Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discussed the top political headlines with some of today's best minds and Pete Buddha. Judge says, this is clearly amateur hour at the Pentagon and in the White House, we have such a great show for you today. The Lincoln Project's own Rick Wilson joins us to discuss Tucker Paulison, saying the CIA is coming for him. Then we'll talk to congress wor Alman Melanie Stansberry about the investigation into
Ebstein's Zorro ranch. But first the news.
So, Molly, it is unbelievable how much the Trump administration does something. They fuck it up. They convince his followers that he solved the problem. This headline from the New York Times. I literally, you know how when we say I spit out my coffee, I literally spit out my coffee. To address farm la versus shortage, Trump administration turns to migrant workers.
Yes, the great irony of Trump world is that Trump, the man who is trying to end migration, actually desperately needs migrants. By the way, this could have all been seen coming a million miles away for years. The agricultural sector has faced a tight labor market as farm workers age. This is like jobs that Americans don't want to do, picking strawberries. I feel like we've been doing this for so long that we have had this conversation so many times.
Americans don't want to pick strawberries. It's hard, backbreaking labor. People who are not from this country. Somehow we convince them to do this. Here's the problem. Now they can't come here, and they're scared to come and because Christie Nome has spent two hundred and twenty million dollars making little videos telling them to self deport and maybe taking some of the money for herself. By the way, I went through TSA this weekend, no Christie Nome photo. It
was amazing. Oh no, they took them down already, like she's only been out for like four and there's no cowboy hat, like please go through the You know, they.
Were probably worried that that's what was driving down the tourism.
Yeah, that'll do it, not the four hour lines. Our country is like a banana republic. So yeah, there's nobody to pick the fruit and we need them back. But they don't want to come here because of ice, and how terrifying it is. So as someone who carries her passport around with her when she goes places. I don't know what to tell you, but this seems bad.
Yeah.
Soby I was watching the Sunday shows and I see a energy secretary, Chris Wright, make an appearance, and he says, no guarantees gas prices will fall in weeks. And so I took a walk up. I live on a corner with a gas station. I walked up the buck I'd gotten gas last week. Gas is up almost a dollar at.
That gas station.
Yeah, you know, Chris Right, I've rarely been so impressed by a Trump cabinet secretary. My man is working for the Democrats. Let's be honest here, Molly. Would you say they don't bring us their best? I don't know, because this is honestly, he's my favorite, But then again, I'm a Democrat. So he said things that were absolutely like if Trump doesn't like, send him to Gitmo. I don't know what to tell you. He said there would be a period of short term disruption. By the way, everyone
in Trump world has said that. Now this this is a talking point, short term pain for long term gain. What is the long term gain. The long term gain is what that we have destroyed around a country that none of us have ever been to and never will go to. And that's a gain for us. How okay, But here's the deal. He then admitted, or his Energy Information Administration, his own department, admitted that they forecast that gas will not get back to pre conflict levels before
the end of twenty twenty seven. So good news because the Republicans are going into a midterm. Here's the problem. Twenty percent of all oil and gas goes to the straits of Homooth. So even if America is energy independent, it does not mean that we will be selling ourselves cheap gas because I don't know if you know this, but in capitalism, they can sell the gas for as much as they want. And so there is gas is
getting more expensive. Oil and gas entrepreneurs are making more money, Oil and gas barons are making more money, which is good news for Trump because you'll remember Trump got like one hundred million dollars from those guys, and remember when
he was like, you know, you guys need me. But gas prices are already up to three dollars and sixty nine cents, up from two dollars and ninety seven cents a month ago, and it's only going to get higher because while this war is going on, the number of barrels are being you know, we're having less and less oil and we're going to have to catch up on this oil that we're missing, and everything's going to get we have a supply chain crisis, just like during COVID Mike.
There is another civil war inside maga is between Ken Paxton and John Cornan, and Trump's being forced to choose which one he's going to back.
