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The Joy Reid Show
Unraveling the Epstein Mystery: A Deep Dive ft. Vicky Ward | The Joy Reid Show, Sep 19, 2025 Episode
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- [00:01]
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- [01:01]
Donald Trump
Okay.
- [01:08]
Joy Reid
Hello everyone and welcome to the Joy Reid Show. Big up to everyone listening on YouTube and Spotify and our Substack family. Now be sure to hit those like and subscribe buttons to make sure the algorithm registers your attendance and we'd also appreciate a share. Special big ups to our team, TJRS family and also our Upgrade subscribers at Joy's house. Thank you and hello also to the chat.
- [01:29]
News Reporter
The first look tonight at that now infamous birthday book drawing released by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee who say it was given by President Trump to Jeffrey Epstein years ago, part of a tranche of documents the committee says it received today after it subpoenaed Epstein's estate. The drawing shows the outline of a woman's torso, breasts and hips with a message that reads in part, we have certain things in common. Jeffrey and and later, enigmas never age before the closing words Happy Birthday and may every day be another wonderful secret. At the bottom, a familiar scrawled signature. The note's existence initially reported by the Wall Street Journal in July. The paper says it was part of a book compiled by now convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, given to Epstein when he turned 50 in 2003. That report prompting immediate pushback from the president, who filed a $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the Journal, his lawyers alleging no authentic letter or drawing exists.
- [02:31]
Donald Trump
I don't even know what they're talking about now. Somebody could have written a letter and used my name, but that's happened a lot.
- [02:37]
News Reporter
The press secretary tonight arguing, it's very clear President Trump did not draw this picture and he did not sign it. White House aides printing for reporters copies of the President's recent signature. For his part, President Trump has repeatedly insisted he doesn't do drawings, despite sketches, mostly skyscrapers signed by him that have been put up for auction over the years.
- [02:57]
Donald Trump
I don't do drawings. Sometimes he would say, would you draw a building and I'll draw four lines and a little roof, you know, for a charity stuff. But, but I'm not a drawing person. I don't do drawings of women. That I can tell you.
- [03:11]
Joy Reid
Now, Donald Trump, he is our subject of today and his story on the subject of his best friend for more than a decade, namely Jeffrey Epstein, has changed dramatically over time. He's gone from he's a really fun guy who likes women as much as I do, but mainly on the younger side, to I kicked him out of Mar A Lago because he was a bad guy, to I kicked him out of Mar A Lago because he was stealing my employees who were apparently 14 and 15 year old girls working in the spa who shouldn't have been there in the first place. To apparently telling Speaker Mike Johnson that he, he was actually the informant who turned Epstein over to the FBI. Well, now that's some new information. While doing all of that, Trump has also gone from promising his base that he'd release all of the files the government has on Epstein as well as the files on the JFK and MLK assassinations to, well, maybe not so much Epstein.
- [04:07]
Vicky Ward
Sure, sure.
- [04:08]
Fox Interviewee
First to back up on that, in February I did an interview on Fox and it's been getting a lot of attention because I said I was asked a question about the client list and my response was it's sitting on my desk to be reviewed, meaning the file along with the JFK MLK files as well. That's what I meant by that.
- [04:32]
Joy Reid
And now in office he switched all the way to the whole Epstein thing is a hoax. And if you magas won't stop talking about it, you're a bunch of idiots and I don't even want your support. And then landing on even trying to release the Epstein files is a quote, hostile act. And in that case he means a hostile act by the four count em, four Republicans left in Washington who even want to release the files. Now, whether or not you're one of the people spray painting Trump is a pedophile on the walls of occupied government buildings in Los Angeles or at the still standing protest tent outside of Union station in Washington D.C. you've got to admit, Trump's Epstein story is shifting in some really, really weird ways. And the questions about exactly what kind of power Epstein accumulated in global capitals, from Israel to the UK to Washington D.C. are real. And the implications for our national security, let alone the question of whether Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell's victims have any hope of ever getting justice, are frankly frightening. To try to get some answers on all of this, I recently had the opportunity to interview Vicki Ward, one of the single most read in and dogged journalists who has covered this story. And Vicki Ward joins me now. Vicki, thanks so much for being here.
