2/17/26: Epstein Files Coverup, ICE Caught Lying, Trump Election Takeover

Summary

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

Episode: 2/17/26: Epstein Files Coverup, ICE Caught Lying, Trump Election Takeover
Date: February 17, 2026
Hosts: Krystal Ball & Emily Jashinsky (filling in for Saagar Enjeti)

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Brief Overview

This episode dives into major ongoing national controversies: the newest revelations from the Jeffrey Epstein files and their implications for political and corporate elites; disturbing government opacity and dishonesty in the wake of high-profile ICE shootings; and aggressive new maneuvers by Donald Trump and his allies aiming to restrict voting in the 2026 and 2028 elections. Krystal and Emily bring sharp, unfiltered analysis from both progressive and conservative perspectives. Notable guests also address Israel’s West Bank “mega land grab” and threats to civil liberties from government pressure on tech companies.

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Key Segments & Discussion Points

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1. In Memory: Reverend Jesse Jackson

[07:10–09:38]

• The hosts reflect on the passing of civil rights icon Rev. Jesse Jackson, discussing his South Carolina roots, political legacy, and 1988 DNC “patchwork quilt” speech.
• Notable Quote:
  Krystal (08:29):
  “Pull the patches and the pieces together, bound by a common thread. When we form a great quilt of unity and common ground, we'll have the power to bring about health care and housing and jobs and education and hope to our nation.”
• The enduring impact of Jackson on the American left and young Black activists is highlighted.

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2. Explosive New Epstein Revelations: The Files, Exoneration Claims, and Elite Connections

[09:43–22:00]

Trump’s Reaction & The File Release

• Trump claims he’s “totally exonerated” by Epstein files, though the hosts point out only a small fraction of government evidence has been made public (“as little as 2%”).
  • Krystal (11:50):
    “Are we just supposed to take your word for it that that is actually all that there is? And this raises significant questions about that.”

Serious Questions about Transparency

• Discussion of possible coverup, redactions, and future legal exposure for officials withholding files, referencing Rep. Thomas Massie’s statements about legal requirements and consequences for non-compliance.

Steve Bannon’s Deep Ties to Epstein

• Revelations of a close, “bro-y” relationship between Bannon and Epstein, with exchanges about the 25th amendment (i.e., possibly removing Trump), and Bannon allegedly assisting Epstein on PR and rehabilitation.
  • Emily (16:27):
    “Epstein’s relationship with Bannon was actually very close… when he's talking to Bannon, it's very bro-y… a very, very warm, friendly relationship.”
  • Krystal (17:58):
    “Bannon wants to be a power player… [Epstein] can help facilitate those power plays.”

Power, Capital, Access and Corruption

• The hosts analyze the broader dynamics, including interconnections with other elites (e.g., Tom Barrack, Ehud Barak, Peter Thiel), and the ease with which global crises are seen as opportunities by those in power.

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3. Tom Barrack and Global Oligarch Networking

[24:18–33:14]

• Significant Reporting: Tom Barrack, a Trump insider and now Ambassador to Turkey, maintained extended, friendly and political communications with Epstein, well after Epstein’s conviction and public disgrace.
  • Krystal (24:57):
    “Tom Barack… and Epstein were really close in the 80s and 90s… the Barack-Epstein friendship appears to continue undeterred by Epstein's alleged fall from grace.”
  • Discussion of Barrack’s business dealings with Epstein and others, controversial investments, connections with global elites, and implications for Trump-world corruption.
• Naked Disaster Capitalism:
  • Krystal (33:14):
    “Just how explicitly they see chaos, death, disaster, terror attacks as business opportunities… it’s just very naked.”

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4. Academia, Philanthropy, and Epstein’s Eugenics Obsession

[33:14–42:25]

• Epstein’s deep involvement in academia and the scientific world, cultivating professors for influence and laundering reputation.

  • Emily (36:10):
    “On some level… if you're a billionaire who's hoping to influence policy… having, like, seduced all of these academics and getting them in their orbit…”

• Questions about academia’s complicity, with mention of Chomsky, Peter Attia, and the disturbing Zorro Ranch eugenics projects in New Mexico.

  • Krystal (38:35):
    “Zorro Ranch seems to have been at the center of this eugenics scheme.”

• Philanthropy as undemocratic oligarch control over research priorities, referencing work of Anand Giridharadas.

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5. Modeling World, Sex Trafficking Pipeline, and High-Profile Enablers

[42:25–48:12]

• Discussion of Epstein’s ties to the global modeling industry as a pipeline for trafficking and exploitation, including links to Victoria’s Secret (Les Wexner) and known abusers.

  • Naomi Campbell is named as one of many elite figures implicated by association.
  • Krystal (44:23):
    “The modeling world is infamous for being a pipeline for human trafficking and for sex trafficking… It’s disturbing… that he put his own daughter Ivanka into this world… when she was a young girl.”

• Disturbing Quote from Epstein to Model:

  • Epstein, via email (46:18):
    “You are 22, only ask questions of men. They are not really interested in your opinions when you are 30 and then only marginally.”
    (Krystal and Emily respond with dark humor about “the marginal interest show.”)

• Chilling details about rape/drug plants Epstein kept (scopolamine, "zombie drug") and their possible use.

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6. ICE Shootings, Federal Opacity, and Public Trust

[49:40–58:15]

FBI & DHS Refusing Local Oversight

• Federal authorities refuse to share evidence regarding the shootings of nonviolent immigrants, sparking outrage and demands for transparency.
  • Krystal (51:10):
    “It’s an outrageous abuse of power that they're just saying, nope, there's going to be no accountability here.”

ICE Caught Lying

• Several high-profile cases reveal ICE/CBP agent dishonesty—bodycam footage forced the government to admit their official stories were lies; charges subsequently dropped.
  • Emily (53:58):
    “So when you lie about it, you make your entire argument less credible along the way…”

Impact on Politics

• Erosion of public trust in law enforcement, implications for mass deportation plans and electoral consequences.
  • Public demand for body cameras, accountability, and safeguarding civil rights is reaching “overwhelming” levels.

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7. Government Shutdown Over DHS/ICE Funding

[62:21–65:21]

• DHS Funding Fight: Democrats refuse to approve DHS/ICE budgets without new oversight/accountability measures.

  • ICE/CBP well-funded due to past appropriations (“the big beautiful bill”), operating as usual.
  • Krystal (65:21):
    “I think a lot of Democrats will find [withholding funding] compelling… no, you shouldn’t be providing any funding to them at all. And yes, they have plenty of money to operate, but if this goes on for years, then… every year there's less and less for them…”

• Intense polling support, particularly among Democrats and independents, for body cameras, ending racial profiling, requiring ID of agents, etc.

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8. Trump & GOP Election Takeover Efforts

[70:50–84:48]

Kristi Noem & "The Right People Voting"

• Notable Quote (71:42):
  “We've been proactive to make sure that we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders to lead this country...”
• The hosts dissect overtly anti-democratic rhetoric, especially Noem’s statements about “the right people” and GOP lawsuits to seize ballots, restrict mail-in voting, and force “Real ID” for voters.

Trump’s Messaging & Legal Threats

• Trump promises to “present an irrefutable argument” for unilateral federal action to impose voter ID, ban mail-ins.
  • Krystal (73:48):
    “He's constantly pressing: Where is the limit? Where is the limit? Where is the limit?… and this term, he only has people around him who were in support of those most maximal aims.”

The S.A.V.E. Act and Voter Purges

• The proposed legislation would require Real ID or passport—posing hurdles for millions of legit voters, especially as passport offices are shut down.

• Krystal (75:58):
  “It's an intentional effort to limit and restrict the number of people who can vote. The assault on mail-in balloting, same thing.”

• GOP use of faulty federal tools to flag “non-citizen” voters is leading to purges of eligible citizens, especially those with common names, echoing disastrous Georgia models.

The Broader Threat to Democracy

• The episode details efforts to sow distrust (“stop the steal” 2.0), intimidate voters (e.g., Bannon’s proposal for ICE at polling places), and the growing authoritarian impulse on the American right.
• Reference to Trump’s regret about not sending in the National Guard to seize ballot boxes in 2020 and increasing use of fringe actors and conspiracy theories.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Trump (Claiming Exoneration, 10:08):
  “I have nothing to hide. I've been exonerated. I have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein.”

• Krystal (On Disaster Capitalism, 33:14):
  “Just how explicitly they see chaos, death, disaster, terror attacks as business opportunities… it’s just very naked.”

• Emily (On ICE Lying, 53:58):
  “So when you lie about it, you make your entire argument less credible along the way…”

• Krystal (On Voting Rights Attacks, 75:58):
  “It's an intentional, intentional effort to limit and restrict the number of people who can vote… to solve a problem that doesn't really exist.”

• Emily (On Trump’s Election Rhetoric, 73:59):
  “I hate the way Trump talks about elections… it's playing with fire.”

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Jesse Jackson Tribute: 07:10–09:38
• Epstein File Revelations & Trump Response: 09:43–16:12
• Steve Bannon/Epstein Relationship: 16:12–22:00
• Tom Barrack/Elites Networking/Disaster Capitalism: 24:18–33:14
• Epstein's Academic Ties & Eugenics: 33:14–42:25
• Modeling, Sex Trafficking Pipeline: 42:25–48:12
• ICE Shootings, Lying & Loss of Public Trust: 49:40–62:21
• DHS/ICE Defunding Showdown: 62:21–68:10
• Voting Rights/Election Takeover Segment: 70:50–84:48

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Conclusion

This episode offers a comprehensive, unwavering look at the US’s overlapping crises of elite impunity, government accountability, and democracy itself. Whether addressing the slow drip of Epstein scandal, the erosion of truth and oversight in DHS’s mass deportation push, or the GOP's open attempts to limit ballot access, Krystal and Emily deliver critical context, sharp debate, and warnings about the delicate state of American democracy heading into the next election cycle.

Transcript

[Crystal Ball]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Guaranteed Human 1969. Malcolm and Martin are gone. America is in crisis. And at Morehouse College, the students make their move.

[Hans Charles]

These students, including a young Samuel L. Jackson, locked up. The members of the board of trustees, including Martin Luther King Sr. It's the true story of protest and rebellion in black American history that you'll never forget. I'm Hans Charles.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Our menelik Lumumba.

[Hans Charles]

Listen to the a Building on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Bowen Yang]

I'm Bowen Yang.

[Matt Rogers]

And I'm Matt Rogers.

[Bowen Yang]

During this season of the Two Five Rings podcast, in the lead up to the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games, we've been joined by some of our friends.

[Crystal Ball]

Hi, Bowen. Hi, Matt.

[Matt Rogers]

Hey, Elmo.

[Emily Stewart]

Hey, Matt. Hey, Bowen.

[Crystal Ball]

Hi, Cookie.

[Hans Charles]

Hi.

[Matt Rogers]

Now the Winter Olympic Games are underway and we are in Italy to give you experiences from our hearts to your ears. Listen to Two Guys Five Rings on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Bowen Yang]

Talking to your kids about the dangers of vaping can be hard. Getting them to listen to hot gossip is easy. So here's some drama you could share with your kid. Dude, did you hear about Cassie and Jake? No. But did you hear that vaping can cause irreversible lung damage and nicotine affects brain development? Nuh. You don't need to gossip if you want to have an open conversation about vaping. So if you want to get tips on when and how to talk to your kids, visit talkaboutvaping.org, brought to you by the American Lung association and the Ad Council.

