November 17, 2025 • 18 mins
The Epstein Files are back in the news... but what's new?
From emails allegedly linking President Trump to Jeffrey Epstein's activities, to Bill Clinton's name being brought up again and even more division in camp MAGA, what do the latest document dumps tell us?
Plus, in unrelated Trump news, he's suing the BBC... we'll explain.
And in headlines today, Opposition leader Sussan Ley says she can guarantee that she will lead the coalition to the next federal election; Victorian Liberals could appoint their first female leader with a leadership spill predicted today; Confessed murderer Lachlan Young will learn his fate today after killing his former girlfriend Hannah McGuire; 7 time world champion Layne Beachley has been honoured for her efforts to improve women’s surfing with the Dawn Award
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Hosts: Taylah Strano & Claire Murphy
Guest: Amelia Lester, Mamamia US Correspondent
Audio Producer: Lu Hill
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to Amma mere podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Hey, I'm Taylor Strano. This is Muma MEA's twice daily
news podcast, The Quickie. Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, Bill Clinton,
and Marjorie Taylor Green yep, that's a lot of big
names for first thing in the morning. And if your
brain starts to go fizzy when trying to unpack the
latest Epstein files update, fear not, this episode is for you.
(00:36):
The latest on Trump's long standing war with a bunch
of documents and emails has yet another development. Plus, the
president is expanding his fight against mainstream media, this time
across the pond, taking aim at the BBC the caveat here,
though he might actually be in the right. As always,
(00:56):
Emelia Lester is here to unpack everything Trump this week.
Before we get there, though, here's Claire Murphy with the
latest from The Quickie newsroom for Tuesday, November eighteen.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Thanks Taylor. Opposition leader Susan Lee says she can guarantee
that she'll lead the coalition to the next federal election.
Lee made the statement on the ABC seven to thirty program,
where she was explaining the party's new energy policy. There
have been constant rumors of a threat to miss Lee's
leadership position, with potential challengers meeting outside the party room
for conversations, But when she was asked if she could
(01:28):
guarantee that she'll lead the party the next election, miss
Lee said absolutely. When pressed on one of those named
as a potential challenger, Andrew Hasty's plans, miss Lee instead
chose to focus on policy priorities. Meanwhile, Victorian Liberals could
appoint their first female leader as the struggling party ay
as the next state election, less than a year after
(01:48):
Brad Badden was chosen to head the party. The opposition
leader could face a party room spill as soon as
this morning, with a challenge expected from QMP Jess Wilson,
a former staffer to ex Federal Treasurer Josh Fredenberg. Mister
Batten was reportedly visited by a delegation of Liberal MPs
who told him he'd lost party room support with others
and calling on him to deliver the same message. The
(02:10):
Victorian opposition has slipped in recent polls despite the three
term Labour government grappling with soaring crime and state debt.
Internal tensions have been simmering since a crushing defeat at
the twenty twenty two election, spilling into a defamation lawsuit
by Liberal MP Moi Redeeming against the party's previous leader,
John Pizzuto. The party would have its fifth leader since
(02:30):
September twenty twenty one if mister Batton were to fall.
Confessed murderer Lachlan Young will finally learn his fate today
after killing his former girlfriend Hannah McGuire and then burning
her body in remote Bushland. The twenty three year old
will return to the Victorian Supreme Court in Ballarat today
where his sentence will be handed down. Young initially denied
killing Hannah, claiming her death was a spontaneous incident as
(02:54):
he took the case to trial, but after eight days
of evidence before a jury, Young admitted he strangled miss
MacGuire in the bathroom of their Sebastopol home on April five.
He then placed her body into the footwell of her
Mitsubishi Triton, drove it to remote Bushland in Scarsdale, and
set the vehicle alight. As he left the scene, Young
used Hannah's phone to send messages to her mother, Debbie,
(03:15):
claiming she was going to take her own life. He
then transferred two thousand dollars from miss McGuire's bank account
to her mother and five thousand dollars to himself. The
Crown Prosecutor alleges that Young had been abusive and controlling,
and that Hannah's death was motivated by male entitlement, jealousy
and rage. Seven time world champion Lane Beachley has been
honored for her efforts to improve women surfing with the
(03:37):
Dawn Award. Beachley was given the trophy at the Sport
Australia Hall of Fame Awards, named for swimming legend Dawn Fraser.
The Dawn honors an individual or team for their bravery,
courage and capacity to change sport for the betterment of others.
