The Manosphere Report

0:00Okay, everyone. By popular demand, we're doing an all Epstein show today.

0:03My besties are all on vacation for Ski Week, so I'm taking this on solo.

0:07We have three different guests on who all have very different interpretations and opinions of

0:13the Epstein story. Sagar and Jetty from Breaking Points believes that the Epstein story shows

0:17that there is a quote -unquote Epstein class that operates above law and accountability.

0:23He views the story as an indictment of our ruling elites.

0:26Michael Tracy is skeptical about many of the most salacious claims about Epstein and questions

0:31whether they meet any kind of evidentiary standard.

0:34He has criticized the media feeding frenzy over what he has called Epstein mythology.

0:39And finally, Kevin Bass, a citizen journalist who's been tracking the release files and posting

0:43his findings on X, specifically in regards to Reid Hoffman, perhaps the figure in tech

0:48most closely associated with Jeffrey Epstein.

0:51Some of it gets heated, but hopefully you'll come away with new perspectives and great

0:54information. I felt like it was important to showcase a range of viewpoints on this

0:57issue. I'm trying to keep an open mind, and I'll describe my own point of

1:01view at the end of the show.

1:02And with that, here we go.

1:04Sagar, let me start with you.

1:06What is the import of the arrest of Prince Andrew in the UK this morning?

1:13I mean, is this a case of, show us the man and we'll tell you

1:17the crime? I mean, obviously it seems kind of coincidental that he's not being arrested

1:22for misconduct in the Epstein affair.

1:26He's being arrested on mishandling, I guess, trade secrets or public documents.

1:33So obviously the timing of this is not coincidental.

1:36No, it's certainly not coincidental, but I do believe that the facts do matter in

1:39this case. And unfortunately, you know, for Prince Andrew, for Lord Mandelson, the former ambassador

1:44to the United States from the UK as well, it is pretty clear cut that

1:48they did violate their official duties.

1:50We should remember that the crux of this case involving Andrew is not just about

1:55some of the accusations that were made, although that is the genesis, let's say, of

1:58the investigation and of the interest.

2:00This is about Prince Andrew serving as a UK trade advisor and forwarding non -public

2:05information to Jeffrey Epstein that's been released that's currently in the file.

2:09Some of it is involving scheduling.

2:10However, Gordon Brown this morning said that he had actually shared some new information with

2:16Scotland Yard in the police.

2:17So none, it's not exactly just what's in the file, but it could potentially be

2:21other material that Gordon Brown and the chancellery were able to investigate as to what

2:27Prince Andrew was sharing as part of a broader probe into Lord Mandelson and the

2:31tip off that he gave to Jeffrey Epstein about an upcoming bailout.

2:35And I do think that this does reveal quite a lot about Jeffrey Epstein.

2:39The next is the genesis of his rise to power, his wealth, and his influence.

2:43Something that involved, let's say, even some of the co -hosts, let's say, on this

2:47very podcast, which is a deep financial knowledge of money laundering networks, of trying to

2:52be at the very forefront of moving money across the globe, which I believe is

2:57his real power and his influence, which is what enabled much of the behavior that

3:02much of the public is now horrified by.

3:04Okay, wait, I can't let that just go by.

3:07What do you mean by involving co -hosts of this podcast?

3:09Well, I'm talking about Jason.

3:10I actually thought that the Jason email was very interesting.

3:13So you'll see that in 2011, that Jeffrey Epstein is contacting Jason about Bitcoin.

3:18This is by, I saw, I watched your discussion.

3:21I'm not implicating him in any crime.

3:23I'm saying, if you watch and look at that email very closely, you are watching

3:27Jeffrey Epstein, a master money launderer and financial mastermind himself, be at the forefront of

3:33the Bitcoin technology and wondering about it in 2011, which as Jason even pointed.

3:38out in the last episode that you guys did about this when bitcoin was some

3:41one dollar and some sort of open source project like to me that shows how

3:46at the forefront he was of new technology and new ways to move money surreptitiously

3:51across the globe which is what i believe was his real strength and his basically

3:56um his his uh raison d 'etre for being so useful to all of these

4:03foreign governments and intelligence assets including ours russia israel various different israeli or various different

4:11intelligence uh networks across the globe yeah let me just for for viewers this episode

4:16who didn't see that episode let me just summarize what exactly happened there because i

4:21want to just make sure that jason's reputation is not unfairly impugned and i don't

4:28think you're doing that but just to be absolutely clear about it what happened was

4:31that jason hosted an episode of this week in startups roughly i think in 2011

4:36with a couple of the bitcoin core founders and then epstein reached out to him

4:40for an introduction to those people i thought and one of my takeaways from that

4:45was like you said saygar that epstein was extraordinarily early to bitcoin he clearly had

4:51a nose for putting himself in the middle of things i think 2011 is when

4:55i discovered bitcoin so that was relatively early i thought it was almost comical the

5:01way that jason was trying to warn epstein oh you don't want to meet these

5:07guys these are some yeah these are some crazies they're like these crypto libertarians they

5:12want to take down the government there's no profit um there's no investment opportunity here

5:17in a way it was kind of comical that jason was trying to warn epstein

5:24about the bitcoin guys rather than vice versa but i don't really think people knew

5:28at that point in time what epstein was involved in do you disagree with that

5:33do you think people should have known by 2011 well david i mean i will

5:37say well there is a way back machine and we can go back and we

5:39can look at what the google results were and we do have somebody who pled

5:42guilty and look i mean this is for every individual uh to make up their

5:46own mind you can't google for solicitation of prostitution involving a minor i mean that

5:51was literally a matter of public record i can only speak for myself that's not

5:55really somebody i would involve myself with even at a professional level uh and how

5:59do you know yeah how do you know well you can google it it's literally

6:02but it wasn't widely publicized at the time i thought that it was palm beach

6:05posts there were numerous news articles i thought the palm beach beach story didn't come

6:09out until or sorry maybe it was miami herald didn't come out till 2018 well

6:13you're yeah you're talking about the 2018 kind of the broader story but the original

6:17solicitation of prostitution involving a minor charge 2007 i believe is when the non -prosecution

6:23agreement came to bear that was all public record in terms of registration of a

6:27sex offender and again you can use the way back machine you can go back

6:30and look i mean again this doesn't necessarily implicate anybody in a crime and anybody

6:35can make up the decision for themselves as to how they would have uh you

6:39know involved themselves with that person but it was it was out there like it

6:43wasn't unknown and i do think it's not really responsible to imply otherwise quick factual

6:47clarification on that although it wasn't an enormous story at the time you can find

6:52coverage in the new york times in july of 2008 after epstein pleaded guilty to

6:59the two state level prostitution charges we didn't have the full scope of the information

7:03obviously about what he was accused of or the nature of the non -prosecution agreement

7:06but a google search would have yielded that at that time yeah that's right yeah

7:10it's hard for me to judge i certainly in that time period had never even

7:14heard of jeffrey epstein you And I don't think most people had.

7:19When did this become sort of a cause celeb?

7:21I mean, wasn't it more around his arrest?

7:242018, I would say. 2018.

7:26Yeah, I think it's important to explain.

7:27When the incredibly overrated Miami Herald series by Julie K.

7:31Brown, which is just rife with errors and mischaracterizations, became this sensation across the media

7:37landscape. And Julie K. Brown was showered with all these accolades from all these bogus

7:43journalism industry organizations. Even though, for example, I caught her fabricating quotes in her book,

7:48Perversion of Justice, which was based on the initial Miami Herald series.

7:53Yeah, but Michael, I don't think that you would deny.

7:54Most clownish people in the journalism landscape right now.

7:56Michael, I don't think that you would deny that ultimately that this did not.

8:00Yes, it was sparked by Julie K.

8:01Brown's Miami Herald stories that a federal judge was not necessarily like, you know, a

8:06federal judge who reviewed the non -prosecution agreement did say that this was a violation

8:09of the Crime Victims Rights Act.

8:11Yeah, and that was overturned on appeal.

8:13Right. Well, I understand, however, that this has also gone forth to the Supreme Court

8:17involving Ghislaine Maxwell, as I understand now, is currently being litigated.

8:21But I do think it is important.

8:22The Supreme Court rejected it.

8:23Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

8:25You mean Maxwell's appeal? I'm talking about the Maxwell appeal, but specifically the non -prosecution

8:30agreement and the overturning is what re -led to the current indictment of the 2019

8:34indictment of Jeffrey Epstein. No.

8:36That's wrong, Sagar. No. Well, go ahead.

8:38I'm happy for you to explain it to me.

8:39Go ahead. I mean, this is a misconception.

8:41The non -prosecution agreement was never overturned.

8:44Ghislaine Maxwell's argument includes... Let me just finish.

8:47Sure. Ghislaine Maxwell's argument in her appeals included citing the non -prosecution agreement as something

8:55that she claimed she ought to have been covered by and therefore insulated from federal

9:00prosecution, which was initiated against her in 2020.

9:05The non -prosecution agreement was never nullified.

9:08It was never avoided. Bradley Edwards, the victim lawyer, attempted to convince federal judges to

9:14somehow nullify it, but he failed.

9:16The reason why Jeffrey Epstein was federally re -prosecuted in 2019 is because prosecutors in

9:22the Southern District of New York, Maureen Comey et al., concocted this cockamamie rationale for

9:28how they could circumvent the non -prosecution agreement by claiming they found a new victim

9:34in New York, claiming that there was some interstate nexus in which they could tie

9:39some of the old Florida allegations, but it was never nullified at all.

9:43So just to be clear about that.

9:44I apologize for not being very specific in my language.

9:47It was ruled in 2019 that it had violated the Crime Victims Rights Act.

9:52That's what led to the re -indictment.

9:54But what I'm specific... Well, no, no.

9:56There was no connection. Well, no, because that led to the story reopening from Miami

10:00Herald, and that led then to the 2019 SDNY prosecution.

10:04I mean, I'm sorry, not to be combative, but you have your chronology wrong.

10:07The Miami Herald story was based on Julie K.

10:10Brown. Yeah, that was based on Julie K.

10:12Brown colluding with the victim's lawyers, not the court ruling on the Crime Victims Rights

10:17Act. All right, guys, let me just get control of this again, because I think

10:20we're going down a rabbit hole and there's lots of aspects of this story that

10:23we could discuss. I think that we should probably judge each person who interacted with

10:28Epstein or visited his island and so forth and so on individually in terms of

10:32what they actually did, what they actually knew.

10:35Sagar, I just think you're being a little bit unfair to Jason because all he

10:37did was exchange emails with Epstein on in the 2011 time period.

10:43That's all. Well, what I was trying to point out was Jeffrey Epstein's knowledge or

10:48interest of Bitcoin in 2011, and that links to a broader Epstein involvement with money.

10:55money laundering and tax fraud and so -called involvement with Leon Black and many of

11:00these other multi -billionaires who paid him lots of money.

11:03I'm just saying I'm putting that as part of a piece into a broader scheme.

11:07Yes. And I think that exchange was noteworthy for the reason you just said, which

11:11is that Epstein somehow was putting himself in the middle of all sorts of things.

11:15I mean, he's almost like a zealot -like figure who pops up in many different

11:20newsworthy stories over the last few decades, which is what I think makes this interesting.

11:24I think maybe a question for each of you is, who do you think this

11:28guy ultimately was? I mean, you hear all sorts of theories.

11:33Let's say maybe the Epstein maximalist position would be that he was an intelligence asset

11:42or intelligence agent who was running a vast compromise operation on his island and thereby

11:49was corrupting and blackmailing the world's elite to someone who...

11:55I think, Michael, you have a different point of view on that.

11:58Let me not characterize it.

12:00I'll let you guys do it.

12:01But, Sagar, let me start with you.

12:03Who do you think this guy was?

12:04And ultimately, you know, at a 30 ,000 -foot level, what do you think is

12:09going on here? What is this Epstein story really about?

12:11And then, Michael, I want to go to you on the same question.

12:13Yeah, sure. I mean, I do think that there is a very low IQ, unfortunate,

12:17you know, explosion of accusations that are out there.

12:20And I want to be very responsible in the way that I describe it.

12:23I think that Jeffrey Epstein was somebody who arose under very suspicious conditions in the

12:291980s, potentially involving Iran -Contra knowledge, specifically with arms traffickers like Adnan Khashoggi and Douglas

12:37Lease, Steven Hoffenberg as well.

12:39And that these black market money laundering, tax evasion strategies were honed over a period

12:45which eventually ensnared various people like Leslie Wexner and many other multi -billionaires.

12:51And that at the very same time, he also had, you know, his sexual proclivities,

12:55which I think at this point were well known, and that those became and became

12:59useful. His money laundering, specific duties and knowledge and usefulness, let's say, to the CIA,

13:05to various other intelligence assets, became a very useful part of the nexus in the

13:10post -Cold War environment. And that at the time, it was also socially known for

13:16a lot of Epstein associates that he had this bizarre practice of often, you know,

13:21seeking out massages, which in some cases, they are saying involving underage girls.

