Dr. Kevin O'Connor invokes the Fifth Amendment during a closed-door House hearing, fearing criminal liability for covering up President Biden's cognitive decline and prostate cancer while political immunity likely shields him. The episode also analyzes Elon Musk's failed America Party launch, the administration's refusal to release Jeffrey Epstein files despite campaign promises, and conspiracy theories surrounding his death. Finally, hosts critique Steve Doocy's vanity regarding clothespins on camera and praise new TSA shoe rules as a shift toward competence over irrational security theater. [Automatically generated summary]
FICE presenter at Super Inkil Transkaus Programme for all the Rheinskopskrein development.
We'll get to what's happening on Epstein.
We got to talk about Dr. O'Connor.
This is incredible.
President Biden's doctor, Kevin O'Connor, just got called to Capitol Hill where he was supposed to talk to James Comer and his committee about the care he provided for the now former president.
And not only at this closed-door hearing did he refuse to answer questions based on the doctor-patient privilege, but he asserted his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself as a secondary ground for not answering.
His Fifth Amendment ground to not incriminate himself.
Joining me now, Mark Halperin.
He's the host of Next Up with Mark Halperin on the MK Media Podcast Network.
Go subscribe now.
The show's crushing it at nextuphalperin.com on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts for free.
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Mark, welcome back.
This is the guy at the center of it all.
This is the guy who was treating him throughout the presidency.
Physician Confidentiality vs Accountability00:16:17
The guy who was on the receiving end, we believe, of those double-digit visits from neurologists during Biden's last year, which no one bothered to report on in the White House press corps until it was the very end.
The guy who would have known about the prostate cancer if anyone knew.
And now he gets summoned by James Comer to speak to the committee that's looking into the auto pen, et cetera.
And yeah, I mean, I guess I would have expected doctor patient privilege as an assertion, though we'll get to Comer's objections as to why that's inappropriate too.
But whoa, the Fifth Amendment against incriminating himself.
What's happening here?
Well, not adequately explained by his counsel.
I would put this in the shocking but not surprising category.
They were able to get through the presidency without this guy ever being held accountable.
He's not a normal doctor for a normal patient.
He's the president's doctor, and he's the president, he's a doctor to a president who, along with his family and close aides, endangered America by having someone serve who had many moments, we don't know exactly how many, where he wasn't up to doing the job.
So Comer has done a much better job framing this the correct way, not as politics, although obviously there are politics here, but we have to get to the bottom of this.
This isn't a matter of embarrassing the Bidens.
It isn't a matter of violating the president's right to privacy.
It's a matter of how can we make sure that this doesn't happen again.
And I'll say he is not a normal doctor with a normal patient.
So I think in the end, the Republicans are going to win this fight.
But his invocation of the Fifth Amendment, his hiding behind doctor-patient confidentiality, goes to prove what we all suspected, which is they don't want whatever is left of the cover-up to fall apart.
They're going to try to keep America from learning the truth.
I don't think it'll work.
And I'd urge Democrats to join in getting to the bottom of it rather than being on the wrong side of history.
This is unbelievable.
Now, as a result of him doing this and Comer's jumping up and down about it, we just get this in from Dr. O'Connor's lawyers.
They cite the pending DOJ criminal investigation, which they say leaves Dr. O'Connor no choice but to invoke his constitutional rights under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.
To any questions posted by the committee, we want to emphasize that asserting the Fifth Amendment privilege does not imply that Dr. O'Connor has committed any crime.
The pending DOJ investigation took me by surprise.
Last I heard, Trump said the DOJ should investigate this.
And I don't know that there is a DOJ investigation, and that could matter.
But I will say this: either way, if he did nothing wrong, what's the problem?
Like, why is Dr. O'Connor genuinely worried about going to prison if he was just providing medical advice and not actually participating in a cover-up?
Yeah.
Well, in America, we should not challenge people's right to invoke the Fifth Amendment as a matter of law and individual liberty.
But this is about political and public accountability.
I don't know what crime he might have committed, but I do know that everything we know suggests that he was a central figure in attempting to keep the president's actual condition from the American people.
You know, you could take a lot of examples.
Either he tested him for cancer and covered up the results, a big problem, or he didn't test him, which doctors will tell you also a big problem.
Either he got him some scans to see what was going on in his brain and didn't release the results or say that they occurred, or he didn't do it.
Either way, a big problem.
And this is not a normal patient.
So I don't know if he's truly afraid of legal liability.
What he's clearly counting on, what the whole Biden operation is counting on, is what they counted on for four years, which is that the press won't cover it.
And I'll say, I don't always go reflexively to imagine if the shoe were on the other foot, but imagine if a Republican president was facing these accusations and a doctor took the fifth and cited patient doctor confidentiality.
Will this story lead the news tonight on the broadcast networks?
Will it be on the front page of the New York Times and the Washington Post?
It should, but I doubt that it will.
This guy is a doctor, but he's also an American citizen, and he played a massive role in what was a cover-up.
I mean, we know for sure that his haircut is a crime for which he should be against all humanity, not just those living now, Megan, but our ancestors, our ancestors, wherever they are, are feeling the pain every time he appears on camera.
And so he needs to be held accountable for that.
And the barber too.
I don't think you can let whoever cut the hair off the hook.
That person as well has some situations.
It's a conspiracy.
Many were involved and there are many predicate acts there.
But and again, and the guy in the next, the guy in the next barber chair also, some culpability to turn and say, no, don't leave the chair.
The guy's obviously not done.
All right, we will drop in a close-up picture of Kevin O'Connor's hair for the list for the viewing audience on YouTube at this point.
There's only video of him leaving Comer's office today because the behind closed doors thing was not.
Here he comes.
Stand by.
There he is.
There he is with the glasses.
It's a problem.
So Comer also put out his own statement after this.
And this is what he says.
Number one, he says you can't assert the patient, the doctor-patient privilege.
He says, because the DC Court of Appeals has made clear that that privilege only limits a physician's ability to disclose confidential patient information in federal courts in D.C. and in the District of Columbia courts, meaning like the state courts in D.C.
And Congress is not a court.
Therefore, you may not assert that privilege.
That's compelling.
Then he says, second, according to the AMA, the American Medical Association's Code of Medical Ethics, he says it's inapplicable because it's overridden by our subpoena.
And he cites medical ethics opinion 9.7.1.
Physicians who testify as fact witnesses and legal claims involving a patient they have treated must hold the patient's medical interests paramount by protecting the confidentiality of the patient's health information, unless the physician is legally compelled to disclose the information.
And so that's Comer's point is that you are now legally compelled to disclose the information.
And that's why now they're, and I think they know they're going to lose on that mark, which is why they've added fifth and citing what I think is a made-up DOJ investigation.
We're looking into this right now.
We'll know soon.
But I think it was just a Trump threat.
As far as I know, the DOJ is not actively investigating Kevin O'Connor.
It's possible that they got some inquiry from the FBI.
I don't know factually.
You're right.
We should know that.
You know, they also in their statement hid behind President Trump's invocation of the fifth in the case in New York with Letitia James.
I'll say again, this was a four-year cover up.
It was not about a small matter.
It was about the ability of the United States to function properly.
And I think they can continue to try to use every legal and political and media trick possible to keep from explaining what happened, or they can get on the right side of history and explain it.
But we've got more people coming in.
A lot of the political aides are scheduled as well.
They obviously don't have doctor patient.
Maybe they'll invoke the fifth as well.
Maybe they'll try to give clever, acute answers.
But this doctor is as central to the thing.
And I think that he can't be stopped from invoking the fifth, obviously, but he can be put in sharp relief in a public hearing and ask questions that I think the American people would find reasonable, which is how did he care for not just his patient, but for the public interest as the person who basically by putting out an annual statement certified that Joe Biden had no cognitive decline.
And we know that's not true.
So now Comer gets him behind closed doors.
Again, the haircut.
It's the short, for the listening audience, it's the short bangs, like the serial killer bangs that come just mid-forehead.
They're not even totally even, but they're disturbingly short with like a bowl cut after that.
I don't know what's going on there, but it does speak to the man's terrible judgment.
Yeah.
You know, those restaurants where you eat in the dark, where you're supposed to like have the sense of the food without seeing it.
I feel like maybe he goes to one of those barbers where the lights are all off.
And so the barbers just got to feel their way through how to cut the hair.
It's also one of those situations like where you go to one of those restaurants and you go to the bathroom and it's absolutely disgusting and not clean at all.
Then you're like, I got to get out of here.
When you walk in, you see your physician without hair, you got to turn around.
You got to walk out.
There's a level of care that's not present in his own daily routine.
And you shouldn't subject yourself to this man.
Here's what Comer asked him.
These are the two questions he asked.
He said, I'm going to read the first two questions that were asked.
This is Comer speaking to the press right after.
Quote, were you ever told to lie about the president's health?
He pleaded the Fifth Amendment.
He would not answer that question.
The second question, did you ever believe President Biden was unfit to execute his duty?
And he, again, pleaded the fifth.
Comer says, this is unprecedented.
And I think this adds more fuel to the fire that there was a cover-up here.
This was, we learned from the Tapper Thompson book that Dr. O'Connor was allegedly behind the scenes trying to get Joe Biden more rest.
He quipped that Biden's staff were trying to kill him while Dr. O'Connor was trying to keep him alive.
Given Biden's age, Dr. O'Connor also privately said that if he had another bad fall, a wheelchair might be necessary for what could be a difficult recovery, but the aides didn't want that while he was running.
And he told others that he did not believe the science required him to do a cognitive test on Biden in connection with this annual physical.
He saw the president frequently, and if he had reason for concern, he would have performed one.
Ultimately, Joe Biden's political advisors agreed.
Oh, I'm sure it was a real arm twist.
But this is Jill Biden's guy.
Remember, he isn't he super like Jill picked him.
There was the Secret Service agent, but this guy, too, I think is close with Jill Biden and has a loyalty to the Bidens as opposed to the country from the sound of it.
