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Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
CREEPY Trump - Epstein Letter REVEALED: MAGA Cries Fake News
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Host 1
This is an iHeart podcast.
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Emily Jashinsky
Come on. Why is this taking so long?
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Host 1
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Emily Jashinsky
Whoa.
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This thing moves. Stop hitting snooze on new tech. Win the tech search@lenovo.com Lenovo Lenovo unlock AI experiences with the ThinkPad X1 carbon powered by Intel Core Ultra processors so you can work, create and boost productivity all on one device. Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here.
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Sagar 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 this show.
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Host 1
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Sagar Enjeti
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Host 1
We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you@breaking points.com Good morning everybody. Happy Friday. We have an amazing show for everybody today, a nice Friday lineup. We got producer Griffin in the house as well as Emily Jashinsky. There's nothing going on, so I guess it's going to be A short show, right? No, no, actually we have some bomb shell news that we're going to react to as well as what's going on with the Stephen Colbert situation. For those of you who are premium subscribers, you're going to get access to two very important stories. One is the attack by the Israeli, Israeli Defense Forces on a Catholic church actually in Gaza. It wounded the father actually of that church as well as a major reaction from the global Catholic community, condemnation from the White House. Very, very interesting. And then there is going to be an exclusive for our premium subscribers early, which is my interview with Andrew Schultz and the entire flagrant crew. I asked them a lot of the burning Internet questions. Do they regret their Trump interview? Would they handle things differently? Does J.D. vance pass the vibe check? Is Dave Portnoy only mad about Mamdani because of Israel? So a lot of very interesting subjects. So I think people will like. So if you want to sign up and get access to that, breaking points. But let's go ahead and start, guys with this Wall Street Journal story. I mean this is, this is the central story around Epstein. Perhaps it explains a lot of the behavior from Donald Trump over the last couple of days. So guys, can we go ahead and throw that up there? We have a new major revelation here from the Wall Street Journal. Now keep in mind, the entire town has been talking about this for the last couple of days, that the Wall Street Journal or one of the major three papers was sitting on new information regarding Donald Trump's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. It turned out that as Trump himself, and we'll get to this later on, has been trying to kill the story and called Rupert Murdoch himself trying to quash this reporting. What they write is that Donald J. Trump, according to them, submitted a letter for Jeffrey Epstein's 50th birthday album. It was a leather bound book which included remembrances and congratulations from many of Epstein's friends, including Leslie Wexner and Alan Dershowitz. But one of the people who included a letter in there is Donald J. Trump, the current President of the United States. The year was 2003 and allegedly the book was compiled by Ghislaine Maxwell. Now the actual text and description of the letter is very interesting because definitely, if true, would show, you know, quite a bit of open recognition in the community at the time of Jeffrey Epstein's proclivity. So here's how they describe it. It isn't clear how the letter with Trump's signature was prepared. It inside the outline of a naked woman was a typewritten note styled as an imaginary conversation between Trump and Epstein written in the third person voiceover. There must be more to life than having everything. The note began. DONALD yes, there is. But I won't tell you what it is. JEFFREY Nor will I, since I also know what it is. DONALD we have certain things in common, Jeffrey. JEFFREY yes, we do. Come to think of it. DONALD enigmas never age. Have you noticed that? JEFFREY As a matter of fact, it was clear to me the last time I saw you. DONALD A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy birthday. May every day be another wonderful secret. So, yeah, what do we think of this, guys? What do we think?
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Emily Jashinsky
EMILY so there's a lot to, obviously there's a lot for us to untangle here because the allegation is that Donald Trump in the year of our Lord 2003 was doodling naked women and signed his name as the to be craft. This is in the Journal story, pubic hair on the body and then wrote this interesting. I don't know what you would call it. It's not a poem. It's not. And I don't know what it, I don't know how you describe that haiku.
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Host 1
A hypothetical dialogue, a play, you know, a play in one act. I don't know.
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Sponsor 2
It was a one act.
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Emily Jashinsky
Yeah, yeah, a one man play. But so that is the allegation. Trump has been on a tear and I know we have some of this saying he is going to sue the Wall Street Journal vociferously denying it in the story. His denial says that's not my language. I never doodle women. Something to that extent. He does doodle. We do have evidence that he doodled and we'll get so basically this dropped last night and the Internet immediately sprung into action with some people and who are already skeptical of Trump on Epstein actually saying for Maga world, this looks like a fake Journal hit piece because the idea of Donald Trump doing anything like this is so out of character. It just doesn't comport with the version of Don Trump like he's, he's making doodles and, and writing fake one man plays like it's, it is all very odd at the same time. SAGAR I know you dug into this reporter and I think it's, it's worth noting and we'll get into all of the previous doodling evidence and the evidence of whether or not Donald Trump would ever use the word enigma in just one moment. But I think Sagar, one thing that's worth here is the reporter's history on the Epstein case.
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Host 1
She's got A good track record. Yeah. Actually, if you want to go and put that up, Griffin, I have it here. The element is titled Track Record. So I went and I checked her byline. Her name is Kadida, Kadija Safdar and she has two previous reports from 2023 about the Jeffrey Epstein case. She actually is the person who published the Wall Street Journal report that showed his calendar from September 8, 2014, which detailed, quote, meetings with some of the country's richest men, Bill Gates, Leon Black, Thomas Pritzker. But also inside that story was about how Bill Burns, the CIA director under Joe Biden at the time, as he was leaving the Obama administration, actually met with Epstein here in Washington, as well as other high profile individuals. Keep in mind that all of that was confirmed. There's not a single person in that story who did deny it. She also reported in 2023 about how Jeffrey Epstein allegedly found out that Bill Gates was trying to. Was having an affair and then appeared to try to blackmail him for financial purposes. So all I'm saying is that, you know, a lot of that reporting was actually accepted and, you know, even MAGA embraced at the time. And so it's important to keep that track record while, while we have it, you know, just for who this person is. As you said, whenever Donald Trump is basically saying this entire thing is fake, I think specifically it's really worth. Griff, do you want to read what Trump said from the story? We have it in here somewhere from the Journal. Let's see. Yeah, Trump denied writing the letter. Go ahead, I'll let you read it out. It's from the Wall Street Journal piece. It's in the first couple.
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Sponsor 2
Yeah, I got it right here. In an interview with the Journal on Tuesday evening, Trump denied writing the letter or drawing the picture. This is not me. This is, this is a fake thing. It's a fake Wall Street Journal story. I never wrote a picture in my life. I don't draw pictures of women. It's not my language. It's not my words. I'm going to sue the Wall Street Journal just like I sued everyone else.
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Host 1
Okay? And then, Griffin, that is his language.
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Emily Jashinsky
And those are his words.
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Host 1
That part is definitely his language. Let's go and put his, his true social post up, please, which just shows his initial reaction from the story and basically it's, it is. By the way, this is a very useful picture into how and all of that works with Rupert Murdoch. Keep in mind, the Wall Street Journal is owned by Rupert Murdoch who owns News Corp. So here I'll Go ahead and read it. The Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch personally were warned directly by President Donald J. Trump. The supposed letter they were printed by Trump to Epstein was a fake and if they print it, they will be sued. Mr. Murdoch stated he would take care of it, but obviously did not have the power to do so. The editor of the Wall Street Journal, Emma Tucker, was told directly by Caroline Levitt and by President Trump that the letter was fake. But Emma Tucker, keep in mind, Emma Tucker is the editor in chief of the Wall Street Journal. Didn't want to hear that. Instead they are going with false, malicious and defamatory story anyway. President Trump will be suing the Wall Street Journal, News Corp. And Mr. Murdoch shortly. The press has to learn to be truthful and not rely on sources that probably don't even exist. President Trump has already beaten George Stephanopoulos, 60 Minutes, et cetera. It has turned out to be a disgusting and filthy rag. Writing defamatory stories like this shows their desperation to remain relevant. If there were any truth at all on the Epstein hoax as it pertains to President Trump, this information would have been revealed by Comey Bren and crooked Hillary and other radical left lunatics years ago. There's actually a lot going on here in terms of Trump's reaction and the timeline matters as well. So the White House was first approached for story guys from the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday. Now keep in mind, that's when we started hearing that this was an Obama and a Hillary and a Comey hoax. And also specifically that's when the term the Epstein hoax was invented by Donald Trump ahead of all of the story that was coming and dropping on Thursday evening gives some important context to the President's comments. But again, like, we've got to stick with some evidence here and I also want to give some background in terms of how big media works as well. Okay, so here we have the Wall Street Journal printed a fake letter. These are not my words, not the way I talk, I don't draw pictures. I told Murdoch it was a scam, he shouldn't prank this fake story, but he did. Now I'm going to sue his ass off that of his third rate newspaper. Thank you for this attention to this matter djt. So people are, you know, first of all, it shows that Trump has the power to call Rupert Murdoch and basically try to order him around at will. But some interesting background that people may not know is that when, when the Theranos story was being reported in 2015, Rupert Murdoch had personally invested a hundred million Dollars, actually, with Elizabeth Holmes. Elizabeth Holmes called Murdoch and was like, dude, you need to kill this story. It's going to kill your investment as well as everybody else. And Murdoch was like, look, I'm sorry, I don't interfere with the operations of the Wall Street Journal. Just keep that in mind, you know, in terms of how the story is able to move forward even with Trump's immense pressure on the company. I will say, in fact. Yeah, go ahead.
