NYT: Dan Bongino SCREAMED at Pam Bondi Over Epstein Files

Summary

Bulwark Takes Podcast Summary

Episode: NYT: Dan Bongino SCREAMED at Pam Bondi Over Epstein Files
Date: June 11, 2026
Hosts: Sam Stein, Tim Miller, Sonny Bunch

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on The New York Times' bombshell reporting (by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, from their book "Regime Change") about the Trump administration's internal efforts to manage and cover up the Jeffrey Epstein files—particularly the frantic, often farcical Situation Room meetings where top officials debated strategies, including pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell and releasing unverified, damaging information. The hosts dissect the bizarre, chaotic, and sometimes petty behavior displayed by key players like J.D. Vance, Susie Wiles, Pam Bondi, Dan Bongino, and others as they navigated the explosive fallout from Epstein-related revelations, focusing less on victims and justice and more on media management and self-preservation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Keystone Cops in the Situation Room

[00:30 - 02:27]

• Hosts marvel at the absurdity revealed by the NYT story: senior officials using the White House Situation Room, not for a national crisis, but to brainstorm ways to spin or suppress Epstein-related material implicating Trump.

• Quote:

  “You cannot even imagine a scene like this sitting in the Situation Room. 400 pound Stephen Chung, the tweeter in chief, telling the Attorney General that his plans to cover up the Epstein files are going to be a PR problem.”
  — Tim Miller [01:43]

• The idea is floated to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell to “distract” from Epstein files.

• Quote:

  “Pardoning Maxwell, a trafficker of young girls, would create a huge PR problem.”
  — Stephen Chung (read by Sam Stein) [03:02]

2. J.D. Vance: The Leaker and the Opportunist

[03:10 - 07:50]

• J.D. Vance emerges as a central, complicated figure: simultaneously sweaty and panicked about the MAGA internet base, posturing as the “transparency” advocate.

• The hosts theorize Vance is leaking to the NYT reporters to cast himself as the "noble dissenter" within Trumpworld.

• Quote:

  “There’s nobody in this administration or really any other administration, previous, hopefully future, that I have more contempt for than J.D. Vance. He’s a man who has no beliefs...he has latched onto this idea of the internet masses, the manosphere types, the Rogan types, as the base of power of MAGA, and what do these people believe in? He has to try to, like, reverse engineer a set of ideas…”
  — Sonny Bunch [03:59]

• Vance’s media maneuvering is compared to past leaks (notably on Iran policy) and seen as laying a foundation for his own 2028 ambitions.

• Both Vance and Susie Wiles are suspected (plausibly) of being sources for the NYT.

3. Internal Mayhem, PR Panic, and Bondi’s Fumble

[09:42 - 13:30, 15:30 - 18:00]

• Pam Bondi is depicted as thoroughly ineffectual; her unvetted distribution of “Epstein files” binders to influencers sets off panic, especially when Trump’s name is found inside.

• The notorious “Situation Room” meetings feature a cast of high-level officials, all focused not on justice or truth, but on containing political fallout for Trump.

• Dan Bongino, in particular, explodes at Bondi, reflecting the toxic, stress-fueled dynamic.

• Quote (NYT excerpt read by Sam Stein):

  “As soon as he entered the room, he erupted at Bondi, shouting at her, 'You fucked this thing up from the start, the way you've been talking about this, this dumb charade with texting files, the they're on my desk nonsense, all the promises...'”
  — [16:27]

4. The Administration’s True Priorities: Zero Concern for Victims

[17:18 - 18:59]

• Hosts stress that at no point does anyone care about Epstein’s victims.

• The sole focus is on managing Trump’s image, with occasional self-preserving outbursts by other officials.

• Quote:

  “There’s not a single moment in the meetings or the calls where people are like, you know, justice for the victims is really important here, right? It’s all ass-covering.”
  — Tim Miller [17:30]

5. The “Nipple Emails”

[23:12 - 26:36]

• The podcast details the surreally juvenile yet consequential debate over whether to release unsubstantiated claims (from an Epstein victim, Sarah Ransom) about Trump’s supposed sexual behavior—referred to as the "nipple emails."

