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- [00:00]
Tara Palmeri
Monday Sidekick, the AI agent that knows.
- [00:03]
John Heilman
You and your business, thinks ahead and takes action task at anything seriously.
- [00:08]
Tara Palmeri
Monday Sidekick, AI you'll love to use. Start a free trial today on Monday.com.
- [00:15]
Nicole
Let me, Tara Palmari, bring you in on this email from 2011. It is written in 2011 from Jeffrey Epstein to Ghislaine Maxwell and it reads, quote, I want you to realize that the dog that hasn't barked is Trump. A victim whose name is redacted spent hours at my house with him. Ghislaine Maxwell writes back, quote, I have been thinking about that. And then let me just play for you. It's a little creepy, but I want you to hear in Jeffrey Epstein's voice his answer in a 2010 deposition to the same subject. This is, this is a question and answer from his 2010 depot.
- [00:59]
John Heilman
Have you ever socialized with Donald Trump in the presence of females under the age of 18? Though I'd like to answer that question, at least today I'm going to have to assert my 5th, 6th and 14th amendment rights or.
- [01:21]
Nicole
Terry got his amendments down. Your thoughts?
- [01:27]
Tara Palmeri
Yeah. I mean, it would be hard to believe that at least answering that question, that President Trump was not around underage girls around Jeffrey Epstein. I mean, having known Virginia Roberts, she told me that Donald Trump, that she met Donald Trump through Jeffrey Epstein, that she thought that he was a nice guy, but that she had met him through Jeffrey Epstein. I know from Brad Edwards, who I believe is the lawyer asking that question in that deposition that he interviewed Donald Trump and Trump said that he went to Epstein's house and there were girls there. I don't think anyone can doubt or deny that Donald Trump was not fully aware that of what Jeffrey Epstein was doing and what his M.O. was. And I think these emails just tie him closer and closer and make the deniability even more difficult for him in this time when he's clearly sweating. This is a really difficult time for him. He's obviously panicked. He's pressuring two members, Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace. We don't know what they're going to do. Nancy Mace tweeted something out cryptically about of course the files were going to be released. I don't know what the Democrats are talking about. She also wants to run for governor in South Carolina and needs the endorsement of Trump to win the primary, or at least that's what one would think in terms of his golden endorsement. But they're breaking ranks. I mean, I spoke last night before these emails even released, were released to a House Republican source And they said, yeah, they're breaking ranks already. They know this discharge petition will likely go through and they will have to vote. Yay. They can't vote nay on this. It is just, it's just too hard of a vote to take even to protect Donald Trump.
- [03:17]
Nicole
So, Tara, something interesting. I mean, it's sort of in our brains now as true, but I wonder if we, if we sort of tease it out if it really is that he. She needs his endorsement. A Republican primary. The only thing more popular among Republicans than Donald Trump is the release of the Epstein files. I mean, do you think that these emails could change the calculation, that the only thing riskier than crossing Trump's path is standing in the way of transparency on the Epstein case?
- [03:51]
Tara Palmeri
I think it's been one of the most politically challenging things for President Trump to handle. There has not been a story that has stuck to him like the Epstein story that I've seen in covering him. And I covered him in his first term. Even January 6th, it seemed to. People seem to move on from that. This is something that is just too difficult for him to shake. And because of the way they're handling it, because of the fact that, that it's a drip, drip, drip, and it's coming through whistleblowers, it's coming through subpoenas from the estate, it's coming through leaks of his emails. It's going to keep coming like there's more and more and more. You cannot be friends with a person for a full decade and not expect the ties to be exposed. So, you know, there are 20,000 emails. Everyone's going to go through them tonight. But there's more and there's more and there's more. And so I just think the way they're managing it is a complete disaster. Anyone in crisis would say that.
- [04:51]
Nicole
Tara, have you heard from any of the survivors today? In response to just the clear implication from Michael Wolf to Jeffrey Epstein in 2016, that, quote, if he, Trump says he hasn't been on the plane or to the House, that gives you a valuable PR and political currency, clearly trying to leverage any lies that they think Trump might tell.
- [05:18]
Tara Palmeri
I think it was really, really shocking for the survivors. I received some text messages from them and spoke to one of them today. This is a smoking gun to them. They don't see what more you would need. The UK Ambassador to the US had to resign for much less, and yet there really has been no accountability. It just feels like to them that what more do they have to say? How much more do they have to scream out into. Into the. Into the void, it feels like for a lot of them to get some justice. But, yeah, I mean, this morning they felt that it was. It was a huge moment and that it might actually lead to some justice or accountability. But we'll see what happens today. And if that discharge petition passes, we'll know soon enough, right?
