2/6/26: AIPAC Takes MAJOR L, NEW Epstein Cell Video, Job Numbers PLUMMET

Summary

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar: February 6, 2026

Episode Title: AIPAC Takes MAJOR L, NEW Epstein Cell Video, Job Numbers PLUMMET
Podcast Hosts: Krystal Ball, Saagar Enjeti
Key Contributors: Ryan Grim, Max Moran
Date: February 6, 2026

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Overview

This episode focuses on three major stories:

1. A stunning upset in a New Jersey congressional race where a left progressive defeats AIPAC and establishment-backed candidates
2. Newly released and deeply suspicious footage related to Jeffrey Epstein’s jail cell on the night of his death, plus major revelations from the “Epstein files”
3. Alarming new economic data pointing to plunging job numbers and rising anxiety about the future of work in an AI-dominated, gig-economy society

The hosts dive deep into each topic, offer sharp and sometimes sardonic commentary, and analyze what these developments mean for power, politics, and the public.

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1. New Jersey Congressional Race: AIPAC’s Big Loss

Segment Begins: 02:37

Context & Key Players

• Anna Lilia Mejia (Working Families Party/Bernie Sanders-aligned progressive) upsets favorites in New Jersey's 11th district
• Tom Malinowski: Former member of Congress; previous AIPAC support; comes in third
• AIPAC: Spends over $2 million in a failed gambit to crush Malinowski, ends up splitting the vote and inadvertently helping Mejia
• Other players: Democratic establishment, New Jersey party machine, and other also-ran candidates

The Breakdown

• The district is wealthy, filled with New York commuters and pharmaceutical execs—the “last place” a Berniecrat would normally win ([04:42], Ryan Grim)
• Malinowski was targeted by AIPAC for mild criticism of Israel, not for any radical anti-Israel positions
• AIPAC ran attack ads focusing on Malinowski’s vote to fund ICE and stock trading scandals—not Israel ([09:30], Saagar Enjeti)
• The anti-ICE messaging, ironically, worked extremely well among Democratic base voters
  • “APAC has let us know the best way to take out a sitting member of Congress in a Democratic primary is to hit them with the ICE message.” ([11:23], Ryan Grim)
• Mejia won thanks to a strong grassroots ground game, big-name progressive support (AOC, Bernie, Warren), and the establishment/mainstream vote splitting
• The New Jersey Democratic machine and AIPAC both underestimated Mejia and failed to coordinate resources effectively: “They played themselves.” ([16:13], Ryan Grim)

Notable Quotes & Moments

• “The best part... when AIPAC spends in these races, obviously they're not saying ‘don’t vote for Tom Malinowski because he's too mean to Israel’...They pull Malinowski and figure out what are the things that work against him...They led with ICE.” ([07:01], Ryan Grim)
• “They know their name is toxic so they come up with these like, we love democracy, you know, type of names to...so you don't realize who's actually behind these attack ads.” ([17:29], Saagar Enjeti)
• “Overwhelmingly, the polls are showing that Democratic voters would rather have a candidate that is not backed by the pro Israel lobby than is backed by the Israel lobby...It has become such an overwhelmingly toxic brand...” ([19:48], Max Moran)
• “APAC does have some limits on what it can do, believe it or not. And in the New York media market, that's pretty tough.” ([13:04], Ryan Grim)

Broader Implications

• This race is a warning shot to establishment Democrats: supporting ICE, or even appearing insufficiently progressive, is now a vulnerability in primaries
• AIPAC’s influence is waning due to donor toxicity and backlash among Democratic voters, leading to shadow PACs and astroturf organizations—“The issue has basically been won for the Israel critic crowd at a ground level.” ([20:46], Ryan Grim)

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2. Epstein Cell Video & Revelations from The Epstein Files

Segment Begins: 25:17

CBS Report and New Video Evidence

• CBS airs investigation into the night of Epstein’s death: new video shows “an orange colored shape moving up the staircase toward the isolated locked tier where his cell was located at approximately 10:39 pm on August 9, 2019.” ([25:53], Max Moran)
• DOJ and FBI disagree about what the orange shape represents—inmate, or correctional officer carrying laundry? Both would be major breaches of protocol
• “They tried to say there was no one in, you know, in this video and accessing that jails here when you can clearly see it in the video...” ([29:01], Saagar Enjeti)

Suspicious Inconsistencies

• The noose allegedly used in Epstein’s death was never definitively identified: “What do you mean that you never identified the noose? ...It’s not too hard to secure that scene...” ([27:53], Saagar Enjeti)
• Epstein’s defense was seeking a cooperation deal right before his death, undercutting the claim he was suicidal ([29:38], Saagar Enjeti and Ryan Grim)
• “My favorite response to this question of who could the video show going into Epstein's cell has been, 'I don't know, the murderer could be.'” ([30:56], Ryan Grim)
• The psychology of Epstein: Not likely suicidal, as he was a serial survivor and manipulator—"He just does not strike me as the kind of guy that gives up." ([31:29], Ryan Grim)

Related Revelations from the Files

• Epstein was arranging a meeting with Donald Trump Jr. in 2019, disproving denials of connections after the 2000s ([34:39], Max Moran)
• Extensive email and signal contacts with Steve Bannon, direct influence on Trump administration appointments and policy
• Suspicious redacting in released files—over-censoring of potential perpetrators, under-censoring of some victims – “Mooch is not a survivor of Epstein abuse like that we know of. Why is the Mooch getting protection here?” ([40:22], Ryan Grim)
• The rich and connected social world around Epstein, especially in NYC’s Upper East Side, facilitated the formation and insulation of these networks ([44:07], Ryan Grim)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “When I thought about the way the world worked...the most cynical view I possibly could have had...was maybe not even cynical enough based on...these exchanges...” ([43:08], Saagar Enjeti)
• “They see nation states and they see nationalistic sentiment as...a tool to be exploited...while they're operating at the level that action really happens, which is using the entire globe as their plaything...” ([51:00], Saagar Enjeti)
• “It's very natural for these wealthy, powerful men to have supremacist and eugenicist ideologies because it justifies their place in the hierarchy...” ([53:09], Krystal Ball)

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3. The Economy: Dramatic Plunge in Job Numbers

Segment Begins: 55:43

Data and Dynamics

• January layoffs highest to start the year since 2009; over 108,000 layoffs in a single month, more than double from a year ago ([68:13], Ryan Grim)
• Job openings at the lowest since the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic
• Companies are now analyzing whether AI can replace the role of any departing employee, increasingly choosing not to hire replacements
• “When somebody leaves a job now at a company...the first thing they do is...can we do their job using the productivity gains we're getting from AI...” ([55:46], Ryan Grim)

Tech Oligarchs, AI, & Future of Work

• The new AI boom is accelerating white-collar "automation" just like blue-collar job hollowing decades earlier
• Executives say: “My job as a corporate executive is to do what the company needs to do to get ahead. And if I don’t do it, my competitor is going to do it and we will lose to them. That is what all of them say.” ([59:57], Ryan Grim)
• The system is caught in a “collective action problem”—no one can or will put the brakes on, with society paying the consequences

Societal Fallout & Dystopian Concerns

• The only government response is hyper-militarized security: expansion of ICE, surveillance, and policing
• “They only...believe in hard power. They foolishly believe it’s enough just to hold people in place using guns and hard power...They don’t need you anymore. The only reason they need you is for your labor.” ([61:26], Saagar Enjeti)
• Tech elites flirt with transhumanism/anti-human sentiments: “There is a view in Silicon Valley...having an attachment to human beings is speciesist...” ([67:35], Saagar Enjeti)
• Even high-ranking executives are “more frightened than the average public because they’re seeing it happen now.” ([64:06], Ryan Grim)

