The Epstein Coverup Runs Deep - 5CAST (#15) ft. Congressman Ro Khanna

They cared more about being part of the Epstein class than they did about the working class girls who were being r*****. They were begging this guy to invite them to his parties, to his home, to his island. And that's what's sick. Like, how did we produce an elite like that? They need to be torn down.

Whenever you brought forth the Disclosure Act, what was the first reaction of the DOJ? Wasn't it pretending that there were no files to begin with? They fought us every step of the way. They said Massey and I are cranks, that we're conspiracy theorists,

that we have no idea what we're talking about.

There was no client list.

There is no credible information. If there were, I would bring the case yesterday.

We got Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nancy Mace to stand with us. They threatened them. They chased Marjorie Taylor Greene out of Congress. They called Lauren Boebert into the Situation Room, where the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, and others said, get off Conor and Massey's district petition. They intimidated folks.

Then when we got it passed, they went in a full court press to try to get every Republican to vote against it. And Massey and I had 70 Republicans willing to vote against Donald Trump. He saw the writing on the wall, so he said, OK, I'll sign the bill. Then they tried to get it amended in the Senate. No senator was willing to stand up for these pedophiles, so they couldn't get it amended,

but we fought, we got it passed. So then what did they do? They thought, okay, we'll just do a meaningless dump on December 19th, they'll keep quiet. But we didn't, we said, this is total BS. And then we pushed and now finally they've done a real release of the files. I mean, they still have 50% of the most nuclear stuff, but now they've exposed it. Now everyone sees that they're a bunch of rich and powerful people who are above the

law in America and that they're two tiers of justice and that these are some of the most connected people. They're the ones who give money to politicians. Why do you think people didn't want to do what Massey and I did because you're offending the donors in this country. If you want to be in politics, you probably don't want to offend the billionaires. And that's why this thing has been hidden for decades.

That's why Democrats and Republicans didn't expose this. Let's just be honest. It wasn't just a Trump thing. There were administration after administration. They wanted to protect these people, and they're still protecting some of them.

All right. It is officially been the best week for QAnon grandmas since January 6th, 2021.

You guys did this to us!

I'm of course referring to the recent drop of 3 million Epstein files.

Today we are producing more than 3 million pages.

And I'm saying the QAnon thing kind of in jest because evidence in the files does suggest that Ghislaine Maxwell worked directly with 4chan founder Christopher Poole, aka Moot, to create the board Poll, which set the framework and molded the community that later became QAnon. Makes me think that looking back at those crazy times, it may have all been a psychological operation to feed people half-truth and half-dumb bullshit

to make the whole thing seem totally unbelievable, and associate the Epstein flight logs with lizards in the moon and the flat Earth. Earth is flat, Jack. Flatter than a flapjack. In many ways, yes, the Epstein files are very serious and extreme. They feature lengthy allegations and direct evidence pointing to child abuse involving

some of the most powerful people on the planet, many of whom claim they had no connection to Epstein whatsoever, and even campaigned on the promise of releasing some of the files. It's been over three million documents as I mentioned, which is a lot to take in. And I, like many of you guys probably, have watched some amazing coverage about certain documents,

but have a hard time wrapping my head around what is in all of them. So I figured now was the time to bring somebody on who can give us all a very extensive breakdown about what's going on in the files and what may be coming next as far as judicial consequences consequences for these six sadistic child traffickers. So today we're going to have Congressman Ro Khanna, an actual congressman up in the building,

somebody from the House of Representatives chilling in the house of Channel 5 to help us make real informational content happen. Ro Khanna represents the 17th district here in California, which encompasses parts of the South Bay and Silicon Valley area. But before we dive into all that, I want to let you guys know that we are currently on tour and will be going on tour for the next two and a half months. I'm hosting something called the All Gas No Brakes Channel 5 Carnival, which is a talent

show slash rap battle slash magician extravaganza featuring amazing talent from across this great nation and three uncensored documentaries that are to be screened from the All Gas No Brakes relaunch and also one special secret Channel 5 documentary. So if you live in a variety of cities across the US and Canada, such as Orlando, Richmond, Boston, Detroit, Madison, St. Paul, Salt Lake City, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Philly, Seattle, LA, SF, Portland, Austin, Dallas, Denver, Vancouver, Atlanta, El Paso, Phoenix, San San Diego or Albuquerque, you can get a ticket to the show right now at www.channel5.news.

If you go to our website, you'll see a page or a tab right there that says C5 Carnival All Gas No Brakes Tickets. You can click on that and you'll see a full list of ticket links. So if you wanna buy a ticket, I will see you on tour. It's gonna be a great time and I heard these things shelf like hot cake, so now is your time. Now before we get into the Epstein files, which are very important, I want to share

two positive stories. As we know, the news favors negativity because it makes more money and because bad stuff happening also is important too. But the internet doesn't catch all the good things and good developments that have been happening in America and across the world. So here we go.

Our first positive story of the day is that overdose deaths are down by over 20% according to new CDC data It's been the longest sustained drop in overdose rates in multiple decades. The deaths went from over a hundred and ten thousand in 2023 It's roughly seventy three thousand last year, which is more than 70 lives saved every single day compared to back at the peak of the fentanyl Crisis, so wherever your politics land It's a massive deal that fentanyl related overdose deaths have gone down and I'm very happy to hear this. Second positive story, the US murder rate has hit its lowest level since

1900. In 2025, last year, murders plummeted more than 20% the single largest one-year drop on record in modern American history. This year, there's even less homicides than last year and by the end of the year the rate is likely to land at about four per 100,000 people which is just fantastic news and cities that have a reputation for violence historically like Detroit, Philadelphia and Baltimore are actually leading the charge and are on the track for their lowest murder rate since the 1960s and San Francisco also kind of a controversial city is on pace for its lowest homicide rate since

1940. Also other crime across the country is down. Carjackings are down 61% since 2023, and shoplifting is down 10%. But nobody really knows exactly why. I will leave that to the scientists. All I know is we have two great pieces of historic American news that have come out this week, and you all should know about them.

Now before we get into the Ro Khanna interview, I wanna remind you guys of something. The Epstein files are over three million documents, which is a lot of coverage to sort through as a news consumer. And depending on where you get your news, you'd think completely different things happen. For example, Fox News led their story

with photos of Bill Clinton shirtless in a hot tub talking to Michael Jackson. Whereas if you look at liberal media, CNN led with how the files reveal close ties between Epstein and Trump's inner circle. So we have the same document drop being covered from two different angles. When I'm trying to prep for an interview today like this one with the congressman, I need to know exactly what's being reported by both sides of the media and of course what is being left out. So ground news lets me

see all of that in one place. So on the Epstein story alone, there are hundreds if not thousands of sources covering it. So Ground News shows you each outlet's bias, factuality, and ownership, which can tell you a lot about why certain names might get highlighted and others buried. What really stood out to me though is the blind spot tool and the blind spot feed. So Fox News went dark on the Trump-Epstein connection after Trump told his base to just move on saying it's no big deal. So they pivoted. But on the left, you know, Noam Chomsky advising Epstein on how to handle his putrid press got way less play.

So Ground News flags exactly that kind of gap, when major angles are only being covered by one side of the spectrum. It gives you awareness. You're not just reacting to whatever headline happens to show up in your algorithm.

You get to see the full picture, and with a story this big, that matters more than ever. Channel 5 trusts Ground News to help us cut straight through the noise, and if you want to follow the Epstein file story, or anything else we may have covered, go to my link in the description below at groundnews.com. They're also giving my viewers, you guys, 40% off the unlimited access Vantage subscription, bringing the cost down to less than 5 bucks a month. So scan the QR code here, or click the link below to sign up. I personally really believe in what they're doing and I encourage you to

check them out because also subscribing to Ground News directly supports my channel so I can continue to make videos like this and keep this independent media team on the ground and transparent. Alright guys you ready for the interview with Ro Khanna? Let's get into it. Wait wait wait one more thing. If you want to listen to this podcast on audio only form, like if you're a truck driver and you have to haul America's loads across this great nation, and don't want to look at the screen and crash or get distracted, you can go on Spotify, Amazon,

Apple Music, and many other platforms to listen to this entire interview. Just look up the word 5CAST in all caps, you'll see a beautiful image of a autumn field with the 5CAST logo emblazoned on the front of that. All right, let's get into it. Thank you so much for making the time. I really appreciate it.

Appreciate you. Yeah. Thanks for flying up on Super Bowl weekend.

Congratulations on helping to get the files released.

Well, it was the survivors who came to the Capitol twice, but Thomas Massey and I didn't let up. We were called cranks. called conspiracy theorists, but we believe that people in those files who did heinous things need to be exposed.

And how do you currently feel about the amount of files that have been dropped? Is it enough?

