You're listening to a Muma Mia podcast.
Muma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on. Welcome to Mummy are out Loud where women come to debrief. I am Jesse Stevens, I'm to.
Me Moore, and I'm Amelia Luster.
Now why are you Demi Moore?
Because I'm very husky today. Oh it's my only fans voice.
You sound like shit.
Yeah, I know. I'm so sorry out that is. I know it's really annoying to listen to someone when they don't have much of a voice. So I'll try to speak less than usual. But there's so much good stuff today that I couldn't I know you I had fomo.
You're also curled your eyelashes with mscara On, and I'm still recovering from that.
Guys, just live a little yeah out loud as we were sitting here getting ready, I don't know why you've felt the urge to curl your eyelashes. The outlouders aren't looking at your eyelashes, but you did it with muscara On and we're concerned that you're pulling them out of the roof. And we've had an intervention.
You would be right. Sometimes I do okay, all right, but it works better.
Here's what's on our agenda for today, Wednesday, the sixteenth of July. Bradley John Murdoch died in custody overnight, almost exactly twenty four years after murdering Peter Falconio in the Outback. So why is his death so significant?
It has been a big week for hate watching. There are two shows in particular that a lot of people hate watching, including some of us, And we're going to talk about the reason why so many of us are clocking so much time in front of shows that we objectively think are terrible.
And Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump and the Missing Files that everyone wants to see. But first, in case you missed it, Millennials are getting revenge on gen Z for making fun of their nose show socks and their side parts and I am so here for it. On TikTok, millennials are talking about the gen Zed stare. This is, in particular a workplace phenomenon where gen Z employees Greek customers or colleagues with a vacant expression and are unable to respond
to niceties or polite conversation. So in various TikTok skits, what happens is that users place themselves in this hypothetical situation. They might be in a coffee shop, or they might be in a restaurant, and they roll play the order taking process with a gen Z employee, and you just see this young worker stare back at them with dead eyes. They look at you just like they saw a ghost. Said one TikToker. It's this blank deer in the headlights stare.
And the hashtag gen zed stare has actually reached more than four thousand posts on TikTok. There's viral videos, Jesse, fellow millennial, Are we just getting jed Z back for coining the idea of the millennial pause?
Yes, and no, there is something about gen Z that I look at and go, it's some of what we're critiquing them for, the inevitable sort of immaturity of being twenty Like, is that how we all behave in not?
When you worked at Jumper Juice, I'm sure you always bought your a game post.
Juice, No American. I think it's because they don't know how to do listening face when you have communicated your whole life via text message you don't know how to do active listening face.
The thing about gen Zed is that they are a generation who has had an entirely different experience to any generation before them for two reasons. The first is the text messaging, the second is the pandemic. So they lost two years of what is being called kind of soft skills. And there was an incredible article in Fortune about the gen Z presence in workplaces and how soft skills that managers and bosses took for granted and thought people just
had and now having to become really explicitly trained. And I do think that there's a bit of cruelty to the mocking of gen Z because it's not their fault. Like at a formative age of adolescence, this demographic were in their homes, they said bye to their friends one day, and for some of them, they didn't see them for months, potentially even years.
They were doing zoom. But Jesse the millennial poor, which we should explain, is the phenomenon whereby when millennials are recording a social media video, they kind of pause at the side of the video to check that it's recording and the proceed which of course we all do. That's not our fault either. We didn't grow up with TikTok, and we're still being lamp basted for what we do now.
There are invisible socks. Well, no one even talks about gen X.
No, you're completely irrelevant Millennials. I feel like I've really copped this on the chin. I think that we're pretty good at being made fun of. What's been telling about this is that gen Z don't like it. They're going, well, I don't owe you a smile, And it's a generations emotional labor. Yes, that's been raised on authenticity and not just owing someone pleasantries, which is funny because welcome to customer service, welcome to any job where you engage with
the public. And what this Fortune article was saying is that there are all these misunderstandings, complaints from customers, they're being perceived as rude. But this could be kind of, I guess, like a cultural turning point where this fakery that millennials and gen X have engaged in where we're kind of over the top nice or whatever, maybe now we're just more straightforward and when we're not nice, if we don't feel like it.
It reminds me of you know, third children, have to raise themselves. And I remember with my third child, I realized that I this is when landlines were still around. I realized I'd forgotten how to tell him to end a phone conversation and he would just finish speaking in.
A so he basically was like in any movie or TV show, they never say goodbye. No, he was living that.
Maybe this is the problem. They just haven't been taught that you have to have active listening face overnight.