- [05:50]
Vicky Ward
Thank you for having me, Joy.
- [05:52]
Joy Reid
So I have been wanting to interview you for quite some time. I don't know if you felt the vibes of me trying to track you down. And my wonderful team got in touch with you. So thank you so much for doing this because, you know, I feel like there are few journalists that are as read into the Epstein drama as you as you are. And so I want to just start by asking you kind of a couple of sort of setup questions because these are the things that people presume and I know you've done a lot of work on this. There's a lot of presumption out there that Jeffrey Epstein was working for either US or Israeli intelligence. In your, in your, you know, fact finding on that, what have you found?
- [06:36]
Vicky Ward
So my reporting, I made a whole podcast series about this called Chasing. Ghislaine suggested that he was. He, I don't think he was on any government intelligence agency pay role. You know, he wasn't a member of the Mossad, you know, wasn't a member of the CIA. But you don't need to be on a government payroll to be what they call a sort of a hyper fixer, someone who can move and communicate between the leaders of countries, the leaders of those countries, intelligence agencies, at a time when those countries may not be communicating well. So, so Jeffrey Epstein unquestionably was someone who was useful as a conduit between Israel and America. Why he managed the money and had complete power of attorney over the money of the wealthiest Zionist in this country, that is Leslie Wexner. And Jeffrey Epstein not only managed all of his money in terms of wealth creation, he was in charge of Les Wexner's philanthropic donations to places like Harvard. Which again, puts Jeffrey Epstein at the heart of the American establishment in terms of, you know, the scientific community. What is the latest technology coming out of Harvard. That's a very useful place to be if you're Israel. You want to know what the Americans are doing. And again, because of Leslie Wexner and his ties to, you know, Leslie Wexner was very close to Shimon Perez. Jeffrey Epstein got to know Ehud Barak very well, again, through Leslie Wexner. The, you know, the traffic could go both ways. And as we know, he was close to several American presidents. So that is just one nexus of power. And it's worth remembering that Jeffrey Epstein understood the value of being close to the academic community in a country from Ghislaine Maxwell, her father, Robert Maxwell, when he was alive. And he unquestionably was in intelligence. Ghislaine Maxwell said last week he worked for British intelligence. But it's also pretty well documented that Robert Maxwell worked for Israel, worked for the Russians. I mean, he worked for the Bulgarians, was busy, involved in arms deals and in Iran Contra. Robert Maxwell owned something called the Pergamon Press, which, which published scientific journals. And it was a very useful way for him to convey across countries what the latest cutting, you know, cutting edge developments were in technology. So Jeffrey Epstein had. That was one of the things he learned from Ghislaine Maxwell. He was also, as we know, close to various African leaders. He was, he, he hosted Mohammed bin Salman, now the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, in his home. He even boasted in the last four years of his life to a journalist who's sadly now dead. Ed Epstein, no relation, that he was. That the Vladimir Putin was a client of his. So, and, and he was, we do know this. And he had an apartment in Paris, which is where a lot of the Gulf state leaders go. It's where they also have apartments on vacation. And definitely at times of conflict in the Middle east, he was unusually well placed to convey information between the rulers there who might not be able to talk officially. So that, I think, is what is what. When people talk about intelligence, that is what they mean. It's a much more nebulous concept.
- [11:17]
Joy Reid
Than.
- [11:17]
Vicky Ward
I think has sometimes been understood.
- [11:20]
Joy Reid
And to go through this because there are friends and there are clients, Right. And then there are marks. Did you get the sense, just as you looked at this journalistically, was Jeffrey Epstein keeping dirt on these people or were they clients of his illicit operations or just friends? Or is that a mix?
