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00:00Hello, Nicole. Thank you very much. Welcome to The Beat. We are reporting right now on new testimony coming out
00:04of this House Epstein probe.
00:06The recent Epstein files showed the DOJ had leads on these people in Epstein's orbit and others redacted.
00:13As you see, this was a big, important document that we only got from the new files.
00:19And the DOJ only ultimately prosecuted one, Maxwell.
00:23We only know that because Congress overruled Trump and forced out those files.
00:27Now, some of the same members of Congress say they are doing basically some of the investigative work that the
00:34DOJ failed to do.
00:36And that would stretch back from the recent Trump administration and the Biden administration,
00:40because these leads, if they mean anything, weren't deeply followed by the DOJ under successive administrations.
00:48That's the background. Here's what's happening today that's new.
00:51The House compelling a powerful billionaire who's usually behind the scenes, Les Wexner, to go under oath,
00:56to provide answers about his long business history with Epstein.
01:00He was interviewed where he lives in Ohio. Democratic lawmakers led this questioning today.
01:04Some Republican staff members were told also attended.
01:07Now, Wexner's a key figure because we already knew Epstein made so much money off of him.
01:14This is a one example of a photograph from the Oversight Committee with an individual redacted,
01:19again, under the reasons we've been told, but the two men having a drink, hanging out, whatever you see there.
01:24Now, Epstein made money off this man, and we know big sums were also returned.
01:30Now, lawmakers say their evidence shows over a billion dollars cumulatively went from Wexner to Epstein,
01:39and that he's in the files over 1,000 times.
01:42You're looking at one file, one photograph.
01:45There are many, many other references and contacts with him.
01:49Now, that billion dollars is part of the fortune that ultimately propped up Epstein's crime spree.
01:55And it's been documented that Wexner, back in the day, cut ties with Epstein around his first legal problems in
02:00Florida.
02:01If you think about some of the people who've gotten in trouble recently,
02:04you remember a lot of them are being basically held to account because after Epstein's conviction
02:12for a sex crime involving a minor, what they call soliciting prostitution for someone under 18,
02:19and people years later were in contact with him, and they got in trouble for that.
02:22This one is a little different.
02:24Wexner can show and point to evidence financially and otherwise.
02:27There's documents that they cut ties around that time.
02:30In fact, Wexner also says Epstein stole from him, and they got some of that money back, as I mentioned.
02:36Today, the new Wexner testimony includes a public statement where he describes how despite his own business skills
02:42and purported acumen and intelligence, he says he was duped by a world-class con man
02:48and that he regrets ever having met him.
02:51Wexner also suggested today that Epstein was a skilled manipulator living a type of, quote,
02:55double life, and that he would compartmentalize different sets of people in crimes.
03:00If you do an investigation, you follow these kind of pieces of testimony or allegation.
03:06And there's some support for that because the emails do show Epstein kind of operating in a different way,
03:11even with very different language and different sort of references depending on who he's dealing with.
03:16The key question that I'm going to get to here is whether Wexner knew that or not.
03:19Wexner suggests that he was only and essentially one of Epstein's financial victims.
03:25And others were Epstein's sex-trafficking victims.
03:29And that, basically, Epstein had a lot of people fooled.
03:34Now, we should note Wexner has not faced any legal allegations from the DOJ, and that is his view.
03:40And that's part of why investigators gather testimony.
03:44But was it the full truth?
03:46And was it credible?
03:48That's also what we're reporting on today.
03:50Some of the Democratic lawmakers basically, we'll let you see what they said, but I would kind of summarize it,
03:56is that they basically doubt Wexner's claimed confusion or ignorance about the totality of the years of other Epstein activities.
04:09Mr. Wexner appears to be unaware of much of the money, as he claims, that was given over to Mr.
04:18Epstein,
04:18trying to downplay how close Jeffrey Epstein and Mr. Wexner actually were.
04:24The more this deposition goes on, the less Wexner knows.
04:30We are running into dead ends.
04:32She most likely will be left with more questions than answers.
04:34He has basically alleged that he saw no evil, heard no evil.
04:40So you can see the lawmakers there reacting to that.
04:43The question isn't whether that's unsatisfying or doesn't fit a story or a narrative.
04:47The question, of course, is whether it's true.
04:51Now, they did, of course, probe certain issues.
