Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
Tara McGowan: Thanks for having me, Greg.
McGowan: Unsurprised, Greg, but delighted nonetheless. I don’t think it should or does surprise too many people that Trump’s name appears. I’m glad that it’s being reported as such, but I’ve never seen anyone who has more selfies with Jeffrey Epstein than Trump. That have been on the internet for years and years and years. And of course, the story that came out earlier this week, or late last week, in The Wall Street Journal about the birthday card that Trump wrote to Epstein.… The evidence is mounting. And especially [for] folks that follow conspiracy theories or conspiracy theorists themselves, where there’s smoke, they think there’s fire or there likely is. And so the compounding evidence, including coming from Bondi, is going to keep the story going.
Sargent: And the Politico story really underscores your point about him being in a defensive crouch and understanding his own vulnerability on this. One person close to the White House tells Politico, “POTUS is clearly furious.” Trump obviously wants the media to be focused on his greatness and so forth. One White House ally says this is “a vulnerability” for Trump and that this is the fault of Trump and MAGA for originally hyping the Epstein files. That’s a White House ally speaking to Politico. One senior official says he’s frustrated with his staff for failing to tamp this down. Now Tara, we’ve been told for years that Trump wields magical powers over “the narrative.” That was always overstated, but now we’re really seeing that mythology get dispelled, aren’t we?
Sargent: I’ll tell you what, I just think that there are a bunch of boneheads who actually believed that stuff about Democratic pedophilia rings, and they thought they were going to go in there and blow the lid off this thing. That was the whole point of putting in Dan Bongino as deputy director of FBI and Kash Patel as director of the FBI. They were going to go in and be the scourge of the deep state and blow the whole thing wide open. They were just dumb enough to believe that shit. That’s what I think happened.
Sargent: So Trump’s frustration and the frustration of Trump’s team really came through at the White House press briefing. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked if Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is releasing all this horseshit stuff about prosecuting Obama in order to boost her shaky standing with Trump. Remember, Trump dressed down Gabbard for admitting that Iran wasn’t on the verge of a nuke. Listen to Leavitt here.
Sargent: So that sounds like a case of protesting too much. It sure sounds like we really are seeing internal strife among Trump’s team right now. Remember that Bongino is deeply angry over the Epstein fiasco. I’ve got to think there’s a lot of anger at Bondi in particular for mishandling her announcement that the matter was closed. That really stoked a lot of MAGA fury. I think it’s going to get worse for her now that this leak came out in The Wall Street Journal about her supposedly telling Trump that he’s in there. That’s going to seem like a leak from maybe DOJ. What’s your sense of what’s going on over there?
At the same time—I read this in Axios this morning in this sort of bloviating way, I thought—at a time where Trump really has been delivering a lot of “wins” in terms of his other campaign promises to his base, that’s why he’s also furious: He’s not getting any credit for it. So now he’s really experiencing what it is like to not actually be able to control the story or control your team. And this is where it’s going to get really interesting because the story, as we said, is not going away. So who is going to really defect? Who is going to get thrown out, because we know how he reacts when he’s angry, right? He starts firing. He starts demonizing. And he’s been doing his distraction strategy, and it isn’t working. So we’re going to start to see him, I think, act even more and more irrational, if that’s possible. I hate to say that there is fun and joy in this—but for those of us who have known what an empty suit he has been on so many of the promises he made to his base, there is a level of enjoyment, I think, we are all allowed at watching this go down. But I do think it’s incredibly important that all of us in media and advocacy also help keep this story and this momentum going.
McGowan: Yeah, it’s definitely feeling desperate because he has not satisfied the base. And thus the media’s amplifying because his answer [shows] that he has continued to not evolve. In fact, he just got more angry at his base and continued to say, There’s nothing there, move on. Why do you care? That’s undressing his base, right? That’s like shaming and blaming them and turning on them, which, of course, is not going to calm them down. If it had been pure distraction to something that was equally important to them, which is difficult to do, maybe it would have worked—but he actually turned on them first. We started to see a little bit of a bump and a splintering of the attention away from Epstein with the Gabbard announcements of the files, but it didn’t last very long. Epstein was back taking the cake in terms of engagement pretty quickly, and they’re not able to get it off of that at this stage.
McGowan: Yeah. I deeply, deeply respect Nancy Pelosi in many, many ways. And I fundamentally disagree with her. This is not a distraction. This is important. We’re seeing it across all audiences. It is honestly the most unified and bipartisan issue. And I think that Democrats need to lean into this very heavily. I think there’s also just a “take party out of it” [element to this]. If you’re not talking about the Epstein story, that’s a little bit more concerning in certain ways to me than the people that are, right? Because we should all be aligned that whoever was involved with Epstein was not on the good side of society or history or the law—let’s say. I think that this is not only a really important story that is actually unifying people of all political and other backgrounds, but it is such a critical one for Democrats to lean in on—because this is the most potent example we have of the corruption of Trump in this administration. The through line for everything that also unites the left and the right is getting corruption out of politics, right? He ran as someone who was going to do that. Him being corrupt himself and finally looking very defensive and scared, frankly—people can sense that.
Actually, no. Right now, this is what we should be talking about. And that doesn’t mean that fast forward a year from now, when we’re just months out from the midterms, we shouldn’t be talking about the other really important issues like affordability, etc. We should be doing that too. But I absolutely disagree with Nancy Pelosi and think that every Democrat should be leaning in and continuing to amplify all of the new incoming information that comes out of this story. We rarely, rarely have the ability to be on offense and to have Trump and the right on defense—and that is the moment we’re in right now. We need to hold that leverage for as long as we can.
McGowan: Yes, and sex trafficking young children and women. This is a really important issue. And again, it gets back to what I was mentioning before, which is: If you want to move on from this story, it really begs the question of why. And we all know that very likely there are Democrats in the Epstein files as well. This is why for so long all the conspiracy theories spread so crazy where we don’t know what’s true and what’s not—because both sides were in cahoots at protecting it. And that’s also why I think it’s so important that now, [with] time passing, we’re facing a very new generation of leadership in the Democratic Party that is really fighting to be able to get into positions of leadership and power against these folks that, frankly, have been the ones who have lost the trust and the support of the American people.
Sargent: Yeah, and the story is about the fundamental problem of elite impunity. That’s a huge thing. It’s a real problem. So to close this out, what should Democrats be doing specifically? You take someone like Senator Ron Wyden. He just put out this great information. We reported on it at TNR.com. You can check that out. He put out this information about a whole lot of suspect Epstein financial transactions that are on the file at the Treasury Department. Wyden’s pushing hard on those specifics, trying to get Treasury to release the financial transactions, which would show all sorts of stuff. I feel like Democrats could be using their power more like that—to try to shed light on what specifically is being covered up. What are your thoughts? What do you think Dems should be doing specifically?
Sargent: Yes. And I think Democrats have to figure out a way of talking about this as if they really mean it. It can’t be like, Look at me, I’m at the podium now and I know Trump’s in trouble. I’m going to be clever and I’m going to do 11-dimensional chess and put Trump on the defensive on an issue involving elites. Democrats have to summon from inside actual feelings and thoughts and values about this scandal and talk about it to the American people. That’s what I think has to happen.
Sargent: Well, Tara McGowan, I really hope Democrats are listening to you. Thanks so much for coming on. Great discussion.
McGowan: Thanks, Greg.
Hence then, the article about transcript furious trump spiraling over epstein mess allies admit was published today ( ) and is available on The New Republic ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Transcript: “Furious” Trump Spiraling Over Epstein Mess, Allies Admit )
Also on site :