The mother of all conspiracies

Summary

Summary of "Today, Explained" Episode: "The Mother of All Conspiracies"

Podcast Information:

• Title: Today, Explained
• Host/Author: Vox
• Description: Today, Explained is Vox's daily news explainer podcast. Hosts Sean Rameswaram and Noel King guide listeners through the most important stories of the day.
• Network: Part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
• Episode: The Mother of All Conspiracies
• Release Date: July 28, 2025

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Introduction

In the July 28, 2025 episode of Today, Explained, Vox’s senior Politics Correspondent Andrew Prokop delves into the complexities of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, labeling it "The Mother of All Conspiracies." The episode explores how the Epstein case intertwines with various political subcultures and conspiracy theories in the United States, its implications for former President Donald Trump, and the broader political ramifications.

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The Epstein Scandal: An Overview

Sean Ramaswamy sets the stage by highlighting the national obsession with a potentially non-existent list connected to Jeffrey Epstein:

"It's so big it shut down Congress. It's so big. Ghislaine Maxwell is meeting with the Department of Justice... it's still posting about it or posting to distract us from it." [00:00]

Andrew Prokop provides a detailed background on Epstein:

"The Epstein scandal has so many different elements to it that touch on the interests and obsessions with so many different American politics and conspiracy theory subcultures. It sort of unites them all." [02:32]

Epstein, a financier with murky sources of wealth, associated with high-profile figures like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Bill Gates, was accused of sexually abusing underage women and trafficking girls. His mysterious death in jail in 2019, officially ruled a suicide, has fueled numerous conspiracy theories, particularly surrounding the deletion of critical surveillance tapes:

"How about the fact that they deleted the first tapes? Oh, so he would..." [04:25]

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Conspiracy Theories and the Epstein Case

The episode connects the Epstein scandal to broader conspiracy narratives such as QAnon and Pizzagate. Prokop describes Epstein as:

"The one conspiracy theory to rule them all." [02:32]

He examines how Epstein's case embodies aspects of the #MeToo movement while also feeding into right-wing conspiracy theories that accuse political elites of heinous crimes without credible evidence. The intertwining with QAnon is highlighted, where symbolic references (e.g., "ordering pizza") are interpreted as sinister codes about elite pedophilia:

"There's a belief that elitists or politicians ordering pizza symbolizes them ordering underage boys and girls." [05:34]

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Donald Trump's Involvement and Response

A significant portion of the episode scrutinizes Donald Trump's personal ties to Epstein and his handling of the scandal. Prokop discusses Trump's cautious stance despite his known associations with Epstein:

"Donald Trump does have longtime personal ties to Epstein that have been kind of overlooked for a while." [05:45]

During the 2024 campaign, Trump hinted at releasing the Epstein files, generating increased attention:

"When he was asked about this in the 2024 campaign, he was asked whether he would release the Epstein files. And I think he said, yeah, yeah, I would." [07:00]

Polling data indicates the Epstein scandal is particularly damaging to Trump's approval ratings:

"The Epstein case, negative 37 points." [08:09]

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Impact on Trump's Support

The Epstein scandal has emerged as one of the most detrimental issues affecting Trump’s approval, with disapproval ratings significantly higher than for other issues like the economy or immigration:

"The Epstein case, negative 37 points." [08:09]

Prokop discusses the challenges Trump faces in maintaining support as the scandal persists, particularly because it originated from his own base (MAGA supporters) who are now facing scrutiny:

"They've been obsessed with Epstein for years and people around Trump promised to disclose the truth about Epstein and now they have to squirm and explain..." [10:11]

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Democratic Response and Broader Political Ramifications

Democrats, including public figures like Kamala Harris, dismiss Trump's conspiracy-driven narratives as baseless attempts to distract from Epstein:

"What is QAnon?" [05:25] "Whether it's right or wrong, it's time... to go after people." [20:10]