04:53When you take the island, the infamous Epstein Island, Wexner says he went once with his wife and children.
05:01Trump Commerce Secretary Lutnik recently made a similar admission.
05:06And Trump is not sanctioning or removing him, unlike the people you see on your screen.
05:11Lutnik lied about that for years.
05:13The only reason he copped to his lies was that the files outed him.
05:19We continue to track others, though, who are facing investigations, ousted from top positions and other forms of consequences.
05:28While it must be noted that Donald Trump, who claimed he would get to the bottom of this, won't even
05:33throw someone overboard who was caught on the island.
05:36Lower right, by the way, you see a new addition.
05:38Kathy Rumler, who was a Democratic lawyer, ousted from Goldman Sachs just in this past week.
05:43Now, as Congress investigates, convicted Epstein and associate Maxwell continues to dodge any attempt to level with the House.
05:51She has invoked her Fifth Amendment rights, which are, of course, irrevocable constitutional rights.
05:57The only way to get around that would be if Congress wanted to immunize her and then compel her because
06:02she wouldn't have to worry about any future prosecution.
06:05They haven't taken that step.
06:07So when you take this together tonight, what you have is a type of investigative progress.
06:14And there is a big gap here between what Congress says it's trying to do and what the DOJ has
06:20done and isn't further doing.
06:22And while much of this has been in the heat of this MAGA era, this second Trump term, any reliable,
06:29serious allegations that the DOJ didn't chase down obviously goes back more than two years, given that Epstein died in
06:372019 and includes the Merrick Garland DOJ as well.
06:43Well, if there are avenues that have not been fully pursued, whatever the reason, that is an indictment of not
06:52only the current DOJ, but the last one as well.
06:55As we go down this road, I want to bring in one of our legal analysts, Emily Bazelon, legal writer
07:00with The New York Times Magazine, thoughtful, fair, measured in these wild times.
07:05Welcome back.
07:06Thanks so much, Ari.
07:09Emily, this isn't your first rodeo, and I'll be honest with you, it's not mine either.
07:14So when we have politicians sometimes going in the right direction, if that might be called truth or justice, and
07:21yet the heat is so high, as I've mentioned, about, oh, this DOJ didn't go into any of this.
07:25I've got Garcia, I'll play in a second, saying FBI and DOJ haven't done enough to try to get to
07:31the bottom of the Wexner investigation, which is, I think, appears to be the case.
07:37But that, of course, involves multiple DOJs.
07:39What do you see as important or substantive out of what's happening today?
07:43Well, so there are obviously the questions of the sex crimes and the sex trafficking, which is why we're all
07:49here, right?
07:50That's the central harm and evil that Epstein committed.
07:53And then there is this big question about all the money, right?
07:58How did he get control of so much money from men like Wexner, who gave him power of attorney and
08:05really trusted him with these vast sums?
08:08I think what today was about is whether there's a connection between those two kinds of activities.
08:16And Wexner is saying there wasn't any.
08:18And as you laid out, the timeline at least suggests that that could be true, right?
08:23Because he cut off contact with Epstein before Epstein was convicted of crimes.
08:28He is very emphatic.
08:30And now the question is going to be, is there evidence that he's lying about that?
08:34And I think it's important.
08:36But this is the timeline.
08:37I want to let you finish.
08:37But I have a simple question.
08:38And we're looking at that's back around when he was indicted, that they did have a breakup in their relationship.
08:43But, Emily, if somebody steals what he describes as vast sums, and that's a billionaire saying vast sums, wouldn't you
08:52do more than just ask for it back nicely?
08:56You might, sure.
08:57And I can see why you would expect that.
09:00But I think also people are very embarrassed.
09:02And it can be hard to – if you've given someone power of attorney, how do you show that they
09:07stole from you as opposed to just they were trying to make a deal and it didn't work out?
09:11Or they paid themselves a really hefty fee along the way.
09:15I think sometimes really wealthy people care more about their reputations, not being exposed as having fallen for a con
09:24than they would necessarily about, you know, going to the police or prosecutors with this kind of allegation.
09:30And what we need to look for next is evidence about whether there is a connection that Wexner is not
09:36admitting here.
09:36However, so far, I see members of Congress sort of assuming, well, there must be.
09:41He was so involved he must have known.
09:43But that's really different from we can show here that he's lying.
09:47We can show here that he knew where his money was going.
