Trump's Epstein cover is blown

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0:32Jon Sopel:This is a Global Player original podcast. Good evening from New York. I'm Chris Hayes. Attorney General Pam Bondi privately told Donald Trump that he appeared in the Epstein files multiple times. The Wall Street Journal is now reporting that Justice Department officials told President Trump in May that his name was among many names mentioned in the Epstein files. This is something the White House is now labeling as, quote, fake news, end quote. From ABC 7, live breaking news. A breaking news bombshell just dropping. A news report today that President Trump's name is among the many listed in the Jeffrey Epstein files.

1:15The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Attorney General Pam Bondi told the president back in May that his name appears several times in documents her department reviewed.

1:25Jon Sopel:Yeah, the bombshell in question is not unadjacent to that massive ordinance penetrator that the U.S. dropped on that nuclear site in Iran. This time, though, the bombshell is dropping on the White House and Donald Trump now looks like he's involved in a cover up over who knew what and when about whether his name was in the Epstein files. Where does this go next? Welcome to the News Agents.

1:59The News Agents. It's John. It's Emily. and late last night, the Wall Street Journal dropped another bombshell, arguably a bigger bombshell than the one they dropped this time a week ago. They reported that Pam Bondi, the US Attorney General, had told President Trump back in May that his name was mentioned multiple times in the Epstein files, along with those of other high-profile figures. Being mentioned in the Epstein files is not automatically a sign of wrongdoing, but it is curious that the response from the White House has been once again to shut this down and claim it is fake news. There are questions today around what those files tell us of new about President Trump and why the news has come out and indeed from who, if it happened almost two months ago.

3:03Jon Sopel:So let's deal with the fake news part of this, first of all, because I've seen some media outlets saying the White House denies. No, the White House hasn't denied. The White House uses the phrase fake news to denote anything it doesn't like. It doesn't say it's false. And there are other people in the White House who are saying, well, yeah, of course. I mean, you'd expect Donald Trump's name to be in there because him and Epstein were mates for a very long time. Well, which is it? Is it fake news and a lie or is it nothing to be excited about? in which case why are they so exercised about it because going back to the timeline Emily that you sketch out Trump is told in May by Pam Bondi that his name appears multiple times then the decision comes from Pam Bondi we're not going to release anything about this we've closed the files there is nothing to see here move on well what the Wall Street Journal has just done he said oh yes there is there's plenty to see here and you have got to release it now to the public because this is getting worse and worse and worse for donald trump one other corner of that timeline is the comments that came from elon musk on june the 5th in other words very shortly after it would have got out that pam bondi had informed the president so all those people at the time and i think we were amongst them saying, well, if this was true, if Elon Musk knew this, why didn't he say it earlier?

4:35You know, he's been working with Trump since January. Why didn't he say it earlier? That all makes a little bit more sense now. The idea that Musk knew he had a bombshell bit of information when he said it publicly online during the bust up he had with Trump. And I guess if you go back to this idea that Pan Bondi had told the president that he was in the files in May. And it's important to note that the White House comms director, Stephen Chung, is saying this is just a continuation of fake news stories concocted by the Democrats and the liberal media. And then he tries to talk about the Obama-Russia scandal again.

5:12As you say, they're just not handling this very smartly. And I think that's the unusual bit of all this, that normally Trump can make things go away. So we know, for example, that a week ago, when that first Wall Street Journal news bomb dropped about the birthday card that Trump had reportedly sent Epstein, he got on the phone to Murdoch and he tried to calm things down. He thought that Murdoch was going to kill the story because Trump had asked him. Murdoch didn't kill the story. They ran it two days later. And Trump then called it fake news and was cross at Murdoch. I mean, it's a curious world that we live in, isn't it?

5:54Where the president isn't embarrassed that news has leaked out that he tried to kill the story, but he's angry that he didn't manage to kill the story. And I think this is what we come back to with this whole saga. It's very unusual for Trump to be on the communications back foot. It has followed him around for two weeks, 15 days, and it's become the story that gossipy America, but pretty much all America, is discussing right now because he's not really handled it very well.

6:28Jon Sopel:You see, you mentioned the Obama thing there and Obama and Russia and Obama behaving treacherously and he's guilty of treason and must face the legal consequences of that. Donald Trump there is painting himself as the victim of a conspiracy with Epstein. He's at the centre of the conspiracy. And that is a really uncomfortable place to be. And the more this goes on and the more that is revealed along the way, the more you think there are questions to be answered. And apparently the person who was telling everybody that Trump's name was in this in these files was Kash Patel, the director of the FBI.

