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- [00:00]
Sarah Longwell
What do you think makes the perfect snack?
- [00:02]
AM PM Advertiser
Hmm. It's gotta be when I'm really craving it and it's convenient.
- [00:06]
Maggie Haberman
Could you be more specific?
- [00:07]
AM PM Advertiser
When it's cravinient.
- [00:08]
Sarah Longwell
Okay.
- [00:09]
AM PM Advertiser
Like a freshly baked cookie made with real butter, available right down the street at am pm. Or a savory breakfast sandwich I can grab in just a second at a.m. pM.
- [00:16]
Sarah Longwell
I'm seeing a pattern here.
- [00:18]
AM PM Advertiser
Well, yeah, we're talking about what I.
- [00:19]
Sarah Longwell
Crave, which is anything from am pm.
- [00:21]
AM PM Advertiser
What more could you want? Stop by AM PM where the snacks and drinks are perfectly craveable and convenient. That's cravenience. Am PM Too much. Good stuff.
- [00:30]
Sarah Longwell
Hey everyone. Sarah Longwell here, publisher of the Bulwark. And I'm here with my guy, Andrew Egger. And we're going to break down today's press conference held by Carolyn Levitt. I watched it because I thought we were going to get some good questions from the press about Epstein. Obviously, there's been an enormous amount of breaking news. It was kind of a letdown on that front. And so before we get into it, I just want to play you a clip of this press conference to give you a flavor of. Of how mediocre our press corps behaved.
- [01:01]
Maggie Haberman
You said the Epstein documents are a hoax the Democrats are perpetrating against the President. You've said he didn't sign that check, that he didn't sign the birthday card that he allegedly signed. So what is the theory? Since these documents came from the Epstein estate, who is, who is, I guess, in your view, faking these documents?
- [01:18]
Sarah Longwell
Ms.
- [01:18]
Carolyn Levitt
I did not say the documents are a hoax. I said the entire narrative surrounding Jeffrey Epstein right now that is absorbing many of the liberal cable channels on television is a hoax that is being perpetuated by opportunistic Democrats like Ro Khanna and the others whom you saw on that press conference outside of Capitol Hill who are trying to push this hoax against the President of the United States.
- [01:41]
Andrew Egger
What exactly is the hoax?
- [01:42]
Maggie Haberman
I'm just trying to understand what's fake. What's fake is not the documentary.
- [01:46]
Carolyn Levitt
The hoax is the Democrats pretending to care about victims of crime when they do not care about victims of crime, when they have done nothing to solve crimes, when they have done nothing to lock up child pedophiles and child rapists across the country. And when they are now using victims as political props to try and again smear the President of the United States and drag on this bad story about him, it is a distraction. The Democrats view this story as nothing more than an attempt to distract from the accomplishments and the achievements of this administration. And that is what we mean when we call it a hoax.
- [02:17]
Maggie Haberman
If he didn't sign these if you said he didn't sign the birthday card, he didn't do this, he also didn't do the check. Those were in documents from the so what is the working theory as to.
- [02:26]
Sarah Longwell
Why he's in that? Ms.
- [02:27]
Carolyn Levitt
The President has one of the most famous signatures in the world, and he has for many, many years. You know that, Maggie. You've covered him for a long time, long before he assumed this office, when he was a businessman in New York. The president did not write that letter. He did not sign those documents. He maintains that position, and that position will be argued in court by his lawyers. The president is very confident he is going to win this case.
- [02:48]
Sarah Longwell
So that was the only good question through this entire press conference came from Maggie Haberman, and it was the only one pressing on what is a sort of inconceivable position on the White House's part, which is that this signature, which is very obviously Donald Trump's and which many people like the Wall Street Journal have put in front of people who do sort of these signature analysis and everybody sort of agrees it's Donald Trump, they're denying it. The rest of the whole thing, Andrew, though, involved a whole bunch of people. And you you sit in these White House briefings, which is why I wanted to talk to you about it, because what I could not get over was how many questions were like, why is the president doing such a good job on crime? And like, I couldn't tell who it was they were calling on. Like, if there's just so many people in the press room now who are like these right wing infotainment types and that they count on them to ask a bunch of softball questions and that's how they're going to get out of it. But that was literally the only thing that was pressed on. And the answer was it's a lie. He didn't sign those letters. And that's my story and I'm sticking to it. So tell me what you made of the whole thing.
