How the Epstein Conspiracy Theory Took Over Politics

0:06Hey, Jon. How's it going? Hey, Tyler. Thank you so much for having me again. Yeah, thank you so much for being willing to come on the podcast to talk about literally the most fraught subject of our time, which is the Jeffrey Epstein files or lack thereof. I guess I would say that everyone in the media knows that Donald Trump is very good at controlling the news. We'll be talking about one executive order and then he'll sign another one and we all shift to talking about that. We'll be focused on ICE raids in L.A. and then Trump will bomb Iran, changing the news cycle again. But what's interesting is that when it comes to the Jeffrey Epstein story, Trump simply has not been able to change the subject.

0:45So why is this the scandal that won't go away? Yeah, it's pretty extraordinary how long this Epstein story has gone on for. I mean, this is approaching a time of recording this conversation like two and a half weeks, I think, since Axios first reported that the Department of Justice and the FBI had essentially said there's nothing to see here. Everyone should move on. And, you know, I think this morning on the day that we're talking, you have those same Justice Department officials now saying they're going to try and talk to Ghislaine Maxwell. And it doesn't really seem like there's an end in sight.

1:14And, yeah, I think there's a few things going on. I think that most obviously Trump's attempts to change the subject have been incredibly clumsy and have had the obvious effect of keeping the subject in the news, right? Obama created the Epstein files, like these crazy things that like, yeah, they don't feel as strategic and as effective as they usually do. It seems like he's really just grasping around for something. right and suing the wall street journal for defamation seems like a good way of kind of getting figures in your base who maybe have been wavering a bit to rally back around you and say actually you know we remember that the real enemy is the nasty mainstream media and rupert murdoch but it will have the effect if he actually pursues that lawsuit to its you know conclusion whatever that may be of keeping that story in the in the news it's pretty classic streisand effect stuff right this idea that you know sometimes in trying to make a story go away on the internet you just amplify attention towards it.

2:10You'd think that someone who is sort of prone to thinking like that himself and again has trafficked in these theories to electoral benefit, he would have a sort of more innate understanding of that. And yet you see him sort of explicitly saying, you know, we're going to release more material. It won't be enough to satisfy people and doing it anyway, rather than just sort of shutting the whole thing down and by not talking about it, which is sort of interesting. I did also think that there's a certain kind of sad irony in the fact that it's been so hard to keep attention trained for longer than a few days on any of these really important consequential stories that you have mentioned.

2:44And the thing that seems to like have everyone still talking about it for two and a half weeks is a story that is obviously like very sad and tragic and consequential and has had real world consequences. I don't want to say that it hasn't, but it's not really a matter of like urgent political concern. It's sort of like a story that might in another ecosystem have functioned as a distraction tactic in itself. So the fact that it's now something that has really held on and that he can't distract from is almost like the kind of snake eating its tail of Trumpian distraction tactics, I guess. That's John Alsop, who just wrote a piece for The New Yorker about how Donald Trump, who used conspiracy theories to help propel himself back into office, has enraged his base by not releasing the fabled Jeffrey Epstein client list.

3:31It's unclear if the Epstein client list is even real, or if Trump officials just built up the idea of one for political gain. But the tension between Trump and his base shows how dangerous it can be for an elected official to weaponize conspiracy theories, especially ones that they can't deliver on. I wanted to talk with Alsop about the style of paranoid politics that we're seeing today from both parties and what it means for the future of our country. This is The Political Scene. I'm Tyler Foggett, and I'm a senior editor at The New Yorker.

4:08So let's start by bringing everyone up to speed on the Epstein story, since it's been almost six years now since he died in jail. Notice that I'm not taking a stance on how he died. Yeah. What do Trump supporters believe about Epstein? And how has the Trump administration's posture on Epstein changed in the past few months or since Trump took office, basically? Yeah. Yeah. So as with many conspiracy theories, I think there are different versions of this one, right, that sort of range from thinking, huh, you know, it's kind of weird that he killed himself in jail when you think he was a very high security priority prisoner who I believe tried to kill himself before.

