← The Jim Acosta Show
The Jim Acosta Show
Molly Jong-Fast on Maxwell Taking the 5th plus the Bad Bunny MAGA Freak-Out with Jean Guerrero and Miles Taylor
00:55:21
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- [00:00]
Molly John Fast
Ready to.
- [00:06]
Jim Acosta
Happy Monday. Welcome to the Jim Acosta Show. It's another day that ends in wine in the Epstein gate. Cover up my best friend. Molly, John Fast is here. Hi, Molly.
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Molly John Fast
Oh, am I your best friend?
- [00:17]
Jim Acosta
BFF forever. Yes, that's true.
- [00:20]
Molly John Fast
It's true.
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Jim Acosta
Fff. But anyway, and I, I want to jump right into Epstein gate because Ghislaine Maxwell, I guess, invoked her constitutional right to silence.
- [00:33]
Molly John Fast
Fifth Amendment. Yes.
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Jim Acosta
Took the Fifth and then her lawyer said, oh, she's willing to talk if Trump gives her clemency, which I guess is.
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Molly John Fast
Which he might, because it is Donald Trump.
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Jim Acosta
Right. Yeah, but, but that doesn't mean she's going to tell us the truth or tell us what happened.
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Molly John Fast
Yeah, no, I think, like, the good news here is that. No, there's no good news, but she's sort of a known liar.
- [00:59]
Miles Taylor
Right.
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Molly John Fast
And she wants to tell Trump what she wants to tell him. I want to point out she is still at this, like, prison camp where you take dogs. Yeah. And do whatever. I mean, it's not like she was in a more stringent prison. Todd Blanche, you remember Todd Blanche, came and talked to her. We have no record of what was said there. But soon after, she was moved to much better jail.
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Miles Taylor
Right.
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Molly John Fast
I would never assume that something untoward had gone on between them. Certainly not.
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Jim Acosta
No quid pro quo. No question. And then, but, but Ro Khanna is saying, hey, wait a minute. He, he's responding to all of this. He said, hey, wait a minute. You didn't invoke the Fifth with Todd Blanche. What's going on here? Let's play a little bit of what he had to say.
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Molly John Fast
Yes.
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Jim Acosta
After this whole thing, seven questions.
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Ro Khanna
Things like, who were the other co conspirators? Who were the other men who raped these underage girls? Did she have any conversations about a deal with Donald Trump? Now, she's taken a blanket Fifth Amendment on any question. And my view is that many of my questions don't in any way incriminate her. So we'll see what she does. But there are seven questions that I have specifically asked, and the assumption is she's pleading the Fifth to each one of those and the American people will see that there's an inconsistency. Why did she not plead the Fifth when Blanche asked her questions? And now she's pleading the Fifth about things that don't implicate her but may implicate many of the other powerful.
- [02:38]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, Molly. I mean, and then Ro Khanna and Thomas Massey, I believe, are going to the DOJ or They will already been to the DOJ by the time this plays to look at the unredacted files or that was planned. Yeah. I mean, what do you think? I mean, I think Ro Khanna makes a good point here. What's going on here?
- [02:57]
Molly John Fast
Yeah. Is this completely insane? I would say this. They're going to go to the doj. They're supposed to see the unredacted files. There was in this Epstein legislation. Remember there's a piece of legislation that made it illegal to. For this DOJ not to release the Epstein files. In it, it said that you had to. That Pam Bondi, who you'll remember from saying she had the client list on her desk, you'll remember that Pam Bondi. That Pam Bondi would explain all redactions, which meant that when there are a lot of redactions that certainly look like a, you know, one of the. The coconspirators. Conspiracy. Conspiracy, you know, doing what could amount to a crime. And their names are redacted. So my question is, you know, it doesn't seem like they were very focused on redacting the victims, as we know that when these, this information first came out, you'll remember they accidentally put child pornography on the. In the dump of Epstein files. So they were not redacting faces, they were not redacting bodies, they were not redacting names. And in fact, the Wall street journal had 43 of the victims had their names exposed in the Epstein files. So what if you're so concerned about redactions and they are supposed to be protecting the victims, that's not what this looks like at all.
- [04:32]
Jim Acosta
Right. I mean, they're protecting the abusers, not the abused is what it looks like.
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Molly John Fast
Right.
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Jim Acosta
And what we've seen come out so far, and this is heading me in the direction of the wonderful piece you wrote in the New York Times. I do want to point out though, that Politico is saying that the Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, is under filing fire. He's facing bipartisan calls to resign.
- [04:52]
Molly John Fast
Yes.
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Jim Acosta
After he appealed. In a recent batch of Epstein files.
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Molly John Fast
CBS is reporting that he did business that he signed an llc limited liability company with Jeffrey Epstein. Like, you know, this is a guy who said, I was grossed out by him in 2005. I never saw him again. Yes. His wife is emailing with Jeffrey Epstein's assistant.
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Jim Acosta
Oh, my God.
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Molly John Fast
I was in 12. I mean, so it's one thing to, you know, lie, but the level of blatant lying here is pretty spectacular. And Elon Musk and His brother. His brother. I mean, they're just voluminous.
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Jim Acosta
I saw that. And then the Navy Secretary, John Phelan, traveled from London to New York City on March 3, 2006, on Epstein's plane.
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Molly John Fast
Yeah.
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Jim Acosta
And I mean, this is. So there are some. There are more people in Trump's orbit that are starting to show up more and more in the Epstein files. And that leads me to the wonderful piece that you wrote in the New York Times, Molly, which is about why is it there were so many rich and powerful privileged people who continue to associate with Jeffrey Epstein even after he was convicted in the mid to late 2000s? A lot of these relationships continued. And you wrote. I'm going to move to what you wrote. There are many terrible secrets buried in the Epstein files, which mix the mundane and the horrific, the thirsty and the criminal. And perhaps the most upsetting of all of. Is this. Casually wrapped up together with a bow are canceled men and sex trafficking. Immediate advice for Michael Wolf. Being a convicted sex offender did not make Mr. Epstein an outcast. Not when he seemed to have something to offer. His transactional amorality actually seemed to add to his appeal to people who were convinced that the rules did not apply to them, I guess. Why did you write this? And. And I. I think it's great, Molly, because it. It really gets to the heart of a lot of this, which is, I mean, what the hell were these people doing continuing to associate with him?
