476 - Epstein Docs & A Culture Of Slop

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Tim Dillon Show

Episode 476 – Epstein Docs & A Culture Of Slop

Date: December 27, 2025
Host: Tim Dillon
Guest: Ryan Grim (Drop Site News)

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Overview

This episode, the last of 2025, features a wide-ranging and often searingly dark look at the latest Jeffrey Epstein document revelations, what they expose about the elite and global power structures, and American culture’s grim descent into what Dillon calls "slop." Comedian Tim Dillon keeps his signature sardonic tone throughout, mixing bleak humor with serious investigation. The centerpiece is an extended, deep-dive interview with investigative journalist Ryan Grim of Drop Site News, who walks listeners through the latest Epstein file dump, the structure and function of transnational elites, sexual blackmail, intelligence operations, and the consequences for American politics—all filtered through Tim's apocalyptic comedic lens.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Reflecting on a Demoralizing Year (03:00–21:00)

• Spotify Success & Controversy – Tim reflects on the show’s ranking and brushes with controversy (“We created quite a little stir last week with our critique of Turning Point USA…” [10:00])
• Culture of Slop – Tim lays out his bleak “slop” metaphor for America: content, culture, and collective consciousness are described as empty and directionless.
• Montage as American Ritual – Discussion on year-end TV “montages” and how people once shared a reality, in contrast to today’s fractured, disbelieved narratives.

"The new sex is to just be enraged… rage-bait is the new word."
— Tim Dillon [21:20]

• No Shared Culture – Tim bemoans the lack of unifying culture, blaming a diet of “slop,” endless brain rot, decline of attention spans, and rise of siloed digital tribalism.
• Consumerist Distractions – Extreme, vapid consumer choices and status-seeking are skewered as the opiate allowing denial about who really pulls society's strings.

Epstein Files & The Power Structure (37:00–48:30)

• Dark Transition – Tim recaps the Epstein file dump, highlighting the interplay of real and faked documents, rampant disinformation, and the role of the intelligence community.

"A million more Epstein documents have been found. Justice Department says… They don't want this out. This unlocks a lot more than a story about a creepy, wealthy, well-connected pedophile."
— Tim Dillon [08:00]

• Ruling Class Impunity – Tim names a litany of global criminality connected to the files (trafficking, arms, assassinations), suggesting most sit atop broader, interconnected systems.

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Interview: Ryan Grim on Epstein, Davos, and Blackmail

(Begins [48:28], Main Interview 48:30–1:13:19)

The Emergence of the “Davos Set” & Epstein’s Role

• Epstein’s Transnational Position

  • Not a mere asset for Mossad, CIA, or any single country, but an operator at the level above—part of the “Davos set,” a global elite that intelligence agencies ultimately serve ([51:06]).
  • These elites don’t seek just wealth but self-perpetuation and protection from the global majority:

    "...trying to justify their existence, maintain their power, and justify their existence… their power continues to grow and their wealth continues to be concentrated at the very top."
    — Ryan Grim [52:54]

• Legal Cartels

  • States like UAE and Israel act as “legalized cartels” using their sovereignty to engage in activities (e.g., money laundering, resource extraction) not possible for individuals or corporations ([54:23]).

Sexual Blackmail and the Limits of Justice

• Epstein as “Gray Area” Operator

  • Facilitated black ops, arms, money, and illicit activities for the elite; his sexual criminality was integral, creating leverage and a “gray zone" ([56:47–60:21]).

• Implicit Blackmail

  • While explicit evidence of “here’s a tape, do X” isn’t public, Epstein wielded obvious leverage, especially in his aggressive posturing in emails to billionaires like Leon Black and Les Wexner.

    “There is implicit blackmail going on under there… by definition, Epstein would know… They would know that Epstein knows.”
    — Ryan Grim [61:12]

• Connections Across Power Networks

  • Epstein’s jumps from Dalton School, Bear Stearns, to Iran-Contra-linked money movers, arms traffickers, and the Wexner/Maxwell web are mapped out ([67:22–73:36]).
  • His rise explained through a willingness to perform risky, illegal favors for those in power.

The Big Picture: Culture of Denial

• Epstein Scandal as a Window

  • The case exposes more than elite perversion; it reveals how state and corporate power, intelligence, and organized crime interweave at a planetary scale.

    “This is the way that this Davos set operates globally, and the more we know about it, the better.”
    — Ryan Grim [95:13]

• America’s ‘Culture of Nothingness’

  • Tim doubles down on his thesis: “It is the denial of that culture [predation at the top] that has manufactured this culture of nothingness. It is the unwillingness to look that in the face that has produced slop.” [37:29]

Fallout: What It Means for America and the World’s Ruling Class

• No Rules for the Elite

  • The ruling class, corrupted by absolute power and boredom, develop pathologically depraved habits to amuse themselves ([85:48–87:58]).

• Generational Abuse

  • The patterns are not new; they stretch back millennia (“harems and all that over… the long arc of history…” [91:15]).

• Political Consequences

  • While damning, don’t expect resignations or genuine reform. The system is remarkably resilient—even widespread public knowledge is a mere annoyance to the power structure ([104:19–106:10]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Reality and Media:

  “Back then, when you saw a montage, you believed whatever was being shown to you… Now… you just sit there: ‘what was that one? I don’t really understand that one.’”
  — Tim Dillon [17:00]

• On the Modern Condition:

  "It's a clogged toilet, truly everything. Nobody knows what anything… there’s no shared cultural moments right now. There’s no shared cultural experiences."
  — Tim Dillon [22:00]

• On ‘Slop’:

  "Slop is the word of the year in 2025. … It's content, it's garbage… I've been using that word for years. But that's really what it all is now."
  — Tim Dillon [21:20]

• On Epstein's ‘Job Description’:

  "We don't have a W9 or anything from Epstein… he was operating at a layer above. I think the Mossad and the CIA… work for them [the global elite]."
  — Ryan Grim [51:06]

• On Blackmail:

  "We don't yet… have evidence of, ‘Hey, I’ve got footage of you, you need to do X.’ We do have him being just absurdly aggressive to people like Leon Black and Les Wexner… That’s not how the power dynamic between an accountant and two billionaires [should be].”
  — Ryan Grim [60:38]

• On Doubt and Public Trust:

  "We all shared a reality… now, you’re just questioning what events are actually the things people say they are."
  — Tim Dillon [18:00]

• On Facing the Truth:

  "It is the denial of that culture that has manufactured this culture of nothingness… It's the discomfort that comes from facing that your greatest fears are true… so you dive into the eras tour…"
  — Tim Dillon [37:29]

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Important Timestamps

• Reflections on the Year/“Slop” Culture: 03:00–21:30
• Year-End Montage/Reality Bending: 14:29–21:30
• Epstein Docs: What They Show, Why They Matter: 37:00–48:28
• Ryan Grim Interview Begins: 48:28
  • What Was the Epstein Operation? 49:25–52:43
  • How Power Flows / Blackmail / “Davos Set”: 52:43–61:12
  • Epstein’s Rise & Intelligence Networks: 65:19–79:08
  • Maxwell, Trump, and Blackmail: 79:08–83:17
  • Why the Elite Tolerate or Commit Abuse: 85:48–90:18
  • Historical Pattern of Abuse: 91:11–91:15
  • Political Fallout / Biden-Trump-Clinton: 91:46–104:19
  • Can Public Knowledge Change Anything?: 104:19–106:10
  • Closing Thoughts & Where to Find Ryan's Work: 112:36–113:19

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Final Takeaways

• Tim’s Thesis:
  The emptiness and dysfunction of American culture is not accidental, but a necessary side effect (or deliberate design) of a society avoiding hard truths about who is really in charge and what they do.
• Ryan’s Reporting:
  The Epstein affair is not isolated; it's an X-ray of how power, intelligence, vice, and finance interlock above the law and above the nation-state.
• No Easy Closure:
  With millions of unreleased documents still out there, these stories are likely to grow only more disturbing—yet, as both Tim and Ryan note, the odds of real accountability remain slim.

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Listen If…

• You want a scathing, darkly comedic but deeply informed look at the criminality of the world’s ruling class.
• You’re seeking a comprehensive overview of the latest Epstein-related revelations and their global implications.
• You enjoy Tim Dillon’s biting social commentary as a lens on American collapse.

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Transcript

[Tim Dillon]

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[Ryan Grim]

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[Tim Dillon]

