2/20/26: Epstein Billionaire Wexner Drops BOMBSHELLS, Iran War LOOMS, Dem Tea Party Gains Steam

This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you, please go to breakingpoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at BreakingPoints.com. Good morning, everybody. Happy Friday. How goes it? It goes. Excellent. It goes. Yes, we got a really busy show today, don't we? Yeah, and I think Emily's going to be joining us. She just was having, like, some boomer computer issues, so we'll let her work that out. She can jump on whenever she gets that figured out. But yeah, I mean, we're all watching to see whether we're going to be at war with Iran over the weekend or next week or what exactly is going on there. Ryan's got some new reporting about how Democrats are approaching all of this. And, you know, I would say you'll be disappointed, but I think actually people probably expect the way that Democrats are, by and large, elected official Democrats are, by and large, approaching the possibility of a major war with Iran. Yeah, nobody can be disappointed anymore. Yeah, you have to have hopes and expectations to be disappointed. Yes. Yes. Good point. Excellent. High hopes. High hopes. We'll take a look at that. We got a Wall Street Journal article on that right here that was breaking this morning. Trump weighs initial limited strike to force Iran into nuclear deal. President Trump is weighing initial strike to force it to meet his demands, a first step that would be designed to pressure Tehran into an agreement, but fall short of a full-scale attack that could inspire a major retaliation. The opening assault, if authorized, could come within days, would target a few military or government sites. People familiar with the matter said, if Iran still refused to comply with Trump's directive to end its nuclear enrichment, the U.S. would respond with a broad campaign against regime facilities. So what do we make of this deal-making? You know, strike first, deal later. Well, and what's different about this reporting is prior to this, we'd been obviously we can see all of the military equipment that is being amassed in the region, you know, the largest amount since the Iraq war. So everyone can see that a bunch of the leaks to Barack Ravid and others were saying, hey, they're actually preparing for this to be much larger than the 12 days war, potentially weeks long engagement. Iran also is in a place where they've kind of realized like, hey, we did the kind of choreographed, like we're going to hit you back, but not really. That obviously didn't work because we're still being threatened. So they're in a very different place in terms of how they're tactically and strategically thinking about this. And, you know, the problem with this, I mean, outside of obviously like any act of war is illegal, both by our own laws and by international law, etc. But the problem with this tactically, too, is if you think that some sort of tactical strike on Iran is going to help coerce them at the negotiating table, the reality is the exact opposite. it. They're going to walk away from the negotiating table, which this report lays out, by the way, if you hit them in any way, they're hoping that attacks from the U.S. are going to create some sort of rally around the flag, like nationalistic fervor to help re-glue a country that has in some ways, you know, come apart over the past two months and that they'll be in a stronger position in terms of like the government's solidity. So this plan, like in my opinion, all of the other plans makes no sense, especially when I still don't even know what Trump is really actually trying to accomplish here. Yes, exactly. And it's a miscalculation, probably, in the sense that the previous moderates who had urged the kind of little tit for tat that you talked about, them carrying out in both the 12-day war and also back in January when they first struck, all the people who advocated that have either been pushed out or killed by the actual attacks. And so they've been replaced by people who were warning at the time that if we don't hit hard, we're just inviting further and endless attacks. So if Trump comes in with what he thinks is like a little gentle tap to like nudge them to some, to nudge them at the negotiating table, which is like just an absurd concept to begin with. But let's say that Trump tries that. they don't know that this is just a love tap you know they expect this to be the you know emptying of the barrel from this massive unprecedented unprecedented since the iraq war armada that's hanging out in the middle east they think this might be the end the hardliners who have who have come to power by the fact that we have brought them there would then be arguing to just fire everything. Like we're probably going down at this point. Just, you know, empty the cabinet. Fire everything. See if we can race to a nuke. I mean, that's and that's the thing, too, is think of it from our perspective. Like if someone attacked us, would that make us more likely to have a diplomatic solution with them to come to the negotiating table? No, of course not. And especially when what they've already seen is that any sort of trying to take a reasonable or moderate approach, et cetera, just encourages more escalation and more aggressive, more aggressiveness on the part of us and on the part of Israel. So they'll look at that and say, OK, well, if they hit us and then we bend to their demands, what is that going to teach them? I mean, Ryan and I being parents, like this is very basic sort of toddler logic. If they throw a temper tantrum and you give them the piece of candy, guess what they're going to do the next time they want the piece of candy? The same logic applies here. If the U.S. throws a temper tantrum and strikes them and Iran rewards that behavior by capitulating to what are insane demands in terms of, you know, the full like not only are you giving up the nuclear program, which Iran has long been willing to do, just see the, you know, Obama era accords and, you know, their continued willingness to come to the table on that. But in addition, we want you to give up all of your ballistic missiles. We want you to stop supporting any of the, you know, resistance groups in the region. None of this is really, you know, feasible if you want to maintain any sort of projection of power, if you want to maintain, if you want to be a sovereign nation whatsoever. Otherwise, you're just a complete sitting duck. So in any case, if you reward this war-like behavior and give into any of those demands, then guess what? That is going to encourage more attacks from the U.S. and from Israel. So I think that's how they're thinking about it. There's also a piece in this – I can't remember if it's in – I don't think it's in this article. I think it's in a Financial Times report about the way that Iran is thinking about this. And they said that there were a bunch of IRGC commanders who did not want to agree to the ceasefire from the 12-day war. And whereas the Western press has painted the 12-day war as just a stunning victory for the U.S. and for Israel, it's