← The Beat with Ari Melber
The Beat with Ari Melber
New Report: Documents Shredded at Jail After Epstein's Death
00:41:21
A bombshell report from The Miami Herald reveals that "bags" of documents were shredded and thrown away at the New York jail where Epstein died just days after it happened. MS NOW's Ari Melber reports.
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- [00:01]
Ari Melber
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- [00:28]
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- [00:57]
Ari Melber
Welcome to the Beat. I'm Ari Melber. We have a big show including Maya Wiley and Molly Jong fast coming up. We begin with the Trump administration's mixed signals. Formal public claims that they are in talks with Iran, which many people think could be a good thing if it leads to an off ramp. But they're also today preparing to deploy thousands of paratroopers to the Middle East. And that's the news. You have basically conflicting signals at best, some critics say potential contradiction on this war policy. 3,000 troops will have the ability to parachute behind enemy lines. Reporting that officials caution a decision to put boots on the ground. Iran has not been made, the Journal reports. But deployment opens the door to Trump for what they are calling strategic options. Another 5,000 troops, a force that comprise mostly of Marines, are also en route to the region. Iran fired on Israel today. We can show you that footage. This is some of the impact in Tel Aviv. Four injured there. There's also overnight footage Israel intercepting Iranian missile strikes. A reminder that this is still very much a multi country regional war. Trump is facing the kind of blowback in the country that suggests this remains an increasingly unpopular war. He's also facing blowback from the worst kind of critic, if you are a sitting president and one that is rare and taken seriously. His own former defense secretary Jim Mattis telling the nation, apparently because he thinks it's important to publicize this and that is itself a decision that most Pentagon veterans take very seriously. That quote, we're in a tough spot. I can't identify a lot of good options. And he noted the lack of strategy.
- [02:44]
Howard Dean
What we're seeing is A situation where targetry never makes up for a lack of strategy. Now, some of the strategic outcomes early on, unconditional surrender, regime change, we're going to dictate who the next supreme leader is. Those were clearly nonsense. Those were delusional,
- [03:07]
Ari Melber
delusional nonsense. Those are the words of someone that Trump relied on to try to shape war policy. Mattis is of course referring to something that everyone has been discussing since the very first days of this announced war. Would regime change really work? And if not, are we ending up in the same or worse place when you look at a younger Khomeini, quite literally now running Iran? Now, Trump has suggested that maybe this regime is different enough to comprise regime change. Nobody takes that particular claim seriously. The president has made some claims that are just not factual Amidst this war. The new supreme leader is the son of the former supreme leader. He is described by all parties in the region as a more hardline version of his father. Now, Trump says the war is, quote, already won, but that again, is just war talk. Iran has now choked up 20% of the world's oil supply. Gulf countries are getting hit by missiles and there is a real question about the president's credibility. Trump says there are productive talks. One diplomat tells us Iran is not ready at all to enter negotiations now and the level of trust towards the US Is basically at a negative. Other Iranian officials see it as a kind of trap. The Journal reporting on that aspect. And in the past hour we saw a story cross the wires from the New York Times reporting the Trump administration has sent a 15 point peace plan to Iran. It was unclear how widely the plan, delivered by way of Pakistan, has been shared among Iranian officials and whether Iran was likely to accept it as a basis for negotiations. The Times reports. Now there are many people in the United States and the Middle east who would like to see this war wind down. Indeed, there is more interest in winding down the war and its current economic and energy consequences, which were sparked by the US Than any larger sort of deal. In fact, we've seen reporting out of Israeli intelligence that they just don't think regime change or a public Iranian uprising is now at all likely. In the offing. The politics at home are also a big counterweight. If Donald Trump is actually looking at the plans I just mentioned in the reporting, more boots on the ground and those kind of forces which lengthens the war going into the midterms, he will be facing an even more skeptical public and a very scared Republican Party going into those midterms. I want to bring in former Governor Howard Dean, former DNC chair. He was a presidential candidate who ran on an anti war platform, famously pushing the Democratic Party against the Iraq war on that issue back in 2003. Welcome back.
- [05:49]
Howard Dean
Thanks very much.
- [05:52]
Ari Melber
I tried to be fair in covering what we're hearing, and if some of those reports are true and happened, you might find an off ramp that a lot of people would welcome. What do you think of what we're hearing out of the Trump administration and what would be best going forward?
