Will Epstein's victims force Trump to release more files?

Summary

Americast (BBC News)

Episode: “Will Epstein's victims force Trump to release more files?”

Release Date: September 5, 2025

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Overview

This episode of Americast delves into the renewed controversy surrounding the Jeffrey Epstein scandal and its reverberations for Donald Trump’s presidency. As Epstein’s victims unite to demand the release of unredacted Epstein files, pressure mounts in Congress—with survivors threatening to name abusers themselves. The Americast team discusses the legal, political, and personal implications for Trump, the role of partisan politics, and what this means for democracy and government transparency.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Survivors' Public Pressure and Legislative Push

• Survivors Gather in D.C.: The largest gathering of Epstein’s victims in six years occurs on Capitol Hill, backing a bill (the Epstein Files Transparency Act) to unseal Epstein’s records. Victims give highly personal statements calling on President Trump for action.
• Survivors’ Threat: If no official release occurs, the survivors plan to compile and possibly publish their own list of abusers—escalating the pressure on the administration and Congress.

“I am no longer weak. I am no longer powerless…President Trump, you have so much influence and power…please use that…because we need it now and this country needs it now.”
— Anoushka DiGiorgio (01:38)

2. Congressional Maneuvering and Bipartisan Support

• Congressional Stalemate: After a recess intended, in part, to cool the Epstein file debate, Congress returns to intensified focus.
• Bipartisan Effort: Democrats, alongside Republican Thomas Massie (and support from controversial Trump loyalists like Marjorie Taylor Greene), push for a discharge petition to force a vote.
• Political Risks: Some Republican legislators are breaking with Trump on transparency, indicating the issue is transcending party lines.

“She’s [Marjorie Taylor Greene] broken with him, she's criticized him publicly, she’s signed on to Thomas Massey’s bill... And so if they want to give me a list, I will walk in that Capitol… and I’ll say every damn name that abused these women.”
— Sarah (narrating), quoting Marjorie Taylor Greene (09:39)

3. The Dilemma of Naming Names

• Legal and Social Backlash: The panel weighs possible repercussions for victims naming names outside official channels, including legal vulnerability and online abuse.
• NDAs and Confidentiality: List compilation challenges are entangled with court-sealed files, NDAs, and potential for intense backlash in the partisan and conspiratorial climate on social media.

“Frankly, the people who are the most exercised about this Epstein case are some of the people I... would not want to upset online.”
— Sarah (06:53)

4. Trump's Stance and Political Fallout

• Trump’s Defense: Trump characterizes the push for transparency as a “Democrat hoax,” sticking to a dismissive script and referencing his administration's supposed cooperation.
• Legal Nuance: Trump's current denials contrast with past cooperation on the case, as noted by Brad Edwards, a lawyer for some Epstein survivors.
• Political Motives for Secrecy: Panelists speculate on whether the White House’s reluctance to release names is tied to political expedience or embarrassment, not necessarily self-preservation.

“This is a Democrat hoax that never ends. You know, it reminds me a little of the Kennedy situation…”
— Donald Trump, quoted by Anthony (12:25)

“He [Trump] didn't treat this as a hoax [in 2009]... I would hope he would revert back to what he was saying to get elected, which is, I want transparency.”
— Brad Edwards, lawyer (13:46)

5. The Missing Surveillance Tape Minute — and Trust Erosion

• New Document Dump: Recent release of 33,000 pages by the Oversight Committee surfaces a long-missing minute of Epstein’s jail surveillance tape. Initially explained as “standard procedure,” the minute turns out to have existed all along.
• Implications: Panelists express skepticism toward official explanations, particularly those by AG Pam Bondi, amplifying mistrust in institutional narratives.

“Why should we trust her on anything now that the missing minute wasn’t missing at all?”
— Sarah (17:11)

6. Breaking the Legislative Impasse

• Discharge Petition Mechanics: With nearly enough signatures from Democrats and defecting Republicans, a rare parliamentary maneuver could force the Epstein Files vote, bypassing reluctant House leadership.
• Post-Vote Obstacles: Even if passed, the Justice Department may still redact or classify documents, potentially leading to extended legal battles.

“It’s hard to get that many people to agree on anything... But now it looks like they might be able to pull it off, which then—OK, you get to a floor vote, it passes. Then the question is, will the Justice Department... actually release [the files]?”
— Anthony (18:46)

7. The Revenge Campaign and Government Retaliation

• Discussion with Miles Taylor: The second half segues to Trump's “vengeance agenda” post-2024, with former DHS chief Miles Taylor describing government retaliation beyond precedent and personal tolls for those targeted.
• Historical Comparison: Nixon’s and LBJ’s use of government power as tools against enemies is invoked, but Taylor and the hosts underscore the scale and transparency as distinctly Trumpian and more systemic.
• Societal Effects: Taylor recounts threats, career ruin, and the chilling effect on friends and colleagues—even those politically opposed to Trump.