not seen that way internally in Iran. From their perspective, they're like, yeah, you hit us hard. You were able to take out a lot of people, infrastructure, et cetera. But at the end of the day, y'all were the ones who came to us wanting a ceasefire. And again, to Ryan's points about, you know, the moderates versus the more hardline approach, the hardliners said we shouldn't agree to the ceasefire. We should continue hitting them. We should extract some more pain and assert ourselves more because otherwise they're just going to come back and attack us again. And guess what? They've been completely vindicated. The hardliners have been completely vindicated by the approach and by the continued threats that we're making now. Right, because they could argue right now, and I'm sure that they are arguing internally, if you had listened to us and you had hit Israel for another week or another two weeks or another three weeks, yeah, we would have taken on more damage. But they were depleted. They were on their back foot. We would have caused them the kind of damage that they're not used to, which would then give them second thoughts about doing this next time. Now, they're doing it with many times more American resources in the region. And so it may be possible. Now, we'll see, but it may be possible that Iran just doesn't have the capacity to push through all of those resources. But if they aim at closer areas, American-linked bases in Iraq or Qatar or Dubai or Abu Dhabi, it's a little more difficult for the U.S. to intercept and play defense around there. You have to go further to get to Israel, so that just gives us more opportunity to knock stuff out of the air. But yeah, you're exactly right. They are saying right now, we told you so. We told you that the only language that the U.S. and Israel understand is violence. Anything else shows weakness to them. Yeah. Ryan, you want to talk about what you guys are reporting out today about the Democratic side of this equation? Tell us about our opposition party. How are they doing? Yeah, opposition party in quotes. You may have noticed that other than a handful of members of Congress, including Ro Khanna, who has teamed up with Thomas Massey to push for a War Powers Resolution vote, which should come to the floor next week, there's been very little said publicly by Democrats against this. Even during the Iraq War, you had Democrats that were for it, but you had a lot of Democrats that were outspokenly against the Iraq War. You're not seeing much of that this time. So back in June, and this is what we'll be reporting later today over at DropSite, if you remember, Trump was kind of fainting that there had been progress in the negotiations and actually, you know what, we might not go ahead and strike Iran. and Chuck Schumer came out with his video mocking him as Taco Trump. And this coalition of more than two dozen anti-war groups sent a letter saying, Schumer, what are you doing? Like, are you trying to taunt Trump into going to war? Like, don't do, this is not a game. Don't do Taco Trump stuff right here. Like, give him a political off-ramp. Give him the space that if he wants to do So diplomatic solution, eat the taco, enjoy the taco. Like this is much better than killing like a thousand plus or who knows how many you're going to end up killing. It ends up being about 1,200 people, but who knows? It could have been a lot more. And so after that letter was sent, there was then a call with a top foreign policy aide who, by the way, as we'll report in the story, has taken two recent trips to Israel paid for by AIPAC. So this aide calls one of the lead organizers and they have a conversation and she says to him, listen, what you need to understand is that there are many Senate Democrats who believe that Iran needs to be dealt with militarily. But they also understand that this would be catastrophic politically for Democrats. Another war in the Middle East is not something that the Democratic base wants. It's not something that the American public more generally wants. And so they would like Trump to carry it out for them. And for these two reasons. One, it accomplishes the goal, the policy goal that they have of attacking Iran, but also they think it would be bad for Trump. So his domestic politics would suffer. His base would be split. The issue of Israel and Israeli kind of leverage over Trump would deepen the fissures that already exist within the MAGA coalition. So from the perspective of these Democrats, it is a win-win. Now, she added, Schumer doesn't believe that. Schumer himself, of course, is opposed to these strikes. doesn't want them to happen. But that is the political logic that exists in the caucus that is kind of pushing some of the momentum around how this is messaged publicly. So that is... So that's why they're basically just not saying anything. Right, because there's a cold logic to it. Like, that logic, in a completely cynical way, doesn't really have any holes in it other than that it's evil and it's going to lead to... You know, could lead to untold lives being lost and tens of millions of people living in a country that's completely destroyed. But that doesn't factor into the cost-benefit, you know, political calculations. Like, would it be better for the midterms if this happens for Democrats? Probably. And also, a lot of Democrats want it to happen anyway. They just can't. They just know that they don't have the kind of political will or the political support to carry it out. Wow. And how deep does this support for this approach go in Democratic caucus? Are we talking about like a handful of the most hawkish members or is this kind of the conventional wisdom? So it's it's hard to say. But if you look at, you know, I think if you look at a vote on, you know, sending offensive weapons to Israel, for instance, and you get like a pretty sizable majority of Democrats supporting it still. Like, I think that that's a pretty useful kind of proxy for how much support that remains for something like this. Which is interesting, Ryan, because that's different. Hi, everyone. That's different than Venezuela. Right. Like the Dems were. Not exactly. Like, a lot of these Democrats are happy to go to war with Venezuela, too. But they made process complaints. Sure, and they'll make process complaints again. And they'll pin it on Trump publicly. But privately, are they actually that upset? I don't think so. I mean, obviously there's a serious like anti-war base and and they have their representatives in the Senate and the House. But but outside of that, you know, there's not a whole lot of squeamishness when it comes to using American power violently around the world. And the timing is a little ironic after all of the Democrats just came to Munich for their foreign policy debuts to all of a sudden be radio silent on foreign policy is very interesting. Now, Ryan, I know you're talking about more of a moderate sort of centrist wing of the party who thinks about this. But where are people like AOC and others who are considered the progressive left of the party? It also seems like a little bit of radio