- [06:07]
Howard Dean
I think Mattis is the most sensible person and unfortunately, Trump didn't see fit to hire him again, probably because he was sensible. Trump's got himself in a real jam. His characteristic principal characteristics is he does things without thinking about what the consequences are. And now we found out. I personally don't believe we're going to send 3,000 paratroopers on the ground in Iran because we're going to get absolutely slaughtered. The Iranians are a serious power. And I agree. The one thing I agree with Trump on is they're a despicable group of people that are running Iran and they have taken advantage of their own people and suppressed them and produced all kinds of horrible human rights violations, including sacrificing 7,000 of them as punishment for the recent uprisings. So it would be great to get rid of them. But when you're going to do something like that, you actually have a plan, have to have a plan. And Trump never had a plan and now he's stuck. What a surprise is why. He went bankrupt five times when he was in the real estate business. You get out over your skis and now you're stuck.
- [07:10]
Ari Melber
You mentioned Mattis. I have a little more of what he said in public. Take a look.
- [07:16]
Howard Dean
I think it would be very unlikely that this regime would break right now. It is murky right now to understand what we in the military call the commander's intent. We've heard all sorts of things. Frankly, it's going to be a darn difficult problem.
- [07:35]
Ari Melber
Your view of that point and that sometimes the original problem remains the largest problem, which is we don't have a defined objective, which makes it harder to define when we leave.
- [07:48]
Howard Dean
Yeah, we never. I mean, the president never made the objective clear. Maybe he did have a defined one. I doubt it. The problem without having a defined objective is he doesn't have a defined plan. And, you know, Iran, I would safely say, is. Is what I would call a middle power. They have a lot of missiles. They have a pretty good army. It's run by a group of crooks. Called Abbasiji, who are basically terror and everybody is terrified of them, including, I think the army to a large extent. So, you know, you just don't go and start dropping missiles on them without a plan for what you're going to do when you need more than that. And Mr. Trump never had such a plan. And we're going to get on the quickly find ourselves on the short end of this. And that's what he's looking at. Now. I would be shocked if he sent 3,000 troops in, not because our troops aren't great, but because it means the end of his, the Republican Party party's grip on power for sure.
- [08:48]
Ari Melber
Right. And then you get to the point that he wants to treat this like the famed real estate deals we hear so much about or the tariff deals and his allies. And we talk to people, as you know, have had a lot of Trump officials on this show. One of the things they say a lot, Howard, is, well, you gotta understand, none of it needs to be true. But he's unpredictable and he's speaking to the spread of options and people will react to that. And that works as far as it goes. It seems to fail if the Supreme Court takes most of the tariff options off the table. Because now you just had a lot of mess for a year, but you don't have that option. And you're raising the point that while anyone might root for the US to have the greatest leverage, we had an ambassador on Dennis Ross who talked about how having military in the background and not having to use it helps diplomats. But are we crossing teeteringly close to actually looking like the country that cried wolf if it doesn't want to send those people in and he's still seeking an off ramp because we need a fifth more oil.
- [09:44]
Howard Dean
Well, look, I mean, if, if this president had any vision other than whatever he happens to be feeling at the time, he would not have made this mistake because he would have looked at Iraq, the second Iraq, the second Iraq War, which was based on full pretenses and nonsense and, and the damage that had crossed this country caused this country. And then he might have looked at Afghanistan, which bogged us down for years and years. I think, and I have always said this, that the invasion of Afghanistan by the United States was they had trained Terrorists who murdered 3,000Americans and brought down the World Trade Centers. But you can't do this without a long term plan. And if the really good minds in the military who were in charge of Afghanistan couldn't come up with a long term plan, I don't see how the people who Pete Hegseth is fired can possibly come up with a long term plan for this.
- [10:35]
Ari Melber
Especially now that you think Trump has buyer's remorse. You don't know what to do.
- [10:40]
Howard Dean
What's that?
- [10:41]
Ari Melber
You think he has buyer's remorse now, knowing how the last four weeks have
- [10:44]
Howard Dean
gone, I doubt Trump ever has remorse for anything. He's not that kind of a person. His problem is he just doesn't think about what might happen if he does A, B, C or D. And so he just picks that stuff out.
- [10:57]
Ari Melber
That's sweeping. That's a sweep. You think he never goes back to the store and says, I tried it on, I want to return it?
- [11:05]
Howard Dean
I've never heard him publicly admit that. Look at all the times he's been convicted for fraud and rape and everything else, and he's still not remorseful. Convicted civilly.
