"They are fundamentally bound at the hip, because the Trump age is a conspiratorial age and a backlash against global wealth inequality... Epstein facilitated the rise of Trump." — Jason Pack
Late last year, Disorder podcast host Jason Pack came on the show and predicted that Mark Carney would be the "orderer" of 2025 and Jeffrey Epstein would be 2026's "disorderer-in-chief". Pack was uncannily right. Although, as he admits, such prescience gives him no pleasure.
Pack is no conspiracist. He thought QAnon was a hoax; he saw the antisemitism baked into its bizarre theories. But he's come to believe there was a genuine cover-up of the Jeffrey Epstein case—not orchestrated by the CIA, but by prosecutors who didn't want to go after powerful people, journalists comfortably ensconced in Epstein's world, and a system where too much wealth has accrued to too narrow a sliver of global elites.
What haunts him most is what the emails reveal about how the world actually works. Favors exchanged for favors in a network of infinite back-scratching. Noam Chomsky (!) and Leon Black busy trading intros for access to Epstein's underworld. The emails reveal completely amoral elites, Pack says, nihilists without even the pretense of moral scruples.
Trump and Epstein, Pack argues, are bound at the hip—not because Trump is guilty of Epstein's crimes, but because both are products of the same angry backlash against global wealth inequality and the collapse of institutional trust. Trump is, in Pack's memorable phrase, "a legal Epstein"—someone who gets things done through connections, who can appear the most elite Wall Street type to bankers and the most common man to coal miners. The evil genius of doppelgängerism. For Pack, the Epstein files may be a tremor before the big one—AI or crypto could bring the real 1789 style earthquake—but they've already destroyed something of priceless value: the illusion that elites are working on the behalf of the people.
Five Takeaways
• The Cover-Up Wasn't a Conspiracy—It Was the System: Cases sat on prosecutors' desks in 2003 and weren't filed. Too much wealth had accrued to too narrow a tranche of global elites.
• Trump and Epstein Are Bound at the Hip: Both are products of the same backlash against wealth inequality. The irony: Trump benefited from these networks but rose by promising to dismantle them.
• "Order" vs. the Law of the Jungle: The Epstein world wasn't ordered—it was blackmail and compromat. When they needed a service, they got the service.
• The Collapse of Social Trust: Amoral elites who believed in nothing—no religion, no moral code—had no compunction about harming young women or stealing pensioners' money.
• A Tremor Before the Big One: AI or crypto could bring the real earthquake. The Epstein files have stripped away the illusion that the system works on our behalf.
About the Guest
Jason Pack is a historian, consultant, and host of the Disorder podcast. He is based in London.
References
Disorder podcast: https://www.disorder.show/
Bobby Capucci's Epstein Chronicles: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-epstein-chronicles/id1480972692
Jewish Currents: https://jewishcurrents.org/
About Keen On America
Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States.
Website: https://keenon.tv/ Substack: https://keenon.substack.com/ YouTube: https://youtube.com/@KeenOnShow
Chapters:
00:00:00 Introduction: Jason Pack hates being right
00:02:04 Carney's Davos speech: Words as actions
00:05:44 A Canadian-led initiative on Ukraine?
00:06:55 The Epstein cover-up: Why I believe it
00:11:05 What the New York Times knew and when
00:13:21 Epstein survivors and their lawyers
00:15:06 Too much wealth has accrued to too narrow a tranche
00:17:09 The uncomfortable Jewish angle
00:21:03 Emails to Woody Allen and Leon Botstein
00:23:00 Trump and Epstein: Bound at the hip
00:27:03 Trump as a legal Epstein
00:29:33 Disorder or the law of the jungle?
00:33:28 Does Scandinavia get off lighter?
00:38:05 A tremor before the big one?