Epstein's Book and Colbert's Cancellation

Summary

Summary of "Epstein's Book and Colbert's Cancellation" Episode of The Commentary Magazine Podcast

Release Date: July 18, 2025

In this episode of The Commentary Magazine Podcast, hosts Jon Podhorowitz, Abe Greenwald, Seth Mandel, and Matthew Continetti delve into two major topics: the enigmatic connections between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, and the controversial cancellation of Stephen Colbert's show. The discussion navigates through media credibility, political maneuvering, and the evolving landscape of late-night television.

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1. Introduction to the Episode

The episode opens with a brief introduction by Jon Podhorowitz, setting the stage for an in-depth conversation rather than superficial commentary. The hosts aim to "go deep down into the muck," focusing on substantial issues rather than trivial matters.

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2. The Epstein Tribute Book Controversy

Jon Podhorowitz introduces the central topic: a tribute book compiled for Jeffrey Epstein's 50th birthday, reportedly containing contributions from notable figures, including Donald J. Trump.

• Description of the Controversy:

  • The Wall Street Journal reported on a page from the book where Trump's signature allegedly resembles pubic hair, raising eyebrows about its authenticity and implications. Podhorowitz expresses skepticism:

    "[03:43] Jon Podhoretz: ...it sounds like Trump. So it sounds like, you know, anyway, we could read it or we could not read it. It doesn't sound like Trump. So it sounds like, you know, anyway, we could read it or we could not read it."

• Skepticism About the Authenticity:

  • Abe Greenwald adds:

    "[05:29] Abe Greenwald: Well, we should at least. Let's provide some context."

  • Matthew Continetti emphasizes the suggestive nature of the alleged playlist between Trump and Epstein:

    "[06:00] Matthew Continetti: ...it is luridly suggestive of the two of them, of Epstein and Trump sharing dark secrets forever."

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3. Media Coverage and Credibility Issues

The hosts discuss the reliability of the Wall Street Journal's report, highlighting the lack of direct evidence and the absence of released images of the controversial page.

• Dubious Reporting:

  "[05:29] Abe Greenwald: Well, we should at least. Let's provide some context."

  "[07:11] Jon Podhoretz: I'm just in terms of one's bold detector... the description in the story is very baffling."

• Speculation on Media Motives:

  • Podhorowitz suggests the Wall Street Journal might be holding the page for a second-day story:

    "[12:08] Jon Podhoretz: ...maybe they're doing a second day story. In other words, they wanted to smoke Trump out..."

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4. Political Reactions and MAGA's Support for Trump

The discussion shifts to the political ramifications, noting that MAGA and Trump supporters are rallying in defense against what they perceive as mainstream media attacks.

• MAGA Unity:

  "[06:00] Jon Podhoretz: ...MAGA and Trump have reunited after splitting for the past two weeks over the Epstein scandal..."

• Calls for DOJ Transparency:

  • They mention Trump's demands for the Department of Justice to release grand jury material:

    "[05:41] Matthew Continetti: ...he's attacking the Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch, who he's planning to sue the paper..."

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5. Historical Context of Sexual Scandals in Politics

Jon Podhorowitz draws parallels between the current situation and past political scandals, such as Bill Clinton's sexual indiscretions during his presidency.

• Comparative Analysis:

  "[21:05] Jon Podhoretz: ...in 2015, the issue of whether Donald Trump was a sleazeball in relation to women was the final question of the campaign in which he was eventually elected president."

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6. The Epstein Files and Legal Proceedings

The conversation delves into the complexities surrounding the Epstein case, including the statute of limitations and the challenges in prosecuting alleged accomplices.

• Statute of Limitations:

  "[26:11] Jon Podhoretz: ...there was a statute of limitations issue that nothing happened."

• Challenges in Prosecution:

  "[26:50] Abe Greenwald: Secondly, evident evidence as well. Probably might be hard to bring cases."

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7. Trump's Justice Department and Epstein's Death

Abe Greenwald criticizes the handling of the Epstein case by the Trump administration's Department of Justice, particularly Epstein's suicide in custody.

• Critique of DOJ:

  "[32:37] Abe Greenwald: ...yesterday evening was a turning point in the Epstein scandal... defending the president against what they see as a mainstream media attack."

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8. Cancellation of Stephen Colbert's Show

Transitioning to the second major topic, the hosts discuss the cancellation of Stephen Colbert's show, analyzing both business and political motivations.

• Late Night TV Decline:

  "[40:11] Jon Podhoretz: ...the late night landscape has changed drastically... Colbert's show was canceled due to declining viewership and political pressures."

• Political and Ownership Influences:

  • Podhorowitz links the show's cancellation to the influence of Jewish owners, citing dissatisfaction with Colbert's alleged anti-Zionist stance:

    "[40:48] Jon Podhoretz: ...due to the network ownership by Larry Ellison and his son David, who are strong Zionists, Colbert's anti-Zionist content was untenable."

• Criticism of Colbert:

  "[40:46] Jon Podhoretz: ...Stephen Colbert and his show is anti-Zionist filth."

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9. The Future of Late-Night Television

The hosts lament the decline of late-night shows, attributing it to political polarization, shifting viewer habits, and the rise of new media platforms.

• Declining Viewership:

  "[46:57] Jon Podhoretz: ...these shows are not earning their high production costs and are losing their audiences."

• Shift to New Media:

  "[50:06] Seth Mandel: ...actual funny guys are exploring new media, like John Mulaney's show on Netflix..."

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10. Closing Remarks and Future Outlook

In their concluding segments, the hosts reflect on the enduring nature of the Epstein scandal in Washington and anticipate ongoing media and political battles.

• Enduring Scandal:

  "[36:40] Abe Greenwald: The story will go on forever... we're going to be talking about this."

• Media Strategies and Political Implications:

  "[34:24] Abe Greenwald: ...some Democrats have even tried to connect the Epstein case to Medicaid cuts..."