The award has previously been won by athletes including Lauren
Jackson and Yvonne Gulagong Cawley. Beachley said she felt surprised
(03:58):
to be recognized and celebrated for a career that ended
so long ago, saying she feels a bit of imposter
syndrome despite investing back the sport as heavily as she does.
She says she does it because she loves it, not
to be recognized or celebrated, so these kinds of awards,
stop her in her tracks a little.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Bit, Thanks Claire. Next, buckle up, friends, it's time for
another Trump date. In what feels like the longest running
political news story of all time, the Epstein.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Files are back in the news.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
And if you're thinking, but Taylor, haven't we released all
the files related to convicted sex offender and trafficker Jeffrey Epstein,
Well apparently not. Last week, Democrats on the House Oversight
Committee published never before seen email exchanges between Epstein and
to put it frank, they don't exactly paint the President
(04:53):
in a flattering light. For example, he is a twenty
eleven email Epstein sent to his co conspirator Gilaine Maxwell.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
I want you to realize that the dog who hasn't barked.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
As Trump it'spent hour, or is at my house with him,
he has never once been mentioned.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Now. Of course, to counter that, Republicans released a further
twenty thousand pages of documents from the Epstein files on
the same day, insisting what was initially released was conveniently
cherry picked. So, according to these latest released emails, it's
inferred Trump knew about Epstein's activities and allegedly was involved
(05:31):
this alone has caused a feud between Trump and one
of his biggest Republican allies, longtime Trumps Stand Marjorie Taylor Green,
telling CNN essentially their political breakup can be boiled down
to one point.
Speaker 5 (05:44):
Unfortunately, it has all come down to the Epstein files,
and that is shocking. I don't believe that rich, powerful
people should be protected if they have done anything wrong.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Then there's the Clinton of it all.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Well, the heat is being turned up on the forty
seventh president of the United States. He insists, it's the
forty second leader of the free world we should be
focusing on. Trump has insisted there be an investigation into
Clinton's alleged involvement with Epstein, namely spending time at the
private island Epstein owned where alleged sex trafficking took place.
(06:22):
This investigation was called just three days after that Congressional
committee released even more documents linking Trump to Epstein. Clinton
himself has confirmed he's been on Epstein's private plane, yes,
multiple times in fact, but he's never visited the island.
Epstein himself backed this up in one of his many
many emails.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Clinton was never ever there, never, but.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Virginia Jufray, one of Epstein's most high profile accusers, actually
saw eye to eye with Trump on something they both agreed.
Clinton was in fact at Epstein's island.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
So where does this leave us now?
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Oh and if that wasn't enough, Trump, he's also walked
back some of his tariffikes and he's.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Saving the BBC. Don't worry, I'll explain to help us
get our heads around it all.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
We're joined by Mamma Me as US correspondent Amelia Lester. Amelia,
can we start with Epstein? The files, the emails? The
mind boggles. I've been thinking about this the last couple
of weeks, about how prolific one man can be, because
it feels like there's a billion documents about as many
emails to match.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
He was a writer. He wrote a lot of things.
Speaker 4 (07:32):
Well, that's interesting because, funnily enough, I was thinking that
we have twenty thousand pages of emails and yet we
have no real smoking guns. So he managed to write
a lot of emails but not actually say very much.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Or when you think about how many emails a week
that you would write, also.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
Hopefully there's no smoking guns in there.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Tell me about the latest things that we've uncovered though
from these emails.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
These are separate from the Epstein files that we've been
hearing so much about for a few years now. The
Epstein files are held by the Justice Department. That's where
we think the client list is. These emails come from
Epstein's estate and they were subpoenaed by the House Oversight
Committee in August, but because of the government shut down,
we're just getting to them now. And what happened last
week is that the Democrats released a couple of emails
(08:14):
specifically related to Trump, and then the Republicans counter released
twenty thousand pages of emails because they said the Democrats
were cherry.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Picking, which is like a document dump, right. They do
that just to sort of blood the z ownership, Yeah, and.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Distract and take away. But what was actually released about
Trump by the Democrats was, I guess you can't call
it a smoking gum, but it was some sort of
confirmation that their involvement as in Trump and Epstein is.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
More than what we maybe once thought.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
What we knew before was that they were close friends
for fifteen years, and this does in fact confirm that
they were very close friends for a long time. Epstein
seemed almost repulsed by Trump. In the latter years, he
kept very close tabs on Trump. But it's true that
they didn't seem to speak, and there isn't a single
email here that shows that Trump was culpable of criminal activity.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
What we see is.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
That he spent a lot of time with Epstein and
potentially spent a lot of time with the so called
girls in Epstein's circle. So Epstein wrote to his accomplice
Gills Maxwell, the dog that hasn't barked is Trump victim.
