TRUMP ON LEX FRIDMAN: Epstein Client List, Project 2025

[Music] good morning welcome to counterpoints Ryan how are you doing I'm doing great how about you I'm doing well we've got a big show including a very interesting conversation that you set up uh with Jeffrey saxs and Matt taibe tell us a little bit about what we can expect from this yeah this is going to be good uh so we had Matt taii on the show a month ago or so and Matt and I both made some uh gently disparaging remarks about Jeffree Sachs uh the old Jeff one does the ' 80s or 90s but we were both kind of going off what we understood from the time about the reporting at the time about what he'd been doing in uh the Soviet Union and into the the transition from the Soviet Union into Russia he reached out and and and added some fascinating context to what we'd been talking about and I asked him if he'd be willing to write what he said for dropsite news and come back on the show and talk about it uh with Matt so we're going to add some I think genuinely new historical context to our understanding of the US Russian relationship uh since the breakup of the Soviet Union and leading all the way up to uh the war in Ukraine in which in which we have some news from there Vladimir zalinski insisting that he is not leaving Russian territory which of course that's what you would say right right you're not going to start out your negotiation by saying that you're about to walk out foreign minister resigned overnight as well that's breaking as we're recording this so lots of Ukraine news to get to we will get to that in the show we're going to start with Donald Trump doing an interview with Lex fredman uh there's a lot to break down from how they had that conversation what they talked about what they didn't talk about and all that good stuff AOC and Jill Stein are at War for one reason or another so we're going to dive into all of that it's actually a pretty interesting conversation especially given the RFK Jr context he is remaining on the Michigan ballot it appears so lots to talk about there uh and some updates of course from Israel as well Ryan because uh just yesterday we got some statements out of the Biden Administration that add to this discussion so yeah bid Administration is saying that they're gonna offer a take it or leave it deal to both Israel and Hamas right at the same time that uh Israel is now leading its biggest Invasion into the West Bank since 2002 dropside we have a reporter who was on the ground there uh who sent a dispatch last night that we can talk about yeah no excited to talk about that also hundreds of thousands of people in the streets in Israel so a lot of pressure on Netanyahu let's start with Donald Trump on Lex Friedman's show we're going to play this first saw um where Lex Freedman pushed him this was the most Lex Freedman pushed him in their 45 minute conversation on voting irregularities in the 2022 election alleged voting irregularities in the 2020 election Lex fredman said he's independent his friends are independent they like what Trump says about a lot of things but it's just the 2020 election lies that uh gives him pause so here's how Donald Trump responded to that that became president then the second time I got millions more votes than I got the first time I was told if I got 63 million which is what I got the first time you you you would win you can't not win and I got millions of more votes than that and uh lost by a whisker he lost by a whisker wh the way he said whisker so yeah it was he paed before he said it he's like well he did not want to admit that he actually lost but then two is great credit he said he lost by a whisker yes also whoever told here's here's what he doesn't understand and which is so fascinating why did so many more people vote in 2020 than voted in 2016 and voted in any presidential election in American history a obviously population's higher in 2020 than it was in 1920 but why did so many millions more people come out in 2016 to vote against Donald Trump after he was in the office for 4 years he can't he just can't seem to stumble on the answer that a lot of people were just motivated to come out and vote against him he animated millions of people to get off the sidelines register to vote and just come out and say I do not like this man I mean it's it's interesting because the cope has some truth to it in this case which is there was this massive uh multi hundred million dollar effort to make voting really easy during Co and yeah so that's I mean he he's not wrong about that but he also on the on the one hand when Lex Friedman says a lot of people will call you what authoritarian or fascist or something I actually thought the most interesting part of the interview was that exchange Lex Freedman says I don't think KLA Harris is a communist Donald Trump is basically like well they call me authoritarian so you know I can call call her a communist I have to fight fire with fire that's hugely significant because it's such a trumpan moment it is so rare that you see the candidate admitting that their political spin is a lie I mean you just don't ever that that is an unspoken fact everybody knows it but nobody ever says it and he said it right there and he it's like so trumpy and completely honest about it right he on the one hand he during this interview he says the thing about running for president is you have to not care what people say about you because it's it takes a lot of courage to get into the ring and if you care you're going to choke on the other hand he cares clearly cares very deeply and is wounded by all the things that people say