Trump Admin Planning Major Shift on Epstein, with Benny Johnson, and Biden’s Autopen Scandal Grows

Summary

Podcast Summary: After Party with Emily Jashinsky Episode: Trump Admin Planning Major Shift on Epstein, with Benny Johnson, and Biden’s Autopen Scandal Grows
Host: Emily Jashinsky
Release Date: July 15, 2025
Duration: Approximately 83 minutes

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of After Party with Emily Jashinsky, host Emily delves deep into the tumultuous political landscape surrounding the Trump administration's handling of Jeffrey Epstein's files and the burgeoning scandal involving President Biden's use of an autopen for pardons. The episode features an exclusive interview with Benny Johnson, along with insightful discussions with seasoned reporters Charlie Spearing and Gabe Kaminsky. Additionally, Emily ventures into a candid critique of Lena Dunham’s latest endeavors, showcasing her signature blend of sharp analysis and unfiltered commentary.

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Section 1: Exclusive Interview with Benny Johnson on Epstein Case Timestamp: [00:30] - [36:39]

Emily kicks off the episode with an exclusive interview featuring Benny Johnson, the host of The Benny Show, who has been at the forefront of uncovering critical details in the Epstein case. Benny provides insider information on recent developments within the Trump administration's strategy regarding Epstein's files.

• Key Points:

  • Sale of Epstein Island: Benny reveals that Epstein's island has been sold and is being converted into a hotel, raising questions about potential secrecy and continued concealment of illicit activities.
    “They’re turning the island into a hotel. There’s an investment group. We looked it up.” ([17:15])

  • Public and Political Pressure: Discussion on how events like the Student Action Summit in Tampa have amplified demands for transparency, with prominent figures like Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson advocating for the release of Epstein-related documents. “There was a lot of cheering when you called for the release of the Epstein files.” ([16:57])

  • DOJ’s Role and Evidence Sealing: Benny emphasizes the Department of Justice's control over Epstein's evidence, which remains sealed due to ongoing trials, including Ghislaine Maxwell's appeal and civil cases against Epstein's estate. “There are mountains, voluminous mountains of evidence that is everything from like Epstein’s cookbooks to like bags of diamonds.” ([27:02])

  • Political Implications: He discusses the potential impact of releasing these documents on public trust and American foreign policy, drawing parallels with historical intelligence abuses. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely to say the most cliched thing in the history of the universe, but one of the truest things...” ([05:00])

• Notable Quotes:

  • “We all knew Epstein. We all knew what he was doing.” - Cindy McCain ([29:42])
  • “Why is the FBI protecting the greatest pederist...?” - Emily on Benny’s point about Cash Patel ([23:07])

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Section 2: Biden’s Autopen Scandal Explained Timestamp: [36:39] - [54:00]

Emily transitions to a heated debate between reporters Charlie Spearing and Gabe Kaminsky regarding President Biden's controversial use of an autopen for granting pardons.

• Key Points:

  • Media Discrepancies: Emily highlights the stark contrast between how the New York Times reported Biden's use of an autopen versus The Federalist's more direct headline.

    • New York Times Headline: “Biden says he made clemency decisions that were recorded with auto pen.”
    • The Federalist Headline: “Multiple pardons granted by auto pen without Biden approving recipients.” ([31:29])

  • Political Fallout: The conversation explores the potential legal and political repercussions for Biden, including ongoing investigations into Anthony Fauci and the broader implications for Democratic leadership. “The vast majority of Americans believe that Dr. Fauci is a criminal and a very evil doctor.” ([33:17])

  • State vs. Federal Jurisdiction: Benny argues that federal pardons do not protect individuals from state-level charges, urging state attorneys general to pursue investigations regardless of federal pardons. “Your pardons mean nothing here.” ([35:31])

• Notable Quotes:

  • “You can make real money for that. You can go down and actually do a little. Just a little bit of research and find thousands of cases of politicians with clemency power going down for being paid for pardons.” - Benny Johnson ([32:16])
  • “The Bidens created a health network and then scammed everyone and didn’t do anything and took all the money.” - Charlie Spearing ([35:39])

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Section 3: Turning Point Summit and GOP's Push for Transparency Timestamp: [16:57] - [35:31]

Benny Johnson discusses the significant momentum gained from events like the Turning Point Summit, where influential Republican figures rallied support for the release of the Epstein files.

• Key Points:

  • Base Mobilization: The presence of high-profile conservatives at the summit underscores the deep-seated demand within the GOP for transparency and accountability regarding Epstein. “There was a lot of cheering when you called for the release of the Epstein files.” ([17:15])

  • Political Strategy: Emily and Benny analyze how the Trump administration is responding to this pressure by shifting towards more transparency, though skepticism remains about the sincerity and effectiveness of these moves. “They are saying, wait, you know, it's you. You just, you mouth breathers just want a bunch of like predator materials.” ([28:26])

• Notable Quotes:

  • “We don’t want to pay taxes to a pedophile cult. The end.” - Benny Johnson ([22:34])
  • “There are mountains... of evidence that is everything from like Epstein’s cookbooks to like bags of diamonds.” - Benny Johnson ([27:02])

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Section 4: Lena Dunham Rant and Cultural Critique Timestamp: [73:58] - [83:19]

Emily fulfills her promise to address Lena Dunham’s latest work, offering a scathing critique of Dunham’s new Netflix show Too Much and her approach to cultural issues.

• Key Points:

  • Artistic Struggles: Emily discusses Dunham’s attempt to revisit and reinterpret the legacy of HBO’s Girls, critiquing her perceived inability to draw concrete conclusions from her observations on feminism and modern relationships. “She never draws the obvious conclusion from identifying the problem for her.” ([74:17])

  • Cultural Impact: Emily contends that Dunham's work, while entertaining, fails to address the root causes of the societal issues she highlights, leading to a sense of purposelessness and anxiety. “She never revisits and just making it really obvious who I’m talking about.” ([76:21])

  • Personal Reflections: Emily juxtaposes Dunham’s on-screen persona with her own perceptions, highlighting the artist’s struggle with maintaining health and wisdom amidst cultural backlash. “Lena Dunham looks progressively less healthy. And she sounds wiser in some ways...” ([75:27])

• Notable Quotes:

  • “Has a fascinating lack of self awareness that just is one of the more interesting cocktails in all of Hollywood.” - Emily on Dunham ([73:58])
  • “She flirts with some really important and interesting realizations and then is never quite willing to grapple with them.” - Emily on Dunham ([76:21])

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Conclusion

Emily Jashinsky masterfully navigates through the complex and often contentious issues of political transparency, accountability, and cultural critique. From the shadowy corridors of the Epstein case to the intricate dance of presidential pardons, and culminating in a personal cultural critique of Lena Dunham, the episode offers a multifaceted exploration of power, media, and societal norms. Through incisive interviews and passionate analysis, Emily provides listeners with a comprehensive understanding of the current political climate, urging for greater transparency and accountability in leadership.

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Additional Notes

• Advertisements Skipped: The summary excludes advertisements for the Oregon Lottery and Tax Network USA, as per instructions.
• Listener Engagement: Emily encourages live participation via YouTube's chat feature, enhancing listener interaction and real-time discussion.
• Future Episodes Teased: The episode concludes with a hint at forthcoming segments and continued analysis, ensuring listeners remain engaged and looking forward to future discussions.

End of Summary

Transcript

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[Emily]

Foreign welcome to afterparty everyone. It's 10pm on Monday, so we're here. Of course, where else would we be? And we're going to start the show today with a news making interview with Benny Johnson, host of the Benny show, who has been reporting important details out in the Epstein case over the last couple of days and has some new details he's going to share with us tonight. We taped this interview just a couple of hours ago. I will be in the live chat on YouTube if you are watching this live as it's best consumed of course, just like the National Football League. What else? We are going to be live and that means I'm going to be in the live chat. So head on over to the YouTube page if you want to ask some questions. I'll be there breaking it all down and digesting interview with everyone else. We also have Charlie Spearing and Gabe Kaminsky here, two excellent reporters that are going to talk more about the Biden auto pen scandal, which I have to admit I didn't know exactly, exactly where this was heading. There were a lot of legal experts having particular nuanced debates about what could happen. But the New York Times published an interview with Biden and a report actually based on conversations with other people in the Biden circle. Ostensibly that really blows everything wide open. So we are going to get into all of that. And of course I can't help myself, I have to talk about Lena Dunham. I can't. I can't help myself. Sometimes I try not to do this, but I even watched the show. I watched the new Lena Dunham show and I'm going to launch into one of my favorite tier aids, which is the odd conservative habits of Lena Dunham paired with a fascinating lack of self awareness that just is one of the more interesting cocktails in all of Hollywood. It might even be a quasi defensive Lena Dunham which is going to horrify many of you. But I think I'll land the plane. I'll bring it all home. So stay tuned for that at the end of today's show. Now, before we get into Benny, I have to say Megan and Ben Shapiro had a fascinating conversation that you could say doubled as a debate about the raging confusion over the Trump administration's handling of the Epstein files. And actually, Megan and Ben started talking about the Epstein files themselves, the bigger picture question, and that's where I want to start tonight, because I know that the Epstein story is when you sit down at your kitchen table every night and you're looking at your health care premiums and you're looking at inflation and the cost of groceries, you're not probably saying to yourself, damn it, I'm going to vote next election for whomever cares the most about transparency in the Jeffrey Epstein case. But this transparency in this case is a simple it's not just a symbol. There's important substantive justice behind all of it, too. But for many people, the reason it's important is that it represents something Donald Trump and the Trump administration and critics on both the left and the right of the way the American intelligence community operates and the way the American government and the way Wall street, the way people who are in very powerful positions in the business world, the way they operate as though they're entitled to secrets and to power, whether it's in the government or outside of the government, that goes really wrong in obvious ways and in less obvious ways, and this is one less obvious way, but it's obvious in the sense that absolute power corrupts absolutely to say the most cliched thing in the history of the universe, but one of the truest things in the history of the universe, that will never change. So on that note, let's first take a listen to what I think was the heart of the conversation between Megan and Ben on Megan's show today. And I have some big picture thoughts I'm going to get into at the end. So let's go ahead and roll here.

