Joe Rogan Experience #2355 - Mike Baker

0:01 Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day. Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. We're up. We're up. Mike B. Mike Baker. What a good time to talk to you. What a good time to have you in. What a fine time. There's so much chaos. It's so There's so much madness. Oh my god. Did you see the South Park episode? Which which which one? They did a Donald Trump one with Satan. No. No. It's [ __ ] hilarious. I got I gota I love the show is fantastic. I raised my three boys on that show. Much to my wife's horror, but it's a great show, but I haven't seen that episode. It when you think like Bridget Fedesy had a funny quote like when you think that they have reached the bottom of the

0:47 highest level of not giving a [ __ ] they reach unseen levels. It's just the whole the Epstein thing is so crazy. like and him saying like, "What do you care? Why does everybody care about Epste?" Like, well, that's a Yeah, but it is. Look, I mean, although again, going back to South Park, uh, yeah, once they did the Woodland Creatures episode all those years ago, you thought, "Okay, that's got to be the the worst they can get." Which one was the Woodland Creatures? Oh my god, you got to look it up. It was It's fantastic. It I I'm not going to do it justice if I try to explain what it's about. Well, remember when they did the gay teacher where he had a [ __ ] off with Paris Hilton, stuffed her up his ass? This was the other one. Critters. They're all cussing and Oh, that's right. Oh, I forgot about that one. Yeah, that was 17 years ago.

1:34 They don't give a [ __ ] dude. They They haven't given a [ __ ] since the beginning and it's the greatest show of all time. Yeah. Honestly, if if you said what would be the best job that you could have imagined, it would be being one of those two guys working. They're killing it. And the thing is like it's so beautiful because they have cartoons and you can do things with cartoons you could never do with real people. You can kill them. They can [ __ ] each other. They can stick things up their ass. Anything can happen because And it's also they're not realistic cartoons. So it's like you're somehow or another detached from it. Yeah. No, they they they and if they they did a documentary one time, I don't know if you saw that. Oh yeah. Where they they tracked the six days it takes them to make the show. Okay. This trumpet with Satan. Satan Satan's back. Satan's upset at Trump. It's very funny.

2:22 Well, you remember the Satan and Diddy episode. All the That was fantastic, too. I didn't see that one. Oh, the Satan Diddy episode and then they had the the uh the mass murderers and No, this was this was a few years back, too. It was a Diddy party and he he wanted to Yeah, it's a long story. He wanted a Lamborghini cake, but you know, it was like uh the devil wanted it and they said, "No, Diddy did it already." And it's it's fantastic. Remember when they had the movie with Sodom Hussein and Sodom Hussein was in a gay relationship with Satan? Oh god, we'd spend the entire time. People are like, "Oh, are they going to talk about this the whole time?" But uh yeah, the scene stuff is so crazy because when Cash Patel was on here and he was like, "There's no there's nothing." And I was like, "What are you talking?" Yeah. I didn't even know what to say. My

3:07 thought was, and people are like, "Why didn't you push back more?" My thought was like, I'm just going to put this out there and let the internet do its work cuz there's nothing I could The guy's saying there's no tapes, there's no video. That doesn't make any sense. Everyone knows it doesn't make any sense. Let's just And then he didn't know about the m the Michael Baden stuff, the autopsy stuff where it showed that he had three broken bones in his neck, which never happens when you hang yourself. Even when you like leap from somewhere with a rope around your neck and it snaps your neck, you never have three broken prison cell. He's not launching himself off the first floor balcony. The whole thing was nuts. And then they he's like, "Well, we have a film. We're going to release that film." And the film has a [ __ ] minute missing from it. Yeah. Like do you think we're babies? Like what is this? Also, you got you got people make

3:53 including Dampong, right? Making bank for a couple of years talking about how awful it is and we got to get this [ __ ] and this is this huge conspiracy and and then you release a two-day, you know, a two-page memo that says, "Yeah, there's nothing to see here." Yeah. Because you're walking by your bedroom window and you see a little laser, little red laser moving across your chest. Yeah. But it's so it's it really is. It's so Look, you know me, I'm not a I'm not a conspiracy guy. you are today. But I am today. Today I'm I'm fully on board with this yet. Um everybody's in today. Yeah. No, but you they're actually doing right as we as we speak. Um and I find this fascinating is that the uh the assistant attorney general, Todd Blanch, is down in Florida for an interview with Gileain Maxwell and she's serving 20 years in in a Florida prison for sex

4:40 trafficking. Right. To who though? Um what's that? To who? Well, she he's down there to interview her. But I'm saying she's she's sex trafficked to Well, she was a a co-conspirator of Epstein's, right? But don't you have to have a person who you're sex trafficking too? Exactly. And they talked about the victims somewhat during her trial. It was very I mean it was it was a very difficult trial in the sense of, you know, they're they're trying to protect certain victims and and others were coming forward. But you know, my surprise was nobody from DOJ has ever, according to her legal team, nobody has ever interviewed her from DOJ, right? Department of Justice. So this is the first time the Department of Justice, you're telling me. And meanwhile, up on Capitol Hill, you got Democrats like Adam Schiff and others going, "We have

5:26 got to release these [ __ ] files." They had four years under the previous administration, right? Look, everybody's [ __ ] in this in this situation, but they had all that time to do whatever they wanted to do. Nobody up until this point apparently has talked to her. Now, you know, some folks on the legal side are saying, "Well, look, if she had anything interesting to say, she would have said it during the course of her trial, right? To save herself or to cut a deal." No. Uh, but now I don't think so. I don't kill her. Yeah. Well, the smartest thing for her to do is to keep her [ __ ] mouth shut, which is what she did. They put her in a cushy prison where she could do yoga. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yoga in prison. That doesn't sound good. Here's one of my favorite ones. I'm going to I'm going to send you this Jamie cuz this somebody tweeted this and it's just so perfect and it's it just shows you how crazy this this whole thing has been like from the very

6:12 beginning. This is uh someone tweeted this from the Atlantic. And this is what what what's funny about this. Um check this out, James. So it's these [ __ ] people. It's like they all knew her. They all knew him. So many people knew him and knew her and they're all pretending that they didn't and no one knew. Check this out. This is the Atlantic says. Scroll. Go up beggar so we can see it. So we can see the quote below it. Below it. I'm trying. I'm trying. I zoomed. No, go back. No, I know. I zoomed. There we go. I can't read it. There it goes. Uh, this is what the Atlantic posts. If the Epstein scandal teaches us anything, it's that America

