Why Epstein Is Trump’s Defining Crime: Rothkopf | The Daily Beast Podcast

The reason I have hope is that in 2026, the majority of voters will have both. been born since 1990, that they will demand change. And unwittingly, Donald Trump's government will have pushed. that change by releasing the Epstein files and by being Donald Trump. I mean, you know, because he's the most vile human being. that the United States has ever produced and he's surrounded by vile people. I think that cover up that Trump and Pam Bondi,

Todd Blanch are involved and right now is a huge crime. I'm Joanna Coles, this is the Daily Beast podcast. And if like me, you are having problems. sorting through the Epstein files, like who's guilty? Who knew, who didn't know, who was guilty of bad judgment, who was guilty of actual crimes that involved the more than 1000 women.

who have come forward to say. that they were trafficked or abused by Jeffrey Epstein. Then we have the conversation for you today. with our favorite contributor, David Rothkopf. This is the perfect Sunday conversation, I think, to help process the corruption. at the heart of the Epstein files and its ripple effect. through all sorts of different businesses and through government. So grab yourself a cappuccino.

or whatever your drink of choice is. Could be a bloody mess. It could actually be a double whiskey for this one. And settle in because David Rothkopf, who works for the Clinton administration, who was an entrepreneur and a businessman and of course, was also the editor. of Foreign Policy magazine and is now the founder. of Deep State Radio, which tells you something about his sources. Well, he's whipped up a head of steam here, and he's got theories.

and conspiracies of his own that you're going to want to hear. Let's get to it. David Rothkopf is in the house. David Rothkopf, it's so good to have you here. And though you may not like sitting right in front of a microphone. being grilled by me, I bet it's a better experience. than the one Bill Clinton is having as we speak. Being interrogated by the Oversight committee on his relationship. with Jeffrey Epstein. Thoughts, please.

Given that you works for his Commerce Department. And look, I'm glad that they're testifying. I think that Hillary Clinton put them through the wringer yesterday. because they had no business calling her. She had nothing. I know insane insight. It is a certain kind of insidious sexism, right? It's like, oh, you know, we're getting a bit Bill. and Hillary, they're like a thing, right? We're going to talk to both of them. And of course, Hillary's. the one that left scars on Trump because she beat him in that election. Right? She got more votes than he did.

And that's something that torments him to this day. Of course, she got more in the popular vote right than he did that he did. And that that was sort of under his skin. Now, having said that, you know, asking some questions of Bill. makes more sense given Bill's past, its history and everything else. And I don't know how all that's going to turn out. Although Clinton so far today has already said, you know, that he didn't know that he was doing this stuff. and that wasn't what he was involved in and so forth.

And that may be true. I don't I don't know. Asking questions of. Bill Clinton seems like a reasonable thing for this group to do. And also, Donald Trump has always used Bill Clinton as a political human. shield in a way to say, well, look, I'm not the only person that did this. You know, I'm not the only person that grabbed them by the pussy. Well, I think he's he's used that. But it's a little weird, right? Because, you know, when Bill Clinton was president. 25 years ago. Right? You know, it's it's it's it's a little like.

this is all true with Trump because Trump lives in the 80s. Trump lives in the 90s. He you know, he was a TV star in the 90s. And and you know, that's last century. And you know, saying, oh, we're going to go after the Clintons. It's really kind of showing how out of touch he is. Well, we're following him. This aging boomer. Right. Right, right. I mean, actually, probably all his younger voters. have no idea who the Clintons are.

I mean, except that they're part of MAGA conspiracy, or they might have a little bit of an idea for Hillary because Hillary ran in 2016. But even Hillary running in 2010 years ago is ten years ago. It's a long time ago. And Trump, it's you know, it's just like one of these aging people. who can't get the sons of their youth out of their head, right. You know, he can't you know, he can't move on to whatever the new issues are here. But he also doesn't have that many people to hide behind right now. You know, you say, well, Bill Clinton, you know, he was you know,

he did these things and he had affairs and blah, blah, blah. And that may get him so far. But Bill Clinton's little scandals in Arkansas, wherever he was having. a scandals, is nothing compared to the Epstein Epstein scandal. Well, like Epstein, but I just want to say the Epstein scandal is, is is is. kind of like the scandal that connects everything right now. It is the story of our time because it connects the president.

It connects the Epstein class. It's about inequality in our society. You've got the Russian secret police. You've got the Israeli Mossad. You've got no, there's everything in there. There's famous people and there's crypto and there's murders. And the more we learn about the Epstein scandal, the bigger it gets. Yeah. I mean, I just going to read you a list of the people who've lost their jobs. or lost their roles have been forced to resign because of their proximity.

and bad judgment for hanging out with Epstein. And it's 13 I counted since the release of the file. So we've got Peter Mandelson, the British, you know, former ambassador to Washington, British. We've got Morgan McSweeney. So that's in the UK. We've got bogan, Brander, who is the CEO of the World Economic Forum. Davos, the heart of the liberal aspirational establishment. We've got Brad Karp, the chairman of Paul Weiss. We've got Tom Pritzker, executive chairman of Hyatt Hotels.

