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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Jim Acosta show. And it's another day that ends in Y and the Epstein gate cover up. Donald Trump is claiming he's all in for the vote in Congress this week to release the Epstein files. But I, I don't think a lot of people are buying that. At least I'm not. Trump can release the Epstein files right now. He can do this right now as we're speaking. He could have done this yesterday, he could have done this months ago as he promised. Make no mistake. It appears at this point he is playing games on this. My big guess at the top of the hour is independent journalist Tara Palmeri, who has been one of the few leading reporters on Epstein in the world. And Tara, great work as always on all of this. I mean, you know, that is the thing that everybody's talking about right now is that Trump has said, oh, no, you can go ahead and do it after months and months of delays and calling it a hoax, and so even called it a hoax again today while he's indicating that he's okay with this. What are your thoughts on all this? Because, I mean, to me, it just, this doesn't add up.
- [01:04]
B
It's very strange. Why would they waste so much political capital on this story to then eventually cow down? I think he's playing catch up. I don't think he wanted it to go this way. I think he realizes this is what's going to happen. And I saw it last week. I'm sure you did, too, once you saw Don Bacon Burchett Stube. Like, a handful of Republicans said that they were going to have to vote to release the files if it actually came down to the floor. It's just too tough to vote. I mean, very Rarely does do 90% of people agree on anything, like, including that the earth is round. I mean, so they all realize that this is something that they are going to have to vote on. And President Trump, realizing that this is not a train he can stop, is following them, which shows that he's losing grip, I think, on his party and also in his fight with Marjorie Trader Greene, as he likes to call her. When you look at X, if you want to stick your head in that cesspool, you notice that a lot of the followers of Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene, they're really siding with her in this fight. They are, yeah. So I think they're starting to catch on that the online wars, that he's losing them right now. And I think that he knows that this is one. Now here's Another caveat. I always think, and you know this, having covered Washington for a really long time, that every bill goes to die in the Senate. Right. Like that is a graveyard for bills. So what happens next? But this is the Epstein story. I mean, this is not, you know, this is, this is not your typical bill. Can you really let it die? So we'll see. What John Thune does is he put the bill on the floor by the end of the week and just get it over with. Now, once it hits Trump's desk and say it's a veto proof majority because he's given permission to the entire GOP to vote on it, basically. Right. He said he'll release the files. He just said that. Even if he releases the files, does the DOJ actually release them in full or does it redact a lot of it?
- [03:06]
A
Right.
- [03:07]
B
They're not very good at self policing, as we know. And we already have a number of files on the FBI's website right now. They're just all black lines. So that's what I think. And that's why as much as everyone's like it's going to be a Trevor treasure trove, it's going to be Pandora's box. I worry that people are going to be disappointed in the level, what they consider to be sensitive information. And maybe.
- [03:33]
A
No, I, I agree. Let's play a little bit of Trump this afternoon. He was talking this afternoon in the Oval Office and, and just everybody's aware of this. His voice is very raspy in this video. I don't know why that is, but here's Trump being asked whether he's okay with the things that Tara just mentioned, which is, does he approve of this going through the Senate? Will you sign this? And then, you know, have these files come out. Let's listen to this, we'll talk about it. You urged House Republicans to vote in favor of this Epstein release bill they're going to vote on tomorrow. I just want to be super clear on your position. Do you want to see that pass the Senate? Would you sign that bill if it gets to your desk?
- [04:11]
C
I do want to. Here's what I want. We have nothing to do with Epstein. The Democrats do. All of his friends were Democrats. You look at this, Reid Hoffman, you look at Larry Summers, Bill Clinton, they went to his island all the time. And many others are all Democrats. All I want is, I want for people to recognize a great job that I've done on pricing, on affordability, because we brought prices way down, but they go way lower.
- [04:41]
A
Yeah, there's A lot of lying in there. What is your reaction? He does a little bit later on indicate yes, he would sign it. You know, they almost had to pull it out of him. So who knows, you know, what he thinks he's answered yes to. But, you know, that was not very clear cut to me. And he's still trying to point the fingers everywhere but himself, especially at Democratic figures.
- [05:06]
B
Yeah, I mean, Trump was a Democrat when he was friends with Jeffrey Epstein. So like we all have to remember that.
- [05:13]
A
That's true.
- [05:14]
B
Writing checks to Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer. And this is why Jeffrey Epstein could brag so much about the fact that he was friends with Donald Trump. I mean, he wasn't really a political guy until I think around 2000. Well, he's always been political. Like he's always thought that he could run because of his whatever you want to call it.
- [05:34]
A
He flirted with the Reform party back around 2000.
- [05:37]
B
The blank, whatever it is about his personality that makes him think that he could lead people. But, you know, when did he really become a Republican? When he latched on to the birther movement. I would thing exactly.
- [05:49]
A
Then he came out and endorsed Romney in 2012. But yeah, that was in that time frame. Exactly. That's right.