Yeah, this is my favorite story ever. So basically, John Cornyan Republicans have dumped millions of dollars into this primary. John Cornan is the Republican senator from Texas. You know, he's very popular in the Senate. But the problem is he's not very trumpy. And this other guy, Ken Paxton is like the AG has been Trump's cheerleader. He has done everything Trump has wanted, like everything he fought against the twenty twenty election results. He was impeached and fought
against removal and ended up staying as AG. He's a philanderer. I mean, my man is just a truly trumpy politician. And so the republiclkins, you know, in Republican world, they're like, you gotta endorse Cornan because he's less insane, and normal people who are not MAGA will not vote for Paxton because any number of reasons. But here's the problem. Trump can't because Paxton has that thing that Trump had when normal Republicans tried to get rid of him. He's got
that thing right. I mean, Paxton way underspent Cornan and Cornyn barely, you know, and now they'll go to a runoff. So I think it's going to be really interesting. And here's why it's interesting, because if Trump endorses Cornan, MAGA will spoil with him. And already Paxton has said a
number of different things. But he said he wouldn't drop out even if Trump didn't endorse him, And then he said he would only drop out if they passed the Save Act, which was like a pathetic pandering but also a way to try to get Cornan to apt to say he supported the Stave Act, which Cornyan did, which then like lost corn In quite a lot of credibility because a lot of these senators really like the Philip
Wester don't want to get rid of it. It just was like an amazing situation because Trump is really between a rock and hard places. If he endorses Paxton, which would make the most sense, then Paxton will very likely win the primary anyway, but he may not win the general because he's a complete lunatic. But if he endores this cornan, I think there's a real chance that Paxton stays in and still wins, which will make Trump. You know, if Trump can't control MAGA, that's a big deal. I'll
be curious to see how this plays out. It's not a good situation for Trump.
I agree. Speaking of not good situations for Trump, the war in Iran not good. He has some thoughts to mister Brian kill Meat about how he'll know when the war is done that I think we should really listen to.
Yes, let's go.
And I had to take an excursion.
We had the greatest economy in history.
We do.
He'll do this will bounce right back when it's over, And I don't think it's going to be low when it's over.
This is good to bounce right back so fast.
When are you gonna know when it's over? When I feel it, okay, feel it in my bones.
Will you ask anybody in particular would that be some of these A joint decisions.
Deal with people.
I have great people, Yeah, I have General Raising Kine, I have Pete, Pete shared out to be a star, Marco's great JD.
I've got all good people.
I've got We've got a great group.
Got a great group, Molly.
I listened to that and I was like in his phones. I mean, I understand that Trump is an autocrat, so he's going to always say, you know, he doesn't want to give up any parts of control.
Right.
He's like Godafi. He's a completely self contained There are no checks and balances, there are no branches of the federal government. There's just him, and he is Maga and magas him. The problem is he just doesn't know what the she's doing it, and he's way too embolden and there's no one around him to tell. So he's going to know the wars over when he fills it in his bones. I don't know when that's going to be. I do not think that will be soon.
This is like a worse moment than Mission accomplished in my mind.
I mean mission accomplished. You know. Now we go into this like cursed conversation of whether Bush is worse than Trump. I mean, Trump is obviously worse than Bush, but like Bush did get you know, quite a lot of Americans are Rockies and all sorts of other people in the Middle East got killed. So I don't know. But the one thing I will say is that Bush did stop playing golf, and Donald Trump does seem to still be playing golf. So there is that.
Okay, Well, here's a way that Trump is much worse than George Bush. Ever, was Brendan Carr is threatening broadcast licenses for that coverage over the war in Iran.
Yeah, so Brendan Carr, this is his whole thing is that he's really into threatening people, and he's really not so into the First Amendment when these people call it themselves free speech absolutists, Oh, because I am.
You're just vivid in my brain. You know.
His whole thing is he basically just like makes stuff up and he's like, you can't do that. No, he wants to take these licenses away. I think that, you know, all of this stuff is you just have to push back. If you don't push back, like just like Trump one point zero, if you push back, you know, Jimmy Kimmel is still on the air, right, But if you don't push back, then Jimmy Kimmel will be off there. I mean, this is it's not this is not rocket science. You
push back or you lose your freedoms and rights. And you know, I want to point out that Brendan Carr said broadcasters are running hoaxes and news distortions also known as speaking news. They have a chance to course correct before their license renewals come up. This is this other thing too. They really want to car Trump World really wants to intimidate corporations that want you know, there are so many of these ways in which Republicans and these
businesses are. They have conflicts of interest, they want regulatory approval, and a lot we've seen a lot of media companies cave just because they like think of Sherry Redstone, just because they wanted regulatory approval. So I think Brendan Carr hopes that he can get.
More to cave that way, which is sort of so it's sort of like capitalism authoritarianism, right, It's authoritarianism with like capitalist impulses like you want to make this murders and that is how we got here.
And so welcome to an entire news cycle of we have exciting news over at our YouTube channel. The third episode is out now from our series Project twenty twenty nine are reimagining where we examine what went wrong with democrats approach to policy and how we can correct it and deliver changes for the American people. The first episodes dove into campaign finance, reform, antitrust, and regulation. Our newest episode is on how we solidify reproductive rights for women.
