[0:00]US President Donald Trump has turned on members of his MAGA movement amid growing divisions in his usually loyal base. Posting on his truth social network, he called them weaklings. Many
[0:11]of them accuse the Trump administration of covering up information on child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his possible accompllices despite the administration's promises of full
[0:22]transparency. >> Thank you very much. We've had a tremendous >> for a long time. It seemed that President Donald Trump could do no wrong in the eyes of his supporters. >> But the US administration's handling of
[0:33]the Epstein case is raising eyebrows. >> Why there was a minute missing from the jail house tape? >> Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?
[0:43]>> Secretary to Trump's disdain. People are >> in particular. Are they talking about a supposed client list which allegedly details the names of people to whom
[0:53]Jeffrey Epstein trafficked teenage girls for sexual abuse? Before he returned to the White House, Trump and other right-wing figures accused the Biden administration of
[1:03]keeping the list secret to protect pedophiles. And in February, Trump's attorney general, Pam Bondi, said the list was sitting on a desk. Last week,
[1:12]the narrative changed. Caroline, the DOJ and FBI have now concluded there was no Jeffrey Epstein client list. >> The Trump administration having to backpedal on its former claims and
[1:24]defend a decision not to release further files related to the case. >> It's caused an uproar in and outside of the White House. >> The American people deserve to know the
[1:35]truth. What, if anything, is the Trump administration and the Department of Justice hiding? >> That's the question on many people's
[1:46]minds. Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking trial sparked years of speculation about whom the convicted sex offender helped to abuse young women and teenage girls,
[1:56]and whether he really died by suicide or if he was murdered to protect the rich and influential. Trump's MAGA movement has been particularly obsessed with the Epstein
[2:06]case, hoping it would prove the existence of a so-called deep state, protecting Satanists and pedophiles. >> Um, you know, he's he's uh being caught
[2:17]by the conspiracy theory that he really promoted to his own fans. In an about turn, President Trump has now publicly said that more information
[2:28]about the case can be released after all while continuing to downplay its importance. >> But I don't understand why the Jeffrey Epste would be of interest to anybody.
[2:40]It's pretty boring stuff. It's sorted, but it's boring. But credible information, let them give it. Anything that's credible, I would say let them
[2:49]have it. Whether a real instruction or an off-the- cuff comment to appease his base, arguably for the first time ever, Donald Trump is having to contend with the fact that the loyalty of his
[3:01]supporters has limits when it comes to one of their favorite conspiracy theories. >> I'm not going to talk about abstain >> and many MAGA experts think it'll be Pam
[3:10]Bondi who will take the fall for it. >> Glenn Thrush reports on the US Justice Department for the New York Times. He's been covering the case extensively. I
[3:21]asked him what he thinks of the Trump administration's claim that there's nothing to see here. >> Well, um, from everything that we know, and there have been a series of
[3:31]investigations into the Epstein case starting, uh, under the Biden administration, Epstein was found dead in his jail cell in New York City in 2019. Um, there have been several
[3:42]investigations. There's a corer's investigation in New York. There was an office of the inspector general investigation that determined he had died of a suicide and there was no foul play involved. And then there was this
[3:53]longer FBI and justice department investigation which also uncovered no evidence of criminal wrongdoing. But look, this is a complicated case. Um
[4:03]there are there are many uh uh unknowns that remain. Um all we can say is uh w we have done interviews with
[4:12]investigators over the years. Um, we have done uh a fairly extensive uh review uh in various reporters in our
[4:22]newsroom and other newsrooms and no one has uncovered any uh specific connections between Trump and Epstein other than business connections and some fairly superficial uh social
[4:34]interactions uh that are do well documented on video and in photographs. So the the problem here is Epstein is a truly is one of the true villains of our
[4:44]age. He is a child sex abuser. He was secretive. >> Um he had all kinds of relationships with the rich and powerful. So the so what we know is from the from what we've
[4:54]heard from the investigative material is that apparently there are no larger connections to Trump. Um but again it it you know there are perhaps unknowns. And
[5:05]what then do you think is prompting all this flip-flopping not just of the president but also he is attorney general and FBI director? >> So what people don't understand
[5:16]necessarily who are who aren't in this fever swamp of Washington DC and American politics right now is that the energy of the Epstein conspiracy
[5:26]movement is almost religious. And while the Epstein uh the Epstein case does not reflect positively on President Trump,
[5:36]um the the the underlying assumptions of the conspiracists that there's a a shady government cabal of rich and powerful people who are covering up these these
[5:47]monstrous crimes is very much the stock and trade uh of the Trump movement. And all of these officials, we have three partic key officials who are involved in this. the attorney general of the United
[5:59]States, Pam Bondi, the former attorney general of Florida, who's sort of a conventional uh Trumpaligned law enforcement official. And then you have these two uh men who are running the
[6:09]FBI, Cash Patel, the director, and Dan Bonino, his number two, who are both creatures of this Trump outsider movement. Both of those individuals do
[6:21]not have conventional credentials to be occupying the top positions at the FBI. And prior to being there, they were both podcasters and social media
[6:29]personalities who who promoted uh conspiracy theories about Jeffrey Epstein. So you have this instance in which they are being called upon to slam
[6:40]the door essentially on a door they themselves kicked open. >> So what then should we expect from this administration regarding this case? Does
[6:49]Pam Bondi open the doors and and hand over the the the documents or is there likely to be more flip-flopping?
