Epstein survivors call on Congress to release files

Summary

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Morning Joe – Podcast Summary

Episode: Epstein survivors call on Congress to release files
Date: September 4, 2025
Hosts: Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, Willie Geist
Key Topics: Calls for Epstein file transparency, survivor testimony, bipartisan congressional efforts, Trump’s response, public implications, and deep-dive on broader societal malaise.

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse demanding Congress release all files related to the Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell investigations. The episode features raw and emotional testimony from survivors, analysis of the bipartisan effort to advance transparency legislation, and pointed discussion of former President Trump’s claim that the Epstein case is a “Democrat hoax.” The conversation delves into why transparency is crucial, the political ironies involved, and the broader cultural impact of institutional distrust, lack of accountability, and the American sense of decline.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Survivors Demand Justice and Transparency

• [06:46] Survivor Testimony on the Hill:
  Survivors, flanked by members of Congress from both parties, powerfully spoke out for the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
  • Legislation Details: Would require the Department of Justice to release all records—flight logs, immunity deals, internal DOJ communications, and documents on Epstein’s detention and death.
  • Purpose: Documents cannot be withheld on the grounds of “embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity.”
  • Quote: “We want this bill to pass. It is very important...We are tired of looking at the news and seeing Jeffrey Epstein's name and saying that this is a hoax. We are tired of it. We are done.” — Survivor/Advocate [06:46]
• Survivor Initiative: A confidential “list” of abusers will be compiled by and for survivors, as institutional pathways have so far failed them.
  • Quote: “Now, together as survivors, we will confidentially compile the names we all know.” — Joe Scarborough (paraphrasing survivor statement) [07:33]

2. Bipartisan Political Dynamics

• Cross-Party Support:
  The event was organized by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), with public support by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).
  • Political Irony: Lawmaker Taylor Greene boldly offered to read the survivors’ compiled list names into the Congressional record.
    • Quote: “If they want to give me a list, I will walk in that capitol on the House floor and I'll say every damn name that abused these women.” — Marjorie Taylor Greene (as recounted by Joe Scarborough) [09:22]
• Legislative Status:
  • The bill is being pushed via a discharge petition, requiring 218 House signatures to force a vote.
  • Some Republican reluctance remains, but survivor advocates report “no concerns about the way that the discharge petition…is written…” — Survivor/Advocate [15:47]

3. Trump’s Response and Fallout

• [01:15] Trump Calls the Case a 'Hoax':
  • Former President Trump equates the Epstein case with JFK assassination conspiracy theories, calling it a “Democrat hoax.”
  • Quote: “So this is a Democrat hoax that never ends. ...they're trying to get people to talk about something that's totally irrelevant to the success that we've had as a nation since I’ve been president.” — Donald Trump (via clip) [01:15], repeated [36:34]
• Survivor Reaction:
  • Some survivors, including those who once voted for Trump, express deep disappointment and fear.
    • Quote: “I voted for the man. And I’m disgusted by what he said, that this was a hoax and that it’s somehow Democrat led.” — Survivor/Advocate (reported by Ali Vitale) [12:15]
  • The panel notes the odd coalition supporting release, highlighting that this transcends partisan lines.
  • Ali Vitale: “This is the story I believe Donald Trump is most afraid of...he has revealed that he is not a serious person, he's not serious about his project.” [17:29]

4. Broader Account of Abuse and Coverup

• Public Complicity and Power:
  • Longstanding “open secret” nature of Epstein’s abuses; many in power chose to look the other way for access to money, influence, and social circles.
    • Quote: “Many were aware of his interest in girls and very young women and chose to look the other way because it benefited them to do so.” — Survivor/Advocate [08:25]
  • Survivors’ fear of retaliation and financial ruin for naming names is repeatedly reinforced.
  • Mike Barnacle: “You’re not going to do that because ... you know you’re going to be sued...they will sue you and destroy you and take every last cent that you have.” [11:13]

5. Media, Conspiracy, and Political Hypocrisy

• Exposing Partisan Double Standards:
  • Panel draws comparisons to previous conspiracy-focused politics (e.g., “Pizzagate”) and notes the hypocrisy in dismissing the real Epstein scandal.
    • Quote: “Now they have it right in front of their face. And we’re not interested anymore. ...it’s crazy.” — Mike Barnacle [19:00]
  • Jim VandeHei: “These courageous women... laid out exactly how you're going to figure out who did what.” [21:06]
  • Consensus: Survivors’ own efforts, in the face of official obstruction, may prove pivotal in bringing names to light and achieving at least public accountability.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote/Paraphrase | |-----------|------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 06:46 | Survivor/Advocate | “We are tired of looking at the news and seeing Jeffrey Epstein's name and saying that this is a hoax. We are tired of it. We are done.” | | 09:22 | Marjorie Taylor Greene (via Scarborough) | “I will walk in that capitol on the House floor and I'll say every damn name that abused these women.” | | 12:15 | Survivor/Advocate | “I voted for the man. And I’m disgusted by what he said, that this was a hoax and that it’s somehow Democrat led.” | | 17:29 | Ali Vitale | “This is the story I believe Donald Trump is most afraid of...he has revealed that he is not a serious person, he's not serious about his project.” | | 19:00 | Mike Barnacle | “Now they have it right in front of their face. And we’re not interested anymore. ...it’s crazy.” | | 21:06 | Jim VandeHei | “If they put together that confidential list and somebody like Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene reads it on the House floor, that’s probably the transparency that you’re going to get.” |

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Broader Societal Context: Trust, Conspiracies, Economic Anxiety

• Collapse of Faith in Institutions:
  The episode draws a line from the Epstein cover-up to the broader erosion of public trust in government and the American dream.
  • Ali Vitale: “When you go from 75% of people believing... in the future to 25%, that is a collapse that even those numbers don't fully capture.” [54:17]
  • Mike Barnacle: “70% of those people polled no longer believe that working hard in America will get them ahead. 70% of those polled...” [49:02]
• Resentment, Conspiracy Theories, and Polarization:
  Hosts link the Epstein debate to wider trends in American society—reliance on conspiracies, grievances, and the decline of social mobility.

