Michael Wolff

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm the person who sees this elemental story Donald Trump,
and I've gone through this with Epstein deep into the background.
Donald Trump is the best friend of you know, evil,
I mean, he is the best friend of a deeply,

(00:24):
deeply diabolical person.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Well, I'm going to say I've known you for a
long time. As we've often mentioned, we've known each other
twenty five years. And I was shocked by some of
these emails, and I want to read one in particular
that I was like wow. And this is based on
you sending Jeffrey Epstein an email in December fifteen, twenty fifteen,

(00:52):
on the eve of a primary debate, Republican primary debate,
and it's CNN holding the debate, and you send an
email to him saying I hear CNN is planning to
ask Trump tonight about his relationship with you, either on
air or in scrum. Afterwards, he writes back, if we

(01:14):
were able to craft and answer for him, what do
you think it would be? And then you say, I
think you should let him hang himself. If he says
he hasn't been on the plane or to the house,
then that gives you a valuable pr and political currency.
You can hang him in a way that potentially generates
a positive benefit for you, or if it really looks

(01:38):
like he could win, you could save him generating a debt.
Of course, it is possible. When asked, he'll say, Jeffrey
is a great guy, and he's gotten a wrong deal,
and he's a victim of political correctness, which is to
be outlawed in a Trump regime.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
Let's remember the entire context here.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Okay, but what I want to say is, in this
particular email, it's hanslight. You're advising a convict, a convicted pedophile,
about what to do, and you're colluding with him against
a potential.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
Right you know, I don't know, you know, you know
what emails sound like. Would one have rewritten them in hindsight? Yeah,
of course, you know. Emails always are. That's that's that's embarrassing.
But remember what's going on here. I am in this

(02:31):
I am where no one else is. I am in
proximity to a story which actually most people don't see
at this point.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
So in these emails, what strikes me is that you're
frequently giving advice to Jeffrey Epstein about how to handle
the media, how to use the media. Were you his
media advisor.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
No he had, I mean, and given the fact of
how badly he has managed the media over the course
of his long difficulties, I would not want credit for
that in any way. But but you know, this was
always a major thing. And this was actually, you know,

(03:11):
part of the reason, part of my entree here that
I knew about the media that gave me the kind
of cachet that got me a place at the table,
which has gotten me the Epstein story, if anyone wanted
to pay attention, right, yeah, I'm the person who sees this,

(03:34):
this elemental story Donald Trump, and I've gone through this
with Epstein deep into the background. Donald Trump is the
best friend of you know, evil. I mean, he is
the best friend of a deeply, deeply diabolical person, a

(03:59):
person who is involved in well we now know what
he's what.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
He's involved in a thousand women trafficking of thousands, you know.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
And so what I understand at this point is that
Donald Trump may become the president of the United States.
And this is still in twenty fifteen, and if the proposition,
but nevertheless, the a possible president of the United States

(04:29):
has been involved for well more than ten years, has
been joined at the hip with this person, has been
involved in everyday, both of these men in every aspect
of each other's lives, sharing girlfriends, in their financial lives. Now,
this is to me, and this is a moment which

(04:53):
I think we ought to We ought to, we ought
to pause, because I think we're very close to the
smoking gun. This is what is not only in implied
in my emails, but in other emails that Epstein has
has sin.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
And by the smoking gun, what what do you mean?

Speaker 1 (05:14):
Well, the relationship? And remember Donald Trump has denied this,
this this relationship, Oh Epstein, you know, passed them.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
In the He's calling it a democratic hoax. Again. He
just tries which of democrats, which, of course, of.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
Course he will. He's called it again and again. Everything
is everything is a hoax. Everything in his life he
doesn't like is a hoax. But the smoking gun is obviously,
has Donald Trump been involved with Jeffrey Epstein and underage girls?
Did Donald Trump know about Jeffrey Epstein's that the underage

(05:51):
girls in and out of Epstein's house. Now, I have
spoken here and in many other places about the photographs
that I have seen and Epstein. One of these emails
confirms or says Trump knew about the girls and he
damn well, did I have seen the pictures of the

