Examining Epstein, Inc

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Examining Epstein, Inc"

Everybody's Business
Host: Max Chafkin & Stacey Vanek Smith
Date: November 21, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into two major business storylines through the lens of Bloomberg’s top reporters:

• The confusing reality of Thanksgiving food prices in the face of inflation (with guest Dina Shanker)
• An in-depth look at the newly emerged Jeffrey Epstein documents and what they reveal about the intersection of money, power, and elite networks in business (with guest Max Abelson)

The episode’s tone balances wit and seriousness—typical of "Everybody's Business"—with moments of skepticism, humor, and frank reflection.

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Main Discussion Segments & Timestamps

1. Thanksgiving Food Prices and Inflation

[03:38–21:11]

Key Points

• Holiday grocery prices are a hot topic amid ongoing inflation.
• The hosts debate conflicting reports about whether Thanksgiving dinner ingredients are actually more affordable in 2025.
• Guest: Dina Shanker, Businessweek food reporter, provides data context and skepticism about industry-driven statistics.

Insights & Quotes

• Inflation is top of mind for listeners and consumers:

  “This is a hard time where the food stamps are cut, but there’s always food.” — Listener in man-on-the-street, [06:53]

• Farm Bureau’s “Thanksgiving dinner index” claims dinner for 10 people costs $55 this year, down from previous years. But there’s debate:

  “Can I just say, I don’t trust any of these numbers. The Farm Bureau, it sounds like a very official, like group, but it’s. It’s a lobbying group.” — Max Chafkin, [13:01]

• Methodological differences and supermarket loss-leaders make it hard to tell if prices are actually lower for everyone:

  “Thanksgiving is a terrible gauge for the food prices because they’re all over the place.” — Dina Shanker, [15:56]

• Despite numerical data, people’s perceptions of high prices persist:

  “The truth is, is that prices have gone up so much since pre pandemic. That’s what people remember. People remember prices that are never coming back.” — Dina Shanker, [18:51]

Notable Moments

• The hosts poke fun about veggie trays being the most inflated item:

  “Who buys a veggie tray?” — Max Chafkin, [17:11] “Please don’t invite me to that meal.” — Dina Shanker, [17:13]

• Data cited includes CPI readings, Farm Bureau’s report, Deloitte’s analysis, and Bloomberg’s own Thanksgiving Index.
• Dina Shanker explains retailers use turkey as a "loss leader" to attract grocery shoppers.

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2. The Epstein Files: Unraveling the Business of Power

[23:53–39:58]

Key Points

• Recent congressional action and investigative reporting have unleashed a trove of Jeffrey Epstein’s emails and documents, exposing connections to powerful figures.
• Max Abelson, Bloomberg reporter, breaks down the "Epstein Files", their provenance, and what they mean for business and elite networks.

Insights & Quotes

What Are the “Epstein Files”?

• The files consist of batches spanning years, including exclusive content obtained by Bloomberg and recent Congressional releases:

  “Bloomberg News obtained more than 18,000 emails sent to and from Epstein... to basically like a private Yahoo email address.” — Max Abelson, [25:24] “Congressional committees... released, I think basically last week, thousands more.” — Max Abelson, [27:22]

What Was "Epstein, Inc."?

• Abelson emphasizes the mystery deepens as more is learned:

  “The more we find out about Epstein, the more enigmatic he becomes...” — Max Abelson, [29:09] “He seems to have made career out of connections with the most important people in the world.” — Max Abelson, [29:22]

• Epstein's operations spanned:

  • Money management for ultra-wealthy (e.g., Wexner, Victoria’s Secret)
  • Cultivating “TED talk world” connections with elite academics and leaders (e.g., Larry Summers)
  • Large-scale criminal activity, including sex trafficking.

  “He was running money. He was managing the money of rich people... Then... his sort of, like, fancy globetrotter connections... And then, of course... [sex crimes].” — Max Abelson, [31:28]

The Power and Pitfalls of Elite Association

• The reputations of business and political titans are at stake:

  “I think we’re gonna see more names connected to business who are involved in this guy.” — Max Chafkin, [34:09]

• Reading candid emails between elites and Epstein is “grim”:

  “I have been surprised. I find it very grim and very depressing. And why that is is it has a level of meanness and even cruelty that I’m just not used to.” — Max Abelson, [39:04]

Notable Moments

• On Larry Summers:

  “To read the words of two men, you know, speaking about women in the way that characters in movies do. Yeah, it’s very. It’s very.” — Max Abelson, [35:35]
  “All the people we’ve mentioned as being associated with Jeffrey Epstein have in one way or another said they regret their associations... including Larry Summers.” — Max Chafkin, [37:09]

• On What’s Next:

  “I am looking forward to seeing who was doing business with Epstein that we don’t know about, the ways they were doing business that we don’t totally understand yet and what the ramifications will be.” — Max Abelson, [37:27]

---

3. Underrated Stories of the Week

[41:11–45:52]

Key Points

• K-shaped Economy: Discussion of growing economic inequality; Trump’s proposed stimulus checks and the reality behind “tariff” windfalls.

  “It’s, I think this is a way of, of handling and maybe acknowledging the K shaped economy.” — Stacey Vanek Smith, [43:24]

• Trump-Musk Alliance ("MAMUT" Trade):

  • The hosts introduce the idea that “Musk Always Makes Up with Trump”—a volatile, influential alliance that may shape the 2026 political and business landscape.

