← The Jim Acosta Show
The Jim Acosta Show
Latest on Epstein-Gate with Molly Jong-Fast & Elie Honig, plus sports journalist Christine Brennan !
01:04:08
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- [00:00]
Molly Jong-Fast
I'm trying to get back since I'm probably gonna get fired from my magazine, which is fine, probably.
- [00:07]
Jim Acosta
But you have a great new book, which we can talk about a little bit. Is that okay?
- [00:10]
Molly Jong-Fast
Yeah, anything you want. You know me.
- [00:13]
Jim Acosta
I know you know. I figured as much. All right, welcome, everybody, to the Jim Acosta Show. Epstein Gate continues. Trump keeps the story going by offering up ridiculous comments that the Epstein files were, quote, made up.
- [00:29]
Molly Jong-Fast
They can't just call me.
- [00:30]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, well, yeah. And as you can, my big guest today, Molly John Fast. In a little bit, I'll talk to my friend, my former colleague, former prosecutor Ellie Honig. He's out with a new book, when youn Come at the King. We'll also hear from him about that. And my friend Christine Brennan is here, too. She has a new book on the WNBA star Caitlin Clark. So stay tuned for that as well. But I'm really glad to welcome back to the program Molly John Fast. She has the Fast Politics podcast, of course, and she also has her new book, which is a New York Times bestseller, How to Lose youe Mother and Memoir. And, Molly, apologies for that huge windup, but great to see you.
- [01:08]
Molly Jong-Fast
I love a huge windup. I'm delighted to be wound up. Yes, it's great to see you, too, Jim Acosta. And what a day. I mean.
- [01:20]
Jim Acosta
Where do we start? I mean, I have to start where you and I talk about all of these different things. We get on. We were talking about inflation.
- [01:28]
Molly Jong-Fast
We talk about immigration twice a week. You'll have to be back because you and I are buddies. We're really buddies. My podcast producer. People hate it when I spend time talking about how much I like my guests. But I like you. And I'm not.
- [01:42]
Jim Acosta
I feel the same way.
- [01:42]
Molly Jong-Fast
I'm your guest, so there you go.
- [01:45]
Jim Acosta
Well, and I, you know, I come on your thing. You come on my thing. But, I mean, did we start the year thinking that the Jeffrey Epstein saga would come back and haunt Donald Trump in the way that it has. This is kind of crazy.
- [02:02]
Molly Jong-Fast
I just wrote a piece about this for Vanity Fair. Not to just be insufferable, plugging my stuff here, but I think it's so interesting that Jeffrey Epstein has come back from the grave to haunt Donald Trump and not in the way you would think. Right? You would think that you. What you would think is Donald Trump brought down by Jeffrey Epstein in a video. Whatever, Whatever. But that's not what this is, right? This is.
- [02:27]
Jim Acosta
That's not what this is.
- [02:28]
Molly Jong-Fast
Donald Trump. Trump feeding conspiracy theories to his base Awakening an appetite for an easy answer that comes with a conspiracy theory. Which, by the way, you know, there, it's a tale as old as time, right. That this is what, you know, if you are a person who's scared by modernity, scared by what America looks like right now, an easy answer is sort of the play. And Donald Trump really did for such a long time. I mean, I was looking back at his sort of romance with QAnon and the ways which he invoked those. Well, we go one, we go all, remember that he did.
- [03:07]
Jim Acosta
He, he has done this for years. He's played the conspiracy theory fringe, you know, element of the Republican Party like a violin for years. I mean, I was talking about this the other day when he was pursuing the birther bs. I mean, I reported way back during the first Trump administration that he, after a while he knew that it was bullshit and, and yet he peddled it anyway because he knew it worked with his base. So he's been doing this for years.
- [03:30]
Molly Jong-Fast
Yeah. And so, and, and all of his people, I mean, like, if you think about Michael Flynn or, you know, these people got even Kash Patel, I mean, the reason why this is so hard on Kash Patel is because these are his people, right? These are his fans.
- [03:45]
Jim Acosta
These are the ones he wanted in there.
- [03:47]
Molly Jong-Fast
Right. Nay thought that once he got in there, once he headed the FBI. Right. He is where the buck stops.
- [03:55]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [03:55]
Molly Jong-Fast
And here he is where the buck stops. So where is the content that these people put him in office to get?
- [04:03]
Jim Acosta
Well, I mean, and just today he was asked if his name appears in the Epstein files. He was asked by a reporter at the White House. Kudos to the reporter at the White House who asked his question, by the way.
- [04:12]
Molly Jong-Fast
Not a comfortable place to ask that kind of question.
- [04:15]
Jim Acosta
Not a comfortable place.
- [04:16]
Molly Jong-Fast
Everyone else is asking if you don't ask that question is, well.
- [04:20]
Jim Acosta
And if you don't ask that question, you are, we are all going to scream at you now. I mean, this has to be asked. And he goes, these files were made up by Comey. They were made up by Obama, they were made up by Biden. Now he thinks that the people on his base are fools, but they're not that dumb. I'm sorry, I may be crazy, but I'm not stupid, as the saying goes. I mean, this is ludicrous.
- [04:44]
Molly Jong-Fast
And I also think we've seen Trump like Burisma, right, which was a made up conspiracy theory too, at least involved like some sort of thread of a needle here. Right. That there was some connection to Burisma this is like, no, James Comey did it. And look, I am no fan of James Comey. Let me go on the record here and say he's too tall. I find it very annoying. And also, his books are his pot boilers. You know, like, there are many very talented writers in this country. Why we need to read books written by this guy who lost Hillary Clinton the election. I'm sorry, you'll never get me involved in that. So.
- [05:31]
Jim Acosta
But I'm with you on that.
- [05:32]
Molly Jong-Fast
Right. But he clearly did not make up Epstein.
- [05:37]
Jim Acosta
No. And Pam Bonney was saying in February, oh, the list is on my desk. And she's cleaned up lately to say it was the files on my desk, which is impossible because the files are too big. They would fit up like multiple rooms of an office building. And. And so all of this is horseshit. And then, of course, Trump earlier today threw her under the bus again and said that she should release additional information on the probe. She's handled it very well. He says it's going to be up to her. Whatever she thinks is credible should she should release. So, I mean, here's my thing, Molly. There's no way she is acting independently on her own. This is one of those things where when Trump says something, you have to read between the lines or it doesn't have to be spoken. It's the unspoken thing.
- [06:18]
Molly Jong-Fast
Well, I also wonder, remember Bondi did these releases of the Epstein phase one where she gave these binders to libs of TikTok and all of their influencers. And the influencers were like, yes, we have it now. And then they took lots of photos with all of these binders.
- [06:36]
Jim Acosta
Open the binders.
- [06:37]
Molly Jong-Fast
Right. And then they opened the binders to find that everything in there was from a simple Google search.
- [06:44]
Jim Acosta
I thought it was a coloring book or something. But anyway.
- [06:46]
Molly Jong-Fast
Yeah. I mean, there's no chocolate in there, though. There is, I wanna say, from my own experience, quite a lot of chocolate in the White House.
- [06:54]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [06:55]
Molly Jong-Fast
Which is a great. Which is probably. I mean, maybe there's less. I haven't been in the Trump White House. But, yeah, I mean, I do think it just strikes me that they all played into it. So now we have Fongino and Pash Patel, who are clearly very upset that their fans are mad at them. Right. Because we just keep seeing that. Then we have. We have this situation with Bondi where the question is, will Trump get rid of her? And I honestly believe that Trump would have a hard time getting rid of her because they both have been very, you know, Bondi was a lobbyist for Qatar, right?
