Americanswers… on 5 Live! Has Donald Trump changed his mind on the Epstein Files?

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1:08We've just come off the air with Matt Chorley for our weekly episode of America Answers on 5 Live. All four of us here today with Matt and we've focused, I think it is fair to say, on Donald Trump urging Republicans to vote to release files relating to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Yeah, we analysed Donald Trump's position when it comes to those files and how it's changed. We also spoke a fair bit about Marjorie Taylor Greene. She's the Republican congresswoman who supported Trump a lot and now they've fallen out, it's fair to say, over the Epstein files. And she's worried about online abuse and that kind of stuff.

1:40And we also talk about one of my favourite topics, Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, because the billionaire Joe Lewis, whose family trust owns the club, is the latest person to be pardoned by Donald Trump. All that, plenty more. Welcome to AmeriCanswers on Five Live. AmeriCast. AmeriCast from BBC News. When Donald Trump calls, they say, yes, sir. Right away, sir. Happy to lick your boot, sir. We are the sickest country in the world. Oh, dear. Are you worried that billionaires are going to go hungry? Of course the president supports peaceful protests. What a stupid question. Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?

2:24right let's get stuck in to questions from listeners all about jeffrey epstein anthony what have the files the epstein files released so far said about donald trump what do we know about the relationship between them uh is any more emerged well we had that large group of 20 ,000, 23 ,000 pages of emails released last week. And that had a lot of Donald Trump in it. Epstein apparently liked to talk about Donald Trump in his emails. People liked to ask Epstein about his relationship with Donald Trump. They felt like he had some sort of unique insight into Donald Trump since they moved in similar circles.

3:04And there were several emails where Epstein said that there was more to Donald Trump than a lot of people realize. The one they've said, Trump being the dog that hasn't barked, and that Trump spent hours at his house with Virginia Giuffre, one of the witnesses. And there were people just talking about Donald Trump and Epstein talking about Donald Trump and Epstein saying that he had information on Donald Trump, and he's one who could bring down Donald Trump. Now, those aren't the only Epstein files that have been released. There have been other ones that have come up in court cases and have been in the public record for quite some time, such as flight logs, Donald Trump having flown on Epstein's private jet seven or eight times in the 1990s.

3:47Donald Trump's name was in Jeffrey Epstein's contact book, his name and his phone number as well. And then, of course, there was that birthday book that the Wall Street Journal reported on that the Epstein estate handed over that appeared to contain a message from Donald Trump in the form of a suggestively shaped poem. Donald Trump, of course, has denied that that is his. But there are obviously a lot of ties between Epstein and Trump in all of these Epstein-filed documents. It's worth saying there are also ties between Epstein and all manner of other people. And these documents were in the possession of the Biden Justice Department.

4:26So there's a sort of feeling of, well, hang on a second. If there was really some smoking gun, and of course Donald Trump says absolutely he's not behaved improperly at all, but were there to be a smoking gun, it probably would have been found already. And what you see now on the right, and Anthony will be very aware of this, there's this sort of sense of people kind of looking for some reason why it might be that Donald Trump has been so opposed to it being put out there, given that he says he did nothing wrong and there doesn't appear to be any evidence that anyone's found that he's done anything wrong, apart from those things that Anthony was mentioning, those kind of relatively minor things.

5:04Well, what they're lighting on is, aha, Donald Trump was an FBI asset. He was being used by the FBI to go after Jeffrey Essendon. That's why it mustn't come out. And Anthony, that's a real thing, isn't it? I mean, there are people who genuinely believe that. And, you know, who knows? In the modern world, there are all sorts of conspiracy theories that have turned out to be relatively true. Sure. That has definitely been one of the ideas that has been floated around. And there's no evidence of it in the documents we've seen so far. And there was, you know, Donald Trump and Epstein were friends.

5:37They had a falling out. All of a sudden, Jeffrey Epstein became the focus of government investigation. So people draw the lines there where they see them. Particularly when there's something like this, where you've got this huge sort of tranche of you've got all these documents released. Everyone picks out the bits that they want to pick out. So people who love Donald Trump pick out things about people that Donald Trump doesn't like very much. People who hate Donald Trump pick out all the bits that relate to him. And everyone just doubles down in their echo chambers. and that is absolutely unfolding.