  “Musk always makes up with Trump. And I have to tell you, Stacey, it is happening... It looks like the relationship is back on.” — Max Chafkin, [45:03]

---

Additional Notable Quotes & Moments

• “Thanksgiving is a terrible gauge for the food prices because they’re all over the place.” — Dina Shanker, [15:55]
• “People remember prices that are never coming back.” — Dina Shanker, [18:51]
• “He seems to have made career out of connections with the most important people in the world.” — Max Abelson, [29:22]
• “Hearing you talk just puts me in mind of a kind of... bifurcation. There are people who were in Epstein’s orbit and have now gotten in trouble... but then there are the people who were Epstein’s clients...” — Max Abelson, [37:27]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment | Topic | Timestamps | |---------|------------------------------------------------|---------------| | 1 | Thanksgiving Food Prices & Inflation | 03:38–21:11 | | 2 | Epstein Files & The Business of Power | 23:53–39:58 | | 3 | K-shaped Economy & Trump/Musk Alliance | 41:11–45:52 |

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Summary Tone & Takeaway

The episode mixes sharp data analysis and skepticism with relatable humor (Thanksgiving as the "loss leader" holiday meal; veggie tray ridicule). The discussion of Epstein’s business legacy is treated thoughtfully yet directly, focusing on the shadowy mechanics of money, power, and reputation.

Listeners get a nuanced understanding of:

• Why food costs aren't as straightforward as headlines suggest
• The complexities (and dangers) of high-level business and academic networks when touched by scandal
• The ongoing, unpredictable entanglement of business titans, politicians, and the shifting American economy

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For further inquiry:

• Listen to Bloomberg’s “Disclosure” podcast for deeper dives into the Epstein financial investigation, as recommended in the episode ([39:38]).
• Monitor upcoming DOJ and Congressional document releases for further revelations on Epstein’s business involvements.
• Watch the developing Trump-Musk relationship as a bellwether for business-politics convergence in the post-2024 landscape.

Transcript

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[Max Chaffkin]

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[Max Abelson]

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[Max Chaffkin]

Bloomberg audio studios podcasts radio news. Welcome to everybody's business from Bloomberg Business Week. I'm Max Chaffkin.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

And I'm Stacey Vanek Smith.

[Max Chaffkin]

Stacy, we are a little less. As you're listening to this, a week from Thanksgiving.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Yes, we are.

[Max Chaffkin]

It is a time to shop for groceries. We've been talking all about how inflation has been making stuff more expensive. A lot of complaints about food prices. But Stacy, we're going to talk about a report that kind of points in the other direction. Thanksgiving food maybe is getting cheaper.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

We will hash through all of it. It is actually kind of complicated. Luckily, we have some. We brought in Dina Shanker, food reporter for Business Week. She'll talk us through that.

[Gun Violence PSA Speaker]

Yeah.

[Max Chaffkin]

And then my doppelganger, another Max, Max Abelson is here coming to us to talk about these documents, these many tens of thousands of pages of documents that are coming out around Jeffrey Epstein. Max covers money and power for Bloomberg. He's really got an interesting take on this. I'm excited for the conversation.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Yes, indeed. And then we're going to talk about our underrated stories this week. For me, Max, it's all about the K shaped economy.

[Max Chaffkin]

Can't wait. I've got another letter related underrated story. Stacey, you've heard of the taco trade. I'm going to remind you or introduce you to the mammut trade. It's back.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Max, before we get started with our show, we do have some kind of exciting news.

[Max Chaffkin]

Yeah. Listeners, we are having a live event. This is a special event at the Bloomberg mothership at Bloomberg headquarters in Midtown Manhattan on December 4th. You have to be a Bloomberg subscriber.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

To go to this thing, but it's not too late to subscribe.

[Max Chaffkin]

Not too late. I will be there. Stacey will be there. Bradstone, our friend and boss, will be there. And we'll be talking to Ellen Hewitt, who is an awesome journalist. She has a book coming out. She also wrote a story about chatbots and how they are driving people crazy. That's going to be kind of the subject of the conversation. People should check it out. I know we've gotten a lot of RSVPs. I think there are still some places available.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Now, I will say that the event is quite early in the morning. It is at 8am but we are going to have extremely strong coffee. And from what I understand, everybody's business coasters will be on offer.

[Max Chaffkin]

Stacey, it's called a power breakfast. It's a power breakfast.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

We're going to be having a power breakfast with power coasters.

[Max Chaffkin]

So yeah. So go to bloomberg.comscriptions subscribe if you are a subscriber, you can go to the Show Notes and you'll see the details for the event. Come, come say hi to me and Stacy. Come ask us some questions. We will be there. We are very excited to meet you. We will try to be fully alert when this happens.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

This is where the strong coffee comes in.

[Max Chaffkin]

All right, Stacy, I think before we get into our segments, we got to talk about the economic news that's been coming out this week. I think starting with these jobs numbers. We got numbers for September better than expected.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Yeah, it is really good news, it seems especially since it has kind of felt like the economy's maybe at this turning point or in this strange liminal space. So a lot of eyes were on this jobs report. Of course, we didn't get it because of the government shutdown. So these are jobs numbers for September.

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[Max Chaffkin]

These are kind of out of date. We don't, we're not going to have the jobs numbers for last month because the BLS was not, people weren't there.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

They didn't have like the manpower, the person power to take the surveys. Now, it was a little bit mixed, I should say. So in the month of September, the US economy added about 119,000 jobs. That is really good. But also the unemployment rate ticked up to a little bit. So 4.4% unemployment still quite low. Under 5% is still considered very low, but it's not headed in a great direction.

[Max Abelson]

Yeah.

