New media star Kara Swisher on the Epstein Files plus former DOJ pardon attorney Liz Oyer aka "Lawyer Oyer" on Pam Bondi.

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Jim Acosta Show Episode Title: New media star Kara Swisher on the Epstein Files plus former DOJ pardon attorney Liz Oyer aka "Lawyer Oyer" on Pam Bondi
Release Date: July 16, 2025
Host: Jim Acosta
Guests: Kara Swisher, Liz Oyer

---

Introduction

In this compelling episode of The Jim Acosta Show, host Jim Acosta engages in a dynamic conversation with renowned media personality Kara Swisher and former Department of Justice pardon attorney Liz Oyer, also known as "Lawyer Oyer." The discussion delves deep into the controversies surrounding the Epstein Files, the role of Pam Bondi, and broader issues affecting media integrity and governmental accountability.

---

Donald Trump's Reaction to the Epstein Files

The conversation kicks off with an examination of former President Donald Trump's reactions to the Epstein Files. Kara Swisher highlights Trump's dismissive stance, characterizing his comments as an attempt to delegitimize the investigations.

• Kara Swisher [03:04]: "Nobody believes this. Nobody buys this. His own supporters don't buy this."

Liz Oyer provides a critical analysis of Trump's cognitive decline and his inability to manage the fallout from the Epstein scandal effectively.

• Liz Oyer [03:16]: "He has a lot of vibrancy. But compare him to a couple of years ago, the amount of cognitive crazy is just crazy."

---

Conspiracy Theories and Their Impact

The guests discuss the proliferation of conspiracy theories, particularly those propagated by Trump and his allies. Swisher and Oyer explore how these narratives undermine public trust and fuel misinformation.

• Liz Oyer [04:00]: "These conspiracy theories are linked together online. It's a tsunami he's been controlling."

Swisher adds that Trump's manipulation of these theories amplifies their reach and impact, making it difficult to counteract the disinformation.

---

Elon Musk's Influence and AI Concerns

The discussion shifts to Elon Musk, focusing on his influence over technology and artificial intelligence (AI). Both guests express concerns over Musk's handling of AI projects like Grok and its unintended consequences.

• Liz Oyer [16:35]: "If you put garbage in, you're going to get garbage out."

Swisher critiques Musk's personality and decision-making, suggesting that his erratic behavior hampers technological advancements.

• Kara Swisher [19:00]: "He’s driving rock or something... It looks like something from an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie."

---

Media Integrity and Public Broadcasting

A significant portion of the conversation addresses the erosion of media integrity and the threats to public broadcasting. Swisher and Oyer lament the potential loss of NPR funding and the broader implications for unbiased journalism.

• Jim Acosta [40:07]: "This nonpartisan employee was abruptly fired by Pam Bondi amidst all of the Epstein madness."

Oyer underscores the importance of maintaining nonpartisan expertise within federal institutions to preserve their legitimacy.

• Liz Oyer [52:54]: "These conspiracy theories... easily believable, easily consumed. It sort of fucks with your brain."

---

Firing of DOJ Ethics Advisor

The episode delves into the recent firing of Joseph W. Turell, the DOJ's ethics advisor, highlighting the alarming trend of eliminating institutional safeguards.

• Jim Acosta [40:07]: "This is the person who would advise the attorney general about things like what gifts she can accept."

Oyer emphasizes the dangers of removing such positions, which are crucial for maintaining ethical standards within the Department of Justice.

• Liz Oyer [54:40]: "The Department of Justice is essentially taking the position that they can fire whoever they want for any reason because the President has unlimited constitutional power to fire executive branch employees."

---

AI Trust and Ethical Implications

Swisher transitions to a discussion on artificial intelligence, questioning the trustworthiness and ethical considerations surrounding AI technologies.

• Liz Oyer [20:09]: "I'm working for on a CNN docu series about longevity and tech and health... AI is going to be critical in terms of designing things."

The guests debate the dual-edged nature of AI, acknowledging its potential benefits in fields like healthcare while warning against its misuse in spreading misinformation.

• Liz Oyer [21:35]: "There's toxic sugar... Structural heart of several conspiracy theories."

---

Media Funding and Political Influence

The conversation touches on the precarious state of media funding, particularly public broadcasting, and its susceptibility to political interference.

• Kara Swisher [25:00]: "We're about to lose it. Nearly one in five NPR member stations could close down without federal funding."

Oyer suggests that without robust public support, media outlets will increasingly rely on state and private funding, which could compromise their independence.

• Liz Oyer [28:25]: "You're not going to have a problem... Certain states, California would be my guess... They need to automate the IRS and you can see AI making it cheaper and easier and better, you worry about that."

---

Conclusion: The Future of Media and Government Accountability

As the episode wraps up, Jim Acosta reflects on the urgent need for media reform and governmental accountability. He underscores the importance of holding leaders accountable and ensuring that institutions remain nonpartisan and ethically grounded.

• Jim Acosta [55:30]: "Donald Trump, nobody's buying it. Release the files."

The guests echo the necessity for a resilient and independent media landscape to counteract the pervasive influence of misinformation and political agendas.

• Kara Swisher [35:39]: "Donald Trump is putting hoaxes out there to the American people. He's the OG hoaxer."

---

Notable Quotes

1. Kara Swisher [03:04]: "Nobody believes this. Nobody buys this. His own supporters don't buy this."
2. Liz Oyer [03:16]: "He has a lot of vibrancy. But compare him to a couple of years ago, the amount of cognitive crazy is just crazy."
3. Liz Oyer [04:00]: "These conspiracy theories are linked together online. It's a tsunami he's been controlling."
4. Kara Swisher [19:00]: "He’s driving rock or something... It looks like something from an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie."
5. Jim Acosta [40:07]: "This is the person who would advise the attorney general about things like what gifts she can accept."
6. Liz Oyer [54:40]: "The Department of Justice is essentially taking the position that they can fire whoever they want for any reason because the President has unlimited constitutional power to fire executive branch employees."
7. Kara Swisher [25:00]: "We're about to lose it. Nearly one in five NPR member stations could close down without federal funding."
8. Jim Acosta [55:30]: "Donald Trump, nobody's buying it. Release the files."
9. Kara Swisher [35:39]: "Donald Trump is putting hoaxes out there to the American people. He's the OG hoaxer."

---

Key Takeaways

• Political Manipulation of Information: The episode highlights how Donald Trump and his allies manipulate and propagate conspiracy theories to undermine investigations like the Epstein Files.

• Erosion of Institutional Integrity: The firing of nonpartisan officials within the DOJ signals a troubling trend towards politicizing federal institutions, risking their effectiveness and public trust.

• Media Funding Crisis: Public broadcasting faces significant threats due to potential funding cuts, which could further polarize media consumption and reduce access to unbiased information.

• AI's Dual Role: While AI holds promise in advancing fields like healthcare and drug discovery, its potential misuse in spreading misinformation poses substantial ethical challenges.

• Need for Media Reform: Strengthening public media infrastructure and ensuring its independence from political interference are crucial for maintaining an informed and democratic society.

---

This episode serves as a critical exploration of the intersections between media, politics, and technology, urging listeners to remain vigilant against the erosion of factual integrity and institutional safeguards.

Transcript

[Jim Acosta]

Foreign.

[Kara Swisher]

Show. My special guest is Kara Swisher. You just don't know how long I've been trying to land this plane. The eagle has landed.

[Liz Oyer]

Yeah. Dressed for you. I dressed for you. All right. We were trying to figure out Google Calendar here, and Jim had an issue.

[Kara Swisher]

So I had a major issue. And. Yeah, I guess we could just start talking about that. No, I don't want.

