Speaker 1: What's up, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the
Speaker 1: Epstein Chronicles. Tom Tillis and John Cornyn want everybody to
Speaker 1: believe that they're big, swinging senators, hard men who make
Speaker 1: hard choices in the marble halls of power. Yo, cut
Speaker 1: the shit when Todd Blanche's nomination landed in front of them.
Speaker 1: These two had the leverage, the votes, the microphone, and
Speaker 1: the whole damn country watching. They also had Epstein's survivors
Speaker 1: telling them plainly and directly not to rubber stamp another
Speaker 1: powerful insider who had failed to earn their trust. That
Speaker 1: was the moment to plant their feet, square their shoulders,
Speaker 1: and tell the machine to go screw itself. Instead, they
Speaker 1: got weak in the knees. They talked tough for five minutes,
Speaker 1: checked which way the political wind was blowing, and folded
Speaker 1: like a couple of busted card tables outside of a
Speaker 1: neighborhood social club. All that senate swagger turned into nervous
Speaker 1: throat clearing the second there was a price attached to courage.
Speaker 1: Tillis and Cornin didn't get out, maneuvered, trapped, or confused.
Speaker 1: They got scared, kissed the ring, and sold out the
Speaker 1: survivors because protecting their own asses mattered more than doing
Speaker 1: the right thing. Yo. Let's start with Tom Tillis because
Speaker 1: his little performance was especially grimy. Tillis made a big
Speaker 1: show of insisting that Blanche meet with Epstein's survivors before
Speaker 1: he would support moving the nomination forward. He wanted everybody
Speaker 1: to see him laying down the law like he was
Speaker 1: some tough neighborhood boss, telling Blanche that nothing happened until
Speaker 1: the women were heard. When Blanche met with them, the
Speaker 1: survivors remained opposed, and Tillis voted for him anyway. So
Speaker 1: what the hell was the meeting for? Tom? Was it
Speaker 1: a listening session or was it a political car wash
Speaker 1: where you ran your conscience through the brushes and hoped
Speaker 1: the dirt would come off. You made those women open
Speaker 1: the vault, drag out the worst moments of their lives,
Speaker 1: and put their pain on the table. Then you scooped
Speaker 1: up your talking points, pushed your chair back, and walked out.
Speaker 1: Their words were yesterday's garbage. So what the hell was that, Tom?
Speaker 1: It sure wasn't leadership, It wasn't compassion. What it was
Speaker 1: was a con job pulled by a man who wanted
Speaker 1: credit for listening without ever intending to hear a damned thing.
Speaker 1: And John Cornyn's act was the same cheap hustle with
Speaker 1: a little more old man Senate Varnish slapped on it.
Speaker 1: Cornyn strutted around talking about concerns, safeguards, stonewalling, weaponization and
Speaker 1: the sacred integrity of the Justice Department. Bro sounded like
Speaker 1: a guy banging his fist on the bar, telling everybody
Speaker 1: the next round would be different because this time he
Speaker 1: meant business. Then Blanche handed him a concession, and Cornyn
Speaker 1: softened up faster than butter on a dashboard in Las
Speaker 1: Vegas in August. Suddenly the hard questions were not so hard.
Speaker 1: Suddenly the grave concerns had a nice little escape patch.
Speaker 1: Suddenly Blanche was being talked about like some stabilizing force
Speaker 1: who deserved the chance give me a break. Cornin was
Speaker 1: not persuaded by principle. He was rescued by paperwork. He
Speaker 1: needed one lousy piece of cover so he could crawl
Speaker 1: back into line without admitting that all his tough talk
Speaker 1: had been nothing but a load of hot air. Yo.
Speaker 1: These men were not powerless, and that's what makes the
Speaker 1: whole thing stink worse. They sat on the Senate Judiciary
Speaker 1: Committee with votes that actually mattered. They had enough leverage
Speaker 1: to delay Blanche, damage Blanche, or stop Blanche from gliding
Speaker 1: through Like another protected suit with friends in the right places.
Speaker 1: For once, the survivors were not asking some junior staffer
Speaker 1: to pass a note up the chain. They were speaking
Speaker 1: to the men holding the chain in their own hands
Speaker 1: to listen. Cornyn could have wrapped that chain around the
Speaker 1: nomination and yanked the whole operation to a dead stop. Instead,
Speaker 1: they used their leverage to negotiate themselves a softer landing.