- [07:36]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. And she also, I mean, she also kind of got him out of hot water on the Trump University stuff. I think she was involved in some of that. I mean, there's a reason why she's the Attorney General. He thinks of the Attorney General as essentially another White House counsel. But, you know, the other thing in all this, and I think you put your finger on it, which is hilarious, is that you have people like Cash Patel and Dan Bongino, the top officials at the FBI, essentially worried about their future viability as podcast hosts. That's why they're just nervous about their base and their fandom and all that.
- [08:07]
Molly Jong-Fast
My favorite thing is when all this Bongino stuff where he talks about how hard the job is, like, it's a job, man. This is what it is like being a podcaster, as I am also. You and I both have these podcasting gigs.
- [08:23]
Jim Acosta
I love this job. I don't want to be the FBI deputy director.
- [08:26]
Molly Jong-Fast
Yeah, exactly. Because where are you right now, Jim Acosta?
- [08:29]
Jim Acosta
I'm in Colorado. I'm in Aspen, Colorado, and I'm having a lovely time, I have to say. That's why I'm smiling. I smile all the time now. I'm sorry, I don't mean to make everybody miserable, but a lot better than.
- [08:41]
Molly Jong-Fast
Being in an office building in Washington, D.C. being screamed at by Donald Trump.
- [08:47]
Jim Acosta
So much better. And I don't want to be on the South Lawn of the White House asking him about the Epstein falls. I mean, I kind of do, but I kind of don't. And then the other thing, too, is, is that some of the Republicans are starting to break rings. Marjorie Taylor Greene is saying, I want to see all the information come out. Mike Johnson apparently told Benny whatever his name is, that it's time for Pam Bondi to explain her statements. I mean, there's a little bit of a jailbreak going on here with this thing.
- [09:13]
Molly Jong-Fast
Larry Lara Trump, too, said, I, I think there's going to be more released. And you'll remember, Larry, Trump wants to run for the Senate, or at least there's some consideration that she might run for the Senate in South Carolina. So this is a great example of people, look, I think it's important to remember why, where, how Trump got to be president, which was he grew a base. He went and touched the sort of third rail of American politics. The people for whom Bush, Romney pretended to be this sort of that group of the base that was too toxic for Bush and Romney and Reagan, that crew Trump embraced And so he grew himself a real base. And that base is now its own thing. And the idea that Trump can at any time just do whatever he wants with them, you know, it has worked for a long time, but clearly what we're seeing here is that it's no longer working.
- [10:17]
Jim Acosta
No, for now the snakes are coming after the Pied Piper. And I mean, Democrats are trying to get some answers on the Hill. They're doing some votes. Jim Himes just voted that Congressional Republicans just blocked us from debating the release of the Epstein files. Very curious for a party allegedly obsessed with transparency. Ro Khanna has been trying to do this. Mark Vesey has tried to do this over the last. They're trying, I mean, they just don't have the numbers to do this right now. So this is something that they're not going to wait. But Molly, I mean, somebody who has been sort of. Go ahead.
- [10:47]
Molly Jong-Fast
I just want to say one last thing because, I mean, I do think nobody ever wants to fucking legislate. Excuse my French. Like, I understand. But you know, there's a play where you go out there and you'd say they have like a one vote majority, right? Or two vote majority. Half those people are 10,000 years old. Like you could, it's the middle of summer. Like you could say, Amos Massie, if you don't vote with the Dems, we're going to be like, why does Thomas Massie not want to see the Epstein files? Interesting.
- [11:20]
Ellie Honig
Now, look, do I agree with you?
- [11:21]
Molly Jong-Fast
Do I want to be part of a party that is so craven? Maybe, I mean, maybe it's time for them to really push. You know, I actually, if this is.
- [11:30]
Jim Acosta
Not helping them, I mean, the big beautiful bill, whatever you want to call it, all of our names for that, that's already toxic for these Republicans to run on next year. Now they're going to have to run on shutting down the Jeffrey Epstein case.
- [11:43]
Molly Jong-Fast
Let's talk about, can we, can we talk about the Fabrizio memo this morning?
- [11:49]
Jim Acosta
Let's do it.
- [11:50]
Molly Jong-Fast
So Tony Fabrizio, known as Crump's pollster, put out a poll this morning. I learned about it because I was listening to the Playbook podcast, which is a political podcast that's sort of an insider. And in it they were saying, well, Fabrizio has a new memo that shows that Republicans should sort of pay the Obamacare, they should keep some of the Obamacare stuff going. And I thought, well, that's a bit odd. That's an odd thing to get from polling. So I took up the Fabrizio memo. Do you want to know what it says? Are you serious at all?
- [12:35]
Jim Acosta
I am, because I think health care, it's just absolutely toxic for them.
- [12:39]
Ellie Honig
Yeah.
- [12:39]
Molly Jong-Fast
The Fabrizio memo says, and I don't want to put too, too, too fine a point on it. It says that Republicans are. I think the word here is fucked.
- [12:55]
Jim Acosta
So that's the scientific polling term.
- [12:58]
Molly Jong-Fast
Yeah, scientific word is fucked.
- [13:01]
Jim Acosta
Well, they postponed a lot of these Medicaid cuts or they built it into the legislation. That's that they wouldn't really go midterms until after the midterms. So this was such great policy. You would think they would want all of this to go into effect right away, but not in this case.
- [13:16]
Molly Jong-Fast
How important is it that as many Americans as possible are covered by health insurance? Trump voters say 83%. 83% of Trump voters say that it's important that as many Americans as possible are covered by health insurance. Yeah, 83% of Trump voters.
- [13:36]
Jim Acosta
And the reason why is because health care is totally out of control, unaffordable, and people are absolutely furious about it. I mean, and to think that Medicaid, getting rid of Medicaid for all those folks is just going to make healthcare more unaffordable for all of us. If you have healthcare or not, through a private insurer.
- [13:56]
Molly Jong-Fast
I mean, so this is polling on these tax credits, which clearly is like a Hail Mary pass. Like, clearly, Fabrizio was like, oh, this is. So let's see here we have the congressional. I mean, it just. You really do see Republicans trailing the, the generic D by about three points. That's not so good. And that's coming from Trump's pollster. Okay. Among 65% of voters who rate themselves 10 out of 10 motivated to vote, an early indication of who could run, who could turn out next year. The Republicans trail by spending seven points.
- [14:36]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, no, I mean, to me, the ads are already writing themselves. I mean, not only are they trying to take your healthcare away, the Democratic ads will say they're trying to cover up the Jeffrey Epstein files. How is that going to work in North Carolina, where Lara Trump probably won't run for the Senate, but where a Republican wants to hang on to that seat, and you have perhaps Roy Cooper, the former governor of North Carolina, running for that seat. I mean, that's, you know, okay, that seat's gone. Sorry, you're screwed. But I mean, Texas, I mean, I hate to say, I hate to go after the fool's gold of Texas.
- [15:11]
Molly Jong-Fast
What are we doing here, man? What are we doing? I'M not going to talk to you about Texas.
- [15:16]
Jim Acosta
I know.
- [15:16]
Molly Jong-Fast
I love you, but. No, I'm going to say North Carolina. Yes. Look, I mean, Texas. I mean, the only thing where I see that it could. I think North Carolina is a play. Right. That's an open seat. It's a swing state. The popular Roy Cooper running for Senate, I think. Yes.
- [15:35]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [15:36]
Molly Jong-Fast
Maybe Maine. Right. That's blue state. Susan Collins has really just been.
- [15:43]
Jim Acosta
She's freaked out.
- [15:44]
Molly Jong-Fast
Complete disaster. Endlessly, for sure. But I. But do I think that Texas is. I don't.
- [15:53]
Jim Acosta
We will bottle this. We'll put it in the time capsule. We'll release the time capsule in 2020. I know you don't have a whole lot of time, so I have to ask you about your book.
- [16:00]
Molly Jong-Fast
Yes.
