Epstein Files Freed & Campus Competence Crisis | 11.19.25

Summary

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Morning Wire – Episode Summary

Episode Title: Epstein Files Freed & Campus Competence Crisis
Date: November 19, 2025
Hosts: John Bickley & Georgia Howe
Main Contributors: Mary Margaret Olohan (White House Correspondent), Cabot Phillips (Senior Editor), Kenny Pokari (Chief Market Strategist), Luke Rosiak (Investigative Reporter)

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Episode Overview

This Morning Wire episode zeroes in on two prominent national stories:

• The unprecedented congressional push to force the Department of Justice (DOJ) to disclose all files related to Jeffrey Epstein, with a focus on the political dynamics and potential implications.
• A critical look at declining academic standards in American higher education, highlighted by recent investigative reporting on both public universities and historically black colleges.

Additionally, the episode includes an economic update with an eye on possible turbulence in the stock market driven by concerns of an AI "bubble."

The hosts maintain a factual, inquisitive tone, frequently drawing out candid and sometimes blunt insights from their guests.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Epstein Files Transparency Act: Implications, Politics, and Next Steps

[02:34 – 06:13]

• What Happened:

  • Congress overwhelmingly voted to require the DOJ to release all files related to Jeffrey Epstein, including those involving Ghislaine Maxwell.
  • The act is bipartisan, sponsored by Reps. Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna.

• What’s In the Files:

  • The files “supposedly” include long-awaited details that Americans have been seeking, with particular interest in whether they implicate major public figures.

• Skepticism about Full Transparency:

  • Mary Margaret Olohan warns that "absolutely, there's totally a chance that the DOJ could retain some names, redact some names, keep certain files from us that they feel like the public shouldn't see" ([03:35]).

• The White House Perspective:

  • The Trump administration’s stance has shifted under pressure from Republicans, the public, and the media.
  • The White House's messaging: “Democrats are pushing for the release of these files in order to weaponize them against Trump. Their messaging has been this whole time that Trump hated Epstein, that he kicked him out of his Mar-a-Lago club, that he no longer was friends with him because he was a creep” ([04:28]).
  • Olohan notes the administration’s pivot: “At this point, [Trump is] kind of just throwing his hands up in the air and saying, fine, let's do it, let's get this over with… at the end of the day, none of it is implicating the president in anything that Democrats would like to implicate him in” ([04:28]).

• Democratic Scrutiny:

  • The White House is casting the spotlight back at Democrats, urging reporters to investigate Democratic ties to Epstein.

Memorable Quote:

• “There’s a lot of different disputes, discussions of how these documents will be seen and what details we will or won't have. But in the meantime, it’s a huge step in a different direction after what we’ve been hearing for a long time.” – Mary Margaret Olohan ([03:35])

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2. Is an AI Bubble About to Burst? Market Insights & Investor Anxiety

[07:34 – 11:53]

• Market Jitters:

  • After a year of strong gains led by AI optimism, markets dipped over 3% this week, with tech stocks most affected.
  • A major concern: AI company valuations may be inflated—an MIT survey found 95% of 300 AI firms have yet to turn a profit, despite $40B in outside investments ([08:37]).

• Notable Investor Moves:

  • Michael Burry has shorted major AI stocks (e.g., Palantir, Nvidia), and Peter Thiel and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son have liquidated key holdings ([08:37]).

• Bullish vs. Bearish Opinions:

  • Goldman Sachs analysts argue markets are “correctly valuing the benefits from AI,” not at “bubble levels” ([09:49]).
  • Guest Kenny Pokari shares: “While I think that valuations are stretched, I am not in the camp that I think we're in a bubble… this is not dot com bubble 2.0. It absolutely is not” ([10:20], [10:58]).
  • Pokari suggests price corrections may create long-term buying opportunities for patient investors.