- [06:11]
Nicole
Yeah, I mean, we're keeping our. Our eyes on. On the happenings there. I want to bring John Heilman into this conversation around the politics. I mean, actually, let me first just do this window into these people, these characters that we've talked about, or I've talked. I think we've all talked about from a distance. I mean, to see the way they talk to each other is really, I'm just going to say, disgusting and chilling. One of them is a convicted child sexual predator and trafficker who raped girls as young as 14 and is accused of doing a lot more things to women that young. This is the kind of jokes that his brother sends him. Mark Epstein sent Jeffrey Epstein a meme that shows Donald Trump's face on it with the words, would you trust this man with your daughter? So that is sent to a deceased child sex trafficker from said deceased child sex trafficker's brother about Donald Trump. Heilman, what does that do to your brain? It ties mine in all sorts of knots.
- [07:29]
John Heilman
Well, I mean, Nicole, the notion that Donald Trump was an assorted figure when it came to how he treated women, that is not news. And so, you know, we have heard, you know, we know what he said on Howard Stern. You know, we know the stories about him at beauty pageants. We know him talking about at one point about, you know, about if he were not her father, you know, by wanting to date his daughter. I mean, on the edges of Donald Trump's personal life, there has been a lot of seediness. All you have to do is for a long time, and all you have to do is look at the video. And we've talked about this before on the show. The video of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein in the middle of that party leering it at young women. And Trump with this kind of white man's overbite, looking around the room in a kind of lecherous way. That look is the look that gets you the kind of comment that, would you trust your daughter with this man? I don't think that. I mean, I'm not dismissing it. I'm just saying this is all part of a pattern. This is all part of a consistent picture of Donald Trump. This is the grab him by the pussy guy, that is the guy we're dealing with here. And so I think of the things, you know, the kinds of the language, the vernacular, the casualness, everything in these emails, if you look at all of them that I've had a chance, that not just the three main ones that were the first ones we talked about earlier today, but the ones that you've seen with him with a variety of different people, they all have this kind of quality to them which is they send me, they don't so much seize up my brain as they send me racing off to take kind of like a Karen Silkwood shower. Like I want to like every time I come up against anything that's a direct source material thing that touches Jeffrey Epstein, I feel like I need more than a hot shower, more than a cold shower. I need like an acid bath to try to get all the scum off of my eyeballs and off of my, that might have dripped somewhere on my body as I absorb these emails. It's just all so scummy. And it leads us to the question that we've been asking all along and Tara and others have talked about. It's like we still sit here and we say, what is it that Trump has tried to keep from us? What is it that Trump, what is it that's going to be, that's going to be revealed here? The pattern of behavior suggests it's really bad. We don't know what it is, but there is a pattern here. And he continues to take political water over the, he's continuing to take on political water with. Every day this just gets worse and worse. It's not going away, it's only going to get worse. There's only going to be more of these emails. And yet he continues to stonewall in this completely self defeating, self destructive fashion. It just, the more he does it, the more it makes you think and the more of the kind of flavor and texture of these, of these communications that we get, the more it makes you think that you're. That gives you a sort of intuitive sense that yes, whatever the political damages that he will, that will be inflicted on him from the full release of these files is really bad. And that's been kind of clear from his behavior for months. But it just continues to get more and more, not directly and not dispositively but by implication, it just continues to get worse and uglier by the day.
- [11:24]
Nicole
It's just stunning to see how they talk amongst themselves. I think that is more than any single word or single email casualness of how they talk about what a liability Epstein is and how they're going to handle it like it's just a PR or a blackmail opportunity. It's just really craven. Tara Palmer, you know how much we appreciate you, but especially on these days, thank you for making time for us. Lisa and John, stick around ahead for us.
- [11:54]
Tara Palmeri
New reporting that was another episode of the Tara Palmieri Show. I want to thank you all for tuning in. You can support my show by going to tarapaulmary.com and signing up for my newsletter, the Red Letter. If you become a paid subscriber, you get all of my exclusive reporting first and you can support my independent journalism. If you like this show, please rate it, subscribe and subscribe. Share it with all your friends. That's how you keep me in business. And of course, I want to hear from you. So leave comments. I do answer them. And please keep following me every single day. I want to thank my producer, Eric Abenante. I want to thank Abby Baker, who's handling my social media and my reporting, and Adam Stewart on the graphics. It has been a long day and it's not quite over yet, but today was a major breakthrough. So stay tuned in. There'll be more, I'm sure.