Trump Signs Bill to Release Epstein Files

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1:00Gary Shteyngart:Welcome to The Beat. I'm Ari Melber. Tonight, I want to tell you first, we have another installment in our special report as we go through these emails, evidence, and facts. This one is on some of the other powerful figures ensnared by these early Epstein files. The emails are the expected tranche of part of what is the larger Epstein files. Last night, you may recall, we showed you some of that footage of Steve Bannon and Jeffrey Epstein, which now looks a lot worse when we see their secret private emails leaked about rehabilitating Jeffrey Epstein's reputation. Why did such a top Trump ally want to do that?

1:35Gary Shteyngart:Well, we have more for you. Volume two. Tonight, that's coming up. But I begin right now with something you know about that's only getting worse since it happened. And we have the reporting here on President Trump's clearly worst week this year, that bipartisan rebuke from Congress on a key vulnerability, forcing the coming release of the Epstein Files. The president has just posted on his social network that he has now signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act. We're just hearing that Trump has signed the Epstein Act. Donald Trump put his surrender and humiliation in writing in capital letters.

2:14He didn't do it in front of the cameras.

2:16Gary Shteyngart:He likes to do everything in front of the cameras, not this. Trump does like cameras. In fact, Donald Trump, through a very long public career, has followed the pretty cliched claim that any press is good press. But I guess that has its limits when it comes to press about blatantly hiding a sex trafficker's files. Why would you do that? or any press is good press, but what if it's press about your massive humiliating loss that's really been heard around the world? A loss that shows Republicans will actually overrule Donald Trump as he gets deeper into his lame duck era and that he doesn't have total power over his party despite the many, many times we've been told that by some, whatever their agenda, reason, or just misperception.

3:07Gary Shteyngart:He didn't have total control over any of his party in the Senate this week. We've also seen how he has now followed the Democrats' lead, surrendered to their demand and position, even in a time where he controls Congress, of course, and the White House. So he doesn't want press for that level loss. And so unlike past bill signings by President Trump, we're showing a photo of a past example of this, performing a signing, this time on this big issue, he denied cameras and coverage, no pictures. And so this is just a piece of the story, but as I begin with you tonight, I just want to do what we do sometimes as so much is happening in the news and just say something pretty straightforward, maybe even obvious.

3:55Gary Shteyngart:Consider the irony of claiming to support and sign a law about transparency. It's called the Epstein Files Transparency Act. And you do that while denying any transparency for the public final step of turning that bill into law. Reality stars know the power of the camera. so he couldn't bring himself while claiming to have seen the light and now support this bill to allow the light and cameras in to sign it because he fought the bill all year and we've shown you the examples of that from distributing binders with old material that they wanted to check and see if they could fool their MAGA followers on they literally handed out binders mislabeled falsely labeled claiming they were the Epstein files that was the beginning of the year That one didn't work.

4:46Gary Shteyngart:And they did a lot of other hijinks I've shown you. But once he got rolled, that's how they put it in Congress, he then rushed to do a very Trumpy PR thing and pretend that he was suddenly OK with passing the bill that forces him to release the files that he's not releasing, which means he continues to obviously be against doing that thing until he hits the legal 30 day deadline, which is new. And we have new reports that expose how that final cover story was not even true. Oh, that he suddenly decided at the last minute maybe he's okay with this? Actually, no. Trump was secretly lobbying Republican senators to slow walk the bill, which you follow the news, so I'm sure you've seen this on matters of far less consequence than this.

5:25Gary Shteyngart:Delays are a tool in Congress and sometimes a tool to get more leverage or dilute something when people are paying less attention. And Speaker Johnson publicly claimed the Senate was going to do some of that. That was this week. They were going to, he said, take the bill, review it, edit it, make some changes. And remember, we can't say in the news automatically whether that's good or bad. We'd have to see what the changes are. What if they strengthened the enforcement mechanism? Okay. Or, as many feared, what if they were pursuant to what Trump wanted, trying to delay to water the thing down or dilute it?

