WSJ: Trump... a poet and a doodler (07-18-2025--Hour1)

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I wasn't even aware it was a poem until somebody said something on Twitter. I saw about iambic pentameter or something, and I like that. All of that stuff is beyond me. I was never into the poetry unless you like put like a driving bass and drum beat behind it, then I could remember poetry. But if you didn't put it to music, I'm not going to remember poetry. And honestly, i'm a little I'm very impressed by people who are able to recite poetry, because I have. It's just one of those things I never got into, except for the whole roses or red violence or blue thing that was easy enough to remember. But I am to believe that this is a poem, and this is the big scoop that the Wall Street Journal is now going to get sued over, probably because they put out a report yesterday evening. I want to say that Donald Trump wrote a poem with a doodle as part of a birthday binder or something like yeah, birthday wishes to Jeffrey Epstein, which I guess at this point I should start playing this every time I say Jeffrey Epstein. On second thought, I probab shouldn't, cause I'm going to be playing that a lot because I'm going to say the guy's name a lot, which I'm not allowed to say. Apparently I've been told by I think the Masad that I'm not supposed to talk about Jeffrey Epstein, or if I don't talk about him every single second of the day, then I am part of the Jewish Massad conspiracy or something. I do talk about him, then I then I am also trying to destroy Donald Trump or something or look, I'm not really sure. All I can tell you is what was in the report here, and I don't know. I don't think anybody knows what the relationship was between Trump and Epstein except probably Donald Trump. And a little bit of background in twenty fifteen, when Donald Trump announced his candidacy for president, when he came down the Golden escalator, and then he began surging in the polls and he started winning these primaries and stuff. I spoke out against his candidacy. I gave all of the information I could about why I did not think he was going to be a good president, why people should reject him in the Republican primaries, and I completely lost that fight. Although my listening area up around Ashville, if you look looked at the coverage map of the radio station, those areas in our listening area, they went for Ted Cruz, but Trump still carried the state. So what difference did that make? Right? So, one of the things about Donald Trump that I talked about ten years ago was that he was a bit of a and I don't I shouldn't even use the word because I don't know lothario. Is that the right word. Yeah, I mean he was a ladies man, right, he he was. I don't want to say womanser, but maybe I don't know. Like, the guy wrote a book about sleeping with his friend's wives. I mean, it wasn't about that only, but it was a large part of the book. He talked about how STDs were his quote personal Vietnam. Right, the guy got around, right, he he he went out with lots of women, and this was known. He was the most eligible bachelor and even when he was married. I'm kidding, not really, But anyway, the point was, like, we all knew this about Trump, and the left thought that they had Trump with the Access Hollywood tape right when they released that right before the election, and of course we knew how that turned out. It did not influence the election, but it did turn a lot of women in the suburbs off. They did not Republican women, I should say, they did not want to vote for him, and it was a lot closer probably than it could have been had that tape not come out. So all of that being said, it is not surprising that Donald Trump would write a letter of birthday wishes to a guy that Trump himself acknowledges that he knew. Everybody knew him. Everybody in that quote unquote elite environment knew Jeffrey Epstein. And they lived down the street from each other, and they went against each other in a bidding war or an auction war over a property that they both wanted. Trump did win that, by the way, He won that auction, and that's apparently what soured their relationship. And all of that occurred prior to Epstein having an investigation opened against him. Right, So that's the timeline here. You got to go back twenty five thirty years. Epstein is, you know, making all these moves. He has all these parties with people and stuff like that. He's got all these connections, and he turns fifty and his cohort, his partner in crime, Glaine Maxwell, who is you know, in prison for her role in this prostitution ring that had absolutely no clients. Apparently she's in prison in he killed himself or didn't kill himself. And nobody really knows because the video has been you know, has been released, but there's like two minutes missing out of it or whatever, So we didn't really know if he killed himself. And people who know that prison, they're like, yeah, unless the guy was you know, two feet tall, there's no way to there's nothing to hang yourself off of. But who knows. I don't know, and I'm withholding judgment when I rules in the Trump era is to give it some time. Let's see what happens. I don't have to draw conclusion and draw a line in the stand and say this is what happened. This is obviously what happened, because I don't know, because it's not obvious what all happened. For example, I used to think, hey, you know what he may have been Epstein may have been an asset. He could have been an asset in the service of the CIA or Israeli intelligence, the Massade. I guess I should probably do that for Massade or any other foreign intelligence service. I don't know, Oh, it's possible. But then I saw an interview with Mike