• Quote:

  “One official would later describe it as a surreal experience to be discussing nipples in the White House Situation Room. I bet.”
  — Sam Stein [24:34]

• Vance, true to his role, pushes for releasing even this, arguing Trump has “been accused of worse.”

• Quote:

  “The Vice President said he thought the President would be okay with releasing the nipple-related documents, arguing that Trump had been accused of worse. Quote: 'I think we should put it out.'”
  — Sam Stein [26:03]

6. "Is There Any Way They Could Have Managed This Well?"

[20:50 - 22:36]

• Hosts acknowledge that effective, ethical management would mean actually investigating and pursuing justice, but even then, transparency would have been damaging for Trump.
• The administration defaulted to chaos—neither fully transparent nor strategic.
• Quote:

  “If they were competent, that might have been useful…and there's a grand jury indictment, I think that buys them time…Maybe not…But they don't…They're not able to do that because they're fucking clowns.”
  — Tim Miller [21:04]

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• "J.D. Vance is obviously the leaker and so is Susie Wiles…both are trying to shape things with different, at times overlapping, interests.”
  — Tim Miller [06:31]

• “It's honestly hard to believe this is real life…there will be no Veep ever again. You could not do another spoof about our political system anymore.”
  — Tim Miller [01:43]

• “There's zero concern for the victims—zero percent—it's all chaos and ass-covering.”
  — Tim Miller [17:29]

• “This group of clowns sitting there like, well, what about the nipple emails? I don't know. Maybe we should put those out.”
  — Sonny Bunch [11:33]

• "Their solution was, hey, those files we just gave you, they're embargoed until the Keir Starmer press conference is over. It's like, okay, yeah..."
  — Sam Stein [17:09]

• "The reason that Vance cares about it so much is because it is a very online story. It goes beyond that, you hear it come up in actual…focus group podcasts, it comes up. People are talking about this in the real world."
  — Sonny Bunch [20:00]

• "An appropriate final frame to the story...for J.D. Vance to go down because he can't successfully distance himself from Donald Trump."
  — Tim Miller [07:33]

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Notable Segment Timestamps

• Situation Room Leaks & Pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell: [00:30 - 03:06]
• J.D. Vance the Leaker & Self-Preservation: [05:12 - 06:31]
• Pam Bondi’s Binder Meltdown & Bongino’s Rage: [13:58 - 16:45]
• Absolute Lack of Interest in Victims: [17:18 - 18:16]
• Nipple Emails Discussion: [23:12 - 26:36]

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Tone and Style

The discussion is fast-paced, irreverent, and deeply skeptical—mixing sharp political analysis with outright mockery of the principal figures involved. The hosts frequently riff, joke, and express incredulity, punctuated by moments of earnestness about the real-world stakes and the shameful lack of concern for Epstein’s victims.

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Takeaways for Non-Listeners

• The Trump White House’s Epstein file response was astonishingly chaotic, cynical, and unserious.
• Key players (J.D. Vance especially) are positioning themselves for future ambition, leaking selectively to craft favorable personal narratives.
• The entire process was focused on managing Trump’s reputation; there was no interest in justice for Epstein’s victims.
• The latest reporting paints a picture of a deeply dysfunctional, paranoid, and at times, almost laughably incompetent administration.
• Even absurd details (such as the “nipple emails”) became national security-level fodder, illustrating the depths of dysfunction.

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For further context, see the New York Times article adapted from "Regime Change" by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan.

Transcript

[Tim Miller]

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[Sam Stein]

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[Sam Stein]

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[Tim Miller]

It's honestly hard to believe it's real life. And it's like you can't ever do like there will be no Veep ever again. You could not do another spoof about our political system anymore. I mean, it's. You cannot even imagine a scene like this sitting in the Situation Room. 400 pound Stephen Chung, the tweeter in chief, telling the Vice President that his plans to cover up the Epstein files, not telling the Vice President, the Attorney General that his plans to cover up the Epstein files are going to be a PR problem. And it's just like what that is a direct. Hear all the details of this Situation Room meeting. It's like how it is dumber than anything you could possibly write in Sonny's movie. Movie world. Which is why we have Sonny here.