7:12Jon Sopel:The same Kash Patel, who before he was appointed the director of the FBI, was at the forefront of saying we must release all the Epstein papers. There is wrongdoing there. They've now found Donald Trump's name in the middle of it and thought we mustn't publish anything. And they've got into such a tangle over this. And it goes to the kind of core of politics 101, which is it's not the crime that kills you. it's the cover up and it's looking like they are covering up and it may be it's no more than just embarrassing details about donald trump and his friendship with jeffrey epstein in which case publish but if it's more than that then maybe they don't want it to be published yeah and you know you've raised this question i mean i think from everything we're hearing now the kind of the person who didn't keep his mouth shut at the time is cash patel i mean you hire clowns you know it turns into a circus.

8:11Frankly, he should have probably realised that if he surrounded himself with people who carry out acts of war on an unverified signal chat group, then the chances of people believing in the importance of national security or believing in the importance of tight circles of trust probably doesn't exist either. So interesting that when he was asked, when Trump was asked whether Bondi's job was safe, Kash Patel's job was safe, Dan Bongino, who's the second in command, Kash Patel's job was safe. He basically said Bondi's safe and Kash Patel is safe. And I wonder if there was something at the time, which is like, yeah, it's not going to look good for me to have either of those two on the outside.

8:57I cannot afford to have them on the outside because of basically what I have asked them to do, which is shut down the whole talk of an Epstein investigation because they were the ones that told me my name was in there.

9:09Jon Sopel:So I just want to interrupt there because you mentioned about the leak of the information, the classified information from Pete Hegseth before the Houthi attack. There is reporting just now that I'm seeing from CNN saying that the Signal chat, a conversation that included a journalist, did break all confidentiality agreements. Apparently, the Pentagon's inspector general has received evidence that the military plans shared from Hegseth's signal account were taken from a US Central Command document that was marked classified at the time. So there we are, just a little... What does classified mean?

9:44Jon Sopel:Classified, schmassified. I mean, of course I can release it if I want to. Exactly. So we are into totally new ground here, whereby the people that you think have signed oaths of confidentiality don't really see it that way themselves. And it is possible, I mean, we've been trying to work out who leaked this now. and yeah if Kash Patel kind of went around telling a lot of people then it's highly you know likely that somebody has kind of been saving this up and given it to the Wall Street Journal but we should probably take you into one theory slash conspiracy theory which is starting to emerge and I don't want to give this undue credence but given that we are talking about a world in which conspiracy theories flourish It's probably worth bringing you in on what some commentators are now thinking or describing.

10:35And they wonder whether at the centre of some of the leaking is one J.D. Vance. What proof do we have of this? Very little. We know that he took a flight without getting it signed off by Trump to a private meeting with Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan. And that was just days, I mean, kind of hours, days, 48 hours before the story appeared in the Wall Street Journal.

11:04Jon Sopel:Which is owned by Murdoch. Which is owned by Rupert Murdoch. Is it likely that Vance would go behind his boss to do something like that? That's where we get into the realms of the political, right? Is he thinking that he can open up a wedge between Murdoch and Trump by giving Murdoch the stuff that he needs? And the Bulwark, the sort of substack commentary site, has done a sort of deep dive into the tweet that J.D. Vance put out when the Wall Street Journal first announced their Trump Epstein birthday card. And they quote J.D. Vance, forgive my language, but the story is complete and utter bullshit.

11:48The Wall Street Journal should be ashamed for publishing it. Where is this letter? Would you be shocked to learn they never showed it to us before publishing it? Does anyone obviously believe this sounds like Donald Trump? And the take from the bulwark writer is that's not a defence, it's a trap. Vance doesn't say categorically that Trump has nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein. Instead, he limits his defence of Trump to this particular story in the Wall Street Journal. Then he demands to see the letter, constructing his defence around the idea that the letter doesn't exist and then demanding that the journal produce it.

12:21I mean, look, that might be too deep a dive for many of you listening. You know, we're not kind of getting all derrida here and trying to deconstruct every single sort of full stop. But their point is that there could have been a much more fulsome rejection of not just the letter itself, which probably does exist. Otherwise, I don't think Rupert Murdoch would be standing by a$20 billion lawsuit. but the idea that Trump couldn't possibly have sent it. And he doesn't really defend Trump. He only defends the question of the existence of the letter.

