How Trump Can Bury Epstein Files Shame: Michael Wolff | Inside Trump's Head

Although, in that Trump jujitsu, he is now saying he directed the release of the Epstein files, what we of course know is that he has done everything, everything possible, including putting himself and the firing line on this, not to release the Epstein files. I think he's gotten, if not 100% of what he wants, you know, he's gotten pretty close to it. He's in control of the Epstein

files. Congress has given him the tools with which to parse, edit, and curate the Epstein files. So, what do we have at the end of the day? We have actually probably just more distractions in the process of getting to the bottom of the Epstein story.

Michael.

Joanna. We have a lot of new listeners and viewers to the podcast over the last couple of weeks and I thought we should just one more time recap for people who aren't regular listeners or viewers exactly what we're trying to do inside Trump's head.

Having spent an enormous amount of time with Donald Trump and covering Donald Trump to the tune of four books and God knows how many attendant podcasts. I have been particularly frustrated, I think, with the way other people cover Donald Trump. That other people, other reporters, other journalists, cover this Donald Trump as they would any other president. That Donald Trump is a reflection of what he does, of the policies he proposes.

My view has always been that it doesn't work that way with Donald Trump. That he is a reflection of what he got up in the morning, what was on his mind when he got up this morning. It's mercurial, it's impulsive, it passes, or sometimes unexpectedly, it returns. And because he doesn't really have advisors, he doesn't really listen to anyone, even if he has advisors, it doesn't make any difference because he doesn't really listen to anyone, even if he has advisors, it doesn't make any difference because he doesn't listen.

It is all about him. It is a government of one. And what that is about, it's not Donald Trump has a vision of the way he wants his government to be or the way he wants his country to be. It is instead just what comes into his head at a given moment. And so, I think what we've set out to do is try to see Donald Trump, to see the Trump world, to see Trump news through that vantage point.

What the devil is the guy thinking? Why? How long will he hold that thought? How will it be interpreted by others around him?

I think that's a perfect upsum of what we're trying to do. And I would add only a quote that I've mentioned a couple of times on the podcast, but this thing that Trey Parker said when asked why South Park had become political, it's not that it's become political. It's that politics has become pop culture.

And because we've got a president who spent 14 seasons on a very popular reality show, he has made winning and losing elections almost as exciting as who was going to win American Idol when it first launched. And I think the merging of all of it on social media too is just enthralling, exasperating and potentially terrifying. So…

Moving on.

Moving swiftly on.

So, today we're going to definitely cover, we have to come to, we're obviously going to start with Epstein, but we have to at some point make sure we leave enough time to delve into…

Let me guess what you're going to say. Who do we want to delve into? And I would guess that it would be the most ridiculous person today in the Trump administration. And every day there's a new ridiculous person. But this person has got to take the cake.

Lindsay Halligan.

Who you have been flagging for the last few months as singly the most incompetent lawyer. As you as you pointed out, Trump often says he may not have the best lawyers, but he has the hottest lawyers here. Pam Bondi, he had to Blanche.

Her function was entirely to be a picture on his phone that he could show he could show people.

And then unfortunately she had to turn into a working lawyer and she's proved her a staggering incompetence and of course absolutely no match for James Comey and his lawyer. Let's come back to that.

Yeah.

Because it's really worth, let's not deliver the whole punchline here.

Okay, okay. All right, so let's start with the Epstein files and where are we? We know there was a unanimous vote which happened just after we recorded on Tuesday. Now what happens? Will we see the Epstein files?

I think that the answer is no. At least we will not see the full Epstein files. We will not know what we haven't seen in the Epstein files. That whatever this legislation, whatever the point of this legislation, it is effectively leaves control of the Epstein files and what will be released from the Epstein files in the hands of the White House.

And, obviously, although in that Trump jujitsu, he is now saying he directed the release of the Epstein files, what we of course know is that he has done everything, everything everything possible, including being fair, putting himself in the firing line on this, not to release the Epstein files. But I think he's gotten, if not 100% of what he wants, he's gotten pretty close to it. He's in control of the Epstein files. Congress has given him the tools with which to parse, edit, and curate the Epstein files.

So what do we have at probably just more distractions in the process of getting to the bottom of the Epstein story.