See terms at Venmo Me Stash terms. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Tim Dillon show. It is our final show of the year and what a year it has been. We are now, when we look on the Spotify charts, number 19 or 20, it has been the biggest year in the show's history. And we thank you all for listening and supporting us. And we do appreciate it. We do appreciate it. And we created quite a little stir last week with our critique of Turning Point usa. Again, not to be rude, just an observation from a observer. That's my job, is to observe. And it just a little less Dancing with the Stars energy is all, that's all fun holiday season this year. I mean, I'm, you know, I love my family. I'm not super close with my family. I mean, let's just say the Reiners had a better holiday season than I had. I mean, let's just, you know, they're still a closer family than mine. That doesn't mean that there's not a lot of love out there. And I still love everyone. And there's elements of my family I like. There's elements of the intelligence community that are good. There's factions that are good. But it is good to be here. And we have a great interview later. Coming up with Ryan Grim from Drop Site News, he talks about Jeffrey Epstein. Apparently this guy's a that guy was a pedophile. And all of these new revelations are coming out. One of the things I regret not asking Ryan about because literally it slipped my mind was this allegation from a limo driver that supposedly Donald Trump got in his limo and got on the phone and started talking about abusing a woman with Jeffrey Epstein. And then the woman was found dead in Kiefer, Oklahoma. And the problem with a lot of this stuff Right now is that I. I don't have a way to verify it. And like the Larry Nassar letter that Jeffrey Epstein wrote, Larry Nassar, the gymnast pedophile monster, is widely believed to be fake. There are things in the files that are fake, and there's what's called disinfo, where because one thing's fake, it'll cast out on all kinds of things. The FBI is saying the Epstein letter to Larry Nassar was a fake. So it's hard to know what is real and what is not. There's a lot of things that are very disturbing and that are, you know, true and, like, no one's disputing that. Right. A lot of the photographs are true. A lot of the people, the flight logs are true. The amount of times people have been on his plane that are in his orbit. But this rape allegation, it's being reported on by media, and it was from a somebody who was driving Donald Trump's limo, and he submitted it in 2020. It's an unclassified intake report summarizing information provided to the FBI related to Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. According to the report, a caller relayed secondhand accounts involving a woman who claimed she was raped by Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump in the late 1990s. The intake also notes they include statements attributed to a limousine driver who said he overheard Trump speaking with someone he referred to as Jeffrey while riding in the back of a limo, allegedly making comments about abusing girls. The report describes the caller recounting events from around 1997 through 1999, including claims that the woman and her daughters were introduced to wealthy individuals, taken to hotels, and provided with money. The intake further states that the woman reported what she said happened. She later died January 2000. Her death was ruled a suicide, but according to the document, responding officers reportedly did not believe it was a suicide at the scene. This is a document in the Epstein files. Again, I should have asked Ryan about it. I asked him about other things. I asked him about the Epstein, the Mark Epstein letter, whether that's true or not, to the FBI, claiming that his brother was about to name names and he felt that Donald Trump signed off on his murder. Again, I'm not authenticating these documents. That's not what I'm doing. So lot of disturbing stuff, and what a way to end the year. Let's just take a minute, let's take a beat, let's think, let's marinate, let's, you know, let's, you know, grab a tea kettle. Let's sit there, let's curl up with a book. You see all these beautiful families in the matching pajamas and I love that. Very pro family, always have been. And they curl up in the comfy chair. Let's curl up in the comfy chair and get the hot cocoa and reflect back on a pretty wild year. This is where we are. This is the end of the year. You know, a lot of people thought that the Trump administration was going to be a, the most transparent administration in history. That was claimed. But they dragged their feet on releasing this stuff. They said it didn't exist. Cash Patel came out and said there was, you know, no operation, there's no coconspirators, nothing's going on. And then after a revolt led by people like Thomas Massie, Rona, who's a Democrat, you know, Marjorie Taylor Greene ends up leaving Congress. This is a big deal. They don't want this out. This unlocks a lot more than, you know, a, you know, story about creepy, wealthy, well connected pedophile. This unlocks a lot of things about the people who rule us, how governments operate, the things you read about in the news. So this is a very big deal. And these documents are only starting to come out. And supposedly there's like a million more documents that they found. It's like another million documents that could come out. So this is how we end the year. We end the year, you know, talking about rape claims and people getting shot in the head and limo drivers and Bill Clinton in the pool, which is lame. Maxwell. This is how we end the year for old acquaintance before God. I mean, this is how we end the year. What a dispiriting and demoralizing way to end the year, reading about the ruling class and how they've been behaving. So just to reflect on that, the truth is, is coming out about a lot of people and I think it will get worse. I don't know. That's not information I have on any good authority. I just believe things like this tend to get worse. And there's a reason that didn't. They didn't want these documents out. This is not, you know, this is not, you know, like, you know, we're all clumsy. You know, the whole thing with Pam Bondi, she's a kook and she's clumsy and she's bungled it. No, I think she was doing what she was supposed to do, which is, you know, keep it from the public. She's bungled it. She's so disorganized. No, I don't, I don't think that's what it is. There was that whole incompetence theory. She's got a bunch of papers on her desk and she doesn't know which ones are which. And you know, it. You know, the idea that it was like a Three Stooges sketch and she couldn't figure out what, what file had the Epstein files in it? Wait a minute. No, I think it was chaos by design. A million more Epstein documents have been found. Justice Department says, and this is in the New York Times. Democratic lawmakers who had criticized the Justice Department's release of the material accused the Trump administration of violating the law mandating the release of the files. Now they want Bill Clinton to testify. But Trump came out and defended Clinton the other day. He was like, I don't like all these photos of Clinton out there. These people are know they didn't do anything wrong. They're just in a bunch of photos. And I don't like that. You know, I don't like that. So you do see there is a bipartisan consensus amongst some people to keep this hush hush. And then there's a lot of people that want this stuff out in the open. And it seems to be generational. A lot of the younger people or people that, you know, aren't implicated don't seem to have a problem with putting this stuff out there. But a lot of people are trying to keep this stuff from public view and it's pretty obvious, you know, and they want Clinton to testify. Now behind the scenes in the Democratic Party of Hillary and Bill and other people lobbying, going, you can't open this can of worms. This is going to be a big problem. There's a lot of dirty deeds. There's a lot of dirty deeds that come to light with this stuff. It's human trafficking, it's pedophilia, it's arms trafficking, it's drug running, it's war profiteering, it's murder, it's assassination. It's Christmas. It's Christmas in America. That's what these documents are. The documents coming out are everything I just said intimidation. And they're coming out a few days before the year ends. And we all have to re what is the year end montage of this hell year? My father used to love a montage. He used to get, you know, misty eyed over a montage. When you grew up, there were things, you know, that the television news networks would do a montage of things that happened. Maybe it would include, you know, in memoriams for celebrities who died. You know, maybe if it was a year where they had the Olympics. There'd be some of that. There'd be some things around the world. And in Long island, we sat on our couch and my father loved a montage. God, did that guy love a montage. He loved the year end montage. He hated when people talked over the montage. If my mother was trying to say anything to him during the montage, he hated it. He loved a year end montage. The man could not get enough of a year end montage. Can you find. Go to 1998 and see if you can find. I don't even know if they. Where you would find this. Find a year end montage from like a news network, NBC, cbs, whatever. I want to show the people what. I mean, what are we going to put in the montage this year? It's just people getting killed, wildfires, documents suggesting the president may have raped a woman and then had her shot in the head. What is going in the montage this year? You know, what is. Sometimes it would be like somebody winning an Academy Award or. I mean, what are we gonna do? We could have. Oh, what's gonna be in the montage? It's gonna be a. A bunch of kids in. In Gaza getting shot while they wait for grain. What's in the montage this year? Is this gonna warm everyone's heart? Are they even doing a montage like Russia, Ukraine, this horrible thing that happened in Sydney, Australia? This is not exactly a great year for. To reflect. It started with the fires in Los Angeles. These crazy wildfires where I lost my house and my wife and my children. They were all killed. When they were killed brutally. They were cooked. They were cooked in their home. They were cooked. And I got my Rolls Royce and I drove to the desert to start a new life. Nobody wants to have to do this, but I did. I did. I did because it was time. And, you know, I do believe that things happen for a reason. I was at that erewhon eating a breakfast burrito the morning the fire started. True. And literally, I watched this tiny little fire grow into this massive thing. So is this. This is a 1998 year in review. Yeah. Let's see what this is like here. Let's see if this is an actual one of the things I was talking about.

[Ryan Grim]

The new year.

[Tim Dillon]

All of us@news4 wish you and those you love all the best for 1999. And as we leave you this evening.

[Ryan Grim]

We take a look back at the year past.

[Tim Dillon]

That's right. As prepared by our talented editor, Andrea Torrence. Oh, God.

[Ryan Grim]

Good night and happy New Year.

[Tim Dillon]

This was my father's favorite thing to watch, was a montage somewhere along the lines. These kids just haven't been taught somewhere.

[Ryan Grim]

For the life of another human. I don't know where that got lost.

[Tim Dillon]

Say, two boys, ages 11 and 13.

[Ryan Grim]

Firing as many as 27 bullets at.

[Tim Dillon]

The student threatened to kill in retaliation. The body of one of Kinkle's parents was final account. But by the way, pause this for a minute. Even though these stories even then were negative, people were just more chill about it. I'm like, dead serious. People. People were more chill. It was more of an energy of like. Well, that happened. Like, my father would be sitting on the couch eating a pint of Haagen Dust Vanilla Switch Vanilla Swiss Almond. It's late. We had a great show. Umbrea. Thank you for coming out. But it's Vanilla Swiss Almond. Excellent. And he'd be eating it and he'd be nodding and taking it all in. He'd be taking it all in. Let's keep watching it. I want to keep watching this. I don't want to skip a minute of this.

[Ryan Grim]

You're watching special CBS News pilot shooting.

[Tim Dillon]

That took place this afternoon at the U.S. capitol.

[Ryan Grim]

Lone gunman who somehow maybe had a history of, you know, past mental illness.

[Tim Dillon]

We are so proud about what our son. Yeah, we're just seeing. Investigators are gathering conflicting details of the deadly signature left behind by the embassy bomb in Tanzania.

[Ryan Grim]

First time I was with him alone.

[Tim Dillon]

I saw somebody totally different than I.

[Ryan Grim]

Had expected to see.

[Tim Dillon]

And that's the person I fell in love with. I did not have sex.

[Ryan Grim]

He has an obligation as the.

[Tim Dillon]

A lot of this. And then this would be a moment like, as this was happening, my dad would nod and be like, this is. This is. But then there were. We can get rid of this one. This one goes on for a while. There were better ones where there was music. There was just kind of images and stuff like that. And they would do those on New Year's Eve. But he loved the montage. He couldn't get enough of it because people would. Would look back at the year and they'll do them this year. I imagine it's. I mean, it's going to be ugly, but they'll do a montage. But here's the difference. Back then, when you saw montage, you believed whatever was being shown to you. So even though these were horrible stories about people getting shot or whatever, you know, Clinton got a blow job. Who cares? And then they would show some inspiring stuff. Later on, like, see, towards the end, if there's anything inspiring here, it's all just kind of. Yeah, yeah. Sonny Bono died. They do the In Memoriam. Lloyd Bridges, Harry Carey. Yeah, I mean, all right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, people believed what they were shown. So even though the stories were bad, people believed that they happened, they were real, that they understood what happened, and that from that they can draw some conclusion. And it was. It was a shared reality. We all had a shared reality. And you'd watch a montage, you go, yep, those two kids shot up that school. Bill Clinton got his dick sucked. Harry Carey died. You know, and then some of the montages were fun. Every now and then there'd be a fun story, like, you know, or you'd see someone getting rescued from a hurricane that would go into the montage. But again, we all. We all shared a reality. So you would watch something and you. You'd go, ok, but now when you see a montage of events, you're questioning what events are actually the things that people say they are and what events are. You're like, you know, now the montage, you just sit there, you're like, yeah, what was that one? What was that? I don't really understand that one. That one was weird. That one went away quick. No one really talks about that one anymore. You're still sitting there eating Haagen Das. You're still sitting on your couch. And I don't. You know, the end of the year is a time when you look back and you go, maybe you've had tremendous personal growth in your life, maybe you haven't. Who cares? You'll get them next year. Literally. That's a saying. But it's the time of year to look around at your life and go, what is happening? What's even going on? Like, what's going on? And I think that's the question that most people are asking this year. And. And that's the question that people weren't asking as much when I grew up. When I grew up, people were like, oh, yeah, this is life now. People are going, what's. What's happening? When are the machines coming? What's happening? And I think that question, why does no one have any sex? What. Why are the young people so angry now? Why are houses millions and millions of dollars, like, all of them? Why can't anyone afford anything? You know? And it's. It's a. It's a weird time because it's supposed to have meaning, but it's only the meaning that's you know, it's just like, well, it's that time of year, so we're all supposed to look around and go make a New Year's resolution or, you know, like, I'm done with this. I'm heading to that, you know, and maybe that's successful, maybe it's not. Yeah, the astronauts were always in a montage. They always put like an astronaut in a montage.

[Ryan Grim]

Big, big.