The Democratic response underscores the institution's resilience amidst Republican attempts to reorient the scandal into a political weapon against Democrats and other political figures like Barack Obama and James Comey, despite legal protections for sitting or former presidents:

"The Supreme Court famously held last year that it's very difficult to prosecute a president..." [21:20]

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Role of Conservative Politicians and Media

Prominent conservative figures, including Marjorie Taylor Greene, embody the conspiracy theory ethos, advancing unfounded claims about a "deep state" and elite conspiracies. Prokop highlights their influence in perpetuating the Epstein narrative:

"Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene... widely known as one of the most sort of conspiracy theory friendly members of the Republican Conference." [26:11]

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Anthony Epstein's Legacy and Future Implications

Prokop concludes by reflecting on the long-term implications if Trump were to win a second term, suggesting that unresolved issues related to the Epstein scandal could serve as a prelude to further controversies:

"If Trump does win a second term, then everything we've talked about here will just be the prologue to what he's going to be up to." [16:36]

The discussion also touches upon Trump's consistent strategy of diverting from personal scandals to broader political attacks, a tactic that has historically worked to deflect criticism:

"Trump has a time tested playbook for pushing back against mainstream media driven scandals..." [23:38]

However, with the Epstein scandal being deeply rooted in his base's beliefs, diverting attention becomes increasingly challenging.

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Conclusion

The Epstein scandal serves as a nexus for various conspiracy theories and political maneuverings, significantly impacting the current American political climate. For Trump, it's a substantial hurdle that undermines his support, despite his attempts to shift focus. Meanwhile, Democrats maintain that these conspiracy narratives are unfounded distractions. As the scandal continues to evolve, its full ramifications on American politics remain to be seen.

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Notable Quotes:

• Donald Trump on Democrats' alleged illegal endorsements:

  "You are not allowed to pay for an endorsement. It is totally illegal to do so." [00:24]

• Andrew Prokop on Epstein being a central conspiracy:

  "The one conspiracy theory to rule them all." [02:32]

• Kamala Harris on Trump’s handling:

  "Whether it's right or wrong, it's time... to go after people." [20:10]

• Marjorie Taylor Greene on deep state:

  “We like supporting our Constitution, our freedoms and America first.” [26:09]

---

This detailed summary captures the essence of the episode, providing a comprehensive understanding of how the Epstein scandal has intertwined with political narratives and conspiracy theories, and its impact on key political figures and the broader American political landscape.

Transcript

[Sean Ramaswamy]

There's a lot going on in the world right now, but much of the nation remains obsessed with a list that may or may not exist by a guy who's definitely dead. It's so big it shut down Congress. It's so big. Ghislaine Maxwell is meeting with the Department of Justice. It's so big the President ran away to Scotland, but he's still posting about it or posting to distract us from it.

[Donald Trump]

Truth Social I'm looking at a large amount of money owed by the Democrats after the presidential election and the fact that they admit to paying, probably illegally, $11 million to singer Beyon for an endorsement, $3 million for expenses to Oprah, $600,000 to a low rated TV anchor Al Sharpton and others to be named for doing absolutely nothing. These ridiculous fees were incorrectly stated in the books and records. You are not allowed to pay for an endorsement. It is totally illegal to do so. Can you imagine what would happen if politicians started paying for people to endorse them? All hell would break out. Kamala and all those who received endorsement money broke the law. They should all be persecuted. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

The mother of all conspiracy theories on.

[Rebecca Ybarra]

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[Marjorie Taylor Greene]

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[Andrew Prokop]

Mama.

[Harry Entin]

Today.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Explained from Vox here with Andrew Prokop, senior Politics Correspondent at Vox. In your latest piece for Vox, you call the Epstein scandal the Mother of all conspiracies. How did Epstein get to become that Andrew?

[Andrew Prokop]

The Epstein scandal has so many different elements to it that touch on the interests and obsessions with so many different American politics and conspiracy theory subcultures. It sort of unites them all. It's the one conspiracy theory to rule them all. The bare facts of the scandal are wild to the extent we know them. A guy comes out of nowhere, gets fabulously wealthy through unclear means, befriends all the top people in New York society. They said he was a financier, but his firm had no clients, no website and no record of trades.