- [11:41]
Vicky Ward
Right, so there's a. Yeah, gray area. Talk about. I mean, this is really what, what we all want to know, you know, what, what I definitely, you know, have reported is that, that, you know, there are A lot of bold face names who were clients of Jeffrey Epstein. I'm not talking about sex clients, financial clients. It's not clear why many of them signed up to be with Jeffrey Epstein, who didn't graduate from college, as opposed to a regular investment bank or, you know, lawyers or accountants. But we do know that various bold face names, Les Wexner, Leon Black, entrusted him with money. I do know of instances in which very wealthy people gave him money, whether to put offshore or they thought they were going to get some big return, they did not see that money come back. What Jeffrey Epstein told me many, many years ago, in the fall of 2002, when I met him and was reporting a piece of, about his money for Vanity Fair, was that wealthy people, when they, when money is stolen from them or they lose it, they don't go to the authorities. That's embarrassing. And I think that was unquestionably leverage that he had over people. You'll notice, for example, that Les Wexner only said in public after Jeffrey Epstein died that Epstein, to whom he'd entrusted his entire Fortune, had stolen $60 million from him. He waited for Jeffrey Epstein to die. Leon Black wound up stepping down from the head of Apollo, you know, one of the largest private equity firms in this country, because it emerged that it was just remarkable that he had paid Jeffrey Epstein $160 million. I mean, I think there are still a lot of questions. What on earth do you pay $160 million? I mean, he said, you know, he gave him tax advice. It better have been really good tax advice. And as we know, Senator Ron Wyton is, is still all over that, trying to try, you know, trying to get to the body bottom of that. But, but following money, particularly following money when it goes offshore is very difficult to do. And you know, I think that is one of the reasons why we have so many questions is because for the Southern District or for the government to try to, to go after it, not knowing if they're going to be successful is an endeavor I think they're unlikely to pursue. And I remember being very frustrated sitting through Ghislaine Maxwell's criminal trial because it was like you had all these different pieces of a jigsaw puzzle being floated before you, but you could never put it all together because the scope of the government in that case was very narrow. It was about the sex crimes. So even though these bold faced names on flight manifests would, would come on and off a screen, even though there were huge sums of money that got talked about, you it was impossible to put it all together because that's not what the trial was about. And, you know, I'm enormously frustrated because I think that the questions we really have now about Jeffrey Epstein have to do with the money. They have to do with the abuse of power, which is connected to the money. I mean, there's. There are no examples, by the way, of Jeffrey Epstein ever abusing or trafficking underage girls until he got this mysterious fortune. So it's the money and the men is a very, very important piece of this puzzle that we still really have no answers to. And you're going to ask me about the blackmail question?
- [16:06]
Joy Reid
Yes.
- [16:06]
Vicky Ward
And, you know, this is an area I can only speculate. It's definitely something that people who knew Jeffrey Epstein well thought he was more than capable of. I did sit in Ghislaine Maxwell's trial through an extraordinary day of testimony from the FBI agent who was called to the house, to Epstein's house when his plane landed at Teterboro and he was arrested. And the FBI agent explained how they went in and they. They. They saw and they took a photograph of.
- [16:43]
Joy Reid
Of.
- [16:46]
Vicky Ward
A shelf of DVDs. And the FBI agent was asked, well, what did you do with the DVDs? And she said, well, we left them there because they didn't have the right warrant to go and take them away. When they got the right warrant, they came back to the house and lo, the DVDs were gone. And the next day, the agent explained, Jeffrey Epstein's lawyer, personal lawyer and accountant brought them back. They were the ones who said they'd remove them. But that in itself raises more questions than it answers.
