← The Jim Acosta Show
The Jim Acosta Show
Rep. Robert Garcia says "release the Epstein files" plus "Character Limit" authors Ryan Mac and Kate Conger on Elon Musk
00:56:00
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- [00:00]
Jim Acosta
Foreign welcome already to the Jim Acosta show. It is Wednesday and as you can see, my big guest on the program today is Democratic Congressman Robert Garcia of California. He's now the new ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee. And Congressman, I'm just going to tell folks, you know, we got a couple of headlines to get through here. We're now into day three of the Trump administration's cover up in the Jeffrey Epstein case. Epstein gate drags on and there are more signs that Attorney General Pam Bonney is increasingly on thin ice. Trump confidant Laura Loomer is just one of several MAGA influencers calling for Bonnie to be fired. Elon Musk, Trump's one time ally turned political enemy, posted this how can we, how can people be expected to have faith in Trump if we won't release the Epstein files? A little later on in the program, I'll speak to the authors of the book Character Limit How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter. That's Kate Conger, Ryan Mack of the New York Times. He'll join me for that conversation. And Congressman, as you know, meanwhile, questions are mounting over the Trump administration's plans for disaster response in this country after the deadly flooding in Texas. So far as of this recording, as of this live newscast, 119 people have died and more than 170 people are unaccounted for. I guess, Congressman, a lot of places to start. First, you're going to be the ranking Democrat or you are the ranking Democrat now on the House Oversight Committee. Are you concerned at all about the way the, the White House, the Department of justice have handled this Epstein case? It used to be sort of like a, something on the far right that they concerned themselves with. But clearly it looks like Pam Bondi, the Attorney General, is trying to sweep this under the rug and so is Trump. Your thoughts?
- [01:47]
Robert Garcia
Release the Epstein files. I mean that's, I mean that's what the far right wanted this entire time. That's been their, one of their rallying cries. I hate to agree with Laura Loomer, but I mean, look, they should release them at this point. I think that it's clearly something that's of interest to the American public. I'm not sure why they continue to go back on their promise. If, if there's nothing in those files that is concerning, then they should be declassified and whatever classification status they've put put on them and put them out and let the American public make that decision. And clearly I think there are signs pointing that there are folks in the MAGA universe, maybe The President himself, who knows that, are clearly implicated in some of those documents. And so I think that the American public at this point deserve that information. And look, we don't know who's. Who's on that list and who's not or what's in those files and what isn't, but people shouldn't be afraid of the truth, and they should be released.
- [02:48]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, no question. And you mentioned Trump. I mean, he sounded like somebody who had something to hide yesterday when he popped off on this, when Pam Bonney was asked a question about it, and then he jumped in. Let's just listen to that, talk about on the other side, and then I'll move on to other stuff.
- [03:01]
Donald Trump
You're still talking about Jeffrey Epstein. This guy's been talked about for years. You're asking. We have Texas, we have this, we have all of the things. And are people still talking about this guy? This creepy? That is unbelievable. Do you want to waste the time? Do you feel like answering?
- [03:21]
Pam Bondi
I don't mind answering.
- [03:22]
Donald Trump
I mean, I can't believe you're asking a question, Epstein, at a time like this where we're having some of the greatest success and also tragedy with what happened in Texas. It just seems like a desecration.
- [03:37]
Pam Bondi
In February, I did an interview on Fox, and it's been getting a lot of attention because I said I was asked a question about the client list, and my response was, it's sitting on my desk to be reviewed, meaning the file, along with the JFK MLK files as well. That's what I meant by that. Also to the tens of thousands of video, they turned out to be child porn downloaded by that disgusting Jeffrey Epstein. Child porn is what? They were never gonna be released, never gonna see the light of day.
- [04:14]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. Congressman, your response to all that? I mean, Trump seemed very eager to try to shut that down. He was on Fox and all these other podcasts and everything, saying he wanted to release the Epstein files. It doesn't sound like that's the case anymore.
- [04:26]
Robert Garcia
I mean, him and all of his supporters have been wanting to release the files for years. It's been central to their argument. Drain the swamp. Send reformers to the FBI. Yes, go Cash Patel and Pam Bondi. And now they are going back on their promises to their own base. And look, our side, we've never been the ones driving this issue. We think there's other more important things to do in the country, but they've made it an issue. So let's release the files. And I agree with those that are advocating for it. I think we're. We're at the point now where the American public deserves some answers and not sure why the president is so concerned now about their release when he was so eager to have them released before he was president. So, look, I think this isn't gonna go away. This is gonna continue. And there's murmurs and rumors out there that, you know, Elon Musk is trying or might know more than some about what may or may not be in those files. And so we'll see where that all goes.
- [05:27]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, I mean. I mean, the Elon Musk part in all of this is very interesting as well. I do want to ask you about Texas. I mean, Trump brought up Texas as sort of a way to get out of that fix he was in when he was being asked about Epstein. But, I mean, it is horrific what has happened. 119 people have died, 170 people are apparently unaccounted for as of right now. The local sheriff was asked about when officials in that area responded to the warnings from the National Weather Service, you know, which, as you know, had sent out those urgent messages telling people to get out of the way of those rising floodwaters. I suppose this is something that the House Oversight Committee should look at and, you know, look at the response here. And a lot of questions have been raised, Congressman, as you know, about the staffing levels at the National Weather Service. No. And all these other places that Trump and his people have been trying to cut.
