Bannon’s Epstein interview: a hollow, smug, humourless pervert

This article examines Steve Bannon’s 2019 interview with Jeffrey Epstein following the release of extensive Epstein files. What follows is not a transcript, but a critical analysis of Epstein’s character, performance and claims.

Just finished watching the Steve Bannon interview with Jeffrey Epstein. One hour 57 minutes – two hours of one on one with Epstein. The horror scroll of the Epstein file drop has reached further down the pit of depravity and some examination of the man’s thinking and character can be made from the interview, or at least I’ve tried. I say tried because there is precious little content matter to this shell of a human.

First impressions

This is the first time I’ve heard his voice apart from the deposition video of him knowing Trump but taking the fifth on everything else, so I couldn’t recollect what he sounded like. He’s been this guy with a massive chin who looks like Burt Bacharach – that’s all I’ve noticed physically. The other video of him leering at girls with Trump at a party is the only moving images I’ve seen, and in that clip there’s no audio from them, so I’ve never really heard his voice before. How curious.  As I listen he sounds like a muppet, as so many white American voices seem to me, like a Jewish muppet, sort of whiny, like Woody Allen.

Bannon gives Epstein a question about financing/sponsoring/donating to a mathematics institute that he said he got involved in through being on the Rockefeller Institute. Bannon says it’s prestigious – how did he get on that board? A guy from Bear Sterns did it. Epstein says reputation was based on family name in the 1970s and now it’s about calculating reputation. David Rockefeller seems to be a mentor, in politics and money, who put him on the “Trilateral commission” of business and politicians. Knowledge of money was key: “impossible to believe […] fractional banking”. But this didn’t answer any question – it was just a basic fact presented as some Newtonian revelation.

World leaders don’t understand money. He wasn’t impressed with positions, just intellect! Epstein sounds so superficial, no insight, just a very simple, standard answer – everyone knows all this stuff by about sixth form and the level he’s pitching this to is more like intermediate school. I have a vintage 1940s book somewhere called “The Story of Money” bought second hand from when I was at intermediate school (lithographs of The Bank of England etc.) which explains a bit about banking and finance and that is the same level Epstein is explaining things at despite Bannon asking questions for a far older mature audience.

Bannon: inflation in 70s, spectre of inflation – why is this central bankers’ obsession?
Epstein: understand the local part of the system.

The myth of the financial genius

I can tell now he’s not a genius, he’s not even bright, he’s a phony, he’s a bullshit artist. His responses lacked anything to begin with and he’s just repeating the same thing and running some hack phrases like a high school teacher parroting a textbook they haven’t read since training college. This guy is nothing.

At the 20 minute mark it is apparent to me he is a dud, so I’m predicting he will continue this pattern for the rest of the hour and a half of this interview: simplify everything to the point of being patronising, but presenting these facts as profound and unknown to Bannon (and the audience), and all with a self-satisfied smirk on his face. Numbers and money will be a theme probably, but I will be listening for his ideas about influence and relationships and how he views that because I’ve got no hope that he will have anything credible to say about substance or systems. There is no chance of liking the guy at this point either, he has done nothing at all likeable. And I predict I’m going to grow weary of it given the time left. But let me go through it to save you, the reader, the trauma of watching two of the shittiest pieces of shit in America in their shitty quest to make paedophilic human trafficking sexy again. Will try to be fair, if he cracks a joke and I laugh I’ll let you know.

I notice Epstein has no rings on his fingers. He has a watch, but no rings. What will AI tell us this means? He starts to use the human body as a metaphor to understand a financial system and Bannon, mercifully, sees the vagueness fog rolling in and cuts him off to focus the response. Bannon is hip to his jive, I see that now, he’s trying his best to get Epstein not to prattle out another otherwise preventable entropic verbiage that will end up back where he began without anything to show for it. And I know he’s a phony because I’ve heard Don Brash being asked what derivatives are and he gave a succinct answer that I know this guy could never give.

It’s almost 22:00. Bannon asks what the Davos party guys don’t understand about the money system? Epstein says the mathematics institute (what’s the logo? <18f !?) will be solving how complex the system is. “Complex systems are complex by definition… system on top of systems” he says. And tautology on top of tautology is what I’m starting to hear. Axiomatic nonsense circling a drain is what the rest of this fucking video is going to be, isn’t it? Bannon is off-camera by the way, no idea what he’s doing or what state of dishevelment he’s in – we can only see Epstein (who prefers the hand steepling as if he’s grasping an imaginary ball – a thinking pose, without much evidence for it coming out of his mouth).

Epstein mentions Google etc. working on AI – “neural nets.” Given this interview was in 2019 AI was still in formative development, but he was clearly up to speed on this.

Bannon: Sept 14 2008, Lehman Bros going under – when did you first hear this?
Epstein: “I was in solitary confinement in jail […] in an 8 x 10 cell. In jail not prison.”

