3625 - Shut Down Ends, Epstein Barrage Begins; Republican Dummymander w/ Heather 'Digby' Parton

Summary

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The Majority Report with Sam Seder

Episode 3625 – Shut Down Ends, Epstein Barrage Begins; Republican Dummymander

Guest: Heather ‘Digby’ Parton (Salon, Hullabaloo)
Release Date: November 14, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into a tumultuous week in American politics, focusing on two major stories: the official end of the government shutdown—amidst Democratic infighting and Republican machinations—and the explosive release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, which have sent shockwaves through media and political spheres, especially concerning Donald Trump’s connections. Sam Seder is joined for a rich discussion and analysis by veteran political columnist Heather ‘Digby’ Parton, with additional conversation around gerrymandering fallout in Texas, the ongoing nationwide Starbucks strike, economic hardships, and the current climate agenda under the Trump administration.

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Key Discussion Points & Analysis

1. The Flood of Epstein Emails and Their Fallout

(Timestamps: 08:26 – 29:53; 41:51 – 54:47)

• Main Takeaway: The House Oversight Democratic subpoena led to the release of 20,000 Epstein-related emails, exposing deep connections between Epstein and high-profile figures, igniting scrutiny over Trump’s past claims and bringing new urgency to force a comprehensive DOJ file release.
• Ghislaine Maxwell’s DOJ Dealings: Revelations that Maxwell lied to Todd Blanche (Trump’s former defense lawyer, later at DOJ), and subsequently received extraordinary privileges in prison, raise suspicions of a cover-up and corruption stretching into federal law enforcement.
• Trump’s Desperate Maneuvers: Trump administration is fiercely resisting full disclosure, fearing direct damage not just from Epstein’s own behavior but from what powerful friends, especially Trump himself, may have participated in.
  • “If Democrats had control of one house, they would pull Blanche up and interview him. That’s why there is so much fear.” — Sam Seder (11:56)
• Right-wing Media Spin: Notably, Megyn Kelly downplays statutory rape in defense of Trump, attempting to reframe the narrative as merely “barely legal” liaisons.
  • “15 is not barely legal, 15 is illegal. That’s illegal. Go back.” — Sam Seder (16:04)
• Heather Digby Parton’s Take: The unprecedented groveling toward Epstein by major public figures is “sick,” and the most shocking element is the extent to which the Trump camp is rattled, suggesting there is genuinely damning material yet unreleased.

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2. Government Shutdown Resolution & Democratic Compromise

(Timestamps: 31:31 – 41:51)

• Democratic Strategy Censured: Democrats in the Senate, notably aided by Chuck Schumer’s orchestration, use retiring or “safe” Senators to defuse a protracted shutdown, effectively conceding ground on major issues.
  • “You don’t have only the resigning people and people who aren’t up for re-election until 2030 all taking the bullet unless it’s a plan. It was lame.” — Heather Digby Parton (37:56)
• Missed Opportunities & Weakness: Instead of employing leverage for incremental continuing resolutions, the Dems’ gambit deflates enthusiasm after election victories, with the only saving grace being the Epstein revelations that shifted the news cycle.
• Filibuster Dynamics: The shutdown compromise exposes the Democratic establishment’s enduring commitment to the filibuster as a tool to limit progressive legislation, prioritizing internal party control over bold action.
  • “Schumer’s fighting a two-front war: one against the Republicans, and the other against the progressives in his party. The filibuster is how he does it.” — Sam Seder (47:31)

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3. Epstein Barrage – Trump, DOJ, and White House Panic

(Timestamps: 50:33 – 77:47)

• Democratic Discharge Petition: With just enough bipartisan support, the House forces a vote to release the full Epstein files, stirring panic in the Trump White House.
• Notable Resistance: Republican pragmatists like Boebert, Mace, and Massie hold strong against intense White House pressure, shocking observers and highlighting Trump’s waning influence.
  • “Stood there and stood up to Trump, and I can’t see how it could've been a setup. Boebert and Mace defied Donald Trump.” — Heather Digby Parton (52:47)
• Possible Trump Exposure: Analysts speculate whether Trump’s real fear is that he cooperated with law enforcement against Epstein (possibly as an informant), explaining both his hands-off treatment by DOJ for decades and peculiarities in past FBI scrutiny.
  • “If Trump was the person who gave evidence to the FBI about Epstein, did he have a pre-existing relationship with the FBI?” — Sam Seder (64:23)
• Republican Reaction: Figures like Ben Shapiro suggest that transparency would “ruin Trump’s presidency,” an inadvertent admission of the files’ likely severity (71:54).
• Media & Right-Wing Narrative Engineering: Sam and Digby chronicle right-wing attempts—led by Megyn Kelly and Ben Shapiro—to redefine statutory rape and shift discourse, not as Epstein apologetics, but to defend allies implicated by the email dump.

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4. Texas ‘Dummymander’ Backfires After Democratic Surge

(Timestamps: 77:47 – 84:49)

• Texas Redistricting: Republicans, riding high after a narrow 2024 Trump victory in Texas, engineered a gerrymander so aggressive it thinned GOP margins in multiple districts, risking catastrophic losses in a blue-wave cycle.
  • “In a blue wave election, what was a 10 point safe seat is now a 5 point safe seat—that’s doable for Democrats. They were drowning in their own f---ing hype.” — Heather Digby Parton (78:33)
• National Implications: The backlash against the Texas gerrymander contributes to Democratic momentum elsewhere, as in California, where Newsom championed a successful redistricting reform, potentially offsetting any GOP gains.
  • “There’s a name for it, called ‘dummymandering’—and you just don’t do that if you have any sense.” — Heather Digby Parton (84:33)
• Optimism: Unusually, Digby and Sam close this segment with cautious hope that Republican overreach is opening new windows for Democratic gains, celebrating the courage of Texas Dems who, while losing, sparked national resistance and reform.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Megyn Kelly's Downplaying of Statutory Rape

  • “I just want a point of clarification. 15 is not barely legal.” — Sam Seder (16:04)
  • “Teen is not a type. It’s a massive red flag.” — Sam Seder (18:41)

• On Democratic Shutdown Capitulation

  • “They were taking the fall for it… all being the ones to take a vote and everybody else going, ‘oh no, I'm really upset and I'm not going to do that.’” — Heather Digby Parton (37:56)

• On Trump’s Influence Over DOJ

  • “It’s also interesting to see how far into the prison Donald Trump has the ability to project power into, right?” — Sam Seder (58:33)
  • “That just says… don’t worry, you’ve got a puppy, you’re getting all the privileges… just hang in there, hon. We got you.” — Heather Digby Parton (57:54)

• On the Implications of the Epstein Dump

  • “All Trump's doing today… he's reduced to going after JP Morgan and Chase. It is flop sweat times a thousand.” — Heather Digby Parton (67:33)

• Gerrymandering Lessons

  • "It's called dummy-mandering... you just don't do that if you have any sense." — Heather Digby Parton (84:33)

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Segment Timestamps for Reference

• 03:54–08:26 – News rundown and show open; summary of Epstein and shutdown.
• 08:26–29:53 – Deep dive on the Epstein email dump, Trump’s connections, and right-wing defenses.
• 29:53–41:51 – Interview begins with Digby; mood of political overwhelm and start of shutdown analysis.
• 41:51–54:47 – Strategic analysis of Democratic cave-in and filibuster politics.
• 54:47–77:47 – Epstein email fallout, speculation on Trump’s FBI dealings, and panic in the White House.
• 77:47–84:49 – Texas gerrymander “dummymander” fallout and discussion of electoral consequences.
• 84:49–end – Lighthearted close, optimism for future organizing, and community engagement plugs.

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Tone & Style

The episode balances irreverence with incisive political commentary, mixing sardonic humor and blunt critique of the political establishment, especially the cynical calculations and self-protective maneuvers in both parties.

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Conclusion

Episode 3625 stands out for its dense coverage of two seismic political stories: the rise in transparency demands surrounding Epstein’s black book—exposing not just personal depravity but systematic protection for the powerful—and for exposing the strategic, sometimes cowardly failures of Democrats during the government shutdown showdown. The analysis with Heather ‘Digby’ Parton provides historical depth and sharp warnings about the institutional rot but closes with rare, tepid optimism thanks to grassroots resilience and Republican overreach.

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For more political analysis and to keep up with breaking developments, follow Heather ‘Digby’ Parton at Hullabaloo and Salon.com.

Transcript

[Sam Cedar]

Hey folks, today's episode brought to you by my favorite sponsor, sunsetlakeseba day.com but why am I hiding the coupon code? Well, I'll tell you why. Our friends at Sunset Lake know it's not easy to be feel thankful these days. So they wanted to extend their thanks to this show, our amazing listeners and a special shout out to Brian for the lifted tea love. Oh, I didn't make that up.

[Brian]

How about sort of a shout out? You sent me some more tea.