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Notable Quotes

• Jon Podhoretz on Media Motives:

  "[12:08] Jon Podhoretz: ...maybe they're doing a second day story. In other words, they wanted to smoke Trump out..."

• Abe Greenwald on Media Campaigns:

  "[11:43] Abe Greenwald: ...NBC News investigative team has been very antagonistic toward Trump stretching back to the 2016 campaign."

• Jon Podhoretz on Political Fallout:

  "[37:02] Jon Podhoretz: ...yesterday evening was a turning point in the Epstein scandal that has been rocking Washington for the past two weeks or so."

• Abe Greenwald on Late-Night TV:

  "[49:22] Abe Greenwald: ...comedy shows is boring."

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Conclusion

This episode of The Commentary Magazine Podcast offers a provocative examination of the intersection between politics, media, and celebrity influence. By dissecting the murky connections between Trump and Epstein and analyzing the tumultuous landscape of late-night television, the hosts provide listeners with a comprehensive overview of current socio-political dynamics.

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For more insights and discussions, listen to The Commentary Magazine Podcast available on Ricochet.com.

Transcript

[Abe Greenwald]

Hope for the best, expect the worst.

[Seth Mandel]

Some preach and pain Some die of thirst the way of knowing which way.

[Jon Podhoretz]

It'S going Hope for the best Expect.

[Matthew Continetti]

The worst Hope for the best.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Welcome to the Commentary Magazine daily podcast. Today is Friday, July 18, 2025. I'm Jon Pod Horowitz, the editor of Commentary magazine and here to talk to you about St. John's College in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Between the fall of Rome and the European Renaissance, Jewish and Islamic authors stewarded the great works of the west and fostered the rebirth of scientific and philosophical inquiry in Europe. Now, St. John's College in Santa Fe offers an opportunity to explore these forgotten masterpieces. While earning a one year Master of Arts in Middle Eastern Classics degree, the only program of its kind, students will explore questions of divine wisdom, religion and the state and more in this singular program of study. Learn more at sjc. Edu World Classics. That's sjc. Edu slash World Classics. We have nothing quite so grand to discuss today. In fact, we're going low. We're going deep. We're going to go deep down into the muck, the three of us, the four of us, me and executive editor Abe Greenwald. Hi.

[Matthew Continetti]

Hi, John.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Senior editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Hi, John.

[Jon Podhoretz]

And Washington Commentary columnist Matthew Comnetti. Hi, Matt.

[Abe Greenwald]

Hi, John.

[Jon Podhoretz]

You know, I had a 50th birthday 14 years ago. A couple of you. Abe was certainly there. I can't remember if any of the other you were there. It was, it was at the Fairway Cafe in New York. And my wife not only produced a really moving video, but there was also a book compiled of tributes and, you know, comic toasts and roasts and things to me that I have sitting in my house and is something that I, I don't look at because I'm frankly embarrassed by it. But apparently there was another such volume produced on somebody else's 50th birthday, published by a New York or put together by a New York bookbinder in the year 2003 for, well, wealth manager of some repute at the time named Jeffrey Epstein. And the Wall Street Journal informs us that among the many people who contributed to that book was one Donald John Trump. The Wall Street Journal has reviewed it says, a page from the book or a couple of pages from the book clearly removed, removed from the book by whoever is the source of the story, and that the Trump tribute to Epstein features a signature of Trump's that is a classic Donald, I assume, is a classic Donald Trump signature, but in some manner or Other is designed to look like a pubic hair.

[Abe Greenwald]

Well, it's, it's. According to the description of the letter provided by the Wall Street Journal, which says it reviewed the letter while also sourcing its story to people who have seen the letter. The signature appears below the belt, so to speak, in. In the interior of an outline of a woman drawn by allegedly. Yes, Donald Trump.

[Jon Podhoretz]

So, first of all, it's been 12. I'm not going to, I'm not here to sort of, like, go into provenance issues, but the description in the story is very baffling. They reviewed something and then they heard from others. I don't know what you need to hear from anybody else if you've seen the page. So it's not necessarily clear they've seen the page, but they do have a transcript of a little playlist that Trump supposedly composed. That's a great conversation between, between Donald John Trump and his friend Jeffrey Epstein, that. I don't know how else to say this, because I, I have. I don't want to, like, be accused of being a truth or something, but doesn't sound like Trump. Like, the playlist doesn't sound like Trump. So it sounds like, you know, anyway, we could read it or we could not read it. It doesn't sound like Trump. You can go read it, whatever. So I don't even know what to say.

[Abe Greenwald]

Well, we should at least. Let's provide some context.

[Matthew Continetti]

I mean, we should.

[Jon Podhoretz]

On the context, we should at least.

[Matthew Continetti]

Convey what the, what the playlist was about.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Yeah.

[Matthew Continetti]

Because not only does it. Does it not sound like Trump, but is luridly suggestive of the two of them, of Epstein and Trump sharing dark secrets forever.

[Jon Podhoretz]

I mean, it's like, it sounds like wonderful.

[Abe Greenwald]

Do you know that. Do you know the Mamet play, A Life in the Theater?

[Jon Podhoretz]

I do indeed. Yes.

[Abe Greenwald]

It's one of my favorites.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Early, early Mamet, 1978.

