Joanna Coles (3:30)

Well, it seems to be the one issue that discomforts the President. And no matter how much he describes.

Michael Wolff (3:38)

No, it is clearly, and I think it's an issue that discomforts a lot of people and The New York Times just a few minutes ago dropped a story about Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein and the fact that they shared a bond, a deep bond, largely about women. And this is, you know, kind of, I mean, I mean, let's. It's noteworthy that the New York Times is doing this story. It's a story we did here at the Daily Beast over a year ago. The New York Times has nothing appreciably new. We tried to do this story before the election. I mean, I have always thought that this is a key pillar if you want to understand Donald Trump. I mean, you can elect Donald Trump as people did, but it is a key fact of his life that for more than 10 years he was the best friend of, of Jeffrey Epstein. And their friendship was clearly over women. What we can say is that for over 10 years, Donald Trump lived the life of a sleazeball. Lived a life that I think if people understood, would have disqualified him from the presidency. But maybe I'm wrong about that.

Joanna Coles (5:08)

Well, and I think when you say that their relationship was about women, it was about women and sex. I mean, I think we should it like it is. And the man turned out to be a monster. He had a massive network of women, some of whom were trafficked, a lot of whom were girls. He had cars ferrying schoolgirls back and forth from school. This was a monster of a man.

Michael Wolff (5:32)

Let's go. I mean, we don't know, we don't know where Donald Trump, if he interjected.

Joanna Coles (5:37)

With this, no, I'm talking about Jeffrey Epstein here. But who hangs out with someone like that? The bond was women and sex.

Michael Wolff (5:44)

We've discussed the pictures that I've seen of Donald Trump in around Jeffrey Epstein's pool with girls who were topless. And I don't know their age, but they were certainly young.

Joanna Coles (6:03)

Well, and I think we should just remind people of the other friends of Jeffrey Epstein whose careers did not withstand that adjacency. So you have Jess Staley, who had to stand down as the CEO of Barclays. You had Joey Ito, who had to stand down as the head of the media lab at mit. You have Larry Summers, a former president of Harvard who's had to step back from almost everything he's been doing. You have Leon Black, who had to step down as the co founder of Apollo, a massive private equity company. So you have very senior men being being felled by their friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. And yet Donald Trump is still the President of the United States.

Michael Wolff (6:48)

And Donald Trump's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein was much longer and much deeper than any of these other men. And again, you know, this was, we discussed this before the election. We aired tapes of Jeffrey Epstein talking about his relationship with Donald Trump in detail about, about, about women and Donald Trump about, about, about Epstein, basically characterizing Donald Trump as a, as a much bigger sleaze ball than he was.

Joanna Coles (7:26)

So, so the imagination only boggles at the idea of being a big fool. I'm Jeffrey Epstein.

Michael Wolff (7:33)

I find it extraordinary that only now is the mainstream media coming with any real attention to this story and it has been hiding, to say the least, in plain sight for a very long time.

Joanna Coles (7:51)

Well, and we should point out that the victims of Jeffrey Epstein have been banging on about their experience too, for a long time. I don't want to pretend it's just us. There have been other people. Thomas Massie, Ro Khanna getting a cross party support for the release of the Epstein files and not least actually Kash Patel, the head of the FBI in his former life as a T shirt hawker full of conspiracy theories about the Epstein files. And Dan Bongino who yesterday announced he was stepping down as number two from the FBI, who used to have a podcast which was full of conspiracy theories about the Epstein files which may or may not be conspiracies at this point.

Michael Wolff (8:35)

Well, I mean, I think that's what the, what the, the New York Times or the, the mainstream press has kind of resisted because of that. I mean, this has been largely an online story.

Joanna Coles (8:47)

Correct.

Michael Wolff (8:47)

You couldn't separate what was true from what is fantastic. And I think it's still in many ways a difficult story to tell to separate the true from the fantastic. Was Jeffrey Epstein the greatest spy on earth? Was he.

Joanna Coles (9:05)

Right. Who was he working for Russia? Was he working for Putin? Was he working for Mossad? Yeah, all sorts of conspiracies. And then of course, you know, another person who's been felled. Well, two more British people who've been felled by this Peter Mandelson, Lord Mandelson, who was the British ambassador to Washington and only there about six months before he had to resign because of an over effusive letter in the birthday letter trove that the Wall Street Journal revealed. And then of course Prince Andrew, who's been forced out of Royal Lodge, squeezed into a tiny little shoebox of a house apparently on the Sandringham estate and forced to give up his type of.

Michael Wolff (9:44)

How small is this house?

Joanna Coles (9:45)

Oh, I think it's very, very small. I think it's like eight bedrooms small. Eight bedrooms small? I think, yes. I mean, you Have a lovely house. I wouldn't say it was small. Your house is a fabulous family house. I would say that wherever Prince Andrew is going to live is going to be 10 times bigger than your house.

Michael Wolff (10:04)

Okay.