- [11:14]
Ari Melber
I always have to. Civilly liable in New York. Not. Not criminally convicted civilly liable for a
- [11:21]
Howard Dean
hell of a lot of money in New York. Some vast amount of millions that none of us will ever. His victim will probably never see either. But this guy, look, this guy's been convicted. He doesn't, he has no shame and remorse is not in his vocabulary. And he does this stuff without thinking about it. And that is a mistake. Especially if you're talking about committing American troops to the middle of a fairly good sized nation with a well trained army.
- [11:47]
Ari Melber
Well, and the larger question you're getting at is whether we have a defined foreign policy or a series of emotions. Because emotions. If you think that he cannot use facts, reason, logic and the extraordinary intelligence capabilities of our government and the Pentagon to figure out what's best for the American people and the military. If you can't do that, if it's an emotional thing about, I can't go backwards, I can't back it down, I can't look, quote unquote, a certain way, then yeah, there's gonna be a lot of he on this next couple weeks because the oil situation, according to many, is untenable. Howard, our leadoff guest. Thanks for being here tonight, sir. You appreciate it. Coming up, we look at the use of ice at the airports. One Trump ally saying this is a quote, test run for the midterms. We also have a report on the bags of shredded documents that were found and that were apparently secretly attempted to cover up coming out of the Epstein jail just days after his death. A big Miami Herald bombshell. And I have that for you tonight. It's really interesting. It draws on the files Maya and Molly are here. We're back in 90 seconds.
- [13:00]
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- [14:24]
Ari Melber
We're seeing lines, delays, confusion and some say at times chaos in America's airports. We have Donald Trump now deploying ICE agents to some of the hub airports. Now the assertion from the administration is that this is supposed to, quote, assist TSA agents who are overburdened during this partial shock shutdown. That may be. There are also reports that ice's presence is not speeding up security screenings. They are not exactly part of tsa, so there's a limited amount of actual operational support they can give. Some ICE agents have been seen sort of just roaming the halls of the airport. Here's a photo that shows one aspect of the story. Let's take this in full. You have the lines that's in Atlanta's airport there stretching all the way outside. You don't want to be in the line out there. You're might not make your flight and then you have an agent. And again, this is more of a criticism or a question about US Policy than this particular agent because he's there under orders. But he doesn't seem to have much to do. So he's on his phone while people wait outside. Now the White House posted a video of an agent passing out water and saying, look, they can help do things for people. Here's what passengers are saying.
- [15:35]
Molly Jong-Fast
I think it's, it's very, very. I don't know what to say. What should I say? I think it's scary. Why should I be there? Are they helping?
- [15:44]
Maya Wiley
You saw people bracing themselves like, what the hell's going on here? And there were a lot of people who were taking pictures and sort of watching them. They were just milling around. They weren't even doing anything. I don't, just sort of chatting. I don't know what, what their function was.
- [15:59]
Ari Melber
One reason they are milling around is while they have broad enforcement authority and they're armed and they can work to do certain things relating to, to Immigration Customs Enforcement, which of course you can say broadly relates to what happens at any airport or border crossing. They are not part of the TSA screening system, so they don't actually deal with travelers identification. They can't help speed up the screening. Now the orders from Trump has left some ICE offices scrambling to figure out what to do. And there are critics who say, given the recent history of how AJIS has operated, there are questions here about intimidation. And then you have the wider discourse, if you will. Discourse, if you will, Donald Trump saying this.
- [16:39]
Howard Dean
We put ice, who are a very high level, I mean, they really are a high level group of people, and
- [16:46]
Ari Melber
they love it because they're able to
- [16:48]
Howard Dean
now arrest illegals as they come into the country.
- [16:52]
Ari Melber
That's very fertile territory. If that's not enough, I'll bring in the National Guard. The president is sort of musing is the nicest way you can put it. We don't know whether ICE loves it, and it doesn't matter how federal employees feel emotionally about this type of assignment anyway. But what he's getting at, what he's sort of musing and pretending, is as if they are doing ICE enforcement of immigration customs apprehensions at the airports. And we can just tell you, in the early days of this, we haven't seen a lot of that. So even Trump's defense isn't really borne out by what's happening. Then there is the cratering approval for this range of policies. I've told you, I will always tell you how things really are. And I can remind you that in the past years, we have seen approval for two things that Donald Trump has done domestically, immigration enforcement and his sort of big claims to deal with high prices. During the campaign, people liked both of those things. I can update you tonight that the polling now has crashed on both of them. On the prices people don't think he's delivered, and on the ICE tactics. People oppose what they see as extreme violent efforts. So keep that in mind when a Trump White House veteran, Steve Bannon, says they're not deterred, they're going further. And he outlines a plan that could be unconstitutional for how to use ICE at the midterms.
