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- [00:02]
Tara Palmeri
Welcome back to the Tara Palmieri Show. We are day two of the shutdown. It is Thursday, and it's not just been a boon for Republicans because the Trump administration can now enact their doge 2.0 in the name of slashing government spending. That's right, the Office of Management Budget, the director, Russ Vogt, is apparently fulfilling his dreams since puberty, according to one senator from Utah, Mike Lee. But Ross Bott is getting the chance to go into government and hack away at federal jobs in the name of saving money over this shutdown. You know, who knows how long this will go because they can just use the shutdown as an excuse to continue to slim down the government, which, in fairness, is popular with a large majority of the public. But using a shutdown as a way to do this without getting, you know, congressional support is pretty, pretty questionable at best. But at the same time, keeping the government closed also stalls the inevitable vote on whether to release the Epstein files. Because, remember, Thomas Massie, Congressman, Republican, and Ro Khanna, a Democratic congressman, say they now have enough votes, enough signatures to force a vote on a bill that would compel the Department of Justice to release the Epstein files. There is a new congresswoman out of Arizona. She won a special election. I would say her name, but I will completely butcher it. But she's ready to sign that petition, and once she does, that bill will go on the House floor. Problem is that House Speaker Mike Johnson will not swear her in in under a pro forma session, even though it's been done before. He refuses. Some see this as a stalling tactic, as a way to make sure that this, that this elected official does not become a congresswoman so that she can do what the Republicans do not want they do to be on the record voting against the release of the Epstein files. Because it's so obvious that the American people want to know why he got this sweetheart deal, what the DOJ was up to, why so many children and girls and young women were completely ignored. But, you know, it's going to be. There's going to be a lot of pressure on the Republicans. I'll be covering this. The Trump administration certainly does not want this vote to go through. He does not want it on his desk. He doesn't want to have to be the one to veto it. And I'm sure he will, but it's just not a vote that he wants to deal with. So that is the first thing that I'm going to discuss on the Nicole Wallace show on msnbc. You will be able to hear the full show. On this podcast, we're also going to talk about why some of the people in Trump's inner circle, like his former White House advisor, Steve Bannon, his former best buddy, Elon Musk, and the Republican mega donor Peter Thiel, who donated a ton of money to him and helped basically create, you know, J.D. vance from being as a senator from Ohio when. I don't know if you remember this, but back in the primaries in. In Ohio, he was coming in third. And Peter Thiel had a huge part in, you know, helping J.D. vance along in addition to Trump giving him the endorsement. But, you know, they were all. According to Epstein's schedule that was handed over by the Epstein estate over to the House Oversight Committee, spending time with him after he was a registered sex offender. In fact, Bannon spent time with him just months before he was arrested again in 2019, and just a year after he left the White House. I don't understand why these men think it was o. Think it's fine to spend time with a registered sex offender, with a man who assaulted young children, a man who assaulted the children of other people. It's disgusting to me. We should also note that Bill Gates, a great philanthropist, also was on Epstein's calendar in 2014. It shows that they went to a party together. I still. I don't get it at all. But there is one person who says that he was disgusted by Jeffrey Epstein, and that was just from visiting his house just once, and that is the Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick. He said that he and his wife lived across the street from Jeffrey Epstein on the Upper east side, that they went inside the townhouse, and they knew from going inside that townhouse that this man was depraved, that he was creepy, he was a freak. And he said that he never went back again. And if anything, it just reaffirmed what he believed, that Jeffrey Epstein was the greatest blackmailer ever. Okay, now, I've been saying this all along. He just said the quiet part out loud, that Jeffrey Epstein was using KGB tactics. He was trying to create social embarrassment for very powerful men. By doing that, they were willing