- [06:51]
Molly John Fast
Yeah. So look, Michael Wolf is in those files.
- [06:57]
Jim Acosta
Bad.
- [06:58]
Molly John Fast
I mean, it's just. I mean, I don't know. I think you have to have some level of morality here. You have to have some moral code. If someone is a. He's in the sex. You know, Jeffrey Epstein After 2008, I think was in the sex offender registry. You could find it on the sex offender map. Okay.
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Jim Acosta
And it was in the papers. He was convicted. The whole.
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Molly John Fast
Not. It was no secret. And so it's one thing I think. I don't know. I mean, it just. In my mind, that would be a red line. And I think that Michael Wolff has managed to re. Appear as a resistance hero. And I personally think that it is not, perhaps not. You know, one of the things we saw that was a mistake, I think in 2016, where there were people like Michael Avenatti and Michael Cohen who were these sort of resistancy heroes.
- [08:09]
Miles Taylor
And.
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Molly John Fast
And a lot of them ultimately ended up to. Ended up really not.
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Jim Acosta
Not showing their true colors.
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Molly John Fast
Right. Not being the moral pillars that a lot of us had hoped they would be. And so in my Mind thanks for the shoes is like, kind of discrediting. The other thing is that, like, we.
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Jim Acosta
See helicopter rides, we see in the.
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Molly John Fast
Uk like, their government is just, you know, they are just getting rid of people who were in these files. They're saying, like, this is not okay. These. These people cannot be in government. And, you know, it is the difference between norms and laws. Like, it's not necessarily illegal to be in the government when you've had a lot of a long friendship with a sex trafficker. And maybe it was just a friendship, like, but it is grotesque, it is immoral. And norms would say that the person would resign from the government because it's so appalling. And that, I think, is what Donald Trump has robbed from us, is this kind of gentility of, like, living in a society where being best friends with a sex trafficker is not okay.
- [09:18]
Jim Acosta
Right. And you point out a very good thing, which is that in other parts of the world, there's. There, there's accountability, there are consequences for being associated with Jeffrey Epstein in these appalling ways. And I believe even the Polish, have they been saying in recent days that they just got. The Russians were involved with Epstein to compromise people. And then they're starting to peel back the onion.
- [09:41]
Molly John Fast
Yeah. And look, there's hundreds of hours of tapes and pornographic images that we have not seen, that we may never see, but that were clearly used for something. Now, were they used for blackmail, maybe? I want to just also point out, because I think this dovetails really nicely with what's happening right now in the Olympics. You have these American athletes going overseas and saying very blandly, you know, I don't agree with everything my government is doing, because our government has the largest private police force, you know, larger than many countries, armies. Right. And they are arresting children and killing citizens. And so it's not a huge jump to say that you don't agree with this. In fact, like, 60% of Americans or 64% of Americans think that, you know, ice has gone too far, that ice is making us less safe.
- [10:36]
Miles Taylor
So.
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Molly John Fast
So this is not some wild worldview. And they say this, and then Donald Trump gets offended. And it even goes back to the bad bunny stuff. Like, bad bunny saying, love Trump's hate. Right. Love is. Is more powerful than hate. And Donald Trump is like, hey, don't troll me. Yeah, you know, hate is great.
- [10:55]
Jim Acosta
I mean, Trump will always take a stand for hate. He'll always defend hate until the end. But the Olympics thing is a great point because. And people need to understand this, the reason why a lot of these Olympic athletes are saying this. I mean, in part because what. What ice is doing is morally offensive to them. And hear, hear to that. No question about it. But they're also hearing from their European and counterparts from all over the world who are saying, what the hell is going on with America? What's going on with you guys? So people need to understand when the athletes are saying this, they're reflecting what they're hearing from other people from around the world.
- [11:28]
Molly John Fast
And that. And I think that's a really good point. And like, you see J.D. vance at the Olympics, and he's getting booed. Yeah, he's getting booed because the rest of the world is like, what the fuck is happening over there?
- [11:39]
Jim Acosta
Although NBC cut it out. They didn't show it, but.
- [11:41]
Molly John Fast
Right. Well, you know, are we allowed to show what actually happened? But, you know, when you go to Europe, when you go to the rest of the world, they're like, are you. Are you guys okay?
- [11:50]
Jim Acosta
That's right.
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Molly John Fast
And the answer is, we are absolutely not okay, man. We are not okay.
- [11:56]
Jim Acosta
And then Katie Miller is saying, you should just shut up.
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Miles Taylor
And.
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Molly John Fast
I mean, but the thing is, we're being. But. But Katie Miller and Stephen Miller and Donald Trump. This is not popular. Like, this is for the 30% of the Maga base that is so dialed in, that is so baked in that they will never leave Trump. And so those people. It doesn't matter what Trump does.
- [12:22]
Jim Acosta
That's exactly right. No, and I think that, I mean, the Epstein thing is. Is exhibit A, it seems to me, in all of this, because, I mean, it is the most appalling thing. And I will tell you that I, you know, I really think that there's something bad in these files about Donald Trump. Can I prove that? I. I cannot. I don't know that at this point, but it sure as hell seems like it.
- [12:47]
Molly John Fast
And I mean, I just think that all. There's, like, there certainly are tips. There are these FBI tips that are not necessarily chased down. There are. I mean, even worse than that. There's just so much FBI malfeasance in this.
- [13:04]
Jim Acosta
Well, that's like.
