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- [00:00]
Shopify Representative
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- [00:52]
Sammy Sage
Head over to Shopify.
- [00:55]
Shopify Representative
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- [01:12]
V. Spear
Rise and Shine, Fever dreamers. Look alive, my friends. I'm V. Spear.
- [01:15]
Sammy Sage
And I'm Sammy Sage.
- [01:17]
V. Spear
And this is American Fever Dream, presented by Betches News, the show that wants.
- [01:21]
Sammy Sage
To know what's going on with our boys and, and in some cases, gals.
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V. Spear
That was up vitus and dude, how crazy has the last week been? It's been a madhouse of things.
- [01:34]
Sammy Sage
It's been erratic, I would say is the word no for sure. Especially the past. Yet this is a long, long lasting scandal.
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V. Spear
It is the Epstein thing. It's got juice.
- [01:46]
Sammy Sage
It's got juice because first of all, he knew everybody, so there's so many people. He had decades of actions that were accounted for, unaccounted for. We'll see. And there's already so much in the public record. It's not like the, you know, the files, quote unquote. Like, I'm sure there's tons of new information in it and also probably some specifics that would help people understand like what's really going on here. But it's really just. It's been, it's been a lot and.
- [02:20]
V. Spear
It'S been a lot.
- [02:21]
Sammy Sage
America might be coming together.
- [02:23]
V. Spear
I think we are. And also Tara Palmeri, friend of the pod, is going to be on. Well, she by the time you're listening to this, she will have been on my substack yesterday. She and Julie Brown from the Miami Herald are the most expert people when it comes to journalism and the Epstein files. And she gave me a lot of things. And Vicky Ward, she gave me a couple hot things that have. They've been out there, but people hadn't picked up on them. So we're gonna tell you those today because there's some really. Just like the stuff you think you know about Epstein is a lot about, like, you know, the island, but the island was honestly like a very small part of the crimes. Like the. The stuff he did in Manhattan and in Palm beach and at Mar a Lago and the things he was planning to build out and in New Mexico are crazy, but.
- [03:09]
Sammy Sage
Right. Like the. The island is just like a location.
- [03:12]
V. Spear
Right.
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Sammy Sage
And also it enabled certain lawsuits, which then led to certain information coming out. But it's really just incidental. Like, it. It didn't have to be on the island. It is a salient fact that he had an island. It does make him sort of villain esque. Sounds that way in the grand scheme of things. But we have so much to talk about today. It's going to be just us, too. We love when that happens. We love our guests, but we love just. Just being with ourselves too, you know, it's good to be able to be alone with yourself.
- [03:42]
V. Spear
And speaking of that, speaking of being alone with ourselves, Sammy and I went to the Time 100 Creator party because I got named, like, Time 100.
- [03:50]
Sammy Sage
Oh. I got casually named, like, a time.
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V. Spear
I don't know. I can't, like. I don't know. I'm like, you didn't know.
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Sammy Sage
You. Come on. You know, you deserve this.
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V. Spear
Okay. Come on.
- [03:58]
Sammy Sage
Yeah.
- [03:59]
V. Spear
Thank you. So we went, I mean, hawk two.
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Sammy Sage
Girls on it, so.
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V. Spear
I know, but people are like, are you gonna bring your wife? No, obviously, I'm bringing Sammy. Sammy is my work partner. We go to events together and which is what this felt like. It was a work party.
- [04:12]
Sammy Sage
We did spend a lot of time alone together, though. We did say that.
- [04:16]
V. Spear
But the one time.
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Sammy Sage
Haley Lickstein.
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V. Spear
Yes, Haley. We love Haley. Shout out Haley. But the one time that I turned around and I got lost from Sammy in this party, I found myself talking to Ballerina Farm, Hannah Norman and Daniel happened to. I am telling you. And who else was standing there with me when I turned around, lost Sammy and found myself literally in the arms of Daniel, who you will see, I'll put up the picture. Was Patagonia the drag queen. So me and the drag queen are talking to the queen of the tradwives. And she. First of all, she's very nice. There was not. There's nothing like that. I was an idiot.
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Sammy Sage
She's nice.
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V. Spear
Of course she is. Daniel's also very nice. Nice is different than good. So here's.
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Sammy Sage
He was the most identifiable because of his cowboy hat.
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V. Spear
He was. And they do have a really interesting energy. I was like, okay. And we've covered them before in their connections to Peter Thiel and whatever else. So I'm talking to her and I'm trying to just be nice because we're both on this list of creators. And.
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Sammy Sage
Wait, are they actually connected to Peter Thiel or just.
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V. Spear
She was a cover girl for EV Magazine.
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Sammy Sage
But that's not like her being connected.
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V. Spear
It doesn't.
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Sammy Sage
I know he funds it magazine. Okay, Right. But, you know, it's not like he's paying her under the table that we know of.
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V. Spear
But EV magazine is. Yeah. So anyway, moving on. So I say to her, we're chatting and things are going well, and she's wearing. You know, they look like they're not from New York. They look like they're from Texas or wherever. And they're very fashionable for that sort of trad wife look. And so I had only really talked to him and about protein powder, which was fascinating.
- [05:46]
Sammy Sage
And then I said to her, bonding over the. The masculinity crisis.
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V. Spear
I didn't know what to do. I was trying to like, butch up or something.
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Sammy Sage
What kind of protein powder?
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V. Spear
They have their own. That's. That's like animal based protein instead of plant. Anyway, I'm not here to sell her protein.
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Sammy Sage
The animal. Animals on their farm.
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V. Spear
Yes. So, okay, I turn to her and I go, have you ever been to New York City before? What do you think? She's like, on the prairie, Sammy? She looks at me like this and goes. And I'm like, oh, shit. The Juilliard stuff, right? You were the ballerina at Juilliard. And then. Oh, no. And then. Oh, I'm so sorry about that. That's. Wow, that sucked. Well, anyway, good luck with the eggs. So I said, good luck with the eggs and the protein powder. And I turned around and Pat was like, what the fuck just happened? Did you stroke out? Why would you say that?