- [04:05]
Andrew Egger
Yeah, so it's a little of both. I mean, the White House has done a very effective job so far in this in this first year of their of Donald Trump's second term in in really reshaping the nature of the White House press corps according to who they want to be covering them in terms of who gets into the briefing room and certainly who Carolyn Levitt calls on in the briefings. And so you saw a lot of that today. A lot of this was just ridiculous softball questions on various issues that were flattering to the president. At the same time, there's a lot of other stuff in the news. And when the White House press corps, the actual journalists who have been there forever, when they kind of feel like there's one main thing in the news, they will still frequently kind of band together and hit, hit Carolyn Levitt with question after question on, on something like this. And I was honestly really surprised that there was not more of that about the Epstein stuff today. That's not to say there's not a bunch of other important stories going on. I mean, Israel just bombed, you know, Hamas agents in Qatar and, and you know, there's all these sort of anti crime policies that the White House is trying to roll out that they're. There deserve to be good questions about. But the thinness, I mean, I really do think there's sort of a sense for a lot of reporters right now that we haven't really gotten anything new with this just because this letter was previously reported by the Wall Street Journal and Trump denied it then and nobody really believed his denial then. And now it's been shown that those denials were obviously wrong. But just the fact that the White House's story is so ridiculous here, it's so transparently false, it doesn't make sense on its own terms. It certainly doesn't make sense. I mean, like according to any actual analysis, the actual fact pattern, you cannot even think up a reason or a reason anyone would try to plant the signature 20 years ago or like, talk about the longest of longest of long cons. And so the fact that they were kind of able to get away without anybody really kicking the tires on it, except for Maggie Haberman, as you saw in that clip, was kind of astonishing to me. And I'm certainly glad that she at least got a little bit, got, got Carolyn Lovett to twist a little bit on some of those sort of ridiculous assertions.
- [06:13]
Sarah Longwell
She wasn't the only person to ask about Epstein. She was the only person to elicit what I thought was the most clarifying bit, which was the original. So one of the original questioners had asked about the picture that came out, these things that had come out, and there was just like. And she said they were like, it's all a hoax. Like that's just, they just like wave it away. It's all a hoax. Maggie was sort of like, but which part's the hoax? And is it the documents that are a hoax? Because she's pointing out. And I actually gotta say, I don't know whether Maggie Haberman is just a better questioner, which might be true, or if the rest of the press corps is so deeply pathetic that they weren't pushing on this, which is. This came from Jeffrey Epstein's estate. There is no way in which somebody was planting a signed Donald Trump letter in a bound book of which we now have all the different pages. Other, which. And then she's asking about the other. Like this check where somebody was making a joke that Jeffrey Epstein sold a depreciated woman to Donald Trump. Now you can say, well, that's a joke. Obviously he didn't sell that woman to Donald Trump. But the point is, is that whatever was in the ether in this social circle is that it would have been a well known joke that would get the idea that Jeffrey Epstein would be selling and depreciated woman. By the way, I think there's no other way for adults to interpret that other than a woman who has had sex with many people. Right. This idea that someone had been passed around or was a. Like that's the implication.
- [07:55]
Andrew Egger
Or who's just gotten too old for, you know, for Epstein's.
- [07:58]
Sarah Longwell
Or who's gotten.
- [07:59]
Andrew Egger
Right.
- [08:00]
Sarah Longwell
That's the other. You're right, that is the other way it could be interpreted. And in fact, we're talking about the better.