6:58 needs a dedicated and decently funded group of people whose job it is not to just ask questions, but to find answers. And then this guy Shawn Davis posts, "The woman on the right is Gain Maxwell. She trafficked children for Jeffrey Epstein. The woman on the left owns your magazine." This is so [ __ ] wild. Just that alone is so wild that they would have the balls to post that. We need dedicated journalists, not just people asking questions, which is like for sure an attack on podcasts. Like listen, you guys didn't do [ __ ] You didn't do [ __ ] So just asking just the fact that we're just asking

7:44 questions along with that or is this a knock on the defunding of PBS which is essentially a propaganda network for the Democratic party. Yeah. Which is now being apparently we'll see if that happens but apparently being defunded. But yeah look everybody's everybody's worried now right. No, at first it was like, okay, again, I go back a handful of years. Nobody was was pushing for this, right? Because you got people from all sides probably on whatever that list looks like, whatever that Epstein file looks like, whoever was involved. You got people from all sides of the spectrum here going on. And so everybody's worried. So it looked like, all right, you know, there's kind of this bizarre bipartisan moment where we're not going to push for this really. We're not going to make a big effort here. We're not sending anybody from

8:30 DOJ. The Dems aren't during the Biden administration calling for the release of the files. Now all of a sudden they smell, you know, blood in the water and a particular, you know, political motivation here. So, let's get these files out. And, you know, nobody's going to look good from this. But I, again, I I I would caution some, you know, just because a name might be in a file, no matter whose it is, right, doesn't necessarily mean there's nefarious activity. It could be like any any police file, right, that says, "Okay, the individual stopped at this particular location and this person was there." Doesn't mean they're connected to something awful. They weren't [ __ ] underage girls. Maybe they were if they're in the file, right? But I'm just saying there's a lot of people probably in that file that are going to be named if it ever comes out who may or may not have been engaged in in in uh illegal activity, but just release the goddamn

9:16 things. Yeah, there's probably a lot of people who just went there. Did I send you that thing where this guy was breaking? Did I say NPR or PBS earlier? I meant NPR, I think. Did I send you that thing, that link where this guy is breaking down all the different tweets that the lady who is the CEO of NPR made? I don't think so. She's getting questioned on whether or not she's biased. And then this guy like goes over all the different tweets. God damn it. I know I saved it, but I should have I should have be been prepared. I know I have it in here because it's so funny. It's so funny listening to her. See if you can f You might be able to find it. I just think I just found it. But of course, you found it. Beautiful. Because it's it's so adorable. This pretending that this was an unbiased news source.

10:01 This directly from her own account. Well, this is one of them, but let's one guy broke it down. Sorry. Maybe I sent it to Dave Smith. We'll find it. Yeah. But again, anybody who at this stage of the game thinks that the media, you know, doesn't have an agenda, that they're not complicit in one way or another with whatever may be, come on. Yeah. It's a joke. It's a joke. And they're all funded and there I mean, the fact that the government was funding NPR is crazy. Like this you you can't have a completely biased onesided media organization that's funded by the government and taxpayers. That's crazy. and they went

10:47 over all the amount of people that were on NPR that were Democrats and it's 100%. Yeah. It's like out of 87 people it's 100%. So and look at the New York Times. I mean so that none of that should be a surprise to anybody who's But the New York Times privately funded company. I mean it's like NPR relied on tax money and there's this giant outrage that the government's going to defund it. Well, a lot. And what they're trying to do is they're trying to couch it as saying, "Look, you're you're taking away, you know, the only source of news for, you know, rural locations, for example. Like you got some place up in North Dakota that, you know, has no other access, and so they rely on NPR for their their news." I don't know a lot of people up in North Dakota that say, "I wonder what NPR is saying about this." Well, and not just that, but it's like at the end of the day, the reality is the internet exists. Yeah. And we don't

11:34 need you don't need to fund publicly fund something that's clearly biased when the internet exists, right? You can get whatever you want. If you want to just absorb and consume only left-wing media, there's so much available you can go find it. But our tax dollars should not be going to that. No. No. And and to be fair, if anybody wants to know what the hell's going on in the news, they can just listen to the President's Daily Brief podcast, frankly. Oh, your your podcast. I'm good. Right. Yeah. That's that's some Yeah. Boy, I just stuck that in there. I can't find this [ __ ] thing. Yeah. Did you find it? As far as you Let's hear it. Show me a story that concerns you. That's fantastic. As far as the accusations that were biased, I would stand up and say, "Please show me a story that concerns you because we want to know and we want to bring that conversation back to our

12:21 newsroom." And then they have all these and then all these fat phobia and its racist past and present. Some white people may choose thumbs up because it feels neutral, but some academics argue that opting out. What does that mean? Thumbs up signals lacks awareness about white privilege, akin to society associating whiteness with being raceless. What? God, what does that mean? Or how about how racism became a marketing tool for country music? Oh, yeah. That's a good one. God, this right-wing conspiracy theory about eating bugs is about as racist as you think. No, that's like literally this is And then here's another great quote that she said. If you look on the right side, Jamie, where it says, "The truth is a distraction from getting things done." That is such a [ __ ] Orwellian thing

13:08 to say. Click on that just so you can hear her say this cuz it's it's so bananas that someone would say this out loud and not think it's One of the most significant differences critical for moving from polarization to productivity is that the Wikipedians who write these articles aren't actually focused on finding the truth. Oh no, they're working for something that's a little bit more attainable, which is the best of what we can know right now. And after seven years there, I actually believe that they're on to something that for our most tricky disagreements, seeking the truth and seeking to convince others of the truth isn't necessarily the best place to start. In fact, I think our reverence for the truth might become might have become