- [06:17]
Robert Garcia
And we will look, I think. Let me just be first clear. I. This is a horrific tragedy, the loss of life and obviously the fact there's so many missing still, it's clearly those numbers are going to go up, and it's hard to bear the amount of loss, especially when you think about who's being impacted. And so, obviously, I think everyone's heartbroken. And I think at the appropriate time, I think right now, obviously, there's some focus on recovery. But I think as the days move forward, you are definitely going to see engagement. I think we need to ask the tough questions. We shouldn't be afraid to get answers from fema, from the National Weather Service, from local officials on the ground, from the administration as to what happened. We hear and we're listening to some kind of cast blame on others, and others flat out saying, let's not look backwards and look forward. That's not an acceptable answer. There are over right now, as we know, 100 people that have lost their lives. And so I think this idea that we just need to let it go away is not acceptable. Only improve the situation in the future and learn from this horrific tragedy. If we get answers and we intend to ask those questions.
- [07:37]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, I mean, and some of the questions are, did any of the cuts at these agencies have anything to do with, with people not getting out of the way in time? It does seem as though the National Weather Service was putting out alerts and there might be some questions as to how quickly local officials responded to those alerts, and perhaps that'll be the case. But, you know, the other thing that's, I think on my mind, Congressman, is doesn't this call into question these ideas for cutting things like fema, getting rid of fema? I mean, Trump and his people have talked about just getting rid of FEMA altogether and letting the states deal with disaster response. We're having these kinds of cuts go into place at places like NOAA and, and, and the National Weather Service. I mean, what, what about those questions?
- [08:20]
Robert Garcia
Huge mistake. And look, I think what we're going to learn from this tragedy is that there, whether it's the local officials on the ground or at the state level, there was clearly some inaction. There's clearly some things that weren't happening. The investments that may have not been made. And this idea that the federal government should reduce its service, disaster response, disaster aid, and then somehow pass it on to locals and the state, I think is a huge mistake. Disaster preparation and the response to national emergencies is a federal responsibility. Yes, locals do it as well, but the federal government has to be involved. We're the only ones with the amount of resources to actually do it correctly and to bring a strong response. And so I'm very concerned about the cuts that have been implemented. You know, some are already saying, oh, that didn't impact what's happened on the ground. Well, I think we've got to get actual answers and responses and prove that that's not the case. I, I suspect that the effort by some Republicans in the House to try to dismantle FEMA are going to be met with much more resistance from the American public.
- [09:26]
Jim Acosta
Right. I mean, this is not a time, it seems to me, to dismantle fema. As we're going into hurricane season and you're seeing more of these mass flooding events, these flash flooding events that are just, just unleashing havoc in various parts of the country. And, you know, the other thing that we should get into is the President's budget bill that was passed by the Congress last week. I know Democrats like yourself voted against it, but, you know, to me, this, this Seems to be kind of a problem of the Republican Party's own making here moving forward because they're going to be dealing with the fallout of cuts to important programs like Medicaid. And you get the sense that even some people in the administration don't know how to explain what, I guess extol the virtues of the policies that are wrapped up in this bill. The Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, I don't know if you saw this, apparently sort of ties together the idea of what Medicaid recipients should be doing with the mass immigration raids that we're seeing in this country. She seemed to be saying, well, it's not a big deal if farm workers and labor workers are being swept up in these mass immigration rates because Medicaid recipients can do the work that those, those farmers and those farm workers have been doing. Just in case I'm not explaining this well, I want to play it and then have you respond to it, Congressman, because I think it typifies a lot of, you know, some of the insanities baked into this legislation that was just passed.
- [10:55]
Brooke Rollins
The president has been unequivocal that there will be no amnesty. The promise to America to ensure that we have a 100% American workforce stands. But we must be strategic in how we are implementing the mass deportation so as not to compromise our food supply. Ultimately, the answer on this is automation. Also some reform within the current governing structure. And then also when you think about there are 34 million able bodied adults in, in our Medicaid program, there are plenty of workers in America.
- [11:28]
Jim Acosta
I your response to that, Congress? People on Medicaid are going to go into the, into the fields. Is that, is that her goal here, her vision?
- [11:36]
Robert Garcia
I mean, she has no idea what she's talking about. This is a competent administration. It's not the best and the brightest of our country, clearly. And you have folks that are playing dress up and are not qualified to be in these jobs. First of all, let's be clear. When she talks about folks are losing their Medicaid, first she's talking about a lot of folks that are actually very sick and that need their actual health care, that need access to Medicaid to survive, to take care of their family. These are people, by the way, many of them, as we all know, already have some type of work or some type of job. We know that immigrants, those folks that are out working, particularly in the fields, no one else wants to do those jobs.
- [12:19]
Laura Loomer
Right?
- [12:19]
Jim Acosta
Nobody wants to do it.
- [12:20]
Robert Garcia
And so they're working hard because they're willing to do the work. And now we're deporting everyone with ICE agents wearing masks. And this bill that Republicans slam through, besides giving billionaires whatever they wanted, doubles the size of ice. ICE is now going to be the largest federal law enforcement agency that we have, larger, by the way, than the FBI. And so it's sick, it's wrong. And people need to be very concerned about what Trump is trying to do. He's trying to create his own personal police force.
- [12:52]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. And I mean, and just earlier this week, we saw what took place in what is. In MacArthur park in Los Angeles, where you had these mounted, militarized. I guess there were Border patrol officers that you couldn't really tell which agency they were from or whether they were from the military. They were all sort of in these green, green suits and green army suits and on, on horseback. And they, they put on this show of force at this park that was basically unoccupied. There wasn't anybody really at the park besides a bunch of kids. And the mayor, Karen Bash, showed up and was saying, what are you doing here? You're scaring a bunch of kids. But it just goes to show you I, what Trump has unleashed. I don't know if there's really much of anything that can be done to stop it until the midterms and perhaps a new Congress takes over in 2027.
