The Justice Department has indicted two corporate entities and a shoreside superintendent in connection with the vessel that caused the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Maryland. “A federal court unsealed an indictment today charging three defendants with conspiracy to defraud the United States and with causing the death of six construction workers on the bridge, among other charges,” the Justice Department stated in a release. “The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge was a preventable tragedy of enormous consequence,” said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. “This indictment is a critical step toward holding accountable those whose reckless disregard for maritime safety regulations caused this disaster. Six construction workers lost their lives, critical infrastructure was destroyed, pollutants were released into the Patapsco River and Chesapeake Bay, and the economic damage now exceeds five billion dollars. This Department is committed to securing justice for the victims and ensuring those responsible are held to account,” he continued. Foreign Operators and Technical Superintendent of M/V Dali Indicted for Roles in Key Bridge Crash Indian and Singapore Corporations and Company Official Charged with Conspiring to Defraud the United States and Causing the Death of Six Construction Workers “The collapse of the… pic.twitter.com/2Oq6byEdMv — U.S. Department of Justice (@TheJusticeDept) May 12, 2026 More from the Justice Department: On March 26, 2024, the Motor Vessel Dali, a 900-foot foreign flag container vessel, registered in Singapore, crashed into the bridge. The indictment alleges that the economic loss in this case is at least $5 billion. Synergy Marine Pte Ltd, based in Singapore, and Synergy Maritime Pte Ltd, based in Chennai, India, along with Radhakrishnan Karthik Nair, 47, an Indian national who worked for both companies as the Technical Superintendent for the Dali, are charged with conspiracy, willfully failing to immediately inform the U.S. Coast Guard of a known hazardous condition, obstruction of an agency proceeding, and false statements. The two Synergy corporations are also charged with misdemeanor violations of the Clean Water Act, Oil Pollution Act, and Refuse Act for the discharge of pollutants into the Patapsco River, including shipping containers and their contents, oil, and the bridge itself. “This indictment is the first step in our efforts to hold those accountable who caused the tragic deaths of six people and catastrophic damage to our region,” said U.S. Attorney Kelly O. Hayes for the District of Maryland. “The safety of our residents, ports, and infrastructure is of utmost importance to the prosperity of the District of Maryland. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland will continue to pursue those who commit crimes that jeopardize those interests,” Hayes continued. “The indictment alleges criminal conduct that not only destroyed the Key Bridge but brought the regional economy to its knees and claimed the lives of six Maryland residents,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD). “Adherence to laws governing safe operation of commercial vessels is essential to doing business in our nation’s ports. We enforce these laws to protect the public from future disasters like this fatal crash,” Gustafson added. CNN shared further: Following the crash, the FBI and US Coast Guard opened a criminal investigation. Several members of the crew, who were not US citizens, were told to remain in the country as the investigation continued. In December of last year, the National Transportation Safety Board issued its final report on the incident, which concluded that a wire label had slid over a covering keeping that wire from establishing a proper connection with the circuit breaker. This caused power outages on the ship, the Dali, as it was leaving the port of Baltimore. Despite the crew’s failed efforts to “recover propulsion from the loss of electrical power,” the report says, the Dali careened into the bridge minutes later. In November, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said finding the loose wire in a ship the size of the Dali would be like finding a loose bolt in the Eiffel Tower. The NTSB report also found the bridge had significant structural risk never evaluated by the Maryland Transportation Authority. According to the indictment, the defendants allegedly altered the ship and relied on a flushing pump to supply fuel to two of the Dali’s four generators. The flushing pump was not designed to automatically restart following a blackout, and the Dali’s generators could not operate without a fuel supply, so the ship ultimately experienced a second blackout, the Justice Department says. The Justice Department said that if the ship had not been relying on the flushing pump, power would have been restored, preventing the crash.

A 78-year-old retired pastor was convicted and fined for preaching a gospel sermon, which included John 3:16, near a hospital in Northern Ireland. “Naturally, I was deeply saddened by the verdict,” Clive Johnston told Fox News Digital. “At 78 years old, I never imagined I would leave a courtroom with a criminal conviction for preaching the Christian gospel. But beyond the personal impact, my overriding concern is what this says about the state of fundamental freedoms in our nation,” he continued. "At 78 years old, I never imagined I would leave a courtroom with a criminal conviction for preaching the Christian gospel." Retired pastor Clive Johnston reacting after being convicted for reading John 3:16 outside a hospital in Northern Ireland. He says the case raises… pic.twitter.com/rsYp0PhIgp — Fox News (@FoxNews) May 12, 2026 Fox News explained further: On May 7, District Judge Peter King at Coleraine Magistrates’ Court convicted Johnston of breaching a “safe access zone” outside Causeway Hospital in Coleraine on July 7, 2024. Northern Ireland’s Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Act prohibits “influencing,” “preventing or impeding access,” or “causing harassment, alarm or distress” to a protected person within 100 meters (about 328 feet) of facilities where abortions are performed. Johnston was found guilty of “influencing” inside the protected zone and fined 450 pounds, or about $614 in U.S. dollars. He may be the first person prosecuted under the law for preaching a sermon that did not mention abortion, according to the faith-based advocacy group, the Christian Institute, which supported his legal case. Johnston warned that convicting a person for publicly preaching one of the most well-known Bible passages sets a troubling precedent for religious liberty and free speech in the United Kingdom. “The buffer zone law is so broad that holding a Sunday service has been found to be a criminal offence,” Johnston said. Watch below: #NorthernIreland: “The buffer zone legislation is so broad that holding a Sunday service has been found to be a criminal offence,” says Pastor Clive Johnston after being convicted for preaching outside Causeway Hospital in Coleraine.Video (c) The Christian Institute pic.twitter.com/JNHITkH9IE — Observatory on Intolerance against Christians EU (@OIDACEurope) May 11, 2026 “It effectively redefines peaceful Christian witness as a form of unlawful ‘influence’,” Johnston told Fox News Digital. “If simply reading the Bible, praying, and preaching on God’s love can now be considered harmful because someone might overhear it within a certain area, then we have crossed a very serious line,” he continued. “John 3:16 is one of the most well-known and hope-filled verses in the Bible – a message about God’s love and salvation. If even that can be criminalized because of where it is spoken, then how can any public expression of Christian belief be truly safe from restriction?” he continued. Christianity Daily has more: The verse at the center of the case, John 3:16, is widely regarded as one of the most well-known passages in the Bible, declaring, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Before the court hearing, Simon Calvert, deputy director of The Christian Institute, defended Johnston’s actions and emphasized the non-political nature of the message. He said that John 3:16 “is a wonderful, famous verse and everyone knows it says nothing about abortion.” Calvert also criticized authorities, accusing both the police and prosecutors of exceeding appropriate limits in enforcing the law. He argued that preaching the Gospel should not be treated as equivalent to protesting abortion and warned of broader implications for free expression. “We have amazing freedom in this country to share the Christian message. That’s why we’ve taken on this case,” he said. “Prosecuting Pastor Johnston for preaching ‘God so loved the world’ near a hospital on a quiet Sunday is a shocking new attempt to restrict freedom of religion and freedom of speech in a part of the world where open-air Gospel services are a part of the culture.”

