I Know How Epstein Groomed America’s Corrupt Elite | The Daily Beast Podcast

What went through my head, as you were describing, that encounter with a. rich and powerful person is how strangely. similar it is in certain ways. To Virginia Giuffre's account. of being groomed by Julian Maxwell and Epstein. And what's so wild about that is that these are two. kind of objects of his behavior, Epstein's behavior, who are at opposite. ends of the power spectrum.

I'm Joanna Coles, this is the Daily Beast podcast. We have an epic conversation today for you. with a philosopher, a writer, a big, big thinker. And his specialty turns out to be the Epstein class. And and gifted us has read through the mountain of emails. And what he comes up with is fascinating. And the techniques that Jeffrey Epstein used to groom teenage. girls were largely the same techniques.

that he used to groom billionaires. And you think, well, why would a billionaire even be interested in hanging out with Jeffrey Epstein? But Jeffrey Epstein was able to bait his conversation with people. and real them in like, an expert fisherman. Anyway, I really want you to share this conversation with your friends. Subscribe to The Daily Beast. We're almost at 600,000 subscribers, and we really want to get there. in the next month. With your help, we will leave us a comment.

But let's come back to my conversation with Ananda. And I shared with him what someone I ran into over the weekend. was telling me when he got momentarily caught up in Jeffrey Epstein's web, and how clever Jeffrey Epstein was at trying to woo him in any way. I loved this conversation. It's longer than normal because I just didn't want it to stop. And you know what? I know my hair doesn't look great there. You don't need to put it in the comments.

But you know, who's had does look great today. And and so let's get into it. First of all, I really want to talk about your hair. But we're going to do that at the end because it's about bonus content. Bonus content. Yes, it's exclusive content and it's so good. I want to lean across the table and rub my hands through it. But we'll talk about hair later. But I thought we could start. We're recording this on a Monday morning. I wanted to start with a piece that was in the times this morning, talking about the network of people who help each other.

get into the most elite, prestigious private schools in New York. And there's an exchange in the where else Epstein files, about Zuckerman, who is a billionaire, well known billionaire businessman. in, New York trying to get his child into Trinity. And I think this is the child of the fourth or fifth wife. Possibly. That's a lot of wives. Quite a lot of wives, even for that world, right?

Even for that world. And, Jeffrey. Epstein immediately sort of muscles in and tries to offer. help to get more zuckerman's child into Trinity. And I was thinking, why on earth would Mort Zuckerman remotely. need someone like Jeffrey Epstein's help getting their child into school? You've been parts of these networks. You you grew up, you went to Sidwell, you went to Harvard. Do you understand this world? Can you talk about the sort of network.

of these wealthy people that's been exposed in the Epstein files? I think one of the that that exchange. is so fascinating because it illustrates something important, which is. obviously there is a giant elite network that we're talking about here. And both of those men would have been in those elite networks. However, there are some people, I would say, probably like Mort Zuckerman, who have a have a job, you know, they sort of are doing an actual thing. in the world, right? And they're in those networks as a byproduct.

of some activity they're engaged in, in the world. They own a business, they own multiple businesses, whatever. They're an academic. They're used to be in the government. And there's a, I think, a smaller group of people. who've Epstein as a perfect example, for whom the cultivation. and maintenance of network ties is the job. So he's like the sort of middleman, and he's creating connections between people, and that's his value. And some of those people might also technically have a job. But if you go to a Ted conference or if you go to, frankly, any conference,

you'll meet some people there. who just seem like people who, incidentally, happen to be there. And then you'll meet these people. And by the way, in the 20 tens, when this culture was sort of at its peak, people in their bios of this ilk would call themselves connectors, like it would often be right on the buy. Do remember this trend? People would be like convener, convener, connector, create, right? Well, and Malcolm. Gladwell actually wrote a piece about the importance of connectors. Right? Right. And I think the New York, which was very sort of.

it went on to everybody was talking about everybody. The new rule one of like, don't model your life on something. you read in a, in a Malcolm Gladwell airport book. But, but Epstein is a perfect example of someone. who is maintaining those things not as a byproduct, some other activity, but as the center of his life and what he shows. And of course, he is a convicted pedophile who did it. So that has its own flavor. But there's others who do it who are not convicted pedophiles, who are basically brokers between these different worlds.

And so, you know, most people. know a lot of people within their own world, right? Most academic successful. Yes. Right. I mean, all of us, in a way. You know, most, you know, an Italian-American guy in new Jersey knows probably the average. Italian-American knows a bunch of other Italian-American guys in his neighborhood. New Jersey. Right, right. An academic, most academics, you know, having spent so long studying for that degree, so long. And it's a very kind of cloistered environment. Most of their friends are probably academics.

I think most businesspeople, after a while, you don't have time. You're working 80 hour weeks. Like, you know, a lot of business people, people like. Jeffrey Epstein, but but others who are kind of these network maintainers, their skill is actually maintaining ties to various types of people. Right. And so if suddenly you are a business person who needs to, it's. not like you're not powerful enough to access that private school. It's just that you may not have cultivated a couple.

of those bridges of networks to slightly different worlds. Someone at that law firm, someone at that university. that you might need for that specific thing. And so what Epstein did is serve as this kind of bridging function, which turns out to be very, very valuable in part. And again, it's not obvious to people because what you said is exactly. I think most people's intuition, like he's more sacraments powerful. Why do you need someone is already powerful, right? But the thing is, if you don't.

if you don't know people personally in a lot of these worlds, you have to go through the formal channels, right? And so someone like Jeffrey Epstein, who is kind of on a text basis with whatever, who do you need to get to? You need to get to Woody Allen. You need to get to Steve Bannon. You need to get someone to Goldman Sachs. You need to get to someone at the Treasury Department. You need to get to someone in Dubai. Right? Someone like that who can kind of offer you this. like gruesome buffet of business cards, right? Right, right. Becomes valuable to people who are more siloed in particular worlds.

Well, and also, I love what you say about. he's got direct access to them because there's nothing worse. for someone like Mort Zuckerman, or indeed even the humble MUA. to have to go through the same process that everybody else is going through. You want to cut through the process, right? You want the short cut, which which Jeffrey Epstein was able to. And I've written about this a little bit, you know, in our Epstein class series where, you know,

I think to be in that rarefied. elite is to have friction removed. It's to have friction removed. in just think about map from, you know, 6 a.m. to midnight and the typical person's day, lots of lots of friction. Who stand in line to get your coffee. You know, you you try to get a parking spot. at the office offices, no spots today. And just, like, map it out, it's just. And that's life.

Your kid is sick. It wasn't planning for your kid to be sick. Now you have to take the day off work. Just friction. It's all friction. Well, to be very, very rich, to be a billionaire. is to have lots of those points of friction that everybody watching. this will have in their life and have them removed. You don't have to stand in that line, right? The food is waiting for you on the table when you get to the restaurant. You don't have to wait in line. You don't have to drive to Newark, you know, to wait in line at Newark, you're flying out of Teterboro, and the jet will leave whenever you want. I think what happens to those people. is when they encounter some areas of life,

where there continues to be friction, it really causes an allergy. So when you are dealing with a Trinity, you know, school. where it actually doesn't function like private. jet driven, I don't know, but it doesn't seem to function like private jet travel. It probably does have a real admissions process. It probably does turn away, given where it is. It probably does turn away lots of fancy people every year. I think it's shocking. for some of these people because I'm like everybody watching this.

They haven't encountered a no all day. They haven't encountered a no all week. They haven't encountered a kind of break. So I think what part of. what I've seen did was offer the promise. of extending that kind of seamlessness. that you're expecting that that life has taught you to expect into domains where. maybe even for you, like a Mort Zuckerman, it'll be a little hard to access.

And he did that by kind of keeping himself right at the center. of a lot of these kind of worlds. So I love this idea of of creating a frictionless experience. And Jeffrey Epstein was trying to help people smooth that out. Can we talk about the people that he had in his network? And you mentioned as we were sitting down the four pack, which I love, I love the I can tell people what the four pack is. And then I, I love the series.

We should just reference your series on the Epstein class, on. ink on your Substack, and I want to get to talking about the women, because you have an excellent essay on how. there are no grown up women around and when they are. Cathy. Ramla probably being the sole example. For the most part, the men are eating without the women. There's just no women there. The women of the declaration that sex. But they're not there for conversation or ideas or to be heard from.

Anyway, let's come to that in a minute. But talk about the four pack, and then let's talk about the specifics. of the lives that these very wealthy. people live. Let me tell you about this company. called once, and it was founded by four Brazilian PhD scientists. And One skin's products are designed to make your life easier. You can layer them seamlessly, making your skincare routine simple. And with more than 10,005 star reviews, people are saying they're seeing smoother,

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Again, that's 15% off at one skin.com/beast. Use the code beast and don't forget to tell them we sent you. So when you hear. the phrase four pack, I imagine most people. listening to this are starting to think about some kind of beverage. You know, maybe they would expect it to come in a six pack, but they're okay. Maybe there's some kind of new right four pack drink. Well, I was thinking of I might have a four pack, not a six pack in terms of. I just haven't been to the gym. So.

Right. Exactly. Used to be at six. Now it's a four. Yeah. And it's very soon going to be at two. But anyway, sorry. I son once told me they had a one pack, which I thought was amazing. Yeah. The four pack. I learned about this when researching my book Winners Take. Oh, which is about a lot of these billionaires and the way they use. kind of giving back as a, as a mechanism to consolidate their wealth and power. And the four pack refers to. I think it's particularly for New York centered, super rich people.