Joanna Coles (10:05)

Small compared to Royal Lodge.

Michael Wolff (10:07)

Exactly.

Joanna Coles (10:07)

I don't want us to weep for the man formerly known as Prince Andrew.

Michael Wolff (10:13)

I'm thinking of this. He's in a one room cottage.

Joanna Coles (10:16)

You're thinking of the old woman with the shoe. That's not Prince Andrew, actually. That's more akin to Epstein, an old man in a shoe with lots of children running around. Sorry, that's a bad taste joke. But I'm so disgusted by Jeffrey Epstein and I'm so disgusted with his friendship with Donald Trump and the fact that people haven't taken it more seriously because it's such a window into the President's character and it's felledit's felled other important men.

Michael Wolff (10:45)

No, and it is really, I think, goes to the heart of understanding who Donald Trump is. You know, I mean, Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein were obsessed with women, sex, and specifically models. And they were in the model business. They were in the beauty pageant business. Epstein was involved, obviously with Victoria's Secret. I mean, it was a demimond of the 1990s and in which they were two of the chief protagonists.

Joanna Coles (11:20)

Well, Trump had Miss Universe. He owned a modeling agency. Jeffrey Epstein invested in a modeling agency. And interestingly, Jean Luc Bunnel, who was a friend of Epstein's and also had a modeling agency in Paris, who Jeffrey Epstein then invested in another modeling agency of Jean Luc's. Jean Luc also ended up death by suicide in prison. This is a very dark story that haunts the President.

Michael Wolff (11:51)

Let's continue this story. This is part two.

Joanna Coles (11:54)

All right, so this is part two. And I will just. Well, I hope we get onto the Steve Bannon quote, which when you introduced Steve Bannon to Jeffrey Epstein, he said to him, you were the only person I was afraid of. I'm giving it away. I'm giving it away because we've already said it on every other podcast we've.

Michael Wolff (12:11)

Done, but you might not know. So, you know, never sacrifice a punch. Never assume people know the punchline.

Joanna Coles (12:18)

Absolutely right. So in today's second volume, we're going to go through the latter part of their friendship. But for those who didn't hear the first episode, we go through their relationship, we go through their first contact. We go through them being rejected from Manhattan restaurants, We go through them being outsiders.

Michael Wolff (12:40)

These are very, very good friends. I mean, and that's what we are telling the story of these two guys in New York interested in money and sex. And that's what they pursue to excess, to say the least.

Joanna Coles (12:59)

They also had what Gen Z would call trauma bonding. They bonded sort of over their trauma of coming from outside. They both viewed themselves as outsiders because they came from the outer boroughs. They were rejected by respectable Manhattan society, thrown out of restaurants. Donald's father was trying to make him buy real estate in Brooklyn where he had no interest in being because he wanted to run Fifth Avenue. And now, as we know, he says he can shoot anybody on Fifth Avenue and nobody will care. All right, so where are we picking up? We sort of dropped off in the mid-90s. Really.

Michael Wolff (13:37)

Well, I think we dropped off. I mean, he is. He is. We dropped off with the marriage to Marla Maples, and he didn't want to marry Marla Maples. She got pregnant. He. He discussed this with his confidant in this matter was Jeffrey Epstein. And Epstein was horrified by the fact that he might actually have to marry Marla Maples. Thought Donald Trump, his friend Trump was being tricked into it. But at any rate, Donald Trump did marry Marla Maples. And so. And I think he marries her in 1993, I believe, and. And they separate in 1997.

Joanna Coles (14:22)

So it's a quick, quick second marriage.

Michael Wolff (14:25)

Now in 1996 or 1997, she can't remember comes the attack on E. Jean Carroll, and that that happened in a. In a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman, a famous department store in New York. And I know that Epstein said that, that shortly after this happened, Donald Trump regaled him with the details.

Joanna Coles (15:00)

And what. Can you remember what he told him?

Michael Wolff (15:03)

I can't. I can't. And I don't. I get it mixed up with now, what, what she has testified to. So I don't know, but I know that this was a point of, of hilarity or jocularity between these, these two men. And, you know, 20 years later, Epstein would tell me about, about this.

Amazon Pharmacy Announcer (15:31)

But.

Michael Wolff (15:33)

But again, that's in that. And that's an interesting moment. Did that occur before while he was still, still married to Marla Maples? After. Unclear. And there were, you know, with all. I mean, remember, Donald Trump has been married three times. The. The confines of marriage did not restrict him. And in fact, at this point in time, Melania comes on the scene. Now, again, this is the world of models. That's what both Epstein and Trump are, are obsessed by. Models, models. Models. Models represented status. They obviously represented sex, but they represented some, some a world. That. That I can't. I can. You know, I kind of remember occurring.

