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Deadline: White House
“‘Terrific guy’ to ‘not a fan’”
00:42:17
Nicolle Wallace on the recent New York Times article, which covers the extensive relationship between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein.
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- [00:01]
Jen Psaki
MS now presents season two of the Blueprint, hosted by Jen Psaki. In each episode, she talks to leading Democrats about how they plan to win again, including Texas Congressman Greg Cassar, who chairs the Progressive caucus, Congresswoman Sarah McBride of Delaware, the first openly trans person elected to Congress, and more who are helping to shape the future of the party. The Blueprint with Jen Psaki Season 2 All episodes available now.
- [00:35]
Nicole Wallace
I had a falling out with him.
- [00:36]
Harry Lipman
A long time ago. I don't think I've spoken to him for 15 years.
- [00:39]
Nicole Wallace
I wasn't a fan.
- [00:40]
Harry Lipman
I was not. Yeah, a long time ago. I'd say maybe 15 years.
- [00:44]
Nicole Wallace
I was not a fan of his.
- [00:46]
Harry Lipman
That I can tell you.
- [00:47]
Danielle Bensky
I was not a fan of his.
- [00:49]
Nicole Wallace
Except when I was. Hi again, everybody. It's five o' clock in New York. From quote, terrific guy to quote, not a fan. Donald Trump has had every answer when asked about his relationship with the deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Now, on the eve of the deadline for the Justice Department to release the Epstein files in their entirety, the New York Times is out with some extraordinary, brand new, exhaustive reporting that could just be the tip of the iceberg on describing the relationship between Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump. The reporting is based on more than 30 interviews with Epstein's employees, survivors and people who have crossed paths with the two men. From that report, quote, over the years, Mr. Epstein or his partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, introduced at least six women who have accused them of grooming or abuse to Mr. Trump, according to interviews, court testimony and other records. One was a minor at the time. None have accused Mr. Trump himself of inappropriate behavior. One of the women, who has never before spoken publicly about the experience, told the New York Times that Mr. Epstein had coerced her into attending four parties at Mr. Epstein's home. Mr. Trump attended all four, the woman said. At two of them, she said Mr. Epstein directed her to have sex with other male guests. The New York Times notes that they have found no evidence implicating Trump in Epstein's abuse and trafficking of minors, but that the two men's relationship was far closer and more complex than Trump has admitted. According to that new reporting, the two bonded over the fact that, quote, neither man drank or did drugs. They pursued women in a game of ego and dominance. Female bodies were currency, end quote. And on their pursuit of women, one woman telling the New York Times this, quote, I just think it was trophy hunting. While Trump can claim to somehow forget or rebrand his friendship with Epstein or his attendance at those four parties of Jeffrey Epstein's Women do not forget him. Quote. One woman, then a model and college student in her early 20s living in Manhattan, said she attended four parties at the mansion. She cannot recall the names of most of the men she met at the gatherings, not even those Mr. Epstein directed her to, quote, take care of. At two of them. Recruited by Ms. Maxwell and then abused by Mr. Epstein, she buried her shame and kept their secrets for years. But Mr. Trump's presence stood out. She told the Times he was a household name, someone Mr. Epstein often bragged about to the women around him, yet also seemed to compete with, quote, it was like a pissing contest who had the most women, she recalled. She spoke anonymously to describe her experiences in detail, saying she feared for her family's safety after Mr. Trump said some of his critics could be executed for sedition. New information about the bond between Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump under scrutiny ahead of the release of the Epstein files is where we start the hour. Some of our favorite reporters and friends. New York Times reporter Nick Confessori is here. He's bylined on that stunning new piece of reporting we just read from. He's also a political analyst for our network. Also joining us, Tara Palmieri. She writes the Red Letter on Substack. She has hosted two acclaimed podcast series on the Epstein case. They are called Broken Jeffrey Epstein and Power the Maxwells. Harry Lipman is here. He's a former deputy attorney general and former U.S. attorney. He is the host of the Talking Feds podcast. And perhaps most importantly, Danielle Bensky is here. She's one of the Epstein survivors who has bravely shared her story. She's done it here. We're so happy she's back. And she has been advocating for transparency from whoever's in power, in this case, the Trump administration. Danny. We can call you Danny. Yeah, yeah. I am always upset when I read these stories, but to read them sitting next to you is like next level. How are you?