No. I mean, it's the largest release ever, and it's showing how rotten our elite were, some of the biggest names in finance, in real estate, in tech, in politicians, having gone to Epstein's Island, knowing that young girls were being raped there, and they're sending emails saying, oh, when can you schedule me for the island? I mean, it's heinous, but about 3 million files haven't been released. I'm taking a red eye actually back tonight to DC, and Thomas Massey and I are going to

go in tomorrow afternoon to see some of these unredacted files and see why they blocked out names of people who have said, oh, I had a good time with a naughty girl, or I saw a nine-year-old Brazilian, and they have their names redacted.

And why do you think some of those names may have been redacted?

It seems that they're protecting rich and powerful people who committed heinous crimes. I mean, this is what people hate about this country, that there is a group of people, rich and powerful people, who are above the law. I call it the Epstein class. I mean, how is it possible that all these people knew Epstein? How is it possible they all wanted to go to his island?

And they wanted to do it after he was a convicted pedophile.

So before we get into the painstaking process of actually getting these files released, I think a lot of Americans have seen like little snippets of the recent file dump here and there, but are a bit confused as to how to wrap their head around this mass dump of information. What do you think are the most important pieces of evidence that every American should see

from the most recent file release? They should look at who all is in the files that emailed Epstein about going to the island. I've said all those people should be hold in front of Congress. There's some of the biggest names in technology, They're some of the biggest names in technology, they're some of the biggest names in real estate, they're some of the biggest names in finance. Partly, they're benefiting because there's so many of them. There's so many people

like Bill Gates, they just think that, oh, well, let me just hide, let me go underground so people don't see that I'm actually in these files. But slowly, they're all coming out. And each of these people who are in these files needs to be asked some basic questions. Why did you want to go to Epstein's Island? Don't give me BS. Don't tell me, oh, you're there to raise money. I've raised a lot of money in my life. I don't go to islands where young girls are being raped to do that. You can do that in New York City at a restaurant. Why did you go there? What did you participate in? What did you do? And they need to be answering these questions under oath. Who are some of the names that you think are most prominent

that were in the most recent dump?

Oh, look, I mentioned Gates as a name that was in the files. Just because they're in the files and they say that they went to Epstein doesn't mean that they're necessarily guilty, but they do need to answer questions. Why were they going to this island?

What did they know? Who did they know? And there are tons of names. You know, I don't want to be out there saying the names because people may say, okay, he's just assuming their guilt. But they can just do a Google search and all the names will come up.

But was there anybody in there that caught you by surprise?

Gates caught me by surprise in terms of the explicit things, the fact that there's so many people from biggest names in tech caught me by surprise. Many of them are attacking me or upset at me, they're attacking Massey. The fact that there's so many people in New York, real estate moguls and finance folks, that caught me by surprise. And what caught me by surprise is how many of our elite are in those files. It caught me by surprise that he's talking to someone who is close to the British prime minister and getting tips about Britain going to buy euros, and he's trading on that information. It caught me by surprise how close he is to world leaders, that he's commenting

on the Indian prime minister meeting the Israeli prime minister, that people are talking to him about how to get access for foreign leaders in the United States. It caught me by surprise that he's got pictures of him with the CIA or meeting Will Burns, who's the head of our CIA.

And you said that you're being attacked for getting these files released?

Yeah, well, look at the number of people, the billionaires who've been attacking Massey and me online, on X, in cases of saying they're gonna spend against us or try to oust us. Now, they'll find other reasons to say it. They'll say, oh, I disagree with Roe's position on calling out the genocide in Gaza, or I disagree that he wants to tax billionaires more. They won't say they're doing it because we're exposing the Epstein files. I mean, no one is going to say, yeah, we don't like Massey and Kahne people whose names are in the Epstein files. Look at the people who are spending against Massey and do a correlation if their name

is in the Epstein files. And it's not rocket science why we have these enemies.

As far as Epstein Island goes, do you see it as more of like a destination for powerful pedophiles or do you think it's more like the center of a blackmail operation and a power broker base for somebody that was attempting to compromise various political business figures.

Peter Van Doren We don't know, is the honest answer. Julia Brown, who has done the most reporting on this, says that there are unanswered questions about Epstein's affiliation to intelligence, and we need to understand that. Frankly, we won't see that even in the unredacted files because a lot of that information is classified. What I've said is the President of the United States should put a trusted leader like a commission that can look at the classified information and do a report on what exactly Epstein's status was. We need someone who can actually go and look at the

classified information and have a clean report who's trusted by the American people. But what we do know is that Epstein was raping young girls on this island. What we do know is that there were parties taking place at this island at the New Mexico Ranch in New York where young girls underage were being paraded around naked. And we do know that powerful men went to these parties while underage girls were being raped. We do know that there were powerful and rich people who raped some of these girls.

One of these people, whose name I won't mention, but is in the files, actually fled the United States and is now, had raped this person in France and now is no longer even in France or the United States. So a lot of the people who committed these acts have left the jurisdiction because they were

never prosecuted.

Yeah, I think a lot of people are seeing all this stuff and seeing these big names and wondering is there any route toward prosecuting these powerful people? Like, is there any, is there court proceedings in motion? Like is there anything happening to hold these people accountable?

There needs to be a prosecution. There needs to be investigation. I mean, there have been two people who have been prosecuted, Maxwell and Epstein, and there are over 1,200 survivors. Just look at it from common sense. You think two people raped all these survivors? And then the survivors have told Massey and me

the type of people who raped them when they were 15, 16, 17. You'd have to believe that they're all lying. What has happened though is some people have left the United States who rape these young girls. Some of them have never been investigated. And so the first thing is we need investigation. What bothers me is that the DOJ is not even willing to investigate. They haven't asked questions under oath of people who've said they're going to the island. Why not investigate them? And then they should, of course, prosecute

the people who were involved in raping these underage girls, even if it was 15 years ago. The Statue of Limitations hasn't run. And I think they think, let's just move on. Let's just move on. But we will not restore trust in this country

if people believe that a few rich and powerful people are above the law. So much so that you can rape underage girls, laugh about it, joke about it, and never face prosecution. And it angers Americans that we have this two tiers of justice in this country.

What was the extent of Trump's involvement in the recent file release?

Oh, look, he, Massey and I have always said this is not about Donald Trump, it's not about Bill Clinton. The reason we did that is because we wanted it to be bipartisan. We wanted it to be transparent. We said it's about making sure that we get justice for survivors. That said, there were documents released that had tips about Trump, and then suddenly that document was taken offline. So one of the questions I have tomorrow is why was that document taken offline? One of the questions I want to ask Maxwell tomorrow,

she's being deposed, is what did Donald Trump do on the island? Did he have any encounter with underage girls? The problem is, Ghislaine Maxwell said she's going to take the fifth. Now, you tell me, how is it her telling what other people did implicating her?

And yet, she's taking a blanket Fifth Amendment and not answering any of these questions. So my view is release all the files, do an investigation, go where the facts are. But I have never made this political and neither has Massey.

But I think the reason that it has that political association is I'm somebody who was covering a lot of like QAnon stuff back in the day. And I want to get into how I feel like, well, there's evidence actually that Maxwell had like her tentacles in the kind of 4chan universe and was sort of trying to move the goalpost and associate child trafficking with like pizza gate and flat earth to kind of make everything look dumb and illegitimate. But backing up a little bit, I think the reason so many people are curious about Musk and Trump's involvement is that they were campaigning on like releasing the files, trading the swamp,

and exposing this global cabal of satanic pedophiles. So I think now we're in this full circle moment where it appears that they are involved in the recent file release, or their names are implicated in that stuff.

Well, their names are certainly there. And when Massey and I started with the Epstein Transparency Act, we thought Trump would support it. Like, he campaigned on this. JD Vance campaigned on it. They went on podcast after podcast saying, we got to release these files. They're rich and powerful people. They raped underage girls. They have no justice.

This was a core part of Make America Great Again, of Drain the Swamp. It was one of the top few things they campaigned on. So we thought we'd get his support. Now, he did sign the law that I wrote, but that was after a lot of pressure.

And now they are more concerned about protecting rich and powerful people. And he hasn't explained what exactly his relationship was. He should come before Congress, just like Clinton is, and take the questions. And Maxwell should be transparent, and they should release the rest of these files.

So was Trump on the island?

I don't know. Like, I'm not going to... I'm so careful because I don't want anyone ever say Conor or Massey are out there for conspiracy theories or political things. I only speak about what I know. And the reality is there's no document right now that establishes your point one way or the other.

So that's a question he should be asked. But then if you release all the files, we would have much, much more knowledge.

What particular document in the in the recent file dump do you feel like is the most symbolic or emblematic of just like the level of depravity that was going on on the island?

