Inside the Allegations Surrounding Paolo Zampolli, Melania Trump, and Jeffrey Epstein

Summary

---

The Tara Palmeri Show

Episode: Inside the Allegations Surrounding Paolo Zampolli, Melania Trump, and Jeffrey Epstein

Date: April 13, 2026
Host: Tara Palmeri
Notable Contributor: Ashley

Episode Overview

This explosive episode dives deep into recently surfaced allegations connecting Paolo Zampolli—a former modeling agent and Trump administration figure—Melania Trump, and the infamous Jeffrey Epstein. Drawing from her industry sources, personal experiences, and direct contact with pivotal figures like Amanda Ungaro (Zampolli’s former partner), Tara Palmeri explores the intersections of power, exploitation, immigration, and high society intrigue. The discussion boldly unpacks the darker corners of the modeling industry, the political machinery enabling abuse, and the enduring impact on the women involved.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Paolo Zampolli/Melania Trump Connection

• Zampolli's role in Melania's life: Reputed to have discovered Melania (then 26, considered "old" for a model) and facilitated her U.S. entry with an "Einstein" visa—typically for people with "extraordinary abilities."
  (01:00–02:35)
• Zampolli’s motivations:

  "For them, the modeling wasn’t about the art, the fashion. It was about access to women and visas and controlling through bases." (Tara, 01:26)

• Introduction to Trump: Zampolli claims to have introduced Melania to Donald Trump and is "willing to testify" to this, as disputes persist.

2. Modeling World & Epstein’s Recruitment

• Epstein & Zampolli as competitors/frenemies: Attempted to buy Elite Modeling Agency together; both used their agencies to recruit models, not for fashion but for access and control.
• Pipeline for exploitation:

  "Some of them not tall enough to be models… much too old to be models, some taking nude photos, which is not something that they typically want runway models doing." (Ashley, 04:33)

• The role of visas: The "Einstein visa" pathway was cynically referenced:

  "What does that stand for? Einstein’s theory. And what kind of visas did these girls get? The Einstein visa? It’s a little..." (Tara, 06:26)

• Email evidence and dangerous drugs:

  "The creepiest part is the exchange in those emails about this drug, scopoline... that [Epstein] would grow and ask his staff about… a dangerous drug that turns people into zombies and makes them completely devoid of free will." (Tara, 05:10)

3. Amanda Ungaro’s Story & Allegations

• Early grooming and relationship dynamics: Amanda was targeted at 15 in Brazil; remained in a relationship with Zampolli for decades. (01:49–02:35)
• Custody battle and alleged retaliation: Reports suggest Zampolli called ICE to have Amanda deported, gaining leverage in their custody battle.

  "She sadly got deported. And the New York Times is reporting that she alleges that it was Paolo that picked up the phone… and asked ICE to deport the mother of his child." (Tara, 02:59)

• Continued bravery: Despite deportation and separation from her son, Amanda is actively speaking out and seeking accountability.

4. Melania Trump’s Relationship to This World

• Ties to the circle: Melania was notably close to Paolo Zampolli and was intertwined in the modeling-Epstein social circuits.

  "On the inauguration, Melania gets to bring one of her guests and it was always Paolo. Paolo threw an inauguration party. I went to it actually for the first one. And he remained very close to Melania." (Tara, 07:32)

• Melania’s distancing: When Amanda was deported, Melania allegedly responded with indifference.

  "Amanda said that when she got deported… Melania said 'tough.'" (Tara, 19:22)

• Reinvention and social climbing: Melania aimed to leave behind her past and those who shared it.

  "She does not want people to know that this is where she came in from, because she rejects all the other women… she wants to present that she was always this dignified, you know, society girl, and that’s just quite simply not true." (Ashley, 20:14)

• Control over immigration status: Many women’s lives—including Amanda’s—were tightly controlled due to lack of green cards, leaving them vulnerable to retaliation.
  (Tara, 23:00–24:00)

5. Industry Complicity: Nightlife, Restaurants, and Hidden Abuse

• The symbiosis between modeling agencies and hospitality: Models were regularly hired to “beautify” restaurants and clubs, masking a darker reality.

  "We would call these people [modeling agencies] and be like, we need 12 girls tonight… their job was to get the party going..." (Ashley, 12:02)

• Predatory ecosystem:

  "Maybe the restaurant job was a good job for them, and maybe there were other jobs that weren’t so good… It’s what these girls endured outside of… maybe the restaurant job." (Ashley, 13:10)

• Lack of awareness:

  "I didn’t know, you know what I mean?… I feel almost terrible about it now." (Tara, 14:15)

6. Barriers for Women and Exploitation of Ambition

• The promise of the American Dream (“maybe one day they’ll become a successful model”) was often a trap for girls from poor countries.
  (Tara, 13:40–14:15)
• Industry barriers: Only those with connections or privilege—“Nepo babies”—truly succeed; others risk falling into exploitation.

7. Broader Political and Social Context

• Repercussions at the highest levels:

  "She should testify on the Hill… she probably has a better understanding of the Epstein circle than anyone else, whether she wants to admit it or not." (Tara, 22:57)

• Parallels with political scandals: The discussion of Eric Swalwell’s scandal highlights uneven power dynamics and protection of elites.

  "The difference between Swalwell, though, and Trump right now is that Trump has the power to get ICE to take, to deport you back to Brazil and make sure you never see your son again." (Tara, 16:14)

• Reflections on women’s solidarity:

  "You’re not supposed to become the bad guy. You’re supposed to make it better for other people so it doesn’t happen to them, too." (Ashley, 27:48)

8. Media’s Role & The Challenges of Reporting

• Tara’s early career intersected with these circles: Her journalism’s “power of the pen” insulated her from exploitation, but also gave proximity to abuse that was hidden or normalized.

  "I had that power… which like protected me… but they would never like cross that line." (Tara, 10:05)

• Slow progress in investigative exposés:

  "It just takes a lot to do investigative work... we’re going to continue reporting on what Amanda has told us, and if we can get responses from Melania and Paolo... it is explosive and it is enough for the first lady to come out and, you know, make that statement." (Tara, 17:51 & 50:19)

• Discussion of delayed justice and institutional cover-ups: Many prominent figures, including legislators and hospitality moguls, are tied to stories that mainstream media and political institutions ignored or actively suppressed.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On abusing visa controls and young women:

  "They controlled you. You had to stay in their good graces as long as you did not have a green card… Amanda, like all these years, Paolo controlled her essentially because she never got the green card."
  (Tara, 23:00–24:00)

• On Melania’s reinvention:

  "She is always wearing a costume... She doesn’t want to be associated with Amanda or the Epstein people. She thinks they’re low class. She thinks she’s above them."
  (Ashley, 22:05–22:57)

• On missed accountability:

  "You’re not supposed to become the bad guy. You’re supposed to make it better for other people so it doesn’t happen to them, too."
  (Ashley, 27:48)

• On the high-society modeling world:

  "There are a lot of just questions around, you know, what exactly were these models doing? Some of them not tall enough to be models… much too old to be models, some of them taking nude photos, which is not something that they typically want runway models doing."
  (Ashley/Tara, 04:33–04:44)

• On being a journalist in that world:

  "I just saw him for what he was: a foolish old man who was trying to extend his childhood for a very long time…"
  (Tara, 10:47)

---

Noteworthy Segments with Timestamps

• 01:00–02:35 — Zampolli’s recruitment of Melania and introduction to Trump.
• 04:33–06:45 — Digging into Epstein, agency politics, and the modeling/visa control pipeline.
• 19:22–20:37 — Melania’s reaction to Amanda’s deportation and her social ascent.
• 23:00–24:00 — The powerlessness of women without green cards in elite circles.
• 27:48 — Moral responsibility for women who "survive the system."
• 36:15–37:06 — Melania Trump’s nude modeling past and its hypocrisy with current persona.

