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- [00:00]
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- [00:31]
Tara Palmieri
Welcome back to the Tower Palmieri Show. Today we're looking at a Congress that has all the power in the world and almost nothing to show for it. Only around 5% of the bills introduced this year have even made it to a floor vote. 5%. That's not gridlock.
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That's paralysis.
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And here's a truth one Republican, Nancy Mace was willing to say out loud in the New York Times of all places. Nancy Pelosi was a more effective House speaker than any Republican this century. Meanwhile, today's Republican majority has the House, the Senate and the White House and really very few governing victories to speak of. But the story gets even more interesting when you look at it through the lens of gender. Because while Republicans love putting women in the spotlight, it's often tokenism. And as Michelle Goldberg wrote in the New York Times, they valorize a certain kind of woman, one who rejects feminism and proves simply by surviving the men around her that no one needs it. And yet the women who do speak up, like Marjorie Taylor Greene who called out the Republican conference for being a good old boys club to other congresswomen who say they're being iced out of leadership roles. They all describe the same dynamic. They say Republicans like having women around, especially beautiful ones, as long as they smile, clap and don't disrupt the patriarchy driving the agenda. It's a party that doesn't just sideline women. It increasingly mocks the idea that women deserve political power at all, from the attacks on women who don't have children to the fringe voices openly questioning whether women should even vote.
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I know.
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Do you believe that we are even debating this at this point?
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So.
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So today, with so much at stake, border security, affordability, healthcare, basic governance, the question is whether this Congress is failing because Republicans can't lead or because they don't want women to. So I have Steve Schmidt of the warning on the show with me. He joins me to break it all down. The dysfunction, the gender politics and what it means for a party that has the power to govern and is giving choosing not to stick around until the end, when I get a little emotional talking about one of the most important people in my life and how this person taught me to focus on those without A voice in my reporting.
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Take a listen here.
- [02:54]
Steve Schmidt
Hello, everybody. Steve Schmidt here with the warning with the one and only Tara Palmieri of the Red Letter. Hey, Tara, how are you?
- [03:03]
Tara Palmieri
Thanks for having me, Steve. It's great to see you. It's been a bit since we've done a show together, so it's been a pleasure.
- [03:09]
Steve Schmidt
Been a bit. You have been exploring the cutting edges of brain science lately. I saw one of the things that you had written and I just. As our audience builds. The truth is you were a second or two late, but it was okay because your brain and mine are different. I did not know this until you really talked about Mike Johnson and his wife. But a male brain is like the mighty waffle and it has compartments in it. And because that male brain, like a waffle, has those compartments, it can do many things at once. So right in the morning when I get up, I can be like, I gotta let the dog out. I gotta do these three things. And I'm gonna have Tara at 10. But that's. That's hard for the ladies, according to speaker and Mrs. Johnson, because ladies brains are like spaghetti and meatballs.
- [04:31]
Tara Palmieri
Yeah.
- [04:31]
Steve Schmidt
And it just, you know, it's a mess, Right. It's a tangle. It's everywhere at once. And so I was thinking about, like, I had this table and it was a piece of stone that had come out of this quarry in Utah and it had fossils in it. And the fossils in the stone were like 140 million years old. And I was telling someone, I was like, that table there as snow, that's 140 million years old. And I thought it was cool, but they were like, that's bullshit. Because Mike Johnson is also into geology and he believes the world is 10,000 years old. People and the dinosaurs live together. People were really threatened back then by the dinosaurs. And now he's bringing that skill as a scientist in geology and all of that into brain science. And I understand that these new theories have upset some of the maga. Gentle ladies of the 119th Congress, including Elise Stefanik. And it's one of the things I wanted to talk to you about today, but I just like. So. So what do you think about all this?
- [05:55]
Tara Palmieri
Well, you know, I think it's ironic that the women are saying, in fact, in the New York Times, like Nancy Mace wrote an op ed in the New York Times, which is, you know, the paper of record, but also a bastion of liberalism, that they feel like they're not being heard and respected by their leader, who is a, you know, is an evangelical who's made it pretty clear that he believes that women have certain roles and men have different roles. In fact, he believes that women are so different, that their brains are different and that they cannot like basically what he was insinuating, that they can't control their emotions or they can't be strategic or they can't, you know, think clearly, methodically, in a way that a leader would. And it explains to a lot of these members who are upset, set by these comments, female members, why there's only one woman in leadership in the House gop. And so there is this, I think, conflict with a lot of conservative Republican women where, you know, they may espouse conservative values, but they have to realize, like a part of their constituency, a big part of it now coalition. Some of them are advocating for women to lose the right to vote. I mean, what does that mean for their livelihoods as members of Congress? I mean, a lot of the people that believe in white Christian nationalism, the growing anti Semitism you're seeing on the right, it's also coupled with this belief that women should go into a retrograde and should go back to homemaker and that they shouldn't even have the right to vote. I mean, which is a privilege that we only have a century of enjoying. So it's really, it's, it's shocking to me that, like, there are now surprised that their colleagues don't actually value them. And I want to quote Nancy Mace in her, in her op ed, if you don't mind, she said, quote, women will never be taken seriously until leadership decides to take us seriously. And I'm no longer holding my breath. It's like, what did you think? What dance did you think you were showing up for? I mean, JD Vance openly despises women who are childless. You know, Trump likes to have women around him as long as they fit the casting mole. And it's just, you know, that's my confusion over it all. And like, even Elise Stefanik, who's like a Harvard educated member who is also speaking out against Mike Johnson, she's been passed over over and over and over again, not by leadership, but also by President Trump. And she sees herself as someone who could be vice president. So I don't know, there's always been this tension between seeing yourself as a leader, as a woman, and then also like not acknowledging that you are a feminist. Because if you are a feminist, then you would, you know, you would adhere to the basic feminist assumption that you are entitled to equal treatment. It's sort of like The Phyllis Schlafly, you know, contradiction that these modern Republican women have to deal with.
