The Free Press

The most salacious Winter Olympics drama of the week was, for me, an emotional roller coaster. A high-speed journey from dismay to horror to nauseated recognition, culminating in a sense of having fallen out of space and time as déjà vu collided with clairvoyance. The thing that was happening had happened before; it would happen again, and again.

I am referring, of course, to the incident wherein American Olympic skier Hunter Hess said he had “mixed emotions” about certain U.S. domestic policies, and President Donald Trump called Hess a “real loser” who “shouldn’t have tried out for the team, and it’s too bad he’s on it.”

On January 30, 2026, the Department of Justice released more than three million files related to Jeffrey Epstein. And buried within that are roughly 2,000 previously unpublished videos. But while they’re technically public, they are stored in a way that makes them very hard to find or browse.

To watch these videos, the public has two choices: download h…

On January 30, 2026, the Department of Justice released hundreds of gigabytes of material related to Jeffrey Epstein—and in the days since, much of the focus has been on the cascade of previously unpublished emails. But buried within the data dump were some 2,000 videos that had never been released.

While they are technically public, in practice, these videos are very difficult to access. There is no master index listing all the files in one place, no way to browse the archive, and no ability to search by file type. That’s why, unlike the emails in this release, the videos have not been pored over and shared widely. The DOJ does provide file lists for each data set, but it disables automated crawling or link extraction, leaving the public with two options: Download hundreds of gigabytes of material, or click through hundreds of web pages, one by one.

I did both.

Taken together, the videos paint the most vivid picture yet of Epstein’s dark world.

The material released was divided into 12 batches, or “data sets.” Roughly 400 videos live in a folder called Data Set 8, which contains prison closed-circuit television footage, including hallway cameras and angles from inside Epstein’s cell. But the vast majority of the videos—and by far the most revealing ones—are in Data Set 10. These are videos seized from Epstein’s devices: footage he recorded himself, received from others, or downloaded from the internet.

Individually, most of these videos tell us little we didn’t already know; but taken together, they paint the most vivid picture yet of Epstein’s dark world: his lavish lifestyle and twisted worldview, his mannerisms and quirks, his sense of humor—and sense of impunity. The videos are heavily redacted, to protect the privacy of Epstein’s victims. In some clips, these redactions mask explicit content. In others, they lend an air of criminality to otherwise innocuous-seeming footage.

It is because of that impression left by the videos, as well as the difficulty of accessing the files, that we’ve decided to publish all 14 hours of the footage contained in Data Set 10. We’ve excluded only obvious duplicates, audio-only files, and fully redacted videos that contain neither sound nor image. You can watch them yourself, although viewer discretion is advised. The footage contains clips with toddlers, a lot of (redacted) porn, eerie footage from Epstein’s private islands, and scenes from inside his office, where young women dance for him with a paternity test visible on the corner of the desk. There’s also a nearly two-hour interview conducted by Steve Bannon.

If you’d rather not watch for yourself, here’s what stood out to me.

On January 30, 2026, the Department of Justice released more than three million pages of material related to Jeffrey Epstein. But very few of the more than 2,000 video files included in the release have been seen by the public, because they are stored in a way that makes them very hard to find or browse.

The Free Press wanted to make this archive more easily viewable for the public, so viewers can understand this story for themselves. We downloaded the most important set of video files: Data Set 10, which contains the majority of the video files in the release.

We are publishing the entirety of the 14 hours of footage, excluding only obvious duplicates.

These are “The Epstein Tapes, Part 2” of two parts.

Viewer discretion is advised.

On January 30, 2026, the Department of Justice released more than three million pages of material related to Jeffrey Epstein. But very few of the more than 2,000 video files included in the release have been seen by the public, because they are stored in a way that makes them very hard to find or browse.

The Free Press wanted to make this archive more easily viewable for the public, so viewers can understand this story for themselves. We downloaded the most important set of video files: Data Set 10, which contains the majority of the video files in the release.

We are publishing the entirety of the 14 hours of footage, excluding only obvious duplicates.

These are “The Epstein Tapes, Part 1” of two parts.

Viewer discretion is advised.

Lately I’ve been talking to people who have changed their minds—people who’ve left ideological movements or seriously questioned worldviews they once held.

Today I’m joined by Richard Hanania. He’s a writer and political commentator, a columnist for UnHerd, and the author of a Substack focused on foreign policy, American politics, and social science.

But …

I first met the novelist Gregg Hurwitz in 2019, when I profiled him and two of his Hollywood writer compatriots for Vanity Fair.

Today, the eleventh novel in Gregg’s Orphan X series—about former super-assassin Evan Smoak—is being published. The novel, Antihero, touches on many themes we regularly report on here at The Free Press: digital culture, the pli…

Welcome back to This Week in Canada, where the door is open to electric vehicles from China, submarines are an industrial bargaining chip, and Donald Trump is changing a former prime minister’s tune. Let’s jump right into it!

Canada is still talking about Mark Carney’s trip to Beijing last month, where the prime minister showed how Canada is preparing for a world where its economic future can’t rest on the United States alone. Closer ties with China are part of that strategy, even though that might be uncomfortable at times.

The initial moves include allowing the import of a limited number of Chinese-made electric vehicles and the elimination of tariffs on Canadian canola, which will boost one of our most important export industries. It was no surprise that President Donald Trump called the agreement “a disaster” that will “go down as one of the worst deals, of any kind, in history.” His words also showed that the Trump administration now views Canada’s friendlier trade posture toward China as part of America’s broader economic confrontation with Beijing.