- [05:55]
B
Yeah. So let's, let's remember that. And yeah, I'm. There's terrible things about Democrats in those files for sure. Based on what we already know. Virginia Dufrey, what she said about Senator Bill Richardson, Senator Mitchell, I mean, she said that she was trafficked to them. And these are prominent Democratic senators, colleagues of former, you know, President Joe Biden, which I've always wondered if that was part of the reason why the files never came forward was because that even in Virginia's depositions alone, she had these really damning details about prominent Democrats, prominent Democratic donors. But at the same time, a lot of people who were Democrats, a part of the tech, like the tech tech Illuminati, the techno, oligarchy, whatever you want to call them. Peter Thiel, the Sergey Brins, the, that entire circle. I mean, they're all Republicans now. And even Elon Musk, like he was hanging out with Jeffrey Epstein. You saw on the calendar, they said, well, Elon may come to the island. We're not sure. So everyone, everyone who was a Democrat then is now a Republican. So I don't really think it matters anymore.
- [07:03]
A
Yeah. Reid Hoffman put out a statement. We should point out he didn't. He tweet over the weekend that this is not, this is false. What's being said about him and so on. But Trump has been pointing the finger at him. He's been pointing the finger at Larry Summers. I mean, but it's kind of irrelevant right from the standpoint of the survivors terror, because they don't, they're, they're not partisan in this. They want these files released. They want the truth to come out. They want justice. Doesn't matter if it's Democrats are in there, Republicans in there. And the other thing that, Terry, you and I should talk about is the emails that came out last week, not been able to do a show. You and I have not been able to do a show since that happened. And, but I saw your comments out there that this is not the files, that the emails are not the files is not the same thing. The files. There's a lot more in the files.
- [07:45]
B
Yeah, I mean, some of these emails will probably be in the files because they would have been used in discovery for various cases. But the files are way more expansive, as we know. 330 gigabytes, apparently, and we've only gotten 1% of them so far. These are just emails from the estate. We're just putting pieces together based on Jeffrey Epstein's core correspondence, not even during the period in which he was prosecuted. We don't even know why he got the sweetheart deal based on these files. And so we're just putting it all together right now.
- [08:16]
A
And so what the Justice Department is holding back, what Trump is holding back is a whole lot more. Could be pictures, could be videos.
- [08:24]
B
Oh, definitely. Well, I know that from Virginia. I mean, she said that she was brought into the FBI's headquarters and that they showed her the pictures of girls with men because everything was being recorded. She was asked to try to identify her body. She couldn't. There's video footage. Like there are real files and that. Like that, that was even in the pictures. Like the New York Times, when they went in there and took pictures, you could see there were little cameras all over the house. This was his KGB tactic style. So I think everybody needs to understand that there's a lot in there, and that's why I'm very dubious about how much we're actually going to see from files. I've always been very dubious and suspicious of this. I think ultimately the truth comes out through a whistleblower and then that person's going to have to like, leave the country for a really long time, unfortunately.
- [09:12]
A
Because I, I agree with you. And then there's what Congressman Thomas Massie was saying over the weekend. He was saying that he doesn't buy what Trump is saying, no matter what. Basically, no matter what he says. Because, you know, they've. Trump has already ordered an investigation into Democratic figures by the Justice Department. Pam, Bonnie has apparently said that she's going to do this. And Thomas Massie was saying over the weekend on one of the Sunday talk shows that, well, they may not be able to open up the Epstein files if there are open investigations now into, let's say, Larry Summers or Bill Clinton or whatever.
- [09:44]
B
Yeah, it's a very convenient way to close again. You went from case closed, there are no third parties, to guess what, we're reopening it again based on some emails. You know, it's all so shady. I mean, everybody in that Justice Department, how can we. How can anyone take. How can anyone trust anyone in the Justice Department? Right now, you've got Pam Bondi running the place saying, I've got the Epstein files on my desk. Then months later, there are no Epstein files. There were no third parties. There was nothing. Case closed. It's all a figment of our imaginations, okay? And by the way, that's impossible. Like, I. The depositions of the girls, which are publicly available even right now, show that there are other men that they accused of being trafficked to. So it's like, you can't say that this is all some sort of figment of the imagination unless you are saying that a witness testimony is not evidence. And in that case, you are literally saying that these people do not matter, that what they are saying is not applicable, it is not permissible. And that is what they have been saying. I mean, FBI Director Taj Patel admitted that he did not read witness testimony. Neither did Alex Acosta. None of these men care about what happened to these women. They do not care about their accounts. Their accounts are not valid. Which shows you exactly how they think about this story, how they value the how. Sorry, Jim. It just gets me kind of worked up. But, like.
- [11:10]
A
No, I. Me, too.
- [11:12]
B
How they. How they value victims, how they value these. These women. It's the power imbalance. The Justice Department supposed to be working for the people, but instead they are silencing them. And these women are just knocking on the door, begging. And now they. They're going back to Washington this week. They made this beautiful video.
- [11:32]
A
Oh, yeah, we should play that video.
- [11:33]
B
Let's. Yeah, it's Mag.
- [11:35]
A
We have the video. Let's play the video and let's talk about. Because to me, this is. This video is extraordinary.
- [11:42]
B
I know.
- [11:44]
A
I suffered so much pain.
- [11:46]
D
So much pain.
- [11:47]
B
So much Pain. I suffered so much pain. I was 14 years old. I was 16 years old. I was 16, 17, 14 years old.
