Fast Politics with Molly Jong-Fast

Harry Litman & Rep. Jared Moskowitz

50 min
Feb 26, 2026about 2 months ago
Listen to Episode
Summary

Molly Jong-Fast discusses Trump's historically unpopular State of the Union speech, the missing Epstein files and alleged cover-up by the DOJ, and the political fallout from immigration enforcement policies. Guests Harry Litman and Rep. Jared Moskowitz detail how critical FBI 302 reports are being withheld and outline plans for aggressive investigations if Democrats regain House control.

Insights
  • Trump's State of the Union received the lowest approval ratings of any speech this century, with even Republican viewers showing declining enthusiasm compared to previous years
  • The DOJ is systematically withholding FBI 302 reports (victim interview memos) from the Epstein files that allegedly contain extensive references to Trump, suggesting deliberate obstruction
  • Kristi Noem's immigration enforcement has tanked Trump's approval on his strongest issue from 60% to 39%, making her a political liability the administration refuses to address
  • Democrats are outperforming in special elections consistently, and polling now aligns with actual election results, suggesting genuine momentum heading into midterms
  • AI investments added essentially zero to U.S. economic growth in 2025 despite massive hype, indicating a potential bubble in AI spending
Trends
Democratic overperformance in special elections becoming consistent pattern since Trump's electionSystematic document withholding and redaction by Trump administration despite transparency lawsInternational accountability for Epstein-connected figures (UK arrests) contrasting sharply with U.S. inactionAI investment bubble deflating as promised productivity gains fail to materializeImmigration policy becoming electoral liability for Republicans despite being core campaign issueErosion of federal employee protections and whistleblower mechanisms under current administrationX/Twitter algorithmic bias amplifying right-wing content while suppressing left-wing viewpointsWhite House directly operating astroturf social media accounts to manufacture false grassroots supportTariff policy creating corporate litigation risk and potential for quiet settlementsWomen Republican members of Congress breaking ranks on sexual assault and victim protection issues
Companies
Goldman Sachs
Released report showing AI added zero to U.S. economic growth in 2025, contradicting hype
Apple
Released similar report to Goldman Sachs showing minimal AI impact on economic growth
FedEx
Sued Trump administration for tariff refunds, signaling potential corporate legal challenge
Spotify
Referenced in iHeart advertising comparison regarding podcast listening vs. streaming music
Pandora
Referenced in iHeart advertising comparison regarding podcast listening vs. streaming music
People
Harry Litman
Former U.S. attorney and Talking Feds podcast host discussing DOJ obstruction of Epstein files
Jared Moskowitz
Florida congressman and ranking member of Oversight Committee detailing missing Epstein documents
Donald Trump
Central figure in Epstein files allegedly referenced 38,000 times; State of the Union speech approval discussed
Pam Bondi
Attorney General overseeing Epstein file release; accused of selective redaction and obstruction
Kash Patel
FBI Director criticized for joyriding on FBI aircraft and mismanaging Epstein file release
Kristi Noem
Secretary of Homeland Security whose immigration enforcement dropped Trump's approval 21 points
James Comer
Republican chair of House Oversight Committee; criticized for lack of transparency efforts
Robert Garcia
Democratic congressman and ranking member of Oversight discussing Epstein file transparency
Howard Lutnick
Commerce Secretary with undisclosed Epstein connections; administration refusing to address
Hakeem Jeffries
Expected to become House Speaker if Democrats win midterms; will lead Epstein investigations
Lauren Boebert
Republican member standing up for sexual assault victims against Trump administration pressure
Nancy Mace
Republican member supporting Epstein victims despite White House intimidation tactics
Marjorie Taylor Greene
Republican member joining bipartisan effort to protect Epstein victims
Anna Paulina Luna
Republican member supporting Epstein victims and resisting White House threats
Ron DeSantis
Florida governor planning redistricting strategy to remove Democratic representatives
Russ Vought
OMB director and Project 2025 author; managing budget negotiations during shutdown
Garrett Wade
White House staffer running Johnny MAGA astroturf social media account
Elon Musk
X owner whose platform algorithmically suppresses left-wing content while boosting right-wing
Quotes
"These are the crown jewel kinds of documents. When it came time to what has been revealed before, what hasn't, what everyone wanted to see was so-called 302 reports filed by FBI agents to memorialize interviews."
Harry Litman
"If there are two percent of three million that have to do with Trump and they've been withheld, that's a scandal."
Harry Litman
"The idea that we're going to agree to policy changes and expect Kristi Noem to implement this makes absolutely no sense to me. So she needs to go. She's the absolute weakest link to the president's administration."
Jared Moskowitz
"I don't think we're going to win the House by one or two or three seats. I think we're going to win the House in a much larger number. We're a plus six on the generic ballot."
Jared Moskowitz
"Catching bad guys should not be a partisan activity. It should just be something that the FBI does. That was not why Kash Patel took the job."
