Speaker 1: Welcome to Thrilling Threads. We're opening a file today that
it really gets out of question. I think a lot
of us have asked ourselves, where does political allegiance end?
You know, we all see it, We rationalize gaffs, We
can overlook legal troubles, maybe even accept some hypocrisy if
we think it's for a greater good, right for the
cause exactly, But there has to be a line, right,
a moral line that once it's crossed, even the most
devoted supporter, someone who is totally bought in, just has
to say, I'm jay, I'm done. Yeah. And that's what
we have here, a file that details how a massive
political strategists tried to secretly, you know, rehabilitate the image
of one of the most notorious sexual predators in recent history.
Speaker 2: And crucially, the file out when that correspondents those private
messages went public.
Speaker 1: We are, of course talking about Steve Bannon and Jeffrey Epstein.
And for this Thrilling Threads deep dive, we're drawing heavily
on material that was compiled by Media.
Speaker 2: Matters right, and it was summarized really well in the
YouTube video called Bannon Finally a and in by Maga
as gross Epstein email's surface. That's from the general the
damage report.
Speaker 1: So our mission today for you is to really dissect this.
We want to understand first what were the specifics of
this Bannon Epstein coordination? How deep did it actually go?
Speaker 2: And second, and this is maybe the more fascinating part
for understanding political psychology today, why this? Yeah, why these revelations?
Why did this become the absolute tipping point for some
of his most dedicated, die hard audience members.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack it. We're going to look at the
sheer audacity of this secret project, the.
Speaker 2: Nitty gritty of Epstein's political advice.
Speaker 1: And then then we get to the exchange that I
think for a lot of people proved it was all
just a facade. So let's start at the beginning, the
core revelation that kind of sets the stage for everything else.
Steve Bannon was reportedly working completely in secret to try
and fix the public image of Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 2: And we really have to stress the timeline here.
Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely, this isn't Bannon talking to him thirty years
ago when Epstein was just some you know, mysterious financier.
Speaker 2: No, this was happening after after the conviction after the
scandal had already blown up, after the world knew or
at least had a very good idea of the kinds
of crimes he'd committed.
Speaker 1: It's just the contradiction is what's so stunning.
Speaker 2: Well, think about Bannon's brand. His entire public persona is
built on being this populous warrior, the guy who's going
to destroy the global elite swamp. And here he is,
behind the scenes trying to run a pr campaign for
a man who didn't just epitomize that swamp. He was
like the monster at the bottom of it, a convicted
child predator.
Speaker 1: It's the ultimate hypocrisy. So you have to ask what
was the goal? What was in it for Bannon?
Speaker 2: That's the key question. Was this some kind of you know,
journalistic deep dive to expose the network or was this
a straightforward quid pro quo you help me, I help
you exactly, money, access information, something tangible. It really speaks
to his operational style, doesn't it, This idea that there's
a kind of moral flexibility if the strategic game is
big enough.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, when you think about image rehabilitation, and
the whole point is to shift perception to take a
monster and make them seem I don't know, misunderstood or.
Speaker 2: A victim of circumstance, even right, And to.
Speaker 1: Even consider applying that process to Jeffrey Epstein suggests that
Bannon saw the crimes themselves as just a pr problem
to be solved.
Speaker 2: Not a fundamental moral barrier, just an obstacle.
Speaker 1: A huge piece of evidence the source material points to
is this really long tape interview Bannon apparently did with Epstein, and.
Speaker 2: He sat on it. He hit the tapes, which.
Speaker 1: For his persona, that's just damning. If you're the anti
elite crusader and you get an interview with the elite predator,
that's the term from the source material, why would you
hide it?
Speaker 2: You wouldn't. You'd broadcast it from the rooftops. That'd be
the biggest show of your career. I got him, I
got the confession. I exposed the network. Unless unless the
context of that interview was more damaging to Bannon than
it was to Epstein, who was already completely condemned in
the public eye, so the tapes would are revealed, the collaboration,
the cozy nature of it all, the coziness, the strategic
goals of the whole rehabilitation project. The suppression of the
tapes is what makes his followers suspicious. It tells them
this wasn't an expose, this was something else Entirely.