[Sam Cedar]

Just kidding. No, he's not.

[Matt]

Unless you're going to do it.

[Sam Cedar]

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[Heather Digby Parton]

The.

[Sam Cedar]

Majority Report with Sam Cedar where every day is casual. Friday that means Monday is casual Monday, Tuesday casual Tuesday, Wednesday casual Hump day, Thursday casual Thirs that's what we call it. And Friday casual Shabbat the Majority Report with Sam Cedar. It is Friday, November 14, 2025. My name is Sam Cedar. This is the five time award winning Majority Report. We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, usa. On the program today, the proprietor of the Uber blog Hullabaloo Digby will be joining us. Maybe you know her as Heather Parton, [e-mail] To look back on this, another insane week in news. Also on the program today, Democrats discharge petition regarding the Epstein files succeeds bill to be voted on within a week. Then it will head to the Senate. Government shutdown officially over Senate to vote on subsidies as the Democrats try and force the same vote in the House. Just a reminder that so called deal that those eight Democrats struck was virtually for nothing. Epstein email dump shows Ghislaine Maxwell lied and questions why Trump's DOJ has given her such special privileges in a minimum security prison. My understanding she has a puppy. Pete Hegseth announces Operation Southern Spear in parentheses. Don't look at the Epstein emails as US warships are off Venezuelan coast, perhaps armed at a trove of those very same Epstein files. John Fetterman in the hospital after a fall and a heart stoppage. New report 1 in 4Americans are living paycheck to paycheck and Starbucks workers launch a nationwide strike and call on consumers to boycott Starbucks. Marco Rubio says US visas can now be denied if someone is too heavy or has cancer. Trump regime reverses a ban on drilling and mining in Alaskan wilderness after the UN issues a report that our climate change window is very quickly closing. All this and more on today's Majority Report. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Emma Vigland out today. She'll be back on Monday. However, if you really need your Emma Viglan fix, she is on Pod Save with one of the pod johns. She is also on. What was the other one that she's on?

[Brian]

She's on office hours today.

[Sam Cedar]

I'm not gonna, I'm not going to promote. That's disgusting. She's on, I think too. Yes. Oh, wait, what is it? Higher Learning, which she said was great, so check out that. We'll try and put some links in the YouTube and podcast descriptions. But she's on a podcast junket out in California, so check that out. Higher Learning, Pod Save America, office hours. And I think she's got that airs.

[Matt]

During the Fun House.

[Brian]

Yeah, you're going to need a two.

[Matt]

Screen solution directly competitive with our, with our comedic offering today.

[Sam Cedar]

Whoa. All right.

[Brian]

Well, okay, I wasn't going to say that, but it's super awkward.

[Sam Cedar]

That's fine. We got a lot to get to. In the meantime, we got to cram it all in before that office hour starts. Everybody abandons the show over there. And let me just preface this by saying, like, you know, there were 20,000 emails dumped. There are many, many stories in these Epstein emails. There's a whole sort of like saga going on with Larry Summers, who was the former president of Harvard, a longtime Democratic advisor to multiple Democratic administrations, maybe the past three. There are stories of Summers acting like a, literally like a, I want to say like a 15 year old incel, I mean a 17 year old incel, 20, like he's 60 and he's asking, or was in the emails asking for like tips on how to pick up girls. But we will get to those. But the point being there's so many of these emails and we're going to try and cover these over the course of the next week or so before we get to the question of the discharge petition or I should say the legislation that would force the DOJ to dump this stuff. But there has been an intense, really intense push by the Trump administration to keep these from coming out. And we are now, you know, we are now in the scramble where the right who are completely married to the idea of Donald Trump, his authoritarian rule and Republican control of the government, where they're beginning to sort of like go through a series of, I don't know how to really say this, excuses, explanations, ways in which to divert attention from this. And it's becoming increasingly difficult. We will, we will get to some of the Others who do this. But let's start with perhaps sort of the most grotesque attempt to underplay what's in there. I mean, you can look at these emails and at the very least you, it is quite definitive that everything that Donald Trump has said about his relationship with Epstein was a lie. We sort of already knew this. There's also really indisputable evidence that Ghislaine Maxwell, whatever she said to Donald Trump's second the doj, who incidentally Blanche, Todd Blanche, who was his former defense lawyer up until like January 19, went in and met with Ghislaine Maxwell to find out if she knew anything about Trump and his involvement with Epstein. She said, no, he never, he was never around or anything. What Donald Trump? I mean, I've heard the name, obviously he's the president, but I, these emails make it very clear that she lied to Todd Blanche. And following that interview, she was moved against all of Bureau of Prisons rules to a minimum security prison and is getting all sorts of benefits. The CNN did a piece about it. We'll talk more about that later. But Blanche supposedly had access to all of these emails. And even giving him the benefit of the doubt, that's a tremendous amount of incompetence to not actually make an assessment as to whether she lied. If Democrats had control of one house, they would pull, blanch up and they would be interviewing him. And this is what, you know, this is part of the reason why there is so much fear of the Democrats even controlling one house. But here is an attempt by Megyn Kelly, I want to say longtime right winger, but she took a break when, from being a right winger when Donald Trump sort of excommunicated her by saying that she was bleeding from everywhere during a, during a debate question that she had.

[Brian]

I think this is also after like she tried to rehab her rep after the Santa Claus is white thing, right?

[Sam Cedar]

Well, no, she never felt any need. No, no, no. Are you kidding? That is what, that's what promoted, promoted her career. Oh, my bad. She, she only tried to rehabilitate after Donald Trump basically excommunicated her.

[Heather Digby Parton]

Okay.

[Sam Cedar]

So she left Fox, told some tales about sexual harassment, I think at Fox and then headed over to NBC. So here is Megyn Kelly in 2018 on NBC.

[Megyn Kelly]

You know, you, you feel as a victim, you feel a victim you to people who are going to be out there because, you know, some are going to judge and say you were 15, you were 16, you were 17, you were a willing participant. Again, the legal age of consent In California is 18. So there's no consenting for a 14 or even a 17 year old in these circumstances as.

[Sam Cedar]

Okay, there she is talking about, I guess Scott Baio was accused of, of I think having sex with a girl under the age of consent. I don't remember the details of that, but largely it's not important because at that time Megyn Kelly all the way back in 2018 understood that that was statutory rape. You can't give consent definitionally because of your age. At least legally because of your age, that's statutory rape. Well, apparently seven years later, in 2025, as in like yesterday, I think it was. Megyn Kelly has a new understanding of what statutory rape is now that it becomes clear that Donald Trump may have been involved with teenage girls via Jeffrey Epstein.

[Megyn Kelly]

As for Epstein, I've said this before, but just as a reminder, I do know somebody very, very close to this case who is in a position to know virtually everything. Not everything, but virtually everything. And this person has told me from the start, years and years ago that Jeffrey Epstein, in this person's view was not a pedophile. This is this person's view who was there for a lot of this, but that he was into the barely legal type. Like he liked 15 year old girls. And I realize this is disgusting for one second.

[Sam Cedar]

I just want a point of clarification. Yeah, 15 is not barely legal.

[Brian]

15 is barely illegal.

[Sam Cedar]

It's not quite legal. It is totally illegal.

[Matt]

Yeah, like you're going to jail.

[Sam Cedar]

Barely legal is someone who is a couple of days older than the age of consent or a month older than the age of consent or a year older than the age of consent. That's not barely legal. That's illegal. Go back.

[Megyn Kelly]

That he was into the barely legal type, like he liked 15 year old girls. And I realize this is disgusting. I'm definitely not trying to make an excuse for this. I'm just giving you facts that he.

[Sam Cedar]

Was not actually facts. It's interesting. I think she's an attorney, right? She doesn't know what facts are. So in fact what she is doing is she is trying to make excuses. She's trying to make excuses but trying not to own it. That I just want to make that clear. Go back.

[Megyn Kelly]

15 year old girls. And I realize this is disgusting. I'm definitely not trying to make an excuse for this. I'm just giving you facts that he wasn't into like 8 year olds but he liked the very young teen types that could pass for even younger than they were but would look sounds like he liked legal to a Passerby. And that is what I believed and that was what I reliably was told for many years. And it wasn't until we heard from, from Pam Bondi that they had tens of thousands of videos of alleged, forgive me, they used to call it kiddie porn. Now they call it child sexual abuse material on his computer that for the first time I thought, oh, no, he was an actual pedophile. I mean, only a pedophile gets off on young children abuse videos. She's never clarified it. I don't know whether it's true. I have to be honest. I don't really trust Pam Bondi's word on the Epstein or anything else anymore. Yeah. So I don't know what's true about him, but we have yet to see anybody come forward and say, I was a, like a. I was under 10, I was under 14.

[Sam Cedar]

So what? Well, but understand what she's doing here because she's, she's saying that first of all, a teen is not a type. It's like, you know, like I like to date someone who's athletic or I like to state someone who's crunchy, or I like to date someone who's, you know, a free spirit type. Yeah, a religious type.