Harry Litman
Full Transcript
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Explore the best selection of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals all in one easy app, Audible. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free trial at audible.com. Saturday, May 2nd, country's biggest stars will be in Austin, Texas. At our 2026 iHeart Country Festival presented by Capital One. See Kane Brown. Parker McCollum. Riley Green. Shabuzi. Dylan Scott, Russell Dickerson, Gretchen Wilson, Chase Matthew, Lauren Alaina. Tickets are on sale now. Get yours before they sell out at Ticketmaster.com. Hey, everyone. It's Emily Simpson and Shane Simpson from the Legally Brunette podcast. Each week, we're bringing you true crime through a legal lens. Whether you want all the facts on the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie or you still need to wrap your head around the ditty verdict, we're breaking it all down step by step. And we're not just lawyers. We're also husband and wife. It makes for some pretty entertaining episodes. Listen to Legally Brunette on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Molly Jongfast, and this is Fast Politics, where we discuss the top political headlines with some of today's best minds. And Washington Post, ABC News, Ipsos Poll says Democrats have a 14 point advantage in certainty that they will vote in the midterms, the widest since at least 2006. We have such a great show for you today. Talking Feds, Harry Lipman stops by to talk about the interesting details of the DOJ hiding a report that alleges Trump had sexual interactions with the minor. Then we'll talk to Congressman Jared Moskowitz about how the public might be able to see more of the Epstein files. But first, the news. Molly, I know last night you were like, I can't believe how much I enjoyed President Trump's State of the Union speech. You were just texting me feverately like, yes, these are the greatest moments of my life. Well, I'm going to shock you here to tell you, since I was being very sarcastic, that's how everyone else felt. And this is the least popular speech of the century that's been polled. Let's talk about this poll here, Donald Trump's State of the Union speech, least popular this century. Usually polls are split like four ways or five ways, you know, disagree, strongly disagree, you know, a neutral option, agree and strongly agree. What happened here is that Donald Trump, he has like the haters. They're really strongly disagreeing. And his hater numbers are really, really high. Would you say that these might be the haters and the losers? So voters are unconvinced that Trump will lower the cost of living. And there's a reason for that. And that's because he won't. What was also really interesting is the C-SPAN dial poll last night. That tanked for him. Like people, even the Republicans turned down the dial to say we don't believe that what he's saying is true. It was a speech where Trump did a lot of his usual shtick and the cost of living problems are big. And you have someone who has literally come into office and has made things worse and was offered. I mean, I think voters sort of understand that overturning the tariffs the way the Supreme Court did gave Donald Trump an off ramp, which he refused to take. Nearly two thirds of speech watchers said they had at least a somewhat positive reaction to Trump's speech. So remember, those are, by the way, Republicans, right, because most of the people who were watching that speech were Republicans and they didn't like it as much as they had liked it last year. So, I mean, you really seeing like the speech and the polling all sort of reflecting the same sense, which is that after a decade of this, even Trump's most fervent folks are getting exhausted. Well, if you wanted more proof about how unpopular he is during the State of the Union last night, Democrats won three elections. Yeah. So they were special elections, as there are often on Tuesdays. These were two in Pennsylvania and one in the great state of Maine and their state legislative seats. And again, you have a Democratic governor in both of those states. And Shapiro is like this very popular governor. Mills polls much less well. But they both need to have a Democratic statehouse in order to get anything done. So these are big wins for both of them. And again, it just shows that special elections Democrats have been wildly overperforming. Yeah. And we've been seeing that consistently throughout the last year since Trump was elected and goes along with a lot of polling we're seeing. So I know you and I have often been skeptical of some polling, but the elections keep lining up with the polls. Yeah. All that's about to change, though, because the face of this administration, that giddy young fellow. everyone's favorite FBI head. Can I get you here? Is he the face or the eyes of the administration? I was trying not to do that. Well, the FBI is always watching, Molly. That's what I meant by that. Sure, yes. So the FBI, which has historically been headed by a serious suit-wearing, kind of boring Republican, but, you know, a sort of... Can I give you another pushback? What? Suit wearing J. Edgar Hoover. I don't think that's what he was wearing. So the job once occupied by boring tall guy James Comey is now occupied by short party loving Cash Patel. This weekend, he took the jet to the men's hockey game where he then did an incredible TikTok of drinking beer in Milan. Discuss. So when Charlie Kirk, who is a hero for them, was murdered, it took a little while for the investigation to get started because somebody was busy traveling on some jets that they weren't supposed to. Yeah, I mean, and we keep seeing this again and again. When the federal government works, nobody thinks about it. It's like, you know, it's like federal aviation. When it works, you just don't think about it if you're a normal airline flyer. But when it doesn't work, everybody notices. And so we saw this this summer when the FBI took somebody in who wasn't the right guy, tweeted about how they had somebody in custody, wasn't the right guy. And this is the thing we've seen before, too, with a lot of these different high profile cases is that the FBI takes somebody in, they follow a tip, it doesn't work. And this is a whistleblower who I think has got a good point here. And look, there's a reason that the FBI is historically, though, again, to talk about Hoover for a minute, hasn't always been nonpartisan, but is supposed to be nonpartisan, is because catching bad guys should not be a partisan activity. It should just be something that the FBI does. That was not why Kash Patel took the job. He took the job to do cool shit, like going to the Olympics. And during the time when he was supposed to be looking for the killer of Charlie Kirk, they couldn't get the planes because Patel had been engaged in irresponsible joyriding on FBI-operated aircrafts at the expense of the American taxpayer. Now, I just want to point out, this is not all that different than what everyone's favorite. Kristi Noem, secretary of private jets. She's trying to buy a new one. She also does that. You know, a legal deportation mascot has circled around my brain a lot. Yeah, that's a good one. I don't know. As someone who enjoys plastic surgery, I thought she looked like she was melting last night. Too much, baby. I think that's a general vibe for her. Yeah. Okay. So