silence from them. Is that true? So, like, we can assume that AOC, of course, is against war with Iran. I haven't heard. I think she did say something about it in Munich, maybe. I mean, she's certainly against, yeah, like you can count her as like in the no column on this, but I certainly haven't seen her out there as a vocal opponent, somebody making this like a significant issue. Now, I should say, according to sources in the Schumer's office, that this is not an accurate characterization that this person had of this conversation with the staffer. This person recounted it to a number of other people at the time. So, I find the characterization of it credible. But just to say that there's some dispute about how this conversation went. But no, you haven't seen much noise from somebody like AOC. Maybe she's preparing something. I don't know. But I haven't seen a kind of Bernie. Obviously, he's against it. There's no question that Bernie and AOC are against this. But have we heard much? Are they pushing it hard? Yeah, exactly. Yeah we haven seen them leading the charge And Emily on your side Now I also feel a little bit of radio silence in the lead up to this one that feels different than the conservative America first noise before the 12-day war. It seemed like there was a lot more pushback, consternation, and anxiety from the right leading up to the strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, whereas now it kind of feels like people are perhaps just kind of given up or they're just kind of going with the flow. Is Venezuela a part of that equation that people felt like Venezuela was such a win that you now look kind of like a loser or a wimp and that you should just trust the plan? What's the perspective on that side? I think that's right. And I think there are two things behind it. First is that actually what the government calls Operation Midnight Hammer didn't cause nuclear escalation. And the second point would be that those were strikes on nuclear sites. And what's likely to happen now is strikes on, according to the journal, government buildings, military facilities, that sort of thing. Not a nuclear strike in particular. I think when you're listening to Tucker Carlson ahead of Operation Midnight Hammer, that was a lot of the concern was specifically about striking nuclear sites. So there's that. But also, I think because Midnight Hammer and then Maduro were quick and targeted, as people say, there's just a little bit more like people feel like they have maybe some some egg on their face, probably. Privately, they'll probably still say, listen, if this what happens, if there are strikes in the next couple of weeks, then how successful really was, quote unquote, Operation Midnight Hammer? That's an obvious question. Yeah, I thought we got rid of the nukes. Yeah, the goalposts just keep getting shifted. So, yes, but I think people are wary of coming out so hard and saying this will lead to nuclear war. This is almost certain to lead to nuclear escalation. And I think that's a lot of what was happening earlier in June. Still think that was correct, by the way. It didn't turn out that way. But the argument is that the possibility was intolerably high. And just because nobody said it was 100 percent possibility. Well, maybe somebody did, but most people weren't saying it was 100 percent possibility. So just because you have 10 percent or 20 percent that it won't lead to the end of the world. That's not sure I'm taking those odds. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if you guys listen to Sagar with with Andrew Schultz on this, but he was saying, look, basically the antiwar faction or the more restrained faction within the administration has been completely cowed like they've been, you know, they're they've either given up or they're just on board at this point. And the fact that the 12-day war and the Venezuela strikes were seen as these, like, grand successes has basically led to them keeping their mouths shut. And then the other piece, I think, is, you know, one of the voices, and I, you know, it's not someone I give a lot of credit to, but one of the voices leading up to the Iran war who was opposed to it was Charlie Kirk. And, you know, he's been he's been killed. He's taken taken off of the chessboard in terms of someone who had access, who could be pushing some of those messages and was, you know, was reticent at least in the buildup to Iran. So, yeah, I think they've been effectively cowed. You hear very little from the America Firsters who were previously opposed and loved to tout Trump as the anti-war president, blah, blah, blah. Those voices are gone. And so you couple that with what Ryan was reporting about the radio silence from much of the quote unquote opposition party, including some of the progressive leaders. You know, you basically got Ro Khanna and Thomas Massey once again out there as the dynamic duo. Like, hey, guys, you know, you're supposed to come to Congress. Like, we're not really we're not down with this. What's going on? But other than that, we sit on the precipice of a potentially major war. If you just look at the assets in the region, once again, more than we've seen since the Iraq war buildup. We sit on the precipice of this major war and it feels like everyone's just like, yeah, whatever. We'll see. What are you guys up to this weekend? It's kind of crazy making, you know, and go ahead. Well, speaking of the chessboard, who else was ahead of the 12 day war? It was Marjorie Taylor Greene, Steve Bannon. Bannon has been somewhat neutralized by the Epstein stuff. And Marjorie Taylor Greene is no longer in Congress and does not have a good relationship with Donald Trump because she was pushing the administration. She started doing it publicly to focus more on domestic policies and less on foreign policies. And so she's now just back in Georgia. Yeah. Ryan, one last question I have for you, and then we can move on to this good segue to the Epstein class and the latest things that we're learning there is the Ayatollah put out this tweet that was like, hey, you know, this island y'all are talking about, that's just the tip of the iceberg. We got a lot more that we can let you know about if, you know, your crazy president does attack us. How much credence do you put in that? Is that just bluster or do you think there could be some substance behind it? So the Ayatollah, so Handala is the hacking group that originally got access to Ehud Barak's inbox. It ended up getting leaked to this nonprofit distributed denial of secrets. which made it available to news organizations, including us. And we were able to do a significant amount of our early reporting based on that hack. It is often said that Handala is linked to the Iranian government. It's never been proven, but it's like one of those things where like all of these, there's like the hacker group that's associated with the U.S., there's a hacker group that's associated with Russia, there's a hacker group that's associated with the Israelis. This is the one that people think of as like associated with the Iranians. so the ayatollah like may have