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- [00:00]
A
Hey, everybody, Sarah Longwell here, publisher of the Bulwark. You should go subscribe. Come hang out with us over at the Bulwark. I just jumped off of Chris Hayes and we were talking Epstein again. A lot of good stuff happened today. Trump still trying to wriggle out of this thing. But go listen to the discussion. It's a good one.
- [00:19]
B
Last night, Democrats actually called the Republicans bluff and made them vote against taking a step toward releasing the files. Sarah Longwell is the host of the focus group podcast, the spokesperson for the nonprofit Home for the Brave, which amplifies the voices of Americans speaking out against Trump. Annie Carney's a congressional correspondent in the New York Times, has been reporting on this story and they both join me now. Sarah, let me just start with you on your read of this. I mean, what it's doing inside the sort of MAGA coalition and Trump's reaction to it.
- [00:53]
A
Well, look, this story goes right at the heart of a central mythology around Trump, which is that Donald Trump is not a regular politician. He is their guy on the inside. The reason that so many of these voters, and look, 70 million people voted for this guy. So there's a lot of different reasons why people did it, but specifically the people who are tapped in to the right wing infotainment media system, that is the Charlie Kirks, the Megyn Kelly leads all the way down to the Alex Jones tinfoil hat wears. They have been talking about this thing nonstop for six years. One of the reasons that Cash Patel is the head of the FBI is because he promised people he would make the Epstein stuff public. I mean, this notion that there is a deep state, that there is a global conspiracy, that there is a uni party of elites that are trying to keep critical information from the American people is central to why a lot of these voters wanted their guy, Donald Trump, and the people around him, like Pam Bondi, like Cash Patel, like Dan Bongino and all the other right wing podcasters, Fox News hosts who moved into the actual White House, they wanted them in there, cuz they said, these people are on our side, they're going to show us the truth. And so those voters feel betrayed. And I think that, you know, a lot of people in conservative media realized this the first time around with Donald Trump where they kind of tried to say, look, this guy is a charlatan, this guy is ridiculous. And their audiences left them over that. And these right influencers now find themselves in the position where their credibility is on the line if they just walk away from this. And so you know, Charlie Kirk can basically be like, I trust the government completely now. But that's not going to work for a lot of these voters who are deeply, deeply invested in this story. And they're the ones who are going to dictate. There's a reason Mike Johnson is sitting there with Benny Johnson, another MAGA influencer, and saying, yeah, I think they ought to release it because he knows that's what their Republican voters need to hear.
- [03:10]
B
And you were, you were doing reporting on exactly this today. There was a lot of sort of squirming and hobbit, a hobbity from various members. What were you hearing from, from, from Republicans asked.
- [03:25]
C
So more than ever before on the Hill, I mean, the story of this Congress to date is that they have happily and willingly ceded all their power to Donald Trump. But I did hear more real friction and disagreement and willingness to take a different position from him. From Mike Johnson on down. I talked to a lot of the hard right lawmakers, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nancy Mace, Lauren Boebert, Tim Burchett, who all, all notably said to me, their phones are being flooded with calls. I mean, they are what Sarah's talking about, what she's hearing from voters, they are hearing that they are very aware of that this is not going away and they are reacting to it. They know that they can't just put it away and say nothing to see here. So they're all calling for a special counsel. That's the main talking point of the Hill today was we want a special counsel to look into this. They all are saying we need to release the files. I mean, Mike Johnson saying release the files after Trump said please look elsewhere is remarkable. Mike Johnson's whole key to running the House and being speaker and maintaining the gavel is to have no daylight with Donald Trump. So, so that was a remarkable statement that he made. Democrats have been trying really hard to make hay out of this wedge issue, obviously. And they, what I saw on the Hill from Democrats was like a real effort not to let them scapegoat Pam Bondi and just like call for her resignation and just let them dump it on Pam Bondi. But to say like, no, no, no, she shouldn't resign. She's just doing what Trump is telling her to do, like keep the focus on Donald Trump and, and that he, the buck stops with him. So that's what Democrats were trying to make sure stays the case.
- [05:17]
B
Yeah. And it's very interesting. And all that reporting, I mean, I saw some of those clips, I saw some of the interviews. We'll see what happens voting wise. I mean, the House did vote to not open debate on this down the line. You know, Republican partisan vote. This is. Go ahead.
- [05:32]
C
Yeah, no, I was going to say at the end of the day, Thomas Massie from Kentucky, who is the only member of the House who's willing to break with Trump regularly, he did introduce a discharge petition which is a way to bring to the floor, if it has a majority of members signing onto it, a vote on whether or not to release the Epstein files. So there are, I think part of what we saw with Republicans not signing on and actually voting where they're talking is because they're trying to thread this needle and not really be totally disloyal to Trump. But part of it is they don't want to sign on a Democratic led measure, say, but there is a chance. I think we'll see how this plays out. I don't want to go too far and say this is the break, but we'll see how it plays out. There they are moving their own stuff to release the files.
- [06:20]
B
Quickly. Sarah, here. I just want to show the polling on this. YouGov polled people like, should all the Epstein docs be released? Which again, who's going to say no to that, really? I mean, you see the polling, they're like, sure, yeah, go ahead. But it does. Again, this is one of these things that has had this tremendous salience amongst a part of the electorate that is not the most like news obsessed, but did really swing for Trump based on everything that we know from all the exit data.
- [06:48]
A
Look, there is a part of the electorate that is always gonna be there for the salacious stories, for the conspiracies. Donald Trump has been throwing conspiracy chum in the water. Basically launched his political career by questioning Barack Obama's birth certificate. And it's not. This is one of the things I think that is misunderstood maybe by the press, the mainstream press or even by Democrats is important. This is to so many of the voters, not just because they want to know what's in the Epstein files, but because they want to believe that Donald Trump is a transparent person. That idea that he was going to be transparent and tell them the truth central to what they elected him to do.
- [07:27]
B
Sarah Longwell, Annie Carney, thank you both. Learned a lot there.