[Crystal Ball]

Hey, guys, Sager and Crystal here.

[Emily Stewart]

Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show.

[Crystal Ball]

This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.

[Emily Stewart]

So if that is something that's important to you, Please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows unedited ad free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.

[Crystal Ball]

We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see [e-mail].

[Emily Stewart]

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Breaking Points. Emily, great to see you.

[Crystal Ball]

Ho show.

[Emily Stewart]

Yep, that's right.

[Crystal Ball]

We're both into gardening. That's what it's about. Though. People think sometimes it's another thing it's not oh, really? Yeah. No.

[Emily Stewart]

Get your minds out of the gutters, people.

[Crystal Ball]

I'm just the messenger. Don't take it out on me.

[Emily Stewart]

Sager is recording an Epstein episode with Andrew Schultz. So that is why I get to have the lovely Emily here with me on Tuesday. And there's a lot to talk about, including, we are starting with a bunch of Epstein revelations. Bannon talking 25th Amendment with Jeffrey Epstein. There's a Bannon I feel like has escaped a little bit of scrutiny in this, but we've also got all kinds of other crazy revelations. Tom Barack, who continues to be, you know, he's in this administration, longtime friend of, he is all over the Epstein files. He and Trump were buddies with Epstein at sort of the peak of Epstein's whatever. We've got Trump making some new comments. We've got new revelations that the government may be lying about how many of the files exist and what they have released. We've also got a bunch of DHS news. They are making it official that they're not going to share any of their evidence from the investigation into Alex Pardy with local officials. At the same time, they're also having to acknowledge they lied about yet another shooting. So break that down for you. Kristi Noem is making more comments about how they need to get the right people to vote. Lot going on there with regard to the 2026 elections. Randy Fine doing Randy Fine things, you know, posting just the most disgusting comments you can imagine. And Emily getting a little bit of a back and forth here with the Babylon B folks.

[Crystal Ball]

Yeah. And, you know, we'll have an interesting discussion about the backlash or relative lack thereof. Backlash to what? Randy Fine said it's a good glimpse at things that are either changing or at least up for grabs on the right now. So there's, there's much to be said.

[Emily Stewart]

Okay, I'm looking, I'm looking forward to hearing your take on that one. And then we have, we have two great guests. We've got Jasper Nathaniel going to join us as Israel moves to just overtly, you know, it's being called a mega land grab in the west bank. So we want to keep our eye on that. And then we have someone from fire, the civil rights organization that is joining us to talk about their lawsuit against Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem. They have been, this government has really been pressuring tech companies to take down any sort of anti ICE accounts, also to reveal the identities of any anonymous accounts that are opposed to ice. So a real assault here on civil liberties. And, and just Breaking last night, we're gonna see if we can ask them about this as well. Stephen Colbert revealed that the fcc, Brendan Carr's fcc, which was the one that previously came down on Jimmy Kimmel, told them they cannot interview James Talarico, or at least CBS felt pressured that they should not interview James Talarico, candidate for Senate in Texas. So yet another sense of crushing of any sort of dissent. So we'll get their take on that as well.

[Crystal Ball]

Yeah, and that one, it's actually, I'll be curious as more reporting comes in, because this is just coming to us, but I'm really curious if it's more CBS than the fcc. Well, I think that could be interesting.

[Emily Stewart]

You may be right. I think it could be that. So apparently they threatened the View after they had James Talarico on.

[Crystal Ball]

Talarico is just like the wrecking ball.

[Emily Stewart]

I don't know. They're very sensitive about this, man. I mean, it is kind of telling that they feel like Texas may be in jeopardy. If they didn't see him as any sort of a threat, then I think they wouldn't care what shows he appeared on. So in any case, I think it probably does come out of his appearance on the View. The government action that was taken there and those government actions, that's exactly what they're intended to do to make sure others think twice equal time to his.

[Crystal Ball]

Whether it's John Cornyn or whatever. That's the line that the FCC is pushing. I wonder in this case if CBS is scapegoating. If they're, like, trying to mess with Colbert, we'll get into it. But if they're trying to mess with Colbert and they're like, well, listen, the FCC pressured abc, so we gotta be careful. Yeah, it's hilarious that Talarico is at.

[Emily Stewart]

The center, ends up at the center. I mean, it's great for him, honestly.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Oh.

[Emily Stewart]

Because Colbert made a whole thing of it on his show. Talarico, I think, posted the interview that should have aired, et cetera. So, I mean, great publicity for him. If you were looking to, you know, to quash this guy's prospects, congratulations. You've just absolutely elevated him. Before we get into the Epstein news, want to thank everybody so much for your support. I think people have been really interested in the Epstein coverage. As you guys know, this is very fraught politically in terms of YouTube monetization. We're able to do this kind of coverage and not really have to worry about those things because of your support. If you can become a Premium Subscriber, BreakingPoints.com and also, last note here, wanted to mention and reflect on the life and now the passing of Reverend Jesse Jackson, who, of course, civil rights leader born in segregated south in South Carolina, was an acolyte of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Went on to be a presidential candidate for the Democrats and really ran on this message of multiracial unity and solidarity and really pushing that idea that we have to have this broad coalition, a sort of universalist coalition to fight for social and economic justice. So obviously, you know, it's a message that is very important to me and very inspiring to me in my own politics.

[Crystal Ball]

And you probably had a chance to meet him a couple of times, met.

[Emily Stewart]

Him once or twice, you know, in passing at msnbc. And so certainly, you know, his legacy is a large one. I pulled up one of his speeches is a patchwork quilt speech from 1988 Democratic National Convention. And just to give you a sense of some of the messaging here, he talks about seeking common ground. And this is in the context of trying to pull Democrats together to fight alongside one another. And he said that we need to build a quilt like the one that his grandmother would patch together. He says, farmers, you seek fair prices and you are right, but you cannot stand alone. Your patch is not big enough. Workers, you fight for fair wages, you are right, but your patch labor is not big enough. Women, you seek comparable worth and pay equity, you are right, but your patch is not big enough. Women, mothers who seek Head Start and daycare and prenatal care on the front side of life, relevant jail care and welfare on the backside of life, you are right, but your patch is not big enough. Students, you seek scholarships, you are right, but your patch is not big enough. Blacks and Hispanics, when we fight for civil rights, we are right, but our patch is not big enough. Gays and lesbians, when you fight against discrimination and cure for aids, you are right, but your patch is not big enough. Conservatives and progressives, when you fight for what you believe, right wing, left wing, hawk dove, you are right from your point of view, but your point of view is not enough. But don't despair, be as wise as my grandmama. Pull the patches and the pieces together, bound by a common thread. When we form a great quilt of unity and common ground, we'll have the power to bring about health care and housing and jobs and education and hope to our nation. Reverend Jesse Jackson, may he rest in.

[Crystal Ball]

Peace, also was on the balcony when Martin Luther King Jr. Was dying. That's right.

[Emily Stewart]

He was there.

[Crystal Ball]

Yeah. So a piece of History, for sure, that now has passed away. And that's a tether from one generation to the next, especially on the left, which is an interesting point because I know Jesse Jackson mentored many, many young, especially young black leftists.

[Emily Stewart]

His impact is, and Ryan could probably speak to this better than, you know, better than many. His impact continues to be felt on the left of the party in particular.

[Crystal Ball]

Well, rest in peace, Reverend Jesse Jackson. Crystal, let's move to Epstein.

[Emily Stewart]

Yeah, so we got some new comments from Trump on, I guess this was on Air Force One about how he viewed the release of the files and what we have learned there. Of course, he feels he's totally exonerated, Emily, and let's take a listen to that.

[Crystal Ball]

So Hillary Clinton said in an interview today that she and her husband are getting pulled into the Epstein matter to divert attention from you and that your administration has something to hide. What's your response?

[Donald Trump]

I have nothing to hide. I've been exonerated. I have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein. They went in hoping that they'd find it and found just the opposite. I've been totally exonerated. In fact, Jeffrey Epstein was fighting that. I don't get elected with some author, a sleazebag, by the way. And I've been totally exonerated. No, no, they're getting pulled in and that's their problem. I don't know. They're going to have to see what happens. But I watched her in Munich and she seriously has Trump derangement syndrome.

[Crystal Ball]

Do you think that she should publicly testify?

[Donald Trump]

I've been totally exonerated on Epstein. And it's really interesting because they've been pulled in. Think of it, they've been pulled in. Clinton and many other Democrats have been pulled in.

[Emily Stewart]

So there you go, totally exonerated. Let's, let's talk a little bit more about that. This was an important investigation, I think, from Channel 4 News. And something that I've been wondering as well. I can put this up on the screen. So they are saying that based on emails within this latest release, the actual quantity of data and files that exist within the government vaults within the government archives are likely much vaster than what they have let on. And they're saying potentially just 2% of the information that the FBI retrieved from Epstein's homes has been released. That's based on previous information that the government has, you know, was indicating within these files about just how much was taken in the various searches of his residences. And like I said, this is something I was wondering about because everybody just Seemed to, like, take the government's word for it about how many files. And I was like, what are we basing this on other than their word that, oh, well, there's 6 million files. We released 3 million and that's all you're going to get. And I've always wondered, okay, that 6 million number, first of all, you should be releasing all of that because that is what you're legally required to do. But also, are we just supposed to take your word for it that that is actually all that there is? And this raises significant questions about that.

[Crystal Ball]

Yeah. This is interesting because even by their own word, they said There are some 6 million documents. Files. What constitutes a file or a document, by the way? Nobody has ever defined, to my knowledge. So that's interesting. Meaning, is each email a document? Because there are threads. So is each threaded document or is it each email? That could completely change our concept of actually what's out there. Because if, PER the Channel 4 investigation, for example, you have all these other emails on the thread, sometimes when you're going through the files, the threads stop. They have more emails in the thread. Do they just have. Sometimes the Epstein side, do they have more? There's just a lot of questions that we don't have answers to. And at least even by their. Again, even by what they've said, there's 6 million files, that means we're supposed to believe 3 million fit the national security designation or the victim designation, meaning that they can't even be released on a redacted basis. So that's a big question, because when Thomas Massie was here, Crystal, he told Ryan and me actually, that. And he's gotten flack for the act that enabled this recent file release. But he was saying you actually can, in a different administration, come in and potentially prosecute Trump officials if they are out of compliance with the law. It allows for that. So it's not just a casual matter of them saying we're redacting this or that. They have to meet a burden of proof that they're actually keeping things for the right reason. Otherwise, you could easily see a Democratic Attorney General coming in and saying, ooh, sorry, Pam Bondi or Todd Blanche. Looks like you were out of compliance on this Epstein Transparency Act.

