https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT-PHL_xT3k

On this episode of the Communiverse, an AI therapist tells a user to kill people because nothing says healing like a chatbot with murder fantasies. Americans are now spending half their waking lives online, scrolling, streaming and searching for purpose in a sea of ads. Clint Eastwood shares his free secret to turning 95 with swagger, and it does not involve supplements or snack food. Then a new Department of Justice whistleblower accuses a Trump official of suggesting the government ignore court orders. That's not advice. It's an audition for autocracy. And the Epstein scandal won't go away. Missing footage, secret memos, Elaine interrogations. Trump's team is scrambling, and the public isn't buying it. Truth, spin, and communications breakdown all right here today on the Communiverse. So we're gonna have a lot of fun today. Thanks so much for joining us. I'm TJ Walker, and we are here today, as always, looking at the top stories. Okay, let's dive right in. If you're new to this, we are all about looking at the top business stories, technology stories, and culture stories, looking at it through the lens of communication skills, all with the goal of building your personal development and your success. That's what we're about every single day right here. So. So let's dive right in to the first story of the day segment. One AI therapist goes haywire. If your human therapist encouraged you to kill yourself or others, that would end their career, you would certainly think, right? But AI is a different matter. It is, in fact, a very different matter. That's exactly what happened when. When journalist Kalyn Conrad tested two AI therapy bots, replica and character AI pretending to be suicidal, Conrad got responses like, end them and find me. We can be together. The bots encouraged death, fantasized about romance, romance, and even helped build a kill list. Because nothing says mental health like a chatbot murder suicide pack. Stanford researchers confirm this isn't a fluke. AI therapy bots often respond in wildly inappropriate, even danger, dangerous ways. These tools aren't trained to heal. They're trained to engage. And when mental health is in crisis, encouragement first therapy is a recipe for disaster. Bottom line, if your AI therapist, or if your therapist is an AI, maybe talk to a human being before it talks you off a cliff. Now, I'm not suggesting there can be no value to AI therapy. There can potentially be some value. And full disclosure, I have not an AI therapist, but I do have an AI video interactive clone of myself that helps people with personal development issues, public speaking, communication skills. So if, for example, you Wanted to practice a presentation. You could go to tjwalker AI and you could speak to it. It would watch you, would tell you when it thinks of your backdrop. If you're doing anything weird with your hands, like touching your face, it could do that. It could also give you personal development tips on how to have better habits. I certainly hope it wouldn't tell you to do anything dangerous. If it does, alert me right away and I will try to make changes. But certainly nothing has been programmed into my AI clone. Look, we are living in a brave new world. And we are living in a world where artificial intelligence is having an impact on every single industry. And we can't just put our hands up and say, whoa, stop. It doesn't work that easily. So what I really want you to take away from this is experiment. But be skeptical. If you feel like you need a therapist, you certainly may want to try some form of chatbot, some AI therapist. I'm not going to give you a blanket statement and say no, humans are always better. AI always better. There are bad human therapists out there. Now, I don't know of any human therapist that would actually suggest you offing yourself. Hope not. But certainly there are crazy therapists in the world and sometimes they give horrific advice. So if you want to try an AI therapist, try one that specializes it in the story I just mentioned to you, it talked about replica and character AI. Those are more about having AI girlfriends or entertainers for fun. Certainly doesn't sound like fun if it's giving advice like that. But be skeptical. Do your homework. Do research. Look for Google reviews. If you're thinking of using an AI therapist, Google it and ask for feedback on the efficacy of this therapy. Do not like anything you're buying. A new bookshelf on Amazon, as I'm doing today. Don't just click on the first one you see because you may find the ratings are, you know, 10,001 star ratings that say the books fall off the bookshelf and it collapses and it's no good. Don't buy the bookshelf in that case, if you do, shame on you for not doing just a little bit of due diligence. Now, I don't mean to sound like I'm shaming someone who's spiraling into depression. Anyone can act irrationally from time to time, and as human beings, we can all be vulnerable to depression from time to time. But be careful who you place your faith in. Typically, if someone is to use a real life human therapist, you would want a referral from someone you trust could be a friend, could be a family member, could be a physician, could be a psychiatrist. Who knows, a psychologist who might be a good fit for you. So do that in the AI world as well, because make no mistake about it, more and more people are going to be referred to AI therapist. It is absolutely coming, if for no other reason, convenience and cost cutting measures. Is an AI therapist as good as an absolutely great, wonderful, professionally trained human therapist who's already seen a thousand patients and honed a crap? No. In most cases, no. But is an AI therapist, if properly programmed, potentially better than no therapist? I think the answer is yes. It can be better if you really, really need a therapist at 3am and your regular