. | ||
| Now we're saying, let's on a bipartisan basis, get these files released. | ||
| I love it. | ||
| I think they should be carefully done. | ||
| Of course, we're going to Make sure we clarify all that. | ||
| But it's not something that's in the mainstream psyche. | ||
| So, one of the issues that came up is Trump's immigration efforts, the immigration raids, ICE have been expanding. | ||
| We recently had the marijuana farms in California that were raided. | ||
| There was the riot. | ||
| Things are getting crazy. | ||
| We've had a couple ambushes on CBP and ICE. | ||
| There was a man apparently firing a gun. | ||
| Things have been getting really bad. | ||
| And in this, across the board, we have seen a slight downward trend for Trump on the issue of immigration, which is his strongest issue. | ||
| I think Gallup had him at minus 27. | ||
| Maybe an outlier, but in aggregate, he's down about three points where he was in the positive for some time. | ||
| This issue, I absolutely agree, and I commend you for bringing it forward to get these files released, but it is very esoteric. | ||
| It's not something the average public pays attention to. | ||
| And the concern then is that if the focus in the political sphere is on this very esoteric issue, does it not distract the public from issues on immigration? | ||
| Is it maybe something the Trump administration wants to happen? | ||
| Well, I think it goes to the broader sense in this country that people think the rich and powerful have their thumb on the scale, that they control government. | ||
| People are having too much in their rent. | ||
| They're struggling to have high-paying jobs. | ||
| They're struggling to support their families. | ||
| And they think the system is kind of rigged against them and politicians aren't working on their behalf. | ||
| And if you look at it in that context, as opposed to just an obsession about Jeffrey Epstein and who was on his island, then you understand the anger. | ||
| And I think that calling for the transparency, calling for accountability is saying, let's give government back to people. | ||
| Now, that doesn't mean that we don't focus on healthcare and the economy and immigration. | ||
| But you know what? | ||
| One of the statistics that saddens me is when one of my favorite presidents was John F. Kennedy. | ||
| And when he was president and people keep saying, oh, he's got us to go to the moon and he had these big things. | ||
| The approval rating of government was 60%. | ||
| Now people don't trust government. | ||
| It doesn't matter if you're a Democrat, Republican, they don't trust us. | ||
| And so I think this is needed to rebuild trust so we can then solve immigration, healthcare, the economy. | ||
| Last question. | ||
| Do you fear for your safety pursuing the release of these files? | ||
| I don't because I think that this is fundamentally a decent country, a fair country. | ||
| I mean, obviously, look, I'm an Indian American. | ||
| I grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. | ||
| I was born there. | ||
| And I have found this country to be open and decent and fair. | ||
| And, you know, I still believe that. | ||
| Obviously, anytime you put yourself out there and you take on powerful interests, there's some risk to it. | ||
| But what's the point of being in public service if you're not willing to take the risks? | ||
| And certainly it's not a risk compared to the people who scaled the cliffs of Normandy in World War II or who fought Jim Crow or who fought for this country's freedoms in the Cold War. | ||
| So I think politicians need to show a modicum of guts. | ||
| That's the least thing we can do in terms of our job. | ||
| Right on. | ||
| I do appreciate your efforts. | ||
| I think this is great. | ||
| I appreciate that there's some bipartisan effort at the very least to get to the bottom of this, this story that's been so massive for so long and affects us deeply and politically. | ||
| Is there anything else you wanted to add before we wrap up? | ||
| No, I appreciate your voice and I appreciate the dialogue because I think your tweets, your reasonable concerns helped us tighten up the language in this bill we're going to introduce. | ||
| And, you know, that's what democracy is supposed to be, to have this kind of conversation. | ||
| So I always enjoy coming on and look forward to doing it again. | ||
| Right on. | ||
| Where can people find you? | ||
| At Rokana is the best way across almost all the platforms. | ||
| Right on. | ||
| I do appreciate it, Representative. | ||
