A showdown looms between two of the world's most powerful men, Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch, with the American president suing the media mogul for a whopping $10 billion.
Front and centre of the case is Trump's connection to the late sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein, an issue that has become so divisive lately that it threatens to tear the MAGA movement apart and destabilise the president's leadership.
Today, international and political editor Peter Hatcher discusses what one of Trump's most loyal supporters, Steve Bannon, told him about the biggest controversy to hit Trump's second stint in the White House.
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Episode Transcript
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S1 (00:01):
From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
This is the morning edition. I'm Samantha Selinger Morris. It's Thursday,
July 24th. A showdown looms between two of the world's
most powerful men, Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch. With the
(00:21):
American president suing the media mogul for a whopping $10 billion,
front and centre of the case is Trump's connection to
the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, an issue that has
become so divisive lately that it threatens to tear the
MAGA movement apart and destabilize the president's leadership.
S2 (00:40):
It is a blockbuster story that has heads here in
Washington spinning.
S3 (00:45):
MAGA is eating itself alive over Jeffrey Epstein. So is
Donald Trump himself.
S1 (00:50):
For dessert today, international and political editor Peter Hartcher joins
me to discuss what one of Trump's most loyal supporters,
Steve Bannon told him about the biggest controversy to hit
Trump's second stint in the white House. Now we often
(01:12):
go down political and historical rabbit holes when we speak
on this podcast. We don't usually have cause to go
down conspiracy theory rabbit holes, but we're going to go
there today, aren't we?
S4 (01:20):
Well, since the entire political establishment of the US seems
to be disappearing down well, multiple conspiracy rabbit holes at
the same time. If we want to understand what's going
on in their system, we, I'm afraid, need to disappear
down some of those holes briefly, just long enough to
get a glimpse, and then we can extract ourselves back
into reality.
S1 (01:42):
Absolutely. Well, I'm not going to lie, I'm a bit
excited about it. So let's just start out with the basics.
Why has Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender, been in
the news for weeks now? And why has Donald Trump
been engulfed in this scandal? Like, how did we get here?
S4 (01:55):
We got here because before he was in the white House.
In his second iteration, Donald Trump and a lot of
his supporters had really fomented the conspiracy around Jeffrey Epstein
to suggest, well, to claim to sometimes imply that Epstein
was the dark heart of an elite conspiracy of pedophiles,
(02:21):
that Epstein was the paedophile pimp for a corrupt elite
that Trump was determined to destroy. And Trump had even
suggested he. And this is a common technique among conspiracy theorists.
Rather than directly state a claim which they know to
be unsustainable, they will provoke with a question. So Trump
(02:46):
had not said, for example, that he thought Bill Clinton
was a client of Jeffrey Epstein.
S5 (02:51):
The question you have to ask is, did Bill Clinton
go to the island because Epstein had an island that
was not a good place, as I understand it, and
I was never there. So you have to ask, he said.
S4 (03:03):
Is Bill Clinton on the list? We need an investigation,
I don't know. He's probably not. But is he on
the list, that sort of provocation? So to imply that
this conspiracy went to the very top of the Democratic
Party and to promise to bring all the files into
public view in the event that he were to win.
S6 (03:24):
Would you declassify the Epstein files?
S7 (03:26):
Yeah, yeah, I would. I guess I would. I think
that less so because.
S4 (03:31):
That was the promise. Now he's in power. What's the delivery?
The delivery is no delivery. It was just February when
Pam Bondi, his attorney general, had said that she had
the client list of Jeffrey Epstein on her desk at
the moment, she had brought a bunch of Maga Make
America Great Again influencers into her office to talk up
(03:53):
the revelation that the Trump administration was about to deliver
on this issue. And then last week, she issued an
unsigned statement saying that there was no conspiracy, there was
no blackmail. There was no client list. Case closed. Now,
rather than close the case, that simply blew up the
(04:15):
entire MAGA movement, which is now consumed with demands that
the administration release all the information it has and put
tremendous pressure on Donald Trump personally, which he's tried to
deflect by saying, this is boring. It's a hoax.
S8 (04:31):
I know it's a hoax. It's started by Democrats. It's
been run by the Democrats for four years. It's all
been a hoax perpetrated by the Democrats and some stupid.
S4 (04:42):
Only some stupid Republicans are interested in this. Let's move on.
But the MAGA movement is not buying it.
S1 (04:49):
So, Peter, let's get into this. Tell us just how much,
over the last few weeks, has this issue of the
release of the Epstein Files actually divided the MAGA base?
S4 (04:58):
It's completely consumed the MAGA base. Until last Thursday evening
US time, the movement was not divided. I don't think
at all. The clamor, the disappointment, the shock just absolutely
occupied and preoccupied the movement. You had MAGA members making
(05:23):
public statements saying Trump has turned out to be the
deep state himself, rather than exposing the so-called deep state,
which secretly runs America. Trump had turned out to be
part of it, that Trump was suppressing the client list,
that Trump had something to hide, that it was a
shocking betrayal of his followers. It was it was a
(05:45):
real crisis because it had it's not the first crisis
that the president has had with his movement, but it
was the most serious wedge driven between the president and
his base. And the base was angry and the base
was unified.