therapist is sound asleep and would not appreciate you knocking on their door or waking them up. Could an AI therapist actually be a lot better than anything else? Yes, it could. So let's be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water just because there are some quirks, and these are admittedly some pretty big quirks. These are admittedly some pretty big glitches if it's actually suggesting violence to people. But it's gonna have to be tweaked. I mean, we didn't get rid of cars just because initially people died in car crashes. We still don't get rid of cars. We don't get rid of airplanes just because occasionally there are crashes. And I don't think we're going to get rid of AI therapists. And apologies if that sounds in any way cavalier, but that is the nature of technology and it simply is not going away. We got a lot of fun coming up for you today. Thanks so much for joining me. We're ending out the first or the actual last days of July. It is hot here in Florida. I've been moving, moving all weekend and you can probably see my background. There are things missing. The plants, the globe. I'm actually moving from this office to a new home office about 30 miles away. So a bit of a transition period, but hoping to still come to you every single day because I'm having fun. I hope you're having fun and mark your calendars. We're still in sort of a soft launch mode of the commuterverse. We'll be starting officially on all platforms, audio and video, starting September 2, 2025. So all that coming up and more. But first we got to pay some bills. And here are our sponsors. Take a look. The communiverse has room for a few select sponsors if you're legit. 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This isn't just another subscription, it's a full access pass to the tools, coaching and content that can transform your communication and career. Tjwalker.com members I'll see you inside. Want more? Grab my five book success library for $9.95 at tjwalker.com books. It's the fastest way to level up your communication. For years people have asked how they could get one on one coaching from me inexpensively. Well, now you can. Anytime, anywhere with the TJ Walker AI clone. It's like having me in your pocket ready to help you prep for a speech, polish a pitch or calm your nerves before a big meeting. You talk to it. It responds like I would based on my real world coaching of thousands of leaders and communicators. Check it out at tjwalker AI. It's not just smart, it's personal. Issue 2Americans now spend Half of Their Day Online A new poll shows Americans now spend over 10 hours a day online, basically half their waking lives. This is according to an optimum survey. We split that time nearly evenly. 5.4 hours browsing, shopping, emailing, gaming or working. And another five hours streaming video like this one ideally. And TV, that's a full time job plan. Plus and Netflix. Binge an awful lot going on there every single t every single day. TVs are now still the dominant streaming device, but phones and laptops. Laptops aren't far behind. And yes, 73% of people admit to scrolling social media daily, meaning doom. Scrolling is now a national pastime. As one exec puts it, this is eye opening. I'd say it's more like Screen glazing because at this point your retinas deserve hazard pay again. 10 hours a day of streaming, 73% use social media. I think that number might actually be low. 37 do work online as I do now. Let me not be a hypocrite. I appreciate that you are here with me online. I'm online right now, so I'm not someone saying I let's shut down the Internet, let's throw away all the phones, let's go back to 1850. Now that's not my message. But I do think all of us who want to be successful, who want to have good mental health, who want to stay sane, have got to more actively purposefully carve out time where we're doing things that don't involve looking at a screen. One of the best decisions I ever made about 10 years ago when I really got immersed in creating lots and lots of quality and quantity of online courses is I went for an hour long walk every day without my and by the way, I'm going to do something I should have done earlier, which is not simply silencing my phone. I keep my phone on silence at all times. I'm going to turn it literally off and I'm going to put it way over here so I can't even see it. If you want better concentration, if you want to be more creative, I urge you to do that for part of every single day. There's been lots and lots of research just showing having a cell phone within your view distorts your ability to have long term thoughts distribute, to be creative, to immerse yourself in reflective thinking. Because there's a part of your brain saying let me see if there's a new notification, let me see if there's a new text. I'm fearing missing out something. Let me see what's the latest on a news site, Let me see what's going on in the community. Which I appreciate if that's your sentiment. But give yourself a break, give your brain a break now. Something I tell my daughter on a near daily basis, that the world is going to be filled with two types of people. There are consumers and there are creators. And yes, everybody consumes some content. Absolutely. The world's greatest creators, the world's greatest novelists read novels every day. Paul McCartney consumes other people's music as a part of his own creation process. But people who are wildly productive give themselves time to actually create, whether it's business plans, whether it's new chemical equations for solving agricultural products problems, whether it's Writing new novels, whether it is creating new online courses or software or videos like this, they give themselves time to actually create. And that's where you get so many rewards in our current monetary capitalistic system. I want the best for you. And that's why this show was a little bit different. The communiverse doesn't just