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- [00:00]
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- [00:58]
Jen
Welcome to IHIP News. I am so happy to introduce my audience. A lot of you probably know her. She is Tara McGowan, the founder and publisher of Courier News, one of the fastest growing independent news media. And this is so important independent news. Tara, welcome to I HIP News.
- [01:17]
Tara McGowan
Thank you for having me, Jen. I'm so excited to be here. I'm such a fan of I've had it. It is the most cathartic thing I listen to. So thank you.
- [01:26]
Jen
All right, Tara, let's dive right into the Epstein files. And I believe you probably saw the reporting from Jamie Raskin, VI Axios that he says that Trump was mentioned more than 1 million times, which means that devout Christian Pam Bondi, Attorney General, who uses her faith as a weapon and a shield at the same time to the American electorate, is protecting her boss in what I think is probably the biggest cover up in American history. What's your take on that?
- [02:01]
Tara McGowan
It is absolutely the biggest cover up in American history. It might be the biggest cover up globally and it is a global story. And I mean, it doesn't surprise me at all that Pam Bondi is working at the behest of the President. That is how she got the job. She was not qualified to run the Department of Justice or be the Attorney General of this country by any means. We know that she was brought in, as were most of his cronies into the administration to protect him. Her and Kash Patel have absolutely no business being involved in the highest levels of security clearance and investigations in this country. We are living through in real time this unbelievable cover up of really one of the biggest Scandals, if not the biggest scandal ever, that touches everything from how foreign policy and global power works, wealth, the abuse of power, and the fact that the thing that I keep coming back to, and I'm sure you're doing the same thing, but is how, for how long the folks in QAnon and a lot of these sort of fringe groups on the Internet were treated as absolutely batshit crazy conspiracy theorists. And now we are learning through the dumps of the files that they were all right. There was a global cabal of human trafficking, sex trafficking of children that the most powerful people, primarily men around this world, regardless of political party or industry, were complicit in, if not completely engaged directly in. So the fact that our President is very likely a pedophile himself and definitely protecting pedophiles should be the only story, frankly, and would be if, if there wasn't such, you know, the decentralization that we have right now and the saturation and chaos of all of the that's happening around the world.
- [04:04]
Jen
And connecting this to corporate media, I have noticed a distinct blind spot in Western media reporting on Jeffrey Epstein's association with the government of Israel. It seems to go widely unreported and they link to Vladimir Putin, but the former Prime Minister of Israel is knee deep in this stuff. It appears that credibly, one could make the argument that Jeffrey Epstein was a Mossad agent. And so why are they doing all of this pedophilia stuff? Not only are they sick fucks, as many Congress people said yesterday after they saw it, but they're also honey potting and blackmailing people. And there seems to be a real blind spot about Jeffrey Epstein servicing foreign governments in this pedophile ring.
- [04:56]
Tara McGowan
Yes. And I mean, I've recently watched a few interviews with former CIA agents and CIA whistleblowers who I think those have been some of the most fascinating. I'm not going to recall the name of the man I listened to yesterday, but he was connecting the dots and really explaining the context where this is pretty 101 for authoritarian regimes and oligarchies is to create these honeypots, to be able to create these really complex money laundering networks and interactions. And yeah, it seems from the files we've already seen, and we're still missing millions, that Jeffrey Epstein was operating as a spy for both Israel and Russia potentially. And when you get to the question of the media right now, this is also really important because the media, the corporate media in America failed to report on this story and push for any accountability for years and years and years, it actually wasn't until local news, the Miami Herald is the one who really dug deep that made this a big story in the aftermath and during me too in 2018, 2019. And so we are now witnessing a much like worsened corporate media in America, right, Because they are owned by a lot of folks that are in bed with Trump in this administration that are protecting themselves, their friends and most importantly their shareholder interests and their wealth. And we know, we saw this with Larry Ellison purchasing CBS and putting Barry Weiss at the top of it. That is, that is a favor to Trump. But it's also they've been pretty unabashed and explicit about their pro Israel agenda with CBS News and with how they are reorienting the news organization there. And so you know, you tie this to the lack of coverage of Gaza and folks calling it a genocide for the past number of years and the political debate that's caused in this country and you start to connect these dots and it's really, really, really unsettling how intertwined it feels like these stories actually are. And it does feel like we are in a moment of reckoning where it's all coming to the surface and like once again we're living through it day by day. So I feel like every day it's going to become a little bit more clear. But the abuse of power and the just the like, the collaboration between US Government's elite and powerful individuals related to this, it's, it is really hard to wrap your head around.
