Transcription
Another day, another bombshell revelation that signals bad news for Trump as far as the Epstein files are concerned. This time at the hands of his former most vocal supporter, Marjgerie Tiller Green.
According to the New York Times, for Green, the decades that Epstein spent eluding justice for exploiting and sexually assaulting countless girls and young women while amassing a fortune, and the seeming efforts by the government to cover up the injustice represents everything wrong with Washington, she told me this September. Green spoke with several of Epstein's victims for the first time at a closed door house oversight committee meeting. She knew that the women had paid their own way to come to Washington. She saw some of them trembling and crying as they spoke. Their accounts struck her as entirely believable. Green herself had never been sexually abused, but she knew women who had. In her own small way, Green later told me she could understand what it was like for a woman to stand up to a powerful man.
After the hearing, Green held a news conference at which she threatened to identify some of the men who had abused the women. Green says that she didn't know the names herself, but that she could have gotten them from the victims. Trump called Green to voice his displeasure. Green was in her Capitol Hill office and, according to a staff member, everyone in the suite of rooms could hear him yelling at her as she listened to him on speakerphone. Green says she expressed her perplexity over his entrance. According to Green, Trump replied, quote, "My friends will get hurt." When she urged Trump to invite some of Epstein's female victims to the Oval Office, she says he angrily informed her that they had done nothing to merit the honor. It would be the last conversation Green and Trump would ever have.
"My friends will get hurt." That pretty much sums up the entire Epstein files as far as Trump is concerned. If you're wondering why it kind of feels like Donald Trump never had any intention of releasing the files, you'd be right. And this is exactly why. It's because while he campaigned as someone who would hold the rich, powerful men who operate with impunity to account, the reality is that Donald Trump is in the tank for those very people, people who may include himself. By the way, remember Trump is in the Epstein files. He was Epstein's quote best friend for a decade. Epstein trafficked Virginia Guay from Mara Lago spa, and two years after that, Trump was still referring to him as a quote terrific guy when he spoke to New York magazine. Let's not pretend that he didn't know exactly what Epstein was doing and that he wasn't perfectly fine with it. You don't generally heap compliments onto people whose actions you abhor.
The reality is that it would be bad enough, disqualifying enough for Donald Trump to align himself with a pedophile and his accomplices. That would already cement his legacy as the most abhorrent president to ever hold the office, among a raft of other behaviors. But what makes this even worse, even more shameless, is that he exploited people's disgust on this very issue. He knew that this was a potent topic, and so he leaned in on the campaign trail, saying stuff like this.
"Nice guy. Uh, got a lot of problems coming up in my opinion with the famous island with Jeffrey Epstein." You raised the question of Jeffrey Epstein in your remarks about in the Q&A. "I think he's got a problem." I mean, what do you think the problem will be? "I I don't know. But that island was uh really a cesspool. There's no question about it. Just ask Prince Andrew. He'll tell you about it. Uh, the island was an absolute cesspool."
And then he hired people who also built their brands on this issue. People who said stuff like this.
"Everybody has everybody in politics has a vice that's much worse than alcoholism is is the way that I put it." Um, but we we um, "release the list." [laughter] Seriously, we need to release the Epstein list. That That is an important thing. You say that the FBI has Epstein's list. They're sitting on it. That doesn't seem like something you should do. You're protecting the world's foremost predator. That seems like an evil thing to do regardless of who may be embarrassed in the release of that list. Why is the FBI protecting the greatest pedest um the the largest scale pedophile in human history? "Simple. Because of who's on that list."
You're wondering why we're not hearing more about this Epstein case? I mean, the guy was only connected to just about every major player in the swamp internationally, and yet you don't hear much about it. And what the hell are they hiding with Jeffrey Epstein? When you say stuff like that, when you fill your administration with people who say stuff like that, you are sending a message to your supporters that you feel their pain and are going to act on it. Meaning, Trump knew better. He knew better, and yet still chose to defy all of his voters who believed him when he pretended that he cared about an issue that they all clearly felt was important.
