transcript

Speaker 1:
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Speaker 2:
[00:30] Ghislaine Maxwell, famously right, she's in prison. She meets with Todd Blanch, the number two in the Justice Department, and Trump's personal lawyer, former personal lawyer. Thereafter, magically, this woman who is a predator, sex trafficker involved in like sexual practices with a 14-year-old, basically rape of a 14-year-old, suddenly is transferred to the nicest, elite, you know, sort of prison facility in the US government. And nobody knows, nobody knows who signed off on her being sent there. And a whistleblower comes up and says she has all these special privileges to include petting puppies. Like no other prisoner gets to like have a puppy except for Ghislaine Maxwell. So like, who, who, who, who allowed her, who signed the authorization to move this convicted sex trafficker to the lowest security prison, this elite, great prison, and then gave her a puppy to play with? Who's behind this? What is the...

Speaker 3:
[01:38] Are you sure it's not a rat? It's just a big rat? No! Puppy...

Speaker 2:
[01:42] So they, at this facility, they train puppies for all, it to be all sort of like dogs that like can sniff bombs and can help blind people. And a puppy was taken out of training because Ghislaine Maxwell, the only prison in this whole facility, so she could play with a puppy. So I'm just saying, do all such predators get puppies to play with? Or is it just her? Or is there a puppy conspiracy going on here?

Speaker 3:
[02:10] You possibly make that question a little bit longer.

Speaker 4:
[02:12] She also is allowed to, like, she's also, it's not just that, the puppy, like, she's been able to get vegan food, toilet paper, which is actually a really big deal in prison, haircuts. When she gets visitors, they basically put the prison under lockdown. They treat her like a VIP. I think it's pretty clear that it was Todd Blanch that moved her in exchange for this, you know, exonerating interview. And, you know, they want to keep her alive and safe. And that makes me think that she may get a pardon at the end of this. Because, like, why else would you want to keep some, I mean, I know you're supposed to keep all prisoners alive, but, like...

Speaker 5:
[02:54] That's not a huge priority.

Speaker 4:
[02:55] She's clearly VIP.

Speaker 5:
[02:57] I will say, I do always like to remind people, you know, Tara and I, Tara more than me, but we've talked to a lot of the victims. And the visceral hatred of Ghislaine, far more than Jeffrey Epstein. I mean, the... I mean, these are not people... Obviously, there's deep upset about Jeffrey Epstein. But the hatred of Ghislaine for her cruelty... And I just... I get very frustrated when there's even the slightest hint that, oh, she was just his girlfriend, she was caught up. Like, she's, you know... I don't want to start differentiating who's more guilty, Ghislaine or Jeffrey, they're both super guilty. But she is right there with him as key designer of the whole abuse system and the crueler perpetrator. I mean, it's a weird thing to say, but Jeffrey Epstein, from what we would hear, and this is a ridiculous thing to say, but he wasn't cruel in the way she was to people, you know? And she participated in the sex acts. It wasn't just she was caught up with it. Anyway, I always like to make that point.

Speaker 4:
[04:03] No, she was the mastermind. I mean, in a lot of ways, he was not able to get these girls to show up at his doorstep without a woman who made them feel safe. A grown woman who was posh and was not the type of woman you would think would be hanging out with a pedophile. But she was basically like Elizabeth Murdoch, you know what I mean? She had status, she had connections, she had a posh British accent, a dog named Max, a little Yorkie that she would use. And she would tell them, you know, that their dreams could come true. She could help that happen. And it's like, what did Virginia call her? Mary Poppins or something like that? Yeah. I mean, and she was manipulative, of course, but she also hated them because she was so desperate for Jeffrey's love that she was so cruel, extra cruel to these girls. Yeah. Because they were the, they got in between him and, I mean, they got in between them and what she wanted with Jeffrey to be her boyfriend.

Speaker 2:
[05:11] When she hears Trump say, I'm not gonna rule out a pardon for her, is that part of the conspiracy? Basically, is this a way for them to communicate, like, you keep your mouth shut about my, you know, potential involvement in this and maybe I'll give you a pardon?

Speaker 4:
[05:28] I mean, he hasn't ruled it out.

Speaker 2:
[05:31] Specifically said, I'm not ruling it out, right? Because he could say, I will not give her a pardon. He hasn't said that.

Speaker 5:
[05:35] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[05:36] Yeah. And he wants to keep her happy so she doesn't go blab. Hey, guys, it's me again raving about Quince. I'm wearing another one of their silk long sleeve shirts. I seem to wear them on the show every day because they look so good and the quality is great and they're washable, which I love. But it's spring, so it's time to reset my closet. We get some short sleeves or sleeveless, and I'm sure you'll see more silk shirts on the show. But when I'm not on the show, I wear their organic cotton tees or I'm wearing their European linen shirts because they are really elevated. The fabric is amazing and the prices start at just $50. You're probably wondering how they're able to do this in an ethical way. Well, it's because they cut out the middle man. So if you're like me and it's time to reset your wardrobe, go to quince.com/tara for free shipping and 365 days of returns. Now available in Canada too. So go to quince.com/tara for free shipping and 365 days of returns. quince.com/tara.