Well, all presidents choose as their white ass physician, someone they're comfortable with.
But, you know, I know you're not guilty of this, but I think too much of the press is acting as if there's some mystery here about what the guy did.
Now, some of the details are a mystery and who exactly was in charge is a mystery, but there's no mystery here.
He didn't ever answer questions from the press.
And he either, as I said before, he either performed tests and lied about whether they were performed and didn't disclose the results, or he didn't perform them.
Whereas it doesn't make any sense not to have had brain scans.
It doesn't make any sense not to have had cancer tests.
So I don't know, as I said before, I don't know what crime he might be guilty of, but I do know that he's abusing the public trust.
And after four years of participating in the cover-up and arguably the central figure, because he is a doctor and he does have a responsibility both to his patient and the public interest, I just think it's hard to me to see how he's going to sustain this unless the cover-up was even more insidious than we knew it to be.
In other words, one thing that hasn't been acknowledged by anybody on the inside and he'd be considered on the inside is that they knew how bad it was and they covered it up.
Their premise is we didn't really know if it went that far.
Again, I don't know that that's a crime, but it's a political crime and it's a policy crime and it's an irresponsible action for a doctor who's supposed to have an obligation to the American people to have done.
Well, but here's the truth.
No one's looking to put Dr. O'Connor in jail.
Not Comer, not the DOJ.
By the way, we did find out on June 4th, the White House released a memo directing the counsel to the president and the attorney general to conduct an investigation to determine whether certain individuals conspired to deceive the public about Biden's mental state and unconstitutionally exercise the authorities and responsibilities of the president.
And a subpoena was issued in June, possibly.
I don't know if that means to Dr. O'Connor.
So the president did direct DOJ and counsel to the president to conduct an investigation.
But my point is simply, the odds of the DOJ and certainly Comer and the U.S. Congress giving Dr. O'Connor immunity to remove his ability to raise the Fifth Amendment are very high.
That's probably, that's almost certainly what they're going to do.
Trump doesn't want to put Dr. O'Connor behind bars.
He wants answers.
And once you remove the Fifth Amendment privilege, and it looks like he's going to lose the doctor-patient privilege because it has an exception to it, meaning if you've gotten a lawful subpoena to testify.
And of course, we've seen that in medical malpractice cases.
You cannot just maintain doctor-patient confidentiality to the death.
If you get a lawful subpoena to appear in a courtroom about what you did or said, you're going to have to breach it.
This guy is going to be forced to talk at some point, Mark, and then we're going to learn what he's so concerned about.
Yeah, I mean, it's important that the committee, and again, I'd urge the Democrats and the committee to join in, keep focused on the public policy question, which is vital for the country.
We can't have another situation where a president suffers cognitive decline right before our eyes and the media and the Democrats pretend it's not happening.
They just can't let that happen again.
So I agree that he's not going to go to prison, but look at what they're doing.
They're playing the normal card.
Trump did it too.
Trump is trying to improperly investigate us.
They're trying to get the Democrat, the media rather, to go back to their reflexive defense of the cover-up.
And it's going to be interesting to see, as I said, how this is covered because the press has kind of acknowledged the cover-up, kind of, not fully.
So if you acknowledge the cover-up and then the cover-up's being sustained under a lawful subpoena by the majority in the House, I don't know how the press can treat that like a small story or an insignificant step, but I'm skeptical.
We'll see in the coming hours how it gets treated.
I asked my team to pull this.
I believe it was the New York Post that broke the story of the neurologist visiting the White House almost double digits leading into the summer.
This came out the summer, this time last year, just a little bit more than 12 months ago when Biden was hanging by a thread after that debate.
And all the press, of course, suddenly got really interested in his mental well-being.
The Post had been interested prior to, but they reported, they broke the story on July 6th.
Yeah, so almost exactly a year about the fact that Biden's physician, Kevin O'Connor, met with a Parkinson's disease specialist in the White House.
And then the New York Times followed thereafter.
And the report was that an expert on Parkinson's disease from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center visited the White House eight times in eight months from the summer of 23 through spring of 24, including at least once for a meeting with President Biden's physician, Dr. Kevin O'Connor.
The expert who came, Dr. Kevin Kennard, is a neurologist who specializes in movement disorders and recently published a paper on Parkinson's.
Bacon As A Spice Debate00:15:31
By the way, not for nothing, but this came up when I sat with the New York Times and Lulu Garcia Navarro and I were having our tete-tete about, you know, how you can't trust these podcasters to tell you the truth and there's no system.
And I was like, oh, but we can trust the New York Times.
And I said, they cut this out, but I said, where was Peter Baker?
And the report that a neurologist had visited the White House eight times or 10 times over the course of the prior year.
Finally, he got his name on it after the New York Post broke it one year ago today, but nowhere.
He had no interest.
He wasn't checking the logs.
He didn't care about Biden's mental acuity.
He had another press failure.
Your thoughts?
Yeah.
So I say again: if the president was not being seen by a Parkinson's expert, O'Connor should be stripped of his medical license.
Of course, he should have been seen by a Parkinson's expert.
And of course, he should have been having regular brain scans to see what was going on.
So this is where they're kind of checkmated because they either didn't do these things and it's malpractice because the president clearly needed as a father and as a grandfather and as a husband, as a human being, he needed the treatment that you or I would get for our dad if they had this, they had those symptoms and behavior.
And if they did do them, which according to this reporting, they did, what were the results?
Why was he there?
They act as if this is some private citizen Biden who's entitled to his medical privacy the way private citizens are.
If the president of the United States is being seen by a Parkinson's expert, which it appears happened, maybe not, but it appears it did and it should have, that should be disclosed and the results should be disclosed.
If the president is exhibiting the symptoms that this president did, nearly every Parkinson's doctor you've talked to and I've talked to has said, not my patient, but I have a C-SPAN subscription.
I've seen how he's behaving.
He needed a full battery of tests and that should be disclosed.
It fundamentally makes a mockery of the annual release of the note from the president's doctor if the thing is filled with lies and incomplete descriptions about how he was being treated and what conditions he has.
It's it's by the way, let's slap a subpoena on this Dr. Kevin Kennard.
He's up next.
Interesting last name.
We'll slap a subpoena on him and let's see if he's as loyal to the president or whether he's willing to come forward and give testimony to James Comer, understanding maybe he'll say, I did nothing wrong.
I don't have to assert any privilege whatsoever.
Let me tell you everything that happened.
I've been waiting for you to call, but I'm sure Comer's in the process of doing that.
You're absolutely right.
It's look, it's not like they're randomly choosing Megan Kelly and saying, I want all the results from your latest GYN exam, right?
Like that's a what?
Okay, if you're a president and then you show obvious cognitive decline, that it was on a presidential debate stage, forget all the evidence we had leading into that moment for all the world to see, we are entitled to go back and ask whether you were okay, what decisions you made, and what your mental capacity was at the time that you were making them.
We're still living with the consequences of a lot of those decisions.
So this is a game.
You're right.
They're not going to win.
Comer is going to play the long game.
I'm sure he's going to get these objections overruled bit by bit.
And we will know.
We will know what happened to Joe Biden.
And it's not even, you know, we're focusing on the mental acuity, but there's a matter of prostate cancer.
It appears that the sitting president of the United States had advanced cancer while he was running for reelection, trying to say he'd have another four years.
And for all we know, at that point, maybe it had already metastasized to his bones.
Who knows what the prognosis was?
Somebody does know.
Just you and I aren't among them.
Yeah.
And the excuse that was made when this became an issue a few weeks ago was men his age typically don't get the tests because sometimes they're false positives and it brings up questions of treatment and anxiety.
He's not a normal president, not a normal person.
He's a president.
And as you said, running for election.
So if they really didn't test him, I would say that's malpractice, truly.
And if they did test him and they're lying about the results, also a problem.
And I don't, it doesn't really matter which it is.
The reality is, experts will tell you he has an advanced stage.
It should have been detected earlier.
And if it wasn't, again, shame on the doctor for saying, well, we're not going to do the test because it's normal not to at someone his age.
He's the president.
He's running for reelection.
The president of the United States has advanced cancer.
That's a national crisis.
It's not some private personal matter.
And it's not the same as Trump with his flippant, you know, he's the greatest, most in-shape president of all time doctor memos, which are kind of a laugh, but he does take a cognitive test.
And if Trump showed signs, repeated, obvious signs of cognitive decline, or it came out that he had advanced cancer, there would be an inquiry by Democrats too, on what actually went on in those meetings, what tests were conducted.
Now we want actual results.
And you can bet his doctor too would get a subpoena that they'd have to respond to.
Yeah, I don't love Donald Trump's history of medical disclosure, including those buffoonish over-the-top letters.
Although I will say the last disclosure from the White House was much fuller than what Joe Biden had put out in terms of stats and data.
It should be more complete.
This is a problem.
I've seen it my whole career.
There's been one reporter in my career, Dr. Lawrence K. Altman of the New York Times, who's really dug into this with candidates and presidents and tried to hold them accountable.
And it's a big problem, which I've all long said on days when the president's going to, the doctor's going to brief or the press secretary is going to brief, every White House political, because they're all political reporters, should be subbed out.
And the health reporters should go because political reporters shouldn't be asking the White House press secretary or the White House doctor a medical question.
They don't have the expertise to do it.
And so the Biden thing is the extreme case, but there hasn't been a single president or presidential candidate in my career who has sufficiently safeguarded the public interest by having much more disclosure than they do.
And that's up to the news organizations to safeguard the public in the spirit of Dr. Altman of the New York Times to really understand the questions to be asked and to ask them repeatedly and to demand answers because there's nothing, literally nothing more important to understand whether the person's up to doing the job.
Yeah.
And look, they're going to get Jill Biden is going to get a subpoena.
Joe Biden could get one.
We'll see.
But those around Joe Biden on that inner circle, Donald and the others who were running cover for him are all getting subpoenaed.
