← The Tara Palmeri Show
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- [00:00]
A
Monday Sidekick, the AI agent that knows you and your business, thinks ahead and takes action. Ask it anything seriously. Monday Sidekick AI you'll love to use. Start a free trial today on Monday.com.
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B
Welcome back to the Tara Palmeri Show. We have had a really intense last week or so covering politics. It has certainly shook the world that Democrats finally taken back some control after what's been a really depressing year for them since Kamala Harris's loss and the losses across the country. But they've shown they've still got some juice. They got their mojo back. As James Carville likes to say, the best way to to come out of the wilderness is to win. And I think they showed that on Thursday night. But this episode goes back to a topic that I obviously am very invested in and believe needs to be exposed. And I hope that when Congress returns to session after this insanely long shutdown, longest in history at this point, that once they swear in Adelita Grijalva, congressman from Arizona, that the Republicans will have the votes to compel the DHS to release the Epstein files. Well, first I'll have to go to the Senate and then to President Trump's desk. Also, will the Department of Justice actually release all of the files? Will they be redacted? They're not very good at self policing, but puts a lot of pressure back on President Trump and it puts in a very important story back in the spotlight. So this episode is from about a month ago. I went on KCRW's left, right and center show and I basically went to a wine bar in Brooklyn with my producer, Eric Abenate, the reporter Vicki Ward, who's known for her profile of Jeffrey Epstein from over a decade ago, actually many decades ago, and David Einrich of the New York Times, and he's an excellent investigative reporter who has been all over the Jeffrey Epstein story as well. The New York Times has certainly taken an interest in this story and has been breaking a lot of ground. So the four of us all sat down together. Eric offered his perspective as someone who's really in touch with the MAGA movement. I offered my reporting, especially what I know from the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and their struggle to be heard. And Vicki sort of talked about her own journey with Jeffrey Epstein. You know, how she was threatened when she reported on him for the first time. What she didn't get into the story about Maria and Annie Farmer and what it was like to be pregnant at the time and literally have Jeffrey Epstein hounding her and her editors and who she blames for what Some people have called a puff piece. David Einrich does not hold back, by the way. His commentary is quite illuminating. You know, we all had probably a few too many glasses of wine, so it makes this conversation, this brain trust you could call a little bit ruckus. But I feel like it's what's needed right now is for people to just speak freely about a topic that is so, so taboo. But also there are so many truths just that haven't been said because of fear of retribution. I think we get a lot on the table in this one. I hope you enjoy it. These are reporters who have extensively covered Jeffrey Epstein from every different angles, with all different political stripes. And we not only share what we know, but we ask questions and bring up what we don't know. Let me know what you think you can find. Of course, all of my exclusive reporting@tarapalmieri.com that's T A R A P A L M E R I dot com. It's how you can support my independent journalism as I continue to cover this story and others that others. While I. While I continue to cover this story and others, making sure that we continue to investigate even when corporate media has lost interest. I have a feeling this story will not be going away anytime soon.
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A
A couple weeks ago, we did that thing we do now and again on our show. We closed up the Bibber and Bell wine store in Brooklyn, pulled some bottles off the shelves, and got together a group of reporters to talk shop. This time, it was reporters who have covered the Jeffrey Epstein story for years. In one case, for two decades. A story that has been so inescapable this year that even as we were setting up to record, there was breaking news about Epstein.
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C
Can't believe this just dumped.
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A
A House committee just released an indecorous drawing of a woman's body. I'm sure you heard about this. With Donald Trump's signature on it. From a book of notes compiled by friends of Epstein's for his 50th birthday. Trump says it's fake.
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B
Where is it?
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D
Is it doj or is it the House oversight?
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B
Oh, no, you're right. The House oversight.
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A
The conversation that ensued on this evening, sometimes heated, sometimes drunken, sometimes eye opening. You will not want to miss this one. As one of our guests wrote me afterwards, it was an unusual evening. And another, I had a blast. And maybe a bit too much whiskey from KCRW and placement theory. This is Question everything. I'm Brian Reed. Stick around. Even though Epstein has been dead for six years, somehow he has managed to haunt our news cycle as one of the most consequential stories of Donald Trump's second term. Trump and other MAGA figures have spent years promising their base that if Trump got reelected, he would release the files, all the secret information the government holds from its investigations into Jeffrey Epstein's crimes. And now Trump got reelected and he won't release the files. The Epstein story has unleashed a kind of upside down world where Trump's own party and base are furious with him, which is quite a thing for a news story to be able to do these days. And it's meant that reporters and news outlets have trained their sights back on Epstein and specifically on Jeffrey Epstein's relationship with Donald Trump. It's well known the two were friends for years and what Trump's motives might be for not wanting to release the files. The Epstein story, it's the decathlon of reporting challenges. There's corruption, pedophilia, sex abuse, human trafficking, money laundering, fraud, suicide, alleged espionage. The reporters we assembled have covered many of those tendrils of the story. They still are, and I wanted to get them together to compare notes and get some perspective on this behemoth of a story. What is known, what isn't, what are they looking into right now? What are the things they most want to find out? And even the things reporters can and can't say about this story to this day. Here's who joined us. We have Vicky Ward, British accent, who's been a guest at the wine shop before.
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C
Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3.
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A
Vicky wrote what is pretty much the first, first profile of Jeffrey Epstein for vanity fair in 2003. She's the only one here who actually got to know and meet Jeffrey Epstein. This was before much about Epstein, let alone his sex crimes, was publicly known. Vicki was assigned to look into this eccentric wealthy man and where his money came from. While she was reporting, two sisters came forward with allegations that Epstein had sexually abused them. Vicki reported it out, but ultimately Vanity Fair cut the sisters from the piece. These could have been the first sex abuse allegations against Epstein to come to light, a fact that has haunted Vicki since. We also have David Enrich.
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D
Are we drinking?
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A
If you choose to, yes, I choose to. David's an investigative reporter and editor at the New York Times. He covers big banks and law firms, and he's reported on Epstein's relationship with those institutions for years. And on the day we gathered, David and his team had just dropped a huge story that morning about Epstein's long ties to JP Morgan bank, which explains his sitting in the backyard of the wine store doing a live hit on CNN right before we started.
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B
Dark, Dark story. Well, to your scoop.
