November 3, 2024 • 26 mins
Following last week’s headline-making revelations about the complex relationship between Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump, Michael and James return for a special bonus episode with a powerful follow-up. In this discussion, Michael dives deeper into his decision to release these recordings now, revealing additional behind-the-scenes conversations with Epstein that offer a candid look at Trump’s tactics, ambitions, and the dark dynamics of their friendship.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Well, good morning, Michael. We just dragged each other out
of bed in this rather special extra podcast we're doing
because the last one we did, Lift the Blue touch
Paper in ways that I think neither of us had
quite imagined, became one of the most listened to podcasts
in the country, was denounced by the Trump team, which
will come to and it was discussed in Congress on
(00:26):
Friday as the possible investigation of the FBI's practice in
resting and confiscating Jeffrey Epstein's materials.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
So wow, which goes to what I've always found and
always thought that the name Epstein makes people go crazy.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Well it sure seems to have done. I mean, we've
been posting some of these clips on The Daily Beast,
so they've been somewhat available.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
And let me just also point out that The Daily
Beasts has been incredibly helpful because a lot of these
tapes are of poor quality, which would be largely my
fault because I seemed to barely have to work a
tape recorder even the voice memo function on the iPhone.
The Daily Beast has subtitles on this material, and we
can't have subtitles here, but I will do my best
(01:14):
to interpret the problematic places. More on my interviews with
Jeffrey Epstein about Donald Trump coming up.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Welcome to Fire and Fury the podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
I'm Michael Booth and I'm James Truman. Michael, can you
just set the scene for a moment for us here
where you were, what the vibe was between the two
of you, how the conversation arrived at this point.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Yeah, let me do two things. Let's just briefly set
up the thing. What we have here in this clip
is Epstein talking about Trump's methods of seducing the wives
of his friends horrible.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
He would do it, in Jeffreys, he does nasty with
best friends, best friend's wives, anyone who first tries to
gain trust and uses it to bad past.
Speaker 5 (02:21):
That's how would finished.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
In the specific way, he would seduce the wives of
his friends, and he would have someone into his office.
He'd make an appointment to see them, and at the
same time, he'd get the wife on the speaker phone
and the husband would not know that the wife was
listening into this conversation, and then Trump would prompt him
to essentially begin to talk about sex and begin to
(02:45):
talk about issues he might have with his wife. And
then offer girls to this person, and that would essentially
be the way that Trump would seduce the wife secretly
listening in on the phone.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
You've asked the question about where.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
So there were two places that Epstein and I usually
talked as a scene setter. He lives in or lived in.
One of the largest private residences in Manhattan was on
East seventy first Street on the Park Block, a gargantawan house.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
I used to take.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
You know, there are those big town houses on the
park blocks of the Upper east Side, but then there
was Epstein's house. So I would often take people buy
the house and point it out and say that's where
Jeffrey Epstein lives, and it invariably got a guffaw, that's
how big this house is. So the conversations took place
(03:45):
either in his dining room, which is in the back
of the house. It's a very large dining room around
a table that I guess would see comfortably thirty and
that's where from morning till night he had people in constantly.
It was kind of a meeting in constant progress, with
(04:05):
new faces, new personalities joining throughout the day, and you
could have any food that you want.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
It was like, what would you like.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Literally anything was on offer, it would be made and
then it would come out. And actually this was always
kind of awkward because he would say, what.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Would you like?
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Would you like an omelet? Would you like a monte Cristo.
He would reel this off and you would be kind
of caught off guard and he would say, oh, yeah,
you know, I'll have this, and then you would find
yourself as the only person at the table eating.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
So you had to learn, he said, always to say no, yeah, yeah,
at any rate.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
That was one of the scenes of these interviews. I
would sit there and there were often other people there,
and then I had to wait until the room cleared
and then we could have a moment of private conversation.
Or The other place was up a very grand staircase,
and at the top of the staircase there was his study,
(05:08):
and to call it baronial would be to underplay it.
And it ran the entire length of the house, so
basically a quarter of a Manhattan block. And I think
that's one of the reasons that some of this is
difficult to hear, is the size of this room, with
its double height ceiling, all of the sound is absorbed.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
So I have a question Michael. One of the things
I found fascinating about this clip was as he was
describing Trump's behavior, he applied it to you and your wife,
who he named, and also the object of Trump's would
be seduction.
Speaker 6 (05:49):
This is just amazing, Rocks, and he's what's there?
Speaker 4 (06:00):
Uh?
Speaker 5 (06:01):
You like sex? Right? How old are you?
Speaker 4 (06:05):
See?