to give him their money. I mean, Leon Black, who was the head of Apollo Hedge Fund, he gave him $170 million for state planning. Come on. Epstein was not some great estate planner or financier. Les Wexner. Jeffrey Epstein makes $200 million off the man who founded Victoria's Secret. Why? Why Jeffrey Epstein? Because Jeffrey Epstein was providing this bacchanal, basically. So, you know, Howard Lutnick says this he says the quiet part out loud. And the reason that we should care so much, not only because Howard Lutnick was the CEO of Bear Stearns and he would know this crowd and the people that were around Jeffrey Epstein, but because what he is saying directly refutes the Department of Justice and the line that they came out with in July, right around July 4th, as you'll remember, when the Jeffrey Epstein story became a thing, again thanks to Pam Bondi, the doj, and when she said, quote, that they have no incriminating client list and they found no credible evidence that epine blackmailed prominent individuals, they said they had no. They had not uncovered evidence to support investigating uncharged third parties. Clearly, what Howard Lutnick is saying is that there are third parties. So, listen, having covered this story, one of the things that was very shocking to me was that, you know, Virginia Giu Frisis is on my podcast, Broken Jeffrey Epstein. You can listen to it. She said you could not walk into this man's home and not know if that there was something wrong with him. There were young girls all over the place. In fact, when the Palm beach police raided his home back, I think, in 2005, what they found were pictures of naked girls all over the walls, almost like wallpaper. So I don't think you could spend any time with Jeffrey Epstein and not know what this man was about. After all, he had a thousand victims. How could he have that much time? And that's according to the FBI. A thousand victims? I didn't make that number up. That was their estimate. How could he have the time to, you know, to. To. To assault a thousand victims, sexually abuse them, and have this separate lifestyle at the same time that. That is somehow you know, acceptable to some of the most powerful people in the world? I think we all have to think about that one for a minute. And also, so many of these girls said that they were routinely abused by Jeffrey Epstein. And he said that he needed to be massage three times day. And by massage, that meant sexual assault. Okay, so if you're spending time with Jeffrey Epstein, there's a very good chance you're around him, a young girl, a massage, and maybe you are getting it yourself. All right, we're going to move on to the show with Nicole Wallace and Tim Miller of the Bulwark, who is a huge star online. And as you know, Nicole Wallace, I'm a fan of hers and the reporting that she does at msnbc. She's really stayed dedicated to this story. She cares about the victims. I can tell from the questions from her. Her, you know, just her line of questions. And, and from the, and the way that she's. She's stayed on it. I mean, a lot of people move on, and I feel like it's important that we have people in the media who are staying on it. Lawrence o', Donnell, too, last night on MSNBC had a great. He had a great segment on Alan Dershowitz and how Alan Dershowitz called these girls prostitutes. Prostitutes. Do you believe that? Young girls. Prostitutes. And that is how Epstein ended up getting the charge of procuring a minor for prostitution because of people like that. So, yeah, it's really disgusting. All right, onward to the show.
- [08:39]
Nicole Wallace
Hi there, everyone. It's four o'clock in New York. We begin today with the story Donald Trump desperately does not want to see covered anywhere. The one that makes you wonder whether the government shutdown is, at least in a teeny little tiny part, just a good reason to avoid an uncomfortable vote on this one subject, one that would result in the Epstein files being released. Without further ado, here is Donald Trump's commerce secretary, Mr. Howard Lutnick, talking about Donald Trump's former friend, the dead sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
- [09:11]
Tim Miller
That guy's gross, right? With my wife, he's grow. The guy's gross. This was not. Oh, the deep nuance of Howard Lutnick. This guy's gross, right?
- [09:21]
Tara Palmeri
So how come Bill Gates and all these other people could hang around him and not see what you saw? Or did they see it and ignore it, or.
- [09:29]
Tim Miller
No, they participated, right? That's what his M.O. was. You know, get a massage. Get a massage. And what happened in that massage room, I assume was on video. This guy was the greatest blackmailer ever. What?