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A
And then Tara Palmieri, who's worked for Politico, Puck, ABC and now is Independent on YouTube and Substack. Tara has reported two investigative podcasts on Jeffrey Epstein focused on his survivors and their attempts to get transparency and justice, including Virginia Roberts Giuffre, one of the most well known survivors of Epstein's who died by suicide earlier this year. In this conversation, we do discuss sexual abuse and pedophilia and suicide. We've only included survivors names if they've identified themselves publicly. Tara, at our request, also brought along.
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E
Her producer from Texas, someone called me and they're like, who's your production company? You're talking to the production company.
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A
Actually his name is Eric Abenante. Because as we were booking this, we realized Eric had an interesting and important perspective. He's a Trump voter himself who is part of the MAGA movement and has been tracking the effect the Epstein scandal has been having on Trump's support in that movement. We settled in and Tara answered my first question. I'm just curious, like from each of your perspectives, what is this story about at its heart right now? What's driving it?
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B
I think it's a class story. I think it's a story about the wealthy and what they're allowed to get away with and this two tiered justice system and this idea that this person was invincible and that all of these victims, a thousand, according to the FBI is probably conservative estimate, had zero justice over decades. Like going back 30 years to the first complaint to the FBI. And yet he remained in the upper echelon of society as if he had done nothing at all. And so to me, I think this is a class story and it's like cover up government secrecy, corruption and maybe a little spycraft, tabloid VOD or two.
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D
Money, power, sex.
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A
That's David Enrich of the New York Times.
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D
You know, there's this network of really powerful men and really powerful institutions that are just instrumental in allowing this to happen and allowing it to happen for so long. There's not been accountability and there has not been a reckoning about what these people and, and these places were doing and who profited from that either financially or otherwise.
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C
Well, I also think there's an international component to it, right? I mean, in that Epstein's not just about the American plutocracy and the American upper class. I mean, this was a thing that was all around the world. You had Prince Andrew, you had Ehud Barak, you Had supposedly Mohammed bin Salman in his house. He had a picture of the Pope. He bragged about Putin being a client. I mean, the reason he had an apartment in Paris was because Paris is where the leaders of the Gulf states go on vacation. So it is international. And I think the other thing that obviously I'm as interested in as David is the money, because I have yet to come across evidence that Jeffrey Epstein ever committed sex crimes against women miners until he amassed an extraordinary amount of wealth where he created homes and islands in which he could basically hide. And we still don't know the answer to the very basic question, which is, how did he make his money? And we all get a little bit closer, but we have not got the answer. We cannot explain why Leon Black, one of the richest men in this country.
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A
Very wealthy hedge fund manager.
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C
Leon Black, private equity.
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A
Private equity.
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C
Thanks.
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A
Yeah.
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C
Paid him nearly $160 million for, quote, unquote, tax advice. We cannot explain why Leslie Wexner gave Jeffrey Epstein, who didn't graduate college.
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A
Leslie Wexner is the founder of Victoria's Secret.
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C
Exactly. Leslie Wexner, extraordinarily, for reasons no one can explain, gave Jeffrey Epstein very early on in the late 1980s, early 1990s, power of attorney over all his estate, all his many, many, many millions. And, you know, when I wrote my Vanity Fair piece back in 2002, Leslie Wexner was, you know, heavily involved, sending me emails about how great Jeffrey Epstein was. What a genius it was suddenly, in 2019, after Jeffrey Epstein's dead, Leslie Wexner sticks his hand up and says, jeffrey Epstein. We fell out. You know, over 10 years ago, Jeffrey Epstein stole $60 million from me. That is not the first time in my reporting that I have come across very wealthy people who don't talk about Jeffrey Epstein for the simple reason he robbed them. And Jeffrey Epstein said to me back in the fall of 2002, one of the things he said that might have been true was that when wealthy people have money taken from them, they do not go to the authorities. The power of social embarrassment is huge. And oftentimes, very wealthy people might have been doing things with their money they didn't want other people to know about. For instance, they might be putting it offshore. And if you use Jeffrey Epstein. Now I'm going into hypothetical situation, but if you use Jeffrey Epstein to put your money offshore and some of it doesn't come back, who are you going to go crying to?
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A
Vicki was here about six months ago with some other reporters. We were talking about billionaires and Covering billionaires kind of at the beginning of this administration. And you talked a bit about Epstein and yeah, I certainly didn't expect that we'd be having you back like six months later or so on a day when like the top story on the New York Times is a lewd drawing from Donald Trump in a birthday book to Jeffrey Epstein. I'm just curious, like, what's most on your mind today?
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B
September 8, 2025, emoji moment from Sadie, who writes. I'm not crying. You're crying.
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C
This is what I said during my.
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First appointment with my physician position at Mochi because I didn't have to convince.
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C
Him I needed a GLP one.
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B
He understood and I felt supported, not judged.
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I came for the weight loss and stayed for the empathy.
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B
Thanks, Sadie. I'm Mayra Amit, founder of Mochi Health. To find your mochi moment, visit joinmochi.com Sadie is a Mochi member, compensated for her story.
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C
Well, if you had said to me in the fall of 2002 when, when Jeffrey Epstein was certainly not a household name, and if you had said to me, 20 years from now, this man is going to be more talked about possibly than anybody else, even dead.
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A
That is crazy.
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C
On one level, I'm sort of sick of it. On another level, I really want to know the answers to these questions. I want to know how he made his money and I want to know what the leverage was.
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B
And it's the girls.
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C
See, I don't think that in case it's the girls. I think it's a complicated answer. I think the girls were part of it. But I have yet to come across underage women who've got concrete examples of guys that they were farmed out to. I mean, I know this is talked about.
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B
I mean, I have.
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C
You have.
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B
I know. From Survivors. Yeah.
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C
Tara, how many people are you talking.
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B
To just so you have some idea?
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A
This is Robin Simeon, Question. Everything's executive producer. She's with me behind the bar.
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B
How many survivors on a regular basis? 4 to 5 every day. But, like tomorrow.
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E
Wow.
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D
Are you serious?
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A
Yeah.
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D
That is heavy.
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B
I talk to them all the time. I talk to one on the way over here.
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C
And in total, how many are you.
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B
In contact in your. I mean, probably like I've met with at least over a dozen. Fifteen. I mean, maybe more than that. Probably 20. I've been working on this like we, we did much more of like a survivor based podcast for Broken Jeffrey Epstein. And it was much more about like them putting the pieces together. So I sat down with A lot of them, many of whom did not want to ultimately participate in the podcast, which I respect. I mean, mostly what I found was that the younger the girls were when they were abused, the less likely they were to speak. And I know a lot of people say, oh, those girls, you know, those women, they must have been older when they were trafficked. The ones that speak out often, I mean, you hear from Courtney Wilde, who had braces and was 14, and then you see others 12, 13, 14. But when you're that young, I think it's just so emotionally scarring that they just don't have any interest in talking about it, being out there being advocates. So some of the older women, they tend to be, you know, the louder voices for the younger ones. The huge component in this story is the recruiting. They were recruiting their own friends. One of the girls recruited her best friend, and so that complicates the guilt. He made them all feel like they were prostitutes that brought in their best friends and all of their girlfriends.