“Don’t worry, he’s joking… But I estimate about 80% of the things that I forecast in the book have already come true... So no, it wasn’t a joke. It wasn’t preposterous. These things weren’t made up. It was Trump’s plan.”
— Miles Taylor (34:19)

8. The Cycle of Political Overreaction

• Hyper-partisanship Risks: Panelists and Taylor warn that Democrats risk desensitizing the public if every Trump action is declared an existential threat, potentially playing into the hands of an administration eager to justify crackdowns.
• Global Autocracy Parallel: Taylor points to global examples (Hungary, Russia, Hong Kong) of how overreaction by opposition is used to justify further authoritarian consolidation.

“That’s a pretty consistent storyline you see in countries that are backsliding from democracy towards autocracy... You see the ruling party try to goad the opposition into overreacting... That is what I think we have seen with the troop deployments from this administration.”
— Miles Taylor (37:52)

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• Anoushka DiGiorgio (Epstein survivor’s plea):
  “President Trump, you have so much influence and power in this situation. Please use that influence and power to help us…” (01:38)

• Marianna Spring (on politicization):
  “It felt like the first time during this whole debate... that we’d heard from the people affected, properly heard from the people who were affected by it.” (10:00)

• Sarah Smith (on online backlash):
  “The vitriol and abuse that you can suffer online... can have real world effects as well, with acts of violence and people’s homes being targeted.” (06:53)

• Miles Taylor (on Trump’s revenge campaign):
  “Donald Trump’s efforts are different in that they are institutionalized and systemic. It’s as if Richard Nixon had gotten another shot... and said, ‘I’m gonna come in this go round and make sure there are not people who are willing to raise a flag if something they see is illegal.’” (28:17)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Epstein survivors and their demands / list threat: 01:10 – 05:33
• Congressional push and reaction: 03:03 – 05:33, 09:01 – 10:00, 18:24 – 20:55
• Discussion of naming names and risk: 06:53 – 09:32
• Trump’s response / “Democrat hoax” line: 11:54 – 12:47
• Legal contradictions and Brad Edwards’ account: 13:09 – 14:18
• Missing surveillance tape & mistrust: 16:34 – 17:39
• Discharge petition and legislative prospects: 18:24 – 20:55
• Miles Taylor interview (Trump’s revenge, historical parallel, personal toll): 21:14 – 33:52
• Opposition overreaction / threats to democracy: 36:32 – 40:07

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Conclusion

This episode provides a robust, multifaceted examination of the Epstein files debate—showing the interplay between survivors’ courageous advocacy, congressional gamesmanship, entrenched conspiracy, and a president under siege. The Americast team, alongside guest Miles Taylor, connects these events to the broader dangers facing American institutions, from vengeful governance to the peril of hyper-partisan discourse, leaving listeners with a stark warning: the stakes for American democracy remain high and unsettled.

Transcript

[Anthony]

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[Marianna]

BBC Sounds.

[Sarah]

Music radio podcasts the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, the saga that just will not go away for Donald Trump, burst back into flames in Washington this week as survivors of Epstein's abuse came together in D.C. and formed the biggest gathering, actually of his victims in over six years. And they were here to support a bill that that would force the release of the entire Epstein files. You had people like this woman, Anoushka DiGiorgio, who appealed directly to the President.

[Marianna]

I am no longer weak. I am no longer powerless and I'm no longer alone. And with your vote, neither will the next generation be. President Trump, you have so much influence and power in this situation. Please use that influence and power to help us because we need it now and this country needs it now.

[Sarah]

These survivors are now threatening to compile their own list of abusers if there is no other way to get those names into the public domain. Welcome to AmericasT. AmericasT.

[Anthony]

AmericasT from BBC News.

You're gambling with the lives of millions of people. You're gambling with World War three.

President Trump's message is very simple.

We are done being taken advantage of.

Mr. President. In the name of our God, have.

Mercy upon the people who are scared now.

[Sarah]

Are you supportive of these onesies?

[Anthony]

I'm supportive of vaccines.

[Sarah]

What is happening?

[Marianna]

Like, this is not America.

[Anthony]

This is a terrible nightmare.

[Sarah]

This is what victory feels like. Yeah, hello, it is Sarah here in the BBC's Washington bureau.

[Anthony]

And it's Anthony right next to Sarah here in Washington, D.C. and it is.

[Marianna]

Marianna, aka misinformation, in the worldwide headquarters in London.

[Sarah]

Anthony. Marianna, we're really going to have to talk about what's been going on with Jeffrey Epstein, because we're in this position where Congress broke up early, essentially a few weeks ago to stop there being too much talk of Jeffrey Epstein, too many attempts to get all of these controversial files released. They've just come back into town, haven't they, Anthony? Anthony. And it's all bubbled up again.

[Anthony]

Yeah. If they thought that a month off would allow cooler heads to prevail and for the story to disappear underneath the waves because of everything else Donald Trump has been doing. No, they're wrong. What the Democrats were doing, as you mentioned, leading into this, was that they were forcing votes on pretty much everything to try to get a full release of the Epstein files. Now that they're back, they are cooperating with one Republican member of Congress, Thomas Massie, to force a vote, to gather enough signatures on a petition to force a vote in the House of Representatives, one that the leadership there, the Republican leadership, cannot avoid. And so the big push has been in that area, although we've seen some things in some of the committees as well.