Wow, there's so many. But what I would say is the fact that there are these documents where young, where people are trying to abstain about being with a naughty girl, being with a nine-year-old Brazilian,

being with an 11-year-old Brazilian, being with an 11-year-old, and their names are redacted, their names are blacked out. And you see these emails of people talking basically about raping or abusing underage girls. That's the depravity. It's not just what happened, but it's why are these people being protected? How are they so powerful? How are they so powerful that someone in the Justice Department is protecting them? And I am convinced with every fiber of my being that there were more rich and powerful men who

raped these underage girls than just Maxwell and Epstein. And their names are being blotted out. That's the real tragedy. And then the second thing is just how many powerful people were involved in this. Like, it's sick. You make a billion dollars, you make all this money. It's not like these rich, powerful people have trouble getting a woman in their lives and then they've got to do this. Like, come on.

So you feel like the billionaire sadistic depravity thing kind of goes hand in hand with being a pedophile.

I think that the billionaires look horrible in this. I mean, the amount of billionaires that are there with Epstein and going to his island and begging him to go to the island. And then you know what was so callous? There was someone who was Prince Andrew's former girlfriend. I forget her name, Lady something. I don't know how she became a lady. And she says, oh, you're a loser if you weren't in the Epstein files. Did you see this?

No, I didn't.

She says you're a loser because you weren't part of the rich and powerful club. He knew everybody that was very powerful. So like if you were on the scene and you were powerful, like to be honest, like if you're not in those files, it would be an insult because it just means that you were a bit of a loser.

Right. So the people who aren't in the files are losers.

Yes.

So if you're not mentioned in the Epstein files, you don't matter. They cared more about being part of the Epstein class than they did about the working class girls who were being raped. They were begging this guy to invite them to his parties, to his home, to his island. And that's what's sick. Like, how did we produce an elite like that? They need to be torn down. They need to be held accountable. They need to be prosecuted where they committed crimes. It's not a political issue. I don't care if you think I'm a progressive Democrat, don't agree with anything I stand for. You should agree that there should be justice in this country.

Yeah, it's a real full circle moment, I feel like. Because for such a long time, it felt like you only ever heard the word Epstein and all the file stuff like in the conservative orbit. At least for me, because I've been covering this kind of thing for so long, like I mentioned. It's like the conservatives and the Republican Party seem to be the one generally running cover for Trump and the other people on the Epstein client list and in the files.

But like you said, I don't think it's that political. But at this point, it just seems crazy because it's like, you know, whenever you brought forth the Disclosure Act, what was the first reaction of the DOJ?

Wasn't it pretending that there were no files to begin with? fought us every step of the way. They said Massey and I are cranks, that we're conspiracy theorists, that we have no idea what we're talking about. Finally, Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nancy Mace, to stand with us. They threatened them. They chased Marjorie Taylor Greene out of Congress.

They called Lauren Boebert into the Situation Room where the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, and others said, get off Conor and Massey's district petition. They intimidated folks. Then when we got it passed, they went in a full court press to try to get every Republican to vote against it. And Massey and I had 70 Republicans willing to vote against Donald Trump. He saw the writing on the wall, so he said, okay, I'll sign the bill. Then they tried to get it amended in the Senate. No senator was willing to stand up for these pedophiles. So they couldn't get it amended, but we fought, we got it passed. So then what did they do? They thought, okay, we'll just do a meaningless dump on December 19th. They'll keep quiet. But we didn't. We said, this is total BS. And so then we pushed

and now finally they've done a real release of the files. I mean, they still have 50% of the most nuclear stuff, but now they've exposed it. Now everyone sees that they're a bunch of rich and powerful people who are above the law in America, and that they're two tiers of justice, and that these are some of the most connected people. They're the ones who give money to politicians. Why do you think people didn't want to do what Massey and I did? Because you're offending the donors in this country. You're offending the people they're going to primary me. You've got billionaires spending money against Thomas Massey. If you want to be in politics, you probably don't want to offend the billionaires.

And that's why this thing has been hidden for decades. That's why Democrats and Republicans didn't expose this. Let's just be honest. It wasn't just a Trump thing. There were administration after administration that wanted to protect these people, and they're

still protecting some of them. So you built a pretty much apolitical, nonpartisan, anti-pedophile coalition.

Anti-pedophile and anti-rich and powerful people screwing the law. Yeah, just because you have a billion dollars, just because you get to have dinner with a president doesn't mean you get to rape underage girls. Isn't that kind of how we believe democracy in America

is supposed to work. I know in the past with kings and aristocrats, they got to do whatever they wanted. They had harems, but that's not America. Like in this case, just because you have a billion dollars doesn't make you better than you or me.

Is there a way to prosecute people like Kash Patel, who tried to basically say early on that there were no files to begin with and that Epstein wasn't involved in trafficking kids to anybody besides himself. Like, isn't that kind of like a I don't know if the word is perjury or something

like that? Well, look, Cashew used to come before Congress and explain himself. But here's what he said. He said that they couldn't release any more files. But then he should have supported Massey and my bill, because Massey and my bill basically gave them the authority to go to the judges and say, look, we want to have the grand jury released. And instead, he just said, well, there's nothing we can do.

And so I think he owes the Congress an explanation, and he owes them an explanation why he said what he did, why the law that we passed changed it, because there really were restrictions on FBI and justice for releasing files before the law. It's our law that made it possible.

But he certainly owes the American people an explanation. He should come before Congress and then he should answer and held accountable. Pam Bondi is coming this week. I mean, she should be impeached if we don't get the rest of the files. But it's not been a witch hunt, right?

I could have, Massey and I could have tried to impeach her three weeks ago. Our concern isn't to go after Pam Bondi or just Kash Patel. who raped these girls and to get that exposed. Like, that's my motive, not to score points in the Trump administration.

Yeah, I know your main thing is justice for survivors of this horrific situation, but there's been a lot of speculation, just like I said earlier, about what Jeffrey Epstein's specific role was. Because you talk about control and this elite class of billionaires, and I think most people that I talk to

think it was some kind of like blackmail, honeypot style operation where people maybe didn't know they were getting involved with underage people. They went there, got caught on camera doing something horrible. Now they're effectively owned by whatever intelligence apparatus is backing Epstein. Do you give credence to that theory?

I don't think we can rule out that he had connections with intelligence agencies. The reason I say that very carefully is that Julia Brown, who has done more reporting on this than ever, has said she can't rule it out. And this release shows that he met with William Burns. What is he doing meeting with someone who heads the CIA? It shows that he has a picture at the CIA headquarters.

And Langley?

Yeah. Outside the building or inside the building? I think it's inside. I mean, the picture is out there publicly. Why? publicly, like why? And there are legitimate questions about his role in connection to intelligence agencies.

Epstein also had close ties to our own intelligence agencies and Israel's intelligence agencies. That's why there's so much effort in trying to stop this. And I do believe they'll try

to stop it somewhere else.

The reality is, though, I can't tell you or Massey can't tell you that because people say, well, why didn't you pass a law saying declassify the information and give us the classified information? Because the law would never pass. It'd be unconstitutional. The only person who can declassify is the president of the United States.

Congress can't declassify information. So the President of the United States has to create a commission to look into the classified information with someone we actually trust, not a political hack, to do a report for the American people about who was Jeffrey Epstein and what were his connections. And I don't know if Trump's gonna do it, the next president should do it. And this should be a central pledge of a president to understand because if Epstein could do it, we're still vulnerable

to someone else who may be able to do it. It's definitely still happening if he did it before. He's probably just a fall guy for a deeper situation.

Well, like I said, these are questions that need to be asked and the next president should be committed to having a commission to find this out. I would appreciate if the president did it, but he can't put like Pam Bondi in charge or one of his political folks in charge, pick someone in this country, military background, intelligence background, who has the respect of the American people to go look through the intelligence. It can't be Congress, and to do a report on who it

is. So you sound optimistic about a future wherein all these people are prosecuted, all the people who are in the files, all the people that helped cover it up, and then we're gonna have a president who's gonna officially declassify whatever other files relate to who Epstein was working for. You think we could actually have a utopian future like that where the true swamp was drained?

I'm not Pollyannish. It's going to be really hard. But I think this is the central issue in this country because you can't have trust in government if rich and powerful people seem above the law. And if there's not one prosecution out of this, people are gonna say, what's going on? Because it's not like these people just embezzled funds. They raped girls.

They showed up at parties where girls 15, 14 were paraded naked. Like if you can get away with that, what can't you get away with? And if we are unable to expose and prosecute that, we're basically letting down the American people's faith in democracy. And that's why

I think it is central. That's why Trump won in part, because he said he was going to go after the two tiers of justice. He was going to drain the swamp. And that's what the American people want. That's why they identify with Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders has the same sort of message on not two tiers of justice. The difference is Sanders actually believes it. Trump, you know, just got in there and like now he's protecting the very people he said he was going to drain.