- [18:19]
Scott McFarlane
We can use what's happening with these
- [18:21]
Howard Dean
ICE helping out at the airports.
- [18:25]
Ari Melber
We can use this as a test
- [18:26]
Howard Dean
run, as a test case to get to really perfect ICE. His involvement in the 2026 midterm election.
- [18:32]
Ari Melber
Sir? Yeah. I think we should have ICE agents at the polling places. That's Mr. Bannon's question. No word from the White House over whether that's actually something they want to explore. We're joined by New York Times writer Molly John Fast, host of the Fast Politics podcast, and Maya Wiley, former SDNY civil prosecutor, CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. Welcome to both of you.
- [18:53]
Maya Wiley
Thank you.
- [18:55]
Ari Melber
Molly, what do you think? ICE helping or hurting at the airports? And to ask the serious question, why not just reopen the government fully so we wouldn't have these lines.
- [19:05]
Molly Jong-Fast
Yeah. And a stark contrast is that ICE has lots and lots of money. They have billions of dollars because of the bbb, TSA not getting paid. So I think it's really important to realize, like, this is not popular and people don't like it. The optics of it are very bad. But it's also reminding people that there is this paramilitary force that a lot of them know about because of the killing of Renee Good and Alex Preddy, who are now in airports wearing bulletproof vests, a lot of them carrying some, you know, things that are weapon like, if not guns, and are there just milling around. And I think that already this is not popular. And I think that seeing more of it in airports when you. When they're not actually speeding, things is going to be worse.
- [19:58]
Ari Melber
Yeah. Maya, in your government roles, you've done oversight of police and law enforcement. And when law enforcement works great, they're closer to firefighters. And people say, great, they're here. We need your help. And when law enforcement under policy or direction are not doing their job or become the danger, people get scared of them. What does it tell you? That just they might not be the most partisan civilians in the world. People just trying to make their plane look up, and they're scared.
- [20:26]
Maya Wiley
They should be. Why do we know about ice? We have seen them gleefully violate people's rights, use excessive forces. We've seen them use literally Rubber bullets and other projectiles against ministers who are peacefully protesting in a public space. We have seen them actually go after elected officials because they're just want to do an inspection, which is lawful, of a detention facility where people are reportedly having their human rights violated. I'm saying this because people are rightly fearful of abuse of power and excessive force. And the reason we're even in this situation. Back To Molly's point, TSA workers are paid roughly $41,000 a year. I go to a church, the church I attend. I see one of my fellow parishioners when I go through tsa, guess who's on that saying, hey, Maya, someone who goes to my church. These are people. But you know what we've done? We've actually said we're going to gut the federal government, create literally 300,000 unemployed people who are black women, by the way. And then we're going to say we will create the single largest law enforcement agency in the country, bigger than every other federal law enforcement agency combined. And there are a lot. And then we're going to say, but we don't want them to be accountable, so we will let tsa, these neighbors, these parents, these workers not get paid so that we don't have to say that ICE has to show you a warrant so that we don't say that ICE can't racially profile you. And by the way, none of that money is going to pay for judges or hearings. So we don't want them to have to be able to be responsible for due process or responsible for excessive force. And no other law enforcement agency gets zero accountability.
- [22:33]
Ari Melber
Yeah, you laid out, you say it very clearly. I think people can make up their own minds, but it speaks to the problem. The Democrats wanted to use this funding, use their powers. People say, are they fighting or not? Well, they're fighting on this even if it becomes controversial, because people who are less informed just go, I don't like what's happening at the airport to say that they want these basic pieces of oversight and they have gotten progress because you had a drawdown in Minnesota and you had a change of DHS leadership. Molly. I want to go to the politics of it, as they say, because on Late Night, Trump's idea of, oh, I'm going to throw ICE in there and it'll, quote, troll you and upset you. I mean, there's a certain level of sophistication to this lacking, but it doesn't necessarily be working the way they planned. Here was late Night. Somehow Trump has found a way to make the airport even worse than it was.
- [23:21]
Scott McFarlane
An elite squad of civil servants who've been through rigorous training with impeccable qualifications. I'm just kidding.
- [23:27]
Ari Melber
He's sending ice. One DHS official told cbs, I have no idea what we're doing, and neither does he. So welcome to the club. ICE isn't trained on X rays. No surprise.
- [23:38]
Howard Dean
They don't really seem to be trained on anything, actually.