[Liz Oyer]

You're bad at Google Calendar.

[Kara Swisher]

Sure, I'm bad at Google. I'm bad at a lot of things, but the technologies would be one of them. So. So over the course of this, and I won't hold you up for too long, but over the course of this little episode, you can just sort me through all these tech issues. But no, no, but seriously, thank you for doing this. And you've got to forgive me for being a news guy, Kara. You know how. First of all, I should say Kara, of course hosts the on with Kara Swisher podcast, the Pivot podcast with Scott Galloway. And a little later, I'll speak with Liz Oyer, the former part attorney over at the Justice Department. But, you know, you have to forgive me. I'm the news guy here.

[Jim Acosta]

Sure.

[Kara Swisher]

We're now a podcast guy. Who wasn't.

[Liz Oyer]

Yeah. How are you liking it, may I ask? First of all, how do you like freedom?

[Kara Swisher]

I love it.

[Liz Oyer]

You would.

[Kara Swisher]

You did tell me. I would. It is. It is absolutely freeing. And for a while there, I was still putting stuff in my hair and putting on make TV makeup. I was like, well, why am I doing all that? Screw that. I can just do whatever the hell I want. Yeah, that's what I've been doing.

[Liz Oyer]

Yeah.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, but it's been great. And. But old habits die hard. And, you know, the other thing too is like, at the beginning of this adventure, I was like, you know, maybe I should travel around and stuff. But then Trump and Elon Musk were blowing up the world, and I thought, well, I have to do what I do.

[Liz Oyer]

But you can do it from anywhere. You sound great. You're in Aspen right now. Right?

[Kara Swisher]

And one in Aspen right now.

[Liz Oyer]

Critical is you keep your reporting skills the same. That doesn't change. It's such a canard that people who do this are lesser. Some are lesser than, that's for sure.

[Kara Swisher]

But, yeah, you know, well, and when you're also kind of one of those guys, and I. I grew up as a local news reporter and then a general assignment correspondent and. And all that, you kind of learn all these little tricks of the trade and you put little tools in your Tool belt. But anyway, we can. I want to talk about media in a little bit, but I have. You have to forgive the news guy here, please. And I did see you were making some comments about Trump's freakout over the Epstein files. I gotta start there. I don't know if you saw this, but he's now posted on TR Social his latest freak out.

[Liz Oyer]

What is it?

[Kara Swisher]

And he is saying, and we can show this to the, to the viewers, their new scam. He's talking about the Democrats is what we will forever call the Epstein hoax. And my past supporters, he put that in capital. My past supporters have bought into this hook, line and sinker. I can say a whole lot more in this new, in this new format as well, Carrie. I don't know if you know that, but I see that, you know, the Jeffrey Epstein hoax. Nobody believes this. Nobody buys this. His own supporters don't buy this. Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn't buy this. Mike Johnson, the Speaker doesn't buy this. What your sense of this. What is going on?

[Liz Oyer]

Well, I still, I'm sort of fixated on his cognitive decline, which I think is just clear, I mean, just real. He, he, he, he wasn't important of life. Whatever that sentence was, was so strange.

[Kara Swisher]

We have that sound bite too, which we can play as well.

[Liz Oyer]

Yeah. Um, you know, I, you know, he's, he's, he's like a, you know, Biden was kind of the old guy in the nursing home who sort of creaks around and looks older but is a little more with it, like has a hard time getting to the, to the salad bar. And he's the vibrant one who's, who's just as gone, who's yelling about the lack of pie, you know what I mean? Like, there's still a similar thing. So he's got a lot of vibrancy. But if you compare his just even a year ago or two years ago, three years ago, it's crazy, the amount of cognitive crazy. So I think he doesn't know what to do here because what he's done. And this is interesting because when it first came up, Scott and I had an argument about it where I said, oh no, this is going to be very resonant because I pay attention online and how much they have trained their followers to believe in conspiracy theories. That's one. And online conspiracy theories, they have put them on almost like a heroine of conspiracy theories and kept them there. One of them is sort of the, the, the, the QANON branch, which is particularly virulent. Right. And they, that's the whole. Hillary Clinton has the basement, everything else. And that even resulted in a really sad thing for that guy who went up there. He's now not living anymore. He just ended up having a very sad life because he got sucked into this thing. Again, not an excuse for his ridiculous behavior, but an explanation. And so, you know, I, when I, when he started pushing back on this, I'm like, you have literally fed your children sugar forever, like toxic sugar. And they're diabetics, all of them, and now you're telling them not to eat. Are you kidding me? And so when that happened, everyone's like, oh, it's a nothing. I'm like, no, no, no, no. This is at the, this is a structural heart of. There's several conspiracy theories and they're all linked together online. If you pay attention. One is deep state. Yes, cabal. It's often Jewish, it's often anti Semitic. And that there's a pedophile ring, you know what I mean, in the deep state. And the Epstein thing and this and that. The problem Donald Trump has that IRL in real life, there's 67 or more public photos of him. There's videos of him. He was a friend of his, maybe he cut him off. And that I get. And look, there's lots of people who went down to that island like that I know that just didn't know. And some of them, I don't know what they did, but most of them I think just went. And having been around the tech industry, he showed up at Ted Epstein did. I saw him at a dinner party. Even I, who just was at a dinner party of 200 with him, got attacked online because I was, I was physically present at a dinner party. I actually turned down an invitation to go to his house for lunch, which many reporters took, by the way, because they. Who. But there's well known people went to that house for lunch. And I, when I was asked, I said, well, I would come, except he's a convicted sex offender. And so I think I won't, you know, I don't lunch with pedophiles and guys. The PR guy was like, that's not very nice. I'm like, he's been convicted. And they were like, oh, it was, you know, he got, it wasn't real a thing. And I was like, feels real to me. And it feels like the prosecutor let him off. That's what you know. And I had heard about the Lolita Express, etc. Etc. Because there was a lot of text involvement with this Guy who was up at mit and so you'd, you'd hear of him all the time and all of it was bad. You know, even I knew about it back then and I wasn't particularly paying attention. Perhaps I should have, but I was hoping. But this was passed when he got convicted and everything else, but they continued to affiliate. And so what Trump has done is trained his, his people online in a, in a very classic propaganda fact fashion. And now. And he's benefited from that. And now he's saying, no, no, it's not true. Now, some of his acolytes, like Charlie Kirk or Laura Ingram, you know, they went crazy on the top because that's what they were supposed to do to get the mob going. But then he called them and shut them down, and now they're nothing to see here. I mean, it's his. Charlie Kirk is the most hysterically ridiculous toady. Anxious toady.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, my God. Well, and part of this is because they know when Trump goes, if Trump goes sooner rather than later, their clout goes right. The access goes right.

[Liz Oyer]

But these people, they believe it, go online, watch them. And I feel sorry for them, but. And I don't now at this point. It's so like, the COVID up is so massive. It feels like that.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Liz Oyer]

I'm kind of like, I want to know. I'd like to see those things.

[Kara Swisher]

When I saw him last Tuesday, freak out when that reporter asking the question. And I've been around him a lot over the years. I thought, oh, well, what's that all about? Why is he. I just never.

[Liz Oyer]

Because he was a friend. Right. Well, I don't know how he's in the files, but he's in the files. He's probably in there quite a bit, is the problem he has.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Liz Oyer]

And I don't know what it's for. It's just.

[Kara Swisher]

I don't either.

[Liz Oyer]

Right. But I now like them to release them. I'm with Mike Johnson. I'm like, release the files. Release.

[Kara Swisher]

Release the files every day. I'm saying release the files.

[Liz Oyer]

Yeah.

