
Tom Bilyeu and Producer Drew dig into the explosive release of the Epstein files, exposing elite networks, the challenges of uncovering the truth, and what it means for justice, accountability, and the future of democracy.
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Tom Bilyeu
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Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
I have to eat crow. I was talking junk. Like, we're never getting files. Those files are never dropping. And they dropped. And I wish I was right. This is terrible. Like, it's bad. It was worse than I imagined. And I was like, it's gonna be crazy. I watched House of Cards. It's gonna be like that. It's worse than I imagined.
Chat Moderator or Audience Member
It's.
Tom Bilyeu
It. So listen. Okay, first of all, let us be very clear that all of this is alleged. It is alleged. These are documents of people. Oftentimes it's just an email or it is a witness who has come forward that has not gone through the court of law. And so many of the things that are inevitably going to be in the documents simply are not true. So everything that we say here should be taken with. Taken with a gigantic grain of salt. We certainly do not have any special insider information, so we are merely reporting on the things that people have been saying. I will certainly speculate in terms of things that I think might be going on, but this is my opinion and should not be taken as me representing facts. All right, having said all of that, the latest major development on the Epstein files occurred on January 30th of 2026, when the US Department of Justice released over 33 million pages of documents, along with 2,000 videos, 180,000 images. And all of this is part of the compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency act that we need, but may all regret. As you start searching through the Epstein files themselves, you've got high profile mentions. Obviously, people like Donald Trump are mentioned. He was mentioned, I think, thousands of times. Bill Clinton, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Prince Andrew, who was mentioned hundreds of times, former White House advisors, people involved all the way up in finance and world leaders. Like you've got people stepping down in other countries because of their ties. It is pretty wild. There are emails, investigative records, general communications, and all of it is obviously tied back to the different ways that people are connected to Epstein. Much of it ties back to Epstein's post 2008 Florida conviction, but many are not necessarily new allegations. It's just that they detail associations or the unverified tips that people have about things that Epstein was doing or people that he might be involved with. And I have a feeling that all of this is. Is going to be one big rat's nest of information warfare. So just be very careful. Now, files suggest Epstein may have trafficked girls, obviously to other people. I can't believe even for a moment people were just saying it was all the Epstein. Such an absurd claim. And that does not appear to be the fact, given all of the information in the files. And that starts raising questions about past official denials for evidence and are like things trying to be covered up actively. Now, no new criminal charges have stemmed from the release of the February 2nd documents or since they all dropped. The files are publicly available on the DOJ's website. So you guys can go see this stuff for yourself, which we have done here. It is not, I will say, not a pleasant experience. Several unconfirmed and speculative elements have surfaced from the files or just, you know, raging across social media. And it can be very difficult to know what's true. There have been documents that people are just completely fabricating and posting. And because cause there's over 3 million documents, it's like all just sort of gets mixed in. And as they say, lies will travel faster than the truth can get its pants on. So you have to be very careful when looking at this stuff as people will present supposedly true redacted documents that are absolutely damning and then they turn out to be completely false when you go to check them against the actual records. Now, there was a 2019 4chan post that's now in the declassified data set. So there were things that were posted and then removed, and then a redacted version is posted. And supposedly they come from a verified prison employee who claims that Epstein. Get ready. Tinfoil hat. Tinfoil hat. This person claims that Epstein was removed from jail in an unmarked van by armed personnel before his reported death, fueling the theories that he might still be alive or that he was just extracted covertly. Now, no evidence supports this beyond the post itself itself, so take that kind of thing with a grain of salt. The DOJ has emphasized, as I have here, that some tips are going to end up being proven untrue or purely sensationalist. So we have to be careful. But boy, oh boy. I don't plan to go through any of the specifics here, partly because they are stomach churning and partly because we just don't know what's true yet. But wow, as Drew said, they are worse than I expected and maybe because I just never went in my mind to anything that was actually specific. But when you start hearing the specific claims, it is mortifying. Now, the thing that I find the most interesting about this isn't all the lurid, horrific accusations of sexual demonic actions. I mean, it's just really, really horrifying. Set that aside. What is most interesting to me is how there really is a tight knit group of people that are interconnected in ways that you would not expect. So I, I personally do not read into this one too deeply, other than to say, this is very interesting. When people talk about the Uni party and all that, you begin to understand why. But if you look at. So Mamdani's mom was in the files. Okay, I don't think people were expecting that one. It certainly was not a my bingo card. So when you look at Mamdani from the perspective of, oh my gosh, just grassroots kid comes up, who would have thought that, you know, he's just the right person at the right moment, a Gen Z who is really showing people the angst that Gen Z is going through. And then you realize, well, maybe it's a little more complicated than that in that his mom is obviously extremely well connected. I have no reason to believe that there's any impropriety. Certainly on behalf of Mamdani. I don't think he was involved at all. I don't even have reason to believe that his mom did anything wrong. But the fact that they moved in those circles, that's the thing that was most interesting to me is just the whole idea that there is this small cabal of elites that really sway the direction of the world just proves to be more and more true with each passing day. And so seeing all of the people that were communicating via email directly to Epstein or Epstein's assistant is wild. Is wild. Taking a short break, but there's more impact theory after. Stay tuned. Let's talk about the most expensive mistake crypto traders are making right now. 70% of US crypto traders think tax obligations only apply to centralized exchanges. If that's you, you are wrong. Unfortunately, most people do not realize every crypto to crypto trade is taxable. And for the first time ever, exchanges are now required to report your digital asset sales directly to the irs. 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Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
The very high level. There's certain moments in history where we just get kind of these blips on the map of like politics. There's Watergate. There's I did not have sexual relations with that woman, there's nine, 11, there's George Bush doesn't care about black people. To me, I think that this is the Epstein files when it released and I was actually going through it and I was like, hold on, wait. Like they said the quiet part out loud, like they're releasing the thing. These are the actual files that we have been talking about that Pam Bondi couldn't find that cash Patel said, oh yeah, he killed himself. All these people that had whatever forms of COVID up have now released this documentation. That is pretty damning. But it seemed like it was business as usual. We were talking about the Grammys red carpet. We're talking about what happened this weekend. We're talking about the Ice out protest. But I'm like, guys, did we not just see what. Like I saw one page and I'm not even a journalist and I'm like, hey, like, why are we talking? Like, change the channel. Hold on. Like you, you got. We should shut stuff down. Like, I feel like this is something that people need to have a conversation about.