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Molly John Fast
And, you know, there are names that are redacted to cover agents who messed up. That is not okay. Like, the whole point of redactions was to protect victims. And here we have protecting agents, protecting powerful men. Like, and so I do think again, and also then the question of, like, the financial malfeasance, like, who was getting money from Epstein? Who was Epstein giving money to? We know, for a fact that Lutnick, that Epstein donated $50,000 in Lutnick's name to a charity. I mean, these kind of things are pretty damning.
- [13:43]
Jim Acosta
Right? And the Clintons have said, we'll come in and we'll testify. We want to do it on camera and everything. And now the Republicans are like, oh, wait a minute, no, no, we'll do this behind closed doors. Aren't they the ones who have been going after the Clintons on this? I mean, since Pizzagate QAnon people have been alleging this. And you're getting an opportunity to have Bill and Hillary Clinton on camera testify. And now we don't want to do that because now you'll want Donald Trump to do it or Howard Lutnick did.
- [14:08]
Molly John Fast
Yeah, well, Comer is really, really incredible. James Comer, Texas, his own. You know, it's funny, I've talked to you talk to Jared Moskowitz about this, Congressman Moskowitz, he's always saying that Comer's really, really dumb. And I've always been a little skeptical. But when you look at what James Comer has gotten himself into here, you could see that he is really quite dom, which is that he's found himself now in a situation where he has Bill and Hillary coming in. Bill and Hillary, I think he thought would never come in. So now he's a set a precedent for congressional subpoenas. Right, Right. So that means that if Democrats want to subpoena Don Jr. Want to subpoena J.D. vance, want to subpoena, you know, they can do that because we've seen now, you know, want to subpoena Trump, that no one is off limits. But then the other thing is that the real problem for Comer is there, you know, you open the door to this and you, you, you can't, you don't know. You can't shut the door to it anytime you want.
- [15:18]
Jim Acosta
No, you can't. And I mean, it seems to me, I mean, this is where, and I've heard the same thing, that, that James Comer may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but, you know, the Republicans have put themselves in this position. MAGA has put themselves in this position. Why all of a sudden, do they not want to get to the bottom of this? I, I just over the weekend, I tweeted out the video that was put together by the survivors saying, you know, they want to get to the bottom of the Epstein files and they don't want to move on like Donald Trump said. And One of the Jan6people retweeted me, Kylie Jenner or whatever. Kramer, whatever. Not Kylie Jenner. Kylie Kramer retweeted and said, why, you know, what's going on with these ladies? Haven't they told their stories before that? And so these MAGA people are already trying to shut the lid on this thing. I mean, you guys wanted this. Here it is.
- [16:09]
Molly John Fast
Here's what I would say. This is. I would make the case that it's a difference between the MAGA elites, who are more in contact with Trump world, who are being told to message a certain thing, and the MAGA base, because the MAGA base still cares about elites trafficking children. Yes, they do that. Their base, they've been radicalized on this very idea.
- [16:33]
Miles Taylor
They.
- [16:33]
Molly John Fast
So that is why this is, you know, it's not quite the. The base and the. The sort of elites are not on the same page with this. So you have people like Batya and Megan Kelly being like, move on. Who cares?
- [16:48]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, yeah, Megan Kelly.
- [16:49]
Molly John Fast
Right. But you have people like MTG being like, I was here to solve the sex trafficking. Why are you telling me to shut up? And I think that is. I think that's important.
- [17:01]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. And that fissure is not going anywhere. And it may explain why they may do so horribly in the midterms, is that, you know, a lot of these folks will just say, I'm just going to stay home. I'm not going to.
- [17:12]
Molly John Fast
You. You promised that you were going to unravel the biggest sex trafficking scam. You know, you had said QAnon was real. Turns out there's something pretty close to QAnon. Maybe not totally, but pretty close. And you're like, no, we don't need to know what's in it.
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Jim Acosta
Right. Yeah. If they did not expect it all to lead back to maybe the guy in the Oval Office. We'll see.
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Molly John Fast
I mean, I can't imagine why they didn't. But, yeah, there's a lot of, you know, video of him with Epstein, photos of him with Epstein, a lot of evidence that it was going to lead there.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah, I think you're right. All right, Molly, great to see you, as always. Thank you. And I think I'm maybe coming on with you.
- [17:53]
Molly John Fast
Yes. Tomorrow on my podcast, Bass Politics.
- [17:56]
Miles Taylor
All right.
- [17:57]
Jim Acosta
Fast Politics. Molly. John Fast. Check her out. She's everywhere. Molly, thank you so much. Great to see you. Really appreciate it. And. And Molly brought up some great points about the Olympics about. And about the super bowl and Bad Bunny, and I have a great guest to talk about that, Jean Guerrero. She's a fantastic political writer and writer on immigration issues, she has the unsilencing substack. Gene, great to see you.
- [18:25]
Gene Guerrero
Great to be here, Jim.
- [18:27]
Jim Acosta
I'm glad we're finally doing this. We've, we ping each other every now and then, we text each other every now and then. It's like, what are we going to do this? What are we going to do that? And then it's, it all finally came together and it's because of bad Bunnies, so. And I see the Puerto Rican flag behind you, but I do want to, before we get to that, I do want to talk about the immigration issue and this really, I mean, just horrific story in ProPublica. You've done some great writing on this over the years too. I mean, we should point out you wrote the great book Hatemonger on Stephen Miller. But ProPublica has this just heart wrenching piece and it features drawings from little kids who are in ICE detention right now. Letters from little kids who have written about what they're going through. This is, hello, my name is Susie. I think it says I'm nine years old, I'm from Venezuela, I've been here for 50 days in Dilly. I want to go to my country. I miss my school and my family. I mean, Gene, I mean, the way that this is just becoming a nightmare in this country, what is happening at these detention facilities and what ICE is doing.