[Abe Greenwald]

I think it's hilarious. But the dialogue in that play are all these short sentences that are, like, highly elliptical or elusive or suggestive. And a lot of the comedy is you're not. You're never really sure what they're getting at when the two actors are talking. And so reading the letter as described by the Wall Street Journal, you get that same sense. And just, you know, just to give people a taste here, there's a note, and I'm first, I'm curious how big this note is. If you're going to draw an outline of a woman around it, like, this must be a really big page. But the note begins voiceover There must be more to life than having everything. And then you go into the playlist. DONALD COLON yes, there is. But I won't tell you what it is, nor will I, since I also know what it is. We have certain things in common. JEFFREY yes, we do. Come to think of it, enigmas never age. Have you noticed that? JEFFREY As a matter of fact, it was clear to me the last time I saw you. DONALD COLON and this is the final line. A pal did a wonderful thing. Happy birthday, and may every day be another wonderful secret. And that's it. That's the Wall Street Journal scoop, which had Washington on its toes ready to go all day yesterday. And I have to say, this story is not only a disappointment for people who were expecting a huge bombshell, there are also provenance issues, as you mentioned, because no one has seen this page, that the Wall Street Journal has not released an image of the page. And third point I'd make about it, this was the moment when MAGA and Trump have reunited after splitting for the past two weeks over the Epstein scandal or the mishandling of the Epstein scandal by the Justice Department, MAGA has now rallied to Trump's side, not only calling the story fake news, but also cheering Trump's demand request that the DOJ release grand jury material related to Epstein in the coming weeks.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Okay, just in terms of one's bold detector, and not that the reporters who reported this story, Khadija Safdar and Joe Palazzolo, are not in earnest in reporting it, but because I am casting some doubt on the reality of this thing, I just want to explain why the the story says pages from the leather bound album are among the documents examined by Justice Department officials who investigated Epstein and Maxwell years ago, according to people who have reviewed the pages. So that's number one. So what they're saying is these pages were somehow in either custody of the Justice Department or were part of an investigation by the Justice Department. But that would have been in 2008 or 2007. Epstein first arrested in 2006. So it's almost 20 years since the Justice Department officials referenced saw these documents. Okay, now clearly somebody read to these two reporters this really Beckett like exchange in existential theater. It's deep, very deep. And the letter bearing Trump's name, which was reviewed by the Journal, is body like others in the album, it contains several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman which appears to be hand drawn with a heavy marker, concludes happy Birthday and may every day be a wonderful event. So they don't say whether they saw the page. They've reviewed the page. They know of other pages which included, they say flatly, without any. Like they say, among those who submitted letters were Leslie Wexner and Alan Dershowitz. And. And they read Wexner's message. They published Wexner's message. I wanted to get what you want. So here it is. And after was what appeared to be a drawing of women's breasts. Wexner would not comment. Dershowitz wrote something, and then he said, I don't remember what I wrote. It was a long time ago. So the bookbinder, Herbert Weitz, is dead.

[Unnamed Speaker]

How convenient.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Okay.

[Abe Greenwald]

And we're talking. We're talking about it.

[Jon Podhoretz]

So I sort of assume that if they had the page, the journal.

[Abe Greenwald]

Right.

[Jon Podhoretz]

They would have reproduced the page. Now, maybe it's a second. Maybe they're doing the class.

[Abe Greenwald]

Maybe a second day story.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Right. They're holding the page for a second day story. In other words, they wanted to smoke Trump out, have him say, we're gonna. I'm gonna sue you. I never wrote this thing. And then they're gonna drop a second day. Right. Bomb on his head. And we don't know that that's what.

[Abe Greenwald]

Remember, Jeffrey Goldberg did with the signal gate. That.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Right. No, it is a classic. Right. And I actually do attribute this. This was a very big game that Andrew Breitbart used to play when he had news, and when he had, like that guy who ran Project Verit, James o', Keefe had news, they would release a story, and then people would say, it's a lie, it's a fake, it's this, it's that, blah, blah, blah. And then the next day, they would release the evidence that meant that the people who had. Who had said this were fools and liars. So it's a. It's a. It's a approach. It's not really a classic newspaper person's approach like you. You. You dump your. You dump your evidence as when you have it to make the story more authoritative. And would it be. Is it believable that Trump would write something B and salacious and tasteless to Jeff's friend Jeffrey Epstein into 2003 for his birthday? Sure. Of course it is. What year did he tell Billy Bush that he thought that, you know, when you're a star, you grab women by the m. It was like two years later. Okay, so it's not that. It's. It's. It's not credible that he did such a thing. I guess the question is, what does it mean or what does it matter? This happened three years before Epstein was arrested. All of this is intended to be suggestive of the idea that Trump was a participant in Epstein's monstrous behavior, in his crimes. Right. And so.

[Abe Greenwald]

But there's no evidence of that. And in fact, there's NBC News reporting. And of course, NBC News investigative team has been very antagonistic toward Trump stretching back to the 2016 campaign. One of their investigative reporters, a man named David Rhode, said on Morning Joe yesterday that they have not been able to find any connection in the material that they've reviewed between Trump and Epstein's illegal. Illegality. And then the Washington Post fact checker, again, Glenn Kessler, not someone inclined to support Donald Trump or defend Donald Trump, about an hour before the Wall Street Journal scoop broke, published a piece in the Washington Post saying there is no evidence that Donald Trump was involved in any of Epstein's crimes. So what we're having here is that parts of the media aligned with the Democrats, who have finally found an issue seven months into this presidency that they have been able to use to put the White House on the defensive, are engaged in the kind of classic media campaign to keep a story that is harmful to Trump alive. And it's mainly by innuendo. And the material in this story, in this particular story doesn't. I mean, it's just weird. And until we see the page and until we can see Trump's signature and we can see the drawing, and it just doesn't make a lot of sense. I'd also, it struck me that the last time a president has gone to a paper to tell them to spike a story, at least as far as I can recall, was in 2005 or 2006. I think it was 2005, when the wall street, when the Bush administration went to the New York Times to tell them, don't publish this story revealing the existence of the terrorist surveillance program, the mass surveillance program. And it shows you how far we've come as a Nation, that 20 years ago, Bush was talking to Sulzberger, saying, don't do this. You're going to compromise the war on terror. It's going to reveal our secrets to the enemy. And now in 2025, we have Trump talking to Murdoch saying, don't publish the story. It's ridiculous. And it involves a cartoon of a, of a naked lady.

[Jon Podhoretz]

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[Abe Greenwald]

Speed slow after 35 gigabytes of networks, busy taxes and fees extra.