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Emily Jashinsky
Well, I was going to say we should also mention, and maybe this is exactly where you were about to go. Oliver Darcy, who is a media reporter, broke news in a very meta sense that the Wall Street Journal was working on a bombshell story about Trump and Epstein yesterday afternoon. The story was then forced to come to print, in all likelihood. I say forced to come to print. I think that's likely what happened a couple of hours later. Which Sagar, your read on this I'm sure is the same as mine. It indicates there was some type of tussle at the Wall Street Journal and someone leaked that they were working on the story to force the hand of.
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Host 1
The paper to go to print very, very, very soon. And yeah, there's actually a brand new just tweet out right now. I look forward to getting to Rupert Murdoch to testify in my lawsuit against him in his pile of garbage newspaper, the Journal. That will be an interesting experience. I mean, in my opinion, Trump is playing with fire here because, you know, lawsuits have discovery and discovery means that evidence needs to come out. I will say before we continue to dig into this, the only mistake right now by the Wall Street Journal is they didn't just print the damn letter because then everybody can just judge not only the doodle, but the actual signature for itself. I mean, at the same time, they do describe a letter here being signed in Sharpie and a heavy marker. I personally have never seen Donald Trump do that, have I? But let's also get into some of the claims about the doodling. So Trump says, I've never drawn a picture in my life. So, Griffin, do you want to go ahead and put that up there where we have a actual image of a doodle that Donald Trump.
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Sponsor 2
We've got images, we've got a gallery here.
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Host 1
Let's put the gallery image here. So these are multiple actual images and doodles that Donald Trump drew of the New York skyline that he would auction off in the year 2004. And actually, what's interesting is Trump actually wrote about it in one of his books about how he would often do a quick doodle that only took him a couple of minutes before he would kind of shoot them off. So look, you know, that's not necessarily out of the picture. We also, you know, I mean, that.
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Emily Jashinsky
One, that one's beautiful. Some of these are.
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Host 1
One of them's not bad. Yeah, one of them is not bad.
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Sponsor 2
Yeah. I mean, I mean, if you think about it, he did it probably in, like, under 30 seconds, you know, so that's, that's kind of impressive.
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Host 1
That's the worst one.
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Sponsor 2
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Host 1
Yeah.
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Sponsor 2
Consistent window aesthetic here. Some of them are filled in.
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Emily Jashinsky
Some casinos to build.
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Host 1
Well said. All right, let's, but let's stick with this because he's making. There's several claims for why this is not, you know, Donald Trump's authentic letter. He's never doodled. That's just not true. There's also. Let's put the enigma thing up there, Griffin. There was some talk of, like, oh, it doesn't even sound like Trump. Trump has literally never even used the word enigma. Actually, we do have video of him using the word enigma from 2015. Yeah, let's go and play it. Let's play the audio, please. Now, Carson's an enigma. To me. I didn't say it. Carson's an enigma. Okay, so that's twice that he says the word enigma. I guess, proving he does know the word enigma. I will, I will submit a couple things. It is weird that it's typewritten. Very rare for Trump to give a typewritten thing. Usually he, you know, writes things by hand or he comments things and kind of writes things on the margins at the same time. If you combine the. Of the Wall Street Journal reporter's record, the fact that the doodle. And by the way, oh, I forgot to even mention this. The. There are two other notes that are described in the Journal story. One from Leslie Wexner where he was like, jeffrey, I'm just going to give you what I've always. What you always wanted. It was literally a drawing of a. Of boobs.
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Sponsor 2
Women's breast.
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Host 1
Of boobs. And then the second one is from Alan Dershowitz, which is some joke about the Vanity Fair article by Wiki Vicky Ward that came out in March of 2003 making fun of Bill Clinton. But my point is, though, is that Dershowitz did not deny actually writing that. He said, oh, it's been a long time. I, I, I don't even know what I would have written Putin there at the time. Wexner also did not deny the report that he sent in there. So look, I mean, I know MAGA is very wedded to the idea that this is fake. So let's put all of that just like purely in terms of the report itself. But then let's look at the meta conversation. I mean this is the Wall Street Journal. This is the most successful of the big three newspapers. Yes, I know it's owned by Murdoch and I'm not saying, you know, very often isn't used, especially the op ed page as a tool for Israel and for low taxes. But I mean, if you consider the idea that the letter itself is fake, then they burned the entire paper because that actually would be defamation. If you knowingly publish something which you knew to be fake or which, in which you got hoaxed, I mean you in a discovery process will be found out pretty damn quickly in my opinion, Emily, that this is done. And, and you know, frankly, considering their track record on EPs, I mean think about it. They've had multiple reports here about Epstein and his connections to multiple billionaire Leon Black, Bill Gates and all. None of them ever sued the Wall Street Journal and presumably they would have if it was fake. And you know, this is the big question about kind of the source of this information. But you know, I personally, I know this is going to infuriate a lot of people. I think it's real. I, I mean, I just think that combining the totality of the evidence of the Journal report, the track record of the reporter itself, the fact that, the fact that they knew almost certainly that this would face lawsuit and publish it anyways, you're putting your entire reputation on the line. I think, I do think it's real. That said, I do think the Journal has done a disservice and actually kind of granted MAGA a real out on the story by not just releasing the entire thing in and of itself, which they should have, like in my opinion, they should actually just release a high resolution photo of every single page of the book. Because, because I want to know everybody who's sending Jeffrey Epstein little body letters in a handwritten thing. Compiled by Ghislaine Maxwell. Your guys's reaction?
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Emily Jashinsky
Well, and it's possible what they're doing, as people have pointed out, is pulling a Jeffrey Goldberg, right, where they get Donald Trump to make his denial and then he's on the record denying that it's real. They then release a very, you know, real looking document that was their source for the story and let the public judge and Trump has sort of gone all hard in the paint all out denial saying this is not real. Now, I suspect Donald Trump would say that it was not real either way.
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Host 1
Yeah. No matter what.
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Emily Jashinsky
So the one thing that I want to point out, and I know we have differing takes on the possible source, we don't know the source of this. Obviously, the Journal is cagey about how they ended up with this. I think it is very worth noting, as you mentioned earlier, Sager, that around the time we know Trump talked to the Wall Street Journal because he was asked for comment on the story they were working on, he starts pinning the blame on specifically James Comey. Obviously he mentions Biden and now crooked Hillary is in the mix and all of that. Maureen Comey is fired from the Southern District, New York Justice Department Post Wednesday. Could have had to do with Diddy, that she, she did botch the case. She botched the Diddy case. It could have been a long time coming from Pam Bondi. All of that stuff could be possible. Also interesting though, that Maureen Comey leaves and she was a key prosecutor in the Epstein case and the Ghislaine Maxwell case. And this is around the exact same time that the Journal has its hands on. This is the most important part. What it says was part of the Justice Department's files on Epstein that is early in the Wall Street Journal story. It says that this letter from Donald Trump, which did not leak until right now, nobody ever saw it, nobody ever leaked it was from the Justice Department. It was among the Justice Department's files. So to me, that is a very, very interesting timeline. On the other hand, Sagar, there's also a possibility it's something of a warning shot from Ghislaine Maxwell, as you and others have pointed out.