[Sarah]

Yeah. And really ramping up the pressure was when a bunch of Epstein survivors, as they're calling themselves, women who had been abused by Jeffrey Epstein and his circle of associates, all turned up on Capitol Hill yesterday with a huge placard reading Epstein Files Transparency act, which is, of course, the legislation you're talking about, Anthony. And if you listen to them in their own words, and they're, they're, they're very powerful, they're pretty persuasive, and they say they're going to try and do what they can to get this information into the public domain. One of the women in that group was Lisa Phillips, and she said that they have, between them, started compiling a confidential list of Epstein associates who they say were involved in that abuse. We are not asking for pity.

[Marianna]

We are here demanding accountability. And I'm demanding justice.

[Anthony]

Congress must choose, will you continue to protect predators, or will you finally protect survivors?

[Marianna]

And also I would like to announce.

[Anthony]

Here today, us Epstein survivors have been.

[Sarah]

Discussing creating our own list. We know the names.

[Anthony]

Many of us were abused by them.

[Sarah]

Now, together as survivors, we will confidentially.

[Marianna]

Compile the names we all know who.

[Anthony]

Are regularly in the Epstein world, and.

[Sarah]

It will be done by survivors and.

[Marianna]

For survivors, no one else is involved.

[Anthony]

Stay tuned for more details.

[Marianna]

It's really interesting what she says there about the no one else is involved because so much of the conversation about this list or, or lack of list has centered around the current president, obviously Donald Trump, and accusations that he's somehow like not releasing it or is linked to it, obviously accusations he's very, very much denied. But when there have been, for example, conversations then with Ghislaine Maxwell, one of Epstein's associates who's in prison, about this, again, there's been this feel of, well, is this happening independently or is this happening because of political pressure? Politicians close to Donald Trump have met with, you know, in government, have met with her to talk, to have conversations about this list and, you know, to make it clear that Donald Trump wasn't involved in abuse and all of those kinds of things. But certainly in the online world, there have been these real questions over the independence and the transparency. And so it's really interesting that the survivors have very much tried to separate themselves from those ideas and say, look, we are actually going to do something which is the truth, what we see as the truth, what happened to us and talk about our experiences. And we've had this question from an ameracaster. This email is from Mist who says, why? Why can't the victims name them? It would be painful and horrible to relive. I believe there are NDAs involved and what's been submitted in court may be confidential, but isn't all that rather void? Even without a bill, couldn't those who suffered release their own list, red tape and law be damned? What do you think, Sarah Anthony?

[Sarah]

I think it sounds terrifying, frankly, in the current political environment where you've got an administration that's not afraid to name names and go after people if they think that they're attacking them in some way and will be talking in the same vein to Miles Taylor about something similar later. But also in your world, Marianna, online, where if somebody gets any prominence or controversy around them, the vitriol and abuse that you can suffer online and that can have real world effects as well, with acts of violence and people's homes being targeted. And frankly, the people who are the most exercised about this Epstein case are some of the people I personally, really, really would not want to upset online. I mean, I don't know if I'm being overly cautious about this, frankly. I mean, you know, brave people, it takes them to stand up, to speak truth, to power. But wow, no, I wouldn't want to get involved in that.

[Anthony]

Yeah, obviously they're stepping into a political firestorm and one where there are so many people pouring over every single little bit and Bob, of this story, looking for conspiracies, looking for cover ups, that there is a danger in being even tangentially connected to this. But I think it's fascinating, though, that they have focused on the list that they're compiling because that, as Marianne said, that was what everyone was talking about. Is there a list? Isn't there a list, a client list? The Trump administration said there is none. And that was what set off a lot of this controversy to begin with. So now here we are, the victim saying, well, we're going to make our own list. If there wasn't a list, we are going to will one into existence. And that may have a lot of people nervous. There's one person who was accusing Donald Trump of being set up by Epstein and accusing Donald Trump of inappropriate behavior. So if you can imagine there are other people like that who will put names onto a list, and if that somehow gets out and is made public by this group, one, there could be legal vulnerability to anyone making these accusations. But two, it also could be very politically damaging for anyone on that list. We saw that with the MeToo movement.

[Sarah]

Yes, yes, of course. And that was, yeah, in different times, taking on a different adversary. Now, it's really interesting that one of Donald Trump's most loyal supporters, Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia congresswoman, she's normally at his side defending him ferociously, but actually on this Epstein thing, she's. She's broken with him, she's criticized him publicly, she's signed on to Thomas Massey's bill that we'll talk about in a minute. And she said this as well about not being scared of naming names.

[Anthony]

These are some of the richest, most.

[Sarah]

Powerful people in the world that could.

[Anthony]

Sue these women into poverty and homelessness.

[Sarah]

Yeah, it's a scary thing to name names, but I will tell you, I'm not afraid to name names. And so if they want to give.

[Anthony]

Me a list, I will walk in.

[Sarah]

That Capitol on the House floor and.

[Anthony]

I'll say every damn name that abused these women.