13:26And so to say that he was running a vast compromise operation, I think, ascribes

13:32too much intention to what's really happening here.

13:34And the reason why I'm being intentional in my language is that what he clearly

13:38was doing was recruiting and running this like vast massage scheme, also involving Ghislaine Maxwell

13:44at all across the world, Russian and Eastern European women, but also that this behavior

13:50was tolerated in some cases seen by a vast number of the global elite.

13:55Now, the 2007 circumstances of the non -prosecution agreement, you know, Michael and I could

13:59go back on this forward a long time as to the circumstances of which that

14:04arose. However, I don't think, Michael, you would even deny that his access to wealth,

14:08power and money did eventually allow him to get off with the 2007 non -prosecution

14:13agreement and the eventual sweetheart deal that he gets with his hiring.

14:17I wouldn't agree with that, actually.

14:18Well, I mean, I don't think the average Joe can just hire Ken Starr and

14:22private investigators and lawyers to tell some of the victims.

14:25Oh, sure. I mean, his vast wealth enabled him to secure very high -powered legal

14:29representation. Well, that's what I'm claiming is this whole concept of a sweetheart deal.

14:33Yeah. It's a total canard that it was popularized by Julian K.

14:36Brown. Michael, I don't want to get off on that yet, but just go back

14:39to my original question of what is your 30 ,000 -foot take on what this

14:43story is about? Who was this guy in your view?

14:46I will answer that. However, I do want to just stipulate up front that I

14:50think this reflex to have to offer some kind of totalistic assessment of who Jeffrey

14:56Epstein was and his very essence has fed into so much of the constant churn

15:01of algorithmic slop that has generated this hysterical frenzy around this issue and has led

15:08to people being totally deluded about what we're even talking about.

15:12I have some surmises about Jeffrey Epstein.

15:16He definitely was a money manager who, as you mentioned, was sort of like this

15:19zealite character who did have an extraordinary cross -section of connections with people from across

15:24fields. And I just was looking through some of these records in the new Epstein

15:31Files productions, and I was looking for something else.

15:33But there's an archive of these old message pads that he had at his Palm

15:37Beach house. And I'm scrolling through, and it turns out Holly Berry left him a

15:41couple of messages. I had no idea that Holly Berry was ever in contact with

15:44Jeffrey Epstein. So you can always find somebody new and novel who apparently had one

15:49dealing or another with him.

15:50But why are we talking about Jeffrey Epstein right now in February of 2026?

15:56Because he is believed to have been the most prolific child sex trafficker in American

16:02or perhaps world history, which is why this issue might now take down the British

16:07government. It's embroiling Norway. A minister in Slovakia had to resign over it.

16:13There's a new criminal investigation that was just launched in France, et cetera.

16:17That's what people conceive Jeffrey Epstein to have been.

16:21And that whole notion is based on just an onslaught of mythological nonsense that's pumped

16:28out daily by these YouTube shows.

16:31I won't mention names, podcasts, et cetera, social media personalities who are driven by these

16:38perverse algorithmic incentives to be totally divorced from the facts, foreground this rampant speculation that

16:44ties in the Mossad, ties in unnamed other intelligence agencies with this presumed implication or

16:53this presumed reality that, of course, we know for sure that Jeffrey Epstein was running

16:59this pedo crime ring. And they presuppose a conclusion that's just been floating out there

17:05in the ether thanks to all this horrendous media coverage.

17:08I think this is the worst story of my adult lifetime in terms of the

17:12media coverage, and it implicates the alternative media, the mainstream media, and everybody in between.

17:17It's actually shocking. I will predict here and now that if we revisit this issue

17:21in, I don't know, two or three years, people will come to realize, if I

17:25have anything to do with it, that they were bamboozled on a mass scale.

17:30There's genuine fraud that has been rampant in terms of the journalistic malfeasance.

17:34We're not supposed to ever consider the massive financial incentives where the Epstein industry is

17:40now something like I've estimated a billion dollars in terms of the payouts that have

17:44been given to purported victims who are allowed to just reimagine things that happened to

17:50them 20 years before as an adult, not as a child, but adult at the

17:54time of their claim victimization, and then call themselves a sex trafficking victim.

17:58And then they can secure a couple million dollars tax -free from J .P.

18:02Morgan, and the media will hail them as these brave survivors without doing a single

18:07thing to check the veracity of any of their claims.

18:10You know why people are so upset about it?

18:12these redactions in the Epstein files.

18:13And I'm upset, too. I criticized Thomas Massey and Ro Khanna for the language of

18:18their bill that they crafted, the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which they crafted in concert

18:23with Bradley Edwards, this extortionist, quote unquote, victim's lawyer who's made a killing on this

18:28issue over the past 10 years in conjunction with David Boyes, another shyster.

18:33And Bradley Edwards, at his urging, Ro Khanna and Thomas Massey put in this giant

18:39carve out to so -called transparency and disclosure into their bill such that the DOJ

18:44was authorized to redact or withhold or conceal any information that could be the most

18:49tangentially tied to anything that's, quote, victim identifying.

18:53So they've been arguing frantically in federal court for the past few months that they're

18:57opposed to the disclosure of Epstein files because it's going to terrorize all these beleaguered

19:03women. I don't know. Do you think that maybe if we did get full transparency,

19:07it might disrupt this sanitized, quote, survivor narrative that everybody pushes so credulously?

19:14I'll just give you one example, and I don't want to go on for too

19:16long. And there's so many threads that I could pull here that you have to

19:20kind of rein me in.

19:21But one narrative that could disrupt if we actually did get genuine disclosure, which we're

19:26not. And in fact, Edwards at all demanded that the entire archive be taken down

19:30because this disclosure was just too horrendously threatening to them.

19:36We would maybe get more insight into some of the government propaganda that's been allowed

19:40to promulgate unchecked. And Sagar, I wonder if you've corrected this on breaking points.

19:45You can let me know.

19:46But for months, politicians across the media, the political spectrum, as well as the media

19:53writ large, have unthinkingly regurgitated this figure that there were over a thousand victims of

19:58Jeffrey Epstein. Sometimes that gets upgraded to thousands of victims.

20:01That's what Pramila Jayapal said at the Bondi hearing last week.

20:05Ro Khanna constantly blurts out this whole, this claim of over a thousand survivors.

20:10And this is based on the July 6, 2025 FBI DOJ memo, which claimed that

20:15they, after a review of the evidence after the second Trump administration came in, they

20:20found that over 1 ,000 victims were, quote, harmed by Epstein.

20:23So they used this very conspicuous weasel wordage.

20:27And it was very dubious to me the instant I read it.

20:30Turns out, you know, thank God on some level for the Epstein files, because there

20:33is a major revelation contained therein, which is that this whole, this number is a

20:37fraud. It's bogus. They, they, they admit in FBI memoranda that this number is based

20:44on a total of purported victims, the majority of whom were, would have been adults

20:49at the time of their claim victimization anyway.

20:51But if that includes the family members of alleged victims in that total number, that's

20:57been bandied about. Well, Michael, how many alleged victims are there?

21:00Well, who knows? Why is the government deceiving the public about it?

21:04If people want to be mad about Cash Patel and Pam Bondi for something, be

21:08mad at Cash Patel and Pam Bondi for putting out that phony propagandistic figure and

21:12then have it be repeated ad nauseum without the slightest bit of critical discernment.

21:17Well, I do, Michael, I think we can at least agree that Cash Patel and

21:20Pam Bondi haven't handled this all that responsibly.

21:22What happened on that particular issue?

21:23Oh, well, I mean, you're asking me to correct the record of something I've never

21:26even uttered. I've never said the word over 1 ,000 people.

21:30That's literally not something that I've ever claimed.

21:33I mean, I do think, Michael, that what you like to do is to go

21:36after. And really, I think fundamentally, I'm not even sure if you would reject this.

21:40You reject the idea of victimization, that post -victimization can even happen.

21:44And I also, I don't even necessarily want to get to.

21:46I reject the idea of victimization.

21:47I don't even know what that means.

21:48Well, you reject the idea that an adult...

21:49Hold on, Michael, Michael, let's talk about it.

21:50could be victimized, let's say, by Jeffrey Epstein, manipulated.

21:54Yes. And even in some cases, money works changing hands.

21:57I will say, by the way, that just paying or flying in adult women from

21:59Eastern Europe for the express purposes of having sex is a crime, by the way.

22:03Sure, it's not underage. However, we do have the 2007 draft indictment where there were

22:08a number of underage victims that were mentioned there, where Epstein specifically asked a 15

22:12year old if he knows anybody who's younger that he could be able to recruit

22:16it. And so I do think your core contention that at the end of the

22:18day, he wasn't a quote, pedophile is definitely illegitimate.

22:21But I also don't necessarily want to get dragged into the victim stuff, which I

22:26think that you are fundamentally focused on, because I do think when you're saying, why

22:30are people talking about this?

22:31It confirms a general suspicion of the way that people act with impunity at the

22:36highest levels of American or global society in terms of their moral character, in terms

22:41of their dealings, let's say, financially.

22:44And, you know, you like to brush across this intelligence question.

22:48I actually, I would love for you to be able to just grapple with some

22:51of the facts, you know, necessarily just related today, where the Israeli government was installing

22:55surveillance equipment in Epstein -owned apartments by use for the former prime minister of Israel,

23:00Ayyud Barak, where we have Ayyud Barak and Epstein joking questioningly about Mossad, where Epstein

23:06is foiling. 1999, the CIA, for any mention of himself for the very dealings that

23:12he himself had with the arms dealing industry in the 1980s, for the fact that

23:16he had a false Austrian passport at the age of 29 years old, Austria being

23:21the capital of spies, long before he ever became, you know, very filthy rich.

23:26And so, Michael, I think what you're obfuscating is a general interest in the story.

23:30And often that what you try to do is find the lowest IQ, most maximalist

23:34people talking about cannibals or anything like that, and then paint that as a bigger

23:39question. No, but it is, Michael, even in your - I barely mentioned the cannibalism

23:43stuff. I mean, of course, that kind of historical lunacy.

23:46Yeah, you paint the rest of us who believe, let's say, in some of a

23:50bigger part of this story as - I mean, Sagar, if you believe that we

23:54can just accept at face value that a 21 -year -old model who accepted an

23:58invitation to visit Jeffrey's Island when she was in the British Virgin Islands - Potentially

24:02under false pretenses - Oh, let me finish.

24:04Let me finish. Potentially under false pretenses by Jean -Luc Brunel, who, by the way,

24:08is investigating - And you don't bother even looking into it.

24:08No, I had nothing to do with Jean -Luc Brunel.

24:10What do you mean I don't bother looking into it?

24:10This is nonsense. I mean, I'm talking - Tell me if you've looked into what

24:13I'm about to describe. Can I have 30 seconds to describe it?

24:15All right, go ahead. Lisa Phillips, who was one of the women, quote, survivors, who

24:20spoke at these press conferences in front of the U .S.

24:22Capitol and infamously declared that she and her fellow survivors were going to create their

24:28own list of Epstein clients and then hand it over to Marjorie Taylor Greene and

24:32Thomas Massey so they could read it out on the floor of the House of

24:34Representatives under the protections of the Speech and Debate Clause and caused a giant media

24:39firestorm, as I don't have to remind you.

24:42Her whole tale of victimization is that at age 21, as a professional model, she

24:47was on a photo shoot in the British Virgin Islands.

24:49Another girl, you know, or young woman that she was with invited her to take

24:53a ferry to Jeffrey Epstein's island in the U .S.

24:56Virgin Islands. She accepted. She never claimed victimization for like 17 or 20 years.

25:02She's on a podcast in 2020 saying, gee whiz, I never heard anything about all

25:07this crazy Epstein stuff, but I knew him and I don't know what went to

25:10happen there. Then all of a sudden, JP Morgan opens its floodgates for settlements of,

25:16you know, $290 million. You know, I know like we're not supposed to acknowledge human

25:21nature about what that can incentivize on this particular subject.

25:24I mean, explain that to me.

25:26And she now claims that we're supposed to just take her to be a survivor?

25:30She was the one, one of the women who also stood up and protested Pam

25:33Bondi last week. So yeah, Sagar, if you do take at face value that that

25:37person can be rightly designated as a victim and fuel and foment this giant worldwide

25:43pedophilia crisis that we're supposedly in the midst of, then I don't know.

25:47I mean, I consider you to have a pretty high IQ and that's just not

25:50some like rando on social media talking about cannibals.

25:53So you tell me if you agree that that's a legitimate case of victimization and

25:58it should be. Michael, I think you've just done the classic example of selecting somebody.

26:03Look, I'm not here to defend every so -called Epstein victim because by the way,

26:06I think that what you do very expertly is finding people like Lisa Phillips and

26:10then part trying to portray all of them of that sort.