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Steve Schmidt
Did you watch the Handmaid Show?
- [09:13]
Tara Palmieri
You know, I started it and I saw about a few episodes, but it was, like, so disturbing that I. I don't know. I don't love life. I don't, like. Like, after the world that we live in and what we dig into every day, I'm like, sometimes I just need to watch some, you know.
- [09:31]
Steve Schmidt
The Puppy Channel.
- [09:33]
Tara Palmieri
Yeah, exactly. And what? The Puppy Channel. Exactly. So I. I watched some of it. I know the premise of it. I want, you know, once. Once I saw the way that they. They were expected to reproduce and the kind of like that scene, I just was like, I can't. This is too much.
- [09:51]
Steve Schmidt
So. So the architect of. Of Gilead is the wife of the Commander. Her name is Serena Joy. And Serena Joy, the Commander's wife, they have a privileged status, and she's a brilliant person. She's a Phyllis Schlafly type. She's a right winger. She's the architect of the whole downfall of the United States. And as the story progresses, there is no place for her in Gilead as the men run. And then there's this scene where her finger is cut off in front of her husband as a biblical punishment for being too lippy. And there's nobody that more approximates to me, the Serena Joy ethos than Elise Stefanik. Right? Just. And so I think about her in the same type of fraudulence as a George Santos. This is a person who ran as a political moderate, Harvard graduate, hometown girl who became a hard maga, absolute shill for all of this. Discarded every principle she had. And she miscalculated, right? She didn't get maybe who she was in business with. Maybe it's because she's from upstate New York. And frankly, she didn't have a lot of experience being around some of these people from Alabama and Mississippi and South Carolina who dominate our political party. And what they. What they really think about. Really think about the ladies. But when. When you in. And how to. How do you process it? As someone who in their journalism is an advocate. Right. For the empowerment of women, particularly victims of the Epstein abuse, so on and so forth, when all of a sudden you see this cohort of women who say, oh, my goodness, I'm a victim here. I'm a victim of maga. The people I empowered that have abused women in a hundred different ways have now said, oh, there's not a seat for you at the table anymore. And I also think It's a prelude for an issue that a lot of Jews are going to be facing and a lot of other people, Hispanics, who got on board with this and now understand, well, they don't like us very much.
- [12:57]
Tara Palmieri
Yeah, yeah. No, I think you're right. Like, I think that they have always valorized a type of minority, a type of Jew, a type of black person, a type of woman, but like a singular type of them, not in a collective group in which they have power, equal rights. And to them, they kind of like the idea of, like the token woman, you know what I mean, who rises up on her own to become a leader in a party, and then they can point to her and say, look, we have women in the Republican Party. We have a leader in the Republican Party. And this is. This is who she is, instead of empowering the entire idea, the entire group of. Of women. So I've always sort of, like, felt that way. I think as they see the numbers of women grow within the caucus and they start demanding, you know, equal treatment, that's what's starting to irk them more and more. And, and in the Epstein case, like, it was a moment where they had. I think a lot of these women saw themselves and, and they saw the basic, like, human rights of victims and the import. And we're honestly, in a lot of ways more in touch with their constituents than their male counterparts who are squishes and afraid of Trump. Like, you know, I think that they saw that this was a winning issue that even Trump couldn't beat. And I don't know, just like I think about it often, about the fact that, that they were. That they're so. They're. They're very in. They will never go up against President Trump. The members, the Republican caucus. But these three women, these three MAGA women, Lauren Boeberg, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Nancy Mace, decided that they would do that. And he pressured them and he tried to stop them from doing it, but they. They felt based on their own experiences that. That he was on the wrong side of this fight. And I think what I've learned, too, just from reporting on. On Epstein, is that a lot of people, and I see this in the comments and the messages that I get from people that, that listen to my work, that a lot of people were abused by someone, molested, attacked. A lot of people have felt injustice in their life. I would say most people are. Have felt that they were in some way taken advantage of or abuse and feel like there is a huge imbalance in this country between the elites and the rest of us and that those women were more in touch with that, with that moral clarity. And I, I sometimes just think they probably felt like they had less to lose because they weren't being heard anyway. I also want to point out that Nancy Mace and Elise Stefanik are probably are running for governor. So this is their last term. Nancy Mace in South Carolina and Lease in New York. So they have less to lose as well. Marjorie Taylor Greene, meanwhile, just walked off set. But yeah, I, I, I kind of appreciate the fact that they're showing moral clarity and on other things, less so.
