[0:00]The Justice Department releases the transcript and audio of its interview with Jeffrey Epstein's convicted accomplice, Galileain Maxwell. We sort through the I don't know much Q&A. The
[0:12]FBI raids the home and office of former Trump national security adviser and now Trump critic John Bolton. Vice President Vance says it's not retribution.
[0:22]Fed chair Jerome Pal hints about a rate cut. Stock market sore, seemingly indifferent to a presidential threat to fire a Fed governor.
[0:32][Music] Hello everyone, I'm Major Garrett in Washington. Let me welcome you to the
[0:44]Takeout. This quite seriously was a where the hell are we going to begin day. Now, we came up with an answer. It is what came and it doesn't appear to be
[0:53]much. The DOJ's interview with Galain Maxwell, accomplice to Jeffrey Epste and convicted of crimes related to Epstein's trafficking of underage girls. Maxwell,
[1:03]whom the feds have previously said lied about Epstein's exploits, told the DOJ there was no Epstein client list, no blackmail scheme. She never witnessed or
[1:15]knew of any incriminating behavior involving President Trump or former President Clinton or high-profile men who travel in Epstein circle. In fact, she said she never witnessed any
[1:27]wrongdoing of any kind. Maxwell was granted limited immunity for this information, meaning she could be prosecuted if she lied. After this
[1:38]interview, Maxwell was transferred, we should note, to a less harsh federal prison. A move that enraged Epstein's victims, as to a lesser extent did this interview. There was a lot more to
[1:50]digest in the news today. an FBI raid on the home and office of John Bolton, a recent guest on this show and a former Trump national security adviser, a judge, approved the warrants for the
[2:01]searches. Bolton is a critic of the president. The investigation turns apparently on lingering charges once put to bed that Bolton mishandled classified
[2:11]information. Also today, the president vowed to fire a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors over mortgage statements alleged to constitute fraud.
[2:21]Whether the president has this power is not clear. That the threat fits within a pressure campaign on the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates appears plain.
[2:31]In that light, the Fed chair Jerome Pal hinted a September rate cut may be coming and that's that stocks moving quite a bit up quite aggressively. Couple of other things Trump may be on
[2:42]the verge, well actually the White House just announced that it has taken a 10% stake in microchip giant Intel. Kilmargo Garcia was released from pre-trial custody in Tennessee. And the head of
[2:54]the Defense Intelligence Agency, which cast initial doubt on whether Iran's nuclear program sites had been obliterated by US military air strikes,
[3:03]well, he was fired. All this today. We began we begin rather with the Galain Maxwell transcript and audio and our justice reporter Jake Rosen. Jake, for
[3:14]our audience's benefit, I'm going to play three different parts of the audio. encounter between Todd Blanch, the deputy attorney general, and Galileain Maxwell. The first one is a conversation
[3:26]about President Trump, that is the president being referred to in this first excerpt. >> Actually, never saw the president in any type of massage setting. I never
[3:36]witnessed the president in any inappropriate setting, in any way. The president was never inappropriate with anybody in the times that I was with him. He was
[3:46]a gentleman in all respects. >> This second part of the audio from the transcript of that Todd Blanch, Deputy Attorney General, interview with Galain Maxwell, it's a discussion about whether
[3:58]or not Galain Maxwell believes Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide while in custody. >> So, you think he was he was he did not die by suicide given all the things we just talked about?
[4:09]>> I do not believe he died by suicide. No. And do you believe that um do you have any speculation or view of who killed him? >> I no I don't.
[4:20]>> And this third and final part of the transcript in audio deals with what Gain Maxwell does or doesn't know about Jeffrey Epstein and former President
[4:30]Bill Clinton. >> Do you know whether for example President Clinton ever received a massage? >> I don't believe he did. >> And what makes you say you don't believe he did? Well, because I don't So, that's
[4:41]a good question. Uh, the time that Epstein and President Clinton spent together, the only times I believe, well, obviously they traveled.
[4:52]There was that, you know, they came, they went on the plane 26 times or whatever, that would be one journey. So, they spent time on the plane together and I don't believe there was ever a massage on the plane. So that would have
[5:03]been the only time that I think that President Clinton could have even received a massage and he didn't because I was there. >> So Jake,
[5:13]there are what about 250 plus pages in the transcripts of the 300 plus actually over two days. And Galileain Maxwell, based on my quick reading of the
[5:25]transcripts, and please correct me if I'm wrong, comes off as someone who was around lots of things but saw and knows practically nothing. >> That's certainly how she paints herself. And I think we should remind our
[5:35]audience she had a lot to gain from this 9-hour plus conversation with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanch. Not a lot to lose, seeing she was in a maximum security prison, had already been found
[5:45]guilty, had been sentenced already. And this was giving uh she recognized this off the bat of the interview that she was being given a chance to finally speak, which had been her attorney's framing of this all along. And you hear
[5:56]her say it in her own words that through all of these numerous investigations into Jeffrey Epstein, she says nobody from the FBI, nobody from Florida law enforcement, nobody from New York law enforcement came to talk to her. And it
[6:06]she paints this picture that leaves out obviously a criminal conviction and painted found guilty of facts that he she had assisted him in years long of grooming and sexually assaulting women.