5:58Gary Shteyngart:But they didn't do that. Because Johnson, like Trump, was just shown up in public by these Republicans. And I mentioned some of this, including that new reporting, because on the night of the thing, we weren't up in the process of it. We were covering the substance as we've been covering the emails. But it's also a striking rebuke to Trump the way it went down. That was, we were learning, as he called around and couldn't find one Republican senator. Remember, if you want to get into Senate procedure, I was a Senate aide at one point, they call that unanimous consent agreement a way to move things forward.

6:29Gary Shteyngart:But if you think about all the issues that you might want action on, say gun safety legislation, if you just go down to the floor and say, hey, I want to put this bill forward, it only takes one senator to object. And that's why both parties always have senators on the floor. because the unanimous consent provision is only for things that are so widely agreed upon that you can skip the other hurdles. Sometimes they use it for naming a post office. Here, because the Democrats led and won, John Thune left the floor. There wasn't any other Republican. If Trump could have gotten one to go down there and object when Schumer said, we need unanimous consent to move forward on this thing, they would have objected and under procedure would have at least delayed it.

7:08Gary Shteyngart:So that was, again, a smaller point, but not an insignificant one. It was a final procedural loss for Trump on the way to the big loss. And for those who understand how the Senate works or want to kind of get as dry and procedural as I am and nerd out with me, now you know how it works too. You probably already knew. It shows he didn't have one friend in the Senate on this issue. Republicans ignored him. And some are now going further. And so that procedural point I made, that there was nobody to help, is relevant to where we go next. Reporting tonight is Republicans want to push Trump to understand that this is not some show that changes next week or when the deadline hits.

7:49Gary Shteyngart:They want him to take this seriously. And apparently, again, I'm not judging, but apparently Republicans are concerned that sometimes he doesn't take things seriously or follow the law. because really you shouldn't have to remind any president who takes an oath to uphold the law that, well, when the law says something's released, you release it. And so what you're also seeing, I think, is two layers here. That's what I'm reporting for you, that one layer is what I just told you. And the second is they're in charge, not him. They write the laws. And however many times we've been told Republicans won't do this, some are now saying, hey, Mr.

8:24Gary Shteyngart:President, maybe you didn't feel this way earlier. Maybe you had a so-called honeymoon. Maybe your approval's so low that we're acting different, different energy, but they are telling the law will be followed. Headlines about Republican senators, not just Democrats, warning Bondi, who is Trump's fixer on this, not to delay or slow walk or play games around the Epstein file release, which is now law. It gives the DOJ 30 days. So if you're tracking a little calendar here on when to tune back into the news, I mean, we would love for you to watch all the time, but you definitely would want to watch on the 19th because either they'll have turned it over by the deadline or they will have failed to turn it over.

9:02Gary Shteyngart:And those, I can just tell you, are both big developments. So it's the worst period for Trump this term. More Americans think his policies have hurt them writ large, not just on this issue, than helped them. You see this, 46 to 15 is pretty bad. And if you're saying, oh, well, Trump's going to say, where's that poll even from? He doesn't believe polls. It's a Fox News poll. As for how badly the economy is going, which is never fully in control of any president, but is usually the greatest indicator of that president and their party's success, particularly heading into midterms, 76 percent of people view the economy negatively.

9:37Gary Shteyngart:Now, that goes in a lot of directions. It might explain why a Democratic socialist did so well in the capitalist city of New York. It might explain why people aren't having all of Trump's BS, as they would put it, some of them, as opposed to other times. It's also a bit worse than the end of Biden's term. Trump's responding by posting online and ranting while leaders from both parties gathered for a more somber show of solidarity at former Vice President Cheney's funeral. I'm showing you who was there. leaders who've clashed, of course, the Bushes and the Bidens, Al Gore. That's a type of unity that I guess sometimes it's only a funeral where you'll see it these days.

10:18But even there, out of the wishes of the Cheney family,

10:25Gary Shteyngart:there is, of course, one person absent you don't see in these photos. Mr. Trump, the president, was not invited. In the peril facing Trump, things are changing fast. and the fact that Republicans are part of this revolt upends a narrative I bet you've heard. Heard it from people when you chat politics in your normal life. We've heard it from MAGA a lot, and we've definitely heard it from some of the elites and media figures even who swallow this MAGA narrative that somehow Trump is Teflon and can't be stopped and controls everything, when in fact, this objectively now measurably unpopular leader is having trouble.