| Thanks for joining us and explaining this. | ||
| And we'll see you next time. | ||
| Sounds great, Tim. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Take care. | ||
| Well, all right. | ||
| That was the representative Rokana. | ||
| And man, I'm for it. | ||
| I'm for it. | ||
| And, you know, I'm sitting here thinking about it as I listen to the representative explain that, of course, they don't want to have victims be victimized and all that. | ||
| And I do largely, I trust the integrity. | ||
| I trust Roe Conna. | ||
| We've talked about this quite a bit. | ||
| As it comes to Democrats, he's like the only good one. | ||
| There may be a couple others that are like decent, but Roe, he's on the issues related to freedom and what is right. | ||
| He tends to be. | ||
| That being said, his policy on immigration, his policies as it pertains to align with the Democratic Party largely, I disagree with. | ||
| And, you know, we had a great conversation when he came on Tim Castirelle discussing immigration, the interests of the American people, and why our views are different. | ||
| Of course, he was born in Pennsylvania. | ||
| His parents are immigrants. | ||
| So he views this country much more from that tradition. | ||
| Whereas I view the risk of unfettered immigration and illegal immigration as something that's destructive to the culture of this country. | ||
| Is that being said? | ||
| I'm sitting there listening to him and being like, okay, when I woke up this morning and I'm looking at these news stories and they're saying that Republicans are voting to block this, I take a look at his amendment and I'm like, come on. | ||
| The amendment outright says any evidence. | ||
| Who can vote yes on the release of that? | ||
| Because that's a poison pill. | ||
| That being said, he immediately clarifies, we don't want that. | ||
| We don't want that. | ||
| And I believe my tweet stands when I said that Democrats actually voted for the release, the publishing of child abuse materials on the DOJ website, because while I respect Rocana's intent, the rest of them, I think, knew Republicans were going to vote no and they were going to be able to vote yes, which effectively meant they wanted the DOJ to publish all the evidence. | ||
| Now, he said our understanding legally is that DOJ would still be able to protect victims and things like that. | ||
| Maybe there's some like legal thing I don't understand, but I don't see that, especially when it says you've got to publish any evidence. | ||
| But again, I clarify. | ||
| I'm hearing him. | ||
| I want him to put forward a bill that says we will protect the victims. | ||
| We will not compromise any investigations. | ||
| We will release the Evidence on what Epstein was doing, and I think there's no reason to say no, because we can go through everything that we just laid out, but I'll give the bull points quite simply. | ||
| If there are people who associated with Epstein but didn't do anything wrong, who cares? | ||
| You're not going to be implicated in a crime, you're not going to be accused of wrongdoing. | ||
| It may be bad for your reputation, but so what? | ||
| So, so what? | ||
| Okay. | ||
| You know, Eric Weinstein was talking about this, saying that, you know, people have said things about him because Epstein was involved in the, was in the Harvard math program for some reason. | ||
| He doesn't know why. | ||
| There were individuals who say that Epstein was giving grants to their family members and people they knew, and people have accused them of wrongdoing, but they're like, he was just some guy who put money places. | ||
| I will not play this game that simply because someone flew on his plane, they committed a crime. | ||
| RFK Jr., Trump, they flew on his plane, and I don't think either of them did anything untoward. | ||
| Well, I should say, I don't think any of them are involved in what we believe Epstein was involved in. | ||
| That being said, we want to know what he was doing with this blackmail and where it went. | ||
| It could be as simple as the files come out and they're like, Epstein did blackmail a handful of people. | ||
| Those people being blackmailed were victims of a blackmail scheme and operation. | ||
| And we're going to hold their names because we're going to be investigating the crimes they committed. | ||
| One of the challenges is, I think there's a couple of possibilities here. | ||
| I think there's a possibility that some, so the theory as to what Epstein was doing was that he would say, hey, powerful, prominent, wealthy guy, come on my jet. | ||
