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This was one of those special shows I LOVE doing. You know the ones, where the chemistry just clicks like JD Vance’s heels when he goose steps. I had a blast digging into the news with David Shuster, per usual, and the brilliant, funny, charismatic trial-lawyer-turned-MSNBC-host-turned-independent-media sensation, Katie Phang.
Katie, unsurprisingly, was on her game from the jump.
Our conversation moved fast, covered a lot of ground, and it sure as hell never lost its edge—exactly what happens when you put legal expertise, political savvy and truth-telling—i.e. some folks who aren’t afraid to call bullshit when they see it—together.
We spent the bulk of Amped Up digging into the latest releases connected to the Epstein files, not chasing conspiracy—which the Trump Administration may have killed as it’s seemingly brought most of them to life—but focusing on accountability, transparency, and a disturbing pattern of institutional failure that surrounds them.
Katie brought precision, legal clarity, and a refusal to let process be used as a shield against responsibility. She was careful, factual, and unflinching about what the law requires—and what the Department of Justice is currently failing to deliver. Yet she was able to fit this in between humor, even cursing more than me (!), and just a really great conversation in general.
What caught my attention in what Katie shared wasn’t just what’s in the documents, but how they’ve been released. Rolling disclosures. Sloppy redactions. No clear explanations.
In other words, par for the course with the clown car that just won’t empty [ [link removed] ]. This group of no-nothing numskulls are every bit as amateur when they try to hide their alleged crimes as they are when they commit them.
Katie broke down why that matters legally, not just politically, which was key to our show, as David and I are most certainly not lawyers. When agencies ignore statutory timelines or redact information without justification, it isn’t just a case of bad optics—it undermines public trust and re-traumatizes survivors who were promised transparency.
David added crucial perspective from his years as an anchor inside cable media as it was transforming from mainstream media into the current corporate monstrosity, and I added perspective from my years as an on-air analyst on a number of stations.
We talked honestly about how stories get softened, delayed, or quietly sidelined—and why independent media is often where the real accountability work happens now [ [link removed] ]. That wasn’t a knock on journalism as a craft. It was a sober assessment of how institutional pressure shapes what the public ultimately sees.
We also zoomed out. This wasn’t just about Epstein. It was about due process, separation of powers, and the dangerous normalization of executive overreach. Katie was very clear that defending due process does not mean defending criminals, as Republican mouth-breathing partisans like to growl.
It means defending the Constitution. When that principle gets twisted into a partisan talking point, we’re already in deep trouble [ [link removed] ].
Toward the end of the show, we talked about media itself. After briefly going into the tragedy of 60 Minutes, with Bari Weiss, the new “editor” at CBS News making it Trump TV. One of her first acts? Suppressing a segment on how without due process we sent innocent men to a torture prison (CECOT) in El Salvador. It is horrific, and it was predicted [ [link removed] ].
Katie then talked more about the media in general, including why she left MSNBC, what she misses, and what she’s gained in her life by building something independent where she can live her values. She was honest about the tradeoff of leaving security behind to speak more freely.
Luckily for us, she made the choice she did, because her authentic voice right now is exactly what the moment demands.
This was a serious conversation grounded in the simple concept of right vs wrong. Not left vs right. Accountability vs impunity. Transparency vs obfuscation. And damn it, we made some jokes and had a helluva time while doing it. That’s what I call time well spent.
And that’s why this episode matters—and why I’m grateful to Katie Phang for bringing her expertise, her integrity, and her clarity to Amped Up this holiday season.
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