Joanna Coles (16:26)

I mean, they were on the COVID of all the magazines. They were all over billboards. And I think it's worth reminding people this was pre digital, and it was a very different time. And the models, the supermodels, Kate Moss, Tatiana Patitz, Naomi Campbell, they were such aspirational figures. They represented glamour, sophistication, all these French and American fashion brands. I mean, they were, you know, the faces of beauty. Young women wanted to be them, and young men wanted to own them.

Michael Wolff (16:58)

You had a hierarchy of models. You had supermodels, you had Runway models, you had catalog models. You had girls who just dreamed of being models. And so this all created a culture which these guys fed on.

Joanna Coles (17:17)

Well, they fed on. And also worth pointing out that Eastern Europe was opening up at this point. This was, you know, the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. So you have suddenly a corridor of young, thin, very pretty Eastern European girls flooding the model market. And modeling agencies sprang up all over the place. And this, again, was pre digital.

Michael Wolff (17:45)

And you have the intersection here of Russian money to Eastern European money, which. Which certainly Trump was involved in. And this would come to. Come to haunt him when he became the President of the United States, obviously, the. The first. The first time. But it's, you know, money, you know, you can't. With these guys. You know, it would be. It would be missing something not to. Not to see that link between sex and money now. So at any rate, this is at this moment in time, Marla Maples, that marriage is ending. Melania comes on the scene. Now, in Melania's telling, she meets Donald Trump at a club in New York, I think, called the Kit Kat Club, in 1998. But there's another interview in which she says it's 1997, which would be when he is still married to Marla Maples.

Joanna Coles (18:49)

And this was at a party, I think she says she was taken by her roommate. And it was a party hosted by Paolo Zampaoli, who was a model, model.

Michael Wolff (19:00)

Agent, friend of both Epstein's and Trump's. And this is actually another kind of subtext of their relationship. Airplanes. It is a kind of foundational identifier for wealthy men, or men who want to pretend that they are wealthy, that they fly only private. And Epstein would say, so we're also in a moment in time when Donald Trump really doesn't have any money. He's begun. His Atlantic City properties have begun to go bankrupt in the early 90s. He's in a financially uncomfortable position. Do people know this? It's curious. Does Melania. Did Melania Trump know when she got together with Donald Trump that he was a deadbeat? Totally unclear when you say deadbeat.

Joanna Coles (20:06)

He still had buildings around New York with his name all over them. The illusion of prosperity was one, which, of course, he carried onto the Apprentice when he started doing that show. And the illusion of success is something that he's always been good at.

Michael Wolff (20:22)

Right. So you had these buildings with his name on. And what they did not say is. Is. Is that they were. Is they did not announce his. They announced his name, not his indebtedness. And all of these buildings were basically underwater, and he would lose a lot of them. But one of the things about the airplanes is Epstein would always say that they used his airplane. Donald Trump wanted to use Epstein's airplane because he didn't want to pay for an airplane. I mean, didn't want to pay for the fuel or the maintenance or. Or whatever, which is. Was a kind of nature of this. Of their relationship, a kind of constant rivalry. One up. Upmanship. And probably at this time, the late 90s, Epstein had more money than Donald Trump.

Joanna Coles (21:17)

So Epstein has more money than Donald Trump. He has a network of young women that he's somehow operating with the help of Ghislaine Maxwell, I think it's worth pointing out, who later gets sentenced to 20 years for sex trafficking.

Michael Wolff (21:32)

These pictures that I have seen of Donald Trump would take place somewhere now, somewhere the very late night, 1990s, the very early 2000s. And these pictures, which I've discussed many times, but there are about a dozen snapshots that Epstein would. Would. Would bring out. And this was, this was. This was much later. And so he brought these out, as, you know, again, to make fun of Donald Trump. And the pictures were of Trump. And I think we've played the. The tape of him, Epstein, discussing Trump's way of. Epstein says that Trump. The thing. Trump says that the thing that makes life worth living is sleeping with your. The wives of your friends. And then. And then Epstein tells the story of how Trump did this. I think he would try to undermine the relationship between husband and wife, asking the husband what he thought of his wife while the wife was on the speakerphone.

Joanna Coles (22:38)

And I think Jeffrey Epstein also on those tapes, talks about how he and Donald Trump would go to Atlantic City. They would target a couple, a male and female couple, and Donald Trump would swoop in and start talking to the woman. Jeffrey Epstein would pretend to talk finance to the guy they would separate the couple.

Michael Wolff (22:59)

Now, Ghislaine Maxwell is on the scene at this point in time. And the other component of this is social climbing. So all of these guys are always looking for sources of money. Big, big money. I mean, they're looking for, they're looking to finance whatever they want. In Trump's case, you know, it's real estate finance. And Trump is not and has never been a blue chip guy. You can't just walk into the bank. You have to. It's a much more complicated relationship with sources of, of capital. And one of their, one of the cards that they played was the then Prince Andrew card, no longer Prince. And they both befriended Prince Andrew, and this largely was through Ghislaine Maxwell, who was a person from, you know, grew up in London, from the British social scene, knew Prince Andrew, knew various members of the royal family. But Prince Andrew interested in a match for Trump and Epstein because he was interested in women and more women and more women on top of that. And Trump and Epstein joked that they were Prince Andrew's Pussy Committee, in other words. So again, and I think it's, and I think we can't, we can't make this point enough that Donald Trump lived a life which would have, if known, excluded anyone, certainly anyone else from the presidency of the United States. And to a degree, all this was known at certain points of time, and it could have been, it certainly should have been a factor in his, in certainly his second campaign for the presidency.