- [12:01]
D
This is me.
- [12:02]
B
This was me. This is me when I met Jeffrey Epstein. This is me when I met Jeffrey Epstein.
- [12:13]
A
There are about a thousand of us.
- [12:23]
B
It's time to bring the secrets out of the shadows. It's time to shine a light into the darkness. And that is from Lisa Bryant, who was the producer of the Filthy Rich Epstein documentaries. I actually worked with her on the second one on Glenn Maxwell. Since I've done a lot of reporting on Glenn. I have a podcast on her. Well, I have two podcasts, but one's on Jeffrey, the other one's on Glenn. And so, yeah, it's. I'm really, really, really proud of them. I obviously know a lot of these survivors really well. Jenna, who was holding up, she's, like, visibly shaking. She was wearing the brown shirt.
- [13:14]
A
Yeah.
- [13:14]
B
Really looks young with the hoop earrings. I mean, when I first met her back in 2000, was it 20? 19? I mean, she struggled to, like, sit through a, like, dinner with me. It was really hard for her. I don't think people understand how many of these women end up having drug problems, committing suicide, having severe mental problems after being trafficked so young. It. My heart broke for them. Courtney Wilde came to his doorstep, 14, braces on, and she, you know, ended up spending all of the money that she won from a sensible case with him, which was like, you know, I don't know how many, maybe a million dollars. She blew it. But on drugs, to not feel. And then she ends up in prison. She's the one who ends up in actual prison, like a secure. A real prison, not a county jail, like what Epstein stated. And she fought from prison for the Crime Victims Rights act to fight to reverse that sweetheart deal, claiming that they were never notified of this Crime Victims Rights act, that they were never notified of the sweetheart deal, and therefore, the case needed to be overturned. And it just breaks my heart that she spent more time in prison than Jeffrey Epstein, because the money, she said, made her feel like she was just being paid over and over and over again. It made her feel like she was a prostitute. And he offered her a. He offered her lawyers. He offered all these girls lawyers, telling them that they were the teenage prostitutes and that they needed representation. And he could say, help them. And a lot of them took them, the lawyers. Courtney did originally, because they were so young, they didn't know any better. They were groomed, they were manipulated. They had no home. They. They came from Broken homes and they had no self esteem. They didn't even think they were worth fighting for. And it wasn't until Courtney read her best friend's deposition, who had brought her to Epstein's house, that she decided that she was going to fight and she was going to make sure that he spent the rest of his life in jail. And she did it from behind bars. And now with the Crime Victims Rights act, she was there with Nancy Pelosi when it was finally unveiled. And it was like a huge. I mean, when I see her, I'm like, I'm just so proud of her. I did a bunch of episodes just on her because her story is incredible. Some broken Jeffrey Epstein. But yeah, this is a podcast I did with Julie K. Brown and Adam McKay. And yeah, it's just, this is a really big moment for them. And I could see when I was there on the hill, they were just like, they were glowing. They were so happy. They felt like they had some power again. And I think this is what the story is about. These women taking back power.
- [16:00]
A
Yeah, no, I agree with you. And the heartbreaking, I mean, there are so many heartbreaking parts of that video for such a short video is, you know, they say I was 14, I was 15, you know, and there was this Megyn Kelly thing last week where she was trying to redefine, you know what? I don't know what the hell she was doing. But this, this, there shouldn't even be a conversation about this. When girls are that young. There's just, there's. I don't get that. I don't understand where that comes from. This, like, trying to justify or explain it away thing that people do. And she was trying to do it lately.
- [16:34]
B
I just thought it was, it was heinous. It really was. I, you know, I. Jim, I. I made a video. It just, like, hit me really hard while I was working on a magazine piece, too, and I. This. And I was writing and I was going on these shows, and it's just me. I was like, oh, my God. When I worked on this, on the Epstein podcast and the magazine pieces for it, I remembered listening to the. The voices of these girls talking to the detective, Rick Harry. He was the defect, the Palm beach detective who worked on this case relentlessly, by the way. And when I heard their voices, I was like, oh, my God, these girls are so young. I have to get the audio of these voices and play them on my short, on my reel, wherever I can put it out so people can hear, so that they're not Confused by what Megyn Kelly is saying. And I remember that one of the girls called his penis a wee wee. Like that is how young she was. They were. And so I, like, I put it out on a reel and, you know, people really responded to it because I don't, I think, like you, that's what was so brilliant about that video is that you see their faces, you know, you hear your voices. You have to be reminded that, yes, they're adult women now, but they were children then. And.
- [17:47]
A
Exactly.
- [17:48]
B
There are a lot of apologists out there for Jeffrey Epstein, believe it or not. And they, they, they say, like, these girls were teenage prostitutes. I mean, literally the crime that he pled guilty to was, I think it was the word teen and prostitute were, were the same. It was soliciting a 14 year old for prostitution.
- [18:12]
A
Right, right, right, right.
- [18:13]
B
So, as if a teen could be a prostitute. So it was just over and over again that these girls were in the wrong, that they were the, they were, you know, they had done something wrong. And so I, I feel like it was, it felt like it came over me. I'm like, I gotta get this out there. Gotta get the sound out. And honestly, Megan Kelly should go listen to the sound. She should go listen to those positions.