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Host 1
I'm willing to submit to both because, I mean, look, I actually think a lot of this probably did come from Ghislaine Maxwell, but it could have come years ago. I don't think that all of it was necessarily leaked to the Wall Street Journal by the legal system. I will note, as you said, that it's very possible because the cope I've seen for the last couple of days. Didn't Megyn Kelly say this? She's like, well, there's like indication that they were altered or assembled in a way to point.
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Emily Jashinsky
She said people. Well, this is what's interesting. She said people were telling her that sources from inside the administration were trying to sort of plant the seeds of that narrative.
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Host 1
Yeah. And I think, I mean, look, at the end of the day, this is Trump's fault. Because if this is a small part of the Epstein. I mean, look, let's, let's analyze things in two directions. First of all, the letter is creepy as fuck. All right? Like there's no getting around it. That's creepy. It's weird. Griffin, you're muted, I think.
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Sponsor 2
I can't hear it. It's almost like romantic, isn't it, between the two?
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Host 1
Yeah, it's weird.
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Sponsor 2
There's, there's like some, there's very flowery language here.
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Host 1
Ye, I would say, look, it's odd. And that's saying it kindly. What does he say? Our wonderful secret. Yeah, it gives me the heebie jeebies even just thinking about it. And then the rest of these guys just joking about women's breasts and all this. Other guys, 50, 50 year old birthday. Creepy, strange. Again, combine it with Trump's on the record quote to New York Magazine 2002. I've known Jeffrey for 15 years. He's a terrific guy. He likes beautiful women as much as I do. He likes them young. There's no doubt Jeffrey enjoys his life. That's on the record quote from Donald Trump 2002 to New York magazine. And then this is somewhat one year or so later between the two. If, you know, I guess they're positing that it's just not real at all. But I mean, first of all, just kind of demonstrates the extent to which this kind of was an open secret amongst Palm beach, the Palm Beach, New York Circuit, amongst Epstein and all of his associates. But if we dig a little bit further and we consider some more things, like in the relationship, this is Trump's own fault for not releasing the files. Because if this is a small part of the evidence, like this book, right, which is part of the grand jury documents and the quote, black book client, you know, whatever else you want to call it, then of course people who are partisan, who have access to it are going to be like, yeah, this is why he's acting so weird and covering it up. Because at this point, Trump has now said, I don't want a special prosecutor, you know. Now, Griffin, let's put the Pam Bondi thing up because this is kind of the latest attempt to try and get ahead of it. This is where things are currently moving in terms of them trying to appear as if they're having more disclosure. So Trump tweets last night, based on the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein, I have asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to produce any and all pertinent grand jury testimony subject to court approval. This scam perpetrated by the Democrats should end right now. But let's. Let's actually linger on these grand jury documents because this is really important.
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Emily Jashinsky
First.
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Host 1
First of all, these are not the Epstein files, guys. The grand jury documents that they are referring to are specifically the 2019 grand jury or 2019 indictment and grand jury documents that were used to prepare the indictment against Epstein in 2019. Okay. That is not the totality of all of the information that the government has on Epstein. Let's also look very specifically at the word all pertinent grand jury testimony. What does that mean, all pertinent? Grant. No, no, no, no. Release all the grand jury testimony. So we're already kind of scoping it. Second is that the reason that this grand jury testimony and documents have not been released is actually because Maureen Comey, whenever she was the. The SDNY prosecutor on the case, went to the judge and said, hey, this needs to remain under seal because Ghislaine Maxwell's process continues to be under review. And if this comes out, it could actually violate Ghislaine Maxwell's right to due process. And the judge actually agreed with her at least partially in that case. And so there's going to be all kinds of legal wrangling around this because it actually could put the Maxwell trial or the subsequent legal appellate stuff that's happening right now in danger. It will take take weeks, if not months for something like this to happen. You can go to a judge. Listen, I mean, does anybody know how the federal court system works? Like, people don't just magically wave a release button. The thing that Trump does have the ability to do is to declassify all of this other information that allegedly they've been working on now for six months. Remember, Cash Patel said that they had dozens of agents working on the case, compiling information that's something that is under your purview that could be released. And, yeah, I mean, I just think that this is another misdirect where, you know, MAGA forces are trying to be like, see, like, we're getting transparency. And I'm like, guys, this is just a. I mean, to be honest, I'm not saying it's a nothing burger. All information is good information, but it's. It's not the Epstein files in any way that were promised. Because remember that the government's case against Epstein in 2019 still only really focused on Epstein. Like, it's a very narrowly tailored charges that don't implicate a broader circle, and they definitely don't get into the source of his money and his finances.
- [25:32]
Emily Jashinsky
Yeah, that's right. Griffin, I don't know if you had something to say, but I just wanted to add this entire book, it's well worth the Wall Street Journal printing at this point because one of the things that's most convincing about this document is that it's part of a larger book in which the other notes appear to be well within character. And Trump should be furious at Pam Bondi because the only reason we are now mired in a week plus long news cycle about Jeffrey Epstein is that Pam Bondi, maybe Trump told her to do this. We don't know that yet. But Pam Bondi moved in the most ham fisted possible way to close the case and say, quote, no further disclosures would be warranted. And if Pam Bondi had handled this with a modicum more just pure like logic and competence from a public relations perspective. And that's a very cynical way to look at it. But it's from the politics, it's completely true. The only reason this is now dogging Trump over the last week or so is because Bondi said literally like case close, wrapping it up, nothing more to see here, which set all of this off. So it's, it's the understanding, the truth of what happened is and always has been muddled by the politics because people at the Wall Street Journal, Rupert Murdoch have, you know, important, powerful relationships with people like Donald Trump and others who are potentially implicated in the Epstein world. And that's just going to be inextricably, inextricably intertwined with our ability to know what the hell actually happened, is that we are seeing this through the glass of politics and the glass is cracked and smudged because people want it that way. And this is another example of that. So it's hard to separate the two at this point. But the letter in itself, I think that's an important observation. Saga is not. It's extremely weird. It's extremely weird. It's not directly.
- [27:42]
Host 1
Smoking gun.
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Emily Jashinsky
Yeah, it's not a smoking gun. It's weird as hell. It looks really, really bad and it seems to be real at this point. Trump probably could have managed this without basically inviting people to leak and prove him wrong.