A guard told him Wall Street was crashing – he mentioned Lehman Bros and Bear Sterns. At this point Epstein stares at Bannon and repeats Bear Sterns (who Epstein was invested in) and on saying “Bear Sterns” Epstein grabs his throat with one hand as if to choke himself – which considering how he died was an interesting selection of body language. So, Epstein called the Bear Sterns CEO from jail, and then called JP Morgan and had both of them on two phones at the same time. Epstein talked to “someone at Treasury” as well. I wonder if this is true? He loves telling this, he hasn’t stopped grinning since Bannon first asked the question, which is why I wonder if it isn’t made up. He doesn’t have to make anything up, but I do wonder if the name-dropping is morphing into lying. And then Bannon says it doesn’t sound believable! Glad it’s not just me thinking this. Bannon has a bullshit detector and it went off.

Epstein says the inmates knew he was wealthy and were making demands. But no questions about all the other circumstances of the Acosta deal, the day pass out of state prison or anything else.

Bannon: Not saving Lehman Bros?
Epstein: Derivatives were blamed, but not the cause at all. A system collapse. People and financial systems are not machines.
Bannon: In 2008 you were active in the financial, currency markets – “active”?

Epstein: “I don’t trade every day.” Bill Clinton caused the 2008 collapse by encouraging low credit score renters into home ownership and branded it “sub-prime”. “Politics doesn’t belong in the markets” – oh, that’s beautiful! “They changed the accounting method” to value at perhaps less than what they bought it for – impossible situation he says. No, impossible would be to let the madness of over-valued assets continue – that would have been impossible, but I get the impression Epstein seems to think it could have all gone on… forever?

Power, vanity & emptiness

We are at the half way point and there is a cut in the tape and Epstein appears now in an open-necked black shirt, and rimless glasses, because “I’m experimenting”. Is this a vanity thing? He doesn’t look better he just looks obviously middle-aged. What did we learn from the first hour? Not too much, but at one point Bannon interjected when Epstein said “liquidity” to say “cash”, and Epstein dismissed that notion by just re-stating “liquidity.” Neither wanted to get in too deep on that, but I would have wanted to know more since Epstein is making it anatomical without describing any detail.

Epstein: I didn’t anticipate 2008. Head is central bank, blood is liquidity, clotting. System was getting too complex. “Wall Street make it sound complicated so the small guy doesn’t know what they do.” It is not complicated. Wall Street does simple things.
Bannon: 1990s downturn why?

Epstein fumbles around and can’t answer, he has no clue. Bannon asks – unironically – is there anyone in the world who understands the financial system like you? Epstein looks down and peers from over his rimless glasses he’s changed into to say no. No, he hasn’t met anyone in the world as great as he is on the financial system. Breathtaking. Bannon asks about apparent ten year cycles of downturns.

Epstein: People see patterns where there are none. There are no 10 year cycles.

Bannon asks what happens when Lehman Bros etc gets liquidated and Epstein argues it’s wrong to see them as failing. As if the government was to blame in such a way that banks were never to blame. It sounds absurd.

Epstein says we all don’t understand the system. There is no predictability so there is no understanding. “The system had a stroke and we don’t know why”. Or is it that he won’t accept the reasons why because it doesn’t suit him? Then Epstein loses his glasses altogether – they were merely a prop. God, what a phony.

I gather from all of this that he considers his espionage and extorting and collusion activities (see Branson’s email in the files referencing collusion) as ensuring more predictable outcomes than throwing all his money at mathematicians. But it seems the maths guys were up to Holy Grail stuff not just market trading stuff and quark stuff: his institute was in the race for “genetic algorithms” and “artificial life.” Surely no harm and demonic forces are involved with such innocent, wholesome conceptions in the hands of such an innocent wholesome guy.

And then imagine going to a tutorial stoned…

Putting numbers on the unexplainable is wrong… Newton… Xeno’s paradox… “At the limit… approach the limit”… 1 divided by zero… Fascinating but this Phil 101 lecture isn’t going anywhere. Bannon asks about why Newton was so important as a dividing point in development – he attempts to ask this question a few times but Epstein goes off on the wrong track. The obvious response from someone who had done Phil 101 is what was before Newton? – Aristotelian, and explain that, or what came after: Einstein and relativity. But Epstein just doesn’t do this, so on the third go Bannon mentions the Greeks and that sets Epstein off on Pythagoras. This exchange reinforces my belief he’s not that bright, Bannon had to spoon feed this guy who he just told us was the world’s greatest financial mind, just indulging this creep to be a malignant Walter Mitty.

The only interesting thing from this exchange was Epstein’s view of Pythagorean theorems being “Pythagoras put numbers on things to predict how they would behave…” Predict is not how a normal person would ever describe it, surely. One would say those equations are not predictions but certainties. He goes on to say Newton was concerned with formulae, and then goes on about gravity again – seems to be a fixation. His record isn’t linear however as he skips around without much attention, leaving Bannon to keep a course.