Memorable Quotes:

• “You can't compare companies like Nvidia and Palantir and Google and Amazon and Microsoft and IBM and AMD along with all the others that generate real cash. They build real infrastructure, they serve real demand.” – Kenny Pokari ([10:58])
• “Buckle up.” – Cabot Phillips, on Nvidia's upcoming earnings influencing further volatility ([11:39])

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3. Academic Fraud & College Standards Under Fire

[11:55 – 16:29]

• Lowering the Bar:

  • Luke Rosiak’s reporting highlights UC San Diego’s data: 25% of first-year students failed to answer a middle school–level math question ([12:24]).
  • The number of freshmen failing to meet middle school standards grew by nearly 30% since 2020 ([12:34]).

• Misaligned Incentives & Outcomes:

  • Many students are admitted and given good grades despite lacking basic academic preparation.
  • The University of Maryland Eastern Shore (a historically black college) has a 90% admission rate but only a 17% graduation rate; lawsuits allege the school “has almost no standards and actually condones cheating to keep its graduation rate from getting any worse” ([13:10], [13:38]).
  • Faculty lawsuits allege DEI offices are used to retaliate against whistleblowers.

• Top-Down Issues:

  • University president accused of plagiarizing her PhD dissertation; “just egregious academic conduct and nothing has really happened to her” ([15:55]).
  • Rosiak points to significant public funding for these institutions and raises the question of whether colleges are serving students (and taxpayers) responsibly.

Memorable Quotes:

• “A quarter of students at the University of California, San Diego did not know the answer to that.” – Luke Rosiak ([12:24])
• “If you barely graduated high school, we need to ask whether you should be going to college and what's the benefit of having a college that caters to you?” – Luke Rosiak ([15:58])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Epstein Files Transparency Act Discussion: [02:34 – 06:13]
  • White House messaging shift: [04:28]
• AI Market Sell-off & Speculation: [07:34 – 11:53]
  • Pokari's take on the "AI bubble": [10:20]
• Academic Fraud & College Admission Crisis: [11:55 – 16:29]
  • UCSD Math Placement stat: [12:24]
  • University of Maryland Eastern Shore lawsuits: [13:38]
  • Presidential plagiarism allegation: [15:55]

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Notable Quotes & Speaker Attributions

• Mary Margaret Olohan ([03:35]):
  “There’s a lot of different disputes, discussions of how these documents will be seen and what details we will or won't have. But in the meantime, it’s a huge step in a different direction after what we’ve been hearing for a long time.”

• Kenny Pokari ([10:58]):
  “You can't compare companies like Nvidia and Palantir and Google and Amazon and Microsoft and IBM and AMD along with all the others that generate real cash. They build real infrastructure, they serve real demand.”

• Luke Rosiak ([15:58]):
  “If you barely graduated high school, we need to ask whether you should be going to college and what's the benefit of having a college that caters to you?”

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Tone and Style

The episode sustains Morning Wire’s hallmark tone: direct, skeptical, and concise, often punctuated by pointed investigative questions and a “just the facts” orientation. The hosts and guests voice candid assessments, occasionally with sharp humor or incredulity (notably during the college standards segment).

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Conclusion

This episode of Morning Wire delivers an in-depth look at current crises in American institutional transparency and educational standards. The hosts dissect the evolving political strategies around the Epstein files, present a balanced account of financial market fears, and probe the consequences of academic decline, leaving listeners with critical questions about transparency, accountability, and the direction of pivotal U.S. institutions.

Transcript

[Mary Margaret Olohan]

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[John Bickley]

Lawmakers in Washington overwhelmingly vote to force the DOJ to open its full records on Jeffrey Epstein.

[Sponsor Voice]

Without objection soar. Senate has now passed the Epstein bill.

[Cabot Phillips]

We talked to our White House correspondent about the highly anticipated release of the files and what happens now.

[John Bickley]

I'm Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Wednesday, November 19th. This is Morning Wire.

[Cabot Phillips]

Markets tumbled this week after major investors signaled concerns about the AI rally. Could the AI bubble be bursting?

[Kenny Pokari]

I think that AI is very real. I think AI is going to continue to change the world that we live in.