Is there anything in the files about like a cult worship and like Satanism and stuff

like that? I haven't seen it. I mean, there's some people I've seen on online, I mean I haven't read all three million of the files, but there's some pretty disgusting stuff in the files in terms of just racism, ugly comments about people based on their race, their religion, so you know, I mean people can see that

and it's a lens into our elite, and it's a lens into how these people talk behind the scenes.

They're racist on the emails? Well, there are some emails that are clearly racist. I'm not saying everyone is racist. I know that, but I'm saying what particular racial groups do they seem to have the most negativity towards?

Well, look, there are some comments about people, this goyim, goyism term.

I think the word goyim is how Jews refer to non-Jews.

Well, there were some very derogatory comments I saw about that and like that. There are other comments in there that, not everyone, but that people have made. And it's an ugly look. I mean, look, when Nixon's tapes were released, there were a lot of ugly things in there. This is an accountability moment for how some of our elite talk and how they talk about women, like, you know, just objectifying young girls.

Well, that doesn't surprise me given Epstein's track record. I was definitely a little more shocked to see the, like, goyam stuff. You know, I'm not like necessarily super into conspiracy theories, but it definitely gives a clue as to, you know, who Epstein may have been working for.

Well, look, I have no idea in terms of whether Epstein was connected to intelligence agencies either here or overseas. Obviously, it is surprising to me and shocking to me that he had the access he did to foreign leaders. Why is he meeting as many times with Pete Mendelsohn of Gordon Brown? Why is he meeting with Barack?

Obama.

Did he meet Obama? Okay, you said Barack. You're not referring to Obama. Ehud Barak, the Israeli Prime Minister.

Okay. Just making sure Obama's not a bad guy.

Yeah. I don't want to get... I don't want to start some conspiracy theorist here. Okay. No, I get it. Ehud Barak. And to the point where Prime Minister Netanyahu had to make a statement about the whole thing. You know, why is he meeting and facilitating things for the Indian prime minister? Why is he meeting with people in Russia and trying to arrange meetings with Putin?

Like, who is this guy? You know, I mean, like, I don't have that kind of access. I've been in Congress 10 years on the Armed Services Committee.

Yeah, what was Netanyahu's statement?

Netanyahu said, well, Barack was undermining Israel and everything he was doing was not for Israel, but undermining Israel. But the point is the fact that the sitting prime minister in Israel was having to comment about what Barack was doing just shows how extensive it is. And you know what upsets people in America is we've got people in the cabinet who are sitting there exposed in the files.

Like this is basically going to take down the British government because of Mendelsohn, one person. And here we've got all these people and we're just like, ah, life goes on. Trump's saying, let's move on, let's watch the Super Bowl. How about like we take care of people who were affiliated with a known pedophile, who were going to his home and his events and his parties knowing that he raped young girls? Like,

how about we have some reckoning, accountability in this country. Yeah, you mentioned the Super Bowl. I'm of the belief that a lot of the recently deployed culture war distractions in the media have been to distract from various Epstein-related information dumps. You know what I mean? Like right now, if you look on the news today, it's all about Bad Bunny and his halftime show and Trump saying, why do we have a Spanish-speaking singer? He needs to get deported back to Puerto Rico, which is a U.S. territory,

all that stuff.

And there's been- He's as bitter as that bad bunny endorsed Kamala Harris last election, yeah.

What are some, how have you seen that sort of distraction theater play out over the past

few months?

Well, look, some of it has not been distraction. It's actually been really devastating, you know, just killing people in the Caribbean on boats, having ice go as rogue as they did in killing Alex Pretty and killing Rene Good. But some of it is to distract from what the biggest news story is of our times, which is that the most rich and powerful people in this country were caught up with a pedophile and were asking to go to his home, his ranch or his island, knowing that young girls would be there.

Like, this, it's mind-blowing. And Massey said, it's bigger than Watergate, it's bigger than Iran-Contra, and it is a bigger indictment of the American elite. I don't think we've ever had this kind of a scandal that so many people from every facet of society,

from Hollywood, from tech, from finance, from real estate, from Hollywood, from tech, from finance, from real estate, from politicians, were caught up with one guy in raping young girls.

How do you feel about the mainstream media's coverage

of all this? I don't think it has gone deep enough in holding people accountable. You know, it's like they put, they're so focused on what files have been released, what files haven't been released,

what about all the people who are in the files? What about actually just going through the top hundred prominent people and like having an analysis of what questions they should be asked and asking them those questions? Like, what did you know? Where did you go? You know, all these people suddenly are changing their statements. Oh yeah, I met him once. No, no, now I met him three times because these files are out. Well, like, what's the truth? And why were you meeting him when he was a pedophile? So I don't think there's been enough coverage of the actual people who have committed these crimes.

I don't think there's been enough attention on the class issue. This is a class issue in America. They're rich and powerful people who believe the law doesn't apply to them, who think they're above the law. And everyone else, you know, you get parking tickets, your car gets booted if you don't pay them, right? You go through a red light, you get that camera ticket back home.

You pay those things. And here you got a group of people who think the rules don't apply to them. Why? Because they're giving money to politicians. You think they like Epstein's company?

I mean, come on, what is it? I mean, yeah, some of them, it's because of the gratification of his island. Some of them is because he's giving a lot of money or influential people are giving money to politics. And there's a donor class. It's an Epstein class that doesn't think the rules apply, that gets to rig the system.

So the donor class would be like the people who are in charge of super PACs, people who fund political campaigns, invest or provide investment money to big tech companies. That's

what you're talking about? I'm talking about in the donor class, particularly the people who give money to politicians. You can get millions of dollars in a super PAC. One person sees this interview, I don't like Ro Khanna, okay, I'm gonna start a super PAC, put millions of dollars in, take him out.

That's what they're threatening to do. They're doing it to Massey. Right now, funding his opponent. And so you've got all these people with all this money. And most politicians say, well, I can't take that on. And so they think the rules don't apply to them. There were survivors I talked to were told, don't call the New York police.

Don't call the FBI, because those agents won't do anything against the rich and powerful. Maria made a complaint to the FBI in 1996 and nothing happened. And they called her a liar. And just because of the files we released, it came out that she was telling the truth, that the FBI sat on this for decades.

Are there any super PACs that have targeted you specifically recently?

There have been people who have said that they're standing up with super PAC and they will see. We'll see if they, you know, I'm popular in my district and people like me, but there are certainly people on X and others who are organizing. There's a petition, a crowdfund petition going on to get other billionaires to support this. And New York Times had a headline saying they're targeting me to try to oust me this June. So yeah, I mean, you take risk when you stand up for these types of things. But to me, you know, my grandfather spent four years in jail as part of Gandhi's independence

movement. You know, he took on the British Empire. I'm just taking on a group of pedophiles. I mean, that's not the same stakes, but I think that you're in Congress for justice and you got to fight for your principles. Nat Malkus Do you ever worry about your safety? Yeah, look, I've been blessed.

So far I have been fine. And you know, there are a lot of people in our military and all who take much bigger risks every day. I think as a member of Congress, you know, you're not on the front lines. I think about the safety of the... I'm on the Armed Services Committee, but the troops are stationed overseas. They're the ones who are taking the most risks. What's your least favorite war? Well, the Iraq war was one I ran against. You know, when I was 27 years old, I was the first

person to run for Congress against a Democrat taking on the Iraq war. And I have led on getting us out of overseas wars. You know, we should never have been giving Saudi the arms refueling to go into Yemen. We should never have toppled Qaddafi in Libya, which led to a huge mess. We should never have been giving Saudi the arms refueling to go into Yemen. We should never have toppled Qaddafi in Libya, which led to a huge mess. We should have gone after Al-Qaeda, but we shouldn't have been in Afghanistan for 20 years.

I am against regime change wars. I rather we be spending our money on people here, creating jobs here, healthcare here. I'm against this Pentagon budget that's going to be over 56%. And it's not going to our troops, it's going to defense contractors. And this is why people are angry. They see this rich and powerful people that basically are getting us into overseas wars that don't follow the law, think they're above the law, that have rigged the

economy. You know, income inequality in this country is at its highest, it's been in 60

years.

I didn't know that. You know, workers' share of the GDP is the lowest it's been in 75 years.

And does that have to do with the collapse of the small business sector and the minimum wage not rising while the cost of living, it doesn't continue to grow?

It has to do with jobs being offshored, industries being offshored, minimum wage not rising. It's still at $7.25. Unions being decimated. The very rich not paying their share of the tax. The fact that the healthcare costs have gone up, childcare costs have gone up.

And so you've got massive economic inequality. People don't have good paying jobs. They can't, they're drowning with healthcare costs, going bankrupt if someone gets a healthcare issue. And they see a system where the rich are basically buying off politicians, where there's no justice, and they're angry. That's why I thought Trump won twice, because he said, yeah, I'm going to fix it.

We're going to fix everything about our country.