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Sammy Sage
And I'm like, you just.
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V. Spear
I don't know. I panicked.
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Sammy Sage
That is like a trad wife microaggression. You just committed.
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V. Spear
I felt so bad because I was like. I'm like, oh, shit. The Juilliard stuff. Oh my God, that was terrible. Oh, right. Oh, my God. Well, good luck with the eggs. She's like, what?
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Sammy Sage
It's hilarious that I even forgot about Juilliard. I was just like, of course she's been to New York. She's not like sa, you know, a Beverly Hillbilly.
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V. Spear
I. I mean, I walk away. Patagonia's like, did you stroke out? What happened to you? And I'm like, girl, I don't know. I just. I started to panic and I started to spiral, and then I tried to make it better and then I just. I lost it. I was gone.
- [07:25]
Sammy Sage
Good luck with the eggs.
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V. Spear
That's the new I was.
- [07:29]
Sammy Sage
What's going on with boys in some cases.
- [07:32]
V. Spear
So anyway, that was my experience, trying to talk to people that I don't know.
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Sammy Sage
I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
- [07:39]
V. Spear
I don't know where I went. It was the one minute we weren't together, and then this was the moment that I went and got us white wine spritzers. Cause I was so stressed out. Oh, okay.
- [07:48]
Sammy Sage
I know when this happened.
- [07:49]
V. Spear
And then I came frantically looking for you, which is fun because Sammy is like my olliolly oxen free, safe space at events where I'm like, if I have Sammy, I'm good. I don't panic. I don't say weird shit to people. I don't know. It's good. And so I went and got us white wine spritzers. Cause it was so hot up there. And then you're like, what is this? I'm like a white wine spritzer. Which was also a panic order. I was in a frenzy and it was great. But as I was walking to you looking for you, different people are trying to talk to me. And I'm like, I literally can't talk to you. I have to tell Sammy about this. Oh, it's bad.
- [08:20]
Sammy Sage
You know what's so funny is that, like, it just proves you can. Anyone can commit a microaggression against anybody.
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V. Spear
I know. I was. Anyway, I was really embarrassed and I'm really sorry. I certainly didn't mean to like, you know, bring up the thing that it was up there with, like being like, oh, your mom died. Like, it was like I felt like it was the worst possible thing I could have said ever. It was the cruelest, most insane thing to say.
- [08:44]
Sammy Sage
It's just funny because it's like she's.
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V. Spear
You know, she knows. She knows. I was like, oh, do you think she knows? Sorry. Oh my God. That was terrible.
- [08:53]
Sammy Sage
Right? Like, she's not like she's. That's the thing is, like, she's sophisticated. I think in reality, she's super smart. Yeah, right. Like, that's the. That's the actual interesting thing, and I think that's what people object to about her brand, is that she portrays herself as being. Or there's a projection of sort of like a simpler type of person. And maybe the people following her are like that. But she, in reality, is sophisticated, savvy, you know.
- [09:22]
V. Spear
Well, that kind of brings us to our big topic today, which is Epstein and the types of girls that he would try to recruit. Because rich people who are sickos. 10 to love a songbird, they don't want a dumb, sort of, like, girl from the country. They want to make her be a dumb girl from the country. But they. Epstein in particular, he was recruiting from Juilliard. He was recruiting from the Interlockin School of Music, Very prestigious school, the Dalton School, which is very prestigious high school.
- [09:48]
Sammy Sage
Like, there was the high school around Palm Beach.
- [09:51]
V. Spear
Yes, there was.
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Sammy Sage
There were the Mar a Lago locker.
- [09:53]
V. Spear
Room that very rich people. Rich men do. And then they. They want a woman who's highly educated, who's extremely talented in some way, a ballerina, cel or whatever, and then they want to keep them locked away.
- [10:05]
Sammy Sage
He did go for. For people who. Girls who were in, like, a little bit of a more.
- [10:11]
V. Spear
He did a mix.
- [10:12]
Sammy Sage
A less stable home situation. He did, you know, or wanted money.
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V. Spear
He did.
- [10:17]
Sammy Sage
But they lived in Palm beach, you know, or they lived in.
- [10:20]
V. Spear
Well, they worked, you know, early beach or something. The Epstein thing that was so diabolically intelligent to the strategy behind how he recruited this girl, these girls is he would have some girls who wanted prestige, and they came from the big fancy music school, and they had parents that had money, but they were used to being controlled. Natalie has talked a lot about this as a person who was a child prodigy, went to all of these different camps. She has. She didn't have this experience, but she knows girls who did and had sort of, you know, got swept up by a bad or taken by a bad person. And so she was explaining to me, you know, there's all. The goal and the way you're trained is like a classical cellist or ballerina is to be accommodating to older people with money, because you have to have a patron to have a career.
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Sammy Sage
There is.
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V. Spear
You have to have somebody with money who is supporting you to have this career. So he would take girls who had this polish and this shine, and he'd bring them in that way. And he'd promise them, I'm going to get you in Juilliard. I'm going to do this, that the other. And then he would take girls who were not as highfalutin or whatever and from. From a more desperate circumstance, and he'd have them together. So now you have peer bonding of, like, these very polished girls teaching the less polished girls how to behave. And. And it makes it all look like you're succeeding because now you're in company with these people who are doing really well. And when you. I came from nothing. That is very alluring when you're like, oh, I made it. Look at my friends are really successful. I'm hanging out with successful people. So he was very smart in the way he manipulated people, even across the lines with their peers being manipulated.
- [11:48]
Sammy Sage
That's an interesting point, because a lot of it did come from these promises that they were going to get to be models. And if you listen to Katie Johnson's testimony, she talks about, you know, her first experiences with going to an Epstein party. And she was recruited on the basis that she was going to be a model, and all she had to do was come to a few parties and, you know, walk around, basically. But what was became evident when she was there was that there actually isn't a line between the girls who model and the girls who provide sexual favors for money. And that was what this was about. And if there was any auditioning, it was just whether they would allow that.