Speaker 1: They didn't squeeze Blanche for real accountability, real transparency, or
Speaker 1: real commitments to the people who had been burned by
Speaker 1: the Epstein machine. They squeezed them for enough cover to
Speaker 1: save face at the country club. Then they slapped each
Speaker 1: other on the back like they just robbed Fort Knox,
Speaker 1: instead of pawning their integrity for some pocket change. The
Speaker 1: Epstein survivors have been dealing with this same rotten hustle
Speaker 1: for years. Powerful men call them brave, courageous, inspiring, and
Speaker 1: every other pretty word that costs absolutely nothing. Then the
Speaker 1: minute those survivors asks for something real, the room gets quiet.
Speaker 1: And everybody starts staring at their shoes. Prosecutors praise them
Speaker 1: while cutting deals behind closed doors. Banks issue apologies while
Speaker 1: lining up an army of lawyers. Politicians invite them to meetings,
Speaker 1: nod like dashboard dogs, and then vote whichever way keeps
Speaker 1: the money flowing and the party bosses happy. Tillis and
Speaker 1: Cornyn slid right into that sewer like they've been looking
Speaker 1: for the entrance. They didn't break the cycle of institutional betrayal.
Speaker 1: They greased it, fueled it, and waved it through the checkpoint.
Speaker 1: They proved once again that Washington loves survivors as symbols
Speaker 1: and treats them like a pain in the ass when
Speaker 1: they demand power to answer for itself. Listen, don't insult
Speaker 1: anybody's intelligence by calling this a difficult balancing act. There
Speaker 1: was nothing complicated about the moral math. Survivors had already
Speaker 1: been ignored, doubted, smeared, and discarded, and they were telling
Speaker 1: two senators not to reward Todd Blanche with more power.
Speaker 1: Those senators had the ability to listen and act. Instead,
Speaker 1: they treated the survivors like a couple of inconvenient witnesses
Speaker 1: who had stayed too long at the table, Tillis and
Speaker 1: Cornin balance nothing except their own ambition against the risk
Speaker 1: of angering party leadership. They weighed conscience against career and
Speaker 1: tossed conscience off the back of the truck. They looked
Speaker 1: at the survivor's warnings, looked at the political consequences, and
Speaker 1: decided the women could take one more hit. Yo, that's
Speaker 1: not statesmanship. What we have here are two cowards doing
Speaker 1: business with power and leaving the victims to clean up
Speaker 1: the blood. Tillis especially pulled one of the oldest scams
Speaker 1: in politics. He created a condition that sounded serious but
Speaker 1: was built to collapse the second it became inconvenient. Blanche
Speaker 1: had to meet with the survivors. Tillis said, as though
Speaker 1: the meeting was some sacred threshold. Fine. The meeting happened,
Speaker 1: the survivors still did not trust Blanche, still didn't support them,
Speaker 1: and still urged Tillis not to confirm them. At that point,
Speaker 1: Tillis had two choices, and neither one was complicated. He
Speaker 1: could honor the spirit of his own demand, or he
Speaker 1: could play dumb and pretend the meeting itself was all
Speaker 1: that mattered. He chose the weasel route. He treated the survivors,
Speaker 1: like a parking ticket that had been paid, stamped and
Speaker 1: tossed into a drawer. And that's the move of a
Speaker 1: slick operator who thinks everybody else in the room is
Speaker 1: too stupid to notice the hustle. Cornan's move was just
Speaker 1: as gutless, only colder. He raised objections, made noises, and
Speaker 1: let the press write stories about how he might stand
Speaker 1: in Blanche's way. That gave him a nice image of
Speaker 1: a seasoned senator holding the line. Then, when holding the
Speaker 1: line required actually holding the damn line, he backed away
Speaker 1: like the sidewalk had caught fire. Blanche gave him something
Speaker 1: he could sell as a win, and Cornyn grabbed it
Speaker 1: like a drowning man grabbing a pool noodle. After that,
Speaker 1: all the barking stopped. The watchdog turned into a lapdog,
Speaker 1: curled up under the table and waited for somebody to
Speaker 1: scratch him behind the ears. Cornin didn't beat the system.