- [19:39]
Gene Guerrero
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it represents the culmination of this vision of cruelty that Stephen Miller has for so long nurtured and convinced Trump to take on. I mean, when Trump first became interested in the immigration issue, he was all about cracking down on criminals and cartels and building a wall. And it wasn't until Stephen Miller came along and now we see his, his influence just at a level that we've never seen before. That Trump began to rearrange his immigration policy so that it was all about re engineering the racial demographics of this country by targeting innocent people, like innocent children. Initially with the separation of children from their asylum seeking parents at the US Mexico border, which I covered. And now with this terror that we're seeing across communities in the US where people are, and children are being disappeared, valued community members are being violently detained, deported and in some cases shot dead. It's, it's, it's really disturbing and, and you put it accurately when you called it a nightmare, except that unfortunately it's, it's, it's a reality now.
- [21:00]
Jim Acosta
It's a reality. And these detention centers, and I, I, I have to be careful using terminology that is associated with the Holocaust. And the Nazis and so on, because I understand that people, they. They're sensitive to that. But, I mean, when you talk about the way these kids have been rounded up and put in some of these detention facilities, I'm sorry, it does sound like concentration camp, like conditions. And these kids are writing, and this is in the ProPublica piece, too. There are kids writing about how they've lost their. Their. Their, you know, desire to eat food. I mean, this is what ProPublica wrote. A rainbow, a family portrait, a heart. These are the drawings found in handwritten letters from children detained at the Dilley immigration processing center. ProPublica received letters in mid January from several children. All but two of them have been living in the United States when they were detained. In their words and drawings, they convey how much they ache for creature comforts and describe the anguish of being trapped. They write about missing their friends and teachers, falling behind at school, having unreliable access to medical care when they're sick. Some say they're sick a lot and feeling scared about what comes next. I mean, it's just that we would do this to kids. And this is the detention center where little Liam Ramos was at. And then the judge pulled him out because that case got so much attention. But these other little kids who were very much like Liam, they don't have that kind of attention to, you know, force a judge or prompt a judge to let them out.
- [22:25]
Gene Guerrero
Yeah, and thank God ProPublica is shining a light on this, because so often these attention centers are black holes for the rule of law, and people who are in these centers do not have access to attorneys to their families. So it's. And at the end of the day, what. It's. What all of this is about. I mean, Trump is convincing people that he has these federal agents in the streets disappearing people in order to protect the American body politic. But in reality, all of. All that these agents do is they protect the bottom line of corporations that profit in surveilling and jailing people, and that includes children. And that no American should stand for that. It's horrific. And it shows how the attack on immigrant rights has always been a kind of Trojan horse for an assault on civil rights more generally. And even basic things that we have always prized, like respect for family and respect for children, all of that is.
- [23:31]
Miles Taylor
Being.
- [23:33]
Gene Guerrero
Totally derailed under this administration.
- [23:36]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, And, Gene, you. We were talking about Stephen Miller earlier. You wrote about what Stephen had been doing in the first Trump administration and the family separation policy and, you know, tracing his roots in Republican politics. And so On, I guess my first question is, are you surprised as to how far he has risen in Trump world and his orbit? And also, don't you think what we're seeing now, I mean, it's almost more horrific than the family separation policy?
- [24:04]
Gene Guerrero
Absolutely. It is far more, more horrific. And I'm not surprised. I mean, I warned about this in Hatemonger. When I published that book in 2020, a lot of people thought that I was being extreme by calling him a hate monger. But this is what his vision has always been about. It's sadism. It's, he takes pleasure in torture. He's, he's been caught on camera talking about, you know, celebrating torture. And I also talked about in my book how he is Trump's most trusted advisor. And I predicted that they would stay super close together forever. I mean, we, we haven't seen forever play out yet. But I think the fact that Trump, that Stephen Miller is arguably the most powerful advisor in the administration right now is something that I foresaw because he is the Trump whisperer. He knows exactly how to stay on good terms with this man by stroking his ego and always making Trump believe that he's the one who came up with his ideas. And Trump also recognizes that Miller's cruelty on the immigration issue has successfully rallied his base from the very beginning. I think it still remains to be seen whether that's ultimately something that the American people are going to stand for. The level of cruelty that we're seeing now, and that's being captured on smartphones and being disseminated on social media, the fact that, no, they're not going after serious criminals, they're not going after gangsters, they're going after grandmothers. They're going after hard working people who are part of the fabric of our society.
- [25:53]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. And, and that leads me to the super bowl because, you know, Bad Bunny, when he was at the, was at the Golden Globes or no, was at the Grammys, he, he initially really riled up maga. I mean, I guess they were originally riled up when he was announced as the super bowl halftime show. But, you know, then he had that message of the Grammys. And then last night at the super bowl, just that powerful halftime performance, I thought, I mean, it was kind of a boring game. And I thought his halftime show was, I mean, it was the highlight of the show. And then there was that little moment where he hands the Grammy to this little kid. And people were asking online, is that little Liam Ramos? No, no, no, that's not Liam Ramos. Apparently It's a child actor, but he looks just like him. And it evoked that whole thing that just played out where little Liam Ramos was taken to Dilly, and then he was, he was released because of a judge stepping in. And you wrote about Bad Bunny performing in the halftime show, and you said it was the most powerful moment of Bad Bunny's historic Super bowl halftime show on Sunday. Gazing at a football in his hands, he said, God bless America. Then he walked toward the camera while naming every country in the Americas as millions watch from across the globe, the Puerto Rican singer transmuted that phrase, widening its borders until it meant something new and beautiful. Behind him were sea of flags and a billboard with a line from his recent acceptance speech at the Grammys. The only thing more powerful than love is hate. And I just thought it was an amazing, amazing moment.