(06:12):
girls of you know again, a dozen snapshots, three of
which I vividly remember, two with topless girls sitting on
Donald Trump's lap.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
Okay, there's another one I wanted to read to you here,
which was came out in October of twenty sixteen, so
just before he was being elected. There's an opportunity to
come forward this week and talk about Trump in such
a way that could garner you great sympathy and help
finish him interested.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
You know, one of the things that I was focused
on is trying to get Epstein to come forward. Why
don't you go public with these pictures? Why don't you
go public? Let me help you go public in telling
your story with about Donald Trump. I mean, I saw then,

(07:06):
as I have continued to see and see every day now,
that Donald Trump was unfit to be the president of
the United States.

Speaker 2 (07:15):
So Blue Sky and X and social media is full
of journalists just saying this is completely unacceptable. This is
not how you speak to a source, This is not
what journalism is.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
Well, these are not people who have written the kind
of books that I have written and you know, and
I often make the distinction between journalists who do what
they do daily reporters working for organizations working within a
very prescribed set of rules, and what I do. I mean,

(07:51):
I'm a writer who manages to make relationships that let
me tell a story in the ways that New York
Times or other very reputable journalistic organizations are unable to tell.
I mean, I was, you know, I am the one.
I am the journalist who got into the Trump White

(08:12):
House in those first months, for seven months, actually, I
sat there and was able to write a book. That's
my book, Fire and Fury, which was you know, I
think made a substantial contribution to understanding what was going
on and the utter uniqueness and out of controllness of

(08:35):
the first Trump White House. You know, I did the
same my my biography of of Rupert Murdoch. Somehow I
have I was the only journalist not in his employee,
who has ever spent an enormous, an enormous amount of
time with him basically basically a year. And and the emails,

(08:59):
but no, I just want to want to want to
want to make the point that if you saw the
emails that I shared with with with Rupert Murdoch, I
would I would be embarrassed about them. But I was
able to write the book that no one has been
able to write in a book, also that that he
profoundly hated.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
All right, So I was going to ask you about
that because you you go in, and certainly Ripert Murdock
is a perfect example. You go in, you spend an
inordinate amount of time with them, and they believe that
you are on their side. Do you basically go in
and sort of suck up to them and.

Speaker 1 (09:37):
Let me let me ask you, let me ask the
question in a friendlier way. Am I acting? Am I
play acting?

Speaker 2 (09:46):
Right?

Speaker 1 (09:47):
Am I playing a role? The answer is yes, I
mean that's what that's what a journalist, a writer in
that situation does. If you want to stay, if you
want to be in back the next day and the
next day and the next day. Yes. So the the
point is not what you say, but what you write,

(10:10):
the story you tell, and you know, and that's always
the thing that I'm that I'm I'm constantly focused on,
tell me, tell me what you would not tell other people.
I mean, in order to do that, you know, you
got to I think I think as as my mother

(10:32):
would say, you get more with a little honey.

Speaker 2 (10:35):
Right, some of the honey feels a lot when it's
a convicted pedophile.

Speaker 1 (10:40):
We have, but that's but that's not the point is
to get the story of the convicted pedophile. I could
have easily not gotten the story and could have said
you're a fucking pedophile and I can't see you anymore.
But we're in order to get the story, and and
let's this is a story that I have told as

(11:03):
often as I can, in as many places that I can,
the story of Donald Trump's relationship with this pedophile, a
story that virtually and certainly many of the journalists that
I'm sure are now criticizing me, have chosen not to
pick up. I've had a very very hard time telling

(11:26):
this story.

Speaker 2 (11:27):
So you use the phrase twice in the email we
started off with about let him hang himself, which turns
out to have a particular resonance.

Speaker 1 (11:37):
Well, the hanging here was referred to not Epstein Trump.
Trump was pretending he was someone other than who he
actually is, which is you know, I think by wide agreement,
one might say, certainly the sleeves ball of our time.
But also I think we could argue a criminal in

(12:02):
his sleasableness.