And like, again, the only one, I think President Trump and the Comer are genuinely issued, are interested in the truth, not in putting people behind bars.
I'm sure Trump wouldn't mind seeing some of these people go behind bars given what was done to him.
But if they give immunity to all of these people, then they can't hide behind that, you know, the Fifth Amendment anymore.
So this is going to be an interesting one to follow.
It's fascinating to see the first one on deck, Dr. Kevin O'Connor, immediately assert the fifth in response to two very anodyne questions that anybody should be able to answer without much concern.
Again, were you ever told to lie about the president's health?
And did you ever believe President Biden was unfit to execute his duty?
That was all going down about 365 days ago.
As long as we're there, Mark Halperin, let me ask you about another piece of news that just came out from that same time period.
Kamala Harris, I remember we reported on this at the time, but I don't think we had the tape.
She went on a podcast.
You know, she decided to dip a toe into the podcast world.
She went on with that vulgar sex podcaster, and they had a real heart to heart about how much they both love abortion.
And she was given an invitation to go on Joe Rogan, which she was too afraid to accept.
And then she swung by Subway Takes hosted by Kareem Rama.
And apparently it went so poorly that he did not release it.
And he was a Kamala supporter.
He was thrilled that she swung by.
And he thought, worst case scenario, I can say I interviewed the sitting vice president, the possible next president, show a picture to my kids.
And he, Kareem, just sat down with Forbes editor, with a Forbes editor and spoke to what happened in this interview that was so disastrous.
He never aired it.
Look at this, Sat 7.
Her take was really confusing and weird and not good.
And so mutually agreed that we shouldn't publish it.
I see.
And I got lucky because I didn't want to be blamed for her losing.
Her take was that bad?
It was really, really bad.
And it was, it was like, didn't make any sense.
Bacon as a spice.
Bacon as a spice.
Bacon is a spice.
Bacon is a spice.
You think that was her opinion?
Or you think she had like a research group trying to figure something out?
Research group.
Because originally the take that I was pitched was great.
And it was that she does not like to take her shoes off on the airplane.
And then at the last minute, I think research group said this makes you look rich and snobby.
Okay.
And you need to appeal to the American people.
So she went with the bacon.
And I tried to pause the interview and say, trust me, we shouldn't do the bacon thing.
And I was overrided by this guy who was maybe her deputy campaign manager.
An hour later, I got a call that said, we can't do bacon.
But then I tried to cut it into something else.
And then I did make it work.
And then they were like, this makes her look.
And I said, whose fault is that?
We can't trust me.
We can't do bacon, Mark.
Megan, how bad would this interview have to go for you guys to just kill it out?
I don't think that's a good thing.
This isn't going to happen.
Let's kill it out.
You know, my sort of signature line about Kamala Harris is she does not like to make difficult decisions under pressure.
And you saw that as vice president.
You saw that as a president.
This was a tough one.
Yeah, but it's like difficult decision under pressure.
Bacon as a spice.
The host tells you, don't do it.
And you still like agonize over it.
Or in the first one before that, don't underestimate her.
You know, because she also had to decide, do I stick with it's a hassle to take off my shoes getting onto the airplane?
Like something that now has been universally accepted as Trump reverses that through his TSA.
She would have shoes.
Was it shoes through TSA or was it shoes on the plane?
I thought it was shoes on the plane.
Maybe I misheard.
Either way.
On the plane.
Either way.
It's an issue.
I bet you there are a lot more stories about this because as we saw throughout the campaign, we saw this with the endless Rogan negotiations.
Like they were afraid to put her in situations.
This is why when people say, oh, she was such a good candidate.
There's only if she hadn't been such a great candidate, you know, she couldn't have turned things around in 90 days.
She's not a good candidate.
She didn't perform as a good candidate.
And they knew that because they had to negotiate.
You know, Trump's like somebody says, yeah, go do Rogan or go do, what's his name, the comedian who's been on your show.
Theo Vaughan?
No.
Oh, Andrew Schultz.
Andrew.
Andrews.
Go do Andrew.
Trump's will be like, yeah, let's go.
I'll stay for four hours.
And her team is like, what size is the table going to be?
What temperature will the water be?
What questions will you ask?
Can we edit it?
Like all these hyper-controlling things.
And to have her spend time doing a podcast and it's so bad, it can't be aired.
Maybe that's happened in American history.
It might have happened to Monroe, but I doubt it.
She, wait, oh, she, I guess Schultz asked her, but she declined.
Of course.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What a shock.
Of course.
Of course.
Yeah.
So, but think about it.
Like of all the inanities out there, like you can't make your case about bacon in a compelling way.
Like even I could make the case that you could use bacon as a spice.
I mean, I wouldn't argue this, but if I had to in a court of law, you know, like model UN style where you're, you're not given a choice.
This is what you're arguing.
I would say they dry it up, they chop it up, they put in one of those spice looking shakers.
People shake it on their salad.
It's even a commercial.
I've seen it in commercials being shaken on a salad.
You could make the case if you had to.
When I was a child, there was a thing called Bacos that probably didn't actually have bacon in it.
I could only imagine what Bobby Kennedy would say about the ingredients of Bacos.
But yeah, of course you could argue that.
But the point is you're going on some podcast, your staff should have researched it and you should be swaggering in and killing it rather than having the segment actually killed because you can't perform well enough.
It's just, it's why I say, like, you know, as Bill Clinton once said about Mitt Romney, that person should not have a job that requires them to speak in public.
And I think the same thing applies to her if it's a, if it's a pressure situation.
And I confess I don't know the format of this show that she went on, but it sounds like they shouldn't have gone into it without being confident that she could master it.
And sounds like she couldn't.
And by the way, she picked the subject.
That's what's so crazy about it.
That's his whole point.
Like they had to settled on the shoes thing.
Then she thought it would make her look too elitist because she was trying to tell us all she had jobs at McDonald's, which was under scrutiny, of course.
And now she doesn't want to look like the child of privilege that she was.
And so she switches to bacon as a spice.
She chooses bacon as a spice.
She can't make her own argument.
She's so inept at it that they have to cut it out of subway takes, a fun, lighthearted show where you're supposed to just go on and show that you're, you can be a fun person.
I sort of, I sort of love that host's attitude as he explained the tragedy that he didn't want to be blamed for her losing and her performance was so bad.
He thought it would lead in a linear way to 270 electoral votes from Donald Trump if he had pressed, if he had pressed send and uploaded it.
So I sort of enjoyed that.
And now I kind of want to go on that show.
Yeah, the tragedy.
It was, he did seem to really feel this one deeply.
Deeply.
Deeply.
It's not good.
Trust me, it's not good.
It was hard.
Now he has to release the tape.
Now my only goal in life is to actually see the actual, ask your sound engineer to invoke the brotherhood and sisterhood of sound engineers and see if we can't create the world exclusive on that.
Yes.
I mean, like, you know, it'd be like some of those diddy tapes.
We don't have to say where they came from.
We don't have to be explicit.
It could be someone went rogue.
And let's crank up the AI or finger puppets because I don't want just the audio.
I want I want to see something.
Maybe it'll be my next parody, Mark.
You could play the podcaster and I'll play Kamala Harris.
We could do it in the next segment.
We could do, I'll be the podcaster and you explain to me bacon as a spice in a way so inept that the host who is sympathetic to her said it would eliminate her chances of getting to 270 electoral votes had it ever been uploaded to Spotify.
It's really unbelievable.
Okay, wait.
I'm loving this walk down memory lane.
There's more news from this same timeframe.
Trump Derangement Syndrome Explained00:14:16
Can you believe it was only 12 months ago?
Where there's yet another book out on Joe Biden and his mental decline.
And this book is by Josh Dossi of the Washington Post and two others who were formerly at the Washington Post.
And this book talks about how I think it was Dossie, one of the three, got the phone number of Joe Biden, managed to get the cell number of Joe Biden.
Meanwhile, Trump gives his cell phone number out to like everybody.
It was funny.
It was about, I don't know, a year and a half ago, Dan Bongino was on the show and he's talking about how he talks to the president on the cell phone all the time.
He's like, yeah, you probably have it.
You know, I was like, no, no.
It's scrawled on the wall of every cracker barrel south of the Mason-Dixon line.
Well, now Trump and I are in touch via sell, but at the time we weren't.
I was last to the party.
Anyway, he's very easy to give it out.
He wants to talk to the press.
He wants to talk to everybody.
Joe Biden, completely the opposite.
Kamala Harris, completely the opposite.
But really, there was reason for Joe Biden's aides to not let him be too easily accessible.
And so he gets the number somehow.
He doesn't reveal how.
And he writes about how this past March, March of 2025, after Joe Biden's left office, Donald Trump has been sworn in.
He calls him up and says, I'd like to talk to you.
And Joe Biden says, all right, well, I'm busy now, but call me back and we'll talk.
So he did.
He called him back.
And they had a very quick conversation as Joe Biden was leaving for the train or something like that about how things were going.
My team, can you guys help me out?
What page is this on in the packet?
Cause I want to get the actual back and forth on how it went.
Oh, here it is, page five.
I think it's Tyler Pager, not Josh Dossi.
He was one of the co-authors, Tyler Pager.
Yeah, you're right.
It's Tyler Pager.
Okay, so let's see.
Yes.
Tyler Pager writes as follows.
So he said he'd be willing to speak for the book the next day.
The next morning, he answered and said he was running late to catch a train.
He said he had a very negative view of Trump's second term.
I don't see anything he's done that's been productive, he said.
Asked if he had any regrets about dropping out of the presidential race, he said, no, not now.
I don't spend a lot of time on regrets.
He quickly hung up to get on the train.
Listen to this.
After the first call, the book continues, furious Biden aides repeatedly called and texted Tyler Pager.
After the brief second call, his aides blocked the reporter's calls to the former president.
Two days later, a message from Verizon Wireless replaced Biden's voicemail message with the number you dialed has been changed, disconnected, or is no longer in service.
