[0:00]The Jeffrey Epstein scandal is the saga that is just not going away for Donald Trump. And it burst back into life here in Washington DC this week when a group
[0:09]of Epstein's survivors got together here in Washington to demand that the full files be released and published. That's victims including Anushka deorgio who
[0:20]had this message for Donald Trump. >> I am no longer weak. >> I am no longer powerless. and I'm no longer alone. >> And with your vote, neither will the
[0:34]next generation be. >> President Trump, you have so much influence and power in this situation. Please use that influence and power to
[0:44]help us because we need it now and this country needs it now. >> These survivors are now threatening to compile their own list of uh abuses. These survivors are now threatening to
[0:56]compile their own list of abusers if there's no other way to get the names into the public domain. Welcome to Americ
[1:03][Music] Sarah here in the BBC's Washington bureau >> and it's Anthony right next to Sarah
[1:14]here in Washington DC >> and it is Mariana aka misinformation in the worldwide headquarters in London. Anthony, Mariana, um we're really going to have to talk about what's been going on with Jeffrey Epstein because we're in
[1:25]this position where Congress broke up early essentially a few weeks ago to stop there being um too much talk of Jeffrey Epstein, too many attempts to get all of these controversial files
[1:36]released. They've just come back into town, haven't they, Anthony? And it's all bubbled up again. >> Yeah. if they thought that a month off would allow uh cooler heads to prevail and for the story to disappear
[1:47]underneath the waves because of everything else Donald Trump has been doing. Uh no, they're wrong. Uh what the Democrats were doing, as you mentioned leading into this was that they were forcing votes on pretty much everything
[1:58]to try to get a full release of the Epstein files. Uh now that they're back, they are cooperating with one Republican member of Congress Congress uh Thomas
[2:08]Massie to force a vote uh to gather enough signatures on a petition to force a vote in the House of Representatives. One that the leadership there, the Republican leadership cannot avoid. And
[2:19]so the big push has been in that area, although we've seen some things in in some of the committees as well. >> Yeah. and really ramping up the pressure uh was when a bunch of Epstein survivors
[2:31]as they're calling themselves um women who had been abused by um Jeffrey Epstein and his um circle of associates all turned up on Capitol Hill yesterday with a huge placard reading Epstein
[2:41]Files Transparency Act, which is of course the legislation you're talking about um Anthony. And if you listen to them in their own words and they're they're they're very powerful. They're
[2:52]pretty persuasive and they say they're going to try and do what they can to get this information into the public domain. >> We are not asking for pity. We are here demanding accountability
[3:02]and I'm demanding justice. Congress must choose. Will you continue to protect predators or will you finally protect survivors?
[3:13]And also I would like to announce here today us Epstein survivors have been discussing creating our own list. We know the names. Many of us were abused
[3:24]by them. Now together as survivors we will confidentially compile the names we all know who regularly in who are regularly in
[3:35]the epste world and it will be done by survivors and for survivors. No one else is involved. >> Stay tuned for more details. >> Certainly in the online world, there
[3:46]have been these real questions over the the independence and the transparency. And so, it's really interesting that the survivors have very much tried to separate themselves from those ideas and say, "Look, we are actually going to do
[3:56]something which is the truth, what we see as the truth, what what what happened to us and talk about our experiences." And we've had this question from an American. This email is from Mist who says, "Epstein didn't just
[4:07]abuse people alone. He abused people in company with Ms. Mwell. Miss Max Maxwell Galain Maxwell and for one of a better word procured people for others. Why can't the victims name them? It would be
[4:18]painful and horrible to relive. I believe there are NDAs involved and what's been submitted in court may be confidential. But isn't all that rather void even without a bill? Couldn't those who suffered the clients release their
[4:29]own list? Red taped and red tape and law be damned. What do you think Sarah Anthony? I think it sounds terrifying, frankly, in the current political environment where you've got an
[4:40]administration that's not afraid to name names and go after people if they think that they're attacking them in some way. And we'll be talking in the same vein um to Miles Taylor about something similar
[4:50]later but also in your world Mariana online where if somebody gets any prominence or controversy around them the the the vitriol and abuse that you can suffer online and that can have real
[5:02]world effects as well with I mean acts of violence and people's homes being targeted and frankly the people who are the most exercised about this Epstein case are some of the people I personally
[5:13]really really would not want to upset online. I mean, I don't don't know if I'm being overly cautious about this, but frankly, I mean, you know, brave people. Um, it takes them to stand up to
[5:24]speak truth to power, but wow. No, I wouldn't want to get involved in that. >> Yeah. Obviously, they they're stepping into a political firestorm and one where there are so many people pouring over every single little bit and bob of this
[5:36]story looking for conspiracies, looking for coverups that there is a danger in being even tangentially connected to this. But I I think it's fascinating