- [04:54]
Danielle Bensky
Yeah, thank you for asking. I think it's, you know, these days are so hard on survivors because we just don't know what is going to come out and when. And we anticipate so much for Friday. We're hoping for so much on Friday.
- [05:09]
Nicole Wallace
The deadline to release.
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Danielle Bensky
The deadline to release is tomorrow. And so I think we survivors have really been. It's that feeling of waiting in line where you know you have to wait. Right. So you set yourself up to be able to wait. And then when you see these bits and pieces and you're told maybe it won't happen, or there are so many variables here that it's really hard to brace yourself for a thousand different outcomes A through Z. So I think survivors are really feeling that right now, and tension is very high.
- [05:41]
Nicole Wallace
One of the things that you and other survivors have helped me understand is that it is the push for transparency and accountability that has brought some of you together, but that you're not like some monolithic group that has like a morning staff meeting, like, how are we gonna achieve accountability and transparency after gazillion years?
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Danielle Bensky
That's right.
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Nicole Wallace
And so are some of these relationships still new? And just. Can you tell me a little bit about what that is like to go through this with people that you may not have even have known went through the same thing?
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Danielle Bensky
It's such an important thing to talk about because each survivor their own experience, and it's all very unique. We're in different locations. We come from different backgrounds, different places, and we had this extraordinary moment where we all fought together. And there is a sisterhood in that, and it really does bond you. Like, I love these women. There is such an extreme bond between us where it's like, if I knew I couldn't be there at some point for my child, five other people would step in, you know, and it's just incredible to have that. And it's. We needed that strength. And it wasn't just within the Epstein Maxwell survivor community. It was really the survivor community as a whole. We were getting all these emails, we were getting all these calls from people that had never faced what happened to them, and they're saying, like, you're doing this for women everywhere. And there's so much power in that moment. Now that we're getting closer, it feels like now we have to retreat to our own stories a little bit more because we're all looking for very different things, and that can bring up some very different things. This was classic sex trafficking. Right? Understand what that means? And there were people that were forced to recruit and heavily manipulated into. So there are all these layers, right, and people are dealing with a lot. So I think as a survivor community, we are really trying to figure out what is the best way to support one another through this time and give people the space that they need, or for the verbal processors. How can we be supportive of that, but just really caring for one another. It's a lot of calls all day with a lot of different survivors and a lot of different groups, but just really checking in on one another is where it starts.
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Nicole Wallace
Are there people who hadn't talked about this? I mean, I know there are. I Mean, there are people who hadn't told their close circle now as women, about what happened to them as girls.
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Danielle Bensky
Yeah.
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Nicole Wallace
Are you in that category, or what has this been like for you?
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Danielle Bensky
So for me, you know, I came forward in 2021, and it was sort of. It was on a whim. I had gone to thank my lawyer, Sigrid McCauley. I love her. And we had worked together on things. So I went to Ghislaine's hearing, 2021, with no intention of coming forward. And I just wanted to be present, to start to face my own story, because it had been a long time of just hiding in shame. The secrets all hide in the dark. And so I was just trying to bring everything forward. And in that moment, when I came forward, I was on the steps of the. Not the Capitol, but we were on the courthouse. The courthouse. Thank you. We're on the steps of the courthouse and we're leaving. And there are a bunch of report who were saying, is it Virginia? Because I was masked at the time. And Sigrid said, no, this is another Epstein survivor. And we had just spoken about Virginia Giuffre and her power and the original survivors that came forward. And I just felt like this amazing sensation of it's my turn to, like, I need to help pass the torch. They carried this burden for so long. Maria Farmer, Annie Farmer, Jennalisa. Like, these people who just were tremendous in all these efforts that I felt like if I don't say something, more girls are going to feel like the way I've been living and living in the shame. So it's time.
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Nicole Wallace
Do you think about Virginia now as you head toward the deadline tomorrow?
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Danielle Bensky
Like every day. Yeah. This moment would have been everything to her. I think she. It's such a shame that she was not here to see what happened with Prince Andrew and see the level of accountability that American people are pushing for. And I think she'd be proud of her survivor sisters. And I think that there, you know, not a moment goes by that all of us feel like, you know, we carry her message all the time.
- [09:58]
Nicole Wallace
Tara, I think about your coverage of her. I think about journalists like you who've been on this story the whole time, aiding and helping hosts like me, filling in the blanks. But I wonder what your thoughts are as we head toward tomorrow's deadline.