[Kara Swisher]

And Mike Johnson is saying it. Marjorie Taylor Greene is saying it. I mean, they're the four horsemen of the Trump apocalypse. Or I mean, they're all sort of saying it, but, you know, Trump might.

[Liz Oyer]

Be able to shut them down, but he hasn't been able to so far. He's definitely not shutting down Bannon. That's one he will not be able to shut down.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, let's listen to what he said yesterday, because, I mean, it gets to the ridiculousness of what we're talking about here, Bond.

[Liz Oyer]

But I'm curious.

[Kara Swisher]

Why do you think your supporters in particular have been so interested in the Epstein story, so upset about how it's been handled?

[Donald Trump]

I don't know understand it, why they would be so interested. He's dead for a long time. He was never a big factor in terms of life. I don't understand what the interest or what the fascination is. I really don't. And the credible information has been given. Don't forget, we went through years of the Mueller witch hunt and all of the different things. The Steele dossier, which was all fake, all that information. Respect. But I don't understand why the Jeffrey Epstein case would be of interest to anybody. It's pretty boring stuff. It's sordid, but it's boring. And I don't understand why it keeps going. I think really, only pretty bad people, including fake news, want to keep something like that going. But credible information, let them give it anything that's credible. I would say let them have it.

[Liz Oyer]

Look at Howard Lucknick sitting there, toadies.

[Kara Swisher]

I know, it's. It's sad to watch.

[Liz Oyer]

Here's the thing. Like, it might be boring, right? You know, and the question is, what is credible at this point? Like, who knows with these files? And that's going to be the big problem here is this guy has trafficked in toxic misinformation and benefited from it online is particularly. And now, because it's a tsunami, he does. But it's always been a tsunami. It's just been a tsunami he's been in control of. He's not happy with it. So he's getting a taste of, you know, it's sort of karma as a. But that's the problem he's got going here. And it's, let me tell you, go online, it's not stuff. These people are Roseanne bars, every one of them.

[Kara Swisher]

They're going nuts. And I mean, he put out a true social post over the weekend and that got all of these replies that. I mean, you just never see this kind of stuff. And he. I mean, when you listen to him, he reminds me of the old John Lovitz character on Saturday Night Live. Yeah, that's the ticket.

[Liz Oyer]

Yeah.

[Kara Swisher]

The liar. The pathological liar.

[Liz Oyer]

Well, he's gotta say it's not true. And therefore he lets off all the Democrats that maybe have been down there too. Like, I think most reasonable people are like, let it out. If there are Democrats on it, there are Democrats. If there are Republicans on Republicans, I think the question is, is There the messaging has been so bad, and they're usually pretty good on the messaging, this group of people, even though they're whatever you think of them. But I think Pam Bondi mess, you know, in her thirsty quest for being on Fox News, over talked. She. I was joking to Scott, for a lawyer, she talks too much. Right? Like, it's just. She needs. She doesn't know how to be a.

[Kara Swisher]

Lawyer, like, or the Attorney General. I mean, if you're the attorney general, why would you be saying, oh, yeah, she's really thirsty.

[Liz Oyer]

You can see it. She's like leans forward on Fox News. And so I think now she's saying, I don't want to answer it. But unfortunately, she created the maelstrom. And so it. I think they really don't understand the online maelstrom. And they hit, you know, they can cut off a lot of stuff and manipulate them up and down, whether it's they're eating the cats, they're eating the dogs. But this one is the. Is the artery of a lot of these, and it's linked to a lot of others. And that's the problem.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, he screwed around with the conspiracy theory that he is a part of is what it seems like. That's why it's backfiring on him. And as as much chaos as Elon Musk has unleashed in this country, first by backing Trump during the campaign, and then the Doge cut, he did reignite this Epstein story. You've had a lot to say about Elon Musk. I mean, what do you make of that component of all of this? I find that to be endlessly fascinating.

[Liz Oyer]

You know, it's interesting with Elon, when he first was there, a lot of the Trump people like, oh, Kara, he's great. I'm like, well, you'll see. He's a little like, be careful. He's a. He's a, you know, an unguided missile, essentially. And, you know, he'll drive you crazy. Just trust me, he will. Because he can't help himself, because he can't. He needs to be in charge. He needs to dominate. And weeks and weeks and weeks later, they're like, oh, we see what you mean. And I was like, you know, good luck. Good luck with baby Huey. Like, I don't know what you're gonna do there. And so when. When the falling out happened, they did it again. They're like, oh, see, we got him out. And I was like, oh, no, no, no, no. This is not. This is not Omarota. Whatever.

[Kara Swisher]

Omarosa. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Liz Oyer]

Yeah, that's. This is not her. This is not Michael Cohen, who did some damage, by the way. And I said, this is the richest man in the world with access to all kinds of nonsense that you don't understand. And he can do enormous damage. And when he brought up the first Epstein thing, I went, oh, no. Oh, dear. This is where he's going. What's really interesting to me is that when he apologized, everyone was like, oh, he took it down. I said, oh, no, he can't. He already let out it out of the box.

[Kara Swisher]

Exactly.

[Liz Oyer]

He's only doing it because he's initially scared for his businesses, and about three days in, he's going to go screw it, because this is a guy who blows up rockets. And so they have an enemy who is, I wouldn't say unhinged, but is willing to do anything if he feels like it. And I think Elon has decided he's going to put an end to this. Like, he's, you know, I still. I got. I got this guy. I'm going to.

[Kara Swisher]

It reminds me of Trump.

[Liz Oyer]

Yeah.

[Kara Swisher]

When somebody comes after me, I go after them 10, 10 times harder and.

[Liz Oyer]

Right. But he's quieter than Trump in that regard. He's not quite so. He's performative, but not in this case. I think he's. Maybe he has the file. Who knows? He was up in the grill of the government forever. Who knows?

[Kara Swisher]

Weren't they downloading all of this stuff?

[Liz Oyer]

I don't know. Again, the Trump people were not. This is something I warned. I was like, you don't know what he's downloading? Oh, he's not. I'm like, do you know? Do you have any, like, do you have, like. He could. Like, he certainly could. And he says, enormously clever person. And so I think there, there feels like his hand is in here in some fashion. And, and let me say, Elon Musk is also enamored with this theory, too. By the way, if you notice the pedophile thing during the Thai divers thing, he accuses people of being a pedophile all the time.

[Kara Swisher]

What's that all about? Do we know?

[Liz Oyer]

I have no idea. It's something that I. I think in therapy, I'm sure we'll find out someday if he ever avails himself to therapy. But he, He's. He's fixated on trans issues, ped. Like, stuff like. Like that. That the state is trying to manipulate. Some sort of. He's. He's down that road in reality. And as a lot of people are, by the way, yeah. And so he's always been sort of illuminated by accusing people of pedophilia. He did it to a Twitter executive who really, the guy got death threats and everything else, so this is something he's very comfortable doing. He did that. He shot Bannon across the bow.

[Kara Swisher]

And Bannon did the same thing to Bannon. Exactly.

[Liz Oyer]

Yeah. And in that case, you, as Scott says, you kind of root for the bullets. Like, you know, like, which one?

[Kara Swisher]

Fight, fight, fight.

[Liz Oyer]

I don't care. Like.

[Kara Swisher]

Right. Yeah. Maybe it is war games. Maybe it's. It's something real here. But. And the other thing, though, to go further down the rabbit hole, I have to ask you about Grok.

[Liz Oyer]

Yeah.