- [12:27]
V. Spear
Well, and there's the story of. And this is the one that I heard from Natalie that was also covered in the New York Times, I believe. But it's not as popular of the girl who was at Interlaken, where he had this. This is very prestigious music school in Michigan, and she was a cellist. And he promised her he'd get her in Juilliard. He did get her in Juilliard. And then when she wouldn't have sex with whoever he wanted her to, he pulled her scholarship and he pulled her funding. And she had to try and figure out how to stay in Juilliard without that funding. And it's really, really hard. And I believe that she ended up figuring it out with the school or whatever. But it's stuff like that they do where they give you the opportunity, but the opportunity comes with a ton of strings. And, you know, so these are. These are some of the stories that were. We're not hearing as much about, because the reason why we ever heard anything about Epstein was due to the bravery of Virginia Giuffre, she was the first one of the Jane does to go on record, to have kept records and to have really been earnest in her thing where she was like, look, I came from nothing. I had already been trafficked when I was 14 years old by my own family. So I had sort of like, I was like, sort of like, okay, well, I guess this is just how adults act, dealt with. Jeffrey was able to sort of like compartmentalize what was going on because he promised her that she would have a career as a genuine massage therapist when she got done. Sort of like, oh, you have to go through some tough times, but then you're going to be, you're going to work at a spa, you're going to have the life you always dreamed of. You'll have freedom and success, access to high end clientele. And of course, that was all a lie. So the promises were different to everyone.
- [13:54]
Sammy Sage
She was recruited at outside of the Mar a Lago locker room. And she was apparently reading a book that, about massage therapy. Ghislaine Maxwell starts talking to her and says to her, you know, this will help you. You know, I know, would you want to give a massage to some guys and this will get you on your path. And she, that was, you know, her way. A lot of the stories I think you're talking about, the Juilliard story was in Filthy Rich on Netflix, the Jeffrey Epstein documentary.
- [14:30]
V. Spear
I know it was written about though.
- [14:32]
Sammy Sage
There are a lot of the, there are a lot of the victims who come forward in that and they put their faces to it and their, you know, the stories are several episodes and it's really, it's. It's really a lot.
- [14:50]
V. Spear
The thing about cello, that which is my wife is a cellist, as you guys know. Like, it is such an expensive thing to do. And the instrument itself is really unattainable to get for many people. So Epstein knew that, right? He'd like have excess. Well, and they cost like hundreds of thousands of dollars or he would let them play a million dollar because he had relationships with different places. And like, you know, oh, this cello was owned by like an Italian priest. And it's like all rich people get into the weirdest shit because they're bored, right? So then it becomes just cellos. Not enough. It has to be a cello that has like this pedagogy of like being really played by all these incredible people.
- [15:31]
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- [16:04]
Sammy Sage
You know, Epstein was a kind of an eclectic guy. You know, he was into the arts and he was into science, and he used these sort of, like, renaissance subjects to, you know, as ways into, like, academia. Right. To make himself seem more sophisticated. So he would, like, host these salons with, you know, intellectual thinkers. And especially after he got out of. Of prison the first time, what he did was he would invite people to his apartment, you know, legitimate people who probably didn't necessarily have anything to do with what he was doing. But I think the way that they.
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V. Spear
The.
- [16:48]
Sammy Sage
The plea deal that they agreed to, the way that it was structured made him. That Alex Acosta signed off on later had to resign because of it. I think the way that it was structured, it made people think that maybe he didn't. He wasn't doing what, as a substantial of a thing, as he was doing, like, oh, he maybe just got caught with some pictures on his computer. Was kind of.
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V. Spear
The prostitution wasn't a big deal in Florida or New York at that time. It just was. I mean, it was like, very clean. I mean, so when they said, oh, well, he did a little prostitution, they were like, okay, well, who among us hasn't?
- [17:28]
Sammy Sage
Yeah, right. So he was trying to use, you know, these sophisticated charities and. And associations to basically recover his own reputation. And at one point, Steve Bannon was trying to help him rehab his reputation, and then he was arrested again.
- [17:47]
V. Spear
There is so much crossover in these folks. So I've sort of laid it out to give us, like, a primer on what happened, and I will do that after I give you this little nugget. Okay. Because there's stuff that you guys might not know if you didn't listen to Tara Palmeri's broken podcast. So when Virginia Giuffre had originally aged out of being of interest to Jeffrey Epstein, she had been such a loyal, easy to manipulate victim that he wanted to keep her around because he was like, you know, she still has used to me, even though she's aged out of, you know, she's an adult now. She's 21 now, and I can't. And he's into, you know, much younger, so.
- [18:30]
Sammy Sage
And the people he was procuring Women for wanted younger.
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V. Spear
Right?
- [18:35]
Sammy Sage
Yeah.
- [18:35]
V. Spear
So. But he was like, she's so loyal. There's something she can do for me. There's something I want that she can provide. And he and Ghislaine, who he called his main girlfriend or lady Ghislaine, had a relationship for 20 years or something. Right. But they never conceived a child. And at this point, Jeffrey was like, I ought to start having children because I'm so exceptional that I should begin making sure that my genetic code gets passed on so me and Ghislaine can't have a child. But what we could do is offer Virginia Giuffre $2 million to be our surrogate. She, of course, said no. But in the process of this, she testifies on the podcast, even about how Ghislaine really wanted a child. And the idea was she would be a surrogate. They pay her $200,000 a month for every month that she was pregnant, assuming it was 10 months. And so that's $2 million. And then she would just hand the child over to Jeffrey and Ghislaine. And Ghislaine would be the mother, but that she may be asked to do this again in the future. And if it worked out and everything seemed really great, they may start using his New Mexico ranch as a surrogacy farm.
- [19:43]
Sammy Sage
Yes. I remember this. This random, tiny, weird fact that is just one among so many that as his weird.
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V. Spear
Like, I think it wouldn't just be him either. It would be, you know, for him to be able to do this, but also he would have these girls who he had sort of trained up to be. This is like, step two of his victim. And it could be for him or his rich friends to be able to essentially populate the Earth with better people, the people they thought they were. I want to remind you, this is about the time that he started hanging out with Elon Musk as well, that we see. Elon Musk is photographed with Ghislaine Maxwell and Elon Musk. I'm not saying he got the idea from Jeffrey Epstein. I'm just saying it's interesting that these people who ran in this circle have this idea of populating the Earth with as many children as they could possibly have using IVF or iui.