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Tara Palmieri
You know, I just got off the phone with one of the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein, and they're not really expecting a lot tomorrow. As happy as they were to finally, you know, have this law passed, there they Want accountability, like, that's not enough. And I think they worry that some of the lawmakers, you know, they feel like they did enough, like our hands are clean. You know, it's up to the DOJ now, but whatever happens, happens. They want follow through. And so they're worried that they're not going to get much tomorrow. And, and there's, there's really no way to, to make sure the DOJ is accountable. Right. I mean, there would need to be a congressional investigation. You have Mike Johnson sending them home. I mean, you're sending all the lawmakers out of town to not even be able to answer questions for this, for what we're going to see tomorrow, which could just be more blank pages. So I think they've been, they're happy with the victory, but they, they were jaded by the process and I'm just incredibly proud of them after three decades, I mean, they were able to literally stand up to the most powerful man in the world and essentially bring him to his knees. But we'll see if they end up getting the follow through that they deserve.
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Nicole Wallace
Harry, what will they. I don't want to say what can they do? Because that's not the right frame to put around the Trump doj. But what should they do based on this law?
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Harry Lipman
Oh, it's quite straightforward. They should play it as an open book. But I think, as Tara says, it's just not very likely. There's so much that they can do to kind of keep the, keep a lot of question marks on the whole effort. And of course, remember that until he was forced to capitulate, Trump did everything to keep these materials from coming forward. So there are, there's a whole, like, busy squadron of people doing redactions now. That's part of it. But there's of these hundred thousand documents, three hundred thousand pages, so much we have seen before. And you have to imagine, I think it's likely consistent with Nick's reporting that there's going to be at a minimum in that trove real evidence of there being buddy, buddy and wingman being competitive about getting sexual conquests and the like. But that could be a handful of documents. And if I'm betting we don't see them tomorrow for whatever reason, oh, there's an investigation going on. We just haven't got to them. It's such a big ordeal story. On the other hand, this isn't going to stop. Right. The clamor for, you know, people I think are pretty aware that there's something incendiary there. And if Everything tomorrow is just kind of bland. I think the drumbeats will continue. But if I. My bet is nothing too sensational emerges tomorrow.
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Nicole Wallace
You've developed reporting on the relationship between Trump and Epstein, which is, I think, most people believe, and it has been reported out as one of the greatest hurdles to transparency.
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Nick Confessori
Look, these two men were close friends for a span of years, and Jeffrey Epstein felt that he was Donald Trump's closest friend. And they spent a lot of time together. Their passion was not golf. It wasn't video games. It was chasing women. And that's what they did for fun. They invested a lot of time and effort in arranging events, parties, occasions where they can meet women, usually people who are kind of much younger than they were, Right? Adults mostly. And they had all these parties at Mar a Lago where there would be women. Some of them were of age, some were 17 come models from Miami. That was the scene that was created that they spent time in. And we have not found any evidence that Donald Trump was a part of Epstein's trafficking of minors. But I think it's important to just expand the scope of our thinking about this a little more. These were two guys who wanted to get girls and women and went after them. And you can read all about it in the story. They had a practice. They had ties to modeling agencies. There were modeling agencies, Sorry, there were agencies that would send busloads of women to Mar a Lago for parties. I've talked to women for this story who were underage and were served alcohol at Mar a Lago. And so I just want to think about the broader environment that they were operating in over that time as friends who wanted to find women. And I think there's a lot to be sensitive there. One thing we should think about is witness statements from people who went to the FBI over the years, especially after Epstein's death. I don't want to speculate as to what's in them, but there is in their files, there are witness statements of women who went to the FBI, did interviews, and said, this is what happened to me. And I think people that I've talked to, the survivors I've talked to, would like, for safe versions of their stories, redacted of their information, but not what happened to them to make it out to public view.
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Nicole Wallace
And your sense is that that is going to be the last kind of information that is disclosed.
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Nick Confessori
It's hard to know. You know, as Larry was saying, there are loopholes in this law that are pretty wide. And this is not an administration that has shied away from using the full scope of its authority to do what it wants.
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Harry Lipman
Right.
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Nick Confessori
So we don't know. But, you know, there are women who have talked to the FBI and want their stories out. And I think we'll see over the years if we actually see that.
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Nicole Wallace
You're nodding a lot.
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Danielle Bensky
Talk about that, because I think a number of us have requested our FOIA, our 302s. Right. Which means we've requested our files, our own files, and we still have not seen them. So many of us.
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Nicole Wallace
Why not? What do they say about it?
