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The Trump Files: Fat Ankles & Epstein | The Joy Reid Show, Jul 18, 2025 Episode
01:05:40
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- [00:00]
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- [00:37]
Joy Reid
Ah, yes. Happy Friday, everyone. Unless you're obsessed with Meghan Markle. Maybe not Happy Friday to you, but happy Friday to everybody else. Welcome to the Joy Reid show. Oh, it is Friday and it is going to be a hot one. We finally got the answer to one of the great mysteries of The Trump regime 2.0. The fat ankles. The fat ankles. You all have noticed Trump's ankles, right? They're like more like cankles. They're really huge. He's got really, really swollen ankles. Well, it turns out there's actually a reason for them. Let me give you guys the scoop on Trump's big legs. Trump has been diagnosed with something called venous insufficiency. Venous insufficiency, per cnn. And it is a condition wherein there's a challenge with the body delivering enough blood to the legs and it can cause people to, particularly senior citizens, legs to swell. Donald Trump is 79 years old. Remember, he turned 79 on June 14, the day that he tried to turn into a national holiday and blend it with the Army's 250th birthday. But Donald Trump is an elderly man and we now understand why his legs are so swollen. So he has been diagnosed with venous insufficiency. By the way, this is the most information I think that we've ever gotten about Trump's health, to be honest. I mean, for years, Donald Trump's doctors have lied about his health. They've said that he's like 100 pounds lighter than he was. They said he's taller than he was. Even after he was shot at in Pennsylvania, we never got a single medical record. It's kind of crazy, right? This is an assassination attempt of an American president, and we know literally nothing about his health. We never saw medical records. Most of the media never asked for, demanded medical records. We got nothing. Even during COVID when there are reports that Donald Trump nearly died from COVID when he was lying to the rest of us after Bob Woodward and he sat down, had an interview that February and he told Bob Woodward that Covid was airborne. And he didn't tell the rest of us. Even after that, we really never got full, full reports about Donald Trump's help or media had to really hunt and push for them. But now, in the wake of a lot of a scandal, particularly involving his bestie for about 15 years, Jeffrey Epstein, suddenly, suddenly the White House is very forthcoming. They're forthcoming about his veins and his cankles. So that's interesting. The other big piece of news that we got, and this is not good news, is the cancellation of the Late show with one of the funniest and actually also one of the nicest people in this business, Stephen Colbert. I've done the Colbert show a couple of times. He is really an absolute gentleman and a really great comedian. And this is a franchise, the Late show, that has existed for 30 years in this country on CBS. David Letterman obviously famously hosted as well. And the cancellation of this show, I think everyone pretty much agrees, is a very dark sign. It is a very dark sign. This is not a normal cancellation. I just want to note for you, because when shows that are hosted by people with a liberal point of view get canceled, the right tends to rush out and claim it's because no one watched the show because they had terrible ratings. It is their favorite go to. In the case of Stephen Colbert, good luck with that because these numbers are findable. Their numbers are all findable. He had the number one show in late night. He had the highest rated network show in late night in that 11:30, that 11:00 clock day part. And so it wasn't that his show was incredibly popular. It made a lot of noise online. People clipped it all the time. It was all over YouTube. The clips were everywhere. People, very popular show. He got the best guests. And I will give Paramount, which said that there's nothing to see here. It was a cost issue. This was all about finance. Nothing to see here. Nothing nefarious about it. Not everyone agrees nothing is nefarious about it. The Writers Guild is seeking an investigation. The Writers Guild has called for investigation of the cancellation of this show, citing bribery concerns. Bribery concerns. And I'm going to read this. The union representing writers at the Late show with Stephen Colbert is calling for a New York State investigation into Paramount, the parent company that owns cbs, following the cancellation of the show on Thursday, citing concerns that the move may be a form of bribery. Now, the union, the reason they have a concern about this, the west coast branches in the state, not just the fact that this is the loss of a lot of jobs are going to be probably over 100 jobs are going to be lost. But they have asked Attorney General Letitia James to open an inquiry into potential wrongdoing at the company. In a strongly worded statement on Friday, the WGA east and west pointed to the president of the California State Senate, which in May launched an inquiry into Paramount Global's controversial $16 million settlement with Donald Trump over the editing of a Kamala Harris 60 Minutes interview in 2018. You'll recall that CBS, Paramount, which is the owner of CBS, joined ABC and other media companies, including Amazon, in what definitely looks and feels like bribing Donald Trump, paying Donald Trump because somehow someone at the network had displeased him. In the case of CBS, in 60 Minutes, they did a normal interview with with former Vice President Kamala Harris that Donald Trump was upset about because he claims they edited it to make her look better. Note that Donald Trump did not avail himself of the opportunity to do a 60 Minutes interview. He bailed on his chance to do it. They were going to interview them both, give them each an opportunity. He bailed on it, then was mad because her interview, I guess she did too well in it, and he wanted to prove that it was deceptively edited. I will note that Donald Trump is deceptively edited. Literally every time he opens his mouth by Fox, they make sure they clean it up to make sure that he doesn't sound senile. But they're claiming that he claimed in a lawsuit and it was like $100 million, like a really bizarre lawsuit, that that's what CBS did for Kamala Harris, which is actually not true, CBS wound up releasing a transcript of the interview. There was literally nothing to see there. But despite the fact they would have easily won that case, CBS settled. ABC did the same thing with George Stephanopoulos. George Stephanopoulos had a an interview in which he talked about the fact that Donald Trump was held civilly liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll and for defaming her. But instead of sexual abuse, he used the word rape and Donald Trump claimed defamation. Ironic, since he's the one who defamed E. Jean Carroll and sued them for a whole big gargantuan amount of money. But they would have won that lawsuit too, because the judge in that E. Jean Carroll case said that according to the common definitions of rape, that is what happened to E. Jean Carroll. The judge said that in his statement in adjudicating the case. But despite the fact that ABC would have won that case. They too settled, wrote a big check. They're writing these checks to Donald Trump's foundation. Fungible money that can probably be moved wherever he wants it to go. And so the Writers Guild is rightly concerned that canceling Stephen Colbert's show is not about cost. Even though, again, I worked in tv, I can tell you producing a network audience based show is super expensive. But all of those shows are expensive. Audience development, that's expensive. Networks just cost more than cable. Cable shows are generally cheaper. So it was an expensive show, but it was also a hit show. And so while all of the networks are struggling financially because people are watching less TV and watching more of what you guys are watching right now, you guys are on YouTube. Welcome to our YouTube fam. And also the folks who are on Substack. That is the way more and more people are consuming information and even entertainment. So that's not like a unique problem to Paramount, cbs. We also know that Paramount would like to spin off and sell CBS and that they're trying to work a deal that has to be approved by the Federal Communications Commission, which of course is run by a Trump appointee who has been busy aggressing