[Heather Digby Parton]

That's.

[Sam Cedar]

Teen is not a type. That's not a type.

[Matt]

A red flag.

[Sam Cedar]

It's a. Yeah, massive red flag. But, but understand what she's doing here. She is willing to sort of entertain the notion that Epstein may have had been a real pedophile, but she's pretending that she's talking about Epstein. And the fact is, at the end of the day, people are not. This is not about Epstein. It's about Epstein's relationships with other powerful people who may have engaged in this stuff. And so what she's doing is she's trying to use Epstein as a way of redefining what statutory rape is, what pedophilia is. And why would she be doing this? Is she doing it for Epstein's benefit? Is she worried about Epstein's legacy? No, she is beginning a project that. I wasn't sure if they would ever do this, although I'm sure that at times we joked about it where they want to basically redefine what pedophilia, what statutory rape is in the event that one of their favorites, like Donald Trump is found to have engaged in that stuff. And that's what's going on. There's going to be a whole barrage of ways in which they deflect from this, and it's going to be important to sort of call it out when we see it. I don't know how many people are going to buy that. I don't know who she thinks she's kidding there, but I don't think that Megyn Kelly is on a Jeffrey Epstein reform, his reputation project. She's doing this because she is trying to build a function, if you will, a black box so that if new information about other people comes out, that black box exists and that information is fed through that back black box. And when it comes off the other side, it's like, well, you like to type. You know you like to type.

[Brian]

It was in the biblical days.

[Sam Cedar]

Yeah, stuff like that.

[Brian]

I mean, like, I'm sure that's what Walsh is doing. I haven't checked.

[Sam Cedar]

But in some ways Donald Trump is more God fearing because he's gone back to, I mean, does anybody think that Abraham's, that Abraham's wife was, was in her 20s? I don't think so. That's what we're going to see next from these people. So keep an eye on it. As the show progresses, we will play some clips of other people trying to run defense for this as well. First, a couple of words from our sponsors before we bring Heather Digby Parton on. I'm not, there's, there's certain words here I can't, I'm just not going to say this is Emma's. Like Emma chose this week because she knew that we had some tushy commercials coming on. There's a couple of words I've never heard of Santa's coal hole before. They're only naughty words. If you wipe using a tushy bidet means you leave the bathroom so much cleaner than when you walked in. Let's get into it. Look, if you have never used the bidet in your life, like I, I went through the first four and a half, maybe five decades of my life never having used a bidet. I didn't even understand what they were until I was in like my 20s or 30s. I just, you never see them in, in the States until, I don't know, like 10, 15 years ago. And a bidet in this instance for tushy is an attachment that you can put on your toilet and it will wash your bum with water and the dirtiest part of your bum with water. And it makes total sense when you think about it. If you get dirt on your hands, if you get dirt on your hands, you don't use a dry piece of paper to wipe it off. And I will tell you something, if you've never tried it. It's a little bit scary at first and then all of a sudden it's like I now feel like a civilized person. That's it. You have moved, you have transcended. You almost become like a different being. Tushy is the everyday luxury bidet that instantly transforms your bathroom habits and bottom health for life. I'll tell I don't. I'm not going to go through all the benefits that you feel like the physical benefits. But it, believe me, it's great. Tushy's elevated bidet collection nurtures your bottom with instant warm water that never runs cold, a soothing heated seat and UV sterilization for next level hygiene. All Tushy bidets easily attached to your existing toilet without the need for additional plumbing. It is super easy to do if you can take off your toilet seat. Like if you've ever replaced the toilet seat, you could. You got this. It'll take you about 10 minutes to set it up. Cleaning yourself after the bathroom is now hands free because they got a new version of Tushy. You sit, cleanse and dry using the built in air dryer. Instead of wiping endlessly with toilet paper, Tushy pristinely removes 99% of bacteria while protecting your natural skin barrier. Thanks to one natural ingredient, it is fresh water. Every hello Tushy bidet comes with a 30 day hassle free return and a 12 month warranty. The hello Tushy bidet is the perfect gift. Listen, you can change someone's life this Kwanzaa or Hanukkah or Christmas or even Thanksgiving. What a Thanksgiving gift to show up with.

[Brian]

Not kidding after all that pie.

[Heather Digby Parton]

Of course.

[Sam Cedar]

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[Heather Digby Parton]

Sam.

[Sam Cedar]

We are back, ladies and gentlemen. Emma Viglin. Out today. Joining us, the proprietor of the Uber blog Hullabaloo, and the columnist [e-mail], heather Digby Parton. Heather, welcome back. We've got you in some, some noir lighting so that we capture your, your mood today. What has you so noir these days?

[Heather Digby Parton]

Well, you know, I shouldn't be, what with all the Epstein hoopla, which is sort of a, strangely enough, a bright spot. But, you know, there's just so much, I mean, it's just, it's overwhelming. Every day I wake up and I grab my phone like everybody else does who does what I do, and I'm just so, what fresh hell awaits today? And it's always something with these people and it just, it's so gross. You know, the stuff that, that ICE is doing, the lack of empathy toward people on SNAP benefits now Trump is talking about, you know, getting rid of that as well. You know, all the stuff we went through on the shutdown, the cruelty, the meanness of it all, it just, it gets to Me. So I end up feeling a bit, you know, just a bit, a bit dark, I guess, in my, in my mood because of all that. Having said that, though, you know, there are some good things over the past couple of weeks that, you know, are worth lightening my mood just a little bit.

[Sam Cedar]

Yeah, I don't want to get too navel gazing about this, so we'll move on from this quickly. But you and I have been doing this. I mean, I think I've been, I've been interviewing you for 20 years. I certainly been reading you for, I don't know, since the day you started the blog, probably, I don't know, 22, 23, 24 years ago. And the, the amount of political news that is, that is relevant. Right. I mean, on any given day we have, you know, we're at the break, usually we just sort of confer briefly about what we're going to talk about. And, you know, we could be on the verge of a war, I guess, with Venezuela, which has been largely under the radar. We've killed over 80 people now unilaterally by blowing them up in boats. That barely makes a headline now. It's just sort of like, you know, page seven, a little brief. Hegseth announced we killed six more people today for both dubious reasons and completely illegal ones. Like, even if their, their excuse about it that they're drug, narco, drug, you know, terror, you know, monsters. Even if that were true, there's no authority to just unilaterally bomb these guys. And it doesn't make a peep because there's a half a dozen other stories that are, I mean, nobody even covers the fact that like, the Trump family has made billions of dollars in 10 months and have every aspect of our government is now leveraged to make him money. And it's completely like a mob project. And then, you know, with the people cracking heads on the street with the, and it's, you know, today at the beginning of the show, it's like, okay, how do we even go forward and covering all of this stuff? Because it all is pretty relevant both in terms of, like, the destruction of our government, the immiseration of our people and what might get us out of it.

[Heather Digby Parton]

Yeah, exactly. No, you're absolutely right. I mean, it just, it goes, it is, it is, it is overwhelming. And I mean, I'm just, I just wrote a piece yesterday that'll go up on Salon over the weekend about the, you know, the, the pardons and commutations as well as the punishment of enemies that alone, that level of abuse of the Department of Justice. And the pardon power is, I mean, nothing. I mean, as Trump likes to say, we've never seen anything like it, and we never have. I mean, there's been abusive pardons before and there have been, you know, Richard Nixon tried to leverage the Department of Justice against his enemies, but this is just, it's a fully, it's a full system that they've developed for doing this now. And you have these crazy people in throughout the administration and God knows how many people we don't know about that they've just stuck in, that are going to be there for God knows how long before they're discovered, that are just devoted to this project of rooting out Trump's enemies and rewarding his friends. And it's a full blown autocracy, kleptocracy, oligarchy. I mean, the whole thing is happening right there. And it's so big that it's hard to wrap your mind around. You know, we just sit here and try, like you say, you know, just trying to cover it, much less trying to analyze what the whole thing means or what the, you know, how to deal with it, or what the prospects are for it collapsing or the Democrats, you know, somehow rising from the ashes. I mean, it's a lot. It's a lot. And I hear, you know, there are a lot of people that I know in my real life who are just saying, I can't keep up, I can't do it. And that scares me because, you know, you kind of have to. I mean, if we don't, if everybody doesn't do it, that's one reason why the no Kings protest kind of made me feel a little bit better. Cause it was huge. And it just showed me just being among people, just ordinary people. They're not like political, you know, anything. They were just ordinary people, at least in the groups that I was with. And I realized that, okay, people may not be paying super close attention like I do because it's my job, but they know they're getting it, they're getting what's happening. So, you know, and then, of course, the election results kind of validated that as well.