- [07:25]
Jen
It really shocks the conscience. And I vacillate as everybody does, trying to process all of this information. And one of the things that I go back to is Merrick Garland and he had this for four years. And people will say, oh well, Ghislaine Maxwell's appeal was going on. Well, why weren't we investigating the suicide? And for those of you that are listening, I say suicide in quotations. Why weren't we investigating that? There were co conspirators named. Why weren't we pressing charges with that? There were U.S. attorneys that said, okay, we can get indictments on these people. And, and the federal government doesn't say that stuff in emails unless they can deliver on it. Prosecutors don't jack around with that stuff. And it was just stalled out. And there seems to be like you said, connective tissue through all of this. Let's look at January 6th, Tara. January 6th, who did Merrick go up, go after? Low level rubes that were funded to get there, that went in, you know, they all got put in jail who funded this? Who funded January 6th? Completely off the hook. Merrick Garland gave them a pass a day late and a dollar short with Jack Smith. The same thing with this Epstein thing. These elites get away with it and then when you find out Tara, the oligarchs freak show Peter Thiel is all over these Epstein files who wants to take away your and my right to vote. And he is such a dwee run for political office but he's decided I'm sick of democracy and Steve Bannon Elon Musk's pathetic thirst trapping to try to get to the island is just beyond the pale. And so all of these blind spots, as you said, they're all kind of coming together. And as we all like I know independent media is awesome right now because people have faith in us to deliver, you know, the facts. What else have you discovered in reporting on this through Courier that you can enlighten my listeners with? What juicy nuggets or disturbing details can you share with us?
- [09:35]
Tara McGowan
Before I go into some of the sort of other tidbits and stories that our team's been reporting on, I do want to like underscore your point about Merrick Garland and the failure. I'm so glad that you've been talking about this and more people need to because I think it is really, really, really powerful and emblematic of actually what we are reckoning with right now that this transcends politics. Right. We heard Kamala Harris be asked this question in a late night show a number of months ago and said, you know, this is going to be unsatisfying, but we really treated it as we should where the Department of Justice is separate and operates independently from the administration, which is of course not how Trump is operating his Department of Justice. But, but this is the issue. This transcends politics. Merrick Garland failed at his job and didn't deliver on this and didn't go into the investigation because he was protecting the elites. This is no longer about conservatives or liberals or Republicans or Democrats or a power play between political parties in America. This is much bigger than that. And this is also where the American people have been and why there has been a huge uprising of economic populism and an opposition to corruption because the corruption is everywhere and it is everywhere on the surface. And what I am most heartened by right now in this moment is that this reckoning is happening and we are seeing a new rise of a new leaders that are not tainted by any of this. They were never complicit or protecting these folks like, you know, the Clinton administration or all of the older guns in the Democratic Party. And I thought it was really interesting. I heard James Carville give a monologue on this the other day about how this is never going away. There's going to be movies, books, songs, poetry written about the Epstein, because this is. This is a catalytic moment for the world. And I also believe for hopefully, but I do believe the downfall of these patriarchal systems that have protected men and their abuse of women and power at every single level. And so what that reckoning means, like, yes, I think there will be a tsunami for Democrats if we have free and fair elections, which is a huge question. But this is. It is going to require so much more of a building of a new system with new leadership for us to actually get past this and have accountability and justice and ensure it doesn't happen again. And once again, we're in the middle of it when it comes to the reporting, right?
- [11:52]
Jen
This is.
