Smart People Fall For The Cult Of Trump With Journalist Virginia Heffernan

About this episode

Virginia Heffernan discusses the surprising individuals drawn into the Trump cult and her experiences with the Epstein-sponsored group Edge.

From Richard Dawkins to Larry Summers, brilliant minds get pulled in. I sat down with the journalist Virginia Heffernan for a recent conversation on Cults, Culture & Coercion to talk about who falls for the Trump cult and why. Virginia spent time inside a group of academics and intellectuals sponsored by Jeffrey Epstein, called Edge, run by literary agent John Brockman. She wrote about involvement in the Epstein cult for The New Republic. She told me she was fortunately kept at arm’s length from the worst of it. “I was only there as a fig leaf because they didn't have any women,” she said. “They didn't want me at the parties or on the island.” She watched the dynamics around her. Edge included Larry Summers, former Treasury Secretary and Harvard president. The Epstein correspondence released by the House Oversight Committee in November 2025 documents a years-long stream of personal advice Summers sought from a convicted sex offender. In the messages, Summers asked Epstein for guidance on his pursuit of a younger woman he described as a mentee. Epstein called himself Summers' wing man and urged Summers to play the long game by keeping the woman in a forced holding pattern (Harvard…

People in this episode

Host: Dr. Steve Hassan

Guest: Virginia Heffernan

Topics covered

• cult dynamics
• Trump cult
• intellectuals
• Epstein
• media analysis

Keywords

• Trump cult
• Virginia Heffernan
• Epstein
• Larry Summers
• intellectuals
• cults

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: The New Republic, Harvard, Magic and Loss Substack, Omni Shambles podcast

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