all of the networks, cable and broadcast alike, demanding they end dei, that they please Donald Trump. And, and we all know that Donald Trump has no sense of humor. So Donald Trump really despises the things that are being done in the news divisions that are critical of him. And particularly in late night, Donald Trump is super, super triggered by the way that late night comedians like Stephen Colbert talk about him. He's attacked Jimmy Kimmel by name. He's attacked Stephen Colbert by name. He's attacked Saturday Night Live and said they should all be fired. In fact, he celebrated the cancellation of Colbert show, which will not kick in until next May. He celebrated that and argue Jimmy Kimmel should be next. By the way, Jimmy Kimmel, if you go on his Instagram, had the best response to this, was basically an fu to Paramount, cbs. I will note that Jon Stewart, whose show he does a one day a week daily show version, that is also something that falls under the Paramount umbrella. So yeah, the Writers Guild east is concerned that getting rid of Stephen Colbert while they're saying it was about cost, was really about removing a host and a personality that triggered Donald Trump. You know who else is concerned about that? Elizabeth Warren. Elizabeth Warren posted both on Blue sky and on X Twitter. She's still over there fighting it out on X Twitter and posted that it is really suspicious that Donald Trump that I'm sorry, not that Donald Trump, but that Paramount. Paramount, after all these media companies are taking the knee to Trump that Paramount cancels this show. First of all, pretty interesting to drop that in an Epstein news cycle. Pretty interesting timing. But also three days, three days after Stephen Colbert did an epic monologue on the late show in which he excoriated his parent company Paramount for doing that $16 million deal, he excoriated them. And then three days later the announcement comes that a show is canceled. I think we have that video. Let's take a listen, guy. He really is hilarious. Joining me now, our fabulous Friday panel, Mini Timaraju, the president and CEO of Reproductive Freedom for All, formerly known as NARAL Pro Choice America. And notably she is the first woman of color and immigrant to lead the organization. Take that, anti dei. We are still out here. David Tay Johnson, Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter, author of not one, not two, but three bestselling books on Trump and a professor at Rochester Institute of Technology. And Paul Butler, the Albert Brick professor in law at Georgetown University Law center and a legal analyst at msnbc. He's also a contributing opinion writer at the Washington Post and host of the PBS series Returning Citizens Life Beyond Incarceration. Thank you for being here, panel. And I have to go right down the middle to David K. Johnston because this looks suspicious to me, David, and I know that you as an investigative journalist, I am assuming that you raised one eyebrow when you saw this series of events as well. What do you make of the bending of the knee of all of these media companies and what sure looks like that's what happened with the Stephen Colbert Show.
- [11:44]
David K. Johnston
Well, all of these companies have other businesses where they need the approval of the Trump administration. Look at the LA Times and Dr. Patrick Hsiong, the owner, his fortune comes from cancer medications. He's a brilliant inventor of life saving medicine. But the FDA has to approve his medicines. And in this case, Shari Redstone could not sell her father's, her late father's company without the approval of the Trump administration. And by the way, I think Colbert show was doomed in any event because the controlling new owner, David Ellison, son of Oracle's Larry Ellison, is a Trumper.
- [12:26]
Joy Reid
Well, there you go. And Paul, I mean, it seems to me that one of the signals of autocracy is compliance in advance. And there's been a lot of compliance in advance. Your university actually was one of the ones that stood up pretty well. Georgetown University Law center said, yeah, no, we're not going to change the way that we recruit law students. But A lot of other universities did it. Columbia University notoriously bent the knee. So you're seeing universities do it. You're seeing law firms pay off Donald Trump and promise to give his MAGA supporters free legal services. It feels like there's, like, capitulation, serial capitulation, and then you just add this Paramount, CBS thing. It's really hard for me to accept their explanation that this was all about the cost of doing this show.
- [13:11]
Paul Butler
You know, it's just obedience in advance with the law firms and with universities. A lot of lawyers thought that there shouldn't have been settlements in most of those cases because the law firms and the universities were right on the mirrors. Their constitutional rights were being violated by what Donald Trump wanted to do, but they caved. And that's really certainly against the mission of a law firm. I don't know why anyone would want to hire a law firm that's afraid of a fight. But I think with Trump now, and especially with this suit against the Wall Street Journal, I think that he's hoping for the same kind of obedience in advance. He's hoping for a settlement. I think that people understand that when Trump actually takes things to trial, Joy, he loses all the time. And he likely again would have lost with the law firms, lost with the universities. If his suit against the Wall Street Journal goes forward, based on what we know now, I think he's likely to lose in the merits theory.
- [14:25]
Joy Reid
Yeah. And you got ahead of me, and I am definitely glad that you did that, because I did neglect to mention Donald Trump put up a post in which he threatened to sue the Wall Street Journal over a story that we're gonna talk about in a minute. But he doesn't have a good record in court. So we're gonna come back to that in just a second because we are gonna get to the reason Donald Trump wants to sue the Wall Street Journal. We're gonna get to that shortly. But, Mini Timaraju, I want to get you in here because your organization represents hundreds of millions of women in this country, over 100 million women in this country who are counting on some government to protect their rights. But the Civil Rights division of the Justice Department essentially doesn't exist anymore. It's now essentially purposed toward going after companies for having DEI hiring too many women and people of color, I guess, or whatever it is that Donald Trump and Stephen Miller think is offensive. And you have states that are also summarily withdrawing rights for people doing it on their own. It's sort of like the autocracy is kind of self actualized. And so for vulnerable populations, whether that's immigrants, you can't look to the courts, Minnie, because the Supreme Court is not with you. The Supreme Court will allow you to be abused if you're an immigrant, if you're a woman. They will essentially allow Trump to do anything he wants, except, I don't know, I can't think of a thing that the Supreme Court has said he can't do. But as of now, it seems like it's a free for all for him.
- [15:49]
Mini Timaraju
Yeah, the Supreme Court has definitely been captured by the extreme right. And I think, you know, Pam Bondi, we talked about that. You're talking about the doj. Pam Bondi is one of the most extreme anti freedom attorneys general in the country. And the fact that she was handpicked by this Trump administration to be the enforcer is not an accident. And we're seeing over and over again a record number of right wing, anti abortion, anti civil rights, anti LGBTQ folks. The list goes on. Appointees in key positions throughout this administration and including the judicial nominees that have just been moved forward this week in the Senate who are only going to compound the disarray that the federal courts are already having on this country, the havoc they're having on this country. I don't think it's an accident, Joy. You talk about it so well, the connection between autocracy, rising authoritarianism and attacks on the fundamental freedoms of women, minorities. It's all about power and control. And I think when we're having these conversations with voters, we have to keep reminding them this is by design, this isn't an aberration. And it connects so well to the topic we're going to discuss, which is, you know, I think it's easy to think it's titillating stuff, but it's actually connected to a broader attack on our democracy.