S1 (06:02):
Now we're going to get into Steve Bannon in just
a moment, because you have secured an incredible interview that
which gives us a really, you know, an inside look
into what some of the people in MAGA might be
feeling now about this. But before we get there, I
wanted to ask you with regards to, you know, the
claims that Donald Trump might be part of the so-called
deep state and he's perhaps wants to suppress these files.
Is there some suggestion that Donald Trump himself might have
(06:23):
been somehow involved in Jeffrey Epstein's horrific crimes against young
women and girls?
S4 (06:29):
There is, Elon Musk said, directly, without offering any sort
of evidence, that Donald Trump was on the client list.
S9 (06:37):
The very latest comment from Elon Musk is time to
drop the really big bomb. President Trump at real Donald
Trump is in the Epstein files. That is the real
reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day.
JT and earlier on.
S4 (06:57):
And that theory has run around the echo chamber. And
Donald Trump did have a personal relationship with Epstein for
many years. There were there's lots of footage of them together,
including the story which changed the whole direction of this
story last week, which was the emergence, according to the
(07:18):
Wall Street Journal, of a letter which it has not
actually shown in any way, but has described and quoted from,
which was a 50th birthday letter signed by Donald Trump,
according to the Wall Street Journal, to Jeffrey Epstein.
S10 (07:33):
The Wall Street Journal published a piece with this striking
headline Jeffrey Epstein's friend sent him body letters for a
50th birthday album. One was from Donald Trump.
S11 (07:42):
The Wall Street Journal says the letter contains several lines
of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman,
which appears to be hand drawn and says the text
consists of an imaginary conversation between Trump and Epstein.
S1 (07:57):
Can you tell us a little bit about that letter
and what the Wall Street Journal actually said about this?
Because it really has, like you say, it's turned everything around.
It's really made this whole issue explode. So tell us
about this letter.
S4 (08:08):
The Wall Street Journal hasn't actually published the letter or
taken a photograph of it for us to see, but
says the journal has seen the letter and describes it
in print as being a birthday card with a crudely
hand-drawn outline of a woman with Trump's signature in the
position where her pubic hair would would normally be. And
(08:29):
inside the outline is a little poem devoted to Epstein's birthday,
concluding with and this is the most damaging line for
his birthday wishes. He says happy birthday, and may every
day be another wonderful secret, which of course seems tailor
made to set off any conspiracy theorists. And that's that's
(08:50):
what it's done. We should, just for the record, point
out that Donald Trump denies that the letter is real.
He says it's a fake, and he's suing the owner
of the Wall Street Journal, including its proprietor, Rupert Murdoch,
for $10 billion minimum for defamation. He says that he's
never had any sexual dealings with Epstein, and that the
(09:14):
whole thing is is a horrible and disgusting, to use
his word, hoax.
S1 (09:22):
We'll be right back. Let's get to what Steve Bannon
told you. So just to remind listeners, Steve Bannon was
Trump's chief white House strategist during Trump's first term in office.
He's still one of Trump's most loyal supporters. And actually,
before I ask you, you know what it is that
(09:44):
he has said about this letter because he has said
something very different to what other people are saying. Why
did you even speak to Steve Bannon in the first place?
Because I know that there's been a lot of commenters
who've responded to your latest piece by saying, why are
you even giving this guy airtime? You know, he's obviously
on the far right. So what would you say to that, Peter?
S4 (10:00):
Well, I'd start with the first principle that the guys
in the thick of of the news story because as
possibly the mainstay or one of the mainstays of the
MAGA propaganda movement, he's been running this narrative and controlling
it to some extent for a long time. And he
(10:20):
has a big profile in the US, and he's taken
very seriously in the MAGA movement. But the other point
I'll just make for Non-journalists, or people who aren't familiar
with the way that credible journalism operates, is that we
don't just talk to people we agree with. We interview
people who are making news and people who have something
to say. And in this case, I thought, could usefully
(10:43):
help explain to us what's going on in the MAGA
movement and with this story.
S1 (10:47):
Tell us what Steve Bannon has said about this Wall
Street Journal birthday card, which Trump says is not real.
Because before the Wall Street Journal piece came out, Steve
Bannon had said that, you know, the MAGA movement really
was divided, that they would lose 10% over the Epstein files.
You know, it might even cost them 40 seats in
the House of Representatives at next year's midterm elections, might
(11:08):
even lose the president. This is what he had previously said.
But he said something completely different to you after this
Wall Street Journal piece came out. What has he said
to you about how this is going to affect Trump?
S4 (11:19):
Well, he's seized on that journal story to say that
the true enemy has revealed itself, the true enemy being,
in this case in specific The Wall Street Journal and
Rupert Murdoch, but also the larger liberal media, the neocon
neoliberal Rupert Murdoch, as Bannon described him to me, Bannon
(11:40):
says that Murdoch is the real enemy here. Bannon says
that this was a murdoch, quote, kill shot launched against
Donald Trump, and that rather than despair over the entire
crisis and what it's doing to the movement and to Trump.
He seized on it as the solution. And he says,
now the entire MAGA movement has and will unite behind
(12:01):
the president to defend him now that he's under attack.
And we've got to take out Rupert Murdoch before Rupert
Murdoch takes out Donald Trump.