- [08:05]
Andrew Egger
The Wall Street Journal reported this is a wealthy European woman who was in her 20s at the time. So I mean, it's really. Yeah, there's no good. There are several awful interpretations and no even halfway plausible ones. I mean, I think that you're kind of getting at why the White House has stuck to this facially ridiculous line of witch hunt. Witch hunt, lie, hoax invented. We'll see you in court. And it's because, I mean, they don't want to get down in the nitty gritty of this story at all. They do not want to fight on any of the insane facts of the stuff that we now know about this book, because there's no way to do that. I mean, like, yeah, the case that they're making is insane. But like, can you imagine if, if, if Carolyn Levitt were to get up there and try to explain away why it is that billionaire or not billionaire, but, but, you know, rich friends of Epstein and Trump, rich mutual friends of Epstein and Trump are joking in his book 20 years ago about Epstein selling women to Donald Trump. I mean, like, can you imagine her trying to do that from the White House podium? And so instead the move is just if you just facially deny everything and just, just, just stop, try, try in so much as it is in your power to stop your people from even opening the front cover on this story and just say, oh, that's just another one of those hoaxes, whatever, you know, onto the next thing, onto the next thing that the White House wants to talk about. That's really the only outlet they have here for spinning this away because it's just, I mean, it's so gross. And it's so, and it's, it's all right there. And, and it's, and as you said there, there has not been an opportunity for anybody to even like be accused of monkeying with this. Right? Because it's just documents that, that, it's this book that Jeffrey Epstein had in his possession until he died and then it was handed over to law enforcement. Right. And it's, it's all right there on the page. So, yeah, I mean, that's, that's where we are.
- [09:53]
Sarah Longwell
Here's the other thing that I wanted to screen through this whole press conference because there's only so many questions they're going to take, right? And at one point, Carolyn Levitt reads a relatively lengthy statement on behalf of the administration and President Trump about the, the Israeli bombing in Qatar, going after Hamas. And it was a pretty straightforward statement in that it said the American military let Donald Trump know that this attack was happening American. The Trump called Qatar the Amir and the president of Qatar or Prime Minister, I'm not sure, and like apologized that this has happened and said, promised it was never going to happen again. He then called Netanyahu after the attack. But it sounds like they tried to tip off the Qataris that the attack was coming. And then he called Bibi and expressed displeasure at the fact that they bought a very close American ally, which apparently is Cutter now a very, very close American ally. I mean, now that they gave Trump a plane, I guess so. But the thing that bothered me was it makes sense that there were some follow up questions about that, but most of them were just questions re asking things that were very much stated in the, in the thing that she read. And so to me it was just like, why are you guys burning questions? And because she just kept rereading the statement. She was like, I addressed that. It's in the statement. And I was like, yes, it is in the statement. Either ask something new or ask about Epstein because you get just burning questions. And she's just rereading paragraphs from a statement. She's already Read the whole way through. Did that.
- [11:33]
Andrew Egger
Yeah.
- [11:34]
Sarah Longwell
Drive you as crazy? It was driving me.
- [11:36]
Andrew Egger
I mean, definitely. And some of it, some of this is hard because that's all breaking news. It's stuff that's happening today. I mean, you have to think about a lot of these people have different jobs than, like, you and I have, right? Where, like, they are, they are very deep in the fog of war. They're like, whoa, Israel just hit Qatar. Like, what's going on? What actual new pieces of factual information can we prize out of Carolyn Levitt to push the story forward? And they're all working with just, like, a couple of minutes of lead time on these questions because she just read the statement, and they're all trying to kind of scramble in real time to pick away at that statement. So I don't want to, like, totally just sort of like poor contempt on, on these questions, but it is absolutely true that, like. Yes. I mean, when you, when you are dealing with any White House, any, any press black, and in particular, somebody like Carolyn Levitt who, you know, say what you want about her, she is good at her job. She is a good spin artist. She's not easy to knock off of her, off of her lines, out of her composure. And, and, and anytime you are, you're giving her a question that she can very easily just be like, well, that's in the statement I just gave you. She's going to do that and she's going to move on to somebody else. I mean, it's not like, it's not. She's going to be out there as long as she wants to be out there. Right. I mean, it's not like there's a, there's a shot clock on the, on the press briefing. So, so I, I can see it both ways. But, yes, throughout this whole thing, it was just, I just thought there were going to be a lot more Epstein questions. I really did. I thought, I thought they let her off the hook quite a bit.