- [27:58]
Host 1
Yeah, all he had to do was release it and then, yeah, maybe some of this would have come out. But you know, I mean, I'm assuming that there's probably something in there that's a lot worse. Worse for a lot of people, especially with the financial transactions. I mean, one of the things that I, again, I, I know I'm a broken record, but it's very important to actually understand like what quote Epstein files should mean. Here, let me try my. I'm a boomer but I'm going to try my best to share my screen because there was a big report yesterday by Ron Wyden and look I, I get it, maga, yes, he's a Democrat that blah blah blah. But you know, Ron Wyden has been actually working on the Epstein case for quite some time and he is the Senate Finance Chairman. He says that the government is sitting on secret bank filings showing $1.5 billion in suspicious wire transfers by Epstein involving some of the most powerful people in the world. Now as I said here, how about we release those? So, so the thing is, and the story is extraordinary and by the way because I know a lot of people in Washington do listen to the show. If you are one of the people who was able to review these documents, please contact me. I've been desperately trying to get into contact with you. So the way that this all went down apparently is last year the Treasury Department allowed Ron Wyden and members of the House or the Senate Financial Services Committee to sit and review suspicious activities reports filed by four of the biggest banks in the world. Those suspicious activities reports detail 1.5 billion in suspicious transactions by Epstein in and out of his accounts very often to Russian banks, to Eastern European women. It fits exactly with the pattern laid out by the New York Financial Services Department in their fine against Deutsche Bank. Except the totality of the money is insane because we're talking about 1.5 billion in wire transfers. The Treasury Department right now is sitting on that information. Whenever they allowed the Senate to look at it, they refused to let them make copies and only let them make handwritten notes in a classified setting which have yet to be released. All we know is the number of 1.5 billion. So again if you're one of the people who saw those, please contact me. I would like if you're a Treasury. But yeah, if you're in the Treasury Department and you have at one point, I will protect your identity. But the point is that the government is sitting on that right now. That is not subject to any pri. Like they could, they could release that today if they wanted to. Same with the IRS which has all of this documentation around all of these trust accounts and other things that were linked to them. Release even just one or even review one of the guys tax returns. How did, where did the money come from? It's all in there. This is America. You are you. I forget it's from the wire. But it's something. It's like in this country, somebody's name is on somebody's piece of paper somewhere. It just is. Okay. You can follow the paper trail if you want to, if you're actually motivated. And in the words of Lester Freeman, if you start to follow the money, you don't know where the it's going to take you. And I re that this is one of those where what we're watching is a bastardization of like what the alleged Epstein files and all that were. And then like you said, politically it's just pretty obvious that this is entirely a fault of their own making. Like they said the case was closed, which reignited public interest, which exposed a cover up which then had people digging even more. I mean, is there any reality where this book report or whatever would have come out if Trump had actually released much of the information? No, it would have been, it would have been like a WikiLeaks dump. You know, everybody would have gone deep into it. So, yeah, I think that the whole thing is really crazy. But it is also proof to me of how at the end of the day, MAGA will fall in line. And I think that's important as well for people to understand with the Iran thing, like, this is going to be a job of like, people who are actually independent minded. And yes, unfortunately now, because it's polarized Democrats and the mainstream media, like, I don't really see a way out of this. Yeah, exactly. Here we have JD Vance's tweet. He says, forgive my language, but this story is complete and utter. The Wall Street Journal should be ashamed for publishing it. Where is this letter? Would you be shocked to learn they never showed it to us before publishing? Does anyone honestly believe this sounds like Donald Trump? Follow up, Griffin. He had a reply there as well. I forget exactly what it was. If you just scroll down. Okay, go ahead. If we scroll down and look at it. Yes. Doesn't it violate some rule of journalistic ethics to publish a letter like this without showing it to the victim of this hit piece? Will the people who have bought into every hoax against President Trump show an ounce of skepticism before buying into this bizarre story? And so again, I mean, I don't think that the, I really don't think that the Journal, that the Journal did anything, quote, wrong except for not publishing it. And it's not even about showing it to Trump. It's for all of us because in a sense, they have just invited this reaction. Yeah. Here example, Representative Anna Paulina Luna, Please don't Show this to Wall Street Journal. It's a hand sketch. They may think I'm a sex trafficker. You know, I've seen even many people who are extraordinarily critical of Trump's handling of the Epstein files immediately just being like, hey, this is complete bullshit. There's no way this is real. It's obviously a hoax. I mean, again, look, I'm open to it. It would be a pretty extraordinary journalistic scandal if it was. But at the end of the day, the fact that they ran with it and it went through Standards and Murdoch and the entire Murdoch empire is putting their entire financial future on the line. I guess it's possible they did it with Dominion, but you know, Trump's gonna have to prove it. I, I just see, I see a bungling here of just epic, epic proportions.
- [33:46]
Sponsor 2
I mean, wouldn't it be like, wouldn't it be like career suicide to like post, you're dead. I mean, you're dead. You're coming, you're coming at the King with birthday letters and you best not miss, right? I mean, I guess my question for you guys is, like, why haven't they not released it? Like, shouldn't they just turn it into like a coffee book or something and start selling it? Like, you know, on top of that, like, it might even at this point help Trump for it to all be released. Because it's not just Trump in there. There's like 50 other names in there and there's like a lot of other smoke and a lot of other ways to kind of take it with, with other letters from other people. So, like, I don't see, like, it seems like it would help almost both sides for it to just all be released at this point.
- [34:26]
Emily Jashinsky
Trump can release it. The Justice Department has it. I mean, that's, the Wall Street Journal says it's part of the Justice Department document documents.
- [34:34]
Host 1
Here, here is my theory. And, and this is a quote from the story. Pages from the leatherbound album assembled from Epstein were first arrested in 06 are among the documents examined by Justice Department officials who investigated Epstein and Maxwell years ago. According to people who have reviewed the pages, it is unclear if any of them are part of the Trump administration's review. The Justice Department documents the so called Epstein files and who are in them are at the center of the storm consuming that. But here's my theory. The Journal doesn't have the book. The Justice Department has the book. Somebody in the DOJ leaked a photo or a filing of the book and the paper to the Journal. This is just My theory, this is pure speculation. That is the source and why they had to print it by hand. So, like, for example, remember that whole Reality Winner scandal, whenever the NSA sent those doc. Or she sent those documents from the NSA or whoever she was working for to the intercept, and the way that she got caught was by distributing the screenshots of the printout. So very often, guys, just to explain this for classified settings or legal documentation, they'll have distinguishing marks actually on the pages themselves. And that way, if that were to ever come out, it would be easy to identify whoever leaked that. Like a unique identifier or something. Think about like a. What's it called? Like a. A page mark or something like that. You know, whenever it's like, not for public consumption, that type of thing. That's my theory as to why they have not released it. A watermark. Yeah, exactly. That's my personal theory for why it has not yet been released.
- [36:05]
Emily Jashinsky
I think that's a very strong theory. I think that's.
- [36:08]
Host 1
Yeah, right.
- [36:08]
Emily Jashinsky
Which means the Justice Department could. Could show us the whole book right now.
- [36:12]
Sponsor 2
Right.
- [36:12]
Host 1
And that's the thing about Trump is now. Well, it sets up a very interesting incentive because now Trump's gonna be like, I'm under attack by the deep state and all this. And it's like, bro, you can just release it. You know, it's like, you could have just released it, and again, it would have just been one of many different stories that are. That are in there. And, yeah, it's. The whole thing is very interesting.
- [36:34]
Sponsor 2
Yeah. Be like safety in numbers kind of. Right? Like, oh, there's just so many other people to look at here. And. But it just seems like Trump is having an incredibly emotional reaction to what seems like a very intimate, almost loving relationship with Epstein to like, a level that I don't think we've really fully seen before. I mean, we've heard about them being best friends. We've heard about them playing, like, weird games in an elevator, I think, from a woman in the past. But this seemed to be just the most kind of like, they are partners in crime. I mean, it kind of felt like a if I did it OJ Simpson type of moment, like, where everyone's really.
- [37:13]
Host 1
You know, suspicious, man. And I'm telling you, I genuinely didn't believe most of the Trump. I. I thought, all right, Trump is a sleazy guy. Not a surprise to anybody. Right? Trump, you know, had the on the Record quote. Trump is a philanderer, and for years bragged about his sexual prowess with young women. To the tabloids. So I was like, okay. I mean, you know, I thought that was baked in. And then to the extent that the whole Epstein thing is like, yeah, you know, Epstein had all these like pretty Victoria's Secret model girls and all that. Trump was involved the beauty pageant, but nothing beyond what kind of was already out in the open. I was like, you know, but the thing is now is his reaction is just so sketchy and weird that it really kind of does make me think that there might be something else there. Because you have Elon saying it. Right. And then that's another theory of mine. Is that the reason that the jur that the FBI and the attorney general went so hard in the paint about shutting things down was maybe like a political response to Elon Musk? I think that's very probable.
- [38:15]
Emily Jashinsky
Yeah.
- [38:16]
Host 1
I'm not 100% sure.
- [38:17]
Emily Jashinsky
And that Trump may have nudged Bondi to do it that way.
- [38:20]
Host 1
Right? Yeah. And then like that's maybe why they did it. But yeah, I mean, I mean, do we want to play Griffin? If you want to go on YouTube, you can find this. It's like a 2002. No, sorry, 1992 package of Trump NBC. The video of. Let me see if I can find it. Actually.