been briefed that like they did if if that's true that they played a role in like getting some of this information out we also know according to the warrant that was used to search john bolton's house according to that warrant iran hacked his aol account like three times and one of the things uh and the reason that they were searching him is that he was keeping, according to this warrant, classified intelligence on his AOL account. Many such cases. It's very, very easy to hack an AOL account. I mean, having an AOL account to begin with is embarrassing. Like forgot password. You know, done. You basically hack an AOL account. You're in. And so the Iranians, according to our own, you know, DOJ, are sitting on at least John Bolton's inbox. God only knows, this guy's been involved in every piece of American shenanigan for decades. God only knows what's in there. And what else have they hacked? They have claimed to have all manner of information about the Israeli government, Israeli politicians. So that's what they're alluding to. They are also like a staggeringly kind of conservative country when it comes to their what they do. Like if you look at the kind of conservative responses that they've had to the attacks every time they had they seem to have had that Barack inbox for a very long time before it was leaked. If it was them that had it. Interesting. Because, like, the time that it stops, there's many years before then, between the, like, last email and when it finally gets, you know, made public. So, like, why don't we have another, like, according to the FBI, they have Bolton's inbox. Like, why have they not released that? I don't know. So, you know, that seems to be what he's referring to there. imagine being trump being the president of the united states being in the epstein files like a million times and that that we know of um and then knowing that israel has all of that information and now iran's like let me just level the playing field here and tell you that we also have all of that information so your move boss right whose threat when you started the sentence with imagine being Trump. I was like, oh my gosh, where is this going? Too early. Too early for those conclusions. Imagine being Trump. Imagine being Trump. You've been up all night on True Social. You've had 20 Diet Cokes. Big Mac run is on its way to you. That's why Emily was late. She was putting makeup on her hands. Well, but I take a lot of ibuprofen. I take a lot of ibuprofen. The big ones. I think it's Tylenol, isn't it? Tylenol. She wants her blood nice and thin. You know, that's what it is. Well, if Iran or the Ayatollah have any info, Ryan at DropSiteNews.com. No, I'm not soliciting any information from any designated terrorist organizations whatsoever to be very clear. That's... Maybe I'll start an AOL account. I'm starting a new AOL account. and everyone can access it from there. You know Roald Dahl, the writer who thought up Willy Wonka, Matilda, and the BFG. But did you know he was also a spy? Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been. Our new podcast series, The Secret World of Roald Dahl, is a wild journey through the hidden chapters of his extraordinary, controversial life. His job was literally to seduce the wives of powerful Americans. What? And he was really good at it. You probably won't believe it either. Okay, I don't think that's true. I'm telling you, the guy was a spy. Did you know Dahl got cozy with the Roosevelt's, played poker with Harry Truman, and had a long affair with a congresswoman? And then he took his talents to Hollywood, where he worked alongside Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock before writing a hit James Bond film. How did this secret agent wind up as the most successful children's author ever? And what darkness from his covert past seeped into the stories we read as kids? The true story is stranger than anything he ever wrote. Listen to The Secret World of Roald Dahl on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On that note, we do have more Epstein stuff happening. Les Wexner, the Epstein associate billionaire, came in to testify. We've got a few clips from that right here, including one Ryan wanted to start with about a Roman embassy and an exchange with his lawyer. let's take a listen. What about Pleather Vest? I'd be walking out with forks and spoons. Gee, that's a good idea. We ought to have an inventory. Then there was a, I hired a lady that'd be like the house manager who had run the U.S. Embassy in Rome and said, yeah, I know how to do this. And I said, well, why don't we keep inventories of stock? And she said, yeah, I could do that. So she did that as kind of a puny example. But I wouldn't have had the idea. But then all the things were inventory. That wasn't work for me or Jeffrey. It was just regularly done. And for those just listening on the podcast, Les Wexner's lawyer leans in and whispers in his ear, I will fucking kill you if you answer another question with more than five words. I sort of appreciate Wexner's response to that, too, was just to laugh. Yeah. Yeah, you're probably right. Yeah, but let this man cook. So that part of it went viral. What a lot of people didn't notice was what led into it. Let's unpack that for a second. If you are somebody who has even dipped your toes in history of the U.S. post-World War II or even ever seen a Jason Bourne movie, what happens when you hear the words embassy in Rome? Like that is the locus of the CIA's operations when it comes to working with organized crimes. All of its espionage, that's where it projects power to the Middle East. It's work with terrorist organizations. It's work with drug trafficking, arms trafficking. Like that embassy in Rome, that is the hub of like all of it. That is, like to hear, like alarm bells are going off in everybody's mind who's like, here's the embassy of Rome. So Jeffrey, according to Wexner, Jeffrey Epstein had the woman who ran the logistics for the U.S. embassy in Rome, which is also like, this is the CIA's hub of his operations in this entire region. And moved her to Wexner's mansion to count his forks and knives. to do an inventory of his forks and knives. I see nothing wrong with this. I mean, you're not going to get anybody better at logistics. It just feels like anti-Italian bias to me, to be honest with you, Ryan, this whole approach. It's so, like, try to think of who is doing logistics and operations for the U.S. Embassy in Rome. Like, this is somebody who is read in on the deepest secrets of U.S. espionage. Like, that's the person that Epstein suggested to Wexner run his operation. Yeah. As he's also, as we reported, like, moving the CIA's Southern Transport planes, you know, to his operation to transport his apparel around the world. Like, they are, it's like they're taunting us. To be honest with you, the fact that Wexner just sort of like naively lays out this piece of information and has to be, have his life threatened by his lawyer. It does give some credence to his claims like, I'm just kind of an idiot and a rube and very naive. And I had no idea what was going on here fully, at