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Danielle Bensky
We don't know. I mean, it's just basically, okay, we're working on it, and that's the extent of it. And some people have been requesting this for 10 years. I'm newer to this, so I've had my request in for two months, but nobody has seen their own file. So when it comes to tomorrow, if there is a release, it's going to take us a lot of time to look through and figure out what we're even looking at. But also how, like, imagine how much easier this would be if I had my file. And I could say, I know I talked to the FBI in 2008 on this day. Right. Because right now, 2008's a long year. And so we're kind of shooting in the dark. And I know a lot of survivors that are feeling trepidatious about that.
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Nicole Wallace
You were nodding when Nick was describing what he's reported out, which is that busloads of young women and girls were taken to Mar A Lago. Yeah.
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Danielle Bensky
I mean, I don't personally have knowledge of that. As far as, you know, I was New York based, but it seems right. And it's. The closer the survivor community gets, the more, you know, other stories and you carry them with you with your own as well. And it becomes like, that's when we say that we're like a mosaic. It's real. And, you know, although you don't speak for anybody else, you can still feel the empathy and feel what they've been through. So hearing that is just really heartbreaking to listen to.
- [17:53]
Nicole Wallace
I mean, I hear it with my chest in my stomach.
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Harry Lipman
Just two quick points. One is these 302s, which are really are going to be the most valuable nuggets. And we'll see if they try to.
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Nicole Wallace
Just explain what they are.
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Harry Lipman
Yes, I will. You come and you want to talk to the FBI and they just take a report and pretty much everything you say. I would. I'm surprised that you can't get it as a foia, they must give some excuse pending criminal investigation. But that's the real stuff. That's people who have come to the FBI, that wasn't part of the law of the prosecutions early on or the one of Ghislaine Maxwell. They didn't focus on the victims. But that's going to be the real deal. These FBI statements within and then, you know, to Nick's point, I just want to say this is the Trump of, you know, Access Hollywood. We shouldn't be surprised if what comes out is the, you know, before he's president, really a kind of roving guy.
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Nicole Wallace
You can quote Suzy Wiles, I mean, Susie Wiles described them as, quote, young playboys.
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Harry Lipman
There you go.
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Nicole Wallace
Yeah, we've got Susie.
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Harry Lipman
No better source than that.
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Nicole Wallace
Correct. All right, everyone stays still. Ahead for us, what does social media have to do with nuclear fusion? Donald Trump now has his hands in both. That's what y a 6 billion with a B dollar merger involving Trump Media is doing a little bit more than raising eyebrows today. And later in the broadcast, former first lady Michelle Obama provides us with our first palate cleanser. In about 360, she sat down with my colleague Jonathan Capehart from Ms. Now exclusive, talking about everything from her decades of being in the public eye to her fight, which is very much ongoing for our democracy. Deadline White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.
- [19:37]
Michelle Obama
I can't get into the minds of people who are cruel and mean. My empathy in me says that that comes from a place of brokenness and insecurity. And at a certain stage in life, it is not fixable. It is, you know, planted in there. You know, the question that we have to ask ourselves is, well, why are we okay with it?
- [20:05]
Jen Psaki
Ms. Now presents the chart topping original podcast, the Best People with Nicole Wallace. Each week, Nicole speaks with some of the people who inspire her. The this week, she sits down with comedian and actress Leslie Jones.
- [20:20]
Jonathan Capehart
I always thought America was the place you come with your dreams. And if you work hard and you do what you're supposed to, you make.
- [20:28]
Jen Psaki
It the best People with Nicole Wallace. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts.
- [20:37]
Nicole Wallace
We'Re all back. Nick, Tara, Harry and Danielle. Tara, let me read you some of Nick's new reporting. Sometimes the phone would ring in Mr. Trump's office at Trump Tower. The caller quote, the mysterious Jeffrey, as Mr. Trump described him in a 2004 book of business advice, never gave a last name, nor did he need to. Mr. Trump wrote a few times a week the phone would ring in Mr. Epstein's office in the Villard Houses on Madison Avenue. Trump would be on the line on one occasion, recalled an Epstein assistant from the mid-90s. Trump refused to give any name at all. The first assistant, who often worked late, recalled that sometimes when the office emptied out, Epstein would check to see that she was at her desk and put Trump on speaker. Trump, she said, seemed to enjoy regaling Epstein with tales of his sexual exploits. And Epstein seemed to delight in how uncomfortable it made her to overhear them. Because the crimes of child sex trafficking are so heinous and known that way the world over. The casual cruelty and indifference and misogyny and predatory conduct and attitudes towards women sometimes get short, short in our conversations about Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. But I wonder what you think of what Nick and his colleagues add to our understanding of that.
