Transcription
Welcome back to the Tara Palmeri Show. It has been quite a 24 hours since those Epstein emails broke, directly linking the president and Jeffrey Epstein in so many different ways.
Jeffrey Epstein obviously talks explicitly about his very close relationship with Donald Trump and even offers world leaders advice on how to manipulate him. I tried to reach Sergey Lavrov, Putin's uh right-hand man is foreign minister, ahead of the Helsinki summit, which I covered as a White House correspondent when I was at ABC, telling him how to manipulate President Trump. I mean, the way that Jeffrey was talking about President Trump, they knew each other very well, and he claimed he uh could understand the psychology of a man he was friends with for 10 years. And yet, not in typical fashion, President Trump did not take any questions uh yesterday when he had a media appearance. This means they are certainly losing what some would say is a public relations battle, a political battle uh against the story. It will continue to dog them, the stonewalling, all of it. It is not going away.
In the meantime, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has decided to move the vote up. It was supposed to be first week of December, late November. Now it's next week. And it's probably because the longer you hold you wait to hold a vote, the more likely people will break off. And already I know of a handful of Republicans that have said that if this discharge petition is filed, they will vote to release the Epstein files. It is too difficult of a vote to not take and I think that will pass in the House. I suspect even Lisa Murkowski, if it goes to the Senate, will vote to release the Epstein files. I don't know how you face your constituents and not do this. It is in favor of transparency. It's in favor of justice for so many women. The FBI said as many as th a thousand girls that were trafficked by Jeffrey Epste. So, the ball's moving. It's rolling.
Now, what I talk about in this interview with Anderson Cooper on CNN, with Julie K. Brown, the woman who broke the story of Jeffrey Epste and who I worked with on the Broken Seeking Justice podcast. Um, you know, I I break down some hard truths about whether we're actually going to see the files, but I got to say these emails, it makes me think that the Democrats have a lot more House Democrats, that they are sitting on more evidence and it's all going to be a drip drip drip. And these are not even the Epstein files. These are just emails from his estate. There is so much more incriminating incriminating evidence out there uh about Jeffrey Epstein's world about the powerful people who are in it. Like what is Larry Summers, an economist at Harvard who consults presidents? What is he doing emailing with a convicted sex offender in 2017? Casual. Everybody's just so casually spending time with Jeffrey Epstein. In one of the emails, Jeffrey Epstein claims that he was going to spend Thanksgiving in Palm Beach near Trump. It's all very, very odd. We don't know if they actually got together over Thanksgiving to be clear, but he said in a note to um one of his friends that he planned to be with the Dubins, Eva and Glenn Dubin, and for Thanksgiving, and that other people in town would be Trump. So, I have to think that they were in Palm Beach at near and around Mar-a-Lago. So, yeah, this this story is just not ending.
I will keep you uh updated. As you know, you can follow follow all of my reporting at taraapalmeri.com. You can sign up for the red letter. That is my newsletter where you can get all of my exclusive reporting straight to your inbox. And if you become a paid subscriber, you get all the exclusives and you can support my independent journalism. Reporting without fear or favor, going where others won't. Um, that is what I always try to do. And I appreciate all of you for tuning in. Take a listen here.
Bringing two journalists who've been covering Epstein, his crimes for years. Miami Herald investigative reporter Julie K. Brown's work exposed the extent of Epstein's alleged sex trafficking ring and led prosecutors to reopen the case. She's also the author of Perversion of Justice, the Jeffrey Epstein story, and an invest independent investigative journalist, Tara Palmary, author of the Red Letter on Substack, and host the Tara Palm Mary uh show podcast. So, Julie, did did the release of these email answer any questions you've had or simply kind of raised new ones?
I think it mostly raised new ones. I think that that there are a lot of uh indications here that Trump was, you know, friends with Epstein for more or longer than what we initially believed. I think it also raises questions about why the Trump administration seems to be so bent on not looking at these Epstein files again, not at least investigating them. uh given all the content in these emails, one would think the DOJ would want to look more into some of Epstein's activities uh and who he who else may have assisted him with these crimes.
Tara, how heavy do you think was the pressure on Trump allies to try to sink this discharge petition? We mentioned the meeting inside the White House situation room of all places with Congresswoman Lauren Boebert um trying to convince her according to reporting to pull her name off the measure which she declined to do.