Speaker 1: It feels like a massive calculation error on his part.
He must have weighed the risk of being exposed working
with Epstein against whatever Epstein was offering him, and.
Speaker 2: He decided the value of the collaboration was worth the risk,
at least for a while.
Speaker 1: But it just fundamentally conflicts with his entire narrative.
Speaker 2: It does. Bannon's whole weapon is attacking the uniparty right,
these shadowy figures who operate above the law.
Speaker 1: And Epstein was the poster child for that.
Speaker 2: The physical embodiment of that depraved, untouchable wing of the elite.
So by trying to serve Epstein, Bannon completely undermines his
own credibility to attack the very system he claims he's fighting.
Speaker 1: And that's where the betrayal starts. For that follower, the
one watching six hours a day, the slow dawning realization
the general you're following is secretly taking advice from the
enemy's monster in chief.
Speaker 2: When you ask what Bannon hope to gain, you have
to think bigger than just money, access, leverage information. Epstein
had connections everywhere finance, politics, science, royalty, all over the globe.
For a guy like Bannon running a media empire built
on railing against globalists, that's an invaluable source.
Speaker 1: So Epstein wasn't just a source. He was more like
an index of the world secrets, a map of all
the vulnerabilities.
Speaker 2: That's a great way to put it. By offering to
help Epstein, Bannon might have gained access to untradable dirt
on some of the most powerful people in the world.
Speaker 1: Knowledge he could then weaponize for his own political projects.
Speaker 2: It's machiavellian strategy at its darkest. The strategic asset Epstein
represented was, in Bannon's mind, worth the moral price tag
of associating with a child predator.
Speaker 1: It's purely transactional.
Speaker 2: Completely people are only viewed through the lens of their
utility and the secrecy, the intense secrecy around all of this.
It wasn't about protecting Epstein.
Speaker 1: It was about protecting Bannon's brand.
Speaker 2: Preserving that lucrative, morally righteous brand until he had squeezed
every last drop of value out of the arrangement.
Speaker 1: So the taped interview sort of establishes the secret nature
of it all. But then we get to the emails,
and the emails prove this wasn't some one off journalistic attempt.
The sources describe it as a cozy relationship.
Speaker 2: They were in continuous contact, just as the source puts it,
you know, chatting about politics or whatever.
Speaker 1: Which is just the casualness of it is what's so gross.
You have what the source calls a massive grifter and
a sexual predator, just shooting the breeze.
Speaker 2: And it wasn't just small talk. Epstein was clearly positioned
to offer real input. Bannon was listening to his advice
on of all things, the Trump cabinet in foreign policy.
Speaker 1: That right there, the willingness to take high level political
advice from a convicted criminal, that's where you see this
was a real strategic engagement.
Speaker 2: Epstein wasn't just some guy with gossip. He was being
treated like a consultant.
Speaker 1: And we have the direct quote. The sources cite this
specific piece of advice Epstein offered Bannon about personnel on
the Trump administration.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's read that quote and really break it down,
because it's just specific.
Speaker 1: Epstein wrote, quote getting rid of Powell much more important
than Syria or Mattis. I guess Pompeo only one left
and Minutichin is okay end quote.
Speaker 2: Wow, okay, So just look at that priority list.
Speaker 1: It's fascinating, isn't it. He's not focused on policy, He's
focused on people. He's saying personnel changes are more important
than a major foreign policy issue like Syria.
Speaker 2: Deeply revealing, And look at the targets. Mattis Secretary of Defense.
He was a known establishment figure, a clear opponent of
Bannon's whole populist, anti interventionist worldview.
Speaker 1: So targeting Mattis makes sense from that perspective. It aligns
with Bannon's public rhetoric exactly.
Speaker 2: It shows Epstein understood the internal power struggle happening in
the administration, the Bannin faction versus the so called globalist faction.
Speaker 1: What about the Powell reference? Colin Powell wasn't in the administration,
then it's a bit unclear.