We've got Sultan Ahmed bin Sonja Sulayem, who was the chairman of and CEO of DP world. We've got Casey Wasserman, who's now being forced to sell his Wasserman agency. We've got Larry Summers finally stepping down from Harvard. We while we had Joey Ito stepping down from MIT, Richard. Axel this week, Nobel Prize winning neuroscientist resigning from Columbia.

We've got well, we knew about Les Wexner, Peter Attia, the longevity expert and, you know, bestselling author of outlive. Finally, he stepped down from a protein bar company faster than he did from CBS. It is remarkable how wide. And you know. what's really remarkable to me and what you didn't mention Prince Andrew. Oh Prince Andrew, oh my God. Well, he's no longer Prince. He's not. No he's not. I meant and what did he stutter, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor or whatever he is.

Yeah. Of course he totally. So 1414. Yep. You're absolutely right. And then and the number of people who are stewing in their own juices. waiting for the other shoe to fight, and of course, Kathy Ramla, who was forced out as the general counsel from Goldman Sachs. It is remarkable how this thing has just spread its tentacles. And it started as a conspiracy. Right. But it's but we are still in the bad judgment phase of this.

Go on. The bad judgment phase is, well, you were associated with this sleazy guy. Typically you were associated with him after you knew he was a sex criminal. That's what's really doing these people in. We are not at the phase where you know. like Donald Trump is accused of raping somebody. We're not in the phase of. people get murdered. Who's murdering them. We're not at the phase of the incredible, obstruction of justice that's going on right now.

Who's murdering them? Did you just say that? Who's been murdered? Think about Ghislaine, right? Her father was murdered. By who was he? He jumped. Oh. Well, okay. Do we know? No. He left. What we know is a perfectly good boat. Know what went into the water? So what we know is he plundered. the mirror Group pension fund to the tune of half 1 billion pounds. And this 30 years ago. And he was.

It was closing in on him. He knew he was beginning to move money everywhere to try and keep himself right. And it may be, as it turns out, he didn't float, but it may be. too soon, if maybe not. It's so bad, but it may be so. I'm so sorry to offend you, but it may be that that's why he died. And it may be that there were people who were tied to his financial dealings, who didn't want his financial dealings to come out.

But my point is, here's Glenn, whose father dies. under mysterious circumstances. Her best buddy, Jeffrey Epstein, dies under mysterious circumstances. This French modeling dude, John Le Brunel, John Le Brunel, commits suicide. In the midst of this whole thing. She knows, right? She knows that she lives in a world of silence or death. Because, you know, I mean, it's also an interesting part of this thing, right?

Even I like 2 or 3 years ago, if you said to me, Jeffrey Epstein, was murdered, I got. Really? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I think we're all thinking now that we're all look at this stuff, and you're like, there's something here. There's something he says. There's something weird. It's not just the missing videotapes or Bill Barr going to see him in advance. and so forth. And, you know, the more you learn that people like the Russians think he was moving money. for the Russians and was providing financial advice for Putin,

and he was dealing with the Mossad, and there are all these people. who would really be in hot water. if Jeffrey Epstein started to crack. Right. We also know that his, like brother was like, oh, he's got a plea deal working. You know, things are going to be fine. So it didn't seem like it was going to crack. So. But anyway, the point is you pick a story. Inequality in America. Political corruption in America. Political corruption in our ruling classes.

A broken justice system. You know, all these things that are sort of signatures of our time. And here is Epstein. And then in the middle of that, mentioned thousands upon thousands of time, you have this sort of, you know, well, did you see the interview. that was done today on Fox News with the FCC chairman, Carr? Brendan Carr? I did not tell Maria Bartiromo, who's a total tool of of of of of Trump.

Trump, you know, was talking about Trump and Brendan Carr was saying. that Donald Trump is the political colossus of our times. Well, he certainly a colossus, certainly a colossus. Right. And that and right, you know, even mentioning Stephen Job. But, his spokesperson, who is saying you need to be on the fat. drug, right, who's also known as the human thumb and a few other things. We're human thumb. Yeah, because he looks like a.

Oh, because he looks like a thumb. Okay, I didn't I hadn't heard the human thumb. Stephen. Interesting nickname for you. Yeah. Hi, Stephen. Nice to see you again. But that. But Stephen is always calling me a lying sack of shit. Just. Just for the record. So people know, you know, know your biases. And Stephen's people that who you reached out to said that I was a no name nothing. That's right. No name. Nothing. Yes. That's right. So yeah. Yeah. So we're we're we're at the forefront of their consciousness. Right. But. in any event you know, I think in the,

you know, then in the middle of this story, you have the most important political figure of the past. 15 years in the United States, maybe of this century. in the United States, in Donald Trump, in a scandal. that is an absolute manifestation of everything who he is, right? I mean, this is like this, you know, some some leaders have a signature accomplishment. Donald Trump has many, many scandals. But this is his signature scandal, right? The Epstein Epstein scandal, right way of thinking.

