Ask A Genius 1567: Epstein Files, Ukraine Sanctions, and the Fraying Power of Trump

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner

Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/11/19

How do the Epstein files, Ukraine sanctions, and G7 diplomacy expose the current limits of Trump’s power at home and abroad?

In this interview, Scott Douglas Jacobsen speaks with Rick Rosner about newly surfaced Epstein emails in which Jeffrey Epstein derides Donald Trump and alleges he “knew about the girls,” alongside Trump’s sliding approval ratings amid a 43-day shutdown. They connect this weakening support to razor-thin Republican margins in Congress and Trump’s ongoing use of executive power, from rebranding the Pentagon as the “Department of War” to a private White House ballroom project. The discussion then shifts to the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting, Canada’s sanctions on Russia, the “shadow fleet” moving sanctioned oil, and the realities of independent war reporting.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: We’re speaking on Thursday, November 13, 2025. The full Justice Department “Epstein files” still have not been released, but House Democrats have obtained approximately 20,000 pages of material from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate, including emails to and from him. Some of these emails concern Trump. What stands out about them?

Rick Rosner: What stands out in the handful of messages where Epstein discusses Trump is how harsh he is: he calls Trump “evil beyond belief,” says people underestimate “how dumb” he is, and treats him as someone who should never have held the presidency. In at least one email he claims Trump “knew about the girls.” That is Epstein’s allegation in private correspondence—not independently verified—but seeing it in Epstein’s own words is striking.

It is also telling that even someone regarded as a longtime social acquaintance of Trump describes him in such terms.

Because of the 43-day government shutdown and Trump’s behavior—such as hosting lavish parties at Mar-a-Lago while federal workers and people on SNAP rely on food banks—his approval rating has fallen to the lowest point of his second term. It has dipped from the mid-40s to the low 40s, with the Silver Bulletin polling average placing him around 41–42 percent. His support has historically been stable due to base loyalty, so any decline is meaningful.

Now that Congress is back in session, the House must vote on the Epstein Files Transparency Act because the discharge petition reached 218 signatures. That forces a vote on compelling the Justice Department to release its Epstein files—tens of thousands more documents, potentially including videos, internal reports, and additional communications. Whatever the fallout, it is hard to imagine how this benefits Trump.

Why does his approval rating matter? Because Republicans hold the House and Senate by razor-thin margins. If members begin distancing themselves from him—if some decide it is politically safer to stop rubber-stamping everything he wants—his ability to move legislation could collapse.

Even Lauren Boebert, normally one of his most loyal supporters, refused to bend. She was brought into a Situation Room meeting with Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel, who attempted to persuade her to withdraw her signature from the discharge petition. She refused. If Trump is losing people like Boebert, the loyalty structure he relies on is showing cracks. If Republicans lose just five votes in the House, they no longer have a reliable majority for Trump’s agenda.

They are not at that point yet, but if his approval slips below 40 percent, his legislative position could deteriorate quickly.

That still does not prevent him from issuing executive orders, which he does frequently. Agencies begin implementing them immediately, and while opponents challenge them in court, there is always a lag—sometimes weeks or months—between the order and the ruling. During that period, the orders take effect.

For example, his executive-driven rebranding of the Department of Defense as the “Department of War”—a change championed by Pete Hegseth—has an estimated $2 billion implementation cost due to the overhaul of signage, stationery, websites, and information systems. Congress did not vote for it; the bureaucracy is carrying it out.

Similarly, no congressional approval was required for the demolition of the White House East Wing, which has been replaced with a privately funded, 90,000-square-foot ballroom project estimated at roughly $300 million. Construction is underway. Even with a weakened Congress, Trump can continue implementing sweeping policy and symbolic changes through executive power and private financing.

What are they discussing at the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting in Niagara this week?

Jacobsen: Maritime security and Ukraine are the primary topics. Canada announced additional sanctions against the Russian Federation—thirteen entities and eleven individuals—under the Special Economic Measures (Russia) Regulations, which were first introduced in 2014.

On paper, this is what a rational foreign policy approach looks like: periodically increasing sanctions on entities or individuals linked—directly or indirectly—to the financing of Russia’s war effort. The goal is to put financial pressure on the war machine so the Russian Federation stops bombing Ukrainian civilians.

One example: I recently interviewed one of the commissioners on the UN Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine. In their November 3–6 reporting period, the commission examined evidence from the Dnipropetrovsk region, along the eastern bank of the Dnipro River. They documented systematic short-range drone attacks on civilians. In the commission’s assessment, these meet the legal definitions of war crimes and crimes against humanity due to the scale and systematic nature of the attacks.

Some of the newest Canadian sanctions specifically target drone-related technology. You can see the alignment between documented war crimes and the sanctions introduced on November 6. The regulations now list more than 3,300 sanctioned entities and individuals combined. None have been removed; the list only expands, and it expands in a systematic, evidence-driven way. It reads like the behavior of a rational actor on paper. That was one of the main items coming out of the meetings in the past few days.