Auto insurance costs have been climbing steadily, and too many drivers just accept the rate hikes without question. But why pay more than you have to? Whether your provider quietly raised your premiums or you’ve been on the same plan for years, there’s a good chance you could be saving big by taking a fresh look at your options. That’s where FinanceBuzz’s simple tool comes in. By entering your zip code and basic vehicle information, you’ll gain access to a list of insurers competing for your business. It’s quick, free, and could uncover rates that put $600 or more back in your wallet annually. Don’t let rising premiums drain your budget—take control today and find out if you’re overpaying. (Note: Thank you for supporting businesses like the one presenting a sponsored message in this article and ordering through the included links, which benefits WLTReport. We appreciate your support and I truly hope this can help make your life better!  MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!)

Oh my, this is a wild one! I have no idea what circumstances led to this happening, but I am about to show you a nearly 2-hour long video of Steve Bannon interviewing Jeffrey Epstein. This is notable on many fronts, the first of which are the repeated connections we keep hearing about Jeffrey Epstein and Steve Bannon.  I’m not accusing anyone of wrongdoing, I’m just saying the two seem to have some pretty deep and long connections and sure enough in this video they seem very friendly and familiar with each other. Second, it’s fascinating because as much as we’ve heard ABOUT Jeffrey Epstein over the past decade, we’ve rarely heard FROM Jeffrey Epstein. In fact, until today I had no idea what his voice even sounded like. Now we know. Third, I want to report that as far as I can tell, and confirmed by Grok, this video I am about to show you is real and authentic and not AI or fake: The video is real footage from interviews Steve Bannon conducted with Jeffrey Epstein in 2018-2019, before Epstein's death. It covers his views on finance, science, and more, matching confirmed details from released communications. No evidence suggests it's AI-generated. — Grok (@grok) February 1, 2026 Here is a quick summary of what you’re about to see: The interview is a nearly 2-hour conversation between Steve Bannon and Jeffrey Epstein, recorded in 2019 (pre-Epstein’s death). Epstein discusses his career in finance, involvement in elite institutions, views on science, philosophy, and the unexplainable aspects of life, while reflecting on his time in jail during the 2008 financial crisis. He portrays himself as a financial and scientific savant, emphasizing complexity and rejecting simplistic measurements of reality. Bannon probes Epstein’s lack of regret and ethical stances. Epstein’s Entry into Elite Circles: Epstein recounts joining the Rockefeller University board in the late 1980s/early 1990s due to his financial expertise, despite his modest background from Bear Stearns. He bonded with David Rockefeller, who introduced him to the Trilateral Commission, where he met world leaders like Bill Clinton at age 30-32. He describes initial meetings as boring, focused on inflation, and notes most leaders’ financial illiteracy. Financial Concepts and Banking Illiteracy: Epstein explains basic finance like fractional reserve banking (lending $9 on a $1 deposit), assets vs. liabilities in banks, and why world leaders and the public misunderstand money. He uses analogies like bank assets being debts owed to them and criticizes politicians for lacking financial backgrounds, leading to errors. Inflation and Central Banking: He discusses inflation as a devaluation of currency, using personal examples like salary increases not matching rising prices. He ties it to historical events like the Great Depression and German hyperinflation, emphasizing central bankers’ fear of it due to fractional reserves and potential bank runs. 2008 Financial Crisis from Jail: Epstein describes learning about Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy while in solitary confinement in 2008, via a guard and collect calls to Bear Stearns’ CEO Jimmy Cayne and a Treasury contact. He advised treating it like a medical emergency—pump liquidity (blood) into the system to prevent collapse— but notes no one fully understood the complexity. Causes of the 2008 Crisis: Blames Bill Clinton for pushing subprime mortgages to gain votes from minorities and low-credit borrowers, using government guarantees (Fannie Mae/Ginnie Mae) to force banks to lend, leading to over-supply and mark-to-market accounting changes that triggered failures. Rejects derivatives as the main culprit, calling it a system collapse. Science, Mathematics, and Complexity: Epstein critiques Newtonian physics for approximating limits (e.g., gravity as unexplainable force) and praises quantum mechanics for revealing the “strange” at small scales (e.g., electrons as energy clouds). He funded Santa Fe Institute to mathematize complex systems like economies or bodies, but deems it a failure after 15 years, as many phenomena (e.g., life, soul, intuition) remain unmeasurable and miraculous. Soul, Life, and Unexplainable Phenomena: Epstein asserts the soul is obvious (e.g., it leaves at death) but unexplainable by science, comparing it to dark matter. He questions when life begins (e.g., seeds or bananas “breathing”), rejects measuring emotions or intuition (stronger in women), and argues science/math are outdated tools for these realms. Philanthropy and Ethics of “Dirty Money”: Debates whether institutions should accept his donations, given his crimes. Epstein argues his funds helped eradicate polio in Pakistan/India, and mothers would accept it to save children, regardless of source. He equates rejecting it to denying aid, while acknowledging ethical debates (e.g., like taking Hitler’s gold for good causes). Personal Reflections and Jail Experience: Epstein claims no regrets during the crisis, viewing jail and luxury as “two sides of the coin.” He ate Almond Joy bars fearing tampered food, helped inmates with GEDs to become a “trustee,” and insists his life is about uncommitted inquiry, not measurement. Bannon presses on his “fucked up” lack of self-reflection. Watch here: Before it gets deleted: The full Jeffrey Epstein Interview by Steve Bannon. A lot of information surrounding the Epstein files has been taken down and redacted. Make sure to bookmark and repost this so more people can see it before it's also taken down. unedited (by me) 1hr… pic.twitter.com/WbbNMIyF9T — Alex James (@actualAlexJames) February 1, 2026 Backup on Rumble here if needed: RELATED REPORT: The Epstein–Barr Virus You’ve Never Heard Of A big shout out for this one goes to Larua Aboli who I believe is the original author of what I am going to show you. Telegram Link here if you want to Follow: @LauraAbolichannel What are the odds that Bill Barr and his father Donald Barr would have intricate ties to Jeffrey Epstein at nearly every critical point in his “career” — even continuing to the point where Bill Barr was Attorney General when Epstein allegedly killed himself and then Bill Barr immediately declared it a suicide and then told everyone to stop investigating it? And then what are the odds that there would be virus literally called the “Epstein-Barr Virus” which often hides in plain sight but carries significant damage when it strikes? Who named it that? What are the odds? But that’s just the surface level, it gets so much stranger the more you look! Read this with full credit to Laura Aboli: The Epstein–Barr Virus You’ve Never Heard Of In 1973, Donald Barr — former OSS agent, elite educator, and father of Trump’s Attorney General Bill Barr — published a disturbing science fiction novel called ‘Space Relations: A Slightly Gothic Interplanetary Tale’. The cover alone is unsettling; a nude young girl gazing through one eye, the all-seeing eye… The story follows diplomat John Craig, who becomes enslaved on the planet Kossar, ruled by decadent aristocrats. Their boredom drives them to sexualize and brutalize human slaves, including children. The narrative explores themes of slavery, sadism, and contains disturbing scenes where Craig participates in coercive sex acts as part of elite rituals. Now pause. Donald Barr — the man who gave Jeffrey Epstein his first job at the elite Dalton School in NYC (despite Epstein having no qualifications), wrote a novel about child sex slavery in space, run by a ruling class of bored elites! And the planet’s name? Kossar. What does that sound like…? Khazar. Coincidence? The Khazars were a powerful medieval empire based in what is now Ukraine. Historical accounts, echoed in works like Arthur Koestler’s “The