Speaker 6 (06:05):
It's great?
Speaker 5 (06:06):
How seriously? How we don't want? We can unite and
go upstairs or tomorrow? Come over? Is this girls coming
into Los Angeles? Part of the oh why on? Traffic cuts? Right?
(06:27):
So come over with your coffee. You can have a
great coun I promise you, Michael. You know it's just
me and you're gonna have a great time and be
up here through the cock and grow steps the whole time.
Your return has been on the list.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Because he wants to Sorry, did that seems strange to
you at the time, Well, well at the time it didn't.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Listening to the clip, it now seems extremely strange.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
And I have to go and ask my wife is
this okay?
Speaker 2 (06:59):
And she said, I'll take one for the country. But
I think that was a sort of Epstein kind of thing.
I mean, he was actually a very good storyteller, so
he just suddenly personalized this. It would be you in
that position and he would be talking about your wife.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
But I mean as he did that, he kind of
challenged or took away your boundaries, which I guess is
convincing storytelling.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
I think one of the things it's interesting for people
to hear Epstein suddenly as the real life guy in
these tapes, because he's less when we've come to think
of him clearly as the monster of our time.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
And in these tapes, even as he details Trump's behavior
in his own less than acceptable behavior, he still comes
off as someone quite thoughtful and quite incisive about his
friend Donald Trump.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Yes, and just to Kathie's in time. This was twenty seventeen.
Trump had just come into office. Epstein had had his
first run in with the law in Palm Beach, but
gotten free.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Epstein went to jail in two thousand and eight. He
was out of jail, living his life, occupying this incredible house,
going on as though nothing had happened to him. His
house was still filled with the good in the great,
the high end, the mighty.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Such a Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
I mean, I think we know a lot of these
names from Bill Gates to Larry Summers, to a who
had Barock, the former Prime Minister of Israel, to Gnom Chompsky.
It was kind of an incredible cast of characters. I
think the reasons that they were there were complicated reasons,
(08:53):
or perhaps not complicated reasons. They were there because it
was an incredibly interesting place to be. And if there
were people involved with Epstein's other side, of which I
never saw any indication of, I didn't know that. But
even having said that, I suppose.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
I did see.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
I mean, there were always a background of girls at
Epstein's house. I never thought any of these girls were
necessarily underage. Actually none of them did seem to be underage.
But they were a kind of cast of characters. Of
these women who he employed as assistants, And you know,
(09:35):
I have no idea what they did other than provide
this backdrop to this I suppose hedonistic lifestyle, although again
other than their presence, there was no indication of that.
Most of the time Epstein spent talking economic affairs and
international affairs and politics as though he were a man
(09:56):
at the center of the world's affairs.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
You'd set on Friday that he had become frightened of
Donald Trump. I assumed that this was the moment when
he had he was frightened of Donald Trump because Trump
would come into office.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Yes, I mean, he never said I am afraid for
my life here. But there were many times at which
I tried to urge him to go public with his
views about Trump. And what he indicated was that I
was somehow and innocent, that I didn't know how the
world worked or how Donald Trump worked.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
What was his motivation in talking to you and telling
these actually incredibly reckless stories about Trump.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
I mean, many people have told me the air incredible
and reckless stories about Donald Trump. I don't think this
is unique to Jeffrey Epstein. People who have known Donald
Trump cannot believe how history has unfolded. The fact that
Donald Trump became the President of the United States will
(11:01):
be the president again is beyond explanation to many people
who have had any kind of an experience with Donald Trump. Yes,
so I came along, and I had known Epstein at
various points, and the fact that I was writing this book,
(11:22):
which curiously Epstein well before I knew it, saw that
this book would be quite incendiary and would in some
sense defying the early Trump era and I think that
was an opportunity for him to begin to understand what
(11:42):
had happened here and to fill in pieces that he possessed.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Okay, we know that many people who have been kind
of cast aside by Trump kind of want to worm
their way back in. Was Epstein one of those?
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Oh, I wonder, I think that's a good question. I
don't think so. Since he was telling me all of this,
I don't think that he saw that as a possibility.
I think he understood what you would have to do
to get back into Trump's good graces if he wanted to,
and he was not going to do that. At the
same time, he knew a lot of people around Donald Trump.
(12:18):
A lot of Donald Trump's friends were Jeffrey Epstein's friends.
So there was a weird thing going on here. Maybe
there was some degree that he felt like he was
the shunned friend and therefore left to tell tales out
of school.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
That may have been part of it.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Yes, among all the drama that has unfolded in the
last three days, I mean, I've read a lot of
questions from people why you waited until the week of
the election before the election to start releasing this material?