13:53 what a bit of a distraction that is preventing us from finding consensus and getting important things done. What? Oh my god, that's fantastic. I wild is that and you want government money? That is such a wild thing to say. You know, going for the truth as a journalist. No, no, it's not important. No, it's not important. It's a distraction. The truth is a distraction. You know what I hate? I hate that. And you see that all the time and I don't know whether that is a TED talk or not, but I as soon as I see that type of forum where they're they're earnestly standing there and they got their little mouthpiece there around there and they're talking and they're they're looking out into the distance and you you think, "Oh, climb out of your own [ __ ] ass." Right. It's just awful. Yeah. I don't I don't like any of those things. Yeah. Um

14:39 I don't like that little Bobby Brown microphone either. Unless you're on stage. The Bobby Brown. Yeah. I remember we used to sing with that. Yeah, step I take. Yeah. Oh, sorry. That's step on your line. I'll join in for the chorus. I don't like those little microphones. Hold the microphone like a real [ __ ] human. It's a madness. That video clip is madness. That's a piece of madness. That's a crazy thing to say. The truth gets in the way. I will say that that the the Epstein um the Epstein situation is going to be so disappointing to so many people now because um I have this theory that nothing ever gets done in Washington DC, right? Investigations go to die there. Nothing

15:24 ever happens. There's never any real consequences of any nature. And we got all sorts of things happening right now, right? So, so the Epstein case is just one of them. But right now, you've got you've got the Dems focused on Epstein because, you know, again, they they see this good opportunity here to go after Trump regardless of who else is in the files, right? And and the Dems, I think, were worried for quite some time and didn't pursue it because, you know, years back they were thinking, okay, Clinton's going to be embarrassed. We don't want that, right? So, again, my point would be just release everything. I don't understand how if you just look at the way that they handled this logistically, whoever thought because the mob wants to eat, right? And they've been throwing red meat to the mob about Epstein files now for for years. Part of how they got elected, right? And so whoever in their

16:11 communications group or in their strategic thinking arena in the administration thought, you know, that we can get away with just saying there's nothing to see here, they should be fired, right? because there's no way you can satisfy this this mob. And now the mob is oddly bipartisan because it's got the Dems and it's got, you know, part of the base of of Trump in there. Yeah. And they're all, you know, screaming to have this, god damn it, just release this [ __ ] Otherwise, this is going to be around like Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy and Well, that's what's crazy. They did release more Martin Luther King docu Yeah. documents, which is really crazy. Like why are you holding secrets about the murder of one of the most beloved historical figures of all time? Yeah. From 1968. Part of that.

16:57 Yeah. Part of that's a family request. The family has asked, you know, in the past on a number of occasions, they they they really don't want some of this because some of it, look, some of it salacious about, you know, Martin Luther, which doesn't take away from everything that he did, right, as as a leader of a cause in a movement. Uh but some of it is, you know, extrammarital affairs and things. So there's been some push to be concerned about that. But but yeah, now do the Epstein files. Well, they'll do it in the same amount of time, 56 years from now. Just like they did with him. It's 56 [ __ ] years later they released this stuff. This and and and we're still not any closer to I mean Yeah. Again, I don't want to disappear down that rabbit hole, but we're still any closer with Martin Luther King. I'm, you know, again, not a conspiracy guy except today apparently, but there's there's [ __ ] there.

17:42 Well, you said you've said multiple times that if there's one that you think looks really bad, it's that one. It's that one. But I I going back to I I know I'm bouncing around here, but going back to the Epste. I don't understand how they handled this so poorly, right, for Pam Bondi to to come out and talk about the files and all just and then like within a blink of an eye, they come out with this [ __ ] Sunday night memo saying there's nothing to see. How could there lack of coordination? Yeah, I do. I do. I think I think it's a a messaging problem is always kind of a key element of the Trump administration, whether it's this one or not. And look, that's not a you know, I'm not knocking a lot of the policies. I like a lot of the policies that come out of this this administration, this one and the in the previous the first administration. But I'm just saying a hallmark of a Trump administration is uh the ability to uh

18:31 have a self-inflicted wound. you know, shoot yourself in the foot because of messaging usually, right? So, I think they they've done it again and I don't see how they I don't see how they walked this back. They're trying to, I think, with this interview with Gileain Maxwell to say, "Look, we're trying. We're we're talking to her." You know, but how does Pam Bondi say we have thousands of hours of footage and then Cash Patel says, "We don't have anything that you're looking for." Yeah. And then Tim Dylan said he has lunch with JD Vance. And JD Vance says that 10,000 hours is commercial pornography, right? Yeah. You think this freak show of Epstein wasn't like it didn't have hidden cameras or wasn't taped and [ __ ] or what? 100%. Well, that was the thing about that house. That house they had in New York City, which is, by the way, for

19:17 sale. And really? Yeah. Nobody wants to buy it. Like, you want to buy Epstein's house? Do the cameras convey? Well, this is the thing. I mean, you got to gut the walls. How are you going to know what the [ __ ] is in there? Yeah. Imagine you're walking around your house naked and you think that the CIA has got or your your freaking your organization or whoever it is to be fair agencing. I mean, I'm just guessing. I have no idea. But there's [ __ ] pinhole cameras all over that house. Yeah. Yeah. You have to start from that perception, right? Because again, if anything else, and you're just being naive, if you think, "No, there's nothing." again. You got to take it down to the bare beams. You got to strip the wall board off. You got to [ __ ] every baseboard. You got

20:03 to pull everything. It's like [ __ ] knows what's in that house. We had a we had a a situation in Moscow one time where we were building uh it was the new embassy, the US embassy in Moscow, right? And for some reason, you know, part of the deal was to allow Russian contractors to work on the construction of this. You know, what the [ __ ] you know? So, but it's a it's a government thing, you know, and so you can imagine there's like to your point, there's not a lot of coordination. So, you know, the Russian contractors thinking, "Oh, this is great. We're helping to construct the US embassy and they know there's going to be sensitive areas within there, the station, you know, for the for the agency and and other areas." Uh, anyway, at a certain point, they're they're just about finished with construction. And just by h not by happen stance, I mean

20:50 there were efforts to try to um examine what the Russians were doing, right? So the security side of things, they were concerned about the fact that the Russians were working on it. You know, you had the State Department and others that were like, "No, it's a good idea. You know, it helps with diplomacy." So the security guys were doing things. They were x-raying, you know, parts of materials that were coming in for the construction. And apparently at one point uh what was going on was the Russians were um installing listening devices inside the rebar right of the of the construction process. And apparently at one point they you know one of the wires on the on one of these uh uh communications devices that was stuck in there had broken. And so they soldered it. The Russians did. They soldered it with aluminum that showed up when they were X-raying um that particular large

21:38 bit of of material that they were going to install and that was the way that they found out and they said, "What the fuck?" Then they had to tear the entire goddamn thing down. I forget. I think it was two or three different floors of this embassy. They had to remove they bit by bit shipped it back to the states to to examine fully and and it was just loaded with with listening devices by the Russians. Right. So, it's going to be the same at the long story short, it's the same at Epstein's place. You got to tear it down. Yeah, it's a nice house, too. And it's like right right on the park. Yeah. And I was like, wonder why that's still for sale. And that asking for it, do you think? I think it's like 60 or 70 million. Oh, I might find it. It's pretty dope. 2021 for 51 million. Holy [ __ ] But it's for sale now though, right? That I didn't see.

