Episode Details

Zev Shalev opened Monday’s Fivestack holding a letter from the First Lady’s lawyer. He closed the hour describing two wars fusing into one. In between, Dean Blundell and Zev traced a single thread through five stories: the men named in the Epstein files are the men running the lawfare, the cover-up, and the war.

The letter

Melania Trump’s attorney, Alejandro Brito of Brito PLLC in Coral Gables, Florida, demands that Zev and journalist Amanda Ongaro “immediately retract the false, malicious, and defamatory statements” in their report “Special Report: The First Lady Spy Scandal” — and compensate the First Lady for “overwhelming financial and reputational harm.” No suit has been filed. Zev read the letter on air and declined every demand. “I don’t even know how to retract it, because it’s just accurate reporting,” he said. The report never called her a spy; it documented the newly released emails around Paolo Zampolli, the man who ran what looks like a Russian linked influence operation inside the United Nations — and it asked what the First Lady’s unprompted denial was for. “This is just an intimidation tactic,” Zev said. Dean, who has beaten suits like this before, named the species: “These are called SLAPP suits… make Zev poor, make Zev quiet. That is what these letters are for.”

Zev stands by his reporting.

5️⃣ Barron and the Tates

A federal judge in Miami took up the Tate brothers’ extradition Monday, and Rep. Ansari wants Barron Trump under oath about political interference in it — before the end of the year, Dean reported. His reporting puts the president’s son at the center of the manosphere’s money: $150 million in crypto this year, a video call with Andrew Tate that a Tate associate sat in on, and leaked texts showing the brothers telling associates to call Barron Trump — to get their phones back from the State Department, to protect them in the United States. The phones came back.

4️⃣ Netanyahu picks a fight with New York

Benjamin Netanyahu heads to his eighth meeting with Donald Trump while calling New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani a man “fomenting hate” — because Mamdani said the feds should arrest him on the ICC warrant. That warrant lost its prosecutor Friday: 125 member states voted Karim Khan out on sexual misconduct allegations, after a pressure campaign Israeli officials ran openly. Khan denies the allegations and is fighting the removal. Remove the prosecutor, mock the warrant, walk free.

3️⃣ The email inside the DOJ

The Narativ exclusive the whole hour bent around: at 7:49 AM on July 24, 2025 — the morning Todd Blanche interviewed Ghislaine Maxwell — one DOJ official asked another for “a sentence or two… [on] the salacious statements made against the individuals in the file.” The 9:53 AM reply catalogued allegations against Trump, Weinstein, Prince Andrew, Dershowitz, Clinton, Wexner, Lutnick and more — and closed with eleven words about the man who used to run the Department: “William Barr, for being present when a girl was raped.” At 10:12 AM, Maxwell started answering Blanche’s questions. Over two days he asked her about every name on the list except Howard Lutnick. On Barr, she answered “no,” then “I don’t recall.” Weeks later the Bureau of Prisons moved her to a minimum-security camp in Texas. The senders’ names are redacted; the entries are allegations logged inside the DOJ, not findings — and that is the point. “It’s a cover-up of a cover-up of a cover-up,” Zev said. His full Barr investigation posted Monday at narativ.org, alongside the estate story: executors have paid out roughly $500 million at their own discretion, Karyna Shuliak stands to collect as much as $100 million, and Maria Farmer — the federal witness — got next to nothing.

2️⃣ + 1️⃣ The dead, restored — and two wars becoming one

Zev merged the top two on air because they are one story. The Pentagon moved four dead and some 200 wounded into a new “Overseas Operations” cate