[Emily Stewart]

Yeah, and it wouldn't just be them either. You know, I'm sure they can imagine that they would be pardoned by Trump and they would perhaps be in a position to skate free. But if you're any of the low level employees who are doing the grunt work of redacting things Improperly, then you could also be exposed, which is one of the message I know Roe has been putting out there. Like, listen, you don't wanna get tangled up in this to do Trump's dirty work. He's not gonna be loyal to you. He would throw anyone under the bus if it serves him. So I think that's a very important note here, and it's part of why when Massie and Khanna and other members of Congress have gone in and viewed the redacted files, they've been able to put pressure on the government. It's like, look, I viewed some of these files. There's no reason for this name or that name or the other name to be redacted. And they've actually been successful in unredacting some of this information because of the force of this law and the concerns about being out of compliance with it. Speaking of Trump and the entanglements here, we've obviously covered extensively the various allegations against him that are contained within these files, all of the various mentions and entanglements, et cetera. But some of his top, top aids, also very prevalent throughout this entire document dump, Steve Bannon being one of them. And this was kind of a remarkable exchange because Bannon, of course, is supposed to be big Trump guy, big Trump loyalist, et cetera, et cetera. And here you have Marjorie Taylor Greene sharing, actually, this text exchange between Steve Bannon and Jeffrey Epstein where he's talking about the 25th Amendment for Trump. And I sort of assume this. So this is right after the Republicans performed very poorly in the midterms, and I don't know what was exactly going on then. That caused him to. That caused them to trigger this discussion about whether or not 25th Amendment was appropriate or not. But in any case, they're saying, hell of a year. We could put this up on the screen. We either own 2019, or it will surely own us. Back in the FNB biz, only FNB director, no, it does not stand for F word and blow. Spoke to my Dems this weekend, and this is Jeffrey Epstein. Boy, are emotions running high. Bannon says, going to blow him up right out of the box. White House has zero plan to push back Fort Apache. With no cavalry on route and no soldiers in the fort, he is really borderline not sure what he may do. Epstein says Bannon says, I think it's beyond borderline 25th Amendment.

[Crystal Ball]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it feels like a throwaway line from Bannon, but either way, either way, I mean, that's just me trying to interpret it. Years later. But either way, one thing that's clear when you're going through these emails and text messages in the Epstein library is Epstein's relationship with Bannon was actually very close. And if you're like reading the RAW files, you're just seeing, I mean, Epstein talked, had relationships with many people, obviously, but when he's talking to Bannon, it's very bro y. They had a really, like, clearly a very, very warm, friendly relationship. As everybody can tell just from the mirror selfie, of course they took that popped up in the files. But that's for Bannon. I mean, this is a fascinating conundrum. Like, there are a couple of potential explanations that aren't excuses, but could maybe be explanations. Is, are they both intel? Is Bannon doing intel for one person or another? Is that behind it? No idea. Bannon hasn't supplied any excuses other than it was part of documentary that has not been delivered except for a part of an interview that was released. Was compelled to be released by the files.

[Emily Stewart]

Yeah.

[Crystal Ball]

So is it possible that Bannon, he's constantly, like, ribbing Epstein over populism and, like, trying to get him to, like, come to the, like, light side and joking about him? In that sense, is he trying to manipulate Epstein for his broader international populist cause? Is he trying to drive a wedge in Trump world? That's what some of it seems like. That text message that Epstein sent Bannon along the lines of, this is what keeps Trump up at night, knowing that we're friends. I think that was Epstein to Bannon, but we have no idea. And Steve Bannon hasn't explained it yet.

[Emily Stewart]

I mean, Bannon wants to be a power player.

[Crystal Ball]

Yes.

[Emily Stewart]

And Epstein is the type of person that can help facilitate those power plays. And at the same time, you know, Ryan said something interesting about the Chomsky entanglements, which were, I mean, Chomsky, there were thousands of emails with Chomsky, and, you know, his wife had to come out and put out a statement, et cetera. And Ryan's take was basically, and you guys can go back and watch to get his words precisely. You know, Chomsky is an anarchist, and in some ways it sort of validates the left wing criticism of anarchists of like, yeah, they're kind of, you know, this whole, like, laissez faire attitude is too close to liberalism and it's too safe to the system.

[Crystal Ball]

Yeah.

[Emily Stewart]

And then when you see these entanglements with Epstein, who is obviously, you know, from what we've learned, this incredibly influential node in this secret power system that is actually incredibly influential in the way the world actually works. It kind of gives credence to that view. And I feel sort of the same about Bannon here is it gives a lot of credence to what is my view, that right wing populism. While it may cause some mild problems for the billionaire class or the Epstein class around the edges, it's not really a threat to them, which you can see from how delighted Epstein is with Trump being in office. It's not just because Trump is his guy and now he feels like he's gonna have this access and connectivity. It's also, yeah, he thinks this is gonna be beneficial for him in terms of the type of deals that he can do around the world, the type of disaster capitalism that he can engage in, which he talks about routinely with a variety of figures, including Ehud Barak. So I sort of see it in that lens. And then I think also, not only does Bannon want to be a power player, but also he would have a motivation, since he is in the Trump circle, to keep Epstein close and keep tabs on him and how he's feeling about things and whether he has any information that could be damaging to Trump. Allegedly, Bannon said that this is the one guy he thought that could destroy Trump's presidential prospects back in 2016. So there's all sorts of motivations for him there to be cultivating this very close friendship with Epstein and even to the point of trying to rehab his image.

[Crystal Ball]

Well, I think we still have to get to the money trail as well, Bannon, because it wasn't. I mean, if you look at some of this stuff, Bannon is clearly advising Epstein and it's public relations advice. He was in the room with Kathy Rumbler, the Obama White House counsel, as they're advising Epstein basically on how to rehabilitate his image. And it seems like Bannon was using this documentary with Epstein, which is not really. I mean, it's not necessarily an act of journalism. If you are creating this. I don't know that anyone was accusing Bannon of being a journalist, but that means you're collaborating basically on an image rehabilitation. And this is long into the 2010s and we're talking like 2018, that a lot of this was going down. And so you can see Bannon going back and forth, giving him advice on X, Y and Z. Bannon is holding his ground in most of the text messages on populism. But the throwaway line about the 25th Amendment back in again, like 2018, 2019, and then Bannon is now joking about third term for Donald Trump. To your point, the heart of MAGA populism. You start to see who's pulling the levers. And it brings us to the. I think it brings us to the Tom Barack story.

[Hans Charles]

Welcome to the A building. I'm Hans Charles Armenalek Lumumba.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It's 1969. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr have both been assassinated and black America was at a breaking point. Rioting and protest broke out on an.

[Hans Charles]

Unprecedented scale in Atlanta, Georgia. At Martin's alma mater, Morehouse College, the students had their own protest. It featured two prominent figures in black history, Martin Luther King Sr. And a young student, Samuel L. Jackson.

[Sagar Enjeti]

To be in what we really thought was a revolution. I mean, people were dying.

[Hans Charles]

1968, the murder of Dr. King, which traumatized everyone.

[Crystal Ball]

The FBI had a role in the.

[Ryder Strong]

Murder of a Black Panther leader in Chicago.

[Sagar Enjeti]

This story is about protest. It echoes in today's world far more than it should, and it will blow your mind.

[Hans Charles]

Listen to the A Building on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Bowen Yang]

I'm Bowen Yang.

[Matt Rogers]

And I'm Matt Rogers.

[Bowen Yang]

During this season of the Two Guys Five Rings podcast, in the lead up to the Milan Cord at 2026 Winter Olympic Games, we've been joined by some of our friends.

[Crystal Ball]

Hi, Bon. Hi, Matt.

[Matt Rogers]

Hey, Elmo.

[Emily Stewart]

Hey, Matt. Hey, Bowen.

[Crystal Ball]

Hi, Cookie.

[Hans Charles]

Hi.

[Matt Rogers]

Now the Winter Olympic Games are underway and we are in Italy to give you experiences from our hearts to your ears. Listen to Two Guys Five Rings on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ryder Strong]

This is Ryder Strong and I have a new podcast called the Red Weather.

[Emily Stewart]

It was many and many a year ago in a kingdom by the sea.

[Ryder Strong]

In 1995, my neighbor Anna Trainor disappeared from a commune.

[Emily Stewart]

It was hard to wrap your head around.

[Ryder Strong]

It was nature and trees and praying and drugs.

[Crystal Ball]

So, no, I am not your guru back then.

[Ryder Strong]

I lied to my parents, I lied to police. I lied to everybody.

[Crystal Ball]

There were years, Ryder, where I could not say your name.

[Ryder Strong]

I've decided to go back to my hometown in Northern California, interview my friends, family, talk to police, journalists, whomever I can to try to find out what actually happened.

[Hans Charles]

Isn't it a little bit weird that.

[Emily Stewart]

They obsess over hippies in the woods.

[Hans Charles]

And not the obvious boyfriend?

[Emily Stewart]

They have had this case for 30 years. I'll teach you sons of come around here in my wife.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Boom, boom.

[Ryder Strong]

This is the red weather. Listen to the Red Weather on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Crystal Ball]

To your point about why Epstein was delighted about Trump world coming into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, one of the reasons is that people like Tom Barack were suddenly empowered by their relationship with Donald Trump.

[Emily Stewart]

Yeah, that's right. So let's put this up on the screen. Some reporting from CBS News. All right, let's go. Trump insider Tom Barak kept in regular contact with Jeffrey Epstein for years. File show. I'm gonna read a good bit of this because there is a lot of important revelations. I do recommend you read this entire article because it would be too long if I read all of it. In any case, Tom Barack, who is a longtime friend of Donald Trump, he is now the U.S. ambassador to Turkey. He is also a special envoy to C. Syria. He was in the first Trump administration. He actually was. What was he put on trial for some foreign, foreign entanglements or something? Farah.

[Crystal Ball]

Farah.

[Emily Stewart]

Farah Ryan did a lot of reporting on this. Yeah. A jury found him not guilty of those allegations. In any case, he is described in the CBS News article as a globetrotting billionaire. Certainly fits with the Epstein class tag here. But in any case, he and he and Trump and Epstein were really close in the 80s and 90s hanging out together. And what they say in the piece is how Barack first met Epstein is unclear. But in the book Fire and Fury, Michael Wolf described Trump, Barack and Jeffrey Epstein as an 80s and 90s set of nightlife musketeers. Epstein's emails indicate that both Barack and Epstein had served as sources for Wolf's book. Mr. Trump called the book full of lies, misrepresented presentation sources that don't exist. Mr. Trump has also said he cut ties with Epstein years ago. The Barack Epstein friendship appears to have continued. Undeterred by Epstein's alleged fall from grace in Florida after he was charged with sexual misconduct involving teenage girls. In September 2009, just months after Epstein's release from the Palm Beach County Jail, Barack wrote to him, quote, thinking about you. Hope you're good and life is calm again. A sentiment that marked the beginning of an extended period of contact between the two. Over the following years, Epstein encouraged meetings and facilitated introductions between Barack and individuals, including Palantir CEO Peter Thiel, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud barak, and Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin during the 2016 presidential campaign. In the early months of 2016, after Mr. Trump surprised the political world by winning the New Hampshire Republican primary, Barack emerged as one of a select Group of insiders helping to shape Trump's outsider bid for the White House. As the Trump momentum grew, Epstein emailed his friend Barack a greeting and a reminder of their shared past, writing, hope you are well. Photos look good. FYI, I receive many calls a week about both Donald, Marla, beauty contest, Mar a Lago, et cetera, and Clinton from reporters. Less so recently with Clinton. But my answers are always, I have nothing to say or I try to ignore altogether. Few times I've been ambushed on the street with questions, but I'm more careful now. Barack replied, hope you're good. Let's catch up. Epstein then asked for a photo of Barack's newborn baby, writing, send photos of you and child. Make me smile. Creepy. In April 2016, with Barack deeply enmeshed in the Trump campaign, Epstein reached out again, this time with a warning. He forwarded an email about a potentially damaging lawsuit just filed by women using the pseudonym Katie Johnson. In the civil complaint, she alleged Epstein, Epstein and Trump raped her in 1994 when she was very young. The lawsuit was withdrawn. Mr. Trump denied the accusations, but Epstein wrote he considered the legal claim nuts. But I thought you guys should know, documents do not indicate if Barack acknowledged or replied to the email. I think that email where. And it goes on from there. You guys should take a look at, you know, it's an extensive set of communications over years. And clearly he knew because he's, you know, querying Epstein, hey, I hope you're good after your, you know, sweetheart deal. Jail term is finished. Like, clearly he knows what happened here, and they had been close friends previously. But that email, right. You know, during the 2016 campaign, where he's like, hey, you know, just so, you know, getting all these questions from reporters, to me, that is his way of saying, like, you know what I know, and, you know, people are starting to reach out. It's his way of insinuating himself and holding out the threat of, you know, there's some things I could. There's some tales I could tell that would be damaging. And that's how I read that. Marla Mar a lago. You know, getting a lot of questions here about Trump.