[5:45]though that they have focused on the list that they're compiling because that as Mariana said that was what everyone was talking about. Is there a list? Isn't there a list? A client list. The
[5:56]Trump administration has said there is none. And that was what set off a lot of this uh this controversy to begin with. So now here we are the victim saying, well, you know, we're going to make our
[6:06]own list. If there wasn't a list, we are going to will one into existence. uh and that may have a lot of people nervous. I mean, there's there's one person who was accusing Donald Trump of uh being set up
[6:17]by Epstein uh and uh accusing Donald Trump of inappropriate behavior. So, if you can imagine, there are other people like that who will put names onto a list and if that somehow gets out and is made
[6:29]public by this group, uh one, there could be uh legal uh legal vulnerability to anyone making these accusations, but two, it also could be very politically damaging for anyone on that list. We saw
[6:40]that with the Me Too movement. >> Yes. Yes, of course. And and and that was Yeah. in different times taking on a different um adversary. Now, it's really interesting that one of Donald Trump's
[6:52]most loyal supporters um Marjgerie Taylor Green, the um Georgia congresswoman, she's normally at his side defending him ferociously, but actually on this Epstein thing, she's
[7:04]she's broken with him. She's criticized him publicly. She's signed on to Thomas Massiey's bill that we'll talk about in a minute. And she's said this as well about not being scared of naming names.
[7:14]>> For everyone watching at home, I think it's important to put yourself in these women's shoes uh as you're questioning why can't they just name the names? What
[7:25]you don't realize is they just told their stories of being raped and being abused, being victimized, being manipulated, being coerced, and
[7:36]basically held in a prison of captivity of sexual abuse. While they were young, young teenagers and extremely young, vulnerable women. And in Jeffrey
[7:47]Epstein's home and the places they went with him, they saw the most powerful people in the world in his pictures and
[7:56]they saw him with those people. Can you imagine how terrifying it would be to name names like that? These are some of the richest, most powerful people in the
[8:06]world that could sue these women into poverty and homelessness. Yeah, it's a scary thing to name names, but I will tell you
[8:16]I'm not afraid to name names. And so if they want to give me a list, I will walk in that capital on the House floor and I'll say every damn name that abused these women.
[8:27]>> I think what's difficult is because it's become so politicized. Like you hear Marjorie Taylor Green speak there and Marjorie Taylor Green has a track record of sharing a whole range of conspiracy theories and disinformation on social
[8:38]media. She wouldn't call them that. She would very much defend herself against those. But she's always been, for example, particularly engaged with the conspiracy theories that talk about pedophilia, that talk about sexual abuse. It doesn't surprise me at all
[8:49]that someone like Marjorie Taylor Green has decided that like this is the hill that she's willing to die on and that she doesn't mind actually crossing Donald Trump on this because it's something that matters to both her and her followers a lot. But the problem I
[9:00]guess with the politicization is and I I would say that when I watched some clips from that press conference, it felt like the first time during this whole sort of debate, argument, scandal for
[9:11]one of a better word, um that we'd heard from the people affected, properly heard from the people who were affected by it. It feels like they've been very absent from this political back and forth. And I wonder, Anthony, Sarah, what you think
[9:22]about like does it does it again feel like does it feel too politicized for their voices to to to be heard on this? Like where does it go from here? I mean, what happens if one of them turns around and
[9:33]and accuses a politician who who, you know, it it doesn't quite fit it doesn't quite fit with the narrative on in certain circles, in certain MAGA circles, like, oh, hang on, no, we want it to be this person who's the baddie,
[9:43]not this person, and so on. Well, that raises the question, doesn't it, of what on earth is going on in the White House? And and I think you're right, Mariana, that the um the insertion of these women into the bra is very important because I
[9:54]think it it makes it real for people who maybe haven't been buying into this as a conspiracy theory, but reminds people just how bad what Jeffrey Epstein did was that real people were affected, that people had their lives ruined. But it
[10:06]also, it just continues to raise this question, doesn't it, of whether there is anything there. I wouldn't have said so at the beginning. I thought Donald Trump was making it up about there being a client list and people being
[10:18]blackmailed and that he could infer that Bill Clinton was on it because he took a couple of rides on Jeffrey Epstein's plane and that he was using it for political advantage. But now, I mean, all sorts of people, sensible,
[10:29]level-headed people all over Washington are scratching their heads and saying, "Who's damn name is on this list that's being protected at such political cost by the administration." >> Right? And meanwhile, Donald Trump is
[10:40]sticking with the line he's had for the past few months, which is this is a a hoax, a an attempt by his political enemies to undermine him and being very
[10:50]dismissive and defensive about these accusations. I mean, this is him in the Oval Office just on Wednesday uh talking about the release of or the potential release of new files.
