Left Face
Join Adam Gillard and Dick Wilkinson while they talk politics and community engagement in Pikes Peak region.
Left Face
From Grief To Grit: A Veteran’s Take On Shutdowns, Safety, And The Epstein Files
A friend is gone and we refuse to speak in euphemisms. We start with the raw reality of veteran suicide—how access turns intent into tragedy within minutes, how survivor guilt lingers, and what it looks like to build “friction” into crisis moments: locked layers between you and a weapon, one more call, and a circle that actually answers.
From there we widen the lens to power and consequence. The historically long shutdown didn’t just stall paychecks; it rewarded a politics of brinkmanship. We unpack why senators safe from re-election cave first, why there’s no federal recall to correct bad actors, and how performative policy—like slapping a new name on health care—ignores costs families can’t absorb. The SNAP episode lays the stakes bare: trying to claw back food already on kitchen tables is both unworkable and inhumane, especially while gilded rooms and junk science steal headlines.
Accountability makes a rare appearance with a push to release more Epstein files. We trace the surprising Republican defections, the personal pressure applied to peel names off, and the moment a few chose conscience over party. The road ahead is procedural and steep—House, Senate, possible veto—but daylight matters. Survivors deserve more than whispers and sealed boxes, and the public deserves a government that doesn’t default to secrecy when the vulnerable paid the price.
We close with action, not just analysis. An “empty chair” town hall gathers stories, names, and community resolve on the eve of the vote. If you’ve been waiting for a sign to get involved, this is it: show up, call someone who needs you, and tell your representatives that compassion and transparency aren’t negotiable. If this resonates, follow the show, share with a friend, and leave a review—your voice helps others find ours.
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Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Left Face. This is the Pikes Peak Regions podcast where we talk about politics through a veteran's point of view. I'm your co-host Dick Wilkinson and I'm joined this morning with my co-host Adam Gillard. Good morning, Adam. Morning, Dick. How you doing, bud? Uh I'm I'm having a you know good enough week, but uh we're gonna start the show today with some sad, very sad and difficult news. Um I lost a friend this week. Uh this is a veterans show, so we we're gonna talk about those real issues uh that a lot of us face. Um I had a dear friend and mentor um take his life on Tuesday. Um I don't know the circumstances of everything. I talked to him pretty often. Um uh his name is uh CW3 retired uh Tad Gleason. He was a resident in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He worked for the uh 2nd Judicial District down there. Um he was in the Army for over 20 years and then was a Department of Air Force civilian for over 10 years. Uh so he had a long uh history of service, and now he was continuing to serve by working for the courts there, which is uh I was part of his process to make it over to that job because uh I left after I left the where we worked together. He was my supervisor for five years. Uh weren't worked for the courts, and I told him it was it was a good it was a good job. So I I helped him get that job. And uh he was my sponsor when I showed up down there in Albuquerque. So he was the guy that like you know signed me in and and helped me get situated and everything. So uh excellent mentor, you know, loved him like a brother, um, and didn't know that anything was going on. Uh I talked to him a couple times this year, and I've spent you know plenty of time around him over the past 10 years, and he's you know, as as the cliche saying is, like a lot of people, you know, hide it really well, and people really don't know that there's anything going on. Yeah. But as soon as I heard that he passed away on Veterans Day, you know, that sinking feeling is just there of like, man, something was up, you know, something was up. And so, you know, we get that survivor's guilt. We look back and think about people that aren't with us, whether it was from a combat situation or or something like what happened with Tad. Yeah. Uh and it just acts up over time. Yeah. So um rest in peace, Tad.
SPEAKER_01:You know, it's uh it's something that, you know, we we always say the number 22. I I think it's a lot higher than 22 a day. If we ever did the uh the actual numbers. Um and the access that folks have to uh the capability to complete suicide now. Uh when somebody makes up their mind to do it, it's about five minutes later. I know, and that's yeah. So if you have easy access, um you're you're done.
SPEAKER_00:Do something about it. Yeah, take away those easy access. Yeah, do something about it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I I don't own a weapon for that for that reason.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, yeah. Yeah, uh yeah, I got layers of protection between between mine and you know, so if you feel yourself going into the barn to unbox something that's inside three boxes, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You got some yeah, you need some things to talk about. I think for me, uh I would I would say that all of us are at risk of complacency, um, thinking that we're doing okay, yeah, and not paying close enough attention.