Bradley John Murdoch died at the age of sixty seven, twenty four years after murdering a man named Peter Falconio. You've probably seen the headlines today. There's a lot of names, but I want to go back a few steps and explain what happened and why his death is so significant. So it's July two thousand and one, and it's almost exactly twenty four years to the day. British backpackers Peter Falconio he was twenty eight at the time, and Joanne
Lee's she was twenty seven. They were boyfriend and girlfriend were road tripping around Australia and their parents were really anxious about this leg of their trip. They'd gone to a few places before and they were anxious because the Ivan Malatt backpacker murders had happened, and also it was in the wake of the Port Arthur massacre. And so they said to their parents were going to be really careful. It's fine.
And they're a little bit older than your average backpacker. They weren't in their early twenties or late teens. They were, you know, almost thirty.
And they were seasoned travelers. And so I was a travel agent. Yeah, that's right. She actually worked at the Dimmick's store on George Street, which is literally about five minutes down the road, in order to save this trip.
And on July fourteen, they reached Alice Springs and then they continued along the Stuart Highway towards the Devil's Marbles and as they passed this tiny town called Barrow Creek, they noticed headlights behind them, and then the driver came up beside them and Jess and basically said, there's sparks coming out of your car, and so they exited the car.
Peter Falconio went behind the car with the man who would be Bradley John Murdock, and Joanne Lee's was in the driver's seat because she was revving the engine to see what was happening, and at that point she had a bang, and she wondered if it was to do with the car. It was actually a gunshot to Peter Falconio. And then Murdoch walked up the side, held a gun to her head and essentially tied her hands used from asking tape and put her in the tray of his truck.
And then I'd forgotten all of the yeah, and then he Murdoch walked off to go and do something. She heard banging, and she had been fighting and fighting so that he couldn't put the cable ties around her ankles, and this meant that when he moved, she could kind of push her way off the tray and she ran and she hid behind bushes for five hours while she was hunted by who was looking for her with a torch.
And then eventually there was like a road train that came past and she signaled and was rescued and then went to police. The investigation then became infamous because Lee's whose boyfriend had been murdered and she'd been attacked, actually came under suspicion. Do you remember this part of it?
Because she didn't cry enough.
Yes, So eleven days after this absolute tragedy, there was a press conference and she turned up and she had a T shirt on that said cheeky monkey, and people saw that as incredibly insensitive.
Which is a bar and Barren Bay that they'd probably traveled to.
Yeah.
Yeah, And you can see how in the trauma of what had occurred, you wouldn't even think about what was on your singlet. There was what she was wearing. There was the way she communicated with the media, which people saw as a bit stand office. She only wanted a few questions, and she didn't cry on cue.
She must have been in such deep shock.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The other thing here is parallel to Linda Chamberlain and the baby Azaria incident, also in the Outback. But what is interesting about both cases is that there's one woman who was the sole witness to the crime. And it's interesting that that's part of why I guess they get so undercut.
Yes, and also with women, I think that we expect a level of an emotional response that we might not from a man. We expect the tears, And as someone who struggles to cry, I've always found these stories really interesting because people behave in incredibly unusual ways and unexpected ways in the face of tragedy, and that's what you learned from a lot of these stories. And what eventually happened was that the suspicion around her got so great
that the police took her in for questioning. They interrogated her for three and a half hours, which you know, she found incredibly traumatizing, and eventually she was released without charge. Then a few years later there's a tip off from a man who said he knows who did it. Murdoch's DNA matched the DNA that was on Joanne Lee's clothes that she was wearing.
And apparently, by the way that DNA, it was one hundred and fifty quadrillion times more likely to have come from Murdock than anyone else. Wow.
Yeah, because they always say the likelihood of it, and so they tested that. They then found Murdoch. He was arrested, charged, sentenced, but he's always denied any involvement. The DNA is the point. And also his gun had Joanne Lees's hair tie around.
It, and he also had some of her blood on his T shirt, yes, which he said he picked up because they were at the same lunch spot.
Earlier that day exactly.
But that said, I mean yes, so obviously all the evidence was really overwhelming, which is why he was convicted. But inevitably in these cases online slew some particular like to pick at holes, and there were unanswered questions about it, for instance, the motive for the crimes. This guy was a low level marijuana dealer by all accounts, and this really took his crime to the next level, and there was no apparent motive for it. I'm going to ask.
About what his I have no memory of what his history had been.
He was a low level marijuana dealer, but.
Just like a loner. Had he been married, he was a loner.