---

Tone & Style

The conversation is bold, candid, and unsparing—matching the fearless reputation of Tara Palmeri’s reporting. The dialogue is highly conversational with moments of dark humor and deep pathos as the hosts reflect on their own proximity to these worlds. There’s a palpable sense of outrage at entrenched abuses of power and a hope that sunshine—brought by brave women like Amanda Ungaro—will crack the old systems of impunity.

---

Conclusion: What’s Next?

• Ongoing reporting: Tara pledges continued investigation and hopes Amanda Ungaro will soon share her story directly.
• Explosive potential: The information revealed could compel high-profile testimonies, perhaps even from Melania Trump, about the true nature of the modeling/Epstein nexus.
• Bigger questions: Listeners are left considering how power, visas, and vulnerable ambition get weaponized against young women—and how many more secrets remain to be exposed at the top levels of American society.

---

For updates, follow Tara on her Substack and social channels. The story is far from over.

Transcript

[Ashley]

You know that thing where you get an amazing pair of shoes at a really great price and want to tell everyone about it? Yeah. So do we here at Designer Shoe Warehouse. We'll give you something to brag about, like the latest styles from brands you love or the trends everyone's obsessing over or shoes that make you feel like, well, you. So go ahead, show off a little. Buying shoes that get you at prices that get your budget. Head to your DSW store or dsw.com today. DSW. Let us surprise you. Tara, I'm so glad that you're here, coming to us live from Italy right now.

[Tara]

Yeah.

[Ashley]

How's it going? Because there's even more.

[Tara]

The.

[Ashley]

The abounds like now. Now we've got updates from the Epstein side of the universe involving Amanda Ungaro, who is the partner of Paulo Zampoli, who is a current member of the Trump administration, and he recently had her, the mother of his child, support it.

[Tara]

Exactly. And V. And I actually have been in touch with Amanda for a while through one of her reps. I. I've met Amanda many times. I know Paolo. I've known Paulo since I was 22 years old when I wrote for page six. I've been to Cipriani and seen him there many times where he had a standing table. And I've been, I went to his townhouse, actually, as soon as the Epstein story broke, I thought, who would know about Jeffrey Epstein? Paolo. Because Paolo had a rival modeling agency, ID Models, which is how he allegedly recruited Melania at the old age of 26 as a model that is old for models, and brought her over to the US and secured her a visa, an Einstein visa. That is the story, as it goes. And he, you know, introduced her to Donald Trump, as he says, and he's willing to testify about it because it's been disputed so frequently. But, you know, Paolo and Epstein, they weren't like they were competitors, but they were frenemies. They almost bought a modeling agency together, Elite modeling agency. They thought about getting in on that one and buying it. And from. For them, the modeling wasn't about the art, the fashion. It was about access to women and visas and controlling through bases. And we know that am. Amanda has said that Paulo, you know, targeted her in at 15 from Brazil. From Brazil. And that they were in a relationship for decades. We know that I, I met, saw them at, you know, White House events. I saw them.

[Ashley]

They've taken pictures.

[Tara]

Yes. An ambassador to Granada when she was an ambassador to the Dominican Republic. And actually that's not Amanda, actually. That's the new girlfriend. That's the new girlfriend there's on the right. You know, she, she and Virginia are about the same age. And I had a lot of, you know, questions for her about Virginia because obviously Virginia is not alive anymore. And you know, there, she's 40, they have a baby together, and she sadly got deported. And the New York Times is reporting that she alleges that it was Paolo that picked up the phone. That's the guy on the right. Scary looking dude. And, and, and asked ICE to deport the mother of his child. Not his wife, the mother of a child, so that he could win this long custody battle. I've actually met their child before. It looks, he looks like a little Paolo, I'm not gonna lie.

[Ashley]

But it's just like, how old is this child?

[Tara]

I think he's 12 now. I think I met him last. He was seven. Yeah, but I remember seeing them, I think even last year together at a White House correspondence event. I wrote this piece actually about how like Paolo had just like by the time the Trump administration was over and he was on the Kennedy center board and then the Biden administration switched over, everyone had just had it with Paolo and his, in his lifestyle, like his hard partying, kind of like New Yorker lifestyle with the bottles and the models in Washington. It's just very considered gauche in Washington D.C. and I wrote about this for politic and you know, this was just who he was. Like, this is what he was about and this is the world that Melania came into. And I think this is why there are so many questions, especially when you start to realize how frequently Paolo is mentioned in the Epstein files, you know, how closely they were intertwined. There are a lot of just questions around, you know, what exactly were these models doing? Some of them not tall enough to be models, you know, that was much

[Ashley]

too old to be models, some of

[Tara]

them much too old to be models,

[Ashley]

some of them taking nude photos, which is not something that they typically want Runway models doing.

[Tara]

Yeah, well, you. The thing about a Runway, there's, you know, there's commercial models that you see on TV and in magazines, not like high fashion magazines, but like, you know, they sell Crest toothpaste or something like that. And they're kind of more commercial models, but like the type of models that they were going for, these were women that were like posing nude like Melania did for a long time. I mean, her, when she was found on the map, it was through this guy, Antoine Berglass, this French photographer who we've talked about before, he photographed her 11 times, mostly in the nude, and he put her on the map. And he continued to take photographs of Epstein's girls for him after Epstein spent time in jail. So, like, there's a big interlap. And the creepiest part is the exchange and those emails about this drug, scopoline, that comes from a trumpet plant that Epstein would. Would grow and ask his staff specifically about these plants, and he denies that he knows anything about this dangerous drug that turns people into zombies and makes them completely devoid of free will. But if you think about it, if you were running a sex trafficking operation, like, wouldn't that be exactly the kind of drug you could use and would be helpful? But I remember that, like, Paolo, when I first interviewed him about Jeffrey, he said, oh, Jeffrey's girls were everywhere. They were constantly recruiting in New York to the point where we just called them Jeffrey's girls. And. Yeah, and Adriana Ross. You know, we know that. We know that Amanda knows her very well. And Adriana was one of Epstein's, like, assistant recruiter victims. They all kind of fall in the same bucket now. And. And Amanda has said she's a victim of Epstein as well, and she was on his plane at 16 years old when she was being rep by Jean Luc Brunel, who was like a disguise.

[Ashley]

The other creep. Ye. Yeah.

[Tara]

Disgusting. M. Disgusting agent who was Epstein's partner at. Get this. MC Squared. MC Squared. What does that stand for? Einstein's theory. And what kind of visas do these girls get? The Einstein visa visas? It's a little.

[Ashley]

Who were they in with back then? Then? Is this like a bush thing? Like, how were they getting these visas? Who was their government?

[Tara]

She met Clinton. Like, it goes all the way back.

[Ashley]

Clinton?

[Tara]

Yeah.

[Ashley]

Even further. Yeah, of course. She.

[Tara]

She. She met all of these people. She's met John Kerry. She's met Clinton. She said that Paolo would bring Ghislaine Maxwell to multiple UN Events when she was basically a pariah for being so closely associated with a pedophile. Well, that was until high society let Epstein back in with open arms. But, you know, it. This is this world that she understands. The network, the modeling network. It is. I mean, I just sent a picture to one of the producers, Abby, if you could throw it up, it shows you how young they were.

[Ashley]

Very young.

[Tara]

Amanda Watts. No, no, that's her. Older. Older. That's not her. That's her on the right. I mean, look at this girl. Yeah, yeah, and a getty photo. I mean, and, you know, it's just she and she remained very close with the Trumps. I mean, it's true. On the inaugural at the inauguration, you know, Melania gets to bring one of her guests and it was always Paolo. Paolo threw an inauguration party. I went to it actually for the first one. And he remained very close to Melania. And you know, Amanda has said that Paolo would. Ah, she's saying a lot of stuff.