Notable Quotes

• “No corporate executives are talking to them is some...of the greatest doomerism...They’re as, they’re as...they’re even more frightened...because they’re seeing it...unfold around us, you know, our headcount’s gonna...drop by 30, 50, 80% over the next...five years.” ([64:06], Ryan Grim)
• “The oligarchs have nothing beyond UBI at this point...that was their vision because they saw this...if we succeed in what we’re trying to do, we’re going to desiccate society.” ([65:18], Ryan Grim)
• “ICE is building out...warehouses...it’s this massive police state that is being funded...I don’t think it’s too crazy to think that that is part of the plan...to control opposition.” ([65:57], Saagar Enjeti)

Bitcoin Volatility

• Bitcoin sharply drops but narrowly avoids plunging below the $60,000 mark. This counters the narrative that digital currencies will replace gold as a safe haven.
• “It is kind of funny to call it the digital [gold]...the entire reason why gold has value is because of its physical limited nature in reality.” ([71:55], Max Moran)

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Memorable Moments & Tone

• The hosts deploy dry humor and sarcasm, particularly around the self-inflicted wounds by political organizations: “They played themselves.” ([16:13], Ryan Grim)
• The analysis is serious, at times bleak, pulling no punches about establishment power, elite networks, and the ravages of unregulated AI capitalism
• Reflective, world-weary observations on the insularity of power: “For people who live on the Upper East Side, like, they understand the social scene there, but for those of us that don't...it's all happening in a few blocks...they just happen to be running the world.” ([44:07], Ryan Grim)
• Final note of resignation and dark irony as premium content is shielded behind a paywall

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Key Timestamps for Reference

• 02:37 – Introduction to the New Jersey race and AIPAC’s failed intervention
• 07:01 – Discussion of AIPAC’s anti-ICE ads and their impact
• 13:04 – AIPAC’s spending limits in the NYC media market
• 25:17 – Introduction to Epstein segment and CBS video report
• 29:38 – Discussion of Epstein’s mindset, suicide doubts, and defense plans
• 34:39 – Jeffery Epstein’s efforts to meet Don Jr.
• 44:07 – Analysis of social networks around Epstein
• 55:43 – Economic jobs segment begins
• 68:13 – Layoff statistics and historical comparison

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Summary

This episode of Breaking Points uncovers the shifting power on the left—a progressive wins despite (because of?) AIPAC’s attacks, reflecting a sea change in Democratic primary politics. The Epstein segment raises more questions than it answers, further eroding trust in powerful institutions. Finally, dire warnings about the future of work and systemic instability make for a bracing, unvarnished view of our present and possible future—one marked as much by elite self-interest and social engineering as by advances in technology.

For listeners seeking full, direct commentary and deep-dive analysis, premium membership is encouraged by the hosts.

Transcript

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[Krystal Ball]

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[Saagar Enjeti]

Visit your nearby Lowe's on Colorado street in Kennewick.

[Krystal Ball]

Hey guys, Sager and Krystal here.

[Saagar Enjeti]

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

[Krystal Ball]

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[Saagar Enjeti]

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[Krystal Ball]

We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you@breaking points.com.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Good morning everybody. Happy Friday and more importantly, Happy Commie takeover. We even have a glorious victory that we can talk about today.

[Ryan Grim]

That's right. Indeed. Yes, we banished the right wingers from this program.

[Max Moran]

Both sides.

[Ryan Grim]

Just one side.

[Saagar Enjeti]

That's right.

[Ryan Grim]

I especially from one side.

[Saagar Enjeti]

That's right. It's like a DSA meeting.

[Ryan Grim]

That's right.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Still can have some vicious arguments but you know, allegedly all aligned. Yes, we do have a lot, lot interesting to get to. We're going to start with this New Jersey race which really kind of came out of nowhere. A lefty win here in a total APAC own goal. We got a bunch of Epstein horror to get through including some new images from the prison the night that he was, that he was unalived, however that occurred. We've got economic numbers, we've got new Trump election comments in the premium half. We've got the bitcoin drop. We've got some really messy right wing drama that frankly I've been could not take my eyes off of and some very, very charming clips of Zoran Mamdani with some young children. So definitely want to be able to get access to that. So if you're not a premium subscriber and you're able to breakingpoints.com and then you get the whole Friday show and the AMAs and all that good stuff.

[Max Moran]

Should we go ahead and jump into this exciting news out of New Jersey?

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yes.

[Max Moran]

So this was, this was a toss. Go ahead and throw up the results here. But this was a total own goal from sort of the establishment and also a major own goal from apac. So these are the results that, that we have from New Jersey's 11th district right now. At least it's showing and I don't think we're at a hundred percent of the total. It's still sitting at around 91.3% of the expected votes counted right now. But you can see here 28.7% by just a couple hundred votes. We had Anna Lilia Mejia or Mejia who topped out over Tom Malinowski and neither of these candidates were actually the APAC backed candidate who came all the way in third place down here. But Ryan, why don't you go ahead and break down the, the massive own goal here by, by APAC and the establishment in this.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. And so the context is this is a super rich like northern New Jersey suburban district. Like a lot of these people work in New York City. A lot of them are actually like pharmaceutical industry, like pharmaceutical executives like this. It's just a very kind of funny place for a Bernie Sanders candidate to win.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Well, and this was, sorry, this was Mikey Cheryl's district. That's the reason they're having this special, special election.

[Ryan Grim]

Ex.

[Saagar Enjeti]

She's now the governor of New Jersey now she sort of repositioned herself as more of a populist, but she, you know, she very much like was a centrist style candidate because that was the thought of the type of candidate that would win a Democratic primary and succeed in a general election in this district.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. And so, and Tom Mal. Tom Malinowski was a, a former member of Congress. He lost election. He. He got in some trouble over his stock trading, but if otherwise, you know, fairly standard. He has had some background in the human rights world, but other, other than that was a kind of fairly standard Democrat. Mejia, longtime activist. Like this is the kind of person that Crystal, you probably know her. We like, I've known her for very many years just as somebody who's been like in the, like in the Working Families Party, Bernie Sanders, you know, world. She was a top aide to Bernie Sanders during, during the campaign. And so when she jumped in, kind of all those people got behind her, which gave her and got behind her early and Elizabeth Warren also got behind her. So it was like the whole kind of faction was together, you know, aoc, Bernie, etc, but she had no money. Like I think she spent $400,000. And this is the New York media market. So you know that's gonna, that's gonna buy you some mailers and you know that's, you can have some staff. But APAC dropped more than $2 million. And so what they did, Malinowski, they've supported him in the past. He's been fairly friendly to Israel, but like all Democrats, he's getting a little bit skittish about their relationship with Israel. And so he said some mildly critical things and I think he might have suggested that some weapon systems maybe ought to get some review at some point. And so they're like, oh no, no.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Like what a radical.

[Ryan Grim]

This too radical. This will not fly. So they dropped more than $2 million on him at the very end to try to, to try to Crush him. The reason that so many outlets called this in New Jersey for Malinowski and then had to very embarrassingly retract their calls is that he won the early vote fairly decisively. So in other words, before AIPAC's money has really like landed in the race, he's the, he's, he's going to comfortably win this race, this, this three person race. But he then in the election day vote finished third in most places. So they knocked him even behind the also ran APAC candidate. And you started seeing mejia winning by 20, 30, 40, 50 points on election day. And it was enough then to overcome the early. And so this was something that Jewish insider that covered the race, they warned about it. Dave Dan was like, and it like people watching the race. I saw Adam Green who runs PCCC this week and he was like, APAC might deliver this for us. So this was like, it was known that like APAC might actually take Malinowski down far enough that it would allow Mejia with her ground game and her strong base of support to sneak through. And she did. Now the, the best part. Mac, do you have the, the ad? So when APAC spends in these races, obviously they're not saying don't vote for Tom Malinowski because he's too mean to Israel. He didn't support our genocide. Like he wants to restrict weapons that are going to. They don't, they don't say that. They, they pull Malinowski and they figure out what are the things that work against him and for him. They obviously did the, the stock trading scandal that he had, but they led with ICE because he's a former member of Congress. He funded ICE with votes back in like 2019. And so they hammered him. Ironically, AIPAC is like, they love nobody more than Trump, but they're like, Tom Malinowski stood with Donald Trump to fund the evil ice. We can't trust Tom Malinowski. And what's amazing, these ads worked in suburban, rich New Jersey among Democratic primary voters. They were like, oh, he funded ice. Get him out of here. So yeah, let's, let's, let's queue on up if you've got it, Meg.