- [20:32]
Sammy Sage
Well, a lot of that was about, like this. You know, a lot of what he did was use philanthropy and scientific advancement to sort of, like, launder his. His reputation. So he promised to donate. He pledged $30 million to Harvard for their science programs. One of them, he. He apparently only donated like six and a half million. But he donated to MIT, he donated to UPenn. And these were all to like, you know, quantum physics and to, you know, sort of like evolutionary advancement, like very like esoteric things that these Elon and Peter Thiel and all these guys are into, like interplanetary.
- [21:18]
V. Spear
Well, and speaking of Peter Thiel, for the second time this episode, he Epstein invested $40 million billion into it.
- [21:28]
Sammy Sage
It was 40 million in two of Peter Thiel's company funds.
- [21:33]
V. Spear
Right.
- [21:33]
Sammy Sage
That were. Or, sorry, two funds that were backed by Peter Thiel's company, valor Ventures. That 40 million dollar investment is now the big chunk of what Epstein's estate is worth. That asset alone is worth 170 million. And unfortunately, the victims are likely not going to get that because of the.
- [21:53]
V. Spear
Way he restructured his will before he died.
- [21:54]
Sammy Sage
Yeah, yeah. Many of them have also signed away that they would. They got their settlements.
- [22:00]
V. Spear
And I'm not saying that Peter Thiel knew who Epstein was when he took the money or any. I have no idea. I'm not. I have not researched that enough. But the fact that these people, the Venn diagram of people in Epstein's world and people in Trump's cabinet and who have funded Trump seems to be an ever closing circle. It is like the same guys all the time. So let's go, let's walk through because I had forgotten a bunch of like how this had worked out in the first place. We really have to go back to. He operated in the late 90s and early 2000s, which is also when I operated in New York City as an event planner and chef. And I'm going to tell you, this idea of hiring models for things was extremely common. And he played in that world. We would open a restaurant, we'd hire a bunch of models. We would open a restaurant, we'd hire a bunch of models to like be the cocktail girls for that day. A club, you hire a bunch of models. Now the girls I hired came, did the job, went home, and that was the end of it. But it was common for models or aspiring actors in New York to get hired to be staff at XYZ Thing, show up to a party. XYZ Thing or we want to make sure that the restaurant or the club looks really full. So we're going to hire male and female models so that people are dancing and having fun. So that when the old folks with the money that we want to impress come into the club, they see this as like, oh man, this must be the hottest spot in the meatpacking. Look at how busy it is. There's a line out front, all manufactured, that was the corruption of the late 90s, early 2000s restaurant world. That's just how it was. So Epstein knows this and he's playing on this. And that's how I think he got a lot of these girls to show up to stuff because they were like, oh, it's like when I show up to anything else. But it wasn't, of course, it was his sicko thing. Now, in 2008, the first time Jeffrey Epstein gets arrested, it was George Bush's Attorney General, Michael Bukase, who was involved in dropping the federal cases against Epstein. And that is how Epstein got that sweet Florida state sentence of just 13 months for soliciting prostitutes that had been brokered by future Secretary of Labor under Trump, Alex Acosta. So this is the first sort of like, moment where Florida politics and future Trump cabinet members, he was the, he.
- [24:00]
Sammy Sage
Was the U.S. attorney that, that, that signed off on that agreement.
- [24:05]
V. Spear
Now, they don't really bring George Bush's name into this. They just say, in 2008, the attorney general said, but it, this is who it was. The deal also gave immunity to anyone connected to Epstein from prosecution because the deal considers all of the women who may have helped Epstein victims instead of coconspirators. Because there were times that Virginia Giuffre maybe, like, helped hire somebody. She was a victim. She didn't know what happened to that girl afterwards or whatever. And they were like, well, we can't charge victims for being a part of something where they were a victim, right?
- [24:35]
Sammy Sage
Like, she probably said to some girl at some point, hey, I've got this great gig.
- [24:40]
V. Spear
Yeah, yeah, whatever.
- [24:41]
Sammy Sage
Which is how they all ended up there, right?
- [24:43]
V. Spear
So, so they said, you know, the girls who are victims, we don't want to. Of course they're victims, you know, and when you're being abused and you're surviving, that's what you're doing. It is what it is. So. But they included Ghislaine Maxwell, who was in a position of power and said, well, she was also a victim of Epstein, and so she got immunity. A non prosecutory, whatever fucking word that is.
- [25:04]
Sammy Sage
Non prosecution agreement.
- [25:06]
V. Spear
Yes. So she got that. So she thought she was off the hook at this point, she sort of pulls back a little bit, but not too much, because she shows up in 2010, just two years later as a guest at Chelsea Clinton's wedding, where she is photographed at Chelsea Clinton's wedding. Now, Bill Clinton was involved in the Epstein stuff, right? Like in whatever Way he was on the.
- [25:29]
Sammy Sage
He's. He's mentioned in the flight logs multiple times. There's multiple pictures of them. There's a photo of him receiving a shoulder massage from one of the victims. He is heavily implicated in this. There's no two ways about it.
- [25:42]
V. Spear
Yes. Now, I don't know whether to blame the Clintons for Ghislaine Maxwell being on that list, but the fact that the.
- [25:49]
Sammy Sage
Epstein had already been socially friends with.
- [25:54]
V. Spear
All these people, I get that. But Brian Raffinelli was Chelsea's wedding planner, and I think Raffinelli should have nixed that shit or at least flagged for Hillary. Like, you sure you want Ghislaine Maxwell here? Maybe we cut her from the list. Anyway. I think she sneaked by or she was a plus one of somebody. I'm going to tell you that she was not on that fucking. I did Chelsea Clinton's engagement party. She was not on that list directly. Hillary knew everything about everything that was going on. I'm going to have to guess that she was a plus one or added in some side way. But anyway, I don't know.