SPEAKER_01:So well, I mean, because even uh your friend here, he uh you know, just on the outside looking in, it seems like he has it put together. You know, yeah, and for so long we get trained to how to hide things, or we get trained what to look for, which inherently trains you how to hide it. How to hide it, yeah, for sure. You know, so uh yeah, those ones were, you know, there's a but there's always that moment where you looked in their eyes and you're like you saw something there, and you're like, man, I should have called one more time. And it sucks. I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Um I I think the hardest thing for us as vets to to find that community and brotherhood to come out and talk about these things. So thank you for sharing that. For sure.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I'm thankful for her service and for his friendship. So on to the rest of the show. Uh government shutdown is finally done. And uh thank goodness for that historically long shutdown. What were we at? 47 days, I think it was, 45, 47. It doesn't matter. Yeah, yeah, it was long. Yeah, it was long. Uh, and the only reason that that matters is uh there's three years left, so you know. Debar's been set. Dabar's been set. You know, don't don't don't uh over underestimate Donald Trump to try and break his own record, even if it's a bad record.
SPEAKER_01:You know what I'm saying? That's what I keep saying about like his whole theory of testing nukes. You know, he wants to light a nuke off just to say he lives. Just to do it. Yeah. Right. It's not, you know, he doesn't care about the damage that it does to the environment. I was the first one in 40 years. Yeah, like and we discovered nothing. Yeah, right. Exactly. Yeah, well, you know, but yeah, he's got that ego that will go for that. And you know, when the government shuts down, it it does enable him because then he gets kind of it it rains off. And we saw that we saw what his priorities were um during the shutdown. Uh so yeah, I could see him pushing for another one just for that purpose.
SPEAKER_00:It seems like it's it's a comfortable political tool at this point, right? Because the other longest one ever was in his first turn, right? So the kind of battle rhythm, as we call it, you know, of like, oh, I've been doing working on this thing for about this long, and now it's come to an impasse, and now it's time for a shutdown. That that's just the rhythm of the uh organization, if you will. And so we got this one in the first year, so it's just feels like you know, a year or two from now, maybe right after the midterms, and that third year, it's gonna be another, you know, historically long shutdown or something. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, they'll definitely push it till after the mid-year. Yeah. Uh and you know, we're supposed to get a vote in December on the ACA extension. Yeah. And that was the deal worked out in the Senate. Yeah. Right. Right. So Mike Johnson doesn't need to honor that at all. No, he doesn't have to honor that. And he's already kind of showed uh a little like not wanting to do that because that's what they do. Like, yeah, like you know, and what's most frustrating about this shutdown is that you were right on day two when you said, like, throw it in, guys. You got you don't have the balls to like Democrats don't have the leadership and the courage to stand up and like do what it takes to like get something that counts for us out of this.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And that there was no plan, is really what it came down to, right?
SPEAKER_01:If you want yeah, there was no plan. No, the only plan was to eventually fold. The plan was to push through the election, win some seats on the election, and then the next day, yeah, eight senators that aren't up for a re-election in the next year fold.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. That is such horseshit. And I I feel like that's one where even if the news talks about it, like most people that don't pay close attention to politics don't understand how that kind of uh game rigging works sometimes, right? But we were both already on the on the trail of that of like it's gonna be senators that aren't up for re-election next time, you know, that they've got that gap and they can ride out something and take, you know, take whatever kind of beatings, and then two, three years from now, like people are totally gonna forget. Yeah, you know. So uh there'll be some other way more important thing that happens between now and then that's like more relevant to the voter. So if you got four years till your next election, you it doesn't matter, you know, you could do whatever.
SPEAKER_01:So well, and another thing that I because I looked this up pretty much immediately was like, how do you recall a senator or a representative? Yeah, zero way. Yeah. Once you are in, you are in. You're in. You cannot be recalled as a federal senator or representative. Wow. Other than the body itself, right?
SPEAKER_00:Can like extravagate you. Yeah. But your people can't bring you back. There's no recall. Wow. Yeah, the reins are off. That's even more of a, you know, like if you're the politician, you're like, I am untouchable for the next six years. As long as I don't break the law, I can vote however I want. I can tell anybody to F off.
SPEAKER_01:Mike Fetterman hasn't worn pants.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, that's it. Yeah. Yeah, I know. He's my hero, right? Like he looks like me if I was in the Senate, except like I'm a foot shorter than him, maybe two feet shorter than me. Yeah, he's a six magnet. He's a giant. I look like him right now. Y'all can't see me, but I got a sweatshirt and a beard and like no pants, right?