Speaker 2: He could have been talking about another figure, or maybe
just using Powell as a shorthand for a certain type
of establishment Republican that needed to be purged, a Powell type,
a Powell type exactly. But Honestly, the specific identity almost
doesn't matter. The key takeaway is the priority he sets
personnel over policy.
Speaker 1: Control the people, and you control the outcome.
Speaker 2: That's classic Washington power politics. It shows Epstein had an
agenda focused on strategic internal reshuffling and he saw Bannon
as the person who could help execute.
Speaker 1: It, and Bannon was clearly taking it seriously enough to
engage with it to save these emails. It wasn't just
junk mail to him.
Speaker 2: It cements the idea that they saw each other as
strategic partners. They weren't just random contacts, They were thinking partners.
Speaker 1: And this alliance went way beyond just cabinet picks.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. The sources confirmed Epstein was also giving Bannon
advice on interviews.
Speaker 1: And even specific talking points for an economic conference Bannon
was scheduled to speak at.
Speaker 2: And that detail is so crucial because it shows that
this was a two way three to a mutually beneficial exchange.
Speaker 1: Bannon wasn't just getting dirt from Epstein, he was getting content.
He was getting framing.
Speaker 2: And for a political figure like Bannon whose entire power
base relies on having a credible populist narrative, taking economic
talking points from Jeffrey Epstein is just It's astonishing.
Speaker 1: Epstein was the ultimate Wall Street insider, the very system
Bannon claims to be fighting against.
Speaker 2: It suggests Bannon was more than willing to use Epstein's
insider knowledge, regardless of the sources, obvious moral depravity, just
to make himself sound more credible on economics.
Speaker 1: It basically turns Bannon into a mouthpiece, a conduit for
Epstein's financial and economic worldview.
Speaker 2: It totally shifts the dynamic. He's no longer the anti
elite firebrand speaking truth to power. He's a guy consulting
with a predator who is the embodiment of that power,
and then he's feeding that predator's talking points to his
own audience.
Speaker 1: It's strategic contamination.
Speaker 2: Yes, And this pattern of collaboration from cabinet advice to
economic messaging, it establishes the foundation. It shows how severe
the moral compromise was, long before we even get to
the most disturbing part. This makes what comes next so devastating.
Speaker 1: Okay, so if the political coordination proved the professional partnership,
then this next part of the source material, the communications
about travel arrangements, this was the moral tripwire. This is
what caused that profound sense of betrayal in his audience.
Speaker 2: This is the moment it moves from a strategic alliance
into just shared moral filth.
Speaker 1: It's no longer just tacit approval of the person. It's
active participation in the depravity that's associated with their crimes.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 1: So, the exchange starts off seemingly normal, if you can
call it that. It's about charter jet arrangements. It seems
Epstein was organizing or maybe even funding travel for Bannon.
Speaker 2: Which is another layer. It shows a level of financial
dependency or at least luxury services being provided.
Speaker 1: Right. So Epstein starts it off with this little jab.
He asks Bannon, quote, how does it feel to have
the most highly paid travel agent in history?
Speaker 2: It's a subtle brag, isn't it. Look at my wealth,
Look how powerful I am, and you're benefiting from it?
Speaker 1: And Bannon plays along. He thanks him and replies, quote,
you are pretty good assistant.
Speaker 2: Just a seemingly mundane, unprofessional little back and forth, but.
Speaker 1: It's setting up the punchline, the single most chilling, damning
line in this entire file.
Speaker 2: Epstein's final response, ye quote, massages not included ah, yeah.
Speaker 1: And the source material is crystal clear here there is
zero ambiguity about what that means none.
Speaker 2: It's a direct topical reference to the sexual assolvent trafficking
of miners.
Speaker 1: Epstein's whole horrific operation often involved girls being trafficked under
the guise of providing massages.
Speaker 2: So he is right there joking about his specific method
of child sexual abuse. In a professional exchange with Steve Bannon,
we need.
Speaker 1: To talk about the psychology of a joke like that.