Rosner: One of the ideas about the Ukraine war—which we are still in—is that it would deplete Russia. The war has been going on for almost four years now, correct?

Jacobsen: February 24, 2026 will mark four years since Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Rosner: So the notion was that the war would exhaust Russia’s military capacity. It is catastrophic for Ukraine, but not necessarily catastrophic for the rest of Europe because it diminishes Russia’s ability to wage war. That is probably true. But at the same time, it has pushed Russia to rely more heavily on China and other BRICS countries. Is the strategic assessment still that Russia is destroying itself while trying to destroy Ukraine?

Jacobsen: Russia’s war machine is under strain. Financially, they are in a difficult position. They have also developed what is commonly called the Russian “shadow fleet,” which is an unofficial fleet designed to evade sanctions by operating outside standard reporting systems.

Rosner: When you say “shadow fleet,” you mean unofficial vessels operating off the grid?

Jacobsen: Yes—unofficial, off the grid, and often older vessels. Once identified, they are named and sanctioned. Canada just sanctioned another hundred of them. The total is around four hundred or more vessels officially recognized as part of this shadow fleet.

Rosner: These are ships that Russia, for example, might use to sell oil to other countries and transport that oil abroad.

Jacobsen: The framing is right, but the probability is not “might”—they are doing it. And the sanctions apply to those vessels.

Rosner: When the ships are sanctioned, does that mean they can be seized or turned away? How does that work?

Jacobsen: Canada does not trade with them or with associated entities. As with World War II, democratic states often take time to coordinate, but when they do, they act collectively. Within the G7, they naturally run multiple processes in parallel. Canada’s sanctions package is part of a larger unified set of measures aimed at the Russian Federation. The goal is to choke off revenue streams and maintain a coordinated front, targeting specific industries that finance the war.

Rosner: You were part of the press pool for this G7 event. How large is that pool?

Jacobsen: Around 160 journalists registered. I was the first to physically register and get my tag, apparently too enthusiastic for my own good. The interesting detail—and a colleague offered a reasonable speculative explanation—is that roughly 140 were mainstream journalists and only about 20 were independent. That is a seven-to-one ratio. The speculation was that, because it is the G7, the majority will always be established outlets with institutional backing. Independent journalism is the hardest form of the profession, and independent war journalism especially so—I have done it, and it is largely funded out of pocket.

Rosner: Do you have badge number one?

Jacobsen: No, they are all pre-printed. And they are huge—much larger than a standard accreditation card. My Canadian Association of Journalists card is the size of a credit card. The G7 badge was two-and-a-half to three times that in surface area, bright yellow.

Rosner: Are the mainstream journalists all in their fifties and sixties, the classic hard-drinking, smoking types with martinis?

Jacobsen: They may very well certainly enjoy scotch and cigars, but no, that stereotype does not really apply.

Rosner: I mean the mainstream people, not you independent journalists.

Jacobsen: The mainstream journalists were an international mix—from Spain, Italy, Germany, Japan, and others. 

Rosner: Carole and I went to a media event last night. A real estate developer owns about an eighth of a mile of frontage along Ventura Boulevard here in Los Angeles and wants to build mixed-use retail and residential units—more than 800 apartments, which is a lot. So he invited the neighborhood to a presentation to butter us up so we do not freak out about the scale of the project.

The big news for us is that they fed us, and I walked out with eight chicken fingers. A chicken finger is a piece of white-meat chicken dipped in batter and fried, and they are fantastic. They are even reasonably healthy if you peel off the breading. But the price of chicken fingers has become absurd. They used to be a dollar per finger; now they are around $2.50. I walked out with eight, which is about twenty dollars’ worth. As far as I am concerned, he can build however many apartments he wants if I get my chicken.

He is also putting in 1,800 parking spaces. Parking is one of the biggest issues in Studio City. In the future we might have flying taxis and all the sci-fi stuff, but right now everything is cars.

Rosner: Anyway, that is so great that everything you are doing is working so frickin’ well for you.

Jacobsen: I am of the opinion that you never truly “make it.” You just have to keep the fire under you. I think the era of people treating IQ scores as a big status symbol in the United States is coming to an end.

Rosner: “The era of the United States is over?”

Jacobsen: No, the era of IQ as a cultural obsession in the United States is largely on the wane. A few somewhat prominent, questionable figures poison the well for everyone, for example, Keith Raniere and YoungHoon Kim. Raniere is, potentially, in jail for life now. In Kim’s case, I resigned from the United Sigma Intelligence Association and then expelled him from In-Sight Publishing’s Advisory Board years ago. He is the only person ever removed in the history of In-Sight Publishing.