[Tim Dillon]

They always do an astronaut. There we go. The shuttles. Take it on. You felt good. You felt good. You, like, there's astronauts and they're going. There's people. People are playing sports and they're winning and Mark McGuire and the astronauts and, and no matter what was going on, life made a little bit more sense than it does right now. What is the montage this year? It's just Peter Thiel talking about Satan. What is the montage? What exactly is the Sam Altman telling every late night chat show host that, you know, he doesn't know how people raise kids before chat GPT what is the. There's nothing comforting. Everything now is amazingly uncomfortable to watch, to be, to even look at, to listen to. The theme of everything now is it's, it's, it's, it's like, it's, it's disconnected. It. It does not bring you joy, it does not bring you pleasure. You don't, you don't connect with it. And it's, it's, you know, people have the term cringe. Everything's cringe. It's all brain rot. People just staring at their phone and it's just pumping them full of brain rot. No one has any, no one has attention span anymore. People are chewing Adderall in their rooms, they're staring at screens, they're gooning, their dicks falling off. They can't get hard. They have ED. They're 20 years old. They watch porn that's incredibly violent. You know, they can't find any jobs, are getting radicalized in political movements. They're, you know, they're rehabilitating Hitler or Mao or whatever. And, you know, people don't go out, they don't see each other. There's no human community. We live in these siloed digital echo chambers where people just get angry. And that's like. The new sex is to just be enraged as rage bait is this big new word. You know, people watch reality shows about people looking for homes and they can't afford any. And they just watches 35 shows about people trying to buy houses. And it's always these out of Touch boomers looking for a fucking lake house and you're watching that on your couch. You want to kill yourself. Slop is the word of the year in 2025. Merriam Webster's Dictionary slot and by the way, they nailed it. They nailed it sloppy. Eat your slop. And that's what it is. I've been using that word for years. But that's really what it all is now. It's content, it's garbage, it's grist for the mill. It's slop, it's sludge, it's rot. It's nothing of any value. You don't even know what any of it is. It all bleeds together. It blends, it's amorphous, it's, it's just, it's, it's a clogged toilet is what it is. Truly everything. Nobody knows what anything. You know, you pass these, you pass like a billboard in LA. There's a movie with. They put 30 celebrities in it. No one's gonna see it. No one cares. Nobody even knows what it is. You know, people, there's no shared cultural moments right now. There's no shared cultural experiences that people are having are great. You know, Disney World's been taken over by morbidly obese pill heads that have gender identity issues. And they're all walking around wearing diapers and, and clogs trying to wedge themselves on it. It's a small world. The kids don't even want to go anymore. They want to stay in their room and read about Hitler. Nobody wants to go to Disney World anymore. Every movie Disney makes is about some non binary snowflake or all of our celebrities are emaciated. Their eyes are sunken into their heads, are having buccal fat removed from their faces. They all look like skeletons. They crawl onto the set of some interview show to be interviewed. They're crazy. They speak in like Harry Potter, Parcel Tongue. Those two from Wicked speak in that snake language. And an interviewer like asks them questions, you know, about the fucking movie. All of our cultural moments boil down to nothing. It's all these, you know, forever children people trying to relive their time at summer camp when they were listening to Taylor Swift or like, you know, you have, you have, you have like 40 year olds at somber concerts criticizing the guy. They don't like what he does or whatever. It's like, you know, grown adults have opinions on like what child pop stars are doing and how political Chapel Ron it while she didn't speak out about it's all crazy. What A profoundly dysfunctional society we have. There's nothing to look up to. There's no one to be excited about, really. The least controversial member of this administration is RFK Jr. Can you imagine? He's the least scandal prone member of the administration. And every three days there's another text leaking from him where he's like, open your mouth. I want to put my seed in you. And that's somehow the best part of this whole thing. His sex are nowhere near as fucking. You know, Scandalous is like Cash Patel, the FBI director is sitting there updating you on his girlfriend's country music tour. It's hell. It's absolutely hell. And Erica Kirk, God bless. Tragic. And I'm sorry for what happened, but nobody knows why. She's out there in a glittering pantsuit in a recreated tent that her husband tragically was murdered in throwing merch out. She's out there talking to Nicki Minaj. This is. People are confused. What's going on? Those are the three words that sum up this whole entire mess that we've created for ourselves. What is business anymore? It's like all fake. Everybody online is trying to make as much money as they can in any way they can. Crypto or drop shipping or bullshit or looks maxing. They're smashing hammers into their face to give them a better chance to fuck a hotter girl. They're trying to make more money so, so that they can, they can compete in the Mating Game and they can, you know, get some apartment somewhere in an overpriced city and buy their girlfriend boots. I mean, nobody's having children. People are just sitting around and, you know, trying to, you know, I, I identify with like some weird movement. I mean, like, Wicked's probably a fine movie. I don't see it. I don't care. But like, everyone needs to chill the fuck out and relax. What's the, the big deal here? Like, people are making everything into some meaningful moment and it's not, it shouldn't be. It's a profoundly unhealthy society. The society that we've created. It really is. You know, I just, you know, when you look at it from the outside, you know, all these people, it's not, it's not even political, by the way. It's not like I'm telling you, like, you know, they're wrong or they're right or they're going to fix it. I've never really done that on this show. But like, when you look at the society that we're living in, for example, the last Two weeks people are screaming about Somalia. Nobody even knows what's happening. People are either like, Somalis are the best part of this country. What, what is hap. What? Nobody even know one. I'm not saying anything bad about them, but like, what is that reaction? And then there's a reaction of like this they're the greatest threat that we've ever faced. And then it's like, well, wait a minute, how about that? There's like some scheme, some fraud, some scam that we need to get to the bottom of. Maybe we're just letting too many people into the country and, and maybe those people are going to eventually be desperate like the people that currently live here. Ok? And maybe those people are going to turn to some type of fraud or crime. It's like completely natural and normal. But like every reaction to everything is so dialed up. Insane, crazy, you know? Lucy 100% pure nicotine. 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After you purchase, they will ask where you, where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them our show sent you. It's completely batshet. All everybody wants to do now is go to like a store and spend $75 on a smoothie. They want to biohack and live forever. Why, God, why? Why do you wanna live forever? To watch celebrities continue to have fat sucked out of their faces by some machine. Why do you wanna live forever? What exactly are you planning to do? How, how you think this thing turns around? This biohacking stuff, all these guys microdosing everything, trying to level up to the best versions of themselves. I mean, great, more power to. You do what you want. What exactly is this all for? You want to be here in 30 years? You want to be here when we're talking about the, the President, Jake Paul's administration and why they're not doing more to, to stem the, you know, conflict in, you know, the civil war that's happening in our country. Like what, what exactly are you people living for? Quite frankly? Honestly, rationally, can you explain to me what, why you want to be here for the next 75 years? That exciting? Is it that exciting? It's actually creepy and strange. The music all blends together now into just a lot. There's some good music for sure, but a lot of the stuff you're listening to, it's just this odd, strange. It's just like corporate drivel and you're just meant to listen to it while online at a salad place before you get in the elevator. And it takes you back up to this flex space that you're working in and you get on your MacBook and you just, again, you float off into the. Into nothingness. You do nothing. People are just filling their time and they're filling their time in the absolute worst way possible. There's this idea of what a perfect life is. It's been drilled into these people's heads. They need the right things all the time. The best schools in the right neighborhood. West Village girls like, you know, you need the best coffee. You need the great food. You got to get the table at the right restaurant. Fuck you. I'm embarrassed. Go to New York. I'm embarrassed. These Pigs at Carbon. I'm embarrassed. Spicy rigatoni. I'm embarrassed by what has happened to a great city. Stop. It's disgusting. It's disgusting and repulsive. Your behavior is repulsive. It really is. This fucking 10 restaurants you read about on Instagram. You get to wait four months so you can drag your friends to go to the corner store. You can eat caviar and think it's something. I mean, it's just. I'm just completely. Whatever this is, is nothing. It's not culture. It's not. Trust me. Trust me. This isn't culture. Whatever this is, whatever you think you're participating in, it's not. It's not worth your $7,000 a month rent. Whatever you think you're doing is nothing. You know? I mean, truly. Now, these Epstein documents. Say what you want. Say what you want about Jeffrey and G. Lane and the Trumps and the Clintons, but they had class. They had class. They went to the best places in the world and they raped, murdered, and tortured people. And, yes, a way that I would live. No, no. Sort of evil, little demonic. But it was culture. It was culture, and it's a bad cult. It's not a good culture. It's not ideal. It's less than ideal. Certainly less than ideal. But that was the culture of our world. We have to accept it. We have to accept it. I don't want it to continue, and I want the people that participated in it to go to jail. But that was our culture. We didn't even know it, but we did. Sam. Chris has kind of a great article about that. If you read his stuff, and you should. But that's the thing. It's like, this was our culture for a very long time. It was domination, evil, exploitation.

[Ryan Grim]

Bad.

[Tim Dillon]

Not good. But it was our culture. It was our culture, you know, and, you know, we're. We're coming to terms with that. We're coming to terms with that. And it's going to take. It's a little bit of a pill to swallow, is it not? It's a little bit of a pill to swallow, huh? It's a little bit of a pill. It's a little bit of a pill. You ever get sick as a kid and your mom's like, you got to take this one. And you're like, ugh. She's like, this one is. Everyone that rules over you is a static pedophile. You're like, oh, no, not this one. It's a little bit of a pill to swallow. But that's where a Lot of this comes from. This is the runoff. What you're seeing now is the runoff of people living to pretend that that isn't true. It is the denial of that culture that. That has produced this culture. Listen up. I'll say it again. I'll say it again. I should be paid more for this, frankly. I'll say it again. It is the denial of that culture that has manufactured this culture of nothingness. It is the unwillingness to look that in the face that has produced slop. That's what it is. It is the discomfort that comes from facing the fact that your greatest fears are true and you're unable to process that. So you dive into the eras tour. You backstroke through the fucking, you know, restaurant that serves the thing from the app that you saw. You try to vacation in the right place to take the edge off, you know, it is the denial of truth that has delivered you here into nothingness, into emptiness, into a place. Where do you want to see the amenities? The building is really nice, but you've got to see the amenities. The amenities are really over the top. The HOA is really high, but you have to see it because the amenities are so worth it. The amenities are amazing. There's this amazing room. You can use it if you have a party, like 12 to 15 people, you want to do a dinner, you can bring in a private chef. You can bring in a private chef. It's so amazing. They'll set right up and they'll do a dinner. You can actually bring in servers and a bartender. I've done it before. It's amazing. It actually connects to a terrace, which what's great about it is it's actually for everyone in the building to use. You can reserve it, but it's very easy. You just do it on the app. Is the world run by satanic pedophiles? There's also a rooftop garden. It's amazing. I go up there. I have coffee all the time. You can go. So you get a special key when you come here, and it'll only go to your floor, so you don't have to worry about any of the security. And at the top of the building, there's a rooftop garden, and you can sit there and you can even do yoga, because actually, super private. There's, like, alcoves, right? Is. So let me ask you, do you think that our civilization is run by, like, evil pedophiles that are murdering and torturing children? And next year, the restaurant opens? So, like, I don't even want to talk about the restaurant because it's literally so amazing. And you can't have it right now, but within five months, we have a celebrity chef who's opening a restaurant. It's, like, Mediterranean, but it's also kind of like more on the Italian side. It's, like, super perfect. It's, like, amazing. It's great for, like, light bites in the morning, and then you can, like, even grab, like, coffee and breakfast, and then there's, like, a lunch and then there's, like, a dinner and even. I've heard this. I've actually heard this. I've actually heard this. I can't confirm, but I've heard. Can't confirm, but I've heard that they can actually cater your party in the private amenity space. Like, the restaurant can cater your party in the amenity space.

[Ryan Grim]

Wow.

[Tim Dillon]

That sounds really good. Why do you think that woman got shot in the face in Oklahoma? Well, anyway, if you want it, just speak to your realtor, because it's going to go really, really fast. We already have so many people coming back to see it for second and third showing. Cool. And I just heard that around the block, that, like, super exclusive restaurant that nobody can get into. Tate McCrae was there last night.

