☕️ DRACULA’S BRIDES ☙ Tuesday, August 5, 2025 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

Is Trump reading Coffee & Covid? You decide; Trump shakes down the globe for America; Epstein leaks turn grotesque; Woody Allen resurfaces; and a Florida grand jury may be nearing RussiaGate indictmen

Good morning, C&C, it’s Tuesday! In today’s eye-popping roundup: Is Trump reading Coffee & Covid, too? You decide; Trump shakes down the entire world for America’s benefit; the Epstein case breaks badder with mysterious leaks of Epstein’s home furnishings, salacious new details, and a horrifying Woody Allen letter; the honeypot gets stickier; and RussiaGate is starting to grip, as multiple sources confirm a grand jury is working on indictments in Florida.

🪖 C&C ARMY POST 🪖

Yesterday’s C&C post immediately presented a mystery. It included a well-received segment contrasting Sydney Sweeney and American Eagle with Jaguar and Bud Light, reported Jaguar’s CEO resignation, and mocked the carmaker’s crazy, neon-lit tranny ad campaign. Then I tied it all into a sweeping, post-pandemic conclusion—exposing Democrat hypocrisy, praising Republicans for defending workers’ rights and bodily autonomy, and framing COVID as the cultural atom bomb that shattered the traditional left-right axis and flipped the national mood.

That post went live at 9:19 a.m. Eastern Standard.

Then, just over an hour later, President Trump posted this on Truth Social:

At first, I wasn’t going to comment. But I carefully considered my next remarks, and here they are:

Within an hour of each other, President Trump and I reported the same story, with the same facts, in nearly the same order, with the same narrative conclusion. The only real difference was that Trump swapped out covid for Taylor Swift— which, to be fair, is a heavier lift for a short post.

To be clear: I am not suggesting President Trump read Coffee & Covid and banged out a tighter, caps-locked version. Haha, that’s too much influence to hope for, and I’m not that delusional.

But at a minimum, it still shows something powerful. It shows we —you and I— are tracking the same story arc at the same time as the White House.

Whether influence or just convergence, it’s a massively encouraging sign. Maybe we’ve tapped into the Oval Office’s narrative stream. Maybe we’re just ahead of the curve. Maybe both. Either way, after five years of daily toil in the trenches, the C&C Army marches onward.

Anyway, I thought it was cool, and that you’d like to know. What do you think? Let me know in the comments.

🌍 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🌍

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Today’s first story is a banger. Corporate media can barely keep up with its own narratives. Yesterday, the New York Times ran a sneering story headlined, “Trump’s Demand to Trading Partners: Pledge Money or Get Higher Tariffs.” The sub-headline explained, “President Trump is using an ‘Art of the Deal’ approach to get other nations to hand over cash to lower their tariffs.”

“This is no doubt a global shakedown of sorts,” said Scott Lincicome, the vice president of general economics at the Cato Institute. “The fact is that Trump is using U.S. tariff policy to effectively force these terms upon less-than-willing participants.”

A global shakedown. Once again, we see the C&C analysis echoed (belatedly) in the media. Last week we marveled at Trump’s historic global trade war, a massive battle against countries and entrenched interests that no U.S. president has ever tried to tackle. Now the Times is quoting think tankers opining about Trump’s global shakedown— albeit without mentioning its historic nature.

“Mr. Trump’s tactics show no signs of abating,” the Times said, “as he regularly claims more than $10 trillion — and climbing — in investments from foreign companies and countries.” That’s $10 trillion in his first six months. The Times didn’t dispute that figure.

We got a hint about the President’s negotiating tactics when he recently mentioned South Korea. “South Korea is right now at a 25% Tariff, but they have an offer to buy down those Tariffs,” Trump posted on social media last week. “I will be interested in hearing what that offer is.”

In other words, and this was what most offended the Grey Lady’s delicate sensibilities, Trump appears to be saying you want a lower rate? You can buy it down by investing in the U.S.

It’s driving corporate media crazy. A sudden $10 trillion in foreign investment —even if partly smoke and mirrors— would be economically volcanic. If even half of it materializes, it would represent a re-industrialization shockwave unlike anything since WWII. We’ll be looking at an explosion in new construction, a hiring frenzy and tight job market, a renaissance in manufacturing, a permanent realignment in global supply chains, and the dollar will go through a 90-day boot camp training regime.

Even if only $1–3 trillion is real over 3–5 years, it would still be larger than the entire post-2008 stimulus, and more productive than Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. And paid for by other countries, not American taxpayers.

What the Times described, however skeptically, is the most effective foreign investment strategy the U.S. has seen in decades, or probably ever. And Trump has done it by himself. No international bodies, no G7 summits, no WTO trade teams, no elite economic conferences have ever extracted this kind of global capital commitment.

People, this is off the charts historic. The closest historical comparison could be Europe’s post-World War II reconstruction, which represented American dollars flowing out to other countries. Apart from that, history shrugs and dolefully shakes its head.