least. Either that or he's saying, if you keep pushing me, you keep prosecuting me, I might accidentally reveal a lot more. So you see it more as a potential sort of like an Easter egg for people who are in the know of like, these are the type of connections that I have, just so you know. So I'm not just this like innocent, bumbling old man. It was the woman who ran the embassy in Rome. That's who we were working with. Yeah, that is like very, like only lightly veiled reference to. I don't think it's that intellectual. I think this gives like old man at the retirement home and the kids are coming to visit and he's telling them old stories. Like, I don't think he's that calculated anymore. I mean, maybe he is. Maybe. I don't know. I don't know. But I wish she'd keep cooking. Well, it would explain why we don't. You have the Rothschild one, too. Yeah. I was just going to say with Brexner. Go while I pull this one up. Yeah, it would just some of it might explain why we never, ever hear from Les Wexner and that like they're utterly terrified that he lacks discipline in legal settings. He a blabber I mean how old is he at this point Yeah Yeah Yeah I mean he clearly in there with this leather vest He like let me tell you about the old days with my buddy Jeff They're like, don't do that. I just love the concept of them. They're like, sir, you have to you're being deposed by Congress. What would you like us to pack? Bring me my finest pleather vest. it's interesting to me that you clapped that as pleather because i feel like that could actually be real leather it could it could but i but we'll watch this one i think he killed i think he killed many animals for that vest um all right let's check this one from the rothschilds personal work for the rothschild family in france well specifically i talked to ellie to Rothschild. And so I mentioned that earlier. So he represented their whole families that have been a whole bunch of people. Most of them I never would have met, but I knew L.A. He would say like, I'm providing financial advice to the founders of Google. I'm financial, providing financial advice to Jeff Bezos. So this is why I'm like, this guy. Lawyer leaning in again. It's like when Sagar starts going off and Crystal just has to do like a Sagar. Crystal, you should, Crystal, we need like a button that you can press that says Sagar. If you answer one more question. I will fucking kill you. With more than five words. I'm going to fucking kill you. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. It's very, the whole thing is very, and again, DropSite has done some of the best reporting here because Wexner claimed, you know, oh, we cut off all contact at this certain point. And then you got those, you know, access to those emails. And lo and behold, that was not true. And by the way, the philanthropy that, you know, Wexner's family, like philanthropy, was being run almost completely entirely by Jeffrey Epstein, was one of the largest funders of Zionist causes, by the way. And long after the supposed contact is cut off, they're still saying, hey, what did what does Jeff think about this? What does Jeff want to do with X and Y and Z. And the other thing that is very revealing in terms of trying to figure out, OK, was this just some like really stupid rube of an old man who was completely, you know, bamboozled and had his money stolen by Jeffrey Epstein, which is the story he's he and his lawyers are trying to put forward? Or is this someone who knew what was going on? You also uncovered an email from him to Epstein that said, you know, after his conviction, that said, you violated your one rule, always be careful. And Epstein replies to him, you know, still there's no excuse. So that would indicate, you know, I mean, that would seem to suggest that he had some knowledge of Epstein's doings, not to mention the fact that, like, when you look at the birthday book, when you look at the way he converses with effectively everyone in his social circle, Like they're constantly talking about his lifestyle and girls and sex and, you know, gynecologist and torture and all kinds of crazy shit. So it certainly gives the impression of if you knew this guy, you knew something of what he was all about. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And he knew him since the 80s. Like that's what we're learning. Like, you know, a much longer relationship than we understood. And also, it's another wonderful Easter egg for him to throw out, saying that he was working, that Epstein was working with this Swiss bank in the mid-80s. And these kinds of Swiss banks were at the nexus of the Iran-Contra, money laundering and money movement operations. They were moving that money from one bank to another, something like, I don't know, Emily, you might remember from, you've read Ari Ben-Manage's book more recently, but every like 90 days or something, they were moving huge amounts of money from one, like from these 30 banks to another 30 banks to another 30 banks. And so the people involved with that got familiar with the shady end of European banking, which might even have been even shadier in the 80s than it is now. With electronic records, it's a little bit trickier to move things around than just with paper and pencil and bags of cash. But, yeah, so connecting Epstein to this Swiss Rothschilds bank as far back as the mid-'80s gives more grist for the idea that he really did get his connections to both intelligence and wealth through the really epic era changing Iran-Contra scandal. And didn't Wexner, am I remembering this right, doesn't he end up with some Iran-Contra planes? Yep, yep. So after the heat comes on to the CIA's airline that was shipping the planes and the drugs in the 1990s, the thing files for bankruptcy and sells half of its planes to, I think, some Angola company. and then the other half get moved to Columbus, Ohio, by Epstein to work for Wexner. To move Victoria's Secret around the country. Yeah, and he already has, I think maybe he only owned Abercrombie & Fitch at that point, but the limited brands for sure, which was already being managed apparently by, you know, the CIA's top logician out of the Rome embassy. Like, ridiculous. And we have a little bit of sound on those fashion shows in particular. Let's take a listen. I would go to some of the Victoria's Secret fashion shows. It was very important to the brand. It's some of the very important to the brand. Trump was there. And I remember because Trump would always introduce himself to me. And I always thought it was kind of odd that he was at the fashion show because he had nothing to do with fashion. so is that another veiled threat that he's gonna that he's got more to say or or what how do we feel about the fashion show comments here i mean it could certainly be read through either lens just an old man remembering things that he remembers and sort of enthusiastic about having the opportunity to share them if that's that vibe of like you know yes your dad or your grandpa at the dinner table like finally i've got a captive audience let me tell you about what happened in 1943. Yeah. Yeah. Someone