Speaker 3 (12:53):
Why did you.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Why did we do that?
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Well, I mean, the reason we did it is because
of the model Stacey Williams, who came out last week
and described her interaction with Trump while she was Jeffrey
Epstein's girlfriend. That was the immediate reason we did this,
and frankly, that was what gave us the idea. I
hadn't particularly thought about this before. And one of the
(13:17):
reasons I hadn't thought about this is that I've had
this material for quite a long time now. I have
discussed this material with virtually every major media outlet. I've said,
this is a great story, this is explosive stuff. We
ought to be done with it. And there has been
(13:37):
an interesting pattern of immediate and great interest and then
a kind of sense as it's discussed among media executives
of people saying, this is epstein life is too short,
This stuff is too difficult, It is too problematic to
present Epstein as someone other than the worst kind of criminal,
(14:00):
and here we are now positioning him as a somewhat
knowledgeable insider. And there have been a lot of occasions.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
There was a.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Big discussion with Netflix that was led by one of
the most prominent people in the business, making these kind
of docudramas, and Netflix said, no way.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Do we want to do this.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Sky and the UK actually commissioned a script on this,
and then suddenly there were and I was around this
table a lot of executives with the script and saying, hmm,
I thought this was a good idea, Jeffrey Epstein, and
then virtually every network and cable channel that has had
(14:43):
a documentary or non non fiction narrative outlet saw this
material two summers ago, I guess, and everybody took an
incredibly interested meeting. They were shown extensive parts of this,
(15:03):
and then they all passed. So from my own point
of view, it's like, Okay, you know, you just got
to get on with your life here, and so I
sort of put it on the back burner, thinking that
this is important stuff. At some point there would be
a way to tell this story.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
We'll be back right after the break.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
I think this particular clip is really you have to
concentrate and listen to. So getting the version with the subtitles,
which the Daily Beast has done a terrific job on,
is worthwhile. But the interesting thing here is I ask
Epstein how he knows all this stuff, and he kind
of responds with some incredulity and says, well, I was
(15:53):
Trump's closest friend for ten years, and I think that's
the point here.
Speaker 5 (15:57):
So how do you notice? So I need the I
need THEE.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
And then he does this, He tells this, you know
this funny story about Trump's scalp reduction surgery, because Trump
is as bold as any guy with mail pattern baldness.
Speaker 5 (16:26):
He had a scout.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
One other point is that I wrote quite extensively about
this in a book that I published two years ago,
a book called Too Famous. It sort of tells the
story of people gathering in Epstein's house to talk about
his legal difficulties. It also includes a long section with
(16:52):
Steve Bannon, who Epstein has befriended, and Bannon has befriended Epstein.
They've befriended each other over there shared incredulity about Donald Trump,
and Bannon comes in to give Epstein media training, because
there's a thought that Epstein could go on a national
show sixty minutes, for instance, and address all of his
(17:16):
legal problems and somehow get himself out of the fix,
the mortal fix. As it turns out, that he seemed
clearly to be headed toward Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
I remember that was the last section of the book.
It was riveting, and you felt that Epstein at that
point was in the same sort of state that Hobby
Weinstein was in when he was first accused, and he said, oh,
I'll make a film about this, and that you know,
didn't understand the seriousness of it.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
I mean, Epstein certainly did not understand the seriousness of it,
as everyone around him kept telling him how serious it was.
I remember his lawyer was in one of these conversations
and his lawyer said, and this is kind of gives
me a shiver. His lawyers said, Jeffrey.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
Listen to me. This is bad. This is heart attack, Badow.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
So do we know if Donald Trump personally is aware
of what you've done and releasing it?
Speaker 2 (18:15):
You know, I think it's interesting. Let's look at the
statement that they that the Trump campaign.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
Oh, it's too good. I got to read it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Michael Wolfe is a disgraced writer who routinely fabricates lies
in order to sell fiction books. Because he did no
morals or ethics, he waited until days before the election
to make out landish false mears all in an effort
to engage in blatant election interference on behalf of Kamala Harris.
He's a failed journalist that is resorting to lying for attention.
(18:47):
Well well done, Michael's that's pretty great.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
Yes, that's from Stephen Chung right now. No, Stephen, who's
actually an incredibly nice guy, but his fame in the
Trump camp is that he issues these kind of flamethrower statements. Ah,
I mean, they go, we need a flamethrower statement, get
Stephen to write it.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
And at the same time, just to do the Trump
split screen thing. There's another person in the campaign who
I called and I said, these tapes are going to
come out and this is what's going to be on them,
and this person could stop laughing. So but also the
nature of this thing, you know, this is a kind
(19:31):
of a boiler plate statement. I mean, there are many
other names that could be replaced with mine here. But
the interesting thing is this conceit about saying things that
would be negative to Trump before the election is election
interference when it seems to me that is the very
nature of an election campaign. I mean, what is the
(19:53):
alternative you know something and you don't say it because
that would change people's minds.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Do you think it's is going to try and shield
them from it, because oh.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Well, yeah, that's the other thing that would go on here.
