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LIVE: Trump’s Epstein Timeline Collapses Under New Scrutiny | Bulwark on Sunday
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- [00:00]
Bill Kristol
Hi, Bill Kristol here. Welcome to Bulwark on Sunday. Very pleased to be joined by Sarah Longwell. You're all familiar. We. I'm at a undisclosed location, which is why the backdrop's different. Sarah's. Sarah's. You're in a regular location.
- [00:17]
Sarah Longwell
Also undisclosed, though.
- [00:19]
Bill Kristol
What's that?
- [00:19]
Sarah Longwell
Also undisclosed.
- [00:21]
Bill Kristol
Yeah. Well, that's, that's wise probably. So we, eight days ago on Saturday, we did a kind of an emergency video and podcast about the Epstein situation. You and I had been bullish on it. Bullish is the right word. That's not quite fair. Appropriate. We, you and I thought it was a big deal from the first. Yes. Internal debates about this with our colleagues Saturday began. It was, we actually did our conversation after Cash Patel's little attempt to stifle things and before Trump's long crazy truth social post. But we did have the instinct that things were blowing up. And they were. And they have since, obviously. And this is all before the Journal piece. So you've been following this closely. What's where, where do we recap thing? Where do we stand? Where do we stand?
- [01:01]
Sarah Longwell
I mean, since we first spoke, basically everything's happened. I mean, Trump has protested in to such a degree and at such length in his truth social posts that thou gets a real, you know, thou dost protest too much feeling from all of it. There's a lot of weird things that are coming out. And actually, I think I'd start by saying that when something like this happens, when you have sort of an anatomy of a scandal, how does it break down? The number one thing is do people sort of take a piece and move on from something or do they dig in and start looking further? And I think the evidence this weekend of finally we're starting to get independent reporting from the mainstream media. Right. We've got the Wall Street Journal this weekend. We've got some, the New York Times has done now maybe like five stories over the last few days that are things like the timeline of their relationship between Trump and Epstein, you know, the relationship with his slain Maxwell. And I got to tell you, the reason that these things end up sticking is even me, I was never, I never went super deep on the Epstein stuff because it a. When I read the story, the very first story, the one that Julie K. Brown did, and I watched her excellent talk with her last weekend. It's, it's hard to read. Like, it's filled with stuff that's really gross. You know, Epstein was clearly a disgusting person. They were constantly, you know, going around slain Maxwell Procuring women as young as 14. I'm sorry, and I shouldn't say women. They were girls, young girls and taking them to Epstein's island or to his house and then they would make him, they would make the young girls give him massages and in various states of undress him, them. And it was all. And, and so I'm learning all this stuff that, because I, I sort of read that and was like, this is disgusting. But I never really believed that Trump, I sort of felt like if Trump was really involved, if he had been on the island doing these things, I mean, we're talking about two presidential campaigns. Like, the idea that this stuff wouldn't come out in some ways seemed unlikely to me. And so the way that, and also the way that the MAGA folks got a hold of this story and we're going super deep on it, like Bill Clinton was involved and they were going to expose this ring of Democrats. You know, the problem was, is that the MAGA right, has done so much sort of pedophilia based conspiracy stuff, whether it's QAnon, whether it was the comet ping pong, you know, underground sex ring that led a shooter to shoot show up there, right? There was a lot of sort of crazy, ridiculous stuff that sort of made you put this in the same bucket. And, but not the MAGA folks, right? They're the ones who pressed this. They're the ones who talked about it all the time. And when Epstein killed himself or was killed, it was the MAGA folks that were the ones saying Epstein didn't kill himself. They believed that the left, someone in, you know, the Clintons probably, that they were the ones who wanted to have this guy killed. And somehow the Epstein thing blows up on the right without any of them ever looking hard or saying to themselves, boy, Donald Trump knew this guy for a really long time. There's lots of pictures of them together. There's lots of evidence of them flying on planes together. And I'll just say to me, putting together this timeline, the story starts to make actually more sense. And I'd like to walk you through it if you don't mind, because it will. I think a few things clicked for me that had not previously clicked for me. So one is Trump and Epstein really knew each other over a about 15 to 20 year time frame when I think they were between kind of their early to mid-30s to about their, to about 50 Epstein. And in fact, the Wall Street Journal's reporting is about a 50th birthday card, right? That's What Trump is where he wrote this sort of very cryptic, weird, we share the same interest stuff. That was for Epstein's 50th birthday party. And so they're falling out. The two of them ceased to be friends in 2004. And all of the reporting around the end of their friendship is because they got in a competition over a house that they both wanted to buy, that they both bid on that. I guess Epstein ended up winning that and sort of purchasing some home. And that was the falling out. Although Trump also did sort of publicly then accuse him of being a