12:53Jon Sopel:Look, of the conspiracy theories that are out there, the J.D. Vance one seems utterly plausible. I mean, you know, of course J.D. Vance stands to benefit if Trump gets into serious trouble over it. He's the guy who's one heartbeat away from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It becomes his if Trump falls. So, you know, yes, J.D. Vance, for all the public protestations, the qualified one that you've given, there have been others where he said, I absolutely my first loyalty is to the president of the United States. I have no other loyalty but to the president of the United States. And you kind of listen to this and you think, oh, me thinks he does protest a bit too much.

13:28Jon Sopel:But you go back a bit, go back to before the election. Who was one of the people saying that the Epstein papers have to be released? It is one J.D. Vance. Here he is on Theo Vaughn's podcast. Release the list. Seriously, we need to release the Epstein list. That is an important thing. J.D. Vance laughing along with Theo Vaughn, who's kind of egging him on to say, don't we want to see what's in the Epstein files? J.D. Vance saying, we sure do. The other, I guess, curiosity, and again, I don't want to make too much of this, but this goes back to the bulwark piece, which is that the Epstein story was published in the Wall Street Journal.

14:08The Wall Street Journal sits in a very unique position because of its conservative leaning and because it's owned by Rupert Murdoch. It is the one kind of mainstream paper that both adheres to kind of recognizable journalistic practices, i.e. verifying your sources, but isn't automatically dismissed as fake progressive news. I mean, that's Trump's response to anything that appears in The New York Times or anything that appears in CNN, virtually The Washington Post as well. And so I guess there is a question that it is slightly uncomfortable that The Wall Street Journal should have this story because The Wall Street Journal pits Murdoch against Trump.

14:53But Murdoch also owns Fox and Fox is full of people who have tied themselves to Trump. And so if you imagine Trump can't entirely dismiss everything that the Murdoch House is saying, because he also kind of needs the Fox commentators who have so far been his bread and butter backup.

15:14Jon Sopel:Yeah, I think, look, we could do a whole separate podcast on Rupert Murdoch and his influence. But we know that Rupert Murdoch, for all that he's a multi-billionaire businessman, he's a newspaper man as well. He's always enjoyed, if the facts are there, speaking truth to power and bringing down politicians. if they've you know it was the wall street journal that broke the story about stormy daniels and the the 130 000 payoff so it hasn't you know when it's a newspaper he loves the smell of ink and he loves the swift of controversy and so the wall street journal has gone there but you can be absolutely sure and this is i'm kind of passionately believe you know the wall street journal is not some fly-by-night person who goes on social media and spouts bullshit the wall street journal knows what it's doing.

16:02Jon Sopel:It's got proper serious journalists, grown-ups, who will be checking stuff out thoroughly before they put things in the paper. And that is why I think the dismissal of the birthday card, and now the dismissal that Pam Bondi told Donald Trump in May, doesn't ring true. I bet you the Wall Street Journal have got all their ducks in a row. Also, when you are at the centre of a breaking news scandal, as Trump is basically right now, the question that is always at the back of your mind is what else have they got and he should be asking himself that they had one scoop last week they have a bigger scoop this week i'd be wondering what's coming down the channel at me so trump is obviously pretty upset about all of this and i saw politico reporting this morning that trump is ruminating about the epstein fallout and saying they're going to accuse me of some funny business apparently in a recent oval office meeting that's according to a Republican close to the White House, they're going to fuck me anyways, is what Donald Trump said about the way the media is going to report this.

17:06Jon Sopel:Trump is not on the front foot on this. As you absolutely rightly observe, Emily, he's normally been the master of how to communicate, how to change the subject, and it ain't working this time round. In a moment, Ben Smith from Semaphore in New York on the way this is playing out across America.

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18:34This is The News Agents. Joining us now is Ben Smith from Semaphore. And there are a lot of strands to this unfolding story, Ben, not least how the leak got out, how the papers are covering it. but kick us off by telling us what you make of this news what what america is making of the news that trump was told that he's in the epstein files and he's known this for two months well i would say what i'm making of the news with america's making of the news are not identical i mean america is losing its mind over this it's the biggest story in the country in some sense it's kind of trump's afghanistan it's a huge uh a huge blow to him and the first story and the first crisis that has just rolled for days and days and that he's proven unable to distract from.