[John Bickley]

And a new investigation is shining a harsh light on alleged academic fraud in higher education.

[Cabot Phillips]

Thanks for waking up with MORNING wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.

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[Cabot Phillips]

Congress overwhelmingly voted to release all Justice Department files tied to Jeffrey Epstein. And with President Trump's support.

[John Bickley]

Joining us now in studio to break down what this vote actually means is Daily Wire White House correspondent Mary Margaret Olihan. It's great to have you in person. Welcome to the show.

[Mary Margaret Olohan]

Thanks so much for having me. It's great to be here.

[John Bickley]

Let's start with what this vote actually means. What did. What was just passed.

[Mary Margaret Olohan]

Yes. So this is a massive deal. We've been waiting for this for weeks, if not months, if not the entire Trump administration. It's called the Epstein Files Transparency act, and it's sponsored by Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna, and it effectively calls for the release of all of these files. It's specifically on calling for the Justice Department to release materials that relate to Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's cohort and lover. And so all of this will supposedly release details that Americans have been waiting for for a long time.

[John Bickley]

Now, you said supposedly There, there is some concern that this won't be all of the information. Is it possible that the DOJ will actually continue to withhold some information on Epstein?

[Mary Margaret Olohan]

Absolutely. There's totally a chance that the DoJ could retain some names, redact some names, keep certain files from us that they feel like the public shouldn't see. This is something that we've seen in the past already, and we even saw Democrats recently release files redacting the name of Virginia Giuffre, who's one of Epstein's victims, and we already knew her name. And this was something that they chose to redact anyway. So there's a lot of different disputes, discussions of how these documents will be seen and what details we will or won't have. But in the meantime, it's a huge step in a different direction after what we've been hearing for a long time.

[John Bickley]

Right. And as Trump has pointed out, you know, tens of thousands of pages of documents have already been released. I wanted to get to the Trump side of this next. You've been in the White House reporting on the ground there this whole year. You've seen the pressure building. You've seen the sort of tone shift from the White House. What exactly has that been like? What. What's been the change?

[Mary Margaret Olohan]

It's been very interesting to see, for example, Caroline Levitt from the White House podium, very restrained, very careful, telling the public that Democrats are pushing for the release of these files in order to weaponize them against Trump. Their messaging has been this whole time that Trump hated Epstein, that he kicked him out of his Mar A Lago club, that he no longer was friends with him. Because he was a creep. Their messaging has also been that Democrats want to weaponize these files and that if there was anything against Trump in them, it would have been used under the Biden doj, which is a very valid point accepted on both sides of the aisle. Now the pivot has been more that Trump is realizing that his base wants the files. He's also realizing that House Republicans and Senate Republicans are supportive of releasing the files. And so at this point, he's kind of just throwing his hands up in the air and saying, fine, let's do it, let's get this over with. And also he's already seen a bunch of different items released in the files where people have tried to say this is incriminating to him, this is this or that is incriminating. And I think what we're seeing is none of it is actually incriminating the president in wrongdoing. There might be that are emerging that are distasteful or upsetting to some of us, but at the end of the day, none of it is implicating the president in anything that Democrats would like to implicate him in. So I even have an email right here in front of me. The White House is messaging on where the Democrats transparency on Epstein is. And there's multiple bullet points here where the White House is saying, why haven't Democrats shown the same transparency and what else are they hiding? And they just go through multiple examples of Democrats who are talking to Epstein, who were taking money from Epstein and are now not under scrutiny the way they believe they should be. So they're really going full throttle. At the same time that they're slightly pivoting, they're also saying, look at all these Democrats who are implicated with Epstein. Here's information for all you reporters. Now do your job and cover this as well.

[John Bickley]

Thank you so much for joining us in studio and reporting for us.

[Mary Margaret Olohan]

Thanks for having me.

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[John Bickley]

Global stock markets tumbled this week amid growing fears of an AI bubble and ongoing affordability concerns.