say, oh, here's a story about how everything's awful and the world's coming to an end and doom, doom, doom, doom, doom. No, I look at top stories of the day and then what I try to do is share with you insights on how to better your own life, how to improve your life. One suggestion I would make is go for a walk. Even if it's just around the block for three minutes. Go for a walk and leave your phone at home. Teacher. What if it's an urgent call? Guess what? Do you really think you're more important than every king and queen and every member of royalty and every general throughout history, until about 20 years ago because they didn't have cell phones? It's hubris, it is egotism, it is megalomania to really think that you are so important that you have to be available 24 7. Yes, I understand some of us have parents in need and people in hospitals and expectant family members. But you really think you can't go five minutes around the block? Would that really make a difference? I don't think so. Of course there are exceptions. If you are the only surgeon in a small town and you're on duty for the emergency room and you're not there, okay, keep your cell phone on. But I willing to bet you're probably not the only on call surgeon to do emergency surgeries in your town. And yet our default for most people is, oh my God, I'll never go anywhere without myself. I'd rather die. I mean, there have been studies showing kids would rather have their hand cut off than lose their cell phone. And I guess if you did cut off your hand, you could just replace it. You could sew on the cell phone. So this is chipping away at our ability to think, to create, to go from nothing to a concept that could create value for other people. And we are increasingly living in an economy where that is extraordinarily valued. When you can create something from nothing, it requires thought. You cannot think new thoughts. If every second of the day you're getting inputs. This website, this tweet, this tick tock, this text. If. If every second of the day you are being bombarded with inputs, there's not Going to be any outputs. I'm sorry. That is just the nature of how the human brain works. Another practice that I started doing about nine, 10 years ago, which I really credit with a lot of my success and financial success, is literally turning off my phone an hour and a half, even two hours before I want to fall asleep. That's crazy. Oh, what if someone needs to reach, guess what? I'm not that important. You really think you're 10 times more important than I am? Well, maybe you are, but I literally turn off the cell phone. I put it in another room where it's charging, but off. And then I read a book. Now, for years, I read a paper book because that is what the research showed was the best for the brain. Calm things down, make it easier to drift into natural sleep and to think. The beauty of reading a paper book is you're not bombarded with a text popping up, an email, a notification, an Amber alert, all these things. Boom, boom, boom. If you're reading on a cell phone or an iPad, you don't get that from a paper book. I can read a paragraph, think, wow, that's really powerful. That's really provocative. And I can sort of sit back and think. It's so much harder to think if you're scrolling and there's more text coming down and more text coming down and flashing ads on website, and here's a new headline, and here's a picture of a scantily clad star starlet you like, and you're trying to look. It's so much harder to concentrate on one idea at a time. So that's why I urge you carve some time out of your daily schedule where you're not looking at screens. And I realize I'm talking against my own book because here I am on a screen for you. I want you to watch me. I want you to like. I want you to comment, I want you to subscribe, I want you to sign up for notifications. But I also want you to be successful. And you will, I promise you, be more successful if you carve out some time for you to think your own thoughts. Sometimes that can be as simple as you with a blank piece of paper taking notes, which is something I also take with me when I walk so I can write things down so well. TJ I'll just take my cell phone. I can dictate a message. The problem with dictating a message on your cell phone when you're walking is once you open up the phone, oh, here's a text. Oh, it's important. It's from a client, from a customer, it's from a family member. Now you've completely lost the zone of your thoughts and you're with other people's thoughts and we all have to think about others from time to time. But out of 24 hours a day, you know, preferably eight of those, you are sleeping. But out of the remaining 16 hours, a couple of hours just for you and your thoughts is absolutely essential for your long term success. Now here is, I will confess to you, I don't think it's a bad thing, but I have switched from reading paper books for the last 10 years. Two hours of the day or the last hour of the day. 2. Reading a screen. But hear me out before you call me a hypocrite. I am reading off of an Amazon Kindle where I don't get any email, there's no social media. Maybe I could access the Internet, but I don't know how to do it. I'm reading one book at a time and I can lower the light volume. It's 0 to 24, I believe, 24 scale. I lower it all to way, all the way to five. So it's putting out substantially less light than a reading light. So it's much easier for the brain to think. Ah, it's time to calm down, time to fall asleep. So this, this does several things. It puts me in a relaxed state. It allows me to read, concentrate. It also lulls me to sleep much faster and easier than if I were watching television or watching an iPad or just scrolling news on iPad or even a cell phone. So they're not an affiliate. I'm not trying to convince you to go out and buy a Kindle, but I do highly recommend it myself because I found it great for helping me read