Thirteenth Tribe, describe how the Khazar elite converted to Judaism in the 8th–9th century, not for faith, but rather for political survival. According to a growing body of research, the Khazarian Mafia — a hidden bloodline network — never truly disappeared. Instead, it infiltrated global power structures: finance, media, intelligence, religion. A silent aristocracy operating behind the veil of nation-states and ideologies. Always hiding in plain sight. So was Donald Barr just writing fiction? Or was he coding a revelation? It’s is a recurring pattern: revelation through fiction. The occult belief amongst the elites is that if they show you what they do and you accept it as entertainment, the moral weight is transferred. They are absolved. We see this logic in: • Eyes Wide Shut • The Hunger Games • Utopia (UK) • The Most Dangerous Game • Or even real-life elite rituals like Marina Abramović’s Spirit Cooking dinners It’s not just art or entertainment, it’s a spiritual loophole; a twisted karmic absolution of sorts. And here we are again, facing a real book, not a fringe internet theory, describing the realities of a depraved elite written by the father of Bill Barr, who hired Jeffrey Epstein into elite academia… who then became a “financier” with no clients, a pedophile with a protected network, and a corpse with no mugshot and no justice. Is this all just twisted coincidence? Or was ‘Space Relations’ a window into the private worldview of the so-called elite? A fictionalized confession? What if this whole thing; from Donald Barr’s book, to Epstein’s education gig, to the corrupted justice system is a real-world sci-fi dystopia, hiding in plain sight? And then there’s the cherry on top: Epstein-Barr is also the name of a real virus (EBV), one that infects 90% of the global population, often lying dormant for years. Just like the real Epstein–Barr virus — the one infecting the halls of power, hiding in elite schools, royal palaces, and intelligence agencies. Always concealed. Always protected. They told us in fiction, they mocked us with symbols, whilst the truth was always in plain sight… Let’s hope they saying is true: Symbolism will be their downfall. I’ve actually written about all of this extensively before, and she is spot on! My previous report on the Khazarian Mafia (also known in history as the “Name Stealers”): Do You Know The Secret History of The Khazarian Mafia (The “Name Stealers”)? And I’ve covered the Bill Barr / Donald Barr / Jeffrey Epstein connections in great details before too. See here: The Disgusting Truth About Bill Barr’s Family Will Shock You So much has been written about Jeffrey Epstein, but I’m willing to bet you haven’t even heard a fraction of the real story that was happening behind the scenes. Deep connections of the same powerful families that run the world constantly criss-crossing and weaving together over and over, generation after generation. The Barrs. The Maxwells. The Kashogis. The Bushes. Les Wexner. Whatever you THINK you know about Jeffrey Epstein, I’m willing to bet I can blow your mind wide open with this. Huge congrats to Tucker Carlson and Darryl Cooper for this brilliant video. It’s long but very worth it. You will not even believe the disgusting truth about Bill Barr’s father — spoiler alert: there’s no way any of this is random. Watch here: FULL TRANSCRIPT: Daryl Cooper, ladies and gentlemen, it feels so naughty and forbidden to be sitting here with you. It’s like getting caught in a strip bar. Just kidding. Um, I’m so grateful that you came. Um, not everyone feels that way. I just want to dispense with the political aspect of this by reading a verbate. I don’t have the tape for some reason, but this was my old friend Mark Leven on his show today. And uh, this is the transcript that I got. Live in. And it actually says in parenthesis, screaming like an old woman. I don’t know if that was actually on Fox or not, but I’m quoting. Why are these insane knuckleheaded no nothings, these propagandists, these demagogues given platforms? Someone gave us a platform. Amazing. By God, I’m going to take this crap on for as long as I live because it’s destroying our youth and destroying their minds. I’m glad he’s standing up. Somebody has to. That guy sounds like a monster. Who’s he talking about? You and me. Um, so I think it’d be really fun to spend maybe three hours, you know, being mean to Mark a little bit. I’ve already done that. I want to create a documentary record. You’ve already done this with your podcast, but for people who haven’t seen it, I want to create a documentary record here of everything that we know or think we know without too much speculation. Just like stick to the facts about Jeffrey Epstein, the basic questions of Jeffrey Epstein. I feel like I know a lot about this topic. You know much more than I know. So without further preamble and just being clear, I’m not here to make political points about this or comment on the unfolding drama around it, which is quite remarkable. I don’t really understand it. So people tuning in to learn what is happening at the White House or in the Congress about this, I can’t really say at this point. There’ll be time for that. But for right now, I’d really just like to learn about Jeffrey Epstein. So with that, who was Jeffrey Epstein? Well, Jeffrey Epstein just started out as a normal guy born in Coney Island 19 uh in the 1950s. First record we really have of him when he appears for us is in 1974 when he’s hired to teach mathematics at the Dalton School, which is an elite private school in New York City. Now, I’m not familiar with New York City uh K- through 12 education system, but I’m told it’s a very elite place that it can have their pick of mathematics teachers from all over the world if they want it. And so, uh, they hire a guy who’s 20 years old who dropped out of college after two years at Cooper Union with no teaching experience, uh, to teach math at this school. Um, basically at the age of 20. At the age of 20, uh, basically on the strength of a meeting with, uh, the headmaster of the school at the time, a guy by the name of Donald Barr. Um, who was Donald Barr? Yeah. So, that name might sound familiar. Donald Barr is a very interesting character, uh not least because his son, Bill Barr, was the attorney general who had Jeffrey Epstein arrested and oversaw his death in the federal uh jail that he was in. Can I just ask you, I’ve already said I wouldn’t interject, but I’m asking you to pause already. Um, what are the statistical, the actual odds of that? The attorney general of the United States who arrested Jeffrey Epstein, oversaw his death, declared his death a suicide before the investigation ended, is the son of the guy who hired Jeffrey Epstein at age 20 with no teaching experience or college degree to teach at one of the most prestigious schools in Manhattan. What are the If you were like, “Hey, Grock, what are the odds? What do you think the odds are?” Well, let’s whatever the odds are, let’s add a few more zeros to that. Okay. So, uh, Donald Barr was also somebody who was he used to work for the OSS, which was the precursor to the CIA back during World War II. So, he has that connection. Uh, excuse me. Um, Donald Barr also uh dabbled in science fiction writing in his spare time. Uh, one of the books that he wrote is called Space Relations, and he wrote it right around this time that he hired Jeffrey Epstein. And I’ve read the book, and you can go read about it on Wikipedia. It’s close enough to basically what the plot is if you want to get the idea of it. The long and short is— But you read the book. Oh, yeah. I have I have a copy. I make sure I get a copy of things like that. I’ve got a copy of uh you know, I went out and made sure I got a copy of the Architectural Digest in Washington Life magazines that um that profiled Tony Podesta’s house and art collection just in case, you know, just in case it disappears. Um and so yeah, I got a copy of it. I read it. It’s not a good book. Um, it’s a pulpy kind of Elron Hubard style science fiction book sort of, but the basic plot of it involves a main the main character who is kidnapped and sold into slavery on this alien planet that’s ruled by seven oligarchs who uh just have been corrupted by their power and their wealth to the point where they’re they’re basically insane. And they spend most of their time breeding young slaves and kidnapping uh children uh from around the universe to bring them home and use them as sex slaves. And the main character, he gets assigned or given to uh the one female oligarch on the planet. And at first, you know, he’s sort of one of her slaves and victims, but then she takes a liking to him and he joins her and uh and