Chapo Trap House

David Roth returns to talk about the newest avalanche of Epstein files and what they tell us about the depravity of our elites and the West as a whole. We run through a gauntlet of incriminating emails with Larry Summers, Peter Mandelson, Peter Attia, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk and more. Then, to lighten the mood, we talk about a profile of Woah Nancy and her poor staffers, plus a tip about Marie Concentrationcamp Perez. Find David’s work at Defector here: https://defector.com/author/david-roth Tickets for our ten year show are going fast, so buy now: https://www.ticketmaster.com/event/0900643BE404F182 Follow the new Chapo Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chapotraphousereal/ And Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/chapotraphousereal.bsky.social

Will and Felix talk about the horrific killing of Alex Pretti. We talk about the execution, the man Alex was, why the right despises him, the inspiring response of the people of Minnesota, and reasons to hope that we haven’t irreversibly opened the gates of Hell. We also talk about the public responses, ranging from the bizarre justifications from Mike Cernovich and JD Vance to Sohrab Amari’s attempt at aloofness to the [???] from Tom Friedman. Plus: Marie Glusenkamp Perez dealing the shittiest weed in the world. Katherine’s article at The Intercept is out: https://theintercept.com/2026/01/25/tony-dokoupil-cbs-evening-news/  Follow the new Chapo Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chapotraphousereal/ And Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/chapotraphousereal.bsky.social

Chapo Foreign Policy correspondent Derek Davison returns to talk about the decades that have been happening these past few weeks. We stop at Iran and cover the protests and the possible involvement of Israeli weaponry; at Syria, where Rojava and the SDF have all but capitulated to Ahmed al-Sharaa; at Greenland, where the potential of an inter-NATO conflict grows, and in Israel, where Trump attempts to do freemium diplomacy. Finally, we read a piece about the Brandon administration acquiring The Device. Find all of Derek’s foreign policy coverage at: www.foreignexchanges.news www.americanprestigepod.com

Over the holiday, Will and Chris caught up with Donald Borenstein, Andrew Epstein and Debbie Saslaw of the Mamdani media team to discuss how their video and online strategy helped win the campaign’s stunning victory. We look at their team’s success as the result of years of NYC organizing, how the candidate’s principles and policy informed the media strategy, the right and wrong lessons on political communication from their campaign, and the bizarre outsider art of Adams & Cuomo’s video output. PLUS: production, editing, color grading & gear talk for all you A/V heads.

Author and journalist Seth Harp returns for an interview about the National Guard shooting in D.C. We analyze the accused shooter, his time in covert “Zero Units,” and we also speculate about the ramifications of Pete Hegseth’s double-tap order in the Caribbean. To close things out, Will and Felix talk about Bari Weiss’s plan to return America to the reasonable center and react to the viral Oklahoma University essay on why God made man and woman different. Buy Seth’s book here (and give it 5 stars on Amazon!): https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/730414/the-fort-bragg-cartel-by-seth-harp/ And follow him on X at @sethharpesq

This episode isn’t just great—it’ll revolutionize what you think of AI. Ed Zitron is back in the trap to discuss his recent reporting on just how much money companies like OpenAI have (and how much they’re burning). We talk about the byzantine financing of generative AI and LLMs, the tech world’s dream of recreating the postwar boom with a technology primarily used to make the world’s least legal porn, and the proliferation of data centers across the country. Plus: Bill Ackman teaches you how to pick up girls. Get your Ed at: Better Offline podcast: https://linktr.ee/betteroffline Where’s Your Ed At newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/ Twitter/X: https://x.com/edzitron Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/edzitron.com

As we inch closer to war with Venezuela, historian Greg Grandin returns to Chapo for a history lesson about the War on Drugs as well as Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution. We also talk about the US’s long-running economic interests and petty feuds in Latin America, particularly regarding the region’s oil supplies. We then briefly speculate about just how bad and chaotic a regime change operation against Venezuela might be for the US and Latin America.