about him particularly uh when they call he talked about uh I never said that you know World War I soldiers were suckers and losers uh like he has a lot of things that he's has grievances about that he thinks he was unfairly malign or that were attributed to him in an unfair way and one of them Le people says well they call you a fascist and he's like right that's why I call her a communist and she you know they can dish it but they can't take it so it was it was clear that yeah he doesn't really think she's a communist he he said her father's a Marxist right right and B's like that's true yeah but he said it important to Fight Fire with Fire meaning if they call me one thing I have to respond and that's to your point about just to get back to the voting thing for a moment yeah that's also part of his cope that you know it's and there's some truth to it as well that he's people have lied about him and hyperbolized about him for so long that obviously if the people knew the truth they would love me which is not necessarily true uh but that's probably how he sees it and Lex fredman always reminds me of James Lipton from inside the actor Studio actually will frell's impression of James Lipton from inside the actor Studio where he's just like If Heaven Is Real what do you want to hear God say to you when you get there like just trying to open up this uh part of Donald Trump that hasn't quite been unlocked um and Trump is just so good at not really answering those questions you know he's so good at just totally running out the clock and saying nothing he's better than KLA Harris at saying nothing yet yet also letting you know kind of what he's thinking about sometimes like even if he's trying to conceal it or trying to say it in a way that you can't kind of tie him to it later well let's talk about that because uh here's Lex fredman pushing Donald Trump on whether or not he would release files related to to Jeffrey Epstein so here's the clip but a lot of big people went to that island but fortunately I was not one of them it's just very strange for a lot of people that uh the list of clients that went to the island is not been made public yeah it's it's very interesting isn't it probably will be by the way probably so if you're able to you'll be yeah certainly take a look at it now Kennedy's interesting because it's so many years ago you know they do that for danger too because you know endangers certain people etc etc so Kennedy uh is very different from the Epstein thing but yeah I'd be inclined to do the Epstein I'd have no problem with it he really didn't want to talk about Epstein to the point where he pivoted to JFK like if if the Kennedy assassination is your crutch to get out of an uncomfortable situ EAS that's your easy question right and for people who don't have the background Roger Stone is one of the people who is Trump's best friend has been pushing for the C cia's Kennedy documents to be released basically his entire life Roger Stone had one job as friend of Donald Trump and that was to get your friend the president to declassify all of the JFK documents while he was president and they were due on schedule court ordered to be Declassified under the Trump Administration and he buckled to Mike pomp poo and and pressure from the CIA to withhold an enormous number of those documents toward the end of his tenure and now he's saying that he will he'll do it this time if he if he goes back in uh and he's also saying sh has no problem he's going to do the Epstein ones yeah but Trump is not good at hiding his body language he was so uncomfortable talking about Epstein there it uncomfortable but almost like bemused when fredman was like a lot of people went to that island and you can see the look of on Donald Trump's face where he says fortunately it wasn't me yeah elsewhere he says yeah it wasn't me now there's this incredible video of trump and Epstein right at Maraga like yeah like ouling women at a at a party and and like laughing and yeah uh Trump tells EP some joke and EP doubles over laughing uh Li licks Freedman asks him why why did people why why was he so effective at insinuating himself into people's lives and and Trump says what he was hail the well fellow and he had a lot of assets yeah Lake an island right that he used to right he would use to attract people but yeah he at first he does not seem interested at all right in releasing those names or in uh really talking about it at all uh but then by the end he says okay I'll do it Roger Stone by the way also friends with Howard Hunt's son so just so much to unpack in the Trum Circle and Howard Hunton is the one who claimed that Howard hunt on his deathbed yes yes uh confessed that there was a CIA right uh there was a CIA conspiracy if you listen to the tapes it's not quite like it's not really quite there and he kind of leads them and it's not clear how how there Howard Hunt is but yes Howard Hunt's son is because yes Roger Stone is if if there was a guy who was going to convince his friend to release the CIA the documents it was Roger Stone you'd think yeah you'd think well let's hear how trip responded when Lex fredman pressed him on Project 2025 this is the clip let me ask you about project 2025 so you've publicly said that you don't have any direct connection to nothing I know nothing about it and they know that too Democrats know that and I purposely haven't read it because I want to say to you I don't I have no idea what it's all about it's easier than saying I read it and you know all of the things no I purposely haven't read it and I've heard about it I've heard about things that are in