I know that one doesn't always apply logic around Trump and his administration, but is there a logic with which he can hold on to the files? Or do you think I mean, you suggested in the last podcast that he might have burned evidence?

They've outlined this. They don't have to turn over files of which are relevant to an ongoing investigation. Everything can be an ongoing investigation, nor do they have to turn over files that are classified. And basically, they can classify anything. So, so hell, what are we left with?

Would the photos that you say you saw at Jeffrey Epstein's of Donald Trump around the pool in Palm Beach, surrounded by young topless women, why would they be classified?

Well, you know, we don't have to know that. You can classify, basically, you can classify anything. Whether that would hold up in a court is it's kind of irrelevant. Is that, could you argue that that's part of an ongoing investigation? Well, there's an ongoing investigation of all of Epstein's crimes. Is that related to that? I mean, and do you have to justify that? That's also not clear. And or by the

time you justify that everything has moved on anyway. So, you know, I think that we are have only marginally moved off the place where we were before there was this legislation. Trump is in charge and it almost is worse because what he will do now, of course, is release aspects of these files that incriminate other people.

Right. So, in theory, he's supposed to release them within the next 30 days, which takes us bang up to the holidays, too, which means that people won't be paying as much attention probably and the house will have gone back for its recess. Yeah, I mean,

is this like the dog that's caught the car? It's one of those things that everybody is now the headlines are are the Epstein files are going to be released That's completely wrong. Let's get inside Trump's head. They're not going to be released quite the opposite We are we are no farther along than we then that then we have been the headlines are wrong

The headlines should be files are not going to be released. So is this because he's instructed Palm Bondi and Todd Blanche, his former personal lawyers now running the DOJ, to just bury everything? I mean, aren't those files spread across government departments? There are supposed to be lots and lots of copies of them. So can't people start leaking them if he decides not to release any effective information?

I mean that's the question, why doesn't everything get leaked? Some things get leaked, other people don't, other things don't get leaked, great secrets don't get get leaked, we don't know, it's called a leak, it's kind of random. It depends upon a person in a particular, at a particular point, with particular information being willing to risk their job and potentially their freedom.

So who knows? But what we do know on an institutional basis is that he has a Justice Department which understands its first function and responsibility is to protect him.

Okay, so this is a very different take than other people have been giving. Everybody's sort of clamoring for the release and getting their magnifying glasses ready. You just think there's not going to be any interesting information at all, or very little?

I think that there will be interesting information that will shine a spotlight far away from Donald Trump.

Okay, so who do you think is most vulnerable in this? I mean, he said he's going after Bill Clinton. Who are the other people he said he's going after? Larry Summers, who's this week had to recuse himself from almost everything.

I mean, clearly any Democrats or any people he has some some issue with.

And do you have any insight into why the Biden administration didn't release these? Was this because nobody was clamoring for the release of

them? Yeah, I mean I think I think nobody is clamoring for it. I think that they probably didn't know what it was. I think that they were probably, you know, forget about this. This is old news. And let me remember, nobody was particularly interested in this story at that point in time. And of course, there are a lot of Democrats in this. There's a lot of people, a lot of prominent people showed up at Jeffrey Epstein's house. Were they implicated in anything other than having a conversation with Jeffrey Epstein?

And I include myself here. No. So in at least one point of view, which I think the Biden administration probably had is that it would be unfair to release this, it would complicate, it would make problems for people who didn't deserve those problems. And to the degree that this was about fundamentally more about Donald Trump than anyone else, they were already pursuing so many things against Donald Trump that one more was, you

know, I don't know, a bridge too far.

Well, and I think they didn't factor him coming back for a second administration, right? They thought they dispensed with him.

Well, no, I don't think that they did think that they I mean, that's that's why I mean, yes, they partly did. But partly, clearly, you know, he was he was, you know, there were two federal indictments against them and then two further state indictments because people were, you know, I mean, they certainly wanted to, they certainly wanted a silver bullet, which they thought that they had.

Do you think this becomes the Epstein files, regardless of how much material comes out and how much the DOJ is able to hold back? Do you think it becomes an actual factor in the midterms?

Good question. I, you know, I don't, it very well might. I mean, I think it's a question of, of, of does it seem like, does it seem like he is stonewalling, stonewalling, it's the classic, the classic cover up. Does it seem like there is a cover-up going on? You know, it sort of comes down to its politics.

