129. The Epstein Emails: Can Trump Survive This?

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1:26Welcome to The Rest is Politics US with me, Katty Kay. Is it though, Katty, is it the rest is politics US or is this the rest is political emails? What is it today? This has been a great day for me. All I did is I'm here in Sydney, Australia, reading emails. I'm reading more emails than my own emails, but I'm reading emails. You're reading all these emails that prove one thing above all else, which is that Jeffrey Epstein can't spell for toffees. What about Donald Trump's social tweets, his true social tweets coming out of these emails? What's your reaction to that? I know you got to tell us what we're going to do today and all that other stuff, but I got to get right into it with you because this is so good.

2:07This is so good. I actually was sort of surprised if I, okay, if I had been Donald Trump's media advisor, which thank God I'm not because he would never listen to me as he never listened to any of his media advisors, my reaction would have been, you don't say anything, at least not anything for a while. And when you do say something, you don't say this is a democratic hoax because the polls Polls in America show overwhelmingly, polls don't agree on many things, but they show overwhelmingly what the American public wants, the release of all the Epstein materials, including MAGA, which also wants the release of all the Epstein materials.

2:49But OK, we've jumped straight in to catch you all up. Here is what has happened over the last 24 hours in case you have been hiding on a desert island or sitting on a plane or living under a rock. Early on Wednesday, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee published three email exchanges from Jeffrey Epstein to various people in Jeffrey Epstein's world and from them back to him. And the Democrats released a few of these. The Republicans have released a whole lot more. And the other thing that has happened is that Donald Trump has replied, as Anthony suggested, on Truth Social, saying that this is all a Democratic hoax.

3:24But potentially the even more important thing that has happened in the last 24 hours is that there are now enough people in the House who are likely to vote next week to release all of the Jeffrey Epstein material that is in the hands of the Department of Justice and the FBI. So there are two different packets of Epstein material. There's Epstein material that's been held by the House Appropriations Committee. And there's Epstein material, which includes emails, but also includes electronic material, we understand, which is being held at the moment by the FBI and the DOJ. And that is potentially the bigger, more explosive stuff.

4:05We don't know. We'll have to wait until it comes out. But there could be a vote in the House to release all of that next week. It would then have to go to the Senate and we'd have to see how the Senate would vote. But we're going to get into what we know so far and what the political implications are of what we know. So do you want to kind of run through, Anthony, before we jump straight to our analysis, which, of course, is what we want to get to? I think we should run through what some of these emails say. OK, so April 2011, Epstein is writing to his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who's now in prison, as we all know, that the dog that hasn't barked yet is Trump.

4:42redacted victim, spent hours at my house with him. He's never once been mentioned. But, Cady, what's interesting about this, and I'm going to give Caroline Levitt lots of credit here. She goes to the podium in the press room and says that this victim is Virginia Giuffre. Now, we don't know that to be the case, but the reason that she's doing that is Virginia Giuffre said that she glancingly interacted with Trump and he didn't do anything inappropriate with her. So we don't know who they're talking about in this April 2011 email, but Caroline Lemmitt jumped the story. She put her name in there, even though she was a victim that's redacted.

5:24Now, some people are out crying that how could she give up the anonymous name? But this was a brilliant move by her because Virginia Giuffre Cady unfortunately took her own life. She can't respond to whether or not it's her in the email. But what they do have is her evidentiary testimony that Donald Trump didn't do anything with her. She actually said that Donald Trump didn't even flirt with her and that he was always nice to her. So if it is Dufresne that is being referred to, and the name is redacted, as you said, in this one, all that might mean is that Donald Trump was at Epstein's house or with him somewhere.

6:01And Dufresne was also there, but nothing nefarious happened between Donald Trump and whoever the victim is, right? That's what the implication is of what Caroline Leavitt is saying. We're here to analyze things and call balls and strikes, as they say in America, that counter offensive move, she gets an A plus for that. It's a ruthless move. It's a cunning move. It's a disgusting move in some ways, but she does get an A plus for that because she's now shifted the heat away from Donald Trump. One other thing that's just on quickly on Caroline Levitt is that the other thing she did, which I think she does not get an A plus for in that press conference that she held, the daily briefing that she held after the release of these emails was saying that, you know, they had been friends, Donald and Epstein until Donald Trump threw him out for being a creep with the girls.