S1 (12:10):
Okay. This is so interesting. So you've got to walk
us through how Steve Bannon explained that Rupert Murdoch, he's
the enemy. He's actually part of the deep state here
because this would seem to make no sense, given that
Rupert Murdoch's Fox News Channel was instrumental in helping Trump
to win the white House not once, but twice. So
what did Steve Bannon say about this?
S4 (12:31):
Yeah, that's that's right. Rupert's Fox News Channel cable channel
in the US was the incubator for a lot of
the MAGA movement and Trump voter base. In his first
run at the presidency. They had a pretty spectacular falling
out after Trump lost the 2020 election and claimed that
it was a stolen election, and Rupert thought that Trump
(12:54):
had gone too far and was going to be bad
for business, and he was going to try and launch
a coup. But then they've had a reconciliation. Fox has
gone back into support mode for Trump in recent times,
and the two men have maintained a cordial relationship and
were together in the president's box watching a FIFA soccer
match just five days before this so-called kill shot was
(13:16):
launched by Rupert Murdoch. And according to Bannon, this was
a kill shot. This story in the Journal, because Rupert
Murdoch has decided to bring down Donald Trump and that
this story was launched deliberately to thwart, to deflect from
another conspiracy that Trump was going to launch and talk
about the next day. And that more broadly, as you've
(13:40):
suggested there, he says that Murdoch is in league with the, quote,
deep state, unquote, because they all want to bring down
Donald Trump that Donald Trump is the enemy of Murdoch
because he believes in nationalism, whereas Murdoch believes in globalism essentially,
that they are philosophically and fundamentally enemies. And Bannon is
(14:04):
uniting the party and says the party will be united
behind the effort to destroy Rupert Murdoch.
S1 (14:10):
And now Trump has vowed that he's going to sue
Murdoch's ass off. That's a direct quote. And he also
says it would be an interesting experience to get Rupert
Murdoch in the witness box. So I guess, what's your
opinion here, Peter? Do you think this might actually end
up hurting Rupert Murdoch rather than Trump in the end?
Because surely Trump wouldn't want this to go to discovery
and end up in court. Like God knows what would
(14:31):
come out.
S4 (14:32):
Well, well, there's always that risk when you launch a
court action. But Trump has launched hundreds of actions for
all sorts of causes in his career. It's a reflex
of his. Look, I can't predict. But according to Bannon,
the Fox audience will turn against Murdoch as a result
of this, that it will lose ratings and that it will.
(14:53):
Blow up Murdoch's entire US empire. Bannon made a few
other comments, which I wasn't able to accommodate in the
written piece, but some of his other choice words about
Rupert were that Rupert Murdoch was flaky, couldn't afford to
be seen to be in the witness box because he'd
be exposed. He said that Rupert Murdoch was a fake
(15:14):
citizen because he only took up US citizenship at the
last minute so he could buy Fox. He's really leading
a full court denunciation and demonization of Rupert Murdoch. Which
man will come out of it better? Who knows? They've
had ructions before and they've both survived.
S1 (15:32):
Did he suggest he had any inside knowledge of what
might exactly be exposed for Rupert Murdoch? Should he end
up in court?
S4 (15:39):
No. It was more suggestions that he wouldn't be able
to perform adequately in the witness box. The implication is
that he's somehow mentally unsound or unstable or demented and
or otherwise incapable so. But as usual with conspiracy theorists,
it's all suggestions, questions and hints rather than outright statements.
S1 (16:00):
I guess it is a live question, though, isn't it?
About just how much Rupert Murdoch could be damaged here?
Because of course, the context for this is that Donald
Trump has launched a number of actions against other media companies.
In some cases, he's won a lot of money. Right?
Like Paramount recently paid Donald Trump $16 million to settle
a legal dispute. So do you think that Rupert Murdoch
(16:21):
is seriously worried about this?
S4 (16:23):
Well, you're right that Trump has been launching a systematic
use of defamation suits in an effort to repress criticism.
And to some extent, that's worked. Is Rupert Murdoch worried
about the effects of the lawsuit? I very much doubt it.
It's just a cost of doing business, facing this risk
in our industry. And we all get the Sydney Morning Herald,
(16:44):
the Age we get defamation writs and claims brought us
against brought against us most days of the week. But
the political rift with Trump may be more costly to
Rupert Murdoch. We'll see how that unfolds. So far, Murdoch
is standing his ground and the Wall Street Journal as well.
S1 (17:01):
Okay, but this is where your interview with Steve Bannon
took a bit of a surreal turn. I would I
would suggest because according to Steve Bannon, this whole Rupert
Murdoch Donald Trump stoush illuminates that us Australians actually have
bigger things to worry about. So tell us what Steve
Bannon said on that count.
S4 (17:17):
I might resort to quoting directly from my column here, Samantha,
so that we get the accurate state of who's actually
running Australia. So Steve Bannon said to me that after
targeting Rupert Murdoch, the number one thing we have to
do now is take down the deep state. Now, just
for those who aren't across all the details of American
(17:39):
conspiracy theories, the deep state was a phrase that had
its origins in Turkey decades ago. It was meant to
suggest that there was a permanent bureaucracy of officials in
the national security establishment of Turkey, which was always in position,
was never ousted, never forced out of power, and that
(18:01):
was running affairs, controlling the government and the president of Turkey,
regardless of what he would want to do. And from there,
that was adapted and adopted in other countries, but notably
in recent years in the US to apply to the
US intelligence services, alleging that they have a secret power
to operate the government regardless of what the president and
(18:23):
the Congress wants. Let me quote Bannon talking to me.