[Saagar Enjeti]

ISIS deportation force is out of control. Tom Malinowski voted with Trump to increase funding. And that's not all. He was caught cashing in on Covid related stocks while in Congress. This is about having privileged information and using it to your own personal advantage.

[Ryan Grim]

He failed to disclose the stock trader.

[Saagar Enjeti]

As required by law. Tom Malinowski bought or sold up to a million dollars worth of stock. We just can't trust Tom Malinowski. UDP is responsible for the content of this. Amazing, absolutely amazing. Even the tagline, he can't be trusted. Like it makes sense to me that you have a time, you're at a point in time where the Democratic base is like we got to figure out which of these Democratic elected we can trust that are going to like actually have some backbone and do the things we want them to do. So even the tagline itself, you know, fits the mood of where the Democratic base is and what concerns are. So thank you apac.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Max Moran]

And ICE is, ICE is a big litmus test right now. So you know it's, it's a good one to, to hammer him on.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah apac. So if you're. Now think about it. So if you're a Democrat and you're just a normie Democrat who's been winning reelection, you've been casting the votes that your party wants you to cast, you've been trying to stay on the right side of your voters, you have now learned that there is a potential huge cost to pay for supporting ice. You get out there and you defend ICE on TV or to your local news, that clip is going to be used against you. Now you vote to fund ice, that's going to be used or it could be used against you if you get a primary challenger. Because AIPAC has done the extremely expensive focus groups and polling for us and now they have road tested it in this district and AIPAC has let us know the best way to take out a sitting member of Congress in a Democratic primary is to hit them with the ICE message.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I mean it's, and it ends and it comes as there are, you know, going to be these negotiations in the Senate about what are going to be the additional restrictions put on, you know, ICE and cbp, et cetera. So it also comes at an important moment. I mean it does remind me in a certain way of Zoran's victory because he showed like, no, no, even in New York City, one of the most heavily Jewish cities on the planet where you know the, in a Democratic primary you probably will not get a more pro Zionist Democratic primary electorate than New York City. And even there Israel is poisonous. Even there you can win as an avowed like pro bds, anti Zionist and be successful. And so this is the type of district which would be the least, you would expect to be the least amenable to the anti ICE messaging.

[Ryan Grim]

Right?

[Saagar Enjeti]

And here they find that it is the actually was the most powerful message about this guy. And to your point, Ryan, seeing the way the vote shifted from the, the early vote before the ads drop and then the day of vote, and there's this, you know, cataclysmic drop off for him. I mean, that tells you. That tells you everything about just how powerful and just how horrified the Democratic base is about ice. I mean, the other funny thing here, obviously, is like, how did. With all their money and all of their consultants and all of that, how did AIPAC not realize they were playing with fire here? Like, why didn't they just throw, you know, maybe like half a mil at some. Or, or, you know, another measly million dollars into the race to also hit Anna Leela.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. And the APAC candidate had put out an internal poll showing her competitive, but nobody believed it. Like, no, they're like, no, you're not. You're not actually competitive. And, and they didn't spend a lot of money boosting her. Well, they didn't spend clearly enough. Now it's very, it's so expensive. Like, that's. APAC does have some limits on what it can do, believe it or not. And in the New York media market, that's, that's pretty tough. Their new cope is, oh, well, maybe we'll beat her in the general election because she's so radical. It's like, well, Harris won that. So the election's in mid April. Harris won this district by 8 points.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Forget about it.

[Ryan Grim]

Like, it's not happening.

[Saagar Enjeti]

She's gonna win running. It's not gonna be close. And so by double digits.

[Ryan Grim]

Then their cope is, well, then maybe we can beat her in November when she runs for reelection, because this is a special election. She'll. She'll serve out the term. But it's like, it's still a Harris +8 district and people are still going to be mad in November. There's some question. Malinowski, I think, has said he will not run. It's this. It's a weird situation. So the general election is in April, and then the next primary is in June, like mid June for the November election. So if the AIPAC candidate or Malinowski wants to run, they have to endorse her for the general election in April, you know, campaign with her, say, let's beat the Republican. And then immediately on April 17, they have to turn around and start a campaign against her for the June primary. And so how do you do that? How do you support someone for two months and then run against them immediately for six weeks? Yeah, like, so.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Well, the other storyline Here is there was another candidate, this, what was his name, Brendan Gill or something like that, who got fourth place. Who. He was the one that was actually backed by the New Jersey Democratic Party machine, which is one of the more powerful machines nationally. And Steve Kornacki, who got his start in New Jersey politics and has encyclopedic knowledge to this day of every aspect of it. He was marveling at that, that piece because in, you know, in previous cycles if you had the backing of the New Jersey machine, it was just basically like a fait accompli that you were going to be the nominee, like it was a done deal. So yeah, so here's Kornagi. A couple of questions. If Mejia is in fact the winner, will one of these candidates or someone else challenge her in the June primary for a full time term? Remember tonight's primaries just for the special election to fill Mikey Cheryl's unexpired term. There was a major push from outside groups, particularly pro Israel, to, to take down Malinowski in a boost Tahisha way. Would we be interested in a one on one shot at Mejia for a full term? Would that outside support, outside support follow her? This is a Democratic leaning district. Harris carried it by nine, Cheryl by 15 in the governor's race last year. Dems have been overperforming across the country in special elections of late. But New Jersey 11 does also contain areas more favorable to the pre Trump GOP and Republicans have nominated a potentially appealing candidate, Randolph Mayor Joe Hathaway. Could Mejia back by AOC and Bernie Sanders be a tough sell at all in that mashup? So I mean I, I think based on the special election results that we've seen across the country, I don't think there's too much to worry about. But hey, I guess you never know.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, we'll see. And, and speaking of the machine, they did the exact same thing wrong in this race that they did in 2018 with Joe Crowley, which is their, their idea is let's make these elections as undemocratic as possible. Get as few people out to the polls as possible and then we'll be able to go to nursing homes and get our, you know, 15,000 machine people out and we'll win like that. And that, that, that's a flaw in the Death Star because that means if you can yourself find 17,000 people in a district of 700,000 then, then you can win. I don't know Mac, if you have the exact vote totals on there, but it's like nothing. And notice that we're talking about this Friday. Isn't that weird? Wait a minute. I thought in America, elections are on Tuesday. No. New Jersey stops at nothing to try to depress turnout. So they even scheduled this election for a Thursday to confuse people and make sure that almost nobody came out. And congratulations. You know, they played themselves.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Max Moran]

Yeah.

[Saagar Enjeti]

There she. That she's gonna win with fewer than 20,000 votes total.

[Ryan Grim]

That's crazy.

[Max Moran]

It's crazy.

[Saagar Enjeti]

It's crazy. Which does mean that, you know, you can. You can kind of bootstrap it. Like, that's a small enough number.

[Sponsor Voice]

You.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, I know. Ro Khanna was in the district earlier this week for an event like just with the sort of star power of, you know, Bernie and AOC and Elizabeth Warren and Roe coming in and supporting her. That was enough. And so it didn't really require that much money. I mean, it's extraordinary. And you know, the other. The last thing to say about it is the reason that. Well, two things. Number one, I'm sure everybody noted that ad we played. It doesn't say paid for by aipac. It says, paid for by what? Democracy Project. Democracy Project, yeah. Because, I mean, they know that first, you know, APAC funds these things, but they know their name is toxic, so they come up with these like, we love democracy, you know, type of names to. So you don't realize who's actually behind these attack ads. That's number one. But number two, this AIPAC themselves position this as a shot across the bow, Right? They. They know that Malinowski is not the most, like, anti Israel guy, but they wanted to discipline the Democratic Caucus and show, like, if you waiver even one eye, if you have a moment of weakness watching us blow up babies and are like, maybe we shouldn't think about maybe doing something. No, no, you have to be lockstep or we're coming for you. And so the fact that they failed on what they wanted to be a demonstration of their strength and a, you know, a grab to discipline the Democratic Caucus and get them back completely in line is also really noteworthy and, you know, quite extraordinary and significant.

