Shane Gillis' Full ESPYS Monologue: Watch Video and Transcript
Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content.
Shane Gillis hosted the 2025 ESPY Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Wednesday and touched on several hot topics in his opening monologue, including President Donald Trump, the Epstein files and Joe Rogan.
"Donald Trump wants to stage a UFC fight on the White House lawn. The last time he staged a fight in D.C., Mike Pence almost died...," the comedian, 37, said, which sparked laughs from Olympic gymnast Simone Biles.
Shane Gillis: "Donald Trump wants to stage a UFC fight on the White House lawn. The last time he staged a fight in D.C., Mike Pence almost died... Actually, there was supposed to be an Epstein joke here, but I guess it got deleted..." #ESPYspic.twitter.com/lneVij5IDY — Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) July 17, 2025
He added: "Actually, there was supposed to be an Epstein joke here, but I guess it got deleted..."
This is a breaking story and will be updated.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
27 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump's latest demand: Washington football and Cleveland baseball teams should change names back
CLEVELAND (AP) — President Donald Trump wants Washington's football franchise and Cleveland's baseball team to revert to their former names. Trump said on Truth Social on Sunday morning that 'The Washington 'Whatever's' should IMMEDIATELY change their name back to the Washington Redskins Football Team. There is a big clamoring for this. Likewise, the Cleveland Indians, one of the six original baseball teams, with a storied past. Our great Indian people, in massive numbers, want this to happen. Their heritage and prestige is systematically being taken away from them. Times are different now than they were three or four years ago. We are a Country of passion and common sense. OWNERS, GET IT DONE!!!' Josh Harris, whose group bought the Commanders from former owner Dan Snyder in 2023, said earlier this year the name was here to say. Not long after taking over, Harris quieted speculation about going back to Redskins, saying that would not happen. Guardians president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti indicated before Sunday's game against the Athletics that there weren't any plans to revisit the name change. 'We understand there are different perspectives on the decision we made a few years ago but obviously it's a decision we made. We've got the opportunity to build a brand as the Guardians over the last four years and are excited about the future that's in front of us," he said. Both teams have had their new names since the 2022 seasons. Washington dropped Redskins after the 2019 season and was known as the Washington Football Team for two years before moving to Commanders. Cleveland announced in December 2020 they would drop Indians. It announced the switch to Guardians in July 2021. In 2018, the team phased out 'Chief Wahoo' as its primary logo. The name changes had their share of supporters and critics as part of national discussions about institutions and teams to drop logos and names considered racist. The Guardians are the fifth name for Cleveland's baseball franchise. It joined the American League in 1901 as one of the eight charter franchises as the Blues. It switched to Bronchos a year later and used the Naps from 1903 through 1914 before moving to Indians in 1915. Washington started in Boston as the Redskins in 1933 before moving to the nation's capital four years later. Washington and Cleveland share another thing in common. David Blitzer is a member of Harris' ownership group with the Commanders and holds a minority stake in the Guardians. ___ AP sports:
Yahoo
27 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Klobuchar rebuffs Trump's efforts to fault Dems in Epstein case
As President Donald Trump faces continued heat over his administration's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case, Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar is pushing back against his attempts to shift the focus back to her party. "The president blaming Democrats for this disaster, Jake, is like that CEO that got caught on camera blaming Coldplay," Klobuchar (D-Minn.) told CNN's Jake Tapper on Sunday on "State of the Union." "OK, like this is his making. He was president when Epstein got indicted for these charges and went to prison. He was president when Epstein committed suicide." Epstein was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges in July 2019. He died by suicide in his New York jail cell just over a month later. Backlash — largely from inside Trump's MAGA base — teed off when the White House announced in early July that a Department of Justice and FBI review had found no evidence of an incriminating client list connected to Epstein. Trump, whose return to the White House was keyed in part by a willingness to embrace conspiracy theories like the ones surrounding Epstein, has been keen to move on. But the furor has seen some of Trump's biggest supporters calling for the ouster of his attorney general, Pam Bondi, and predicting dire consequences lest he begin to take it seriously. The president, meanwhile, has raged. "Radical left Democrats," Trump said in a Truth Social post Wednesday, were responsible for the "Jeffrey Epstein Hoax." And they'd refrained from making any moves during Joe Biden's presidency, he said. "If there was a 'smoking gun' on Epstein, why didn't the Dems, who controlled the 'files' for four years, and had Garland and Comey in charge, use it? BECAUSE THEY HAD NOTHING!!!," the president wrote on social media Friday. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), one of several House Republicans who have called for the release of the government's Epstein files, echoed Trump's attacks against Democrats in a Sunday interview also on Tapper's show. "Where the heck have they been the last four years? I'm ticked off at everybody," he said. "Look, this thing should have been handled. Now we're at the point they're going to start dumping files." Klobuchar rejected claims that Democrats bore responsibility for the controversy. The White House, she said, had entered into a crisis of its own making. "The people that have been fomenting this are right-wing influencers, members of Congress, people who have a reason that they want to know what's in there," Klobuchar told Tapper. "They believe the president when he said, there's stuff in there that people should see."