[6:18]>> And plenty of prosecutors believed they developed indep independently from her evidence to that effect. >> Exactly. And and I'm sure her legal teams at the time recommended that she not talk to the prosecution.
[6:29]>> At trial, she did not testify. >> Exactly. I think we should and when you take a step back from this, that's certainly very clear. We know what happened as you pointed out in your open of what resulted after this interview. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanch
[6:41]promises nothing. He makes that clear and yet she was moved to a lower security prison. Uh this is part of the Trump administration's efforts to clear the air, find out more information. I
[6:51]don't know how much new information really was found here outside of hearing from somebody who was intimately involved, but yet does not acknowledge specifics of many instances. uh she a lot of the conversations around the
[7:03]victims are redacted and we knew that going into this. The documents that were sent from the Department of Justice to a House committee today are going to be redacted as well in terms of specific victims and who was involved surrounding
[7:13]their recruitment and what happened to them. Um she answered the questions as her attorney points out. there was no time where she doesn't but at the same time she's not exactly giving the full picture when she's only talking about
[7:24]how they spoke uh you know flew on the plane together and that's the only time or the only time she was with President Trump was in a social situation. Um, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanch had
[7:35]to prod her on specific names at times and bring up names one by one and many of her answers again this is years later but still were very rambling moving between the alleged list to her family
[7:46]life and what happened to her since then moving to the suicide to Jeffrey Epstein's health problems and then to obviously a center core central core of this which was their sexual relationship
[7:56]that then she says became more of a a financial agreement which was paid at first $25,000 a year to help him with things around his mansions to then a4 million dollars a year to do everything
[8:06]from obviously participate in his uh grooming and and assault scheme but then to also be part of kind of a general manager of numerous properties including the island including mansions and things like that.
[8:18]>> Very quickly, Jake, remind our audience of who Todd Blanch was before he became deputy attorney general. Why this makes this particular interview >> unusual. Todd Blanch was a defense
[8:29]attorney uh who represented President Trump in that uh New York uh fraud, not just the fraud trial, but I should say the uh um hush money case that he was so
[8:40]controversially in going down the stretch of the election uh over a year ago. >> President's personal attorney >> and not just in that capacity, but a vocal interviewer media personality going out to defend him in the hallways
[8:51]when the whole world felt like it was watching going down the stretch of the election. Todd Blanch was the person that stood day by day, side by side next to President Trump. >> Jake Rosen, I appreciate it very much. Thank you. CBS News legal contributor
[9:02]Caroline Pissy joins me now. Caroline, thank you so much for joining us. What is your 30,000 foot evaluation of this interview and what the audio and
[9:12]the transcripts reveal or suggest? >> Yeah, nothing surprising to me here, Major. You know, both parties to this
[9:22]deposition understood the assignment as it were. Todd Blanch, what did he want out of this interview? He wanted who basically the American public believes
[9:32]is the only person on earth apparently who can attest to the fact that uh President Trump had nothing to do with Epstein and his crimes. In fact, she testified that he was always a perfect
[9:43]gentleman. Nothing unoured happened in her presence. Um, and he also wanted to get on the record that there was no client list. Remember, there was there's been such an uproar surrounding whether
[9:54]uh Pam Bondi and the DOJ would be releasing this client list and then they said they would and then they said that there wasn't a client list. So, he got those two facts on the record. And what
[10:06]did she want? Her lawyer has made no um has not been shy about the fact that he's very interested in getting a pardon for Maxwell. There is also several
[10:17]appeals pending, one of which is going up to the Supreme Court. Um, and and you know, after this, as you guys have both pointed out, she was transferred immediately to a much lower security
[10:27]prison, which we we called them clubfed in in my line of work. Okay. It's a very nice facility. And so both parties got what they wanted to out of this. This is a highly unusual
[10:38]uh way to go about doing things. Todd Blanch, you asked who he was. He also was a former United States attorney, assistant United States attorney for the Southern District of New York. So, he understands how these things work. It's
[10:48]very unusual for the deputy attorney general to conduct interviews like this. Typically, you would have a line prosecutor, but in this case, there is no uh real point to this interview, I
[11:00]think, other than getting on the record what DOJ and Todd Blanch wants to get on the record for satiating sort of the American public's desire to have closure
[11:10]and finality in this space. >> Caroline, based on your experience, was this a vigorous interrogation? And how do you think victims will read what they see or hear?