SPEAKER_01:Like shorts. Well, that guy has done such a flip since he's had that stroke. It's crazy. Like, like, like brain damage leads to republicanism. Like, like that, that's that's what happened right there. Like he has pulled up the ladder so fast on his constituents.
SPEAKER_00:Uh just maybe almost dying leads to giving a rank about different things. Maybe that's what it is, right? I don't know if that means Republican or not, but he he's collecting money for not doing his job. Yeah. Well, that's true. He's been super absent. I know that.
SPEAKER_01:Even when uh that's like he tried to tweet out to somebody about uh like the unions got a new rig or something or a new uh contract, and uh the the he you know, hey, congratulations, unions, we've been fighting this for a long time. And I think it was a teacher's union, maybe, and they're like, keep our name out of your mouth. So like even the unions are like, nah, man, like because that was his big thing coming up was you know, I'm a biker, I'm a union dude. Yeah, yeah. No, you're opposer. Yeah, I think he was the one that he played the system just how we had to. Good.
SPEAKER_00:I'm taking notes. I'm trying to swim through that same water someday, right? Yeah. Buy a motorcycle. Buy a motorcycle, grow a foot and buy a motorcycle. Yeah. Um, now the uh I the Senate has independent politicians in it. I really appreciate that, right? Like they caucus with, right? Yeah, but they are totally happy to say, I'm not, I'm not beholden to you. I'm an untouchable elected senator for the next six years. Schumer, you can just chicken squawk all you want, brother. Do it down in your office. I have an office, it's my office, you know? Like I like that, right? I like that independent streak of of thought that exists in the Senate that is that can at times break ranks like Manchin, right? Manchin was my hero again because he was like, No, I'm not a partisan dude. Whether he was in his previous terms, I don't know. But at the end of his career, he took that like, I'm gonna be the Lone Ranger that's out here in moderate land, right? And everybody's gonna have to ask me, Mother may I, for the next year or two. And they did. And they did. They lined up. Congratulations, dude. That's that's good. I'm happy American politics is better off when people like that can do that, right? Because it forces bipartisanship, it forces it, right? Well, yeah, if you have a person that's like logical and can you could speak. That's calculating and not just like emotionally flip-floppy, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and just help them on just their way. But like you have to be able to compromise. Oh, sure, sure, yes. And you know, when you say that, you know, Democrats didn't have any bargaining chip, like it would have been easy to to do that vote on the ACA and or to for the House to come back and redo that vote and give people health care. Yeah, like 10 million people, like government is here to support folks that you know can't support themselves like that. Like they they needed the help. And to see how it was used, you know, SNAP benefits being withheld. Yeah, that's what I want to talk about. Trump threatening uh states that release benefits, like and people want this guy as your messiah.
SPEAKER_00:Like I can't understand it's not you don't need to be a public relations person to uh to know that if you have already handed money to a beneficiary, to a poor person, to a whatever, you know, however you want to fill that in. You have given that money to that person in need, do not ask for it back. You can't call and bully governors and be like, you messed up. Yeah, you shouldn't have listened to the courts, you should have listened to me, right? What you know, and the fact that he was serious about like stop it, you shouldn't have given them that money. You need to take it back. Again, that shows that he has no clue how the government works because you can't just recall funds like that, right? Like it mechanically cannot happen. There's no way to undisperse the money back out of that account, you know. You have to call the bank and be like, we'd have to do this thing. And and that would mean you have to do that 100 million times to refund all that. And then to go recall man to get their bread off their table. It's it's outs, it's outrageous, right? And so the fact that he one even thought it was possible shows ignorance. And then two, was willing to say, don't give that food to those hungry people. One month worth of food. It's not like we're talking about a 10-year check that he wrote to feed everybody in America. Yeah, we're talking about one month worth of benefits that's already programmed in, and he said, Stop, bring it, pull it back. Yeah, because that's what Jesus would do. I can't, yes, I cannot. I just, it doesn't matter where you where you sit on the political spectrum. Nobody would ever think it was a good idea to give money to poor people and then ask for it back.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_00:Ever. There's no setting where that makes sense, period. Except maybe like, you know, pre-revolution France. I guess. I mean, yeah, let the mic come up. I'm like, I just can't wrap my head around it. And so, what political win? Let's say you succeeded in that. Right. What do you get from that? What do you get to go on TV and say after you took food out of the mouths of hungry people? Then and you go on TV the next day and say, check it out. I'm in charge and I meant I made these people do something. What did what was the benefit, right? Like to what end? At the same time, political or mechanical?