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C
They created a scheme of guilt, a pyramid scheme.
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B
Yeah. None of these girls could report it because they were all a part of it. 16 year old, 17 year old girls, 14 year old, 15 year old girls. It was a pyramid scheme in a local high school. But I feel like we need to step back from all of this, by the way, and remember, some of these Girls were under 18, under 17. These were somebody else's kids. I don't care. You know, they were. I think it's terrible that they recruited each other, but some of you would see in those original police reports, they were making more money from giving Epstein a $200, $300 massage than their father would make in a full week. But, yeah, no, it's, it's, it's ruined their lives. I mean, the number of suicides, Virginia Giuffre, I mean, it's almost five. I mean, that we know of. I think it's more than that. I mean, Virginia Giuffre, I spent a lot of time with her. We were driving around together and knocking on doors. I was close with her. I spoke to her before she died, and she was not well.
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A
Can you just explain who she is?
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B
Ginny Giuffre is probably one of the most prominent survivors of Jeffrey Epstein. She has accused Prince Andrew of molesting her. And, you know, the crown settled with her. And she's accused a number of other prominent men. And, you know, she lived with that. She dealt with defamation cases because of it, because she came out and spoke in 2010. She was probably One of the first women to openly tell her story. And she's a big part of the reason why so many of them are so vocal right now, because of her courage. But it came at a real personal toll to her. She lived a lifetime of abuse even before Jeffrey Epstein, unfortunately. But it's kind of a cycle. You see, with sex trafficking, with victims of sexual abuse, they often go from one abusive situation to the next, which.
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D
Would make it easier to discount them. And also, it just, like, made them more predisposed to just troubled in a lot of ways.
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B
And then he.
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D
In his abuse, obviously, her father dropped.
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B
Her off at his house many times. There was a lot of dysfunction in the family. I also think the brutality in which she was assaulted is, like, not really understood. Specifically on that plane, you know, on that Lolita Express private jet that Jeffrey Epstein had. I mean, we passed by the airport, and I remember her body, like, almost like, moving in a way that suggested, like, an actual physical reaction to it. I mean, she suffered. Like, she suffered greatly. I mean, her first encounter with sexual assault goes all the way back to childhood. And the thing with Virginia, if you knew her, she was so open. She was unbelievably open. Like, she had no boundaries, which is another thing. You see, with a lot of people that are victims of sexual assault, they don't understand boundaries, and it's very easy to sort of take advantage of that person. I mean, even for me as a journalist, I was like, no, we should stop. Like, we need to take a breather. She's like, no, no, no, let's keep going. Let's keep going.
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A
When did you last speak to her?
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B
In February 2025. Right before. Right, Right. When Pam Bondi dropped those classified documents, which were really just Virginia's depositions. Right. And so I asked her, like, what do you think about this? She said it was a circus. She said she hoped that Trump would have been the one to release the files. Like, that's the other thing we keep forgetting, and I'm sure you've seen this, so many of these women believe Trump and his promises of that I will release the files. Elon Musk sent her DM saying he'll release the files, and I don't.
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D
Wait, hang on. What?
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B
Yeah. Elon Musk sent Virginia a direct message saying he would release the files, and so they really believed.
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D
That's interesting. I didn't know that.
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B
Yeah, I reported it.
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D
Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. I know you might have to add a new podcast to my list.
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B
That's okay. But, no, it's the point is that many of these women believe that they could maybe get justice through President Trump.
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A
This is one of the things I learned from this conversation. I didn't know that survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's abuse, some of them at least including Virginia Giuffre, had pinned their hopes on Donald Trump to release the files and to help them get accountability. A few days before we all got together, a group of survivors had convened in front of the Capitol in D.C. to demand the release of the Epstein documents. Tara was there with them, and Vicky had been watching, interested particularly in one survivor who spoke. Anoushka digiorgio.
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C
Good morning. My name is Anoushka digiorgio, and I stand before you today as a survivor of both Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. I speak today not only in service of my own recovery from trauma inflicted by Maxwell and Epstein, but to honor the lives, the courage and sacrifices of Virginia Giuffre, Caroline Adriano, and others who could not continue. Their voices mattered. Their stories must not be forgotten. Anoushka De Georgi is an old girlfriend of Trump's. Many years ago, when he was splitting up from Marla Maples, he met Anoushka with Ghislaine Maxwell in New York and flew them all off to Mar?
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B
A Lago.
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C
And then they had some whirlwind romance, and he then invited her to his wedding to Melania. And she's always said he was incredibly kind.
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A
This is a woman who is a victim of Jeffrey Epstein. She's standing on the Capitol lawn calling for Donald Trump to release the Epstein files.
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C
She also was one of the four who testified in Ghislaine Maxwell's criminal trial.
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A
Okay.
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C
And she also outed herself. She had testified in Ghislaine Maxwell's trial under a pseudonym. And that morning on the steps, she made a direct plea to Trump at the end of her remarks. And I'm gonna paraphrase. Cause I don't have it here. But she said, you know, President Trump, you have the power to do something here. Please use that power. And it was.
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A
She said to release the files specifically.
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C
Is what she want.
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B
Yeah.
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C
And she was not remotely hostile. And nobody would have known. She didn't stand there and say, I know President Trump. I mean, it was all very graceful and subtle and classy, and, I mean, I was watching it thinking, oh, well, this. This will work. And I think they thought it would work.
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A
I read David's piece from today. It was great. And am I right in kind of distilling like one of the Main findings of it. That's new is like before there have been, you know, powerful institutions that have come into disrepute, even had to pay money because of their association with Jeffrey Epstein at a time when they should have known better. Probably. But is this the first time you've actually shown with reporting that money was flowing through in these institutions to support sex trafficking?
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D
Yeah, I think that is something that has not previously been reported with any authority or substance. I mean, to me, the bigger takeaway is just the degree to which J.P. morgan knew what Epstein was doing.
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C
Right.
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D
J.P. morgan, which is the country's largest and arguably most prestigious bank.
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A
I've heard of it.