Oh, right. Because it's his sense of impunity. It's his weird, you know, his weird sexual history. But with, pageants and pageant girls and one modeling agency. Right? Right. And setting up companies that he could then examine women naked, which we know. from his Miss Universe, but which he did if he walked into the competitions. And so for in fact, we have something really interesting coming up that I'm sure.

your, listeners here do not want to miss because, you know, they all release this on a Sunday, I guess. So starting off the week, you know, it's happening on Monday. But, you know, he's presiding over the UN Security Council on Monday. Melania? Melania is presiding over the UN Security Council. Yeah. Apparently there's some issues that she is interested in. And because she's the queen of America, because I can think of no, really, she's a she's a movie star. She's the queen of America.

She queen of America. America. Yes, I'm queen of America. It's so alarming to me. Really. I would just like your voice on my answering a phone answering service. Hello, David. Queen of the Queen of America. But. But you know why else watch? Why else? That's a pattern. And it's not because you speak to bad. Yeah. Very cute boy, cute boy, cutest boy. I'm just quoting from her movie, which I know you haven't seen, but I have seen.

Yeah. You did. You were there alone in the theater. I wasn't alone because at the end, I went with a couple of people. And at the end, I keep telling people, listen. And I think it's odd. Two women came up to us who were definitely Russian. and said, you're like, movie. How you like movie? I was like, I love that movie. I love you because I was terrified they were going to take me out of there. I got to tell you, there is some cell. of the. KGB or the FSB, whatever they're called at the moment,

that has a weekly Friday afternoon party, because this operation, it is the most successful. intelligence operation in the history of intelligence operations, where, you know, her father, who was involved, you know, he was in the Communist Party in the, in the, in the party lobby and. Yeah, exactly. And by the way, if you can, who accompanies her everywhere, by the way, and looks like a smaller, slightly more rectangular version of her husband.

Well, he's short is a Slovenian Trumpian looking figure. Matryoshka dolls. Oh, you mean you just realized, right? This is like does. Yeah. Jacob and Donald. And inside is the inside rather than outside. Yeah. Who's in the middle? Vladimir Putin, who has from wildly the Vittoria. But come on. Yeah, yeah. Well, we know that our first lady speaks to Putin to release children.

from Ukraine that they have kidnaped from Ukraine when they all speak to Putin. Wyckoff said a week ago, you know, Vladimir Putin has always been straight with me. Come, come deep breath, deep breath, because he's been straight. with no one else. Steve. Right. I mean, but come on. But you know, that one of them, one of my deepest coffee. I like Steve would coffee bring me the head of Steven vodka. But but one of the things about the whole,

Epstein story is that if you dig deep enough. at the candy coated center. of the story is Russia, Russia, Russia. What do you think? Russia and Israel? Well, we know that there's some overlap between those two things. Not for the first time, by the way. But don't. you think that everybody was paying him and everybody was giving him information, and he was giving information to everybody? I mean, the thing I find truly shocking. is that Peter Mandelson, who twice been fired.

as a cabinet minister, coming back and giving Epstein information. in pretty much real time, I mean, inside information, he was a government minister, I don't know. I know a lot of people in the intelligence community. I do not know a single person who did not think or does not. think from conversations that I've had, that Epstein would not be a target. I mean, think of what Epstein did. What do you mean, a target? Well, it was for an intelligence service to get close to, right?

Because it just like Mar-A-Lago is a target, right? There's a big open door. People can go in, become a member, wander around, see the president, and he's got secret documents in the bathroom. Right. Can you imagine? It's a great bonus of your membership that you get to look. at classified documents when you go to the loo. Well. Well, exactly. I mean, I mean, that's a membership benefit. They will never we'll never know that because of course, now. the courts have said we we can't hear the truth.

And you boo. All right. Well you know that that's you know, this is part of the Department. of Obstruction of Justice sitting there working, covering all this stuff up. But you know, I mean, we're joking and it sounds very conspiratorial and so but. do you don't think Russian intelligence, you just gave the list of names. You don't think they who were financially working with. Epstein, who were, you know, feathering his nest?

Well, and we have I don't think they were gaining access. Right. And, you know whose name people I can hear them are screaming at us right now. What about Bill gates, who this week came out and said, yes, he had had all these science with two Russian girls, right? One a nuclear physicist, all. Mr. gates, tell me about deep security for Microsoft Word. Microsoft Word, how do I use it? And also the Russian bridge. Yeah. She goes she did play bridge because he is a real bridge player.

I don't know, but I'm sure they were both trying to get to the mystery of police. I think they were just trying to have an affair with him to figure out. How on earth do you use Microsoft Word effectively? It is so difficult. Yeah, or why they had that paperclip as the talking paperclip as the symbol. That's a long time ago was talking paperclip. But and the like windows would talk to me about windows 95. I need to talk about windows 95. Kind of cutting edge right now and and no cyber great.