19:24Basically, his supporters have been told that there's a huge blackmail and sex trafficking conspiracy involving a bunch of Democrats that's being covered up. And now it's just obvious that, in fact, the White House was literally covering up Trump's place in this. And so what you have is both political factions pushing you know, a really unsubstantiated story about the suggesting that Epstein was blackmailing powerful men, that he was trafficking children beyond his own proven, you know, really loathsome sexual abuse. And, you know, who knows that Mossad was involved. I mean, it's real kind of fantasy land stuff.

20:02It's as I have described it as QAnon for people with college degrees. So what do we make of Trump's name being in the files? Does it tell us anything that we didn't know about the relationship that he would have with Epstein? No. I mean, what's so interesting about this is Trump and Epstein were really close friends in the late 80s and the 90s, and that's undisputed. There are photographs. Trump gave an interview about it. And the files are a voluminous investigative report. Everybody that investigators interviewed in one of the biggest investigations in American history. And so it'd be surprising if Trump's name wasn't in there.

20:40they were he and Epstein were very close you know and spent the 80s and 90s chasing young models in Manhattan which is you know you can decide what you think of Donald Trump's kind of like character and sexual morality in the 1990s but that is not news.

20:55Jon Sopel:But Ben then try to explain to me because I struggle to understand the way the White House has reacted when they say it's fake news when the Wall Street Journal story drops that you know Pam Bondi told him back in May that he was in the files why don't they just go yeah you know he's known epstein for a long time of course he's in the files but it doesn't mean anything's wrong and that's not how they've reacted you know they tried to close it down initially by saying the files won't be released and now they're trying to some are trying to say it's fake news when his name is associated with the files it just seems to be a you know embarrassed kind of cover-up yeah i think i think you are reading it correctly it is an embarrassed cover-up.

21:38And, you know, he hired these kind of keystone cops to run the security ministries, basically, and they walked him into something that has always been a real vulnerability for him, a subject that he has deliberately avoided, extremely embarrassing at best. And I think, you know, their first resort is to say that things are made up and attack the media. That's not sort of an exotic strategic choice. That's just literally the first thing they do with a story they don't like. So that doesn't really surprise me. I don't think it really tells you much.

22:13Jon Sopel:But then, you know, it's always that old phrase that it's not the original story. It's the cover-up that kills you. It does look like they have handled this in the most maladroit manner. So far, it is certainly the cover-up, not the crime. That's the problem. But because it's not a crime and because it's public, But I think Trump is right and was right to realize that this was a huge vulnerability and to dance around it and to avoid this subject. And his aides just walked him right into it. I mean, they just decided. I think they believed the things that he and they were saying when he did not believe them.

22:54Like, they weren't in on the joke that this was just sort of some fun conspiracizing to torture his enemies. But he, of course, didn't really believe that there was a grand conspiracy. And he certainly didn't want a deep investigation of Epstein's social life in the 1990s. So who do you think leaked this stuff? Oh, well, let's see. I think the question of who leaked the letter is sort of interesting. I mean, you know, it could be somebody in the Justice Department. It could be somebody in Florida. It could be somebody close to Maxwell. I think it's possible that someone, you know, that there isn't an investigator from Florida who had it or something like that.

23:30But it's also possible that Maxwell's legal team has it. I mean, this is a case that's been going on for 20 years. So it's gone through a lot of lawyers. The sort of more entertaining part is that the leak of Trump having been briefed that his name was in there clearly came, according to the journal, from the FBI director, Cash Patel, telling everyone.

23:49Jon Sopel:And so where does this leave? I mean, presumably then Trump is furious with Kash Patel, even though Kash Patel has been a loyal soldier. Yes. I mean, loyal, but not hyper-competent, I would say. Trump's numbers are going down steadily, kind of in the way that Biden's did in the summer of Afghanistan. And some of Trump's most committed supporters, they're very alienated over the Iran attack. They sort of thought a core part of Trump's policy promise was to stay out of Middle Eastern conflicts. And in a somewhat conspiratorial way, and I think sometimes anti-Semitic way, this has gotten tangled up in that.

24:28I think that there's a sort of, for some of Trump's base, there's a sense that these things and other elements suggest that Trump is sort of betraying the true populist promise on behalf of the globalists and that there were mysterious questions about why he would do such a thing. And so there's an alienation among the most passionate parts of his base. And I think that's what's dangerous for him. Ben, true to our word, we're going to let you escape and play tennis. But thank you so much for squeezing us in. All the best. Thanks a lot. Take care. Talk to you soon. Bye.

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