Transcription
She's one of the most fearless investigative journalists out there. Whitney Webb joins us to expose the tangled web of corruption that connects intelligence agencies, global elites, and tech oligarchs. She's dug deep into the Epstein files. She's followed the money and she's connected the dots most journalists are too afraid or too compromised to touch. If you've ever wondered who's really pulling the strings behind closed doors, then stay tuned because this is a conversation the powers that be don't want you to hear.
Joining us now is one of the best journalists and researchers of our generation, the author of One Nation under blackmail, Whitney Webb. Whitney, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here.
>> Oh, thanks, Kim. That's very flattering. I'm happy to be here.
>> Well, you are. You just I mean, the truth is the truth, and Whitney, I speak the truth, and you are one of the best researchers and journalists of our generation, for sure.
>> Um, speaking of which, recently Ian Carol was on Joe Rogan. Um, and he he mentioned you and this made a lot of, you know, a lot there was a he he talked about you. He then went to social media and talked about you. Um,
>> and you wanted, you clarified some things that you felt like were not represented correctly in that obviously very widely seen interview on Joe Rogan, which I don't know why you haven't been on Joe Rogan quite honestly. That's um
>> I have ideas.
>> Hey Joe, hey Joe, get Whitney on.
>> Yeah. if there's somebody to be what do you think? Do you want to share why you think you haven't been on?
>> Uh, sure. Well, you know, I know that um he's quite cozy really to a lot of the the big tech bros that have lined up in recent months with the current administration and some of them have been critical for a long time. Sort of the Peter Teal, um Elon Musk, more broadly, the PayPal mafia network. Uh obviously very associated with um you know the the UFC network that's owned by Ari Emanuel. um and some of those uh figures that I've been pretty critical of in the past. So, um I I would assume, you know, it's sort of related um related to that because a lot of the people that he's tended to have on at least lately um tend to be pretty much across the board very supportive of uh PayPal mafia involvement, intimate involvement in government. Um and I am not. So, I would assume it's somewhere along those lines, but you know, I'm not necessarily involved in those decisions. And I don't know if I'd necessarily blame Rogan personally either, who's been uh actually rather complimentary of my work and has mentioned it several times on his uh show, but ultimately very large podcasts like that have people that are involved with uh guest booking for example and may you know make decisions that Rogan isn't necess or you know turn down guests that Rogan might want to have on. I mean, who knows how those things really operate.
>> right? I I mean the the reality of it's probably not him making a lot of those decision. He's probably very busy and it's not that he's not the final line. I'm sure he is. But you know, you can only control what your staff brings to you. I mean, you can't control what your staff brings to you. And you can only say yes or no to what they present in front of you. And so if there's gatekeepers, I mean, that's kind of like the White House chief of staff, right? The gatekeepers there.
>> You're only presented with what you're presented with. And you get those options. And that's why it's really important to to choose the right people who are around you to ensure that they're not going to gatekeep in a way that's
>> um but also when you're making hundreds of millions of dollars and and you're parts of large platforms, you're going to have gatekeepers.
>> Well, I think even more than that, too, you know, um a lot I think it's been pretty clear with this administration and in last year's election that podcasts were really seen as a more important outlet for reaching the public than mainstream media. Um which I think is also pretty significant. So, a lot of the biggest podcasts have definitely been arguably more influenced than others uh by that regard. And uh you know, a lot of these bigger podcasts, Rogan included, having Trump on, having JD Vance on. Um and I've been of course very critical of uh JD Vance's longtime uh been a factor, I guess you could say. Peter Teal, who's also been on the Rogan podcast. you know, I don't I I think he uh you know, some people there would prefer I I didn't really
>> uh maybe discuss some of those ties because they do come up in my Epstein related work. Um and some people I guess in the case of
>> you know Ian perhaps has been uh pretty supportive of of Musk and some of these figures um in government but also you know uh does uh cite a lot of uh research for my book. So perhaps that was um you know
>> u a reasoning but it's speculative you know again I don't really know and I'm I'm happy for him that he had a chance to do you know a big interview on you know the biggest podcast in the world I guess um but as you noted I did have some um criticisms but as it related specifically to my book um and in my work because I felt like some of the things that were conveyed weren't necessarily 100% accurate. And so because that's seen by so many people and I'm not really doing um that many interviews right now and I'm not as active maybe as I used to be on social media and things like that. Obviously people are going to develop conceptions and and opinions about my work that are being given by uh someone other than me. And so I felt it was necessary to kind of uh I don't know clarify a few things.
And and the thing that you wanted to clarify was that you've never made the claim that Epstein was msad.
>> Well, that was one of the two, I guess, main things that I wanted to clarify. So, yeah, essentially my book does argue for a significant tie of between Epstein and the state of Israel. Um but really um the claims that are detailed in my book argue for a tie between um Epstein and really Israeli military intelligence more specifically as it relates to like a formal Israeli intelligence agency and MSAD isn't necessarily part of Israeli military intelligence but is obviously part of the broader Israeli national security apparatus and
>> what's the name of the Israeli military intelligence army?