- [16:01]
Jim Acosta
And how. I remember us having a conversation, and I don't know if it was on substack or where it was or if it was even a public conversation, but you were very worried about writing this, and you were very worried that it was not gonna be received well.
- [16:14]
Molly Jong-Fast
And, yes, I think it was a text message where I said, have I ruined. Dear Jim? Have I ruined my life, Mom?
- [16:21]
Jim Acosta
And it's just been terrific. And I'm just wondering, how are you feeling about it? I mean, I'm very proud of you.
- [16:29]
Molly Jong-Fast
Yes, I had a moment. So on June 1, the article about me in the New York Times came out. And the next day, I was like, oh, I've ruined my life. Like, I was like, I find. Here's what I thought. I thought, you made yourself not a Nepo baby, only to be like, hey, wait, I'm a Nepo baby. Like, I thought, like, who is this? Who.
- [16:54]
Jim Acosta
I'm not caught up in this as a kid. Who. I am not a Nepo baby of anything. I think in the 1500s, a relative of mine was a governor of one of the Canary Islands. That's about as good as it gets. But to me, it's like, embrace it. And to me, we all have mothers, and we all just have crazy relationships with our mothers. And I love my mother. She's one of my heroes. She's a single mom, raised me as a single mom. And, you know, this just reminds me of, like, our moms, and there's so much craziness going on. It's a good thing to talk about and think about.
- [17:29]
Molly Jong-Fast
Well, the reason why I'm quite glad that I wrote it was because I go on these. When I go speak at places, when I talk to people, they all come to me and say, you know, My mom, my dad. This one has dementia. You know, I'm signing books and people are saying, my sisters and I, you know somebody. And then the one that gets me is when they come and they say I'm an only child. Cause that's a whole other level of dysfunction when you are the only person responsible for your parents. But yeah, it's been really gratifying to watch people respond to it. And so I'm actually really glad I did it.
- [18:13]
Jim Acosta
Amazing. Well, I was not part of a big party rollout. Although I think maybe I got you to talk about it before the official rollout. So I snuck in there ahead of the game. So I had nothing to do with the success of your book, which slightly depressed about. But I'm just so tickled for you. I'm so happy for you because it is putting yourself out there in a major way when you do a book like this. I'm just glad it worked out great for you.
- [18:39]
Molly Jong-Fast
Thank you. Well, I'm just delighted and I'm delighted to get to come on and I hope you'll have me back next week. I'm not going anywhere. I'm here.
- [18:47]
Jim Acosta
We'll keep doing it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I know you gotta run, but it's great to see you. And what were you saying? They're fucked. That was. That'll be our sound bite.
- [18:54]
Molly Jong-Fast
I mean, that's our clip. Yeah, they're clocked. That's our clip for the day. That's the. Yeah, that's the fancy political way of saying it.
- [19:01]
Jim Acosta
Operative term. All right, bye. Molly, Great to see you. Good to see you. Thanks so much. The wonderful Molly. John Fast. And I'm going to go very quickly to my old. Because, I mean, why. Why mess around with introductions here? My old pal Ellie Honig. I've been around with him for a long, long time. I'm so excited to catch up with him and shoot the bull. And he probably can't come on substack and say and fuck and things like that like I do, which is. I'm very. I feel very sorry about that. But I am coming to. To you live from Colorado today. I didn't even mention that. Why I have all these beautiful Aspen trees behind me, but Molly, of course brought it up and. And rubbed my nose in it, which is all wonderful, but no, I'm. It's great to talk to Ellie again here. He's coming in now. He's coming in hot. Ellie, good to see you, man.
- [19:49]
Ellie Honig
How you doing? Jim, great to see you.
- [19:51]
Jim Acosta
Great to see you too. It's been too long. I'm so glad we got to do this again. How are things? How you been?
- [19:57]
Ellie Honig
I'm great. So before we get to me, though, I have to tell you, I love Acosta Unplugged. Like, you're tan. Like, your hair is long. You're dressing.
- [20:07]
Jim Acosta
Oh, I totally. I totally grew it out. It's really. It's like a squirrel's nest. There's, like, animals living in there.
- [20:14]
Ellie Honig
This is like, Acosta. Yeah. You know, Acosta has his wild summer of tan and fun and all that. It's cool. Cool to see, though.
- [20:22]
Jim Acosta
I appreciate it. Well, somebody I think it might have been Matt friend, suggested that I call my podcast Fuck it with Jim Acosta. That I was like, I can't do that. I can't every day. What if I have a congressman? I had Elizabeth Warren on recently. I can't be like, welcome to fucking. Here's Elizabeth Warren. You can't do that.
- [20:38]
Ellie Honig
It's a good title. But. Yeah, you're right. By the way, I recently had a. Just the other day, it's kind of. Well, I had a great Acosta show Flashback. So as we speak right now, I'm coming to you from Rucker Studio, where I work and I teach, because I'm recording my audiobook now, Jim, you and I have the same publisher, HarperCollins. And you went through this. So, like, I'll turn my camera, but, like, I don't know if people can see over there, but that little black box in the corner, that's my phone this week. And anyone. That's your hole. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's exhausting. My voice.
- [21:09]
Jim Acosta
It is.
- [21:10]
Ellie Honig
It's so exhausting. As you can. Right? It's. People probably are rolling their eyes like, oh, poor you. You have to record an audio. You know, people have real jobs, but. But it is pretty brutal.
- [21:19]
Jim Acosta
I remember I had to take a week off from work when I did mine, because you're in there for six hours a day and you're. You're wiped out again. Not that anybody has any sympathy, but it's. It's true.
- [21:29]
Ellie Honig
You know, it's true. No, I mean, I am. You're standing for a six hour day. You're speaking, you're reading your book, and it's just like. It's exhausting. So. And look, you and I have both had, like, you know, I work restaurants, catering, whatever. I've done them all, so. Yeah, I get it. But anyway, I was doing, like, a promotional video, and I remember that when I did my first Book. Mark Hamill, Luke Skywalker had sent some sort of tweet, like, encouraging me, a really nice thing. And so I went on Twitter and I, like, searched Mark Hamill and Ellie Hoenig or something. And I saw something else that made me laugh. There was an episode of your show when you had Mark Hamill on, and I responded something like, holy crap, I'm going to be in the same show. And I'm going to be. I'm going to be able to say I was in something with Mark Hamill. And because he's such a great guy, he responded, holy crap, I'm going to get to say I was in something with Ellie Hoenig. Which I was like, I know, I forgot about that. But, man, so cool.
- [22:21]
Jim Acosta
I know we had. And we have so many great shows on the weekends because, Ellie, you could come on. And it was sort of like this. We had a lot of time where we could talk. And that's what I love about this, is that we can just talk and talk, and it's, there's, there's not as much pressure to, you know, get to a commercial break or get through a bunch of questions. Exactly. And I do want to talk. I do want to talk about your book. But I feel like the thing that I would be. So if I were back at my old place and you and I were doing a thing together, I would be super anxious and eager to talk to you about the Epstein case.
- [22:49]
Ellie Honig
Yes. Let's go.
- [22:50]
Jim Acosta
And whether. I can't imagine you had worked on it at some point or.
- [22:53]
Ellie Honig
No, no, no, no, no.
- [22:54]
Jim Acosta
You didn't have anything to do with that.
- [22:56]
Ellie Honig
I covered it for cnn. I have no conflict or anything. You cover it.
- [22:59]
Jim Acosta
But what do you think about. What do you think about this? Because I talked to Molly about the political implications of it.
- [23:04]
Ellie Honig
Yeah.
- [23:04]
Jim Acosta
Obviously, there's probably nothing legally that I can think of that Trump has to worry about. I don't know. I mean, maybe he does. He's been very squirrely about this lately. But what have been your thoughts, just overall thoughts on the whole thing?