We talk to the smartest names in the fields like abortion every Day is Jessica Valenti, the Center for Reproductive Rights, Nancy Northok UCLA is oh and Mary Ziegler, and the gout Macher Institute's Kelly Badden. Republicans were prepared for when they got the levers of power. Democrats need to be too. So please head over to YouTube and search Molly John Fast Project twenty twenty nine or go to the Fast Politics YouTube channel page and you'll find it there. Help
us spread the word. Rick Wilson is the founder of the Lincoln Project.
Rick Wilson, Hey, Molly, how are you going?
So Tucker Carlson believe that he is going to He says that he is being h the I'm just going to read the text above the.
Just just tweet because it because it does need somebody to read it. So you hear how.
Yes, when you this is just what he tweeted, and then we can talk about what he said. But I think this is worthy. Uh when you discover the CIA has been reading your texts in order to frame you for a crime. Sure, uh is the first part of the story, but basically, in a clip shared Saturday evening, As One Does, Tucker Carlson says the CIA is preparing some kind of criminal referral against him to the Justice
Department quote on the basis of a supposed crime. The former Fox News host claims claimed investigators had read his text messages and that the support the supposed probe relates to talking to people in ran before the war. The crime is a consideration apparently that would be under the Foreign Agent Act or something like that. Acting is an agent of a foreign power, He's said, Foreign.
Agent's Registration Act is what it's what it's uh, what it's called. I'd just like to ask, Tucker, is the CIA in the room with this now, Tucker? Are they telling you to hurt yourself or others?
So, so there are questions here, right, Like this is one of these stories where it's it's self reported, so that could could mean any number.
Is our only source on this story, to be fair, right.
A single source story. Also, how he knows they've read his texts.
You know, once again, I don't know if if, if the CIA is telling him these things or what, but you know he has he has a fairly pro Iran position when it comes to this war, I would say, and I don't want to say he's like, I'm not
saying he's cheerleading for the mullas to newke America. He certainly is anti Trump's war in Iran, which, you know, weirdly for the first time, and I don't know, a decade puts Tucker and I sort of on the same general paths, and I've done it feels weird and it feels kind of dirty, and I don't feel good about it.
But but but but Molly, I mean, I think, I think what you've got here is there are a handful of these people, uh, Tucker, Jackson, Hinkle, sometimes Alex Joones, some of these weirdos who get in bed with other with with foreign countries, Doug McGregor, you know, these people who seem to suddenly have mysterious access to our enemies to describe their intentions and and and to describe their side of these arguments over and over again. And I think it is I think it is entirely possible that
Tucker has talked to these people. I don't know, we don't know, we don't know what this entails yet, but it couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
Well, so here's the thing. I mean, there have we've definitely seen members of conservative media make money from foreign countries. You'll remember that.
Thing, Benny Johnson, Benny Cool and Southern.
Do the husband of Megan McCain, Ben Dominic, maybe that.
Was that was the Malaysia deal, Ben Malaysia or Indonesia, I remember Proprecia. I just threw a Zulander reference there it was. I think it was Malaysia. Like suddenly, back in the two thousands, a bunch of right wing waters were like writing about what a great country Malaysia was. The administration was so awesome. So look, being caught up in the fairest stuff is a rookie mistake, right, And and a lot of these guys who do politics in
other countries as I have done. If you're just working in the other country, you don't have to register for Pharaoh, but if you're becoming an advocate it for them in this country, you do.
Right, And this was something we saw. Trump's guy got involved in what's his name, the campaign manager in the first Trump one point zero? Oh, Brad Parscal And yeah, Brad. But also remember the guy where they had to sell his Ostrich jacket Palm. Yeah, of course I remember the jacket and not the name.
Paul Maniford is a full time if. Paul Manaford is like a literary character almost in this country. He is a guy who if there's a if the if it's the scummiest, most dangerous, most anti American, most vile, most most repressive regime in the world, and they walk through Paul's office with a dollar bill hanging out of their
back pocket, He's going to work for him. He literally works for Lukashinko, he works for he works for Orbon as to a bunch of other Trump senior advisers right now, by the way, they're all trying to get Orbon elected. And I'm sure as as we go back to Tucker, Tucker is also a huge fan of Orbon right, who's going to lose by the way.
So here's the question. I think there are I think we should parse this out because it's there's so many issues here. There's the possibility that Tucker is acting as a foreign agent. But then there's the other possibility that they're going after media figures that they don't.
Like, absolutely correct, and I.
Think there's John Lemon.