Speaker 2 (12:04):
All right, so let's talk a bit more about your
methodology in terms of when you came home from spending,
you know, a day with Jeffrey Epstein or an evening
at Jeffrey Epstein's house, what did you do? Did you
write notes? Did you speak into us? Of course, so
you came around and let's don't know that you when
you were there.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
Yes, And also most of these conversations with Jeffrey Epstein
are on tape, so you know, as we've discussed before,
to discuss many many places, there are hours and hours
upwards of one hundred hours of Jeffrey Epstein talking about
many things, but many hours of him talking about Donald

(12:44):
Trump and his relationship to Donald Trump.

Speaker 2 (12:46):
So what else is in the tapes? What else do
we need to know? What other emails are going to
come out with explosive revelation?

Speaker 1 (12:55):
Well, I think that there's these again to go back
to this and this is this is where the focus
should be. Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein had this deep relationship.
They knew everything about about each other, and then they
then they fell out with enormous acrimony. But for more
than a decade that's what they were doing. And their

(13:17):
obsession was women girls, models. Uh you know again, you know,
you know, I can't make that that point clear enough.
It was models, models, models, supermodels, runway models, fashion models,
catalog models, girls who just wanted to be models. You know,

(13:42):
the Trump model agency.

Speaker 2 (13:45):
Well, they all had a modeling agency, right.

Speaker 1 (13:48):
Jeffrey had a model. Jeffrey Epstein had a modeling agency.
Trump had a model. Yes, everyone, I didn't have a
modeling agency.

Speaker 2 (13:55):
So you've talked about going after Trump, But how is
Donald Trump, who was elected president not once but twice,
worse than a convicted pedophile who it turns out the
trafficked a thousand girls. I mean, he was sending cars
to pick up girls from hunt.

Speaker 1 (14:14):
Okay, but that's Joanna, that's clear the answer. Because he's
the president of the United States, because he is the
model of what a leader should be, of of of
what success looks like, and and so it is important, important,
it's vital, it's it's it's required at some level that

(14:37):
we understand the truth of who this man is. This charade,
we all live in a charade.

Speaker 2 (14:43):
And you are also lying to Jeffrey Epstein by trying
to seduce him into.

Speaker 1 (14:49):
Well, I think, Joanna, there are lies and there are lies.
I am not a pedophile. I am a writer, so
you know, and I guess I guess what you might
be saying is does the does the means justify these ends?
And and I would point out that the that the

(15:11):
that the means in this instance are are kind of
set of white lies. They harm no one, and they
they produced the end. I got this story. I am
the only one and I have been going and and together.

(15:35):
Actually before the before the election, we released The Daily
With the Daily Beast, we released a set of a
set of tapes that are much more explicit than than
than these emails, that directly connect Donald Trump to Jeffrey
Epstein in a way that is you know that I

(15:57):
think is completely revealing of Donald Trump's character and make
makes the point he is, he was, is and continues
to be unfit to be the president of the United States,
to say the very least.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
So we've we've been inundated, as have you, with questions
from journalists trying to get to the bottom of this
story and to understand your methodology. We've put them together
and there's some questions here from a guy called Eric
Whimple at The New York Times. I'm going to read
out his questions. Just wanted to ask you if you
could add any context to the emails that were released.

(16:35):
Some seem to conclude that you are essentially outlining a
strategy for blackmailing Donald Trump. This was when he was
a candidate, before he was president. Do you have any
response to that?

Speaker 1 (16:47):
You know, well, there's a curious thing in the that's
that's a reference to and I say, in one of
those those those emails you can get.

Speaker 2 (16:56):
Well, it's where you say you could save him generating
a debt, you know.

Speaker 1 (17:01):
And the interesting thing was, I mean, this was obviously
what Epstein wanted to hear, but the point was how
afraid Epstein was of Donald Trump. That that really was
a kind of going forward thing, that that Epstein was
fearful about what would happen to him if Donald Trump

(17:24):
became the president of the United States.