>> Well, so there's a military directorate that controls all of the Israeli military intelligence agencies that's called a A am. And that was basically uh run by Ahud Barack, a close Epstein associate in the mid1 1980s at the time that Epstein was alleged to have been recruited into that network via, you know, Robert Maxwell. Some of the claims for this come from former Israeli military intelligence operatives like Arbin Manasha, but also um some other sources that have remained anonymous but are deemed to be credible and and some other things um you know that happened over the years and obviously there was some sort of uh tie there. um you know as Epstein was awaiting for example his sweetheart deal sentencing uh you know in the 200u7ish period um he was in Israel presumably considering not returning uh to the US to face um you know whatever sentence he was going to be doled out. It was during the sentencing period I believe. Uh but according to you know uh local reports and you know Palm Beach newspapers he was touring Israeli military bases which is kind of unusual usual if you're just a reclusive billionaire uh you know accused of sex crimes. You're just
>> do you think it's true that Israel u I mean bringing up the fact that he was thinking about not coming back. I mean we've seen a lot of claims about Israel protecting pedophiles. I mean is do you think that there's some truth to that?
>> Uh, I mean, yeah, I do. Um, but I I you know, there's a figure that I've sort of been writing about who's not necessarily a pedophile, but he's accused of rape, uh, the film director, uh, Brett Ratner, who has some interesting ties to sort of the network behind Epstein and also to the Diddy cases. Um, and a lot of, uh, organized crime ties that don't really seem to have been previously reported as it relates to Ratner. And uh Ratner was basically granted um yeah an Israeli passport a week after being Netanyahu's special guest at the UN alongside Alan Dersowitz. Um and he had previously Ratner been a major done a major joint venture with this Australian uh billionaire named James Packer who is one of the main figures in the Netanyahu corruption trial uh that's still ongoing for bribery and things like that. So there's a lot of strange things that sometimes happen in these power networks and sometimes uh and I I'm aware of other cases as well that involve pedophiles specifically where allegedly, you know, they're they're granted the right to immigrate and it's, you know, all the circumstantial available evidence points to them evading charges in other countries and and what have you. But that, you know,
>> so as long as they're Jewish though, I mean, just to be clear, they're not like bringing in a bunch of pedophile, you know, they're not like, oh, any and all sex offenders and
>> No, it's I mean, Israel is Yeah, Israel is openly, you know, at this point an ethnostate. So, it's it's only for that specific demographic
>> that that benefits from those types of immigration policies there. Sure.
>> And our it's our greatest ally. I mean that's that what's so insane to me is that people especially on the right I I mean Israel's getting plenty of criticism on the right which is really nice to see but it's also getting a lot of protection from people on the right and a lot of them are these you know Christians or Catholics and they claim that they care about kids and their number one top priority is kids and the pedo circles that they want to crack down on and yet they just seem to gloss over the fact that there's you know that the Epstein operation clearly looked like a blackmail operation and that they had no problem using underage kids in order to get that blackmail done. Um, and the fact that Israel does seem to allow any sort of um, Jewish uh, sexual offender or pedophile to run off and and and escape without being extradited back to wherever they committed the crime. I mean, it's how can people defend this? I just don't understand the defense. I understand Congress and them being bought off, right? I understand the big money interest. I don't understand the average commentator and why they're I mean unless they're also being paid too which is very possible.
>> Well, I think these days a lot of influencers are being paid and there are, you know, scandals that have sort of many scandals I guess that have sort of um come out to that effect. But, you know, it as it relates, you know, just the Apstein scandal alone. Um depending on what side of the political divide you fall on and how easily manipulated you are, like what influencers or podcasters or whatever um that you follow, you know, there's efforts to link Epstein uh to certain names specifically. So in the right a lot of people tend to look at Epstein as you know uh Epste and Bill Clinton, Epstein and uh Kevin Spacy, Epste you know and and just specific names. And then of course on the left it'll be a more focus on Epstein and Donald Trump and and you know figures that
>> are more you know hated by that particular political demographic right now. And there's consistency consistently been an effort to sort of focus on the salacious material of Epstein, the celebrity aspect, his ties to famous people um or his ties to politicians of one particular divide. So that depending on who you're listening to can create an echo chamber and people you know on the right in particular uh may not necessarily uh you know connect Epste's activities to um you know
>> a blackmail operation for the state of Israel, right? rather than just it being oh it was a bunch of rich people who are sick. I mean, that's you make a good point. That's kind of what everybody's well not everybody but there's a lot of people that are kind of just reducing it to that and it's like no this thing was way bigger than that. This is a this is an assault on all of us on every single American
>> is what that was and foreign and uh you know Europe as well. They collected a lot of blackmail on Europeans also not just the United States.