[Unnamed Speaker]

See mintmobile.com I think we're also all sort of avoiding the other main takeaway from this, which is that all the remaining secret Epstein files might just be hand drawn illustrations. And maybe that's why they never released it.

[Abe Greenwald]

Well, there's just, I mean the files, that's the.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Well, the Kama Sutra is hand drawn.

[Abe Greenwald]

Kind of the, I don't want to say comic aspect because it involves terrible things, you know, but when we talk about the Epstein 5 files, what does that mean? I think many people have an image of a file cabinet somewhere that contains all the names of all the johns, so to speak. All the people who were involved in the, in the, the sex trafficking and the crimes with underage girls.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Right.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Like it's a knock list.

[Abe Greenwald]

Right. But in fact, it seems that the Epstein files, quote unquote is just this massive material that the government got when they finally went and arrested him the second time, the time that led to his incarceration in prison and his eventual death. And so this story will always remain alive because the Epstein files are so vast and sprawling that it's like, oh, there's a book, apparently from the 50th birthday that is leather bound and has all these bizarre tributes to this obvious con man who was bilking Les Wexner for hundreds of millions of dollars. And this is. This is going to be the rest of our lives.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Okay, so in 2015, the issue of whether Donald Trump was a sleazeball in relation to women was the final question of the campaign in which he was eventually elected president.

[Abe Greenwald]

Right.

[Jon Podhoretz]

There was no bigger news story since 9 11, in my estimation. Okay. The financial meltdown. There was no bigger news story from the financial meltdown until October 2015, 2016 than the access Hollywood Story. And it was so serious that the speaker of the House said that the Republican nominee for president should step down and someone else should take his place because he could no longer win the presidency. Trump took it in stride, kind of apologized, then kind of took back the apology, then showed up at the second debate with every woman who had credibly accused Bill Clinton of sexual indiscretion or mistreatment.

[Abe Greenwald]

Amazing move.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Ended up winning the presidency. So, in one sense, one can say that politically this issue was litigated, as hard politically litigated and as hard as an issue can be litigated. There's been more. There was the. There's the Eugene. Carol.

[Abe Greenwald]

Carol.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Right, right. In which he was found civilly liable for sexual assault.

[Abe Greenwald]

There was Stormy Daniels.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Stormy Daniels, Right. Although the Stormy Daniels thing all involved her breaking her NDA. Right. And then not getting punished for breaking.

[Abe Greenwald]

Her, of course, led to Donald Trump's criminal conviction, as we were reminded, although.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Not about Rice, although not about. That was not about his sexual indiscretion. It was about him. Checks. Right. So this is a through line in Trump's career that has repeatedly failed to have the effect that, as you would say in 2005, given your anecdote about what it was that the Bush administration sought to, you know, make a backdoor deal with the New York Times over that one would have thought would have destroyed anybody at any other time in American history. But things have happened in the interim, and the Bill Clinton presidency, I think, most prominently happened to say that at least one political party that could have made hay out of this decided to line itself up in 1998, behind a person who, you know, had an affair with an intern and was credibly accused of pretty serious sexual malfeasance and crimes. In addition to that, the Democratic Party said that was fine with them, wouldn't even censure him, wouldn't even agree to a vote to censure him. And it therefore was compromised when the time came for it to be the paragon and beacon of virtue against this, this supposed sexual predator and monster who was the candidate of the opposing party. They could not recover from that hypocrisy. So now it's 2025, and there is this story and every. No one. It's like potato chips. Like, you can't you see Epstein? You see the word Epstein somewhere. You're going to click, I'm sorry, I don't care who you are. I don't care if you're like, this is a terrible story. It doesn't matter. All of that word comes up, you're. It's Pavlov's response. You're going to click. So and so the Democrats like it. MAGA is obsessed with it. Ordinary people are titillated by it, and the media see a chance not only to harm Trump, but to play into a story that is of interest to people who have no attention span in.

[Abe Greenwald]

The middle of, in the middle of summer.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Right.

[Abe Greenwald]

Usually there's not much news.

[Matthew Continetti]

Well, there's also all the unanswered questions about it. And that's the, that's, you know, that that's what everyone wants. And speaking of. So I want to take a step back because I'm trying to wrap my head around all of this. And so I have a question in earnest here. Epstein was charged with trafficking in 2019, and then he killed himself. Right. What is the reason that the men who were involved with the women. When I say what is the reason? I don't mean what's the theory about COVID up? I mean, what is the actual technical surface reason that there has been no one except Ghislaine Maxwell, who was, who's convicted of trafficking for Epstein. Why have none of the men allegedly involved? I mean, that we have. Not that there is a list.

[Jon Podhoretz]

I believe I, I believe the answer is a, there's a, There was a statute of limitations issue that nothing happened. You know, Epstein was arrested in 2006, and that was sort of the end of the period in which he was doing the supposed trafficking. Case comes back up 13 years later. And, you know, as I say, there is a, There is a question. I Think about statute of limitations.

[Abe Greenwald]

Secondly, evident evidence as well. Probably might be hard to bring cases. You know, if it's, if there's an accusation, then there's a case. You know, how do you go about assembling a case against the accused? But I think a. Not to step on John, but I mean, your question is what has fueled so much anger?

[Matthew Continetti]

No, I know, but I'm looking for the, for the surface, for the technical reason, you know, not, not the theory about why the technical reason is, is a cover up. I'm just trying to get, I'm starting with.