- [23:16]
Ellie Honig
So I wrote a piece, I write a weekly piece for New York Magazine last week titled something like, nobody trusts Pam Bondi. Right. And of course, I write in the piece. I mean, liberals and Democrats distrusted her from the start because. Primarily because she's an election denier. She's a 2000, a 2020 election denier. She was quite vocal at the time. She said, we won Pennsylvania. I mean, you know, false. And she never really took it back at her confirmation hearing. She gave the old, oh, Joe Biden is the president, you know, that BS line, and I said so. She never had liberals, obviously, but now she has lost a hell of a lot of conservatives. I mean, and why? Why? Because. And I'm working on a piece. I'll preview it. Previewing. The number one mistake Pam Bondi made is she didn't abide by, like, the most bedrock DOJ principle, which is we don't disseminate our closed investigative criminal files. We don't. Imagine if they did that. Imagine if they just dumped out. Oh, I want every interview ever given. Right, Exactly. It would be mayhem. And sometimes those rules suck. Right? Like, look in the public. I would love to see everything. But having been a DOJ prosecutor, those rules are there to protect people and to protect you. If you're the ag, you just go, look, folks, like, I wish I could turn this over, but there's this crappy old rule that everyone from both parties has always abided by, and my hands are tied here.
- [24:45]
Jim Acosta
But it's a little too, isn't it? It's a little too late for that now though, right?
- [24:48]
Ellie Honig
It's a little too late.
- [24:49]
Jim Acosta
The other problem is. Other problem is Trump has said, let's release them. J.D. vance has said, let's release them. Cash, Patel, Bongino, the people they put at the FBI.
- [25:00]
Ellie Honig
Exactly. So they've all walked themselves into this ridiculous corner. And making matters worse, Pam Bondi has been. I'll try to be charitable, but she has been vastly overblowing the contents. I mean, she said to Fox News, they said, how about the client list? She said, it's on my desk right now. I mean, they're probably. Is no client list. You know, I don't know. You know, as delineated, there could be incriminating information. Yeah, but she. Remember when she first took office, she said, oh, I'm going to disclose the Epstein files, phase one. And she handed out those ridiculous binders that people were holding up, and there was crap in there, like 200 pages of stuff that had already come out. So she's. It's like she's created this vice, you know, those things where you put your fingers in and like, she's created this vice of her own making by A, ignoring DOJ policy and B, I'll just say, over promising what she would do and what was in those files. And then suddenly last week, she goes, no, no, no. Here's an FBI memo that says there's nothing to see and nothing further. And therefore everyone stopped bothering me. So I totally Understand the backlash. And by the way, the backlash, I mean, when I was researching for my piece, I was like, conservative right wing MAGA lash out Bondi. You know, that was my Google search. And it was like.
- [26:17]
Jim Acosta
But here's the thing, Ellie, to me, like, pinning this on Pam Bonnie and making her the scapegoat, which is what Megyn Kelly wants to do and Laura Loomer wants to do. And Give me a break. First of all, do we really think that they put out that DOJ memo without any sort of nudging by the White House to put out this memo that puts it kind of sweeps it under the rug and puts it to bed and says, oh, by the way, we don't think there's a big conspiracy here. And oh, by the way, you know, case closed and so on. I'm sorry, that sounds like something that has some White House fingerprints on it. And if it does, then that brings the scandal back to the White House. And the way that Trump has been talking about this, he says it's now fake and that it was comey and all this other stuff. He sounds like he's got something to hide. That's what makes all of this mysterious.
- [27:04]
Ellie Honig
I totally agree that Pam Bondi has become this lightning rod and all the anger is suddenly on her. Whereas either her or she, either she as the AG or the president, could, with a snap of the fingers, just say, everything's public, we're putting it online. I mean, there's nothing legally, there's a lot of DOJ policy preventing them from doing that. But legally, if they choose to do that, they can do that. So I agree with that. And you know, the question I keep coming back to is like, why the sudden turnabout? Why the everyone you just listed being 100% hard, you know, whatever left, you know, you know, the accelerator all the way to the floor, we are going to turn this stuff over and reveal everything to like suddenly the brakes jammed on. And by the way, I was listening to Michael Smart Kanish, our friend and colleague on the radio this morning, and he, I guess, I think he was reading, actually I think he was reading from the Washington Post or something. So I don't want to misattribute this, but some small, smart person out there made a point about if this was like some sort of Democratic Party setup, why would no Democrat have ever turned this stuff over? I mean, it's so obvious.
- [28:14]
Jim Acosta
Well, and also if it was the Democrats that cooked this up, you're the Republicans who are in charge. So release it and Put that out there. The other thing that I have on my mind, Ellie, is I talked to Mark Epstein yesterday. He was on my show, Jeffrey Epstein's brother and he thinks that, he calls it a murder now. He thinks that his brother was murdered somehow. Somehow. And points to a lot of strange things. And who's to say whether or not any of this adds up to anything but the fact that the brother Jeffrey Epstein was on suicide watch. And there are cameras that aren't functioning properly. Apparently there are mattresses and blankets in the room when they shouldn't have been. There are just some weird things here. And apparently there were coroners or medical examiners that had questions themselves. When you look at any of that stuff and do you look at any of that stuff and say, well, that's damn curious too, or do you say, ah, this is conspiracy theory stuff, what.
- [29:12]
Ellie Honig
Do you, you know, I think we are at the phase with the, the cause of Jeffrey Epstein's death where it's like the JFK assassination phase. Like there's so much information out there, there's so many questions that no one's ever going to be satisfied either way. Right. I mean, I think if you took a poll, I'd actually be interested what public opinion polling says about this. I imagine it's out there, but like what percent of the American public thinks that he committed suicide as opposed to murder? It feels 50, 50 ish to me. I don't really have a theory. I just, I just am at the place of I haven't seen a smoking gun saying, you know, he was murdered. You know, I just, I know that building pretty well. I mean, I was in that building, the mcc a million times. It's closed now because it was such a dump for renovations.
- [30:01]
Jim Acosta
Right?
- [30:02]
Ellie Honig
It's. I don't know. I mean, look, there's always going to be a gap. There's a one minute gap now apparently in some surveillance video that Pam Bondi tried to say is normal. Maybe it is, maybe it's not. But like, the problem is people are just dug in, they just believe X or Y and like, I don't think anyone's genuinely persuadable. My position on this is like, I just don't know. And I just, I don't have any magical insight.
- [30:24]
Jim Acosta
Okay. And I won't, I won't pressure too much more on this, but I had a couple of questions. I put a chat out chat question earlier today on Substack. Got some questions from, from that which I think are very interesting. One of them was, is Epstein's girlfriend and conspirator, heavily guarded in her prison cell. Could. Could she somehow talk? Another person asked, can she be forced to talk? I suppose she can't be forced to talk.
- [30:46]
Ellie Honig
Right.
- [30:46]
Jim Acosta
But she's serving a 20 year prison sentence right now, of course, after being convicted in 2021 of conspiracy with Epstein. Ghislaine Maxwell, exactly. What are your thoughts on that? And could she potentially have some information?
- [30:58]
Ellie Honig
So it's interesting because I think I wrote a piece at the time maybe for CNN or something. Like, if you Google my name and Ghislaine Maxwell. God, I don't like that. But, you know, if you. Yeah, yeah, you know me writing about Ghislaine Maxwell, I think I wrote a piece at one point talking about, like, could she actually flip? Would there be a reason for. I mean, now, now here's the calculation. She. Look, she has, as the criminals would say, she has stood up so far, meaning she has never gone in to talk. As far as we know. She has stayed quiet and taken whatever she knows into that jail cell with her.
- [31:29]
Jim Acosta
Right.