26:13Like, would you deny that vast wire transfers were sent to Eastern Europe to fly

26:17in women for the express purposes of sex?

26:20Because that actually is. Adult women.

26:22Okay. Is that not a crime, Michael?

26:24Have you Googled the Mann Act?

26:25I mean, for somebody who has actually looked into prostitution, I mean, this is what

26:29I'm talking about is that, by the way, also, you have not yet grappled with

26:32the 2007 draft indictment there against FC.

26:34I'm happy to get into it.

26:35Okay. I mean, look, I have unfortunately a very limited amount of time.

26:38I have four requests outstanding for that.

26:40Hold on, guys. So Sagar told us up front that he only had half an

26:44hour. So, you know, we don't have that much time.

26:47Listen, Sagar, let me ask you a couple other questions.

26:49And then once Sagar leaves, Michael, we can get you to say what you want

26:52to say. I want to go to the Les Wexner deposition the other day.

26:56What did we learn from that specifically about how Epstein got his start?

27:02I do think that there are these questions about, again, who this guy was, how

27:08did he accumulate hundreds of millions of dollars so early in his career?

27:12How did he seem to obtain all these different connections specifically to the intelligence world?

27:20Did any of that get resolved?

27:23And what's your take on that?

27:25No, David, it wasn't resolved.

27:26Unfortunately, the entire transcript is not public.

27:29What we do know from the House Oversight Committee, at least what's been released now

27:32so far, is Leslie Wexner said he was never questioned ever once by the FBI

27:36or the Department of Justice involving this case.

27:39I will say, if you look at the track record of Leslie Wexner, it's incredibly

27:42bizarre. He claims that Epstein was a con man who stole his money for decades.

27:46In 1991, we have the power of attorney that was signed over to him.

27:50He claims that Epstein was a financial genius and a wizard.

27:53We have the transferring of the townhome, which eventually there was some payment that was

27:57reconciled on the back end.

27:59But an incredible amount of control that Jeffrey Epstein had over Leslie Wexner's finances, over

28:04the Wexner Foundation, which he used to funnel money to Ayyud Barak, the former prime

28:08minister of Israel, support many Zionist causes under the Wexner Foundation, including the Wexner Fellowship

28:14currently at Harvard University. I do think it's important for us to explore some more

28:18of that. There's some very odd dealings with the beginnings of their relationship.

28:22Previous Epstein associates have testified that in 1992, which is shortly after power of attorney

28:27and all of that was acquired, or the relationship, sorry, between Epstein and Wexner began

28:33is that much of Epstein's lifestyle exploded.

28:36Wexner does not even dispute that Epstein had vast control over his finances and even

28:40claims that he was stolen from by Jeffrey Epstein, that their relationship is supposed to

28:46have ended sometime, I think, in 2007.

28:48But he has not yet answered questions about this relationship in an open public forum

28:53beyond some statements. And he currently did issue an opening statement for the record.

28:57I personally would like to see the release of that transcript.

29:00I mean, all for transparency here in this particular case, he's an 88 year old

29:04man. And I do think it's genuinely bizarre.

29:06Oh, and not not. Steven mentioned the modeling industry, which, you know, which Wexner himself

29:12was involved in. And there's several emails, including Wexner's own crude drawing in the Epstein

29:17birthday book involving boobs that he said that's all Epstein ever wanted.

29:22So their relationship is bizarre.

29:24It goes back decades. Wexner maintains, as I said, that he was conned and that

29:28he was stolen from. I don't really believe much of that story.

29:32Michael, you and I have now read thousands of Epstein emails.

29:35There's no sophisticated financial instruments going on, even back to the very beginnings of Jeffrey

29:43Epstein's claims here about managing money.

29:46Almost none of it passes the smell to David.

29:48You're a very high net worth individual.

29:50You can go to Goldman Sachs or many other financial houses and get teams of

29:54people to manage money for sophisticated financial instruments and others not available to the rest

30:00of us. It'd be very odd for you to turn over your finances to Jeffrey

30:04Epstein. Yeah. So he began his career, I guess, at Bear Stearns.

30:08I guess there's a brief stint where he worked.

30:10I guess he one of the curious things about him is he dropped out of

30:13college around age 20. I guess he was studying math.

30:17He then was a teacher at the Dalton School for like a year.

30:20Correct. And then he worked at Bear Stearns for four years.

30:23He met Ace Greenberg through the Dalton School.

30:26Greenberg, I think it was one of his children was there.

30:29And then he went to Bear Stearns.

30:30He's fired from Bear Stearns after a couple of years.

30:33And that's when his descent into what I call like the darkness, his expertise in

30:37money laundering. I believe that that's when it was honed as reflects in the record

30:40and the testimony of the people who dealt with him there at the time, including

30:44the false passport, Iran Contra, arms smuggling and all of that that I've laid out.

30:48So can I ask you a quick question?

30:49I know you have to go soon.

30:50And I'm honestly curious if you would agree with the statement from Thomas Massey.

30:53This is from February 16th.

30:56He says, quote, we're exposing the extent of Epstein's global pedophile ring and how it

31:03touches our government and aristocracy.

31:05So do you think it's a factually valid statement that what we know to have

31:11taken place and maybe even is still ongoing is a, quote, global pedophile ring?

31:15Well, I mean, when what you're asking about a global pedophile ring is, well, sorry,

31:22this is Thomas Massey saying Thomas Massey, a global pedophile ring is a ring of

31:27global elites who seemed aware and perhaps participated in the abuse of underage children.

31:34Now, Michael, I will grant you this.

31:36And what I respect you the most statement.

31:38Well, no, I will grant you this.

31:39What I think you do well is to parse the actual individual claim of many

31:43of the victims and others that are out there.

31:45And I actually think you have a great role in this ecosystem for debunking, especially

31:49some of the lowest IQ content, which is out there like you did with the

31:52torture video. So I do want to appreciate you for doing that.

31:55That was low hanging fruit.

31:57I mean, I don't really appreciate this idea that I only focus on low IQ

32:01social media. OK, Michael, I've delved it very deeply into the legal minutia of all

32:07this saga. Yes, I know you have.

32:08Jeffrey Epstein is just casually called a pedophile virtually everywhere in the media and among

32:14every politician. And Michael, much of your criticism of what he was convicted of in

32:18Florida. Right, but your criticism, Michael, is that actually he was an abelophile because he

32:21was like post -pubescent 15 -year -old girls.

32:24Don't you find it bizarre that for all the enormous media resources that have been

32:28poured into this story over the past however many years by newspapers, magazines, podcasts, Netflix

32:34specials, you name it. And I guess I'm the only one who ever thought to

32:37actually go into the Florida court docket and pull up the transcript of the plea

32:40hearing in June of 2008 when he entered his guilty plea in charge.

32:45Florida for two state level prostitution charges.

32:48And he's called a convicted pedophile ad nauseum.

32:52It turns out the sole minor victim who was cited in that plea hearing as

32:57the sole minor to whom he procured for prostitution was literally 17 years old.

33:03Yes, Michael, I understand that because they picked the oldest person in the indictment to

33:07plead guilty to. And there's a 14, 15 year old, which is named in the

33:112007 draft indictment, which was released.

33:13Michael, you're focusing. I am focusing on a federal document.

33:17There's a federal document which specifically alleges a 14 and 15 year old who are

33:21abused, including asking a 15 year old if there is this 2007 draft.

33:25You have read it. You're going to take his dispositive.

33:28Well, I'm not going to.

33:29OK, unfortunately, it was never it was never contested because of the plea agreement, which

33:33eventually came forward. I mean, I think you're using the same tactic Alan Dershowitz did

33:37in his defense. Unfortunately, I have nothing to do with Dershowitz or I don't share

33:41his tactical. I unfortunately have to take my child to a doctor's appointment.

33:45That's more important as I flagged to.

33:48Yeah, you do. And in the beginning of this entire thing.

33:51And I do want to say operating a good faith as well, Sagar, for the

33:54most part, unlike a lot of people who have glommed on to this story and

33:58you're willing to, you know, engage on the substance.

34:00So that, again, is appreciated by me.

34:02And, you know, whenever you'd like to engage further, I'm always available.

34:05All right, Michael. Thank you, David, for the invitation.

34:08Yes. Thank you for coming, Sagar.

34:09Appreciate it. All right. So, Michael, let me kind of reset here.

34:13Okay. I'm not sure you've had a chance to kind of lay out your case

34:18for what you called Epstein mythology.

34:21Yeah. So I want to give you a chance to kind of just lay out

34:24your thesis here that what's happening is actually a type of moral panic or feeding

34:30frenzy, a type of hysteria.

34:32You've compared it to the Salem witch trials.

34:35Yeah. There was also the case in the 1980s of the whole Dacre child abuse.

34:39Satanic panic. That's the satanic panic.

34:41That's what it's called. Where I think hundreds of people went to jail or were

34:44prosecuted for that. It turned out.

34:46I don't know if it was hundreds, but more than enough to make it a

34:49extreme miscarriage of justice. So that's the comparison you've made.

34:54So I guess I want to let you lay out that case in a clear

34:58way, because I'm not sure that you've had a chance to quite do that yet.

35:01Yeah. I mean, I've definitely laid out my case on this score in many other

35:05venues and on many other occasions, but I guess not on this particular podcast yet.

35:09So I'm happy to sketch it out.

35:11In terms of the satanic panic parallel, that's not one that I would have necessarily

35:15been most inclined to bring up until recently, just because there's now this new layer

35:21of the mythology that's been added with the production of these Epstein quote files, where

35:27people are reading snippets of emails to signify some kind of coded messaging around cannibalism

35:33or around grotesque child sacrifice.

35:36That really wasn't a hallmark of the Epstein story so much before this enormous tranche

35:42of emails were released. And it relates to the satanic panic frenzy insofar as claims

35:52around such things as truly grotesque child sacrifice, mutilation of infants, bathing toddlers in blood.

36:02All the most nightmarish scenarios you could possibly dream up were alleged in the 1980s

36:08and taken deadly seriously by the authorities, resulting in, as you alluded to, a good

36:16number of people actually being thrown in prison for many years.

36:18And it was found to be just a gigantic hoax.

36:22But maybe I'm more... app parallel that also would have been apt even before this

36:27latest record production is that the satanic panic frenzy of the 1980s was ultimately concluded

36:35to have originated really with one woman who was just straightforwardly mentally ill, delusional, needed

36:42to essentially be institutionalized, and yet she would make claims about child sex abuse that

36:48the authorities countenanced or gave credence to, and there's a similar thing going on with

36:53the Epstein mythology. Now, when I mention the Epstein mythology, I'm not talking about the

36:582007 -2008 Florida non -prosecution agreement or that whole scenario that Sagar brought up in

37:04piecemeal before. That's a different element of this whole story.

37:08The mythology developed later, mostly around 2014 with the introduction of these new claims by

37:16Virginia Roberts -Gouffre and her lawyers, Bradley Edwards, Paul Cassell, later David Boies, in which

37:22she alleged that she had been child sex trafficked around the world and that she

37:31knew that Epstein enforced this child sex trafficking operation via blackmail.

37:36And also she made specific allegations against three particular individuals, Alan Dershowitz, Prince Andrew, John

37:43Luke Brunel. And then also she accused a generic category of other high -profile persons

37:50who she didn't specify as also victimizing her like prime ministers and politicians and presidents

37:58and so forth. So that's basically the origin of what I would call the mythology,

38:02which is just sort of a different order or magnitude than the initial Palm Beach

38:10prosecution, which was effectively a local crime.

38:13But in terms of the parallel to the satanic panic, Virginia Roberts -Gouffre was a

38:18profoundly disturbed, mentally unwell person who was validated and legitimized and now continues to be

38:27celebrated as some kind of martyr for truth, even though if anybody had used a

38:32lick of discernment as to her claims, it would have been found that she could

38:36not be treated so credulously.

38:39Maybe she needed some help, but this idea that she would be the basis for

38:44this global scandal that's rocking all these countries is just outrageous.

38:48And there are two others who are fundamental, two other mentally ill women.

38:51And I don't say that even to be pejorative or derogatory at all.

38:54It's just objectively true. If you take a look, Maria Farmer is one of these

38:58other definitely mentally ill persons who, for example, introduced or was integral in introducing this

39:04idea that Epstein had cameras set up in all his bedrooms and bathrooms and was

39:08surreptitiously recording prominent people so he could use it for blackmail.

39:12And then another one, Sarah Ransom, was one of the people who spurred the mythology

39:17in large part around the island.

39:19So she came to claim after going through several mental health crises that she had

39:26been systematically raped at the island, even though when she actually had to eventually give

39:29deposition, she really described nothing of the sort.

39:33She was also an adult when she went to the island voluntarily.

39:36And she described what was effectively a consensual minor sexual encounter with Epstein, but she

39:43dramatized it radically in the wake.

