All right, let's start today with just a number,
0 .075. That sounds like a rounding error almost.
It does, right. But if we were talking about
baseball, you know, a batting average, .075 gets
you sent right back to the minors. Well, for
sure. I mean, even when pitchers still had to
hit, they averaged something like .108. So .075
is just, you know, historically bad. But we are
not talking about baseball. We're talking about
the federal courts. Exactly. We're talking about
Donald Trump's win rate, specifically in cases
about his mass detention policies. And that one
number, that .075 is kind of the hook for everything
we're looking for. it today. It really is. We've
got this whole stack of reports here, testimony
from the Epstein files, some wild financial data
on billionaires, even some genuinely scary reporting
on Iran. And the through line isn't just politics.
It's more about friction, like mechanical friction.
What do you mean by that? You have this political
force, right? The White House, a big donor, the
Pentagon, whoever, and they're trying to push
something through. And then you have the gears
of the system, the courts, the law. public opinion,
grinding back against it. Sometimes those gears
hold and sometimes, well, sometimes they strip.
And that .075 number that suggests the gears
in the judiciary are holding, at least for now.
They're definitely holding. Let's dig into that
scorecard from Politico. They looked at every
single case filed against the administration's
detention policies. How many are we talking about?
411 cases. Wow. And out of 411? The administration
has lost 380 of them. They've won just 31. 31.
I mean, for a sitting government, that is a staggering
failure rate. It is. But this is the part that
confuses me. Because the narrative we always
hear, especially on social media, is that the
courts are captured. The captured courts idea,
yeah. Exactly. You know, if you get a Trump judge,
you win. If you get an Obama judge, you lose.
It's all supposed to be a rubber stamp. That's
the popular narrative, for sure. But this data
just... it completely demolishes it. So what's
actually happening? Why are they losing so consistently?
Well, it's not just about who appointed the judge.
I mean, sure, if you look at the 31 wins, most
of them did come from Trump appointees. OK, so
that part fits the narrative. It does. But you
have to flip it. Look at the losses. Trump appointed
judges are ruling against the administration's
policies 66 % of the time. Wait, two thirds of
the time, the quote unquote home team is calling
a penalty on their own guy. That's right. And
that doesn't make any sense if it's just about
pure partisanship. So what is it about? It's
about administrative law. I know it's the unsexy
machinery that runs the government, but it's
everything here. Right. When a judge strikes
down a policy, they're not usually saying, I
hate this idea politically. They're saying, you
did this wrong. Meaning they like skipped a step
or something? Exactly. The Administrative Procedure
Act, the APA, is the rule book. And it requires
things like notice, public comment periods, rational
justifications. You can't just send a tweet and
change federal policy. You can't. And when an
administration tries to move that fast, they
almost always violate the APA. So these judges,
even the conservative ones, are just looking
at the process and saying, this is arbitrary
and capricious. So they're not ruling on the
politics. They're ruling on the sloppiness. More
wisely. The judiciary is acting like a guardrail.
It's saying, we don't care what your mandate
is. You have to follow the rule. OK, so the system
is working as designed there. It's checking power.
For now, yes. But that leads us right into our
next story, where the system didn't just fail
to check power. It looks like it might have been
turned off entirely. You're talking about the
Epstein files. I am. Specifically, the new testimony
from Leslie Wexner. This was the big one from
the House Oversight Committee. And for you listening,
Wexner isn't just some random person. He's the
billionaire behind Victoria's Secret and The
Limited. And he's really the person who made
Jeffrey Epstein rich in the first place. So he
testified in a closed session. But we have the
summary from the ranking member Robert Garcia.
And Wexner's defense was. It was the I know nothing
defense. He basically claimed he was naive, foolish
and gullible. He painted himself as the victim.
said Epstein fleeced him of money and that he
had zero idea about the trafficking. Which is
a little hard to believe. I mean, Ghislaine Maxwell
herself is on record calling Wexner Epstein's
closest friend. You don't just hand over power
of attorney and the keys to your entire fortune
to some guy you barely know. It just doesn't
track. And Representative Garcia said as much.
He said flat out he didn't believe Wexner. But
the really explosive part of this story isn't
the denial. No. Rich guys deny things. The bombshell
is the government's total silence on this for
years. This is the part that just blew my mind.
Wexner admitted, under oath, that before this
hearing he had never been interviewed by the
FBI or the DOJ about Epstein. Think about that
for a second. His name is everywhere. The flight
logs, the legal documents. He's the primary financial
engine of the entire operation. And federal law
enforcement never thought, hey, maybe? Maybe
we should ask this guy a few questions. It gets
even worse. Fox News dug up this memo about a
man named Robert Murawski. He was a former executive
at Wexner's company. And what did he say? He
allegedly tried to tell the FBI years ago that
Wexner's private jet was being used to traffic
girls from Mexico. So there's a whistleblower.
