Speaker 1: And Hello, how are you happy Monday? Welcome to the
Big Podcast. I'm Tom Sullivan. It's Monday, the twenty eighth
day of July. Year of Our Lord, twenty twenty five.
My name, Yeah, I told you my name, keep repeating it.
So it's a fairly busy Monday. I know we're in,
you know, the dregs of July, but we still have
still a very busy news cycle going for the month
of July. We've got Russia, Ukraine, President Trump making what
appears to be a dramatic change in US policy regarding
Russia and Ukraine. We have Gaza and the fact that
they're still there's no peace deal, and over the weekend
they just walked away and so the United States and
Israel said okay, we're not going to continue this charade.
So that's changing as well. The trade deals. Over the weekend,
the President's over in Scotland and he's cutting trade deals
right and left a huge one with one of our
biggest trading partners in the world, is the European Union,
and they cut a deal with that. So we'll get
into that because it's fascinating to see the deal that
was cut. Well, else we got Russia Gate. We've got
oh yeah, we've got the latest update on Julaine Maxwell
and all of those stories. But let's start with Russia
and Ukraine and the guy I like to go to
all the time when we talk about military things like
this is about General Jack Keen, who weighed in on
exactly what is going on because the President today, well
we'll play it for you here, but the President has
made a dramatic shift in his approach to Russia Ukraine war.
Speaker 2: I'm disappointed, and President Putin very disappointed at him. So
we're going to have to look and I'm going to
reduce that fifty days that I gave him to a
lesser number because I think I already know the answer
what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that lesser number is now he's talking about
ten to twelve days for Russia to come to the
table regarding the ceasefire agreement or what General Jack Keen
to go over the or what part.
Speaker 3: I mean when it comes to Putin here, I think
the President exhibit unbelievable patients really and trying to work
something out diplomatically, and obviously he's frustrated. Putin wanted him
to be frustrated, but Putin was calculating that Trump would
maybe walk away and not support Ukraine. Quite the opposite
has taken place, so we're moving. The President has come
to the conclusion that diplomacy is failing and he's willing
to turn towards confrontation, so he's strengthening the Ukraine's ability
to defend itself. Meanwhile, all during these negotiations, Putin actually
escalated the war, particularly against the civilians in Ukraine, hitting
those major cities. Our audience has seen that every single day,
sometimes hundreds of drones and very accurate ballistic missiles which
cause casualties, so increasing Ukraine's ability to defend against that.
It goes unmentioned at times because you have a tendency
to talk about what's happening on the battlefield. Over thirteen
thousand Ukrainian citizens died in this war, and Putin is
committing a war crime every single day when he targets
civilians with no military time, ougously or whatsoever. So the
major inflection point has taken place confrontation, strengthening Ukraine's ability
to defend and also looks like in several days we'll
find ourselves with secondary sanctions being imposed on Russia. They
already have serious economic issues and this will add to that.
Does that get them back to the negotiating table, We
don't know, but we know what has not worked, and
diplomacy hasn't worked, and so give this a try.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 3: I think he had two objectives here. One certainly is
to break the will of the United States willingness to
support Ukraine, and also for the Europeans, and quite the
opposite has taken place when our negotiating team, President Trump's
team met with the Europeans in Rome a week or
so ago. They came out of that meeting and the
Europeans were very clear, this is not a money issue
for us. We're going to pay whatever it costs to
take care of Ukraine, and we're going to purchase the
weapons from the United States and do this. So they
are really all in here, and where the President is,
he's all in as well. Putin has got to be
taking notice of that. He wanted to undermine our resolve
in the Europeans, and he certainly wanted to break the
will of the Ukrainian people to put more pressure on
Zelensky so he would make major concessions. Big picture, Putin
has been at war for forty one months. He still
hasn't taken significant territory in Ukraine. His presidency as is
at stake, and he wants those concessions being made by Zelensky,
and he wanted them to be supported by the President
of the United States. It is not happening. So he
has to begin to rethink where is he and how
much stake is he going to continue to risk his
presidency by this involvement.