[Sam Cedar]

Yeah, those. I mean, the election results. I don't remember a time where Democrats won so many seats that, or I should say lost seats, that they weren't like, you know, meant to lose by 10 or 15 points. You know, there are some places where a Republican is going to win regardless of what the situation is. But there was. I've never seen the board sort of run like that. And then days later, like there was enough time for the smoke to clear, we see eight Democrats in the Senate vote with Republicans to end the government shutdown by passing a continuing resolution that both got rid of, like, a lot of hemp production that was snuck in there by Mitch McConnell and his $800,000 worth of liquor lobbying money and a provision to basically pay half a dozen senators a half a million dollars because they were investigated about January 6th. And give me your sense of, like, what that's about. I mean, it's, you know, look it, I. It's not just those eight. It's quite clear that Chuck Schumer sort of was, like, nurturing this, although he didn't vote for it because he didn't have to. And it does feel like it was manipulated in such a way that some people who were resigning were going to vote like they were protecting some of their other senators. What's your take on why they did this?

[Heather Digby Parton]

Well, that's. There's no doubt about that. And it's not the first time. I mean, we've observed this over the years that when there's something sort of unpopular with the Democratic base that needs to be done, they find a way for the people who are safest in that situation to, you know, they'll take the bullet and they'll do it in order to spare their brethren the pain of having to face their constituents with a vote that they, you know, wanted to take but would be unpopular. So that's exactly what happened. I mean, it's obvious, right? I mean, you don't have only the resigning people and people who aren't up for reelection until 2030, all being the ones to take a vote and everybody else going, oh, no, I'm really upset and I'm not going to do that. You know, clearly that was just. They were. They were taking the fall for it. And of course, Schumer was doing that. I mean, they wanted to end the shutdown, as everybody did, but they were the ones who set this up as, you know, the battle of all battles on the Affordable Care Act. And so when they didn't get it, it felt like a true, a serious defeat. I mean, I was never sure, to be honest, how exactly they were going to get out of this. It was always very risky. It was a risky gambit in that way, because they just don't have a lot of power. But the way that they lost it was just ridiculous. I mean, it was just pathetic doing it right after we had this big win where the wind was at the Democrats back where the base was feeling incredibly excited and motivated, and the whole country was kind of looking at this, going, wow, you know, these Democrats are getting their act together. They're doing this. Okay, maybe they've got a point here. And instead of just, you know, okay, so let's assume that maybe they, they couldn't get the ACA credits extended because for whatever reason, the Republicans were digging in their heels. Trump was about to get them to nuke the filibuster, which would have been, fine, go ahead, do it. You know, I mean, what, what the hell, you know, at this point, you know, I, I was saying, okay, you know, if that's what's going to happen, it's going to happen. But in any case, what ended up happening was that, that, you know, they ended up kind of. They had Angus King going on TV saying, oh, well, you know, we fought Trump and he won, you know, or whatever it was.

[Sam Cedar]

He said, we can't stand up to him.

[Heather Digby Parton]

We can't stand up to him. I mean, my God. And instead of doing something like, I remember Brian Boitler wrote a piece the other day where he was saying, look, there are ways to lose. Well, one of them would have been to say, okay, all right, you know, we got to get people fed and we're going to have to get the airplanes moving, you know, which was one of the big reasons why they felt they had it, because the airline thing was happening. But we got to do that. There's just, you know, we're behind in a rock and a hard place. But guess what? You get one month. That's all you get. And we'll give you one month of a continuing resolution. And, you know, we're going to keep talking about this, and then we might give you another month, and then we'll give you another month, and that's how it's going to go. Because we can't trust you people. This rescission thing, we make a deal with you, you come back and stab us in the back and just say, no, we're not going to do it. So we can't trust you. So all we can, this is how we're going to do it. And, you know, obviously, the Republicans needed to end the thing, too. They were taking heat, they were getting blamed for it. And that might have worked, but it would have shown some strength in the situation, at least. So I don't know if that would have worked, but there were other ways to do it that would have been better than just having a bunch of retired people and some sort of no name moderates. Well, he won. And we just have to go along with it. And all the other ones kind of raising their fists and going, oh, we didn't want this at all. This isn't what we were looking for. So it was lame. And the only thing that's saving them is Epstein, because, you know, that came along at the right moment to just completely change the story. And they may get lucky here and the base may be, you know, excited enough about that particular development that they, some of the sourness goes out of that.

[Sam Cedar]

I want, I want to turn to the Emstein thing in a second, but I want to just dig in a little bit more on that dynamic of why, why they did it. Because like you say, I think the real key was what you said about the filibuster. Because Donald Trump was beginning to really, really aggressively pressure them to get rid of the filibuster. And they were being blamed for the, for the shutdown. The Republicans, the Democrats have just come off of an incredibly strong showing. The filibuster. I think that this was the institutionalist, the establishment of the Democratic Party within the Senate. Establishment. Chuck Schumer. Chuck Schumer and the Mark Warners who didn't vote for that, oddly. And some of the others, they, I think, are very, very afraid of a situation without a filibuster. And, you know, they look down on the horizon and they're looking at the, you know, the Senate races if the Democrats pick up any seats. All of the people who have said this, I think, have already committed, well, you know, we'll see who wins in Maine. But in Nebraska, you know, he would, he would caucus with the Democrats. There's a lot of candidates out there who are saying, let's get rid of the filibuster. And I think there is a real fear amongst these Democrats that the filibuster goes away because that is going to empower the more progressive side of the Democratic Party. And, you know, I think from my perspective, I think yours, you know, yours too. Let's get rid of the filibuster and make people own their votes. Like, make them own. There's no more pretending what they stand for. Make them own it and stop having this sort of like deus ex machina to step in and stop progressive change from happening, or for that matter, really horrific conservative change. Because people, we just gotta bet. Exactly. And we just gotta bet that people are going to, you know, want to live in a country where there is a snap, where there is, you know, a USDA or an FDA or, you know, let, let the American public see what the parties actually stand for.

[Heather Digby Parton]

Yeah, I could, I couldn't agree more. And of course, we've been talking about this for a long time because as everyone knows who studied the issue, the filibuster works against progressive progress. Progressives are the ones who want to do things. They want to make the government, you know, work for the people. They want to make it do things, create programs. And, you know, that includes, you know, sometimes raising taxes on rich people and things that, you know, a lot of these, these people who are beholden to special interests don't want to do. But it works for the conservatives. I mean, look, all you have to do is look at it this way. Look at what happened during Biden's term. He managed to pass quite a bit of pretty good legislation. Much of it's being rolled back now by Trump, but it was pretty good. But it was so hard fought and was so pared down and whittled away because of two senators, both of whom were conservative divas, people who were, you know, right there on the cusp of being Republicans. And this goes all the way back as long as I can remember. Yeah, it's always a few right there in the middle who are basically saying no. And the filibuster was what worked to make that happen. They couldn't get past the filibuster. Now, you know, Biden and the Democrats managed to get some stuff through anyway. They persuaded those two to vote for some stuff, but it wasn't what, what could have been. It wasn't the kind of big legislation that, that should have been possible under those circumstances, especially coming out of a CR like we were in, coming out of the pandemic. But that just proves what it is. It's always a couple of conservatives, remember. I don't know if you remember back in the 90s, maybe this is before your time, there was a guy named David Boren who was from Oklahoma, and there he was every single time, you know, just standing in the way of doing anything that was decent. In the U.S. senate, you had, you know, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, now remember the cornhusker kid during the Obamacare, you know, Sturm and drawing that we went through. So it's always been that way and we know that. So, you know, this is what the people in the Democratic Party who are beholden to, you know, the kind. We don't want to tax rich people too much. We don't want to have to do anything too dramatic or anything too extreme. To help people, because that might upset the, you know, the golden goose here that we've got going. So they want to keep that filibuster in. And I think you're absolutely right. I mean, I was watching that so closely because I'm sitting there thinking, go ahead, you know, nuke the filibuster. And there's a reason why the Republicans didn't want to do it, because they didn't want to attach their name to all the garbage that Trump was going to make them do, and they didn't want to have to own that stuff. And I'm going, yeah, let them own it. You know, Trump wants them, their names on all of this, and we've got an election coming up here next November. I'd like to see them do it. Go ahead, pass it. I mean, can things really be that much worse if they pass it or if Trump just does one of his executive orders? I don't think so, except it'd be worse for them.