[Sam Stein]

Exactly. So the quote is from Stephen Chung. This just gives you a taste of it. And then we'll go to the broad picture. They're in the Situation Room. They're talking about different ways to kind of distract from the Epstein files. And they get to the idea of maybe they should just pardon Ghislaine Maxwell. Which I don't really understand how that would work, and neither did anyone else in the room. But the idea is, pardon Ghislaine Maxwell. And Stephen Chung, who is. Who's the head of comms at the White House, responds, according to the article, with this pardoning Maxwell, a trafficker of young girls would create a huge PR problem.

[Tim Miller]

You think so?

[Sam Stein]

Which is true. But that's not the only problem.

[Tim Miller]

A broken sumo wrestler is right once a day, you know.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah. So, okay, let's talk big picture here, Sonny. J.D. vance is the lead of this story, I think, for a reason, and I'll get to my suspicions in a little bit, but mostly because in the depiction of this Situation Room scene, and there's multiple scenes in here, he is the one who's, like, deeply nervous about losing the base. In this case, his base is the Internet. And he also comes across as the one who is like, we need to just get everything out. We should just get everything out very quickly and take our lumps and hopefully just move on, because it's going to come out one way or another. Now, I think he was right about that, and they probably should have done that in retrospect. But. But the first part about his sort of occupation with how the Internet is going to perceive the Trump administration over this specific issue, that's the one that you picked up on?

[Sonny Bunch]

Yeah, yeah. No, the running thread throughout this story is J.D. vance's sweaty panic. Right. Which is like, there's nobody in this administration or really any other administration, previous, hopefully future administration that I have more contempt for than J.D. vance. He's a man who has no beliefs. He, like, has no core beliefs. Right. He started as a never Trumper, realized that was not gonna get him elected anywhere, was like, oh, actually, Trump is great. And, you know, you're not to blame for your own problems. People, Hillbilly elegy. Don't ignore that book in the corner. I didn't write that. This is not your fault. So he has no core beliefs. Right. This is his defining trait. And so what happens now is he has latched onto this idea of the Internet masses, the manosphere types, the Rogan types, the. As the base of power of maga, and what do these people believe in? He has to try to, like, kind of reverse engineer a set of ideas of what he believes in and, and what he has settled on was Epstein files. We got to get these Epstein files out there. We got it. We got to clear the air here. We got it. And I am. Sam, I. Could you, could you tell everybody your, your, your theory here? Because I think it's interesting. I want to, I want to bounce off that in a second, but I want you to explain it first.

[Sam Stein]

So my theory of the case, and this is all sort of parlor game, but whatever we can engage in, it is that advance is the leaker for a lot of this stuff. Now there are definitely parts of the article where he doesn't look particularly bright. Like for instance, this idea that he would arrange Tucker Carlson to interview Ghislaine Maxwell. Don't really know how that would probably go. There's a point in the article where Susie Wiles, the Chief of Staff, tells others that the Vice President has proved himself to be a major conspiracy theorist. I'm not sure Vance wants that out there, but my, my theory is predicated on this, which is this is the second time that we've got a excerpt from this book. The first time was around the decision to attack Iran. And in each of these excerpts is JD Vance, who comes across as a sort of noble protagonist who's dissenting from the rest of the crew on these very crucial issues. In the Iran one, it was, he was the one who's like very against going in and was the one who's like, we should, we should be skeptical of the success of this mission. In this one he's like, we just need to get everything out. We just got to get everything out. We should be transparent as humanly possible. And to me, Tim, you can, you can slap me down if you think I'm wrong, but to me that's like he, he's trying to position himself in a way where the bad stuff doesn't get blamed on him. And that suggests a strategic leak.