He said the number one thing we have to do
now is take down the deep state who governs us.
And he talked about two assassination attempts on Trump. He
said that the FBI hadn't revealed all the files yet,
implying that the FBI was complicit in the assassination attempts
on the Donald Trump. And Bannon goes on, who governs
(18:47):
this country? The intelligence agencies, the CIA, Mossad, the FBI,
the five Eyes. The five Eyes, again by way of background,
is an intelligence sharing arrangement between five Anglophone allies. And
this grew up out of World War II, where the US,
the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand started to share
intelligence in the war. And that's continued to this day,
(19:11):
says Bannon, who governs your country? To me, hinting that
a conspiracy of the five countries intelligence agencies might secretly
control the Australian government, says Bannon, this is of vital
importance to Australia. Do elections mean anything? This is bigger
than Watergate. Now, he didn't produce any evidence. He didn't
(19:34):
produce any actual substantiation. But it's a conspiracy theory and
you can't really ask too much.
S1 (19:42):
What did you think when he told you that? Were
you thinking? Oh, I didn't realize that your conspiracy theory
thoughts were sort of, you know, heading our direction or.
What did you think, Peter?
S4 (19:51):
Well, first thing I thought was, uh, he's good interview
talent because he's catering to, uh, his his audience. Uh,
he's talking about the Australian interest in this. The second
thing I thought was, um, I've never heard this before,
even from the nuttiest, uh, Australians and I, you know,
in our line of work, Samantha, we deal with them occasionally.
(20:12):
There are plenty. I'm sitting in Parliament House. We even
have 1 or 2 here. And the third thing I
thought was, this is fascinating because it tells us that
if you apply this approach to conspiracy mongering, that Bannon
and and the MAGA movement does in the US, this
is the sort of thing we'd expect to hear from
them here. Uh, so I thought that was a useful
(20:32):
premonition for warning, perhaps.
S1 (20:34):
And, Peter, just to get back to the issue of
Epstein and Trump and where this goes from here, I
want to know if this is far from over, because
we know there's a bipartisan push within Congress to vote
to compel the Justice Department to release all the documents
that it has on Jeffrey Epstein. What is the chance
that that will go ahead and succeed? Because it's been
a big issue this week.
S4 (20:54):
So we have a few weeks now where the Trump
administration will be hoping that the MAGA movement can be
persuaded to forget about this story. I think it's five
weeks is the recess. Chances of that seem to me
to be low. The chances seem to me to be
that the Republican Party is going to continue to be
under pressure from the MAGA movement. The two are connected, overlap,
(21:17):
but are also, you know, not identical to produce more
documents to clear this up. There's a lot of suspicion
now in the MAGA movement. So Bannon for weeks had
been urging Trump to give him a get out of
jail card on this, saying, well, if you're not going
to produce any files or documents, ask the courts to
(21:38):
produce any evidence held under seal, testimony held under seal.
And that could clear this up. And after the Wall
Street Journal letter and the pressure mounting, Trump has done
exactly that. He's taken Bannon's advice. Bannon wants him to
go further, though. And this you can expect to be
picked up across or already has been picked up across
the MAGA movement. Bannon has been demanding that Trump appoint
(22:01):
a special prosecutor to investigate the Epstein case, and who
might be involved, and what other implications there might be.
We know that the Congress, as well as the Justice
Department separately are asking Ghislaine Maxwell, who was Epstein's conspirator,
literal conspirator rather than fantasy conspirator, to come and testify,
(22:25):
to speak publicly, to talk about what evidence she might have.
So this is not going to go away. And I
think Trump will continue to be under pressure unless he
figures out a better way of of dealing with it.
I've asked Bannon, do you think Trump is on the list?
Is he on the client list If such a list exists,
Bannon says, zero chance. Bannon also sees that this is
(22:49):
a ruction that the movement will have to get through,
but assured me that the movement would be fully united
in time for the midterm elections next year.
S1 (22:59):
Well, it'll definitely be interesting to see. And who knows,
we might yet again end up talking about conspiracy theories,
because just a couple of hours before we're recording this,
Trump has suggested that former American President Barack Obama committed
treason when he was in power. And I think possibly
as a means of sort of sidestepping or getting people
to look away from the Jeffrey Epstein file. So I
(23:20):
guess we could be coming back to this.
S4 (23:22):
Well, it's going to persist. And if you're looking at
a country governed by conspiracy mongers, then I'm afraid we're
going to have to get involved in at least discussing this,
if not fully credulously falling down the rabbit hole with them.
S1 (23:36):
Well, thank you so much, Peter, as always, for your time.
S4 (23:40):
Always a pleasure, Samantha, and sometimes more bizarre pleasure than others.
S1 (23:54):
Today's episode of The Morning Edition was produced by myself
and Kai Wong. Our executive producer is Tammy Mills. Tom
McKendrick is our head of audio. To listen to our
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(24:16):
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Links are in the show. Notes. I'm Samantha Selinger. Morris.