It's what you'd call reference comedy, right.
Speaker 2: And for a joke like that to even work, it
requires two things. First, shared knowledge of the crime, which okay,
the public had that.
Speaker 1: But the second thing is the crucial one.
Speaker 2: It requires a shared level of comfort, a shared acceptance
of the premise of the crime as something they could
be joked about.
Speaker 1: The source material says it perfectly. You need to know
that Epstein was a massive rapist of children to get
the joke, and.
Speaker 2: By not immediately recoiling, by continuing the relationship, Bannon was
signaling that this vile reference was acceptable territory for them.
It was okay within their private alliance.
Speaker 1: That level of complicity is just it's intellectually staggering. To me,
It's not just that he knew, it's that he was
comfortable enough to participate in this sick, mutual, dark joke
about it.
Speaker 2: And the key point for his followers, the part they
couldn't get past, was that Bannon evidently kept up the
relationship even after this.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a deal breaker for him. He didn't say,
you know what, we're done. He just kept going, which.
Speaker 2: Tells you everything you need to know about his moral framework,
or lack thereof.
Speaker 1: His entire public identity is built on this moralistic outrage. Right,
he's against the woke, against corruption, against the moral decay
of society.
Speaker 2: And yet privately he's bantering with the ultimate symbol of
that decay, and he's accepting jokes that confirm the absolute
worst parts of Epstein's known criminality.
Speaker 1: It's a level of moral compartmentalization that is just. It's profound,
where political gain completely erases any ethical boundaries.
Speaker 2: I mean, think about it from a normal person's perspective.
If a friend made a casual joke referencing child abuse,
most decent people would just end the contact instantly, regardless
of what you might gain from that person.
Speaker 1: That boundary defines your character.
Speaker 2: That's the litmus test. Epstein wasn't just being crude. He
was testing Bannon's tolerance. He was seeing how far he could.
Speaker 1: Go and when and continued the collaboration. He wasn't just
tolerating the man anymore.
Speaker 2: No, he was tolerating and participating in the dark moral
culture that allowed those crimes to happen in the first place.
Speaker 1: It shifts him from proximity to complicity, and that is.
Speaker 2: What his followers, the ones who had invested their entire
worldview and him, simply could not rationalize away. They could
handle the political scandals, they could not handle the shared
deprave joke.
Speaker 1: So this inevitably brings us to the fallout, the audience revolt.
Bannon survived so much legal battles, contempt of Congress, fraud charges,
you name it. But the source material says the exposion
of these emails genuinely marked a slight turn in allusiance.
Speaker 2: And the significance here isn't about the number of people
who turned, It's about who they were.
Speaker 1: It came from his core, the deepest, most dedicated followers,
the ones who had been unshakable.
Speaker 2: The material sites a few specific reactions that really captured
this sense of visceral anger and disillusionment.
Speaker 1: The first tweet is it's almost painful to read because
you can feel the weight of the dedication that's being
thrown away. Yeah, the supporter tweeted, quote, so Steve advising
Epstein how to sugarcoat his depravities. I've been watching Steve
for six hours per day since twenty twenty. I'm so
done with the Maggia whisperer. Hypocrisy is not only democrats disease.
Speaker 2: Just stop on that detail for a second. Six hours
per day since twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: It's unbelievable.
Speaker 2: That's not a casual listener. That is a massive life
structuring investment of time and loyalty. That person's entire day,
their entire worldview was being shaped by Bannon's voice.
Speaker 1: And then to realize that voice was working to sugarcoat depravity.
Speaker 2: It shatters everything. It's not just that your leader is
a hypocrite. It's that you realize you have been dedicating
your life to a sham. The betrayal is existential.
Speaker 1: You can just hear the exhaustion in that tweet. I'm
so done. It's the sound of a true believer, realizing
the cause they thought was pure was actually contaminated at
its core.
Speaker 2: And that title they used, the mega whisperer, that implies
he's the smart one, the strategist, the one who articulates
the populist rage and gives it an intellectual framework.
Speaker 1: Right, He's supposed to be separate from the moral raw
of the system.