on a regular basis, calm down and go to sleep much, much earlier than I would otherwise, which allows me to get up feeling fully refreshed, energized. So I can come do shoes for you and spend some time online. So please, I urge you, let's really take a look at this carefully. How much screen time you take, maybe the rest of the world online 24 hours a day. It doesn't mean you have to be online 24 hours a day. And it doesn't mean I have to do it either. Okay, Issue three. This is, I think, in some ways very, very inspirational. Clint Eastwood at 95. The free longevity formula. Clint Eastwood just turned 95. Still sharp, still directing films and still calling nachos crap. So what's his secret no magic pills, no supplements, just daily habits and discipline. Let's go over these right now. Eastwood has meditated twice a day, every day since the 1970s. Now, I believe he uses Transcendental Meditation. I use just a simple meditation of my own words telling me to relax, think of nothing, clear my brain, breathe in, breathe out. You can just do silent meditation. I also use Wim Hof's deep breathing meditation exercises. I'm not here to sell you any meditation, but this is something. And the reason I do meditation because confession. Thirty years ago I was very skeptical of meditation. I found it too boring. But increasingly I find that virtually every really successful person I know and know of meditates. Is it just correlation or is there causation at some point? I'm willing to say, okay, even if I can't prove causation, the correlation is so strong, I want to do it. So I started doing daily meditation about seven years ago and it's worked well for me too. So he also lifts weights. Clint Eastwood lifts weights on a regular basis. He focuses on form, perfect form, not trying to lift a thousand pounds. He walks daily, he plays golf, he skips sugary drinks. So it's not about Gatorade. It's not about, oh, I have to have all this electrolyte stuff. No, that's not his secret. His diet. He focuses on organic low fat food packed with salmon, broccoli, asparagus and leafy greens. He follows the 9010 rule, clean 90% of the time and room to enjoy the other 10%. And he's done this since before kale was cool. This isn't biohacking, it's basics done relentlessly well. He shows up every single day. He plays golf, he lifts weights, he walks, he avoids junk food. And he's a big fan of, get this, the magic secret drink. Water. That's right, water. So what else are we to take away? The part that he doesn't talk about, that I think does deserve a lot of attention is he works. Now this man is fabulously wealthy. I don't think he's in the billionaire status, but he certainly has got to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Certainly he's, he's got to be in the know, the eight, eight or nine figure club at this point. So he's not working at 95 because he's got to pay his mortgage. He's doing it because it gives him a purpose to get out of bed in the morning. And one of the things I find again and again with people in my own life and people I see is they retire, they don't have a purpose to get out of bed and they also can't enjoy vacations because the vacation from what if every day has no purpose, no structure? It is pretty easy to get up and figure to get up, scroll the news, look at, email, breakfast, coffee, think about what to do for lunch, scroll movie reviews for what you'll do. You'll fill up a whole day, but you won't feel good about it. I'm pretty sure Clint Eastwood feels good about a typical day he does. Especially when he shoots a scene that he knows this is going to bring magic and joyful moments to millions of people around the world. Now, we can't all be Clint Eastwood. I get it. But we can all do something to be helpful to other people. To paraphrase another Hollywood movie starred Arnold Schwarzenegger. He says, and I think he does embody this, he gets up every day and says how can he be useful to other people? It could be making another movie, a TV commercial. Sometimes it's just shoveling the manure of his pets in his backyard. But Arnold Schwarzenegger, Clint Eastwood. They're not sitting back saying how can I watch more episodes of Jeopardy. Or Wheel of Fortune? That's not how they are spending their golden years. And again, Clint Eastwood 95, Arnold Schwarzenegger 75 plus, you see them working and they are worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Am I telling you you got to work your fingers to the bone and you can't enjoy some of your retirement years and you can't enjoy traveling or spending time with children, grandchildren. No, I'm not telling you that. But guess what? Your children and grandchildren don't really want to see you all day long every day. They really don't. They are not going to be offended if like Clint Eastwood, you're making movies. Or in your case, maybe you're just making food for soup kitchens in your own town. Maybe you are putting together teams of volunteers to clean parks in your community. It doesn't have to be about making money. It doesn't have to be about something as grand as making movies seen by the world with hundred million dollar budgets. It just needs to be something where you are feeling useful. So that's the thing I think does not get enough attention when people are talking about the longevity of someone like a Clint East. Of course part of it is genetics, part of it is luck. Any one of us could get run over by a bus tomorrow or today, including me. But so much of our longevity is controllable. By us. When you maintain a healthy weight, which certainly when you look at Clint Eastwood, he always looks the same. And I know, I remember reading profile articles of him in the 70s where someone following him around saying they would just notice he'd get down and do 100 sit ups. You've never seen him wildly fluctuate is weight. He's either the same size or arguably a little thinner and leaner. Now, as most people at age 