Speaker 4: Other headlines with another major news story. First of all,
we didn't even get too much into it, but Thailand
and Cambodia, we're going to go at it. They were
about to go to war. President Trump announced at the
beginning of that press conference. They got involved, and now
we have an immediate ceasefire and an agreement to just
hold fire there in Thailand and Cambodia at that border.
But the other war, that's I don't know if it's
forty one months, I can't quite do the math. But
since October seventh, you have Israel against Hamas, you have
actually against Hezbola, the Seven Front war. Over the weekend,
there were increasing numbers of media stories about Gazin's starvation
and in just in the last hour while he was speaking,
it come to find out that some of these photographs
of children starving turned out not to be children starving,
but children dinosistic fibrosis in Italy for example. So the
media in some cases exasperating it. But President Trump said
he's seen for himself there is some starvation going on,
and he said that the United States will get involved somehow.
He didn't detail it, but apparently that's to come to
try to get more food into Gaza. What can you
tell us about that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I think these vellys have maintained from the
outset that the humanitarian crisis. They're not suggesting it doesn't exist,
but they believe it's been exaggerated, and you have concrete
examples of some of that exaggeration. But I think depending
the rose here on who's responsible. I mean, well, over
a month ago, negotiations began with Hamas and Israelis to intermediaries,
and Hamas just walked away from that. They wouldn't cut
a deal. And the reason they're not cutting the deal,
President is actually right, twenty odd hostages left. They took
these hostages at the very end that ensure their own survival,
the survival of the leaders, and that's kind of where
we are now, and I think that's why they stiffed
the negotiators and we don't have this humanitarian crisis if
they were able to go to a ceasefire some five
or six weeks ago, and obviously that food would start
to flow. Where we are in humanitarian relief Saturday, two
hundred and fifty trucks. Israelis are stopping any hostility for
ten hours a day to permit these trucks to get
in there in much larger quantities. They normally average six
hundred a day when things are flowing properly. So I
think this crisis that we're in will get some relief
here this week, quite dramatic relief. But the major problem
is still there. Hamas is still there. There's thousands of fighters,
a lot of teenagers now carrying guns, but they're committed
to kill as many Israeli troops as they possibly can.
Twenty hostages remain, thirty deceased remain, So the same problem
is still there. That's the challenge ahead. How do you
manage that problem, defeat Hamas and still get the hostages
out alive. That is a tough tough equation.
Speaker 1: So President Trump has, like I said, I think a
one point eighty. It looked like he was really supporting
Russia and Putin trying to cajole them and get Ukraine
to basically throw into talent. Now he's turning around. It
looks like he is totally supporting Ukraine and he is
not happy with Vladimir Putin. So sanctions are coming ten
to twelve days. We don't know what they're going to be.
I don't think they really work all that well, so
we'll see just how tough they are. And the secondary
sanctions is where we put sanctions on India and China
for buying oil from Russia, which gives them money to
continue their war and keep their economy going. But we
want to do deals with China and India, So, like
General Keane said, we are in a bit of a
jam on that. The General also was asked about Gaza,
the fact that Gaza the Hamas has walked away from
peace deal after peace deal after peace deal. They know
the strength is what works with them, and this is
diplomatic stuff. Diplomatic talks are not working. So back to
General Keen on his observations about what's going on in
Maas Gaza, Israel.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I think these vllleys have maintained from the
outset that the humanitarian crisis. They're not suggesting it doesn't exist,
but they believe it's been exaggerated, and you have concrete
examples of some of that exaggeration. But I think depending
the rose here on who's responsible. I mean, well, over
a month ago, negotiations began with Hamas and the Israelis
to intermediaries, and Hamas just walked away from that. They
wouldn't cut a deal. And the reason they're not cutting
the deal President is actually right, twenty odd hostages left.