[Max Chaffkin]

And more good news. On Wednesday night, Nvidia reported earnings. You know, we've been talking a lot about how, you know, this economy. It feels good, but it's just, it's all just a bunch of AI stuff and like if the AI bubble bursts. But we have good, good news. The AI bubble is going strong. Nvidia totally blew the doors off its expectations. Stock has gone up this morning as we're recording it. It feels like there's still a lot of optimism, at least from kind of the company that has benefited most from the AI bubble.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Yeah. And I feel like AI and jobs, those are the two parts of our economy everybody's watching right now. The two parts that I feel a little potentially fragile. And so both of those came in with good news. That is great news. Of course, the markets are a little upset about it for the comical reason that they're worried that now Jerome Powell might not decide to cut interest rates.

[Venmo Stash Advertiser]

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[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Because the job market looks pretty strong.

[Max Chaffkin]

Classic classic.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Classic Powell, classic Wall street reaction.

[Max Chaffkin]

You know, there is one other indicator that I think is arguably more important than Nvidia earnings, and that is the turkey index. Thanksgiving, Stacey. It is here. It is coming. It's obviously a great opportunity to eat and see your family and share a meal. It's also a great opportunity to talk about affordability. Right. Because everybody is going out there and buying the same basic handful of things. We sent our reporter Charlie Gorven, who's gonna be with us for the next few months on the show out there into the streets to ask people about their Thanksgiving plans.

[Max Abelson]

What are your Thanksgiving plans?

[Max Chaffkin]

We go to relatives.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

I'm actually making Thanksgiving this year. Oh, I think my mom's cooking, most likely. If not her, then my sister.

[Venmo Stash Advertiser]

Definitely Atlantic City for three days with my family.

[Max Abelson]

And with how the economy is right now, are you making a choice to.

[Max Chaffkin]

Cut back in any way?

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Normally I would have gone down to Florida. I'm not because the airfare has gotten.

[Max Chaffkin]

So out of control.

[Max Abelson]

We contribute the same every year. So we didn't see a reason to.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Cut back because it's not that much.

[Venmo Stash Advertiser]

We are a lot more cautious, so.

[Max Chaffkin]

We are going slow.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

This is a hard time where the food stamps are cut, but there's always food.

[Max Chaffkin]

Are you guys using food stamps mostly for grocery shopping?

[Venmo Stash Advertiser]

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[Max Abelson]

Is there anything that you've been shopping.

[Max Chaffkin]

For recently that's really struck you like staples? Bread, milk, eggs.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

The staple stuff.

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[Max Chaffkin]

It was $23 a pound.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

I never paid that. I had this funny story because I wanted to get whipped cream just as a treat for myself. And I was with my husband and I was like, it's $8. On principle alone. I will not spend $8 for whipped cre.

[Max Chaffkin]

$8 for whipped cream. That's a non negotiable in my house though. Whipped cream, you gotta have the whipped cream.

[Venmo Stash Advertiser]

Oh, yeah.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

It's the best part of the pumpkin pie. And I say this as a person who loves pumpkin pie.

[Max Chaffkin]

I love it too.

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[Max Abelson]

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[Max Chaffkin]

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[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Just heard a lot of New Yorkers talking about their Thanksgiving plans and how much food costs. And certainly that is very top of mind right now food costs. And specifically how much this pretty expensive, ornate meal that many of us make in this country is gonna Cost.

[Max Chaffkin]

Such a good meal, though. I've been thinking about it too. Stacey, I am buying. I'm gonna.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Are you hosting?

[Max Chaffkin]

I'm hosting. I'm gonna pick up very, very expensive Turkey. It's like $150. Farm fresh turkey.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

You're paying $150. Like, how many people does it feed?

[Max Chaffkin]

I haven't got the final weight of the turkey.

[Venmo Stash Advertiser]

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[Max Chaffkin]

But I will.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Max, Jackie, I'll come back to you. Fancy pants. Turkey aside, we all will be shopping for a lot of similar ingredients on different scales. And the cost of those ingredients and the cost of food in general has of course, been a huge topic all year and for the last few years. So we wanted to bring on an expert. The great Dina Shanker, writer for Business Week covers food in all of its glory. Welcome, Dina.

[Dina Shanker]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Max Chaffkin]

Dina, am I overpaying for turkey?

[Dina Shanker]

You know, I actually, I have a lot of questions about your turkey.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

That means yes.

[Dina Shanker]

Is it. Is it a heritage turkey?

[Max Chaffkin]

I don't know.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Like, what is it? I feel like they should give you a whole family tree for a turkey if they charge you $150 for it. Especially since the American Farm Bureau just released it has this Thanksgiving dinner index. It puts out every year where it tracks the price of all fix ins for a Thanksgiving dinner for 12.

[Max Chaffkin]

Very folksy.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Yeah, I try to be folksy. The cost is down this year, apparently $55 for a dinner for 10 people. And this is, you know, using cheaper ingredients. But they look at grocery stores across the country and have looked at the same grocery stores for years and years. And the major decrease in the cost of this menu, it was $58 in 2024, 61 in 2023. Now it's 55. And the big drop in price came from the turkey.

[Dina Shanker]

Yeah, I mean, we actually have a few different reports this year telling us different things.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Yes. Turkey mystery.

[Dina Shanker]

Let's do it. I think what we can really take away from this is that it doesn't really matter what you're paying. It matters how you're feeling about it. Because if the Farm Bureau's saying costs are down 5% and Deloitte is saying the cost for a dinner for eight people is up, up 0.6%. And we actually don't have CPI for October.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

That's the inflation report. Yeah, that comes out every month usually.

[Venmo Stash Advertiser]

Right.

[Dina Shanker]

So we don't know. And yet LendingTree says Thanksgiving hosts are expecting to spend 13% more than last year.