The four pack is the number of houses that is considered kind of, a bare minimum. in that social world. So it's a Manhattan, house or apartment. It's, it's a Florida place. Now let's just pause there for a second. That alone is the part of the reason for the Florida place, is to usually be able to keep your Manhattan, days. under 183 days. And so the Florida places typically for that purpose,

I mean, maybe people also like the warmth, but they can afford to go to nicer, warm places than that. It's an easy way to get your, get your time there for tax, which then saves you a few percentage of a New York City, income tax. Then, Hamptons house. and, house in Aspen are kind of a skiing place. So that was considered the four pack. Just basic hygiene in that, in that billionaires world. But it just gives you a flavor of of,

you know, how how people are thinking in that world. And also, you can avoid the friction of cold weather. and the snow pileups and things you just don't have to deal with it. Right? You can either. go there for the whole of the winter, or you can go down for the weekends. If you've got your own transport. There's a really important word in this world. Also, that's the word optionality. So optionality in its origin is a finance term. And so, you know, you think. about buying buying options on Wall Street.

You're not buying the stock, you're buying the right to buy it if a certain thing happens. So I buy an option to buy it a year from now. If it crosses 50 or I buy an option to sell it if it goes below 22. And buying options gives you optionality. It gives you, you know, and it's the whole idea of optionality is like. you have all the upside but not the downside. You don't have to do the thing, but you can do the thing if you want to do the thing. So optionality has leapt from business school classes and finance classes.

It sort of became over the last, I think, 10 or 15 years, the life aspiration. for a lot of these folks and what optionality means is, having lots of choices and the choice to make additional choices. and choices to preserve more choices, doors that open, more doors. and never be on the hook for anything, never being tied to anything. There's a lot of manifestations that we can talk about. Some of that is really rich people who seemed to be very interested.

in Jeffrey Epstein providing him young women or girls. That's one form of optionality. A wife is not optionality, right? Going to an island where you could have a, again, a gruesome buffet. in this case of people, that's optionality. But also the housing is optionality, right? The the kind of when people talk about optionality. in dating a lot of finance, you know, but but it's now. broadened beyond finance, people to use that concept. So much so and I quoted this in one of the the Epstein class pieces.

I think that that the Harvard, one of the Harvard professors. who wrote about. it is a finance professor who wrote about the concept of optionality, gave a commencement speech or something. in which he warned it was called like the risks of optionality. He was afraid that this finance term had, like, metastasized into the culture. too far, and people were applying it to their life. in ways that were actually really destructive. Right. And so what it was stopping them from committing to things. Right.

And so, you know, you'll remember a few years ago. now, I guess it's a decade ago on Brexit, the year of Brexit, I think Theresa may, who was then the British Prime minister, was it kind of early? It was she the prime minister. Right. Going into it, I think. Well, she was a prime minister. that had to pick up after Brexit and try and organize it. So she's share this line, which was very controversial. Shit, I better check on that. There was a lot of prime ministers on that. Yeah. I mean Theresa. Yeah, because Boris got dumped. and Theresa may had to pick up the pieces and try and get it organized.

So she had this line, I don't know if you remember this. It was very controversial the time people considered it kind of very nationalistic. I remember thinking. having a little bit of a jolt and then realizing she's exactly right. She said, if you're a citizen of the world, you're a citizen of nowhere. You don't understand what citizenship is. And I think people. there's lots of ways to interpret that.

Is she talking about immigrants? Is she like, what did I think? What she, my generous interpretation of what she was saying. is in the age of kind of liquid money that moves everywhere. and people moving among their four packs and people, as you see in this Epstein. network, London today, Dubai tomorrow, doing a deal with Paris. and Korea to invest in a Mexican hedge fund that'll buy out some, you know, old person's home in California and and strip mine it,

that again most people watching this are actually. from somewhere whether you born there or not, I don't care. I think you're somewhere now. Yeah. Some loyalty to it. You're there like most of the time you have a connection to the community. and you're part of a thing that's like the normal human way to live. And one of the things that is distinctive about the elite, because there's always been an elite, right, that's distinctive. about the modern super elite that we see in the Epstein files. Is that it is an elite.

uniquely untethered to place. If you think about think about in Britain. Right. Go back. I mean I think this is still true in Britain. But you go back, you know, 50 or 100 years, 20 years in Britain, the more clout, stature, power you had. The more you were like associated with a place. Right? You were the URL of this, of this house. That house really mattered. And your granddaddy lived in that house, and you're right. And the paintings on the wall where, like, often that house and you,

there's a certain kind of dog that you went hunting with. It was always that dog and the certain kind of thing you hunted. Right? That's has been more typical historically of what we associate. with rich and powerful people that they are they own land. You can't you know, land is not very fungible. Yeah. It's like the Hearst's owning San Simeon. Right. And I think. this in the era of globalization and digitization, what happened is. we ended up with this kind of episteme class. You could say that really doesn't work like that.

They are nowhere people. They are always on a plane. Their most comfortable in planes because it's touch point. free as they as they call it. They, you know, they avail. of global opportunities but they're not part of communities. And if you again live. in a normal town in this country and you look, I was driving all through. Connecticut yesterday by chance and just all from one side to another. And except for the really prosperous towns.

like Greenwich, Connecticut is a rich place by comparison. But it you see that this country's been stripped. like every town is like a shell. It's cute. The cute old things like no one's there, there's no opportunity there. Right. And it's just like you can just feel this kind of like blood life. A strange drive anywhere in this country except for the places that are exceptions. Right? The just feels like juice was removed from the whole thing.

And it was. It was, And so you don't have in those little towns I was driving through. You don't have, like, the slightly rich guy. who was who owned the car dealership, which would have made him five times. richer than the average person in town who then donated to the baseball league. Like, that guy doesn't live in that town anymore. Like a private equity firm owns a chain of those dealerships. And there's no guy like, there's no there's no one. The only people living there the people can't afford to leave. Right.

Senator Chris Murphy, get out the kids. Leave, the kids get out. Senator Chris Murphy, who's senator from Connecticut, he has a new book coming out in, I think, a couple of months. called The New Common Good that actually talks about this in a very deep way. What actually happened? At to to many places that he represents and beyond. But, you know, there has been this. kind of just removal of life force in so much of our society. and the people we're talking about in this scene, the class, they're just buying, selling, trading, moving around,

and they have no loyalty to any of the places they come from. All of their emails. When I was reading through the Epstein emails, they all start, where are you today? Where are you today? I'm landing in this place. Where are you? I'm going to be in Dubai next week. Where are you? Where are you? And at first I just thought it is kind of an interesting, you know, quirk. And then I realize it is because the assumption. is not being in place. The assumption is you're on the move, you're constantly on the move. So in terms of the Epstein files, when you were reading some of the emails,

which were the emails that stood out to you, I mean, there's a Kathy Ramla. email which which I know stood out to you, which I want to talk about, but I wondered if there were others. I think what I'll say. some would sit out kind of in general and then some specific emails. So a couple things in general. So one is this notion of this kind of silly, seemingly.

silly ritual, where are you? Where are you going to be tomorrow? Are you going to be in Athens? I know someone in Athens, you know, seem like a silly ritual. I started to realize. I think these are the kind of pheromones of a exchange. of pheromones of this class of people who do not belong, do not. consider themselves part of places, don't consider themselves loyal to places. And so their loyalties are horizontally to other people. in this, in this kind of network, not downward to the people.

Right. They, they live among. I mean, even if you have the four pack, my guess is if you go to their block in Manhattan or you go to their place. in Aspen, or you go out to the Hamptons where they live, or you go down to Florida. and you went a couple doors side to side and asked, how are they as neighbors? How are they as community members? What's their role here? My guess is you draw blanks. You draw blank stares. I don't think I don't think people would experience them. You generally the same people are just moving around the same places. because that's been my observation that this. a kind of move out to the Hamptons in the some of this.

Sure. Florida and. and basically you're seeing this, but I don't think they're forming community. even with right people that they're doing that with right. It's each to each. So the community itself is is more tenuous. And I think they don't I mean, I think community is a word. that is irrelevant to a lot of these people. I think they have networks. Right. A community is like I don't know. people you'd sacrifice for people you do things that don't make sense. I mean when I think of people I consider in my community, like I'm willing to lose money on them, I'm willing to cook food for them in a way.

that would be much cheaper and more efficient. to order takeout, but I'm going to cook for them anyway. You know, I'm willing to like, have their kids sleep over. when they have to go out of town on a like that's community, right? I don't think people I don't think these people live in that way in general. They have services, not community. Right? They have services. Right. Community is what people do, I guess, when, you know, when they don't have services. And again, you know, it's interesting thinking about Epstein.

And we'll get to this specific emails but think but I've seen. he was a world class. exploiter of specific insecurities and kind of lacunae in people. he was talking to. And actually, I think one of the things he identified is. a lot of these people are very lonely, right? Right. Again, you at home may not think that. because you think they have everything, but they actually don't have everything. They have a lot of some very specific things. Right? And they actually don't have these are often not great marriages, as attested by the number of them,

that often get well, and then it becomes very expensive to get divorced. Right? Yeah. You know, these are often, one of my winners. They all came out. I was written to by so many children of people like this. talking about how how little admiration they have for their own. super wealthy parents and asking me for advice. And I didn't know what advice to give them. How do they, you know, they don't inherit this money, but they basically hate their dad. How do they deal with that? Well, it's a little bit like watching. Rupert Murdoch emerging from his 95th birthday party.

Here he is, you know, a man still above. his whole Fox network, which he's now bequeathed to his son. And three of his children are missing from his 95th birthday. And you think, in what world would you rather. have all that money and all that power and arguably all that impact. on American culture, global culture, and not have three of your children. at your 95th birthday? This is dwell on that for a second.

