July 16, 2025 • 14 mins
Senior members of the Trump administration, including President Donald Trump himself, are facing growing criticism from their own supporters after the Justice Department concluded that no document exists that lists every associate or client of convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, and that the disgraced financier died by suicide in jail. But members of Trump’s party don’t believe Attorney General Pam Bondi’s findings.
Instead, they are calling for Trump to fulfil his campaign promise of releasing as much information as possible about Epstein's alleged high-profile clients.
It’s a story that has stretched over a decade, and today we’re going to break down what happened, why it's causing such a stir within Trump's own party, and what this means for the administration going forward.
Hosts: Sam Koslowski and Lucy Tassell
Producer: Orla Maher
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Already, and this is the Daily This is the Daily OS. Oh,
now it makes sense.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Good morning, and welcome to the Daily OS. It is Thursday,
the seventeenth of July. I'm Sam Kazlowski.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
I'm Lucy Tarsel.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Senior members of the Trump administration, including President Donald Trump himself,
facing growing criticism from their own supporters after the Justice
Department concluded that no document exists that lists every associate
or client of convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and that the
disgraced financier died by suicide in jail. The members of
(00:42):
Trump's party don't believe Attorney General Pam Bondi's findings. Instead,
they're calling on Trump to fulfill his campaign promise of
releasing as much information as possible about Epstein's alleged high
profile clients. It's a story that has stretched over a decade,
and today we're going to break down what happened this week,
(01:02):
why it's causing such a stir within Trump's own party,
and what this means for his administration going forward. Before
we get into all of that, here's a quick word
from our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Sam, Before we get into the political fallout that you've outlined,
let's start with the basics. If you've come in fresh
to this story, who was Jeffrey Epstein and why are
people so interested in documents about him?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yeah, so this is a banker we're talking about. Jeffrey
Epstein was a banker who was arrested in twenty nineteen
on federal sex trafficking charges. His former girlfriend, Gallaine Maxwell,
was charged with helping him abuse teenage girls over a
number of years. Now. Epstein was found dead in his
cell at a federal jail in New York City about
a month after he was arrested, and he was waiting
(01:52):
sentencing for further sex crimes, and investigators concluded he died
by suicide. Now, Maxwell, the former partner, was later convicted
that trial and sentence herself to twenty years in prison.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
So those are the two people at the center of
this story. Obviously both of them had been convicted of
a crime at one point or another. But there's a
lot of other people associated with this story. Big famous
names we've not been convicted of anything, but are attached
to this story. Right.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
It's a fascinating convergence of some of the biggest names
in the world, not just Hollywood. A list celebrities, but
members of the royal family from different countries, presidents, billionaires
from all over the world, really people of power and
of particular interest to observers is which of those people
joined Epstein at his infamous private island where many incidents
(02:41):
of sexual exploitation are proven to have taken place. And
in that is you know flight files from his private
jet of who was accompanying him personally, It was dinner reservations,
it was vps to parties, and all of that makes
up what is referred to as the Epstein files. And
the theory is that within these files could be links
(03:04):
to some of the world's most prominent and powerful people
who could then have some serious questions to answer for.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
So when you say theory, who's theorizing.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
This, Well, it's kind of evolved into what can only
be described really as a conspiracy theory, and it is
mostly popular on the far right. And the theory here
is that Epstein was actually killed in prison as part
of a cover up, and they also believe in this
notion of the deep state, and that the deep state
is guarding information about Epstein's rich and powerful friends, who
(03:37):
they say could also be implicated on sex trafficking charges.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
What do they say this the deep state is? Is
it like the deep web?