[Sam Cedar]

You know, that's because they'd own it. And I will say, like, you know, when Trump would talk about getting rid of the filibuster, it was only in the context of changing, like, voting laws in some way to help him in power. Because your point about what legislation Democrats would pursue versus Republicans, the bottom line is, is that once Republicans get their tax cut, their legislative agenda is over. They have nothing else. They don't want to create a health care system. They don't want to create a. They don't want to create anything. And Trump would have had him going in there and saying like a national voter ID law and all these type of things that I think they all know sort of like unleash the worst elements in their party. And they know that that is untenable for them to win elections if that if the worst, you know, if they have to own the worst impulses. That's why in the House, they get rid of their tariff authority so that Trump can go do these tariffs. And they're just like, we don't have the ability to do anything about it anymore. And so I think people should understand that, because we are fighting a massive war on one front, but people should be aware that there's another front that maybe we cannot dedicate resources to as much as we would want in this very moment. But that front exists. And that is because, look, Chuck Schumer's fighting a two front war. And one front is ostensibly the Republicans, and the other is essentially the progressives in the Democratic Party. And this is one of the ways that he does it. And so I think people need to be aware of that going forward. But let's talk about the thing that may end up at least limiting the conversation of that, and that is the Epstein release that we saw. There's two things happening. One is that when the shutdown ended, Mike Johnson was forced to sign in Adelita Gravala, and she was the 218th signature on the discharge petition, which is pushing legislation into the House to release the Epstein files. Now, of course, it has to go to the Senate after that, but this is putting, you know, shifting around who gets the pressure. The other is. Is the House oversight. The Democrats on the House Oversight Committee had subpoenaed Jeffrey Epstein's estate and got hold of 20,000 emails that they released in a massive dump. And, wow, what of these emails stuck? We could probably talk about this for an hour and a half. But what struck you most poignantly in this?

[Heather Digby Parton]

Well, I think. I mean, there are a couple of things. Just setting Trump aside, just the groveling obsequiousness of these people toward Jeffrey Epstein, all these important people like Larry Summers and this woman who. I can't remember her last name, who was in the White House counsel's office under Obama, just groveling toward Jeffrey Epstein just made me sick. You know, it just tells you. I mean, you know, we don't even know what Epstein, how Epstein was really making his money. I mean, we don't really know where his wealth came from or how he got all this influence, but he clearly did. And it's just. It's sick. Besides that, of course, there's the Trump stuff. And the Trump stuff is very important because it validates something, which I wish people would acknowledge this more, that we already knew. They're acting like, oh, you know, we just found out that Trump really was, you know, good friends with Jeffrey Epstein and that he really was part of his. Look at what Epstein said about him, that he said he's, you know, he's dirty, and I know all about him and all that stuff. I mean, the fact is, you know, Donald Trump said back in 2002, he's a good friend of mine, lots of fun to be with, and like me, he loves beautiful women. And some of them are on the younger side. I mean, we knew that. He knew that. He knew that Jeffrey Epstein had a bunch of younger girls around. And in that comment, it sounds to me like he was saying, yeah, and I like them younger, too. So, I mean. And, you know, we've seen the stuff he says about young women, the Miss Teen Universe pageant, you know, all this stuff. So the idea now that suddenly we've got, oh, you know, look, he. Trump may have been involved in this after all. Of course he was. Of course he was. We know what kind of a man he is. We know that he was, you know, macking on women from the time. From the time he was a young man. I mean, this was going on forever. He thought he was Hugh Hefner. He, you know, sort of fashioned himself, his image as a Hugh Hefner type surrounded by beautiful women, and now he was just this great student. So none of that is really surprising to me, but I think it is important in that it really seems to have discombobulated them. And we know this because of the fact that Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace, I mean, Marge Greene is off on her own thing, but those two, Boebert and Mace, I just assumed they would cave on the vote. I really did. I'm surprised at least one of them, which is all it would have taken, the fact that both of those women stood by and they dragged Boebert up to the Situation Room in the White House and leaned on her with Cash, Patel and Bondi there. And I don't know if Trump and JD Were there, too, but, I mean, they put the screws to her and, you know, obviously tried to get her to do it, and she didn't. And that tells me that just shows the weakness of Trump on this issue, the fact that he couldn't strong arm just enough people in the House to, you know, keep that vote. And it would have worked. I mean, if he'd have been able to do it, we all would have gone, well, they tried. You know, what are you going to do? And we know it's not going to pass in the Senate, and he's obviously not going to sign anything. And even if he did, Pam Bundy, Bondi, all she'll has to do is just say, no, I'm not going to do it, and sue me. So, you know, we know that that is very unlikely to actually happen. But the fact that these people actually stood. Stood there and stood up to Trump, and I can't see how it could have been a setup. I mean, can you? I mean, why would Trump set that whole thing up for his own purposes? He just didn't. I think it's real, what we saw there. Boebert and Mace defied Donald Trump. And, you know, frankly, I'm surprised, but I think that there's something there. And all Trump's doing today. He's laughably going in there. Well, I have ordered Pam Bundy to go out to investigate Bill Clinton, JP Morgan Chase and a bunch of other things. Yeah, I mean, it's insane. So, you know, I mean, he's rattled, obviously, beyond anything we've seen before, which of course makes everyone even more suspicious that there's something really bad in there. And I'm assuming at this point it's got to be video or something.

[Sam Cedar]

You know, it's got to be. I mean, what, what more could be in there that we haven't sort of like re established via these emails? You know, and I think I there the it is. I've just found it fascinating both like the Trump strain of these emails and then just sort of like everybody else that Epstein sort of seems to have had relationships with. I mean, the, the irony is like, there doesn't seem to be any like, real, the, the same level of sort of bombs when it comes to Democrats. At one point, I think Epstein says that Hillary Clinton was having an affair with Vince Foster. He implied that in one of those emails. He has emails with Larry Summers, who. Yeah, I mean, you know, you might as well be saying, you know, I don't know, JFK had an affair with Marilyn Monroe. I mean, like, it's not super relevant these days. Larry Summers, I think, you know, I think he's done in Democratic politics now. Maybe he already was, but thank goodness, I mean, he was a very difficult. But he's done not just in Democratic politics, but I think he's done in politics. Like he was sitting there harping during the Biden administration, upset about a lot of the antitrust stuff and a lot of the Biden attempts to spend money and so good riddance to him. Like, it's almost like we're taking getting rid of the worst of a generation one by one in these instances. But there's a lot of it makes you really wonder what's going on with Trump here. And you know, the. We mentioned this two days ago when, when it came out. The dog that didn't bark. Yeah, that's the one where a. It shows Ghislaine Maxwell or. I'm sorry, that was the Michael Wolf one. But there's other emails that say that Ghislaine Maxwell lied to Todd Blanche, Trump's doj, and that's going to put a. If nothing else comes out, it's going to be very hard for them to do anything more with Ghislaine Maxwell without looking really, really suspicious and that stuff, you know, a Democratic Congress is going to have, Jamie Raskin or whoever it is gonna be on that committee is gonna have a field day if they take over. But the dog.

[Heather Digby Parton]

Don't you think, Elaine, though, that, I mean, they've given her this center to this cushy, you know, low security prison. They're giving her all these special things. That's kind of, to me and I just wrote about this, so it's on top of my mind. To me, he, that just says that this is just to tide you over, hon. Just, you know, we'll make it a little easy for you. But Trump, on the way out, of course he'll take her. You know, he'll, he'll grant her pardon or clemency.

[Sam Cedar]

She was asking for commutation. Yep.

[Heather Digby Parton]

Yeah, she's just gonna have to hang in for a bit and we'll make it as easy on you as we can. Don't worry. You got a puppy, you're getting all the, you know, the, the privileges. And we'll punish anybody who causes you any trouble in the prison. And you just hang in there, hon. We got you. We got you. I really think that's what's happened. It's a total deal for her. And in the, the, the, the emails absolutely validate the fact that she lied her ass off to Todd, Blanche, or she and Todd, you know, wink, wink, nod, nod as they were recording their interview. I mean, I have no doubt that Todd knew exactly, you know, that Blanche knew exactly what was going on there.

[Sam Cedar]

It's also interesting to see how far into the prison Donald Trump has the ability to project power into. Right? I mean, I mean, if you could do it in one prison with one prisoner, maybe you could do it in another prison with another prisoner.

[Heather Digby Parton]

Yeah, you may, I mean, you have to wonder, you know, even Ghislaine said that she thought that Jeffrey was, you know, was taken out in prison. So I, you know, I, you know, I wonder, I mean, you know, it does make you, you know, he's got a lot of power and he's not afraid to use it. So let's just put it that way. And there are people that he knows who are willing to carry out his orders under the understanding that if anything were to ever happen that they were found out that he has the plenary power of the pardon. So, you know, and that's going to be something going forward with Donald Trump we're going to have to deal with because this guy was given immunity for his official acts. He has the power to pardon anybody that he wants to for any reason. And he's showing it day in and day out. He's pardoning every. He pardoned the Binance guy who, you know, is basically stuffed a couple billion dollars in his family's pockets. And he has no shame, no, you know, hesitancy. He just does it. And so anybody that needs to do something to help Donald Trump and Ghislaine probably knows that, too.

[Sam Cedar]

Yep.

[Heather Digby Parton]

I don't.

[Sam Cedar]

Getting back to that. The dog that didn't bark, you know, I think at the time, I think, Matt, you made the point that it was a Sherlock Holmes reference, and Epstein was a pretty literary guy. And the dog that didn't bark was basically a dog that knew the. Knew the truth, like, or knew the criminal.