[Max Moran]

Yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

Just a piece of trivia. They call that. I was like, why on earth do they call. And at least this is their actual Soup. This is APAC's actual super PAC. They didn't make up. What they do in a lot of districts is they just make up a fake new one that then doesn't have to disclose the donors until afterwards. So this is their real one. I was like, why is it called United Democracy Project? This makes no sense.

[Krystal Ball]

It.

[Ryan Grim]

It goes back to their line that they're the only democracy in the Middle East. Oh, so God, we are uniting, Uniting the American democracy with the only democracy in the Middle East. Right. So that's where that. That's where that brand comes from.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Well, Trump is, in a lot of ways trying to make us more like that Israeli, quote, unquote, democracy. So I guess the name does make some sense there.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Max Moran]

I mean, my last thing on this, I mean, where do you guys in the broader Democratic, you know, party sort of space, where do you guys think AIPAC stands right now? I mean, is it sort of like a death knell almost of aipac? I mean, you know, you guys both mentioned they can't even publicly endorse some candidates right now because it's such a poison pill. Overwhelmingly, the polls are showing that Democratic voters would rather have a candidate that is not backed by the pro Israel lobby than is backed by the Israel lobby. Majority of Democrats think Israel committed a genocide. Like it has become such a. An overwhelmingly toxic brand that these candidates can't even associate themselves with the Israel lobby. And even then they have workarounds and they, you know, AIPAC will tell their individual donors to go donate directly, and they're trying to figure out ways to still get the funding mechanisms in there without attaching their brand directly. But it seems like the issue has basically been won for the Israel critic crowd at a ground level.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. The money still being there. I'm working on a story with Dave Day and over at the Prospect, which hopefully will be up today on these three House races in Illinois where they're doing exactly what you described, Mac. One of this, one of the fake super PACs they threw up, which we're gonna demonstrate is effectively them, is called Elect Chicago Women. And I can't even remember the name of. Oh, the other one's about affordability, like glomming on to Mamdani. It's like the, you know, affordability now pack or something, and it's like a PAC money, but that they're cloaking it and kind of. And sneaking it into these races because it would be so toxic to even come in with their official United Democracy Project pack and run other things because then you get more news coverage. Oh, and then people just start to understand, oh, this is the APAC candidate and this is the candidate that AIPAC doesn't like, and that is toxic and counterproductive for them.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, I mean, I think Dem Tea Party is here, right here. We're gonna, you know, we're coming into primary season, there are going to be a bunch of results that come out of nowhere that people are not expecting. And you know, I mean, the circumstances here are very unusual because you've got this very divided field and this APAC money coming in against a different candidate. Not the, you know, not the Bernie Wing candidate of the but the the effectiveness of that anti ICE ad in this district tells you everything you need to know about where the Democratic base. And not just, you know, one fact, no, the entire Democratic base, how motivated they are by that particular issue right now and how, you know, how much trouble and and every incumbent Democrat has taken votes to fund ice. They all have. So presumably they're all vulnerable to a similar message that was so devastatingly effective against Malinowski.

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[Ryan Grim]

You hate to say it.

[Max Moran]

Yeah. All right, should we go ahead and move on? Move on here to the latest on the Epstein files.

[Saagar Enjeti]

All right, so Max pulled a bunch of new Epstein. I mean this is part of the latest Epstein files release. People continue to comb through obviously 3 million documents. So it's going to take a long time for everybody to look at everything. But we've got some new disturbing documents that have been identified. And then also bit surprisingly, Barry Weiss's CBS with an investigation into what exactly happened the night that Jeffrey Epstein ends up dead. And Mac, you want to, you want to set this up? What you got here?

[Max Moran]

Yeah, so I'll go ahead and put up the image itself while I, while I talk about what this CBS News article is talking about. So this is a portion of the video or a screen grab of the video. The headline here from CBS News is who entered Epstein's jail tier the night of his death? Newly released video logs appear to contradict official recounts accounts. So what are they talking about here? They say newly released Department of Justice documents show that investigators reviewing surveillance footage from the night of Jeffrey Epstein's death observed an orange colored shape moving up the staircase toward the isolated locked tier where his cell was located at approximately 10:39pm on August 9, 2019. Now this 10:39pm is also interesting because this was between the 10 to midnight period where supposedly these guards had fallen asleep or weren't paying attention. So that's when this sort of orange blob appears. But they continue, they say the end the that entry into an observ observation log of the video from the Metropolit Correctional center appears to suggest something previously unreported by authorities of a flash of orange that looks to be going up again, the L tier stairs towards Epstein. That could possibly be an inmate escorted up to that tier. It also appears, according to an FBI memorandum that reviews by investigators led to disparate conclusions by the FBI and those examining the same video from the Department of Justice's Office of Inspector General. The FBI described it as possibly an inmate or. And if you scroll down here, you had the inspector General saying it could be an officer carrying orange linen or bedding, noting in their final report as an unidentified corrections officer. So again, this is the image that's in question here. But unidentified possible corrections officer carrying linens or unidentified inmate potentially going up in that direction on the night of Epstein's death. What do you guys make of this?

[Saagar Enjeti]

I mean, continue to be a lot of questions. There's another line in this CBS News report, which maybe this was already known, but I didn't know it. It says the noose Epstein allegedly used has never been definitively identified. According to Inspector General's report, a noose collected at the scene was later determined not to be the ligature used in Epstein's death. What do you mean that you never identified the noose? Like, what do you mean by that? Because it. You have one jail cell, like, everything's right there. It's not too hard to secure that scene. And I don't. This is the one, you know, that was wrapped around his neck. That blew my mind as well. Have you guys seen, on the more conspiratorial level, have you guys seen this thing about how one of his gamer accounts continues to be active in. In Israel?

[Ryan Grim]

Okay, he's playing Fortnite in Israel or something.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I mean, they just couldn't give up, like whatever, you know, legacy, like skins and tokens and progress he had.

[Ryan Grim]

So you can't stop playing Fortnite even. Even if you're dead. Like, that's. They've just, they've designed how addictive and.

[Saagar Enjeti]

He had a hand in. In the. Some of the addictive nature of video games. So it would be, you know, it does make a level of sense. But no, I mean, listen, I think the fact that they, they tried to say there was no one in, you know, in this video and accessing that jails here when you can clearly see it in the video, and then they say, oh, well, maybe it's a corrections officer carrying orange linen.

[Ryan Grim]

And they've said, no, that's definitely not.

[Max Moran]

You know, and either way, they also say in the CBS report, like, according to the people who work in this jail facility, whether or not it was an inmate or whether or not it was an officer, either way, that would have been a breach of. Of protocol at the time.

[Ryan Grim]

Right?

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah. Yeah. They said that inmates would not be, like, walking around the prison at this hour of the night. That would not be a thing that would typically happen. And so the other thing that we got from this piece is we learned that his defense team was approaching the government in, you know, a couple weeks before he ends up dead about cooperating, which would mean, you know, that he was gonna. He was saying, hey, I've, you know, I have some information that might be interesting to you. And so, yeah, I think that speaks not only to potential motivation that you don't want this guy around anymore, but it also speaks to his mentality where, you know, he hadn't given. He still had avenues to pursue, you know, that he. He certainly. If his defense team was exploring this, he certainly felt like this was a potential avenue to pursue, to be able to secure, you know, a lesser sentence, be able to get out of there. So I think, you know, both of those things fly in the face of the idea that he was su. Truly suicidal and wanting to kill himself. We also had, you know, we also had indications he was afraid to return to his jail cell because he had, you know, had marks on his neck and had been attacked previously. So, you know, again, if someone is suicidal and wanting to die, that's not really consistent with, you know, a mentality of someone who is apparently trying to preserve their life.

