10/21/26: Trump & Bibi Plot Iran Escalation, Vivek Doubles Down On Disgusting Ad, Mike Rogers Defends Epstein Coverup

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All right.

Tonight we're talking about the likelihood of renewed hostilities. potentially as early as this week, maybe after the Israeli election, maybe after the American election.

We'll see. We'll talk about that.

We'll talk about the latest on the early vote numbers coming in on the midterms, plus a completely shocking turn of events in Ohio, where Vivek Ramaswamy... Never mind. I don't even want to talk about it. We'll get into it.

We're going to talk plenty about it, unfortunately.

Vivek decided that this moment was going to be the time to stand up for sexual assault of children, to be on the side of the sexual assailants?

Like, in this political climate?

It's a bold move, Cotton. We'll see if it works out for him.

Speaking of which, Mike Rogers explaining in leaked audio why he covered up the Epstein files. It was to protect people who innocently rode on Epstein's plane, he said.

We'll get into that.

Plus, he's threatening to sue Dropsite News if we didn't retract our investigation into him and his wife's company.

As of yesterday, we did not retract it, so awaiting the lawsuit.

I guess.

We'll see if it actually materializes.

We'll go through why he sued us.

Meanwhile, the bottom is falling out on the economy. Auto loan delinquencies are surging, and we'll talk about why that is such a blaring red light in the economy, plus home sales plunging to their lowest in many, many years. Plus, we'll be joined by our favorite Israeli analyst, Noga.

What's her last name? It's complicated. We'll have her on at the end of the show. Tarnopolsky.

Say it again?

Tarnopolsky. It's not that different than Jashinsky, to be honest.

Well, it took me a while on that one, too.

Anyway, we'll have her on to talk about the Israeli election, where Netanyahu is polling currently behind the opposition party. And polls have been pretty accurate in Israeli elections at this point.

The election is on Tuesday.

He's behind by about 12 to 14 seats, enough for the Palestinian parties to then put the opposition over the top. So we'll talk about how that factors into his decision of whether to launch the war before Tuesday.

Yes, there's a lot to get to on the show today, especially with those elections coming up and then our elections the next week.

So Let's go ahead, Ryan.

And speaking of timing, start with this Iran block about what may be imminent just in the next couple of weeks.

Here we have Trey Yinkst.

Of Fox News reporting about Netanyahu and Donald Trump. So Hegseth actually made a surprise trip to Israel. This is Trey Yinkst. giving people a little bit of a briefing about those conversations between the admin and Netanyahu.

Let's play A1.

As the United States and Israel prepare for the possibility of resuming strikes against Iran, high-level planning meetings are still taking place. Axios reports that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth made a surprise visit to Israel on Monday and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at an airbase. Hegseth posted photos from an undisclosed location, saying, as always, it was an honor to visit our warfighters in CENTCOM today. The best of our country on a historic mission.

Godspeed.

Netanyahu also released a video where he appears to be at an airbase while on the phone with President Trump. Overnight, the Israelis conducted drills, sending fighter jets toward Iran over Syria and Iraq. President Trump spoke about Iran on Monday, repeating that the country can't have a nuclear weapon. He did not discuss the possibility of resuming major combat operations, but did talk about Iranian leadership that has killed thousands of their own citizens.

And before we get your response to that, I also want to play this clip. It's not AI.

Apparently, every time I see BB now, I'm like, is this AI? This is Netanyahu on a phone call with Donald Trump. We have video of the Netanyahu side of the phone call.

Let's roll it.

So grateful for this incredible endorsement. You've been an incredible leader of the free world of America by far. The greatest friend Israel has ever had or will have in the White House and all of civilization is emboldened by your boldness. Donald, we have a job to finish. You said it and we'll finish it together. We'll finish it.

And no one else will do it. Well, let me tell you, what I can say is that our alliance has proved that we can do amazing things together. We still have a job to finish. We have peace that we can broaden because I'm sure that our strength brings, I know that our strength brings other countries. I don't want to enumerate it. We're in an open line. But we all know that we can expand the Abraham Accords, the historic Abraham Accords that we brought together under your leadership.

And people in America should know that you have stood up against the greatest danger that faces them. In Iran with nuclear weapons, we won't let it happen.

Well, Ryan, it's almost uncomfortable to listen into that call because it sounds too intimate for observers.

I mean, that was just something.

There's Trump taking credit for the endorsement, saying it wasn't something that was just written by some guy.

It was crafted by me, myself. You're the guy I want by my side, he just said to Netanyahu.

None of it's surprising, but it felt a little uncomfortably intimate for the public to see something almost romantic.

I do like the idea that He thinks Netanyahu has been treated unfairly by some countries. He's a wanted international war criminal. And we are sanctioning and trying to destroy the ICC, partly, I think, in order to protect him from that. So you could say that he's being treated in a difficult manner by some other countries, given that he has warrants out for his arrest for crimes against humanity.

I suppose that's a fair point. But the key there is that he's saying, we have a job to finish. And So the question is, it seems like a matter of when, not if, Netanyahu and Trump collectively resume major combat.

Operations against Iran. We can put up A3.

As was mentioned earlier, Hegseth made an unannounced surprise visit to Israel to meet on a military base, A3, down in southern Israel. What I'm told by sources inside the government, is that even Hegseth at this point has cooled on the idea of renewing major combat operations.

Yes.

And that only Admiral Brad Cooper inside his inner circle remains kind of gung-ho. And Cooper is very close to Mark Thiessen, Mark Levin, Wall Street Journal editorial page, all of which are very close with Netanyahu as well. But otherwise, as I understand it, everyone else in the inner circle thinks it would be a bad idea to renew the war at this point. Part of it goes back to what we've been talking about the whole time, that when we launched the war, gas was like, you know, in 60 bucks, oil was $ 60 a barrel, you know, you're paying two something at the pump. Our strategic reserve was not full, but it had, you know, hundreds of millions of more gallons than it has now. Today, we can look, we put up A4 gas, There was some fake news

about a deal being reached Uh, and that sent, uh, oil prices absolutely plummeting pretty quickly. It was discovered that this was completely made up. Like, I don't understand why people still like see news like this and believe it. Like what, like what, of course, like he's, trying to juice the price. And then it's so immediately the oil starts- It's just the chance, right?

