Gordon Ryan & The Epstein Fallout

Speaker 1: Hey everybody, welcome back to a special President's Day edition of Fighting Matters. Uh, Stephen, why don't you introduce yourself and tell us about today's sponsor? Speaker 2: I'm Stephen Kesting. I run grapplearts.com. I've written a book or two. And uh, I'd just like to remind everybody that today's episode is brought to you by the new Gordon Ryan instructional, systematically slipping into the DMs of a 15-year-old by talking about how she would look better in a bikini. I think this is going to be a really interesting instructional and it'll be very, very educational for, you know, the entire world of jiu-jitsu. Speaker 1: Can't wait to watch it. Mike, how are you, my friend? Speaker 3: Holy crap, I can't beat that introduction. Uh, I'm, I'm doing okay, back from the brink of death with pneumonia and happy to see my friends online and uh, I will not be buying that instructional. Just, just so everybody, just so we're all very clear with that. Speaker 2: It's amazing. I I've been doing a ton of reading about medieval history from kind of the 1100s to the 1500s. And the number of major players who are on their way from somewhere to somewhere with a massive army and, oh, guess what, they drank the wrong water and they're dead. And, you know, or a siege is there, it looked completely overwhelming and then the attackers all get some type of terrible illness or pneumonia or the Black Death or something, and they're dead. We we kind of accept that a huge, huge number of kids died in the pre-modern period from viruses and bacteria. But we kind of underestimate the number of grown adults such as us who died, you know, and we're just plucked away by some little tiny bug. So I'm I'm glad you're alive, Mike. Speaker 3: I I am too. It was uh harrowing, but here I am and you can't keep an old bastard down for that long. Speaker 1: Well, we've got lots to talk about today. There is a lot going on in the world. Uh, where should we start? Speaker 2: I think the the Gordon Ryan thing is an interesting for legal purposes, I should point out that what he did, what the um, the girl released through Craig Jones and then what Gordon Ryan released hoping to clear his name, was not illegal. He he was slipping into her DMs. It wasn't illegal, but it was gross. I mean, yeah, you can talk to your 15-year-old followers. Don't slip into their DMs and tell them how they'd look better in a bikini. And then try and mitigate it by talking about how, oh, really, is this for my 17-year-old brother? I should introduce you. Ha ha ha. Man, let your 17-year-old brother slip into her DMs. You stay the hell out of her DMs. Speaker 1: Well, and I I it's something that I think has come up before in previous episodes, but I I don't think it is necessarily appropriate as a community for our our criteria and our threshold for what is okay behavior and what is not okay behavior, being based solely on what is legal or not legal. Um, I think we have to have a higher standard than that in our community and this is a perfect example of why. It may not have been illegal, but it was completely inappropriate. Speaker 2: I think I'd like to pivot from something that's not illegal, but completely gross and inappropriate, to something that's almost certainly incredibly illegal and incredibly gross and inappropriate. Uh, I'm assuming you guys have been following the so-called uh, heavily redacted release of the Epstein files and Pam Bondi's amazing uh, performance to an audience of one. Speaker 3: Oh, that was, yeah. Speaker 1: In as much as we're able to stomach it, yeah. Speaker 3: Small snippets I can stomach, but but overall, um, as a social worker who has worked with victims and as a just a decent human being, everything she did on that stand was abhorrent. Speaker 1: I don't know what else to say. Speaker 2: It's kind of a it was kind of a masterclass in deflect, dip, dodge and uh, and do anything but answer the question. It's kind of amazing that people can testify like that and not answer a single question. Speaker 1: Well, I don't think there was any intention coming in to answering any questions. I mean, you know, the the alleged burn book and everything else uh that she brought in there with her. Um, Speaker 2: For people who don't know what was a burn book. Speaker 1: So, my my understanding was is that she came in with a binder or or some sort of notes uh about the people that she was going to be getting interviewed by. Um, and it it it's basically just, you know, jabs and barbs and and things that she could say to them, uh, not even necessarily to address any of the questions she was getting asked, but basically just a a big insult book as it were. Speaker 3: So an ad hominem defense. Speaker 1: Absolutely. Speaker 2: If you can't answer the question, go after the person. Speaker 2: Uh, were any of you relieved that the Dow had cracked 50,000 points and that this something had something to do with the uh, the status of the victims? Speaker 3: We've already established that I work in social work. So the the Dow does not affect usually affect people in my field. I'm not I don't make nearly enough money to give a rat's ass about the Dow. I do care, however, about accountability for people who perpetrate sex crimes against kids, but I don't care about the Dow. Speaker 1: Well, I think I I I don't think there's new information necessarily, but I think it definitely reconfirmed something that we've at least assumed in the past is that this administration and the president in particular, uh, is very sensitive to the market. Um, and and generally when you see him retreat on issues, um, it is primarily driven by uh, behavior in markets, whether it's the Dow or whether it's the bond market tanking or whatever. Big movements there tend to cause reactions in him in a way that virtually nothing else does. Uh, and this was just more confirmation of that. Speaker 2: Yeah. For what it's worth, I just looked it up. The Dow at the time of this recording is 49,500. So the Dow has now slipped down below 50,000. And I I do wonder if that's going to make a difference in uh, in how this uh, Pam Bondi testimony is going to be absorbed. But I I I think it's important to point out that there are credible accounts that the FBI spent many, many, many thousands of man-hours right from the beginning of this latest Trump presidency digging through those files looking for any mention of Donald Trump. So there's already been a year of sifting and sorting from him coming in early