- [12:57]
Sarah Longwell
Well, part of that was because they chewed up a lot of time. So to me, I mean, and don't get me wrong, I think the Cutter conversation, like, did Trump talk to Bibi directly? Did he say, I mean, the whole thing was a little. Trump wants there to be peace. Oh, okay. Well, did he, like, how is he guaranteeing Cutter that this isn't going to happen again unless he's telling Netanyahu, you absolutely cannot do that again? And some of the questions were in the vein of, like, did he tell him that? But she would just refer back to the statement. So part of me was like, you guys aren't going to get anything new out of this. Whereas to me, the Epstein stuff, maybe it's just a personal preference, but I was like, this is a, this. They're facing the public after one of a thing that should take down the presidency. And instead what they were doing, they clearly, to me, they had these right wing social media types, especially the guy they gave the first question, who's their new media person? They all get up there and they're like, thank you so much for doing such a great job and thank you to Donald Trump. And then it was like, can you tell us more about how Donald Trump is solving crime? And she, because there was a lengthy discussion about. And they wanted this, right? They wanted to make the case that crime is happening in blue city. She kept using the stat over and over again. There are 19 of the 20 cities where there's the highest amount of crime is in these blue cities. And so people were saying, well, are you going to, you're going to go said go into red states with these occupations? Which by the way is a little bit the wrong frame. Shouldn't the press be like, hey, this isn't constitutional. Maybe you should, you know, what do you think about the protests that are breaking out in D.C. but they were, you know, they were letting her go on and on about how many people They've arrested in D.C. this person did this, that person did that and, and the other thing that she was doing, the dodge was on Epstein. She was like, why don't you, why don't we talk about how many pedophiles we've put away? Why don't we talk about, as opposed to being like, oh, are we against pedophiles? So what are we doing? Because they don't address. They were asked about the victims and would Trump meet with the victims, skated over that, no follow ups. You know, basically like said nothing about the fact that Marjorie Taylor Greene, that there have been four Republicans who have also supported this, that Donald Trump has been threatening Republicans that they are against the administration if they won't release it. Somebody did ask about Mike Johnson and him saying that Trump was a informant. And she did sort of just was like, yeah, it's not true that he's an informant. I think what he meant was Donald Trump cares about victims. Like it was like some absurd. Did that exchange strike you at all? Just tell me the other things that struck you in this, these exchanges.
- [15:55]
Andrew Egger
Yeah, I don't know. It just, it just. And again, I hate to just nitpick these guys, but it really did seem like they were focusing on every element of this story except for, like, the one that matters, which is just that Donald Trump has a long personal history of making remarks like this one to Epstein out in public too. You know, and like, again, going back to that other letter from that other Mar. A Lago member, like, it was sort of common knowledge for, for all these guys this whole time that, you know, oh, you know, Epstein's this sort of, like, I don't know, this sort of Don Juan type guy. Like, oh, what a, what a guy with such interesting sexual tastes and Donald Trump's right in there with him and like, all this, all this insane stuff and, and yet, I don't know, it's just like, so few specifics. The one thing that, the one thing that I did think was, was that we haven't really talked about, that I did think was interesting in that Haberman question in particular was the signature thing. I mean, like, it's, it. I don't know, it just kind of blows my mind that Carolyn Levitt got into that briefing and came out of that briefing and was only asked one time about their claim that these signatures don't match. I mean, that's, that's been like, the main thing you've heard from the White House since this letter was released yesterday. It's like, oh, look, there's Donald Trump's signature down at the bottom of that letter, supposedly. Here's a picture of an executive order Donald Trump signed this morning. These signatures are nothing alike. QED you know, and that's like, that's like the real argument that they're putting forward. She said that again today at the briefing in that clip. You know, Donald Trump has the most famous signature in the world, and it's not the one that was on that letter. And we're going to prove that in court. This has been extensively litigated since yesterday. I mean, there are a trove of documents with Donald Trump's signature on them, personal letters that he sent a million different people that are kind of in the public eye from around that time, which look identical to the one that is on the, the, the, the letter that he sent to Epstein in that book. And I just. The fact that she is able to make that claim and not have the, the press corps basically just like, revolt, kick her around about it for, for, you know, the whole briefing or something like that, it really speak. Does speak to this sort of like, flood the zone with shit sort of strategy where it's like, oh, I think they are kind of like a little bit bludgeoned into, oh, there she's lying again. But she was lying about that other thing and she'll be lying about another thing tomorrow. And it's like, we can't melt this thing down every day. You know what I mean? And there's yes you can.