[Jon Podhoretz]

So I don't honestly know the answer to that question as I, as I look through what little material I can pull up as we are having this conversation. The first time that he was investigated for trafficking underaged girls was 2005 in a local case in, in Palm beach. And he pleaded guilty to the charge. And the, the guilty plea was obviously some form of, you know, he pled maybe so that he wouldn't have to name anybody. You know, you make a deal to plea. He got a very short sentence. Right. 13 months in custody with work release and then he was arrested again on charges of sex trafficking in 2019. But yeah, why. So the charge of sex trafficking goes to his behavior, not to the crimes themselves. Right. Not to. It goes to his behavior in transporting minors over state lines. Right. Is a very specific. For the purposes of. That's the man act. There's a whole like you can't transport miners over state lines. So that was the charge against him, maybe. And since he had, by the way, already pled guilty to having done it, you know, he wouldn't, didn't exactly have a way of pleading, pleading not guilty to having done it when federal charges were brought against him. Right. The case In Florida in 2008 was a local, was a Palm beach county case. Then there was a federal case made against him in, in 2019.

[Abe Greenwald]

The, I think the, the bottom line, because we don't want to spend the whole hour on this, but is that yesterday evening was a turning point in the Epstein scandal that has been rocking Washington for the past two weeks or so. And I think it was a turning point in this way. I mentioned that the people who had been criticizing the Trump administration and Attorney General Bondi and even President Trump, though of course always indirectly for not releasing the full Epstein material, are now defending the president against what they see as a mainstream media attack. And Trump is. No, has not in the past 24 hours attacked his own supporters or has he called them former supporters, I think thinking of Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon when he's making that accusation. But he hasn't done that. Instead, he's attacking the Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch, who he's planning to sue the paper, while also saying that he's asked Bondi to release more material. So that gets the Republicans or in maga, I think, on the same page, at least while you're hearing my voice.

[Jon Podhoretz]

By the way, it's important to note. Let me just this is important to know because, again, like, there's so much detail. So Epstein was not tried in 2019. He was arrested in 2019 on charges of sex trafficking, and then he committed suicide in his jail cell. So he was arrested on July 6, 2019, at Teterboro Airport, was brought to the Metropolitan Correctional center, and on August 19, he was found dead in his jail cell. So whether the case would have continued and then surfaced those people that you're asking about, Abe, we don't know. And one of the reasons that there is credibility to the idea that something untoward might have happened to Epstein in his jail cell is precisely that, that he was about he had pled in 2008 in Palm Beach County. So he hadn't, didn't have to testify. And the Justice Department would not have accepted a plea deal in 2019 of any. They would have taken him to trial. No, you know, no, no way, shape or form were they not going to take this to trial. Unless, of course, Trump is right, they needed to protect Democrats or something. And. But they wouldn't have, you know, it.

[Abe Greenwald]

Was Trump's Justice Department.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Department. It was Trump's. That's right. It was Trump's Justice Department. So he killed himself and that was why the suicide stank, you know, as a, as a convenience.

[Abe Greenwald]

You know, there will always be questions. But here's my, the other half of my point about the politics. I do think Democrats were so excited to find an issue that put Trump crosswise with his base and kind of on his back foot that they've, as always, kind of leaned too heavy into the issue. The memes, the calls for, you know, open up everything, more transparency, I believe, misunderstand what's happening here. Some Democrats have even tried to connect the Epstein case to Medicaid cuts, which is just, you know, such a leap of logic in the liberal imagination. But all has to do with they want this narrative that Trump is out for his billionaire friends and not out for, for working people. I don't think it's working. There have been several polls, including the CNN poll by our friend Harry Entin in recent days showing that Trump's approval rating among Republicans, you assume his base right, has been great, has stayed rock steady or even gone up slightly during this whole affair. And the Democrats also have vulnerability here as well, because remember when Trump was friends with Epstein, that was in a period when he was a Democrat and an independent or a Reform Party candidate and all the other individuals that we know, the American figures, anyway, they're all Democrats. They're all on the left. So if there's more material that comes out, there are Democratic figures who are probably going to be burned as well.

[Jon Podhoretz]

So Trump has said, said last do the overwhelming evidence overwhelming Norriskeit that's going on here. I am asking the storm and to release all relevant grand jury evidence. He, by the way, cannot do that. It is not for the Justice Department to order.

[Abe Greenwald]

They have to request it.

[Unnamed Speaker]

One judge, a key clarification there is that not all related, relevant evidence, but related relevant testimony. The thing that's going to drive his right, the thing that's going to drive this, drive people crazy about this, who are in, who are following the conspiracy theories theory, is that the testimony itself is a very small part of a federal investigation, even a grand jury, even the evidence presented in order to get to a grand jury and all that stuff, it's like tip of the iceberg sort of stuff. And the other thing is that the testimony, because he said the testimony, the testimony itself can't just be released. It will, it will take probably a year, right, to get grand jury testimony approved and redacted and whatever for release.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Okay. And the other thing about the Epstein file, and this is very important, is that when they had the press conference to announce they were rearresting him or they were arresting him on these federal charges, they said that when they went through the house, they found a trove of material. But according to them, there is no way on earth that the Justice Department or anyone can release that material. It is child pornography. It is photographs. I believe the number was something akin to 70,000 images of underage and not underage women in various states of des A B and whatever else they might have been in. The Justice Department of the United States cannot release pornographic material, which is why.

[Abe Greenwald]

The story will go on forever, right?

[Jon Podhoretz]

Exactly.

[Abe Greenwald]

It will be talking just like how Trump came to office and said he was going to release the JFK files, the RFK files. Okay? So that's decade. You know, JFK was assassinated in 1963. So it's been 60 years. We're still talking about that. We're going to be talking about this. There'll be something coming up decades from now.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Yeah.

[Abe Greenwald]

The, the question has always been a political question and how this kind of knocked Trump off what was a remarkable string of success successes. And the administration plans to build on those successes and to promote them. They haven't been able to do that for the past two weeks because everyone in Washington has been talking about this story. And so maybe now I can segue to maybe.

[Matthew Continetti]

I just, I just, I've been dying to make one point here.

[Abe Greenwald]

Okay.