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Key Segments & Timestamps

• [06:46–09:00]: Survivor testimonies and push for the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
• [09:00–13:00]: Panel reflects on legal, political, and emotional complexities, including issues of naming abusers.
• [15:00–18:00]: In-depth exploration of Congress’ reluctance, discharge petition mechanics, and the bipartisan coalition.
• [19:00–22:00]: Political hypocrisy, shifting conspiracy narratives, and the unique bipartisan nature of survivor advocacy.
• [36:34–39:19]: Trump’s reiteration of the “hoax” narrative, White House internal response, and continued Republican breaks with Trump.
• [54:17–56:17]: Social/economic analysis tying the Epstein story to American disillusionment and the proliferation of conspiracy thinking.

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Tone and Language

The tone throughout is urgent, passionate, and at times angry—reflecting the gravity of survivor testimony and the frustration with institutional and political obstruction. The Morning Joe panel is candid, at moments exasperated, and often explicitly critical of both political parties, but particularly focused on the hypocrisy and inaction of those with the power to act.

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Takeaways for Listeners

• Survivors are courageously pushing for full transparency and accountability, demanding Congress act where institutions have failed.
• The effort is bipartisan, with unusual political partnerships forming in the face of continued obfuscation and denial.
• Former President Trump’s dismissal of the investigation as a “Democrat hoax” has alienated even some of his former supporters and further spotlighted the need for public scrutiny.
• Political, legal, and social pressures are converging; if the government will not release names, survivor-led action may achieve public accountability.
• The Epstein scandal serves as a mirror for America’s broader struggles with power, trust, and justice.

Transcript

[Joe Scarborough]

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[Mike Barnacle]

Approval so this is a Democrat hoax that never ends. You know, it reminds me a little of the Kennedy situation. We gave them everything over and over again, more and more and more, and nobody's ever satisfied, from what I understand. I could check, but from what I understand, thousands of pages of documents have been given. But it's really a Democrat hoax because they're trying to get people to talk about something that's totally irrelevant to the success that we've had as a nation. Since I've been president, I voted for.

[Joe Scarborough]

Trump and for him to say what he is saying is beyond me because I put my hope in him and he's supposed to protect us. Hi. That was what you saw there first was President Trump yesterday saying the Jeffrey Epstein case is a hoax, no different than the conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination of jfk, followed by an emotional response last night from an Epstein survivor who voted for the president. We'll have much more about the push to release all of the files in that investigation. Also ahead, we'll dig into the effort by Florida's Surgeon General to all vaccine mandates in the state. Dr. Vin Gupta will join us with insight on the possible public health dangers of that move. He's Standing by. Plus, we'll go through the latest legal loss for the Trump administration, restoring more than $2 billion in federal grants for Harvard and an upset at the US Open as American Amanda Anissimo avenges her loss at Wimbledon. We'll get to that.

[Mike Barnacle]

I wouldn't call that a.

[Joe Scarborough]

That was a complete meltdown. And look at her now. Amazing.

[Mike Barnacle]

And she won last night.

[Jonathan Lemire]

Yeah.

[Mike Barnacle]

Crazy. After losing the Giga 606 in the finals of Wimbledon.

[Jonathan Lemire]

And you've got a great, great women's semifinal lineup today because of it. You got Americans in both semifinals, Naomi Osaka in one, Sabalenka the number one player in the world in the other. It's a great day out in Queens.

[Mike Barnacle]

Who she beat in the semis. Yeah. Of Wimbledon. That's right. By the way, still repercussions the the official newspaper of Morning Joe, the New York Post, she Stooges. And you. You picked out a movie character in here.

[Jonathan Lemire]

Well, some have called the leader of North Korea Tommy Boy due to his inheritance of the the company from his father and some of the bumbling that's gone on. But in this case, instead of auto parts, it's nuclear weapons.

[Jim VandeHei]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Lemire]

A bit more serious y that if.

[Mike Barnacle]

Christopher had nuclear weapons. Different was okay.

[Jonathan Lemire]

Yes.

[Joe Scarborough]

We have the host of Way Too Early. MSNBC senior Capitol Hill correspondent Ali Vitale, co founder and CEO of Axios. Jim Vande Hei is with us. And MSNBC political analyst Anand Girardas. He's publisher of the newsletter the Inc. Available on Substack.

[Mike Barnacle]

And I just got to start. Jim Vande Hei, yesterday we were picking super bowl champs and the packers name came up a couple times around the table. How are you guys feeling?

[Jim VandeHei]

Feeling great. You get to go. A week from today season kicks off today. We've got Micah Parsons.

[Mike Barnacle]

Life is good.

[Jim VandeHei]

Life is good. And you get to go to Lambeau for the first time.

[Mike Barnacle]

That is going to be good. That is very, very exciting. By the way, news from Netflix, season six of the Crown is coming out, except it's not going to be about the royal family. It's going to be about Adam's hair. Oh, it's very fetching this morning.

[Ali Vitale]

They needed some kind of concept after the empire ended.

[Mike Barnacle]

Right.

[Ali Vitale]

You know.

[Mike Barnacle]

Yeah. This is what hell have you wrought? Ye, that hairstyle.

[Ali Vitale]

I didn't think this announcement would be today, but. Well, I mean, I hope I've been sitting on it.

[Mike Barnacle]

So you don't think. Well, no, under it. Under it.

[Jonathan Lemire]

Wherever this is peak Anand hair. I mean that literally and figuratively.

[Mike Barnacle]

Yeah.

[Ali Vitale]

I Had a Brazilian friend once who every time my hair got like this, would say, did your barber die?

[Mike Barnacle]

Apparently it's an expression in Brazil. Oh, my God. My barber just kept. Kept dying. You could always say what George Harrison used to say when they said, why's your hair so long? And he'd say, you should have seen it yesterday before I got a haircut.

[Joe Scarborough]

All right, let's get to our top story. A group of Jeffrey Epstein survivors spoke publicly on Capitol Hill yesterday, calling on Congress to pass the Epstein Files Transparency act to release all the files from the Justice Department's investigation into the deceased sex offender. Many of the women shared their deeply personal stories of sexual abuse at the hands of Epstein and his convicted co conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, while demanding transparency. That is why the Epstein Files Transparency act is so essential. It requires the Department of Justice release all the records related to Epstein and Maxwell investigations, flight logs, immunity deals, internal communications, and even the records surrounding Epstein's detention and death. And crucially, it forbids withholding documents simply because of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity. This is about ending secrecy wherever abuse of power takes root.