[Ryan Grim]

Wow.

[Tim Dillon]

Well, thank you for this info. You've given me a lot to think about. And it is the denial of that culture that has produced this one. Okay, Looking that in the face is very hard to do. And when you refuse to do that, you can only concern yourself with the minutia, the meaningless, the bullshit, the empty signifiers of status that are splashed across social media, ultimately adding up to nothing. But that's the point. Nothing is the point. They don't want you asking any questions about anything real. They want you to play the game not for any reward, not for a trophy, not for glory, not for honor, not for pride. They want you to play the game because it distracts you from the game. That's the whole thing. You're playing this game. It's called the rat race, whatever you want to call it. You're distracted from what's really happening. Where the money's going, who's disappearing, who's being threatened, who's being intimidated, who's being murdered on whose behalf. It's all happening. All the clans and groups and little huddles of people trying to exert power and trying to manifest their reality. All of that you ignore because you're playing a very hard game. It involves the accumulation of money, the signifiers of status. It involves the right life, the right friends, the right people, the right tastes, the right opinions, the right concerts. It involves all of that. And it's designed, it's curated for you to participate in and only have a small glance at what's actually happening, what's actually going on, the things that are driving society off a cliff. That's not by accident. And to think it is, you would have to be incredibly naive. You would have to be incredibly naive. I feel terrible for what happened to Rob and Michelle Reiner. But as a good friend of mine recently said, Ray Kamp, he said the best thing that can happen in this country is for your kids to kill you. It's truly the win. It's truly the win. Have it be your family. It's coming anyway. Have it be your family. It's coming anyway. How lovely to die by the hand of your own blood in a world such as this. Happy New Year, everybody. We'll see you on the other side. Bye bye. Ever feel like you're running on empty, staring at your screen, hitting that afternoon crash and debating another coffee or energy energy drink you know you'll regret. Neuro's Energy and Focus Common Mints give you clean, focused energy without the crash sugar or sketchy ingredients. It's time to switch to good energy. It's the easiest upgrade I made to my wellness and energy routine. Here's what I mean. Here's what I made the energy switch. Neuro Energy and Focus is powered by natural green tea, caffeine, L Theanone for calm focus, vitamin B12 plus B6 for better mood and metabolism. No sugar, no aspartame, no crash. Neuro can be shared or enjoyed on the go anywhere or anytime you offer discreet and good energy. Just chew and go. Neuro also offers caffeine free options for all day wellness support. Neuro's Memory and Focus Gum are made with American Jinxing to support mental clarity minus the jitters, Neuro Sleep and recharge mints or for melatonin and chamomile to help you unwind and rest without pills or sugary gummies. For a limited time. You can get 20% off your first order at neurogum.com by using promo code TAM. That's neurogum.com use code TAM for 20% off your first order. You can also find Neuro at CVS and Amazon. You don't need to overhaul your life to start investing, just automate it with stash. Your new year money goals can quietly run in the background while you focus on everything else. Dash isn't just another investing app. It's registered investment advisor that combines automated investing with expert personalized guidance so you don't have to worry about gambling or figuring it out on your own. Stash is simple, smart, stress free. Choose from personalized investments. Let Stash Stash's award winning smart portfolio do the work for you. Or pick a combo or both. Stash is there to guide you up to every step of the way. Stash's Smart Portfolio helps you invest in a diversified balanced portfolio and on a regular schedule to help you see growth and consistent annual returns. Just $3 per month gets you access to world class financial advice and personalized guidance. You can start investing in your future today. Join over 1 million Active Stash subscribers. And finally, let your money work as hard as you do. Don't let your money sit around. Put it to work with Stash. That's get that stash.com JM to see how you can receive $25 towards your first stock purchase and to view important disclosures. That's get that stash.comget.stash.com paid non client endorsement, not representative of all clients and not a guarantee. Investment advisory services offered by Stash Investments LLC and SEC Registered Investment advisor. Investing involves risk offers subject to terms and conditions. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the show. Ryan Grim who writes at Dropsite News which has done the best reporting on the Epstein case. This is not even debatable. We talked about one of their articles a few weeks ago where Jeffrey Epstein was back channeling to try to get a meeting with Vladimir Putin between Vladimir Putin and ex Israeli the ex Israeli prime Minister to talk about the Syrian civil war. We talked about that on the show and people send me drop site news all the time ago. You got to read this article Steve Bannon and again, you guys aren't ideologically aligned but Steve Bannon has even praised you as a good journalist like people from from many different political persuasions. Even I think people on the Epstein list are saying this is good. Even the pedophiles are going he's doing, he's doing the work.

[Ryan Grim]

So hey, this is legit.

[Tim Dillon]

So Ryan, thank you again for coming. I appreciate it. It's the holidays and I appreciate you making time for us. If you could sum up as just an introductory statement for the uninitiated. When you look at this new dump of Epstein files that just came out, number one, tell people, you know, you know, surmise for people what exactly you think the Epstein operation was if there was one. You know, the FBI says there, you know, said that there wasn't but they have all these files suggesting maybe there is what was this operation. And I don't know how many of these files you've looked through, the new files. Has any of your opinion changed with regard to the scope of the operation, the intent of the operation, or any of the key players?

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, I think that my take on this is actually usually you. You go into the reporting and you find out that the story you're looking for isn't quite all the way there. It's not quite as interesting as you kind of imagined that it might be. This. This kind of has been the reverse. Like this. You keep peeling the layers back, and you're like, oh, wow, that was true. That was true. That was true. And. And on and on. You know, when they say there was no Epstein operation, it's like, the guy's been doing a lot of operating for many decades, and at some point, you're going to have to call that an operation, because he keeps becoming involved and he keeps being found. From Iran Contra all the way up to the things that you were talking about. Syrian civil war, a lot going on in Africa, which was a piece of Iran Contra as well, the kind of unspoken piece of it. The fact that he focused so much on Africa really shows that he really does kind of know where power flows and where money, commodities, and resources flow. So, yeah, there's an awful lot there.

[Tim Dillon]

Part of the question with Jeffrey Epstein has always been about definitions. Is he an agent? Is he an associate? Is he a what in the. In the murky world of intelligence, what was Jeffrey Epstein? Was he employed by the Mossad or the CIA or MI6? Was he a liaison that worked with all of these different agencies? From your reporting, what would you call him if you had to call him something?

[Ryan Grim]

Well, we don't have a W9 or anything from Epstein, and I think that that kind of misunderstands the relationship. Like, if you think about Mossad, for instance, or the CIA, like, running people. Yeah, they. They are organizations, and they have. They have ambitions, they have projects. But he was operating at a layer above. I think the Mossad and the CIA, they're. They're there to serve the major power centers, you know, throughout the world, and different factions within them serve different factions at different times. But if you think of the kind of global elite as kind of organized around that Davos Conference or, you know what, or, you know, these. This Davos crew out there, like the CIA, it's more properly understood that CIA works for them. And Jeffrey Epstein was an integral player in that Davos set. And I think sometimes his, his allies and he himself was, he was waning, he's not doing as well. Other times his power is on the rise, you know that it's, that's how it works inside nebulous organizations like this. But he's right there at the center of this fundamentally undemocratic global institution. It's not even an institution, it's just this amoebic type of entity. He's right there in the middle of it and he still has to jockey for power, but he is then able to deploy his own assets, whether it's Mossad or whether it's people in the CIA, in order to serve he and his allies own interests, which sometimes align with the interests of Israel, sometimes they align with the interests of the U.S. but you know, they're also self serving interests.

[Tim Dillon]

What are the main concerns, the primary objectives of the quote Davos set? Is it a monolith or do those people have varied interests?

[Ryan Grim]

I think it's, well, they're in competition with each other for each other's resources for sure, but they're also in competition with the 99.9% of the world that doesn't really want them to exist. And so that's, and so what they're trying to do is kind of justify their existence, maintain their power and justify their existence. That's why when they get together, they often talk about the kinds of things that would be wonderful if they delivered on them. You know, they're going to end world hunger or they're going to, they're going to end illiteracy around the world. They're going to, you know, they're going to go after disease and malnutrition, they're going to reverse climate change. And yet some of it, somehow it just all keeps getting worse. And their power continues, continues to grow and their wealth continues to be concentrated at the very top. So their, their, their goal is I think, self perpetuation and kind of continuing to lock down, you know, their, their position in the world and to keep the, the public at, at bay. Because they're fundamentally an undemocratic entity.

[Tim Dillon]

Someone, Katherine Austin Fitz describes some of the people you're talking about as intergenerational pools of capital. Yes. Does that, does that make sense to you?

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, yeah, definitely. They are, yes. And they're also, they're very much transnational.

[Tim Dillon]

Right.

[Ryan Grim]

Like they are not American, they're not Israeli, they're not Chinese. Like if they're Chinese, they actually have a little bit more strings attached to what they're able to do.

[Tim Dillon]

Right.

[Ryan Grim]

But in the Western ones, you know, they're looking for their own sovereignty. And what, what make and what, what it, what it appears like is going on with, with Epstein and his. And his work with Israel and also the uae. We're going to have a lot more to come about his, his work with Saudi Arabia and the uae. What the UAE and Israel both figured out is that when you're operating in this kind of world that is filled with nation states, nation states have particular rights. They there, they can vote in the un they can set up banks. Those banks can then move money. And those banks are then subject to the laws and the judiciary kind of within those states. And if the national security apparatus controls that judiciary, you can basically be a criminal gang like to. So the United Arab Emirates, for instance, they're doing enormous amounts of like, money laundering. Like, if all of this, all this wealth that's coming out of Africa is, you know, flows right into, into the UAE and then they skim off the top. You're like, how is this, how are they doing? This is basically mafia stuff. Like, well, they call themselves a state, they call themselves a government. So they can, so they can do that. And Israel does a version of that as well, where the state is aligned with the companies and they have this protection that they can operate in a way where if they were just private actors, like, wait, you can't do that.

[Tim Dillon]

Right. So it's kind of a cartel.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, right. It's a legalized cartel that operates as a state.

[Tim Dillon]

What role does sexual blackmail play in this? You know, obviously Epstein spent years engaging in horrific abuses and he was, you know, he got a slap on the wrist. You know, he had a very light sentence regard to the crime. They charged him with a very specific crime. There were many victims. He was only charged with crime. What role does number one, do you believe it was a black male role operation? And then if, if so in. When we talk about these cartels, when we talk about money laundering, we talk about, you know, people that are trying to evade the democratic process, the legal process. What role does Jeffrey Epstein's sexual proclivities. And I don't, I'm not saying it lightly, proclivities, but his sex sexual crimes, what role do they play in this larger picture?

[Ryan Grim]

And your point about them only charging him with one girl is, is a key one.

[Tim Dillon]

Yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

And his lawyers were so successful, they, they got him charged with the 17 year old.

[Tim Dillon]

Right.

[Ryan Grim]

Even though there were dozens.

[Tim Dillon]

Yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

And some as young as like 14 or even younger. And so then his revisionist friends can say, oh, it was 17 year old, right? What? You know, he didn't, he didn't know. And then you look at it, oh, that's all he got charged with. Okay, let's go. Let's get back into business, buddy. Rather than dozens, like even much younger.