6:58And that is a different story from the story that we have heard from the White House and Donald Trump previously, which is that Epstein and Trump, the relationship fell apart because Epstein was trying to poach girls from the spa to bring them to traffic them in his own house. And Trump didn't like that or bring them anyway to his own house. we haven't heard the story before that they fell out because Trump thought that Epstein was a creep and that begs the question of why did he think he was a creep what was Epstein doing that would have made Donald Trump think he was a creep because that suggests he knew something about what Epstein was doing right I mean I wouldn't call somebody a creep unless I thought they'd done something creepy well I mean I mean again I don't want to bring you into it because you're not anything like these people, God forbid.

7:50But if you are a creep and the other guy's a creep, you're hanging out doing creepy things with each other. And maybe the one guy goes into creepy to the third power. And then you say, OK, that's too creepy for me. But the thing that's crazy here is the January 2019. Trump is in the Epstein thing. He came to the house many times and the email explicitly says Trump knew about the girls. Now, you and I both read the New York Times. That's the 2019 email, right? Yes, the January 2019. Now, you and I both read the New York Times article. I thought that was a brilliantly written article, which I'll summarize for our viewers and listeners.

8:33The New York Times said, okay, he's in the house. It feels like he did some very nefarious things. We can't say that because we don't want to be in this libel kerfuffle with Donald Trump. So let's get our legal team in here to help us write the article. But they came as close as they possibly could, Caddy, to making that suggestion. Yeah, and we should make clear just on the whole legal side of this that Donald Trump has says he's denied all of this. And he says this is just the Dems who are out to get him. I appreciate all that. I'm just talking about what's in front of us. And then the real question is, what do the documents prove and what do they not prove?

9:14And so, again, you're spending hours in the house. He knew about the girls. And he asked Ghislaine to stop. That was the other thing that Jeffrey Epstein says. And so was he was he directing or trafficking underage girls? It does not prove that. So I say that very definitively. It does not prove that. But there's something lurking in the background. And so this is the question I have for you, Caddy. They're going to vote now. Right. They've they've seated everybody. They swore in the representative from Arizona. They're going to vote. Lots of Republicans have said they're breaking from Donald Trump to get more disclosure of these Epstein files.

9:52Just to remind everybody, these are files that were taken from the Epstein estate. So these are things that the FBI themselves did not have access to. So there could be a smoking gun there. There may not be. But what say you, you, Caddy? Can Donald Trump, is there a way for these files to be released without Trump's approval? I think the answer to that is yes. But what say you and what do you think the impact is going to be? I think there is an awful lot here. And I think you get to the good point, which is there is no smoking gun, first of all, in this tranche of 20 ,000 odd emails that's been released that directly ties Donald Trump to any bad behavior.

10:34it seems that Jeffrey Epstein over the course of these these emails stretch for about a decade it seems that Jeffrey Epstein thinks he has some information that could hurt Donald Trump he doesn't spell out what that information is the closest he comes to it is then that one which you mentioned from 2011 where he says he spent hours with redacted name one of the girls um but he but clearly epstein thinks he has something and and we don't know what that thing is and we don't know whether this is epstein telling himself he has something or telling other people he has something epstein after all is a notorious liar and a notorious manipulator so he could be saying all of this stuff um to make himself feel more important and to make it seem like he has something on somebody who has launched a political campaign and then by 2019 is actually president of the United States and is in charge of the government that is investigating Jeffrey Epstein at a time when Jeffrey Epstein is becoming more and more aware that he is going to go to prison for a very long time.

11:39So that is all the context around this. I think the question now for Republicans in the House and perhaps even more interestingly for Republicans in the Senate is if this goes to a vote, do they want to vote to look like in a way that looks like they are protecting Jeffrey Epstein, or do they want to vote for transparency, which is what all of them, Democrats and Republicans in the past, have called for? The polls on this are overwhelming. The American public wants these files released. MAGA wants these files released. And perhaps most importantly, and I think this is who we should never lose sight of on this program, Anthony, The victims themselves have said they would like all of the Epstein material released with the names redacted so that they don't have to go through any more harm.