- [17:05]
Joy Reid
Yeah. And I would include in that Brendan Carr, who is the person who's in charge of the FCC and he's the enforcer. I mean, they just cut a bunch of money from npr. David K. Johnson. They're cutting essentially anything that people on the right would be upset with or offensive. Right. They think Sesame street is too woke. We're getting rid of money for npr. They don't like the fact that NPR will do stories that make Trump feel sad. They have to go as well. I mean, at this point, you almost think you're gonna wake up a year from now and there'll be nothing on our air except what's on the air in Cuba, which is Benign, benign, non commentary that never offends the government and comedies that are non offensive to conservatives and I guess like faux Christian shows. I mean, it seems like the end game for the right is to bury the culture in maga culture and to allow no other culture and also nothing ever that will make Trump sad or upset.
- [18:01]
David K. Johnston
Well, Donald has actually said on a number of occasions, you shouldn't be allowed to write things about me that I don't approve of. He has denounced all sorts of people who disagree with him and suggested they should not have a voice. And what you're seeing here is the imposition of this is how Americans think. And if you don't think this way, you're not an American. They're seriously discussing birthright citizenship in a broader context than I think we fully realize as a society. There's a very good parody or satire video out today about somebody who is told they're going to be deported because their grandmother came into the country illegally. And of course, Donald Trump under those standards would be very vulnerable for his family, but that will never be applied to him. But you are absolutely seeing the imposition of an authoritarian regime. I've been saying since February 26th when Donald said he who saves his country violates no law, that Donald has now fully declared himself to be our dictator. And what he's doing is consolidating his power. And he's being helped by the judiciary, by the selection of which districts, various cases are brought in before friendly federal district court judges and by the Supreme Court, and the willingness of a number of very wealthy people whose fortunes depend on the good graces of the government to bend the knee.
- [19:29]
Joy Reid
And very quickly, to stay with you for a second, David, because you are a longtime chronicler of all things Donald Trump. And thank you for doing that so the rest of us don't have to, you know, Donald Trump. I have read a few accounts, including by Mary Trump, his niece, and by James Comey, whose daughter, by the way, was just recently fired by Trump, maybe because she was the prosecutor over Jeffrey Epstein and did and the diddler. That's very strange. But they both gave the same story, that Donald Trump does not laugh, has no sense of humor and cannot take a joke. Is that true from what you gave? Absolutely.
- [20:03]
David K. Johnston
And the few times there's a video of Donald trying to tell a joke, it's like watching a hostage video. Donald has no capacity to laugh about himself. And you know the video that showed Barack Obama on the very night that he is going to go ahead or not go ahead with Going after Osama bin Laden, calm as a lamb on a summer's morn, is at the annual White House Correspondents Dinner, and he makes his lines about Trump having to make decisions like whether to fire meatloaf. Everyone in the room is laughing uproariously at these wonderful jokes, except Donald, who looks like this. Yeah. No, it's a fundamental nature. Donald has never known a day of joy or contentment in his life, and he will die without ever knowing that. And frankly, one way to think about that is how sad. How it is sad.
- [20:54]
Joy Reid
It is sad. I mean, if you watch the Golden Globes every year, you watch whoever the host is, whether it's Jimmy Kimmel or whoever it is, comedians who skewering all of these celebrities in the room, and they all laugh. You're supposed to be able to take a joke. And Donald Trump, at 79 years old, still hadn't learned to do it. And he doesn't laugh.
- [21:11]
Mini Timaraju
It's true.
- [21:11]
Joy Reid
Go back and try to find a picture of him actually laughing joyous, joyously. I want to now pivot because many set us up perfectly for this because this is all taking place in one news cycle. Okay, I want to take you back, everyone, just for one moment, to 2016, when the access Hollywood video that also sparked, by the way, the hush money case. The, the, the hush money case that Donald Trump lost in New York that turned him into a felon. This is because he said a thing. And then the, the fear that a person that he'd actually had sexual relations with, who was a porn actress, would come out, scared his legal team so much that they paid her off. That's where the hush money cuss came from. But I want to listen to you and I want you to see what J.D. vance, who, who's currently Donald Trump's Junior Birdman, who back then was a Trump super critic, almost a never Trumper. This is what he said when the Access Hollywood tape came out. He and every other Republican condemned Donald Trump for saying that if you're a star, they let you grab women by the. You fill in the word. He said, fellow Christians, everyone is watching us when we apologize for this man. Lord help us. Lord help us. That is what J.D. vance said back in 2016. Now, let's take ourselves forward to 2021. 2021. This is December 30th of 2021. And this is when Donald Trump's base, the QAnon people, were all pushing the Epstein files release as something that. Well, this is back when they were just talking about the Epstein Files. Right, but, but this is, this is before there was a FBI director who came from Trump's camp, et cetera, when they were still believing that the Epstein files needed to come out and that that information needed to come out. What possible interest, J.D. vance tweeted, would the US government have in keeping Epstein's clients secret? And this came In December of 2021, when a far right winger who's been pushing the QAnon narrative tweeted, Are you paying attention yet? The DOJ and Ghislaine Maxwell's lawyers have made a deal that her little black book of contacts will never be made public. This was when the President was a Democrat. This is before Donald Trump came back into office. And J.D. vance and the far right were all demanding that the Epstein files, which they still believed existed, should be released. JD Vance continued, if you're a journalist and you're not asking questions about this case, you should be ashamed of yourself. What purpose do you even serve? I'm sure there's a middle class teenager somewhere who could use some harassing right now, but maybe try to do your job once in a while. That's J.D. vance who's, you know, that's his personality. Let's now fast forward. Donald Trump is now literally belittling his own supporters and claiming there are no Epstein files, that the Epstein files are fake, that they were invented by the Democrats, that they aren't real, that there's nothing to see here. He's now opposed to releasing the full episode, whatever it is that the Department of Justice has from Jeffrey Epstein. He tweeted the following. Just the other day, the Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch personally were warned directly by President Donald Trump that a letter that the Wall Street Journal published purported to be from Donald Trump to Jeffrey Epstein when, when Jeffrey Epstein was turning 50 years old, that that letter by Donald Trump to Epstein was a fake and that if they print it, they will be sued. Mr. Murdoch stated that he would take care of it, but obviously did not have the power to do so. The editor of the Wall Street Journal, Emma Tucker, was told directly by Caroline Levitt, Trump spokesperson and President Trump, that the letter was a fake. But Emma Tucker didn't want to hear that. Instead they are going with a false, malicious and defamatory story. Anyway, President Trump will be suing the Wall Street Journal News Corp. And Mr. Murdoch and I read that before. I give you the full story on that letter because I want to point you back to JD Vance for just one moment because this is what JD Vance just tweeted like yesterday. Forgive my language, but this story is a complete and utter bullshit. The Wall Street Journal should be ashamed for