Even more exciting, we can rationally expect the large new investments to cluster in friendly red states, where permitting, taxes, and politics are all aligned. The anti-growth blue states, meanwhile, are likely to watch from the sidelines— hobbled by climate compliance mandates, union entanglements, bureaucratic bloat, and the irresistible compulsion to slap ESG strings on every shovelful of dirt. Their progressive priorities make them nearly uninvestable in any reasonable timeframe.

One imagines the Trump Administration is already coordinating behind the scenes with friendly governors like DeSantis in Florida and Abbott in Texas. If not, they should be. Hint, hint.

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Holy chandeliers of shame, Batman. I predict a brand new social media wildfire today, arising from the New York Times’ top-of-page story this morning, headlined, “New Photos of Jeffrey Epstein’s Manhattan Townhouse.” (Note: I pasted it as a gift link, so you might get past the paywall.) It was the largest Epstein disclosure since 2019, and it included more pictures than we have ever seen. Get ready. Remember— the last development was Ghislaine Maxwell’s chatty Kathy interview and her relocation to Club Fed.

That, my friends, is a photo of the artwork decorating the entry of Epstein’s Manhattan home, where he lived next door to Woody Allen, and where he met with loads of elites, celebrities, world leaders, and girls aged 14-17. The “sculpture,” if you can call it that, was called simply, “the bride.”

That wasn’t the weirdest part. “Dozens of framed prosthetic eyeballs lined the entryway,” the Times drily reported. (But no pictures of the eyeballs, which is weirdly ironic, almost as weird as the frame prosthetics themselves.) It was a twisted joke. You are always being watched.

The article included picture after picture identifying the locations of hidden cameras in various rooms. Here’s one example, from Epstein’s master bedroom:

Epstein’s place was decorated with pictures of himself with various public figures. Presumably, this was to psychologically reinforce his power and influence for new visitors. Each new visitor (or victim) became another pictorial trophy added to Epstein’s collection. Here’s one example of many:

The Times used a helpful multi-media infographic technique to aid readers in identifying the people in the various pictures. Here’s a framed dollar bill, signed by Bill Gates, saying “I was wrong:”

The collection of framed snapshots included never-before-seen (or rarely published) images of the serial rapist with people like: Pope John Paul II, Elon Musk, Fidel Castro, Larry Summers, Bill Clinton, Richard Branson, Mohammed Bin Salman, and Mick Jagger.

One of the most damning disclosures was the article’s report of a signed first-edition copy of Nabokov’s pedophile novel Lolita, preserved in a pristine condition on a wooden sideboard in Epstein’s office. (Also not pictured.)

One of the most remarkable disclosures wasn’t a photo from Epstein’s townhouse at all, but a letter from Epstein’s Birthday Book, written by his next door neighbor, Woody Allen. Here it is in full:

The most bizarre and darkly troubling element from Allen’s letter was its comparison of Epstein’s luxury townhouse to Castle Dracula: “well served by several young women remding (sic) one of Castle Dracula where Lugosi has three young female vampires who service the place.”

It was a strange compliment. The reference evokes unwholesome images of a dangerous, malevolent host (Dracula), morally ambiguous attendants (Dracula’s “brides”—see entryway sculpture), and an ambience of choreographed submission and control. Essentially, Allen was saying “This place feels like it’s run by a monster who keeps beautiful women in a trance.”

Let us not forget— Woody Allen should know. Not only was he right there, but the director had a long, controversial history involving inappropriate relationships, including with women decades younger, and in one notorious case, his own legally adopted stepdaughter. Allen’s public persona is built around neurotic self-awareness— the kind of man who always knows the subtext and wants you to know he knows it too.

(Note: The Times brought up Trump’s alleged “naked woman” doodle, but —to avoid liability— also mentioned Trump has denied it, and has sued the Wall Street Journal for defamation. No Trump letter appeared in the article.)

Now that you have an idea how sensational the imagery was, let’s dismantle the story.

🔥 Consider this: in a story about never-before-seen photos from the inside of a federal crime scene, with high-resolution images of one of the most politically and culturally explosive narratives going, the Times never once said where the photos came from.

They didn’t say, “obtained through court records,” “forwarded by a source close to the investigation,” or “provided by an official under condition of anonymity.” They didn’t say anything about the source of the new images. Nada. Bupkis.

Nor did the article explain why the photos were being released now. Or where they’ve been since 2019. Or why nobody’s seen them before. Journalistically speaking, the absence of sourcing and timing is highly irregular, to say the least.

So that was the first revealing omission. But there’s more.

Next, the Times pointed out the cameras, the bedrooms, the massage rooms, the cascades of elite visitors, and the network of “young female assistants”— but never once directly connected those dots to the most obvious, long-standing suspicion surrounding Epstein: That the townhouse was a surveillance trap, designed to record blackmail material on the world’s most powerful men.

They stopped, inches from the edge of the narrative cliff, and then just wandered away. They didn’t find a community college “expert” to quote or even generally reference speculation about Epstein’s house being a kompromat factory.

It’s not like the article was afraid to ask hard questions. But it limited them to one short paragraph:

Finally, and the biggest admission of all: the Times pointed at but never mentioned all the potential witnesses. The article described dozens or hundreds of staff and visitors, but never speculated about their value to an investigation. It pointed out all the cameras, but never mused about who installed and maintained them. Or where the videos went.

