For someone who has never heard of the follow the money trail and the role the banks played in all of this, could you just give a quick overview of how the money was funneled through some of these big banks to Jeffrey Epstein as part of this global scheme?

There are really the three big banks that we talk about.

And with respect to JP Morgan, I introduced this to the country describing how at JP Morgan, there were thousands of wires, thousands of wire communications that involved young girls and men and the like.

And what the JP Morgan people didn't do is what the law says you've gotta do, which is to promptly get that information to agencies that are supposed to protect us from this.

They basically didn't do a damn thing until after it was all really over, the, uh, death and everything else.

Do you agree?

Totally.

Following the money is the history of this country's effort to successfully root out corruption.

for you and the investigative work that you and your team have been doing for more than three plus years you have been investigating and following the money as they say when it comes to jeffrey epstein glenn maxwell and others i have your report here it is truly a road map and so senator my first question for you is with all of this wealth of information why is it that the fbi director kash patel telling your colleagues over at senate judiciary And there's pretty much nothing to be looking at when it comes to the Epstein files.

Well, first of all, that's the question.

We know he's got something to hide and we're gonna keep digging.

And the reality is, Katie, just to step back for a quick minute.

Sure.

The history in this country of getting bad guys is follow the money.

Everybody knows the Al Capone story.

Senator, why was none of this reported prior to the death of Jeffrey Epstein in 2019?

Did the regulators know about this and look the other way too?

No question about it, John.

And particularly at the Treasury Department, I brought it to Scott Besson repeatedly.

You know, they had these things called SARs, suspicious activity reports.

We had trouble getting them out of Biden, but we got a little bit.

They made us come down to the office.

But Besson just stonewalled from A to Z and...

Don't tell me about the time I was running naked down the street.

Mm-hmm.

You know, when you're done with a couple of big businesses, everybody else is small, and these tariffs have clobbered us, and Trump is completely lawless.

You know, I won the floor vote on this.

In other words, I won a floor vote 50 to 47.

Mitch McConnell, some Republicans, you know, voted with us, and they all came running up to me and, "Ron, you did it.

We stopped Trump.

This is a great day." And I said, "Wait a minute.

I just wanted to get your read on what's going on there.

Sure.

That is just in the last couple of days.

Deutsche Bank failed to promptly report to Treasury more than $250 million in suspicious transactions tied to Epstein.

That is brand-new.

That is this week.

And it's clear that these, you know, big banks just didn't do their job.

They looked the other way, which is the title of the report.

Could you lay out some of your concerns with what this legislation would do?

What do people need to know? What are the top lines?

Well, the most important thing, it seems to me, is Epstein would not have gotten away with sex trafficking for so long if the banks had done their job and followed the law.

That is the single most important thing.

And these bank executives knew that Epstein was dirty.

They looked the other way.

They realized that they could make money getting referrals and that sort of thing.

And what we do in the report, which I think is sort of the sort of next step, is we lay out a roadmap for prosecution and investigation by federal law enforcement.

And-

So can you talk to us just in the beginning about what the problems with FISA as it stands now might be?

be?So in English, Corey, 'cause a lot of gobbledygook is hard to follow, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was passed to deal with foreign threats, and there was bipartisan support for it.

I was all in for, you know, the concept.

What's happening now though is untold numbers of Americans, but we know it's huge, are getting swept up in these searches.

You know, it used to be that people had a measure of privacy just because there were things that the technology couldn't do.

Now the technology can go almost anywhere, and so you've got a lot of law-abiding Americans getting swept up.

I think the bottom line here is, and it's what I've been working on with my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, is to have a warrant before you go searching all those Americans', you know, records.

Yes.

What is going on here and what is at stake?

What is at stake is whether or not seniors and so many folks, the couple, and Eugene is a couple of years away from Medicare.

But the fact is they are going to get hit so hard.

They're going to find it hard to make rent.

pay for groceries, afford their utility bills.

And the history, going back to my days with the Gray Panthers, is older people who are in that position get sick.

And if they get really sick, I think we all know they can be institutionalized and face very serious health care calamities.

The answer

Can you give any concrete examples of conflicts of interest that existed or might exist within the system?

Well, the old system was basically one big conflict [laughs] of interest, and there were people that did various things that didn't seem to go right to the mission, which is to modernize the system and protect the patients.

And even now as we implement the law, uh, that we passed in 2023, we have some really staggering things.

The monopoly still holds hostage some of the reforms.

There's an organ matching algorithm which again reflects the times and the opportunity to use tools to help patients and also do it in a cost-effective way.

And, uh, the old, the old guys, the old network are still holding it hostage.

And by the way, the algorithm system is being paid for by taxpayers, so I've got a bill coming up, and we're gonna find some ways to get rid of that hostage.

What do you think moving forward from today needs to be done now in addition to whatever's already been passed?

So are Democrats doing an effective job of communicating that to people? Because I know Republicans are trying to blame this shutdown on Democrats, and they're trying to fund those tax credits through just the midterms so that they cannot feel the electoral effects of, of those, uh, premiums rising through the midterms.

Well, healthcare is the most important issue.

If you and your loved ones don't have your health, everything else goes by the board.

And based on the, what we're seeing over the last couple of days, we are really connecting.

The reality is if you're a senior, for example, like that couple that's a couple years short of, of, of Medicare, you have nowhere to turn when the insurance company sends you a premium notice that's gonna take your bill through the stratosphere, and that's my background working with those folks.