39:46And people don't know. I mean, David, did you know this or does anybody know

39:50that in the public know that despite everybody and their mother, including like Roe Kahn

39:55and Thomas Massey at all, declaring that the Epstein property in the U .S.

40:01Virgin Islands, the private island, that it's rape island or pedophile island, that there's never

40:05been a credible allegation of rape ever discovered that that took place on that island?

40:11Like, is that well -known or am I crazy?

40:13No, it's not well -known.

40:15The only reason I knew is because I've heard you on a couple of podcasts,

40:19so I thought it was important to get you on as a counterpoint.

40:22So just with respect to these three women, they did go to the island.

40:26Is that true? Sarah Ransom did.

40:29Okay. Maria Farmer, no. Maria Farmer is the one who purported that she was actually

40:35the original Epstein accuser, and she was this great hero whistleblower because she tried to

40:41sound the alarm way before all these other females were abused.

40:45She claims that in 1996, after she had been a 25 -year -old employee of

40:53Epstein's who basically sat at his front desk in his New York townhouse, that she

40:58was invited and accepted to go to the Ohio compound of Lexley Wexner to be

41:05an artist in residence of sorts because she was a painter.

41:08And then she claimed that over the course of her interactions with Epstein and Maxwell,

41:14she ended up filing a first attempted police report and then went to the FBI.

41:19And she never really specified what it is that she claimed that she reported to

41:22the FBI with any clarity, but she told this tale about how Epstein had supposedly

41:28stolen these photographs that she had produced of her younger sisters who were below the

41:32age of 18 so that she could use those photographs to paint paintings of her

41:36younger sisters in the nude.

41:38Now, I don't know. I mean, I guess that's a confession to production of child

41:41pornography, but technically speaking, but that's what she claimed.

41:45And then she also added that she had been sexually assaulted or abused or raped

41:49by both Epstein and Maxwell.

41:51And somehow over the course of that assault at age 26, she had like a

41:54divine revelation, literally, and realized that they were both pedophiles.

41:59This is how she recounted it years after the fact.

42:02And if you look at the police, that FBI intake report or the complaint that

42:06was memorialized that has come out in terms of what was contemporaneously documented, she mentioned

42:13nothing about a sexual assault.

42:14She mentioned nothing about any kind of sex crime at all.

42:16She simply claims that these photos of hers were stolen and there's never been any

42:20evidence that those photos were actually stolen.

42:23So that's one person. And these three women, Ransom, Farmer, Roberts Gouffray, were all integral

42:31in different dimensions of the mythology.

42:34They were incredibly important name plaintiffs in critical litigation.

42:38Criminal investigations were launched based on the basis of their claims in various respects.

42:43And they're all just profoundly mentally ill, erratic, and wholly unreliable to the degree that

42:51if we're going to have an international pedophilic mass hysteria narrative that's at all predicated

42:57on their claims, then we've entered into a fantasy land because it will never in

43:02the future hold up to any kind of rational re -evaluation or scrutiny at all.

43:07Okay. So Robert Scouffray or VRG as I think you've called her in your substack.

43:12Yeah. When did she come forward with her story?

43:17Because she was the basis of that Netflix movie or documentary called Filthy Rich about

43:24Epstein. You're saying that that happened after the whole 2008 Palm Beach?

43:30Yeah, I'll explain. By the way, Filthy Rich, which over this past summer when the

43:36Epstein Fuhrer kind of got reignited, it skyrocketed to one of the - you know,

43:41the top of the charts on Netflix once again.

43:43So that little piece of commercial propaganda has been very determinative in terms of how

43:50people have had their perception shaped of this issue.

43:54And it is like literal propaganda, I would argue, in the sense that it was

43:58concocted as a PR vehicle for the quote -unquote victims and especially their lawyers to

44:05create like a public clamor for some kind of remedial action to be taken against

44:13Epstein's co -conspirators or more relevantly his estate.

44:17It was a maneuver. It was a PR maneuver by a legal team who worked

44:23alongside the producers of that documentary, as it has been so much of the mass

44:28market entertainment products that have been produced around the Epstein affair.

44:33It's only taken from that one perspective of the purported victims.

44:37And that perspective is shaped very carefully by their lawyers to create this sanitized survivor

44:44narrative that is now the predominant one.

44:46But in terms of her origins, yes, she initially filed some civil litigation around, I

44:55want to say, 2009, 2010, maybe 2008, as a Jane Doe, maybe 2011, somewhere in

45:04that range, first as a Jane Doe, meaning she wasn't named in the litigation.

45:08And this related to a period of around 2001, 2002, when she was in the

45:15Epstein orbit to some extent.

45:17And there's evidence that she was in the Epstein orbit to some extent.

45:20She's not hallucinating everything. I've argued that she's not so much a liar, I wouldn't

45:25say. I've never directly accused her of lying about anything as such.

45:29I've said that she's kind of confabulated in alternate reality.

45:34And that's a little bit different because it doesn't necessarily connote willful deceits.

45:38And it's almost even more disturbing if you think about it.

45:41What's your basis for that?

45:43The big one, I guess, is that in your view that she recanted her story

45:48about Dershowitz or? Yeah, she recanted her story, not just about Dershowitz.

45:53That's maybe the most well -known instance of her recanting one of her marquee claims.

45:58And it really only came about because Dershowitz was unusually motivated to actually pursue some

46:04sort of resolution through a very protracted litigation process against very high -powered lawyers.

46:09I mean, one of the fallacies here is that these survivors, quote unquote, such as

46:13Virginia, are taken to be these beleaguered victims, et cetera, who had no power at

46:17all in this dynamic. And yet, I mean, they were represented by some of the

46:20most powerful and skillful lawyers in the country, such as David Boyce, who's like one

46:25of the best known lawyers of all time and was hugely well -resourced.

46:31And also, you know, Virginia became incredibly wealthy, maybe not as wealthy as you, David,

46:36but, you know, estimates range from like $15, $20, $25 million.

46:41It's hard to know because a lot of the settlement details are secret.

46:45So it wasn't just this hapless victim who had nothing, no leg to stand on

46:49in order to make her claims.

46:51But yeah, Dershowitz, she ended up recanting her allegations.

46:54And bear in mind, it wasn't just that she, you know, happened to level some

47:00accusation at some point, maybe in like casual banter.

47:04It's that she made allegations of herself having been victimized by Dershowitz sexually on at

47:10least six or seven occasions.

47:11And she described each individual instance of that victimization in vivid, graphic, almost grotesque detail,

47:18describing being - ... ...

47:19Dershowitz's body parts, sexual proclivities, et cetera.

47:22And she did this in sworn affidavits and under deposition.

47:26So could theoretically even be subject to perjury charges should a prosecutor ever have been

47:31inclined to bring them, which of course they wouldn't have been in this environment.

47:35But it goes much further.

47:37She had to recant claims against a Harvard professor, Stephen Cosselin, who she claimed she

47:42had intercourse with. She recanted even claims against Jean -Luc Brunel, who's another sort of

47:48actor or a player in this whole story that leads people to make their postulations

47:53about there being this supposedly international sex trafficking ring because he was like a modeling

47:57mogul. But he ended up getting arrested by French authorities under pressure from the US

48:03in 2019 after Epstein himself was federally indicted and arrested.

48:08And given the vagaries of the French legal system, which I don't fully comprehend still

48:13in relation to the United States, he was in custody or incarcerated for quite a

48:17long time prior to any formal charges being brought.

48:19Eventually she's called to provide evidence against Virginia is called from Australia to go to

48:24Paris to provide evidence against Jean -Luc Brunel in 2021 in this format that is

48:31nothing that takes place in the US, but it's like where the both of defense

48:34and the prosecution have an ability to question or have colloquies with the accuser.

48:37And she ends up having to retract her claims against him as well.

48:40And her lawyers had to admit that this memoir that she produced or memoir manuscript

48:45that she produced in 2011 and 2012, that she was sort of scheming with this

48:49ghost writer who was potentially going to work with her, Sharon Churcher, a journalist at

48:53the Daily Mail. She was scheming about how they could get the biggest possible book

48:58deal or even like a movie deal or some kind of entertainment package deal.

49:02And she already had been paid 160 ,000 plus by the Daily Mail plus serialization

49:07revenue for having done an interview with them and given over the Prince Andrew photo.

49:11And then they wanted to marshal or leverage that momentum publicity wise from the Daily

49:16Mail articles in 2011 into a book.

49:18And so Sharon Churcher in this email exchange, you can go read it, it came

49:22out in litigation, says, hey, yeah, you know what, just like throw out anybody's name

49:27and you can think of who might have had the most fleeting association with Jeffrey

49:31Epstein. And that'll get us the biggest possible book deal that'll entice the most publishers

49:36and agents. And as to Dershowitz, yeah, I mean, he's pretty well known and we

49:42all think he's a pedo.

49:43So throw him in there too.

49:44I mean, that's what they're saying.

49:46Um, and this is your interpretation of what happened with literally what they say.

49:51I'm almost quoting for, I'm not exactly quoting.

49:54Who said that? Who said that?

49:56This is what Churcher says to Virginia Roberts -Gouffre and she's all on board with

50:00it. How do we know that?

50:02Because we have the transcripts of the emails.

50:06Oh, wow. Okay. And they came out of the course of discovery in, in litigation.

50:09And this person was, she was a tabloid trash journalist.

50:15Yeah. Who was working on the scenes with Virginia.

50:16She was a journalist who co -authored the book with her or what was her

50:18involvement? They were in talks for her to potentially be the co -author of the

50:21book. Uh, so they were, they were sort of strategizing as to how they could

50:25get a book deal or get a literary agent to sign on with Virginia and

50:31get her a lucrative book deal.

50:34And then what, what ended up happening?

50:37A draft manuscript was produced.

50:40I don't know exactly how involved Churcher was in the - Was there a book

50:43published or? Not initially. Finally, a version did eventually come out last October after Virginia

50:52Roberts -Gouffre's purported death in April of last year.

50:55And I only say purported because the circumstances of it are still bizarre.

50:58Look, I mean, I'm willing to grant that she is, in fact, yet at this

51:00point, but I mean, that's another sort of tangent.

51:03But no, it didn't come out for a long time.

51:05A draft was produced, and then the draft manuscript had to be revealed or handed

51:12over over the course of litigation with Dershowitz.

51:16And her lawyers, by 2017 to 2019, had to admit on her behalf, so David

51:24Boies et al., that this memoir manuscript, which had been presented as nonfiction, which was

51:31shopped around to potential book publishers as nonfiction, which had been the basis for a

51:36lot of media coverage around these allegations, as though it were a nonfictional representation of

51:41her purported experiences. They finally have to admit that it was a fictionalized account of

51:46her purported experiences. So, like, for example.

51:50This is VRG's own lawyers, like David Boies.

51:54Right. Yep. So they basically said that this manuscript, which had been the basis for

51:59her story. A lot of the mythology.

52:01Like Bill Clinton was on the island, she claimed.

52:03No evidence that Bill Clinton was ever on the island.

52:05He did fly around in Epstein's private jet in 2002 and 2003, but no evidence

52:09he ever went to the island.

52:10She claimed that she saw him on the island, which is false.

52:12As far as we know, or as far as all the available evidence is ever

52:17suggested. That probably is one of the most repeated claims in respect to Epstein, which

52:22is that Bill Clinton was on the island.

52:24And you're saying that's just completely untrue.

52:25And that came from VRG's manuscript, which ultimately they had to admit was a work

52:31of fiction, nonfiction. At least her own lawyers did.

52:34Correct. But what's so mind -boggling is that just relatively recently, after this whole blow

52:41-up around Epstein got ignited last July, the book publishers obviously realized that it was

52:50a highly profitable opportunity for them to produce some version of her manuscript in the

52:57form of a new memoir.

52:58Now, she had been working on a new version of it with another ghostwriter for

53:01some time, Amy Wallace, but they obviously wanted to peg the publication of it to

53:08this renewed Epstein uproar. So the memoir finally gets published in some capacity in October

53:15of last year. It becomes an international bestseller, not just in the United States, but

53:19in Britain, Australia, et cetera.

53:22And I'm still stunned. I mean, maybe I can no longer really be stunned anymore.

53:27But it's still stunning to think back on how credulously the reception to that memoir

53:34was, even though, I mean, it was basically just Amy Wallace, this ghostwriter, repackaging and

53:39massaging. Oh, I always catch myself when I use the verb massage now.

53:43I shouldn't use that. Repackaging the initial memoir manuscript and basically updating it for 2025.

53:52And nowhere do they disclose that it's based on a fictionalized manuscript.

53:58So it's just a fraud.

54:00Wait, so they also really did publish a version of the manuscript?

54:03Yes, last year. And did that book include the accusations against Dershowitz and Bill Clinton?

54:09Or had that been removed by that point?