asked me a question. They're engaging with me. I've got things I want to say. Yeah. It has that energy. But then, I mean, if you view it through Ryan's theory of, you know, he's mentioning these little nuggets, none of which is conclusive, but just to kind of indicate, like, listen, if you take too hard a line with me, there are things, you know, I have levers I can pull here. This would certainly fit into that, you know, into that theory as well. Well, the Victoria's Secret element is not unimportant because the Wall Street Journal has a great like TikTok of what went on with Jean-Luc Brunel. And there's a lot more depth. I mean, it's probably like a 2000 word story or something, but there's a lot more depth on the Jean-Luc Brunel stuff. Actually, Crystal has been like in on that stuff for a long time. But you can see how the Victoria's Secret partnership or the partnership with Wexner, who oversees Victoria's Secret, would have been important to Epstein. You can see where that becomes interesting that Trump is at the fashion shows when, as Wexner says, he didn't really have anything to do with fashion, which is just cutting unintentionally, just absolutely cutting. But what they were doing very clearly was using modeling agencies. And the journal, I mean, I think it's conclusive at this point. You can see it in emails. But the journal pretty much clearly connects the dots that they were using, Jean-Luc Brunel and Epstein were using modeling agencies to recruit women to come to the United States and basically work as mistresses. There's an email where one of them says, you know, she's reminiscing and Epstein, she's getting into a tussle with him, but reminiscing and says, you know, when I look back on it, mistress was the only job proposition that you were ever serious about. Having my pictures taken with Bill Gates and Woody Allen, it's nice, but it's not going to help me get a job. And so that really puts it, I think, in that's a pretty good picture of what was happening. It's one example, but that's a pretty good example of what was happening across the board. So Wexner, the question then for me, and I don't know if Ryan or anyone else has thoughts on this, chicken or egg, is Wexner CIA and then Victoria's Secret or is he Victoria's Secret and then CIA or another intel agency? Yeah, he's a useful, you can imagine him being, you know, a useful figure in many respects. You know, he's moving vast amounts of, you know, material around the world, you know, particularly from Asia, but elsewhere, you know, in and out of the United States. Yeah, I don't know. he's also one of the largest you know funders of pro-Israel non-profits here in the here in the US and helping to organize support for Israel you know at a at a very extreme level like this like the guy that's doing you know maybe the top three of pro-Israel donors over the last like 40 years Well, it's also a lot of that seemingly directed by Epstein, too. And it's also this is Cold War right after the Cold War. And John Lee Brunel, Epstein are and it goes into the last like 10 years before they died. But they're bringing a lot of Eastern European women over. And so that's with Wexner having Victoria's Secret models like you have this like international group of hot women moving around the world. You can see how that also can come into potential Intel capacity as well, unfortunately. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's true. Well, and we know Epstein used his connection with Victoria's Secret, you know, when he was personally approaching. He was, oh, I'm close to Naomi Campbell. I'm, you know, I'm he would hold himself down as an actual representative of Victoria's Secret to try to, you know, cultivate young women, potentially girls around the world. And so Wexner, that's why this guy is so important. I mean, people who watch the show probably already know this, but not only does he have all of this money and hands over power of attorney to Jeffrey Epstein, you know, this is the first place where you can really, you know, sink your teeth into, okay, this is where Epstein got a lot of funds from, from this Wexner character. And then he has also the, you know, the modeling angle with Victoria's Secret. And then there's all these, you know, the Rome embassy and all and the Iran contraplanes and all of these things that are very eyebrow raising about what other connections he may have had. All right. Well, we've got a guest waiting in the lobby here. Why don't we let her in and see what's going on with her? You know, Roald Dahl, the writer who thought up Willy Wonka, Matilda and the BFG. But did you know he was also a spy? Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been. Our new podcast series, The Secret World of Roald Dahl, is a wild journey through the hidden chapters of his extraordinary, controversial life. His job was literally to seduce the wives of powerful Americans. What? And he was really good at it. You probably won't believe it either. Okay, I don't think that's true. I'm telling you, the guy was a spy. Did you know Dahl got cozy with the Roosevelt's, played poker with Harry Truman, and had a long affair with a congresswoman. And then he took his talents to Hollywood, where he worked alongside Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock before writing a hit James Bond film. How did this secret agent wind up as the most successful children's author ever? And what darkness from his covert past seeped into the stories we read as kids? The true story is stranger than anything he ever wrote. Listen to The Secret World of Roald Dahl on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, guys, so we're very excited to have another candidate joining us this morning. So this is Julie Gonzalez. She's a state senator in Colorado, and she is challenging Colorado Democratic Senator John Hickenlooper in the Democratic primary. Welcome, State Senator Julie Gonzalez. Great to have you. Thank you so much for the opportunity. Great to be here with y'all. Yeah, of course. So just tell us why you decided to jump into this race. Look, I think like a lot of Coloradans and a lot of Americans, that we are sick and tired of go-along-to-get-along politics. And what I mean by that is our Democrats who are telling us, oh, if only there was something that we could do in the midst of our descent into fascism, and then at the same time going and voting for those very Trump nominees. John Hickenlooper has always been a centrist incrementalist and has voted for not one, not two, but 10 different Trump nominees in the midst of the second Trump administration. Y'all make it make sense. At the same time, in the Colorado legislature, we have been doing the work in order to protect Coloradans, whether that's defending and advancing reproductive freedom, passing the Colorado Voting Rights Act, and ensuring that when ICE agents trample on our Constitution, that there are remedies and penalties in place. And so we have done the work, and yet those victories end at the state line when we don't also have a fighter in Washington, D.C., fighting for those same values. And the real