| We're going to go fly across the country and do some fun things. | ||
| Maybe not necessarily go to the island. | ||
| They'd be on the plane and they'd be like young models. | ||
| And he'd be like, yes, these young ladies are models with Insert Agency or whatever, and they're accompanying us and they can give you massages or do whatever. | ||
| Don't worry, they're all 18. | ||
| And then when the prominent individual would engage in those behaviors, they'd like, you know, hook up with the girls. | ||
| He'd then spin around in the chair and be like, they're underage and we filmed the whole thing and now I own you. | ||
| And so the Trump administration is basically saying, how do you deal with something like that? | ||
| Where you've got people who did engage in activities, these underage girls, who should be punished. | ||
| And then he's arguing, do we want the black male to have worked? | ||
| I think what actually is happening is Trump is saying, these people, he's going to protect these people because they're, and again, I'm saying this is in his mind is a possibility that he's saying, well, it's not like they were actually going out and buying young girls. | ||
| I ultimately don't care. | ||
| I really don't. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| If you're an adult man and you want to play stupid games, you win stupid prizes. | ||
| And there should be no excuse for someone who's being wealthy and powerful to have engaged those young girls, even if tricked, to walk away scot-free without any kind of scrutiny for the things that they were doing, which were wrong. | ||
| I'm not saying lock the guy up in prison for the rest of his life, but we get to know about it and there should be charges. | ||
| There's a challenge here in that we don't know. | ||
| That's all hypothetical. | ||
| I have no idea if that's actually what happened. | ||
| For all we know, Trump actually knows they were trafficking and laughing and cheering, you know, smashing wine glasses and bragging about the girls they were abusing. | ||
| And Trump's like, we're going to cover it up because we want to use the blackmail. | ||
| There's the possibility Trump is even involved, named in the list, like Elon Musk said. | ||
| I don't know if I believe it because I think the Democratic establishment would have used that against him, unless they're so scared of compromising their own apparatus, they're going to let Trump get away with it. | ||
| I doubt it. | ||
| They tried putting Trump in prison on a bunch of different cases. | ||
| So, man, I really don't know. | ||
| So it's hard to speculate. | ||
| It is. | ||
| And everyone's going to equivocate. | ||
| All I can say is this, who disagrees with Rocana? | ||
| Like, I think he laid it out perfectly right there. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| You guys comment. | ||
| Let me know if you agree or disagree. | ||
| He said, we're not, we're going to make sure victims are protected. | ||
| Information is going to be released. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| This is so important for public disclosure, in my opinion, that even if some people are negatively impacted by the association, cry more. | ||
| If you're somebody who is being blackmailed, well, too eff-ing bad. | ||
| You were hooking, like you were engaging in adult activities with minors. | ||
| So like you're not getting away with it. | ||
| And I'm clarifying too. | ||
| I'm not saying that there are individuals who are like hooking up with under, like with prebubescent kids. | ||
| Like should that be the case, and there may be evidence that is the case, those people should have the full force of the law levied against them. | ||
| And there's no reason in any way that anyone should try and cover up for those people. | ||
| In the event there's somebody that hooked up with a 17-year-old and they thought they were lied to and tricked, yeah, well, I got bad news for you. | ||
| That's coming out too. | ||
| I know that there's a lot of guys out there that talk about that there was one case where a 19, I think it was, I think it was a 19-year-old. | ||
| No, no, I think it was a, I think it was like a, yeah, I think it was like a 19-year-old hooked up with a 16-year-old. | ||
| And the 16-year-old had a fake ID and he got arrested and charged for statutory rape. | ||
| And everyone saw it as a travesty and an injustice. | ||
| Yeah, in that capacity, it's still a 19-year-old, 16-year-old. | ||