- [09:44]
Nicole Wallace
What? He's so gross. I brought my wife there. None of that makes sense. Team Trump's handling of the Epstein case, undermined by one of their own, is where we start today. Tara Palmeri's here. She writes the red letter on Substack. She's hosted two acclaimed podcast series on this topic called Jeffrey Epstein and Power the Maxwells. And here with me at the table for the hour, MSNBC political analyst, host of the Bulwark podc, Tim Miller joins us. I wish I could get to the point in my job and in my life where I can't be shocked by anything that these yahoos say, but I was gobsmacked. I've watched that Lutnick clip five times. First of all, he's so gross. And he's telling us how he brought his wife into the Home of this gross guy. And then he's talking about all the people that he's.
- [10:34]
Tara Palmeri
Like a cabaret or something. Right, right.
- [10:37]
Nicole Wallace
And, you know, I assume, quote, they traded videos.
- [10:41]
Tara Palmeri
What? Yeah. I mean, there were cameras all over the house. You could see that when you walked in, which is exactly how Jeffrey Epstein wanted it. I think it's really disgusting. But I think we can't forget that Howard Lutnick was the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, and he knew a lot of the people that Jeffrey Epstein was around, People whose estates Jeffrey Epstein managed. Right. Like Leon Black of Apollo, who gave him 170 million doll million for estate planning, or Jess Staley, who was his banker at Morgan Stanley. So he already heard about Jeffrey Epstein's reputation. After all, it had been reported in many newspapers, including the New York Post, that he was a sex offender. And so even the fact that Howard Lutnick would go into his house is questionable at best. Right. But I think he does raise something that's important, that you could not walk into Jeffrey Epstein's home and not realize that this was a depraved person, that, you know, there was something wrong with Him. In 2005, when the Palm beach police raided his home, they found so many pictures of young girls all over his wall, it was like wallpaper. It was disgusting. And so I. I just find the whole. I think it's interesting that he is obviously contradicting the doj, but how does a person have a thousand victims and have three massages a day and have a totally separate social life? I'm sorry, that just doesn't happen.
- [12:07]
Nicole Wallace
So, Tara, what you're saying is Letnick addresses all of this. I mean, and these are facts I didn't know about. Lnick says, we shared a wall. And he describes the daily massage ritual that he knew Epstein engaged in. Let me play this part of the interview.
- [12:23]
Tara Palmeri
Yeah.
- [12:25]
Tim Miller
His assistant on, like, A Saturday says, Mr. Epstein, your neighbor would like to invite you over for coffee. So my wife and I go next door. You know, we walk the seven steps. Yes, right. To the next house. For. For coffee. We share a wall. Right, right. So it's in New York City. So he invites us in. We have coffee in this, and he says, do you want a tour? Great.
- [12:50]
Nicole Wallace
Interesting.
- [12:51]
Tim Miller
He's got really big house.
- [12:52]
Tara Palmeri
Every room you went in, he's got.
- [12:54]
Tim Miller
He's got. Well, I'll tell you. So his house is, like, super big, really wide. And so he gives me a tour in the living room. Big living room. And then across from it is double doors. I assume it's the dining room. Yeah. And he opens the doors and there's a massage table in the middle of the room and candles all around and stuff. So I ask very insightful, cutting questions. I say to him, massage table in the middle of your house. How often you have a massage? And he says, every day. And then he, like, gets like weirdly close to me.
- [13:33]
Nicole Wallace
Oh.
- [13:33]
Tim Miller
And he says, and the right kind of massage. Now, my wife is standing here. So she looks at me and I look at her and we say, I'm sorry, we have to go.
- [13:53]
Nicole Wallace
Tara, I've interviewed now enough victims to believe this about this story. These women, many of them were girls. None of them were without intelligence, massive amounts of potential and integrity. Epstein wouldn't have preyed on them if they'd been any of those things. But they didn't necessarily have agency or the status that Jeffrey Epstein and the other men had. And to hear another millionaire or billionaire, whatever the heck Lutnick is rich enough to share a wall with Jeffrey Epstein describe a massage table in the middle of a dining room. And it's, you know, it's amazing how these folks live. The room was so big. And in all the other big townhouses that are this wide, the dining room abuts the living room. But not this weirdo. What is so revealing is how many people knew that Jeffrey Epstein had a daily massage. Who did they think massaged him every day?