4:47And it seems sort of strange that that was allowed to happen, particularly given he was connected to all these rich and powerful people. I'm sure there are some many, in fact, Trump supporters who just have that kind of haven't really thought about it, but it does seem odd level of concern or questions about it. And that then ranges right through to the sort of full kind of QAnon adjacent version of it, which is that a cabal of satanic paedophiles are running not just the government, but the entire world. And they drink children's blood to stay young. And Epstein is sort of at the center of this network.

5:19And there are probably all sorts of prominent people in this list that he obviously kept. And why won't the government just release it? It's kind of a whole gamut of things. and it's an interesting one because a lot of people in Trump's orbit or in the MAGA orbit and who now serve in his administration including in positions ironically at the top of the FBI really sort of stoked the fires of this in in recent years you know going on podcast and the internet and just sort of saying the Epstein stuff is super suspicious we don't really know what's going on there we need full disclosure. Trump himself did indicate during the campaign that he would be open to releasing the Epstein files as they've become known in shorthand.

5:59But he never, he didn't really sound particularly kind of proactive or enthusiastic about doing so. He was asked in a, what has now become a kind of infamous and much recently played interview on Fox last year, would you release the Epstein files? And he says, yes, but, you know, only as long as it doesn't implicate innocent people who might be in them because there's a load of like phony stuff in that world. And, you know, it's all a bit dicey and we want to be careful about that. It was not kind of a ringing, yeah, sure, you know, this is like the big one in conspiracy theory terms, and I can't wait to kind of get in there and peel open the envelope.

6:29So at the heart of Trump's project, you always have this sort of ambivalence or at least sort of like two sides to how different figures were approaching this. So they come into power in January and about a month after they've taken power, Pam Bondi is on Fox. and she's basically asked, is it possible that you will release the Epstein client list, which is, you know, in this law, this is the master key, I guess, to all the people who would have been implicated in Epstein's crimes. And she says, it's sitting on my desk right now for review. But she sort of then situates that claim in the context of, and so are the Kennedy files, so are the MLK files.

7:06But obviously she was explicitly asked about a client list and she did explicitly say, it's on my desk for review. So a lot of people understandably took that to mean that there is a client list and it was on her desk waiting for review. In the meantime, a few days after that interview, she released what was dubbed phase one of the Epstein files. And a bunch of kind of B or C list conservative influencers were brought into the White House and given these like binders and given advanced access to them. And there's this amazing picture of them all kind of like wielding these binders outside the White House.

7:36But it pretty quickly became clear that there was nothing in them that was even new or interesting. I think a lot of it was already published. It was like flight logs and things like that. And so you see people on the right saying, you know, what the hell? You kind of promised us this was a big thing. Bondi then goes back on Fox and says something to the effect of, you know, this isn't actually all the material. You know, I asked for FBI field offices or whatever to put this all on my desk. And it turns out there's stuff missing and we're going to get to the bottom of this. And then fast forward to earlier this month.

8:05and yeah Axios reports first I think on a memo from the from the DOJ which says you know the DOJ and the FBI leadership have come to the conclusion that Epstein did kill himself or at least there's no evidence that he didn't that there's no evidence there's a client list and that there's no evidence he was sort of leading this big blackmail thing oh and by the way also we're not going to disclose any more information about any of this because it would be unwarranted and inappropriate and of course it invites some questions right I mean Bondi of course has said on Fox that there's a client list that she's going to review.

8:35She then walks that back subsequently and says she was referring to the kind of Epstein dossier as a whole that wasn't really ever about a client list. I actually find that somewhat plausible, given that she never personally used the word client list, although she, as the nation's premier law enforcement official in a sensitive area, should have been more careful. But then, you know, why do they put out the Epstein files phase one in February if they never intended to follow up on it? So, yeah, obviously it invited all sorts of questions and that has created the current big mess and furore and we are where we are.