They took these hostages at the very end that ensure
their own survival, the survival of the leaders, and that's
kind of where we are now. And I think that's
why they stiffed the negotiators and we don't have this
humanitarian crisis if they were able to go to a
ceasefire some five or six weeks ago, and obviously that
food would start to flow. Where we are in humanitarian
relief Saturday, two hundred and fifty trucks. Israelis are stopping
any hostility for ten hours a day to permit these
trucks to get in there in much larger quantities. They
normally average six hundred a day when things are flowing properly.
So I think this crisis that we're in, we'll get
some relief here this week, quite dramatic relief. But the
major problem is still there. Hamas is still there. There's
thousands of fighters, a lot of teenagers now carrying guns,
but they're committed to kill as many of Israeli troops
as they possibly can. Twenty hostages remain, thirty deceased remain,
So the same problem is still there. That's the challenge ahead.
How do you manage that problem, defeat Hamas and still
get the hostages out alive. That is a tough, tough equation.
Speaker 1: It is a tough equation. And the business about the starvation, yes,
they're starvation going on, but there's also been as you
get in all Wars propaganda, some of the photos and
videos of children starving were actually from children suffering from
system fibrosis in Italy, and they included that in some
of the propaganda regarding the children's suffering. Brett McGirk, he's
worked for the four previous presidents on these matters. This
is his take on what's going on with Pamas.
Speaker 5: Well, if it's a dramatic shift, it's only in February
when the President came in that he was berating Zelensky,
kind of blaming the Ukrainians for prolonging the war. He's
now completely shifted policy. I think it's right. You know,
sometimes a new administration has to go through trying how
they think things should go, and then when reality bites,
the real world intervenes. You know, Putin is still Putin
and now you see a shift. It's quite significant. Big
question though President Trump does he stick to it. I
think it's time for those secondary sanctions. There's a massive
bipartisan consensus, as you know, in the Congress for this bill,
which has been pending. Very few issues like this in
Washington right now. So President has that political win that
is back, and I think it's the only way to
bring this war to a close is to demonstrate to
Putin that the course he's on is not going to
lead to his objectives and he's suffering badly, and hopefully
they can get something done. You've been covering this for
two years. He's all in, he wants to subject at Ukraine,
but he's also he suffered as a president said today,
He's right. They've taken a million military casualties, about two
hundred and fifty thousand or so dead Russians in this war.
That is only sustainable for so long. His economy is suffering,
and you know these sanctions can bite. But looks this
is going to take time. And I noticed that President
Trump's on boy, Steve Wikoff, said it might take until
twenty nine to ultimately resolve this conflict. We don't want
to wait that long. But the only way to resolve
it is to demonstrate that the United States and our
allies have the back of the Ukrainians and that Putin
is not going to have free reign. Yeah, a lot
of presidents come in thinking that they can. Eisenhower said,
I'm going to go to Korea, and the Korean War
actually took him almost six to seven months. That war
is still not formally ended. Nixon said, I got a
way to secret plan to en Vietnam. Spent his whole
first term as gleading the war. So a lot of
presidents come in with very high et spectations. And again,
the world is the world, Putin's Putin. Iran is Iran,
and you have to adjust what I see the president
here is taking ownership of a new approach again. He's
got bipartisan support at his back in Congress, and I
think it's the right approach.
Speaker 2: I will say that Iran, I think he interjected themselves
in this last negotiation. Can you imagine the beating they took.
We wiped out their nuclear possibilities. They can start again.
If they do, we'll wipe it out faster. Then you
can wave your finger at it. We'll have to do that.
We will do that gladly, openly and gladly. They've been saying.
Iran's been sending out bad signals.
Speaker 1: So the sanctions will they work? Steve Moore, who was
an economic advisor to President Trump and Trump one point zero,
These are his thoughts regarding sanctions on Russia.
Speaker 6: What Trump is doing with respect to these foreign policy
moves is exactly what he has done so successfully with
trade deals. He is exerting America's muscle and flexing our
muscle and forcing countries to do things that are in
America's interest and in the interests of the whole world.