[Max Chaffkin]

Can I just say, I don't trust any of these numbers. The Farm Bureau, it sounds like that sounds like a very official, like group, but it's. It's a lobbying group.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Yes, it is a lobbying group. Yes.

[Max Chaffkin]

It is not like a government agency. So on one hand, like, it does seem like the data that they're putting out is fairly rigorous. But also, I feel like I have to say, like, there's probably some disincentives for farmers to say stuff costs more because we're in an environment where the President is basically threatening anyone who raises prices. And farmers have been kind of beefing with Trump over various parts of agriculture policy and so on. So I don't know. On the other hand, it seems like we have this, like, Farm Bureau data. We have Deloitte. Those are two different entities essentially saying it's not costing more. Which definitely that feels like in contradiction to how many people feel about food prices. Like, it's hard to understand.

[Dina Shanker]

Yeah. So I did email both Deloitte and the Farm Bureau about, like, why did you guys come up with different numbers? Number one is they have very different methodologies. And the Farm Bureau emphasized, or maybe I should say, I emphasize that their response included that theirs is an informal survey of prices. Okay, okay. Deloitte is much more formal, but their. Their collection of information is through September. But I think that that's exactly right. This is why we are supposed to get government data.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Well, I should say that I spoke with Mike McDonough, who's an economist here at Bloomberg, who's putting together Thanksg Saving Index, and he told me, according to his numbers, the prices were also slightly down, especially for turkey. And I asked about this because there are reports that the wholesale price for turkey is way up, like, 40% up. But what he said was, they have, like, a lot of frozen turkeys. There's like a strategic turkey reserve or something. And also that the retail price could be very different from the wholesale price because a lot of supermarkets might be marking down turkey to get people into the store where they buy all the other ingredients. Right.

[Max Chaffkin]

And that's a classic move, giving away a frozen turkey or whatever as a way to get foot traffic in the door. You spend a lot of money on, like, pumpkin pies or whatever. More expensive items.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Yeah. I mean, you'll go to a grocery store, cause you're like, oh, they have a great turkey deal. And then you'll just maybe get all the other ingredients for your feast there. So that could be. It could be like the hot dogs at Costco.

[Dina Shanker]

It's the. Yeah, the loss Leader brings people in. So I reached out to David Ortega, professor of food economics at Michigan State University, and he told me, number one is the different findings have a lot to do with different methodologies. He says he looks to CPI. CPI in September said 2.7% grocery inflation, that's up, but it's not that different.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Not crazy up.

[Max Chaffkin]

It's not falling though.

[Dina Shanker]

But he also noted that, you know, Thanksgiving prices are really family specific. And also there are so many retailers doing these big Thanksgiving sales. So Walmart has their lowest price ever. Aldi is doing one Target. It's everyone, every retailer does some kind of Thanksgiving special. So my conclusion from this is like Thanksgiving is a terrible gauge for the food prices because they're all over the place. Now in terms of the Farm Bureau being a lobbying organization, I actually think that if we look even further into the report, that's where the real clues are about what's going on, which is they are making some points about higher costs for inputs for farms like fertilizer. That's from tariffs. They're talking about weather patterns driving prices up.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

We call that climate change sometimes.

[Dina Shanker]

And they're talking about a labor shortage.

[Venmo Stash Advertiser]

Ice. Yes.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

There were some of the big increases on the Thanksgiving list were three pounds of the sweet potatoes were up 37%. The veggie tray, which is like carrots and celery, those cost are up 61%.

[Max Chaffkin]

Who buys a veggie tray?

[Dina Shanker]

Please don't invite me to that meal.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

I mean, I was gonna say like basically the theme of Thanksgiving costs this year is don't buy vegetables. My personal like inner 8 year old's dream of Thanksgiving, it's like, yes, you can't afford vegetables.

[Dina Shanker]

And I'll just. Now, Max, it's so nice that you host Thanksgiving dinner. That's a great service to your family. Are you in the 18% of potential hosts that reg. No, that's up from 14% last year.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

18% of people who host Thanksgiving, that's according to Lendingtree.

[Dina Shanker]

And I don't know that that's really specific to cost. I mean, I would regret hosting Thanksgiving.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

It's dishes.

[Max Chaffkin]

I have such. I have no regret yet is what I'll say. But I, but there is time. We're recording this a week from Thanksgiving and you know, it's possible that, that in seven days I will be where the. What percentage was it?

[Dina Shanker]

18%.

[Max Chaffkin]

18%. No, I'm in the majority for now.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

I mean this has been a big moment in food prices for multiple reasons, including one that President Trump just is like suspending tariffs on some food items like bananas and coffee and things like that, where they have seen prices spike because of tariffs. Overall, Thanksgiving feasts aside, what is happening with food prices? Do we know? Is it mixed? Is it.

[Dina Shanker]

They seem to be going up. That's what the CPI shows us, is that they're going up. I mean, I think that, you know, when I go to the supermarket, I like to ask the cashier how many people complain about food prices.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

You do?

[Max Abelson]

Yeah.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Always be reporting. I love it.

[Dina Shanker]

And the answer at like my stop and shop is, oh, almost everyone is complaining. The last time I asked, the guy behind me in line was like. Like, it's terrible. And I started. We had a whole conversation about is chicken wings and it's the meat driving the prices up. And I think really, prices are going up. I don't know how closely people are tracking. Well, I paid X for this package of chicken wings this week, but I remember last week what I paid and a year ago. The truth is, is that prices have gone up so much since pre pandemic. That's what people remember. People remember prices that are never coming back. Now, yes, banana tariffs. If we remove them, it might bring bananas down from 30 cents a banana to 27 cents or whatever. But ultimately that's not gonna change how you feel about your grocery costs, which might just be people have to change how they think about groceries in terms of how much of their paycheck they divert to them.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Are you cooking a turkey this year?