The only person to stand by him during the trial, which is interesting, was his girlfriend. Her name was Jen Pittman. Otherwise all of his former friends. The tip off actually came from one of his former friends. You know how sometimes when a serial killer, or when a particularly horrific murderer is found, the neighbors there's this cliche of the neighbors saying he was quiet, he catched himself. Not so with Murdoch. He was a no one racist and noa misogynist.
He had beaten women before all of his friends disavowed him his former friends, so there was a sense that this was not necessarily surprising, but it was a big step up in terms of his past behavior of past crime.
He wasn't a malat where you look at it that there's a pattern of behavior. But Murdoch denied that he had done this. And so the reason why it is so significant that he died this week is that he never told the family where Falconio's body.
Is, and they never found the body.
And they've never found the body.
I mean, the outback is a very good place. But if he never admitted it, he never said what his motive was. No, no, so we never knew.
No exactly right. And there is laws in some Australian states. New South Wales is one of them. It's called a nobody no parole law. So he was going to be eligible for parole I think in about twenty thirty two or something like that. He was never going to be allowed to do that unless he told authorities and the
family where the body is. Because this is something when I hosted true crime conversations, this came up a lot, which is that it is the only power, and it's often men like Murdock hold over a victim and the victim's family.
And I think part of the problem is meou references before, but the vastness of the outbacks so he What we know is that he drove eighteen hours after this on unsealed roads. It was a total of eighteen hundred kilometers, So no wonder they couldn't find the body because this
is obviously a huge area. And I think that's part of why this story fascinated not just Australians but also people overseas, because it taps into all these fears that a lot of people around the world feel about the vastness of Australia and in particular the sort of severity of the outback is a landscape. We've seen how dangerous the outback is. Just last week we got another reminder when that German backpacker Carolina Wilger was found after eleven days.
She lost twelve kilograms stranded out there in the outback.
There are so many Australian books set there because the fear of even the outback with no one in it is terrifying.
And reading about this I came across an interesting fact, which is, you know the movie Wolf Creek that was due to come out during the trial because it was an extremely long murder trial, one of the longest urder trials ever in Australia, and the judge at the time actually delay the Australian release of this horror movie Wolf Creek because he was worried that the plot synopsis was
very similar. It's that classic sort of nightmarish trope of a crazed killer and the outback stalking people, and it just shows that that's really deeply embedded in us, like that's something that we have a fear of the outback for good reason. It's a very harsh place.
And for anyone who has traveled to the outback in Australia and driven, you will know that seeing headlights behind you is actually really rare, Like you can drive for hours for days and not see anyone. So that fact of even seeing someone and then realizing the vulnerability of that moment of having someone there that you would have almost no choice, which is also I suppose with Malat why the mythology of that exists. It's just such a
terrifying situation. And imagine being Lee's and experiencing that and then feeling the weight of all the speculation that comes at you. But I think more than anything, it's just a really sad day because for that family, hope feels lost, hope that they can bury and kind of laid to rest their son who will forever be twenty eight that dies with Murdock in.
A moment the two shows. Everyone seems to be hate watching this week. Unless I miss something.
You don't speak French speak it till you make it.
I am tre xcta to be here. The PXO really excido does not mean excited, it means horny.
I mean.
Nominations came out today and the TV shows that got more than twenty nominations each. The big winners were White Lotus, Severance, The Studio, The Penguin, and The Bear. Sounds Like a Day at the Zoo also recognized The Pit, the Diplomat, Slow Horses, the last of US hacks and only murders in the building. But one category that is not included in the Emmy Awards, which will be happening in a few weeks, is most hate Watched Show. I want to talk about hate watching because it's been a big week
for hate watching. The final of Love Island USA happened, and all the commentary I've read about that is people talking about how they just want to be released from this nightmare that they've been trapped in for the six weeks that that show has been on.
I think that's how people feel about Married at First Sight too. It gets this choke hold and this investment that it's like, it's like the sunk cost fallacy in that I've invested twelve weeks. I must persevere for the next four even though this show makes me angry.
Now I'm going to I'm packing a minute the psychology of hate watching, because there's actually six different reasons why we do it. But the other thing that happened this week is a new episode Evan, just like that dropped. It was a whole thing. There was karaoke. There was also a lot of conversation about how the writers killed one main character's father twice and just forgot.
Every episode of that show feels to me like a whole day, like eight hours if they do feel very very long and look.
As someone who has done scriptwriting, I am currently on like my twenty eighth draft, how it gets through of one episode of you never do more drafts, How it gets through all those that you kill someone's dad twice, not.
Remembering I was reading actually a think piece about and just like that this week that really summed it up. It said, there is comfort in knowing that I'm not alone in terms of why this person hate watches it. I don't know anyone who is watching this thing earnestly. We're all in the same sinking shit, mourning what this show could have been, but gripped by the slow motion.