- [26:22]
Sammy Sage
Like. Like these people are very incestuous. Like Hillary Clinton, not Hillary and Bill. Yeah, but it wasn't Hillary Clinton were at. Yeah, but they. They were all laundering their reputations at this point. And she wasn't even going to.
- [26:38]
V. Spear
At the wedding.
- [26:39]
Sammy Sage
Donald Trump was at the wedding. That's what I was about to say. And also Hillary and Bill were at his wedding to Melania.
- [26:44]
V. Spear
I know, I know. It's crazy times. Okay, so anyway, side Note about the 2008 Attorney General under Bush, Mukasey. He was best friends with Rudy Giuliani, had served as a Southern District of New York judge for years and years and years. And it was literally Joe Biden, when Joe Biden was a senator, who would not vote to confirm this guy because this guy had a stance on tor. Torture. That said torture is okay. I'm okay with torture. Also said not all crimes are punishable. So this guy, the Attorney General from Bush, was not a great dude.
- [27:13]
Sammy Sage
Not a great dude.
- [27:14]
V. Spear
But I couldn't figure out why in 2008, Epstein only got arrested in Florida and not New York, when he always had the New York mansion. It appears that there was a little bit of like, maybe finessing here in the Southern District.
- [27:26]
Sammy Sage
I think that. I think that it was. It had to do with the Palm Beach Police Department that they were actually interested in pursuing this. I also think what was happening in Florida, like, it was very local. Like, very local. Like People talked more. He was like recruiting from like down.
- [27:50]
V. Spear
The street, you know, from up there.
- [27:52]
Sammy Sage
Yeah, I just think there was like more anonymity in New York and more people who come for like more less wholesome circumstances.
- [28:03]
V. Spear
So now, you know, this goes on. He does his little fake sentence. He continues to operate predominantly in Florida. Now this is where we should talk.
- [28:11]
Sammy Sage
About how dumb his sentence was.13 he.
- [28:14]
V. Spear
Was allowed to leave whenever he wanted, basically.
- [28:16]
Sammy Sage
He was, he was allowed to go to quote unquote, work outside of the prison, 12 hours a day, six days a week. And then the rest of it he was, he like, he basically went to jail to sleep.
- [28:28]
V. Spear
Yeah.
- [28:29]
Sammy Sage
And that was only 13 months and then house arrest.
- [28:32]
V. Spear
So that was that. And he was still operating because he was working this entire time. So now we're say we're at like 2011 now. Okay, so he's done his well done his 13 months. He's back into the public society. He's operating fully. Pam Bondi becomes Attorney General of Florida. Just one more Trump.
- [28:49]
Sammy Sage
Well, there's a non prosecution agreement.
- [28:51]
V. Spear
So what's she going to prosecution agreement, what's she going to do? Well, he was committing new crimes. So we very well could have maybe looked into this a little bit more. Pam Bondi, benefit of the doubt to her. She is from Tampa. I saw her a lot when Romney was running for president. She was very involved in Tampa politics which is very separate from Palm Beach. Like these two places could not be further apart from each other socially. So she might, she wasn't at Mar a Lago at this time. Like I don't want to defend her, but she was really involved over here with like capital R. Mitt Romney style Republican politics.
- [29:25]
Sammy Sage
I also think that because those two worlds don't didn't mix socially at the time, she wouldn't like hear the rumors.
- [29:33]
V. Spear
She oh, we had plenty of going on in Tampa so she was all up in that. And we had the RNC in 2012, 2013. So she was dealing with that.
- [29:40]
Sammy Sage
Oh yeah, I remember that.
- [29:41]
V. Spear
It wasn't until she became like really tight with Rick Scott and became his like little protege that she got a little in my opinion more psycho because she was actually like fairly normal Republican back then anyway. So in 2018 a lot of them were, I know they were. It was totally different situation. She could have gone totally another way. Anyway, she didn't and now we're here. So in 2018, an investigative reporter at the Miami Herald identified 80 alleged survivors of sexual abuse by Epstein and the associates. The report led to renewed examinations of sex crime allegations against Epstein. And in 2019, a new federal criminal case was brought against him. Remember that Donald Trump is president at this time, and Donald Trump appears a lot with Epstein. He's maybe photographed with Epstein more than anybody else. Epstein gets arrested in July.
- [30:29]
Sammy Sage
It is important to note that Epstein said that he. And he was Donald's closest friend for years there. People basically have always said, like, Donald Trump doesn't have real friends. Jeffrey Epstein was his closest friend. He told New York magazine in 2002 that Epstein was a guy who he liked to hang out with and that he liked them young. This was before he was, like, even anything, you know, and that's how he was vouching for him. They fell out over a real estate deal because they were very competitive. So they would compete for women, they would compete for homes. Donald Trump ended up out. They. They ran up the price on this house in Palm Beach. Trump ends up winning, and then a few years later, a Russian oligarch buys it from him for double the price.
- [31:29]
V. Spear
I think Epstein knew that Trump was a bad guy, but Epstein was a bad guy. So he was like, whatever, yeah, he's a bad guy, but he's my friend. We do bad.
- [31:35]
Sammy Sage
They liked the same things they had. This Michael Wolf says that they had. Had, like, the same outlook, like they were vibing, you know, two Playboys.
- [31:45]
V. Spear
God. So Epstein gets arrested in July in New Jersey at the airport on charges of sex trafficking, and he's held without bail. It should be noted that in this case, the 2018 arrest, it was based around the testimony of Virginia Giuffre, who was recruited by Ghislaine Maxwell when she was a minor and working at the spa in Mar a Lago. So this is the case where all the discovery, the crimes, the people named are going to be connected to Donald Trump in particular, because it's centered around Virginia Giuffre and all those people who are at Mar a Lago all the time and whatnot are gonna be connected to rape and abuse of minors. Okay? They're gonna be connected to sex trafficking that was happening at Mar a Lago at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein. But Donald Trump is president at this time. Does he really want, as the president, this story playing out in federal court and in state courts? Right? Because now it's gonna be.