12:33The past year, you've done an amazing job of getting the victims' voices out there and recognizing how terrible this is. So there's a political situation going on. But underneath this, there's been a horrific tragedy that's unfolded over multiple decades, which I guess one of the things I would like to have happen is full transparency and then an understanding how we can protect victims going forward. There will be, and this also ties this into the politics, because the two co-sponsors of the bill that members are going to have to vote on, one Democrat and one Republican, are going to hold a press conference with survivors next Tuesday.

13:12And those survivors will come out. One of them have said that they're going to come out and they're going to ask, remind the American public, please think of us as you would think of your daughter or of your sister. And how would you, what would you want to happen? How would you help us have our voices heard in a way that we can be helped to heal over this? But that press conference will be both emotional but also very political. Yeah. And again, I don't want to make light of the victims, but I want to go back to the political analysis because this is important. And I want to, you know, I wrote up this morning a couple of different scenarios.

13:48I want you to respond to them if you don't mind. So I have the worst case scenario. Okay. This is the worst case scenario for the president. Again, this is us just surmising. So we've got three different things we're going to go over. But the worst case scenario is that the documents emerge showing more than just an association, that he has involvement or potential knowledge of trafficking payments and a cover-up. That's the worst case scenario. The moderate case is that there's no new dramatic evidence. I feel like that's where we are right now, frankly. Yes, I agree. We're in the moderate case.

14:17I would put it there. Okay. be that the narrative gets overshadowed by other events, foreign policy, economic things, but no real legal liability arises and his base remains loyal to him. So those are the three scenarios that I wrote up this morning. And I want to go to the worst case scenario for a second and ask the following question. Let's say there is smoking gun material. I am here in Australia, a beautiful city of Sydney. I was with a group of people last night, and they said the consensus was if this was an Australian political leader, they would have been gone a long time ago, Caddy. And I think we could say the same thing in the UK, as evidenced by Mandelson and what happened to former Prince Andrew.

15:06So is there anything in the worst case scenario that would politically harm Donald Trump with his base or his fellow Republicans? It's a good question. You and I have spoken about this both on this podcast and between the two of us before. And I think there is a compelling argument that what has come out so far would not have been politically fatal, would not have changed the result of the 2024 election, which was largely an election about affordability. and people had already baked into their perception of Donald Trump. I mean, even Steve Bannon said this recently, he's a very flawed character when it comes to kind of issues of morals and godliness.

15:48So even his key supporters would admit that, you know, he's not exactly Mr. Squeaky Clean on all of this stuff. So I think it wouldn't have changed the election a year ago what's come out now. the very worst case scenario, a case in which would have to be which very clearly there's either video or photographic evidence of the president of the United States with clearly underage girls, I think that would damage him because partly because this is a bipartisan issue. I mean, it's been for years, Republicans and MAGA have called for transparency on the Epstein files. And now Democrats are joining MAGA, which actually is weirdly slightly silent about this in the last 24 hours.

16:37But in terms of the public, Democrats and Republicans alike want transparency on this and are interested in this. And I think if there were photographic or video evidence or irrefutable evidence that Donald Trump behaved in a way that was illegal with underage girls, I think that would damage him, yes. So you think that John Thune would call for his resignation? You think that a senior Republican would say - I think there would be so much public pressure if it was an underage girl, if it was clearly a child. I think that is different from Access Hollywood. So that's beyond shooting somebody on Fifth Avenue, right?

17:16Trump said he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue? Because it's a child. It's a child. And every single newspaper would say, it's a child. And even Fox News, which has been pushing Donald Trump. And here's the other reason, because the fractures in MAGA that you and I spoke about last week are only growing over a whole host of other things. As we are speaking now, there are more and more splits emerging in MAGA, and Donald Trump doesn't appear to have the iron grip that he had on his party even a month ago. You know what? Before you get to the next two scenarios, let's take a quick break and then we'll come back to the next two scenarios.