Spectacle all Jack and Rose.
We're still hoping that Carrie and company will jump onto a life boat. For now, she's listlessly stumbling around a mansion in the ugliest heart you've ever seen. I hate it. I'll watch one hundred episodes of it. I want to ask you, guys, which shows you hate watched in your time? And there's also a list of some of the most hate watch shows.
My hate watch show is one of the most hate watch shows. Which is selling Sunset? Like, I know that they're all deeply irritated.
How have we never bonded over this?
Do you watch it too?
I love?
I want to interrupt you there, because we need to make a distinction between a guilty pleasure show and a hate watch Okay, okay, because I think maybe a guilty pleasure show might be selling Sunset, certainly for you Amelia, I don't know about you, Jesse. So hate watches don't like the show, but they enjoy the act of disliking.
Yeah, this is actually different.
Guilty pleasure watches do like the show but feel uneasy admitting it, yes, because they think it's a bit embarrassed.
Can I posit a case study here, which isn't just like that I love sex and the city I hate and just like that, I will watch on just like that for as many seasons as they make it.
And to the streamer does it matter? Like a click is a clicker plays a play?
Right?
The most sort of obvious example of this is Emily in Paris. Right, that's where hate watching really became popularized, because they're like, this is the biggest show ever, like it's so big on Netflix. But also everyone universally knows this.
Okay, but do we need a third category? Is Emily in Paris? Second screen watch Are people watching that actively hating it? Or are they watching an absent mind.
Actively hating it?
Okay, so my sister Claire is she almost exclusively hate watches like, I don't even know if she knows how to authentically enjoy anything anymore, and she'll watch any show that's really bad. She's like, yes, I've watched fourteen episodes of it. She also watched The Bold Type. The more irritating it got, the more into it she got.
I'm sorry, the bold Type never got irritating, but we can take that up with the dot com loved it.
Let's quickly name a few more of the hate watch shows, and then I'm gonna explain to you the different types of hate watching. Selling Sunset is here, Thirteen reasons why, Pretty Little Liars, Gray's Anatomy controversial.
You're four out? I hate watch that for a while.
The Idol remember the idol that was?
That's a classic hate watch.
Yeah, the Real Housewives franchise, although for some people that's a guilty pleasure, for others it's a hate watch. Keeping up with the Kardashians and all forms of Kardashian show. The number of reasons why. The first reason people hate watch social and community bonding. Oh yes, so Amelia and I are on all the Reddit threads for and just like that, and it's full of people who love that show. Love the world of that show and the characters, but are so upset about what it's become. So I think,
and you feel like you're part of something. Like every Friday when the episode drops, Amelia and I run to Reddit to commune without people.
What hate watching does that like watching doesn't is it's so funny. It's like the commentary is actually funny.
Oh, it's so funny. I was reading one of my and just like that hate Watch throats the other day at the hairdresser, I started cackling so much. At the hairdresser I had to tell me to just stop laughing because she was my hair wrong.
You feel so seen. Like the commentary around Severance, which I loved, was great, but it wasn't funny. I didn't feel as much a part of the community.
People are very invested and they have very strong feelings. Yeah. Like I read one that made me laugh out loud today that I sent Amelia that was a picture of Miranda and Steve and it said I feel very hurt and upset that Miranda broke up with Still Okay, So I'm going to jump to another one, which is nostalgia
and self reflection. And this is also a bit of a reason for us or for me watching, and just like that, we stick with shows that we once enjoyed because they're tied to comfort and rituals and memories, even if they've gone off the rails. Yes, yes, so it's like comfort food but also horror.
Do you know what I do is and this is sick and depraved, But sometimes I watch and just like that, and then I chase it with a Sex and the City season six episode.
Feeds you struggle. There's a reason because it ends you get to the love episode and then it feeds you you might like to watch next. Yeah, Sex and the City. Yeah, which, you're right, it's almost like too cruel. The comparison. Another one is social comparison. So you know, they say comparison is the thief of joy, but only if you're comparing yourself to someone who's better than you. When you're watching flawed characters or.
Annoying characters and you're like, I'm not that annoying.
You feel better about yourself?
Yes, When Carrie interrupts someone for the m time to tell them more about her own feelings, I do feel better.
Then there's of course curiosity and shardenfreuder, which is being happy when bad things happen to someone else.
Yeah.
Yeah.