54:11To clarify, those allegations of sexual improprieties against Dershowitz were not in the 2011 manuscript.

54:17Those were concocted later as a basis for Virginia Roberts Goufray to join this ongoing

54:24litigation that her lawyer, Bradley Edwards, had initiated around something called the Crime Victims Rights

54:28Act and how the non -prosecution agreement from 2007, 2008 had supposedly violated the Crime

54:34Victims Rights Act. It's a good thing.

54:36It's a good thing. complicated issue.

54:38But that was debuted. Those claims against Dershowitz were debuted in December of 2014.

54:44But there are a bunch of other claims already in the manuscript from 2011, and

54:48there's a reference to Dershowitz, but it's just not an accusation of sexual misconduct.

54:54Okay. The three women that you mentioned, Gouffre, Ransom, Farmer, did they have the same

55:00lawyers or different lawyers? Were the lawyers working together?

55:03Pretty much the same lawyers.

55:04I mean, it's basically the same cabal of lawyers.

55:06It's David Boyce's firm, Boyce Shiller, and then Bradley Edwards' firm.

55:11Bradley Edwards was the initial lawyer that oversaw primarily the Florida, the purported victims from

55:19the Palm Beach phase, from 2002 to 2005.

55:24He started representing them around 2008.

55:26And then Boyce came a little bit later around the more kind of grandiose litigation,

55:30but they've worked in conjunction with one another and still are.

55:34They're still suing in a class action lawsuit that they initiated last October, Bank of

55:38America, to extract a couple hundred more million dollars, just like they did from J

55:43.P. Morgan and Deutsche Bank and the Epstein estate and plenty of individualized lawsuits that

55:50they've alluded to, but never clarified the parameters of.

55:55Like they brag, Bradley Edwards does, that they got like 20 or 25 settlements that

55:59are still secret, he says, from specific individuals whom he acknowledges may not have committed

56:04any wrongdoing at all, but just simply don't want to suffer the PR backlash that

56:09we're seeing now on steroids.

56:11So it's a hugely lucrative industry.

56:13And I don't know, you tell me, David, is this like dimension of this whole

56:15story ever mentioned anywhere in any of the popular media coverage, whether it's on podcasts

56:19or on CNN or anywhere?

56:21No. Okay. And even the Deutsche Bank settlement, I don't think I'd heard of that.

56:26What was that? So when Epstein dies, August 10th, 2019, right?

56:34A feeding frenzy breaks out in terms of litigation that is brought against his estate.

56:41Because at that point, Epstein is obviously no longer available to contest any claims that

56:46are made against him. And libel laws cease to apply.

56:50People are aware obviously that he was very wealthy.

56:52He wasn't like a multi -multi -billionaire as a lot of people suspected at the

56:55time, but according to his disclosure of assets when he was arrested, his net worth

57:01was like $650 million. So still a pretty big estate.

57:06And so because of this flood of lawsuits against the estate, the executors of the

57:12estate, Darren Indyke and Richard Kahn decide to agree to coordinate with the victim's lawyers,

57:22Bradley Edwards, David Boies et al., to set up basically a mediation program that they

57:27call the Epstein Victims Compensation Fund, which is a holistic settlement process that victims or

57:34alleged victims could submit claims to.

57:36And then there would be a mediator brought in to evaluate the claims and decide

57:42what amount of money to give out.

57:44So there wouldn't have to just be like a flood of individual lawsuits.

57:47They could kind of consolidate it.

57:49And so they set up a settlement model basically for the Epstein estate, which was

57:52expressly non -adversarial, meaning there'd be no adversarial scrutinization of the claims that were made

58:00to justify somebody's entitlement to millions of dollars.

58:05People, claimants were entitled to as much as $5 million from just this one settlement

58:12fund. And it was tax -free by the way.

58:14This is with, this is.

58:15With Deutsche Bank. No, no, this is the Epstein estate.

58:17I'm getting to Deutsche Bank because it ties into the Epstein estate.

58:19From the Epstein estate, Epstein estate was first in the chronology of settlements.

58:23And so they set up a settlement model, right?

58:24So non -adversarial, confidential, tax -free, because they claim that it could be categorized under

58:31the IRS code as compensation for an injury, so therefore you don't have to pay

58:36income taxes on it. And so that gets set up, right?

58:40And who adjudicates that? The court in the U .S.

58:45Virgin Islands, because the estate was domiciled in the U .S.

58:48Virgin Islands, appointed on the recommendation of both parties an independent mediator or administrator, Simona

58:58Lelchuck, her name is, who specialized, she claimed anyway, in this sort of thing.

59:04And she had an extra sensitivity towards sexual assault victims, she claimed.

59:08And I mean, it's kind of a phony, we don't want to get sucked into

59:12that necessarily tangent. But yeah, so there's an independent administrator, and that was modeled, they

59:18said, on previous consolidated settlement mechanisms, such as like the Jerry Sandusky, I don't know

59:26if you recall the Jerry Sandusky scandal at Penn State, where claims were made that

59:29this football coach had abused a bunch of boys.

59:31And so a consolidated settlement program was set up to pay out settlements to claimants.

59:36Okay, got it. So that's the Epstein estate.

59:37So let's get to the Deutsche Bank aspect.

59:38So then they take that model that had been set up for the Epstein estate,

59:42and then they start going after major multinational banking institutions that David Boies and Bradley

59:48Edwards decide to, very creatively and cleverly, I have to say, allege were complicit in

59:55Jeffrey Epstein's world -spanning child sex trafficking operation, and therefore reliable.

1:00:01Wait, what is the nexus between Deutsche Bank or Bank of America and Epstein?

1:00:06Were those the banks that he used?

1:00:07Epstein banked at those institutions.

1:00:10So first JP Morgan from like the late 90s to 2013, roughly, and then Deutsche

1:00:14Bank from 2013 to 2019.

1:00:17And the argument is that they should have somehow stopped his activities.

1:00:22Yeah, that they were negative.

1:00:23Or failed to do a KYC or something like that.

1:00:25Yeah, I mean, they first started making a much more accusatory argument about their direct

1:00:31complicity in facilitating a sex trafficking operation.

1:00:34But what the judge ultimately agreed to was that they were reasonably guilty or reasonably

1:00:42to be found liable for essentially negligence because Epstein would withdraw cash, and that's supposed

1:00:50to trigger certain monitoring provisions that it was claimed JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank did

1:00:56not satisfactorily do. I mean, it was kind of like a stretch of an argument,

1:00:59frankly. I get it. But because of the popular climate around, oh, anybody who was

1:01:03involved in this in any way has to pay for all this pedophilic sex trafficking,

1:01:07there wasn't a whole lot really that the lawyers for those banking institutions could do

1:01:11to take the heat off.

1:01:12Okay, got it. So they settled, right?

1:01:13So they settled. So there are two more settlement funds.

1:01:16And that, yeah. How big are those settlement funds, those two?

1:01:19So JP Morgan ended up totaling around $290 million.

1:01:25And the lawyers end up convincing the judge who presided over this agreement in New

1:01:30York, the federal judge, Rakoff, to grant them 30 % in legal fees or attorney's

1:01:35fees that they claimed. And Deutsche Bank was around $90 million or $80 million, maybe.

1:01:42Okay. So just to add those up now, so the Epstein estate was around, if

1:01:47I'm remembering, $121 million. And that's gone up, actually, since even more litigation's been filed.

1:01:53separated apart from the class action settlement, JP Morgan 290, Deutsche Bank around 80 or

1:01:5890. So we're already at like a half a billion dollar industry.

1:02:02And there's plenty of other lawsuits and settlements that have been spawned from this thing.

1:02:08And so I just have never understood, or I do understand it, so I should

1:02:12correct myself. I've always found it perversely amazing that this whole aspect of this story

1:02:18is never mentioned because it's led to such things as this gross inflation of the

1:02:22total number of victims where you have adults.

1:02:25You're saying that there's financial incentives.

1:02:26You're saying there's financial incentives here.

1:02:27And just the lawyers are, these are contingency fee plaintiff's lawyers.

1:02:32They get like 30 % or what's their, I mean, these guys are not paid

1:02:35by the hour, right? They're, they're, they get.

1:02:37Well, no, I don't think it's, no, not, it's not a contingency fee set up

1:02:43for this. They, they got the judge to approve a 30 % earmark of the

1:02:50resulting settlement funds to be given over for attorney's fees.

1:02:55So it wasn't a contingent based on the client.

1:02:57It was that the judge approved 30 % of the overall settlement.

1:03:01Got it. So the, the lawyers who sort of organized these settlement pools negotiated essentially

1:03:08their cut upfront with the judge.

1:03:12And you're saying that was about 30%.

1:03:13It was exactly 30%. Okay.

1:03:16Okay. Got it. But you have a, if you have a set of criteria that

1:03:18are so lax, I mean, JP Morgan had even more lax criteria than the Epstein

1:03:21state, which basically allowed anybody who ever like came within two football fields of Jeffrey

1:03:26Epstein to file a claim against him and get a few million dollars tax -free.

1:03:30But the JP Morgan settlement was even more lax.

1:03:33So there are people who are eventually basically rejected.

1:03:36The few who are rejected from the Epstein estate fund ends up getting a settlement

1:03:40from some of them anyway, the JP Morgan or Deutsche Bank fund.

1:03:45So that that's, so this woman, Lisa Phillips, who was like an adult model, never

1:03:50made any claim about anything to do with Jeffrey Epstein.

1:03:53That was wrongful for like 20 years, said on a podcast publicly that she had

1:03:57no idea what these girls were talking about when they make these allegations against Jeffrey

1:04:00Epstein. As of 2020, she said this by 2023, she's getting, you know, she never,

1:04:05she, I asked her, she didn't disclose to me her full amount, but you know,

1:04:09probably around 2 million at least.

1:04:11And then they get free healthcare from yet another settlement between the U .S.

1:04:15Virgin Islands, the government of the U .S.

1:04:16Virgin Islands and the, and JP Morgan that they set aside for just free healthcare

1:04:22for until 2028 for any alleged Epstein victim.

1:04:26Um, and it's just like, don't people recognize how that can be incentivized?

1:04:34This inflation of the number of total victims we're told must exist.

1:04:37And that thus gives rise to this mass hysteria and moral panic about like thousands

1:04:42of victims. I mean, at this Bondi, Pam Bondi hearing that was so contentious last

1:04:45week at the house judiciary committee, you had people screaming thousands of victims need, you

1:04:50know, demand justice. And it's just like a concoction that is not grounded in any,

1:04:57like approximation of like empirical fact.

1:04:59So I always say, if people want to be mad at Pam Bondi and Kash

1:05:02Patel for something, be mad at them for signing off on that ridiculous memo from

1:05:07last July, where they include that figure of over a thousand victims that has given

1:05:12fuel to the most maximalist conceptions of Epstein mythology in terms of the victims that

1:05:17were left in their wake.

1:05:18I mean, soccer always wants to, and I shouldn't maybe say too much that I'm

1:05:21not, and I'm not trying to impute him at all, but I do get a

1:05:24lot of people on the internet doing a variation with soccer did saying, Hey, let's

1:05:27just talk about the Intel ties.

1:05:28Forget all this, you know, gossip stuff around now.

1:05:31You know, look, there are pictures.

1:05:31Well, they are, I don't want to Interes of the country you can tjease.

1:05:32I mean, the intel ties are interesting, right?

1:05:34Sure. You know, the whole story is interesting.

1:05:36It's interesting that Epstein apparently met Michael Jackson in his Palm Beach house and photos

1:05:40of it came out. It's interesting that he consulted with everyone from Donald Trump to

1:05:45Bill Clinton. I agree. It's interesting.

1:05:46Let me bring up one sort of criticism of you and then I want to

1:05:50give Kevin a chance to get in here.

1:05:52So, look, I think it's very important that we hold this process to evidentiary standards,

1:06:00like you're saying. I think that people's motivations need to be examined, especially like the

1:06:04lawyers who are bringing these cases who are, you know, reaping hundreds of millions of

1:06:08dollars. So, I think you are, and I think even Sagar admitted this, I think

1:06:12you're playing an extremely important role in this process by bringing some rigor and accountability

1:06:18to a lot of these claims.

1:06:20And I think that's really important.

1:06:22At the same time, you're not really offering an explanation of so many aspects that

1:06:29are so interesting about Epstein.

1:06:32And I'm not saying it's necessarily your duty to do that, but I'm wondering, you

1:06:36know, do you have a theory of how did he accumulate hundreds of millions of

1:06:41dollars? How did he get so connected?

1:06:44Some people like Mike Benz have said that it all goes back to Burr Stearns,

1:06:47where he says that one of his accounts was BCCI, which was this notorious international

1:06:53bank that was involved, eventually was shut down because it was involved in international money

1:06:59laundering and crimes, things like that.

1:07:01So, I think this is Mike Benz's theory.