[11:01]>> So, this is a Democrat hoax that never ends. You know, it reminds me a little of the uh Kennedy situation. We gave him everything over and over again, more and
[11:12]more and more, and nobody's ever satisfied. From what I understand, I could check, but from what I understand, thousands of pages of documents have been given. But it's really a Democrat
[11:23]hoax because they're trying to get people to talk about something that's totally irrelevant to the success that we've had as a nation since I've been president. >> I mean, Trump touched on something
[11:34]there, right? that it's hard to disprove a conspiracy theory. You can give them everything and their next question will be, well, what are you covering up? Whether it's this or whether it's Obama's birth certificate, which we got
[11:45]the short form, the long form, Donald Trump said there still was a cover up. So, you know, it's kind of ironic now that he is on the the flip side of this. >> I know we've said this a lot in America, but it's worth pointing out again.
[11:56]Donald Trump has frequently indulged conspiracy theories that have absolutely no evidence to support them, including about his political adversaries and people he doesn't like. And so he's now
[12:06]realizing that like those things stick because they're really hard to like they're kind of like a bad smell. Like you can't get you can't get rid of them particularly if there does feel like you know there's there's some element of truth or it's been twisted or distorted
[12:18]in in some way. Um, and on this kind of Democrat hoax point that he made, um, this was what Brad Edwards, who's a lawyer representing some of Epstein's
[12:27]accusers, um, said, um, pushing back and saying Trump wasn't calling it hoax back in 2009. >> I can tell you that I talked to President Clinton, I'm sorry, President,
[12:37]uh, Trump back in 2009 and several times after that, he didn't think that it was a hoax then. In fact, he helped me. He got on the phone, he told me things that were helping our investigation. Now, our investigation wasn't looking into him,
[12:48]but he was helping us then. He didn't treat this as a hoax. So, at this point in time, I would hope that he would revert back to what he was saying to get elected, which is, I want transparency. >> Why would you bring up something that
[12:59]you then later didn't want to be an issue? The only way you can make any sense of what's happened. I'm not saying this is what is happened, but it's the only common sensical attitude is that they took a look at all of the names involved in these documents and realize
[13:11]that they were friends, not foes, or people that for some reason or other it would be embarrassing if they were uh from heads of foreign states or something like that that it would be terribly embarrassing for America,
[13:22]unhelpful of the administration to release these names. So, they're trying to cover them up. I mean, the other explanation is there is nothing there. But if that's the case, why are they not just releasing absolutely everything to prove there's nothing there? That's what
[13:34]I don't understand. >> Yeah. And the thing you have to remember is is that Donald Trump really wasn't pushing this. I mean, yes, he talked about it, but this wasn't in the in the realm of conspiracy theories that are
[13:45]out there. This isn't one that Donald Trump was hammering on. Uh sometimes Trump understands where his base is. I think oftentimes he does and understands what's motivating his base. and he felt
[13:55]like he had to position himself to be on this side of it because it was clearly such an important issue to so many people in the in the magnum of movement, but it wasn't one of those ones that he
[14:06]was forcing onto the table the way he has plenty of other different conspiracy theories. Once again, the the Obama birth certificate one being perhaps a prime example. Uh but the you know, we
[14:18]have seen some documents now. were 33,000 documents that the uh government oversight committee released uh earlier this week. Uh uh I haven't dug all the
[14:29]way through all 33,000 pages, but people have and and the kind of consensus is however that that was not anything particularly new that it was uh pretty
[14:40]much well let's say a nothing burger. Although there was one little nugget in there that was kind of interesting and that it had had to do with the the missing minute on those uh surveillance tapes, the tapes in the hallway outside
[14:52]of Jeffrey Epstein's cell uh which was not missing anymore. It was in this this document dump and uh that ended up being while you know nice to see it also not
[15:04]really revvely no big secrets in this missing minute. >> Uh well no I I so I tell you what I thought was really interesting about that was that yes. Okay. So, we so we saw what happened in that minute and
[15:14]this was it was just around midnight, wasn't it? Where they showed us hours of the surveillance tapes um several months ago. This one minute was missing where um you I guess somebody could have snuck into Jeffrey Epstein's cell, killed him
