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- [00:00]
Sarah Longwell
Hey, everyone, Sarah Longwell here, publisher of the Bulwark, with one of my best friends, Bill Kristol. And we are still talking about Epstein. Can't stop, won't stop. But you know who isn't talking about Epstein is our friends over at Fox News, your former employer. What do you make of that?
- [00:18]
Bill Kristol
Shocking. But it's fair and balanced over there, Sarah, you know, and if Epstein is a huge story, a massive cover up of one of the worst sex criminals in all our lifetime, certainly a friend of Trump's and he's now, as president, covering it all up, why should they cover that, really? You know, that's what I say. I mean, other people are doing that. They're fair and balanced over at Fox.
- [00:35]
Sarah Longwell
You know, here's what I was thinking is it's one thing, I guess, for them to try and ignore the birthday card, but the new Wall Street Journal reporting that Trump was briefed on being in the Epstein files himself many times by multiple officials, for them not to cover that, especially when both entities are owned by Rupert Murdoch, like it feels at some point. Fox used to at least try to offer the patina of credibility that they would be covering something like this. But they don't even seem to be pretending now.
- [01:12]
Bill Kristol
Right? I mean, I guess maybe they don't want to criticize the, they can't support the Journal because that would alienate their audience. The Journal's reporting, which is reporting, not opinion, but still, it's not good for Trump. They don't want to criticize the Journal perhaps since it's owned by the same owner. So they've just gone into a cone of silence over there. Slightly odd for a news network, though. And what is terrifying, I mean, to be, not to be just flip about it, is we know people, right, who watch Fox much of the day and that's their main source of news, wouldn't you say? Or at least a main source of news.
- [01:40]
Sarah Longwell
Well, certainly for older Republicans. And I'll just tell you from a focus group standpoint, right, when you listen to voters all the time, one of the things that becomes abundantly quite clear very quickly is when they don't know about, and this is a real difference over the last 10 years than I think the 10 years that preceded it and probably the entire history of media that preceded it. But increasingly the number of people who, when you say, hey, this big thing happened and maybe it puts Republicans in unflattering light, they have no idea what you're talking about. Like they just live in, in a totally different media ecosystem. And so Fox News doing essentially what amounts to an Epstein blackout as it relates to Trump. Now, let me tell you, if Bill Clinton was in those files, they would cover it all day, every day. In fact, I did have one of the few headlines on Fox right now about Epstein says House Panel directs Chairman to subpoena Bill and Hillary Clinton in Epstein Probe. So, like, but just the idea, though, that you can ignore something that everyone else is talking about is pretty wild. But when you wonder why it is that some voters, when you're like, how could they vote for Trump knowing this, this, this and this, I often say they don't know because if you live in this media ecosystem, it's just not there.
- [03:02]
Bill Kristol
You know, that headline you read is interesting. Was that, I think that story is, I believe that the Republicans bolted and joined the Democrats in supporting his subpoena, which was kind of a big surprise yesterday. And the Democrats were very aggressive in pushing it. And they pulled off getting Republicans so worried about being on the wrong side of being pro Epstein, as it were, or covering up Epstein that they joined the Democrats. Now they got a couple of concessions from the Democrats and one of them was to mention that as part of the subpoena they should ask for files in particular about the Clintons and previous, I don't know, Attorney generals and others, I think. But, but still, it was a Democratic victory. I mean, there's just zero question if anyone who follows the Hill. It's not a matter of opinion. This was a little bit of a stunt, but a stunt that actually seems to probably will result in a real subpoena. And Fox is covering it as the kind of, the one little concession to the Republicans is the story.
- [03:52]
Sarah Longwell
I don't think it's a stunt. I mean, I mean, okay, they are not a stunt. Yeah, I think they're, they are trying to push on this, which they should do. But if you ask any, I saw this reported, I don't know if it was Perticone or somebody else, our reporting or somebody else's, but that if you talk to a Republican right now, they're saying they're getting 50 to one calls from people saying, release the Epstein files, get them out there. So they are getting pressure from their own people to do something about this.
- [04:24]
Bill Kristol
Which is so interesting. I mean, I've been, you and I have been very adamant that this is a real story. It's not a fake story. It's not one of many stories. And even because it really is so such a grotesque criminal enterprise, which Trump was, let's just Say adjacent to. And now as president is covering up. How can that not be a huge scandal? I mean that is a huge scandal. I was just on a call a couple hours ago. Well, you know, we need to Democrats, we need to put this in a broader context. You know, it's corruption and this and that, Medicaid. I mean the Democrats really never miss an opportunity to take a massive story and reduce it to one of 10. I said this, they kind of got annoyed at me. Medium sized stories anyway. But it is, is genuinely a massive story. Now what's interesting about what you say is can they succeed in getting that 50:1 ratio way down? Can Fox succeed in dampening it down? Could others in MAGA world even succeed in making people think that Maxwell's been treated unfairly? Maybe Epstein was even treated unfairly. I feel like that's. Will Sommer has an excellent piece up for us on the website. That's kind of where parts of MAGA world are going. I don't know, what do you think?