1:07:03In any event, do you have a theory that would provide a satisfactory explanation for

1:07:10so many of the threads that we see?

1:07:12Or do you just feel like it's not really your job to do that?

1:07:15And your job is really more just to poke holes in, you know, what are

1:07:21some of the more outlandish claims of politicians or lawyers?

1:07:25Well, I'm happy to address any little data point that people want to throw out

1:07:29at me. I mean, I do that all day, every day, pretty much.

1:07:31So, it's not like I'm trying to avoid anything or be at all evasive, right?

1:07:36So, people ask me all the time, okay, how did he make his money?

1:07:39What about Leslie Wexter, et cetera, et cetera.

1:07:42So, it's not like I'm unaccustomed to addressing any of this stuff.

1:07:45It's just that I feel like there's a bit of a fallacy or a logical

1:07:47flaw in attempting to say that it's incumbent on me to proffer some kind of

1:07:55ultimate totalizing theory. I have a theory I could sketch out that maybe explains some

1:08:00of what people would like to know in such, you know, that people are so

1:08:04titulated by. But I think, again, one of the things, one of the reasons why

1:08:09the coverage of the story has been so horribly bad is that speculation has replaced

1:08:14fact. And we just have this whole mythology or folklore that's developed and that people

1:08:19just kind of ambiently absorb.

1:08:21And then they end up just believing things that are totally false.

1:08:24So, for example, people just believe, and I'm sure that you've seen this, that Epstein

1:08:27must have referred to his private plane as the Lolita Express.

1:08:30Therefore, anybody who was ever on the plane must have known that this was like

1:08:33a child sex trafficking plane, because why else would it be named the Lolita Express

1:08:38after the famous book about a 12 -year -old girl or whatever who was a

1:08:42sexual object? That's just like false.

1:08:44I mean, there's never been any evidence for that.

1:08:47It was a nickname that was invented by a cheeky nickname invented by this British

1:08:51tabloid. And so that's just one example of all this flotsam that gets - Okay,

1:08:56but to go back, do you have a theory of how specifically Epstein got started?

1:09:01Because somehow, I guess it was in the 80s, he went from someone who was

1:09:05just a trader at Bear Stearns to very quickly amassing a fortune.

1:09:10that, I don't know, seems like hundreds of millions of dollars.

1:09:13I mean, like you said, he died with about $650 million.

1:09:16I don't know how big the fortune was in the 1980s.

1:09:19We know that Wexner sold him the townhouse.

1:09:22I guess one of the details that came out the other day, as Wexner said,

1:09:25it was that what he was told was fair market value, and Epstein obtains his

1:09:30plane from Wexner. So, I mean, is that the explanation that somehow he got his

1:09:35start because Wexner was extraordinarily generous towards him?

1:09:41I'm just curious. Not quite.

1:09:44So, I mean, there was a huge New York Times article that was one of

1:09:49the few helpful contributions to the popular knowledge around Jeffrey Epstein recently in December, where

1:09:55they go through, I mean, they basically set out to answer the question that everybody

1:09:58always asks with like a wink and a nod, as though they think that the

1:10:01asking of the question is supposed to prove that the answer would be fundamentally sinister,

1:10:07meaning how did Jeffrey Epstein make his money?

1:10:09Because the idea is that he must have made his money by dint of his

1:10:13orchestration of this pedophilic sex trafficking ring that he enforced by blackmail at the direction

1:10:17of the Mossad or something like that.

1:10:20And the New York Times goes into fairly forensic detail about how he ended up

1:10:23accumulating money over the course of the 1980s.

1:10:27So people could go read that if they'd like.

1:10:29I mean, I do think that it's fair to say, and saying this does not

1:10:33mean that you have to condone everything that Jeffrey Epstein ever did over the course

1:10:36of his entire life. But I do think that he was definitely very high intelligence.

1:10:40I do think that he was highly proficient in mathematics as a young man, which

1:10:47is part of why he became a math teacher at the Dalton School, a pretty

1:10:50prestigious private school in Manhattan, then ends up getting recruited to Bear Stearns, and ends

1:10:55up innovating some novel financial maneuvers that you're probably much more fluent in than me

1:10:59in terms of describing because I'm not a finance guy.

1:11:02But it was around a time where there was a demand for Wall Street to

1:11:06innovate new tactics for very high net worth individuals to structure their wealth, to lessen

1:11:11their tax burden, to do all kinds of other things.

1:11:14And Epstein did so, and then he leaves Bear Stearns.

1:11:18So he rose to the ranks of Bear Stearns pretty quickly.

1:11:20So around age 24, 25, he was like a partner, or he had some relatively

1:11:25high -ranking position relative to the rest of the workforce at Bear Stearns at a

1:11:31young age. He starts up his own boutique financial advisory firm that's tailored specifically to

1:11:37very high net worth individuals, such as ultimately Leslie Wexner, who's one of the wealthiest

1:11:42people in the United States.

1:11:43Yes, Wexner was definitely Epstein's most important client.

1:11:47There was the power of attorney that was handed over, which is seen unto itself

1:11:51on the internet to be either inherently sinister or to show us that, of course,

1:11:56Epstein must have been in some kind of pedophilic collusion with Wexner.

1:11:59But it's explicable if you actually want to know what it was about.

1:12:03At a certain point, people just want to have the ability to keep asking that

1:12:06question with a gleam in their eye as though it's supposed to imply that the

1:12:14pedo sex trafficking is the ultimate answer to everything.

1:12:17But Ghislaine Maxwell, when she gave her proffer interview last summer to the deputy attorney

1:12:22general, Todd Blanche, in the very first time, amazingly enough, that she was asked by

1:12:26any US government official to simply describe her experiences with Jeffrey Epstein.

1:12:30Imagine that. Despite having been integral, we've been told all these years, in the running

1:12:36of the most prolific child sex trafficking operation, I guess, in the world history, only

1:12:40in July of 2025 did any government official ever just ask her to describe what

1:12:44her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein was all about.

1:12:46And she said that she observed Epstein doing a lot of work.

1:12:48It seemed very complicated and intense to her in terms of his financial business.

1:12:55So for example, Maxwell says, Epstein ended up basically restructuring all of the finances for

1:13:00Wexner's business holdings. And he owned The Limited, he owned Victoria's Secret, other kinds of

1:13:06women's clothing outfits and retailers.

1:13:08He had real estate developments.

1:13:11And Epstein was basically the money guy for all of it.

1:13:14And for a man who in the early 90s was already worth a couple of

1:13:18billion, Wexner that is, if Epstein is getting like a yearly cut of the revenues,

1:13:22that could add up over time, then they had a handful of other very high

1:13:26net worth clients like Elizabeth Johnson, who was an heiress to the Johnson and Johnson

1:13:30fortune, Leon Black, the hedge fund manager.

1:13:35So you don't need that many extremely high net worth clients if you're their go

1:13:39-to money manager to eventually build up a pretty nice size fortune, I would imagine.

1:13:44So I'm not saying we have a full accounting of every penny that he ever

1:13:47accumulated over the course of his life.

1:13:49But we have quite a bit of information.

1:13:52And it just occurs to me that some, the people who are most loudly ask,

1:13:57how did he get his money?

1:13:58Almost don't even want to know or read into the information that is currently available.

1:14:04All right. Well, I mean, it is kind of unusual that a money manager in

1:14:09that position would obtain that much money so quickly.

1:14:12I'll just say, like from my experience with the money management business, they're not generally

1:14:17able to charge that much.

1:14:18But let me put a pin in that because I want to let Kevin Bass

1:14:22get in here. I've been following your feed quite a bit.

1:14:25You are basically a startup entrepreneur who got interested in the Epstein files.

1:14:31I think you used AI to analyze them.

1:14:34And in particular, you've been looking at Reid Hoffman's story about Epstein and you've put

1:14:40together an analysis. I think you've called it the Reid Hoffman files.

1:14:44I've been following your tweets and it's quite interesting.

1:14:47Let's start with how you got into this, what got you interested and how you've

1:14:51been doing your research. Yeah.

1:14:52So originally I just saw that there was kind of a conflict on social media

1:14:58about Reid Hoffman. I didn't know much about the Epstein files or about that particular

1:15:05conflict, but I was curious.

1:15:07I built some really sophisticated AI tools, mostly using vectorized SQL databases and some of

1:15:16the MCP stuff with the new agents for some other purposes.

1:15:21And so I wanted to port those over to see if I could resolve some

1:15:25of these questions. Elon had some very strong opinions about Hoffman's involvement with Epstein, and

1:15:32he's usually at least, if he's not always directly on the bullseye, he's usually at

1:15:37least a few inches away.

1:15:38So I wanted to go check those out.

1:15:39And then, you know, they came out in, I guess, late January, January 30th, the

1:15:44big ones, the big drop that recently happened.

1:15:46And so I just, I started going through the Reid Hoffman part in particular, and

1:15:52I essentially started to try to organize, or I have organized most of my analyses

1:15:57around some core claims that Hoffman made about his involvement with Epstein.

1:16:02I've just been asking the question, are these claims true?

1:16:05Are they supported by the record or are they contradicted by the record?

1:16:09And overwhelmingly, like absolutely overwhelmingly, they appear to be contradicted relentlessly by the drop that

1:16:21came out in January 30th.

1:16:23If you want, I can go through some of the big ones.

1:16:27And then I can also talk about...

1:16:29Yeah, maybe a place to start is with Reid Hoffman's statement in 2019 to Axios.

1:16:36This is when, I guess, the Epstein scandal first, I think, became national news.

1:16:41And people who are closely associated with him felt the need to characterize the relationship

1:16:47with him, to distance themselves, to explain how they knew him or how closely they

1:16:51knew him. And Reid's statement at that time was the following.

1:16:58Let me just read this out.

1:16:59This is Reid Hoffman speaking.

1:17:01My few interactions with Jeffrey Epstein came at the request of Joey Ito for the

1:17:07purposes of fundraising for the MIT Media Lab.

1:17:11Prior to these interactions, I was told by Joey that Epstein had cleared the MIT

1:17:16vetting process, which was the basis for my participation.

1:17:20My last interaction with Epstein was in 2015.

1:17:24Still, by agreeing to participate in any fundraising activity where Epstein was present, I helped

1:17:30to repair his reputation and perpetuate injustice for this I am deeply regretful.

1:17:35Oh, give me a break.

1:17:36Is that statement accurate? Not at all.

1:17:40Well, and in fact, it's not just from 2019.

1:17:44He even reiterated this on February 4th this year on X repeatedly.

1:17:50He said, I only know Jeffrey Epstein because of fundraising relationship with MIT, which I

1:17:55very much regret. These meetings were recorded by Joey Ito, then director of MIT Media

1:18:00Lab. And he also says, yes, with Joey Ito, the director of MIT Media Lab,

1:18:05who asked me to help MIT fundraise with Epstein.

1:18:07I regret blah, blah, blah, blah.

1:18:09Like, none of that's at all true.

1:18:12There's very few mentions of even fundraising with MIT.

1:18:16I would even go so far as I don't know.

1:18:19I've said it this way on some of my posts, but it's like the extent

1:18:25of the relationship between Epstein and Reid Hoffman.

1:18:30It almost looks like best friends.

1:18:32Like, my best friends, I don't interact with anywhere near as much as Reid Hoffman

1:18:38and Jeffrey Epstein did over, you know, between 2013 and 2019.

1:18:45There are constant contact. There's something around on the order of about 400 initiations by

1:18:52Hoffman to Epstein. It wasn't just mediated by Joey Ito at all.

1:18:57And, you know, their assistants were in constant contact with each other.

1:19:02They had extensive financial relationships.

1:19:04There's something like 42 different meetings that are documented.

1:19:08Around 20 are absolutely confirmed.

1:19:11They met in person for breakfast.

1:19:14They would spend time at each other's houses overnight.

1:19:21You know, Epstein met his wife.

1:19:24It is claimed that by Hoffman that he only was there for one night.

1:19:28Even the one time that we have absolutely documented that he's referring to, he was

1:19:33there for two nights. And almost certainly there was two other island visits as well

1:19:38in addition. It's an extraordinarily extensive personal and business relationship.

1:19:44And it's not just about Joey Ito.

1:19:46Now, Joey Ito was a really important part of it.

1:19:50Joey Ito was sort of, as far as I can tell, again, you guys know

1:19:53a lot more about this than I do.

1:19:55But as far as I can tell, really going through the files of the last

1:19:57couple of days, Joey Ito was sort of Epstein's gateway into sort of academia, Cambridge,

1:20:04Harvard, science. That's sort of his main gateway there.

1:20:09Reid Hoffman was his gateway into Silicon Valley, into tech, the main guy.

1:20:14And so there is a very close relationship as well between Joe Ito and Hoffman,

1:20:19but there is also very much an independent relationship between Hoffman and Jeffrey Epstein, very

1:20:27much independent of Joe Ito.