in 2024, and then all of, sorry, uh, early in 2025. Um, and then the Epstein Transparency Act getting passed in November, I believe November 19th of 2025, saying that other than the names of the victims, the whole kit and caboodle has to be released by December 19th. It didn't say we we protect the names of of famous people. It didn't say we're going to release it in January and February. It didn't say we're going to release half of the 6 million files. It said the whole thing, so that's an act of Congress, and it was basically unanimous. I I think there were like one or two dissenting votes. Speaker 1: Not many. Speaker 2: Not many at all. And so they were in breach of the law as of December 20th, when they hadn't released it. And that's already a year of redaction and a year of investigation and taking things to be redacted. And if Jamie Raskin is to be believed, uh, if if you just look at them now, Trump is mentioned, I think, what, 30 33 or 38,000 times. So the number one name that appears is Epstein. Number two is Ghislaine Maxwell. Number three, Trump with I think something in the 30,000 mentions. But Jamie Raskin said that when he looked at the unredacted files and searched them, that Trump appeared a million times. Speaker 3: I've heard that as well. Speaker 2: So either that that'd be a pretty big lie for Raskin to tell if that's not true. Because that's a career ender if if the files actually get released and he isn't in there a million times. Speaker 1: You know, Stephen, one of the things that I I've definitely been wanting to talk to you about in particular, um, certainly in the context of, you know, the conspiracy brained folks out there. Um, it would seem, based on what we're seeing in a lot of these files, that some of these crazy conspiracy theories about gigantically huge uh, child sex trafficking rings run by elite pedophiles and there seems to be a lot of evidence now emerging that there's some truth to those conspiracy theories. Um, what do we do with that? How do we how do we talk about that? Speaker 2: Well, I I'm I'm on record as being reflexively anti-conspiracy. So what does that mean? It means that the first answer you reach for should not be an overarching conspiracy. If we're worried about the telemetry data for the Apollo missions to the moon, where is the telemetry data to quote uh, jiu-jitsu uh, jiu-jitsu genius and uh, conspiracy freak Eddie Bravo. You know, the the obvious thing is, man, organizations lose data and lose files and lose hardware all the time. Ask me how I know, because I'm part of a large organization. And over uh, 50 years, you're going to lose some of that data. That's just inevitable. So that should be your first explanation. Uh, so I'm reflexively against going to some giant conspiracy over time. Also, it's mathematically demonstrable that the larger a conspiracy is, the more leaks it has. There are there are all kinds of conspiracies that never hit the light of day. If the three of us decide to rob a bank in Idaho, and we never go ahead with it, well, we have a conspiracy. The odds of that conspiracy coming out to see the light of day are pretty small, because there's three people involved. If we recruit a thousand of our best friends, and now we have a thousand people planning to rob a bank, that's going to come out because somebody's going to talk at some point. So what we're beginning to see with the Epstein, so when the Epstein, when I first heard about the Epstein thing, years ago, I was suspicious because it was a giant conspiracy. Yeah, the guy was probably bad, were as many people implicated in as as not, did he actually kill himself? Probably not. Usually, the official answer is, you know, eight times out of 10 is the right answer. But that doesn't mean that conspiracies don't exist. And it doesn't mean that large conspiracies don't sometimes exist, but large conspiracies are usually going to have a ton of leak points, right? The number of people who would need to be lying about the moon landing, not only in the US administration, but also in the Russian Space Administration, the Chinese Space Administration, and anybody who's ever had a telescope pointing into space in the last 50 years, 56 years, uh, that's a massive number of players who need to keep quiet. With the Epstein stuff, there's a lot of people who are not staying quiet. All the victims aren't being quiet. Jamie Raskin isn't being quiet. I don't know if I trust Marjorie Taylor Greene on anything, because she's proven that she's a self-serving uh, political creature who'll say anything she needs to, but she's not staying quiet. The files themselves are not staying quiet. They're obviously been redacted. Like it doesn't take, you know, oh, I wonder whose name is under this thing that says, you know, uh, um, your what was it? Uh, your littlest your littlest one was a little bit naughty last night. Blanked out name, blanked out name. Excuse me, what the fuck? Why does this person get protection? This is as close to a smoking gun admission as you can get. Why does that So it's not, you know, with a sufficient amount of data, I'm willing to change my mind. And I think we all are. We'll all go to where the data is, whether regardless of whether we like it or not. I don't like the fact that Noam Chomsky is in the files. But fuck him. I have Peter Attia's book on the shelf behind me. But after reading his thousands of some of the thousands of his correspondences with Attia, fuck him. I don't like that, but I'm willing to go where the data points me. So I I I don't see this like, oh, you know, gotcha, you anti-conspiracy freak. I've always said there are conspiracies. The odds of a super large conspiracy remaining hidden are low, are really low, and they decrease with the number of people who are in it. And there are thousands of people involved in this. Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean, something that's interesting is, I mean, the victims have been coming forward for years, right? Um, so the the conspiracy has been leaking, right? We we have known about it, but whether it's because uh, different departments are getting different pieces of information and there hasn't been this central, you know, this may be one of the first times that anyone is looking at all of this stuff holistically. And now it's, you know, the public rather than the FBI or whoever else. Um, but this stuff's been leaking the whole time. Um, but there has clearly been some powers that be that have been trying to clean up the mess uh, behind the leaks, which, you know, Speaker 3: I I find it I find it super interesting that, you know, back in 2016, uh, Maga was all over Pizzagate, right? Uh, and talking about this this cabal of blood-drinking pedophile Democrats. Um, and now we're finding that, yeah, there there were people that like you just said, Stephen, there were people that uh, I don't like the fact that they're in the files, but they're in there, so fuck them. Pardon my language, but uh, screw that. But now we're finding that uh, the same people that were crying wolf about Pizzagate, their people are showing up all over the files. And it's just the the irony is not lost on me. Speaker 1: Well, I mean, this was the central conspiracy to my understanding. This was the central conspiracy that brought about the kind of QAnon nonsense that has been going on. Speaker 3: Yeah. Speaker 1: And as opposed to actually dealing with it, they managed to put some of the worst offenders into the White House and current administration. Uh, so, you know, you want to speak to irony, I feel like that's about as ironic as it gets. Speaker 2: Yeah. The uh, it'll be really interesting to see where this goes. I mean, I tend to go on the doom and gloom side, but you know what's interesting is that a number of the far-right, I'll call them QAnon adjacent conspiracy freak Maga types in the jiu-jitsu space, which I'm following the most, have begun to shift their tone on Donald Trump and this administration. So I find myself, you know, shockingly agreeing with Gordon Ryan once in a while when he goes off on this. Like he's, you know, one of the worst people in jiu-jitsu and here I am. I'm finding myself in agreement. You know, it's a broken clock being right twice a day, but this is one of those times that he's right. And I can think of some people in my immediate circle who are beginning to break ranks with, you know, Maga über alles, uh, because of this. Have you guys experienced that in your own jiu-jitsu circles? Like guys sort of at least beginning to turn on the current administration because of this? Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I had a conversation the other night, uh, you know, one of my first nights back at jiu-jitsu after being sick and uh, you know, I'm not going to name names. These are these are overall good people who definitely tend more right than I do. I don't know if I would call them Maga, but my guess is they voted for the current administration and we had a conversation about this. And the the overwhelming, um, the the overwhelming sentiment was, we don't care who's in the files, they need to be prosecuted and taken down and taken out of power, which is something that I wouldn't have expected to hear from these people, you know, about their their own party, so to speak, six months or a year ago. You know, it was really it was very heartening for me, like feeling that, okay, we've we've turned this corner now where we can look past some of us maybe can look past party loyalty and just look at like the morality of all of this, you know? I I don't know. I I tend to want to think that everything's going to work out in the end. Uh, and this was one of the things that gave me a little more faith in humanity recently. Speaker 1: I believe it happened during the the the the Pam Bondi incident or whatever you want to call it. It wasn't really an interview, it wasn't really much of anything. But I believe she did say something along the lines of, you know, if we were to pull all of these people, prosecute them, do whatever to them, it would cause a system collapse. Speaker 2: I've been looking for the for the original source of that. I haven't found it yet. Speaker 1: Haven't found it. Speaker 2: Like I I want to believe that that was said. Speaker 1: Well, I've seen I feel like I've seen it reported, uh, but to your point, yeah, I I don't know that I've I've heard, um, but I I do think it's interesting, uh, you know, Stephen, to answer your question, I have seen I've seen some very dark memes coming from places that I would not have expected about things like, well, if prosecuting all these people causes the system to collapse, then I think we just need to let the system collapse. Um, and that's, I mean, that's a that is a bold, bold statement. I'm not sure I entirely disagree with it, um, but I mean, that seems to be how serious people are, regardless of party affiliation. Speaker 3: I mean, if the system is that bad that that it allows people to perpetrate crimes like this on kids, I can't say I totally disagree with it either. Like we definitely need something different if this is what the result of our system is. I I don't know what that is. I'm not smart enough to know, but if if it continues like this, I think it's time for something different. Speaker 2: Well, there's that Latin proverb that says, let justice be done, though the heavens may fall. And I think we're all in agreement with that. If that's if that's the price of not only punishing some of these people, but also essentially making future generations somewhat safer because there are now massive consequences to to doing this and participating. And it's interesting, like Norway is prosecuting, I believe, it's a former prime minister. The uh, the Justice Department in England is talking about investigating former Prince Andrew, uh, who's already been not dethroned. What what is it when you take away a deroyaled, been deroyalified, Prince title's been taken away. So other countries in Europe, you know, much, much further away from Manhattan and much, much further away from uh, the place where Pam Bondi was the Attorney General, otherwise known as Florida, uh, are beginning to take legal actions. So we the uh, the odds of it beginning to happen here eventually, whether Trump will ever spend a day in prison, I'm still voting no, but man, would that ever be a cathartic moment to see that motherfucker. And I I'm I'm swearing, I don't care. We're already going to get way dialed down by the YouTube algorithm for talking about this and every other algorithm because the owners of all those algorithms are massively in the pocket of Trump. They've they've all given millions and millions and millions of dollars. Speaker 3: Well, we're already on lists because uh, it came out, was it today that it came out that uh, the US government has subpoenaed a bunch of social media companies to get information about uh, users that um, criticize ICE. So I'm like, there you go. I'm on a list. That's What what did I what did I say on