[Ashley]

She's saying a lot of stuff. Here's the thing. Tara and I have lawyers. We don't have those kind of lawyers. I want everybody to be watching, reading what Amanda is saying that we can't today repeat. We were hopeful that she was going to be able to be with us today. She's been doing a lot of press. She was exhausted today. So as soon as she feels better, we'll have her on so she can say it in her own words. But there are some allegations that Melania was doing a little more than modeling for these folks and that we'll get into that when we can. Because I think the important part right now is that Amanda is showing such incredible bravery even after being detained by ice, deported back to Brazil, separated from her child, and even at this point is showing such bravery to try and hold accountability for Zampoli, who is a massively powerful person. He was just in Iran or. No, he's in. Where was he? He was in Iran negotiating, like with J.D. vance out here. He's everywhere. He had a very much, very much into this world. I have a question for you. You said earlier that the first time that you met Paulo Zenpoli was when you were 22. You were the age of some of his victims, if, like peer level with them. How did it feel like you being on the outside, did you try to like be like girls, like, get out of here?

[Tara]

Well, it was different. I had a.

[Ashley]

Had to be.

[Tara]

It was different because here's the thing. I was scary. I was a reporter for page six, right. I was a 22 year old with a very powerful pen. I wrote for the hottest gossip column in town. And my boss was Richard Johnson, the legendary, you know, Page Six columnist. Like, I knew what he was about. Models and bottles.

[Ashley]

Right.

[Tara]

But, you know, Paolo wanted to be in Page Six.

[Ashley]

He wanted to be in these pages. Yeah, right.

[Tara]

And he wanted to be the cool guy. And you know that when you have that, you're not like, I've thought about that a lot in my career. Like, I've been really lucky because I think that I had that power of the pen which like protected Me, like, you know, I said that to you. Like sometimes I'd get like creepy vibes from people and I'm like, just got that creepy vibe from them. But they would never like cross that line.

[Ashley]

Right.

[Tara]

You know what I mean?

[Ashley]

Because they knew you were a reporter.

[Tara]

Terrifying about a reporter.

[Ashley]

Right, right, right.

[Tara]

And, and also that's not like I'm not a 16 year old. I'm not like, not to say a 16 year old. Stupid, but I couldn't be like, right,

[Ashley]

you were an adult woman. Right.

[Tara]

I was an adult woman with a career, job, degree, self respect. Like.

[Ashley]

Right.

[Tara]

I just saw him for what he was. A foolish old man who was trying to extend his childhood for a very long time. Did I think he was trafficking these girls? You know, if I had that tip in my head and I. They looked young, but I looked young then. I don't know, you know what I mean? It was like, and you're in nightclubs and there were always models and actresses.

[Ashley]

Seemed fun. Yeah.

[Tara]

It was just the way it was. And they seemed fine. I mean, until like, I mean, I Wasn't there until 4 in the morning when everyone was blacked out. But I understood this world. It got what it was. And the guys who own the clubs who were like equally my sources, they, they, they wanted like attractive women in the club. So they wanted the modeling agents like Paolo to bring the girls in.

[Ashley]

And he would used to hire them at the restaurant constantly. This was my job as an event planner at BR Guest restaurants. Steve Hansen featured very often in the Epstein Files. And now in a new video of Steve getting a pedicure with Epstein and goofing off. Which if you would have ever told me Steve Hansen got pedicures, I would have been like, no way. He was one of the most intimidating, successful restaurateurs of the time. It was like if you worked at Be Our Guest, you could write your T anywhere. Because it was so incredibly strict to work there. And the training was outstanding and the restaurants were phenomenal.

[Tara]

I know. Yeah.

[Ashley]

And we would do the Saturday Night Live after parties or if we were opening a new restaurant, we would call these people Zampoli or whoever, Elites, models, and be like, we need 12 girls tonight and we're good. They're going to hand out champagne. So that when Tara from Page Six, not you specifically, but maybe we crossed

[Tara]

over, we would write about BR Gas. I remember it. Yeah.

[Ashley]

Would come in and you know, be like, wow, every single one of the waiters is beautiful. And it was a wonderful night. And it was their Job to, like, get the part. Party going or make sure that people were dancing. The dance floors look full at the clubs. The bars look full at the clubs. It was the most beautiful place. The Dos Caminos openings, all of this. And then we did it in Las Vegas as well. And it. It. I go back in my work history to. And talk to my cousin who was the general manager at Ocean Grill at the time, and be like, did we know? And she's like, we did not know. This was very normal to hire models because we're having a media night. We're having a. Whatever night. We had no idea what they were doing. Nothing bad ever happened inside the restaurant while we were at work. It's what these girls endured outside of. Maybe the restaurant job was, like, a good job for them, and maybe there were other jobs that weren't so good or stuff that was going on in the afternoon.

[Tara]

Here's something that people never talk about. Like, there are. And this is one of my girlfriends actually works in fashion, and she was explaining it to me, and she was like, hundreds of girls show up for these casting calls. They pick maybe 5 to 10. Most models don't make any money, and most of them don't really make it. And, like. And for some of them, especially the ones that come from, like, poor countries, like Eastern Europe or, you know, Russia or even Brazil, it's like. Like, Amanda's mother, like, didn't know that she was being groomed, but she also hoped her daughter would have a better life in America. Right. And. And so I think that their hopes and dreams that the modeling world will either introduce them to a man that can save them or. Or give them a life in America, or maybe one day they'll become a successful model. But the truth is that the most successful models are often Nepo babies. I mean, let's be honest.

[Ashley]

Like.

[Tara]

Or they come from, like, some sort of connection to the fashion world because

[Ashley]

they're celebrities, children, right?

[Tara]

Yeah. There's just.

[Ashley]

And the girls that don't make it in modeling become cater waiters, and that's where we hired them from. And this is, like, the world that you exist in, and it becomes very.

[Tara]

Or they end up in, like. And some of them, especially the ones who don't have even access to their visas or their own passports because they're taken away from them. They live in these modeling dorms. I mean, I didn't personally, like, ever kind of see that, like, in, like. I mean, I saw them. I got to know them. Like, I knew guys that, like, I just, I knew that world because I had to be around it, but I didn't like, it wasn't like anyone was like coming to me being like, hey, 23 year old girl, like 22 year old girl who writes about, you know, they were save me from my like old man boyfriend with the man boobs I have to sleep with every night because that's the only way for me to live in New York. And I'm just like, now I'm like a rabid feminist and I would have probably like tried to like create like some sort of way to take them out of that situation. But I don't know, I guess I just thought that was the way that it was and I feel almost terrible about it now.

[Ashley]

Aunt Jen points out also, pharmaceutical sales reps, the same thing. Like this idea of hiring models to do this, like, you know, society work in terms of convincing doctors. Because we used to host those dinners where a pharmaceutical sales rep would come in and I was like, I've never seen a sales rep that's like 6:1 and like looks like a model. But they would come in to like sell doctors on writing prescriptions for OxyContin and stuff. There's, there are layers and layers and layers and layers of corruption that were going on that are now better exposed by the fact that we know better so we can do better. But going back to Amanda for a quick second here, do we think that. You know, I'm very inspired by what happened with Congressman Swalwell this past weekend. Taken down by a kindergarten teacher, that maybe Paulo Zampoli and this Epstein class can be taken down by a girl who had a dream to be a model. Like, I think that there is maybe more trust in regular people up against power structures in this generation than there's ever been. And so I have hope for, for it. But do you want to talk about.

[Tara]

Yeah, we can talk about Swallow.

[Ashley]

I'm happy to.