[Marianna]

I think what's difficult is because it's become so politicized, like, you hear Marjorie Taylor Greene speak there. And Marjorie Taylor Greene has a track record of sharing a whole range of conspiracy theories and disinformation on social media. She wouldn't call them that. She would very much defend herself against those, but she's always been, for example, particularly engaged with the conspiracy theories that talk about paedophilia, that talk about sexual abuse. So it doesn't surprise me at all that someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene has decided that, like, this is the Hill that she's willing to die on and that she doesn't mind actually crossing Donald Trump on this because it's something that matters to both her and her followers a lot. But the problem, I guess, with the politicization is, and I would say that when I watched some clips from that press conference, it felt like the first time during this whole debate argument scandal, for want of a better word, that we'd heard from the people affected, properly heard from the people who were affected by it. It feels like they've been very absent from this political back and forth. And I wonder, Anthony, Sarah, what you think about, does it feel too politicized for their voices to be heard on this? Like, where does it go from here? I mean, what happens if one of them turns around and, and accuses a politician who. It doesn't quite fit with the narrative in certain circles, in certain MAGA circles, like, oh, hang on, no, we want it to be this person who's the baddie, not this person, and so on.

[Sarah]

Well, that raises the question, doesn't it, of what on earth is going on in the White House. And I think you're right, Marianna, that the insertion of these women into the brain is very important because I think it makes it real for people who maybe haven't been buying into this as a conspiracy theory, but reminds people just how bad what Jeffrey Epstein did was. But it also, it just continues to raise this question, doesn't it, of whether there is anything I wouldn't have said so at the beginning I thought Donald Trump was making it up about there being a client list and people being blackmailed and that he could infer that Bill Clinton was on it because he took a couple of rides on Jeffrey Epstein's plane and that he was using it for political advantage. But now, I mean, all sorts of people, sensible, level headed people all over Washington are scratching their heads and saying whose damn name is on this list that's being protected at such political cost by the administration.

[Anthony]

Right. And meanwhile, Donald Trump is sticking with the line he's had for the past few months, which is this is a hoax, an attempt by his political enemies to undermine him and being very dismissive and defensive about these accusations. I mean, this is him in the Oval Office just on Wednesday talking about the release of or the potential release of new files. So this is a Democrat hoax that never ends. You know, it reminds me a little of the Kennedy situation.

[Sarah]

We gave him everything over and over.

[Anthony]

Again, more and more and more, and nobody is ever satisfied from what I understand, I could check, but from what I understand, thousands of pages of documents have been given, but it's really a Democrat hoax because they're trying to get people to talk about something that's totally irrelevant to the success that we've had as a nation since I've been president. I mean, Trump touched on something there, right? That it's hard to disprove a conspiracy theory. You can give them everything and their next question will be, well, what are you covering up? Whether it's this or whether it's Obama's birth certificate, which we got the short form, the long form, Donald Trump said there still was a cover up. So, you know, it's kind of ironic now that he is on the flip side of this.

[Marianna]

I know we've said this a lot in America, but it's worth pointing out again. Donald Trump has frequently indulged conspiracy theories that have absolutely no evidence to support them, including about his political adversaries and people he doesn't like. And so he's now realizing that, like, those things stick, like they're kind of like a bad smell, like you can't get, you can't get rid of them. Particularly if there does feel like, you know, there's, there's some element of truth or it's been twisted or distorted in, in some way. And on this kind of Democrat hoax point that he made, this was what Brad Edwards, who's a lawyer representing some of Epstein's accusers, said, pushing back and saying Trump wasn't calling it a hoax. Back in 2009, I can tell you.

[Anthony]

That I talked to President Clinton. I'm sorry, President Trump back in 2009 and several times after that. He didn't think that it was a hoax then. In fact, he helped me. He got on the phone, he told me things that were helping our investigation. Now, our investigation wasn't looking into him, but he was helping us then. He didn't treat this as a hoax. So at this point in time, I would hope that he would revert back to what he was saying to get elected, which is, I want transparency. This, about this face that occurred, none of us understand it. In fact, I don't understand how this is an issue that's even up for debate.

[Marianna]

But if that were to be the case, then why would Donald Trump make such a big deal of this in his reelection campaign? Like, why would you, you know, it's like, why would you bring up something that you then later didn't want to be an issue?

[Sarah]

The only way you can make Any sense of what's happened. I'm not saying this is what is happened, but it's. The only commonsensical attitude is that they took a look at all of the names involved in these documents and realized that they were friends, not foes or people. That for some. Some reason or other it would be embarrassing if they were from heads of foreign states or something like that, that it would be terribly embarrassing for America, unhelpful for the administration to release these names. So they're trying to cover them up. I mean, the other explanation is there is nothing there. But if that's the case, why they're not just releasing absolutely everything to prove there's nothing there. That's what I don't understand.