[Kara Swisher]

And I mean, it was spewing anti Semitic and pro Hitler stuff the other day, and it made me wonder to myself, and again, this is the novice talk to me, not understanding how to use technology at the beginning of this program. Is it purely AI Is it purely just a machine on its own? Do we even know the answer to that question? Could it be human beings feeding this kind of crap in there? And that's in there.

[Liz Oyer]

It's in there. I think Elon actually did have a good. Like, first he thought it was too woke, but it's whatever is fed in. I mean, there's an expression. I think it's garbage in, garbage out.

[Kara Swisher]

Garbage in, garbage out.

[Liz Oyer]

You know, and so if you put garbage in, you're going to get. And so what it initially was is they programmed it and he thought it was too woke. Right. It was too reasonable. It was too. And it started attacking him, if you remember, like, oh, Elon, of course, is a ridiculous fool or whatever. It did several of those and took issue with some of his behaviors. And then he. He fixed it just the way he pointed people on Twitter to him. Like, you had to get him in your. His feed. Even that wasn't natural. He forced you to look at him. Right. Essentially. And listen, he bought it for a lot of money. He can do that. If he's that much of a narcissist, that's fine. It's irritating. It makes the product less good, but whatever.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, it's horrible.

[Liz Oyer]

But he doesn't care. He doesn't care. So. So one of the things that he did is he must have tweaked it in some fashion. And one of them that I think Wired was reporting on is it again, was. Was pulling from him. So that's his personality.

[Kara Swisher]

Like, that's what I wonder.

[Liz Oyer]

Yeah, no, that's what it happened. It went to. It. It Went Mecca Hitler one way, it was too, woke the other way. And so he can't help meddling with it. And when you like, it's like cooking if much salt and you can't take it out. You can't or you can, but you have to keep meddling with it. And so it becomes a less. The problem he has, it becomes a less good product. And he's competing not just with open AI, but all these astonishing amounts of investment from other. So if he hopes to make Grok a commercial product, which it just is not now, given how many competitors there are, you know, he's spending a billion dollars, something, whatever, it's a lot of money. And he's like, he's in lawsuits about pollution in the Midwest because of the energy necessary. You know, he's pulled a rabbit out of many, many hats. But in this case he's got more competitors. You know, a very, a very unstable political situation for him because Trump can do him a lot of harm with his contracts and a car company that he's, he's sort of merged into X that is, is declining, is in a spiral and as it should. Yes. And it has nothing to do, it has a little to do with his Trump stuff, but has a lot to do with. He doesn't have a good car. And what he offered us was a cyber truck which nobody except incredibly small sized men wanted to. And I mean, I don't mean tight.

[Kara Swisher]

It is the worst looking, it looks like something from, from an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie from the 1980s or something. It is just the worst personality.

[Liz Oyer]

It's his personality exemplified by a car that's. You look at that car and you see Elon Musk kind of thing and.

[Kara Swisher]

He'S like driving rock or something.

[Liz Oyer]

Right. And meanwhile he's allowed byd, which is very much helped by the Chinese government. But nonetheless, the cars are terrific.

[Kara Swisher]

So I saw those all over. I was in Portugal all over. Oh my gosh. They are nice looking cars and they.

[Liz Oyer]

Look like they're inexpensive. They're different prices. He could have done that. And he took his eye off the ball for whatever reason, he's maybe not interested in it. And now he's got to shift over to Starlink and in that case he's got, I don't 60% of the space. It's SpaceX. They really are responsible for 60% of putting up satellites that's going to come down and there's going to have more and more competition and especially with Trump hostile to him. He's not going to get the favored nation status that he wanted.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. Well I want to ask you about media to kind of wrap things up but since you got on the topic of a I, we haven't spoken in a long time and I think we spoke about in the past some capacity but I mean can I ask a really goofy sort of open ended question? Do you trust AI?

[Liz Oyer]

Depends. Do I trust the Internet? I mean what is. It's like no, I mean where I are there.

[Kara Swisher]

Let me give you two of it that are very good.

[Liz Oyer]

Let me give you two examples. I'm working for on a CNN docu series about longevity and, and, and tech and health particularly. And I just had a full body scan and, and they, they have a, they have a, the group I did it with, I'm not going to say which one it was has an AI that I have to say is fantastic. Like I was, they, they loaded my scans in. It's all, all under hipaa. So it's private to me. And I started asking questions and the answers were just as good as a doctor. Like I had them checked with doctors too. And it was not just that it was helpful. Like okay, if you take this, this is the thing. And it wasn't like going into Google. It was very, it was a little higher level than that and it certainly started you off on a journey that was helpful. And then it said let's talk, let's put it on a list to talk to the doctor. And then they made the list for me. And I, I have to say I was like, okay, I get this, this is great. The other thing is being used for drug discovery, cancer research, all kinds of things where AI is going to be critical in terms of designing things. So yes, I trust it for that. Just like I trust the Internet for being getting me my Uber or delivering food or getting me some not like using a word document. Like sure. I also know what the Internet did, which is give us QAnon, which is give us the mess Trump is in right now, which gave us self esteem for girls going down. So there's that there too. And it's on steroids. And so my issue with the entire endeavor is that one, the government is not involved as much as it had been on other major issues like nuclear energy, things like that. And it's four or five companies that are going to make these determinations without any guardrails. And right now everything that's passing is solidifying the lack of guardrails, whether it's in cyber cryptocurrency, which is about the genius acts about to pass or anything. And so Trump has rolled back some of the safety things that Biden took place, which, by the way, were glancingly problematic. They were not. And then you have people like Marc Andreessen, the giant, the giantess baby in Silicon Valley. Oh, they were so mean to me.

[Kara Swisher]

Right?

[Liz Oyer]

You know, I'd get a dog. Like, I don't know what to say.

[Kara Swisher]

I have a dog. And it's wonderful. But no, you're absolutely right. And, and I think that is one of the problems with Trump is that he is so, I mean, he's so needy when it comes to industry approval, you know.

[Liz Oyer]

Well, they are, too. They're, they're, they're victims. That said, Biden administration did not bathe themselves in glory and how they treated the tech industry, it was not even handed. And that's what it should have said. Here's the good things, let's focus on those. Here's the bad things, let's bring them in. Because these people are babies. They need a little padding. They didn't pat their heads. He could, this whole thing could have been stopped had he, had he hugged Elon Musk and said, hey, man, come for a dinner or something like that, and not been quite so hostile. You know what I mean? Quite so hostile. Rather than look at. And I'm someone who's very tough on the tech industry. But I even was like, there's some benefit here. There's some. If the government, because the government's always been involved in technological leaps, but it's not, in this case, in the way. And now with the cutting of universities, all that research has come from. Everything we have in the Internet industry is from research from universities or from the government. And so that's my worry of, like, as China leaps ahead in AI and is helping their industries quite a lot, where are we and we aren't. We aren't. And Trump's just doing it as a giveaway. And then they salt away some crypto to him, you know, help him out, whether it's the Binance guy or whoever. And so he's getting the payoff, and they're getting the payoff, and the American consumer or the American citizens do not. And what worries me is if they're going to automate the IRS and you can see AI making it cheaper and easier and better, you worry about that, right? Like, it's not being done in the way that it would really help people.

[Kara Swisher]

And, and I mean, speaking about payoffs, I, I have to ask you, because we haven't spoken in a while again about the Paramount payoff of Donald Trump, the Disney payoff. Where corporate media is going, I'm tremendously worried about and, and maybe some of this self regulates, you know, with, you know, Trump getting hoisted on his petard with the Epstein files and so on. People who have been on the, the disinformation drip for so long are maybe coming back to reality somewhat. But I'm really worried about media in this country. I'm worried, I'm not sure independent media is quite enough to sort of turn the tide here. And do we need a more robust public media in this country? I mean.