- [23:42]
Ari Melber
You know, and Molly, as I mentioned, there's a lot of folks who are just following their rules and this is where they're told to deploy. But this wider idea that the White House clearly had of, oh, you don't like ice, you're holding up the funding now, we'll put them where the lines are, doesn't seem to be helping them.
- [23:58]
Molly Jong-Fast
Yeah, and I want to point something else out here, which is that Donald Trump and Kristi Noem were very. Kristi Noem, who's no longer in her post, were very insistent that these ICE officers needed to wear masks because otherwise they would be doxed. Now they are in airports not wearing masks, not identifying themselves, not identifying themselves.
- [24:20]
Maya Wiley
San Francisco, not wearing uniforms.
- [24:22]
Molly Jong-Fast
Right. But not wearing masks. And I think it's a really good point here, because they are the whole, you know, all of these excuses ultimately were not real. They cannot wear masks. They should be identified. They should be held accountable. They should go under the same scrutiny as every other part of the federal government.
- [24:42]
Ari Melber
While we have you here both as a lawyer and a former candidate, there's been a lot of Republican attacks on vote by mail. And then you say, okay, well, is it secure? Can you do it? That's what some people ask, and people want to learn. They're wondering why they're hearing so much hype about this. I have a New York Times headline here. Trump calls mail in voting cheating and just voted by mail. His mail vote comes as he torpedoed negotiations on the shutdown and demands, of course, this new legislation that would make it harder to vote the way he just voted. I'm curious, Maya, if you think that matters.
- [25:19]
Maya Wiley
Of course it matters. It matters because it shows the utter hypocrisy. But it also, like so many things that we have sometimes heard from this president or from his camp, it's more about what they think benefits them in politics. Not in politics in terms of earning voters, but in terms of the process and the creating more difficulty for voters to vote who they think may not vote for them. You know, the most participation we've had in a long time was in 2020. Sadly, it was because of COVID But what we did was we actually expanded mail in voting. People with disabilities, people who were elderly voted in higher number because we had made it easier for them to access the process. That's a good thing. And every research study shows yeah, it's safe, it's worked and states have been doing it for a long time. So this really isn't about problem.
- [26:15]
Ari Melber
It's a huge tell Molly. I don't want to get in trouble saying this because you talk about what people eat. Everyone's got their own thing. But I know a story about a. I'm not going to name them, but a prominent person who requested a vegan option at a group dinner, right. And then they got and this was prepared one of these type of dinners and then they got there and ordered a cheeseburger after the organizers had created these other vegan options. And someone was saying to me like, this is the height of what, what we call what Maya and I call chutzpah. And it's one thing if somebody really has a mail in voting issue and then they don't vote by mail and you're like, okay, again, respecting okay. You have a perspective and you're carrying that out. Even though we've reported on the way this works, you have entire states that use only vote by mail and the president has celebrated state victories in those in some places where they are. But to say not that you choose to be vegan but that you expect other people to be vegan and fund your vegan edicts while you eat a cheeseburger, Come on.
- [27:14]
Maya Wiley
Yeah.
- [27:14]
Molly Jong-Fast
And look, Donald Trump, you know that he wants the save in the Save act because he's worried about the midterms because every time you ask him about the midterms he says we need the SAVE Act. And even Mike Lee, you know, we have the wrong people voting. We need, you know, have this pass the Save act to save the midterms. That is not how democracy is supposed to work. Yeah.
- [27:35]
Ari Melber
And I don't want to get too meta but. But we have to wonder whether PETA will come after me for this segment. We only time will tell. I've asked Molly and Maya to stick around. We have more fun and some important stuff coming up. We have a question of whether there is secret intelligence being abused to profit in these new evolving betting markets. It's actually a huge war corruption story if you haven't heard about it. That's coming up tonight. And the bags of shredded documents that have been revealed in the Epstein files, a big enough deal that US attorneys were frantically saying, and we have the emails to show you asap. Can we get in there and get the bags of shredded documents? If you haven't heard this story, it's a doozy. Molly and Maya on that next.
- [28:18]
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- [28:40]
Ari Melber
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- [29:09]
Maya Wiley
Uncovered Repairs oh no, my coffee. Bronnie here.
- [29:17]
Ari Melber
New brawny 3 ply is now more absorbent.
- [29:19]
Maya Wiley
Wow.