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D
Yeah, you've heard of it. You might have seen one of their Chase branches around. They were warned not by people outside the bank, although they were, but by people inside the bank and people who are not like little low level gnomes in a back office somewhere. They were people in the. Literally on the same floor as Jamie Dyne in jail. Yeah.
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B
He was a sex offender.
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D
He was a very. The worst sex offender. A level three sex offender. So someone who is likely to continue to pose a risk to society. Yeah. And be a recitative or.
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B
He was receiving money from.
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D
Well, so he became a JP Morgan client in the late 90s and in 2006 was indicted and arrested for sex crimes. In 2008, he pleaded guilty, went to jail and became a sex offender. And J.P. morgan started banking. I mean, banked him throughout. And there were real concerted campaigns within the bank to kick him out for those exact reasons and subsequent ones as well, because he was under federal investigation for sex trafficking.
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B
Unsuccessful campaigns.
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D
Unsuccessful campaigns.
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B
They paid the victims a lot of money as well. JP Morgan, while he was in a jail, like keeping it going essentially.
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A
And everything you're saying, you're saying like it's known. But this is. We only know this as of today because of your story or a lot of it.
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C
David did an amazing putting it together, but a lot of that discovery was out there and because there was a lot of litigation between Jess Staley, the Virgin Islands, JP Morgan and separately Deutsche bank.
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A
Who is Jess Staley? Just walk us through this.
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D
So Jess Staley was the number two executive at JP Morgan and was the single most important person there responsible for the maintenance of the Epstein relationship. And JP Morgan was the bank that banked Jeffrey Epstein for 15 years. The 15 years in which he was committing the most kind of egregious and heinous of his crimes and built his sex trafficking network. And JP Morgan was there by his side, supporting him and financing him.
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B
And setting up bank accounts for girls under 18.
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D
Yeah, it's crazy, right?
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B
Setting up bank accounts for girls under 18 through JP Morgan and not giving identifying information about them. That's insane.
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D
Yeah, I second that.
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C
But the real hold that Jeffrey Epstein had over Jess Staley, which meant that ultimately, he had a hold of the J.P. morgan. His real leverage over Jess Staley was not a woman. Sure. There was one instance of sex. It was that he made Jess Staley's career, when J.P. morgan acquired Highbridge Capital, hugely important to their business, but hugely important to Jess Staley. I actually. For the first time reading your piece, David, I suddenly understood why Jess Staley stuck by him all this. It was because he owed his entire professional success to Jeffrey Epstein.
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D
There was also sex.
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C
Yeah, there was also, but it wasn't underage sex.
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D
We do not have indications that Staley at least was raping girls. It's more likely, based on our reporting, that he was having sex that Epstein was paying for and arranging. But either way, to your point, that is a source of great leverage, potentially, that Jeffrey Epstein.
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B
Social embarrassment.
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D
Social embarrassment. He's married, he has kids. And look, I've been following this stuff really closely, but I haven't been in the kind of daily grind writing about this that much up until very recently. And so we started kind of digging through some of these depositions and other court records. We got a bunch that were sealed and had not been publicly disclosed.
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A
This is in some lawsuit?
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D
Yeah, it was a deposition in the lawsuit that the US Virgin Islands had brought against JP Morgan. And Staley was deposed. And Staley responds in what, for all Staley's sins? It was a very astute, nuanced read of what made Epstein work. And he said that Epstein relied on his network for legitimacy. And I, Jess Staley, as the head of the country's biggest investment bank, am a huge part of that network, and therefore a huge part of his legitimacy. And so it pays for Epstein to curry favor with someone like Jess Staley, so he can say, look at me. I've got access not only to a bunch of money, but also to the top executives at one of the world's leading banks.
- [28:31]
C
So one of the questions I had, David, was about exactly that. You said that Jeffrey Epstein was still valued by JP Morgan when most of the senior bankers really want him out, and yet he's indispensable to the bank because he's a middleman. You had this sentence in there about Leon Black, one of the country's Richest men. Why does one of the richest men in the country need a middleman to JP Morgan?
- [28:59]
D
I don't know. That is a very good question.
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B
Was a.
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C
Hold the phone.
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D
These are all the right questions. And I completely. There are so many unanswered questions and so many of those unanswered questions involve some of the most powerful people in the world, whether it's Leon Black or Benjamin Netanyahu or.
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B
Or our sitting president or sitting president.
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C
David, what I found so fascinating though, about your story, it has everything to do with how power works, how power really works. And that's what I think the Epstein story is because it's about how power works in the shadows.
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A
What stayed with me was Jess Stalamp, the executive at JP Morgan. Like emailing Jeffrey Epstein. While in a hot tub at Epstein's ranch.
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B
Yeah.
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A
In New Mexico.
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B
While sipping white wine.
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A
While sipping white wine.
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B
Just saying, like, I, I love that.
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A
Was it I or something close to that?
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D
I owe you much.
- [29:52]
A
I owe you much. That image to me is just like, oh, this is how this happened.
- [29:57]
D
There was so much.
- [29:58]
A
Jeffrey wasn't there. He was, you know, he was given.
- [30:00]
D
He was under house arrest at the.
- [30:02]
A
Time, at the time for sex offenses.
- [30:05]
D
And here is one of the highest ranking executives at one of the most powerful banks in the world. Like marinating in Epstein's hot tub.
- [30:20]
B
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- [30:32]
A
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- [30:34]
B
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- [30:54]
A
After a quick break. What have these reporters heard about and seen that hasn't been made public yet? Oh, and we get into a little tussle at the bar. Earlier this year, Attorney General Pam Bondi leaked, I'm doing air quotes here, some fat binders that were labeled the Epstein files Phase one to a bunch of right wing influencer types. And they were excited until they paged through the binders and saw that there was basically nothing new. It was almost all documents that had been released already. They started complaining about it. So did some Republican lawmakers get us the information we asked for? One Republican congresswoman from Florida shouted in all caps on X, Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel. They kept Teasing that they would, they would get the information, but it wasn't happening. And this turned into a furor on the right among media personalities, elected officials and just die hard Trump voters. Why were Trump's people protecting these files about a sex criminal who used to be Trump's friend? Files that Trump had vowed to release. The story jumped from MAGA media into mainstream media. Trump was desperately trying to change the subject, but getting pelted with questions about Epstein from reporters. And all this journalistic pressure generated from Trump's own movement ended up forcing some big revelations about this story. The birthday book and Trump's alleged artistic contribution to it, for one. But also when he was coming back from a trip to Scotland in July, Trump was facing questions from reporters on Air Force One. And he ended up acknowledging that Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who you heard Tara talking about earlier, one of Epstein's most well known survivors. The whole reason Giuffre ever came into Epstein's orbit was because she was working at the spa at Trump's private club, Mar A Lago. Trump said Epstein, quote, stole Giuffre from him as an employee. The President also told reporters there were other young women Epstein recruited from his spa. It's pretty interesting that it was rage from fervent MAGA Trump supporters that shook loose these new discoveries about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. That's why we wanted Tara Palmeri's producer On her independent YouTube show, Eric Abenanti, to come in from Texas for a conversation. He's a Trump supporter, self proclaimed MAGA who rolls in MAGA circles where people are fuming. And we wanted him to tell us what's he hearing? What are he and other Trump supporters the most furious about? What's their most burning question about Trump right now?