[Liz Oyer]

Well, we're about to lose it.

[Kara Swisher]

We're about to lose, it's very scary. The New York Times has a House editorial today about the White House trying to chop $1 billion from public broadcasting. Nearly one in five NPR member stations could close down without federal funding. This is scary stuff. And one of the things I've been saying on my show is we kind of, and, and you feel free to slap me around. I think we need to build up public media to a point where it's almost impossible for the Republicans to knock it down.

[Liz Oyer]

I don't know how you do that. I think it's very difficult in other countries. They certainly value their public like yeah, stuff in this country we don't like. We do until we, you know, we like Elmo getting burns and this and that and npr. The problem is a lot of it's in rural areas. Right. That's who's going to get hit. You're not going to have a problem. You have lots of access to information.

[Kara Swisher]

But isn't that where the talk radio has been wreaking havoc and people like Rush Limbaugh up until today, sure, they've been wreaking havoc. And it, and it manifests itself in our elections and just people not knowing what the issues are and not having good information to make, make informed decisions and.

[Liz Oyer]

Well, the problem is we've had an information desert for most for those areas and now we have an information flood. And floods are just as you floods in real life are terribly damaging. In the digital life they're terrible. Right. Because there's all kinds of toxic waste that goes towards people and easily believable, easily, easily consumed. It sort of fucks with your brain. It really does. These conspiracy theories. I've seen this number of people I know just really go down a maha highway or whatever.

[Kara Swisher]

Insane. It's crazy.

[Liz Oyer]

Sort of like I was at a dinner party and someone started on the thing And I said, if you're comfortable killing millions of children, we can talk. And then they were like, that's not nice. I'm like, no, it's not nice to kill millions of children. I wish you'd stop like. And so it's, you know, facts don't, facts don't matter in that regard. And I think the problem, I think they've been wanting to do this. The Republicans who from, for a long time cut funding. Right. They've been wanting to do this forever. So have broadcast, you know, corporate broadcast units because they don't want competition. That's another thing, which is not a small thing. Rupert Murray has been after the BBC in the, in, yes, he has. He just hasn't had as much success. But you know, they've all been gunning for this. All of them have, going way back and it's always on the edge. Same thing with Planned Parenthood. They've got a certain amount of things they want to get rid of. And so in this case, I interviewed Catherine Mayer who runs, excuse me. And npr. And she, you know, she's, she's a digital person, actually really smart. But they're kind of, there's nothing to be done here and it's going to have to be backfilled by wealthy people and or state governments, which is the way everything's going. Where, you know, in certain states, California would be my guess, or others, they'll be great. Kansas, they were wherever. Montana, certainly not. You know, they don't have the money to do it.

[Kara Swisher]

And I was at a, I was at a journalism conference in Norway earlier this year and you know, when you go to other countries and talk to them about their media, it's remarkable. And they're shocked by what we have in this country. They don't really have a fox in this in their country in Norway. And they don't have crazy right wing people that are as, as influential as we have in, in this country. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's probably true. But.

[Liz Oyer]

Well, here's the thing. If they cut this funding, it's it. I think they'll, a lot of them are just under Trump's thumb. And it's interesting. This is happening like it was three votes said no, they could just get one more. That's the end of it. And JD Vance doesn't have to come in and be the.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, that's true.

[Liz Oyer]

You know, I'm sure his kids are watching Elmo, FYI, just, I'm guessing.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, and he was just at Disneyland, by the way.

[Liz Oyer]

I love that. Oh, it's such, like, it's rooting. Our children's thin. And there he is.

[Kara Swisher]

And the way he was running, I was like, oh, what?

[Liz Oyer]

I don't care about his physical running, but the fact he's just so ridiculous. It's so. It's like, just say you like Disney. Just every. If you have children, you cannot talk about. You cannot avoid Frozen, you cannot avoid Moana. They're very good. And Lilo and Stitch now is, like, on repeat in my house. Like, this is the way life is going to be for you. J.D. and I have more kids than you do, as always. But we had a fight over that once.

[Kara Swisher]

I remember that.

[Liz Oyer]

Yeah. But one of the things that's. And I continue to have more children than he has. So one of the things that is problematic was this is, again, lack of really good information. So, like, you're not going to. You're going to keep getting the Ken Burns stuff, presumably. That would be my guess. But you're not going to get basic unfiltered news. And then they're cutting Voice of America, which ruins our credibility abroad. Although I'm not. I'm not. We need it in certain places. We don't need Voice of America in Europe, for example. Like, they have plenty of media there, so, you know, it's a problem. This is what they've wanted. Now they're going to get it, and.

[Kara Swisher]

Now they're going to get it, and they're getting it courtesy of Trump, who, you know, who the hell knows how this Epstein thing is going to play out. I mean, I just. I wonder if this is, you know, and I'm not going to say the walls are closing in. We used to say that during the first Trump administration. I'm banning that phrase. You cannot say that. But he seems to be in real trouble right now.

[Liz Oyer]

Well, you know, I couldn't. I didn't ever think the walls were closing in on him because he's a really appealing character. And again, people get mad at me for saying that. But I said the other day on some show, I'm like, listen, he's really good at social media and all these, you know, mostly left people, like, how dare you say that? I'm like, it's factual. I'm sorry. He's, you know, like, I can say the same thing about comparing Cuomo and Mamdani. Cuomo looks like an old man, and Mandani is fantastic at it. You don't have to like Mandami to look at it and see how I said the same.

[Kara Swisher]

I said the exact same thing. No. So it's so true. People don't want Andrew Cuomo anymore. I just. They just don't. And I'm sorry. It's just, you know, and what he was accused of and, I mean, come on, give me a break.

[Liz Oyer]

Well, he just looks old. That's my. He looks like he doesn't know what he's doing, actually. And looks. He was a very vibrant personality, and now he looks diminished in some fashion. But one of the things with. With Trump is I. I am the only person who's watched every Apprentice, I believe, among the media elite.

[Kara Swisher]

I used to be obsessed with it.

[Liz Oyer]

I loved it. I loved that show. I have to say, I thought it was an incredibly entertaining show. It's like watching wrestling. I'm not gonna apologize for it, but near the end of that run, I knew it was over, and it was like, ugh, no, no, no, he needs to move on. Like, he needs to do something else. And it couldn't be revived. And it sort of had this spiral effect to it. It feels like that right now to me.

[Kara Swisher]

It does.

[Liz Oyer]

And then the ratings went down and it was. Cause he never. He never changed. Right. And this is. This is what he's doing here. He's got a bunch of greatest hits, and he's finding the people he's attacking right now are his own fans. And you cannot do that. You cannot. If you're. You've trained your audience to want to hear My way no matter how you sing it. And you saying this song sucks, you know?

[Kara Swisher]

No. When Mitt Romney lost in 2012 and he was sort of viewed as being disdainful of. Of his own supporters, I had a Republican operative say to me, what's worse than when the voters don't like you is when you don't like the voters.

[Liz Oyer]

Right.

[Kara Swisher]

That's worse.

[Liz Oyer]

Right, Right. And Trump, for better worse, has. Or maybe he doesn't, and he hides it well. I don't. In this case, telling people they're don't believe your lion eyes is really not effective, and it's not going to work. Again, he's trained these children, and his children are diabetic, and they are not going to not be diabetic because he's not going to put them on a good diet because he's getting rid of npr. Right. So, like, the problem is these. He. He's reaping what he has sown here with this. Now, that said. Yeah, he might be able to shut it down. I'm really fascinated to see if he can do it. I'm watching him try that. He has been trying and I'm trying. Like, I think that the move right now, it looks like online at least is this is a made up file. We have now found out it's actually made by Comey and Obama. And yeah, my uncle died in 1985. Like that whole thing, I see again cognitive decline there. That was like. That's like an old person telling. You know, my cousin was. Did the Unabber. My uncle did the. I was like.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, he was saying that last night. He was talking about.