And our party was like, well, where things are, things are going pretty okay. And people are like, no, they're not going okay. The system is rigged.

It's screwed up.

And I think now both sides, a new generation, have to say, yeah, the system is fundamentally corrupt and messed up, and we've got to have a different way that actually helps working class folks.

Maybe it's a bit off topic here, but on a local level, there have been some positive developments in the Bay Area recently. We've covered San Francisco pretty extensively, and the overdose rate is way down. How do you feel about the leadership of Daniel Lurie and the new changes in the city?

I like him. I think he's been pragmatic. I think he understands that you can't just have an open drug culture in a city, that that's not the way that you have public safety. He has compassion, but he also understands that you can't just

go in and smash a Walgreens and take stuff and not have consequences, that if you commit crimes, doesn't mean we lock you up forever, but you have to face consequences. So he's got work to do still, but I think he has actually done a good job. Have you talked to him?

No, I haven't yet. But, you know, it's like we covered SF when it was kind of at its worst, like in that era, like in the in the couple years after the pandemic, when it was really struggling to rebound. We filmed most of that stuff, like in the Tenderloin and elsewhere. I saw some of that. Yeah. And I've heard that like things have really changed for the better in San Francisco. If you look at the homicide, property crime and overdose rates, they've just really all dipped down. Since the 1990s, there hasn't been a successful mayor, I would argue, of San Francisco other than Dan Lurie. He's the first person who has taken on issues

of homelessness, issues of crime, issues of vacancy.

He's actually turning it around.

I just love mayors as well. Like, the mayor of Baltimore is also really great.

He's done great.

We talk about national change. Do you think that like really good local level management of like city funds and stuff could create a national change? It's sort of like a mosaic of well-run cities could come together?

Yeah, I do. I think we need good mayors like a Dan Lurie. Look, Matt Mahan, I don't agree with everything, but he's doing a good job in San Jose. He's also been someone who's tackled crime, tackled homelessness. I think having strong leaders. I think going after some of the waste and the fraud and the abuse that takes place in city governments and state governments is important so that we have transparency so that people know where their money is going.

And at the federal level, you know, the two biggest places, the black hole, in my view, is the defense budget. They haven't passed an audit for seven times. They failed an audit. Or Medicare Advantage, you know how that works? They tell people you're sicker than you actually are, and then they build a government for the person being sicker than they actually are. I mean, it's just being total

ripped off. So I think we have to go after waste, fraud, and abuse in city, state, and federal governments. So back to the Epstein files a little bit. This is something I found really interesting. So I don't know how much you looked into this, but Ghislaine Maxwell had a relationship with the founder of 4chan, Christopher Poole. His name online was Moot. And it basically showed that she was instrumental

in moderating a board called POL, P-O-L, and that was one of the really early incubation locations for what became QAnon and the Q drops I didn't know that in the Q drops really almost Resemble the reality of the recent Epstein file dump But they just include 10% of the craziest stuff you've ever heard in your life and it delegitimizes everything else now It's so interesting. So what they sort of did is effectively associate like Anunnaki lizard theory about snakes in the moon

controlling our minds, flat earth with like elite child sex trafficking, and kind of put everything in the loony bin and created these useless rabbit holes for people to dive down. And I just find it super interesting that the recent files proved a tangible connection between QAnon and Jeffrey Epstein.

I had no idea about that. More people need to know that. But the reality is some of the people who suspected that there were pedophiles that were being protected by the federal government turned out to be right. Like there are a lot of rich and powerful people who were involved with a pedophile, who were going to an island where pedophilia was taking place and faced no consequences, and actually were involved in making government decisions, as Epstein's file shows. He's talking to all these politicians. So

the instinct of the American people to suspect that something was wrong was correct. Now, it was in QAnon's case, it was presented with all of these conspiracy theories that are patently false, like they're, you know, they just went after things that make no sense or the pizza gate or, you know, naming particular people. But I didn't realize that that could have been an intentional effort, you're saying, to discredit the parts that are true of rich and powerful people engaging with a pedophile.

Yeah, it's almost like when people are guilty of something, they will like almost sort of self-confess a little bit and blame somebody else really intensely. Like most of the QAnon drops pointed everything to like Hillary Clinton, like as far away from Trump and all these people as possible. And now it seems like the conservative establishment, or at least like the MAGA establishment, was a lot closer to Epstein than we previously thought.

Absolutely. And Hillary Clinton had literally, from everything I've seen, nothing to do with them. She's going to testify, people are going to ask her. No, Clinton is in the files, Bill Clinton is in the files, and he owes the explanation to the American people. But yeah, I mean, that's why it was always seen as like targeted on her and not on the actual people who were on the island or doing these terrible things.

What are some of the inroads that you've seen between MAGA and Epstein?

Inroads meaning relationships? Look, I mean, there are obviously people in the Trump administration like Letnik and others are all over these files. There are people like the secretary of, I think it's the secretary of Navy that it was now it comes out that he was on Epstein's plane.

Obviously, there are tons of mentions of Trump in the files. The there are people who are huge funders of his who are all over the files. People from Silicon Valley, some

of these tech bros who funded him all over the files. So the the question is, what were they doing? What did they know? And how do you expose it? And the reality, there are a lot of Democrats too in there, right? I mean, and that's why it took both Massey and me. It took people saying,

we're not going to care if this takes down our own party. There are a lot of people who are upset at me because it's hurt some of the biggest donors of the Democratic Party are mentioned in the files, right? So I think it's not left or right anymore. It's sort of, why do we have a corrupt elite and how do we restart our country around basic principles which is no one is above the law.

You can't just be a billionaire and buy access to a politician. You've got to have a democracy that actually works and represents people.

Yeah. I think this might be a watershed moment that finally breaks the two-party system. I mean, at least I hope so, because I'm of the belief that the elite class in the country has a vested interest in making sure nothing changes. And that can be like establishment Democrats and conservatives. And I feel like this is all symbolized by Epstein and the files and all this stuff, because it's almost like this gridlock. They've engineered this like ultimate compliance situation

where it seems like you have anybody rich enough in the country is somehow wrapped up in this whole thing. It's almost hard to even think of who could be an outsider at this point. Obviously they exist, but it's like Bill Gates, Stephen Hawking, like you go down the list,

you're like, damn, who's not in this who has more than a billion dollars?

You know, I was talking to someone who's the son of a billionaire, and he was like, I was just holding my breath, and I was so relieved that my father's not in the files. And he's like, I didn't think my father would do anything dumb at the parties,

but I was like, just, was he part of this, right? And it's staggering to me. That should be the headline. The headline is all like, do they release the files? Do they not release the files? The headline should be, how are like every powerful person almost in America part of like Epstein's network? Like what's going on? How are they all part of this?

How long did the DOJ have access to these files for?

Well, they've had them for decades. So multiple administrations have their eyes on it. It's multiple administrations. And this is where I've been honest. I've said that this is not just a Donald Trump thing. This is multiple administrations that have sat on this, that have ignored these survivors. I've gotten to know these survivors personally.

Now, I first spoke out about this in 2019, but I didn't get passionate about this until this year where I met with all these survivors. And I was like, wow, this country has really shafted them. And they have been saying this since 2007. Their lawyers like Bradley Edwards have been talking about this for decades. And now I understand the reluctance to release these files, because you're basically exposing

the American elite. You're exposing the people who fund this fund the system, the political system. And so obviously you're going to be careful. And then they hide behind it. Well, they're not guilty. Well, they haven't been charged.

Okay. Yeah, they haven't been charged. No one is saying just you hold these people to jail, but maybe you should investigate them.

Maybe you should let the American people know what they've been up to. Well, the hard part is who would investigate them. It would be the Department of Justice, right? Like in order to bring federal litigation forward. But they'd have to sort of investigate themselves because they're the ones who've been ignoring all this information for so

long. Well, look, they're two different things. There's a political leadership that has ignored the information, but there are US attorneys who aren't taking orders from the political class. And if they just allowed for investigations to be opened up by some of the US attorneys where people are being asked questions, not just because you email Jeffrey Epstein saying, I want to go to your mansion, I want to go to your island, I don't want to go to your parties, doesn't mean you're guilty of a crime, but don't you think you should at least be

asked, did you go? Were they underage girls? Do you know if they're underage girls were being raped? Who else did you see? Like, that's how you do an investigation. So people are saying, oh, Roe, is this a witch hunt? No, it's not a witch hunt.

I'm not saying every single person in the files ought to be prosecuted. I'm not saying, but I do think every person who's investigated, asked questions. Nat Malkus And what is the route to actually investigating and being able to depose all the people that have potential connections to Jeffrey Epstein? David Schanzer Well, there are two different routes. One is Congress. We should open up an oversight subcommittee called the Epstein Committee and basically haul in front of Congress through subpoena power everyone who's been mentioned

in these files to have them testify to the American people under oath. Nat Malkus Everybody wants that to happen. You know, and that maybe that's what makes news today, that I believe we should actually call for that. And Comer should call for that. You know, he should take credit for it. He's the chair of the committee.