[Tara]

The difference between Swalwell, though, and Trump right now is that Trump has the power to get ICE to take, to deport you back to Brazil and make sure you never see your son again. Like, that is the difference. Swalwell is in the minority, a Democrat, and they are ready to like, throw his ass out. And they have, which they should have. And honestly, like, I had been, I had, I had a feeling about Swallow. I didn't have any. Just random interactions. I was like, you remember you and I were talking about this and I was like, shit's gonna go down. Like that guy just. I can smell trouble. Like it is.

[Ashley]

Yes. I know exactly who's good. The benefit of being a butch lesbian is that men talk to me the way they talk to other men sometimes. And they, like, they don't accept that I. That, like, I would, of course, side with women. So there are often times that awful men will be like. And I'm like, yeah, okay. And then I immediately am gonna go and tell her because I'm a girls girl. But there are. There are people I could tell exactly right away if they're going to be a creep or a bad guy, for sure. Yeah. And you had that feeling about him, too?

[Tara]

Yeah, just from, like, the, like, the few interactions I had with him. I was just like, smells off. I couldn't put my finger on it. We did start get. We started to get tips, like everyone did. I started to report it out, like everyone did, unfortunately. Like, I wish the Tara Palmeri show had the bandwidth to be, like, on everybody's ass. You know, we started reporting it and it got out, which I'm happy that it did. I did not know about rape allegations

[Ashley]

like, that I did not know about.

[Tara]

No.

[Ashley]

In fact, that didn't come until, you know, the CNN interview where somebody was going to say that.

[Tara]

I mean, that was. And then now we have video, and it's like, that's what it takes in this town in this time. And there's so much more in the Epstein story that I've been digging into that I just, like, need, you know, hopefully, you know, it just. It just takes a lot to do investigative work. And for the reason that we have right now, I mean, we are going to continue reporting on what Amanda has told us, and if we can get, you know, responses from Melania and Paolo, you know, V and I will come back to you and give you that information and try to get it to you as quickly as we can. It's important for people to know. I think it would explain, you know, why the first lady came out, press her. Yeah, yeah, it would. And I mean, Amanda remembers meeting her for the first time when she was 18, on a plane, on Trump's plane from Miami to New York. And I'm just going to give you, like, some of the bits that, you know, she's told us that are consistent

[Ashley]

with what I do. Abby, do we have a picture of what Melania looked like when she first came here with Trump? Because I think when we picture the first lady, we picture as what she's become. But if you look at her from that period of time, I think it paints a better picture of where she was at mentally and. And status and society wise and why she maybe would have turned on the girls the way that she did once she got out of what she figured. You know, she thinks that she's very much above some of the girls that she came in with.

[Tara]

Oh, yeah. She did not care. Amanda said that when she got deported. She said Melania said tough. Amanda, who had known her for decades, tried to reach out to her.

[Ashley]

Yeah. And she was like, too bad. Like, I'm above this. But this is not, you know, this is not.

[Tara]

Like we said, mall girl.

[Ashley]

Yes.

[Tara]

We might say in Jersey, she's a mall girl.

[Ashley]

She's a mall girl. So there. I just think it's good for people to understand what Melania looked at the time. The. The social climbing that she was seeking to do. The way she came in with Donald. Donald had an obsession with casting his next wife as someone who could be the first lady. He had dreams of being the president at a time, and he was trying out different women.

[Tara]

She looks better in that phase.

[Ashley]

She looks better there. But she definitely. Yeah, y. But she was trying to cast this character, and you see it even in the way that. That's the picture I'm looking for here. That's like what she came in as. And I'm not attacking her looks. I want you to see where she came from versus where she has established and the fact that she very much does not want people to know that this is where she came in from, because she rejects all the other women who are sort of down on their luck in a certain way or haven't achieved the status that she has. She wants to present that she was always this dignified, you know, society girl, and that's just quite simply not true.

[Tara]

No, there was a. Actually, Donald Trump spent a lot of time and curating, and she speaks very carefully because of him. She speaks like, as if. Because he had long wanted to be president of the United States.

[Ashley]

So her accent is manufactured by him. And if you look at the way she talked when she first came here, she had much easier American. She spoke much, much more Americanized than she does now, where it seemed. Yeah, I think that she sounds a lot more New York than she did now. When she talks, it's like she could barely find the word. She's like Hilaria Baldwin. All of a sudden. She's like, what do you call. What do you call a cucumber? Like, she has no idea, you know? But going back to this.

[Tara]

Another.

[Ashley]

Another. That's a whole other story. But I Just, I think it. It helps me as a person to. To remember what she was like at that time. She was also at my college graduation, which was a whole other insane thing. He was the speaker.

[Tara]

What?

[Ashley]

Donald Trump was our commencement speaker for Wagner College 2004. And he had just really started dating her. I believe they were engaged at that time. And he, like, made a show of, like, wanting her to, like, parade past. She was much more willing to be a trophy show off than she is now. And I remember thinking it was weird back then, and I remember thinking how young she was compared to him back then, even I was like, oh, weird.

[Tara]

Yeah.

[Ashley]

Yeah.

[Tara]

I mean, I used to see her out in town, and yes, she's. And even the person that she. The way she dressed when she was in. She's always wearing a costume.

[Ashley]

Like, she's a role. It's a costume.

[Tara]

Yeah, she's always wearing a costume. I think she dresses impeccably now. I mean, her suits. She's always wearing, like, a beautiful Dior suit. She looks classic. I will give it to her.

[Ashley]

But she's never going back. And there's something I understand about never going back. And I. I just want people to remember that this is not a person who came from a royal family and has always been at the level that she's at now. She came from the place where a lot of girls who. You know, it's a tough place sometimes you're just trying to make it for yourself. And she will never go back. And so she doesn't want to be associated with Amanda or the Epstein people. She thinks they're low class. She thinks she's above them, and she doesn't want to be reminded that that's actually your peer class of solidarity, the people you should be looking out for, the people you should have brought up with you. And she doesn't. She does not want to hear that or be a part of that. And that's.

[Tara]

And for that reason, she should testify on the Hill.

[Ashley]

Yeah.

[Tara]

Because she probably has a better understanding of the Epstein circle than anyone else, whether she wants to admit it or not, because it's so. The modeling world and the Epstein world are so intertwined, in fact. So one of Epstein's assistants. Oh, his girlfriend. Excuse me. When she was having visa problems, he turned to the photographer Antoine Verglass, who put her on the map, the one who took that famous picture of her naked on Trump's plane. And to get to have him help with the visa problems, this was just the thing these guys did. And you had they controlled you. You had to stay in their good graces as long. As long as you did not have a green card. As long as you did not have, you know, a U.S. citizenship. And even Amanda, like all these years, Paolo controlled her essentially because she never got the green card. That's how she was able to be deported.

[Ashley]

Oh, she all this time still didn't.

[Tara]

No, she never had a green card.

[Progressive Insurance Announcer]

You're listening to this podcast, so I know you've got a curious mind. Here's a helpful fact you may not know yet. Drivers who switch and save with Progressives save over $900 on average. Pop over to progressive.com answer some questions and you'll get a quick quote with discounts that are easy to come by. In fact, 99% of their auto customers earn at least one discount. Visit progressive.com and see if you can enjoy a little cash back. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. National average 12 month savings of $946 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2024 and May 2025. Potential savings will vary.

[Ashley]

I'm sorry, my other producer is texting me right now and then calling me three times. So I'm like, I'm on live. What's up? Yeah, what's up?

[Tara]

You are so in demand right now.

[Ashley]

We are all in demand right now. Okay. There's just like way too much news going on and shit is bananas. I like Ashley Sinclair on Earlier Today, I think was really important to understand where Turning Point USA is, where women in the right are. And now talking about what's going on with Amanda and Melania, it's like I feel like everything is just coming to a head in such an interesting way that I'm like, I'm like hopeful for. And I'm also extremely anxious, Tara. Like, I just, I feel like every second of every day I can feel every single one of my nerves because we keep getting this like, glut of information in.