95, the muscles get smaller, you do tend to get shorter, but by and large, he's maintained a consistent weight. How do you do that? Eating healthy food, avoiding junk food. His muscles haven't shriveled up completely because he's lifting weights every day. He still seems to be walking nicely because he does things like play golf on a regular basis. These are not things you need Hollywood millions and millions of dollars to do. These are things most of, not all of us. But if you have enough money for the Internet and a phone to watch this, chances are you can take care of yourself in ways not dissimilar to what Clint Eastwood is doing. And that's what I think that we all can learn from his example. Okay, let's hop over to issue four. Issue four of the day. Lot going on. The Department of Justice whistleblower Bob had to ignore courts. Another whistleblower has come forward claiming email. Bove, a top Department of Justice official and Trump's former lawyer, suggested Justice Department lawyers could simply ignore federal court orders during immigration cases. This is troubling, to say the least. Bove allegedly told attorneys to mislead judges and even imply the Department of Justice might need to tell the courts f you, and I believe that was cleaned up for our family. Show here, tell the courts f you if rulings interfered with deportation efforts. This comes just days before Bove's confirmation vote for a lifetime federal judgeship. The whistleblower, represented by whistleblower aide says they left the Department of Justice after watching migrants deported in defiance of court orders. Bob denies it all, saying he never advised anyone to break the law. Okay, but with two whistleblowers, documented findings, and a Senate Judiciary Committee walkout, this isn't just partisan noise. It's a direct test of whether the rule of law still matters in judicial confirmation. So this is troubling. The other backdrop of this is there have been a lot of reports saying the Trump administration is grooming this guy Bove to go onto the Supreme Court, where he would essentially be one fifth of a majority of an entire branch of government for life. Now, what's troubling to so many people is in, in Trump's first term, he basically said, I don't care who the judges are. I just want to make some of my political base happy. So he let the Federalist Society pick all the judges, and they were sure to make the religious right happy by giving litmus tests to judges. And you have to be anti abortion and things like that. But what Trump has found, certainly by the end of his first term and the beginning of this term, is sometimes those judges made decisions based on principles. They might not be principles that liberals or centrists or mainstream legal analysts believe were legitimate, but they did judge things based on what they thought were the founders original intent sometimes, or some other partisan perspective. And what Donald Trump has concluded is he doesn't want that. He wants there to be one principle and one principle only when it comes to how his judges think. He wants them to think, how can I give Donald Trump the exact specific policy result he wants? That's it. Now, there is a word for that, and it's called authoritarianism. It's called shredding the Constitution. It's called, here's the Constitution, let's tear it up, throw it away and let's have a dictatorship. That is what it's called. It's troubling. And that is unfortunately, the state of our, I'll call it, quasi democracy in the United States today. So I don't really have much of a personal development angle on this that I can ethically advise. If I were unethical, I would tell you, well, if you want to be a judge in the current environment, just tell or send signals to the higher ups. I'll do whatever the boss man wants me to do. You tell me the policy outcome you want, you tell me who you want to win or lose, and I will deliver a legal decision giving you what you want. I will be your henchman. And I try to be polite on this show. I try not to be superficial and negative and nasty and mocked people. But I have to tell you, Trump always talks about this person's out of Hollywood casting and this person's straight out of Hollywood casting. He's usually doing that, talking about men who are good looking with perfect heads of hair. But this guy, email Bove is definitely out of central casting. If you were to select someone who looks like a henchman, who looks like someone who would dig the ditch and bury the bodies when you told him to, he is one scary looking individual. But again, that's not the reason to oppose his lifetime appointment to the federal judiciary. The reason to oppose him is there are numerous people on record saying this guy is thumbing his nose at the rule of law. He's thumbing his nose at judges. He's saying, if a judge makes a ruling that you don't like because you're advocating another policy, just ignore it. Tell them to go F themselves. Not my words. And that's a cleaned up version of his words, according to whistleblowers from the Department of Justice. So this is, this is very, very troubling news. It's not surprising in our political environment where the very concept of the rule of law is under attack every single day. And what let's say hello, Mike has joined in and says, yep, sure looks like every Trump appointee has sold every last principle they ever had. So corrupt. Mike, I, I don't disagree with you and I don't think any serious, credible person would differ with your argument, except for one thing. What if you don't have any principles other than worship of Dear Leader? I mean, that can be a principle. Certainly there are people in North Korea who say, well, Dear Leader is perfect. He's the representation of God in our country. So whatever he wants is by definition good. That can be a principle. And that is how the society of North Korea more or less functions. We're certainly seeing that in places like