[15:26]and and and left again very very quickly. Just just about possible. But Pam Bondi, the attorney general, tells us, "Oh, well, that's just standard procedure. When the um recording system
[15:37]resets itself at midnight every night, there's this one minute missing. There's nothing weird or unusual about it at all. You'll find that happens every single day um in this jail. Except that's not true cuz the missing minute
[15:48]was there. So now why should we trust her on anything now that the missing minute wasn't missing at all? >> And just to pick up on something you said Anthony about like the kinds of conspiracy theories that Trump has very actively engaged with. Like you're right
[15:59]that like this isn't this isn't one and this is different because you know there's there's very much a truth to it. Um, so it's not really a conspiracy theory in the sense of stuff that's totally unfounded and and has no factual
[16:10]basis. Um, but he has been so involved in the kind of, you know, there's elite cabals of people doing bad things and particularly stuff around like pedophiles and people might remember pizza gate and all the QAnon stuff and
[16:22]things like that. He has very happily re-shared that content and fanned the flames of that online. And now he is, I know I've said this a bazillion times, but he now is very much feeling the heat
[16:31]from fanning those flames because there is a very very active bit of the MAGA base who care about this more than anything else. >> And more importantly in Congress as
[16:41]well, they they might be able to force the release of the Epstein files. So we've got this bill that's been put together by Republican Tom Thomas Massie, Democrat Roana trying to compel
[16:52]the Justice Department to release them. Um the Republican House leadership don't want it to go to a vote, but they can force a vote, can't they, Anthony, if they get enough names to sign on to it,
[17:02]and they've got most Democrats now, a few Republicans. What are their chances, do you think, of reaching the magic? Is it 218 that they need? >> Yeah, they're getting pretty close. They're 212 Democrats if as you mentioned, if they all sign off on it,
[17:14]you only really need six Republicans. And Thomas Massie, he's one of them. Marjorie Taylor Green said she was going to sign it. I believe they they just need to pluck away a few more people. I think
[17:25]>> they've got two more already in Nancy Mays and Lauren Boowbert. Again, you know, usually absolute Trump loyalists, >> right? And I think there's a congressman from North Carolina as well who said he's going to to sign off on it. So,
[17:36]they're getting very very close. This is a rarely used maneuver called the discharge petition. Basically what it does is it forces a vote even when the leadership of the House of
[17:48]Representatives uh that's Mike Johnson Speaker of the House and others uh doesn't want it to come to a vote. Normally speakers have incredible power on what does and doesn't get voted on. This is a way to move around that to
[17:59]short circuit it and bring something to the floor even over the objections of the leadership. But you've seen it where there was a uh there was a campaign finance bill in the early 2000s that got
[18:11]to the floor that way. Democrats have used it a few times on some other things in in recent years. But it's hard it's hard to get that many people to agree on anything and to sign their name on it. But now it looks like uh they might be
[18:22]able to pull it off, which then okay, you get to a floor vote, it passes. Then the question is will the Justice Department, even with Congress saying you've got to release everything, everything everything, will they do it? Will they find some way to redact
[18:34]things? Will they uh will they fight it in court? Uh and so you the hopes are among the people who want to see these documents that this will do it. But I think there's still even if it comes to
[18:45]a vote, a long way to go before we see the full files, if we ever see the full files, whatever those full files might be. Yeah. Because I was wondering about this faced with um say that they do they
[18:55]do get this vote passed. Can the Justice Department then just suddenly decide a whole bunch of the stuff is classified? Can they just this department classify stuff and therefore not release it? >> I whether it's classified and they they
[19:06]do had they have exerted you know classification and national defense and all these sorts of prerogatives time and time again. There are ways that they
[19:15]could claim uh that that some of their uh their their blackouts of the pages, some of their recisions are legal and then it becomes a court battle and and
[19:26]then it becomes a man a matter of just having it possibly be delayed for months, years even. >> Mariana, I believe you've got to disappear into conspiracy land or some
[19:36]kind of online realm in which you dwell. >> Yeah, I do. I do. Social media algorithms this time, my other topic of choice. Um, but I will chat to you both very soon on another episode. Bye.