- [38:40]
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Yeah, while you're, while you're looking for that and we talked a little bit about some of the MAGA defense we put up. Anna Paulina kind of doing a jokey drawing, but we have some new polling here about the Trump's handling of this 63% of voters disapprove of the Trump administration's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files. Quinnipiac University national poll finds nearly half of voters would consider joining a third party, just not one created by Elon Musk. Sorry, buddy.
- [41:14]
Emily Jashinsky
Yeah, well, this, this also contrasts with numbers that Harry Enton was analyzing on CNN yesterday. There was a new CNN poll and it's similar in the Quinnipiac poll that shows Republican support for Donald Trump increasing and 2 to 3 percentage points, which is very close to the margin of error in both of those polls over the course of the Epstein, the latest chapter in the Epstein saga. So like the last week or so and yeah, yeah, go ahead and roll this, Griffin.
- [41:40]
Sponsor 2
This one surprised me a bit because of all these complaints online. Going after Trump and the Epstein files, you might think his approval ratings were going down. Republicans, if anything, they're going up. Republicans who approve of Trump. Look at our CNN poll. The prior one, 86%. The one out this week, 88% were Republicans. How about Quinnipiac, the prior poll, 87% approval. Republicans this week out 90% with Republicans. If anything, Donald Trump's approval rating has gone up since this whole Epstein saga started.
- [42:09]
Emily Jashinsky
Okay, so the margin of error there was plus or minus six. So if you're thinking about that, it means there could be no movement or there could have been a slight drop potentially in the numbers. But this is very easy to reconcile. Like say this is accurately gauging Republican support for Donald Trump. It's Very easy to reconcile with the numbers in the exact same poll that shows 65% of Americans don't support his handling of the Epstein files, which is that to most Americans, and this is always worth saying when you're talking about Jeffrey Epstein, do most people care about the Epstein story? Yes. Are most people disgusted by the Epstein story because they believe that it reflects a sick and corrupt ruling class? Yes. Is it most people's top priority? No, it's many people's. It's high up on the list of many people's priorities. It's a very powerful proxy issue. It's a powerful symbol. And there are substantive questions of justice that still needs to be served in and of itself. But I think it is always worth saying that this is a story. People in media who know some folks that might be implicated, who can think about this as a meta media story at the same time are always going to be more interested in it than most members of the public. That does not make the story unimportant, though.
- [43:22]
Host 1
Yeah, totally.
- [43:23]
Sponsor 2
Like Emily, like, even in that Harry Enton poll, there was only one person who responded saying that it was like a top priority issue. Not 1%, but just one person only said that it was a top priority issue.
- [43:37]
Host 1
Yeah, I would just caution this type of analysis, though, because it's like, it's about a vibe. You can't quantify it. It's just, it all compounds on itself. It's like Epstein, Iran, the Israel situation. You can feel it happening. And yet you could say that that's stupid. But by the way, guys, did Trump not get elected on a vibe? I think he did. I mean, I think that was a huge part of it. If you guys watch my interview with Andrew Schultz, that's for our premium subscribers early we talk about this. I go, hey, did you guys feel like you maybe voted on vibes and you didn't vote on policy and, you know, I mean, it's not a call out. I think most people vote that way. I'm just saying, like, like, I think that was pretty important for this whole idea of like, the outsider versus the insiders and a new way of doing business. And like, this all just screams just, you know, very classic way. I also, you know, I mean, this footage is genuinely crazy. Like, when you watch this, this is archive footage from NBC at Mar a Lago in 2002. I mean, just like what you're watching is Trump. Sorry, yeah, no, 1992. Yeah, 1992. But you can see this is at Mar a Lago. But one thing I Also hate about Epstein is he's always dressed down. I know it's a small, small complaint, but he always wore a tracksuit. That's never his greatest sin.
- [45:00]
Sponsor 2
His greatest.
- [45:00]
Host 1
Yeah, it's one of his great sins, by the way. Just shows you that not dressing properly is often a indication, a sign of moral ill. Liberties of moral ills. Yes. So everybody else there is dressed well. You can see Ghislaine there in the background and Jeffrey and. And Trump having an animated conversation. But, yeah, I mean, look there, I, I knew that this all existed. I always was like, yeah, you know, they definitely knew each other. I don't think it, you know, went beyond anything, like, too crazy. But it's really the behavior of Trump since then that just has me being like, I mean, it's mystifying. It really is mystifying. But what's also important for everybody to understand, as you pointed out in that CNN poll for all of that magazine mag, has got his back. All right? This is now a media story. It's a hoax. They will never believe it.
- [45:54]
Emily Jashinsky
It genuinely. It helped him internally in their, in the internecine squabble. It absolutely helped him because now it looks like he is under attack. But they didn't print the picture. If they had printed, the picture would have been different. I'm not saying the Wall Street Journal by any means should dictate its allow, you know, of MAGA to dictate its reporting. Of course, that's not true. But hypothetically, if the Journal had printed the story, it would have looked obviously a lot less like a major media hit piece on Donald Trump that drove everyone back into Trump's arms because he's embattled, which is exactly what he has been trying to do all week. Brilliant on Trump's part. I mean, genuinely, when he started saying that this was coming from Comey and Biden and whomever else. Obama, like, yes, all of us look at that and we're like, okay. But he knew what was coming, which was a Justice Department file that had been sat on for a while that he can now say, huh, isn't that interesting? It's coming out in the Wall Street Journal. Just me, there's all these other people in the book. And so he was cleverly, obviously trying to point in that direction. Probably the best defense that he can muster. And it's obviously still not good enough. But what it does do is stigmatize people in Maga who continue to raise questions and make them 100 like they're doing the bidding. Homie in the Wall Street Journal. Yeah, right. And that.
- [47:26]
Host 1
I mean, she's so stupid. But, yeah.
- [47:28]
Sponsor 2
Do you guys.
- [47:29]
Host 1
Anything that we're going to do? But yeah, go ahead.
- [47:31]
Sponsor 2
Do you guys think that there would be an outlet that they could have gotten this to that MAGA would have accepted more as opposed to, like, the mainstream media? Like, could they have gotten this to. To Rogan or to some independent outlet that they could have just may have land. Made it land a little bit better?
- [47:48]
Emily Jashinsky
They could have just dropped it themselves. I'm serious. Like, if Trump had said, the Wall Street Journal is about to release this story on me writing a letter to Jeffrey Epstein.
- [47:57]
Host 1
Here's the whole.
- [47:58]
Emily Jashinsky
As a joke. Yeah.
- [48:00]
Host 1
Here.
- [48:00]
Emily Jashinsky
Here's the book. Here's the letter that the Wall Street Journal is trying to make into some bombshell. And then it would have looked way less. I think it would have looked.
- [48:09]
Host 1
It's locker room talk. Locker Room Talk 2.0. Here's. Here's all the sketchy Democrats. Here's all the other sketchy Democrat demon crats who are in the book. Okay, done. You know.
- [48:19]
Sponsor 2
Yeah, exactly. And then like, like, Sagar mentioned that it's about vibes, and this hurts Trump's vibe. But, you know, we're not in, like, an election time unless we're thinking about a Trump third term. So, like, what does this really affect, in terms. Does this affect Trump's governance over this current term? Like, does this affect his political power going forward with, like, other endorsements? Like, because if Sagar, you're saying this hurts the vibe, then what is. What is Trump need the vibe for at this point?
- [48:47]
Host 1
Great point. It's about Mindspace. So can we all submit the Lewinsky story was important, like, in terms of politics. Right. Can we. Can we agree with that?
- [48:56]
Sponsor 2
I'll submit to that.