Threads today when that came out? I said, come at me, bro. I don't care. So they're going to throttle this. We're going to be on lists, whatever. Speaker 1: So, let's tie this back in because we're also seeing we're we seem to be having a bit of a moment, whether we want to call it a good one or a bad one right now in the jiu-jitsu community. Um, I don't know whether we want to call it something as big as we seem to be having our own kind of internal Me Too movement. Um, but a number, you know, we've had that the Atos incident and we've had lots of other kind of stories coming from different schools and affiliations. Um, how does this all tie in? Is it related? Have we built a kind of permission structure in in our nation and our world that allows this behavior? Um, or are they are they not related? Speaker 2: Well, the Me Too movement peaked a number of years ago. I I don't know exactly how long, but I'd probably say five to 10 years ago. You know, when Harvey Weinstein was kind of the peak of the Me Too movement. And then I think there was a cultural backlash to that. I mean, certainly there was a Maga/Republican, how dare women destroy good men? And then of course, there was the occasional false accusation. Nobody on our side is denying that, you know, all sexual assault claims should be taken seriously, but they're not all guaranteed true. Right? That that does happen. It's not nearly as common as uh, the detractors would say that it is. And the pendulum swung away. But I think the the fact that there's this massive sort of cover-up of child rape, but let's put that in the category of sexual abuse, happening in front of everybody's eyes at the on the biggest stage possible is is probably, you know, there's there's not much the average jiu-jitsu guy can do about Trump refusing to leave the White House and an entire administration being geared completely towards protecting one man and his billionaire buddies. But they can vent their rage on on Andre Galvao. They can vent their vent their rage on these not illegal, not illegal, but gross uh, Gordon Ryan accusations. They can vent their rage at, you know, whatever the other scandal is. So I I think it must be related. Speaker 3: I I would agree. I mean, I think we have to we got our circles of control, right? And while we can't control we can't immediately impact what's going on at like the federal level, we can try to impact what's going on within our within our communities. And so that's as good a place to start, excuse me, as any. And, you know, Jesse, when you were saying a uh, a couple minutes ago about permission structures uh, that allowed these kind of awful things to happen, um, I know everybody on this call has been doing martial arts for a long time, you know, 40 years for me, at least that for Stephen, probably at least that for you, Jesse. And uh, um, I would argue that that permission structure in the martial arts community has almost always been there, unfortunately. Like I I can talk about similar abuses of power from the other martial arts that I've studied, the other schools that I've uh, run across, you know, uh, there there's been far too many for me to count. So I think that we are fighting against um, a permission structure that allows people in power to take advantage of people that have some responsibility for. You know, and it's not always uh, doesn't always uh, raise go to the level of criminality. Uh, but I think we've all seen it in martial arts, you know, the coach, the sensei, the sifu, the professor, um, abusing their power in some way. So I think we're really fighting against something that's been ingrained, unfortunately. Speaker 2: I'm not even sure it's a martial arts thing. I think it's a power plus power discrepancy plus culture of secrecy plus appeal to, you know, higher powers. Like does martial arts have a higher rate of abusing kids than the Catholic Church did? I don't know. These numbers are really hard to get. Does the there's a massive scandal in the Southern Baptist Convention. It's not just Catholics. You know, the um, the number of youth pastors who abuse kids is out of this world. Uh, for a while, uh, the Sex and Advice podcast, Savage Love, by Dan Savage, would start every episode with a report of yet another uh, evangelical Protestant youth pastor or minister doing some kind of horrendous uh, abuse. And I think it was too depressing and eventually he stopped, but there was never a shortage of it. I think this is probably a darker side of human nature. And so then I would imagine after the USA Gymnastics scandal, what, 10 years ago, maybe more, that a whole bunch of safeguards were put in place in that sport. And I I know that um, you know, that that safe that safe sport thing that the IBJJF requires. Sure. Uh, just the head instructor, is it just the head instructor who has to take it? Speaker 1: I believe. Speaker 2: Like who has to I've not taken that training because I don't care about the IBJJF. So the headline here is going to be, Kesting refuses to take safe sport training. What does that mean? Speaker 1: I I believe I I believe so. Um, uh, Speaker 2: My my point is, yeah. That this seems to be a dark side of human nature that people, especially men, will basically bugger and abuse children, you know, male and female, when they get time alone with them and power over them. And so we need a whole bunch of systems in place to prevent that. Like it needs active work all the time to make that much less frequent. I mean, the educational system has wrestled with this. And for the most part, you know, the the safeguards they put in place have worked. Because it's it's Speaker 1: One of the one of the big differences that I see in our community versus a lot of the other ones that you named and probably beyond that is we don't have any sort of central governance in our sport, activity, whatever we want to call it, right? The Catholic Church, you know, ultimately has Rome and the Pope and everything else to deal with. Uh, Boy Scouts, they've got centralized leadership. Uh, you know, uh, we don't have any center of accountability uh, that US Gymnastics does or uh, you know, is this rather than thinking about Speaker 2: Or the high school system. Speaker 1: Or the high school, right, or the education systems, right, yes, absolutely. Speaker 2: Or Judo even has more than we do. Speaker 1: Yep. So is this is this a good reason uh, to want or desire uh, central governance in jiu-jitsu? Uh, or should do we still want to try to figure out a way to hold these