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Donald Trump is absolutely losing it as the Epstein files continue to expose him and his regime. And so he had his Department of Justice release basically a bogus list which they call this is the politically exposed list of people who are in the Epstein files. And so they try to like bury Donald Trump's name, which of course is on the list with a bunch of other people. And they're doing it in a way to kind of just give the middle finger to the entire investigation into the child sex trafficking and give the middle finger to the entire survivor community. And I don't say this lightly, but like, look at who the people they're listing as politically exposed. The Pope, Pope John Paul ii, late Pope. They have Elvis Presley on there. They have Janis Joplin who died in 1970. Marilyn Monroe is on there. And they're saying these are the politically exposed people who were involved in the Epsom list. Then you look through it and you have people like Todd Blanche and Donald Trump's name. But that's how they think they're being clever by including all those people together. I mean, it's just so utterly despicable. And by the way, even Marjorie Taylor Greene's like, I'm all over the list. And the emails, and she's like, I wasn't even a member of Congress, you know, until after Epstein, you know, died. And so you're putting me on the list. And so it just seems to be what the Trump regime is doing. We got the scoop first here on the Midas Touch Network, Aaron Parnas reported the Department of Justice has sent over a letter to Congress outlining or supposed to outline why it made the redactions to the Epstein files. It's a six page letter that then includes the list of politically exposed persons and it's Elvis Pope, John Paul ii, Marilyn Monroe, Janis Joplin, you know, people like that. As Democratic Congressmember Ro Khanna writes, the DOJ is once again purposefully muddying the waters on who was a predator and who was mentioned in an email to have Janis Joplin, who died when Epstein was 17, in the same list as Larry Nassar, who went to prison for the sexual abuse of hundreds of young women and child pornograph, with no clarification of how either was mentioned in the files is absurd. Release the whole files, stop protecting predators, redact only the survivor's name and produce what's called a privilege log. Yes, it's going to be very difficult for you to make a privilege log. It isn't easy. Back in the day when I was a litigator, I would do it on all of my cases. It's a spreadsheet. It may be thousands of pages, it be may tens of thousands of pages or hundreds of thousands of pages where you go through each. This is what you're supposed to do. In every case you list the document number. We call it a Bates number. Those are those numbers on the bottom right of the document. And if you're withholding any information, you then on the spreadsheet assert what privilege or claim you're making for purposes of withholding that document. And then you give a little bit of a description of why you're withholding the docum. Obviously your description can't be too specific if you're rightfully withholding it on the basis of a privilege. But you're supposed to give a little description. And then if someone wants to challenge it, they look at your privilege log, they bring it to a court and then they're able to challenge it. But here, the Trump DOJ is also claiming no judges can enforce the Epstein Transparency Act. So they are the only people who can enforce it. You have Marjorie Taylor Greene going on more right wing podcasts. I mean, she's furious about what's taking place and she said, look, I want everybody to know that the person who's fighting the release and who has fought the release of the Epstein files the hardest, she says, is Donald Trump. She's like, you may not want to hear that because she's on a right wing podcast. She goes, that's the truth. It's coming from Trump. That's who wants to block this. And I think it's obvious why. Listen to what Marjorie Taylor Greene has to say in her own words. Here, play this clip.
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Pam Bondi, she serves at the pleasure of the president and his administration. And those there are telling her, here's who you can prosecute. No, don't do this. I mean, they told her that the Epstein files that fought that fight to release the Epstein files came directly from President Trump. And I know a lot of people have a hard time with that, but that is the truth. He fought the hardest to, to stop these files from being released. And the only reason that he signed our bill that we passed in the House was because he had to.
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And then she says that the biggest miscalculation Donald Trump ever did was calling the Epstein files a hoax. Here, play this clip.
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It became a massive political problem. Biggest political miscalculation in Donald Trump's career was calling this a hoax, fighting the release of it and having, having Mike Johnson, the Speaker refus to bring the bill to the floor to the point where Thomas Massie, myself, Nancy Mason, Lauren Boebert actually had to vote with all of the Democrats to get, to get it released, to get it.