09:50And especially because of the way this timeline works.
09:53It just seems like they have some real proof they need to offer before they make these kinds of allegations.
10:00And that's part of the challenge with something like this, where it just starts to swirl, right, all of these
10:06accusations.
10:07Yeah. And here's what Garcia said there about about the DOJ side.
10:12He's someone that's been named by survivors, someone that's in the files more than most people, someone that's clearly the
10:21financial benefactor to Jeffrey Epstein and has not been contacted or interviewed by the FBI or the DOJ.
10:30What the hell is going on?
10:33That is shameful.
10:36How about that?
10:37Well, I think this question of whether they should have interviewed Wexner, should they have done a lot of work
10:42along the way many years ago and sure in the last DOJ as well as this one to try to
10:48probe all these potential connections.
10:50Yeah. I mean, given the vast conspiracy that we're talking about, I can completely understand the distress over not interviewing
10:59Wexner, not pursuing this lead.
11:01But that's really different from proving a connection that would prove that Wexner knew about the sex trafficking ring, did
11:10something criminal, et cetera.
11:12We sometimes tend to look at these things very locally, parochially.
11:16Epstein, of course, was in America.
11:17But here's a headline about the new probes in France and the U.K., the Paris public prosecutor opening two
11:23lines of inquiry on human trafficking, the other into financial wrongdoing related to Epstein.
11:28In Britain, police confirming they're looking at revelations in the files about flights that were there to remind everyone there
11:36is no real global police.
11:38The jurisdiction is generally geographic.
11:41I'm simplifying, there are international types of crimes, but they're looking at the nexus of whether things went down there
11:47and involved their community.
11:50What do you think, as a legal expert, about how long it's taken in many places to look at this?
11:55Well, I think the French and the British are looking at the people whose names are coming up in the
12:00files and they're justifiably asking whether there's any criminal wrongdoing that they can prove in their court systems.
12:06I was struck by the fact that the French prosecutors were asking for new victims to come forward, suggesting that
12:13what they know so far may not be something that they can indict people about.
12:18And they're hoping for more proof of actual crimes to move forward.
12:22Yeah, and that's a good point as well, that although you can't assume too much, the kind of questions we
12:28hear, especially when there's public calls for cooperation, also speak sometimes to lack of direct evidence, at least in that
12:34jurisdiction.
12:35Emily, really important stuff.
12:37Thanks for walking through it with us.
12:39Thanks for having me.
12:40Absolutely.
12:41When we look at the unaccountable tech billionaires, one of them went under oath today.
12:46I'll explain that's coming up and we'll be joined by novelist Jay McInerney and the White House ballroom, a lot
12:53of problems.
12:54And the immigration crackdown is backfiring on Donald Trump as advertised.
12:58We have a very special guest, Ty Cobb, in 90 seconds.
13:05Donald Trump's problem with trying to be an autocrat continues.
13:10And polling shows he's having trouble here.
13:12He's sagging at 39 percent.
13:14The immigration outrage is part of that.
13:18The L.A. Times reports all of this taking a toll with crashing trust in our elections, concerns about misuse
13:26of ICE and other federal agents.
13:2830 percent of the voters think that immigration officials might be at polling locations, including a larger share of minority
13:34Americans.
13:36And that matters because the belief by 46 percent, say, of perfectly lawful Hispanic American or Latino American voters that
13:44ICE could be there could be a reason to skip, which goes to the propaganda war that's also being waged.
13:49What is sometimes called, depending on the situation, voter suppression.
13:54Here is also what Trump is saying.
13:58Why would you want mail-in ballots if you know it's corrupt?
14:01It's a corrupt system.
14:02We're the only country in the world that has this system of mail-in ballots.
14:07Think of it.
14:08The only country in the world that has this system of mail-in ballots.
14:12Because they cheat.
14:16Fact check.
14:17False.
14:18This, along with the fear that Bannon and others are putting out about ICE agents roaming voter polling locations, may
14:26be this effort to distort everything or to undermine trust in mail voting.
14:30There are entire states that do only vote by mail.
14:33The president's claim that it is, quote, corrupt, is not backed up by the experience in states.
14:36And Donald Trump himself has netted many, many votes for him through the mail.
14:43Meanwhile, we have the pictures of the East Wing Ballroom.
14:46You can see that going up.