Speaker 1: The system tossed him a biscuit, and he rolled over.
Speaker 1: The man wants respect for surviving confrontation. He never had
Speaker 1: the stomach to finish. Yo. The United States Senate has
Speaker 1: enough polished phonies, back room merchants, and professional ass coverers
Speaker 1: to fill every steakhouse in DC. What it does not
Speaker 1: need is Tom Tillis and John Cornyn pretending that cowardice
Speaker 1: becomes courage when you deliver it in a calm voice.
Speaker 1: These dudes had every chance to show that survivor testimony
Speaker 1: carried more weight then party pressure. They had a chance
Speaker 1: to tell the Justice Department that epstein matter would not
Speaker 1: be swept aside with another meeting, another letter, or another
Speaker 1: pile of bureaucratic mush. They had the chance to make
Speaker 1: Blanche earn every inch of the confirmation ground. Instead, they
Speaker 1: threw the fight and then pose for pictures with their
Speaker 1: participation trophy. They want credit for asking questions, but questions
Speaker 1: mean jack shit when you ignore the answers. They want
Speaker 1: credit for extracting concessions, but concessions mean jack shit when
Speaker 1: their survivors are still standing outside the door. They want
Speaker 1: to be treated like men of principle while behaving like
Speaker 1: two neighborhood punks who talk big until the real muscle
Speaker 1: walks into the room. So let the record show exactly
Speaker 1: what happened when the heat got turned up. Tom Tillis
Speaker 1: and John Cornyn were warned by Epstein's survivors. They were
Speaker 1: handed leverage. They were given a clean shot to stand
Speaker 1: up to Todd Blanche and tell the power structure that
Speaker 1: the usual game was over. Then they choked. They tucked
Speaker 1: their tails, found themselves a fig leaf, and ran back
Speaker 1: to the safest corner of the room. They chose party
Speaker 1: loyalty over survivors, political comfort over moral duty, and career
Speaker 1: protection over the truth staring them in the face. No speech, statement,
Speaker 1: memo or Senate floor routine can polish that turd. Their
Speaker 1: brand of cowardice is greasy, cheap, and familiar, the kind
Speaker 1: of back alley betrayal Washington cells as responsible governance. Tom
Speaker 1: Tillis and John Cornyn did not stand with the Epstein
Speaker 1: survivors when it mattered, And every time they talk about
Speaker 1: courage from this point forward, somebody ought to laugh right
Speaker 1: in their faces and understand this, Tom Tillis and John Cornyn,
Speaker 1: because no amount of Senate bullshit is going to bury it.
Speaker 1: You were not bystanderds to this betrayal. You were the
Speaker 1: men who signed the fucking receipt. You stood at the
Speaker 1: counter while Epstein's survivors once again got short changed, and
Speaker 1: instead of flipping the tab, you counted the change and
Speaker 1: told everybody that the deal was fair. You had the
Speaker 1: power to make Washington feel pain, and you used it
Speaker 1: to protect yourself from discomfort. You had the chance to
Speaker 1: be feared by the people who treat accountability like a disease,
Speaker 1: but you chose to be useful to them instead. That's
Speaker 1: why nobody should buy the tough guy routine ever again,
Speaker 1: because the whole act is cheaper than a bootleg watch
Speaker 1: sold out of a car trunk. When the room got
Speaker 1: too hot, you sweated, stammered, and looked around for the
Speaker 1: nearest door marked political survival. You left survivors standing in
Speaker 1: the wreckage while you walked away, congratulating yourselves for keeping
Speaker 1: your suits clean. But the stink is on you now,
Speaker 1: and it's not coming off with a press release, a
Speaker 1: committee statement, or another round of grave senate mumbling. You
Speaker 1: showed the country exactly what you are when power leans
Speaker 1: in close and tells you to bend, and though both
Speaker 1: of you bent so fast you damn near kiss the floor.
Speaker 1: So save the speeches about courage, justice and public service.
Speaker 1: Because Tom Tillis and John Cornyn had their moment, sold
Speaker 1: it for cover, and proved themselves to be nothing more
Speaker 1: than to loudmouthed cowards wear in the United States Senate
Speaker 1: like a stolen fucking suit. All the information that goes
Speaker 1: with this episode can be found in the description box.