[Survivor/Advocate]

We want this bill to pass. It is very important. Okay? And we need transparency. We are tired of looking at the news and seeing Jeffrey Epstein's name and saying that this is a hoax. We are tired of it. We are done. We are not going to be silenced. And I hope that my voice will bring other survivors and other victims to come along and speak up so that we can be more of a stronger voice and louder. And so what is your message to President Trump on this? Listen, I don't like to. I don't want to send a direct message to him. I'm already scared enough.

[Jim VandeHei]

Just.

[Survivor/Advocate]

Just pass the vote. Listen to us. This is not a hoax.

[Joe Scarborough]

We are not asking for pity. We are here demanding accountability. And I'm demanding justice.

[Survivor/Advocate]

Congress must choose.

[Joe Scarborough]

Will you continue to protect predators, or will you finally protect survivors? And also I would like to announce here today, us Epstein survivors have been discussing creating our own list. We know the names. Many of us were abused by them. Now, together as survivors, we will confidentially compile the names we all know.

[Mike Barnacle]

Who.

[Joe Scarborough]

Are regularly in the Epstein world. And it will be done by survivors and for survivors. No one else is involved. Stay tuned for more details.

[Mike Barnacle]

For so many years, it felt like.

[Survivor/Advocate]

Epstein's criminal behavior was an open secret.

[Mike Barnacle]

Not only did many others participate in.

[Joe Scarborough]

The abuse, it is clear that many.

[Survivor/Advocate]

Were aware of his interest in girls and very young women and chose to look the other way because it benefited them to do so.

[Mike Barnacle]

They wanted access to his circle and his money.

[Survivor/Advocate]

Their choice to align with his power.

[Joe Scarborough]

Left those of us who had been harmed by this man and his associates feeling very isolated. The news conference was organized by Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna of California and Republican Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky. The two are currently pushing for a discharge petition, a maneuver that would essentially force a vote on releasing the Epstein files in full. Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia also joined the news conference to support the legislation. And the survivors you're questioning, why can't they just name the names? What you don't realize is they just told their stories of being raped and being abused, being victimized, being manipulated. They saw the most powerful people in the world in his pictures and they saw him with those people. Can you imagine how terrifying it would be to name names like that? These are some of the richest, most powerful people in the world that could sue these women into poverty and homelessness. Yeah, it's a scary thing to name names, but I will tell you, I'm not afraid to name names. And so if they want to give me a list, I will walk in that capitol on the House floor and I'll say every damn name that abused these women.

[Mike Barnacle]

You know, Willie, we've talked about this for years. We talked about this before Donald Trump was President of the United States. We were talking about around this table before. There was sort of the second prosecution moving forward that it didn't ever make any sense. The plea deal didn't make any sense. It didn't make any sense that this guy had moleste some that's raped all of these young girls and had gotten away with it, was able to walk in and out of prison. They had a sweetheart deal that the victims weren't a party to, which again, was highly irregular. And now we keep seeing, you know, the justice. We're going to release these new infrastructure. They release nothing. And then you had Comer do the same thing. Release nothing.

[Steve Rattner]

Just.

[Jonathan Lemire]

Just old stuff we'd already seen stuff.

[Mike Barnacle]

Stuff we had already seen.

[Joe Scarborough]

And now you MAGA is stupid and knows that they thinks they haven't seen it before. This is the base. They want answers.

[Mike Barnacle]

They want answers.

[Joe Scarborough]

They don't want regurgitated information.

[Mike Barnacle]

It's not going away. And so you have these women who are still struggling with being molested by some of the richest, most powerful men on the planet when they were teenagers. You have the hellish lives that they have lived afterwards in the aftermath of that. And again, being scared to ever Talk about it, because if you're going up against the richest and the most powerful men on the face of the earth, and those are the names we've heard through the years, you're not going to do that because you're going to be afraid that you know you're going to be sued, as Marjorie Taylor Greene said, that they will sue you and destroy you and take every last cent that you have. So it's remarkable what's happening here. And the president's trying to dismiss it as a hoax. Those women know it's not a hoax. And the whole world knows it's not a hoax. The president's own base knows it's not a hoax. That won't work. For some reason, it worked with Russia. It's just not going to work here.

[Jonathan Lemire]

How could the president of the United States watch that testimony from those women outside the Capitol yesterday and still call it a hoax? It again raises the question of why he wants this to go away so quickly. To listen to Julia Phillips, the woman we see right there, say, you know what, we're going to take matters into our own hands and we will produce our own list. And then to have Congresswoman Taylor Greene come out and say, I will take that list and walk it inside the Capitol, it was incredibly powerful. And Ali Vitale, I know you were there yesterday listening to these women and then hearing the response from President Trump. We heard the one woman with Lawrence last night reacting to President Trump's response and say, I voted for the man. And I'm disgusted by what he said, that this was a hoax and that it's somehow Democrat led. Well, Marjorie Taylor Greene was out there leading the charge, so it's obviously not led by Democrats. But I'll tell you the bedfellows that this story has made and the people it has disgusted. When you have Ro Khanna and Marjorie Taylor Green working together on this, kind of tells you everything.