I mean, Garcia, when he becomes chair, next if we take Congress, but Comer should call for that. I'd support him. We'd get a bipartisan vote, the Epstein subcommittee, appoint Democrats, appoint Republicans on it, and start one by one by one. You can start with Bill Gates, just because he's the prominent name, but start 100 people and ask them questions. You know, you're so focused on the Clintons. I'm

glad the Clintons are testifying, but that's not gonna answer everything. Get these people in front of Congress. If this president isn't gonna do it, the next president should make two commitments, that they are actually going to investigate this in terms of where the law leads with the Justice Department, and that they're going to appoint someone as we discussed to look at the classified information and give a report to the American public that they can trust about what Epstein's status was and what actually took place. No one can do that other than an American president because that information is classified.

Wow. So only executive power could allow this subcommittee to be created?

David Schanzer No. The subcommittee can be created by Congress. Nat Malkus Okay. David Schanzer Two separate issues. Comer can do that tomorrow. He can say, I'm gonna create a subcommittee to have Epstein hearings. We're gonna start Epstein hearings tomorrow. That's what we should do. That's what any normal functioning the House, and you can do it in the Senate as well, but, you know, start with the House. Comer is the one who's been leading the calls on getting Bill and Hillary Clinton. Why not do it for everyone? Separately, the president needs to be able to look at the question that

you have and so many people have, what are Epstein's ties to intelligence? What are these

ties?

Nat Malkus Who did he work for? Gotcha. So if those two most robust investigation possible. It would be the most robust. And then the third is that the Justice Department needs to give their U.S. attorneys the green light that they can investigate as well people who could have gone to the island based on the files. If the Justice Department, you know, wants to open up new investigations, career prosecutors, they should be able to do that.

And do you think any of that will happen?

The Comer one, I don't understand why it wouldn't happen. I mean, it's the right politics for him. It's not substantive. I don't know what his hesitation would be. Maybe he'll see this and he'll agree. I would support it and be bipartisan. He should do that. If he doesn't do it, then when we take back the House, Garcia should do it. In terms of the president, you know, it should happen, but maybe it'll take a new president. I don't know. I don't know why the president is hesitant to appoint someone when he campaigned on this or Vance should. You know what?

Who's been silent and all this is J.D. Vance. Like what happened to him?

He's talking about Antifa somewhere.

You know, it's like he campaigned on all this stuff. He was the populist, the hillbilly elegy. his whole thing. And like, doesn't he want to have like, does he like not have any statement on Epstein? He's been silent. Like, why doesn't he say, okay, I'm going to lead a call for the intelligence information to be investigated and for there to be a report, you know, maybe actually do something as vice president.

So you're saying that Trump could snap his fingers right now and be able to tell the

American public who Epstein worked for. Peter Robinson He could. And look, he has to be careful on classified information. But if I were advising him, I'd say, pick someone who is not political, who is not one of your lackeys. Say, I'm appointing this person to look through and investigate all the intelligence, to make sure that our secrets aren't compromised in any way, and our troops aren't put at risk or our intelligence officers aren't put at risk, but I want there to be a clear report on who Epstein was, about what his relationships were, and I'm giving this person six months with a commission to come up with a report. And then you have the report and you have him testify in front of Congress. There still will be people who won't believe it, but at

least that's what we've done when we've had these kind of cases in the past. And at least

people will say, okay, there was some effort at transparency. Do you think that like if the people are angry and frustrated enough that that pressure could in turn make the government take that sort of action or do you think they're just gonna keep trying different distractions and moving the target and switching the goalpost to a different place forever until we just move on?

They're trying the latter. It hasn't worked. Yeah. You know, they thought...they didn't think we'd be talking about this now. They tried...remember, they shut down Congress early over this. They shut down Congress in July to get Epstein to go away. They didn't think Massey and I would bring the survivors to the Capitol.

There's no way Donald Trump thought he was gonna sign Ro Khanna's bill, a Bay Area Democrat, that he's gonna sign the Epstein Transparency Act. We forced a lot, not because Massey and I are some kind of legislative wonder kids, because the American people have been relentless. And as a result, we have half the files released. That's enormous. It shows the power of people still in this country. So if people continue with this kind of advocacy and concern and raising questions,

then I think drip by drip by drip by drip will get some of these actions. If people say, okay, we've had enough, our attention span is done, let's move on, then it won't be possible. But I don't think that's the case. I think that these files have actually just deepened it.

And people are talking about this in, you know, at bars, at Super Bowl parties.

It's like gotten through to the popular culture. Yeah, how do you feel about some of the public reception and response to the files?

Are you surprised?

The biggest surprise I think people have is what we talked about, how many people are in it. Yeah. Like, I think people felt like, okay, there would be a few names and it's actually helping the people in it

because there's so many we can't keep track. Like any one of these individuals front page story, but I hope people see the ad that the survivors have done. It's a Super Bowl ad, but they didn't have the millions of dollars to put it on TV, so they can see it online. And they're talking about how they're not going to rest until the files get released and that 3 million files being redacted is not right.

And the thing that's been redacted is what everyone wants to know, which is who are these people who committed pedophilia? Like why are you redacting names of people in emails we're talking about 10 year old or eight year old girls?

So just to clarify, most of the redactions are powerful people, it's names that are redacted.

It's names, I mean, look, some of the redactions may be legitimate, they're survivors who have to be protected. But you have email after email that has something talking about a naughty girl, an 11-year-old girl, and it's the email to Jeffrey Epstein, the to is not redacted, the from is redacted. Like, what are you doing redacting, blacking out that name? Obviously, it's not a survivor talking

about raping or abusing a naughty young girl. Who are you protecting? That's the biggest question.

For me, it's always just seemed really obvious that it was a blackmail operation for intelligence organizations. That's the only thing that could possibly make sense. Why else would you be protecting someone who's a pedophile? It has to be sort of this, I don't know,

like cancerous web of people that all have dirt on each other. And obviously the goal is to maintain elite control of society, but they're engineering compliance through this advanced blackmail operation.

Rick Doblins For six months, I haven't speculated. I'm not gonna speculate, but I will just say that you can't rule out his connections to intelligence agencies, and there are a lot of unanswered questions, and we need to have a transparent report about it.

Nat Malkus Yeah, I know that you can't speculate because your job is to like represent survivors and get more files disclosed but it's like most people if they knew their friend or uncle or something was a pedophile would just be like, yeah that guy's a pedophile, prosecute him. They wouldn't be like, make sure his name doesn't appear on anything.

Like what? I know there's a lot of evil people in the world, but I'm not, not every single person can be an evil pedophile. Well, look, there was another thing, though, which is that this guy was giving a lot of money, had access to a lot of people with money, and it does show kind of a moral myopia where rich people were more interested in being part of the club and being part of that Epstein class than calling them out

because they didn't want to lose access to other rich and powerful people. So what their motives are, what this guy's motives are, there are huge questions. And it's not people like, well, why are you worried about something in the past?

Well, first of all, it's because they're 1200 plus survivors. So like we have to care about justice, but it's also because if we don't fix this, if we don't have some sense that rich and powerful people are gonna play by the rules and follow the law, then how do we restore any sense of trust in our democracy? Like, we've got to understand what happened here,

what our vulnerability is. Are we still vulnerable to this kind of total manipulation, or have we fixed it?

Do you think there's going to be a Nuremberg moment, maybe five, 10 years down the line?

I think there should be a truth and reconciliation moment, not just, by the way, about the Epstein class, but a lot of things that have gone wrong in this country. For people who have violated the law when it comes to ICE abuses, when it comes to war crimes, we need a truth and reconciliation. But on Epstein in particular, yeah, I think a new president could do that.

And it should be for democratic accountability and for survivors. So we talked about the two-party system a lot. And I was curious about your thoughts on the Democratic Party. Do you think they're gonna have any leverage moving forward come the next election to face whoever the Republican frontrunner is gonna be, probably Vance?

In 2026 or 2028?

Not the midterms, the next presidential election.

Well, some I think it depends on what the midterms... Happen with the midterms happen with the midterms. I'm pretty hopeful that we'll win back the House and we've got an outside shot of the Senate. And then it depends on who we put up. If we put up the same old status quo, like, okay, we're just gonna run saying, let's go back to how things were, then I don't think we're gonna win.

If we put up someone who comes from the progressive's populist wing, the Sanders wing, like who's going to call out the corrupt elites, who's going to call out a corrupt class that has used money to corrupt politics, who's going to call out the income inequality, who's going to say it's not right that a third of the wealth is piled up in Rose District in Silicon Valley,

and people in this country don't have health care, they don't have child care, they don't have good paying jobs, and is actually going to be for change, then I think we'd win. I do think, I mean, I'm probably going to be, people will criticize me for this, but I think if Bernie Sanders was 15 years younger, he would walk into the presidency. But people want someone who is a change agent, who's actually going to take on the system.