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Tara Palmieri
I thought it was amazing reporting. It really dug deep and it brought forward a number of women who remember Donald Trump, because you have to remember there were a lot of men around Jeffrey Epstein. And if you read the reporting closely, which I'm sure you did, you saw that some of them said that Jeffrey told them to service his friends. So for all the people who ask, oh, was it just Jeffrey who had all thousand victims? No, it's clear that that's not the case. It's what the survivors have said all along. There are other perpetrators, there are Johns who are out there and who have not faced justice at all. But they all remember Donald Trump because Donald Trump was a celebrity. You know, he wasn't even Bill Gates. I mean, he is a famous philanthropist. He's one of the richest men in the world. But for some of these girls, being so young, he wasn't on TV every night on the Apprentice, he wasn't a household name. But they remember Donald Trump because he was. And they remember the Prince, of course, Prince Andrew, because these were famous men. They weren't, you know, heads of banks, heads of academia, heads of financial institutions. And. And they didn't. And they didn't forget the way that he demeaned them or treated them, you know, like. Like meat. And the way that these are men are talking about their sexual exploits around another woman to make them her feel uncomfortable. It's a power play. It's a way of saying, we don't really care about you and how you feel and your feelings right now because we have more power than you. And this is all about power. It seemed to me, from the way they talked about sexual exploits and rape in general is generally about power and having power and dominance over somebody else. So it's just a disgusting scene. I'm glad that so many of the survivors have come forward and started to talk about what these scenes are like. Unfortunately, this has been happening in the modeling world for a really long time. And I do think that the beauty pageants also feed this kind of behavior where women become objectified and they feel like the only way to survive in these cultures that are controlled by men, where sometimes they have to hand over their passports for these foreign models, then they're controlled by Jeffrey Epstein. I mean, it's just a sick, sick world. And these men who were, as Susie Wiles said, playboys, they weren't boys, they were men in their 50s, were lording over these girls who had such little power in the situation.
- [24:28]
Nicole Wallace
Are you still doing okay? Yeah.
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Danielle Bensky
No, I mean, everything that she said is so spot on. It's all about power. And I think survivors get a lot of. Why don't you just come out with a list, give us all the names, say the names. You have to understand that of course there's fear, tremendous fear around that. And some of us don't know last names. It was all a power play and it was all manipulative and it was a game to Jeffrey. So I think it's just really important to have some clarity on that, that it's not cut and dry. And that's why we're still talking about it, because we need to get the answers. And in order to get the answers, we need to see the files.
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Nicole Wallace
I mean, the threats that he has issued against members of Congress who said something about the military only following lawful orders are to try them for sedition, which is punishable by death. What kind of threats do victims face for speaking out?
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Danielle Bensky
It's a really good question. Again, I can't speak for the whole, but I think I have heard of threats. You know, there's manipulation that happens everywhere. And so you might not know it's coming from one source. It might come from very back ended way in. But I think that people are manipulated and then will reach out to a survivor. And maybe it starts with comments on, you know, Instagram or starts with in your email. And then it can continue to. I've heard some survivors talk about their families being threatened and that's. That's kind of where it, where it ends up.
- [26:06]
Nicole Wallace
Marjorie Taylor Greene talked about her kids being threatened after she broke with Donald Trump. It is a pattern in practice.
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Nick Confessori
I have to tell you, I have been a reporter for over 25 years and I have never done a Story where people were so terrified of even responding to an email or returning a call. In my entire career as a reporter, I have never encountered this level of fear and terror simply to respond to a phone call or respond to an email about some of the topics.
- [26:37]
Nicole Wallace
It makes me cry. I don't know why that makes me cry. But the idea that everyone.
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Nick Confessori
And this is not a me problem, it's a transparency problem problem. If the audience is wondering, why is it coming out so slowly? Why are so many of these people anonymous? They're terrified. They're terrified of being sued, they're terrified of death threats. They're terrified for their families, for their reputations. And they want to bring their stories out, but they're scared.
- [27:04]
Nicole Wallace
Well, it takes an incredible.