- [05:29]
Sarah Longwell
JVL raised this on the seeker pod today, this kind of idea that they're going to start to sort of rally toward Maxwell in part because. And this makes sense. I didn't read Will's piece. Sorry, Will. I'll go read it as soon as this is over.
- [05:43]
Bill Kristol
I've read it three or four times.
- [05:44]
Sarah Longwell
Just to make it clicking on it. I will promise I will read it. But what I presume is their motive is if Maxwell in exchange for a pardon at the very end of her term or at the very end of Trump's term, even if he denies, he'll give her one in the immediate that she will alibi Trump publicly. Well, the problem is, and this is what I argued with jbl and he was like, I think it'll work is I was like, she's a convicted sex trafficker. But the question that you're asking, and I'm sure what Will is talking about, is the idea that the extent to which Charlie Kirk and Benny Johnson and all of these Trump water carriers, like they need an exit ramp for this. So it does behoove them or benefit them to try and at least gin up some credibility for her or get something in the water that she was done dirty in some way to try to increase sympathy for her, you could see where they might try to rehabilitate her image enough that she would be taken at least in their circles as a legitimate voice alibi ing Trump. Like I can see them trying that.
- [07:02]
Bill Kristol
Right? And why not? I mean having gone from some of Them being never Trump to rationalizing Trump to total 100% embrace of Trump, now they're going to go further, so to speak. And having gone from being anti Epstein, to say the least, because it was such a big part of QAnon and of all the attacks on the Biden administration and Democrats for being covering it up all these years, now they'll go to being maybe not pro Epstein or even pro Maxwell, but, yeah, anti, anti Maxwell.
- [07:29]
Sarah Longwell
Anti, anti Maxwell.
- [07:30]
Bill Kristol
I think it's possible they'll try to muddy the waters. I mean, I guess it would show that if they do go in that direction, it'll show that how much the allegiance is just to Trump personally, wouldn't you say?
- [07:39]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, I do. I mean, there's no doubt about it. And I think I talked about this a little bit. On the next level, we did a focus group with sort of Normie MAGA types. There was one woman who was a big chemtrail. Epstein didn't kill himself, wasn't murdered. He is alive and living in Madagascar. I mean, we had one person like that, but most of them were sort of like, there's a way that voters who, you know, Trump can never fail. He can only be failed. And so they think Epstein's a problem. They think the problem is the DOJ and Pam Bondi, they were sort of like a few days behind on things. And when you sort of pressed on the Epstein Trump stuff, you could see their brains blinker and they just don't want to talk about it. Right. There's like an avoidance mechanism where. And even some people were kind of like, what about Obama? Right. And there's a neural pathway that's like, well grooved for them on Obama and Russia, and these guys are out to get them. And so there's no doubt that exists. I think that the trouble comes with the activist class and influencer class who really did dine out on this for so long, where their own credibility's at stake. And like, maybe Charlie Kirk's listeners are so dumb that they'll just take what Charlie Kirk feeds them. But there's a lot of people who went deep on this who are going to be, I think, at least incredulous at the idea that. Wait, so Trump's in there, like the position? And I love it how I'm seeing some of this. I don't know if you are. Where they're like, well, I bet Bill Clinton's in the files. And you're like, so put it out. There's literally, if people are in the files and Certainly if they. Now look, if they are in there incidentally in some way, the Department of Justice knows how to handle that. They know how to redact people who are not material in some way. But if people are in there who are Democrats or who are other people and they were on the island or participated in some way, there's evidence of that. I don't think there's a single person who objects on political grounds like, well, we wouldn't want it. If some Democrats are in there, who cares? Put it all out.
- [09:56]
Bill Kristol
Right. And our position, I think yours and mine certainly at the Bulwark, but also the Democrats position in Congress, to be fair to them, isn't make all the files about Donald Trump public, it's make all the files public with appropriate redactions, of course, for the victims and any information with them. And also maybe for some people who were incidentally mentioned, though honestly, if they're incidentally mentioned, people will see they're incidentally mentioned and people are a little overhyped about the notion. If one's name is in there, one page, it's a fourth hand account of maybe this guy knew Maxwell and Hugo Epstein. Fine. Then the guy just says I didn't know. And then that's the end of that story. So I think people are overdoing how hard it would be to get these files appropriately cleaned up for release. But I think the Democrats need to stick to that position. Release all the files?