[Crystal Ball]

Interesting. I mean, one of the things that Ryan has reported with Barack, going back to the first Trump administration, is what we were talking about, the Farah charges. So that's the Foreign Agents Registration act, meaning if you are acting on behalf of the uae. He was accused of not registering under Farah as an agent of the United Arab Emirates. He is now our ambassador to Turkey, which we should mention relevant to all of this, the current ambassador to Turkey, a NATO ally, as they say. So Tom Barak is going through in these emails. It's not just some of the social stuff that Crystal mentioned. They're also very clearly having politically significant, politically freighted conversations, like the Thiel conversation that you mentioned. But also then Epstein invested. Invests a million dollars in what it was his firm was called Colony Capital. After they talked one day. Yeah. So here, the day after the meeting with Thiel was scheduled, Epstein wrote to Barack. I love Thiel's suggestion regarding women and children, that every time you're saving lives, etcetera, I think of the tens of thousands of women and children that died as directors, all of your careless interventions. That's likely a reference to Thiel's sort of like libertarian perspective on things like usaid, quote unquote, libertarian perspective on that. I'm assuming that's what he meant Thiel was talking about. But the day after that, CBS reports Epstein purchased approximately $1 million of stock in Colony Capital, the publicly traded company founded by Barack. So if you think that it's a coincidence, the day after they had a meeting where they are discussing Peter Thiel's suggestions or Peter Thiel's thoughts, theories on how the world works, and then Epstein goes and purchases a million dollars of stock the day after. I mean, I think that's obviously, obviously ridiculous. They were also having lunch. Crystal, I think you mentioned this. According to the CBS report, with a hoop Barack Epstein, a hoop Barack Vitaly Church in all at the same time. So to act as though Barack or this will be hard for the Trump administration to act as though Tom. Barack's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein was purely social because clearly it was also business and politics.

[Emily Stewart]

Yes. Yeah, that's exactly right. And drop site has another report about the power plays that were being made with Jeffrey Epstein. And this is another business deal or series of business deals with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. We can put this up on the screen here. The focus was on Africa and the TLDR here is that they saw a genuine crisis in Nigeria. There's an extraordinary email. I'll try to pull it up. But from Epstein where he says all of this, this chaos in the region, this is kind of great for you, isn't it? And Barack replies basically like, yeah, but it's hard to turn it into a cash flow. Well, they managed. They managed to do it. So in any case, you know, Nigeria is struggling with this Boko Haram terror attacks and Ehud Barak wants to position himself as this Businessman who can help deal with security issues. This is, of course, a lot of Israeli tech is geared towards, because they try it out on Palestinians and then they sell it to the world. And so that ends up being their inn. And they start with this small sort of like pilot project and then they're able to gain a larger foothold and eventually they're able to secure various infrastructure deals as well. And you can see the way that Epstein in all of this is acting as a facilitator and a connector and a strategist for Ehud Barak to help him position himself as this expert on technology and security and offer his services to a variety of countries.

[Crystal Ball]

Yeah, and I think that's an important point also, the Epstein Bannon relationship. Important point in this context, meaning the reason, and this is, this is in the most fundamental, basic sense the problem with public corruption. When you put public policy up for sale, whether you're a Podesta or whether you're Tom, Barack, Donald Trump, Jared Kushner, what you're doing is creating corrupt points of entry into public policy. And the reason that you saw people just in total action, wheeling and dealing, we've seen it throughout the second Trump administration, especially this is what was happening behind closed doors. We now know in Trump one, a lot of this is happening in front of everyone in Trump too. And the reason for that is they all know each other. They've all, you know, traded capital, they've all probably traded secrets and spent social time together. And so they've got this self perpetuating machine right now and it's burring like it's, it's printing money for them.

[Emily Stewart]

Yeah. One of the things that I really have taken away too is just how explicitly they see chaos, death, disaster, terror attacks as business opportunities. Like, it's just, it's very naked. I mean, I, I obviously knew about disaster capitalism and all of that, but just to see it spelled out of like, hey, all these wars are really great for you is really something else. I mean, I think that's been my. The thing I keep coming back to is that while I had an understanding of the existence of these power structures, I did not understand just how explicit it was. And that's what's wild about reading through these emails. This next one I pulled because I specifically wanted to hear your thoughts on this. And it's been a piece that I've been sort of thinking through. Epstein went out of his way to cultivate a lot of scientists and a lot of academics. Obviously Chomsky being one of those. But There were many others besides. The New York Times did an article on this which I thought was not really great. Unsurprised to learn. But in any case, the headline here is Epstein's ties with Academics show the seedy side of college fundraising. Professors and presidents are often eager to raise. Some are now facing blowback after connecting with Jeffrey Epstein. And the framing of this article is basically like, you know, while some of these elite institutions, they have these gigantic endowments, but those are very restricted, so they're still sort of like desperate for cash. And that leads them, especially if you're, you know, professor is trying to get a grant for this or that to do the study, it leaves them vulnerable to being preyed upon by someone like Jeffrey Epstein. And the reason why I don't love the article is because I think it sort of, it lets them off the hook in a sense. It's a way to sort of seek to rationalize why, oh, there's an innocent, you know, there's a somewhat innocent explanation for what's going on here. Now that doesn't mean, I don't think that the fundamental premise that like, yes, that that desire for funding for the research, et cetera, certainly does leave them vulnerable. But to me, it doesn't fully answer the question of why Epstein was so interested in cultivating these academics and why many of them had extensive back and forth relationships with him over years. Especially according to the New York Times reporting, a lot of the funds that he would promise or sort of float for these various institutions never actually really came through. So he kind of, oh, I'll make a multimillion dollar gift. And then he's sort of stringing people along and it never really fully comes through, et cetera. We also cover on the show, did you see this? Him getting his girlfriend into the Columbia Dental School and all of that. And it was for, again, I mean, this is for normal people, large sums, but for him, nothing. It was like, you know, a few hundred thousand dollars that he was giving to the school and able to get in his girlfriend, who did not have the requisite experience or credentials to be able to get into this school and sort of easing her path all the way through.

[Crystal Ball]

And Ryan reported on the relationship between Jeffrey Epstein and Alan Dershowitz and how they collaborated to undermine Mearsheime while Dershowitz was, I think, at Harvard.

[Emily Stewart]

That's right.

[Crystal Ball]

And part of this is, I mean, on some level it's just, it makes sense that if you're a billionaire who's hoping to influence policy and particularly scientific Research in this transhumanist direction, having, like, seduced all of these academics and getting them in their orbit. On the one hand, you feel like you've consolidated influence because you can bring people into your townhouse, which the emails. And we already knew this show was happening over and over again. We now have a more complete picture of exactly what was happening. But also the Bill Gates relationship. He was, in fact, probably because giving this money brings you into the circles. I mean, giving money to academia gets you invited to all the fundraisers and dinners. That's where you meet the people like Bill Gates and others. That's currency, I guess. Huge currency to be able to say, why are you looking at this? Or why aren't you looking at that? Or when you want to be connected with an NSA code breaker, you can email Bill Gates, second in command, and say, hey, introduce me to someone at the nsa. And the guy's like, oh, yeah, no problem. And takes care of it, which we know this Boris Nikolic fellow as Dropsite reported recently. That's what was happening. And so you make it easier. You're greasing the skids for your grand plan with this money to academia. I agree, the Times is kind of letting them off the hook. And it is pathetic to see some of the academics in the emails begging, basically all but begging Jeffrey Epstein for, you know, they're flattering him. Oh, what a wonderful time. What an interesting idea. It's disgusting. And that's happening over and over again now. I think for some people, it really was just research. I actually see that. I know we're about to talk about Peter Attia. I look at the Attia emails. He's a good example of somebody who you're like, okay, you were sucking up to Jeffrey Epstein. If you googled him as Rogan did. Rogan talks about how someone. He had a guest who was trying to introduce him to Epstein. He's like, I just googled the guy. And like, 10 seconds later I was like, no, I'm not meeting this guy after he's in prison. Peter Attia sucking up big time to Jeffrey Epstein over and over again. And all I can say after going through many, many of these messages is many such cases, many such cases all over the place. And it just.

[Emily Stewart]

Well, it fits too, with your reporting on his eugenics totally obsession. And there's actually. We can put a 10 up on the screen because this fits with this. The New Mexico legislators have just passed legislation to launch the first full investigation of what happened at Zorro Ranch, where the late US Sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is accused of trafficking, sexually assaulting girls and women. And Zorro Ranch seems to have been at the center of. Of this eugenics scheme. And I don't know, I don't know what could be discovered at this point. Hopefully there's something there that could be found. You know, obviously the search should have happened long ago, but, you know, we have no idea how far he got down the road of these eugenics ambitions. We do know that there are some emails from, I don't remember, I think it was like Fergie in the uk like some of the British royal types congratulating him seemingly on the birth of a baby. And as far as we know, he doesn't have any children. So there are some things in there that are not any kind of definitive proof but are like question mark. There are some allegations from victims. One girl alleging that he offered to buy her baby. Things extremely disturbing things of that nature. And again, Zora Rancher to him, by the way. Yes, that's right.

[Crystal Ball]

You offered to buy my baby in an email to Jeffrey Epstein.

[Emily Stewart]

That's right, yes. And Zorra Ranch, this was reported by the New York Times years ago, was the center of this. Whatever this eugenics scheme truly was.

[Crystal Ball]

Yeah. And we still don't have. This is one of the big enduring mysteries. I feel like even though the most recent release, it has made the picture more complicated and more interesting. But I feel like we haven't even gotten significantly closer to understanding what went on at Zorro Ranch because it seems to have been. I mean, everything is pointing to it being the dark place that it's is kind of legend for having been, unfortunately, that it's notorious for having been. So that part. The other thing I want to mention about academia is Tyler Austin Harper had a fantastic essay in the Atlantic. He is so good, he's such a good writer. But about how the Mellon foundation has basically controlled the monopoly on funding to academic institutions on the humanities over many, many years. And that's interesting too because it just goes to show, well, if you're close with people in Melon World, guess how you can get money for X, Y and Z. Right. It's just the consolidation of our supposedly democratic society in the hands of so few powerful institutions. And the people that lead those powerful institutions, that's what they're getting off on throughout these emails.