[11:22]It certainly was not a vigorous interrogation and and both parties clearly had been vetted. Both parties understood that this was being video recorded that it would be released uh subsequently to the general public.
[11:33]You'll notice Todd Blanch's questioning, the way he phrases his questions are um very specific, such as not to elicit specific instances or specific types of
[11:44]testimony from Maxwell. Maxwell, you know, as you noted, has a very uh spotty memory as it were. She admitted to absolutely no wrongdoing uh in this
[11:55]interview. She had a very bad memory problems, although she never specifically um you know, denied specific action. She just said, you know, she couldn't recall things. And so, uh you know, she has very little
[12:06]liability for perjury charges there. But, you know, uh no, this was not a rigorous, uh investigation. This was not a rigorous deposition. It was wide
[12:17]ranging. It was sort of all over the place. Um but again, I think both parties got what they wanted. This wasn't a real search for discovering
[12:26]anything new about um Epstein's just horrific crimes and I think the victims are will likely be uh very disappointed. >> Caroline Pissy, thank you so very much.
[12:38]Well, I think uh what this summit does for Putin uh is sets the stage for what he needs to do to Trump, which is get him back under control, get him back
[12:47]under his KGB train manipulation. That was John Bolton on this program just last week. President Trump said today he didn't know anything about the
[12:58]FBI search of the home and office of his former national security adviser. Trump did take the opportunity, however, to criticize Bolton, calling him a sleazag
[13:08]and a low life. Ed O'Keefee, neither of those things. Joins me now from the north lawn of the White House. >> That could have gone all sorts of ways. >> It sure could have, Ed. Ed, I want to
[13:19]play for the audience's benefit. I know you've heard it what the vice president told NBC News about this series of raids today. Let's play that sound, ladies and gentlemen. Is Ambassador Bolton being
[13:31]targeted because he's a critic of President Trump? >> No, not at all. And in fact, if we were trying to do that, we would just throw out prosecutions willy-nilly like the Biden administration DOJ did. Prosecutions that later got thrown out
[13:41]in court. If we bring a case, and of course, we haven't done that yet. The Department of Justice has not done that yet. We are investigating Ambassador Bolton, but if they ultimately bring a case, it will be because they determine
[13:51]that he has broken the law. We're going to be careful about that. We're going to be deliberate about that because we don't think that we should throw people even if they disagree with us politically. Maybe especially if they disagree with us politically. You
[14:02]shouldn't throw people willy-nilly in prison. You should let the law drive these determinations. And that's what we're doing. >> Those asurances really covered the
[14:11]entire legal battle space here, Ed. So, the vice president trying to reassure the country this isn't anything that you should be alarmed about. >> Yeah. Very nothing to see here. But that
[14:23]excessive use of the word we might be something that the Bolton lawyers uh keep in mind as they consider appeals and challenges to this investigation should charges ever be brought against
[14:33]John Bolton which as of this hour they have not. But uh normally you don't hear the president or the vice president talk about we are investigating someone. It's the justice department. It's
[14:43]investigators are looking into somebody and you know there that he says we'll let it run its course. Well that may be part of it. You may just want to let it run a course that drags out for a long
[14:54]time and keeps a pretty prominent and vocal Trump critic now tied up in court or at least having to pay some pretty hefty legal fees as what appears to be the revival now of an investigation that
[15:05]began in the later months of the first Trump administration out of concern that Bolton had access to and was mishandling classified information that later ended up in a 2020 memoir after he left his
[15:17]job as the president's third national security adviser. That case was dropped by the Biden administration in the early weeks of the of the Biden era. But after a federal
[15:27]judge reviewing the matter admonished Bolton for his handling of classified information and suggested that he may have in fact jeopardized national security. So there could be merit to this and we will see where the
[15:39]investigation goes and whether it yields charges. But certainly today's development signal that the Justice Department is once again looking into Bolton and what he may have done in his past. and O'Keefe in the north line of
[15:50]the White House. As always, sir, thanks so very much. Still to come, Russia carries out its biggest attack in more than a month on Ukraine as the chances of a meeting between President Putin and President
[16:02]Sinsky appear to be dwindling. Plus, Fed share J. Pal hints interest rates could be coming down soon. President Trump says it's still, whenever it happens,
[16:11]too little and too late. And how do struggling movie theaters make up for lagging attendance? Play more commercials. You say the idea that isn't going over well with those who still go
[16:23]to the cinema. Welcome back to the Takeout. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Pal gave a
[16:33]speech in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and with one sentence that neither you nor I can confidently translate, nevertheless sent all three stock indices roaring
[16:44]very, very bullish. Why? because within the opaque language you're about to hear, traders excavated clues of an interest rate cut that they believe is coming.
