← On with Kara Swisher
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- [00:01]
Kara Swisher
It's on.
- [00:12]
Julie K. Brown
Hi everyone from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast network. This is on with Kara Swisher. And I'm Kara Swisher. Today I'm talking to Julie K. Brown and Dhoni o'. Sullivan. We're going to unpack the Jeffrey Epstein saga and dig into how it became such a rallying cry for MAGA and why it's consuming our politics. We'll try to separate fact from fict, point out the big questions we can't answer, and analyze how President Trump is trying to deal with his base's anger. Julie is an investigative reporter for the Miami Herald whose reporting on Jeffrey Epstein reignited interest in the case and ultimately led to his rearrest. She's the author of Perversion of the Jeffrey Epstein Story and she's won multiple awards, including a George Polk Award as well as a Pulitzer Prize for her work on the Miami Herald's coverage of the Surfside condo collapse. She is a perfect investigative reporter and much of what's happening here is due to her work. Donee is a CNN senior correspondent who covers online misinformation and conspiracy theories and how they interact with politics and culture. Before we dive into the interview, here's a quick primer on the Epstein case. Jeffrey Epstein was a wealthy financier with homes in Palm Beach, Manhattan and a private island in the Virgin Islands. He hobnobbed with many rich and powerful men, including President Trump. In 2005, the parents of a 14 year old girl in Palm beach county went to the police and reported that molested their daughter at his mansion. Later, more underage girls came forward with similar stories. Epstein was charged with multiple counts of unlawful sex with a minor and the story could have ended there, but instead, Epstein's lawyers negotiated with then U.S. attorney in Miami, Alex Acosta to get what's been called the deal of the century. In the end, he pleaded guilty to two state charges involving a single victim, one count of solicitation of prostitution, and one count of solicitation of prostitution from a minor. He was sentenced to 18 months in jail and served served only 13 months under a work release program that allowed him to leave during the day for work and return at night. This is where the conspiracy theories begin. Why did a man initially charged with molesting a minor get such a lenient sentence? In 2018, two journalists at the Miami Herald, Julie K. Brown and Emily Michaud, began digging back into the story, focusing on that exact question. As a result of their reporting, Alex Acosta, who had risen to US Secretary of Labor resigned and Jeffrey Epstein was once again arrested, this time on federal sex trafficking charges. A little over one month after his arrest, Epstein was found dead in his cell at the federal jail in New York City. His death was declared a suicide, but questions remain about how and why he was left alone, unmonitored. In 2020, his longtime girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, was charged and convicted of sex crimes and sentenced to 20 years in prison, but she was the only other person to be charged with crimes related to Epstein. For years, the MAGA movement has connected Jeffrey Epstein to the so called Deep State and demanded answers, and Trump was happy to stoke their anger and lead them on. In the last two months, the administration has said there is nothing more to release, no more mysteries to be solved. But Trump's breakup with tech mogul Elon Musk and Musk's tweet tying Trump to the Epstein files set off speculation about exactly what Trump's role and relation to Epstein was, and that has risen to a fever pitch. While we don't know a lot yet, what we do know is that Trump was friends with Epstein for over a decade. During the years, Epstein was committing crimes with impunity, and Trump's base, along with the rest of us, now have been left with more questions than ever before and not too many answers. There's a lot to get into and our expert question comes from attorney Roberta Kaplan, who successfully sued President Trump twice. So stick around. Support for this show comes from smartsheet. Your team is innovative. Your team is ready to achieve the impossible. Innovative teams use smartsheet to defy expectations, spur growth, and make the impossible possible. Smartsheet is the work management platform that allows teams to automate workflows and seamlessly adapt as their work evolves. Whether you're managing projects or scaling operations, smartsheet gives you the tools to cut through chaos and reach your team's full potential. With smartsheet. The extraordinary is just another day at work. Smartsheet Work with flow See how Smartsheet can transform the way you work at smartsheet.com that's smartsheet.com.
- [04:50]
Dhoni O'Sullivan
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- [05:30]
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- [05:32]
Dhoni O'Sullivan
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- [05:49]
Dhoni O'Sullivan
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- [05:51]
Kara Swisher
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- [06:12]
Dhoni O'Sullivan
It is over.
- [06:14]
Julie K. Brown
Julie and Dhoni, thanks for coming on on.
- [06:17]
Dhoni O'Sullivan
Thanks for having us.
- [06:18]
Julie K. Brown
So we're gonna talk about the inevitable Epstein and what's going on right now. Obviously, it's a controversy that won't go away for a long time, for decades, actually, and everyone knows the broad outlines, but it's just such a sprawling story that a lot of details get lost in the shuffle. All kinds of information also that he was very involved in the tech industry. I think he was at a lot of tech events that I attended, Ted particularly. But he was very enamored with the tech industry. At the same time, was trying to get himself in there. And just for full disclosure, he invited me to his house for dinner as PR person and I declined because of the conviction. I said, I don't have dinner with pedophiles. I mean, I wasn't making a joke. I just was like, I just don't do that. So he was around a lot, in lots of ways people don't know. But Julie, let's talk about some of the overlooked facts of the case itself. And then doni tell us about some of the overlooked facts. Facts. Among the conspiracy theories surrounding the case, two things.