- [18:34]
A
Yeah.
- [18:35]
B
She should hear what they had to say, what, what they went through and hear in their voices as kids. They're like, there were girls there and, you know, they're children. Like, yeah, there's nothing sophisticated about them. They, there were a lot of them were poor girls. He created a pyramid scheme inside of a high school.
- [18:53]
A
Right. Well, she wouldn't be talking that way, Megyn Kelly, if we were talking about somebody else besides Donald Trump.
- [18:59]
B
Right.
- [19:00]
A
And she's just doing this because, I mean, and, and maybe that is some of the good news that we're seeing, you know, develop over the last, you know, couple of days, which is. He's just running out of, he's running out of real estate here. He's running out of Runway on this. He's lost Marjorie Taylor Greene. He's attacking Marjorie Taylor. They try to bring in Lauren Boebert to the Situation Room. And that didn't work.
- [19:23]
B
Phone on and how intimidating too. Right. We're trying to look. It's like a shakedown.
- [19:29]
A
It's a shakedown. And it didn't work. And it didn't work. And now the word on the street is, is that it may be a near unanimous vote in the House of Representatives. I can't think of the last time anything was near unanimous vote. When it was something that was once this contentious. And, you know, it's, it's extraordinary to me. And I don't know how they can vote against it in the Senate either if it comes out of the House like gangbusters, which is the way it's going to look. It's going to look like a jailbreak.
- [19:56]
B
No. And you know what? I did a big, like, investigation on Lisa Murkowski, the senator from Alaska. Yeah. And how she had this really tangled web of connections to Glenn Maxwell, and they spent a lot of time together and she voted against releasing the Epstein files in September on the day that Charlie Kirk was murdered. Well, last night she made it clear that she'll be voting to release the files. So.
- [20:20]
A
Right.
- [20:21]
B
This is a really big deal, everybody. And I think not. You know, I think I'm going to.
- [20:27]
A
Go up there because I think they're going to be. Some of these folks are me running scared. They're still going to be running from the cameras. It's going to be very interesting to, to observe the behavior up there up on Capitol Hill because there are a lot of Republicans who were just dead against this. They didn't want to. They didn't. They were going to line up behind Trump. And it fell apart. It fell apart for Donald Trump. Yeah, he's still freaking out. We have the video from. I think it was Friday evening or was it Friday or maybe it was last. It might have been last night. He was still getting pissed. Yeah, it was last. He got pissed off at somebody Friday night. I, I posted that video. But this is last night. He freaks out. A reporter, I believe they're leaving Palm beach and he's being asked about Thomas Massie and what he's been saying about how, you know, this is, you know, they're still trying to play games over there. Listen to. He calls her fake news. Listen to the way he treats this reporter. He's still freaking out.
- [21:20]
B
Matthew says he's concerned that the Epstein probe you are calling for could be a smoke screen to block the release and more files. Is that the case?
- [21:29]
E
Well, I don't want to talk about it because fake news like you, you're a terrible reporter, and fake news like you, they just keep bringing that up to deflect from the tremendous success of the Trump administration. So a guy like Massie, his poll numbers are showing is that 6% percent approval rating right now, and we call him Rand Paul Jr. Because he never, he never votes for the Republican Party. So they're using Jeffrey Epstein as a deflection from the tremendous success that we're having as a party.
- [22:00]
A
Yeah. I mean, Tara, to me, I know his behavior when he acts that way. He knows he's in trouble.
- [22:07]
B
Right.
- [22:09]
A
It's not looking good, you know, and that's when he starts to flip out like that, call people fake news.
- [22:14]
B
I mean, yes, you've been there. We've all been there.
- [22:18]
A
And so something's up. I mean, that's. I. You and I did not talk about emails last week. Right.
- [22:25]
B
Go ahead. All right. No, no. I just feel like he's losing his grip. That's what I'm seeing right now.
- [22:31]
A
Yeah. And what did you make of that 2011 email where, you know, Jeffrey Epstein is saying he was over at my house for hours with victim redacted. They alleged there were allegations that it was Virginia Giuffre. Until I see the email without the redaction there, I don't believe what anybody says. I just want to see it for myself. But how does he spend hours at Jeffrey Epstein's house and there not be something untoward going on? It just seems to me it. You know, that email is just so damning.
- [23:02]
B
Yeah, no, it's really. It's really something else, especially because there wasn't. It wasn't exchanged to be one day dug up by a, you know, a House Oversight committee or to be.
- [23:16]
A
Right.
- [23:17]
B
These are just two people having a conversation. Bonnie and Clyde, casual, you know, preparing, trying to collude, actually, about how to handle their own cases. And they're wondering, how did Donald Trump not got caught in all of this? So, like, it's really something.
- [23:36]
A
We'll see.
- [23:37]
B
I don't. I think you can't be friends with someone for decades and not know what they're up to. It's like, yeah, we were real. We were. We were in the same town together. We spent. I mean, he wasn't even a member. This whole time they've been saying he's a member of Mar Lago.