22:23 I'm pretty sure it's for sale right now. I wonder if it gets a premium because it's Epstein's place. You know, you know, like a celebrity premium for a home. I wonder if that's the case. You know, you'd have to be a [ __ ] complete psycho to want to live in that guy's house. Same guy's going to buy Diddy Spot. Um, yeah. I I don't know what the [ __ ] God. But there's So, you've got you've got the Epstein thing going on. Like, how does that get resolved? This is the question. Like, if you are the administration, you're looking at this puzzle and you're trying to figure out how to make this a PR win. Too late for that. What? What the [ __ ] can you do at this point? Is it for sale? 5 mil two years ago, it says. Holy [ __ ] Is it not for sale right now? Not according to Zillow. Zero bedrooms, only one bath. That's not

23:09 a very nice place. It's just one big [ __ ] hall. It's just Yeah, we call it the playroom. And this is the house. Look at that. Oh my god. Looks like it 65 million bucks in Manhattan. What the hell? The wild thing is though, it's like right on the street. Like anybody can come to your door and just knock on your door like walking by. Yeah. Prince Andrew. It's weird. Living there is weird. Yeah. Look at Look at that. Meanwhile, no one can explain where he got the money. No one can explain why he got so rich, you know. And Eric Weinstein, who is like a legit financial guy, said he talked to him. He had a meeting with him once. He's like it was really clear that he's a construct. He's like he doesn't know what he's talking about. He doesn't know anything. Yeah. That's not for sale right now. It didn't

23:54 say it was. Oh, it's it's listed on Zillow but not for sale. It's like everything's still on Zillow kind of. Like it was for sale. Yeah, look it up. Okay. Maybe there's another service that's cuz sometimes Zillow doesn't have all the stuff cuz someone I know was looking at it. Yeah. Maybe it's on cheap old houses. That's a good site. Yeah. Um it's a bargain. It's a fix up though. Yeah. But like you'd have to go through that house. So you'd have to hire like the top of the food chain security experts to go and they would probably recommend you take that house apart. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you did you'd you could do a a sweep of the thing and and you know, but that's not going to guarantee, right? You really have to pull the walls down and and look because I I again, maybe

24:41 I'm wrong. does never say never, but I can't imagine that that that a a psycho like like Epstein, you know, wasn't enjoying videoing, you know, some of the activity that was going on for sure. Yeah. Anyway, so what do you think from your perspective? What do you think that was all about? Who do you think was involved in that? Do you think it was the MSAD? Do you think it was some rogue intelligence agency in America? Was it a coordinated effort? You know what? I I know there's you know there's a lot of talk about you know did he have some sort of intel connection right that uh you know from my perspective it's complete speculation but I will say look from an operational perspective I I have no idea was it MS was it anybody who knows right but from an operational perspective if you see a

25:27 guy like this who's super connected and is and you know all the way back to what 2008 was like his first trial right so he's had a long history of this these problems but if you know that he's kind of engaged in a variety of things. Um, as an example, if I'm the if I'm Chinese intel, right, and I I just read the goddamn entertainment news and, you know, there's these rumors and allegations of, you know, highle people flying off to his island, I'm going to think that's interesting because potentially if I could get an accessed source there, if I can get somebody right inside that operation, whether it's Gain Maxwell, whether it's Epstein himself, whether it's somebody who's just on the outskirts of it, maybe I'll I'll start picking up some pretty interesting leverable information on

26:13 people that maybe I want to influence. And it's so funny to me that it's always comes down to like carnal needs and carnal desires. It's always sex because these guys when you get to like this Bill Gates level and Bill Clinton level, you can't just go pick up gals at the bar. Yeah. It's a little tough. Yeah. Yeah. So if you're a super famous super freak and you know you you like chasing skirts but you know you can't do it like what do you do? Well you do what he did right which is you get you know somebody to procure for you which apparently was primarily Maxwell's job and she's out there and and you know she was described you know usually as his girlfriend but she was clearly operating as his pimp or whatever the female version of a pimp

26:58 is. Yeah. Curator. Curator. Yeah. A curator. And so he's, you know, she's out there doing that. But look, again, you know, I I can't speak to, you know, you know, the the rumors about him working for one intel agency or another. But I will say if I'm working for an intel agency and I see something like that, uh, yeah, I might find that of interest, right? And then I would I would definitely go after somebody to see what's going on. Just if for no other reason, then, you know, again, maybe it's a it's a opportunity there, you know. Well, it's the easiest connect the dots puzzle of all time. You got rich, powerful people and hot chicks and probably drugs and cameras. Yeah. And and I tell you, the Russians love nothing better than, you know, the the truth the reality is in terms of recruiting an

27:45 asset, recruiting an asset by using blackmail is is is tough, right? You got to you got to that window starts closing immediately, right? In terms of their operational usefulness, right? because there there's a lot of there's a lot of issues there, right? You're you're you're you're blackmailing somebody for their cooperation. At some point, that's going to go south on you, right? It's not like you've recruited somebody for ideological reasons, right? Or even something as as straightforward as like they need the money because their kid's sick or whatever it may be. So, blackmails, but having said that, look, the the the Russians in particular love that, right? and and um Chinese intel, they'll do whatever works from their perspective. Um you know, the agency, again, people are going to say that's [ __ ] The agency tries, they they