It's on the chance.

Yeah.

So then oil starts surging again.

So you're going to renew hostilities with oil at 100, 110 a barrel when you failed when it was at 60. You're going to renew hostilities when your ballistic missile interceptors are almost completely depleted when you failed when you had a full magazine of them. You're going to renew hostilities when you're Service members are completely exhausted when your long-range missiles are exhausted, when you've learned you can't keep your aircraft carriers anywhere close to Iran, so you have to use these standoff munitions. You claimed you had complete air superiority over Iran. I think we've lost dozens of MQ-9 Reaper drones, plus several multi-tens-of-million-dollar fighter jets. So you're going in completely exhausted.

And it's going to go better this time.

That's the only reason I think that they might pull back at the very end and not relaunch this because it makes no sense. But it made no sense the first time or the second time.

And they did it anyway.

Yeah.

No, that's an important caveat.

The thing, possibility that we were talking about yesterday is that, you know, Thomas Massey introduced impeachment articles against Pete Hegseth. And that's not going to go anywhere in this Congress. It's not really going to go anywhere to the extent that it's not going to lead to Hegseth's impeachment in all likelihood, even if Democrats do take the Senate and the House, as at this point I would say they're favored to.

Do in the next couple of weeks.

So on that note, though, Hegseth may be feeling like he has to save his ass a little bit in some of this. I have no idea. But obviously the war has not gone well. Obviously the war is unpopular with the public. And so if you're someone who wants to have a political future like Pete Hegseth, then maybe you aren't eager to double and triple down for the sake of your own hide right.

And the news is that he's going to get fired after the midterms like that's his probably running assumption brad lander by the way incoming representative um for uh manhattan was detained by the idf meanwhile yeah he's calling here let's see what he's got.

Brad how are you uh hi ryan so are you still detained I.

Have been released from detention. They seemed not to want a diplomatic incident. So all of my colleagues, the 60 ish people that I was harvesting olives with this morning are still in detention. That's about, you know, 30 Americans, 10 internationals and 20 Israelis roughly. And they are still in detention. But I was released about 45 minutes ago.

And, you know, I told you we're recording on breaking points. OK, great. So how did you get snatched? What happened? So I'm with.

A delegation called Protect the Harvest.

That's about 60 folks from around the world, international, but largely Americans, including a big delegation of rabbis from Trujillo. And we're here this week to help protect the harvest. Monday and Tuesday. And it's coordinated together with or alongside Rabbis for Human Rights. So there have been Israeli protective presence providers in the field with us too. And of course, Palestinian farmers whose land we're on and some Palestinian activists.

That we're working with as well.

And I'm traveling with Tamar Glezerman from Israelis for Peace, you know, who she and I, you know, she's the one that organized, her group organized the October 7th vigil that Zoran and I and others were at. So Monday and Tuesday, we harvested in a, very peacefully in a field, you know, in an olive grove, and we were able to just harvest olives without incident. Today, we went to an olive grove that sits right in between a Palestinian village and a large Israeli settlement. And as a result, Palestinian farmers have not been able to harvest since October 7th.

They haven't felt safe to harvest.

And so the 60-ish of us showed up and just got to work harvesting. We arrived in the field early this morning, I don't know, 8.30 or so, and got to work. I'm not saying we're excellent harvesters. I imagine that you are.

We've gotten better.

And so we just got to work harvesting. And, you know, for two hours, let's say, we just harvested olives. We saw the security truck from the settlement drive down and, you know, take a look at us. And then not too long after that, the IDF and the Israeli police showed up and, you know, made us come, you know, out of the, you know, away from the trees and stand in the field and give us, give them our passports for review. We didn't take them, but we stood around for a while. you know, essentially in detention, you know, in the field. And then after a while, a big, like, police bus came, and the Americans and internationals got on one bus. I was on that one, so I didn't see after that, but I understand that then the Israelis

on a different vehicle, and they took us to, you know, a police station or an IDF station in the West Bank.

And....

Yeah, eventually, you know, we sat on the bus a while, we sat on the police station a while. Eventually, they called me and, you know, I sat in an office for a little while. And then they told me I was being given a warning and released that what I was doing was illegal and wrong.

What about it? Was it illegal or wrong?

We were told creating a public disturbance of public order. But we certainly were not creating a disturbance of public order. We were literally just harvesting olives in a field with the permission and presence of the farmer. And also that on a tourist visa, we weren't supposed to be in, you know, what they called Judea and Samaria.

Did they explain how they have authority to determine where you can go in the West Bank?

And as I understand it, the field where we were is not a place where you are required to coordinate with authorities before going.

I'm not the expert here. We were working closely.

And you were there Monday and Tuesday, right? The same place? Oh, not the same field.

No, no.

We were in a different field today.

But I don't believe, you know, there certainly was no, you know, there was no way, did not appear to be in any way a closed military zone, you know, and I don't believe it was when we got there. And I don't believe it was a place where any coordination with authorities is expected or required. So, yeah, I mean, look, you know, what we were doing was harvesting olives and, I mean, the The Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is illegal under international law, but harvesting olives is not illegal under any law.

I am aware of.

And so you're one of what sounds like a pretty big group of Americans, right, Brad? Did you say 20 Americans with you, something like that?

Yes, I think more, but closer to 30 Americans, including a big group of rabbis.

You know, maybe 10 of those folks are rabbis.

Are they making you leave? What's the current status?

I have been given a warning and released.

I am not being deported or arrested or charged further. But we don't know about the rest of the American international volunteers who are here as part of Protect the Arts. They are still in detention and they are at risk of being deported.

And I'm sure people are going to jump on you and say this is a giant stunt, just like a PR thing. What's your reaction to that or response to that inevitable charge?

We were harvesting olives. People can look on my social media.