when we think of the woke leftist Marxist, as Mr. Trump likes to talk about, you know who I often think of that with that is Goldman Sachs. You know, they are so, so anti-capitalist. They're so woke. And so one of the things we know this economy is built on right now is AI. One of the weird things we're seeing is all these companies release people from their jobs and then go, oh, this didn't help. These AI agents aren't working the way that all the hype has told us they would. And so now we have a report from Goldman Sachs that is very similar to a report from Apple that also said nearly the exact same thing, which is AI added basically zero to U.S. economic growth last year. Yes. In case you're wondering if AI is a bubble. With Goldman Sachs says yes. AI added basically zero, which means the Donald Trump hockey video, one of the great pieces of AI slop, is not adding to our economy. I am shocked. It turns out that the AI revolution is we don't actually view AI investments as strong growth positive. I think there's a lot of misreporting the impact of AI investments had on the U.S. GDP growth in 2025. It's much smaller than is often perceived. Oh, I feel like we're, you know, it's like Wile E. Coyote running off the cliff. You know what I keep thinking of? It's not a house of cards. It's a house of cards where the cards are printed on it are a bunch of pictures of a very muscular Donald Trump. Yeah, things are going great. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting? Think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ad-supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, iHeart's twice as large as the next two combined. So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message. Plus, only iHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. Think podcasting can help your business? Think iHeart. Streaming, radio, and podcasting. Call 844-844-IHEART to get started. That's 844-844-IHEART. In 2023, a story gripped the UK, evoking horror and disbelief. The nurse who should have been in charge of caring for tiny babies is now the most prolific child killer in modern British history. Everyone thought they knew how it ended. A verdict, a villain, a nurse named Lucy Letby. Lucy Letby has been found guilty. But what if we didn't get the whole story? The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapses. I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast, Doubt, the case of Lucy Letby, we follow the evidence and hear from the people that lived it to ask what really happened when the world decided who Lucy Letby was. No voicing of any skepticism or doubt. It'll cause so much harm at every single level if the British establishment of this is wrong. Listen to Doubt, The Case of Lucy Letby on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. China's Ministry of State Security is one of the most mysterious and powerful spy agencies in the world. But in 2017, the FBI got inside. This is Special Agent Regal, Special Agent Bradley Hall. This MSS officer has no idea the U.S. government is on to him. But the FBI has his chats, texts, emails, even his personal diary. Hear how they got it on the Sixth Bureau podcast. I now have several terabytes of an MSS officer, no doubt, no question, of his life. And that's a unicorn. No one had ever seen anything like that. It was unbelievable. This is a story of the inner workings of the MSS and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its vault of secrets. Listen to The Sixth Bureau on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 2 podcast. This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed two families. Late one night, Bobby Gumpwright became the victim of a random crime. He pulls the gun, tells me to lie down on the ground. He identified Jermaine Hudson as the perpetrator. Jermaine was sentenced to 99 years. I'm like, Lord, this can't be real. I thought it was a mistaken identity. The best lie is partial truth For 22 years only two people knew the truth until a confession changed everything I was a monster. Listen to Burden of Guilt Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Harry Lippman is a former U.S. attorney and the host of the podcast Talking Feds. Welcome. Welcome, Harry. We're having our Talking Feds Fast Politics matchup, mashup, not matchup, the whole country. I want to talk to you about these Epstein files. So the big news is that Congressman Garcia, who actually we've all been talking to, I interviewed him yesterday. He's on the scene as the ranking member of Oversight. James Comer is, of course, the chair of the oversight because Republicans control the House. They control the committees. But basically, this has been reported by NPR and also our friend Roger Sullenberger. But there are all of these missing files. And what we have is the numbers of the files are in the FBI disclosure, but then the files are missing. Talk us through what we're seeing with the Epstein files. And this is just this tranche of documents. It's really true, by the way. Good to be with you, Molly Mashup. Excellent, excellent old culture reference. So look, here's the important thing, Molly. These are the crown jewel kinds of documents. When it came time to what has been revealed before, what hasn't, what everyone wanted to see was so-called 302 reports filed by FBI agents to memorialize interviews. I want you to explain exactly what a 302 document is because I've heard about it endlessly, but no one has ever sat down and explained to me what it is. You come in, you're a victim. First of all, we saw in that horrendous hearing with Bondi, most of the victims haven't even had a chance to go to the DOJ. This is one who did, sat down with an FBI agent and gave her story. And the FBI agent sort of mechanistically writes down everything she said. So we know what the allegations are. And that's what a 302 is. And the 302 is that report. So from the start, we knew there'd be emails that don't talk about much. So by the way, your really awesome New York Times op-ed shows the panoramic scope of this whole thing with all the currency that isn't straight up sex trafficking. But these are the very memos that show, among other things, what he's alleged to have done, but also when the DOJ knew about it and what they did about it. So here, these are the majority of 302 reports from a victim who we know was talking about Trump and somehow mysteriously they've disappeared. It's just one example. NPR did its detective work. There could be others. But this alone, Molly, are the very sorts of documents that people who know what's in an FBI file have been most eager to see. What exactly did the victims tell you? What are the allegations? This is the sort of document you would use, for example, to build a criminal investigation or whatever you would do with it. But this is the real, you know, kind of money documents of the of the pile. And they're missing. First of all, I think there's something like 15 in total from this victim. Only one has been made public. Apparently, some others have been revealed to Congress, but the majority have just not been revealed, which we know only because NBR happened to stumble across it. So it goes to this broader point, if I can, which is somehow DOJ and Todd Blanch, even though they were late and noncompliant all the way, never said anything about redactions. They seem, I think, to be in a posture of brazening it out with a