publishing it. Where's the letter? Would you be shocked to learn they never showed it to us before publishing it? Does anyone here honestly believe this sounds like Donald Trump? And the problem with that is that he's responding to Donald Trump saying the letter is a fake. So Donald Trump knows what's in the letter and said it isn't real. And he's saying the letter doesn't exist at all. Let's get to what the letter is in question. The Wall Street Journal has published a blockbuster story and they did this just yesterday and Donald Trump has already sued them over it, which claims that Donald Trump when Jeffrey Epstein, who was convicted, I believe in 202006 of child sex trafficking or of prostitution and of course we know he was abusing minors, allegedly or providing them for other people allegedly. He's now dead. And here, let me read to you from this Wall Street Journal blockbuster story that has upset Donald Trump so greatly. Here it is. I'm going to read it off screen. It was Jeffrey Epstein's 50th birthday and Ghislaine Maxwell was preparing a special gift to mark the occasion. She turned to Epstein family and friends, Epstein's family and friends. One of them was Donald Trump. Maxwell collected letters from Trump and dozens of Epstein's other associates for a 2003 birthday album, according to documents reviewed by the Wall Street Journal. Pages from the leather bound album assumed before, assembled before Jeffrey Epstein was first arrested in 2006 are among the documents examined by Justice Department officials who investigated Epstein and Maxwell years ago, according to people who have reviewed the pages. It's unclear if any of the pages are part of the Trump administration's recent review. The president's past relationship with Epstein is a sensitive moment Is at a sensitive moment the Justice Department documents the so called Epstein files and who or what is in them are at the center of a storm consuming the Trump administration. On Wednesday, after angry comments about how the file are a hoax created by Democrats, President Trump lashed out at his own supporters for refusing to let the matter go. He called them stupid. The letter bearing Trump's name, which has been reviewed by the Journal, is body. Like others in the album, it contains several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman which appears to be hand drawn with a heavy marker. A pair of small arcs denotes the woman's breasts and the future president's signature is a squiggly donald below her waist Mimicking pubic hair. The letter concludes, happy birthday and may every day be another wonderful secret. In an interview with the Journal Tuesday evening, Donald Trump denied writing the letter or drawing the picture, saying, this is not me. This is a fake thing. It's a fake Wall Street Journal story. I never wrote a picture in my life, which is a weird way of speaking. I don't draw pictures of women. He said, it's not my language. It's not my word. So he said he doesn't. His son then later added to that they never doodles, that he's never known his father to doodle ever, ever, ever, ever, ever in his life. Problem with that? People magazine put out a story literally yesterday saying, yeah, he used to not just doodle, but he actually used to sell his doodles. He used to actually put his doodles on the market. So he does doodle, and the magic marker is kind of his thing. And he, you know, he does draw on hurricane maps as well. Minitamaraju, I want to come back to you because you are the one who teed up this story first. This is a mess. But what should it matter to those who are concerned about the crimes committed by Jeffrey Epstein and the way that he died? What significance would it be if, in fact, Donald Trump did write that letter?
- [28:40]
Mini Timaraju
So the headline for me is, Donald Trump is a liar. And I think this is what's got the MAGA world all roiled up. There were so many times since 2016 to now that he's been caught actively lying, and yet for many of us who've been fighting him this entire time, it's been befuddling that it just doesn't stick. Right? And yet here we are, and he's being caught in the most obvious, obvious conflict. I mean, it's something that he, himself and his team invested in this conspiracy about Epstein. They invested in the pedophilia ring, they invested in all of this mythology, and it's now biting him. What is the famous the lions are now eating my face. Right. I didn't think that was going to happen.
- [29:27]
Joy Reid
The leopards eating the leopard. I wanted to vote for the leopards Eat Faces party, but I never thought the leopards would eat my face.
- [29:35]
Mini Timaraju
In this case, it's the. It's Donald Trump himself. I mean, the significance is, number one. For the first time, we have a crack in the MAGA coalition and in the MAGA base for us, you know, who have been fighting him on policy. Like, oh, the Trump believability issue is we have a crack in the armor and that's really important because it shows that when you hit the right, you know, issue or the right notes, they are willing to understand that this man is a liar. Number two, Donald Trump is a known serial sexual abuser. He's been convicted in civil court. There is decades of evidence and stories out there, not limited to the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. And of course, it's completely believable, Jeannie Vance, to say, is this something you think Donald Trump would do or say or do? Absolutely. Obviously so. But more importantly, it goes hand in glove with the crazy, horrific policy that he's enacted as president, that his party has enacted. They have become the party of sexual abusers and they've become the party of folks who take away your fundamental freedoms if you're a woman, if you're a person of color. And it is all, again, a bigger power and control dynamic that we see in many right wing extremist authoritarian governments. It's not unique to us in this moment. But nobody could be leading it more clearly than Donald Trump because of who he is, who his history is, what his history is when it comes to gender, when it comes to sexual assault, when it comes to misogyny. So it's the perfect storm, really. But I think it's important not to get consumed just in the gossip and the titillation of this, but to think about and center the actual victims who are harmed by Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump. And that's the women in this country have lost their fundamental freedoms, but it's also the actual victims of Jeffrey Epstein. Juana Summers just did this very compelling interview just now, a few hours ago on NPR of one of the victims. And she said what's really horrible for them is that no one's talking about them, no one is talking about their humanity, and no one is talking about what they were robbed of. And I think that's how so many Americans feel right now about Donald Trump.
- [31:43]
Joy Reid
Well, I mean, the thing about it is much like the mini, like two dozen women who have made accusations for years and maybe for a decade against Donald Trump, the woman who said she was seated in a plane next to him, that he reached over and tried to grab her between her legs, that was thrown away. And people haven't followed any of these stories. There was the journalist who was doing a story and allegedly Melania was in an adjacent room and he sort of tried to make a pass at her. You know, the fact that the Stormy Daniels situation took place while Melania, I believe, had just had Barron like six months earlier. And, you know, his sort of serial mistreatment and sort of abuse of language toward women. And the fact that he said, when you're a star, they let you do it. And the thing he said that they let you do is literally what he did to Eugene Carroll. Like it's literally what he was found civilly liable for. Many. And yet, as you said at first, there were lots of interviews. We did an interview. Everyone was interviewing E. Jean Carroll. That story went away. But the other 20 some odd women, you really don't hear about them. You really don't hear their stories. They're probably afraid to speak out. They'll probably get death threats from maga. And then the Jeffrey Epstein victims, you don't hear about them either. I see no evidence, Minnie, that the MAGA QAnon people care about those women or they care about the fact that they think the people on that list are Democrats or Hollywood people. Right?
