100. Epstein and Trump: What's Really Going On?

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0:35Welcome to The Rest is Politics US with me, Katty Kaye, in London still. And I'm Anthony Scaramucci. I'm still Anthony Scaramucci, thank God. So Katty, what are we talking about today? Well, we did debate, Anthony, whether we should do some other subjects today. But there is so much happening around the Epstein scandal that we are going to spend the program talking about that. We will look at all the latest news there. We've got the Department of Justice visiting Ghislaine Maxwell in prison. We've got the new Wall Street Journal story saying that Donald Trump's name is actually in the Epstein files.

1:11And we'll discuss what that actually may or may not mean and that he has known about this because Pam Blondie told him about it back in May. We've got the House suddenly going on holiday a day early in order not to have to take a vote on the Epstein files. So lots of little bits. And then in the second half of the program, we'll talk about how the Democrats are responding to this. But I thought it was worth starting, Anthony, to remind people that at the heart of the Epstein scandal, we speak a lot about the politics of this. But at the heart of the Epstein scandal are hundreds of girls, children who were raped by Jeffrey Epstein over many years.

1:49And I think sometimes their voices get forgotten in all this, because obviously this is a big political story, right? And we'll talk about the politics of this. But it's partly also a big political story because of the awfulness of what Jeffrey Epstein did. And last night on MSNBC, actually, Lawrence O'Donnell on his program read some of the transcript of the deposition of Ghislaine Maxwell, who was the kind of cohort, the associate of Jeffrey Epstein on his program. And it was actually the federal prosecutor, Maureen Comey, who is the daughter of Jim Comey. We will talk about that in a second because she's just been fired, who was questioning the witnesses.

2:29So we are going to talk about the testimony of some of the victims. And I want to preface this with a warning that these are descriptions of sexual assault and they are very difficult to hear. I think it's very valuable and I think it's valuable for our viewers and listeners. OK, so this is the questioner is Maureen Comey, who was the prosecutor for the prosecution in the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell. Now, Jane, I want to ask you, did there come a time in your life when you met someone named Jeffrey Epstein? Yes. What year was that? 1994. Did there come a time in your life when you had sexual contact with Jeffrey Epstein?

3:05Yes. How old were you when that first happened? 14 years old. There's another bit I want to read you from another witness too. And this is when a young girl is brought to Jeffrey Epstein's house. When you walked into the kitchen, what happened? We were greeted by Ms. Maxwell. Did Mr. Epstein touch you during this first massage? No. After that ended, what happened next? I was paid. In total, approximately how many times did you go over to Mr. Epstein's house to give him massages? Over a hundred. About how often did you go over to his house to provide those massages? Two or three times a week. About how old were you the first time you went over to his house?

3:4914. And about how old were you the last time you went to his house? 18. When you interacted with Maxwell, what, if any, conversations did you have with her about your family? About my upbringing and things that were going on at the time? What did you tell Maxwell? That my mum was an alcoholic and I had been molested and just random personal things. What conversations do you remember having with her about sexual abuse that you'd experienced? I remember telling her that I'd been raped and molested by my grandfather starting at the age of four. After you told Maxwell you were 14, did she continue to call you to schedule massage appointments with Jeffrey Epstein?

4:30Yes. During how many of the massages you gave Jeffrey Epstein, did he masturbate? Every single time. During how many of the massages you gave Jeffrey Epstein, did he touch your breasts? Every time. During how many of the massages you gave Jeffrey Epstein, did he touch your buttocks? Every time. Were there ever massages you provided Jeffrey Epstein where nothing sexual happened? No, something sexual happened every single time. Why did you stop going to Jeffrey Epstein's house? Because I became too old. How old were you? 18. I don't know about you, Anthony, but I find that hard to read. These were girls.