couple million documents on delivered, at least from what they'd estimated, and just hope that like, oh, we're sort of done now. We did our best. And this is an example of what their best is. So let's talk about a 302 for a second. We have all of these victims who are hanging out, going to events. Some are going to be at the State of the Union tonight. We know that Schumer is bringing Danny Belsky, who's one of the clearest communicators of the victims. And I met her before. She's really great. All of these victims have told Representative Garcia, have told me, have told others that they have sat for 302s and they do not want their testimony to be redacted and they don't understand why it would be redacted. Explain to us why a 302, what the rationale for these redactions are, if there is a rationale. And I also want you to talk about the way this law was written. It's written so that Bondi was supposed to explain the redactions. Great questions. And look, you and I were together. We've been on Deadline White House with a victim who's and I want to add one thing, which is my understanding. And this was from the Bondi hearing. A lot of them wanted to, but never got the chance to talk to the FBI. Anyway, the FBI sits down and takes down everything, including the names of the people who were involved, especially the names of the people who were involved. And these missing documents, we have reason to think, have Donald Trump all over them and maybe others. Who else could substantiate this, et cetera, et cetera. Now, the Edstein Transparency Act, this is also really important because there are normal rules that the DOJ could apply when asked to give documents. For example, don't give over grand jury documents. Epstein Transparency Act voted on by every member of Congress, but one signed into law by Trump. Trump saw that. It says, here are the narrow reasons you can redact and only these so your other reasons are out the window. Redactions they're supposed to make, one of them is for victim confidentiality. So we're not supposed to find out victim Of course, as it turns out, we found out not only victims' names, but also pictures. And what was redacted, a lot of names, it sure appears, of big shot customers or people otherwise involved with Epstein. Witness again your New York Times op-ed. All kinds of people. He was a concierge to the rich, as you put it. They somehow get blacked out, even though there's no legal authority. But the final point that you raised about Bondi, and there's a lot going on with redactions, yes, they're required so you can evaluate them because anything they could redact could potentially yield. They have to give a real reason. Well, in this case, we're saying this, and here are the three reasons it qualifies. They've done that exactly zero times. They've made a few kind of general thoughts about why they did it, and they've given Congress or a court nothing to work with. they say they will down the line. That's a really big deal for, you know, from the lawyer's standpoint, knowing if they've done it right. Okay. Hey, my turn, but I want to stick with Epstein. You know, we find out in the last week, this huge disconnect between, you know, clearly the center of Epstein's activity. And as you put it again, his big concierge service doling out jobs in Woody Allen movies or the like is the United States. And here the fallout has been relatively muted and basically zero in the government. I'm thinking of Howard Letnick in particular, but in Europe, it's been huge. There are investigations, not necessarily even about the sex stuff. Andrew is now under criminal arrest because of maybe having fed him private information. What is the kind of political underpinnings of the fact that until now, the fallout is next to nothing here. The real fallout, you know, in terms of like careers and as you and like Asha Rangappa's point about shame, so much less here than Europe. What the hell? So I think that there are two things happening here. One is that so there have been two arrests. One was Andrew and we had the king of England saying, like, don't stop justice on my account. And then we had Peter Mandelson, who had been brought in as the ambassador to the UK. And remember, we had had a UK ambassador who was a woman. It was just a very strange changeover. And again, Peter Mandelson may end up being the undoing of this government, of the UK government, because he was put in this job. So not only have a U.K. government that is grappling with Epstein. We have real accountability for even tear stormer stormers. So we really have a moment where the U.K. looks just wildly ahead of us. But what I would say is that we don't know how this will play ultimately. And I think it's worth pausing for that and just saying that for now, it looks like Trump is covering for his government and he's keeping people like Howard Lutnick staunchly in place. And maybe that keeps on, but maybe it doesn't. I think that accountability, you know, you can evade it for only so long. And so while Trump is making a case that he can keep Howard Lutnick in there, that he can keep, there are many, many people in the Trump cabinet who are in a Epstein world, right? You've got Lutnick, Like you've got John Phelan flew on the plane. You have just a lot of. Right. Donald Trump numerous times. I think we'll see more of this accountability. And I think that Trump's polling is through the floor. And his whole thing has been like he never fires anyone. But there's a reason that people fire people. They fire members of their cabinet. And there's an argument to be made that Trump would be better off if he wouldn't fire people. Yeah. I want to talk about the 302s for another minute. OK. Because we're looking at these documents that are missing. And News Channel 4 in the UK said that this is only like four percent, somewhere between two and four percent of all of the tranches of data because they were looking at the numbers, the terabyte. The Trump administration, Bondi, says that's it. This is all of it. Or that maybe there's another three million documents missing. I wonder if you one of the things that I've been struck by is that supposedly there are members of the FBI who are quietly saying that there's that there's more that clearly you're a member of the FBI. You've been doing this for a long time. You have dedicated your life to this. Right. You did this instead of doing perhaps more high paying job in the private sector. Like there are clearly whistleblowers out there who may or may not come forward. I wonder what you think. There's clearly more documents, more accountability. And were you one of those whistleblowers? What would that look like? Yeah. So it's a great and important question. First, this two to four percent or any kind of quantitative assessment of the like is meaningless. It's always been clear, one, that there are a relative small number. next if the denominator is three million of incendiary documents. And two, that this administration really knows how to be selective. The very first day when it was supposed to give over everything, magically a hundred documents appeared that made the whole thing look like it had to do with Bill Clinton. That was not done randomly, right? If there are two percent of three million that have to do with Trump and they've been withheld, that's a scandal. Second, again, on the 302s, you make a really—look, the FBI, it's not that