I didn't hide that I was coming, but we were here as part of a big delegation to help protect the harvest. People have seen with their own eyes the elevations in settler violence, the attack on Heidi Levine, the attack on the European diplomats. Every day there are attacks on Palestinians trying to harvest their olives during the olive harvest, which is an essential part of their economic livelihood. And therefore, Protect the Harvest created this effort to bring Americans and others here, both to help with the harvest and make it possible for Palestinians to harvest their fields. And I had met, in addition to Tamar, I'm here with a woman, Amira Mosalem, who's a Palestinian activist from Bethlehem. She had

come to Union Square as part of our weekly vigils and talked about what was happening in the West Bank.

In June, I actually spoke on election night, primary election night.

I met three Israeli protective presence providers who I just was so moved by. And so when the invitation came to come help protect the harvest, I signed up. And I posted about it Monday and Tuesday and made clear that that's our goal.

Our goal is to harvest olives.

Right.

I mean, if it weren't for the fact that there's settler violence and state sanctioning of that settler violence and an effort by the Israeli government and the IDF and the settlers to push Palestinians off their land, then we would not be needed.

I mean, I wish there was no risk. I wish we weren't needed. There is risk.

Or we wouldn't be here. But I mean, let's be clear, that risk is primarily felt by Palestinians. And we were trying to help diminish it by being there as a presence. And again, we did nothing to provoke anyone. And neither are Palestinians who are trying to harvest their olive groves doing anything to provoke I guess I would just.

Urge anyone who cares about this to come and see for yourself.

Last question, and maybe you have to check in on this afterwards, but do you know if any settlers are attacking the harvest now that the protective presence has been removed?

Was this coordinated?

Obviously, I'm not in the field. I doubt anyone. We were the overwhelmed. Everyone left the field, so I would be.

Nothing to attack.

I don't think anyone is harvesting that.

As I said, the field we were in, we were told, has not been harvested in three years. The Palestinians whose fields it is, because it sits right under this large settlement, have not felt safe to harvest it. And it was our presence that made it happen. So, um, you'll, you'll find out sooner than well, whatever. I mean, every day in there, there have been incidents, you know, I think it's an average of like 20 incidents a day over the last month since the. Harvest began, obviously the ones like Heidi Levine and the Internet and the European diplomats gets more attention, but there have been attacks, multiple attacks every day on Palestinians trying to harvest their fields. And there's multiple places of protective presence, and Rabbis for Human

Rights was helping support ours. They were on another one up in the north that I think was, you know, faced... settler, you know, I don't know whether it was violence or menacing, um, threats yesterday. Um, the, the thing which is specifically called protect the harvest, which is, uh, new this year, you know, most, you know, uh, you know, international and American, American international volunteers coming up for a week at a time.

This is only day three.

So it has, it has not been, it hasn't faced settler violence yet, but it's only on its third day.

Awesome. Well, Well, thank you very much. Let me close that down. Thanks. Thanks for calling.

And that was an incoming member of Congress, Brad Lander. Look forward to seeing you here in Washington.

I look forward to it as well.

Thanks.

Take care.

And that is the split screen where you have Trump. It strikes me genuinely that the split screen is Netanyahu and Trump having that friendly phone call.

Meanwhile.

An American congressman being detained by the IDF, and not just an American congressman. An American congressman, as Brad just detailed to us, who was released, given a warning. Meanwhile, it sounds like there are still around, according to Brad, 30 Americans detained for participating in an olive harvest, and rabbis detained for participating in an olive harvest by the IDF.

Yeah, and Brad self-described liberal Zionists. I don't know what they're doing.

Right, it's not Ryan Grimm out there.

No, it ain't.

But yeah, I actually think that's an important split screen. And let's go to A5 now as well. This is from Gregory Brew, who says, few developments to watch. Munir is in Tehran.

He is likely to meet.

Pakistan's dictator, basically.

And likely to meet with multiple senior officials to discuss the state of U.S.-Iran negotiations. A UAE plan that had carried government officials made two trips since Iran in the last few days, and UAE officials were also reportedly present at that meeting between Hexeth and Israeli security officials. Hexeth also, according to Axios, met with Netanyahu. And the Russian foreign minister Lavrov was in Tehran, where he reportedly engaged on the U.S.-Iran issue as well, suggesting a Russian role. Yes, we've heard that Putin reportedly pitched the China summit between himself, Xi Jinping, and Trump for the Ukraine issue. And then Iranians appear to expect imminent U.S.-Israeli escalation with a number

of senior officials threatening retaliation strikes on regional infrastructure, such as data centers and undersea cables.

That's an accurate summary, I think, Ryan.

Yeah.

Yes.

On a knife's edge is... I think the way to put that.

Partially because there are people like Brad Lander coming to Congress who have a much different position than the current Congress.

This is for sure.

Yeah, let's talk about some of the new midterm updates we got.

Let's do it.

Well, a mysterious ad dropped on the Internet in the Ohio governor race just yesterday. And at first, nobody knew where it was coming from. If it was formally connected to the Vivek Ramaswamy campaign, we're going to get into how this all unfolded. But essentially, yes, what you're about to see, the Vivek Ramaswamy campaign owned up to this ad, which features Amy Acton's mother, his Democratic opponent, Amy Acton's mother.

So it was shocking enough when it first hit the Internet before anybody actually knew where it was coming from.

And you're about to see why. Let's go ahead and take a look.

B1.

My name is Donna Arthur, and I'm Amy Acton's mother. I worked at Children and Family Service Association, building one of the first two sexual abuse programs in America. I love my daughter, but when I saw her lying about her opponent, it's not easy for a mother to say this, but Amy has a serious problem.

She is a liar.

She lies about her past. She says she grew up living in a tent. None of that is true. She's lied her entire life. My daughter needs help, and she can't help you if she needs help herself. People can change, but first they have to tell the truth. And my daughter still isn't doing that. Don't vote for people who lie.

Don't let her become your governor. If you think she'll make your life better, you're fooling yourself.

It will only get worse.

So really shocking stuff, especially if you've been following the Ohio governor's race and you know anything about Amy Acton's backstory. We can put this next tear sheet up on the screen from ABC News. The headline here is Amy Acton campaign slams Ramaswamy over controversial ad featuring estranged mother.

