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Fast Politics w/ Molly Jong-Fast on YouTube
Fast Politics w/ Molly Jong-Fast
Transcript
Speaker 1: Rick Wilson.
Speaker 1: Hello, Molly.
Speaker 1: Epstein files are, they're like a Rorschach.
Speaker 2: They're the gift that keeps on giving.
Speaker 1: Our friend who used to work at the Daily Beast,
Speaker 1: Roger Sullenberger, has-
Speaker 2: A very fine reporter.
Speaker 1: Has discovered a list.
Speaker 1: Explain what this is,
Speaker 1: because it's a little bit complicated.
Speaker 2: Roger has discovered a number of files
Speaker 2: that the DOJ tried to redact.
Speaker 2: Once they were known to exist, the DOJ has decided they're going to pull them offline.
Speaker 2: Now, why would they do this?
Speaker
2: Well, they do this in part because in these files, there are
confidential informant reports and other information that say that it
was reported that Donald Trump had had sex with a minor child.
Speaker 1: DOJ deleted record revealing that Maxwell holds potential blackmail.
Speaker 1: That is correct.
Speaker
2: And that's what I was getting to is as and the other part of this
that I think really bothers Trump and Todd Blanche, et cetera, is that
what they were what they redacted was stuff that was given to Ghislaine
Maxwell in discovery for her trial.
Speaker
2: Right. And somehow or another, Pam Bondi decided that she would pull
this information offline, even though it's the hottest piece of smoke
and blackmail material that you could have imagined in the hands of of
Ghislaine Maxwell.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker
2: So I just find it fascinating that, I always find it fascinating, I
guess, that the Trump folks really think that at this day and age in the
world we have that includes the internet, they're going to delete
something and make it magically disappear.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I mean, it goes back to the release of these files, period, paragraph.
Speaker 1: And there was really good reporting this week in the Wall Street Journal.
Speaker 1: Josh Dawsey, who used to kill it at the Washington Post before Jeff Bezos ruined the Washington Post.
Speaker 1: And now he works at the Wall Street Journal, which has really good reporting.
Speaker 1: And he talks about how botched the release was and how there was a lot of files that were, for example,
Speaker 1: they redacted the name Leslie Wexner because they thought Leslie might have been a woman's name.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sure. That's exactly plausible in every way.
Speaker 2: And everybody believes that completely.
Speaker
2: That's just super, super likely that somehow the world's, the
captain of the world's most giant pedophile ring just mistakenly knew
someone.
Speaker 2: Was she on his Mahjong list or something?
Speaker 2: Get the fuck out of here.
Speaker
1: And just for another minute on Les Wexner, there was, he did this
really long deposition last week in which his lawyer kept telling him to
shut the fuck up.
Speaker 2: I believe the phrase was, I will fucking kill you if you say more than five words to any answer.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker
2: Which seems striking to me that this lawyer might have had a level
of concern that an innocent man might not have had.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker
1: I mean, it definitely seemed like, and I want to talk about Les
Wexner for another minute because we did this interview yesterday for
the podcast with Maria Farmer.
Speaker
1: Maria Farmer is the first person to ever come out against Epstein in
a criminal complaint for the FBI and also the NYPD.
Speaker 1: She has cancer now and is quite sick.
Speaker 1: So we didn't do it on camera and she can't travel.
Speaker 1: And it's worth listening to this interview.
Speaker 1: Jesse said he was crying when we taped it.
Speaker 1: It just is the story of how these women's lives were ruined by Jeffrey and Les and whoever else, you know.
Speaker 1: So I think it's worth listening to.
Speaker 1: And we forget about the victims.
Speaker
2: You know, Molly, I think that's really an important point here
because their stories are when you when you and I've interviewed a
couple and you've interviewed a couple.
Speaker 2: And their stories have this sort of sameness about them, but also the pain is individualized.
Speaker 2: They were all victims of this system that this guy and Glenn Maxwell and their friends enabled and empowered and ran.
Speaker 2: But the individual abuses they all suffered are just so horrific.
Speaker 2: And so you hear these stories and it's just like it's so heartbreaking and in every level.
Speaker
2: And I just find it unaccountable that I go back to this again, that
Pam Bondi would not even look them in the face during that last
congressional hearing.
Speaker
1: Yeah. And, you know, Pam Bondi, who was famous for when she was
early in her career before she ruined herself with Trump, as many a
person does in the Republican Party.
Speaker 2: As has been known to happen.
Speaker 1: Yes. I think there's a there's a phrase that describes that.
Speaker 2: There may be, yes.