- [07:14]
Kara Swisher
I think that this has become such a political football, so to speak, that we're losing sight of the fact that this involves probably at least 200 young girls and women who were sexually assaulted by not only Epstein and Maxwell, but various other men. And I think we're focused so much on that that we don't realize. By calling it, you know, a hoax, as the president has called it, and by focusing on the conspiracy theories, I think sometimes we lose sight of the fact that this was a real serious crime, number one. And number two, I think often we don't do what they say all the time to do, which is follow the money. I mean, make no mistake about it, Epstein was about being wealthy and he used these girls and these women as pawns in order to ingratiate himself with various kinds of people, including people who had a lot of money to invest and also people who had projects, pet projects that he was interested in. He was interested in technology, mathematics, science. He entertained a lot of Nobel prize winners, for example. So he wanted to ingratiate himself with these intellectuals as well as very wealthy businessmen. And he used these girls to some degree to, you know, make himself look as if he had, you know, a harem that he could send their way. So those are two things that I think aren't talked about enough.
- [08:46]
Julie K. Brown
Tony.
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Dhoni O'Sullivan
Yeah, I mean, to Julie's point, I think we in media and as we were reporting and talking about this, because there's so much sort of the crazy stuff is tied up in this and the usual peddlers of misinformation, we can very kind of quickly shorthand this to the Epstein conspiracy. The. And of course it's not right. I mean, there's plenty of unanswered questions and plenty of questions about why questions remain unanswered. I mean, I sort of just view this as in sort of three buckets of interest, which is one. I mean, people including myself, have a lot of interest in like, you know, what don't we know about this and what else was going on and who else was involved. And then the step where we sort of see in the Trump world especially and in the maga sphere is that Epstein was very much part of the deep state and all that sort of stuff. And again, there's parts of that obviously he's connected to very powerful individuals. But clearly in the maga sphere it veers into far more that it's a grander plot. And then finally, and I think one of the reasons why this is really, this story had so much staying power on the Internet for years is that because Epstein was Jewish and had a Jewish name, it then plays in, of course, to this sort of centuries old blood libel, all Jews are pedophiles type conspiracy theory.
- [10:22]
Julie K. Brown
Yeah. Which is, I think animates those things. People do not talk about that part as much now. Julie, you mentioned the experience of victims gets lost. How is the renewed attention affecting the victims given how many there are? And have you been in touch with them or what is their situation right now?
- [10:40]
Kara Swisher
Yes, I've spoken with a couple of them and I've also spoken with a couple of their lawyers. You know, the last thing I want to do is add to their re traumatization. Because that's exactly what's happening with all this. It's almost like you can't ever go on with your life. It's something that's still hanging over you. So especially I think, with the movement right now to go reinterview Maxwell. This is incredulous. To them, she was as much a predator as Epstein was. And the IDEA that the second in command at the U.S. department of justice would make time out of his schedule to go and interview her after all this time knowing that she was charged with perjury and she was in some ways the mastermind of Epstein's pyramids scheme. So this has been like, first you have the MAGA and Trump administration Bondi promising transparency and we're gonna get to the root of this. Then you have her with this stunt where she's releasing the files and we look at the binder and there's nothing in it that's new. Then she says she has a truckload of stuff and we're still gonna release it to all the way. Fast forward to, Sorry, nothing to see here. But we're gonna go interview Maxwell and we're gonna try to unseal the grand jury testimony. So they're on a roller coaster and they, you know, it's devastating to them to think that it's even possible that they would give Maxwell some kind of a deal. You know, one of them mentioned to me that this is sort of like The Sweetheart Deal 2.0. I mean, that's all she wants. She just wants a pardon. So what would be the point?
- [12:22]
Julie K. Brown
Right? So the real point wasn't in finding out anything here, but just to get it to go away, essentially.
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Kara Swisher
Not only that, but why announce it? Why did they have to announce it all over the place? Just go talk to her. You know, the fact that they announced it with such flourish, that's part of this whole, you know, circus, basically.
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Julie K. Brown
Could you answer that question? Why announce it?
- [12:44]
Kara Swisher
I think it's another diversion to make his base feel like he's doing something, you know, because not everybody really understands probably that she was the mastermind of Epstein, that she was as much of a predator as he was. So they see it as she knows, which is true, she probably knows everything. And so they see it as, oh, we're finally gonna get to the elites who were behind this sex trafficking operation. And to, I think a lot of the American public, they might think this is a good thing. She's finally gonna tell what she knows, but at what cost.
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Julie K. Brown
Which she hasn't. For people to understand. She has not.
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Kara Swisher
She has not. And what they're searching for, I think, is not what she knows, but I think they want her to say President Trump wasn't involved. Well, that's what they're going for, which is exactly.
- [13:33]
Julie K. Brown
I mean, it seems pretty obvious. So, Donnie, let's take a step back. How did Epstein narrative develop into a foundational myth within the MAGA movement? When did Trump first mention Epstein to his followers, which is odd given his decades long friendship. And walk us through this timeline of how it developed with the Trump base and how it connects to QAnon, obviously, and the deep state and why it has such a strong grip.