SPEAKER_01:Like at the same time, he's having lavish parties at Mar-a-Lago, just like gaudy, like 1928. Yes, the tone deaf piece is off the charts. Yeah. It's just insane that anybody can still support him while their neighbors are struggling.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, I saw he had Laura Ingram in the new White House, like his main, I guess is the Oval Office, where he has all the gold that he's just putting up everywhere, right? Like every corner. It's all Home Depot. Yeah, well, that's what that's what the conversation is like. So not Home Depot. He's like, no, no, no. Yeah. Again, yeah, it's like, check it out. We put, you know, half a million dollars worth of gold in up in the corners of this room. Check it out. Like, that was it. That's the whole point of the call. The whole like trip was to come and look at the gold that he stuck in the corners of the room. Plump his ego up. You know, insane. Um and yeah, and and on the exact same day. Oh, yeah, I heard, yeah, if you dump water on magnets, they they explode or they're no longer magnetic. That'll be the end of the magnet. Yeah. Okay, buddy. Yeah, right. Sure. There's a deep sea oil rig that's uh running right now with a bunch of stuff magnetically clamped to it underneath the water, right? And I'm sure that they have figured out how to make those magnets work underwater. Right, i.e., they didn't have to figure it out. It just worked.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, that's another Republican strategy. Make a problem that doesn't exist and then solve it. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Check it out. We got new magnets, call them Trump magnets. Well, that was the thing he wanted to do about he said that this week, and of course he did, right? Well, Obamacare was a mess. But if we basically take it, um, delete one line out of the spreadsheet and rename it Trump care, it'll probably work perfectly. And that's what he said. He said, I don't know, let's make a new system. Let's just, you know, dump the bag upside down and pick up all the pieces and we'll call it Trump care. He said that.
SPEAKER_03:I don't care.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, do it.
SPEAKER_03:Put your fucking name on it. Do it.
SPEAKER_00:And do you want to do it? Do you want to put your name on the thing that made health care double or triple the price? Is that what you want to put your name on? Is the thing that made something outrageously more expensive and and took away the healthcare access? Like people just cannot afford it. For so many of them. You want that's what your name to be associated with is the thing that took people's livelihood away, you know? Yeah, like that's crazy, right? So not unbelievable at all, right? But crazy. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, that's we're right. Uh AOC had an interesting speech on the floor yesterday in her minute for for the vote. Yeah. Um, where he's calling out the fact that we're voting on giving eight senators like a million dollar bonuses while taking away benefits from you know 10 million, 11 million people. Yeah. Like how how is this even possible in the greatest country in the world? Yeah, you know, that a government for the people is taking care of the elite and not the people who need the help. It's disgusting. And it's so frustrating, especially after serving 20 years. You know, like we fought to like spread democracy around the world and you know, instill these, you know, institutions in other countries and things like that. All in the meanwhile, like our just being torn apart inside.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah, we can't realize our own uh ideals, you know, within our own culture, right? Right. So but we we sell it to the next generation. Literally murder it into somebody else's culture. Yeah. You guys are gonna have an IRS, whether you like it or not. You know. Here it comes. Speaking of that, whether you like it or not, um another news story from this week. Um Trump was talking to Israel and trying to get somebody to pay for like a half a trillion dollar military base there so that the different observer forces have uh a compound near Gaza. We took over the since the peace deal thing got signed and Trump is now the president of the Peace Board, right? And so that I guess this is probably associated with that thing. And so they, you know, he's basically trying to shake down Israel to say, like, you guys need to cough up the money for this and build this base so that you know Saudi Arabia and Egypt and whoever else can come and take rotations protecting Gaza so that they can watch and make sure that their Hamas doesn't reconstruct the tunnels and get back to you know ready to do another October 7th. Um, you guys have to put the bill for that. But what are we talking about? Like, I'm serious. It was like a half a trillion dollars. It was some outrageous number to build a base, right? Um, because he's a real estate mogul. Because how much did it cost to resurrect Bagram when we went there and like it was a shell of what Russia had left behind? Yeah, it probably cost us like, I don't know, I'm gonna be realistic, maybe a hundred million, maybe less, yeah, right? To to completely resurrect an entire functioning airport and city associated with the airport, yeah. We rebuilt that from dirt and it cost probably less than a hundred million dollars. And and he's talking about hundreds of billions of dollars.