Transcription
I'm not sure that I've seen one of Trump's efforts to deflect attention away from him on the Epstein matter backfire worse than this.
And finally, do you think that Donald Trump should be deposed by this committee?
Absolutely. You know, I was a lawyer and as a lawyer, you would look for pattern and practice. If you were deposing uh a witness in a case that you were trying, if you were in court, what did you know about this person? What you knew could influence how you question that person, how you tried the case. Donald Trump has been held civily liable for sexual assault by a jury of his peers. Nine members of a jury found him liable in the sexual assault of Eene Carol. That is behavior that fits a pattern if one were looking for a pattern. He has also been convicted on 34 felony counts for attempting to hide his relationship with a escort and then to commit business fraud to prevent it from becoming public in the 2016 campaign which was ultimately election interference. So, if I were running the committee or I were involved in this investigation, I would be looking for people who maybe had some prior conduct that might be relevant to either money or crimes. And yes, I think that uh it would be in keeping uh with the scope of the investigation of this committee to uh set up a deposition uh with President Trump. I know he's been deposed many, many, many times. He's taken the Fifth Amendment many, many hundreds of times. So, I'm not saying you're going to get a lot of information, but given what's in the files and given past and prior conduct, he would be on my witness list.
So, let me get this straight. Donald Trump is severely implicated in the Epstein files. All the attention is on him and his name being mentioned 38,000 times. He needs to get the attention off of him. So, he issues his little clarion call to his minions. It's really a Democrat problem. It's not a Republican. It's a Democrat problem.
And his minions answer that call. James Comer and the Oversight Committee Republicans called in the boogeyman of all boogeymen, the Clintons, because no one will get the attention off of Trump better than the most reviled figures on the right. And best case scenario, Hillary Clinton refuses to testify and you can just cue the outrage machine about what she's hiding. Only small problem. Hillary did show up and she testified and she answered every single question. And then she used her time in what was supposed to be a coup for the Republicans and Trump to instead give a detailed, thoughtful, and persuasive answer as to why Trump himself should testify. If you are looking for the backfire of the year, you just got it. And let's be clear, it's not just Hillary Clinton calling for Donald Trump to testify. Now that James Comer has delivered the gift of establishing a president wherein everybody has to testify, even presidents of the United States. Well, now there's no reason not to call on Trump, and explain what he knows, which is why Roana said this on national television just this weekend.
Let me talk to you about one of the big headlines before the strikes against Iran this week, the fallout over the Epstein files. As you well know, former President Bill Clinton testified before the House Oversight Committee behind closed doors, saying, quote, "He had no idea of the crimes that Epstein was committing." Do you have any outstanding questions for President Bill Clinton about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein? Congressman, when the transcript comes out, I think people will see that he answered every question. I actually think they'll see that some of the Democrats asked him tougher questions than even the Republicans. Uh and he sat there, he didn't take the fifth. He answered every question uh fully and the American people will be able to decide uh on what uh they believe. The point though is that President Clinton has set a precedent, a new Clinton rule. That means that Donald Trump should do the same, answer the questions. Howard Lutnik should do the same. I'm working with a Republican actually to subpoena Howard Lutnik next week. uh and I believe he will come before the committee and every person who went to that island or who corresponded with Epstein about uh going to his mansion should be called under oath to tell us what they knew.
So, you're going to subpoena Howard Lucknik? Do you plan to subpoena President Trump and do you believe you have the votes to subpoena President Trump to testify before the committee?
We have the votes to subpoena Lutnik. I'm not I don't believe we have the votes right now to subpoena President Trump because the Republicans control the House and I don't think they would vote with us on that. But when Robert Garcia is chair of the oversight committee, we will have those votes. And the Clinton rule means that Donald Trump and his family members should testify. And by the way, he should do it voluntarily. I mean, he should look at what President Clinton did. He answered every question. Why can't Donald Trump do the same? There's this question of these three FBI interviews. There's someone who made allegations against Donald Trump that she was sexually abused as a minor. I want to be very clear, there's no evidence whether that's true or not, but there were allegations made. One of those witness interviews uh was released. Three of them are hidden by the Justice Department. Why are they hidden? When will they be released? These are the types of questions Donald Trump needs to answer.
And that followed Robert Garcia just days earlier offering up the same sentiment.