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Kind of? It's basically a level of power and a
level a group of people running the world and running
America which we as common citizens don't know about. Yeah,
And it's probably one of the most well known and
long standing conspiracy theories associated with the MAGA movement Make
America Great Again. And essentially Donald Trump positioned himself, especially
(04:07):
in the lead up to his first term in office,
as the person to deliver the reckoning and to rid
America of this deep state, to expose those who abuse power,
particularly in the democratic side of politics.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Is that like the drain the swamp stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Exactly, it's drained the swamp stuff, and it's particularly targeted
at say Bill and Hillary Clinton. There's been lots of
implications that they were friends of Jeffrey Epstein, for example,
And so there was this sense of Donald Trump basically
saying to his supporter base, there's a really bad group
of people you don't know about, and they're all tied
(04:43):
together essentially through this one person.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
So Bill Clinton, former US President, his wife Hillary, who
was Trump's rival in the twenty sixteen presidential election, and
then Trump is kind of feeding this idea to his
supporters that those people are somehow involved in a major
conspiracy that's also linked to this convicted sex offender.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
And that you know, Jeffrey Epstein may have had evidence
he was going to deliver to incriminate the Clintons, for example,
was then not able to do so because he was
dead killed in prison.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Yeah, okay, but based on what we've been led to
understand by authorities, he died by suicide in prison.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Yes. So there's been a number of reports that have
been released by the FBI and the Department of Justice
that have led to that conclusion. The gray area is
around whether there are still documents that are yet to
be declassified and that we as the publicer, yet to
actually get our hands on. And that really brings us
to this week.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
So there's a lot of conversation around declassifying documents. Is
that a specific promise that Trump has made.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Yeah, it was really a core part of what he's
promised his supporters in the last two elections, that he
would drain the swamp, as you said, and uncover a
lot of this story that would keep people accountable who
are in power. And Lucy The really interesting turn that
you need to know about to get to what we're discussing.
Happened in the last couple of weeks. Is late last year.
(06:05):
Trump was asked on Fox News whether he would declassify
documents about Epstein, presuming there are declassified documents, and he said, yeah, yeah,
I would, But then he added, I think that less
so now because you don't want to affect people's lives
if it's phony stuff in there. And that was the
first sense of us getting an idea that perhaps his
view on the release of documents is changing.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Yeah, I mean there is a reason why organizations like
the FBI and the CIA won't release certain documents until
after everyone who was involved is dead, and even then
they might be redacted like the JFK files, which I
know was another thing that Trump was kind of trying
to push up Hill to say, like, we should release
all these documents. So then we also know that there's
(06:48):
a difference between what is promised in a campaign and
what actually happens in government. What did the Trump administration
do once he actually returned to office in January this year.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
So in February, so only a couple of weeks after
he got resettled back in the Oval Office. A group
of far right influences were invited to the White House
and they were given these binders marked the Epstein Files
Phase one and declassified, and the binders contained documents that
had largely already been made available to the public online.
(07:19):
And the idea was essentially to fulfill that campaign promise
and to ensure that he was delivering on his word.
But then in May there was a key moment that
grabbed people's attention and Attorney General Pam Bondi, so the
Attorney General, the key lawmaker in Trump's administration. She said
there were quote tens of thousands of videos of Epstein
(07:39):
with children or child porn.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Whoa.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
She even claims that the Epstein client list was quote
sitting on her desk. The White House then quickly denied
this and said everything that they had on Epstein had
already been released to the public and there was nothing more.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
To be revealed. Okay, wow, that's a pretty big admission.
The Attorney General, who's the top legal official in the US,
says I have this stuff, and then her boss effectively says, no,
you don't have anything.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Exactly, and then her boss's ex best friend Elon Musk
after they go through a bit of a bromance breakup. Yes,
he takes to X formerly Twitter his app, and Musk tweeted,
time to drop the really big bomb. Donald Trump is
in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they
have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT.
(08:29):
So there was really starting to be more of a
sense of more to this story than initially thought. And
then last week the Justice Department stated that Epstein did
not have a list of clients and said no more
files related to Epstein's case would be made public. There
was this memo that was released by the FBI and
the Justice Department together and it made clear that no
further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
And the Justice Department is the department that Bondie heads
up as the attorney General exactly.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
So you have really a lack of essential message here
across an administration, which and you have to give credit
to the Trump administration, they've been relatively solid this term
on staying on message across key leaders of the administration. Yeah,
this was one of the really big moments where someone
in Trump's inner circle has really deviated on quite a
big issue.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Yeah, Yeah, I mean, the attorney general's a very important job.