- [32:59]
Mini Timaraju
Yeah. I mean, I'm seeing some cracks like you're seeing podcasters like the Yvonne and others who are really, really shocked by what they think is a clear indication that Donald Trump is on this list.
- [33:14]
Joy Reid
Well, I mean, Elon Musetti was on the list. Okay, let me go to Paul real quick. Elon Musk said Donald Trump's on the list. Last I checked, Paul, Elon Musk's doge got access to all of the government records that we have in this country. They have access to all 350 million Americans personal records. So who would know if not him?
- [33:35]
Paul Butler
That's exactly right. And you know, thinking like a prosecutor, it's always the COVID up. So one question is, what's Donald Trump's big concern about this letter that was discussed in the Wall Street Journal? What, what it reveals is that number one, Donald Trump is bawdy and that number two, he had a close relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Well, neither one of those are breaking news. We've known that for a long time. We've known that Trump and Epstein were real tight for 15 years. We don't know exactly why they broke up. I'm kind of interested in that. They had this falling out and apparently they're not talking and hadn't been for a while. But again, this letter from the, in the Wall Street Journal about this birthday greeting, it's not really telling us anything that we didn't already know in terms of kind of the substance. And so the question is, why is Trump making such a big deal that he's suing Murdoch, he's suing the Wall Street Journal, he's suing Dow Jones it makes it look like he's concerned that if people get interested in this issue again, if they start investigating again, that somebody really close to Donald Trump might be exposed.
- [34:57]
Joy Reid
Yeah, I mean, and David K. Johnson, I'll let you both of you weigh in on this because it does feel like Donald Trump's, his strategy tends to be big lawsuit and then force whatever that media entity is to settle. So in a weird, twisted way, this is related to the story about Stephen Colbert's show getting canceled. Right. Because what Donald Trump has done very successfully with abc, Disney, with Paramount is to sue big and get the entity to back down and pay him rather than litigate in court. Because the litigation, the discovery would probably not be good for Donald Trump. I have some breaking news here handed to me by the team on the complaint. Yashar Ali has posted, the actual complaint that Donald Trump has filed. He's seeking, I'll start with you, David K. Johnson, and then Paul, please weigh in, and then Minnie as well. He's seeking $10 billion in damages. $10 billion in damages. I've just been handed this. This is the lawsuit. You can see it here. He is suing Dow Jones and company, the Wall Street Journal, News Corporation, Keith Murdoch, whose middle name is Rupert's name is Keith, actually, by the way, Robert Thompson and Keita Soft are individuals. So this is the lawsuit. And here is his truth social missive which he called breaking news. I think Donald Trump actually thinks that this is news, that he's the breaking news now and that he says powerhouse lawsuit has been filed involving everyone involved in publishing the false, malicious, defamatory fake news article in the useless raggedy that is the Wall Street Journal which endorsed Donald Trump to run for president. This historic legal action is being brought against the so called authors of this defamation and now the fully disgraced Wall Street Journal as well as its corporate owners and affiliates with Rupert Murdoch and Robert Thompson, whatever his role is at the top of the list. He then goes on to mention, David, we have proudly held to account ABC and George STEPHANOPOULOS, CBS In 60 Minutes, the fake Pulitzer Prizes, I don't know what that means. And many others who deal in and push disgusting lies and even fraud to the American people. This lawsuit is filed not only on behalf of me. And here's what he goes. Not on behalf of me, your favorite president me, but also in order to continue standing up for all Americans who will no longer tolerate the abusive wrongdoings of the fake news media. He's using the exact same strategy that he always does. David, try to claim that something he is being accused of doing is really him standing up for you, the little guy. Your thoughts on this?
- [37:27]
David K. Johnston
Well, nobody at the Wall Street Journal from Rupert Murdoch on down is going to lose one second of sleep over the lawsuit threats. And the size of the damages he's asked for, irrelevant. You can ask for any ridiculous amount of money. The Murdoch will publish that letter and other letters that they no doubt have access to because they describe the yellow folder when it's in their interest to to do so. And Trump will fold when discovery forces him to go under oath. And let's remember from the Jennifer Flowers case during the Bill Clinton era, the Supreme Court says you can't escape the judicial process by saying, I'm the president now, maybe this court will rule differently, but he's gotta be worried about that.
- [38:11]
Joy Reid
Can I ask you really quickly not to interrupt you, but do you think that Rupert Murdoch, who already settled a case with Dominion Voting Systems and then settled, I believe, again with smartmatic over the lies that his company Fox told about the election on behalf of Trump to try to keep its Trumpy viewers happy. So they lied about the election and went along with Donald Trump's BS that the election was stolen, the 2020 election was stolen. They then had to settle $787 million. Are they the settling type in a suit like this, do you think?
- [38:44]
David K. Johnston
No. And the smartmatic case is not yet resolved.
- [38:47]
Joy Reid
Okay.
- [38:48]
David K. Johnston
But no, they had to settle the first case because there was clear, undisputable evidence that the management may not have known, but the people on air knew they were lying through their teeth. They had no choice, I think, but to settle that case. In this kind of a case, Rupert Murdoch has his own interests and fish to fry. And he is never going to give in on something like this as long as he's got the facts on his side. And, and truth is still an absolute defense. It's the worst defense you can have, but it is an absolute defense under our Constitution. And that Murdoch went ahead and published this story tells you that he understands it's a commercial importance to his organizations and his profits and that he's not going to be bullied by Donald Trump. And by the way, Trump is also now working on this ruse. Well, we're going to ask for the grand jury transcripts to be released and I'm sure Paul will back me up about this. The grand jury transcripts and you mean.
- [39:46]
Joy Reid
The grand jury transcripts in the Epstein case?
- [39:49]
David K. Johnston
That's correct. And the Maxwell case. And in the Maxwell designed to get Indictments of those two people. One is the molester and the other is the procurer. They don't have anything to do with Donald Trump. It's a complete red herring to bring these up. What we want are the flight logs, the travel records, the interviews with the then young women who were rapists. And Donald Trump, I think, understands that if it is established, not from billows of troubling smoke, but actual fire, that he is a child rapist, not a one time, oh, I didn't know she was only 14, but a serial child rapist, that his presidency cannot survive. This is for him life or death of his dictatorship.