Thanks for listening.
From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
This is the morning edition. I'm Samantha Selinger Morris. It's Thursday,
July 24th. A showdown looms between two of the world's
most powerful men, Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch. With the
(00:21):
American president suing the media mogul for a whopping $10 billion,
front and centre of the case is Trump's connection to
the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, an issue that has
become so divisive lately that it threatens to tear the
MAGA movement apart and destabilize the president's leadership.
S2 (00:40):
It is a blockbuster story that has heads here in
Washington spinning.
S3 (00:45):
MAGA is eating itself alive over Jeffrey Epstein. So is
Donald Trump himself.
S1 (00:50):
For dessert today, international and political editor Peter Hartcher joins
me to discuss what one of Trump's most loyal supporters,
Steve Bannon told him about the biggest controversy to hit
Trump's second stint in the white House. Now we often
(01:12):
go down political and historical rabbit holes when we speak
on this podcast. We don't usually have cause to go
down conspiracy theory rabbit holes, but we're going to go
there today, aren't we?
S4 (01:20):
Well, since the entire political establishment of the US seems
to be disappearing down well, multiple conspiracy rabbit holes at
the same time. If we want to understand what's going
on in their system, we, I'm afraid, need to disappear
down some of those holes briefly, just long enough to
get a glimpse, and then we can extract ourselves back
into reality.
S1 (01:42):
Absolutely. Well, I'm not going to lie, I'm a bit
excited about it. So let's just start out with the basics.
Why has Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender, been in
the news for weeks now? And why has Donald Trump
been engulfed in this scandal? Like, how did we get here?
S4 (01:55):
We got here because before he was in the white House.
In his second iteration, Donald Trump and a lot of
his supporters had really fomented the conspiracy around Jeffrey Epstein
to suggest, well, to claim to sometimes imply that Epstein
was the dark heart of an elite conspiracy of pedophiles,
(02:21):
that Epstein was the paedophile pimp for a corrupt elite
that Trump was determined to destroy. And Trump had even
suggested he. And this is a common technique among conspiracy theorists.
Rather than directly state a claim which they know to
be unsustainable, they will provoke with a question. So Trump
(02:46):
had not said, for example, that he thought Bill Clinton
was a client of Jeffrey Epstein.
S5 (02:51):
The question you have to ask is, did Bill Clinton
go to the island because Epstein had an island that
was not a good place, as I understand it, and
I was never there. So you have to ask, he said.
S4 (03:03):
Is Bill Clinton on the list? We need an investigation,
I don't know. He's probably not. But is he on
the list, that sort of provocation? So to imply that
this conspiracy went to the very top of the Democratic
Party and to promise to bring all the files into
public view in the event that he were to win.
S6 (03:24):
Would you declassify the Epstein files?
S7 (03:26):
Yeah, yeah, I would. I guess I would. I think
that less so because.
S4 (03:31):
That was the promise. Now he's in power. What's the delivery?
The delivery is no delivery. It was just February when
Pam Bondi, his attorney general, had said that she had
the client list of Jeffrey Epstein on her desk at
the moment, she had brought a bunch of Maga Make
America Great Again influencers into her office to talk up
(03:53):
the revelation that the Trump administration was about to deliver
on this issue. And then last week, she issued an
unsigned statement saying that there was no conspiracy, there was
no blackmail. There was no client list. Case closed. Now,
rather than close the case, that simply blew up the
(04:15):
entire MAGA movement, which is now consumed with demands that
the administration release all the information it has and put
tremendous pressure on Donald Trump personally, which he's tried to
deflect by saying, this is boring. It's a hoax.
S8 (04:31):
I know it's a hoax. It's started by Democrats. It's
been run by the Democrats for four years. It's all
been a hoax perpetrated by the Democrats and some stupid.
S4 (04:42):
Only some stupid Republicans are interested in this. Let's move on.
But the MAGA movement is not buying it.
S1 (04:49):
So, Peter, let's get into this. Tell us just how much,
over the last few weeks, has this issue of the
release of the Epstein Files actually divided the MAGA base?
S4 (04:58):
It's completely consumed the MAGA base. Until last Thursday evening
US time, the movement was not divided. I don't think
at all. The clamor, the disappointment, the shock just absolutely
occupied and preoccupied the movement. You had MAGA members making
(05:23):
public statements saying Trump has turned out to be the
deep state himself, rather than exposing the so-called deep state,
which secretly runs America. Trump had turned out to be
part of it, that Trump was suppressing the client list,
that Trump had something to hide, that it was a
shocking betrayal of his followers. It was it was a
(05:45):
real crisis because it had it's not the first crisis
that the president has had with his movement, but it
was the most serious wedge driven between the president and
his base. And the base was angry and the base
was unified.
S1 (06:02):
Now we're going to get into Steve Bannon in just
a moment, because you have secured an incredible interview that
which gives us a really, you know, an inside look
into what some of the people in MAGA might be
feeling now about this. But before we get there, I
wanted to ask you with regards to, you know, the
claims that Donald Trump might be part of the so-called
deep state and he's perhaps wants to suppress these files.