Is a cover-up adroit enough for there not to seem to be a cover-up? Is it stumbling and incompetent enough, and let's never underestimate the incompetence of the Trump administration, to appear to be actually a cover-up, which it has been so far. Remember the incompetence here, Trump saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, we can release the Epstein files. The people, the key figures in his administration saying, we're going to release the Epstein

files. And then suddenly, you know, a screeching about face. There's nothing in the Epstein files. We're not going to do anything.

We're not releasing anything. Go home. Well, and also Elon Musk in his fit of peak when he's had his divorce or at least separation from Donald Trump tweeting out Trump is in the Epstein files.

That was not helpful to Donald Trump.

Right, then he deleted the tweet and now after some kind of period of separation, he's now back in the fold and Trump is throwing bones at him at his dinner with MBS, for example. Saudi bones, Khashoggi bones. I can't believe I used that. Oh God, that was a terrible phrase.

But yes. It's good. It's a good phrase. It's, it's, let's, let's be, you know, I mean, it is a whole other subject, which I think we should spend some time on, you know, the fundamental connection between, between between the Trump administration and the Persian Gulf in this unlimited pool of cash, which they have accessed for the Trump family and for businesses everywhere who have then come

to support Donald Trump.

Right, and just reminding people that Jared Kushner kicked off his business, Affinity Partners, with $2 billion from the Saudis.

Right, and you know, I did a sub-stack piece yesterday, I think, about Jeffrey Epstein's connection to MBS and the money in the Persian Gulf, and that that created, it was initially, before anyone else, Epstein is one of the people who saw the opportunities, the pickings were ripe, and he spent an enormous amount of time in the Persian Gulf with MBS, video games with him. Jeffrey Epstein

played video games with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. Yeah you had to apparently you had to that that was the only kind of I mean that was the the central way to make a relationship. Like man children so like man children. Of

course and then Tobarek Epstein's, Trump's close confidant and advisor to this day, a pivotal figure in this. And then, MBS is one of the first foreign visitors to the Trump White House in 2017. Saudi Arabia is one of the first foreign trips the President makes, and then MBS is supported by the Trump administration in essentially a coup against the rest of his family. He jumps over other contenders and becomes the Saudi leader. And everyone profits off of this.

Heather Bateman Right. Except I noticed that Jeff Bezos wasn't at the dinner for MBS, at least as far as I could see, which that would have been an awkward one for him, given that he's the owner of the Washington Post, and it was the Washington Post columnist who was dismembered by allegedly MBS.

Remember that moment when after the Khashoggi thing everybody was returning their Saudi money.

A brief moment. A brief moment. A brief moment. Although if you talk to women who live there, they all say it's just changed radically. They can drive now, they can go out without headscarves, things are much better, and that he's dragged a country that was far behind into the modern world.

That is true. An insular country then became a, you know, a financial powerhouse and and That was certainly that was as he described it to me part of the conversation that Epstein had with with with MBS well before this well before MBS came to ultimate power and well before the the Persian Gulf States states became the world's financial engine.

Right. No, it's clear he's modernizing the country and it's a fascinating story as it unfolds. All right, so let's get to the woman you have been talking about consistently for the last few months, Lindsay Halligan with the fabulous hair. Lindsey Halligan of the fabulous hair but the less intense grip on the law. So Lindsey

Halligan, who I have been aware of because of I closely followed the Trump 2024 campaign and she was a kind of in-and-out figure in the campaign, and a comic figure. No one ever took her seriously. No one ever assumed that she could do anything, no less a legal job within the context of the campaign. She was there for the sole purpose of being Trump.

It amused Trump to have these very good-looking women as his lawyers. And this goes to Trump's whole mixed feeling about his lawyers, who he always had. I mean, the lawyers who actually knew what they were doing. He always had a great deal of contempt for them. So to surround himself with these comely women who somehow got through law school was a something he could brag about.

I may not have the smartest legal team, but I have the hottest. And then he would put up the iPhone. But it also gave him enormous dominance over these so-called lawyers. They of course would do anything that he said because they didn't know what to do. They had no real independent legal reputations or practice. And Lindsay Halligan, I'm sure she just kind of, she was somewhat innocent in all this.