So that's very interesting. How did Trump's supporters react to
this kind of flip backflip, flip backflip.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Yeah, and this is where this story really does get
even more interesting than it was a couple of weeks ago,
because we are seeing some cracks in the make America
Great Again movement in the conservative side of the Republican Party.
Some key Trump allies are very unhappy, and the focus
has shifted to whether Trump is blocking the release of
the files because it is indeed incriminating for him. So
(09:51):
there's one side of the Republican and conservative ecosystem that
is basically saying that something sus is going on here
and that Panmbondi's files that she's talking about need to
be produced to the public. But there's a whole other
side of the Maga ecosystem that's saying that Pambondi should
lose her job because she's spoken out of turn, she's
(10:12):
thrown her boss potentially under the bus, or she's just
fabricating the entire thing.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Yeah wow, But it's not just kind of media and
the broader Maga ecosystem. What have we heard from inside
the White House.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Well, a lot of the blow ups that we've heard
about from inside the White House over the last couple
of days are in relation to Pambondi's handling of this case.
So FBI director Cash Patel and his deputy Dan Bongino
have apparently had this quote furious conversation. Dan Bongino hasn't
gone back to work since that conversation about whether Pambondi
(10:46):
should have released the files or not. Cash Patel has
said on x the conspiracy theories just aren't true, never
have been, So he's remaining extremely loyal to the president,
whilst clearly there's some splintering going on as well.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
I think the one whose reaction I don't yet know
is Trump himself. What's he said, Oh.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
He's never short of a reaction. So firstly, it's important
to say that Trump denies any wrongdoing at all, and
he has consistently downplayed any relationship he had with Epstein.
One thing I should also mention, though, is that there
are these photographs. There are these photographs of Epstein and
Trump together, and these have been around for many years,
and Trump has always said that his photographed alongside thousands
(11:26):
of people all the time, and he has business associates
going back, you know, four or five decades. He can't
recall every person he's had an interaction with.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
And Trump was a New York real estate guy to
begin with.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
It was his job to network. It was kind of
the lifestyle of the rich and famous, a powerful group
of people. Of course they would have crossed paths. Is
the Trump narrative, and so Trump has he has defended
his attorney general. It's been a little unusual. He said
at a cabinet meeting, it was unbelievable and a desecration
that people were still talking about this creep being Epstein.
(12:00):
And he basically said, we should be talking about much
more important things. He referenced the Texas flash flooding, the
ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and across the Middle East as
the more important issues to be talking about. And then
he talked to Truth Social, his social media platform. On Saturday,
he said, what's going on with my boys and in
some cases gals. They're all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi,
(12:23):
who is doing a fantastic job. We're on one team MAGA,
and I don't like what's happening. So defending his attorney
general but clearly recognizing there's a bit of a splinter
in the party.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Yeah, criticizing his own base.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Yeah, And it's kind of the first time he's really
been frustrated with his own supporters. And it's a very
divisive topic because it was a major campaign promise that
helped mobilize the base, and it's led to a bit
of a fixation by a lot of Make America Great
Again influences over this deep state theory that we talked about,
that there's this hidden list and now that Trump may
(12:57):
be on the list, or the theory is that he
might be on that list. He's gotten a bit of
a trap here. He promised to expose corruption and is
now saying the evidence doesn't exist. And for those parts
who are genuinely interested in the conspiracy theory, and we
know how much of a whold conspiracy theories can have
on political followers and observers, it's caused a bit of
(13:17):
a credibility issue.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
So what do we think will be the long term
effects of this? Do we think people will just move
on or will it kind of continue to expand.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
It's early days in this one, but one thing I
took note of yesterday was the Speaker of the House,
Mike Johnson. So this is one of the most senior
members of the Republican Party. He broke with the Trump
administration's decision to keep the files secret. Slash say that
there aren't files to look at, and he called on
the DOJ to release the materials. Now, this is the
(13:49):
first time that Mike Johnson has spoken out publicly in
opposition to the president. So there are some signs, Lucy
that this story could be different to other chapters of
the Trump administration.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Thanks for explaining that for us. Sam, all good and
thank you for joining us today. That's all for today's
Deep Dive. We'll be back again this afternoon with the headlines.