[Dina Shanker]

Oh, my God. I would never in a million years host a Thanksgiving meal.

[Venmo Stash Advertiser]

Really?

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

I mean, you're a food reporter. It seems like you're a food person.

[Dina Shanker]

Well, number one is that's just a huge responsibility. That's like a massive.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

You don't want to be among the 18.

[Dina Shanker]

Yeah, no, I would. I mean, also, I don't eat meat, so nobody wants to come to my house for Thanksgiving. But I do host a lot of, like, Friday night Shabbat dinners. We have fish, which is extraordinarily expensive all the time, and I often regret it. Not because of the cost, but I'm always happy once the guests arrive.

[Max Chaffkin]

Stacey, are you. Are you cooking or what are your Thanksgiving plans?

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

I am bringing a dish, which is my favorite thing. I have not even selected which dish yet. It just depends on whatever people need. I will bring. Apparently I need to avoid the vegetables is what the farm bureau is selling me.

[Dina Shanker]

I just want to say that's really great that you're bringing something, because according to a lending tree for what it's worth One in 10 hosts say that they wouldn't invite an empty handed guest back next year. So congratulations.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

You would never be an empty handed guest.

[Max Chaffkin]

I would never disinvite an empty handed guest. Dina Shanker thank you.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Happy Thanksgiving. Dina.

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[Max Chaffkin]

Okay, Stacey, I think we need to talk about the Epstein stuff. And I hesitate to go there because this is a business podcast and in certain ways it's not a business story. But in other ways, of course, it is a huge business story, both because the guy who's at the center of it, Jeffrey Epstein, was operated ostensibly very successful business.

[Dina Shanker]

Very.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Yes, by most measures.

[Max Chaffkin]

And also because we're seeing a bunch of prominent people in our world getting caught up in it. Most recently Larry Summers, I think he stepped back from his public commitments at Harvard and OpenAI, the big chatbot company. And you know, all of a sudden there's the prospect of a bunch of Epstein files getting released. Congress, over President Trump's objections, passed this bill. Trump signed it, apparently enthusiastically. Anyway, I want to unpack this. And to do that, we've got a great guy, Max Abelson, who little known fact, he's a Bloomberg reporter, but we are often mistaken for one another because of the name.

[Max Abelson]

I get a lot of emails meant for this Max.

[Max Chaffkin]

Oh, and vice versa. When Max launched, his had a. Max had a TV show. And when it launched, I got all these congratulatory messages. But Max is here. He covers money and power for Bloomberg. What you've been doing for the past couple of months is looking at Epstein emails, right?

[Max Abelson]

But I've been reading a lot of Jeffrey Epstein's emails. Like how many Bloomberg News obtained more than 18,000 emails sent to and from Epstein. And not just any old emails, but these were emails to basically like a private Yahoo email address. And this team, we are doing our best to be able to explain something that is enormous and complicated, in some ways inchoate. And we've been trying to lay it out for readers and to try to understand it ourselves.

[Max Chaffkin]

When people say the Epstein files. There was also, people may remember, at the beginning of the Trump presidency, there was this like amazing media event where a bunch of right wing influencers got in front of the White House, held up these awesome binders and were like, we have the Epstein files. When people say the Epstein files, like, what does that even mean?

[Max Abelson]

Is this so interesting how phrases like that kind of enter the lexicon and sort of amount to exactly like kind of nothing? Because it's essentially like a meaningless phrase, but it's also very meaningful. Let's. All right, I'm Going to do my very best at trying to sort of like bucket by bucket try to think, think through the project that I've worked with a bunch of our Bloomberg News colleagues on. I'm thinking of Jason Leopold and Harry Wilson and Lauren Etter. Those are emails from a Yahoo inbox that was like really active around 2007, 2008.

[Max Chaffkin]

That was before Epstein was convicted of. I forget the exact. The original Florida conviction. Right? Because that was in 2008.

[Max Abelson]

Yes, it's even better than that. The emails start before he is charged and that's the Florida charges are in 2006 and they last up to and through him pleading guilty to two charges in 2008 which were part of the non prosecution agreement that really stops cold both state and federal investigations. And then I'm happy to say the emails do continue past that.

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That.

[Max Abelson]

So let's call that bucket one.

[Max Chaffkin]

That's the Yahoo email.

[Max Abelson]

That's, that's the Bloomberg News cast and it's Yahoo.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

That's like the exclusive Bloomberg.

[Max Abelson]

Then over to the right you've got the congressional committees Republicans and Democrats released I think basically last week, thousands more. And those are unfortunately a different email account. But what they have is really rich stuff. More recent, more past, past 2000 into the 2000 and tens all the way.

[Max Chaffkin]

Up at least until he died I think or until he was arrested.

[Max Abelson]

That's exactly right. Let's call that Epstein Batch 2. That's got the summer's emails and many more. But you know, when people talk about the Epstein files, what they are consistently referring to are what's to come. And that is I think a very helpful way of thinking about that.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Also emails.

[Max Abelson]

My thinking is it's gonna be much more governmental. When I think about what we're supposed to expect now that Trump has signed the law to release the, let's just call these the Epstein files. I think it's very helpful to think of this as essentially doj, the Department of Justice, that they will be releasing lots and lots of files that, that are from the Department of Justice's investigation into Epstein. And I'm assuming that will have a lot of emails. But I think that sort of, at least the way I'm conceptualizing it right now is that rather than a cache of emails, it's gon be a much broader governmental collection, collection of data and files.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

So here is my question. If Jeffrey Epstein was running a kind of business, which it feels like he was in a way, I'm wondering like as this stuff starts to emerge, like what was the nature of this business and like, what was the currency here? What was he buying? What was he selling? Like, are you starting to get kind of a. A larger scope picture of what exactly was the nature of this thing that he was running?