[Matthew Continetti]

To build on, on the point that you made, Matt, about the fact that through this Republicans have, have been favorable, favorably disposed toward Trump despite all the efforts here to drive this wedge between them. And I just want to note the fact that what this means, in addition to other bits of evidence is that the conspiracy theory influencer wing of MAGA is not aligned with mag. This goes for Israel to foreign policy. Yes, on foreign policy they, they speak the loudest but they do not speak for no most of Trump.

[Abe Greenwald]

And even on economics, they are closer to Democrats. Let's not forget the kind words that Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene had to say about Zoran Mamdani. Now, Israel's probably the reason why Tucker likes Zoran, but he's also open to the anti capitalism of it. This was a teachable moment because you see that many of these figures, they're not, they're not Republicans. They're not part of the Trump coalition. They're a piece of a piece and they are, you know, they dominate the public discourse. Now look, there are plenty of reasons to want more information about the case. And I do think that Attorney General Bondi mishandled this by over promising and under delivering, which you don't want to do in politics. But for this larger group like this, like Tucker Carlson and Bannon at the TP USA conference last week weekend in Florida, the more you look at, the more you pay attention to them. Their agendas line up not with the Republican Trump agenda, but with the Democratic agenda in order to destroy Trump. So in any case, onto the happy news, the good news, and that is not only will PBS and NPR be defunded after decades of Republican efforts, but Colbert has been canceled. And I think we should note this as well. And in particular, John, I noticed a post you had on X because you post so rarely on X, I noticed this one.

[Jon Podhoretz]

It's very fresh.

[Abe Greenwald]

Yeah, right. About what the true meaning of the Colbert cancellation is.

[Jon Podhoretz]

There's a lot to say about the Colbert Cancellation. First of all, the stats came out for the late night ratings for all late night hosts for the first quarter of 2025. And it is the case that Colbert outrates Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon. Colbert has 2 million viewers on average. Tenth of those are in the coveted demographic. That's actually where advertiser rates are set. That's 18 to 49 year olds. That's about 210,000 people in the demographic. Kimmel 1.7 million viewers with 200,000 also around 200,000 people in the demographic and Fallon 1.2 million viewers with, you know, I don't know, 175,000 people in the, in, in the demographic. Just take a second to think about this. Abc, NBC and CBS each have a late night show. Add up the audience of those late night shows and they do not get to 6 million people a night. This is Johnny Carson's time slot. The this is Letterman versus Leno. This is Conan o' Brien and Letterman and Leno and you know, whatever, okay, Nightline, 30, 40 million. You know, in the heyday, 50 million people were watching. Little as 10, 15 years ago, probably 20 million people were watching. Six million people. And who is the number one person in late night broadcasting? Greg Gutfeld. Greg Gutfeld, Fox show started, I think two years ago, maybe a year ago, as this sort of late night comedy show. 3.3 million. And for a network that is famous for having a demographic roughly the age of Methuselah, he also has more people in the coveted 18 to 49 demographic than any of those other shows, around 250,000 people. So you look at this in one of two ways. One is Colbert's paid $20 million a year and he's not earning it. Show has 2 million people watching it, you know, 200 people, as he said last night, work on the show. These shows are not expensive in the form in the way that other TV shows are expensive. But say it costs them $100 million to run the show over the course of a year. And it's far from clear to me that it even earns $100 million in advertising. So it's either makes almost no money or it loses a little money. And CBS has already folded up its second hour, which was Craig Ferguson and James Corden, and then it had a game show on and they already decided they were giving up on late night then and turning the time back to the local stations to put on whatever they wanted. And then the local stations get all the advertising revenue and they have now decided, as was the Case for most of the time that Johnny Carson was the power player in late night to not have a late night at all. And that, you know, sort of like after 11pm that's the end of the broadcast day for CBS, the network and it all goes back to the. Okay, that's the story. And this is the story of broadcast television. There will not be a late night in five years. No one's surviving this. They've already cut Fallon back to four days a week. And you know, Jimmy Kimmel says he doesn't want to do the show anymore. And, and there's no, it's just like, you know, it's like being the host of like a vaudeville in the theater is emptying and emptying and emptying and emptying. Okay, so there's that. That's a business thing. Second thing is, is he being canceled because of his politics? And you know what? I hope so. And I'm going to tell you why I hope so. You're here because David Ellison, who is going to be the new owner basically of cbs, the son of Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle and the fourth richest man in the United States, something like that. So I speak of course as the head of a, of a non profit organization dedicated to Zionism and the furtherance of the place and importance of Judaism, the Jewish religion, the Jewish people in the United States and in the world. Larry Ellison is a Jewish man. Sherry Redstone, who is the person he is that he and his son are taking the network over from Jewish woman. Both of them very strong Zionists but very quiet. Ellison has been very, very quiet as a sort of player in the Jewish philanthropic world and in the Zionist world, but less quiet since October 7th. And Stephen Colbert and his show is anti Zionist filth. And he has taken the show and he has made it a spokesman for. It's a comedy, a late night comedy show. Do you know who the guest was last night? He came out, he said my show's over. I'm so happy. Thank you so much for watching. I will be broadcasting another 10 months, but I'm so grateful. 200, 200 people here are wonderful. And you, the audience are wonderful. Thank you so much. And now here are the credits. Late night with Stephen Colbert tonight was Adam Schiff was Senator Adam Schiff of California. Actor Anthony Kerrigan, who was in the Superman movie and some band. Senator Adam Schiff. What a knee slapper, huh?

[Abe Greenwald]

Oh my gosh.

[Jon Podhoretz]

I want to turn on TV at 11:30 at night and have a little laugh before I go to bed or like hear something about something fun and culture. A movie that might be opening up, you know, today. I know what you did last summer. The movie, the sequel or the reboot is coming out.