participates in in what’s going on. And there are scenes in there right near the beginning. There’s a scene of these grotesque aliens that kidnap the guy that they make the one of them makes the uh the the prisoners watch while he uh you know rapes a 15-year-old virginal redhead. And um so this is these are the books uh that Donald Barr, former OSS agent, father of uh Bill Barr, the attorney general who had Jeffrey Epstein arrested and oversaw his death. Um, these are the kind of books that he was writing at the time that he hired the most notorious pedophile in American history. So, whatever the odds of the first part were, you can probably add a few zeros to that. And we can keep adding zeros if you want. I do. I mean, it’s hard to believe that this is real, but it it is real. What you’re describing is real. Yeah. Totally real. Totally verifiable. This is not stuff you’re going to find on fringe websites. You can find it in, you know, any mainstream story about it, Wikipedia, even whatever. Um so Bill Barr uh himself uh you know he was an intelligence connected guy very deeply. His first job out of college was as an intern for the CIA in the mid 70s. And that doesn’t sound like much um until you learn that he was a legal intern with the CIA whose job was to be the liaison to Congress during the Church and Pike Committee hearings that were really like the first and up to this point probably only time that the CIA CIA has faced a real threat of of oversight and and clamping down on its activities. And so this was a very very critical time when a lot of the agency’s secrets were coming out and they were facing the possibility of— well they didn’t know I mean the agency might have gotten shut down you know if this had gone badly for them. And so Bill Barr is the legal intern who was the liaison and what that meant was you know he was the guy that when Congress requested some documents he’s like okay goes back to the agency here’s what they want okay well here’s what we can give them and he goes back and convinces them that this is all there is or that they don’t need the rest or anything like that. He was that guy, you know, to smooth that over and make it work. And he apparently did a very good job because the boss of the CIA at the time was George HW Bush. When George HW Bush took over as was elected president 1988, took over in ’89, he brought in Bill Barr to be his attorney general, who’s really who spent most of his time like at least the big story. I’m sure an attorney general does a lot of things and wears a lot of hats, but the major story that was going on at the time was cleaning up the what was left of the Iran Contra affair. And so you have the guy who was the legal intern for the CIA during the Church and Pike Committee hearings, brought in by the director of the CIA at the time to be the attorney general who is cleaning up the Iran Contra affair that took place obviously while Bush was uh the vice president. He goes into the private sector for a while, reemerges when Donald Trump needs um an attorney general of his own, not for any particular reason, I guess, except uh you know, then this happens. He just happens to arrest the guy that his father gave his first job to, job that he was totally unqualified for. and uh a guy who had proclivities um that most of us find very strange and unacceptable and are very very rare but coincidentally happened to be uh the very topic that that Donald Bar’s father liked to write books about. So very strange it could all be a coincidence but the odds are against that. So, Donald Bar hires, that’s a remarkable story. And I believe and I’ve said it to him that Bill Barr as attorney general helped cover up Epstein’s death, the details of his death. Again, we hear the facts. The facts are that he declared it a suicide before they’d finished the investigation or even really began the investigation. So, that alone suggests dishonesty, I think, anyway, or lack of rigor or something. What happened to Jeffrey Epstein at Dalton? How long was he there? He was there for about a year and a half, two years only. And then he was fired for poor performance is how it got written up. And maybe it was that again, he had no teaching experience and no college degree. So it may have just been he was a bad math teacher. But there are people who had children as students at the time who actually say he was a good math teacher. So maybe it had to do with something else. Maybe it had to do with the fact that there were already allegations against Jeffrey Epstein by the girls he was teaching at this high school of inappropriate behavior. He would even show up to high school parties sometimes where kids are drinking and partying and he would show up as the teacher, the adult, and kind of just try to join in. So there were those complaints that were going on. But while he was at Dalton School before he got run out, one of the students he was teaching was the father of one of the students he was teaching was the CEO of the investment bank, Bear Stearns at the time, Ace Greenberg he’s known as. And he approached—I’ve heard it was Barr himself, I don’t know if that’s the case—but he approached somebody who was one of his bosses or one of the people who had brought him into the school and asked if he would make the introduction to Ace Greenberg and put in a good word for him. And so he meets Greenberg, and Greenberg when he gets run out of Dalton brings him on at Bear Stearns. And they put him to work at—so by this point Jeffrey Epstein’s like 22, 21 thereabouts. This is 1976. I think he was born in ’53. So yeah, 23 years old maybe with no college degree. Two years of college at Cooper Union and he’s been a high school math teacher and he got basically fired from that job and he gets hired at Bear Stearns. He gets hired at Bear Stearns. Is that normal? I couldn’t tell you. Especially back then. I’m not really sure. I doubt it—doesn’t sound normal. But whatever. So he gets brought in and the story goes that they put him on the options desk at first but he was not very good at it or not very engaged or interested in it and so they put him in their special products division where Jimmy Cayne, who took over as CEO of Bear Stearns from Ace Greenberg, described what Epstein did there in the special products division and he basically in so many words in sort of the Wall Street financial speak said that his job was to help wealthy clients hide their money. To create tax advantageous transactions, that kind of thing. But it was to help wealthy clients hide their money and while he was doing that he met and came into contact with a lot of well-known people who became very important for the rest of his career. Wealthy clients. Yeah, and like one of them for example was Edgar Bronfman who will come up later in our story. He’s one of the heirs to the Seagram’s liquor fortune, very connected guy we’ll probably get to that in a while. But that only lasts four years. He’s there at Bear Stearns from ’76 to 1980 and then he gets run out of Bear Stearns for a regulatory violation and you know the story kind of goes there. The official story from the people who were all involved in it at the time are that he was breaking the rules and they were very very upset about it but apparently he stayed friends, close friends, with Ace Greenberg and Jimmy Cayne for a long time after that and he banked with Bear Stearns all the way up until the time the investment bank collapsed in 2008. So, there weren’t that many hard feelings or that intense of hard feelings apparently. But he left and I think the reason for it is probably pretty obvious. He just got a little too aggressive and flew a little too close to the sun doing the job that they had hired him to do, you know, and so he had to leave because there was a violation. They didn’t want the attention and everything, but he landed on his feet. He stayed friends with the people who hired him, all those kind of things. And this is where it gets like really interesting. So again, to go over his resume, he does two years of college, drops out, gets hired as a high school math teacher, is run out of that job ignominiously, either for poor performance or for harassing his female students. Then he goes to work for Bear Stearns, does that for just a few years, and gets run out of there for a regulatory violation. And that is his resume at this point. There’s nothing else I’m leaving out. The very next year, this would make him, I guess, 28 years old. 1981. He’s 28 years old. We have him on a private airplane with a big-time British arms broker named Douglas Lease, very big player back in the 1980s, on a private plane to go to a meeting at the Pentagon with this guy. Okay. Not for the