Transcript
David Pakman (0:00)
It is happening. Donald Trump has been humiliated on the Epstein files, the House and Senate voting to release them. And Republicans are now pretending they are the heroes of transparency when they are really not. Remember that Donald Trump couldn't stop it and Republicans mostly had to get in line and all but one ultimately did. It went to the Senate. The Senate passed this, but I believe that they have something planned. I don't think there is any way they are going to, without a fight, hand over the full, real, unedited Epstein files. Then it gets worse for Trump as he hosts one of the worst human rights abusers in the world, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, and puts on a full circus. A military flyover, red carpet, the whole thing. When reporters asked about Epstein and the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, Trump melted down and attacked the reporters. And meanwhile, speaker of the House MAGA Mike Johnson is realizing Trump threw him under the bus. I on this Epstein vote, MAGA is eating itself alive. And the panic is visible and palpable on the face of MAGA Mike Johnson on top of it. Texas is partizan, redistricting thrown out by a judge. But California did it right. So their stays, at least for now. And South Dakota farmers, a friendly pro Trump group, says they're done with them. We have now raised over $14,000 for feeding hungry people. Read about our fundraiser at David pakman.com/fundraiser and remember that the first payment on a new membership or on a gifted membership if you have one, goes directly to the charity Feeding America through Thanksgiving. David pakman.com/fundraiser to read all about it. What a program we have for you today. Well, it is happening, my friends. The House, House of representatives voted for 27 to 1 to release the Epstein files. It quickly went over to the Senate and the Senate voted via unanimous consent to do the exact same thing. Let's start with the moment in the House of Representatives where with only Republican Congressman Clay Higgins from Louisiana, this passed quickly and strongly and powerfully. Remember that almost all, all Republicans initially rejected this bill. But then things changed and it became clear that the bill must pass. I believe that this is not really the end of the Epstein story. We're going to get to that in a moment. But here is the moment where the House passed the bill.
Eric Fudali (2:44)
On this vote, the yeas are 427.
David Pakman (2:49)
The nays are 1/2 being in the affirmative.
Eric Fudali (2:54)
The rules are suspended, the bill is passed and without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table.
David Pakman (3:09)
All right, they did it. Then there was the question what's going to happen in the Senate? Are they going to pass it with no changes quickly? Are they going to pass it with no changes, but slowly? Will they have amendments or changes in a version that would pass but then be sent back to the House, or will the Senate reject it altogether? Well, it didn't take very long to figure it out. Minutes. An hour later, the Senate passing it via unanimous consent. I ask unanimous consent that when The Senate receives HR4405, the Epstein files Transparency act from the House, the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. The bill be considered, read three times and passed with no intervening action or debate, and the motion to be to reconsider be considered, made and laid upon the table. Is there an objection? Without objection, so ordered. The Senate has now passed the Epstein bill as soon as it comes over from the House. So unanimous consent basically is a procedural shortcut where instead of going through debate and amendments and a roll call, vote, floor speeches and all of this stuff, it's basically, anybody have a problem with this? And even just remaining remaining silent means you don't. And it's a procedural shortcut, which they did even in advance of receiving the bill from the House. At some intervening point, the bill comes over from the House and then it will go to Donald Trump. Now let's go back to the House of Representatives where there was one no vote from Republican Congressman Clay Higgins. Clay Higgins put a post on Twitter. It's now called X. We used to call them tweets, now we call them excretions. And that's a very appropriate name for what he posted Clay Higgins posting about why he voted no, quote, I have been a principled no on this bill from the beginning. What was wrong with the bill three months ago is still wrong today. It abandons 250 years of criminal justice procedure in America as written. This bill reveals and injures thousands of innocent people, witnesses, people who provided alibis, family members. If enacted in its current form, this type of broad reveal of criminal investigative files released to a rabid media will absolutely result in innocent people being hurt. Not by my vote. The Oversight Committee is conducting a thorough investigation that has already released well over 60,000 pages of documents from the Epstein case. That effort will continue in a manner that provides all due protections for innocent Americans. If the Senate amends the bill to properly address privacy of victims and other Americans who are named but not criminally implicated, then I will vote for that bill when it comes back to the House. Well, that's not happening because the Senate passed it but more importantly, these aren't really valid reasons. Number one, Congress has released investigative files many times. 