Is there somebody that comes to mind who you feel like would be a good fit?

I think there has to be a competitive primary. This was one of the challenges that we didn't do in 2024 because of circumstance, right? I mean, in retrospect, Biden should have announced that he was not going to seek re-election. There should have been a competitive primary. My hope is there will be 10, 15 people who will run and that'll actually be a person who has real change. But, you know, people have a good sense of who someone is. Just saying, I'm the change candidate, I'm a young, good-looking person,

is not going to be enough. Like, where do you stand? What have you done? Where have you shown actual courage? What have you done to take on powerful interests? What is your track record?

Where do you actually stand on these issues? And then people will be able to see. You like Gavin Newsom? I've supported him for governor. I mean, we have differences on policy, but I did support him when he ran for governor.

I guess a better question is, do you think he would have a shot at becoming

president of the United States?

Well, certainly. He's one of the contenders. But I think there will be at least 10, 15 contenders. But the question is, if we go with him, I mean, he's been in politics since the 1990s. He supported Hillary Clinton. You know, I think the question is, are we going to have a change candidate, someone who's actually going to take on the system or a status quo candidate? I don't believe we should be putting forth the status quo candidate. I'd rather we have someone who many people haven't

heard of. And there are many around the country who's going to be new, who's going to be fresh, who's gonna be for change. Yeah, how do you feel about the assessment that he's kind of mismanaged California's tax revenue? Well, I think there's been certainly waste in California. I mean, obviously the high-speed railing that was supposed to be built 25 years ago still hasn't been built. Obviously, we have one of the highest homeless populations

and we've been spending money ineffectively. I mean, that's just an objective look at California governance. Even he would, I would imagine, acknowledge that.

Yeah, I'm never gonna turn my back on California, but it is difficult sometimes, especially when tax day comes. And you're looking at your city and you're like, like you said, all these people are being underserviced and you're just thinking about the massive amount

of taxes, state taxes and stuff. You know, like when I first succeeded as a small business owner here, you know, like when the company brought in a certain amount of money, like it was, like I owed the IRS like $100,000 or something like that, and that was a real,

it really was a frustrating moment for me, and I know so many young people who are successful who are leaving California the first chance they can to go to a state that's more, you know, friendlier to small business owners who aren't, because it's weird because it feels like if you're uber rich in California, you're good. You don't have to pay anything.

But if you're on the way from working class to a successful point in your life, it's like really hard to climb that ladder here.

Well, I totally agree with you. I mean, I think we should be taxing the billionaires more in this state instead of some of the people in California are saying, no, no, no, no, no, don't tax the uber rich. And yet the burden is often falling on small business owners. And then people look at it and they say, look, it's not effective. You know, we have one of the highest poverty rates in the country when you factor in cost

of living. Energy costs are way too high in this state because of PG&E. The housing costs are way too high in this state because we haven't built enough housing. The childcare costs in this state are too high. And then you don't have enough good-paying working-class jobs. And so there are issues that, you know, we'll see who... Do you like someone for governor who you have in mind?

I can't think of anybody. That's kind of the issue. But I just know that I'm not going to leave California. I'm sticking it out for the long haul, because I really think it's the best state. It's like it's on country. But so many people, like I tried to live in Arizona for like six months, just came right back. Well, I love California.

I mean, look, it's got to be in partnership with other parts of the country. Like I grew up in Pennsylvania. I loved growing up in Pennsylvania, right? And like we can't look at ourselves as apart from the American story.

It's sort of being, what are we going to do for the broader country?

I also grew up in Pennsylvania.

You did?

Yes. Where were you born? Philly. That's where I grew up in Bucks County in Ben Selle. Oh, nice. I was born in Bryn Mawr Hospital, but I grew up in Fairmount. So we're both Pennsylvania kids in California.

Look at us. Look at it. And you're a little more successful than me.

I don't know about that.

You got much more virality.

You're a congressman. That's you know what the dumbest thing politicians do is start their own podcast. That's like yeah, no one no one cares No one wants to hear a politician on a podcast So but do you ever wake up and look in the mirror and just think damn dude? I'm a congressman, you know

I do sometimes because I'm Indian American and I'm of Hindu faith and my parents are immigrants and I was told until I was like 25 that I couldn't get elected to anything in this country. And when I think about my story, I was born in Philadelphia, grew up there, and represent now Silicon Valley, the wealthiest, most innovative place, arguably, in the world.

I think, you know, this is still a pretty decent country. A lot of things can happen in this country.

So as far as Hindu faith goes,

like, what does that look like? Is there a place that you go to to worship or it's more just like a day? It's more spiritual. I mean, when I was young, I would go to the temple. There's a Hindu temples, but you know, I call myself a Gandhi and Hindu. I mean, the Hindu faith really influenced Mahatma Gandhi, his principles of peace and justice. And that influenced Dr. King in this country

with the non-violence movement. that the Hindu faith teaches me, like you do your duty and you don't worry about the consequences. And that my faith actually, I think, really influenced how I took on this Epstein stuff. Like I felt that the survivors were wronged and like I had to do justice and I wasn't thinking about how's this all gonna play out. Now it turned out that we got the law passed

and it turned out I've upset a lot of people,

but like your faith gives you that sense of, okay, you're going to do what is your duty. Yeah, it's especially important right now. I don't know how much time you spend on Instagram and on X, hopefully not as much time as I do, but there's a lot of like a weird, like Indian hate stuff happening online. Have you seen some of that?

I see some of it on X. I see some of Canada. Is that what I usually see is like every comment, they'll be like criticizing me and then like they want like deport Ro Khanna and I'll have to be like, well, I was actually born in Philadelphia and are bicentenary. But, you know, I think some of the anger at at the Indian American experience is that there are a number of Indian Americans who have done very well, who through hard work, through good fortune. And like I said, there's an economic divide, right? In Pennsylvania, where I grew up, like the steel factory shut down in Bristol. There has been

a hollowing out of industry. And what we need, if we take on the economic divide, then I think this country is going to be much better at dealing with the racial diversity. That's why I call for a new economic patriotism. Like, how do we build up economic opportunity across this country?

And how do you think we do that?

Well, we need a Marshall Plan for America, a government that says, look, we're going to invest in the new factories in this country. We're going to invest in 1,000 trade schools in this country. We're going to invest in the new care jobs, nurses, child care, elder care, a lot of that in these communities. We're going to make sure that capital isn't just here in Silicon Valley,

that its capital is across the country. We're going to create tech center jobs, which I've done with other communities so that you can get a job even if you don't have a four-year degree and understanding how to apply AI or technology to a small business or a community. But we need a Marshall Plan for America, an economic development for America, not like we had just for Europe.

And I think if a president focused on the economic development of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and Warren, Ohio, and Orangeburg, South Carolina, and the Southwest, that could bring us together.

Yeah. So, less defense spending, more spending on domestic manufacturing.

Domestic manufacturing, domestic childcare, the domestic care economy, domestic trade schools. Yeah, less just wars overseas. I mean, I think lift up our communities.

That's interesting that you mentioned that your district is the wealthiest in the country. Is that accurate?

One-third almost of the nation's stock market wealth is in my district. We have five companies over a trillion dollars. Apple, Google, NVIDIA, Tesla, and Broadcom. It's about $18 trillion a market cap, and the total stock market in the US is about 69 trillion. So you literally have almost 1 3rd of the nation's stock market wealth in my district.

A lot of guys in the files live around here.

There are a lot of guys in the files that are around here. Some may be leaving California, but a lot of them are in, at least have spent time around here.

What's your favorite Indian spot in town?

I like Shalimar.

We're going to eat there after this. Shalimar? Yeah, why not? You know what I mean?

All right. We'll add a component to it. Can you tolerate spice or not? Definitely. Chalamar is not like, it's not like fancy. It's a little bit of a hole in the wall, but it's got the best kebabs, best lamb chops, best chicken ticas, you know, and I love masala chai. In fact, I have my masala chai here.

The Starbucks stuff sucks. Like you gotta get authentic masala chai.

Yeah, I'm drinking a pretty bad coffee right now too.

My McDonald's coffee's not bad. The wealth inequality here is pretty crazy though for the East Palo Alto, Palo Alto divide. Yeah. Although it's not just East Palo Alto, Palo Alto, it's East San Jose, which I represent, Newark, El Viso, Milpitas. You wouldn't know. And you go to some of these schools, Independence High School in East San Jose, you wouldn't know you're in Silicon Valley.

