Loading summary
Transcript21 lines
- [00:00]
Ben Parker
Hi, everybody. Ben Parker from the Bulwark here with my friends and colleagues, Andrew Egger, author of our Morning Shots newsletter, and Will Sommer, author of our False Flag newsletter. And guys, how do we describe what happened this morning when Donald Trump was taking questions as he was about to board Marine One outside the White House about whether or not he might pardoned, he might pardon, rather convicted. Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell. Let's just look and see what he said.
- [00:32]
Donald Trump
Would you consider a pardon or a commutation for Elaine Maxwell? It's something I haven't thought about it, really. It's something I'm allowed to do it, but it's something I have not thought about. You wouldn't rule it out, Sir Gordon, or clemency for the attorney? Well, I don't want to talk about that. What I do want to say is that Todd is a great attorney, but you want to be speaking about Larry Summers, you ought to be speaking about some of his friends that are hedge fund guys. They're all over the. To be speaking about Bill Clinton who went to the island 28 times. I never went to the island.
- [01:06]
Ben Parker
Okay, so Todd, in that sentence, for those who aren't keeping track at home, is Todd Blanche, who is the Deputy Attorney General of the United States and also Trump's former personal lawyer. And he just this week went and met with Ghislaine Maxwell in prison in a private meeting to discuss who knows. Will, you wrote your latest newsletter about this and about how MAGA world is maybe changing their mind about this conv. Convicted criminal. So what the hell?
- [01:37]
Will Sommer
You know what this is? Subscribe to False Flags, subscribe to the Bulwark. You get this stuff before it happens. Yes. So I was detecting these tremors for a few days, that basically the groundwork is being laid to rehabilitate Ghislaine in maga's eyes. I mean, look, this is someone who, and I was thinking about this earlier, obviously as a reporter who tried to be objective, but this is, this is a pretty universally agreed upon, reprehensible person. I mean, you look at the transcripts from, from her trial. I mean, she was basically being used to get these underage girls comfortable with these weird sexual situations because they say, well, here's this grown woman who seems to think this is all normal. I mean, so this is, and I also say someone who's very untrustworthy, who has a history of lying. And so someone who, I think if you said a month ago that Donald Trump would be making an alliance with Ghislaine or considering a pardon, you would say that's crazy. And yet here we are. So I think we're starting to see, you know, Newsmax in particular, where Alex Acosta, who was involved with the Epstein plea deal, is on the board. They're saying, well, you know, maybe Ghislaine was a victim here, or maybe these were overzealous prosecutions and could you really get an honest defense in the height of MeToo? And so they're really, they have to prime the pump here. I think if Trump came out with a pardon today, the audience would be. His base would be really upset. But I think they have to, you know, give it a month or two. And I think this might be a possibility.
- [02:56]
Ben Parker
Yeah, I'm old enough to remember when groomer was an epithet that the MAGA types used against anyone who they didn't like. Now you have an actual real life groomer, someone who did groom minors to be sexually abused, and that's apparently maga's new best friend. Andrew, you've been writing about this day after day in the Morning Shots newsletter and the way it's slowly eroding the Trump administration, it looks like. What do you make of it?
- [03:20]
Andrew Egger
Yeah, it's so strange. And I go back and forth, because one thing that the Trump administration has been doing a lot of right now is trying to get people to pay attention to anything else, specifically with this story they're trying to trot out about Barack Obama in 2016 and how supposedly he, in an act of great malfeasance, caused the Russia investigation to be launched into Trump. That's had me thinking about the Russia investigation a lot. And I think one of the lessons that we all learned or should have learned from the Russia investigation back in Trump's first term is that just because Trump is acting guilty as sin does not necessarily mean Trump is guilty of, like, all of the worst things that he's been accused of. Right. I mean, like, that was kind of the. That was kind of the takeaway from the Mueller investigation is like, no, he wasn't, like, really aggressively actively colluding with Russia in the way that a lot of people suspected, but he was taking all kinds of, like, insane justice, obstructing acts during that investigation and things like that. And I think, and so that's. That's what I've been trying to wrap my brain around here is like, there is so much smoke about this story all of a sudden. And Trump himself keeps creating more and more and more with all these bizarre, totally psycho moves because he just he's just an appetitive guy, right? He just, he, he doesn't want to talk about this story. He doesn't want to be associated with this story. He's mad that his name keeps coming up. You got that in the clip there. He's like, why aren't you guys talking about all the other, you know, Epstein associates? Why only me, the current President of the United States? Why is the newsy one? But, and look, there's like a ton of circumstantial evidence. We've been talking about this all over the place. He was really close to Jeffrey Epstein for a long time and he is now actively trying to spike this story to cover it up, sweep it under the rug, get people to talk about anything else. So, yeah, there could be like totally insane stuff in the files. There could be a truly insane cover up that's going on up to the point where, you know, maybe Ghislaine Maxwell gets pardoned to keep her from spilling more of the beans. I've seen some speculation that maybe that's where the Wall Street Journal got the letter to Epstein a little while ago, stuff like that. Or it could very well just come out that there isn't that much more in the Epstein files than we have already known about Trump for a long time, which is that he's kind of gross, man. Who's gross around women and palled around with other people who are gross around women, including Jeffrey Epstein, who was not just gross around women, but gross around girls. And because of Trump's sort of insane way of going about things, it's not necessarily clear that he acts differently at this moment, regardless of which of those two stories it is. So it's a little, little hard to say.