Yeah, it was really intense. Uh President Trump calling two House members, two female House members, one of which has a history of sexual assault um and and being a survivor of sexual assault, not once but many times, that being Nancy Mace. She's spoken openly about it. uh she's an advocate for women and he thought that it was a good idea to call these two members and try to get them to withdraw the signatures that they already placed on a discharge petition. But I do think that it shows that he's losing some of his political power within the party and it has to make me think that it has may have something to do with perhaps the economic condition that we're in right now. inflation, sky-high cost of living, unpopularity with his economic approval numbers going down. I mean, he doesn't seem to have the same sort of juice that he used to have. And already last night, I was talking to sources on the Hill, House GOP sources, and they were saying if this discharge petition is signed, we're going to have to vote to release these files. So, at least a handful of Republicans that I spoke to at least will be voting to release these files. So, I don't know how he's going to be able to stop this in a week from now.
Yeah, I want I do want to point out that that both uh Congresswoman Mace and and Boebert said that the president didn't directly ask them uh to to remove their names.
Julie, the the chances of both houses of Congress passing this bill to force the DOJ to turn over the Epstein case. I mean, they're slim at best to say nothing of the near zero chance that President Trump himself would actually sign such a measure, no law. What expectations do survivors have about where this is all going? Because if this doesn't work, what else what is what else is there?
Well, there is the House Oversight Committee's investigation and they are making headway as the release of these uh emails and other documents today show. I mean really we have learned more from the House Oversight Committee's investigation than we have from the administration. uh because as you know the administration has put sort of a lid on on this case and has refused to release these files now for months uh despite the fact that initially they that the president ran on transparency on this case. So we're learning more essentially from the house oversight's effort at subpoenaing these documents from Epstein's estate than we are from uh the DOJ and the FBI. And quite frankly, this is quite disheartening to the victims who um you know, they believe that our government, you know, this is them now saying this that they believe that our government is covering up uh you know, exactly who was involved in what happened in this in this case.
Tara, it is remarkable to think of, you know, Pam Bondi, the attorney general, and Cash Patel, now the FBI director. I mean, Cash Patel who was on, you know, endless podcasts talking about releasing the files and, you know, the people in charge are hiding stuff. And now that, you know, he's actually in a position of responsibility, he's doing exactly what he was accusing other people of of doing, whether, you know, whether that was true, that they were actually doing it or or not. It it's remarkable to think of of these all these people who you know went to town on this for a long time when they weren't in power to use it against Democrats and now they are bearing the brunt of the attacks that they used to make on others. Right? That was because it was a cabal of Democratic elites. But then they forgot that the president was among that cabal of Democratic elites as a former Democrat himself. friend of Jeffrey Epstein at the time was even, you know, signing checks, giving them to Chuck Schumer and and donating to Hillary Clinton. At the time that President Trump was friends with Jeffrey Epstein, he was a Democrat. And I think they must have forgotten his history. And yeah, it they they were the loudest voices on the right. And it feels like it's almost been muted without them um out of fear of, you know, of of of offending President Trump. But obviously they are in the position right now to release the files. Now, like you said, I don't believe that President Trump will actually sign this bill if it does pass. It's a really difficult bill to to vote on for all Republicans. It's going to be hard for them to go back to their constituents and try to explain why they didn't vote to release the Epstein files, why they voted against transparency. And say for some reason President Trump does decide to sign the bill. I mean, the DOJ, has it ever been good at policing itself? They'll probably, if anything, hand over files that are completely redacted, like the ones we see right now when you go to the FBI's website and look at the Epstein files that exist right now. I just don't have a lot of trust that even if this is signed that we will get down to the bottom of it. I believe whistleblowers, if we actually listen to the stories of the victims, if they feel safe and supported enough to come forward with their stories, we'll know more. And if judges start to rule to unredact their depositions, we'll know more about this case. And hopefully, you know, it'll come out even if it has to be drip drip drip. It's the stonewalling is making it worse. Yeah.
Tara Palmeri, appreciate it. Julie K. Brown as well. Thank you so much. Just ahead, we'll have more.
That was another episode of the Tara Palmeri Show. Thank you so much for tuning in. I will be back again soon. I am just putting out the appearances one after another. It's been a hectic 24 hours. More to come. Can only imagine what next week will be like when there's the vote. But yeah, we've got things are moving. Things are happening. There's going to be another rally. The the victims of Jeffrey Epstein will meet with uh House members next week. It's going to be another moment. So stay tuned.
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I want to thank my producer, Eric Abbenante. I want to thank Abi Baker, who is helping me with socials and is a reporter, and Adam Stewart on the market uh on the graphics. See you again soon.