- [16:08]
Steve Schmidt
But, but on this thing.
- [16:11]
Tara Palmieri
Yeah, they are. Yeah, exactly.
- [16:14]
Steve Schmidt
And, and what it, and what is the thing, what is the thing that they are showing moral clarity on?
- [16:23]
Tara Palmieri
I think it's a, it's the Epstein story that they've shown moral clarity on and I think it's empowered them and it's made them realize that a, their speaker is a squish. The men around them are a bunch of squishes. I mean, literally, they have 5% of laws, they've only passed 5% of the bills that have come forward. That is a do nothing Congress. How are they supposed to go back to their constituents? But you also see the writing on the wall. They're going to be in the minority next year, so what's the point?
- [16:51]
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- [17:17]
Tara Palmieri
Sadie is a Mochi member, compensated for her story.
- [17:24]
Steve Schmidt
When, when you see, when you see a, a woman. And let me just say to, to everyone who's on Tara has a, really, for those of you who don't know, a, a varied and storied career in media. I mean, you've worked as a foreign correspondent, you've worked as a White House correspondent. You've worked at the nexus of everything really in the job you held at Politico for a long time when you watched back in the day Donald Trump attack Megan Kelly, did were you uncomfortable watching that when that, when that happened in real time, did you, did you process it through the prism that that guy is abusing that woman?
- [18:22]
Tara Palmieri
Yeah, of course. I mean, it was humiliating for her and she's there trying to maintain control. I mean, that is the debate stage that you are. And you are walking into a stage in which you are trying to be the person who is in control. And he is. He's minimizing her. He. He's just, you know, for her gender, for her, for believing, like, you don't have the right to tell me what the boundaries are of this debate. You do not have the right to push back on me because you are a lower person than me. That. That was what. How I interpreted it. And that's why when I see her now, just like her behavior towards him is just so gross.
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Steve Schmidt
How do you get from A to.
- [19:09]
Tara Palmieri
B, desperation, just pure desperation to be relevant. If Trump fell out of favor, and, I mean, he's obviously dipping in the polls drastically, but if he was no longer the leader of the MAGA movement, he decided he was too toxic, he had no value to her and her audience anymore. She'd run. She's been a chameleon her entire career. And so, I mean, she went from Fox saying, you know, the war on Christmas to Today show, and, like, everything's great. And then it, like, she lets it slip, like, who she really is by talking about blackface. And then, you know, she's off on her island for a little bit, collecting millions of dollars, however much they paid her to leave NBC, which is insanity. And then she's like, well, how do. How can I be relevant again? And she realized her ticket to relevancy was going as far to the right as possible. Hugging Trump, like, begging him back. It's bizarre. I think she kind of factored in. I mean, she's a smart woman. She factored in that the left probably didn't want her and she didn't want to do an apology tour to an audience. And she probably just thought, if I want to have a career as a broadcaster moving forward, which I do think desperately, she needs to hear herself talk, because let's be serious, there are a million things you can do with your life. You don't need to be broadcast journalist for the rest of your life. You know what I mean? And she had. She was a wealthy woman based on how she was paid off, but she made the calculation that she wanted to be famous. I mean, in this Trump world, fame is everything. We are in such a weird post truth world where people will just do anything to be famous. And it's kind of gross. I mean, in my opinion. So even hearing her say, like, Epstein, like, girls that were barely legal, you know, and then I I played a video. I played sound from the police reports when they were interviewing the girls. I'm like, does this sound barely legal to you? It's a little girl calling his penis a wee wee. You know, like, it's a. Their voices. They're so young. Like, what, you're gonna. You're gonna apologize for that now? Like, even Bobert and Mace and Marjorie Taylor Greene knew that this was, like, unforgivable, this kind of crime, a crime against children. So I don't know. She's. But, you know, Megan's probably the type that would be okay. I mean, I worked in broadcast journalism, and, like, I. I had a lot of great colleagues, and it was changing when I was there. By the time I got there, you know, it was like women and men were about the same in terms of, like, the split in the newsroom. Obviously, men were like the top anchors at ABC when I was there. I think George Stephanopoulos and David Muir. But women, you know, Robin Roberts, Diane Sawyer at one time had the anchor deaths. But I always got the feeling like there was only room for one woman at the top. And I think Megan kind of sees herself in that same way where there's only. And that's why how I think the Republican Party sees themselves, like, only one room for one woman at the top. Like a Thatcherite type woman, right? That, like, is different than the rest. She's more like a girl's guy. And she fits all. She fits their mold in a way that's, like, not really feminine, but looks the part. But is a man that looks like a Maga Barbie. Do you know what I mean?