14:48Turns out allies on the board are approving the project, rejecting concerns about the size of this building.
14:55There's also an appointment of an assistant to the panel in charge of reviewing the plans, which is coming out
15:00of Trump's team.
15:02And if you look past the White House, Trump has directed his Air Force to repaint a VIP fleet in
15:09his preferred palette,
15:10while putting up pictures and posters and renamings all over the place in the federal government,
15:15something the New York Times recently said was more akin to what you see in dictatorships than democracies.
15:21We're joined now by former White House attorney in the first Trump administration, Ty Cobb.
15:25Welcome back.
15:27Thank you, Ari.
15:27Good to be with you.
15:29What do you see here as important in the signal, the noise and this attack on the midterms is, in
15:36your view, propaganda trying to distort who turns out or also getting ready to do something?
15:43So I think if we go to 30,000 feet and look at all the pieces, keep in mind, Trump
15:47recently said that it was time to nationalize elections.
15:50He articulated publicly that he thought the federal government should interfere in 15 jurisdictions or more.
16:02Steve Bannon promised that ICE would be out in droves at key precincts and in key states.
16:09And Trump even went so far as to suggest at one point that we should forget about elections in 2026.
16:15Now, the White House, with regard to the latter statement, said that was a joke, but it's not a joke.
16:20I mean, this is all intended to desensitize America and to discredit voting.
16:25And it's had a big effect.
16:26I mean, you know, the polls show that voters don't really anticipate that the elections in 2026 will go smoothly
16:33or in a trustworthy manner,
16:35not because of, you know, mail-in ballots, but because of Republican interference and fascism suspected that will be at
16:43the polls.
16:43You've seen the judges, the courts on the immigration front have responded to the, you know, atrocities you have well
16:53mentioned
16:54and described on your show previously by revoking the presumption of regularity from the Department of Justice,
17:01basically saying that after 250 years, what the Justice Department says is no longer entitled to the presumption of truth.
17:08We're seeing a real decline.
17:10And now, you know, you talk about the ballroom, which I think is probably, you know, less of concern than,
17:17you know,
17:17the fascist efforts that are, you know, being undertaken with regard to elections and elsewhere, immigration.
17:26But with regard to the ballroom, what would you see?
17:28You know, you know, Frederick Law Olmsted, who, you know, designed D.C.
17:33and, you know, renowned figure in American history, was one of the first people on the commission that you just
17:39mentioned.
17:39And now we have, you know, a very, very young woman who looks like she recently escaped from homeroom
17:47to have her braces removed, has no experience at all.
17:50And she's now a Trump appointee.
17:53Why?
17:53Because she's one of Trump's secretaries.
17:56So it's a kakasakasy, you know, as the word that gets tossed around.
18:01I know it's a word I didn't know well, but it means governance by the inept.
18:05And that's what we're suffering through.
18:08Yeah, as you say, inept and nepotism and patronage carrying more weight than anything else,
18:13which, as you know, is also the opposite of what Trump had famously claimed in his campaigns.
18:17He said that because he was wealthy, he would have less corruption incentive.
18:22And it was really the public officials that you have to worry about.
18:24It's the opposite.
18:25I want to show you Kristi Noem, who at one point might have been fighting for her job over all
18:30the ICE outrage.
18:31And she at DHS getting involved in the voting discussion.
18:35Take a listen.
18:38When it gets to Election Day, that we've been proactive to make sure that we have the right people voting,
18:43electing the right leaders to lead this country.
18:46Is that the proper approach of a security official and related?
18:51What is your legal view of the limits on ICE under current law to be out in a way that
18:59might be voter intimidation in any voting period when we get to the midterms?
19:05So that's an excellent question.
19:07I think we're going to see the courts gradually parse through that.
19:10You know, ICE actually has no local law enforcement authority in any of the states.
19:16They're only supposed to manage the limited number of federal crimes entrusted to them.
19:23And they shouldn't be there.
19:25But it's going to take a series of court battles, I think, to prevent them from being there.
19:30And it may come down to a conflict between state National Guards and ICE, absent an implication of the Insurrection
19:38Act,
19:38which I think we will see in advance of the election.
19:41So I think people should be very, very concerned and very, very animated about what's coming.