[Max Abelson]

I'm gonna answer that very, very good question two ways. The most honest and the simplest answer to give you is that the more we find out about Epstein, the more enigmatic he becomes that it isn't like a kind of normal, let's say, you know, if I'm. If I'm reporting out a magazine piece or I'm reporting out a finance story. It's like you talk to the people you need to talk to, you find as many documents as you can, and then, you know, a picture emerges. As we say in Epstein's case, even though we've put out lots of stories that are extremely solid and I hope push the ball forward in many concrete ways, I sit back and I reflect on Epstein, whose job is pretty much in keeping with what I tend to write about. I am essentially a Wall street reporter, and Epstein was essentially a money manager. But what's so interesting about Epstein and what I think is one of the things that captures the imagination of, I think, the American public and beyond is that he seems to have made career out of connections with the most important people in the world. And, you know, sometimes that work of financial connections on Wall street is pretty simple, and sometimes it's even kind of dull. There is a whole industry of people who service the wallets and portfolios of the wealthy. You can look it up on the Internet and you can find lots of sort of elite, fancy people who would love to charge you a little bit of money, and they're going to oversee your finances.

[Max Chaffkin]

So is this, like, try to attempt an announce that maybe a person who's outside of this world would understand? Like, I think some people, like, have an accountant who has, like, season tickets to the jets or something. Part of what that's about is that.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

I'm nervous about where this is going.

[Max Chaffkin]

Okay, just. Just wait a second. He pays for that, those season tickets out of his business expenses. He writes them off. He gets to go to jets games. He also brings his clients to the Jets. It's like part of why you choose this account. And like, it's like that. But. But like with Epstein, it's like being connected to people like Larry Summers or whatever. And then as you accumulate those connections, it becomes like an asset into itself. I haven't brought up the fact that Epstein was also engaging in illegal sex trafficking. Which feels like part of that, too, but it sounds like part of it is just this kind of collection of powerful people that, you know, basically becomes more and more valuable the further along he goes.

[Max Abelson]

I think that's a very helpful way of laying it out. And it makes me imagine, in my mind's eye, while you're talking, sort of three different things that he was doing. On the one hand, he was running money. He was managing the money of rich people. There's a Ohio billionaire named Wexner who's well known for Victoria's Secret, for example, and that is a sort of traditional business. I believe it was actually called the Financial Trust Company. There's a document from J.P. morgan that says that Epstein was not accepting clients with less than a billion dollars. So let's consider that the business of. Of money management, managing money for really rich people. Then let's think about his sort of, like, fancy Globetrotter connections, even sort of.

[Max Chaffkin]

Things like the TED Talk portion of his business.

[Max Abelson]

The TED Talk portion of his business. Larry Summers. You know, I don't believe he was actually in business with Larry Summers, but Larry Summers and people like that at Harvard were very important to him. They were part of a kind of academic network that provided kind of bona fides and that seemed to pander to Epstein's interests. And Epstein had a lot of money. He was a donor to Harvard and MIT and other institutions. So let's consider that, yes, like intelligentsia. The intelligentsia. The TED Talk world. And then, of course, you know, even though I'm a financial reporter, we can't ignore what is over. You know, I think on all of our minds as we talk about Epstein, which is that according to the Department of Justice, he had more than 1,000 victims because he died while he was in jail. What was happening with Epstein's sex crimes is made sort of forever be unknown, but it certainly has to be on the board. As we think about this, the question of why such powerful people were willing to be either in business with him, literally, or to be in his circle is, I think, maybe possibly sort of the foundational question of the Jeffrey Epstein story.

[Max Chaffkin]

Just to pick up on that, like, one thing that I have not fully understood, and I think this will continue to be important, assuming the Trump administration actually releases something. I think there are questions about. Well, like Pam Bondi, the Attorney General has a lot of leeway. There are investigations going on. There are various ways. I think the Trump administration could either drag their feet or maybe produce a bunch of documents that are less revealing than we might hope, but assuming a bunch of documents do get produced, I think we're gonna see more names connected to business who are involved in this guy. There are a lot of powerful people, as we know. And the thing that I haven't fully understood is how Larry Summers lost all his jobs, like this week. And I'm wondering, why was it this week? Because I'm not totally sure how much more information we got about Larry Summers connections with Jeffrey Epstein from these emails. And by the same question, like, how is it that Bill Gates, Reid Hoffman, some of these other guys who also have connections to Jeffrey Epstein, it feels like we haven't fully reckoned with that.

[Max Abelson]

You know, one of the very powerful things about reporting on emails is you get to see how people talk to one another. You know, normally as an interviewer, if any of us are sitting down with our subjects, we ask some questions and if we get lucky, they answer them. But what's interesting about this kind of journalism with Jason and Harry and all of our colleagues, is that we have the ability, and now the world does too, with these other emails, to read the way powerful people are actually talking to one another. And it is, you know, it really is one thing to sort of know in the abstract that Bill Gates and Jeffrey Epstein were in the same room together or Woody Allen was in. Was in fcs.

[Max Chaffkin]

I guess that can mean a lot of different things, right? You can be in a room with somebody without necessarily endorsing, well, he was.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

A connected guy, like you were saying. And it's hard to know. It's like, well, how did you deep. Did this connection go? Were they committing crimes with him? Did they just show up at his cocktail party?