[6:58]>> Two-part answer. Number one, who knows? Number two, um the question is what is there to hand over? Um part of the art
[7:09]part of the question here is whether or not this treasure trove that people presume exists exists. The main thing that's become the talisman, the totem of this case is the so-called Jeffrey
[7:20]Epstein client list. Well, we've been told from investigators uh in both administrations, the Biden administration and Trump administration, that such a list doesn't exist. There were Jeffrey Epstein associates. Many of
[7:32]them were powerful and rich. Most of those names are out there in public already. But we we have been told uh both now and before that such a client list doesn't exist. The other issue is
[7:43]there are tens of thousands of hours of video evidence that the FBI and DOJ have reviewed. Some of it involved uh Epstein's death and the surveillance
[7:53]video which has some gaps in it uh from from the federal prison in New York City where he died. But most of it are videos and photographic evidence that include
[8:03]child pornography, surveillance tapes of of of uh that would continue to harm victims and potential witnesses in cases. So the question is what what is
[8:15]it that we're looking for? What we have reported, what I have been able to surface is that dozens and dozens of FBI agents, dozens and dozens of Department of Justice prosecutors have spent spent
[8:26]six weeks or so in a facility just outside of Washington DC over the past 6 months going through every scrap of evidence that the government has and
[8:34]they uh found insufficient uh evidence to warrant a prosecution and that's what prompted the memo we saw the week before last uh closing the case. All right,
[8:45]thanks for joining us, Glenn, and talking us through that. Glenn Thrush from the New York Times. So, what's going on here? Let's explore with Ben Smith, who's co-founder and
[8:55]editorinchief of the global news website. He joins us from New York. Welcome to DW. This the so-called Epstein files, their meat and drink to
[9:05]conspiracy theorists. But you don't have to be wearing a tinfoil hat to find the Trump administration's flip-flopping on this. highly suspicious, do you?
[9:16]>> I kind of think you do have to be wearing a tinfoil hat, honestly. I mean, this is a genuinely, as Trump said, boring and sorted story. Maybe not that boring, that has been very, very
[9:27]intensely investigated by every journalist in the United States and every law enforcement body in the US for more than a decade. The document that
[9:37]sometimes gets referred to really totally inaccurately as a client list, which is Epstein's address book, was put on the internet by Gawker 10 years ago. There are various searchable versions on
[9:48]there. Um, you know, his his co-conspirator in this really disgusting um abuse of young women, which is very well documented, has been in her name is Gizlane Maxwell.
[9:59]She's been in jail for years. if she had anything to offer the government, if she had, you know, revelations implicating whichever Democrat Trump hates, she probably would have given that up at
[10:09]this point. Um, yeah. And I think it's in a way a sort of pizzas. It's a sex trafficking conspiracy theory that's fun to talk about, but really the
[10:20]more you look at it, the less there is there. I mean, I think there is a very good reason that Trump is so sensitive about it, which is that in a totally non-conspiratorial, utterly public way in the 90s and I think the late 80s, he
[10:31]and Jeffrey Epstein were friends. And Epstein said that to the author Michael Wolf that Trump he was Trump's best friend. I don't know if that's true, but that is obviously the thing that Trump is embarrassed about.
[10:41]>> Okay, all of that sounds completely logical and rational, but we have the US Attorney General Pam Bondi firstly saying she had Epstein.