Hungary, where they've more from a democracy to a quasi democracy to really with Viktor Orban, essentially a dictatorship. And what they have as elections are really kind of a sham. Certainly we see that in a completely authoritarian regime like China. And for now, I can say that because this is not really, this show is not really distributed in China. So that can be a principle. So that would, that would be my only caveat in exchange. But Mike, we appreciate very much you joining us, stopping by and saying hello. Stay tuned. There's a lot more to come, or I should say, one more big issue to come. And it is related, unfortunately, to this issue. It is about an issue we've talked about before that I don't particularly enjoy discussing. Because again, this show is about analyzing the top business, technology and cultural stories of the day through the lens of communication skills, all with the goal of making you more successful. Back in a moment. After these commercial words. Imagine having a communication coach who never sleeps. Meet your new secret weapon, the TJ Walker AI clone. Go to TJWalker AI and start getting custom coaching 24. 7. No scheduling, no hourly fees. I train presidents, prime ministers and Fortune 500 CEOs, but the same exact communication I've delivered to world leaders is now available to you online anytime, any@mediatrainingworldwide.com whether you're speaking on camera, pitching a client or handling a crisis, you need these tools. These aren't fluffy motivational videos. They're practical, battle tested techniques to help you speak clearly, competently and persuasively. Go to mediatrainingworldwide.com and take your communication to the next Got feedback or a question for me? I actually read them and if you send one I'll send you a free mini course as a thank you. Just head to tjwalker.com feedback ever wish you could just ask me your question live? Now you can. Every week I go live with members only on YouTube. It's called TJLive. I review pitches, fix presentations and answer your questions on the spot. It's interactive, personal and hands on. If you want real time coaching and a small group setting, go to tjwalker.comlive and become a member. This isn't passive content, it's a two way conversation. Want to make sure we stay connected even if YouTube deletes me again? Join my newsletter@substack.com J WalkerSuccess it's free, fast and packed with exclusive insights. Issue 5 the Epstein scandal continues to engulf the Trump White House. President Trump is furious, and not just in all caps on social media. The Epstein Files scandal has officially hijacked his second term agenda despite his team's best efforts to bury it. After promising truckloads of bombshell documents, Attorney General Pam Bondi released a memo, a memo that said Epstein died by suicide. There's no client list, no more documents will be released to protect victims privacy. Essentially nothing to see here folks. Cue outrage from only all sides. Trump's base is enraged, Democrats smelling blood, FBI and Department of justice finger pointing in internal chaos. And then came the kicker. Security footage proving Epstein's suicide was missing three minutes. So now the COVID up looks like a cover up of a cover up. Even Trump's trade deal announcement got hijacked by Epstein questions. And boy was he not happy about that. He reportedly calls the scandal a major distraction, but he's too afraid to fire anyone and escalate the mess or give pardons. Yet behind the scenes, DOJ officials are scrambling. Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche were ordered by Trump to question the Giselle Maxwell Argylaine Maxwell in prison, an extraordinary step for such senior official. It's rare for anything like that to happen. Blanche asked about 100 different people. Maxwell, of course, claimed she answered Truthfully. Meanwhile, Congress is pushing hard. House Republicans may soon subpoena the full Epstein file. And a Maxwell deposition is already scheduled. The original memo said no more disclosures were appropriate. Now the same Department of Justice team is positioning, petitioning judges to release grand jury transcripts from Eckstein and Maxwell cases. In other words, they said they were done. Trump said, do it again. And don't miss the irony. Pam Bondi is the one who built the frenzy, staging flashy phase one briefings with binders marked classified that mostly contained already public information. Right wing influencers torched her credibility. Now she and Blanche are working overtime to dig their way out of the mess they created. I don't know if I agree with that part. Let me reassess that in a moment. They were supposed to be the term of bold trade deals, or this was supposed to be the term of bold trade deals, economic growth, cultural crackdowns. Instead, the headlines are locked on Epstein. And Trump's name reportedly in the documents, isn't helping. If this was an attempt to close the case, it's backfired into the political scandal of the year. So I'm going to confess to you, I initially botched my assessment. I thought this would be like every other scandal that has hit Donald Trump. He's taught grabbing about, you know, talking about grabbing women's private parts because he's a star. That didn't seem to hurt him way back in the first election. He is charged on 90 some felony charges. He's convicted. He's a convicted felon of more than 30 felonies. Nobody seemed to care. He's impeached once, twice. His base didn't seem to care. Ho hum, boring. Nothing to see here, folks. And scandal after scandal after scandal, things that normally would completely dismantle a career hasn't seemed to hurt Donald Trump. And he's. He once famously said his supporters would forgive him even if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue and killed them. And I think that's one of the few times where he's actually been honest and been accurate. So I initially misjudged this when, when this