[Survivor/Advocate]

It tells you that politics should be out of this. And yet it's so inextricably intertwined with it because of the way that the president pushed for transparency on this on the campaign trail, along with other Republicans, including Congresswoman Greene, who is now saying that she has to make good on those promises. And that's why part of why she's signing on to this effort, getting crosswise with the White House. But just to pick up on the hoax line of it, Bradley Edwards, actually the Epstein lawyer who was there, he's in the background of many of these pictures, said that it's stunning to him that Trump would Now call this a hoax because Trump back in 2009 and earlier was actually someone who apparently helped Edwards during some of these attempts that they were making to do various legal avenues of seeking justice on this. It's not because they thought that Trump had any wrongdoing. He was actually described as being helpful towards this effort. And so the about face that he's making now, calling this a Democratic hoax hoax is pretty inexplicable to many of the survivors and lawyers who have been a part of this for many, many, many years now. And I think that's what was really hammered home yesterday as I was there at this press conference, is the ways that these women have tried and lost opportunities for justice in the past. And as much as that has been painful for them, they still have this hope for transparency. Now, speaking directly at some points during that press conference to the President, at other points speaking to members of Congress saying we just want transparency here. In some cases, they hope that transparency brings them clarity on what actually happened to them as they were being trafficked. And so what we're watching right now are two parallel tracks, two parallel vehicles for how that transparency could happen through Capitol Hill. Remember that the President still has the power to just say let's be transparent about all of this and ask DOJ to release the files in full. Of course, that's not likely to happen, which is why we're tracking what's happening on the Hill, specifically with the discharge petition. We're waiting to see if they get the 218 signatures that they need. But if you listen to the speaker, he is continuously denouncing that effort. And here's why. In his words, watch.

[Mike Barnacle]

They're already producing and putting out there the documents that are uncovered. The White House is in full compliance.

[Jim VandeHei]

The administration is willfully complying with the.

[Dr. Vin Gupta]

Subpoenas because they want maximum transparency as well.

[Jim VandeHei]

I talked to the President, President himself.

[Steve Rattner]

Last night about this. He said, get it out there, put it all out there.

[Mike Barnacle]

So this is going to be an ongoing effort.

[Steve Rattner]

It will be bipartisan, which is great. And the, the Oversight Committee's effort, this.

[Mike Barnacle]

Is really important point, goes further than the discharge petition.

[Survivor/Advocate]

That's debatable at this point. Joe and Mika, especially because the survivors yesterday said that they have no concerns about the way that the discharge petition, the bill underlying it is written in terms of privacy concerns. They don't have those. And so Republic Republican members are now having to grapple with that. And then of course, the Oversight Committee's work is still happening, but it's Kind of an open question on how transparent that effort would be.

[Steve Rattner]

Yeah.

[Mike Barnacle]

And, you know, the speaker said the president wants it all out there. It's just not true. He's saying it's not even real. He's saying it's a Democratic hoax. Before, he was blaming it on.

[Jim VandeHei]

Previous.

[Mike Barnacle]

Administrations, he was blaming it on Obama. It all happened during his administration. He's blaming it on Biden. It all happened during his administration, first administration. And so you look at all of this, and again, the irony, the irony that this movement that would find rando Hollywood stars and just call them pedophiles because they voted for Democrats and they would find random public figures and, you know, they've spent 20 years calling these people pedophiles. And now you've got a group of people in that same movement trying to whitewash probably the greatest pedophile of the 21st century, the 20th and the 21st century, second half, as far as, you know, a public figure moving among the rich and the powerful among royalty. And now they're saying, oh, everything's out there. This is a hoax. Again, how rich?

[Ali Vitale]

This is the story I believe Donald Trump is most afraid of. Look, this is a big, various, diverse country with lots of different opinions. I think the one thing we could all maybe agree on is that young girls should not be raped and trafficked by the wealthiest, most powerful men. We could start there as just like a baseline of common sense. And this is revealing the fact that he won't simply release these files, bring transparency, honor these survivors. It reveals his entire project to be a con to his base. Right. He ran on, I may disagree with him, but he ran on saying, look, there's a group of wealthy, powerful people who are sort of colluding. They're all in on it. Democrats, Republicans, they're all in on this thing. And I am outside of this system. I don't care. I say what I think and I'm going to expose the system. I'm going to drain the swamp. And now, in what is the ultimate, as you said, the ultimate almost caricature example of the wealthy and powerful colluding and doing harm, he has revealed that he is not a serious person. He's not serious about his project and his. He's revealing that his supporters are sort of ciao for his own enrichment, enrichment of his friends. He doesn't care about them, he doesn't respect them, and he doesn't think they're smart enough to see through this. And I think actually they are smart enough to see through this.

[Mike Barnacle]

Well, if they are, Willie, what I don't understand is again, think back to Pizzagate, where again, this movement started a lie that Hillary Clinton was part of a pedophile ring, and a guy comes down and he shoots up a pizza joint, and then it's like, oh, my God, it was all a lie. Think about, think about. You know, they. Even over the past several years, they had movies celebrating guys that would go down and, you know, bust up pedophile rings who, after they did some research, found out weren't the best guys in the world. But it was like this singular obsession, right? They would. They would call out Hollywood stars like Tom Hanks, they would call out Oprah, they would call out these wild, you know, and the conspiracy theories about pedophilia. Now they have it right in front of their face. And we're not interested anymore. Let's move on. This is a democratic hoax. And these podcasters that were like, raise Epstein files. Raise Epstein files. Oh, they've all been released. We're good. I mean, it's crazy. By the way, that voice, I'm not exactly sure which podcaster that was, but.

[Jonathan Lemire]

Not a popular one.

[Mike Barnacle]

Not a popular.

[Jonathan Lemire]

You're right. There have been a lot of imaginary pedophiles in the minds of conspiratorial people over the last generation or so. And now we have a very, very real one and very, very real survivors that we heard from yesterday. And for some reason, Donald Trump now does seem interested in pursuing that story. Jim Bandehe. And the question remains, what does this mean to his relationship with his base, which has moved with him wherever he has led them on just about everything. But on this issue in particular, they've said, no, no, no, we know this is real. We know something terrible happened to these women. We know this was a conspiracy of a terrible man and people rich and powerful with him. And we know something stinks here and you're not doing anything about it, Mr. President. So what does that mean politically?

[Jim VandeHei]

I mean, it certainly means that they disagree with him on this wholeheartedly. I don't know that they're gonna. Not gonna break with him. Beyond that. There's no evidence that the base is turning on Trump. They seem to be with him no matter what he says or does. The fact that the President has said he's not gonna release this, he thinks it's a hoax. The facts that he has, the speaker means you're probably not going to get the documents that you want to see. They just laid out those women, those courageous women sitting before the microphone laid out exactly how you're going to figure out who did what. If they put together that confidential list and somebody like Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene reads it on the House floor, that's probably the transparency that you're going to get. And they've now clearly put a roadmap to do it. Otherwise, they're going to hide it, they're going to fight. And there are legitimate things with and what can be released and not released. But if they decide they want to put the names to it, and I think a lot of us know who probably some of the names are that are on that list, and she goes public with it and willing to have that fight on their behalf, then at least you get the public shaming dimension of justice. There'll be statute of limitations and all the other things that cover the actual justice of it. But it sure as hell seems like it's time for that.