That I don't think there could be a greater definition of life failure. 95 is late enough in the game to call it right. And he's had he's on his failed life. He failed at life. that many of your children. Right. What was it? What was it about, Rupert? What was it for? The newspapers, right. By the way, he also broke society's no argument. But I don't have any expectation. that a Rupert Murdoch cares about breaking society. Well, it's a very interesting question, too.

Would you rather be at 95? Would you rather have $20 billion and an enormous network. and have had undoubtably influence, many argue, for the worse over the world, or would you. rather have half $1 million and your family intact? You know, the love of your kids, the connection with your grandchildren? All of that is a really interesting sort of question. I mean, if you if you told me right now that at my 95th birthday, several of my children would voluntarily stay away, I'd jump off this roof.

Right? I mean, I think your kids are going to be there. I hope you like it is 95. What? What? And it is a such a revealing. clue to what these people value. But, you know, at the end of the day, like, if you can't even love your family enough to hold them, how do we trust you with, in his case, the minds of, like, one third of Americans who watch Fox News.

and just, like, think about this very objectively. If this man's love. and and and virtue. and character were not enough. to hold his children and family, that is the same level of care at best, that is being brought to bear on Fox News and these other things. Right? Well, well. And also, it's an interesting thing, what culture rewards, right?

What society rewards, you know, lots of people at his party fawning over him. And yet, as you say, a man who. what most people would consider the most significant part of your life, utterly broken, at war with his own kids, going to court with his own kids, three of whom out of the four don't turn up at his birthday party. Probably his last birthday party is 95. Who knows how many he's he's got left. It just it says a lot about what we rewards as a culture, too.

It does. The failure of a man know total failure of a man. So interesting. So. So let's get back to to the emails. I want to read you one of Kathy, one last emails, which you in fact pointed out, to us. And I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it in my voice because I don't know what she sounds like, though I love doing impressions as regular readers and viewers. and listeners, I won't stop you from doing the impression.

My favorite one to do is Melania. But I don't know. Kathy. Well, I'm Laura, I have not met her. So she writes to Epstein, going up to New York Friday morning. I think I'm going to drive. I will then stop to pee and get gas to rest. Stop on the new Jersey Turnpike will observe all of the people. who are at least a 100 pounds overweight, will have a mild panic attack as a result of the observation, and will then decide, I am not eating another bite of food.

for the rest of my life out of fear I will end up like one of these people. What? Please diagnose this. So let's for us for. Let's assume that many folks listening to this have no idea who Kathy Romer is, so it's actually a nice way to do it. Nice sex, but I like you. I like you actually reading the quote first. Okay, so now you've heard the quote I imagine people have reactions. that quote. So now let's tell you who she is, right? Because she's not a random person on the street who okay, fine.

They have a toxic view, or you have some uncle. who would spout something like that at a family get together. Fine. Who cares? She is someone, the kind of person. who has shaped your life. She was Barack Obama's White House counsel. You may have heard the job. White House counsel. Let's just be really clear. It is the lawyer. Not for the president, for the presidency. It is the lawyer who represents the American presidency.

Okay? When decisions are made about all kinds of things, can we torture people or not torture people? Right. Is it legal to go to war? Drone strike or no drone strike? You know, today. you can imagine people probably having discussions about using AI in wars. You know, should we can we bomb Iran without checking with anybody? These are the that's the person one of the key people, advising those decisions and not just any president either, Barack.

Obama, Obama, as you know, someone with as much good character. who I think has never been caught in his life, even in the off moment, even in a leaked tape. I don't think there's a world. in which you would catch Barack Obama with that attitude to people. Or anyone connected, closely connected to him. And after, you know, after being white House counsel, she, she, she considered offers from Obama to become attorney general when she was.

I don't know who you go to for career advice. You've had an illustrious career. I'm sure you've the people you asked about. She, Kathy Roemer, went to Jeffrey Epstein, convicted pedophile, for advice. Obama is going to, you know, maybe nominate me for attorney general. Do you think I should take it? I generally don't go to convicted pedophiles for for. you know, any I don't I'm not I don't think I don't think I do, but I always avoid them in particular when writing jobs. about the attorney general or any legal, legal kind of facing jobs.

Then she becomes a fancy law partner. He's asking her at some point about some immigration question. She responds about her $2 million signing bonus from some law firm, just like going from like, immigration to, well, and wait a minute, doesn't. he also say, no, don't go and be attorney general. I can help you. But doesn't he want her to go and work at Rothschild's on his behalf? I don't, I didn't I don't actually see that I think so, well, he's to figure out, you know, she's like, well, my apartment in New York is too expensive to take such a low paying job.

And and then he in the way that is again, really interesting. And him very him specific. He's like how much is the rent? Let me see if I can offload it for you. That's what also makes him different. Like most super rich people are not at that level of the weeds of like, how much is your rent? Let me see if I can offload it. So he's a sort of unusual guy in that way, which we can get to as an old world. Well, well, an interesting that he's homing in on her. insecurity about her home. And that's going to help with. Yes, exactly. He understands that everybody has needs.

That needs are kind of these holes that you can fill in. If you are the one who fills that hole, you can write keys to the kingdom. Right. She then became the chief counsel for Goldman Sachs. She has since stepped down, after a lot of pressure. But because of this, so she's now the chief. lawyer for this giant financial institution, a financial institution, you know, before she joined it that you know, famously. was caught up in the financial crisis and, and had, you know, legal issues.

because it had, you know, told its clients one thing while betting the other way. And, you know, helped contribute, to that mortgage meltdown that, you know, again, lots of people watching this will have lost homes, right, in that crisis. There are people watching this today who whose wealth was greater. in the summer of 2008 than it still is. There's a significant number of Americans who never recovered. from what those financial institutions helped trigger.

She was not at that bank at that time, but that's those are the that's the world. Right. And so. what I. hope I've convinced you is that when you read those sentiments. and there's others in the, in the emails, but that's a really good one. You're not this is not just your drunk opinions. At Thanksgiving, this is a window into. how someone thinks about you. and your family when they are white House counsel, making decisions about whether for example,

we need congressional authorization to, like, send your son to war. No. Right. The same. Think about someone who is so dehumanizing the people at the rest. Stop seeing them as just a sea of fat bodies. It's the same moral compass. that is making a decision about, you know, advice on. whether we can afford casualties in a war and what to recommend to a president. Right. The same kind of contempt for a person surely can't be so easily ring fence,

if that's what you feel. to most people in this country, towards most people in this country, by the way, in the. most like elite corridor of this country, even though it's a highway rest stop. Then surely. that way of seeing people, regular people. whose existence you seem to be offended by in the email, surely it goes into your other decisions when you're Goldman Sachs. and you're thinking about, you know, how do we deal with the housing market?

How do we do this? How do we deal with that? How do we diversify the bank? Should we surely the same basic attitude that is so clearly. that anybody reading that email or hearing that email will recognize that attitude? We've all known people who look at other people that way. But what my point to you is that attitude is not just a toxic attitude. It shapes your life and it shapes policy. It shapes policy which impacts all of us, which which shape society. And I would venture to guess. that many people listening to this know that even without hearing the quote.

or knowing who she is, because you've experienced the effect. What the F files is showing you is some of the causes. that you may not have seen, but you've lived the effects, you've lived. a health care. system, you've lived your own insurance policies. That feel like shit that make you feel like you're paying money. and no one's holding you right. You go to work every day at places. it feels like I give everything for this company.

But does this company have my back? Right. You see cuts at your kid's school now? They can't do music this year. Now they can't do gym anymore. You've experienced all that, so you know the effects. What the f scene files are so helpful. is assigning causes to effect. This is how these people think. Oh, this is who they're loyal to. Oh, this is what they're actually thinking about. Even though they claim that they need their well, their wealth needs to be left.

untouched so that they can dream up ideas that will benefit all of us. Know what they're actually talking about in their emails. As you see in the famous correspondence between Epsilon and Leon Black. billionaire private equity guy is how to set up LLCs. for the purchase of paintings to avoid unnecessary taxes. Right? So you've lived the effects. This glimpse into the causes is incredibly helpful. Okay, so, absolutely fascinating.

So I, I spent the weekend. with, a group of friends, one of whom, had gone to see Jeffrey. Epstein because Jeffrey Epstein wanted to manage his money, and he was curious. Various words in the English language. Absolutely, absolutely. Anyway, he was explaining to me the process, and I'm really interested. to get your feedback on it, because it was sort of illuminating for me. And he said, and this is a very sophisticated, wealthy.

man who went in to talk to him. And he said, first of all, it was incredible the amount of research. that Jeffrey Epstein had done on him. He knew who he hung out with. He knew where he lived. What era was this? So this was sort of 2014 15. Right. So, heyday at peak. Epstein, probably peak Epstein. And so he was kind of impressed by that. And and he didn't he didn't want to give his money to Epstein, but. he he decided to go because other people said, you must go and see. He.

No, he was a pedophile. Yes. He knew he was a pedophile, but he didn't know he was an interesting. weekend. Right. Well, well, but he did. I mean, he knew he'd been convicted in 2008. He didn't know that this stuff was still going on. at an industrial level, but it really gone for finance, finance conversation. But he said that what he was impressed by was how well researched, Epstein was. And then there was a point where it became clear that he was unlikely.

to give his money to Epstein, at which point Epstein said, you know, here's the thing. I know you like spending time with interesting people. I know who you hang out with. He rattled off a list and he said, but I hang out with more interesting people. I'd like to get you in a room with, hood brag, because you guys would get on. and you really need to meet Woody Allen, because even though he's got that. weird thing, he's a very smart guy, and you guys would get on. So the sort of flattery and adjacency of putting you with someone who's,

you know, famous in their world and insult. Right? My people are more interesting than you people. Well, totally. But but thinking about how people, particularly in New York, or at least that's where I live. So it's my my lived experience. But that sense of beating of, of you put the beat down on. goodness knows I've done it. We've got so-and-so coming for dinner. Would you like to come kind of thing. So he's beating him with that. And when that doesn't work, he leans over to him a bit later. in the conversation and he says, look, I'm can I be honest with you?