- [13:36]
Robert Garcia
I think that's right. I think, look, I think the more the public continues to speak out and peacefully protest and support each other in the community, and there's a lot of mutual aid and other. Other programs that are happening. That's really a positive. And courts, and the courts are, we are having some success in the courts. I mean, some of these cases have been horrific for, for us, but we do got to continue to push back and be honest and inform the American public and turn the tide. And I think you're starting to see in some, in some corners of the MAGA universe, they're turning against Donald Trump. And certainly I've talked to folks that voted for Trump that the sentence they're saying now that they feel betrayed, they don't understand these mass deportations is not what they voted for. I remind them it is what you voted for. But I, you know, happy to. The people are waking up to this stuff. And so midterms are going to be very important in slowing down that Trump agenda. And then, of course, the next presidential is going to be critical in the kind of democracy we want to live in, if we're even gonna. Gonna have one.
- [14:36]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. And Congressman, I Mean, people who, who watch us on, on Substack, they're very savvy politically. They understand how Congress works. They probably understand how the Oversight Committee works. But if you can, I mean, fill us in a little bit, you're gonna be the ranking member on the committee. You can't call for hearings. I mean, you can call for hearings, but you can't insist that there be hearings, say, on the Texas flooding or on the Trump deportation operations or any of those things. And so what are you, you're going to be the new ranking member on this committee when you get back to work. What, up on the Hill, what, what can you do? Because people are just frustrated as hell and they're, they're frankly just pissed about what they're seeing right now and they're feeling helpless.
- [15:16]
Robert Garcia
Yep. And so I think a couple of things. So one is, I think that's right. I think people, you know, I'm honest with folks and saying, look, we're not in the majority, so our powers are actually very limited on all the committees. We don't control the agenda, we don't control the hearings. We, what we can do, though, is at hearings, we are allowed, for example, to bring up our own witness. We can ask the tough questions. We can push back and prepare against the lies of the Republicans, and we can launch our own investigations. Now, look, the Trump administration may choose to not comply, but we oftentimes do get answers. And it's not just the administration, but if the administration is playing in its corrupt dealings with other companies or other agencies or nonprofits, we can ask those organizations information about what those deals were about. And we get a lot of response, typically from the private sector and other public agencies that are, that is not the White House. And so we will launch our own investigations. We'll get aggressive. We're going to be tough. We're going to be engaged in the hearings. And you better believe that the second we win that majority in a year and a half, we will be launching full scale investigations on the most corrupt president and administration in the history of the United States. And hold him, all his billionaire pals and all the large companies that are ripping off the American public, accountable to the people.
- [16:33]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. And that leads me to this question, which is if you suddenly had the gavel, I mean, what piece of the Trump, you know, corruption that we've seen so far since he's gotten back into office, it's only been, what, five or six months? What piece would you want to investigate first? There's a lot of that's a tough.
- [16:49]
Robert Garcia
Question because there's a lot. But what I'll tell you is what will be on, on our agenda immediately is going to be taking on the way he's selling essentially, the White House as a personal ATM for him and his family. And whether that is his crypto scheme, where people are literally dumping in just millions and millions of dollars to support him and his family, whether it's him selling essentially access and tickets to White House events where he's raising money, whether that is Jared Kushner walking out of the White house with a $2 billion foreign investment deal with Saudi Arabia that he did the first time that we know nothing about. He and his family have profited off the White House. And I think that has got to be a big part of the early investigations into the Trump and his family.
- [17:34]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. And there's a part of me that wonders where this Epstein investigation is going to go. Because getting back to that, I mean, you know, the classic question from the, the Watergate days, and if this becomes a gate, then the question I think stands here as well, which is, what did the President know and when did he know it?
- [17:51]
Robert Garcia
That's right.
- [17:51]
Jim Acosta
And what went into what, what went into putting out this Memo over the 4th of July weekend that said, oh, by the way, there's no list. And oh, by the way, you know, there's, there's a minute missing in this video. And I mean, I, Congressman, I know you probably feel the same as I used to think that this Epstein stuff was sort of like the crazy stuff on the far right, and you just didn't pay attention to it because it's all bananas. But the way Trump behaved yesterday, the way this memo came out, something's up. Something seems like it's up. I just seems to me.
- [18:23]
Robert Garcia
I think that's right. And that's why I have, I told my colleagues and others, I think, I think that we should push to release the files and there's something there that they don't want out. And I think that there's some type of, clearly some type of deflection. I mean, putting it out on the 4th of July, Donald Trump's reaction, they should release the files. People should know the truth.
- [18:46]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. And we have to. On the getting back to the subject of immigration, forgive me for bouncing around a little bit. I can't help but bring up a post that you put up on the release of the new looks like It's Me, a blockbuster film, Superman coming out, I guess, what tomorrow. And you wrote on, on Instagram, I think or maybe it was on Twitter, or X, as they call it now. I'm a longtime Superman fan. I want to be clear. The Superman story is an immigration story of an outsider who tries to always do the most good. His arch nemesis is a billionaire. You don't get to change who he is because you don't like his story. Comics are political. And I think some of that, I guess, Congressman, was a response to them going nuts over at Fox. You know, Fox has been putting out these segments going off on Superman, of all things. My goodness, what's next? Baseball and Apple piece. But what. What motivated you put that out there? I guess you're a bit of a comic book fan yourself.
- [19:38]
Robert Garcia
Yeah, I'm a comic. I'm a huge Superman fan. I actually learned English reading comics as a young kid.
- [19:43]
Jim Acosta
Is that right?