>> Well, I mean, it's it's a it's a global thing um and it's been going on for a very long time. But I do want to go back to why I chose to clarify this in particular um on Twitter because as we've just talked about, I do absolutely think there was an Israeli state connection in some capacity, even if not Epstein being directly affiliated with, you know, MSAD as an agency. Um but I do basically what the thesis of my book is is something much broader than that. Um, I basically argue that Epstein was part of this transnational network that's also transgenerational that's uh that was created through basically this fusion of organized crime interests and intelligence agencies going back to the 1940s. And this of course, you know, would predate the existence of the state of Israel, which wasn't created until 1948. And uh these networks were already had already essentially come together by that point in time. And you know I essentially argue that there's a significant amount of CIA ties, US intelligence ties as well in this network and that you know they're transnational in scope and a lot of the organized crime network uh that's affiliated with this spans you know is has a lot of interest in both the US and and Israel but also you know has expanded uh through uh partnerships for example between people like Robert Maxwell and Simeon Malovich uh to Eastern Europe. Europe, Russia, and beyond. And I think a lot of the stuff, for example, that sort of percolated up what was true about the stuff people were trying to go over Trump for in Russia gate was really more related to this specific organized crime network. But you can't go deep enough to prosecute anything without coming up with ties to powerful people in Israel and also the US. Um, and it's ultimately, you know, affects at least as it relates to the US, both parties very significantly. And I talked a lot about in in my book about this particular network of oligarchs uh based in the US uh that have been referred to by the Wall Street Journal as either the study group and the mega group and how they seem to have a lot of influence um over what Epstein was doing and also you know uh the the really the governments of of both countries and pretty much most of the known members or earliest members of that group including you know Leslie Wexner and and Charles and Edgar Bronman have historic uh if not continuing ties uh to organized crime. So um I I basically make a much bigger case uh than saying Epstein was MSAD for example. I think just saying Epstein was Israel is kind of reductive because in trying to if you really are interested in sort of um informing people and with the intent of undoing this power structures control over uh society, you have to understand that it's much bigger than any one nation state. And I think also just like people trying to say Epste was CIA or for example without mentioning Israel, it can be kind of myopic. you're absolving one of the other intelligence factions that was absolutely involved in sort of uh taking people away from the fact that power the power of these networks is is transnational. It's not exclusive to a single nation state. Um, and I think, you know, those are ultimately important points. And what the evidence shows about Epstein is that he's tied to this particular network that that knits together organized crime like oligarchs uh with intelligence agencies and the influence that those networks have had um you know not just on Epstein's own network but how Epstein you know is basically middle management or a force for that broader network and how he's making ties for example with every single major big tech CEO of importance obviously ly Bill Gates got a lot of the focus but you know uh Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Teal, um Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, all of these people are had some connection with Epstein.
>> Oh,
>> but I have to start somewhere with it. I understand what you're saying that this is a a collaboration from there's a lot of different powerful people with a lot of different powerful interests and it spans the entire globe and so it's not just you can't just reduce it to Israel's influence on all of this. I mean Israel can only have so much influence. So as long as I you can only blackmail people so much. Um, a lot of it has to be them wanting to be a part of whatever it is you're doing because they've got their own agenda, their own interests in whatever it is that they're, you know, if you're an oligarch and you're going to make a bunch of money, you don't need to be blackmailed, right? I mean, you could just be be in, I mean, of course, the blackmail helps to keep you to make sure that you're on the hook, but but it certainly if you have your own interest, then it's even better because you're motivated. And so, I see what you're saying that this is like larger than just one intel agency or one nation. But I think the thing that makes it most offensive about Israel because I do think we have to crack down on all of the influence, the oligarchy, the power structures that are everywhere, and I understand that they're harder to un but they're harder to um pinpoint and sus out when they're not as you know a country is easy to say, all right, a country has been in has been controlling and a country has been blackmailing,
>> but who controls the country, right?
>> Yeah. But but I think what makes it the most offensive, what makes Israel more offensive just blatantly is the fact that what they're getting at I mean we're it's one thing for like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos or who or Peter Teal like here in the these are Americans. I think they're all Americans, right? Have they all gotten American citizenship? I think
>> Well, at this point they have American citizenship. Not all of them are, but yeah. So there are Americans who, you know, they're they're siphoning perhaps the world or the American people for resources to an American company. I think we and and for an their own, you know, their own control and their own money. And I think we can all say, "Yeah, we want to crack down on that because we don't want to be controlled or surveiled or have this kind of um thing over us." But I think it's less offensive than a foreign country controlling us. And not only that, not only are they siphoning resources from us, but they're waging war. I mean, they're we're going to war on behalf of them. We're killing kids on behalf of them. And that is
>> that is I think extra um perilous that causes us to focus more on Israel. And it's like if we could just I I I kind of wonder if we just rooted that out and if we expose the fact that they've been able to blackmail our nation and our politicians and everybody, then we could at least start there and say, "All right, let's start with the foreign country that's causing us to kill kids." And then from there, once we unravel that, then we could say, "Oh, yeah, now all these players are also connected to all of these other things that we have to unravel."