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Danielle Bensky
I would love to talk about that for a moment. I think that Jeffrey Epstein was the ultimate groomer. And I think it's something that we don't. We've talked about grooming quite a bit with Ghislaine and Jeffrey, but I do think that his end goal was to break as many girls as humanly possible. And so I just. I think about the manipulation tactics. And you can use that word manipulation lightly, but until you know the mental gymnastics of being in a room with a person that is a predator of that caliber, you don't know what it feels like. And so I think that the public just needs to be incredibly kind to anybody that's coming forward in this case, because.
- [27:45]
Nicole Wallace
It takes a lot to climb out from that. That the abuse wasn't just physical, it.
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Danielle Bensky
Was mental as much as it was physical. Sometimes the mental would be so much harder than the physical. It was like you were inside of a cage all the time and you had to abide by his rules and that was it.
- [28:02]
Nicole Wallace
And even though he's dead, that's still.
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Danielle Bensky
Scary because it lives on through these other powerful people. We've never gotten to the root source of it all. We don't know where the money came from. We don't know where the. We don't know how he ran, you know, three or multiple properties, more than three. But I think about them all running as different enterprises. So who ran the property when he wasn't there? Like, how did so many people facilitate this? So he might be gone, but it doesn't matter if this is still. This is still continuing. It might just not be with Jeffrey and Guylan. So we have to stop it.
- [28:38]
Nicole Wallace
Danny, I'm in awe of you. Thank you for being here. An awe inspiring piece of reporting on this. Thank you so much, Tara. Thank you, as always, for being here for these conversations. Harry, you stick around a little bit longer with us. Coming up, there's one person who's doing really, really, really, really, really well in Donald Trump's economy. His name, his initials, I'll just give you those. DJT. DJT's business today announced a 6 billion billion with a B dollar deal. I don't even know how much money that is. Billion dollars in a field in which the government that he leads has a big and important role. Couldn't make this stuff up. Story's next.
- [29:19]
Jen Psaki
Ms. Now presents season two of the Blueprint, hosted by Jen Psaki. In each episode, she talks to leading Democrats about how they plan to win again, including Texas Congressman Greg Cassar, who chairs the Progressive caucus, Congresswoman Sarah McBride of Delaware, the first openly trans person elected to Congress, and more who are helping to shape the future of the party. The Blueprint with Jen Psaki Season 2 All episodes available now.
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Nicole Wallace
Donald Trump's flailing media company is set to merge with a major energy company. What points to get another opportunity for the Trump family to, I don't know, do something? Today, Trump Media and Technology Group, the parent company of Trump's social media platform Truth Social Media, announced that it had agreed to a merger with TAE Technologies, a nuclear fusion power company, in a deal worth $6 billion. New York Times reports that the deal, quote, would be a metamorphosis for the Trump Media Company, the money losing parent company of Truth social social media platform that has struggled to gain market share beyond serving as the main online megaphone for President Trump. Trump is the company's largest shareholder with a large stake worth more than $1 billion that is held in a trust managed by his oldest son, Donald Trump Jr. Who is a Trump Media board member. The company, based in Sarasota, Florida, has only a few dozen full time employees and has recorded tens of millions of dollars in losses in recent years. It is just the latest transaction that a Trump company has made during his second term in office with the president and his family not even trying to hide their intentions to use the office to enrich themselves. I want to bring into our coverage New York Times reporter Teddy Schleifer. Harry's still here. Teddy. It feels like we're such a long way from normal ethics, but just tell me how many ways this merger, this deal, bends the norms and the laws.
- [31:24]
Teddy Schleifer
Well, I mean, the entire structure of the Trump Media company is obviously very unusual where you have a sitting president being a large shareholder in a media company where his shares are held by his son in a blind trust. So, you know, we didn't see that with Chelsea Clinton during the Clinton administration or any of the Bush kids or certainly not the Obama kids. You know, this is an unusual situation where the President's children are as active in the business world as ever. And the President himself is involved because he maintains a lot of these economic stakes. And, you know, he might not be profiting now, but he will be profiting whenever he leaves office and whenever these kind of trusts, you know, allow him to accrue the financial benefit. The other thing that's going on here, Nicole, is the fact that Trump's policies as president could enrich himself later on because the President has a lot of control over, let's say, the nuclear fusion or nuclear fission industries, just like he does over the crypto industry. So these are situations where the President's own decisions in the White House can accrue to his benefit later on.
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Nicole Wallace
Teddy, what is fusion and what does it have to do with media?