- [22:49]
Steve Schmidt
Does she feel competitive, do you think, with a Pam Bondi or a Kristi Noem in that firmament, that they have actual power, they have actual authority? She has a platform. Trump clearly listens to her. She's in. She's in the mix. But does she want power? Does she want to. Want a job? Does she want to be. Be in a White House? And what is the dynamic between the women at the highest level? How adversarial is it between Bondi and Nome, or are they supportive of each other? Do you. Do you have any sense of that?
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Tara Palmieri
I don't really have any sense of that, to be honest. I mean, I think, like, where I. Here. There's a lot of. There's a really. A lot of tension between Cash Patel and Pam Bondi as they pass the hot potato of the Epstein issue and how they're going to get these files out in seven days. Doubtful. That they'll be able to pull this off. Can you believe it? Next Friday they are going to try to get these done. I, I, I think like if she lost her serious exam job, she'd probably want to be in the White House or do something like that. I think they're interchangeable to her. But ultimately, I think most of the people in the White House would be perfectly happy with the show on Fox. Like I think that that would be a, if they got an offer to show on FOX now, I think they would take it because that would give them just as much influence with the President. They would still have time with him, maybe more time. Maybe he would take their calls because he cares more about that and they would have the prestige, the fame. I think ultimately, like they all do want to be, you know, I think they all want their own job, their own shows. So Megan, I don't see why she would take a job inside of the White House. I think Gnome probably too would want to show on tv. I mean, like she's already put together a script.
- [24:53]
Steve Schmidt
She kind of has one, right.
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Tara Palmieri
Like, well, she has and I remember reading in the Daily Beast early, early on that they pitched a reality show around her ice break rate, break ins like Hawaii Five o style, like they wanted to follow them and, and do you know reality TV crazy.
- [25:15]
Steve Schmidt
It is crazy.
- [25:17]
Tara Palmieri
Oh, I know this happens. We're all trying to still figure out the, the substack.
- [25:22]
Steve Schmidt
Trying to figure out our.
- [25:24]
Tara Palmieri
Yeah. Situation or clip in here.
- [25:31]
Steve Schmidt
I wanted to, I wanted to ask you. As a, as a woman who has been often in the presence of the President of the United States, who's flown all around the world on Air Force One, has been around the office, has been around the military, AIDS has been around the protocols, the formalities, the dignity, has truly seen it all up close at that level. And I think, take us inside as a person at the time in their early 30s, who is asking a question of the most powerful person in the, in the world and, and imagine being insulted the way that these women are. I know that you feel it. I know that it's proximate and you deal with it. And every woman journalist is, is under, is under assault. But if, if I was standing next to you as your colleague, as your male colleague, right, when he calls you some type of name, what is your expectation? Maybe your expectation would be nothing of a male colleague, but what would your hope be or your best hope be of a male colleague? What would a male colleague, right, say to the President of the United States? I think he would just be calling. When he calls a. When he calls a female colleague a pig and gets the next question, I would be.
- [27:33]
Tara Palmieri
I would just be like, that's out of line. That's rude. Why would you say that? I mean, my next question would be like, what. Why would. Why did you call that my colleague? That? What. What makes her different than the others? Why did she deserve that for that question? Do you understand your role as president? Like, do you understand who you're actually speaking to? You are speaking to your voters through the press? You know, when I. You remember this, Steve, But I was getting bullied by Trump's campaign a lot. Their war room was, like, going after me on X all the time, just like. Like mocking me, tweeting at me, calling me all these names, and it was all of the time. And then they blocked me from their victory party, you know, And I, like, I just got this feeling. I was like, these guys are just obsessed with me in the way that, like, a schoolboy is obsessed with a girl that doesn't like them. There is. There's so many weird, like, male, female dynamics going on within this White House. It's like in this. In this campaign, in this orbit, it's very. They don't know what to make of women except to push them around. And I would. I wouldn't know what to say except, like, why are you so obsessed with me? Like, what is it about me, of all of the press corps that you feel like you need to block from your victory party, tweet about, from your account that once he became president, became an official account again, you are the nominee of the Republican Party. Like, why are you tweeting at me these. These things? Like, what are you getting from that and why me? Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, there's something about women that they just don't like. A woman who speaks with clarity, who writes what they don't like, rubber stamp. And I think for them, they were unhappy for some of the people that were in his orbit about the fact that it reported on how they were making money. And, you know, in Washington, you write about money. That is how you lose access. You write about how the people around the president are making money. And that's, like, in the swamp, because that is how it exists. And so, like, this was, you know, it. It just reeks of, like, sexism. And I just. I don't know how else to say it. And I do think to myself sometimes, like, why don't these guys ever say anything? Why don't they ever just say, like, that's incredibly disrespectful. Why would you say that, Mr. President? Why? Why? Why is my female colleague over here being remarked like, why are you saying something about her appearance? Do you feel. Is this how you interpret all women? You know, more than half of the people in this country is. You know, this is like. But again, people. Someone might argue, I work at Reuters or I work at AP and it's a wire service. And, well, AP is not even allowed in there anymore because the Gulf of America. But, you know, they might think, well, I only get one shot at a question if I'm lucky and I gotta do my job. And, you know, we can't like, just those. Those reporters in there are human pinatas. And I feel for them, and I'm really happy that I'm not in there. At the same time, I could deal with it. I've dealt with it. I'm a Jersey girl, you know, I've been doing this reporting gig for a long time. I started at the New York Post. That's a tough way to start as a journalist. Crappy. You're knocking on doors, you're getting screamed at like you do. You're doing hard, you know, shoe leather journalism. But I don't know the value anymore. When someone is yelling at you, lying, and then tweeting everything out within minutes, it's just like, what? Why are they there? They're props in the show.