28:31 they blackmail is never really ever on the table as an option because it always leads to a problem. Uh and and sometimes those problems can be very very bad in terms what way what do you mean? Well, you know, the asset will turn on you, right? Next thing you know, um, you know, you've got a an agent working now, a double agent working for the other side, right? Because they're just they're so [ __ ] over by the fact that they've been blackmailed and at some point they lose their [ __ ] They decide to to roll for the other side that aren't you like constantly monitoring them and looking at their phone? There's only so much. No, not there's only so much you can do, right? in terms of um maintaining particularly with with a with a hard target particularly with a an asset who's in a difficult or

29:16 challenging environment you know Paris and you've got limited access to them whatever it may be so you're really relying on on clandestine communications you don't have a lot of face tof face meetings um and at some point you never know when things are heading south right and then the next thing you know look you know that so it's that's a that's the operational reason for trying to avoid blackmail right um has it ever been done well Yeah. I mean, I'm not saying it hasn't been done, of course, but some services go to it much quicker than others do. Yeah. And which services? And I would Well, again, the Russians are primary users of of something like that. They don't because they they've got a shotgun approach. Yeah. Israelis have have been known to do that in the honeypot operations that they'll do and other things, but the Russians throw a lot of [ __ ] at the wall and see what sticks, right? It's a very much a shotgun approach, right? And, you know,

30:03 honestly, sometimes, you know, that that can work, right? Wasn't that kind of if you thought about this island, if you're bringing award-winning scientists, like famous people, politicians, world leaders, all to one place, you're basically throwing as much [ __ ] against the wall as you can. And then you have all this stuff on all these different people and they know it. And so then you just kind of like, wasn't there like some CEO that had to step down because he wound up giving Epstein, it was found out that he gave Epstein like $150 million that they couldn't explain why. Wow. Wasn't that wasn't that the case, Jamie? So, it's one of those things where there's obviously value in having all these people on your side. Yeah. But when you do get all this information on these people, like what are they

30:49 trying to accomplish with it? This is the question. Are they trying to get support for a policy to step down after firm finds more payments to Jeffrey Epstein? 158 million. He paid the convicted sex offender 158 million. What does it If you can Can you scroll down a little bit, Jamie? Yeah. His plan to step down as chief. I I've advised the Apollo board that I will retire as CEO before my seventh birth 70th birthday in July. Remain as chairman. I know he's going to remain as a chairman. Uh, New York Times detailed at least 75 million in payments and found that Mr. Black had paid Epstein 158 million in a 5-year period ending in 2017. He also lent Mr. Epstein more than 30

31:36 million, only 10 million of which he was paid back. So, that's a guy that they got something on here. I love this. He Leon Leon viewed uh Epstein as a confirmed bachelor with eclectic tastes. M this was after his 2008 guilty plea. Yeah. Wow. Um yeah, Mr. Epstein's advice was worth perhaps two billion in tax savings to Mr. Black according to the report. Right. What? But this is again this is what Weinstein said Eric said that there's like this guy is not he's not good. He doesn't know what he's talking about. Like he wasn't a good financial adviser. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I think part of it is you can say, okay, why was he collecting people around him? Why was he do were was he keeping a file, right? You still

32:22 have to figure out what that file looks like. Um, you know, part of it could have been initially self-preservation, right? I mean, he's engaged in all sorts of activity. He gets a few people into it, then suddenly, you know, he doesn't look so bad, right? And he's kind of protecting himself because now I'm surrounded by people who also have to keep that secret, right? So, but then but then the question becomes, you know, is at what point is he or somebody in his little tight circle there? Are they approached, right, by by anybody who's interested in some of these folks? Well, we don't know because we don't know who the [ __ ] in these files, right? So, or if the files even exist, if the files even exist and apparently, you know, there's nothing in there according to Pam Bondi and Cash Patel. The whole thing's nuts. Yeah. And then, you know, the have Bon Gino and Cash Patel saying he definitely killed himself. Like, what?

33:08 Yeah. What? Okay. This just the level of convenience. It's so convenient that the guards were asleep. So convenient that the cameras didn't work. So convenient that years later you have a recording of the outside of the cell, but a minute is missing from it. Three minutes. Yeah. 3 minutes. Yeah. They found out it was like almost 3 minutes was missing. Two minutes. Like 53 seconds. It's like the missing Watergate tape. Oh, I thought it was started. It started off as a minute and then people kept looking in the metadata and metadata like, "Okay, it was saved this many times and actually up to 3 minutes missing." God. Okay, that's plenty of time to kill somebody. 3 minutes is more than enough time. Oh, 3 minutes. You could get a whole bunch of people killed by then. You saw that guy that was his cellmate, too, right? Yeah. Guy is a [ __ ] gigantic human being.

33:56 A huge guy who was a mass murderer who had killed multiple people. a bad cop who was built like a brick [ __ ] [ __ ] house. The kind of guy that you could really easily get to strangle somebody. It would take him I could kill him in 30 seconds. How's this [ __ ] giant dude could do it easy? Metadata from Raw Epstein. No thanks. Metadata from Raw Epstein prison video shows approximately 2 minutes and 53 seconds were removed from one of the two stitched together clips. The cut starts off at the missing minute. Wow. Weird. Yeah. Shocker. Yeah. Yeah. So, a guy like that decides Yeah. He's going to off himself. I again, but here's the thing. It's like these guys that are all involved in this are still they've been around for a long

34:43 time and they have this mentality that existed before the internet where you could just kind of put stuff out there and you wouldn't have all these psycho sleuths out there that are going to go over everything with a fine tooth comb. especially guys who are tech wizards who can look at the metadata and he can figure this kind of stuff out. Well, [ __ ] died a lot quicker. You're right. So, something would happen and look, we we still have ADHD, right? Collectively as a nation, right? I mean, things move on. And I think maybe that's what they're, you know, some people are saying, look, they've called the recess on Capitol Hill because they figure by the time they come back in September, everybody will have moved on from this, right? I think they're wrong. I don't I don't think this is this again this this feels like and and just looks like that one of those handful of conspiracies again you go to JFK or whomever that's just going to hang around.