Bens. He appeared on the Liz Wheeler podcast and Mike Ben's I've cited his work in the past. He's a former State Department guy, and he's like he's now he left the State Department just outraged about stuff, and he's been I think it's called The Gray Zone is now his podcast, and so he brings I think a lot of credibility, but expertise as well, even though I know that's a dirty word nowadays. But he's been offering advice on like what Pam BONDI should specifically ask for, because if you don't know the way these intelligence services operate and who does what and what the forms are and stuff, you're not going to know what to look for, right. So he's been offering that. But he made a good point on the Liz Wheeler podcast a couple of days ago that he said he doesn't believe Epstein was an asset because that word means something. What's more likely, in Mike Benz's opinion, is that Epstein was a financier. Now, how he got the money, Apparently he stole a bunch of it from the Victoria's Secrets founder. He was managing that guy's money and stole a bunch of it. Whatever, But anyway, Nobody really knows how he got all of his money. Nobody seems really particularly interested in figuring that out, which I think is the most important key to all of this. If you can trace that, that probably would tell you a lot. But it sounds like he may have been a cutout for government intelligence agencies, not that he was in their employee. He was a pass through a financier. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina. Just a quick drive up the mountain and Cabins of Asheville is your connection. Whether you're celebrating an anniversary, a honeymoon, maybe you want to plan a memorable proposal, or get family and friends together for a big old reunion. 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I mentioned I think Ebstein, Well I should, says I think, because I don't know, but it sounds plausible. I think it is a legitimate theory that Jeffrey Epstein was a financier. He was a cutout. What does that mean? I don't I'm not an expert in any of his stuff, but I do play one sometimes on the radio when I'm quoting other people and reading their stories. The cutout. The service that this financier or cutout would provide is if a country wants to do something that their political leadership doesn't want them to do. From an intelligence standpoint, they can get together a bunch of money through a financier and then that guy becomes the bagman basically, and then he hands off the money to some other party that gets the money to the operation that the original government did not want their fingerprints on. Okay. And what Mike Bens said was that one of the clients, not the sex clients, but a business client that Epstein apparently had or knew or something, was a guy named Kashogi. Not the guy that got chopped up in the suitcase, the Saudi Arabia guy in the Washington Post column. Not that guy. Some other guy named Kashogi. I don't know if they were related or not, but that guy was apparently at the heart of the Iran contra affair back in the eighties under President Reagan, where the CIA right sold the arms or sold I forget what it was all about. I was in grade school, guys, I was not following politics in first grade, okay. But the deal involved Iran and then sending the money down to the Nicaraguan rebels or whatever they were, and they didn't want the US didn't want fingerprints on any of that stuff, which, of course it eventually came out. They didn't want their fingerprints on it, so they used financiers. And he might be gave other examples of this as well. And when you have ally countries that don't or that are at cross purposes, let me say they don't agree with a particular operation or a strategy. You know, don't you get involved in this thing over here other country. You know, it's a way for the other country to get involved in the thing without having their fingerprints on it and ruining the relationship with their allied countries. And so if that is the case, and I know that's a big if. This is just a theory, right, but if that is the case that Epstein was playing this role, it doesn't mean he's on the payroll of any of these governments. I'm sure the intel agencies knew, like if they were vetting their bag man, they would know, Okay, this guy's got all these you know, this this perversion and all this other stuff. But it's not like it's not like they were running him as an asset or an agent. Right, But if he were, if it were to get out that he was doing all of this work, and if any of this stuff is in any of the files. If they're you know, if they would even write this stuff down, that has the potential to do serious damage to international relations. And that tells me, if that's true, that there is a really big incentive for the intelligence agencies to not let this stuff get out, right, because they don't want other countries to see what they have been doing, or who they've been working with, and operations they have funded and all of that. That is not an argument, by the way, to say that we shouldn't get all of this stuff released. I'm not arguing that, but I understand the incentive that the deep state, the intelligence agencies, and politicians would have in saying, okay, let's put this thing to bed. Right, we are at a point now where I don't think that's an option anymore. I think Trump tried it last week and part of his uh, you know, the MAGA influencer crowd, they're not having anything to do with that. They want it all they're they're you know, they've they've made this a huge issue for them over the last whatever five years or so, so they wanted out. I mentioned the other day, I think it was Wednesday or something, maybe Tuesday when I when I did talk