[19:47]>> Now, let's chat to our longtime friend of the podcast and the important former chief of staff of the Department of Homeland Security, Miles Taylor, whom you've heard from before, is on the line
[19:58]now. Thank you so much for joining us again um today, Miles. It's great to talk to you. >> Hey friends, great to be with you. >> Um before you joined us, we were just talking about Jeffrey Epstein and the
[20:08]ongoing saga with that. Um, obviously we want to talk to you about whether there is a vengeance agenda coming out of the White House, but as somebody who has
[20:18]worked closely with Donald Trump, how do you think he will be reacting to the fact that he just cannot seem to control this story about Jeffrey Epstein and whether there are any missing files? >> Well, he's going to shoot himself in the
[20:30]foot and we already saw that with his response in the Oval Office. this uh completely dismissive response and labeling anything related to Epstein as
[20:41]a hoax, which you know may be something that uh infuriates Donald Trump's critics, but it also infuriates his supporters who uh he convinced in the
[20:52]leadup to the 2024 election to reelect him in part because he was allegedly going to go expose the deep state conspiracy theories uh and and deep
[21:03]sters who were uh hiding things like the Epstein files. Uh and and now he seems to be almost mocking his own supporters. Uh and you know, so comments like that aren't going to help him. I mean,
[21:14]they're just going to increase the pressure to actually come forward uh with real information, real revelations uh from the investigations and to live
[21:24]up to what he said he was going to do when he came into office. And I don't think they're going to get out of this one. I mean, as much as Donald Trump tries to change the subject and create
[21:34]these extraordinary distractions, as long as his own people, as long as his own members of Congress and his party are demanding that uh the files be released, he's he's not going to be able
[21:45]to escape this. >> Yeah, it seems like a story that's going to linger around. Now, another thing that Donald Trump promised on the campaign trail, as I'm sure you remember, is that he would, for lack of
[21:55]a better word, exact revenge on his enemies and the enemies of his movement. Here he is speaking on the campaign trail.
[22:03]>> In 2016, I declared, I am your voice. And now I say to you again tonight, I am your warrior.
[22:13]>> I am your justice. And I took a lot of heat for this one, but I only mean it in the proper way.
[22:24]For those who have been wronged and betrayed, of which there are many people out there that have been wronged and betrayed. I am your retribution. >> That kind of seems like a campaign promise that's been kept. Uh Miles, I mean, you can certainly vouch for that
[22:36]at this point, can't you? >> Uh yeah. Well, I mean, in uh 3 months into the Trump administration, he issued an executive order directing a federal investigation into me and
[22:47]accusing me of treason, which uh happens to be essentially the highest crime envisioned by the US Constitution. Uh it's a crime punishable by death. I
[22:58]don't take the allegation seriously. Okay. It's it's very obvious that the president is doing this in retaliation for the fact that I've published books critical of him, that I've been speaking out against him for a number of years,
[23:10]but that revenge campaign has gone far beyond individual critics of the president. and and some folks did suspect he would get reelected and yes,
[23:20]he would go after some of his enemies, but that revenge campaign has turned into something vastly greater than what a lot of people envisioned and much more so than individual critics.