creep of some kind. But it was Trump who introduced Epstein in the vein of. In 2016, when he was running against Hillary Clinton. He brought up Epstein really, for the first time in relationship to Bill Clinton. Right. And like, that Bill Clinton was going to have problems because of this island. But if you look. And I don't. I honestly, I really don't know about the Bill Clinton stuff. I do know Bill Clinton's denied ever going to the island. There's no evidence Trump ever went to the island. But what Trump did do is in those first sort of 15 to 20 years, they partied all the time together. Like, that's where all this evidence is. The evidence is that these two guys were hanging out all the time. And they were. There was. The Dallas cheerleaders were there. They were constantly inviting very. Now, this is more like, in the public stuff, it is more young women, sort of 19, 20, but, like, young, considering these guys are in their 40s and late 30s and eventually, you know, even older. But it's. It's. So what's clear to me is that Trump and Epstein were hanging out all the time and, like, were wingmen and that's. And, like, he flew on Epstein's jet seven times, the private jet back and forth to different places. And so they have a deep. Like Epstein says, Trump's his best friend. Like, they're not acquaintances. They're not people who know each other a little bit. They're people who know each other quite a bit. Then they have this falling out. And the falling out is like, then you're really an island territory. And so what I think is most likely is that Trump never. It's never visited the island, was not doing that part of it, but may very well have been done all kinds of things that were still very gross, maybe with very young women, we don't know. But, like, it seems like there has been not enough scrutiny on. On that particular part of his life. And the thing that's happening right now is almost mind bogglingly. There is right now for the first time real scrutiny on that era of their relationship. Which means that you can see why some people are like, this is all so long ago. I mean, Trump is almost 80 years old. And so if you think about it, his falling out with Epstein is 25 years ago. Like the falling out in 20, 21 years ago. Right. Okay, so it's been a long time. And he's not thinking to himself as he's running for president or whatever that the Epstein stuff is going to come back. But now that Epstein has is dead, his lane is in jail, it's all sex trafficking. Trump is probably looking back on the exploits of that 15 to 20 year period and going there's a lot of stuff there. If people start talking about it and that's what the media needs to be.
- [08:46]
Bill Kristol
Looking at, that's really terrific. And I have a couple of thoughts. A couple I had already and a couple you provoked actually just a really almost four footnotes to what you've been saying. A falling out that was around 04.05. It looks like Trump says sort of 04, but it's not clear that it was 05 06.06 is when the serious investigation of Epstein begins. Maybe it begins in 05. I don't know. Maybe they have the sense it's coming. Maybe Trump's told by someone, this guy's risky. I feel like that the timing is convenient that if I were Donald Trump and I had a million things going on, including Bailey in the back of my mind, political ambitions, the time to cut, to cut relationship with Epstein would be around 0506 and he actually worked. If you think about it this way, I mean, what if Trump and Epstein were still cavorting together in 08 when Epstein's actually indicted by the Justice Department. So I think I kind of agree with you that it's interesting that on that time maybe we'll learn more. Secondly, the MAGA obsession with pedophilia and Pizzagate and all this kind of crazy stuff is real. I would be more worried in the say if Epstein were similar. It was based only on that, as it were. If the Epstein, if Epstein was one conspiracy theory to the others. Well, I'd say you've got to be awfully careful here. There's a lot of just pure invention and craziness. Epstein was indicted by the justice department in 06. I guess if I'm not mistaken, they had that very, just very bad disreputable plea bargain in 08. Epstein's busy pressuring everyone to hear the most minimal sentence. He's investigating the FBI, people's investigating him, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, the cases. Okay, then it's.
- [10:23]
Sarah Longwell
It's thought he goes to jail, though. He goes to jail for 18 months.
- [10:28]
Bill Kristol
No, he's on like. But not in jail. He's in, like, country club or something. But he's connected. I mean, no, he plead bargains. I mean, so there's not. It's not like this. So the Justice Department of the United States and his own lawyer, Epstein himself, admits that there was something there. They don't admit to the whole scope of the thing. It's reopened. Not because of Pizzagate. And Epstein was always part of the QAnon pizza gate stuff because it was a famous case of a sex trafficker not getting punished the way it should have. They. They. But they didn't actually. It was part of it. But the thing is reopened. Not because of them screaming. It's reopened because Julie Brown, who is not a Miami Herald reporter who I had on a week ago, and who's been. You can all read her book and her own. You know what she's currently writing about it. She investigates really courageously and diligently as to what happened. Why didn't anyone care about the victims? Why didn't they interrogate all these people? This was a massive sex trafficking ring. It wasn't a kind of, you know, a little defense that you've given this minor punishment for. And that's what leads to the Justice Department reopening the investigation, I guess. Late 20. 20. 19.