[Matt]

There was a burglary, so. And the dog didn't bark on the occasion of the burglary, and it's suspicious. It suggests that the dog knew the burglar, basically.

[Sam Cedar]

Exactly. And so Trump not barking. I think I had first interpreted it as, oh, he's not talking. But it's also that if you read it over carefully, it seems this is after the Epstein. There had been a. I think it was in the BBC, a documentary about him. This is leading up to his first conviction. And the question was like, why hasn't Trump spoken out about this? And I think the implication is that he may not have spoken out about it. Not because he was protecting himself, because, Remember, this is 2011. I mean, Donald Trump's still going on Howard Stern basically saying horrible things, but more so because maybe Trump was the person who provided information on Jeffrey Epstein. You'll recall that when questioned about this, Mike Johnson first came out, remember, for a day, had let it hang out there. Trump was an FBI informant. And so one wonders if Donald Trump was somebody who sort of fingered Epstein, in that case, provided evidence or information to the FBI and because he knew exactly what was going on there and maybe got protection himself in that instance.

[Heather Digby Parton]

Yeah. I mean, are you suggesting that Donald Trump would have done something vengeful against Jeffrey Epstein, like, for instance, beating him out on a big real estate deal where he ended up getting a vast profit from the house that he ended up beating, beating Epstein over by selling it to a Russian money launderer? You know, I don't think Trump would do anything like that. He's just honest as the day is long, and he would never do that. Now, the idea of him being an informant is very interesting because, you know, informants tend to have protection. They get immunity for. For, you know, whatever crimes they were involved in. So, and, you know, that whole deal, the sweetheart deal that Epstein got in 2008, the first time he was indicted and actually prosecuted and convicted, is just unbelievable. It is an unbelievable breach. And the fact that Trump then put the prosecutor who concocted that deal into his cabinet is beyond belief. And it's so interesting because, you know, this is one of the aspects of this story that I hadn't really followed that closely until recently as it's come back. There was a federal prosecution getting ready to go on Epstein, and it was thorough. They looked at the money. They looked at everything. And the money is one of the untold stories about it. Nobody really understands it, but they looked at it. The prosecutor there had it all ready to go. We've never seen that. I can't remember what they call it. It's sort of a, you know, a draft indictment, I guess. And they just absolutely deep sixed it and went for a state charge. And then we know what happened. He pled guilty and he got a little, what, he got to leave in the daytime and come back at night and have slumber parties with the guards, I guess, at the jail. It was absolutely unbelievable that that happened. And just an incredibly weird coincidence that Trump then rewarded that prosecutor who, you know, put together that deal by putting him in the Cabinet. Hard to believe that, that.

[Sam Cedar]

It is hard to believe. And I'll say also, you know, one of my sort of like pet theories about Trump and the run up to the 2016 election and the 20. 2016, October 2016 piece in the New York Times about how there was a mutiny coming from the New York FBI office against Comey. And, you know, it always struck me, here's a guy who's clearly had business practices that were dubious for decades. You know, you go from, like, you get that consent decree in the 70s about you gotta allow black people into your apartment buildings, and then he's basically untouchable or untouched, I should say, for years and years. And then you have an FBI office in New York that is very, very protective of Donald Trump and has a relationship with Rudy Giuliani, who Trump also did. And you start to wonder, and had a special advisor in Felix Sater who was a. I think it's a, a report, not just a reported CIA and FBI source. But Loretta lynch, the U.S. attorney under the Obama, when she was at the U.S. attorney's office in the Eastern District, had written an affidavit on his, saying that he was a source. You start to wonder, did Donald Trump, if Donald Trump was the person who Gave evidence to the FBI about Jeffrey Epstein. Did he have a preexisting relationship with the FBI? Was he one of those people who, like, you know, escaped scrutiny from Manhattan da, New York Attorney General, like all those years, guys trying to make their name by going after big fish. I mean, Donald Trump would be, you would imagine someone would have brought something against them, but never did. I don't know. There's a lot there that I feel like, you know, because what else could be in this trove of stuff that Trump is so virulently trying to stop from being released?

[Heather Digby Parton]

You know, that's the thing. I mean, it's just, it's a crazy way to be dealing with this. You know, I just saw somebody, I can't remember was Michael Smerke Pwnish or one of those guys on cable going, well, you know, there's, there's been no evidence that Donald Trump did anything wrong. He didn't do anything wrong. And, you know, you'd think that he would just go ahead and release them, you know, and say that, you know, that they should release the files and get it behind him and just do the right thing here. And all it does is raise suspicions that there's something in there. And I'm screaming at the tv, there's something in there.

[Sam Cedar]

Obvious. What's the obvious answer to why he's so desperate to hide these things?

[Heather Digby Parton]

No, I'm going, why are, why is everybody giving him the benefit of the debt? Doesn't make any sense that he's doing this. You've got to be kidding me. You know, so I just, it's, it's beyond. And he really is desperate. This stuff that he's putting out today on Truth Social is, is absolutely pathetic. It is flop sweat, you know, times a thousand that he has now. He's now reduced to going after JP Morgan and Chase and saying that they need to be investigated, you know, because he's busy running the country and we should stop. I mean, he's basically begging people to stop talking about it, and of course they're not going to. And it's very interesting to me. You know, I think Trump has always had kind of a, he's got a lizard brain instinct about what his followers care about. I don't know where it comes from. He's a rich guy from Queens. He should, I don't know where he gets this instinct, but he has it. He's just, I guess, because he's a jerk. And so are they, most of them, but he can, you know, this has got him worried and not just because of revelation. It's because he couldn't get Lauren Boebert to turn. He could, you know, he doesn't have any power on this. He doesn't seem to be able to do it. I mean, he had Charlie Kirk before he was killed and others, you know, the influencers, they're out there going, well, you know, I'm going to believe my friends in the White House and I'm just going to let this go. But nobody's letting it go. They're not letting it go and the base isn't letting it go. The Fox audience, they can black out the story all they want and their audience is still getting it. They're getting it on their, you know, in their emails from grandma. You know, everybody's talking about it whether he likes it or not.

[Sam Cedar]

Let's, let's play a clip from Ben Shapiro. We played a clip earlier in the show of Megyn Kelly beginning to define away the problem with Epstein liking teenager types, as in 15 year olds. And you know, my point was like she's constructing an excuse not for Epstein because Epstein is dead. She's constructing sort of like a machine to exculpate Trump. If that turns out to be the situation here is, by the way, just.

[Heather Digby Parton]

But just before you do it, just, I just want to add something. The person she was talking to on her show, I don't know if you showed the clip of her answer. Her answer was, well, you know, Epstein may have liked those young guys, but when they aged out, that's when he would, he would send them to his friends.

[Sam Cedar]

Right?

[Brian]

It's like, okay, that was Batya Angar Sargan, by the way.

[Heather Digby Parton]

Yeah, yeah, that's right. And you know, oh, when they turn 18, that's when guys like Trump come in. That's fine, no big deal. And the truth is in those Epstein emails, he, you know, validated that thing that we saw earlier in the birthday book about how he had turned over one of his girlfriends to Donald, that he had given one of his girlfriends to Donald Trump. They've identified her. I can't remember her name, but there's pictures of Trump out there with her and she was like 22 years old.

[Sam Cedar]

So and now she's legal. Of course she'd been trafficked. But, and he knows that. But they are working overtime to create all sorts of like pre defenses that exist. You know, they're, the defenses are existing out there and then, oh, Trump just happens to run into them. That's the, the defense. Here's Ben Shapiro taking a different tactic, that this is all political. So yesterday, after the House of Representatives reopened, Representative Adelita Grijova of Arizona became the 218th and final signature on the discharge petition. She joined all the other Democrats, as well as four Republicans, including two who hate President Trump and would like to destroy his presidency. That'd be Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene, as well as Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mays. Okay, first off, like, they're doing it because they hate him and they want to ruin his presidency, really? Well, let's just assume that's the case. Why would this ruin his presidency?

[Heather Digby Parton]

Good question.

[Sam Cedar]

I mean, he's accepting the premise that there is something there that is incredibly damaging to Donald Trump. What could that possibly be at this point? Like, you know, with Bill Clinton. Yes. I mean, we. He was out. Like, I. I liked Roy Cohn. Like, what is it that. What secret could there be that would ruin Donald Trump's presidency? I'm not even convinced that if the worst of the worst is in there, that it would. But Ben Shapiro seems to be making the argument that there's something in there that's going to ruin his presidency, and he doesn't really realize he's admitting that. And as well as not really explaining Mace and Boebert's issues as well. But it's interesting to see that, like, they're trying to make this political, but again, they can't seem to escape it. Let's play this clip of Massie and Kana. This is number nine, talking about the pressure that the White House has applied to him. And again, he could hate Donald Trump, but why would he think there's something in there that would destroy Donald Trump's presidency? I mean, what could that possibly be?