They were that upset that one Washington Post reporter, it's not like Megan Kelly got the number, had managed to break through the fortress and speak with the now former president that they actually changed, it sounds like, the president's cell phone number.
Well, and of course, contrast to the fact that, as you said, you're the last reporter in the world who had Donald Trump's cell number.
He picks up all the time or calls people all the time.
The posture that the communications staff around Joe Biden had and has now, apparently, was to protect him and to keep him from talking.
And they hid behind this fiction that it was about, you know, he's, you know, he always had what was called impolitely diarrhea of the mouth.
He was never a safe bet to be free and talking to reporters without supervision.
But that was before his cognitive decline.
And again, it's testament to the Palace Guard determination that allowed them to their professional credit in some ways to get the guy through four years, even though the cognitive decline began before he even took the oath of office in 2021.
They made it through because they browbeat reporters.
And, you know, I laugh when people who work for politicians call me and say, how dare you ask my boss a question?
I laugh and say, that's my job.
It's their job to decide whether they want to answer or not.
If you think your job is to try to stop me, good luck to you.
But that was the posture of the Biden folks.
And I think they're right to highlight in the book that the extreme measures they took to keep the reporter from trying to ask Joe Biden questions.
Okay, so meanwhile, staying in the same timeframe, Selena Zito's out with her new book, Butler.
And it's a great book, highly recommend.
And it's already doing very well.
And it takes a look at what happened at Butler.
It takes a look at the shooter, Thomas Crooks, and why we don't know more about him and takes a look at Selena's bird's eye view from the whole thing.
She was steps away from the president when he got shot.
And what was in the news yesterday was a report that these Democrats are now so determined to stop Trump and to get themselves in the news as like fighters and also cool that they're actually saying someone needs to get shot.
Someone needs to go to one of these like ICE facilities, these detention facilities and get so in the face of ICE or the guards who are on duty that they, meaning a Democratic lawmaker, this is Democrats saying this, actually get shot,
which I would suggest to you is inspired by in a weird, sick, warped way, what we saw in Butler, because the Democrats went into total denial that it had even happened when we saw Trump get shot and then rise up with the fight, fight, fight in an extraordinary moment.
They remember all the truthers on the Trump shooting, Joy Reed, Olberman.
There were people you didn't even expect, people who are more mainstream who are like, I don't believe it.
You know, like, I actually want to see the injury, who are pretending that the whole thing was made up.
And now they've morphed all this time later after it's been confirmed by the FBI.
It was the Joe Biden FBI that confirmed Trump had been shot in the ear and so on.
Now they have to accept that it happened.
And now he's won.
And they see that obviously the way he handled it and all of it propelled him to even more popular status.
Now they're like, someone needs to take a bullet.
That's what's real.
That's what's strong.
And so, Mark, just further proof that they've lost their minds.
Yeah.
So I think there's two things about Trump derangement syndrome that are a little bit seeming in contradiction.
One is I think we shouldn't use it promiscuously.
We shouldn't attribute any opposition to Donald Trump to, we shouldn't attribute it to Trump derangement syndrome because sometimes there's principled opposition that's not deranged.
But the other thing is, I don't think we've sufficiently understood the extent to which that is in the minds of so many Democrats, both prominent Democrats and rank and file Democrats.
Truly a phenomenon that causes them to say and do things that not only are over the top, but are actually helpful to Donald Trump.
And this is another example of that.
You'd have to have severe Trump derangement syndrome to say, well, look how much being shot helped Trump.
So we need to try that ourselves.
And yet, again, that is unfortunately for the Democrats.
And I think for America, the point of view of far too many.
I don't know.
That was a blind quote.
Who knows how pervasive that sentiment is or who's.
Well, they are getting aggressive at ICE detention facilities.
They are.
Yeah.
That was in lawmakers, but it was opponent of president's policy.
Oh, I see what you're saying.
I thought you meant the thing in Texas the other day.
Yeah, no, they have been aggressive.
I think that, and Selena, I talked about this on Next Up.
Besides denying he was shot, besides trying to memory hole it and not cover it very much, besides showing a total lack of curiosity about the motive of the shooter, they also, again, act as if Donald Trump either did this on purpose or was exploiting it in some way that was improper.
Just a former president of the United States was shot and they can't bring themselves to do anything but be confounded by it as opposed to concerned about it or sympathetic about it.
And again, it's another manifestation of Trump derangement syndrome that's not good for anybody, except maybe Donald Trump.
What was so hard about the Trump assassination attempt for them wasn't even that he got shot.
It was how he handled it.
It was a superhero moment.
It just was.
Like it's the way every, I don't know about every woman, but every man on earth, it's the way they hope they would react if God forbid this happened to them, you know, with strength and defiance and dignity and as a leader and keeping the crowd calm, all of it.
It was superhero.
It was superhuman.
Real life Rambo.
And that's why they can't stand it.
That's why they went into, it's not real.
He faked it.
You know, he's not injured.
The ear thing is fake.
And they're still reeling because he actually won the presidency.
I don't know.
I heard you talking about this on your show and it was just how profound that moment was and how the remnants of it, you know, the consequences of it are still very much lingering, you know, with the Trump loyalists and with his greatest detractors.
Both camps, for sure.
Okay, so that's Butler.
But out of Butler, he attracted a brand new and very important friend, and that was Elon Musk.
Now, Elon Musk is now a frenemy or maybe true enemy.
I don't know which one, but not really friend of President Trump's anymore.
The breakup feels real.
After some like sniffing around about maybe we're going to make up, seems like they're not making up.
He was out there just the other day.
Of course, he tweeted that Trump was on the Epstein list and then said he regretted tweeting that.
And then he tweeted that Bannon is on the Epstein list and then said Bannon's going to be in jail.
And now Bannon is out there today.
Linda Yaccarino announced this morning she's resigning from acts, the CEO for the past two years.
And Bannon's saying she's going to go to jail too.
So it's like a war between these guys.
What would she get?
Bannon not only, she's not going to jail, but Bannon is not only angry at Musk, but Musk has formed this third party, the America Party.
And the conventional wisdom is that this is only going to hurt Republicans.
And I think he means it to hurt Republicans.
He's very angry at the Republicans who voted for the one big beautiful bill after running for office saying that they'd be fiscal conservatives and that they didn't want to increase the deficit or the debt.
And Harry Enton over at CNN, their data guru guy, took a look at Musk and this third party.
And here's what he had to say about it, Saw 3.
This entire thing makes very little sense to me.
It makes about as much sense as selling sand in the desert.
What is the size of Elon Musk's base?
Well, I calculated to be about 4%, just 4%, 1, 2, 3, 4% of all voters.
What is that base made up of?
Well, it's those who view Elon Musk favorably and the GOP unfavorably.
We're talking just about 4% of all voters out there because it turns out most of the people who like Elon Musk already like the GOP already.
That is, they already have a party form.
Americans with an unfavorable view of Ross Perot was only 14% back in 1992.
Now, the vast majority of Americans are already against Elon Musk.
58% elected to Congress from a third party since 1970.
Just 0.2% of all winners, of all winners were either third party, independent, or right.
And we're only talking about 24 out of over 13,000 winners.
The bottom line is third party independents, they just don't succeed.
Is he wrong?
First of all, do you know Harry?
No, but I'd love to.
Well, he's a friend of mine.
We have dinner occasionally.
We have mutual friends.
We've dinner.
And I got to say, that's how Harry talks at dinner, too.
It's extremely exhausting.
Does he go like, I want the peel.
I want the beef.
How's the beef?
Is the beef good?
I need the beef.
The beef is 18%.
He's very intense.
The advertiser was out of this world.
Exactly.
You need four things to have even the premise of a possible third party in a country, unlike all the other industrialized democracies that is built legally, institutionally, culturally to keep the duopoly of the two major parties.
You need a lot of money, right?
Because it's expensive to launch the thing.
Check, a lot of money.
Although, you know, a lot of money, like would he spend a billion dollars?
I don't know.
A lot of money, number one.
Number two, you need an a person who's popular and who people listen to and look to to say, yeah, that person's going to be different than Tweedledee and Tweedledum.
It's not Musk because as Harry correctly points out, he's not popular.
So he's going to have to find a horse.
And whether that's several horses to run Senate and House races or a presidential candidate, he's got to find actual human beings like Perot who are compelling.
Three, you need an issue agenda that the other parties would have trouble matching.
And I don't know what that is because he talks about fiscal discipline.
Is he going to be the party of cutting social security benefits?
I don't know how he's going to have an issues agenda like Perot did, although his had some problems too, but at least had something to talk about.
And then lastly, you need an army of really talented political operatives who are willing to take your money to execute on ballot access and issue development and communications.
I think he's, you said check on number one.
I don't think he has the other three.
So if he wants to make a few willing consultants super rich by wasting the money, he can.
But I don't see it as a practical matter how he goes from his current temper tantrum and anger at the Republicans to doing anything like starting a third party, even getting a single House member elected.
It's very difficult to do in this country.
Well, Andrew Yang is out there saying, you know, I did it.
MAGA Agenda Credibility Crisis00:15:46
And, you know, this is how you do it.
And he's saying he did manage to get candidates elected, that it's really not that hard.
Andrew really didn't.
I mean, maybe I missed it and he got some dog catcher elected somewhere.
But Andrew is a very smart guy.
He's well-meaning.
I think he understands the challenges of this, but they've been at it for a long time now.
I think a couple years.
And they've not broken through because again, this country is, as much as people have been alienated by the two parties, it just, it's inhospitable legally, politically, culturally to try to start a third party.
It's just tough.
It's why Trump ran as a Republican, even though he definitely was not a Republican and probably really isn't still a Republican, much to the consternation of much of the party.
He created a third party and he slapped a Republican sticker on it.
Yeah, he changed the Republican Party into his image because he wasn't really a Republican.
He certainly wasn't a traditional Republican on so many issues.