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- [32:40]
Tara.
- [32:43]
Steve Schmidt
Why do you think that when you look out at the whole of the media in this moment, that you have integrity, that over the course of the year, as you built the red letter that obviously a lot of people are responding to, is that. Is that when I think a lot of people look at your publication and they read it, I know I do. I think it's a North Star of journalistic integrity. Where does that come from?
- [33:30]
Tara Palmieri
Thanks for saying that, Steve. Well, first of all, I want to thank you for encouraging me to.
- [33:34]
Steve Schmidt
No, no, no, no, no. Hold on. I don'. You say that all the time. I'm going to cut you off. And I thought about this beforehand. I knew you were going to do that. And listen, it's nice of you to say, but you always say it about me, about my wife. Everybody needs somebody sometimes to help them see some things in themselves. And if I did that a little bit for you, that makes me happy. But I have nothing to do with what you've built and what you've achieved this year. You've done that on your own merit because you're brilliant, you have guts, and you have integrity. But I'm really curious, and I think at a time where there's a real lack of that, people are interested, what makes you tick, right? There's an indefatigability on the Epstein files. There's a steadiness in the pursuit suit to do what's right for people who didn't have a voice. And I think that one of the things in this moment is that a lot of people are not believing that they can believe in anyone and anything, but over the course of the last year, when it comes to what you built, a lot of people believe in you. So where does the integrity. Where does the integrity, commitment come from? What. What drives that?
- [35:12]
Tara Palmieri
What.
- [35:13]
Steve Schmidt
What made you charge a. A group of thugs beating up a security guy? Outside of.
- [35:21]
Tara Palmieri
I just felt like that was so unfair. I was like, they're so unfair against one. It's just 20 against one.
- [35:28]
Steve Schmidt
Right?
- [35:30]
Tara Palmieri
It was just. That was really unfair. Although one of my girlfriends, actually, many people were like, you're crazy. You know, maybe I am. I thank you for saying all of those lovely, wonderful things. You know, there's. It is. It's hard. I think most journalists go into the profession wanting to do the right thing and, like, wanting to tell stories and wanting to be witnesses to truth. And they want to help people. Like, I. Like I've mentioned this before, like, I was inspired by muckrakers. I believe that journalism could cause progress, could expose the worst in society and help the poorest and the weakest and the overlooked to have power by way of exposing what they're. What they've been through. And, like, maybe my modern muckraking, which I've always been drawn to since I was a senior in college and is the Epstein story. I mean, there's no more muck in this world right now than that as a child sex trafficking ring, you know, Nellie Bly going into the mental institutions, Upton Sinclair, the jungle. Like, they were exposing things that. That they were exposing the world that the rest did not. That they were exposing a world that the robber barons were able to live above, you could say, and the rest had to just deal with. So I was. I was inspired by that. And now there's just so much freedom, like, when you don't have an editor, when you don't have corporate overlords, when you can just write for what you know is right for your audience. Having, like, nothing in between, not having those conflicts of interest. It's so freeing. You know, I can write about whatever I want. I don't know that I would have ever been able to really just spend all this time working on the episode seen story. If I had remained at Puck. They might have just said, yeah, that's not really how. Our numbers don't. They don't. Our audience doesn't like that, and our numbers aren't there. It's like, okay, well, now I get to listen to the voice inside of me and decide what is right and not have to keep asking someone else for permission. And I think sometimes, like, it's scary to jump off the cliff. And that's why I'm happy you gave me the confidence to do it. But, like, once you realize you can fly, you start to see the path a lot clearer. And, like, you start to see where. What feels right, like, when you wake up in the morning, like, what feels like the right story? I read this story in the New York Times about the women rebelling against Mike Johnson. And it was written by my former colleague at the New York Post, New York. Annie Carney was down at the New York Times, and I called her up and I said, can we do a podcast? And, like, that story, just, like, I don't. I was. I felt connected to it, and so that's why I chose it. And I think, like, Having a real connection to a story, feeling like there's a reason for it to be told. We have such a luxury that it doesn't really exist in corporate media anymore because they've become institutions, they're bureaucracies. It's all about the bottom line. And obviously we have to make money. We have to live lives as journalists. But I don't know, there's just something more special about not having that sort of, that layer. And, you know, I worry for people who have less experience in this space than we do and that they might