[Kamala Harris]

Hanging out in the same place as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos was buddy buddy with Bill Gates, getting him to give money to mit.

[Andrew Prokop]

Then he gets accused of sexually abusing dozens of women, including underage women, trafficking girls.

[Rebecca Ybarra]

On the white sandy beaches of St.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Thomas sits a 70 acre island called Little St. James. For Jeffrey Epstein, it was a Zen like retreat. For others it was a horror show.

[Harry Entin]

Sleazy Wall street tycoon Jeffrey Epstein used the Lolita Express to ferry a bevy of beautiful young women among the passengers, former President Bill Clinton and Britain's Prince Andrew.

[Andrew Prokop]

And then he dies mysteriously in jail while awaiting trial in 2019.

[Kamala Harris]

I've said this from day one. I do not believe it was suicide. I can't talk about what happened to him.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

How about the fact that they deleted the first tapes? Oh, so he would. He had an original attempt on his life and then they had a second one and they can't find the tapes for the second one and then they accidentally deleted the tapes from the first one.

[Andrew Prokop]

I mean, there's a lot of interest just based on those core facts. But then this also sort of connects to what other people, various different groups in American politics are reading into the Epstein scandal or how they interpret the Epstein scandal, because in a sense it could be called a MeToo scandal. It's about a powerful and influential man exploiting and abusing women for years. It's also been treated as kind of like one of those Pizzagate QAnon right wing scandals, which is these scandals that were popular online in which the right fantasized about how their political enemies were secretly child sex abusers who were about to be exposed in some law enforcement operation.

[Kamala Harris]

What is QAnon?

[Andrew Prokop]

QAnon is basically a shadow civil war between rogue intelligence agencies and good guys.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

For lack of a better term.

[Andrew Prokop]

There's this belief that elitists or politicians ordering pizza symbolizes them ordering underage boys and girls. There's this, like, transcript of a call from, like, Obama to order pizza and.

[Kamala Harris]

Hot dogs to the White House.

[Andrew Prokop]

And then there's the sort of resistance, hope for a Trump scandal. And that's what's kind of supercharged the latest round of this interest, because Donald Trump does have longtime personal ties to Epstein that have been kind of overlooked for a while. They've been known, but they haven't really been the focus of much attention. And now they are definitely getting a lot of attention.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Trump famously loves a conspiracy, and I imagine producer Rebecca will throw in a little montage of some of his greatest hits here in Springfield.

[Kamala Harris]

They're eating the dogs. The people that came in, they're eating the cats. You know, the FBI has never gotten that server. That's a big part of this whole thing. Why did they give it to a Ukrainian company?

[Andrew Prokop]

Are you sure they did that? Are you sure they gave it to Ukraine?

[Kamala Harris]

Well, that's what the word is.

[Andrew Prokop]

Person that he reposted said that former President Biden had been executed and that he was actually replaced with clones and robots that were doing the job for him.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

How did this one go sideways on him? It's not even new.

[Andrew Prokop]

So the interesting thing is that Trump loves to stoke conspiracy theories about his political enemies, but he doesn't always control them on the right. When we think about Pizzagate, when we think about QAnon, these were not conspiracy theories that were invented by Donald Trump. They kind of bubbled up on the right wing fever swamps, on online message boards, in chain emails and so on. But it was more that he kind of recognized the energy and power that these conspiracy theories held over a portion of his base and wanted to use them. And Epstein was kind of similar. There is a logical tie between it to Pizzagate and QAnon. Jeffrey Epstein did abuse a lot of underage girls. He did have a lot of powerful and influential friends, many of whom not all were Democrats or liberals. The interesting thing is that when Trump was asked about it, he was always a bit more cautious and reticent. When he was asked about this in the 2024 campaign, he was asked whether he would release the Epstein files. And I think he said, yeah, yeah, I would.