first time. I’m going to stop you and say it doesn’t make any sense at all. Not if—Yeah. So, if you’re looking at it in a conventional way, it doesn’t. Not if you assume the world works in the ways that we’re told it works. That doesn’t make any sense, right? And so, you have to ask what is it that a guy like Douglas Lease would be—what interest would he have in a guy like Jeffrey Epstein? Even if he was a moneyman of some kind, presumably a guy like that can have any money man he wants. Why does he need a guy like Jeffrey Epstein? And I think the answer is—and this is the answer that a lot of researchers have come to over the years and I think it’s the most obvious one at least, the simplest—is that when you look at the kind of things that somebody like Lease would do it’s not as if Lease owned a weapons manufacturer. That’s what he did. He was a fixer. He was a guy who made the deals happen. He made sure the right people got paid off and that everything was kind of smoothed over so that these things would go through. He was mentioned for example in the UK Parliament in the 1980s in reference to the Al-Yamamah weapons deal with Saudi Arabia which is the biggest weapons deal in UK history I think to this day. BAE Systems alone has made 46 billion dollars off this deal over the years and I think that was up through 2010 or something. So it’s probably higher now. But there have been allegations from politicians, from lawyers, journalists, other weapons companies who were upset about their competition getting a leg up this way, that there was bribery, there was all kinds of shady stuff going on behind the scenes to make sure that the deal went the way that they wanted it to go. And you think that a guy who— you know, a guy like Lease whose job is to go around and make sure that people are being paid off with illicit funds that cannot be traced because then you end up like Lockheed Martin did when they got caught bribing officials in Japan to sign off on a weapons deal there. Nobody wants that. You got to hide your money better. You got to figure out how to do that in a way that nobody’s going to track it. And that’s why you need a guy like Jeffrey Epstein. You’re not going to be able to walk in the front door of Goldman Sachs and say, “I need to talk to one of your money managers. Hey, can you launder this money for me?” You need a guy who’s morally compromised, who is willing to get down in the dirt and do this kind of work. And that is what Jeffrey Epstein had just spent the last four years at Bear Stearns doing. I don’t know how—I don’t know. This may be out there, but I can’t remember ever coming across how it is he met Lease. But it was probably through the wealthy clients that he was working for there at Bear Stearns, so that when he did get run out, they made sure he landed on his feet and he was doing something that he could actually succeed at. And so you go through the 1980s and Lease is the guy who introduces him to Robert Maxwell. He introduces him to a lot of big players and figures in European politics and in the economy and introduces him to Maxwell and Maxwell introduces him to his daughter Ghislaine who became his partner in crime, I guess you’d say, over the years. And Robert Maxwell’s a super interesting character because— And Robert Maxwell’s a super interesting character because, you know, this is the reason that I brought up near the beginning and we should probably say like the thing that the thing that people are really interested in this story about, I mean there’s the tabloid aspect of it. You know I think there’s there’s a lot of people out there who just there’s all this talk about the Epstein list. You know they want they want they want there to be a safe that the FBI opens up or drills a hole and and cracks into and then there’s just a ledger of you know signed in blood I Jeffrey Epstein you know compromised these famous movie stars and politicians on these days. That’s what people want. They’re not going to get that. That kind of thing doesn’t exist. The really interesting aspect of it is encapsulated in just one incident which happened in, I guess this came out after Epstein was arrested during the first Trump administration that Alexander Acosta who was Trump’s labor secretary at the time, he had been the U.S. attorney in the Southern District of Florida in charge of prosecuting Epstein’s first sex crimes case back in the mid 2000s and we’ll get to all this later. But Epstein was given a very very— to call it a light sentence is being very generous in how we describe it. I’ll get into the details of how it all came together and what the actual sentence was later, but he was asked in his vetting process, Alexander Acosta, “Hey, if this comes up, you know, this is a potential scandal. You gave this pedophile with all these victims against, you know, they had like 40 witnesses in that 2007–2008 case. I mean, on the record, corroborating each other’s stories independently. I mean, this was just the most open and shut case you can imagine. We’ll get into the case here in a bit, but he was asked, ‘How could you, you know, what’s your excuse for giving this guy the deal that you gave him because it’s kind of crazy.’” And he said, “Well, I was told that Epstein belonged to intelligence and to leave it alone.” Now, this is from an— to be fair, this is from an unnamed source in the administration who was involved in that vetting process as told to the journalist Vicky Ward. I don’t think Ward would make that up and I don’t think she would embellish. Well, I have something to add to this which is true and I would be delighted to talk to Mr. Acosta anytime by the way. So, I say this with the caveat that it hasn’t been— he has not said this to me, but I believe that he’s been asked about this and that he has not denied it and that his response was, “That’s true, but I don’t remember who said it to me.” Well, I mean, how many people can tell the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida to drop a case against a pedophile with 40 witnesses corroborating each other’s stories? There’s not very many people who can tell them to do that. No, there’s not many people who can murder an inmate in federal lockup in Manhattan either. I mean, who’s he going to take that order from? And who is it going to have enough juice that he’s going to say, “Yes, boss,” and actually go do that? The deputy attorney general and the attorney general, maybe. Like, that’s— I mean, there’s just not that many people who can do that, you know, and the whole case, and we’ll get into this later, was incredibly shady how it was handled from day one. But yeah. Anyway, I’ll put that aside because the interesting thing there is you have the most famous and prolific, mass pedophile in the history of the United States, certainly the most famous one, who the labor secretary under— I don’t know if they put people under oath when they do these vettings, probably not— but he told somebody in a setting where it mattered and where he wasn’t being watched, you know, this wasn’t for publicity or anything like that. It was behind closed doors. He said that Epstein belonged to intelligence, which you know could mean a lot of things. You know, a lot of people want to hear that he worked for the CIA or the Mossad or something like that. But, you know, there’s a lot of wiggle room there when you say— I think Naftali Bennett, the former Israeli prime minister, just came out recently and said, “I can say categorically that Jeffrey Epstein did not work for the Mossad.” It’s like, yeah, okay. So he wasn’t an employee of the Mossad. Was he an asset of Israeli military intelligence, which is something different? Now, you know, Bennett’s not lying, but kind of not telling the whole truth either. And so you got to be careful with the wiggle room in the words that people use. But when you have that and when you— I mean to me, I don’t know, this is— maybe I’m missing something here. I’m not a journalist or anything, but I would think that when you have a story like the Jeffrey Epstein story, that every time any little piece of information has dropped about the Epstein story, ever since he was arrested, doesn’t matter what it is, any little drib and drab, it goes viral. It is the number one story that night. It is the highest ratings of any show or anything, whoever talks about it, whatever it is, everybody wants more information on this story. It’s just too good to be true from like a network or newspaper perspective, right? You talk about like billionaire playboy who has connections through just around world governments and the U.S. government, including just wealthy famous people, business owners, people that everybody has heard of and