1:20:29Okay, so Reid claimed that he only had a few interactions with Epstein.

1:20:34That's false. You're saying he had hundreds, including dozens of in -person meetings and stay

1:20:42at the island at least once, you said for two nights, not one, and there

1:20:46were probably a second or third visit.

1:20:49Yes. There was the stay at the townhouse.

1:20:51Reid claimed that all of his interactions were sort of mediated by Joe Ito and

1:20:56were about the MIT Media Lab.

1:20:59By the way, it's not clear why someone would feel compelled to spend so much

1:21:03time fundraising for MIT, which wasn't even their alma mater.

1:21:07So this whole explanation didn't really make a lot of sense from the beginning.

1:21:11But it's pretty clear that the topics of conversation were not about MIT or MIT

1:21:18Media Lab. In fact, I thought one detail that was really kind of interesting was

1:21:21their first interaction, one of the first, was about they bonded over a book called

1:21:28Deception, which I haven't read the book.

1:21:32I don't know what the thesis is, but it appears to justify the use of

1:21:36deception in certain circumstances. Anyway, I just think that was ironic, I guess, if nothing

1:21:44else. But look, I, you know.

1:21:46Can I make a quick comment?

1:21:46Yes, go ahead. Yes. Yeah, Michael, go ahead.

1:21:49Do you want to be Reid's defense attorney in this context?

1:21:51Not exactly, although I end up, I guess, putting myself into a position where it

1:21:55can come across that way.

1:21:56I'm really trying to be the defense attorney for like sanity.

1:22:00Yeah, go ahead. So here's what I would say.

1:22:01I have to just reject the whole premise of this discussion that is so ubiquitous

1:22:08now, which is that anybody who so much has exchanged a shortening email with Jeffrey

1:22:13Epstein, and I know Reid Hoffman apparently had a closer relationship with Jeffrey Epstein than

1:22:16just one email here or there, but the principle that anybody who had some interaction

1:22:23of some degree, to some degree or another with Jeffrey Epstein now has something that

1:22:28they have to issue these mealy -mouthed, melodramatic statements of profound apology for is just

1:22:33so tedious and ridiculous. What are they guilty of?

1:22:38If the implication is that they're by association guilty of enabling pedophilic sex trafficking, that

1:22:45is a flagrant misconception. Do people know?

1:22:49How come it's never clarified that Jeffrey Epstein was never even accused of committing any

1:22:55illicit sexual acts against any person under the age of 18 after the year 2005.

1:23:01So I don't know what years Reid Hoffman and Jeffrey Epstein interacted, but this idea

1:23:06that he was like looking the other way while all these preteens were being raped

1:23:10is just nonsense, but the media never clarifies it.

1:23:13So now we have everybody from Noam Chomsky to Steve Bannon being told that their

1:23:17reputation is in tatters and they are themselves like by association, some sort of like

1:23:24sex criminal enablers. And it's just a, it's just a total fantasy.

1:23:28So Michael, yeah, Michael, I think this, I think you're making some really interesting points.

1:23:33Um, I think they're important.

1:23:35I think. I mean, Epstein pleaded guilty to two prostitution charges in 2008.

1:23:39You're saying Reid Hoffman and Noam Chomsky and Steve Bannon should have all said, oh,

1:23:43because the guy. pleaded guilty to two prostitution charges, which they were, that means nobody

1:23:48can ever consort with him ever again for the rest of his life.

1:23:51I think that's a ridiculous standard.

1:23:53There's two different issues here.

1:23:55One is whether or not there's this global pedophile ring and, you know, we can

1:24:01even go further and there's these satanic rituals and all this other stuff, which I'm

1:24:07inclined to think that you're very close to the truth in what you're saying.

1:24:12On the other hand, there are Reid Hoffman's public statements like dramatically minimizing the relationship.

1:24:20Now, I think that can easily obviously be explained.

1:24:24There's an obvious explanation where we don't have to necessarily impugn to Reid Hoffman, you

1:24:30know, being a pedophile or any of these other things that people are wanting to

1:24:34suggest because he lied. And the alternative explanation is just that this is such a

1:24:40hot potato. There is a hysteria.

1:24:42So people lie about their relationship with Epstein, even though they're not guilty of something

1:24:47that's terrible behind the scenes.

1:24:49Any association at all with Epstein is radioactive.

1:24:52I mean, but so if somebody lies, then I mean, they can be condemned for

1:24:55the lie because lying itself is condemnable.

1:24:57Yeah, so that's what we're talking about.

1:24:58Like Howard Lutnick made up a ridiculous lie that was totally pointless and actually counterproductive

1:25:02for his purposes. And the lie itself can be condemnable, but not necessarily because Howard

1:25:08Lutnick is covering up any kind of pedophilic sex criminality, just because of the moral

1:25:11hysteria that's been allowed to be unleashed around this stuff, where like any connection in

1:25:16any way to Epstein is like grounds for censure.

1:25:19Yeah. All right. Let me tell you my point of view on this.

1:25:22So first of all, I think you're correct that there's a lot of guilt by

1:25:27association happening and there is a little bit of a feeding frenzy.

1:25:30And like you said, just because someone emailed Epstein doesn't mean that they were involved

1:25:35with him in some nefarious way.

1:25:37And I thought it was unfair when Sager mentioned that Jason had, you know, emails

1:25:44with Epstein back in 2011 to make an introduction.

1:25:47I think that's I hadn't even seen that.

1:25:48I mean, it's not important enough even to draw my attention.

1:25:51Like who cares? There's plenty of interesting material in the files, but like random emails.

1:25:55No, no. And I agree.

1:25:57And that's why I tried to defend Jason there is because I know there was

1:25:59just nothing to that. Now, in the case of Reed, I think that there's a

1:26:05couple of things that are interesting about this.

1:26:06Number one is when this new Epstein files drop happened, Reed came out on X

1:26:14and very aggressively started pointing the finger at other people, wildly accusing both Elon Musk

1:26:22and Donald Trump of somehow being involved in Epstein's purported crimes.

1:26:29And this is just a classic case of someone throwing stones while living in a

1:26:34glass house. I mean, you look at his own statements from 2019 all the way

1:26:39up to weeks ago, and they don't hold water at all.

1:26:43He lies about the extent of his relation with Epstein, how many times they met,

1:26:48what the subject matter was, what the context was, how many times he visited the

1:26:53island potentially. I mean, just one lie after another, while again, wildly accusing other people.

1:27:00And you do have to just ask what is going on here.

1:27:03Yeah. And I mean, that just goes to show how weaponizable this whole thing is

1:27:07and how the Epstein story or any kind of tangential connection to Epstein can be

1:27:13leveraged to serve some kind of preexisting agenda.

1:27:17So if like Reed Hoffman and Elon Musk don't like each other, then they could

1:27:20accuse each other of like having a more report.

1:27:22Thank you. closer connection to Epstein than they did.

1:27:24And it's just like a slugfest.

1:27:28And yet I'm still struggling to understand what the underlying accusation of wrongdoing is supposed

1:27:33to be above and beyond just how perhaps Reid Hoffman and or Musk or whomever

1:27:38might have misrepresented the relationship.

1:27:42Well, the question is also partly like, why did he need to so aggressively attack

1:27:48others? Why did he need to so aggressively lie about the relationship?

1:27:52Is it just that he's covering himself because of a moral hysteria or is there,

1:27:56I don't know. Well, I mean, my theory on this, I think it's kind of

1:28:00obvious what he's doing is that by pointing the finger at Trump or Elon, actually

1:28:07both, he's driving everyone into their partisan tribes.

1:28:11So as to, I think, seek protection of the Democrat tribe to which he's contributed

1:28:16hundreds of millions of dollars.

1:28:17And I think it's worked.

1:28:19I mean, you look at the mainstream media coverage of this, the New York Times

1:28:22coverage of it, which we talked about in a previous episode of the show, they

1:28:25wrote an article about Epstein's ties to Silicon Valley.

1:28:29Other people who had far less extensive of a relationship with Epstein got paragraphs in

1:28:36that story. Reid Hoffman was only mentioned in one sentence along with three other people.

1:28:41So he does seem to be getting a pass from, you know, Michael, if you

1:28:46want to characterize this as a feeding frenzy or moral panic or hysteria or what

1:28:50have you, whatever it is, he seems to be getting a pass from the media.

1:28:54And my point about this has not been to accuse Reid of crimes because I

1:28:59don't think we have any basis for that whatsoever.

1:29:02Let me just state that clearly.

1:29:04Isn't there a fallacy of all this then?

1:29:05No, well, let me get to that.

1:29:07My point has just been that the media needs to cover this in a fair

1:29:11and even -handed way as opposed to, like you said, weaponizing it to go after

1:29:16the people they don't like because there's political advantage in that.

1:29:20Or another parallel is Hillary Clinton just came out this week and gave an interview

1:29:23on the BBC where she said, we, the Clintons, Bill and I, we had no

1:29:27real connections with Epstein, but Donald Trump, we can just assume as unassailably true that

1:29:33he's in the process of orchestrating a cover -up because he has something to hide.

1:29:38And then on the other hand, Trump will toggle back and forth between Bill Clinton

1:29:44and Larry Summers and Reid Hoffman.

1:29:46They're the ones who are truly implicated by their association with Epstein.

1:29:49I had nothing really to do with the guy.

1:29:51And then the next day he'll say, oh, I'm a little upset or rueful that

1:29:55Bill Clinton's been dragged into this mess.

1:29:57And it just gets, you know, framed around, organized around just like a partisan battering

1:30:04ram. And it just becomes incredibly tedious because there doesn't even have to be any

1:30:07more, any concrete allegation of any wrongdoing whatsoever.

1:30:10There's no credible allegation of any pedophilic wrongdoing by either Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Reid

1:30:15Hoffman, Elon Musk, anybody. It's like, what are we talking about here?

1:30:19Ultimately, we're like in this other domain of who can establish the most damning guilt

1:30:23by association, even though nobody can spell out what the guilt is supposed to be

1:30:27tied to? Well, but here's the question is, why did Reid so brazenly lie about

1:30:35his relationship with Epstein? It could just be - Why did Howard Lutnick lie?

1:30:39Well, it could just be that he wants to protect his reputation in business by

1:30:44minimizing the association. But obviously, when you lie that extensively and that brazenly about it,

1:30:50it is going to make people think that you have something to cover up.

1:30:54And, you know, I think that - People think a lot of dumb things.

1:30:57I mean, is there like any evidence at all that would tie Reid Hoffman -

1:31:01to some kind of child sex crime?

1:31:02No, I'm not accusing him of that.

1:31:04So if people think that's what's being covered up, then they should be disabused of

1:31:08that fallacious notion rather than countenancing the notion and allowing the mass hysteria to continue

1:31:15proliferating unhindered. Can I ask you something, Michael?

1:31:19What evidence is there for...

1:31:22So on the island or in general, what evidence is there that people were being

1:31:28trafficked, maybe not minors, did that actually...

1:31:33Were people actually going to the island for that purpose?

1:31:36Was that that extensive or not?

1:31:38It's impossible to know what people even mean by trafficking anymore.

1:31:41Trafficking is an incredibly nebulous concept.

1:31:44It's very much open to the whims and discretion of prosecutors who seek to fit

1:31:51some fact pattern to a desire to prosecute somebody for some sort of sexual -related

1:31:58offense if it involves simply facilitating the movements of somebody from point A to point

1:32:02B. So if adult women consensually flew on an airplane to go visit a luxury

1:32:08island in the Caribbean, and over the course of that visit, maybe they engage in

1:32:12some consensual sex act, and then 20 years later, they can retroactively classify it as

1:32:20trafficking, and that will entitle them to millions of dollars in tax -free settlement money,

1:32:24are we going to take at face value that that constitutes trafficking?

1:32:27Because I don't. So I'm always a little bit mystified as to what we're supposed

1:32:30to understand as trafficking now.

1:32:32So your overall perspective on this is basically that a lot of the discourse about

1:32:36this is constructed, and we don't really understand the underlying facts.

1:32:40Is that your basic position?

1:32:41I mean, I understand the underlying facts to the greatest degree that I can ascertain

1:32:46them, and I think that they are just chronically and almost unbelievably mischaracterized everywhere you

1:32:51look. Let me get you to react to this tweet that someone just mentioned you

1:32:56on. Uh -oh, here we go.

1:32:59A brilliant feedback. Well, this is, okay, this is a guy, I don't know this

1:33:04guy, present witness, but this is what he's saying is the evidence, okay?

1:33:09So I just, you know, I want to get your reaction to it.

1:33:11Well, let me read this for people who are just listening and can't see the

1:33:14screen, and then I'll get your reaction to it.

1:33:16So he says, here's the evidence.