I think there's a massive overlap between left and right people that Trump is going after or as or as directed as people to go after. And I don't think it's happening in in equal intensity and sequence for all of them. Right. You know, when when you've got Judge box of Wine out on Friday screeching like a stuck hog about is that the court slap her down so hard she lost her dentures. I mean Jerome Powell was essentially the Court said this administration is harassing Jerome Powell.
They have to fucking stop and Judge box of Wine has misread her role, powers and responsibilities. But they're going to go after people they don't like. You saw Brendan Carr over the weekend saying, oh, well, we're going to go after networks that don't cover the war like we want them to cover it. Yeah, well that and how this shit works, boss. But here we are.
So there's just a number of different of different possible bad results here, I think.
You know, and look, here's the thing. I think. Tucker Carlson is a guy who has submerged himself into the most vile parts of the alt right, you know, white replacement bullshit world. But honestly, I don't want this administration using the power of the government to silent speech that they don't like, because that doesn't stop with Tucker. It ends with you and me. It ends with a whole
bunch of other people. And you have seen this repeatedly across the spectrum, Trump saying that he's going to sue people like Maggie Haberman. This week he went after Maggie again because that's a love hate kind of thing that he's got in his head for years, call her maggot. So you're gonna sue her for defamation, you know. And you've got You've got Pete Heggstath not wanting to be covered by the press because he doesn't think they make
him look good enough in his photographs. This is an administration and you have Brendan Carr threatening networks that don't cover stories the way they want them covered. This is an administration that has a very thin skin. Yeah, and so it wouldn't shock me if they tried to make an example out.
Of Tucker, right. And then the other point. I think the other point here is that Tucker is a real is a real adversary of Trump. Right. He pushes at Trump, he would like to be the heir parent to Trump.
Discuss Tucker represents the future of the gop MAGA movement, and a lot of people go, oh, no, that's impossible. It's got to be Trump, or it's some Trump designee,
or it's going to be Marco or I disagree. I think that Tucker Carlson has a has a resonance with the growing number of eighteen to forty year old Republican men who have grown up in the Joe Rogan Tucker Carlson podcast verse who are into this alt right thing, whether they whether they say it that way or not, some of them and they range from I don't like
women telling me what to do. I hate the woke, so that Hitler wasn't such a bad fellow, Yeah, you know, and I think Tucker has a lot of power with those people, and I think if he does decide to run for president, it would threat it would be something in a primary that would drive the rest of the MAGA GOP further to the right.
Yeah.
I don't even want to say right anymore. It's just like sane versus insane, but further crazy. And I think I think it would. It would be in some ways, like twenty and fifteen and sixteen, you had a flock of respectable Republican candidates who were all very talented at what they were doing. A lot of smart guys in that list, and Trump came in as the big disruptor and blew them all away. I think you could end up, Oh there's JD. Vance. Oh there's there's Josh Hawley. Oh
there's Marco Rubio. Oh there's Ted Cruz. And you could end up with a Tucker coming in and saying here's a grenade and stepping out of the room.
Exactly. Doesn't Tucker and JD Vance pull from the same group, really, JD.
I think JD Vance is a declining stock right now.
Let's talk about Jdvan. That's a wonderful, wonderful thought. Let's talk about JD. Vance and the war and Iran, because it feels like he will defend anything. He will defend like forty year olds doing a Nazi group chat. But he seems like he's not defending this.
You know that we've seen two stories leak now that Vance was had had different views on the conduct of the war from the beginning. He had given me the subtle shit you've ever seen. Okay, And it goes back to a rule that Karl Rove said one time way back in the day, and it was that bad white houses just leak. Good white houses leak on purpose. Jade Vance is in a bad white house. It's leaking crazily.
Everybody's everybody's trying to get daylight, including the Joint chiefs of Staff, including the professional military commanders in the theater. Everybody's trying to get daylight on Trump and Hegsteth right now, and Rubio and even Ruby. I was trying to get some daylight on all this stuff because trying to change the subject to Cuba and move on from a wrong which ain't gonna happen.
Amazing.
So I think you're in a weird box right now where Vance recognizes that a big part of his potential coalition in twenty twenty eight are isolationists or they are in that weird Eldridge Colby pro China thing. Right, I don't know, he is square that fricking circle. And and so I think that there's a weird, a weird Vancian headspace that he's got, Like I can talk my way out of this. I can pretend I was the smart guy and the sane guy in the room and let
Trump take the beating on this. In the future. I can say I can use this can. He's also thinking I can use this to cock block Hegseth and Marco from power on foreign policy matters.
Us.