[16:56]>> Nonetheless, with policy in restrictive territory, the baseline outlook and the shifting balance of risks may warrant adjusting our policy stance. >> US economic economics editor for the
[17:08]economist, a great magazine that calls itself a newspaper, Archie Hall joins me. Archie, great to have you. >> Great to be here. So the Federal Reserve chair with his
[17:17]speech did, even though that's hard to translate, >> say there are things in the economy that might warrant an interest rate cut in September. >> Yeah. It's a little bit perverse. Effectively, what he was saying was that
[17:29]the economy is looking a bit shakier and a bitecially on the job. >> Exactly. A bit more uncertain than people thought. And as you said, the way that was translated was a huge boom in in in all the the major stock indices.
[17:40]Of course, the way that kind of gets shaken through is that people expect now a higher odds of interest rate cuts coming out of the Federal Reserve in response to that weakness and financial conditions are rallying on that front
[17:50]>> in September and quite possibly in October and they're hoping maybe even in December. >> We'll have to see. Exactly. >> Exactly. So, the Dow was up 1.89%, the Nasdaq up 8.84%,
[18:02]the S&P up 1.52%. Related to this, Lisa Cook was in Jackson Hole >> for this gathering. President said today that if she does
[18:12]not resign, he's going to fire her. A clear power play on the board of governors for the Federal Reserve. >> Absolutely. It's pretty troubling. And the the seat that Lisa Cook has doesn't
[18:23]theoretically come up until the late 2030s. This is a very very clear attempt to try to grab that earlier seat that ordinarily wouldn't be up during this president's term at all. And if he does,
[18:33]and the legality of that is unknown, >> indeed, >> there is something in the law that talks about presidential power to fire someone for cause on the Federal Reserve Board
[18:44]of Governors, but we don't know if these underlying allegations about mortgage statements would even fit into that context. >> Absolutely. We don't know. And this is all deeply untested. Of course, previously, Supreme Courts had some
[18:55]willingness to carve out the Federal Reserve and say it's more independent, but more protected. >> More protected. Exactly. even other federal agencies. But but how this goes, I mean, we'll have to see. >> And it clearly is sending tremors
[19:06]through the Federal Reserve as an institution. >> Absolutely. I mean, one of the the key bits of kind of independence to the Federal Reserve is that takes so long to replace people as governors and those terms do kind of stretch and stretch and stretch.
[19:17]>> Archie, also something just announced by the Commerce Secretary, 10% stake now, the United States federal government in Intel. >> Yeah. >> Whoa. >> Pretty striking. I mean for a for a kind
[19:28]of country that's long set itself aside from say the Chinese model of state capitalism to to make a provocative comparison uh we are seeing an awful lot of things between this between the actions around US steel and so on where
[19:39]the government's really kind of willing to get in and get involved with the governance of American companies in way it's very unusual >> and the legal umbrella protection the administration asserts is national security principally.
[19:50]>> Exactly. And I mean the convenient thing about national security is that can that can mean almost anything and and we'll we'll have to see but this is an increasingly wide kind of ambit the administration is willing to take and messing around interfering with
[20:00]particular companies in the US economy. >> Archie Hall, great to have you here. I appreciate your time and expertise. Thank you very much. Despite hope from the White House, the likelihood of a face-to-face meeting between Presidents
[20:11]Putin and Zillinsky, well, they seem to be shrinking. That's next on the Takeout. want to evaluate the uncertain path to peace as the bloodshed in Ukraine refuses to relent.
[20:23][Music] Welcome back to Takeout. Happy Friday, by the way. Sorry for forgetting that.
