Michael Wolff on MAGA’s Revolt Over Jeffrey Epstein

0:02This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Jeffrey Epstein's death in prison and the sense that the White House is somehow covering something up is causing a backlash from some of Trump's most ardent supporters. It may be a bigger backlash than even the tariff crisis or the bombing of Iran or the astronomical deficits we're in for with the new budget. It is an article of faith in MAGA circles that Epstein's suicide was suspicious and perhaps a murder plotted by Democrats because he knew too much about something.

0:46That's the theory of it. In February, Pam Bondi, the attorney general, said that she had the so-called client list on her desk and was reviewing it. But this month, the Department of Justice says there is no such list. The FBI released surveillance footage from a camera outside of Epstein's prison cell when he died, but a few minutes of footage seems to be missing. The president is now yelling at his followers on social media, shut up and move on or else. Epstein, he said, is, quote, somebody that nobody cares about. Michael Wolff is the author of four books about Trump, All bitterly disputed by Donald Trump, we should note.

1:26And Wolf says that he interviewed Jeffrey Epstein repeatedly in the years before his arrest and his death in 2019. I sat down to talk with Michael Wolf last week. Michael, as we're speaking, MAGA seems to be blowing up. There seems to be a huge divide among Trump's followers about Epstein and what to do about information about him. And is there a file? Is there not a file? And at the same time, suddenly, the president of the United States is saying, I'm sick of hearing about it. let's move on. He's trying to run as quickly as possible away from the subject. So fill us in a little bit on the background of where we are now with Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump, and the MAGA movement.

2:23In 2014, just to set this scene, seeking his rehabilitation, he got in touch with me and And we had had some contact before and said, will you write about me? Will you tell me, tell my story? How did you feel about it? Knowing, knowing the sexual crimes that he was guilty of and their men. Well, even at that point, the sexual crimes he was then deemed guilty of were, I think, I think two counts of prostitution. You know, one was with an underage prostitute, but we were still very much in the context of prostitution. Now, this doesn't forgive anything or ameliorate this in any way. And I, in fact, when he said this to me, demurred.

3:20First, because I didn't necessarily think he deserved to be rehabilitated, nor that I'm usually not a guy who rehabilitates someone when I write about them. But more to the point, I just didn't think that he would be honest in any way. And he wanted you to write about him. This had nothing to do with Donald Trump, just to be clear. Right. There was a level of, constantly a level of self-exposure, as though this was an ironic act. He was a Sybarite, a Sybarite in that old-fashioned sense of, my identity comes from breaking all norms. I live above norms. I live outside of norms. And I often thought the men of power and influence and money that congregated around him, that they kind of admired the fact that here was a guy who was taking his own power and influence and doing anything that he wanted with it, such that they might have wished that they could do this.

4:30So all these people were living vicariously somehow? I think, yeah. So the reason we're talking is that you began to interview Jeffrey Epstein at great length. I think you've said elsewhere that you have 100 hours of taped interviews with him. Yes. So just tell me about his intelligence. With respect to real estate deals, he's a salesman. He knows real estate. really well. Anything else but that, you know, nothing. No history, no strategy. And what I started to say about executive... We began to talk in 2014, and I started to find this pretty compelling. So I had not yet decided to do anything, although I began to consider doing something.

5:29And, you know, in this day and age when you just can flick your iPhone, why would you not? Because he masturbates with best friends' wives. And when he first tries to gain the trust, then he uses it to do bad things. And then 2015 rolls around, and Donald Trump begins his political career, and I begin writing about it. And I shortly found that Jeffrey Epstein was among the most insightful people I knew or had come upon about Donald Trump and his true character. Well, you say at one point elsewhere that the relationship that Epstein had with Trump was in some ways the closest of either one of their lives.

6:25And obviously, this is Epstein talking to you about it. Right. I mean, I think that they were both, this began in the 1980s. They were both very much 80s guys, very much interested in women. I mean, they were interested in women and money, and they were interested in the same kind of women models. That was much of the relationship, hunting women. They shared a girlfriend at one point for almost a year, back and forth. According to what Epstein told you, you say? There was a lot of—they were involved in each other's business affairs. I think that they were each other's closest friend, probably the closest friend each of them has ever had.

7:15You're intuiting that, or Epstein said this too directly? Well, that was in part Epstein's characterization of this. And in the level of details that I have, it seems credible to me. Michael, is my understanding, please correct me if I'm wrong, is that you've had a hard time publishing anything about Epstein because, as you say, the publishers are very reluctant to publish you on this in particular. You've had lots of bestsellers elsewhere. Yeah, no, I think that there's a general, let's call it, for lack of better, the mainstream media has been highly resistant to this story. I think you wrote a piece about Epstein that New York Magazine was going to publish and then did not.