- [11:31]
Sarah Longwell
2019. So in 2019 is when he gets.
- [11:35]
Bill Kristol
Down, you can read the indictment. It's public and it's very compelling. And they obviously being, you know, typical prosecutors. Right. You pick the three instances that you have the best evidence. Most air type case for, they don't bother going through the other, you know, thousands, honestly. But they do have a very good case on these. It's pretty. Anyway, so Julie writes the book. So Julie Brown is why we know about this, not maga. I think it's an important point to make. MAGA seizes on it. You might want to give them credit, I don't even object to that, for kind of keeping it more alive by the files and for putting pressure, certainly on the Justice Department in the FBI. That part is more her, more maga, though Julian agrees with a lot of that. There's also complaint, and incidentally, the victims have filed lawsuits saying, why can't we find get more information? This is not simply a MAGA generated phenomena. I guess that would be one point I would make which I think is. Is important. You know, on the cryptic. Just a second on that. The cryptic. 2002 birthday card, 2003 birthday card, 50th birthday card. That's not even worth getting. I have various theories about what. You cannot beat that. I mean as a serious grown up person knowing Epstein's background and knowing Trump's background, leaving aside underage but you know, only 19 year olds that he's bringing to casinos, you know and not think they are joking about very well about behavior that would be at best, you know, unattractive and gross. But certainly feels like it might have. They might both have realized slid over the line. Doesn't mean Trump personally was involved. Doesn't mean he wasn't. Incidentally people which I was very annoyed about 10 days ago doing various other podcasts, interviews. Not our own, not bulwark stuff but other things. Of course no one's saying Trump's personally involved in this. It's like I don't know. We don't know why not? You know, like a thousand other people were. There are a thousand girls who were sex sexually trafficked. Let's just make it up and say there were 500 customers, 300. I don't know. It's not like a lot of people were involved in this. And why do we assume Trump was? But we don't know. So to be fair, we don't know. But that card, you read that with any kind of, you know, set kinds of people. They were what they're. It's a wink and a nod and very much for me, compelling evidence Trump knew what was going on. He may have chosen to turn a blind eye to what Epstein was up to. Maybe in 2000 you're sort of suggesting 2004 or five the blind eye became too inconvenient and he decides to cut ties. Doesn't mean he's guilty of a crime. You don't, you know that's a murky thing. Do you how you oblige to report suspicions. Maybe not but it's extremely, it's bad. And I do think that Card is. There's no innocent really explanation of that.
- [14:07]
Sarah Longwell
Well that's why he's saying it's not him like his, his. If, if he just wanted to say it doesn't mean what you think it means, he could say that. But and, and this is where this.
- [14:18]
Bill Kristol
Whole story that's such an important point. Just draw because yeah, that's what the Billy Bush tape. I think he tried for like 12 hours to pretend that maybe it was doctor or something.
- [14:27]
Sarah Longwell
It doesn't sound like me. He said, it doesn't sound like me.
- [14:30]
Bill Kristol
That was the original and that's the Access Hollywood tape.
- [14:32]
Sarah Longwell
That's right. Until. And then they showed it to him. He denied it at first saying it doesn't sound like me. It doesn't sound like something I would say. And then they showed it to him and he said, well, that's me.
- [14:42]
Bill Kristol
But then he retreats to locker room talk.
- [14:44]
Sarah Longwell
Locker room talk.
- [14:45]
Bill Kristol
Which, you know, again, since there was no one exactly coming forward. Well, there were people coming forward. But anyway, since it was. It was a conversation between two other. Him and a younger guy. Whatever. He's boasting. Maybe he's just boasting. He doesn't really do that. How he managed is so unbelievable obviously that he managed to skitter away from that. But that's how he did. So. But this is very different. This is him to epc. Right. This is not a third party. This is not Trump saying to. I guess the equivalent. So it's not locker room talk. It's or co conspirator talk would be. Would be the point, I think. And I think it is worth. And just on the card for a second. This gets sent out the atomy of a scandal. Zero chance the Journal publishes the piece. And I say this to someone who's never anything at this level but edited a magazine for a while. I mean, zero chance they don't publish it without utter confidence in the authenticity and providence of the card. Which means it was given to them by. Well, it means they've seen it. I don't even think a copy would quite do it unless maybe you could authenticate and make sure it isn't a, you know, digitally altered copy. But you'd probably want to see the card you might want to have in your possession. You probably want to test certain things from it in terms of. It's from 2003. It wasn't written in 2023 by some, you know, as a kind of a dad rather type. You know, the Bush forgery type thing. Right. You know, they're careful. They're not idiots. They knew about. They knew that Trump had drawn things sort of like that at around that time. That all came out on Twitter and so forth later. But I'm sure the Journal had done its own. Its own research.
- [16:14]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah.
- [16:14]
Bill Kristol
Right.
- [16:14]
Sarah Longwell
When you say I've never. I've never written a drawing in my life and everybody's like, here's all the.