| That's why some states have what they call Romeo and Juliet laws, that even if the person's a minor, like 16, if they're within a certain age of the person who's of the age of majority, we get a 19 and 16-year-old, they're both in high school, or I'm sorry, like they may have met in high school or whatever. | ||
| There's only a three-year age difference. | ||
| What if you've got someone who's 40 who's trying to hook with an 18-year-old and it turns out to be a 17-year-old? | ||
| Like, I'm sorry, dude. | ||
| That should be exposed. | ||
| And it's not because I'm saying, like, what I'm saying is what you did was wrong. | ||
| You're going to face the penalties for doing it. | ||
| It's the same as some of the more extreme and serious crimes, but it's a crime. | ||
| And you will face those penalties for it. | ||
| And nobody should be defending it. | ||
| And you don't get to walk away scot-free just because you're like, oh, no, I didn't know. | ||
| I didn't know. | ||
| I'm like, sorry. | ||
| Don't be an adult man of, you know, I don't know. | ||
| People can argue if like 21, 23 is too high or whatever. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| I'm just saying when you're an adult man, you have responsibilities. | ||
| You should not be getting on planes and being like, hoo-hoo, hot 18-year-olds. | ||
| Like, because this is a possibility, you know, it's going to happen. | ||
| I understand the argument. | ||
| They're like, we don't want Epstein to have been effective in his blackmail and have it work. | ||
| There was one story a while ago about a guy who worked for, I think it was Condé Nast, and he was set up by a blackmailer Who was trying to hook up with him and they wanted to expose him as being gay? | ||
| And they used the blackmail. | ||
| And when he refused to pay up, they gave the blackmail to I think it was like Gawker, who then published it, outing the guy, effectively legitimizing the blackmailer. | ||
| And a lot of people were mad about it. | ||
| So let me just put it this way. | ||
| It is the fault of the establishment machine. | ||
| It is the fault of the Trump administration right now that we do not have a good answer on the Epstein case, and it's got to this point. | ||
| I said it before, I'll say it again. | ||
| If Bongino Cash or whoever else just came out very quietly, very simply and said, we're working on it. | ||
| This is a tough one. | ||
| It's a tough egg to crack. | ||
| We got to keep this one close to the vest, close to the chest, but trust us on this one. | ||
| If that's all they said, we wouldn't even be here right now. | ||
| Instead, what did they do? | ||
| They came out and they said, nothing to see here, boys. | ||
| They gave us phase one. | ||
| Phase one was nothing. | ||
| Then they said, there's no phase two. | ||
| I want accountability and justice, and I don't want to be a party to a system that has powerful, wealthy, corporate, and political pedos that are getting away with it. | ||
| And I think anybody who knows the story is going to agree. | ||
| I do think there's a possibility that Trump knows this is a high, high-level esoteric story, and even bad press on the issue isn't apocalyptic for his agenda. | ||
| So I guess we'll have to see. | ||
| But I will just add very quickly, the representative had time constraints because of votes in Congress. | ||
| So we did the interview first, and I was very excited to get him on. | ||
| And I will say, I don't necessarily want to apologize, but I want to have a little bit of acknowledgement that my morning segment was presumptive and heavy against what he had proposed because I knew, like my assumption was they knew they didn't have to frame it that way and they created a poison pill. | ||
| But I appreciate his acknowledgment that wasn't their intent. | ||
| Perhaps I should have given him a little bit more of the benefit of the doubt, though we did praise him last night. | ||
| This morning I saw the amendment. | ||
| I'm like, you can't vote for that. | ||
| What are you trying to do here? | ||
| So if they actually bring forth a bipartisan bill that clearly outlines the methods by which they can expose the information and which the information is, like who Epstein worked for, who he was providing services to, who could be implicated or not, or whatever, just in his periphery, then I agree. | ||
| And I say, let's roll, baby. | ||
| So we'll wrap up that portion of the show. | ||
| We've got a lot more to talk about, but we'll wrap it up there for now. | ||
| We do have more, but we'll wrap it up. | ||
| So smash the like button, share this show with everyone you know. | ||
| Shout out to the rep for joining us. | ||
| Thanks for hanging out. |