11:08So this is a Democrat hoax that never ends. They're forcing a political show vote on the Epstein files. This is a political exercise. It's all been a big hoax. It's perpetrated by the Democrats. And some stupid Republicans and foolish Republicans fall into the net. He had nothing to do with it. President Trump has clean hands. He's not worried about it. Well, I don't want to talk about it because fake news. The discharge petition is not only reckless, It is also a totally moot point. They can do whatever they want. So we'll give them everything. Sure, I would. Let the Senate look at it. Let anybody look at it.

11:43But don't talk about it too much.

11:47Gary Shteyngart:Things are changing fast. I've got special guests here, Joan Walsh and Obama veteran Che Comanduri on exactly where we're headed, downhill for Trump right now, when we come back.

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14:06Gary Shteyngart:We are back with the nation's Joan Walsh and political Obama veteran Che Comandori. Welcome to both of you. Joan, this is one of those defeats that it takes a few days to absorb. And as we follow reporting, we really see the president had no friends in the Republican Party in the Senate. And some, even though we all know about dancing and spin, some are publicly warning Bondi, we want to get through this and past it. We don't want you delaying and dragging out. We'll make it harder. Well, and they're right. I mean, she has, with Trump's blessing and order, delayed and dragged it out. This is a problem entirely of his own making.

14:46In the first place, he campaigned on releasing them. So did she. So did Kash Patel. So did Dan Bongino. And now and then they said, no, there's nothing there. And then they stonewalled. And so now we wind up on the eve of Thanksgiving. We'll be going into Christmas. And we've got Republicans who seem really genuinely angry about this, that they that they have been forced to suffer, that they have been forced to side with pedophiles. I mean, it's kind of pathetic, Ari, when you think about it. Anybody could have joined that discharge petition before they signed in Representative Grijalva and they did not.

15:19Gary Shteyngart:Just say you're making the point that these 200 some Republicans who now claim they're for this weren't really for it. They weren't really for it. They could have done this any time since that that petition was was brought to them and they did not. And then suddenly, immediately, they're all falling for it. But I think it's also significant in terms of the way the House relates to the Senate, because John Thune stuck his thumb in the eye of sad little Mike Johnson, who was like, I'm sure the Senate's going to do what I want. Well, no, big boy, they aren't. They didn't, they aren't, and they don't answer to you.

15:51And that's the beginning, I think, of potentially a healthier relationship between the House and the Senate and maybe the Congress taking back a little bit of its power from the president. Che? Yeah, I mean, to use last year's most overused phrase, there's been a vibe shift. The vibe has clearly shifted away from Trump and MAGA. You know, I described the Republicans as Trump's flying monkeys. Well, the flying monkeys are no longer obeying. They're flying away and they're going in another direction. And I'll admit, you know, does that mean? That he's the behind the curtain guy?

16:35Gary Shteyngart:What's his name? So the flying monkeys actually obeyed the wicked witch. The wicked witch. He's the wicked witch. Uh-huh. That's what I had to ask. Right. Yes. Using the OG version of The Wizard of Oz, not the new version that's going to be in theaters this weekend with Wicked. But like, you know, the idea is that like the hold that he had on these Republicans has really waned. It's disappearing. And we're going to see more shows, I think, of independence from Republicans going forward in a number of areas. I expect perhaps even on health care coming up pretty soon. Yeah, I mean, you're bringing up Wicked and that history, which is your domain.

17:22Gary Shteyngart:I'll quote Sabrina Carpenter, who says, boys don't have to lie to me. If I like them enough, I'll lie to myself. Wow, Joan. Wow. And so there's a period where Trump supporters, will say almost anything to make up and lie for him. He would be the boy in this Sabrina parallel. And yet there was a breaking point. And the way that they both messaged this, Joan mentioned, they ran on it, they promised it, and then they installed people, this troika of Bondi, Bongino, and Patel, who all publicly had promised the Epstein files were coming. two of those individuals um you know in our current parlance of podcasts monetized it pushed it online a bunch sort of personally benefit from it but they said they would do it and so the the maga base has not given that up we showed rogan upset this week we showed others basically saying no we're not moving on from this and then you have people around trump uh i'm going to show you again lutnik in his cabinet um who talked about how in his view he alleges that Epstein blackmailed people.