- [11:53]
Tara McGowan
I mean, an enormous amount of information is being dumped. Our senior political reporter, Cameron Stevenson, has been doing an amazing job. He built the first searchable tool of the first dump of the files. We are reaching data limits. So the team is scurrying very quickly to be able to find more. More access, to be able to have more ways to search these files. But it's been amazing to the folks that have been using the tool, delivering tips and tidbits, because this is an enormous project and we're not seeing legacy media treat it the way it needs to be treated. And so we know that the onus is on all of us in independent media. So figuring out resources to bring in more researchers, to be able to use more tools, because there is so much in here, and the DOJ knows that, and they have made it very difficult to go through this. So if folks go to careernewsroom.com, they can follow and. Or follow it on Instagram, wherever you are, follow Cameron's reporting on this because he has been bringing stuff up every day. I mean, our. One of our key focuses is because we, we are a local news network at heart. That's what we care about is who are the folks that are complicit, that are named, that have actually stood by and protected, enabled or been silent in positions of power within our states. Because something else I think that needs to happen right now is that state governments, state leaders need to take action. They need to pursue criminal proceedings because we know the federal government will not. The federal government are the ones who are the perpetrators, the enablers and the protectors and so that's what I hope we start to see more of is as our reporting rolls out in this, in the local news organizations, is how are we actually pressuring state and local officials to take legal action here and criminal justice action here where the federal government will not.
- [13:45]
Jen
You know, it's interesting you bring that up because I saw something interesting on my newsfeed this morning. And you know, Trump was going to host the National Governors Association, Right. And then he decided he wasn't going to invite the Democrats and then he just limited it to Wes Moore and then it was all the Democrats. You know, he's so schizophrenic. No disrespect to people suffering from schizophrenia, but the reactive toddler. Yeah. And so Kevin Stitt, the governor of my home state, who is a crazy ass Christian nationalist, crazy. I think the dam is breaking a little bit, Tara, on the state stuff because he said they weren't going to the governor's convention if the Democrats weren't invited. And this guy Kevin Stitt, after he won his second term, got on television and said, I dedicate every square inch of this state to Jesus Christ. This is. He is the biggest Trump thumper, Bible thumper on the planet. So if the dam is breaking with the Kevin Stits of the world as it pertains to states, I agree with you that governors are going to be a frontline, us mayors are going to be a front line. And state prosecutions are going to be so important because we know if Trump makes it out of his first term alive, everybody's getting a pardon. I mean, everybody's going to get a pardon, but you can't get pardon for state crimes.
- [15:12]
Tara McGowan
Absolutely. And this is so important, Jen, because this state and local leadership is also where any accountability related to ICE is happening and can happen. It is also where, most importantly, state states run our elections. Right. The federal government does not run our elections. All the scurrying, the frenetic scurrying, all of the things, the promotion of the SAVE act, which is bullshit. It would take away the ability for millions of Americans to register to vote in this. They're pushing for that. Trump is pushing for. He even said he wants to nationalize elections. He cannot do that. The states run these elections and they were the ones, Republicans in state leadership were the ones who held the line in 2020 when he tried to steal the election in Georgia. We have to remember this point because when we're seeing Republicans, even Bible thumping MAGA Republicans stand up against this administration and say no this is not how this is going to work, like they did in Indiana with redistricting, like we've seen in these areas with your governor. Like, this is really important because we actually need them to hold the line when it comes to the midterms. And so these are really positive green flags we're seeing that we need to do more of. So when I think about things that I have had it with, it is all of the insane focus on the impotence of our democratic leadership in Congress, in Washington, when actually the most that can be done is at the state and local level. And we need to move our movement's focus to being, applying a pressure and cover to our leaders in the states, because they are actually the ones who are going to hold the line for democracy in November.