- [19:44]
Robert Garcia
I did. And, you know, I'm an immigrant. Came here when I was. When I was a young. A youngster. That's how I kind of learned the language. And I grew a love for, you know, truth and justice in the American way, which is now obviously hated by MAGA and Fox News. And it's crazy. Superman is an immigrant, came to this country, becomes a journalist, tries to do the most good, expose corruption. The very first issue of Superman, he's fighting corporate titans. And Lex Luthor is a billionaire who becomes the president in the comics. The Superman story is a story of someone doing the most good, of social justice, of fighting corporate corruption. And these guys don't get to change the story because they don't, you know, they don't like what it stands for anymore. And so this movie is going to do great. And, I mean, Donald Trump is our Lex Luthor. I mean, there's no question about it. And so they can hate the movie all they want.
- [20:44]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, well, I was. You know, Donald Trump certainly does seem to be our Lex Luthor, but Stephen Miller kind of looks like Lex Luthor. I don't know if you notice, like, he's kind of gone a little bald there, but I. We don't take any personal pot shots. But I did want to ask you a little bit because I. Your. Your own story, your own immigration story is. Is pretty fascinating. And did I read that correctly, that you were not documented, Is that correct, when you first came. Is that. Is that right? And then you became documented. And I. I don't want to hold you up any longer because I know you're busy and everything, but that struck me as. As. As. As being. It must be very poignant for you and disturbing what you're seeing right now across this country because people who come to my dad came here as a Cuban refugee back in the 60s. And I always thought of this place kind of like the Superman comic book that you, you can come here from somewhere else and you can fight for truth, justice and the American way and be just as part of the American story as anybody else who's been here for a long, long time.
- [21:43]
Robert Garcia
I think that's right. I mean, I, my family and I actually came on, we came on temporary visas and then we overstayed our OR visas and like a lot of, a lot of folks do. And we were here and it was difficult, obviously, like all immigrants. And I think we were fortunate enough later on to go to beginning process. And it was actually Ronald Reagan and his amnesty bill that actually gave us the opportunity to apply for permanent citizenship.
- [22:10]
Jim Acosta
Wow.
- [22:11]
Robert Garcia
And for that residency. And how far has the Republican Party come when, you know, their, when Ronald Reagan, that president that many of them love so much, is the reason that so many of us actually had access to citizenship and just they've come a long way from the type of party that used to be.
- [22:29]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. No question about it. And you just have to wonder, you know, is Superman going to swoop in and save us all the predicament that we're in right now? But we might have to put the red capes on ourselves, Congressman. But Congressman Garcia, thanks so much for your time this afternoon. Really appreciate it. Thanks for all those insights.
- [22:47]
Robert Garcia
Yep. Thank you.
- [22:49]
Jim Acosta
All right, Good to see you. That's Congressman Robert Garcia of California, now the new ranking member on the House Oversight Committee. That, that means he, you know, he's right there in line for the gavel if the Congress, if the House changes hands over to the Democrats. I do want to get back to Elon Musk and all of this because I've got a couple of great guests to talk about this. I mean, and there's a lot of news right now on X, I guess. First of all, we need to talk about Grok, the chat bot created by Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company. This is according to the New York Times, Kate Conger, who's going to join me in just a second. Grok shared several outlandish anti Semitic comments on X on Tuesday, prompting an outcry from some social media users. In its dedicated account on X, which of course Elon Musk owns the chatbot praised Hitler, suggested that people with Jewish surnames were more likely to spread online hate, and said a holocaust like response to hatred against white people would Be, quote, effective. X deleted some of the posts on Tuesday evening. Let's go and bring in, if we can, Ryan Mack and Kate Conger. There they both are. Ryan and Kate. Hey, great to see you. Thanks so much for coming on. You guys are the authors of the book, and I have it right here because Ryan sent it to me. Kate didn't sometimes be. Ryan did. Character, Character, to be clear, just to be clear, how Elon Musk destroyed Twitter and this book actually came out, what was it, last fall, I believe. Is that right? And my goodness, it's still very relevant. And you guys must be thinking, how do we write part two? Are we writing part two right now? The key forward is being tapped on furiously perhaps as we speak. And Kate, I'll go to you first only because, you know, you wrote about this story about Grok and is it, it's Grok, right? Am I pronouncing that correctly?
- [24:37]
Kate Conger
Yeah, that's right.
- [24:38]
Jim Acosta
And when I'm using X these days, not to sound like the old timer doesn't know how to use the technology, but I'll see people say, grok, is this true? And then Grok will answer, yes, as, as a matter of fact, it is true, and this is the reason why, and so on. Do we, before I ask you a bunch of other questions, do we have any confidence that that stuff is right when it does that?
- [25:00]
Kate Conger
I think there's no more confidence that Grok is getting things right than any other large language model. You know, these things are prone to hallucinations. They can make mistakes. And so, you know, it kind of depends on the sources that it's pulling in. Sometimes it's saying things that are correct, sometimes it's saying things that are false, and sometimes it's saying things that are anti Semitic.
- [25:22]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. And Kate, you wrote this piece last night. Do we, do we know what happened with Grok? What, what went on here? This is just strange that it started spewing this anti Semitic garbage.
- [25:34]
Kate Conger
It is somewhat strange. So going back to last week, X made some adjustments, or Xai, I should say, made some adjustments to the prompts that control GROK and tell it how to behave. And one of the prompts that it changed was one telling Grok to be politically incorrect and to not shy away from that. And it started to make weirder and weirder responses over the course of the week. Earlier in the week, it was blaming the lack of response to the floods in Texas on Trump and on Doge, which was kind of surprising, giving Musk's involvement in Doge and then again, on topic of the floods, it really spiraled out of control around this post from a user on the platform who was basically posting a troll comment saying, you know, that, like, the children were who were killed in the flood were going to develop into, quote, unquote, future fascists, and sort of saying that the flood could have prevented that, which is like a really horrible comment, obviously. And Grok responded to that, calling out the user's surname, which appeared to be Jewish. And then that kind of spiraled into this whole anti Semitic rant as more people were weighing in and asking it to clarify what its views were. I just kind of kept doubling down, praising Hitler, saying that, you know, a holocaust would be an appropriate response to comments like these, and just really going off the rails, you know, during this time, it was also posting kind of violent rape fantasy stuff. People were trying to get it to say racial slurs. And eventually yesterday afternoon, Xai turned the chatbot off altogether.