Speaker 2 (17:27):
Okay, so Eric has another question. It seems as though
these emails and news did you ever disclose them in
any of your pieces or podcasts or hint at them.

Speaker 1 (17:36):
Well, as I've said, I haven't talked about almost nothing
for the past year except my relationship to Jeffrey Epstein
and have disclosed things that I thought were much more
incriminating than these emails.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
Are there any other emails with Epstein that you could chat.

Speaker 1 (17:58):
There are well more important, more importantly, there are one
hundred hours of tape. And then Eric Wimple. The next
question he will ask is have I.

Speaker 2 (18:11):
You mentioned that you tried to interest news outlets in
the story of the Epstein tapes? How many did you
pitch and how many said no? Do you have any
correspondents from those interactions?

Speaker 1 (18:20):
I certainly do, and everybody has been pitched. There is
almost no outlet, streamers, networks, cable stations, and book publishers
who has not been pitched on this story. I was
going to ask everyone saying no.

Speaker 2 (18:40):
So you spent four or five years on and off
with Epstein at the center of Epstein's sort of table,
with all the people that came to and from his house.
The book never appeared. He wanted you to write a
book about him after your.

Speaker 1 (18:56):
No, But several other books did appear, which is you know,
he became a very.

Speaker 2 (19:03):
Do you mean several other books by you or yes.

Speaker 1 (19:05):
By by me? So he became a very significant source
for me in and of in my for my four
books about Donald Trump, I understand Donald Trump as well
as I do partly because of because of Jeffrey Epstein.

(19:25):
I mean, there are many other people and many other
sources in these books, but but Epstein's I have always
found probably the two people who have been most insightful
about Donald Trump are Jeffrey Epstein and Steve Bannon, who
actually curiously then became friends.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
So is one of the reasons that the networks and
streaming services or whatever have turned you down on this
is because Jeffrey Epstein is thought to be an unreliable narration.

Speaker 1 (19:55):
You know, I don't think so. I think the reason
is that they are scared. They're scared of being sued
by the Trump administration. They're they're uncomfortable with how to
talk about this, this this story. They don't want to
see Jeffrey Epstein in a in any more than that

(20:16):
than that than that single lens through which we view him.
And these tapes, these tapes are go all over the place.
They really show show a life in full, I mean,
a really strange life and and clearly a diabolical life.
But he is he, he is something else in these

(20:37):
tapes beyond just just the the the man who victimized many, many,
many many girls. But I actually don't think that's the
I think they are afraid, afraid of of of what
Donald Trump will do. And remember Donald Trump has repeatedly

(20:58):
at every instance, turn to these to the media outlets,
and if he doesn't like what they do, he sues them.

Speaker 2 (21:06):
I know, getting the story is important. Are there any
lines that you wouldn't cross?

Speaker 1 (21:14):
You seem to downplay the importance of getting the story
and which I would not do. Getting the story is
is the all important thing. But but of course you
know I'm not I'm not gonna be. Do I have
to answer this? Well, you know the answer to this.

Speaker 2 (21:34):
Of course, of course there are a bit of an
undercover cop.

Speaker 1 (21:40):
Well, I I suppose in a way that in a
way that I am, and then the television show the
other the the undercover cop always has to prove himself
by shooting someone who is I wouldn't do that. And
let's yes, and let's let's remember what I did. I

(22:01):
sat at a table and listened to Jeffrey Epstein and
many of the other people who he invited to his table,
and I often said what he wanted to hear.

Speaker 2 (22:16):
His table sounded a really intriguing place to be. There
were all sorts of people from world leaders. We've talked
on the podcast about how you ran into the head
of the Nobel Prize Committee. There. You said you saw
Bill Gates, there would the Allen there, Larry Summers. There
is there a way in which you were trying to
seduce Jeffrey Epstein into confiding in you, and you were

(22:41):
also seduced by Jeffrey Aps.