6:05So everyone says we want the evidence and then there's so much of it where you're going to use it to reinforce your own... Yeah, and it's the way that... I know I always bang on about the algorithms, but it's the way the recommendation systems work. They're constantly reaffirming your bias and all you have to do is basically post which bits you want to be true and hold on to those bits. And lots of these things can all be true at once, but social media has a hard time with that. And by the way, working for the FBI is of course now in far-right Republican circles a terrible thing post January the 6th.

6:33so this is not being said in a way that is friendly towards Donald Trump, but rather the opposite. We've got a question from, we've got a voice note from Marie in London. Has Trump made a very clever move by suggesting that the Department of Justice investigate his perceived political enemies who are allegedly named on the Epstein list? Could this allow the department to legitimately block the release of the files by claiming that they are part of an ongoing investigation? There's several layers going on there, Marie. It's a good question. Sarah, what do you think? It's a very good question because it hadn't actually occurred to me that that might be one of the reasons why Donald Trump had ordered this investigation.

7:08Because the other things that it allows him to do are say, look, we are digging into the files. We are making sure that there aren't rich and powerful people being protected in here. It's just the ones that he wants the Justice Department to focus on are, of course, all Democrats, Bill Clinton and some big Democratic supporters and donors. But he's also, I mean, he has done a U-turn on this vote that we're expecting to happen tomorrow in the House of Representatives where they want to vote on a piece of legislation that would force them to release all of the files. He knew there was going to be a big Republican rebellion.

7:39Four Republicans signed on to get the legislation on the floor of the House and get a vote at all. They're talking about up to 100 Republicans maybe voting in favour of the release of the Epstein files because their constituents really want to see what's in these files. So Donald Trump suddenly turned around last night and said in a social media post, the Republicans should vote in favour of this. Now, he didn't say that he would then release the files because he knows that the House of Representatives can vote on this and then it'll die in the Senate where there aren't enough Democratic votes to get it through.

8:09And anyway, even if it got through the Senate, he could just refuse to sign that piece of legislation. So we don't know if this is him saying, OK, I'm going to do it. I'm going to release all this information or just telling his Republicans they can in this vote. But you can't help but feel that we're edging closer all of the time. and whatever your suspicion is about why he hasn't released them yet, whether he was working for the FBI, whether he's protecting some foreign head of state or rich donor whose name is in there, the truth is it gets more and more suspicious every day that he won't release them and more and more ordinary Americans are asking themselves, well, what is it it says about him in there that's stopping him from releasing them?

8:45And so I do feel that we're reaching a kind of head of steam here where it's becoming harder and harder to keep the lid on these Epstein files. And just briefly, that theory from Murray comes, I think, from Thomas Massey, the Republican congressman, who suggested it himself a day or two ago, that somehow this is a way possibly that Trump is is getting out of. And Massey and Trump have now fallen out big time as a result of this suggestion. I don't think it would work like that, because if he is going to go after Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, former head of Harvard, a few others as well. I mean, that could, I suppose, have some implications for those mentions of them.

9:20But there is such a ton of material and a lot of it about other people that I don't think it could have the effect, Marie, that you suspect. I'll add there's a line in the text of the bill that the House will be voting on that says that they can withhold information if it would jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution, provided that such withholding is narrowly tailored and temporary. So who determines that is that the Justice Department would be a lawsuit. But there is something in there that would protect investigation. The next question we've got sort of follows on from this.

9:53One aspect of the Epstein Files, which is the Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene used to be one of Donald Trump's fiercest, most loyal supporters. Now she's one of the loudest voices in Congress calling for the full release of the Epstein Files, has championed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which is the bill which is aimed at getting the Justice Department to release it all. But that, fairly unsurprisingly, has caused a major breakdown in her relationship with Donald Trump, which led to, on Sunday night, Donald Trump calling this new nickname for her. Her life is in danger? Who's that?