Speaker 2: I've heard it before about people dying from, yeah, touching Trump.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Trump.
Speaker 1: I've heard it.
Speaker 2: I've heard it.
Speaker 1: But she had actually cut an ad against child trafficking.
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: She did.
Speaker 2: And that ad was directed by my old business partner, Adam Goodman.
Speaker 2: Pam Bondi, her big things were child trafficking and, as she used to say,
Speaker 2: busting up gangs and criminal elements.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And yet, it seems the criminal element gets more of Pam Bondi's attention
Speaker 2: and deference than the victims in this day.
Speaker 1: I think that we still haven't seen the end of the Epstein files.
Speaker 1: You know, there's still millions of documents that are being gone through.
Speaker 1: There are unindicted co-conspirators who will eventually, their names will be redacted.
Speaker 2: They will become indicted conspirators at some point.
Speaker 2: I am hoping as an American and as a human that we will see at some point a Department of Justice,
Speaker 2: if not this one, bring them to account.
Speaker 1: I also wonder when we look at this story, how much, you know, things don't change until
Speaker 1: they do, right?
Speaker 1: The Epstein files don't get released until they do.
Speaker 1: People don't turn on a president until they do.
Speaker 2: They're turning on him.
Speaker 1: And I'm reminded of the moments before Black Lives Matter and the moments before Me Too,
Speaker 1: when the culture hit a boiling point.
Speaker 1: And I think we're there now again.
Speaker
2: I think we're actually past that boiling point now. Weirdly enough,
I'm seeing a convergence of anti-Trump and pro-Trump people pissed off
in the same way about the Epstein matter. Does that make sense? I mean, I
feel like there is a, I feel like the world has changed in a, I don't
want to say fundamental way, but a meaningful way.
Speaker 1: Well, it's me too again.
Speaker
2: Yeah, but the idea that so many of these people are now like, yeah,
Trump lied to me. He told me he was going to release these files. And
these people really do care about this issue. It is a real issue for
these voters who believe that he was going to protect the children from
the pedophiles. And now he's protecting the pedophiles from the victims
and the children.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. It is.
Speaker
2: It's sickening, but it is definitionally amazing as well to see an
entire administration fully devoted to ensuring that the relevant
information that's hidden in these files is never seen by the public.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Blows my mind.
Speaker
1: It's still going. So you have these hearings that are going to take
place at Mar-a-Lago that Garcia and that oversight is dealing with.
Speaker 1: Right. And so I think there will be more. And we also just have endless documents coming.
Speaker 2: To say nothing of the three million that are still hidden.
Speaker 1: Yes. And there's probably more and the videos.
Speaker
1: But we need to talk. And I also think when we talk about I just want
for one more second on this subject, we talk about Les Wexner.
Speaker 1: I think it's important to remember that Wexner is a major GOP donor in the state of Ohio.
Speaker 2: Senator John Husted out of Ohio.
Speaker 1: Who's running against Sherrod Brown.
Speaker 2: Running against Sherrod Brown.
Speaker 2: Just took $100,000 from Wes Wexner.
Speaker 2: And to my knowledge, Molly, maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong on this.
Speaker 2: I'm wrong.
Speaker 2: But to my knowledge, he has not given that money back.
Speaker 1: Nor will he.
Speaker 2: And I don't, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't think the odds are high that he will.
Speaker 1: No, I do not think.
Speaker 1: So on Friday, Donald Trump was betrayed by his Supreme Court justices, Justice Amy and Justice Gorsuch.
Speaker 1: You know, they were put in there to do Trump's bidding and they just hate America.
Speaker 1: Discuss.
Speaker 2: Very bad.
Speaker 2: Very wrong.
Speaker 2: This is one of the most novel Trumpian theories I've ever heard, Molly.
Speaker 2: Suddenly the Supreme Court is affected by foreign influence.
Speaker 2: I'm like, what?
Speaker
2: What? What? Because because Donald Trump can't come up with another
explanation why Amy Comey Barrett and why Neil Gorsuch have suddenly
turned on him and decided to get in bed with that horrible influence of
foreign powers, the Constitution of the United States of America.
Speaker
1: It was an amazing little frumpy moment there where Donald Trump said
there are good justices on the Supreme Court like Justice Alito and
Justice Thomas.
Speaker
2: Well, you know, Molly, though, if the court is influenced by foreign
powers, then every vote those influenced by foreign powers have taken
so far should be invalidated.
Speaker
2: And I think he needs to go ahead and just say, I won't abide by any
of the decisions that this corrupt court has made, including Roe v. Wade
and including, of course, Trump versus U.S.