- [48:57]
Host 1
All right. Yeah, but. But it was fucking stupid. At the end of the day, like, the entire investigation and the country's obsession and all of that over Lewinsky and the, all the details and the Ken Starr report and Congress. Well, what did that do? I mean, I've read multiple accounts of Clinton's presidency. It consumed every moment of every day, from the legal stuff to the subpoenas to the spin, to the press conference, to the extent that Clinton is distracted in major meetings involving NATO intervention in Serbia, and there's a lot of conspiracies that he actually bombed Serbia to distract from the Lewinsky scandal. So the point is, is like, what do you need a vibe for when you're president so you can govern? There's only so Many hours in the day. And by the way, this is a capricious guy who's obsessed with cable television in the news, which means he's going to be monitoring this and thinking about nothing else. So every single, every moment of a president's time is a zero sum game. Every single moment that a president spends is time that he could be spending doing something else. And it's the job of his staff and of himself to keep himself well ordered. This is true of any extremely highly powerful individual. And especially true in the case of the president.
- [50:12]
Emily Jashinsky
Yeah, that's true. And, and to the point that Sagar was making, I just want to, this is what I, how I put it earlier this week I wrote about it. Will Epstein files become Trump's Kabul moment? And I think that's the way I was thinking about it on the vibe level, is if you look back at the Biden presidency, he never recovered after Kabul. Like, that's the moment that his, his favorability, like, never, ever recovered from. And I think part of it is because he campaigned on being this president for decency and bringing back, like, restoring the nation. And, and Trump ran on draining the swamp. And this makes him look so weak that while it's nobody's top priority, in the same way that nobody went to the polls in 2022 or 2024 and said, I want to vote against the party that botched the Afghanistan withdrawal, almost nobody did that. I don't think people are going to be going to the polls for the most part in the midterms saying, I'm going to vote against the party that seems to be hiding something on Jeffrey Epstein. But what it does do is, is make Trump look weak. It makes him politically damaged. Yeah, he's on defense. Yeah, absolutely. And all of that, by the way, total unforced error because Bondi handled it. And maybe she was handling it this way because of Trump, but the way that it was handled put them on defense because they said case closed, which was never, ever, ever going to suffice or to be satisfactory, period. And just lastly, to Sagar, those of those people out there who may be right of center, like we are, just imagine in all honesty, if Joe Biden had a pattern like this, how it would imagine that this was a letter from Bill Clinton. Imagine. Seriously?
- [52:00]
Host 1
Yeah. Just be real, be honest. All right, and, and just listen to it. Listen. The case that I think I presented is one that it's about, the denial is I've never doodled. It's like, okay, well, here's all these doodles It's. I've never said the word enigma. It's like, well, here's the word. Well, he.
- [52:15]
Emily Jashinsky
I don't. Did he say that? He said it wasn't his language. And then Mag.
- [52:18]
Host 1
Yeah. He's like, it's not my language, but other people.
- [52:21]
Emily Jashinsky
Yeah. And it's a dude.
- [52:23]
Host 1
Yeah, he said. He said. He said it. All right? And then you have to also. I mean, I know everybody. You know, listen, nobody hates the media and all those people more than me, okay? But I. You know, because we're in this business, you don't just publish it. Like, especially when you're the Wall Street Journal or others. You know, I would. You have to have them dead and stone cold on something like this before you go to print. I've been involved with my much more minor stuff where. Oh, my God, the level of review and. I mean, Griffin, you were here for Signal Gate, Remember? You remember how much sweat we had to put into that?
- [52:58]
Sponsor 2
Yeah. It was so much homework. It wasn't fun at all.
- [53:01]
Host 1
Yeah, it's not. It's honestly not fun. Avoid this, because you have to sit there and be like, okay, is it responsible, you know, see comment from the Justice Department or from the Pentagon, you know, in response to this stuff? And that's just, you know, little breaking points. Okay, this is the. This is one of the premier world newspapers. So it's. You know, they knew lawyers.
- [53:21]
Emily Jashinsky
They have a team of the best lawyers in the world.
- [53:23]
Host 1
Oh, my God. Like, lawyers upon lawyers upon lawyers. Like, at the end of the day, when you hit publish on something like this, there's an entire apparatus that is going to back you up. It's like, okay, you want to sue them? Like, fine. And don't forget, this is probably a good segue to the Colbert thing. It's not like Trump had CBS dead to rights on 60 Minutes.
- [53:45]
Emily Jashinsky
Absolutely.
- [53:45]
Host 1
If. If 60 Minutes had fought this in court, Trump was the one who was going to lose. They ended up caving because they want their merger with Skydance to be approved. Let's be very clear. Same with ABC News and Disney. ABC settled with Trump. Basically, just be like, let's make this go away. There is no scenario zero where any of these people do not prevail in court. Their own lawyers would tell you that they're gonna win 100% and Trump would have to pay their legal fees.
- [54:16]
Emily Jashinsky
I think the ABC one would have been that. That one actually would have been more of a fight. But CBS was a joke. I don't know.
- [54:22]
Host 1
I mean, it. Come on, Emily. I mean the, the bar for defamation.
- [54:27]
Emily Jashinsky
Yeah, yeah, it's true. Although Stephanopoulos wasn't.
- [54:31]
Host 1
Yeah, looks he got over that. Yeah, look the guy got over his skis. Fine. That's not defamation. Like you have to be able to prove that he knew what he was saying was false. Same with proved damages. Like you can't do that.
- [54:46]
Sponsor 2
Right. Right.
- [54:47]
Emily Jashinsky
There's a but there's a magnitude difference between the CBS 1 and 100.
- [54:51]
Host 1
I agree with that. But what I'm more saying is like in every single one of these cases, in every single one, in my opinion, there's no way that they don't win.
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Host 1
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Soccer, you mentioned Monica Lewinsky earlier, which kind of leads me to, like, my final question on the subject, which is sort of like, like the culture and sort of how different parts of Trump's cultural coalition are reacting to this. I've got a clip here from Shane Gillis recently where he.
- [57:27]
Host 1
From the spot.
- [57:28]
Sponsor 2
The ESPYs. Yeah.
- [57:30]
Emily Jashinsky
So good.
- [57:31]
Sponsor 2
Donald Trump wants to stage a UFC fight on the White House lawn. The last time he staged a fight in DC, Mike Pence almost died. All right, I could do that. It was fine. I didn't write. It was supposed to be an Epstein joke here, but as it got deleted, must have probably deleted itself, Right? Probably never existed, actually. Let's move on as a country and ignore that. Let's move on as a country. So, yeah, I mean, I guess my question for both of my MAGA hosts here is, you know, I do see a big difference.
- [58:17]
Host 1
Yeah. I was like, don't put that label on me. But go ahead.
- [58:20]
Sponsor 2
Sorry.
- [58:20]
Emily Jashinsky
You can. Cause fascists. Just don't.
- [58:23]
Sponsor 2
Okay. Yeah, yeah. To my two groiper hosts here.
- [58:27]
Host 1
So I would rather be a groper.
- [58:30]
Sponsor 2
With, you know, there. I do see sort of like a delineation or a schism between the sort of MAGA influencers, like your Charlie Kirks versus the Bro sphere, the Rogan sphere, podcasters that have been a lot more confrontational about this subject. I see. You know, Shane Gill's a joke. I've seen Rogan talk about it. I've seen Theo Vaughn kind of demand for there to be more. So, like, what does that mean in terms of Trump's, like, cultural coalition? In terms of what do you guys think?
- [59:02]
Host 1
Yeah, that's kind of what I was talking about with the vibe. And that's also why that poll was really dumb, because it said it was about Republicans. It's like, who cares about Republicans? There's not that many Republicans that you think everybody who voted Republican is a Republican. No. You think everybody who voted Democrat is a Democrat? No. And it's very rare. There's a huge independent swing to Donald Trump in the 2024 election. And to the extent that culture is being driven here and to affect Donald Trump, those podcast reactions, in my opinion, are way more impactful than the Charlie Kirk. I mean, actually, I'll give Kirk credit. He has young MAGA people who listen to him. He's probably the only one of that who actually has, like, a real young audience.
- [59:42]
Sponsor 2
But the rest, when he goes to colleges, it's insane. Like every college event he does is packed out.
- [59:47]
Host 1
But the rest of me are just preaching to a bunch of boomers who love Trump anyway. I don't those people are never going to stop voting for Trump. They're never going to stop, stop voting for Republicans. So that's why it's important to distinguish exactly like who all these subgroups are.