1:33:18$160 million from Leon Black, $50 million townhouse and power of attorney over Wexner's estate,

1:33:24cameras in his residence wired by Israeli government, compromising photos of Prince Andrew, Clinton, et

1:33:29cetera, confirmed sex trafficking of underage girls from Maxwell Brunel and others, teaching job with

1:33:34William Barr, Princey's CIA, Khashoggi was a client of Epstein, Princey's money laundering for intelligence,

1:33:42question mark, advisor to Ehud Barak and the Rothschilds, Rumler, who is a chief legal

1:33:47officer at Goldman Sachs and former White House counsel under Obama, was a key advisor

1:33:51and backup executive as well.

1:33:53There are millions of files still redacted, none have been released by CIA, State Department.

1:33:57This is just the tip of the iceberg.

1:33:59Anyone telling you that there's nothing to see here is attempting to whitewash the most

1:34:02important, revealing intelligence -related story of our lifetimes.

1:34:06And then he calls you out here, Michael Tracy doesn't understand the difference between evidence

1:34:10and proof, and is simply exploiting sexually abused women for engagement.

1:34:14Okay. I mean, first of all, I don't know what that guy is even arguing

1:34:18all that stuff is supposed to be evidence of.

1:34:20Like, what is the ultimate contention that he's claiming those myriad scattered data points are

1:34:27supposed to justify? I mean, that's what's so strange about this story.

1:34:33Nobody can really ever articulate, like, Sagar struggled to articulate what I suspect actually is

1:34:39his. ultimate belief, which is that there was some kind of pedo trafficking operation.

1:34:43Like he, I think said that he agreed with the Thomas Massey quote that I

1:34:46read out to him, but on its face, that's sort of like a bizarre statement

1:34:50to make. So they latched onto this other peripheral stuff around intelligence and whatnot.

1:34:56And that guy said, how dare anyone ever say there's nothing to see here?

1:35:02And he ascribed that to me.

1:35:03I've never said there's nothing to see here.

1:35:04People tell me all the time that I allegedly have said there's nothing to see

1:35:08here, but I don't say that at all.

1:35:10I'm pretty much as obsessed, if not more obsessed with this story than anyone at

1:35:15this point to a degree.

1:35:16It's probably not very healthy mentally.

1:35:19But you're obsessed with it, but hold on, you're obsessed with it.

1:35:23Hold on, Michael. Let me just, let me ask you about that.

1:35:25You're obsessed with it in the sense that you think this is a modern day

1:35:29Salem witch trial. Right. Which is fascinating.

1:35:32Yeah. So you're fascinated from like a sociological standpoint, which is have humans evolved beyond

1:35:38you know, where they were hundreds of years ago, engaging in witch hunts and things

1:35:43like that. Or do you think it's interesting in other ways?

1:35:46I think it's interesting in other ways, definitely in that way as well.

1:35:49But there are other ways in which it's interesting.

1:35:51I think it's almost interesting as an anthropological survey of sorts among, you know, elites,

1:35:58movers and shakers, you could say, where Epstein did have this extraordinary ability to network

1:36:03and to convene people who probably otherwise would never have been convened.

1:36:09So I've been saying that I think Jeffrey Epstein is the only man on earth

1:36:13who could have brought together for a friendly social powwow, Noam Chomsky and Steve Bannon.

1:36:20Like I'm almost jealous of that.

1:36:21I mean, I'm sure that would have been a very fascinating discussion to listen in

1:36:25on. Right. And there are other examples.

1:36:28And so I think it's interesting from that perspective.

1:36:31I mean, I think everything that every little piece of information that can be uncovered

1:36:36about Jeffrey Epstein's life is now almost intrinsically interesting, just given the salience of the

1:36:42story. Right. So I guess I'm interested just from that perspective, because like, obviously he's

1:36:48now a historic or world historic even figure.

1:36:51And so, yeah, I'm always I'm always down to find out something new about what

1:36:56Jeffrey was up to. So, sure.

1:36:58I think it's interesting politically just in terms of how this can be leveraged into

1:37:03some sort of political battering ram against enemies.

1:37:07And, you know, this is like the number one oppositional Trump narrative of the second

1:37:11term. It's almost Russiagate redux in the outsized prominence that Democrats are giving it in

1:37:21terms of what they bring up day after day in hopes of it undercutting Trump

1:37:26or bedeviling him. Yeah, it does seem to be like the new Russiagate in that

1:37:32way, where every possible tangential fact is somehow connected.

1:37:37And the whole thing kind of metastases and is used in a partisan, weaponized way.

1:37:43Yeah. But it's different in that there's an international component.

1:37:46Like, this is the number one scandal right now that's ravaging Norway, Slovakia, I was

1:37:52mentioning obviously Great Britain today, other places, you know, United Arab Emirates, name your country.

1:37:59So there's like, it's been internationalized, which is just fascinating as well.

1:38:04Didn't they burn like an effigy of Jeffrey Epstein in Iran or something?

1:38:07I mean, it just never ends.

1:38:08So, of course, there's like infinite fascinating material, at least to me.

1:38:12I just don't accept that in order to be fascinated by this, we must.

1:38:18We must have this weird epistemology where we can just collect all these discrepant little

1:38:24pieces of information, blast them out on the internet, and then just think that we've

1:38:29done the argumentative and logical work necessary to somehow establish how that proves our ultimate

1:38:36notions about what the story is supposed to signify, which again, is pedophilic sex trafficking

1:38:42enforced by blackmail that ensnared prominent individuals at the direction of some intelligence agency.

1:38:48That's the crux of the epistemology, and it's been systematically unraveled, partially by this disclosure

1:38:56of more epistem files, but even prior to January 30th or December 19th, the two

1:39:00productions, there was never any credible evidence for any of it.

1:39:03So yeah, I am fascinated in terms of how people come to believe such mythological

1:39:07things, and the journalistic malfeasance, again, that has been characterizing the story as well is

1:39:16of particular interest to me because it's been a central factor in how the mythology

1:39:21has been allowed to just proliferate without any countervailing point of view being put to

1:39:30it. All right. I think that's a pretty good place for us to wrap up.

1:39:33Kevin, do you have any final thoughts?

1:39:36I'll just continue releasing some of this stuff.

1:39:39I tend to agree with Michael, but I also think that sticking to the facts

1:39:46is also very important too, and telling the truth is important in both directions as

1:39:50well. Can I just make one concluding thought?

1:39:53I actually do think it's, you know, I'm happy for this opportunity to speak on

1:39:57your podcast. I assume I'm reaching an audience that probably would not otherwise hear of

1:40:01me to a large extent, because I do think it's actually very disturbing that so

1:40:06many people around the world are being told that it's somehow been proven or vindicated

1:40:10that there is a massive child rape ring or that there were mass child rapes

1:40:16that were allowed to be perpetrated by the highest levels of government and then were

1:40:20covered up. Because as I mentioned on Piers Morgan this week, it's very easy to

1:40:25imagine how people with a predisposition toward mental illness who hear this stuff and believe

1:40:30it might be driven to do something like homicidally crazy.

1:40:34So I'm not predicting anything in particular.

1:40:37I just think it's probably the most explosive thing to tell the mass public in

1:40:46terms of what it might incite particular people with a particular mental instability to do.

1:40:55So, I mean, that's just one of the potentially detrimental effects of all this that

1:40:59I think it should be rationally countered to the maximum extent possible.

1:41:04And I think we're going to be beset with this issue for the foreseeable future.

1:41:08So at a certain point, I don't know, maybe there should be a little bit

1:41:12more momentum behind providing some degree of a rational corrective.

1:41:16I mean, or is it just me?

1:41:17I mean, am I the only guy who's going to be doing this forevermore?

1:41:21I mean, there's some more who have come to take on a little bit more

1:41:23of a skeptical perspective, but I think we should be cognizant of the real world

1:41:29ramifications rather than just speaking about it in the abstract or who suffers more, Reid

1:41:35Hoffman versus Elon Musk or all this other stuff.

1:41:37I think it really is a crazy making thing that's been inculcated in the public.

1:41:41Yeah. Well, look, I think both of you have performed very valuable services for the

1:41:47public in regards to this whole episode.

1:41:49I think, Michael, you are asking really important questions about evidentiary standards and what is

1:41:54the basis for some of the more, let's call.

1:41:56Epstein -Maximalist claims out there, again, about this global pedophile ring and so forth.

1:42:02And I think you're right that when you're talking about crimes, you have to be

1:42:05evidence -driven, and there is a little bit of a feeding frenzy here.

1:42:08And it is appropriate to ask what the motivations are of everyone involved in this

1:42:13story. And you're one of the only people who are doing it.

1:42:16Although it does seem like you are making a difference, there does seem to be

1:42:19a vibe shift a little bit around what you're doing.

1:42:22Yeah, because most people who have their brains wired in a normal way, which would

1:42:26not include me, would probably have a negative emotional reaction to being inundated day in

1:42:32and day out with accusations of personally being a pedophile or harboring depraved sexual fantasies

1:42:38of molestation of children or whatever.

1:42:41But obviously that is not the case for me.

1:42:43But I can withstand it because I'm used to the torrent of vitriol.

1:42:47But most people, I think, probably would be dissuaded from taking a certain angle on

1:42:51a certain subject if that's what they had to endure.

1:42:53Well, the mob does not like being accused of being a mob.

1:42:57And their defense mechanism seems to be to accuse anyone who points out some of

1:43:04these problems and the logic of basically somehow being involved in the crimes that they're

1:43:10alleging. So in any event, I do think that you are performing a valuable service.

1:43:17You know, when Hollywood dramatizes this, it's, you know, it's like Henry Fonda and the

1:43:22Oxbow incident, or maybe it's Gregory Peck and To Kill a Mockingbird.

1:43:26You've got a mob and you have this one lone figure who's standing athwart the

1:43:31mob, trying to talk sense into them.

1:43:33And, you know, in real life, it's not Gregory Peck.

1:43:36It's like a guy in a one bedroom apartment in New Jersey.

1:43:39Yes. For all the money, I'm told I'm surreptitiously receiving from Leslie Wexner and the

1:43:45Mossad. I mean, I wish I could get some better digs, but yeah.

1:43:48And Kevin, I do think that what you're doing is really important because I think

1:43:52that the citizen journalism here that's sleuthing through the Epstein files is turning up really

1:43:58interesting things. And I do not think it's appropriate for me to be, again, wildly

1:44:02pointing the finger at other people while the evidence shows that he's been boldfaced lying

1:44:08about every aspect of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

1:44:12And to be honest, if he had just kept his mouth shut and not accused

1:44:15other people, I'm not even sure this would be a topic on the show.

1:44:18I would just wait to let the chips fall where they may and see what

1:44:22ultimately comes out about this.

1:44:24But he kind of put himself in play by saying all of these things.

1:44:28And I do think it's appropriate to examine the record and assess his credibility on

1:44:36that basis. And you've done that job.

1:44:40And I hope you and other people will keep going through the files and actually

1:44:42seeing what is actually there so we can get to the truth of this story.

1:44:47I agree. And thank you.

1:44:49Well, let's wrap it there.

1:44:50I just want to make one final point, which is, you know, even when years

1:44:55ago, this was sort of a cause celeb on the right, where you had right

1:44:59-wing podcasts pointing the finger at Bill Clinton or other left -wing figures.

1:45:04I never weighed in on this.

1:45:05I wasn't sure what to think.

1:45:07I still am not completely sure what to think about it.

1:45:11I don't want to get over my skis in terms of overly associating myself with

1:45:15any one point of view, because I think when people do that, they do kind

1:45:19of dig in. And I'm keeping an open mind with respect to what comes out

1:45:23next. It would not surprise me at all if Michael Tracy turned out to be

1:45:28correct. But also, it wouldn't completely surprise me if some version of Sagar's version of

1:45:33the story. proved to be correct, assuming more evidence comes out.

1:45:38So I'm keeping an open mind.

1:45:40I do think it's really important for us to evaluate the claims critically, which is

1:45:44why I think it's important to hear from people like Michael Tracy.

1:45:47And I look forward to seeing what comes next and we'll address it then.

1:45:52I try to be rigorously evidence -based as well myself.

1:45:55So I don't discount the idea that something could theoretically come out that would undermine

1:46:00some of the assumptions or conclusions that I've derived from my research and reporting on

1:46:07this. So I think that's a healthy epistemological habit to always be open to the

1:46:12possibility of something that's in contravention of your prior assumptions being presented to you.

1:46:19So why not? Absolutely. Fully agreed.

1:46:21Okay. We'll leave it there.

1:46:22Thanks guys. We should all just get a room and just have one big Hugh

1:46:57Georgie because they're all just useless.

1:46:58It's like this, like sexual tension, but they just need to release them out.

1:47:02Wet your feet. Wet your feet.

1:47:07We need to get merch.

1:47:09I'm going all in. I'm going all in.

Prince Andrew Arrested, Epstein Mythology, Reid Hoffman Files with Saagar Enjeti & Michael Tracey