And then you go to Homestead where Steve Jobs went or Cupertino and the world's their oyster. So there's an economic divide here, but then there's the economic divide around the country But I feel like the Bay Area is a mirror of like the most extreme lords and peasants class structure that we have that's reflected Elsewhere, but I mean San Francisco, especially a couple years back. It's like, you know, it's like dystopian You're seeing there's like self-driving cars rolling around like they could but they can't move because there's someone passed out in the street. And then like, there's a guy getting his door dash delivery up to his penthouse. That's like almost totally empty. And he works from home for like a multinational corporation.

Yeah, no, it's pretty stark. And it's because we don't have the right social contract. I said we need a new tech social contract. Right. It used to be people like Hewlett and Packard with HP and Andy Grove, people were rooted in the community. They went to like Sunnyvale Community Services Center. They knew Second Harvest. They knew that they had to give back to the community.

It wasn't just all about wealth accumulation. And we haven't done that. We haven't had the wages go up fast enough. We have not had people get the healthcare they need. The biggest issue is the housing though. The cost of housing has been astronomical in this state. Is that because of NIMBYism?

I think it is NIMBYism. It's because we've let private equity buy up single family homes. It's because there has not been, in my view, any rent caps. Like it's fine to say that we, while we're building new housing, we want to have a rent cap. I mean, in San Jose, 40% of some people's salary goes into rent. So it's a combination of not building enough, letting private equity buy, not having rent caps. And then when you have such extreme wealth in a place, you're gonna drive up the cost

because people are bidding for housing. Private equity like BlackRock, you're talking about massive real estate firms. Massive real estate firms, Blackstone, others that have bought...

I mean Blackstone, but it's bought. I mean, Blackstone.

Yeah. But it's all kind of the same.

It's all the same. I mean, we should ban that. We should ban it. Even Trump is saying, let's ban it. You know, now he's coming out and saying, let's ban private equity for buying single family homes.

And that's affecting my area. It's not the only thing. You've got to build more housing. You got to have some kind of rent cap. You've got to make sure that people have a higher salary if they don't have a four-year degree. And you got to bring down the cost of childcare, which is a huge expense here. And you've got to bring down the costs of healthcare. But those are the things that make middle-class, working-class life very hard in California

and that have created like a bifurcated structure. It's like, this is why we have a really silly debate. Anytime people criticize California, the California defenders say, yeah, but we got all the big companies and all the manufacturing and all the wealth generation, all true.

And then the people who dislike California say, yeah, but the cost of energy is really high and the cost of housing is really high and the wages aren't keeping up. That's also true. And the reality is we have a bifurcated economy in California. And that's why we need a new social contract.

So you're going to DC tomorrow?

Tonight, red eye.

So you're taking the red eye to DC tonight. You're going to look physically at Ghislaine Maxwell tomorrow?

I am.

Have you seen her before?

I'm just on TV. So you're really going to look at her? Well, I'm told she may be on video and Zoom, so we'll see. I don't know if she's coming. And it's completely wrong what they're trying to do, this blanket Fifth Amendment. They want to basically say she's taking the Fifth Amendment to everything, not going to say anything. So today I actually sent Comer seven questions that I want to ask, asking like, is she really going to take the Fifth Amendment to this? Like telling us whether other people who the co-conspirators were, what their names are? Like, how does that implicate her? Or telling us who else on the island raped underage girls? How does that implicate her? Like it's a, so, you know, she's, she answered all the questions when Blanche interviewed her, but

now she wants to take the Fifth Amendment. So we'll see what we find out. And you're going to get to look at the remainder of all the files. Yeah. In the afternoon, Massey and I are meeting up. We're going to go together to Justice and we're going to start to see the remaining of the files.

What are you expecting? Just like more of the same?

Well, I mean, the first question I'm going to ask is why't let you take staff. They don't let you take in electronics. I'm printing out literally the places I want to see, the documents I want to see.

And when you say ask, you mean like the librarian, kind of, who works there?

Yeah, I mean, we'll find out how much access, how we'll get it, but do I physically have to sit there typing in these names and the searches? You know, they're making it very hard because usually you get to take in staff like lawyers and others who are adept at this, who've studied this. Now Massey and I are going to do what we can, but the biggest questions I have is like, why are names blacked out of people who have sent some of the most incriminating emails at first glance? I mean, if there's an innocent explanation for it, I'll let you know.

I can't think of one, but I'm always going with an open mind. I'm curious to see who wrote that email that was like, hey, hope you're doing good. Love the torture video. Have you seen that one?

I haven't seen that one.

Oh, it's like the weirdest email I've ever seen in my life. It's like, hey, hope you're having a great weekend. Love the torture video. Talk to you soon.

It's like, what they did really gruesome things. It's that they like take pleasure in it or joy in it or a sick thrill in it.

Yeah. I mean, I feel like to accrue that level of influence and capital, you already have to have like taken advantage of so many people. That's just my theory about that. So I think maybe by the time they just have these like freakish control fantasies that extend to like sadistic tendencies. I always imagine like their souls are just like so rotten that they need to do the worst thing ever to feel something.

Yeah, or maybe it's like they need something that's so forbidden, that's so out of normal human life. But it's almost like, it's not just that they're above the law, they revel in being above the law. That's their thrill, that they are, you know,

ubermensch or these kind of superhuman, that the rules don't apply to them, that those of us who live by the rules, it's kind of weak, right? That's how they almost look. And someone once said to me, like, well, they would be the conquerors in a different age. Now they're just building wealth. And a lot of conquerors didn't think the rules applied to them, right? They would do heinous things like rape girls and plunder. Like Genghis Khan, the Vikings, etc. Yeah, or just conquerors in world history. And these folks think that they're superhuman.

The whole democratic project was against that, right? It was supposed to be that everyone is equal. And that's why this cut so deep into our culture.

Have you looked into why Bannon and Epstein were so close and how Bannon had such unfiltered access to him?

I don't know.

You know, I haven't focused as much on that, but obviously he's all over the files and there's questions of how he was trying to rehabilitate him, I think on some video. No chance. And I don't get it. I don't understand what the fascination was. You know, he'd be someone also who would come

before the Epstein Oversight Committee that we should have. Like, bring them all in. Have them answer questions to the American people.

So what are the main things you're hoping to get out of tomorrow?

I'm gonna go specifics, which is if I'm focused on 10 emails, maybe, like, can I get the names for those 10 emails and understand why they're redacted and then understand what I'm allowed to say, you know, what Massey is allowed to say if they have been redacted, you know, just push for them to be unredacted and get the information out there. But the reality is, what I'm trying to understand is what's the motivation of protecting

people? Who are they protecting and why? And anything I can get to that will be a step forward.

This is one of the foundational questions when it comes to all Jeffrey Epstein related matters. Do you think he was murdered, committed suicide, or that he's still alive?

I personally don't think he's still alive. I was in the camp of 100% that he committed suicide, but I don't know anymore. I now have questions based on these files about what happened. And I'm less certain that we know everything based on what has come out, based on some of the conversations I've had with survivors.

What makes you think that he can't be alive?

I get, you know, I can't rule it out like as a total possibility, just from what survivors have said and others have said. If you were to ask me, I don't think that's the case.

Yeah. I mean, obviously, as an elected official, you can't go down the conspiracy rabbit hole. But it's very easy to do, especially with 3 million files.

The problem is that this is what's happening is if you do a selective release, you're just opening up more and more questions. And it's not good for those of us who don't want conspiracies. But I, you know, Massey and I have been very careful in not doing that. It's why we genuinely have a lot of trust amongst people and amongst the survivors to be pursuing this because none of this would be possible if it weren't for the survivors.

And if I lose the trust of the survivors, then I'm no longer going to be effective. Do you have a final message for the American people who are hoping that at some point, they'll get full disclosure and transparency from the government?

This is the fight of our times. This is one of the largest scandals in American history. It goes to two tiers of justice. They're rich and powerful in this country, feeling they're above the law. It is shameful and disgraceful that the most influential people in finance,

in tech, in Hollywood, in politics were enmeshed with Jeffrey Epstein. That they were doing this when they knew he was a convicted pedophile. They were asking to show up to his home, his ranch, or his island, knowing that young girls were going to be there. And this entire Epstein class needs to be held accountable. There need to be investigations and prosecutions. And the entire Epstein class needs to be out of our politics. No more of their super PAC money and their money-controlling politics. And we need a new start, a new moral beginning in America. This should be a cleansing of

a failed political class and a new direction for our country.

All right, Congressman, thank you so much for your time.

Thank you, appreciate you.

Appreciate you, awesome. And what was the name of that Indian spot you told us about?

Shalamar, Shalamar. In Fremont, there's one in Fremont, there's one up in San Francisco.

All right, awesome, thanks. Which one's better? Probably the one in your district? Channel 5 Live Worldwide Hollywood Advised Fuck the authority, Channel 5 News

Channel 55, we don't fuck with Custer's Channel 55, we don't fuck with Custer's And 5 is the best number