So let's go ahead and pull out. This is her brother. His name is Philip Stearns. His comment.

To ABC News was that this is disgusting. He said, it's a disgusting attack. It's not surprising that Vivek Ramaswamy has stooped to such a despicable low as to attempt to turn the sexual abuse Amy endured at 12 years old from our birth mother's husband into a political talking point. After he was arrested and Amy and I were removed from their custody, our birth mother stayed married to Amy's rapist until he died. So, Ryan, That is pretty clearly, first of all, confirming this is Amy Acton's birth mother, as Stern says. That was also up in the air yesterday.

Nobody knew if that really was Amy Acton's mother. But it sounded like, if you were watching the ad, it was about their disconnect over this alleged lie regarding this sexual assault, regarding the rape. That's what Amy Acton's mother seems to believe started this pattern of alleged lies through Amy Acton's life, that she is a liar because she lied about this alleged awful. I mean, this is like an insane, insane thing to say, go up here, call your daughter a liar because you've always believed your daughter is a liar because she accused your husband of rape.

Isn't that I mean, that's what I'm reading into this.

That's right. And her it's not the was not the only time. her husband was accused of raping a child. And there was an indictment. The brother and Amy Acton were both removed from the custody of the mother when she was 12 for the abuse. According to her mother, in an interview she gave in like 2020, lawyers advised them to flee, to just leave, so that as the grand jury was convening that hopefully eventually the charges would just kind of go away. That is the best case scenario for her mom. That's from her mom. Her mom said, lawyers told us to just get out of Dodge because these charges were hanging over us. And so now Vivek has gone out and found this woman who hasn't had a relationship with her daughter since she was 12 because

her husband appears to have raped her.

Is very elderly, clearly.

And I guess paid her. I think it's clear that they paid her.

I would assume they paid her. So let's get into this.

At first, again, it was unclear whether this was actually Amy Acton's mom. That was kind of confirmed when the brother came out and gave that statement. It was also unclear to whom this ad was connected. Did this come from the Ramaswamy campaign officially? It started popping up out of nowhere on the Internet yesterday. So by the afternoon, the Ramaswamy campaign did respond. Their spokeswoman, Connie Luck, said, we don't know what happened between, oh, this makes me mad to read, quote, we don't know what happened between Amy and her mother who first spoke out about Amy in 2020, but we know that Amy Acton is a serial fabulist who has some serious problems with the truth that the public needs to be aware of before deciding

on who to entrust as governor. All right, now, as of this morning, Amy Acton's brother, Phil Stearns, who we heard from earlier, has released an ad for the Acton campaign responding to this.

Let's roll B3.

I received a lot of abuse, but Amy always got the worst of it. She continued to receive that abuse and because she knew she had to protect me from that. And that if she hadn't done that, who knows where I would have ended up. And she's 11 and 12 years old. And to think that that's somehow a talking point.

Shame on Vivek. It's the contempt he has for Amy. It's the contempt he has for Ohio. He's not fit to lead.

Well, we now know that the Ramaswamy campaign is putting $ 4 million behind this. Let's toss up the next element on the screen. According to Axios, they are doubling down on the ad and now putting $ 4 million behind it. $ 4 million behind this ad where they themselves in their first response said, we don't know what happened between Amy Acton and her mom.

But we will put $ 4.

Million behind an ad making those accusations from her mom. And Vivek Ramaswamy responded on the campaign trail last night in person.

Let's listen to this next video.

It is an ad from our campaign. And the thing that I want to say is that I would love for this race and this election to be about the substantive issues that impact Ohioans. And unfortunately, Amy Acton has been hiding from those issues. She won't debate me. She doesn't allow cameras at her events. And I think her record of continuously, certainly during this campaign, I would say spreading some defamatory, disparaging lies about me and my family, that does deserve to be scrutinized. And this is part of a broader pattern, Jesse, that I think bears mention in this.

Race as well.

Every person who appears to know her the best, her former boss, her former colleagues in state government, even the doctors of this state, the Ohio State Medical Associations, have told voters not to vote for her, but to vote for me instead. This is part of a pattern of someone else who appears to know her well, who says the same thing. And I do think that it's important for voters to take all of that into account, especially because Amy Acton has hid from debate, induct questions. Now, I know that she's told a lot of lies about me during this campaign. She has lied in an unforgivable way over the course of the last year and a half.

That's why I want to debate. to be able to defend my record, and to be able to defend my actual positions. And if she believes that any criticisms of her are unfair or inaccurate, she would want to do the same thing.

What an idiot. He is bad at this.

I don't think I've ever been more disgusted by a politician.

I don't think you're alone.

It's the most debased, disgusting, gross, foul, evil.

Just fill in any word you want. Absolutely outrageous.

And also, I think the reason it's backfiring is because anybody who's human, who watches that first ad of her mother, watches it and is like, okay, something's wrong here. And it is not with the daughter. If you watch that and you're like, oh, wow, very interesting. Her mother has criticism of the daughter. And that was your takeaway from it?

You were exposing yourself of having no concept of the way that broken homes work.

In the United States and around the world.

Yes.

And I'm happy for you that you've been that sheltered throughout your life.

I don't think anybody really has been that sheltered. I don't think so either. I don't think anybody is unaware of this.

The vague, maybe?

It's crazy.

Like, how does he not understand that you show a normal person that ad, they're like.

okay, that mother's messed up.

Something's wrong.

And something's wrong. And then you're like, I wonder what happened. And then you look like, oh, her husband raped her.

Okay. And she stood by.

And she defended it, right? Yeah.

In all likelihood, that's what it looks like happened. And it wouldn't be the first time that it happened. And again, people have seen that happen in their own communities.

She stood by. And according to the brother, stood by while the abuse was going on.

Yeah.

And then stood by while the police are investigating. After it, Amy, a little girl at the time, had the courage to go to the police over it and save her and her brother from this abusive situation. And, yeah, so congratulations to Vivek that decades later you can, you know, pay this woman to go on camera, assuming that they paid her, to call a 12-year-old a liar.

Yeah.