- [17:24]
Joy Reid
Yeah, for sure. I want to go back just. I want to back up for just one moment because Les Wexner, better known as the person whose company includes Victoria's Secret for those who are unaware. Right, so. So, as you said, he's a sort of very high level, very wealthy Zionist. He and Mr. Black appeared to have been, per Ron Wyden, almost Jeffrey Epstein's only clients. This man was a math teacher at the Dalton School in New York. He was, as you said, not a college graduate. He goes straight from there, I think, into arms dealing and then to becoming an investment manager with almost no understanding of how he made that trajectory. Of course, William Barr's father being the headmaster at Dalton when he was hired makes it even creepier since Barr was in office in Attorney General when he died. Do you have any. Have you been able to make that trajectory of how he goes from math teacher to you know, being the sole investment manager for Mr. Wexner and Mr. Black.
- [18:29]
Vicky Ward
Well, you know, it's a story that defies common sense and plausibility. He told me that he was a sort of bounty hunter in the 1980s. He was. I mean, he also told me, by the way, Joy, a bunch of garbage. But this much I was able to corroborate with legal documents that he let. He got to Bear stands, as you say, through sucking up, tutoring the daughter of the then chairman, Ace Greenberg. He then leaves Bear Stearns in weird, murky circumstances. At the time that Bear Stearns and its leadership is being investigated by the SEC for insider trading. He then spends a decade as this sort of bounty hunter. And I noticed Ghislain Maxwell talked about this recovering money that had been stolen from very wealthy families. Now, I do know of a Spanish family that he did recover money that had been stolen from. He recovered it out of the Cayman Islands, but he then put it in a Swiss bank and he gave himself. He told us, the Spanish family, that the way to protect the money was to give him power of attorney, something he would need to do with Les Wexner. They never saw that money ever again. So he recovered it. But then to. To keep it for himself. He then goes into business with somebody I met. First met when he was in prison, convicted of committing the biggest Ponzi scheme in American history. Prior to Bernie Madoff, that was a guy called Steve Hoffenberg, who Epstein wound up working with. And around the time that Hoffenberg went to jail and the money from his company mysteriously vanished, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars. That is the time period in which Jeffrey Epstein gets introduced to Les Wexner. And Les Wexner, I think it's important to remember, was a stepping stone for him in terms of setting Jeffrey Epstein up as this money manager, which he had no real claim to being. But once you become the guy running the money for one of the richest men in America, that then becomes a calling card. And it was on the back of that that people like Leon Black, but back in the day, there were others. Mort Zuckerman, you know, there were a whole bunch of wealthy guys, Ron Perlman, in that orbit. And he was then, you know, we know, because of his connections to Harvard, people like, you know, Larry Summers, you know, then the president of Harvard, you know, it's. It's all a, you know, a plutocratic circle. And where Jeffrey Epstein was very clever was he knew how to play that game. He knew, and he actually knew that by being a bit of an enigma by being different. These guys, and mostly guys are all very competitive. They're all looking for an edge. And if they think he could do something for him that, you know, a more conventional private equity thermal bank couldn't do, you know, that would probably be very appealing.