Tom Bilyeu
Well, not only that, arrests need to be made. Like you, you've really got to figure out what actually went on here. Because the. All the files in their lurid details, they paint a picture that is so troubling that if you don't need much more than a fraction of it to be true for this to be earth shatteringly problematic. Now it's earth shatteringly problematic for me for a very specific reason. And that specific reason is I believe there's architecture to the human mind. So we work in certain ways and that those ways are knowable, they're mappable. And you've had people commenting for a long time that, okay, there's a small cabal of people at the top and they're all interconnected. Okay, is that true? Is it not true people saying there's a uni party? Is it true? Is it not true that, you know, banking essentially runs the world? Is it true? Is it not true that these high level people all have dirt on each other and that's how they like keep everybody in line? Is it true? Is it not true? And it's like those dominoes start falling. Like there. There was one exchange about Michael Saylor of all people and literally just reporting the exchange, this is a paraphrase, was pretty close to exactly what was said. I believe it was said by one of Epstein's assistants. And she said, I don't even know that I can take Michael Saylor's money and promise him like a more dynamic Life or something, A more exciting life, Something like that. She was like, he doesn't pick up on social cues at all. Like, he's just insufferable. I can't stand to be around him. He has no personality. And it was like she said the words, I wouldn't even know how to blackmail him. And so I was like, wait, so that, like, that's such an open part of the playbook that we just like offhandedly go, yeah, look, we can't blackmail that guy, so just cut him loose. Like, rich though he may be, I need to know how I would blackmail this person. That was the one where like the banality of the throwaway comment of I wouldn't even know how to blackmail him. It's like how much ink was spilled over the idea of, you know, was he. Was Epstein being used to blackmail people? It's like, was Epstein blackmailing people? Like, forget, like whether he's tied to governments or not. Like reading the Epstein files, early days for me, I fully reserve the right to completely change my opinion and Lord knows I hope I do. But reading it was like, okay, the. The governments of it all are downstream of this kind of extra governmental cooperation, but take cooperation to be coercion, blackmail, just like horrific stuff of reaching in to the soul of the people who make the world move and going, what is that dark secret that you have that I can make come true for you? And by making it come true for you, I have something over you. And by having something over you, we can now move things in the direction we want. Now there's no way that this stuff is pure coordination. It's going to be infighting. There are going to be different factions that are all going to war with each other and all of that stuff. For sure, for sure, for sure. I have my base assumption, though it may prove to be erroneous, but my base assumption is that just like a court in monarchies of old, there's all of the Machiavellian infighting and intrigue and all of that stuff, but it's like we never really moved out of that system. This is just like the modern day version of that. And so maybe you don't have kingdoms, but you have these different countries all united under global economics, all united under this cabal of high level elites that again, they're not all in coordination with each other. And if you read the mentions of Elon Musk, it's like he hates Reid Hoffman and you know, like there's all these like different factions within it, but it's like, this is architecture of the human mind. Now, I think the thing that's most distressing is that the way the human mind works, the thing you just go for is always money and, like, bizarre sexual proclivities. And so seeing, like, those two things come together, like, who. Who can we blackmail because we give them access to money or power or whatever, and then who can we blackmail with access to sex that they can't talk about? Again, I don't know how much of it's true, but it just, like, it's so interwoven throughout the whole thing. And so, yeah, that's the part where I'm like, okay, so this is how the human mind is. When you mix two things that we're mixing right now, you get a really ugly cocktail thing. Number one, humans do this. You create a. The iron law of oligarchy. You're going to have a small group of elites that run things. Then you've got the. And the sexual proclivities of it all. And so you end up putting those two things together. In an era where everything becomes visible, like, on a long enough timeline, social media just makes everything visible. And so now, in a world where the only way to hide something is obfuscation, what does the world look like? And what I mean is a fancy word for people are going to try narrative control. They're going to try to pull the magic trick of look over here. It's why I am legitimately suspicious that wherever you, whatever state you go to do a fraud investigation, it will immediately be chased by ICE riots. Because it is just an easy way to say, no, no, no, this is all about race. This is. I think Newsome filed a discriminatory claim against Dr. Oz for saying that it's the. Oh, God, it's two nationalities. Yeah, Russian, Armenian mafia or something like that, which I would expect all of them to be white as the driven snow, but yet still the cry is discrimination. So that's where I'm just like, before, before you get.
Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
Because I think now we're starting to the human, like, mind and. But I want to jump into something because I think last week when speaking of the ICE protests, we were justifying kicking out tail lights equals death. And people were saying that, like, they were outraged that, yes, because he did that, he deserved to get prosecuted. And now we have 3 million files of things that I would think is worse than kicking out tail lights. I don't know about you guys, but I feel like some of those allegations are a bit worse than tail lights on the Back of police cars. But yet that same vitriol for Cry for Justice isn't there. What do you think is where. How do humans get up? Maybe it's because it's not the videos. Like, how. Help me rationalize that.
Tom Bilyeu
Like, no, I think people have grabbed on to the Epstein files harder than they've ever grabbed onto anything ever in my lifetime. So I don't. People are not gonna sweep this one away. Like, this one really does speak to something, and it is going to get headlines, and I think there are going to be prosecutions, and I think this is going to be wild. The only thing that muddies the waters here is I can't give you good guys, bad guys. It's. They're all bad guys. And. And so the reason that the Biden administration didn't release these, the reason that. And I still don't understand why on earth the Trump administration would run the. The gambit of saying, we're going to release these files. They had to know. They didn't plan to release the files. And the reason that I think both sides did not want to release the files is they're all in there. They're all in there.
Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
It's too messy.
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, it's both sides, man. Everybody's going to get obliterated. I mean, this is like, this is structure of elite groups. Like, revealing that. That's what you're showing is how does blackmail work? That's what you're showing. How do these groups get each other together? That's what you're showing. Who alive and active right now is actually connected. That's what you're showing. Like, Epstein becomes the, like, Rosetta Stone of the elites. You can begin to map who's who, who's connected to who, who hates who, who will show up because that person's there, who will reject the invite because that person's there. Like, it's. It's insane. Now, again, many of the accusations that I'm sure that are informing my mental map of this are just false. And so I will need to update my mental map as we go. But, bro, between the just unrelenting litany of accusations of people who did something sexually horrifying, you just go, man, blackmail is a part of this. But that people are so easy to fucking blackmail. Like, you want that to be harder. You want that to be like, oh, God, like, we try to blackmail these guys, but so many of them just aren't into weird shit. That's where I'm like, yo. And so is it a. Is it a Like, personality type, when you want to ascend those ranks, is that somehow tied to a higher likelihood of being into weird shit? I don't. I don't understand how to map this. This is why this whole thing has taken me so by surprise. But all of that is going to be held onto in an iron fist by the public. This one's not going away. The only reason that we got the files is because people were psychotic about it. And they're like, I may have voted for Trump. I will burn my allegiance to the ground. Fuck that, kid. You're going to release these files. And so if there aren't prosecutions, people are going to go apeshit. Like, I think this is way bigger news than Preddy. Like, way bigger news. That. That's just going to fall by the wayside. I mean, look at some of the counts, man. I didn't even want to bring this one up because rumor, rumor, speculation, speculation, I have no idea. But just go look up how many views a single post about Jay Z supposedly fleeing the country has. It was like somewhere between 7 and 14 million. But it was a lot, a lot, a lot. And I was just like, it's just like a random account. It wasn't even like some big known account. Just some guy was like, well, isn't this suspicious? And I was like, that he got on an airplane because I didn't know where in what way he was mentioned. And so I was just like, what? Like, why would it be weird that he's flying? But that's how much interest there is in who did what. How deep does the lie go? Like, okay, this one's gonna get weird. So the whole Pizzagate thing, admittedly when I say I'm not even at the headline level, I don't understand what that whole thing is, but some of the things that I started reading about it, I was like, oh. Like, they're really. It has a narrative that has enough question marks that you're like, oh, I thought it was lunacy. But maybe the lunacy was trying to make the topic itself toxic so people wouldn't talk about it. Now, I don't know that any of this is true, but supposedly in the Epstein files, when they talk about pizza, pizza is code for sex trafficking. So would you like your slice of pizza? Means would you like your person sex trafficked to you? I don't know that that's true, but there were some weird emails where people are like, can I bring your slice of pizza now? Would you like your slice of pizza? Go send pizza to so and so. And I was like, man, they talk about pizza.
Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
These guys really like pizza.