[Ro Khanna]

I got to give credit to Lauren Boebert to walk into the White House, the center of power, the free world, really, and to sustain that and to come back out and to be solid. And also to Nancy Mace and Marjorie Taylor Greene, there was all the speculation that they might take their names off, and they never did. So it's. It's not a hoax. It's not a moot point. It is a very serious thing. There are a thousand victims, and there are survivors who have had a press conference with Ro Khanna and I, and that's what we're fighting for, justice for them.

[Heather Digby Parton]

Did you all talk to them at any point during this, as the White House was making clear they were. They were targeting these members?

[Ro Khanna]

I talked to them. I don't want to say which one I Had this conversation with. But one of them was told, we can't let Massie have a win. How petty is that? I mean, this is more than about political wins. It's about getting transparency and justice, which, by the way, this administration promised. You have the vice president, J.D. vance, you have the AG, you have the FBI director. They've all done a 180 on this.

[Heather Digby Parton]

So the White House said to one of these members that they didn't want you to have a win here.

[Ro Khanna]

That's correct.

[Heather Digby Parton]

I mean, do you.

[Sam Cedar]

Do you buy that? Do you buy that the reason why they're fighting so hard is they don't want Massey to have a win?

[Heather Digby Parton]

No, I do not. I had heard that before, that he didn't want Massey to have. I mean, I heard it, I don't know, a couple weeks ago that he was upset about that, but of course not. Of course that's not the reason. That's ridiculous. I mean, Trump is petty, no doubt about it. But this is, you know, insane. And by the way, Massie got the win, so it didn't work if that was it. You know, Trump just proved that he has no juice left whatsoever because he can't even, you know, persuade one House member, you know, you know, some of his most fervent supporters. I mean, Nancy Mace is a lunatic, and he couldn't get her over. I mean, I was shocked by that. So I'm sorry, you know, that's. That's, of course ridiculous. I mean, petty, yes, but, you know, that's even beneath Trump, you know, how.

[Sam Cedar]

He could also denied Massey a win is just release it on his own. And then Massie is just sitting there like, we don't need you, Massey. I have a feeling the entire White House apparatus is not sort of functioning just to prevent Thomas Massie from getting a win. Like, as if he's like, on the precipice of, like, you know, winning the presidency. Thomas Massey.

[Heather Digby Parton]

And, you know, it's funny because the, you know, the fact that these guys are, you know, so determined to keep this quiet. The doj, they know what's in those files, right? I mean, you know, you could. You could sort of understand why they might be unhappy about keeping these emails from the Epstein estate that were just released, you know, out of the public, because they didn't, you know, and Todd Blanche even told he was on. On X yesterday, going on arguing with George Conway and saying, well, I didn't even know those were there. How dare you? I didn't even know about these files. They. They hid them the, the Epstein estate hid these emails is what he said.

[Sam Cedar]

The House was able to subpoena them.

[Heather Digby Parton]

Yeah, well, apparently the DOJ just didn't even know they were there or they were hidden from them in some way, according to Blanche, of course, he's probably lying. But let's assume that's true, that they didn't know about those. And so those come out, they know what's in the Department of Justice files, and they are doing everything in their power to keep those things from coming out and they know what's in it.

[Sam Cedar]

So if it was just information that you could glean from the emails, it's like, okay, end of controversy, we're done.

[Heather Digby Parton]

Yeah, I mean, it would be done. There's a, you know, unless Trump is just, you know, I say he is kind of crazy and demented senile these days. You know, I guess it's possible that he's just stubbornly just saying absolutely not and that he's just sticking with it. But I don't believe it. I don't believe it. Because everybody has to be telling him the smart thing to do here, Mr. President, just let him out. We'll suffer for a week or so while everybody goes over it, and then this whole thing will be done. They have nothing else they can do after that. There's no more room for them to be asking for anything or doing anything, but they won't do it, and there's a reason for it. And Pam Bondi, you know, and Cash Patel, they were determined to release those things before they got in there and saw what was in there. I mean, you have to assume.

[Sam Cedar]

Yes, let's just. I want to just talk about one more thing, too. In the wake of the Democratic elections a week and a half ago, because you just wrote about the, the Texas gerrymander. And explain the dynamic here because it's sort of fascinating. You know, gerrymanders work, all things being equal, but when things are really not equal, sometimes they can go very, very sideways. I mean, people were talking about this even before the election that the Texas gerrymander is, may be a little overconfident. Explain that dynamic.

[Heather Digby Parton]

Well, it was risky. And in fact, there's, in the piece that I wrote for Salon, there's a GOP consultant who says they were just completely drowning in their own fucking hype is how he put it. Because they thought that Trump's 1.4% win somehow had ushered in 1,000 year reign, right? That the Republicans could never lose again because all the Latinos and young people had moved over to the conservative side, and they had a new majority that they could count on. And particularly in places like Texas where all those down in the, you know, those border districts down there that are heavily Hispanic had voted for Trump instead of Harris. So they thought that was it. So they, you know, Trump hears this and he issues his edict, we deserve it. We deserve to have those seats because I won big. So we deserve to have more seats. So I want you to gerrymander Texas smartly saluted and said, yes, we will do it. Well, we knew, as you mentioned at the time, that when you gerrymander like that, a state that was already pretty heavily gerrymandered, and you're doing it on the basis of one election where there was a swing vote that went, you know, dramatically in the other direction, that you're going to have to dilute safe seats in order to do that. You're not only betting that that Hispanic vote was going to be there for you going forward in those districts, but that the other districts that you were, you know, siphoning off the safe red districts, that you're siphoning off voters from them to create these new districts that they are going to be safe. Well, in a blue wave election, you know, what was maybe a 10 point safe seat then becomes, is now a 5 point safe seat in a wave election that's doable for Democrats. That is a doable thing. And it's doable in those Latino districts. So they knew that risk going in, but they were so high on their own supply that they believed it. Well, what happened was those Texas Democrats who, you know, who left the state and it was a big, dramatic thing last summer, drew attention to all this and the whole, everybody in the country was watching them do it and they took a lot of grief and for it. And I felt bad because I thought, you know, they're doing something pretty brave here. And if you're going to be, you know, if you're going to fight Trump in this fascist onslaught, you better be willing to take some risks and to be willing to go out there, yeah, you're going to lose sometimes, but you have to be willing to try and to put yourself out there. And they took, they, they ended up having to come back because they couldn't break, break the quorum forever. And the Republicans vowed retribution and they took retribution on these Democrats who, they passed a bunch of stuff that had been stalled because, you know, it was really creepy transgender stuff and stuff, things like that, that Democrats valued, and they just went after it and they're taking Personal retribution on some of these people that have high national profiles, like Jasmine Crockett. But they did it and they did it. And they may be getting the last laugh because what happened was suddenly the rest of the country woke up, saw what was happening. Gavin Newsom went out. He also took a big risk because in California, and I did not know this at the time, and I was assuming that California would vote for the ballot measure to redistrict here, but it wasn't true. They did internal polling and it looked bad. It was like at 36% approval. And that was in July, within a few months, with Newsom out there with all the onslaught. We had a ton of ads here. There was a lot going on. It won overwhelmingly during the, you know, the November election. So, you know that, that virtually canceled out. Even if Texas were to get maintain those seats as Republican seats that they gerrymandered, California will cancel them out. So it was a completely useless proposition to begin with. And even worse, it may be that they actually lose some of those seats because they've deluded them and they're counting on a Hispanic vote that was proven in New York, New Jersey and Virginia to have swung wildly back to the Democrat side. So the whole gambit, even if you look at all the where they're picking up season, North Carolina gave them one, and I guess in Ohio they did a redistricting that actually looks like Democrats may pick up, may actually win in some of those seats too, in a similar dynamic as what we saw are seeing in Texas. And they're trying hard to do this, but there just isn't a whole lot of juice there. And what they found out in doing this, that guess what happens, you draw attention, you do something just completely obvious like this, we're gonna rig this election on our behalf, basically, it wakes up the rest of the country too. And guess what happens? Wait, we have clout too.

[Sam Cedar]

Guess what I mean. That's the point of losing. Well, right. Those Texas Democrats lost that fight, but they did so in such a way that it inspired people in California and people in Ohio and whatnot. Now, like you say, it may turn out that the. The Republicans are hoisted by their own petard in Texas, just to be clear on that. If you have three districts, two of which are plus 10 Republican and one which is plus five Democrat, and you want to make the Republican ostensibly win all three districts, you gotta take plus five from one of those, plus tens, plus five from the other one of those tens, put it into the Democratic district, and so you have three plus five Republican seats. The problem is, if you have a wave election and Democrats overperform by six points, you lose all three of those, which were two sort of safe seats in one Democratic one. And we'll see about that. But at the very least, you know.