Joanna Coles (25:12)

Well, and the strange thing was it was almost a factor in his first campaign with the grab them by the pussy tape. You know, remember the conversation he had with Bully Bush on box as they were driving in to L. A to do an interview with Access Hollywood, I think. And then as we've discussed before on Inside Trump's head, Steve Bannon had the idea of bringing the women that accused Bill Clinton of having abused them to the debate with Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

Michael Wolff (25:51)

Right. Let's go back to Clinton at this, at this, at this point, because in the late 90s, Clinton is still the President of the United States, obviously involved in scandals of his own. Both Epstein and Trump are in the Clinton camp. They are trying to get close to Clinton. They like Clinton. You know, I think that they clearly feel a bond with Clinton. Clinton is. And now as the Epstein files come out and as Congress tries to shift the attention from Trump and Epstein, there is obviously efforts to put it, to shift the emphasis to Clinton in Clinton and Epstein. But the truth of the matter is that it's Epstein, Clinton And Trump very much, you know, I mean, guys who are. Who view the world in, let's say, similar terms. So anyway, just to keep the chronology here, we basically have. We're in the late 90s and Trump is still in eclipse, really. I mean, I mean, Epstein. Epstein feels that he is the dominant figure in this relationship. And, you know, it's interesting, the Atlantic City business. So, I mean, Trump is fully vested. I mean, he is the Atlantic City guy. And this is. I mean, it's a weird thing to be known as because. Especially because his casinos have regularly gone bankrupt in Atlantic City. And Epstein regards this as declassee. So he is richer than Trump. Trump is an Atlantic City guy. He looks down on Trump. I mean, they spend an enormous amount of time together. But this is the nature. The nature of that relationship is, you know, they actually, I think you can look at this and say they really hate each other. I don't know. You know, we can.

Joanna Coles (28:10)

Why do they carry on hanging out together then? If Jeffrey Epstein despised Donald Trump's sort of business acumen and his business is slowly declining and then going bankrupt, why did he carry on hanging out with him?

Michael Wolff (28:26)

Girls, I think.

Joanna Coles (28:27)

Girls and sex, I think.

Michael Wolff (28:28)

I think they're both motivated by the same thing. And they're probably, you know, I don't know, they probably have a certain amount of self loathing for it.

Joanna Coles (28:42)

I mean, self loathing for hanging out with each other.

Michael Wolff (28:44)

Well, self loathing for hanging out, self loathing for. For their. Their obsessions, their fetish. Fetishes. I don't know. It's hard to think of Donald Trump as. As. As self loathing, because that would indicate some level of self awareness, which I have never seen any evidence of. But, I mean, you know, clearly they were. They were.

Joanna Coles (29:15)

Well, perhaps codependent.

Michael Wolff (29:17)

Yeah, you know, I mean, they. They were. I mean, I have never known anyone who is so devoted to this idea of you know, the, you know, the Post, the personal playboy ideal. I mean, I think they both, you know, venerated Hugh Hefner.

Joanna Coles (29:43)

Well, and I think it's fair to say that the media at the time venerated Donald Trump. Right. He was constantly on the front of the New York tabloids. Well, I think Maxwell's father owns Daily News.

Michael Wolff (29:53)

I actually think that that's incorrect. And in fact, I got to know Trump for the first time at this period. So the late 90s, I was at New York magazine, and he would call. I'm sure he could call many people at the magazine, but he would certainly call me at the Magazine, because I was the media columnist, and that's. He was interested in media. And he would call me to complain, not so much about what the magazine said about him, but when he was not in a story. And that was a moment in time that Trump was a real. You didn't want to put Trump in a story. I mean, it was a cliche he was overdone with. I mean, he had gone bankrupt. He was a kind of a New York joke. And I remember, you know, in many conversations, you know, anybody who had had a Trump story, story, you would go, oh, Jesus. Yeah, not another Trump story.

Joanna Coles (30:54)

Okay. So this was Post, him being on the COVID of the New York Post and the New York Daily News. He was a tabloid joke, but he was still friendly with Jeffrey Epstein. And they were shuttling between Manhattan and Palm Beach.

Michael Wolff (31:06)

Yeah. No, and that was another thing that Epstein made fun of Mar A Lago. You know, I mean, Epstein had a big mansion there, but he would say, you know, Trump lived at Martin Mar A Lago. And he would say, it's not a house. He has to take in Borders because he has no money.