8:09no uh i mean we we discussed doing a piece and then i decided i didn't want to do it because i was afraid actually why the the intensity of of of of issues that seemed to converge on anyone who was talking about epstein who anyone who might have known epstein um was just something i didn't I thought life is too short. So you also have talked many, many times in your journalistic career with Steve Bannon. He really is a big presence in some of your Trump books. He also had a relationship with Epstein. So Steve met Jeffrey Epstein in 2017. Steve was out of the White House then. And they bonded immediately.

9:07They bonded over their relationship with Trump. And in a sense, they still remain to me the guys, the two guys who are most insightful about Trump. And they both at that point hated Trump. That's interesting. Two people who had the most insight in Trump both hate him. Yes. Well, I think that's true about most people who have any insight at all into Trump. It's actually true about most people who have spent any amount of time with Trump. Why did Epstein hate Trump? Yeah. They're falling out in 2004. It was over a real estate deal. Now, I mean, yes. I mean, I've often thought that that the one thing that can really inspire hatred among a certain kind of guy is is a real estate betrayal.

9:57But before they fell out, they were close. And Steve Bannon said to you, as I understand it at one point, the one thing he really feared, the one thing that Steve Bannon really feared in the 2016 race was that somehow Jeffrey Epstein's name would come up. Yeah, he didn't say this to me. He said this to Epstein. Upon meeting him, and I know this because I was standing there, the first word Steve Bannon said to Jeffrey Epstein was, you were the only person I was afraid of during the campaign. And Epstein responded, as well you should have been. Right. As well you should have been, because what would have happened?

10:41Well, I think, you know, Bannon appreciated that Epstein held many, many Trump secrets, and especially secrets about women. And remember, the women issue certainly at one point was the one thing that seemed on the verge of dooming the Trump campaign. So we've seen photographs of Jeffrey Epstein with Donald Trump, more than one. What would be so damning about that? They're young men. They're out and about. You may not like them, but there's no evidence I've heard that Trump did something illegal in conjunction with Epstein. Yeah, I don't. And I don't know. I mean, I don't know that Donald Trump was with any of the girls that Jeffrey Epstein ultimately went to jail for.

11:39I do know and have seen a set of photographs. Jeffrey Epstein had about a dozen photographs, Polaroids, I believe they were, with Donald Trump with a set of girls around Epstein's pool in Palm Beach. Do you have these pictures? No, I don't. I don't. And those were, they were brought out of Epstein's safe and returned. And should we care? I mean, Michael, should we care about, why should we care? There is a likelihood that those photographs were in the safe that the FBI raided and took possession of. So that would be part of the Epstein file. That brings us to the present tense. Pam Bondi, who's now the attorney general, of course, as well as the people that are now the leadership of the FBI, they all kept saying for the entire length of the campaign that the government had to release the Epstein files.

12:42And Bondi, not so long ago, was asked about this thing called the client list that was supposedly in the files. And she said, it's sitting on my desk to review. 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. I'm reviewing that. I'm reviewing JFK files, MLK files. Then suddenly we're told that there is no such list. Michael, what do you make of all that? I think I draw the obvious inference. Pam Bondi works for Donald Trump. She is his, at least as he conceives of their relationship, is his lawyer.

13:26So my inference would be that Pam Bondi's client gave her directions. And I think he has wanted to sweep the Epstein relationship under the rug for some time. And he has managed to avoid this as an issue for him. This is the last issue that he wants to be front and center. And do you think Trump will keep the leadership of the FBI and Pam Bondi? I would not say that her life expectancy is long. Yeah.

14:10I'm talking with journalist Michael Wolff, the author of four books about Donald Trump's political career, and we'll continue our conversation in a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.

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18:05often denied by the Trump people, and while aspects of his reporting have been challenged and criticized, a great deal in fact, he's had some remarkable access to the White House. Wolf also says that he has 100 hours of taped interviews with Jeffrey Epstein from the years before his second arrest. Epstein died in a New York jail cell, an apparent suicide, in August of 2019. and what about MAGA as a movement this was no small part of the thinking in the MAGA movement that somehow a conspiracy theory about Jeffrey Epstein and his death was all part of the systems the deep state's ability to keep secrets and do dark and dastardly things how do you think this is going to play out in MAGA And does Donald Trump care very much?

19:03Yeah, well, I think, you know, I think that they got caught on this. This is being hoisted on your own petard, you know. The central point from which this grew is the Clinton relationship with Epstein. And Clinton and Epstein had quite a strong relationship, quite a bond for about two years. So, yes, that is there. but they seem to have overlooked the Trump relationship, which was deeper and longer. Now, I think that there's something else, and this occurred to me literally, I woke up this morning and I thought, oh, that this may be the beginning of Donald Trump's lame duck years. So we have these MAGA people who are beginning naturally to position themselves as the leaders of this movement when Donald Trump exits the stage.