[Kamala Harris]

All right, I guess I would. I think that less so because, you know, you don't know. You don't want to affect people's lives if it's phony stuff in there, because there's a lot of phony stuff with that whole world. But I think I would, or at.

[Andrew Prokop]

Least do you think that would restore.

[Rebecca Ybarra]

Trust, help restore Trust.

[Andrew Prokop]

Yeah.

[Kamala Harris]

I don't know about Epstein so much as I do the others.

[Andrew Prokop]

And now in hindsight, you can sort of read into perhaps some of the Trump anticipating what might be in those files and that perhaps he might be in those files.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Do we know if he's actually losing support? Do we have any evidence to that yet?

[Andrew Prokop]

What the polling shows is that this is very clearly a bad issue for him. They disapprove of him on all CNN pol analyst Harry Entin looked at Trump's net approval rating on various issues. How many more people disapproved of his handling of the issue than approved immigration? He was negative 5 points. The economy, negative 14. Foreign policy, negative 14. Epstein case, negative 37. 37 points.

[Kamala Harris]

Below water. My goodness gracious.

[Andrew Prokop]

So it was by far the worst issue for him. And that's because a bunch of people on the right who usually support what Trump does on this stuff are unhappy with this issue specifically. Is it actually hurting his broader support and approval? Is it driving hardcore Trump supporters away from him? That remains to be seen. I'd be a little skeptical of that.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Ben Smith, the co founder and editor in chief of Semafor, has recently called the Epstein scandal QAnon for people with college degrees. Do you get the sense that some of the people that are hopping on the Epstein train are maybe just taking advantage, doing it just for the fun, you know, happy to see Trump in some hot water, but don't actually believe there's a there there.

[Andrew Prokop]

I can't read their minds, but that would probably be my guess that there's a mix. But I mean, it is also the case that, like, Trump's behavior on this has been kind of genuinely strange. And I'm actually surprised that he's sort of gotten the benefit of the doubt on it for a while, because back in February when Bondi didn't really come up with anything new to release, and then more recently when they said, hey, we investigated all this and we think he did kill himself and there's no evidence of a larger conspiracy. I think the default assumption from a lot of people was that this was just kind of the conservative base embarrassing themselves. They talked themselves into believing these silly theories and now they couldn't. Bondi and Kash Patel couldn't deliver and so that it's just kind of something to point and laugh at them about. But the idea that, like, oh, they're covering this up because it's embarrassing, at the very least for Donald Trump, that was a kind of fringe view among Democrats until we got some, some more evidence and indications pointing that way relatively recently. The Wall Street Journal reports Bondi and Blanche informed the president in May. His name appears multiple times in the Epstein files.

[Harry Entin]

He was told he was in the files two months ago.

[Andrew Prokop]

Last week said, no, no, he wasn't. He was. So Democrats were really kind of slow to rally to this. So I think that it's really been kind of the opposite of what Ben Smith says, that the, that it has been the exact same crowd as QAnon that has been keeping this scandal alive for so long.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

So it's QAnon, but also QAnon for people with college degrees, maybe.

[Andrew Prokop]

Well, that's why it's the mother of all conspiracy theories. There's something for everyone in the Epstein scandal.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

But Donald Trump has a new strategy, which is to make it about the love of his life, Barack Obama.

[Andrew Prokop]

I thought you were gonna go with Vladimir Putin.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Oh, sorry.

[Donald Trump]

Both of them.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Even better. You know what? That'll work. That'll work. That's the throw. We're gonna talk about that when we're back on TODAY Explained.

[Nisha Chital]

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[Andrew Prokop]

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[Sean Ramaswamy]

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[Rebecca Ybarra]

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[Sean Ramaswamy]

This is Today Explained Andrew. Longtime listeners of this program will remember that you were on it a good many times in the first Trump administration talking about Russia. This sounds like a job for pro cop cop.