[Anthony]

And the thing you have to remember is, is that Donald Trump really wasn't pushing this. I mean, yes, he took. Talked about it, but this wasn't in the. In the realm of conspiracy theories that are out there. This isn't one that Donald Trump was hammering on. Sometimes Trump understands where his base is. I think oftentimes he does and understands what's motivating his base. And he felt like he had to position himself to be on this side of it because it was clearly such an important issue to so many people in the. In the magma movement. But it wasn't one of those ones that he was forcing onto the table the way he has plenty of other different conspiracy theories, once again, the Obama birth certificate one being perhaps a prime example. But we have seen some documents. Now, there were 33,000 documents that the government Oversight committee released earlier this week. I haven't dug all the way through all 33,000 pages, but people have. And the kind of consensus is, however, that that was not anything particularly new, that it was pretty much, well, let's say a nothing burger. Although there was one little nugget in there that was kind of interesting. And that had to do with the missing minute on those surveillance tapes. The tapes in the hallway outside of Jeffrey Epstein's cell, which was not missing anymore. It was in this document dump. And that ended up being, while nice to see it, also not really revelatory. No big secrets in this missing minute.

[Sarah]

Well, no. So I tell you what I thought was really interesting about that was that. Yes. Okay, so we saw what happened in that minute and was. It was just around midnight, wasn't it, where they showed us hours of the surveillance tapes. Several months ago, this one minute was missing where I guess somebody could have snuck into Jeffrey Epstein's cell, killed him, and left again, very, very Quickly, just, just about possible. But Pam Bondi, the Attorney General, tells us, oh, well, that's just standard procedure. When the recording system resets itself at midnight every night, there's this one minute missing. There's nothing weird or unusual about it it at all. You'll find that happens every single day in this jail. Except that's not true because the missing minute was there. So now why she rebelieve a single thing? Pam Bondi has told us about all of the rest of the documents. She's the one who says, oh, we can't show you the other stuff, but trust me, there's nothing salacious in there. Why should we trust her on anything now that the missing minute wasn't missing at all. Also, to the tens of thousands of video, they turned out to be child.

[Anthony]

Porn downloaded by that time. Disgusting.

[Sarah]

Jeffrey Epstein.

[Anthony]

Child porn is what they were never going to be released, never going to.

[Sarah]

See the light of day.

[Anthony]

And the minute missing from the video, we released the video showing definitively the.

[Sarah]

Video was not conclusive, but the evidence.

[Anthony]

Prior to it was showing he committed.

[Sarah]

Suicide in Congress as well. They, they might be able to force the release of the Epstein file. So we've got this bill that's been put together by Republican Thom Massey, Democrat Ro Khanna trying to compel the Justice Department to release them. The Republican House leadership don't want it to go to a vote. But they can force a vote, can't they, Anthony, if they get enough names to sign onto it and they've got most Democrats now, a few Republicans, what are their chances, do you think, of reaching the magic? Is it 218?

[Anthony]

Yeah, they're getting pretty close. They're 212 Democrats, as you mentioned. If they all sign off on it, you only really need six Republicans. And Thomas Massie, he's one of them. Marjorie Taylor Greene said she was going to sign it. I believe they, they just need to pluck away a few more people. I think they've got two more already.

[Sarah]

In Nancy Mace and Lauren Boebert, again, you know, usually absolute Trump loyalists.

[Anthony]

Right. So they're getting very, very close. If this is a rarely used maneuver called a discharge petition. And basically what it does is it forces a vote even when the leadership of the House of Representatives, that's Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House and others, doesn't want it to come to a vote. Normally speakers have incredible power on what does and doesn't get voted on. This is a way to move around that, to short circuit it and bring something to the floor, even over the objections of the leadership. You've seen it where there was a campaign finance bill in the early 2000s that got to the floor that way. Democrats have used it a few times on some other things in recent years. But it's hard. It's hard to get that many people to agree on anything and to sign their name on it. But now it looks like they might be able to pull it off, which then, okay, you get to a floor vote, it passes. Then the question is, will the Justice Department, even with Congress saying you've got to release everything, everything, everything, will they do it? Will they find some way to redact things? Will they fight it in court? And so the hopes are among the people who want to see these documents, that this will do it. But I think there's still, even if it comes to a vote, a long way to go before we see the full files, if we ever see the full files, whatever those full files might be.

[Sarah]

Yeah, because I was wondering about this. Faced with. So that they do, they do get this vote passed, can the Justice Department then just suddenly decide a whole bunch of this stuff is classified? Can the Justice Department classify stuff and therefore not release it?

[Anthony]

Whether it's classified and they, they do, they have exerted, you know, classified classification and national defense and all these sorts of prerogatives time and time again. The other thing that you hear from them is that you have to redact because of the sensitive information about victims of a crime that they, they cannot reveal under, under federal law. So there, there are ways that they could claim that, that some of their, their, their blackouts of the pages, some of their rescissions are legal, and then it becomes a court battle, and then it becomes a matter of just having it possibly be delayed for months, years even.

[Sarah]

Mariana, I believe you've got to disappear into conspiracy land or some kind of online realm in which you dwell.

[Marianna]

I do, I do. Social media algorithms. This time, my other topic of choice. But I will chat to you both very soon on another episode.