[20:33]Prospects for a summit between Russian President Putin and Ukrainian President Zalinsky, always dim, appear nearly non-existent now. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told NBC News the
[20:44]agenda for a Putin Sinsky summit is quote not ready at all unquote. One week ago, Trump met Putin in Alaska. I know you remember that red carpet and hand claps at the ready. After the talks,
[20:56]Trump said he hoped to set a peace process in motion. President convened Zalinsky and European leaders at the White House Monday and later called Putin to relay the results. The White
[21:06]House then said preparations for a summit were underway. Today, the president sounded much less optimistic. >> Going to see if Putin and Zalinski will
[21:18]be working together. You know, that's like oil and vinegar a little bit. They don't get along too well. >> Meanwhile, Russian air and drone strikes have continued, seemingly indifferent to
[21:30]peace initiatives, definitely hostile to talk of a ceasefire. Strikes have occurred every day the past week during the Alaska summit and the big White House meeting. There were nearly 100 air
[21:42]and shelling strikes inside Ukraine on the day of the Trump Putin summit alone. That according to the Ukraine conflict monitor. Two weeks have passed since President Trump issued a deadline for
[21:53]Russia to end the war or face economic consequences. And yet no new sanctions. Former US ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor joins me now. It's always great
[22:04]to have you. Thanks so much. >> Good to be here. >> That's an elaborate setup, but it characterizes >> not only where we are, but where we have traveled, and it's not very far in the last week. >> Well, you're right. Uh we've got no
[22:16]progress on these meetings. However, last Monday, I think there was some progress um on support for Ukraine. Okay. And we're talking about a security guarantee. And last Monday, the United
[22:27]States, President Trump said for the first time, we will participate. Turns out it's going to be air support. Air support's a lot. That that could be useful. So that was progress. And I
[22:38]think major that they made some progress in getting Trump back on track towards a ceasefire rather than this long-term settlement uh which President Trump had
[22:48]gotten from President Putin last Friday. Um get back on track, focus on the ceasefire. And yet this afternoon, the Russian president said he sees a light
[22:59]at the end of the tunnel of resumption of full relations with the United States. Putin thinks he's going to get all the other things he wants, which are more
[23:08]important to him than ending the war in Ukraine. >> That's what the Russians say. But President Trump actually has addressed that. He says, "Fine, fine. We'll talk
[23:18]about that after we get the war stopped." He's been very clear. You've been explicit about that. So the Russians can say all they want. The Russians say a lot of things. They also
[23:28]say that we won't accept the security guarantee uh to >> no European troops allowable in Ukraine. >> It's irrelevant what they say about that. It is irrelevant. It's irrelevant
[23:38]because they don't get a say in how Ukraine defends itself. Ukraine has the ability as a sovereign nation to work a deal with the Europeans or the Americans
[23:48]uh to say, "Look, let's will you will you support us? will you give us a security guarantee? The Russians are not involved in that conversation. They'd like to be. They'd like to say, "No, you can't do it without us." But that's
[24:00]wrong. You can do it without them, and we should do it without them. On this program, Tom Tillis, Republican senator from North Carolina, said the United States Senate should pass sanctions as a
[24:10]way to force a ceasefire. What do you think about that? >> Senator is right. He's exactly right. That's the way, that's the only way there's going to be a ceasefire is if we
[24:19]force Europeans, Americans, force Putin to come to the table. He's not going to come to table there, if there's nothing pushing him. He doesn't want to end this war. He wants to keep bombarding Ukraine
[24:31]until they submit. They're not going to submit. >> And yet, the president, when asked over and over again, continues to express reluctance to flip that switch, even though he must know it's a pressure point.
[24:42]>> It is a pressure point. He flipped one switch. He flipped the switch on India. Um he put sanctions on India because they're importing Russian oil. He threatened to do that on China. In fact,
[24:54]I think actually when he flipped that switch on India, I think that's what triggered Putin's panic, he said, I better get to talk to to Trump >> leading to the meeting in Alaska
[25:05]>> leading to the meeting in Alaska. >> So that proves the concept. does. >> If you flip these economic switches, Russia will change its behavior or at least its public rhetoric.
[25:16]>> Trump has leverage and that proves it. And the senator is right. He just needs to use that leverage. There are 87 co-sponsors of a sanctions bill in the United States Senate. There
[25:28]are rarely instances where you get 87 senators to agree on anything, even a post office. That would be a big deal. >> A big deal. President Trump has cover, has political cover to do that. He's got
[25:38]Republican support. He's got, you know, he's got the American people's support. Ted Cruz says, "Mr. President, Putin is not your friend. Putin is your enemy." He's used that enemy. And Lindsey
[25:50]Graham, Lindsey Graham says we should destroy the Russian economy. >> Ambassador William Taylor, Bill, it's always great to see you. Thanks for coming in. I appreciate it.