I don't have a team of rivals people. This is a team of wild rabbid weasels in a garbage can fighting.
The speaking of which I would love to talk about. Why this crew is such a disaster, Because like people are waiting for the oil markets to owe a good book. Yes there's been this weekend, there was like two hundred dollars a barrel oil batted around. You know, the streets of Permouth are basically ostensibly closed unless you're Chinese Chinese ship. Yeah, they're doing yeah, so it does strike me. And Trump's big solution was to end sanctions on Russian oil.
And I actually, by the way, I don't know if Russia exists right now because in the streets of Moscow, right there's no Internet. And apparently before we came on the show, I saw something in the Financial Times like there have been troops deployed now in Moscow in the Ring Road areas. Wait, miss cooking, and it's probably not good.
My favorite part of this whole story, I'm telling you is that I watched a Goldman Sachs analyst like melt down about the oil situation.
I saw him the other day and I got to tell you, I asked somebody about him. I'm like, is this guy like legiting is because oh no, no, that guy is probably the most knowledgeable person in the world about oil markets and oil Futureskay.
You can only do two million barrels a day? You see him just like sweat.
It's like the math, the math of it is so fucking brutal.
Right, he said it's gonna take two hundred days to get back online, and well that's.
Just a round election time, Molly, Yeah, I mean it just the American people love nothing more than paying their Trump gas tax.
Yeah, a summer phil with six dollars seven dollars gasoline. People are gonna it's gonna be like being It's actually going to be like being in Europe.
Yeah. Yeah, and those and those summer plane rides, y'all were thinking about taking those tickets that are one thousand dollars now are going to be thirty five hundred.
Yeah. It's just an incredible, incredible way to run a country.
And all this crap molly about like, oh, we're gonna find ways to bring the oil price down. We're going to talk to the producers here in America. We're going to do this, make them do that. I'm like, Okay, that's all find and good congrats, But did you did you ever think that you might want to not start a war, that you didn't have a plan to keep the straits open without.
Something?
But imagine if Harris had been like, you know, we're gonna have price controls on oil, like, we're not going to go for this capitalism streamed.
It's full communism, I mean.
But also they the reporting this weekend, three weeks into the war, that nobody knows why we're fighting Uh. My favorite part of the story is like they had no plans for the Straits, and everyone said, you're gonna have this problem with the Straits and removes everyone for every you know, everyone, anyone who's ever read the economists said this, and then they had no plan.
I can tell you something I know from experience. You can look from UEE across the Strait, not a clear day, and it's often it's often hazy, but you can see across it. That is not an area that you easily that you have a lot of running room, because the only thing that it takes to put one of those five hundred dollars sea mines that can blow up a billion dollar ship is some asshole on a jet ski or a speedboat runs out and dumps it in the water.
And believe me, they're gonna have a lot of assholes willing to go out and dump mines in the in the in the in the in the Strait, because that is Iran's power. Now. Now, of course, we've also got a marine unit going from Asia over there, and nine days from now they will arrive, and apparently Trump wants them to take over carg Island, as I call it Hot Greenland.
Okay, so explain.
It is the main oil terminal in for Iran. It's in the Northern Persian Gulf. It is a about ten thousand people lived there, flown over it before. It's a it's a big oil tank facility. They pipe oil out to it to these big, big storage units, big storage drums, and then that gets loaded onto tankers. Tankers then move from there. Like ninety percent of Iran's oil goes through carg Island. That's their central oil terminal. It would be
like Houston for US. Okay, it's very important. Trump it seems to think he's going to take it and and then make Iran surrender. I guess I think this is a recipe for two thousand marines to get trapped on an island, to get murdered by cruise missiles. Because if you if you're telling Iran we're going to destroy your regime or or unless you surrender, will destroy your oil, trauma will be like, oh, you're going to kill us anyway, so why not? Yeah, and death more than we love life.
And that gets us to the real worry that I think everyone has here is does this become a ground war?
Look, Molly, if it does become a ground war. And I said this from the beginning. I said, this is the first time we talked about this. Iran cannot beat us in the air, and they cannot beat us on the sea, but that we can't beat them on the ground.
Yeah, because it's a humongous country, for like.
Ninety million people in a country the size of Texas, Folks, Yeah, it is. It is going to make f Gghanistan look like a cakewalk.
Yeah.
And and remember in Iran, they are the religious fanaticism of the regime is built into the culture top to bottom. Not everybody wants to live in that world, but but millions and millions and millions of Imagine if you went to if somebody invaded America and they're like, we love everybody except the MAGA voters. What do you think the MAGA voters would do. They would find like tooth and nail to survive. Yeah. And the Iranian version of MAGA are the moahs and the terrorists, and they are going
to fight like hell to survive. They're gonna do whatever they can. And as military planners always say, they get a vote.