And in the most vague and I think that's also even what's so gross about it is that From the ad, you sort of see what they're hinting at, and then you can look it up. But, like, it's not even copying to what their disagreement is about. It's just smearing her as a liar with no basis in, like, what their dispute is actually about. And they're putting $ 4 million behind that while Vivek and his campaign says they don't.

Know what actually happened. I mean, to sleep at night after saying that?

The brother's lying. She's lying. The first girl that accused him is lying. All these people are lying.

Oh.

But we're supposed to believe her.

I also am now curious if Ramaswamy lied in that response, because just as we were listening to his response there, he said, the Ohio State Medical... He implied that the Ohio State Medical Association had some objection to Amy Acton being a liar. Their endorsement of Vivek, I just wrote it up, it doesn't have anything to do with Acton.

They've described it as having all these policy.

Agreements with Ramaswamy.

But it's also not saying anything like Amy Acton is a liar. So it may be one person connected with it that said something at that point.

Vivek is a fraudster. This is another good point. The way he got rich was.

effectively through fraud that probably should still be prosecuted.

I don't know what the statute of limitations is, but it was something like... A little Theranos-y? It was a pump and dump Alzheimer's scheme.

It was this thing where you go and you get a drug that you know doesn't work, Alzheimer's drug. You then put it through some new trials. You leak to the press that it's working. The stock surges. You sell all the stock. You rug pull it.

Walk away with the money. And then you release the actual new results. And, oh, it doesn't work. You always knew it didn't work. And you walk away. That's where he got all his money.

So, like, if this is a question of integrity or who's selling the truth, that's who we're up against here. He got a protester. We can put B4C. He's already getting yelled at.

We're ready to do this. Sir, sir, excuse me.

Excuse me.

You're going to leave this room.

As a child.

So if you want to be.

Patient and you want to ask a question at the end, you're free to do that.

Thank you.

This rain gets to the question of whether it all backfires and backfires spectacularly. So Vivek appears to be able to pull up the RCP average. Last I checked it, he was losing this race in the polling averages. No huge surprise there.

Three or four points or something.

Yep.

It looks like she has a relatively comfortable margin, not like guaranteed or anything, but he's down. So he's obviously desperate. I saw a wild comment from Frank Luntz this morning who said, something to the extent of like, well, I would have waited to run that until the last weekend because now I expected them to have a good response.

And it's like, well, maybe just don't run it. Like, how about we just don't run the ad? But I got a call.

So this was all breaking during the SiriusXM show that I do where I take callers yesterday. And one guy, his name was George in Ohio. He called and gave a reaction to this that also gets this question of whether it spectacularly backfires.

Let's listen to B5. Let's head now to George in Cleveland. You're on the Megyn Kelly wrap-up show. What's on your mind?

I do not like Vivek Ramaswamy, and I cannot vote for him. I was intending to sit this one out, not check the box. And I've become so disgusted with Trump lately, just recently. It's pushed me over the edge where I am going to vote for two legislators in my state that are Democrats, and I was intending to leave the governor's box unchecked. If it turns out that Vivek's behind this thing, It does tell me that he is too closely aligned with Trump. And my gut instinct to sit this one out was right. And I would vote for Dr. Amy over him. I don't know if his campaign is behind this. It's pretty vile.

Who's to say?

So, George, you're saying you would actually vote for Amy over Vivek?

Yes.

Yeah.

And I haven't voted for her. I haven't voted for a Democratic senator since John Glenn. I'm going to vote for Sherrod Brown, and I am going to vote for the opponent against Max Miller, Brian Poindexter. Miller's the guy who slapped his wife around. I can't vote for him. But I would vote for Amy over Vivek. And I can give you a reason, because to me, Vivek seems a lot like he's like Trump. And I regret my vote for Trump. I regret what he's turned into in the Ukraine situation of him turning on, you know, we're supposed to be an Article 5 country to NATO, and what he's doing to Ukraine has put me over the edge to vote for these guys. But it would tell me that Vivek is a lot like Trump, and who knows what he would do in his vision. For Ohio,

for me, as a more moderate Republican, Eisenhower-type Republican, his vision for me doesn't sit that well, which was why I was going to sit it out. But if he's behind this, I will vote for her.

Part of that call I find interesting is him saying Vivek is turning into Trump, or it makes him see Vivek more like Trump. That's very interesting because Trump obviously has super low approval ratings. And there are still voters who have become increasingly grossed out by Trump. It sounds crazy to people who never voted for Trump because they made a different decision in the Kamala versus Trump, less than two evil dichotomy.

There are some.

People who have seen, like really feel, at least I've heard from them, who feel like they really regret their vote because they've seen Trump come back into office and just be so nakedly corrupt for the.

Sake of his personal interest.

And I feel like if someone is connecting the dots between Vivek and that, feeling like you'll do anything for the sake of personal gain.

That is actually kind of an interesting little tidbit from George.

And poor George, also represented by Max Miller in Congress. Poindexter is a real progressive populist. This is not a centrist, a corporate centrist that the Democrats threw up against.

But where is he in Ukraine? That's an interesting question.

We'll see. We'll find out.

Real quickly, one other interesting update from yesterday. We can put up B6. Democrats throwing $ 1. 2 million into Mississippi.

Mississippi.

A column there has been running a very, very vigorous campaign.

Like, he's been.

He's been running for a year, year and a half in a way where he always believed he could win this race. And I remember talking to people who were behind him a couple like almost two years ago or something like this. Like, check this guy out. He is deadly serious about winning this race. I mean, that's cute that he's deadly serious.

And it's like, you know what? It's good. Good for him.

Like, it's good to be committed to what you're doing rather than just putting your name on the ballot and then just coasting. And I watched him over time like this guy's super talented, super smart, really wants this, cares about Mississippi.

And then the bottom fell out for Republicans.

And all of a sudden, all of the work that he's been doing over the past year plus is has now built a foundation for this final two week push with Democrats coming in and saying, you know what, let's. let's throw some real money at this and see what happens.

Yeah, well, and wasn't, this opens up a can of worms, but there's a Wedgwood poll that recently had a closer than expected Mississippi race.

So we'll see.