Can I be honest? Jeffrey Epstein asking this? He says, you seem a bit depressed. I think I could help you with your depression. Why don't you come out. to the ranch in New Mexico with me and and we'll just have fun. We'll have fun. You look like a man who's not really having fun right now. And he said the thing was, he was a bit depressed, and Jeffrey Epstein was manipulative. enough to see this, to use it against him. And even though he wasn't going to give his money to Jeffrey Epstein.

and he figured that out quite quickly, he was impressed by the level. of grooming and manipulation, even though he could see it. And it's that sense of. he felt he was being seduced, even though he knew what was going on. And I was curious to ask you about that, because you see that in the emails, right? You see the sort of the throwing down of information, the casual so-and-so's coming for dinner.

You should come. You're going to love him. He's going to love you kind of thing. I, I see behind you on the shelf this book, remarkable book. Nobody's Girl by Virginia Giuffre. Right. An amazing book, extraordinary book. I recommend anybody interested in this conversation. Please read that book. This is an inside account of what it was like. to be one of Epstein's victims in this kind of time period. What's what went through my head, as you were describing. that encounter with a rich and powerful person.

is how strangely. similar it is in certain ways. To Virginia Giuffre's account. of being groomed by Julian Maxwell and Epstein, and what's so wild about that is that these are two. kind of objects of his behavior, Epstein's behavior, who are at opposite ends of the power spectrum. Virginia Giuffre was a runaway.

She had already suffered a whole bunch of abuse and exploitation. She was working at Mar-A-Lago in the spa. No, zero. power and clout, which is why he was able to bring her. Andrew, I mean, know, 14, 15 years old. Rape, abuse trafficker. The person you're describing from a conventional power. analysis is the opposite, right? Rich? Right, powerful. Lots of clout, no physical danger.

Right. Epstein didn't have anything on him. And yet the basic moves of. pulling people in, figuring out their vulnerability, he. I think one of the things that's it's hard to to wrap your head around with him is. he was grooming very powerful people and grooming. very powerless people at the same time and then putting them together. You don't think of grooming as something that is done to a Prince Andrew, right? So grooming we don't associate with like very powerful people, but in a certain way you just tilt your head slightly,

like what your friend was going through was a kind of high end. Grooming is a grooming that he was able to able to get out of. He wasn't ensnared the same way someone like Virginia was. But this Epstein's way of moving through the world. was kind of omnidirectional grooming, and he was able to calibrate. it to, are you a former cabinet secretary or you're a 14 year old runaway girl? And he had different methods for each, and then he's able to put them together. I want to point out two things you said there that I think.

are really important, interesting, and show up in the emails again and again. Two words interesting. And fun. Okay. So interesting. Me in Epstein language in the kind of patois of Epstein land. Interesting means. brain, brain. and fun means deck in. But let's just just to make those are the two promises, right.

And and and and the two things that he is offering to these guys often. sometimes to some guys. I would say he was offering one to some he was only offering the other. And to many he offered both. Right. So let's just break this down for a second. So the interesting thing is interesting, this offer is, I think probably the, you know, the, the bigger part of the funnel for a lot of people is easier conversation. And the second one, is about the fact that a lot of business guys. and again, folks at home who are not in these.

worlds may not realize you may watch industry on TV. or you may watch succession. You it's really important to stress. that that is not what most business people's lives are like, right? They're not getting up and smoking either smoking crack or snorting. coke off their coffee. I didn't know what, I guess years ago, I moved to New York. I didn't know I've not been here long enough. I've met enough people like. there are some number of people living this way. Like most people who are senior in finance, like go to bed. early, wake up super early to do like weird exercise routines,

have like special doctors to prescribe like special protein shakes, like have several kids have like harried lives. like bicycles and scooters in their mudroom and like, chaos, like they're not snorting coke off the table every day. And if you do, don't last, right? Right. Because you can't keep correct? Correct. So when Jeffrey Epstein and sorry and that's partly. the related to the fun thing but but also have very siloed. mental inputs at some point.

you're working really hard to work really hard. Right. This is one of the only countries where people work harder, the more money. they make, work longer hours, the more money they make, which is not historically how it worked. Makes no sense. Right. But but people do it, so. Yeah, it's a great. So you're working 80 hours, right? You're making a lot of money of the four pack. Whatever. I can tell you, these guys lives are not interesting, right? Intellectual inputs are not interesting. They say like, every private equity guys have the same 4 or 5 ideas at a dinner.

And, you know, isn't isn't Sauron dangerous? Because it'll just drive people like, it's not even an interesting there's some. there's so many critiques you could make of Zoran. Right. I never hear a new one. Right. Zoran could probably generate more interesting critiques of Zoran. than these guys. Like, they just don't have a lot of interesting new stuff coming in. They don't. A lot of people tell them the truth. Often it's guys in marriages. I will observe that. I don't think the marriage is itself a source of intellectual exchange. and grappling. I think these are guys who are not interested in what their wives.

think a lot of the time, and their wives are, like, often managing like a very large number of kids and lots of chaos. and are not necessarily in a place where they're like off of that back. a my observation is they're often the CEO of the household running the house. to support the the man usually man, not always, but in many, many cases, yes. Who's then bringing home and. and also needs to lead as frictionless a life as he can like. everything is geared to making sure daddy is falling.

And I'm not saying this to malign how boring they are. when it's important to underline this. Because if you if your picture is like finance people in the show industry, then you don't understand why. Interesting. You know the chance to meet interesting people is exciting. If if you understand the reality of these people's lives, Ehud Barak, which is kind of like Elbrus, kind of like an interesting these people really live these very small lives. Right, right. And so like the promise of interesting people.

Right? I remember going to the Ted conference and, you know, the Ted car is fine. I gave a couple Ted talks. like it helped me reach more people with my ideas when I was younger. Great. But I but I remember, like. I personally would get get me up more every time I like, get the Sunday New York Times and somehow my kids are occupied. If I get like three hours with it. I have learned way more things. My brain, I can just feel then I wouldn't like four days of a Ted conference.

It's just like it's very light, girl, right? But I remember these guys at the time would be like, wow, if Bill gates, when I get my set of Bill gates was sitting in the front row, they really go like they really like. are so starved, even Bill gates for ideas. There's still there's. I mean, I think a lot of people are shocked. that Bill gates was hanging out with Jeffrey Epstein. because you like your Bill gates at one point, no. The second richest man in the world, you know, slightly down the list. now because he had to get divorced, which is a real issue.

How much is it going to cost to get divorced? But but why did Bill gates have to hang out with Jeffrey Epstein? I think it's this you. It's this these kind of routinized lives. Very, very boring, as I would argue. And so the interesting. this thing is like the promise of this kind of intellectual crackle. that sometimes when I meet these guys and they find out what I do. or they get to know me, they're actually so envious of, like, my exposure to all kinds of new thoughts.

all the time that I get to go talk to people, that I get to do it. You do get to go, all right. We get to just call anybody we want and are like, what do you think about this? What is this? It's a we get to ask questions, but we get to learn, right? Right. And like, if I'm empathetic about it, like, most people don't. really get the chance that you and I do to, like, keep learning forever. I'm calling people like, right. And so there's this, there's guys making $20 million a year in New York, which is like they stopped learning a while ago. and they don't like it, but they're there in their thing.

And so the promise of interesting is, I'm going to return you to the feeling you got in grad school. I'm going to return to the feeling when there was like an interesting speaker. passing through. I'm going to return to the feeling when you used to read books that were not like, you know, business class in 30,000ft books. and then the fun promise and that and that word, why don't you have fun? Right. That's just sex. That that's what he's saying there. And and what he's that that is obviously for a smaller group of people.

who he had more trust in. And, you know, it was presumably groomed to a point of not feeling there was a risk there. But that's a fun means, you know, and, and, you know, fun, cute girls. There's different words he used. But again, I think you. have to understand how boring most people in business are, right? It's to understand the promise of. Interesting. Yeah. And I have noticed in my own lived experience. that people who have all these houses and I've come across lots of them,

and of course, there was that wonderful line by John McCain when he was asked. during the election when he was running in, whenever it was 2008. How many homes do you have? And he didn't know, right. Why did he lose? What? Remind me what he lost, right? Right. A little bit like Dot to Oz. Lose Pennsylvania because during a financial crisis. Right? Right. During a financial crisis. Couldn't remember how many homes he had. Was like, specific, like 7 or 8. Wow. But that sense in which no matter.

how many homes you have, you need to import the interesting people. So you go for weekends, you go to kind of jazz. hands and provide interesting input, but it's not enough to be wealthy and have lots of homes. You need you need incoming, right? You need incoming ideas. You need incoming people. You need new what's. so much of this could be solved by people remembering the power of reading, right? This is what reading is for, right? Books, books.

But if you. But that requires sitting down right being quiet. Those people are kind of hyperactive. Like if you if if I could no longer. access this technology of books that you have all around you. Right. I think I would probably have to, I guess, invite people to my house to spend. weekends to give me exposure to new ideas and go to weird conferences like reading. I don't know, I mean, like, reading is a pretty important way. to not die while you're still living.

Like to to to to refresh yourself with just to not just kind of end up. like babbling or like family like truisms that you were raised by to like, go beyond your, your own childhood and like, I don't know, like I if I don't read for like a few weeks. because I'm engaged them my watching, I can feel my aperture. Well, it's a little bit like mental nutrition, isn't it? I always find I take your point about the times I find it with, you know, certain magazines that come in, if you can make two hours to sit down. and actually read them, you just feel like you've had a really good mental meal.