[Ryan Grim]

My. My favorite response to this question of who could the video show going into Epstein's cell has been, I don't know, the murderer could be. But. And. And to your point, have it, you know, Epstein is a person who has confronted setbacks throughout his entire life. Like he, you know, just, you know, rising up, first of all through Coney island, and he winds up at Bear Stearns. They find out he, you know, was a total fraud.

[Saagar Enjeti]

He.

[Ryan Grim]

He overcomes that. He gets fired from Bear Stearns, and he leverages that to this, like, international tax financier position. He got caught, you know, with the. The child prostitution thing in the 2000s. Came back again, bigger than. Bigger than ever in the 2010s. This is a guy who believes in his ability to overcome obstacles, which is one of the biggest reasons I have a. Such a hard time getting to a place where he's like, you know what? I've overcome all of these other things And I have all of this leverage, and I have all of these friends and all this, but I. I give up. Yeah, he's just. He just does not strike me as the kind of guy that gives up.

[Saagar Enjeti]

I totally agree with that. He's not the kind of guy that everything sees checkmated. Right. And you can see that even in the email, you know, that he preserves to himself about Bill Gates. Right. Clearly, Bill Gates had said to him, listen, my wife's on my ass. I can't hang out with you anymore. We gotta cut this off. He's not taking no for an answer. He's like, no. Like, you think you're done with me? I don't care. Like, I'm not done with you. And so here's how I'm going to keep you in the loop. Here's how I'm going to keep you in the web. This is not something you can just back away from. That's not how this works.

[Ryan Grim]

Right. So same with Leon Black. Leon Black's like, I'm done with you. He's like, no, I want my 40 million a year, and this is how it's going to go.

[Saagar Enjeti]

That's exactly right. Yeah. That's exactly right. And you know, and also, like, clearly, Epstein is a, you know, a narcissist. Thinks he's the main character. I mean, people like this truly don't even think the world can, like, go on if they aren't part of it. So it's very. I mean, it's just psychologically very inconsistent with someone who'd be like, yeah, they got me. I guess I'm outta here. But, I mean, listen, I guess, on the other hand, this is someone who's accustomed to flying around the world and living in a lab of luxury and having all of his, you know, horrific carnal desires met at every hour of the day and whatever. So perhaps it was just too hard for him to bear, even for a short time, to be not living the lifestyle that, you know, that he enjoyed living. So there is that, but, you know, there are just. There are just so many weird inconsistencies and questions that remain that it's just, you know, it's. It's very hard for me to believe that the official story is truly what.

[Max Moran]

Happened here and to the point of him feeling untouchable. You know, you also rewind to the Acosta sweetheart deal. Like, he might have figured the same thing if you buy into the idea that Epstein, in some way, shape or form, belonged to intelligence. And that's sort of what got him out of it the last time around, then, you know, maybe there's some inclination there in his mind that, okay, that'll probably get me out of this again. Right. They're not gonna, they're not gonna push me into a situation where I feel like I'm forced to reveal all of this incriminating information about these high profile wealthy people around the world that I have these connections to. So, you know, he may have thought he still, he still had a chance. And to your point, Crystal, it seems like in the days leading up to his death, they were still planning on, you know, at least making some sort of a fight, so.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Mac, you want to roll through some of these other elements because these were some other, you know, significant discoveries contained within this document release.

[Max Moran]

Yeah. So let's go ahead and start off with this one. Posted by Ed Krassenstein so he says here it now appears as though Jeffrey Epstein may have met with Donald Trump Jr. In 2019, just months before he died. So if you look at this. Wow, this email again, this is from January 27, 2019. The email here from Jee vacation Jeffrey Epstein. He says, can we do coffee with Don Jr. Thursday, Friday only if easy. As you know, I like people that are funny. So what, what are we supposed to make of this? In terms of the timeline from which Donald Trump said that he completely cut off his relation with Jeffrey Epstein in the early 2000s to now? We've had sort of multiple things that have come out in this recent batch of files that indicate, okay, at least within his inner circle or maybe even his immediate family, that probably was not the case.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, there were was an email soccer and I covered where he was similarly. Actually right before he was inaugurated for the first time, Epstein was claiming that he was hanging out with what he described as the Trump boys, which you would assume is, you know, Eric and Don Jr. And even if you buy their denials and these meetups never happened, or Epstein was just blustering and bragging and name dropping and he wasn't really getting together with, you know, Trump or Trump Jr. Or whoever. Clearly he had direct connectivity to the administration as we see through the extensive Steve Bannon relationship. And Bannon especially first term Trump and Ryan, you can speak to this more than I can, but especially first term Trump. I mean, he's in the administration to start with and he's deeply influential. You know, I think he continues to be influential in, in Trump world as both, you know, an outside force and someone who knows all the players on the Inside as well. So you see Epstein and Bannon going back and forth on, you know, who. On Supreme Court picks, right. On world events. And Epstein is offering his take and Bannon's, you know, yeah, I helped get John Bolton in there, but he's controlled by Sheldon Adelson. But maybe we can, you know, work with him in this way or that way. So whether or not he was directly talking to Trump or Trump Jr. Or family members, clearly he was having a direct impact on the decision making of the Trump administration.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, absolutely. And Bannon is this unusual figure who kind of loves to talk to the left. Like the fact that he was talking to Chomsky, he gabs with reporters in ways that, you know, a lot of the MAGA types don't do. Like, and I think he saw Epstein as this, like, entree into this Clinton world, world, you know, of, you know, endless amounts of intel on the, on the Clinton world, you know, his, his enemies. So, yeah, that and Bannon and Don Jr. Are very close. So that, that's a direct line if, if Epstein ever wanted it.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Well, I also have to think that Bannon partly wanted to manage the relationship with Epstein because he knew that Trump had this long standing relationship with Epstein. And reportedly Bannon had said, said allegedly that Epstein was the one guy who could keep Trump from the presidency, who could ruin it all for him. And so, you know, I think there was also a sense of like, let me keep this guy close so I can, you know, kind of control this situation and maybe find out what there is to be found out so that, you know, I can protect my guy over here.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, there was that one email or text message where he's like, it kills Trump that, you know, it would kill Trump to know that you and I are so tight.

[Saagar Enjeti]

There was something like he said at one point, Epstein, now you know why Trump lies awake at night knowing that I'm. That I'm still out there. And actually that email was sent, like, I don't know, very soon before he goes to prison and ends up dead.

[Max Moran]

Yeah, interesting stuff. We also had a couple more things that I, I wanted to bring up here. So on the censorship angle, right. Obviously there's been widespread criticism on both sides, both in terms of a lack of censorship of some of the potential victims, as well as over censoring on people who could be, you know, potentially implicated in Jeffrey Epstein's deeds. But we had this as well pointed out here by Quad Carl. That seems to be sort of like a slip up on some sort of automated redacting by the Trump administration. So if you see here in this seemingly innocuous sentence, this person says, I was going to take polo lessons in Calgary, but I redacted think my body can handle it. Now, I think it's pretty reasonable to assume that this person says, I don't think my body can handle it, but probably had some sort of a typo that and said, d O N I don think my body can handle it. So could be some sort of an indication here that there was sweeping censorship and redactions on many things having to do with keywords like Don or Donald or Trump or Donald Trump or whatever else the case may be. So, you know, even with the shocking stuff that we have gotten from these files, it seems like it's still a tiny fraction of, of what actually exists out there.

[Saagar Enjeti]

What do you make of this, Ryan? Because on the other hand, we just saw an email where Don Jr was in there unredacted.

[Ryan Grim]

Seems it's, it's sloppy. You know, they, they, you know, they were wrecked by Doge. So like, this is still a human enterprise. Like they have to like actually execute it.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Well, they could have assigned down different batches to, you know, different working on it. So this one censored Don. This one screwed up and didn't censor Don or who knows.

[Ryan Grim]

And there's one I was, that was really telling to me that I was looking at the other day that's, it's an exchange between Epstein and Scaramucci. And it's very clearly Scaramucci because he's saying, I want to do a CNBC hit. And then at the end he sends a Twitter link. And if you type in that Twitter link into Twitter, it's, it's the Mooch's CNBC hit. So it's the Mooch and he's redacted. It's like Mooch is not a survivor of Epstein abuse like that we know of.