One of the most compelling reasons I read was there was a twenty twenty two research study done which I just I can do this. I volunteer as tribute to be involved in the next hate watch study. It was called the Psychology of Hate in the European Journal of Social Psychology, so you know, it's real. And they made a great point. They said that we hate watch because we experience emotions that we want to feel, and that
makes us happier. So on a Friday night, maybe I want to wallow a bit, Maybe I want to sort of like feel a little bit reflective about the week that's been.
You're right about that, because another reason listed here is the expression of negative emotions. It's a very safe way to vent irritation and dissatisfaction. It's also very low stakes. So there are terrible things going on in the world, but I can obsess over the hat carries.
Wearing, and sometimes I just want to feel something. So what people won't watch is something that they feel entirely indifferent towards, but loving and hating like there is something great. You know how nothing bonds people more than an irritating coworker, and it like brings everyone together and there's a real sense of camaraderie. That's me and yeah, exactly. The reason that solitary confinement is torture is because you have no
one to confirm your own reality with. And I think hate watching is the equivalent of like turning to people either side and being like, can we just confirm that this reality? And it makes us feel totally sane. My worry is that is it just normalizing meanness, like, because the snark which inevitably comes from this does start to kind of infiltrate, Like you hate watch someone on social media, you leave a comment, you set up a thread somewhere, you.
Do feel a bit dirty at the end. Remember when you set up a Facebook group maths loles, Yes to loll about maths, but it's sort of deteriorated, and you ended up having to go quite hard.
Did it deteriorate?
Because everyone? I was like, guys, there are rules. We're not being mean about the people. We're not calling someone ugly.
That's not fun.
It's not fun to call someone ugly. What we're doing is we are making fun of the concept. And people couldn't they were like putting in the gossip and I was like, less gossip, more lolls.
Yeah.
I think that's another important distinction between just being a c word and hate watching something. You're almost incensed that it had so much potential and isn't better. So another important criteria is that it has to have ambition. It's not fun to hate watch something that's just sort of low budget and nouinely crap. It's got to be trying, which is almost a bit sad, but it's also got to have high production values.
But I would say, and I think that this speaks to one of your points about like deep human emotion and also community, is that this is not a new phenomenon. Like I suppose hate watching has probably grown since it is bizarre that we could watch anything ever created and we choose to watch something.
We are living in the golden era of TV, right. The Emmys have shown there's never been more shows, never been better shows. So that's why it was interesting to look at the psychological reasons, because why do we choose to spend hours and hours of our one precious life. Yeah, watching things that annoy us.
But I think it is a new phenomenon. Jesse It turns out that the idea dates back to two thousand and eight, which is relatively recently, and it coincides with the rise of streaming services and the idea that you can choose whatever you want to watch. Now, my question is why, as you say, when we can choose what we want to watch, why are we moving towards things we don't like.
I think that it's cathartic, and I keep thinking. My mum always says that her like her memory of her dad is standing in the kitchen putting on this radio station he hated because they were super conservative and he was the opposite politically. He'd put it on and yell at it all day. That was his like. He didn't lose it in his family because he was too busy losing it at the guy on the radio. So I think that the idea that we might tune in to things that aggravate.
Us is I was really push our buttons.
The push our buttons, like those things in our brain are very very close, and I think there's something relieving about it.
Maya, I've never asked you this, why do you hate watching? Just like that?
I was just thinking about it. I think for me, I was so glad that when I started looking into these reasons. For me, it's nostalgia and self reflection. So the reason we all say I can't believe what they've done to this show, I can't believe these characters, but I will still go back again and again and again because of them. I have such a nostalgia for them. They feel so comfortable, and I keep having such great hope that they will return to their former glory.
And it's why people will watch reboots no matter how bad the reboot is. It's like and then they'll shit on the reboot and then they'll be really funny recap of it. But it's like I was just happy to spend time with them.
After the break, I'm going to explain why the name Jeffrey Epstein is once again back in the news and how his connection to Trump is suddenly looking very dangerous for the president.
Every Tuesday and Thursday, we drop new segments of MUMMYA out Loud Just for MUMMYA subscribers, follow the link in the show notes to get your daily dose of out Loud and a big thank you to all our current subscribers.
You may be wondering why the name Jeffrey Epstein is back in the news six years after he died in custody.
I keep saying that with a connection to Donald Trump, and I have questions.
Before I tell you the answer, I'm going to give you a quick reminder of who he is. Jeffrey Epstein was a convicted sex offender. His criminal activities involved the sexual abuse and the trafficking of underage girls, and then he suicided in New York prison in twenty nineteen while waiting trial.