And because of the attention span being destroyed by sort of endless scrolling, it's I think it's harder to. sit down and create the discipline to do that, but but let's talk also. So so Bill gates is hanging out that the one that I'm. very sort of fascinated by is Larry Summers, Larry Summers, who is lauded by almost anybody in finance as the smartest guy around. You must talk to Larry Summers. It's all about Larry Summers.

I've met Larry Summers behind the scenes at conferences and things, and he seems, you know, he seems perfectly intelligent, whatever. And yet he the former president of Harvard, a former chief. treasury secretary, is asking Jeffrey Epstein. how to bet his intern in London while his wife's. poetry project is being financed by Jeffrey Epstein, who is writing. funny asides. about the poetry projects to other people because he obviously couldn't.

be less interested in who is project and who is she asking the wife who, who Larry is running around behind? Who is the wife asking Larry Summers, Jeffrey Epstein for help. connecting with Woody Allen. just to complete the loop of that. right story. Again, it's a little bit similar to the Kathy. Ruemmler story, but I think even more powerful. Right? So as you say, Jeff, Larry Summers served in the Clinton administration.

and then, the, the Obama so and the Clinton. this is the story really has it all. So in the Clinton, administration, he was someone who really pushed for, remember, this is Democrats, pushed for financial deregulation, you know, and any time there was kind of a debate within the Democratic Party. between more controls and less, he was the guy saying, let's take it out.

In general, there may have been some exceptions. That culminates that, you know, those kind of policies under the Clinton administration are now widely understood. by people to have, you know, culminated through the 2000. under the Bush presidency, which continued. in that direction to culminate in 2008 financial crisis. Right, right. So the world that falls apart. in between that time, summers is at Harvard as the president of Harvard, where he taught before. So so he does this deregulation a for Clinton.

Now he's a president of Harvard. He makes comments about the kind of natural aptitude. and inferiority of women, like in the 2000. This is not it's not a story from the middle, late in the middle, Middle Ages. It's a story from like a middle aged man in the 2000. Then he is rewarded. for helping to, you know, create the context for the financial crisis by becoming, under Obama, one of the chief economic architects of the Obama administration.

Now, again, I sort of pause on this because really important. I would imagine most people. watching this have failed at something, and maybe you've even failed at a big thing. And I imagine what never happened in your life. is that when you fail, that when you, like, cause a giant problem, I imagine you were never promoted right. into running the search for solutions, right to the problem you had helped cause. Right? I would imagine that that is the least relatable experience ever.

But I want to say in this world that we're talking about, that is actually exactly what happens. The person brought in is you are promoted into being the solution to the problem. You help to create. Right. And this is arsonist to firefighter pipeline. So now he's under Obama arsonist five. Yeah. So he's he's now watering the fire that he helped cause, and by the way, while he was at Harvard, he I think the times first reported the story.

Maybe he was found to be moonlighting. for a hedge fund or some kind of financial institution. Right. And it was such a it was a big story at the time. And was it to make more money. Yeah. Right. Because there's always a problem that if you go into education. somehow being even being the president of Harvard is not enough. I think about I, I feel like I sometimes sound so old fashioned, but I like. in what world is that job not enough for you? Right? Right. Great question, great question.

What a what a fucking honor of a job. But but this is a little bit like Peter Mandelson, right. Who was the British business minister who was in the emails is found sending. confidential information to Jeffrey Epstein. has taken money, according to the emails from Jeffrey Epstein. And you like in what world is this not enough? Can you not keep the news that the British Prime Minister. is going to be leaving the following day to yourself? You are a British government minister.

and you're sending it to a man who you've been advising. Don't worry about the sex stuff. We would never have charged you in the UK at all. Go away. So I mean, it's it's by the way, just like, really wish I'd never seen. Peter Mandelson bare legs all the way up. You mean when he's wearing his tighty whities? Yeah. I was a little kind of. Yeah. Do you guys not have boxer briefs in the UK or hasn't really gone? No. It's not as if you're watching this in the UK. Yeah. Boxer briefs. Yeah. It's not like it's boxers are not a thing like they are anyway.

Sorry. This is the. Now you should have, you should have underwear ads. This would be a perfect segment. You could have. Look it may well have underwear. Right. You could do like a break here and like. Yeah, on YouTube I don't know, but. but let's come back to this sense of Larry Summers is head of Harvard. He said that women don't have the same aptitude as men for science and math, and it turns out that he's moonlighting for a financial institution. because he wants more money and more power, presumably, and more status.

So it's all of us. Think of that, Stu. Right. I think in just those facts alone, before we even get to the relationship. with Epstein, before we even get to him trying to get advice from a convicted. pedophile about how to sleep with one of his mentees. We have a. perfect picture of our modern elite. So a couple features a send out just in the story we've told about it. One, it's an elite that really prizes brain. I think he was tenured at 27 years old.

He's a very undoubtedly smart guy. So this is not the land landed English aristocracy as we're talking about. over 200 years ago, where it didn't matter if you're particularly smart or not, you are the keeper of that land and custodian of that tradition. Now, these are like to get into this elite. Intelligence is actually important. So he's very smart. He's credentialed in in the kind of meritocracy. He is someone who, you know, the intrinsic value of, of shaping education for all the world, which you do if you run Harvard,

shaping ideas. for all the world defending, you know, if he still had. that job, he'd be defending Harvard against, you know, Donald Trump. Let's say that those are the kinds of things people in that job do. The the, the in the Clinton to Obama story, this notion. of failing up and impunity that no matter how much you hurt the common good, there will always be better jobs, fewer rewards.

for having heard it. And you just have a picture. of let's make it not about Larry Summers. Let's make it about what you were really seeing. There is an incentive system is a structure. He is just a person who got through those sieves. But what he is revealing of is the serves is that is what is what is weeded out. and what isn't helping to cause giant social problems, not weeded out.

Right, right. You know, whereas like, I think calling out rich. and powerful people, that does get you wait it out. So you start to see. the kind of world that produces elites like him. And it was the same world that produces a lot of other people in this circle. I will say, Larry, I once started to get.

several years ago, right after Winner Take All came out of the year. After it came out, I got like several text messages. in a short burst of time. Like 3 or 4 messages. And they were like, Larry Summers just, plugs your book. It's like, boy, where, where, where like, where to talk at Harvard. And he just said, anybody who wants to understand. what's happening in the world right now, it's the read winners take all. the where's.

the goals and evisceration of everything he stands for. So I guess there was like a little bit of a self-awareness in that moment in 2018. or 2019 of like, maybe this is the world that me and my friends have wrought, and maybe someone is explaining that back in even heat. But, you know, I tried to reach out to him and say, let's have a conversation about it, but to no avail. Well, Larry, if you happen to be watching or miss this summers, if you happen to be watching and you want to know more, reach out. I found his number. And the Epstein files. I've been thinking about Chuck. I've been thinking about what should we call him? That we could.

I do have this number. We call him. What a brilliant idea. To do it. We should call him. It's called that illegal? I don't know, why. Would it be illegal? Right. Okay, well. Telephone number. Okay. Well, well, we tried, we tried. Larry hit us up. Yeah, hit us up. Very interesting. And he's probably like, I don't recognized incoming. Right. I'm not in the network. Yeah. You're not in the in the network. You know the value being in the network. I'm not in the network.

You're not in the network. Well, the other I'm sort of the opposite of being in the network. Yeah, well, you're poking at the network, right? Although the network is now available for everybody to see. Right. That's what's interesting about this too. And I mean, the thing that we don't see and I wonder if there are lots of emails. from Larry Summers to his wife or to friends going, oh my God, I've got to have dinner with Jeffrey Epstein again. because he's financing my wife's poetry project. He's such a bore or I find him so tedious. He's always trying to force Barack on me.

I mean, we don't know whether or not that's okay. Oh, I thought a lot about this. Outside. Yes. Outside of the dinner with Woody Allen. I have the files. Yes. Okay. But here's the thing, right? I actually I'm obsessed with the following. I don't think people have picked up on this enough. If we. somehow got access to, like, all of your emails historically, you've lived a, I would imagine, a. infinitely more noble, less criminal life of Jeffrey Epstein. Well, less criminal. I'm not going to promise it's noble, but certainly less criminal.

If we went through all your emails or if you went through all of mine, you'd find thousands and that you'd find a certain number of emails. where people were mad at us. People thought we'd failed morally in a certain way. People felt betrayed by something. People didn't like a thing we did, thing. We said whatever, right? I think that would be for most people. So we have, like all of Epstein's emails, right? Or not all. But a lot. Everyone is talking about what's in there.

Here's what's not in there. We have. all these emails with all these people emailing everything. There's no breakup emails. There's no emails. When people found out more isn't 2018. We have those emails too. There's no one saying, I didn't know, but I read the story. Now you are despicable. Never call me again. Not one email that I've seen. We don't have people. We don't have women who we're associates of. I'm saying, wow, I didn't know this before. or I didn't know the extent of it, but now I'm finding out you are garbage.

Like, we know, angry emails, you know, breakup emails with nothing. It's a great point, actually. Well, think about. All right. Well, we have we have his inbox, right? Like, even after he died, there's a couple people who email. that after he died being like, haha, you are dead. Oh really? A couple people. I don't think they knew him. Right? There's one person who wrote a woman who wrote a. maybe after his arrest or maybe an after his dead, a kind. I'm I'm so sorry this happened, but I really want to like, underline for people.

in a normal person's inbox, just through the ups. and downs of life and leaving jobs and firing, you know, there's some people don't like you. This guy, these people were so afraid. And I have a theory of why that there's no such emails. And my theory of why. In this Epstein class series, we have the first installment. we did was about courage and the total absence of courage. If,

these women were raped and trafficked by Epstein. and Maxwell and a small number of other people, but. they were there. Abuse was enabled by the silence and complicity. and overlooking and looking away a much larger number of people. And I don't think you get the former without the letter. And I think it a lot of what happened in this network. has to do with the way courage dissipates, evaporates.

in an age of. networks like ours, where again, going back to that old example, if you if your power consists of a thousand acres of land. and a stone house that's been in the family 20 years. and certain kind of custodial like relationships, patrimonial relationships to the people around you, like. that's a power that can vanish in an instant, right? Governments come and go, intellectual fashions come and go. Industries come and go like you're still that guy, right?