19:49Kerry Kasparov, of course, has, you know, the noted Russian dissident and former world chess champion,
19:54has been very outspoken about, you know, the gulags that are being built around the country
19:59and the fact that they're intended not only to house, you know, illegally detained immigrants,
20:03of which we have thousands now, but also likely dissidents and people of color on a going forward basis.
20:10You know, what is happening in this country?
20:12You don't think you don't think that's you don't think that's just an international parallel gone too far.
20:19You believe that's something that Trump would would try to do and get away with.
20:22So I'll put it this way.
20:25You know, Trump is deporting people on a trajectory and at a pace that's not very different from the number
20:33of deportations that happened under Obama.
20:36However, the number of illegally detained people is extraordinarily high.
20:41And and he's building, you know, dozens of prisons to house up to 8000 people.
20:48We've never needed that before.
20:50That's that's, you know, well over 150,000 beds.
20:55Who are they for and who are they going to be for when when the detainees are gone?
21:00This is this is this is as Derek Kasparov says, this is not a drill.
21:08Well, yeah, that's powerful coming from from his knowledge of the world and your concern about a man you once
21:14served in the White House.
21:15Ty, stay with me.
21:17That brings us to another question here about how people are trying to fight back and thwart this.
21:21I want to ask you when we come back.
21:23Sure.
21:28We're back with Ty Cobb, a former federal prosecutor, a White House veteran lawyer under Donald Trump in the first
21:34term.
21:34We were discussing why you say to take Russian dissident Gary Kasparov's warning about illegal detentions in this country.
21:41Seriously, your concerns about your former boss and client, Trump, pursuing martial law.
21:46Some of the pushback we've seen on the election front.
21:49Virginia redistricting goes forward.
21:52But the Supreme Court's considering an appeal.
21:54Florida voters suing to block Republicans trying the mid decade redistricting,
22:00something that may violate the tradition and different courts are figuring out whether to allow that kind of constitutional hardball.
22:07Supreme Court is letting California use what is a Democratic friendly congressional map,
22:11which in that state they won famously only pushing back on what MAGA had tried.
22:18How do you view that as a kind of a signal to what courts will do with what could be
22:24the more emergency problems on a faster basis going into the midterms that you were outlining?
22:29So I think that the California decision by the Supreme Court is is basically part and parcel of their decision
22:36in Texas,
22:37which they'd made earlier, allowing the Republicans to move forward with redistricting.
22:41And there's really no distinction between the two decisions and the reasoning,
22:46even though Trump, of course, championed the Texas redistricting,
22:50but, you know, criticized the California because it's, you know, Democrats and Republicans.
22:57That's not the way the country is supposed to be governed.
23:00It's supposed to be governed as a unified system of of people for all the people.
23:06With regard to the other patchwork quilt of states, you have maybe five states, maybe six, actually, with with things
23:15in play.
23:16I think the I think the reality there, though, is it's coming a little late in the game and there
23:22will be appeals and delays.
23:24And that gets right up against the Supreme Court's precedent about, you know, they're not going to make changes late
23:32in the game.
23:33So I'm not sure how consequential any of these any of these current efforts will be.
23:39And then you look at Trump's lies about, you know, the perils of mail in voting.
23:43I mean, Florida probably has the most mail in votes of any state in the country.
23:48It's a Republican bastion.
23:49I don't I don't think I don't think there's any basis for that.
23:54And and but the level of election interference isn't just in terms of the SAVE Act, which is, of course,
24:00just another fascist brick in the prison that's being built around us.
24:03But it's in it's in it's in what's going on the Fulton County case, the Fulton County case where where
24:09the feds went in and, you know, notwithstanding legal proceedings in the state involving the same ballots, disrupted all that,
24:17submitted an affidavit, which I don't know a single legal person who's reviewed the affidavit, who believes that there's actual
24:23probable cause in there.
24:24In fact, the case agent who who's who who filed the affidavit noted that, you know, that he was basically
24:32relying on deficiencies cited by a Trump denier, Kurt Olson, Trump election denier, Kurt Olson, you know, who's who represented
24:41Carrie Lake in Arizona trying to contest her election, failed and is and is, you know, flailed with a bunch
24:50of allegations.
24:50Back in 2020, Bill Barr told Trump, you know, we're just false. So now he's recycling these.
24:56And the case agent pointed out that with regard to the allegations in the indictment, you know, they were only
25:02they could only be a crime if there was evidence, not not citing evidence, but saying this is only a
25:10crime if there is evidence.