>> Sure. But it's unfortunately, it's a little more complicated than that. I'll give you an example. So like Leslie Wexner's philanthropy at a time when his tax attorney was shot in the face and it was deemed linked to organized crime and Leslie Dexter was tied to organized crime by Columbus. Ohio reports he, you know, was creating the Wexner Foundation and one of the main focuses of that was not just uh training up uh JewishAmerican leaders in the United States, but also, you know, people that would later go and serve in the government of Israel and greatly influencing them through, you know, the Wexner Foundation's Israel Fellowship and things. um things like that and later teaming up uh for example you know that kind of same line of the Wexner Foundation with the World Economic Forum's Young Global Leaders Program and things like that. So a lot of times these oligarchs can have a a very outsized um influence and in the case of Israel, you have a lot of ostensibly American billionaires buying off Israeli politicians and so there tends to be a lot of you know transnational stuff going on because what happens when you have someone like Sheldon Adlesen who was the biggest uh Republican donor and biggest donor to Trump during Trump's first administration. and he's ostensibly the, you know, the biggest donor in American politics at that point of time, but he's also on video of saying that all he cares about is being a good citizen of Israel and that his children serve later in the IDF. um you know, it's it ultimately you can pinpoint perhaps you know some of this coming from the intelligence uh you know apparatus of Israel but when you also have political power and politicians being essentially uh dominated by money flows uh by billionaires financing both countries because Aden also you know couldn't directly donate to Netanyahu but bought entire newspapers uh to promote him in Israel domestically you know basically de de facto donating to him. Um,
>> you know, there's a lot of influence there and you know, an American billionaire, Ronald Lauder, is directly responsible uh for Netanyahu becoming prime minister at all in the late '90s. So there's a lot of I think importance in looking at this particular transnational um group and and their influence because a lot of them are very um supportive of the ethnosuppreist paradigm that is typified by the current administration of Israel that Netanyahu leads um and obviously has been kind of a force in in Israel for some time. Um, but I think it's, you know, they're very active in in promoting that ideology and they're big funders to organizations like the ADL, for example, uh, that train the FBI and what constitutes a hate crime or hate speech. And now that you're having, for example, the current administration move to criminalize certain types of hate speech, uh, targeting a specific group. Um and the ADL also has ties to you know the state of Israel as well as this transnational organization. You know it it it becomes very problematic for both countries. So, um I don't know. I I think it is a lot more complicated uh than just trying to to blame one nation state because, you know, you can try and go after Israel for that, but you're not going to be able to unless you realize that a lot of the power structure that enables that activity in Israel um you know, has a lot of anticedants with um you know, entities or people based in the United States. That's where it gets really tricky because um there are there's yeah there's so many and that's like the problem with Apac right is that their excuse is um well we're Americans so we're allowed to donate to the political and just like Sheldon ad saying that he's like a devout Israeli but he's an American and so he's allowed to was an American so he's allowed he was allowed to donate to our political system
>> and that's so you know that's that makes it quite complicated.
>> Well, I mean, if you look at, you know, history too of like, you know, some of the most scandalous CIA operations of the last several decades, a lot of them were done jointly with Israeli intelligence. Um, and so if you are interested, for example, in tackling the quote unquote national security deep state of the United States, uh, it it is completely tied up uh, with the intelligence agencies of Israel at this point. to the to the point that you know I've been arguing in in some of the work I've done for probably over almost a decade now um that really the US has a bational security state um and then again the military and intelligence apparatus's dependence on a lot of um you know Israeli intelligence cutouts arguably and cyber security a critical infrastructure and other things it means that you can't really talk about separating the ties of the US from its ostensible greatest ally without looking at those points. And so there's been a major effort to try and kind of prevent that separation from really even being uh possible. But a lot of it is made possible by these moneyed interests uh that greatly influence both countries. But again, it's broader than the US and Israel. But you can see it very significantly by looking at the oligarch networks of those um those two countries um in particular.
>> Yeah. I mean, it's a matter of national security, but at this point because they've infiltrated our national security so so deeply like you've mentioned that it's like how do you unravel the two? But that's why they keep saying they're our greatest ally and the rest of us are like why exactly? I mean, what exactly have they ever done? But our national security apparatus, I would argue, was compromised before Israel was even created by these organized crime interests, which was really a specific faction of organized crime. Uh that grew out of what was referred to once as the National Crime Syndicate, which was really a meeting of the Jewish mob and the Italian Mafia. Um, you know, Mayor Lansky and and Charles Luchiano. um in some of in before that organized crime in the US had sort of been separated in ethnic silos, right? So there's the Irish mob, there's the Jewish mob, there's, you know, it's by nationality or ethnicity. And they sort of broke that model down and became infinitely more successful um than everyone else. But you could argue also that after Luchiano was, you know, deported to Europe and all of this that really the Lansky Syndicate um ended up uh taking all the
>> control. So,
>> do you think that's what happened to JFK? I mean, do you think that the reason why he was killed was um Israel or Jewish lobby or mafia, the Jewish mob and the Italian mob or
>> I'm not an expert on the Kennedy assassination because it's one of those things that has so you have to spend years I think becoming an expert in the topic to really pontificate about it.