[Megan]

S6 I think you're trusting the conclusions of that memo and a decision made by our administration to move past this far too much. I mean, I'm pro Trump, I'm a Trump supporter, but I think they've made a decision that they want to put this in the rear view. You think it's because there's absolutely no there there, and you're crediting that claim. And I have doubts about whether that's true.

[Ben Shapiro]

I mean, that's fine. And again, I'm open to doubts about whether that's true. But I think that once you have the Doubts about whether they are lying to you, that's a different thing. Is it incompetence or lying? I mean, that really is the question, is it not?

[Megan]

You don't think even the Trump administration is capable of lying to the public because they think it's for the greater good. They think there's a solid reason to do it.

[Ben Shapiro]

I mean, I'm wondering what they are lying about and what the lies would be. So again, I think in your middle.

[Megan]

Scenario, but you just answer my question. Do you think they're capable of doing it if they think it's for the greater good?

[Ben Shapiro]

I think anybody is capable of lying if they think that it's for the greater good.

[Emily]

Of course.

[Ben Shapiro]

But I think that in order to answer the question of whether they are doing that, we would have to determine what greater good is being pursued and what the lie is. I think all this is a little bit.

[Megan]

That's why some of us are still asking questions. I mean, I'm not in the business of covering for any questions or not.

[Ben Shapiro]

Megan, Megan, not all the questions are the same. Asking a question about whether all the information has been released because there are figures who would be publicly humiliated because they were riding on Epstein's plane, but there's no evidence the person was raping a child is not quite the same thing as some of the more outstanding claims, which is that the administration is covering up full scale for a child's sex operation. Right.

[Megan]

Not all questions are, okay, that's fine. That's a debate you need to have with somebody else because no one on this set is claiming that.

[Emily]

So this is the question I think few people are actually talking about, which is if you have people like Cash Patel and Dan Bongino and Pam Bondi coming in hot to the Trump administration in the case of Patel and Bongino, they have years of really strong statements about what the government is hiding in the case of Jeffrey Epstein and why the government may be hiding it. What incentive do they have to come into the government and look nakedly cynical and ridiculous by making such a bold about face and asking the public to trust them, as Kash Patel did on Joe Rogan's show when he said, listen, do you think Dan Bonginuimi would come in here and tell you this if it weren't true? Well, the intelligence community in the United States of America has a long and fairly fascinating and I think often flattened history of lying or omitting for the sake of the greater good. And that's why I wanted to talk about the way Megan Framed that question to Ben. This is the central, I think this is the central question of the broader conversation about why these parts of our government are allowed to operate in such secrecy in ways that affect foreign policy, not just in ways that are sort of short term. We need to, you know, not put the sirens on when we're going to make this arrest because it might spook the, the perp. It's not like that in these cases. These are often years long operations, some of which have, have crept into the public and I hate to say this, some of which have been committed by patriots, have been schemed up by patriots. One of the most interesting memoirs you can read is Oliver North's. Oliver North's memoirs as they relate to the Iran Contra scandal are well worth revisiting. Howard Hunt, another great memoir of the Cold War that's well worth revisiting because these are stories we in many cases don't learn about until years and years and years later. Later. Now, I don't know if you've heard of the story of an actress named Jean Seberg. Let me put this up on the screen. This is a New York Times article. You can see the date there. September 15, 1979. And I believe you can see the headline as well. FBI admits planting a rumor to discredit Jean Seberg in 1970. So this is nine years after it happened. You have an article in the New York Times on a memoir that became public that was one of the most, if we're talking about individual stories, especially less high profile individual stories, I mean, there's more known about what J. Edgar Hoover did to Martin Luther King, for example, and other surveillance targets, the Black Panther Party in general. But if you look at the case of Gene Seberg, and I'm going to share another article here because it puts it really well. This is from the Independent on the occasion of a movie featuring Kristen Stewart, actually that came out a few years ago about Gene Seberg and kind of revisiting the case. And they put it all very clearly here. This is a quote from the article. In 1970, the FBI planted the false rumor that Seberg was pregnant by a Black Panther Party member in order to, quote, cause her embarrassment and, quote, cheapen her image with the American public. Their plan worked. It was dispiriting but inevitable that some gossip columnist followed the false leads that the FBI dangled in front of them. From the FBI's point of view, she was involved in radical politics, had contributed financially to the Black Panthers and was therefore fair game. The story was picked up by the. By gossip columnist Joyce Haber, who referred obliquely to it in the Los Angeles Times. And then Newsweek also wrote about it and named Seberg. I mean, what the FBI did to Gene Seberg ultimately, I think pretty clearly ended in her overdose. That was ruled a suicide. She did lose the baby in this case. It is an incredibly tragic, personal story, and there are all kinds. I used to assign the memo itself to journalism students when I was teaching young journalists, because you can see how you have the FBI calling you up and you're over there at Newsweek, and they are your source on a gossip story. Of course, it's not something you or I would ever do, but you, you know, the FBI had some contacts that they were well aware they could go to with information like this. But why would the FBI, why would the American government do something so sick? Well, it's that greater good question. And they came to a conclusion that is abhorrent to me. Abhorrent to me. But if we don't understand it, then we don't understand the motivations that drive people to make decisions for national security that involve government secrets for the sake of the greater good. So I have no idea if this is what happened in the case of the Trump administration. I have my own personal theory, and I'll test out a hypothetical on you here without having reported this out myself. This is nothing from sources. It's purely a hypothetical. I think it's possible. I think it's plausible. But what I would say is if we assume whatever you think of the character of Cash Patel and Dan Bongino, and I don't know either of them, whatever you think of their character, if they come into the Trump administration and they are MAGA loyalists and they are people who are sick, as they have said for years and years of foreign policy, as usual, and of the American deep state, why would they then end up covering for the deep state? Well, that memo was leaked to. The original Bondi memo was leaked to Axios the day before Benjamin Netanyahu was in town. Benjamin Netanyahu was going to be touting intelligence. We know this because just a couple of days later, the New York Times published a story that was sourced to an Israeli official that said they determined the enriched. Not all of the enriched uranium had been destroyed in Iran. Well, we know that our intelligence, a lot of our intelligence, our critical intelligence about Iran's nuclear weapons program has come from Mossad. So say you are Dan Bongino and Cash Patel, and this is just me trying to fill in the possible details of A story here so that we can understand potentially where they're coming from. If you are them and the choice are Pam Bondi or Donald Trump, the choice is reveal this humiliating and devastating secret of the spy agency that is currently feeding you information on potential nuclear weapons development and on a hostile foreign enemy. Or, you know, keep trying to kick the can down the road, keep trying to get away with just closing the files and moving it on. I don't know if that's the decision that they're making, but I know it's a decision that people in the intelligence community made over and over and over again. This is one of my greatest frustrations. As important as the retelling of the history is of intelligence officials, J. Edgar Hoover, especially Allen Dulles, all of these men, as important as it is to revisit their awful legacies, one thing that we forget is that we are about 100 years less than 100 years, less than some people's lifetimes into the history of nuclear weapons. It is the blink of an eye in the scope and span of human life on this planet. We have not nearly adapted to what it's like to live with that awesome. And I mean that literally, that awesome technology at our fingertips as world leaders. We have borderless wars now where you can launch nuclear devastation from thousands and thousands and thousands of miles away without immediately losing any of your own people. This is new to human civilization. And the history of the Cold War is. And the history of Cold War intelligence communities is the history of people making really awful decisions and abusing their power because they were terrified that nuclear conflict that had kids, maybe some of you, diving under their desks during the school days to practice nuclear drills, because that's how urgent the threat of utter chaos was, especially when you think about Cuba, for example. So J. Edgar Hoover is terrified of the Black Panther Party because he's terrified that they're a conduit for nuclear enemies and that they're making it easier and easier for your nuclear enemies to, for example, set a base around the country, to weaken the country from the inside, and to ultimately destroy your civilization. He made abhorrent decisions, and we are learning more about them every single day, and we should continue to learn more about them every single day. But don't dismiss for a moment, given all of the leaks over the years, the possibility that that's what's happening behind closed doors with Jeffrey Epstein right now. That was a long rant, but I hope that sort of. It sort of explained where I'm coming from on all of this, which is. I've been talking about this for years, as have many, many, many people. And now to see the media acting like it's the most important story, more important than people's grocery bills, because suddenly it makes Trump look bad. It does. Look. Does make Trump look bad. It is very important. And yet it seems that we are still so far from understanding what's actually happening behind closed doors, how it could actually be influencing American foreign policy and why it can actually be influencing American foreign policy and what the heck to do about it. So on that note, I'm gonna head into the chat and I give you my conversation earlier today with Benny Johnson. I'm so happy to be joined now by the one and only Benny Johnson, host of the Benny Show. Benny. How many times can I say Benny in 10 seconds? Thank you for being here. Fun to say, you know, it is. It is. It's a good one. It's a strong one.