[Emily Stewart]

That actually gets to kind of premise of some of Anand Girard is work about the. The dark side of philanthropy where it's exactly that. Where, you know, if it's the. The gates foundation or the, you know, the various Walmart heirs or the Melons or whoever it is that are doing the investing in scientific research or funding various philanthropic projects, then yeah, you're going to be pressured to suck up to them. And the work that you engage in is going to be very much influenced by whatever their tastes or interests happen to be. In Jeffrey Epstein's case, one of those interests was eugenics. And so that was the sort of thing that he was looking to facilitate relationships with and potentially provide funding for.

[Crystal Ball]

And everyone else is cooperating, by the way. They're fully on board with this total anti democratic oligarchic effort to change the human race. That's. It was normal to them. They're all just like, yeah, yeah, okay, cool, Interesting, interesting. Again, we're in their sandbox. That's how they look at it. The rest of us are in their.

[Emily Stewart]

Sandbox and still look at how Elon Musk talks about his breeding project. And I mean, there's a Chinese billionaire who was revealed to have hundreds of children or something like this. So it's a naturally unnatural development from a class of people who thinks they are better than, who have various supremacist ideologies that justify that view. You know, Epstein clearly from the language that he uses in a bunch of these emails, is a Jewish supremacist. You know, Elon has his own like IQ supremacist view, et cetera. But many of them have some ideology which causes them to believe they are different from the rest of the species, which is what enables that dehumanization is what enables the abuse of and the grotesque behavior that we know occurred. In the case of Epstein, we've got Naomi Campbell was present in these files quite a bit. We could put a six up on the screen. This is a new one. Obviously she's high level model makes sense in a way because she was one of Victoria's Secret's most high profile models. Epstein is connected to Victoria's Secret via Les Wexner. He apparently would like name drop her with some of the young models that he's looking to cultivate. It appears that this modeling pipeline from Eastern Europe was one of the ways that abuse was enabled. So that is an interesting piece of the puzzle in terms of how he's able to persuade these young girls that oh no, I'm legit in the modeling industry and I'm gonna make your dreams come true.

[Crystal Ball]

Well, you've been going deep on over years now on the modeling ties between Jean Luc Brunel Wexner and Epstein. I was curious when I saw this. And Trump. Right. I was curious when I saw this. How. What is your sense of how the models were aware of any of this?

[Emily Stewart]

It's a good question, and I don't think it's really answerable at this point. I mean, we have some indications from the emails, we have some indications from actually some old, like, documentary footage about these contests. We know there was at least one party that was held at Mar a Lago where girls were promised, like, oh, there's going to be all these VIPs here. You're going to be able to network. And then they show up, and it's just Trump and Epstein. So the modeling world is infamous for being a pipeline for human trafficking and for sex trafficking. And Casablancas, who Trump really admired and wanted to emulate, was a known abuser. I mean, he had a relationship with. What's her name? Stephanie Hirsch. Is that her name? Stephanie Seymour. There we go. When she was 16 years old. And so this was all known. I mean, it's disturbing to me that he put his own daughter Ivanka into this world when she is a young girl, 14, 15 years old, and this is why he wants to start his own modeling agency. Obviously, Epstein. I think this is part of why he latches on to Les Wexner, because he sees this connection with Victoria's Secret and holds himself out. He was actually rebuked internally at one point because he was holding himself out as he was a Victoria's Secret recruiter. And that was not technically to women, right? Yes, that was not technically the case, but I think they believed a lot of the promises. There was probably some upfront like, oh, I'll provide this for you. I'll provide that for you. And you're also talking about, you know, a lot of poor girls from Eastern Europe after the Soviet Union collapses who are kind of desperate and who are put into this incredibly, you know, vulnerable, vulnerable situation. All right, let's. Let's. Let's go ahead and take a look at one piece of this. This is a 8, which speaks to what you're talking about here, Emily, in terms of how he's interacting with these girls who are aspiring models. So she's asking, I think she attended some dinner with him or whatever, and he's giving her this advice on how she should conduct herself in the future. He says, it's time you start an education. I do not say fuck to anyone except in bed, especially not at the table. Number two. You are 22, only ask questions of men. They are not really interested in your opinions when you are 30 and then only marginally. That's great advice, ladies.

[Crystal Ball]

That's great.

[Emily Stewart]

Take that one out. Luckily we both make the cut for at least marginal interest in our opinions.

[Crystal Ball]

That's what the. That's what the girl show is.

[Emily Stewart]

We should call it the marginal marginal interest. Yeah, zone of marginal interest also.

[Crystal Ball]

Oh shit, Chris. It's also our band.

[Emily Stewart]

Anyway, it goes on to say I'm very respectful. You've not been taught 21st century science so you can be forgiven. And believing the world is flat, the sun revolves around the earth, or there are energy fields, or you can get sick from air conditioning or magnets can tell what type of yoga poses to do. Or Santa Claus exists. Or if you think positive thoughts, positive things will happen or things are meant to be, fate, destiny, angels. I realize you have the potential to understand. You've learned very old fashioned ideas that country people believe. It's now time you take your life seriously. Actor slash model is not freedom. You have time. Try them on for size. Look around. They are not free. Winning the lottery is not a good strategy to bet on. Start learning a skill. If you need help, I will be there. So he and I believe subject line.

[Crystal Ball]

By the way, clouds taken by me, exclamation point. Amazing.

[Emily Stewart]

Yeah. What does that mean?

[Crystal Ball]

I'm assuming it was like a picture, but who knows?

[Emily Stewart]

Anyway, so you know, this is. He grooms these girls and then I believe this is one of the ones that ends up in some sort of quote unquote relationship with Leon Black. So he's grooming them how to be with the various rich and powerful men and then he uses them as currency and he's.

[Crystal Ball]

Well, I shouldn't say grooming, but he's also coaching Larry Summers, for example, on how to have relationships with these young women who are often mistresses. Yes. It's disgusting.

[Emily Stewart]

Yeah. All right, one more just to you know, to make sure we're all deeply disturbed before we move on to the rest of the show. TMZ with some reporting here. And by the way, Sagar messaged us this morning that he did confirm this reporting too. Jeffrey Epstein asked about zombie drug plants he kept at nursery. Jeffrey Epstein may have had a collection of highly poisonous plants known to produce a drug that blocked free will in its victims, according to newly discovered emails. In one of the uncovered messages, Epstein sends an email asking about his quote, trumpet plants at nursery for background angels. Trumpet plants are extremely toxic. They produce a drug called scopolamine, which is known to basically turn humans into zombies, wiping them of memory and eliminating their free will. Severe intoxication reportedly may even cause paralysis and death. Even more alarming, scopolamine does reportedly does not show up on toxicology reports. And if you're wondering if Epstein was aware of this, there's an excellent chance he was. In another email, he was sent an article all about the effects of scopolamine and the plant that it comes from.

[Crystal Ball]

Yeah, his stocker said he confirmed these emails existed as Crystal mentioned. So that's as disturbing as you'd expect it to be. Not surprising, actually, at all, based on the various projects he was getting into in this email inbox. But what that can be used for. It's chilling.

[Emily Stewart]

Yeah, completely.

[Hans Charles]

Welcome to the A building. I'm Hans Charles.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I'm enelik Lumumba. It's 1969. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr have both been assassinated, and black America was out of breaking point. Rioting and protest broke out on an.

[Hans Charles]

Un unprecedented scale in Atlanta, Georgia. At Martin's alma mater, Morehouse College, the students had their own protest. It featured two prominent figures in black history, Martin Luther King Sr. And a young student, Samuel L. Jackson.

[Sagar Enjeti]

To be in what we really thought was a revolution. I mean, people were dying.

[Hans Charles]

1968, the murder of Dr. King, which traumatized everyone.

[Crystal Ball]

The FBI had a role in the.

[Ryder Strong]

Murder of a Black Panther leader in Chicago.

[Sagar Enjeti]

This story is about protest. It echoes in today's world far more than it should, and it will blow your mind.

[Hans Charles]

Listen to the A Building on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Bowen Yang]

I'm Bowen Ying.

[Matt Rogers]

And I'm Matt Rogers.

[Bowen Yang]

During this season of the two five Rings podcast, in the lead up to the Milan Cordial at 2026 Winter Olympic Games, we've been joined by some of our friends.

[Matt Rogers]

Hi, Bowen.

[Crystal Ball]

Hi, Matt.

[Matt Rogers]

Hey, Elmo.

[Emily Stewart]

Hey, Matt. Hey, Bowen.

[Crystal Ball]

Hi, Cookie.

[Hans Charles]

Hi.

[Matt Rogers]

Now the Winter Olympic Games are underway and we are in Italy to give you experiences from our hearts to your ears. Listen to Two Guys Five Rings on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.

[Ryder Strong]

This is Ryder Strong and I have a new podcast called the Red Weather.

[Emily Stewart]

It was many and many a year ago in a kingdom by the sea.

[Ryder Strong]

In 1995, my neighbor Anna Trainor disappeared from a commune. It was hard to wrap your head around. It was nature and trees and praying and drugs.

[Crystal Ball]

So, no, I am not your guru.

[Ryder Strong]

And back then, I lied to my parents, I lied to police, I lied to everybody.

[Crystal Ball]

There were years, Ryder where I could not say your name.

[Ryder Strong]

I've decided to go back to my hometown in Northern California, interview my friends, family, talk to police, journalists, whomever I can to try to find out what actually happened.

[Hans Charles]

Isn't it a little bit weird that.

[Emily Stewart]

They obsess over hippies in the woods and not the obvious boyfriend? They have had this case for 30 years.

[Crystal Ball]

I'll teach you sons of come around.

[Emily Stewart]

Here in my wife.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Boom boom.

[Ryder Strong]

This is the red weather. Listen to the red weather on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Emily Stewart]

Let's go ahead and turn to the latest with regard to DHS and the mass deportation effort and especially in regards to several high profile shootings. So let's put this first element up on the screen. The FBI has now officially announced we kind of knew this already, but now it's been completely confirmed that they are not going to share Alex Preddy shooting evidence, according to Minnesota authorities. Minnesota law enforcement authorities have said the FBI is refusing to share any evidence onto into its investigation in the death of Alex Pretty, the man killed by federal immigration authorities in late January. Pretty was shot on January 24th by CBP officials in Minneapolis. His killing came just two days of two weeks, of course, after Renee Good was shot and killed. On Monday, Minnesota's Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, a state level criminal investigative law enforcement agency, said the FBI had formally notified it that it would not share any information or evidence related to Freddy's shooting. Minnesota Governor Tim Walls has demanded an impartial investigation into the shootings in Minneapolis. Trump's left hand cannot investigate his right hand, he said on Monday in response to FBI's refusal to share evidence. The families of the deceased deserved better. And obviously this is, I mean, it's completely like there's no defense of it. It's unjustifiable. And the American people want to see, overwhelmingly including many Republicans, want to see a real investigation into this, want to see charges brought against the two CBP agents who shot and killed Alex Pareti, who was, you know, was nonviolent, it was unprovoked and many shots came after he was already lying, you know, probably dead on the ground. You know, it's outrageous. It's an outrageous abuse of power that they're just saying, nope, there's going to be no accountability here. We're going to handle this and we're not going to cooperate whatsoever.

