September 4, 2025 • 14 mins
In this Briefing, Jon Decker discusses President Trump's revived scrutiny surrounding Jeffrey Epstein, Decker outlines Trump's position on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the potential National Guard deployments to U.S. cities, and previews the tariff legal appeal to the Supreme Court. The White House Briefing Room can be heard daily on the iHeartRadio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the White House Briefing Room for Thursday, September fourth.
I'm John Decker. On a day when the victims of
convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were on Capitol Hill calling
for the Department of Justice to release all of their
Epstein related documents, President Trump weighed in on how he
(00:22):
feels about the renewed attention on Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
We're having the most successful eight months of any president ever,
and that's what I want to talk about. That's what
we should be talking about, not the Epstein hoax.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
The President in the Oval office also talked about another
city where he may send the National Guard.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
So we're going to be going to maybe Louisiana, and
you have New Orleans which has a crime problem. Will
straighten that out about two weeks. It'll take us two
weeks easier than DC.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
And the President also hinted that he may make a
decision soon on how to deal with Presidents Putin and
Zelensky and the war in Ukraine.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
My relationship with all of them is very good. We're
going to find out how good it is over the
next week or two.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
But we begin this Thursday with renewed focus on the
Epstein files. Now that Congress is back from their August recess.
On Tuesday, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released
more than thirty thousand pages of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein.
That's because lawmakers were facing so much pressure to make
(01:28):
public more details about the convicted sex offender. Now. The
chairman of the House Oversight Committee James Comer, He's a
Republican congressman from Kentucky. He said more documents would be
released as quick in his words, as we get them uploaded,
and he said they likely would be posted in sections
(01:48):
over the next few weeks. The President in the Oval
Office was meeting with his counterpart from Poland, and during
the Q and A portion of his meeting with Poland's president,
the President was asked about the Epstein files. And here
is what he said in response to that question.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
So this is a Democrat hoax that never ends. You know.
It reminds me a little of the Kennedy situation. We
gave him everything over and over again, more and more
and more, and nobody's ever satisfied. From what I understand,
I could check, but from what I understand, thousands of
pages of documents have been given. But it's really a
(02:31):
Democrat hoax because they're trying to get people to talk
about something that's totally irrelevant to the success that we've
had as a nation since I've been president.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
According to President Trump, what Democrats are doing and a
few Republicans as well, is trying to take attention from
what he views as the major accomplishments that his administration
has had during its first eight months in office. Let's
listen to the President right here.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
So what they're trying to do with the Epstein hoaxes
get people to talk about that instead of speaking about
the tremendous success like ending seven Wars.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
As for these thirty thousand pages of documents that were
released by the House Oversight Committee, the top Democrat on
that committee, Congressman Robert Garcia, He's a Democrat from California.
He said that ninety seven percent of the documents that
have been turned over by the Justice Department were already
(03:28):
in the public domain. They were already public and the
new disclosures, according to Congressman Garcia, were logs detailing locations
that Epstein's airplane traveled between two thousand and twenty fourteen,
and also forms consistent with re entry back into the US.
(03:50):
This issue clearly isn't going away. In fact, on Wednesday,
Republican Congressman Thomas Massey of Kentucky held a press conference
right outside the Capitol Building with Epstein victims, and it's
all a part of his push to force a vote
on legislation demanding the full release of the Epstein files.
(04:15):
Now In the Oval Office on Wednesday, President Trump was
not only asked about the Jeffrey Epstein files, he was
asked a few questions about Russia. After all, Poland plays
a very important role as it relates to the war
in Ukraine. Poland is adjacent to Ukraine, it shares a
border with Ukraine. It has always feared the threat of
(04:39):
its sovereign territory from Russia. So no matter who the
Polish president is, they are always concerned about intrusions by
Russia into Polish territory and intrusions by Russia into the
territory of any NATO member. So the President was asked
(05:01):
in the Oval Office whether he had a message for
President Putin, who was meeting this past week with Chinese
President She and the leader of North Korea Kim Jong un.
But the question was about whether or not there's any
movement at all in terms of getting to a meeting
between President Putin of Russia and President Zelenski of Ukraine.