[Tim Miller]

JD Vance is obviously the leaker and so is Susie Wiles. I mean, both Susie Wiles and J.D. vance are very obviously talking to Maggie and Jonathan Swan on this. And you know, look, I think the JD is looking ahead already to a 2028 primary, right? And like these are both issues in addition to being both fuck ups with the administration. They're, they're the two fuckups that most created problems on the America first, right? Iran and Epstein. Right, right. And so J.D. whether or not these self leaks are true or, or not, obviously cares about how that faction of the party, you know, thinks about him. And it would Be a great delicious irony for J.D. vance to go down because he can't successfully distance himself from Donald Trump. That would be an appropriate, you know, an appropriate final frame to the story. I know we can't have nice things and, you know, you know, maybe this, you know, grand epic of our modern Odysseus will not end, you know, in the way that we wish, but it would be appropriate for it to end with J.D. vance dying by his own sword of just not being able to separate himself from Donald Trump.

[Sonny Bunch]

This is what really jumps out at me, right, Is that this whole, a lot of this piece, not, not the whole thing. As you mentioned, there are places where he does sound fairly deranged. But there, there, the, the whole piece reads like him doing his next pivot, which is Trump. He's trying to out Trump. Trump. Trump is, Trump is the problem here. Trump is the one covering up the files. Trump is the one going to war with Iran. I'm, I'm the one talking to Rogan and Tucker Carlson. Who are the guys you like? I'm the one who is, you know, trying to get all the Epstein information out there. I want the pedophiles gone. That's me. J.D. vance, anti, Mr. Anti Pedophile. Like, I, I do think he is trying to make the post Trump pivot here maybe, which I don't think will work because I don't think he has that sort of rapport with the base. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know.

[Tim Miller]

I don't know if it'll work either. Can I just say one more thing on the leaks, just because this is another important piece of evidence that it is JD and, or Susie, I think Susie in particular, who is also leaking is. We had the other story from the Times about a week ago where Susie told JD to stop tweeting because it wasn't presidential. And Steven Chung, big, big boy, posted on social media that this was false, this was fake news. And the New York Times did something very like, not that typical, which is like their communications account replied to Stephen Chung and then they updated the story like basically saying, we stand by our sources on this. And it's like the only way that they would be that adamant that their source is correct if their source was Susie. Exactly. It's just like, it's like, who else could it be? It's either. It's a two person conversation between Susie and J.D.

[Sam Stein]

right.

[Tim Miller]

So I do think it's pretty clear if you look at the story that like both of them are trying to shape things with different, with at times differing and at times overlapping interests.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, there's. There's some chestnuts like that in this piece, too. Like Vance having just gotten off the phone with Joe Rogan. Like, you know, there's probably two people who know that, Joe Rogan and J.D. vance. So that kind of giveaway I want to go through. There are so many really interesting anecdotes in here. I'm going to go through a few of them. One person who does not come across particularly great in this piece is Pam Bondi. Well, Donald Trump. Okay, let's. Let's go with Donald Trump first. Donald Trump, first of all, obviously way completely connected to these files, and everyone's just basically running around trying to figure out ways to shield him, not just from the release of the files, but hearing bad news. You notice that Donald Trump's not in any of these meetings. He's just not in these meetings. And it's up to Susie to go and convey what's going on in the situation.

[Tim Miller]

We made a joke about it before. People have read the article. The people in the lead example of this. There is a Situation Room reading about the Epstein cover up. What can we do to distract from the fact that Donald Trump is in the files? And JD Is basically saying we should just let it all out, which I think is so funny. It's like, I'd love for him to say that to Trump's face. Like, Mr. Trump, what we do, what we need to do is just put everything you did in these files out. It's like, that's. And everybody's looking around, like, great idea, J.D. okay, but like, in the meeting, it's like, J.D. the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General Cash is on the phone.

[Sam Stein]

It's everybody.

[Tim Miller]

It's fucking everybody. It's like the whole administration is in the Situation Room, like, batting around Brooke Rollins. How do we cover up Trump's involvement with Epstein? And it's like they're like, oh, hey, maybe we should pardon Ghislaine. It's like, oh, no, maybe we should interview Ghislaine. Maybe Tucker should interview Ghislaine. Maybe we should have a grand jury gambit. Like, I mean, it's like, it is pretty astonishing, like, how many people are involved in the conversation.