abuse the, the relationship that they've built with their community, the trust that they've built. They may not know how to do proper investigative journalism. They may not know, you know, they may, they may push boundaries. They may, you know, lie, frankly, using their names, but. And the goodwill that they've built over the years. But I do think there is a space for people like us to, to use the, the knowledge, the analysis. Like your firsthand experience working in politics, your amazing historical reference. You're just like. And encyclopedia. You have encyclopedic knowledge of everything. My passion for investigations and muck breaking and like, and getting down to the story. Yeah, mentoring is huge. Someone said it. And I have an intern, Abby, who's amazing and like, to me, I, I want to mentor her and other young women and men who want to come up into the business that don't just want to do rewrites of other people's work, that want to go out and do investigative journalism and to learn, like, the ropes, you know, what, what is. What are enough sources to be able to print? What are the standards? Like, still using the rigor of legacy journalism, but without having to deal with all the conflicts that come with a major media institution. That's, that is like, that is. My goal is to, to keep the bar high, but, you know, not to have the timidity that you see like when we were talking about with CNN saying, like, all their caveats around President Trump. To be clear, President Trump has never been accused of wrongdoing in the Epstein case. No. Add the caveat by law enforcement. He has been accused of wrongdoing in a civil suit that was filed three times by a woman named by a Jane Doe who referred to herself as Katie Johnson. Like, let's be clear, let's not be shy about the facts because we're afraid. I mean, now you've got Ellison wanting to buy cnn. He just bought cbs. Everyone's afraid they're going to lose their jobs. How can you not Feel that, that breathing down your throat when you're trying to report.
- [41:15]
Steve Schmidt
Well, it's a, and it's. The Saudis would be, the Saudis would own CNN as well. And Jared Kushner's hedge fund funded by the Saudis. It's a disaster.
- [41:28]
Tara Palmieri
It's a horrible thing on a hundred.
- [41:30]
Steve Schmidt
Different, on a hundred different levels. What you, you mentioned Carney and, and Carney at the, it's Annie Carney at the, at the New York Times and Megan Tui who wrote a story, wrote a story yesterday about, about Andrew K. I have a 19 year old son, so I'm thinking of all the 21, 22 year old guys that are around. So Andrew Tate has been on my radar screen for a couple of years at least. When you talk to young men, I think a good dad says what I said, which is that guy's a shithead. An you never be like that guy. He's the opposite of what a man should be. And in fact he's a giant P word, word we need back to be able to call these guys out. But different, different, different story. But he's, but he's awful. And so this story, as I'm reading it, I'm like, oh my God. And so wherever that goes, how does that story hit you? Which is really, for those of you who haven't read Eric, this is. He's a credibly accused rapist, a professional misogynist, vile evil guy, sex trafficker that Trump cronies administration officials sprung apparently from a Romanian prison. He got on a private flight, came to Florida. Fair to say there's some disagreement in MAGA even over him. Megyn Kelly denounced him a few months back, but her line has moved. I'm sure she's all form right now, but in the middle of the Epstein stuff, when you read about this guy and Trump springing him, well, you got Ghislaine Maxwell in the minimum security prison. You have this picture in the New York Times story of Barron Trump and the photograph worth a thousand words, maybe more. I mean, Baron Trump looks just singularly evil in it. Like winner of the Damien Award from the Omen. Incredible photograph. But Barron Trump likes this guy and he's back in the United States. He sprung from prison as someone who is fighting to get truth out about victims and who's like a top tier journalist. When you read a story like that, does that empower you or does that hit you over the head and demoralize you? Or is it both because of the things that you, that, that you cover.
- [44:55]
Tara Palmieri
I mean, truth, like sunlight is the best disinfectant, right? And this is scum. So I, I'm sad that, like, a great. First of all, I'm always happy to see great journalism. Like, this is how people learn things. This is how stories come out. This is how the unacceptable is exposed. Right. And so I'm glad about that. I'm sad that there's just so little concern about that public backlash, that they have this feeling that they can just associate with these people, get away with it. These are just, you know, it's just because the president has been accused by so many women of sexual assault, and that's the standard. That's not a problem anymore. Crime against women is not a problem. According to our commander in chief, according to the person who controls the top law enforcement officials, that's not a problem. So these people are just, they're acceptable.
- [46:05]
Steve Schmidt
Acceptable to who, though?
- [46:08]
Tara Palmieri
Acceptable to clearly the majority of people that voted for President Trump.
- [46:16]
Steve Schmidt
Do you think that's the case?