- [33:34]
E
Is Trump in control or is there a domestic or foreign intelligence agency that actually controls him? That has been the big question, more so than the sexual assault. And like any trouble he's in, people on the right are concerned, is he an actual character, a puppet of the deep state? And who is the deep state that's controlling him? That's the burning question.
- [33:58]
B
Well, I've heard this from people like this is kind of like circulating in the online world, right? That like that there's some sort of blackmail that they have on Trump, that that's why he's acting like who's they? Would they like that? There could be, I don't know, three.
- [34:12]
E
Letter intelligence agencies, domestically or foreign intelligence.
- [34:16]
D
Assad is like five letters.
- [34:18]
A
Yeah, I was going to say which one?
- [34:19]
E
MI6 MI6, KGB are also accused of this.
- [34:24]
D
I just, I've got to push back a little bit here. There is not any evidence at all that Donald Trump is part of some like right wing conspiracy here. The much more plausible explanation is that his name is in these files in one way or another.
- [34:38]
C
Well, we know that.
- [34:39]
A
Yeah.
- [34:39]
D
And we know that it's been redacted. And so I just. What's the basis for what you're saying? Like for the question you're raising, Eric?
- [34:46]
E
I mean I don't have any idea optics standpoint. We can go to the least salacious explanation here, which is he merely looked the other way by being on the plane that you saw a 14 year old girl who potentially was topless or something else like that. And just by that alone you looked the other way and that is politically damaging enough.
- [35:06]
D
But then we can go, wait, that's the benign explanation?
- [35:10]
B
Yeah, like that's what we know right now. We know he looked the other way. He was best friends with him in the height of the sex trafficking operations.
- [35:15]
E
That wasn't how it was sold to the MAGA base though, for the context. It's not like the MAGA base actually cares about this issue in non election years. Okay. Look at the statements, you can't find Trump.
- [35:26]
B
Clinton is in the, is in the Epstein tapes. Remember he first used it.
- [35:29]
E
Yeah.
- [35:29]
B
He said Hillary's gonna have some problems because the Epstein stuff, he mentioned it in passing.
- [35:35]
E
It was meant as a political cudgel. It was meant as like we're going to lock up all the Democrats with this. And anyone else in the media that you don't like, like Bill Gates, Bill Clinton and every other person that you don't like. The elites, the globalist Oprah, like throw any name you could think of, throw them in there. They were somehow on the island. Roger Stone in 2015 explicitly said it's a Democrat orgy island. Okay. And then 10 years later it's a Democrat hoax. Huh. Interesting.
- [36:06]
D
The thing with that, can I just to shift gears, look at like 15 degrees. Like I don't understand why the MAGA base is like finding this so hard to comprehend. I mean this is someone, Donald Trump, who before he won his first election was on tape bragging about sexually assaulting women.
- [36:24]
B
Why wasn't grabbing by the pussy a problem?
- [36:26]
E
You guys tried to make that a problem. We didn't care about that.
- [36:29]
D
In fact, locker room talk.
- [36:30]
E
Yeah, no, it was locker, locker room talk. I had heard worse locker room room talk in middle school than that. Like that was a Wild. That was a fake story. This is a real story. We care about this. We don't listen to you journalists when you tell us that Trump is in a bad situation on this. No offense to you, but none taken. Look, when you tell us, wait, what is the difference?
- [36:52]
A
What makes this original? Yeah.
- [36:53]
B
What makes it different?
- [36:54]
A
Okay, Is it pedophilia? Is that the difference?
- [36:56]
E
It is, unfortunately. It's the psychological concept of he's telling us to look the other way and he's the man behind the curtain now. He really thumbed the nose at the base and said, if you don't support me on this, leave.
- [37:09]
C
Yeah, on, on this, Epstein.
- [37:11]
E
It was on Truth Social. So it's. I understand why you don't see it.
- [37:15]
B
And what Trump is saying to his base.
- [37:17]
E
He has literally said to do anything about it. It's a Democrat hoax, and you're a Democrat for thinking it's not a hoax. And there's a lot of people like, oh, yeah, I lost my job, I lost friends, I lost family supporting you. And now you're gonna tell me that because I have my own opinion that's divergent from you, that I'm a Democrat. It's pissing people off. These are people who enthusiastically voted for Trump over Kamala, who are now saying, I'm blackpilled. I'm never voting again. F. Trump. Trump sucks.
- [37:48]
A
You're having conversations with friends who are saying this.
- [37:51]
E
Yes. These are New maga. So New MAGA are recently politically homeless.
- [37:56]
B
Who.
- [37:57]
E
From the Democrat Party. Right. Your Libertarians, your Bernie Bros, Et cetera. And again, I'm sorry, I have three luminaries next to me and we're talking about maga.
- [38:07]
A
I get it. Now that they're not being released, what do they say?
- [38:10]
B
We actually cannot speak to this the way that you can. That's why you're here. Yeah. You know this better than any of us.
- [38:15]
E
It all goes back to, hey, release and unredact the files. Because we have so much, like unanswered questions that come of this. If you don't put sunlight on it, of course, you know, there's going to be some mold that grows.
- [38:37]
A
I want to ask you a genuine question I have, which is all the questions I've asked, actually. But a story like David's that he co reported other people at the Times, which is not about Trump, it's not about Democrats, at least overtly 10 elites. It's about elites, it's about JP Morgan. It's kind of separate from. It's like apolitical in a Certain sense, you know, like, it's really just about power, but it comes out in the New York Times. Is that something that breaks through to your world? No. No.
- [39:05]
D
What the hell, man? Well, why aren't you helping spread the gospel?
- [39:09]
B
A legitimate. Like, here's.
