Katie Phang On Epstein, Trump, and How Democrats Should Fight

PLUS: The crusading lawyer who represents 11 Epstein victims.

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I’m writing from Austin, where I’m attending the Texas Tribune Festival, one of the country’s great gatherings of politicians, journalists and thinkers. I’ll be participating in a panel here, and I was honored to be asked to interview Senator Adam Schiff of California.

It’s been years since I’ve been to Austin, and walking around I was struck by how this city just keeps on booming, with all the palpable energy on the streets and all the challenges that growth can bring. It’s a place where the tech boom keeps driving towers into the Texas sky, radically changing the look of downtown, but where somehow all that glass and steel and granite and corporate money can never overshadow the history and the ever-twanging life on the streets below. I love this city.

And the energy at the Texas Tribune Festival is contagious. You can feel it in the room in this conversation.

I sat down with Katie Phang, whose work I have been admiring for a long time. Her independence and clarity are exactly what this moment demands.

Katie left MSNBC, as she told me, because “there was an urgency of the moment. That needed to be met.” She said that “mainstream legacy media is just really not meeting that moment.”

I can’t disagree.

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The Epstein files

When we turned to the unfolding revelations surrounding the Epstein files, Katie brought a deep insiders’ understanding of the story based on her years in South Florida, where she followed the first investigations and prosecutions of Jeffrey Epstein, and how they weakened mysteriously.

She emphasized how important the newly released emails are: “That’s your independent corroborating evidence.”

And then the central question: “What are you trying to hide, right?”

She also threw down the basic question so many of us have to Trump’s voters:
“As a Republican, don’t you want to draw a red line when it comes to child sex predation, child sex trafficking, and child sex abuse?”

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Why she fights

We talked about the government shutdown as well—she’s not happy about the Democrats’ caving in to Trump—but the most powerful moment in our talk came when Katie spoke about her daughter, and her parents, who fled war in Korea.

“I cannot leave a country to her that I didn’t fight for,” she said. “I’m gonna say I gave it it. I gave everything. I left nothing on the field.”

That kind of patriotism is not performative. It’s Real Patriotism.

BONUS: Fighting for the justice that never came

Attorney Arick Fudali on the Epstein files, power, and what real accountability would look like.

Watch the full conversation in the video above. You won’t regret it.

Arick Fudali is one of the lead lawyers representing 11 of Jeffrrey Epstein victims. He lives this case.

Arick’s insider’s knowledge, and his fierce determination to get justice for his clients, make this one of the most informative and passionate interviews I’ve done. Arick understands the darkness that is Epstein—and all his tentacles reaching into the heights of power around the world—better than anyone I’ve talked with. Don’t miss it.

This is our latest podcast episode on my YouTube channel. You’ll find all my interviews, mini-documentaries and more there.

That channel is another of the new-media spaces I’m building where you will find passionate and truthful journalism. If you like what you’re seeing and reading, please like and subscribe to the channel. Thanks!

Terry