[Andrew Prokop]

I thought you were a PI.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

No, no. I'm Andrew Prokop, politics reporter over at Vox.

[Andrew Prokop]

So it was a big day for the investigation. Mueller makes it very clear that there was a Russian effort to interfere with the election. And if Trump does win a second term, then everything we've talked about here will just be the prologue to what he's going to be up to.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Then can you remind our listeners why we spend so much time talking about Russia?

[Andrew Prokop]

I ask myself that question often. What was it all For. But no, I mean, the reason that we were so interested in the Russia scandal is that it was a very serious, strange and scandalous thing that happened during the 2016 campaign. We are learning more about the hack into the Democratic National Committee, including indications for the first time that the breach.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Went beyond the official accounts of DNC.

[Andrew Prokop]

Staffers and included personal email accounts, as.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Well as a separate effort to leverage Internet trolls and fake news to drive interactions with Americans.

[Andrew Prokop]

That way, Russian intelligence officers carried out this hacking. This led to a larger investigation and scandal about how exactly this hacking happened, but also whether anyone in Donald Trump's campaign was aware of or involved in this hack and leak operation in any way. But also whether Donald Trump's notable public warmth and friendliness towards Russia and Vladimir Putin were hiding anything suspicious or compromising.

[Kamala Harris]

You know, a lot of people would say he's put himself at the forefront of the world as a leader. If he says great things about me, I'm gonna say great things about him. I think our relationship with Russia will be very good.

[Andrew Prokop]

Like, that's kind of the larger Trump Russia investigation that emerged. And the investigation ultimately found they could improve anything.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

And now Trump wants to relitigate this whole thing.

[Andrew Prokop]

Yes. Well, Trump has always, of course, believed that the Russia investigation became this gigantic scandal, blotting out the son of his first administration, generating so many today explained episodes that were about that and not about his many accomplishments. He has always resented this. And his narrative has been that the scandal was fake, that everything about it is fake. And the Democrats and Obama administration, administration and intelligence and Justice Department officials who did this investigation knew it was fake all along and were just doing it to hurt him politically. He's been trying to prove this for many years, and he can't prove it because it's not true. But the latest round is that he got National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard to try to review some old files, old notes, old documents, to look for anything that they could take out of context and spin to fit their narrative that they knew this was fake all along.

[Rebecca Ybarra]

They worked with their partners in the media to promote this lie, ultimately to undermine the legitimacy of President Trump and launching what would be a years long coup against him and his administration.

[Andrew Prokop]

And on one hand, it's just a transparent attempt to change the subject from Jeffrey Epstein. And Trump has actually said Jeffrey Epstein's scandal is just like Russia.

[Kamala Harris]

All it is is the Republicans. Certain Republicans got duped by the Democrats and they're following a Democrat playbook. And no different than Russia, Russia, Russia and all the other hoaxes and what they did in 2016 and in 2020 is very criminal. It's criminal at the highest level. So that's really the things you should be talking about.

[Andrew Prokop]

But on the other hand, it also plays into Trump's effort to have his political opponents prosecuted and sent to prison.

[Kamala Harris]

Whether it's right or wrong, it's time.

[Andrew Prokop]

To go after people, which is that's something he very much wants to do. He's been very clear on this for a long time, and the question has always been, can he and the people he appoints actually get it together to make this happen?

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Is there any chance this actually goes anywhere that he actually has any grounds to try and prosecute Barack Obama or James Comey or anyone else?

[Andrew Prokop]

Well, conveniently for Barack Obama, the Supreme Court famously held last year that it's very difficult to prosecute a president for things that they do while in office.

[Kamala Harris]

The immunity we recognize today does not just protect any particular president. It protects the institution of the presidency. God save the United States in this honorable court.

[Andrew Prokop]

So I would not say Obama should be losing any sleep about what's going on, but what they are doing is they're really looking at the former intelligence chiefs, specifically John Brennan, who was Obama's CIA director, and James Comey, the FBI director, who Trump fired in 2017, in a firing that really supercharged the Russia investigation because it made him look very suspicious.

