Wednesday on the RealClearPolitics radio show, Andrew Walworth, Tom Bevan, and Carl Cannon discuss a group of Jeffrey Epstein victims going to Capitol Hill to call for more transparency about the case, the GOP’s effort to rebrand the “Big, Beautiful Bill” as the “working families’ tax cut,” and a Washington Post article outlining the Democrats’ plan to retake the House. Later, RCP White House reporter Phil Wegmann discusses the latest details about a U.S. Navy strike on a ship reportedly smuggling drugs from Venezuela, and RealClear Investigations writer James Varney discusses his reporting about an enormous $ 10 billion AI data center under construction in rural Louisiana. You can listen to the show weeknights at 6:00 p.m. on SiriusXM’s POTUS Channel 124 and then on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and here on our website. *** First, the gang discusses the Jeffrey Epstein scandal taking center stage on Capitol Hill this morning, where a group of victims, their lawyers, and sympathetic members of Congress from both parties hosted a press conference calling for more transparency. “This is not going away. Ghislaine Maxwell is behind bars for a reason. She was convicted. And I don’t know that Republicans are fully satisfied with the answers that the Trump administration has given on this still,” Tom Bevan commented. “I don’t know what these people want, really,” Carl Cannon said. “Releasing raw Justice Department files, grand jury testimony-I don’t care. But I don’t know what they hope to find there. I don’t know what they think will give them a measure of satisfaction.” *** In the next segment, around minute 11, Republicans have decided they need to rebrand the “Big, Beautiful Bill” ahead of next year’s midterm elections, trying to highlight the “working families’ tax cut” part of it. “It’s a good rebrand, it’s just too late,” Cannon said. “I don’t know if it was beautiful, but it was certainly big. And I think it was too big to explain.” “Trump usually has really good political instincts about issues and language. We laugh about it sometimes-but it resonates. This one didn’t. ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ doesn’t tell you anything!” added Bevan. “Can they save it with a rebrand that’s a little more focused? Maybe.” *** Next, starting at minute 17, the group discusses a new article in the Washington Post, Inside the Democratic Plan to Recapture the House Majority in 2026.” Democrats want to focus on the economy and “affordability,” is that enough to turn things around? “One of the things they said is the Democrats want to try and get on the right side of immigration, and reclaim that issue by proposing legislation to solve the immigration problem,” Bevan said. “They think if they have a bill to point to, that’ll somehow erase the past few years of them trying to decriminalize border crossings and give health care to illegals and the like.” “They’re saying they didn’t talk enough about these issues. Left unsaid is the other half of that: We continue to embrace a series of issues that make us look unhinged to a sizable swath of swing voters,” Cannon added. *** And then, starting at minute 24, RCP White House correspondent Phil Wegmann and Carl Cannon discuss the U.S. naval strike last night on a boat the Trump administration claims was smuggling drugs from Venezuela, as the U.S. ramps up pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. “With 11 people killed on board, they better be sure there were drugs on there,” Carl Cannon said. “Maduro, the president of Venezuela, has been indicted by a U.S. grand jury and his former head of military intelligence has pleaded guilty to narco-trafficking-and the Biden administration had no different opinion, that essentially Chavez and Maduro have essentially turned Venezuela into a narco-state.” “There were 11 members, according to the administration, of the Tren de Aragua gang on that boat,”Phil Wegmann explained. “But this is an escalation. The administration sees the Venezuelan government as a narco-terror state… The takeaway here-the one the White House wants these cartels to learn-is that they’re not going to be making arrests. They’re going to be making strikes.” “But not only is this an escalation-it’s an escalation that was piped into the living-room televisions of Americans everywhere. We saw the video. They released the video. It looked like something out of a Jack Ryan film or a Call of Duty video game. You could see: In one second there was this speedboat, and then in the next there was a flash of light and there was no more boat,” he said. *** Don’t miss an episode of the RealClearPolitics weeknight radio show – subscribe at Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
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