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you know, well, even the uh the barroom for 300 million dollars, like that's an astronomical number for one piece of one building, yeah. Even the White House, right? Yeah, even if you put in the bunker underneath like you still too much, yeah. Yeah, like command centers get built for you know 30 million dollars, sure, and then it it'll climb. Yeah, but like yeah, you you cannot you cannot tell me that 300 million dollars is going to that, you you know, and he's not gonna pay his contractors already contractors. So, like, you know, that is all getting funneled to his product for being like the least popular president ever, like ever. I can't remember what his approval rating is. Oh, yeah, he beat his own numbers a week ago.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, 63%. Well, on that one day he was at like a 63% disapproval rating. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:His wealth has grown so exponentially since he's been off. Sure. He is just funneling money into his pockets, billions of dollars into his pockets. And half the country's cool with that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Cool with it. Think it's think the bull the ballroom's a great idea and think that, you know, why shouldn't the president have nice things, you know?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, while while they're eating dog food. Yeah. Yeah. That the FDA no no longer checks you know, because you know that that's one of the functions of the FDA is to make sure like dog food and things like that are at least human consumable. Because when people get poor, yeah, they they eat dog food. Sure. So like they they still make sure it's like safe for human because that's a function of government. Yeah. To keep people alive, like simple ways like that. Yeah. You know, not just feeding them human food, but we make sure it's their dog food.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, even the dog food is safe, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Not this week. Yeah. Watch out for that. There's gonna be a recall. Well, speaking of recalls, um, and we're gonna switch gears. Uh Adam said he wished that there was some way to recall uh a sitting congressperson or senator, and he looked into it and said there's not, right? You know that there's not really unless the body kicks you out, right? There's not any way to do that. Yeah. So um there's gonna be some voting coming up where I'm sure people are would be interested in executing a recall, uh, depending on how certain people vote about this. So we're gonna talk about the Epstein uh topic for a minute. Um right now, there is something that again, we didn't believe would happen is that there's a fracturing, there's a breaking in the ranks to a small degree, but it the crack has to start somewhere that um Republicans are not protecting Donald Trump or whatever they're you know, whatever's behind the curtain, uh they're not protecting them the same way with the Epstein files.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, they're not doing what Daddy tells them.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, they're not they're not in lockstep anymore, right? And so I I like to say on the show, let's clap where clapping is due. And this week, um 218 Congress people signed on to release more Epstein documentation. This is a bill that is meant to compel the Department of Justice and the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, to release everything that they possibly can. So that starts in the House, and that crossed the line yesterday when we signed in and swore in uh Congresswoman Grijalva from Arizona. Yep. Her first order of business was to sign on to the discharge uh petition. So that means now there's gonna be a vote. Yesterday, Donald Trump called in specifically uh Congresswoman Boebert and said I think he just felt like he had the most pressure on her. She's in a new district, yeah, you know. Um, so basically, if I if I say your head's gonna roll, I can do it, right? Right. And I he called her in the office and said, You want to keep being a congresswoman, you need to go take your name off of that list. And she left the office and didn't do it. Yeah. That's amazing. Good for you.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, that takes an incredible amount of courage to sit across the most powerful man in the world and who is currently going after his enemies. Yes, who is right now unethical in everything he does.
SPEAKER_00:Uh his own former employees like Bolton and Comey were his people, right? And he's trying to burn them down right now because they said, I don't agree with you anymore. You crossed the line for me. I was willing to take this thing way further than most people were willing to, and you still managed to cross the line. Right. Right. And once that happened and they called him out and said, This guy's a dirtbag, he is now trying to burn them down. Right. And he's doing it, right?