The Times showed us the cameras. They showed us the rooms. They showed us the guests. But they never asked the only questions that matter: If the house was wired —and it clearly was— then where are the recordings? Where are the hard drives? Who had access? Who took custody? Where are they now?

Related: A fulsome 2019 Times story openly discussed a blackmail operation, but said no cameras were found in Epstein’s lair (now contradicted by yesterday’s story). But the entire long article, quoting multiple witnesses including Epstein himself (“we keep everything”), acted like it was settled that the video archive was real and existed.

Which brings us right back around to the beginning of the controversy. To the honeypot.

🔥 Pam Bondi essentially said the videos were missing. Here’s why I assume that: Pam did say that all the FBI has now are thousands of hours of disgusting child porn downloaded from the Internet. That obviously isn’t the Epstein surveillance video. In other words, somebody took the video and left behind a revolting “F-U” for Trump’s DOJ to find.

President Trump called it a DEMOCRAT SCAM. In all caps.

Specifically, Bondi said: “The videos of children — we are told — was just child pornography that Epstein downloaded off the internet.” We. Are. Told. Told by whom?? By Biden’s FBI agents from SDNY who held the Epstein file? Those three words are the key that unlocks where we are now.

In hindsight, when Bondi said “we are told,” it now seems clear that she was signaling. It’s like saying “allegedly.” She was telling us, “I don’t believe it,” without saying, “I don’t believe it.” She’s the Attorney General— she can’t start wildly accusing FBI agents of orchestrating a cover-up without evidence. And they know it. That would just make her look deranged and non-credible.

Combined with these new unsourced Times disclosures, it looks even more like the Epstein evidence was manipulated by Democrats between 2021-2024, to create a new RussiaGate-style scandal-on-demand, this one engineered to derail Trump 2.0, smear his allies, and demoralize MAGA.

Let me know if we need to recap the honeypot theory. I’ll be happy to round it up again, since the Democrats are feverishly trying to gin up a scandal to destroy everything good. Again.

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Yesterday, CNN ran a massively encouraging story headlined, “Attorney General Bondi orders prosecutors to start grand jury probe into Obama officials over Russia investigation.”. Also yesterday, John Solomon’s Just the News ran a similar breaking story headlined, “Bondi orders evidence sent to grand jury for Russia collusion hoax.”

CLIP: JTN’s John Solomon says DOJ will empanel grand jury in Florida to begin RussiaGate indictments (0:34).

According to Just The News, “multiple sources” have said Attorney General Pam Bondi has now ordered evidence from the Russia collusion hoax to be sent to a federal grand jury, “probably” in Florida. Where the Mar-a-Lago raid occurred. CNN said, “a source familiar with the matter” had told them.

When the Department of Justice sends evidence to a grand jury, it’s not for show—it’s a formal step toward criminal charges. Grand juries aren’t investigative committees or cable news panels. They’re made up of everyday citizens who review evidence in secret and decide whether there’s enough to indict. And they almost always do, leading to that old saw about ham sandwiches.

The grand jury standard is low. It doesn’t require proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt; it’s just “probable cause.” So when Bondi sends the RussiaGate evidence to a grand jury, it’s a sign that indictments are not just possible. They are likely. If true, this isn’t just a narrative-management exercise anymore. It’s a real legal proceeding with bloodstained claws.

Indictments precede arrests and prosecution. Once a grand jury returns an indictment, the DOJ typically issues a warrant, and unless the charges are sealed for tactical reasons, the next step is an arrest. In federal cases, this process is usually swift and serious: U.S. Marshals or federal agents either pick the person up or notify them to surrender. An indictment means the government believes it can prove its case in court, and it isn’t just sending a message—it’s preparing to put someone in handcuffs.

Grand juries are sequestered and conducted in secret. It’s entirely possible that this grand jury is already empaneled and hearing evidence, and we wouldn’t know it. If Bondi’s team is leaking about the existence of the grand jury, then it seems more likely the grand jury was empaneled weeks or months ago, quietly receiving documents, hearing testimony, and is getting ready to hand down charges.

It’s worth repeating: you don’t leak the existence of a grand jury unless you’re nearly finished. First, because it alerts the enemy. The moment a grand jury becomes public knowledge, anyone with something to lose starts looking for the jurors, to influence, intimidate, or discredit them. Second, because if the grand jury hears your case and refuses to indict, you look like a moron. In other words, you look both politically motivated and legally incompetent.

Prosecutors never voluntarily take that risk unless they’re confident in what’s coming next. Assuming the leaks came from Bondi’s DOJ —and that seems almost self-evident— they know what they’re doing.

In other words, based on what we can already see —the disclosures, the criminal referrals, the grand jury order, the sudden public confirmation— we could be getting very close to high-profile arrests. Possibly within days. And based on the rapid acceleration of events over the past two weeks, it could conceivably happen this week.

The Hunt for Red August appears to be underway.

Have a terrific Tuesday! A whole new roundup of essential news and commentary awaits you again tomorrow morning, right here at Coffee & Covid.

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