- [23:49]
A
Right. And then actually says one of these.
- [23:51]
B
Emails wasn't so they were so close, he didn't need a membership. I mean, what.
- [23:57]
A
Right. Something does not make sense.
- [23:59]
B
I don't believe anything that comes out of the White House because of the fact that I was told that there is literally no merita on. On Jeffrey Epstein. And so they cannot ask him questions about it. Trump doesn't want to talk about it. Like, you know, interesting aids where they don't want to ask tough questions of Trump, how to respond to the press. So it's like, it's a Hoax, you know, and then that's it. So I just don't believe any of the stories they make up. I just like, yeah, okay, cool things.
- [24:25]
A
Yeah. And this is in this thing that they're doing now where he says, oh, yeah, I'm in favor of it. Go ahead and vote for it. This is, this, this is his latest coping mechanism. The next coping mechanism would be completely different. He just, he's just making this up as he goes along, it just seems to me. And he's going to keep flipping out every. He's going to be dragged kicking and screaming every step of the way. And you just, that's why you just can't buy it, in my view, until there's a full release of the files. Tara Palmieri, as always. Oh, sorry. One last, did you want to make one last comment?
- [24:55]
B
No, no, I was just agreeing with you. This is just, it's insane. But thank you for having me, Jim. And I appreciate your dedication to the story. You've been really all over it and it's, it's.
- [25:04]
A
You, too. No, not as much as you. I've just, you know, to me, like, you know, it's obvious he's hiding something. It's obvious they're hiding something. And you can't hide this. This is not, this is not something that should be hidden.
- [25:16]
B
Yeah.
- [25:17]
A
When it involves President United States or really any powerful figure or anybody.
- [25:20]
B
No, no, no.
- [25:21]
A
And make sure to follow Tara's reporting on substack, all of the socials. You have a very important substack, Tara, and everybody needs to follow it. So we appreciate it, as always.
- [25:31]
B
Yours, too. Thank you so much.
- [25:33]
A
Thanks, Derek. Great to see you. Really appreciate it. Yeah. And I, and I wanted to show, and you know my friend Juliet over at Decoding Fox News, she has this new thing now I got to get her on where she, she blocks out Trump's face and blocks out his voice because people are so sick of hearing him and seeing him. But you get to, you know, listen to what he is saying, all his bullshit, lies and so on. But I do think from time to time it is instructive to show the way he is lashing out at reporters because the way he lashed out at that reporter last night leaving Palm beach. To me, I mean, I just know because I've been on the receiving end of this. He. He looks like his goose is cooked. And that's a perfect segue to my next guest. You know, great. Joe Walsh is with us. Former Republican Congressman, now Democrat. And Joe, I saw your. I think I saw Some of your stuff earlier today saying, don't believe any of this crap. You know, he, that he's like, he's, he's a sudden convert to releasing the files. Come on, man.
- [26:36]
D
Well, Jim, always good to be with you. I love you. I love your substack. I love Tara Palmeri and I love her.
- [26:42]
A
Incredible.
- [26:43]
D
When she says she can't believe anything coming out of this White House, I laugh. Because you, the rule of life is you can't believe anything that comes out of Trump's mouth.
- [26:55]
A
Right?
- [26:56]
D
Jim, Somebody, somebody posted this today, so I'm stealing it. I retweeted it, but it was along the lines of, I've never seen anyone fight so hard to suppress the evidence of their innocence. Like, if Trump is innocent, he's working his ass off to not show any evidence of that, to keep these. It's like Bizarro, right? He's fighting so hard, he says he's innocent. Nothing there, Nothing there. But he's fighting tooth and nail not to let anything come out that would prove he's innocent.
- [27:35]
A
Nobody, nobody innocent has ever looked this guilty. You know, just, you know, if they prove it and, and they release everything unredacted and nothing's been destroyed, I guess maybe I'll, maybe I'll believe it, but I don't. You know, like the way he's worked on this, it's this truth social post, this rambling. He says, okay, we have nothing to hide. Let's move on. Let's let every House Republican should vote to release the Epstein files, He says, and then it goes on, this rambling. You know, Joe, I've been talking about this. I know you've been talking. He just, he, he seems like he's just completely lost it. He's out to lunch. He's, he's just One flew over the cuckoo's nest here now. And it just depends on how bad it's going to get. It seems to me between now and January 2029, I, I, I, I wonder what your thoughts are, but there's a lot of spinning of the wheels there. There's a lot of spiraling in that true social. I'm not gonna read.
- [28:29]
D
And I, I like what you said earlier with Tara and when he got off that plane last night. This is goose is cooked. Look, I, I, I, coming from Maga like I do, he can lie about the 2020 election, they'll buy it. He can lie about Haitian migrants eating cats and dogs, they'll buy it. He can even try to lie about tariffs and all of that stuff. But he and JD Vance and all of my former buddies out in the right wing media world for years, they promised the base the goods.
- [29:02]
A
Yes.
- [29:02]
D
And this one he can't escape. So partly it's that, Jim, and I also think partly it's highly likely there's ugly, ugly, ugly about him in there.
- [29:17]
A
Yeah.