Is there some suggestion that Donald Trump himself might have
(06:23):
been somehow involved in Jeffrey Epstein's horrific crimes against young
women and girls?
S4 (06:29):
There is, Elon Musk said, directly, without offering any sort
of evidence, that Donald Trump was on the client list.
S9 (06:37):
The very latest comment from Elon Musk is time to
drop the really big bomb. President Trump at real Donald
Trump is in the Epstein files. That is the real
reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day.
JT and earlier on.
S4 (06:57):
And that theory has run around the echo chamber. And
Donald Trump did have a personal relationship with Epstein for
many years. There were there's lots of footage of them together,
including the story which changed the whole direction of this
story last week, which was the emergence, according to the
(07:18):
Wall Street Journal, of a letter which it has not
actually shown in any way, but has described and quoted from,
which was a 50th birthday letter signed by Donald Trump,
according to the Wall Street Journal, to Jeffrey Epstein.
S10 (07:33):
The Wall Street Journal published a piece with this striking
headline Jeffrey Epstein's friend sent him body letters for a
50th birthday album. One was from Donald Trump.
S11 (07:42):
The Wall Street Journal says the letter contains several lines
of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman,
which appears to be hand drawn and says the text
consists of an imaginary conversation between Trump and Epstein.
S1 (07:57):
Can you tell us a little bit about that letter
and what the Wall Street Journal actually said about this?
Because it really has, like you say, it's turned everything around.
It's really made this whole issue explode. So tell us
about this letter.
S4 (08:08):
The Wall Street Journal hasn't actually published the letter or
taken a photograph of it for us to see, but
says the journal has seen the letter and describes it
in print as being a birthday card with a crudely
hand-drawn outline of a woman with Trump's signature in the
position where her pubic hair would would normally be. And
(08:29):
inside the outline is a little poem devoted to Epstein's birthday,
concluding with and this is the most damaging line for
his birthday wishes. He says happy birthday, and may every
day be another wonderful secret, which of course seems tailor
made to set off any conspiracy theorists. And that's that's
(08:50):
what it's done. We should, just for the record, point
out that Donald Trump denies that the letter is real.
He says it's a fake, and he's suing the owner
of the Wall Street Journal, including its proprietor, Rupert Murdoch,
for $10 billion minimum for defamation. He says that he's
never had any sexual dealings with Epstein, and that the
(09:14):
whole thing is is a horrible and disgusting, to use
his word, hoax.
S1 (09:22):
We'll be right back. Let's get to what Steve Bannon
told you. So just to remind listeners, Steve Bannon was
Trump's chief white House strategist during Trump's first term in office.
He's still one of Trump's most loyal supporters. And actually,
before I ask you, you know what it is that
(09:44):
he has said about this letter because he has said
something very different to what other people are saying. Why
did you even speak to Steve Bannon in the first place?
Because I know that there's been a lot of commenters
who've responded to your latest piece by saying, why are
you even giving this guy airtime? You know, he's obviously
on the far right. So what would you say to that, Peter?
S4 (10:00):
Well, I'd start with the first principle that the guys
in the thick of of the news story because as
possibly the mainstay or one of the mainstays of the
MAGA propaganda movement, he's been running this narrative and controlling
it to some extent for a long time. And he
(10:20):
has a big profile in the US, and he's taken
very seriously in the MAGA movement. But the other point
I'll just make for Non-journalists, or people who aren't familiar
with the way that credible journalism operates, is that we
don't just talk to people we agree with. We interview
people who are making news and people who have something
to say. And in this case, I thought, could usefully
(10:43):
help explain to us what's going on in the MAGA
movement and with this story.
S1 (10:47):
Tell us what Steve Bannon has said about this Wall
Street Journal birthday card, which Trump says is not real.
Because before the Wall Street Journal piece came out, Steve
Bannon had said that, you know, the MAGA movement really
was divided, that they would lose 10% over the Epstein files.
You know, it might even cost them 40 seats in
the House of Representatives at next year's midterm elections, might
(11:08):
even lose the president. This is what he had previously said.
But he said something completely different to you after this
Wall Street Journal piece came out. What has he said
to you about how this is going to affect Trump?
S4 (11:19):
Well, he's seized on that journal story to say that
the true enemy has revealed itself, the true enemy being,
in this case in specific The Wall Street Journal and
Rupert Murdoch, but also the larger liberal media, the neocon
neoliberal Rupert Murdoch, as Bannon described him to me, Bannon
(11:40):
says that Murdoch is the real enemy here. Bannon says
that this was a murdoch, quote, kill shot launched against
Donald Trump, and that rather than despair over the entire
crisis and what it's doing to the movement and to Trump.
He seized on it as the solution. And he says,
now the entire MAGA movement has and will unite behind
(12:01):
the president to defend him now that he's under attack.
And we've got to take out Rupert Murdoch before Rupert
Murdoch takes out Donald Trump.
S1 (12:10):
Okay. This is so interesting. So you've got to walk
us through how Steve Bannon explained that Rupert Murdoch, he's
the enemy. He's actually part of the deep state here
because this would seem to make no sense, given that
Rupert Murdoch's Fox News Channel was instrumental in helping Trump
to win the white House not once, but twice. So
what did Steve Bannon say about this?