[Liz Oyer]

But it's not true. And it's not true his uncle died. His uncle actually was a very. Well, it was very competent in that. But was dead before the Unabomber.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. Well, Kara, this has been an absolute joy for me. I'm so glad we reconnected. On and on and on. No, no, no, this is wonderful.

[Liz Oyer]

I mean, very proud of you that you're doing this, Jim.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, my goodness, that means so much to me.

[Liz Oyer]

Well, I'm proud of everyone who does it, who actually sticks with reporting. And I'd love to see out in the field a little bit. I like Costa in the field.

[Kara Swisher]

I. I like doing that too. I might do that some more. I've done some town halls. They've been fun and it kind of feels like being in the field, but I've got some things in the hopper here that we might be doing, so. But I've been just copying off of you. I've been just getting.

[Liz Oyer]

That's fine by me. Everybody does, Jim. Everybody does. And then acts like they invented it. It's funny. And some of them. Can I just say, some of them are terrible and they're good at it. And so I'm like, oh, they're using my playbook the wrong way. But I'm not gonna say who. But you can guess. Guess.

[Kara Swisher]

I can guess. And I probably would guess. Well, but let's not. We won't do that. We'll be classy about it.

[Liz Oyer]

But can I just say one more thing? Oh, you should pay off the abc. Abc?

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, yes, absolutely. I forgot.

[Liz Oyer]

Yes, the ABC payoff. They had a problem, probably is my guess. And a court problem. And so paying it off. If you're in that situation, you're like, we're gonna win, but it's gonna hurt. Right. And so. Or you maybe we won't or whatever. And so in that case, I. I'm guessing there were emails or texts that weren't so great, didn't look. Make them look so good. So they decided Just to turf it. In the case of Paramount, pure and simple, shareholder greed is what it was. On the behalf of Sherry Redstone and the rest of them, as well as, you know, the new owners.

[Kara Swisher]

Shameful.

[Liz Oyer]

Allegedly didn't have anything to do with it, but I just feel like they just decided it's cheaper to pay them off than. And get what we want than anything else. And it's shameful. That's really shameful.

[Kara Swisher]

So, yeah, and I. I wrote. I feel like they. They let the whole country down because. Yeah, you're paying off a guy who has called us the enemy. Why would you do that? I'm sorry, I don't think.

[Liz Oyer]

You think. You think your owners like the media any more than Donald Trump does.

[Kara Swisher]

It's just crazy. Well, Carol, let's do this again. I won't say soon, but when I can catch you next.

[Liz Oyer]

Yeah. Something good. When something good comes up.

[Kara Swisher]

Sounds good. All right. Great to see you.

[Liz Oyer]

All right. Thanks, Jim.

[Kara Swisher]

Thanks, Kara. Thanks so much. Really appreciate it. The great Kara Swisher. And I will be very honest that I have just been copying what she does, and I hope that doesn't get me sued someday. I. I don't mean in a real, like, physical copying sense, like I copied her homework in school or something like that, but she has been an amazing force in independent media. And let's bring in Liz Oyer, because I. I feel so terrible. Liz has been standing by for some time now. And, Liz, it's great to see you. Thanks so much for doing this. Really appreciate it. I guess there are so many places to start here, I guess, first of all, just to stay on the new media realm, because I have to ask you about. I was watching one of your YouTube or your Instagram clips this morning, I should say, and it was about something I was. I'm about to ask you about, but you. It's just totally taken off and did you have any practice in this before? Did you just start doing these videos? Because a lot of people are following you and you're getting a lot of likes and you're just speaking straight to camera and explaining very simply what is going on. The Department of Justice that has been so disturbing lately.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, I didn't have any training in this, Jim. And if you had told me six months ago that I would be on Instagram and TikTok as lawyer oiler, I would not have believed you. But it's actually been really kind of a fun project. It's a fun way for me to share my knowledge and experience with people who are really engaged and interested, but not necessarily consuming their media through the Washington Post and the New York Times and those traditional sources. So I've enjoyed doing it. I will say it is very challenging to distill complicated legal concepts into 90 second clips and that has presented some challenges. But I have gotten really kind, helpful feedback from followers saying like, Liz, you need to sit further away from the camera or Liz, you know, you need to really need to invest in a ring light, which I think still intend to do. Haven't done that yet. And I appreciate all the feedback.

[Kara Swisher]

No, it's wonderful. And we workshop things on Substack too. And I get all the comments and, and I often say that I often get better questions from the viewers than I had written down where my in my laptop before I started an interview. But it is, it is great how, you know, the process gets democratized when you do this. And it sort of gets back to what I was talking about Kara Swisher earlier, which is, you know, AI can be good in some ways, AI can be bad in some ways. And same same goes for the Internet. And this is one of those cases. But the thing that you did on Instagram, and I think I was just looking at it this morning, I want to ask you about is the firing of the ethics advisor over at the Department of Justice on Friday in the middle of this Epstein, Mass. The New York Times says, you know, a new batch of more than 20 career employees at the department and its component agencies were fired on Friday, including the attorney General's own ethics advisor, Joseph W. Turell. And this is something you were talking about on Instagram and why this is so very disturbing.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, this, this is something that has flown under the radar a little bit, but it is really important. And I'm not sure that it's, it's readily obvious to people why it's so important. The Department of Justice has career nonpartisan employees throughout the department, and their role is to preserve the institution, the integrity of the institution. So this particular individual, his role was to advise the attorney General, her staff and officials throughout the department about how to comply with federal ethics laws, how to make sure that the Department of Justice is conducting itself with the utmost integrity because that should matter to the American people and to the institutions that we rely on. So this nonpartisan employee was abruptly fired by Pam Bondi on Friday amidst all of the Epstein madness. And it sort of flew under the radar. But the implications of this are really big. This is the person who would advise the attorney General about things like what gifts she can accept. So let's just say hypothetically, the Attorney general was thinking about accepting an airplane from a foreign government. This person would advise her, is that or is that not lawful and ethical?

[Liz Oyer]

Ethical?

[Jim Acosta]

Or let's say the attorney general is considering a legal matter in which her brother, who's also an attorney, is representing a client before the Department of Justice. This ethics official would tell her, maybe you ought to recuse yourself from that case because of conflict of interest rules. So these types of sort of in the weeds administrative rules that the department has always taken for granted are like, embedded into the fabric of the department, Department of Justice. And you need somebody who understands them and who's not political or partisan who can advise the leadership about how to comply with those rules because it's really important to the legitimacy of the whole institution. And that's the person that Pam Bondi fired on Friday.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, and isn't it also interesting, Liz, I mean, that this person was fired in the middle of this Epstein mess? I mean, I guess this would have been like five or six days or so. So, you know, following that release of that Department of Justice memo that, I mean, basically, when you look at it, tries to sweep the Epstein case under the rug, might. Might it have anything to do with that? And I guess overall, what has been your reaction to the way Pam Bondi has handled this? Because again, it just, to me, you know, I'm of the mindset there's really no way. I mean, I suppose it could. There could be a way, but there's really no way that there wasn't some sort of White House pressure on the Department of Justice on Pam Bondi to put out that memo. That's just my guess. What have been your thoughts on all this?