Joanna Coles (31:24)

Interesting, interesting.

Michael Wolff (31:26)

And that's really, actually. Actually what happened. I mean, remember, he bought. He bought Mar A Lago in the 80s, could not afford it. I mean, he bought it to live in it, couldn't afford it, and had to turn it into a club with rooms that he let.

Joanna Coles (31:43)

Well, quite a smart business to see. Decision actually to buy it for 10 million at the time. Sure. It's worth a lot more now. Anyway, so where does their friendship go? How does it end, their friendship?

Michael Wolff (31:57)

Well, just let me. There is a moment in this. This goes back. So there's a story in New York magazine in 2002, and this is about Epstein. And Epstein suddenly gets. Partly because of his relationship with Clinton, suddenly gets a lot of attention. You know, he's ferrying Clinton around in his plane at this point in time.

Joanna Coles (32:28)

Although, as Susie Wiles pointed out this week, he didn't go to the island. Bill Clinton didn't go to the island. He was taking rides to go, I think, to Africa for the Clinton Global Initiative.

Michael Wolff (32:38)

You know, I mean, Clinton. I mean, Clinton is one of the. I mean, the. The attraction of private planes is something worth studying. This is what rich guys. This is the rich guy marker. Do you have a private plane? And the second best thing to having a private plane is knowing someone with a private plane. At any rate, can we just establish.

Joanna Coles (33:04)

That neither of us have private planes? I think it's important for people to.

Michael Wolff (33:07)

Know yes, but I'll bet you've been on more private planes than I have been on.

Joanna Coles (33:13)

Well, I'm not going to get into a pissing match with you here about that, but. But I think it's fair to say that we're not in the private plane league.

Michael Wolff (33:22)

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Joanna Coles (34:39)

And Michael Wolfe and I are back inside Trump's head examining his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

Michael Wolff (34:46)

At any rate, there are two big pieces magazine pieces about Jeffrey Epstein at this time. One in Vanity Fair and one in New York magazine. The one in New York Magazine 2002 contains a quote from his friend Trump in which he says, I mean, it really haunts Donald Trump because this quote follows him. He says, Epstein is a terrific guy and he likes his women or girls young, even younger than I do something, something like that should have been a red flag at the time, which it was not. But they are still. I mean, they are very, very good friends and especially between New York and Palm Beach. And one of the things that Trump discusses with Epstein at this time, and remember, Trump has no money. So he says to Epstein, you know where you can make a lot of money by renting your name. Now that's an interesting, interesting thing. Now of course, Donald Trump has always done this. All the name, his, the names on all these buildings are often on buildings that he doesn't own. It's just a Trump building. He's rented his name. But he also does this in Palm beach. He uses his name as to front for other people. So he's not, he's not buying real estate, but because he doesn't, he doesn't have the money. But other people are buying real estate in Donald Trump's name. And he makes this pitch to Jeffrey Epstein. This is great. You know, you know, you make tons of money. So the right now that we intersect with this, because in 2004, Jeffrey Epstein believes he is the top bidder for a poor property in, in Palm beach. It's a $36 million property. And he takes his friend Trump with him to give him some advice on how to move the swimming pool. Have you ever moved a swimming pool?

Joanna Coles (37:05)

I've never moved to a swimming pool, but there have been properties I've rented where I would have moved the swimming pool had I.

Michael Wolff (37:12)

Okay, well, he could, Jeffrey Epstein could afford to move the swimming pool. And he actually valued his friends, his friend Trump's construction acumen. So he brought Donald to see this, give him some advice, at which point Donald goes around behind his back and bids $40 million for the property. Okay. Epstein, fully familiar with Trump's finances, understands that he doesn't have $40 million. So where does this $40 million come from? Epstein is furious about this. You know, these guys, me here, they're, they're devoted to their private plans, but the things that really makes them crazy is real estate, their quest for real estate. And if they get screwed in a real estate deal, that's that, that breaks up any, any rich guy relationship. Epstein threatens Trump because he knows that this is not his money. I'm going to reveal this, I'm going to go to the press at that point. And this is 2004. Epstein's problems with the Palm beach police, who are now investigating him for allegations that he has that, that of, of.

Joanna Coles (38:44)

That he's having sex with schoolgirls.

Michael Wolff (38:46)

So at this point in 2004, after this real estate, this, this real estate conflict happens with, with Trump, Epstein starts to be investigated by the Palm beach police for this stream of girls and sometimes quite young girls who are in and out of his house. What's happening there, what's going on? Which, curiously, he was never hiding. So why did this take so long? But what Epstein believed was that it was Donald Trump who went to the police because Jeffrey Epstein threatened to strike out at Donald Trump for his activities. So the two are now saying, you're the worst. And forever after, Epstein would believe that it was Trump who started this. His long legal, the long legal journey for him that would end up in prison one time and then prison again and then his, his death. And this was their, their, their falling out and Trump Epstein for the next quite number of years between 2004 and 2008 when he went to jail. Epstein was certainly preoccupied by these legal woes and was certainly blaming this on Trump. At the same time, curiously, he kept a lot of relationships within the Trump circle. Tom Barrack, one of Trump's closest friends, advisers, still to this day in the White House, remained a very close friend of Jeffrey Epstein's other people within Trump, within the Trump Organization. And that was, you know, and that kind of reminded me of what goes on now in the, in the Trump White House. All of these people who work for Donald Trump nevertheless have a need to talk about him, to describe the way, weirdness of him, to diss him to somebody else. And Epstein was always a very good, you know, you could call Epstein at any time and he'd talk at any length about Donald Trump.