S4 (12:31):
Yeah, that's that's right. Rupert's Fox News Channel cable channel
in the US was the incubator for a lot of
the MAGA movement and Trump voter base. In his first
run at the presidency. They had a pretty spectacular falling
out after Trump lost the 2020 election and claimed that
it was a stolen election, and Rupert thought that Trump
(12:54):
had gone too far and was going to be bad
for business, and he was going to try and launch
a coup. But then they've had a reconciliation. Fox has
gone back into support mode for Trump in recent times,
and the two men have maintained a cordial relationship and
were together in the president's box watching a FIFA soccer
match just five days before this so-called kill shot was
(13:16):
launched by Rupert Murdoch. And according to Bannon, this was
a kill shot. This story in the Journal, because Rupert
Murdoch has decided to bring down Donald Trump and that
this story was launched deliberately to thwart, to deflect from
another conspiracy that Trump was going to launch and talk
about the next day. And that more broadly, as you've
(13:40):
suggested there, he says that Murdoch is in league with the, quote,
deep state, unquote, because they all want to bring down
Donald Trump that Donald Trump is the enemy of Murdoch
because he believes in nationalism, whereas Murdoch believes in globalism essentially,
that they are philosophically and fundamentally enemies. And Bannon is
(14:04):
uniting the party and says the party will be united
behind the effort to destroy Rupert Murdoch.
S1 (14:10):
And now Trump has vowed that he's going to sue
Murdoch's ass off. That's a direct quote. And he also
says it would be an interesting experience to get Rupert
Murdoch in the witness box. So I guess, what's your
opinion here, Peter? Do you think this might actually end
up hurting Rupert Murdoch rather than Trump in the end?
Because surely Trump wouldn't want this to go to discovery
and end up in court. Like God knows what would
(14:31):
come out.
S4 (14:32):
Well, well, there's always that risk when you launch a
court action. But Trump has launched hundreds of actions for
all sorts of causes in his career. It's a reflex
of his. Look, I can't predict. But according to Bannon,
the Fox audience will turn against Murdoch as a result
of this, that it will lose ratings and that it will.
(14:53):
Blow up Murdoch's entire US empire. Bannon made a few
other comments, which I wasn't able to accommodate in the
written piece, but some of his other choice words about
Rupert were that Rupert Murdoch was flaky, couldn't afford to
be seen to be in the witness box because he'd
be exposed. He said that Rupert Murdoch was a fake
(15:14):
citizen because he only took up US citizenship at the
last minute so he could buy Fox. He's really leading
a full court denunciation and demonization of Rupert Murdoch. Which
man will come out of it better? Who knows? They've
had ructions before and they've both survived.
S1 (15:32):
Did he suggest he had any inside knowledge of what
might exactly be exposed for Rupert Murdoch? Should he end
up in court?
S4 (15:39):
No. It was more suggestions that he wouldn't be able
to perform adequately in the witness box. The implication is
that he's somehow mentally unsound or unstable or demented and
or otherwise incapable so. But as usual with conspiracy theorists,
it's all suggestions, questions and hints rather than outright statements.
S1 (16:00):
I guess it is a live question, though, isn't it?
About just how much Rupert Murdoch could be damaged here?
Because of course, the context for this is that Donald
Trump has launched a number of actions against other media companies.
In some cases, he's won a lot of money. Right?
Like Paramount recently paid Donald Trump $16 million to settle
a legal dispute. So do you think that Rupert Murdoch
(16:21):
is seriously worried about this?
S4 (16:23):
Well, you're right that Trump has been launching a systematic
use of defamation suits in an effort to repress criticism.
And to some extent, that's worked. Is Rupert Murdoch worried
about the effects of the lawsuit? I very much doubt it.
It's just a cost of doing business, facing this risk
in our industry. And we all get the Sydney Morning Herald,
(16:44):
the Age we get defamation writs and claims brought us
against brought against us most days of the week. But
the political rift with Trump may be more costly to
Rupert Murdoch. We'll see how that unfolds. So far, Murdoch
is standing his ground and the Wall Street Journal as well.
S1 (17:01):
Okay, but this is where your interview with Steve Bannon
took a bit of a surreal turn. I would I
would suggest because according to Steve Bannon, this whole Rupert
Murdoch Donald Trump stoush illuminates that us Australians actually have
bigger things to worry about. So tell us what Steve
Bannon said on that count.
S4 (17:17):
I might resort to quoting directly from my column here, Samantha,
so that we get the accurate state of who's actually
running Australia. So Steve Bannon said to me that after
targeting Rupert Murdoch, the number one thing we have to
do now is take down the deep state. Now, just
for those who aren't across all the details of American
(17:39):
conspiracy theories, the deep state was a phrase that had
its origins in Turkey decades ago. It was meant to
suggest that there was a permanent bureaucracy of officials in
the national security establishment of Turkey, which was always in position,
was never ousted, never forced out of power, and that
(18:01):
was running affairs, controlling the government and the president of Turkey,
regardless of what he would want to do. And from there,
that was adapted and adopted in other countries, but notably
in recent years in the US to apply to the
US intelligence services, alleging that they have a secret power
to operate the government regardless of what the president and
(18:23):
the Congress wants. Let me quote Bannon talking to me.