- [29:20]
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- [29:22]
Ari Melber
Do you wear plaid? Ronnie Summon the Strongest There are many different stories about Jeffrey Epstein and the government response to his case, but this one is a real doozy. The Miami Herald's Julie Brown, who you might have seen on this program, has an absolute bombshell about how the Epstein files show there were an unusual number of bags of shredded documents removed from Epstein's jail just days after his death. That alone is suspicious. A corrections officer, though, was so concerned that they called the secret FBI tip line and said they'd, quote, never seen this amount of bags of shredded documents coming out to be put in the dumpster. The officer was concerned about the After Action group that came in to look into the death. Just to tell you how this works, usually investigative teams do not immediately shred documents and evidence. They collect evidence. The FBI records state that the caller found it, quote, suspicious that an After Action team charged with investigating would be shredding huge amounts of paperwork. That is an understatement. A corrections officer later wrote a memo to the FBI saying you might want to investigate why those employees are destroying wreckers and jails sometimes use inmates for certain physical tasks. The Herald reporting an inmate at the jail was told to take bags of shredded Material to the rear gate, throw them in a dumpster. The inmate said, reportedly, quote, they're shredding everything. On top of that, the files show that there were whistleblower accounts, a letter to A judge and U.S. attorney's staff, who also viewed this as suspicious. At the very least, a potential crime or obstruction at most. Molly and Maya are back with us. When you hear that the feds and investigators are the ones doing the shredding, what does that tell you?
- [31:13]
Maya Wiley
Something ain't right. That's my formal legal opinion on the matter. Now, this is really an a. How can I say it? An astounding story. Astounding to have investigators, actually. First of all, anytime you're shredding a document in law enforcement, you're supposed to be doing it pursuant to a document policy. You have a retention policy about what you keep, how long you keep it, how it's stored. So the mere fact that there's just this, like, massive amount of shredding happening in and of itself is odd because it's obviously not happening in the regular course of just a document retention policy that you have that you're handing them over to inmates to take out the. To the trash. And even the inmates going, this isn't normal. I mean, I don't even know what to say. Then this stinks to high heaven.
- [32:07]
Ari Melber
And Molly, we've covered the jail part of this, Even if there is not documented foul play regarding Epstein's death, which is something that congress now thinks is a valid question to investigate. We already know there were two corrections officers who were indicted and the charges later dropped. There were questions about malfeasance and hiding, whether rules were broken again, even without foul play. You had a high profile detainee. You failed to do the checks. There was a video failure. There were other questions about financial misconduct. So as someone who's covered this story, when you look at this, that the government's first instinct was to hide tracks and basically destroy evidence, what does that tell you?
- [32:48]
Molly Jong-Fast
Yeah, look, it's the largest. If we just pull back for a minute. Largest sex trafficking case that we know of probably in American history. Todd Blanche says more than 1200 victims. Children, girls. And we have a government that at every point either acts suspiciously or acts negligently. At every point you have, you know, they never search Tomorrow Ranch. Huh? They didn't, you know, in with the dump of the documents are missing 302s. These, you know, you have victims saying, I know I sat for interviews. Where are they? Right? We have videos, we have transcripts we have all sorts of stuff that we know is missing from the victims. We have Thomas Massie with a list of 230 names. Okay. That the victims have put together. So, I mean, it's just. There's so much smoke here, and it's so suspicious. Like what? I mean, how is that possible?
- [33:50]
Ari Melber
And the U.S. attorney's office, we know from the Epstein files, had emails, as I mentioned in the setup, where they said, well, maybe we can go get the shredded docs. We can look at this. But ultimately, it was minimized over to the watchdog, the inspector general, which does reports. But, Maya, they don't actually pursue crimes, which means it was very quickly downgraded as not potential obstruction. Does that seem right to you or a problem?
- [34:12]
Maya Wiley
Well, you know, look, I really hesitate to make a. To have a legal opinion on something from news stories. Let me just state respect. Right. So. And I.
- [34:21]
Ari Melber
And I. I can just get out of here.
- [34:22]
Maya Wiley
Yeah, you can leave.
- [34:23]
Ari Melber
No news story.
- [34:25]
Maya Wiley
Well, I mean, because, you know, the one thing, you know, when you have any kind of legal case, is there all. There's all kinds of information.
- [34:31]
Ari Melber
No, I appreciate it.
- [34:32]
Maya Wiley
That the press does not have.
- [34:33]
Molly Jong-Fast
Right.