[Cabot Phillips]

Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips is here with more on what's driving the sell off and what it means for the economy more broadly. So Cabot, lately when you've reported we've talked about the market reaching record highs, but that's not the story this week. What's going on?

Yeah, throughout this summer and fall, millions of Americans were ecstatic every week to open up their investment portfolio as markets were soaring. The Dow S&P 500 and NASDAQ are all up by over 10% this year, and those gains were driven largely by excitement over artificial intelligence. It's not hyperbole to say at this point that AI has been one of the greatest things ever to happen on Wall street as new applications and technologies emerge. Month after month, investors have gobbled up shares of anything even remotely related to AI. But in the past week, markets have begun to look a bit shaky. The Dow, Nasdaq and S&P 500 are each down by over 3%, and tech stocks in particular have been hit the hardest.

So what's causing the sell off?

Well, the biggest and most obvious concern is simply that a bubble has been formed and that all of the frenzied investors pumping trillions of dollars into AI stocks trying to get in on the action drove prices far beyond what they're actually worth. Keep in mind, most AI companies at this point are still in the research and development phase and and are not actually making money right now. MIT, for example, recently surveyed 300 AI companies and found that 95% of them have not yet turned a profit despite taking in a combined $40 billion in outside investments between them. We've now seen a number of high profile famous investors and venture capitalists betting against AI stocks. Now, Michael Burry made famous in the big short after he made billions of dollars betting against the housing market ahead of the 08 financial crisis has now put about a billion dollars against Palantir and Nvidia shorting them, essentially betting that their prices are going to fall elsewhere. Billionaire tech founder Peter Thiel and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Sohn each liquidated all of their Nvidia stocks, sparking even more concern. But it is worth noting here, not everyone is worried that we're in a bubble right now. There are still plenty of bulls in.

The market and what are we hearing from them? Why are they confident in AI?

So take Goldman Sachs for example. They released a report this week expressing confidence that the market is, quote, in their words, correctly valuing the benefits from AI and that valuations are not at quote bubble levels. Two of their lead analysts wrote in that report that quote, simple arithmetic shows that markets are running well ahead of the macro impact. In other words, they're arguing that the market has already priced in the future profits that are going to come, even if they haven't come yet from AI technology. For more on that angle, I spoke with Kenny Pokari, the chief market strategist at Slatestone Wealth.

[Kenny Pokari]

While I think that valuations are stretched, I am not in the camp that I think we're in a bubble, right? A bubble suggests something very different. This was the industrial rev, the fourth industrial revolution. Everyone had to be in and so they talked it up and now when it's exhausted, you'll see kind of prices adjust and so it's going to probably feel uncomfortable. But I'm not in the camp that I think it's a bubble.

[Cabot Phillips]

And again, Pokari, you heard there did concede that prices were bound to correct at some point. Though he does not envision a true bubble popping scenario. But he does say that in his view this all represents a long term opportunity for the average investor at home.

[Kenny Pokari]

What ultimately will happen, it will present itself to be a great, I think what's going to end up being a great buying opportunity if you're a long term investor. You know this is not dot com bubble 2.0. It absolutely is not. Look, in 1999 and 2000 when the dot com bubble happened, the business as we out of here were really nothing more than websites with super bowl commercials. No revenue model, no products, right? You can't compare companies like Nvidia and Palantir and Google and Amazon and Microsoft and IBM and and AMD along with all the others that generate real cash. They build real infrastructure, they serve real demand.

[Cabot Phillips]

Worth pointing out Nvidia's latest earnings report will come out later today. Based on what they show, we could see even more activity on Wall Street. So buckle up.

Well, I'm personally just going to hang in and not do anything with my stocks. Cabot, thanks for reporting.

Absolutely.

Colleges are increasingly admitting students who struggle with middle school level academics.

[John Bickley]

Daily Wire investigative reporter Luke Rosiak took a deep dive into one such school this week and wrote a book related to this. He joins us now in studio. Hey, Luke, good to have you here.

[Luke Rosiak]

Hey, John, good to be with you in person.