- [16:18]
Bill Kristol
Drawings you wrote, they were confident in the. In the authenticity and as I say, providence, which means they were dealing with someone they thought had. It would have had good reason. It's not like a fifth party. Someone shows up, hey, I got a friend of a friend of a friend, and he gave me this car. You know, that is zero chance of that. I mean, this is a. Someone who would have had reason to have access to. They trust as a legitimate person in that world of whatever it was. Right. And people haven't thought enough about that. And that. Which means that person might have access. This gets to the anatomy of the scandal. Right. You know, wouldn't this person have access to other things when they went through all these files?
- [16:55]
Sarah Longwell
Well, this is the thing. When you dig into the story, you realize how many tentacles go off in different directions. So just take one for example, that I didn't know that much about. I remembered reading it at the time, early on, because it's one of the young women. Her name is Virginia, I think it's pronounced Guthrie or Jeffrey.
- [17:17]
Bill Kristol
She was Dean.
- [17:20]
Sarah Longwell
And so there is a picture of her with Prince Andrew with his arm around her next to Ghislaine Maxwell. This is the thing that made Prince Andrew. Okay, what is the. The nephew of the king of England stepped down from his public duties. Okay. So there was real fallout from this. This was covered extensively in England. That woman, the young woman, the girl at the time, Virginia Guthrey, killed herself not very long ago. Now, she did have an illness that was. Left her quite debilitated, I believe renal failure from a. A car accident. But it's again, she was only 40, 41 years old. And she had publicly talked about the fact that just Lane Maxwell had met her at Mar A Lago. At Mar A Lago had met this young girl and recruited her from there to become a masseuse, a private masseuse for Jeffrey Epstein when she was only. Yeah, 15 years old. And so meets her at Margo Lago. Is that a place? And then this woman goes on to publicly out. Now, here's the thing, though, and this is where it's interesting. So far, you don't have a lot of sort of smoking gun testimony around Trump, although when I was reading the stories, I was a little bit surprised. And Trump has so many sexual assault allegations against him that you. It's hard to keep them separate. And it feels like we litigated this all at once and we sort of never came back to it, except for the Eugene Carroll case, in which he was convicted but some of these women tell similar stories in these cases where they met Donald Trump in the company of Jeffrey Epstein and that Trump assaulted them, sexually assaulted. Like there are, like, it is wild that it's. This stuff just exists out there. And we as a country or as a media ecosystem have not followed every path. So just take, take one of Epstein's most high profile public victims now dead by suicide and was, was recruited from Mar A Lago. That feels like a link worth pursuing. And so the idea of this birthday card, the birthday card thing, that was a compilation that was Jeffrey Epstein's. So something that was in Epstein's presence, which means, do you know how much stuff there is likely out there? There is a reason that Donald Trump isn't saying, hey, here's an alternate explanation. I mean, he kind of is now with the grand jury testimony, which he knows has nothing to do with him. So he thinks we'll keep him out of it. The fact that he has been Trump, Trump has done more of this to himself than anybody else in his. This is boring. Why are you still talking about this? He doesn't want them to get into any of the particulars of it because he knows there's lots of connective tissue. Even if it's not that. You find out Donald Trump was doing exactly what Epstein was doing on the island. He knows there's a lot of smoke in that space. A lot of things that come can come out. And finally the media is pursuing it in such a way that new details can come to light and can be significant about their relationship. And that even though. So here's, here's the thing that's being sort of debated in our circles right now, which is, well, you know, they are rallying. MAGA is rallying to Trump's defense in the face of this horrible attack by the Wall Street Journal and many of our favorite anti, anti pundits like Molly Hemingway. I am canceling my subscription. You think Rupert Murdoch wasn't personally involved with this decision? That he wasn't shown what they had before he went forward. Like, and there's a reason they chose the Wall Street Journal and not the New York Times or some other thing like. And the, the MAGA folks. Right? Yes. Trump is trying to shut it down with all the influencers. He's calling them personally, telling them to let it go, telling to knock it off, telling them this is a whole side story that I would love talk about at some point about the media ecosystem. He's also saying, I made you, I made you your whole, your Whole, you know, career. Benny Johnson, Charlie Kirk, Megan Kelly, you owe it to me. So shut up and stop pursuing this now. They can try that and I think that it will work with some of them and it's pathetic and it should destroy their credibility. But the base, like the real wandering base of people who want to know this, maybe let's not even call them Trump's base. Let's just call them the people who are Epstein focused Trump supporters. They've got to grapple with all this new information and I doubt they're going to let it go.