[Tim Dillon]

I mean, he's a fully evil man. And I think just Lane Maxwell's like, when you read these documents and even the prior documents, it's very hard to come away with any other picture than that these were evil people engaging in acts of extreme abuse, rape, perhaps murder. We don't know things like that.

[Ryan Grim]

And with total remorse and doing it on a, like, seems like daily basis, right?

[Commercial Announcer]

Remorseless.

[Tim Dillon]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Ryan Grim]

40 to 50 years. But it's interesting what, what you need a Jeffrey Epstein for going back to our kind of trans national cartel operating as a state kind of thing, is that if, if you want to move money, guns, let's, you know, let's say you want to move weapons from Iran to the Contras in Nicaragua or you want to move them to some type of rebel group in Africa when Congress has told you you can't fund this rebel group in Africa, or you've got blood diamonds that you've got to get moving out, you can't really go to like the white shoe firms for that.

[Tim Dillon]

Right.

[Ryan Grim]

They're going to be like, you know, let me get your, know, your client here, like, how do we know that this person isn't sanctioned? This appears to be a terrorist organization that you're shipping weapons to.

[Tim Dillon]

Right.

[Ryan Grim]

Did you say Iran is involved in this? I thought we're at war with them. So what you need is somebody who lives in the gray area. And those people are very useful. And so when the New York Times, for instance, says there's all these conspiracies about Jeffrey Epstein, but in fact, he's just, just actually a giant con artist that's missing the point. To work in that realm of the spy world in the shadows, you're gonna be a con artist. You're gonna be the kind of person that pushes things to the edge and then over it. And so that's what you see time and time again with Epstein is that, for instance, we wrote, actually, I don't know if we've written about this one yet, but George Mitchell, former senator who was Secretary of state under Clinton, he needed to go to Sudan back in the 2000s because he was running for president and he wanted to broker some. Looked like he was going to broker a Truce in Sudan. And in order to get in there, he reached out to Jeffrey Epstein. He's like, who's got the jets? You know, who can. Who can move. Who can, you know, move me into a warlord zone? And it's somebody like Epstein. He ended up not using Epstein, but Epstein was able to put it together. And then he announced a completely fake truce that fell apart a day later and used it in his presidential campaign. But that's the kind of thing you need him for. Like, I need. I need to move money. I need to move guns, diamonds, minerals, you know, commodities. We need. We need. Things have to happen. It has to happen quickly, and it has to be done off the books. And. And that's what people like Epstein are for.

[Tim Dillon]

And the.

[Ryan Grim]

Who just have no more actual blackmail.

[Tim Dillon]

Is he blackmailing these people and keeping the information himself? Is that information then going to another state, like Israel? Is it going to the highest bidder? He's photographing and recording people. Where is all this information going?

[Ryan Grim]

We don't yet, like, have evidence of, hey, I've got footage of you, right? You need to do X. We do have him being just absurdly aggressive to people like Leon Black and. And Les Wexner in emails in a way where you're like, this is not how the power dynamic between an accountant. These are two billionaires. Billionaire.

[Tim Dillon]

These are two billionaires. Less Wexner, billionaire, Leon Black, billionaire.

[Ryan Grim]

Right?

[Tim Dillon]

So when he's being uber aggressive in those emails as a journalist, does that lead you to believe that he has some leverage? What. What you.

[Ryan Grim]

What you can say for sure is that there is implicit blackmail going on under there, right? Like, because they allegedly are engaged in all of these types of activities. So just by definition, Epstein would know, and they would know that Epstein knows what he's involved with. Now, they deny that, but, you know, there's been plenty of reporting that, that he. That all his friends and quote, unquote friends, like, knew what he was up to, right? Even ehud. Barack, in one of the emails, he's asking how he can. How he can win over this banker that he wants to work with for this one, this. This deal. And he says, ladies, is your forte to. To Epstein, right? So it's like. And people who, who I've talked to, who met him within, within like 30 seconds are like, this guy's complete and total creep, right? Like, he's just. He's just oozing creep vibes. So the people that stayed in his life, like, very much understood that. And so they know in the back of their mind that he knows that now. At the same time, what, what the emails and the documents that we've gone through show is that he was actually effective at doing the things he said he was going to do. Like, he's going to get you your tax breaks, he's going to get you your meeting with Putin.

[Tim Dillon]

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[Ryan Grim]

Toyota Thon Toyota Thon Toyota Thon is on. Oh, what fun it is to drive a new Toyota today.

[Tim Dillon]

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[Ryan Grim]

All right, let's sing it together this time. Toyota Thon. Toyota Thon. Toyota Thon.

[Tim Dillon]

Dealer inventory may vary. Toyota Thon ends January 5th. See your participating dealer for details. Toyota. Let's go places, Ryan. This is the real question. Jeffrey Epstein is a math teacher at the Dalton School, which is a prep school in New York City. Very expensive, very well regarded. He's hired by Bill Barr's father, Donald Barr.

[Ryan Grim]

Right.

[Tim Dillon]

Donald Barr wrote a novel about. A science fiction novel about the elites of a fake planet using sex slaves on that planet. There was a class of people on the planet that were sex slaves. Use a novelist. Whatever. I don't know. Is it a. Right. What you know, we don't know, but. So Jeffrey Epstein is working for this man who's written some questionable literature, whose son then becomes the Attorney General. He's at, At Dalton, which is a, A, a private school. He is not a math genius. He's. It's not the guy from A Beautiful Mind. He's not winning Nobel Prizes in mathematics. He somehow links up with Les Wexner, billionaire owner of Victoria's Secret, the Limited brands, the Gap, things like that. Then, you know, fast forward, he's got Ghislaine Maxwell, whose father, Robert Maxwell. You know, it's. It's widely believed and, and, and written about that this man was an Israeli super spy, that he was a, you know, a, A hugely influential member of the intelligence community. He was a media mogul, but, you know, he was given high honors with his burial in Israel. I mean, Mount of Olives. It's all real stuff. So this story for a lot of people feels like, okay, the guy's. Epstein's clearly a pedophile. He's a monster. How does a guy like that who just gets a job at a high school go to back channeling between Vladimir Putin and the, The Prime Minister, the ex Prime Minister of Israel. That's the question that a lot of people are having a problem with. Who made that happen? Who allowed that to happen? I'm sure Epstein was an enterprising person, but from your research, what is the story? How does he get to be in this position? This rarefied air with the quote, unquote Davos set.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, yeah. So he winds up at Bear Stearns out of that Dalton thing, like the, that bar's dad gets him. That also gets him that job at, at Bear Stearns, which was known as, like, as I've researched it more like a kind of the trashiest investment bank like the one that would kind of cut corners the most. He cut too many corners, gets. Gets edged out of that. But as he gets edged out, and this was in our, in our most recent piece, he goes into business with this guy, Stan Pottinger. Stan Pottinger was a lawyer who is now known to be former Nixon attorney deputy attorney General, known to be at the center of Iran Contra. He was setting up. He was helping to do a lot of the moving of the money and setting up the structures for the Iran Contra deal, which should probably be called, like, Iran, Israel, Angola Contra, because people might not realize it kind of gets written out of it. The US didn't send the weapons right to Iran because that would have been completely illegal. So they came up with this scheme where they're like, okay, Israel will send weapons to Iran. Which is. Thinking back, it's like, comical. Are you like, are you serious?

[Tim Dillon]

Right?

[Ryan Grim]

Israel's arming Iran.

[Tim Dillon]

It's insane.

[Ryan Grim]

So Israel's arming Iran and then we're replenishing their stocks, and then we're. And then Shimon Perez, Barack and the CIA are taking the, the loot from the profits from Iran and funding the Contras and then also funding these, these Angola rebels that the CIA was backing, but that they weren't supposed to be backing because, you know, Jimmy Carter saying, we're not doing this anymore, and we're not. We're not doing all these terribly legal things with these terror groups. And so Epstein is in, in business with that guy. He's also associates with Adnan Khashoggi at the time. That's actually coincidentally, Jamal Khashoggi's uncle. One of the biggest weapons dealers of the, like, 1980s and 90s. He was also a central banker for the Iran Contra scandal. And the New York Times mentioned this in their early article. He also knew Douglas Leese, who was this British arms trafficker who also had ties to Iran Contra. So Epstein is right in the middle of this. And this is a seminal kind of global intelligence scheme, right? That, that, that now we all acknowledge, like, oh, Iran Contra was a thing. Like, they did all these things. And actually they did more than they've acknowledged. But even what they've acknowledged.

[Tim Dillon]

And how does he end up in business with Stan Pottinger? Do you think it's that Jeffrey Epstein is just a morally questionable guy who doesn't mind blurring the lines of what is and isn't appropriate? Is there some other connection? Do they know each other socially? Like, what about Epstein makes him. You know, there's probably a lot of People at Bear Stearns. What about Epstein makes him the guy.

[Ryan Grim]

I think that. I think he was. I think they knew each other socially. That's. That's my sense from the reporting so far. And also, Epstein was building a lot of connections at that time, so he was going back and forth to London a lot. He'd met Khashoggi, he'd met Lis. He's. He's really starting to be somebody.

[Tim Dillon]

Maxwell.

[Ryan Grim]

Maxwell's like, later, later in the 80s.

[Tim Dillon]

Okay. Did he know her father knew of.

[Ryan Grim]

I don't think they met actually somebody like a Whitney Webb who knows this more in. In a more encyclopedic fashion. But no, I don't think so because I think they met when. Yeah, so they met when she came to New York. And she came to New York because he. Because, you know, things were not going well for her over there because he had fallen. Fallen off or got pushed off his yacht or whatever. Is it possible they met when he was going back and forth to London? Yeah, but I don't actually know the details of that early part, but. And when it comes to Wexner, this is something else we had reported on that weren't the first. People are like, wow, he does power of attorney for this random accountant. How on earth did this happen? Turns out that about a month before Wexner agreed to give Epstein power of attorney, the local police and the local attorney general, the state attorney general there in Ohio were looking very closely at all of Wexner's organization as linked to this, like, mob connected assassination. An attorney who was linked to a Wexner company.

[Tim Dillon]

So, like, he's about to testify, this attorney, right?

[Ryan Grim]

Yes. Yeah. So the heat is on. Heat is on big time against Wexner. And so what? Whether or not that had something to do with the decision, we don't know. But, like, shortly after that, the. The very planes that the CIA was using to do Iran Contra, Epstein then transitions from that to running Victoria's Secret lingerie and Abercrombie and Fitch stuff from Hong Kong and China. So, like, that's another connection where you're like, hold on. Jeffrey Epstein brought the CIA's, like, airline to Ohio to work for Wexner, and then when it's done, it goes to Angola, where they were also shipping weapons.