It was wedged with a scam pollster.

But yeah, I'm sure Sagar and Crystal will cover that tomorrow because it's unfolding today or we'll cover it later in the week. But it's kind of like the median strategies, Wisconsin, Francesco Hong thing, but it's now blowing up because it was indexed by Silver Bulletin and I think other aggregators.

But anyway, all that is to say, In big wave elections, you do see sometimes these races, and that's what Republicans are freaking out about, moving their money around right now. You do sometimes see these races that you take them for granted because you expect, of course, it's going to be fine. And then if you get a really big wave, it can sometimes be enough to just do the unexpected.

So it's not out of the question if we end up seeing just a crazy, what would it be, like maybe 2006 level?

Is that enough, do you think?

Or 94. There you go.

Yeah.

A little Gingrich revolution from the Dems.

I saw in the New York Times-Siena poll this morning that Trump is now the least popular president in the last 100-plus years, except for Harry Truman in 1946. And in 1946, Republicans managed to sweep out the New Deal coalition. Like, the New Deal coalition controlled, like, three-quarters of the country.

Like.

Absolutely impenetrable majorities.

Like people were like, there will never be a Republican majority after the Great Depression and World War II for decades to come. And then Truman became so unpopular, Democrats swept out for only one cycle.

They came back then later.

But 46 was even worse than 94 in some ways when it comes to the wipeout that was suffered.

So we'll see.

Finally, before we move on, you may remember we covered this ProPublica report on a defense company called Navitek about a month ago.

ProPublica has a follow-up report that has some....

Some shrapnel hitting the South Carolina delegation, Jim Clyburn and Lindsey Graham, whose sister, of course, took a seat and is now on the ballot in a closer-than-expected race against Amy Andrews. ProPublica's headline is How Trump's FBI Purge Saved Lindsey Graham and James Clyburn from a Bribery Investigation. So the allegation in the ProPublica piece is from a man who, I mean, he's... In jail, right?

He's in prison right now. He was caught up in all of this.

For bribery.

For bribery, who says that other people were involved in the screen.

He didn't bribe nobody.

Yeah, exactly.

He's saying the other people haven't gone to prison. Having read this, again, I had a similar take as when we first covered the Navitek thing, is that a whole lot of this is actually legal. It's like legal bribery through the campaigns. But it is nasty stuff. And it's definitely, I mean, I'm sure Darlene Graham is going to have to answer. She hilariously has the same spokesperson, obviously, as her brother. The office just moved.

Over to Senator Graham.

But she's definitely going to have to answer questions about this stuff.

And also, Jim Clyburn, like Cal, the guy who's in prison, says that He met with Clyburn.

They talked about money.

And in exchange, Clyburn put into the House bill language that would mirror the Senate bill that Graham was doing, that would make sure that this company got this utterly fraudulent and worthless millions of multi-million dollar contract from the Defense Department. And If you look, that language appeared in the House, and they've got emails with.

It's very solid what ProPublica's got here. And it's being completely ignored by South Carolina press, and largely by the national press, too, who are like, oh, well, just a little bit of bribery among friends here.

Just ripping off the American public.

I mean, so much of it is run-of-the-mill. Like, at one point.

I think that people.

national reporters, like, and the South Carolina reporters need to be careful thinking that people are actually okay with this.

They're definitely not okay with it.

No, and that's what's so interesting to me about these stories is that, like, when you see it written out, the average person looks at it and they're like, this is completely disgusting and insane. And that is exactly what Washington is numb to.

Right?

The idea that you would be... Because it actually is legal. And Graham's spokesperson says.

I don't know. Some of this.

The Supreme Court has basically legalized all bribery.

So I was going to say.

So you're right about that.

I think the most shocking part in the story is unfortunately legal where Graham asks for X amount of money for a sit-down dinner.

I'm sorry, not Graham. Graham's fundraiser asks for X amount of money.

Graham can't ask for more than a max.

Right.

And so they show up to Charlie Palmer, which RIP is now closed.

It was never that good to begin with.

But they show up to Charlie Palmer, like lobbyist hotspot steakhouse in D.C.

With envelopes of cash.

As a transaction for sitting down with Lindsey Graham to get a yes, meaning he will assign all this money to Navitac.

And that is legal.

Like, that is actually, that should be a huge revelation to people that that's what's happening in the steakhouses in Washington, D.C.

But as Graham's person points out.

Well, Graham would have to say, yeah, the money and the meeting are different than the decision.

Exactly.

The decision was made just.

Plausible deniability.

It's almost impossible to poke a hole in it because of the way that our laws are written. So anyway, it is completely insane, of course. And the other insane part of it, I posted this on X yesterday, is that if you talk to people on K Street... Once a very prominent person in media made this defense of K Street to me as well. They said, no, lobbies are good because Capitol Hill doesn't know the industry like the industry knows the industry.

This is a serious defense.

You've probably heard it before as well, that the industry knows how to write these bills because these are the people who are actually building the companies, who are actually doing the work. Navitek was propped up By all accounts in this reporting, it was a useless company. It's the least efficient way. This is a great example of lobbying creating a massive market inefficiency, which is common in the defense industry.

But it's a good example of that.

Total thievery.

Yep, 100%.

All right, let's move on to Michigan.

New audio is circulating of former Representative Mike Rogers, who was the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, for why... If he was in Congress, he would have voted to either keep the Epstein files secret or be much more careful about how they were released. Now, he was not in Congress, so he didn't have to take that vote, unlike so many Republicans who are now suffering for it at the polls. But let's listen to this new audio circulating from Mike Rogers.

I do believe you have to protect victims. You also have to protect somebody who got on an airplane and rode with them, didn't go to, was not a participant in any other activities other than, you know, they may have had business, you know, legitimate business reasons. You can't put that person out there. The court of public opinion would.

Ruin their life.

For no reason. And so that's what you have to be careful of. But the things that they have that happen around the island and all of that, to me, that ought to be released. But I would be cautious how you do it. And I don't think a big, ugly vote on the House floor was the right way.

To do that.