[26:01]>> Good to talk to you. >> DC was a hell hole and now it's safe. Not a hell hole. But as the National Guard take over the nation's capital
[26:11]continues, new numbers show crime, and this is the point about the hell hole may not be as big of a problem as the president keeps saying. We'll deal with that next here on the Takeout. Welcome back. Here's a look at what else
[26:33]we And now you are watching this evening. Kilimaro Garcia, the Maryland man who has fought for his freedom since being wrongfully deported to El Salvador earlier this year, has been freed from a
[26:43]jail in Tennessee. Abrao Garcia was returned to the US, but then taken into custody on federal human trafficking charges in June. Despite being released today, he could end up back in custody. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement
[26:55]may detain him once he arrives in Maryland, and that could subject him to another deportation effort. Florida Governor Ronda Santis wasted no time appealing a federal judge's order
[27:05]blocking the expansion of what some call Alligator Alcatraz, a detention site in the Everglades. The judge sided with environmental groups who sued, saying the facility in the Everglades, as I
[27:15]mentioned, endangers surrounding wildlife and drinking water for more than 8 million Flidians. The order does not stop operations at the detention facility, but gives the government 60
[27:27]days to move out existing detainees and begin to remove fencing, lighting, power generators, and other materials. The order also prohibits new construction.
[27:37]New voter registration analysis that appeared in the New York Times this week signals, there's only one way to say it, pretty bad news for the Democratic party. It found Democrats lost ground to
[27:47]Republicans between the 2020 and 2024 elections in all 30 states that track voter registration by party. Here with me now, Democratic strategist Christian
[27:58]Ramos, who previously served as an aid to Majority Leader Harry Reid and Lance Trover, who served as press secretary for North Dakota Governor Doug Bergam when he ran for president. He's now interior secretary. Gentlemen, great to
[28:09]have you at the family table. Uh let me go through some of the numbers that were in the New York Times piece. So from 2020 to 2024, Christian,
[28:20]Democrats lost 2.1 million registered voters and Republicans gained to 2.4. Even I'm good enough at math to know
[28:30]that is a delta of 4.5 million voters. And the trend lines do not appear to be reversing. If anything, this calendar year, the New York Times said those trends are continuing. Look, it's a
[28:41]>> You categorize that as yikes. >> I would categorize that as a come to Jesus moment for the Democratic party. We've got to start doing things differently. We've got to start earning voters trust again that we care about
[28:52]the issues that matter most to them. And I think that this administration, the Trump administration, is doing a great job of doing everything they can to get Democrats back into this fight by doing
[29:02]some truly awful things to workingclass voters. That is an opportunity for Democrats again to go back and be the
[29:14]people that are fighting for change for everyday Americans. That is something that is critical and was core to what made Democrats party very very popular
[29:26]uh with Barack Obama when he ran. We've got to get back. We've got to take that mantel back. Uh, I don't want to continue to harsh or mellow as my kids like to say, but also reported this
[29:36]week, the Republican National Committee as of July has a $70 million cash on hand advantage over the Democratic National Committee. The numbers round out this way, $84 million cash on hand,
[29:47]RNC, 14 million cash on hand, DNC. Look, it's open. It's open business right now with the Republican parties. whoever wants to come in, if you're a
[29:57]corporation, if you're whoever, anybody is all are welcome to the White House when you have Donald Trump literally doing fundraisers. Uh, come meet the president if you give me x amount of money. Yeah, that's what's going to
[30:08]happen. I mean, it it's it's not great right now for our democracy. It's certainly not great for the for the political process. >> Uh, Lance, you just want to do a touchdown dance or whatever. >> No, I when your when your opponent's
[30:20]like, when this is what's happening, you just sit back in silence. I love the lead into this segment though, Major. This is this is a great part of the of the show. No. Um, look here here's the problem with what he's talking about
[30:31]here is when you have a party I I think the Democratic party has two glaring thumbs. They have an authenticity problem. They but they have an a policy problem. When you espouse policies that 80% of this country disagree with
[30:42]biological boys playing in girls sports, open border policies defending criminal illegal immigrants who are being arrested. I mean, these guys are getting arrested and Democrats are out there chanting and screaming as if some as if
[30:52]ICE is doing something wrong. When your only solution to what the uh for the problems of this country is to say, "No, Donald Trump is bad and you're not providing solutions of your own." Who wants to be a part of that party? I
[31:04]wouldn't want to be a part of a party like that that has zero solutions. And so, there's no surprise to me that those are the numbers that are coming out from registration. >> Very quickly, I mentioned this before we went to break. The president continues to describe DC as a kind of hellscape.
[31:16]The Metropolitan Police Department released its 2025 year-to-day crime comparison. Violent crime in the city dropped by 27% it says, including a 12% decrease in homicides. Property crimes,
[31:28]it says, dropped 5%. City saw, the Metropolitan Police asserts, an 8% dip in crime over the last year. We've teased that. I just want to get those numbers on the table.