The imperative would be to keep this clamped down and
not for it not to get to the point of
which they have to speak to Trump about it. Yeah,
because if they have to speak to Trump about it,
then Trump would blow up and then he would say
something and make it a much more bigger deal than.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
It already is.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
And the other thing to note about this statement is
that they don't say that anything is untrue.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Yeah. And of course the other immediate impact on Friday
was the Congressman Steve Cohene brought up in Congress about
the evidence that the FBI retrieved from Epstein's safe and
asked that an inquiry be open to find out what
happened to the photographs. Can you just remind us what
the photographs were all?
Speaker 2 (20:52):
You know, the photographs of Epstein on several occasions would
take out these these photographs of Donald Trump and the
set of girls that were at Epstein's house in Palm Beach,
and in the pictures, and there were possibly a half
a dozen of them, and Epstein used to kind of
flick them around like playing cards. There were girls around.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
The swimming pool. They were all topless.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
One specifically, I remember a girl sitting on Trump's lap,
and in another Trump has a stain on the front
of his pants, which the girls three or four are
pointing at and laughing.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Epstein used to go to his safe, take.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
These pictures out, and then return them to the safe.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
It is quite possible.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
That they were in the safe when the FBI raided
the house, although of course I don't know that, okay.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
And you believe that the FBI either house them, will
destroyed them.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
I just know that that's where they were.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
He kept them in his safe, and the FBI ultimately
raided that safe and took the contents of the safe.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Yeah, that was the safe in New York.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
In New York, in the house on seventy first Street.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
Yes. Yeah, wow.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
So having listened to these tapes, I mean, the immediate
conclusion anyone has to make is that both awful people.
What's the larger lesson to be gleaned from this?
Speaker 2 (22:21):
I think I said in our conversation last week that
it's just this glaring, kind of extraordinary circumstance that these
two guys who are really very similar in their levels
of corruption, and one ends up in the darkest prison
(22:42):
in the country and the other in the White House.
So explaining that is, you know, talking about a shiver
up your back. That really is something that history has
to resolve, you know. I think partly the reminder of
these tapes is that Trump comes from this world. Epstein's world,
which we now see as one of the darkest places
(23:04):
in modern culture, is also the place that Trump comes from,
you know. And you can call it the sort of
the eighties and the nineties and possibly in some way
rationalize it that way. But again, one guy went to
the darkest prison and the other guy to the White House.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Do you think the only thing that separated them was
sort of Epstein's sordid predilection for underage girls. Otherwise they're
essentially the same character.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
I think that Epstein was never very interested in being
anything but Jeffrey Epstein. He didn't have a double character
or a triple character, or much of an interest in
hiding who he was. And Donald Trump, who he was,
was constantly being created and recreated. Yes, so you know, suddenly,
(23:54):
you know, he had a television show in which he
was the consummate businessman, then he became a politician and
then the president. Yes, so I think Donald Trump ends
up in the White House because of a sleight of hand,
really the slight of hand, well, his own sleight of hand.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
I'm a magician.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
His relationship with Epstein is really hiding in plain sight,
has hidden in plain sight. But pay no attention to that.
I can distracting from that with whatever is happening over here,
this other distraction.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Yes, and it is an astonishing image when you think
of Epstein and you know, whatever one thinks of him,
a last desperate act in jail, trying to kill himselk
with a bed sheet, while Trump that in the White
House and astonishing.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
No, and I get speaking again of another shiver, the
idea that Epstein was speaking to me so that I
would be the channel from which he could speak from
the grave.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
It's kind of wow. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Did he want redemption?