[23:31]>> American casters will be very familiar with some of the the most obvious things that have happened um recently withdrawing um Secret Service protection from Kla Harris. Um he did the same with his former national security adviser
[23:43]John Bolton who is under death threats from Iran as well as sending the FBI to raid his home looking for um any documents he was keeping there that he ought not to have. Um but it goes beyond
[23:54]that as well. I've been the most surprised by really blatantly firing people who have produced factual reports that Donald Trump and his administration
[24:05]don't like. And we can think of the um head of the the Bureau of Labor Statistics coming up job numbers, monthly job numbers that the administration didn't like and she lost her job. And then just last month um
[24:15]Lieutenant General Jeffrey Cruz at the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon. He they produced that report saying that the bunker buster bombs that were dropped on Iran may not have done as much damage to the nuclear facilities
[24:26]as the administration were claiming. And suddenly the agency chief is fired. I mean, it sounds terrifying, but Anthony, is this the worst that we have seen? It's difficult when you're here right in
[24:38]the midst of it to know how to put it into historical context. I mean, in terms of bad presidencies, Richard Nixon's name always seems to be at the top of the list in terms of doing this kind of thing, >> right? I mean, you say these are glaring
[24:48]examples. I mean, there's nothing kind of hidden here. I mean, he very clearly is getting rid of people who disagree with him. and he'll say it's because it's the deep state and these people
[24:58]undermined his attempts to enact policies during his first term and so he had to essentially clean house. But you're right, he's not the only president who has tried to do this.
[25:08]Richard Nixon, as you mentioned, a big example of that. He had his enemies list and he did order FBI to investigate some of the people on that list. We know this because there were audio tapes in the
[25:19]Oval Office of him talking about his enemies list and the the people who were out to get him. He also wiretapped journalists and hunted down suspected
[25:29]leaks among his own staff. And then of course the Watergate breakin was an attempt by people around uh President Nixon to gather damaging information on Democrats by breaking into the
[25:41]Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel uh in downtown DC. So it it was, you know, these were pretty nefarious, pretty pretty controversial, pretty
[25:51]inflammatory things that Richard Nixon did. Even LBJ, I mean, LBJ had his own uh efforts to monitor protesters for the Vietnam War using the FBI and even the
[26:02]CIA. He had tax investigations of his political enemies. So there is there is a history of this, but things are moving so fast with Donald Trump and it is so
[26:12]out in the open for him and supported I will add by the Supreme Court which has time and time again said that as we
[26:20]mentioned uh in in one of the America Clark and the Fed that the court has said for most executive appointments, most people working in executive
[26:31]agencies, people like Miles Taylor, Trump can just fire them for no reason uh or for whatever reason he wants to give and that is presidential
[26:40]prerogative. So it is uh it's a orders of magnitude difference. It's a question of scale uh and and Trump keeps pushing forward uh on all fronts uh when it
[26:51]comes to changing the makeup of the federal government. >> Do you worry, Miles, that as we're in in the midst of this and there's so much stuff happening with the Trump administration that we're not taking on
[27:02]board the scale of just how egregious it is? I think that's right. You know, I I agree with Anony's assessment of Nixon, and I would sum up Nixon as a a
[27:12]president who engaged in acts of revenge that were petty but limited. And Nixon was severely constrained by the fact that there weren't that many people
[27:24]willing to execute those orders. So, think of Nixon a lot more like Donald Trump in his first term. And and I am of course one of the characters of those
[27:34]evil deep sters Donald Trump has wanted to remove from government. And it's not because people like me said no to things that he wanted to do that he was allowed to do. Uh that wasn't my job. You know, if I didn't like the things the
[27:46]president wanted to do, I should have just resigned. It was that people like me said no to things he wanted to do that were illegal or unconstitutional that the lawyers told us that's against
[27:56]the law. And regardless of whether a president's a Democrat or Republican, you want that person in office. You want all your public servants to say no to illegal things. And that's kind of how
[28:06]Nixon's first term was. Yes, he had some loyal lieutenants. He had a very petty uh uh grievance against politicians and different journalists and people he wanted to go after and but his efforts
[28:18]were limited to conduct that illegal activity because there were enough people who sounded the alarm uh and who stopped it. Donald Trump's efforts are different in that they are
[28:29]institutionalized and systemic. Uh it's as it's as if Richard Nixon had gotten another shot in another time and said, "I'm going to
[28:39]come in this goround and make sure there are not people who are willing to raise a flag if something they see is illegal." And that's what Trump is