But that's what you have to do.
And by the way, that's another thing.
Like many of us did not believe that Trump was pro-life at all, but you can't get the nomination as a Republican without saying that you are.
And then he governed as a pro-lifer, so no one really cares.
You know, like Republicans like, fine, I don't, what's in his heart is his business.
But he's been a very pro-life president.
The most successful pro-life president in the country's history.
Exactly.
So, you know, it's kind of irrelevant.
All right.
Stand by.
More with Mark coming up.
He's the host of Next Up with Mark Halperin.
You should go and subscribe to his podcast right now.
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This time yesterday, literally 24 hours ago, we were watching the following out of the White House cabinet meeting where the subject of Jeffrey Epstein came up and Donald Trump injected himself into the exchange, which was meant to be between the New York Post reporter and Pam Bondi as follows, Satwan.
Your memo and release yesterday, Jeffrey Epstein, left some lingering mysteries.
One of the biggest ones is whether he ever worked for a American or foreign intelligence agency.
So could you resolve whether or not he did?
And also, could you say why he was missing from the jailhouse team?
Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?
This guy's been talked about for years.
You're asking, we have Texas, we have this, we have all of the things.
And are people still talking about this guy, this creep?
That is unbelievable.
Do you want to waste the time?
And do you feel like answering?
I don't mind answering.
I mean, I can't believe you're asking a question on Epstein at a time like this where we're having some of the greatest success and also tragedy with what happened in Texas.
It just seems like a desecration, but you go ahead.
Okay.
Trump himself promised full transparency on the Jeffrey Epstein case when he was running for president.
This has been a big issue on the right.
My friend Dan Bongino was one of the people who made it a big issue.
So did Kash Patel, talking about it over and over and over again.
It is just not real for Trump to pretend he's shocked.
This is still an issue.
Nothing's been resolved.
Nothing's been released.
He promised transparency, as did his attorney general.
And then they release a memo saying, you're not getting anything.
It's over.
Just trust us.
And that was not real.
Trump pretending he's shocked that people are still interested in it.
Your take, Mark.
Well, let me first talk about that soundbite and then the bigger issue.
So I'm a student of Donald Trump and how he handles public appearances, as are you.
And I don't have the world's most sensitive spidey sense, but I got some spidey sense.
That he regularly says, I don't like that question, does it all the time, but that was with a purpose.
Okay, so I don't think how, and I don't see how anyone could look at that and not see an attempt by the president to intimidate the press from ever asking again about it.
That's how I read it.
What are the arguments against withholding?
What are the arguments for transparency?
MAGA really wants it.
I keep a running list here of all the dues organizations on the right and individuals who are demanding transparency still.
It's a long list and it includes many people who are typically automatically supportive of the president.
So MAGA wants it.
His base wants it.
Two, it's the right thing to do for the victims and for public trust.
Three, as you said, the president supported this on a regular basis.
And four, they said they were going to do it.
So there's a credibility issue.
So all those things would argue for disclosure, transparency, release.
What's on the other side?
I pause.
I pause pregnantly.
What's on the other side?
What's on the other side?
is a suspicion that this is intended to protect rich and powerful men.
So I think that this could go either way.
The news cycle could move on.
MAGA often will pick fights with Donald Trump and then move on.
They're a resilient group.
So this and the press corps, the dominant press corps, the so-called legacy media, they have for years, and they're continuing now to be remarkably uninterested in what is both an important and interesting story, something the press corps normally covers.
Okay.
So I think it could go either way.
This could disappear and those who don't want further disclosure could have their way slash get away with it.
Or those demanding justice and disclosure could get their way.
I don't know which way it's going to go.
But again, I'll go back to the first thing I said.
That was a remarkable performance by the president.
It was an obvious attempt to deflect and to set the messaging.
Like we're not talking about Epstein anymore, period.
And I'm the head of MAGA and that's what I say, but it's too late.
That animal has already been created and it's pretty ferocious.
It's not going to be tamed just by one line from the president at a cabinet meeting.
He helped create it.
He helped inspired it.
His top lieutenants helped create it.
And we too have been watching the reaction amongst the most faithful supporters of the president.
We put together a butted soundbite.
In this, you'll hear names you'll hear from names that you know.
The only one who doesn't seem to be demanding more is our friend Ben Shapiro, but you'll hear almost a uniform tone from literally almost everyone else on the right.
Take a listen.
Nobody told us prior to this that these Epstein files would be anywhere even on the agenda for that day.
And it was really sprung as a surprise to all of us.
We get handed these binders.
And then before we even have a chance to look into them, we're hauled out actually in front of the cameras that were all there.
We don't have the accountability that was spoken of.
We don't have the releases that were spoken of.
And it's just, it's indefensible.
It's indefensible that the answers aren't there when so much was promised.
As someone who voted for the president, campaigned for the president a lot.
I'm not attacking the president, but I think even people who are fully on board with the bulk of the MAGA agenda are like, this is too much.
Yes.
Yes.
I'm saying that with love.
And I hope that they're listening because I think this threatens to blow up the whole thing.
By the way, when Pam Bondi went on television and said, I have a videotape of kids getting abused.
I didn't, I followed this case closely and I know a lot of the people involved, as I've told you.
I had no idea.
I didn't know that.
Really?
Thousands of children got raped?
Who raped them?
Where are the rapists?
Like, why aren't they in jail?
This is the Department of Justice.
Yes.
That is so crazy.
This is like the, this is honestly one of the craziest things I've ever seen in my entire life.
And I just think it's very dangerous to play around with this stuff.
Can't the Department of Justice move to unseal things that were put under seal?
Isn't that technically the way that this could potentially be brought to the public?
Because I think we need mass disclosure.
I think we need more information.
At least for my under 30 crowd, I know my demo.
They are volcanic over this whole thing.
And by the way, the over 60 crowd, they're like Epstein, whatever, not a big deal.
No, but under 30, can you explain that to our audience too, Mike?
The hyper online under 30 crowd, this is a major, major issue.
If you're willing to throw that over and claim they're lying, then I'd like to see you present your evidence that they are in fact lying because I know Dan.
I don't think that Dan Boggino is lying to me.
I know Kash Patel a little bit.
I don't think Kash Patel is lying to me.
I don't think these people are lying to me, which means that if somebody else continues to claim that they're lying, they ought to provide their evidence at this point.
Pam Bondi needs to be fired.
Who is rolling this out?
The little rascals?
Pinky.
Look, I got some videotape.
What are you doing?
This is ridiculous.
Really interesting, right, Mark?
Yeah, every time I see Ben Shapiro, I think maybe I should adopt more of his voice for my show.
I feel like he's on to something with that voice.
You know, as you and I have talked about, you know, Charlie and Tucker are extremely influential with the administration.
And when they say not just the morally right thing to do, but the demand of the base is more disclosure.
And then, but, but Ben gives voice to the reality for some, which is Pam Bondi's taking a lot more heat than Kash Patel and Dan R, a lot more.
And yet they're out there with more specificity saying, trust us, case closed.
So I'll continue to watch to see how they handle this.
The president endorsed them on True Social the other day, not specifically on this issue, but in general.
Not her.
But not her.
Although he was pretty friendly in the cabinet room.
But he knew she was twisting by a string and he did not send out a nice tweet about her.
Now, you didn't include Laura Loomer in your mashup.
And she is much derided, obviously.
And there are people in the White House who don't like her influence, but she doesn't lose that often.
She doesn't lose that often.
And she's very hept up about this.
But I'll say again, there's a lot of...
She wants Bondi fired.
Yeah.
There are a lot of MAGU sessions that aren't necessarily in the public interest or aren't rooted in truth, justice, and the American way.
This is a real thing.
And Tucker, I think, gave voice to it.
Like, forget the conspiracy theories.
Just deal with the reality of how this man was treated by the criminal justice system and how discouraging that was, not just to the victims, but to people who believe in justice and people who believe in the American system treating people fairly.
Like this requires extraordinarily detailed care and disclosure.
And the administration, after championing it and after knowing full well how important it was, as Charlie said, to so many Americans, regardless of their political position, is basically saying, trust us, case closed.
And it could sustain, but I don't think it will.
And I don't think it should, because imagine the status quo and what that will do to people's lack of trust in the government and commitments that have been made.
Listening to the theorizing around it has been fascinating.
Just this morning, I was listening to Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert and also just very bright social commentator.
And he was saying, let's just say without evidence, he was very open, but this is just a theory.
Let's just say that there is some Israel connection with Epstein.
Like he was an agent, something collecting compromise on various people.
And he went to Trump and said, you got to make this go away.
And Trump went to Bongino and Patel and Bondi and said, for the sake of peace in the Middle East, we're moving on.
There's nothing to see here.
And that's what I want you to say.
Would I consider that a lie I couldn't forgive?
That's a Scott Adams deal.
No, I wouldn't.
He said.
And I mean, the president, this is total speculation, but the president going to those three and saying, it's over.
I don't care what you say, but you have to make it go away.
We're moving on, would explain the way all three have behaved over the past couple of weeks.
Yeah.
Again, if they're telling the truth and they really believe that the right thing for the world is to say, there's nothing to see here.
didn't commit suicide, wasn't murdered, didn't have a list, nothing more to disclose that would be good for the public to know.
Then they're doing a crap job explaining why.
They're doing a crap job giving us confidence.
There needs to be long interviews, long press conferences, not just a statement and not just short disclosure.
And they need to walk through it all.
Pam Bondi yesterday says, well, there's a minute gap every day.
Maybe, but minute gap is something that, you know, is not, is not going to go away without a really clear explanation.
And I'll just-like it was a nothing.
Everybody was like, wait, what?
It's real?
The minute before midnight thing is real?
And you thought you were just going to get away with it?
Every night.
On Next Up, there's a minute gap every episode where I tell my best jokes and the producers cut them out.
And someone winds up dead.
FYI.
Yeah.
So what?
Someone dies at the end of every episode.