- [22:16]
Joy Reid
All right, y', all, this seems like an excellent time to note that standing up for religious freedom is not just a matter of good manners. It is a matter of saving our democracy from literal fascism. Which is why I am so proud to say that the Joy Reid show is brought to you by the Freedom From Religion Foundation. And here's some good news. We love good news. For those of us who believe in the First Amendment, the Freedom From Religion foundation just helped stop two big pushes to inject religion into our public schools. In Texas, a federal judge blocked a law that would have required the Ten Commandments to be hung up in every single public classroom. And in Arkansas, after another FFRF lawsuit, a judge ordered Conway Schools to immediately remove their Ten Commandments posters. These rulings remind us that public schools are for all children, regardless of their faith or lack thereof. That wall between church and state, that thing, it is holding strong thanks to advocates who are fighting to keep our public institutions free and fair and for everyone. So go to FFRF US School to support and text my first name, Joy to 511511. To stand up for real freedom, just text Joy to 511511. Because here's the thing. Once you let religion make the rules in schools, and it's only a matter of time before they're making the rules for everyone everywhere. Go to FFRF US School or text JOY to 5 11, 511 and message and data rates may apply. Okay, so back to business. Let's talk about the Donald Trump of it. Because, you know, going back to the 90s, this was the age when we didn't really understand who Diddy was, who turned out to be, who turned out to be, you know, a of a monster. But during that time period, Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump meet somewhere in the late 80s, early 90s. That's sort of the trajectory I think we understand. But Donald Trump was in the company of other men who later were accused of abusing models. So there's John Casablancas, there's Jean Luc Brunel, I believe his last name is from Karen models. They're all running in the same circles. Trump at one point has a modeling agency. John Casablanca signs Ivanka Trump. I mean, they're all sort of one group. Oddly enough, both of them end up getting accused. The two modeling agency guys end up getting accused of abusing models. Jean Luc actually dies in prison in France not long after Epstein. It's a strange set of coincidences. Donald Trump's friends. But what do you understand about Epstein and Trump's relationship? Because you've interviewed a couple of his first victims to come out. You were one of the first to interview them. And they say, one of them says, listen, Donald Trump was creepy in front of me, you know, which he denies.
- [24:57]
Vicky Ward
As Maria Farmer said, she's not absolutely, you know, she's not for you. Epstein says to Trump, that's it. Yeah, yeah, very creepy. Well, so my understanding is. So you're 100% right. You know, these, these are two men surrounded by the modeling world. You mentioned Les Wexner, owner of Victoria's Secret and you know, Paolo Zampoli, the owner of a modeling agency. Who's, who was, I think Les Wexner, Victoria's Secret's biggest client was Melania Trump was one of his Palo Zanpolies models. And Paolo Zampoli is now in Trump's cabinet. He's got, he's, he's got some curious title. It's sort of ambassador for something or other to the UN anyway, so, you know, there are, you're 100% right. There are wheels within wheels. I've also reported how when, when Donald Trump owned the Plaza Hotel, I believe in the early 1990s, they both together went and introduced themselves in one afternoon to a woman named Melanie Walker. And Melanie Walker was, was, was somebody that Jeffrey Epstein then I think housed from time to time. He put her through medical school and she ended up working very close to Bill Gates. And she was indirectly the conduit that years later would bring Bill Gates into Jeffrey Epstein's orbit. As for Trump and Epstein, you know, they were definitely socially friendly. Their worlds completely intersected. And then you get to 2000.
- [27:01]
Joy Reid
For.
- [27:01]
Vicky Ward
Approximately when there is this falling out that, that weirdly, you know, Trump has never been forthright about. And that's peculiar in itself. You know, this is not a man who shies away from talking about things we know. You know, what he has said is that he, he was ticked at Epstein. Right. For stealing employees from him.
- [27:30]
Joy Reid
Yeah. A 14 year old, Virginia Giuffre was, was supposedly 15 or 14 when she was working. What was she doing working at Mar a Lago. That's strange.
- [27:38]
Vicky Ward
At the, at the spa.
- [27:40]
Joy Reid
Yeah.
- [27:40]
Vicky Ward
And he's, and, and, and Donald Trump implied that there could have been others. He has you know, it has been reported on. I think he told Sam Nunberg, who was a campaign advisor to him back in 2014 and 15, that he was. He kicked Jeffrey Epstein sort of out of Mar a Lago when Epstein was going after the daughter of a member there. But there is this other story that has to do with a fight about a piece of a mansion near Palm Beach.
- [28:11]
Joy Reid
Right.