- [29:18]
D
I mean, again, I don't. Oh, he's a pedophile. I'm not gonna say stuff like that.
- [29:22]
A
We don't know. We don't know what we don't know. But he's also denied having knowledge of it.
- [29:28]
D
Yes.
- [29:28]
A
There's evidence that he's had knowledge of it. That's bad, too. So, I mean, there's lots of, there are many, you know, colors on the spectrum here of how bad this and how dark it gets.
- [29:38]
D
Right. And the danger with Trump always is because there's always such. We laugh about it. Like now he wants release the files. And everybody says, oh, that's because he knows 100 Republicans in the House tomorrow will vote to release. And he's trying to get ahead of the parade. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's all part of this.
- [29:57]
A
Yeah.
- [29:57]
D
But the truth, Jim, is more sinister. I, I can't tell you that Pam Bondi hasn't scrubbed or shredded any evidence of anything.
- [30:05]
A
We don't know. There was some reporting by Bloomberg over the summer that indicated that they were looking for references to him. So.
- [30:12]
D
And the scarier thing is.
- [30:14]
A
Yeah.
- [30:16]
D
What Trump did last week, ordering Pam Bondi, who's not the Attorney General, she's Trump's lawyer, ordering Pam Bondi to start an another Epstein investigation.
- [30:27]
A
Yeah.
- [30:27]
D
I have no doubt that he did that. They did that to protect himself. Because if it ever gets to the point where Trump might have to sign the release, Pam Bond me is going to get in front of the cameras, Jim, and say, I can't release anything. There's a, there's an ongoing active investigation.
- [30:46]
A
Right.
- [30:46]
D
I think that's why they did what they did last week.
- [30:49]
A
Yes. And it gives them cover for saying, you know, hey, guys, sorry, you know, we, we want to get to the bottom of this Larry Summers thing or whatever. Who the hell knows?
- [30:58]
D
There's an ongoing investigation. And Jim, that ongoing investigation, that new investigation that Trump told Bondi to launch against Democrats in Epstein, that ongoing investigation will go on for the next three.
- [31:12]
A
Years, you know, and Joe, I got to wonder what you think about Trump going after Marjorie Taylor Greene and calling her Marjorie Trader Greene. He was asked about this last night. We should play this video. He was asked about this last Night. And he acts as though he does not have a care in the world, that she is now getting death threats and everything else.
- [31:31]
D
Let's.
- [31:31]
A
We should play that if we can.
- [31:33]
B
Her life could be a danger because of the rhetoric.
- [31:36]
E
Her life is in danger. Who's that?
- [31:39]
B
Marjorie Taylor Greene. She says.
- [31:41]
E
Marjorie Trader Greene. I don't think her life is in danger. I don't think. Frankly, I don't think anybody cares about her. Okay. What about you?
- [31:52]
A
Yeah, he knows that. He knows what he's doing. He. He's done this to a number of people. Calls out. He called the press, the enemy of the people. We got death threats. I mean, that happened all the time. And he's doing it to her. And now she's been saying, like, over the last 24 hours, she's had death threats. I believe she said that there was a threat of a pipe bomb.
- [32:10]
B
Yeah.
- [32:10]
A
And, you know, this is real stuff, and she could get hurt. And he is egging it on. What do you. What do you think about all this?
- [32:19]
D
A reminder that he's a horrible guy, he's a bad guy, he's a psychopath. He doesn't care about anybody but himself. That's one thing. So he is purposely endangering her. But Jim Acosta, you know, and I know any of us who stand up publicly and oppose him, we live with threats. Marjorie now knows that, and it's wrong. But now Marjorie knows what all of us who've opposed Trump for seven, eight, nine years have lived with. This is scary, dangerous stuff. And as Jim, as. As the MAGA coalition kind of begins to crack up, and it's beginning.
- [32:59]
A
Yeah.
- [33:00]
D
You're gonna see real sporadic shots of violence. I think it could get ugly.
- [33:05]
A
It could get ugly. I mean, I'm wondering what you think about this, Joe, because, you know, they. They haul in Lauren Boebert into the situation. That doesn't work. They're trying to peel off somebody else. Obviously, they try to get Marjorie Taylor Greene to back off. She didn't do it. And, you know, people, they're. They're standing up to him a little bit. I don't want to hand out any. No, you know, Presidential Medal of Freedom or anything like that. I'd love to ask Marjorie Taylor Green, does she still believe that the 2020 election was stolen and that sort of thing? But what do you make of how she has been defying him? Do you. Do you think that there. There's some sincerity involved here? Perhaps there is on some levels. Maybe now that it's been made real to her, she gets it, and maybe a light bulb has gone off. I don't know. I. I'd love to get a read on it, you know?
- [33:50]
D
So my. My answer to you, my good friend, is I don't know. And I say that from the perspective of someone like me who was a divisive political asshole. And seven years I came out.
- [34:01]
A
You weren't this bad, Joe. No, no, no.
- [34:04]
D
But Acosta, you raked me over the coals, deservedly so, a few Times.
- [34:08]
A
You were 2012 bad. That's not. That's a different universe.