But yeah but but but in any event that the the point is. intelligence services look for access to influential people in a country, ideally in situations where there's compromising factors. where they can provide a little bit of pressure. to get the kind of information that they want. And Epstein's world was, you know, the world's largest honey trap in that regard. And there's no reason to assume that this wasn't going on there. In fact, I thought was kind of interesting yesterday when James Comer,

who's completely corrupt, running the House Oversight Committee, the Republicans got the right who's going in for the, Hillary. hearing said one of the things we want to find out. is the involvement of Epstein with foreign intelligence services, Russians or the Israelis, he said, or our own. And I was like, what does that even mean? Well, you know, that, you know, maybe what they were giving him in violation.

to which he was giving to they were running ops or whatever, you know. But but the point is, these little clusters, these have always existed since the beginning of time. Before there was Epstein, there was some guy who was hosting parties. in, you know, and, and famous people would go to the parties. and they would be a little bit compromised, and they would get drunk. and they would say the wrong things, and they you know, women would be involved. or men would be involved in getting the information out of people. That's that's, you know, these things are magnets for that kind of thing.

And this is how people collect Kompromat. Yeah, that's right. And how they, you know, find people in situations. where they're willing to give a little bit more. I mean, you know, why did Prince Andrew, when they made him a trade minister. against the objections, apparently, of his brother, right. His older brother, a king, the king who was saying, don't do this. He is a ne'er do well Playboy. You know, they made him a trade envoy, right? And so all of a sudden he had all this trade information, right,

which he sent to Jeffrey, which is sent to Jeffrey Epstein in these, you know, emails, which, you know, may you know, be the foundation. for some of the trouble that he ultimately gets into. if he ever gets into any trouble. Right. Public misconduct. Right. Which if he gets charged is probably the thing. he'll be charged with, as with Peter Mandelson giving information. And both of them got things from Jeffrey Epstein, not least staying in his house in in Manhattan. And I, I, I'm fascinated by the fact.

that in a world of Hotels.com and hotels. tonight, are you people still felt they had to stay. But do you think you think he was very plush towels? Well, he may have had very plush towels, but. I mean, it's not Andrew's thing was well, I needed a place to stay. Yeah. And you like really? Because as Hotels.com, do you know how to use the web? You could have stayed with other people. I'm sure you could have stayed with the British consul. I'm sure the British consul wouldn't have wanted him to stay, but I'm sure there's always a room available.

Jeffrey Epstein was saying we have lots of kinds of room service. now, as it happens, as it happens. What? You know, I don't want to make light of it because he was trafficking. women, trans trafficking underage women. He was, you know, abusing them. You know, we can we can we can joke around about. some aspects of this thing because it is so sordid. And these people were such assholes for getting involved in this kind of thing. And they reveal the how fucked up their characters were. But beneath that, there's a crime.

In fact, there's a crime against a thousand women. 1200 women, you know, to the to the extent to which you and agencies look at it. and say, you know, this is, you know, potentially crimes against humanity. This is a this is one of the industrial scale. network of girls that were coming in. I mean, we did a fascinating interview based on a piece in New York magazine, with a writer called E.J. Dickson, who basically looked at the network of doctors.

And what Epstein would do is bring these girls in from Eastern Europe. And he sent them all off to have what he called a sort of pussy track, which was to make sure. that their sexual health was top notch so he would minimize getting diseases. It didn't stop him getting at least gonorrhea twice, too bad. So sad. Jeffrey, I hope it didn't impact your health in any way. But the premeditation and the. scale of the doctor network he built was really eye opening.

Yeah. And you have Dylan, who's, like, sitting there finding people. Talent scout, bringing the men. You have this this modeling agency guy finding them. You know, all those modeling agencies were a little bit dubious. Unquestionably. You know, what was going on in these places. And, you know, Epstein is one of these stories. You know, if anybody thinks, well, the Epstein story, you know, is like, now this is over, you know, the whistle has been blown. and rich guys are not going around doing this kind of thing.

And, you know, getting away with it here and around the world. That's just crazy. This just happens to be. the one that we're, you know, getting a little bit of exposure into. Right. Do you think there are other things going on of this scale? I have no idea. I mean, I all I know is, you know, when, you know, hear stories and you know, well, who's what stories, you know, these other guys. and they've got planes and they're flying around. and they're going, oh, and this a piece in Andrew Lonnie's book,

entitled about Andrew, formerly known as Prince, where he talks about him. going through 40 prostitutes in one weekend when he was in Thailand. and staying at the British government's. expense there, in theory, on business. On official business. Yeah. And I mean, I just think, I mean, you know, look, you know, Pat pong in the middle of Bangkok, is, you know, a famous red light district where all sorts of craziness is going on.

And, you know, there's one in Tokyo and there's, you know, if you used to go to the Metropole Hotel and in Moscow. and you would go down into, you know, there downstairs. there was a disco and so forth, and you go, gee, this is amazing. Number of, you know, six foot tall blond women dancing on the floor here and, you know, and then somebody would knock on your door later at night or, you know, this. Hello, Mr. Rothkopf, I come to talk to you about the Russian affairs, but I'll tell you story because I'm.

the most British person in the world and have no experience to this. I was 23, four years old. I was producing a TV show called the Omni TV show. I flew to Hollywood. I'll keep it as great as I can. I flew to Hollywood. We were producing the opening titles of the show. I stayed at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. I've never I mean, I was like, oh my God, I'm from new Jersey. Gorgeous hotel. This is the real hotel. There's movie stars everywhere. Oh, Mr. Rascoff, oh, we'd like to welcome you to the hotel. And, you know, here is your room and we've upgraded you.