Yeah, and it is a.
Ground war is a bad, bad, bad bad super bad, bad, bad bad idea. And I'm saying this.
Yeah, No, I know. Well, I mean the best moment of the whole weekend is John Bolton being like, whoa right? Like is all he's ever wanted this? He was paid by the Shaws people. Yeah, and he's like, oh, I don't know, It's.
Like maybe we ought to walk this one a little slower there, Chief, What do you think? Yeah? And I've known John for a very long time, and I've known about this. I've known that this has been an aspirational goal for a very long time. But and I look again, I want to say this one more time. I feel like I feel stupid having to say it. No one's being an apologist for the Iranian regime. Nobody wants the mulas to be like in charge of people and hang
gay people from cranes and make women wear burkas. Nobody wants that. But the alternative is not free and democratic Iran. The alternative is Trump's trying to make a deal to make them give him a cut of their oil rev and then he'll declare victory and go away.
Yeah. And I think it's important to just point out as we are almost done, but no one that what they did in Venezuela was not free the Venezuelans. What they did was put the vice president in charge.
If you read that Times piece that it was a Chevron executive who came up with the plan. Yeah, instead of going to the pro democratic side, the Chevron executive came up with a plan because they knew they could make a deal with Delsea Rodriguez and the Massuro regime which is still in charge of Venezuela.
But the good news is that Donald Trump did in fact get that peace prize.
You know, the FIFA Peace Prize is a is a highly desirable peace prize. Next year it's probably gonna have to be like the Chick fil A Peace Prize because even FIFA can't stand this level of embarrassment.
Well, we'll see, Rick Wilson. Congresswoman Melanie Stansberry represents New Mexico's first congressional district. Welcome, Welcome, Congresswoman.
It's great to be here.
So I have been interested in having on for a long time because of what you've been doing. You were on the original Doge Committee to Weapons highs Government, even when special government employee Elon Musk was on it. Whatever they did there was wild I mean, does that still exist? Just catch me up on that.
Just to clarify, I was not a part of DOGE.
I was, no, I know, you were part of DOGE oversight.
Yeah, I was the highest ranking Democrat and the Congressional Oversight Committee. But yeah, I mean, you know, Dotch never really existed outside of Elon Musk's brain. That he came into government in this whirlwind of illegal activity and stolar data and mass fired people and sent his hackers into all the agencies. But yeah, I mean some of those DOGE people are still there. But I would say by and large, this administration has pretty much renounced the whole
DOGE experiment. And I mean if you look at any agency, whether it's Department of Defense, which it was just revealed that the secretary spent ninety three billion dollars on King Crab and stakes, to you know, the stealing of social Security data, to Christy Nome buying a private jet so she could travel across the country. The entire thing was a farce.
Yes, And in fact, they've had to rehire some people, right.
Oh, absolutely, yeah, I mean because of how they executed DOJ. It was so massively illegal that there have been hundreds of lawsuits that had basically resulted in court orders to reverse much of the harmful damage that they did, and a lot of people, thousands of people have been ordered to be rehired.
Besides that, the government on its own has come to the decision that they need some of those people back too. Right.
Yeah, the idea of making government more lean and transparent and effective is a good idea. It has everything to do with execution, right, And had the intent from the beginning actually been to really improve the federal government, they would have spend some time to understand how these agencies actually they work, what they do, why the certain things that they do is important.
You know.
I was just on my way back to do this interview. I was listening to MPR, and MPR is confirming as of the last couple of hours that it was indeed an American bomb that killed one hundred and seventy school children in Iran, and DoD is investigating why they targeted
that location. And it turns out because the Secretary of War fired all these employees who actually worked in the office that was supposed to make sure that they weren't targeting civilian infrastructure and so those are the kind of casualties of DOJE that they didn't even understand what these agencies did. And now you have one hundred, you know, one hundred and seventy school children and teachers dead as a result of it.
Yeah, and I'll be curious to see what function AI played in all of that too, because I know this DoD or as we call it now, the Department of War, which seems very aft, has been experimenting with AI, right. Yeah, So I would love you to talk about where we are right now with the Ebstein files stuff. Because James Comer, who is the head of Oversight, was on I'm sure you've seen this clip on Fox News and he was talking to Jesse Waters and Comer said the federal government
had asked New Mexico to stop their investigation. And I actually talked to Raoul Torres about this too, and he said, I believe that was back in twenty nineteen. Waters said, what branch Comber said, the DOJ, So that would be the Trump DOJ.
