Trump says no one cares about Epstein. Why won't his base let it go?

0:00One of the narratives at the heart of President Trump's political movement is this. American society is dominated by a shadowy group of elites, and those elites are deeply corrupt. Nothing represented that theory more than the case of Jeffrey Epstein. A billionaire financier is in custody, so what to say accused of trafficking girls in Florida and New York for sex. Epstein was a man most people had never heard of initially, with a private plane and a private island. acquainted with the world's most powerful people, British royalty, U.S. presidents, a man who ultimately died in jail by suicide, according to authorities, before the case against him ever went to trial.

0:43Epstein's case and his death bred skepticism and conspiracy theories, especially among supporters of Donald Trump. Trump nodded to that in a 2024 interview with podcaster Lex Friedman. A lot of big people went to that island. but fortunately, I was not one of them. It's just very strange for a lot of people that the list of clients that went to the island has not been made public. Yeah, it's very interesting, isn't it? Probably will be, by the way. So if you were able to, you'll be... Yeah, I'd certainly take a look at it. The thing is, Trump did have his own history with Epstein. The two became friends in the 1980s.

1:27Trump flew on Epstein's private plane, according to flight logs that were released as evidence in court. And Trump told New York Magazine this in 2002 that, quote, He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do. And many of them are on the younger side. At some point, the two men had some sort of falling out, as Trump told reporters in 2019. Well, I knew him like everybody in Palm Beach knew him. People in Palm Beach knew him. was a fixture in Palm Beach. I had a falling out with him a long time ago. I don't think I've spoken to him for 15 years. I wasn't a fan.

2:05Well, six years later, Trump is again answering questions about Jeffrey Epstein. Some of Trump's most ardent supporters are attacking his Justice Department's decision not to release all the files related to the Epstein case. And Trump is threatening to sue the Wall Street Journal for a story about an alleged off-color birthday note from Trump to Epstein back in 2003. He says it's fake. And Trump, he wants his supporters to move on. It's pretty boring stuff. It's sorted, but it's boring. And I don't understand why it keeps going. Consider this. President Trump says nobody cares about Jeffrey Epstein, but his base won't let it go.

2:52From NPR, I'm Elsa Chang.

3:03It's Consider This from NPR. Who would have thought that a suicide in federal lockup during President Trump's first term would be a major speed bump six years later in Trump's second term? NPR justice correspondent Ryan Lucas has been looking into the turmoil in MAGA world and joins us now. Hi, Ryan. Hi there. Can you just remind us why the Epstein case is getting so much attention now, years after his death? Well, the immediate trigger here is the Justice Department and FBI memo from last week that said that Epstein did indeed kill himself. He wasn't murdered, as some conspiracy theorists think.

3:36It also said that there is no Epstein client list, that he wasn't blackmailing associates. But importantly, it also said that no further information would be made public. And that last bit in particular really did not go down well with many in Trump's MAGA base who want these files made public so they can see and judge for themselves. Even Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has called for transparency on this. Here he is this week speaking with right wing podcaster Benny Johnson. It's a very delicate subject, but we should we should put everything out there and let the people decide it. And Johnson has since said that he was misquoted, but that's the tape.

4:12Okay. And why has this, of all the things, been such a staking point? Well, there are a couple of reasons, but to a certain extent, it's because Trump and some of his top lieutenants now, including FBI Director Kash Patel, have themselves over the years push some of the conspiracy theories that we've heard around Epstein. So they set certain expectations about the Epstein files. And by that, I mean expectations of what's in the files as well as expectations for transparency. OK, let's start with what they have said in the past about Epstein. So they've said a lot. So there are plenty of examples.

4:45Patel, for example, spent a lot of time during the Biden administration making media appearances on conservative podcasts, sometimes talking about Epstein. Here he is talking to Benny Johnson in 2023 about a purported Epstein client list. What the hell are the House Republicans doing? They have the majority. You can't get the list? Put on your big boy pants and let us know who the pedophiles are. Another example is an exchange that Patel had with right wing media figure Glenn Beck again in 2023. Here's Beck asking Patel about Epstein. Who has Jeffrey Epstein's black book, black book, FBI. But who that is that?

5:23I mean, that's under direct control of the director of the FBI. Now, just a reminder, Patel is right now the director of the FBI. And right now, the FBI and the DOJ say there is no Epstein client list. But Patel isn't the only one who pushed these sorts of conspiracy theories. His number two at the FBI, Deputy Director Dan Bongino, used to be the host of his own podcast, a very popular one, particularly with folks on the right. And Bongino used the enormous reach of that podcast to promote conspiracy theories about Epstein and his associates. Here's a snippet of Bongino from last September. Folks, the Epstein client list is a huge deal because it speaks to an enormous problem we have in this country.

6:04It is that there is a connected class of insiders that feel that they can get away with anything because they can. OK, Ryan, what have both Patel and Bongino said now that they sit in the top jobs at the FBI and have overseen the review of all these files? Well, they've posted publicly that Epstein died by suicide, knocking down the conspiracy theory that he was murdered. They haven't addressed the other issues, though, things like a client list or the fact that nothing else has been released. But Patel did speak to podcaster Joe Rogan last month, so well before the department put out its Epstein memo.

6:39And Patel pushed back on the idea that he would hide anything. Do you think that myself, Bongino and others would participate in hiding information about Epstein's grotesque activities? Or do you think we would also participate in not prosecuting people we had evidence to prosecute people on? The problem is there's been like 15 years of people coming in and creating fictions about this that doesn't exist. No, he didn't say anything about his own potential role creating fictions about this. Right. OK. Well, I mean, isn't some of the anger now among Trump supporters because of promises this administration has actually made about transparency on this very exact issue?

7:25I think that's right. Yeah. Trump himself, of course, did say during the campaign that he was in favor of releasing Epstein's purported client list. And once he was back in office, his attorney general, Pam Bondi, promised transparency on this. She hyped the release of a first batch of Epstein files in February. Everything in that batch, by and large, turned out to already have been known. She took some heat over that. But Bondi's own public statements have certainly contributed to the blowback that we've seen. And I'll point you specifically to an interview that she did with Fox News in February in which she was asked about Epstein.

7:55Here's how that went. And this is something Donald Trump has talked about. The DOJ may be releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients. Will that really happen? It's sitting on my desk right now to review. That's been a directive by President Trump. Now, Bondi now says she was referring to the Epstein files in general, not a client list specifically. But that clip of tape has been played over and over in the past few weeks because what she says directly contradicts the final conclusion from the Justice Department that there is no such client list. Exactly. OK, so where does all this go from here?

8:25Well, the president has asked the attorney general to produce any and all pertinent grand jury testimony subject to a court approval on Epstein. Bondi has said she's ready to do that. A judge will have to sign off. So we shall see whether those materials, even though it's going to be just a slice of what the investigation found, will silence the demands for transparency. That is Ampyr's Ryan Lucas. Thank you, Ryan. Thank you. This episode was produced by Conor Donovan and Alejandra Marquez-Hanse with audio engineering by Ted Meebane. It was edited by Courtney Dorning and Krishnadev Kalimor. Our executive producer is Sammy Ennigan.

9:06It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Elsa Chang.