And I was like, well, you know, I'm producing the Omni television. series, obviously, one fronted by Peter Ustinov, hysteria. And it was about science and science fiction. Yeah, very short lived. So but anyway, so I'm there and they and I, there's a suite and I'm like, oh my God, a minute. There's a suite here at the apparently Wilshire Hotel. Now, back in the olden days and the olden days, kids, they're on a phone that you would have a phone hatch to the wall.

with a wire, and there was a little red bulb on the top of it. And if you had a message, the bulb would flash. Right. And so I go, I mean, a handset handset. Yes. Right. And I so I, I got in the room and the little red light was flashing. And so I picked up the phone and they said, oh, Mr. Rothkopf, you have a message. I said, okay, what is the message is that it's candy called, here's her number. And I was like, you weren't. right. Candy was the lady of the night. And well, I didn't know that. Right. But, you know, I put it down.

And then somebody else later told me, I said, oh, you know, that's what that was. There other that was just, you know, a service. No, I did not, didn't you didn't think to call back and say, oh my God, did I leave something in the, in the tax, did. I, didn't it just I had no idea what was going on. But the point was this was apparently common enough. in, you know, that, you know, people would come into the hotel and so, so, you know, this world exists, this demimonde exists,

and people take advantage of it to make deals and to make company. and, and build companies and, and so forth. There is one element of this that I wonder was what happened, Candy, that you were you have a big heart. Oh. Loves it. No, no, you're a very compassionate person. I don't know, but I, I'm pretty sure it wasn't pretty women, woman. You know, which was also in that. Oh, doubt. Right. Well, and also, I think writ large.

for ten years, that movie I mean, I actually think it was. a sort of serious fantasy for both men and women. That movie, they did a lot of weird damage. I agree with you. I agree with you. And you can't look at it. I saw it the other day and I know you just look at it. and you just wince and just think, this is horrifying. The the kind of, fantasizing of the life of a prostitute who meets someone like Rich and. All right, it's. Well, it's like love, actually. They're just some of these movies. You look at them in retrospect, you go, I. I laughed at that. I thought that was okay.

But there is something more serious under here. I mean, you know, we have to have the crime under it. And I do think the intelligence aspect of it is the thing. And I think that cover up that Trump and Pam Bondi. and Todd Blanch are involved in right now is a huge crime. Well, let's just look at the missing picture of Howard Luck next. So he's one of the men. that's also got sideswiped by this because of course, Howard Lightning. lived next door to Jeffrey Epstein, claims he went to his house.

Jeffrey Epstein showed him the massage. But this was a trigger. A red flag to Mr., good old family man Nick, who flees with his wife. and says, I will never again I principles for financial community, indeedy. And then, lo and behold, when the Epstein files dropped, there are emails showing that Howard Laconic was in fact delighted. to go to Epstein's house on the island for lunch as he was taking his boat. with another family. And he takes his family, his kids, his four kids.

and his friends family with their four kids and their nannies. Seven the Island seven years. after after Epstein is convicted of crimes. Right. 77 years. So it's not like, oh, we had no idea. We just thought he was our nice next door neighbor. Right. Well, no. And then what happens is a photo. surfaces in the first drop of Epstein files.

with Howard Rudnick and his kids and Jeffrey Epstein, Jeffrey Epstein in an all white linen outfit. How would look like in an unflattering pair of cargo shorts with a shirt. that's much too long? It's just a fashion aside. And then, miraculously, the the the picture gets taken back. Or removed, deleted from the files on the grounds of nudity. The only nudity in it. A Howard lot next legs. Well and disgusting.

Below the knees. Below the knees. Because the cargo shorts? No, but it is known for particularly ugly calves. But but but but but you know, I mean, worse than that. is, you know, legitimate allegations made under oath about Trump. that are taken off, you know, worse than that or apparently, you know, well, there's 3 million other pages, right? They've only released half of the documents, right, right. And and, you know, they've redacted a lot.

You know, there was a story that one of the things they apparently redacted and again, I just read this online someplace, but the one of the things that appears. to have been redacted, number of documents was the word don't. And and then people are like, but why was the word don't. we're like redacted but of course don't is don't. And so somebody put in a search term. Oh God. Oh it's. And so they I haven't heard that. Yeah. Well you know I've read it someplace but but but but but that was,

you know, redacted in these files. We know that they're hiding stuff. You know, I nobody would be surprised if somebody said, oh, there was a burn. bag accidentally. A bunch of things got put in that. we will never see them again because this this is the. How do you have Todd Blanch as the deputy attorney general of the United States, when his only real qualification was being the defense attorney for Donald Trump? Yep. But I but I do want to say one other little thing, just as a little footnote.