[Sarah]

Now let's chat to our longtime friend of the podcast and the important former chief of staff of the Department of Homeland Security, Miles Taylor, whom you've heard from before, is on the line now. Thank you so much for joining us again today, Miles. It's great to talk to you.

[Anthony]

Hey, friends, great to be with you.

[Sarah]

Before you joined us, we were just talking about Jeffrey Epstein and the ongoing saga with that. Obviously, we want to talk to you about whether there is a vengeance agenda coming out of the White House. But as somebody who has worked closely with Donald Trump. How do you think he will be reacting to the fact that he just cannot seem to control this story about Jeffrey Epstein and whether there are any missing files?

[Anthony]

Well, he's gonna shoot himself in the foot. And we already saw that with his response in the Oval Office. This completely dismissive response and labeling anything related to Epstein as a hoax, which, you know, maybe something that infuriates Donald Trump's critics, but it also infuriates his supporters, who he convinced in the lead up to the 2024 election to reelect him, in part because he was allegedly going to go expose the deep state conspiracy theories and deep staters who were hiding things like the Epstein files. And now he seems to be almost mocking his own supporters. And, you know, so comments like that aren't going to help. I mean, they're just going to increase the pressure to actually come forward with real information, real revelations from the investigations and to live up to what he said he was going to do when he came into office. And I don't think they're going to get out of this one. I mean, as much as Donald Trump tries to change the subject and create these extraordinary distractions, as long as his own people, as long as his own members of Congress and his party are demanding that the files be released, he's not going to be able to escape this.

No, it seems like a story that's going to linger around. Now, another thing that Donald Trump promised on the campaign trail, as I'm sure you remember, is that he would, for lack of a better word, exact revenge on his enemies and the enemies of his movement. Here he is speaking on the campaign trail. In 2016, I declared, I am your voice. Today, I add, I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed you, I am your retribution. I am your retribution. That kind of seems like a campaign promise that's been kept, Miles. I mean, you can certainly vouch for that at this point, can't you?

Yeah, well, I mean, in three months into the Trump administration, he issued an executive order directing a federal investigation into me and accusing me of treason, which happens to be essentially the highest crime envisioned by the US Constitution. It's a crime punishable by death. I don't take the allegation seriously. It's very obvious that the president is doing this in retaliation for the fact that I've published books critical of him, that I've been speaking out against him for a number of years. But that revenge campaign has gone far beyond individual critics. Of the president. And some folks did suspect he would get reelected, and, yes, he would go after some of his enemies. But that revenge campaign has turned into something vastly greater than what a lot of people envisioned, and much more so than individual critics.

[Sarah]

America will be very familiar with some of the most obvious things that have happened recently. Withdrawing Secret Service protection from Kamala Harris. He did the same with his former National Security advisor, John Bolton, who is under death threats from Iran, as well as sending the FBI to raid his home, looking for any documents he was keeping there that he ought not to have. But it goes beyond that as well. I've been the most surprised by really blatantly firing people who have produced factual reports that Donald Trump and his administration don't like. And we can think of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics coming up, job numbers, monthly job numbers that the administration didn't like, and she lost her job. And then just last month, Lieutenant General Geoffrey Cruz at the Defence Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, they produced that report saying that the bunker buster bombs that were dropped on Iran may not have done as much damage to the nuclear facilities as the administration were claiming. And suddenly the agency chief is fired. I mean, it sounds terrifying, but, Anthony, is this the worst that we have seen? It's difficult when you're here right in the midst of it, to know how to put it into historical context. I mean, in terms of bad presidencies, Richard Nixon's name always seems to be at the top of the list in terms of doing this kind of thing.

[Anthony]

Right? I mean, you say these are glaring examples. I mean, there's nothing kind of hidden here. I mean, he very clearly is getting rid of people who disagree with him. And he'll say it's because it's the deep state. And these people undermined his attempts to enact policies during this first term. And so he had to essentially clean house. But you're right, he's not the only president who has tried to do this. Richard Nixon, as you mentioned, a. A big example of that. He had his enemies list, and he did order FBI to investigate some of the people on that list. We know this because there were audio tapes in the Oval Office of him talking about his enemies list and the people who were out to get him. He also wiretapped journalists and hunted down suspected leaks among his own staff. And then, of course, the Watergate break in was an attempt by people around President Nixon to gather damaging information on Democrats by breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate hotel in downtown D.C. so it was, you know, these were pretty nefarious, pretty, pretty controversial, pretty inflammatory things that Richard Nixon did. Even lbj. I mean, LBJ had his own efforts to monitor protesters for the Vietnam War using the FBI and even the CIA. He had tax investigations of his political enemies. So there is. There is a history of this. But things are moving so fast with Donald Trump, and it is so out in the open for him and supported, I will add, by the Supreme Court, which has time and time again said that for most executive appointments, most people working in executive agencies, people like Miles Taylor, Trump can just fire them for no reason or for whatever reason he wants to give, and that is presidential prerogative. So it's a orders of magnitude difference. It's a question of scale. And Trump keeps pushing forward on all fronts when it comes to changing the makeup of the federal government.