about Epstein because people are accusing me and everybody else, you I don't you talk about Epstein like I already talked about him once this week and now here's twice this week. Or the Epstein files and all that he tried to put it to rest. It wouldn't uh, that wouldn't fly with the magaaland folks some of them. Others are like, okay, yeah, let's move on. But then you saw the Democrats pounce dare I say, sees upon this issue because they see it as a way to hurt Trump and to divide the Trump base, right, so they are all in on it. That's why you got Democrats running around filing all of these resolutions and motions, you know, try to attach things to bills to get you know, the DOJ to release all of the Epstein files. Now. I don't know if they are aware of what all is in the files, if there are any files, I don't know. I think they are just looking right now. Their incentive is hurt Trump, divide the base, we can win back the House, issue subpoenas, start impeachment proceedings like that. That's their incentives. I always try to look for incentives, and so that's their incentive. They're going to take advantage of this because it hurts Trump and splits the base right. But to me, the real question is did Donald Trump write the poem. I'm going to read you the poem and you tell me if it sounds like Donald Trump at all. Okay, all right, if you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events, and I know you do too. And you've probably heard me say get your news from multiple sources. Why well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with ground News. It's an app and it's a website and it combines news from around the world in one place so you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check dot ground, dot news slash Pete. I put the link in the podcast description too. I started using ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself check dot Ground dot News slash pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get fifteen percent off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature. Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports Ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. Here's a message from the WBT text line driven by Liberty Buick GMC. Nobody is talking about the original cases against Epstein that he was found guilty of. By the way, I think he is alive somewhere that we will never know about now. He's hanging with Elvis. Come on, all right, So the Wall Street Journal out with this exclusive story. It was Jeffrey Epstein's fiftieth birthday and Gilain Maxwell was preparing a special gift to mark the occasion. She turned to Epstein's family and friends, One of them was Donald Trump. Maxwell collected letters from Trump and dozens of Epstein's other associates for a two thousand and three birthday album, According to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. As far as I know, there's no image by the way of this document of this letter. Pages from the leather bound album, a umbled before Epstein was first arrested in two thousand and six, so that was three years later. Are among the documents examined by Justice Department officials, who then leaked it to the Wall Street scher Oh, I mean sorry, they didn't say that, But they were examined by DOJ officials who investigated Epstein and Maxwell years ago, according to people who have reviewed the pages, So that has to come from the DOJ. Right. It's unclear if any of the pages are part of the Trump administration's recent review, but it very well could have been. And if you are in the administration and you're going through the documents and you see this letter that's in this album, maybe that's a good reason for you to say, Hey, we shouldn't release any more of this stuff. Let's just say it's done. We're done, like that's it. Stop this whole thing, which is the wrong approach. I think they should have just put it out there, and Trump could have just given an explanation like, yeah, I kne who the guy was. I had my assistant type this thing up, this letter because it's tight and there are not like random capitalizations all throughout the text here. In fact, it's a very odd thing. This what is described as a letter, but I've seen people call it a poem or something. I don't think it's a poem. In fact, it looks like it reads like a script. It literally has the first words voiceover colon like these are stage directions with scripts, so the voiceover, and it's not very long. I'm gonna read the whole thing to you. I will do my best to differentiate the voices here, But every single script here has voiceover in front of it, and then Donald Jeffrey, Donald Jeffrey, Donald Jeffrey, and then Trump. Which is weird that he would say Trump at the end of it versus just Donald again. So that's odd to me. But maybe like you're trying to make sure that everybody knows this is Trump, But throughout the script it just says Donald every time. Okay, so here's the text voiceover. There must be more to life than having everything Donald. Yes, there is, but I won't tell you what it is, Jeffrey, nor will I since I also know what it is. Donald. We have certain things in common, Jeffrey Jeffrey. Yes, we do, come to think of it, Donald Enigmas never age have you noticed that, Jeffrey. As a matter of fact, it was clear to me the last time I saw you Trump, a pal is a wonderful thing. Happy birthday, and may every day be another wonderful secret which people are obviously construing in the worst possible way, that Donald Trump knew Epstein's secrets. That's it. That's where it ends. Okay, So the letter bearing Trump's name, which was reviewed by the journal is Body, which I thought like, wasn't that like the description of all of those late night cinemax shows