[John Bickley]

So what is happening with college rigor these days?

[Luke Rosiak]

All right, first thing, John, pop quiz. Seven, two blank plus six, three. You got it.

[John Bickley]

Oh, thank goodness.

[Luke Rosiak]

We didn't even need the Jeopardy. Theme song playing for too long. So a quarter of students at the University of California, San Diego did not know the answer to that.

[John Bickley]

Oh, my goodness.

[Luke Rosiak]

The school put out a report this month on the, quote, steep decline in the academic preparation of its entering first year students. It said between 2020 and 2025, the number of freshmen whose math placement exam results indicate that they do not meet middle school standards grew nearly 30. And worse, it wasn't because they hadn't taken the courses. They actually did take the courses and they actually got sometimes good grades in those courses.

[John Bickley]

And of course, if you're not ready for college, you're likely to fail out, be stuck with debt. It seems like it's not in anyone's interest to allow students that are not prepared to go to college.

[Luke Rosiak]

Yeah, it definitely doesn't help anyone, including the students, minority or otherwise. And the dumbing down of colleges have also led to inflation, where now you've got to waste precious years of your life going to grad school to prove you're as smart as what in previous decades would have been established by getting a bachelor's degree. Now, some, but not all of this has been driven by racial politics. And I did a story this week on a historically black college and university, or hbcu, that really underscores those concerns. The University of Maryland Eastern Shore admits 90% of students who apply and has only a 17% graduation rate. There's been four separate lawsuits filed against it just in the last couple months alleging, among other things, that the school has almost no standards and actually condones cheating in order to keep its graduation rate from getting any worse. For example, one lecturer, Q. Fang, said most students failed her advanced computer science class, which she found something that you'd expect. It's a logical result of basically making college students out of people who barely graduated high school. Now, her department chair, Assad Azimi, she says, pressured her to pass them and then he wound up kind of taking over the class and every single student passed when he was in charge. So she says in this lawsuit, quote, azimi encourages cheating and apparently fraudulent practices to maintain a false facade of enrollment to pad his salary and deceive the federal government.

[John Bickley]

Right, because ultimately the federal government is the one funding these student loans.

[Luke Rosiak]

Yeah, I mean, a lot of these students are. They're taking out loans to go to school. And if you're not really cut out for college, you're not getting a degree where you're going to have a great career, you're going to default on that loan and taxpayers are left holding the bag. So it really goes on and on with the lawsuits alleging really serious misconduct at this one school in Maryland, a public school that's part of the University of Maryland system. So that's just the tip of the iceberg, too, with this particular hbcu. Four separate lawsuits say that after the faculty discovered serious misconduct at the school, the DEI office was used to retaliate against them with bogus cases.

[John Bickley]

And just to be clear, so this HBCU has a DEI office? Yes.

[Luke Rosiak]

It's an intentionally racially segregated school that also wants diversity and inclusion. But it turns out the head of it left his previous job after being accused of sexual assault. And the lawsuits say he now functions essentially to retaliate against whistleblowers, most of whom are non black faculty, that are like, what is going on at this college? I reported a few weeks ago that the president of the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, a woman named Heidi Anderson, had copied her PhD dissertation from somebody else. Really just egregious academic conduct and nothing has really happened to her.

[John Bickley]

So in other words, the lack of standards comes from the top.

[Luke Rosiak]

It appears like apparently so. And I mean, President Trump has steered quite a bit of money specifically to so called HBCUs. But it may be time to start treating them the same as any other college where, whether it's UCSD or hbcu, if you barely graduated high school, we need to ask whether you should be going to college and what's the benefit of having a college that caters to you?

[John Bickley]

Right. And ultimately the employers who hire them believing that their degrees actually meant something when they maybe don't. Luke, thank you so much for reporting. Great to have you in the studio.

[Luke Rosiak]

Thanks for having me.

[Cabot Phillips]

John, thanks for waking up with us. And if you're listening to the show now. You can watch for free on Daily Wire. We'll be back later this evening with more news you need to know.