- [27:20]
Jim Acosta
Wow. And, Ryan, I want to ask you about Elon Musk and what he's been up to and all of that, but just, Kate, just to quickly follow up on this, just very briefly. And it's just an AI prompt response that is coming out of Grok. It is not a human being, as far as we know, putting words in Grok's mouth. I can't believe I'm using these words in the sentence, but you know what I'm asking here?
- [27:48]
Kate Conger
That's right.
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Jim Acosta
I mean, not a person doing. It's a machine.
- [27:50]
Kate Conger
Yeah. This is a question that comes up a lot, especially as Elon Musk tries to hew the things that Grok says to adhere to his own personal political views. A lot of people wonder, is Musk behind the keyboard tweeting as Grok? I don't think that's the case. This account posts millions of times a day, very, very rapidly, just at a rate I don't think any human could manage.
- [28:10]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. All right, well, Ryan and Kate, let's get into the big stuff that's happening right now. And I think it ties back to your book, because it's amazing that Elon Musk, you know, the richest man in the world, builds space. X builds Tesla, decides, you know, he wants to buy Twitter. He buys Twitter. And, you know, I remember being at the White House when Twitter blocked kicked Trump off the platform because they were worried he was going to incite another insurrection at the Capitol after January 6th. So Twitter was managed in a very different way. Elon Musk comes in, takes it over, turns it into this I mean, is it, is it wrong to say Ryan and I, I know you guys are straight laced New York Times reporters. Is it wrong to say that, that Elon Musk turned X into basically a right wing propaganda platform? I mean, right. It kind of has. Or am I wrong? I overstated.
- [29:02]
Laura Loomer
I mean, it's certainly elevated some of those voices. I don't, you know, anyone can post there. But, you know, there are a lot of different voices that are being elevated now and a lot of those the right. I think that's fair to say.
- [29:12]
Jim Acosta
Then what do you make Ryan of this relationship with Trump? Did you guys explore that at all in your book? I've made it through part of it. I know I enjoyed the parts where I shouldn't say I enjoyed the parts, but noted the parts where, you know, Elon Musk is, is, comes across as very thin skinned about whether he's going to be criticized by AOC and people like that. And, you know, it's interesting that he would join forces with somebody else who's very thin skinned, if I may say, and Donald Trump. I'm not saying you guys are saying it, I'm saying it. But what do you make of this relationship and how it's just kind of blown up in their faces?
- [29:48]
Laura Loomer
Well, I think the first thing I'd say is, you know, when we set out to write this book, we didn't expect it to be a Hunger Games trilogy. You know, we thought we'd just be one and done. And yeah, you know, this, this is both of our first books. And, you know, we thought we'd do it on this very monumental transaction, this kind of very abnormal deal. And we move on from there. And the saga has continued. And we went to, you know, our book came out in September. We had to go to press much earlier than that. So just as we were going to press, that's when Ellen, you know, announced his, his endorsement of Trump, that he was going to support his candidacy, his millions of dollars going into that campaign. And so we were like, you know, do we stop the presses at this point? Or, you know, how do we, how do we deal with this? But our book ends with actually their meeting, their first meeting, which I think is kind of an appropriate spot to end that book, at least at the time they're meeting in March where they start to court each other. He's with some other billionaires and President Trump or Candidate Trump comes to a breakfast to meet with these potential donors and you kind of, I think, you know, we end the book there and everyone understands what happens from there. So we don't need to hold their hands to explain it to them. But, you know, obviously, things have certainly escalated from there, and it's something we cover, you know, every day now, whether that's through the campaign or with Doge. You know, we now have to update the book with a new epilogue, and which we're doing now for the paperback. But, you know, it's been kind of all hands on deck throughout the year. Yeah.
- [31:25]
Jim Acosta
Well, and Kate, I mean, the way that Elon Musk has gone after Donald Trump, I mean, first of all, he's brought in, you know, at the beginning of the administration, he's going to take over this, this Doge project. People don't even understand what it is. Is it a federal agency? Is it not a federal agency? There's what, I mean, there's also what Elon Musk did at the inauguration. Many people viewed that as he did a Hitler salute. He did a, you know, he did a Nazi salute. I mean, I have, I have to assume if you guys do write more, the epilogue might be as long as the book itself. I don't know. But, I mean, and then for that, you know, for Trump and Elon Musk to be sort of joined at the hip there for several months and then to have the relationship fall apart the way it did. Are there any insights that you gained as you were writing this book the first time around, the way Elon Musk deals with people? I mean, a lot of folks around D.C. were saying, well, this was bound to happen. Trump and Elon Musk, you know, having their relationship blow up on the launch pad like this.
- [32:22]
Kate Conger
Yeah. I mean, I think that it is really clear from all the reporting that we've done on Elon that he wants to be the sole deciding voice in any room. And I think that set him up on a collision course with Trump. You know, these are both people who want to call the final shots, and I'm surprised that they made it as long as they did. You know, they were able to have a very collegial relationship for a pretty long time. And it was really only recently when they've clashed over Trump's big, beautiful bill, that they started to fall out with each other. And I think you see there, you know, Musk wants things to go a certain way. He wants to be able to be sort of the final influencing voice or vote on how that goes, and so does Trump. And so that was the final, you know, the final straw that broke things between them. But I think that you see that over and over again with Musk. He wants to be the final decision maker in any decision. And once he's called out, once he's contradicted publicly, he kind of can't help himself to double and triple down and to take that feud nuclear, which is.