- [34:34]
Maya Wiley
And it would be unfair to have a legal opinion in the absence of having access to more information. It stinks to high heaven, to Molly's point. And this goes back to the fact that there should be really aggressive transparency here. I do want to say this because coming from the civil rights community, we have been complaining about deaths in custody for a long time. And half of the deaths in custody are suicides. Half. And half of those are people who haven't done what they're supposed to do as employees in those Bureau of Prisons. And so to your point, we don't know what the motives are, and we don't know all the facts. It's wrong. It happens all the time to a lot of people who don't get news coverage. We should care about that, and we should be asking for aggressively bipartisan oversight of this. I do want to say that it is critical. Critical that we remember the true victims here. And that's the women and girls.
- [35:36]
Ari Melber
Yeah, exactly. Now I have to. I have to cut it. Molly and Maya, thank you so much. On more than one topic, there are questions about whether somebody close to the Trump administration used the Iran war to do what amounts to insider trading on these new betting markets. Huge story. You got to hear it. That's coming up. And we have a very special guest on the Trump administration shakeups. And is there an end game on those airport lines and the DHS shutdown. We talked about the impact of this shutdown and what's happening in D.C. and the airlines and the airport lines and all of that. We also want to look at what the outcomes could be. And for that you need someone who understands Washington and Congress. Sometimes these veteran, tenacious reporters can be harder to come by. But we have one you've definitely seen on air before, I'm betting Veteran reporter Scott McFarlane and a little bit of media news. He is now this week the newly announced chief Washington correspondent for the Midas Touch Network. That is a digital operation. We've had some of their reporters and pundits on this program. Some might be familiar. He's been justice correspondent at CBS News and investigative reporter at NBC's D.C. station a decade long before that. He also contributed, we should note, to this network in 2021. He's led all kinds of coverage, including dealing with the January 6 Capitol attack, the federal Trump indictments and the aforementioned Epstein case.
- [37:03]
Scott McFarlane
New images showing the ferocity, the ugliness of the east front of the Capitol that day. It was a multi Front War. January 6th. This is an initial indictment of Donald Trump. His first federal case is in the Southern District of Florida. His second federal case right here in the nation's capital in Washington. More than six years after the death of Jeffrey Epstein in the federal prison, the mystery over how he died remains very much alive.
- [37:28]
Ari Melber
McFarlane has received 20 regional Emmy and Edward R. Murrow awards. Mr. McFarlane joins us now. Welcome, Ari.
- [37:36]
Scott McFarlane
This is a nice treat. Thank you for having me.
- [37:39]
Ari Melber
Great to have you. As I said, either everybody knows your work well or the thing that happens sometimes in this business, they go, I know him from somewhere. So you had big media news of your own this week. We'll get to that. But let's start with your view of Congress, this shutdown politics. Is there a breakthrough coming based on your report?
- [37:57]
Scott McFarlane
Let me drop a little sunshine on you because we all need a little bit of sun right now. You starting to hear concepts of a plan like this is the way people talk when they're trying to end an argument that's been going on for a long time, like a softening of ground. Got a lot of that over the last 12 hours, Ari. Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana said they are just tired, tired of being here. And that often yields a breakthrough. And they do have some type of compromise. Democrats are hinting at it. You know, Dick Durbin and Hakeem Jeffries told me we're trying to get all the, the I's dotted and T's crossed and there should be enough in there to satisfy Democrats. Republicans seem on board, the president seems on board. This is moving in the good direction. It's just a matter of whether it's hours or a matter of days.
- [38:41]
Ari Melber
All right, well, for anyone flying soon, that could be good news. I'm curious, looking big picture at your Hill reporting, the old narrative was, well, Republicans, they never stand up to Trump on anything. There are changes to that, even if some of it. It depends on which issue. We saw the Epstein case, which you've covered, lead to a wholesale Republican rejection of Trump's secrecy. We're seeing more concern about Iran, especially if it gets out to asking for more blank checks or ground troops. What is the state of play, in your view of the Republican caucus in Congress going towards the midterms and being able to stand up to Trump?
- [39:20]
Scott McFarlane
I think the bottom line becomes who has to distance him or herself to win a congressional district. And whether the Republican Party wants to acknowledge it or not, The Democratic Campaign Committee says there are 44, 44 Republican held U.S. house seats that are in play right now. Republicans would quibble with that number, but that's a big number. And to preserve some of those seats, they may need to distance themselves some way from the policies, if not from the president, who still has a stranglehold over so much of the Republic Party. And look for issues like when they do get down to funding ice, does that work in districts that Kamala Harris won in 2024 held by Republicans or those that are now embattled or endangered? There's gonna have to be some distance built on something. If it's not ICE funding, is it something to do with transparency over Iran? Hasn't happened yet. Primaries haven't happened yet. Ari. Look for that 90 day spell before the general election. And who's gotta put some distance in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio or Virginia?