- [27:22]
Gene Guerrero
Absolutely. And if people want to read the essay, they can find it on my substack, which is our unsilencing.substack.com I wanted to celebrate what Bad Bunny did because of how much it meant to me and millions of people across the world. And the fact that, I mean, people are talking as if his, I mean, I've seen some headlines saying that his performance was not political. I find that ridiculous because his, his show was, I think, the most political halftime show in the history of the United States. And it was defiantly anti colonial. A lot of people don't realize this about Bad Bunny, but he has always preached against colonialism. And he played his song Lopezoa Hawaii, which talks about how the, the beaches and the rivers and the land of Puerto Ricans are being stolen and calling on Puerto Ricans to hold on to their flag and their traditions in defiance of these, this corporate pillaging. And I think that's why Trump is so triggered by Bad Bunny. Honestly, I think it's, it's more than the multiculturalism and the fact that Bad Bunny is singing unapologetically in Spanish and that he is celebrating Puerto Rico and Puerto Rican culture. It's the fact that he is a direct threat and has posed a direct threat to Trump's Don Row doctrine, as he, as he calls it all along. You know, his meddling in Latin America, in Venezuela and Honduras and all of these places. It seems contradictory because on the one hand, he's supporting drug traffickers, on the other hand, he's claiming to be against drug traffickers, but he pardons one one.
- [29:11]
Jim Acosta
Month, and then he invades a country and snags the narco trafficking president of another. I mean, it's just, you know, but.
- [29:18]
Gene Guerrero
There'S a through line. And that through line is that he is expanding territorial control for a class of transnational elites who believe they're above the law and who want to be able to continue to extract and explore, exploit the resources of Latin, of Latin America with impunity. And this is something that Bad Bunny is raising awareness about through his music. A lot of people don't understand it quite yet, but you're seeing a surgeon, people taking Spanish classes because they want to understand Bad Bunny's lyrics. And you're seeing more of what he stands for. Breaking through.
- [29:54]
Jim Acosta
I think it's beautiful and it was a beautiful message. And for all the MAGA haters out there who were whining that it was not in English and all of this stuff, I mean, I'm older than Eugene. I. I grew. I had a Cuban dad. And so growing up, we watched I Love Lucy. He loved watching I Love Lucy with Ricky Ricardo. And I know there's some Latinos who are like, oh, he's maybe not the best role model or it's maybe a caricature and so on, but in my house growing up, my dad loved I Love Lucy and he loved Desi Arnaz. And that goes all the way back to the 50s. We've had Latinos in our culture for, you know, about a century now and like, get over it, get over this bullshit. It's just, it's, it's just gross. And why would you rather watch Kid Rock in his jorts and he's badly lip syncing when you can watch Bad Bunny? The guy is phenomenal, phenomenal.
- [30:45]
Gene Guerrero
I mean, it was this gorgeous, visually arresting celebration of Latin America and specific, specifically Puerto Rico. And it meant so much to so many people who have been, especially in this moment, but for many decades, forced or made to feel ashamed or scared of who they are, where they come from, who their families are. He was calling us back to ourselves in that performance. He literally whispered at the camera and said, you are worth more than you think. And essentially, I think it was, it was a call to resistance in so many ways. And I think what's extraordinary to me is our immigration debate has completely ignored this concept that I call. Well, I don't call it, but indigenous communities in Central America call it the right to stay. We always talk about the right to migrate, but indigenous communities across Latin America have long been fighting for the right to stay. They don't want to be displaced by corporate pillaging. And Bad Bunny is all about the right to stay. And his halftime show embodied that in an incredible way. I mean, he, he, in the way that he strongly, his strong stance on the stage, the flags, the, the beautiful brown women, powerfully teriando.
- [32:10]
Molly John Fast
Yeah.
- [32:14]
Gene Guerrero
He's calling on us to claim our right to stay. And I'm hoping that it's going to transform the immigration debate to be more radical in that sense of trying to actually grapple with the real root causes of immigration, which is not just poverty and violence. Poverty and violence are symptoms of this corporate pillaging that has been happening for so many decades and that Trump is continuing to carry out.
- [32:38]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. And it seems like he wants to ramp it up, which is only going to cause more suffering, more displacement and, and more conditions that lead to mass migration. You know, it sort of, it causes the very issue that he seems to, you know, that he claims that he wants to solve, but really he just wants to hate monger on this for Political game again, it seems to me. But Gene Greer, thank you so much for writing that love letter to. Now, did you say somewhere that you had met Bad Bunny once?
- [33:07]
Gene Guerrero
Yeah, I wrote in, in the essay, which again, find it@our unsilensing.substack.com I have.
- [33:14]
Jim Acosta
To ask you about that. What was that like?
- [33:16]
Gene Guerrero
Okay, so I was actually heartbroken to have missed his residency in Puerto Rico. I couldn't go this, this past summer because of work, but I love Puerto Rico. My mom's from Puerto Rico. So I went just to enjoy the island a little bit before starting my new job as a professor at USC Annen. And I was utterly shocked to find him in the courtyard of my hotel.
- [33:41]
Jim Acosta
He was wild.
- [33:43]
Gene Guerrero
I just, I was returning from grabbing a coffee down the block and I walked in and there was Bad Bunny sitting, having breakfast right next to a blue macaw because this hotel is known for its parrots. They have parrots just roaming everywhere. And I just like, stood in stunned silence, like, trying to process and, and I wanted to tell him, like, how much his music meant to me, which, I mean, I go into it in my essay how he in essence saved my career as a journalist covering authoritarianism because he reintroduced me to the dances of my heritage, which gave me resilience to keep reporting amid recurring health issues and right wing harassment. But I didn't see anything because his entourage, he didn't even notice me. But his entourage immediately approached him. We're like, we're going to escort you to your room. The courtyard is off limits.
- [34:33]
Jim Acosta
And they whisked him away. It was over like that.