- [31:29]
Ellie Honig
It could be that she gets to a point where she does the math and goes, I've got 14 or whatever it is, years left and I'm however many years old. And so I want to talk to prosecutors. And at that point, the way it would work is her lawyer would contact probably the SDNY and say, Ghislaine Maxwell is ready to come clean and tell you everything she knows. And there is a way to get a sentencing reduction after the fact, before the fact. The way it normally works is you cooperate before you plead guilty and then you get what's called a 5k letter. But you can also do the thing where you cooperate after you've been convicted, while you're serving a sentence. And if you're good, you get what's called a Rule 35, meaning the prosecutor will write a letter, same thing, asking the judge to reduce your sentence. Would she do it? I mean, look, you can benefit this way. I don't know that prosecutors would hear, would be interested in hearing her out, would have any interest in even going down that path. But, you know, so I think it's. It's an extreme long shot, I will say also, by the way, a lot of this stuff is going to have statute of limitations problems now, even if there's like a glaring crime that somebody committed, you know, usually the statute of limitations on these things is five years.
- [32:39]
Jim Acosta
So, you know, but I'm not well. And the other thing is, I'm not sure that the feds I mean, the federal prosecutors who are perhaps worried about, you know, incurring the wrath of Donald Trump, whether they would be all that anxious to open up this Pandora's box with Ghislaine Maxwell. And so some of this would have to come from her side, from her attorney.
- [32:57]
Ellie Honig
Yeah. I mean, well, certainly, even if I was, you know, putting myself back in that office, if I got a call one day from an attorney for Ghislaine Maxwell saying she wants to talk, I would go, before we do that, and I'm very uncertain I want to do that, but I need what we call an attorney proffer, meaning you, lawyer, you give me everything she's going to tell me, and you give me any support for that, because you have. You don't just haphazardly walk into that conference room if you're a prosecutor.
- [33:21]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. All right. Well, Ellie, you got a new book coming out.
- [33:24]
Ellie Honig
Yeah.
- [33:24]
Jim Acosta
And are you allowed to talk about it yet? I guess I'll just ask you about.
- [33:26]
Ellie Honig
It anyway, you know, so you're a pro. You know that. Like, we can preview it, but without. Yeah, it's when you come at the.
- [33:33]
Jim Acosta
King is going to be the name of the book. And it. And it basically boils down to, if you're going to go after Donald Trump as part of this judicial process that he went through over the last couple of years, which he played like a violin and helped him get back into the White House, you better have. You better, you know, mind your p's and q's, as my mom might say. And a lot of these cases were a mess. But you talk first. And then I want to ask you about the January 6 case, because as you know, I am. I've always been obsessed with that case and. Sure, but. But why did you write the book?
- [34:06]
Ellie Honig
Well, first of all, it's not a Trump book.
- [34:08]
Jim Acosta
Oh, interesting. Okay.
- [34:09]
Ellie Honig
Yeah. It's really much more of an overview of from Watergate through Jack Smith. So I'll tell you how I came up with the idea. Did you read George Stephanopoulos book, the Situation Room?
- [34:19]
Jim Acosta
The Situation Room, yeah. That's a great book. Yes.
- [34:21]
Ellie Honig
So it's really good. And as I read it or after I finished, I thought, ooh, what a great structure. You take this really important governmental institution, the Situation Room, in his case, and in my case, Special Counsel, Independent Council, it's been called Different Things over the years. And you have a chapter on each major use of it. Right. So Stephanopoulos has Bay of Pigs and, you know, on. On through 911 and on through Covid and so for me, I start with sort of, you know, there's overview in my assessment and all that stuff. But basically the first big chapter is Watergate. And then we go to Iran Contra, and then we go to Clinton and Ken Starr and we proceed through. There was no special counsel, but Comey and the 2016 election, you know, all the way through Scooter Libby, all the way through Mueller and her and Hunter Biden. And finally, Jack Smith is the last. And the end of the book is about, like, what do we do now in Trump 2.0 era? And I will tell you, this was a joy to write this book because I got insider accounts all on record. There's no. An anonymous person. Everyone put their name on it. Yeah, I just decided enough people were willing to. So every chapter has at least one voice and sometimes four or five voices. People from Watergate, prosecutors, John Dean, of course, Carl Bernstein gave, you know, but join banks. And then from Clinton, I have people who were on Ken Starr's teams. I have Clinton's lawyer, David Kendall, Rod Rosenstein, people from Mueller's team, people from Trump's defense team, people from the guy, Abby Lowell, who defended Hunter Biden, Bob Bauer who defended Joe Biden, all of them on the record. A couple people who are actually prosecuted by special counsel. One of the guys you won't know, I don't think you'll, you'll. It'll take an iron memory to remember this name. Igor Danchenko. Does that name ring a bell?
- [36:06]
Jim Acosta
No, that does not ring a bell.
- [36:07]
Ellie Honig
This is one of the poor SAP. Not a SAP. I shouldn't say that, but this is one of the unfortunate guys who was prosecuted by John Durham. Remember John Durham?
- [36:16]
Jim Acosta
Oh, that's right, the Durham, yes.
- [36:18]
Ellie Honig
And Dan Chengde. I have a chapter about Durham. I'm very critical of Durham. And Danchenko was prosecuted and acquitted. And this guy's story. I also talked to Mike Espy, who. You're a little too young for that maybe, but Espy was a Clinton agriculture secretary.
- [36:33]
Jim Acosta
Oh, I remember that case. Oh, yeah, yeah.
- [36:35]
Ellie Honig
He was acquitted, too. And both of them told me the whole story, what it was like to be raked over the coals by these guys. And so it was so much fun. Andy McCabe, you know, Andy McCabe talked to me. I mean, you know, tons of people, you know, and I know. But tons of people I didn't know either who were very generous and forthcoming. And so it's really like case by case. And at the end, and this is probably of most interest to you and your Viewers, I ask, like, what do we do now? And my core thesis is, is this in terms of the looking forward part, we are losing as we speak a lot of guardrails, a lot of traditional protections that both parties have observed for the last half century or so, whether it's inspectors general or, you know, the idea that you don't fire non political DOJ employees.
- [37:24]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [37:24]
Ellie Honig
You know, you know, there's a New.
- [37:25]
Jim Acosta
York Times story out about that today which I, you know, we don't have time to get into. Yeah.
- [37:29]
Ellie Honig
And my thesis is the special counsel is going to die during Trump 2.0 unless he chooses to use it in a brand new sort of retributive way to go after Jack Smith or, you know, whatever. But the traditional use of special counsel to investigate basically in house, you know, to look at the president or people around him is gone. But I argue it's essential that we collectively don't let that die, that we bring it back, no matter who is president. Now, look, it's highly imperfect. These cases have been badly flawed in numerous ways over the years. But there's ways to fix it. There's ways to do it better, there's lessons to be learned. And so I propose that we need this to survive. And I quote, you know, everyone from Archibald Cox to Janet Reno to, you name it, who say, look, you do have to have some system to independently investigate the president. And to the title, which of course I took from the wire, you know, you come at the king, you better not miss. Although I learned, I learned in the research, it actually goes back when, you know, Machiavelli used.
- [38:28]
Jim Acosta
It goes back a ways. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [38:29]
Ellie Honig
Ralph Waldropperson.
- [38:31]
Jim Acosta
But the thing that strikes me about the premise of the book and the title of the book is that it is very much, and I know it's not a Trump book, but it is very much at the heart of where we are right now as a country. Had he not gotten that immunity decision the way he got it from the Supreme Court.
- [38:46]
Ellie Honig
Oh, I talk about that in the book quite a bit.