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Dhoni O'Sullivan
Yeah, I mean, it was really during Trump's first campaign in 2016, where it started getting the name Epstein started getting flung around a bit as a way of in some way trying to incriminate Hillary Clinton because of Bill Clinton's ties to Epstein. And in the that Trump and the Trump base can often just so well do is they repeatedly started sharing all these pictures of Clinton with Epstein while totally ignoring the fact that Trump and Epstein had been pals and that these images exist and it had always stayed simmering. And then in 2017 is when QAnon, the anonymous Persona posting, Q, as they were called, started posting. And I went back last week and looked through some of those posts. Even before Epstein died, Q was posting about Epstein. Right. So there was. This was part of, just part of the sort of online culture. And then when Epstein died, of course, it just all, you know, totally exploded. And so much of QAnon is inherently antisemitic because it is based on this, you know, old Jewish cabal type belief. Now that's not to say, and I think it's important that not everybody who Follows Some of QAnon stuff is necessarily anti Semitic, nor are people who, everybody who buys into any Epstein conspiracy theory into that. That's how this goes across the Internet. And really, I mean, back to the point of Trump keeping this alive, even though, you know, and I've seen people remark that Trump hasn't mentioned Epstein's name all that much in recent years, but he's totally placated the SOR of QAnon base, right?
- [15:46]
Julie K. Brown
Absolutely.
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Dhoni O'Sullivan
I remember in 2020, just after Savannah Guthrie had the town hall with Trump a couple of weeks before the 2020 election, she asked him straight up, I think it was down in Florida, actually asked him straight up, do you disavow QAnon? And he said he wouldn't say he Disavowed it. He said, I don't know much about them, but they don't like pedophiles. I was in, I had snuck into a QAnon event a few days after that in Arizona, you know, about a hundred people, they played that clip and they were over the moon because they view that as, okay, Trump is telling us we're onto something. And then over the past few years, I mean, on true social especially, I think Media Matters, the liberal group has. I think Trump has reposted Q anon type accounts up until recently, like a thousand times over the past few years. And Epstein is so inherent, it's so important to the QAnon myth that I think that is why so much of his base was really confused.
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Kara Swisher
Right.
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Julie K. Brown
As to why he wasn't helping them.
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Dhoni O'Sullivan
Exactly, because he's been nodding to this for years.
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Julie K. Brown
For years. He's fed these children toxic sugar forever. So one of the things that makes discussing the Epstein case tricky is so many questions still remain unanswered. And you don't have to be a Trump supporter to think we're not getting the whole story. I think a lot of people I know are like, well, what is happening? The whole thing seems shady, I guess. But the case also plays these conspiracy roles, which you don't want to get dragged into on the right and on the left. So let's separate some of the legit questions from the conspiracies. Julie, you pointed out that it's not entirely clear how Epstein made his money many times. After all, there are a lot of rich guys on Wall street who aren't private island rich, but his estate was worth around 600 million when he died. So what do we know about Epstein's fortune, how he made it, and what remains a mystery?
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Kara Swisher
I've always just described him as a real heavy duty super money launderer. I think that he helped people figure out ways out of paying taxes, essentially, and shielding their money. And he was an investor. So I think he invested. Not just, you know, like you wouldn't typically think of investing, but fortunes of the entire countries, for example, or a king of a country. He would take that whole country's fortune and somehow get a piece of it every time he invested it. So I think that's basically what he did. But there's a lot of questions surrounding a lot of the wire transfers he was making with his accounts that the banks failed to flag, especially during the periods of time when he was being looked at by authorities. They finally flagged him, but they hadn't Been seeing this for a very long time before then, but did not, you know, they wanted to keep his business. So they didn't really raise any flags, even though these kinds of transactions would have normally caused them to raise some flags.
- [18:37]
Julie K. Brown
Right. Cause he was moving money all over the place. It's something that banks watch.
- [18:40]
Kara Swisher
He was moving money all over the place. And also the timing of it, it was right after he went viral for his crimes again. And that was part of the impetus for the Justice Department to take a new look at it. And to this day, really, I don't get the sense that the Justice Department has taken a good look at where his money came from and who he was paying and what he was paying for. And you know, some of it involves, as I understand it from Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon has been looking into this angle. He's been following the money, as they say. And as I understand it, they, these were transactions between him and parties in Russia. They were transactions to a lot of women. So there was something going on here that I sensed the Justice Department didn't really take a good look at and still hasn't.
- [19:33]
Julie K. Brown
And of course that would be where a lot of things would lead. So almost nine in ten Americans want the Department of Justice to release all the information as on Epstein. And within maga, there's long been a call to release the so called client list. There probably isn't an actual client list, but probably there were clients. So a lot of negative attention has fallen on prominent men who've been connected to Epstein, including besides President Trump, President Bill Clinton, Governor Bill Richardson, Leon Black, and wealthy tech moguls I've interviewed on this podcast like Bill Gates, Reid Hoffman and Nathan Myhrvold. I wanna be super clear. None of these men have been charged crimes related to Epstein. And just because someone met with Epstein doesn't mean they engaged in any wrongdoing. Although people try to make that link. Full disclosure again. I was at a dinner where 200 people were and there was a photo where I was maybe near him. I don't even know. It was a large dinner and I was even like online. They were like, she knew him. And I was like, I've never met the man. So Donnie, how do we separate the fact from fiction when it comes to powerful people who have been connected to Epstein?
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Dhoni O'Sullivan
Yeah, and I think one thing that breeds suspicion as well, right? I mean, you know, you don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to like this story, the Epstein story, Weinstein, Other like massive stories where you see these People who have all these friends and are very well connected and all of this stuff is almost sort of this, you know, this open secret. Well, then, of course, I think everybody asks why? Why did it take, Julie? Why did it take. I mean, ultimately, right, These things come to light, true journalism. But it does, of course, also cast suspicion when you say, well, why did newsrooms not go further with this and make this more of a priority? And why didn't it come out sooner?