5:13These were children. And he did this repeatedly. His lawyer says that he did this almost every day to these women. And of course, now they're having to live through all of that trauma all over again. I have such intense emotions about it. And my first reaction is great sadness. But like you, I have a beautiful daughter. I have a wife. I have a sister, a mom, friends like you, Caddy. I would never want to see a child put in a position like that. It absolutely breaks my heart. And the people, unfortunately, are now still in the cauldron because of the political situation. Yeah, I mean, I think obviously this is a political show.

5:55We're going to talk about the politics of this, but it's worth, I felt it was worth a moment to remember exactly what these girls went through. and to remember also Ghislaine Maxwell's central role in procuring these girls for Jeffrey Epstein. And the fact that a bit like the Catholic priest story, Anthony, which I'm sure you were aware of and covered a lot when that story broke, she deliberately preyed on girls who were vulnerable, right? She went after a girl whose mother was an alcoholic who had already been sexually abused. And she knew that that girl had that background. And yet she still brought her into a situation in which she was going to be abused.

6:33again and again and again by Jeffrey Epstein. So we raise that because it ties into why this story is important and why so many people are so focused on it and why the politics of this matter. I find it hard to listen to. I'm sickened by it. I guess what I would say to you, from a political perspective, this fits the vein of MAGA. And I think it's important for us to explain the vein of MAGA, the central artery system and the vein of MAGA is there are pedophiles at the top of the food chain. They control the earth. They do things to harm young men and young women. And they found a pedophile by the name of Jeffrey Epstein that has this web of connections into bank CEOs, technology CEOs, and billionaires, U.S.

7:29broadly CEOs, I would say, and also tremendous amounts of politicians. And again, I think it's worth repeating. I did say earlier in one of our shows that the attorney general that prosecuted him in the first case before he returned to jail in 2019, Alex Acosta, who went on to become Trump's labor secretary, told people that Epstein was part of an intelligence operation, intelligence compromise operation, a result of which we've caught him doing all these things, but go easier on him. He had a fairly lenient sentence given the deposition that you just read. So a couple of things, okay? Was he or was he not at Trump's wedding?

8:16Well, the answer is yes. Did he or did he not introduce Melania Trump, who was known in the circles of New York to be cavorting with the likes of people like Epstein? Did he introduce her to Donald J. Trump, now President of the United States? The answer is yes. How close were these guys? Well, self-proclaimed best friends for 10 years. Donald Trump called him a terrific guy. And at the time Donald Trump called him a terrific guy, this is what Jeffrey Epstein was doing. Okay. So now the question from a political point of view, what are the Democrats going to do? And I say that they're very weak.

8:58And what are the Republicans going to do? Well, the Republicans are going to go on lockdown. There's some rumors out there that Cash Patel and Dan Bongino, very upset about all this. Are they leaking to the Wall Street Journal? And so I've done some work on that in preparation for this podcast. They are not, but I've got friends that are very close to them. I mean, and by the way, Caddy, as close as you and I are in terms of their closeness to Cash and to Dan, they're very upset about it, but they're not the leakers. They're just trying to figure out how they can reconcile the MAGA position with their spiritual leader now deeply involved in this situation.

9:41And so the United States citizens, even the people that hate Trump, they have a high tolerance for Donald Trump's behavior, have a high tolerance. And so then the question is, is there anything in there that we're going to see that comes out of the five or six sigmas statistically into some really bad, and I mean really bad stuff. Is there photography? Is there a woman that's going to come out? Is there something? And I maintain that so far that hasn't happened. And the Republicans are smarter than the Democrats. And the Democrats can be pissed at me for saying that. Let me rephrase it. They're more conniving than you guys.

10:26And they're in lockdown right now trying to figure out a way to save the orange maniac. And so I think he survives it. And you may be right. Push back, push back and tell me where I'm wrong. Before I do that, I think it's worth going through all the things that have happened and why I think this is a bigger story that has more legs. I don't know if it brings Donald Trump down. I don't know what impact it has on the midterm elections. A lot of things can happen between now and the midterm elections. But I think that this is a story that is at least going to last through the summer. And I want to go through the different elements of the story that have happened since we last recorded, because a lot has happened in the last few days and you raised lots of bits of it.