[Crystal Ball]

You know, to your point, it's not surprising. This is where we are. It's actually not surprising to me that either Walz and Fry or the Trump administration, neither camp trusts the other camp anymore. So that doesn't surprise me whatsoever. I don't think it surprises anybody whatsoever. For the administration, on the other hand, this is the case that they, I think most prominently, I mean, this is the case that started to really after Renee Goode. This was the snowball effect on public opinion, and it was already moving against them, but this really blew it all up. And why? Well, in no small part because they put out absurd stories at first. And so if they want people to trust their investigation while also not cooperating with local authorities. And the big problem, as far as the public is going to be concerned, is that this administration misled the public immediately. Yeah. And even to the point where the president has disagreed with some of the early statements, actually has openly disagreed with some of the early statements that were made by his own administration. And so if you want to have, I mean, I think I remember saying about this case, this is where if you want to carry out mass deportations, that's your political goal, you need to have a lot of public trust in order to do that in a way that politically makes sense, but also in a way that you can logistically be in these communities and actually be engaged in deportation. The public trust in this case was broken in a way that was flagrant. Like it was. So saying that he wanted to massacre people. That's what their early story was about.

[Emily Stewart]

They said he brandished a gun and.

[Crystal Ball]

Clearly came to massacre people. Yes, that was their line. And so you can be on either side of the party thing and look at what the Trump administration did and say, holy. Like, you guys don't have trust on this. You do not have the public stress.

[Emily Stewart]

I think it also shows how thin the change in stance is because obviously they sent in Tom Homan instead of Greg Bevino. Now they've signaled, okay, we're done with this surge of agents in Minneapolis. We're moving on to other things. And yet on this shooting, which has been the most high profile, I think you're right. It's really been a turning point in terms of public sentiment. There was already a major degradation of trust. There was already a lot of horror what had been done. But this was really a galvanizing and horrifying moment for many, many millions of people. And so on this critical case, they're still not budging an inch, effectively. Another one that there was another shooting shortly after Alex Pardy was killed by CBP agents in Minneapolis that we covered here on the show because immediately. Well, first of all, I don't trust these people at all. So when they come out with the story, I'm like, they're probably lying. And that instinct has been justified every single time thus far. In any case, there was another shooting. This person ended up surviving. But the government story and some footage that was released by the family where they were calling 911 immediately there were contradictions in what was going on here. So the government story was that the immigration agents were assaulted by multiple people. One had a broom, one had a shovel, and in fear for their life, they fired shots, et cetera. They filed charges against the people that they said had been involved. Well, now those charges have been dropped and they're admitting that the agents involved lied about everything that occurred here. So we can put this up on the screen from npr. DHS says immigration agents appear to have lied about shooting in Minnesota. Two federal immigration agents involved in the shooting of a Venezuelan immigrant in Minneapolis last month appear to have lied about the details of the incident. The agents have been placed on administrative leave after a joint review by ICE and DOJ of video evidence that has revealed that sworn Testimony provided by two separate officers appear to have made untruthful statements. That is from Trisha McLaughlin. The rare acknowledgment of potential missteps by ICE agents comes after the agency's acting director, Todd Lyons, told Congress Congress on Thursday ISIS conducted 37 investigations into officers use of force over the past year. He did not say whether anyone has been fired. McLaughlin said the agency is investigating that Jan. 14 shooting of the Venezuelan immigrant. The officers involved could be fired or criminally prosecuted for any violations. So they're even holding out the possibility that they could be charged for lying in this sworn testimony. And you definitely get the sense that what happened here is kind of similar to what happened with Marmara Martinez in Chicago, which we've obviously covered extensively here on the show as well, is that once there was video evidence that was just fairly definitive that what they said was a complete and total lie, they had to drop the charges against her and they had to back off. Now she has filed a civil suit against the people who were involved here and possibly against the government itself because she was shot five times and the body camera evidence shows that they were the ones who instigated the confrontation, that they were not in danger, that the basic facts of them claiming that they were blocked in by a variety of cars, totally and completely false and made up. And so now we have another instance where they got their hands on some kind of video evidence and were like, oh, this is not gonna hold up in a court of law.

[Crystal Ball]

And this is another example where the public trust is extremely important because. And it is true that there have been some efforts to resist deportation, and there have been some, like, violent efforts to resist deportation. That is true. And so when you lie about it, you make it less. You make your entire argument less credible along the way. And on top of that, is it possible that they're being lied to by their own agents in the field, by the way, who aren't in mass wearing body cameras? Some of them are wearing body cameras. But ICE has a ton of money. They can afford to put every single one of them in body cameras. So is it possible that if you're sitting at DHS in Washington, you're getting information about what happened, you have your agent say, this is what happened. This guy came to massacre. This person was fighting us. This person was violent, and DHS puts out a statement trusting you, then it all blows up. They're a mess. I mean, they're very clearly a mess. This type of thing, it's understandable that it would. When you're engaged in what you and I disagree on, the deportation efforts, no matter what, that's going to be chaotic. But they are. Even by that standard, they're a mess. They're all over the place. They're making their own work more difficult. Very clearly.

[Emily Stewart]

It's so. I mean, you're right that I totally agree with the entire project, but it's so easy to just say disagree.

[Crystal Ball]

Disagree.

[Emily Stewart]

Yeah, we just disagree. Totally disagree.

[Crystal Ball]

Yeah.

[Emily Stewart]

Crystal is like, whoa, I haven't won you over yet, Emily. I'll keep working on it. In any case, it's so easy to just say, we're investigating, we're looking into it. Because if that's the problem, that their agents are lying to them. And I think you were right on the Alex party one. I looked into it enough that it seemed like the agents on the ground were like, he pulled a gun on it, and they just believed it and ran with it.

[Crystal Ball]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Emily Stewart]

And, you know, and they want. And they wanted to. And they don't care ultimately, if they're lying to the public. They don't care if their statements are truthful. What they care about is backing up their thugs on the ground in every instance that they possibly can. So if they're given a colorable story, they are happy to run with it. So put the next one up on the screen just so you can see how Noem framed this quote, unquote attack originally. She Said what we saw last night in Minneapolis was an attempted murder of federal law enforcement. Our officer was ambushed and attacked by three individuals who beat him with snow shovels and the handles of brooms. Fearing for his life, the officer fired a defensive shot. Mayor Frey and Governor Walls have to get their city under control. They're encouraging impeding an assault against their law enforcement which is a federal crime, a felony. This is putting the people of Minnesota in harm's way. And so now they, they, they filed charges against these individuals who allegedly tried to murder federal law enforcement official. Those charges have been dropped because they found out all of this total and complete garbage and a lie.

[Crystal Ball]

Again, we've so rarely gone back to what happened in Dallas when there was an attempted shooting on ICE officers that by the way ended up hurting migrants themselves. It's not out of the question that people are trying to harm ICE agents. It's a politically polarized issue and it is bringing crazies out. So it's no question that that is happening. The degree to which it's happening is more debatable. But there's no question that that's happened. So when you take advantage of that to lie and spin, you lose the public trust.

[Emily Stewart]

And how many people who are Fox News watchers are going to only hear the original oh, they tried to murder law enforcement with brooms and shovels and never hear the by the way, that was all garbage. And we could no longer sustain these lies because there's video evidence and we had to drop the charges. Oops, we're moving.

[Crystal Ball]

Well I think that was a problem in the Preddy case because as soon as, I mean that Fox was playing, I had Fox, CNN, Ms. on like constantly. I was watching them play. Fox was playing that footage all the time. And if you are, you know, a gun owning conservative, you saw that footage and you saw what the administration said. And so I think the inescapability of the videotape is part of the trust problem for DHS and that they say one thing, the video comes out. So even people who may otherwise be insulated from the follow on stories have seen it. And that probably does explain, I mean American Compass had a really good piece from someone in Ohio, Amber Lapp, who was talking to people in her very blue collar area about what they think, Trump voters about what they think on immigration. And a lot of them, we don't like seeing what we're seeing, like people being pulled out of cars and the crackdown. Now that wasn't true of everyone, but it is like the video Is that is pervasive. Like that is seeping in everybody's news diets.

[Emily Stewart]

And it's part of why they have been so aggressive about. You have all of these organized citizens who are out there in the streets to observe and record and why they've been so offended by that and so aggressive in their tactics against those people who are just standing there with iPhones recording. At the same time, there's a, you know, funding fight. DHS is actually shut down right now because Democrats are holding the line for some kind of changes with regard to this, you know, immigration enforcement.

[Crystal Ball]

They are funded on a stopgap measure because of something that was in the.

[Emily Stewart]

One big beautiful bill. That's right. Yeah. So, I mean, let's be clear here. In the short term, ice, cbp, they're not going to suffer. They have plenty of funding.

[Crystal Ball]

They're functioning as usual.

[Emily Stewart]

Yes. And most of dhs, frankly, is functioning as usual because most of the function of DHS are considered to be essential. So even in a shutdown, they continue. In any case, this is cnbc. You can put up with the screen. Lawmakers and the White House offered no signs of compromise Sunday, their battle over oversight of federal immigration officers that has led to a pause in funding for dhs. Partial government shutdown began Saturday after congressional Democrats and Trump's team failed to reach a deal on legislation to fund the department through September. Democrats are demanding changes to how immigration operations are conducted. Congress on recess until February 23rd. Both sides appear to be dug into their positions. And I think from. It's hard to see how this gets resolved because from the Democrats perspective, they're like, you know, why would we. Given why we. The base is really demanding that that something be done here. And they don't have the problem they had in the previous shutdown where you've got the whole government shut down and there's real pain that is happening for workers and Americans are experiencing the impacts of this shutdown. And you've got air travel screwed up and all of that. Like, you don't have that. Which is why personally, I think it was a mistake to, you know, to go along with this idea of, hey, we'll pass all the other funding bills and we'll just separate out this piece because that pressure is important point of leverage in any case. So they don't have that. That pain point. That was a problem for them holding their ranks together. Republicans are like, well, we don't care because ICE and CBP still have all of their funding. So why would we bend an inch why would we give you anything that you want? And so I think this could continue for quite a while. It can put B5 up on the screen. Ryan Cooper made the case for what he says keeping ICE and CBP defunded. He says Democrats should not provide one thin dime to Magus Dorm troopers and argues that, yeah, okay, they've got this money from the big beautiful bill. It gave ICE $75 billion, more than seven times its annual budget. Much more money than any military in the world, except for China's and America's. CBP also received tens of billions of dollars in its own right. Both agencies can draw on this money, continue operations during a shutdown. That said, he says denying baseline annual funding is still substantial cut for ICE and cbp and the longer it persists, the deeper the funding reduction will be. Democrats should stick to this line. As long as Trump is in office, these agencies should get no funding through the traditional budget whatsoever. After all, they already have more than they need. And so his argument that I think a lot of Democrats will find compelling is basically like, no, you shouldn't be providing any funding to them at all. And yes, they have plenty of money to operate, but if this goes on for years, then, you know, every year there's less and less for them to be able to work with and it creates more and more difficulties the longer that time goes on.