35:29 This is a line in the sand. This one's a line in the sand because this is one where there's a lot of stuff about you know when we thought Trump was going to come in and a lot of things are going to be resolved. We're going to drain the swamp. We're going to figure everything out. And when you have this one hardcore line in the sand that everybody have been talking about forever and then they're trying to gaslight you on that. Well, you would have thought that your phone. Yeah. I hope not. Oh, it's my wife. Should I answer? Yeah, it's on. You know, it was on silent, but it still goes. How does that happen? It literally is on silent. And are you sure? Yeah. No, I'm positive cuz it's got a little thing up top that says silent. And uh my phone's compromised. My phone is CIA doesn't trust you. You're friends with me. Well, they don't trust you anymore.

36:15 They did call me this morning. What are you gonna talk about? I I don't know. Do they ever talk to you about that? They ever have questions about your appearances here? No. No. In fact, and I I'm I'm in the building on occasion and and uh we're actually working on a on a show that's going to be it's going to be a great TV show based on this this amazing museum that's inside agency headquarters. Uh but nobody ever nobody ever says that. They you know, they don't we have a really nice relationship. They don't tell me what to say. If I go on TV to talk about something, they just like, you know, they they it's not like they're going to call up and say, "Well, here's our here's our view on this." They trust you. Yeah. They trust me. I'm not going to open my yap and talk sources and methods. And at the same time, you know, I'm just going to try to just talk from an operational perspective, but yeah. So, so that was my wife, which reminds me, it's my boy

37:00 uh Mugsy's birthday today. Happy birthday, Mugsy. Yeah. Thank you very much. with a with a thing like this, what is the general feeling about people that you talk to that are still in the agency or people that are still involved in the government, like how are they feeling about this? Cuz like the general public is outraged, right? Yeah. Do the people inside, are they frustrated? Like people that wanted this stuff to expose to be exposed? Yeah. You know, it's funny because with the agency, it's not like the bureau. The agency I think most people honestly don't really probably give a [ __ ] about the Epstein files. They're more they're more concerned now about this release from Tulsi Gabbard and the talk about, you know, manipulating intelligence, you know, for the 2016 election and Russian collusion and all of that. That speaks

37:46 more to the agency than than the Epstein files does just from a, you know, whose responsibility is whose, right? This is Epstein thing is a DOJ FBI issue. Um, I think if they're concerned about it, it's because of how it erodess trust in organizations, institutions, right? And and that's happened a a lot. So, you know, I there's a lot of lot of good people. I know again every time I talk about the agency, people are like, "Fuck you. You're such a shill, but there's a lot of good people doing very difficult work for the agency." I believe that. I believe that. And and so, you know, I think if anything, they they take it personally when people think, "Ah, [ __ ] the CIA. You got to you got to burn it down and start over again. You know, like they said with the FBI as well. I've talked about that many times. Like you don't know what the [ __ ] is going on in the world. The world is filled with

38:32 chaos. Like you need people that are paying attention to that [ __ ] And they should be on your side. Yeah. They should be on the side of the American people paying attention to threats. If you'd think that that's that paying attention at all is going to do you any good when there's all these countries out there that are [ __ ] plotting constantly, you're crazy. Yeah. This is a you're living in a utopia. You're living in a fake world. the real world is filled with madness and you gota have people paying attention to it. Yeah. But I think so I think that you know to answer that that question I think they're more they're more focused on or interested in or you know looking at this issue of you know and and it's it's surfaced again right the same time as the Epstein files right now it's like sucking all the oxygen out of the room for the past couple of days. Tulsi Gabbard comes out and says I'm

39:17 releasing these documents. She releases these documents. What do you think about all that? Like, so this is the accusation. They're they're they're throwing around the word treason. They're saying that Obama knew that Russia did not meddle in the election, did not have any impact in the election, but yet promoted this idea. And then there's been some incredible clips of all these different news reporters, CNN and MSNBC, just saying over and over and over again, clear evidence of Russian collusion. And Yeah. Yeah. And you got Hillary Clinton saying, you know, there's is a, you know, an air of illegitimacy around Trump's, you know, victory, you know, from 2016 because of this. I mean, she was very clear about it. Um, and as were many others, right? The news is tightening on Trump. It's all going to come out. He's an agent of

40:03 Russia. Yeah. Adam Schiff coming out on camera numerous times saying, you know, I can't tell you what I've seen, but I've seen things that's a lot more than circumstantial evidence about this collusion. So yeah, they but again it's it's much more comp it's always the same thing. It's much more complex than what folks tend to hear just in like a two and a half or three minute news segment, right? So the Democrats want you to think there's nothing to see here in these documents. How could you possibly spend time doing this? You're just trying to distract from the the Epstein files. Um and the Republicans are saying Obama committed treason, right? The reality is, as it oftentimes is, is is somewhere in that middle right there. They there there's a lot of conflating of of issues here. So,

40:50 nobody is questioning, not Republicans or Democrats, nobody's questioning that the Russians meddled in the election just like they did in the previous one, just like they did in this last one. Just like they're always they've been meddling since World War II, right? Since the end of of World War II, they've they've always had an interest in influencing US politics. Now, when you say metal, do you mean like social media bots? Do you mean like influencing politicians? Like, what do you mean by metal? Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, in the early days, what were they doing in the early days? They would uh pay off trade union representatives, right? to to push a certain line to, you know, to push for a softer tone much like the Chinese do now, push for a softer tone against the Soviet Union, right? Or um in in during

41:36 World War II to push for isolationism, keep the US out of the war, right, before the Nazis turned on the Soviet Union than they tended to need us. Um or they would pay journalists to write articles pushing a particular point of view. Um and so there were those things. Now, social media meddling is a lot easier, right? It's a lot cheaper. For sure they do that. Yeah. And for sure they do that. And for sure they did that in 2016. Absolutely. And and nobody's questioning that, right? What's happening is that once again there's a bit of a messaging problem from the Trump administration. Trump administration at the end of the day is saying what was [ __ ] was this Russia collusion angle, right? was the idea that, you know, this is complicated to

42:22 to explain and I'm not doing a very good job of it, but they're saying, "Yes, there was meddling, but you pushed a story, meaning Brennan and Comey and, you know, all the others that were involved in this and then going up to the top with Obama, saying you took what was um a uh intel community assessment um a because everything has an acronym um that said there was no indic ation of of uh of uh Russian efforts to push or influence in a particular direction the election, right? And most of that initial reporting was on um elector election infrastructure. So there was a a fairly, you know, significant bit there that said the Russians did weren't able to hack into election machines and