- [10:42]
Sarah Longwell
Yes.
- [10:43]
Bill Kristol
Not just release the Trump related files. And then Trump's covering something up that he may or may not be involved in. Well, you know, he's involved in a little, but may or may not be more centrally involved in and, but anyway, released the files. You know, the other thing, I'd say this, I was just on this another call with Democrats yesterday. It's really testing my patience being on all these zoom calls with all of our liberal friends, much as I love them. And this one was all about the MAGA base, you know, very upset it cross precious them. It's difficult for them, the Epstein stuff. And it's very important. And so we should. Bill, you're right, we should. You were right a couple of weeks ago that one of them said to me, we do need to push this harder than I thought and so forth. But at this point it's not just the MAGA base like the country is. The country is anti Epstein.
- [11:23]
Sarah Longwell
Yes.
- [11:23]
Bill Kristol
Like actual people out there and they loathe what he and Maxwell did and they're concerned that there's been an elite cover up by Both parties, let's just say of what they did and they want to know if. And that's normal people. That's some, let's say, Normie Trump voters, some Normie Democratic voters, many, obviously. And so I think we're way beyond the. This is a problem for Trump because it cross pressures his MAGA base, which I think was a reasonable thing to say two or three weeks ago. And now it's a genuine problem for Trump with the public as a whole. Don't you think?
- [11:55]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, of course, in part, and for good reason. I think there was a period of time, and I think you and I talked about this, where there was the way that the media was approaching it and even the way Democrats were approaching it was it was almost as a third party observer to a fight between Trump and his base or his followers, supporters. And I was like, Pam Bondi is our Attorney general. She as attorney general said this was gonna be explosive information. And now they're covering it up. Like every American has an interest in that. And I think this is why whoever's in there, if they are in there in a way where they were engaged in criminal activity and we know there were sweetheart deals given and like, I think the vast majority of Americans want this out. And there's a reason that a lot of Trump's base, where they have become convinced that there is an elite cabal that, you know, they don't get that these people are treated differently, that they play by different rules. Like, they can't be that. And yes, there are people for whom their desire to protect Trump and to not be told I told you so by people like you and I will overwhelm their interest in Epstein. But there are a lot of other people, I mean, the kind of like Joe Rogan listeners, Theo Vaughn listeners, that kind of came to Trump late, like, they don't care. Trump was like, they went for him, they thought he was gonna be better, and they're absolutely wrong about that. And actually, I think their reasons for supporting him, like somehow he's culturally cool or something like that, were insane. But this was part of it. They thought, like, well, Trump's gonna, he's not a regular politician. He'll blow the lid off this stuff. And those are the people who are, they're gonna keep this up. And they've got a big audience. And that audience is people say base. And I think base is wrong in this context. These are people who voted for Trump. They tend to be online kind of red pilled, not Republicans, but kind of red pilled Anti woke but like Trump losing those people or those people turning on him, those are like kind of the not super invested people in politics, but they vote and they care about these issues. And if they're screaming and yelling at Trump, that's a problem for him.
- [14:05]
Bill Kristol
We began with Fox, just come back. So Fox released a poll last night, kind of standard poll questions about Trump approval, this and that issue. Most of it was pretty not that different from where things have been. People don't like the big terrific reconciliation bill that Trump was touting. Trump's underwater, but not that much more than he was and so forth. And buried in the account of the poll is one question about Epstein. And the question was, do you think the government's been open and transparent or not? And it's about 70%, not 15%. Yes, something like that. So it's overwhelming. And if you look at the cross tabs, it's overwhelming for every group. Democrats a little more critical, But Republicans, literally 60 to 20 basically don't like how little we have learned, how untransparent and unopened the government is. The way they put it, which I think was good, that was actually smarter Fox, they don't ask the Trump administration. So it's not a partisan thing. So that's really striking to me. And then interesting in the write up of the poll though, I said and furthermore, 20%, a fifth of the public says that they don't. They have not been following the Epstein story closely. So I thought, well that's kind of a funny. They don't usually ask that question. Obviously they ask about Medicaid, they ask about Ukraine. There's usually a don't know category, which is 2, 3, 4, 5%, but not a have you been following this closely? But fine, if that's what they asked. I went and looked at the actual. Fox does provide the cross tabs. So that's nice. So that's the only question that they ask that on. I think with maybe thinking and you know, maybe we can show that people aren't really following this that much. So it's not as big and they in the way it was written up in the account. It's a, it's as if one in five say they're not following closely. Like that's a lot. But that's the opposite. Four in five of American voters say they're following the story closely. That is not just Trump's base, that is not just Maga lyrics. Lots of people are following this story and as I said earlier, the Democrats are busy trying to reduce it to like a story that people aren't following. It's intensely. People are following it because it really is atrocious and horrible. I mean, and it's a horrible bunch of crimes, obviously. And the President of the United States was kind of adjacent to it. So that's something. And they're not releasing the files. But also, what does it say about our elites that they were. So they went along with him. Many of them sort of had a sense of what's going on. One has that. Then he gets a slap on the wrist. Then only Julie Brown succeeds, getting him indicted again. Then there's still, you know, still kind of a reluctance to be serious about this. I think people are correctly outraged about it.