they've just devoted their career. The rank and file of the FBI, there's very good reason to think, is just furious with the administration. Even though they tend to be politically conservative, they have been so mistreated and disabled and politicized. Patel and Bon Joon are such jokers. This is a legal point to make, but it's true. It's really, really precarious to try to cover up a document because there are so many copies here and there. So I think it is likely that individual agents might well know. Third, on how would it then work for them to bring it to light? First, there's all the unofficial routes that you know as well as I better where, you know, somebody gives you a call. But there is also whistleblower protection. Now, this administration, as part of its process of completely corrupting protections for employees of the executive branch, and we can look at the whistleblower complaint against Christy Noom, has done things to bottle those up or kind of make them seem unimportant with their own handpicked inspectors general. But I tend to agree with you that while it's hard to really identify the mechanism, man, oh man, if there's incendiary stuff there at a minimum, they're playing with fire, trying to suppress it. Just too many different copies. If there's incendiary stuff, they're playing with fire. Absolutely. You know that better than I, right? Because why? Because of leaks. Oh, yeah. If it comes out, it's not just the content. It's the fact of the cover up that used to be the Washington adage. I mean, the 18 and a half minutes for Nixon, for our older like me listeners. Okay, a general question, but we are at a point, and you've just averted to it, where his numbers are really plunging historic lows. And I do think it sort of catching on this notion certainly in places like Minnesota that man oh man this is whatever reason I voted for him this is not the America I wanted and the price to democracy. It's really corrosive, et cetera. But you see a lot of Democrats saying that don't get too cocky on this stuff. You really have to make it. It also so happens he's totally butchered the economy. The tariffs are going to be paid for by the American people. So I just wonder if you have views about the Dems' need to not go too strong on the sorts of things I think about every day, the erosion of democracy and to stay on, you know, kitchen table issues. No, I think it's a huge mistake to just do everything. And especially people are so mad about Epstein. You know, I think just make it Epstein, the files, the releases, the where are they, the cover up, Pam Bondi. I mean, the idea that you should focus just on one thing, especially when it is so clear that the American people are not morons and that they can hold all sorts of opinions at once. So I think that the whole thinking that they can only talk about one thing is a mistake. So let's talk. Speaking of not being able to talk and think about more than one thing at once, I want you to explain to us when we look at the criminal complaints around Epstein. So one of the things when I talked to Robert Garcia was on our last episode, he talked about how he's hoping that other states will continue with criminal charges out of the Epstein files. Talk us through what it would look like if you were a New York attorney general or, you know, if you were trying to make criminal cases out of some of these documents, what it might look like. Yeah, man, another great question. You're you're you're you should go to law school. Well, you already have been. And I do want to point out, by the way, your new sub stack and pure unadulterated Molly is really stormed out and out of the gate. OK, in general, big, big issue, parallel jurisdiction between state and federal. In general, you have to have something happen in a state that's a crime. New York's a great example. They have a what's called the Martin Act that gives them all because New York is the seat of so much stock, the New York Stock Exchange and the like, that a lot of things that would be federal fraud are also fraud there. And then it's also the case a lot of these potential crimes are really kind of tawdry and, you know, sort of small in their fact pattern. And if they took place in an individual state, it's basically there are it's more the case than not, Molly. I guess this is how I'd put it, that a crime within a state's borders that has a federal statute will have a state statute. statute. So, you know, it's both that the facts took place there. So there's jurisdiction. But then also at least certain states, New York, preeminent among them, have ways like the feds have ways of getting at things broadly, even though the downstream impacts are kind of nationwide because of how they originated. Say you're Tish James's office, you're working in that office, you see a allegation, say you see a 302 that's redacted, but not that redacted. So that means you have a witness, you have a crime, say you have an indicted co-conspirators list. Can you make a case from that? Well, that's the question exactly. We're seeing this in Minnesota, where states normally would get the cooperation of the federal government for the shootings of pretty and good. And not only aren't they getting it, the feds are trying to actually impose obstacles and say, we're not going to give you this name. So the answer is, yeah, you've got to start from scratch and develop it. You couldn't use the 302 anyway, but it's now been made publicly available. Lots of cases originate in public materials like what was in the paper yesterday. But you've got to start from scratch. So you've got to find this. And by the way, here's a big thing. if we're thinking about Epstein, statutes of limitations for certain sex assault crimes or murder. There isn't one. But for a lot of the hijinks of the sword you document, again, in that New York Times op-ed, the statute would already have run. So lots of procedural obstacles and the feds are going to make it harder. But theoretically, yes, you just got to start from scratch. But the statute of sex crimes is there has been extended in New York state. That's right. Two things. It had a window where you could bring claims that had to do with that. And that's that's why Trump was also charged with a crime in the E. Jean Carroll case. I think that was a narrow window. But in general, sexual assault statutes of limitation sometimes go forever because it's so often the case that the damage or even the knowledge of it doesn't fully develop until a victim is older. So for the sex crime, yes, but, you know, your point is really important, I think, how he had such a network of different things. Andrew has been arrested, not because of this. That's also the same behavior that the general counsel of Goldman Sachs had to resign over. A lot of that stuff will be really hard to reach for statute of limitations reasons now, but still have political salience. Right, exactly. All right, so do you have another question for me? I want to switch to the refunds and the tariffs. There's, you know, we're finding out now they're trying to put it on other grounds, et cetera. I don't want to ask you about any of the law stuff, but I think we can expect, even though the Department of Justice said last year, if this is struck down, we'll return it all. Give me a break. They're going to impose all kinds of obstacles. It could be, you know, legal tangles for years and years, as