[Joe Scarborough]

I totally agree with you, Jim. I think that, I mean, this petition right now has Trump for Republicans including Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace. And I think the most dangerous thing for Republicans on this is these survivors, these women who, who have been abused repeatedly over the course of years and then invalidated about that abuse. That's akin to having nothing left to lose. And that's dangerous. And these Republicans have a lot coming their way. If they think they're going to be quiet, they're done. You can hear it, you can see it. And it's something that perhaps some Republicans who are standing in the way of this may want to consider. Jim's right. Those names are going to come, come out one way or another.

[Ali Vitale]

And usually often in these cases, a group like that is kept separate. One person's over here, one, but they don't necessarily know the other's names.

[Steve Rattner]

Right.

[Ali Vitale]

And what was so powerful about that visual and those testimonies is they have found solidarity with each other.

[Joe Scarborough]

Right.

[Ali Vitale]

And now in connection with each other, giving each other strength, giving each other courage, but also just pulling information that was sitting in different places, they're going to have a level of force that's undeniable.

[Joe Scarborough]

Still ahead on Morning Joe, a federal judge is ordering the Trump administration to unfreeze billions of dollars in grants to Harvard University. We'll go through that ruling and the impact this could have on the other schools the White House has gone after for their DEI programs. Plus, Steve Ratner standing by at the Southwest Wall with a look at the state of the US Economy. As a new poll shows Americans are growing increasingly pessimistic and a reminder, the Morning Joe Podcast is available each weekday, featuring our full conversations and analysis. You can listen wherever you get your podcasts. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back.

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[Jonathan Lemire]

Wow, what a beautiful live picture of New York City. 6:24 in the morning sun coming up over Manhattan. Thank you wnbc chopper four. It's a beauty. In just a few hours, Health and Human Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Will head to Capitol Hill, where he will testify before the Senate Finance Committee. The hearing gives lawmakers their first chance to question Kennedy on many of those recent moves he's made, including the ousting of CDC Director Susan Monorez and the changing of COVID vaccine recommendations. Meanwhile, Florida is moving to eliminate all vaccine mandates, including ones for children to attend public school. This would make Florida the first state to end a long standing practice of requiring certain vaccines for students, which public health experts say and common sense as well help control the spread of infectious diseases. The state Surgeon general announced the decision yesterday while railing against vaccine mandates.

[Jim VandeHei]

Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery.

[Mike Barnacle]

Okay, who am I as a government or anyone else or who am I as a man standing here now to tell you what you should put in your body? You want to put, you know, whatever different vaccines in your body. God bless you. I hope you make an informed decision. You don't want to put whatever vaccines in your body. God bless you. And I hope you make an informed decision. And that's how it should be.

[Jonathan Lemire]

That move from the Florida surgeon general, a doctor there drawing condemnation from public health experts, including the president of the Academy of Pediatrics, who says this move will put children in Florida public schools at higher risk of getting sick, of course, and will have ripple effects across their community. Joining us now, NBC News medical contributor Dr. Vin Gupta. Dr. Gupta, let you just kind of take what you heard there from the Florida surgeon general and as a physician, address some of the points he made there. Also, keeping in mind the context of the state of Florida, the age of many of the residents there and their vulnerability if disease does, in fact, spread out into the community.

[Dr. Vin Gupta]

Well, good morning. You know, first, I'll note for your audience that vaccine exemptions for non medical reasons in the state of Florida have already existed. So and they're increasing. So what he did yesterday was performative. It wasn't substantive, but it's going to have it's going to put gasoline on this problem that is getting worse. And why does this matter for your communities across Florida? But frankly, across the country are seeing exemptions for, say, the polio vaccine, Willie, that are, that are lowering coverage for communities to say 92%. Why does that matter? That matters because that's the, that's the threshold below which outbreaks start to happen. We need to we talk so much about herd immunity during COVID You need that for any infectious disease. And so the more people opt out or now in this case are not required to do basic childhood vaccines, outbreaks are more likely. And the problem is this isn't just focusing or the people that are impacted by this are not just kids that decide because their parents decide they don't get vaccinated. No, it's any child in the state of Florida because we know, for example, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, that's a three shot. There's three shots in one tdap. We need five of those shots when we're younger to have a full series. And that last shot, Willie's between four and six years of age. So you're going to have kids that are not Fully vaccinated, going to school with more and more kids that are unvaccinated, being potentially at risk of testing positive, bringing that back home into a multi generational household, exposing folks. And so nobody wants that. I'll ask. They say here, just on the tee up, 80% of Americans support these vaccine mandates for kids. Requirements to enter a daycare, a school type setting. This is not controversial across the United States. This is not political. 80% of kids, based on multiple recent polls. So I know we had some folks chanting and applauding, but anybody can curate an audience at scale. No one wants this.

[Jonathan Lemire]

So, Dr. Gupta, when you listen to what we heard there from the Florida Surgeon General and a lot of what we've heard From Bobby Kennedy Jr. Just amplified now because of the position he finds himself in. All this skepticism about vaccines now packing that panel at Health and Human Services with vaccine skeptics. Can you just address, let's just take these basic, these basic vaccines that kids have been taking for generations to go to school. Are there questions around them? Do they make people sick? Have they been making children sick? Is there reason for concern? And if so, why hasn't that been addressed in the, I don't know, 80 years since they've been around?