[Tara]

Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's, it's. It makes me feel like I was naive in a lot of ways in life because, like, in some ways I was sort of around all of this at one point. Like when I was a young reporter, one of my first jobs was at Washington examiner where I wrote a column and I was around the conservative movement and I saw it up close and how they try to bring young girls. Like, I mean, I was a reporter, I was getting paid. I was not being groomed. Do not get me wrong. But when you graduate from college, I started at CNN as a news assistant. But like, those jobs, 2008, there were not a lot of jobs.

[Ashley]

No.

[Tara]

You know, you wanted to continue in journalism. I would, I, I said to the, you know, I said, I can, I can write like, I can, I want to be a reporter. Can I write? Like, can I freelance for you guys? And they hired me as a columnist. But like, I guess you think about it, and even as a journalist, like the few jobs that were really available in 2008 were in the conservative world.

[Ashley]

Yep. And still are.

[Tara]

Exactly. So a lot of younger female reporters end up as reporters working in the conservative media world. And I'm like, I'm happy that I learned to report there. I'm grateful for the jobs that I had. I don't think that I would have the grit that I have now, the compassion, the understanding for people if I was, you know, the, the daughter of Remnick's, David Remnick at the New Yorker's friend and. Or I had some great, you know, internship in college and that was my way of getting in. Like, I had to. I have to work my ass off to get to where I've gotten to. And it's made me all the better. But I do think that because you. That these doors, they're just more open. Like they're just. And I can see how, I mean, modeling journalism, not exactly the same world,

[Ashley]

but restaurant, it's all the same. It's all the same. It's all attempting to run by, break into a male dominated industry where, you know, your look is your whole thing. Even in restaurant, I look like this now. But this all was only allowed to be the look after Adam Lambert and after David Tutera and people started to see having a gay event designer and chef as a status symbol. Prior to that, I looked extremely feminine and was forced to. It was like, no, you can't. You have to. I had longer hair. It was heels that were. I. I mean, if I were to bring up pictures of me working in the restaurants in early 2000s, you'd be like, oh, your sister is really pretty. Like, you would not know it was me. This became possible when having your.

[Tara]

Very pretty, by the way.

[Ashley]

Yeah.

[Tara]

For me to say that.

[Ashley]

Thank you. This like, look or whatever only became popular because men, gay men started to make it a status symbol to have a gay event planner and started to become popular on television. And then it was like, oh, it's marketable. You can be yourself. But this was not allowed back then. And so that's what pisses me off about Melania and these different people is. I'm like, we got out of it to some level, achieved some level of success. You're not supposed to become the bad guy. You're supposed to make it better for other people so it doesn't happen to them, too. And her getting out of it and being like, no, everybody, Amanda, you get deported. Tough luck. It just, like, it boils my blood to see the way that people are like this. It just hurts.

[Tara]

Yeah.

[Ashley]

So bad. You know, it's annoying.

[Tara]

Yeah.

[Ashley]

Your husband is a sick weirdo who started a holy war with the Pope this weekend. Like, what are you even doing?

[Tara]

Trying to get the Pope on the show? We're working on it, so.

[Ashley]

Oh, my God. My mom called me last night. She's like, v, did you know that we know the Pope's secretary? So Bobby Malay, who had Malaya's Market, his mother had Malay's Market in Shelton. It was my grandma's best friend, and Bobby's the Pope's secretary. Did you know? I was like, ma, are you going to call Bobby and ask him if we can meet the Pope? And she's like, I don't know, maybe. I probably could get his mom's number. And I.

[Tara]

God, if you get an interview with the Pope, thanks to your mom's secretary,

[Ashley]

the most New England Catholic thing that has ever happened. Right? My mom being like, v, Mary, Grandma's best friend, Mary, Bobby, that's her son. He's the Pope's secretary. I was like, ma, I can't with you right now.

[Tara]

I love it if we get the Pope.

[Ashley]

I mean, I'm loving the Pope right now. I got. I. I have my haunted doll here that I got thrifting this weekend. Sister Mary Alice, who I love.

[Tara]

You're actually giving me, like, flashbacks to high school and grammar school, I'm telling you.

[Ashley]

So she's here watching over our shoulder. In case anybody was wondering.

[Tara]

I actually like the nuns, though. I mean, my parents make me do. They made me do a lot of community service with them. And I didn't realize they were lesbians. But, like, it's cool. They are.

[Ashley]

But some of them are. And some of them were just, like, really dope. Like, if you think of the early, like, most badass social justice, Help the poor get down in the dirt with people. It's the nuns.

[Tara]

No. And they were.

[Ashley]

Music is good.

[Tara]

Oh, my God. And also, like, we had this nun, Sister Marie, I believe she's still around, and she ran the school, and she was, like, such a badass. And she kept this Catholic school going, and we had a bad priest, and she kicked his ass out right away.

[Ashley]

Yeah.

[Tara]

And like, you know, when. When a woman is ruling the roost, those bad priests don't stick around for very long.

[Ashley]

No, we need to bring nuns back. Okay. Like, there's. There's a channel on Tik Tok that. Because now I keep talking about how much I love the Pope, so I keep getting all this Catholic propaganda and news shows pushed at me, and I'm, like, sitting there enjoying it. I'm like, I am Irish and Albanian, so we're. We're double Catholic over here.

[Tara]

Albanians or Muslim, Right? Are you half Muslim?

[Ashley]

Well, it's a. No. It's a tricky thing, because in Albania, you have the Muslims, and then you have the Catholics, but the Catholics are a minority, and they're typically Roma. And so that's where we come from. And that is very. That's a tough. That's a tough swirl. You are. Yeah.

[Tara]

Oh, wow. You are a spicy, Spicy.

[Ashley]

That is a spicy mix. And that's why I get so pissed at people. Well, you're, like, Italian and from New Jersey. You don't get much. Much tougher than that, despite me and Tara, friends, because we'll beat you up outside the Catholic Church if you're acting wrong.

[Tara]

I wish that I was beating more people up earlier in life.

[Ashley]

But in the meantime, before we go, because we were only supposed to do 30 minutes, but now we're just kikiing because the world is just. Just, like, absolutely falling apart. This was crazy. It looks like he's healing. Epstein, doesn't this man in the bed look like a young Jeffrey Epstein? I was like, what is going on with you, you freak ass? How do you even put this?

[Tara]

If my family would talk to me, I would ask them how they felt about this.

[Ashley]

And, like, Gwar in the top over here, like, there's, like, some kind of soldiers and then some kind of, like, guar in the top corner. I'm like, what. What's coming for the apocalypse?

[Tara]

Those planes, each other a little bit.

[Ashley]

Yeah. His hair looks phenomenal. I mean, the hair they got right, but everything else is wrong. And then I was like, is this Jose Andreas over here on the left corner in the hat with the beard? I was like, what? Leave Jose Andreas alone. It's just. It's too much. Oh. People are saying it looks like Jon Stewart in the bed. I just. I just can't be. I cannot be alive with this level of fire hose of insanity. Tara, like, how are things in Italy? How is how are the people in Italy responding to Americans right now? Like, as you are traveling through Perugia and Rome.

[Tara]

Italian, look at me.

[Ashley]

Well, you do look Italian. I know. So they're. They're like, okay.

[Tara]

And they call me Regaza, which. I'm like, oh, my God, thank you.

[Ashley]

What is that? It means, oh, young girl.

[Tara]

It's kind of like something you say to be like, hey, regards. That. I'm like, tara, I am. I'm not. You know, I'm a lady now.

[Ashley]

Head. Head over to the back. Well, I don't know what the international response is to America. When I travel, I always try to see what's on the news over there.