Speaker 2 (25:04):
I don't know if he wanted redemption. I mean I
actually said on many occasions, you just have to tell
this story publicly, and your contribution to humanity will redeem
you much.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
For that played out, I'm not.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Sure he necessarily believe that or I'm not sure he
necessarily wanted that. All Epstein wanted I think was his peculiar,
eccentric and sordid life. Right, Yes, but maybe he wanted
revenge too. Maybe maybe that's my purpose.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
Fire and Fury.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
The podcast is hosted and executive produced by Michael Wolfe
and James Truman. The producers are Adam Waller and Emily Maronoff,
executive producers for Kaleidoscope.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
Mangesh had to get a Los Volocian executive producers for
iHeart On, Nikki Ito and Katrina Novelle
Well, good morning, Michael. We just dragged each other out
of bed in this rather special extra podcast we're doing
because the last one we did, Lift the Blue touch
Paper in ways that I think neither of us had
quite imagined, became one of the most listened to podcasts
in the country, was denounced by the Trump team, which
will come to and it was discussed in Congress on
(00:26):
Friday as the possible investigation of the FBI's practice in
resting and confiscating Jeffrey Epstein's materials.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
So wow, which goes to what I've always found and
always thought that the name Epstein makes people go crazy.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Well it sure seems to have done. I mean, we've
been posting some of these clips on The Daily Beast,
so they've been somewhat available.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
And let me just also point out that The Daily
Beasts has been incredibly helpful because a lot of these
tapes are of poor quality, which would be largely my
fault because I seemed to barely have to work a
tape recorder even the voice memo function on the iPhone.
The Daily Beast has subtitles on this material, and we
can't have subtitles here, but I will do my best
(01:14):
to interpret the problematic places. More on my interviews with
Jeffrey Epstein about Donald Trump coming up.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Welcome to Fire and Fury the podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
I'm Michael Booth and I'm James Truman. Michael, can you
just set the scene for a moment for us here
where you were, what the vibe was between the two
of you, how the conversation arrived at this point.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Yeah, let me do two things. Let's just briefly set
up the thing. What we have here in this clip
is Epstein talking about Trump's methods of seducing the wives
of his friends horrible.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
He would do it, in Jeffreys, he does nasty with
best friends, best friend's wives, anyone who first tries to
gain trust and uses it to bad past.
Speaker 5 (02:21):
That's how would finished.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
In the specific way, he would seduce the wives of
his friends, and he would have someone into his office.
He'd make an appointment to see them, and at the
same time, he'd get the wife on the speaker phone
and the husband would not know that the wife was
listening into this conversation, and then Trump would prompt him
to essentially begin to talk about sex and begin to
(02:45):
talk about issues he might have with his wife. And
then offer girls to this person, and that would essentially
be the way that Trump would seduce the wife secretly
listening in on the phone.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
You've asked the question about where.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
So there were two places that Epstein and I usually
talked as a scene setter. He lives in or lived in.
One of the largest private residences in Manhattan was on
East seventy first Street on the Park Block, a gargantawan house.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
I used to take.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
You know, there are those big town houses on the
park blocks of the Upper east Side, but then there
was Epstein's house. So I would often take people buy
the house and point it out and say that's where
Jeffrey Epstein lives, and it invariably got a guffaw, that's
how big this house is. So the conversations took place
(03:45):
either in his dining room, which is in the back
of the house. It's a very large dining room around
a table that I guess would see comfortably thirty and
that's where from morning till night he had people in constantly.
It was kind of a meeting in constant progress, with
(04:05):
new faces, new personalities joining throughout the day, and you
could have any food that you want.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
It was like, what would you like.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Literally anything was on offer, it would be made and
then it would come out. And actually this was always
kind of awkward because he would say, what.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Would you like?
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Would you like an omelet? Would you like a monte Cristo.
He would reel this off and you would be kind
of caught off guard and he would say, oh, yeah,
you know, I'll have this, and then you would find
yourself as the only person at the table eating.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
So you had to learn, he said, always to say no, yeah, yeah,
at any rate.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
That was one of the scenes of these interviews. I
would sit there and there were often other people there,
and then I had to wait until the room cleared
and then we could have a moment of private conversation.
Or The other place was up a very grand staircase,
and at the top of the staircase there was his study,
(05:08):
and to call it baronial would be to underplay it.
And it ran the entire length of the house, so
basically a quarter of a Manhattan block. And I think
that's one of the reasons that some of this is
difficult to hear, is the size of this room, with
its double height ceiling, all of the sound is absorbed.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
So I have a question Michael. One of the things
I found fascinating about this clip was as he was
describing Trump's behavior, he applied it to you and your wife,
who he named, and also the object of Trump's would
be seduction.
Speaker 6 (05:49):
This is just amazing, Rocks, and he's what's there?
Speaker 4 (06:00):
Uh?
Speaker 5 (06:01):
You like sex? Right? How old are you?
Speaker 4 (06:05):
See?
Speaker 6 (06:05):
It's great?
Speaker 5 (06:06):
How seriously? How we don't want? We can unite and
go upstairs or tomorrow? Come over? Is this girls coming
into Los Angeles? Part of the oh why on? Traffic cuts? Right?