- [32:35]
Teddy Schleifer
Great question. You know, the Trump Media company has basically become a catch all for various interests of the Trump family and Trump allies. You know, they have a big interest in cryptocurrency, even in streaming things that have nothing to do with, you know, the quotidian work of managing Truth Social, which is what Trump Media is supposed to be doing. Nuclear fusion essentially is a promising but pretty unproven type of nuclear energy that could produce power. It is not kind of what most people think about when thinking about nuclear energy. They're thinking about nuclear fission. This fusion spelled differently and pronounced differently. And that is something that's very unproven. But, you know, the Trump Media company appears interested in it. And, you know, the stock is way up today, which suggests that people are into this deal.
- [33:24]
Nicole Wallace
Well, people, let's put that asterisk by people. Here's what Trump Media chief executive Devin Nunes said. The deal would allow the company to, quote, take a big step forward toward a revolutionary technology that will cement America's global energy dominance for generations. Could you do that? Could you cement America's global energy dominance for generations without the federal government putting their finger on the scale for your fusion company?
- [33:53]
Teddy Schleifer
You know, press releases do that, right? You know, it's unclear. So much of this is unclear, right? I mean, my understanding from our story in the Times today is Nunes had an eight minute call with shareholders to discuss this. A lot of the details here are very, very vague. So we don't really know exactly how they're going to cement this energy dominance.
- [34:14]
Nicole Wallace
If I had to guess that they're going to cement energy dominance in ways that involve the decision making of the president of the United States.
- [34:22]
Harry Lipman
Exactly. And this is the holy grail in a way. Fusion, the energy by the combining of atoms rather than the stars.
- [34:30]
Nicole Wallace
It's not Back to the Future, but there's some movie where cold fusion is developed and they're going to give it away. Spider Man, Marvel.
- [34:36]
Harry Lipman
Well, and there was the whole misadventure in Utah many years ago where we've got cold water fusion, and guess what? They hadn't. But, but look, here's the big point. This is emoluments clause violation number 572, using the presidency to enrich himself. But it's worse because this is a private company. The valuation is complete phony baloney. Six billion, who knows? And it is therefore a classic way to just sort of enrich yourself or I'm not calling him a money launderer, but that's what you do with companies with no valuation. So what makes it even worse and potentially more corrupt is you're sticking this shell and all of a sudden magically, and you saw the stock today, it's worth billions more. That's the sort of Trump trick here.
- [35:27]
Nicole Wallace
Teddy Schleifer, Harry Lippman, thank you for joining us today. After the break, Michelle Obama speaks out on the power of voting, which she told our colleague Jonathan Capehart for a special that'll be on this network tonight. Play a little clip for you after a short break.
- [35:43]
Teddy Schleifer
Break.
- [35:47]
Nicole Wallace
No, when I, when Michelle Obama speaks, the entire world listens and listens closely. Her tenure as America's first lady would certainly be more than enough to cement her legacy as one of the country's most inspirational role models and most beloved public figures. And in the years since she left, she's been a leading voice in how to fight for our democracy, how to fight back against Donald Trump and those who wish to strip away our rights and our very democracy. So she sat down with my colleague Jonathan Capehart for a wide ranging discussion ahead of the release of her third book, the look, her take on style and using it to reflect your values. You can watch the entire interview tonight. You should. It's tonight at 8pm Here's a little preview.
- [36:35]
Jonathan Capehart
For the young black girls who didn't grow up with you, Sasha and Malia in the White House, but are growing up in a moment when their very identities are under attack and their history is being erased. I mean, MLK Day and Juneteenth have been removed as free days at national parks, for instance. What message do you have for them?
- [36:56]
Michelle Obama
Vote. I mean, it's always my message. You know, where we are isn't a statement of the failure of our democracy. You know, it is the failure of people to engage in the democracy that's here. You know, people fought and died for the right to vote. My father wouldn't have thought about not voting. And things were way worse for my father and his father than they were for any of us today. And there would never have been a situation where he felt like, eh, I'm not going to bother or everyone's the same, so I'm not going to engage. And engaging doesn't mean just the vote, but it means the awareness and the consciousness that, you know, you can't let your phone distract you so much that you don't know what's going on. You know, our young people have to understand that they have a responsibility. Our people forget our young people that they have a responsibility to stay connected and in tune and to understand in real terms who the people are. They're letting lead.
- [38:10]
Nicole Wallace
Breaking it down as only she can. This political moment, our obligation as citizens. Wow. I want to bring in my friend and colleague Jonathan Capehart, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, the host of the Weekend on this network. Eric, this is an incredibly candid Michelle Obama and I'm sure with you she always is, but what a treat to see her in this interview with you.