[Crystal Ball]

I do think one problem Democrats should be aware of is for political problem for them is that the policy of deporting people who are not supposed to be here, the public is still pretty split on that. There's still pretty significant public support. And it's a midterm year now. Democrats are in primaries right now, which means they're focused on the base part of the election. And actually midterms, period are base elections, meaning you want to electrify your base. And one of the ways to do that would be to give clearly what the Democratic base is demanding, which is defunding ICE and just putting up a fight too. We talked about that when the government, when Hakeem Jeffries led his half hearted government shutdown. And it was the most pathetic display, but it was rooted in finally acknowledging that so many dumb voters just want to see you fighting. Like just do something, do something. We know that you're still supportive of Netanyahu. Half of you just took a picture with him, like smiling like, we get it, but just show us that you're listening and that you'll fight at all. So it's an obvious base move, but you have to play it carefully because, you know, members of the public mean they still want to see a sane immigration policy. And I do think that's a problem for Democrats coming to the table with something that's better, that's not just outright stopping deportations. And even if it's defunding ICE then explaining what that would mean for people who are not supposed to be here.

[Emily Stewart]

I mean the polling indicates that completely abolishing ice, which is not what this would be.

[Crystal Ball]

It has gone up.

[Emily Stewart]

Yeah, it, it's a plurality position now. I don't think it's achieved outright majority support. But it is the.

[Crystal Ball]

But it has among Democrats.

[Emily Stewart]

Oh yeah. Among Democrats it's like overwhelmingly popular. But among independents it's also quite popular. And I think overwhelmingly the public has moved towards Democrats on seeing this as extremely abusive. Wanting. I was looking at the polling yesterday on the checks that they want to see, you know, things like body cameras. Some 80, 90% want to see body cameras, them being unmasked. It's like some 75% say yes, they should be unmasked. You know, all of these basic accountability metrics. Overwhelmingly popular. And so for Republicans to dig in on, no, we want to keep our masked thugs in the street with no body cameras or accountability. I don't see that as a winning political position for them. And so I think for Democrats to stay dug in on this matter and really push the issue. No, we're not voting for this. As long as you have zero accountability for these people who are not even cooperating. The Alex Pardi investigation, I think that's like a clear cut political winner for Democrats. And it's the right thing to do too, by the way, which also matters.

[Crystal Ball]

New York Times. Yeah, I mean I think the masks and they should be looking and I think in fact they are looking at independent voters, which is why they said they were putting body cameras on the Operation Metro surge guys a couple weeks ago. Obviously that operated now over. I guess we'll see what happens. But yeah, I think they were. That was a response to looking at Independence, especially after what happened with Good and Preddy.

[Emily Stewart]

Yeah.

[Crystal Ball]

A New York Times headline from a few weeks ago. Voters are split on deportations but disapprove of ICE poll fines. So this is according to a Times, a recent Times Siena poll. So yeah, that's what I'm saying is I think you're right, Crystal, that the politics of anti ICE on the left right now are really powerful.

[Emily Stewart]

Yeah.

[Crystal Ball]

I just think politically for Democrats, voters do want them to have an answer that isn't just Just anti Trump on immigration. And that was.

[Emily Stewart]

I think that'll matter in 2028. Right now I think just being in the opposite and I would like to see that as well, but I think right now just being opposed to what is happening is, you know, is enough for.

[Crystal Ball]

It's enough in a material.

[Emily Stewart]

Yeah. And I just pulled up 92% support for requiring body cams, 86% for detention facilities to meet basic standards, 85% requiring DHS to verify someone's a non citizen before arresting them, 81% for independent investigation, 77% requiring DHS to show warrants before entering private property, 76% for requiring DHS agents to identify themselves, 71% for ending racial profiling, 67% for banning DHS agents from engaging in areas around schools, hospitals, courts, courts, churches, et cetera. So, you know, I think they feel they're on solid ground. And you know, given that how like finger in the wind the Hakeem Jeffries of the world are, I don't think they would be going down this path if they didn't have like 90% support on a variety of these measures.

[Crystal Ball]

Yeah, I guess I was thinking of the Senate. Like I should go look and see what Dan Osborne has said about some of this stuff. Like the Senate races in either red or purple states where Dems have a real chance of toppling a Republican. I mean, if Democrats want to retake the Senate with a level of unpopularity that Trump has, it's there. I mean, I think people are skeptical of it. They would have to take like four seats.

[Emily Stewart]

Osborne has been quite outspoken about the violations of constitutional rights.

[Crystal Ball]

Interesting.

[Emily Stewart]

You know, Second Amendment, fourth Amendment, et cetera. In fact, he came equipped to our segment, we did with him with a pocket constitution. Oh, that's awesome for him to be able to whip out to talk about that. We actually didn't get to that, but he was like afterwards he was like, oh, I didn't get to use my pocket constitution, cuz you didn't ask me enough about ice. So that's where he is.

[Crystal Ball]

But then I also think that would be a good race. Maybe we should jump back on. But that would be a good race where voters want to say, or want to hear you say. But here's what I think actually should happen.

[Emily Stewart]

Yeah, and he talked about, he did talk to us about comprehensive immigration reform. Sager was pressing him a bit on that sort of stuff. So he's been, you know, I think he's been fairly outspoken about seeing these abuses as unconscionable.

[Hans Charles]

Welcome to The A building. I'm Hans Charles.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I'm Menelik Lumumba. It's 1969. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr have both been assassinated. And black America was at a breaking point. Rioting and protest broke out on an.

[Hans Charles]

Unprecedented scale in Atlanta, Georgia. At Martin's alma mater, Morehouse College, the students had their own protest. It featured two prominent figures in black history, Martin Luther King Sr. And a young student, Samuel L. Jackson.

[Sagar Enjeti]

To be in what we really thought was a revolution, I mean, people would die.

[Hans Charles]

1968, the murder of Dr. King, which traumatized everyone.

[Crystal Ball]

The FBI had a role in the.

[Ryder Strong]

Murder of a Black Panther leader in Chicago.

[Sagar Enjeti]

This story is about protest. It echoes in today's world far more than it should. And it will blow your mind.

[Hans Charles]

Listen to the A Building on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Bowen Yang]

I'm Bowen Yang.

[Matt Rogers]

And I'm Matt Rogers.

[Bowen Yang]

During this season of the 2.5rings podcast, in the lead up to the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games, we've been joined by some of our friends.

[Crystal Ball]

Hi, Bowen. Hi, Matt.

[Matt Rogers]

Hey, Elmo.

[Emily Stewart]

Hey, Matt. Hey, Bowen.

[Crystal Ball]

Hi, Cookie.

[Hans Charles]

Hi.

[Matt Rogers]

Now the Winter Olympic Games are underway and we are in Italy to give you experiences from our hearts to your ears. Listen to Two Guys Five Rings on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ryder Strong]

This is Rider Strong and I have a new podcast called the Red Weather.

[Emily Stewart]

It was many and many a year ago in a kingdom by the sea.

[Ryder Strong]

In 1995, my neighbor, Anna Trainor disappeared from a commune. It was hard to wrap your head around. It was nature and trees and praying and drugs.

[Crystal Ball]

So, no, I am not your guru.

[Ryder Strong]

And back then, I lied to my parents, I lied to police, I lied to everybody.

[Crystal Ball]

There were years, Ryder, where I could not say your name.

[Ryder Strong]

I've decided to go back to my hometown in Northern California, interview my friends, family, talk to police, journalists, whomever I can to try to find out what actually happened.

[Hans Charles]

Isn't it a little bit weird that.

[Emily Stewart]

They obsess over hippies in the woods.

[Hans Charles]

And not the obvious boyfriend?

[Emily Stewart]

They have had this case for 30 years.

[Crystal Ball]

I'll teach you.

[Emily Stewart]

Sons of come round here. And my wife, boom, boom.

[Ryder Strong]

This is the red weather. Listen to the red weather on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Emily Stewart]

Let's go and move on to more. More potential constitutional violations with the voting rights, what with the Trump attack on voting rights and whatever they're trying to do to mess with the midterms. We got some new comments from Kristi Noem talking about how they need to make sure they're getting the right voters to the polls to vote for the right people. Let's listen to that. And elections is another one of those.

[Crystal Ball]

Critical infrastructure responsibilities that I have as well.

[Emily Stewart]

And I would say that many people believe that it may be one of the most important things that we need.

[Crystal Ball]

To make sure we trust is reliable and that when it gets to Election Day, that we've been proactive to make sure that we have the right people.

[Emily Stewart]

Voting, electing the right leaders to lead.

[Crystal Ball]

This country through the days that we.

[Emily Stewart]

Have, knowing that people can trust it. So the right people to vote for the right candidates. And this comes amid a push from Trump in a variety of directions. Obviously, they seized the Fulton county ballots as part of some stop the steal conspiracy. Tulsi Gabbard was there. For some reason, they've been suing states to try to force them to hand over their voter rolls. They're trying to pass this. What's it called, the SAVE Act. Is that what it is? And that would require very stringent. Not just like a regular driver's license, you'd have to have a real ID or passport. They've also closed down a bunch of passport offices to make it harder to get a passport if you need that. In any case, let's go and put Trump's truth up on the screen here. He says the Democrats refuse to vote for voter ID or citizenship. The reason is very simple. They wanna continue to cheat. Intellectual. This was not what our founders desired. I've searched the depths of legal arguments. Oh, I'm sure he has not yet articulated or vetted on the subject. You can just imagine him in the law library, Emily, late at night researching the depths, the depths of legal arguments and will be presenting an irrefutable one. In the very near future, there will be voter ID for the midterm elections, whether approved by Congress or not. Also, the people of our country are insisting on citizenship and no mail in ballot, with exceptions for military, disability, illness or travel. Thank you for your attention to this matter. So not only pushing the SAVE act pieces, but also saying I'm going to unilaterally get rid of the mail in ballots, which, of course has been a nemesis of him since 2020, et cetera. And I don't know what case he's gonna make here to put forward. It's pretty clear cut that the states are responsible for running the elections. They're allowed to have whatever rules, including rules around mail in ballots that they pass through their legislature or whatever their process is. So we'll see here. But this clearly comes as he is engaged in, I think, throwing whatever he can against the wall to try to mess with the midterm elections as his approval rating continues to plummet and he recognizes he's in trouble in terms of how the population feels about him, how they feel about the Republican Party, and how the midterms are likely to go.

[Crystal Ball]

Yeah, I mean, I hate the way Trump talks about elections. And part of that is because of what we were discussing, even with ice, which is that I tend to think there are some real concerns. I mean, so non citizens can vote in Washington, D.C. elections, for example. I live in Washington, DC. I think that's wrong. There are other laws that allow noncitizens to vote in elections around the country. I don't think that's right. And I think it's common sense that people should have to show IDs. Everything is real ID now, unfortunately. So that stuff, you know, there's a question of federalism and the power of the states, to be sure. I don't have a problem at all with the SAVE Act. I think actually it could help boost people's trust and especially like maga, people's trust in elections and in a way that's ultimately healthy. On the other hand, to act as though this is some sort of significant threat like that. There is, you know, that in the 2026 midterm elections, there could be a significant threat from noncitizens flooding elections and throwing them to Democrats. That I think is irresponsible, and I think it's partially irresponsible because again, you do have non citizens who are being able to register to vote. And so then you may have problems where people are registered to vote and vote not just in the local election, the federal election, that stuff does get confusing. So I think partially it's irresponsible because there's a legitimate problem, from my perspective at least. So I hate the way that he talks about elections. I mean, the way Ben Sasse put it after January 6th was that Trump had been, quote, playing with fire in the way that he discussed what happened that November. And I think that still applies very much.