10:27Marjorie Taylor Greene, she says. Marjorie Trader Greene. I don't think her life is in danger. I don't think, frankly, I don't think anybody cares about her. OK, what about you? Well, we've had a voice note from someone called Exorcist on the AmeriCast Discord server. Hi, AmeriCast. Marjorie Taylor Greene has had warnings for her safety following aggressive social media posts from Trump attacking her character. The most hurtful thing he said, which is absolutely untrue, is he called me a traitor. And that is that is so extremely wrong. And those are the types of words used that can radicalize people against me and put my life in danger.

11:13She quite rightly believes these actions from Trump could incite violence against her. Are there any laws in the US, like the UK's Online Safety Act, which could be attributed to Trump's actions and posts in this case? Or could MTG launch a lawsuit against him for libel? This is a really interesting question. Actually, it sparks a lot. It sort of reignites a lot of the debate that we were having when Charlie Kirk was killed, because there were some people who are supporters of Donald Trump and of Charlie Kirk and of the MAGA movement who are actually saying, hang on a second, stuff that people say, particularly abusive language or words like even the word traitor, could go on to encourage people to commit acts of violence.

11:53Now, this at the time kind of flew in the face of what quite a lot of Trump supporters have said for a long time, which is freedom of expression in its kind of absolute purest form is really important. And so actually, you know, people should be allowed to say these things. And ultimately, you know, that's sort of just how politics works or social media works or what have you. Elon Musk, for example, would be one of the first people to have said that at the time. So I think that Marjorie Taylor Greene has really changed her tune here. She's someone who herself has been accused of spreading conspiracy theories.

12:20But also there is this very real threat to political figures. So you can understand where it's coming from in terms of the level of abuse and hatred that she's experiencing. We do have this online safety act here in the UK. In the US, on the whole, a lot of this stuff is focused around defamation and that kind of thing. You'd imagine that if she were going to go down a route, she's more likely to do that. They don't have an online safety act in the way that we do. Well, thank you for that exorcist. Let's move on because we've got loads of questions we want to get through. We have got Tony on the line.

12:51Hello, Tony. Hello. Where in the world are you, Tony? I'm in Norfolk. And what is your question for the AmeriCasters? Hello. Maybe on a lighter note, I'm just back from a holiday and the resort I was in wanted payment in US dollars. So when I was counting out the money, I noticed that on the back of a$50 bill, there's an image of the White House. so my question is now that Trump has demolished the East Wing will we have to have a reprint of all the$50 notes maybe to include the ballroom the new ballroom, yeah have a new ballroom and maybe even a mirror ball on it he might Right. I know there's no there's no trigger that would make him do that.

13:56But I'm sure he would love to have a new fifty dollar bill that shows his magnificent ballroom. You know, he's he's all about making his mark on history. He's making his mark on the White House. So why not on the currency as well? You remember there was that idea about a Trump coin being floated, a dollar coin with Trump's face on it. And I don't think that's moved much since then. But clearly, clearly he has an interesting currency as well as the logistics of building new buildings in the White House. Could he get himself in there? If you put a statue of himself outside the ballroom? A loophole.

14:27Do they get reprinted or redesigned very often? Backnotes, aren't they? Not very often. I mean, paper currency, because there's fewer of it than coins. And coins, you could have all these different kinds of quarters and dollars and they could have different faces on them. currencies, the paper currency tends to be a little more stable. There was a big push to take Andrew Jackson off the$20 bill during the Obama presidency, replace him with Harriet Tubman, I believe. That looked like it was going to happen. And then when Trump became president, that all kind of fell apart. So it's a lot harder to get the paper currency changed than it is to find a new face to put on a coin where we have just dozens of them all the time.

15:06Well, it's a great question. Thank you for that, Tony. It may be something that Donald Trump hasn't thought about. And then when he's listened to America, you might as well have planted the seed. John's just texted in. I've noticed that Donald Trump is on Air Force One on a very regular basis. Has there been a president who refused to fly? Sarah? Oh, I mean, there were lots of presidents before they had planes who obviously took forever to get back and forward from wherever they were from by horse and cart across the country. And then the railroads made a big difference to that. Remember, it was famous, wasn't it?