- [34:35]
Gene Guerrero
But I did He. He. Actually, later, I was in the lobby checking out, and he came in and we. We locked eyes and I smiled and waved uncertainly at him, and he smiled and waved uncertainly back. So that. That was awesome. But I. I didn't get to communicate that. This was essay was my way of trying to communicate what he means to me and to so many other people.
- [34:54]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. And he means a lot to so many more of us now after that halftime performance. Gene, let's keep this conversation going. I'm so glad we finally connected. Got you on let's do this again soon. It's such an important subject, and I really love the way you talk about it. So thank you, Gene, so much. Really great to see you.
- [35:13]
Gene Guerrero
Great to see you.
- [35:14]
Jim Acosta
All right. Good to see you. And that's Gene Guerrero, and her book, Hate Monger is a must read. It's an excellent book on, and it really predicts a lot of what we're going through right now. The other thing that Trump was pissed off about heading into the weekend, I mean, he was really pissed off about Bad Bunny at the halftime show, which is like, dude, get a life. Come on, give me a break. But before he was pissed off about Bad Bunny at the halftime show, he was pissed off about my next guest, Miles Taylor, who is on. On the show quite a bit. He's a regular of the program, friend of the program. And, Miles, you've done it again. You got under his skin again. What are you doing, young man? You're taking your special vitamins, you're doing your exercises. Here's.
- [35:56]
Miles Taylor
I. You know, I don't know, Jim. I've gotta thank Bad Bunny, though, for taking the heat off me. Thank goodness he swooped in and performed on Sunday. I don't know. Otherwise, Trump might still be at it today.
- [36:06]
Jim Acosta
You're our Bad Bunny.
- [36:10]
Miles Taylor
I'm.
- [36:11]
Gene Guerrero
I'm.
- [36:11]
Miles Taylor
I'm just an okay bunny. I'm. I'm a. You know, I'm an unobjectionable bunny, I think. You know, look, he. He went off in this post on Truth Social against me and, and former White House lawyer Ty Cobb, who's a wonderful guy, by the way. I mean, if you're ever, you know, trying to figure out, you know, who are decent people in the world, you could just go through the people he attacks on Truth Social, because you'll find some really good folks. And Ty Cobb is one of those. It's just.
- [36:36]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, I had him on last week. He was fantastic. He's. He's so great. Yeah.
- [36:40]
Miles Taylor
Wonderful lawyer, extraordinary integrity, just A really remarkable guy, and, you know, whoever knows why he goes off on these things. But in my case, I think Trump was very mad last week because we had announced something. So a few months ago, as you know, Jim, we launched something called defiance.org, which is basically a nonprofit club, to every single week counter Trump's abuses of power. So our members pool their funds and go out and take actions in the real world to push back against abuses of power. And the thing that we did last week was the day Trump sent this out, we had prosecutors from around the country convened just blocks from the White House to talk about charging Donald Trump's law breaking federal agents with crimes. And prosecutors from major cities, from Dallas and Tucson and Minneapolis and Philadelphia, we had them convened for the first time in modern history that anything like this has happened, because we've always relied on the federal government to police its own people.
- [37:42]
Molly John Fast
Right.
- [37:42]
Miles Taylor
If an FBI agent kills someone accidentally, they're investigated by the federal government. If a DHS agent commits a crime or does warrantless entry, they should be held accountable by the investigative organs of the federal government. But we are seeing in Minneapolis and beyond that this system is breaking down, that DHS agents are committing crimes. In fact, we saw the Atlantic put out an extraordinary statistic that I know you amplified last week, Jim, that CBP and ICE officers are convicted of crimes at a higher rate than the illegal immigrants that the administration keeps telling us commit such a high rate of crimes. And so we need to do something about it. And the genesis of this was we were having a conversation. You know, defiance.org we do this daily broadcast, and we were doing one, and we had one of these district attorneys on from Philadelphia, Larry Krasner. And while he was on our program, he said, you know, there. There isn't a mechanism to get all the prosecutors to start collaborating and sharing strategies on holding these agents accountable. And so we said, well, let' talk about that. And within a few days, we had spun up a project, launched it, and helped them fund it to make this happen. And so when those folks were convening on Friday in Washington, I think Trump was furious. But I'll tell you this, Jim, there is nothing he can do to stop it, because they're within their rights to go do this. And indeed, they are defending Americans constitutional rights by doing this. Right.
- [39:05]
Jim Acosta
And something that you and I have talked about quite a bit, and we did over this past year, was whether we were going to start to see people leave the administration because they had had enough wherever it was in the. In the federal government that they just said, you know, I can't take this anymore. And are they going to start speaking out like you did during the first Trump administration? I think that process is starting. When you see prosecutors leaving the Department of Justice, you're seeing people at DHS saying, I can't take this. It's only a matter of time. And so I think one of the reasons why he goes after you and he goes after Tyler is to say, this is how I can make life miserable for the people who come out of the government and start speaking out against me.
- [39:46]
Miles Taylor
Completely. Very much so. In fact, you know, it's one of the reasons why his team at the White House said they had come after me and my colleague Chris Krebs in the first place last April is they went and spoke to the press afterwards and said, we did this to send a message. And the message they want to send is exactly what you said. They want to scare people from speaking out against us, the president. And in fact, right now, very few people have been talking about this. But the White House is finalizing a federal rule to rescind whistleblower protections from senior civil servants in government. Not the political appointees, but the top civil servants just right under them that run these departments and agencies day to day. They are stripping longstanding protections that allow them to go blow the whistle if they witness criminal misconduct that can have no other purpose than to make sure people don't go exposed to criminal misconduct. Despite all of that, Jim, people are speaking out at each of the departments that you mentioned. I mean, we have whistleblower complaints coming out of the intelligence community about Tulsi Gabbard. We have whistleblower complaints coming out of ICE about warrantless arrests. We have whistleblower complaints coming out of the Justice Department about the mishandling of cases and politicizing prosecutorial decisions. And it's one of the reasons why a primary thing that we have been funding has been legal defense for these whistleblowers. I mean, for the past, I mean, defiance, that org has only existed for a few months, but one of the primary things that we've spent money on is to go pay for legal defenses for people who step forward and make these disclosures. In fact, each of those disclosures I just mentioned at dhs, at doj, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence have all been through one of the nonprofit organizations that we're backing to go do this work, whistleblower aid, and, and their amazing work. And if it weren't for non profit attorneys out there to go represent these folks. They might not come forward and make these disclosures, but the fact that they are and at an increasing clip tells me that people are not deterred by this guy. They are ready to defy him, and I think that's a really good sign.