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, it has seemed clear throughout the reign of Pam Bondi that she really is just a figurehead. She's out there as sort of the talking head for the Department of Justice. But the shots are being called in the White House and they are being pushed down to her. She doesn't seem to have any independent agenda or independent thinking on any of these issues. She's just executing on the orders that are coming from the White House. And that's what's made her so valuable to the President. And that's probably why she's going to prevail to the extent it's her versus Cash Patel and Dan Bongino. My money is on Pam Bondi because she has really put herself out there effectively as the talking head of the President and she doesn't seem to ask questions or push back at all, which seems to be what he wants in his Attorney General. And he's. He's said that. So I think that. That it's a reflection on sort of where that. That how that power structure is working under the current administration. And I think, unfortunately, it's been a really big distraction, the whole Epstein issue, from things that actually matter. The firing of the ethics director that happened on a Friday. The department seems to really like to fire people on Fridays. I was fired at 2 o' clock on a Friday afternoon. Many of my. My other fellow fired Do&J employees were fired on a Friday. And they want to kind of like sweep that under the rug and have it not be part of the media cycle. But it also got lost in the Epstein madness. And it's not just this one person. There are career officials throughout the department who have been fired from positions that are important to maintaining the legitimacy and integrity of the institution. And without those people and without the career experts in areas like national security, which is. Which is. Is one that lost a lot of employees, we're in a situation where we may not be prepared for the next actual crisis that the Attorney General has to deal with. And that is very concerning and scary. She has flubbed this really minor matter over disclosing some documents related to Jeffrey Epstein. So who knows what might happen if we have an actual national emergency, a national security crisis, a major cyber threat, security breach, the type of thing that the Attorney General really should be focusing on, not this Epstein madness.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, and the reason why, I mean, you want the Department of Justice to have career officials there, because you can't have a Department of justice in this country that is populated with hacks and goofballs and it seems. And loyalists and lackeys. And it seems like that's what Donald Trump and his people want. That's what they. They think it's okay. They think it should be like an extension of the White House Counsel's office or something like that. And you just can't have that. It puts the country at risk.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, you need to have people in the building who know things, who know how things work, who know where the guardrails are. And those are the people who are being eliminated because it turns out that their knowledge is getting in the way of the political agenda of the President. And so they're being sidelined, they're being fired, they're being reassigned, they're being placed on administrative leave to clear the way for loyalists in every part of the department. And that puts us in danger, frankly. I mean, it's really an issue of public safety and it's an issue about whether the Department's going to be preserved as a legitimate institution in this country by the time this President gets through with it.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. And Liz, I think you put your finger on something that is so important in that Pam Bondi's behavior, the way she has tried to act like basically a loyalist. Loyalist. I want to play a little bit of what she was saying. I guess it was yesterday in response. Response to a question about the Epstein files. I thought it was very revealing. We can play that. We'll talk about the other side.

[Jim Acosta]

The President said today you would release credible files related to Mr. Epstein.

[Liz Oyer]

Are you prepared to do that? And when would you. Our.

[E]

Our memo today. Our memoir speaks for itself. And we'll get back to you on anything else. I haven't seen all of his statements today.

[Liz Oyer]

Thank you.

[Jim Acosta]

Respond to the MAGA base that has.

[Liz Oyer]

Expressed a lot of frustration about we're.

[E]

Going to fight to keep America safe again, and we're fighting together as a team. That's what, that's what's so important right now. You know, we've got a war on drugs, we've got a war on human trafficking, we've got cartels in this country. And we, we are going to do. We've got foreign adversaries around this world as well, and we're all going to work together as a team to fight to keep America safe again. And I can tell you that's what we're all committed to.

[Liz Oyer]

Thank you.

[E]

Thank you all for being here.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. I mean, Liz, she's trying to stay on message there, but, you know, it was Donald Trump who said, I think it was yesterday, oh, well, if the Attorney General wants to release some stuff, go ahead. And then when she's asked, are you going to release some stuff? She's still sort of hiding under the sofa. And to me, it sort of reveals that there is no plan to release the Epstein files. And they're just going to play this game, the dog chasing its tail until the public moves on to something else. And, and the MAGA base is just not going to move on. They, I mean, in, in a strange sort of bizarre inception kind of way, a dream inside of a dream. They're the ones that, that are pushing this to come out. And, and they may be ultimately successful or not successful, who knows? But that's gonna have major implications for the country, it seems to me. But Pam Bondi's behavior All this is so telling.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, I think that's right. One thing that struck me about that clip is she's sort of speaking so softly there in response to these questions that she doesn't want to answer. You know, when she feels confident, she is in your face, she is loud, she is shrill. And this is just a different tone from her. You can sort of see on her face and in her tone that she doesn't know exactly where to go with this and that this is going to be a challenging situation for her to walk. Walk her way out of. The issue with, with Bondi, as well as most of Trump's cabinet, is they're really performing. They're performing parts. They are just performing for the MAGA base. They're performing for their boss, the president. And this is one that she can't fake her way through. And so she stumped. And it'll be interesting to see where this goes. I think that, you know, her, maybe her job isn't secure, but I think for now, she's definitely the front runner to keep her job out of the three who are implicated in, in this mess.

[Kara Swisher]

And when she says, the list is on my desk, you know, I talked to Julie Brown, who's a longtime investigative reporter in the Epstein files case. She. That's impossible that, that the list of the files would be on her desk. It would take up several rooms of an office building to, to house all of this stuff. It's all over the place. I mean, what is your. I mean, have you been looking at the Epstein files in this case and, and kind of scratching your head and saying, what's going on here? Why. Why is Trump so defensive about this? And why are they, you know, not on message here and kind of coming apart at the seams?

[Jim Acosta]

Well, one thing that I think is very. A very important lesson for them here is that the casual lies are catching up with them. There is this practice of casually lying to meet the moment, to appease the base, to score a political point. And now they're being called on one of these casual lies that the attorney general said. She said, these documents are on my desk. And now people are saying, well, show us the documents. And that casual lie is catching up with her. So my hope is that this will create some momentum behind the idea that even in MAGA world, facts matter and there is some expectation of accountability from our political leaders. But we will see. It seems like even the MAGA base has now come to the conclusion that either the attorney general was lying and there is no list. There's no, there, there. Or that the attorney general is participating in some sort of COVID up to benefit her boss, Donald Trump. And that is, you know, an untenable, that there's no good answer for her to that question.

[Kara Swisher]

No, I mean, and it just goes back to the old Watergate question. What did the president know? When did he know it? And I, to me, I just think that if there was pressure coming from the White House and you have to assume that there was to put out that memo, there's a paper trail. There are conversations that were had and as soon as there are hearings, those questions have to be asked. And of course they'll lie and obfuscate and try to cover it up and hide behind their chairs and not want to come clean and all of this. But that's not going to make the questions go away. But the thing that you just said there, the way they're so casual about lying, I think is very interesting. This has always been Donald Trump's M.O. this has always been sort of the M.O. of the people around him. They adopt his style of just casually lying all the time. And they tried to lie about you. And in that New York Times article we were talking about earlier about Terrell and the ethics advisor to Pam Bondi and so on, it mentions, I think that they basically have acknowledged the facts that you have stipulated in your own firing. Isn't that right? They tried to lie about you, Liz. And then they kind of the other day admitted it. Well, maybe not.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, no, I, that, that's how I read it. So it's interesting what's happened. I'm litigating my termination from the Department of Justice. I'm appealing my firing. And it's been a kind of a nightmare because the Department of Justice is not participating in good faith in the legal process. But an interesting revelation came out the other day in a pleading that they, they made in the legal proceeding, which is they, they're, they're opposing this idea that I should be able to get access to the documents that substantiate the facts and circumstances around my termination. And in the course of this opposition, they say, well, there are no facts in dispute about the circumstances of Ms. Oyer's termination. So they're essentially admitting, I, I suppose that it all went down, as I said it went down, which is this whole, I won't get into all of the details. But you know, the thing around Mel Gibson getting his guns.