- [33:28]
Jim Acosta
What he's done with Trump over the. Over the. Over the. Big beautiful Bill. I hate to call it that, but that's what it's been called. And, and Ryan, I suppose, I mean, did you kind of see things the way Kate did in terms of this relationship where you sort of. Of the mindset, oh, well, this was going to not end well at some point? I mean, it was kind of remarkable to see. You know, Trump was hawking Teslas on the south Lawn of the White House. I think these guys got very, very close. Elon Musk was bringing his little kid into the Oval Office. And I mean, these guys were very chummy there. And then all of a sudden, because of this legislation, there was this implosion.
- [34:08]
Laura Loomer
I think we both knew that there was going to be an expiration date on it. You know, we obviously didn't know when the date was because, you know, we would have prepared better for it. But we knew that given their histories, both of these men have a tendency to blow up on the people around them. You know, their relationships don't last very long. You know, we followed Musk, both of us have followed Moss for quite some time. And, you know, executives come and go in that orbit. There's very few that last for many years. The only one I can really think of is Gwynne Shotwell, the COO at SpaceX. But people come and go. Elon fires them, he rehires them, he fires them again. It's very similar to the Trump world. And I think for us, the main focus was what will they do together in that time together? Because bear in mind, they really enjoyed each other's company for the time that they were together. They were getting a lot of stuff done that, you know, stuff that they wanted to get done, you know, with Doge and, you know, all these cuts and, you know, the Tesla showroom on the White House lawn. These are things that both mutually benefit, benefited one another. And it's kind of odd to think that the thing that split them up was Musk being such a deficit hawk. But once he got fixated on that, that's when everything exploded. And now we're kind of sifting through that and trying to figure out what exactly happened there.
- [35:31]
Jim Acosta
And do we have any sense as to why Linda Yakarino decided to, to leave X. I mean, that's the other big news that came out of all of this. I mean, this was rather sudden. You know, she announced that she's stepping down as CEO. This came, this came a day after what took place with, with Grok. I mean, Kate, do you think that there's one might have something to do with the other, or was this sort of in the works? I mean, was Linda Yankarino seeing perhaps the writing on the wall and that this relationship between Musk and Trump is just going to devolve and get, you know, worse and worse from here? What do you think?
- [36:08]
Kate Conger
Well, so I think that what happened with Grok yesterday certainly didn't help. But what we've heard in our reporting is that Linda had been planning her exit and had started notifying people last week. Week. So that being said, I don't think that Grok suddenly going on an anti Semitic tear was the thing that finally influenced her to leave. I think she had been already planning this. But, you know, it certainly doesn't help. She has been someone who's wanted to protect her reputation and who has been really outspoken about these kinds of issues on the platform. But there are a couple of things going on here that I think could have influenced her decision. You know, one is that Musk recently used Xai, his artificial intelligence company, to acquire X and so basically put a whole layer of another company and management over Linda. Linda really wanted this job to be a CEO job. She wanted to be calling the shots. And now she has all this kind of management stacked on top of her. I don't think it was still the role that she had auditioned for and that she wanted. You know, and so there's that process also of Elon Musk coming out of the government and coming back into his businesses and wanting to assert more control and wanting to take more responsibility. He was really active and trying to push himself not back in the door just at X, but also with Tesla, Space X, Neuralink, the boring company. He's really trying to show that he's back in action as a businessman. And I think those two things combined kind of seeped a little bit of the power and influence away from Linda.
- [37:38]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, well, okay. I've asked about all the news related stuff. I do want to ask about the Twitter stuff because the, the takeover of Twitter, the way Twitter has changed it still endlessly fascinates me as I, I mean, I, I used it quite a bit as a correspondent over at the White House. I mean, as reporters, we all have used Twitter over the years. And maybe I, you know, got a little hyperbolic in my question to you earlier, Ryan, when I said, well, hasn't it become sort of a right wing propaganda platform? Can we just talk a little bit about how Twitter has changed? Because to me, it is, it is kind of, it is a remarkable, not only a business story, but, but a political story. And, you know, this entire company was just blown. Blown apart. You know, take us back to when staffers were leaving. I mean, I knew some of the staffers at Twitter. There's some very talented people that were just pushed out. It's kind of, it's unbelievable what's happened to this company.
- [38:35]
Laura Loomer
Yeah, I think to understand what Elon's takeover did to that company, it's the idea that everything that the previous management did at the company was wrong. He really saw them as incompetent and nefarious actors. And so he went in with that $44 billion offer in late 2022 and wanted to clean house. You know, he wanted to fire all the executives, which he did on within like an hour of taking over. He wanted to, you know, eliminate large swaths of the employee base. And since then, he's, he's, you know, eliminated about 80% of the company. And he's changed the fundamental makeup of the platform to the point where he has, you know, we've all seen this, changed how verification works. Now it's something that can be purchased and if you do purchase it, you elevate your replies, you elevate your engagement on the platform. And he's devalued, you know, voice expert voices. I don't want to toot my horn as a journalist, but, you know, I've seen a huge downgrade in engagement there to the point where I don't even think it's worth posting. Me too. You know, and I don't know what tweaks are going on behind the algorithm exactly, but it's very noticeable as a reporter. You know, I built my career on that platform as a young journalist and over a decade contributed to it and shared my stories and shared my reporting and, and got where I am today because of it. And now these days, you share something that is newsworthy, something that is relevant, you know, maybe gets a couple, you know, likes, you know, it doesn't get very far. Whereas you see right wing voices, you see folks like cat turd and trolls and conspiracy theorists, all thousands of retweets.
- [40:23]
Jim Acosta
And, you know, all kinds of engagement.