Speaker 2: But this secret collaboration with Epstein proves he wasn't fighting
the swamp. He was just swimming in its darkest corner
making deals. It completely destroys that framework.
Speaker 1: Then there's the second quote. It's less thought out, more
just raw anger hmmm quote. I'm a Trump voter and supporter,
but Bannon, you're a fat pedtoe lover. You defending Epstein
is disgraceful.
Speaker 2: And what's interesting there is that the person's identity as
a Trump voter and supporter wasn't enough to shield Bannon.
Speaker 1: The political allegiance hit a wall.
Speaker 2: It shows that for this person, the moral line regarding
child exploitation was more fundamental than their political identity. The
psychological shield just completely dropped.
Speaker 1: So it begs the question why this his base tolerated
so much else? Why was this the thing that finally
crossed the line.
Speaker 2: I think the source material name it says that supporters
could rationalize talking to anyone. You know, keep your enemies closer.
You have to talk to the devil to understand them.
They're good at that.
Speaker 1: They can justify the proximity exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but the source says the mentions of massages maybe
crosses the line.
Speaker 1: Because you can't rationalize a shared joke about it.
Speaker 2: You can't. That joke required Bannon to actively participate, to
accept the depravity. He wasn't an observer, he was in
on it.
Speaker 1: So it's about the cognitive dissonance finally breaking. A follower
is willing to stretch their brain to the absolute limits
to keep believing right.
Speaker 2: They'll justify anything as necessary for the war.
Speaker 1: But then they hit this dark, deep corner, as the
source puts it, involving child abuse, and the moral reality
is just it's undeniable. You can't spin it as a
political necessity.
Speaker 2: They finally saw that Bannon's moral landscape was shared with
the predator, and for some that was the irreversible break.
That's when they realized their general wasn't fighting the enemy.
He was sitting down and having to drink with them.
Speaker 1: And to really understand the depth of this moral failure,
we have to contrast this private, casual depravity with his public,
high stakes political fears, because Bannon is a faster at
framing himself as a political martyr for his audience, and.
Speaker 2: That contrast is so stark it shows you his hierarchy
of values. His deepest public fear isn't moral failure, it's
political defeat leading to prison.
Speaker 1: Let's bring in that other context. The sources site Bannon's
own public statements where he basically admits to his supporters
that his political activities are potentially criminal.
Speaker 2: Right, there's that direct quote where he told his audience quote,
if we lose this midterm election, if we lose any
other presidential elections, I'm going to prison.
Speaker 1: And he didn't stop there. He said he's going to
prison along with three four other guys that he's got
to mention because they're criminal.
Speaker 2: He just says it, because they're criminals.
Speaker 1: So let's just stop it. Unpack that he is openly
telling his audience that his personal freedom depends entirely on
winning elections.
Speaker 2: Which implies his actions are only legal or at least unpunished,
as long as his side holds power exactly.
Speaker 1: Now contrasts that very real, self serving fear of prison
for things like political crimes, contempt fraud with his complete
lack of concern about associating with a predator and joking
about child abuse.
Speaker 2: The contrast reveals his moral calculus, doesn't it. He sees
political corruption as I don't know, a necessary evil, a
part of the game. He fears the consequences, but there's
no sense of moral guilt.
Speaker 1: He frames it as noble persecution. They're coming after me
because I'm fighting for you.
Speaker 2: But he shows zero fear, zero hesitation about the profound
ethical consequences of working with Epstein. His concern is strictly
about self preservation from legal trouble. Moral integrity is it's
not even on the list.
Speaker 1: I mean, the whole spectacle of a political figure telling
his base you have to vote for us because we're
criminals is just absurd.
Speaker 2: It normalizes it. It's a rhetorical move that says, yeah,
we break the rules, but we're your rule breakers and
you need to protect us.
Speaker 1: It's asking for allegiance based on shared criminality.
Speaker 2: And for a long time it worked until the Epstein connection,
because that collaboration shatters the frame of righteous political warfare.
Speaker 1: Working with Epstein isn't about fighting the deep state.