(05:26):
Here's what the President had to say when asked if
he had a message for President Putin.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
I have no message to President Putin. He knows where
I stand and he'll make a decision one way or
the other. Whatever his decision is, will either be happy
about it or unhappy. And if we're unhappy about it,
you'll see.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Thanks now. The President, over the course of the past
few months, has issued a number of threats to Russia,
to Russian President Putin. He's threatened what he called severe
consequences if Putin didn't agree to a meeting with Zelensky,
and that hasn't happened yet. That hasn't happened in terms
(06:07):
of a meeting, and it also hasn't happened in terms
of what the President terms severe consequences being imposed upon Russia.
And that led to this question by a reporter from
Polish radio asking a question of the President about essentially
what comes next. Let's listen to this question and the
(06:30):
way that the President answers it.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
You've expressed many times, your frustration and disappointment with Puttin.
But there's no action since you took your office. Don't
you worry that there's no action? But don't you worry?
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Where?
Speaker 2 (06:45):
What's to do here?
Speaker 1 (06:47):
I'm with Polish radio. Okay, how do you know there's
no action?
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Would you say that putting secondary sanctions on India the
largest purchaser outside of China, they're almost equal. Would you
say there was no action that costs hundreds of billions
of dollars to Russia? You call that no action? And
I haven't done Phase two yet or Phase three now.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
The President two weeks ago, on the twenty first of
August said we will know within two weeks whether there
will be peace in Ukraine. After that, we will have
to maybe take a different tack. The President at the
time didn't elaborate on what that would entail. But Russia's
intentions have not changed since. In fact, you could argue
(07:31):
certainly that they've actually increased its attacks, its missile attacks,
its drone strikes on civilian areas in Ukraine since President
Trump met with President Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, about three
weeks ago, and it's also led to increased ground attacks
(07:53):
by Ukraine. In just the past two weeks, Russia has
intensified offensive in eastern Ukraine, and that's been Russia's prime
target since the first invasion in twenty fourteen. The President
indicated on Wednesday that he will soon be speaking with
(08:14):
President Putin. Let's listen to what the President said right here.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Have a good conversation with him very shortly, and I'll
know pretty much what we're going to be doing. We've
taken very strong action, as you know, and in other
ways we've taken very strong action.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
But I'll be speaking to.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Him over the next few days, and we're going to
see me. I'm going to know exactly what's happened now.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
As for a possible future meeting with President Putin and
President Zelensky, I do not see that in the future.
Russia has repeatedly rejected the possibility of direct talks between
those two leaders, citing various reasons, saying, for instance, that
preparations are not yet complete and also questioning Zelensky's legitimacy.
(08:57):
A Kremlin foreign policy at Yuri USh who was present
at that summit in Alaska just a few weeks ago,
set on Tuesday that no agreement was made between President
Trump and President Putin to meet with President Zelenski. And
so that's where things stand right now. That deadline that
(09:19):
President Trump had set for President Putin to come to
the negotiating table has come and gone. And so what
we see is the President when he meets with a
foreign leader, certainly one that has a stake in what
happens in the war in Ukraine, like we saw on Wednesday,
being asked numerous questions about Russia, but nothing new to
(09:42):
report in terms of moving the ball forward to get
to even a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. Also on Wednesday,
in the Oval Office, the President was asked once again
about the possibility of deploying the National Guard to other
cities besides Washington, d C. And here's what the President
(10:04):
had to say in regards to the possibility of deploying
the Guard to the city of Chicago.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
I want to go into Chicago, and I have this
incompetent governor that doesn't want us. Do you know that
this weekend seventy two people were shot in Chicago. I'm
embarrassed to say it in front of the President of Paula.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
That's a slight exaggeration. The President said, seventy two people
were shot over Labor Day weekend. It was fifty eight
people and eight fatalities, eight murders over Labor Day weekend.
And that is obviously not acceptable. And despite that those numbers,
the increase in crime that we're seeing in the city
of Chicago, Illinois governor shows no signs of wanting to
(10:47):
reach out to the federal government, wanting to reach out
to President Trump asking him to deploy the National Guard
and perhaps bring down the crime rate in the city
of Chicago. The President also raised the power possibility of
deploying the National Guard to a different city entirely, a
city down south. Let's listen to what the President said. Here,
(11:08):
we have a great thing going.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
I could do that with Chicago. We could do that
with New York, we could do it with Los Angeles.