- [15:01]
Tara Palmeri
Yeah, no, I think you're right. It's just. And he seems to be enjoying even regaling the story. It's like he's enjoying telling you about this sort of access he had to this pedophile and the fact that he had his own experience with Jeffrey Epstein himself. And you're right. I mean, this is one thing that Virginia Jafre told me when she was alive and we worked on the Broken podcast together. She said you could not spend time with Jeffrey Epstein and not see young girls around him. You could not get the feeling that there was something off about a 50 year old man spending time with girls as young as 14. And they are not his children. They are somebody else's children. Why does that. Why does not not ring alarm bells for him and his friends? Why does that not lead to a call to. To some sort of law enforcement? Why did it take so long for anything to happen? Because it was just. They were not seen as valuable. And I think that's a huge societal problem. I think it's both a. It was the fact that they were young girls and that the fact that they were. It was A class issue. It wasn't their daughters. You know, he, he often picked girls from the other side of the intercoastal in Palm Beach. He trafficked girls into this world that they couldn't get out of. Some of them were young models, they were foreign. Their parents weren't around. They came from broken families. I mean, I could keep going, but it's, it's so obvious that he chose really easy prey. And they were around some of the most powerful people in the world who could end this in a second, Nicole. Like they could end this in a second. They had the credibility, too. They were leaders of banks, of institutions, of, you know, they were leaders of universities of science, you know, foreign dignitaries, presidents. They could do something about it. And they chose not to. They chose instead to spend time with him, to continue after 2008, after he was a registered sex offender. He saw Steve Bannon hanging out with him on the schedule. Elon Musk, TBD to the island on low. You know, Bill Gates, a philanthropist, going to a party with him. Then there's Peter Thiel, a mega donor GOP megadonor, having lunch with him at breakfast. Why, why did they think this was a good idea?
- [17:25]
Nicole Wallace
Tara, have you heard from any of your sources on this story or any of the victims that you covered for a long time about Nick's sort of mask off moments?
- [17:36]
Tara Palmeri
I think, you know, it just reveals what they already know. And they, they're actually really excited for October 8th or 9th. Whenever Ro, Khanna and Massie have this press conference outside of the Capitol to try to get this bill. Did the discharge petition on this bill, it's, it's a, it's a vote that will be so difficult for Republicans to say no to. I mean, how can they vote against release in the Epstein files and then when it moves on to the Senate, it'll be the same. And if it ends up on Trump's desk, if he vetoes it, it's just such a, it's just such a bad look. I mean, they, they believe that they can put political pressure on some of these members. I think they believe that, that this is, that the people are on their side and they're hopeful. They are.
- [18:26]
Nicole Wallace
90% of the people are on their side, so they have reason to be hopeful. I don't like to dangle any false hope in front of human beings who have already endured so much, but, you know, if the polls are to be trusted. 90. It's a 90, 96 issue of which there are no other issues in this country right now. Tara, thank you so much for joining us on this.
- [18:48]
Tara Palmeri
That was another episode of the Tara Palmieri Show. Thank you so much for joining me on this big day. We've hit 100,000 subscribers on YouTube. It's thanks to you. Thank you for sharing this show with your friends and your family and for the commenting and sending me feedback and emails and just keeping me accountable to you, the audience. And I love this dialog that we're having. We're having. This is a journey that we're on together. I want to know what you want to hear more about. And I and I also have to thank my team because I could not do this without them. This is not a one woman show. I've got my producer Eric Abenate, I've got Adam Stewart on the thumbnails. I've got Dan1, Dan handling editing, another Dan who is doing more of the business affairs for me because this is, you know, a, this is an organization now. And Abby Baker who is our researcher and reporter. And I hope that this only grows and that our mission continues to grow of truth, to power. Thanks again. Like Share Rate subscribe and of course, if you like my journalism, go to Tara Palmeri.com and sign up for my newsletter, the Red Letter. My exclusive reporting will go straight to your inbox. And it's a way to support my independent journalism. It's a way to keep me doing what I love to do best and doing what I believe we need at this time.