Speaking of true crime conversations, I did one about Jeffrey Epstein. It was one of those things that from the outside I found it was too weedy, And then I sat down with this expert about Jeffrey Epstein and it was one of the most interesting bamboozling, Like, there are so many questions about how that man had access to the materials to end his own life in such a sort of maximum security prison, right, That's like one of the biggest questions.
He was already under suicide watch, wasn't.
Yeah, he was arguably the most high profile person in American prisons at that time. I'm going to get to that because there's a video that's been released with a missing minute, which has a lot of people asking questions about why he was allowed to suicide. But before that, I want to explain why his fate has been tied up with Trump's political fortunes, because so.
He's the one, and that it has already brought Prince Andrew down exactly.
Yes, Trump and Epstein's fortunes have always been very much intertwined, particularly Trump's presidential fortunes. Let me explain why. There was a conspiracy theory that emerged in the mid twenty tens called the q and non conspiracy theory.
I haven't heard about qnon for a long time.
Let me refresh you on that. So QAnon was basically positing that Donald Trump is secretly leading a fight against a global sex trafficking ring. That's right, and that was
Hillary Clinton, Peter Gate, Lilizard people, Yeah, pizzagates. So a man actually went to a pizza restaurant in Washington, DC, which is actually near where I used to live, and he took a gun with him because he was convinced that Hillary Clinton was running an underage sex trafficking ring from the basement of this pizza restaurant in Washington DC. Qan on is the reason why a lot of people latched onto Donald Trump, and the New York Times columnist
Michelle Goldberg has a theory as to why. She says that Trump is so obviously personally degenerate that the Quan non theory enabled his supporters to feel that he was in fact fighting this grand, glorious fight against the most evil people in the world, right, people who are trafficking underage people.
It allowed them to have this sort of cognitive dissonance that he's this awful person that talks about grabbing women by the pussy and says these horrible things, and it's such a misogynist.
She has found viable for sexual stuff.
Sexual assault, all these things.
But somehow he emerges as a white knight through the q and non conspiracy, so.
They can ignore all that because he create has a high purpose.
Great exactly. And so that's why when Epstein was arrested in twenty nineteen when Trump was president, for the sex trafficking of miners, this seemed to really confirm the theory. They said, Trump is doing exactly what we elected him to do.
But wasn't he a mate of Epstein and well known to have gone either to the island or on the jet. I can't remember.
Yeah, there's a couple of reasons why it's a bit weird that people think this. Among them, Epstein said that he was Trump's closest friend for ten years. No one else has ever even said they were Donald Trump's friend. The one person who has said has described themselves as Donald Trump's friend was Jeffrey Epstein. Also another thing that's weird is that Epstein this was not the first time that Epstein was arrested for the sex trafficking of miners.
You might not know this, but back in two thousand and nine in Florida, he was arrested for soliciting prostitution from a minor, and he got no punishment for it. He was essentially able to walk free after pleading guilty. He was given thirteen months of what's called work release. What that meant was he got to hang around his Palm Beach mansion and basically live out the sentence there.
You might ask, how did that come about? Well, the person who gave him that plea deal was a man named Alexander Acosta, who then went on to serve in Trump's first administration as his Secretary of Labor and then there's the question of the suicide, which you raised, Jesse. How does this man who the entire world was watching and waiting for his trial die by suicide in a federal prison run by Donald Trump's government. How does this happen?
So there are a number of reasons why it's weird that people think that Trump was in fact out to sort of vanquish Epstein, but nonetheless their fortunes became intertwined. So the big thing.
Now has been that didn't Trump say he would release the files? Because in the kind of public consciousness, there is a document somewhere that tells us because obviously, with Epstein died, all of his people that he could have outed.
Yeah, ring ye applies more than just Jeffrey Epstein.
Yes, and Galline Maxwell, who was his fixer or co conspirator in anyway. She was convicted and she's serving time. She is the.
Only person who has been actually held accountable for this sex trafficking ring that Epstein led. So it's interesting, Jesse, you just said, didn't he say during the campaign he'd released the files?
What's in the files?
So the files definitely exist. That's not a conspiracy theory. Anytime the government lunchers an investigation into someone and then arrest someone. They have case files, and so there is definitely a case file about Jeffrey Epstein, and that's what people want to have released. But I looked into this and I thought that too. It turns out that during
the campaign, Trump only mentioned the Epstein files twice. In both instances, he was asked about them by right wing conspiracy theorists who desperately wanted him to release the files, and on both occasions he was very hesitant, and then on the second occasion he said, I guess I would, but you don't want to affect people's lives if there's phony stuff in there. So the reason why we think that Trump was really pushing tor rease the files is
not because Trump himself was. It's because everyone around him was. Because they're all members of the maga Qan non conspiracy pipeline, and they all think that Trump's going to finally reveal.