[Max Moran]

Yeah.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Why are we protecting this?

[Ryan Grim]

Like what, why is the Mooch getting protection here? Like your eight days in the administration earn you like the protection of the, of the censors here. So it's just there clearly are a lot of sensors going through this who feel like it's their job to protect anybody who's friendly to Trump or to their movement.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah. And isn't, isn't he doing a bit of a right wing turn at the moment? Separated from my distance, hours of whatever. Anyway, I mean, I just, and there's a disgusting level of all the men who are involved here being redacted and protected and then many victims being exposed. And you know, I think that that in and of itself speaks to their, their priorities here.

[Ryan Grim]

And then they're, they're using, they're then using their own screw ups to then justify mass kind of withdrawing of documents from the public. Like there's this one email where somebody who, a woman who seems to be on pretty good terms with Epstein, a grown woman, sends him a bunch of like nude pics and they shouldn't have, but they did, they posted all of those, like all of those pics. Then they go and they're like, oh, we, we accidentally included a lot of child sex abuse material. A lot of CSAM was put in. So we're pulling back all of this stuff. It's like, no, you didn't, you didn't actually do you, you erroneously post to this woman's nude photos and you should withdraw those. But she's an adult. And so they're using the CSAM claims because the public is like, oh, see Sam, don't, I don't want to be anywhere near it. And justifiably so. But they're lying about what's in there, right? Claim because. No, because nobody's going to then call them on it. Yeah.

[Max Moran]

And in the days after these, the initial batch was dropped. If you did certain keyword searches on specific names, you could see the amount of results that came up would drop slowly over time. It would go from 5,5000. Oh, now it's 4700, now it's 4300 or whatever over successive days as they were removing some of it.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Well, you guys got them all over at JMail, right?

[Ryan Grim]

Yes, I think we do. I think we have, I think we have them like we're, we're constantly, it's a cat and mouse game with their posting and withdrawing, but I think we've got them. Yeah.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah. So another reason why you should, guys should check out that tool if you're wanting to do some journalism here yourselves and you know, just get a sense for how these networks operated and what their day to day exchanges were like because it is a extraordinary and horrifying window. And I mean, I don't know about you Ryan, like the I, when I thought about the way the world worked and like these networks of power and you know, how this all operated, I thought it was a little more diffuse. Like it's just so incredibly like the most, I guess, most cynical view I possibly could have had of how the, how power networks operate like was maybe not even cynical enough based on, you know, Based on these emails and these exchanges and the way that, you know, they're all insider trading with each other, they're all protecting each other, they're all bonded together through these, like, heinous acts. And. Yeah, I don't know.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. My colleague Maz and I were in New York Wednesday and Thursday filming a video around Epstein's neighborhood. And what really is so striking about being there is how tight of a social set this is. Like, it's all of these super elite rich people. Like, we understand that they travel in the same professional circles, and for people who live the Upper east side, like, they understand the social scene there, but for those of us that don't like being there is like, oh, like, this person lives here, this person lives here. This person lives here. Woody Allen's here. Jeffrey Epstein's here. Donald Trump's, you know, the plaza's here. Trump's building is here. The UN's right here. Like, it's all happening in a few blocks. And all the wealth that, like, is pouring into the United States is, like, just staying, like, right in those few blocks, and they're all hanging out with each other all the time.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Y.

[Ryan Grim]

And so it. It brings home how going to the.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Hamptons this time of year, Palm beach that time, they go to these restaurants in the Upper east side, leaving these neighborhoods, go to their kids, go to these schools. Absolutely.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. So it really does bring home your point about how. How tight this really is. And it's because. And it's very easy to understand once you get there. It's like, oh, we all. We all understand these social circles. They just happen to be running the world.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah. I think the other thing that I've been thinking a lot about is like, like, they use. These are not people who have any sort of, like, patriotic loyalty. Their loyalty is only to themselves in their class, like, truly. And so the. The episode that spells that out. I mean, there's a number of them. The. The email exchange. Where is it Peter Thiel that Epstein is talking to when he's like, you know, zero interest rates were too high and we need more chaos because it's easier to, like, like, you know, to profit when there's death and destruction and collapse than trying to find a good deal during ordinary times? You know, I'm butchering the language, but that was the. What he was saying. I mean, that's, you know, I mean, it's deeply. Not just not patriotic, it's, like, deeply anti human.

[Ryan Grim]

Antisocial.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, yeah, Antisocial. Anti creation. Anti human. And then Also the revelations about Lord Mandelson where he's plotting with Epstein against the. The UK and, and like, let's get Jamie Dimon in here, you know, to bully the government so that this banker bonus thing we don't want doesn't go through and he can like threaten them, you know, with X or Y or Z. So again, it's like, it's actually treasonous behavior, which is part of why it's such a scandal in the UK because you're plotting with this financier against the government, against the will of the people. People directly.

[Ryan Grim]

So that guy might go to jail.

[Saagar Enjeti]

And that guy might actually go to jail. I mean, he's. It's a pretty clear cut. Like the insider trading part of that is like, pretty clear cut. You know, he's instantly. And this is crazy. Like you're in the midst of the crash in 2008 and what you're thinking of doing is like, I just got this information. Let me forward it to Jeffrey Epstein. Like, that's your first move. That's insane. That's insane. But it just shows you, like, Epstein didn't need to be some sort of like absolute financial wizard because the network was everything.

[Ryan Grim]

Right?

[Saagar Enjeti]

Right. And he had certainly. And I mean, he was a knowledgeable person about, you know, financial inner work. He was very early to bitcoin. There's a lot of questions about that too, of just how involved he was in the early days of bitcoin and how beneficial that was to him. And I'm sure he instantly understood this is a useful network for my criminal behavior, as many people do and did with crypto, et cetera. But, but in any case, he didn't have to be a financial wizard. If you have that kind of insider information, it's easy. You get the tip, oh, we're going to do a €500 bailout. You know, that's coming. Okay, well, let's, let's do this. There was one actually. Do we have this one about the shorting the ruble Mac?

[Max Moran]

Yeah, yeah, we do put that one.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Up because that's very relevant to this. He was short. Shorting the ruble just before they, what, invaded Crimea? Isn't that the timing of it? Five days before?

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, let's check the dates. And this person might have had the time off a little bit, but yeah, he.

[Max Moran]

So the date, the date from this email from Epstein is on March 13, 2014. So I think that is about seven or so days before the official annexation.

[Saagar Enjeti]

So why that move?

[Sponsor Voice]

Right.

[Max Moran]

If that suddenly had an inkling you know. You know, there was another one here that puts it more into kind of explicit picture for the framework of what you're describing here. Crystal. So this is an email between Epstein and a Rothschild here, and she says, hi, Jeff, Very long day sitting on the bank board. Numbers are okay, but not satisfactory to. And I'm putting them. I'm being put under pressure to be more innovative about asset management funds while restructuring. I'm in a dinner with a client. Fed up. I miss our talks and hope that you're well. We'll be home tomorrow night. Will you be free? And let's discuss Ukraine. And this was after Epstein had said, Ukraine upheaval should provide many opportunities. Many. Yeah, you know, similar. It also. One more example of that here real quick is it reminds me of this drop site reporting here from y', all, Ryan Ware. And this is in the. The piece on Kotavur and him working with Ehud Barak to set up some sort of a security agreement. So this was an email between Epstein and Ehud Barak, the former Prime Minister and Defense Minister of Israel. He said, with civil unrest exploding and the desperation of those in power, isn't this perfect for you? And then Barack replied, you're right in a way, but it's not simple to transform it into a cash flow.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Flow.

[Max Moran]

So, like, this is the sort of mentality that they had with. With chaos and disruption and destabilization around the world is how can we use this for our. Our own power games? How can we use this to transform it into a cash flow?