- [16:31]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah. Do you know why? Because it's a mystery. It doesn't make sense. And when things don't make sense, people are like, I would like this to make sense. What is the answer here? And the same reason people like mysteries and unraveling them, that people want the truth. These are like human instincts that drive things like this. Especially people were harmed, girls, young girls, children were trafficked and harmed and sexually assaulted. And people want accountability for things like that, regardless of political party. And so I think sometimes people talk about these in a conventional political term. And we all know that Trump can skate by on things in ways other people can't. But also, I think if it comes down to it, and there's incontrovertible evidence that Trump did this, like that is and did what, I don't know. But I will say this the way that he, if he was in there in ways that were benign, he would want it out. And he doesn't, clearly, as much as I've ever seen him not want something out there, including his taxes, he doesn't want it out there. And the mainstream right wing media like Fox News, they're gonna help him try to keep people from knowing what a big story it is. And just before we wrap here, I do want to run through. We went and pulled Jesse Waters headline from his show. He didn't talk about Epstein at all. Let's see what he did talk about. Bill, I want to show you, starting with Japan, trains for bear mayhem. I can't tell if that's a, that's a bear or a baseball player pretending to be. What are they training for?
- [18:10]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, I don't know.
- [18:11]
Sarah Longwell
Drill.
- [18:11]
Bill Kristol
I miss that. That story. I have to be off to read it. Sounds interesting. I have to read up for it. Bear mayhem.
- [18:16]
Sarah Longwell
I mean, geez, rogue judges, of course, they're Rogue. Rogue judges try to coup Haba. Okay, so we're mad about Haba. Should men carry wine in a wine carrier? You know what? More than answers on Epstein, I do think people want to know if men should carry wine in a wine. Do you carry wine in a wine carrier?
- [18:38]
Bill Kristol
What does that even mean? Exactly? What do you mean?
- [18:40]
Sarah Longwell
Wine carrier? Right hand, left hand. Those are my wine carriers. Rand Paul urges DOJ to indict Fauci. Fauci. These are some real blasts from the past.
- [18:51]
Bill Kristol
I know.
- [18:52]
Sarah Longwell
Hunter. Oh, Hunter. So we do need some new Hunter Biden. Content with Newt Gingrich. I love the former speaker of the House like a gajillion years ago. And then it wouldn't be complete without the Obama administration manufacturing the Russian hooks. Do you wanna talk about this for just one second before we move on to these other headlines? Because one of the things that was insane about yesterday. Yesterday was a genuinely. Just wait one second before we move forward. One of the things that was genuinely insane about yesterday was Tulsi Gabbard holding that press conference in which she said she had explosive, incontrovertible evidence that Obama had done whatever they just said. I think that very clearly. They knew the Wall Street Journal was gonna come out with this story. They knew they'd been called for comment, and so they held that press conference as a way to try to preempt that story and get their voters talking about something else, like Obama and whatever the problem is. Unless you are totally blinkered by Fox News and stuff, there was a Senate report that Marco Rubio's on it. John Cornyn just reaffirmed this yesterday. Russia did interfere with the election. They hacked the DNC's email. They were trying to help Trump. Trump has a statement at one point that he read that about the interference. Everybody knows that that's true. Do you think they're gonna get away with this weird thing that they're doing?
