{"id":15450,"date":"2025-07-23T18:23:27","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T01:23:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=15450"},"modified":"2025-07-23T18:35:40","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T01:35:40","slug":"trumps-epstein-conspiracy-machine-not-going-away-bradcast-7232025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=15450","title":{"rendered":"Trump&#8217;s Epstein &#8216;Conspiracy Machine Not Going Away&#8217;: &#8216;BradCast&#8217; 7\/23\/2025"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/Images\/BradCast_Trump-Epstein_072325.jpg\" hspace=\"6\" vspace=\"3\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\">Given the amount of madness now under way, particularly regarding Trump&#8217;s Epstein problems  &#8212; much of <i>that<\/i>, thankfully, hilarious &#8212; it seemed another good moment on <a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/BradCast\"><i>The BradCast<\/i><\/a> to once again send up our Digby\/Driftglass Signal! Happily, they answered the call. [<i>Audio link to full show follows this summary.<\/i>]\n<p>With an avalanche of incoming, we&#8217;ve got a <i>lot<\/i> of ground to cover on today&#8217;s program. So, our OG blogger pals &#8212; <b>HEATHER DIGBY PARTON<\/b> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/writer\/heather_digby_parton\">Salon<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/digbysblog.net\/\">Digby&#8217;s Hullabaloo<\/a>, and the pseudonymous <b>&#8216;DRIFTGLASS&#8217;<\/b> of the <a href=\"http:\/\/professionalleft.blogspot.com\/\"><i>Professional Left Podcast<\/i><\/a> &#8212; generously join us for the full hour to try and make some sense of it all. <\/p>\n<p>Among the <i>many<\/i> stories discussed today&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Donald Trump<\/b>&#8216;s hilariously ham-fisted attempts at covering up his long-running role in the life of his former bestie and late pedophile <b>Jeffrey Epstein<\/b>, are become more transparently ridiculous by the day. Driftglass describes it as &#8220;Stupid Watergate,&#8221; where even the MAGA supporters are finally catching on. What took them so long? &#8220;This is a cult that we are dealing with&#8221; after all, Digby reminds.\n<p>There is a <i>lot<\/i> of news wrapped into that one story alone to keep us busy today. But, no, neither Digby nor Driftglass believe Speaker <b>Mike Johnson<\/b>&#8216;s gambit to recess the U.S. House early for the rest of Summer to avoid demands for votes to release the &#8220;Epstein Files&#8221; (which Johnson himself <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/bennyjohnson\/status\/1945181783567319432\">favored just last week<\/a>) is going to make any of this go away or get better for Trump. Digby explains why. And it may, as the pair seem to concur, be the &#8220;load-bearing lie&#8221;, finally knocked down, that does to the Trump Presidency what Hurricane Katrina did to <b>George W. Bush<\/b>&#8216;s.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>One of Trump&#8217;s latest attempts at distraction from his ever-growing Epstein woes was to declare this week that <b>&#8220;Barack Hussein Obama&#8221;<\/b> (and <b>Hillary Clinton<\/b>) have been caught dead to rights in a &#8220;coup&#8221; to steal the 2016 Presidential election! The one that Trump won. What is the &#8220;irrefutable proof&#8221; Trump claims has been newly uncovered by his Director of National Intelligence <b>Tulsi Gabbard<\/b> revealing that, as Trump charged yesterday, &#8220;Obama was sedatious&#8221;? (<a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/justinbaragona.bsky.social\/post\/3lukvfdztm22i\">His actual word<\/a>.) Well, it takes all of us on today&#8217;s program to even muster a guess at what the hell any of them are talking about. (Even folks on the Right who previously <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/alexbward\/status\/1947988395453518318\">decried<\/a> &#8220;RussiaGate&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/2025\/07\/russiagate-re-revisited-gabbard-urges-doj-to-prosecute-obama-officials\/\">aren&#8217;t impressed<\/a>.) But, sure. Here&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dni.gov\/index.php\/newsroom\/press-releases\/press-releases-2025\/4086-pr-15-25\">the evidence<\/a>. They finally caught Obama!\n<p>Whatever the supposed crime is &#8220;doesn&#8217;t matter because there&#8217;s nothing there,&#8221; explains Driftglass. &#8220;There is no conspiracy. It simply exists as a bright shiny object to distract from the fact that Donald Trump is covering up a pedophile business that his dead best friend ran, with Donald Trump&#8217;s knowledge, consent, and approval. That&#8217;s it. That&#8217;s the only reason this is happening. It will be another distraction next week and another one after that if this one doesn&#8217;t work.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>In somewhat darker news, we also try to make sense of the firing (next year, anyway) of <b>Stephen Colbert<\/b> by <b>Paramount\/CBS<\/b> on the heels of a $16 million settlement paid by the company to Trump as an obvious attempt to win his FCC&#8217;s approval for a merger with a company named <b>Skydance<\/b>.