He said the number one thing we have to do
now is take down the deep state who governs us.
And he talked about two assassination attempts on Trump. He
said that the FBI hadn't revealed all the files yet,
implying that the FBI was complicit in the assassination attempts
on the Donald Trump. And Bannon goes on, who governs
(18:47):
this country? The intelligence agencies, the CIA, Mossad, the FBI,
the five Eyes. The five Eyes, again by way of background,
is an intelligence sharing arrangement between five Anglophone allies. And
this grew up out of World War II, where the US,
the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand started to share
intelligence in the war. And that's continued to this day,
(19:11):
says Bannon, who governs your country? To me, hinting that
a conspiracy of the five countries intelligence agencies might secretly
control the Australian government, says Bannon, this is of vital
importance to Australia. Do elections mean anything? This is bigger
than Watergate. Now, he didn't produce any evidence. He didn't
(19:34):
produce any actual substantiation. But it's a conspiracy theory and
you can't really ask too much.
S1 (19:42):
What did you think when he told you that? Were
you thinking? Oh, I didn't realize that your conspiracy theory
thoughts were sort of, you know, heading our direction or.
What did you think, Peter?
S4 (19:51):
Well, first thing I thought was, uh, he's good interview
talent because he's catering to, uh, his his audience. Uh,
he's talking about the Australian interest in this. The second
thing I thought was, um, I've never heard this before,
even from the nuttiest, uh, Australians and I, you know,
in our line of work, Samantha, we deal with them occasionally.
(20:12):
There are plenty. I'm sitting in Parliament House. We even
have 1 or 2 here. And the third thing I
thought was, this is fascinating because it tells us that
if you apply this approach to conspiracy mongering, that Bannon
and and the MAGA movement does in the US, this
is the sort of thing we'd expect to hear from
them here. Uh, so I thought that was a useful
(20:32):
premonition for warning, perhaps.
S1 (20:34):
And, Peter, just to get back to the issue of
Epstein and Trump and where this goes from here, I
want to know if this is far from over, because
we know there's a bipartisan push within Congress to vote
to compel the Justice Department to release all the documents
that it has on Jeffrey Epstein. What is the chance
that that will go ahead and succeed? Because it's been
a big issue this week.
S4 (20:54):
So we have a few weeks now where the Trump
administration will be hoping that the MAGA movement can be
persuaded to forget about this story. I think it's five
weeks is the recess. Chances of that seem to me
to be low. The chances seem to me to be
that the Republican Party is going to continue to be
under pressure from the MAGA movement. The two are connected, overlap,
(21:17):
but are also, you know, not identical to produce more
documents to clear this up. There's a lot of suspicion
now in the MAGA movement. So Bannon for weeks had
been urging Trump to give him a get out of
jail card on this, saying, well, if you're not going
to produce any files or documents, ask the courts to
(21:38):
produce any evidence held under seal, testimony held under seal.
And that could clear this up. And after the Wall
Street Journal letter and the pressure mounting, Trump has done
exactly that. He's taken Bannon's advice. Bannon wants him to
go further, though. And this you can expect to be
picked up across or already has been picked up across
the MAGA movement. Bannon has been demanding that Trump appoint
(22:01):
a special prosecutor to investigate the Epstein case, and who
might be involved, and what other implications there might be.
We know that the Congress, as well as the Justice
Department separately are asking Ghislaine Maxwell, who was Epstein's conspirator,
literal conspirator rather than fantasy conspirator, to come and testify,
(22:25):
to speak publicly, to talk about what evidence she might have.
So this is not going to go away. And I
think Trump will continue to be under pressure unless he
figures out a better way of of dealing with it.
I've asked Bannon, do you think Trump is on the list?
Is he on the client list If such a list exists,
Bannon says, zero chance. Bannon also sees that this is
(22:49):
a ruction that the movement will have to get through,
but assured me that the movement would be fully united
in time for the midterm elections next year.
S1 (22:59):
Well, it'll definitely be interesting to see. And who knows,
we might yet again end up talking about conspiracy theories,
because just a couple of hours before we're recording this,
Trump has suggested that former American President Barack Obama committed
treason when he was in power. And I think possibly
as a means of sort of sidestepping or getting people
to look away from the Jeffrey Epstein file. So I
(23:20):
guess we could be coming back to this.
S4 (23:22):
Well, it's going to persist. And if you're looking at
a country governed by conspiracy mongers, then I'm afraid we're
going to have to get involved in at least discussing this,
if not fully credulously falling down the rabbit hole with them.
S1 (23:36):
Well, thank you so much, Peter, as always, for your time.
S4 (23:40):
Always a pleasure, Samantha, and sometimes more bizarre pleasure than others.
S1 (23:54):
Today's episode of The Morning Edition was produced by myself
and Kai Wong. Our executive producer is Tammy Mills. Tom
McKendrick is our head of audio. To listen to our
episodes as soon as they drop, follow the Morning Edition
on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Our
newsrooms are powered by subscriptions, so to support independent journalism,
(24:16):
visit the page or. Subscribe. And to stay up to date,
sign up to our Morningedition newsletter to receive a summary
of the day's most important news in your inbox every morning.
Links are in the show. Notes. I'm Samantha Selinger. Morris.
Thanks for listening.
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