[Benny Johnson]

But if I get one more boomer calling me Benny and the Jets, I had that all weekend. I just. I don't know what I'll do. I. I'll move to Epstein Island. Yeah, I hear it's available, right? I hear. I hear that. I hear they're trying to sell. Actually, you know, they did sell it, actually.

[Emily]

They did.

[Benny Johnson]

I didn't know that they sold it. You know, they're turning it into a hotel. I kid you not. They're turning island into a hotel. There's a. There's an investment group. We looked it up.

[Emily]

We're like, yeah, that's sick. That's somebody.

[Benny Johnson]

Somebody bought the island and now they're, like, turning it. You know, I don't know if you. They're going to have, like, a. You can stay in the temple, you know, kind of thing. Like, great. I don't know, but that's what's happening.

[Emily]

In fact, I guess it makes it harder for you to isolate there. I've heard it's a good place to hide away from the world. So, unfortunately, can't be your spot to avoid Benny's jokes.

[Benny Johnson]

Emily. Everybody just went there for the weather and the fishing, actually.

[Emily]

The fishing.

[Benny Johnson]

That's why people were going to that specific island, you see?

[Emily]

Yes. No, I mean, in international waters. Singular.

[Benny Johnson]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Nothing to do with anything.

[Benny Johnson]

Nothing to do with the clandestine agency that was definitely, you know, running the whole place.

[Emily]

Benny, you've actually been doing some reporting on this. You had Lara Trump on not long before. We're taping this right here, who made, I think, a very significant announcement about what we can expect to see from the Trump administration. She would be one to know you asked her a great question. So let's go ahead and roll this clip. It's S2. And Betty, I want to ask you some more about your conversation. Let's roll it.

[Lara Trump]

But he hears all the noise and he hears all of the consternation out there and I think he's going to want to set things right as well. So I believe that there will probably be more coming on this and I believe anything that they are able to release that doesn't damage any witnesses or anyone underage or anything like that, I believe they'll probably try to get out sooner rather than later because they hear it and they understand it. So hopefully we see that happen sooner than later and I guess that would be my advice. But to everybody out there who's all worked up about it, there's no great plot to keep this information away that I'm aware of. I do just believe that maybe it's been slow rolled for reasons that hopefully we understand down the line.

[Emily]

And Benny, I believe you also just reported before we went to tape this that Dan Bongino was in the office at work at the FBI today. So I believe you know Laura Trump and Dan Bongino and I'm wondering Benny, what your takeaway is from as the day has gone on where the MAGA movement is coming down on what happens next with this Epstein situation.

[Benny Johnson]

Everything's changed. So I spent the entire afternoon talking with federal law enforcement sources and everything has changed. The attitude towards full disclosure, towards a special counsel, towards Pam Bondi having a unlimited press conference and maybe a recurring press conference on this, towards various investigators going out with their work, towards the unsealing of all of the evidence. That may be boring, maybe pedantic, but is something that the American public wants and is would be a promise kept by the Trump administration. All that evidence is currently under seal in the Southern District of New York. It belongs to the doj. The DOJ could unseal at any time. There has been a massive movement. Emily, I can report that on your show first and exclusively towards massive disclosure. And a lot of this is because of what happened this weekend in Tampa, Florida where I live with Student Action Summit Turning Point USA where you have the likes of everyone from Steve Bannon to Megyn Kelly to Tucker Carlson calling for these releases. I myself called for the release on stage and the cheers were uproarious. It was of course a student action conference inside of a a sports arena. And it sounds like you just won the championship. When you called for the release of the Epstein files, Charlie Kirk did a remarkable job on giving tough love, I think, and a bit of a friendly nudge to the administration. That is something that the base cares about. When there's 7,000 of the rock hard, solid base of President Trump inside of an arena screaming and cheering for something, it's something that you cannot ignore. And so the difference is this, that they were heard and Lord Trump just said that on my show. And the people who are calling for these disclosures have been heard by the Trump administration. Dan Bongino is back at work and there's a major, major push for transparency now inside of the administration.

[Emily]

And Benny, I actually wanted to ask you about the Turning Point Summit. And I have this article pulled up with the quote here from a girl who attended the summit and talked to NBC News who said, it's not even about Pam Bondi. It's like, look, Trump, we elected you because you were supposed to be different, so you have to prove to us you're different. And that quote stood out to me, Benny, because it's, I think, a really interesting distillation of, of why it matters to all of those thousands and thousands of people that were cheering when you called for the release of the files. Can you help us explain a little bit more or help us understand a little bit more why this is an issue where it hasn't turned out Donald Trump could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and still have everybody supporting him. This one, it didn't happen on that. Why this issue particularly?

[Benny Johnson]

Well, it's very simple. You can overcomplicate it and there are many people who are trying, but it's very simple for the average American voter. We don't want to pay taxes to a pedophile cult. The end. That's it.

[Emily]

Controversial?

[Benny Johnson]

Yeah. No, I mean, you'd seem like that would be a winning issue. However, there's also, of course, the complicating issue that so many people inside of the Trump administration ran on these full disclosures and transparency. Some of those clips were from our program where individuals like Dan Bogino and Cash Patel are out saying, like, hey, let's have full transparency here.

[Emily]

And Benny, can I actually stop you on that? Because we have a clip of Cash Patel on your show and I believe this is from late 2023. So let's go ahead and roll. Here S1.

[Cash Patel]

You know, it's the same thing with Epstein's list. It's like, what the hell are these Republicans doing?

[Benny Johnson]

Oh, I saw you give out. I saw you make news this morning about that. I gotta get to that. You say that the FBI has Epstein's list. They're sitting on it. That doesn't seem like something you should do. You're protecting the world's foremost predator. That seems like an evil thing to do, regardless of who may be embarrassed in the release of that list. Why is the FBI protecting the greatest pederist, the largest scale pederast in human history?

[Cash Patel]

Simple. Because of who's on that list. You don't think that Bill Gates is lobbying Congress night and day to prevent the disclosure of that list? And why is it that the Senate, you know, and good for Senator Blackburn to try to get it out, but then Dick Turbin comes over the top and says, no, we're not going to release the names. I don't care about the list itself. But if released the names, right. What the hell are the House Republicans doing? They have the majority. You can't get the list. You're going to accept Dick Durbin's word or whoever that guy is as to who is on that list and who isn't and that it can and can't be released. Put on your big boy pants and let us know who the pedophiles are. We have an election coming up and we need to adjudicate this matter at the polls. God knows the FBI and DOJ aren't going to do anything. But how are you going to reward the FBI with a new headquarters building after their illegal surveillance on Donald Trump continues to with a reauthorization of FISA and we can't even get basic documents out. This is why America hates Congress. And this is why I'm tired of the Republican majority saying they're going to get the job done and failing.

[Emily]

So, Benny, where has that Cash Patel been for the last couple of days? I mean, no matter what happens in the future, I'm genuinely curious for your read on how we went from point A, which is that Cash Patel, to point B, the Cash Patel on Joe Rogan and of the last several days, what happened in that period. From your understand.