- [18:15]
Sarah Longwell
Yes, you can. The President of the United States is being implicated with the most notorious pedophile in like known history. And Donald Trump's all over new documents are emerging all the time that further confirm and this is the thing about the signature. They're trying to be like this, this executive order he signed yesterday. All you got to do is look back at the way his signature looked around the time that it's all identical. Like he signed a million things with the exact same signature that is in that book. And also who, what the, the, it's that somebody forged his, that 22 years ago. They forged that and put it in the book. And also the many places he's mentioned otherwise in the book by other people that those are all just like, there's just, it is, it is insane. And I, I, I was so struck by so line in Hamilton. Are these the men with which, with which I am to defend America. There's like, how do you, you do. It's not just what they didn't ask. It's clearly because it's not just a flood the zone with shit. It's not just that they are beaten down by the lies. It is also that they have pushed into that room a bunch of people who are not serious about asking questions. I mean, a bunch of them were planted questions or people that they know. We're going to ask nice questions that are like about the crime rate and how much it's going down or even, I mean like even the questions about the economy. You know, there was like some questions about the revisions down in the economy. And the whole thing was like, well, it's Biden, Biden's economy. What we've learned is that Biden's economy was weaker than we ever thought. And they were all like, but someone's like, so are our jobs going to go up though, because of the president's new policies in a year? Like, there's just these, are there not business journals in there that are, that are also, you know, would like to know why Donald Trump just fired summarily the last person who gave him information he didn't like, like, how are we supposed to hold this administration to account when the fourth estate is like this.
- [20:18]
Andrew Egger
Yeah, yeah. Or, you know, the, the New York Post in there asking about whether, whether Trump's likely to hang out with Eric Adams this weekend or there was some, I mean, the weirdest people get into these things. Somebody was badgering, I mean like truly like actively kind of lecturing Carolyn Levitt about why Donald Trump hadn't gotten around to endorsing Winsome Sears.
- [20:38]
Sarah Longwell
That's right.
- [20:39]
Andrew Egger
I mean, which, which she can't comment on from the podium according to the hat. I mean like the Hatch act prevents her from doing campaign activities from up there. So like it's, it's an insane question and a pointless question and a weirdly like right wing question. I don't know. Like, yes, you're 100% right. They. And again, like it all comes back to two things. One, the fact that like the pre existing press has, has been to a certain extent sort of bludgeoned into submission about a lot of this stuff. And two, the fact that the White House has, has done a good job of sort of just, just seeding the, seeding the room with, with a bunch of bozos and. Yes, Ben, and, and just sort of amateurs who are, who are going to do this stuff. And it's a problem. I mean like, I hate to do like the inside baseball thing, but like it's a problem not just for this story, but it's a problem for America that any White House would do this. Right. I mean like, this is really the only opportunity that the press gets extensively to sort of kick the tires of the administration's positions on anything, of any administration's positions on anything, even when it's not a lunatic administration pretending against all evidence that the President didn't used to be pals with a notorious pedophile. I mean, you have to have a White House briefing room that functions and a White House press corps that functions in order to responsibly cover any president. And so it's, it's, it would be a problem in the, in the best of times and we are certainly not in those right now.
- [22:01]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah. And I'll just do one last. Was I taking crazy pills during this moment? Which is people were also then asking about the prayer breakfast or the, the museum of the Bible where they were kind of like having, trying to. One person did ask about his weird comment about a guy has a little fight with his wife and they call it a crime. And I'm like, they only call it a crime if it's an assault or like domestic violence of some kind. They don't, you Know, they're not fighting about if one of them left the toilet seat up or something like that. And like they have a little argument or, you know, do we get the kids out on time? And so they, that juxtaposed with then Donald Trump is the most free speech president ever and he is committed to a day of prayer and encouraging people to pray for this country. And I was just like, so we're not going to ask questions about the fact that this guy is implicated in his long extended relationship with this pedophile, but we're going to let her wax poetic about how the President wants us to pray. Prey like, everything about it defies belief, defies logic, it insults our intelligence, it insults what we can see right in front of us. I don't know, man. I don't know. These press conferences are good for my health. It is. And I, I don't know what you do about it. You know, you, you got to be like, you sort of have to do what Maggie Haberman's doing, which is kind of like a little accessy in order to even be able to get somebody in there like Maggie, they would give a question to because they think she treats well in certain circumstances. And so then she gets to ask that question. But like, there was very few real journalistic questions asked in this that illuminated anything or that pressed on this administration about the many lies they are clearly telling. Can I ask you one question, last question though, which is this, their dodge now is we're going to see you in court to the Wall Street Journal. What, what, what do they think is going to happen in court? Like, I mean, are they just, we're going to get Eileen Cannon as our judge and this thing's going to get thrown out? Like, why is that? Doesn't that just keep the story going? Or do they think, like, we're just going to delay, delay, delay and this will never actually come up. I'm just going to threaten litigation to keep us from talking about it the whole time. Like, is that the strategy?