15:37Lincoln arriving in Washington off the train. I mean, he's on a lot, on the plane a lot, because he's flying back and forwards to Mar-a-Lago at the weekends as well. I mean, it's a lot of foreign travel he's done. I mean, certainly compared to the last president, he really has put in the air miles on that. And this is somebody, he doesn't even like Air Force One. He thinks it's an outdated plane that's not good enough for the president. because remember, there's still that huge fuss over the$400 million jet that the Qatari government gave as a present that's busy being refitted. And it may or may not be ready for use before Donald Trump leaves office.

16:13But yeah, you're right. He spends a lot of time on there. What he does do when he's there is he talks to reporters far more often, certainly than Joe Biden did, and in fact, more often than really any other president does. So you see him all the time standing there in the doorway between the rest of the plane and the little bit at the back where the press are allowed to be. So I think you're seeing him on the plane more often maybe than you did with other presidents who did use it quite a lot, but they just weren't filmed on it all the time. Sarah's exactly right. You can go on Air Force One again and again and never see a president on it.

16:44And I think, I was just thinking actually, whether I did ever talk to anyone on, yeah, I mean, maybe Obama once, but Air Force One with George W. Bush, who was a pretty loquacious guy behind the scenes. On all the Air Force One journeys I ever did with him, I never saw him one, including one to Teesside Airport, which is my finest way to arrive at Teesside Airport is in Air Force One because there are people who are on the ground waving and pointing just at you. Apparently, according to our enormous team of researchers, Mamie Eisenhower hated flying so would often go by train and Dwight was the first person to use a jet specifically reserved for presidential use.

17:25So there we are. I feel like now it would be a bit of a political statement if a president decided not to fly. There's definitely been stories here of various people who may or may not become foreign secretary. Like Michael Gove, I don't think is... I think he hates flying and there was a question about whether or not he could become foreign secretary because of it. That's quite interesting. Unusually. For me. Tomo has been in touch. Also on the AmeriCast Discord server which is on fire at the moment. Tomo says, As a Tottenham fan like Mariana, I'm interested to hear any insight as to why Trump has decided to pardon Joe Lewis, whose family trust owns Tottenham Hotspur Football Club.

17:59This is branching into my other realm of expertise, Tottenham Hotspur. And so it's quite interesting. So Joe Lewis is this very, very rich British billionaire who's got family in the United States. And he pled guilty last year to federal insider trading charges. and his family remains the controlling shareholder of Tottenham Hotspur even now. So Daniel Levy was like our chairman and he left and there was a little bit of debate over whether they were going to sell the club but they've categorically said that's not going to happen. And he was indicted in 2023 on these allegations that he basically schemed for years to sort of take advantage of access to different boardrooms and repeated shared insider information with people he shouldn't have and all this kind of stuff.

18:40And the White House came out to say, look, Mr Lewis admitted he made a terrible mistake. he didn't fight extradition he paid this five million dollar fine it's fine he's elderly he requested a pardon so quote he could receive medical treatment and visit his grandchildren and great grandchildren in the United States so I think to me if I was going to make any kind of analysis or point about this it is important to remember that the United States is about to host this very big World Cup and the kind of connections between the US and football are really being sort of and he obviously turned up for the when Chelsea won he turned up when Chelsea won Some people might remember this Club World Cup where he was pictured with Cole Palmer and Rhys James and various Chelsea players.

19:18And they were like, why is Donald Trump still here? And he was just standing there. Just having a nice time. Yeah, so he's very much like, I would say, sort of showing his enthusiasm for soccer and football. Maybe that's at play here. It might be more so to do with other things that we don't know about.