And let's be clear, this is a recurring theme with this guy. He also swore up and down that he understood the pain that his supporters were contending with on high costs. He talked about groceries and rent and housing and eggs. Got so granular that he was talking about eggs, doing the whole populist shtick. And then what did he do the minute he got into office? He engaged in a trade war that sent the cost of everything soaring. Again, it would be disqualifying enough for any other president, but a president who specifically campaigned on the pain of high prices to then be the one responsible for sending those prices even higher is beyond the pale. And then you add in stripping healthcare away, Medicaid, ACA subsidies, food assistance, and it's just him adding fuel to the fire, broadcasting that he does not give a flying about the people who believed him when he pretended to care.
The reality is that Donald Trump has always been in the pocket of the rich and powerful. Remember this moment?
"This is Charles Schwab. It's not just a company. It's actually an individual. And he made he made 2.5 billion today and he made 900 million. That's not [laughter] bad because you know he's in financial."
Trump says glowingly he made 2.5 billion today, and that's your populist champion. There is a reason that those people are in the Oval Office with Trump because that's who's being served by him. And everyone's picking up on it. Sean Feain, United Auto Workers president, said this.
"Donald Trump is a scab." [screaming] [cheering] [applause] [cheering] "Donald Trump is a billionaire, and that's who he represents." [applause and cheering] [applause] "If Donald Trump ever worked in an auto plant, he wouldn't be a UAW member. He'd be a company man trying to squeeze the American worker." [cheering and applause] "Donald Trump stands against everything we stand for as a union, as a society. When you go back to our core issues, wages, retirement, healthcare, and our time, that's what this election's about." [applause] [applause] "This election's about who will stand up with us and who will stand in our way." [cheering] [applause] "Those are the questions that will win or lose this election and will decide our fate. Those are the questions that will determine the future of our country and the fate of the working class."
More recently, Texas Senate candidate James Telerico echoed that sentiment.
"I I know that the appeal of Donald Trump is that he's not a typical politician. I get that. You know, I I do find even as a as a Democrat, I find some of the ways that Donald Trump speaks um, you know, to be a little refreshing because he doesn't sound like the typical poll tested, consultant-driven um politician. And and so I get why that was appealing. But now that he's in office, you see that, you know, he's cutting taxes for himself and his rich friends. He's kicking his own voters off their their health care and off food assistance. Um, and he's not even releasing, you know, the Epstein files that could shed some light on this on this issue. Um, and so I I think that that ultimately actions speak louder than words. And I hope that people are realizing that Donald Trump is a con man. Always has been, always will be. Um, he he says the right things. He he pushes the right buttons, but ultimately when it comes down to it, he's going to protect himself and and his, you know, his powerful friends. Um, and and I hope that's a a realization for folks, but we as as Democrats have to provide an alternative."
And the same with Robert Garcia, ranking member of the House Oversight Committee.
"I mean, I would say the Trump supporters that he's betrayed you. I mean, Donald Trump has betrayed you. I mean, he's lied to you about uh Medicaid. He's taken away healthcare. He's lied to you about uh supporting working people. He's given away your money to the very rich. He told you he was going to release the Epstein files, and he's lying to you about that as well. This is he has betrayed his base, and I think his base uh a lot of them understand that, and so they're also out there and they're r you know, causing hell uh to their own members of Congress in Republican districts, and we're going to keep fighting and ensure that these files get released to the public."
All of which is to say the con is up. Everybody can see who Trump is, from the union president to dynamic young candidates to ranking members on committees to Trump's own former loyalist like Marjorie Taylor Green. And if those people can all come together to agree about exactly who Trump is, who Trump's serving, then there's literally no reason why everyone can't. Especially since, as more and more time passes, it only becomes more obvious that Trump isn't serving regular voters who cast their ballots for him. He is serving the exact rich, powerful elite who are looking to entrench the very system that Trump once pretended to condemn.
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