- [39:11]
D
Here's nothing to do.
- [39:12]
E
Here's the thing. The fact that it's from the New York Times is a negative, not a positive. Right? So we're already looking at it like, this is from a untrusted source. And I. I'm not. Look, don't shoot the messenger on this. I actually like what you're doing, but trust me, because it comes from you already negative, and then you're putting it out in this traditional form, even more negative.
- [39:37]
D
Wait, a traditional form, meaning? We wrote words.
- [39:40]
E
It wasn't like a podcast with Theo Vaughn.
- [39:43]
D
That's true.
- [39:43]
E
You know, that's like, what you really want is, like, you know, are they.
- [39:47]
A
Trying to book you with Theo? Maybe they should.
- [39:49]
D
I personally think we should engage as much as possible because we do our best and we can engage with people like that. I think there's a lot of hesitance, though, because they're. I mean, there's a lot of gotcha.
- [40:02]
E
It's. It is hard to find people who are actually willing to listen, and I get that a lot on the right, too. And I try to articulate that to my audience. Like, we. You're not gonna escape this cycle, this vicious cycle of not trusting anybody in the media without actually giving some honest reporters a good chance. This is why I worked with Tara, is because. No, if I'm actually gonna critique bad media, I have to support good media. Right. And so in the end, it's like, I can't just be always attacking media when there's actually a really good example here doing it correctly.
- [40:38]
A
And there could be good reporting from a place you don't like.
- [40:40]
B
I think, like, I believe in, like, institutional media. I believe in independent media. Like, today was a great day, I think, for the fourth estate in general, because of the fact that the book came out. Trump tried to claim it wasn't true. Sue them. MAGA may continue to say it's not real, but it's right there. I think it sucks that we are so siloed. Go on, Joe Rogan. Go on, Theo Von. And fight them with facts.
- [41:05]
D
Yeah. And we provide valuable information. You might not always agree with what we're saying, but we do our best to ascertain the truth on a daily basis. We're not perfect in that we miss things, get things wrong. But we try and we try in a good faith effort. And that should be valuable not only to people on the left, but also people on the right who have an open mind about what the facts are and want to know the truth.
- [41:31]
E
The biggest flaw was what you just said. I'm not perfect. That never happens in an article. That never happens within New York Times. Thing of admitting there's a potential flaw and actually opening yourself up to the process. We would love that.
- [41:44]
D
As I just think that.
- [41:46]
B
I feel like the right also does not admit that they're not.
- [41:49]
E
Wait, Eric, Hang on, hang on.
- [41:50]
B
Yeah.
- [41:51]
D
On our David Morgan story today, we got a fact wrong. We corrected it. We have a correction at the bottom of the story. We're very good at correcting individual fact when we get them wrong. We are not the best at correcting facts when our biases blind us to a particular storyline or leaders to come down too hard or too soft.
- [42:09]
E
Your standards are higher than Fox News.
- [42:12]
D
I don't understand how we can do better than that, though.
- [42:14]
B
We're trying to get at the exact.
- [42:15]
C
Heart of this question. How do we break out of these silos?
- [42:18]
B
So then we invite you here and.
- [42:20]
C
Get your ship face just to see.
- [42:21]
B
If we can get something a little more real. I don't know that this is necessarily in the files, but we know there is at least one Jane Doe that came forward right before the election around the same time as the Stormy Daniels, Karen McDougal, which election? 2016. And she claimed that Donald Trump raped her in Epstein's Upper east side townhouse when she was, I believe, 13 years old. And it was Katie Johnson. And that is a Jane Doe name. It's kind of like.
- [42:57]
A
Yes, Got it, got it, got it. Okay.
- [42:59]
B
And it was pretty graphic. There was another witness to a Tiffany Doe.
- [43:03]
A
And.
- [43:04]
B
And she filed three different times. And she dropped the suit and she withdrew right before the election citing intimidation. Have you spoken to her? No, I haven't. I reached out to the lawyers. They said we're not working with her anymore.
- [43:16]
A
Has anyone spoken to her?
- [43:18]
B
Has anyone? Yeah, I mean, my sources tell me that, yes. But like, I don't.
- [43:23]
D
I'm pretty sure journalists have spoken to her.
- [43:25]
B
Yeah, a lot of people. I do know journalists who have spoken to her.
- [43:27]
A
And she hasn't given an interview. Like we haven't heard.
- [43:29]
D
I think there's been a lot of reporting around her that probably hasn't come to light would be my guess. Do not read anything into this because I can tell you explicitly, I've not been involved in any of this. But my understanding, just through the ether, is that there have been a lot of efforts to try and suss out the credibility of that story and see how it would stand up.
- [43:48]
A
Cause this is the one allegation against Donald Trump, the one that we know of. Yeah.
- [43:53]
D
No, that's not true. We reported on a story, my colleagues reported on this, that there was Epstein's girlfriend at the time they stopped by Trump Tower, and it went up the elevator to Trump's offices, and Trump groped the woman, and then they went down the elevator and Epstein excoriated her for letting Trump do that to her.
- [44:15]
C
That's true. I remember that.
- [44:16]
D
Again, that was not my story. So I'm probably getting a little bit of my colleagues who wrote that. But, you know, can I just, like, shift gears a tiny bit? But one of the things that has fascinated me about the coverage of Jeffrey Epstein, including in the New York Times, but elsewhere as well, and I'm not professing to know the answer to this, but I think one of the tricky things, the New York Times, among other places, has kind of led the way in coverage of how do we hold powerful people to account for sexual crimes. And the Harvey Weinstein coverage and the Roger ailes and Bill O'Reilly coverage back in, I think 2016 or 2017 was really groundbreaking. And part of the thing that they did, my colleagues and other at other publications as well, did really well, I think, was that they presented beyond any reasonable doubt that these things were true. And it was not just one woman saying something that Roger Ailes or Harvey Weinstein or Bill O'Reilly is refused.
- [45:11]
A
They came up with new reporting methods. And.
- [45:13]
D
Yeah, and it was finding settlement documents and having, like, extremely contemporary people they'd spoken to.
- [45:19]
A
And.
- [45:20]
D
And let me just say something that is going to get me killed by my colleagues. And I don't even know if I believe what I'm about to say, but let me throw it out here, that those extremely high standards we have set for ourselves, which were extremely important and valuable in changing the era in which we lived and ushering in the MeToo era, are actually an impediment to some of the reporting we're trying to do now, Our job is to reveal the truth. It is not to win in a courtroom. It is to reveal the truth. And I do feel like sometimes, and I'm not talking about the New York Times in particular, I'm talking about mainstream media in general, but I feel like sometimes we end up pulling punches because we have set this extremely High bar for ourselves, which is the credibility bias.