It looks like it. And the FBI even had a memo
acknowledging Murawski was ready to talk. But
the call never came. They just ignored the lead.
So unlike the court cases where the system is
checking power with a 0 .075 average, here the
system seems to have actively shielded it. It
certainly looks that way. And you know what?
The public feels it. There's a new Reuter -Sipsos
poll that should honestly terrify anyone who
cares about a stable society. What'd it find?
86 % of Americans agree that powerful people
are rarely held accountable for their actions.
86%. You can't get that many Americans to agree
on anything. It's a national consensus of cynicism.
And 77 % said the Epstein files specifically
have lowered their trust in government. But there's
a weird partisan split in there, isn't there?
Yeah. And it's tactical. Republicans want to
keep digging because they think the dirt leads
to Democrats. And Democrats, well... They're
more likely to want to just move on. So it's
not about justice. It's about political damage
control. It is. But that 86 percent number, that
is dangerous fuel. When the vast majority of
people believe the game is rigged, they stop
playing by the rules. And when trust disappears,
money tends to rush in to fill that void. Which
brings us to this new data on campaign finance.
This is a report from Americans for Tax Fairness
that Paul Krugman wrote about. And the scale
has just changed. We all know money in politics
is nothing new. Of course not. But the concentration
of it is. Back in 2010, billionaire money in
federal elections was basically a rounding error.
Today, it's 16 .5 % of all contributions. And
again, we're not talking about the 1%. This is
from just 748 people. Less than a thousand individuals
are bankrolling almost a fifth of our entire
political system. But here's where that friction
idea comes back. Money can buy you ads. It can
buy you access. But it can't always control the
story. Not anymore. And the James Tolerico story
is the perfect example of this. Oh, I love this
story. It's such a perfect own goal. So Tolerico
is running for Senate in Texas. He gets booked
on the late show with Stephen Colbert. Which
is the jackpot, right? Massive audience. The
golden ticket for a Democrat in a red state.
But then the calls start coming in. Pressure
from CBS execs. Maybe a nudge from the FCC chairman.
And they spiked the appearance. They try to silence
him. And, you know, 10 or 20 years ago, that
would have been the end of it. Story over. Right.
But in 2026, he just goes on YouTube. He releases
the uncensored interview himself. And it gets
five million views. That's like double what Colbert
gets on a good night. And the best part? He raises
two and a half million dollars in small dollar
donations in just a couple of days. It's the
Streisand effect on steroids. The attempt to
shut him down gave him a bigger megaphone than
he ever would have had. It just shows that the
old gatekeepers, the people who used to decide
who was serious and who wasn't, they've lost
their grip. The leverage is shifting. Okay, so
if you can't totally control the media and you
can't fully control the courts, you try to control
who gets to vote in the first place. And that's
exactly where the ground game is right now. We
know the big federal voter ID push, the SAVE
-E Act, has stalled in the Senate. So the fight
has moved to the states. And it's gotten very,
very specific. We're seeing pushes to ban ballot
harvesting and automatic mail -in ballots. That
term ballot harvesting is so loaded. It really
is. It sounds so sinister. But in practice, It
often just means one person dropping off sealed
ballots for a bunch of people who can't travel.
Like in a nursing home or on a Native American
reservation where the nearest polling place is
an hour away. Exactly. Banning it isn't a neutral
act. It's targeted at specific demographics.
But the mail -in ballot ban, that one is fascinating.
Because it could actually backfire on the GOP.
It's a huge gamble. They're pushing this in states
like California, Washington, even Utah. The theory
is that mail -in voting helps Democrats. But
wait. In a deep blue state like California, the
only places Republicans can win are often these
specific suburban or rural districts. And guess
what? Republican voters in those districts love
voting by mail. It's convenient. So if you ban
the easy option that your own voters prefer,
you might just be suppressing your own turnout.
You might be costing yourself a House majority.
to solve a problem that doesn't really exist.
It's the law of unintended consequences. So while
the GOP is making that gamble, it looks like
Democrats in Colorado are just flipping the whole
table over. Redistricting 28. This is a This
is the Democrats deciding to play hardball. This
feels like pure retaliation, doesn't it? It absolutely
is. For years, we've watched red states like
Texas and Missouri redraw their maps mid decade
just to squeeze out one or two more seats. So
Colorado Democrats finally said, OK, if that's
the game we're playing. So they're putting a
ballot initiative together to strip power from
their own independent redistricting commission,
the thing that was supposed to make it fair.