Trump said. I just want to ask you politically, You know, what's going to be the impact of people not seeing companies, not seeing refunds? How volatile an issue is this if they just, you know, never, never give the money back? Yeah. So FedEx just sued today for the refund. So it is certainly possible that we see a real court case. And look, you know, here's what's going to happen. So the Supreme Court has said no go on the tariffs. Trump has tweeted a lot of angry stuff and said it's going to be 10 percent, then it's going to be 15 percent. I think there's a scenario where FedEx sues and Trump decides that he's going to like push back in the court of public opinion and then the admin is going to quietly settle. Like we've seen that before, that admin quietly loses in court. Trump loves the tariffs because they are a vehicle for kleptocracy because he can negotiate in a way that is kleptocratic at best. I think I still think there's a scenario where they lose in court and it doesn't matter. And he just keeps obfuscating. Or then maybe FedEx, but lather, rinse, repeat with the other companies. FedEx is a huge company and there'll be more if they sense that there's a possible win. This could be very bad for Trump world. And again, I don't think that FedEx is ideological. I think they're practical. So, you know, this is like a dumb. It's not dumb because it's what Trump wants. It does the thing that Trump wants it to do. But I still think it could unravel the whole thing. Molly, this is always fun. See you next month. Thank you. Great to see you. Congressman Jared Moskowitz represents Florida's 23rd District. Welcome, welcome, Congressman Jared. What's going on, Molly? How you doing? How are you? Living the dream over here in Congress. Everything is great. Why? Is there something going on I should know about? Nothing. Oversight seems to be in a Twitter war with GOP rapid response on Twitter, formerly Twitter now X. The Epstein files. Talk us through where you guys are with the Epstein files. Well, look, first of all, you know, the oversight committee is run by my dear friend, James Comer. That's right. A giant among men. Yes. A man of many words. As you know, right, he's only interested in transparency, of course. You know, and now we find out there are 53 pages missing that the DOJ is holding back because it has stuff in there about Donald Trump. We find out that there are apparently boxes of documents around the country that Epstein has hidden in all sorts of filing cabinets. We don't know if the FBI has those or not. You know, the members, myself included, went over to the DOJ to look at these unredacted documents and they tracked what documents we were looking at. Dan Bondi. Yeah. You know, they spied on us so that they would know, you know, how how to deal with it in committee. You know, they have mismanaged this thing from the beginning, even though this is what Dan Bongino and Cash Patel, why they wanted to come to the FBI. Right. Pam Bondi, you know, here's the binder. The list is on my desk. Then there's no list. I mean, this was their thing. And, you know, then the president launched a war on his own people, you know, saying that this was a hoax. And, you know, it's a hostile act if they release the files. And then, of course, after they were forced to release it by all of Congress, everyone in the House, except one person and the entire Senate, then all of a sudden they were the most transparent executive branch in American history. And so here we are, the drip, drip, drip. We continue to see it. You know, we're seeing other countries arrest people, by the way. Right. We're seeing that happen. We're seeing in other countries, people lose their jobs. Here, we haven't we haven't seen that accountability. You know, I know the stuff about Howard Lutnick came out. You know, we learned that wasn't true. What he said is he barely knew him, barely had, you know, anything to do with him. You know, he went to his house one time and he saw the massage table and he said, I'm never going to be alone with him again. And then we find out he went to Epstein Island with his entire family and had business ties with him, apparently. You know, Cash Patel told us Trump's name barely in there, less than 100. Right. Then we find out it's in there like 38,000 times. Okay. You know, Kash Patel, under oath, says that the only person who trafficked girls was Epstein. Only to himself. Nobody else. Then we get the documents. We find out there's co-conspirators. We find, obviously, that he trafficked it to other people. And we find out he had a whole ring of people who were recruiting these girls, grooming them. And they were shipping him, these girls, from out of the country. Just totally disgusting behavior. When you went to the DOJ, were you able to see things unredacted or were things still stuck with redactions? There's a bunch of stuff that's unredacted. So we were able to see that. But there are a tremendous amount of documents. In fact, I would say the majority of the documents were still redacted and they were sent into this electronic system all redacted. They were sent to us redacted. So when we look at them, we pump on the redacted. I can't unredacted because they were scanned in as redacted. We don't know what those documents are. We have suspicions that some of those are the FBI memos that were done. And the 302s, right? The 302s, that's exactly right. In fact, we have almost none of those. Almost all the 302s are still redacted. And we think, obviously, that's where there's a lot more evidence on how far and wide this goes. And clearly now that we're seeing stuff about the president that was taken out of the documents, hard to say now that there's not a cover-up going on. I want you to talk about these. So when you go to the DOJ to look at the documents. What like there's the law is written in such a way that it is Pam Bondi or whoever at the DOJ is supposed to explain the redactions. So what happens when you go to the DOJ and you say like where? Sure. So first of all, so you walk in to this building, which is more heavily guarded than the Capitol. OK, you eventually get in. They first allowed us to bring a staff member. Okay, then they said no more staff. You can't bring a staff member. So we go in by ourselves We go all the way up to the 10th floor. Okay on the 10th floor is nobody. There is nobody working on this floor Everyone I guess is either it was fired or they're working mobile, but there's nobody there They bring you into a room the three or four people that are working the files There are four computers set up. Okay on a system that you've never used before. There's a 25 page manual next to you Okay on how to use the system even though you only have 45 minutes to go through the documents You have to disregard the manual and you have to learn in real time on how to go through the system. The people there can't answer any questions on why it was redacted. Not because they can't, because they don't know. They are strictly technical people on the system. If you want to know how to search for something, you accidentally logged out, they'll log you back in. By the way, every member has their own special login. That's how they're tracking us. That's how I knew I was being tracked before it was even. I'm like, why do I have my own login? Why do I have my own password? What's the point of that? And so it's a very cumbersome system. It's just a