(06:27):
So come over with your coffee. You can have a
great coun I promise you, Michael. You know it's just
me and you're gonna have a great time and be
up here through the cock and grow steps the whole time.
Your return has been on the list.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Because he wants to Sorry, did that seems strange to
you at the time, Well, well at the time it didn't.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Listening to the clip, it now seems extremely strange.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
And I have to go and ask my wife is
this okay?
Speaker 2 (06:59):
And she said, I'll take one for the country. But
I think that was a sort of Epstein kind of thing.
I mean, he was actually a very good storyteller, so
he just suddenly personalized this. It would be you in
that position and he would be talking about your wife.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
But I mean as he did that, he kind of
challenged or took away your boundaries, which I guess is
convincing storytelling.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
I think one of the things it's interesting for people
to hear Epstein suddenly as the real life guy in
these tapes, because he's less when we've come to think
of him clearly as the monster of our time.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
And in these tapes, even as he details Trump's behavior
in his own less than acceptable behavior, he still comes
off as someone quite thoughtful and quite incisive about his
friend Donald Trump.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Yes, and just to Kathie's in time. This was twenty seventeen.
Trump had just come into office. Epstein had had his
first run in with the law in Palm Beach, but
gotten free.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Epstein went to jail in two thousand and eight. He
was out of jail, living his life, occupying this incredible house,
going on as though nothing had happened to him. His
house was still filled with the good in the great,
the high end, the mighty.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Such a Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
I mean, I think we know a lot of these
names from Bill Gates to Larry Summers, to a who
had Barock, the former Prime Minister of Israel, to Gnom Chompsky.
It was kind of an incredible cast of characters. I
think the reasons that they were there were complicated reasons,
(08:53):
or perhaps not complicated reasons. They were there because it
was an incredibly interesting place to be. And if there
were people involved with Epstein's other side, of which I
never saw any indication of, I didn't know that. But
even having said that, I suppose.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
I did see.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
I mean, there were always a background of girls at
Epstein's house. I never thought any of these girls were
necessarily underage. Actually none of them did seem to be underage.
But they were a kind of cast of characters. Of
these women who he employed as assistants, And you know,
(09:35):
I have no idea what they did other than provide
this backdrop to this I suppose hedonistic lifestyle, although again
other than their presence, there was no indication of that.
Most of the time Epstein spent talking economic affairs and
international affairs and politics as though he were a man
(09:56):
at the center of the world's affairs.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
You'd set on Friday that he had become frightened of
Donald Trump. I assumed that this was the moment when
he had he was frightened of Donald Trump because Trump
would come into office.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Yes, I mean, he never said I am afraid for
my life here. But there were many times at which
I tried to urge him to go public with his
views about Trump. And what he indicated was that I
was somehow and innocent, that I didn't know how the
world worked or how Donald Trump worked.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
What was his motivation in talking to you and telling
these actually incredibly reckless stories about Trump.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
I mean, many people have told me the air incredible
and reckless stories about Donald Trump. I don't think this
is unique to Jeffrey Epstein. People who have known Donald
Trump cannot believe how history has unfolded. The fact that
Donald Trump became the President of the United States will
(11:01):
be the president again is beyond explanation to many people
who have had any kind of an experience with Donald Trump. Yes,
so I came along, and I had known Epstein at
various points, and the fact that I was writing this book,
(11:22):
which curiously Epstein well before I knew it, saw that
this book would be quite incendiary and would in some
sense defying the early Trump era and I think that
was an opportunity for him to begin to understand what
(11:42):
had happened here and to fill in pieces that he possessed.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Okay, we know that many people who have been kind
of cast aside by Trump kind of want to worm
their way back in. Was Epstein one of those?
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Oh, I wonder, I think that's a good question. I
don't think so. Since he was telling me all of this,
I don't think that he saw that as a possibility.
I think he understood what you would have to do
to get back into Trump's good graces if he wanted to,
and he was not going to do that. At the
same time, he knew a lot of people around Donald Trump.
(12:18):
A lot of Donald Trump's friends were Jeffrey Epstein's friends.
So there was a weird thing going on here. Maybe
there was some degree that he felt like he was
the shunned friend and therefore left to tell tales out
of school.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
That may have been part of it.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Yes, among all the drama that has unfolded in the
last three days, I mean, I've read a lot of
questions from people why you waited until the week of
the election before the election to start releasing this material?
Speaker 3 (12:53):
Why did you.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Why did we do that?