- [40:25]
Ari Melber
I mentioned your big move here. You're at CBS and people have heard a lot about cbs, especially with Colbert and the mergers and all that. You're going to Midas Touch. What both in terms of journalism and in terms of digital distribution made you want to do this job? And will it be any different than your past? I'll note for the viewers, you said Midas Touch and I have shared the same philosophy. You don't platform lies, you don't platform conspiracy theories. You don't whitewash history. There are some who hear that and think, oh, that's maybe a little different than what we've heard from cbs. Lately.
- [41:05]
Scott McFarlane
Can I take you old school? Do I have permission to go old school on you here, Ari?
- [41:08]
Ari Melber
Sure.
- [41:09]
Scott McFarlane
Nice. Sam and Diane is the analogy I would build for the cheers fans of the 1980s. It's two people who were kind of meant to be together. Midas touched network and I at some point were meant to be together because we share so many parallels in the issues we chase. I chased January 6th. They followed that closely. I've chased issues about political violence, threats to the separation of powers, breaking of democratic norms. They pursue that. We have a lot of the same audience, we have a lot of the same interests. And no, we will not platform lying or misinformation or conspiracy theories which does have its way of infiltrating a lot of the things that things we read, see and hear each day. That's the type of place where there's no value in conspiracy theories.
- [41:56]
Ari Melber
Yeah. And I'm running out of time here. But the final question is, when you look at this media consolidation, you have a buyer now that's going to own cbs, cnn, hbo, Warner Brothers, and you have other elements and culture too, not just news. Does that concern you for civic democracy or too early to tell?
- [42:14]
Scott McFarlane
I think the rise of independent journalism is an unparalleled thing, Ari. You see it. How many people now have stood up their own unfiltered reporting. Audiences crave that they want what you do, they want, hopefully what I do. Speak directly, one on one, point blank, conversationally and simply and explain the news. There's no way any vertical integration can stop that.
- [42:40]
Ari Melber
Yeah. Scott McFarlane, making news of yourself of your own this week. Thanks for being here. Thanks tonight.
- [42:45]
Scott McFarlane
Thank you.
- [42:47]
Ari Melber
Appreciate it. I'm going to fit in a break and when we come back, the story I mentioned corruption in the betting markets and the war. That's next. Turning to a report about the way we live now and alleged insider trading on Iran war planning. There were futures that surged suspiciously right just minutes before the president posted to social media about stopping what were planned strikes on Iran's energy infrastructure. Because of the way this works, we can't tell you who made these trades, only that they totaled over half a billion dollars. We'll show you the spike in oil futures. This is 6:50am Monday morning, 15 minutes before Trump posted. That volume is suspicious. The question is whether somebody used and abused inside even potentially classified information. Wall street probing whether someone had advanced knowledge and how that would come about with the tight knit circle of government and Trump officials that would be in the know.
- [43:49]
Scott McFarlane
I wonder if we have a reduction
- [43:50]
Ari Melber
right now in trust and that there
- [43:52]
Scott McFarlane
is a lot of speculation that we are at least perceiving that some people have an edge that we don't.
- [44:00]
Ari Melber
We saw significant selling of crude futures just before that announcement.
- [44:05]
Scott McFarlane
Just before we saw crude prices falter. We saw a significant purchase of S and P futures.
- [44:12]
Ari Melber
That was an embarrassing moment.
- [44:14]
Scott McFarlane
It was highly suspicious.
- [44:17]
Ari Melber
One Democrat says this looks like mind blowing corruption. The Trump administration, which remember fired and removed many of the whistleblower type systems and the inspectors general who do independent probes of government misconduct, they have not yet announced whether they will look into this at all. It could literally endanger our soldiers. We'll be right back. Thanks for spending time with us on the beat. I'll see you tomorrow at 6:00pm Eastern. You're listening. With Athletic Brewing Company this time of year, everyone talks about going dry. Cool. We're skipping that because we prefer going athletic, which isn't dry at all. From crisp goldens to hoppy IPAs and limited releases in between, you'll find something that fits your style. Every single non alcoholic brew is packed with flavor and the same craft experience you love. So yeah, you could call it dry, but there's really nothing dry about it. Find your new favorite near beer@athleticalbrewing.com Athletic Brewing Co. Fit for all times.