9, 11 Commission, Church Committee, JFK records, MLK files, COINTELPRO. There's a bunch of examples. None of it abandoned two hundred and fifty years of procedure. Congress has the authority to require transparency when there are cases of overwhelming public interest. This is one of them. Especially when, remember, the criminal case is closed and the defendant is dead. Epstein is dead. Nothing in the Epstein bill changes how investigations will go going forward. It just deals with records. In a case that is no longer active, courts routinely unseal files after cases end. The bill already distinguishes between those in the files who are accused individuals, those who are victims, and third parties. And it doesn't say that you have to dump every file with no redactions. In fact, every version of the bill says if there are minors named, there is redaction authority. If there are victims named, people not accused of wrongdoing, there is redaction authority. Confidential information that's not directly related to the crimes of Epstein. All of that stuff can be redacted. Clay also said a rabid media will hurt innocent people. That's a political talking point. At the end of the day, it's not a legal argument and it's not a factual argument. Media organizations already follow standards when reporting on redacted disclosures and FOIA releases. It's not special here. And more importantly, it's Congress, not the media, that controls the redaction process. So Clay should really be saying, I'm worried we won't properly redact, but the rabid media. Give me a break. And then finally, the pages are almost entirely unrelated to the powerful people who would have been involved. What I mean is, the redacted stuff that is, I'm sorry, the unredacted stuff that has already been released. Because he also argued we've released 60,000 pages that was like previous court filings, flight logs that were public, procedural documents acting like they've already released. It runs counter to the truth. What has not been released is arguably the most important material. The interview transcripts with the high profile people, FBI, 302 names redacted in prior prosecutions, who are alleged perpetrators, and sealed evidence related to coconspirators. So Clay's justification, if you can call it that, maybe excuse is better for not voting to release the Epstein files. Absolute and utter garbage. Now, maybe the most important thing for us to discuss, and so many of you wrote to me about it, is, is this really the victory we believe it to be? Let's dig into that. People are celebrating the Epstein vote in the House and Senate to release the files like this is over. And now here come the full files. And I want to be honest with you and Frank in my belief that this is not nearly over. I don't think they are going to go this easily and this quietly. We got the votes and that's good. Every Republican in the House and Senate except for Clay Higgins in the House voted yes, release the files. And a lot of people are acting like this is a massive win now, it is a step forward. But I'm telling you right now there is no planet in our solar system where Republicans just shrug and hand over the full Epstein files. Not at this point. Not with the stakes this high and not without a fight. They didn't suddenly grow a conscience. They didn't turn into truth seekers. They realized the political pressure was such that they had to vote to release. But they have a plan and they've always had a plan. Most, most likely. So if you think we are magically getting the full, real, unedited, unsanitized version of the files, I probably have bad news for you. Now, there's a few possibilities as to what they're planning here. Number one, the Tucker Carlson style, the dog ate my homework thing, they can release the files, but only the parts that are safe. You release some portion of the document, you say, listen, if there was other stuff, it was damaged or it was lost or it's still under review or there's a national security issue with it and then you say we've been transparent. All, basically every Republican voted to release it. Pam Bondi, Cash Patel released something we are calling the Epstein files. And that's it. Now, Republicans would like this move because it will let them take a victory lap. We voted to release the files and we release the files. Yet it still allows them to protect whoever it is they want to protect, presumably, at least to a degree, Donald Trump. Number two, there is the possibility of a preemptive narrative laundering of sorts. Before the files drop, you flood right wing media with some kind of news story. The files don't say what the left claims that they say. The files reveal that Democrats are really the perpetrators. Epstein was basically a CIA operation. So even though the files are coming out, you can't really believe anything that's in them. And so they might build a narrative before the files come out so that anything that's damaging will be rejected by their base, even if it's right there in black and white. And then you'll get, you know, Tucker and whoever, who, Jesse Watters, Hannity, Glenn Beck, the MAGA influencers will start shaping and molding public opinion around those talking points. Number three, and this is. These are not. They could do a combination of these things. Blame shifting to convenient Democrats. Republicans desperately need Democrats to pin all of this