- [24:24]
Andrew Egger
I think it's, I think you're, I think that's basically it. I think that what we have seen, especially with this Epstein story, is that there is no real long term strategy. You know, like, like every, they are trying to get out of the current moment and live to fight the next moment. Right. So like the first time the Wall Street Journal reported this story, the thing that you heard from all of these guys in the administration, from Vice President J.D. vance, was one of the guys who really hit this argument very hard, was well, if this letter exists, why haven't they produced the letter? Where's the letter? It's a hoax letter. They can't produce the letter. There is no such letter. Now, that is completely out the window, Right? And they probably should have known that this day was going to be coming even then. But they made those arguments anyway because it was like, okay, well, we got to just sort of like get through this cycle, right? And I think that the lawsuit is much the same thing. It's like, it's not a very sort of bright median person they are trying to win over with this argument. But I think it basically boils down to, well, if, if Donald Trump weren't telling the truth about this, why would he go to the trouble to sue for defamation? Right? And it lets him sort of recast himself as the, as the sort of like a grieved person who's now going back on the attack, the counterpuncher and all this. But it's. I mean, it's. Yeah, I cannot imagine a world in which this is anything other than just sort of like an attempt to wriggle out of the news story at the moment and to just sort of like punish the Journal for reporting the thing in the first place. But I mean, if the Journal doesn't bow down to that, if they don't crack under the pressure, if they go, if they say they're going to fight it in court and that's what they've said, then it does have the effect of, of prolonging the story and making it, making it all just sort of like that much longer and more painful of a wound for the administration. So I don't know. I mean, I. This. It's all. It's hard even. Do you, do you feel, Sarah, it's almost hard to like, even do political analysis about this stuff when the lies are so insane and just so like, they don't even like, have a. Have a basis in anything. Right. They're just, they're just things that are being said to trigger like, the, a particular Pavlovian response in their audiences. And they, I don't know, like, it's. How do you even, like, talk about it? Like, how. I've been sort of struggling with this throughout this Epstein story, but especially since yesterday with, like, these lies about the signatures. I mean, all you can do is really say, well, no, that's not the way it is. It's this other way. And like, point people to that. And it's obviously that. I don't know, do you know what I mean, like, I'm sort of at a loss.
- [26:51]
Sarah Longwell
I do, I do. I mean, it boxes us between two places. One is, like, the despair and cynicism that comes where you're like, well, you can't have a country this way. That's just like, post truth, where you don't have journalists that are going to beat down the doors. I mean, one of the things that I'm impressed with about the Journal is obviously that, you know, they had the testicular fortitude to stick with this story, to move it forward, to stand by their reporting, to continue to report it out. On the other hand, they're, like, the only ones. Like, there's clearly a trove of stuff out there that this book itself gives you a million roads to go run down. Like, not one of these. This is like, it. It's not just what happened. It's all the things that didn't happen. Like, weren't there a bunch of journalists when they saw the book come out? I mean, we went through it. My team went through it. There's tons of names in there. There's tons of signed things. I don't care. Ask you say, like, I called Bill Clinton and he told me X. Like, run it down, guys. What are the. Has anyone talked to Alan Dershowitz? Anyone talked to. I mean, I don't know. Is Les Wexner dead? Like, these people are all over this book. Go demand that they talk to you. Run them down. That's your job. And it's like, none of that is there. But then there's just the dystopian part where also, nobody asked something. So she's going on and on about how free speech is so important to Donald Trump, and they're talking about his. The sanctions he's going to put on other countries for them not being sufficiently engaging sufficiently in free speech. And nobody asks. Remember how you kicked out the. Like, Wall Street Journal's not allowed in here anymore because they reported on this. Remember how you've punished journalists and you call us enemy of the people? Like, can we just. Let's press on this claim that he's the most free speech president ever? And nobody does. It's bananas anyway. Okay, sorry. So then there's. You can either do the cynicism. Here's what my. My preferred method is to keep a. Doing the job we do, which is to try to amplify the real story here, because I just don't think we can rely on America's press to do this during the