[Tara]

Oh, no. I've been hanging out with Italians all weekend, and, like, they're all, like, horrified and, you know, but they're not. They just think it's about Epstein and, like, that we're in war, and Israel brought us into war because everyone has dirt on Trump. I listen to the pod. Everyone's listening to podcasts. The Italians are listening to podcasts on YouTube, like, the cab drivers. And I keep hearing Israel, Epstein war, you know, Iran. And it's like every. It's like those four words. I know those four words, and they keep hearing them all around me. And so I don't think there's, like, any. Like, the way that we see it, they see it. They're even more pissed off because they're the ones who are really suffering from the oils shortages. And, like, this is just the way it is. Like, I have not heard a single person here be like. Like, they understand, too, why Americans voted for Trump. They're like, oh, for taxes, right? I mean, Italians are pretty practical people. They're like, yeah, they voted. We know.

[Ashley]

Like, well, the Italians have their own history with fascism. Speaking of my Albanian heritage that all my grandmother wanted in our life, she was like, please, God, do anything. Don't marry an Italian. And then both me and my sister married Italian.

[Tara]

Yeah, listen, Italians, yes, they like fascists. I mean.

[Ashley]

Yeah. Is Georgia Maloney coming out against him, though? I've seen her be, like, really aggravated with Trump.

[Tara]

They like fascists until they're effed by the fascists themselves. And that's a problem. I mean, Italian Americans were one of the first ethnic American groups to come out for Trump. I remembered that when I was in 2016, and people that. And he always used, like, well, he's

[Ashley]

all on the clown thing.

[Tara]

Yeah, yeah, there's a whole thing there. But, no, they're not happy. You don't. You just you can't f. With their money. And I think. And also, like, I guess the people I'm around are more like me. So. Yeah, they're not. No bueno. Nobody's happy about this. Not even Americans. Not even his supporters.

[Ashley]

No. We talked about Palm Beach Pete. We talked about him a couple weeks ago. He's just like a grifter loser who's willing to be like, oh, yeah, I look like Jeffrey Epstein and I'm gonna like go on podcasts and make cameos. It's just a weird. He's a freak. He's not actually Epstein though.

[Tara]

No, no, no. Hey guys, it's me again, raving about quints. I'm wearing another one of their silk long sleeve shirts. I seem to wear them on the show every day because they look so good and the quality is great and they're washable, which I love. But it's spring, so it's time to reset my closet. Maybe get some short sleeves or sleeveless. And I'm sure you'll see more silk shirts on the show. But when I'm not on the show, I wear their organic cotton tees or I'm wearing their European linen shirts because they are really elevated. The fabric is amazing and the prices start at just $50. And you're probably wondering how they're able to do this in an ethical way. Well, it's because they cut out the middleman. So if you're like me and it's time to reset your wardrobe, go to quince.comtara for free shipping and 365 days of returns. Now available in Canada too. So go to Q I N C.com Tara for free shipping and 365 days of returns. Quint.com Tara and I think everyone, everybody knows exactly what the Melania Trump thing was about too.

[Ashley]

Yeah, you guys are going to find out some. Look, if you. I. Because I'm dumb and innocent. I googled Melania Trump. I googled Melania Trump nudes because I was trying to see like, I, I wasn't trying to see the pictures. I was trying to see if there was news about it. No, I'm dead serious.

[Tara]

She.

[Ashley]

I thought they meant like topless or something. No, they were like, she took real,

[Tara]

real dirty pictures in for, for the French magazine. That's the thing. She was not a Runway model. Like she.

[Ashley]

Or a commercial model. The pictures that she took would disqualify you from commercial or mainstream work. I think that, well, they were pornography.

[Tara]

She couldn't be like in a, like

[Ashley]

she couldn't have even gotten Playboy after some of the stuff that she did. They would have been like, no, it's already out there. It's already been seen.

[Tara]

Here's the other thing, too. Like, you, when you want. The reason that they like girls so young, it's like their bodies are literally clothing racks. Like, you can just put clothes on them and they can take them off quickly and they can put them on the next girl on the Runway show. Right? Like, it's about, like, actually, like, ease of movement. And yes, they like gazelles, and they're beautiful, but, like, they're like, it's actual, like, movement. But when you have fake breasts, like, that's the last thing a real model would do would be like, unless you're like, land. And then at that point, you're, like, elevated and you're at. Like, you're actually at, like, swimsuit model, but si. But that usually doesn't happen until you're famous. Like, people don't usually put. And then you become famous for weird things like sex tapes or dating Hugh Hefner or. Or like Melania, who got to do an SI shoot, but only after she was with Trump. Like, her entire modeling career did not start until Trump. Right? Because she wasn't that type of model. It was when she got to do gq. Antoine Bearglass, Epstein's friend, shot her. That is when she started being in, you know, Golf Max or whatever, naked. But everything was naked. And she had some concord, like, watch commercial. But she was again, in a bed, no clothing. Like, people were not buying.

[Ashley]

It's not a lot of talent. Right, Right. They were paying for pornography. And I was like, holy, the guy's sick.

[Tara]

Or it was like, but if you want to run around naked, I'm not gonna.

[Ashley]

But don't pretend you're better than everybody and that you're above everybo that your husband is going after and villainizing and doing all this horrible stuff. Like, if you're going to be a sex positive person, be one then and help Amanda. Help Amanda.

[Tara]

Because you.

[Ashley]

And keep your son away from the manosphere.

[Tara]

And also, if you could have been in her shoes.

[Ashley]

Yeah, she has. Still can. Still.

[Tara]

She can't get deported now, can she?

[Ashley]

She sure, kid. Yeah. They could denaturalize her. Why not?

[Tara]

Could we be deported? Should we get off the phone?

[Ashley]

We could be. Oh, man. Boo. Deport me back to Italy. Oh, that'd be awful. To Ireland. Terrible right now. That'd be awful. Bring me back to Albania. Oh, it's terrible there.

[Tara]

That might actually be Scary.

[Ashley]

If my grandmother knew that just in one generation, I'd be considering if Albania was maybe a better shot for us, she would have lost her mind. She would have lost her mind.

[Tara]

But I know my grandmother, whenever I go to Poland, she's like that, no,

[Ashley]

no, no, no, don't do that. No. She's like, no. Why? She's get to be American. Stop. Guy Fieri and the Tate brothers. Guy Fury. I don't know what to tell you about that. He. He. You know, one time he adapt up Andrew Tate, and everyone was like, well, maybe he didn't know who he was. This time he did it at the USC fight, and his friend that was with him was like, we love you guys. You're awesome. To the tape Brothers. At this point, I just. There's no excusing it. Guy Fury dapped up the Tate brothers and thinks they're awesome. There's. I don't have anything else to say about that.

[Tara]

Like, he's. You can buy him the.

[Ashley]

The Food Network. And so people are like, food Network needs to drop him. And I was trying to explain. They literally cannot because he controls almost three quarters of their programming, and he's responsible for almost the entire income of that particular network. There's no way to replace him. The only thing you could do is not watch his shows if you want, but I wouldn't expect a lot of, like, accountability from them. There's just. There's nothing that they can do with that. So.

[Tara]

Yeah, I just feel like he's a rent a quote. Like, I feel like he's a rent a chef, like, for the right price, and he'll do anything, and he's just right.

[Ashley]

We. I have a lot of feelings about here, but a lot of my friends work for him, so.

[Tara]

Okay, look.

[Ashley]

Hey, want a cookie? Oh, I know you just ate, so you're craving something a little sweet. The signs. One cookie isn't gonna kill you.

[Tara]

How about half? Just a bite. Bite it. Bite it.

[Ashley]

Bite it.

[Mochi Health Announcer]

Food noise isn't fair, but Mochi health

[Ashley]

is your affordable glp.

[Mochi Health Announcer]

One source that puts you on a path to successful weight loss by quieting food noise.

[Tara]

Bite it.

[Ashley]

Shh.