- [38:48]
Jim Acosta
And by the way, and by the way, you and I have not spoken in a while, I mean, the way the Supreme Court, the way the Roberts Supreme Court has behaved since Trump has gotten back into the White House, I mean, I will say for John Roberts critics, his actions, the way the court has ruled, maybe you could point to some exceptions. Obviously anybody can point to exceptions. I think it only, I think, ignites more concerns about the behavior of the chief justice, the principles, the ideology of the chief justice. And what's going to happen to the Supreme Court moving forward? It just seems like such a damaged institution because it seems, by and large they're just in this mood to keep pulling off the guardrails around this particular president.
- [39:32]
Ellie Honig
Well, and I do spend a good chunk of that last chapter talking about the immunity decision, both in the sense that it ended essentially, you know, Jack Smith's prosecutions or, you know. Yeah, mostly ended them, or at least ended any chance he had to try them before the election. And it was a watershed moment. I mean, I remember, gosh, was I with you when it happened? Were you? Cause you had a ten o' clock show.
- [39:55]
Jim Acosta
I think so. I think so. I think we did that together. Yeah.
- [39:58]
Ellie Honig
Sitting next to you when that came out.
- [40:00]
Jim Acosta
Maybe we weren't expecting it. And then kablooey, it happened.
- [40:02]
Ellie Honig
Yeah, yeah. No, I think we knew because it was the last day, that whatever it was, or maybe I can't remember, that was a watershed moment. And it really does. I do say in the book, one of my ultimate recommendations at the end, I make eight or nine recommendations is prosecutors need. Prosecutors cannot look at that opinion and say it's impossible to prosecute a president because. Or a former president because it's not impossible. They do leave. But I say in the book the Supreme Court doesn't really articulate where the line is. We know it's out there somewhere, but prosecutors have to feel that out where it is. I'm not saying they should just bring charges willy nilly, but they shouldn't just fold up their tents because of that. And again to the title of the book, one thing that struck me, looking as far back as even before Nixon, the first one was actually Ulysses S. Grant, which I love when people get in these scenarios going back 50 years, going back 200 years, when they're either a prosecutor, a defense lawyer, a target, an FBI agent, a judge, you name it, and it involves this type of case, they realize that it's kill or be killed, it's blood sport, it's obituary level stuff. And I went back, I mean, obituaries are such a great source of research. And I found the obituaries basically every person who's ever touched any one of these cases. First line of the obituary, you know, the so and so from the Iran Contra case, the so and so from the Ken Starr case. So it leads people sometimes to a higher level, but more often it leads people to do crazy or irresponsible or strange things because they're in, you know, self protection mode.
- [41:31]
Jim Acosta
So well, I can't wait to see the book when it comes out, Ellie, and it's great to catch up with you. Best of luck with all of this. Best of luck with your voice as you're. As you're voicing this, narrating this book.
- [41:42]
Ellie Honig
So you can hear. It's a little huskier than normal. And this has been great. I'm loving Summer Acosta. And by the way, I have to say, I don't know where you are, Jim, but at one point, maybe 10 minutes ago, a got a male ran across your.
- [41:55]
Jim Acosta
There's some kids back there. I'm in Aspen and the kids are having fun. I'm not having fun, so I need to. I'll be poolside shortly. Just take it from me.
- [42:02]
Ellie Honig
Yeah, I was like, if that's your. That's your backyard, I might be mildly concerned because I saw a guy.
- [42:07]
Jim Acosta
No, no, I'm in Aspen having a good. I'll explain a little bit, but yeah, no, I very much. Not in D.C. or New York. Not in the acelic corridor, to say the least.
- [42:17]
Ellie Honig
Consistent with Summer Acosta.
- [42:18]
Jim Acosta
Exactly. Great to see you, man.
- [42:20]
Ellie Honig
Thank you.
- [42:21]
Jim Acosta
All right, Ellie, great to catch up with you. All right, I'm going to quickly now go to my pal Christine Brennan, who just joined Substack, and I pressured her into doing it. I'm just kidding about that. But no, I. She had to jump on a substack so we can do this interview today. And my friend Christine Brennan, the acclaimed sports journalist, she is just absolutely one of the best sports journalists I think there's ever been, in my humble opinion.
- [42:47]
Molly Jong-Fast
And.
- [42:48]
Jim Acosta
And she has written a fantastic new book that is being very well received right now on Caitlin Clark, who obviously, as everybody knows, has just become an absolute force in professional sports. She's lighting up the WNBA right now. And to me, I think, you know, the argument could be made that Caitlin Clark is probably the most fascinating professional athlete out there right now. I mean, you know, that might be. That might be fighting words for some folks out there, but the way she has changed women's sports in just the last few years has been extraordinary. So I'm hoping, Christine Brennan, that the substack machine will work here. But Christine and I are also. We are also Washington commanders. I call myself a fan. I don't know if she can call herself a fan, but she's had many years of experience covering the Washington commander slash Redskin, so I always enjoy talking that with her as well. I'm going to try not to annoy everybody by asking about that. Too much. But there's Christine Brennan right there. Christine, it's great to see you, Jim.
- [43:52]
Christine Brennan
It's great to see you, too. And not only that's the number one thing, it's just so great to see you and be on air with you again after all of our wonderful, fun times at cnn. But I'm even more happy that I got substack to work.
- [44:05]
Jim Acosta
Oh, I'm so glad, too. No, I appreciate it. And you'll see. I don't know if you have any interest in doing this, but substack thing beyond today, but it's a wonderful outlet for the work of journalists out there. I love promoting it and having other journalists on my show. And I just think it's a great new medium that just sort of takes us out of the corporate media realm and just lets us go directly to the public. And it's just been a it's been a lot of fun for me. But one of the things that I'm so excited about talking with you about today is obviously this new book that you have out on Caitlin Clark. And I just said a few moments ago, and please for, you know, slap me upside the head if I've overstated things. Caitlin Clark may be. And I'm a big sports nut. I am. I. All the sports. I love all the sports. I think she may be the most fascinating sports figure out there right now, male or female.
- [44:58]
Christine Brennan
I agree, Jim. I absolutely agree. Obviously, I am on a book tour.
- [45:03]
Jim Acosta
I'm not saying that just to puff it up, but I think that's the case.
- [45:07]
Christine Brennan
So I am, you know, I am talking about her a lot right now. I even think we can take it a step further. I think, absolutely. As an athlete, household name in every household, right. Everyone knows her. The guys who never would give the time of day to women's sports, you know, those are the guys I'd be on sports talk radio 20, 30 years ago, and they're laughing at me about women's basketball. Those are the guys now that wear the 22 jerseys, not only to the game, but they wear them gym to the grocery store and the gas station, Right. And those guys. And when you got those guys, then you're golden in sport. But I'd also say this. I actually think she's one of the most famous people in the country. I really do. I think, you know, and again, my perspective is skewed. I'm right now in Iowa. I'm Des Moines, Iowa, where they love her as much as anything. And I've been in Indiana, but I'VE also been in Ohio, I've been In, you know, D.C. our wonderful politics and prose. I mean, people can't get enough of her. And there is something going on. And I think, let's put it this way, she was huge to you when you and I were talking on CNN during the end of the NCAA time for her, where they had 4 million more people watching the women's final game than the men's final the next night, which I never, even now, I never thought I could say that sentence. It's just unbelievable. But then the WNBA and all that. Well, she's even bigger this year and she's been injured, she's missed playing time, as you know. That's unusual for her. Very unusual. And yet the storylines keep going, the drama, the fascination with her, the anger at her, the people who don't like her, all of it, Jim, it's all.
- [46:41]
Jim Acosta
Rolled together and I don't know where to start. First of all, the book is on her game. Caitlin Clark and the Revolution in Women's Sports. I don't know where to start. First, the former cable news person in me wants to start with what's the deal with her getting roughed up? What's the deal with the hate? Why are there the haters? What is this Pandora's box that she's open? I don't know what it, you know, that she didn't open it by virtue of the fact that she is who she is and she's just an amazing athlete. Have you been able to put your finger on it as to what it is? Cause I remember you and I used to talk about this. She's just a lights out basketball player who I think seems to handle herself pretty well in front of the cameras too. I don't know what there is to hate about her, honestly.