So we're making a determination, now, do we go to
Chicago or do we go to a place like New Orleans,
where we have a great governor, Jeff Landry, who wants
us to come in and straighten out a very nice
section of this country that's become quite you know, quite tough.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Quite bad. So New Orleans is a possibility. After all,
it's a Republican governor who governs the state of Louisiana.
It's a Republican governor who could potentially ask the President
to send the National Guard down to his state to
bring down the crime rate in the city of New Orleans.
(11:56):
New Orleans, of course, is the major city in Leuis, Louisiana.
It's governed by a Democratic mayor. And the President believes
that those people that are in charge of state and
local government sometimes missed the forest for the trees. Sometimes
the President believes they don't get it in terms of
(12:19):
what the residents of these various cities and various states
actually want. Let's listen to the president right here.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
The politicians are not in tune with the people. The
people in Chicago, the people in Baltimore, the people in
all of the places we talk about. They want to
see us there, and I think we're pretty much waiting
till we get.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
As so, a lot of topics covered during that Q
and A session in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Thursday,
it's a rather light day as far as events with
the President are concerned. No public events on the schedule
other than a dinner that he is hosting in the
Rose Garden, that new refurbished Rose Garden with that flagstone
(13:03):
patio as opposed to grass. This will be the first
event in the Rose Garden since it's been newly designed,
and I've seen the President check out the Rose Garden
over the course of the past few weeks, even checking
out the sound system in the Rose Garden over the
course of the past few weeks. As far as news
to look forward to for Thursday, I'm going to be
(13:26):
paying a lot of attention to an emergency appeal that
the President, through the Department of Justice, filed at the
Supreme Court. The President wants the Supreme Court to take
up a case that he has recently lost before a
federal appellate court regarding his so called reciprocal tariffs. The
(13:47):
Supreme Court will meet for the first time in its
full term the first Monday in October, and we'll see
if the Supreme Court quickly adds this case to fall docket.
So that's it for the White House briefing room for Thursday,
September the fourth. I'm John Decker. Have a good one,
Welcome to the White House Briefing Room for Thursday, September fourth.
I'm John Decker. On a day when the victims of
convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were on Capitol Hill calling
for the Department of Justice to release all of their
Epstein related documents, President Trump weighed in on how he
(00:22):
feels about the renewed attention on Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
We're having the most successful eight months of any president ever,
and that's what I want to talk about. That's what
we should be talking about, not the Epstein hoax.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
The President in the Oval office also talked about another
city where he may send the National Guard.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
So we're going to be going to maybe Louisiana, and
you have New Orleans which has a crime problem. Will
straighten that out about two weeks. It'll take us two
weeks easier than DC.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
And the President also hinted that he may make a
decision soon on how to deal with Presidents Putin and
Zelensky and the war in Ukraine.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
My relationship with all of them is very good. We're
going to find out how good it is over the
next week or two.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
But we begin this Thursday with renewed focus on the
Epstein files. Now that Congress is back from their August recess.
On Tuesday, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released
more than thirty thousand pages of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein.
That's because lawmakers were facing so much pressure to make
(01:28):
public more details about the convicted sex offender. Now. The
chairman of the House Oversight Committee James Comer, He's a
Republican congressman from Kentucky. He said more documents would be
released as quick in his words, as we get them uploaded,
and he said they likely would be posted in sections
(01:48):
over the next few weeks. The President in the Oval
Office was meeting with his counterpart from Poland, and during
the Q and A portion of his meeting with Poland's president,
the President was asked about the Epstein files. And here
is what he said in response to that question.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
So this is a Democrat hoax that never ends. You know.