- [21:16]
Kara Swisher
I could answer that.
- [21:17]
Dhoni O'Sullivan
Yeah, go ahead.
- [21:18]
Kara Swisher
Before I took up this investigation, there was efforts on the part of Lawy who represented victims, because more information was starting to come out. They filed a lot of. In the years after Epstein served his light jail sentence and got it and went back to his jet setting life, there were a lot of civil lawsuits that were filed on behalf of victims and they did depositions and they found out more and more information about Epstein. And these lawyers took that information to the Department of Justice, and the Justice Department did not want to do anything with it. So there was this feeling, I think, that this was a bunch of women. I mean, he preyed on women who weren't the kind of women, they weren't business women. These were women from vulnerable places in America. And I just think that the Justice Department, and, let's face it, everything is really run mostly by men. And I just think they didn't look at this as the serious crime that it was from the get go. And, and the media is in that category because these lawyers also brought this to the New York Times and brought it to a number of other mainstream media. And they said, well, when the lawsuit's settled, we'll write about it. And the lawyers would say to them, no, you don't understand. This lawsuit is already revealing stuff that you should be writing about. And they sort of brushed them off.
- [22:43]
Dhoni O'Sullivan
And I mean, I think, you know, it struck me over the last week just how little we still know about Jeffrey Epstein after all these years. Right. Because even if you look, I mean, there's been some great reporting over the last week from Wall Street Journal about the alleged doodle. Cnn, my own network, had report this week photos from Epstein being at Trump's wedding in 1993. When those stories broke, I was like, wait, did we not already know that? You know, that are not already out there? So the fact that, like, these are the stories that are now coming to light, I think it does reflect that, like the main. That mainstream media hasn't really pursued this story in a way that perhaps it should have for many years.
- [23:29]
Julie K. Brown
Obviously, so in 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to Florida state charges on one count of solicitation of prostitution and one count of solicitation of prostitution from a minor. But there is an overwhelming evidence to have might larger criminal enterprise. And Julie, you're the one that revived this story for the Miami Herald. You pointed out we don't know who at the DOJ protected him from harsher prosecution at the time of when they first started to be onto him. Why has it been so hard to report out who was pulling the strings for him and why he got what a prosecutor described in An Eternal Message as the deal of the century?
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Kara Swisher
Well, because I think this was all done by phone, behind closed doors. There's no, no paper trail for this. I mean, I've tried to get every piece of paper or every document, every record that I can. I think this was a phone call situation where somebody made a phone call to somebody else and those kinds of things happen. I mean, we do know that he hired a lawyer by the name of Jay Lefkowitz. Jay Lefkowitz at the time was very good personal friends with the new Attorney General, Mike Mukase. I mean, they were in social circles together. I think their kids maybe even went to the same schools. So it appears that perhaps, maybe that had something to do with it. But ultimately, I do believe that Acosta had the final decision, and I do think that he was the one that signed off on it because he knew that this was something he didn't want to risk his career on and that Epstein, you know, he had hired Ken the star. Other lawyers, Lefkowitz too, were from The Kirkland & LA law firm, which is very influential in politics. So I think he did not think this was worth going after Epstein because it would hurt his career. And his goal was to become a Supreme Court justice and possibly even Attorney General.
- [25:19]
Julie K. Brown
I want to note he's a Miami federal prosecutor who ultimately decided to go easy on Epstein in 2008. He was later, though, quoted, if you could address this very quickly. I was told Epstein belonged to intelligence and leave it alone, unquote. This quote, combined with longstanding rumors that Ghislaine Maxwell's father was an Israeli spy who died under unusual circumstances, has led to the speculation that Epstein was a Mossad agent. What do you make of those allegations, either of you? First, you, Julie.
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Kara Swisher
Well, that was a third hand quote and he's never said it really publicly. This is what I think. I think Epstein fancied himself as being everything. I think he thought it was just he was a spy. I thought he was an artist, he was a tech guru, he was a mathematician, con man. And he was, he was good friends with Ahub Barak, the former Israeli Prime Minister. So it's not far fetched in some ways. He had meetings with him at his Manhattan townhouse where he would be talking about Middle east peace. He fancied himself a peacemaker. So it's hard to know when you say the word. He had intelligence ties. What does that really mean? He's friends with the Prime Minister of Israel.
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Dhoni O'Sullivan
Yeah. And the suspicion, I mean, if you go to any of the sort of MAGA spaces right now everybody's talking about Mossad, right? And this idea that he was working for Mossad. And again, this is, I think to Julie's earlier point, it's like why it is actually so important to follow the money and to actually get answers for how this all played out one way or the other. Because I mean, if you know, the lack of answers and the lack of maybe curiosity from some in government or some in media only breeds further this suspicion on the part of people who are conspiracy theorists or otherwise that there is this sort of organized, deep state cabal type thing. So it all plays in. So I mean, the best thing that can happen here is to get the absolute truth. And I mean, Julia, I know you've been working for years to try and do that and you know, dunno if we'd ever get there.
- [27:37]
Julie K. Brown
Speaking of which, the one in 2019, Epstein died in jail while awaiting trial and New York authorities have said he killed himself. But many people suspect foul play and not just MAGA diehard. Julie, you said you're not sure it was suicide. I'd love to know why. And Donni, tell us what this is the big center of all of it, right? This unusual death in custody. Tell us what MAGA conspiracy theorists say really happened in jail. And what would it take to put this story to rest. Obviously releasing videotape in a hallway in the jail with 3 minutes edit out isn't gonna cut it. So first you, Julie, talk about this, because this is really this, this sort of turbocharged everything, how he died in custody.