- [20:20]
Bill Kristol
I mean, this is one that's. The base will resonate to that. And they're using the resources of the federal government to make it as credible as possible. So they have a new fake report that ticks on the one thing that the intelligence community said the Russians probably didn't do, which was actually mess with the voting machines. It makes it seem like, well, they didn't do anything. Then there's one statement that might have been slightly overstated by, I don't remember Brennan or Clapper or something, and they'll dwell on that. But it's disgraceful to actually turn the director of national intelligence to this kind of third level Fox News political hack. I mean, it's bad for the country, obviously. But your point about generally, they've been putting out things all over the place, right? Martin Luther King documents. They put out a lot of documents. It turns out, you know, they're good at getting documents together and putting them out. You know, they just. Not the Epstein ones. But, you know, the point you made is very important that they knew the stories were coming. The Journal in passing says, I believe I got this right, that ABC News first, ABC News, not the Journal, first contacted the White House about the possibility or they had leads that Bondi had briefed Trump on this, I think on July 9th. And that's why it's an ABC reporter who asked Trump on July 15, did Bondi, did the attorney general brief you on this? And he says no. And then eight days later it turns out to be true. They also knew obviously about the original Journal piece on the birthday card ahead of time because we know that Trump called and tried to kill him. So they've been working in an environment for about three weeks almost, I'd say the White House of knowing all this stuff. Some of this stuff is coming and that's. That does account, I think, for this big push of all kinds of fake stories and, you know, new fake reports.
- [21:52]
Sarah Longwell
Change the Redskins name back.
- [21:54]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, no, exactly. So I mean it. Which is an interesting sign that they're worried, right? Don't you think?
- [21:59]
Sarah Longwell
I do. I think and I have become increasingly convinced that what is in there must be something they desperately want to hide from the public because they are throwing. This is really a kitchen sink approach and it includes Trump releasing AI, you know, things of Obama in handcuffs. I mean, they are going so far in such a panicked way. I mean, they shut down Congress like they sent the House home so that they wouldn't vote anymore on this, you.
- [22:29]
Bill Kristol
Know, and the birthday card, I guess I made this point in morning shots. The birthday card came out. Now you've been in comms in your past. I mean, if the, if something comes out that's bad, you take a hit from it. But you know, it's the worst thing in a complex of material. Then you say, okay, you know what, we've taken the worst hit, so let the rest of it come out. Let's just get it out of the way and actually I'll get credited for being forthcoming. Blah, blah, blah. So my deduction conclusion is that wasn't the worst thing in there. There's something he's more worried about than the birthday note. Birthday note's pretty bad. So. Yeah, what is it?
- [23:01]
Sarah Longwell
I don't know, but there's like an aphorism or an adage or a undergirding philosophy around crisis communications is tell it all, tell it fast, tell the truth. That is the three prongs of crisis communications. And they are doing none of those. None of those. Which is why now it is a crisis that is out of their control, which I do think is they are quite good at controlling crises and have been for a while. I mean, going from Access Hollywood to locker room talk and bringing out Clinton's sexual assault accusers, that was some ways masterful politics. Something that only a television type person could have and a shameless person and someone who was outside of politics could have really weathered. And now he's very used to weathering, I mean, weathered. January 6th and what was an obvious attempt to shake down Ukraine, a couple of impeachments and Republicans walking away from him. And now he's so used to having everybody under his thumb that this being out of his control seems to have panicked them in a way where they are not. And also they're not very talented anymore. So they're not as good at figuring this out. I mean, even the Cash Patel, Dan Bongino, Pam Bondi, they all feel like someone's going down for this and they don't want it to be them.
- [24:30]
Bill Kristol
What's worried me about it, that they might get away with it, is he does control the entire federal government, which is not nothing in terms of covering up something. I mean, as we see him, he can tell justice. He can. The Deputy AG can fly down to Florida to try to suborn, presumably, or try to persuade Maxwell that maybe her future will be brighter if she says the right things about Trump. They'll never quite say those words, maybe, but that's the obvious intention there. You could imagine them, quote, discovering things in the files that are problematic. Maybe Biden did put stuff in those files. You can imagine stuff disappearing from the files. I mean, I'm very worried. I'm very worried about the next six weeks in terms of what they could do out of desperation, controlling the government. So the irony is that both Trump's both has much more power than he had in 2016 when he's just a candidate, you know, but ironically, maybe this is the time it all doesn't work for him.
- [25:19]
Sarah Longwell
Well, here's the thing about these stories that give me some hope is that he may control the federal government, but some people are talking, right? Some people are leaking and the more he whether, what are they going to do, fire everybody at doj, you know, whatever it is, he knows there's people out there who know things and can't stop people who know things from finding ways to get it out. So and I hope you guys are, if you're listening, hey, guys, if you're listening, get that stuff out there.
- [25:53]
Bill Kristol
No, it really would be the right thing to do for the country.
- [25:55]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, that's right. We all want the truth. All right, Bill, Kristol and all of you, hey, go hit subscribe, go join us on Substack, go to Bulwark plus, become a free subscriber. You can get basically everything for free. Just go sign up and it'll get emailed to you or sign up on YouTube, whatever you want. Just ride with us. Thanks, guys. We'll see you next time.