So the situation with Russia is very simple when it
comes to their economy, Harris, their entire economy is dependent
on selling their oil and gas, and it's also dependent
on being able to sell things to the United States
in our twenty trillion dollar consumer market. And Trump is saying, look,
you're going to lose access to that. We are going
to keep out your oil and gas in ways that
will really hurt their economy. And I believe this will
be a successful strategy. In other words, I think he's
going to drag Vladimir put into the negotiating cable justice.
He's done with trade and say stop and assistant Ukraine,
let's get a peace deal. But there's something else we
can do that Trump is already doing. But he can
turn this bigots on here in the United States. Every
time we produce an additional barrel of oil here in
the United States or non natural gas. Who do you
think is hurt the most by that? Russia is.
Speaker 1: So that brings up the big trade deal over the weekend.
Like I said, the European Union, which is so fractionalized,
it's very hard to get a deal with them, But
they did it over the weekend, and it's strange. The
announcement is is that Europe will pay a fifteen percent, Well,
we will pay when we buy things from Europe a
fifteen percent tariff on their products, which is going to
meet make European products more expensive. If you attack something more,
you get less of it. That Europe will also invest
six hundred billion dollars above their current level of investing
here in the US, and they will buy seven hundred
and fifty billion dollars worth of the US energy. Well,
that's strategically smart because of the fact that Europe when
winter time comes and Russian oil isn't available, they will
get US energy and that will help them in many,
many ways. They've been doing that anyway. Pharma, big pharma.
That is not part of this deal. There's a lot
of pharmaceutical companies, especially in Ireland that are part of
the European Union, and Donald Trump wants to bring those
pharmaceutical companies back to the US. So this is not
part of the deal. And the President said he's going
to announce whatever the pharmaceutical deal is within a very
short order. You've got Novo Nordisk, which they make ozempic
and a bunch of other things like that. They're huge
pharmaceutical company. They're out of Denmark, so those still have
to be worked out. European auto stocks today they dropped
sharply on Wall Street because if they're going to cost more,
will the sales drop off? Right now? Pays well, prior
to April Second Liberation Day, they were paying a tariff
of one point two percent, So now they're going to
fifteen percent. And this is the part that I don't know.
It doesn't make sense to me that somehow they're going
to let us send our products to the European Union
with no tariffs. Why would we charge them fifteen and
they charge us nothing. It doesn't seem like that will
last all that long. Back to Steve Moore on his
thoughts about this European deal.
Speaker 6: A big deal indeed, And as you know, I've been
kind of a skeptic of this approach because I don't
like terriffs. But I have to say, I mean, you
look at what Trump has done one country after another,
whether it's Canada, whether it's Japan, Korea, China. Well, I
want to see the fine print on the China deal
because I don't trust the Chinese. But now if you
get the big plumb here, which is the European Union,
I would have thought that this would have been the
toughest one to get because the Europeans are protectionists. They
discriminate against American technology products, they discriminate against our agriculture products,
our automobiles. So this is huge for American workers in
the American economy.
Speaker 1: Now again, I want.
Speaker 6: To see the deal. I want to see the fine print,
because you know, I don't know whether these countries will actually,
you know, they'll agree to the deal, but whether they
will action, you know, follow through with it, we will see.
Speaker 7: But this is this is.
Speaker 6: Incidentally, this is freer and fairer trade. I'm a free
trade guy. What if Trump is doing is leveraging down
all the terrorists around the world, that's a great outcome
for everyone.
Speaker 1: So that's going forward. And the other one that started
today is well shouldn't start they start? They continue today.
China and the unit United States, led by Secretary of
the Treasury Scott Bessont. They are in Stockholm, Sweden today
trying to cut a trade deal with China. Mark Stewart,
who is in Beijing, has this observation about China doing
business with the US.
Speaker 8: Indeed, China is entering this with a point of strength,
and it really has three things working in his favor.