[Mochi Health Announcer]

Learn [e-mail] Mochi members have access to licensed physicians and nutritionists. Results may vary.

[Tara]

Do you ever do a show where you cook and do.

[Ashley]

Yeah, I should. We were talking about doing it this summer, maybe, because I love to cook, and I'm getting my kitchen redone. And so with the new kitchen, I'd be happy to, like, cook and show people Stuff. But I wanted to do a show on Fridays called Are We Cooked? Where I make a snack, like an emotional support snack, and talk about, like, one of the worst things from the week. So maybe we'll get back into that. But I have a lot of chef friends that are really talented, interesting people, and I think that folks know them as their chef personality, but they might not know, like, just how cool they are and what they're doing for the industry. Like, Kristen Kish has done a lot for the industry to be more friendly to women, to understand, like, the trauma and industry appeal to adopted folks. Like, she was adopted from by German parents, even though she's not German inherently, and talks about, like, just the way that the restaurant industry, like, builds up your confidence as a person who feels sort of adrift and, like, the importance of, like, having safe spaces in industry. There's a lot of my friends talk about black food ways being destroyed by trends and our. So interesting. And it's just, like, fun, cool stuff. And I'm like, maybe I want to talk about food now instead of, I don't know, all the horribleness of US politics. But maybe both. It's what gives me confidence because I'm like all of you. If I ever get canceled from doing the news for telling the truth, I'll just go back to restaurants. And I was good at that, too. So I think there's, like, if you have a fallback on something, skill or talent, it makes you really confident to be, like, out here, you know, I

[Tara]

don't know why I'm so confident, because I have very few skills.

[Ashley]

But it's the Italian, it's the Jersey Italian. You have lots of skills, and you've been able to survive so well, and now you're on your own. You don't have to, like, be under anybody's thumb. So that's really helpful. And yes, very good friend. Outstanding, wonderful person. Every bit as good as you could hope. Bobby Flay's terrible. He's the worst. He divorced his first wife because she won a James Beard Award before him, and he couldn't handle it.

[Tara]

Yeah, that's.

[Ashley]

I don't know. I'll tell you, I feel like we'll do a Chef Day where I tea on everybody.

[Tara]

If we both have this, if we both get canceled.

[Ashley]

Okay, yeah, we'll open a restaurant.

[Tara]

We will open a Sicilian restaurant together,

[Ashley]

and we will attack people. Yes. You'll come in, come for the food, stay for us talking about everyone we've ever met in 20 years of industry.

[Tara]

We should open it in Sicily, actually.

[Ashley]

Oh, my wife would love that. She's Italian.

[Tara]

Yeah, we'll do it. But here's the other.

[Ashley]

I think I. Oh, are my favorite topic, Tara.

[Tara]

Oh, I did an entire podcast on apl. Like Adam Perry Lang Dusty of Jimmy Kimmel.

[Ashley]

Dude, go watch.

[Tara]

Time to come clean. But there's other chefs too, guys. There's a chef that specifically worked on the plane. And end. The problem is he actually spoke to the FBI, which is great. We. Adam said he was too. But, like, the problem is. Is another person who's a problem is the pilot, Vasowski, who handed over allegedly all of his flight logs to the Epstein office. And we'll never see those. And that would. That would answer so many questions. It's like, blows my mind. How much do you think we'll get

[Ashley]

to it with this new generation of politicians, though? Like, I see Robert Garcia and his attitude is similar to ours about, like, you could cancel me. I'll find. I'll just go back to restaurants. His is like, I never even. I. I was a child when Epstein was operating. So I'm not worried about. I'm not friends with anybody who was around that time. Whereas the Chuck Schumer is. Chuck Schumer took money from Epstein at one point. He gave it back and said he didn't know he was a bad guy. Nancy Pelosi of it all, like, all these people have known about Epstein in all this time and have hidden it. And now it's like, I feel like until millennials get in power, we are not going to see it. But, like, if John Ossoff becomes president in 28, maybe we will.

[Tara]

It also means that we'd have to get rid of, like, big money and politics. Like, that's a huge problem in this country, because when you start taking money from everybody, which is what people feel like they have to do, you're. It becomes a problem. Like, a lot of people get money from shady ways get from, you know, and then suddenly you're like, I didn't know that Steve Wynn was also, you know, sexually. It's like everybody's had to give back money from their shady donor. The loss, like, raise your hand.

[Ashley]

Talk about New York. Yeah, we talk about New York. When we get to talking about Las Vegas and the Epstein connections between Las Vegas and Epstein, that's a whole other world of restaurant and, like, shadiness, the models, the whole thing that operated there. I don't even think people have really scratched the surface on Las Vegas. And we're only talking about America.

[Tara]

Like, until women are educated, have the same opportunities as men, they're going to fall into these traps. Like, it's just. It's just not it.

[Ashley]

We could get Elizabeth Faulkner. You guys want Elizabeth Faulkner to come on? She is another really close personal friend. She's been at Thanksgiving at my house. I still own one of the dishes that she baked me a pie in. And then I said, I'm keeping this. We can get Elizabeth Faulkner on to talk about it, but where does it go is sort of my thing. It's like, why I hesitate to talk too much about James Beard? Because it's like, where does it go? Is it helping, or is it just, you know? I don't know. I know restaurants are hard.

[Tara]

Well, when you want to write your book, I'll be your ghostwriter.

[Ashley]

Okay, perfect. We. We have a book coming out next year. This would have been helpful with the book I'm writing right now that I just had to get a book doctor for, because I had over a thousand pages, and this woman was like, girl, we got to narrow this down. There's book one and two here. So she's, like, fixing it for me right now. Okay, well, crazy.

[Tara]

This is. I'm only gonna write your book. Get canceled, by the way, and then you can write mine.

[Ashley]

Oh, I would. I would be absolutely ruined. I wanted to write a book called the Dish, and it would just be my restaurant career from 2012 to 2019, and it would be everything from Mitt Romney's RNC and, like, having to hide the strippers on the delegate buses all the way up to my life at James Beard and being told on my first day. So James Beard is a pedophile. And we know that, but we were not changing the name of the organization. I mean, just that alone would sell a book, wouldn't it?

[Tara]

It. Yeah, it would. And actually, there was a lot of weird shit going on at that 2012 RNC convention. I was there, and, like, staffers jumping in the pool, like, afterward and parties. Like, it was pretty wild for a family values convention.

[Ashley]

Maybe we should. We should. We've never talked about the fact that we both did RNC 2012. Because there are some stories I have, people are like, that's not true. And Tara could be like, no. Yeah. There were strippers on the delicate bus.

[Tara]

There were strippers everywhere.

[Ashley]

Everywhere.

[Tara]

There was even a woman called herself in her Palin that was stripping. She was everywhere.

[Ashley]

It was Tampa, you know?

[Tara]

It was Tampa. And it was just that slutty. Okay. It was bad.

[Ashley]

It was a phenomenal time I was

[Tara]

coming, I was covering it for the New York Post at the time as a political reporter. And I was blushing.

[Ashley]

I was like, it was a lot. I know. The drugs, everything was crazy. And then the Mitt Romney being kept so separate from it was nuts. Nuts. People want a cooking show with Tara and Pancetta. Insane.

[Tara]

I gave her such an unfortunate name for a food I can no longer eat now.

[Ashley]

I know. Here's. Oh, the Young Republican group. Oh, my gosh. We'll just do. We'll do a whole show.

[Tara]

You are welcome. You are welcome. Yeah, I remember calling stuff into the. The news desk from the Republican National Convention, and my bosses were just like, like, what? And I worked for the Post at the time, so they, like, didn't want to make Republicans look bad. And I was like, all right, guess that one dies on the cutting room floor.