[Sam Stein]

You think they had one of those whiteboards where they're just writing down ideas, like a brainstorm.

[Sonny Bunch]

No, bad idea. No, bad idea. No, I just, I was saying before, like, the opening anecdote of this thing, they're in the Situation Room and what's the, what's the image of the Situation Room that we all think of, right? It's Obama overseeing the Osama bin Laden. And everybody's sitting there very seriously like, oh, what's. What's about to happen? And you just imagine this. This group of clowns sitting there like, well, what about the nipple emails? I don't know. Maybe we should put those out here.

[Sam Stein]

I don't know. We're gonna get to the nipple emails in a little bit.

[Sonny Bunch]

I'll tell you. I haven't read the whole story.

[Tim Miller]

I should just say I was just. I just finished interviewing Senator Warnock. I only got halfway through, so I'm excited to hear what I've missed. This message is brought to you by Soul. And I decided to bring the trio in on this because we've been talking about a lot of topics that make me want to turn to the sold gummies or for me. You guys know that I prefer the soul beverages. But, Will, since you spend the most time on this, is that how you tend to, you know, take in this information? Yeah, you know, I'm relatively new to the world of soul gummies. Sarah brought one on our trip to Las Vegas, and it certainly helped me unwind. And I know Sam talks about, you know, enjoying them before bed or, you know, when putting the kids down, just kind of. Of chilling out. There is so much going on that I certainly see the. See the appeal of the soul gummy when, you know, when I'm locked in so much. Sometimes you gotta unwind. Oh, yeah. What about you, Sam?

[Sam Stein]

See, I take a soul gummy every time before I edit Will's false Flag newsletter, which is why it's such a hot mess. Soul helps me focus and edit at the same time. No, I do it before bedtime when I'm parenting, man, because you got your kids, they're driving you a little bit nuts. Let's be honest. That's what they do. They try to extend the bedtime over and over. They want to read. You get frustrated. You got things to do. You got to get on YouTube and be with the trio. And then, you know, I just do. I pop in a soul. Everything's kind of smooth, and it helps me get through that critical hour to hour and a half where they're just asking for one more chapter. Just one more chapter, dad. Thank you, Soul.

[Tim Miller]

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[Sam Stein]

Yeah, that's right. Well, you can make today a good day and get yourself some soul gummies. Right now, Seoul is offering our audience 30% off your entire order. Go to getsol.com and use the code bulwark takes. That's get soul.com promo code bulwark takes for 30 off. So, okay, I want to get to a few anecdotes before I get to the nipples. Pam Bondi really comes across particularly ineffectual and pathetic here. It really like everything basically just blew up when she handed the binders to the influencers that said Epstein files on them. So this was like, this is a big moment in all this because there, there's a lot of stuff they're trying to contain. But when she does this really hits the fan. I'm just going to read from the piece because they're in the Oval, they're meeting the President and Bondi's handing them these binders. And the piece goes like this. But as Bondi staff started distributing the binders, the blood pressure of other officials in the room skyrocketed. They had no idea what was in the handouts. The Attorney General was distributing something she was calling, quote, the Epstein files that had not been vetted by anyone in the White House. One official opening the binder began flipping pages to see if Trump's name was mentioned anywhere. A few pages in, right in the middle of the page, there it was. So that was not a good move by Pam Bondi. And it did appear to, to set things in motion in a way that completely screwed her over. The other person who is like a real protagonist in this is Dan Bongino, who doesn't seem to have a good grip on his emotions and, and they sometimes boil over. Yeah, no, it's a shocker. Bongino, like Vance was sort of of the mindset that the Internet culture on the right was not going to be satisfied with what looked like a pretty obvious cover up. At one point he told White House officials, it's not an online story. You don't understand. He's talking about how they thought they could just manage it. And then there is this around the day that the memo was. So the. They put out a memo, basically Bongino and Cash Patel saying, ah, we looked into all this stuff, couldn't find any client list, case closed. And this was done against their will, more or less. Here's how the Times describe it. The day the memo was released, Bongino showed up at a daily Justice Department meeting with the FBI staff and the Attorney General. He was in a volcanic mood. As soon as he entered the room, he erupted at Bondi, shouting at her, quote, you. This thing up from the start, the way you've been talking about this, this dumb charade with texting files, the they're on my desk nonsense, all the promises. The folks out there. Patel and Pangino both subsequently told White House officials that Bondi needed to resign. Yeah, there's another angel where he stormed out of the room and all that stuff. But, yeah, this is.