Speaker 2: Other than that, I think we're fine other than that. Right, Donald?
Speaker
1: Yeah. One of the things we know about these tariffs is that they do
not onshore manufacturing because wildly variable tariff rates that go
on and off with the president's mood do not inspire people to build
factories.
Speaker 2: No, there's no construction index like Donald Trump's cyclothymic behavior.
Speaker 2: Build a factory.
Speaker 1: We'll leave us to build a new widget factory in Alabama or whatever.
Speaker 1: So what it's done has just made things more expensive.
Speaker 1: But if you think about tariffs as a tool of an autocrat, they make a lot more sense.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker
2: And look, the disappointment he had at that very long Castro-esque
press conference on Friday could not have been more palpable.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker
2: He was angry, and I don't know who the munchkin he had on the Sunday
shows this week was, but that guy's attitude was like, well, you know,
the president is right, and all these tariffs are so good.
Speaker 2: And yet Scott Besson said, nope, nobody's ever going to see that money back.
Speaker 2: Sorry.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just like, give away the game there, Chief.
Speaker 1: I mean, so there's all this tariff money, and the tariffs are now deemed illegal.
Speaker 1: Now, because—
Speaker 2: 1.77 trillion bazillion.
Speaker 1: Right, which we're all getting back.
Speaker
1: Pritzker wrote a really, I think, effective tweet, which was
basically like, send a check to each one of my constituents.
Speaker 2: Yeah, LP just put out an ad this weekend called, it's like, pay me, dummy.
Speaker
2: He really did promise these tariff checks, Molly, including in their
fundraising emails they were sending out on Friday morning.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 1: If you think of them as the tool of an autocrat, they make a lot more sense.
Speaker 1: He got mad at Switzerland, so he moved the tariff from 35 to 37 or 32 to 37.
Speaker 1: And then you think about-
Speaker 2: They gave him a watch or something and he lowered it again.
Speaker 1: And if you think of tariffs, and if you think of the Trump administration as a kleptocracy,
Speaker 1: and you think of Epstein Files occupant Howard Lutnick-
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 2: Business partner of Epstein.
Speaker
1: According to CBS, run by Barry Weiss, owned by David Allison,
Lutnick's sons have been betting, because now you can bet on anything
because America is basically Las Vegas, on these tariffs being taken
off.
Speaker 1: So the Lutnick sons just made a lot of money.
Speaker 2: Those Lutnick boys sure know how to make some cash.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they seem really smart.
Speaker 2: They're like the Trump fellas. They just have a golden touch when it comes to grifting kleptocracy.
Speaker 1: I'm almost embarrassed to be a Napo baby. I'm starting to think it might not be such a good luck.
Speaker
2: Listen, I got to tell you, nothing about a country where the sons of
the powerful overlords are dealing in shady financial transactions,
none of that scans as good news for the future of the country.
Speaker
1: My favorite part of last week was when the king of England, you may
remember England, a country with a king, said that he really thought—
Speaker 2: The law must take its course.
Speaker 1: Yes. His brother was not above the law. And even like they may get, you know, they're talking about the PM of the UK.
Speaker 2: Starmer.
Speaker 1: Starmer getting in some kind of trouble because he put someone in the Epstein files.
Speaker 2: Right. Peter Mandelson.
Speaker 1: Right. Peter Mandelson as an as an ambassador.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, our president features prominently.
Speaker
2: And yet he somehow comes out every day now and says, as if to try to
magically make it real, I'm completely exonerated.
Speaker 2: I'm innocent.
Speaker 2: I'm the one who stopped Epstein.
Speaker
1: If you think about Trump as someone who truly believes that there is
a percentage of his base that only listens to him.
Speaker 1: And there is.
Speaker 1: And they do.
Speaker 1: So every time he says, I'm exonerated, it works for him.
Speaker 2: group of Americans who say, yeah, he's exonerated.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Do you think if Trump said things like
Speaker 1: I'm not exonerated? No, no.
Speaker 2: They have a magical thinking about them now that
Speaker 2: even when he has in the past had to like walk
Speaker 2: stuff back in minor ways, like during COVID.
Speaker 2: They were like, no, no, that's his 4D chess.
Speaker 2: He's secretly working to whatever.
Speaker 2: And it never seems to
Speaker 2: it never seems to really catch up with him with with that small percentage.
Speaker 2: You know, that percentage used to be thirty five percent.
Speaker 2: Right. Now it's like 20 percent.