- [28:12]
Vicky Ward
Which both men wanted to buy Epstein and showed Trump this mansion, wanting to get his advice about where to, how to move the swimming pool. So the story goes, and Trump then outbids him in a bankruptcy auction. I mean, it could be true. I mean, the other thing that we do know, Brad Edwards, who's the lawyer for many of Epstein's victims, does say in the book that he's written about all of this, I think, called Relentless Pursuit, that Trump was very quick to be very helpful, unlike many other people, that Trump was very quick to answer all sorts of questions about Jeffrey Epstein when Brad Edwards came calling. So that's pretty, that is, that is interesting.
- [29:16]
Joy Reid
Yeah, it is. And the fact that the house that they both fought over ends up being bought by a Russian oligarch who then never lives in it, I believe, just flattened it. It's just all of it is so strange. Let's talk about Ghislaine Maxwell for a moment because you did sit through her trial. When you sat through it, was the case made that she was as guilty as Epstein in this trafficking or was she a participant in some ways in the sexual abuse?
- [29:41]
Vicky Ward
Yeah, I mean that, the, the, definitely the picture that of her that came across at her trial was of somebody who was critical to the scheme because these, these girls only began to trust Jeffrey Epstein, get anywhere near him because there was this oh, so respectable, upper class, intelligent, well educated, older English woman. She's the person who made them all feel safe. Without her. He couldn't have, he, he couldn't have done it. And yes, there were definitely testament, there was definitely testimony that she participated in, in, in some of the abuse. Yeah, I mean, she was in no sense a victim of Jeffrey Epstein. You know, I mean, I know that's something that's come up on the right. No, not at all.
- [30:45]
Joy Reid
She was a perpetrator. And what do you make of both her sudden removal after speaking with Todd Blanche, who used to be Donald Trump's lawyer, ironically enough, in the trial, about him apparently paying off a former porn actress because he had had an affair with her? Todd Blanche, who was one of the three lawyers, now they've all gotten jobs in the Administration. He then now works for the Justice Department. He goes and he sits with, with Ghislaine Maxwell. She allegedly. And there are these tapes out now in which she completely absolves Donald Trump. Surprise, surprise. Now she's moved to sort of a Club Fed and it appears she may be up for a pardon. What do you make of all that?
- [31:24]
Vicky Ward
I think it's really deeply troubling. I mean, I'm going through those tapes with a fine tooth comb right now, you know, and it's, it's very striking to me how she very, very cleverly reframes her narrative as this sort of woe is me house of mirth. Distressed upper class English heiress who's, who was, you know, lost her money and was made vulnerable to this, you know, this awful guy, Jeffrey Epstein. And Tom Blanche just goes along with the whole thing. I mean, Ghislain Maxwell's father, I mean, this is more information than you need, but, you know, was, it was a crook. I mean, he stole nearly a billion dollars from the pension funds of his employees. And Ghislaine Maxwell opens by telling Todd Blush, oh, my father didn't care about money. You know, there's no pushback. No. So, you know, so I mean, the whole thing is ludicrous. And, you know, I had hoped from a journalistic point of view that she would answer questions about the abuse of power. She would answer questions about the money, Jeffrey Epstein's money and the men and you know, this, this gray area role he had within the intelligence, international intelligence community, but not a bit of it. Not, not a bit of it. So it looks like she got a sweetheart deal moving her to a Club Fed for, for nothing.
- [33:02]
Joy Reid
Yeah.
- [33:03]
Vicky Ward
For a whole bunch of sort of fabricated reframing of her narrative. And if she now gets a pardon, it makes a complete mockery of the American justice system so appalling.
- [33:15]
Joy Reid
It's not nothing. What she, what, what Donald Trump wanted from her is absolution is for, is to say out of her own mout, has a recording of it. Donald Trump did nothing wrong. I think that's why she's getting all this soft treatment, even though she's a monster. Let me ask you this, is there, you've done this journalism for a really long time. Yeah. Is there any evidence that Israel, because so many of these people were also in that world where they were very hyper Zionist, very pro Israel. Is there any evidence that Israel has whatever it is Jeffrey Epstein has on American politicians, including Donald Trump, including Bill Clinton, including, you know, you know, sort of big time, you Know industrialists, I guess you could call them, like Bill Gates does. Does Israel have dirt on these men?