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Well, I mean, the reason we did it is because
of the model Stacey Williams, who came out last week
and described her interaction with Trump while she was Jeffrey
Epstein's girlfriend. That was the immediate reason we did this,
and frankly, that was what gave us the idea. I
hadn't particularly thought about this before. And one of the
(13:17):
reasons I hadn't thought about this is that I've had
this material for quite a long time now. I have
discussed this material with virtually every major media outlet. I've said,
this is a great story, this is explosive stuff. We
ought to be done with it. And there has been
(13:37):
an interesting pattern of immediate and great interest and then
a kind of sense as it's discussed among media executives
of people saying, this is epstein life is too short,
This stuff is too difficult, It is too problematic to
present Epstein as someone other than the worst kind of criminal,
(14:00):
and here we are now positioning him as a somewhat
knowledgeable insider. And there have been a lot of occasions.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
There was a.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Big discussion with Netflix that was led by one of
the most prominent people in the business, making these kind
of docudramas, and Netflix said, no way.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Do we want to do this.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Sky and the UK actually commissioned a script on this,
and then suddenly there were and I was around this
table a lot of executives with the script and saying, hmm,
I thought this was a good idea, Jeffrey Epstein, and
then virtually every network and cable channel that has had
(14:43):
a documentary or non non fiction narrative outlet saw this
material two summers ago, I guess, and everybody took an
incredibly interested meeting. They were shown extensive parts of this,
(15:03):
and then they all passed. So from my own point
of view, it's like, Okay, you know, you just got
to get on with your life here, and so I
sort of put it on the back burner, thinking that
this is important stuff. At some point there would be
a way to tell this story.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
We'll be back right after the break.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
I think this particular clip is really you have to
concentrate and listen to. So getting the version with the subtitles,
which the Daily Beast has done a terrific job on,
is worthwhile. But the interesting thing here is I ask
Epstein how he knows all this stuff, and he kind
of responds with some incredulity and says, well, I was
(15:53):
Trump's closest friend for ten years, and I think that's
the point here.
Speaker 5 (15:57):
So how do you notice? So I need the I
need THEE.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
And then he does this, He tells this, you know
this funny story about Trump's scalp reduction surgery, because Trump
is as bold as any guy with mail pattern baldness.
Speaker 5 (16:26):
He had a scout.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
One other point is that I wrote quite extensively about
this in a book that I published two years ago,
a book called Too Famous. It sort of tells the
story of people gathering in Epstein's house to talk about
his legal difficulties. It also includes a long section with
(16:52):
Steve Bannon, who Epstein has befriended, and Bannon has befriended Epstein.
They've befriended each other over there shared incredulity about Donald Trump,
and Bannon comes in to give Epstein media training, because
there's a thought that Epstein could go on a national
show sixty minutes, for instance, and address all of his
(17:16):
legal problems and somehow get himself out of the fix,
the mortal fix. As it turns out, that he seemed
clearly to be headed toward Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
I remember that was the last section of the book.
It was riveting, and you felt that Epstein at that
point was in the same sort of state that Hobby
Weinstein was in when he was first accused, and he said, oh,
I'll make a film about this, and that you know,
didn't understand the seriousness of it.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
I mean, Epstein certainly did not understand the seriousness of it,
as everyone around him kept telling him how serious it was.
I remember his lawyer was in one of these conversations
and his lawyer said, and this is kind of gives
me a shiver. His lawyers said, Jeffrey.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
Listen to me. This is bad. This is heart attack, Badow.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
So do we know if Donald Trump personally is aware
of what you've done and releasing it?
Speaker 2 (18:15):
You know, I think it's interesting. Let's look at the
statement that they that the Trump campaign.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
Oh, it's too good. I got to read it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Michael Wolfe is a disgraced writer who routinely fabricates lies
in order to sell fiction books. Because he did no
morals or ethics, he waited until days before the election
to make out landish false mears all in an effort
to engage in blatant election interference on behalf of Kamala Harris.
He's a failed journalist that is resorting to lying for attention.
(18:47):
Well well done, Michael's that's pretty great.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
Yes, that's from Stephen Chung right now. No, Stephen, who's
actually an incredibly nice guy, but his fame in the
Trump camp is that he issues these kind of flamethrower statements. Ah,
I mean, they go, we need a flamethrower statement, get
Stephen to write it.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
And at the same time, just to do the Trump
split screen thing. There's another person in the campaign who
I called and I said, these tapes are going to
come out and this is what's going to be on them,
and this person could stop laughing. So but also the
nature of this thing, you know, this is a kind
(19:31):
of a boiler plate statement. I mean, there are many
other names that could be replaced with mine here. But
the interesting thing is this conceit about saying things that
would be negative to Trump before the election is election
interference when it seems to me that is the very
nature of an election campaign. I mean, what is the
(19:53):
alternative you know something and you don't say it because
that would change people's minds.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Do you think it's is going to try and shield
them from it, because oh.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Well, yeah, that's the other thing that would go on here.