- [28:16]
Kara Swisher
Well, the reason why this has created such a conspiracy is because so many things don't make sense about it and the government hasn't seen fit to explain any of the, of the things that don't add up. I mean, you have. Epstein was on, allegedly on suicide watch to begin with. So they take him out of suicide watch and they supposed to put him in a cell with A cellmate. And the cellmate is mysteriously gone. So that whole situation seems odd. They didn't leave him alone. Then they give him mattresses to sleep in on the floor. And the other inmates in the wing said, we weren't allowed to sleep on the floor yet. Epstein got two mattresses to allow him to sleep on the floor. He got blankets. The cellmate said, we never got blankets. We weren't allowed to have blankets. Okay. He had this sleep apnea machine with all these wires. So you would think that's a perfect recipe if someone is suicidal to use wires somehow. So you have that situation. Then you have guards who were either asleep or perusing the Internet, paying attention at the time, lied on their reports, didn't do the checks they were supposed to do. Then you have virtually every camera in that whole area didn't work. They worked on real time, but they did not record. Only one in that whole area recorded, and that was not in the wing. That shows his jail after he's found, instead of treating it like a potential crime scene or suspicious death, which, trust me, these people are told, here's the protocol when you find somebody. You know, this isn't the first time people have tried to commit suicide or hung themselves in these jails. So there's a protocol you follow. They didn't follow any of those protocols. They take them out. They. Who knows what they did to the crime scene. Then they are saying, well, we can't find the video. So. Oh, by the way, the first time they put him in with a beefy ex cop that murdered four people, the whole thing just reeks of, you know, what were they thinking? You know? Right.
- [30:22]
Julie K. Brown
Either incompetence or planned chaos, essentially.
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Kara Swisher
Yeah, it's almost planned. They don't release the autopsy. The autopsy is still not public.
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Julie K. Brown
Let's stress that the autopsy, which they could release, has never been released.
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Kara Swisher
And his brother believes he was murdered. His brother hired a very renowned forensic pathologist who was at the autopsy, Dr. Michael Baden. And Michael Baden says that after the autopsy, the examiner, the medical examiner that conducted it, agreed that it was not a suicide initially. Then all of a sudden, they come up with the fact that it was a suicide. So these are all the reasons why I'm skeptical. And I think a lot of people are skept. Right.
- [31:04]
Julie K. Brown
Which leads into MAGA conspiracy theories. Where are they right now, Donnie, with all this information, which is all factual, what Julie is saying.
- [31:12]
Dhoni O'Sullivan
Absolutely. And look, again, you don't have to be in maga, right? I mean, you know, I think that the Quote, unquote, rational pushback on all of these questions is a lot of people will say, well, you know, a lot of this stuff looks terribly suspicious. But then we forget about how incompetent a lot of institutions are or guards are cameras and all that. However, I will say that. And I think this is where the meat. We don't do ourselves any favors in media, in that sort of. Within establishment media. And people, my colleagues don't like when I say that. I think. But there is this sort of reverence, right, A trust for institutions. And a lot of that comes because you rely. You have sources within these institutions, whether it's government, whether it's intelligence agencies, whatever. And I think if you look back on the. Those sort of early days of the reporting on this very kind of quickly we sort of snap into saying, this is the authorities say he killed himself and we close. And that kind of. That reminds me a little bit of the attitude back in 2020 about the COVID lab leak theory, where of course, there was a lot of conspiracy theorists pushing all sort of crazy stuff. But, you know, people kind of fell into that trap where just cause Trump said, just cause Alex Jones said it, or just therefore it must be wrong. And I do think, like, as an industry, we need to be able to linger a bit longer. I mean, government institutions lie all the time. I mean, like the Iraq war, whatever, you want to pick yourself. So I think firstly, it is just like we as an industry, and if we want to regain people's trust, we need to be comfortable saying, okay, this is what the authorities are saying. But as Julie outlined, here's all the.
- [33:09]
Julie K. Brown
Questions, right, of half a dozen things. And Julie didn't even get to the videotape.
- [33:13]
Kara Swisher
Right?
- [33:13]
Dhoni O'Sullivan
Exactly. And look, to be fair, I think a lot of my colleagues do do that, but just the general overall, when you see the headlines, et cetera. And then look, when it comes to the MAGA side of things, I mean, the incredible thing with the time we're living in is you got Kash Patel and Dan Bongino as head of the FBI and deputy director of the FBI. For folks who maybe don't know their background as much, they were both basically influencers for the past couple of years on social media, both of whom really heavily leaning into the idea that Epstein didn't kill himself. What happens as soon as they get in, they immediately start sounding like the establishments government institutions have been saying all along, nothing to see here, move on. Now, is that because that's true or is that because now they are also part of the deep state. And that's what makes this tricky.
- [34:11]
Julie K. Brown
We'll be back in a minute.
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Dhoni O'Sullivan
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Kara Swisher
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Julie K. Brown
The main focus right now, of course, finally has been on Donald Trump and his relationship to Epstein. Let's talk about that a little bit. There are pictures, videos and direct quotes showing Trump didn't just spend time with Epstein. He knew Epstein was attracted to young women, said so himself. Elon Musk has asked on Twitter, quote, how can people be expected to have faith in Trump if he won't release the Epstein files? This is after he deleted that tweet saying Trump is in the Epstein files, which apparently he now, even though Trump had denied it, has been told he was. So what can we definitively say about his knowledge of Epstein's behavior? What allegations deserve to be looked into and what seem like unfounded accusations to you?