- [46:07]
B
Is against the victims.
- [46:08]
D
We know the journalists in this room, at least three of us, we know that there are real allegations out there against Donald Trump that all are public that people in the journalism community know about. And it's not saying that Trump was part of the Epstein's network. It's that Trump was rolling these same circles and is an admitted advocate of sexual assault. Right, dude.
- [46:32]
E
Yeah, yeah. Is that fair?
- [46:33]
D
And I just think that we have constructed such a high threshold for ourselves in proving these things, which is that we need contemporaneous documentation.
- [46:43]
B
We need like a picture.
- [46:44]
D
You guys can disagree with me. In fact, please do disagree with me in the damn conversations.
- [46:49]
A
And we're not.
- [46:49]
B
I totally disagree with you. Okay, go ahead. It's helpful.
- [46:53]
C
I don't think we've created some new.
- [46:57]
B
High standard for being able to discuss, like report incredibly report sex assault. There's not a lot of error between reporting on, on, on rape. That hasn't been, you can say, allegations like we're. I mean, I just think, I don't think you could be more wrong.
- [47:17]
A
Actually.
- [47:17]
B
That's not post.
- [47:18]
C
Me too.
- [47:19]
B
That's like all of history leading up to and including me too.
- [47:23]
D
What I'm saying is that we have created in journalism right now a standard for reporting on stories that is equivalent to the standard that you would need in court to prove something beyond a reasonable doubt.
- [47:36]
C
And you think we should have looser standards.
- [47:39]
D
I'm throwing this out there for debate. And again, I'm not someone who reports on this stuff in general. I'm someone who reports on following the money. That's my specialty. And so I'm out over my skis here almost by definition. But I think that one of the things I've seen in reporting on Epstein is that to me, when there is a preponderance of not just evidence, but of women who used to be girls who are saying the same thing over and over and over again, do we need to have contemporaneous evidence, written evidence, witness account from back in the 1990s?
- [48:13]
C
Yeah, I think we do. I think we do. I think we do. And let me be very clear. I think Vanity fair back in 2002 were right to ask me to go to the mattresses to get all the things. My, my beef is that I got it. And that then after Jeffrey Epstein had been in the offices, after Jeffrey Epstein had voiced his concerns about the girls, that the girls were then cut from the piece.
- [48:47]
D
Let me ask you something.
- [48:47]
C
I have no problem with the standard, the standard was right. My up and down with the Epstein story was because I worked for a place that wasn't fundamentally supportive of me and of my reporting. And it's very hard then to hold true to a North Star. And this is why what I think is more important is the environment that you work in. I think we should have the standards that are the same standards as in a court of law. Because ultimately, if the journalism is queried, that's where you're going to have to be accountable. So it makes sense to me that that's the right standard.
- [49:22]
B
Like putting out unbuttoned up allegations of sex assault. It comes at actual physical danger to the people and the sources that we love and want to protect.
- [49:31]
D
I actually really deeply respect your critique of that. But I think that there's a risk that when we set ourselves as journalists to that extremely high bar, that we risk obscuring rather than revealing the truth of a situation.
- [49:48]
C
So, David, so my pushback on that. The worry is if you go to press with a story that hasn't gone through the sort of legal standard, do you not run the risk of harming the victim by basically outing them into a situation that then they could get shredded?
- [50:08]
D
I agree with you. That's a very valid argument. But I also think that there is a risk journalistically in our efforts to bulletproof our stories. Like I challenge anyone right now to make a bulletproof case that Jeffrey Epstein was engaged in sex trafficking. Prove it. Be my guess. Prove it. It was not proven in court. He was accused but not found guilty of it. And you're not going to be able to prove it because it's not a provable case and yet it's true.
- [50:38]
A
But I guess he's guilty of journalism like that. I don't have that question.
- [50:43]
D
We stipulate that he is guilty of these things and we stipulate that based on the preponderance of our reporting, that is grounded, deep reporting.
- [50:51]
A
Like I have an understanding Epstein, despite.
- [50:53]
B
Of what happened in a court of.
- [50:54]
A
Law, you know, so that's an argument that.
- [50:56]
D
But that's the point. Jeffrey Epstein was a bad fucking guy who was engaged in vast crimes, have.
- [51:03]
B
The exact same crime.
- [51:05]
D
He destroyed hundreds, dozens, if not hundreds of girls and women's lives, suicides and deaths. The fact that we can't prove that on an individualized basis does not in any way invalidate the truth.
- [51:19]
B
I think like, first of all, I'm so happy that you said that because I actually think the brutality of his crimes has still yet to be unveiled based on what I know, based on my conversations with the victims. But again, they live in fear. And I think that's, like, another big part of it that people don't really understand. I mean, even right now, powerful people coming forward to them, trying to strike deals with them. NDAs such a good point. Even journalists being threatened, even.
- [51:48]
D
It doesn't change the truth.
- [51:49]
B
It doesn't change the truth. And people do not understand. They have the fear of knowing the crime, just knowing the crime. There is a fear. Every person that Jeffrey Epstein was around, every person that I have heard of, that engaged in this ring, they have enough money to cause destruction to a life of a journalist, of a whistleblower, of a victim. And so I wish, like, as a journalist who is independent now, there's a big part of me that wishes I was with a big institution like the New York Times to continue reporting, because I fear for myself that, like, if I tried to report, they'd be like, we're going to squash you like an ant, because that's what we can do.
- [52:39]
A
This is what I want to ask you before I release all of you. And this is a question that I didn't get to ask, like, directly that I had coming into this, which is like, is what's driving the Epstein story right now? Just the idea that, oh, is our president Donald Trump a pedophile? Has he raped children? Like, is that actually at the heart of what's driving the reason we're even talking about this story at this moment, right now, years after Epstein has died? What can you guys tell me about that and what can we watch from the future?
- [53:08]
B
Let's start with that.
- [53:09]
E
That's a tough one on the show. We've talked about how the victims, the Epstein survivors, have their own list that they can potentially come out with. That's probably the closest thing related to what you're talking about.
- [53:22]
A
What does that mean? The Epstein survivors have their own list.
- [53:25]
E
Instead of there being an Epstein list.
- [53:28]
A
Right, Like a client list.