- [32:34]
Sammy Sage
It's.
- [32:34]
V. Spear
It's like a new round. Epstein gets arrested. Only a couple weeks later, it's reported that he tries to kill himself. The first time. They say, oh, there's injuries. Looks like Epstein tried To kill himself. They take him off suicide watch. This is all happening within like three weeks. And on August. And then on August 9, the day before Epstein's death, his cellmate was removed but not replaced. So they allow Epstein to be alone in the room. He was not checked on by the guards, and the cameras outside the cell malfunctioned. Although, according to Pam Bondi, we've got the raw footage and it's nothing to.
- [33:10]
Sammy Sage
See here, but there's a minute missing and it's edited a thousand times.
- [33:16]
V. Spear
So stupid. And on the morning of August 10th, Epstein's body is found hanging in a cell. Okay, so I don't know at the time of his death, Epstein's lawyers say that they were able to investigate the autopsy photos and the crime scene photos, and they think that he was murdered and that he did not kill himself. Now, Tara Palmeri, who has been on this case for years and years and years, also says to her, in her just opinion, she does not think he killed himself. She said, this is not a person who kills themself. He thought he was going to get off again because he got off the last time. He wasn't worried about it.
- [33:49]
Sammy Sage
His brother doesn't think that he killed himself. So I think that's pretty important. I also want to note something about the date. So he died August 10, 2019. Last year, Donald Trump was campaigning 2024. And the weekend of August 10, Donald Trump accidentally, quote, unquote, chartered the plane, the former Lolita Express, because his plane was like being repaired or so he. So they, without realizing, they say, chartered the plane that used to be that plane. So I, for me, that like tracks with that competition that they would have over the women and the homes and like they always had something like on.
- [34:42]
V. Spear
The five year anniversary, I'm gonna do something like nostalgic. Gross.
- [34:48]
Sammy Sage
Yeah.
- [34:48]
V. Spear
Or, you know, the universe just made that happen because their energy is still tied together because there's been no accountability.
- [34:55]
Sammy Sage
Of all the planes that won charters.
- [34:58]
V. Spear
Why wouldn't you burn that plane to the ground? Why is that plane even still in operation? It can't.
- [35:02]
Sammy Sage
Because they had to sell it. I'm just saying sell it.
- [35:04]
V. Spear
Couldn't even be a good one, you.
- [35:06]
Sammy Sage
Know, look, it's that or Qatar's.
- [35:08]
V. Spear
It's no Qatar palace in the sky. So the other thing that happens when you die, the criminal case against you ends, period, that day, that minute, boop, it's over. There's no criminal case anymore. When you die, the only thing that victims can do is try and sue you. In civil court for damages. But Epstein, Epstein's death shut down the whole thing. It shut down everything about it, except the state of New York still went on and arrested Ghislaine Maxwell in 2020. And even though she was supposed to be immune from prosecution, the Southern District of New York said, that's a deal you made with Florida, not with us. And we can prove that he and you did crimes in Manhattan at the Manhattan mansion. And so that's where we get all the discovery from Virginia Giuffre's case and the case against Ghislaine Maxwell, saying the.
- [35:52]
Sammy Sage
Flight log came out of that, flight.
- [35:53]
V. Spear
Logs came out of that. Right. But there's a lot more stuff that if Epstein had gone on trial, we would have gotten just so much more stuff that was connected to him, not connected to her. And so she gets convicted. Joe Biden is the president now. She goes to jail. And when Ghislaine goes to jail, Trump says he's really sorry for her as he saw her as a really nice lady and he didn't think it was fair and he thought she was being treated unfairly. He wished her well. He wished her well. There are reports that Trump said Trump had tried to get said he would maybe give her a pardon if he got to be president again. And his staff was like, never say that. Do not ever say that. But it's been in his mind as like, this is unfair. So now Trump is president again and the DOJ says no client list, no crimes, nothing to see here. Ghislaine Maxwell, since 2022, has been petitioning courts and appealing her case, saying that the non prosecutorial agreement meant that she couldn't be prosecuted, she was a victim. So based on that, her conviction is unlawful. And all the courts have been like, no, too bad, you got, you got got on something else. But now, because the Department of Justice has come out and said no crime list, no sex trafficking, no rico, no enterprise that was systemically trafficking people, she is saying, how could I be in prison for being a part of a criminal enterprise if there's no criminal enterprise? And so now the Supreme Court is hearing it this week, now they're out there out of session. So this is like their shadow docket thing. There's a very good possibility that one, the Supreme Court says, you know, based on the Department of Justice new evidence, we're going to kick this down to a lower court and they do need to hear the appeal. And she does get another trial based on this Department of Justice evidence or there's a Chance that Trump, in his ever evolving, desperate want for the Epstein stuff to go away, pardons her or gives her clemency or commutes her sentence, maybe commutes her sentence to say, like I said, it was all bullshit, it was all a hoax. He's already comparing it to Russia, Russia, Russia and trying to say Obama wrote the files.
- [37:56]
Sammy Sage
Hilarious. Honestly, the, the thing with that is. So that's actually going before the court today, Monday, July 14, to the listeners yesterday. So if something happens, you will no doubt hear about it. But the reason this is actually like not going away, like I always thought, like, okay, I guess the, the case is closed on Epstein. Like, this isn't. What, what's he going to do about it? Yeah, he's been promising to like release the files and something. I've noticed that whenever Trump is asked about this, he's always like talking about how we're releasing the Kennedy files, we're releasing the MLK files, we're releasing the 9 11. And whenever someone asks about Epstein, whenever someone asks about Epstein, he'll be like, yeah, yeah, but also, you know, everybody wants jfk. Everyone's asking about the JFK files. Yeah, you know, jfk. There's more like he always like comes back to that which I find interesting.
- [38:45]
V. Spear
But the doing a darvo. He's doing his Darvo thing. What's that? It's distract, avoid, reverse the victim. Because now when people are deny, attack.
- [38:54]
Sammy Sage
Reverse, reverse victim and offender.