18:40Gary Shteyngart:Bondi's cover-up memo, which is, she's now retracted it. So, I mean, that's not even a criticism. It's just what it was. A misleading cover-up memo claimed that there was no blackmail to investigate. So Trump, even during, after being elected, during office, has his own people fighting over it. Here was Lutnick. That's what his MO was. You know, get a massage, get a massage. And what happened in that massage room, I assume was on video. This guy was the greatest blackmailer ever. blackmail people. That's how we had money. Jake? I mean, talk about going off message there. That was way too much information that I ever wanted to ever hear from Howard Lutnick about Epstein and massages.

19:25But I think that that gives you a sense of exactly what we're going to expect in these files. We're going to see some very embarrassing details about Donald Trump, about a lot of people who are elites, including some Democrats. We've already seen a fallout here with Larry Summers and some embarrassing details there. So it explains why Trump has worked so hard to cover all of this up. What is more surprising is how the House of Cards has collapsed, how on this one issue, This is where Republicans have chosen no longer to follow orders. Yeah, I think it in the end turned out to be really hard to stand with the pedophiles and against those brave victims.

20:12And every time they speak out, whether it's in press conferences, or whether it's on our air, they are so moving. They are so sincere. And I think most people know that if that were my daughter or my wife or my sister, I'd be horrified and I'd want to do the right thing. I have no kind words to say about most Republicans, but I don't believe that most Republicans want to be the pedophile party. And I think the longer this lasted, the more they were confronted with the fact that that's who they were standing with. And there are elites. I mean, there's a story of elite impunity here when you see those emails.

20:49And it's in academia. It's in journalism. It's in our profession. It's throughout politics. It's bipartisan. The idea that Larry Summers thought he could do everything he had to do by stepping back from open AI and other public commitments but still teach at Harvard just shows how these guys still don't get it. He thought he was going to teach girls and women at Harvard. Thank God Harvard said, we don't think so. They should have said it a long time ago. But I think that we're seeing the limits of this kind of impunity and we're seeing a glimmer of decency. The other thing that they're doing, which is related but not the same, they are trying to take back that awful last-minute provision that was tucked into the Senate version of the bill to open up the government where they gave themselves eight Republicans, got a million dollars roughly for a slush fund to sue the government if their phone records were released surrounding January 6th.

21:45The House said, no, you don't, including Mike Johnson. They passed it, but they kept the promise and they came back and took it out. Now that's being fought over in the Senate, there are cracks starting to show. And I think smart Democrats are going to be able to make a lot of those cracks in the days to come.

22:02Gary Shteyngart:And so, Che, final question, educate us on whether it's early for those cracks to show, because, as I mentioned, he's worse, got worse numbers than Biden in year four on approval, worse numbers than Biden in year four on economy. And we're not at year one yet. Yeah. And I think the one thing that is very different about where Trump is and, you know, you'll see people say, well, this is like, you know, Obama had a very rough first year. Bill Clinton had a very rough first year, George W. Bush, et cetera. And they came back to recover. You know, those presidents, to be honest, were younger men. They were more adroit politicians.

22:39They had philosophical principles that they could fall back on. The thing with Trump is Trump has none of those resources to draw upon. He has his only resource he really has is his own character, which we are seeing and we're going to see with these emails and these files being released is rather terrible.

22:59Gary Shteyngart:Che and Joan, as we kick this off tonight, looking at a couple of angles here, appreciate both of you. I want to tell folks the Epstein story has broken into culture and we're convening a special discussion on that tonight with Patton Oswalt. Looking forward to that. Trump's Epstein nightmare, though, has really gone everywhere. Take a look. Where's Mr. Epstein? Down the hall and to the left. That's one of the jokes we'll explain. But first, before the jokes about the files, we're going to show you more of the files and emails. Volume two from our Bannon breakdown last night continues next.

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