It’s Tuesday, February 10. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Dr. Mark Hyman takes on the corporate interests making America unhealthy. Natan Sharansky examines the moral cost of Jimmy Lai’s prison sentence. Gabe Kaminsky investigates a suspicious dark money donation linked to Kamala Harris.

But first: River Page heads to Florida to meet a very online candidate for governor.

To his critics, Florida gubernatorial candidate James Fishback is a con man, an antisemite, a racist, a brain-rotted Groyper, and perhaps most damningly of all for the office he seeks, a legal resident of Washington, D.C.

Despite all of this, plus a litany of legal and financial troubles, the 31-year-old Republican and former financial analyst has built a remarkable, cult-like following on social media where he feuds with OnlyFans models, calls his black primary opponent a “slave,” defends followers of Nick Fuentes, and pledges that when he is governor he will not let “jesters” and “foids” (women) “spike our collective cortisol.”

When I interviewed Fishback at a campaign event in Coral Gables recently, I found a group of around 200 adoring spectators waiting for him, mostly young men—a sizable crowd given that the event was at a brewery and had been announced only a few days earlier. I also found a candidate with a unique smorgasbord of politics: a mix of quasi-leftist anti-corporate messaging about affordability, revanchist culture warring, and many, many criticisms of Israel—all of which are striking a chord with disaffected and increasingly radicalized young men.

Fishback probably won’t win—he might not even make it on the ballot for reasons I describe in my article. But the candidate who can’t stop shitposting isn’t a joke. His ideas and the boys who love them might be the future of the party, whether people like it or not.

—River Page

And for more on how America became so unhealthy, watch Dr. Hyman’s interview with Rafaela Siewert. They discuss everything from how our food supply chain has been warped by special interests to the biggest questions in health today: Ozempic, biohacking trends, RFK Jr.’s new food pyramid, and how to live your healthiest life:

• New York City nurses struck a deal yesterday with some hospitals to end a strike that involved 15,000 healthcare workers, according to the nurses’ union. If the union approves the deal, which includes raises of about 12 percent over three years, the striking nurses will return to work within three days.

• The social media app Discord announced yesterday that it will begin requiring age verification on its platform, including a face scan, starting next month. The platform has drawn controversy for allegedly enabling mass shooters and failing to take down content published by foreign terrorist organizations.

• Ghislaine Maxwell, longtime partner of Jeffrey Epstein, remained mum during her virtual deposition yesterday before the House Oversight Committee, where she invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in response to every question. Former president Bill Clinton and his wife, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, will appear before the committee on February 26 and 27 as part of the panel’s investigation into Epstein’s criminal activities.

• San Francisco public schools were closed yesterday for nearly 50,000 students as teachers went on strike for the first time since 1979. The educators are demanding a 9 percent raise over two years, more affordable healthcare, and smaller classroom sizes, which the school district says it cannot afford.

• Some 40 percent of immigrants arrested by ICE over the past year had no criminal charges or convictions, according to an internal Department of Homeland Security document obtained by CBS News. Of the 60 percent who had been charged with a crime, only around 14 percent had a violent criminal record. Statistics from the document also showed that 2 percent of ICE arrests in the same time period involved people with alleged gang affiliations.

• A high-profile social media addiction trial began yesterday in California state court, testing whether YouTube and Instagram can be held responsible for causing depression and suicidal ideation. The plaintiff, a 20-year-old woman identified by her initials KGM, alleges the apps addicted her at a young age and contributed to severe mental anguish.

• OpenAI will begin testing ads in ChatGPT for users in the free and “Go” tiers of the service, the company announced yesterday. The AI giant said its ads will be “visually separated” from the chatbot’s answers and “optimized based on what’s most helpful to you.”

• Actress Catherine O’Hara died of a pulmonary embolism and had been living with rectal cancer for months, according to her death certificate, which TMZ published yesterday. O’Hara, who was known for starring roles in Home Alone, Beetlejuice, and Schitt’s Creek, died last month at age 71.

The Free Press earns a commission from any purchases made through all book links in this article.

Americans are unhealthier than ever. Life expectancy is falling. Chronic disease is rising. And despite spending more on healthcare than any other nation on Earth, Americans are getting sicker, not healthier.

This disconnect has fueled a growing mistrust of the medical establishment—out of which has emerged the Make America Healthy Again movement (MAHA), led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime critic of conventional public health wisdom. While some MAHA policies are controversial, few dispute the source of their appeal: Many parents no longer trust that the experts are acting in their children’s best interests.

Enter family physician and New York Times best-selling author Mark Hyman. His new book, Food Fix Uncensored, released today, argues that government malpractice and powerful corporate interests have rigged the medical and health systems against us. Watch Dr. Hyman’s interview with The Free Press’s Rafaela Siewert here. And read on for an exclusive excerpt from the book, in which Dr. Hyman takes aim at one of the primary culprits: the food industry. Big Food, he argues, is killing our children. And it won’t stop unless we stop it.
—The Editors

Kids today are fatter than ever.

Obesity rates in children have nearly quadrupled since the 1970s. Thirty-six percent are overweight or obese. One in four teenagers now has type 2 diabetes or prediabetes—a condition we used to call “adult-onset diabetes.”

Most of us know that the problem exists, and the Make America Healthy Again movement has made alleviating it one of its main goals. But why has it happened in the first place? The answer is tied to the powerful Big Food lobby—a collection of corporations that subjugate children’s health to the endless pursuit of profit—and to our political leaders who appease it.