[Tim Dillon]

So when we're talking about the CIA, we're talking about, obviously a very large agency with a lot of power. But as you rightly said, they are not usually the author of the story. They are working for very wealthy people, business interests. Things like that. So we're talking about the CIA. We're probably talking about a faction within the CIA or many factions. I don't know. You could maybe illustrate this where there's probably a ton of people that show up at Langley every day. They're typing, you know, these reports of their analysts and they're saying, what did the guy in Pakistan, in the cafe say? Whatever. Who are the people in the CIA working with Epsy? And I'm not saying you even know their names, but can you illustrate who these people are? Are they currently members of the CIA? Are they ex CIA? Are they in other parts of the government, maybe the State Department, but actually are deep cover CIA agents who is helping him arrange air transport with this CIA front company, this airline? And, you know, with less Wexer, in your estimation.

[Ryan Grim]

There'S this like, amoeba, like, overlap between the leadership of the CIA and the kind of ex CIA types, you know, who. The former CIA directors, former CIA officials who are now doing, you know, consulting, or they're running foundations that have enormous amounts of money. Like Wexner's foundation, for instance, was one of the biggest funders of pro Israel causes. Or Leon Black is, you know, donating enormous amounts of money. Ellison, it's like the biggest donor to, like, friends of the idf. So even if you're not directing a CIA budget, like, if you can, you know, through your friends or through your board positions, you can still be moving kind of many millions of dollars. And so it's. So it's those people that are former CIA, but they're now in private practice, but they're still associated with the leadership of the CIA, plus then the people who are in the administrator in the White House itself. So like the political appointees. And that's the kind of network that comes together to do it oftentimes, you know, lots of different operations at the same time, and some of them almost at cross purposes. And the ones we learn about are the ones that either blow up or, or are like, eventually successful, but you'll get people together like, okay, here's. Here's something I'd like to do in Afghanistan, which is another place they were spending the Iran profits, by the way. And so. All right, how are we going to fund this Afghan project? We obviously now we're not going to go to Congress. We're not going to.

[Tim Dillon]

Sure.

[Ryan Grim]

Like go to the public and say, here's an idea we have. Would you like to use your taxpayer money for it? No, we're going to, like, find our own sources. Of money, whether it's through, through black ops, through this, like CIA, you know, hedge fund, you know, venture capital fund, or through our foundations that are, that are friendly with us. And then we're going to see if it sticks, and if it doesn't, we'll just deny it. And if it does, we'll deny it.

[Tim Dillon]

So Epstein, in your mind, this is somebody who obviously establishes all these connections with arms traffickers and, you know, billionaires, people like Les Wexner. Then he begins to facilitate operations between former government officials, billionaires, arms traffickers, and he's in this world. And so is he a free agent? Meaning? Like, is this guy working at the behest of Israel? Is he working at the behest of a foreign government? This is something that I know, and I've talked to some smart people. You talk to more people than I do. I talk to a lot of people that are mentally ill, but they're very interesting and it's hard to know what's what. And some of the mentally ill people actually sound really credible now. But there is this belief that Epstein was working for Israel, or at least Israeli interests, and it dovetails with the Wexner of it all, the Maxwell connection. Do you think there's credibility to that belief that he's not just a completely free agent, that he is working on behalf of at least Israeli interests?

[Ryan Grim]

Well, he was. He also is politically aligned. So it, it's, you know, you wouldn't have to twist his arm to do it. But just from like a matter of fact of what he actually did, like, we can, we can count a number of different instances where he was doing things on behalf of either Abud Barak when he was Minister of Defense, or the State of Israel. Like, I, you know, I think you've talked about this on your show before. Like, we started, we started simple with a little story about a, a security agreement they helped cut with Mongolia. It's like not a big, not, not the hugest deal in the world, sure. But like, it's, it's to show like, how this, how this thing unfolds. He and, he and Ehud Barak use their connections to get it, to get a meeting actually literally at Davos with the President of, of Mongolia. And Larry Summers was there, you know, the per, you know, gotta get, impress the guy. Show him that you, you know, are friends with powerful people. Then they, then they cut some weapons deals, and then from there you get a security agreement. Same thing happening in, in other states as well. So you, you, you, you see, like other countries Perceiving him and perceiving Ehud Barak, who's private citizen, but going back and forth in and out of government as Rep. As representative of Israel, of the State of Israel. Funny thing is that Netanyahu would agree with that. In fact, he shared some of our reporting and it created this big scandal in Israel because our reporting connects Epstein more closely to the kind of opposition.

[Tim Dillon]

The other part in Israel, right.

[Ryan Grim]

Ehud Barak and what used to be the Labor Party and all that progressive. And so Netanyahu is like, aha. See, Epstein, there is an Israel connection, but it's my, it's my adversaries now. We'll have a story out next week about how he connected JP Morgan Chase and Netanyahu as part of this, what looks to be this like giant gas pipeline deal. So it wasn't just. He wasn't only on the opposition side, but. Yeah, so. But also Ehu Barak, yes. He's, he's adversarial, like, you know, in, in the intramural league, you know, with Netanyahu, but he's still out there representing Israel's interests.

[Tim Dillon]

Right.

[Ryan Grim]

But now was he doing that first and foremost or was it, you know, was his greater allegiance to the CIA or something? We don't know. But we do know that he was carrying out missions on behalf and that served the state of Israel.

[Tim Dillon]

Like, that's, that's not, it's not a controversial statement. Now, what do you make of his relationship with Ghislaine Maxwell? You know, you've studied this, you've looked at this. She's looking for a pardon. I believe she was moved to a much more, I guess a low security or lower security prison. She's clearly angling to be pardoned.

[Ryan Grim]

Right.

[Tim Dillon]

What is the relationship, which is Lane Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein, from your reporting also, what do you think Ghislaine Maxwell may or may not have on the President of the United States?

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, I mean, they were tight for so long that, you know, and I think there could be, you know, they knew Melania for a long time as well, like almost separately. Who the, like Epstein and, and Ghislaine.

[Tim Dillon]

How did they know her?

[Ryan Grim]

I think through John Luke Brunel some of the.

[Tim Dillon]

Who killed himself.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, he was.

[Tim Dillon]

Well, John Luke Brunel died. Right. He was a photographer.

[Ryan Grim]

He was a fat. Yeah. Fashion industry.

[Tim Dillon]

Fashion industry guy and a sex trafficker. And then how did he die? He's dead.

[Ryan Grim]

Right. Jail cell also.

[Tim Dillon]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of depression. So he knew Milani because she was a model.

[Ryan Grim]

That, that's that's my memory. Yeah.

[Tim Dillon]

Okay.

[Ryan Grim]

That at very early, very early stages. And, and, and Melania is very sensitive about this subject. I think she sued. She sued who? Michael Wolf or she sued somebody.

[Tim Dillon]

Okay. Yeah, she sued Michael Wolf, I believe. Yes.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Tim Dillon]

And.

[Ryan Grim]

And I think she sued, like this another book that was saying that she and Epstein dated or something. So she sued over that. So I think Trump and Melania are probably worried about what's in there as well.

[Tim Dillon]

What do you mean is in there? I mean, I know that you're a reporter, so you don't usually, you know, you know, extrapolate or say things that you can't, but if you could, and I'm not asking you to make wild claims, what would the.

[Ryan Grim]

What.

[Tim Dillon]

What is the fear originate from?

[Ryan Grim]

Well, so there. Did you see the email that came out just the other day from. In the latest tranche where it was. There was one federal prosecutor writing to others where he said, I just, just as a situational awareness or whatever the words are they use, looks like President Trump, and this was during the first term, flew on Epstein's airplane, you know, significantly more times than was previously known. And he was also on there twice with Maxwell while there were victims on the plane during the time that we're investigating her for sex trafficking.

[Tim Dillon]

Right.

[Ryan Grim]

Just, just, just a heads up, like, this is something y' all might want to know because this is our boss, like, at this particular moment, like that right there, in any normal world would be utterly devastating. Like the. So this is a convicted sex trafficker. Maxwell, forget Epstein.

[Tim Dillon]

She's not convicted at that time, though.

[Ryan Grim]

Not yet, but was getting, was getting investigated. Now we, now we know she's a convicted sex trafficker and there were victims on the plane while the president, or wasn't the president. Yeah. But while Trump is on the plane. And so, you know, at best at that point, you can be like, well, I didn't see anything. But everybody else who's ever been around these folks are like, no, this was like, debaucherous, disgusting stuff. There's no way you didn't see this. And also, we know that, you know, he did that whole thing where he's like, I. What did he say on Howard Stern?

[Tim Dillon]

He.

[Ryan Grim]

He bought Miss Teen USA so he could, like, creep into the locker room.

[Tim Dillon]

Not an ideal statement for sure.

[Ryan Grim]

So do you not secretly record it either? Just like, did you see the email.

[Tim Dillon]

From Mark Epstein saying, my brother was about to name names and I think his murder was authorized by the president?

[Ryan Grim]

I hadn't seen that, but I Don't know.

[Tim Dillon]

You know, that's in there. I guess I will.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Tim Dillon]

There's fake stuff in there.

[Ryan Grim]

Right, Right. I will say that It. It's. It's hard to believe that with the amount of power and the number of friends that he had, that he felt like he had no way out. Like, he considered himself to be a smooth operator, a very powerful person. He's got lots of damaging information about almost everybody in positions of power.

[Tim Dillon]

Yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

Like, I've never seen. I don't know anybody who can get you meetings with Putin, Bill Clinton, Sarkozy, like, you know, Netanyahu.

[Tim Dillon]

So you don't believe he killed himself.

[Ryan Grim]

So it's just hard to see. Yeah. Anything's possible, but, like, he was still fighting the charges, and there was no reason to think he was gonna spend the rest of his life in prison, given the power that he had.

[Tim Dillon]

Right.

[Ryan Grim]

The. What he. And what he. What he could offer. But. And that. But that's dangerous. But then, you know, it's also very hard to figure out how they could pull it off. But it's very hard for me to get my head to a place where. Where he's ready to just end it.

[Tim Dillon]

He's at Chelsea Clinton. I'm sorry, Ghislaine Maxwell is at Chelsea Clinton's wedding.

[Ryan Grim]

Right.

[Tim Dillon]

Bill Clinton. There's photos of him swimming in a pool, which is Lane Maxwell.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Tim Dillon]

Bill Clinton's not a rube. He knows that. He knows what's going on. Right. I mean, he knows who just lay Maxwell is and what they're up to. Why is. And I know the answer. I think I know the answer. Why. Why is Bill Clinton so cool with hanging out with these people?

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, I think. Yeah, you probably know the answer. It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, Right?

[Tim Dillon]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we. So we. We have a problem here. I mean, this is truly a real problem, right? We. We. We have a problem. If we're supposed to have a democratic society now, let's say it's hijacked by money. We all believe that, right? Hijacked by business interests. We all believe that. It's hijacked by oligarchs. We. Nobody is. Nobody who listens to this show is shocked to hear any of that. What I do think people are shocked by, surprised by, disgusted by, enraged at is how many of these people seem to be either pedophiles or very tolerant of pedophiles. What about the ruling class, in your estimation, makes that the case that they. If they're not partaking, they're hanging out with human traffickers. And that's okay.

[Ryan Grim]

I think if I had to put them on the couch. The way they have lived their life suggests to them that there are no rules.

[Tim Dillon]

Yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

And I, and I also think partly that once you are a billionaire or once you've been President of the United States or president of whatever country you're from, there's probably a lot of boredom that creeps in.