[10:52]so-called client list on her desk now saying that it doesn't exist. Explain that. >> Well, she was making it up before and now she's telling the truth. You know, I
[11:03]mean, I do think that this is a case of the uh the revolution basically eating its children in a certain way, right? You live by you spread all this nonsense and then at some point the you know,
[11:14]your your audience comes and asks you for it and you can't deliver it because it's total nonsense. I I think the question is whether Trump's supporters and fans get over this or whether it
[11:24]whether it causes them to suspect that perhaps some other things he said aren't entirely true. >> Okay, this is you see this this is this is interesting. Firstly, let's look at
[11:34]at at Pam Bondi. Is she being set up to take the the fall uh on this if it all goes pear-shaped and it actually turns out that there is nothing uh there and
[11:44]everybody lied. You know, I think what you do see here is that like Trump was always in on the joke. He knew this was nonsense and and
[11:53]these people around him kind of to his shock believed it and tried to and sort of we're going to promising to get to the bottom of it when he knew perfectly well there wasn't any bottom and is
[12:03]appalled that his aids have gotten themselves into this mess. I think that firing any of them tomorrow is probably bad politics and he's unlikely to do it. But it has certainly kind of discredited
[12:14]and weakened the this wing of the people he brought in who who sort of came from the conspiracy fever swamps. But that said, you know, tomorrow they'll be on
[12:23]to a new set of allegations against his enemies. And you know, these are incredibly powerful law enforcement officials who will be opening investigations of people that Trump doesn't like over stuff often with with
[12:34]this level of substance. >> So, how deeply is this dividing uh Trump's MAGA base? You know, I think it it genuinely is and
[12:44]I think that, you know, partly Elon Musk invited back on to Twitter a lot of people who traffic in this kind of, you
[12:52]know, beguiling nonsense and so and who are very invested in it and it's, you know, and and I think everyone in this in our kind of secular world is attracted to these stories about
[13:03]mysterious forces shaping reality. Um and there and and in fact when you look at this situation if you hadn't you know if you if you don't spend half an hour reading about what's actually been
[13:14]uncovered what is actually known what actually happened and you spend only three minutes as is like most of us do it does seem incredibly suspicious and seems like there must be some heart of
[13:23]darkness here. Um and so I think a lot of people who support Trump are believe deeply in it and it's a big problem for him. House Speaker Mike Johnson is in an
[13:35]interesting position, seemingly caught between MAGA lawmakers and influencers and a president who who can't stand again. >> You know, he like basically every other
[13:48]elected Republican is going to have to do whatever Trump wants because that's how that party works right now. >> Yes. Okay. But with Republicans but with Republicans, Donald Trump won't be there
[14:00]in four years. there is there is clearly going to be some some shifting of loyalties across that time. So it's which horse do you back? Which do you do
[14:10]you back the MAGA horse? Do you back the deep MAGA horse or do you take the the the party in a completely a different direction? So people like um the House Speaker are going to be looking beyond
[14:21]Trump surely for well where do we stand in four or five years time? Where do I stand in four or five years time? >> Yeah. Yeah, I mean I think you're right that at some point Republican leadership
[14:32]will have to look past Trump, but certainly not yet. He's sort of the organizing force of the party there. He can make and break people's careers. That may well be true after he leaves office. Um, but I do think you see right
[14:44]now that certain of the kind of hardright Republicans like Marjgery Taylor Green, you know, have their teeth into this and are looking for ways to push it further. And of course,
[14:54]Democrats who know it's nonsense are cynically exploiting it as well and creating a new kind of set of conspiracy theories. >> Okay. I I wanted to talk to you about
[15:04]Hakee Jeff. We saw him calling for for this. This is just this is just them jumping on that this bandwagon. >> Oh, yeah. I mean, hoisting they're trying to hoist Trump by his own petard,
[15:15]which basically very welld deserved. But I do think that you see them kind of fulminating darkly about what secrets the CIA is keeping about Jeffrey Epstein's relationship with the Israelis
[15:27]or whatever nonsense is being promoted in the moment that is basically cynical and they don't believe it either. I mean what's so what's is kind of interesting about this is there is a really big
[15:37]widely reported in plain sight story about Donald Trump's long friendship with Jeffrey Epstein which I think is what Trump is basically trying to avoid
[15:46]talking about quite understandably. So MAGA looks at MAGA uh enthusiast Trump's loyal base looks at this and
[15:56]they're they they either have to say well I was really invested in this what did you call it? You called it a mysterious nonsense. I was I was I was either really invested in this
[16:07]mysterious nonsense which is nonsense or the big guy the big dog lied. No one does. How is that going to affect
[16:16]the the MAGA movement going forward? >> You know, I think in the short medium term, it it's pretty demoralizing and it it just it just Trump appealed to people
[16:28]who felt very alienated from the system and feel very alienated from the system and feel that, you know, that that there's just something wrong and and stories like this kind of embody that
[16:40]that alienation. And a lot of them are people who didn't used to vote and who felt that Trump was their champion and would come to show up to the polls for him. They already were not are not that enthusiastic about voting for
[16:51]Republicans who are not named Donald Trump. And I think the danger to Trump is that this wave of kind of alienated outsiders who had totally gotten who had kind of detached from the political
[17:02]system and returned to it to vote for Donald Trump and maybe sometimes to vote for Republicans. Just go home and again and say, you know what, all these people are corrupt. They're all part of the problem.