Speaker 2: And yeah. And shrinking folks by the day.
Speaker 2: Take that as a piece of good news in the in a dark world.
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about potentially talented politicians.
Speaker 1: We're in primary season.
Speaker 1: And there are a bunch of primaries going.
Speaker
1: And I don't want to talk about specific candidates because I want I
have a theory that I want you to talk to us about.
Speaker
1: I think that Democrats get really stuck in the ideological purity of
their candidates and not so interested in their candidates, whether or
not they're talented.
Speaker 2: I could not agree more.
Speaker
1: And my theory of the case, and I want you to tell me if you think
this is right or wrong, is that I think that politicians, they kind of
don't really believe stuff.
Speaker 1: Let's just be honest here.
Speaker 2: That's true more in the in the in the observance than the breach.
Speaker 2: Yes. Right.
Speaker 1: And Republicans are much more nihilist, but Democrats also can have their opinions changed.
Speaker
1: And so do you think that Democrats are wrong being so focused on the
machinations of their politicians' opinions and not on the talent of
said politicians discussed?
Speaker
2: If you were putting me in charge of this matter, talent is the
first, second, third, and tenth criteria for these folks.
Speaker 2: You can have people who are morally perfect and correct.
Speaker 2: If they can't run a race and they can't win a race, what good are they?
Speaker 2: You're not helping the party or the country by being morally pristine.
Speaker
2: If the choice is between your guy who's not perfect and somebody who
serves Satan, pick the guy who doesn't serve Satan.
Speaker 2: It doesn't mean that you can't believe things.
Speaker 2: People all believe things, and they should.
Speaker 2: But sometimes you don't say the quiet part out loud.
Speaker 2: Sometimes you run a campaign instead of a struggle session.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And do you think that one of the things Democrats can do at this moment is stop doing those fucking.
Speaker 1: Questionnaires. Yeah. Talk about the questionnaires.
Speaker 2: Listen, I told candidates back in 2002 on the Republican side because we had the same purity test bullshit happening.
Speaker 1: OK, so the questionnaires are when different groups.
Speaker 2: Right. They send you. And by the way, folks, I'm not attacking them.
Speaker
2: So when the Sierra Club or NARAL or Moms Against sends you a
questionnaire and they demand that you answer it and they demand you
tell them every single thing.
Speaker 2: When Democrats did that and I was a Republican, you know what I did 95% of the time as a Republican?
Speaker 2: I'd be like, yeah, look what that dumb son of a bitch said in that questionnaire.
Speaker 2: And I would go and I would turn that around into negative ads.
Speaker 2: And those negative ads would make your candidate look like a fucking idiot.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 1: Right, right, right.
Speaker 2: This is why nobody is served by these questionnaires except the other side.
Speaker 2: And so, Democrats, if you're a candidate, don't answer fucking questionnaires.
Speaker 2: And by the way, those groups that go, we will never endorse you unless you—yeah, they will.
Speaker 2: If you're a winner, they will.
Speaker 2: If you show that you're kicking ass, they will.
Speaker 2: None of it matters.
Speaker 2: These people that do this and turn it into a purity check thing, fuck them.
Speaker 2: No, just fuck them.
Speaker
1: Schumer and other members who pick candidates, do you think that
they should be picking the most talented candidates and not the people
that are their friends?
Speaker 2: Always and forever. Pick talent. Because look, campaigns in the old days depended more on the internal game.
Speaker
2: Can this guy raise all the money from the other big guys that I know
who are going to sit in a room and write $100,000 checks to the party
committees and all that?
Speaker
2: Today, campaigns are increasingly being mediated by how good you are
on television, how good you are on YouTube, how good you are on
Instagram, how good you are on social media.
Speaker 2: And listen, there are a lot of things that Democrats would disqualify James Tallarico on.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker
2: In a lot of parts of this country, Democrats go, no, no, no, he's
too close to the God stuff. I don't care for that. They would be passing
on the most talented single candidate I've seen come out of the
Democratic field in the last decade by an order of magnitude.
Speaker 2: You know, and so if you're going to if you're going to pick candidates, pick them because they're good candidates.
Speaker 2: Let them deal with the ideology crap later, because most ideological things, most purity tests.
Speaker 2: Again, folks, I sort of repeat this.
Speaker
2: The Republican Party has weaponized Democratic purity tests
champions and they disqualify Democratic candidates in the minds of
large percentages of voters, especially in red and purple states.
Speaker 2: based on those questions.
Speaker 2: Rick Wilson.
Speaker 1: Will you come back?
Speaker 2: You know I will.
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