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah. Which again, like, you know, this is disaster capitalism. This is, you know, this is. These are concepts that obviously we are very familiar with. But to just see it so overt and so naked, like, oh, war. Yay, goody. Amazing opportunities for us to get even richer and more powerful.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. And the use of cash flow is an interesting, like, little bit of daylight between Barack and Epstein because Epstein's like, hey, chaos. Like, let's go in and make, you know, $75 million, like tomorrow. And Barack is thinking, okay, but I also, I just want. I just want millions flowing in constantly. And. And all of this chaos, like, makes the flow part of it tricky. Like, he just wants to sit back and just let it flow in. Whereas Epstein's more of a peripatetic, like, let's just bounce around the world and, like, stash what we can. But. But, you know, you can do both if you work hard enough at it.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, apparently. Yeah. I mean, there's an extraordinary email about Libya as well.

[Max Moran]

Yeah.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Where they're like, here's, you know, here's how. How much natural resources they have. I think we could skim this much off of it. This is before we, you know, came in and took out Gaddafi. So, you know, that that's. That's the way that they think. And so, you know, going back to the point about how about nationalism, like, they see nation states and they see nationalistic sentiment as, like, a tool to be exploited as well, like a, you know, a rubish understanding of the world while they're operating at the level that action really happens, which is using the entire globe. Globe as their. As their plaything and, you know, moving the. The pieces around such that it benefits them even as it immiserates the world. And the other thing that I keep coming back to is there's an extraordinary exchange where he's talking about. He sort of has contempt for Bill Gates because Gates is doing all this charity work in Africa and keeps asking Epstein, like, hey, do you want to, like, contribute to whatever X or Y or Z global health initiative I'm doing in Africa? And Epstein is very irritated by this because he says he's got this Catholic notion that all humans are. Are equally worth. You know, are worth equal amounts like, that they're of equal value. And he just thinks that this is so preposterous and naive because he has this supremacist ideology and overtly eugenicist ideology that he talks about openly and is trying to put into practice through his, like, breeding ranch in New Mexico, where, you know, he wants to seed the world with his superior. His superior offspring. And it's very similar to the ideology of Elon Musk, for example, or there was, like, a Chinese billionaire who was doing the same thing. These. It's very natural for these wealthy, powerful men to have supremacist and eugenicist ideologies because it justifies their place in the hierarchy. It allows them to fully embrace disaster capitalism and exploiting war and not giving a. About all of the tremendous horror and harm that they're causing around the world. Because those people really people the way that we are, they don't deserve to have the lives that we live.

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All right.

[Max Moran]

Should we go ahead and move on over to Econ now?

[Ryan Grim]

All right, so the economy really sucks. Mac, we've got a couple stories to go through here, and the data is starting to really put some meat on the bones of what people have been, you know, feeling for a very long time, which is that there are no jobs to be had. Like, it's this weird situation where we're seeing, seeing, we're starting to see a significant number of layoffs. But it's, but it's not as if you're getting a, that's the biggest problem has been that there just aren't job openings. Like, if you wind up unemployed, you're in a, it's very, very hard to find a new job, though. People aren't, people are starting to get fired and laid off in a pretty rapid, at a pretty rapid clip. But what has led into this and has been this, this absolute like just lack of any jobs opening. Politico has an interesting lead here, which is just let's roll with just read what they say here. Say President Donald Trump's economy is boom, booming. But if you're looking for a job, good luck. The Labor Department reported on Thursday that job openings in December unexpectedly dropped to their lowest level level since mid-2020 during the heart of the COVID 19 pandemic. It's a sign that companies have cooled on hiring despite an economic expansion that the White House has framed as the dawn of a new golden age. So we have this weird situation where we are not at all technically in a recession because GDP is growing, but there's all of this insane know, tariff chaos that has been sending uncertainty into the market. But people are also then wondering how much of this is AI every. So if I talk to a lot of managers and executives at, at major companies around the world, what they all tell me, I'm curious if you guys have had any conversation with people that are similar to this. It's like when it, when somebody leaves a job now at a company, the, the first thing they do is it used to be when the, as the economy is rolling, all right, this person left a job, we need to hire someone to replace them. Now it is, we need to look very hard at can we do their job using the productivity gains we're getting from AI to spread, to spread the work to other humans who can be more productive because they've got, you know, these AI capabilities. In other words, if somebody leaves, can we just not hire somebody? And the answer that so many managers are coming back with is, is yes, we, we do not need to hire for this role. And there a lot of these, you know, Fortune 100, Fortune 500 companies are, are, are forecasting that this process of attrition is going to lead to, you know, massive reductions in their workforces over the years. So like some of it is this uncertainty sparked by Trump's kind of incessant need to like own gold, like the economy. But some of it is also these companies saying, do we actually need people to fill this role? Maybe we don't.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Ryan, what is your estimation of how these tech oligarchs think this is all going to work out? Because, you know, I mentioned this yesterday, Chris Hayes had this viral tweet where he was like, I need you people to understand billionaires are trying to do to white collar workers what they already did to blue collar workers. Like that's where we're heading. As you've pointed out in the past now, the bulk of consumer spending is with again the, you know, top several percentile in the country. So they don't really need your consumer dollars anymore. They don't need your labor, they don't need your consumer dollars. Like they don't need you even to send as meat into the grinder for their wars increasingly with like AI warfare and the use of special operations. So what is their, like, what do you think they're planning, how this is going to work out?

[Ryan Grim]

What they, what they will tell you is a version of Sam Altman's and Elon Musk's explanation for why they're doing AI. They will say, say I agree with you and I, and I actually fear for what this is producing in the country and, and in the world. And I fear what it's going to leave to the world that my children are going to inherit. But my job as a corporate executive is to do what the company needs to do to get ahead. And if I don't do it, my competitor is going to do it and we're going to, to and we'll, and then we will fail and we will lose to them. Like that, that is, that is what all of them say. And it is a genuine collective action problem in a decentralized capitalistic economy like this, where you don't have a, a kind of state that's able to say no. Like these are the forces that we're seeing, but from a social perspective, this is how we want to direct those forces. And we as a, you know, self governing, democratic, you know, polity are going to do that, that we don't have that. What we have is our companies who have quarterly earnings reports coming up and they need, and, and now are starting to be measured by, you know, the level of attrition that they can, they can pull off, the number of, the number, the amount of, of people that they can replace with AI.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, well, and I mean my answer societally, because obviously this, you know, off to the races AI push is coming from the Trump administration. You know, this is really their big bet on the economy. You know, it's not terrible. Like Trump thinks tariffs are fun, but the real big bet is on we're going to take off all the guardrails and we're going to flood this like AI tech oligarchs, Go, go, go. No holds barred. And I think you see in their budget priorities the way they're thinking about how this is going to go. That's why they're funding the largest law enforcement agency in history in ice, you know, better funded the immigration enforcement operations, better funded than any military on the planet, except for two ours in China. So they need this massive domestic police state equipped with the surveillance state and all of that stuff. And then, then you also have him asking for $1.5 trillion defense budget. So that's their view. And they only, like, they foolishly only believe in hard power. Right. That's what you see in the way that they operate in the world. They are delusional enough to think it's enough just to, you know, to hold people in place using guns and hard power. And so I think that that's, I think that's their plan. I mean, just judging by their budget priorities and where they're shifting resources and focus and money.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, yeah.

[Max Moran]

I mean, Ryan, to your point earlier, like, there is a way that we could be going about this that actually does serve the needs and could improve the lives of, of average Americans, but it's, it's impossible to do that under a capitalist structure like we have in this country. It seems like AI technology is almost the most, in term, the most extreme example of a race towards monopoly under capitalism because it's so rapidly advancing and consolidating and eventually we're going to have one company that ends up getting that major big breakthrough moving forward. And so, you know, under the structure that we have right now, the no holds bar, Trump, let's, let's let it all rip. Where is this going to end up other than just with monopolistic sort of like, like a techno feudal society where we have a handful of people who control the entirety of the most powerful technology that's ever been wielded by human, human beings. And then everybody else is just Sort of left to, to rot. I mean, what. It doesn't even seem like they hypothetically have a sustainable plan for the next 10, 15, 20 future, 20 years down the line in the future.