I also want to add one other thing which I think is really important. Republicans have now set a new president, which is to bring in presidents and former presidents to testify. So, we're once again going to make that call that we did yesterday. We are now asking and demanding that President Trump officially come in and testify in front of the oversight committee. He appears in the Epstein files next to next to Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell almost more than anybody else. So, it's time for the president to answer questions about why files are missing from the DOJ, why there's been a White House cover up and why we continue in that administration to call this investigation a hoax. And finally, I'll review the call that we made yesterday that we are demanding again that the press and the public be allowed inside the depositions so that you can hear the answers and the questions directly. And if that's not going to happen, they need to release a full unedited review of the questions and video within 24 hours of the end of these depositions. That means the Secretary Clinton deposition needs to be released immediately today.
And I want to be clear, Trump knew full well that this was going to happen. Here's what he said when asked if he wants to see Bill Clinton testify just before. "I don't like seeing him devote, but uh you know, they certainly went after me a lot more than that." "I don't like I don't like I like him" and "I don't like seeing him deposed." Quote, "I don't like seeing him deposed." Yeah, I'll bet you don't like seeing presidents who have some association with Jeffrey Epstein deposed. I'll bet you don't like seeing him hauled in front of Congress. I'll bet that I can figure out why that might rub you the wrong way. And yet that never stopped James Comer from establishing this precedent anyway that would eventually train all of our attention on Donald Trump. All because Comer thought that he could turn this into the usual D versus R food fight. But here's the problem. Democrats are not in a cult of personality. We're not going to blindly rush to Bill Clinton's defense just because he's a Democrat. Frankly, Bill Clinton should testify. Hillary Clinton should testify. I'm glad they testified. I think that should happen to everybody that they should all testify. And now, thanks to James Comer, we have precedent that says exactly that. And in fact, Comer was asked about this point about hauling Donald Trump in to testify. Here's what he had to say.
Secretary Clinton said in her opening statement, "If Republicans were serious about investigating Jeffrey Epstein, that you would call President Trump to testify. Why won't you?"
Well, uh, President Trump has answered hundreds, if not thousands of questions from you all about Epstein. Uh and I I think he's been very transparent in releasing the documents. Uh we expect uh hopefully more documents to come in. We're still assessing the 3 million plus documents that we have. Uh we obviously will be moving on to the next phase and bringing more people in for questions.
So, okay. So, let's get something straight. Answering questions about Epstein by lying to those questions, that's not transparency. That's just lying. By Comer's logic, answers like these would be sufficient to say that Donald Trump has already answered for all of his Epstein connections in a satisfactory manner.
"Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy's been talked about for years. You're asking we have Texas, we have this, we have all of the things. And are people still talking about this guy? This creep that is unbelievable. If there's nothing incriminating in the violence, why not?" "I think it's time now for the country to maybe get on to something else." "What would you say to people who feel they have justice, Mr. President?" "Something that people care about. Yeah. What What did you say? Go ahead." "What would you What would you say to the survivors who feel they" "You are the worst reporter. No wonder CNN has no ratings because of people like you. You know, she's a young woman. I don't think I've ever seen you smile. I've known you for 10 years. I don't think I've ever seen a smile on your face." "You know why? You know why you're not smiling? Cuz you know you're not telling the truth." "And you're you're a very dishonest organization and they should be ashamed of you." "I don't know anything about the FC files. You know, I've been fully exonerated. Yeah."
So apparently those are the quote unquote very satisfactory responses from Trump that James Comer was looking for. So, I could see how a deposition for Trump wouldn't even be necessary since he's already been so transparent. Am I right? In fact, even I took on this issue live on CNN.
"President Trump has been the most transparent president on the Epstein files in all president. How many Epstein files did Joe Biden release?" "There was there was an ongoing investigation." "How many Epste ongoing prosecution in 2022?" "How many did Obama release?" "Wait, wait, wait. I mean, acknowledge what I just said. There was an ongoing investigation up to 2022 that was appealed and that appeal ended in 2025 because there was an ongoing prosecution. So let her finish your point." "So So President Trump has been transparent about this. He has also been under the inquisition of the press and everyone else that asks him a question, he has answered and answered and answered. Oval Office, press room, Air Force One, you name it, he's answering questions. How many times has Bill Clinton been asked by the conservative press or even the liberal media hard questions about the Epstein files? Zero. You you say that he's been the most transparent president in history. You've heard his answers. He's come out and said, 'Are you still talking about the Epstein files?' When a reporter on Air Force One asked him about the Epstein files, he called her piggy. When Caitlyn Collins just a few days ago tried to ask him about the Epstein files, he attacked her and said that she should smile more. This is the transparency that you expect from the president." "The files released are the transparency." "We have We have 6 million files and 3 million are released. What about the other 3 million? Are you Are you okay with that? Are you okay with 3 million files not being released?" "Let's let the process tease out. We've already learned from Todd Blanch the processed out."