The imperative would be to keep this clamped down and
not for it not to get to the point of
which they have to speak to Trump about it. Yeah,
because if they have to speak to Trump about it,
then Trump would blow up and then he would say
something and make it a much more bigger deal than.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
It already is.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
And the other thing to note about this statement is
that they don't say that anything is untrue.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Yeah. And of course the other immediate impact on Friday
was the Congressman Steve Cohene brought up in Congress about
the evidence that the FBI retrieved from Epstein's safe and
asked that an inquiry be open to find out what
happened to the photographs. Can you just remind us what
the photographs were all?
Speaker 2 (20:52):
You know, the photographs of Epstein on several occasions would
take out these these photographs of Donald Trump and the
set of girls that were at Epstein's house in Palm Beach,
and in the pictures, and there were possibly a half
a dozen of them, and Epstein used to kind of
flick them around like playing cards. There were girls around.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
The swimming pool. They were all topless.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
One specifically, I remember a girl sitting on Trump's lap,
and in another Trump has a stain on the front
of his pants, which the girls three or four are
pointing at and laughing.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Epstein used to go to his safe, take.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
These pictures out, and then return them to the safe.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
It is quite possible.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
That they were in the safe when the FBI raided
the house, although of course I don't know that, okay.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
And you believe that the FBI either house them, will
destroyed them.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
I just know that that's where they were.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
He kept them in his safe, and the FBI ultimately
raided that safe and took the contents of the safe.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Yeah, that was the safe in New York.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
In New York, in the house on seventy first Street.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
Yes. Yeah, wow.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
So having listened to these tapes, I mean, the immediate
conclusion anyone has to make is that both awful people.
What's the larger lesson to be gleaned from this?
Speaker 2 (22:21):
I think I said in our conversation last week that
it's just this glaring, kind of extraordinary circumstance that these
two guys who are really very similar in their levels
of corruption, and one ends up in the darkest prison
(22:42):
in the country and the other in the White House.
So explaining that is, you know, talking about a shiver
up your back. That really is something that history has
to resolve, you know. I think partly the reminder of
these tapes is that Trump comes from this world. Epstein's world,
which we now see as one of the darkest places
(23:04):
in modern culture, is also the place that Trump comes from,
you know. And you can call it the sort of
the eighties and the nineties and possibly in some way
rationalize it that way. But again, one guy went to
the darkest prison and the other guy to the White House.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Do you think the only thing that separated them was
sort of Epstein's sordid predilection for underage girls. Otherwise they're
essentially the same character.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
I think that Epstein was never very interested in being
anything but Jeffrey Epstein. He didn't have a double character
or a triple character, or much of an interest in
hiding who he was. And Donald Trump, who he was,
was constantly being created and recreated. Yes, so you know, suddenly,
(23:54):
you know, he had a television show in which he
was the consummate businessman, then he became a politician and
then the president. Yes, so I think Donald Trump ends
up in the White House because of a sleight of hand,
really the slight of hand, well, his own sleight of hand.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
I'm a magician.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
His relationship with Epstein is really hiding in plain sight,
has hidden in plain sight. But pay no attention to that.
I can distracting from that with whatever is happening over here,
this other distraction.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Yes, and it is an astonishing image when you think
of Epstein and you know, whatever one thinks of him,
a last desperate act in jail, trying to kill himselk
with a bed sheet, while Trump that in the White
House and astonishing.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
No, and I get speaking again of another shiver, the
idea that Epstein was speaking to me so that I
would be the channel from which he could speak from
the grave.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
It's kind of wow. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Did he want redemption?
Speaker 2 (25:04):
I don't know if he wanted redemption. I mean I
actually said on many occasions, you just have to tell
this story publicly, and your contribution to humanity will redeem
you much.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
For that played out, I'm not.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Sure he necessarily believe that or I'm not sure he
necessarily wanted that. All Epstein wanted I think was his peculiar,
eccentric and sordid life. Right, Yes, but maybe he wanted
revenge too. Maybe maybe that's my purpose.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
Fire and Fury.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
The podcast is hosted and executive produced by Michael Wolfe
and James Truman. The producers are Adam Waller and Emily Maronoff,
executive producers for Kaleidoscope.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
Mangesh had to get a Los Volocian executive producers for
iHeart On, Nikki Ito and Katrina Novelle
Hosts And Creators
James Truman
Michael Wolff
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.