SPEAKER_01:With the government. With the government. He's wielding the apparatus. And we even saw the the tweets that set it off when he you know sent that personal tweet that it went uh to the public. Yeah, uh, he said, like, these are the people I want you to go after. Yeah. And it's like a checklist. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00:So you know that that's what's coming for you. When you get called into the office and it's a surprise, right? You know, it's third period, and they say Adam Gillard to report to the principal's office. You're like, oh shit, what happened? Yeah. And then you walk out of there and you're like, I'm gonna get expelled. And there's nothing, you know, like that's it. That's basically what happened. But she did not go and take her name off the list. She didn't cave. So we've got Marjorie Taylor Green, Lauren Boebert, Nancy Mace, those are the three uh women Republicans, and then uh Congressman Massey. He is uh the man Republican that started the crossover to the petition. Yeah, he was a petitioner. Yeah. And so, you know, he said this this needs to happen. Yeah, all the Democrats are signed on, and just a handful of Republicans. And, you know, the the it's easy to read the tone in the room that it's specifically three women Republicans that are impacted by the weight of this of the material here, the story, the context, right? It's it's not just the headlines, it's not just a political like uh pawn game. They care about the fact that there are dozens, if not hundreds, of women that were raped and systematically you know persecuted. Right. Um they said this is on a you know, I don't care what party I'm in, that can't happen to people. Yeah, that's the right answer. And for whatever reason, that's rare in politics now. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And and I and it's just another one of those situations where when you hear about you know Trump you know calling in Boulder, you know what's going on there. How can anybody be okay with that? Like to see like like you know he's protecting somebody. Yeah, something.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, like that there's clearly it's that Watergate level of of conspiracy and and uh just smoke billowing out.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:It's it's uh what is it? Like he's he's meddling, right? You know, he's he's he's the cover-up is yeah, got legs, and every single piece of the apparatus is participating in some cover-up. And if you can publicly you know acknowledged I brought this person in here to try and harass them into not going along with this, like that's that's Nixon level, you know, like that's beyond what Nixon did. You know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_01:And you know, it's so frustrating when we we start hearing other Republicans like McConnell say, you know, we're in a dangerous period, most dangerous period since World War II and things like that. And all these folks are complicit in not or not uh going after the accountability is optional. Impeachment and things like that.
SPEAKER_00:And and now they're all kind of like, whoops, a daisy, I'm gonna go die. Yeah, yeah. Accountability is optional. Yeah. Um well I'm thankful that they that those folks had had kept signed on. Um where we're at now with the whole process is Grijalva was signature number 218. So that happened yesterday. And then I think they're uh I don't know what the timeline was, but you know, within the next few days, uh business days within Congress, they're they're due to have a vote to pass this bill, is really what it is.
SPEAKER_01:I think Johnson said next Tuesday.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. That would tell Pam Bondi to release every document that they can that is, you know, redact, release everything and just redact what you have to, but don't withhold anything. Like there's no rule that allows you to withhold anything, is what they're trying to say. Um, that has to pass the house, and then that would also have to go up to the Senate, and then the president would also have to agree that Pam Bondi needs to do this. So uh there's no way to whistleblow, there's no way to go to the inspector general and say my commander is a jerk because the commander is you know the president, right? And then if you wanted to go to the attorney general, the department of justice, as your appeal to say, I think that the commander is a jerk, uh, guess what? Their last name is Trump, too. You know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_03:Like basically, right?
SPEAKER_00:There is no uh accountability, there's no check and balance built into that relationship at all. There's no oversight or or counter built into any of that, right? So you have no recourse, right? I mean, there was, yes, that's what I'm saying. Right now, today in this administration, zero recourse. Yeah, there is no other avenue. All roads lead back to the final, you know, dear leader. Right. And there that's it. He knows it too, right? Like he knows it. Oh, yeah, go run down that path, go for it. You're gonna take a hard right and end up right back here talking to me.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you know, yeah, it's just big delay tactics right now. And what would happen if he vetoes that bill?
SPEAKER_00:Then you know it would still be able to do it. Mechanically, yes. Then it goes back to the Senate and the House, and they can both vote to pass it again, and then that overrides. Yeah, two-thirds from both houses to override a veto from the president, which that just seems like impossible, right? Like that, there's no way it's gonna make it. That we're talking five procedural hurdles. Yeah. Pass the house, pass the senate, get through the president, get vetoed, that's one, and then come back and do Senate and House again, right? So three on the way up and two on the way back down. Impossible. That's the same as doing an um amendment. That's the same level of uh effort as like getting a constitutional amendment, basically. Right? You know, so and this ain't that, right? Like, this is the Epstein files. As horrific as they are, it's not slavery or the women's right to vote, or you know, you see what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_01:Like, well, I don't we might not know the depths of what's going on. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Like because when you say slavery, like these women were I mean that but not the scale, cultural, you know, states and millions of people all doing something here. I I don't I don't like downplaying it. Oh, I'm not downplaying it. I'm saying if it was that hard from a political mechanics perspective, if it took, you know, dozens of years to overcome when someone finally said, Hey, I think this thing, yeah, slavery or women's suffrage or whatever, the Civil Rights Act, all these other you know, milestones. Stones of progress that happened, those things took usually dozens of years to get to a point where there was a political movement there, right? And so that's what I'm saying is Epstein's. I'm not saying that the harm is not significant. I'm saying culturally it doesn't have that same impact as something where a group of people are going to fight for dozens of years to like get something done. You know what I'm saying? Like Roe v. Wade, like overturning Roe v. Wade, something like that, right? So it'll, you know, I basically it would die when Trump left however he leaves office. You know, once his reign of control is over, it would be a non-story anymore anymore from a political perspective, right? Like a lot of it would just kind of float away.