43:08 actually alter vote counts, right? So they said we have seen no evidence of that. Right? And so you could argue that in part the the the Trump administration is having a hard time explaining much like I am that the problem here wasn't that there was anybody's saying there's no meddling. There's meddling. They just saying that you at a certain point around about December 9th, I think it was, you had a meeting where Obama was sitting in there with Comey and Andrew McCabe and and a variety of others. And the president himself requested a different intelligence community assessment, which is a little unusual for a president to say, "I'd like you to do an AA on a particular thing." Which is Can you elaborate on that? Like, so they were telling him what? Well, they were

43:54 they were telling him, "We don't see um that Russian meddling impacted the election." Basically, the Dems are saying, "Well, that's just about the electronic infrastructure, about the voting machines, right?" In reality, the ICA was also that that instruction, the PDB, the president's daily brief, and and the the the writing that had been done, the analysis had been done up to that point was saying, "Uh, we haven't seen anything that the Russian meddling influenced the outcome of the election." Well, then shortly and then they they squashed that particular piece, right? They said, "Let's let's shove that." And that's what a lot of the emails that Tulsi Gabbard um released show, right? Is like all this agonizing. It's amazing any [ __ ] gets done in the government when you read these emails going back and forth between James Clapper at the

44:41 DNI and and other places. Yeah, you sent me some of that stuff. Yeah. The analysts and others and they're all saying, "Okay, well well what kind of tone do we give it? What do we say about this?" And you can also see in there that they're saying, um, we don't think the Steel Dossier is credible. You know, the two senior Russian analysts right at the agency were telling John Brennan at the time, you if you put the dossier in there as a piece of information into this assessment, you're compromising the credibility of the whole thing because we don't believe it. Right? And this is December, right? And Brennan instructed, and it's in writing, instructed them to go ahead and do it, right? because it basically he was he liked the narrative, right, of the steel dossier, right? And so he chose that over

45:27 um the analytical um process, right, over the discipline that you need to corroborate information that's going to go to a highle um intel assessment. So, you know, if anybody's in in the crosshairs right now, it's probably John Brandon, right? in terms of because he went up on on Capitol Hill at some point and and and said that, you know, the steel dossier didn't form an important point of, you know, wasn't in the the document, wasn't in the ICA is now out there and and sure enough, it was not only in the annex, it was in the body of the report, which gives it much more credibility. So, yeah. So, he, you know, I'm not a lawyer, but, you know, I think he should be concerned a little bit about where that might go. But Obama

46:14 reportedly, and it's in email traffic, you know, requested, right, a different ICA. And so shortly thereafter, they produce a How does he say it? Uh, I forget what the exact wording. I'm not going to crazy thing. If you have a bunch of experts that give you an assessment, these are the facts. This is how it went down. You're like, I don't like those facts. Well, I don't think I don't think he said I don't like the facts. And that's where this is going to be a problem. Anybody who thinks Obama's going to go to prison for treasonous conspiracy, I think again much like Pam Bondi, you know, with the the her treating of the Epstein files, which was ridiculous, Tulsi Gabbard's gotten out over her skis. Treasonous conspiracy, that's what she said. It's not going to happen. Anybody who thinks Obama's going to forget about it. You know, it'll be you'll be lucky if you get any consequences of anything out of this.

47:00 Again, I'm I'm very cynical about where investigations go. Well, isn't this also based on the Supreme Court's justification of everything that Trump did while he was in office? So, you can't try them for they do when they're immunity for, you know, for acting, you know, under the authority as a president. Um, but so, and it's also very nuanced, right? He can sit in there, he's perfectly got the right to sit in a meeting and say, "Okay, well, I tell you what, let's let's sit on this, right?" And James Clapper and the others agree, we're going to we're going to we're going to take this document. we're going to set it aside that we all worked on. Now we want to restructure it focused on, you know, the outcome of the election and the Russian meddling and where this went and how they So, it was he can do that, right? And it's nuance and he can and and never get in trouble because yeah,

47:47 fine. You've got the right to do that. I mean, it's not it's not illegal by any means, but there is no doubt in my mind that there was a desire to um to drive this thing in a certain direction, right? And so there is no doubt in my mind that a first of all, using the steel dossier in there was it was just horseshit, right? because that that thing there hasn't been any allegation in that steel dossier that's that's been verifiable and they knew that right so so they went and they remember they used that steel dossier in part to then go to FISA courts and and get warrants right so that's another issue that I think from a legal perspective again not a lawyer but I think some people should be probably concerned about how they represented

48:34 that information knowing right based on kind of what we're seeing from the the the document releases from Tulsi Gabbard but again you can By virtue of how difficult I'm I'm I'm trying to explain this, it's much more complex, right, than just them bad, these guys good, these guys good, these guys bad, right? It's there's layers here that I think need to be examined. And I think that um at the end of the day, you're not really going to get much like every [ __ ] everything else that happens in DC, you're not going to get a lot of satisfaction on this one. But I do think I'm convinced that yeah, they drove this narrative shortly after into January when they released the new A then suddenly leaks to the press and that's when the Russia collusion story

49:20 happened, right? And that's the you know that's the that's the thing that they should be focused on, right? They're they're losing they're losing the the message because they're they're throwing [ __ ] out there. there's a lot of detail and people get bored and you know so I think that's that's a problem they're going to have here trying to push this thing forward and I do think also that Tulsi Gabard should have been a little bit more circumspect in the way she explained this right and how she described the actions cuz I think there were some people who are culpable in terms of going after this narrative and pushing this Russia collusion story that then wasted a couple of years and you know god knows how much money on investigations and impeachment hearings and all the rest of it. Um, but why do you think she chose to frame it that way? Do you think she was