sees on TV all the time. That that guy was running a mass pedophile ring and the labor secretary under Donald Trump who was the guy in charge of prosecuting him in 2007 said that he belonged to intelligence. I would think that every newspaper in the country and every cable news channel in the country would have a team of reporters camped out on that dude’s lawn to stick a microphone in his face every time he left his house and say, “What did you mean by that? Can we get some kind of clarity on whether this pedophile was, you know, belonging to—” But we don’t get that and when you don’t get things like that you get a lot of room for speculation and you know it’s kind of justified speculation. I mean what is that? And instead you get a lot of emphasis on the sex part which deserves attention of course. These are sex crimes apparently in some cases against minors, horrible, not acceptable, but the other parts are completely ignored like what was this guy doing, this Cooper Union non-graduate who—Bear Stearns and then he’s with an arms dealer flying private to a meeting at the Pentagon. Like take three steps back. What is that? Hired by a guy at that first job who had connections to intelligence through the OSS, whose son was a CIA-connected guy. I mean so all of these— the reason I threw out all of these kind of intelligence connections that aren’t, you know, they’re— this is all circumstantial stuff that doesn’t attach necessarily. The fact that Donald Barr worked for the OSS back during the war or that his son Bill Barr worked for the CIA, that doesn’t by itself mean anything about Epstein. I think his son Bill Barr spent like what six years? I think six. Yeah. So he wasn’t just an intern and by the way he stayed— right, was an employee. But it’s not just circumstantial because you have apparently the former labor secretary saying— for me he was attorney federal prosecutor saying he belonged to intelligence. So I— anyway, I’m not trying to justify my interest in this. I don’t think it needs justifying, but I think the people who haven’t covered the story and the material parts of it, the stuff that actually really matters, they need to justify their lack of interest in it. Like what is that, New York Times? It’s natural to start asking questions when a question that would occur to anybody, somebody who just heard a five minute synopsis of the story and they’re from Mars and they have never heard any of it before. You tell them the short little story, a five-minute version of it that I just told you and the first thing they’re going to ask is, “Well, what did he mean when he said that Epstein belonged to intelligence? What’s going on there?” And you can’t get a journalist to ask that question, right? And so it’s natural for us to start wondering why that is. Well, because the question that all this bears on, the purpose of this interview, the purpose of all questions that I’ve ever raised about Epstein, go back to one central question, which is who runs the world, who’s making the decisions and on whose behalf? This idea that, you know, there are all these und— and whatever nation states each acting in its own, that’s not true. And so, what is true and this may point us in that direction. Yeah. You know, one of the things that we go back to the 1980s, I mean, it’s just such a fascinating time because in the Iran Contra deal, Mike Benz likes to point this out and he’s great on all of the Epstein stuff in the 80s and just the a lot of the intelligence shenanigans in general going on back then is that, you know, the it really provides a window into the question you’re asking right now. Who runs the world? Like, who’s actually in charge of everything that’s going on? How is power structured and how does it operate really, you know, in the world? And if you go back to those the Church and Pike Committee hearings and then you roll into the Carter administration where he brings Admiral Stanfield Turner in to run the CIA and basically gives him a directive to pare down the CIA’s operational commitments and the things that it does in the in the field. Start focusing more on, you know, what Truman thought he was getting himself into, which was, you know, a batch of analysts to help keep the president informed as he made decisions. And by all accounts, as far as I know, Admiral Turner tried to do that job with some enthusiasm. You get to the point where by the 1980s, the CIA’s ability to operate is under a lot of scrutiny and limited in ways that it never had been before. I mean, you go back the 50s, 60s, and 70s, and I mean, they were just cowboys. They’re dosing elephants with LSD, right? Exactly. Whatever you want. They’re visiting, you know, Jack Ruby in prison and turning him crazy. I mean, right. And so it’s right at that time when their activities are being curtailed and under a lot of scrutiny that you start to see the emergence of the system that we have now that pops up again and again whenever we end up in a place like Ukraine or just anywhere where you have institutions like the National Endowment for Democracy or USAID, a lot of these other organizations that you know they’re not the CIA. You have like one of the former heads of the National Endowment for Democracy on the record in an interview almost bragging in his tone saying we do all the jobs that the CIA used to do of course and so it was outsourced you know the CIA in coordination with CIA and other agencies. …and so it was outsourced. The CIA, in coordination with other agencies, basically shifted a lot of what it used to do into these public-facing NGOs and semi-private outfits. 100% the same goals, just now at arm’s length. And when you get to the 1980s, that’s when this new system really takes root. And you have these “freelancers”—guys like Epstein—who aren’t officially on any government payroll, but they do work that intelligence agencies can’t touch directly anymore because of congressional oversight, or FOIA, or whatever. They’re mercenaries. They work for whoever’s aligned at that moment: CIA today, MI6 tomorrow, Mossad next week. They’re useful because they’re cutouts. If you get burned, it’s not “an American operation” or “an Israeli op.” It’s just some guy, some mystery billionaire, running his own little schemes. And Epstein was perfect for that role. He had the skill set—they knew he’d move money and do it quietly—and he had no moral compass. That combination makes you very valuable in certain circles. So, when people say, “Was he CIA? Was he Mossad?” the answer is probably neither, and both. He was an asset in a global network of intelligence services that cooperate when interests overlap. That’s why trying to put him in one box misses the point. And it makes sense of the rest of his career. The arms deals, the shadow banking, the relationships with guys like Adnan Khashoggi—one of the biggest arms fixers on Earth. The Iran-Contra stuff? People forget how massive that was. You want to know who runs the world? Look at Iran-Contra. That’s patient zero for understanding how this all really works. Epstein wasn’t on the edges of that. He was in the bloodstream. He was moving money for Khashoggi. That’s not speculation—that’s documented. And what does Khashoggi do? He brokers weapons and logistics for covert U.S. and Israeli operations, including Iran-Contra. The pattern is obvious if you zoom out. He starts with Dalton—through Donald Barr. Then Bear Stearns, where he learns offshore structuring and hiding assets. Then, suddenly, he’s on private planes with British arms dealers headed to the Pentagon. That doesn’t happen because you’re charming at dinner parties. And then the Wexner connection takes it to another level. Wexner hands him full power of attorney—over billions. That is insane on its face. No one in corporate America does that for a guy they barely know. And yet, it happened. Why? The simplest answer: Wexner wasn’t just some random retail mogul. Wexner was plugged in. His foundation funneled money into programs that, let’s just say, overlapped with certain Israeli and U.S. security interests. Epstein ran that foundation for 15 years. Think about that. By the way, Wexner’s still alive. He’s never sat for a DOJ interview. Never been seriously pressed by media. Why? Why not ask the man why he gave that kind of control to Epstein? You and I both know the answer: because the implications of the real answer ripple out in every direction—finance, politics, intelligence, media. And that gets us back to why this whole story is radioactive. Because if you tug on one thread—just one—you start to see that a huge amount of what we think of as “separate worlds” (government, business, foreign policy) is actually one intertwined system. So, to