She kind of wandered into it and it was like, why not?

Well, I want to read what the judge said. I mean, before we do, before we get together, Michael and I usually text back and forth things that we've spotted and Michael spotted this comment from the judge on the case and I'm going to read it out loud. It's challenging to unpack the DOJ letter, he wrote, because it contains so many factual, legal, and typographical errors. Indeed, even attorneys employed by the Texas Attorney General, who professes to be a political ally of the Trump administration, describe the DOJ letter as legally unsound, baseless, erroneous, ham-fisted, and a mess.

Yeah, and I mean, this should not be a surprise. The only thing that is a surprise here is that the United States government and Justice Department would actually do this. But what's not a surprise is that when you put a when no lawyer, to present this case to the grand jury. It's going to be, obviously, in all likelihood, overwhelmingly likely that it will be a complete

hash, which it was. And also, especially when you're taking to task the former head of the FBI, a Republican who has hired a lawyer in Michael Dribben, who has, I believe, I was looking at his record, presented in front of the Supreme Court. That's just one lawyer, his actual lawyer. A hundred times, Michael, a hundred times he's been in front of the Supreme Court. His actual lawyer. Patrick Fitzgerald.

Has been a mainstay of the Justice Department, has been a special prosecutor, is a major presence in the Justice Department, as James Comey was. So this is kind of the justice department against the justice department.

Exactly. And one is competent and one is utterly incompetent and has presented a mess to the judge. So we should get a result from that case anytime soon. But the assumption is it will be dismissed.

And the likelihood is that they'll just throw it all out.

Right. Which does that bode well for everybody else coming up on the docket? Yeah.

That Trump is going after. I think it clearly does. And but I mean, this is this is at one of those those interesting possible pivots here. He Trump is going after people who are not powerless. They have the ability to bite back and they are obviously biting back and they have they have constituencies of their own and power bases of their of their own. And, you know, it shows, you know, Trump is among everything else that he is. He is a fool. He doesn't think things through.

He doesn't come to things with a strategic point of view. He can't think two steps in front of him. And it all comes a cropper, which it did the last time he engaged, by the way, with James Comey. And that that immediate immediately resulted in the Mueller investigation and was devastating to his first term. The only thing that he has is this ability to make these egregious mistakes and then to distract from them, often with other egregious mistakes.

Okay, so what's going on inside Trump's head in terms of this case against Comey is clearly going to be thrown out. The judge is already signaling it. What will be in Trump's head when that happens? Is it just about how to drive the narrative on? It's a cliffhanger at the end of an episode and he's just driving into the next.

Curiously, what he will do is try to demonize Comey further.

So he'll double down, his habit to double down.

Always always double down. Comey is a, you know, this is a plot by the Democrats. This is a plot by Comey. This is this is the, you know, the his enemies within the government on and on and on and on, which which has some appeal to his base. He's standing up against these secret forces. Right, against the deep state.

Is it possible that Halligan's failure is good for Trump in creating a different headline from the Epstein case?

Well, I think it would be a better headline if he was going to be able to pursue James Comey. I mean, you know, failure, another failure. I mean, as I as I say, he is often he distracts from his failures, often with other failures. So, yes, I guess in that in that in that with that logic, which is hardly what one would call logic, it might

work.

I mean, he will always keep pushing on. There is never a moment with, which you sense the underlying shame of it all. And that never happens with Donald Trump because, A, because he feels no shame.

And he's able in the face of shame to summon enormous righteousness, a kind of righteousness that no non-sociopath would be able to summon. Secretary to the Treasurer and former president of Harvard is forced to recuse himself or he's been pressured to you know leave the board of OpenAI, stop teaching at Harvard and yet Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein's best friend for 15 years, is in the White House and the most powerful man in the world. Of course I

mean that that is that is what's going on now. Everybody trying to get their heads around this. That's the reckoning or the answer that people people are looking for. How did this happen? Should this have happened? What does it mean that this has happened? I mean that's why Epstein, Epstein, Epstein keeps going on because everybody understands that it says something.

The problem is they don't exactly know what it says.

So Michael, hold on, hold on, let me just get this straight. So when he was arrested in 2019, the indictment there for having sex with girls who are underage was actually to do with his behavior in the late 90s and the 2000s, early 2000s when Donald Trump and he were tooling around.