- [34:05]
Vicky Ward
So this is something that did come up in my podcast, Chasing Ghislaine. There is a source in intelligence who says that the Israelis have it. I want to be very careful here because the source is tricky. The guy called Ari Ben Menashe, he has said some things in the past that are just not true.
- [34:30]
Joy Reid
And just to let our audience know, Ari Ben Menashe, he was an Israeli intelligence agent, I believe, for a long time. He's actually a Jewish Iranian who I believe in some way was involved in. In the Iran Contra deal.
- [34:45]
Vicky Ward
Yes, he was. He was. And I have no doubt that Ari Banash knew Robert Maxwell. I'm sure that that is. Is. Is very true. So. But. But I think that you have to take what he says about the tapes. You. You have to. You have to, you know, have a suspension of. Of. Of belief. But it, you know, this question of, do they exist? Where are they? I mean, there are people who knew Jeffrey Epstein much better than I did who believe they absolutely exist, and we would all like to know where they are and what the political significance of them is today.
- [35:32]
Joy Reid
What do you make of Donald Trump's sort of make Israel great again? He's created Miga. He seems to be, you know, making American law that really seems to serve the interests of the Likud, almost making it illegal to oppose Israel's war on Gaza, making it all but illegal to protest against Israel. Really legislating in a way that's very strange. It pivots from. You may not do something that has to do with the United States policy to. You also can't protest this. And the speculation is out there in the world that he's doing it because that country, or maybe Russia has something on him that has to do with Jeffrey Epstein, and so he has to do it. Is there any sort of accuracy, journalistic.
- [36:13]
Vicky Ward
Accuracy to that now that I don't know? That I don't know what I do know and have reported on, which is a different subject. You know, I wrote a book about Jared Kushner.
- [36:22]
Joy Reid
Yes, I. And so we're gonna do a whole nother show on that if I can get you back, because that book was amazing. I read that. It's so good.
- [36:29]
Vicky Ward
Yeah. And that's in the news right now because Jared's father, Charles Kushner, the ambassador to Paris, has weighed right in to what's going on in the Middle east in a way that's put President Macron in A very difficult spot. So, you know, the Kushner family ties to BB Netanyahu are very long standing and very close, but that is a different subject from Defiant, so.
- [36:57]
Joy Reid
Yeah, it is. The whole thing is, I think what's making people feel conspiratorial about it is that it does involve seemingly foreign governments. And of course, because Ghislaine Maxwell's father was so involved in Israeli intelligence, it begs a lot of questions, and I'm glad that you're asking it. I didn't want to get off of this podcast without talking about your new book, though. I'm going to pivot really quickly to the Idaho 4. This was such an incredible tragedy. I believe the subtext of your book, your subhead is An American Tragedy. Please tell us about that book because I, I feel like this is something we also need to know because it was a mystery as well.