Number one rare earth minerals. America wants them, China has
a hold on them. These are substances that are used
to make everything from electronics to lights, to electronic vehicles,
electric vehicles. I should say Number two the Chinese economy.
While some economists may give the recent economic data a
second look right now, it shows that it's performing better
than expected. That's something else that China may want to
use in its favor in these discussions. And then the
third point, the third potential advantage for China is TikTok.
Americans like it. We heard from a government advisor that
that too may be a point of advantage, a point
that China again can use in its favor in these talks.
Speaker 9: I mean, the President really likes TikTok, and he said
it over and over again because you know, it was
a good way to communicate with young people. But let's
face it, you can't have the Chinese have an app
on one hundred million American phones. That is just not okay.
So it's got to move to American ownership. It's got
to move to American technology, American algorithms.
Speaker 8: And that algorithm is the real sticking point in all
of it. It's the secret sauce, an electronic formula that
China has devised to figure out what people want to
see on the TikTok platform. The reason is so successful,
not so clear if China wants to part ways with it.
I was hearing from one observer in Washington who described
this whole current scenario between the US and China as
a fragile ceasefire.
Speaker 1: Meantime, the President is still hanging out in Scotland for
a few more days, and while he's there, he's still
working on golf and more trade deals. But as the
week progresses here, it's a busy economic week. We've got
the jobs report coming out on Friday for the month
of July. Everybody's going to be watching that one very
close to see what the FED will do about that.
We've got the gross domestic product, the first look at
the gross domestic product for the second quarter, and we've
got personal consumption expenditures coming out this week. So a
lot of data for the FED to figure out what
they are going to do. And speaking of the Fed,
here's Krishna Guha, who is the number two guy at Evercore,
talking about the view from Wall Street.
Speaker 7: See a lot of uncertainty as to where the light
market's going to print this Friday, and again you know
this the next month as well. Now, I think that's
why the FED is in wait and see mode, right.
They don't want to just see data from June. They're
want to see data from June, July, and August and
then make that call on rates. I think the picture
up to this point has been labor marketing aggregate pretty solid,
but with some softening under the hurt in that last
employment report. Of course, hints of private sector hiring, particularly
outside of those non syclicity sensitive health and education sector
is the private sector hiring is quite weak. If we
get that private sector weak hiring theme confirmed in Friday's print,
that's going to push the FED again more in the
direction of that September cut. So certainly, the FED, like
the rest of us, would like clarity on tariff policy
in order to assess how that's going to impact the
economy and make it easier to make decisions. But as
you say, we have had some clarity on some important tracks,
the European track, the Japanese track, and some of the others.
I don't think the FED is going to take the
absolutest position that they need to wait for perfect on
everything before they make a decision. It's a risk management assessment,
as monetary policy almost always is. It is getting talked
about in kind of nerdy you know, economist circles. Those
of us who are counting know econ wonks worry about
this stuff a lot. Look, I think the US data
is still pretty good quality overall, but there is some
deterioration in the collections. I would argue also that we've
got to be a little wary now about how people
are responding to the household survey and the labor market report,
with some undocumented migrants are potentially responding differently, not necessarily
just truing up their answer here for fear of the consequences. So,
both because of collection and because of reporting bias, some
of the data right now is getting fuzzed up. I
don't think this is bad enough to make it incredibly
difficult to see what's going on in the US right now,
as for instance, has been the case in the UK
labor data. For all Wow, fine blind because the data
is just so bad, But we don't want to go there.
We don't want to see the data continue to deteriorate
to the point of which not just the FED, but
decision makers in corporate America and households just don't have
good information upon which to base that decisions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So that FED meeting is Tuesday and Wednesday. We'll
find out Wednesday about two o'clock in the afternoon whether
the FED decides to cut infrastrates or not. The bet
is that they won't, even though the pressure has been
put on by the White House on the FED to
drop interest rates. So the bet on Wall Street is
they won't do it in the meeting this week, but
they will in the month of September in Washington. Russia
Gate is still bubbling up. John Ratcliffe, who is the
CIA director, had some comments about it earlier today. We
know it was a hoax.