or something? Okay, I don't like, was that body to you? I don't even know anyway, Like many of the other letters that were in the album, it contained several lines of typewritten text, so that was typewritten. Donald Trump famously user of the typewriter and such. But so that was all typed out. And the text is inside a silhouette like a with the use of a marker, a heavy marker, which, of course you know everybody knows Donald Trump writes with the sharpie all the time. And so the marker is used to make an outline of a woman. They claim it's a naked woman. I don't know how you would know it's a naked woman if it's just a sharpie outline right. It appears to be hand drawn with a heavy marker. A pair of small arcs denote the woman's breasts, and the future president's signature is a squiggly donald below her waist, right in that pelvic region. So he he wrote his name as the as hair, essentially, but we don't know if that's actually true. We haven't seen it. All we're getting is the Wall Street Journal's description of this. So everybody is conjuring up their own visions of what this thing must look like. Now. Trump denied this. He said, this is not me. This is a fake thing. It's a fake Wall Street Journal story. I never wrote a picture in my life. I never wrote a picture. I don't know what that means. I don't draw pictures of women. It's not my language, it's not my words. He told the journal he was preparing to file a lawsuit if it published an article about this. He says, I'm going to sue the Wall Street Journal, just like I sued everyone else. This is all from the Wall Street Journal article. Allegations that Epstein had been sexually abusing girls became public in two thousand and six, and he was arrested that year. Epstein died in twenty nineteen in jail, allegedly after he was arrested a second time and charged with sex trafficking conspiracy. Justice Department officials did not respond to requests for comment or address questions about whether the Trump paid and other pages, if they album were part of the agency's recent documents review, and the FBI has declined to comment. Another question that I have on the larger story, if Epstein didn't kill himself, right, but he was in fact murdered to cover up the whole operation, and that very well could have happened. I do not know, right, So if that's but if that's the theory to be tested, then what of Gilaine Maxwell? How do you explain the fact that she's still alive? And I think like a week or so ago she said she would be willing to spill the beans on all of this stuff. So how come she's still alive? If the powerful people could get to him, how could they not get to her? And maybe they are trying to I don't know, right, And if she dies or commits suicide, then we'll have all different bunch of questionestions here. But it's one of the things I've never quite understood Jack. I don't understand why she's in prison serving this term for a crime that there are no other perpetrators like she ran this ring, yet there are no Johns that were ever arrested. When you think she would know who those people are? Yeah, a lot of questions, A lot of questions. Also Trump has doodled. You know. Stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. 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They are your life told through the eyes of everyone around you and all who came before you, and they will tell others to come who you are. Visit creative video dot com. I got a tweet here from Karen. It's a Pete tweet. She says, out of all of the coverage on the Epstein boondoggle going on, yours is the only coverage I will pay attention to. Thank you, Karen. Thanks for the level headed commentary that I misrush for. Tired of the extremes on both sides everyone else I turn off quickly. Thank you, Karen. I appreciate that. Look. I try to give you as much of this information as I can. I put my cards on the table, tell you where my mind is on stuff, and you decide for yourself. I think you guys are smart enough to know you know your own opinions on things and form your own opinions on things. So and I also you know that's why I'm bringing this story. There are some people who'd be like, no, we're not going to talk about this because whatever reason, but you should hear this stuff so this way, when somebody else comes at you with this story, you will have some of the details right and some of the questions. And anybody that tells you they know what went on with Epstein unless they were like an investigator on the case, they nobody really knows. Even the people like in journalism that have been on this case for fifteen years, they acknowledge they don't know all of the stuff. Because the more you start peeling away the layers of the onion, the more you realize there are a lot more layers to go, and you don't know a lot of stuff. One thing I think is pretty clear that Epstein was just a monster. Guy was just a monster and a con man, a charlatan. Now there are people who are coming to Trump's defense saying, as the president, did you know he doesn't draw like this? Hang on a second. He says, I never wrote a picture in my life. I don't draw pictures of women. And I don't know if that's true or not. I'll take him at his word for it. But he does draw, he has drawn, and so this is the big gotcha that democrats are using. Because in his own book, Never Give Up, there's a passage where he says, sometimes being a giver, which is I am a giver as well. Sometimes being a giver will open you up to new talents. Each year, I donate and autographed doodle to the Doodle four Hunger auction at Tavern on the Green. It's a restaurant in Manhattan. It's a great event and contributors have included Sting, Muhammad Ali, Larry King, a whole bunch of