25:11And that's that is not the standard for issuing a warrant. So we're seeing a full scale onslaught in the
25:16courts and the legislatures and and presumptively.
25:20Based on what Trump has promised and Bannon has promised, we'll see ice in the streets trying to intimidate witnesses
25:25and and prevent the elections from going smoothly in in blue states and key precincts.
25:32Well, and as you said tonight, it may take the local activism like we saw in Minnesota, backed by the
25:38local authorities, National Guard, to say, what are local elections mean?
25:42If not actually physically protecting voters from what could be a federal incursion.
25:46I mean, that's where the rubber hits the road, so to speak. As always, Ty Cobb, we benefit from your
25:50experience.
25:51Thank you very much. I'm going to tell folks what's coming up. Yes, sir.
25:55This tech billionaires now are in what some call a new gilded age as we look at the job cuts,
26:00the Trump slump.
26:00And yet the stock's going up for a lot of folks, the billionaires now spending more on campaigns than ever
26:07before.
26:07My breakdown is next.
26:13Today, billionaire tech mogul Mark Zuckerberg faced questions under oath, and this was in a venue that his money could
26:21not evade.
26:22In court, he took the stand in a major, some say landmark case, depending on what happens, that tries to
26:28hold some big tech accountable for peddling addictive products, sometimes to children.
26:34The company denies these allegations, but Facebook, Instagram, Meta are but one of several companies that reap profits from all
26:43kinds of stuff online.
26:45Maybe not all of it is questionable or even harmful, but some of it, according to evidence in this trial,
26:51is, and they are reaping a lot of money.
26:54Tech facing criticism that it is essentially now, especially in certain contexts or with children, more like tobacco than just
27:01something that you Google to get some information,
27:03that they profit off harm and they profit handsomely because that's one piece, what they're doing and whether it's good,
27:11even if it's good business,
27:13and then how it's affecting our society, inequality.
27:17Now, let me tell you up top, America has had many evolving debates over capitalism over the years, over wealth,
27:23over the difference between greed, or the 80s idea that greed is good, said some, and excess, or the bubbles
27:30that burst and seem to hurt everyone.
27:33Today's Gilded Age, though, is clearly dominated by one industry.
27:37Nine of the ten richest people in the U.S. are all in tech,
27:40and they have been vastly growing their multi-billion dollar fortunes in just the last decade.
27:45So what started as huge is now just bananas.
27:48If you just take these people on your screen, some of them famous, maybe some of them less so,
27:53they have a combined $2 trillion in wealth.
27:58But they're not just sitting on that money to run their tech empires.
28:02As you may have noticed, they're increasingly using the money to buy up everything else that they think has power,
28:07from major media, MAGA allies buying TV and newspapers, Colbert is in a clash about that this week,
28:13to the social media, which is on trial in their courtroom today.
28:16Musk famously put his fortune from other tech companies to buy Twitter.
28:20And that made him even more relevant as he sought influence over U.S. politics,
28:25where he's an immigrant, and with Donald Trump.
28:28Remember, Musk is his biggest political donor.
28:32Trump might want you to forget that, and they had their odd relationship,
28:35but Musk spent a quarter of a billion dollars on Trump alone,
28:40plus wielding the efforts and influence of X,
28:44which got him at least a temporary job atop the administration last year.
28:47Or Amazon's Jeff Bezos, who has done many things that many people in business say are positive.
28:54Creating jobs, changing the way commerce works online.
28:59Cool.
29:00But lately, as a tech billionaire, he's doing a lot of other stuff.
29:04Cozying up to Trump, taking the Washington Post,
29:06which once said democracy dies in darkness,
29:08and now in this new Trump era,
29:11absolutely gutting what is one of the last American print institutions
29:15laying off close to half of the team there.
29:20Or Trump's adult sons, who are getting in on tech just from the other direction of government.
29:25Today, they did a joint interview about a very controversial,
29:28walking conflict of interest, $500 million investment,
29:31that they got in their crypto company.
29:33Take a look.
29:35I want to ask you about, you know, the World Liberty Corporation,
29:38which has been in the news,
29:39and there was this big Wall Street Journal report
29:41about the 49% stake that was sold to an Amradi royal family member
29:46after your father was elected president,
29:50raising questions about whether they were doing that
29:53so they could get access to AI chips.