You do have to protect not only the victims, but the innocent people who get sucked up. So their name is on a report somewhere. It doesn't mean they did one thing wrong in the raw files.

You don't want to.

Hurt that person's career or reputation or family either. And so that's the way you have to do it. You can't do it in a big sloppy way. And listen, people who just want to be after Trump are just going to beat this drum all day long because they don't have anything else.

And so what's interesting is that this is being circulated as quote-unquote leaked audio. The image there that you see is the one that's on it as it's going around social media, but it's not. It's an interview, which goes to something really interesting in our politics today, which is that so much corrupt and disgusting stuff is happening out in the open that would be shocking to people if it were done in secret.

This has been Trump's genius. He has done.

all of his corruption and criminality for the most part, I mean, I'm sure there's plenty underneath the tip of that iceberg, but he does it above the surface. It just tells you, Oh yeah, I fired this guy because he was looking into Russia. I'm doing a, you can pay me a hundred thousand dollars to see my truth socials first. You can, you can buy into this crypto company that I'm starting. You, and then as, In exchange, you get to hang out with me.

Whatever. Like, my son is going to do this Azerbaijan mine.

Don't worry about it.

And you're going to give him half of it.

America first.

So he does it all publicly.

The kinds of things that if they were exposed by the press, people would be shocked by and would be talked about relentlessly.

But if you just say it.

Right.

So what Roger's opponents cleverly did here is presented this publicly as leaked audio.

Mm-hmm.

And people are like, oh my God, he got caught.

Little trick.

But exactly, this is just what he was saying publicly. So what do you think of how his argument is going to flow? Because I've also been a guy who's like, hey, due process is a good thing. We don't want to unfairly accuse people. On the other hand, you're... Releasing the files is not an accusation.

Right.

And the public is smart enough to know that. I think that's what the public, because yes, I mean, so he's not, he's making an argument that has.

Norman Finkelstein was in the Epstein files.

Yeah.

But he comes out great in them.

He's making an accusation, or he's making an argument that I think most people agree with, which is that Not everybody in the Epstein files is guilty.

My name is in the Epstein files. Somebody forwarded him an article of mine.

Was it a Huffington Post article? Amazing.

But the— see, Arianna Huffington's name.

Also, Huffington.

Huffington, yeah.

There you go.

But it treats the American people kind of like children, and I think that's why this argument hasn't worked. And I think that's why just about everybody was upset with folks who voted against it going to the floor. or voted against it on the floor because they're like, we're not dumb. We know how to sort the wheat from the chaff. And we just want all of the information humanly possible. We want total disclosure on this particular case.

So he's making an argument that's reasonable in theory, but I think the reason it doesn't work for the public is precisely because it treats.

The public like children.

And it's a bit under the surface or under the radar, but Republicans are getting crushed around the country by their vote. there are multiple votes to cover up the Epstein files. Like Adam Hamilton is using it against Roger Marshall in Kansas. For instance, it's showing up in ads. You're seeing it in ads in Idaho, all over the place where they're just citing this vote that they took not to release the Epstein files, a failed vote, by the way, like eventually broke on and Thomas Massey got it over, over.

But in the process, hundreds of Republicans who did not think that they were facing competitive races voted, with Trump to keep the Epstein files secret. And now it's coming back to bite them because all of a sudden they do have close elections. Now, related to Mike Rogers, the man wants to sue Dropside News. Should we talk about this a little bit?

If you want to talk about it, we should talk about it.

If you remember last week, we reported that while, so Mike Rogers was appointed to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in 2005. He became chairman after the 2010 Tea Party wave. His second wife, who worked in Iraq under Paul Bremer during the Coalition Provisional Authority, she launched the US branch of Aegis, which is a UK security contractor, kind of similar to DynCorp and Blackwater and all these others.

It was responsible for security in Afghanistan and Iraq. And while he was chairman, Aegis was awarded a more than $ 1 billion contract to do security work. There were also other multi-hundred-million-dollar contracts that they won while he was on the panel. So we reported this, went into the details of this. He, afterwards, sent us a letter saying that we needed to retract the article and then immediately leaked his letter to Town Hall, which is kind of like.

Conservative blog.

It's a conservative blog.

They just throw anything up that gets sent their way, it seems like. You can put up C3.

This was their headline.

We were like, internally, we're debating, like, do we make this letter public? Like, how should we respond? And they just give it right to Town Hall. Their headline, a drop site news served cease and desist for publishing lies about Mike Rogers' wife.

Well, that headline is itself a lie. So since Town Hall has.

done us the service of posting the letter, I think it'd be a fun media literacy kind of exercise to kind of go through the letter. And we can talk about the way that politicians try to use defamation law, libel law, to try to suppress news coverage. Because in their letter, you'll note that they say with lies statement, like, but they don't actually point to any particular fact that we got wrong. What they say is that they don't like the facts compiled next to each other because it would unfairly kind of persuade the public that maybe there might be something wrong with this situation.

Right.

Rather than saying, no, look, the public deserves to have all of the information. And if you think that this is a good thing, that while you were chairman of the Intel committee, your wife got this, company got this big contract, then you should tell the public why that's a good thing. And as a result, they should send you back to the Senate. If their opponents think it's a bad thing, they can explain why they think it's.

So we can put up C2 here. So we can go through some of the, so they write, this firm represents Mike Rogers and Christy Rogers. We write regarding the article published by Dropsite News titled, Mike Rogers' Wife Raked in Lucrative Government Security Contracts. while Rogers served as intel chair. The article contains false statements of fact, and through the selection and juxtaposition of facts, conveys false and defamatory implications about Mr.

And Mrs. Rogers. Those statements and implications are defamatory and place Mr. and Mrs.

Rogers in a false light. We demand that Dropside News immediately correct and retract them. Notice they say the article contains false statements of fact.

That's a big claim.

You would expect that later in the letter, they will tell you what these false statements of fact are.

So let's go further.

Got to deliver.

Next one.

Yeah, let's see if they did it.

Okay.

So I'll read there. Number one, the false statements and implications. The article conveys expressly and by implication the following false assertions.

That Aegis, under Mrs. Rogers' leadership, performed U.S.