[Tim Dillon]

Right.

[Ryan Grim]

And you and I. And I imagine like they start getting their thrills by. By pushing into the forbidden.

[Tim Dillon]

Right.

[Ryan Grim]

Like in a, in a world where almost everything is available to them.

[Tim Dillon]

Yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

With ease.

[Tim Dillon]

Yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

Just. And everyone is nice to them, even the people that hate them.

[Tim Dillon]

Right.

[Ryan Grim]

Like, that's got to be unsettling.

[Tim Dillon]

Well, you have Prince Andrew in the uk who's. This has been a huge crisis for them. Right. Because Prince Andrew has been named by multiple witnesses very credibly and accused of very heinous behavior. The UK police was just reported, are now going to ask the FBI for information on some of these UK sex parties where somebody is alleging that he was abused as an underage boy by Ghislaine Maxwell and Prince Andrew and like tortured. Right. Like with electric shocks and everything like this in the uk now there's been. There was a scandal at the Kinkora Boys home in I believe Ireland. You know, the, the Franklin scandal was another scandal in the 80s in, in Omaha, Nebraska where Franklin Credit Union was laundering money on behalf of a human trafficker who was peddling children to wealthy and powerful people. Is this something that has been going on forever and this is something that people are now just kind of waking up to the depravity of some of these people? Like, you know.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah.

[Tim Dillon]

Is this something that you think is, you know, do you have to go back all the people who said, you know, pedophile shape shifting lizards around the world, do you have to go back and apologize to them now?

[Ryan Grim]

Yes, I think you. You do? Yeah, I think this, I think this level of power also like corrupts people's like, souls and their minds. Yeah, for sure. Which, which is another argument for like actual democratic checks on their power on their own behalf too. You know, like we're trying to prevent you from being shriveled up pedophile reptiles.

[Tim Dillon]

Is there a quasi religious element to this? And I mean not. And I don't get into the woo woo stuff all the time in the sense that like defiling and abusing innocence and innocent children and committing these horrible acts. This obsession with death, you see it with the skull and bone Stuff and I always thought. I always kind of wrote it off as kind of, like childish and kind of trying to be edgy and do whatever it is. But this obsession with death and these images of, you know, somewhat of the occult and the weird Bohemian Grove stuff where it's like we all stand there and everyone goes, well, it's just a frat party and it's a bunch of guys blown off steam. And they're standing there and they're worshiping the owl of Moloch. And Moloch is a biblical symbol. And it. Talk about child sacrifice. Truly, now, I'm not trying to sound like crazy, um, and I know that you're a reporter and you. You're only gonna talk about what you've sourced and what's out there. But, like, is there some strange, you know, I mean, genuinely, like, is there some strange belief system where these symbols keep popping up and these people have this weird. And Tony Podesta's got weird art in his house. That's just very odd. I mean, truly, right, it's like, odd. It's like I've. I've been in a lot of wealthy people's homes and I've never seen a picture of a demon holding a baby or what. This art is very strange. Where the artist literally said, I'm working through my own trauma with this art. I don't know, I'm not trying to draw all of these, you know, associations, but, like, do you look at any of this stuff you're reporting? Do you look at any of this stuff in a new light now, where you go, oh, yeah, they believe certain people are disposable, expendable. If you're a 14 year old girl that grows up on the wrong side of Palm beach, your life is meaningless to them and they can do anything they want to with impunity. Is there some overarching belief system that. That fits into?

[Ryan Grim]

I do think so. I think it is like one of the strongest arguments against inequality, against this runaway, like, insane level of inequality that produces a class of people that is unique, separate, distinct from the rest of the population.

[Tim Dillon]

And it.

[Ryan Grim]

And it's gotta mess with them. It's gotta. It's gotta get in their heads because they don't have to worry about the pedestrian concerns that people have of, like, making your mortgage and, like, right, just staying alive and, like, keeping your marriage healthy and, like, spending enough time with your kids and like, this. The normal things. So then they have to, like, develop all of these pathologically, like, depraved activities. To just keep them, to let themselves know, to let them know they're alive.

[Tim Dillon]

And this has happened over generations. This is a generational problem.

[Ryan Grim]

And it's happened also for thousands of years. Like, if it was just legalized with, you know, harems and, and all the, you know, over. Over, you know, the long arc of history. The difference then was like, it was like, oh, that's what they do.

[Tim Dillon]

How bad does this get for the Trump administration? I mean, they're saying that there's a lot more files that still have not been released. Looking at the material, do you think this gets much worse? Do you think this makes him a lame duck president? Do you think there are calls for impeachment or resignation? What do you think happens?

[Ryan Grim]

I mean, I don't, I don't think we're looking at impeachment or. I think it's deeply damaging. I think, you know, there are a lot of people who are like, single issue, right?

[Tim Dillon]

No.

[Ryan Grim]

Pedophiles, voters.

[Tim Dillon]

That makes sense.

[Ryan Grim]

Yes.

[Tim Dillon]

Who are like, you know, Clinton's going to be called to testify.

[Ryan Grim]

And I think. And yes, he. They're trying to get him to. And it would be, you know, Steve Bannon went to jail for refusing a subpoena.

[Tim Dillon]

Right.

[Ryan Grim]

To testify to Congress. It'd be wild if they refuse.

[Tim Dillon]

And, like, what do you make of that relationship? You know, people talk about Steve Bannon advising him, and there's hours of.

[Ryan Grim]

That's a big. That's a very good question.

[Tim Dillon]

Wow.

[Ryan Grim]

A cat.

[Tim Dillon]

It's a black cat who comes in, watch out, it's Mossad. Oh, that's what they do. All right, so Bannon and him. What's that deal?

[Ryan Grim]

He. I think, I think Bannon. I mean, obviously this is deep into people knowing what Epstein was all about.

[Tim Dillon]

Yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

I think Bannon understood, like, what an opera. Like, what an operator this guy was. Right. Like, Bannon was, if you remember, after 2017, he's trying to go to Europe and become this, like, right wing kingmaker and turn Europe into this, you know, right wing utopia. And he, he's often working with Epstein to Epstein's, connecting him to all these guys. But then it's also giving him all this advice about, like, how he's gonna, you know, his public image. And. And then he's like, when Ehud Barak wants to run for Israeli prime minister again, he and Epstein, like Bannon and Epstein are talking about working. Like, Bannon wants to work for Barack.

[Tim Dillon]

Right.

[Ryan Grim]

Like, to support Barack. Which is like, wild also. Yeah. And he has successfully dodged a lot of the Scrutiny around this, I think. And I think it's because there's no evidence that he was, like, partying. Partying with the guy or involved in, like, that part of the.

[Tim Dillon]

He was just kind of having some. I don't know, advising him to whatever.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, but he's in, like. Because he. I think he correctly understood how powerful a role he was playing in the world at that point, which is what so many people, like, deny as a. As a reality.

[Tim Dillon]

Do you think there's any chance that Jeffrey Epstein isn't dead? No.

[Ryan Grim]

That. That would be wild, though. That'd be a nice. That'd be a nice ending to this.

[Tim Dillon]

I was told by someone. I was told by someone very high up that it was. That they didn't think this was the case. But there's a small possibility that he's living on Wexner's estate in Ohio because it's so big.

[Ryan Grim]

Just. I would. I would assume they'd kill him again if.

[Tim Dillon]

Interesting.

[Ryan Grim]

Like, what's the point of letting him live?

[Tim Dillon]

Right. Right. Yeah. Okay.

[Ryan Grim]

Like, hey, we saved your life. We're taking a wex or the state. Oh, and then we're killing you right here.

[Tim Dillon]

Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. Right? They don't want him. He's. He's dangerous. They can't have him around. Around. He knows.

[Ryan Grim]

He certainly. He certainly knows. Enormous. Like, if, as a reporter, it's been. It's been interesting to get such a window into the type of machinations that are usually shielded from the public. Right. He. Yeah, he. He had. There were so many things he could have shed light on.

[Tim Dillon]

Do you think this scandal. And I think it does, but would you agree that this really sheds light on the way the world actually works in a way that maybe no other scandal has?

[Ryan Grim]

I think so. And I think. And I think when he was arrested in 2019, people got the. Got this hope that they were going to get that look at the way the world actually works, and then it was slammed shut, and now the window is kind of being forced back open a little bit. But I do. I do think that's right. I think that this is the way that this Davos set operates globally, and the more we know about it, the better.

[Tim Dillon]

But would you say that this is also the way that countries like Russia operate and China and all of these big powerful countries?

[Ryan Grim]

Yes, I think because we are. Because we in Western Europe are, you know, nominally democratic, we have a slightly greater need for people operating in the shadows.

[Tim Dillon]

Right.

[Ryan Grim]

Whereas I think that, you know, paradoxically, Russia and China can Be a little bit more explicit about how they're going to manage their operations.

[Tim Dillon]

Right.

[Ryan Grim]

It's like, what are you going to say about it? Like, this is what we're doing.

[Tim Dillon]

Right? Right. But I imagine that, you know, when he's back channeling or supposedly trying to back channel with Putin or back chat, like, he, this is, this is a guy who's, there's no. He's working with everybody.

[Ryan Grim]

Right? Yeah. He immediately got Barack, this like 2 million dollar deal with Victor Vexelberg, big oligarch in Russia. Like, as soon as he leaves the minister of defense position, he's like, I need money. Like, I got your guy.

[Tim Dillon]

Right.

[Ryan Grim]

We're gonna, we're gonna hook you up with Renova. He's tight with Putin and it's like how, like what think you have to think about like that, that alone is like, he's tight with the Clintons, he's tight with Trump or falling out supposedly with Trump and he's tight with Putin. Like, what. How does that square with our understanding of what they tell us the world is.

[Tim Dillon]

It's still tough. And you've done such a brilliant job of reporting and I've read a lot of your stuff. It's still difficult for me to fully understand how that becomes the case. Right. It's still like when you say, oh, he's building connections, doing that and I'm. He is clearly. But it's still difficult for me to understand how this happens in the sense of like, you know, he seems to, you know, how many people in history do you think are. Have been like, Jeffrey Epstein are currently like Jeffrey Epstein? Like, how many Jeffrey Epstein's do we not know about?

[Ryan Grim]

Right.

[Tim Dillon]

Is he a one of one? Is he a one of a hundred? Is he who, how many people are would you say with that deeply connected and you know, how does that, how many people.

[Ryan Grim]

It's. It's a good question because it takes decades to build those connections up and to build that, to build that trust up to, to get both sides to believe that this person is going to actually make this thing happen. You probably saw the one email that to me. There was actually two that were striking to me where Putin wants to meet with Epstein at this conference. Yeah, he wants to meet him on the sidelines of conference and Epstein tells Putin's aide, no, you know, if, if Putin wants to meet, like, it's got to be at his palace and like, we need to set significant amount of times that we can really hash things out.

[Tim Dillon]

Right.

[Ryan Grim]

I'm not doing like a Little brief catch up right at this conference. And meanwhile he set up Barack and I think it was Sarkozy, not Macron, and a banker in for dinner in Paris. And he just blows it off. Epstein's supposed to be there. He's like, I'm not feeling well. God only knows what he was doing instead that night. But. But he, he's just blowing off presidents around the world. And how. So how many people in the world are doing that? It can't be that.