- [38:56]
V. Spear
When they're saying, what about Epstein? He's like, why do you care about that creep? You're gross for wanting to know.
- [39:02]
Sammy Sage
You've been, people have been asking you about this. You've been saying you're going to do it. But the thing is with this is that the reason this is so important to MAGA and I actually think like some of them are realizing there's something to this is that the, I don't think people realize how much like even though QAnon is really like the extreme version of like a conspiracy, so many of his followers, like his die hard base has this like light QAnon light ideology where there is a pedophile ring running the world and Donald Trump is the predestined savior who's going to slay the pedophiles. And in their mind, the pedophiles are the Democrats and Bill Clinton and they, so they like have been hearing for years, oh, Trump is part of this. But they believed that. No, he's going to show everybody he's going to release these files and he'll show that, you know, it's really them.
- [40:05]
V. Spear
But now he's not on the inside to expose them all.
- [40:08]
Sammy Sage
But now he's not. And it's like, okay, well, well why isn't he doing that? And you also have, from my perspective, the Russia backed wing of the Republicans, you know, Tucker, Benny, Johnson, Candace, the, you know, the ones who were really like anti Iran, they're a turning it into an anti Semitic conspiracy about how, you know, Mossad and Epstein and the Jews around the world. That's one. So that's one thing. And two is that as we've talked about many times, Trump is a front and he's only going to be there for as long as his interests align with those who want him to be there. And I think it's interesting that now that he's like getting wise about Ukraine, suddenly all the MAGA people, like the Epstein thing is making it break. Even though you've seen pictures and testimony, like maybe it wasn't public, but it could have been.
- [41:10]
V. Spear
They've known.
- [41:11]
Sammy Sage
I mean it was public, maybe it wasn't like viral is what I mean.
- [41:14]
V. Spear
They are not going to let this go. There's no way that the Epstein thing get let go. It is a religion, it is a, it is something that will go on forever there. It transcend Trump. And I think while they've never been willing to turn on the king before, they will now because they're already starting to say the manosphere. Oh, he's actually part of the deep state. Oh, the deep state got him. Oh, we can't trust him anymore. It's so hard because the other thing that I was talking to Tara about is everybody says Epstein. I, I care less about Jeffrey Epstein the person as I do getting the information that surrounds him. The web, these people are still out there. Okay, These, the people that we haven't talked about are his personal chef.
- [41:56]
Sammy Sage
That's why it's a conspiracy.
- [41:57]
V. Spear
His personal chef, Adam Perry Lang is a huge chef in Los Angeles and he was on the island, he served the girls, he watched. He knows what the fuck. I was a caterer. I know what I saw. Not from bad people, but being in folks homes and whatnot. If you were Jeffrey Epstein's personal caterer, you fucking knew what was going on, Adam.
- [42:15]
Sammy Sage
And he, wait till you hear about the President.
- [42:17]
V. Spear
But that's what I'm saying. Like I want the chef, I want the house manager, I want the restroom attendants. I want all of those people who I believe are also victims of their circumstance because there are some time Jeffrey Epstein always hired people that he could hold something over, and he hired a lot of undocumented people as well. So. And then he would use that Mama Papa.
- [42:58]
Sammy Sage
Who was the accountant that, like, kept the ledger.
- [43:02]
V. Spear
We need to know who the accountant was. I need to know who all those people are. But you're not going to get a good number of the staff because they were undocumented people. And I don't want, I don't need them. They're witnesses and victims of his as well. But all the information they have about the people that they saw around there is what I want. And we tend to focus, the media, not us, the big media, tends to focus on the biggest names. So we know Alan Dershowitz. His name has been reported in there, and he denies it. We know Bill Clinton, we know Prince Andrew. We know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Right. Trump administration also just dropped their, their investigation of Prince Andrew and said there will be no more investigations of anybody on the, quote, episode. Epstein, flight logs. Right. He's trying to shut this all the way down. That's not helping him either. But there are people, like, who were big bankers at Bear Stearns who are nobodies in terms of public names. They're not socialites. They're actual rich people with power. And so those people are still operating, and they've never had their names or their crimes exposed. And that's the kind of stuff that I think victims really deserve is like, the regular guy who was, you know, big money at Bear Stearns and isn't getting the media exposed. There's one guy on the list who was right under the Trump administration, Marty, who works at depovaughn Plimpton right now. Like, so they're, they're still out there being big lawyers. And why he was in the book, we don't know because it was never investigated. But that's the kind of stuff that I think the public really deserves to know.
- [44:24]
Sammy Sage
Yeah. And I think that the more that Trump, you know, Bear hugs Pam Bondi, the more suspicious it looks she's got.
- [44:33]
V. Spear
To be sweating bullets. Like, because even in my short time in Tampa politics as a caterer during the Romney time, like, these people are so deeply connected to each other. They all. A lot of them are swingers. A lot of them have a lot of deep secrets, weird shit that they do. They're connected to professional baseball and football because of the training camps and the mansions that those players own down there and the parties that they host, Tampa and Palm beach, are very much like a D.C. summer camp where you get a lot of corrupt people from the north who come down and, you know, do their party stuff. And I'm like, she's got to be sweating bullets, knowing that she's going to get squeezed more and more and more, and she's got to have her phone ringing off the hook with Florida socialites being, like, threatening her, I would imagine.
- [45:18]
Sammy Sage
Like, I don't feel bad for her.
- [45:20]
V. Spear
I don't feel bad for her, but I'm saying, at some point, will she break? And how will she break? And what is she gonna do, you know, fall out a window like the rest of the Russian oligarchs when they. When they fall out of favor?
- [45:30]
Sammy Sage
No, I think. I think it is.
- [45:33]
V. Spear
She knows she's.
- [45:34]
Sammy Sage
She's more savvy than that.
- [45:36]
V. Spear
Okay, so that's our update on Epstein for this point, but we will probably continue talking about this because it. It is something that I think is maybe the only. It's like the only thing, the crack in the ice that we could continue to try and pick at to break this curse that MAGA has on people. And so I don't think that anybody should ever stop talking about it.