Until then, have a great day. My name is Lily
Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda Bungelung Kalkutin woman from
Gadighl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is
(14:22):
recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and pays
respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island and nations.
We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries,
both past and present.
Already, and this is the Daily This is the Daily OS. Oh,
now it makes sense.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Good morning, and welcome to the Daily OS. It is Thursday,
the seventeenth of July. I'm Sam Kazlowski.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
I'm Lucy Tarsel.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Senior members of the Trump administration, including President Donald Trump himself,
facing growing criticism from their own supporters after the Justice
Department concluded that no document exists that lists every associate
or client of convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and that the
disgraced financier died by suicide in jail. The members of
(00:42):
Trump's party don't believe Attorney General Pam Bondi's findings. Instead,
they're calling on Trump to fulfill his campaign promise of
releasing as much information as possible about Epstein's alleged high
profile clients. It's a story that has stretched over a decade,
and today we're going to break down what happened this week,
(01:02):
why it's causing such a stir within Trump's own party,
and what this means for his administration going forward. Before
we get into all of that, here's a quick word
from our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Sam, Before we get into the political fallout that you've outlined,
let's start with the basics. If you've come in fresh
to this story, who was Jeffrey Epstein and why are
people so interested in documents about him?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yeah, so this is a banker we're talking about. Jeffrey
Epstein was a banker who was arrested in twenty nineteen
on federal sex trafficking charges. His former girlfriend, Gallaine Maxwell,
was charged with helping him abuse teenage girls over a
number of years. Now. Epstein was found dead in his
cell at a federal jail in New York City about
a month after he was arrested, and he was waiting
(01:52):
sentencing for further sex crimes, and investigators concluded he died
by suicide. Now, Maxwell, the former partner, was later convicted
that trial and sentence herself to twenty years in prison.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
So those are the two people at the center of
this story. Obviously both of them had been convicted of
a crime at one point or another. But there's a
lot of other people associated with this story. Big famous
names we've not been convicted of anything, but are attached
to this story. Right.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
It's a fascinating convergence of some of the biggest names
in the world, not just Hollywood. A list celebrities, but
members of the royal family from different countries, presidents, billionaires
from all over the world, really people of power and
of particular interest to observers is which of those people
joined Epstein at his infamous private island where many incidents
(02:41):
of sexual exploitation are proven to have taken place. And
in that is you know flight files from his private
jet of who was accompanying him personally, It was dinner reservations,
it was vps to parties, and all of that makes
up what is referred to as the Epstein files. And
the theory is that within these files could be links
(03:04):
to some of the world's most prominent and powerful people
who could then have some serious questions to answer for.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
So when you say theory, who's theorizing.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
This, Well, it's kind of evolved into what can only
be described really as a conspiracy theory, and it is
mostly popular on the far right. And the theory here
is that Epstein was actually killed in prison as part
of a cover up, and they also believe in this
notion of the deep state, and that the deep state
is guarding information about Epstein's rich and powerful friends, who
(03:37):
they say could also be implicated on sex trafficking charges.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
What do they say this the deep state is? Is
it like the deep web?