[Benny Johnson]

So there's various, there's various trains of thought here, right? From various different sections of the movement. The Tucker Carlson section of the movement is it's all an intel op. And that once in office there are too many very sensitive intelligence entities and relationships that you cannot piss off. And because Jeffrey Epstein was working for foreign intelligence agencies, the President's administration is taking a hands off approach here and they've been told to take a hands off approach here. The other path towards where that Cash Patel went is that Cash Patel is still around and that this is a complicated issue that has become more complicated by various districts or various organs inside of the federal government were not wanting to play ball with his FBI. And here's what I've learned in my reporting, which is that one, Cash Patel knew what he was saying there in that very old clip. That clip is again from 2023. But Cash Patel knew that Bill Gates was blackmailed. This is a matter of absolute fact. It is not up for debate. Bill Glades, Bill Gates was blackmailed by Jeffrey Epstein. According to the New York Times and the Washington Journal and the Wall Street Journal. Sorry, this is something that absolutely have. Bill Gates had an affair with 20 year old Russian that Epstein hooked him up with and then Epstein blackmailed him over that affair. It ended up destroying his marriage. This is a matter of historic fact. This isn't up for debate. And so that is blackmail. Cash Patel knew that. He said it on my show. And then the DOJ releases a memo in the dark of night to Axios, of all places, saying that there was no blackmail. Well, that's insane. All right, it's patently insane. Maybe it's not something you can prove, but there was absolutely blackmail and there were absolutely billionaires that Epstein was blackmailing. And so the question is, where is all that evidence? And the answer to that question, and you might not like it, Emily, but it's the truth is that it's all in lockup. There are mountains, voluminous mountains of evidence that is everything from like Epstein's cookbooks, right? To like bags of diamonds and stacks of passports with pseudonyms in them.

[Emily]

Hard drives.

[Benny Johnson]

Yes, of course. And hard drives that were marked evidence. And that's all in the Southern District of New York. That's a matter of fact, because the DOJ houses that evidence for trial. And there are multiple ongoing trials that still pertain to Epstein, including Ghislaine Maxwell's appeal, and including a bunch of civil cases that are ongoing against the Epstein estate. And that means that that evidence is under seal and a judge has got to release it. Now, the doj, and this is what I know, based on reporting I'm breaking exclusively on your program, but that I know from just conversations I just had, the DOJ is going to now be making an effort to try and unseal that evidence and try and get that out to the American people. Will they be successful? I mean, a lot of it is dependent upon judges. I don't pretend to be a Legal expert and understand you'd have to bring somebody else on to really understand, you know, to explain to your audience what that will mean and how that process goes. But the DOJ can make a very strong effort to release all of that evidence and just get everything out there, including the way that they did with jfk. And that would be my argument, is that like, why not do it the way that you did with jfk? Some, most of the JFK stuff was quite boring. There was a lot of really fascinating stuff in there, if you knew where to look. But they released hundreds of thousands of documents, give that to the American people and start re establishing those trust bridges.

[Emily]

And it's theoretically not hard to do that without releasing pornography that re victimizes various women. Right.

[Benny Johnson]

That's the thing that makes me the most angry, Emily. You know, I've known you for a long time.

[Emily]

Like.

[Benny Johnson]

We'Re not here for that. And the slandering of the base and the assumption that that's all we want is that we're like mouth breathing goblins who want more predator material on the Internet. It's the exact opposite, actually. Like, quit blaming the fans. That's the thing that actually pisses me off the very most about this is that they're saying, wait, you know, it's you. You just, you mouth breathers just want a bunch of like predator materials. Keep it, you know, shove it in a corner where no one will ever see that. Nobody ever wants that material out there. But you're insulting our intelligence to say that that's all that you have, because that's not all that you have. In fact, the absolute opposite is true. And that's what makes my blood boil, that what we are trying to do here is to prevent further predation of children by causing maximum damage to the most well known pedophile in human history. And that maximum damage looks like indictments or the destruction of the people who allowed for Jeffrey Epstein to operate, including but not limited to many politicians. Cindy McCain went viral. On my page two days ago, I found an old clip of Cindy McCain saying, We all knew Epstein. We all knew what he was doing.

[Emily]

That's right.

[Benny Johnson]

But we couldn't go after him because we were all too scared. Well, that's enabling, lady. You know, shut up, lady. You're one of the most powerful women in politics. You were married to the guy who ran the senate, right? John McCain's most powerful senator for a very long time and a guy who ran for president. The Republican Party. Quit insulting our intelligence. How big was this cover up operation, who enabled this guy? And by going after them with maximum damage and maximum pain, you probably would dissuade people from harming children in the future. And that's a positive thing. That's like a morally justifiable thing. You can defend that and I defend that.

[Emily]

Benny, you're extremely busy these days. Before you run, I do want to get your take on what happened with the New York Times auto pen reporting. I have two headlines that I'm going to show you. A typical tale of who had two headlines story. Many such cases as the President would say. Let's start here with the New York Times headline. The New York Times has this long story. We can put this up on the screen about how the Biden administration handled auto pen and pardons. And so the auto pen and the pardons, apparently this is just a quote that is, is buried in the Times article. You see the headline there? Biden says he made clemency decisions that were recorded with auto pen. But what's not in the headline is that according to the New York Times reporting, deep down into the piece you read that Biden did not approve every single pardon himself and that basically he approved a blanket slate. So here's how the Federalist covered it. I love the juxtaposition of these two headlines. This is the next full screen element that can go right up on the screen. Multiple pardons granted by auto pen without Biden approving recipients.

[Benny Johnson]

Perfect.

[Emily]

So Betty, you look at these two and now look at Senator Rand Paul saying that because Anthony Fauci got one of these preemptive pardons that perhaps was not, not actually made by Joe Biden himself, but with a blanket auto pen disclosure, this scandal seems like it's about to explode.

[Benny Johnson]

Yeah. I mean, how do you justify that? You're right, though. Thank you, Emily. You actually read the article. It's called burying the lead. When you put the news 17 paragraphs down in that New York Times article, 17 paragraphs to the very bottom is. Yeah, by the way, they would sneak the actual language says they would slip names in to get pardons. Now here's what I think.

[Emily]

And then Benny, to that point, they would sign it with the auto pen without approving the revisions because they got the blanket according to New York Times, which says that Biden himself confirmed that to them.

[Benny Johnson]

I mean, in what universe can you justify that that pardon is real? You cannot. There's no way. And so the, you know, the follow up question to this is who's getting paid? The absolute next logical question is this is huge. Business man. You can get people who are either rich or who have rich friends out of jail with just the flip of a switch. You can make real money for that. You can go down and actually do a little. Just a little bit of research and find thousands of cases of politicians with clemency power going down for being paid for pardons. This payola is a big scandal. And there's clearly something here. And clearly these names are not, like, pulled out of a hat. Someone was getting paid. So that needs to be the next logical question for intrepid D.C. reporter.

[Emily]

Well, last question then is what could happen to Anthony Fauci in the months ahead? He thought he had this preemptive pardon. He thought he could breathe a sigh of relief. It appears that Senator Paul is going to continue pursuing, pursuing potential perjury, a potential perjury investigation against Anthony Fauci. And if he loses that pardon under a Trump administration, again, you know, many people in the administration, I imagine that becomes a significant problem for Anthony Fauci.

[Benny Johnson]

You have to have. You have to ask the smartest legal minds to see, like, how you would actually charge him. The vast majority of Americans believe that Dr. Fauci is a criminal and a very evil doctor. And there are many, many demonstrable lies that he told to the American people. And he's without question one of the largest mass murderers in all of history. And so you can put him on a list with Pol Pot and Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler and say, this is one of society's greatest evils, and what should we do about it if we are truly immoral and just people? Now, I would say that there is an end run here, that these federal pardons don't matter on a state level. And so perhaps it's time for some states attorney generals, and there are 30 of them that are Republican, to grow a set of balls and start investigating some of these crimes and others. It doesn't matter if Joe Biden, you can do the. You can pull the full Wakanda, right? You can pull the full Black Panther. Your pardons mean nothing here. Okay? We don't do that here. All right? This is the state of Florida. I encourage the state of Florida to open up criminal investigations into some of these larger federal issues. Because when you can prove harm in the state of Florida, which you can with Dr. Fauci and the way that he ran Covid, or you can, for instance, with Joe Biden and his family, Here's a good example. Joe Biden and his family ran an entire Medicaid operation fraud down here in the state of Florida defrauded millions of Floridians, bankrupted an entire system, didn't build the hospitals that they promised. Why not open in a full investigation in the state of Florida into the Biden crime family? Who the hell cares what his pardons are on a federal level? These are state charges. You don't get to come down here and do that. So I would agree. Great to see more AGs and more DAs, like, take that stance against these crimes.

[Emily]

That was. Yeah, I believe that was one of the Biden brothers, right? James or Frank? James Biden reported on Politico.

[Benny Johnson]

The dirtiest and the dumbest of Bidens. That's right. There's a long 7,000 word article in Politico called something like, the Bidens created a health network and then scammed everyone and didn't do anything and took all the money. It's an unbelievable headline from Politico and it should be Easy targets. I mean, you're shooting fish in a barrel when it comes to Republican ag. A good example for this is Eric Schmidt, who did this in the state of Missouri. He sued Media matters. He sued ActBlue. He sued Dr. Fauci. He deposed Dr. Fauci, actually, from the state of Missouri because he just had the guts to do it. Now he's Donald Trump's favorite golfing buddy.