[Tim Dillon]

Didn't Nicholas Sarkozy have his own sex scandal or am I completely wrong?

[Ryan Grim]

He's. Yeah. And he's in, he's in prison right now for some.

[Tim Dillon]

I mean, so it's just again, it's like this. He's this figure that is, you know, obviously he's a pedophile. He's a monster. He's trafficking women. What is this island? You know, he's got this strange island. He's got phoenician symbols all over. It's like an odd. What is this? What role does this island play? Getting high level scientists, people in the tech community to this island. What is this guy, you know, what is he doing? Is he. Is that island, do you think? It's like a pleasure island where these billionaires are going and they're, you know, meeting underage people. What is he doing with his island?

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, yeah, I mean, he's definitely doing like what we think he's doing. Right. There's lots and lots of evidence of that. And I think it's a way to set yourself apart in that billionaire class. Like, I've. Yeah, you got to have an island, right? You got to have jets, you got to have a helicopter, you got to have an island. The ranch in New Mexico, I think is like, serves some of the same purpose, right. But that's a little bit more pedestrian, like having your own island. He also, as we found in a lot of his correspondence, was, was figuring out these like, tax loopholes and tax incentives for like these island based biopharmaceutical, like you can call something like a bio medical company, right? And then all of a sudden you can move billions of dollars through it and it's. And then it's completely laundered and so. And people have not said, oh, like he does. He's not a real accountant. It's like, because he wasn't a real accountant, he was willing, I think, to break the law in a way that other accountants wouldn't. So he was actually able to find like genuinely innovative, quote unquote, innovative solutions for these billionaires to be like, hey, the U.S. virgin Islands, you can move your money right here. And I know people and I can, I can shelter it here. And then all of a sudden now it's not taxable. And you also get these incentives. And so he's, he's constantly blending and as his survivors will tell you, he's, he was like often on the phone while he's like getting these, you know, starting with the massages and moving into the abuse. So like people are often like, how did he have time to like be a part such a global operator when he was also like on a near daily basis of using girls? It's like, well, he was literally doing them at the same time, right? And you read his emails, if you've looked at some of those, there's not a single sentence that doesn't have, isn't shot through with typos and grammatical mistakes, right? Like, you can, you can imagine him just like engaged in abuse and just like firing off emails to like prime ministers and arranging these meetings.

[Tim Dillon]

And what do you think this, how does this shape the political reality going forward of the US Israel relationship? Does it have no impact at all? Is it, is there, is there a slight impact? Is there no impact? Does you know? Because that was one of the questions. Obviously people are very unhappy about what Israel's done in Gaza and people are very happy about, unhappy about people like Miriam Adelson and whatever. Do you think there's political diplomatic fallout from this tranche of documents that's going to come out where people go, you know, this is a damaging, you know, this is damaging the US Israel relationship. Or do you think it won't?

[Ryan Grim]

I mean, I think so because I think eventually the rest of the press is going to have to start reporting on the, the reality of it because it, it'll, it'll end up being similar to the lab leak question actually, where you till still maybe to this day do not have mainstream media approval for the idea that Covid leaked out of the lab in Wuhan yet if you do a survey of the American public, something like 80%, I think at this point, maybe higher, are like, yeah, it came out of a lab. And so even if, I think you could see the same shift here, like, even if the mainstream media refuses to touch any of the like public information, public documents and correspondence that connect him to working on behalf of Israel, a year or two from now, you poll the public, you know, was he working on behalf of Israeli interests? I think you'll get like a 70, 80% doesn't mean it was solely working on behalf of Israeli interests, of course. But yeah. So I think that they won't be able to hold that back. And so, and it coming in the context of both the genocide and also this, like, insistence that you're not allowed to criticize the genocide is just going to add up to be just too much. I don't know. What, I don't. Yeah, like what, what political party is going to be unapologetically pro Israel going forward? Neither of them, really.

[Tim Dillon]

Yeah, it doesn't feel like it'll be a popular position. Two more questions. And I appreciate you doing this, having done all the reporting you've done on, on Epstein, on his connections, on the extent to which he was involved in, in global politics and the way that that network of people you talked about, X intelligence, X, you know, leaders of countries. Do you feel at a certain point, and again, this is asking you to kind of pontificate that that system is going, there's going to be a threat to that system and that is that, that because we have more technology, we have a new media landscape, the, the, you can't control the narrative as much as you could. Is there going to be a threat to that system or, and I would be the cynic and say not really because they don't really care like that. That's my thing. My thing is they don't care. They know that we know. We know that they know that we know. It doesn't, it doesn't seem to matter to them. Do you think it matters to them that we can get millions of people to watch this or listen to this or Rogan can get do. Do they care at all or not really.

[Ryan Grim]

I think it bothers them a little bit because anything that they can't control unsettles them. I think that you're right that they still have things firmly under control, but they don't have everything under control. And so I think that bothers them. And I think, and it's no secret I'm not a huge fan of Donald Trump, but I think a lot of the public thought that Donald Trump was actually going to be a threat to this system.

[Tim Dillon]

Well, I think it's, yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

Been extremely demoralizing to people to see the opposite come about, to see him be an obstacle.

[Tim Dillon]

What do you make of J.D. vance, out of curiosity?

[Ryan Grim]

Well, since he's not connected to this, he could at least make hay out of it, right?

[Tim Dillon]

Yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

But I think he's probably boxed in because he can't get ahead of Trump on this. So he's kind of stuck as well. You know, he can speak in generalities. And now he's probably unleashed a little bit now that Trump has been pressured into releasing the files so he can. But before that, he had to like, walk this fine line where he wants transparency, but he can't contradict his boss either. Yeah. How do you think he's handled this?

[Tim Dillon]

Well, I think he's in this interesting position. Right. Because he has, you know, he's got to have loyalty to Trump, but I also think that he's seeing his own political aspirations get negatively impacted by this. Right. I mean, that's obvious. So I don't really know, but it seems to me that he's in a weirdly untenable position because Trump's not running again and Trump's old and Trump's made his money. I mean, and I don't know, you know, I don't know what exactly how far he'll dis. I don't know how damaging this gets. That's the real question. Right. How bad does it get for the White House? And then is JD Willing to go, hey, not me, you know, you know, final thing, there have been lots and lots and lots of, there's been lots of speculation about two events. Now, I know that I don't know how much you've looked into any of these events. One was the attempted assassination on Donald Trump. The second is the assassination of Charlie Kirk. These have inspired lots of discussion across multiple platforms with many high level people weighing in and they've caused massive, you know, problems within the conservative movement and even to a lesser extent. But even, you know, on the other side, you have, I think, certain Fishers over issues like this where you, you know, have people that are accused of conspiracy mongering and doing it for profit and you have people that are like, well, no, I'm going to accept the official narrative of, of the FBI, which is now being run by Cash Patel. And, and I think you, you find a lot of people somewhere. Like I find myself in the middle of not being an investigative journalist, but also having no faith in Cash Patel and the FBI on those two issues. Where would you put yourself?

[Ryan Grim]

And I thought, I've actually found it really interesting that the, the, in the two cases, like the one, the Charlie Kirk one, to me does actually seem pretty straightforward. Like there's the FBI bungled it from start to finish.

[Tim Dillon]

Right.

[Ryan Grim]

And some of it is like, weird, but it does seem like to me, like what looks like to have happened, like mostly to, to me is what happened. Whereas on the butler one with Trump, that is a complete mystery. Like this. It's a ghost of a person who doesn't exist on social media for the most part, nicks the guy's ear from and climbs up there casually from 150 yards out. And that one is the one that was just kind of moved. Everyone's kind of moved on from it, but. And instead focuses on the Kirk one. That, that, that, that part to me is, is, is kind of an interesting. That's not how I would have expected them to.

[Tim Dillon]

Trump never really brings it up.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. And because I guess they never were able to, like, if it would have been a liberal kid then or, or even if it had been a right wing kid. Like, you need something, there's. With nothing to grab onto.

[Tim Dillon]

Does Israel bomb Iran before the midterms?

[Ryan Grim]

They certainly want to.

[Tim Dillon]

Right?

[Ryan Grim]

They're, they're, yeah, they're, they're agitating. Netanyahu will be here on Monday for what, his sixth trip?

[Tim Dillon]

What do they have on what. Why is the President so docile when it comes to Benjamin Netanyahu?

[Ryan Grim]

I don't know. He doesn't seem to like, like him interpersonally, like when you look at their body language. And yet. And it's, it's, it's, it's truly amazing. I actually, I saw your clip about him and Miriam Adelson, which was still delightful. It is lovely.

[Tim Dillon]

I mean, they are friends. Here's the thing with him and Miriam. They're just buds. You can tell they, you can tell he actually likes. There's very few people you can tell Donald Trump actually likes. I think he really likes Miriam Adelson.

[Ryan Grim]

I think, I think he's also, yeah, I think he's also amused by her and by her late husband's like, obsession with Israel. He's always, he always like, negs them about it. Like, yeah, man, you really love Israel. It's like the only thing you care about.

[Tim Dillon]

Yeah. Yeah. It just seems very interesting to me that he's such a, you know, you know, like, you know, wildly unpredictable guy on every single issue, exceedingly. Except this one issue. Like, he's been for and against things. He'll go, we're doing this, we're not going to do it. I like this person. I don't like this person. He gets in feuds quickly, he fires people. But he loves Miriam Adelson.

[Ryan Grim]

I mean, he's got 250 million reasons and counting.

[Tim Dillon]

That's right.

[Ryan Grim]

Yes. His whole selling point was that wasn't who he Was. And it's like we can't even get that.

[Tim Dillon]

Is anyone going to be the president when that's not who they are?

[Ryan Grim]

I don't know if it's if like right. I guess the whole problem with, you know, he was so over leveraged and struggling in 2016, like he wasn't an actual billionaire. So we need, we need some actual billionaires, I guess if we're gonna.

[Tim Dillon]

That's what you. You've heard it here first. Ryan Grimm's. More billionaires.

[Ryan Grim]

More billionaires.

[Tim Dillon]

More, more billionaires. Well, listen, enjoy all in one place.

[Ryan Grim]

We can put bars around the place.

[Tim Dillon]

Happy New Year. Where can people follow your work? You're doing some of the best reporting right now in the country on this.

[Ryan Grim]

That's. Yeah, very kind of you too. Yeah, we're drop. We'[e-mail] and then, you know, Monday through Fridays we're. We're putting up shows at Breaking Points. But yeah, we're. We're reader. Reader funded. So let me put in a plug reader funded over at drop site. So if you can. Everything is free, but if you can become a subscriber or a donor. It's a nonprofit. Hey, you still have a few days to get your charitable contributions in.

[Tim Dillon]

Get your charitable. Get your contributions. And I wish I could subscribe. I've given my yearly charitable contribution to Israel in the form of my agent. And that's where my money will go. Ryan, thank you again for making time to do this on a holiday weekend. I appreciate it.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, it was my pleasure.

[Tim Dillon]

All right. Thank you so much.

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[Ryan Grim]

Alright, let's sing it together this time. Toyota Thon Toyota Thon Toyota Thon Dealer inventory may vary.

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