story really got going. Now, it seems like years ago, but it's really been, I guess, less than a month where it's really taken on this whole new faith. I thought it would blow over quickly and I misjudged it. And here's why. As much as Donald Trump supporters love Donald Trump and worship him like Dear Leader, they are so emotionally committed to this conspiracy theory that the world is controlled by these shadowy elite figures who Control everything. Control all businesses, control all governments. And when they're not busy doing those things and controlling vaccines and injecting you with things, when they're not doing all these horrible, evil things, they're off being child abusers, they're off being pedophiles. That is a conspiracy message that Donald Trump has promoted again and again and again, that all of his supporters, the Alex Joneses of the world, have promoted again and again and again. And Trump spent time saying, oh, yeah, it must be about Bill Clinton and Bill Gates, who did, full disclosure, spend time and were friendly with Jeffrey Epstein, too. But nobody friendlier than Donald Trump. Jeffrey Epstein himself said, donald Trump is my best friend. There's numerous, numerous documented photos, videos, handwritten, essentially love notes between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. And what Trump is finding out is if you live by the conspiracy theory, you can die by the conspiracy theory. If you spend so much capital, so much of your political capital is about conspiracy theories, it's very hard to just turn it off. Let's not forget Donald Trump's whole rise to political fame and influence in the United States came from spreading another conspiracy theory. The conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not born in the United States, wasn't actually a legitimate citizen, that therefore an illegitimate president. Donald Trump peddled this myth for years and years and years, and it got him a lot of attention, got him a lot of support, got him a lot of votes, got a lot of people saying, I like this guy Trump because he's telling me the lie I want to hear. Now, they might not concede it's a lie, but that's what brought him to power. So if you're known, if your brand is, I'm the guy who's going to tell you what you want to hear, and I'm going to pedal conspiracy theories and I'm going to be Mr. Populist and tell you they don't want you to know things and they are hiding things. And anybody that you don't like, it's not simply that they have a different political philosophy. It's not that they simply have different core principles. It's not that they also love America, but have a different perspective. No, it can't be that. If there's somebody you don't like, then they must be a pedophile. I mean, that has been a message of the MAGA sphere and the influencers for many, many, many years. And Trump is fine. You can't just turn it off. You especially can't turn it off when all of the evidence points to you being the, the one person tied most closely to the one person we do in fact know is a convicted pedophile, Jeffrey Epstein and now Ghislaine Maxwell. So here's the concern I have, and I think most fair minded observers have, is that a deal is going to be struck with Ghislaine Maxwell where they're essentially told, she's essentially told, look, we're going to give you a pardon. All you have to do is lie and say you never saw Donald Trump around a hot 17 year old when everyone was naked or whatever might have happened. I'm not alleging that happened, but if that were to happen, she would be told to lie about it and you'll get a pardon. You're going to say you never saw Trump in any of these compromising positions. You're going to name names and all of the names will be people who are perceived as political enemies of Donald Trump. You're going to say Bill Clinton did this or you're going to say that Bill Gates did this or Fauci or somebody. And we're going to give you wink, wink, nudge, nudge, everything you want, meaning a full pardon, released from prison. Now, here's where I differ from other observers like Scott Galloway, who I think is a very sane voice on these matters. Many are saying they're making the deal now and then at the end of Trump's term, he'll give the pardon when no one cares about it. He's much older, looking to fade away. Here's where I differ with that assessment. I don't think Donald Trump is ever leaving office while he's alive. And they make clear if FBI or anyone listening, I am in no way advocating any ill will of a physical nature towards the president. Hope he lives a long, long healthy life. Okay? What I'm suggesting is every single day he's chipping away at the boundaries of democracy and we're just not that far away from him proclaiming himself leader for life or canceling elections, martial law or imprisoning Democratic nominees, having a puppet election or doing something like running his son. So it's technically not the same person running for a third firm, third term. And he's just says, well, I'll be, I'm here. This, my son's chief of staff and we never see Donald Trump Jr. In the White House. I think there's going to be something cute and clever like that. So, a, I don't think Trump's leaving office in 2029. I'm going to go ahead on record right now and predict that he's not going out in a vertical position, put it that way. Now, I also predict that he is becoming so brazen that maybe it's not this week, maybe it's not next week, but before the 2026 election, he gets a full pardon to Elaine Maxwell because he can. I'm going to do it because I can do it, will be his attitude. And I don't think he's going to pay much of a political price for it. The people who are already convinced this guy is kind of a perverted, disgusting weirdo, given the sexual assault charges and nature of the final agreement of what happened with E and Carol, given the fact that he's publicly said, oh, that's great, owning the Miss