[Sarah]

Do you worry, Miles, that as we're in the midst of this and there's so much stuff happening with the Trump administration that we're not taking on board the scale of just how egregious it is?

[Anthony]

I think that's right. You know, I agree with Anthony's assessment of Nixon, and I would sum up Nixon as a president who engaged in acts of revenge that were petty but limited. And Nixon was severely constrained by the fact that there weren't that many people willing to execute those orders. So think of Nixon a lot more like Donald Trump in his first term. And I am, of course, one of the caricatures of those evil, deep staters Donald Trump has wanted to remove from government. And it's not because people like me said no to things that he wanted to do that he was allowed to do. That wasn't my job. You know, if I didn't like the things the president wanted to do, I should have just resigned. It was that people like me said no to things he wanted to do that were illegal or unconstitutional, that the lawyers told us that's against the law. And regardless of whether a president's a Democrat or Republican, you want that person in office, you want all your public servants to say no to illegal things. And that's kind of how Nixon's first term was. Yes, he had some loyal lieutenants. He had a very petty grievance against politicians and different journalists and people he wanted to go after. But his efforts were limited to conduct that illegal activity because there were enough people who sounded the alarm and who stopped it. Donald Trump's efforts are different in that they are institutionalized and systemic. It's as if Richard Nixon had gotten another shot in another time and said, I'm gonna come in this, go round and make sure there are not people who are willing to raise a flag if something they see is illegal. And that's what Trump is doing, and that's what makes his campaign to gut the federal government much more insidious than just budget cutting. And look, I will say this, as a lifelong conservative, I have long wanted to see the federal government slim down agencies slim down money saved, but this isn't that. Donald Trump is not gutting the federal government to save taxpayers money. He's gutting these agencies and then replacing those positions with people who are loyalists, people who will enforce his agenda and advance his personal interests instead of advancing the interests of the American people. That is the intent here, and that's what makes it so much more dangerous, and that's what makes the revenge campaign more systemic.

Talk a little bit about, like, the personal toll, because you've said you're not the only one who has been focused the focus of Donald Trump's ire. But beyond just losing a security clearance, it has taken a real toll on you and how you live and how your family lives.

Yeah. You know, this is the type of thing, Anthony, that you think about a little bit before you talk about publicly, because it can be. It's a big, vulnerable thing to talk about. It can be embarrassing to talk about how being on the president's blacklist affects your life. And yet my wife and I have decided, we think it's really important to be out there having that conversation so that people get a window into what's happening to thousands of people who are finding themselves, like us, victims of the Trump blacklist, the Trump enemies list. And in our case, yeah, the consequences have been enormous. I am the sole income earner in my household. I was running a consulting Firm in Washington, D.C. advising technology companies all around the country. And in the wake of Trump's executive order in April, my business partners were so alarmed and worried that they too would be in the crosshairs that they forced the dissolution of the company. You know, my wife is a stay at home mom with a baby. That has been a very hard thing for us to deal with. But it goes beyond that. I mean, it would be enough to lose a job and be trying to figure out what to do next. But we've had to grapple with people threatening to execute me, people threatening to execute my wife, having to get restraining orders against stalkers, having to hire a small army of lawyers to deal with all the potential investigative directions that this could Go. And then there was a piece of it that was very unexpected, Anthony, which is the level of social fear is so high. We've even lost family members and friends amidst this who've said that even politically, they don't support Donald Trump, but they don't want to get in the crosshairs as well. And that's really been the biggest surprise to us. That didn't happen five years ago. When I came forward and spoke out against Donald Trump, I didn't lose a whole bunch of friends. But this go around, people are seeing the extent of his retaliation. And some of my closest friends have said, yeah, I mean, we just need to wait until this blows over to be back in touch with you. That, to me, is a signal that this is qualitatively different. And one quick example of that is, you know, when I've tried to go do fundraisers for our legal defense fund in cities around the country, we've had restaurants and caterers cancel on us because they're worried that their employees might be deported because they supported an event related to a Trump whistleblower. That's next level to me. That is a significant level of social fear I don't think we've ever seen before in this country.

[Sarah]

I don't want in any way to minimize what's happened to you personally, Miles, but. But Donald Trump was not secretive about this during the campaign. I mean, he talked about coming in as vengeance for his supporters. Is there an argument that actually he does have a mandate, certainly, to go after people whom his supporters could name? People like, I guess, Anthony Fauci, John Bolton, people who we could have said were on his enemies list?