>> Yeah. Um, but I have obviously brushed up against uh various entities that have been blamed by other researchers who have taken that time for having at least some significant role in the Kennedy assassination. And ultimately I think it's the same network that I argue was behind Epstein which is a meeting of US intelligence interests is and you know Israeli or Zionist intelligence interests and organized crime. But if you see that, you know, in World War II, they in the US intelligence uh apparatus formerly teamed up with the specific organized crime network and then that organized crime network armed the Hagana, the precursor to the IDF and then a lot of these organized crime link billionaire families that are still prominent like the Bronman's uh furnished Israel's early national security state uh with you know what what would now in today's money be billions of dollars in weapons. um it you know it it kind of starts to make more sense of how we ended up here uh so to speak. So if our interest is really to interrogate uh you know power here and where a lot of you know what we're observing today where did it come from we have to understand the history and realize that this is basically um something much bigger than any one nation state. Um, and in order to sort of understand how we can extricate ourselves from it, we have to have a pretty good idea of what um, this power structure ultimately is,
>> right?
>> How do you not just get like I I like I listen to you and I just think I give up. I give up. I mean, there's no way we're ever going to we're never going to take it back. We're never going to unravel this. It's too powerful. Just live a nice life. go garden and give up. I mean, that's how do you
>> Well, I think you can live a nice life and garden and also not give up, which is what I um what I attempt to do. I mean basically um at the end of the day this ent the these entities and this power stretcher had been successful because people have not really been aware um of what what's been going on and how interconnected a lot of these oligarch networks ultimately are um and how connected they are to our national security state because a lot of people you know if we're just talking about uh back to my point earlier talking about MSAD talking about the CIA who does the CIA work for who does MSAD work for in the case of the CIA, it's very clear that it was created by Wall Street bankers who entered into uh questionable alliances with organized crime and bankers and organized crime are both ultimately interested um in expanding their their rackets and is making as much money as possible. Um and so eventually you have uh certain economic networks and you know the do this these these these alliances dominated what is now corporate America the multinational corporation that's who the CIA has throughout most of its history conducted coups on behalf of. Um so we have to go a level up if we really want to know what's going on. uh and look beyond CIA and MSAD and see, you know, who's really at least at the scale up a key part of the power structure that's really running the show. Uh because, you know, it's important for them that the public doesn't really look that high up. Um because then, um it just seems like we can't really do anything about it. But I think people ultimately can. Um and you know what I've argued a lot for a long time is that you know people need to try and extricate the themselves um you know, from you know, the biggest iteration of uh what this mob is today which is really big tech um which is again connect a lot of it connect a lot of these CEOs connected to figures like Epstein or other questionable associations and also almost all of the big Silicon Valley companies today um have their have origins or funding tied to the CIA or to DARPA or to entities like that and that we should um boycott them as much as possible and not use their services as much as possible and not be dependent on these entities because if we're dependent then you know they can do whatever they want to us.
>> Yeah.
>> And so you know the best way uh to uh not give up is to work to be as independent of those systems as possible. um because if we're dependent on them, uh you know, you're basically a slave to these people at the end of the day, which is what I think most Americans um do not want. But I think um there's a lot of efforts being made to sort of keep people in in the box of where they think, oh well, if I vote for this party or this politician and this candidate, I don't have to do anything to ensure my independence from the system. I can remain dependent on the system and hope that politician XYZ will magically um you know save the day and fix the country and uh you know end this uh ruling power of uh 80 plus years of you know intelligence and organized crime. Yeah, I think it's really something that has to be sort of done on an individual level and people need to take individual responsibility if they don't want to be part of the system particularly as we move into this increasingly digital future that these very small handful of companies are going to completely control. Um, which kind of brings me to my other criticism uh in the aforementioned tweet about um you know claims that were made about my work. So, um, Ian in that interview described some of my work on big tech CEOs, namely Peter Teal. Um, he used the word unhinged. He later said that he didn't mean to use that word and should have used a different word. Um, but in the in the in the context of saying that also said that my, you know, my historical facing work like on Epstein's history was valuable. uh but basically you know more or less implied that my work on current figures is not uh but actually my work on Peter Teal is intimately connected to my work on Epstein and in my book one nation under blackmail uh I basically conclude with the point that someone like Epstein is no longer really relevant for intelligence services or organized crime networks or oligarch networks um in the age of technology and why is that so back in the A you have Epstein and a litany of other figures like him, which I detail figures in my book. He was obviously not an anomaly at all. But that type of sexual blackmail operation comes with a lot of risk. It takes a lot of money to finance uh you know the person who's running it, their mansion, their parties, paying off women, all of these money flows. It it can be risky. Um and it certainly ended up being that in the Epstein case, right? because he was kind of he was discovered arrested twice and it obviously took a lot of money to cover things up at least the first time and arguably the second time as well um where he ended up dead. So uh what's a better alternative? Well, if you have everyone onboarded onto digital systems that you uh control, uh like the CIA being at the origins of Google, DARPA being at the origins of of Facebook, the CIA being at the origins of Oracle, um and a lot of these other uh entities, Bill Gates and Microsoft