[Tim Miller]

This.

[Sam Stein]

This is the people who were in charge of the Justice Department.

[Sonny Bunch]

There's a hilarious nuts and bolts aspect to this too, because the same day these folders come out, the British Prime Minister is in the White House. He's like, it's like they're having this, like, high level diplomatic meeting and there's going to be a press conference afterwards. And you've got these idiots from Twitter out there with their folders waving them around like, look, we got it. We got the files.

[Sam Stein]

Their solution was, hey, those files we just gave you, they're embargoed until the Keir Starmer press conference is over. It's like, okay, yeah, I hate to

[Tim Miller]

be the earnest one. It's tough to be earnest in these situations. But another striking thing, just listening to y' all talk about this is just how little any of these people give a fuck about Jeffrey Epstein's victims. Zero.

[Sam Stein]

Like zero percent?

[Tim Miller]

Nothing. Like, nothing. Like, there's not a single moment in the meetings or the calls where people are like, you know, the justice for the victims is really important here. Right? It's like, it's all ass covering. It's just like, it's like everyone trying to ask cover Trump. Bondi trying to ask cover herself. Bongino trying to ask, cover himself with his podcast followers. Like, cash, like, wanting to get a cookie from the White House. Like, there's no serious effort to go after any of the. Of the, you know, people that collaborated with Epstein. There's no serious discussion of expanding the investigation. Like, it's just. It's all PR nonsense. Like the whole. And they fail at the only thing they care about, which is like. Which is ass covering.

[Sam Stein]

They fail tremendously at that. It extends even to, like, the efforts to get the docs out. So there's one element where the House passes a subpoena for the docs and they're sort of meeting again. That's all the principles they're trying to figure out, like, okay, well, how do we comply with this subpoena? And James Blair, the deputy White House Chief of staff, this is what they report. He told the group that they would try to make sure that they were cooperating fully with the House subpoenas, but that the priority was to release information that demonstrated Trump was not involved in Epstein's crimes. So, no, they were not trying to fully comply with the subpoenas. The entire modus operandi was make sure Trump doesn't get hurt by this stuff. So you're right. It never was once. Okay, this is actually the right thing to do, or this is a detestable J.D.

[Tim Miller]

by the way, who tries to position himself, you know, here via the leaks as the. As the person who actually genuinely cares about the Epstein files. But, like, the only thing he cares about is that the base wants to see it.

[Sonny Bunch]

Right.

[Tim Miller]

Like, that is his motivation. Right. Like, he wants to appease the online maga. Right, right. And that. And that kind of goes back to what Sonny was talking about at the top. About, like, what. His motivation is total here on this

[Sonny Bunch]

front, though, this, this idea, Pangino says it's you. It's not an online store. You don't understand. And like, I, I don't even know what that means, because it is. It is obviously an online story. Like, this is like, it. I, I don't think it's, you know, I mean, it is. It's a bigger than just an online story, but it is.

[Sam Stein]

I think that's what she means. It's like it's just over. It's not just like an online discussion.

[Tim Miller]

Just dismiss is like, this is just. Twitter isn't real life, I think.

[Sonny Bunch]

Right, right.

[Tim Miller]

That's what he's trying to do.

[Sam Stein]

I think he was. Honestly, I think he's right about. I mean, he obviously is right about that. Right. It's absolutely, completely tripped up the Trump presidency.