- [53:30]
E
Yeah, A master list. No, they're the ones who have a list, and they could drive the story forward. And Tara has mentioned a couple times about how Virginia Giuffre's memoir is gonna come up in October and that'll extend the story.
- [53:42]
B
But I do think that based on a lot of the reporting that I have, that there's a lot more that is not known about this case yet. And a lot of the files are, you know, they're redacted. Right. So they're unredacted. You'll see a lot more names than what we have right now. Right. So if they truly release the files, you'll see the unredacted names. Very prominent people, which would cause, I think, chaos, frankly.
- [54:12]
A
And that is because the files will say what?
- [54:13]
B
Because the files will have all their depositions. The files will have all the names of the men they were trafficked to. The files will protect them legally from any sort of defamation. And that is why they want it.
- [54:23]
A
Out there on the converse. That's why people might be fighting to.
- [54:26]
B
Keep it from getting out there that are unredacted. And it would be quite illuminating to the American public. The files will reveal the men that these girls were trafficked to.
- [54:38]
A
These are people we haven't heard about outside.
- [54:40]
B
Yes. They're titans of industry. They are foreign dignitaries. They are leaders. They're leaders of financial institutions like the ones you have been following. They are politicians. They are heads of major institutions, universities.
- [54:54]
A
You've seen this stuff, but you can't say it. Why?
- [54:57]
B
I haven't done all reporting that I would like to do to feel comfortable reporting it. I'm an independent journalist. I'm not with a institution anymore. Like, I'm not with, you know, Politico. Yeah. No. No one will insure you for an Epstein story. I reach out. No one will insure you.
- [55:15]
A
I don't want to push you guys to say something that you don't know.
- [55:17]
B
I don't have anything that I would like.
- [55:19]
A
I. I guess what I would wonder is, like, what can we say to an audience that doesn't trust reporters maybe. Or that doesn't understand what we do?
- [55:24]
D
And I think it's, what can we say? A lot of the reporters who have been following this closely know there's a lot more to this than has been introduced in the public domain right now.
- [55:35]
B
Yeah.
- [55:35]
D
And I'm not going to do that right now because I do not want to get sued.
- [55:39]
B
Exactly.
- [55:39]
D
Or fired. But I'm telling you that there are a lot of theories that a lot of people have been chasing based on pretty good sourcing, but not sourcing that could hold up in a court of law.
- [55:52]
C
But at the heart of it to me is how do you protect the victims?
- [55:55]
B
The victims now at this point, they want it out. A lot of them.
- [56:00]
C
Well, that's the. That's the key. That's the key to me.
- [56:03]
B
Some of them, I mean, they want to be protected, but they want it out.
- [56:06]
A
So they.
- [56:06]
C
They want to be un and they wanted to put their story out.
- [56:09]
B
Yeah, they want it out at this point, it's.
- [56:10]
C
Well, I think that it's time for this standard to change. If you've got enough of them saying the same thing, well, that's why they.
- [56:17]
B
Want these files out there. This is exactly why the victims say, release the files. If the DOJ releases our files, we are safe.
- [56:25]
D
Yep.
- [56:25]
A
Yep. That was Vicky Ward, Tara Palmeri, David Enrich, and Eric Abenante, along with our executive producer, Robin Simeon. Vicki Ward has a substack called Vicki Ward Investigates. Tara's substack is the Red Letter, and she hosts the Tara Palmieri show on YouTube. David Enrich's most recent book, which we've covered on this show, is Murder, the Truth, Fear, the First Amendment, and A Secret Campaign to Protect the Powerful. Thank you for listening. We're really glad to be back after a break this summer. If you've enjoyed Question Everything, please rate and review us on Apple or Spotify and send the show to your friends. It really helps get the word out. And before we go, apropos of our discussion at the end there, I want to share some responses to the allegations and reporting we talked about at the wine shop. In response to the investigation that David Enrich and his colleagues did into JP Morgan's relationship with Epstein, a bank spokesperson told the New York Times in a statement that the bank's relationship with Epstein was a mistake and in hindsight, we regret it, but we did not help him commit his heinous crimes. Jess Staley, the former JP Morgan exec who was Epstein's close contact there, we reached out to his attorneys but got no reply. And Epstein's longtime collaborator, Ghislaine Maxwell, despite being in prison, still maintains her innocence of any crimes. And as for Trump, the allegations that the woman, using the pseudonym Katie Johnson made against him in 2016 court filings at the time, Donald Trump's lawyer said her claim is categorically untrue. It is completely frivolous. It is baseless. It is irresponsible. Trump's campaign has also said that the account from Jeffrey Epstein's ex girlfriend of him groping her is unequivocally false.
- [58:19]
B
I don't understand why the Jeffrey Epstein.
- [58:21]
D
Case would be of interest to anybody.
- [58:24]
A
It's pretty boring stuff.
- [58:25]
D
It's sorted, but it's boring.
- [58:27]
B
I think really only pretty bad people.
- [58:30]
D
Including fake news, want to keep something like, like that going.
- [58:35]
A
Our show today was produced by Sophie Kazis and Brendan Baker, who also did the mixing and sound design. Executive producer Robin Simeon edited the program. Kevin Sullivan is Question. Everything's Managing Editor. Our team includes producer Zach St. Louis, contributing editor Jen Kinney and Associate Coordinating Producer Emily Moltair. Matt McGinley composed our music. Annika Robbins and Maggie Duffy fact checked the episode. Gabe Kroga is our audio engineer. Our partners at KCRW include Arnie Seiple, Tejal Al Jamara, Natalie Hill, and Jennifer Farrow. Special thanks as always to Bibber and Bell Wine Shop. We'll see you next time.
- [59:12]
B
That was another episode of the Tara Palmeri Show. Thank you for tuning in. That was another episode of the Tara Palmari Show. As always, you can support this show by liking subscribing, sharing it with all of your friends. That's how you keep me in business. If you want to support my independent journalism, please go to tarapaulmary.com it's how you can get my exclusive reporting straight to your inbox by signing up for the Red letter. If you become a paid subscriber, you get all of the reporting beyond the payroll paywall. You get all of my reporting beyond the paywall and you just become an insider. You know more than everyone else. And also, it's a great way to support independent journalism that is not funded by PACs or corporations without fear or favor and without an agenda. I want to thank my producer, Eric Gabonotte, who flew all the way from Texas to Brooklyn to show up for this one. I think he offered a lot of insight. I also want to thank the rest of my team, Abby Baker, Dan Rosen and Adam Stewart. I'll be back again soon.