Today’s show opened with breaking news: former President Bill Clinton testifying under oath before the House Oversight Committee at the Chappaqua Performing Arts Center. Clinton’s opening statement — “I saw nothing and I did nothing wrong” — set the stage for what Zev called “one of the most important days in the Epstein investigation,” noting that Epstein likely targeted Clinton as an intelligence asset and even claimed credit for setting up the Clinton Global Initiative.
5️⃣ The Epstein Network Is Crumbling
The walls are closing in on the Epstein network globally. World Economic Forum CEO Borj Brande resigned after it emerged he attended three dinners with Epstein. The Telegraph ran a headline about Ariane de Rothschild pleading “don’t leave me over Epstein” — the same Rothschild family whose Edmond de Rothschild bank signed a $25 million contract with Epstein’s Southern Trust Company in 2015. Howard Lutnick, Trump’s Commerce Secretary, was also in the spotlight after photos surfaced showing him on Epstein’s island with metadata confirming the location. “The network is unraveling,” Zev noted, “and it goes all the way to the Rothschilds, who have been connected to Epstein since 1987.”
4️⃣ Trump Moves to Seize AI
The Pentagon gave Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei a 5:01 PM deadline to drop safety guardrails from Claude, the company’s AI model, so the military could deploy it without restrictions. Amodei refused. “This is not about national security,” Dean argued, “this is about surveillance and control.” Trump reportedly wants an ownership stake in Anthropic, and the administration is floating nationalization — which Zev called “hardline communism, pure and simple.” The AI wars are no longer theoretical; they are a live fight over who controls the most powerful technology on earth.
3️⃣ War on Two Fronts
Six countries have begun evacuating citizens from Iran as the USS Gerald Ford and massive American firepower positions in the Mediterranean. Nuclear talks between the US and Iran produced no deal. Meanwhile, China quietly shipped anti-ship missiles to Iran. In a separate theater, Pakistan bombed Taliban positions in Kandahar, Afghanistan — the first strike of its kind. “You’ve got two active war fronts developing simultaneously,” Zev said, connecting the military buildup to Rothschild banking interests in the Gulf region.
2️⃣ Media Mega-Monopoly
Netflix dropped an $83 billion bid for Warner Brothers Discovery, while Paramount and Skydance offered $111 billion — a deal that would absorb CNN, TNT, TBS, the Cartoon Network, Discovery, and the entire Warner empire. Combined with Larry Ellison’s CBS takeover, where he installed Barry Weiss to turn the network into what Zev called “Trump regime state media,” the consolidation leaves virtually no independent major media voice standing. “We can tell you about the Rothschilds until we’re blue in the face,” Zev said, “but you won’t see that on CNN.”
1️⃣ Trump Moves to Steal Elections
A group of right-wing activists working with the White House is circulating a draft executive order that would give Trump unilateral power to ban mail-in ballots and voting machines before the 2026 midterms. The basis is a debunked conspiracy theory that China interfered in 2020. Dean warned that Maduro could become central to the scheme, with the administration pressuring the captured Venezuelan president to corroborate claims of foreign election interference. The SAVE Act died in the Senate, but an executive order could still strip voting access from an estimated 130 million Americans who lack passports. “Don’t boo — vote,” Dean said, channeling Obama. “It’s going to be so vitally important that we go full Obama in 2026.”
From Clinton under oath on Epstein to Trump seizing elections, AI, media and war — Day 38 of the second Trump administration is a roadmap to authoritarianism, and it’s happening in real time.
The FiveStack is available as an audio podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. The FiveStack is a co-production of deanblundell.substack.com and narativ.org.
Thank you Dean Blundell, Stephanie G Wilson, PhD, Robin Payes, Iulia Huiu, Sue Ploeger’s script to novel, and many others for tuning into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.