[Dr. Vin Gupta]

I mean, Willie, you're signaling it. No. The answer is no. There's no scientific evidence that any of the childhood vaccinations, let's take tetanus, measles, mumps and rubella, polio vaccine. I mean, these are just fundamental foundational things that no other country in the entire world, by the way, is having a similar type of discussion at their governmental level. We are because of the people that are currently in power. But there is no reason why the other countries across the globe are having a similar discussion because the science doesn't beg it. There's no incidence of increased side effects. There's no link to autism. This is one man with his agenda and the power to really enact his agenda. That's RFK Jr. I'll lastly say here just on this topic, of why this matters to American families across the spectrum, because Florida is likely just the canary in the coal mine. We're probably going to see this in more states across the country, just like we saw here on the west coast, that they're banding together to create their own coalition to counter the cdc. We're going to see this likely happen in more places for everybody out there. Something that has happened since 2008, Willie, is that pediatric beds across the country have declined. 20% decrease in pediatric bed Capacity in children's hospitals across the country. Why does that matter? Just at the time that Ladapo and DeSantis are doing this in Florida, creating more burden of illness for kids, there's less beds to actually deal with the aftermath than we saw in West Texas. When you have a measles epidemic that lands kidding kids in the hospital that need supplemental oxygen, likely in an icu. We have less of those beds, Willie.

[Jonathan Lemire]

So the message from the top here is consistent. Dr. Mehmet Oz, who President Trump picked to serve as the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, was asked yesterday on Fox News whether there should be vaccine mandates. Here's what he said.

[Jim VandeHei]

I would definitely not have mandates for vaccinations. This is a decision that a physician and a patient should be making together. The parents love their kids more than anybody else.

[Mike Barnacle]

I could love that kid.

[Jim VandeHei]

So why not let the parents play an active role in this?

[Mike Barnacle]

There are some states now where you're.

[Jim VandeHei]

Seeing an increase in homeschooling because parents are running from the health care system. They can't get health care because doctors are unwilling to take the risk of taking care of children who don't want vaccinations because it might impact the way their practices are run. They shouldn't feel pressure from the government to decide what to do with the vaccination schedule. They should do what's the best interest of the person in front of them that say it's a child and what those parents desire.

[Jonathan Lemire]

Dr. Gupta, your reaction to that?

[Dr. Vin Gupta]

It was hard to follow. That was sort of gibberish from what I could tell. But I didn't really. I wasn't following Dr. Oz's rationale. There didn't. I have not seen. Nobody is seeing this. I work closely with American Academy of Pediatrics across the spectrum. They represent pediatricians across the country in every single zip code. Willie, no one's saying this. If anything, everybody's saying, listen, we are. We're having those conversations. No pediatrician has time to answer 30 questions about a fundamental vaccine because they have other things to do with that baby at a well visit. And so to now put the onus on pediatricians and families to ask all these questions that no one else is asking because there's no scientific reason to ask. Is them just passing the buck here for everybody out there? I would ignore what was just said. Again, hard to Follow. Go to HealthyChildren.org HealthyChildren.org it's produced by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Really, it's. It's a nonprofit. It has clear, navigable information. You can't trust what's coming out of this government right now at the very top. Go to HealthyChildren.org for information, clear, navigable and childhood vaccines. But Willie, there's no reason for this.

[Joe Scarborough]

NBC News medical contributor Dr. Vin Gupta, thank you very much. That is sad that we can't trust, but we can. Coming up, we'll dig into new reporting on the Trump administration's involvement in the race for mayor in New York City, including the potential job offer for Eric Adams if he drops his bid for re election. Morning Joe will be right back.

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[Mike Barnacle]

This is a Democrat hoax that never ends. You know, it reminds me a little of the Kennedy we gave them everything over and over again, more and more and more, and nobody's ever satisfied, from what I understand. I could check, but from what I understand, thousands of pages of documents have been given. But it's really a Democrat hoax because they're trying to get people to talk about something that's totally irrelevant to the success that we've had as a nation since I've been president.

[Joe Scarborough]

Let's bring in the co host of our fourth hour staff writer at the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire, and MSNBC contributor Mike Barnacle.

[Mike Barnacle]

So. So, Jonathan, what's the White House reaction behind the scenes? Obviously, the president saying that. And then this very powerful visual on Capitol Hill with, with women who were abused, molested by some of the richest and most powerful people on the planet on Capitol Hill. This president, more than I think, any others, other than maybe Reagan, understands the power of a visual. And this is a strong visual that you can't just hoax away.

[Jonathan Lemire]

Yeah.

[Jim VandeHei]

And let's be clear, it is not a Democratic hoax. There was hopes in the White House. I talked to a few people around the president yesterday. This story would have petered out over the August recess. Remember, Speaker Johnson even sent Congress home early to avoid having to talk about it. And the story did fade from the headlines some, but didn't disappear. And now that everyone's back in Washington, it has roared back to life. And we are seeing some Republicans still being willing to defy the president.

[Mike Barnacle]

Well, talk about Marjorie Jene, who actually has said that these women put together a confidential list. She will go on the House floor and read it.

[Jim VandeHei]

The number of Democrats who have said to me in the last 24 hours, I can't believe I'm agreeing with something Marjorie Taylor Greene is doing is lengthy, but yet they do, and this is something that she could do and she can't be stopped from doing so. Those in the White House said they had actually been pretty pleased. They thought they had gotten Republicans back in line on this issue in the recent weeks, that they had. The, the MAGA influencer types were talking about it less. But we're seeing her here. Marjorie Taylor Greene, at least a few others are still willing to go public with this. And as far as President Trump goes, those around him know don't talk about this with him. This is one of those subjects. They know that he just, he reacts very strongly to and very poorly to. They know that it upsets him. But I have been told that he does believe that he'll just get through this. He can say it's a hoax. People will move on. His supporters will believe him. And he remembers back in 2016 when he was accused by so many women of inappropriate conduct that he was touched around the Access Hollywood tape. There was a number of women who came forward and made similar allegations. He survived that politically. E. Jean Carroll yes, he survived these things politically. He believes he can again.

[Ali Vitale]

He believes he's the real survivor here.

[Jim VandeHei]

I mean, he thinks that this is something that he can just get through. He can create, assert his own reality. Eventually, the story will fade. They think we'll see all right, turning.

[Mike Barnacle]

Now to the economy and former treasury official and Morning Joe economic analyst Steve Rattner joins us from the Southwest wall. Steve, you've got details on new polling that shows number of Americans believe that they can improve their standard of living. That number is at an all time low. I want to talk about that in one minute but first I'd love to get your reaction to the story that was in the Wall Street Journal this past weekend that talked about the stock market being at levels inflated as much or even more than they were during, during the.com era before of course, the pets.com.com boom.