Joanna Coles (41:23)

You said that in previous podcasts that Jeffrey Epstein was afraid of Donald Trump.

Michael Wolff (41:31)

You know, I think that particularly happened as it became clear that he might be the President of the United States. I mean, these guys, I think that there was a deep, deep enmity between them at this point.

Joanna Coles (41:52)

They both had dirt on each other.

Michael Wolff (41:55)

Yes. I mean, I think that that was part of it. There may be other, other reasons for this. I mean, clearly Jeffrey Epstein was obsessed with Donald Trump, spoke about Donald Trump often, and was the first person I Knew who in 2015 said, if Donald Trump is running for president and if he's serious about this, he will be the President of the United States. I'm something I entirely, completely discounted. Although as, as I started to write more about Donald Trump and started to cover the campaign, Epstein became a more and more a valuable source. And then certainly as soon as Donald Trump got into the White House, where his obsession became even fiercer. And now this is the point before, just before he gets into, into the White House, where Steve Bannon kind of comes in, that Steve Bannon is aware that as Donald Trump is running for the presidency in 2016, 60 Minutes is preparing a segment about Donald Trump's relationship to Jeffrey Epstein.

Joanna Coles (43:17)

So this is back in 2017, 16.

Michael Wolff (43:20)

Before he was elected.

Joanna Coles (43:21)

Before he's elected, yes.

Michael Wolff (43:24)

And why this never runs, I don't know. Steve Bannon expected it to run. Maybe Steve Bannon had something to do with it not running. But when Steve Bannon first met Jeffrey Epstein in, I believe it was December 2017, literally the first thing he said was, you were the only person I was afraid of during the campaign.

Joanna Coles (43:52)

Do you think Jeffrey Epstein was jealous of Donald Trump? Because also at this point, Donald Trump had been on 14 seasons of the Apprentice. I mean, you know, in the time that he managed to go from being a joke, as you said in the early 2000s, to suddenly playing a successful businessman on television in the Apprentice with.

Michael Wolff (44:15)

His friend, I think that he was still, up until he became the President of the United States. I think he was still a joke. And that's always one of the remarkable things about this story. This transformation of the joke into the most consequential person on earth happened overnight. Surprising, by the way. No one as much as Donald Trump himself.

Joanna Coles (44:39)

I remember you saying that. But television confers a charisma and, in his case, validation on someone when he's playing a successful businessman.

Michael Wolff (44:52)

I mean, I think it clearly did with much of the country. It did not ever how. It did not, however, at any point. Point in New York. So the same people, the same insiders continue to see Donald Trump as an outsider. I mean, he was a reality television star. Can you get any. Certainly in terms of stardom, can you get any lower than that?

Joanna Coles (45:21)

So one of the things that you have always pointed out is that these two men were the best of friends. They tooled around together. They were constantly hunting for women, various modeling agencies, and all sorts of excuses and filters to get to know young women. One of them ends up dead in one of the most notorious prisons in the whole of America, and the other ends up as President of the United States. It's the most remarkable polarized friendship, you.

Michael Wolff (45:59)

Know, and the interesting thing was, so Jeffrey Epstein spends much of the first several years of the Trump administration obsessing about Trump, talking about Trump on a constant basis, retailing information about Trump to lots of. Lots of people. To me, for instance, as a journalist and to leaders around the world, I mean, I think this kind of became part of his currency. He could tell people around the world how Donald Trump thinks and what he would do and how to anticipate what he would do. And he spoke both eloquently and outrageously and comically on the subject. I believe that he had. Sometimes you have to pull back and not entirely accept what Jeffrey Epstein says.

Joanna Coles (47:10)

Yeah, I'm sure he was an unreliable narrator in many ways.

Michael Wolff (47:13)

Well, the difficult thing is that he was often so reliable, I mean, that you were. You were shocked. He would tell you what is going to happen well ahead of when it happens, and then it. And then it happens. But there was a moment that he represented. He told me that he had gone to see Putin, to give Putin advice. And part of that advice was how to deal with Donald Trump. Perfectly possible. And he would have been a good person. I mean, he was. He was remained right up until his death a person, one of. One of that inner circle of people who I think knew Donald Trump as well as. As anyone. And his relationship with Steve Bannon, which really flowered after meeting and at the end of 2017, had largely to do with talking about Donald Trump. They both were obsessed with this guy. Now, I think the question is, and I certainly don't know the answer to this, but to what extent did that lead to what happened to Jeffrey Epstein in 2019 and then a month later, his death? And I think it probably. Well, I mean, it occurs, you know, he's arrested by the Donald Trump Justice Department. So what does that mean? And there are. There are two theories. The one, the one theory is that he had started to speak publicly about his relationship with Donald Trump.