there that I don't like and there's some things in there that everybody would like that was sort of a useless exchange I felt it was sort of just like Donald Trump in any kind of mainstream interview being asked about project 2025 I don't know what did you make about that right he didn't press any further on it right and he didn't talk about what's in it right he just which is that's the like what's good about alternative media is when it gets into the specifics of it at least he had the thing up on the side that said you know firing 50,000 federal workers is one of the things in Project 2025 um there's a lot of other cultural stuff in there that's the stuff that Trump is running from you know uh I I haven't read the exact details of what what it says around abortion and IVF but it's not going to be it's not going to be popular it's not going to be the remotely moderate stuff right um yeah yeah so uh I mean what what else in there do you think that he's R is he running from and on Project 2025 I mean I think he just is running from the uh image that Democrats have successfully created of it being a boogeyman that you can kind of because there are things that are not in Project 2025 that the Harris campaign is pretty successfully just getting to associate with project 2025 and they've already Associated project 2025 with Trump it's been like this brilliant um like marketing effort PR effort to build something out of just the name project 2025 which is so broad that you can kind of um project onto it what do you want to project onto it so I think he's running away from Project 2025 itself um entirely and that's why the Trump campaign has started to put out its own sort of policy plans so they can say this is what we want to do has nothing to do with what like you can compare and contrast but they don't own our plans we thoroughly own what our policy plans are going forward um and to the extent that the Trump campaign does own project 2025 it's just because there would be I think overlap um in Staffing that there there would actually be a lot of people who were involved with project 2025 who would end up working in a trump Administration like that's and and they have ideas that they've put on paper about what some of the policies are that they'd want to implement um but it's you know that's why the Trump campaign is running from the whole thing from my perspective at least yeah and it seems fair to ask Trump to actually put out some policies like he gets he gets a pass from that from the media because I think he's Trump and there's something almost AB ABD about him even like having detailed policy like when he said I haven't read it because I wanted to be able to say to you that I have nothing to do with it it's like well yeah you also didn't read it because you just don't read stuff like you didn't you didn't need a reason not to read a long document like we've all read the reporting like the the military like draws pictures and stuff because he has a very short attention span listen I don't think anybody wants to read project 2025 because it's so long I haven't read it yeah it's looked at it but I haven't like read it all the way through I'm like yeah so I should I'm not doing my job here yes well uh Trump was also asked by Lex fredman about basically how he posts on Truth social that I did find useful and interesting in the sort of James Lipton inside the actor Studio sense because he said that he posts from bed um and that sometimes you know he doesn't sleep much right he he's not one he's not one for sleeping something like this um so let's roll this clip of Donald Trump talking about reposts on Tru social i' would love to get your psychology uh about behind the tweets and the posts on Truth uh are you sometimes being intentionally provocative or are you just speaking your mind and are there times where you regret some of the truths you've posted yeah I do I mean but not that often honestly you know I do a lot of reposting the ones you get in trouble with are the reposts because you find down deep they're into some group that uh you're not supposed to be reposting you don't even know if those groups are good bad or indifferent but the reposts are the ones that really get you in trouble when you do your own words it's sort of easier but the reposts go very quickly and if you're going to check every single little symbol and uh I don't know it's worked out pretty well for me I tell you it's uh truth is it's the reposts it's always it's the repost that get you mhm now true the Harris campaign he's not wrong so the Harris campaign took that video and tweeted Trump asked about reposting q andon and misogynistic content quote I do a lot of reposting it's worked out very well for me yes he did in the end he's like yeah it worked out great for me so this brings us full circle to I know we're breaking down real quick the reason it works out well well for him is that he can dog whistle to these groups so like he's like oh there's some symbol that I didn't real realiz what that symbol was well it's on Truth social and it's controversial it's some type of a white nationalist symbol that he's referring to in general and so he re he ret truths that or whatever his word and what is like what you is that you mean something specific or you mean just no no the way that he said it was like you don't look all the way down at the bottom of the post that you're reposting and there's a there's some symbol there that represents some group that you didn't know about right and it's controversial and you reposted it and now you're tagged with associating with that group right what