[31:37]>> So, I did Republicans right now, and I say this respectfully and politely, are high on their own supply. And what I mean by that is they are out there doing things that under normal circumstances
[31:48]they would never ever do. What they did with the big ugly bill, with the healthcare, with the Medicare, with with taking away all the subsidies that were keeping people's energy costs down, they
[32:00]would never do that if they weren't so overconfident. They are right now. They're making mistakes. And yes, none of those statistics that you read earlier were particularly good for
[32:10]Democrats. Republicans are on their way to their own reckoning after all the horrible things that they've done uh under this administration. >> Lance of reckoning to come. >> I mean, Democrats are at a 33% approval
[32:21]rate, the lowest they've been in decades. I I think that speaks for itself. >> Very quickly, Third Way came out with a memo today talking about things that Democrats should no longer say. I can't
[32:32]list all of the things they said, but let me run through a few. Latinx, bipo, incarcerated people, food insecurity, existential threat. Christian,
[32:44]>> I don't think we should be policing language either way. I do think the Republicans >> The memo says normies don't get those words. >> Uh,
[32:55]are you a normie? >> Look, I think that that memo speaks for itself. That tells you the problems the Democrats have. They can't even sell their own policies because they use all this unhoused rather than saying homeless and all these all this drug.
[33:05]Yeah. That that normal people don't understand. That goes to the authenticity issue that I talked about earlier. They have no authenticity. >> Well, that's Trover. Christian Ramos. Christian. I know this was a hard one. >> Well, I wish you a happy birthday. I'm
[33:16]back saying happy birthday to you right now. >> Wish you a happy birthday. >> Exploring economic history in America. Author of Ages of American Capitalism, Jonathan Levy joins me next.
[33:27]That's the takeoff. [Music] Welcome back. We talk here generally and
[33:38]in news coverage pretty frequently about the Federal Reserve, describing it accurately as a huge lever in the US economy. Today's hint toward a September rate cut, as we discussed earlier in the
[33:49]show, propelled socks upward, meant tens of billions of dollars in wealth generation because of something that was said, not because of something that was done. This, ladies and gentlemen, is not
[33:59]how it used to be. To explore that and other dimensions of American economic history and why, incidentally, we are so economically discontented, we turned here to Jonathan Levy, author of The
[34:10]Ages of American Capitalism. Here is part of my conversation with Jonathan. There's a good portion of my audience, Jonathan, that doesn't know a time in America where the Federal Reserve was
[34:21]not a constant part of even a generalist conversation about what was happening in the US economy. It wasn't always so. Explain to my audience when that got
[34:32]started. Well, first, thanks for having me, Major. Um I think that got started in the early 1980s. The kind of modern era
[34:44]uh in which the central bank, Federal Reserve plays such an important role in shaping the American economy, you know, began in 1979 when a new chairman of the Federal Reserve was appointed by Jimmy
[34:56]Carter, Paul Vulkar. At the time there was very high inflation in the United States. Uh the value of the dollar had plummeted. uh and Vulkar raised interest
[35:05]rates both to tamp down inflation uh and to restore the value of the dollar. That induced a a strong recession, a lot of
[35:13]unemployment that lasted until 1982. Uh it coincided with the reduction of inflation. Um at that point, Vulkar um
[35:24]relented and reduced interest rates and a new expansion began across the 1980s and really ever since then uh the Federal Reserve has been the most important I think governance institution
[35:35]with respect to uh the regulation of and the the driving of it, the shaping of uh capitalism in the United States. >> And how did that capitalism change in
[35:46]that era that you describe as the age of chaos? Well, I call the age of chaos uh one that began uh in 1982. The age before it
[35:56]I call the age of control. It's a post-war period, 50s,60s,7s. Um it's an era that was still to a large
[36:06]degree dominated by an industrial economy. De-industrialization had already begun in the 1960s and 1970s. Uh but industry was still in many respects the backbone of the American economy.
[36:18]From the 1980s forward, ever since then, finance and services uh become much more important to the American economy, which
[36:26]is precisely why the Fed um in charge of monetary policy plays such a prominent role um has played and continues to play such a prominent role in the United States economy.
[36:38]>> There's a sentence that jumps out in your discussing this age of chaos, a capitalism dominated by asset price appreciation.