[Max Abelson]

That's absolutely right. Even, even someone like Leon Black, who's a private equity billionaire, has said, look, he was like saving me money on taxes, essentially. That's ultimately. I mean, it's many things, but it's relatively boring to be able to read Larry Summers, who's one of the most important figures in global academia and a.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

One of the most famous economists in the world.

[Max Abelson]

Really important economist, huge political figure too. Huge political figure to read the words of two men, you know, speaking about women in the way that characters in movies do. Yeah, it's very. It's very.

[Max Chaffkin]

Teenage characters.

[Max Abelson]

Teenage characters, yes, yes. Grim characters. I think that all of us as journalists go and go into the work of journalism, especially when we're writing about money and power, with a little bit of cynicism, a little bit of a sense that people, you know, behind closed doors don't talk the way they do necessarily in public. But I think, to answer your question, the thing that was really powerful was just hearing someone in his own words talking with Jeffrey Epstein. My mind is going to the writer Michael Wolf, who was basically offering public relations advice to Jeffrey Epstein. And you get to read it as a reader or as a journalist going through these emails. And it's powerful. I think it does make a difference.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Well, also with Larry Summers, I feel like part of the issue was that he had had those comments at Harvard about how women were sort of less equipped to study the sciences and he had lost his position. He wasn't named head of the Federal Reserve. Like, he was punished for that. And then he apologized. And so I think there was this feeling of like, okay, you know, we all make mistakes. We all have views we're not proud of in retrospect and things like that. But then the idea that he apologized, but then in like secret double down on heart, he was just like, oh, my God, Yeah. And it was like, hey, like, you were forgiven for this. And I think it was maybe partly that.

[Max Chaffkin]

I want to say, Larry Summers, all the people we've mentioned have, as being associated with Jeffrey Epstein have in one way or another said that they regret their associations with Jeffrey Epstein, including Larry Summers, who has said it again as allowing. Oh yeah, they definitely regret it.

[Max Abelson]

Hearing you talk just puts me in mind of a kind of. Maybe it's like a sort of a bifurcation. There are people who were in Epstein's orbit and have now gotten in trouble for it. But then there are the people who were Epstein's clients or the people for whom Epstein himself was a client. And I'm thinking now of J.P. morgan. Big banks. Exactly. Some of the biggest banks in the world. And I think that because I'm a financial reporter and not necessarily a legal reporter and not. Not even necessarily a political reporter, what I find myself most interested in and most excited by and most keen to see when all of the documents come out has to do with the mechanics of money making. I am looking forward to seeing who was doing business with Epstein that we don't know about, the ways they were doing business that we don't totally understand yet and what the ramifications will be. There were clearly billionaires, There was clearly money moving at the high echelons of finance. We certainly do have an understanding of some of what that money looked like and some of the banks that were handling it. But I do think there's more to come.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Can I ask you a question? About kind of the unvarnished nature of some of the communications you're talking about. We've been talking a lot on the show about whatever the K shaped economy and the sort of division between regular people and elites, the very wealthy. And so you're reading kind of the unguarded communications between elites a lot. And you report on finance. Has this, has these emails, reading all these thousands of emails, has this changed your view at all on the upper echelons of our economy, the sort of titans of business?

[Max Abelson]

I think that it would be cool, and I think I would sound cooler to your audience if I were to sort of like shrug and be like, you know, I've been in Bloomberg News for 15 years, which I have, and I've been writing about money and power for 20 years, which I have. You know, I wasn't born yesterday. Like, I know how powerful people work and I know they talk. And like, I wasn't surprised by any of this at all. But the truth is I have been surprised. I find it very grim and very depressing. And why that is is it has a level of meanness and even cruelty that I'm just not used to.

[Max Chaffkin]

Max, you mentioned our colleague Jason Leopold. He has a new podcast, it's called Disclosure. And he has an episode all about following Epstein's money and about how he learned about the DOJ investigation.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

I'm very excited about that.

[Max Chaffkin]

Into Epstein's finances that stayed buried for 17 years. It's awesome. People should check it out. Max Abelson, thanks for being here.

[Max Abelson]

Pleasure's mine.

[Max Chaffkin]

So, Stacey, we talked about the idea of the 50 year mortgage. On the last episode, we got a comment from a listener, Rudy. He's from Omaha, Nebraska. He's actually a longtime fan of yours, I believe.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Clearly a man of taste. Thank you, Rudy.

[Max Chaffkin]

Rudy pointed out something that I don't think we quite mentioned as clearly as we probably should have on the last episode, which is that as you go from a 30 year mortgage to a 50 year mortgage, the interest rate is going to go up. Because, like, that's how it works. When term lengths go up, a 15 year mortgage has a lower interest rate than a 30 year mortgage, which would have a lower interest rate of a 50 year mortgage. Rudy sent a bunch of numbers. But, Stacy, as I said, he's also a longtime listener of the Indicator, which was your show before this one.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Yes, indeed.

[Max Chaffkin]

And he answers the question that you, I think, was in the back of your mind as we talked about the penny, which was his favorite coin. For Rudy, it's the Morgan Silver dollar, originally minted from 1878 to 1904. Stacey, how do you feel about the Morgan? Are you familiar with this coin?

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

I don't know anything about the Morgan Dollar. It was the first standard silver dollar minted since the passage of the Coinage act, which ended the free coining of silver and the production of the previous design, the Ceded Liberty Dollar. Was this after free silver?