Speaker 3:
[06:49] So Tara, yeah, I don't follow it day-to-day, and I know you're covering a million different things too, but what's the status with the Justice Department? Because they were supposed to put out all these documents. I realize that's harder to do than to say. But then they've been sitting on it, and occasionally people will come in on social media or someone in Congress will say, you always seize documents, but nothing's happened. So what's the state of play behind the scenes as far as you know?

Speaker 4:
[07:15] Everyone's just waiting. Apparently, there are 2 million more documents and the SDNY is just going through them rapidly. Everyone who's not on a major case, every prosecutor is basically working on the Epstein files right now. So I don't know when we'll ever... I mean, they're working on redacting. It's been more than a month since the... I think the deadline was December 15th. And we've seen just, I think they said 1% of the total Epstein package files. I mean, and obviously, they front-loaded it with all the embarrassing pictures of Bill Clinton and Democrats. But we haven't seen the rest of it.

Speaker 3:
[08:04] I don't know, did you see, there was a great New York Times magazine piece on Cash Patel, and a whole bunch of retired or just retired or pushed out FBI agents spoke about it. And apparently, they're taking tons of them offline from doing counterintelligence or fraud investigations to work either on immigration or the Epstein stuff. And so no one's looking at Chinese espionage and all these other things are focused on redacting things from the Epstein files.

Speaker 4:
[08:34] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[08:35] For Adam and Paul, you say files and you tend to think of like, oh, it's a piece of paper. But we're talking photographs, right? And videos and things that could be very different than what people think is like a file, like people thinking of a piece of paper.

Speaker 4:
[08:52] Yeah. I mean, yeah.

Speaker 5:
[08:53] And data sets and everything.

Speaker 4:
[08:55] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[08:56] Yeah. Can I add, Tara, I want to ask you some, so you and I work together very intensely on the Epstein story. I mean, I've told people, I spent a year in Iraq, as I have mentioned.

Speaker 3:
[09:11] Really?

Speaker 5:
[09:12] Yeah. I covered the tsunami in Indonesia. I saw thousands of dead bodies. I covered the Haiti earthquake. I think that covering Epstein was the most traumatic thing I've done. There was something about, on the one hand, really getting intimate with people whose lives had been ruined by this man, including our friend who we both loved a lot, Virginia, who ended up taking her own life because of it. But then, there's something specific about the complete lack of justice, the complete lack in our country that... I was pretty messed up by doing that story. I also spent four years covering Trump at a distance. I was covering his businesses in New York. I've never, as far as I know, been in a room with him. I've never seen him in person. And I needed... I mean, I basically all but quit journalism because I needed a break. It was too much. And you've been more on the front lines of both those stories than I have. How, I don't know, how are you doing? How is that? And why aren't you living in a farmhouse in Vermont like me?

Speaker 4:
[10:35] I'm getting there. I'm following you. It's been really tough. I mean, it's been hard. But like, I'm also not a White House correspondent anymore. And yeah, I'm not a White House correspondent anymore. So that's kind of easier. I do still cover politics, but I'm not like in the room being, you know, beaten up like these other journalists are not getting any information. So, you know, that's one way. And it's tiring. It gets exhausting a little bit, but I don't know. It's kind of like, you have to kind of compartmentalize your life too a little bit where people call a lot and they want to talk all the time about, you know, Trump or Epstein or this or that. And I do have to kind of be like, okay, I need a minute. Like I need a break because it's actually not my entire world. I need to have, you know, compartmentalize the... But this summer was really hard. Like I can't, there's no other way to say it because it was. Like the Epstein stuff just came back out, Virginia dying. I felt a little, like I felt some guilt around it because I had spoken to her before she died and she really telling me about like how horrible her life was. And I mean, everybody feels that way when they've spoken to someone who's like, sounded like they were at the end of their rope. And she was in Australia and I was saying, come to America, come, you know, get help. You need to see your family. And said, go see your publicist, like come see me, you know. But she was there alone on this farm and her kids were taken from her. And we all got close to Virginia. And you know, we were there with her. We saw up close the kind of impact these stories have on these women and how they changes their lives and really in really difficult ways. And so yeah, it's been a struggle. But otherwise, I don't know what else to do.

Speaker 2:
[12:56] What else would I do?

Speaker 4:
[12:58] You know, that's the other thing. I don't have another plan. I don't know. This is it. Maybe I'm trapped in a doom loop, but I don't know what else to do. This is my life.

Speaker 6:
[13:09] Hi, I'm Tamsen Fadal, journalist and author of How to Menopause and host of The Tamsen Show, a weekly podcast with your roadmap to midlife and beyond. We cover it all, from dating to divorce, aging to ADHD, sleep to sex, brain health to body fat, and even how perimenopause can affect your relationships. And trust me, it can. Each week, I sit down with doctors, experts and leaders in longevity for unfiltered conversations, packed with advice on everything, from hormones to happiness. And of course, how to stay sane during what can be, well, let's face it, a pretty chaotic chapter of life. Think of us as your midlife survival guide. New episodes released every Wednesday. Listen now on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.