- [36:51]
Kara Swisher
Well, I don't think that Trump perhaps thinks that he did anything wrong or back when this happened. Let's be clear, it was before Epstein got even questioned about being with underage girls. So I think, to some degree, I think there was a feeling this was well before the Me Too movement, that maybe there wasn't anything really wrong with this. They're paying young girls to have sex with them. And I think there was a culture back then that made maybe they thought that that was okay. It was never okay, but I think people looked the other way when it was happening. And also in Europe, which is where Epstein also moved in European circles, there was really nothing illegal about it in parts of Europe. So I think that that was then. And then as the years progressed, of course, it became more taboo in some ways with the rise of women saying, this isn't okay, and how you're taking adv. And we became more aware of the fact that this wasn't just, she's having sex with this older man. This is, you're manipulating this girl. In Epstein's case, he didn't just say, I want to pay you for sex. It was this euphemism, give me a massage. And they thought, you know, he was gonna help them because he promised it. Help them with their careers, their college, pay for their college, et cetera, et cetera. So it was a manipulation, and that's what crossed the. And it's hard to say how much Trump was really knowledgeable about how Epstein operated or whether Trump was doing the same thing. We really don't know.
- [38:37]
Dhoni O'Sullivan
This has been very interesting. I mean, over the past month. I think July 7th is when DOJ put out that statement, basically saying, nothing to see here. Let's all move on.
- [38:47]
Julie K. Brown
Which infuriated them massively.
- [38:49]
Dhoni O'Sullivan
A couple of weekends ago, it was a turning point usa, the Charlie Kirk event down in Florida. That was the weekend where things really started bubbling up. That's when you had Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, all these people on stage at this big conservative maga.
- [39:04]
Julie K. Brown
Elon had sort of started this, right? Started like, let's look into it again when he was having his falling out.
- [39:09]
Dhoni O'Sullivan
Oh, absolutely, yes. Yeah. So that's all playing out online. Then you literally have on stage at this sort of MAGA conference, people saying, no, this is not good enough. Then Trump got angry. I mean, that post, I've never really seen a post like that from Trump where he's basically calling his base idiots. There a couple of weeks ago, that guys and gals or boys and Gals post whatever it was. And then the best thing that could happen for Trump, I think, was that Wall Street Journal story. It was the doodle story because that immediately it just like clockwork, immediately got everybody behind him again.
- [39:48]
Kara Swisher
I agree. I thought that story was nothing. I really do. So what did he send him? A kind of bawdy. It was his birthday was before he was arrested. What am I missing? Am I missing something here about why that was?
- [40:02]
Julie K. Brown
For people who don't know, it was a birthday card for his 50th birthday. It included drawing of a naked woman that said, may every day be another wonderful secret. I think they were trying to show how close he was to Epstein. It was the beginning story. That to me is.
- [40:16]
Dhoni O'Sullivan
Yeah, I mean, there was some creepy stuff in there, if you read it, or certainly can be read as creepy. You know, I was actually just speaking to some of the sort of the Breitbarts and the Bannon outlets of the world yesterday at the White House. I mean, a lot of in that space just think the whole thing is entirely concocted. Right. They think the Wall Street Journal made up the story and all that. So that has really gotten sort of the base back around Trump. Now he has put out this stuff about Obama and Russia, which we see so far there's no smoking gun there, but that's creating a bit of a distraction. And also he's, you know, all these things about, we're gonna go to talk to Maxwell in prison. So that's keeping them happy for now, I think. But I think what we've seen with the MAGA base and this Trump second term is that they're not afraid to call him out and sort of blow Trump up. So if there's not more developments in this substantial by the end of the summer, I think we're gonna start hearing a lot more about this. So I don't think this is going away one way or the other.
- [41:19]
Julie K. Brown
So we're recording this on Thursday. And yesterday the Journal published another report saying the Attorney General Pambani told Trump his name is in the Epstein files. They would be. Obviously, Trump is suing the Wall Street Journal. So every episode we get an expert to send us a question. Let's hear one for both of you. My name is Robbie Kaplan. I am probably best known as the.
- [41:38]
Kara Swisher
Lawyer for the great E. Jean Carroll.
- [41:40]
Julie K. Brown
Who won two jury trials against Donald Trump for sexual assault and defamation. I have two questions.
- [41:46]
Kara Swisher
First, isn't it almost impossible for Trump to be able to prove defamation per se?
- [41:51]
Julie K. Brown
Since one, it has long been known.
- [41:53]
Kara Swisher
That he was friends with Jeffrey Epstein. And two, there is nothing inherently defamatory.
- [41:58]
Julie K. Brown
About sending a body birthday greeting to a friend.
- [42:01]
Kara Swisher
And isn't it also impossible for Trump to show any reputational damage here since his bad behavior toward women has already been well established by the Access Hollywood tape, his remarks on the Howard Stern show, and last but not least, the two unanimous jury verdicts in the Eugene Carol trounks.
- [42:18]
Julie K. Brown
So it's funny, you hear a legal expert as two non lawyers are what qualifies as defamation. But she's getting to an important paradox. Trump is a powerful member of the elite. He hung out with Epstein. He has many credible allegations of sexual misconduct against him. Somehow he's persuaded millions that he's the one who's gonna pull back the curtain on the cabal of pedophiles who's run the world. So talk about that paradox. First Julie, then Donnie, and answer Robbie's question.