other names. He drops in there. It takes me a few minutes to draw something. In my case, it's usually a building or a skyscraper or a city scape of skyscrapers. And then I signed my name. But it raises thousands of dollars to help the Hungary in New York through the Capuchin Food Pantries Ministry. And then he talks a little bit about the charity event and there's an image the doodle for Hunger and it's it's just like buildings. It's a skyline, very rudimentary, like just black you know, sharpie marker, with some buildings like all one line. He never picks the pen up. He just goes right across the page making different sized buildings and stuff. And then he takes a gray pen or maybe a pencil and he does like a little silhouette line on some of the sides of the buildings, and he makes some windows here and there, and then he signs his name, which during the break, I just realized I never noticed this about his signature, his last name. He's got too many he's got too many letters in there, because like he does the big TE thing, and then he's got like that would be the R. The first peak that comes up is the R, and then it goes down and it goes up and down and up, So that's the U. And then it goes down and then up one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, nine peaks after the TRU. So, okay, that's the M. He's got like an extra M or two in there. It's so it's Trump, I guess. Anyway, I never noticed that about his signature. It's the little things, people, That's how you crack the case. Okay, So he went on to truth social Trump did, and here was his statement. The Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch personally were warned directly by President Donald J. Trump that the supposed letter they printed by President Trump to Epstein was a fake and if they printed they will be sued mister Murdoch stated that he would take care of it, but obviously did not have the power to do so. The editor of the Wall Street Journal, Emma Tucker, was told directly by Caroline Levitt and by President Trump that the letter was a fake, but Emma Tucker didn't want to hear that. Instead, they're going with a false, malicious, and defamatory story anyway. President Trump will be suing the Wall Street Journal, News Corps and mister Murdoch shortly. The press has to learn to be truthful and not rely on sources that probably don't even exist. President Trump has already beaten George Stephanopolis, slash ABC sixty minutes, slash CBS, and others, and looks forward to suing and holding accountable the once grade Wall Street Journal. It has truly turned out to be a disgusting and filthy rag that's in quotes and writing defamatory lies like this shows their desperation to remain relevant. If there were any truth at all on the Epstein hoax, as it pertains to President Trump, this information would have been revealed by Comy Brennan, Crooked Hillary, and other radical left lunatics years ago. It certainly would not have sat in a file waiting for Trump all caps in quotes to have won the three elections. This is yet an other example of fake news. Notice he says three elections there, and I agree that if this was in the files, why wouldn't they have produced it within the last fifteen years? Why just now, of all moments, now somebody comes forward with this document. It's a little suss. As the kids would say, suspicious gen x and above. He also had another post where he said, based on the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein, I have asked Attorney General Pambondi to produce any and all pertinent grand jury testimony, which I don't think he can do, but we'll say, subject to court approval. This scam perpetrated by the Democrats should end right now. So he sounds like he's going to sue the Wall Street Journal in news corps, which if this is false, then he should. And by the way, if it is false, the Wall Street Journal should identify publicly their source or sources, right they should burn the liars now. If they're not willing to do that. If that ends up being the case, then you kind of know where the Wall Street Journal is coming from on this stuff. But I had a thought when I saw that he was threatening and threatening to sue the Wall Street Journal over this. It's a little bit outside the box, granted, Okay, But as long as we're just speculating on theories and such, is it possible that this is just a way for News Corps and Rupert Murdoch's family or whatever their their operation is this, Is it possible that this is just a way to make a very large donation to Donald Trump's presidential library without having to make a direct contribution, right, so you wouldn't be on the donor list, but you would still pay out tens of millions of dollars. I mean, yes, it would be through a defamation suit and all that whatever, and you would have probably you know, they settle and they give him a bunch of money because Trump has said I think that the previous settlements that money is going to go to his presidential library. So is it possible I'm just spitball in here. It is it possible that they write this story just so they can make a donation to his library. I don't believe that's true either, but it's possible. You don't know. Nobody knows it's possible. Ed Morrissey at hodair dot com. He called the whole story a big fat nothing. Berger Trump has already acknowledged many times that he and Epstein used to socialize together, but he stopped contacting Epstein well before his first arrest in two thousand and seven. What would it matter if Trump had sent a birthday letter to him in two thousand and three, four years prior. It's a fair point to all right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to dpetecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.