9:02And before we talk more about the mess and sort of the conservative backlash here, maybe we should stop for a minute and talk about the recent Wall Street Journal article. What were the revelations in that piece, which, as you mentioned earlier, Trump is now suing the Wall Street Journal for publishing? Yeah. So it seemed like there'd been rumors going around media circles for a few days that the journal was preparing this kind of bombshell report on Trump and Epstein and that Trump wasn't happy about it and it sort of tried to kill the story. So for context, it's obviously well known that Trump was friends or at least associates with Jeffrey Epstein in the kind of early 2000s.

9:38And before there's this New York magazine interview, or it's a profile of Epstein. Actually, Trump is interviewed for it in, I think, 2002 and says something along the lines of, you know, Jeff's a terrific guy and he likes women as much as me. And, you know, it's often said that they're on the younger side, which obviously becomes a kind of very ominous comment in light of everything that is subsequently revealed about Epstein, although it should be noted that was before Epstein was ever held criminally accountable for anything. And I believe the journal story kind of drops into that context. I think it's 2003, it's Epstein's 50th birthday.

10:12And Jules Maxwell, I believe, is putting together a kind of binder for his birthday and an album, I guess. And one of the messages allegedly has been contributed by Trump. And based on the journal's description, it's like a super weird message that's sort of a kind of dialogue, imagined dialogue between Trump and Epstein that sort of alludes to some kind of secret. And it's then, if I'm remembering correctly, sort of like encased on the page in like a kind of line drawing of a female figure. A naked female figure, right? Yeah, which then allegedly sort of has Trump's scrawled signature as the pubic hair.

10:48So the journal basically reports this as a bunch of other context in the story. And Trump furiously denies it. He says, one of my favorite Trump quotes in a while. I never wrote a picture in my life or words to that effect. And that's not my language, he said, of like the, I think the, what he signed off with in the letter, allegedly, which was, I think it was may every day be another secret or something like that. Yeah. And things about how enigmas never age, which led to all this discourse about whether Trump uses the word enigma. And in fact, he does use it. But to go back to his supporters and how upset they are.

11:20I guess I'm curious what your take is on why they care so much. I mean, obviously, there's this hypocrisy element, right, that the administration has kind of pulled this bait and switch. But I don't know, my entire family is Republican. And while I'm sure that they would love to see the Epstein files, and while they would love to see Bill Clinton's name on a client list, I'm also pretty sure that Epstein was not on their minds when they cast their ballots for Trump. I mean, they were voting for him because of his, you know, policies on immigration and for tariffs and that sort of thing. So like how salient of an issue is this actually among conservatives?

11:54Or are we seeing a situation where like some of the more vocal new arrivals to the Magiverse? I'm thinking about podcasters like Andrew Schultz who kind of helped Trump get elected, but who aren't necessarily Trump's base. You know, how they are the people who are kind of acting as though they feel betrayed by what's happening here. Yeah, I think that is a super important and also complicated question given how hard it is to measure public opinion, which is obviously this kind of very fast moving and sort of amorphous thing. And I definitely think there is a risk of sort of overstating how, even though this is at the kind of center of beltway discourse or media discourse at the moment, I don't personally think this is likely to be a very big issue come the midterms next year, which some pundits seem to think it definitely will be.

12:41I don't think it's anywhere near as important to people as more kind of kitchen table issues. This is a prediction which I can make here, and I don't know if this will age better or worse, but I actually think that bombing Iran was potentially a more consequential kind of action that Trump could take to sort of break with a certain type of person who voted for him on the understanding that he wouldn't do things like that. So this has got like way more attention. I think it genuinely has energized the base in a negative sense more than anything we've seen in the second administration so far. But, you know, again, I think we need to be a little bit modest about what we know about its likely kind of long term political ramifications.

13:17And just quickly, it seems, you know, based on polling, obviously, there's been different polls saying slightly different things. It seems to me that two things can be true. There is a kind of very broad level of dissatisfaction about how Trump and his administration have handled this. But also, it hasn't necessarily kind of eaten into Trump's approval rating among Republicans, like in terms of that top line number, at least not yet. So, you know, those are important caveats. At the same time, I think it is very important and there's clearly a lot of people do care a lot about it. Obviously, there is a type of Trump based voter for whom this was always very important because they're like super bought into QAnon or sort of adjacent theories about a shaggy cabal of very unsavory people running the world.