SPEAKER_01:You know, well, it it'd be interesting to see who else is all wrapped up in that too, because there's always there's there's always a whole cluster. Yeah, that's a big point of it, is exposure, right? I mean the current though, that like some Epstein emails have come out and uh you know, like the the Michael Wolfe character, the author that knows a lot more than what he should probably know that have told people about. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Like and I'm not familiar with a biographer client uh protection right there, right? There's no there's no special uh relationship there where if you tell the guy that's writing your life story that you you know raped and murdered anybody, like they kind of have a duty to report, you know. I don't think they have a special, they're not your priest, you know. So I'm pretty sure priests have to say it too, don't they? Um yeah, if you you know if you're if you have already killed somebody, not necessarily, right? You can confess to murder and they don't have to they don't have to say it, right? If you are going to kill somebody, they have to tell somebody to prevent it. But if you're like, hey, I killed somebody 20 years ago, I don't even have to say it. Like 20 minutes ago, like they just you know what I'm saying? So, anyways, uh there's no special relationship there, right? So, yeah. Uh the biographer does know too much, and they were like talking about details in code, right? Like they were talking to each other in like you know, undertone language type stuff.
SPEAKER_01:And like when they're at the presidential debate uh in like 15 or 16, and they're like, well, yeah, let's just let Trump hang himself. And like they were like, so instead of giving him a message and things like that, or like let's let him let him figure it out for himself. And what are they what what do what do they mean by that? You know what I mean? What is he supposed to be figuring out by himself? Yeah, you know, things like that. And even earlier in those the releases that came out uh yesterday, today, um Epstein was rode in there like I'm the one that could take Trump down.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, like yeah, for I have pictures of him in my kitchen with women in bikinis, and he's married like at the time, yeah. And and like that before, right? Like that, you know. I think everybody that's uh basically that that's Mar-a-Lago right now. It's him walking around with women in bikinis with his wife there, you know what I'm saying? So yeah, she does not care. That's not really a thing, you know.
SPEAKER_01:No, there had to be something way more than and there's so many like little uh you know, the birthday cards and the the the pictures of you know the the big sign check also written in code. Yeah, did you see that big sign check where it was like yeah ten thousand dollars for a depreciated woman? Yeah, that probably meant a woman over 18.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, well what I mean. The story got a little further down to there was a woman that Jeffrey Epstein had dated that was like 21 or two, 22 maybe when he met her. They dated for like I say dated. He did whatever he did with her for a couple of years, and then when and then Donald Trump. Then he said, Hey, go, you should probably date Donald Trump, right? And that is the woman that you know they're talking about is that this like 23-year-old woman that Jeff Refsteen was like, I've been with her for the last couple years and I don't want to spend time with her. Um, and that's that's it. So there's basically there's there's acknowledgement of who that person is, yeah, you know. And people look up to this.
SPEAKER_01:That's what just I just keep going back to is like, how do you look at this and the just the history and all the the stories out there and the things that he come out of his mouth, and you st they still idolize him? Like, oh, he's telling the truth. He is, that he's he's a piece of shit. That's the thing that he's saying.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, when he was in deposition and he was like, Well, you know, as far as as long as human history has existed, uh, wealthy people get to do different things, you know. And he said that because he was talking about, you know, grab him by the right, you know, and they were like, Well, what are you talking about? He's like, Yeah, stars, famous people get to do whatever they want. He said that in deposition, right? He's like, That's how it's been for a long time. Yeah, you know, man of the people. Like disgusting, you know, the same guy who can't, you know, he looks at a picture and he can't recognize his wife from the woman that he's defamed. Yeah. And he's like, Oh, that yeah, that's probably Marla. And they're like, Your wife's not in that picture. We just want to let you know, you know, and he's like, sure she is. There's that's her right there. And they're like, No, that's the woman you said was ugly and gross and that you wouldn't ever talk to. Yeah, not your wife. You know, so but that's you know, that's what they're talking about when they say let him hang himself or let him step in his own pile of dog shit, right? Is that right? And like whatever, however, he spins the story, he's gonna hang himself with it. And we don't even we can just say we don't know what he's talking about. Yeah, and that'd be way easier than trying to coach him into being part of uh more orchestrated story, right? Like he's we're better off just letting him freestyle. Yeah, he's way more likely to harm himself than us if we do that. If but if we get involved, it's gonna come back to us, right? And so that's that's how they were talking about it in all those exchanges, which again, the autobiographer. That the the most important part here, Epstein is dead, but this autobiographer, Michael Wolfe, he's still alive. Yeah, so you want to talk about somebody who is probably a much more I'll say credible. We got all this language from Ghislaine Maxwell when when Todd Blanche went down there to talk to her and you know, talk to her in prison a few months back. And she was like, President was great, you know, he's never been a he's a gentleman. Um, I don't know what you're talking about, you know, he's a great guy. Of course, everybody knows that she's a completely unreliable like source of information. Like she'll say whatever she gets out of it.