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Kind of? It's basically a level of power and a
level a group of people running the world and running
America which we as common citizens don't know about. Yeah,
And it's probably one of the most well known and
long standing conspiracy theories associated with the MAGA movement Make
America Great Again. And essentially Donald Trump positioned himself, especially
(04:07):
in the lead up to his first term in office,
as the person to deliver the reckoning and to rid
America of this deep state, to expose those who abuse power,
particularly in the democratic side of politics.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Is that like the drain the swamp stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Exactly, it's drained the swamp stuff, and it's particularly targeted
at say Bill and Hillary Clinton. There's been lots of
implications that they were friends of Jeffrey Epstein, for example,
And so there was this sense of Donald Trump basically
saying to his supporter base, there's a really bad group
of people you don't know about, and they're all tied
(04:43):
together essentially through this one person.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
So Bill Clinton, former US President, his wife Hillary, who
was Trump's rival in the twenty sixteen presidential election, and
then Trump is kind of feeding this idea to his
supporters that those people are somehow involved in a major
conspiracy that's also linked to this convicted sex offender.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
And that you know, Jeffrey Epstein may have had evidence
he was going to deliver to incriminate the Clintons, for example,
was then not able to do so because he was
dead killed in prison.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Yeah, okay, but based on what we've been led to
understand by authorities, he died by suicide in prison.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Yes. So there's been a number of reports that have
been released by the FBI and the Department of Justice
that have led to that conclusion. The gray area is
around whether there are still documents that are yet to
be declassified and that we as the publicer, yet to
actually get our hands on. And that really brings us
to this week.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
So there's a lot of conversation around declassifying documents. Is
that a specific promise that Trump has made.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Yeah, it was really a core part of what he's
promised his supporters in the last two elections, that he
would drain the swamp, as you said, and uncover a
lot of this story that would keep people accountable who
are in power. And Lucy The really interesting turn that
you need to know about to get to what we're discussing.
Happened in the last couple of weeks. Is late last year.
(06:05):
Trump was asked on Fox News whether he would declassify
documents about Epstein, presuming there are declassified documents, and he said, yeah, yeah,
I would, But then he added, I think that less
so now because you don't want to affect people's lives
if it's phony stuff in there. And that was the
first sense of us getting an idea that perhaps his
view on the release of documents is changing.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Yeah, I mean there is a reason why organizations like
the FBI and the CIA won't release certain documents until
after everyone who was involved is dead, and even then
they might be redacted like the JFK files, which I
know was another thing that Trump was kind of trying
to push up Hill to say, like, we should release
all these documents. So then we also know that there's
(06:48):
a difference between what is promised in a campaign and
what actually happens in government. What did the Trump administration
do once he actually returned to office in January this year.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
So in February, so only a couple of weeks after
he got resettled back in the Oval Office. A group
of far right influences were invited to the White House
and they were given these binders marked the Epstein Files
Phase one and declassified, and the binders contained documents that
had largely already been made available to the public online.
(07:19):
And the idea was essentially to fulfill that campaign promise
and to ensure that he was delivering on his word.
But then in May there was a key moment that
grabbed people's attention and Attorney General Pam Bondi, so the
Attorney General, the key lawmaker in Trump's administration. She said
there were quote tens of thousands of videos of Epstein
(07:39):
with children or child porn.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Whoa.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
She even claims that the Epstein client list was quote
sitting on her desk. The White House then quickly denied
this and said everything that they had on Epstein had
already been released to the public and there was nothing more.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
To be revealed. Okay, wow, that's a pretty big admission.
The Attorney General, who's the top legal official in the US,
says I have this stuff, and then her boss effectively says, no,
you don't have anything.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Exactly, and then her boss's ex best friend Elon Musk
after they go through a bit of a bromance breakup. Yes,
he takes to X formerly Twitter his app, and Musk tweeted,
time to drop the really big bomb. Donald Trump is
in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they
have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT.
(08:29):
So there was really starting to be more of a
sense of more to this story than initially thought. And
then last week the Justice Department stated that Epstein did
not have a list of clients and said no more
files related to Epstein's case would be made public. There
was this memo that was released by the FBI and
the Justice Department together and it made clear that no
further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
And the Justice Department is the department that Bondie heads
up as the attorney General exactly.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
So you have really a lack of essential message here
across an administration, which and you have to give credit
to the Trump administration, they've been relatively solid this term
on staying on message across key leaders of the administration. Yeah,
this was one of the really big moments where someone
in Trump's inner circle has really deviated on quite a
big issue.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Yeah, Yeah, I mean, the attorney general's a very important job.
So that's very interesting. How did Trump's supporters react to
this kind of flip backflip, flip backflip.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Yeah, and this is where this story really does get
even more interesting than it was a couple of weeks ago,
because we are seeing some cracks in the make America
Great Again movement in the conservative side of the Republican Party.