Speaker 2: It's about getting into bed with the absolute worst part
of the deep state for your own personal gain and
that kind of moral stain. You just can't rationalize that
as defending the.
Speaker 1: Republic, which brings us back around to that powerful hypothetical
test the source material uses. It's a great way to
crystallize why the casualness of that Epstein exchange was so
damaging to audience trust.
Speaker 2: It really is the perfect lens. It's all about the
comfort level with pure darkness.
Speaker 1: So let's lay up the analogy. We'll put it directly
to you, the listener. Imagine you found out that I
was having an ongoing online check with say Bill Cosby,
and we're talking to my upcoming book tour, and in
the middle of it, Cosby messages me, quote, hey, I
hear you're doing a club run. Make sure your own
pills now. If you found out that, I just laughed
it off, continued the conversation, kept up that relationship.
Speaker 2: The immediate question is would you stop listening to this show?
Speaker 1: Exactly my political views, my analysis, None of that would
matter anymore, would it? No?
Speaker 2: The fact that you were comfortable enough to exchange a vile,
casual joke with a known serial predator about his specific
method of assault would fundamentally change everyone's perception of your character.
Speaker 1: The trust would be gone irreparably.
Speaker 2: And that's the synthesis we have to draw back to Bannon.
The issue wasn't just that he talked to a bad person.
Journalists and strategists do that. The issue was the context
and the response.
Speaker 1: It was the comfort level.
Speaker 2: It was a comfort level, the strategic coordination and the
acceptance of a joke that revealed this shared, depraved understanding
of Epstein's crimes.
Speaker 1: He wasn't investigating the darkness. He was sharing a laugh
with the monster inside it.
Speaker 2: And that level of complicity is what finally pushed his
most loyal followers right past their ethical breaking point.
Speaker 1: So we've covered a lot of ground in this thrilling
threads deep dive today.
Speaker 2: We certainly have.
Speaker 1: We started with that really shocking strategic contradiction, Steve Bannon,
the anti elite warrior, secretly trying to rehabilitate the image
of Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 2: Which was completely antithetical to his entire public brand.
Speaker 1: And we established just how deep that collaboration went. Through
the emails, Epstein wasn't just a source, he was a
strategic consultant for Bannon, weighing in on tabinet members providing
economic talking points.
Speaker 2: He showed Bannon's willingness to trade moral integrity for what
he saw as valuable strategic information.
Speaker 1: And then finally we dissepted that moral trip wire, the
casual chilling exchange about the Charter jet and that punchline
massage is not included.
Speaker 2: And that exchange provided the irrefutable proof for his followers,
proof that he was willing to not just tolerate, but
actively engage in dark humor that referenced child sexual will assault.
And that's what shattered their allegiance.
Speaker 1: The audience revolt that followed, even if it was just
a small fraction, was so profound because it came from
his core support.
Speaker 2: It proved that even the most deeply ingrained political loyalty
has a breaking point, especially when it comes to the
casual normalization of exploiting children.
Speaker 1: I think the ultimate question this whole thing leaves us
with is about the boundaries of our own support. Where
do your personal ethics draw that final red line?
Speaker 2: We saw how easily powerful people can rationalize these relationships,
believing the ends justify any means. But we also saw
how one specific, vile detail, a single joke, can shatter everything.
Speaker 1: It leaves you with a thought that goes way beyond
this one case. When you judge a public figure, what's
the compromise that's truly unforgivable? Is it their political failures
or is it their moral filth?
Speaker 2: So we've laid out the evidence from this deep dive.
Now we really want to hear from you.
Speaker 1: Considering everything we've talked about, the political coordination, that casual
or humor about sexual assault, what relationship do you believe
is the ultimate deal breaker when you're judging a public figure.
Is it their politics and their strategic goals or is
it their private moral compromises?
Speaker 2: Let us know what you think. Drop a comment and
tell us where your stand is. We really want to
hear your thoughts on this.
Speaker 1: Thanks for taking this thrilling Threads deep dive with us.
We'll see you next time.