Somewhere along the line, Republicans got their marching orders, that Donald Trump's desperate deflections away from answering for the Epstein files, that his rambling screeds, his winding diatribes, that those count as transparency does not seem to be working out so well. In fact, I also asked right-wing host Katie Pavlich on NewsNation whether she supports Donald Trump following the James Comer precedent. She too was not exactly too keen on answering. Given the fact that Trump himself is named in the Epstein files 38,000 times, do you think he should at least testify in the same way that Bill and Hillary Clinton did?
"Uh there are multiple people who have testified already in these depositions who have said that the president is not implicated in any kind of crime. And even today, wouldn't you want wouldn't you want to hear from the guy? Wouldn't you want to hear right from the horse's mouth?" "I think the president has much bigger issues to deal with. And even today, President Bill Clinton said that he believes bigger issues than being implicated in a pedophile ring. We started the show talking about the FC files. I think it's interesting that we're now diverting away from the facts on local uh Democrats letting criminals out of prison who are then going and murdering people at at bus stops and on the train on the way home. But I want to get to this. I think it's a pretty I think it's a pretty big issue when you have the sitting president of the and and frankly if the president was a Democrat and he was implicated in the biggest sex trafficking ring in the United in the history of this country I think the word implicated would be strong and I I think" "but how would you know but how would you know if he doesn't test" "because you can read because because you can read the documents you can read the emails and this isn't just about President Trump but we have 3 million documents that haven't been released" "yes you can the epinec is a distraction from what's actually happening from this story that happened just today where we have a an illegal immigrant from West Africa." "You brought up the idea of a sex of a of a registered sex offender." "Yeah. Registered convicted sex offender, not the president who was named in files with no evidence at all of criminal wrongdoing. Those are two very different things. But I want to get back to the transparency. Why wouldn't you want some transparency?" "There's there's been plenty of transparency, which is why President Trump signed the legislation to put out the documents. Do you support the Do you support the" "I think the president has much more prejudice in front of the" "Look, we're completely off base here talking about the Epstein files. I want to ask you this question about what happened in Fairfax County just tonight. We now know."
So, look, I have been crystal clear for months now. Anybody who has information about Epstein should testify. That includes the Democrats. That includes the Republicans. But what's happening here at the hands of these Republicans is not transparency. It is a stunt. They heard Trump's little clarion call to make this a quote Democrat problem. And they're following his orders. That is why Hillary Clinton was called to testify before the guy whose own name was mentioned 38,000 times in the files. That is why Pam Bondi lied about the files being on her desk. It's why those right-wing influencers waved around their fake binders. It's why Ghislaine Maxwell was moved to a low security prison. It's why more than 2 months after the files were supposed to be released, 3 million files still haven't been released. It's why within those files, survivors names were exposed and co-conspirators names were hidden. It could not be more obvious that the US government under Donald Trump is engaged in a cover up to protect a pedophile ring. And while all of these Republicans parade the Clintons around and cosplay as champions for transparency, the reality is that they could have actual transparency if they wanted it. But they chose to put loyalty to Trump over accountability for the survivors. Before you go, if you enjoyed this content and you want to see more and support independent media, please subscribe to this channel. The subscribe button will be right here on the screen. But second, the reality is that we are now in a political environment where this administration can lean on any of the social media platforms to suppress certain voices if they don't like critical coverage. That means my longevity here is in the hands of a few tech billionaires who are already making it clear that they are willing to cater to this administration. To that end, signing up for my newsletter is a way for me to reach you directly if that ever becomes necessary. I'll put the link right here on the screen as well. So, please sign up. It's free, but there's also an option to do a paid subscription if you'd like to support me and my team. I really appreciate it.