Yes. They want to give the map making power back
to the state legislature, which they control.
And the goal is ruthless. Take the state's congressional
delegation from a 4 -4 split to 7 -1 Democrat.
Wow. I mean, it feels like we're just heading
toward a country with no swing states, just fortified
partisan bunkers. That's the trend. Winner take
all. And if every state does this, the House
of Representatives stops reflecting the country
and just starts reflecting who controls the state
houses. It's another norm, like independent commissions
just being tossed aside for raw power. Which
is a perfect segue to the culture war brewing
inside the military. This story about Secretary
of Defense Pete Hegseth. It reads like satire,
but it's not. He's going after the Ivy League.
He's threatening to pull military tuition assistants
from schools like Harvard, Yale, and Princeton,
which, by the way, is his own alma mater. And
the reason is they're too woke. That's the argument.
He says they're biased against the military and
are pushing anti -American ideas. He wants to
create a warrior class that isn't tainted by
elite academia. But the pushback isn't really
coming from the universities. It's coming from
inside the Pentagon itself. Of course it is.
Because the military doesn't care about ideology
as much as it cares about competence. Modern
warfare isn't just about pull -ups and marksmanship
anymore. Right. It's about AI and cybersecurity
and logistics. You need computer scientists to
run your drone programs. And where do you find
some of the best computer scientists? top research
universities. So if you cut off the pipeline
to MIT or Stanford, you're not punishing the
schools. You're punishing yourself. You are literally
making your officer corps less educated than
your enemies. The public seems to get this too.
The Hill polled its readers, who tend to lean
conservative, and 89 % were against Hegseth's
move. It's a solution in search of a problem.
Kind of like this next fight over data centers.
This one is just so ironic. You have Trump, who
is all in on AI. He wants America to dominate
the AI future. Right. But then you have local
Republicans in places like Oklahoma and Georgia
who are trying to ban the very data centers you
need for AI. It's the ultimate not in my backyard
problem. And I'm easing a huge one. These data
centers are incredibly loud. They use a ton of
water and electricity and they don't even create
that many local jobs once they're built. So you
end up with this bizarre political alignment
where Ron DeSantis and Bernie Sanders are basically
on the same side saying keep these things out
of our communities. It's another point. friction.
The administration's national goal is hitting
a wall at the local level. But all of these fights,
the courts, the voting maps, the data centers,
they all pale in comparison to this last story.
This is the one that really changes the entire
equation. Axios is reporting that the administration
isn't just talking about containment anymore.
They're talking about regime change. And they're
not being subtle about it. They're openly referencing
1953, the overthrow of Mossadegh. That is a very
loud historical reference to make. It's incredibly
loud. And the context is that the nuclear talks
have completely stalled. You have JD Vance out
there saying Iran is ignoring our red lines.
So the logic seems to be we can't let him get
a bomb. So the only way to be sure is to topple
the government. Is this a real plan, though?
Or is it just the madman theory? You act aggressive
and unpredictable to scare them back to the negotiating
table. That's the optimistic take, right? Move
the carriers, leak the war plans, make the ayatollahs
nervous. But the thing about high stakes bluffs
is that sometimes the other guy doesn't blink.
And if they don't blink, you either have to back
down and look weak or you actually have to go
to war. And a war with Iran isn't some quick
pinprick strike. It's a massive regional conflict.
It pulls in Israel. It activates proxies from
Iraq to Lebanon. It shuts down the global oil
supply. And it brings us right back to that warrior
class debate we were just having. Right. You
have Secretary Hegseth who wants ideologically
pure fighters. You have an administration that
might want a war. And then you have the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, the career military professionals.
The people who know exactly how difficult and
bloody it would be to project power into a country
of 90 million people. This is the ultimate institutional
friction. What happens if the order for regime
change comes down and the generals say, sir,
this plan is logistically impossible? That's
the question, isn't it? We started with the courts
where the system is saying no and the administration
has to listen. We talked about Epstein where
the system failed to say no to power and money.
But in the situation room, if the military says
no, the consequences are life and death on a
global scale. and you have to layer that 86 %
number on top of it. The 86 % of Americans who
don't trust the powerful. If you launch a major
war of choice and it starts to go badly, with
that level of public distrust from the outset,
the domestic fallout would be unimaginable. It
really feels like we're just walking on a tightrope.
The systems are all straining, the old rules
are being thrown out, and the stakes just keep
getting higher. It's a stress test. a stress
test of the entire American system, and we're
all watching to see which parts hold and which
parts break. Well, on that cheerful note, I think
we'll leave it there. This has been the Deep
Dive. Keep watching those batting averages, keep
following the money, and above all, stay curious.
We'll see you next time.