question is, yes, we do absolutely need to go and flip red seats blue to build a governing majority. And at the same time, we've got to really start asking ourselves, as the Democratic Party, let's look at the caliber of leaders that we're sending to D.C. from the safe blue states. And that's why I'm stepping up to run. Give people a little bit of a sense of your background before you were a state senator, the work that you probably still continue to do. What is your background? What brought you to politics to start with? Certainly. My family goes back in Colorado generations. We are the types of Chicanos down in southern Colorado, northern New Mexico, who we didn't cross the border, the border crossed us. And when I went to Yale for my undergraduate degree, I learned there about power, that if you don't have institutional power, if you don't have a bajillion dollar endowment or tremendous access to wealth, the way that you earn concrete wins is by organizing people. And so I've done that work since I graduated college. In 2005, I've been in Colorado organizing on affordable housing, educational justice and immigrant rights. When Donald Trump came down that golden escalator down in 2015, those of us who had been in the immigrant rights movement knew that his candidacy was viable. And even when a lot of our establishment Democrat colleagues were saying no no no don worry there nothing to see here We got involved and organized and after he won in 2016 I then stepped up and was part of that blue wave during that first midterm election that achieved a democratic trifecta here in our state legislature. I've been proud of the work that we've been able to accomplish since. Obviously, you come from the immigrant rights advocacy issue near and dear to your heart, you know, there's a national debate on the Democratic side about what the future of ICE should be. You know, are you in the reform camp or are you in the abolished camp? Look, I actually, when my family was, when I was growing up, my dad managed ranches. And when I was 10 years old, my dad got a job managing a ranch in deep, deep South Texas. And so we moved there in the summer of 93. And in the summer of 94, I'm sorry, in January of 1994, NAFTA was enacted. And so middle school me actually witnessed the real beginnings of the militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border growing up down in deep South Texas. I've now seen, right, I went to my very first DREAM Act rally in August of 2001. And the DREAM Act is now old enough to get a beer and we still haven't passed it. And ICE is younger than the DREAM Act. So for those who say, oh no, let's just go and reform ICE. Let's just go and add some additional training and body cams. No, I've seen it firsthand. I've seen what border enforcement looked like before the militarization and the fear mongering of the creation of immigration and customs enforcement. And I stand firmly in the abolish ICE camp in order to replace it with a system that provides an actual legal pathway to citizenship, that restores due process, that treats everybody with dignity and respect, and doesn't ask babies and three-year-olds to represent themselves in immigration proceedings. Let's ensure that everybody has access to legal counsel so that they can navigate this incredibly important system. Let's make sure that there's enough judges and immigration adjudicators to be able to not have people waiting around for 20 years to try to have their application reviewed. But right now our immigration system is broken and too many Democrats for far too long have gone and played political football with people's lives. And that's on both the Democratic side and the Republican side. And I was going to pick up on one of those points, too. You mentioned due process. Colorado is one of the places for all of the nonsense that's been spewed about Trende Aragua that actually really did have a serious situation with Trende Aragua. I think it was in Aurora. and President Trump picked up on all of that. So I imagine, you know, even Democratic Coloradans were upset with some of what was happening. So I imagine voters will want to hear you talk about what the if ICE is gone or if there's no cooperation with ICE, what does a orderly law enforcement system look like for people who are taking advantage of the country's immigration laws. How would you answer that question? Absolutely. Look, we have always wanted to ensure that in a moment of crisis that you are able, anybody, whether you are, I don't care where you were born or how long you've been here, that in a moment of crisis that You can feel safe to call 911 and ask for help. But what we've seen is when local law enforcement is also doing ICE's job for them, that fear prevents entire segments of community who are either immigrants or live in mixed-out-as-families or have mixed-out-as-neighbors. they then don't have that trust in local law enforcement. And so we've seen what happens when ICE is not even following the law that local law enforcement abides by, right? They're roving and causing panic and fear, not only for immigrants, but for U.S. citizens as well, right? And so, look, I'm proud of the work that in Colorado we have done to say, ICE, go get a warrant. ICE, don't come at me with a wannabe warrant, something that is signed by a supervisor. Go actually and follow the due process that every other law enforcement agency in the United States has to abide by, which is judicial review. Go talk to a lawyer. Go get a warrant. And then, absolutely, we will comply with said judicial orders. But what we have seen take place is fear-mongering and scapegoating of communities against one another. The whole Trenderagua situation that took place in Aurora was put forward as a red herring by a slumlord who actually owed a whole bunch of, was involved in a whole series of legal problems in Aurora. and those fear-mongering local elected city council members in Aurora were just booted out in this last November's election. You know, Donald Trump's entire mass deportation effort, he named Operation Aurora after our community here in Colorado. But those local elected officials who were a part of building that false narrative We're all booted out in a sweep this past November, which I think really demonstrates the extent to which Coloradans are sick and tired of the fear mongering. They actually just want to be safe. And Donald Trump and his mass deportation agenda ain't achieving safety at all. I'm also curious what it's what it's like in today's media environment to try to go from the state legislature to the Senate. Like, how are you going about getting your message out? Hickenlooper obviously has huge name ID across the state, and he's got good relationships with all of the, like, local TV stations, I'm sure the Denver Post or whatever else. But where do voters, particularly ones who vote in the primary, like, where are they getting their information, and how are you reaching them, and have you found, how's the fundraising going in order to reach them going? Absolutely. You know, it's been very fascinating, I would say, in this moment, the