- [05:59]
Ben Parker
Yeah, I think that's right. I do think it's a great point that he keeps on saying his own strategy out loud, which is, I want you to pay attention to something else. He said it in that clip we watched. Why aren't you talking about this other thing? He also said it the other day. He wrote about this in the morning newsletter in the Oval Office where he said, like, here's this other thing you should be paying attention to, to the media. And you know, Will, it sounds like at least certain parts of the right wing media are following his orders and saying, okay, we're going to focus on something else now. Is there a divide happening? Do you think this is going to coalesce on one side or the other? What's going on there?
- [06:34]
Will Sommer
Yeah, I mean, I think some people are following this Obviously, the biggest distraction being offered here is the idea that Obama committed treason and we're going to kind of reheat our Russia G nachos or what have you. And I think some people are getting into that, but it is, you know, I mean, as someone who kind of consumes this stuff both professionally and for fun, I just have to say it's like, kind of like there's so many twists and turns, and it's really boring. I just don't think that the average consumer of news politics is like, wow, I really want to hear about this, like, 2016 intelligence assessment. Maybe it wasn't totally fairly assembled, whatever. But, you know, I think the Epstein stuff is still very hot. I mean, we're still seeing people like Megyn Kelly, they're still talking about Epstein. I think they've toned down the criticism of Trump for trying to close the case. And so I think, you know, this is clearly headed towards the administration doing some kind of limited hangout where they can say, well, we tried to get the grand jury files, they wouldn't release them. And then what does Ghislaine have to say? And, you know, if I can just lay out, I mean, we all kind of think this is headed towards, you know, we'll. We'll see what happens. But, I mean, it looks like Todd Blanche, who was also Trump's defense attorney, is going to meet with Ghislaine, or has met. She's going to maybe accuse some people not named Donald Trump. And then they say, wow, Ghislaine, thank you so much for cooperating, or she'll clear Trump's name, and then they'll give her some kind of cooperation deal that reduces her sentence or a pardon or something like that. And at the point where you have Trump saying, well, I don't know, I can do it. I mean, that's sort of what he says right up until he does something.
- [08:04]
Ben Parker
Yeah, he says, I haven't made a decision, but I have the power to do it, and if I did it, it would be great, which is certainly what he's saying now. I do wonder we should get one of our legal experts to talk about this, but if Ghislaine Maxwell is pardoned, she would still be subject to state charges in any state in which she committed these crimes. Right. I don't know if there are statutes of limitations or whatever, but I'm not sure she exactly has the get out of jail free card that she thinks she does. Now. She's. She's currently in Florida. So, you know, that might make Some extradition issues, but that's a whole mess coming up. Andrew, anything more to add on the story?
- [08:43]
Andrew Egger
Yeah, I did a whole shaggy dog talking about way too many things a minute ago. So let me just be really simple and straightforward here and just circle back around to how truly insane this moment is that Donald Trump, who in the, in the opinion of his base, in the view of his base is like the chosen one, the savior who's going to sweep into office and pull back the curtain on this vast, you know, elite satanic pedophile conspiracy of which Jeffrey Epstein was sort of the tip of the spear. And, and he's going to reveal it all, he's going to give it to us, he's going to do the thing. We're like teetering on the brink of that, that now just a few months later, he is actively not ruling out, pardoning the one like the top living associate of Jeffrey Epstein. Like Epstein is dead. And the only, like his, his right hand person, Ghislaine Maxwell, now Trump appears to be at least, you know, playing footsie with the idea of, of letting her out of prison. And that's just shocking. That's remarkable. And, and it is hard to imagine how the base would, would swallow this thing that cuts so deeply into kind of like the, this one of these central foundation myths of Donald Trump. And yet I have every confidence they'll, they'll figure it out. We will see, we will see how, how, how, how it all goes. But, but you know, they've, they've swallowed some tall ones before, so we'll see.
- [10:15]
Ben Parker
Yeah, the deep irony is that for people who have spent years really investing their time and energy in these conspiracy theories, Will, it almost seems like, and I'm including here, people like Cash Patel and Dan Bongino, they are now apparently in on the conspiracy. Like they are the conspirators now. And the theory is that like we are now the conspiracy theorists in a weird sort of way because they are like, they are obviously having these back room, closed door conversations about what information to put out because it's reported in the newspaper. So like the world is upside down completely.