11:04So we've got the reason I wanted to read some of that testimony as well is not just to remind people about the victims, but to remind people about the role of Ghislaine Maxwell, who is sitting in prison at the moment and is getting a very unusual visit from a political appointee in the Department of Justice and whose brother has said that she has fresh testimony that she is prepared to talk about. And obviously Ghislaine Maxwell desperately wants to get out of prison. She is down in prison in Tallahassee. She hates being in prison in Tallahassee. I've spoken to a constitutional law professor who says this is very unusual to have a political appointee effectively because there is no firewall anymore between the Justice Department and the White House, basically a White House appointee going down to interview her.

11:48It smacks of the possibility of corruption. Will she say something about Donald Trump to exonerate him in order to get her sentence released? I think the fact that the DOJ has also just fired Maureen Comey, who was the woman who was asking those questions in that transcript, is also interesting. But I think it's one of the things, and we can run through them, the Wall Street Journal, where Donald Trump now is named in the Epstein files, whatever that means. you can be named in a file without having done anything wrong or any suggestion. His name could come up. It could be in his contact books.

12:23We don't know what it is. And then the Congress being sent home early. I just think these are the things, each of these elements keeps this story going longer than we thought it would go for on Monday. I don't know. I mean, what's your reaction for a start? Let's talk about Maureen Comey and Ghislaine Maxwell being visited in prison. I mean, what's your reaction? You're the lawyer, not me. Well, but let's take the steps here. Okay. So let me be nefarious and let me be conniving like the Republicans. And then we'll talk about what's realistic and what isn't. So I'm going to fire Comey, Maureen Comey.

13:01It doesn't really have to do with James Comey, by the way. We'll make up that it does. But we're going to fire Maureen Comey because of the privileges associated with confidentiality around this case. And this will put Maureen in a lockbox where she's not going to be able to go to a microphone. Which makes it look like we're hiding something, right? I mean, it makes it look, even if it's not, you're not, it makes it look like you are. But Katty, this is the most brilliant part of the story. I used to say to people, oh, no one's going to be able to get away with anything anymore because of the world of social media and all the microjournalists out there and the photographers.

13:36Nobody can get away with anything anymore. But not Donald Trump. You left out the shameless. The shameless can get away with anything. And so Trump is doing it right in your face. Remember what John le Carré said about the KGB. Their best operatives are right in your face. Their best operatives are spying out in the open. And the best cover-up is, listen, this is what I'm going to do right to your face. I'm going to fire Maureen Comey, which is going to put her in a lockbox verbally. I'm then going to send my bud, who's the deputy AG, to Ghislaine, and I'm going to go interview her. And I'm going to say, listen, if you keep your mouth shut and you do this and you do that, you know, in six months time, we're going to commute your sentence or whatever we're going to do and blow you out of the seat that you're in right now.

14:27If you want to go full, you know, bore on us, we're going to make your life very, very difficult. And so look, look, to me, I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but you're telling me there are three minutes missing from a tape. I'm also going to tell the people listening to this podcast, he didn't hang himself from a rafter. And if you're telling me that Jeff Epstein is the kind of guy that would do that to himself, having this level of compromise. Hold a second. You're talking here from the point of view of somebody who believes there is a conspiracy or you yourself are asking these questions, Anthony?

15:02I know I'm asking the questions. I don't want to be a conspiracy guy, but I'm just saying to you, we've got three minutes of tape missing. Too many questions, yeah. And he had already tried to hang himself, right? The reason he was on suicide watch is that he'd already attempted it once and he was meant to have somebody in his cell the whole time with him, another prisoner, and he didn't. This is a story with lots of holes in it and lots of powerful people and clearly awful things happened. I'm saying they made up that story, what you just said. His brother says he, I talked to him, he never tried to hang himself.