- [40:26]
Laura Loomer
Yeah, I mean, someone like Andrew Tate, for example, A huge misogynist, conspiracy theorist, misinformation provider. Someone who was banned under old Twitter, was brought back, brought back gleefully by X and, you know, is elevated and now gets thousands of engagements on his posts now, you know, it's, it's a completely different environment and I struggle to even call it Twitter these days. I mean, it's not Twitter, it's X. You know, it's a completely different thing. And I think that's kind of the point of our book, that Twitter is dead and in its place is a completely new platform.
- [41:01]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. And Kate, I mean, you know, the other thing that Trump did, in addition to, or I should say Elon Musk did, was bring back Trump, as I was saying earlier. And, you know, that was another component in all of this, is that Elon Musk replatformed people that Twitter had de platform had taken off of the site because in a way they, they were just deemed to be too dangerous. And, and that was when conservatives would howl, you know, how can you regulate free speech like this? And Elon Musk himself, I think, got on this tirade about regulating free speech and so on. And folks had to say, well, you know, you are on a private company's website, you know, you, you know, or I mean, it's, I guess, a publicly traded company's website. But on a company's website there are terms of use. You violate the terms of use, you're not allowed on the platform anymore. And can you talk about that a little bit, Kate, in the way Elon Musk said, okay, we're going to put a lot of these people back on.
- [41:54]
Kate Conger
Right? Yeah. So that was something that Musk really was concerned with. When he came back. He felt like too many people had been banned and he wanted it to be more of an open forum, allow these voices back. And what he said in his view is that X at its best should represent a player versus player video game, which is like the kind of game where two players are like actively battling against each other, shooting at each other, that kind of thing. And so that's kind of the environment he wanted for X, was one that was very combative, very combustive, and where people are kind of like going to war in the marketplace of ideas. But I think what Twitter previously always kind of struggled with was figuring out who its creators or influencers were going to be the kind of big voices who are going to drive the platform for growth, growth the way, you know, they have on Instagram, on TikTok, even on Substack, and, and that's always been kind of a sticky spot for the company. They don't really know who those people are going to be. You know, maybe it's voices like Trump who draw a lot of attention. You know, maybe it's a voice like Kevin Durant who gets on X and Twitter and, you know, kind of dukes it out with his fans when they criticize him. Or, you know, someone like Cher, whose account I love because it's just kind of unhinged and crazy and like really funny. But, you know, there's just kind of these random voices that have come to the platform. And I think that under Musk, his view of what the influencer of X would be who would drive that conversation is these really prominent right wing voices who maybe didn't have access to those other platforms who've been kicked off of YouTube or kicked off of Instagram, kicked off of Facebook. And so they would be able to really bring the audience and find their community on X. But, you know, I think that has also been very alienating for a lot of the other people who are core users of the platform. They liked being on Twitter because it felt like a safer place for your conversation where they weren't going to get dogpiled, they weren't going to be subjected to these kinds of right wing attacks. And so, you know, bringing those people back, they come with new audiences, but it's alienating to old audiences that have been on the platform for a long time.
- [44:02]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, well, and I. Go ahead, go ahead, Ryan.
- [44:04]
Laura Loomer
No, I think of someone like Laura Loomer, for example. My colleagues just wrote a great story on her that came out yesterday. Laura Loomer was banned from Twitter. She was banned from Facebook and Instagram. And when she was banned from Twitter, she chained herself to the doors of Twitter to get her account back. They never gave it to her back. When Elon takes over, he reinstates her account. And now she's one of the most influential accounts on X. You know, she is influencing policy decisions. She, she's influencing personnel decisions in the White House. She's getting meetings with Trump. I mean, that's all kind of in part due to her influence, her ability to get in front of him because of her ex account. And I think that's the exact kind of person that is benefiting from Musk's ownership here.
- [44:48]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, and I should note, I mean, there are some substack users who are chiming in with some great comments. One being it's that it's too bad that this kind of stuff sucks people in but it does. And I, you know, it, it fuels a lot of what we're seeing on X. I mean, I will say to me, one of the startling things about the platform is I don't think they're regulating threats the way they used to. I don't know if you're running across that and you're reporting. I mean, we're threatening language. I mean, there was stuff put up about me not too long ago, within the past few months, you know, there was some weird fan fiction type of story that was written that said, I've been executed. And I reported this to X. I sent a message to X saying, hey, what the hell is this? Can you have this taken down? They never, they never took it down, just kept going. The person who put it up, nothing happened to that person. In the old days of Twitter, that kind of stuff that I to. There was. There were people there at Twitter who would deal with this. And to me, that I think also sort of opens up the question as to whether it's kind of a dangerous platform now, more dangerous than it once was, because they don't have people there policing this stuff the way they used to. I don't know whoever wants to respond to that.
- [46:03]
Kate Conger
I think this is something that Twitter in its, in its olden days had studied. Because, you know, if you remember, the founders of Twitter started out with a vision of online free speech very similar to Elon Musk's. You know, they wanted to be, quote, unquote, the free speech wing of the Free Speech party. They wanted to allow a maximum amount of content and, you know, it made Twitter known as a place for harassment, for dog piling for these huge harassment campaigns. And Twitter at the time was doing a lot of user studies because they wanted to grow their usership. They needed to compete with Instagram and Facebook. And their investors were really looking for growth in user numbers. And so they did all these studies. How are we going to get more people on our platform? And what they found was that they had to make people feel safe enough to join the conversation in post. People were scared of being harassed, and so they would lurk on Twitter, maybe read posts, but they wouldn't contribute to the conversation. A lot of their motivation to make these content moderation rules in the first place was to attract users onto the platform and make them feel safe enough to use it. And so their vision of free speech shifted to instead of a conversation where everyone's allowed to scream at each other, a conversation that is allowing a maximum number of voices to join. There are Most people want to be there. They want to engage. They feel like they can post and share and be comfortable in that. And what we're seeing now is really a shift Back to Twitter 1.0. You know, the very original version that was no holds barred, anything goes. And it's driving people away again, just like Twitter found that it did the first time around.