disconnect between the establishment and the base. And we have some real soul searching to do as, you know, I'd say loosely, Team Blue. We've got to decide whether or not we are going to continue to be beholden to the corporate interests and the corporate lobbyists who say, ooh, not too much. Ooh, can't do that. Hmm. If only there was something we could do. Turns out, actually, we can have nice things if we're willing to fight for them. And what we have seen in the wake of Donald Trump's second election has been an incredible grassroots movement that has been energized and activated to stand up to say, no kings in this country. Dems, do your job and let's go and build the governing majority that will defeat this MAGA extremism once and for all. Look, I'm not handpicked by Chuck Schumer. It's fine. I wasn't voluntold to step up and run for this seat. But I stepped up after seeing not only those election victories in Aurora and in school boards and city councils across the state booting out mag extremists who were trying to ban books instead of opening libraries and better funding our local schools. And there is a real energy in our state to actually elect someone who is willing to stand on the values of ensuring that we are fighting for an economy that works for everyday people and not just for the billionaires. And so, look, I'm not going to outraise John Hickenlooper. That's never been the goal. We're always going to do the work to outwork him and out-organize him. So, Julie, you mentioned Chuck Schumer. We reported on a New York Times focus group this week where a lot of voters were talking about wanting a progressive instead of a moderate. They called the party weak, paralyzed, useless. Where do you fit in that Dem Tea Party? Do you believe that Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries should step down or not be in leadership of the Democratic Party? Look, Chuck Schumer would not earn my vote for a Democratic leader of the U.S. Senate Democratic Caucus. I think that also given Senator Klobuchar's shift to run for governor and Senator Durbin's retirement, that there's a real opportunity for an entire new generation of Senate Democratic leadership. And I think that it is time for us to think differently about how we go and organize our base. You don't negotiate with terrorists. You don't give in to bullies. And so how we stand strong on our values in this moment absolutely matters. And so I'm a no for Chuck Schumer, and it's probably why so much of his incumbent protection program is being deployed at this moment on Senator Hickenlooper's behalf. That's fine. I'm proud of the work that we are doing to earn the endorsements of Indivisible Colorado, of SEIU, the Working Families Party, and the Sunrise Hub here in Denver. And look, that momentum is indicative of the faith and excitement that Coloradans have to actually send someone to D.C. who's been battle tested, who has already done the work to move policies that often were seen as impossible on immigrant rights, on reproductive freedom, on voting rights, and move those into getting signed into law and then being implemented. That's how I've shown up. And I'll just say one last thing here. Colorado is one of four states that has never elected a woman to serve either as governor or to serve in the U.S. Senate. The other three states being Pennsylvania, Idaho, and Indiana. And with Colorado being a Democratic trifecta and a longstanding champion for gender equality, I think it's time. I have a few like lightning round yes or no questions for you, and we want to be respectful of your time. OK, so first one, I think you'll find all of these easy, but we'll see. APAC funding, yes or no? No. Corporate PAC funding, yes or no? Nope. Tax the billionaires, yes or no? And last one, do you support Bernie Sanders' legislation to pause data center construction for AI? Absolutely. 100 percent. All right. Well, anybody else got another cue or should we let Senator Gonzalez get back to her busy day? I'm sure. Actually, it's pretty early there, is it not? Yeah, it's eight in the morning over here. Well, one of the things that I think is very interesting about your race is and Ryan could probably speak to this better than me. But it seems to me that Colorado is not that long ago. Colorado was a swing state. It's obviously become a very solidly democratic state. And yet you still have quite conservative democratic leadership between Hickenlooper, Bennett, and then Governor Polis. There seems to me to be a big disconnect between where the base of the party in Colorado is and the leadership that they're representing, which is why I find your race a particularly interesting one to watch. So let people know where they can follow you and support you if they're so inclined. Absolutely. Look, what is clear in this moment is that no one is coming to save us but us and that we are the ones that we have been waiting for. And so if you're sick and tired of having to vote for someone who doesn't align with your values, that's why primaries matter. And the Republican Party in this state is trying to right now out-extreme themselves, moving further and further and further to the right. And so the question really now in this moment is, who do you want to control your life? Do you want the insurance executives, the ICE thugs? Do you want the corporate lobbyists to control your lives? Or do you want people to have been listening to the people who too often have been either taken for granted or forgotten altogether by people in power actually making decisions? That's how I show up to this work, And it's why I believe that we will win in Colorado. In order to get involved with the campaign, hit us up on social media. I'm at Senadora Julie on all of the socials. I'm currently the only Latina in the state Senate here in Colorado. If elected to the U.S. Senate, I'd increase the number of Latinas in the U.S. Senate by 100 percent. the first and only Latina ever to serve, Catherine Cortez Masto out of Nevada, right? And so in these times, we can have nice things if we're willing to fight for them. Hit me up at julieforcolorado.com in order to learn more about the campaign and get involved. All right. Thank you, Julie. And we'll leave a link in the description of the video. Have a great day. Okay, that was Julie Gonzalez in Colorado. I forgot to add my lightning round question, are aliens real in honor of the Obama interview? I thought about making that joke. We'll leave that one alone. After she has access. That's right. That's true. They don't tell state legislators. No, no, no. But then you got to be very careful about revealing classified information, according to President Trump. Absolutely. Yeah, do we have that? Are we talking about that in the premium half? We're hiding all the classified info behind the premium paywall here. So if you want to see that and more, breakingpoints.com to see the full Friday shows. You can sign up for a monthly or yearly subscription there and help support our journalism. And we will see everyone else on the second half right now. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.