It reminds me a little of the Kennedy situation. We
gave him everything over and over again, more and more
and more, and nobody's ever satisfied. From what I understand,
I could check, but from what I understand, thousands of
pages of documents have been given. But it's really a
(02:31):
Democrat hoax because they're trying to get people to talk
about something that's totally irrelevant to the success that we've
had as a nation since I've been president.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
According to President Trump, what Democrats are doing and a
few Republicans as well, is trying to take attention from
what he views as the major accomplishments that his administration
has had during its first eight months in office. Let's
listen to the President right here.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
So what they're trying to do with the Epstein hoaxes
get people to talk about that instead of speaking about
the tremendous success like ending seven Wars.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
As for these thirty thousand pages of documents that were
released by the House Oversight Committee, the top Democrat on
that committee, Congressman Robert Garcia, He's a Democrat from California.
He said that ninety seven percent of the documents that
have been turned over by the Justice Department were already
(03:28):
in the public domain. They were already public and the
new disclosures, according to Congressman Garcia, were logs detailing locations
that Epstein's airplane traveled between two thousand and twenty fourteen,
and also forms consistent with re entry back into the US.
(03:50):
This issue clearly isn't going away. In fact, on Wednesday,
Republican Congressman Thomas Massey of Kentucky held a press conference
right outside the Capitol Building with Epstein victims, and it's
all a part of his push to force a vote
on legislation demanding the full release of the Epstein files.
(04:15):
Now In the Oval Office on Wednesday, President Trump was
not only asked about the Jeffrey Epstein files, he was
asked a few questions about Russia. After all, Poland plays
a very important role as it relates to the war
in Ukraine. Poland is adjacent to Ukraine, it shares a
border with Ukraine. It has always feared the threat of
(04:39):
its sovereign territory from Russia. So no matter who the
Polish president is, they are always concerned about intrusions by
Russia into Polish territory and intrusions by Russia into the
territory of any NATO member. So the President was asked
(05:01):
in the Oval Office whether he had a message for
President Putin, who was meeting this past week with Chinese
President She and the leader of North Korea Kim Jong un.
But the question was about whether or not there's any
movement at all in terms of getting to a meeting
between President Putin of Russia and President Zelenski of Ukraine.
(05:26):
Here's what the President had to say when asked if
he had a message for President Putin.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
I have no message to President Putin. He knows where
I stand and he'll make a decision one way or
the other. Whatever his decision is, will either be happy
about it or unhappy. And if we're unhappy about it,
you'll see.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Thanks now. The President, over the course of the past
few months, has issued a number of threats to Russia,
to Russian President Putin. He's threatened what he called severe
consequences if Putin didn't agree to a meeting with Zelensky,
and that hasn't happened yet. That hasn't happened in terms
(06:07):
of a meeting, and it also hasn't happened in terms
of what the President terms severe consequences being imposed upon Russia.
And that led to this question by a reporter from
Polish radio asking a question of the President about essentially
what comes next. Let's listen to this question and the
(06:30):
way that the President answers it.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
You've expressed many times, your frustration and disappointment with Puttin.
But there's no action since you took your office. Don't
you worry that there's no action? But don't you worry?
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Where?
Speaker 2 (06:45):
What's to do here?
Speaker 1 (06:47):
I'm with Polish radio. Okay, how do you know there's
no action?
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Would you say that putting secondary sanctions on India the
largest purchaser outside of China, they're almost equal. Would you
say there was no action that costs hundreds of billions
of dollars to Russia? You call that no action? And
I haven't done Phase two yet or Phase three now.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
The President two weeks ago, on the twenty first of
August said we will know within two weeks whether there
will be peace in Ukraine. After that, we will have
to maybe take a different tack. The President at the
time didn't elaborate on what that would entail. But Russia's
intentions have not changed since. In fact, you could argue
(07:31):
certainly that they've actually increased its attacks, its missile attacks,
its drone strikes on civilian areas in Ukraine since President
Trump met with President Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, about three
weeks ago, and it's also led to increased ground attacks
(07:53):
by Ukraine. In just the past two weeks, Russia has
intensified offensive in eastern Ukraine, and that's been Russia's prime
target since the first invasion in twenty fourteen. The President
indicated on Wednesday that he will soon be speaking with
(08:14):
President Putin. Let's listen to what the President said right here.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Have a good conversation with him very shortly, and I'll
know pretty much what we're going to be doing. We've
taken very strong action, as you know, and in other
ways we've taken very strong action.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
But I'll be speaking to.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Him over the next few days, and we're going to
see me. I'm going to know exactly what's happened now.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
As for a possible future meeting with President Putin and
President Zelensky, I do not see that in the future.