- [42:41]
Kara Swisher
Well, it surprises me, quite frankly, that we're still not understanding, or I guess it's not being brought up enough how much Trump has been accused of sexual improprieties at the very least. And in Jean Carroll's situation with sexual assault, it surprises me that the MAGA community hasn't made the connection that he has in his history of treating women, you know, even his own words, the way that he has used, you know, grabbed them by the, you know what, that he hasn't always treated women with, you know, respect. So I think that the MAGA movement just seems to put that aside as that doesn't mean anything and sort of has compartmentalized this whole Epstein thing as something separate, when in fact, they do have a line between them, because it does show that he theoretically was in the same camp and that he didn't have, you know, he didn't always have the best morals, I think, when it came to young women. The other thing I want to point out, though, that when I was trying to, to pinpoint how friendly he was with Epstein or whether he was involved, is that Trump's type was not. When you think of the women that he's been with, a number of people pointed out to me at the time, look, these aren't the kind of types.
- [44:02]
Julie K. Brown
That Trump goes for, Donnie.
- [44:05]
Dhoni O'Sullivan
And yeah, with the disclaimer, I'm not a lawyer, thank goodness. But yeah, I mean, I think this is quite interesting in that Trump has obviously sued a lot of people, especially recently. And when it comes to a lot of it looks more like shakedowns when it comes to 60 Minutes and CBS Paramount, all that sort of stuff. Even with X, with Twitter. Right. He got a payout from Musk's ex for things that Trump alleged happened before Musk bought it. I think when it comes to actually going up against Murdoch, this is gonna be interesting because Murdoch doesn't seem like that sort of guy who's gonna want to bend. Right. And it is part of a. It's this broader thing when it comes to, well, can you really defame somebod famous as big a deal as the President of the United States? And I think this is one of these norms that we see Trump is changing across the board when it's going after news outlets or publishers and even people who don't want to come, you know, wouldn't dare dream of themselves as Trumpian. Sort of now leaning more into these libel suits. I mean, we just saw this week the Macron suing the right wing podcaster in the U.S. candace owns, for alleging that Brigitte Macron is a man. We saw Gavin Newsom going after Fox News recently. So this is all part of this sort of broader place where at a point before politicians were used to sort of everybody's throwing everything at them. So I just think that this whole new tactic is yet another norm that Trump is setting.
- [45:40]
Julie K. Brown
That's a really good point.
- [45:42]
Kara Swisher
It's also dangerous because they're going to have to do discovery. So he opens the door to the end them deposing him and others who can reveal whether how close he was with Epstein.
- [45:55]
Julie K. Brown
Yeah, it feels suicidal to me. I was like, whoa, this is. You shouldn't be doing this.
- [45:59]
Dhoni O'Sullivan
He might withdraw. You know, it might withdraw before as we see with a lot of these lawsuits in this space. Cause I mean, there's a sort of cottage industry, especially in the right wing space, of just suing a lot of podcasters. Influencers do it just to basically, you know, they hire a shoddy lawyer and they make money off just fin filing suits because they put up these big fundraisers. So like this is a whole, it's a whole thing in of itself. Yeah.
- [46:27]
Julie K. Brown
It's a racket and it's a dangerous racket. Yeah. So I don't think Murdoch will settle, but who knows? Let's end by talking through some of the recent developments with the caveat that we're recording this on Thursday. And by the time this interview is published on Monday, things might have changed. Yesterday, the House Oversight Committee issued a subpoena to Maxwell, and the committee also voted to subpoena the Department of Justice for the Epstein files as well. As President Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, James Comey, and Robert Mueller. The information gathered by the committee will get reviewed internally and not necessarily get released. Julie, I'd love to know what you expect the public to learn from these. Are you optimistic they'll lead to the disclosure of meaningful information?
- [47:02]
Kara Swisher
Well, I think it's a big distraction. She's not gonna reveal anything without a deal. What would be the point? She wants some kind of a deal. She wants to get out of jail. And, you know, if they do that, they're opening, as I mentioned earlier, a whole nother can of worms with giving her some kind of a deal when she, in fact, was the master mastermind. So to, to allow her to somehow benefit because they're trying to make themselves less, you know, to show that Trump.
- [47:32]
Julie K. Brown
Wasn'T involved or they're doing something about it.
- [47:34]
Kara Swisher
Yeah, or that they're doing something about it. If they really wanted to do something about it, then they should be, you know, looking at his money, for example, looking at counterintelligence, potential investigation into whether he was involved in intelligence. Look at some of the men who he was wiring money to. So doing it with such flourish. Like, I'm going to interview her, to me says that it's more about politics than it is about really getting to the truth.
- [48:04]
Julie K. Brown
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Julie K. Brown
How is the MAGA universe going to take this? We've discussed how Trump supporters circle the wagons, obviously. Where do you see it going from here?
- [49:50]
Dhoni O'Sullivan
The one thing about MAGA and that online space is just their remarkable persistence. Right. That is why Trump is as popular as he is. Because. Because these people live and breed it every single day. This is a massive part of that movement of that space. So it's just not going away every single day. There's two things you will always hear. The 2020 election is stolen and the Epstein filed.
- [50:17]
Julie K. Brown
So hence the attack on Barack Obama. But go ahead.