29:55A, my father has nothing to do with.
29:56B, it has nothing to do with AI chips.
29:58We've been dealing with the conflict of interest and stuff for years.
30:00I mean, they tried all this nonsense the first time around.
30:03Frankly, it's gotten old.
30:04They were the ones that put us into this position
30:06by creating legislation to try to put us out of business.
30:09We just fought back.
30:12The answer doesn't even fully make sense.
30:15Obviously, the United States has laws that govern business like everyone else,
30:19and if laws are passed in our bipartisan process to constrain or regulate business,
30:24and remember, after the housing crash and the earlier tech bubble,
30:27people wanted more of those kind of regulations so that you, the taxpayer,
30:31don't end up having to bail out people like that.
30:34Whether or not this was an actual illegal bribe or quid pro quo
30:38would have to be investigated, and nobody's waiting on this Trump DOJ.
30:41Paul Krugman, Nobel economist, says wealth in America
30:44is now more concentrated in a few hands than it was during the Gilded Age,
30:48and this increase in concentrated wealth at the top translates into increased power.
30:53Remember, it's not enough to just be the richest person in the world.
30:56Apparently, the appetite is stoked to then control media and television and other tech.
31:02These individuals are flourishing under an American capitalism that we all share,
31:07that we all put into, whether or not they are paying their fair taxes
31:11or should have control over all our media and our politics are open questions.
31:17Buying up media companies, plowing money into campaigns,
31:21which make your $50 monthly Bernie Sanders donation look a little quaint.
31:26We have been through parts of this before, sometimes pre-crash, sometimes in our culture,
31:341980s New York, where decadence and excess became not only accepted, but kind of celebrated.
31:40What you might see in today's Instagram stunting of people trying to show they are as wealthy as possible
31:46or more wealthy than they are has echoes in these other periods in our history.
31:52Some of them didn't end that well.
31:54Take Bright Lights, Big City, one of my favorites if you happen to watch this show,
31:59the novel and movie which looked at all kinds of excesses.
32:04Have you ever noticed how the good words start with D?
32:08D and L.
32:09You know, drugs, delight, decadence.
32:13Debauchery.
32:15Dexedrine.
32:17Delectable, debilitated, deranged.
32:21Delinquent.
32:23Delirium.
32:24And L, lush and luscious.
32:26Rangorous.
32:28Librium.
32:30Libidinous.
32:33When does a little fun become debauchery?
32:36When does a habit become an addiction?
32:38Whether it was the drinks and other stuff in that novel or today's phones that we're told are just making
32:46us smarter,
32:47but they might be making us more addicted than we even realize.
32:51And who's going to pay the tab?
32:53I'm going to put that question to the great author, Jay McNerney,
32:57who, of course, wrote that novel and has insights for us when we come back.
33:05The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good.
33:13Greed is right.
33:15Greed works.
33:18Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.
33:27And if you thought that was a bad guy in business, well, look where we are today.
33:31That was a famous creed from Wall Street of the 80s.
33:35We are joined now by another 80s classic, Jay McNerney, who's written 11 books, including the iconic Bright Lights, Big
33:42City.
33:42Welcome back.
33:44Was that Elon Musk with Charlie Sheehan?
33:46Exactly.
33:48What are you seeing out here among the Bezos' and the Zuckerbergs?
33:51Well, you know, I'm an early Bezos hater because I made my living from books and selling them mostly.
33:58And Bezos was an early disruptor and a very bad player in our industry, in publishing and the bookselling industry.
34:08And he really cut into a lot of people's livelihoods.
34:13And so I wasn't as surprised as some people might be when I saw what he did, what I've seen,
34:20what he's been doing to The Washington Post.
34:22I mean, it's just disgraceful.
34:24He wrote in as a savior, and he's now presiding over the destruction of an incredible media legacy.
34:32And you had determined from his business actions that you knew something about his values or his priorities.
34:39Yeah.
34:43I mean, he posed as a liberal for a while, but and a friend of, I don't know if he
34:49ever posed as a friend of the common man,
34:51but he's now, like so many tech bros, converted to a Trump collaborator, an enabler.
35:06And I mean, it's kind of shocking to see how quickly the tech community has sort of migrated to that
35:13side.
35:13I don't know. Billionaires in the 80s and 90s, they were, first of all, not as numerous.
35:20And secondly, I think they were better behaved.