Trump administration. Like, they're not built for it. Somehow they don't. It was by some combination of Trump's people amplifying and giving preference to their softball, you know, cabal people who are just in their world. And the fact that these guys trade on access and I mean, just listening to the way they're all like, thank you so much, Carolyn, for calling on me and giving me a question. You can see how much they wield that and that access to sort of keep reporters in line. And so, like, independent media is going to have to pick up the slack on that and is going to have to continue to try to help these stories break through into the information silos that Charlie Kirk tries to dominate by being like, see fake signature, because they will be able to convince a decent number of their people of that. But it's such a lie that you have to be like, aren't. Aren't some, like, decent republic? Not. And I don't even mean decent. I mean, just like sentient people who can look at the facts and logically and say, well, this doesn't sound right. I'd sure like more answers on this. And I think because people do still want Epstein information, I think it's the reason they try to get by it so fast is it's not just Democrats. It's like this dodge that it's the hoax part is not the letter. She was very clear. We're not saying the hoax, that's a hoax. The hoax is that Democrats are pursuing this at all, which seems to be their main way of doing this. Why didn't Joe Biden release this? I talked about this in the secret pod with jbl, and I think some of it is they were focused on other stuff and their base wasn't grinding on about it all day long. And so Joe Biden, their base was talking about COVID So Joe Biden focused on Covid there. You know, Joe Biden wanted to govern normally. And so they didn't, like, rip through the DOJ to be like, what can we release negatively about Trump? And one thing we know about the Biden administration is they were chronically slow to engage all the things that Donald Trump had gotten wrong. Like, Merrick Garland didn't pursue those things fast enough. And so I don't think this. That comment of, well, why didn't the Democrats do it? Like, that's another one where it's like, how do you expect us to believe that your attorney general, your head of the FBI, your deputy head of the FBI, your vice president, your son Don Jr. They were the ones agitating for These documents and, and now you're president, so release them. And the fact that he's not is what has called the question. Anyway, sorry, now I'm just ranting at you, but I am. This is like a sky is blue type thing, and they're just going to sit there and say it's. It's purple all day long now that.
- [31:37]
Andrew Egger
It is all coming out. It's just so funny to hear. To hear this narrative from Republicans, like, oh, Democrats are only doing all this stuff because they think it will. It will redound to their political benefits some way. Like, no shit. Like, obviously, that is why they're doing that they are doing. I mean, they, they see blood in the water from the President of the United States who is their opponent in literally everything. And of course they're gonna, like, hit that really hard. And like, it's not like there is cognitive dissonance about that where, like, they have to bury their principles to do it, because it is also about achieving justice for these victims and about, you know, like, finding transparency for this really bad. The facts around this really bad guy. Like, these things go together. They don't. They're not at cross purposes in any way. If they were at cross purposes, if it were Bill Clinton who was president right now, and you know, then it would obviously be a harder thing for, for Democrat. Democrats would need more courage to, to lead with these things. And we, we would hope that they still would. Right. And we would probably call them. We'd certainly call them out if they weren't, but for the time being, like, yeah, obviously, like, the fact that they, they see political hay to be made here is a part of why they're going after it. And Republicans will be doing exactly the same thing. Right? Politics ain't beanbag. So. So that's pretty funny.
- [32:46]
Sarah Longwell
Also, one of the reasons they were agitating about the Epstein files, many of these Republicans for so long is because they thought that it was going to implicate a bunch of Democrats. Right. And so now that it turns out that it's their guy who's in the crosshairs, you know, you got to count on the principles of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace to carry you through, I guess.
- [33:09]
Andrew Egger
What a world we're living in.
- [33:11]
Sarah Longwell
What a world. All right, Andrew, thanks for breaking that down with me. I'm glad we got a chance to talk about it because. Because it was just good to talk these things out. I don't live with them inside our own heads. All right, guys. Thanks to all of you for listening to another Bulwark. Take Go. Hit. Subscribe. Subscribe to the feed. Ride with us all the time. Become a Bulwark plus member. Do all the things. We'll catch you next time.