Speaker 1: Already and this this is the.
Speaker 2: Daily This is the Daily.
Speaker 3: Ohs oh, now it makes sense.
Speaker 1: Good morning, and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Friday,
Speaker 1: the fourteenth of November. I'm Sam Kazlowski.
Speaker 2: I'm Lucy Tussel.
Speaker 1: More than twenty thousand pages of documents have been released
Speaker 1: by US politicians revealing emails to and from Jeffrey Epstein
Speaker 1: himself that suggest President Donald Trump knew about his abuse
Speaker 1: of young women. It has led to Trump, as well
Speaker 1: as other members of his administration, facing growing criticism about
Speaker 1: how the White House has handled the Epstein files, with
Speaker 1: some of Trump's own Republican supporters and members now calling
Speaker 1: for more transparency. On today's podcast, Lucy and I are
Speaker 1: going to break down what these emails actually say, why
Speaker 1: they're causing division within the Republican Party, and what this
Speaker 1: all means for Trump going forward.
Speaker 2: Sam, before we get into the new emails, the new data,
Speaker 2: take me back to the start. Who is Jeffrey Epstein
Speaker 2: and why are we still talking about him?
Speaker 3: So?
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein was a wealthy businessman who was arrested in
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen on federal sex trafficking charges. Investigators found that
Speaker 1: he had been paying teenage girls money to perform sex acts,
Speaker 1: and that he'd been doing so for many years. His
Speaker 1: former girlfriend, Glene Maxwell, was charged with helping him abuse
Speaker 1: these girls. Epstein died by suicide in his cell out
Speaker 1: of federal jail in New York about a month after
Speaker 1: he was arrested in twenty nineteen, and Maxwell, the former girlfriend,
Speaker 1: was later convicted and is currently serving a twenty year
Speaker 1: prison sentence for sex trafficking. But the reason this case
Speaker 1: has never really gone away is because of who Epstein
Speaker 1: surrounded himself with. So he was friends with presidents, with
Speaker 1: royals or now former royals, billionaires, celebrities, really powerful people
Speaker 1: from all around the world world. And there's always been
Speaker 1: this one question surrounding Jeffrey Epstein. Did any of these
Speaker 1: other powerful people know about or participate in his crimes?
Speaker 2: And we believe current US President Donald Trump was one
Speaker 2: of these connections, one of these powerful people in Epstein's orbit.
Speaker 1: Right. Yeah, it's one of those news stories that has
Speaker 1: followed Trump around almost since he kind of went down
Speaker 1: that escalator and started his aim at being president way
Speaker 1: back in I think it was twenty fourteen. So Trump
Speaker 1: said that he and Epstein were friends for about fifteen years,
Speaker 1: starting in the eighties. There are many photographs of them
Speaker 1: together at parties in New York throughout the nineties and
Speaker 1: early two thousands. Trump even told New York Magazine in
Speaker 1: two thousand and two that Epstein was quote a terrific
Speaker 1: guy who quote likes beautiful women as much as I do,
Speaker 1: many of them on the younger side.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's a direct quote from Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Yes, and so Trump then says though that he had
Speaker 1: a falling out with Epstein around two thousand and four
Speaker 1: because Epstein was hiring spa attendance from his Marra A
Speaker 1: Lago golf club. Trump has emphatically denied any involvement in
Speaker 1: or knowledge of Epstein's sex trafficking operation.
Speaker 2: So what has happened to bring all this back into
Speaker 2: the headlines.
Speaker 1: So there's a committee of politicians called the House Oversight Committee,
Speaker 1: which is basically a little investigative body made up of
Speaker 1: Democrats and Republicans into the connections between Jeffrey Epstein and
Speaker 1: any members of the US political establishment. And on Wednesday,
Speaker 1: that committee released three emails from Epstein or to Epstein
Speaker 1: that they say raise more serious questions about what Trump new.
Speaker 1: So These emails were selected from thousands of documents obtained
Speaker 1: by the committee from Epstein's state. It's commonly referred to
Speaker 1: as the Epstein Files. I want to walk through each
Speaker 1: of these emails because the details really matter here. So
Speaker 1: the first email is from April of twenty eleven. So
Speaker 1: Epstein wrote to Glen Maxwell and said, quote, I want
Speaker 1: you to really that the dog that hasn't barked is Trump.
Speaker 1: He then wrote that an unnamed victim quote spent hours
Speaker 1: at my house with him, being Trump, he has never
Speaker 1: once been mentioned.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Republicans on the committee quickly identified this victim as Virginia Giffrey,
Speaker 1: so the name was originally redacted, and then through kind
Speaker 1: of politicians releasing other documents, it was Virginia Geffrey, who
Speaker 1: died by suicide in April this year. Now, importantly, Geoffrey
Speaker 1: has previously said in a twenty sixteen deposition that she
Speaker 1: didn't think Trump participated in anything illegal and that she
Speaker 1: had never seen Trump participate in sexual abuse at Epstein's home.