And yes, I believe, I've been having town hall meetings, as I said, had well over a thousand of them.

This is really different.

Do you think that the shutdown is being prolonged in order to, uh, protect, uh, Republicans from having to release these files or is this just a matter of time before this vote happens?

Do you think it's possible that one of the reasons Trump is coming after Portland is to punish you for speaking out about this? And you want to tell our audience what you've been calling for? Because I know you've even sponsored legislation to this effect.

I have.

And I think this is an example, Tom, of something you and I have talked about over the years.

It's an example of the system.

a guy who was a substitute school teacher back east.

And suddenly, over a few years, he became a billionaire.

And basically, it was about sex trafficking.

Is there a time when it's appropriate for the Portland Police Department or the state police here to start arresting ICE officers?

And so do you have a response to people who are feeling that way?

Yeah, let me kick off three or four things that, in my view, respond to that.

And I understand it, because this is something that most people have never seen, even people who are knowledgeable about government.

So, for example, I have a longtime relationship with senior citizens, and it's been a relationship built around grassroots.

Early on, Trump froze And he ended up freezing these Medicaid portals.

These are the arrangements for senior citizens to get information about medicine and nursing homes and the like.

And Trump said, oh, I didn't mean to do it.

And I think it makes sense, but obviously right now there's a lot of concern about where the state of the world is, where the state of the Republican party is certainly, um, is it, is it, is that, does that approach still make sense?

Is that where you're at? Do you think that there's a coup going on?

I'm very troubled by the type of policies that they are pursuing that when you add them up... looks and feels like a coup.

And the reality is we are working very hard to derail them at various steps.

And let me give you a couple of examples.

Last week, Donald Trump basically undertook a kind of freeze of the budget, and he wanted to do it unilaterally.

There was a lot of back and forth about what the authority might possibly be.

We knew there wasn't any, but we heard him out.

Are you seeing that policy hit on some of these Republican constituents actually driving change? Are you able to reach those populations? I think a lot of people are worried that they're fully captured by whatever TikTok right-wing influencer they're going to see.

But first, let's turn to Senator Wyden questioning Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday.

Mr. Kennedy, you have spent years pushing conflicting stories about vaccines.

You say one thing and then you say another.

In your testimony today under oath, you denied that you were anti-vaccine.

But during a podcast interview in July of 2023, you said, quote, no vaccine is safe and effective.

In your testimony today, in order to prove you're not anti-vax, you note that all your kids are vaccinated.

But in a podcast in 2020, you said, and I quote, you would do anything, pay anything to go back in time and not vaccinate your kids.

If you can start off by just talking about the significance of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. heading up Health and Human Services, in charge of NIH, in charge of the Centers for Disease Control, agencies that he has long fiercely criticized.

What noise do you think Democrats can make right now that is productive? How will we see that noise from Democrats as Republicans have control or will have control of the House and Senate? Well,

productive noise touches on another one of the rules that I'll use to answer you.

We make a point of saying that you ought to oppose bad things.

and do everything you can to be for good things, which obviously will be more challenging given where the votes are in the Congress.

But let me give you an example.

Last Congress, the Republican chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, Jason Smith, worked with me, and together we got 357 votes, every Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, to support a significant expansion of the child tax credit.

Now, I think Donald Trump is talking about a tax bill that's gonna supercharge the breaks for the very wealthy that he already gave them in 2017, and I'm gonna say, Are you going to have absolutely nothing in there for kids and working families? Because the reality is there's been a lot of evidence that shows dollar for dollar, those programs for kids and expanding the child tax credit is a huge boon.

Where do you find the right ideas? How do you decide what gets filtered to the top?

What is your reaction to this? And did you feel at this time that the president should have stopped?

Well, first of all, Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden have a long relationship.

Chuck was a credible and persuasive connection because they go back to the years working on Judiciary Committee issues.

That was a real common bond for him.

So I think that was the right move for Senate Democrats to reach out through Senator Schumer.

I will tell you, and I've thought a lot about this, too.

I'm having town hall meetings this weekend at home.

What lessons do you have in the book that you think your party should be applying

I'm curious your thoughts on that and how you think this is going to play out.

Well, we're still trying to figure out what her actual positions are, because, for example, she not very long ago came out strongly against FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Well, a bunch of the Senate Republicans on the Intelligence Committee and apparently the Some who aren't even on the Intelligence Committee said, nope, that's not a position that's acceptable.

You've got to change.

So based on what I've heard in the last 72, three, four days, hours, she's changed her position.

Now she's a big, wholehearted supporter of FISA.

And you can be darn sure at her hearing, I'm going to be asking some questions in terms of how this flip-flop took place.

So, Senator, how do we fight fearlessly for progressive change? What are the major lessons you would like to share with our

Senator, would you like to pick any one of your choice from the list and talk a little bit about how you've used it in

your work as a senator? Yeah.

Why don't we use number one, Brian? If you want to make change, you've got to make noise.

So I was a young member of Congress.

And I had begun to hear as the chair of a small subcommittee that had not really been involved in health care about the opportunity for a non-surgical alternative to abortion.

And I held in 1990, you can see them on C-SPAN, the first hearings on mephipristone.

which, of course, was the breakthrough drug that provided the non-surgical alternative.

Senator, do you have an opinion about Brooke Rollins, and do you see her as the Agriculture Secretary nominee as a climate denier?