[28:49]doing. And that's what makes his campaign to gut the federal government much more insidious than just budget cutting. And and look, I will say this as a lifelong conservative, I have long
[29:00]wanted to see the federal government slim down, agencies slim down, money saved. Uh but this isn't that Donald Trump is not gutting the federal government to save taxpayers money. He's
[29:12]gutting these agencies and then replacing those positions with people who are loyalists, people who will enforce his agenda and advance his
[29:22]personal interests instead of advancing the interests of the American people. That is the intent here and that's what makes it so much more dangerous and that's what makes the revenge campaign
[29:33]more systemic. talk a little bit about like the personal toll because you said you're not the only one who has been focused uh the focus of Donald Trump's eye, but beyond just losing a security
[29:44]clearance, it has taken taken a a real toll on on you and and how you live and how your family lives. >> Yeah. You know, this is the type of thing, Anthony, that you think about a
[29:55]little bit before you talk about publicly because it can be uh it's a big vulnerable thing to talk about. It can be embarrassing to talk about how being on the president's blacklist affects
[30:05]your life and yet my wife and I have decided we think it's really important to be out there having that conversation and and in our case yeah the I mean the consequences have been enormous. Um you
[30:16]know I am the sole income earner in my household. I was running a uh consulting firm in Washington DC advising technology companies all around the
[30:26]country. And in the wake of Trump's executive order in April, uh my business partners were so alarmed and worried that they too would be in the crosshairs
[30:36]that they forced the dissolution of the company. You know, my wife is a stay-at-home mom with a baby. That has been a very hard thing for us to deal with. Uh but it goes beyond that. I
[30:47]mean, it would be enough to lose a job and be trying to figure out what to do next. But we've had to grapple with people threatening to execute me, people threatening to execute my wife, having
[30:58]to get restraining orders against stalkers, having to hire a small army of lawyers to deal with all the potential investigative directions that this could go. Uh, and then there was a piece of it
[31:10]that was very unexpected, Anthony, which is the level of social fear is so high. We've even lost family members and friends amidst this who've said that,
[31:21]you know, even politically, you know, they don't they don't support Donald Trump, but they don't want to get in the crosshairs as well. And that's really been the biggest surprise to us. You know, that didn't happen 5 years ago
[31:33]when I came forward and spoke out against Donald Trump. I didn't lose a whole bunch of friends. Uh but this goound, you know, people are seeing the extent of his retaliation and uh some of
[31:44]my closest friends have said, "Yeah, we I mean, we just need to wait until this blows over uh to be back in touch with you." That to me is a signal that this
[31:55]is qualitatively different. Uh and and one quick example of that is, you know, when I've tried to go do fundraisers for our legal defense fund in cities around
[32:05]the country, we've had restaurants and caterers cancel on us because uh they're worried that their employees might be deported because they supported an event
[32:16]related to a Trump whistleblower. That's next level to me. I mean, if you're a caterer and you won't let us pay you to serve Diet Cokes in an at an event because you're worried that Donald Trump might deport your employees, that is a
[32:28]significant level of social fear I don't think we've ever seen before in this country. >> I don't want in any way to minimize what's happened to you personally, Miles, but Donald Trump was not
[32:39]secretive about this during the campaign. I mean, he talked about coming in as vengeance for his supporters. Is there an argument that he actually he does have a mandate certainly to go
[32:50]after people um whom his supporters could name people like I guess Anthony Fouchy, John Bolton, people who you know we could have said were were on his enemies list. >> Um no I I I don't think he has a
[33:01]mandate. Now I I believe two things are true. Uh one yes I agree with you that he broadcast this very uh very very openly. Um, but two, as is often the
[33:12]case with Donald Trump, the people around him usually responded and said, "Well, he doesn't mean that or he's no, he's not going to go all the way and use the tools of the government to get
[33:24]revenge." He's joking. He's joking. Um, and and I'll give you a personal example of that. When I when I published this book, um, Blowback, it's it's called A Warning to Save Democracy from Trump's
[33:34]Revenge. the whole book. I interviewed a hundred of my former colleagues in the first Trump administration and asked them a very simple question. What did he want to do in the first term that was unlawful that he will try to do in a
[33:45]second term? Right? What will those revenge actions look like? And I laid it out. And the response to that was uh a small army of Trump's allies came out and said, "The things in the book were
[33:57]preposterous. They were lies. None of it was real. Donald Trump wouldn't do it." He himself came out and was very critical. He had his spokesman blast the book and say, you know, it was better