Again, the Mossad thing in my world, the Mossad thing is very big as a matter of speculation.
But the other speculation is, as my friend Dan Terndine says, Donald Trump has deep affiliations where Jeffrey Epstein did in South Florida and on the Upper East Side of New York City.
And so maybe he's trying to protect friends.
Now, some people say he's trying to protect himself.
No idea.
But as I said before, there needs to be an explanation for what they're doing because all the equities, all of the logic, all the doing the right thing falls on the side of disclosure.
So if they're telling the truth, if they're confident that there is nothing more to disclose that would be in the public interest to know, they need to do a better job of walking us through that and not just saying to reporters, how dare you ask?
This has been getting bandied about on X quite a bit.
Elon Musk Epstein Files Claim00:02:05
Elon, as I mentioned, has weighed in on a couple of people.
I didn't know that Roger Stone, longtime Trump advisor, also hates Steve Bannon.
Elon hates Steve.
Roger hates Elon.
Just for the record, just for the record, I like them all.
Okay.
So Roger, sorry, Roger doesn't hate Elon.
Roger hates Bannon.
Yeah, no, I mean, I got no horse in this race, but I think it's interesting to watch.
And here is what happened between them yesterday.
Elon tweeted, how can people be expected to have faith in Trump if he won't release the Epstein files?
Someone responded, will exposing the Epstein files rank high on the America Party's list?
Musk says 100%.
Then Elon tweeted out, Bannon is in the Epstein files, but didn't offer any evidence to back it up.
But he was responding to tweets from Roger Stone as follows, quote, why would Bannon meet with Jeffrey Epstein, both at his New York home and in Paris after Epstein was convicted on sex crimes in Florida?
Why would he coach Epstein for his 60 minutes appearance?
This appears to stem from a 2021 book by Michael Wolf that Bannon helped Epstein prepare for a CBS 60 Minutes interview that never happened.
And it's quoting here, I believe quoting Bannon, quote, you're engaging, you're not threatening, you're a natural, you're friendly, you don't look at all creepy, you're a sympathetic figure, said Bannon during the early 2019 coaching and feedback session per the book.
Bannon confirmed to the New York Times that he encouraged Epstein to do a 60 minutes interview and recorded more than 15 hours of interviews with the disgraced financier.
Bannon told the New York Times, however, that he never did media train anyone and was instead working on the unannounced documentary to demonstrate how Epstein's, quote, perversions and depravity toward young women were part of a life that was systematically supported, encouraged, and rewarded by a global establishment that dined off of his money and his influence.
Steve Bannon 60 Minutes Role00:15:11
That's kind of mind-blowing.
15 hours of tape.
And Bannon today was critical.
I watched his show yesterday.
He was critical of the way this is being handled and was demanding more transparency.
But the point is simply this thing has tentacles that reach deep pretty much everywhere.
And I don't know, Mark, whether we're ever going to have it fully figured out.
Well, it's hard to know because this administration doesn't seem on track to do it.
They could reverse course.
could be another taco situation.
I doubt the press will do it because some press has tried.
It's hard, right?
No subpoena power.
I don't know that Congress is going to do it.
I don't know that any prosecutor is going to do it.
Tom Fitton is saying he's going to do it.
Who?
Tom Fitton.
Oh, Tom.
Tom Digital Watch.
Yeah.
Tom, Judicial Watch, should try, but their main bag of tricks involves trying to get courts to do things.
I think that somebody would have to engage in a pretty thorough effort with subpoena power, ideally, to figure out what to do.
But it starts with the executive branch, right?
Because they've got access to all these documents, which they say aren't going to be released.
So it's going to, the tale will be told by whether the administration changes its posture.
If the president and the Justice Department, the FBI continue to say case closed, then the ball is going to move to another court.
But they're in the best position to do something about it.
And as for the fights amongst people like Bannon and Stone, I've got some friends who don't like each other and pretty strongly in a couple of cases.
But the president has just an enormous capacity to be friends with both Heckle and Jekyll and the Hatfields and the McCoys.
And that's just part of the colorful salon surrounding our president.
I just feel like no one's going to subpoena anyone because the Democrats probably have too many high-ranking people on their side who they're worried are in those files.
And clearly the Republicans may have some bodies buried there too.
Although your best friend, Jamie Raskin, and some other House Democrats did write to the Justice Department or the White House, I don't know which administration, joining the chorus of those saying, please release everything.
So if they're worried about Democrats, they're not acting like they are.
Well, they don't have subpoena power right now.
They're not in control.
Yeah.
So, you know, let's see what they do if and when they win back the house.
I do think the president's going to hear more from people.
I don't think we see people standing down on this on the right.
I think, you know, the biggest mistake Pam Bondi made was dragging those influencers into the White House and humiliating them.
They're keeping score.
I started that clip with Jack Pasobiak, who was one of them.
Liz Wheeler is another.
She'll be on this program tomorrow telling us the full story of what happened there.
It's not as we thought.
It's actually a little different and she's going to tell.
But I think they're rightfully pissed off on what was done to them.
And the only way it could have been fixed was if then Pam Bondi did deliver, did make good on her promise to give the Epstein files to them.
And instead, they got stiff armed just like everybody else.
I just want to make one other comment on what Tucker was saying in that clip with Sagar and Jetty on his show, on Tucker's show.
My understanding on the children, the child sexual assault material, child pornography, we used to call it, is that they have tens of thousands of images on Jeffrey Epstein's computer that prove the guy was into that stuff.
That he was looking at highly contrabanded materials of young children.
And that is a new disclosure.
And Pam Bondi had referenced it when caught on tape with James O'Keefe.
And then she went to the microphones herself and said it so that she couldn't look like she was gotten by James O'Keefe.
But now they're saying it more explicitly.
That's what they're referring to.
I have no reason to believe this is, these are, in fact, I believe it's the opposite, that these were Jeffrey Epstein victims, you know, in person.
It was his chosen pornography.
It's disgusting, but that's that.
What they're saying in the memo is that there are about 1,000 Jeffrey Epstein victims, actual victims.
And by that, they mean young women.
Again, I've been describing them as barely legal because somebody very close to the case told me that's that's what he was into.
Like in terms of actual physical interactions, it was the barely legal type, like the 17, 18-year-olds who looked 14.
And there are over a thousand victims like that who were brought into the Epstein mansion.
And the typical MO, we've learned this throughout the cases, is they would be brought into the Epstein property.
They would be funneled into some room.
They would be paid.
These young girls would be paid to give Jeffrey Epstein an X-rated massage.
You know, they were sort of lured, many of them being told it's just going to be a massage and you can make some extra money and they would do it.
And then it would turn X-rated.
Mostly it was just these girls pleasuring Jeffrey Epstein.
It wasn't like an actual sex act.
Forgive me for getting graphic, but this is what the evidence has been.
And so that's what they're talking about, just to distinguish.
I have yet to hear anything putting a number of victims that Jeffrey or Ghelane farmed out to other men.
Now, that's not to say Megan Kelly knows there were none.
It's just I have never heard any specifics on that.
I've heard the names like the guy who owned Victoria's Secret, how he was down at Epstein Island.
And, you know, I've heard a Bill Gates connection, all that that everybody else has heard too.
I just haven't seen the proof that shows.
And this person was farmed out a young girl that participated in the trafficking of a young girl.
There's Virginia Duffrey, who was definitely one of Epstein's victims and was in a photo with Prince Andrew.
And Prince Andrew himself has been, you know, just all over the board on this and clearly isn't being 100% honest.
But she's also dishonest.
She's passed now.
So forgive me, but she's, she was definitely lying in part about her experiences in the Epstein lair.
She's the one who accused Alan Dershowitz after somebody else came to her and said, why don't she include Alan Dershowitz?
That would really get you some attention.
That's how he got looped in.
She wound up dismissing that case saying, oh, I may have misremembered.
Alan Dershowitz totally had disproven her allegations.
He could prove he wasn't even anywhere near any of Epstein's properties on the day she said she saw him and was with him and all that stuff.
So anyway, the whole thing is just such a morass, Mark, that I, you know, as a lawyer, I, I just want to follow actual facts and actual evidence.
And that hasn't made it all that clear to me other than what I've said.
Yeah.
And I'll put some responsibility on the shoulders of the Florida prosecutors and the federal prosecutors who had subpoena power and I wish had been clearer about what the conduct was.
Yeah.
And who knows why they didn't.
I mean, it could be they or somebody they knew was compromised.
It could be he was an intelligent intelligence agent.
That was a very weird thing of Pam Bondi's answer yesterday, which we didn't play today, but we played it yesterday where she was like, oh, as for your question about whether he was an agent, I haven't looked into that.
I'll get back to you on that.
What?
This is one of the main theories about him.
I mean, how do I, as a member of the press, know that?
And you know it.
The audience knows it.
And Pam Bondi doesn't know.
That's what that was a lie.
She does know.
So why didn't she tell?
Again, raising more questions than answers, including about the minute before midnight, which we decided yesterday is a great name for a movie about this whole thing.
And we just showed the audience while you were talking that we went back and found the tape.
You can see the jump cut.
There is, there's a cut.
There's a minute before a minute that midnight that was cut out of the Epstein.
Every night happens every night, me.
So if you wanted to kill Jeffrey Epstein, you would know you had the minute before midnight.
My one caution on the whole jail cell, the jail cell video is, have you seen the two guards?
Have you seen these two guys?
Like it's a gallon, a guy.
Yeah.
They are, forgive me, but they're like obese, classic civil servant looking people in New York.
Their excuse is we were surfing the net and asleep, which is why we weren't really monitoring what was going on, which I totally believe.
And the opposite requires me to believe that maybe they were in on this conspiracy.
They allowed somebody to get in there.
All this time, they've managed to keep their mouths shut.
They haven't leaked it to anybody.
I have a hard time buying it.
