A bronze-painted statue titled “Best Friends Forever, ”depicting Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein holding hands on October 2, 2025, in Washington, DC.(Andrew Harnik / Getty Images)
The scandal around Jeffrey Epstein, who trafficked and abused children and died in a prison cell in 2019, has never gone away. It continues to explode now that House Democrats have released thousands of e-mails from Epstein and his cronies. But while the political class and mainstream media are understandably focused on the sex scandal, another dimension of the scandal goes uncovered except by independent media outlets such as Drop Site: Epstein’s deep ties to the national security state. I talked to international relations scholar Van Jackson about this crucial part of the story.
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The Trump administration has announced a new set of harsh sanctions against Iran. This is a strange development since originally Trump launched a war on Iran on the pretext that sanctions weren’t working. Trita Parsi of the Qunicy Institute argues the current tactic won’t work and is a holding action as both the US and Iran bide their time in a long conflict. Parsi’s writings can be found on his Substack. In the interview, we discuss his column on the surprising way many governments are rooting for Iran to check US imperialism.
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