[17:12]>> So, how does he shake this off? Because this doesn't seem to want to go away. It might it may die down, but it never seems to completely die. How does he how does he shake it off? Do we get
[17:23]distracted with something new and shiny and explosive in a couple of days time? >> Yes. >> And that's it. Okay.
[17:34]>> Pretty much that's the plan. >> All right. Good talking to you, Ben. Thank you so much for guiding us through that. Ben Smith, co-founder and editor-inchief of Seml. >> Thank you for having me on.
[17:46]>> Credible information. Let's see if we can get some from Scott Lucas. He's a professor of American studies at University College Dublin. Scott, it's good to have you back on the program.
[17:55]How can we make sense of Trump's shift in tone? I mean, he's basically flip-flopped regarding the Epstein list of clients. Well, I I think the starting point is
[18:08]that when Donald Trump was in opposition uh out of the White House uh and indeed even before he was president in the first term, he was
[18:19]pushing the line that there was very damaging information in u Jeffrey Epstein's files about Democrats uh about Bill Clinton, about Hillary Clinton,
[18:30]even about Barack Obama. Now, there was no evidence for that, but the Trumpist supporters, uh, including some on the hard right, they really jumped on to
[18:40]that as quote proof, uh, of their wild conspiracy theories about Democrats being involved in pedophilia, something that started with an incident called
[18:50]Pizzagate back in 19 in 2016. And so, Trump profited for years from whipping up these unsupported uh, ideas. But of course, now that he's
[19:01]president, it's different because if the Epstein files are released, it might have information in there that's damaging, not necessarily to Trump himself. We're not saying he's named in the files, we don't know, but to those
[19:13]who might have some type of connections with him. And it's that uncertainty which means that he's holding out of against any significant release of those files. And as far as the latest
[19:25]statement goes, that word credible is doing a lot of heavy lifting. That's a holding statement by Trump to say, "Oh, if there's anything to see here, we'll bring it out." But there's nothing to see here.
[19:35]>> If if those among the MAGA movement who believe that the client list exists, if they don't get what they want from Trump, um what is this going to do to
[19:46]this administration? And I'm wondering too, what's it going to do to the MAGA movement? >> Yeah, I I don't think, you know, the Epstein files are going to be the the issue that brings down Trump. Let's not
[19:58]jump that far. But if this administration runs into trouble on fundamental issues, and I think it will. I think the economy is going to be a serious issue in combination with Trump's chaotic tariffs sooner rather
[20:09]than later, then Trump can't count on going to those diehard supporters come hell or high water and say, "Stick with me." Because they'll say, "Look, you didn't back us on this issue that was of
[20:21]concern to us." and that could erode support for Trump more significantly in the short term. These aren't just conspiracy theorists that are outside the administration and outside
[20:33]Washington. Some of these conspiracy theorists are in Congress now. Some of them are legislators. Some of them are in Trump's own administration. So, it could affect the administration's ability to work and to carry out
[20:44]supposedly normal duties if these people feel like Trump isn't backing them. What do you make of the abrupt announcement by the Justice Department to walk back
[20:54]from the theory that Attorney General Pam Bondi has claimed that she has the documents on her desk? I mean, you know, it seemed like she was saying one week she had the client list, the next week
[21:05]she was saying, "No, I have a folder that has something in it." I mean, could she be forced to resign over this? >> Well, two different questions here.
[21:16]First of all, why the attorney general Pam Bondi is doing this, there are other Trump administration officials who are saying, "Look, she just does what Trump tells her to do or what she thinks Trump
[21:26]wants her to do." So, back in February when she said, "Oh, I have the list on my desk. We're going to release it." She could well be thinking, "Trump wants to keep stirring this against his political
[21:37]opponents." Now, here we are 5 months later, and when the rubber hits the road, one of two things happens. Either there was nothing in the files all along. So, it would be a damp swip. Or
[21:48]alternatively, there is something in the files that might not damage the Democrats, but could damage Trump. Either way, it's a bad option to to
[21:58]release. Now, does that mean that she takes the fall for this? That is one scenario. There are very key people who are Trump supporters and one of them is a hardright agitator named Lauren Loomer
[22:09]who has already gotten several Trump people fired including the then national security adviser Mike Waltz. She is going after Bondi. So yeah, I think Bondi could be the sacrificial lamb to
[22:21]try to protect Trump. >> Scott Lucas, professor of American studies at University College Dublin. Scott, as always good to have you on the show. We appreciate your time. Thank you.