[34:07]used as toilet paper. It was garbage. I mean, they they trashed it. Fast forward 7 months into the Donald Trump administration. Uh I estimate about 80% of the things that I forecast in the
[34:18]book blowback have already come true. They've already done like 80% of the things that I laid out in the book. So, no, it wasn't a joke. It wasn't preposterous. These things weren't made up. It was Trump's plan. But I think
[34:28]that's why some folks were deceived is uh they were in denial and they had support in that denial in Trump's uh allies who said, you know, don't worry,
[34:39]don't worry. It's not going to be this way. And we saw this before the January 6th insurrection. You know, when his own White House chief of staff came out and said, don't worry, Donald Trump will transfer power. You know, you've got all
[34:50]these liberals hyperventilating that somehow he's going to try to prevent the transfer of power. But that's exactly what he did. He tried to prevent the transfer of power. So I I think we see that time and time again is that sort of
[35:01]widespread denial because people don't want to believe something like this can happen in the United States of America. Uh but it is time for a wake-up call because it is happening in the United States of America. >> Now right at the top of our
[35:13]conversation, we talked about how Donald Trump was reacting to the Epstein uh controversy and calling it a Democratic hoax and we said, well, you know, this could be a sign that he's he's getting
[35:23]defensive. But the reality is that that is a playbook that Donald Trump uses that Democrats are out to get me. This is a hoax. This is just part of uh Russia, Russia, Russia and all the other
[35:32]conspiracies against him. And the reason he uses that is because it works and because sometimes Democrats do, as you mentioned, hyperventilate about things and and sometimes it turns
[35:44]out to be true, sometimes it turns out not to be true. uh and painting everything that's said about Donald Trump and everything that's said about his policies uh could uh being you know
[35:55]these this this a threat to democracy could uh at times maybe turn it into a boy who cried wolf sort of scenario for instance the Kla Harris taking her
[36:05]secret service protection away yes Trump did that but uh the vice presidents former vice presidents usually only have six months of secret service and uh protection and Biden extended it so it
[36:16]wasn't quite as clear-cut maybe as as it looked. So, is there I guess the question is is there a danger that Democrats could overplay their hands here and the more they talk about
[36:26]everything being a massive attempt to undermine democracy that the public is just going to tune it out. This administration is counting on the
[36:35]opposition overreacting. And that's not a unique feature to American politics. That's a pretty consistent storyline you see in countries that are backsliding
[36:46]from democracy towards autocracy is you see the ruling party try to go the opposition into overreacting. Why?
[36:56]Because it's a very easy way to justify a further crackdown. You saw it in Hungary. You've seen it in Russia. you've you've seen it in Hong Kong is,
[37:07]you know, by imposing restrictive measures, you try to get the opposition to protest, to protest violently, uh to engage in actions that go uh too far and
[37:18]shock the conscience of the average person and then you give the ruling party the justification to impose a further crackdown to quote unquote restore law and order. Uh and that is
[37:29]what I think we have seen with the troop deployments from this administration. Uh and that's not mere speculation. I mean, this was the this was the tenor of conversations behind the scenes when I was in the first Trump administration is
[37:41]that the type of actions that you saw in Los Angeles with the deployment of Marines in Washington DC with the National Guard uh were designed partly
[37:51]to stoke disscent and hopefully in the eyes of Trump and his allies get folks from the left, especially more radical folks to come out in the streets and
[38:01]fill up Molotov cocktails and throw them at police officers. They want that imagery. They relished the imagery of burning cars at the beginning of the LA protests. I think what was disappointing
[38:11]to some of Trump's more militant allies was that those protests ended up largely becoming very very nonviolent uh and faded. And so they weren't really able
[38:20]to use the response in LA as justification for a further crackdown. But I think it's why you're going to see the administration barrel forward with troop deployments in Chicago and
[38:31]Baltimore is they think there's a a decent chance in those places that they're going to stoke a lot more opposition and they will get that photo op. They'll get the photo op of the
[38:40]crowds overreacting which will give them fodder to justify a further crackdown. >> So circle November 2026 on your calendars. It's really not that far off when you think about it. about 14
[38:52]months. It could be a test of whether it elections are going to be business as usual or there's something really substantive and fundamental that Donald Trump is changing about uh American
[39:03]democracy. Uh stay tuned, Miles. Uh it has been great having you on. >> Thanks, friends. Appreciate it. >> And that's it for this edition of American
[39:14]and we will be back with you sometime soon. >> Bye y'all. Heat. Heat.
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