14:03And, you know, there was this kind of almost messianic idea that Trump was meant to be the guy who would put an end to that and sort of vanquish them. Obviously, it would be very distressing to then see him, if you are in that frame of mind, turn around and say, actually, there's nothing to see here. So I think that's part of it. I then think that, though, that even the people for whom it's maybe like a more casual obsession or the type of supporter who listens to a lot of a certain type of Manosphere podcast or spends a lot of time on the internet. His sort of response to it has been weird and shifty, I think it would be fair to say.

14:36Now, I'm certainly not sitting here and saying that means that he is actually hiding anything particularly substantive. I actually think there are, you know, perfectly legitimate reasons to not release these documents that they might have run into. But no, but I'm totally with you. I mean, going so far as to insinuate that the people who care about this are weaklings when Trump's whole thing is stirring up conspiracies and getting people riled up about them. It's just very strange that he sort of created this monster and then he's insulting the people who continue to think about it. Yeah, exactly.

15:06And then so maybe that then sucks people who don't care so much about this kind of a priori in because they then start thinking, oh, why is he behaving like this? You know, I voted for him and I've been a loyal soldier for him or whatever. Why is he sort of saying that people in his base are losers or whatever, weaklings, as you said? And I think that then speaks to a bigger idea, which, you know, you sort of hear repeatedly put forward by people who are very plugged into the MAGA base, which is that it's not really necessarily about Epstein per se for a lot of people. It's that Epstein is sort of seen as, among some of the more kind of extreme conspiracy theorists, like a master key to loads and loads of other things that they think are wrong.

15:45It's this idea that if the government is covering this up, then what else could they possibly be covering up? The sort of Epstein files might be the sort of master key to a greater conspiracy that is out there that goes beyond just Epstein and maybe the people in his immediate orbit. But then I think there's a more abstract version of that idea, which I probably do think has quite a wide appeal, which is just, which I think could probably be boiled down mostly to the idea that Trump was supposed to be anti-establishment, right? He's consistently has had this anti-establishment posture, which when you think about it for more than 30 seconds is totally absurd, especially given that he had already been the president by the time the second, you know, his second presidential election rolled around.

16:21But it's this idea that he was meant to be this kind of tribune of the people going into the swamp and, you know, exposing all of the dirty secrets and lies and cleaning the place up. So obviously it then feels discontinent to see him come in and say there's this big scandal and actually you're not allowed to know about it. And I think that that will be something that logically gives pause to people who are not sort of ride and die QAnon conference attendees. So I think it has a kind of broad salience in that way, even if it might not be the most animating issue for most of the people who actually pulled the lever for him last year.

16:57When we come back from the break, I'd like to talk about how the Democrats and the mainstream media have reacted to this story and what it says about American politics writ large. More from the political scene from The New Yorker in just a moment.

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18:05In your piece, John, you cite a recent CNN poll. Just 3 % of Americans said that they were satisfied with what the administration has shared about Epstein. and more Democrats than Republicans are dissatisfied. So does this suggest that Democrats are just as conspiratorial as Trump Republicans when it comes to Epstein? Or do you think that Democrats are just running with this because they realize that it's really bad for Trump? Yeah, super interesting question. And I think if you'd asked me this even a year ago, certainly two, I'd have been like, you know, it's absurd false equivalents to suggest that there's anywhere near the same amount of conspiratorial thinking on the liberal side of public opinion to the conservative one, you know, obviously the defining political characteristic, arguably, if this moment is the sort of mainstreaming of conspiratorial thought on the right.

18:50And I would say, broadly speaking, to be clear, I do still believe that, but like probably with more caveats than before. And I was quite struck by that poll that you just mentioned, which showed that more Democrats than Republicans were dissatisfied or prepared to say they were dissatisfied with Trump's handling and his administration's handling of this Epstein controversy. And I think actually that was a number for Democrats that tipped into like an actual outright majority. I think it was like 52 percent or something saying that they were dissatisfied. Obviously, you do have to be somewhat careful with numbers like this because clearly this is a very polarized country and a very polarized time.