Speaker 2: Okay, so this twenty eleven email from Epstein says Trump
Speaker 2: spent time at his house with a victim. The victim
Speaker 2: in question has separately said I never saw Trump do
Speaker 2: anything wrong. Yeah, that's the implication from Republicans exactly.
Speaker 1: And the problem here is that there hasn't been any
Speaker 1: sort of kind of proper legal process in interrogating the email.
Speaker 1: Media can't verify the email. It's very hard to kind
Speaker 1: of go anywhere further than what is in front of
Speaker 1: us in this single a four page of an email,
Speaker 1: and that's a bit of attention, but it gives lots
Speaker 1: of new lines of questioning for this committee. The second
Speaker 1: email is from January twenty fifteen, so this is the
Speaker 1: lead up to the twenty sixteen presidential election, and there's
Speaker 1: an author, Michael Wolfe, who had a personal relationship with
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein. Michael Wolfe emails Epstein that CNN was planning
Speaker 1: to ask Trump about the relationship between Trump and Epstein
Speaker 1: in a televised presidential debate in the lead up to
Speaker 1: that presidential election, which Trump then won. Epstein asked how
Speaker 1: Trump should respond, and Wolfe basically advised him to let
Speaker 1: Trump quote hang himself if he denied being close with Epstein,
Speaker 1: because that would then give Jeffrey Epstein something to have
Speaker 1: a bit of leverage over this future presidential candidate. And
Speaker 1: so the third email then is from January twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: so Trump is president now, Epstein tells Wolfe the author again,
Speaker 1: Trump said he asked me to resign, which is in
Speaker 1: reference to Epstein's membership at the Marlago Golf Club, because
Speaker 1: he asked Glaine to stop. That's a direct quote, and
Speaker 1: that's a reference to Glaine Maxwell trying to recruit young
Speaker 1: women who worked at the golf club for Epstein. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then there's this really important bit. The email from
Speaker 1: Epstein says, of course, he, being Trump knew about the girls.
Speaker 1: So that's essentially Epstein himself alleging in an email that
Speaker 1: Trump knew about the abuse, which is a claim that
Speaker 1: Trump has denied.
Speaker 2: Speaking of Trump, how has the White House responded to
Speaker 2: these email drops?
Speaker 1: So the White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt got on
Speaker 1: the front foot. She said that they were quote, selectively
Speaker 1: released emails meant to smear the president. She pointed to
Speaker 1: Virginia Giffray's past statements about Trump, and this is what
Speaker 1: she said.
Speaker 3: The emails prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that
Speaker 3: President Trump did nothing wrong. Miss Guffrey maintained and God
Speaker 3: rest her soul that she maintained that there was nothing inappropriate.
Speaker 3: She ever witnessed that President Trump was always extremely professional
Speaker 3: and friendly to her, And so I think it's a
Speaker 3: question worth asking the Democrat Party, and you should all
Speaker 3: go ask them after this briefing of why they chose
Speaker 3: to redact that name of a victim who has already
Speaker 3: publicly made statements about her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein is
Speaker 3: and is unfortunately no longer with us.
Speaker 2: You also mentioned at the top of this episode that
Speaker 2: this is causing problems within Trump's own party, and we
Speaker 2: have briefly touched on this on the podcast in the past.
Speaker 2: What's happening now?
Speaker 1: So I think to understand the current state of the
Speaker 1: Republican Party and their position on the Epstein files, you
Speaker 1: need to go back to Trump's campaign. And in Trump's campaign,
Speaker 1: he really pushed for the Epstein files to be released,
Speaker 1: and the argument that he put to supporters was that
Speaker 1: if there were these files released, a client list, a
Speaker 1: list of who was on planes going to Epstein's island
Speaker 1: that would include high profile Democrats and kind of expose
Speaker 1: the corruption behind the scenes, and particularly people like Bill
Speaker 1: and Hillary Clinton who used Epstein's services or allegedly used
Speaker 1: Epstein services. This was a really major rallying point for
Speaker 1: the core of his base. But then after he took office,
Speaker 1: Trump's Justice Department backtracked, and in July this year, the
Speaker 1: FBI and the Attorney General said there wasn't a client
Speaker 1: list and that no more files would be released because
Speaker 1: there's no need to. But now with all of these
Speaker 1: emails being released, with further speculation about Trump's involvement and
Speaker 1: relationship with Epstein, there are four Republican members of Congress
Speaker 1: who have signed a petition to force a House vote
Speaker 1: on releasing all the Epstein files to the public.
Speaker 2: When's that vote going to happen or what's going on
Speaker 2: with that vote?
Speaker 1: So if a majority of House members, So if two
Speaker 1: hundred and eighteen members of the House sign what's called
Speaker 1: a discharge petition, it makes the Justice Department release documents.
Speaker 1: So in this case, it would have to release the
Speaker 1: full files on Jeffrey Epstein. And until very recently, the
Speaker 1: petition was one signature short of two hundred and eighteen signatures,
Speaker 1: and that's the threshold it requires to force a vote.