This ring because they see Trump as sort of the anti political class he came in. That was his big appeal.
Like I've trained this swarm.
Remember that I read something in the BBC about an immigrant who is currently in IC detention saying I will support Trump until the day I died. And people are so connected to this mythology that it was this corrupt, disgusting government and Trump was going to come in, release all of the files and go, I'm the anti president, not just corrupt.
Like keep in mind, if you thought that the whole government was a bunch of petophiles running an underage sex trafficking ring out of a pizza restaurant in Washington, DC, you'd feel pretty fired up too. Yes, And these supporters include JD. Vance, his vice president, and his now Attorney General Pam Bondie. Both these people are part of this genuine conspiracy belief that Trump is going to finally end the underage sex trafficking.
So I'm imagining that this file is in the top drawer of Trump's desk. Why is he not releasing it?
Amelia So Pam Bondie who is his attorney general now, and yes it is pronounced Bondie, even though to Australian eyes every bond done di. She gets into office on her first date, she's in charge of all the nation's law enforcement and going after criminals, and she posts on social media, I've got the file and guess what includes the client list. It includes the list of all the rich, powerful men who Jeffrey Epstein was basically trafficking these girls too.
She said, it's on my desk.
She said, it's on my desk. Now, let's keep in mind government files are very, very long, very long. I'm sure we're talking actually probably boxes of information. It's not kind of like a one page TLDR. This is boxes of information. And she says, basically, I can't wait to release them to you. She messed up because basically then there was reporting that Trump was really angry at her for saying this, and now just last week, which is why we're all talking about it, her office says, no,
there's no client list. It never existed.
I misspoke.
I misspoke. And also her department said no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted in the Epstein CASEGA is pissed. You have never seen them this angry before. We are talking Steve Bannon, Tucker Carson, Megan Kelly, all of the biggest MAGA proponents are so angry at him.
So if I put my conspiracy hat on just for a moment, please, I'm thinking that Trump's on page three, like I'm thinking that she was looking at it, going I'm going to release this, and then it's like, oh wait, this is damning to the president. Like I'm thinking Trump's in there. Is that a fair enough thing?
But I feel like this is why Amelia and I keep arguing about this. She keeps saying this is gonna split Maga, this could take him down, and I'm just like, nothing has taken him down. Yeah, he's teflon, like as he himself said, I could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and they'd still vote for me, and they have. So he's been found liable for sexual assault. He said I'll build the wall and he didn't. He said I'll do this and he didn't.
Like they don't if he's had of the if he's part of the ring that he set himself up against, I feel like this would be the final straw for Maga.
Who We're like, it's not even about him being part of the ring. They haven't even gotten there in their minds. They haven't even considered that he's part of the ring. Before we get to why, I just want to play a clip because it shows how weird Trump is being about this whole thing.
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 crip that is unbelievable.
This is the man that still talks about Hillary Clinton's emails.
So he did actually say last week that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama wrote the Epstein file, just so you know, and he got badly ratioed for that on his own social media platform, which is called truth Social. So the reason why people care is not because they think or even have pondered the possibility that Trump is on the client list. They care because Trump was the person who was meant to reveal this underage sex trafficking ring once and for all, and he's not doing it.
Why you think maybe he's not?
Yeah, why do you think he won't released?
Because I think he's on the list. That's pretty simple, now, Nia, you have also sort of gotten frustrated with me because you've said this has happened before, You've said it's not gonna work. No one's gonna care.
They honestly do not care what this man does. It makes them. But I want to look at the woman in eyes to tension going. I love him so okay.
But Candace Owens, who is one of the worst conspiracy theorists, friend of Canker, friend of Kanye, anti.
Vaxa not allowed in our country.
Her big crusade is that French President Emmanuel mccron's wife is a man. Yeah, that's her like biggest crusade in life other than underage sex trafficking ring. She has just said of Trump, like in the last couple of days, I feel like Trump thinks his base is stupid. You the shark. She said that she is so angry.
He's portrayed his bass in a way that like is different to what he's done.
Back There's also he has contempt for his base.
This is a classic I didn't think the leopard would eat my face situation. Because these conspiracy theorists are also really mad about a video that was released, So back to the suicide idea. Pam Bondi's office does release a video ten hours of footage from the communal area of the prison where Epstein was being held where he suicided, to show that nothing untoward was happening that night. Unfortunately, there's a missing minute. There's just one minute in the video where there's no video.
So how do we not all become conspiracy theorists about this because some conspiracy theory about this is gonna be true because it's so bizarre that there is such a cover up with the Jeffrey Epstein stuff.