And you could think about being a wealthy, you know, landowner in Uttar. Pradesh, in India, or you could think about being like, you know, all kinds of different versions of that kind of elite. in this hyper networks. Davos man, elite, your wealth is your connections. and your the density and breadth of your connection. So these are the people and that means that you can operate. on a global scale that, like our ancestors would have found breathtaking. Right. You can sit where in the interactive company corporation building,

you can have an idea sitting in this building for, you know, a small towns in China really need this thing. And like, you could get a few people together and make that in this building and like, you could conquer with a few keystrokes the market of small towns in China. You think like that's unimaginable for our ancestors. However, that's power of networks in one way. But your downfall can also cascade with similar speed, right? Getting fired from a job doesn't just mean you kind of fire in the network, right?

Everyone knows stop being useful to people. And so there is a lack of courage that I think has developed in the age of, of networks, hyper connected networks. And so when I look at that inbox, even after people got to know, even after Julie Brown's heroic. reporting in 2018 where no one could say they and after that, even after he died, that people didn't have the bravery. to break up with him. That's very interesting.

And also, in fact, what you see is the opposite. You have people reaching out. I mean, Peter Mandelson, after the first time he was found guilty, saying this would never have happened in Europe. I stand by you. I am proud to call you my friend. I didn't know Britain was still in your early, Well, good. It was bad. Oh, right, right, right. It was bad. But that sense of people actually coming to his aid. and saying this is all about managing your reputation.

And, you know, Peggy Siegel, they're a renowned publicist who up. until then have been, you know, sort of as the queen of the Oscar campaigns, prostituting herself to help him. get back into polite society. I mean, I'm going to quote Virginia Giuffre, who wrote Nobody's Girl again. This is a, I think an interview she did with 60 minutes in Australia,

where she was living. She, she said, you know, this was not a normal human trafficking situation. This is not like a shady guy at the mall who grabs a girl and, and is, you know, these are not like these are Eastern European networks. And we sometimes read about, you know, these are some of the most wealthy, powerful people in the world. She's like, I was trafficked to royalties. I was traffic to, you know, very prime people, prime ministers, all of that. And then she used a phrase, she said, this is this is that world.

It's corrupt. It's corrupt to the core. When she says, this is corrupt to the core, she is not. ring fencing her analysis to what occurred in the massage room. She rightly is understanding from her own deepest, most barbaric lived experience and she's now no longer with us. She is understanding what happened in the massage room. as enabled by many concentric circles of enablement,

starting with people who did the act side with other people, didn't do it but knew about it and had no problem with it, citing. what other people who sort of knew but didn't. Poker getting all the way out to people who maybe didn't know about the actual. act, but knew enough to not hang out with those people to raise more questions. But when she describes a world order that is kind of corrupt to the core, she is not talking about the rape of one girl by white man, right? She is talking about thousands and thousands and thousands of people. And no, if you don't want to listen to me, fine.

But I would urge people listening to this to take seriously. someone who has more reason than any of us. to be focused on the actual sex crimes. She was a victim of the act because those were those were not abstract. Those were one body at another body or two bodies, another body. And her body was the one being violated and moved around. But if she is telling us, don't just stop. at one body to to another body. Look at, look at the inside, the body politic, let's say, yeah,

look at this corrupt to the court order. I think we owe her. And these are the survivors that work. Okay. So in your in your series, the Epstein class on Inc, on Substack, you talk about how there are just women are missing, grown up women are missing. There are lots of girls floating around and having talked to people who hung out. Epstein's house, you know, these sorts of, one person described as sort of gallery girls, you know, dressed in black. They've got long hair. They're very pretty.

Some of them have a clipboards. They're sort of floating around. It's kind of, you know, cloak for it. I was not expecting well, the clipboard, which is got people's names. or maybe what they like. or this person only drinks, you know, bone broth or whatever, because Epstein. was very good at sort of paying attention to people's specific needs. To your point, why were the no grown up women at the table? So I, you know, I had spent so much time with the emails. Is that which is which is what a lot of what we've been talking about.

is from since November, when the first big tranche came out. So several months reading the emails and at some point it occurred to me that, you know, there was other types of files released. I should I should look at those. I'm kind of a text person, so I always focus on. written the written word, but maybe I should look at the photos. So there's, you know, and these incredible people, by the way, who deserve a plug at J mail, you know, these people. Oh yeah. Set up, you know, set up a Gmail inbox. lookalike replica of what his email, his all his Google products would have looked.

like by kind of populating these files, which are basically these scanned PDFs. They have digitized it all and like put it into his. So you can just kind of go to JML Dot world. We'll tell people how we find it. So I think they mail Dot world and you can it looks like a Gmail box. except it's his Gmail box right. And then if you search someone's name, it'd be like you're searching his inbox. It's heroic. Heroic work. I think they take donations. So you should you should support them.

But then they also broadened it. So you can go to, you know, J photos or whatever, the same way you would. in your own, in your own Gmail, in your Google Photos. So they've taken all the photos now. It's, it's it's just extraordinary. So. so I decided, okay, I'm going to read the photos next. And, you know, thousands of photos. So I start looking through the photos and. You know, it takes sometimes and I like to sometimes do this work. We just immerse yourself in a sea of something. and you don't know what it is.

And, you know, I think of writing as a kind of meaning making process. And the meaning is. not if you're if you're serious about it, you don't know the meaning in advance. Right? We've all go in and you're paying attention. and you're kind of open in connections, right? We I mean, you can also do the other thing where you just like, know your idea and you're going in to look for something, but, you know, with something like this, it's really helpful. That should be a little blank. Like what? What am I seeing. So obviously it's sex crimes investigation. So there's women and girls all over these pictures. They're. generally redacted to this kind of these black squares.

And then the men are not redacted. So there's this kind of thing of all these redacted women and girls, and all you see is like, you know, some of these gross men's. arms around waists and holding them sitting on laps or whatever. First of all, just like, well, you see the disparity of power, right? So starkly. And, you know, you and I both live in New York. We know it's not the actual guys. Like, we know this kind of guy. And like, these guys are so deluded into thinking.

that the women are enjoying themselves as much as they are. Like, the guys are just the guys have the smiles of men who think. that this is, coerced, like sitting right, that that this woman is enjoying. your company rather than she doesn't have access to her passport anymore. These are guys who don't recognize the difference between a a hug. or a sideways hug. That is, from. like, flirtation or curiosity versus like, I don't have access to my passport and I'm afraid I might be killed.

So those are really different vibes from a woman. that you should be able to pick up on. But a lot of these guys can't do that. And was that one of the was that one of the, things that Epstein did? He just kept these girls past? I mean, I certainly for some of them. Right. Which is almost like definition of human trafficking. Right? Right, right. It's about that. Yeah. Again, just think about that for a second. Like to go back to the beginning of our conversation. These are these are men who even separate and apart.

from their kind of sexual behavior, value. These are, like most of us keep our passport in like some drawer at home, like visa. People keep it on them at all times because you never know. Are we going to go tomorrow? Right. Okay. That's a good. These are people whose like, passport freedom. is more central to them than to almost anybody on the planet. Right. And they really avail of the passport. Right. So doubly ironic that they would someone who doesn't have access to their passport. What's the first thing they lock up? Right. It's like, oh, authoritarians, the first thing they ban is speech.

Like they understand which thing to ban first. Right. Or association. It's like the passport men. knew that the first thing you want to tie down is the passport. of someone you have as a victim like this, because they understand the freedom that. a passport entails. So, so you have this, you know, these men. who are just, like, with this kind of grin of delusion, not realizing that these women are not actually enjoying themselves. as much as they might be, you know, seeming to,

and I kept looking through the photos, and then I just started to notice this, like, weird thing, and I had no framework. for it. At first. I was just noticing that in a small subset of these photos, it was meal time. It was like a table or the equation. Half of the table had, you know, some drinks on it. Often red wine, often food plates. or d'oeuvres.

And suddenly in this picture, something dramatically changed. So there was kind of, and going back to that, that word interesting. These guys really pride themselves on being like real, real intellectuals, even if they're here, they like three ideas and they're all from Yuval Harari sapiens book. Right. Of course, that the hero of these people everybody loves read terrorist books. They love his they love his ideas. They got three of them from this book. However many there are in his book, they have three lists of theories. I remember those that were sweeping through Silicon Valley.

And every time I talked to someone there, they were like, oh my God, you have to read sapiens. Yeah. And it was like, actually, I did some of this at school. I mean, which is what I'm saying about it, because I've read the book in the book and the books are good, but the authors are often smarter than, than the, than readers like that. So, so there's at these tables, there's like, there's a lot of people having like focus, intense covers. You can tell it's like it's like probably like you and I look right now having like. a real intense conversation.