[Sonny Bunch]

It is striking to me that even he is trying to say it's not an online story. When all of these people spend all of their time online. Like, they, they. They live. This is the world in which they live. It's. The reason that. That Vance cares about it so much is because it is a very online story. And again, it is beyond that. You, like, you do Hear it come up in actual. In Sarah's podcast, you know, focus group podcasts, and every, like, it comes up. People. People are talking about this in the real world, which is, you know, it's

[Tim Miller]

like, the reason to. Your point is like, the reason why they're acting is because it's so acutely online. I guess that's the point you're trying to make. It's not as if other people don't care about it. It's like they're all being responsive to, like, these loud online voices that purport to care about this or at least care about audience management.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, yeah. Before I get to the nipple stuff, I'm so excited.

[Tim Miller]

I'm titillated.

[Sam Stein]

Is there a way they could have handled this? Well, there's a million ways they could handle it differently. I don't know. Is there a way they could have handled it effectively? Because I. I read this story and I leave being like, ultimately, J.D. vance was probably right. They should have just gotten everything out quickly.

[Tim Miller]

I don't think there's any way to. To do a release of everything that wouldn't have caused massive problems for Trump. I mean, part of it is he

[Sam Stein]

had massive problems anyway.

[Tim Miller]

Trump doesn't want everything out about Trump. Melania doesn't want everything about Trump. Right. To me, this goes back to the earnest point and the first principles. What could they have done in theory, if they were competent, that might have been useful. And to me, the answer to that question is, okay, do a serious investigation. If Cash and whatever DOJ had come forth and said, hey, like, we, you know, because that was what this was six months in. So they had. They had a little time, you know, like, they spent four months. We went through all the files, we investigated. We have found out that there are these three other people of interest, whoever the fuck they are. Leon Black, the Prince, you know, Andrew, like, people, even people that are already kind of out there and, like, we're doing real investigations into them and there's a grand jury indictment, I think that buys them time on releasing all the files. Maybe not. Like, that's my only possible theory is, like, if they were like, we're actually taking this seriously and doing investigations, maybe that lessens the pressure a little bit to, like, release everything, including the Trump stuff. But they don't. They're not able to do that because they're fucking clowns.

[Sonny Bunch]

Yeah, we're building cases. We can't dump it all out there. We're building cases. We can't let all the information out there. If that might have worked, but yeah, I don't know that it would have. I don't know that it would have satisfied again, the very online base who would have just want it all out there.

[Sam Stein]

There's no way to satisfy and there's no way to get through this without taking on sun damage. I guess my theory of the case is that, and usually in these, in these situations, and this is true of past White Houses, is that when people start investigating stuff or calling for document reliefs, you generally end up releasing the documents. It's just a matter of how you do it. And in this case, they just did it in the most haphazard, damaging way possible. All right, so, and I want to just preface this by saying some context here. So I had not heard this story. It's, it's an accusation within the. Some of the files around Epstein and Sonny had not heard this story too either.

[Sonny Bunch]

Not. I'm not.

[Sam Stein]

This is not a confirmed story, which is part. And that's made clear in the New York Times piece that, you know, the White House officials are grappling with whether to put this out in the files because the accusation made against Trump within it is not confirmed. In fact, the accuser has some credibility problems. But this sort of gets to how they were thinking about handling the release of the. Jeffrey Epstein's files because you put this out, you get this out into the, into the ether and then suddenly people will believe it's true and it's not necessarily true. On the other hand, if you don't put it out, it looks like you're covering things up and so on and so forth. So I'm just going to read this. It involves an Epstein victim named Sarah Ransom, who later sued Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. And in the emails rant this I'm gonna read from the Times, Ransom claimed that she knew a girl in Epstein's sex trafficking ring named Jen who said she had sex with Trump. Ransom also claimed that Jen had told her that Trump had a predilection for nipples and that he had aggressively flicked and sucked hers. Ransom wrote that she had seen evidence when she shared a bathroom with Jen. Quote, they looked incredibly painful as they were red and swollen and I remember wincing when I looked at them, she wrote. One official would later describe it as a surreal experience to be discussing nipples in the White House situation room. I bet, I bet.

[Tim Miller]

And what was the age of the way of the women? Can I get a little more context on the women? When was, what was the. Where. Where were we here? Was this in the.