The cover up here, unfortunately in the sense that I sound like a q and non person, the cover up is huge. What we know is there were two hundred and fifty so called messuses working for Epstein. Now I don't know if all two hundred and fifty of them were under a but that's two hundred and fifty girls or women who were working for Epstein on what we know to be a massive sex trafficking ring. Can you
imagine how many men were involved in this. We also know plenty of rich and powerful men have at least flown on Epstein's private plane. That is also no one and out there Clinton, including Bill Clinton, and including Donald Trump and get The only person doing time for this whole thing is Jesselen Maxwell, a woman. It's interesting.
Look, friends, we've covered some it's been.
Our true crime episode. Really today I think.
It has we turned into a true crime podcast.
I didn't hate it.
I didn't hate it at all.
I did a little listening, which is good given the state of.
My voice, but just to add some light to the shade. Has anyone else found, particularly in the last few weeks, that you're having issues with your muscaa? Has anyone found this?
Sorry?
What do you mean?
Okay?
Every time I've gone to put on mascara in the last few weeks, very very clumpy, right, I'm having issues?
Is that a weather thing?
It's a weather thin thank you, Amelia, so Grayla.
Just you look a little clumpy now that you point it out.
Yes, well, but not in like a sexy French bomb show a clumpy way, is that right? Yes?
Okay, so what happens in winter? I forgot this because as a millennial, I spent ten years watching beauty YouTube videos, and I have remembered a fun fact that I think every woman needs to remember right now, which is, if your muscara is getting clumpy and you think you need a new one, you've got to put your muscara in some hot water, right what? Yes? And this is the same with your eyeliner, with anything that's gotten a little
bit clumpy. I googled this, solen a clumpy No, no, no, no, So I'm imagining my I have a pot of eyeliner and in winter, what will happen is it will kind of like solidify.
That.
Yes, so what you need to do is, yes, close it. If you have an eyeshadow like that. Sometimes you could add some water to it, yes, I think you can. But anyway you can close it, get a little thing even, just put it in your sink with some more watar, leave it there for a little while and closed, and it'll unclump and then when you go to put your muskara on, it will be all like fresh and like not clumpy again.
And maybe you can multitask and clean your brushes at the same time.
You can, And that reminds me with your before when you were curling your lashes. You should always heat it up. You should always have it.
I know, I know, but firstly, I don't have a hair dryer with me in the studio. And secondly, I used to be a mad eyelash curler. I used to be able to do it while I was driving. Don't try this at home, Yeah, probably lose points for real license. Yeah, but I was very good at it. I didn't need a mirror. I was amazing. I used to like, if I went out for dinner, I would take it. I would curl my lashes all the time. Then, for like I don't know, twenty years, I stopped. Now I'm starting again.
I've hardly got any eyelashes left. But I did burn myself a few times on the eyelid because I made it too hot, and then I didn't wait for it to cool down.
Oh see, I put mine under warm water for a little bit so it's not too hot. And then and then I.
Co movement Chessie. I think when I curl my lashes, I'm like, this is the most organized day will be all of today.
I'm not totally convinced. As someone who curls my lashes those days, I'm not convinced it makes any difference. I think it's just something I do as part of the product.
I think it does. You've got beautiful ashes, though you've got long.
Little clumpy today, but they won't be tomorrow. So I was talking to producer Ruth about this earlier, and she's very wise, and she's also like some out louders, they don't have the time, they don't have the commitment to be putting something that might not be near a tap. They might not be near a tap. Such a good point. May well, here's a hack. You start doing your makeup at the beginning. You put your masca in your bra. You put it between your thighs. Oh, you put it under your sweaty arm pit.
Oh, you put it.
I don't think that gynecologists will. They could be bai.
Don't do that.
So put it somewhere warm that isn't internal, and then you take it out and boom, ready to go. A big thank you to all of you the out louders for listening to today's show, and our fabulous team for putting this show together. We should say as well, we did a subscriber episode yesterday all about what on earth is going on with Justin Bieber if you like some of our explainers today. What we did is we sat and vernum down. We went, you're young, what's with the album? What's with Hailey Beab?
She did give us the gens. Then she also gave us some great answer.
She did she did. It was very very enlightening. You can listen to that now. It dropped yesterday and we will be back in your ears tomorrow.
I'm gonna go and have some lemon and honey tea. So I'm all good for Friday.
Bye Bye bye.
Shout out to any Mum and Maya subscribers listening. If you love the show and want to support us as well, subscribing to MoMA Miya is the very best way to do so. There is a link in the episode description