Speaker 1 (22:43):
Well, no, this is this is I mean, I'm not
the first journalist in this position, and many journalists have
have have talked about this and how to navigate such
a situation and the times they have failed to entirely
navigate the situation. And uh yeah, and I suppose that

(23:07):
I you know that there were moments in which you
have to stomach what you would what you know you
should not be stomaching, but you do, because.

Speaker 2 (23:23):
When you say that, what do you actually mean?

Speaker 1 (23:25):
You know? I And again that's why you stomach because
you're not You're not you're not seeing anything, you're not
participating in anything, You're just hearing things. So I mean
that was I mean, my relationship with with with Jeffrey
Epstein did not go. I mean, actually, I have never
in all of the hours that I have spent with him,

(23:48):
I have never never saw saw any interaction with women
with girls.

Speaker 2 (23:54):
Did you ever see the massage room?

Speaker 1 (23:56):
I never saw the massage room. I do want to
I want to say, and I think it's I think
it's it's important the kind of journalism I do, or
the kind of writing that that I do, is different
from journalists who work at newspapers or broadcast outlets. I

(24:19):
am trying to and I offer an entirely different view.
The cost of that is, you know, you gotta you
gotta be nice to these people.

Speaker 2 (24:33):
What I find is it's interesting is it's access journalism,
which normally results in something favorable to the person who's
given you access. What I always found interesting about your
columns at New York Magazine was that people were clamoring
to talk to you, even when you'd written previously negative
pieces about them.

Speaker 1 (24:53):
Yeah, well, even that sometimes they're not I am willing
to I was going to say I'm willing to blow
up people, but that's not really how how how I
think I'm I have always been just you know what
the story is you got the story, you're lucky enough
to get the story, You've worked hard enough to get
the story. Tell the fucking story, and and you know,

(25:20):
usually that results in the people you're telling the story
about really hating you.

Speaker 2 (25:24):
But you know, what the hell, So what more do
you think the Oversight Committee is going to release?

Speaker 1 (25:31):
Well, you know, I guess they're they're just releasing whatever
they can get. And there's it seems appears to be dueling,
dueling releases from the Republicans from the Democrats. But I
think that this is all signs of an investigation that
is closing in on its subject. And you know, and

(25:53):
sometimes I'm not sure that they realize that the subject
here is not so much Jeffrey Epstein but Donald Trump.

Speaker 2 (26:02):
Okay, So I want to ask you a question about
GILLN Maxwell, who we have talked about a lot on
the podcast, especially since she's been moved from jail in Tallahassee, Florida,
after a two day interview with Todd Blanche number two
the Justice Department, to a prison camp in Texas where
we know she has her own party, she has a puppy,

(26:23):
she has a fitness instructor, and then there is an
email from Jeffrey Epstein on Saturday April the second doesn't
have the year here, actually saying I want you to
realize that that dog that hasn't barked is Trump. There
is then a name redacted which has since been filled

(26:44):
in because she's dead by the Republicans who say it
was Virginia Duffrey. Virginia Duffrey spent hours at my house
with him. He has never once been mentioned, police chief, etc.
I'm seventy five percent there. And then Glenn Maxwell sends
him back an email later that day saying I have

(27:06):
been thinking about that.

Speaker 1 (27:09):
Let me before we go to that email per se.
I think it's going to be interesting. I don't think.
I mean Donald Trump has clearly been getting ready to
pardon Glaine or commute her sentence or get her out
of jail in some way. I think that's going to
be very hard for him to do now, which probably

(27:30):
me has other complications for him, because if he breaks
his deal with Glaine, Glaine gets to talk, but if
he reneges on his deal, and her method of talking,
as remember with the birthday letter, is a method of leaks,
and which could be as the birthday letter was pretty

(27:52):
devastating to Donald Trump.