19:37OK, we're off the air now with Matt Chorley for our Five Live live session. mariana and i are in a different studio we want to get to one more question and it's from jim who writes this if trump's lawsuit against the bbc comes to court could he be called to testify would he want to would be interesting to hear exactly what he did mean by fight like hell uh that's the phrase that he used in the speech and the bbc uh edited but much as he loves an audience he might not want to subject himself to questioning when he's not in control and uh we also are asked by jim if things are not going his way is there a chance that he could apply sanctions on the bbc maybe barring it from the white house we don't know actually on that last point mariana i don't think we yet know if that's going to happen no and we do know of examples where journalists have for example not been allowed to participate in the pool um where that's where you kind of get to like travel around with the president and officials and their teams and and you're the kind of person on behalf of lots of other journalists um so in terms of the other repercussions for the bbc the answer is kind of a big question mark um and obviously if there is anything that happens sarah and anthony will be very well placed to talk to us a bit about it i have to say on that yeah when i was north america editor i didn't often go to the white house because actually america isn't the white house it's not washington it's not new york it's not even the coasts, it's the middle bits.

21:01And the less time you spend in the White House and the more time you spend in other parts of America. I mean, it's a nuisance and it would be a nuisance if the BBC had happened. And I'm not downplaying it as a thing. But America, as everyone listening is perfectly well aware, but it's worth emphasising America is not covered from the White House, it's covered from everywhere else. Yeah, exactly. And also, I think that we've seen a trend during Donald Trump's presidency this time around, particularly in terms of who they want to have in the press room and we've seen lots of alternative media influences and other people being included in that and and you know question marks over whether some of the more conventional outlets haven't been given the same opportunities they had before and all this kinds of stuff so i mean in some ways that kind of thing would not necessarily be surprising given the con you know given the climate and context but at the same time it's also worth saying in spite of all of this and everything that's going on at the moment if that were to happen there would be pretty strong opinions on all sides.

21:58On the other part of Jim's question, it's a really interesting one. So Jim's asking about whether he could be called to testify and would he want to say this is Donald Trump. Yeah. The answer to that is it's a long way down the road. And yes, potentially it can happen. And the BBC, if it was still defending the action, could maybe demand that he does. But what happens before that, and this is a really important point, is that there is much more disclosure generally in American courts than there is in British ones. To be perfectly honest, I don't know why that is. I have to be open and honest. I'm obviously not a lawyer, and I don't really talk to anyone about why this is.

22:36But one of the big things that happens in an American court case of this sort is an absolutely massive exchange of documentation. And it can be very onerous, actually, if you're the person being kind of imposed upon and the case is being brought against you. And for some individuals, enormously onerous. So you think of these people, former officials, and not just in the Trump time, actually. It's happened before. I remember I vaguely knew Scooter Libby, who was this guy who was prosecuted, I think, successfully. Actually, Brian is amused by his name. What was his name? Scooter Libby. Back in the day, the George W.

23:07Bush administration. And it had a real impact on his family. And part of that is this disclosure stuff. You have to find every single mention that you've ever made of this person. every time. So you can imagine in the case of the BBC, obviously, a lot of emails, etc, etc. But also the BBC will be able to demand disclosure from Donald Trump of a lot of stuff regarding January the 6th, that day, that speech, etc, etc. And this is where this all feels a little bit unrealistic. It is a simple fact that there is an awful long way to go if both sides stick to the case before it ever comes to anything at all.

23:45The problem for the BBC, though, with the settlement is that he settles for large sums of money. And they've also made clear right now that they don't want to pay financial compensation either. They don't want to pay him at all, no. So in those terms, I think they probably at the moment were looking as if it does go to court and it drags out in court and that there isn't a settlement of any sort unless the settlement can be a kind of almost nothing settlement that the BBC can just put, say, is a better expenditure of licensed payers' money than actually staying in court and spending all the money on defending the case.

24:16But that is all a little bit down the road. I mean, if anything, the kind of only other dynamic at play is the one relating to the government. And as we've chatted about, and as is just the case, the BBC is independent from the British government. But there's often this feeling because it's like a public institution and it's funded by the licence pair. You sometimes hear Donald Trump describing it as like, we're really close with the Brits. And like, well, how could they have done this to me? Because I get on well with the government. And Keir Starman, no doubt, in this phone call will be sort of treading that tightrope of do I stick up for sort of licence fee payer money and say, actually, like the British public shouldn't be paying for this?