- [47:24]
Christine Brennan
Right, yeah. So she's great. As I say in the book, she's 22, go. Now she's 23, but 22 going on 40 or 50. The maturity, the ability to handle everything, people, racial, everything's coming her way. And she just is remarkable. I mean, I've covered, as you know, I covered Tiger woods the length of his career and watched him mope around and want to talk to people. And I mean, great golfer, but not do autographs. Caitlin dives in with kids, you know, before games, after games, autographs. Every question gives you long answers. I mean, she's a dream. She's better than you'd hope she would be as a person looking you in the eyes. Old school. But to go to your Question. It's one I get a lot, one I've thought about a lot. And I do deal with it in the book. You know, this is a 74% black league, the WNBA. And I will speak to you as a white suburban woman from a girl growing up in the suburbs of Toledo, Ohio. I have no idea what it is like to be black, obviously. And one of the things that was very important to me as a journalist, and I know this is how you operate as well, is you talk to people and you talk to as many people as possible and you get as many voices as possible. Now, this is a book. It's a sports book. Magic of Caitlin Clark. The logo threes jump off the page. She's quoted extensively from all my questions to her throughout the book. But I absolutely step back and examine this exact issue of this league. 74% black league and a white superstar coming in. You and I both know WNBA started in 1997. I was covering it in the late 90s. And that was a league that was basically ignored and laughed at, as I said, by the male dominated mainstream sports media for its entire existence. Mostly, I mean, getting better over the last few years until this young woman arrives from Iowa. Players that we would have hoped would have been household names. Maya Moore, Candace Parker, big names in sports, but not. They're not talking. They weren't talking about, you know, those wonderful players like Maya Moore, Candace Parker, even Diana Taurasi. They're not talking about them in the produce section of the grocery store. I mean, they're just not doing that. Grandmothers are not hanging out chatting about what's the next? Where do I find ion on my TV set so I can watch Caitlin Clark? That just wasn't happening. Do I wish it was happening? Absolutely. I covered it. I tried hard, but you can't wish it. So. And as a journalist, you cover what you cover and people care or not care. So now's the moment.
- [49:51]
Ellie Honig
And.
- [49:51]
Christine Brennan
And I've got the great Dr. Harry Edwards. Of course, I think you've interviewed him. This great civil rights leader, obviously a black man. I've got his voice in the book. He was the man behind the black power salute at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. We've been on panels together. He's fighting cancer. I mean, he's an amazing guy. And he says it. The WNBA failed the players. By the way, he thinks Caitlin is great. Again, this is Dr. Harry Edwards. He says the WNBA failed the players. They set up the traps for the players to fall in to. What should they have Done. I'm sure that's what people. Okay, what do you do? What do you do in this kind of unique situation? Dr. Harry Edwards says seminars zooms. He would have talked to players, not because they're damsels in distress. No, these are terrific, strong athletes who are well educated. But we had never seen. You can make a case. No league in any sport, male or female, has ever seen a moment like this where you've got this fascinating convergence of cultures and issues. And it's all thrown on this. 20 now 23 year old. But again, the missed opportunity by the WNBA. They failed to lead, they failed to understand what was coming.
- [51:01]
Jim Acosta
And I think, Christine, the racial component of this is important and it has to be examined. It has to be part of the conversation. But to some extent, and again, this is me as a layman sports guy. It is. How do you cope? How do you deal with the arrival of a superstar? She. She was a superstar coming out of college into the wnba and she instantly transformed the WNBA into something that a lot of Americans suddenly cared about a great deal. And that to me, I just would have to think. I mean, I played high school football. You know, I can't say that I had a great sports career, far from it. But I just have to assume that some athletes got jealous of that. And that's not a white or black thing. That's a. That's human nature. And I think it has something to do with what you're saying in that. Why didn't this league get the respect that it deserved up until this point? But I don't know if it has anything to do with Caitlin Clark's racial makeup. I think when she drains the threes the way that she does almost from half court with almost no effort whatsoever, it is. She's an extraordinary athlete. And I thought it was unfair, and I'm just gonna say it. I thought it was unfair that she didn't make the Olympic team. I know your book gets into that. Apparently it was a disappointment for her, even though she didn't really speak to that. Let's talk about that. Is it partly because she just is who she is?
- [52:26]
Christine Brennan
Yeah, yeah. I mean, Muffett McGraw, the great Notre Dame, legendary coach, obviously now retired. You know, she says petty jealousy. There's that. We heard Sheila Johnson, who is a friend in D.C. of course, owns part owner of all the D.C. teams and the owner of. Of the Mystics of WNBA. You know, she was talking about how Caitlin, when Caitlin Clark was named the Time magazine athlete of the year, and then Sheila Johnson the owner of the Mystics was on CNN and she was talking about how it shouldn't be Caitlin Clark, it should be the entire league winning league of the year. I mean, I don't even know where you go with that. And she said there hurt feelings. It's going to hurt people's feelings. I mean, what is going on here? I'm covering this.
- [53:14]
Jim Acosta
That's not how it works. That's not how sports works.
- [53:17]
Christine Brennan
And Sheila Johnson. But by the way, Jim, Sheila Johnson knows that because she's the owner of the Mystics. And I point this out in the book too, in this section where I go into some of these kind of just otherworldly, ridiculous comments. I mean, just from people who know better. The two Washington Mystics games hosting the Indiana Fever, they have that little 4200 seat arena, it's a bandbox over there, about 10 minutes away from Nats Park. And they moved Sheila Johnson moved those two Fever games from the 4,200 seat arena to the 20,000 seat Capital One arena where you've spent some time as f high. And they had, on the second game in September, they had 20,711 people, the largest regular season crowd in WNBA history. And Sheila Johnson made hundreds of thousands of dollars off of Caitlin Clark by moving those two games.
- [54:16]
Jim Acosta
Interesting.
- [54:18]
Christine Brennan
But then she's on CNN with Amanda Davies saying, well, something clicked last year. Something clicked.
- [54:24]
Jim Acosta
No.
- [54:25]
Christine Brennan
Yeah, well, yeah, something clicked. You know exactly what clicked because you moved two games. So what is it? Yeah, I treat. You know, we've talked about sports so much, you and I. I love that. And I'm so glad to be on with you, your fabulous new life that you've got and career you've got. You know what? I treat every athlete the same, right? If I cover the Olympics, I'm going to ask the same question. Michael Phelps, 19 years old, DUI. His agent wanted me to talk to him for 45 minutes and I asked him tough questions. Tiger woods, tough questions, you name it. And also easy questions. Talking about sports. That's what a journalist does. So when the WNBA when they wanted to ban me for asking two questions, are they. It's almost like this very unfortunate kind of girls club that I didn't even like when I was 10, you know, when I was playing sports with the boys as this tall girl growing up, like, what are we doing here? These are tough, strong athletes. They can handle it. And they can certainly handle it. If someone is getting a player of the year award from Time magazine, the old days for leagues would be they'd be thrilled. Old days, as in like, you know, a couple months ago or even now, because then that light shines brightly on everyone. And that's the key to me, Jim, on this one. Yes. Asia Wilson should have gotten attention before she did. Yes. And all of these, you know, Kelsey Mitchell with the Indiana Fever deserved it and didn't get it. Leah Boston. You know, obviously one of Caitlin's top teammates has. Is Kelsey Mitchell. All the women I just mentioned are black, and they didn't get the attention from that male dominated mainstream sports media. But that spotlight that shines on Caitlin Clark now is shining on all of them. And there is data galore showing that everything. The rising tide lifts all boats. How does that happen?