15:31They said he tried to hang himself to position it that way. But let me keep going because I know these sons of bitches. Because I work on Wall Street. I know these ruthless MFs. This guy is not a guy from a profile perspective, personality wise, going to hang himself. I got a lot of information on you. I've got a lot of compromise on you. I've already been to jail. You put me in jail a few years ago. You got me back in jail, but I got the goods on you. Last time I was put in jail, you let me out leniently. Likely going to let me out leniently again. Which is what his lawyers were telling him. I mean, he didn't go into this thinking he was about to get a life sentence in solitary confinement.

16:14Okay. So that's the Epstein piece of this. Ghislaine knows all of this. What's his name? Todd Blanche. Yeah. You are going to try to suppress her and you're going to try to contain that information to protect your principle. Or you're going to try and get her to say, Donald Trump had nothing to do with this. By the way, if I went to Hollywood with this screenplay, they'd throw the screenplay out. They'd put it in a paper shredder. They'd say, dude, this is not even realistic what you're saying. So let's throw it in a paper shredder. But listen to me, they're very organized. So step one, we're going to end the Congress a couple of days early, a day early.

16:56Step two, we're going to try to contain the information. Step three, we're going to try to intimidate Rupert Murdoch and the Wall Street Journal. He keeps dropping dimes on them. He keeps dropping dimes on them. We spoke about this when we recorded on Monday about the fact that the Wall Street Journal had just been sued for$10 billion. And what is Murdoch's response? To have another Wall Street Journal story drop saying that Trump's name is in those files and Trump has known that his name was in the files since May. So clearly he is not going to be intimidated. And by the way, great branding for the Wall Street Journal.

17:28If you're Rupert Murdoch, you're kind of loving this because everybody is talking about the Wall Street Journal as a profile in courage. and waiting breathlessly for what is the next story that the Wall Street Journal has. I think if you're Rupert Murdoch, you're not unhappy with how this is going. And you're not going to settle if you're Rupert Murdoch. You're going to wait for Trump to settle. No, and Rupert Murdoch does not give a shit about Donald Trump. Just give everybody a newsflash. You don't think he loves him? I don't think he loves him. I think he tolerates him. And again, I told the story about how much they could not stand him in 2016.

18:00I was at Fox at the time and I could share those stories. But here's the thing that people have to know. The anti-MAGA crowd. These are the people that hate Trump. Buddies of mine like George Conway. I could list the whole group of people. They're hoping and praying there's a smoking gun in there that knocks him out of the box. And we get a President J.D. Vance. That's what they're hoping. Okay. And you're shaking your head. Yeah. And I'm telling you that that's not going to happen. And if I'm wrong, then I can eat crow. I can let Alistair throw – We'll be at the amusement park. Alistair can throw something at me.

18:38Yeah, he'll throw tomatoes at both of us. I agree with you. Yeah, and I can dip into the shameful pool. If there was something like that and the Democrats had access to those files all the time that Joe Biden was president, you don't think the Democrats would have released – found a way to get that information out already? So let me play the counterdote to that, though. There are Democrats in the file. So you're not going to – so you bring the thing to Biden. He's looking at the thing. He's like, OK, we got the smoking gun here on Trump. Oh, wait a minute. There's 27 other bodies. If I let out the Trump stuff, there's 27 other people that are going down.

19:1516 of them are on my team. Okay, listen to this. One of the testimonies, what names do you recall them mentioning to you when they would tell you about their social circle? Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Mike Wallace, people at some that I didn't know. So yes, there are definitely Democrats in there too. Yeah, of course. Because if what Alex Acosta said is true, the guy was trying to honey trap and bag a lot of people. He's a very evil, very nefarious guy. But evil, nefarious guys like Jeff Epstein, to me, I'm not a detective. I'm not trying to play one on this podcast. But I know these types of people because I've worked on Wall Street 36 years.