- [16:46]
Jen
And you know what, Tara? That seems so much more manageable. It seems so overwhelming as a citizen, as a podcaster. I'm sure our people in the comment section, watching me and you on YouTube right now, they feel so helpless with this big fascist bully regime. It seems so insurmountable. But when you start to think locally and you start to think of your local humanity and connectedness, it feels more achievable, it feels less scary, and it's more personalized. And this is something I think is so important. And listener and viewer, Tara and I are going to partner together a lot moving forward into the midterms, because a lot of the threats that they're giving are not only voter suppression so that you'll descend into, oh, it doesn't matter. They're rigging them anyway. That's part of it. But they're also serious about trying to do this. But we have to mobilize. And I know as painful as it is for everybody to watch this, hear about all the fuckery that these people do all day, every day, our turnout must be too big to rig. It has to be insurmountable. And Pumps and I were talking in a podcast we filmed earlier, Tara, about, you know, white people really using their complexion as allies because they are really going to hunker down on Latino communities and black communities, which they always have, black viewer and listener. I know they've always you over on election day. I know they have. But we need to mobilize real allyship and escort these people to the polls and use our complexion to be there with them and to say, you know, I'm not registered in this precinct. I voted in my white one early this morning with no line. Piece of cake. But I'm going to partner with my friend here and stay the whole day with them and live stream it. And it has to be the most connected Americans have ever been in my lifetime. I think these midterm elections, we mustn't be fearful. We must unite. Those of us that are white have to use our whiteness and be the best allies we can be because they are coming for everybody. Even Mike Pence wasn't safe in this movement. They wanted to hang his ass and he's a white Republican Christian, so nobody is safe.
- [19:09]
Tara McGowan
I. I couldn't say it better than you, Jen. I will, I will add to that though, that like, we saw this, we have been seeing this in Minneapolis, which of course is still an ongoing story, but we have seen the white allyship come out, right? It is. It is people protecting their neighbors and their communities. And we saw two white American citizens exercising their constitutional rights get executed by the federal government, by ICE agents. And then what we saw is that that did not work to instill fear and compl.
- [19:38]
Jen
Right.
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Tara McGowan
We saw more people show up in the streets in Minneapolis. We saw hundreds of thousands of people join trainings to learn how to be witnesses and observers of ice. And so I think we know that the administration right now is running scared on every front Epstein ICE retaliation and the elections, knowing that they are going to lose. And that is where we want them. We want them in a defensive, scared posture and we need to keep them there. And I think that their fear tactics have not been working. They have had a backlash effect that is going to lead to what you just described as this incredible unifying movement and too big to rig. I love that in terms of our turnaround for elections, that's exactly what we need. And we need to show up in small ways every single day until then.
- [20:20]
Jen
Tell us about Courier News Courier.
- [20:22]
Tara McGowan
I started Courier almost seven years ago now, which feels wild. We've all lived a million lives since then, as has our country. And I started it. I started my career in journalism and then I spent about a dozen years running political campaigns and organizations, mostly focused on reaching people left behind by both traditional media in sort of the decentralization of media on the Internet and with social media as well as folks left behind by both political parties, which turns out to be a lot of Americans. So we have newsrooms in 11 states. Actually, I'm not sure exactly when you're publishing this, but today we're announcing, so you're the first to hear it, Jen, that we're going to be expanding to nine additional states. So we're going to be in 20 states with newsrooms and reporters on the ground by the end of this year. And we focus on reaching folks that get their news primarily on social media and don't pay through paywalls. And that's most Americans. We are now reaching between national and our local network over 150 million Americans a week through vertical video explainers, graphic carousels, headlines. Really the information that people need, but in a way that they'll consume it with all of our very limited attention spans these days.
- [21:38]
Jen
Tara, thank you so much for joining us. I want to partner with you as much as we can, keeping both of our listeners and viewerships engaged and forming community. This is the most important midterm of our lifetime, no doubt. Thank you so much, everybody. Go follow all Courier news and the name of your new podcast is Gloves Off.
- [22:00]
Tara McGowan
And I want to thank you, Jen, because that is absolutely what you embody. And I'm so glad you're using your voice and your platform for our country. It's, it's so needed.
- [22:09]
Jen
All right, thank you, Tara.
- [22:21]
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- [22:51]
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