[Abe Greenwald]

And who better to talk to then.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Then Senator Adam Schiff. Last week it was Zoramdani. Like if Larry Ellison and David Ellison have come to this network and said I don't want to run this filth, I'm buying it outright. It's not even a stock deal. Like I'm buying it from Cherry Redstone. I'm not going to sit here and have Stephen Colbert broadcast anti Zionist filth on the network that I own. And I say hail, hail to you. I don't care. This is not about Trump and the deal that Trump made to get $15 million so that the deal would go through. It is. I'm worth ten squillion dollars and I'm not kowtowing to your horseshit, you self righteous, factitious, you know, commie go. And I believe this might well happen. Go over to MSNBC and pedal your wares to the 800,000 people who tune in on MSNBC in late night. Go ahead. I'm releasing you from your contract. See what you can do on your own. I'm excited by this news. If it's political or ideological, so much the better. How many political or ideological wins have we gotten have we gotten in this realm? Almost none.

[Abe Greenwald]

Well, we blew up fordo. That was a big one.

[Jon Podhoretz]

But that's not.

[Abe Greenwald]

Oh, you mean the intellectual cultural space.

[Seth Mandel]

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Abe Greenwald]

Yes. I just wanted to make sure we agreed on that.

[Unnamed Speaker]

The reason we got the win is because they've, they're, you know, Ellison and company are just presenting something that everybody else knew which needed to be said. The over politicization of these comedy shows is boring.

[Abe Greenwald]

Oh yeah, it's terrible.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Bad tv. It's not good, it's not interesting, it's not fun. It's not. That's the other part of, is that the, the, the, the politicizing is on the one hand, yes, it's really obnoxious to the half of the country that doesn't, you know, agree with this or whatever that sits there and gets, you know, heckled by, you know, by late night talk show hosts. But it's also, it's just not good TV. Especially by the way, at 11:30 at night.

[Abe Greenwald]

And you know, it's. Go ahead.

[Matthew Continetti]

I'm just, and there's such a glut of it. I mean it's been, it's what led to Late night has become for so long on every network. I haven't watched any of those shows for ages because when, when that sort of shift happened years ago, I said, oh, this is, that's, that, that's no longer about entertainment. That's about rallying.

[Abe Greenwald]

And then of course, the actual funny guys are exploring new media, like John Mulaney's show on Netflix, which I think is great, or Conan o' Brien's podcast, which is growing in strength. And I think it's an open question.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Say Colbert has had just finished the second season of a Netflix show as.

[Abe Greenwald]

Well, and he just had a huge appearance at the ESPYs this past week. I think it's open question, if Colbert decides, you know, and I'm not going to go to MSNBC and fight it out with Lawrence O', Donnell, you know, for ownership of the 10pm slot, I'm going to start my own podcast. I really doubt he would have the reach of some of the most successful podcasters. I mean, Colbert versus Megyn Kelly, I think Megyn Kelly wins that easily. So that, so the audience for these, these guys, it's not only small, it's just, it's, it's minuscule. What is the demand, what is the demand for what they're selling? I don't, I think it's non existent.

[Seth Mandel]

Hi, everyone. I'm Matt Ebert, CEO and founder of Crash Champions. Welcome to Pod Crash. On Pod Crash, we'll dive deep with industry leaders and game changers because we want to uncover their secrets to success. We're going to explore everything from building trust building, building a rock solid team, to champion blue collar work. And we also want to talk about creating explosive growth in your business. You'll hear actionable advice, real leadership and business lessons along with what's worked for these incredible people throughout their career. We're even going to go in depth into what I call a Champions mindset. This is the very philosophy that I use to champion people and take crash champions from one single shop to over 650 locations today. And now I want to share that information with you. Watch or listen to pod crash on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast.

[F]

I'm Mark Halpern and I want to let you know that Two Way tonight, the destination for the best political news and analysis anywhere is now available as an audio podcast. Each weekday, I'll be joined by special guests from the worlds of news, politics and the media, along with members of the two way community for conversations like no other. It's the best way to stay informed at the end of your day or first thing in the morning every weekday. It's a show like no other because we involve the community. We hear from people from around the country, around the world. They're part of a conversation. There is no other platform like this. And I hope you will find it to be not only different than everything else, but more meaningful as you become part of a special community around the program. So listen and follow two Way tonight with Mark Alperin on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other major streaming platform.

[Jon Podhoretz]

They believed and we saw this happen in real time. And it is one of the many cultural effects of Trump. There was a moment in 2015, 2016, when it all changed in late night. Literally a hinge moment. And it's when Trump went on Jimmy Fallon show and Jimmy Fallon mussed up his hair and Jimmy Fallon said, why don't you get a better hairdo? And they laughed together. And the entire universe came down on Jimmy Fallon's head. How dare he? This is. This fascist is coming to take over America. He is participating in the effort to whitewash and cleanse Trump of his evil and his sin. Fallon was the number one person in late night. He lost a significant amount of his audience. Never got back to number one. That was 2016, Colbert and even Jimmy Kimmel. Now Jimmy Kimmel just on abc. Jimmy Kimmel came to prominence as a person in television hosting, co hosting a show that was like the Jeffrey Epstein comedy hour called the man show, which was the manosphere before the manosphere, which was like, yeah, all you politically correct people here are some boobs. Let's talk about. Let's talk about what, you know, who cares what women want? Here's what men want. That was the joke of the man show was, you know, we are unreconstructed old time Playboy magazine reading slime balls and come watch us and think that we're funny.

[Unnamed Speaker]

By 2015, the fade in and out from commercials was women jumping on trampolines, right?

[Jon Podhoretz]

2015, 2016, Jimmy Kimmel becomes Cotton Mather. Woe betide our culture with the evildoer who is coming to our shores. Like, this is a show that started an ABC with an. With it with an open bar so that the audience in the studio could get drunk so that they would laugh harder at Jimmy Kimmel's jokes. I'm not kidding about this. That was what happened when Jimmy Kimmel Live started on ABC in 2008, 2009, something like that. This was. They thought that they had struck gold. Like the New York Times had struck gold in being anti Trump, that there was this anti Trump audience and that they could play into it. And it's also, you know, something that they obviously deeply believed. And Colbert rode that train since his show, his own Persona was began as a parody of Bill O'Reilly. That was the Colbert Report was his Comedy Central show. That was a parody of Bill O'Reilly's Fox show in which he was playing Bill O'Reilly. So then he stopped being Bill O'Reilly. He was himself, only with the same affect. So he was like a big blow hard, loudmouth, yelling, not very funny, but.