- [59:59]
Sponsor 2
Yeah.
- [60:00]
Emily Jashinsky
The last thing that I just want to say is I don't think it's implausible. Sagar mentioned the Megyn Kelly reporting this week suggesting that people, her sources inside the administration said that the files had been left in such a way that points to Donald Trump. I, I don't want to discredit the possibility that there was some funny business going on. What that doesn't do is negate the veracity of the potential file itself. So two things can be true at once, right? That the holdovers at the Justice Department and at the Biden era Justice Department, which, you know, it did have Maureen Comey as part of it and there are all kinds of people who, who have despised Trump that were in career positions at justice and FBI. We all know that it is not impossible that there was actually some maneuvering behind the scenes to make it more difficult for the Trump administration to release files and to do their transparency without implicating Donald Trump. That's possible. I have no idea what that would look like. Maybe it looks like, you know, leaving the Trump page in that book right at the top and moving the other pages somewhere else. I genuinely don't know. But I just want to say again to people who are listening to that and are deeply suspicious of the intelligence community, two things can be true. That the intelligence community was engaging in significant funny business. And that the Trump letter is real and massively suspicious. And that there are potentially other pieces of information that the administration is sitting on that do implicate Donald Trump.
- [61:40]
Host 1
And lastly, the easiest way to get around that is just release it all and then nobody cares what's on top or whatever. You know, you can reorder it however you want to.
- [61:49]
Emily Jashinsky
And lastly, I know this is a probably a decent teaser for the second half of the show, which is premium, but the reason that we are talking about all of this and on this show we try to cover topics that are not the sort of mainstream media outrage bait. The reason that this is important is because there's substantive justice questions. And also it could be affecting our foreign policy.
- [62:11]
Host 1
Yes.
- [62:11]
Emily Jashinsky
Literally right now, every single day.
- [62:13]
Sponsor 2
Totally. Yeah. Well, may every new piece of information be a new Wonderful secret. You know, we were talking a lot about all these lawsuits against news media organizations. And, you know, that kind of leads us, I think, naturally, to this Stephen Colbert thing, which just announced last night that the Late show with Stephen Colbert has been canceled. Why don't we take a listen to what he has to say right here?
- [62:41]
H
Oh, hey, everybody. We got a great show for you tonight. Senator Adam Schiff was my guest. Road. What a voice. I cried. But before we start the show, I want to let you know something that I found out just last night. Next year will be our last season. The network will be ending the Late show in May. And yeah, I share your feelings. It's not just the end of our show, but it's the end of the Late show on cbs. I'm not being replaced. This is all just going away. And I do want to say, I do want to say that the folks at CBS have been great partners. I'm so grateful to the Tiffany network for giving me this chair and this beautiful theater to call home. And of course, I'm grateful to you, the audience who have joined us.
- [63:41]
Sponsor 2
And that audience has been growing smaller and smaller by the day. You know, a lot of people, I mean, I saw Elizabeth Warren, I saw Adam Schiff after his interview, say or question if there was political pressure from the Trump administration behind this cancellation. What do you folks make of this?
- [64:02]
Host 1
I really don't know because apparently the justification from CBS is that it's no longer financially sustainable. So I'll read here. The genre has experienced a sharp decline in advertising revenue in recent years. In 2018, network late night shows took in $439 million in ad revenue. By last year, the figure had dropped to 220 million, a 50% drop in just seven years. The cancellation of the Late show raised immediate questions about the ties to the government's review of Paramount's merger with Skydance or the recent settlement with Mr. Trump. So I think both things could be true. It's convenient to get rid of him. But also, I mean, what was Stephen Colbert's salary at the Late Show? Probably 30 million. That's my guess. It's got to be something like that. Let's see. I. I can't find. Yeah, his annual salary is about $15 million. So if we submit that the total amount of Advertising revenue is 220 million, how many late night shows are there? There's the Late Night, there's the Late Show. There is Kimmel.
- [65:13]
Emily Jashinsky
Kimmel and Fallon.
- [65:14]
Host 1
Basically Kale Mill Fallon. So that's three shows, but there's also Daily Show. All those people are all lumped in. So 220 million divided by all those shows. Obviously it's not equal, but it's like somewhat dispersed. 15 million just for Colbert. Anybody even know what the operating cost for a studio and a staff size of 25 people pulling full corporate bennies. I can kind of see it, right? Like, I could see a case where the show doesn't pencil and where at the end of the day, like, kind is just not really worth it financially anymore. I also could see, you know, this whole thing. A lot of people are saying that it is about Donald Trump, but. But, you know, shout out to like Klippenstein and others who are like, guys, I'm sorry. Like, he's not funny. Like, it's just a bad show. And I, I think it's just bad.
- [66:04]
Emily Jashinsky
He is funny, but he's not funny anymore.
- [66:06]
Host 1
He was.
- [66:07]
Emily Jashinsky
No.
- [66:07]
Sponsor 2
It's heartbreaking, you know, I mean, like the Colbert Report was, you know, cutting edge at the time. And I. Even before that. Thank you, Emily. Stranger, the candy.
- [66:18]
Emily Jashinsky
That was cutting edge.
- [66:20]
Host 1
I went to the rally to restore sanity in 2000.
- [66:23]
Sponsor 2
Oh my God.
- [66:25]
Host 1
Front row seat. Yeah, I think I'm in a package from Craig Ferguson.
- [66:29]
Sponsor 2
That's awesome.
- [66:29]
Host 1
Because he was going around with. If anybody wants to pull that clip, I was there.
- [66:33]
Emily Jashinsky
So what I said. I don't know when I started doing this, but whatever it is, my student stump speech. What I'm trying to explain what happened to the media is literally juxtaposing the Colbert Report with Johnny Carson. Because I think it's the story of media really neatly. It's like your perfect arc when Johnny Carson was the king of late night. You're pulling in north of 10 million people every night. And in order to do that, you're competing with two.
- [66:58]
Host 1
Yeah, yeah.
- [66:59]
Emily Jashinsky
Well, it's. It depends. I mean, his, his tenure was very long and the genre went through a lot. And so you're competing with basically two other networks. And the way to maximize your ad revenue is to appeal to as many Americans as you possibly can. So Carson was not at all apolitical. He talked about politics all the time. But what he was was not partisan. So that's because you, you know, Republicans buy sneakers too, as the saying goes for Michael Jordan. And so that's the way to beat your comp, your competitors is to just get the biggest slice of the pie. Colbert was the number one host in late night during the Trump era. Trump 1.0. And actually right now, if you compare him, this is Very interesting. Gutfeld is beating him on cable, which would have been unthinkable in the latter Carson era because first of all, that was a new thing relatively. And secondly, not everybody had cable. So Gutfeld is actually pretty handily destroying everyone else on a cable network. Colbert was number one in Trump 1.0 despite being the least funny and the most political host. You heard him in that monologue about the show being canceled, that Adam Schiff was his guest. A comedy show with Adam Schiff as the guest. Does that sound appealing to you? No. But the way to win the competition now is the niche. So if you can get resistance wine moms coming back night after night, you have the best shot at selling really specific ads that are easy for the business people to understand and maximizes the audience loyalty, all of that. So what's getting buried in all of this is Colbert said that they're actually retiring or CBS said they're actually retiring the late night brand. They're retiring the show after he leaves. So that can only mean one thing. Deborah Vance is coming in. No, I'm kidding. But that's what it's like. That's actually, I think even more significant than Colbert being pushed out is that they're retiring the franchise of the show. And that show is a staple of Hollywood culture. Griffin's literally in Hollywood so he can speak more to this. But I think it's possible that Colbert was overpaid and was needling the network over the settlement and that's the straw that broke the camel's back. But this is not about politics. This is nothing to do.