- [41:55]
Jim Acosta
And, Miles, tell us about the event that we have coming up later on this month. We're going to be. You're hosting a State of the Swamp event here in Washington. And, I mean, this is going to be an amazing event, and it's coinciding with the State of the Union speech. Can you tell us a little bit about that and what. What we should be planning to see?
- [42:17]
Miles Taylor
Yeah, I was just pulling the lineup up. Look, I'm. I'm very excited about this, Jim. 1. It's going to be a lot of fun.
- [42:25]
Jim Acosta
I didn't screw this up, did I?
- [42:27]
Miles Taylor
What's that?
- [42:28]
Jim Acosta
I didn't screw this up. We're allowed to talk about this, right?
- [42:30]
Miles Taylor
Oh, yeah.
- [42:32]
Jim Acosta
It's out there.
- [42:32]
Miles Taylor
It's out there now. It's out there now. Yeah. Look, we're holding this event February 24th at the National Press Club. We intend for it to be the biggest rebuttal to the president's State of the Union address. And folks can find out more information if they go to defiance.org SOTU S O T U But we've got Robert De Niro coming to speak. We've got Senator Ron Wyden and Stacey Abrams. You, of course, Jim, George Conway, comedian Tom Arnold, Glenn Kirschner, Mehdi Hassan, Representative Eric Swalwell, a whole bunch of different folks. The list goes on. And I'm at the undercard.
- [43:08]
Jim Acosta
I'm at the top of the undercard.
- [43:11]
Miles Taylor
It has nothing to do with how important someone is. It has nothing to do. But it's going to be a great gathering to tell the truth about what the State of our Union is. But also, Jim, to embrace what the resistance and the Defiance in this country needs to look and feel like, which is joyful, sort of happy, warrior demeanor. And that's one of the reasons why one of our co sponsors for the event, one of the co hosts, is the Portland Frog Brigade. These are the people you have seen showing up at ICE facilities. When the president says they are terrorists and insurrectionists. They show up and blow up frog suits with boomboxes dancing to EDM music. And I haven't seen anything so effectively show that the emperor has no clothes as that. So we decided that the symbol for this event would be the frog. And you are going to see hundreds of Americans in blow up frog suits as part of this rally and this moment and that day. There will be some surprises. There will be some surprises in Washington D.C. as hundreds of frogs descend on the Capitol peacefully, lawfully, defiantly. And there'll be some surprises after the State of the Union about what these folks do. But we want to create a counter to the story the President's gonna tell there in the House of Representatives where surely he's going to say that he's going after the terrorist and insurrectionist enemies in the political opposition, which is just not the reality of what's on the ground. The fact that two Americans who were murdered by my former department, the Department of Homeland Security, was, were accused of being domestic terrorists has been so offensive to the conscience of ordinary Americans that we want to send that message again as a side by side, as Donald Trump is saying those things in the well of the House of Representatives to show that, no, that is not what the political opposition in this country is. It's people exercising their First Amendment rights and defending them against a wannabe despot.
- [45:07]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, I mean, I think it's a really important thing to do because he's just gonna lie the entire time during that State of the Union speech. I feel bad for my friends and the legacy in corporate media that have to continue to cover that as if it's like a legitimate, like credible thing that's taking place. He's completely distorted the importance and significance of, you know, a speech to a joint session of Congress. I mean, because it's almost impossible to carry live because he lies so much. So I do think it's important that we do stuff like this. You were a big part of the January 6th town hall that we had at the National Press Club at the beginning of the year. And I could. And I know all too well that what you're trying to pull together right now ain't easy. And it's a lot.
- [45:49]
Miles Taylor
Oh, man. People don't want to hear me complain about event coordination, but it's been a slog, but a worthwhile one. I mean, people are really excited to get together and tell the truth about what's happening to our country. And of course, in all seriousness, we. We have never before in the modern era or perhaps ever witnessed this sort of assault on Americans, constitutional rights. I mean, just statistically, I've been saying the past couple of weeks that when you look back at 2015, or, sorry, when you look back at 2025, never before in modern history has a president committed so many violations of the Constitution as Donald Trump, as measured by the number of federal judges who who have ruled as such. There's never in a president's first year or entire term in the modern era been a president who's been determined by federal judges to have violated the Constitution, not just the law at such a high rate. That's who this man is. And we have to tell that story to the American people and not just tell that story, but rally people to stand up and be courageous regardless of what their voter registration card says, to push back against the lawless business.
- [47:01]
Jim Acosta
Well, it's a really good point and I can't wait to be a part of it, even though I'll be a very small part of it at the very beginning or the end or just put me.
- [47:08]
Miles Taylor
Jim, everyone knows you're gonna have the best remarks of the night. That's why at a minimum, that's why people need to sign up. You can watch it for free. It's live streamed. Just sign up and register@diance.org soto or if you want, you can come and attend in person and get an in person ticket. And there's a number of other virtual ticket packages is if folks want to be involved in the fight in a more intimate way. Great.
- [47:30]
Jim Acosta
And let's. We'll do this again before, before the big day so we can promote this as much as possible. But Miles, kudos to you for pulling this together, man. It sounds like it's going to be a great event and anything I can do, you know, if I could pick up a bag of ice or something, you know, six pack.