[Max Chaffkin]

I don't know, but it is a really cool looking coin. It is a cool looking coin. And Rudy, thank you. All right, let's get to our underrated stories. You said it was something about the letter K, I believe.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Yeah. So the K shaped economy is this idea that's been sort of going around a lot about how part of our economy is getting much, much, much wealthier. Like AI, there's so much money and investment going into that part of the economy. A lot of excitement. Companies are raking in record profits. At the same time, wages are not going up for lower earners. So one of the kind of interesting back and forths, I think, of the last couple weeks has been President Donald Trump talking about these possible stimulus checks he might send out, I think because of the surplus from tariffs.

[Max Chaffkin]

Tariff checks where so much money, he's gonna send money to everybody.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

So this organization called the Tax foundation, which is generally a pretty conservative organization, did the math, and as it turns out, of course, the tariffs are not enough to subsidize $2,000 checks for people, even if you limit, even if there's an income cap. And then when they interviewed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessen about all this, he said, you know, especially expressing inflationary concerns because this is the big worry. You pump a bunch of money out into the economy, people spend it, and then it pushes prices up. He said, well, hopefully they wouldn't spend it. He said, hopefully people would save it. What does that mean? I don't know. It's. I feel like that's what I tell myself when I buy, like, multiple pints of ice cream. I'm like, I'll save it. And with mixed success. But. But I feel like what's interesting about this is why President Trump would send stimulus out. I mean, stimulus by any other name, but I feel like presidents from Biden to Trump now are kind of trying to deal with this inequality because on the one hand, our country is getting sort of exponentially wealthier. Part of our economy is getting left behind, I think, partly because of technological advancements, partly because of the market. It's, I think this is a way of, of handling and maybe acknowledging the K shaped economy. That was what I felt was kind of an underrated story of the last few weeks.

[Max Chaffkin]

Yeah, I mean, that. I think that I like that take. I mean, I think my reaction to hearing this and seeing it is just like, wow, like, Trump's coalition is. It's pretty tenuous, like, because you have these kind of like traditional Republicans who spent a lot of time when Biden was sending out stimulus checks, complaining about those stimulus checks. And then you have the kind of like, popul instinct it is. And, you know, amid the Epstein stuff, amid all this news around the economy, the government shutdown, like, it really does feel like he's scrambling a little bit. Yeah, he's, you know, trying to find some. Some way to sort of reclaim the narrative. I want to bring up another area where the Trump coalition is starting to feel a lot stronger, and that is Elon Musk.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Now, Stacey, I could have predicted your underrated story would be about Elon Musk. Tell me what. Okay, so what is this man up to now?

[Max Chaffkin]

Okay, so you probably remember that in Elon Musk and Donald Trump had an enormous blow up, a blow up of epic proportions. I remember, I guess rather prophetically, we should acknowledge, brought up Jeffrey Epstein, but in a way that was extremely incendiary. The relationship looked like it was dead. And at the time I was arguing essentially that this would not last, that this breakup, that they were bound to get back together and borrowing. You remember the taco trade? Trump always chickens out.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Oh, yes, yes.

[Max Chaffkin]

This idea that, like, Donald Trump is gonna, like, he'll say something, he's gonna.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Say some crazy stuff, but then he'll dial it out.

[Max Chaffkin]

Not necessarily chickening out, but like, finding a way to moderate some of that rhetoric. I and David Papadopoulos, the former host of Elon Inc. We coined a new term, mammut, which stands for Musk always makes up with Trump. And I have to tell you, Stacey, it is happening. Elon Musk went to the White House. He's like, posting on Twitter. He's talking about how great Trump is. It looks like the relationship is back on. New York Times reporting that Musk.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

It's like Taylor and Burton.

[Max Chaffkin]

Taylor and I don't know what those.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Two, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, they were married and divorced and then they later got remarried. That is a very toxic relationship. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf Is a very painful movie to watch. And I feel like maybe this is them.

[Max Chaffkin]

You know, Musk is one of the rare people who has divorced and then remarried his ex wife. And like you said, it's, that's exactly it. They are back together. The election is coming. Trump is feeling, I'd say maybe a little more politically vulnerable. Musk has his own vulnerabilities and so we've got an alliance and I think this is gonna be a big political story for the next year. A no joke political story. Even though it is kind of, kind of funny that this on again, off again, tempestuous relationship is back on. This show is produced by Stacey Wong. Magnus Henriksen is our supervising producer and Amy Keen our executive producer. Sam Rogich handles engineering and Dave Purcell fact checks. Sage Bauman heads Bloomberg Podcasts. Special thanks to Jeff Muskus, Julia Rubin, Charlie Gorven and Maria Ling. If you have a minute, please rate and review the show. It'll mean a lot to us. And more than that, if you have a story that should be our business, email [e-mail] that's everybody with answloombird.net thank you for listening and we will see you next week.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

At Burger King.

[Max Abelson]

When it comes to value, you make the rules. Introducing the you rules of value and you rule number number one, you choose.

[Max Chaffkin]

Food you actually want.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

With seven tasty options, you can have it your way. Try the $5 duo or $7 trio. From BK Classics to fan faves, choose your deal.

[Dina Shanker]

Price and participation vary us only.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

No substitutions. Restrictions apply.

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[Gun Violence PSA Speaker]

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[Max Abelson]

Know what a girl's best friend is?

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Not diamonds.

[On Purpose Podcast Host]

Her lawyers from executive producer Ryan Murphy comes a fiery new legal drama.

[Gun Violence PSA Speaker]

It's our own boutique, women representing women.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

You can't afford to miss.

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[Dina Shanker]

Stand up straight and breeze into that room like a storm no one saw coming.

[On Purpose Podcast Host]

Hulu Original Series All's Fair now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney for bundle subscribers.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Terms apply.