20:04They have to begin at some point to position themselves actually against Trump, or at least to push J.D. Vance, who would be in the front-runner position, toward Donald Trump and distinguishing themselves. And this includes Steve Bannon, obviously, who has wanted nothing more than to be the president himself. Tucker Carlson. I mean, these are, I think they are beginning to think of what are the issues that they have to, that they can make their own. And they're, in some cases, prepared to betray the founder of MAGA? Well, I think that's confusing to them at this point. um they they they they didn't think that would happen but now it has happened what do they do and no one knows they suddenly can't say oh forget about Jeffrey Epstein um and Trump can't say bring on the Jeffrey Epstein stuff because he will be exposed in this or he might be but so this brings me to the crux of the thing Michael you've written any number of bestsellers You've won the National Magazine Award multiple times.

21:19At the same time, over time, you've gotten a lot of criticism from everybody, Stephen Ratner, Sean Hannity, Tony Blair, Rupert Murdoch. They've accused you, or various critics, of inaccuracy or worse. You know these critiques. Eric Wemple of The Washington Post, among others, said you should apologize for going on Bill Maher's show and saying you were absolutely sure that Nikki Haley, as UN ambassador, was having an affair with Trump. So you've heard these... I didn't say that, but that's okay. You did. This is everything. David, I did not say that. In fact, there is nothing. I didn't mention Nikki Haley.

21:59The implication might have been that, but that was anyway. Okay. And you said even when you were asked about these critiques, I work in a world in which everything is a lie and everything is a performance. If it rings true, it's true. So there's been this critique of you that you're perfectly aware of. It seems to me you're sitting on 100 hours, you say, of tapes of what's potentially journalistic dynamite. What do you find that's the most dispositive and the most damning about Donald Trump vis-a-vis Epstein? Well, I find Epstein's descriptions of Donald Trump to be pretty eye-opening at any rate, from how he picked up women to— I think he called him a horrible human being at one point.

23:00He did. And there was one point at which Epstein says, you know, says the problem with Donald Trump is he has no scruples. I always thought that was. But I hasten to add this is Jeffrey Epstein. No, no, but I hasten to add if Jeffrey Epstein thinks a person has no scruples, they must really have no scruples. Or conversely, that Jeffrey Epstein has no right to pronounce on anybody's character. Well, I think that that's part of the resistance to this story, why the media, the mainstream media, the New Yorker, the New Yorker has had no stories about Jeffrey Epstein at great length. And that is, and I think one of the issues is, is the mainstream media having completely demonized Jeffrey Epstein.

23:56He cannot then be a witness against the president of the United States. So I think that there's been this incredible awkwardness about this story. But this is the thing. There is a context. There is a story to be told here. But let me say that virtually everybody, everybody, every network, every major news outlet, every streaming service, at least a significant number of book publishers have turned down this story. And most recently, a publisher of mine who generally would be interested in anything that I wanted to write. Doubled it, yeah. And the response was, this is too icky. So now, I think that that may now change.

24:53Finally, Michael, is it your intention now to go through these tapes where immediately, and I think a lot of people would invite you to do so, in particular where it has to do with the politics of now? Let's forget Jeffrey Epstein's life story and biography and the rest. But just in terms of the relationship between the two of them and what it does or does not reflect on the president of the United States, at the moment seems like something of an imperative to a journalist. I have done this at some length before, and this managed to have no impact whatsoever. Will it have an impact now? Well, I am trying to tell exactly that story now.

25:42Michael, how would you characterize this relationship? What was the texture of that relationship? What was the uniqueness of it? Well, I mean, I think the texture of the relationship was that these were two, you know, incredibly amoral, you might call them loath guys who were out for money and for a good time. And that was the nature of their bond. But I think the complication is having created this Epstein conspiracy or this Epstein demonization or setting Epstein, which certainly the MAGA people do, pretty much everybody does, as the worst person who has ever live. And then to have a situation in which it becomes clear that the worst person who's ever lived, his best friend is the president of the United States, Donald Trump.

26:47You know, I think that becomes a political complication for everyone involved. I can't quite tell how you feel about Jeffrey Epstein. On the one hand, you know, you make it very plain that you're hardly approving of his life and his behavior. But when some people say he's the worst person in the world... David, let me tell you, I'm a journalist. Yeah, you're not his lawyer, and you're his priest. I am the person here who is probably, is certainly the journalist closest to this story. And that's my job, if someone would let me do it, to tell this story. Michael Wolff, thank you.

27:33Michael Wolff's most recent book is All or Nothing, How Trump Recaptured America. We spoke last week. I'm David Remnick. Thanks for joining us this week. See you next time.

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28:31The big question of this Trump administration over and over again has been this. Can they really do that? Can they reinterpret the 14th Amendment? Can they ignore district court rulings, dismantle the education department, revoke Rosie O'Donnell's citizenship? All of us have questions about the administration and its legal challenges and how the courts are ruling on them. So to answer your questions, the New Yorker's legal experts will join us here on the program. Constitutional scholar Jeanne Sook Gerson and columnist Ruth Marcus. Please send us your questions about Trump and the courts to newyorkerradio at wnyc.org.

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