\n<p>&#8220;The big overview here is that all these institutions have been caving,&#8221; laments Digby. &#8220;Whether it&#8217;s Big Law, universities, these big media companies settling with Trump, basically paying bribes to get what they want. &#8220;The fact that [Colbert&#8217;s firing] happened within days of the settlement &#8212; if it wasn&#8217;t part of the settlement, or if they just decided to throw it in as a little treat for Trump to make him happy &#8212; either way, it&#8217;s a horrible thing. And it&#8217;s happening throughout our culture.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;All we&#8217;ve got are the comedians,&#8221; she argues, echoing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/2025\/07\/23\/stephen-colberts-firing-is-a-test-of-free-expression\/\">her column today at Salon<\/a>. &#8220;The only people who have what it takes to speak truth to power in our whole damn culture. And that is a pathetic realization.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>All of which brings us to our final topic of discussion today, based on an email I received earlier this week, calling me out for <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=15447\">describing<\/a> Trump as a &#8220;wannabe-dictator&#8221; instead of a flat-out dictator. His argument, which I share today, was sound, and my guests tended to agree with him. (Trump&#8217;s &#8220;a fascist,&#8221; asserts Driftglass. &#8220;Coming up with an accurate definition of what is happening right now is important, because it gives us a place to stand and start.&#8221;) But I <i>think<\/i> I&#8217;m gonna be sticking with &#8220;wannabe&#8221; by and large right now. I explain why on today&#8217;s lively, funny and sometimes appropriately grim program&#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote><p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\".\/Images\/Speaker_Icon_24.png\" style=\"width: 24px; float: none; vertical-align: middle;\"><span style=\"font-size: 18px; line-height: 18px;\"> <b><i><a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/audio\/BradCast_BradFriedman_HeatherDigbyParton-Driftglass-Epstein-ObamaRussia-Colbert-DictatorTrump_072325.mp5\">CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!&#8230;<\/a><\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><center><b>* * *<\/b><\/center><i>While we post <a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/BradCast\"><\/i>The BradCast<i><\/a> here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they&#8217;re available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at <a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/the-bradcast-w-brad-friedman\/id803467610\">iTunes<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pandora.com\/podcast\/the-bradcast-w-brad-friedman\/PC:1000025838\">Pandora<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/tunein.com\/radio\/The-BradCast-with-Brad-Friedman-p477565\/\">TuneIn<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.iheart.com\/podcast\/256-the-bradcast-w-brad-friedm-30973643\/\">iHeart<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/The-BradCast-w-Brad-Friedman\/dp\/B08JJRN86R\/ref=sr_1_1\">Amazon<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/podcastgen\/bradcast\/feed.xml\">our native RSS feed<\/a>!<\/i><\/p>\n<p><!--BB-DONATEPITCH-START--><\/p>\n<div style=\"background:#f5f0e0; border:2px solid #6b5a2e; border-radius:6px; padding:10px 14px; text-align:center; font-family:Georgia,serif;\"><span style=\"display:block; margin:0 0 8px 0; color:#3a2e0e; font-size:0.95em; line-height:1.5;\"><strong>The BRAD BLOG<\/strong>, <em>The BradCast<\/em> and <em>Green News Report<\/em> are all 100% independent and 100% listener and reader supported!<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/Donate\" style=\"display:inline-block; background:#6b5a2e; color:#ffffff; padding:6px 18px; border-radius:4px; font-weight:bold; text-decoration:none; font-family:Georgia,serif; font-size:0.9em;\">Please CLICK HERE to help support our work today!<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!--BB-DONATEPITCH-END--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Given the amount of madness now under way, particularly regarding Trump&#8217;s Epstein problems &#8212; much of that, thankfully, hilarious &#8212; it seemed another good moment on The BradCast to once again send up our Digby\/Driftglass Signal! Happily, they answered the call. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.] With an avalanche of incoming, we&#8217;ve [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,239,89,675,379,479,594,883,1361,477,597,1922,300,534,205,957,198],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-15450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-accountability","category-barack-obama","category-media-appearance","category-bradcast","category-cbs","category-donald-trump","category-election-2016","category-fascism","category-jeffrey-epstein","category-kpfk","category-marco-rubio","category-mike-johnson","category-republicans","category-russia","category-stephen-colbert","category-tulsi-gabbard","category-us-house"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15450\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15450"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=15450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}