- [40:34]
Joy Reid
Let me go to you, Paul, because you talked about whether or not this lawsuit would have merit. But I want to take you back to something that Michael Wolf said on this show and that he also has said in other interviews, which to me is the under told story. It's the part that people have not gotten to. Michael Wolf said that when Jeffrey Epstein, in 2016, when he had a conversation with Jeffrey Epstein, Jeffrey Epstein walked over to his safe, opened the safe, produced a series of Polaroid pictures that showed Donald Trump allegedly, allegedly with a very young woman sitting on his lap, and another photo allegedly with a stain on his trousers. And he allegedly said, if these were to come out, they'd have to cancel the election. I feel like MAGA has gotten the Epstein files story wrong. You just said they want the quote, unquote, Epstein files as if they think it's a piece of paper with a bunch of Democrats and Hollywood people's names on them. And they think that's the gold that will finally cause all of the people they hate to be arrested, the Clintons, everyone will go to jail. But the real things that Jeffrey Epstein seems to have retained, Paul, are pictures that depict things that maybe have some of his friends in them. Maybe he kept them for blackmail, maybe he just kept them. But this was at a time when he and Trump had fallen out because they fell out over a real estate deal. And so they were not friends anymore. And he seemed to say that in a way to say that I have something on Donald Trump. Paul Butler. So if this lawsuit goes forward, how broad does this discovery get? Can Rupert Murdoch say, okay, you want to prove this isn't you? We want to see evidence of everything about your relationship with Donald Trump if.
- [42:16]
Paul Butler
The lawsuit goes forward. And certainly the Wall Street Journal will seek to have it thrown out of court just based on the fact that he's not stating any factual dispute that should be resolved. So he might get it dismissed. The Wall Street Journal might get it dismissed even before it reaches discovery. But if it actually goes forward, Donald Trump would be hauled into a deposition and forced to tell the truth under oath. And we know a couple of things about how that's likely to go. Based on Trump's previous depositions, you'll recall one where he got the. One of the plaintiffs confused with his ex wife. He couldn't quite tell the difference between the two.
- [43:03]
Joy Reid
That was in the E. Jean Carroll case. That was the E. Carol case.
- [43:05]
Paul Butler
That's right. He doesn't come across really credibly in those situations. And so knowing that, he'd be forced to tell the truth and talk a whole lot about Jeffrey Epstein, because anything that's relevant in any way is admissible in a deposition. And there's not a judge there to say, you don't have to answer that question. You have to answer the question. And then later it can go to the judge to see if it would be admissible in a court of law. But the other important point to remember, Joy, is all of the evidence or potential evidence or possible evidence that you just mentioned. The person who probably has that right now is the Attorney General of the United States, Pam Bondi. And guess what? She doesn't have to get a court order to release that. So we know that the Epstein file is 300 gigabytes. That's millions and millions of pages of documents and evidence. The grand jury testimony that Trump says he once made available, that's a small fraction of that. And so we're in this bizarre position now where Bondi's got. We know she's got the. The visitors log to Epstein's private island. She's got just Lane Maxwell's wiretaps. So everything that she said in her phone, and Bonnie's also got text, she's got video, she's got email. And if she wanted to release that tonight, she could do it. So what she's saying is, well, I'm asking a judge to release evidence over which I have no control, the evidence that I do control, this vast treasure trove, I'm not going to release.
- [45:00]
Joy Reid
Yeah. And I want to remind you all that Cash Patel, when he was a MAGA podcaster, said to Glenn Beck in a recorded interview that the person who has the Epstein files and has all the information is called the FBI director. You know, the FBI Director is now Cash Patel. Pam Bondi, who. Who was in Florida. She had nothing to do with the Epstein case. I will know. That was Jim Acosta. I think they Were, I'm sorry, Robert Acosta, I think his name was, was the prosecutor in that case. She had nothing to do with it, but she, you know, contemporaneously, I think she was there in a legal capacity in Florida on some level and had, at least she has the power now, she theoretically could just order, she could just release everything. She could do it. But she's saying she's not going to do it and she's claiming it's to protect the victims. Minnie. She's saying that the reason she won't produce the information that MAGA is demanding that is causing, I would say, some prominent MAGA podcasters to leave Trump because Trumpism is a religion. I'm not sure there's anything that could rip most MAGA people away from Trump, but at least the podcasters are seeing that this is a sinking ship and they're jumping off. Right. The podcast is like, yo, I didn't sign up for all this. But Minnie, what do you make of Pam Bondi's excuse that the reason she won't release all of that is that she's trying to protect the victims?
- [46:13]
Mini Timaraju
Yeah, it's bullshit. I mean, it's not true. The victims themselves are saying that they want all of it released, that they. That exactly the argument that Paul just made, that it's just a tiny piece of the evidence. It's not enough to get to what the victims need for justice. It would not give them the justice they deserve. The victims are publicly talking about how they want to see all of it. And Pam Bondi has not, as far as I know, spoken to any of the victims. She hasn't made any effort to appeal to the victims or their families or their communities. So look, but call me cynical because Pam Body has been a horrible extremist who's attacked fundamental freedoms for women in this country. So I would be shocked if something suddenly changed and she cared about these victims.
- [47:00]
Joy Reid
Yeah, I mean, I want to read to you, I'm going to read it really quickly to you, David K. Johnson, because you're a Trump biographer, maybe you'll be able to, to tell us if this sounds like, if this reads to you like it could be Donald Trump. So they, while they didn't actually publish the picture of this, you know, birthday book, they described it, leather bound book and it had all these letters in it. And they talked about some of the people who had written letters. They were not surprising names. You've heard them related to Donald, to Jeffrey Epstein before. They say that the book was put together by a New York City bookbinder named Herbert Weitz. According to people involved with the process, White is dead. He died in 2020, a year after Epstein, and he is listed by Epstein as a client on his website back in 2003. And let's Alan Dershowitz wrote a letter and you know, he talk is talked and spoken about in the Wall Street Journal story. Other people that you think of. Now, let's go to what this letter that Donald Trump allegedly wrote says. Okay, and this is what it says. It's written in the third person. I'm gonna read it to you. Voiceover There must be more to life than having everything the note began. DONALD yes, there is. But I won't tell you what it is. JEFFREY Nor will I, since I also know what it is. DONALD we have certain things in common. Jeffrey. JEFFREY yes, we do. Come to think of it. Donald enigmas never age. Have you noticed that? JEFFREY As a matter of fact, it was clear to me the last time I saw you. DONALD A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy birthday and may every day be another wonderful secret. It's Donald Trump sort of writing prose. DAVID does that sound like something he would back in the early on?