I hear you, but I tend to think of it the opposite way, which is to me, they're the weak link in those who want to dismiss the probability, possibility he was killed because the series of events that had to occur on their end to allow him to kill himself undetected.
It's just, it's too much for me.
It's just what part?
Incompetence.
That's all that it requires you to believe.
Very easy.
It requires a level of incompetence over a long period of time.
That's possible, but in conjunction with him not having someone in the cell with him in conjunction with the one minute gap, it's too much.
It's what someone inclined to use cliches would call a perfect storm that they would be that 100% derelict in what they were supposed to do for that length of time on this particular case.
Mark Halbron, have you ever been to the post office, the post office, the DMV in New York City?
I have.
And I understand what you're saying, although my post office in New York City is actually pretty good.
So I've become a little bit less suspect of civil servants.
I hear what you're saying.
I'm just saying, go look at the accounts given of all the things they had to do wrong for this to happen.
It's a lot of I was like, yeah, seems right.
You can see them on the tape surfing the net.
One's asleep.
We're like, yeah, that looks about right on brand.
But the point is, the biggest thing for me is the autopsy that Jeffrey Epstein's brother had done with Dr. Baden saying this looks like a murder.
You be Nancy Drew, I'll be a hardy boy.
All those things had to happen when he wanted to kill himself, right?
In other words, how did he know that they were going to be so down on the job that he had an opportunity to kill himself, right?
He was also a New Yorker.
And he just said, I know they're going to fall asleep and search the web.
So now's my chance.
He took a shot.
No, he was like, they don't.
He's been there for a while, Mark.
He's like, they don't come in.
They ignore me.
I know they're going to be asleep.
They never bother me between 12 and 3.
Now's my chance.
They didn't do that every night.
That's the thing.
They didn't do it every night.
There's no documentation.
We don't know that they did it every night.
Exactly.
So he, so he's taking a chance to try to kill himself saying, chances are they're not going to come in and stop me.
I'm not saying he didn't kill himself.
I'm just saying I just, it's too, it's, it's like the guy who, who shot at Trump.
There's, there's all this stuff that had to happen for him to be able to shoot at Trump.
And it all happened.
Just, it just seems a little weird.
Yeah.
Well, I don't disagree.
I'm just trying to strongman the other position because I also have questions about whether Jeffrey Epstein really killed himself.
And in particular, that Dr. Baden autopsy for me, because that's actual proof.
Now we're talking real hardcore evidence.
The absence of other things can be evidence too, but that's the thing I've never gotten pie.
And look, it's possible that the brother got to him and said, I really want this to come out the following way.
And Baden did it.
It's possible.
Hired guns sometimes do that.
How often in the history of suicides, including prison suicides, have you heard an account of someone caught in the act and stopped?
How often have you heard of that happening?
I can't think of a single example of it.
Never.
Yeah.
Right.
So again, even if they, even if he said, yeah, those two are clowns, they probably won't come in.
Here's my chance.
They could have come in.
They could have heard something.
There might not have been a one minute gap.
Right.
So again, if the story of their role is accurate, he somehow made a great calculated guess that they wouldn't come in and stop him.
Because if they had, he'd be the first person you and I have ever heard of stopped in the act of trying to kill himself.
Never heard.
I was reminding me that he did have a failed suicide attempt the month before.
Allegedly.
Allegedly.
Did they walk in on him during that attempt, Steve?
Do you remember that?
Or was it just like he tried and they knew?
We don't know.
Okay.
I don't believe.
With respect to Steve, I don't believe that was documentary.
Pan Bondi, Kash Patel, and Dan Bongino either sit down for a long interview with yours, truly, or someone else, or have a presser.
Have a presser and just answer all these questions, Mark.
Let it all hang out.
But we know what the answer is.
They don't want it.
Someone's told them not to.
Yeah.
Well, and I think President Trump made clear he's totally on board with this strategy, which means he likely directed it.
And the question remains why.
I'm offended by this segment, Megan.
Just kidding.
That we've continued talking about it after President Trump said not to.
President Trump warned us, extolled, urged.
Yeah.
I mean, if they can't have a press conference or do a long interview with documentation, they need to take it up with Charlie and Tucker and you.
Yeah.
And that's the thing.
It's like most of us don't actually just follow orders.
Most of us have our own independent judgment and editorial sensibility.
And this is one of those things.
I'll be curious to see the next White House reporter who asks in front of the president about Jeffrey Epstein.
Let's see when the next happens.
Same.
I mean, it's funny because I was just looking at some of the people on my YouTube feed will say, oh, she never responds, but I actually do look at the comments, but I never do respond to the YouTube comments because I never like surf the net under my real email because it'll sometimes it shows your email and then people have your email.
And I'm like, well, I don't, I don't want that.
But anyway, I do listen to your comments.
I read your comments, everybody, on YouTube and elsewhere.
And, you know, I see what people are thinking.
It's actually a very good tool to see generally how people are feeling about a story.
And for the first time yesterday, I started to see more like, move on, move on.
Okay, those are true Trump loyalists because there's just still so many, so many questions.
But also, as Charlie said, not everybody is interested in this story about this one guy.
You know, it's just not everybody's cup of tea.
I go back to, as a journalist, it's super interesting.
And as a human being and a father, the victims are entitled to as much justice as they can be given.
Yeah.
And for me, I'm in a weird spot because this has never really been my story.
You know, unlike Dan and Cash, I actually haven't been out there for years like pounding the Epstein thing.
Public Sentiment Shifts Now00:04:04
I've reported on it when it's been news.
I've had certain newsmakers on to talk about it, but like it's never been my real thing.
So, but now I'm in this weird position of saying like, hey, it's a thing.
When they're like, no, it's not a thing.
I'm like, well, what do you mean?
It is a thing.
Anyway, okay, let's move on.
I'm going to take a break.
We're going to come back.
And there's a lot.
I have got to talk to you.
I'm going to warn you, Mark Albrin.
You didn't know this is coming.
I am going to talk to you about a former colleague of yours at ABC News who I believe is the vainest man in television.
And I'm going to show you my evidence on why.
Stand by for that.
I think I know who it is.
Well, we'll find out.
I will say it when we come back.
I'm just, I'm going to ask you who your prediction is and then I'll show you my evidence.
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Okay, during the break, my team and I had in-depth discussions on what we're about to show you.
And we all have very strong feelings on this next little bit.
So this segment is about vanity in media, Mark Alperin.
And you worked for many years at ABC News as one of the top honchos over there.
On Camera Appearance Details00:10:29
Who do you think I am going to say is the most vain man at ABC News?
All right.
You remember Johnny Carson in Karnak?
You've got the hand up to the head, the card.
He's written it down.
Yes, DM.
He's got the proper initials, just like Debbie Murphy, Canadian Debbie, but it's not her.
She works for me.
It is David Muir.
Okay, we covered him a couple of months ago at another tragedy, and he was caught on camera wearing his fake little fireman's jacket.
This is him reporting.
We're showing the video.
And he made the mistake of turning to gesture to the scene behind him.
And you can see he's got like the clothes pins on the back of his fake little fireman's jacket.
He's not a fireman, trying to make his waist look skinny.
Mark, what man makes his waist look skinny on television or elsewhere?
That's strange.
Yeah.
Unless you're good.
I need to recuse myself because I'm currently wearing safety pins to cinch some people like the cut of my jib.
I can't turn.
If I did, you'd see.
I'm just lousy with safety pins in the back.
There's nothing wrong with being a gay man.
None whatsoever.
David Muir.
I don't know what he's not married.
He's not out.
I'm not sure what's going on there, but his vanity runs out.
He's not out.
I thought he was out.
I don't know.
He just gave a long interview that we read and laughed at in People magazine where he was dancing around it, but he doesn't like his dancing around like a partner or whatever.
But he, no, he's not out.
He's not out.
It's just suspicion.
I don't think so.
We've, we've, we've done some saluthing.
But in any event, gay or not gay, if you're an on-camera man, you need to be a man.
You need to be a manly man.
You need to be in control and you need to not be worried about your waist circumference or how tight you look around the middle when you're reporting from natural disasters.
So I would submit to the jury: while we do not have proof positive, Mark Halperin, we have circumstantial evidence that he's at it again.
This time down in Texas, reporting on the terrible flooding in Kerr County outside of Dallas.
He has, look at this, for the past two nights, two nights in a row, is wearing his teeny tiny black t-shirt, super high cut on the biceps, so you can see his muscles, and the teeny tiny waist down below.
And I will tell you something.
We look, this is when you zoom out a little bit.
You can see the shirt has a little flare below the middle.
That's not how t-shirts work.
Men's t-shirts do not cut in in the middle and then flare down below.
And we went and pulled the video of him doing his walk and talk because we really care about this.
And his t-shirt looks normal.
Look, it looks like a normal t-shirt, Mark Halperin, where he's in the field.
There's obviously no cinchers.
He's tucked it in in the back because I think he wants to show off his fanny.
And he's walking.
He's manly man in the field.
But then you get him on camera.
It's got the normal drape to it.
You get him on camera for the nightly broadcast and in goes the waist where it's smaller than Megan Kelly's waist, but my defense, I've had three children.
He hasn't.
And he wants the world to know he's super, super tiny in the waist, but super mostly in the arms.
And the reason this matters is because vanity is a muck in TV news in general.
And amongst our evening news anchors, it already brought down Brian Williams, his need to embellish his life, his reporting, himself.
And I would submit to you that this is like that in a different form.
Well, two things.
One, I can clear up the t-shirt thing.
He wears a, I've been shopping with him.
He wears a medium, but it's a ladies' medium.
So that explains why it's so tight.
I have a great story to tell you, which is how I knew what the answer was, but I can't tell you on the here on the program.
But next I'd see I will tell you another story.
Often so unfair to our viewers.
I know.
It's just, I'm not in a position to say it for wide consumption.
But let me ask you this.
Let me ask you this about your story without getting into the details.
Yeah.
Do you feel it in a heartfelt, personal way that he's the vainest person at ABC News?