- [47:42]
Jim Acosta
Well, guys, best of luck to you in writing the epilogue. Something tells me you might be working on it for a little while. There's the book right there, character Limit, How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter. Kate Conger, Ryan Mack, guys, thank you very much. Really appreciate you joining me today. And just a fascinating book. And with all this Elon Musk news, I kind of struck gold here having you both on today. So we covered a lot of ground. Thanks for your time.
- [48:06]
Kate Conger
Yeah, thank you for having us.
- [48:08]
Jim Acosta
All right. And Ryan, see, I did it. We had you on. So thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thanks to both of you. I do want to say that I have been enjoying all of the comments over there on FOX about Superman comic book movie. I'm so glad I had a chance to talk about that with Congressman Garcia earlier on in the program. If you missed it, you got to go back and take a, take a look at that. You know, Congressman Garcia, I think, raises a very good point, and it's something that I've always carried with me. Maybe he touched on something that I didn't realize I, that drew me to comics and some of these superheroes and somebody like Superman, that it is an immigrant story. It is the story of somebody who comes from basically a different world to this strange new place called Metropolis, to America, and finds a way not just to contribute to society, but to be the hero to save the world. I think that's something that, you know, so many immigrants who come to this country just dream of that. That is the American dream, that you can come here and make something out of your life. And we're seeing so many people come to this country right now who are, who have been swept up in these ICE raids, who thought they were coming here for the same reasons that Robert Garcia's family came here, for the same reason that my dad, my grandmother came here. They were trying to escape a communist country. Now Trump's ICE agents are rounding up Cuban Americans in Miami, Cuban immigrants in Miami who had dreams, I guess, of becoming what you would call Cuban Americans in this country and sending them, sending them off to all sorts of places. And it's just, it's just wrong and it is Villainous. It does sound like something that Lex Luthor would do, and it does sound like something that we would need Superman to swoop in and save us from. And, you know, I was thinking about, I was, you know, toying around with this piece for Substack. I'm probably going to put it out there here in the next day or so. But, you know, there are, there are folks in MAGA world who I think just saw, you know, Lex Luthor, Donald Trump for who he was earlier this week. Yesterday it was, I went in the middle of that cabinet meeting. He, he started to blow up and have a tantrum over questions being asked about Jeffrey Epstein and what, what, what's going on here? Why are they trying to sweep that case under the rug? Why does he have a problem with questions being asked about Jeffrey Epstein? I mean, when he was running for president in 2024, when Jeffrey Epstein was brought up by Fox News or various podcasters, he was happy to answer those questions. There were, there were things going on during those days, too. But all of a sudden there are more important things to talk about than whatever question pops out of a reporter's mouth. I mean, give me a break. To me, that is when Donald Trump sort of told on himself. And you know, that's what villains do. That's what Lex Luthor does. That's what the, the, the villains of our comic books of our childhoods do. They tell on themselves. And that was a moment to me that crystallized things in my book in terms of what's going on with this Jeffrey Epstein case, how I think it is becoming something of a, an Epstein gate for Donald Trump? I think the question has to be asked, question should be asked. What did the President know? When did he know it? Did he have any involvement in the writing of that Department of Justice memo that tried to sweep this case under the rug? Did any direction come from people inside the White House? And for all the folks on the far right who have been asking these questions about Jeffrey Epstein for all these years, inadvertently, I think some of them were asking about something that appears to be pretty damn important. What appears to be, perhaps, looks like it to me, a major cover up of just absolutely appalling criminal behavior. And if any of this has any links that can be traced back to the White House, my God, the American people have a right to know about this. They have a right to, to truth, to justice in all of this. And so I, I, I'm, I'm kind of looking to you, Maga. I'm, I'm I'm looking to some of you in the Magaverse and the Maga multiverse to step forward and keep asking those questions. Don't, don't, don't retreat to the position. Well, okay, if we just, if we throw Pam Bondi under the bus, if we just blame her for all of this, then the story goes away. Then, then the scandal goes away. Not so much. I don't think so. Not so fast. Hold on a second. Is my response to that. Why was Donald Trump getting so hot under the collar when he was asked about the Jeffrey Epstein case? Why was he, what was going on there? What was the deal with that? And you can't. I'm sorry, Pam. Bonnie, I'm sorry. You know, you can't one day say back in February, oh, the list is on my desk. And then you put out a memo that says, oh, it doesn't exist anymore. And then you, you, when you're asked about it at a Cabinet meeting. Oh, I was just talking about the files, you know, like the MLK and the JFK files. It's pretty, pretty ridiculous answer coming from the Attorney general after all these years. Donald Trump, J.D. vance, Pam Bondi, Cash Patel, Dan Bongino. These people made fortunes. Charlie Kirk, Benny Johnson, Laura Loomer. Y' all say their names. Marjorie Taylor Greene. I say, I'll say their names on this program. Made political careers, made political hay, made fortunes, made money off of this case. Don't stop asking the questions now. Now that the heat is getting too, too hot for the man inside the Oval Office. What did the President know and when did he know it? It's a simple question and it needs to be answered. Thanks, everybody, for joining me today. My thanks to Congressman Robert Garcia. My thanks to Kate Conger and Ryan Mack, authors of the book Character Limit. Glad we had that discussion about Elon Musk and his role over at Twitter. Thanks, everybody, for watching. Still reporting from Washington, I'm Jim Acosta. Have a good evening. And we'll keep fighting for truth, justice, and the American way. Don't you worry about that.