Speaker 10: Now we want to understand how you did it so
that it can't happen again. And that's what this declassification
process that we're undergoing right now, what's going on, why
it's so important, and why there can be accountability and
preventability to prevent these same people that did it in
twenty sixteen with the Steve dossier with the Hunter Biden laptop.
In twenty twenty from doing it again in the future.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So as much as the Obama administration, President Obama
and his top people, John Brennan, all that Clapper, Susan Rice,
all of those people, they want this to go away.
So does the mainstream media. In fact, it was interesting
if you look in the New York Times or the
Washington Post, try and find one story about this. They
are not reporting on this at all. And this is
the CIA, This is off the National Director of Intelligence.
This is top level stuff, and they're going through and
finding out where the law were in twenty sixteen to
try to basically do a coup on President Trump, especially
President elect Trump, but it continued into his first two
years of his first term. So Tulsi Gabbard's latest update is.
Speaker 11: This, they don't actually cover the revelations that these intelligence
reports and the evidence that we release actually conveys to
the American people. They simply talk about their criticisms of
it or convey Democrat politicians criticisms of it, but none
of them actually dealing with the truth that has been revealed.
They don't want the American people to know the truth.
But also they recognize the mainstream media's complicity in this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let me clarify. They're doing stories, but they're
not talking about what is the dirt that they have uncovered.
They're just saying that Tulsea Gabbert is digging around in
this particular area along with John Ratcliffe. Speaking of dirt,
Jelane Maxwell, she has now this afternoon her lawyers have
sent an application to the Supreme Court to review her case.
We knew this was going there after her meeting on
Thursday and Friday of last week. She is looking for
wanting to get out of prison. Everybody in prison does
want to. Let's start with Donald Trump talking about this case.
Speaker 2: I never had the privilege of going to his island,
and I did turn it down. But a lot of
people in Palm Beach were invited to his island. In
one of my very good moments, I turned it down.
I didn't want to go to his island.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in one of those very good moments. In other words,
thank goodness he did. I don't know about I don't
know about the privilege of going there or not. But
in any case, he's claiming, no, he never went there.
But the Supreme Court the question of whether they will
look at this or not. Eli Honig former SD and
Y prosecutor weighs in on will the Supreme Court even
bother with this.
Speaker 12: Back in two thousand and eight, when Jeffrey Epstein was
prosecuted by Justice Department prosecutors in the Southern District of Florida,
he was given an outrageously lenient plea deal. And in
addition to all the sentencing benefits that Jeffrey Epstein was given,
there was a really unusual provision in that deal which
said that none of Jeffrey Epstein's co conspirators will be
prosecuted in that district. Now, fast forward to twenty twenty,
Gilaane Maxwell gets indicted in the Southern District of New York,
a different part of the Justice Department, and Maxwell has
argued both at the trial court and the Court of
Appeals that that deal DOJ made back in two thousand
and eight benefits her. It says she can't be prosecuted
if DOJ says she's one of the co conspirators. However,
DOJ's position up until now, including now, has been that
that deal was only binding on the prosecutors and Florida,
not on prosecutors in New York, and that that kind
of deal releasing co conspirators is basically invalid because it's
so much against public interest. So judges have ruled against
Maxwell at the trial court level and at the Federal
Court of Appeals level, and now Maxwell is down to
her last hope, which is trying to get the US
Supreme Court to take up this issue. So the Supreme
Court statistically takes only a very small proportion of all
cases brought to it, under ten percent, usually under five percent,
usually in the range of two or three percent. Recently,
on the one hand, there have been different interpretations of
this issue in different circuits around the country, which is
usually a factor that makes it more likely the Supreme
Court will take the case. On the other hand, though
the Supreme Court was brought this same exact issue in
a separate case a few years ago and declined to
hear it then, so maybe they've had a change of heart.