19:57They don't off themselves nonchalantly, Caddy. They just don't do it. So maybe he did. I'll give the government the benefit of the doubt. Two guards were missing. Everybody was asleep. Three minutes of tape erased. We'll give the government the benefit of the doubt that Jeffrey Epstein killed himself. But Ghislaine Maxwell is still alive. In the immortal words of Elon Musk. So if the whole thing is a hoax and there's no list, why did Epstein kill himself? And why is just Slane Maxwell in jail? But the irony of everything that I'm saying to you and the great frustration that people should be feeling is that this cover up is happening in the open.

20:41Have you said to me, oh, we could do this in the 1940s? No problem. Less social media. We're only operating with radio, frankly, and a few newspapers. Could we do this in the 1980s? Possibly. In 2025, we're doing this right out in the open. And I think these people are going to get away with it unless you tell me that there's something there that we haven't been able to see in the last six to nine years related to Jeff Epstein. OK, we're going to take a quick break and come back and talk about everybody's different reactions to what's happening. Donald Trump's reactions to what's happening, what he's been saying this week, the Republican Party and Mike Johnson, we alluded to that, and then also to the Democrats.

21:24And we'll dig into that when we come back.

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22:39Okay, welcome back. And in this half, we're going to talk a little bit more about the politics of all of this. Putting aside what this means to Donald Trump in the long run, I think it's interesting this week to see Donald Trump. I mean, it just feels like they're kind of flailing, Anthony, which is so rare for Donald Trump. He's usually in lockstep with MAGA. And this has been the only time I can think of where he is out of step with the culture wars. So he's not leading MAGA at the moment. MAGA has a bit of a life of its own. Now, this may not last. It may not have any impact in the midterm elections.

23:14It may die because other things may happen. But just watching him this week try and distract attention from this by talking about almost everything in the book, by talking about President Biden, by talking about President Obama and threatening to kind of investigate him and arrest him, by talking about Hillary. He's spoken about Harvard. He's spoken about immigration. He's spoken about the comedian Rosie O'Donnell. He's been speaking about the Washington football team, the Washington commanders, and saying it should go back to being called the Washington Redskins. I mean, you can just see him on his social media feed in the last couple of days, trying to get back in front of kind of MAGA and the culture wars by distracting from everything else.

23:55And so far, I take your point, so far, he hasn't managed to knock this story off the front pages of the papers, right? And then the question is, can his detractors keep it on the front page? So let's go back into strategy mode, Katty. You hate Trump. You want Trump to leave office. And you have raised money for your project to try to get Trump out of office. And now we're like a proverbial dog with a bone. You've got the bone. What do you want to do? How are you going to influence his base? How are you going to trigger and help the Democrats organize to lift Trump out of office? Okay, go. So you can kind of look at what some people have done just this week alone, the Democrats themselves.

24:40I mean, you have Nancy Pelosi, who's gone from, we're going into the summer recess, right? You have this long period of time when members of Congress are home, and they've all been sent their marching orders. So you're at the top of the Democratic Party and you are telling members of Congress, you're going to go back home. This is what you're going to talk about your constituents. Until about two days ago, Democrats were being told, you're going to go home and you're going to focus on the big, beautiful bill. And you're going to focus on the cuts to Medicaid. And you're going to make this an economic story about how Donald Trump is looking out for his rich friends.

25:10And that was the line. You literally heard Nancy Pelosi say on television, the Epstein story is a distraction. and we've got much more important things happening. You've got to focus on the economics. And what she now saying, just in the last 24 hours or so, she's saying, oh, actually, you know what? This is a big story. There's something nefarious going on. There is potentially a there there. In other words, Donald Trump may be implicated in some way, and we should absolutely have everything released and investigated. So I think that the messaging to opponents of Donald Trump has changed from we're Democrats and we don't want to be involved in a conspiracy theory to actually, you know what, maybe there is something in this and we want to keep this story alive all through the summer.