- [56:13]
Jim Acosta
Well, I hope so.
- [56:14]
Christine Brennan
Yeah.
- [56:15]
Jim Acosta
But how do you see this? You know, I, I know. And, and something we can all get mad about and hopefully agree on that. Caitlin's salary to play for the Indiana fever was $78,000. $78,000. So, I mean, if the WN, you know, not to point the finger at the WNB, I mean, if they're making a lot of money off of, you know, arenas filling up and venues filling up, you know, we got to do something about that. That's. That is ridiculous.
- [56:41]
Christine Brennan
Well, it is. Although it's also capitalism. Right. I mean, no one cared about the wnba.
- [56:46]
Jim Acosta
Well, she makes a lot of endorsements.
- [56:49]
Christine Brennan
Yeah, no, no, but, but like, you know, I, when that happened, and of course, the comparison, I'm sure people are saying, well, wait a minute, what is it? What is an NBA top pick? So Caitlin was making what, 76, 77,000 last year, and the NBA number one draft pick made 57 million. So. Right, okay, the disparity is there. But then you say to people, understandably, they should be outraged. I mean, today, you know, title IX, 53 years old, we really care about women's sports in this country. And our daughters and our nieces, the girl next door you wave at as she goes to her, to her games. And. But what was happening was no one was buying tickets, no one was buying jerseys, no T shirts. They weren't even watching the games. Now Caitlin Clark comes in. Now we're seeing that. And again, the salaries will go up because of Caitlin Clark, because of her presence, the TV viewership, which is going records. Every time she plays in a big game or even a not so big game, she's getting eyeballs that they never got before. And that's it. But yeah, it's, it's gonna take. Well, it'll be well past our Lifetimes before there's equality. Also keep in mind Caitlin is making millions. She's got that $28 million Nike deal.
- [58:02]
Jim Acosta
She's doing okay.
- [58:03]
Christine Brennan
Millions more. Yeah, yeah, she's doing, she's doing okay.
- [58:05]
Jim Acosta
Well, the book is on her. Caitlin Clark and the Revolution of Women's Sports. I told the viewers right before you came on Christine that I would not torture them with Washington Commander talk. But I am extremely excited about my commanders and Jaden Daniels. I saw him the other day, they showed him on the news and on Channel 4 or something and he looked like he has been bulking up. He looked kind of buff and I thought to my, I don't want to get him too buff where now he can't get down the field as fast or get out of the pocket as fast as he used to last year. But at the same time I also worried about him taking all those hits. He looks like a guy. And I, I don't, I shouldn't say anything more because I'm going to jinx it. I'm a superstitious Washington Redskins Commanders fan, so. But I mean it's just incredible what this franchise has become.
- [58:47]
Christine Brennan
Well, it is. And you know, you've waited a long time and everyone in Washington has. And I covered them back in the 80s for the Washington Post when they won games and won Super Bowls. I mean, Joe Gibbs the coach, then three different super bowl victories, as you well know, three different quarterbacks, not a one of whom will ever make the hall of Fame. I mean you can make a strong case that Joe Gibbs is the greatest coach ever. I know we'll hear Vince McMahon, I agree with that. But he never had a Hall of Fame quarterback. All these other great coaches did. And then it's been this, you know, they're a little bit, you know, obviously here and there, the playoffs, RG3, whatever. But this has been a long, long haul. And I could even relate this to the Caitlin Clark conversation. When you have someone you can't take your eyes off of, yes, Caitlin Clark's a basketball player, but she's really an entertainer, right? The logo threes, the beautiful passes, chucking it from the parking lot, it goes in. That's the allure, right? She's not just a basketball player.
- [59:42]
Jim Acosta
Well, that's right.
- [59:43]
Christine Brennan
Daniel's, same thing. You cannot take your eyes off of him. You know, what he has been able to do. And that's not only obviously great for the team, the Commanders, great for fans, long suffering fans like you, Jim, but also to draw in new people. There's a real parallel there, people who will say, hey, I want to watch the high wire act. And he's playing at 4:15 and he's playing for Washington. And that's a new thing for the commanders and for DC Fans. And it's. Well, it's about time.
- [60:14]
Jim Acosta
I was traveling overseas recently and I saw a guy at the hotel wearing a commander's hat. And I was like, I can't remember the last time I was traveling anywhere and somebody was wearing a commander's hat. It's so true. What you said is so true. Christine, it was so great to catch up with you. Thank you so much for doing this and best of luck with the book. You don't need it because it's going to be a blockbuster hit. But loving all the pressure getting and so happy for you, Jim.
- [60:38]
Christine Brennan
Well, thank you very much. And again, not only thanks for this, but thanks for getting me on substack because as we're talking, I'm seeing all these people now following me right now. I want to alert everyone. I'm not doing anything except talking to Jim Acosta. But I will. I think this looks very cool.
- [60:52]
Jim Acosta
Do it. You'll have a lot of fun doing it. And it's you can kind of use the stuff that was on the cutting room floor and you could do interview. Anyway, I'll let you have fun with it. But Christine Brennan, great to see you as always. Thanks so much. Really appreciate it, Jim.
- [61:04]
Christine Brennan
Thank you. Great to see you too. Take care.
- [61:06]
Jim Acosta
All right. You as well. The wonderful Christine Brennan. She and I have known each other for such a long time and she's so used to hearing me complain about the Redskins slash commanders that it is nice to actually talk about when they're doing well. So forgive me for that one little moment there at the end of the show where I talked about that. I do want to just point out the breaking news that's been happening while we've been on. Apparently the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, has been saying, and I believe he said it to a podcaster earlier today and he I will just tell you the headlines that are coming out. He is saying that the Epstein files should be released. He is breaking with Trump on this. He is calling for the Epstein files to be released. I I'm just going to tell you right now, this is Politico saying Speaker Mike Johnson is calling for the Department of Justice to release all of its information on Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier who died in jail after being charged with with blah, blah, blah and wants Pam Bonney to explain previous statements on the matter. That is fascinating. It tells me that not only are House Republicans freaked out about the so called big beautiful bill, which I used to call the big boulder of bullshit, but anyway, but there's another boulder rolling in their direction, sort of like the boulder in Raiders of the Lost Ark. And that is this mushrooming and snowballing Jeffrey Epstein scandal, which I affectionately call Epstein Gate. And it sounds as though House Republicans are starting to think it might be every man for himself or every and they have some women in the House, a Republican conference, but every member for him or herself as we head into this midterm cycle very soon and they're very concerned about what could be sort of, you know, a one, two punch that will be very politically damaging for them come next year in the form of that bill as well as this Epstein matter, which Republicans have been voting against getting to the bottom of it. So it's not too surprising that Mike Johnson is passing the hot potato back to the Department of Justice. So very interesting. So we're gonna keep on this. The Epstein files, the Epstein gate, you know, Trump, you know, can go out there and make all these crazy statements on the south Lawn of the White House and say that it was Barack Obama who did this with the Epstein files or Joe Biden or the Clintons and all this cuckoo bird stuff he's been saying. All of this magnifies and underlines and puts in bold face how much he is freaking out about the Epstein files right now. And if Mike Johnson is saying release the Epstein files and Donald Trump is not saying release the Epstein files, we've got a story here, folks, and it's one we're going to continue to cover on this show. In the meantime, want to thank Molly, John Fast, Ellie Honig, Christine Brennan. Thanks to all of you for watching. Still reporting, I'm not in Washington. I'm out in Colorado enjoying life out here, enjoying the summer out here there. So forgive the aspen trees and the kids running around in the background. I'm going to go run outside too and go have some fun. But in the meantime, thanks everybody for watching. Still reporting, I'm Jim Acosta. Have a good evening, everybody. Take care. Thanks for watching. Bye bye.