having ties to the Maxwell family as early as the late 90s and things like that. Um, and obviously Gates and and Epstein, you know, what does that ultimately mean? Like, uh, I think, you know, at at this point in time, we've learned through either whistleblowers or other means that intelligence agencies access or can access pretty much any part of our digital footprint, no matter how secure we tend to think it is. And that's like with re revelations about, you know, ostensibly secure messaging apps like Signal being compromised or having had some sort of military funding in its origins or or what have you. Um, you know, it's much easier to suck up all of Americans communication communications without a warrant. And that necessarily is in the hands of a lot of these same agencies with dubious track records uh that have engaged in blackmail in the past like the CIA for example. And so you know with that kind of technology you don't really need someone like Epstein anymore. Someone like Epstein becomes expendable because you can use >> technology for that. And I argue in the book that Peter Teal's Palanteer uh was basically a repurposing of this DARPA program called total information awareness that was developed by the Iran Contra uh criminal uh who was exonerated by William Bar when he covered Iran Contra and other notable scandals of the era up um in the in the first Bush administration. Um, you know, Po Dexter is considered the the father of modern surveillance. And it was basically he was running this total information awareness program. Peter Teal and Alex Karp came to him being connected through Richard Pearl who has long-standing ties to the state of Israel and also the US neoconservative movement and also Netanyahu. um basically, you know, bringing those together, looking for a way to privatize total information awareness after it came under congressional scrutiny and was ultimately defunded by Congress because of private outrage that it would eliminate the the constitutional right to privacy for all Americans, which is absolutely true. Um but the outrage disappeared when it was entirely a private company and Palunteer was incubated by the CIA. The CIA was its first customer for its several years uh first several years. uh it was a client and now it's a key part of uh you know IDF AI uh uh mass slaughter in Gaza and has been a key part of the US-Israel relationship since then. But more specifically domestically in the US, it is the engine on which the warrantless mass surveillance uh runs. It collects everything about everyone and makes it disposable to um intelligence agencies and it's very easy to find blackmail on people with an entity like Palunteer um being so widely used.
>> um
>> so
>> that to me is really scary the fact that um I mean with the internet and everybody's on the internet and and also people can plant stuff on your devices. They can
>> another great point. It's true. So, we're all blackmailable. Unfortunately, at this point,
>> the digital era has certainly changed things. And I think that's why it's it's very interesting that you have sort of uh Abstein after his first arrest pivot so much towards Silicon Valley and these, you know, major Silicon Valley CEOs whose companies were built up with national security state involvement. uh you have someone like Epstein who was tied not just to sex blackmail but arms trafficking and money laundering for intelligence being involved with these people um to a significant degree. I mean, some of these big tech CEOs like Sergey Brin and even Elon Musk were uh subpoenenaed or attempted to be subpoenaed as part of the USVI JP Morgan case,
>> for example, that was settled to keep the trial from happening to keep all of that evidence um out of court arguably. Um, but it's it's very problematic. And by the way, JP Morgan, uh, you know, Jaime Diamond, uh, the reason Jaime Diamond is CEO of of JP Morgan is because of two of these mega group billionaires, the Crown family and, uh, Leslie Wexner because they installed him as head of this bank one uh, this that later merged with JP Morgan. And after the merger happened, Diamond's in charge of JP Morgan. So, it's really shouldn't be any surprise that Epstein uh did so much banking for his, you know, trafficking operations with JP Morgan in particular. But again, not a lot of interest in looking in at that. But, you know, a lot of these entities have so much influence over so many industries. And so, you know, again, I think just focusing on specific intelligence agencies, it's important to understand that there's a lot more going on uh than than just that. And ultimately those spy agencies are working for somebody and are controlled by some well really somebody's right.
>> Yeah. I give up. I'm just going to go start gardening. It's just that the the web of it is um I there's I you know and you bring up a great point when it comes to tech and I don't think I mean I don't know how anybody could ever call you unhinged quite honestly or any of your takes unhinged. I mean, you're so well researched and you're putting everything together so well. And you know, I understand that people don't want to look at somebody like Elon Musk and think, "Oh, this guy has uh" because he just seems so innocent in the way he talks and the way he is. And I think that's true. He's the richest man in the world and I'm sure the richest man in the world can afford people that uh you know help brand him online and tell him what to wear and how to style his hair and what memes to post and all sorts of things to reach out to
>> uh the common man. But uh yeah, I think there hasn't been a lot of interest in um a lot of prominent uh media figures and really looking at really any of the PayPal mafia types, namely Musk and and Peter Teal, who in the context of this administration are highly significant um figures.
>> Yeah, I don't I don't think people really want to pay much attention to the pay PayPal mafia because they like everybody in the PayPal mafia mostly. like there's a lot of
>> personality there that um people follow and like and they think that they're going to come in and save the country and they're using a lot of that language and I think in some ways they are
>> because you always want to throw like something good at the people in order to get them on your side and then you're doing some other things that maybe the people wouldn't agree with but you just don't talk about it and you hide it right like all the surveillance stuff the tech stuff the fact that the military-industrial complex has moved mostly into the tech se sector and so now
>> well the Silicon Valley and national security are absolutely fused. You can't tell where one ends and one begins anymore. It is absolutely a public private partnership
>> 100%. But I think people got outraged especially during the co era at the public side of the public private partnership that now the focus of which side of that is meant to build trust with the public has shifted to the private sector.