[Ryan Grim]

No corporate executives are talking to them. Is some, it's some of the source of the greatest doomerism. Like they're, they're. And you can judge them, you know, for being the ones like foot soldiering and carrying it out, but they're, they're as, they're as like they're even more frightened that shocking. Shockingly than like the average public because they're seeing it like happening now, which.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Is why they're like building bunkers and planning to escape.

[Ryan Grim]

And well, these are like, seriously, these are the types of people who make like, let's say $800,000 a year rather than $80 million a year. They're, they're very rich and doing well and they'll be fine. And they can probably make sure their kids are fine. Ish. But they also care about the world. And there's, but there's, you know, they're stuck in there. They're in these jobs and they're like, what, what we're seeing like unfold around us, you know, we're gonna, you know, our headcount's gonna go by, drop by 30, 50, 80%, like over the next, you know, three, four, five years. And you do that across the board. Like, what are these people gonna do?

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

And, and like how do you support a show like this when.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

Tens of thousands more of our like paying subscribers are laid off. Like, it's a, it is a very dark time that we're like, that we're heading into. And the oligarchs have nothing beyond UBI at this point. Like, yeah, you know, that was their vision because they saw this. They're like, if, if we succeed in what we're trying to do, we're going to desiccate society. And so we need then universal basic income. Like, that was their answer. I, I haven't seen them come up with anything.

[Max Moran]

And then you also have this sort.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Of like concentration camps. I mean, I'm, I hate to be really dark, but we're. ICE is building out. You know, they're buying fields and installing warehouses and you know, and, and it's this massive police state that is being funded. We already know that it's not just for immigrants. I mean, we already see the people they're clashing with in the streets are mostly white liberals roles. So I don't think it's too crazy to think that that is part of the plan, at least enough to like scare people into, to line and to control movement and control opposition etc. So I mean, I think that's from the political class. I think that's the way they're, that's the way they're thinking about it. Because they don't need you anymore. Right. The only reason they need you is for your labor. And if they don't need your labor, they don't need you anymore.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Max Moran]

And I also wonder like with this sort of like transhumanism mindset or even in some cases seemingly like anti human perspectives, like how pervasive is that amongst the, the upper levels of some of these, these tech companies where they might just like not. I mean you remember that, that Peter Thiel clip, I think it was Peter Thiel from a while back where he was asked like is it important that human civilization continues or that human beings continue into the future? And he like legitimately had to pause and, and, and think about whether or not he, he thought that that was something that needed to happen moving forward. So I think for some of them there's an acceptance or a, a willingness to just sort of blindly go down this path that even they know will lead to civilizational destruction or mass suffering or whatever it ends up being.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah, there is a view in Silicon Valley, I don't know how pervasive, but there is a view that having an attachment to human beings is speciesist and so that true enlightenment, enlightenment comes from not caring that the robots take over and crush us like ants. If they're, you know, furthering their civilization and able to come up with, you know, these incredible technological solutions, like we should all be in favor of that. And that for us to be sentimentally attached to human beings is very small minded thinking of us, you know, just disturbing stuff.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. Mac, you want to put up this, this CNBC one?

[Krystal Ball]

Sure.

[Ryan Grim]

Because this is. So I was saying like the big problem with the economy has not been layoffs up until now. It has more been when people leave, they can't find a job that there's no, there's no new job openings now we're getting a double whammy. Layoffs in January were the highest to start a year since 2009 according to Challenger. Which is, which, which measures these 108, 108,000 layoffs for, for the month which they have up, they have doubling from more than doubling from the same period a year ago up, up 200, what is it, 205% from last month. Like that's wow. Insane.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Wow.

[Ryan Grim]

And they say at the same time companies announced just 5,306 new hire, the lowest since January of 2009. If you weren't around for January of 2009, that was the darkest time in the American economy since the Great Depression. And this is going on while Trump is talking about a boom and while GDP is grow like GDP is still maybe it's going to be down in the next quarter, but still growing. Ish. Like so this, the, the thing the wheels are coming off is basically what.

[Saagar Enjeti]

These numbers are showing before we jump to the, the premium half. Ryan, real quick question for you. What do you make of the bitcoin drop? What do you think's going on there?

[Ryan Grim]

I, I don't know. I don't know. Like some I saw somewhere that like an early whale dumped billions. I so and you know, the now getting all of these, the bitcoin, the bitcoin crowd really wanted all these institutions like banks and others to like get in on the, on the rush. So you know, yeah, the more buyers, the more you push the price up. Getting them in though, you know, if they're on margin and it hits a certain level, you know, as it crashes this, the crash becomes self fulfilling because you know if you have to sell at 70,000 and that now it crashed and it hit 70,000, now you've got to sell your entire position and you selling your position moves it to 69,000 and now other people who had to sell at 69 to cover their margins have to sell and that. So, so some of it is like the more people you get in who are leveraged like that, the more volatility you're going to get. It was already an insanely volatile thing. I'm sure a bunch of people are out there buying the dip.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Well it says right now bitcoin narrowly avoids falling under 60,000 as it bounces off of lows. So it looks like there's a bit of a recovery going on right now. But the hope was that as the dollar weakens and people move away from it as the safe harbor and world reserve currency, that quote unquote, digital gold, which is what they, you know, what they want bitcoin to be, that, that would be the thing that would, you know, the new flight to safety would be bitcoin. But what we've seen instead is that it's, you know, it's more precious metals. It's like actual gold.

[Max Moran]

It's way.

[Ryan Grim]

It's significantly below what it was when Trump was came into office, which he's the crypto president.

[Max Moran]

He's the guy if it was ever.

[Ryan Grim]

Going to shoot to the moon, then his coins.

[Sponsor Voice]

Good.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. I mean, I don't know what it's done the last couple days, but like he's up. Yeah, he's up.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Basically the UAE or Saudi or whoever is going to make sure that that continues to be the case whenever they need some deal done with the government.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Max Moran]

And it's kind of, it is kind of funny to call it the digital. Gold kind of skirts around like the entire reason why gold has value in the first place or silver has value in the first place because of its physical limited nature in reality is technically.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Limited, you know, because of the way it's. So you have to mine it. So that's why they said, well, that's the scarcity that's built into this that makes it akin to gold.

[Max Moran]

Well, that's not, not going too well right now.

[Saagar Enjeti]

Yeah. All right, should we, should we move over to the, the premium portion? I've got. We've got some we. I have to, we have to play these Momdani clips. They're just too charming of him with these little children. They're absolutely adorable. We have to get to the right wing, take a few AMA questions. So if you want to get the whole thing, guys, breaking points dot com. If not, we totally get it. Appreciate all of you and we'll see you on the other side.

[Krystal Ball]

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Are you feeling those winter blues? Well, do not worry, they've got you covered with ways to boost your mood. Add a little sweetness to your day with big savings on all your favorite sweets. Shop in store or online and save on items like Gummy Savers, Five Flavors Flavors, Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Sour Patch Watermelon, M M's Party Size Stand Up Bags and Ferrero Rocher Mixed Variety squares. Offer ends February 24th. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.

[Podcast Advertiser]

At CVS it matters that we're not just in your community, but that we're part of it. It matters that we're here for you when you need us, day or night. And we want everyone to feel welcome, welcomed and rewarded. It matters that CVS is here to fill your prescriptions and here to fill your craving for a tasty and, yeah, healthy snack. At cvs, we're proud to serve your community because we believe where you get your medicine matters. So Visit [e-mail] or just come by our store. We can't wait to meet you. Store hours vary by location.

[Max Moran]

Janice Torres here, and I'm Austin Hankwitz. We host the podcast Mind the Business, Small Business Success Stories, produce by Ruby Studio in partnership with Intuit QuickBooks.

[Podcast Advertiser]

We're back for season four to talk to some incredible small business owners.

[Max Moran]

The big thing about working at tech is that it's ever evolving, ever changing.

[Ryan Grim]

Everyone's a rookie.

[Max Moran]

That's how fast the industry is changing. So what I'm really excited about is to be part of that change. So listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Podcast Advertiser]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.