like q and on stuff did happen 99 90% of the time you're talking Q andon stuff or white National where we go on we go all hashtag stuff like that exactly or 14 words or like something that's like right pepper what so what he gets is to give a little bit of a love to those groups while maintaining plausible deniability because he genuinely I think probably in of in many cases doesn't know what that what that symbol is yeah but he knows that there's a bunch of stuff he doesn't know and he knows the direction it's going so he's like he's like oh I Can Be Clever here I can I can show them that I'm on their side while being like ah gee 14 it's just 14 words I didn't know what 14 words meant which I mean plausible deniability on that one but for the first time for yeah but I mean also that's sort of like the typical politician has Gatekeepers and right but exactly and it also shows to his people that he's not a typical politician but I think he know what it shows is he knows what he's doing because in the end he says it works out really well for me he so yeah and this brings us I think to the 30,000 foot view of Donald Trump doing an interview with Lex Freedman they talked about whether he would do an interview with Joe Rogan he said I don't really know Joe Rogan I see him when he walks into the arena with Dana uh Dana White and Lex Freedman pushed him a little bit and said there's some tension between you and Joe Rogan because he you know said he really likes RFK Jr and Trump was like I don't think there's really any tension I don't really know the guy I don't know if I'd do a show I'd probably do a show but I uh I'm not going to ask him he says I haven't been asked but I'm not going to ask him he said and he said he seems like a liberal guy which which I wish the left could understand yes yes like Trump is right like Rogan does have like post 2020 when he got completely destroyed for endorsing uh Bernie Sanders I think he's drifted right in some cultural ways but in general he's he has a lot of like left-wing instincts higher minimum wage supports unions uh you know supports Medicare for all endorsed Bernie Sanders like there there's a reason Trump yeah says that he seems like a liberal guy right because he has a lot of liberal impulses yeah almost I mean yes Endor Bernie Sanders he likes tulsy gab he likes you know I don't know where he stands on Tulsi gabard now but obviously he likes RFK Jr and yes so all that is to say though Donald Trump has been on this tour of alternative media podcast casts and um it's pretty interesting as a political strategy sometimes Alex Friedman gets a little bit of or theovon is a good example I thought theovon got more out of trump um psychologically than leex Freedman did just because they were talking and you know it's Donald Trump having a long form conversation with a comedian it becomes interesting in ways nobody expects but Lex fredman I think got some genuinely interesting stuff out of Donald Trump on the other hand that's not like Trump sitting down with you know Katie Kirk in some ways that are good and in some ways that are bad I don't know it's it's a as a campaign strategy pretty interesting he talked this was one of the most compelling parts of the interview as well Trump talked about why you need to do New Media he was like maybe it's more powerful than TV and hearing that from Trump is so interesting because this is the man who like mastered the use of Television before he became a political candidate and when he became a political candidate so there's something going on I think that was a window into the way he's thinking about it he talked about how Elon had him on of spaces and got you know more listens than anyone there's something going on where he's starting to reckon with the alternative Media or the the old media The Gatekeepers having lesson less power which is interesting to watch him reckon with that in real time because he was a huge like he's the one that poured the fuel on the fire of people starting to question The Gatekeepers more than they ever have before I mean it was him coming out in 2015 and 16 talking about about fake news um and baiting the media into kind of exposing itself uh again for better or worse I think you know for better when it comes to having transparency about how awful the media is but to see him sort of not look at himself as a main character and that was interesting as well when's he going to come on here what are we doing wrong that's right open invitation what are what are we doing wrong he probably said all kinds of things he would consider things that we're doing wrong does he take that personally he said he said hey you have to not care I'm sure like Freedman has said some interesting stuff too I'm sure he has yeah so anyway it's it's smart I mean k Harris would we're not asking him he's not going to ask us so well K har did Breakfast Club probably would she she did Charlemagne and just face pled on charlem if I'm remembering correctly um I I remember seeing some clips from it which is not good right but hey they should both uh they should both get even more comfortable with New Media but you know I'll take one candidate becoming comfortable with New Media because jie Vance he's been here yeah yeah I reach I did reach out to the walls camp and said look jie Vance comes on these shows you might as well too hey if you liked that video don't forget to hit the like button and subscribe to Breaking points if you want to see the rest of counterpoints go to breakingpoints outcom to become a premium member and get the full uncut show every morning in your inbox and on Spotify