Tom Bilyeu
This must be so. And then there was one. Okay, this is where I'm going to. Everybody should stop paying attention for nine seconds. And I'll just say it because it's rattling around in my brain. But, man, this one really is. I don't know anything about it, but there was supposedly a pizza place where the guy was being accused of, like, being involved in all this. And the guy that owns a pizza restaurant was, like, listed as one of the, like, 50 most powerful people in Washington, D.C. and somebody fired a single bullet into his establishment. That single bullet happened to hit the hard drive in his establishment with, like, his records. And so I was like, oh, sorry. And so I'm just like, hey, it really could happen. This could be a fabricated document. But I was just like, oh, God. Like this. Yeah. So anyway, I remember reading James Burnham, and James Burnham is like, I don't know what the world is going to look like because of social media, because you can't control the narrative anymore. And I remember thinking, yeah, what is the world going to look like? And he had, like. When he was writing about it, and forgive me, James Burnham, if you don't agree with this assessment, but when he was writing about it, he said things that made me think he wanted or longed for. He said it in a way where it was like, they have to get narrative control again. And without narrative control, you're gonna have a problem. And I thought, we don't want narrative control. We want to be able to figure out what the truth is. And be careful what you wish for, because this is that moment where I'm now seeing what it looks like when they're just like, here's everything. So, first of all, no one's going to agree on what actually happened. There's so much of it. It's like they always say when you're going to remodel a house, the contractor, if they're smart, will tell you, I won't know what we're dealing with until we open a wall. And then I can see how this was actually built. That's how this felt. They opened a wall, and you're like, oh. Oh, God.
Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
It's like.
Tom Bilyeu
It's so bad. This is like paper mache. Your house is rotten. There are bugs in the walls that feed on paper mache, and your whole house is paper mache. It's like. So I'm just like, whoa.
Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
Yeah, okay, so then now I'm conflicted. So thank you for that. That helped me process it, but now I'm on the other side because to the point there has to be. I keep going back to ICE because I feel like that's just the last recent outrage. And it was like Tom Holman came into Minnesota, was like, okay, guys, this is how we're going to do it. This is where we're going to do it. Everybody felt better a little bit, like, okay, the adults in the room, we can kind of figure it out. It should calm down at least from here going forward. But when it's the president, the last president, a Supreme Court justice is like, we don't even know who to. Like, who are we going to call to do the thing? Because, like, I can't ask you, because you were there. I can't ask you. You can't say nothing because your husband was there. And it's like we're running out of.
Tom Bilyeu
You ready for the even worse part of that? What you're going to find through the release of these documents is that everybody who's gotten off or like, oh, that investigation didn't go anywhere or they threw that evidence out. You're going to see all of the connections that, oh, this has been played out like this from the beginning. Because none of these are big enough news stories. The fact this is all made up. I'm just giving you directional stuff. The fact that the judge was like the official at the wedding of the person who was accused of this thing, like, happened to be sitting on the case, you're like, wait a second, why didn't they recuse themselves there? There is going to be an endless litany of that. I'm saying that because I've read a bunch of documents pointing some of these things out and I was like, what the fuck? Like, they're, again, speculation. No idea. This is going to be a rat's nest. It has to be gone through, detangled. But it's one of those where there's so much surface level, like, as they say, the optics are so horrible that maybe the trials were perfect, maybe everything was done above board, but the optics are God awful and it's possible that it's just corrupt all the way down.
Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
Do we actually get some form of accountability from this?
Tom Bilyeu
You'll have to. Here, here's the. Okay, so here's my. I'm reaching into the future of what's coming. The reason that the whole idea from James Burnham that narrative control is critical. The only way that we can have the world that we're used to is if elites are able to spoon feed us a narrative and then we all march in lockstep. Now, I use derogatory words for that, but there's so much power in that because the vast majority of life is perception. It's not reality. I'm not saying we're in a post truth world or anything. There are things that are true, but we just really don't understand how much of human existence is just perception. And so what we're going to find out now is you're going to get this massive fragmentation of that and we're just going to have to find a way to navigate a world in which there I'll lay out like 32 flavors of what actually happened with the Epstein files, and then everyone will just slot into one of the 32 narratives. But that's a lot pulling in opposite directions. Some of them will be directly contrary to the other and they'll be able to sit with their best debaters and debate and their followers will walk away going, yeah, I'm still right. And that's across all32.32 is a made up number from Baskin Robbins, but you get the idea. So it's like there's going to be some sort of.
Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
This is completely fake. This is all the way real. It's real, but it's redacted. He was there, but he wasn't doing. And everybody will kind of get in line. And what would make them feel better about themselves.
Tom Bilyeu
Exactly correct. Because it's going to feed into what they already believe. Okay, so that's problem number one. Problem number two is going to be that this is insanely important and you must pursue it because this is foundational to how the world works. We are in a moment where democracy, from where I'm sitting, is in crisis. America's in crisis. And you have to have a trust anchor to pull you through. And we have to find that and establish it. Now, speaking of narratives, there's a movie called the Untouchables. The Untouchables gave Americans the narrative we needed to not fall to corruption the way that so many others did during like the gang wars over prohibition. And so they found this group. Supposedly this is all narrative. I know that. But they found this group of guys that just couldn't be bribed. And they were the ones that ultimately take down Capone and like all that stuff. And so they were known as the Untouchables because you couldn't kill a family member and they would back down. Like, these guys are just like, nope, this is what's right. We're going to push forward. We, we need new untouchables. I actually mentioned this a couple months ago. We. We need that new group. So we're going to need a trust anchor that's going to pull us through this. Now, I don't think anybody's going to trust the Trump administration. He's mentioned too many times. Yeah, he's too tied. So it's like the trust anchor isn't going to be this doj. So how do we get a trust anchor? I don't know. So this is where we're going to want Congress to step in and say, okay, this is where we need leadership. We need somebody that's not mentioned in the Epstein files anywhere to put together a panel of people that are going to run a blue ribbon committee that's going to find out, like, truth and reconciliation of what happened. And we're going to spend a whole lot of money and years combing through all that stuff, putting everything together and prosecuting people. Like, dude, you. You cannot, you cannot let officials at the level that we're talking about here have done the kind of things that they're claiming that they've done without investigating and finding out what's true. Like, you must. We can't just go, oh, well, crazy. There's just so many claims, nothing to do. It's too pervasive. Like, the second you do that, that. That's just permission. That. So think what you want about what's going on in Minnesota. My take is when you give permission, even just by silence, that's. That's when things escalate. And so that's why I think you see that in Minnesota is Tim Walls was very fine with all that happening. And the second he wasn't fine, then it de. Escalated. So I think you'll see the same thing if you just brush your hands or dust your shoulders off and go, ma, it's too overwhelming. We just need to move forward. And nobody's banged that drum harder than me when it comes to political prosecutions. But on this one, bro, you. You just can't. And so you've got to have that committee. They've got to go through. There have to be trials. The trials have to be by untouchables, where we're just like, yeah, that judge is beyond reproach. Like, yep, we're going to get to the truth. And. And then we have to let the law prevail. Because if we. On the flip side of that coin, if we just burn everybody down because your name was in the files, that doesn't make sense either. So we do need courts. We do need to do everything we can to find the truth, and we do need to lock up people if they were really doing this stuff, because it is it. Dude, every now and then you'll hear the stat that there's more slaves now than there's ever been in human history. I'm always like, what? Like, where are you hiding them?
Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
Yeah.
Tom Bilyeu
And then you hear stuff like the Epstein files, and it's like, oh my God. Like, because if that's really true and people really are being trafficked and they're effectively being held against their will, you can't let that happen. Like, you can't. That. That. That is a crime against humanity of the highest order.
Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
Yeah.