[Steve Rattner]

Yeah, Joe, there's no question stocks are at a very, very high level. They've been hitting records almost day after day. And when you look at it measured against earnings and the kinds of metrics that we on Wall street look at, the stocks are very, very expensive. Is it the.com era? I think it is potentially similar in one way and different another way. The difference between this and the.com era in my mind to some degree at least is that I think the AI boom, which is really the equivalent of the dot com era could be a real thing. It is an enormous change in technology. It is being adopted by consumers and by business faster than any other form of technology really in history has been adopted. People are paying real money for the services. These companies are receiving real money. They're not making, making profits yet, but they're receiving real money. That's a lot different from webvan or pets.com, which really almost never even got off the ground. That said, markets can get well ahead of reality and stocks of companies like Nvidia or Google or Amazon could well be excessively highly priced. But I think underneath it, the difference here is that these are real companies doing real things and they're going to change our lives and be have a major impact for decades to come.

[Mike Barnacle]

Yeah, I mean it's very important to remember that not so long ago people were knocking Amazon.com because Bezos never turned a profit. He kept piling in any profits he made back into Amazon. And people are saying it's a dog of a stock, it never makes a profit. But he knew, and those who invested early knew that it was going to change the way people bought things. Got to say, I would guess that you would agree with me that AI is such a revolutionary step forward that chances are very good that even if they're not turning profits now, it's a great long term investment.

[Steve Rattner]

Yeah, that's, that's what we believe and that's certainly the way we're approaching it. And again, Amazon took a long time to even, to even generate real revenues. These companies are doing it almost right out of the blocks. And the usage, as I said, the revenue, the spending on it is astronomical. You talk to the users of it, the companies, individuals, they all believe it's a game changer. And so these valuations are not, may not be that crazy. OpenAI is now valued at $500 billion. Anthropic is now valued at $183 billion. Those are very big numbers in a very short period of time. But the difference here between now and 1999, 2000, is there are real businesses behind them that people are actually using and finding value in.

[Mike Barnacle]

Yeah. So let's talk about a tell of two economies. We talked about it in the Biden era where we kept talking about how the numbers looked so great for the US Economy compared to the rest of the world, and yet a lot of people hurting in middle America, a lot of people hurting across the country, and a lot of Americans pessimistic that that helped defeat Kamala Harris. How has that changed? Or are they still pessimistic?

[Steve Rattner]

They're still pessimistic. And let me start with a poll that you guys referred to last week, which prompted me to try to lay out for you what lies behind that poll. But this was a poll by the Wall Street Journal and norc. People like me have a good chance of improving our standard of living. And you can see the percentage that agree with that statement who think they have a good chance of, of improving their standard of living has dropped all the way down here to 25%. You can see back here in 1987, it was up around 75%. It bounced around. It bounced around. It did start coming down after the financial crisis. No question about that. This break here was Covid when they didn't take the survey. But you can see that Covid really changed people's perceptions. And now you've got only 25% of the people who believe this. Another poll found that 70% of Americans believe that there was never an American dream and that they were ever unlikely to realize it. But why do people feel that way? There is some reality in facts behind this sentiment. And that's what I want to show you now. This is the growth in real personal medium income. Personal income meaning how much money did people make after you adjust for inflation? So everything puts on an apples to apples basis. If you go back to 1980, you can see that over this period of time, the average personal income grew by 1.3% a year. That may not sound like a lot, but that's after inflation. And when you compounded, it can be. And we had lots of ups and downs, as you can see in these light blue bars, but that's what we did. And then after the financial crisis, that.

[Mike Barnacle]

Dropped to 1.0% in 2008.

[Steve Rattner]

Around that period of time. In 2008, exactly. And you know, again, that's not, that may not sound like a lot, but that's almost a 30% drop. But then look what happened after Covid. It dropped all the way to minus 0.2. Meaning the average family after inflation was losing ground. Yes, a lot of that was around 2020 and Covid. But even post Covid, you can see how small these blue bars are. It's barely growing at all. And so if you want to know why people are unhappy, you just kind of have to look at their pocketbooks.

[Jonathan Lemire]

So, Steve, they're also unhappy. As we move to your second chart, because. Because it's just so expensive to buy a home. Extraordinary statistics in here over the years about the age of people buying their first homes used to be late 20s. These days it's late 30s.

[Steve Rattner]

Yeah, so you saw a couple days ago, Donald Trump talking about declaring a national housing emergency. Nobody knows what that means or what it would lead him to do, but the point is that he recognizes that the housing problem is very central to people's feeling of unhappiness and of going backwards rather than forwards. So let's look at what's happened to house prices. So if you go back again to 1990, you can see the average house price was about three times the income of the average American. This is the period right before the financial crisis where we'll all remember house prices ran up, got almost to five. But then after that, house prices came down. But now they've been going back up again and they're up to almost five times. So the affordability has gone from three times your income to now five times your income. What you have to pay for a house. This is mostly driven by simply inflation and house prices. House prices have been going up faster than other things and it's made housing unaffordable. And as you then alluded to Willie, it has changed who can buy a house. So for first time house buyers back in 1980, 29 year olds were able to on average buy their first house. Today it's 38 year olds. And that obviously does not make people happy either to say the Least for all buyers, it's gone up a lot, from 31 to 56. For repeat buyers, it's up to 61 compared to 36 back in 1980. And so housing has become out of the reach of many, many Americans. And that's also weighing very heavily on their feelings of well being.

[Joe Scarborough]

Absolutely. And one more shift in a negative direction, Steve Ratner, is upward mobility. Tell us about it.