Years later, he claimed the opposite for more than a year, probably now too, e.g., “I was expelled,” and then listing a series of non-reasons. Anything but the simple facts: I resigned; Kim was expelled from In-Sight Publishing. My immediate replacement as USIA Chief Editor was Dr. William Dembski, a leading figure in the Intelligent Design creationism movement. Kim required a significant amount of training on basic and intermediate things for months when I was Executive Director and Chief Editor, whether how to write emails to professionals or how to build an advisory board. I did not find Kim particularly intelligent. He found me ‘at least above 4-sigma intelligence.’ That history has repeated itself, for Kim, into the present for years. He was expelled from the Glia Society of Paul Cooijmans and from the Mega Society of Ronald Hoeflin, the Mega Foundation of of Dr. and Mr. Langan, and he has since publicly been expelled from the Lifeboat Foundation as well. It has been a series of ruptures. Each time, the pattern tends to be straightforward: He denies any wrongdoing, then attacks the credibility, motives, sanity, and morality of those raising concerns, then reverses victim and offender by reframing the harmed party as the aggressor and casting himself as a victim of persecution while deleting as much online evidence as possible of wrongdoing online. His religion and politics may or may not become part of the counter-accusations. He then maintains these narratives for months, even years.

People across the spectrum—Christians with conservative politics and atheists with liberal politics (as placeholders)—increasingly seem capable of basic critical evaluation of these types of figures in social media environments. Media and social media, for all the bullying from every side, have pushed people to focus more on what someone has actually accomplished. There is bullying from all sides, but people increasingly ask: What have you done, in concrete terms? What projects, publications, discoveries, or institutions exist in the world because of you? What are your qualifications—not just titles, but demonstrated competencies over time? Are those credentials genuinely relevant to the claims you are making, or are they decorative labels being stretched far beyond their proper domain? Where is the peer-reviewed work, the independent verification, the measurable impact, the repeatable result—the real-world application showing that these ideas survive contact with expert scrutiny and reality, rather than mere admiration in a social media echo chamber?

Rosner: If they want someone who has actually achieved something, they look at Terence Tao.

Jacobsen: Or Edward Witten.

Rosner: But Tao was tested young enough that his scores were on real norms, not fantasy numbers. The larger point is that IQ as a bragging point is kind of cooked.

Jacobsen: You get more value from using IQ tests to identify people who need support below the average range or who might need help in school. That was always the sound intuition behind these tests. At the very high end—above roughly 130 or 140—there are so few people that the norms get thin and the scores become less precise. Once you start talking about scores above, say, the mid-150s, most of those numbers are just statistical extrapolations and do not tell you much more than “this person is somewhat smart.”

Rosner: Twenty years ago, PR teams could float stories about Sharon Stone having a 150 IQ or Geena Davis having a 170 IQ, and people would just repeat it. Whether or not those numbers were ever verified, nobody would try that kind of IQ branding today with someone like Sydney Sweeney. IQ as a publicity hook has become grubby.

Jacobsen: It has. Why brag about something that, if the research is broadly correct, has a substantial genetic and epigenetic component? If a lot of it is inherited, why are you bragging about that, rather than something you achieved outside of accident of nature and parents? The people who still embrace it loudly often include race-pseudoscience-types-adjacent figures and that whole ecosystem.

The key point is this: racists will use any tool—IQ, genetics, whatever—to justify a hierarchy of persons. The test itself is not inherently racist. The way it is used and weaponized can be. Charles Murray is a bit more sophisticated about it because he frames it as, “Look at the scores, what can you do?” He leans into genetic determinism, but implicitly—an approach that makes the argument seem more polished than it is.

Rosner: Something else happened recently. The Epstein emails have been coming out, and some of the most notorious ones are between Epstein and Larry Summers, the former Harvard president and U.S. Treasury Secretary. Summers will not stop talking about women supposedly having lower IQs in these emails. As it turns out, the current research shows women score essentially the same as men, with some evidence women may score slightly higher in certain domains. Summers was trending on Twitter yesterday for acting like a jerk in those emails. People who barely remembered him now see him as “the guy saying dumb things about women in the Epstein files.”

Jacobsen: I do not think IQ is totally “cooked,” because it remains a clinical tool. A lot of the popular discussion is nonsense, but professional psychology and associated disciplines use IQ to identify people who need support. The tool’s intended purpose is social good. It is used in clinical contexts, in research trials, and in legal settings. If someone scores below a certain threshold, sentencing guidelines may change because of diminished capacity. The military uses cognitive testing as well. Those are pragmatic, fair uses—everyone gets the same assessment, and it is tied to concrete decisions.

The legitimate use is pragmatic. It is not there to justify some colonial fantasy about people in Africa needing “white overseers.” That entire line of thinking is racist pseudoscience. In places where testing was done, a lot of issues show up: nutrition, disease burden, education access—factors that affect cognitive development. On top of that, some earlier researchers, including Russian teams, were not thorough. They would test in one location, draw generalizations, and ignore entire regions because they could not get access.

For example, they could test in Nigeria but not in the Congo or Ghana. And IQ testing across Africa is deeply unreliable anyway because of language differences, translation problems, cultural context, and the mismatch between Western-developed tests and local realities.

The larger point is that intelligence testing can be useful in clinical or educational contexts, but once people start using it as a racial cudgel, the science evaporates and the ideology takes over.

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