And something really. strange happens in the photos, which is the women. and girls are gone. They are everywhere in this photo archive. Right. It's a sex crimes investigation. Right. But you add food, you had a table, you put food on it, you put wine on it, and you have, like, intellectual, intense conversation around it. No women and girls generally. Ghislaine was in some of them. But it was really striking once you noticed it.

and, and I would say not particularly typical of anything that I've, you know, of some of these worlds that we're talking about, like very weird. And I and I spent a lot of time thinking about it. and kind of reading the photos, the text, and having read all the emails, thinking. about not all the emails since, but having read all of the initial tranche in November. What does this mean? What what are we seeing here when we see this? Why are women and girls so central in this world? This is what this whole thing was about, giving people access to women and girls.

was giving like gross finance guys, right? Access to women. It was the whole thing. All nerdy, academic, all of that. Right. So why suddenly, I don't know, I, I, I, I said to you when we were. emailing yesterday like I. eating at a. table with men and women, but like the company of women is a. I find a I found a lovely, charming thing my entire life. Like I've never aspired to a table just like evacuated of women. Like what? What's what's the deal? And I think the more I thought about it and put it together with everything else,

it just seemed to me that the number one fear of men in this world. would be like a 40 year old woman with opinions like their whole life. would be organized to avoid. the problem of 40. And I think forced dependance. Young right, young, right, right. I mean, certainly anybody older than that is like 90, right? But my point is. what? These guys don't want friction.

As we talked about, they don't want push back. They don't want to have to. argue. They don't want resistance in any form. And I think in that, in that piece, which we called never with women, they associate friction and resistance with all kinds of disparate things. That may seem disparate to you, but I think in their mind are all just. different flavors of resistance that they don't have to deal with. Stand in an airport line is one of them, right? I think a strong woman with opinions is another,

a 15 year old girl or a really grateful, like, 23 year old Estonian model. who just got to America two weeks ago, whose passport is in the safe. Those women are okay, because my guess is. those women are probably not going to tell you. your idea is full of shit because, like, they're probably afraid for their lives. If they do so, they are giving a vibe. that is probably like friction free for you.

I think these same guys, you got to remember, it's the same guys who, with the same. like stubby thumbs, are tapping an email about girls in one minute about antitrust. regulation, another about their private jet flight later that afternoon. It's it's the same guys, right? We know this from the emails. And I think women are resistance. I think regulators are resistance. Definitely got the government trying to regulate. what you want to do is resistance.

I think, you know, the idea of having to justify yourself. intellectually is, is resistance. And again, it's you want to be careful. Now, part of what we've tried to do in the Epstein class series is a. is an inherently dangerous and fraught thing. that I try to be very careful with, but I want to do it anyway, which is. there's a school of thought that would say. you got like really barbaric pedophilia at the heart of this. Like, don't connect that to. anything else like that is its own circle of hell, its own barbarism.

Like, don't draw lines from it to anything else because, you know, and I think there's truth to that. Like it is its own barbarism. Like you don't want to compare. It's just like it's own thing. Right? It's the kind of Godwin's Law thing about about the Holocaust. Like you don't want to make comparisons of things lightly. Having spent a lot of time in these files, a lot of time in the photos, a lot of times the emails I and a lot of time reading books. like Nobody's Girl, the testimonies, survivors. I think it's actually essential to make the connection.

between the extreme illegal and depraved behavior at the core. and other behaviors, including behaviors of people. who would never do those things, who didn't do right, right, right. And this notion of resistance, I think, is an example of a of a behavior. that, in its most extreme form at the core, is like. for a small number of these guys, let's say, or whatever number of these guys, the desire for resistance free, you know, acting on the world of that resistance is child rape, right?

That is the reductio ad absurdum of a powerful man. who literally wants no resistance, of having, you know, raping a 15 year old girl provided to you by Jeffrey Epstein. Is that. But I don't think you can end the analysis there. I think a lot of these guys, in part. because those guys were also emailing about all this other stuff, but in general, this group of people around him. Right? I've seen also didn't want resistance in all the other forms.

The link is these are people who don't like the idea of being told. no, who are not told now, and some of them are not told now. in the bedroom or the massage room on Rape Island. Some of them had never been to rape. I don't have no connection to that, but just don't like being told no. You know when they're running their company and want to, you know, acquire another company. These are people who expect impunity. These are people who take any kind of resistance. to their projects and their ends very seriously and very personally.

And again, I want to be clear that you have to be careful in this analysis, but, you know, part of what we've done in this series is insist on not siloing. the sex crimes, understanding. the sex crimes as something that never would have happened. without so many structures of belief, values, incentives. Ideas of what is normal and not normal. This is a group of men,

a subset of whom were criminal and engage in criminal behavior. Most of whom were probably not, who nonetheless expect to operate on our society. without the slightest bit of resistance. Okay, so I'm going to push back on one thing, and I think it's a very interesting analysis. And in terms of the Epstein network, it makes total sense. I bet if you hand in your manuscript to your editor. and they come back and say, no, no, no, no, we're not doing it like this.

Although you would feel. you would push back, wouldn't you? You strike me as someone that just wants on individual points. Maybe. But no, no. And this is really important. There are some writers like that. I'm not like I crave editing because I have a sense of my limitations. Right? I crave editing when I was coming up. Now I now I really use my actual editors. when my first couple books. Right. Think about a cumbersome this is my first couple books.

I gave the word doc of those books. to like 20 to 25 people. before like final submission and got like. all kinds of people to read them and they all very generously made changes. And I incorporated like 25 people's edits of my book into my book. I have no insecurity about not getting to act on the world through my book. Like that does. That book is my words. It's my darling. It's what I've been spending years on. I welcome the friction.

I think normal people understand their own limitations. I don't know everything. I do have blind spots. I that to me is is normal. You know, it's like in parenting, right? The, the worst parent is not the parent. who doesn't know how to do a certain thing. The worst parent, the one who can admit that they don't know certain things, they're totally right. And to be able to go to your I go to my eight year. old and ten year old every now and then, I said, I got really angry about that thing yesterday. I shouldn't have gotten that angry, right?

It's not the not getting angry part that you should try to aspire to as a parent, as long as you can the next day be like, that was that was wrong. If you're going to write that power imbalance and say, I shouldn't have yelled. like that, that wasn't right, or you kids are going to be okay. So it's the expectation. of no one else knows anything. I am like the Grand Wizard of how the world should be. I think we all have egos and we.

But I do think people in this group are special in this way. They do have a special intolerance for being questioned and a special. entitlement. And I think, Jeffrey, I mean, you know, reading them, I love your terminology of the Grand Wizard. He felt like the grand wizard at the center of this. And the people that he collected around him. gave him special powers. And, you know, it's so interesting that. that we now have, you know, when you think about.

Virginia Giuffre being at in the spa at Mar-A-Lago, and that's how she is brought into his world. And you think about the fact that the American president now. is someone who was. close friends with this guy. You think about former president Bill Clinton was. not a lot in common. with Donald Trump politically, but but Trump was a Democrat.

What does it tell you in Virginia? Giuffre talks about a corrupt to the core. What does it tell you that this person. we've been talking about a lot of individuals here. naming individual names, which is which is useful, but what does it tell you about our society that this person. was able to worm his way. into a Democratic president? Life. And a Republican future in both cases, president's life.

What does it tell you that this person was able to go warm his way. deep into Harvard, deep into MIT. That he was affiliated people who Google. the Gates Foundation, Goldman Sachs. I mean at some point these are going down the list. This is just like. the major institutions of the American. establishment and power elite. And.

You know, if you right now. were to go downstairs and go to, go to a little food cart and. by chance you get a bad, bad kebab or bad. hotdog and it's got a little bacteria in it. Your body has a whole bunch of processes. for getting that out, interdicting it, noticing. It's incredible. Your body just knows, like that's not supposed to be in here. And your body will get it out very fast. Hopefully.

That kind of reaction did not happen here. This was a this is almost like a perfect parent. This is like human salmonella, right? Jeffrey Epstein right. A poisonous kind of malignant person. put into the body politic of American life here. He's passing through Harvard here. He's passing through Google here. He's passing through the Gates Foundation here. He's right. All the organs. It's the American half thinking about it.

And like there was no there was just no histamine reaction. There was no vomiting. There was no nausea. There was no diarrhea. I'm sorry that like, none of the none of the processes. that you might imagine would, would kick in. if a fucking monster. was passing through these various organs, literally, like it's the dog that didn't bark like none of that happened. None of that happened. Have you heard? You know, a lot of people. have you heard of one dinner in New York that blew up where he was at the table?

Maybe Peggy Siegel or something. Have you heard of one dinner where someone was like, this guy is at the table, fuck this. And walked out one time? Have you heard of one such event? I'm just saying, you think about, you know, you did your hundreds of meals. There were hundreds of seminars at Harvard. Just think about it. But what what what we're left with. Forget him. Think about the organs. To go back to that metaphor. Not the bad piece of food.

The bad piece of food is just a test. Think of all the organs. that we have now found out. Lack the capacity. to notice, to react to, and to expunge. this vileness. We've learned so much about our heart, our lungs, our stomach, our guts. That's what we've learned about through this. We have learned about the system.

He's gone. We are, unfortunately. still living under all of the institutions. and even the types of people and the incentives and structures. that almost universally had no problem with him. Do you think there is another Epstein up? Sure. I don't know that it would. When you say another Epstein, I mean, are there. powerful men with these kind of behaviors? Sure. The level of connectedness.

and the level of cultivate, like, he was singular. You know, I think partly. because most people who are so careful. to collect people in this way, I think that the combination of that with this, like utter recklessness. in other areas, is a little bit of a unique. fingerprint that he had, but sure, there, you know, I mean, it's a little bit. like when the Weinstein thing came out, which is different.

But again, it was like. how many thousand people knew or at 100, I don't know. Whatever your estimate is, there's lots of assistants, there's lots of lawyers, there's lots of people signing NDAs. There's lots of subtle. I mean, at some point you start adding it all up. Thousands of people. Right. How do you how do we keep achieving? And I'm not a conspiracy theorist. So it's really important to say, like, this is not a conspiracy. in the sense that this is uncoordinated behavior.