Can we talk about this, Yeah, of course. So I don't watch as a general matter the Jesse Watter. No, But what I can't say is that, yes, part of the overall investigation that we're doing here in New Mexico. We just launched a bipartisan truth Commission to understand and to potentially prosecute crimes that were never prosecuted that Epstein
and his associates committed here in New Mexico. But the other piece of it is to understand why there was a failure in the justice system, because there were reports to the FBI and local law enforcement going back to the mid nineties that Jeffrey Epstein had sexually abused girls
in New Mexico. In fact, we know that Annie Farmer had filed her FBI complaint as early as nineteen ninety six, and there were other complaints filed through the Santa Fe Police as well as our state authorities, and New Mexico was conducting its own investigation into various crimes, and for whatever reason, in twenty nineteen, the US Department of Justice
essentially asked New Mexico to stop investigating. And as it's understood, they were asked to transmit all of the case files that they had been managing regarding these crimes to the federal DOJ. But not only did they ask them to stop investigating, It's unclear whether the federal DOJ did anything with these files, and these files have not been disclosed as part of the Federal Epstein Files Transparency Act, and
so clearly there's still a cover up happening. We don't know why Trump's DOJ asked New Mexico to stop investigating. So there's so many unanswered questions in this case. And you know, the miscarriage of justice that happened, whether it was in Florida and New York and New Mexico, has so many layers to it. You know, New Mexico's doing its part, and our state Department of Justice and our legislature are investigating these crimes and we will pursue justice.
And in fact New Mexico is acting where the federal government has failed.
You will be able to search the house, right, the farms, or orand so as.
Of Monday, the State Department of Justice did begin searching the physical property of Zoro Ranch. The question that is ready is why was it never searched while it was still owned by Epstein or his estate. In fact, when in twenty nineteen, when Epstein was arrested, the FBI issued search warrants for his other properties, but they never searched Zoro Ranch, even though there were known crimes to have
been committed there. That property has now been sold and in fact, strangely, it was bought by a Trump ally and donor, this guy Heffins, who's running for state comptroller in Texas and whose son works in the White House.
Yes, who is.
Reportedly turning Zoro Ranch into a Christian retreat, which is a whole other weird side to this story. But as of Monday, our state DOJ was physically on the property, searching and treating it as a crime scene.
It is, however, six years later.
I mean, if you think about some of these crimes were reported in nineteen ninety six, so this is thirty years later, and so we don't know to what extent there's still evidence, physical evidence on the property.
Right now. Oversight has do a really good job pushing on the Epstein files. I think it feels as if Garcia has really been that's you know, the ranking member has been really focused on getting these hearings, getting these depositions, and it feels like Comer is, despite all of the partisanship in the Republican Party, kind of open to it. I know, you have a list of more people. You guys are about to talk to, Oversight is about to
talk to. I wonder if you could tell us, like where you think it is right now, where oversight is, and also what you'd like to see more of, and so go from that, and then I have more questions.
Yeah, I mean what I'd like to see more of is accountability of the administration, because we have not only passed a law now which the President signed himself, requiring that they disclose all of the Epstein files, in which they haven't released even half of, but also we subpoena those files last summer and they haven't even begun to comply with the subpoena. And the subpoena is much more all encompassing than even the Epstein Files Transparency Act. So
the administration is breaking the law. And even though I'm grateful that we have bipartisan cooperation on calling these depositions and subpoena ing both witnesses and documents, they have up until now not been willing to hold the administration's feet to the fire to actually make them comply with the law.
The one development this week that I think is an important development, as Nancy Mace offered a vote on a subpoena of Pambondi, and that pass with the bipartisan support, and so pam Bondi is now going to be deposed by the Committee in our investigation into her handling of the case. And that's important because it's not your typical hearing in front of the public. In fact, this will be an actual deposition on the record, and ultimately it
will be made public. But the point is that we're conducting oversight in her handling, and I believe at the end of the day, her handling of this case and her complete mismanagement and cover up this case, will be the end of her career at DOJ. I genuinely believe that. I think that there is support on both sides of the aisle to hold her in contempt, and ultimately I think the calls for her to leave will continue to grow. But in terms of the overall investigation, you know, this
case is vast. It spans decades, it spans over a thousand victims, it spans multiple administrations, it spans multiple states, and I think at the end of the day, the fundamental question is how did Jeffrey Epstein and his associates and his friends who engaged in sexual abuse of miners and women for decades go unprosecuted, And who is responsible and culpable for the miscarriages of justice that happened at the state level, at the federal level, who buried this case?