Government work in Libya and was connected to the September 2012 attack.

On the U.S. compound in Benghazi.

If we reported that, that would have indeed been a false statement of fact. We never reported that Aegis had a U.S. government contract in Libya or that they were involved in the Benghazi attack. So they invent a thing and then they rebut the thing.

They say that is false.

Neither Mrs. Rogers nor any Aegis entity has ever entered into a contract with any department of U.S. government to perform work in Libya. and none was involved in the Benghazi attack. Okay, never said you were, didn't think you were, didn't imply you were, and certainly didn't think you were involved in the Benghazi attack. What they did do is they did operate heavily in Libya.

It wasn't the U.S. government that was paying for it. That's besides the point.

And they had sent an investigator to Benghazi the year before and studied what's called The February 17th Brigade, now this is way getting into Benghazi Gate stuff, the February 17th Brigade, as Rogers' own Intel Committee report later indicated, did a hapless job of protecting the compound. So the question of why they did such a hapless job was always central to the, and should have been central to the investigation and to the failures there. AGIS had already analyzed and assessed who this February 17th brigade was, yet he never called anybody from Aegis to testify. According to his press secretary at the time, there was a no interaction policy between Aegis and Mike Rogers because of this obvious conflict between, what I would say is an obvious

conflict between his wife's business and the committee.

So they set up this no interaction, which is different than recusal. Rogers could have said, well, I.

Recuse myself, but somebody should talk to Aegis because they know about the February 17th Brigade.

Didn't do that.

And he was criticized by conservatives at the time for not doing that.

They're also saying, and I was curious to get your reaction for this too, that it was all determined by the State Department and that the Intel Committee had nothing to do with these contracts. It's all State Department. That I just have a hard time believing.

Right.

And also in his final report, if you just look at the first couple pages, they get into the State Department's failures to protect the compound.

Right.

So they can't have it both ways.

Can't kick it over and then.

You can't say, well, this is State Department, so it doesn't involve us. And then if you look at your own report, it's heavily about the State Department.

It's like, get out of here.

So anyway, we didn't put up this next one. So the second thing they complain about, they say, quote, that Mr. Rogers, this is one of their allegedly false statements, that Mr. Rogers used his position as chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to obtain government contracts for Mrs.

Rogers and Aegis. The article's headline says, and its statement that Mike.

Rogers was appointed chairman on January 3rd, 2011, the contract was awarded to Aegis seven months later, conveyed that Mr. Rogers caused, influenced, or delivered the Kabul embassy security contract award to his wife.

That is false.

Mr.

Rogers had no role in and no oversight over the award of that contract, which was made under the Obama administration's State Department. As the article itself acknowledges, Aegis was qualified to compete for that work in 2010 before Mr.

Rogers became chairman.

The Intel Committee does not award or oversee State Department security contracts, and the committee maintained a strictly enforced policy of no interaction with Mrs. Rogers or any AGES representative, a policy the article itself quotes. So their own letter here is relying on information that we included in the article, as they write, as the article itself acknowledges, and later, a policy the article itself quotes. So they're complaining, and they're sourcing their complaint to things that we reported.

Mm-hmm.

Like we already put the context in that you want. Like we're putting in the exact things you say are relevant context to your defense of this arrangement. So, again, no statements of incorrect facts are alleged there. And then finally, we can put the last one third. They write that Mr. Rogers obstructed the Benghazi investigation to shield his wife's company.

They say and they write by republishing accusations that Mr. Rogers obstructed and delayed the Benghazi investigation, quote, in order to shield his wife, unquote. The article adopts and conveys that false accusation as fact.

Mr.

Rogers did not obstruct the Benghazi investigation. And because Aegis had no contract and no involvement in Libya or Benghazi, there was nothing to shield. And so the entire premise of the accusation is false. So we quote Dick Morris, Lindsey Graham. We referenced John Boehner's criticisms. A lot of Republicans and conservatives at the time were critical of Mike Rogers.

What he is saying is that it is defamatory to repeat their criticisms because they're incorrect and that he deserves no criticism, that he did not do a bad job on the Benghazi investigation, he didn't slow walk it, he didn't shield anybody, that he did a great job, and that anybody who's saying otherwise Not only is it wrong, but the press cannot repeat their criticisms. Otherwise, it's defamatory, which is a just patently absurd reading of defamation law.

Like if Dick Morris makes a criticism of Mike Rogers, as journalists, we are entitled to tell the public that Dick Morris said this thing and said it publicly.

You got a problem? Go sue Dick Morris. Go sue John Boehner. Sue the estate of Lindsey Graham.

You can't tell us that we're not allowed to repeat criticisms just because you don't like the criticisms.

Going through this makes me less confident they're actually going to follow through with a lawsuit.

They're not going to sue.

And also, so we sent an email to our readers telling them, hey, he's threatening to sue unless we take this article down.

And we raised like $ 50, 000 in a day. So thank you, Mike Rogers.

That's going to our legal fund in case you actually do decide to sue, which to Emily's point, like this is it.

Like this is, you can.

Read the full letter over at Judicial Watch, but like these are the three things that they say constitute statements of incorrect statements of fact. They even say that Judicial Watch had said there is no evidence of wrongdoing by Representative Rogers or Aegis. And then they write in their letter, this is so funny, Dropsite News quoted that conclusion.

So we put in.

The article that according to Judicial Watch quote, there's no evidence of wrongdoing.

So what are you doing, man?

There are also slap laws that if he sues and the judge is like, this is completely frivolous, then there are sanctions that come in the form of like, they have to pay our legal costs and that sort of thing.

Could be a fun campaign tactic that turns into something a little bit more, if that's the case.

So Mike Rogers, down the stretch, let me threaten to sue this news organization so I can bring more attention to how incredibly rich I got.

As a member of Congress and as a post-member of Congress.

Better things for the Rogers campaign to spend their time on at this point because voters have... different interests than him getting mad at Dropside.

Seriously.

10/21/26: Trump & Bibi Plot Iran Escalation, Vivek Doubles Down On Disgusting Ad, Mike Rogers Defends Epstein Coverup

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