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You know, I don't where I will disagree with Marjorie Taylor Greene on mostly everything. It wasn't that Trump miscalculated it. It's that he's demented and he's a predator. And so he's spewing and saying things that predators say. And so for Trump, he just thinks that, you know, he gets to say, ah, this is like, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia. And he goes, it's a hoax. Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia. And it's like all of the things that Donald Trump claims are hoaxes are not hoaxes. Okay? They're the reality. Marjorie Delle Greene. I hate to, you know, remember the movie at the end, Sixth Sense. Warren's like, I see dead people because, you know, he's dead the whole time. Sorry if I ruined the ending for everybody, Marjorie Greene. I'm ruining the ending for you right now. Everything he says is a hoax. He's really the one who's behind all of this criminality. I mean, right? Russia, Russia, Russia is a Hoax. You have a photo of you and Vladimir Putin in the West Wing above the photo of you and your grandchild. I mean, you invited Putin to Alaska, you know, several months ago, and you rolled out the red carpet and made our troops bend down on their knees and like, literally, like, like kiss Putin's feet. It was like one of the most disgusting things. You're trying to do fake 12 trillion dollar deals with Putin you're being called out for at the Munich security conference right now. Like, you know, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia. Donald. I mean, so utterly pathetic. During the E. Jean Carroll case where Donald Trump was found liable for sexual assault by a federal jury, you had Roberta Kaplan, the lawyer, she cross examined Donald Trump. And then Donald Trump at the end of the deposition said, see you on Tuesday or something. He spelled out the horrific C word to refer to the female lawyer. And. But the reason I want to bring this up is she had a great line of questioning where she said, ah, so you claim 2020 election is a hoax, right? You say you believe you went, that's a hoax. You claim that when you were accused of sexually assaulting my client, E. Jean Carroll. That's a hoax, right? Because that's a hoax. So you claim that Russia collusion is a hoax, right? You, all these things are hoaxes, right? It was, it was a very strong line of questioning. I'll just show you two right wing podcaster Tim Dylan. Here's what he had to say the other day about Pam Bondi. Let's play it. Pam Bondi, you got to remember, Pam Bondi is from Florida. She was, I believe, the Attorney General of the state of Florida. She's way in over her head. I feel bad for her. She's like a real housewife. She's not supposed to be doing this. They all get in there and they all think, you know, they all go, oh, we're gonna, we're gonna, justice is here. You know, like the Avengers are here. Her and Cash and Bongino, he's already back to podcasting. It's in under a year. She has no idea what's going on. She gets in there and, and, and, and in these, these, these people are all unprepared. They're all unprepared for what is about to happen. They don't know. She doesn't know what's about to happen. She has no idea. And then they're given a choice to, like, you're, you are, you're involved now in this cover up. This is you, this is on you. You're in it with us. Kez Patel's in it because he's like probably being, you know, he's another one's being handled. He's, in other words, being either controlled to some degree. He's lying. He's. He knows. Just turning to a moment to what's going on in the Munich security conference because, you know, here in the United States, as you have, you know, the Trump regime engaging in the most heinous cover up of a child sex trafficker. Now just think about how serious this is. Just pull back for a second, right? How important is it for all of us that the Epstein list be released? Right? And so what the Trump regime does is they put out a fake list that has the names of Marilyn Monroe and Janis Joplin and the Pope and people like that. And how they could just, that's how demented and sick these, you know, these are. And they try to mix it with people who are actually involved. So, oh, we don't know. And then not only that, but then they don't include a lot of people who are actually involved as well. That's what our demented, failed, ridiculous regime is doing here. But you know, look abroad when they try to bring their talking points to Munich. Like, look, you have Kaha Kalas, she's the main foreign policy chief for the European Union. Just watch her trying to hold in her laughter as she watches Mike waltz, Donald Trump's secretary of, Donald Trump's ambassador to the United nations, as he's like, we stopped eight wars. Donald Trump is a peace president. We did eight wars. The world leaders are actually laughing in the face of the American representatives in Munich. Here, play this clip. Why hasn't the UN been able to resolve issues like a border dispute between Cambodia and Thailand or Azerbaijan or media, or we could walk around the world or Kashmir and India and Pakistan where we faced a very serious nuclear escalation. So what I'm hearing outside of forums like this privately is thank you for American leadership. America has to lead. If we have to have more focused, plural, lateral or focus multilateral organizations to do so, I think that should be perfectly acceptable if we're getting the results that results in peace and security. Then you have Republican Senator Thom Tillis from North Carolina with Senator Shaheen as well. And you know, they're out there. And here's what Republican Thom Tillis had to say. Here, play this clip. I've heard it said by someone that who gives a shit about who owns Greenland? The 55,000 indigenous people of Greenland give a shit about who owns Greenland. And at the end of the day, we need to show them respect and we need to understand the fiscal reality that we don't have to pay a dime to project power in the Arctic with our partners like Canada, who will bring the icebreakers to clear the channels to get there, and some of the Scandinavian partners who are the true Arctic experts, along with some of our Alaskan military personnel, you know, very forceful right there. And speaking of Greenland, then we heard from the prime Minister of Greenland, Jens Frederik Nielsen. Here's what he had to say. Let's play it. It is not only about Greenland. Imagine a NATO country acquiring, taking, threatening an ally. Where would the world stand if that happened? We would be a puzzle. We would be a puzzle in a big game. And what would prevent those America, if they did that? USA and Russia and China. It's rich to split up the world in three big blocks. If this was allowed. It's outrageous. And I don't think we can lower shoulders either. I think we have take some steps. We also heard from the leader in Spain right now, Pedro Sanchez. Here's what he had to say about the fact that America is going to be spending a trillion dollars on rebuilding or building up their nuclear arsenal when that amount of money could literally stop global poverty. Play this clip. But now the tide is turning. Nuclear powers have forgotten the lessons of the past, and they are expanding their nuclear arsenals once again. Together, they are spending more than $11 million every single hour on them. And experts estimate that the US alone will invest $946 billion in nukes over the next decade, enough to eradicate extreme global poverty. And then two more points I want to make of what's going on abroad. You have former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calling out Donald Trump for betraying the West. Here's what she had to say.