I feel this story illustrates the fact that if there's another contender for that award, they're distant second.
Oh, at ABC.
If there is, if there is, they are a distant second.
Yeah, yeah.
But maybe not just at ABC, maybe in all of Manhattan.
We also, I used to go to the same gym as he did too.
So I've seen him in action.
So you go to the gym, but when I watch your show, you do not seem to feel the need to show me the products of your gym visits.
I do not see.
I just don't.
I just don't turn sideways to show you.
And I said, I used to go to his gym.
I don't still go to his gym.
Okay.
I still go to the gym, but Steve has me working very hard.
So I can't spend three and a half hours at the gym.
This is how Steve shows up at work too.
And I constantly tell him, Steve, no one can see you.
You're not on.
No, just kidding.
But I have worked with a lot.
Steve is objecting.
I've worked with a lot of men in television.
I worked for years next to Bill Hemmer.
I worked for years next to Brett Baer.
And of course, they care about how they look on camera.
And there's an attention to looking neat and making sure the hair is not like sticking out.
But I have never seen this level of vanity amongst the men that I have had the pleasure of co-anchoring with or working next to.
And that includes, I know some, I'm not going to say he'll be like, they do Botox.
There's somebody at Fox I knew who got a surgery, a man.
I don't judge it.
Honestly, being on camera, it does, you know, you have to maintain things.
But cinching the waist for a super skinny girl-like velt figure is weird and it's a bridge too far.
This is where I draw the line, Mark Halford.
Well, two things.
One is, you know, the song from the producers, if he got it, flaunted.
So I think, you know, there's a certain element.
He doesn't want to waste what God has given him and what Peloton has buffed.
Steve the other day called me and said he had 200 clothespins and wanted to know they bought on Amazon and wanted to know if I wanted 100 of them.
So you make of that what you will, but some of us are cinching.
We're just not dumb enough to turn sideways on camera.
Steve's very upset.
He's getting thrown under the bus and has no microphone.
This is very wrong.
Well, he should make his Amazon transactions private.
Let me tell you something.
Let me tell you something else.
Okay.
Here's further evidence.
Here's some context and some evidence.
We decided to take a look at the other anchors.
This is national tragedy.
You know, I mean, I shouldn't have to point out you've got children who are dead.
Like, seriously, who shows up thinking about the size of their waist and whether they look buff in the evening news shot?
It's very strange behavior.
So we took a look over at CNN.
They've got Pamela Brown down there on site.
Let's see how she's dressed.
Yeah.
Like a news anchor in the field reporting on a tragedy.
Like you dress, like you dress if you were late to pick your kids up at school and you had to rush to make pictures.
Yeah.
Truly.
She's not doing glam.
And by the way, we all know that when we go on site to report when people have died, glam is not a thing.
You don't do, you don't do glam.
If anything, you play it down.
Everybody knows that.
Pam Brown, totally appropriate.
Now, who's the next one before we get to NBC?
I think we have one other.
We have Maurice Dubois over at CBS now.
Looks totally normal.
He's got CBS Network.
I think he's networked now.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Evening news now.
Who can keep track?
I mean, nobody pays attention to this stuff anymore.
At this point, you and I are the only two people who haven't anchored CBS evening news.
Everybody else has had their.
But Steve has done it.
Steve also did it.
Yeah, Steve's done it.
He's wearing a button.
Allison's done it.
Allison's done it.
Everybody but us.
Allison R. Booker.
She's being considered.
He's wearing a button-down shirt, like a man's shirt that you'd wear like with a suit.
That's appropriate.
No tie in the field.
Totally get it.
That's what you should.
And it's the right, it's the right size.
If I worked at Nordstrom's, that's the size I'd give him.
That's right.
And no cinching.
I'm not looking at his teeny tiny waist.
I'm not like, oh, Maurice lost weight.
Look at him.
Or look at his big muscles.
Not that either.
Then we meander over to NBC News.
And this is Tommy.
Is this Tommy?
Tommy Yamas.
Lamas.
Tommy Lamas.
Yeah.
He looks totally appropriate.
He has same as Maurice.
He's got like a black men's shirt on with a button down.
His collar is buttoned appropriately.
We're not looking at chest at all.
He's not showing off muscles.
And he's telling us something.
If he was wearing makeup, he sweated through it too.
Yeah.
No, he actually could use a little like pancake makeup tonight.
But, but he's a common for David Muir because even though Muir is crushing NBC right now, just because people know NBC is bad, that they're evil in their hearts.
This guy, Tom Lamas, took over for Lester and he's younger and he's likable and he's actually doing well.
And he has like tripled his increases for the past two weeks.
He's been on and he's coming in.
Are his ratings higher than Lester's?
Yes.
Yeah.
He's going up above Lester and he's improving the NBC demo number, which is the number they really care about.
But they want you to look at like, oh, we have 7 million a night.
We have 7 million.
All anybody cares about is the key demo.
And in the key demo, he's making inroads against David Muir, who is like, tighter, tighter.
I see this young man is coming for me.
So I'm pulling my stretchy pants right now.
Super tight, Mark Halfran.
It's the clothespin girdle combo that gets you where I can put my fans around the waist, like Bart Simpson.
Like that's right.
Homer, homeran Bart's neck, right around David's waist.
And you got to be able to do it and not touch him to circle.
He's five demo points away from calling in a Kardashian for a corset.
That's where this is going.
Venmo Privacy And TSA Rules00:05:10
Just you heard it here first.
Titer cinch.
Titer cinch.
Runs a buck.
Forget rewriting page two.
I just need to tighten the cinch.
I have to know we were doing this segment.
I know.
I surprised you.
Wait, how much time do I have, Steve?
Steve's all he's Steve's almost canceling his canceling his Amazon orders.
Okay.
Yeah, exactly.
And also your Venmos.
Did you know that your Venmos are public?
I know other people's Venmos are public.
I know when I signed up for Venmo, I toggled the box to not let everybody know what I'm what I'm paying for lawn mowing or licorice.
It's very smart.
I don't use Venmo.
I have Abigail Finan who does some Venmoing for me and some other service she uses.
But I didn't know that.
And I think a lot of people get burned by the fact that Venmo is public even.
Well, the National Security, the former National Security Advisor had that problem.
What's his name?
The guy who was fired.
Waltz?
Waltz.
Waltz had a public Venmo and he had a bunch of transactions with reporters.
Oh, God.
Oh, God.
Oh, that's humiliating.
I don't remember that.
I remember the signal gate, but I didn't remember the Venmo.
It was an aggro gate.
Last but not least, because I really want to get to this other story, but I don't think we have time, right?
We don't have time for opera, do we?
I'm dying.
My audience is trying to get to opera.
Can you stay five minutes late, Mark Halfran?
Yeah, I think.
Okay.
I'm going to get to that in a minute, but I have to, I'm going to start with this.
How about we reference at the top of the show the fact that the TSA is finally saying that we do not have to wear our shoes anymore on board airplanes?
You mean to go through TSA?
Yeah.
Yeah.
That we don't have to do.
We don't have to take them off.
I hate to take them off.
You go through TSA.
I hate to sound like Kamala Harris, but I've got pre-checked, so I haven't taken off my shoes in a while.
You know, the whole shoe thing was an outgrowth of the shoe bomber whose name was like Richard Reeves.
Something Richard Reeves is.
Reverend Reed.
Yeah.
Anyway, like it was like, it seemed to me a huge overreaction.
Like one guy put it in his shoe.
And so for then on, no liquids and no shoes.
Like, I don't know.
I guess, I guess I'm proud to live in a country where we can figure out how to check the shoes while they're on your feet as opposed to going through the world.
I was talking to Paul Murray about this on Sky News.
Why not the belt?
Why does the belt have to come off?
What can you hide in the belt?
Yeah.
I don't know.
I'm for, I'm for safety, but I'm also for competence.
But these are lies.
These are lies.
We were going through TSA.
My son had a five-ounce toothpaste.
Not four, five.
Yeah.
Stolen.
They took it.
Confiscated.
Confiscated.
You know, before, I'm like, he's literally 11.
You think my 11-year-old managed to get a bomb in his five-ounce toothpaste, which would have gone through had it been four ounces?
What flavor was it?
It was like the little, like the travel flavor of like the kid, the kids, kids' toothpaste.
Like bubblegum.
Yeah, like some sort of sugary addition to it, which kind of defeats the purpose.
Yeah.
Again, the country's not that advanced to know that bombs in four, impossible.
Bombs in five, high security risk.
And not only that, you can bring multiple fours.
So you can do four ounces of shampoo, four ounces of conditioner, four ounces of face wash, four ounces of toner, four ounces of lotion, face cream, whatever.
So if you're a bomber, how can you make a bomb out of a five ounce toothpaste tube, but not out of the multiple four ounces that Megan Kelly has in her Ziploc bag, huh?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, the irrationality of the system is undermines our confidence.
But I'm glad no one's going to be taking their shoes off anymore, but I haven't taken my shoes off in a while.
Right.
Because you know what happens, Mark Halperin, is you then have to put your little sweater in a bin that somebody's disgusting shoes were just in that were walking all over the streets of New York.
Or you've got to put your handbag that you're about to put over your shoulder in that same bin that's got somebody's shoe filth all over it.
This is, it was unsanitary.
Yeah, but I'm being asked all the time to sit on couches that dogs have sat on too.
Well, look, we all know that the TSA security system, while technically for our safety, is really about giving TSA agents the opportunity to exercise their little modicum of power in a disproportionately large way.
They get drunk on their own power and then they abuse us by taking our toothpaste or our Johnson Johnson's baby shampoo.
One of my kids had like a small acne medicine.
Oh, we're going to blow up the plane with acne.
It's like a teenager.
What do you think we have it for?
And they don't exercise discretion.
It's just, nope, we're taking it, especially if it's a bottle of liquor.
I'm just saying order must be restored and I believe Sean Duffy's going to do it.