[Emily]

That's a high bar, actually, to clear Benny Johnson, a man who wants to sic the feds and state AGs on public servants, on our noble public servants. Yes, I'll take that Finest. Well, Benny, thank you so much. Host of the Benny Show. Go watch Benny. You already do. But, Benny, we know how busy you are, and I want to let you get back to your great Epstein reporting. Thank you.

[Benny Johnson]

Thank you, Emily. God bless you.

[Emily]

Okay. All right. Thanks so much for tuning in to that interview with Benny. I want to tell you before we get to Charlie Spearing and Gabe Kaminsky, if you are stressed about back taxes, maybe you missed the April deadline or your books are a mess. Don't wait. I was just downstairs. I grabbed myself another beer and I was thinking if I saved money on my taxes, I could probably put a mini fridge up here. What a great thing to get that figured out and to get it all in order. The IRS is cracking down and those penalties add up fast. They eat into your mini fridge budget. 5% per month, up to 25% just for not filing. But there's help. Tax Network USA can take the burden off your shoulders and stop the spiral before it gets worse before it gets worse. They've helped thousands of Americans, whether you're an employee, a small business owner, haven't filed in years, messy books? No problem. They've seen it all and know exactly how to clean it up. With direct access to powerful IRS programs and expert negotiators on your side, Tax Network USA knows how to win. You'll get a free consultation, and if you qualify, they may even be able to reduce or eliminate what you owe. More importantly, they'll help protect you from wage garnishments or bank levies or warm beer. I can't promise that, actually, so don't wait for the next irs letter. Call 800-958-1000 or visit tnusa.com to talk to a real expert at Tax Tax Network usa. Take the pressure off. Let Tax Network USA handle your tax.

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[Emily]

Let's get to Charlie Spearing and Gabe Kaminsky, two guys I've known for a while and who are excellent reporters in their own right. So Charlie and Gabe, thanks for being here.

[Charlie Spearing]

Thanks Emily. Good to be here.

[Gabe Kaminsky]

Yeah, thanks.

[Emily]

It's great to see you. Charlie's at a Coors banquet.

[Charlie Spearing]

Coors banquet.

[Emily]

Hell yeah. Charlie, I heard you were on vacation last week. Did you have fun?

[Charlie Spearing]

Yes, I had a great time. Went back to Wyoming where my family still has a farm and we celebrated the 75th anniversary of the farm. Plus 4th of July fireworks which you can as as you can imagine in Wyoming. It's pretty fierce and freedom full of freedom. So just overall a great time. Deleted all the apps so spent the whole way driving home trying to catch up on politics, listening to, you know, Euro and Megan's podcast and everybody else and back in the swing of things today.

[Emily]

Well, I don't mean a pride trolley, but I'm fascinated by this 75th anniversary of your family farm in Wyoming. Could you tell us just a little bit about that? That's amazing. It must have been really cool to be there on the ground.

[Charlie Spearing]

Yeah, it was really cool for me and my whole family. My grandfather was a World War II veteran in Oregon and won a homestead in Powell, Wyoming, which was recently implemented with irrigation and everything. So he won a homestead plot out there and traveled out there with his young child and literally dug out the farm out of sagebrush and rocks. So many rocks. Generations of the Spearing family have been picking a lot of rocks out of that ground and it's, it's a really great farm right now, producing well. And my two younger brothers are actually stepping in to take over the operation from my father. So entering into the next generation and pretty exciting to celebrate this, this milestone in our history.

[Emily]

Great last question on this, Charlie. Sorry to keep peppering you, but how do you think that affects your work as a journalist? This is kind of a meta question, but journalists used to have more blue collar backgrounds and that has changed in recent years. It's a lot of people go through the college education system, I assume all of us included, who get four year degrees and are filtered through that system of higher learning. And that changes who you are sort of the point. But it's a stark contrast, I think, to how things used to be. Do you think that shapes you at all?

[Charlie Spearing]

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I really look, we typically go out there every year around this time just to get time with the family and bring the kids out there and everything. And yeah, absolutely. I look forward to these times where sit down with some of the farmers in the area, go to some of the happy hours and they all want to talk politics, even though I'm on vacation. So it's part of the job though. So I'm always happy to hear their perspective and get their thoughts on issues that are taking place. And yeah, it's just the best. And having that background certainly helps. And just a long history of listening to people who now support Trump talk about these issues over the years and certainly when dealing with the Republican Party as well.

[Emily]

So, Gabe, not to leave. You are, you are probably the single hardest working person I have ever encountered in journalism. There are a lot of lazy journalists, but there's some hard workers. Even if they do terrible work, they try really hard to do really bad work. You're not one of them, but you are a hard worker. I sort of doubt though that you can do much with a plow. Am I wrong?

[Gabe Kaminsky]

None. Never picked one up.

[Emily]

That's right. Okay. Okay. So I'm correct in my assumption and don't feel badly at all for flaming you on that. Although there's nothing that I could do either. So Charlie puts us both to shame on that question. I'm gonna start with you.

[Charlie Spearing]

Files are hooked up to a tractor these days, so not much physical labor involved. Just a lot of hours listening to the radio. And yeah, my younger brothers, you know, can listen to podcasts now, whereas back in my day, it was AM radio.

[Emily]

That's right, you got Rush.

[Benny Johnson]

Yep.

[Charlie Spearing]

And a little bit of NPR sprinkled in just to keep everything balanced.

[Emily]

Well, well, well. Wouldn't you know it, npr, PBS are on the chopping block very soon. And I'll. I'll toss this question to both of you. This looks like it could be actually, like, the end of PBS and NPR's government funding. Charlie, you will remember that Mitt Romney had a whole spat with Barack Obama over Big Bird back in the 2012 election, and that became an issue. I'm looking at a headline, right?

[Charlie Spearing]

And look where Elmo's gone.

[Emily]

Maybe Elmo's off the rails. See, this is. This is why we need to cut government funding to get rid of the Elmo anti Semitism. And if you're not online, God bless you, but you've missed 24 hours of memes in which Elmo is cast as a rank anti Semite. So that's where Charlie was going with this. But I'm reading a headline now in the Raleigh News and Observer that just says, big Bird and friends as final reckoning, send it to vote on funding cuts to NPR and pbs. And I know both of you have followed their responses. I listen to NPR a lot because I drive. And it's sort of like sometimes it's too much of a hassle to hook your phone up to the car. I have an old car and turn on a podcast, so I sometimes just default. And they have just doubled down on being exactly why Republicans want to get rid of their funding. So, Gabe, you actually are an intrepid reporter on the question of. Of where government funding goes to and how government money is spent. And I want to ask you, I'll start with this. As Senate Republicans right now, this week are mulling final cuts to npr, pbs, who will survive without their government funding. They will be different. But how do you think this ends for NPR and pbs? Could it have gone differently over the last couple of months?

[Gabe Kaminsky]

I don't know how it's going to end. I mean, I guess Charlie might be good to speak, you know, how it might end or otherwise logistically. But I think there's a specific. Two lenses, I guess I'm looking at it through. It's one. It's the whole situation's indicative of I think the Trump administration's just like thirst for like and Trump's thirst for political retribution against people he views as, you know, the left. And then two, I mean I guess, you know, the open question is like the Trump administration and Trump and getting into office made a very big stink about the issue of free speech. And I think in generally right now, I think cvf, you know, with this funding, it raises the question of how the administration in alignment with this and otherwise with what the state department's doing with revoking student visas, deportations, how they're handling the speech issue. And I think the, you know, the one side of the picture we would say that, that these are government funded outlets and it raises the whole question of why should the government subsidize them. And then the other side of the picture is really goes to the issue of these are long time subsidized by the government. Certainly they have, you know, in different ways become partisan tools, Republicans would argue. But is it antithetical, I guess to speech and what they've run on and targeting these, you know, outlets? I don't know what you think Charlie.

[Emily]

Well, yeah, I'm actually curious what Charlie thinks because this is, I mean a rural issue that Democrats have tried to Democrats have tried to highlight this as a rural issue and to some extent it is a rural issue that's a reality. But you know, the people in rural areas are not a monolith and would react in different ways to whether or not the government should pull the plug. And let me put this Trump truth social back up on the screen. He said it is very important, this was a few days ago that all Republicans adhere to my rescissions bill and in particular defund the corporation for public broadcasting, PBS and NPR which is worse than CNN and Ms. DNC put together. Any Republican that votes to allow this monstrosity to continue broadcasting will not have my support or endorsement. And then he send it off with his signature. Thank you for your attention to this matter. As though we had any choice but to give our attention to this matter. So Charlie, as, as the left sort of predicts a political catastrophe for Republicans with this. How do you think if the Senate respond they have to by Thursday. This is like literally on the dropping block right now as we're talking. How do you think that actually goes for Republicans?