the final question everybody asks: “Where did Epstein’s money come from?” Here’s the truth: nobody can fully trace it because that was the point. He was good at what he did. Offshore trusts, shell corps, complicated swaps. But we know enough to say this: a big chunk came from running illicit money—dirty money—through clean channels for people who needed it hidden. Arms deals, black-budget ops, oligarch slush, maybe state actors. And along the way, he figures out leverage. Compromise. “Playing the box,” as Hoffenberg said. If you’re already laundering for people who can’t afford exposure, and then you have them on tape doing something they really can’t afford to have exposed—well, that’s power. That’s how a math teacher with no degree turns into the guy presidents and princes and CEOs all take calls from. That’s what this was. That’s why Acosta said, “Belongs to intelligence.” That’s why he got a sweetheart deal in 2008. That’s why he could put bullets on editors’ doorsteps and kill Vanity Fair stories and know nothing would happen. That’s why he “killed himself” in federal custody with cameras off and guards asleep and no one—no one—got indicted for it. Who runs the world? People like the ones Epstein worked for. And maybe, for a while, Epstein himself. …and so it was outsourced. The CIA, in coordination with other agencies, basically shifted a lot of what it used to do into these public-facing NGOs and semi-private outfits. 100% the same goals, just now at arm’s length. And when you get to the 1980s, that’s when this new system really takes root. And you have these “freelancers”—guys like Epstein—who aren’t officially on any government payroll, but they do work that intelligence agencies can’t touch directly anymore because of congressional oversight, or FOIA, or whatever. They’re mercenaries. They work for whoever’s aligned at that moment: CIA today, MI6 tomorrow, Mossad next week. They’re useful because they’re cutouts. If you get burned, it’s not “an American operation” or “an Israeli op.” It’s just some guy, some mystery billionaire, running his own little schemes. And Epstein was perfect for that role. He had the skill set—they knew he’d move money and do it quietly—and he had no moral compass. That combination makes you very valuable in certain circles. So, when people say, “Was he CIA? Was he Mossad?” the answer is probably neither, and both. He was an asset in a global network of intelligence services that cooperate when interests overlap. That’s why trying to put him in one box misses the point. And it makes sense of the rest of his career. The arms deals, the shadow banking, the relationships with guys like Adnan Khashoggi—one of the biggest arms fixers on Earth. The Iran-Contra stuff? People forget how massive that was. You want to know who runs the world? Look at Iran-Contra. That’s patient zero for understanding how this all really works. Epstein wasn’t on the edges of that. He was in the bloodstream. He was moving money for Khashoggi. That’s not speculation—that’s documented. And what does Khashoggi do? He brokers weapons and logistics for covert U.S. and Israeli operations, including Iran-Contra. The pattern is obvious if you zoom out. He starts with Dalton—through Donald Barr. Then Bear Stearns, where he learns offshore structuring and hiding assets. Then, suddenly, he’s on private planes with British arms dealers headed to the Pentagon. That doesn’t happen because you’re charming at dinner parties. And then the Wexner connection takes it to another level. Wexner hands him full power of attorney—over billions. That is insane on its face. No one in corporate America does that for a guy they barely know. And yet, it happened. Why? The simplest answer: Wexner wasn’t just some random retail mogul. Wexner was plugged in. His foundation funneled money into programs that, let’s just say, overlapped with certain Israeli and U.S. security interests. Epstein ran that foundation for 15 years. Think about that. By the way, Wexner’s still alive. He’s never sat for a DOJ interview. Never been seriously pressed by media. Why? Why not ask the man why he gave that kind of control to Epstein? You and I both know the answer: because the implications of the real answer ripple out in every direction—finance, politics, intelligence, media. And that gets us back to why this whole story is radioactive. Because if you tug on one thread—just one—you start to see that a huge amount of what we think of as “separate worlds” (government, business, foreign policy) is actually one intertwined system. So, to the final question everybody asks: “Where did Epstein’s money come from?” Here’s the truth: nobody can fully trace it because that was the point. He was good at what he did. Offshore trusts, shell corps, complicated swaps. But we know enough to say this: a big chunk came from running illicit money—dirty money—through clean channels for people who needed it hidden. Arms deals, black-budget ops, oligarch slush, maybe state actors. And along the way, he figures out leverage. Compromise. “Playing the box,” as Hoffenberg said. If you’re already laundering for people who can’t afford exposure, and then you have them on tape doing something they really can’t afford to have exposed—well, that’s power. That’s how a math teacher with no degree turns into the guy presidents and princes and CEOs all take calls from. That’s what this was. That’s why Acosta said, “Belongs to intelligence.” That’s why he got a sweetheart deal in 2008. That’s why he could put bullets on editors’ doorsteps and kill Vanity Fair stories and know nothing would happen. That’s why he “killed himself” in federal custody with cameras off and guards asleep and no one—no one—got indicted for it. Who runs the world? People like the ones Epstein worked for. And maybe, for a while, Epstein himself. Um, I mean, you’ve been self-employed for a while, but when you weren’t, was it your habit to go to your boss and make demands of them on a regular basis? I don’t know. I mean, since when do we ever make demands on Israel? It’s been a long It’s been a long time. I don’t I don’t know, but I I you know, that’s obviously distressing. So, um, okay. So, there’s clearly a cover up at the very beginning. And I just want to say again, I think that’s one, not the totality of, but one of the reasons we don’t have this information now is because DOJ doesn’t have the information. Can I tie up that last point real quick for just a second? So, um, him being in Israel, uh, and at least having the threat of staying there, uh, you know, that may have played a role in him cutting his deal because that’s when his deal was. He’s already been charged at this point. He’s awaiting sentencing. He’s been convicted and they don’t take his passport and he he’s been convicted and he leaves the country.Correct. and his plea deal um or well so no no let me back that up.His plea deal was negotiated while he was out of the country because he he didn’t fight the he didn’t fight thecharges. It wasn’t it didn’t go to you know go to trial to a jury trial or anything. He was out of the country and hislawyers could credibly go to the D. Say that is special treatment.Did any of the J6 defendants get treatment like that? No, I don’t think so. That’s what’s infuriating about all this.leaving aside, you know, a lot of other elements that are upsetting.But the most infuriating is just the the two-tiers or multi-tier system of justice. This is something that people, Ithink, if not maybe even at the highest levels when I read uh President Trump’s truth socials about it, things likethat that people are just they don’t seem to be understanding is this isn’t about some guy that sexually assaulteda bunch of girls. Like Jeffrey Epstein, for better or for worse, has become a proxy for other things. You know, canI just interrupt you to say our uh faithful and gifted researcher has just held up a note saying Acosta apparentlyAlex Acosta has said and this is different from what I described um that he never said that Epstein was wasconnected to intelligence.So that is not my understanding. So he was asked about it at a press conference and he essentially refused toanswer. He said um you know that’s he said I wouldn’t take those media reports at face value and beyond that uhdepartment of justice policy you know kind of forbids me from going any further into that. Then there was anotherthere was an ABC news report and this is kind of an example of how this stuff gets out into the public mind.There was an ABC pretty Yeah, it was ABC News report was talking about his DOJ deal back then. And um andthey said that uh in the story they said that uh the DOJ had had stated that he had no connections to intelligence. Any thoughts?