Some key Trump allies are very unhappy, and the focus
has shifted to whether Trump is blocking the release of
the files because it is indeed incriminating for him. So
(09:51):
there's one side of the Republican and conservative ecosystem that
is basically saying that something sus is going on here
and that Panmbondi's files that she's talking about need to
be produced to the public. But there's a whole other
side of the Maga ecosystem that's saying that Pambondi should
lose her job because she's spoken out of turn, she's
(10:12):
thrown her boss potentially under the bus, or she's just
fabricating the entire thing.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Yeah wow, But it's not just kind of media and
the broader Maga ecosystem. What have we heard from inside
the White House.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Well, a lot of the blow ups that we've heard
about from inside the White House over the last couple
of days are in relation to Pambondi's handling of this case.
So FBI director Cash Patel and his deputy Dan Bongino
have apparently had this quote furious conversation. Dan Bongino hasn't
gone back to work since that conversation about whether Pambondi
(10:46):
should have released the files or not. Cash Patel has
said on x the conspiracy theories just aren't true, never
have been, So he's remaining extremely loyal to the president,
whilst clearly there's some splintering going on as well.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
I think the one whose reaction I don't yet know
is Trump himself. What's he said, Oh.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
He's never short of a reaction. So firstly, it's important
to say that Trump denies any wrongdoing at all, and
he has consistently downplayed any relationship he had with Epstein.
One thing I should also mention, though, is that there
are these photographs. There are these photographs of Epstein and
Trump together, and these have been around for many years,
and Trump has always said that his photographed alongside thousands
(11:26):
of people all the time, and he has business associates
going back, you know, four or five decades. He can't
recall every person he's had an interaction with.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
And Trump was a New York real estate guy to
begin with.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
It was his job to network. It was kind of
the lifestyle of the rich and famous, a powerful group
of people. Of course they would have crossed paths. Is
the Trump narrative, and so Trump has he has defended
his attorney general. It's been a little unusual. He said
at a cabinet meeting, it was unbelievable and a desecration
that people were still talking about this creep being Epstein.
(12:00):
And he basically said, we should be talking about much
more important things. He referenced the Texas flash flooding, the
ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and across the Middle East as
the more important issues to be talking about. And then
he talked to Truth Social, his social media platform. On Saturday,
he said, what's going on with my boys and in
some cases gals. They're all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi,
(12:23):
who is doing a fantastic job. We're on one team MAGA,
and I don't like what's happening. So defending his attorney
general but clearly recognizing there's a bit of a splinter
in the party.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Yeah, criticizing his own base.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Yeah, And it's kind of the first time he's really
been frustrated with his own supporters. And it's a very
divisive topic because it was a major campaign promise that
helped mobilize the base, and it's led to a bit
of a fixation by a lot of Make America Great
Again influences over this deep state theory that we talked about,
that there's this hidden list and now that Trump may
(12:57):
be on the list, or the theory is that he
might be on that list. He's gotten a bit of
a trap here. He promised to expose corruption and is
now saying the evidence doesn't exist. And for those parts
who are genuinely interested in the conspiracy theory, and we
know how much of a whold conspiracy theories can have
on political followers and observers, it's caused a bit of
(13:17):
a credibility issue.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
So what do we think will be the long term
effects of this? Do we think people will just move
on or will it kind of continue to expand.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
It's early days in this one, but one thing I
took note of yesterday was the Speaker of the House,
Mike Johnson. So this is one of the most senior
members of the Republican Party. He broke with the Trump
administration's decision to keep the files secret. Slash say that
there aren't files to look at, and he called on
the DOJ to release the materials. Now, this is the
(13:49):
first time that Mike Johnson has spoken out publicly in
opposition to the president. So there are some signs, Lucy
that this story could be different to other chapters of
the Trump administration.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Thanks for explaining that for us. Sam, all good and
thank you for joining us today. That's all for today's
Deep Dive. We'll be back again this afternoon with the headlines.
Until then, have a great day. My name is Lily
Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda Bungelung Kalkutin woman from
Gadighl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is
(14:22):
recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and pays
respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island and nations.
We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries,
both past and present.
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