Joanna Coles (49:04)

When you say publicly, where. Where was this showing up?

Michael Wolff (49:07)

Well, in, you know, and this is. This is. I mean, I come into the story at this, at this point, because that story of the breakup of their relationship he tells in my book Siege, which was published in. In June 2019.

Joanna Coles (49:27)

So that was the second of your four Trump books.

Michael Wolff (49:30)

It was. And he knew I was. He gave me. He gave me that. He told me this story and seemed perfectly comfortable with me using this story. But as soon as he read this, he was in Paris at the time. He got the book in Paris and read it. He called me up and he said. I think I might have said too much.

Joanna Coles (49:54)

This is the first time I'm hearing this. I have read Siege, but I haven't read it for eight years. When you're talking about the story of the end of their friendship, do you say Donald Trump was laundering money for the Russians?

Amazon Pharmacy Announcer (50:06)

Yes.

Michael Wolff (50:07)

So this is all.

Joanna Coles (50:08)

I mean, I tell it to Jeffrey Epstein. Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein is on the record.

Michael Wolff (50:12)

Exactly. So this is told through Epstein's eyes. So he's talking publicly. I think this is the first time, about his relationship with Donald Trump. It's also possible that Trump knows at this point about his relationship with Steve Bannon, who Trump has fallen out with at this time. Yes. I mean, they are antagonists at this point. And let's take a commercial break.

Joanna Coles (50:45)

And you're back with Michael Wolff and me inside Trump's head, a place you may never have expected to be. But here we are and we're examining his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. So Stephen, from Donald Trump's perspective, if you're inside Donald Trump's head, his campaign sort of guru in Steve Bannon has gone over to the really dark side by hanging out with Jeffrey Epstein.

Michael Wolff (51:11)

Possibly. Yes. Now it's all quite possible that Donald Trump has no idea about this, that Donald Trump lives in the, in the, in the split second moment. And this is of no concern or not more than a moment's concern, but it is one of those things. And when Epstein is arrested in 2019, and remember the circumstances of Epstein's arrest.

Joanna Coles (51:38)

Are.

Michael Wolff (51:41)

Complicated to say the least, you know, he's entered into what's called a non prosecution agreement with the federal government that happens in 2008. They say we're not going to prosecute you, you're going to plead guilty to state charges. And that acquits you of any federal jeopardy.

Joanna Coles (52:09)

This is where he pled guilty for solicitation of a minor for the purposes of prostitution.

Michael Wolff (52:15)

Yes.

Joanna Coles (52:18)

And prosecuted by, we should say, Alex Acosta, who was the U.S. attorney right. In Florida who became Trump's labor secretary briefly. Right.

Michael Wolff (52:29)

So there is, but that is, you know, the Justice Department has never abrogated a non prosecution agreement before. So Epstein certainly doesn't. He's, he's aware that things are closing in on him and that, you know, and then he has all these civil lawsuits against them. I mean things are pretty complicated for him in, by 2019. But he never for a minute thinks that the federal government is coming after him because they've agreed not to. But that does happen. He's, he's in July 2019. And this is as just a sort of the context, you know, a few weeks after my book, whether my book is involved with this or not, it really occurs a few weeks after my book is published. They, he's arrested, he's arrested by the federal government.

Joanna Coles (53:29)

And we should point out that Julie K. Brown of the Miami Herald was busy writing about the victims in sort of 2018. So the whole story was coming back.

Michael Wolff (53:39)

Into very much this story story is the story is alive. Although I, I also remember that in not long before he's arrested, Steve Bannon says, and Steve Bannon is trying to help him, advise him or, or, or you know, essentially just being a friend to him and says, and says, you know what you should do, you should, we should put a poll in the field and find out what people think about you. Because, and then Bannon says, because I'm going to guarantee most of the people in the country don't know about you. So that will shortly change. But even after the Miami Herald series and all that, Epstein is still. He's certainly not the figure that we see that we see him now. So it's very shocking when he is arrested. Shocking for him, I think. Shocking for a lot of, a lot of people in the legal community, the Justice Department, they just have never done this before. So is this at the behest of Donald Trump or another theory related to Donald Trump, which is that the Southern District has, is also investigating Donald Trump at this time. Remember, there are so many investigations going onrussia, et cetera, et cetera. Mueller around Donald Trump and coming from the Justice Department. And now they've just arrested Jeffrey Epstein, Donald, one of Donald Trump's closest friends. Can they squeeze Epstein for dirt on Donald Trump?