Tom Bilyeu
We're hitting pause for a moment, but there's plenty more ahead, so don't go anywhere right now. Get up to 20% off select online storage solutions put heavy duty HDX totes to good use, protecting what's important to you. The solid impact resistant design prevents cracking and the clear base and sides make items easy to find even when the totes are stacked. Find select online shelving and tote storage up to 20% off at the Home Depot. To organize every room in your home from your garage to your attic, visit homedepot.com how doers get more done. Thanks for sticking around. Let's get right back into the action.
Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
Is this one of those things on the money side, people? The Federal Reserve got revealed. The loud, the quiet part was said out loud. People said the dollar is going to die. Bitcoin was invented and now we're starting to decentralize from that. I know it's only, you know, 0.01%, but we know directionally going forward it's going to be more and more every year. Is this, this Black Swan event where we can decentralize the government? Is this going to be something where we're going to, like, we're going to actually drain the swamp? We're going to have to really. I don't want to say revolution because every time people think of revolution, you think of just burning stuff down. But would this be one of those moments where it's like everybody in D.C. got to go, like, we got to start all over.
Tom Bilyeu
It depends on the timeline that you're going to give me. So right now, America is on a mathematical course to bankruptcy, which means roughly 10 years from now, if all things stayed the same, and of course they will not, but if they all stayed the same, roughly 10 years from now, you will have Torn yourself apart from the inside because of math. I won't derail us on that now, happy to talk about it later. But like, that's the path that you're on now. Something like this, I would say, isn't a black swan event. It it in the same way that math does not care who you vote for, any of that. This is like what mom Donnie's learning in New York. It's like you can have all socialist dreams that you want, but it runs up against math. And a 12 billion dollar budget shortfall is a 12 billion dollar budget shortfall. You just have to deal with it. So we're gonna have the same thing. So I don't think that the world looks the same moving forward as it does today, but I don't think it looks like the disintegration of the political system with too many people alive only know that system. And then I also don't think it looks like so biology. If you guys don't know who he is, look him up. He's one of the smartest people I've ever interacted with. Personally. This guy is brilliant. I mean really, really brilliant. And. But he has a base assumption that I cannot get on board with, that ideology is stronger than geography. And I think he's wrong about that. And I think the thing I worry most about, and I need only look inward in myself when I map America going to civil war and people get hung up on that word. But what I mean by that is people in different tribes that are willing to kill each other and then the government's not doing anything to stop it. So that to me is civil war. Now when I reach into the future, I go, I need to move to Florida. Because that's where I'm like, California is not going to be safe for wealthy people. And so at some point, just because geography matters more than ideology, I need to go somewhere where wealthy people are not persecuted. And so the whole premise that biology has is geography is not going to matter because people will link up over the Internet with each other based on their ideology and they'll form these like online tribes. And that's cool until somebody kills you because they disagree with you and you're like, but wait, my bros in Bangladesh think the same way that I do. So what's the problem? And you'll just get trounced by physical violence. And so I think that biology's theories require a stable world, which we do not currently have. So that's where I'm like, no, geography still matters a lot. So I Don't think you're going to see a total breakdown of the current style of government that we have, because that style of government is baked into geography matters. Doing everything that we can to brace ourselves against tyranny, which I hope people in America don't want to let go of. But I do think that in the next 10 years we're going to see a rapid increase in the self selecting into red and blue states. And that really scares me. And so then how fragmented will it become? All eyes on Alberta, please. If Alberta actually breaks away from Canada, which they say they are doing, if Alberta actually breaks away from Canada, which I'd be very interested to know what the poly market bet is on that. But if they break away from Canada, that's your map of what civil war looks like. So it would be states fracturing and creating alliances in the same way that they do in Europe, where America now is a federation of states versus just like a European Union where it's far looser that I could see in our call it 50 year future. But a lot of this is so predicated on AI. When I make statements like this, I'm like sci fi writers will often do. They'll just set a certain technology off to the side. Dune sets aside AI because it doesn't want to try to deal with what that would look like. You kind of have to set AI aside because the world is unknowable if the singularity actually happens.
Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
Yeah, it's wild. I know. We got some other stuff we got to jump into. This is a very sensitive topic still. So having a 14 year old, I was personally affected by this. I feel like this is something that shouldn't be glossed over. I think if a lot of these things are confirmed, this is disqualifying. This is damning. Bill Clinton had to step down because he got some head one time in the White House. I feel like half of his step down. He got impeached.
Tom Bilyeu
He got impeached, but he stayed president until the end of his term.
Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
Well, I feel like it's disqualifying and I think that a lot of people need to get up, get up out of there. I need to call my friends with law degrees. It's time to like start the revolution. I think these people are disgusting. I think it's vile, I think it's sick. I think it's mean. I don't think this is one of those like, well, you know, both sides are in its politics and. Nah, there's a, there's a line. We could both Sides, tax policy. We could both sides, health care, but we can't both sides pedophilia. This is damning a lot of these people. I would never. I would unfollow. I would never take their opinion on anything again. Because six months ago you were talking about how Epstein is a pos. And then you're asking Epstein, hey, man, I really need to blow off some steam. Can I come through tonight? So, yeah, yeah.
Tom Bilyeu
I think that that is going to be shared by a lot of people. Yeah, a lot. This is not going away. No way.
Chat Moderator or Audience Member
Got one super chat on the Epstein files if you want to hit that.
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, cool.
Chat Moderator or Audience Member
So let's see. The ICE issue. Is fast food accessible, satisfying design designed to speak to your deepest biological urges. Epstein is clean eating and exercise, large amounts of complex info, but requires discipline and commitment to really grasp from thirsty salt.
Tom Bilyeu
Well, so I'll say that a better way to slice that would be that you can approach any topic from a fast food perspective. So you can take your fast food perspective on ice, you can take your fast food perspective on Epstein, which many people are going to do, and then you can take the more sophisticated exercise, hard work, nutrition, holding competing ideas in your head, all of that on both issues, which I think we need to do very aggressively, but most people are not going to do that. That's the bad news. So I would say it's probably an 80, 20 break. 80% of people just are going to take the fast food approach to virtually everything in their lives. And then 20% of people will actually take the time to parse the stuff apart. But yeah, this is going to be a rocky road for sure.
Chat Moderator or Audience Member
And then Lisa and John Doe both mentioned Lisa as his wife.
Tom Bilyeu
Let's go.
Chat Moderator or Audience Member
And they both mentioned they would like you to talk about the victims, especially because a lot of those names that are mentioned are going to get lost in all of the famous, powerful names. And some people may have their lives ruined, things like that.
Tom Bilyeu
Well, so, okay, have my. Yeah, my, my take on that. And I'll be very curious to see if this is satisfying to the people that want me to talk about it. My take on that is it is a devastating truth of the human condition that sexual abuse shatters people, shatters people in a way that most people are just not able to put the pieces back together. And that feels like a very cruel twist of fate for how the brain is wired. So the devastation that anything like that, whether it's a part of a big ring, which of course adds a layer of horror to all of this. That is impossible to quantify. But everybody touched by sexual abuse. It's just devastating. So, yeah, for sure this will have ruined an ungodly number of lives. And I want for the victims not only justice, but whatever anonymity they seek. And that's going to be the hard part, is this will require some people to be ridiculously brave and come forward and detail what happened. But I don't see any way around it. So. But that. That is brutal. And all of our hearts should bleed collectively for anybody that that's happened to. It's brutal.
Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
We ran a poll in the chat. Did this confirm the way you view humans, the elites. Did this change the way you view humans and elites, or just confirm it? And confirmed one by 69%. So our audience has realized that humans and elites were poses for a long time.
Tom Bilyeu
So that's rough, man. That's rough. Yeah, I guess I'm not surprised by that number, but I am heartbroken by that number. So, yeah, social media, unfortunately, has really pulled back the curtain on human behavior, where you can see global news all the time. You just begin to see patterns. It's brutal.
Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
And then somebody said in the chat, like, how many of the victims are even still alive to come forward? That's something we haven't talked about. The allegations that some people are buried in the back of dude, that's golf courses.
Tom Bilyeu
I won't say their name just because it strikes me as unwise, but one of the pages that I read talked about, certainly for somebody of my generation, somebody who's very, very famous, allegedly strangling a woman to death at a party. And I was just like that. There was that movie, 8 millimeter. And I remember watching that movie and just being like, this is so, like, out there. Like, there's no way. First of all, it doesn't sound fun to watch. And then I was just like, there's no way. Like, there's enough of these people that there's actually a market for getting out of here. And so it was like, you suspend disbelief. You watch it. And then I'm reading that and I'm going, is this really a thing? Yeah, so. And then, of course, you flashback to all of human history and you realize, yo, humans are cruel. Humans are cruel, and they will kill people in the most horrifying fashion. So it's like, damn, you've got the historical correlate. And for some reason, like, it's really comforting to believe that right now we're at the end of history, that we are not subject to whatever strange evolutionary Forces make us capable of tremendous evil, that we're somehow outside of that. And then you read the Epstein files and you realize, oh no, no, no, we're still right in the thick of it. And it is unfortunately in keeping with everything we know about humans through it's freakish.
Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
Does this change how you approach politics going forward? In the sense that there are some people that. Would this impact your midterm decision? Would this impact some of the politicians? Do you think when people are campaigning, there's going to be a sect of people that search the Epstein files? Like who's running in my district?
Tom Bilyeu
Of course. Of course. So I would like to think that my opinions will be formed by what actually goes through the legal system. But like anybody, it's not a good look. So if there are just a litany of horrifying accusations against somebody, I'd be surprised if somewhere in my subconscious that's not saying, like, hey, I know it hasn't gone through the legal system yet, but yeah, it's not a good look. It's not a good look. I so hunger for somebody who feels like an untouchable, somebody who feels uncorruptible, somebody who gives me a vision that I can look towards. Man. Yes. I don't know enough about him to like be full throated on that, but certainly early indications would be yes. So you need people like that, but they also have to have good policies. So it's like, I don't want you to drive me off a moral cliff and I don't want you to drive me off an economic cliff.
Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
I need a Thomas Massie Ro Khanna card in 2020.
Tom Bilyeu
I had so much fun with you when I interviewed you. But he's doing economic things that do not make sense.
Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
I'm saying that's why him and Thomas Massey will balance out. Because Thomas Massey is a hard budget def, like reduced a deficit person. So I feel like if those two together, that would be like Mass is.
Tom Bilyeu
The guy with a debt pin, right? Yeah, yeah, I'm on that team.
Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
Yeah, that would be a super team. Somebody said Thomas Massey and Rand Paul. Yeah, but they're both libertarians. That's too, that's too one sided. That'll be two, one card. You need somebody. Yeah, you need somebody on the other side. Preach Ro is the most like thought provoking, level headed Democrat in the field right now. He's the only one who hasn't gone full like, I'll do whatever Nancy Pelosi says or I've gone full mom, Donnie. So I feel like that's why Rose good on that side. And Thomas Massie is the only Republican I know that's actually holding Trump accountable. That's actually holding us accountable to the deficit. That's actually holding us accountable to, for America as opposed to just playing team ball.
Chat Moderator or Audience Member
So Lisa Bilyeu is back in the chat.
Tom Bilyeu
Let's go, Lisa.
Chat Moderator or Audience Member
Billyu she says, tough question, Tom. Would you still have voted for Trump if you knew what was in the files?
Tom Bilyeu
I wouldn't even say that. I know enough about the specific specifics of Trump's accusations now to let that sway me. But would I look into the accusations before voting yes? Now the question is, and I fear that this is going to be the question that we all have to answer if you're put in a situation where like take mom, Donnie, assume that Mamdani is a true believer, that it is with love in his heart and assume he has nothing troubling in his past. So he has love in his heart and no troubling past. But he's marching down the path of a system that kills millions on millions, on millions. Would you vote for somebody who's obviously very early in that path. Mamdani is not going to kill people, but would you vote for somebody who's headed down that path or a moral monster who's going to do things that are better for Americans? God, I hate that.
Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
You cannot trolley problem this time. This is.
Tom Bilyeu
You have to.
Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
No, absolutely not. There's disqualifying things. No way.
Chat Moderator or Audience Member
You have.
Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
No, no, Tom. No way. No way. Tom, I love you. No way. Come on, come on. This is not. Do I, do I kill one small parent? Do I kill 16 year old in order to save 40, 40 million people? Okay, yeah, that's different. But like there's like, we're talking about like PDF files, dog. Like, like this is not like, like socialism will have to break bad for 20 years. And you said it yourself, nothing is stays the same for that long in order for those millions and millions of people to right to actually be impacted. He impacted those little girls now like today.
Tom Bilyeu
Okay, so hold on, just to make sure that we're being clear. If you look at the files and it's like, oh, he did that, that easy. I'm saying if you're looking at something, you think I don't like this guy's morality, not that I know that he's doing something like that, but I'm looking at this guy like even take Trump. So right now Trump is not going to go to jail for this. If they had a smoking gun. They would have played it a long time ago. However, Trump did say, I heard him with my own ears, grab them in the hoo ha. And that was, to me, that's a moral monster. How can you do that? That's so insane to me. So. And yet when I looked at the economic collision, calamity that we were going to have, that was, for me, better to go with that guy than to march down socialism. Now, if there were things, rape, underage girls, all of that, cool, easy peasy, you wash your hands. But there is a line where it's like, yeah, I am going to think about what's actually good for Americans. Now, you and I may have different base assumptions. The base assumption that I'm making is the, the calamity for millions of people if you get economics wrong. Remember, I think economics is foundational to, like, all the woes. You look at gangs running a country, that's economics. Okay. Economics led us to that place. You look at a nation falling and the calamity that that brings upon people, that's economics. You look at slavery, that's economics. So it's like that kind of stuff to me. Clearly, I rate as way more important than you do. And fair enough. But I want to be very clear. If somebody is convicted of pedophilia and you're done.
Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
Yeah. Keeping up with this debate. Right. So the numbers are good. So I'm cooking here, and I'm staying here for a second. We're saying that economic downfall is more important to you as a determining factor than some moral repugnant.
Tom Bilyeu
Let me make this a real case.
Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
Yeah.
Tom Bilyeu
So we can see what we're looking at.
Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
Okay.
Tom Bilyeu
Mao killed 45 million people, starved them to death with. He then chased that with the Cultural Revolution, which killed tens of millions more. Deng Xiaoping ended all of that and pulled whatever, 400 million people out of poverty. Insane. Now, if you told me that Deng Xiaoping was a disgusting human, morally, would I still rather him over Mao? And let's say Mao really believed everything he was saying. He didn't, but let's say he did. You've got one guy who's killing. I mean, some people put it at like 80 million people. It's so many people. So for me, it's self evident. It doesn't matter if you can tell me that that's what Deng is going to bring. And, and I have to accept that this guy is morally corrupt. He's a, you know, moral monster. Yeah, but he's going to end what Mao was doing. Yes, unfortunately, I will take that. And it's interesting that that's not going to be a popular opinion and I don't know what to do with that.
Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
No. Because I feel like that's a hindsight. It's 2020 type thing. Because I think if on the ballot it was Trump with. If it's Trump, 100% Epstein files are true versus Mao. 45 million people. That's a moral conundrum and that's something that we'll really have to mull on. And some people will be like, oh, easy, 45 million people. Like, I'll take the 45. But at least little girls aren't being touched the wrong way. And on the other side people say a couple little girls is cool. If I could just get through, I'm avoiding 45 million. I can understand that apples to apples comparison, if that was on the ballot. But we can't say that the last election cycle it ends up becoming.
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, that's why I said for me it is very simple and clear. If you've got somebody who is convicted, you wash it away for the very reason that you can't see into the future. And so at that point you've got to bet on that the system will disrupt the march towards socialism. I don't want to make that bet, but I would make that bet when I don't have other data. But what I'm saying is, for me, this is, this is a trolley problem. And I don't think people give enough credit to how devastating economic missteps are.
Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
I think with the release of these files, it definitely taught us that these politicians, although they smile, although they kiss babies, although they're really nice when you meet them and shake their hand in the suit behind closed doors, that's not who they actually are. This is a mask, this is a character. They're playing somebody, they're all actors. So I understand that people aren't who we think they are. I just think that specific question, we have to be like hard about that because I think that's one of those things that we're starting to slip and lose as a nation. Back in the day, when we were all controlling the narrative, the shared narrative was religion Professor Jing. I can't even take credit for this. Said the reason we can never build the pyramids again is because we don't have a shared narrative for a higher being that we all want to do something for this God, we're all getting together and we're all rallying in. We're going to build this temple and this monument to this God who did all these things for us and we all love it and we're all on one accord right now. We don't even have a shared God. We don't have a shared narrative. I could put blue in front of you. Somebody's like, well, technically it's aqua blue. Somebody else going to call it royal blue. And we can't even agree what the color of the sky is. So I think where we are right now, we're starting to lose bits of our humanity in this bit by bit where it becomes we're okay with seeing people die, we're okay with seeing people uncomfortable, we're okay with seeing sexual assault, we're okay with victim blaming. And slowly but surely we're getting to a point where I, where it's like, okay, yeah, well, I don't care about nobody outside of my five family members. If you're not related to me or if you're not hired by me, I don't care about you. And I feel like that's becoming tribal, like our character and our personality is becoming tribal. And I think that that's something that we're going to lose as a society when we lose that collective and that shared, at least acknowledgement, the shared, I don't want to say responsibility, but the shared humanity, I guess is the only word I could use.
Tom Bilyeu
Listen, I love what you're saying. There's no doubt. I don't think the world works that way. And I think that the world is unfortunately a very dark place ruled by power. I think humans are capable of great love and joy and compassion and doing acts that are truly courageous and unbelievable. There's no doubt but the world, humans. Soljan Nitson said it best when he said the line between good and evil runs through every human heart. So when, when judging whether somebody is going to be the right person to lead, you have to factor all of it. What are their actual policies? What will be the outcome of this? Are they a moral monster? Are they somebody that I can look up to? You can rule people out. You've been convicted of something like that. Cool. They're off the table. Just to know in certain terms. Nice, neat, easy. The thing that I'm trying to keep in the spotlight is the very thing that we were talking about before, which is, are people going to take a fast food approach to this or are they actually going to take diet and exercise? And what I'm saying is the Epstein files reveal architecture of the human mind. They reveal how elite groups work. They reveal how interconnected and terrifying that system is. And. And Lord knows that I hope that we find a way to elevate leaders, maybe a Thomas Massie or somebody like that, elevate leaders who are worthy of being followed, that have both sound policy and a moral compass. There. There would be nothing better than that. The example that I always use, though, is Lincoln and. Or let's take George Washington. George Washington owned slaves. We have to contend with that. But George Washington also gave you the presidency. He could have become king. The people would have said, yes, let him do it. And he didn't. And that was even talked about in France. They were like, this guy is so popular that they referred to him as the King of America. They're like, there's no way he's going to step down. Remember, there's nothing in the Constitution at the time he steps down after his second term that says you have to step down. He could have just kept going and going and going and going, and he set the cultural standard of there's only going to be two. This was a guy that led on the battlefield and was an extraordinary leader that the opposition felt had been touched by the hand of God because they could not kill him. He had at least one bullet hole in his coat where he was shot, and it ripped through like, this is not. But didn't hit him. This is not somebody who is safe and off to the side. So, like, when you really dig into Washington, you're like, holy, Holy. But then you're also like, the teeth in your mouth were pulled out of the mouths of slaves. And literally, for people who don't know that. So I'm saying that's real life. And if we. If you're asking me if today, if I knew there was a guy running for office that had slave teeth in his mouth, would I vote for him? The answer is no. Obviously not. But I'm just saying life is messy. And when I'm deciding who to vote for, I am not saying, oh, this person is somebody who I want to be like. I decidedly do not want to be like Trump. I am aghast at his approach to women. Aghast. And I voted for him because I'm looking at the average American's life and going of these two candidates, which is going to be better. And my decision was based on that. Now, again, I can tell as I say these things that that isn't going to be popular. But nonetheless, I can articulate my base assumptions. I can explain why I would do that. For me, it is. It is a Acknowledgment of the historical truth of where these things go. And they are devastating.
Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
There's something you said earlier that I kind of want to spin back on when you were saying, like, this is how the world always was. There wasn't. We were always caste system, this was always monarchs, but now we're just kind of rebranding it, we're changing the names, we're changing the phrases. That kind of reminds me of the common day axiom that slavery is still around. It just morphed as in specific to America. I know that there's actual indentured servants, there's actual people, slaves and things like that. But like the quote unquote slave class became the employee class, and then the quote unquote overseers became the landowners, or the rent seat the land, the landlords. And then there's like kind of like this elite class was always there. Is this one of those things where even going back to the George Washington days, it was around from that perspective and it just. George Washington was the last good one. Then somebody kind of snuck in, just like with the Fed, kind of snuck in early and dictated. Or do you think America was founded on this elite?
Tom Bilyeu
And I think that the human mind works in a certain way. I need a better way to say that we are all NPCs in a simulation and we cannot escape our programming. And so because of that, now we're not all programmed the same. And that's part of the problem, because we are not programmed the same. We filter out into like these different roles. But I really believe, God, evolution, whatever, had to create a dynamic such that the human race would move forward on the back of culture but would never stagnate. And so you need like all this fighting. You need people to be products of their time so that as times change, the people change. All that. So what I feel like all of this reveals where we are right now in human society is simply a stop on a corkscrew spiral that will never end. And that's why people say history doesn't repeat, but it rhymes. Why does it rhyme? Because the human mind works in a certain way. When you take it en masse, it works in a certain way. All of us are very different. Anybody who's married knows you and your wife are wildly different, but at the same time, you're different within bounds and you react very similarly to very similar stimulus. And so when I look at this, that's what I see. I see the iron law of oligarchy is true because there are going to be people who are smarter. There are going to be people who are more obsessed. There are going to be people who crave power. There are going to be people who crave to be looked at. And when you put all of that together, and then you're going to get all the opposites of those. And when you put all that together, you get the world that we see. There are only certain people that have the personality role that take them all the way to wanting to run everything, to wanting to be at the top, to being morally ambiguous, being able to, you know, dip into the gray area. Like, yeah, to run a country, you have to be very comfortable in the trolley problem all day, every day, because you are constantly sacrificing some people to save others. Whether that's. We went in and killed a bunch of Venezuelans because we felt like that was the right thing to do. Well, I imagine that's very cold comfort to the woman whose husband did not come home, who's, you know, to kids whose dad did not come home. And then who knows how we'll change the people who would have been influenced by that oil. Right? And not all of them are going to be leaders. Some of them are going to be average people. How many people are suffering in Iran because of what we're doing there now? Maybe they're glad. Maybe it gives them a chance to finally break free. And certainly I fall in that camp. But America forced them to be in the economic position that they're in. That didn't happen by accident. That happened through sanctions. And so now it's like, yeah, like, there are people whose lives have been completely upended or all the way just ended because of choices that we made. And we don't know if 10 years down the road this will be better or worse. So the reason that the world is structured the way that it is structured is because that's how people are. And there are people who draw a line in the sand and they're like, nope, I think these things are right, and I will never bend. And then other people are far more flexible, and I fear that government attracts the people that are far more flexible. And so that's what I see. It is horrifying. And yet.
Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
Okay, I want to jump into some stuff because Twitter's popping off right now about some. Like, there's two sides. I want to go with it. Is now the ramifications of these files being released? There's already kind of a few dominoes releasing. I want to start with Thomas Massie. Speaking of devil, we were just talking about him starting with his tweet going back to January 30th. He said, if you're reading the Epstein files right now, it's because of I'm in Congress and fighting. I'm not taking any credit. At least as much goes to Ro Khanna, former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace. And too many documents are still being withheld or redacted. But we'll get to that too. It was not a hoax. I cannot be bullied. I am not done. And this is why those in powers are doing everything in their power to defeat me. And then he released within hours of the Epstein file release a super pat funded by Israel first billionaires Miriam Addison, Paul Singer and John Paulson, who himself appears in Epstein's black book bought another $800,000 of TV ads against me. I'll still win, but if I lose, it was worth it. Now that this has gotten out, is this kind of an example, just one example of these elites kind of now saying let's buy that narrative control back the people who have pushed to get this transparency. Let's attack them, try to defame them and kind of start bringing them down.
Tom Bilyeu
Of course, yeah, of course you're going to see a massive immune response. You're going to see people try to reassert control, try to own the news cycle, try to get the troublemakers out of office a thousand percent. So I mean this is the, this is the great tragedy of how we are that I don't. So okay, you can give, you can give a moralizing speech which maybe I should, so that it's on the record and then you go back to we have to deal with reality. The moralizing speech goes like this. The world ought to be a certain way. Ought is a call for morality. There is a reason that humans have gotten to where we've gotten now on the back of religion. Religion exists to fill a God shaped sprocket not hole a God shaped sprocket in the brain so that it makes certain gears turn and it allows us to very easily say you ought to behave like this. Now that architecture can and has been co opted many times and in the name of Jesus the crusades were launched. Let that one sink in. So it can go very, very wrong. But at the same time it allows us to say you don't need to understand why, you just need to believe that God, whichever God that would be, wants you to think and act like this. That allows for tremendous group cohesion in huge groups that transcend borders. It's Basically the largest tribe that we've been able to build via iconography and ideas that can be instantly transmitted. If I've got my cross on, then somebody knows, oh, cool, you're part of my tribe. If I've got my Star of David, somebody knows, oh, you're part of my tribe. I don't have to have met you before. I just know that's what you're about. Cool. So given that the world ought to be a certain way and that when done right, your ought has survived for thousands of years, specifically because it really does improve people's lives and humans are capable of tremendous beauty and good. And to be alive is a gift of untold proportions. And I'm certainly very grateful for it. And so I want to see the world run by people that focus on how the world ought to be. And they are good and just warriors who sacrifice everything to be of service to other people. And they are leading precisely because they were called that gear plugs into their brain. Doesn't have to be a known religion, but that gear of like, I want to serve my fellow man clicks into place and it turns for them. And they are willing to give everything up in service of that. And accordingly, this is not somebody who you're going to find with the most insane skeletons in their closet that just rule them out completely. Okay, I want that world. I want to be a part of that world. And every now and then we see glimpses of it. I don't know Thomas Massey well, well enough to know if he's the guy, but, like, let's use him as an avatar. That's the kind of person that you want to see lead. Unfortunately, when I look back at history, that isn't who actually leads and the people. And it's not like you'll get. And I haven't done a deep enough dive on him to know what his version of slave teeth in his mout are. But Marcus Aurelius, right, seems to be considered by many historians the last great emperor, one of the last three. I forget if he was the dead last, but he was like one of the last great Roman emperors. And he had a guy that followed him around and said, remember, you're just a man, you're just a man. You're just a man. Because everybody would refer to him essentially as a deity. And so he wanted to remind himself through philosophy that. That he was not above anybody else, that this was about policy, that you had to have policies that had good outcomes. You needed to be around the people. You needed to understand how this stuff played out and you needed to understand your own mind. And that was the thing that made him such a breakthrough, was he wouldn't have used these words, but the human mind works in a certain way. We have to understand how fallible we are. We have to understand that the line between good and evil runs through every human heart. I am just as susceptible to making mistakes and all of that. Okay. Okay. That's the closest thing to, like a real world person, somebody who is flawed, somebody who is of this earth, who is doing their best to navigate this. Now, you give me somebody like that to choose from, and I'm going to choose that person. Unfortunately, there seems to be some sort of selection process that makes that kind of person in the upper echelons extraordinarily rare. And the question becomes, why Now? I have a base assumption that the ascent to political power is a violent game. It doesn't always take place with actual knives being jabbed into you, but it is like backroom stabbings, blackmail, get people.
Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
Out of the wheeling and dealing.
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, like all of that stuff, they're gonna ice you out, they're gonna ruin your reputation, they'll make it impossible for you to get elected, blah, blah, blah. All the kinds of things that have come out a gazillion times. And so there's a reason, like if you actually read the prints by Machiavelli, what he was trying to say is, I'm not speaking to how the world ought to be. I'm speaking to how the world is. And so when people look at Machiavelli, they think he was putting it forward as that this is a moral thing that you ought to do. And he was just trying to advise the government on how you the the world of realpolitik. Now, the second you get into real politik, people have this really weird reaction to it. And I feel like it is simply because they have never delineated in their own mind between is and ought. So we can talk about ought. We can talk about the world that we want. Hopefully we aim for it. And what you're talking about, I think when you say I worry we're going to lose our humanity is people are no longer aspiring to ought. They've given into is. And given the way the human mind is, we need people pushing for ought. We need people like, this was my phase one was just all about the person you could become. And then over time, I realized only doing this is making the world very confusing to me. And so I need to learn how the world is now. If you can do both, so much the better. Hey, we ought to be this way. But we have to remember the world is this way. And so we're gonna have to drag this along with us. Because you're never gonna be able to transcend the way that the human mind is, the way that people are en masse. But part of the way that people are en masse is that they will heed the call of an extraordinary figure who can show you how the world ought to be. So let's talk about Martin Luther King Jr. He gave us a vision of how the world ought to be. He was also having affairs. So it's like, okay, he is doing something I would never do in a million years. And yet he is somebody I admire tremendously. So that, to me, is the conundrum. Would I throw Martin Luther King out with the bathwater? No, I would not. Would I say, for me, that's a moral monster in that way? Yes, I believe that. If you're in a relationship with somebody and you tell them, I'm not going to cheat on you, break up with them, but don't cheat. Hey, fallible. I'm fallible. Holy Jesus. The line through good and evil runs through every human heart. I feel I hate how clay my feet are. I understand how at risk to being human I am and doing stupid shit and succumbing to my own emotions and all of that. I would lose respect for myself if I ever cheated on my wife. Nice and easy. So that's where I go, okay, this guy deals in the real world. He gave me a picture of where we ought to go. He inspired me and millions of other people. And at the same time, like men have a drive to sleep with novel females. And so how we reconcile, that is the thing for the ages. And I find most people just don't. They will either pretend that he didn't have any problems, or they will cast him away. And I think both of those are a mistake. So the Epstein files for me is a big, cold, icy dose of is. And it's completely devoid of ought. And the speech that you gave earlier, which actually hit me and I liked it a lot, was, hey, we need a whole bunch of ought. And if we don't force ourselves to fight for ought, we will succumb to our baser nature. And that has an accelerating fact of its own. And I agree. And so we do need people that pull for this is how the world ought to be.
Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
Some people are pulling. I'm bringing up Cash Patel's former Congress testimony and saying that this should now be disqualifying and he like, should be taken down. So just to refresh everybody's mind, this is what he said to Congress earlier last year.
Tom Bilyeu
There's no credible information.
Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
None.
Tom Bilyeu
If there were, I would bring the.
Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
Case yesterday that he trafficked to other individuals.
Tom Bilyeu
And the information we have, again, is limited. So the answer is no.
Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
1.
Tom Bilyeu
For the information that we have in the files, in the case file.
Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
Okay, there's no credible information that he trafficked. Not the, not the rim shot. So things like this in front of Congress saying this and then now with the release of the files, is this something that you think, you know, people need to start being held accountable in this way? Starting with, with Cash Patel, the FBI, the doj, the people who oversaw the files. And then have then said, we don't have enough to prosecute when clearly you have at least enough to make arrest, bring in for questioning, have those.
Tom Bilyeu
That one seems shocking to me. So it feels like he had to have known what was going on. And this is horrific. That felt like that period where I was just like, Dan Bongino's voice sounded so constricted when they gave that. And I know, look, I'm reading into something, but I was like that from that moment forward. It felt like the men in black suits rolled up and said, let me tell you how the world really works and now you're part of the COVID up machine. So that feels like it's from the COVID up era where they had expressly said, all right, we need you guys to go out and make this go away. And they did their best to make it go away. It. This is pure emotion on my side. I do not have any facts. Nobody else has. But that's what that feels like to me. Like that's just wild. Crazy town. Crazy town.
Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
Yeah. And I see somebody that says, like, case files and release files are two different things. Understood. We're just saying that with the information that was released, it's at least enough to start questioning people. At least enough to start questioning people.
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah. And I mean, listen, that. So the administration is going to have talking points that they want these guys to go out and say. So I imagine in reality just good luck doing that without getting immediately fired. But the wiser way to approach something like that would be to say, listen, there's a lot there. We have not gone through it. All the stuff that we've seen, there's nothing credible. So this is going to take time and a deep investigation. We're willing to do that work. It's that kind of important. We're going to do it. But you're going to have answers in six or eight months. You're not going to have answers in six or eight days so that people could get behind and be like, okay, look, fair enough. But the. There's nothing there. If there was anything credible there, I would have moved on it. Oh, Jesus. Jesus. Bad luck.
Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
Bad luck through and through. Cool. We got a class on Thursday.
Tom Bilyeu
There we go. Yes, we do. We've got an AI masterclass this week. It's Thursday, February 5th at 1pm Pacific Time. I'm going to walk you guys through how to set up a five member AI team that's going to do the heavy lifting for you of launching a company. Research, content, sales, all of it. And the kicker of it all, if you show up live live, then we're going to give you guys a bonus worth hundreds of dollars. So for free. Most people would pay serious money for this freebie. So make sure you join live.
Guest/Co-host (possibly Drew or another commentator)
All right?
Tom Bilyeu
Again, the live is free. So do not wait another year saying someday register. Right now with AI on the horizon, you need to get this kind of leverage. There is going to be more disruptions to the job market and controlling your destiny is more important now than ever. I will see you there. All right, everybody. Until then, my friends, be legendary. And thank you all for joining us. Today was a massive day. Thank you guys. You were wonderful. Peace.
The Tom Bilyeu Show | Impact Theory | February 4, 2026
This episode examines the unprecedented release of 33 million pages of documents (the “Epstein Files”), probing how these revelations expose the hidden structures, interconnected elites, and power dynamics at the heart of global decision-making. Host Tom Bilyeu and his co-hosts analyze the information’s credibility, what it reveals about blackmail in elite circles, widespread public reaction, potential consequences for democracy and trust, and the enduring human tendency toward oligarchy and corruption. The conversation is candid, philosophical, and often unsettling, urging listeners to look past headlines to grasp the deeper machinery motivating world events.
“It is not, I will say, not a pleasant experience. Several unconfirmed and speculative elements have surfaced from the files or just, you know, raging across social media. And it can be very difficult to know what's true.”
— Tom Bilyeu [04:54]
"Lies will travel faster than the truth can get its pants on. So you have to be very careful when looking at this stuff…”
— Tom Bilyeu [04:56]
“It is a devastating truth of the human condition that sexual abuse shatters people… that is impossible to quantify. But everybody touched by sexual abuse, it’s just devastating.”
— Tom Bilyeu [44:51]
“‘I wouldn't even know how to blackmail him.’ It's like, how much ink was spilled over the idea of, you know, was Epstein being used to blackmail people?”
— Tom Bilyeu [15:54]
“You cannot let officials at the level that we're talking about here have done the kind of things that they're claiming that they've done without investigating and finding out what's true.”
— Tom Bilyeu [35:16]
“I'll lay out like 32 flavors of what actually happened with the Epstein files, and then everyone will just slot into one of the 32 narratives.”
— Tom Bilyeu [31:57]
"If you've got somebody who is convicted, you wash it away for the very reason that you can't see into the future... For me, this is a trolley problem. And I don't think people give enough credit to how devastating economic missteps are."
— Tom Bilyeu [56:49]
“The Epstein files… are far more horrifying than I would have imagined. I'm not kidding.”
— Tom Bilyeu [00:51]
“I have to eat crow. I was talking junk. Like, we're never getting files. Those files are never dropping. And they dropped. And I wish I was right. This is terrible. Like, it's bad.”
— Guest/Co-host [02:53]
“This is very interesting. When people talk about the Uni party and all that, you begin to understand why…”
— Tom Bilyeu [07:57]
“What is most interesting to me is how there really is a tight knit group of people that are interconnected in ways that you would not expect.”
— Tom Bilyeu [07:40]
“The files suggest Epstein may have trafficked girls… to other people. I can't believe even for a moment people were just saying it was all the Epstein. Such an absurd claim.”
— Tom Bilyeu [06:29]
“Blackmail is a part of this. But that people are so easy to fucking blackmail. Like, you want that to be harder.”
— Tom Bilyeu [23:10]
“I think this is way bigger news than Preddy. Like, way bigger news… The only reason that we got the files is because people were psychotic about it… And so if there aren't prosecutions, people are going to go apeshit.”
— Tom Bilyeu [22:41]
“This one's not going away. The only reason that we got the files is because people were psychotic about it. They're like, I may have voted for Trump. I will burn my allegiance to the ground. Fuck that, kid. You're going to release these files.”
— Tom Bilyeu [23:15]
“It's a character. They're playing somebody, they're all actors… We could both sides health care, but we can't both sides pedophilia. This is damning.”
— Guest/Co-host [42:38]
“If you've got somebody who is convicted, you wash it away… But what I'm saying is for me, this is a trolley problem… I don't think people give enough credit to how devastating economic missteps are.”
— Tom Bilyeu [56:49]
“The Epstein files for me is a big, cold, icy dose of is. And it's completely devoid of ought… We need people that pull for this is how the world ought to be.”
— Tom Bilyeu [76:32]
For those who haven’t listened:
This episode takes you beyond the headlines and memes, offering a sobering journey through power, corruption, and the relentless struggle for truth in the age of information overload—while refusing to provide easy answers or cloak the horror in platitudes.