Epstein says it’s about putting numbers on things. “Let’s measure everything […] Can I put a number on how much I care for my wife? Can I put a number on how I feel…” Can you put a number on the age of those trafficked kids you raped? Can you put a number on the times Bill Clinton came to the island? Can you put a number on these things? “Unfortunately we try to mathematise the finer things in life…” How true.

Bannon: “The soul?” Epstein: God made this material to have a thought, “the soul is the dark matter of the brain.” That is the closest thing to interesting he has said so far, but we are one and a half hours in. Bannon quipped that Epstein was reputedly “soulless” – Epstein is yet to make any jokes. Epstein isn’t funny, he doesn’t come across as charming and as explained he doesn’t come across as smart either. For someone obsessed with the laws of attraction it must be observed that he possesses no magnetism himself. Epstein is pure dark matter: both a smug, humourless pervert and also a simple-minded cretin who was best known for knowing everyone else – a cross between Patrick Bateman and Forrest Gump.

Bannon takes Epstein into the woo-woo but Epstein prefers to bring things back to psychology: “Woman have intuition […] men want to measure everything […] Women sense it.” Different intelligences too, he says he doesn’t believe Africans are less intelligent as some do: Africans are better equipped with intellect to survive being chased by lions, peoples are different. But this analysis implies Africans bred to run from lions are not going to be better at banking that the Europeans are bred for. Once again it is so simplistic it doesn’t look like it will stand scrutiny, but luckily for him Bannon doesn’t want to grab onto anything racial and leaves it uncontested.

Bannon asks, is trading based on emotion? Epstein says the traders don’t know themselves why things are happening, they act on their feelings. This is interesting and this is how I understand people have described John Key as being particularly well attuned to the market, but rather perhaps also to the emotional flow of the traders. If only Epstein was actually a legit trader he could provide something, anything.

He’s fully animated when talking about music with both hands up. Bannon switches again (he seems aware of the time running out) to life and defining what is alive and they get onto bananas. Is the banana on the kitchen counter alive? Yes. Epstein says put a banana in a bag with another fruit and it breathes together and ripens and then says we don’t know how that happens. Well, as someone who did horticulture in high school, and as someone in the kiwifruit industry, I can report that we do know exactly what’s going on and when cells are alive and unalive. The clue is in the banana as it goes black and dies, it is sort of rather completely obvious, isn’t it? These are adult men, one of whom is described by the other as the greatest financial mind in the world, who think we don’t know how to work out when a banana has had it. This is Kamala Harris level cringe at this point. 15 minutes to go.

The final confrontation

Someone off camera says 4 minutes to go. Bannon unleashes a flurry of accusations for rapid response: should institutions take your money? Should you take bad money for a good cause? Epstein doesn’t want to say. Bannon restates it – take the cash from any source? And directly ups the tempo: “Is your money dirty money? Just answer the question: is your money dirty money?” Epstein: “No it’s not, so in fact, so…” Bannon interrupts: “why’s it not dirty money?” Epstein with a change in tone to low, slow and not fucking around: “Because I earned it… myself the hard way.” Bannon says “You earned it advising the worst people in the world, right, that do enormous bad things just to make more money?” Epstein drops his smile, but he seems relaxed as he responds that it’s a legitimate question.

Bannon is hostile in this encounter, but having replayed it again this finale seems like a rehearsed moment between the two of them because Epstein then goes into a bit about giving money to help irradicate polio in Pakistan and India. Very nice – what a hero, just puts the decades of child trafficking, rape and extortion into perspective because he signed a cheque.

Bannon then has another go telling him he’s a sexual offender criminal, that is gloriously gratuitous. Epstein says people would take money “from the devil himself” – and this is where I think the set piece polio story is spontaneously subsumed by where Bannon takes it: “Do you think you are the devil himself?” Epstein: “No, but I do have a good mirror” and he smiles as if he had made a pithy joke. I’m not laughing, neither is Bannon. There’s a pause. Bannon: “It’s a serious question.” Epstein: “oh [laughs] sorry”, and Bannon asks again “Do you think you are the devil himself?” Epstein: “I don’t know, why would you say that?”. Epstein looks confused, for the first time he looks really uncomfortable, scratches the back of his neck in agitation. My guess is the polio come-back was supposed to wrap it up, but Bannon is enjoying the power trip of the moment too much not to use the opportunity: “because you have all the attributes: you’re incredibly smart, the devil’s smart […],” to which he responds “no, the devil scares me” but he then does a sort of sniggering wink like he was, I don’t know, laughing at the devil? It is all bullshit though, he doesn’t mean any of this. He claps his hands and smiles – it’s time to go and gets up. He looks mighty pleased with himself. Is he that rich no one has yet told him he’s full of shit?

After watching the whole thing I am convinced that my original assessment of Epstein from the photo trove last year was completely justified: a shallow guy whose scrawled diagrams speak not of brilliance but of needing to reduce complex things because he can’t understand it. He doesn’t know anything special; he doesn’t know if most things can be known at all if you believe what he is saying in the interview.

What a pity Bannon can’t make any money out of the video now it’s released, what a pity.