- [38:31]
Jonathan Capehart
Thank you, Nicole. I mean, she gave us an hour at the outset and we went, I think an hour and 17, 18 minutes if my math is right. And that clip that you showed is one of many instances where the, the former first lady talked about where we are right now in terms of our democracy as a country, in terms of our nation, our sort of the moral fabric of our country. I asked her in the look in her book, the look, she writes about how, you know, if someone wants to rob a woman of her dignity or respect, they will go after her appearance. And I asked her about that and I said, you know, even today we have that happening to female reporters. And she said, surprise, surprise. But then the answer that she gave, even though she never mentions the name Donald Trump in our interview or even in her book at all, in her answer, you know, she is talking about hip hop and you know that she's talking about this moment that we're in and how much it is being pushed and guided by him.
- [39:52]
Nicole Wallace
Let me play more of it and then you have to come back tomorrow so we can talk about it again after we've seen the whole thing. Here's a little bit more of it.
- [40:00]
Michelle Obama
This fashion book is the third book, not the first book I wrote because there's still a proving ground, right? I mean, I didn't want to start my post presidential life with fashion. I wanted to start it with story and journey and honesty and openness and an explanation of where I came from in my own words. And then there was the light, which talked about philosophies of life. The substance is there. First fashion was coming, but now it feels like it's the time because I've earned the right to talk about the things that I want to talk about in the way that I want to talk about them. And fashion is a powerful thing in our lives. We're all into it. It's a billion, multi billion dollar industry. It is there. It is fun. It is beautiful. It's all the things. But it can also be confining and restrictive and expensive and limiting. And it can also be used to make women feel small and less than. And we should be talking about it openly and fully and honestly because if we're not doing it, how do we expect our husbands, our bosses, the people in our communities to know where we, what we feel, what we struggled with if we're not talking about it out loud?
- [41:28]
Nicole Wallace
I love that she's always showing her work. She has no obligation to do so, but she's always explaining her process to us and letting us sort of come along.
- [41:39]
Jonathan Capehart
Yeah, she does that. But she also, as she says in the interview, that in this time that we're in, you know, we have to be looking out for the next generation that is coming up because what we have being this age is wisdom. What she has at this age is wisdom. And she feels an obligation and a duty to share that wisdom with anyone who wants to listen. And that's what we get in this special that you're going to see tonight. And this is what you get in her book called the Look.
- [42:12]
Nicole Wallace
I can't wait to watch it. We'd love to talk to you again on the other side. Thank you. Congratulations on getting this interview. We'll all be watching tonight. The Look, a conversation with Michelle Obama. Eric, tonight at 8:00pm Eastern. Do not miss it. Quick break for us. We'll be right back. My episode this week is making waves for good reason. The iconic and hilarious and massively talented Leslie Jones is my guest. She made me laugh. I know she'll make you laugh, but she'll also make you think. She's full of wisdom and insight on our current political moment. Take a listen. Your dad told you to be undeniable.
- [42:51]
Jonathan Capehart
Yes, he did. Because the whole thing behind that is be so good at what you do. They have no. And that's what I did. Everywhere I go, I be so good. You cannot deny me. You just gotta put me in the sketch. You gotta put me on.
- [43:09]
Nicole Wallace
But what added pressure. I mean, that feels like. Like, really, that. That feels like a lot of pressure.
- [43:14]
Jonathan Capehart
No, that's freeing. That's because you've given yourself permission to step out there and do it. Like, I'm more scared not to do it than to do it.
- [43:25]
Nicole Wallace
She pushed me in this conversation. I love this so much. Please give it a listen. She is undeniable. If you want to hear the whole conversation, scan the QR code on your screen or download the episode. Wherever you get your podcast, let me know what you think. Another break for us. We'll be right back. Thank you so much for letting us into your homes tonight. We are grateful.
- [43:48]
Tara Palmieri
Home to the Rachel Maddow Show, Morning Joe, the Brief with Jen Psaki and more. Voices you know and trust. Msnow is your source for news, opinion and the world. Our name is new, but you'll find the same commitment to justice, progress and the truth that you've relied on for decades. We'll continue to cover the day's news, ask the tough questions and explain how it impacts you.
- [44:13]
Danielle Bensky
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- [44:14]
Tara Palmieri
Same mission, new name. Learn more at Ms. Now.