50:06 instructed to do that or she was guided to do that or encouraged to do that? Cuz if if if it if it's not warranted, if you don't believe it's warranted based on the evidence that you've looked at, like she's the director of national intelligence. How does Well, I think I think she's part of it is the realization that looks I mean you you put that information out there. I think it would have been more appropriate if she'd released all the documentation said here's and and lay out in a very good like almost like a PowerPoint presentation for the you make it very simple for the press because the press isn't inclined to pursue this because the press were complicit, right? So you're trying to say this is what these people did and you helped them. Now what we want is for you, meaning the media, to uncover all of this and report on it. They're not gonna they're [ __ ]

50:51 not gonna they were winning awards, journalistic awards for their coverage of the Russia collusion story, right? So the idea that they're going to somehow now say, "Yeah, that was a problem." So I think they should have maybe just made this more factual based, stayed away from the, you know, the sort of the hyperbolic statements about treason and all the rest of it and then, you know, tried to explain it to the American public in a way that they can digest a little bit better, right? But when you throw out things like treasonous conspiracy, once again, much like with the Epstein thing, you're you're creating this this kind of howling mob that's going to expect something, right? And I just don't know that they're going to get it. But Right. So, do you think that it's possible that she was encouraged to do this because this kind of takes away some of the heat off of the Epstein thing? I'm sure that was a thought process in

51:38 there somewhere. Yeah, possibly. Yeah, I think it's a reasonable assumption. Look, it's an important issue, right? If you have the intel community uh or you have, you know, the the White House um deciding to themselves, look, we know this this information is kind of [ __ ] but it certainly serves a narrative, which is we want to delegitimize the new president that's coming in because we we we can't stand him. Um then that's a really really serious problem that needs to be examined. It's also so shortsighted because do you not know that that information is eventually going to come out that's going to compromise the confidence that people have in anything that the intelligence agencies put forth after that? Yeah. Well, I think a lot of, you know, part of what was going on was the

52:23 expectation that Hillary Clinton was going to win, right? So, like with the steel dossier, try to, you know, dig up leverable information or dirt on on Trump. You know, I think they were all under the assumption, well, Hillary Clinton's gonna win. Doesn't really matter what we do right now because she's gonna cover for us, right? And, you know, I don't think they ever expected Trump to win. So, you know, then suddenly they've got to shift course a little bit and think, okay, all right. Well, now that that didn't work. Now what? Well, let's let's say that we've got this document over here talking about Russian meddling. You know, is it is it is it that much of a push to kind of say that, you know, we we believe there might have been collusion. And the media ran with it, right? They didn't have to do much. They ran with it for three years. Three years. Yeah. Three years. Hardcore all the time. Every time they talked about Trump. Yeah. Which is crazy. Regardless of how you

53:09 feel about Trump, if you're the biggest Trump hater in the world, I understand. But understand this that that is dangerous. It's dangerous to have the media in lock step with the government who's saying something that's not true. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and they and they they scream about, you know, threats to democracy all the time. Let's just be a little bit more self-aware. Realize, you know, what that looked like, right? You can't, you know, people were just bullshitting about evidence that they had or that they saw, right? Well, the Democrats saying anything's a threat to democracy is wild when they haven't had a primary since 2012. That's wild. Yeah. Yeah. That's really wild. I mean, they they kicked Bernie out. They made sure RFK Jr. wasn't in. And then when it came time for Kla to run, no primary at

53:56 all. They just put her in position. Yeah. That's wild. Yeah. They didn't know what else to do. And and and by the way, there's so much going on right now. Um today, speaking of Kamla and and now know speak about Biden, but today uh what was his name? The chief of staff uh the former chief of staff for Biden. I think he was only there for a couple of years. Uh Ron Clay was up on Capitol Hill to talk because they're holding these interviews up on Capitol Hill to try to figure out what the hell was going on, right? What at what point did people decide they're going to cover up the mental condition of Joe Biden? And that's another look, I mean, and then they're all pleading the fifth. They're all pleading the fifth. Kevin Oconor, his uh the White House doctor, um pled the fifth. Um senior adviser to

54:41 Joe Biden, uh what's his name? Bernol, Andrew Bernol, pled the fifth, right? Um you know, and Ron Clay apparently stayed up there for a couple hours talking, right? But, you know, again, I don't he wasn't there for the last couple years of the administration, I think, but he was there for the debate prep, right? And he's come out publicly and said, "I was shocked at his condition." So, you know, people I think they set him up for failure in that debate. Why, first of all, why are they having a debate that late? Why would they agree to a debate at 9:00 p.m.? Yeah. When you got a guy who's really old and kind of broken down, why would you do that? Television timing. Who knows? And it seemed like, didn't someone blame it on him being on Ambient? Yeah, Hunter did. That fantastic

55:27 interview that Hunter just did with U forget his name, Andrew Callahan or something like that. Um, yeah, he he referenced now he's walking it back saying I, you know, I wasn't meaning that he was on Ambient during the debate. I'm just saying, you know, they had him on ambient because of his travel schedule. The guy was guy was at Camp David and and resting in Delaware for 10 days prior to the debate. So yeah, I don't know. Jesus, what a mess. I think they set him up. I think they wanted him out and this is the way to do it. Get him in the debate. Don't give him his medicine. Excuse me. Don't give him the proper medication to keep him up and peppy and let him out there all confused. And apparently he had a cold at the time, too. So was But if you if they were going to do that, wouldn't you think that they would

56:13 um I don't know um have a better plan, a plan B? No, they didn't have a plan. And I think the Biden administration, the people didn't want him to step down. There's people inside the organization that didn't want him to step down. Particularly supposedly Jill. Jill did not want him to step down. But then there's the cancer thing. Like, how do they not know that he has cancer? Well, they had stage four. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which is crazy. Like, that man years of developing. Yeah. Yeah. I I I just think if if there was a if there was a plan, if there was a nefarious plan to have him step down, um I think they thought he would get through it. I think they did. Um he might have if he performed the way he

56:59 performed in the first debate. Yeah. I don't know. I just It seems to me that that they're they were caught in the headlights at the point where where he did so. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to I know Christ. What the [ __ ] is going on? I know. Yeah, it's it's the ambient starting to kick in. Have you ever taken that stuff? No. No. Have you? Scares the [ __ ] out of me. No. You never? Yeah. No. My friend Kevin took it and he got up in the middle of the night, cooked a meal, went to bed, and uh didn't know he cooked the meal, so he went back and saw the plates in the kitchen, thought someone broke into his house and cooked.

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