San Francisco Chronicle
28 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Request to unseal Epstein grand jury transcripts likely to disappoint, ex-prosecutors say
NEW YORK (AP) — A Justice Department request to unseal grand jury transcripts in the prosecution of chronic sexual abuser Jeffrey Epstein and his former girlfriend is unlikely to produce much, if anything, to satisfy the public's appetite for new revelations about the financier's crimes, former federal prosecutors say. Attorney Sarah Krissoff, an assistant U.S. attorney in Manhattan from from 2008 to 2021, called the request in the prosecutions of Epstein and imprisoned British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell 'a distraction.' ' The president is trying to present himself as if he's doing something here and it really is nothing,' Krissoff told The Associated Press in a weekend interview. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche made the request Friday, asking judges to unseal transcripts from grand jury proceedings that resulted in indictments against Epstein and Maxwell, saying 'transparency to the American public is of the utmost importance to this Administration.' The request came as the administration sought to contain the firestorm that followed its announcement that it would not be releasing additional files from the Epstein probe despite previously promising that it would. Epstein is dead while Maxwell serves a 20-year prison sentence Epstein killed himself at age 66 in his federal jail cell in August 2019, a month after his arrest on sex trafficking charges, while Maxwell, 63, is serving a 20-year prison sentence imposed after her December 2021 sex trafficking conviction for luring girls to be sexually abused by Epstein. Krissoff and Joshua Naftalis, a Manhattan federal prosecutor for 11 years before entering private practice in 2023, said grand jury presentations are purposely brief. Naftalis said Southern District prosecutors present just enough to a grand jury to get an indictment but 'it's not going to be everything the FBI and investigators have figured out about Maxwell and Epstein.' 'People want the entire file from however long. That's just not what this is,' he said, estimating that the transcripts, at most, probably amount to a few hundred pages. 'It's not going to be much,' Krissoff said, estimating the length at as little as 60 pages 'because the Southern District of New York's practice is to put as little information as possible into the grand jury.' 'They basically spoon feed the indictment to the grand jury. That's what we're going to see,' she said. 'I just think it's not going to be that interesting. ... I don't think it's going to be anything new.' Ex-prosecutors say grand jury transcript unlikely to be long Both ex-prosecutors said that grand jury witnesses in Manhattan are usually federal agents summarizing their witness interviews. That practice might conflict with the public perception of some state and federal grand jury proceedings, where witnesses likely to testify at a trial are brought before grand juries during lengthy proceedings prior to indictments or when grand juries are used as an investigatory tool. In Manhattan, federal prosecutors 'are trying to get a particular result so they present the case very narrowly and inform the grand jury what they want them to do,' Krissoff said. Krissoff predicted that judges who presided over the Epstein and Maxwell cases will reject the government's request. With Maxwell, a petition is before the U.S. Supreme Court so appeals have not been exhausted. With Epstein, the charges are related to the Maxwell case and the anonymity of scores of victims who have not gone public is at stake, although Blanche requested that victim identities be protected. 'This is not a 50-, 60-, 80-year-old case,' Krissoff noted. 'There's still someone in custody.' Appeals court's 1997 ruling might matter She said citing 'public intrigue, interest and excitement' about a case was likely not enough to convince a judge to release the transcripts despite a 1997 ruling by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that said judges have wide discretion and that public interest alone can justify releasing grand jury information. Krissoff called it 'mind-blowingly strange' that Washington Justice Department officials are increasingly directly filing requests and arguments in the Southern District of New York, where the prosecutor's office has long been labeled the "Sovereign District of New York" for its independence from outside influence. 'To have the attorney general and deputy attorney general meddling in an SDNY case is unheard of,' she said. Cheryl Bader, a former federal prosecutor and Fordham Law School criminal law professor, said judges who presided over the Epstein and Maxwell cases may take weeks or months to rule. 'Especially here where the case involved witnesses or victims of sexual abuse, many of which are underage, the judge is going to be very cautious about what the judge releases,' she said. Tradition of grand jury secrecy might block release of transcripts Bader said she didn't see the government's quest aimed at satisfying the public's desire to explore conspiracy theories 'trumping — pardon the pun — the well-established notions of protecting the secrecy of the grand jury process.' 'I'm sure that all the line prosecutors who really sort of appreciate the secrecy and special relationship they have with the grand jury are not happy that DOJ is asking the court to release these transcripts,' she added. Mitchell Epner, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice, called Trump's comments and influence in the Epstein matter 'unprecedented' and 'extraordinarily unusual' because he is a sitting president. He said it was not surprising that some former prosecutors are alarmed that the request to unseal the grand jury materials came two days after the firing of Manhattan Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey, who worked on the Epstein and Maxwell cases. 'If federal prosecutors have to worry about the professional consequences of refusing to go along with the political or personal agenda of powerful people, then we are in a very different place than I've understood the federal Department of Justice to be in over the last 30 years of my career,' he said. Krissoff said the uncertain environment that has current prosecutors feeling unsettled is shared by government employees she speaks with at other agencies as part of her work in private practice. 'The thing I hear most often is this is a strange time. Things aren't working the way we're used to them working,' she said.