folks accountable and and and do self-policing in this kind of wild west system that we're in now? Speaker 2: Well, it'd be a big fistfight between uh, you know, the IBJJF/Gracie Barra and Hélio Gracie as to who's in charge of jiu-jitsu and who can set all the standards for everybody. And the anarchist in me rebels at this thought, honestly. But as a thought experiment, um, what I'd like to see is the IBJJF clean house. Like why is Cyborg and his students still competing at regular tournaments? Right? He didn't abuse kids, but he sure as hell enabled child abusers. So let's let's see an organization actually have some balls and show accountability and then I'll consider joining it as opposed to, you know, their their main function being to collect my dollars to compete at their tournaments and if I've got uh, a whole bunch of pending sexual assault convictions, yeah, sure, bring your students. We make more money at the tournament if you bring all 50 of your students to compete. Speaker 3: I mean, Cyborg, Lord or Lloyd Irvin, like I've seen these guys at IBJJF events and it's just gross. Speaker 1: Well, I mean, it it goes even beyond just allowing them to the events. I mean, uh, the IBJJF wishes some of these assholes happy birthday on Facebook yearly. I mean, that to me is just so utterly offensive. I I don't even know how to respond to it. Um, yet here we are. Speaker 2: What do you think about the central governing agency, right, idea? Speaker 3: I'm so split on it because I'm kind of with you, Stephen, like the anarchist in me doesn't want that, right? Like, uh, I started martial arts in Taekwondo as a teenager, which was very heavily centrally uh, organized and very strict rules and that was one of the reasons I left is because of uh, just feeling confined. And ever since then, I've uh, trained in arts that have a lot more freedom and less central governance. Um, and I've been lucky to not end up at schools where things like this have been a problem. Um, but when I think about what a problem this is, like I I don't know how else to address it. Speaker 2: If only there were organizations within society who would investigate and if if there's enough evidence prosecute and if there's enough evidence convict people who do this kind of shit. You know, that would look a lot like a functional justice system, wouldn't it? It would look like a starting at the top, a Pam Bondi determined to get to the bottom of releasing these fucking names that they're hiding of people who are undoubtedly doing terrible things to kids. I'm going to argue, number one is Donald Trump. Like that's obviously her paymaster. There's been an obvious redaction of his name, leaving a few names, leaving a few mild accusations and a few conversations in there. But the clearly all the smoking guns have been removed. But how do you deal with this when the system is corrupt all the way to the top? Pam Bondi arguing, you know, have you even apologized to Donald Trump? He's uh, the Dow is over 50,000 points. If we have that, then we're trying to police that? No, man, there's actually a system in place to deal with pedophiles and to like, let's start there. Speaker 3: Yeah, how can we create something within jiu-jitsu if the example we're getting from the federal government sweeps it all under the rug? Speaker 2: Naming and shaming is a good start. I mean, I've got a video brewing in me that I'm going to release on my other channels in the next couple of days about red flags. Uh, red flags for schools. And the one thing that I was start if if searching the school's name and the instructor's name, as well as the term sexual assault, produces results, that's a red flag. So keeping in mind that people can be falsely accused, that that's problematic. I I totally agree that's problematic. But naming and shaming the the really overt and obvious cases is probably a good start, especially if you can drop the receipts. Speaker 1: So to let let me play devil's advocate a little bit and and get your all's kind of thoughts on it. Um, I you know, even with, you know, from some of the experts we've even talked to, um, even with what seems to us as we're reading the files, overwhelming evidence and overwhelming this and there's clearly patterns, there might still not be enough there that we can substantiate, uh, to file criminal prosecutions, to end up getting convictions on this stuff. Um, and even if that is not true in the Epstein files, which I'm becoming less and less convinced of as more of it comes out, you know, you you take a situation like what was going on at Atos. I I don't know that within the justice system, uh, there's ever going to be enough evidence for there to be accountability. Um, and again, that can't be our metric as the community. Yes, we need to rely on them to do their job to the best of their ability. Um, I'm just not sure with this kind of stuff, it's as cut and dry and easy, which is terrible, right? Because this is one of the huge reasons why victims don't come forward. There's never any fucking accountability. These people skate every fucking time. Um, and I don't I don't know how to fix it. Uh, Speaker 3: You know, if if nine out of 10 women at a gym leave because they feel unsafe, that might be a good indicator that you probably shouldn't go train at that gym. Speaker 1: Sure, but what do we do as a community? I mean, we're not going to all hop on a plane and go dojo storm that place, right? As much as I would like to. Speaker 3: Even if we are too. Look, I'm getting I'm getting healthy enough to scrap again, so Jesse, you and I got to buy some plane tickets. Speaker 1: Stephen, what are your thoughts on this? Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. Uh, certainly, I think if if I was thinking about training at Lloyd Irvin's, actually Lloyd Irvin's an interesting example because if you do a search for Lloyd Irvin sexual assault, he's built about a hundred websites that talk about the sexual assault prevention program at Irvin's. And it's it's a basically a um, a burium with bullshit strategy that clearly he paid some consultant to do. So if you go to page 10 and you've actually or you go on the forums and you ask, uh, hey, what about this place? Are there any red flags? People will tell you. That's what Reddit is for. That's what Facebook is for. That's a good application. And then you you make your own decision. As for there not being enough evidence to prosecute with the Epstein files, keep in mind, we've only had uh, some we've had some incredibly heavily redacted stuff released. Why is it redacted? Why is there page after page after page redacted? We don't know what's on there, but it it was enough it was condemning it was condemning enough to somebody for them to redact it. Secondly, they've only released half of them. The Department of Justice said there were 6 million files. They've released just over 3 million. Thirdly, fuck the files. We got a whole bunch of women ready to testify. Like if 10 women all point to the same guy and say, he was there and it was, I don't know, the uh, August of 1999, that should be enough. You know, that's what the legal process is for. Oh, and guess what, there's also some emails. Well, the emails, you know, can you prosecute somebody just on the basis of the emails? Probably not, but you probably find somebody else who makes somebody squeal or pressure somebody enough to uh, you've got the victims there. Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems like we've got enough stuff that we can triangulate in on on some of this stuff. Certainly. Speaker 2: Or at least prosecute. Even if you don't succeed, prosecute. So, Speaker 1: Well, and I I'm no lawyer, but uh, wasn't Trump found civilly liable for sexual assault? Speaker 2: Or rape. Speaker 1: Or rape. And I mean, even if some of these people in the files can't be found criminally liable, I mean, is there a way to uh, get some accountability and justice for these victims in a civil suit? I don't know. But I know that the the standard's a lot lower for that, right? Speaker 2: I don't know. Interestingly, one thing that drives me crazy is the both sidesism here because like, well, yeah, yeah, Trump is probably he was found liable of sexual assault and Joe Biden sniffed some girl's hair. Hang hang on, one was established in court and the other is a really unfortunate photo op. And again, if Joe Biden did bad shit, it should be investigated. If there's enough evidence, he should be prosecuted. If that throw him in jail. No question. I think there's also a grandniece or granddaughter who said that he showered with her at some point. So that's one person's testimony. Okay, that's not great at all. But it's not like the 25 odd women who've come forward and said Trump raped them, plus Trump uh, being a civilly convicted uh, rapist because the statute of limitations had expired, that's why he's not criminally liable, plus being the number three person mentioned in the Epstein files, plus the things that he's done to make this so much more suspicious. I mean, you're running on releasing the Epstein files to satisfy the QAnon crowd. Then you turn around and go, they don't exist. Then you turn around, say, they do exist, but they're a Democrat hoax built by the FBI to make me look bad. Then you say you're going to release them and you don't. And then you release little parts of it and they're all blocked out, including blocking out the names of the perpetrators. So, like, Speaker 1: And then say it exonerates you. Speaker 2: That's the that's that's been the best one so far. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: Yeah. So don't both sides this with, you know, Joe Biden sniffing someone's hair. And of course, if Bill Clinton went to the island once again, let him burn. Speaker 1: Yeah, what what's been amazing to me is that people, and I say people, I'm not going to both sides it. People on the right seem to assume that normal, sane people are going to wear jerseys over this. I have no jersey when it comes to pedophilia. I want them all to fucking burn. I don't care what lever they pulled in the voting booth. Get rid of them all. Speaker 3: Like like if if some guy that I voted for in the early 90s ends up in the files and is a perpetrator, like I'm going to defend him over that. Screw that. Like, you're right. Speaker 1: Well, but that's exactly what we're seeing, right? Speaker 3: I know. I know, but they should all go down. I don't care who they are. Speaker 2: It it should be said, so for a while there was this app called jmail.com. And basically it allowed you to search the emails of the files as if it was a a Gmail account. I don't know if it's still there. I tried looking for it the other day and it was gone. I wonder if it got destroyed by our internet overlords. Um, it uh, still down as in right now. Hopefully it's just crashed because too many people have been on it. And somebody was like, haha, Mark Carney's in the files. I'm like, okay, that's interesting. I don't want to hear that. So Mark Carney, Carney, Prime Minister of Canada. So I go and I look and he's mentioned about 60 times. And the first one, I mean, Epstein was a financial guy, is like a an a financial report saying, I don't know, the the governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney says this. Okay, cool. Second one, governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney's, okay. So I go through about 10 of them. None of them are an email from Carney to Epstein. So based on looking at a hunk of them, it sounds like a big nothing burger. Yeah, he's mentioned in the files. I mean, the UFC is also mentioned in the files, but there's no correspondence like Dana White isn't implicated as far as we know so far. So just because somebody's quote in the files, it's worth looking up in the database to see what that means. Right? Is he chumming it and saying, I I you know, I go through withdrawal when I don't hang out with you and I can't tell anybody how crazy your life is. And uh, you know, Peter Attia, or is he mentioned in some kind of, you know, if if you were to look in my spam mailbox, there'd be messages there from, I don't know, a male enhancement pills. Right? So great. It's there in my spam. Uh, there's not a real connection between uh, it's not like I was sending emails to the male enhancement pill company or that we were we we have to qualify what being in the files really does mean. And if that Jmail application ever comes up online again, it would be really interesting. It's it's fun to go in there and well, fun. Interesting to go in there and poke around and and drop some names in there. Speaker 1: Why is there still so much insistence, and and maybe the answer is because half the Congress and Senate are in those files too. Um, but but why why are we still protecting all the things that we're protecting? Why isn't the branch of government that needs to be dealing with this really doing anything about it? Uh, why is it still cut down a party line? Um, why why are we as a culture not so up in arms about