[Donald Trump]

Lordy, I hope there are tapes.

[Andrew Prokop]

He is looking for anything they've said or done, you know, in testimony that might be grounds for a perjury charge, any bits that could be hung together into some sort of conspiracy charge. Who knows? Like they're going to try to do something. But whether they can actually get it together remains to be seen.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Barack Obama usually remains above the fray when it comes to, you know, Trump conspiracies and what have you. But I did see that he bothered to actually address this one. How are he and other Democrats responding?

[Andrew Prokop]

So Obama's spokesperson released a statement that said these bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction. Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election, but did not successfully manipulate any votes. So, you know, he's basically saying that, yes, this is an attempt by Trump to change the subject and he didn't find anything new, and that there was no wrongdoing here from his administration or from Democrats.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

What do you think we should be taking away from Trump's effort to divert attention from the Epstein Scandal to Russia.

[Andrew Prokop]

Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia. Trump has a time tested playbook for pushing back against mainstream media driven scandals, which he basically perfected during the Russia scandal by creating this alternative narrative and scandal where in fact it was the Democrats and investigators who were the criminals and he was the innocent victim of their malfeasance. And he managed to seed and advance this alternative narrative in conservative media through conservative members of Congress and it was very successful. It prevented anything like a Watergate like outcome where President Nixon had to resign because his support just collapsed. That is much harder to do with Jeffrey Epstein. And so he is trying to do something a little different, which is to just change the subject back to where he felt comfortable to try to rebrand the Epstein scandal as a just another phony fake news Trump Russia scandal. But you know, it's a really hard sell because the conservative base, this clearly did bubble up from the MAGA base. They've been obsessed with Epstein for years and people around Trump promised to disclose the truth about Epstein and now they have to squirm and explain, okay, well were you pandering then? Were are you lying or covering something up? Now they're finding that when you play with this conspiracy theory fire, you get burned. Because like no disclosure is actually enough for the conspiracy theorists. They will always believe there's more to the story. And so they're not willing to accept the idea that hey, there's nothing to see here. Take Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, like, widely known as one of the most sort of conspiracy theory friendly members of the Republican Conference.

[Marjorie Taylor Greene]

We like the truth. We like supporting our Constitution, our freedoms and America first.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

What about Jewish space lasers?

[Rebecca Ybarra]

Tell us about Jewish spacers.

[Andrew Prokop]

No, why don't, why don't you to.

[Rebecca Ybarra]

Go talk about Jewish space lasers?

[Andrew Prokop]

And really, she tweeted last week that if you tell the base of people who support you of deep state treasonous crimes, election interference, blackmail and rich powerful elite evil cabals, then you must take down every enemy of the people. If not, the base will turn and there's no going back. Dangling bits of red meat no longer satisfies. They want the whole steak dinner and will accept nothing else. But in there I think you can see a path forward to Trump, which is that Marjorie Taylor Greene is saying what the base wants is to see Democrats arrested and prosecuted. They don't necessarily care so much about finding the truth about Jeffrey Epstein, no matter where it leads, that this is more about taking down the supposed elite criminals that are at the top of society or who the right wing base imagines are those criminals. So Trump's attempts to change the subject aren't really working so far in a broad sense, and this continues to be a very bad issue for him. But one potential path forward is that he kind of doubles down on these efforts to to actually arrest Democrats in hopes that his base will be satisfied with that and stop caring so much about the Jeffrey Epstein Stu.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Andrew Prokop Vox vox Vox Rebecca Ybarra produced our show today. Aminah Al Saadi edited, Hadi Mwagdi and Denise Guerra were on fax. Andrea Christensdotter and Patrick Boyd were on the mix. I'm Sean Ramasvoorm and this is Today Explained.

[Andrew Prokop]

Foreign.

[Aminah Al Saadi]

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[Harry Entin]

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