on. Doesn't matter if it's true, doesn't matter if it's embarrassing. So they need at least one, if not more names to point to. See, it wasn't us, it was them, it was Bill Clinton, it was Larry Summers, or what? They will cherry pick flight logs and emails or whatever and elevate that as the real story. And if they can weaponize the files against the Democrat, especially a high value one, that's a win and maybe it saves Trump. Number four, and this is the one we've been talking about for days, scrubbing and redacting anything that is Trump adjacent. And I mean, I'm just trying to be as frank with you as I can. I don't think there's any scenario where Trump, who was photographed with Epstein, who lived down the road from Epstein in Florida, partied with Epstein, evaluated young women and girls with Epste. I don't think that Trump would sign off on truly fully unredacted files. I think anything close to Trump gets blacked out, removed, lost, whatever. Anything tying Epstein's network to Republican mega donors who are Trump donors in the modern political political era, I think gets redacted or blacked out. Anything implicating Republican power players gets blacked out. They can still say we released it, but the names that really matter are going to magically vanish. And then there's a couple of other options. You know, release so much that the real story disappears. This is a classic in the legal world. During discovery, you just bury your opposition with paperwork. They're asking for a couple specific things. You give them 30,000 pages of stuff that will take months to go through, that will require them to hire an entire team to go through. Can I accelerate the process of reviewing that stuff? Maybe, but the idea would be overwhelm. Dump thousands of pages, unindexed, unorganized, and then see what happens. And then finally there's the distraction possibility. Drop the files in the middle of a White House crisis or a manufactured state of emergency or some scandal of sorts. And, and then finally, finally claim you can't really do it right now because now things are under investigation and I don't know legally how that would work. The House has voted to release the Epstein files. The Senate has voted to release the Epstein files. Trump is expected to sign off on releasing the Epstein files. But what if after doing all that, Pam Bondi goes, here's a little bit that we're going to release in 30 days. They have 30 days to do it. Don't know if they'll take the full 30. But there are so many files now that are relevant to ongoing investigations. It's no longer a closed investigation about a dead guy. We have active investigations, Trump told us. Investigate Larry Summers, investigate Bill Clinton. We can't release the files now. So here's the bottom line. I have about like a 1% belief that we're just going to get the files. 99% of me does not believe that the Republican Party suddenly wants justice for the Epstein victims. I don't think they care about the victims. I don't think they care about transparency. Save a few people. I believe that Thomas Massie cares about the victims. I don't, I don't, I don't doubt him. But that's not the reason why this ultimately passed with all but one of the Republican votes. They care about control. And you don't vote 99% in favor of releasing something this explosive while Trump is president unless you have a plan to protect yourself. Republicans have something up their sleeve. They're not giving up. There's no way they're saying, you got us. Here are the full files. Not a chance. Am I missing something? Agree, Disagree. Make sure to like this video on YouTube. Make sure to hit the subscribe button, but let me know in a comment or send me an email info@david pakman.com Let me know what you think they're going to do. We all know food is central to the holidays, so having good olive oil is crucial. Our sponsor, Graza Olive Oil has been my go to for years, which is why I reached out to them about becoming a sponsor. It's always fresh, never blended. The olives are always picked, pressed and bottled in the same season from the same source in Gian Spain. 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Absolutely phenomenal. Check it out. Email in if you have any questions. Donald Trump did the unthinkable with one of the world's worst yesterday as the House was getting ready to pass the Epstein Bill and subsequently the Senate. Donald Trump welcomed with open arms and with kid gloves. The brutal Saudi Arabian leader, the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Trump's maybe most disgusting act yet. And Trump really reminding us and showing us what he really is, which is an authoritarian autocrat, dictator wannabe at heart. They did a huge circus, some call it a dog and pony show for the brutal human rights denying autocrat. Here is Donald Trump greeting Mohammed bin Salman. Look at this crap. Anyway, I think you get the picture. The guy responsible for the cold blooded assassination. It's not even really a murder. It's an assassination. It was planned in advance. I mean it's all, it's a killing, it's a murder, it's an assassination. Of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi welcomed with open arms and even welcomed with a flyover. Here is Fox News description of it. A welcome like no other, I will say. And hard to think of someone less deserving of such a welcome from a country that is at least putatively ostensibly Democratic. Trump with a little back rubbing.