17:59Welcome back. So here are the two other situations. If I said to you that we're going to commute Ghislaine Maxwell's sentence and you're now Sherlock Holmes I'm channeling your Sherlock Holmes would you say hmm are you Watson in this case I think so yeah I mean Sherlock was smarter than Watson so I'm going to allow myself to be Watson if you don't mind but Watson had a higher EQ actually he did he did okay well maybe you're Watson and Sherlock but let me just ask you this question because because I I sort of feel like that's not a smoking gun but I sort of feel like whoa that is also a bridge too far it would imply that she has material information on him so i'm just i'm just saying as a person that's observing this that's your moderate scenario that's your middling scenario galane maxwell's sentence yeah nothing major comes out uh he he's going to avoid this but he knows there could be a smoking gun lurking with galane and she knows she's a smart cookie to use his own words he commutes her sentence to effectively buy off her silence if you buy her silence and i'm just wondering uh if he does that it's in that moderate scenario i think he gets whatever happened if there was something nefarious i think he gets away with it what do you say bingo i think anything short of what i laid out which was a Very high bar.

19:26And I don't have any knowledge that that evidence exists. Anything short of that, I think he gets away with. Certainly what was released in this tranche, he gets away with. Commuting, Ghislaine Maxwell's sentence, he gets away with it. It's been reported by legitimate sources that they're in the situation room, which is usually, you know, the situation room is for, we're bombing somebody, we're trying to get hostages back, But they're in this situation. Venezuela talking about the Epstein crisis in the situation room. So you were in the situation room and you had to advise the president. What would you say to President Donald Trump about his tweeting?

20:06What would you say about the facts that are unfolding? What would you say to him? What we would say to him, both you and I suspect about his tweeting, he would never listen to because it's impossible to stop him. So I don't know if I would even waste my breath on trying to stop the president of the United States using social media, this president using social media to get across his sense of grievance and frustration. I would probably say to him, get on the phone to Lauren Bobert, Nancy Mace, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and try to persuade them with whatever it takes, whatever you have to give them, however many bridges they want in Colorado and in Georgia.

20:44Give them whatever they need in order that they don't sign on to release all the documents and all the other evidence next week. I think that's what I would say. I would say try and get those people to say, no, we're not going to vote with the Democrats. I'm going to say something radical. Okay, ready? I'm going to say, go into political jujitsu move and go full transparency. And get everything out. And get everything out. I would go, I would call everybody. I would call them. I would do exactly what you said and say, cool out on me. I'm completely innocent. And I would go full transparency, all emails, all flight logs, all visitor records, all seized documents.

21:33Everything that the Department of Justice and the FBI has. But you would want it to come from him and the White House rather than coming through a vote in Congress. I agree with that because I think this vote in Congress, if it snowballs and there are potentially dozens of Republicans who now vote to release the documents about Epstein, that is a problem for Trump. That looks like he's losing control of his party. This is the mistake that he's making because he's, again, we're speculating. I'm not suggesting or maybe everybody know. I'm not suggesting he's done anything wrong. But let's say he did do something wrong.

22:09It's going to come out. So his best move is to go full release, totally shift the heat, Caddy, totally put the pressure away from him. And then he can say, I don't know what you're talking about. This is made up or that's AI or that's a Democratic hoax. You see, he's got such a hold on his base that if he flips the table over and calls for full transparency, his base will say, well, he called for full transparency. He had to know there was nothing in there. This stuff that they've supposedly found is made up, Katty K. You see, and I'm just wondering. You go with the hoax line. Yes. You go with it all.

22:49It's fake. It's Russia, Russia, Russia. Correct. After you flip the table over. What if there is something really bad in there? It's completely untrue. I don't know what they're talking about. He has seemingly got away with the Wall Street. Video or photographic evidence? Completely untrue. You know how things are today. They made it grainy to look like it was 1995. 95. Look at how, look at all this nonsense. And I've got nothing to hide. I've gone full transparency, which is evidence to everybody in the world that I have nothing to hide. Let's get on with it. I told you at a truth social that it's a democratic hoax.