[Emily Stewart]

So the impact of the SAVE act would be that millions of people are unable to vote and there just isn't.

[Crystal Ball]

Well, they're able to get their IDs. I mean, it would be a hurdle.

[Emily Stewart]

It would be a significant hurdle, but.

[Crystal Ball]

It doesn't Mean they're unable to vote.

[Emily Stewart]

But it would be, I mean, and it's intentionally designed as a significant hurdle to make it so that there are fewer people able to vote. And it's a reasonable hurdle. Not in the case of what they're actually demanding here, which is again, not just like your driver's license isn't enough. It has to be a real id and that is fairly expensive. So you also, at the same time are closing passport offices. So passport is, would be considered valid, but it's much harder to get a passport. It's a huge backlog, et cetera. So I think, you know, it's an intentional, it's an intentional effort to limit and restrict the number of people who can vote. The assault on mail in balloting, same thing. You know, it's an attempt to. This is known now that more Democrats mail in their ballots. So guess what? We're gonna go after mail in balloting. This has been a switch in the dynamics post Covid and to solve a problem that doesn't really exist. I mean, I understand the theoretical case that you're making. There are very few instances that have been identified of non citizens who are actually able to cast a ballot. So why are we de facto putting up hurdles in the way people exercising their right to vote to solve a problem that doesn't exist. And at the same time, I also just think it's like, I just don't think that it's, it's even useful to really talk about what Trump is doing here as legitimate. Because at the same time, I mentioned how they're suing states to get their voter rolls and all the Republican states have already sent in their voter rolls and they're using this tool on it to supposedly identify non citizens who are on the voter rolls for them to purge. And this tool is a total and complete disaster. So we can put C3 up on the screen. This was some reporting from the Texas Tribune. Federal tool to check voter citizenship keeps making mistakes. It led to confusion in Texas, they say, when County Clerk Brianna Lennon got an email in November saying a newly expanded federal System had flagged 74 people on the country's county's voter roll as potential noncitizen. She was taken aback. Lennon, who had run elections in Boone County, Missouri for seven years, had heard the tool might not be accurate. The flag voters registration paperwork confirmed Lennon's suspicion. The form for the second person on the list bore the initials of a member of her staff who had helped the man register at his naturalization ceremony. Later turned out More than half the Boone county voters identified as noncitizens were actually citizens. A similar situation has been playing out in Texas, where county clerks have likewise found numerous examples of misidentified voters across the state. This is out of a playbook that has been used most extensively, I think, in the state of Georgia, where Georgia passed a law where any person can challenge the voting rights of anybody. And so you had a group of activists who would challenge, like, thousands of people at a time, and they would get de facto thrown off the voter rolls. And you would have situations where they would go through, states would go through also and try to do this automated, you know, matching of, okay, let's see if this person is genuinely citizen, whether they've changed addresses, et cetera. And some of the names that you're talking about here are very common names. So, you know, if you've got a guy named Juan Carlos and one of them is a citizen who's rightfully registered to vote in Fulton county and the other is not, they would kick him off the ballot. And it caused all sorts of incidents where, you know, the ballots with all of these legitimate voters purged from the rolls. And now this is what the Trump administration is trying to do in states across the country. As I said before, Republican states are going along with it. Democratic states are resisting this direction. The Trump administration is suing them to try to get access to their voter roll so they can make some case. They can analyze the data and make some case, oh, my God, there's all these illegitimate voters. And it's part of a larger scale attack on the midterm elections. You know, some of these things are, like, within the bounds of what are ugly and at times, undemocratic politics are like the gerrymandering fight. And some of them are completely out of bounds. Like when Steve Bannon suggests, hey, let's have ICE agents at the poll to intimidate people so that they don't show up. Or when Trump suggests, hey, we should nationalize elections, hey, I've decided that I've come up with some legal argument that would allow me unilaterally to end in mail, in ballots, not even through an act of Congress, but just me, myself and I, through an executive order. So, obviously, there's a lot of reason why people are deeply concerned about what this is gonna look like for 2026 and 2028 going forward.

[Crystal Ball]

No, I mean, count me among them. I'm one of the people that feels like, I mean, some of this started in 2016 with Hillary Clinton flirting with this idea that there was a Russian effort to mess with voting and that some of the election had been thrown. There were a lot of Democrats who were flirting with that idea at the time, even to the point of saying voting machines might have been the problem. But nothing compared to what Trump did after he lost the 2020 election. And from there it just exploded. Georgia is a. Basically, there's nobody who denies that Georgia had so many people who voted in their prior area of residence incorrectly that it was more than the margin, which was like 11,000. There were like 15,000 people who voted that. And doesn't mean that their votes were not legitimate votes. Right, they were legitimate votes, but they were done incorrectly. And that's the type of thing that makes people say, oh, fraud would be easy to do in Georgia. And so people lose trust in the system. And that's where I actually honestly think there's a case for the SAVE Act. From that perspective, that you have so many people on the right who now distrust elections. Like, it's almost like how Ro Khanna talks about his billionaire tax being anti revolutionary. There's, from my perspective, a case for save where you have, you know, if we allowed everybody to vote on their phones, that would be mass enfranchisement of voting. I don't agree with that. I think voting should happen the same day, but it should be a national holiday. Everybody should get it off and all that kind of thing. That's not what Trump is pushing, of course. So. So, yeah, it's partisan politics.

[Emily Stewart]

Well, and the distrust doesn't just come out of nowhere. And it's not just because, like, oh, things were messy in Georgia. I mean, every election, because it's run because it's federalized or it's states. Yeah, states. It's not run nationally. And so you're always gonna have some, oh, something weird happened here, the line was too long there, et cetera.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Totally.

[Emily Stewart]

It's the nature of our elections. The reason that Republicans have lost trust is because. Because Trump told them that 2020 was rigged and spun up an entire election conspiracy and tried to put fake electorates, electors forward and incited people to January 6th and all of that.

[Crystal Ball]

Well, he was platforming Sidney Powell and.

[Emily Stewart]

Rudy Giuliani's dominion voting, which he continues to do. And I mean, that's the other piece of this is you've got Maduro sitting in prison. I no longer think that it's crazy at all to imagine.

[Crystal Ball]

Not at all.

[Emily Stewart]

They're going to strike some deal with him where he claims, Yeah, I totally rigged 2020. You're right. You got me. Me and the ghost of Hugo Chavez rigged it for you, rigged it against you and for Biden, and use that as a pretext to say the whole thing is fraudulent, it's all rigged. I'm declaring some sort of a national emergency and trying to seize power. And it's an open question how much he's able to get away with, but that's what he's constantly testing. What can I get away with?

[Crystal Ball]

I think that's.

[Emily Stewart]

Can I get away with sending in the federal.

[Crystal Ball]

Can I get away with the third term?

[Emily Stewart]

Yeah. Can I get away with the third term? Can I get away with seizing the ballots in Fulton county and spinning up this fake thing and sending in Tulsi Gabbard? Can I get away with having ICE go to the polls and intimidate people? He's constantly pressing like, where is the limit? Where is the limit? Where is the limit? And then he'll get checked like he did in Minneapolis and have to pull back a little bit, but then he'll just continue pushing forward. And this term he only has people around him who were in support of those most maximal aims or who are actively, like Stephen Miller, in favor of the most maximalist approach to these things. I found it very chilling when he told the New York Times, I regret not sending the National Guard in to seize the ballot boxes in 2020, but I don't know if they'd be up to it. My guess is that he thinks that ICE would be up to something like that, and that's why they've got so much funding.

[Crystal Ball]

So they have DHS secretary talking about it.

[Emily Stewart]

That's why the DHS secretary is talking about it. Exactly. Right now.

[Crystal Ball]

Yeah. No, I think that's true. Let's put this ProPublica report up on the screen. Speaking of Georgia, the headline here is the conservative researcher being linked to the FBI seizure of election records in Georgia. Their lead is a conservative researcher whose theories have often been rejected by Georgia election overseers and who once pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of voyeurism is emerging as a central figure in the investigation that culminated in the FBI's shocking seizure of 2020 election records from Fulton County, Georgia in late January. That's what Crystal was just referencing with Tulsi Gabbard.

[Emily Stewart]

Yes. So this is a total crank named Kevin Monkla. He's a lesser known crank than like Sidney Powell or Mike Lindell.

[Crystal Ball]

Yeah, I didn't even know his name.

[Emily Stewart]

Some of the well known cranks from 2020. This is a lesser known crank who I think is affiliated with that Stop the Steal affiliate organization, the Election Integrity Network, which has been very influential in terms of personnel placements within the Trump administration. And so not only are they relying. This guy, whose theories are of course completely discredited, by the way, he was found guilty of this voyeurism charge for putting cameras in his own bathroom to spy on the house guests that were staying with him, including.

[Crystal Ball]

Oh no, they were in his house.

[Emily Stewart]

In his house, in his own bathroom, including two young children. So this is the quality of the people that they are relying on here for some of their theories.

[Crystal Ball]

Man, like you said, cringe or not cringe. Fringe cranks. I combined them into cringe but cranky fringe people. I guess you could call it cringe.

[Sagar Enjeti]

1969, Malcolm and Martin are gone. America is in crisis. And at Morehouse College, the students make their move.

[Hans Charles]

These students, including a young Samuel L. Jackson, locked up. The members of the board of trustees, including Martin Luther King Sr. It's the true story of protests and rebellion in black American history that you'll never forget. I'm Hans Charles Armenalek Lumumba. Listen to the A Building on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Bowen Yang]

I'm Bowen Ying.

[Matt Rogers]

And I'm Matt Rogers.

[Bowen Yang]

During this season of the Two Guys Five Rings podcast, in the lead up to the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games, we've been joined by some of our friends.

[Crystal Ball]

Hi, Bowen. Hi, Matt.

[Matt Rogers]

Hey, Elmo.

[Emily Stewart]

Hey, Matt. Hey, Bowen.

[Crystal Ball]

Hi, Cookie.

[Emily Stewart]

Hi.

[Matt Rogers]

Now the winner Olympic Games are underway and we are in Italy to give you experiences from our hearts to your ears. Listen to Two Guys Five Rings on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Crystal Ball]

I actually drop better when I'm high. It heightens my senses, calms me down. If anything, I'm more careful. Honestly, it just helps me focus. That's probably what the driver who killed.

[Ryder Strong]

A four year old told himself and now he's in prison.

[Emily Stewart]

You see, no matter what you tell.

[Crystal Ball]

Yourself, if you feel different, you drive different.

[Emily Stewart]

So if you're high, just don't drive.

[Ryder Strong]

Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council.

[Crystal Ball]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Emily Stewart]

Guaranteed Human.