[Anthony]

No, I don't think he has a mandate. Now, I believe two things are true. One, yes, I agree with you that he broadcast this very, very, very openly. But two, as is often the case with Donald Trump, the people around him usually responded and said, well, he doesn't mean that, or, no, he's not going to go all the way and use the tools of the government to get revenge. He's joking. He's joking. And I'll give you a personal example of that. When I published this book, Blowback. It's called A Warning to Save Democracy from Trump's Revenge. The whole book. I interviewed a hundred of my former colleagues in the first Trump administration and asked them a very simple question. What did he want to do in the first term that was unlawful, that he will try to do in a second term? What will those revenge actions look like? And I laid it out, and the Response to that was a small army of Trump's allies came out and said the things in the book were preposterous. They were lies. None of it was real. Donald Trump wouldn't do it. He himself came out and was very critical. He had his spokesman blast the book and say it was better used as toilet paper. It was garbage. I mean, they trashed it. Fast forward seven months into the Donald Trump administration. I estimate about 80% of the things that I forecast in the book have already come true. They've already done, like, 80% of the things that I laid out in the book. So, no, it wasn't a joke. It wasn't preposterous. These things weren't made up. It was Trump's plan. But I think that's why some folks were deceived, is they were in denial. And they had support in that denial in Trump's allies who said, you know, don't worry, don't worry, it's not going to be this way. And we saw this before the January 6th insurrection, you know, when his own White House chief of staff came out and said, don't worry, Donald Trump will transfer power. You know, you've got all these liberals hyperventilating that somehow he's going to try to prevent the transfer of power. But that's exactly what he did. He tried to prevent the transfer of power. So I think we see that time and time again. Is that sort of widespread denial, because people don't want to believe something like this can happen in the United States of America. But it is time for a wake up call, because it is happening in the United States of America.

Now, right at the top of our conversation, we talked about how Donald Trump was reacting to the Epstein controversy and calling it a Democratic hoax. That. And we said, well, this could be a sign that he's getting defensive. But the reality is that is a playbook that Donald Trump uses that Democrats are out to get me. This is a hoax. This is just part of Russia, Russia, Russia and all the other conspiracies against him. And the reason he uses that is because it works. And because sometimes Democrats do, as you mentioned, hyperventilate about things. And sometimes it turns out to be true, sometimes it turns out not to be true. And painting everything that's said about Donald Trump and everything that's said about his policies could being this threat to democracy could at times maybe turn it into a boy who cried wolf sort of scenario. For instance, the Kamala Harris taking her Secret Service protection away. Yes, Trump did that. But the Vice presidents, former vice presidents, usually only have six months of Secret Service and protection, and Biden extended it, so it wasn't quite as clear cut, maybe as it looked. So is there, I guess the question is, is there a danger that Democrats could overplay their hands here? And the more they talk about everything being a massive attempt to undermine democracy, that the public is just going to tune it out?

Yet this administration is counting on the opposition overreacting, and that's not a unique feature to American politics. That's a pretty consistent storyline you see in countries that are backsliding from democracy towards autocracy is you see the ruling party try to goad the opposition into overreacting. Why? Because it's a very easy way to justify a further crackdown. You saw it in Hungary, you've seen it in Russia, you've seen it in Hong Kong, is by imposing restrictive measures, you try to get the opposition to protest, to protest violently, to engage in actions that go too far and shock the conscience of the average person. And then you give the ruling party the justification to impose a further crackdown, to quote, unquote, restore law and order. And that is what I think we have seen with the troop deployments from this administration. And that's not mere speculation. I mean, this was the tenor of conversations behind the scenes when I was in the first Trump administration. Is that the type of actions that, that you saw in Los Angeles with the deployment of Marines, in Washington, D.C. with the National Guard, were designed partly to stoke dissent and hopefully, in the eyes of Trump and his allies, get folks from the left, especially more radical folks, to come out in the streets and fill up Molotov cocktails and throw them at police officers. They want that imagery. They relished the imagery of burning cars at the beginning of the LA protests. I think what was disappointing to some of Trump's more militant allies was that those protests ended up largely becoming very, very nonviolent and faded. And so they weren't really able to use the response in LA as justification for a further crackdown. But I think it's why you're going to see the administration barrel forward with troop deployments in Chicago and Baltimore is they think there's a decent chance in those places that they're going to stoke a lot more opposition. And they will get that photo op. They'll get the photo op of the crowds overreacting, which will give them fodder to justify a further cr down.

So circle November 2026 on your calendars. It's really not that far off when you think about it, about 14 months, it could be a test of whether elections are going to be business as usual or there's something really substantive and fundamental that Donald Trump is changing about American democracy. Stay tuned. Miles, it has been great having you on. We will bring you back regularly. I'm sure. You take care of yourselves. Great talking to you.

Thank you, friends. Appreciate it.

[Sarah]

And that's it for us on AmericasT for this episode. Thank you for being with us.

[Anthony]

It's been a pleasure as always, Sarah. Goodbye.

Ameracast. Ameracast from BBC News.

Well, look, thanks for listening all the.

[Sarah]

Way to the end of today's AmericasT. You are now officially an AmericasT.

[Anthony]

It is, of course, a ride, a.

Wild ride navigate the US News, particularly in the era of Trump.

You have made it. If you have a comment, a question.

About the things we've talked about or.

[Sarah]

Anything at all, actually, get in touch with us.

[Anthony]

The email is americastbc.co.uk. the WhatsApp is 033-01-239480.

We answer your questions every single week, actually on the podcast, so keep them coming.

[Sarah]

You can join the online community as well on Discord.

[Anthony]

Discord.

[Sarah]

The link is in the podcast description on your app.

[Anthony]

We will be back with another podcast very soon.

So until then, see you all later. Bye.