Speaker 1: There were two hundred and seventeen. There four Republicans and
Speaker 1: two hundred and thirteen Democrat signatures, but the House gained
Speaker 1: one extra member yesterday.
Speaker 2: How'd that happen?
Speaker 1: So on Wednesday, Speaker Mark Johnson finally swore in Representative
Speaker 1: Adelita Grajalva, a Democrat from Arizona. She won a special
Speaker 1: election seven weeks ago, so that can be an election
Speaker 1: if a member steps down or retires. But Johnson had
Speaker 1: refused to actually confirm her position during the government shutdown,
Speaker 1: so Democrats said it actually wasn't the government shutdown, it
Speaker 1: was her stance on the Epstein files that kept her out,
Speaker 1: and sure enough, as her first act in office, she
Speaker 1: actually signed the petition as the two hundred and eighteenth
Speaker 1: and decisi signature.
Speaker 2: So the petition has been signed, but a vote still
Speaker 2: needs to happen, which Trump doesn't want to happen.
Speaker 1: Right exactly, And according to the New York Times, the
Speaker 1: White House held a meeting in the Situation Room on
Speaker 1: Wednesday with those four Republicans who had said that they
Speaker 1: would vote for the files to be released. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: was the Attorney General, Pam Bondi and FBI Director Cash Patel.
Speaker 1: They all gathered in the room to try and convince
Speaker 1: them to remove their names from the petition, which I'll
Speaker 1: tell you in a secon they actually can't do. But
Speaker 1: then it's about probably the vote, and they want them
Speaker 1: to not vote for the files to be released. And
Speaker 1: I think it's significant that the meeting took place in
Speaker 1: the Situation Room. I mean that's a room that's normally
Speaker 1: reserved for high level crises, military operations. You know, taking
Speaker 1: out Osama bin Laden is a classic example. So using
Speaker 1: it for lobbying members of Congress about the Epstein files
Speaker 1: does show how seriously the White House is taking this. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The one interesting point about the signature I wanted to
Speaker 1: tell you about is, according to very nuanced, specific nerdy
Speaker 1: rules of Congress, once you sign a petition of this nature,
Speaker 1: you can't unsign it. So even if the member dies
Speaker 1: or resigns, the signature stands. So you can assume that
Speaker 1: Trump's lobbying was more about how they're going to vote
Speaker 1: in this vote, rather than getting them to kind of
Speaker 1: unsign something or withdraw their support.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, and now the vote is going to actually happen.
Speaker 1: It is actually going to happen. The latest from Mike Johnson,
Speaker 1: the Speaker, says it could happen as early as next week.
Speaker 1: But even if it does pass the House, it would
Speaker 1: then probably fail in the Senate. And then even if
Speaker 1: it passes the Senate, Trump would probably veto it. But
Speaker 1: the political damage for Republicans of having to vote in
Speaker 1: public on this bill, especially when they're under pressure from
Speaker 1: their own constituents. They just had a very bad showing
Speaker 1: in the special elections, including in New York and New Jersey,
Speaker 1: in Virginia. It's bad timing. And Trump has been very
Speaker 1: angry about this. He posted on truth Social that quote,
Speaker 1: only a very bad or stupid Republican would fall into
Speaker 1: the trap of supporting the Epstein files release. And he's
Speaker 1: calling it a democratic distraction.
Speaker 2: But there are still his own supporters pushing for this to.
Speaker 1: Happen, right, Yeah. And take one of the four Republicans
Speaker 1: is Marjorie Taylor Green, for example, who is known for
Speaker 1: being a very rusted on maga, you know, quite extreme
Speaker 1: in some of her view's supporter of Trump. She's advocating
Speaker 1: for the release of the files, and she's got a
Speaker 1: lot of influence over the kind of Republican base in America.
Speaker 1: And it does look like Trump is caught between This
Speaker 1: campaign promised to expose corruption and the reality that with
Speaker 1: every disclosure there's more damage being done to him personally.
Speaker 2: You mentioned there'll be a vote next week before that
Speaker 2: has to happen. The government has now in the last
Speaker 2: twenty four hours, yeah, voted to reopen for government.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: Where do we go from here?
Speaker 1: So there's a bit of a backlog of work now
Speaker 1: that the government has officially reopened. But I think that
Speaker 1: the Epstein discussion is going to be really high on
Speaker 1: the agenda.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for explaining all of that, Sam.
Speaker 2: It's a very meaty topic with a lot of background
Speaker 2: to cover.
Speaker 1: And I mean we say this a bit, but it's
Speaker 1: no more true than right now. This is only the
Speaker 1: beginning of this story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, somehow, yes, and we will be keeping a very
Speaker 2: close eye on it. Thank you so much for joining
Speaker 2: us today on the Daily Oz. We will be back
Speaker 2: this afternoon with the headlines. Until then, have a great day.
Speaker 2: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Dunda
Speaker 2: Bungelung Kalkudin woman from Gadighl country. The Daily oz acknowledges
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