Zoë Schiffer: Yeah, that was another executive order that came out. I think it was literally titled something about eliminating data silos. Another thing that sounds good on the surface: data silos, inefficient, sounds bad, but there is a very good reason to keep a lot of this information separate. You don't necessarily want the federal government to be able to piece that all together to track you on every platform to know your financial data, your health data, your whereabouts, all of that.
Brian Barrett: Yes. I mean, the Trump administration now wants to do five years of social media screening when you come into the country just to see what you said. And they also want to deprive more foreign-born Americans of their citizenship. They are on the road to denaturalization. The predictions for 2026 and immigration are not great. It's that it's going to keep getting worse. Or let's say if you were an engineer born in another country and you had the choice of going to the US, Canada, China or somewhere else in Europe, the question is much harder to answer now than it was before all this happened, I think.
Zoë Schiffer: Yes, I think that's exactly right. And I think we'll have very good reporting on that in 2026. So we're nearing the end of our 2025 recap, and we'd be remiss not to mention the Jeffrey Epstein saga. So this is a story that has touched so many lives for many, many years, but it felt like it really came to a boiling point politically this year. So Brian, I guess, can you refresh our memory on what happened this year?
Brian Barrett: I get the easy task. Without getting into the whole Jeffrey Epstein, all for so many reasons. Clearly, he is a disgraced financier, a convicted sex offender, and also the source of so many conspiracy theories, from QAnon to the White House and its supporters. What we saw this year was a real movement toward releasing the so-called Epstein files, which Donald Trump essentially ran on. He said, “Look, when I get into that office, I'm going to release the Epstein files. You'll have them in order as soon as I get there.” And then we got to that point and he got there and said, “You know what? Never mind.” And there were people who said there are no Epstein files. Actually, the Epstein files are a hoax. No, they're here. It's been a mess.