[Heather Digby Parton]

There'S a name for it. I don't know. I just learned this when I was writing my piece. There's a name for it. It's called dummy mandering. And it's actually something political scientists use because you just don't do that if you have any sense. Right. You just. In situations like this, you just don't.

[Sam Cedar]

You know, I have to say, Digby, this was probably the most hopeful conversation we have had in a year.

[Heather Digby Parton]

Yeah, it was. It wasn't. It's pathetic, isn't it, that it had to happen?

[Sam Cedar]

Yes.

[Heather Digby Parton]

The.

[Sam Cedar]

The.

[Heather Digby Parton]

But I'll take it.

[Sam Cedar]

The bar is so low that we're not even talking about, like, positive legislation or. Well, we'll take what we can get. Heather Parton, always a pleasure. Thank you so much. We will, of course, link to all of your work at Hullabaloo, which still remains a. An invaluable daily read for me and your pieces [e-mail]. thanks so much and we'll. We'll see you soon.

[Heather Digby Parton]

Have a great weekend, everybody. You too.

[Sam Cedar]

All right, folks, that was weird. Usually, like, by the time Digby and I are done talking, the level of depression that I feel is. But this was. We ended. We structured that well. We, you know, wound up on a.

[Matt]

Happy note not giving some people, like, a wave of morbidity to enter the weekend into.

[Sam Cedar]

That's right. This is. People are going to party this weekend. People should have, like, Epstein email parties, I think.

[Brian]

Yeah, everybody can get a sandwich board and they can dress up as their favorite email.

[Sam Cedar]

It's too bad Halloween is passed already because that would have been actually a great. And, you know, so many people could wear a version of that costume and it would all be different. Folks, your support is what keeps this program chugging along. When you become a member of the Majority Report, you not only get the free show, free of commercials, but you get the fun half. And you can im us in the fun half. So join themjorityreport.com Also, check out the AM quickie 3 days a week for free in your email box. If you want five, you pay a couple of bucks. It's like a buck and a quarter a week or something. Whitney and Corey doing a great job every day of summarizing the important stories that you need to know gives you a great way to start your day off. Always in your email box around 9am and it'll take you about five minutes to read it and you will feel at least in somewhat on top of this stuff. Amquickie.com also check out our merch shop. The Trump Slump stickers are flying off the shelves. We may, we may have to do like pre orders soon. But check it out. Those Trump Bryant did those up and they are, they are pure gold. Sound like hotcakes. And these, these stickers have all sorts of utility. First of all, what a great gift. You're showing up at Thanksgiving. Thanks for having us. Here's some Trump Slump stickers.

[Matt]

Yeah, put on your uncle's truck.

[Sam Cedar]

You're driving. Gas tank. You're driving, you're driving for Thanksgiving. Maybe you go into a, a store and things are a little bit expensive. Trump Slump. There you go. I mean it's.

[Matt]

You don't have to say.

[Brian]

Yeah, we don't have to suggest what you do with them.

[Heather Digby Parton]

You do it.

[Brian]

You come up with your own ideas.

[Sam Cedar]

When you put it on, you gotta say Trump Slump. That's the.

[Matt]

The TikTok challenge.

[Sam Cedar]

Yeah. And check out our Discord. We have over 17,000 people in the Discord. It is incredibly active and it's a great place to go if you want to, you want some tips on organizing, you want to connect with people in maybe in your area. You want to talk about movies, you want to talk about politics, whatever it is. Majoritydiscord.com Check that out. And lastly, Just Coffee. Just Coffee is a co op in Madison, Wisconsin. They make blends and single origin coffees. You can get the majority report blend there. They're a great company. They really take care of their producers whether it's down in Chiapas or in Africa. And use the coupon code majority. You get 10 off. That's also a great gift. That's a great stocking stuffer. Matt Left Reckoning or the Jack. I saw the, the promo and I thought that was pretty good.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[Sam Cedar]

Let'S pop that baby up. Let's look at this because it was a little bit, it was like here I see where some of the best production skills are being deployed.

[Matt]

This is kind of like what I showed up.

[Sam Cedar]

We have all sorts of technical problems and you guys like slick. This is like how I showed up.

[Matt]

This is how I showed up to the job interview in my wool suit in 2015. This is my wool suit period for the Jack of the Show. But yeah, here's A little teaser. Sam's talking. Talking about. Here, put this up on Insta on Twitter and.

[Sam Cedar]

You ready, Matt?

[Matt]

Let's do it. Yeah.

[Sam Cedar]

Never mind. But here.

[Matt]

Here's. Here's the. Where people need to go and click this link here on the Jackpot Acabin Meg YouTube channel. Zora Mabdani's democratic socialism can win everywhere. We had Ashik Sadiq, Eric Blanc on talking about strategy and we did a little fun clip up top. So go subscribe to Jacobin on YouTube and check out our first episode. It's going to be on Friday mornings at 10am Eastern.

[Sam Cedar]

There you go, folks. That was pretty slick, I thought.

[Brian]

I have Emma up right now on this other computer.

[Sam Cedar]

Oh, yeah.

[Matt]

Brian's distracted because he's watching Heidecker Prime.

[Sam Cedar]

Crime says, is it true that Tim Heidecker is getting a just coffee blend? I hope to God not.

[Matt]

He bought Marin's.

[Heather Digby Parton]

Wow.

[Brian]

Just all they go for is your rivals.

[Sam Cedar]

It's crazy. All my BET noirs.

[Matt]

That's what your autobiography should be called.

[Sam Cedar]

All my pet noirs. Cranking my hog. I wonder if Matt's stream is so much slicker than Mr. Because he's not being forced to use technology from garage sales in the 90s. That probably adds to it. All right, quick break. Fun half. Three months from now, six months from now, nine months from now. And I don't think it's going to be the same as it looks like it six months from now. And I don't know if it's necessarily going to be better six months from now than it is three months from now, but I think around 18 months out, we're going to look back and go like, wow.

[Matt]

What?

[Sam Cedar]

What is that going on? It's nuts. Wait a second. Hold on. Hold on for a second. Emma. Welcome to the program. Unhappy Matt. What is up, everyone? Fun hat. No.

[Heather Digby Parton]

Mickey, you did it.

[Sam Cedar]

Fun half.

[Heather Digby Parton]

Let's go, Brandon.

[Sam Cedar]

Let's go, Brandon. Bradley, you want to say hello? Sorry to disappoint everyone. I'm just a random guy. It's all the boys today.

[Heather Digby Parton]

Fundamentally false.

[Megyn Kelly]

No.

[Heather Digby Parton]

I'm sorry. Women.

[Sam Cedar]

Stop talking for a second and let me finish. Is this coming from. Dude, but. Dude, you want to smoke this? 7A.

[Heather Digby Parton]

Yes.

[Sam Cedar]

Hi, me.

[Heather Digby Parton]

Is it safe?

[Sam Cedar]

Yes. Is this me?

[Heather Digby Parton]

Is it me?

[Sam Cedar]

It is you? Is this me?

[Heather Digby Parton]

Hello?

[Sam Cedar]

Is this me? I think it is you. Who is you? No sound. Every single freaking day. What's on your mind? We can discuss free markets and we can discuss capitalism. I'm gonna go smell it. Libertarian. They're so stupid. Though common sense says of course.

[Heather Digby Parton]

Gobbledygook.

[Sam Cedar]

We nailed him.

[Heather Digby Parton]

So what's 79 plus 21?

[Sam Cedar]

Challenge.

[Heather Digby Parton]

Man, I'm positively quivering.

[Sam Cedar]

I believe 96. I want to say 8, 5, 7, 2, 1, 0, 8, 5, 1, 1 half. 3, 8, 9, 11.

[Heather Digby Parton]

For instance. $3,400. $1900.

[Sam Cedar]

5, 4. $3 trillion. Sold. It's a zero sum game.

[Heather Digby Parton]

Actually. You're making me think less.

[Sam Cedar]

But let me say this. Call it satire.

[Heather Digby Parton]

Sam goes satire on top of it all. My favorite part about you is just like every day, all day, like everything you do.

[Sam Cedar]

Without a doubt. Hey, buddy, we see you. All right, folks, folks, folks.

[Megyn Kelly]

It's just the week being weeded out, obviously.

[Sam Cedar]

Yeah. Sun's out, guns out. I. I don't know.

[Heather Digby Parton]

But you should know.

[Sam Cedar]

People just don't.

[Matt]

Like to entertain ideas anymore.

[Sam Cedar]

I have a question. Who cares? Our chat is enabled, folks. I love it.

[Heather Digby Parton]

I do love that.

[Sam Cedar]

Gotta jump. Gotta be quick. I gotta jump. I'm losing it, bro. Two o', clock, we're already late, and the guy's being a dick. So screw him. Sent to a gulag.

[Heather Digby Parton]

Outrageous.

[Sam Cedar]

Like, what is wrong with you?

[Heather Digby Parton]

Love you. Bye. Love you.

[Sam Cedar]

Bye. Bye.