I haven't said it anywhere, but I just think it's worth noting. Right. A bunch of those people you mentioned, no, there is no allegation that those people did. sleazy things. So I think that the assertion is the driver. They were associated with, a sleazy man who did sleazy things. Now we can debate this a lot. Like, for example, Bill Barr, the attorney general turns out, was in the House when maybe some bad things. were being done to to young women. And, you know, if that's the case,

there's more questions to be asked. Because if that's going on in a house you're in, you're you're kind of know it. Right? So that's a, that's a, that's a kind of I mean, well, do you know, it's. I think one of Epstein's great skills was pulling a huge sleight of hand. while other people gave him the veneer of respect. Yeah. Although you know, you go into his house and there's, like, mannequins. and sexy pictures and weird shit hanging around and massage tables.

and all this other stuff. So he was giving out the vibe. But that's not the point that I want to make. But we're gonna ask you something. If you went to someone's house and Bill gates was there, or you. Oh, you saw a picture of the person and you saw a picture of Bill gates. And this ten years ago, not knowing now, Bill gates would act as a kind. of social alibi for them. And that's what Epstein was good at doing, right? Pulling people in. Noam Chomsky, who would have thought Noam Chomsky would be a friend. of Jeffrey Epstein, but he pull these people in as hiding.

for the stuff that he was doing in plain sight. I agree he was trying to legitimize himself. You know, this is a he's the typical yeah, it didn't go to college. The typical arriviste. Right. He gets to town. He wants to meet some people. He becomes a high school teacher at this school run, as it turns out, private school run by Bill bars. Dalton. Right. Well, I don't know what that may have been, but but, but but the point is. And then he starts meeting people and networking.

And one thing leads to another and financial deals happen. And this other thing. What is he doing? Is he trading favors of one sort for another sort? Who knows he's buying. You know, a lot of this world of the Epstein class. is transactional. I'm going to invite you to my parties. You invite me to. You were parties. I can introduce you to this person. Can you introduce me to that person. Oh I have this kind of problem. Can you help me solve that problem which is what an effective network does.

Right. But what does. And at the highest level these networks you know they that's how they're working. all the time. And their connections are better than your connections. My connections. And so they get the bigger payoffs from all this stuff. But I think one of the sort of. elements of this it's. worth noting is all those academic people, the summers and the Noam Chomsky is and all these others. Why were they there?

Because we don't fund academia in our society. And there are looking all the time for rich people to raise money. for like politicians, just like politicians, because that's the way the American system works. We're not a corrupt third world country. We just have a set of rules that say a few people have a lot of money. And if you want to do anything, you want to run for office. You want to teach a program at Harvard, you want to have a ballet company,

you want to you've got to go to this group, this very small group of people, find your way into this group and start asking them for money. And actually, what we haven't seen is the conversations. among people going, oh my God, Jeffrey Epstein's asked me for dinner again. The man is a nightmare. He's such an arriviste. He's always surrounded by girls. But we need access to his money. Or let's try and get in and out within an hour, which is often.

the conversations that people actually have about people like Jeffrey Epstein. Right. And and, you know, or we need access to this other person, and this person is going to be there, and I'm going to show up at these things. Right. And, and people just sort of drop their guard. and they say, okay, hold my nose, get what I need to do. And what you see, what we've seen is the. is the emails to them saying, Jeffrey, what a marvelous evening at your house. I had a fantastic time. You're so erudite.

You never see this stuff. They're actually saying privately about him. Who knows if Larry Summers and Noam Chomsky had a conversation, conversations. said, oh, do you have to suffer through another Epstein dinner? I hope they had these conversations. I don't know, comfort, I hope so. And no, I'm not saying this by any way to sort of get these people off the hook. because the reality is by swarming. Epstein, by coming into these places, they provide him with cover. They provide him with advice. They provide them with, you know, links to this person or that person who can get them out of trouble.

They help, you know, and and so they enable. And that's why if he, you know, is it possible that in the year 2000, you might have known Jeffrey Epstein. and not know that he was sex trafficking or that he was doing this? Yeah, maybe because there was no big legal case. But if you knew Jeffrey Epstein after the case. And you kept showing up, that's why you're there. You're being fired for bad judgment. because it's actually worse than bad judgment.

It's enabling. You were legitimizing. Jeffrey Epstein for years and years after where he would commit crimes. Throughout all that period of time, you were the ones that were embracing him. and saying he was okay and telling him he was okay. and helping him get off the hook in exchange for what? A donation, an introduction for some other kind of a thing, maybe sexual favors, in case some of them, I don't know. But it's, you know, it is how. huge swaths of our society work.