SPEAKER_01:The special treatment she gets out of that prison.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, author, though, is not in that same type of position, right? Like, I'm not saying he has any reason to be more forthcoming, but he could be a more he's uh he knows things that other people don't know. Yeah, and he could be a more reliable source of information. But why hasn't he given it out then? He hasn't figured out a way to make money from it yet. Yeah, but there it is. That's it. You know? Yeah, okay, okay. He doesn't want to get caught up in a criminal investigation. He wants to write books, right? And that's it. He's got a sensational thing that he can probably keep writing books about for the rest of his life and keep making money. He can milk this Epstein thing forever, right? So don't do a tell all. Do 10 tell alls, right? You gotta break it up over time, and just as soon as you think everybody stopped caring about it, you know, 20, 30 years from now, it'll be like Epstein Revelations, volume six, you know? That's all true. That's why, right? He's he's motivated by not justice, yeah, money. Yeah, yeah, so we'll see how that all turns out. I'll be curious if he ever gets kind of put on the stand someday, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, whether truly in a courtroom or or in an interview, yeah, does he ever really get taken to task and be like, Yeah, well, you know a lot. Yeah, you know, we'll get the answer to the you know, biographer client privileged question. Yeah, see how well with this Supreme Court, they might be willing to go for that, right? They'll be like, Oh, yeah, of course, that's enshrined in you know, Johnson versus Mississippi, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, probably Justice Thomas versus the his own.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I know exactly how the president works this is uh so you know we have we have this vote for coming up for the FC files and things like that. Um next week on Monday, we're having an empty chair town hall here in town. Uh I'll I'll be emceeing it. We'll we'll have some speakers there. One of the speakers is gonna be the family of uh Virginia Guffery.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Uh who committed suicide earlier this year. Yeah. Uh so they live here uh around town and they come do this. So they give great powerful speeches. Um, and it's gonna be, I think, for I think the day before that vote happens. Either the day over or the day before that vote happens. Okay. So, you know, if we get a good turnout and hopefully crank sees it and hopefully crank grows a spine.
SPEAKER_00:The I I yeah, that'd be great. I hope people come to the event. I maybe some of that messaging will get through. And I I don't know if I believe it, but I heard some of the folks that are usually like the real tight vote watchers that are like assigned to Congress, you know, that's just basically what they do. And they're they're always just walking around trying to find out who's who's on what side of certain arguments. Um, they said they think there's a possibility where after basically these first few brave people uh might vote yes when it's like in the roll call vote, right? That there may be a watershed where enough people, like you say, grow a spine in the moment, right? And they go, Oh, uh, there's no point in protecting whatever equities we had now. This is gonna go. So this gives me the chance to just vote my conscience versus vote the party line. Right. And and that this vote seemed to be much more likely to draw that kind of response out of the politicians to vote their conscience. Yeah. I hope I hope so.
SPEAKER_01:How do you stand in front of your constituents and say I was okay with covering this up? Yeah, exactly. But like so. Yeah. Uh yeah, so next week we'll we'll be having that and we'll be having some votes.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and what's the time and place and like get the details on the on the record here.
SPEAKER_01:IBEW Hall on uh just off 24, uh heading up to Manitou there, uh at doors open at 5 30, and then we'll start at 6. On Monday? On Monday. Okay. 17th? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So Monday the 17th, IBEW Hall, 5 30 doors open. Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Sounds good. Well, hopefully we'll see you all there. And thanks everybody for listening to Left Face this week. Uh, we'll talk to you next time.
SPEAKER_01:All right, thanks.