- [48:38]
David K. Johnston
It fits Donald and it fits his use of coded language. I mean, what's the secret we share? The obvious speculation is 13 and 14 year old girls. So, yes, no, I don't think the authenticity of the letter is going to be a question except an effort to run it down by Trump and the people around him. And let's remember, Pam Bondi was Attorney General of Florida from 2011-19. Alex Acosta, his first name was Alex Acosta, correct?
- [49:07]
Joy Reid
Right.
- [49:08]
David K. Johnston
Made this absolutely outrageous deal that violated Justice Department policy to turn this over to the state, was later promoted by Trump and in the first term was the Secretary of Labor where he did an awful job. So the concern and focus I think should be here on if this is a hoax, why is Ghislaine Maxwell in prison? If the Democrats created and fabricated these files, don't you want them released to prove that? And if you're worried about offending or improperly treating people who were maybe anecdotal to the incidental to this, on the fringes of it, well, redact every name that doesn't relate to Donald Trump or members of Donald Trump's staff or family. And the important element here is to not let the Trump people get away with having a judge say, no, I can't release the transcripts from the grand jury because of Ghislaine Maxwell's appeals And it's not proper. Which they'll say, see, the judge won't let us do it. And to focus on what Paul said, you've got the files, you have the power to release the files. What possible reason is there to not do that? And the most important element of all of this is to keep this going, that the story will die the minute there aren't new developments. That's one of the reasons for Murdoch, and I'm sure they talked about this from many newsroom conversations. One of the things I teach in investigative reporting is never empty your gun. You always want to have a couple of extra bullets in case you need them when you come under attack for telling the truth. And so it's important that this story be kept alive. So getting some of the young women victims who are now middle aged women to come forward and talk, you are, after all, a survivor of this. You should not be ashamed. Yes, you're probably going to get troubled by some of the MAGA people, but not like you would have been in the past, but keeping this story going because I do not believe that clear evidence, like Polaroid pictures of Donald Trump, that his presidency can survive. And let's also remember one other thing in all of this. Jeffrey Epstein was a teacher with no known expertise in investing. He got all these wealthy people, starting with Leslie Wexner of the Limited, to give him huge sums of money. Where are the trading records that he was actually engaged in investing this money and making profits for these people? And if there aren't such trading records showing these kinds of profits, then we can, I think, reasonably conclude that Jeffrey Epstein was running an extortion racket. He would find a way to compromise you and he would extort you. And I think that also explains why he and Donald had a falling out.
- [52:05]
Joy Reid
It is, it is fascinating stuff. And I think it, again, the MAGA people, if you're concerned about this, I know you don't want to take advice from me, but I'm just telling you, ask for the right things. Ask for, don't just say the Epstein files, ask for specific things. If you are out there and you are a MAGA podcaster, this is my advice. Grab a clip of this interview. You just heard David K. Johnston give you a list of things you should ask for. Don't just ask for the, quote, Epstein files. You want the flight records specifically and you want whatever was in Jeffrey Epstein safe. Pam Bondi likely has it. If she doesn't have it, she can get it. She is the Attorney General of the United States. If she doesn't have the power to produce that information, who does? Please also recall that Donald Trump rummaged through National Archives that didn't even belong to him and wound up not being prosecuted for it. That man also knows how to get stuff he's not even supposed to have. The Trump administration is operating essentially as a regime. They're essentially an autocracy. There is no FBI for you. There's no FBI for, for the rest of us. If there's a crime committed. The Department of Justice just said a man who shot and emptied his weapon into the home of Breonna Taylor when she was killed in bed, he should only serve a day in jail. That isn't even a crime as far as they're concerned. They're not interested in that. They're spending all their time foaming on about dei, so they're not doing anything else. It's not like they're super busy. They could actually get on this and start releasing this information. Paul Butler, I want to also, I did want to ask you to comment on that Breonna Taylor situation, because it's pretty horrible. I did. I'm glad you were going to be here, so I wanted to ask you about that, too. But if you, if this case goes to trial, I want to also ask you, is it possible that on the Rupert Murdoch side, they could say, you know, truth is a defense in a defamation case. We want you, we want Ghislaine Maxwell to come out of prison and testify.
- [53:52]
Paul Butler
They could say that that's not likely to happen. She's appealing her conviction, and so she still got some Fifth Amendment rights, which would probably relieve her of having to testify. But in addition to the other things that the Trump base shouldn't be satisfied about, they shouldn't be satisfied about this offer from Trump to release the grand jury testimony, in part because. Because it's not likely to happen. There's a lot of secrecy and a presumption that what's said to a grand jury won't be made public. But the other concern with this suit is that Trump told Rupert Murdoch, he told the editor of the Wall Street Journal that he was going to sue them. He was trying to prevent them from even publishing the paper. The fact that it was published anyway means that they're sure that they can prevail in any kind of lawsuit. They'd have to demonstrate that when they published this, they didn't know that it was false. And again, there's, so far, we haven't seen any evidence that it's false. And you know who hasn't said it's false? The Attorney General of the United States. She has not said that it's false. She said that she doesn't believe the letter, but she hasn't said that it doesn't exist. Again, she probably knows that. And just one last thing about the grand jury transcripts. Remember, those were investigations of Mr. Epstein and of Ms. Maxwell. So there's probably not going to be anything about Donald Trump in those because that's not who the FBI and the other investigators were interested in. However, there was a whole team of FBI agents that took reports, they summarized their reports and documents called 302s, and there they have to write down everything important that a witness says. So if there's anything about Donald Trump in these files, it's probably not in the grand jury testimony, which is, again, this very formal proceeding in a courthouse, but it could be in all of these interviews that the FBI agents had with a whole host of witnesses. And again, Bondi's got those right now. She could release them right now if she wanted to.
- [56:15]
Joy Reid
Yeah. And if she did, she might release them the way that they released that video from the corrections center where Jeffrey Epstein, strangely enough, was allowed to be alone in his cell when he was supposedly on suicide watching, and then just happened to die when two of the only two security guards on duty were asleep. This after, allegedly, there was an attempt to strangle him to death by his former cellmate. All very strange. Last question to you on that one, Paul Butler, because it is weird, right, that the man whose dad hired Jeffrey Epstein as a math teacher at a very posh school in Manhattan is then Attorney General. The son of that man is an Attorney General when he allegedly kills himself in a federal penitentiary, where at least some other people who have been in that prison say it's impossible, would be very nearly impossible to commit suicide. He somehow did it. Any questions in your mind about the death of Jeffrey Epstein?