So I would say overall it is unlikely but not
impossible that the Supreme Court takes this case. So it's
clear that Glene Maxwell now is making a play for
some sort of leniency. Got a twenty year sentence. She's
about five years into that sentence, and she's in her
mid sixties. The other ways she could get relief or
there's really two main ways. One is to hope for
a pardon or a commutation, and we've seen various comments
made by the President refusing to rule that out, saying
he hasn't thought about it. But the other one is
Maxwell can try to convince DOJ prosecutors and this may
be what's part of behind the meeting that she had
last week. She can try to convince the DJ to
write a letter what we call a rule thirty five
letter to a court saying yes, she's already been convicted
in a sentence. However, she's been cooperative. Her cooperation was helpful,
and therefore, judge, we ask you to re sentence her
to something lower. Now, DJ should be very careful about
when they write those letters, especially in a case like this,
but it is theoretically and procedurally possible.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm allowed to give her a pardon, but nobody's
approached me with it, nobody's asked me about it. It's
in the news about that. That aspect of it h
right now it would be inappropriate to talk about it.
Speaker 12: So this boggles my mind. It's the same response he's
been giving. Will you consider a pardon for a convicted
child sex trafficker. I mean, the easiest thing to say
is just no, of course, not what president wouldn't say that.
And the fact that Trump keeps saying he has the power,
and by the way, he's right, he does have the power,
as unseemly as it might be, and then says, you know,
I haven't thought about it. I mean, that's the same
answer that Donald Trump has given many times in the
past with other people who he did end up pardoning
or commuting. So look, obviously there will be a serious
political cost to doing that, but I think it's pretty
telling that Donald Trump has said anything other than absolutely not.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 12: I think the play we're going to see from Maxwell's
team is obvious and the right play from any defense
lawyer's perspective, which is to make an argument to DOJ. Look,
she has now come forward, she has given you valuable,
truthful information. Whether that's true or not, I don't know,
but that'll be what Maxwell's attorney says, and therefore we
want you to go to a court and ask for
sensing leniency. From DOJ's perspective, it's a little bit unclear
what exactly they're doing. I am skeptical that Gallaine Maxwell
is anywhere near credible enough to sign up as a
cooperator and to bring other indictments based on her information.
I cannot envision myself ever having done that. It would
shock me if DOJ did that. So maybe they're just
trying to get her information. Maybe they have some interest
in getting whatever she said out there to the public
to try to appease critics. But there's an interesting sort
of political and legal dance happening here between the parties.
Speaker 1: So Tom Massey from Kentucky ways in and says that
he wants to get aggressive on finding out more about
this Epstein case.
Speaker 13: I think we should get a lot more than just
the book. Let's get the financial records of the estate.
Where's follow the money, As they say up here, we
should look at the plea bargain open that up.
Speaker 12: Well, it's an interesting idea by Representative Massey, and I
know he has some bipartisan support. On the one hand,
the notion of let's subpoena the Epstein estate. They can
that Congress has broad subpoena power. Now the estate might
well resist it, and it may well end up going
to court. But I think the Representative Massi is right
that that could shed some light on really the mystery
around Epstein's finances. There's been a separate question about subpoenaing DOJ.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 12: Traditionally the Justice Department would resist that type of subpoena,
would say we don't open up our closed files to Congress. However,
if you think about the political reality now, I think
it's pretty tough for Pam Bondi to say no, we
want to legally resist a subpoena from Congress, especially if
it comes with bipartisan support.
Speaker 1: So the Epstein story goes on, and we'll see if
Tom Massey gets his way to get followed the money.
But that really is probably the best way to solve
this problem with this Epstein story. Wall Street today not
a lot going on. It was felt like a summer Monday.
Dow Jones industrials today down sixty four, forty four thou
eight thirty seven s and p up one point. Nasdaq
up seventy points. Gold was down twenty dollars to thirty
three point fifteen, and oil popped a little bit today,
up almost two dollars to just under sixty seven dollars
for one barrel. Of boil. Thanks for coming by today.
We'll try it again tomorrow. Hopefully we will see you
then