Speaker 2 (27:53):
Because her family, who we think are behind the leak
of the birthday letter, are herman to get her out
of jail, and feel that she is the only person
in this entire Epstein saga to have gone to jail.
That other men that we assume partook of the things
that Jeffrey was offering have Some of them have lost

(28:15):
their jobs, but none of them have gone to jail.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
No, but they have a lot of them have suffered terrifically,
have been held to account in some ways. The one
who has not been held to account in any way,
as the President of the United States.

Speaker 2 (28:32):
I was losing your job isn't the same as being sentenced.

Speaker 1 (28:36):
It is not, But not losing losing your job and
facing disgrace is also a lot different than being the
most powerful man in the world and being unstoppable in
that apparently in the power you hold.

Speaker 2 (28:56):
And again, ones just struck by the remark couple difference
in their journeys that these were two men that used
to tool around Atlantic City together. One ended up dead
in a Manhattan cell still uncertainty around whether he killed
himself or whether or not something else happened to him,

(29:16):
and the other ended up being the leader of the
free world.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
Yes, and I admire that line because it is my
line which I have used again and again and again
and again, and this this, and people for us years
now have been people, I mean journalists, the media, media
organizations have been willing to overlook this story until you know,

(29:44):
smoking gun time. I think we may be closing in
on it now.

Speaker 2 (29:48):
The Republicans decided to unredact the name and put in
Virginia Dufrey because they say there's no mention of Donald
Trump in her book Nobody's Girl. And she never mentioned
Donald Trump as one of the people she saw that,
although she did mention other people Alan Dershowitz, Bill Clinton,
and actually al Gore.

Speaker 1 (30:07):
She's a complicated witness. You know, she had to apologize
to Dershowitz. Al Gore turns out never to have been
in any proximity to Jeffrey Epstein. So she's you know,
I don't know, I mean, she's dead, so let's not
let's not pile on. But I you know, I think

(30:30):
there would be no reason for Epstein to write this
email were it not to be true. This email was
theoretically a private email, and he's writing it to Glaine,
who would know?

Speaker 2 (30:44):
So I in eleven. I think it's two thousand and eleven.

Speaker 1 (30:50):
Yeah, I think it speaks for itself.

Speaker 2 (30:52):
So did you have any sense that this enormous stash
of emails was coming?

Speaker 1 (30:56):
Not in the least. I woke up to this like
everybody else.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
So, I mean some of the names in here. You've
talked about Woody Allen, Bill Gates, but some of the
names I was surprised to read Deepak Chopra.

Speaker 1 (31:09):
I have discussed Deepak Chopra before as being there, Yes,
not with I don't think you have with me. It's
an oversight then, because I have been there.

Speaker 2 (31:18):
With Deepak okay, And what was he doing?

Speaker 1 (31:23):
Yeah, you know, eating an omelet like everybody else eating
an omelet, And I actually remember, But I what was
deep I'm sure I suspect he was there trying to
get money out of out of Epstein, But I don't know.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
Kathy Rummler, who was Obama's White House counsel. Uh, Tom Barrack.

Speaker 1 (31:48):
No, And Tom Barrack is pivotal here in this the
connection because it was and I talk about this in
my furt in Fire and Fury as them being the
three Musketeers, Trump, Barrack Epstein, and they were together the

(32:09):
closest of friends. And when Tom Barrick went into the
White House, or actually he did not go into the
White House in the first administration, and that was partly
because of Epstein's advice don't take an official job. But
Barrick remained one of the key advisors still is one
of Trump's key advisors.

Speaker 2 (32:30):
Well he's an ambassador now.

Speaker 1 (32:32):
Yeah, but you know, on the phone with Trump constantly.

Speaker 2 (32:38):
So there you have it straight from the man himself.
If you have been thank you for joining. Don't forget
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(33:00):
all be Beast and a special thanks to our be
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(33:22):
Sharon Shipley, and Andrea Hodel, who wrote in to say
it's pronounced. It's a Swiss name, and it's I think
you said Odell, and I think it's Hodal, like Yodel Swiss.

Speaker 1 (33:37):
Andrea Hodel like Yodel, and always Devin, Hannah Jesse, thank
you