>> Yeah,
>> we can trust the private sector because the public sector failed us during COVID and during all of these things. Look how corrupt the public sector is. Not denying that there's a lot of corruption in the public sector, but that doesn't mean that uh there isn't corruption in the private sector as well or that a lot of these private sector entities like I mentioned earlier with a lot of these big tech firms would not exist if it was not for the public sector and the national security apparatus that created them.
>> That's what makes me not trust Elon is the fact that he has all those government contracts and
>> um he has a lot.
>> Yeah. So, so it's it's like he's still even if like let's just give him the benefit of the doubt. Let's just say the guy is genuinely a good guy, nice guy. He really does want the best for everybody, but he's still he's he is a he's an ideologue on one thing and that is colonizing Mars, right? We know that that is the one thing he's he wants for whatever reason he wants to really do that project. It's like a pet project of his and it's when you get into those pet projects like uh Bill Gates who I think had the pet project of I want to be known as saving the world you know rather than just the Microsoft guy and so he goes into the health sector and he starts doing the vaccine stuff and I think a lot of these stem from a personal drive a personal desire and then of course because these are so big and they become so unmanageable there's a lot of other entities that get involved but I think you know if you're Elon Musk and the one thing your one pet pro pet pet project is Mars You don't want to piss off the government because the government won't let you send rockets up into space anymore. I mean, they they have the they could tell you, "We're not going to let you do that." And if you want those, if you want the ability and you want the contracts and you want all of this stuff and because you're going to need the funding in order to build a colony on Mars, right, you got to be pretty rich. So, you have to have all of that. I think people underestimate how willing people are to compromise in order to achieve their own personal pet desire or or their own, you know, what they believe. And we see that even like with the Zionists, for example, Christian Zionists who many of them are not bought off by Israel at all. They don't need to be. They I mean, they were inadvertently without them realizing it, their churches were infused with a lot of money. Churches run on donation. a lot of donation was pumped in by Zionists that then uh told the preachers go and and preach Zionism basically to all of your people and get them to believe and then they became believers and then it's like a they just genuinely believe it. It's in their soul. Like I kind of wonder if Mike Huckabe's that way, you know, he's just so pro-Israel that I'm like is this really are you bought off or is it just a zealotness from your religion? And I think it might be more of the zealous he's just a zealot.
>> Um, so that's I think Elon is like a zealot for Mars. And when you have that kind of zealousness, you're willing to compromise in order to achieve your ultimate big goal.
>> Yeah. Well, arguably one of the reasons that Musk is so interested um in Mars and he said this on Twitter
is because he wishes to impose a techn he wants to have create the Mars technocracy. Um, which is significant because technocracy is a model of government that arguably is being, um, rolled out on sort of a global scale, um, here on Earth right now.
Um, and notably, Elon Musk's grandfather, um, was the head of, uh, you know, the technocratic movement when it existed, you know, several decades ago in Canada, um, and, you know, has been, uh, pretty vocal that he, you know, supports the technocratic model, um, just in general, uh, which is kind of problematic because ultimately, technocracy is about, uh, rule of society by a scientific elite that, you know, ultimately, in terms of its philosophy, uh, view the masses basically as programmable automatons, uh, that don't really have free will and are sort of not really that different from animals.
>> Um, >> I could see Elon going in that direction. I could see him view, I mean, the way he pumps out babies and without thinking that, you know, being a father and being actually there matters, you know, the way that he views human beings, >> seems to be along those lines. A lot of these types of figures certainly view their own genetic stock in a different category as the masses, right? Um, and I think, um, that's >> but he still, he clearly just views people as, it's there. It's, it's like not human the way he views human beings. Even the way he just makes his own children through IVF surrogacy, pumping them out with various different, I mean, even just that mentality is clearly the humanness of humans is not there. I'm not super familiar with, um, you know, his relationship with his, with his own kids, but I am more or less familiar with, >> um, you know, some of the other ambitions, you know.
