This is the second episode in a two party to view. The first part is called Part one. Had the Epstein Conspiracy turned Maga against Trump? It's in your feed now, Nick, If you go further back, it's well known that Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein were friends. Can you just trace their relationship for us?
Yeah, it does go back quite a while. They just both existed in the same social circles. They were in this sort of wealthy Manhattan elite and then also in this sort of wealthy Florida elite during the nineties and early two thousands, and so they were just swimming in the same pool and within that pool. It does seem like that they were legitimately friends. And there was a New York magazine profile of Epstein in the early two thousands in which Trump specifically called Epstein a terrific guy.
He said, quote, I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy. He's a lot of fun to be with, and has even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side, No bad doubt about it.
They did have a falling out. It was reportedly over this real estate deal that they both wanted to buy a mansion in Florida, and then that fell apart, and later on Trump said that he never liked him, was never really friends with him, banned him from mar A Lago.
Well, I knew him like everybody in Palm Beach knew him. I mean people in Palm Beach knew him. He was a fixture in Palm Beach. I had a falling out with him a long time ago. I don't think I've spoken to him for fifteen years. I wasn't a fan.
But there's a pretty documented long list of them having a lot of social ties.
What are the chances that they're actually he's a least at Trump's names owned that least.
You know, what makes a really good conspiracy is to begin with a kernel of truth and then blow it up. But you don't just have a kernel of truth here. You have much more than that this happened. This was a legitimate crime. It is a legitimate scandal, it's a legitimate tragedy. What happened to victims? And there is just
more to know about this. Whether or not there is a physical list somewhere, I think is at this point relatively doubtful that there is just a perfect document in a Manila envelope somewhere that you can pick out and it will say exactly who everyone was and what they did,
and Trump's name will be on it. But I think that there's enough open ended questions right now of who was involved with Epstein, who was person in a position of power, whether it's Trump, whether it's Bill Clinton, whatever side of the political spectrum that you're on, there are
unanswered questions related to this. And regardless of if you're a quneon conspiracy theorist, or if you're somebody who is just interested in whether people in power are using it in impropriety ways or who are involved into various activity, that's something that I think kind of everybody can begin to agree on, which is that we've never really gotten the full story of this.
Nick. Of all the controversies Trump has withered, right, delegations of civil finding against Team January Seeks being paged twice, why is this issue cutting through with Trump's supporters.
Yeah, I think that for a lot of those controversies and scandals that you mentioned, things that Trump had always denied from the get go, that his audience and his followers were really primed to disbelieve from day one with this, it's a little bit different. It's something that they have always really really cared about since the Epstein scandal broke. It's something that Republicans have harped on about relentlessly. It's something that magaworld media figed have harped on about relentlessly.
And for followers of a more extreme conspiracy movement around QAnon, it's really central to their worldview. And so one of the things that people hate the most in politics of hypocrisy, and this is very, very blatantly hypocritical in the way that a lot of these figures were stoking this conspiracy and are now telling the average person to not worry
about it and forget about it. In terms of what this will do to Trump's standing, I think that it will make him more associated with politicians the machine DC and so if Trump becomes more associated with that and less associated with his status as this outsider coming in breaking up the lies and bureaucracy and the so called swamp of Washington, people just might were not going to believe in this guy as this sort of hero narrative that has long been presented anymore.
After the break, Rupert Murdoch arrives on the scene. Nick. Late last week, the Wall Street Journal published a letter they say he's from Trump to Epstein. Trump has now threatened to sue the newspaper and Rupert Murdoch over it. He also said he's directed his Attorney General, Pam Bondi to release small files about Epstein to the public. So what was in the letter that sit him off?
There was a birthday book of well wishes around two thousand and three sent to Epstein, and Trump wrote in this book and his message to Jeffrey Epstein for his birthday quote.
This is from the Wall Street Journal. The letter bearing Trump's name, which was reviewed why their journal, is body like others in the album. It contains several lines of typri and text, framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand drawn with a heavy marker. A pair of small arcs denotes the woman's breasts, and the future president's signature is a squiggly donald blow her waist,
mimicking pubic hair. The letter concludes, happy birthday and may every day be another wonderful secret.
Trump has denied that message and says that it's fake, but it appears well sourced, and it appears fairly damning in terms of the collection of evidence that they have this history together, and.
So the whole thing is moving quickly and is far from over. How important is it for Trump right now to ensure total loyalty from the paper around him?
Yeah, I mean Trump really prizes loyalty. I think that's one of the traits that he may value above all else when it comes to people he works with. And so so far people have been largely falling in line within his administration, and he is going to say, look, you know, now is the time to rally around me. This is a moment in which we can't have anybody be speaking out against the administration. So far, Pam Bondi has been towing the line very well in that respect,
and Trump has praised her for it. Trump has said she's doing an amazing job.
He's really done a very good job.
And I think that.
When you look at it, you'll understand that. I would like to see that also, But I think the Attorney general the credibility is very important, and you want credible.
Evidence or something like that, and I think the Attorney General has handled it very well.
And so you know, as long as she continues to be a sort of heat shield for him, she's a pretty useful person for him to have around.
So his team looks like they're reminding loyal. But if he's Spie Dessert seem out of these what impact will that have when his political feature.
While Trump is in power, while he's not campaigning for anything right now, he does need this base, He needs his support. There is still a tendency of Trump to really care about his popularity and really care about whether people like him. And there's been you know, internal polling from Democrats that show that this is resonating with voters and that if not, you know, switching them to Democrat, it just may not make them as willing to vote
Republican come midterms. It may make them shy away and make them disenfranchised with Trump if they feel that this is sort of a false promise that he made, or that the belief that they had that he would release the files and prove that he was the savior that was promised never materializes. So I think that there's a
real risk. I think that things are so closely fought in American politics right now that even losing a small portion of your base is potentially devastating, just because the margins are so thin on a lot of elections and a lot of policy votes, and so yeah, it could have a real impact, especially as he tries to push policies through that he needs full support of Republican lawmakers for.
And if there are people who are on the hard right, far right side of the party who are beholden to a magabase that is really upset about this, they may not as readily side with Republican initiatives if they can't get what they want and prove to their base that they're working towards sort of uncovering the Epstein conspiracy. I think Trump's risk right now is that he does see more defections, he does see more people who break with him on this, and that people don't believe what he's
trying to feed them of. This isn't a big deal. I know nothing about this, I was never involved. It's all fake and it's tough for people to believe that when presented with the idea that Trump turned his back on them. And I think that that betrayal would really resonate with a lot of people who previously were extremely diehard about supporting.
Nick. Thank you once again for coming on and speaking to us.
Thanks for having me.
Also in the years liberally to Jeremy Rockcliffe has claimed victory in the Tasmanian state election after his party secured more seats than Labor the Liberals from fourteen seats to Labour's nine, with neither party reaching the eighteen seats required to govern outright. Despite that, Rockliff says who lost the governor to recommission his government, describing Labour's result as a
repudiation of his rivals. And Latham has rejected reports about his alleged behavior towards former partner Natalie Matthews, calling them false, reckless and irresponsible. Matthews is seeking in apprehended domestic violence order against Latham, alleging a sustained pattern of abuse and manipulation. Latham says he has broken no law and police are not laid charges. His parliamentary colleagues have also criticized him over derogatory messages he sent about female MPs. I'm Daniel James.
This is seven am. Thanks for listening.