[Charlie Spearing]

Yeah, you know, you've been in the business as long as I have watching these repeated promises by Republicans to cut NPR funding and I think that they basically have to like show up and vote appropriately if they expect this to happen, whether or not it actually passes as an open question. It's so hard to cut, to cut anything in Washington, as we saw with the, you know, the massive bill that was passed, you know, lots of spending in that bill, even though there were some cuts. Yeah, I really think that the Senate, you know, Senate Republicans basically have to put up where they've been talking about this for decades. So there's that. And then whether or not it actually passes is an entirely different question. But ultimately, I think that this is fading as an issue. You know, you would typically have of both parties suggesting that, you know, some in both parties suggesting that this is important for, you know, rural radio stations. But we're in an entirely new media environment. We have podcasts, we have other ways of entertainment and information. And so it's not quite as essential as it was when radio was sometimes the only way that people could get news and information. So less of an issue on that aspect. But ultimately, and then this is where I always come down on this issue, is that there are enough philanthropists, there are enough wealthy people, wealthy Democrats, they want to continue to see NPR and PBS go forward. I think that they'll have a rally, you know, they'll circle the wagons and protect public broadcasting. Even though if Trump manages to cut it for three years and then, you know, depending on who gets the next office, I'm sure there'll be some way that they can squeeze out funding from some other channel because government's really good.

[Emily]

At doing that right now. You go ahead, Gabe.

[Gabe Kaminsky]

No, I think that's right. And I think it's like the question is, one, is it long lasting? And it, and it brings me, it reminds me of in these, in this same rescissions bill, there's a whole lot of Doge cuts, billions of dollars that Elon Musk and his team claim to have cut from the federal government. A lot of their, the savings on their website's been inflated and, and not represented the actual cuts. But even if Congress and the president vote to rescind some of these cuts, the next administration, you know, can come right in and greenlit the same sort of funding and they can greenlit the same sort of funding for NPR and pbs. So, you know, this could be a very symbolic gesture that riles up the Republican base. Maybe or maybe not. Like you said, it might be like a fading issue, but is it long lasting? I just don't know.

[Emily]

Yeah, it's an important question because also these are outlets, networks, basically, that are also seeing their business model and the rest of the sort of corporate business model collapse in different ways. So what that looks like going forward is hard to predict. And obviously the Trump administration will also have to codify some of this to make it harder if they want to, for a new administration to come in and kind of rebuild. They have to keep burning things down officially and not just kind of tweaking around the edges. If, again, that's what they want to do, it is what they say they want to do. Now, you are both in positions where I'm very curious to get your take on this juicy New York Times expose, unintentional Expose, which is a great band name. And also, it's incredible that the New York Times, when we were talking to Vinnie Johnson earlier, had these juxtaposed headlines between the New York Times and the Federalist, where Gabe and I both worked. Charlie, you haven't worked there, so you'll just have to be an honorary Federalist alumni for the purposes of this, this conversation. But the Federalist headline versus the I just want to do this again because it's such an incredible example. If we could first start with the New York Times headline on its own interview with Joe Biden, where they bury their own scoop that Joe Biden told them, the paper of record, he did not personally sign off on every single clemency decision. Some of them were bulk decisions basically to authorize a category via an auto pen. So the auto pen. And we can put the Federalist headline up on the screen again as well because it contrasts so starkly with how the New York Times put it in just the most incredible way. The Federalists headline is what the New York Times scoop actually was. Multiple pardons granted by auto pen without Biden approving recipients, comma, staff admit. Well, also in the New York Times article, Biden, according to the Times, confirmed that story, which is incredible. So let's take a Look. This is F5. This is, this is really something. This is Biden. A transcript. The New York Times put a partial transcript up of their conversation with Biden. He said, quote, I made every single one of those on the clemency decisions and including the categories when we set this up to begin with. And so but I understand why Trump would think that, because obviously, I guess he doesn't focus much anyway. Yes, I made every decision. So there's Joe Biden saying Trump, quote, doesn't focus much while going on a tangent. Just incredible stuff. You couldn't script it. And he says the auto pen is legal as other Presidents used it, including Trump. But the point is that we're talking about a whole lot of people. Okay, okay. Charlie, you are the senior political reporter for the Daily Mail. And this to me seems like it just turned into a massive, the massive political scandal that Republicans wanted it to be. Just from a political perspective, am I right or am I over my skis on that assessment?

[Charlie Spearing]

Yeah, absolutely. And a lot of it stems from these like, mass group pardons that they sort of explained. Like this is Joe Biden trying to universally enact, you know, criminal justice reform. Remember the big slew of pardons. Obama was the one that started doing this. And I'm sure the exact same thing happened under the Obama administration. You grant like kind of this wide base pardon for thousands of pardons and you hope that your staff and your legal team are executing due diligence and then running it through the old auto pen. Because no president wants to be there signing over a thousand pardons by hand at this point.

[Emily]

So let alone Joe Biden, who had his stories to watch and that's right. Jeopardy to get to and presumably all kinds of jello to eat.

[Charlie Spearing]

Right. And hopefully he was in bed by, you know, by 8 o' clock when, you know, some of these were 6 o'.

[Emily]

Clock.

[Charlie Spearing]

Yeah, I'm being generous, but yeah, absolutely. And it's, it's, it's strange to see these bulk pardons go out. And this is why the, the precedent was set during Obama and that it was a bad precedent been to set because a. You have not full due diligence conducted by the President himself. Too much is being left up to staff at this point. And also just very interesting that the Times forced Biden out into the open on this. It's clear they had a story cooking on it. And when they reached out to the Biden team, the Biden team realized that they had to get the President personally involved in this to defend his record because, wow, does it look bad.

[Emily]

And Gabe, you're an investigative reporter with the Free Press, of course. And now what it looks like is a whole lot more investigatory demand for what happened with some of these preemptive pardons. So Senator Rand Paul is already re upping his charge to keep investigating Anthony Fauci for perjury because of his claims about gain of function before Congress during the pandemic. So you follow this, you understand where these investigative threads can lead when they're pulled on. Tell us where this could go in the days and weeks ahead.

[Gabe Kaminsky]

I mean, I feel like James Comer is opening a new investigation every other day in the last administration. They all kind of went nowhere. And other senators, look, I think that like politically the story and generally unlike the auto pen yet confirms it adds further ammo to Republicans concerns.

[Charlie Spearing]

Right.

[Gabe Kaminsky]

That Biden was being led by staff and that he essentially was a dormant president. But it was mentioned that like the auto pen during Obama, the auto pen was he also used since jfk, Nixon, Carter, and in this case, I mean Biden's authorizing his staff or through those broad classifications. I believe it was Stephanie Feldman, I forget her title exactly. In the White House. So she approved the broad class, you know, broad classifications for pardons. Which certainly raises questions about like, you know, who exactly those people were and whether, you know, the validity of all those pardons as far as like Fauci and merely I believe the Times story had said that some of those more high profile people, including Hunter Biden, were individually approved. Correcting or wrong were individually approved by Biden. I, I think, look, I guess my take is that like it's the auto pen's long been used but certainly like this is just gonna add fire to Republicans concerns, particularly with this president who used it in this way who you know, as we was revealed, was in many way not even revealed. We knew this for years, but it was revealed in this, purportedly revealed in a recent book that you know, he was not exactly operating day to day.

[Emily]

Yeah, you know, it's easy, like I roll my eyes at a lot of these retroactive Biden stories because it's frustrating that now we're talking about all kinds of things that I think probably could have been reported out at least to some extent a year ago, two years ago, whenever it was. And it's frustrating because there are things on the table right now immediately that are affecting people's lives in ways that are more important than the Biden story. And yet at the same time this is what was actually going on behind closed doors now that Biden has a cancer diagnosis that many experts are saying is, is unlikely. It just manifested with no medical detection before we got the official news immediately. I mean, all of this, it does just make you wonder. I agree with Gabe about James Comer looking, you know, as under every bed that he can. And I think he's, he's found some interesting stuff. But there hasn't, you know, been some type of like fantastical smoking gun. There have been a lot of sort of little puzzle pieces that add up and are and are interesting and I think worth threads worth pulling on. But at the end of the day what we're probably always going to end up knowing is just the smart, this obvious reality that Joe Biden was not mentally fit to be president. And people abused that and took advantage of it in, in many different ways that we'll never fully probably understand the extent of. I want to get your all both of your take on Barack Obama wading into the fray. It is now. Okay, so we're on July 14, 2025, a year from now, the midterm cycle will be in full swing and Barack Obama here in the summer. The, the famously slow Washington summer told behind closed doors party donors last Friday. The New York Times put it this way. They quote, unquote that he scolded Democrats for failing to speak out against President Trump on his policies, suggesting they were shrinking from the challenge out of fear of retribution. It's going to require a little bit less navel gazing, this is a quote. And a little less whining and being in fetal positions. And it's going to require Democrats to just toughen up. What I've been surprised by is the degree to which we've seen people who, when I was a president or progressive liberal, stood for all kinds of stuff who seem like they're kind of cowed and intimidating and shrinking away from just asserting what they believe, or at least what they said they believe. Charlie, you remember covering this stuff when he was president. Honestly, help me out here. Gabe was actually still, he was still in diapers when Obama was president, probably literally. But help me out here. Charlie, who the hell is he talking about?