- [22:08]
Bill Kristol
I think that's very important. Several important points. I mean, one, I, yes, I agree. Some in our world are into the, I think not necessarily correct this the journal thing helps Trump. It makes it Trump versus the media. It makes it a classic fight where you have to rally to Trump. There'll be some of that and they've seen some of that. But I totally agree. Even if some paid off media figure, if media figures, influencers can be either pressured, influenced, bribed or whatever. Just no, I'm okay, I'm on board. I'm going to ruin. If you don't get on board. I mean, God knows what's being said privately by Trump people to these people. Doesn't mean that everyone who reads Charlie, who thinks he's following Charlie Kirk, who's a member of TP usa, is necessarily reassured. And it's not only everyone keeps talking about the base. There are a lot of Trump supporters, not really part of the base, not really into QAnon stuff they managed to put out of their head. The, the, the Access Hollywood tape they put out of there. Some of these other things they just don't want to think about some of these other grown women, they should have known what they were doing. You can imagine all the rationalization, right? In kind of business worlds, you know what I mean? Coldplay CEO CEOs who take their HR people to, to concerts, you know, can rationalize the Trump behavior. This is a little different. It's more than a little different. This is a different. This one is like there's a Post piece the other day was I don't want any more attack. But it was an earnest account of what was happening kind of on the Hill more as I recall. And then it deviated. It got into. But the Trump thing's causing problems for Speaker Johnson on the Hill, you know, and the fact that Trump's involved in accounts of Epstein's sexual escapades is no one, is there not an editor at the Post or the you know, honestly, reporter herself think it was a woman herself who like that is not. They were massive sexual crimes. And I think it's again, to 100% of the Trump. Oh, that's the bridge too far. No, to 10, 15, 20% think suddenly. I don't know. I was willing to rationalize it until now, but this is a problem. So I think people are underestimated. My view is people think it's a story of the MAGA base. MAGA base turned against Trump. And this is what you and I talked about a week ago. So it is an important story. If fractures his base, that's a very bad thing in politics. That could have real effects. But there's also just the reality, the world reality is being presented in a pretty stark way now that he's successful in muddying the waters about earlier. Maybe he will be this time, maybe not. I would say on that. Two quick points on the scandal side. You and I have seen a bunch of scandals. I've seen war. Was that wilder in Washington? There are always moments where it looks like, okay, I guess that's the scandal. I think they'll survive. That was true in Watergate, that was true in Iran Contra, that was true in Clinton's thing. People, in retrospect, when you hear about it 10, 20 years later, you read a quick account in a history book, it's all like one dimensional, right? This thing began and it was. That's not how it is. And so of course they're gonna be like moments where Trump seems to have a bit of an advantage. Trump's rallying, he's got six to defend him. The Hill Republicans aren't deserting him. But I do feel like what you said about this scandal has too much in it, too much truth in it. I mean, let's just be honest. Why did Watergate, Iran Contra, Monica Lewinsky, ultimately, why couldn't they put them to bed? Because, you know, that sort of matters. Some of the others were more nebulous. They were kind of iffy. Did Reagan mess around in the 80 election with Iran to hurt? You know, there was a lot of like third hand stuff. These are very hard to put. The one thing that now that this doesn't have, that those scandals had, and I'm curious what you think, I mean, is they. And I remember some of them as I was fairly too close to them, but I had friends who were dragged in and stuff under contract. They had prosecutors in each case, really a special prosecutor, a special counsel going after the scandal. So there were two forces there was the defense against the scandal, which often included the White House to the Justice Department. At times that's the kind of war to get. But there were people with actual law enforcement and subpoena ability and ability to compel to go to the courts. On the other side, we do not have that. We have. This will be an interesting test. We have Trump, his Justice Department, his FBI, his White House, his media eco on one side. That's why I get a little worried. I mean, the mainstream media can do a fair amount, but you need to, I mean, I mean, as this Journal piece, this, with all due respect to the Journal, it's a very fine investigative reporter who was the main reporter on the piece. They didn't really dig this up. I mean, I'm just going to say, did they find this somewhere? They were trusted enough by someone who wanted to give them this document, which is not nothing, believe me, that's important. And they handled it, I'm sure, extremely professionally and they made sure of its authenticity and so forth. But I'm worried that there's no. And the Democrats don't control Congress. I mean, there's, there's not a big institutional force on the truth. There's the truth and there's a lot of people looking for the truth. And maybe that will be enough, though.