That's what's so scary. This is uncoordinated silence in a way that resembles coordination. You would think you could only get this level of like, all these institutions. not having a problem through massive acts of coordination. But it turns out you can get that same kind of coordinated like result. Uncoordinated. Lee, if you share a culture. in which impunity is valued, in which people with power deserve infinite second chances,

in which rich people get away with all sorts of things in. which women are not valued in general, and certainly live valued less. if they are younger and have less money, and maybe their passports. locked away somewhere. With this story, it's really important to not. I think, and again, that's why we call it the obscene. class, not the obscene man or the obscene whatever. Like. this story is a map of our governing elite.

These are the institutions that are financing your mortgage, shaping what kind of education your kids get. Deciding what kind of food you eat. You know, I mean, everything. And deciding where your kids go to school. Everything. And it's. It seems to me you deserve to know as a person out there, the kinds of attitudes, the kinds of values, the kinds of contempt. for you, the kinds of,

the kinds of, I guess, fantasy of their own omnipotence. and sense of your utter disposability. that a lot of people in this world have. We deserve to know what products you use on your hair. Wow. This is our second ad break. This could. Yeah, this could be a very, lucrative business. So good. I know so many people who are just thinking. How do I get my hair like that? You can.

I am going to help you. Even help you. Right now. There is a, There is a company called. character mix, a wax stick, normally wax you get to put your hands in. But I don't like that. It's a little wax. It looks like a deodorant stick. Except it's wax. Yeah. Roll it in there. Shake it up. Takes about five, seven seconds. It's fantastic. And there we go. It's so interesting talking to you. I long for you to come back because. Because I feel like we barely uncovered what's in that is part one. I mean, it's really honestly, it's part one. I want you to come back in two weeks and can we do part two?

I'm very happy to, because we haven't really talked. about what the Epstein files tell us about Donald Trump. And I would love to delve into characters like Leon Black. And again, this sort of sense of the, the violence underneath it all, too. I mean, I think that's one of the really alarming things that comes out of this. Not that not only does it show us what a corrupt governing body. that that we have, but also the violence. and the violence against women and the conversations.

One of the things I found. most shocking, that I would love for you to come back on and, and sort of, debrief on is, is the language around women the way men talk about women? It's just so it's violent and it's depressing. It is. And it explains a lot of explains a lot. about how hard things can be for. women in, in a culture that still feels, I mean, the sorts of whining conversations that the men have about me.

Me too. And this sort of puerile and juvenile conversations they have witnessed. Peter Attia, and actually Deepak Chopra and these people. that we've held up a spiritual leaders, a really alarming. But I feel like it's a different conversation. It is. But I will say, you know, I think, You know, like you, I've known people who are kind of adjacent to that world or intersected with it.

And one experience I had when. we first moved to New York, my wife and I prior, we would sometimes go to an event or go to, go to a dinner party. and there'd be some of these types of people, and I would have a, you know, decent enough time. And, and on the way home in the subway, often, my wife Priya would have had a very different experience.

Nothing. Nothing toxic or abusive, just not in this kind of harassment realm, but more the feeling that no men there. were interested in anything a woman had to say. And having I did not have that experience in any of these dinners, but I often sat on the train. heading back to Brooklyn with prayer. And realized there was like a different, there was like a different experience.

of that night that a lot of the women there would have had, which is not. And I started to see it and recognize it. I mean, you know, actually, we talked about this the other day. Priya was sitting a few weeks ago, a few months ago. We're in a, a kind of a fundraising dinner and prayer. sat next to one of the preeminent scholars in the world. You know, literature, literature scholars, and I watch I couldn't hear the conversation. I watched I watched her trying this topic, that topic.

And I watched this kind of older man just. Kind of seem. bored of her and kind of seeing prayer as one of the most. interesting women I read, spoken to in my life. I stole her from her boyfriend for a reason. And to watch this older man who, by the way, teaches, teaches. He teaches 20 year olds, including presumably a large number of women to. And she just told me there was just no way.

that he could, in his mind, contemplate the idea. that she would have anything interesting to say. And eventually their conversation fizzled. I watched that and they just stopped talking and kind of hit. And then someone else, I think across or something, said a prayer. Something about her book, the Art of gathering, which is an amazing book. And he's like your book change. And then you could see this guy. realizing. that he. he's like the worst archeologist ever who just had, like,

failed to find any bones with a lot of it. But there was a huge dinosaur fossils sitting right there and, you know, but in his patriarchal view of the world, he just couldn't contemplate that again. Woman in her low 40s could have anything to tell him. Presumably, he would have wished. she was half her age. Or maybe if she was some very senior colleague of his, that he would have been, you know, cowed by the president of his university or something.

All of which is to say, is these behaviors. sometimes and as in the Epstein case, culminate in the extreme acts of, you know, criminality that we're talking about. But they they're occurring every day, all day. And I remember being at those dinners and, and, and, and just the, the base. layer of some of these guys who just basically do not think of women.

As for people, well, it's interesting. I went to a dinner last week. I think a lot of women feel it's. because of the approach of the Trump government to die. That. they're now being silenced or not heard. And I went to a dinner last week, which was all women, very senior. women, several of whom were extremely well known, all of whom were saying they didn't feel they had a platform. They couldn't say things that they wanted to say, that they would be penalized. for saying them, and that nobody wants to hear women anymore anyway.

They definitely want to hear you. I want to hear women. Well, and I don't feel silenced happily because we have the database platform. But it's an absolute joy to talk to you. And I really enjoyed your book. Winners Take All and we should we should also talk about that. But you have a new book coming out to which I want you to tell people about. It's it's coming out it, it's a, it's coming out in September. It's called man in the mirror. It is some folks will remember,

you know, what was the kind of, in. some ways a, a tabloid story, in New York City from from, two and a half years ago, three years ago, almost, where, Jordan Neely, young black, homeless man. whose struggle with mental illness was on a subway train uptown f train, and began sort of acting out and and saying he was hungry and wanted. food, was ready to die, ready to go back to prison. Threw his jacket to the ground.

Having a kind of, you know, psychiatric crisis. and a, young white man named Daniel Penny was a former U.S. marine, in the out of a desire to to, kind of restrain him. Came up from behind him, put his, put him in a chokehold, dropped him. to the ground and held him, for 5. or 6 minutes, eventually killing him.

And this was at 230 in the afternoon, 230 in the afternoon. Lafayette. And this case became an American Rorschach test very quickly. What did you see? Did you see heroism on the part of Daniel Penny? You see white vigilantism. Did you see a city run amok? Did you see, you know, authoritarianism descending in America and trumps, you know, paramilitaries, like every, every kind of theory, notion, fantasy of what is going on.

kind of came into this case. And so I spent the last in a few years going deep, not just into this case, but into this city. And the question of our cities and fear and safety and danger and, people trying to figure out. very difficult questions of homelessness and mental illness. But this is the most reported embedded street level book I've ever done. This is just like it is not a it's not a you've heard a lot of my opinions. and it's not an opinion book. It's a deeply reported human story of people on all sides of these questions,

living with some of the hardest problems our country faces. And it's a kind of immersive narrative of like 8 or 10 people, kind of living through these questions in New York. And I think ultimately it's a book about it's a portrait of this age, and it's a portrait of an age of division, and it's a portrait of, people struggling for humanity against tremendous odds. Well, it sounds fascinating. I live above the subway. station, actually, where it took place, so I'm particularly interested to read it.

And there's a lot of homelessness and mental illness. right around that subway station, because there's a methadone clinic nearby, which I'm sure you know. And, well, complicated story. And I had lots of arguments with people about it because, as you say, it was Roth's rule suck test for what people think. Anyway, it's out in September, so we'll have you back to talk about that. But we will have you back in two weeks to talk more about the Epstein files.

and what they reveal. And I would love to go into the Deepak Chopra emails. and the Peter Attia emails. Just these guys that so. they could have conversations like this and none of us would find out. Yeah, what a world, what a world. Happily, we have you as our guide through it. I'm happy to chat with you. I wish it was under, better email circumstances, but. But it's revelatory. And,

And people have been held to account. Some people have been. my Angela says right when people show you who they are, believe them. Right. When the power structure of your world shows you who it is. Like this. This is a rare and historic glimpse. Take the view. I love Annan's. observation that women were missing from these conversations. There were girls, girls everywhere, but there were no women at the table.

with these guys because they don't care about women's ideas. I found the conversation really fascinating, and the thing I love. is that, and that sort of comes from a very privileged world. He went to Sidwell Friends, he went to the University of Michigan and to Harvard. He worked at the New York Times. So he's been inside these institutions. And it's not, as he says, like it is in television dramas. People don't behave like that.

That's television, that's drama. And what I loved was his just insights into. how the rich live slightly divorced from communities. They they travel, they feel very comfortable. on their private plane, wherever they're going, high above it or high above the rest of us. And I thought it was, well, we'll be back for more. All right. We'll be back for more. But tell us what your favorite part of the conversation was. and what questions I should have asked him so I can ask him next time.

And I'm so excited to recommend a new podcast called The Royals. by The Daily Beast, very own Tom Sykes. He is unparalleled in his reporting. and his fearlessness about the Royal family. He's got unbelievable connections and he's unafraid to tell us things. that a lot of royal correspondents in the UK simply cannot tell us. So check it out. The royal list, wherever you get your podcasts.

Well, strap yourself in because he's got some scoops. And if you have been, thank you for joining us. Don't forget to share this with a friend. Please press our subscribe button for extra content. And we really appreciate our best tier of membership. because as our first Lady would have us all beast. So the good news is we have so many beast tier members now.

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