[Charlie Spearing]

Isn't lecturing Barack Obama the very best? Barack Obama stands up and lectures Democrats. You know, he's been out of power for how long? He devastated their congressional majorities and kind of left him in the wilderness with Hillary Clinton. So, you know, Obama didn't do the Democratic Party any favors on his way out. Yes, he was a transformational, inspirational.

[Emily]

Oh, I'm so glad you finished the word transformational. I was like.

[Charlie Spearing]

From the Democrats perspective. Yes. But at the very end, he, you know, this is lecturing Barack Obama the very, his very favorite thing. He's not out there talking to actual voters. He's talking to donors. He's talking to Democrats and he's giving them a good lecture, like encouraging them to buck up. Stan, stand for what you believe in. I think Ezra Klein saw this speech was like, hey, he's paying attention to what I'm writing. Well, of course he's paying attention to what you're writing as recline because he reads the New York Times. And that's his source of ideas. He's not out there talking to people in rural America. He's not out there talking to actual Democratic voters maybe who decided to, you know, Obama voters who turn to vote for Trump. He's not out there to understand that. He's just out there to kind of lecture the party, encourage them to buck up. And hey, if you do this, maybe you'll get more money and maybe we can win some midterms also, just a very desperate attempt by the, you know, the Democrats to recruit their last luminary to sort of buck up Republicans staring down a very tough midterm cycle.

[Emily]

Gabe, I gotta get your thoughts on this because you, you have presumably Democratic sources, Republican sources, in fact, I know you do because you do great reporting on both of these parties. So I'm genuinely curious who Obama might be referring to. I don't know. There is consternation on the far left that Democrats, just like there was with Republicans during the Tea Party years, that Democrats aren't sort of posturing harshly enough against Trumpism because maybe they learned their lessons from Trump 1.0 and are pulling their punches. Not to get sort of bogged down in Lawfare again, but that doesn't seem like what anybody is actually doing here. They are afraid to some extent, I imagine, of getting bogged down in culture war fights. But I don't think anybody would accuse Democrats who are like risking arrest of broadly pulling their punches. I don't know, what do you make of this?

[Gabe Kaminsky]

He seems to maybe perhaps be referring to like law firms and I believe Columbia that have capitulated following the Trump administration launching investigations. And I mean, also it could be read as like corporate America, which is in many ways been cozying up to the Trump administration since Trump took power, donating billions of dollars to fund his inauguration.

[Emily]

Well, and Gabe, actually, you all at the Free Press, I'm sorry to interrupt, but you all reported that Colombia behind closed doors was saying something very different. He's, that's his alma mater. But they, right, they, when they sort of had first said they capitulated to Trump, you all at the Free Press reported they were telling people behind closed doors, basically, don't worry about it.

[Gabe Kaminsky]

Yeah, so, I mean, my, my, my sense is Obama's probably referring to the various institutions in the country, whether it's universities, law firms, or corporations that for a very long time under, as Democrats ran the country were very, very much, you know, in bed with power, for lack of a better word. And now that Republicans are in power, they've seen, you know, the winds that have changed and they're trying to find ways to work with the federal government. But in the same way, I mean, the notion that, you know, Democrats aren't adequately like pushing back or fighting against the administration is kind of ridiculous. I mean, every other day Democrats in Congress are launching investigations, whether it's into, you know, investigations that are going to go nowhere and are basically just them screaming into a void that and waiting to, you know, trying to like win re election, but into the Trump family business dealings or their various like shady kind of crypto dealings or.

[Emily]

So.

[Gabe Kaminsky]

So there's not really a lack of like Democrats speaking out or I mean, it was J.D. vance posted a, you know, picture of him or a video of him and his family at Disneyland or Disney World. I forget which. Gavin Newsom's like, this is F10. Gavin Newsom quote, tweets it and is like, how dare J.D. you know, like there's a. It's kind of endless. And in fact it's. In many ways one would say it's the opposite is that Democrats are continuing like things like that Newsom attack, continuing to sort of rate, you know, like respond to the Trump and Vance and angry about various things. In that case, that was just a ridiculous whatever Newsom was saying about him, his family at Disney World.

[Emily]

But yeah, I'll pick up on that point, but we gotta let you guys go. Gabe, before we do, I need to ask you a question. On a scale of 1 to John Madden at Thanksgiving, how grateful are you to me for hiring you as an intern in. Was that 20? 20.

[Gabe Kaminsky]

2020. So grateful. Yeah. Emily got me my start in journalism, so first person I met in this very weird and bizarre and crazy journalism world.

[Emily]

Well, Gabe, nobody can take credit for your career but you because you are the most prolific intern that I've ever, ever seen. I've overseen dozens and dozens and dozens. You are incredible. And I commit recommend to everyone Gabe's most recent article, the Billionaire astronaut caught in the Trump musk crossfire over at the Free Press. Charlie, your latest book on Kamala Harris, remind me what the title of the book was.

[Charlie Spearing]

Oh, well, Emily, I just happen to have it here on my shelf.

[Emily]

We didn't even plan this. Yeah, look at that.

[Charlie Spearing]

Amateur hour.

[Emily]

Amateur hour. Could have guessed.

[Charlie Spearing]

Kind of, you know, outdated as most voters have kind of turned the page, as it were, on the Colin Harris story. But hope springs eternal. She might come back and run for governor. She might come back and run for president again. We can talk about Kamala Harris all day long and there's plenty of things to talk about. And I think she has something of a political future if she wants it.

[Emily]

I believe that. I believe that. All right, Charlie and Gabe, I've kept you up long enough. Thank you so much for hanging out in the after party with us.

[Charlie Spearing]

Thanks, Emily. Congratulations on the show and happy to return anytime.

[Emily]

Thank you, guys. All right, I do want to pick up on a quick point here. If we can put F10 and then F11 up on the screen, just because Gabe and Charlie mentioned it. Gavin Newsom did go after JD Vance, who took his family to Disneyland in California and said, JD Is back in California. He won't take the time to debate and defend gutting our Medicaid system, taking away kids schools, meals, militarizing America street, or adding trillions to the debt. Instead, he's off to Disneyland, probably to detain Mickey Mouse Mouse at this rate. Holy. That last line is so embarrassing. It's like his posts were being written by, like, an MSNBC boomer. This is supposed to be the, like, cool cutting edge of the Democratic party heading into 2028, and he's saying probably to detain Mickey Mouse at this rate. You nailed it, buddy. This is going to be a gold mine on the podcast circuit. Keep making jokes about J.D. vance detaining Mickey Mouse. Now J.D. vance responded, and I thought this was interesting because J.D. just said, quote, had a great time. Thanks. It's like Newsom had posted also. Hope you and your family enjoy your time. The families you're tearing apart certainly won't. Just that emotional blackmail post, Biden. It is so old and it is so tired, and it's just not going to work anymore. And I wanted to make that point quickly before we moved on to the break, because give me a. Like, I was gonna say give me a break. While I'm about to give myself a break, I'm sounding like Gavin Newsom here. Is he gonna detain Mickey Mouse? Seriously, though, it's just like this. This is the guy who's right now on a podcast tour. He's on Sean Ryan show, and he's acting with this sort of faux humility about the Democratic Party getting a couple different issues wrong. And I think this is an early sign that Mickey Mouse line, you can book, book market. This is an early sign that Gavin Newsom is going to struggle to connect, to resonate with voters. Now here's something that's definitely going to resonate not just with voters, but with anybody who has a freaking heart. Let me tell you a story about a guy named Leo Grillo. Well, on a road trip, Leo came across a Doberman and this guy was severely underweight and clearly in trouble. Leo rescued that Doberman and named him Delta. Sadly, Delta was just one of many animals that needed help, which inspired Leo to start Delta Rescue, the largest no kill, care for life animal sanctuary in the world. They've rescued thousands of dogs, cats and horses from the wilderness and they provide their animals with shelter, love, safety and a home. This dedication and everlasting love to animals is Leo's mission and legacy. Delta Rescue relies solely on contributions from people like us. If you want caring for these animals to be part of your legacy, speak with your estate planner because there are tax saving estate planning benefits too. You can grow your estate while letting your love for animals live well into the future. Check out the estate planning tab on their website to learn more and speak with an advisor we call a dog man's best friend for a reason. You can help those who need it most. So please visit Deltarescue.org today to learn more. That's Deltarescue.org in the summer, all of.