- [45:55]
Sammy Sage
I don't. Like. It's a widespread thing. Like. And, you know, when people talk about class consciousness, like, there is a certain class that is higher than upper class. They are. Yeah, they're in each other's pockets. They. That's why I think, like, people don't see a difference between Republicans and Democrats because you look across this. This situation, and they're all engaged in this behavior, people from both parties, for decades, and they vouch for each other and they get away with it. And, you know, in this case, it's sexual crimes, but on the broader scale in life, like, Americans are getting justice screwed.
- [46:39]
V. Spear
Yeah, it's. It's sex crimes, but it's also financial crimes. It's real estate. It's everything.
- [46:44]
Sammy Sage
But it's the way that people are exploited. You know, it's an exploitative culture that comes from the top.
- [46:52]
V. Spear
Well, and here's. Here's. We have an announcement, we said. And here comes the announcement. Because things are moving so quickly, and we Even recording the day before an episode comes out, sometimes we're already late. Like, it's already over. The thing that we talked about. So Sammy's going to tell you about our new plan.
- [47:10]
Sammy Sage
Yeah. So American Fever Dream and Betcha's News are both entering an exciting new chapter. So the weekly podcast format is going to change, but we are not saying goodbye. To you. We are redirecting our energy toward content that really meets the moment, is more immediate and gives you more direct access to us. We know that you want to speak to us directly. You know, we are always in the DMs and we want to be able to be more reactive and basically shift what we're doing doing shift our focus to more premium timely and interactive content. So, so starting in August you'll be able to find us in all the places you can already find us on the batches, news, Instagram, YouTube, morning announcements every morning. And occasionally we will be showing up again on this feed with some new special content. More to come on that. But we are also going big on substack. We're going to be doing deep dive analyses, community conversations during real time moments when you want to hear directly what's happening so we can all commiserate in the moment. We're also going to be doing live video sessions. Me and Vy are going to be doing that and we're going to be in the chat chit talking and speculating as we've always said we wanted to do.
- [48:27]
V. Spear
Plus coming your way.
- [48:30]
Sammy Sage
Yes you can and you can get them immediately. You don't have to wait till next week. And you know, maybe we forget because it get kicked out of the segments, kicked out of the show. And we're also going to be doing this with other creators who are going to be here for you to discuss everything that's going on and we have lots more to share but I am excited to share it with you in a few weeks and months to come. We so stay tuned for that. We are still working through everything but ultimately we want to bring you more, more exciting content, more timely content and more interactive content. And this is really built with all of you in mind and how you want to engage with us, how we want to engage with you. We no longer want to be, you know, just in your ears but directly speaking to you. And yeah, that's what we got going on. V and I also just tonight we'll be doing a sub stack live tonight.
- [49:23]
V. Spear
Meaning July warmed up, showing you what it would be like.
- [49:27]
Sammy Sage
Yeah, this is, this is not, you know, an every week thing but we're doing it tonight. So join us live. We'll talk about, you know, some of what probably I've seen planned for the future, probably more Epstein, since there's going to be news by then. And I mean here's the thing, Trump could just chime in with like a random distraction. You know Sarah Matthews, she basically predicted last night, I think, or two nights ago that, that because of this, he's going to try to throw like a grenade into it.
- [49:52]
V. Spear
So, yeah, we'll see at Russia. We'll see.
- [49:56]
Sammy Sage
That's what I was thinking. He's making a Russia announcement today, but we can talk about this tomorrow night or tonight, July 15th on Substack. What time are you gonna do this?
- [50:05]
V. Spear
I think we're doing it at seven. We said seven or eight. I don't know. Go to our substack and you'll find us.
- [50:10]
Sammy Sage
8:00Pm Go to our substack and find us.
- [50:12]
V. Spear
Because I'll still be on under the Desk News everywhere. But Substack really is the new home for. For all things truly social media with what's going on for under the Desk and batches, though, because It's. It's like TikTok's threat of being shut down constantly. And the new ways of, like, their content moderation are just like, not a super vibe. And Substack allows us the space to, like, actually say everything we want to without having to use coded language or, like, cut it. So that's a good place for, like, archives and important conversations. And also if you're like, oh, but I don't want to read. Don't even worry about it. There's a play button at the top of Substack that will read Substack articles to you. So I listen to substacks, like podcasts. I just line them up. Oh, I love that play button. Yeah, it just came out so you could listen to it. Even our written stuff you could listen to. It's like an AI voice. I picked like a British lady because I thought it sounded, like, funny.
- [51:00]
Sammy Sage
That's what I would pick too.
- [51:01]
V. Spear
Yeah.
- [51:02]
Sammy Sage
Yeah. No, so I mean, you're going to be getting all of that on Substack. There's video. I mean, if people are think Substacks only newsletters. It's also a ton of video. So we're going to be doing. And lives and chats. So we're going to be doing all of that. So stay tuned. Lots more to share in the weeks to come. And we will be here next Monday and the Monday after that. And then we're taking August off.
- [51:21]
V. Spear
Yeah.
- [51:22]
Sammy Sage
Like not really podcasting. We'll be on from podcasting. Yeah. Yeah. And I'll still be doing the morning announcements and you'll see.
- [51:28]
V. Spear
Yeah. So actually not taking any time off. In fact, we created more work for ourselves, just in a different place.
- [51:34]
Sammy Sage
Different work. Yeah, it's okay.
- [51:36]
V. Spear
But different work.
- [51:37]
Sammy Sage
We will still be here for you. And that's what matters.
- [51:39]
V. Spear
Yep.
- [51:40]
Sammy Sage
Yes. Just to be clear, tonight's substack will be on my personal substack at Sammy Sage says and be on under the desk news.
- [51:48]
V. Spear
Yes.
- [51:48]
Sammy Sage
But in the. In the weeks to come, we will be back with more on the betches news substack.
- [51:53]
V. Spear
All right, well, until next time, I'm V. Speer.
- [51:56]
Sammy Sage
And I'm Sammy Sage.
- [51:57]
V. Spear
And this is American Fever Dream. Good luck.
- [52:07]
Sammy Sage
Batches.