It's that how the top in our society works in some ways. And that's why, again, I think the, the, the, the, the Epstein crisis. is not just the signature crisis of Trump. It's the signature crisis of our time. It is the story that connects to all stories, because of the. people involved, but also because of what it reveals about. how broken our society is,

how and how corrupt our society is. And and, you know, you know, associated with American capitalism, associated with our culture. associated that all of these things are, I think, at fault. And, you know, that's why. I think that's ultimately a healthy thing, that this comes out into the open, even though it's very complicated to wade our way through. Can I just tell you an anecdote of one of the,

I remember being invited to a transactional dinner. I get a cool IV shortly. I've just arrived in New York and a friend calls and says, listen, would you like to come for dinner? We're having pool Allen, co-founder of Microsoft. And of course, I want to go to and of course I want to meet the co. the co founder of. Microsoft, even though I still haven't figured out how to use windows 98. Maybe. Anyway, I thought you'd learn it. Yeah, I thought I was going to ask him. Maybe he'll be my IT guy. Anyway. Get to the house.

Everybody else has obviously been asked. as a sort of frisson of excitement as we wait for Paul Allen to arrive. And of course, Paul Allen never arrives, and the dinner duly starts late. And then it's just very clear he's never going to come. But no one ever says Paul Allen isn't coming. This just this disappointing sort of aura to the evening. as we realize we're not important enough for Paul Allen to come to. And I always remember thinking that, and I hold it in my head when people. call in and say, oh, you must come to dinner,

we're having so-and-so, because I always remember, what are they going to turn up? And then this sort of fascinating bait and God knows I've done it too, where you're sort of baiting and switching people coming for dinner. And it really doesn't happen in the UK, as it was the first time. I'd come across it. I mean, probably happens there much more now. It's just an interesting transactional gamble. So also everything is kind of a pyramid scheme, right? A long time ago, except the Daily Beast. podcast, David, except the Daily Beast podcast.

But a long time ago I wanted to start a company and I thought, well, one way to do it and for it to be big and successful is we'll get CEOs together. So I said, well, let's call it the CEO Institute and we'll have meetings of CEOs. And I said, oh, that's good, great idea. How are we going to do that? And then I was like, well, okay, we'll go and get somebody that CEOs want to see. So who did I call this guy that I later worked for? And people are constantly beating the shit. out of me online for having worked for him for two years. Henry Kissinger. Right, right. And so I call up Henry Kissinger his office, and.

I said we would like him to come and speak as a keynote speaker at this conference. And they said, okay, great, that's $60,000. It was a long time ago at $60,000. And he needs to be flown first class for him and somebody else. And then from Los Angeles Airport to Laguna Niguel, which is where this thing was. He needs a helicopter. Two pilots, not one pilot. He has to have two pilots, two pilots. He's very good demand. He's very insecure about flying, which, by the way, actually in a helicopter, I later learned. I later learned that that was that was true because he would be like,

what is that noise? We would be like is that it's the noise. You're supposed to be here anyway. Also a war criminal. Should I have done this? No. Was I doing it with Henry Kissinger? For all the reasons we're talking about here? Yes, I get it. I apologize. And did you get him? The two pilots did it all? Yeah. No, no. So we went. So I get Henry Kissinger. He says yes. So then I think, well, I'm going to have a panel. and it'll be a bunch of big guys. So I thought, well, I'll call Alexander Haig, who was also.

let you call. So I called up Alexander Haig, who I sort of knew a little bit, and I said, we're doing this thing. And he said, who has come? I said, well, Henry will be on the panel. and his big rival with Henry said, okay, great, $30,000. I was like, okay, fantastic. So now I've got him for 30,000, I think, well, we probably need three people for a panel and I need a Democrat. So then I call up the office of Edmund Muskie, who briefly was the. secretary of state, a former senator. Right. And I said, we're doing this panel, Kissinger and Haig, we'd like you to be on it.

I said, great, just came. Now, Faye, he just showed up. because it was a pyramid, because he was a Kissinger and the Haig. Right. We got it. And so, you know, we. you know, then other people started to come and, you know, some big, big name CEOs started to come to this thing. And lo and behold, you know, that's that's how that works. Well, what happened to the company? My company. Yeah. Oh, I made $1 billion. And then I retired to the Caribbean. Right.

That was a little company. It grew. It got sold to some other little company. You know, somebody made some money. I didn't, but, you know, you know, it was fine. We found it. It's leveraging people. It was leveraging. But we had a magazine called CEO magazine and we so I hung out with a lot of CEOs, and I was seeing this all the time where you're sort of building. these transactional meetings. And from that, you know, comes our economy. And by the way, I heard crazy shit, like at that dinner,

there was a guy there who ran an airplane company. I don't even want to tell you the name of the airplane company, but everybody knows the name of the airplane company. And at some point the guy turns. to Kissinger and says, look, maybe you could help me. I've been approached by Moammar Gadhafi, the UN, you know, the president of Libya, the head of Libya, was horrible person. And he said, and gadhafi wants to buy one of our planes. He says now we need a license to sell them the plane. But I'm perfectly happy to put explosive bolts in the wings.