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So do you think he has destroyed the west to go to our title? He has betrayed the West. He's betrayed human values. He's betrayed the NATO Charter, the Atlantic Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. A lot of what has been done before to try to make sense of how difficult it is to restrain people who want unaccountable power. And none of us in this room, including all of us on this panel, would choose to live under a regime that was so unaccountable that it could act with impunity the way that Putin does. Except that's who Trump is modeling himself.
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I didn't think we would. And then you had Governor Newsom out there as well talking about maga. Let's Play this clip. Temporary. It's temporary. MAGA will not survive past Donald Trump. He's a cult of personality. I said invasive species. Some of you may not know what the hell I'm talking about, but he's just, he took over this Republican Party. You made the point that old Republican Party, some of them are here. I mean, none of us recognize them. They don't recognize themselves. They don't recognize themselves. I mean, Rubio doesn't recognize himself. He was one of the most effective critics of Donald Trump in the United States of America. America. Yeah. He should rewatch his old videos. He was right. Lindsey Graham was right. This is temporary. Thought this was important. As the United States is making or the Trump regime is making up fake lists. Here's what's going on in French. In France. French prosecutors announced special team for Epstein files. The Paris prosecutor's office on Saturday announced it was setting up a special team of magistrates to analyze evidence that could implicate French nationals. They're, they're running their own independent investigation right now. And it should be noted one of Epstein's closest friends who was involved in the sex trafficking ring, who was also friends with Trump is a guy by the name of Jean Luc Brunel who was involved the same way Trump and Epstein and all these guys were involved in modeling agencies. Jean Luc Brunel had his modeling agency. And guess where, guess what happened to Jean Luc Brunel. If you guessed died by alleged suicide in a prison. That's what. Yeah, that all these people died by alleged suicides in prison. Died in 2022. And now they're reopening the investigation into that in France, but here in the United States, like, you know about, you know about Lutnick and you know about fellow felon, the Navy Secretary and you know, Peter Thiel and, and Elon Musk. I mean, I go on and on. I mean, all the people closest to Trump, you know, oh, what's his name? Dr. Oz. Inviting Epstein to a Valentine's Day party. Going to the same party, rfk hanging out with Epstein. Ridiculous. But also you have Tom Barrack. Remember this guy, Tom Barrack? He's one of the top US diplomats right now that's out there. In August 2011, Barrick emailed Epstein and said, just saw Sultan who likes you a lot. I told him you're the best. That you're a first class brain inside of a first class human being. Miss you. That's what Tom Barrack wrote to Epstein in 2011. The exchanges include invitations to private residences, introductions to diplomats. They also show Epstein repeatedly encouraged Barrack to move communications to encrypted messaging apps, records of which are not part of the government release. And Barrick right now, senior position top ambassador in the United States, one of the more influential people in our government right now. And you know, they're all. They're all part of this thing. They're all, they're all in it. They're all in it. It's right there in black and white. I mean, that's not disqualifying right there. The Sultan. The Sultan who sent the torture videos to Epstein. They said they liked the torture videos of the girls. The hell is going on? Anyway, thanks for watching. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 6 million and have a good one, everybody. Love this video. Support independent media and unlock exclusive content ad free videos and custom emojis by becoming a paid member of our YouTube channel today. You can also gift memberships to others. Let's keep growing together.
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The MeidasTouch Podcast – February 15, 2026
Hosts: Ben, Brett, and Jordy Meiselas
In this fiery episode, the Meiselas brothers break down the Trump administration’s chaotic response to the ongoing Epstein files scandal. They analyze the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) release of a bizarre and misleading list of "politically exposed persons" allegedly tied to Epstein, discuss the political fallout, and provide sharp commentary on America's standing abroad, MAGA’s future, and the international Epstein investigation. The hosts blend legal insight with comedic banter, while spotlighting key moments from recent political and diplomatic events.