- [34:12]
D
By the way, Jim, that's an amazing thing you just said. Like, today, I would be, like, a squishy moderate in that party. That's amazing what you just said. 2012 bad. Yeah, yeah, but, but like, I came. I. I said I'm no longer going to be a divisive asshole. And, and I publicly came out against Trump now. And for seven years, Jim, I've had to prove myself. I've had to prove it was genuine, that my conversion was genuine. Marjorie's going to have to walk the same road. The only difference is, all she said yesterday was, I'm not going to be a divisive asshole anymore. But she still supports Trump and she's still full on maga, so it's a different play. And, Jim, you nailed it. Right? She believes January 6th was a patriotic day. Does she still believe that?
- [35:03]
A
Right. I mean, that's what we. And I think this is where, you know, the deprogramming starts to begin, maybe, and. And reality starts to set in, and. And people's information bubbles and silos start to get punctured. I mean, there's the situation over at the Heritage foundation, too, which I feel like if there wasn't all this other crazy stuff happening, we would spend a lot of time talking about this. You know, Tucker Carlson interviews Nick Fuentes interview. Then Kevin Roberts, the head of the Heritage foundation, defends Tucker Carlson. Then he has to backpedal and say, well, I didn't really know what Nick Fuentes was like. Give me a break. Yes, you did. You're a liar. And all these people are bailing from the Heritage Foundation. Like, big people. I mean, maybe people. I don't really recognize them, but I've been told they're big people there in the foundation. And these are the Project 2025 people, Joe. Yeah. So it's not. This is not like some think tank. That's just a throwaway think tank. This is.
- [35:55]
D
Oh, God, no. They were. Yeah. When I was in Congress, Heritage. You wanted Heritage's blessing. Now, Heritage was different then. The story of Heritage is the story of the Republican Party. It moved from Tea Party to maga, free trade to nationalistic authoritarian. The Heritage foundation did the same damn thing. And, and I mean, what, what happened is, you know, Trump, the party became radicalized and he let all these different, various people come out from under their rocks and now they're out there in power and they're starting to fight with each other.
- [36:32]
A
Yeah, it's wild. It's wild. And, and, you know, and the other bit of news to me that is astounding is that this judge in the Comey case may throw that case out the window. And he's saying that there was there, I think he used misconduct, potential misconduct in this case. And. No, yes. No, I mean, you know, it's obvious, but there are cracks. There are so many cracks under Donald Trump's feet right now. It's, I have not seen anything like this in some time since, you know, the, you know, 20, 2020, you know, January 6th, that era, you know, that's really dicey for him right now, it seems.
- [37:13]
D
I agree with you, Jim, but everybody listening to us right now, to this, your wonderful show here, I, I take it from a former MAGA guy, we've been down, we've been here before. And, and don't, he is still the, the, the ringleader. He's still the cult leader, and that's not changing. And if Marjorie Taylor Greene wants to run For President in 28, or Tucker or J.D. they need his blessing. No matter how much they fight with each other, he still, he still has a hold on that base that no one comes close to.
- [37:45]
A
You're right. No, that's true. Well, Joe, I, I, I definitely wanted to get your pulse on all this because to me, you know, this is, this is a big moment this week. What we're about to see take place is a big moment. And they've been dragged kicking and screaming in this direction. Donald Trump does not want this week to play out the way it's going to play out. He's going to have Mohammed bin Salman over at the White House. They're going to give them fighter jets. I mean, there's, that's a whole other, you know, stuff to, I mean, that we can get into that at some point later on this week. But, and that's important stuff. But he is not in control of this Epstein story. The White House is not in control of something. And he hates that this is the most.
- [38:25]
D
Hey, Jim. He doesn't know what A petard is. But he's hoisted on his own petard. He doesn't know, but that's what's happened. They built this thing up for years and he now can't escape it.
- [38:36]
A
That's it. That's it. Joe, great to see you, man. Thanks a lot.
- [38:39]
D
Love you. Thank you.
- [38:41]
A
And you weren't really. You never were bad. I think you were just, you know, you were.
- [38:44]
D
No, I'm gonna use that quote. I was 2012 bad. I'm gonna use that.
- [38:49]
A
We had, we had nice, you know, genteel Mitt Romney to compare you to and all this. It was all relative back then.
- [38:56]
D
Thanks, Jim.