- [37:30]
Vicky Ward
It really was a mystery. Thank you, Joy. No, the. The American the Idaho Four is the story of the awful college murders that took place in this small liberal college town of Moscow in Idaho, very close to the border of Washington State. And the book does tell, you know, we, we really bring the four victims, Zanna, Maddie, Ethan and Kaylee. It's the we. We. Hopefully it's a real tribute to them and who they were so that they won't be forgotten. It does, I think, go some way to addressing the why this was the big, you know, why are four of the beautiful young college students knifed in the middle of the night. The guy who did it, Brian Kohberger, as we know, suddenly at the 11th hour, pleaded guilty before a trial, meaning that he did not. So he avoided the death penalty, but he did not have to give an explanation for the why. There is every, you know, in the book, we sort of show that he was an extreme misogynist and that he was very likely a member of the incel community. He was very familiar with that world and that he may well have copied a guy, an incel sort of hero, if you will, called Elliot Roger. But I think the book is also a bigger story. It's a portrait of America now, Moscow's liberal college town and a deeply Republican state. The victims families were very divided as to how they viewed the system of American justice. Three of the families did not trust the prosecutors, do not trust the prosecutors. Now. They're very divided about what happened. Two of them would much rather this thing had gone to trial. And I think the book also talks about the role of the Internet and social media in our culture. The police Went by the book. They, they were, they kept the investigation under wraps, particularly in the first six weeks when they didn't have a suspect. That's what they've been trained to do. But in the modern world we live in, you know, nature abhors a vacuum. And into the void of silence, all the true crime maniacs, there are millions in this country, created a lot of false narratives that were very, very harmful, both to the friends of the victims, to local business people who nearly went bust, to professors. So the book, I think, really gets into all of that. Brian Kohberger is a creation of the Internet. You know, the incel community is something that's, that's got much bigger and more violent in the last 10 years. And the, and the victims were, you know, products of their age. They all wanted the, the women wanted to be influencers and they, you know, had public social media accounts. It didn't occur to them and their friends that there would be harm in that. And of course, tragically, there was.
- [40:45]
Joy Reid
And you know, I think what brings these two stories together, Vicki, is it is the discarding of American women. You know, a lot of the young women who were harmed by Jeffrey Epstein, you know, were just young women who were looking for a break. They were very poor. You know, there's a. There. People don't believe there's a poor side of Palm Beach. I lived in Florida for 14 years. I'm telling you, there's an impoverished part of Palm Beach. You know, women lived in poverty, in trailer parks, they didn't have anything and they aspired to something. All these models who went to audition for John Casablancas and Jean Luc, they're thinking, I'm going to be a model, I'm going to be a student. And they were just sort of passed around and treated as objects. And then these women, as you say, are a product of a sort of modern version of that, just looking to be seen and to be relevant. And women are so discarded in this era. This sort of MAGA man, you know, manscape era, whatever you call it, Manosphere era. It's so tragic. And I wonder, just for you, as a journalist, as my ex, as we exit the interview, how do you process that? Because it does feel like a lot of your stories do gravitate toward trying to give voice to these discarded women.
- [41:52]
Vicky Ward
Yes, yes. I mean, and I'll be honest, you know, one of the reasons I wanted, you know, this story intrigued me and I wanted to do it. You know, I have two 22 year old sons, and as their mom, I You know, I wanted to know what they're exposed to and get some understanding of that. I will say this. I encountered the worst of humanity in Bryan Kohberger. That's evil. Jeffrey Epstein was evil. But I also encountered the best in the resilience of the friends of these young people, of their families and the fight, their fighting spirit to go on. And I think that's why, in the end, why we keep going on. Why do you do what you do? Because we believe there's a point to it. And then at the end of the day, good outweighs evil.
- [42:51]
Joy Reid
We certainly hope so. I have to believe that because my name is Joy, I have no choice. Vicki Ward, thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure. I want to have you definitely come back because I have so many more questions about the Kushner book. The Kushner family. It is a fascinating additional story. So thank you so much for your time. I so appreciate you.
- [43:09]
Vicky Ward
Thank you for having me, Joy.
- [43:10]
Joy Reid
Thank you. Well, that's a wrap. Thank you all for tuning in to the Joy Read Show. Thanks also to Vicky Ward and we want to make sure that you all support her book. We're going to put a link to her book below so that you can take advantage of her journalism. Always a great read and always very informative. Want to thank you all for tuning in. Be sure to hit like and subscribe. If you didn't do it at the top, you can still do it now. Also hit share. Want to big up everybody who tuned into the chat today. Also big ups to everyone on Spotify and Substack as well as YouTube. We love all of you guys. Be sure to follow all the things and make sure that you come back for the next the Joy Reach show. See you then.
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Joy Reid
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