- [46:18]
Tara Palmieri
I don't know. Because, you know, I do think, like, some people just thought, oh, he's the better of two evils, right? As some people would say. But it really comes down to, like, there are some people who truly care about justice. There really are. And I, I. And I, I'm one of those people. Like, if I wasn't a journalist, I probably would have been a prosecutor. Like, that's something I really care about, how people are treated that have no power and how the power treat the powerless, the power imbalances. I think that's why I cover journalism in the political spheres, because I'm so fascinated by what people who have power do with it. What do they do? Are they corrupt? They do the right thing. But I think that a lot of people just sort of are in this kind of. I don't want to. There's like a. There's a word for it. When you have this mindset of. It's not an abundant mindset. It would be the opposite, but, like, a desperation over their economic conditions because they always say, Trump's better in the economy and that's why he won. That or fear of immigration, crime that they're willing to look past, like, moral clarity, good, what is right and what is wrong, and allow this class of people who should be pariahs to become powerful.
- [47:52]
Steve Schmidt
Why do you care about people who have no power and don't look like you?
- [47:59]
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- [48:32]
Tara Palmieri
I don't know, I think like, I've had like a few things happen in my life. Well, I don't, I know it sounds weird to say this, I don't like to think of myself as a victim, but like I've had a few things happen in my life that have helped me understand what they've been through and what they're like and that have helped me understand what the feelings of the women of Jeffrey Epstein. I, yeah, I've had some life experiences that were, that were similar and I felt compassion for them. I've always sort of like, I see people, you know, on the street or I'll see them like being attacked and I'll feel compassion. You know, my, it's funny, like, I have my grandmother, my babcha, she had very little. She came here from Poland. She was in a concentration camp as a kid. They literally tested Bayer drugs on her. Yeah, Vaccines that she's a guinea pig. As a child in a camp in Hamburg. And you know, she drove, she drove a bus because she couldn't speak English. She had four kids, husband that beat her up, alcoholic, just living in poverty, had the children in Poland. Like it was just not a good life experience. But my grandmother would bring home runaways that she met at the mall and she would bring them to the house and they were always women and she would let them stay in her house and she would buy them a ticket wherever and she'd buy them a steak dinner and she would make them feel like, you know, like they mattered. And I think having that experience in her own life, she wanted to give other people like their dignity and humanity back. Having lost it herself, she's probably going to watch this and be horrified that I mentioned it because she doesn't like to talk about herself in a way that makes her seem like a victim. She's one of the strongest people I know. But I like, I admired that about her and I think she actually has, of all of the people in my family, probably some of the strongest moral clarity and it's probably seen some of the most evil close up front. So, you know, yeah, I admired her and I think, like, I think seeing her, you know, just want to help all Types of people, especially women who are in domestic abuse situations was, like, really empowering to see that. So, yeah, I'm getting emotional, but I, I admire her. So I think a lot of people who, like, you know, Lisa saying being victimized is something that makes you a survivor and it makes you want to. And you see it in the eyes of others, and I think you want to help other people because of it.
- [51:50]
Steve Schmidt
So, yeah, we, we live in a, we live in a culture that celebrates money, billionaires. We live in a, in a culture that says more is never enough.
- [52:07]
Tara Palmieri
Yeah.
- [52:10]
Steve Schmidt
The people who say that everything that has value glitters. Look at, look at the Oval Office might look at you in this moment and say, God, what's wrong with her? She doesn't seem to care that much about making as much money as possible. She's not using her audience to sell them horse dewormer.
- [52:46]
Tara Palmieri
Yet.
- [52:48]
Steve Schmidt
Yet. Yet what, what is, what is the thing that, as you kind of look.
- [53:03]
Tara Palmieri
Ahead.
- [53:05]
Steve Schmidt
That you want to do with the Red Letter in the next year? Right. You've had a great year. I think that you have built this extraordinary record of writing and documentary coverage of really a seminal issue that will be a foundation of understanding the history of this era and an element of its depravity. What do you see ahead in the next year as we kind of move into the House election cycle? What interests you? What do you hope to do in the new year?
- [53:54]
Tara Palmieri
Thanks for asking. I need to figure out how to manage my time a little bit better. I think with this new media world, we're all kind of figuring it out because I can't do everything, you know, can't be podcast host and write and this and that. I, I do want to be able to do more investigations. Like, I want to be able to reveal what is still hiding and there is still so much more. I'm hopeful that this, I mean, we have seven days until the release of the Epstein files, but, like, are we really going to see it all? And I'm doubtful. I don't even think they're going to make that deadline. But I would like to continue doing more investigations in the new year, and I'd like to build my team and, and, and keep revealing, holding people to account, giving people insight into politics, especially during this crucial midterm election that will help them make informed decisions, explaining, like, how our parties work and really what the real conversation is, you know, not just what they're saying on tv, the inside conversation. So there's a lot to be done. I think this is a really crucial year and to give people information to make the kind of decisions that help them make better, you know, choices when they go to the ballot box. I think I, I do. I would love to have more time to do investigative reporting, but that takes time. Like, they have an entire units in newsrooms that do that. Unfortunately, they're always the first to be laid off, but, you know, it can take months to do the type of work that I want to do, but I don't want to be off Instagram and substack and, you know, so gotta be able to figure out my own time balancing and all that. Yeah.