- [27:00]
Sarah Longwell
Well, you can feel free to tell me I'm crazy on this particular one, but I do think that Democrats should say going into 2026 that they will make sure the Justice Department is being straight with the American people and that they're going to hold Pam Bondi to account and that they are going to make sure that this administration stops covering things up. And I do think that the Democrats can get so myopic about like you got to be able to run a two track situation. You got to run on kitchen table issues. You got to help people understand you're going to make things cheaper. But also, also the ability for people to lock in to a story that it's not just about the revelations in the story, it's about what it reminds you of, about the person at the center of the story. I have seen more clips of the Access Hollywood tape in the last week than I've seen in six years. Right. Like it, it doesn't people sort of feel like the Trump being a gross, you know, guy who like probably was way over, you know, Meg, what did Megyn Kelly say? Too handsy, you know, that kind of stuff. And like, you know, then they discredit Eugene Carroll or they discredit this person or that person in some way. So people don't take it that seriously or a lot of this stuff was a very long time ago. But when you dig in and you start looking at it and you're like, look at this scumbag, like, this is a guy. It's not. This isn't a story about infidelity. It's not a. It's all the things, right? It's not. You cheated on wives. He was out. He was married during all of these things. He was out, you know, sleeping with all these people. He paid a porn star, right? He paid porn star, somebody who was an adult films. And that was like right after his wife had a baby. Like there was, you know, like. So that. And that stuff's all known. And I think that this is what's interesting to me is societally, I think we've hit a point where. And this is where I think Trump got off. I was reading some of the old stories and they all refer to both him and Epstein as playboys, right? There was a genre of Page Six stuff where this stuff was like not celebrated exactly, but certainly it was entertainment for people, their social, these people's social lives. And the idea of them as playboys was a way to say, like they, they break all the boundaries and norms around sort of sexual morality. Now you get to Epstein and you get a criminal child pedophilia, you know, child trafficking ring, okay? And like the line between we have a bunch of 18 and 19 year old girls who are cheerleaders and aspirational movie people and socialites and they're all at these parties and we're all. And I don't know, maybe Trump didn't do drugs and drink, but like most people are doing drugs and drinking and all kinds of lascivious things are happening and it's being covered by the newspapers with fun pictures and we're all in them. Like you go sort of then one layer down. Like it's funny because that part celebrates. And the manosphere always likes this about Trump. Trump has sex with beautiful women. I always said. I thought it was. I really hated that the Stormy Daniels lawsuit was the one that got brought and the rest of them, you know, didn't move. Because the one thing Stormy people were not a. People knew about it. People were not mad at Trump having sex with, you know, Stormy Daniels or porn stars or whatever. That was just like baked into who he was. And also it made them think of him as somebody, because he's a very old man, as somebody with like sexual vigor in a Way like he still was old enough to have like these or still was like young enough to just have sex scandals from recent memory. I think though the layer deeper though, the one where it's a child pedophilia sex trafficking ring, like that is the, that is the worst stuff you can do. And the lines not so, so great between the life Donald Trump was living that now leg, it's a whole different. And I think it is the difference between what could destroy him now versus what everybody thinks is baked in. And so pursuing it and figuring out how Trump's relationship worked with this guy, what his justice, what Acosta may have done. Acosta, this is one of the things, like people forget that Alex Acosta, who is his secretary of labor, resigned from that job because it came out that he had given this sweetheart deal to Epstein. And even weirder, despite the fact that Trump does not seem to know when he was president. He was president when Epstein killed himself. His people were around when Epstein killed himself in terms of the justice system. So there's so many different avenues in which even if what happened was Trump just knew this guy really, really well, they got into all kinds of things, some of which maybe Trump looking back is like, boy, I don't want that out there. Wouldn't want anybody to know that. And so he started engaging in certain kinds of COVID ups or pushing people to do this or that. And like those are the things he fears now that he wants the conversation stopped. We don't know what it is, but people should zealously figure this out. They should zealously report out what was.
- [32:22]
Bill Kristol
Going on and dig in to find out more. So I just modify, I think it's excellent. And so I think one of your point, really, the key point here is that this was really criminal in a way that the other stuff was. I mean, the Stormy Daniels charge was that he didn't report some stuff in 2016. There was a payoff to shut her up, but that was, he was a private citizen. He was running for president too, but he paid her off. It was, it wasn't an election kind of crime. I mean, that's wildly different from what we're talking about here. That was consumingly consensual. I mean, again, we're talking about child rape and I do feel like we need to get to that. And maybe he didn't participate in it, maybe he did. We need, but we don't know. And that card is pretty, it was, as you say, close to him and so forth. So very close to this really horrible really horrible massive criminal conspiracy which incidentally was covered up for years and at least didn't want to go after other elites. And that's also part of the story that I don't think people who are serious about this need to shy away from. This is not a. We don't have to say why didn't the Biden administration take a look at this in 20 after they indicted and convicted Maxwell. Good for them. But there was a lot of evidence floating around that maybe other people might have done things that the statute of limitations went out from. I don't know that there's a statute actually for child sex crimes. So anyway and there were other people involved. This is a massive conspiracy at the JV Naidoff had seven co conspirators who were convicted of things or pled guilty and then many others listed. I mean these conspiracies don't have Maxwell and Epstein didn't arrange everything like personally. Right. I mean other knew what was going on at that house. Other people made it possible. Other people arranged for transportation and not all they were guilty. They didn't quite know what was happening. The pilot of the plane didn't. Can't be held responsible I suppose for the knowing that he was transporting 16 year old girls to the just was hey he's my corporate client Mr. Maxwell, Mr. Epstein, you know but still there are people in the middle at our management level let's just call that and then there are the people who raped these girls