President Donald Trump announced on May 11 that he wants to suspend the federal gas tax for a period of time, and the question every driver wants answered is simple: how much money will I actually save? We ran the numbers. The savings are real, and for families filling up multiple times a month, they add up fast. In a phone interview with CBS News, Trump called the idea “great” and laid out a straightforward plan: take off the gas tax temporarily, then phase it back in once gas prices come down. In a phone interview, President Trump told me that he wants to pause the 18 cent federal gas tax “for a period of time.”“I think it’s a great idea,” he said. “Yup, we’re going to take off the gas tax for a period of time, and when gas goes down, we’ll let it phase back in.”— Nancy Cordes (@nancycordes) May 11, 2026 CBS News reported the Trump interview and the immediate policy backdrop: President Trump told CBS in a May 11 phone interview that he wants to take the federal gas tax off for a period of time and phase it back in when gas prices come down. The report placed the statement in the middle of a sharp fuel-price squeeze, with the national average sitting above $4.50 per gallon and families feeling the increase every time they drive to work, school, church, or the grocery store.CBS also tied the announcement to the actual tax burden at the pump. The federal levy is 18.4 cents per gallon on gasoline and 24.4 cents per gallon on diesel, and pausing it would cost Washington roughly a half-billion dollars per week while the pause is in effect. That is money currently collected through every gallon drivers buy.CBS noted the key legal point as well. The president can push the plan, but Congress has to change the law because the tax is statutory. That is why the political response matters. Senator Josh Hawley said he would introduce legislation in the Senate, and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna said she would introduce a House bill and work directly with President Trump to deliver the gas-price relief. The federal excise tax on gasoline is 18.4 cents per gallon. On diesel, it is 24.4 cents per gallon. Those figures include a 0.1-cent-per-gallon Leaking Underground Storage Tank fee that most people have never heard of but pay every time they fill up. The U.S. Energy Information Administration breaks down the federal fuel-tax math that drivers pay into every gallon: The federal tax burden on retail motor fuel is listed at 18.40 cents per gallon for gasoline and 24.40 cents per gallon for diesel. That total is not one single line item. For gasoline, the federal excise tax is 18.3 cents per gallon, with an additional 0.1 cent per gallon for the Leaking Underground Storage Tank fee. For diesel, the federal excise tax is 24.3 cents per gallon, plus the same 0.1 cent fee.That federal amount is separate from the state taxes drivers also pay. EIA lists average state-level taxes at 32.61 cents per gallon for gasoline and 34.76 cents per gallon for diesel as of its posted table, while noting that local and county taxes are not included in those state figures. In plain English, Trump is targeting the federal layer that applies across the country. State and local fuel taxes would still depend on where a driver fills up. If the full 18.4 cents per gallon reaches your pump, here is what a suspension saves you on gasoline: A 12-gallon fill-up, typical for a compact car, saves you $2.21. A 15-gallon fill-up saves $2.76. A 20-gallon fill-up for a truck or SUV saves $3.68. Now multiply that over a month. If your household burns 60 gallons a month, you save $11.04. At 80 gallons, you save $14.72. And if you are a two-car family or a commuter burning through 100 gallons a month, you pocket $18.40 every single month the suspension lasts. Diesel drivers save even more per gallon because the tax is higher. A 20-gallon diesel fill-up saves $4.88, and a 25-gallon fill-up saves $6.10. For truckers and small business owners running diesel fleets, those numbers compound quickly. Trump wants to suspend the federal gas tax. How much would that help drivers? https://t.co/qVBteghLaA— CBS News (@CBSNews) May 11, 2026 CBS News added the practical pocketbook estimates for drivers: Drivers nationwide were paying an average of $4.52 per gallon for regular gasoline on May 11, according to the AAA figure cited in the CBS MoneyWatch breakdown. If the full federal gasoline tax were suspended and passed through at the pump, that same national average would move to roughly $4.34 per gallon. On diesel, CBS placed the full-suspension estimate around $5.39 per gallon based on that day’s pricing.The same breakdown cited Andrew Lautz of the Bipartisan Policy Center, who put the sedan savings at up to about $2 per fill-up at national-average prices. In a higher-priced California SUV example, the estimated per-tank savings came in around $2.36 to $3.09. CBS also noted the procedural piece: Congress has to approve a suspension because the gas tax is set in federal law.That means the personal savings are not a mystery. For a normal gas tank, the benefit is usually a few dollars each time. For a commuter, a two-car family, or a small-business owner who fills up repeatedly, the monthly savings can climb into the double digits while the suspension lasts. One honest caveat: the full 18.4 cents may not land entirely in your pocket. Some analysts expect the market to absorb part of the savings before it hits the pump. Axios pointed to the main caveat on how much of the tax cut may actually show up on pump signs: The Bipartisan Policy Center estimate cited by Axios put the consumer price reduction from a federal gas-tax holiday at roughly 10 to 16 cents per gallon. That is lower than the full 18.3-cent federal gasoline excise tax because the energy market does not always pass every penny of a tax cut directly to consumers. Some portion can be absorbed before it reaches the retail price.That caveat changes the range, but it does not erase the savings. At 10 cents per gallon, a 15-gallon fill-up saves $1.50 and a 20-gallon fill-up saves $2. At 16 cents per gallon, those same tanks save $2.40 and $3.20. Over a month, a household using 80 gallons saves $8 at the low end and $12.80 at the higher pass-through estimate.Axios also noted the same congressional hurdle. A gas-tax holiday is a familiar proposal whenever pump prices jump, but it still has to move through Congress. The political question now is whether lawmakers will act quickly enough to turn Trump’s push into relief drivers can see on receipts. Even at 10 cents per gallon, a family using 80 gallons a month saves $8 every month. At 16 cents, that jumps to $12.80. Over the course of a summer driving season, you are looking at real money back in your pocket. Because the tax is set by federal law, Congress has to act. Republicans in both chambers moved immediately. Senator Josh Hawley announced he would introduce legislation that same day. I’m introducing legislation today to suspend the gas tax https://t.co/hVHRhUVPgC— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) May 11, 2026 On the House side, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna said she would file a bill and work directly with President Trump to get it done. This week I will be introducing a bill in the House to suspend the federal gas tax in light of Trump’s recent remarks. American families need this relief on gas prices. My office will be working directly with President Trump to ensure we deliver this win for the American… https://t.co/w540M6kSBB— Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (@RepLuna) May 11, 2026 Trump put this in motion. Now Republicans in Congress have a chance to put real relief on his desk. Every day they wait is another day families are paying a tax they do not have to pay. The math is not complicated. Whether you drive a sedan, an SUV, or a diesel truck, a federal gas-tax suspension means money back in your wallet every time you pull up to the pump. For millions of American families stretched thin by $4.50 gas, that is exactly the kind of relief that matters most.