[01:34] Ben explains the DOJ, under Trump, released a “bogus” list of individuals supposedly connected to Epstein in an apparent effort to bury Trump’s own involvement.
The list included deceased celebrities (e.g., Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, Janis Joplin) and unlikely figures (e.g., Pope John Paul II), mixed with actual, potentially implicated political figures.
Quote – Ben:
"They try to like bury Donald Trump's name, which of course is on the list, with a bunch of other people. And they're doing it in a way to kind of just give the middle finger to the entire investigation into the child sex trafficking and give the middle finger to the entire survivor community." [01:43]
Even Marjorie Taylor Greene was included, leading her to object publicly.
The DOJ sent a six-page letter to Congress justifying their redactions, containing the peculiar list.
Ben, a lawyer, breaks down the proper transparency protocol: a detailed "privilege log" (listing every document, what’s withheld, and why).
DOJ is resisting judicial oversight, claiming only they can enforce the Epstein Transparency Act.
Quote – Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna (as cited by Ben):
"To have Janis Joplin, who died when Epstein was 17, in the same list as Larry Nassar ... is absurd. Release the whole files, stop protecting predators, redact only the survivor's name and produce what's called a privilege log." [03:34]
Greene, typically a Trump ally, surprised many by publicly blaming Trump for blocking the files' release.
Clip [06:03] – Marjorie Taylor Greene:
"The fight to release the Epstein files came directly from President Trump ... He fought the hardest to stop these files from being released. And the only reason that he signed our bill ... was because he had to."
She characterized Trump calling the investigation a “hoax” as his “biggest political miscalculation.”
"Biggest political miscalculation in Donald Trump's career was calling this a hoax, fighting the release of it..." [06:47]
Ben draws a line through Trump’s repeated use of “hoax” to describe all accusations, from Russia interference to sexual assault cases.
Roberta Kaplan’s cross-examination during the E. Jean Carroll trial is referenced to demonstrate how Trump consistently dismisses allegations as hoaxes.
Quote – Ben:
"All of the things that Donald Trump claims are hoaxes are not hoaxes. Okay? They're the reality." [07:12]
While the US grapples with internal scandal, American representatives at the Munich Security Conference received laughter and incredulity from European officials while touting Trump-era “peace” accomplishments ([11:57]).
International leaders, including Pedro Sanchez (Spain), Jens Frederik Nielsen (Greenland), and Kaja Kallas (EU), criticized US defense tensions, the nuclear arms budget, and questioned America's global influence.
Pedro Sanchez [14:34]:
"The US alone will invest $946 billion in nukes over the next decade, enough to eradicate extreme global poverty."
Hillary Clinton [15:58]:
"...He has betrayed the West. He's betrayed human values. He's betrayed the NATO Charter, the Atlantic Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ... Except that's who Trump is modeling himself."
Gavin Newsom [16:39] argues that MAGA is a “temporary invasive species” that will not survive beyond Trump, noting figures such as Marco Rubio used to be staunch Trump critics.
France is launching its own Epstein investigation, unlike the US, with magistrates analyzing evidence implicating French nationals. Even the 2022 death in prison of Jean-Luc Brunel (Epstein associate) is under renewed scrutiny.
The brothers link multiple influential Trump allies (Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Dr. Oz, RFK Jr., Tom Barrack) to Epstein’s web.
Ben [18:24]:
"They're all in it. It's right there in black and white. ... The Sultan who sent the torture videos to Epstein. They said they liked the torture videos of the girls. The hell is going on?"
Ben exposing the absurdity of the list:
"They have Elvis Presley on there. They have Janis Joplin who died in 1970. Marilyn Monroe is on there. And they're saying these are the politically exposed people who were involved in the Epsom list." [01:56]
On Trump's “hoax” rhetoric:
"Everything he says is a hoax. He's really the one who's behind all of this criminality." [07:12]
International mockery of Trump officials:
"The world leaders are actually laughing in the face of the American representatives in Munich." [11:48]
France moving forward independently:
"French prosecutors announced ... a special team of magistrates to analyze evidence that could implicate French nationals." [17:34]
This episode encapsulates the Meiselas brothers’ signature style: incisive legal analysis, biting humor, and passionate advocacy for accountability. With the Trump administration’s credibility crumbling from both internal scandal and international embarrassment, the brothers spotlight the urgent need for transparency, justice for Epstein survivors, and a post-MAGA American future. The show ends by emphasizing ongoing investigations abroad as torchbearers for justice, even as the U.S. government appears to stall and obfuscate.