[36:48]for the generalists in my audience, help them understand what that means and why it's so important. >> Okay. I I think the air before when you
[36:57]have an industrial economy, you grow the economy by using capital. Think of a factory. You use it up and as you use that factory, you combine it with labor
[37:07]to produce goods. The value of the capital depreciates, right? If you're if you're using a factory, you start in January and you run the factory. By the end of the year, it's worth less, but
[37:17]you produced goods in combination with labor. In a financialized economy, capital appreciates. So, think about a stock, right? Or a bond, right? You want
[37:27]the price or the value of capital to go up. But in order to do that, what you need is debt, right? The more debt you have, the more you can juice financial
[37:38]profits. But you don't need a lot of labor, right? to create value that way. And so you end up with an economy that increases inequality, but not just inequality really excludes a lot of
[37:49]people from valuation in the economy. You know, that way that's taken up that's taken place largely in the United States over the last 40 years has been geographical disparities. And so in
[38:00]regions of the country, they're rather obvious if we could say them. Places like New York, uh places like Silicon Valley see a lot of asset price appreciation both in financial
[38:11]instruments but also in homes. Homes is another asset, real estate. Uh but does so in a way that largely excludes labor um from earning a share of the value created.
[38:22]>> And that exclusion of labor creates frustration. And if I'm listening to you correctly and reading your book correctly, part or a large part of the
[38:32]political frustration in our American experience now can be traced to this age of chaos and things that have either
[38:42]silently or unobservedly flowed through to create this separation economically and the underlying frustration.
[38:52]>> Yeah, I think that's correct. I mean, it creates frustration in politics, but it also creates um social pathologies, isolation, destruction of communities
[39:03]that then feeds into politics in insiduous ways. And it's been a slow build. It's been a slow boil over the last 40 years. But I think it's fair to say here, I think 2008 would be a
[39:13]crucial kind of marker. Um but in many respects uh the kind of inequities and exclusions of that capitalism that we've lived with for the last 40 years uh is not exclusively responsible but I think
[39:25]to a large degree as you say uh is very much responsible for political frustrations in the United States today. You can catch my full interview with Jonathan Levy on your favorite podcast
[39:36]platform. Movie theaters have struggled post pandemic. We all know that. But are more commercials before the main feature the answer to the industry's financial wos? We're going to ask that question.
[39:47]Hope to get an answer next here on the takeout. Welcome back. Tom Cruz, Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning. Full disclosure, from our parent company, Paramount. Kind of a big hit this
[39:58]summer. But when you showed up at the movie theater this summer, if you did, with your popcorn and soft drink, you were not wrong. Those prefeature ads, meaning
[40:08]advertisements, lasted a lot longer than they used to. AMC theaters, just the latest movie chain to embrace more commercials as it tries to plug mounting
[40:18]financial losses. Tom Davenport is with me now. He is the professor of information technology and management at Babson College. It's great to have you with us. Uh let me just run down the
[40:28]summer. It wasn't that bad, was it? Mission Impossible, Formula 1, Naked Gun, Superman, Fantastic 4, Jurassic World, Lilo and Stitch, How to Train Your Dragon. Didn't Didn't movies do
[40:38]okay this summer? Uh, movies did okay, but not everybody went to AMC theaters to see them, and I think they are only slowly figuring out
[40:50]that their attention is being wasted in a dramatic way. And how do longer pre-roll, meaning pre
[41:00]uh feature advertisements, how do they address that problem, that revenue stream problem? Uh, in my view, they're going to make it
[41:10]worse as soon as people realize that big chunks of their time is wasted on commercials. they'll watch even more um
[41:20]streaming movies at home or go to non AMC theaters or um I don't know um go to their local shopping mall again maybe
[41:31]who knows well and Tom uh we are all pretty experienced uh as American consumers of advertisement avoidance we all have developed pretty good uh skill
[41:42]sets there so I would just show up later than I normally do at the theater right I can do Exactly. Particularly if it's always the
[41:51]same um amount of time. AMC is saying 25 to 30 minutes. So, you know, you're an idiot if you show up any less than, you
[42:00]know, 23 minutes um before the after the movie is supposed to start. um they would be much smarter if they at least varied it and you know some days it
[42:11]would be five minutes of commercials and other days it's you know 25 and Tom what about the old-fashioned notice no idea rather of creating a pleasurable
[42:22]enjoyable memorable positively memorable theater experience >> uh I'm I'm sorry that's yesterday's news major no um I do think that if you
[42:33]really wanted to get people's attention during a commercial break. Um, you would at least intersperse commercials with, I don't know, fun quizzes or fun things to
[42:43]do with your phones as you were waiting. I mean, the AMC people think seem to think they have a captive audience for these commercials and nobody has a captive audience anymore. People are
[42:54]going to spend all that time talking to each other and being on their phones and um probably bothering other theatergoers. So, uh, maybe Tom, we could look forward
[43:04]to AMC saying, "You know what? This was just an experiment. Maybe we'll retract it and maybe we'll win back customers by reversing ourselves in this awkward PR space." We'll see if that happens. Tom
[43:16]Davenport, it's been a pleasure to talk to you. Have a good weekend, sir. Thank you so much. That is it for the takeout this