Joanna Coles (55:23)

And then how long is he in his.

Michael Wolff (55:26)

A month. And then he's dead in one of the most suspicious deaths in a prison. I don't know, ever. So in federal prison. Donald Trump is the President of the United States. This is his federal prison, and Jeffrey Epstein is dead.

Joanna Coles (55:48)

Do you think Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide?

Michael Wolff (55:54)

My position on this is always that it makes no sense. The description of how he would have had to have killed himself makes no sense. I don't see how anyone could kill themselves that way. To break your own neck. At the same time, the idea that the most famous, at that moment in time, time, the most famous prisoner in the federal prison system, the focus of, you know, certainly a half a dozen, maybe a dozen assistant U.S. attorneys, an equal number of FBI agents and gets, is murdered and no one knows anything, seems as implausible as. As the way he would have had to have killed himself.

Joanna Coles (56:48)

Didn't you speak to him shortly before he died?

Michael Wolff (56:52)

I got a message from him. Yes, I got him. He died on Saturday morning, early Saturday morning on that Friday, I got a message from him that was just. I had sent him a note that said, something like, you know, how are you? I mean, just how are you doing? And he said, still hanging around. And he would obviously within a few hours be dead with a sheet around.

Joanna Coles (57:22)

His neck, which might suggest that he had been thinking of doing that. He'd be.

Michael Wolff (57:28)

He also changed his will in the last. In this, in the several days before he died. So, yes, you can certainly make a case for that.

Joanna Coles (57:43)

Well, he may have died in 2019, but he has lived on in the popular imagination. I mean, he's become, as you have said, frequently one of the most diabolical figures of the modern Age. And he has, from the grave been one of the few consistent themes that unnerves our current president. Very clearly, their friendship is something which.

Michael Wolff (58:11)

Unnerves Donald Trump and it pursues him. It continues to pursue him. It could catch him.

Joanna Coles (58:17)

Who stood to gain from Epstein's death?

Michael Wolff (58:22)

I don't exactly know how to, how to answer this. I mean, first thing, we get into, you know, the world of conspiracy, which I think is a dangerous place to go. And the online world is filled with nothing but speculation about this.

Joanna Coles (58:43)

Well, we're recording this for the holidays on the day the Epstein files are due to be released, whatever they can. And at the moment, they still haven't been released, so we don't really know. Do you want to take a guess?

Michael Wolff (58:58)

No, I think that there's going to be tons. I mean, it's just going to be. Be, you know, pieces and pieces and pieces and pieces and pieces of a puzzle to be assembled.

Joanna Coles (59:12)

Well, Michael, no one knows more about this than you do. And it's just a remarkable story. I mean, you couldn't make it up.

Michael Wolff (59:21)

The Epstein of it all is a remarkable story, but at the center of it, the Epstein and Trump friendship relationship is certainly, it's central to understanding the man who is the most consequential person in the world at this point in time.

Joanna Coles (59:44)

And as you've always said, one of the them ended up dead in a jail, in a prison cell, and the other ended up as President of the United States.

Michael Wolff (59:53)

And I have, in so many ways, they are the same person.

Joanna Coles (60:00)

Well, thank you for that insight. And we will be back. If you have been. Thank you for joining us. Don't forget to leave us a comment on YouTube. Please please subscribe to our channel on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to subscribe to the Daily Beast, where we are chronicling the Trump presidency with enormous energy and enthusiasm. Are we covering it with enthusiasm? Perhaps that's not right, but we are covering it with enormous energy and zeal, I would say. And zeal. Michael, what are you planning to do for the rest of the holiday season?

Michael Wolff (60:38)

Season? Jesus, I don't know. I'm stumped now. I mean, I mean, after all of this, I mean, it really is to go through this. You really think? Jesus, it is. It is dark. And it's a scary story, too.

Joanna Coles (60:59)

It's a dark and it's a scary story.

Michael Wolff (61:02)

I mean, the implications of it. Well, I don't even want to go there because it is Christmas and.

Joanna Coles (61:08)

Well, we'll go there in the new year. For now, people should hug their loved ones close and enjoy the holiday season. We'll we'll be back tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. We're never leaving. We're never leaving. We're here now.

Michael Wolff (61:24)

And we should thank our top level members. And they are Sandra Clark Methinks Travel With Carl Andrew Beaver the Capinator Harry Clark Dawn McCarthy Daniel dog lover M. Griner Fulvia Orlando Herbie Andrew Melor Las Conde Bonzo Val Love Francesco Andrea Hodel Bocock D.C. sharon Shipley Connie Rutherford for Karen White Heidi Riley thank you all. Thank you Devin, Anna and Jesse from the bottom of my heart.

Joanna Coles (62:12)

Steady on.

Michael Wolff (62:15)

Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast the Last Laugh and our Star Studded the Daily Beast podcast@thedailybeast.com podcasts if you enjoyed this.

Unidentified Interjector (62:24)

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