huge data dump into this thing. You don't have enough time in the world just to start opening things. You have to be searching. So you have to have an EFTA number from a document that was made public, that was redacted. And then you can go search for the unredacted version of that document. Wild. Now, I'd love it if you would talk us through, is there some recourse now? Because the administration has technically broken this law. Oh, yeah. Like multiple times. First of all, they didn't give us the documents on time. Then they redacted stuff they shouldn't have redacted. They unredacted names of victims that were supposed to be redacted. They redacted co-conspirators. Okay. I mean, so, yeah, no, there's all sorts of things that they've broken in the law. Although because, you know, this administration is so great to work with, they then, I don't know if you saw it, they released a name of new people that are in the Epstein files and they put a bunch of people on the Judiciary Committee in the files. because now if there's like an email, you know, because you went and researched that your name is now in the file. So I'm apparently in the files. So we're like all the Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee are now in the files. Is there anything you can do at this moment? Like, can you hold these people in contempt Is there like is there any protocol for like a lawless administration like this or no Well I think you going to continue to see information come out slowly Right And then we going to continue to follow that So we going to ask questions We going to have hearings But Molly, obviously, the real stuff's going to happen in January of next year. We can win the midterms in November and Hakeem Jeffries gets the gavel mid-January. We're going to immediately come out of the gate with these investigations. The subpoenas are going to be written. OK, on November 10th, all of this stuff is going to be written. and it'll immediately be filed in the middle of January. As soon as Hakeem holds that gavel up, this stuff goes out the door. And there's going to be all sorts of investigations. Clearly, it's going to be Epstein. Clearly, it's going to be the Qatari plane. It's going to be the crypto money, right? It's going to be the watches. Why is Donald Trump selling watches? You don't have a $10,000 Trump watch, Mom? Not yet. I'm waiting for a gift from the admin. Oh. Yeah. Start with the Trump Bible and then upgrade to the watch. We've seen some MAGA women do incredible things. I want to talk about Lauren Boebert, who ultimately sort of more Christian than Mike Johnson, saying that. Wait, are you really going to ask me, Jared Moskowitz, to talk about Lauren Boebert's Christianity? Is that really where we're going? Yes, I am. We're just here. We're two Jews talking about Christ. Appreciate that. Love this. This is going to go over great with the wife. Let's go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. I just want to talk about like it does seem like there are MAGA women in the House of Representatives who are standing up for other women. Well, here's what I would say. I would say Lauren Boebert, Nancy Mace, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Anna Paulina Luna. You have seen the four of them now on multiple occasions when it's come to colleagues that colleagues of mine that are involved in sexual harassment or sexual assault. They've gone after their own Republican colleagues on that. And when it's come to the Epstein victims, they have they have been opposite Trump and the administration when it's come to the victims. And so they've been doing that as a block, even when the administration, by the way, brought them into the situation room in the White House. We know the place, you know, that, you know, we launched wars from and the president goes for like national security briefings. They brought these women members of Congress to the situation room to scare them first, tried to buy them off with appropriations and projects. And then threatened the primaries against them to pull their name off of the Massey discharge petition. And they held strong and told the White House they weren't going to do that. And that's how we were able to get to the 218. We don't get to the 218 without those women. I've been really impressed by that. I mean, if you like Lauren so much, you should go to a play with her. Anyway, moving on. Hilarious. Hilarious. Sorry. Let's talk about what it looks like right now. So Republicans have a one vote majority in the House. We're in a sort of partial government shutdown at this very moment. Do you think there's a world in which this appropriation, this DHS, I mean, is there negotiation happening and what does it look like? There's no negotiation happening. Neither side, obviously, rightfully so on our side. We're not going to give in on a lot of these changes we want to see. By the way, not only do I want policy changes, Molly, I want Kristi Noem to be fired. The idea that we're going to agree to policy changes and expect Kristi Noem, OK, to implement this makes absolutely no sense to me. So she needs to go. She's the absolute weakest link to the president's administration. If this was the show Apprentice, he would have fired her long ago. I mean, she took his immigration issue, OK, which to help get him elected in August, he had a 60 percent approval rating on immigration. It's now 39 percent. That's squarely because of how Kristi Noem has executed these immigration policies, what she's done with ICE, the fact that American people are being shot in the streets of America, masked men just going around barging into people's houses without warrants. OK, this is all on her and she should have already been fired. You know, so, you know, then obviously as far as, you know, where we're at, you know, look, I feel terrible for the people who work at Homeland, whether they're in FEMA or TSA or the Coast Guard. I feel terrible for them. They're caught in the middle of this. It's why I support legislation that they should get paid while this is going on. I support legislation that the FEMA emergency aid should still go out while this is going on. They're not willing to negotiate on any of this, Molly. So right now it's going to stay partially shut down. And instead, you know what they're going to do? They're going to try to play games. OK, and they're going to be like, oh, there'll be no fast TSA line at the airport. They're going to try to make people's lives miserable, not because they can't pay for it, because they're just going to do it on purpose to try to put pressure on Congress to make a deal. We sometimes, because of security reasons, have to get escorts. Well, they've suspended all the escorts, you know, exposing members of Congress to security risks to try to put pressure on us. That's not going to work. OK, none of this is going to work. The American people watch this with their own eyes on TV. ICE has billions of dollars. Hundreds of billions. They got $170 billion in the big, beautiful bullshit of a bill. Yeah. So is there any world in which that money goes to Homeland while this negotiation is happening? I mean, that's like the interest. Well, look, I don't know what Russ Vought over at OMB is cooking up over there. You know, he did cook up Project 2025, which, of course, the president said he heard nothing about and then made the author the head of the OMB. Don't worry, we haven't