- [10:48]
Will Sommer
I mean, the idea that there are these, there's this, you know, establishment network that protects high powerful pedophiles. I mean, that sort of seems to be what's happening here. Like they're trying to potentially spring Elaine from prison. You know, the thing I would note here too is that the Ghislaine Maxwell, the Free Ghislaine campaign is almost going to look poised to succeed in Spite of itself. I watched Ghislaine's brother on Piers Morgan's kind of like, Thunderdome show, and it was a Republican audience. They had Lauren Boebert, Benny Johnson, Mick Mulvaney, and one of these kind of Patrick bet David minions. And these guys were, like, shocked at how badly Ghislaine's brother did. He looks like this kind of, you know, like an old British drawing room character. And Piers kept saying, like, but your sister's innocent, right? And he said, well, I think my argument is that Epstein's sweetheart deal to not be prosecuted should have applied to her, too. It's like, well, wait a minute. So I don't know, potentially that the Ghislaine side is not holding it up its end of the bargain in terms of the PR campaign thus far.
- [11:51]
Ben Parker
All right, so before we head out, there is one more clip. And this is. This is not as important, but it is really stupid. So I just wanted us to chat about it for half a second. Do we have that one more clip?
- [11:59]
Donald Trump
Jared, maintain you did not write a letter for Jeffrey Epstein's birthday. I don't even know what they're talking about now. Somebody could have written a letter and used my name, but that's happened a lot. All you have to do is take a look at the dossier, the fake dossier. Everything's fake with that administration. Everything's fake with the Democrats. Take a look at what they just found about the dossier. Everything is fake. They're a bunch of sick people.
- [12:25]
Ben Parker
Okay, so of course we've got the distraction. The DOSSIER from, like, 10 years ago, whatever the part that stood out to me was, it's possible. Okay, so the Wall Street Journal story was Ghislaine Maxwell invited a bunch of Jeffrey Epstein's friends to write him letters that would be combined into this book for Epstein's 50th birthday party. And Trump's story is, it's possible someone else wrote a letter pretending to be Trump, forged Trump's famous signature. How did this person get the invitation from Ghislaine Maxwell? Who knows? That's unexplained. Apparently, this has happened all the time. People are constantly writing letters to other people as if they were Donald Trump, just, you know, randomly.
- [13:09]
Will Sommer
You know, it's funny because I was thinking, I was like, I don't remember the forged letter in the Steele dossier.
- [13:15]
Ben Parker
No, I don't remember that. It does make me, you know, it makes me think, like, you know, if I was unsure if the letter the Journal reported on actually existed at all before. I am less unsure now. The fact that Trump is like, oh, well, maybe someone forged it. Why would he.
- [13:30]
Andrew Egger
You guys are overthinking it. When Trump talks about this stuff, when he says, you know, they faked it, when he says witch hunt, when he says, you know, Steele dossier. He is not, he's not stringing thoughts together. I mean, this is like aromatherapy. Right. It's like these, these terms are supposed to just like put you in a certain mind as the audience to just disbelieve whatever's been put in front of you. Like, oh, Steele dossier. That's right. Yeah. They lie about Trump. Oh my gosh. Witch hunts. Yeah, that's, that is what they do to Trump all the time. And it doesn't go a whole lot deeper than that. But yes, it is very funny that Donald Trump, who famously was doing all these little doodles at the time as, as has been reported, who famously is like a, a huge, a huge, you know, fanatic for sending people mail and just like little, like little, little clip outs of news clippings and stuff that he signs and he's like, he's done this his entire care. Also himself. He, he's the one who, who more often than not would be the one who is pretending to be other people. Right. Remember the, the whole John Baron side of things? Yeah. And, and, and now, now it's the other way around. Now it's, you know, I don't know who. Anybody could have signed that thing. Which is, which is so funny because it, it, it totally. I mean, they, they know it's out there.
- [14:38]
Will Sommer
Right?
- [14:38]
Andrew Egger
They know it's going to come out. They, they seem to think it's going to come out at some point in time. So like, it's, it's not, it's not enough to basically just be like. Or it's, it's, it would be unwise to say this letter never existed. They're totally inventing it out of whole cloth. People are just lying about me. They have to do these other conspiracies to kind of like.
- [14:54]
Ben Parker
But that is that, that was his initial defense and now it's, now it's that it's a forgery. Okay, guys, I'd love to talk about this with you more, but I have to go grab my Sharpie and start forging some letters to some people. Will Summer, will Sommer guys, go and subscribe to False Flag. Subscribe to this channel like the video. Become a Bullwork plus member. You get so much great stuff and you get to support our work and you get to join our community, which is so great. Andrew Egger, read the Morning Shots newsletter. That one is free every day and it's fantastic. It's a great way to start your day or end your day if you want to save it for later. Guys, thank you so much for joining me. See you next time.