[Kara Swisher]

Right, right, right, right.

[Jim Acosta]

Which Todd Blanche, the deputy Attorney general, said I was lying about. So now they're Saying, you know, it's not in dispute, but they're still saying that I shouldn't get any of the information that they have in their possession related to my firing, and that they were entitled to fire me for that whatever reason they. They chose because the president has unlimited constitutional power to fire executive branch employees.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. And. And the Supreme Court is, is basically giving the Trump administration all the ammunition that it needs to continue to do this in various departments of the federal government. It is. It's quite worrisome. I mean, I, you know, I'm a D.C. kid. I grew up in the area. I've known a lot of people who worked in federal jobs over the years. I've always had great respect for federal employees. I think they've always had, you know, you know, their, their reputations and the work that they do sort of attacked and, and that's where. In such an unfair way by people on the far right. And I. Maybe we're going to find out how important federal employees are. We're already starting to find out. Look at the Texas floods. Look at the measles outbreaks. I mean, this kind of stuff does matter.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah. There are two sort of categories of firings. There are these mass layoffs, which are problematic for the reason that you state. There aren't people left who are doing these important jobs, like manning the phones at fema, to be able to respond promptly to a disaster. But what's happening in the Department of Justice is not really the mass layoffs. It's targeted firings of people in positions that provide important institutional safeguards or people who are speaking up against illegal and unethical actions of the administration. And I would put myself in that category, somebody who was not going to be bullied into making a. That was contrary to the interests of public safety. I was fired. I spoke up about it, and I would put myself in that sort of whistleblower category. And there are others in that category who are being targeted for firing because of their willingness to resist the political influences that are taking hold at the Department of Justice. And those are equally concerning, but for different reasons. The Department of Justice is essentially taking the position that they can fire whoever they want for any reason because the President has unlimited constitutional power to fire executive branch employees. And the reason that's concerning is that that is contrary to civil service protections that have been in place for nearly 50 years for federal employees. The whole purpose of those laws is to ensure that we preserve nonpartisan act expertise within the federal government. But this administration does not respect or value nonpartisan expertise. So they are trying to destroy that whole framework.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, there's no question about it. And it's chilling. And I, I think we're all, you know, I've been describing as sort of a common lived experience. We're all just going to have to live through the consequences of this. And, you know, for folks who say, oh, I didn't think I was voting for this, I reported on this. Everybody reported on this. Project 2025. It is fully laid out in Project 2025. For anybody who says, oh, I didn't vote for this, please go Google Project 2025. It was available throughout the 2024 campaign and it lays out all of this. Liz, great to talk to you as always, such a valuable expert on this. And I'm so glad that you are just blowing up on social media, as the kids say. It's, it's gratifying to see and I know it's unexpected to you, but in some ways maybe this is a cool new chapter for you and I, hopefully you see it that way. Yeah, I'm happy for you.

[Jim Acosta]

I do. And I really appreciate your having me on Jim. And I hope that folks will check out my, my substack or my tick tock or my Instagram or all of the above. It's all Lawyer Oyer, all of the socials.

[Kara Swisher]

Great to see you, Lawyer Oiler. And until next time, we'll, we'll do it again. Thanks a lot. Really appreciate it. Thanks a lot. And I have to say, and you know, it is kind of there's sort of a common thread or a theme in, in today's show in that you have like basically the maven of social media and new media and Kara Swisher and somebody sort of entering this realm in Liz Oyer, who really is just doing a public service. And that is kind of what media should be and what journalism should be. It should be a public service. And I mean, that's why, you know, as I was saying to care at the beginning of this, you know, when I left my old place, I wanted to travel around and go to Thailand and all these different places I've never been to before. And instead, you know, Donald Trump and Elon Musk went bananas and I felt like, well, I better just do the substack thing and YouTube thing and start talking about it on Apple podcasts and everywhere else before I go. If my executive producer, Extraordinary Map, will indulge me one last time, I want to put up the truth Social Donald Trump, I have to say I, you know, this Thing. Maybe they should frame these and put them in the Louvre someday or the National Gallery of Art or the National Portrait Gallery. I mean, this thing is a work, it's kind of a work of art in an insane way. The, the way you can just go through the radical left, Democrats have hit paid earth again. Just like with the fake and truly discredited Steele Dossier, the line 51 intelligence agents, the laptop from hell. I mean, you almost need like a Trump decoder ring to figure out what the hell is going on in this. But I'm sorry, when he, when he gets to the part where he says their new scam is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein hoax, when he says what we will forget forever call the Jeffrey Epstein hoax, who's the we in all of this? The only we in this is Donald Trump. I guess he's using the royal we here and talking about this because the MAGA base is not calling it the Jeffrey Epstein hoax. The MAGA base does not consider this to be. And the way he says my past supporters have bought into this and he capitalizes past, it sounds like to me, maga, that Donald Trump is telling you that you guys should just go F yourselves. And I kind of wonder what people in MAGA world think of this. Donald Trump is basically telling you you either call this Jeffrey Epstein case a hoax or you're not part of his base anymore. You're not part of MAGA anymore. And I'm sorry, but you know Trump, you're just not going to get away with this. Donald Trump, you have for the last, what is it, 10 years, no longer than that, 15 years, been putting hoaxes out there to the American people. Things like the birther thing, you know, I mean, going after Barack Obama for his birth certificate. He has been the king of the hoaxes for the last couple of decades. He's the OG hoaxer. He's the OG king of fake news. And I hope, you know, folks in my realm and you know, the reality based world, we've known this about Donald Trump for a long time. My hope is, is that he is going to insult his MAGA base one too many times that they will finally wake up and say what a load of all of this is. He's calling the Jeffrey Epstein files a hoax. Who's buying this? Mike Johnson is not buying it. He's saying release the Epstein files. Marjorie Taylor Greene is not buying it. She's saying release the Epstein files. So, you know, for the umpteenth time, Donald Trump released the Epstein files. What are you afraid of? You said you were going to do it during the campaign. It's time. And Pam, Bonnie, she rolls out there at this press conference, and as soon as she's asked about the Epstein files, it's exit stage left. It's almost like a Bugs Bunny cartoon watching it. And she almost did the thing where the legs are going really fast. And then she finally takes off out of the room. They are running scared right now. Donald Trump, you are running scared right now. Pam, Bonnie, you are running scared right now. It is, it is finally. I, I, I don't, I'm, I'm just like Karen and I were saying earlier about not saying the walls are closing in. I don't want to say the walls are closing in. But maybe, just maybe, two decades of horseshit are finally catching up with Donald Trump. Nobody, and I mean nobody is buying your hoax. You have been busted on your Donald Trump, and you need to wake up and smell the coffee because your own base, your own base is turning on you. They're saying we're not going to buy this stuff anymore. On that note, I, I want to thank Kara Swisher. You know, Kara, I, I've been, I feel like I've been, you know, hunting big game out in the, in the, in the safari here, trying to land that interview. Finally got Carol on the program. Really appreciate her coming on and always appreciate talking to Liz Oyer, who I, as I said earlier, is doing a public service and, and what she's doing on all her social media accounts. So make sure you follow her there. But in the meantime, Donald Trump, nobody's buying it. Release the files. And on that note, I want to thank everybody for watching. Still reporting today from Colorado. A few more days from Colorado. I'll be back in D.C. next week. But still reporting. I'm Jim Acosta. Thanks, everybody for watching. See you next time.