this to the point where we're, you know, at the capital banging on doors, you know, raising holy hell about this, regardless of party. Speaker 2: People are raising holy hell about this. Like that's that's actually the first bit of good news I've seen in a long time. Like the agents came pulled out of Minnesota and Portland are other places. Speaker 1: Oh, for sure. Yes. Speaker 2: So it is it's been a very bad week or bad month for the administration. So, um, I mean, one answer, and people are not going to like this, is that there's a reasonable discussion to be had about whether Epstein was an asset for Israel, for AIPAC. And they they donate a shit ton of money, or more correctly, coordinate the donation of a shit ton of money to members of Congress. And if you say anything that is anti-Israeli policy, then you're going to get primaried. You're going to you're your opponent's going to get a ton of money. So I'd like to think that what's going to happen is there's going to be a mass break at some point. It's going to reach critical mass. Right now you've got uh, Thomas Massie, for example. I think Thomas Massie is positioning himself. This is my prediction. I think Thomas Massie is going to be the next Republican uh, candidate for president. Because he's Speaker 1: Yeah, I was getting ready to say, he is he's no liberal squish, right? He and and still very much pushing back against what's going on. Speaker 2: Well, he's he's he's channeling rage over, I'll say, three different areas. Um, he's channeling rage over the Epstein files. Good. He's channeling rage over Israel. Good, but problematic, potentially problematic because of course, that's also a dog whistle to every single anti-Semite. Right? You can be you can be anti-Israeli but not or anti-expansionist Zionists or anti the actions of the current government of Israel without being anti-Semitic. But of course, if you go ranting about Israel, all of a sudden the uh, the skinheads and the guys attending their um, their white pride rallies, they perk up all of a sudden, oh, that's a dog whistle. So he's channeling those three things. And that's a powerful, that's a a lot of anger and resentment. So I I think he might be setting himself up for a succession run here. Speaker 1: Mike, what's going on in your head? Speaker 3: It's just a lot. It's a lot. I mean, I also I think there's a large section of the population when it comes to these issues, to the Epstein files, to uh, you know, even issues in the jiu-jitsu community like the the Atos scandal and all that. There's a large section of people that are on board with raising holy hell about it. But I also think there's probably equally a large section of folks who just aren't paying attention because it doesn't impact their immediate lives. It doesn't, you know, it doesn't uh, Speaker 1: I mean, most people are just trying to get through the day, right? Speaker 3: I know. I know. Yeah, and in some ways I can't can't blame them. Like, you know, when I was in the the week I was in the hospital with pneumonia and the week after when I was on heavy-duty antibiotics and all those medications, like I did not have the energy to keep up with the news, right? Like as as much as I am uh, uh, tied to my cell phone and current events, like I just couldn't do it during that time. And I know a lot of people who aren't didn't struggle with that kind of stuff and just don't have that kind of energy or time. Um, I also think there's a lot of people that just like, well, it doesn't affect me directly, so why should I pay attention to it? You know, as far as I know, the jiu-jitsu school I train at is fine. Uh, I don't need to worry about any of this stuff. You know, the Epstein files, that's like big government stuff. Uh, I just got to make sure I can pay my mortgage and buy my groceries, which is understandable in some ways, but man, like this impacts all of us if you dig down deep enough. Speaker 1: Yeah. Let let me maybe uh, a bit of a change of topic and I I don't want to uh, step on Stephen's toes too much about the video that he's working on. It's something we've talked about a little bit offline, uh, but I would like both of your all's takes on it. Uh, let's say you had uh, a young woman that's close to you all, they're in their 20s, their 30s, they reach out, hey Mike, hey Stephen. Uh, you know, I know y'all been doing jiu-jitsu for a really long time. Uh, you know, you all think it's wonderful. I've been thinking about getting started myself. Uh, you know, I'm here in City X. Where do you think I should go? Should I start training? What would you tell them? Speaker 3: I mean, the first thing that comes to mind is, find a gym and it so nothing is 100%, right? Like none of these green flags uh, absolutely guarantee there'll never be any creeps at your jiu-jitsu gym. But the first thing that comes to mind for me is, find a gym with women in leadership. I think if you have women coaches on the mats, women black belts, women owners, you're probably a lot it's probably more likely that you've got a gym culture that's likely to keep their people safe. Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, somebody said something really interesting to me the other day that I hadn't really thought of. Because I, you know, I too was kind of surprised about uh, Angelica uh, Galvao and someone said, well, when women uh, get a lot of benefit out of the patriarchy, they too defend the patriarchy uh, diligently. And it's not something I'd I'd given a lot of thought to before, um, but it rang true when they said it. Speaker 2: We did an episode ages ago about The Handmaid's Tale and its current state, how it interacted with Project 2025. And one of the features of The Handmaid's Tale is these aunt figures who essentially enforce the patriarchy because it moves them from the bottom tier of society, I don't know, halfway up. They'll never make it to the top. They'll still have some power. Uh, I I think honestly, the exodus of women leaving Atos right around that time was as much of an indicator as anything else. Because any one person can be crazy. Any one person can come up with false accusations. These things do happen. But when all of a sudden a ton of women all pack up and leave, it means that they either all know the victim and believe that person, or they've seen enough stuff that's got them kind of uneasy and then it becomes this watershed moment where all of a sudden the dam breaks and they just all leave. So that's when I started believing the accusations, not when