And so if we can get the license. will sell on the plane and then we'll blow up the plane. Wow. What did Henry say? Who's there? I'll talk to you later, but later. But, but but wow. But I mean, I wasn't working at the time, but. But the point is, presumably the plane never sold. Well, who knew? It's not. What happened to gadhafi. ended up getting dragged and beaten to death for other reasons. He was shot in the back of a truck. Yeah, it was on the air exactly what happened. But the point is that, you know, that's an outrageous story.

But every one of those meals, there's 100 of those stories. That's why Davos works. There's 100 of those stories happening around the table. And another person at that event came and said to me, okay, I was coming into the ballroom and this woman, who was well known. and her husband was well known, had rearranged all the seats at the table. So her husband could sit next to Kissinger so he could get a job in. the next government.

And he was trying to do and and so, you know, there were levels of intrigue upon intrigue here in our married, meritocratic let, let the market solve all our problems system. And, you know, the way you look at it and you look at it in retrospect, you see what has been sold and, and what what the transactions have led to. And it's kind of stomach turning. And frankly, for me, you know, I was in the Clinton administration. I was in this administration, and I saw these people go off.

and get jobs at Goldman Sachs or J.P. Morgan or these other places, and then they'd come back into the government and oddly enough, they were pursuing. the policies that were in the interests of Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan. And then I'd be in meetings going, well, we must stop that. with the foreign corrupt Practices Act. And we have to stop American companies from being corrupted by foreign companies. But our government is just as corrupt as those governments. The payoffs are just fancier. It's all done in a more white collar way.

And, you know, this is this is where we are, because we have also seen as a result of sort of 40 years of giving into that. the highest inequality in American history. We've now seen with Citizens United. the change in our laws that give more power to billionaires. In the past ten years, billionaires have given. 14,000% more money. to political campaigns than they did ten years ago. Right. And there's more of them in government.

I mean, Trump has 13, 14 in in his cabinet, right? Yeah. And the and which, by the way, also proves that, you know, don't have to be smart to be a billionaire. You have to be lucky enough to be in. So some of these people are real morons. Right. But. the, the our system is at its core. and I don't feel. Like I'm being hyperbolic here. in Washington, in New York,

in the way that we do capitalism. and the way that we put individual aspirational. needs ahead of society, in the way that we set the rules for our society. Our system is corrupt to the core, corrupt to the core. And yet, David, it's a beautiful day. The sun is shining. We're about to skip out and have lunch. And I don't want to leave people thinking that the corruption. is unsolvable, but it's not unsolvable.

And frankly, one of the things that happens when you have 40 years of growing inequality. is that the people who then grow up in that environment. and in this particular case, I mean millennials. and zoomers, they say this doesn't work. My parents could buy a house. I can't buy a house my parents could afford college. I can't afford college for my kids. My parents, had these opportunities. I don't have these opportunities. And I've got I breathing down my neck and,

you know, I've got a government, by the way, this week, you know, it's a whole other story. But, you know, they're like putting pressure on AI companies to remove their guidelines. They can do crazy shit and have autonomous weapons access. Doing that with anthropic this way. Right. But but but you know, that generation is coming up. or those generations are coming up and they're saying our system's broken. Help me. You know, help we we want somebody who represents a change from that system. Right. And I think Trump ten years ago tapped into the fact that anger was growing.

But of course, he was a symptom of the problem, not a solution for the problem. And the reason I have hope is that in 2026. or in 2028, where, as I've told you before, the majority of voters will have both been born. since 1990, that they will demand change. And we're starting to see politicians who understand that. and, and, and hopefully we'll say, yeah, the.

the solution can't be dictated by the Epstein class. And unwittingly, Donald Trump's government will have pushed. that change by releasing the Epstein files and by being Donald Trump. I mean, you know, because he's the most vile human being. that the United States has ever produced, and he's surrounded by vile people. And every single one of their policies is driven by greed, corruption, excess. and ignorance and, you know, disloyalty to the people of the United States.

And so you reach kind of a point of a fever. where this is unsustainable. This is too disgusting to go on. And I think, you know, the hope that I get. is that it, that it won't, you know, as Richard Nixon had a Council of Economic Advisers. chairman who once said, that which is unsustainable won't be sustained. And I think the situation that we're in is unsustainable.

Oh, David Roth got a lot to think about there for a Sunday. But what an interesting perspective on the Epstein files. and the change that it's likely to create with its ripple effect, which is it's a rippling every day, every day, more ripples. And eventually there will be waves now. So I think, you know, I think if you think the Epstein Files story is done, we're just at the beginning.

This story, was undercovered because. the people who own the publications. that, you know, the people who wanted to go to the parties, this was the world. Why rock the boat? We need to get out into the park on a Sunday. People, put down your phone, stop listening to podcasts, get out and communicate with real people. Down the Razor Hut. I'm gonna put down the razor.

David Ross. Cops. Excellent. Having it. Have you in the studio? Let us go and get some lunch. So tell us your conspiracies about Epstein. Come on, hop on the YouTube comment channel, and I'll get back to. as many of you as I possibly can. Don't forget to subscribe to The Daily Beast, because we can keep you up. to speed moment by moment with the crazy that's going on out there. And don't forget, this week I am launching my Substack.

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