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

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[Emily]

Okay, I promised and I know people are waiting with bated breath for a Lena Dunham rant and I've already gone almost 10 minutes over time for the show, but I truly, I just don't care because I can't be held back. I can't. You can try, but I can't. And that's because Lena Dunham, who is out with a new Netflix show called Too Much, is right now re exploring the legacy of HBO's landmark series Girls, which, I'll be honest, I was the target audience for. And I'm the target audience for this new Lena Dunham joint. There's no question about it. I did watch. I watched the first several episodes. I think I'm on episode four or five, something around there. And of course, as the target audience for everything that Lena Dunham does, I I very much enjoyed it. It's funny, it gives you laughs and if you are in the age range and by that I mean like the cringe millennial age range, meaning you like to say that old Taylor was her best, then this is a show for you. Well done Netflix, and well done Lena. She knows how to get us. But she was actually on an episode of the Girls Rewatch podcast, which I mean I wish somebody I wish non leftists were doing non progressives, I should say. We're doing the Girls Rewatch podcast. And briefly I flirted with doing a sort of rite of center. Maybe heterodox is the best way to put it. Son's insufferable Girls. We rewatched podcast years and years ago before this one actually came out because I feel like Girls is one of the most misunderstood and generally underappreciated series. And I mean the amount of television that I watch, I hope that means something because I put in so many hours into it for you. I work so hard and I get so sore from my couch and it's not easy, but it's not easy work, but someone has to do it. Truly, Girls was more here's how we describe Lena Dunham. She is the friend who you listen to whine constantly. And they're so smart and it's so frustrating because they're constantly whining in a way that makes it so easy to diagnose what their actual problem is, and yet they can't see it. That's Lena Dunham, whose content over and over again projects unintentionally this deep discontent with post sexual revolution feminism and liberalism, but never puts its its finger on why. She is fabulous at explaining, at understand, or at identifying, let's say, the problem. But she never draws the conclusion from identifying the problem. She never draws the obvious conclusion from identifying the problem for her. For example, why is the meaningless sex immiserating you? Why is perpetual singledom and career culture immiserating you? Why is the blending of sex and gender immiserating you? These things are funny and she does poke fun at them. She. She pokes fun at virtue signaling. But what does that come from and why is it making you miserable? That's why where she always fails to connect, she connected very interestingly with it at the at the end of Girls. But let's just take a listen to Lena Dunham and I promised before the show, before we got into the show, as I was teasing this tier raid, that I would land the plane and listen, I'm your Sully Sullenberger here, so stick around.

[Lena Dunham]

Has been an increased risk like, we had a moment of sexual openness and body positivity and a moment of like, loosening kind of boundaries that are now. Then felt like they tightened again.

[Gabe Kaminsky]

Yeah.

[Emily]

And did you hear that? We had a moment of loosening boundaries that feel like they tightened again. Is there a mosquito on my face? That's lovely. Has Lena Dunham manifesting in insect form here in the swamp in Washington, D.C. what a fascinating insight, though, that Lena Dunham in 2025, she was on the top of the world. She's on the top of the cultural world. In 2015 was the toast of the art scene. And yes, she unfairly was targeted in many cases by woke backlash. Nevertheless, she got to do her show. She was very much championed. Yes, she got a lot of attacks from the left as well as the right. And we should not memory hold the attacks that she got from the left, but they were basically attacks on her for not. Not being like, quote, unquote, woke enough. And she placated just about every single one of them, like, over and over again. And here she is in 2025, complaining, not complaining, celebrating that time and complaining that the boundaries have tightened once again.

[Lena Dunham]

What I. Sometimes I feel like I started Girls in this little window where, like, a lot of things felt possible. And then it started to narrow, but we were already. The train had already left the station, so I was like, oh, my God, I thought we could get naked on tv. We're already naked on tv. And I didn't realize that people are, like, kind of pissed. And so. And I was also. I was old enough to create and do that, but I wasn't really old enough to. I think you have to be. Live a certain amount of life to, like, step back and have real kind of cultural, sociological perspective.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Lena Dunham]

On backlash like that, I still don't have it. I mean, but to be 24, it's.

[Emily]

Like, why are they so mad? Is how I would feel.

[Lena Dunham]

It truly feels like when you get home and you're 10 minutes late for your curfew and okay, go rewatch, Girls.

[Emily]

And you will understand why conservatives were so mad about Lena Dunham. I think the. The much more interesting question is why the left who was so mad at Lena Dunham? And it's because she had these at the time, very forward, prescient and trenchant observations about her fellow progressive urban millennials, the very people who were starting to dramatically influence the culture as they moved into middle management. And what culminated in the wild year that was 2020 is because. Is because the people who complained about Lena Dunham got their way. And that's because Lena Dunham, an artist, somebody who should have been the, you know, most resistant and the most rebellious against this attempted conformity, caved over and over again. Why? Well, because this is the same reason she can't identify the source of her own immiseration. And you see this right in her physical body. And I don't want to get too far into that. I think it's very sad that somebody who champions body positivity, sort of a reverse Lizzo, dare I say Lizzo, has become increasingly healthy as a champion of body positivity, as somebody who, by the way, came to fame. And in the second half of the decade that Lena Dunham came to fame and is now getting healthy, Lena Dunham looks progressively less healthy. And she sounds wiser in some ways, perhaps, but I don't look at Lena Dunham as somebody. I pay pretty close attention to her as somebody who seems like they're doing really well. I don't know her, I don't know her personally, but. But in her art, I think it does project a level of anxiety and misery and pain that is rooted in a purposelessness and a sort of post modern concept of the good life that she herself challenges through her art in ways she doesn't. Here it is. I would say Lena doesn't quite land the plane. And I say that with humility, as actually, I'm slightly younger than Lena Dunham. I'm probably like 10 years younger than Lena Dunham somewhere around there. And I mean, I think a lot of this experiment played out in ways that were increasingly obvious to see by the time Girls finished its run. But if you haven't watched to the end of Girls, even if you haven't watched the last episode, that show is shockingly conservative. The last moments of Girls, maybe because conservatives had all tuned it out by then. We're done with the outrage porn over Girls. They. They didn't realize how that show ended. I'm not going to spoil it here, but I highly recommend you go watch it. It is as the quote unquote woke. Revolution was consuming our institutions with the idea that sex and gender were malleable categories. Lena Dunham made unintentionally one of the most poignant and beautiful statements on womanhood and the essence of femininity that has existed in liberal art, leftist art in the last couple of decades. And she did it without really knowing what she was saying clearly, because she still doesn't embrace that. And I think it's just a really, really Sad story about how rootlessness and sort of this, this intellectual wandering that. That never ends up quite tethering itself to a rock, right? It's sort of. You're just, just on a foundation of sand and shifting and shifting as the winds blow over the course of your life and never ultimately tether, you know, she would say she's tethered herself now to. She's gotten married to her husband and to England. She's moved out of New York City and wrote quite an essay about that, which I recommend to people as well. But she's very talented, she's a great writer, she can be really funny. But it's just fascinating to watching her art, her struggle with what the world is really telling her and what her experiences are really telling her because she often projects it in her satire. And it's like that friend again, I come back to this, this friend who is just unloading on you constantly and saying, oh, my problem is this. My problem is that this is happening and you're just thinking, okay, but you have to know what the problem is at this point, right? You have to. Should I be. What I should be doing right now is like referencing someone specific and communicating with them subtly somewhere in my life and just making it really obvious who I'm talking about. I'm not going to do that. But you all have that friend, right? That's Lena Dunham. That's Lena Dunham. She's brilliant. And she, she flirts with some really, really. Taylor Swift does this too. But she flirts with some really important, important and interesting, interesting realizations and then is never quite willing because of all of the conditioning of our culture post sexual revolution, to really grapple and to really say I was wrong. And it's sad because I think, you know, there. That happens to a lot of people. Those are my thoughts on Lena Dunham. I'll have more as the days go on. Don't you worry. If you want more, just stay tuned, keep watching. After party. I promise you I will have more thoughts on Lena Dunham. It's only the third or fourth week of the show. I have probably. Well, you don't even want to know how much of this I have saved up. So just as a reminder, we're here Mondays and Wednesdays at 10pm and it's not like we go from 10 to 11. We go from 10 to whenever I decide to stop talking. So lucky you. But I just want to say we appreciate everyone tuning in, whether you're watching this live or taken in the podcast or the videos afterwards. Means a lot to us. Means a lot to me. We have such a great team. So grateful to all of them. Grateful to all of you. And we will see you back here Wednesday at 10pm when work gets crazy, I like to stop by the bar after, have a few cold ones. I don't drink at all until 4 o'. Clock. We limit ourselves to one bottle of wine a night.

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

Excessive drinking has a way of sneaking up on us. A few drinks, a few nights a.

[Emily]

Week, it can add up.

[Oregon Lottery Representative]

And suddenly we're at greater risk for.

[Charlie Spearing]

Long term problems like heart disease, cancer and depression. Reason enough to rethink to Drink [e-mail] an OHA initiative.