- [50:20]
Dhoni O'Sullivan
Exactly, exactly. So that's how big it is. I think that's what sort of showed that Trump might not really grasp that as much with that really harsh post a few weeks ago. But there's no way this is going away so well.
- [50:33]
Julie K. Brown
He must because he started attack Barack Obama rather than talk about cane syrup.
- [50:37]
Dhoni O'Sullivan
Well, yes, I think now, I think the penny seemed to drop.
- [50:40]
Julie K. Brown
The coke thing didn't work.
- [50:41]
Dhoni O'Sullivan
The coke thing didn't.
- [50:42]
Julie K. Brown
Let's end by taking the 30,000 foot view. What does the Epstein saga tell us about America in 2025 and what are you focused on yourself on this case?
- [50:52]
Kara Swisher
I'm always focused on A, the victims and how this affects them and B, our criminal justice system and the failings. I mean, if the Justice Department had done its job way back in 2007, we wouldn't be sitting here right now. Jeffrey Epstein would not, nobody would probably even remember who he is at this point. It is because they allowed a wealthy man to manipulate them and to sabotage their case and to they themselves sort of minimize the crime, the scope of his crime crimes. So by doing that, they sewed even more distrust in the Justice Department. And that was the key that I was trying to get across because up until that time we knew who Jeffrey Epstein was. There had been a lot of people who had done stories about him before my series, but no one had focused on how he got away with it. And I think a lot of people either know someone or they themselves have experienced injustice in the criminal justice system and distrust in the way we mentioned earlier about reports. It used to be a policeman would write a report and a journalist would really just say what was in the report. Now we have to question the accuracy of even official documents. And this case is also one of those cases that we had to question exactly what the official record was and attorney. The official record essentially allowed a very powerful and wealthy and connected man to get away with molesting hundreds of underage girls.
- [52:32]
Julie K. Brown
Do you have any predictions of where you think this will go next?
- [52:36]
Kara Swisher
I think that the truth always does come out, but it might not be in our lifetime. I think it's going to take a long time. I think these people are very powerful. The women right now especially are very scared. Scared they don't want to. Like I see sometimes people tweeting, the women should just all testify before Congress. Yeah. You know, they've been, let's say they've been lied to, they've been sexually abused. Their own lawyers in some cases took advantage of them. Their families sometimes took advantage of them. Yeah, they're going to raise their hands and say, I'm going to go before Congress, I'm going to tell you everything. I know it's sad, but they've been through so much that they're now at this point thinking, well, if the President of the United States is, this is their thinking, is covering up for Epstein. I'm not going out there on a limb and trying to say what happened to me because that's big. In fact, that's exactly what one of the victims told me. This is big. The President of the United States is essentially putting the lid on this case.
- [53:36]
Julie K. Brown
Very good point, Donnie.
- [53:38]
Dhoni O'Sullivan
I mean, I just think this underlines again for us, right, that there is just this, I mean, trust in media institutions, trust in every institution is declining. Is that a low? I mean, I think this is a moment for media organizations as well to think about, okay, how do we need to improve how we tell these stories and really just be more upfront with our audiences about the things we do not know. And I think maybe if you look back at how Epstein was covered, particularly after how he died and everything else, that that might be something we need to lean more into. And we know because formats like this that people are willing to listen, they want to engage with something longer form they don't need given to them an absolute bite sized piece of time. So us, I think as an industry trying to figure that out to help regain trust. But I think right now we're in this space where there's a lot more people who are likely to trust anything they see on a random social media feed than they are from the doj, the media, or even the president at some point.
- [54:41]
Julie K. Brown
And do you have any predictions? What's gonna come next?
- [54:44]
Dhoni O'Sullivan
What are you focused on? I've given up on predictions for a long time. I really think that Trump will try and make hay out of this. Whatever is going on with Obama. I mean, I think this is sort of setting the stage up for what we're going into. It's going to serve two purposes, one being potential deflection from Epstein, but also, of course, sort of setting the stage for going into a midterm year. So I think that is going to become all consuming, whether people like it or not. And I think, again, back to the point of, like, how, you know, this is gonna be one of these things that Gabbard is pushing stuff out there, everything. So far, there's not a there there. But I think we need to, as journalists, look at that every piece and still be willing to consider, okay, let's actually pursue what they're putting out here. We know what the truth is, but unless we're seen to be doing that and to be actually engaging in journalism rather than just saying, no, this is all a conspiracy theory, then I think help regain anybody's trust.
- [55:50]
Julie K. Brown
You know, that's a very fair point. At the same time, I think Epstein's a bigger bearing wall than the election thing, but we'll see what happens. All right, thank you both. I really appreciate it and amazing work on both your parts. And Julie, of course, really did break this thing wide open many years ago, and people should have listened to her. Thank you, Julie.
- [56:08]
Kara Swisher
Thank you.
- [56:08]
Dhoni O'Sullivan
Thanks, guys.
- [56:14]
Julie K. Brown
On with Kara Swisher is produced by Christian Castro, Roselle, Kateri Yocum, Megan Burney, Alice Rogers and Kaylin Lynch. Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Special thanks to Skyler Mitchell. Our engineers are Rick Kwan and Fernando Arruda, and our theme music is by Trackademics. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for on with Kara Swisher and hit follow. And don't forget to follow us on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube at on with Kara Swisher. Thanks for listening to on with Kara Swisher from Podium Media New York, New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us. We'll be back on Thursday with more.