Dr. Richard D. Denton Yes.

Dr. Angela Brinkley Okay. Okay. So that is helpful to just bear that in mind as other much more accomplished people in a sense than Donald Trump have been felt by their adjacency to Epstein?

Yeah, obviously.

I mean, this is one of those Trumpian things. Remember, he has always denied, I mean, he has both admitted to knowing Epstein and admitted to knowing him in a very what would be the word intimate sense They were they were bros Mark Singer a writer for the New Yorker just described a plane trip that he took with Donald Trump in I think 1996

in which Galen Maxwell was on the plane with Donald Trump and then Galen and Trump got on the phone with Jeffrey Epstein. And Singer describes quite vividly a very intimate, jocular, you know, friends completing each other's sentences kind of phone call and relationship. These guys were, as I've said over and over and over and over again, the closest of friends, each other's best friend, I believe, in life. That they had each

never had a relationship as close as the one they had with each other.

So, Michael, what I'm taking away from this is it doesn't really matter that we had a unanimous House vote for the release of the Epstein files,

other than as a big F you to Donald Trump, because he's not going to release anything anyway of any value. Yeah, no, and I think that that's probably where this should come back to. What is the meaning of this vote insofar as the Republican Party and Donald Trump? I think we can really assume that we are not going to get the answers that this is theoretically designed to get. And that the real implications, at least the immediate implications, are what it says, you know, he lost his party on this. So what that means is questions about his own lame duck status status or his increasing lame-duck status and that this is going to be an ongoing the Epstein Epstein Epstein of it all is going to continue

and it won't stop with answers because there won't be any answers but it will continue as often scandals do precisely because there are no answers.

But it is the one thing he hasn't been able to control. I mean, there is potentially a wag the dog scenario here where he goes into Venezuela, something he wanted to do in his first administration. He's going to have to think of something very dramatic to move on from the Epstein files.

Well, I mean, there have been many dramatic things and he hasn't been able to move on. And I don't think that is going to happen.

Well, I think on Friday, we should just list all the things that we thought might be, you know, do you remember when we were all talking about the demolishing of the East Wing? What happened to that? Is it a pile of rubble that they started rebuilding? We need to follow up on that. The whole White House has been demolished. You haven't seen that.

Nothing would surprise me. I just wonder how fast he's going to be able to build back better the ballroom. That's what I want to see. Anyway, we've got some more questions for Melania, which we should run through in our Ask Melania section. This is a good one from Sandra Sundrad. Melania, a question, would you marry your husband if you had the information you have today back then when you first met? Could you ask her that please? Well that is that's a question for a novel.

Question for Melania, will you please fill out this US citizen test, hand her the test and calculate the score. I will say I don't think those citizen tests are very difficult. Question for Melania, what are the names of the other models who worked for Paolo Zampoli when you did? Who organized his book work? Who else worked with him in his modeling agency? Were there specific photographers he used? Where did you live while working for him? What client homes did you visit? What are the names of people you

traveled with when you were going on modeling jobs? Very good. Who is that question from? That is from SGW3612. Well thank you for that because that is right on point. This isn't a question but this is rather a good point from Margaret W Block. During the timeline when Trump and Epstein were buddies Trump himself was very much a Democrat. I'm 84 years old and I remember him on the television constantly and I was

shocked when he suddenly turned Republican to run for president. So when he says he wants all these Democrats in the files identified, he was a Democrat.

Good point.

Very good point. Epstein, by the way, was a Republican. Was he? But he would be one of those fiscally, you know, fiscally responsible, obviously socially liberal. Yes, he was just a business guy, whatever, whatever, whatever was best for making money. And anybody with great questions like that,

this is, this is very helpful to the ongoing legal procedure against the First Lady.

Thank you.

We'll be broadcasting again on Saturday.

Great.

Thank you all. And don't forget to subscribe, leave us a comment and tell all your friends. Over Thanksgiving, as you're trying to figure out what on earth to discuss with your relatives, why don't you send them a copy of Inside Trump's Head ahead of time and you can all discuss our latest episode around the turkey. If you have been, thank you for joining us. A special shout out to our Bee Beast tier of members, Herbie, Andrew Meller, Michael, you always pronounce it Meller, but I think

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