[Steve Rattner]

Yeah, look, the dream of every American is for their kids to do better than they do. And that's not what's been happening. If you go all the way back to 1940, the Silent Generation, 90% of kids did better than their parents. That has been going down very, very, very steadily all the way through boomers, through Gen X, and now through millennials, to the point where Only about about 40% of millennials are doing better than their parents. Why is this? It's mostly because as an economy grows more slowly and our economy is growing more slowly, it's harder and harder for people to get ahead. And so if we want to fix this problem, we need to get the economy growing faster. And then a related point is what kind of wealth people have when they're 35 years old? Old. So the average millennial compared to the average boomer. I'm a boomer. Has 30% less wealth than the average boomer. And so this generation of millennials, who are now the people who are coming into prominence in politics and business and whatever, are on average, less well off. But what's even more amazing in a way than that is you have growing wealth inequality among this group. We talk a lot about income inequality, inequality at different levels. This is wealth inequality. And so the fact is, the top 10% millennial compared to the top 10% boomer is 20% better off, which means the people further down are even worse off than this, minus 30%. So you've got this huge wealth inequality among millennials, which is driven in large part by the fact that boomers did do well. And the wealth transfer that's going on now from boomers to Millennials is the largest in history. But it's only going to a sliver of millennials. This sliver, and the rest of them are doing this badly or worse.

[Mike Barnacle]

You know, Mike Barnacle.

[Joe Scarborough]

Thank you, Steve Ratner.

[Mike Barnacle]

Thank you, Steve Ratner. Greatly appreciate it. Morning Joe economic analyst. It just really is a cornerstone of the American dream. It was a bedrock belief for me. I'm sure it was for you. Sure it was for so many people watching right now that, hey, my parents, you know, they're working hard, they're doing great, but I'm going to do better than them. And who wanted that more than anything? Our parents. They wanted us to do better than they did. And it was, Joey, if you work hard. I remember us driving in Meridian, Mississippi, and we'd be going to church and we would drive down Country Club Drive. Can you believe they had a drive, I bet they still do, called Country Club Drive. Just in case you missed it. Just in case you missed the country club that you were not allowed to not even walk on. You couldn't even look at it right. It was that kind of Spinal Tap. Don't even look at it. But as we're driving down Country Club Drive to go to First Baptist Church, Meridian, my parents, when we drove down, they weren't like, resentful. They weren't like, oh, look at all those people in those mansions. Look at those Cadillacs. Every time my mom go, joey, you look, look at those houses. Look at the. If you work hard, you can live like that if you want to someday you can do whatever you want to do. Because I'm sure I was looking, wow, it must be great to live in a house that big. And my mom and dad were both work hard, you can do that, but you only get there by working hard. And I believed it. I believed it. I don't know that people telling their children that today are going to believe it. It doesn't look, according to these charts, like they will, Joe. I took that same drive with my parents in the front seat of the car many, many years ago. And it would be a Sunday drive, as you indicated, and we'd go through rich neighborhoods in our poor mill town that I grew up in, we would do and look at the houses, some with swimming pools back then. Incredible in the early 90s. I can never imagine people having swimming pools in the early 1950s. George Wallace, that was the guy's name, he had a swimming pool in the backyard of his home. We looked at it and drove by it without resentment. And in this poll, the Wall Street Journal poll that Steve was just mentioning, 70% of those people polled no longer believe that working hard in America will get them ahead. 70% of those polled, the shocking disparity between the way we grew up and the way people grow up today, our children, all of our children, is incredible. And you can only years ago, if you were asked 25, 30 years ago, 40 years ago, whatever, what is the greatest country, country in the world? The United States of America is now. I still believe that I Don't think too many Americans still believe that. I don't think they still believe that we are the greatest country in the world. But when you look at what's happened just over the last quarter of a century, start with September 11th and the shattering of faith that took place when we were attacked. And then you walk into Iraq and Afghanistan, a long endless war where who goes, who fights the children of the middle class. You look at the explosion of the billionaire class in this country over the last 10 years, it's shocking. Something like, you know, 100% growth in billionaires. You look at what happens, you know, to people going to school, children going to school. The school shooting 25 years ago. Did we see school shootings with the way we see them today? Did we see school shooting drills in elementary Schools 25 years ago? I don't think so. Maybe it just started and all of that. The collapse of the economy in 2008, 2009, who lost more homes? The middle class or people like us? And by the way, the people who ripped those people off off didn't go to jail. No, none of them. Maybe one went to jail. But you know, Adam, the thing is we don't, we really, we should look back, as Mike said, over the past 25 years. But we can also look back over the past two months and see what the government is doing right now. Instead of giving a hand, you know, hand up, pulling people up like FDR believed in doing, like we saw with Medicare and Medicaid under lbj, we have handouts to billionaires, to multinational corporations, to monopolists. You actually have, if you look at a chart of where these tax cuts go, the billionaires do best and actually the working poor lose money on this deal. So, so how does that do anything but compound the problem that we've had for the past 25 years?

[Ali Vitale]

I mean, Steve's reporting there was so important because I believe that that is the background condition for everything we are talking about everything. The rise of Donald Trump over the last decade, the lack of belief in institutions, the lack of belief in shared observations, observable evidence based reality, the growing toxicity, extremism, violence. A society is a very delicate concoction. And when people, when you go from 75% of people believing having that kind of faith in the future to 25%, that is a collapse that even those numbers don't fully capture. That's you start to become the kind of society where people start thinking about violence as a way to solve problems instead of working harder. People start thinking about who they can resent who they can turn against instead of what they can create.

[Mike Barnacle]

And what conspiracy theories, Jonathan, they can concoct to explain why things have gotten so much worse for them than they were for their parents.

[Jim VandeHei]

Yeah, that's right. I was also thinking in terms of anniversaries. There's just 20 years ago, last week was Hurricane Katrina and a moment where it felt like so many Americans lost faith their government could take care of their own, that a city was left to drown and so many people were left to die. And you combine that with all the other sad markers we've been talking about. And now, especially with the rise of the Internet and social media, it's so easy to find those conspiracy theorists, to move among fellow travelers, to not even hear the other side, to just talk in your own ecosystem and to blame others, to lash out for what's wrong. And I do think there is no question we talked about it yesterday when I was on the campaign trail in 2016, that grievance, that resentment that was really percolating in the wake of all these things, Trump tapped into that, but yet we're seeing he hasn't provided a solution, just more divisiveness and Mika, more unhappiness. And I think those numbers that Steve suggests, the trend's not reversing, which brings.

[Joe Scarborough]

Us to where we are today and coming.