23:24You see what I mean? So, so again, just from a strategy point of view, he's not thinking in the vein that he typically thinks he is in defense mode. And he needs to be in attack mode. By the way, you know what will also happen, Caddy? There'll be other people in the file. And he can get the gun off of him and on other birds that are in the file. There are names that have come up, you know, that we had not really been focused on, even in this tranche. I was meant to be, I'm here in Norway, and somebody that I'm meeting with tomorrow texted me and said, oh my God, you know, there's even a former prime minister of Norway whose name has come up in these files.

24:00So there's a lot more people that are, this is the whole web that is being exposed with each of these releases of Epstein's, kind of slightly creepy friends, but there you go. One question though about that, Anthony, your strategy, which I do think actually now I'm thinking about it, I'm playing it over as a potentially brilliant strategy. It assumes, because you said this is going to come out, are you 100 % sure now, as we speak on this Thursday, November the 13th, is there any chance that it doesn't come out? Is there any chance that it gets through the House, but then gets to the Senate and the Senate decides that they don't want these files.

24:41So you just added three or four rational, you added three or four rational logical sentences in the syllogism of why he's got to go full transparency right now. He's got to say, you know, I've had enough of this. I'm not in there. It's a total hoax. I don't care what the House does. I'm calling for full transparency. And then behind the scenes, work the phones to make sure that anything that he thinks could be in there doesn't come out. Listen, I'm not – again, I think it's important on a program like this to lay everything out and to provide the analysis and also to provide potential strategy for both sides.

25:19But I think Trump is operating off of the heel of his foot right now, and he's not good on the back heels of his feet. He's way better on the balls of his feet, Katty. He's had this has been a bad week for President Trump. I mean, there's no way you can cut this one. He had bad election results last Tuesday. That was not helpful. The polls for him are really not very good at the moment, either on the economy or on employment. And now he has these Epstein files come out, which I don't think anybody would say are helpful for him. And certainly judging by Caroline Levitt's performance and the way she said that these were creeps and a slightly muddied that story again, that's not very helpful for him either.

26:05So he's used to being in the strong fighting offensive and since January, the totally dominant position. And in the last two weeks, that dominance has crumbled a little bit. It's been a little bit chipped away out. Let me ask you another question. If you are Senator Susan Collins of Maine or Senator John Cornyn of Texas or Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, all of whom are up for reelection next year, and this comes to a vote in the Senate and you are effectively asked to vote for transparency in revealing the details of a investigated and convicted pedophile, or you have the option of voting to protect the president of the United States, who is actually pretty much the only person in America at the moment who doesn't want transparency around this, which way do you vote?

27:00Which way does Susan Collins of Maine vote when she's being challenged in her own state? So I think that she votes for the release. And I think one of the big issues that we're not talking about that we have to talk about is the president's approval ratings. They have slipped now to 36%. And these are politicians, Caddy. If that approval rating goes to 30%, they are running off the boat. They're burning their MAGA hats. I wasn't with him. What are you talking about? I had nothing to do with him. They'll disassociate themselves so quickly. If something did come out, they'll be like, oh, I was never with the guy.

27:40Oh, I voted for that because that was old school Republican policy. That's what these guys do. They'll flip the script. What we've learned in this age of disinformation and what we've in the sort of post-truth world is that it's a 10 minute story. You say 28 things in denial. 10 minutes later, it moves on to another story. And so she votes for the transparency. And again, if I'm her, I get to the microphone and say, look, I don't think the president did anything wrong. I'm a Republican. He's a Republican. He's on my team. I don't think he did anything wrong. Of course, I'm voting for transparency.

28:18I believe the president. President has suggested that this is a hoax and he's done nothing wrong. So it's in his best interest and mine to vote for the transparency. And I would never vote to protect the reputation of a pedophile. Yeah, of course. Here's the thing I would say about this whole situation. This is terrible. And the American people have been hit hard by outrageousness during the Trump decade. We now have a decade of Donald Trump, 2015 to 2025. We're entering the second decade of Donald Trump come January 1st. And we have been made numb by Donald Trump. We have been immunized from his craziness to the point where he can almost do anything.