[Unnamed Speaker]

He was Bill O'Reilly Franken on air America.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Yeah. Anyway, so this happened, the self destruction of late night. There are many other causes to it. You know, like stars don't have to go on late night shows anymore because they curate their own brands on social media and all that. And they don't need to subject themselves to being interviewed or showing up there. It's no help to them and all of that. So, so the, the fact that every Thursday night you could reliably on one of these shows have a huge star come on to promote their movie for the Friday weekend, that was no longer the case. So you ended up with Adam Schiff, you know, on, on Thursday night on the biggest night for broadcast television. You know, that's, that's a, that's a funny aspect of this.

[Matthew Continetti]

But can I, can I mention my favorite Jimmy Kimmel moment briefly for, for no reason other than I think it makes him look so foolish. Do you remember in 2015 when a Minnesota dentist shot some lion on safari and everyone went crazy for a week?

[Jon Podhoretz]

Yeah.

[Matthew Continetti]

And Kimmel came out in the midst of that with a picture of the lion. It's a comic. This is, you know, post man show. But he's the guy who did the man show, as you said, and he holds up the picture of the lion. He says, I just can't understand how someone could do something so violent to a creature that's so beautiful. And he broke down crying over the line.

[Abe Greenwald]

Yeah. And I think he's also, a few years later, you know, talking about shouting your abortion from the, from, from the stands. So. Shows you his, his priorities, Right.

[Jon Podhoretz]

I mean, so the weird conversion of these shows into a form of secular evangelical Sunday morning programming, you know, it's like they're just Joel Osteen or the late Jimmy Swaggart or something. But what they are preaching is simply sort of anti Trump leftist gospel and there is an audience for it. And I can Tell you how much it is, it's about 6 million people across three networks. And one network that is the counter programming to it gets 3 million.

[Matthew Continetti]

But you know, Colbert is worse because what he did with Mandani with this, this was this coordinated laundering of Mamdani's anti Zionism. And that was, that was, that was like, you know, the moderator agreeing with Obama about reset terrorism, you know, during the debate.

[Abe Greenwald]

And remember that a lot of the tumult at CBS begins with Tony Dokapil's slightly aggressive questioning of Ta Nehisi Coates after Ta Nehisi Coates publishes his anti Zionist book last year or the year before.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Last year.

[Abe Greenwald]

Last year, yeah. So CBS has a big anti Semitism problem and the new ownership is trying to do something about it, and rightly so.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Yeah. I mean, we hear these stories. We hear that David Ellison is talking to Barry Weiss about some weird version in some of the free press, might essentially become the dominating player at CBS News or something like that.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Whole point here is, can I make a suggestion?

[Jon Podhoretz]

Late Night with Nellie Bowles, you know, she, she's funny. You know, she is certainly funny. But I, and, but I do want to make this point which is there's this whole question of whether or not Trump has been coercing these networks into financial settlements. Right. CBS pays him for the, to make this 60 minutes to go away. And we all understand that that's because they need him to approve the merger between Skydance and Paramount. ABC pays him $15 million to go away. Those of that money again, doesn't go into Trump's pocket. It's all supposed to go into his library or into PSAs or something like that. That is not what is going on here. What is going on here is it's like if I hit the lottery and the lottery was at, you know, $12 billion or something like that, as there was some lottery that got to a billion. But let's say I hit the lottery and, and I won $12 billion and I turned around and was able to buy the Washington Post from Jeff Bezos. And I bought it for $12 billion. The first thing I would do is fire every single reporter and columnist that I didn't like. That's what I would do. That's not what other people would do. They'll scream, reader. They'll say, you're hurting your readers and you're going to put, your subscriptions are going to go down. And how, what is this? Look how wonderful a product this was. And I would say, I don't Care. I just bought this, and I don't want to be associated with Karen Atia. Go work at a Starbucks. I'm done with you. Like, that's, that's my fantasy of being a very rich person buying a media outlet is that I would buy it in order to wreak vengeance on, on people who have been destroying the wet trying to destroy America and the west and our culture and the things that I most value and I most believe in. And if Larry Ellison and his son David are involved in that process, like I say, welcome to the club. Come to our roast on October 19th. I will direct the entire audience to give you a standing ovation. And, and it will be a wonderful time that was had by. Had by all. I will say. All right. So thanks for listening. I think we're going to be here longer than the 10 months that Stephen Colbert is going to remain on CBS. So, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, you know, we'll still be around as.

[Unnamed Speaker]

The, you know, because we never have Adam Schiff on the program.

[Abe Greenwald]

And then in the new media era, don't forget to like and subscribe our videos at the commentary magazine podcast, YouTube channel.

[Jon Podhoretz]

That is correct. And by the way, you can also subscribe to us. You know, you can go. We have Instagram. We're on it. We got some great commentary stories that my colleague Stephanie Roberts has been producing. And, you know, so there's a lot that we're, we're playing, we're playing in the, in the field of new media just to give the daily update. Oh, stop here. Thank you. Yeah, we're at almost 18,000. We're trying to get to 20 by Labor Day. You can do it.

[Abe Greenwald]

Summer doldrums. You got to resist the listlessness of summer.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Yeah. The very thing that is making us all click on Epstein. We just did half an hour on Epstein. Surely that's worth a few hundred subscribes since I know when you saw in our, you know, in the tagline for this episode that we're going to talk about Epstein, it may gave you a little, gave you a little croissant immediate. A little bit of a excitement there. So. Okay. For Matt A. And Seth, I'm John Pot Horitz. Keep the cattle.