19:26And if you ask people questions like, do you disapprove of Trump doing X if you hate Trump, then you're probably kind of likely to say yes, regardless of what the issue is. Right. So it's not necessarily dispositive. nonetheless i i have been i think this issue has taken on in the last couple of weeks a more bipartisan valence in a sincere way than i would have predicted and i certainly don't think a couple of years ago i would have foreseen so many senior elected democrats being willing to sound functionally like the trump people did on this issue you know where are the files when you release the files.

20:04I mean, they're not sort of doing the very out there kind of QAnon version of it. They're certainly seemingly prepared to lean into a version that is asking for more transparency. So why are they doing it, I guess, is the question. The most obvious answer would seem to me to be political advantage, right? And this is a moment where the Democratic brand is in the toilet, to put it mildly. They are kind of scrabbling around for relevance, but also any sense that they're kind of making inroads into Trump's popularity. And anytime I think that there's a wedge in his base, they're going to try and jump on it.

20:37And they've spotted that here, I guess, because Epstein hasn't really been an animating issue really in any way for them before. They don't feel like kind of freighted with a ton of like baggage. They don't feel like they need to necessarily be consistent with what they've said in the past. I think there's a fair amount of trolling going on as well. Haha, Trump, you know, you've stoked this conspiratorial movement that is now sort of eating its children. And we're going to like absolutely hold your feet in the fire here and make you own the consequences. So yeah, I don't necessarily think it's entirely sincere, but some of it actually does seem kind of sincere to me from the outside, which, as I mentioned earlier, polarized country.

21:11So if you say, do you disapprove of Trump doing X, then you will. But I think that goes hand in hand with the sense that Trump is a genuinely suspicious and shady figure for reasons that are driven, we should be very clear, by actual, very real, solidly reported things that he has done and has alleged to have done in the past, in addition to any sort of fantasizing about this particular story. So I think that people maybe are looking at him and thinking, yeah, this doesn't add up. This is really weird. But it is certainly a little bit jarring to see mainstream MSNBC Democrats say things like, well, Elon Musk has alleged that Trump is in the Epstein files, so we really need to get to the bottom of this.

21:45Whatever the reason, yeah, it is just a very, very weird shoe on the other foot moment that I'm having a little bit of a hard time processing, if we're being honest. Yeah, before we get more into the mainstream media coverage, I want to talk a little bit about this tweet that AOC posted on X, which she's gotten a lot of flack for from conservatives, which is, wow, who would have thought that electing a rapist would have complicated the release of the Epstein files? On one hand, it sounds like there is a bit of, you know, like the trolling that you were just referring to happening here, where AOC sees an opportunity to go after Trump, And it doesn't sound as though she's like clamoring for the release of the files because she's desperate to get to the bottom of this situation.

22:24And yet the tweet is also kind of conspiratorial, right, in the sense that it's alluding to Trump covering something up because releasing that information would be bad for him. So I feel like it is kind of like stoking the flames a little bit. So do you think that this is good politics for the Democrats, even if it's kind of toxic? Yeah, I think there is a strategic kind of slash political answer to this question and a moral answer to this question. And then maybe a middle ground where they can meet, which that AOC tweet is arguably kind of in. But let me explain what I mean. I think that strategically, the Democratic brand has become very clearly associated, not just unpopular, but associated with a kind of incredibly sterilized focus group kind of campaign consultant driven inauthenticity.

23:17And I certainly don't want to sort of insinuate that Trump is authentic, whatever that means. But I think it's fair to say the Democrats are seen as and probably actually in practice in many ways inauthentic. so when Trump who has managed to claim that mantle of authenticity to some degree is really faltering on that key tenet it absolutely does make sense to then jump in and kind of appeal to the populist urges that are feeling betrayed by him and in part I think there is a legitimate point to be made here which is that the Epstein story is true in the sense that the stuff that has been alleged about him is true and he was a very powerful man and had a powerful circle.