- [57:14]
Paul Butler
Yeah. So there's a video that's a camera that's trained on his cell because he was in a suicide watch, or at least had been. There's two or three minutes that are missing from this video of his cell, and we haven't heard a coherent explanation of how that happened, what part is missing and why. So, again, prosecutors are naturally suspicious, unless that prosecutor is happens to be the Attorney General of the United States, who is extremely uncurious about any allegations regarding President Trump.
- [57:57]
Joy Reid
I have kept you all longer than I promised to do, so I'm going to let everyone go and let's meet him. Raj, I want to give you the last word on this. What do you think we should be thinking about and looking out for as we go forward and thinking about this case? I'm going to give you the last word.
- [58:08]
Mini Timaraju
We need to center these victims. We're not talking enough about what happened to them, you know, and they're not going to come forward and they're not going to talk if they don't feel like the media and the Democrats and other interested parties respect them and are centering them and really want justice for them.
- [58:23]
Joy Reid
And I will tell you that any of those victims, you are welcome to come on the Joy Reid show anytime. We would love to have you on. And Minnie, I would love to have you on with if we can get one of the victims to come forward. You know, I can tell you that in the past when I was doing my weekend show, we came very close to trying to interview somebody who allegedly had some things to say about Donald Trump but was too afraid to do the interview. In the end, I mean, people are afraid because there is a backlash that's out there for you if you go against Donald Trump in any way because he has a religious cult behind him and that is a frightening thing to do. And he also has absolute power. The Supreme Court has essentially made him a monarch in the United States. And there's no Justice Department. Who are you going to call, the FBI if something happens to you? You're going to call the. You think the Department of Justice is going to help you? There is no federal government at this point. They all just work for Trump. The Supreme Court majority have said no, he can do whatever he wants. We're not going to do anything about it. So it's a scary time right now. But I will say to any of these victims, if you think about Eugene Carroll, who very bravely stepped out there, she stepped way out there. This is an older woman. She, it was an embarrassing situation to her. She didn't want to talk about it contemporaneously, but she took the chance and she did it. She's a super brave woman. We love E. Jean Carroll around here. So I want to thank my amazing guests, Mini Timaraju, David K. Johnston, Paul Butler, thank you all. We really appreciate you guys. Thanks for being here. Sure. Thank you. And I want to go back and I want to reiterate to Maga. And again, you don't take advice from me. I know you probably don't. But the reality is you were promised some things Donald Trump promised you. Mass deportation he's literally snatching people in the streets in order to appease you. He's willing to commit human rights violations in order to make you feel that he is keeping his promises. He's willing to do things that might get him noticed by the Hague. He has hired people like Stephen Miller and Tom Holman, who with cold hearted abandon are abusing people. And Homan said one of the factors could be based on appearance, meaning the color of your skin, not the content of your character. They have a, they have deported American citizens, US Citizens. They are snatching people who are showing them their real ID just to appease you. Maga, they're doing all that for you. They're sending people to Djibouti and to South Sudan and countries they've never been to before and to a terrifying lockup in El Salvador called seacot, where they, without even having a criminal record or even having a trial or even having even a hearing, they're showing up at schools, Disneyland, graduation, snatching brown people in front of Home Depot for you. They're doing all that for you. They have built a literal concentration camp, have in Florida for you because they want to constantly show you that they hear you and they understand how much you're obsessed with the border, how the border is all you think about all day and all night. We're not thinking about trans kids playing sports. And so they're going to do everything they can to appease you. They know that you're uncomfortable with the idea of black people being able to run Harvard and go to Harvard. And so they're like, we're going to stop all that. We're going to root out all DEI so that you'll never feel like, even if you never had an intention of going to Harvard, you'll feel like you wouldn't have any competition from the blacks or from the women. You'll have no competition from the browns. They're doing all of that for you. They are warping the Constitution for you in order to appease you. You maga, are supposedly the center of Donald Trump's world. He even said in his lawsuit announcement, his breaking news, that all that he's doing, fighting the release of the Epstein files, fighting the release of this letter that Rupert Murdoch must have a physical copy of because he literally, physically not Rupert Murdoch. But the Wall Street Journal clearly has it. They quoted from it. They said it has a magic marker signature. They must have a part two to David K. Johnson's point, they must have it ready to release it. But Donald Trump says he's fighting the release of that and he's fighting the release of the Epstein files for all for you. So why can't he do for you what he promised he was gonna do in the first place? He said he's gonna release Epstein files, so you should demand them. And the flight record. You want any records of the client list. You want that. You want what was in the safe. According to Michael Wolf, there was something in the safe that had Donald. There might be some Democrats implicated, too. If people were doing wrong, we on the Joy Reed show don't care if they were Democrat or Republican. Quite frankly, we're not here to protect any party. But you all are the ones who made this your cause celebrity. You made this the center of your life. And if you're a podcaster who did this, you made this the center of your podcast. So you ought to ask for the actual thing. I want to thank some people. Specifically, I want to shout out some members of Team tjrs. Dance Fitness with Nikki is a member of Team tjrs. Madge Owens. I love the name Madge. I love an old timey name. Welcome to Team tjrs. Michelle Woodbine. Welcome to the Team A. Fields. Welcome to Team tjrs. Michael Yiki. I hope I'm pronouncing your name right or Yankee. Welcome. Evelyn Brannock. Another good old timey name. I love the name. Evelyn Primrose Cunningham. That's a fabulous name. Primrose Cunningham. Welcome to Team tjrs. Cat. A cat lover. Somebody who loves cats. You can't. You can't not like somebody who loves cats. And welcome to Team tjrs. We appreciate you being here. Sandy. Just one name like Sting or Beyonce. We love Sandy. Thank you. Welcome to Team tjrs. We appreciate all of your great comments, you guys. We really appreciate y' all tuning in. I want to make sure that if you are lurking, you stop being a lurker and go ahead and become a real member of the family. Go ahead and hit subscribe. It's free. Why not? You might as well subscribe. Or you can become a Team TJRS member. I want to announce that we are one week away from doing our first Team TJRS private chat. We're going to just chat with y'. All. We're going to give you guys some extra attention so you guys can ask questions, you guys can get into a conversation. It's going to be you and me. We're going to hang out. We're also going to do that with the readers who are subscribers over at substack, which is we call Joy's House. So we're going to let all of our subscriber friends get in a virtual room and we're going to hang out, we're going to chat. We've got some other great goodies coming up for you guys as well. So join Team tjrs and please make sure that you share, share, share, share. And that you hit that like button so that you know that so that we know that you love this content and you want more of it. Thank you all for tuning into the Joy Read show, and we will see you on Monday. Ask for those files. Maga. Goodbye.