- [69:20]
Host 1
I totally agree. It's like, guys, it's an insane system. It airs at 11:35pm p.m. eastern to watch interviews live and Colbert's monologue and various sketches. Who the is watching that in 2025? I'm being serious. Like anybody who is remotely interested in comedy or to the extent that it has any cultural cachet left at all, people are watching it on YouTube or on Twitter the day after. They don't. No one is watching this live. Like they're just not. Maybe some people in California at 8:30 whenever it also happens to air live. Like I. And there's a great book, I think it's called the Late Shift. I read it a few years ago. It's the history of late night television and specifically the war between Jay Leno and David Letterman. And people need to understand that it was a very specific moment in time pre Internet in which was the only way to get access to comedy as a genre. That everybody could experience. It was the platform through which Leno and Letterman could have all of these, like, guys on and to debut. It goes back to the history of the Tonight show in the 1970s as, like, the convening ground. It also was a really good way to get publicity out about a movie. But effectively, like, basically the moment YouTube and the Internet and all that stuff starts to come around, these shows just become obsolete overnight. I mean, in my opinion, the greatest to ever do it, Conan. He couldn't even make it work. What is Conan doing now? He's a podcast host and a very.
- [70:55]
Emily Jashinsky
Successful podcast host, and it's very successful.
- [70:58]
Host 1
I love. I love Team Coco. It's a good show. He has great interviews and he gets good guests. But my point is just like that genre of like 25, 30 people on your staff staying up every night to do jokes. Yeah. I mean, even Jon Stewart, he's only on the air, guys, once a week. Week. Right. Once a week like this. That it was just, it was such a specific moment in time that even I don't understand it. I can only read about it for what it was, like, cultural. Yeah, that post 1999, that, like 1990s mass media culture, right before the Internet and YouTube and all that came out, and the only reason it even stayed around was because of all this legacy advertising. But, but look, the world has moved on. So, yeah, if you ask me, that's the main reason is you have to just keep signing these mega deals. You have this massive burn rate, you know, on the show. But I mean, I'm not going to be stupid and deny that it's an easy thing to hand to the Trump administration to also get the Skydance to. Or to also get the Paramount Skydance merger.
- [72:01]
Sponsor 2
So I think it's both 100.
- [72:03]
Host 1
But I think that a lot of liberals are really ignoring, like, but guys, the show was bad. Like, it was a bad show.
- [72:08]
Sponsor 2
The ratings were bad. And like, I was thinking a lot, you know, you know, Emily mentioned that he was a star in Trump 1.0. And like, we already knew, like, before Trump won 2024, that the talk show format was dying culturally. But even I thought that Colbert would get like a shot in the arm from Trump being back, that it would like gin the resistance people back up. But, you know, really, in my view, like, the age range now for the Colbert audience is like 60s and 70s.
- [72:37]
Host 1
Yes.
- [72:37]
Sponsor 2
And like, exactly. And, and, but. And you'd think that those people, well, would still just be watching, like, cable and the old things. They're used to. But like, you know, I, I see like my dad who's in his 60s, I mean he's, he's looking at TikToks, he's looking at Instagram reels. When I go over to my dad's house, we're not watching cable. He's playing me a YouTube video now. And I really think that like even that age range of like 60s and 70s just have so many more entertaining distractions. And watching a five minute interview, like these really short bite interviews with really boring people or like some, you know, modern family actor is just not really hitting anymore. And it really goes to show that these, the. But the talk show format, I do believe people still like if you may, if you revolutionize it, if you make Kelly Clarkson again, like, oh, I'm looking at shows online, like Kill Tony is essentially a talk show that gets like hundreds of thousands of live concurrents on YouTube. It's massive. I'm looking at people like the Adam Friedland show, which is much styled in like a 70s talk show. I do think people still like something about the format, but you have to keep it modern, you have to update it. And you know, I look at an organization Sagreb mentioned the 25 employees probably on the writing staff, the massive crew, and they saw the ratings go down for years and they refused to innovate. I mean I've worked at a lot of media companies where the writing's on the wall. It's the downward trajectory is obvious. And they just don't, they don't update, they don't modernize with the times. There was a way for them to save this show. They could have brought in new writers, they could have cleared house, they could have made it interesting and change things. But when you're in that level of Hollywood, like cemented tradition, it's almost impossible unless someone gives you the mandate to go in and kind of fire everyone, hire new staff and like challenge the format. I think it was savable, but I just think people got. They're in their own ways.
- [74:39]
Host 1
Yeah, right. I mean this is the problem. They don't know how to streamline, they don't know how to, you know, innovate or any of that for the future. And by the way, this is coming.
- [74:47]
Emily Jashinsky
They haven't, I mean franchise that. They are coming to it lately.
- [74:52]
Host 1
I think it's too baked in. The burn rate's too high. For example, my prediction, Saturday Night Live, it'll be dead in 10 years. That's my.
- [74:58]
Emily Jashinsky
No, I don't disagree with that.
- [74:59]
Host 1
Yeah, I don't just.
- [75:00]
Emily Jashinsky
I just mean, maybe if Lauren dies.
- [75:02]
Host 1
Like, that's when it'll die. I just think at this point, NBC is just keeping it around for whatever say, I don't know, they're 10 years emeritus, you know, like some sort of emeritus thing. And then when Lauren is gone, they're like, look, let's just end the show. I mean, there's no. Or like, it's not good anymore.
- [75:17]
Emily Jashinsky
It becomes a clip show. I mean, it already become a clip show. Yeah, yeah, basically. But, yeah, no, I think they're realizing this a decade too late. And that's why I think one of like my hottest takes ever is that CNN plus was actually a good idea. I mean, they executed it.
- [75:31]
Sponsor 2
That's very hot.
- [75:33]
Emily Jashinsky
It's a hot take. It's a system.
- [75:34]
Host 1
I understand what you're trying to say.
- [75:35]
Emily Jashinsky
The concept.
- [75:37]
Host 1
Concept, yeah.
- [75:38]
Emily Jashinsky
Shouldn't have been abandoned because Fox News invested early in Fox Nation. Whatever you think about it, it's now a huge part of the Fox News business. And that's because they were able to bring people in with these documentaries and subscriptions and blah, blah, blah. That makes up for the fact that even, you know, okay, so Gutfeld's trouncing Colbert. Okay, but that's 3 million people on average watching Gutfeld tonight. It doesn't compare to the 10 million or the 5 million that you would have had on a late night show a long time ago. So anyway, all that is just to say that a lot of these networks are 10 years too late and, and are trying to adapt. They're just doing it in a, a very, you know, poor way. And they're doing it plate.
- [76:21]
Sponsor 2
And to the SNL point, just because SNL was mentioned and I am a sicko and I still watch every episode of snl. I watch every single sketch. There's at least one good sketch an episode, but you got to suffer through a lot. I, I say get rid of Lauren, bring in Tina Fey and, and let.
- [76:36]
Host 1
Yeah, I agree with that take, great take.
- [76:39]
Sponsor 2
Yeah, let Tina Fey revolutionize the show. Let her update it for the next era. And I do think there's a ton of life there. Anyway, anyways, if you're listening, NBC, 30 Rock.
- [76:48]
Host 1
Yeah. Tina, if you're listening, we love you. Tina is on the record as having burner accounts. So in my fantasy, she does listen.
- [76:57]
Sponsor 2
Incredible.
- [76:58]
Host 1
I love Tina Fade. Perhaps the most lib thing about me.
- [77:00]
Emily Jashinsky
Nothing, nothing better than 30 Rock.
- [77:03]
Sponsor 2
Absolutely.
- [77:04]
Host 1
To this day, greatest network show of all time.
- [77:07]
Sponsor 2
And ball. Just incredible the entire time on that. But yeah, let's why don't we kick it over to the second half now? Let's do it for premiums, folks. We're going to be talking, we're going to be answering AMA questions, we're going to be talking about a little bit of the Vatican and Israel. And we're also going to be releasing exclusively a first for premium subscribers, a one on one interview between Sagar and Schultz that was recorded outside of the Schultz episode where Sagar asks does he regret voting for Trump? The vibe check on JD Vance and more. You can check all that out by signing up at Breaking Point today and you'll get it in your email inbox. We'll see you on the other side.
- [77:48]
Sponsor 1
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Sagar Enjeti
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Ryan Seacrest
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Sponsor 2
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- [79:18]
Emily Jashinsky
This is an I Heart Podcast.