>> Yeah, I'm more, >> okay. Well, I'm, I'm more foc, I've been more focused on some of his, his, for example, his ties to, I guess, the Maxwell family or Epstein world, which tend to go under reported. And of course, he will publicly posture like he had literally no affiliation at all, um, with them. And I think that is definitely less than honest and have said this, um, in detail by, um, in, in the past. And, uh, also on some of his, uh, you know, obviously his military contracts, which are pretty significant. Um, but some of his other ambitions as well, for example, for Twitter, openly wanting to turn it into something like WeChat, uh, which has been criticized in the past by people on the right, which now very openly support Musk, um, uh, for being kind of, you know, for being an Orwellian system. It's basically a public-private partnership with the state for policing, uh, speech among other things and for mass surveillance. And it's very likely that Twitter is, you know, moving along those same lines. And the idea of sort of having it be a one-stop shop for all your finances, which is what WeChat kind of is in China, um, would give Elon Musk a lot of power because ultimately, you know, if we're in the age where data is the new oil, instead of having oil barons like we had, you know, back in the 19th century, um, or, um, now we're basically having data barons and so who runs the infrastructure, who runs the apps, all of that. Uh, Musk is poised to be one of the biggest data barons of our age. And what type of power, uh, comes with that? Well, it comes with the power to essentially remake society however you want. Um, and so his interest in technocracy, which is also shared, uh, by some of these other, uh, likely data barons of the future, like Mark Andreessen, for example, um, among others, you know, should, I think, be, be scrutinized. And if this is the type of society, uh, we want, where we're basically going to be ruled by algorithms, uh, that are not human and only certain people maintain those algorithms. So perhaps, you know, it would be framed as, you know, a more egalitarian society and that all of society would be governed by the algorithms, but that isn't necessarily true because you obviously are going to have an upper class that programs and maintains the algorithms and decides what their parameters are and what they do. Um, and this is basically outlined in this book by the former Google Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, and Henry Kissinger, uh, that this will inevitably happen when AI takes over government. And you could argue that a lot of the efforts being made by Doge, and I'm not going to say that I'm not defending the stuff they've been ostensibly exposing, um, because obviously there is a lot of corruption and, and poor, like, just like there's pork in the spending bills, obviously, there was plenty of that in the type, in, in the public sector. And I don't really think it should be that, that surprising, but the question is, um, you know, what is that you, what changes is that used to justify? And pretty much across the board, it's putting, um, you know, AI in greater control of government. So if you're, uh, if it's your AI, for example, in the case of Elon Musk, Grok, right, or if it's OpenAI, in the case of Sam Altman, and, you know, you, uh, your algorithm has replaced, uh, the jobs of 20,000 people, then you have the arguably the influence that those 20,000 workers had on, on, on the organization that's employing you or now your algorithm. So, you know, there's a lot of things to be, um, >> discussed here. And even if people like Elon, uh, it's very complicated to argue that you're furthering the cause of, of liberty and freedom and all of that when you're centralizing power to such a significant degree and cheerleading that on. Um, and also a lot of policies that Elon Musk has long championed, the right doesn't like, like carbon pricing, carbon taxes, things like that. Um, you know, actually a lot of public policies that Musk has long supported are policies that have long been supported by entities like the World Economic Forum.
>> Yeah. >> Um, but now, you know, it has a very different, uh, sales pitch behind it. Uh, a lot of these policies are being framed as as libertarian. Uh, but, you know, there's a lot more, um, I think people should look less at the sales pitch and more on what these policies functionally mean. So, as an example, you have the political philosopher who's like the supposed house philosopher of the PayPal Mafia, Curtis Yarvin. Um, and Curtis Yarvin has a quote that could have come from Klaus Schwab or, you know, Noah Harari about how the masses need to be dealt with and that it's a humane alternative to genocide to have people in pods plugged into a virtual world to entertain them and basically be like waxed like bees in a in a beehive. Um, and, you know, basically being plugged into the metaverse or something. Um, I mean, how is that really functionally different?
>> Um, I guess in Yarvin's argument, he would say, well, it would be, you know, a corporation or a gov corp, a governing corporation or a public-private partnership, I guess, um, that would, you know, put you in a pod and control the metaverse, but isn't really that functionally different. Um, and, you know, if people can be, uh, convinced to buy, you know, Teslas after that was the liberal car, um, on the right, just to own the libs. I mean, I think it's only, it wouldn't be that hard to make a sizable demographic exist, uh, that would get Neuralink in a few years just to own the libs and things like that. You know, it's kind of a slippery slope and I think people sometimes are naive about how easily we can be manipulated, uh, oftentimes through the engineering and manufacturer of celebrities that are pushed in front of us. Um, and the way that algorithms can do that now is is extreme. Uh, because they've harvested so much data about us, they have profiled us so extensively. They know exactly, uh, what to, what to show you to get you to be persuaded about certain things depending on what demographic you're in. We are definitely easily, easy to, um, manipulate and guide in the direction that they want us to be guided in.
Um, I mean, it's all very dystopian, Whitney, and I, I mean, you are a wealth of information. I really appreciate you being on and sharing with us your perspective on that and your research on that because I think more and more people need to be aware rather than just following the cult of personality, which is kind of what, what we're seeing. And I've been really disappointed with people on the right for, you know, seemingly championing for the last several years, um, seemingly championing bringing things back to the people, only to just human nature just fall back into the trap, you know, fall back into the trap of just following along because we've been easily manipulated and, and we can follow the narrative. So, >> yeah, >> Whitney, thank you again for being here. I really appreciate your time. Um, we've got your book, One Nation Under Blackmail. The link is down below. You're also a contributing editor to, um, Unlimited Hangout, and we have that link down below. You're not really much on X, but we do have the link so people can follow you there, even though you don't post much, but really appreciate your insight, your intelligence, your research, everything that you do. Whitney, thank you so much. Thank you for watching this clip from the full Kim Iverson show, which you can watch Monday through Friday, 5:00 p.m. Eastern, 2:00 p.m. Pacific at kimiversonshow.com. See you there.