and none of them has almost none has been indicted. Some of their names have come out. So there's that side of it, let's call it the criminal side. The other side is the COVID up. And here's. I think this is an important point. I think Trump covered up a ton of things when he was a private citizen. He routinely paid people off and all this is the Justice Department of the United States which seems to be. Which is engaged in the COVID up or can be said to be covering it up until they release the documents. And I talked with a couple of lawyers this weekend. This is the part that kind of intrigued me. Everyone's saying well of course very difficult to release these. I sort of brought it to this little these documents redactions this that innocent people. So it turns out there are. You shouldn't release the victim's names there and guidelines about not you know releasing everything up. In FBI investigations obviously there's people do get dragged in. On the other hand that's, that's not a big leap. A lot of that is Norms and customs. Not even norms, just kind of customs. And most people don't want to know anyway. I mean, most people don't want to know what's in the files because there hasn't been this massive cover up involving now. Well, now being directed by the President of the United States. And also, could we dispense with the fiction, as Marco used to like to say, Bondi and Patel just decided to do this on their own. I mean, they were, they were talking to Trump. So Trump wanted it covered up. I think it's important therefore to pursue both the crime side of it, which you've been focusing, and the COVID up side of it. And I, So I've talked to a couple of lawyers. The demand to release the files is less simple minded than people think in the sense that it is legitimate. You know, someone's. If I mentioned in these files, third party says you heard from a fifth party that the editor of the Weekly Standard was never, I was never there. You know, was it, fine, release. It wasn't. It's not true. And I'll just say, of course it's not true. There's no evidence of some party with gossip. They confuse the names anyway. I'm not saying literally release every name and all this, but the idea that they can't release a ton of information legally is false. They can release a lot. I talk to enough lawyers and these are lawyers who normally are on the other, very reticent about the careful, you know, civil liberties. I mean, they're not saying it because of Trump, honestly. And Trump, you know, they can release a lot of stuff that's not about Trump, obviously. They need, they should. In fact, I don't think, I think it's a mistake to. It was incidentally like it was Bondi who ordered the Justice Department lawyers to go through looking for Trump. Right. To sort of flag each mention of Trump. I think our position should be really is release the files, not release every mention of Trump in the files. Release the files and we'll make our own mind up about whether Trump was close friend of Epstein who didn't quite get involved in the most criminal stuff. Someone who should have known. Someone who did know, right? I mean, I think so. I think the COVID up side of it has punched. So I was thinking about the other issues. There's no Access Hollywood, there's no government cover up. Right. I mean, even the Russia, you know, the legitimate campaign stuff was during the campaign. I mean, this is the Justice Department of the United States. Bondi, having said we're doing it all. We're doing it all. Patel, having said we're doing it all, we're going to release it all now at Trump's order. Not releasing stuff. I feel like that's the Watergate side of it and the Iran to some degree, the Iran Contra side of it. But. And that's very. That goes right to. And then Trump is ordering Bondi and Patel to do it. So it goes.
- [37:40]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah. And so I, I just keep asking myself, why would Donald Trump. Rather than. Because, I mean, the amount of misdirection it feels like they could engage in, right. To send people down different rabbit holes or like release some stuff. But then I'm like, that's what they tried to do with the influencers, with the first things the influencers called BS because they're like, we already know this because people do go really deep on this and they know a lot. And so like this was all publicly available already. This is not you releasing what we need. And then she of course was like, yes, yes, this is just phase one, there'll be a phase two. And that has stopped. And Trump is not saying, yeah, we're going to give you some things. I mean, they might have to do that now that they're getting bullied into it. But like you can imagine right now what they are doing is friends in a frenzied way trying to figure out how to backtrack from nothing to see here to okay, we're going to give you some stuff. What can we give them that doesn't send people down more rabbit holes?
- [38:38]
Bill Kristol
That's the fake. Which is literally offering. We don't quite know what's. We don't know what's in it. But it's testimony. Maxwell's trial about particular cases they indicted her on. And they would most of that testimonies. I understand how grand jury's work would be restricted to those cases. They don't. The grand jury doesn't need to know about the thousand girls. A thousand. You know, they wouldn't. So that wouldn't be there. So that's a total fake. And I do think people have called. Do you think people. I think the media's been pretty good at calling that out.
- [39:06]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah. Well, and this is where to your point earlier about. And this drives me crazy about both sort of pundits and Democrats is everybody's sitting around being like, but is this a distraction? And should we be talking about and like, let's debate the particulars of all this stuff. No, go find the truth. Americans care about this. And Donald Trump clearly doesn't want to talk about this in a way that is spectacularly weird. Spectacular. It's just so strange how he is behaving to the point where he's throwing temper tantrums, telling, you know, threatening that his own supporters he will not, like he will lose their. He won't support them anymore back, like he's freaked out about something and the media. And I was glad to see, like, Dick Durbin, you know, put out a statement and he's been basically pressing on the fact that here's a bunch of statements you guys made, including while you were in office, Attorney General Pam Bondi, that you now say aren't true and there's nothing there. And I'd like you to square this circle for me. That is good, like press on those things. And I see here's part of. To me, what is crazy is that Pam Bondi could just do this. I mean, I, I did comms for a million years. If. If what happened was they lied to everybody to gin them up, okay. On the Epstein stuff. So Cash was lying, Bongino was lying, J.D. vance was lying. They all were out there saying, this thing stinks to high heaven. She could come out and say in a way that like, hold a press conference and say, like, I'm going to release this stuff. Here's the thing, guys. We thought there was more to this, and it's just not there. Like, there's no smoking gun here. There's no Bill Clinton. And we thought there probably would be the way that this. But, like, it's not there. And, like, take their medicine on that, but they're like, not doing that.