- [55:49]
Steve Schmidt
Do you, do you have anything immediately ahead? Exciting. We should be on the lookout for.
- [55:54]
Tara Palmieri
Oh, I wish I did, Steve. I'm like, I'm kind of bracing for next week. I think with the files coming out next week, I'm, I'm kind of preparing for that, trying to think about, like, what to make of even just my latest reporting on how, you know, the Justice Department just submitted a letter saying, like, we're still in the process of redacting the names of victims and new victims are coming forward. They have a new hotline for victims who have never come forward before. The Department of Justice come forward and they've got a week and they're admitting that because of a mosaic in this, like, mosaic theory, that they may end up revealing identifying information about the victims. And then also, are they going to redact the names of the people who are being accused? I mean, I just think, like, I really want to be ready with the reporting that I already have to be able to tackle this head on. So trying to figure out where the Justice Department is right now in terms of their ability to make the deadline of December 19th.
- [57:07]
Steve Schmidt
I just have two last quick questions for you. Prime Minister Ehud Barack appeared at the New York Times Dealbook Summit. There's a lot of speculation that he is the prime minister, either him or Tony Blair. So people say, ahud, Barack. That, that raped Virginia.
- [57:26]
Tara Palmieri
Virginia told me it was him. It was Barack. Yeah.
- [57:29]
Steve Schmidt
Did. Did Nicholas Kristoff, who was the interlocutor there, did, did. Did he ask sufficient questions to Prime Minister Barack in that, in that moment, did he measure up?
- [57:45]
Tara Palmieri
You know, I didn't watch it. I have to. I'm sad to say I missed that. But I know that there was a lot of.
- [57:52]
Steve Schmidt
You're not, it's not your job to see everything.
- [57:55]
Tara Palmieri
This one. Yeah, but I am. Yeah. No, no. He is the Prime Minister that Virginia was talking about. There are other people that Virginia was abused by that. Her names have not come forward yet, even in her own book. So I'll be looking out for that with the Epstein files when they come out too, because I've seen her files, so I know what's in there.
- [58:21]
Steve Schmidt
Okay, everybody, last thing. You find Tara at the Red Letter on Substack. And the way you can support Tara and Tara's work is by subscribing to the Red Letter. I'm going to do the pitch and be a paid subscriber. If you're able to be a paid subscriber. It's a lot of work to produce everything that Tara produces, and she doesn't produce it alone. She's a person who is a journalist. She is a content creator. She is a manager of a staff. She is the entrepreneur behind a business and she has to do it all. And one of the things in this era where you look at the corruption Olympics in the Warner Brothers Paramount deal where a guy, Zaslav, who destroyed the news integrity of CNN will walk out of this corruption Olympics and a bid with Allison with $500 million cash. And you heard what matters to Tara. And you know, thousand people on all of you took time out, you know, an hour today to listen. I know many of you subscribe. I know many of you subscribe, you know, to many people, including me. But, you know, if you're able to subscribe to Tara, subscribe. I truly do not think there is a more important journalist on substack than Tara Palmieri. I don't think there's a more important voice on substack for the victims who has helped more people explain that has helped more people through explanation, through explanation to understand what's going on. She's a great political reporter, very experienced, and I can't give the recommendation high enough. Support Tara's work by supporting Tara's work by going online and being a paid subscriber. Offer this. Don't procrastinate. And the last thing I'll say is I'm also from New Jersey and I too have a baptism, though she passed away many years ago, but we share that in common. But anyway, one of the great truth tellers of our time, Tara Palmeri, everybody, someone I admire immensely. And it's always great to have her here on the Warning. Thank you very, very much.
- [61:09]
Tara Palmieri
Thank you. Have a great weekend. Thank you so much for having me. And obviously to all the followers on the Red Letter, please subscribe to Steve and the Warning and become a paid subscriber. His work to her, brilliant.
- [61:21]
Steve Schmidt
You got it.
- [61:22]
Tara Palmieri
His work is brilliant, as you all know. I. Every time I talk to Steve, I feel like I've learned so much and he just gets it. He really does. He cuts through without all the spin and. And this very prescient like it's you. You really call things before they happen. And I feel like that's very rare. So. And you're a great guy and smoke brilliant. So thank you both.
- [61:45]
Steve Schmidt
Bye.
- [61:46]
Tara Palmieri
All right. Bye.
- [61:47]
That was another episode of the Tara Palmari Show. Thanks for tuning in. If you like this show, please rate it, subscribe, follow share it with all of your friends. If you like my reporting, go to tarapaul mary.com and sign up for my newsletter, the Red Letter. It's how you can support my independent journalism by becoming a paid subscriber. It's how you can get exclusive reporting straight to your inbox. I want to thank my producer, Eric Abenate. I want to thank Abby Baker, who does my social media and research. I want to thank my manager, Dan Rosen and Adam Stewart on the graphics. See you again soon.