Russia has repeatedly rejected the possibility of direct talks between
those two leaders, citing various reasons, saying, for instance, that
preparations are not yet complete and also questioning Zelensky's legitimacy.
(08:57):
A Kremlin foreign policy at Yuri USh who was present
at that summit in Alaska just a few weeks ago,
set on Tuesday that no agreement was made between President
Trump and President Putin to meet with President Zelenski. And
so that's where things stand right now. That deadline that
(09:19):
President Trump had set for President Putin to come to
the negotiating table has come and gone. And so what
we see is the President when he meets with a
foreign leader, certainly one that has a stake in what
happens in the war in Ukraine, like we saw on Wednesday,
being asked numerous questions about Russia, but nothing new to
(09:42):
report in terms of moving the ball forward to get
to even a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. Also on Wednesday,
in the Oval Office, the President was asked once again
about the possibility of deploying the National Guard to other
cities besides Washington, d C. And here's what the President
(10:04):
had to say in regards to the possibility of deploying
the Guard to the city of Chicago.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
I want to go into Chicago, and I have this
incompetent governor that doesn't want us. Do you know that
this weekend seventy two people were shot in Chicago. I'm
embarrassed to say it in front of the President of Paula.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
That's a slight exaggeration. The President said, seventy two people
were shot over Labor Day weekend. It was fifty eight
people and eight fatalities, eight murders over Labor Day weekend.
And that is obviously not acceptable. And despite that those numbers,
the increase in crime that we're seeing in the city
of Chicago, Illinois governor shows no signs of wanting to
(10:47):
reach out to the federal government, wanting to reach out
to President Trump asking him to deploy the National Guard
and perhaps bring down the crime rate in the city
of Chicago. The President also raised the power possibility of
deploying the National Guard to a different city entirely, a
city down south. Let's listen to what the President said. Here,
(11:08):
we have a great thing going.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
I could do that with Chicago. We could do that
with New York, we could do it with Los Angeles.
So we're making a determination, now, do we go to
Chicago or do we go to a place like New Orleans,
where we have a great governor, Jeff Landry, who wants
us to come in and straighten out a very nice
section of this country that's become quite you know, quite tough.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Quite bad. So New Orleans is a possibility. After all,
it's a Republican governor who governs the state of Louisiana.
It's a Republican governor who could potentially ask the President
to send the National Guard down to his state to
bring down the crime rate in the city of New Orleans.
(11:56):
New Orleans, of course, is the major city in Leuis, Louisiana.
It's governed by a Democratic mayor. And the President believes
that those people that are in charge of state and
local government sometimes missed the forest for the trees. Sometimes
the President believes they don't get it in terms of
(12:19):
what the residents of these various cities and various states
actually want. Let's listen to the president right here.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
The politicians are not in tune with the people. The
people in Chicago, the people in Baltimore, the people in
all of the places we talk about. They want to
see us there, and I think we're pretty much waiting
till we get.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
As so, a lot of topics covered during that Q
and A session in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Thursday,
it's a rather light day as far as events with
the President are concerned. No public events on the schedule
other than a dinner that he is hosting in the
Rose Garden, that new refurbished Rose Garden with that flagstone
(13:03):
patio as opposed to grass. This will be the first
event in the Rose Garden since it's been newly designed,
and I've seen the President check out the Rose Garden
over the course of the past few weeks, even checking
out the sound system in the Rose Garden over the
course of the past few weeks. As far as news
to look forward to for Thursday, I'm going to be
(13:26):
paying a lot of attention to an emergency appeal that
the President, through the Department of Justice, filed at the
Supreme Court. The President wants the Supreme Court to take
up a case that he has recently lost before a
federal appellate court regarding his so called reciprocal tariffs. The
(13:47):
Supreme Court will meet for the first time in its
full term the first Monday in October, and we'll see
if the Supreme Court quickly adds this case to fall docket.
So that's it for the White House briefing room for Thursday,
September the fourth. I'm John Decker. Have a good one,
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