35:21You know, they mostly picked on CEOs, with the one exception of the Koch brothers.
35:27They were always playing this game that these guys are now playing.
35:33It would seem that the culture of a society matters.
35:36I think we agree on that. Yeah?
35:38Yes, absolutely.
35:39The culture of tech feels now that it's absorbed different than the finance of the 80s
35:47or the old barons who hurt a lot of people in their labor practices, but we're actually building things.
35:53Does it matter that so many of these companies and the culture around them are very top heavy and a
36:00few people benefit?
36:01The things they build, though, aren't really out here for us.
36:04They're just all a lot of virtual stuff that's feeding people into these algorithms.
36:09Does it matter for our culture that we're ruled by these techies instead of the former elites?
36:17Well, I think, you know, I mean, I hate to be nostalgic for a time that I wasn't really even
36:23conscious.
36:26But the captains of industry used to be the millionaires, if not the billionaires.
36:31And they were they were, you know, building brick and mortar institutions and systems of distribution.
36:37And that just feels a lot different than the sources of wealth today.
36:45I don't I don't I don't think none of those people that you put on the screen were we're running
36:49a company that provides goods.
36:55I guess the Internet.
36:57Yeah. Most of them are virtual.
37:00Bezos would say he's an intermediary for goods.
37:03And Musk, of course, famously has a car company among his empire.
37:07But, yes, most of this is virtual and a lot of it benefits off just people's use.
37:13So everybody Googles and everybody rides the algorithm one way or another.
37:17But they're sort of in control, but not sated.
37:20I mean, they're much more political now, we see, than prior robber barons and such.
37:27They sort of have decided they got it.
37:29They got to be in it or they're going to get eaten is how they look at it.
37:32Yeah. Well, you know, I am.
37:35I'm always amused when even in the segment you mentioned, you know, the greed in the excess of the 80s.
37:41And frankly, it just seems incredibly quaint, given the the greed in excess that we're talking about now.
37:48And and and the numbers are multiples of of what we were talking about in the 80s.
37:54And the and the Dow, you know, the Dow hit like 3000 when I was a young man in New
38:00York.
38:00And that was considered a really big deal.
38:03Yeah. I want to get your view on the power of of public free speech.
38:08Colbert is in this fight with his parent company, which is owned by MAGA people.
38:13So the fix is in on them saying, OK, we'll do what they want.
38:15Here was more of his response.
38:18Without ever talking to me, the corporation put out this press release, this statement.
38:25Now, this is a surprisingly small piece of paper, considering how many butts it's trying to cover.
38:30I'm just so surprised that this giant global corporation would not stand up to these bullies.
38:36I don't even know what to do with this crap.
38:40Well, hold on.
38:55What is the role of the artist in in this MAGA corporate moment?
39:00And does it matter when people stand up like he does?
39:03Well, I think it matters greatly that Stephen Colbert stands up.
39:09On the other hand, he can because he's Stephen Colbert.
39:13And, you know, there there are people like him who were created long before Donald Trump thought of running for
39:19office who have a kind of residual power.
39:23But, you know, younger, younger broadcasters, younger comics, you know, what are they going to do in the current environment?
39:32It looks like we're about to have three or four Trump propaganda arms instead of just Fox News now.
39:39You know, you've got CBS is on the way, owned by by Skydance and, you know, and the Allisons who
39:51are Trump apologists and Trump enablers.
39:53And if if they have their way, they will soon own Warner Brothers making CNN another arm of of of
40:05of right wing media.
40:07Right. Well, you're telling people, reminding people is that deal is not done.
40:10Netflix wanted Warner. It's the same folks that Colbert says are acting like this who want to get their hands
40:15on CNN.
40:16Let's end on a high note, Jay. Who are you wearing?
40:22Chip Finnelly, Taylor and Taylor based in Paris.
40:24Looks I think it looks good on you. Thank you. You know, we don't like to perpetuate.
40:28I'm a fan of blue. You're a fan of blue.
40:30We don't like to perpetuate stereotypes around here, but you clean up pretty well for a novelist.
40:35I, you know, I slouch around in a T-shirt only.
40:39Jay McInerney, I'm a fan, which is why it's sometimes fun in this job, even though we talk about serious
40:44things, to get to talk to novelists.
40:46I've been reading my whole life. We'll be right back.
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