- [40:57]
Bill Kristol
Well, that's what they tried. But without releasing anything.
- [40:59]
Sarah Longwell
But without releasing anything.
- [41:01]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, so that was like. Well, that was nice of you to say. Now, they didn't really take their medicine and didn't really apologize. They just sort of said, oh, we've done the review. There's nothing there. That was the Patel. Yeah, that was the thing we reacted to last week, eight days ago. And it's what the Bondi Patel statement from, I guess two weeks ago now says. But there was no evidence, so you can't do that. I mean, try. Well, we were wrong. Sorry we misled you. You know, they don't even say sorry. Of course. Right.
- [41:24]
Sarah Longwell
Documents. Here's what I saw. And like, there's like, there's so little information they're putting out because they don't want. They don't want any more questions.
- [41:33]
Bill Kristol
They don't.
- [41:34]
Sarah Longwell
That's right.
- [41:36]
Bill Kristol
No, it's really. So I think the combination of the horribleness of the crime and the completeness of the era and inexplicability of the COVID up, unless it's Trump doesn't want stuff coming out, though that combination could be very. Could be devastating. You say they may not, we may not learn that much. If the Justice Department and FBI just stonewall. There's a limit to what the media can do perhaps over the next 15, 18 months, but even so, running on the fact that we've had this then be the most massive cover up in US History, for all you know, by the Justice Department and the FBI. And it's also. Those things aren't so easy to pull off. There are a lot of people who have worked there, work there, you know, feel that the truth should come out. I suspect that anyway, that's what we don't know. But yeah, the dynamics of scandals. Scandals are dynamic. Usually they don't just freeze. You know, it's like, okay, we got one document, nothing else is gonna happen. So. But they need to use the word cover up about 100 times a day. But of course, that's. That would distract people from the true kitchen table issues of inflation being at 2.6% instead of 2, 2.5.
- [42:39]
Sarah Longwell
You can say, say we don't think Epstein killed himself and inflation is way too high. I don't care.
- [42:44]
Bill Kristol
Just, I mean, it's driving me crazy, the table. But it's so ludicrous. People literally are sitting at the kitchen table talking about this. You know what I mean? And it's like, we only could talk about kitchen table issues. I don't know, what do they think? You know, what are Americans talking about?
- [43:00]
Sarah Longwell
Well, I mean. No, look, here's the thing. I do grant, I grant this is, this is what I get for doing all the focus groups that, that the inflation, it matters a great deal to people. Like, when you're talking to voters and you're like, how do you think things are going in the country? They don't say, like, bad because of Epstein. They say bad because of inflation. And that's fine. But they feel inflation, that is like a direct personal consequence that they understand and you should talk to them about it. And I especially think you should campaign on it. But I also think you should get to the bottom. This is about everything about Trump. This is about if he. And this is just one other piece of this that makes it distinct from every other thing from Russia, from the impeachments. This was not put forward by people who don't like Donald Trump. It was put forward by people who love Donald Trump, who work for Donald Trump. Okay. They're the ones who made this the big issue. And so if you're going to live by Epstein, you're going to go down by Epstein. Like that just is what's happening here. And you. I think that because it wasn't an issue that generated like that, that organically started with maybe Democrats, they think that it's not like they just have to be bystanders about this. And that is not correct.
- [44:19]
Bill Kristol
It's the opposite. Just let you go. It's the opposite of correct. The strongest scandal, I'm thinking now the history of these scandals, they don't start with the opposition party. The opposition party starts something in a way that already takes a little bit of the edge off it. Right. They start with people inside Butterfield and John Dean in 1973 on Watergate, Iran became important in the Middle East. It wasn't the Democrats who found out about it. And then people investigated. The Democrats don't matter that much. In a funny way they need but. Except they are members of Congress. They have a right and an obligation to say this is a disgraceful cover up. We need to see the evidence. That's all they need to say over and over and over and over again. And. Well, hopefully they will.
- [45:00]
Sarah Longwell
Hopefully they will. Let's go, guys. Come on.
- [45:04]
Bill Kristol
Good, good. Sarah, thanks for joining me. We'll work on Sunday. Thank you all for joining us.
- [45:09]
Sarah Longwell
Thanks, Bill. See you guys.