- [47:47]
Miles Taylor
Well, gladly. We'll gladly have you do it. And by the way, your, your viewers, Jim, I'll probably get dinged for this by my team, but they can use my friends and family discount code if they want for the thing. I think it's Frog Friend 15. Frog Friend 15 will allow them to get 15 off of any of the tickets. So all of this is. It's a non profit event and it goes to just paying the cost of the event and any of the additional proceeds go to these counter trump activations. So we're really excited.
- [48:15]
Jim Acosta
Very good. And there's the code right there that we don't have a QR code. We're not that sophisticated on this yet.
- [48:20]
Gene Guerrero
That's too.
- [48:21]
Miles Taylor
The QR codes. That's too futuristic.
- [48:24]
Jim Acosta
Too futuristic. Way too futuristic for guys like us, Miles. Great to see. I'll let you get back to playing. I'm sure you have like eight texts to respond to right now on. On Playing this thing.
- [48:32]
Miles Taylor
Rock and roll. Well, we do. Thanks, Jim.
- [48:35]
Jim Acosta
You got it. Good to see my bud. Thanks. Take care. I do want to go back to Bad Bunny a little bit because, you know, there was this whole, you know, build up to this alternative super bowl halftime show. Did you guys see this? The stupid crazy. They were that people were so pissed off at MAGA World and Megan Kelly and Benny Johnson and all these ass hats and MAGA World. They were so pissed off about Bad Bunny because they were afraid that he was going to be too Latino for them or he. His rhythm would be too good or I don't know what it was. And. And so they wanted to put on this Talking Points USA alternative halftime show, and they were going to have Kid Rock. They had Kid Rock perform last night, and apparently it was. It was like a lip sync extravaganza. He was wearing jorts, which. You should not wear jorts anymore. Just a pro tip for me. I'm not the. I'm not the sexiest, I'm not the most stylish, but I will tell you, I don't own a pair of jorts. Apparently, Kid Rock owns a pair of jorts, and he performed in a pair of jorts last night. And there was this buildup, you know, Megyn Kelly and Laura Ingram and on Fox, and they were saying, you know, please, everybody in maga, please watch the Kid Rock. We really want to hurt the super bowl ratings. We don't want anybody to watch Bad Bunny. We want Bad Bunny and all Latinos to fail on and on and on. And then apparently somebody got video of Donald Trump at Mar a Lago watching the Super Bowl. And here's the video of Donald Trump watching Bad Bunny and his halftime show at the super bowl instead of Kid Rock. I you not. This is. This was on the socials, and I had to clip this. I can't play the music. I would. I would love to play you the music, but then I would get dinged for copyright or Apple Music would come after me with a 2x4 or send a couple of guys with the pipe to kick the shit out of me for playing a nanosecond of Bad Bunny's music. I don't want any of that to happen. But this is video of Donald Trump watching Bad Bunny at the Super Bowl. I thought he would. He would be watching Kid Rock. That's what I was. Megan Kelly, Janine Pierro, Laura Ingram, Benny Johnson, all of you were telling everybody to watch Kid Rock. And there's Donald Trump and. And part of it is because he wishes he looked this good. You know, if Donald Trump wants to have that kind of a beautiful complexion, if he wants to have a little je ne sais quoi here, he's got to smear that orange on his face. What's the shade that I've described it as? British tan. It's like the British tan when you, when you're buying men's shoes and they give you the selection at the bottom, which one to pick. He's always clicking on British tan for the shit that he puts on his face. And, and he was supposed to watch Kid Rock, but maybe it's because of the cognitive decline that he forgot to tell the people at Mar a Lago to switch the TV over to the Talking Points USA halftime show with Kid Rock. But they didn't watch that down at Mar a Lago. They were watching Bad Buddy. And I'm so. And apparently he got pissed off about it. He put a true social post up. Should we show that? I guess we could for a second. Do we have the. Here it is. It is absolutely terrible. One of the worst ever. It makes no sense, is an affront of the greatness of America and doesn't represent our standards of success, creativity, or excellence. And it goes on and on and on. And also, he said he didn't like the new kickoff rule. He's sounding more and more like Grandpa Simpson shaking his fist, yelling at the clouds. Yes, the President of the United States just can't handle Bad Bunny. Which is why I think I'm gonna try to figure out a way to see if I can play Bad Bunny on my show every day from now, from here to eternity. Ay, dios mio. As my grandmother used to say. Ay, dios mio. Ay, dios mio. She also would say que paquete when we would watch a big Arnold Schwarzenegger or Silver Stallone movie and there was like a big blow up explosions at the end or whatever. She'd always say, que paquete. What a package. What a package. And I guess that was, that was how, that is how she would have reacted to Bad Bunny's halftime show. It was a K. Paquette, no question about it. And maybe that's what Donald Trump has a problem with, the package. I, I, you know, maybe that has something to do with it too. I don't know. But I digress. But hey, kudos to Bad Bunny and kudos to that moment. It was just such a beautiful moment of him handing that Grammy to the kid. I got to show that one more time. That was such a beautiful moment. And I just, it made me think, and I, and I put this on my Instagram last night that maybe, you know, it was the halftime show, right? It was halfway through the game. And maybe that's where we are right now, ladies and gentlemen. Maybe that's. And it's been a long, hard slog. There's no question about it. It's been painful, it's been upsetting, it's been traumatizing for so many of us. But maybe we are halfway through. Maybe we're a little more than halfway through to the end of all of this. And we just have to hang in there until. Until the time has. Has run out on Donald Trump and what he has done to this country. But hang in there. If that little kid can put a smile on his face, you can, too. And maybe play a little bad bunny. This evening to celebrate, my thanks to Molly John Fast, my thanks to Gene Guerrero, and my thanks to Miles Taylor, and my thanks to all of you for watching. Really appreciate it. Still reporting from Washington, I'm Jim Acosta. I'll see you next time.