[Sam Stein]

I don't think they have an actual

[Tim Miller]

age for this Mar A Lago dressing room or.

[Sam Stein]

We don't know. All we know is that the old Giuffre case file included emails sent to a journalist by another Epstein victim, Sarah Ransom, who later sued Epstein and Maxwell Epstein had also settled in that case. Then I read you about. Ansem says they note that Ransom's credibility was not uncomplicated. They could have just said complicated. She had made another claim that she possessed video footage of prominent having sex with young girls in Epstein's entourage. She later retracted the claims, saying she feared for herself and her family.

[Tim Miller]

So this is during the Jufre kind of.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah.

[Sonny Bunch]

So that.

[Tim Miller]

That tracks timing wise of when Trump was in Epstein's orbit.

[Sam Stein]

I will just say J.D. vance thought Trump should release all docs, including the nipple doc. He said. He said Trump would be okay with it.

[Sonny Bunch]

The image of them discussing this in the Situation room. And again, J.D. vance, to Tim's point, J.D. vance being like, we need to get this out there. We need to get this information out there. Which strikes me as in like the only reason you want this out there is if you are trying to separate yourself from Donald Trump.

[Sam Stein]

Let me just say this is obviously seriously serious shit. We all were.

[Tim Miller]

We know it's really serious.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

Donald Trump doing nipple molestation. Violent nipple molestation is bad.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah. So, okay, here we go. The vice President said he thought the President would be okay with releasing the nipple related documents, arguing that Trump had been accused of worse. Quote, I think we should put it out. He said it would cause people to say we're going further than we need. Wiles quickly responded that the President would not in fact be okay with it. It was a point no one wanted to continue debating. Okay.

[Sonny Bunch]

Just imagine going to the President with that. Just imagine going to Donald Trump and explaining to him the things that you were going to be putting out there. Like, I just. I. It's insane.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. A young woman previously had said that you're into nipple related S and M. That her areolas were hurt. Yeah. To me, this could be a. I also thinking about the J.D. vance endgame.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

Another appropriate end for him that I would relish would be Donald Trump endorsing whoever Marco or his kid or whatever in two years and having it come out in the next Maggie and Swan book in 2029 that Trump decided that he could not endorse JD after he learned that JD wanted to release the nipple emails. Trump was like, I can no longer trust this person just shows bad judgment. Yeah. How could you want to put it? Like, what could he do when he's in there in 2029 if he wanted people to see what I'd done to those nipples? Like, who knows, maybe he'll send his Department of Justice after me to show that they're going above and beyond. So, I don't know. I think that the nipple thing could really haunt J.D.

[Sam Stein]

good point. I think we should end on that point, too. I'm. I'm done. I've exhausted myself. And we really hit a high note here. All right, Tim Miller. Sonny bunch. Thanks for unpacking this story in the New York Times, folks. If you enjoyed this great analysis, there's one way to support us. Subscribe to the Bulwark. Get good content like this till then. We'll talk to you soon, fellas. Take care. Hey, everybody.

[Sonny Bunch]

Lady luck here. And we're celebrating America's 250th birthday. Now, all summer long, I'm going to be celebrating by playing on spinquest.com which is an American owned social casino. It obviously features over a thousand slot games and live blackjack, live craps, live bubble craps. Head on over to spinquest.com. get yourself a $30 coin pack for just 10 bucks.

[Tim Miller]

Spin Quest is a free to play social casino void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.

[Sam Stein]

Hey, sweetie. Your mother showed me this Carvana thing for selling the car. I'm gonna give it a try. Wish me luck. Me again. I put in the license plate. It gave me an offer.

[Tim Miller]

Unbelievable.

[Sam Stein]

Okay, I accepted the offer. They're picking it up Tuesday from the driveway. I haven't even left my chair. It's done. The car is gone. I'm holding a check anyway. Carvana, give it a whirl.

[Tim Miller]

Love ya.

[Sonny Bunch]

So good you'll want to leave a voicemail about it. Sell your car today on Carvana.

[Sam Stein]

Pickup fees may apply.