one person said one thing. Because again, any one person any one person can lie. Any one person can be crazy. But when it's corroborated essentially by, you know, very serious athletes who have a very strong vested interest in continuing to train at the place that has made them successful champions, packing up and leaving, that's a pretty good indicator. Uh, as for your question, Jesse, what would I I've done this many times. I've reached out to friends going, hey, I've just been contacted by somebody who wants looking for a good place to train in Atlanta. What places can you recommend? Right? If I don't know a good good place, I'm going to reach out to my community and try and find a good place. If that doesn't exist, then my, you know, here are the red flags to watch out for, hence this longer form video I'm going to be making uh, in the next couple of days. And as always, go visit a number of different places because, you know, if if you're considering spending hours and hours and hours a week of blood, sweat and tears and many dollars and a ton of opportunity cost developing this incredibly fun skill, you you it's worth your while to travel around and to find to to do some initial research and see how you feel at this place. Are your spider senses tingling? What about here? Where are all the women, like you said? Why why are you go to the next place. Why are there only white belts in this entire school? What happened here? Oh, the school started yesterday? Okay, that makes sense. Oh, the school's been around for 10 years and there's nothing but white belts here? That's a bit of an orange flag. Uh, so, you know, and and the trouble with a cult is once you're in, it's difficult to leave. You're so invested. There's such a investment of time and energy and friendships and social connections and a sunk cost fallacy that it's worth your while to go and uh, really pick and choose carefully. And if they pressure you, like, no, no, no, no, you came and did a trial class. If uh, you know, normally it's a $1,000 initiation fee, but if you sign right now, uh, we'll waive this $1,000 initiation fee and we'll give you a free belt. That's also a massive pressure tactic and I would argue that's a red flag. Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. For sure. I I mean, I've known gyms that don't let allow visitors, don't allow people to uh, watch a class, you know, and that's a big red flag for me. I feel like you should be able to sit sit in the sidelines and watch a class and get get the vibe before you sign anything or give them any money. You know, uh, the ability to talk to some of the students on, you know, before or after class and and get their take on what training there is like. You know, that's another another thing I think is a good idea to uh, to do to kind of suss out uh, see if it makes your spidey sense tingle, like Stephen said. Speaker 1: Yeah, I think these are I think these are really good. I you know, there there is still part of me, uh, and again, if I know, you know, if they're in a city that I know a school or, you know, we can we can have that kind of networking back channel, hey, where's a good place to go? Um, but there's still a a significant part of me that's like, I don't I don't know that I would recommend the sport right now to women. Um, and and maybe that's me just overblowing the problem, uh, and making it larger than it really is. Um, but I there there is part of me that is kind of resistant to that for sure. Speaker 2: What other tool, and I'm not like I know that there are various organizations, informal organizations that maintain lists of clubs for LGBT+ people to train at. And I would argue, you know, I've I'm not on those lists because I'm straight. Uh, I'm so straight. Uh, we digress. Uh, but all things being equal, if you're training at a club that's welcoming of LGBT+ people, then probably the odds of running into these problematic issues are going to be less. So you might want to try and uh, look for that. It it's I still get I still get shit online for that post that I did about if you were trying to keep neo-Nazis out of your gym, then hanging a pride flag would be a good way to do it, which got blown up into extreme leftist Marxist black belt Stephen Kesting demands that pride flag is hung at all gyms, which is not what I said. Uh, but I still get, you know, called that pride flag guy. Speaker 3: Well, I have rainbow rash guards and I'm a straight dude, so let BJJ Docs come after me too. To hell with them all. Speaker 1: I I you know, I guess that's probably a better thing to be known as than the guy that's going into uh, the 15-year-old's DMs, right? Speaker 2: That sounds like a great place to wrap this up. Speaker 1: Let's do it. Uh, any closing thoughts from anybody before we uh, say good evening? Speaker 2: I'm finally beginning to feel a little bit hopeful and I haven't felt hopeful like this in a long time. I think this Epstein stuff that we've been talking about has legs. There are many, many, many other hanging crimes that this administration has committed, whether it's, you know, threatened to seize Greenland by force or the sending people to concentration camps in El Salvador or building private militias. There's there's an endless list of stuff that the health stuff, the putting RFK Jr. in charge of a health system is insane. That's a hanging crime. But in the end, it seems like this Epstein stuff is the stuff that's got legs and that's and I'll take it. I'll take it. And I think this is Speaker 1: Well, and and also the the the ICE pushback, right? I mean, we've seen the city and the nation mobilize around, you know, not tolerating the bullshit that that's being perpetrated on Americans right now. Speaker 2: God love Minnesota. Speaker 1: Absolutely. Speaker 2: So it's it's a wounded elephant. Right now it's it's wounded, but man, a wounded elephant's still dangerous. And if you imagine a wounded being in a room with a wounded elephant and somewhere in the room is a big red button that starts World War III and this this elephant's thrashing around. There's a pretty decent chance that he's going to stomp on you and gore you. And there's a non-zero chance he's going to start World War III. So we're not out of the woods yet. Speaker 1: With that, thanks everybody. Uh, we're going to wrap this one up. Speaker 2: I'm going to sleep well tonight now, Stephen. Speaker 1: And we'll uh, we'll see you at the next one, everybody. Thanks Mike, thanks Stephen. Speaker 3: Be safe out there, everybody.