forgotten. But obviously, look, they're trying to move money around. They're trying to do stuff. But they want to get this reopened, right? There are things that are constraining their efforts. This is how we know. If they could do whatever they wanted with ICE, even with all that money, they would just say, leave it closed, right? Leave it closed. They would still do it. But they're not. They're not. They're trying to get it open. And so, look, they're going to have to move out of their corner. I mean, the idea that masked people are going to be allowed to roam the streets, I wouldn't vote for something that allows that to still happen. is one of the most un-American things ever. And look, there are criminals and there are gang members in this country. They should be rounded up and they should be deported. American people voted for that. I support that. But that's not what this is. But that's not what they're doing. And we have police officers that go into tough neighborhoods every single solitary day in this country. They don't get to put masks on their face. Neither should this division of law enforcement, as my Republican friends like to say. There should be no masks. Republicans have made some big bets on redistricting. I'm seeing some polls that show that they may have they may have tipped themselves into a dummy mander. Do you think that's right? And looking at Florida, which is a state that has seemed so red for so long, and then now you have a Democratic mayor in Miami and it looks like that ICE may have really alienated Latino voters. Are you hopeful? Do you see anything or do you think it's just too optimistic? Well, look, I think in some areas, right, because they use old numbers and the ground has shifted beneath them. Right. I think there'll be some areas that they thought they would pick up seats that they're then they're now going to lose. And then, of course, they forced Democratic states to have to play the game. It's not a game we wanted to play. But if you don't play, you lose. So we had to play and we played. We played hard. And look, in some instances, we've either made sure that their efforts have been neutralized or maybe even we can gain a seat or two. Can I be honest? I don't know if any of this is going to matter because I think you're going to see a huge victory in November anyway. I don't think we're going to win the House by one or two or three seats. I think we're going to win the House in a much larger number. We're a plus six on the generic ballot. I think Democrats are in a good spot. The president is upside down on his two strongest issues, immigration and the economy. Those are the two things that propelled him into office, the two things he ran on. And he's upside down on both of those issues. As far as Florida's concerned, obviously, look, the president lied about TPS for Venezuelans. He told them that they were fine. Then he got rid of TPS. He lied about TPS for Haitians. He told them he would be fine. Then he got rid of TPS. And yeah, the Cuban community is watching all of this, thinking to themselves, this is ridiculous. This is part of what they escaped from Cuba and other areas in Latin America is the Latin American community watches some of this. And so, yes, we have a we now have a Democratic mayor in Miami. And I think you're going to see major changes in the voting bloc in both the Puerto Rican community and in which is in like Orlando, Orange County area and in the Cuban community in Dade County. As far as Florida is concerned, look, Florida is the MAGA capital of the world. OK, you know, that's where we have all the boat parades. If you've never been Mali, I highly recommend you go to one. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know, but get some sun. Yeah. Oh, sun. I love sun. Big into sun. Yeah, I could see that. But DeSantis and Trump are going to try to do something there. I think they're really waiting to see what happens with the Voting Rights Act at the Supreme Court. They want to get these black voting districts struck down. So really, if the Supreme Court does that, then there are a lot of seats around the country that could get redrawn. The question is really going to be about timing. If the Supreme Court does historically what they do, voting rights cases, voting cases, things that can affect an election are usually the last decision of the session. So that would be in June. So if that happens, you're not going to be able to do anything with the 26th election. But Republicans in Florida set a special session to deal with redistricting at the end of April. So there's some belief that maybe they could get that decision earlier. If they do get that decision earlier, they will try to redraw three, four of us out of our seats in Florida. I think that's what the governor has said. Even though, by the way, we have a constitutional amendment that the voters voted for in Florida that forbids that exact sort of behavior. So whatever they do, it's going to go to the state Supreme Court and we'll have to see how that works. Jesus. Congressman, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. And now your moment of fuckery. Jesse Cannon. Molly, let me set the stage for you. So we saw blockbuster reporting in The New Yorker and previous reporting from BBC that Elon Musk, when you're on his X for you page, what you see if you are interacting with far leftist content is a ton of right wing content, too. But if you're a right winger, you see barely any leftist content. So to get to that, Wired has a really, really great piece of journalism that the White House is running. One of the main accounts that is boosted by this, an account that I as a leftist get all the time, Johnny Maga. Yes, Johnny Maga. By the way, I thought Johnny Maga, who I have blocked, of course, I was sure Johnny Maga was just like some guy in India. You know, some kind of bot farm in another country. But it turns out that actually it's run by a White House staffer. And that's important because and this is, by the way, good reporting on the part of Wired, is that Johnny Maga is run by a White House staffer. And this is the account that tweeted out the video depicting Barack and Michelle Obama's apes. That means that the Trump White House is involved in, you know, when Trump said he didn't even watch it. It turns out his people made it. And I think like that's really important. We often like let Trump kind of dismiss things, weasel out of them. And this it's a really big deal. So, you know, it's just like what we saw with Homeland Security. it's just really really bad and worrying and it's also the way in which elon's x is trying to shape the narrative it's funny because it's like you just think about it johnny maga an account created in september 2021 it was originally had a different handle which referenced wade's birth year the guy who works in the trump white house by the way in a normal white house this would be like everyone who knew about this would get fired. Yeah, this reminds me of when the White House briefing room where they had the inside plant who was also a male escort. This is like the modern day version. Yeah, but Garrett Wade, it is just yet another day in the Trump White House. Astro-turfing to pretend he has real support. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday to hear the best minds in politics make sense of all this chaos. 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