[Ashley]

Like, there was. And there was a hurricane on day one, so all my parties from Monday, I had to move to Thursday. So it was just like an insane. I didn't sleep at all. It was nuts. And just the things that happened in Tampa. Talk about, I mean, the secret life of Mormon housewives lives has Nothing on the 2012 Mitt Romney RNC people. That's crazy.

[Tara]

People that works for. Yeah.

[Ashley]

Well, at least Stefanik was his chief communications officer, so it was like I

[Tara]

ended up at some party on the

[Ashley]

water like that I planned on Davis Island.

[Tara]

Yeah. But I was so young that no one, like, they were just like, who's this? I was like, 25.

[Ashley]

I didn't know what I was doing. They were like, figure this out. I'm like, okay, me and Joey Redner figuring out, like, young people. Where do we get drugs and strippers from? For the Republicans.

[Tara]

Know what the best part about being young is? No one takes you seriously. And you see everything.

[Ashley]

Everything. And as the staff on top of it, they, you know, they're hiding out in the catering tent doing drugs and doing horrible things. We'll do a whole. We should just do a whole show on the 20.

[Tara]

Now if you and I walk into a room, people start acting good. Yeah.

[Ashley]

They're like, oh, the press is here. All right. We have to get on with our day.

[Tara]

Yeah. Guys, I'm sorry that we couldn't get Amanda, but hopefully maybe Wednesday, if she's

[Ashley]

feeling better, we'll let you know.

[Tara]

Send good thoughts for Amanda. In the meantime, I'm gonna do some reporting and trying to get, you know, some follow up from her team. Not from her team, but, like, try to report out the kind of information she gave us because it is explosive and it is enough for the first lady to come out and, you know, make that statement. And I think like all weekend long I've been looking at the, the news like El Pais and all these other places, and I'm like, when's the full story gonna come out? CNN etc? And like, it just hasn't come out yet.

[Ashley]

It's like waiting for Swalwell. I think it'll come because they did swallow this week and then they'll do hers maybe in the coming days. I mean, it's of the time.

[Tara]

Yeah.

[Ashley]

The Swalwell thing as well. He does need to resign from Congress, in my personal opinion, but I think there's gonna be a vote.

[Tara]

He needs to. There needs to be like a prosecution of this man.

[Ashley]

Well, New York, the Manhattan D A is opening an investigation into him. And so follow Eliza Orleans for updates on that. That's her office, not her personal office, but she works in that building, so she knows all those, those folks. But what he, what he's done especially is here at Horrible. And I, I find it find a little interesting that Jimmy Gomez and Ruben Galeo Gallego were the first two to come out and be like, this is crazy. I had no idea. I'm like, you were his best friend. Friends go easy.

[Tara]

Gross reputation on the Hill.

[Ashley]

Like, he just go easy, fellas, go easy.

[Tara]

He had a bad reputation on the Hill. It wasn't like rape level bad, but like, just know which members the Hill. I always will tell people this. The Hill is like college. It's a bunch of members they live in. They live together in kind of like dorm like situations. They're away from their wives and there's all these young staffers everywhere that are fawning after them. And they're young and they're making no money and they're all hanging on the same bars and clubs and then they're a lobbyist money. And they come along and take them out and they try to. It's just assessment.

[Ashley]

It's a circle.

[Tara]

Which is exactly why sending my team there.

[Ashley]

Yes, exactly. I want to live there. No, I did live in D.C. it's. You can't stay there for too long.

[Tara]

Yeah.

[Ashley]

We have a substack out today that gives you the update on everybody who's running in the California race. I'm not a California resident, so I did not endorse anybody because I think that you guys should choose for yourself. So we did the good, the bad, the ugly. And you can read it for Free on substack. We made it a free edition just because there's 10 people in the field right now. And this is a nonpartisan primary, meaning whoever the top two are are the two that will go head to head. So if two Republicans take the top two spots, then you will be choosing between Republicans. I guess California does it weird. But a lot of people have put their, their, you know, weight behind Becerra. Other people say Katie Porter. Some people say Tom Steyer. I'm not much for billionaires. You guys have to decide amongst yourself, but you do kind of have to decide because if you split the Democratic vote amongst seven candidates, then you will end up with a Republican top two. So we just told you good, bad and ugly about everybody. And you can read that for free on my substack.

[Tara]

Yeah, but like, I also just feel like the Democratic Party should have known about this before they did.

[Ashley]

They did. They. Nancy Pelosi paid out of the congressional slush fund to settle some issues for Swalwell in 2018, I believe it was. So there was already a little something there. I don't think rape was there. I'm not saying she covered that, but I think the, like, ickiness he was

[Tara]

icky and weird that he rose his hand and said, I want to run for governor. They should have said no, no.

[Ashley]

Correct. But, you know, I, I don't like the way the establishment plays games and I can't wait for that to be over with. I don't know what comes next. Next. Ashley Sinclair suggested people follow the Democratic Socialists of America. I'm a member of the Working Families Party. I think that they're doing it pretty well. So I think you can check them out. But it's going to take a total rebuild of where we're at. And we're not going to get that with Hakeem Jeffries and with Chuck Schumer still in power. Because when our side was calling for there to do a vote to expel or to at least censure Swalwell, they said no. And that's crazy because now who's doing it? Anna Paulina Luna, that nut job Republican woman. And she's going to get credit for bringing up the vote to expel him, Corey Mills and other bad people. And it's like this, this guy was taken down by a kindergarten teacher.

[Tara]

Yeah, I know she's done a few. Yeah, she's doing good things. Like, she also was like on the forefront of the Epstein stuff.

[Ashley]

Like Nancy Mace too. Lauren Boebert too. Right?

[Tara]

Yeah. She also is like, called for women to get. Get. So that women will run for Congress so that, you know, what is it? What did she call for? Paid leave for maternal leave. They get six weeks or something or. No, they don't even get any.

[Ashley]

They don't get anything. No.

[Tara]

Yeah. So.

[Ashley]

And they won't allow them to vote remotely.

[Tara]

I. I would like to think if there are more women in Congress, there'll be less sexual harassment. Although it's unclear, but can we at least try?

[Ashley]

Depends. I think amongst younger people, yes. I think that there is a level of, like, socialized competition that women were brought up in that are, like, maybe, like, over 40, like, very much your whole life indoctrinated to find other women as competition and as. As they're by default wrong, probably. So I think if you're. If you're looking at the younger generations, though, they have more social, emotional learning, and they were less taught to be competitive with each other. This is the share economy, kids. So I think they have a better chance at that happening where if there's more young women in office, and by young, I mean, like under 50 or under 40, we have a better shot at that. Because sometimes I see just in the way elder millennials, Gen X and boomers were socialized. We were taught to find other women as suspicious in competition, and that's hard to break.

[Tara]

Yeah, that's true. I've seen that with women who are, like, 10 years older than me.

[Ashley]

Yeah, well, women who are like, V, I can't believe that you're so collaborative with me. I'm like, yeah, man. Like, we're not competition. There's room for all of us. So it is what it is. But enjoy Italy. We'll see if we get Amanda. Hopefully we do. And I'll see you later, pally.

[Tara]

Yeah, you too. Be well.

[Ashley]

Bye, dust bunnies. Bye, red letterists. We'll see.

[Tara]

Bye, everyone under the desk. I'll bring Pancetta out next time.

[Ashley]

Please, we must.

[Tara]

I wish I could have brought her to Italy. I know. My little bag.

[Ashley]

Oh, my God. Can you imagine Pancetta in Italy? The fits. All right, bye, guys.

[Tara]

Bye.

[Mochi Health Announcer]

Close your eyes. Focus. Listen to work getting done with Monday dot com. Relax as AI does the manual work while your teams are aligned on a single source of truth. Feel the sensation of an AI work platform. So flexible and intuitive, it feels like it was built just for you. Notice, you're limitless. Limitless. Now open your eyes, go to Monday.com, start for free, and finally breathe.