Why are they still not investigating these crimes. Why is the DOJ covering for perpetrators that were reported to committed abuse by survivors, and why have these crimes not been prosecuted?
And so, you know, in our overall effort in this case, I think we're both trying to investigate why this case was never fully investigated and prosecuted, whether or not they're individuals who are perpetrators that can still be held accountable, and to really seek justice and change to the system that failed these survivors for decades, because at the end of the day, like this is going to keep happening, right if rich and powerful men are able to get
away with committing crimes by you know, giving payoffs and asking their friends to bury cases. And so I know, certainly here in New Mexico, we're looking at changing the statute to limitations and other laws that allowed Jeffrey Epstein to slip through the cracks and that's what we ultimately will have to do at the federal level as well.
Yeah, you know, I actually wanted to ask you about that because I it does seem to me when you talk to these victims and their survivors are not but the survivors. I mean, I talked to me Farmer recently and she just she had come forward in nineteen ninety five. And then I talked to Danny Balski, who was abused in two thousand and five. So that was years and years of abuse that could have been stopped had the
FBI just listened to women. I wondered if, like the sea change that I think could happen with this would be this idea that the FBI changes the way they listened to women, right.
Yeah, I mean, the FBI, to its credit, did take complaints and statements, but the problem is the federal government didn't prosecute so the I mean, certainly there's always room for improvement within the FBI, but the real miscarriage of justice happened in the Department of Justice, and kind of the original sin goes back to the original Florida case, where you know, local and state authorities were going to prosecute Jeffrey Epstein. Then the US Department of Justice stepped
in and said, actually, we're going to prosecute. A case was prepared, the line attorneys recommended that they prosecute and put them away for decades. And then you have Alex Acosta, who is the US Attorney at the time, step in and say, actually, no, we're not going to prosecute this case. And you know, I think we have not gotten to the bottom of what happened that made him make that decision.
But I suspect that if you follow the money, ultimately we will find out that something something happened or was exchanged that gave him that impetus. But it wasn't just him, right, because the FBI and DOJ had these case files for years, and it wasn't until the case was reopened in twenty nineteen after Miami Herald journalists brought this issue back forward and Acosta was now a Cabinet secretary, that they even
began investigating again. And what's strange to me is that they prepared a trial for Jeffrey Epstein, which he never stood for because he died in jail. GILLEI Maxwell was ultimately prosecuted, But there are potentially dozens of perpetrators in the files that were never fully investigated, and so why is the DOJ still sitting on those files and not
prosecuting those crimes. So, you know, the continued miscarriage of justice is continuing to happen, but it more sits squarely with the Department of Justice, whose job it is to prosecute these crimes.
Yeah, thank you, thank you, thank you. Congresswoman.
M Hm, no moment, Rick Wilson, Okay, Molly, what is your moment of fuckery? You know, my moment of fuckery is that the Kennedy Center is about to be demolished by the Trump administration and that one of the most egregious trolls in the Trump universe has been and now and remains, Rick Renell. And Rick Renell has managed to nate the Kennedy Center, turning it into a kid rock style maga version of Branson, like a dinner at theater
and it's dying and it didn't work. You know why people want to come to the Kennedy Center, to apologies to Timothy Shallow, may see things like the ballet and the opera. And Rick Renell thought they wanted to see like the what. I don't know, the fucking pigeon Forge banjob singers, I don't know. Right, the thing Maga wants and the thing Trump wants about culture, they're even different
between them. And there's a big part of that movement that believes there should be like an official American culture. It's not the version that the Kennedy Center has fostered over sixty plus years of being a hub of culture in this country.
You can't move NASCAR into the Kennedy Center.
No, No, They're not going to be a monster truck show in the Kennedy Center Monday Sunday Sunday at the Kennedy Center. That kind of thrills and spills the fans want to see that here.
You know, when you have all these members of the Trump FBI, like Cash Battal Jazz doing UFC and UFC not for the Kennedy Center.
No, not for the Kennedy Center. And Grenelle's out. But he's probably going to go on to poison some other cultural institution in DC. But I honestly believe Trump will order the destruction of the Kennedy Center this summer because he just does it.
It's what he does, and why not?
So why not do you want? What are we going to stop him?
It's certainly not going to be used for anything cultural.
Look, I wanted to be distracted by the Kennedy Center so he doesn't one day wake up and go, Pete, how do I do those bombs again? How do I launch this missus again? I want to see the pretty fireworks. Rick Wilson Quai Duck Fast.
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