- [38:57]
A
Good to see you, Joe. All right, take care. And, and you know what? There's something about redemption. There's something about coming back from the cold, coming out from the cold. And I've always felt this way. I know a lot of other folks feel this way that, you know, people can have some pretty extraordinarily, you know, awful beliefs, I suppose you could say, or some very far right beliefs that are just way outside of the mainstream. But, you know, that, I think, does not completely just cut somebody off from redemption. You can have redemption. And I don't know whether we're seeing that right now from Margie Chilligreen. I'll be really honest with you. I have a lot of suspicions that some of this is, you know, because she wants to run for president or Trump didn't go along with her running for the Senate thing. You know, I saw Adam Kinzinger was like, give me a break. You know, what about all the January 6th stuff? I, you know, I used to go up to her up on Capitol Hill and grill her on, you know, wanting to declare martial law and all this stuff. And, and, and so it remains to be seen how this is all going to play out in terms of Marjorie Taylor. There's one other little tiny bit of information that I can offer in all of this. There was some speculation, and this is for folks who maybe spend too much time online like myself. And there was all this talk of Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, and there was a Mark Epstein email about Bubba and all the emails that were released last week. And there was, oh, my goodness, is. Is Bubba Bill Clinton? Because back in the day, that was one of Bill Clinton's nicknames. People called him Bubba and it was a whole thing. And as it turns out, Mark Epstein says, no, that is not the case. He has released a statement saying, for the avoidance of doubt, the reference to Bubba in this correspondence is not in any way a reference to former President Bill Clinton. He goes on to say, you know, any attempt to conflate that reference with President Clinton or to read sweeping implications into them misrepresents both the purpose and the tone of the original correspondence. I want to be absolutely clear on the point that the public record is not distorted and so that speculation does not unfairly implicate people who are not actually being referenced in those communications. So that's for Mark Epstein. I had him on over the summer. He still believes to this day that something happened to his brother, Jeffrey Epstein in that prison when it was stated by the government that Jeffrey Epstein hung himself. Mark Epstein does not believe that that is the case. And, you know, one of the things that we all have to keep in mind is we don't know what we don't know. And that is why the Epstein files must be released. Donald Trump can play all of the games that he wants. He can blow up at every reporter that comes into the Oval Office or hangs out on the tarmac of, for Air Force One, but he cannot stop the truth. He cannot stop the truth, and he is not in control of this story. As we saw last week. We saw the emails that were released last week. We still don't know what's in the Epstein files. Perhaps there's something in the Epstein files about Jeffrey Epstein's death. But we saw the emails last week. We saw the emails that say from Jeffrey Epstein to Ghislaine Maxwell that Donald Trump spent hours at his house with victim redacted. With victim redacted. We still don't have an explanation as to why that is the case. And I think there are some good reporters in the Oval Office today who are pressing Donald Trump on whether or not he's going to go along with signing this bill if it gets out of the Senate to release the. Compel the release of the Epstein files. But I still think the question has to be asked, question has to be asked of Donald Trump. Somebody should ought to just carry that, that, that email into the, carry the email into the Oval Office and read it to him. Read that, that April 2011 email to Donald Trump from Jeffrey Epstein to Ghislaine Maxwell and ask him, what does this mean? Why does it say that you spent hours at Jeffrey Epstein's house and why was Jeffrey Epstein saying this back in April of 2011? You keep saying this is a Democratic hoax and it's the Democrats trying to get me and the Republicans say this is all about the Democrats trying to get Donald Trump. That has nothing to do with this email. This email predates 99% of his political career. And it is an email from two of the sickest people who have ever walked this earth talking about Donald Trump, who became president, spending hours at Jeffrey Epstein's house. Can anybody make that make sense? Can Donald Trump make that make sense? And so to me, this is an e. This is an email. And we all, some of us at these news organizations still have printers. That email should be printed up by a reporter, brought into the Oval Office or to a press conference. And ask, Mr. President, what is, what is going on with this email? Can you make it make sense? Why were you spending hours at Jeffrey Epstein's house? And he let him say whatever he wants to say. But the gold star, if I could hand out gold stars, goes to the reporter who asked that damn question. It needs to be asked. And all I can tell you, folks, having been in that position, when he starts throwing around fake news, you're pretty much flying over the target, folks, you're pretty much flying over the target. When he starts screaming about fake news, you're pretty damn close to real news. And so Donald Trump, we have seen this movie before. We know when you start calling people names, when you start saying fake news, and you start calling members of Congress a traitor, we must be getting awfully damn close to, to something called the truth. And the truth is catching up to Donald Trump. Did you hear him in the Oval Office day? Sounded awfully damn raspy. Sounds like somebody who hasn't had a whole heck of a lot of sleep lately. Sounds like somebody who's been up late at night. And let's listen to this again.
- [45:41]
C
We have nothing to do with Epstein. The Democrats do. All of his friends were Democrats.
- [45:47]
A
You look at this.
- [45:47]
C
Reid Hoffman, you look at Larry, you.
- [45:49]
A
Were one of his friends, Bill Clinton.
- [45:51]
C
They went to his island all the time. And many others are all Democrats.
- [45:54]
A
A lot of lying here, a lot.
- [45:56]
C
Of lying is, I want for people to recognize a great job that I've done.
- [46:01]
A
And he goes on to say he's doing a great job on prices, which is also bullshit, by the way. We haven't even got into that. That's too. Prices are not coming down. Everybody sees the prices are going up. Put that to the side. This does not sound like a man standing on solid ground. The cracks are starting to appear under Donald Trump's feet. And the cracks are getting bigger, ladies and gentlemen. The cracks are getting a lot bigger. And the truth has a hell of a way. It, it may be delayed, it may be denied. It may be pushed off, but it has a hell of a way of hanging in there and making a comeback. And that is Donald Trump's worst nightmare, everybody. That's his worst nightmare. My thanks to the wonderful Tara Palmieri. My thanks to Joe Walsh as well. My thanks to all of you for watching. Still reporting from Washington, I'm Jim Acosta. See you next time. Sa.