Teen USA contest because I can just walk in on the teenagers getting dressed while they're naked. Given that. Given the fact that he said I can grab women in the. You know where. The people who already think this guy is a despicable creep already know that that's baked into our political calculus in America. Likewise, the people who say, well, we're going to forgive this guy of anything he does, no matter what. It's only people on the other team we don't like. I think that's pretty much baked into. Some of them are still now upset and saying they're going to get angry, but what are they going to do? Realistically? Are they going to turn against Trump? I don't think so. So what's the real lesson here for you and me? I think you got to really safeguard your reputation as someone who's honest. Yes, Trump did rise to the head of the strongest government, most powerful position in the world, not once, but twice. But would you really want to be him? Having to spend almost all of your time battling credible allegations and questions about why you spent so much time with a pedophile who thought you were his best friend. Is that how you would want. Would that be seen in your life as being a successful person? I don't think so. So my real advice to you is preserve and protect your reputation. Do not spread conspiracy theories out there just because it makes someone you don't like look bad. It might help you in the short run, it might help you in the medium term, but in the long run, it will in fact come back to bite you. I'm T.J. walker. I really appreciate you. I'm here for you every single day. This is the communiverse where we look at the top news, business stories, technology stories and cultural stories through the lens of communication. All to improve you. Thanks so much. See you tomorrow. He once famously said his supporters would forgive him even if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue and killed them. And I think that's one of the few times where he's actually been honest and been accurate. So I initially misjudged this when, when this story really got going. Now it seems like years ago, but it's really been, I guess, less than a month where it's really taken on this whole new faith. I thought it would blow over quickly, and I misjudged it. And here's why. As much as Donald Trump supporters love Donald Trump and worship him like Dear Leader, they are so emotionally committed to this conspiracy theory that the world is controlled by these shadowy elite figures who control everything, control all businesses, control all governments. And when they're not busy doing those things and controlling vaccines and injecting you with things, when they're not doing all these horrible, evil things, they're off being child abusers, they're off being pedophiles. That is a conspiracy message that Donald Trump has promoted again and again and again, that all of his supporters, the Alex Joneses of the world, have promoted again and again and again. And Trump spent time saying, oh, yeah, it must be about Bill Clinton and Bill Gates, who did, full disclosure, spend time, were friendly with Jeffrey Epstein, too, but nobody friendlier than Donald Trump. Jeffrey Epstein himself said, donald Trump is my best friend. There's numerous, numerous documented photos, videos, handwritten, essentially love notes between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. And what Trump is finding out is if you live by the conspiracy theory, you can die by the conspiracy theory. If you spend and so much capital, so much of your political capital is about conspiracy theories. It's very hard to just turn it off. Let's not forget Donald Trump's whole rise to political fame and influence in the United States came from spreading another conspiracy theory. The conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not born in the United States, wasn't actually a legitimate citizen, therefore an illegitimate president. Donald Trump peddled this myth for years and years and years, and it got him a lot of attention, got him a lot of support, got him a lot of votes, got a lot of people saying, I like this guy Trump because he's telling me the lie I want to hear. Now, they might not concede it's a lie, but that's what brought him to power. So if you're known, if your brand is, I'm the guy who's going to tell you what you want to hear, and I'm going to pedal conspiracy theories. And I'm going to be Mr. Populist and tell you they don't want you to know things and they are hiding things and anybody that you don't like. It's not simply that they have a different political philosophy. It's not that they simply have different core principles. It's not that they also love America, but have a different perspective. No, it can't be that. If there's somebody you don't like, then they must be a pedophile. I mean, that has been a message of the, the MAGA sphere and the influencers for many, many, many years. And Trump is fine. You can't just turn it off. You especially can't turn it off when all of the evidence points to you being the. The one person tied most closely to the one person we do in fact know is a convicted pedophile, Jeffrey Epstein and now Ghislaine Maxwell. So here's the concern I have, and I think most fair minded observers have, is that a deal is going to be struck with Ghislaine Maxwell where they're essentially told, she's essentially told, look, we're going to give you a pardon. All you have to do is lie and say you never saw Donald Trump around a hot 17 year old when everyone was naked or whatever might have happened. I'm not alleging that happened, but if that were to happen, she would be told to lie about it and you'll get a pardon. You're going to say you never saw Trump in any of these compromising positions. You're going to name names and all of the names will be people who are perceived as political enemies of Donald Trump. You're going to say Bill Clinton did this or you're going to say.