The name is reducted, spent hours at my house with him.
That victim's name has been confirmed to be Virginia, who
(09:25):
is believed to be Virginia Giffrey. But the odd thing
is that Virginia Jiffray maintained, both in her deposition and
then in her posthumous memoir that was released this year,
that she never saw Trump do anything wrong and certainly
did nothing wrong to her.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Which is interesting, right, Virginia Giufrey obviously one of the
most well known accusers against Epstein. For her to be
named in this email, which we now know has a
bit uncovered, it's no longer redacted to put her in
Trump in the same room but to not say that
he has done anything wrong is different to what we
all sort of associate Trump and the Epstein files with.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
Right, yes, I think we would have expected to see
something implicating him more directly. I'll just run through to
other emails that kind of semi implicate him. The first
was an email that Epstein sent to himself in twenty nineteen,
which is odd to send an email to yourself. I
don't really know the circumstances behind that, but Epstein wrote
to himself that Trump met a victim who worked at
(10:20):
Mara Lago, but that he never got a massage from
that person. The name was redacted, which is another sort
of interesting email to send yourself.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Yeah, he's documenting it, almost.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
Yes, and you would presume that he would want to
document the worst things that Trump did. And then, finally,
in an email to the journalist Michael Wolfe, he writes,
of course Trump knew about the girls, as he asked
Julaine to stop. This is all very confusing. We don't
get anything directly implicating Trump, but we do get a
confirmation that he was very close to Epstein, and certainly
(10:52):
that Trump must have understood what Epstein himself was doing.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Okay, so then what do we do with all of
this similiar I feel like every time the Epstein files
or Epstein's name comes up and then news, a lot
of people just tend to sort of melt away because
there's two much to sort of sift through. This kind
of just proves what we already knew. That Trump and
Epstein knew each other.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
It does, and that they were friends, but we knew
that already. Well.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
One of the names that has also come up in
recent weeks is Bill Clinton. He does want the files
that specifically named Bill Clinton to be brought to the surface.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Tell me what's going on there.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
That's a weird one. So basically, Mark Epstein, who's Jeffrey's brother,
sends him an email in the late twenty tens, first
of all inquiring about whether he's still pre diabetic. I
guess he was dealing with some medical issues, but then
asking if Jeffrey can send putin the photo of what
we presume to be Donald Trump blowing Bubba. Now, Buba
(11:48):
is Bill Clinton's nickname, and this could all.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Just be a joke, but it is very odd.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
Yeah, Bill Clinton is all over the emails and a
bunch of other Democrats too, including LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman and
the economist Larry Summers.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Right. We've also seen Ruf's Amelia amongst Republican and Trump.
For a long while now, there's been many arrange of
issues that have seen Republicans sort of turn away from
Trump and from the Marga movement. It feels like the
tide has really begun to turn though. Even the most
loyal Trump supporters are beginning to break away from that camp. Margaret,
I'm thinking about Marjorie Taylor Green as probably the latest
(12:23):
she's gone on the record now to say that the
Epstein files were kind of the final nail in the
coffin for her relationship with Trump.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
Things are moving very quickly there. She was under immense
Prussia last week to say that she wouldn't vote for
the release of the files in the House, and Trump
even summoned her to the White House situation room, I think,
basically to threaten her and tell her that if she
did vote for this, then he would ensure that she
lost at the next election. It doesn't seem like she's
revising her vote the votes coming this week, but over
(12:51):
the weeknd something interesting happened. Clearly Trump got to her
because on Sunday US Time, she came out basically with
an olive branch for Trump. She said she still greatly
admires him, respects him, and she apologizes for her role
in stoking divisive politics.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
And what about Trump now himself almost backflipping on these
Epstein files. He's now told Republicans to yes vote in
favor of releasing the Epstein files, which is not what
he's previously said.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
It's so strange given that last week he was going
to all that effort to pressure Madori Taylor Green to
revoke her vote in favor of releasing the files. Look
to me, this just emphasizes my sense that there actually
isn't a smoking gun in either the emails or the files.
He does say, we have nothing to hide. That's what
he truthed on Sunday night, US Time. I don't even
(13:42):
know if the Senate's going to vote to release them,
because he's been so firm about not letting anyone deviate.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
So is this succumbing to party pressure then, or is
this Trump going No, Really, I have absolutely nothing to hide.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
I think it's really weird.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
Taylor, I'm not quite sure it's either that he has
realized that there's nothing in these documents that he has
to worry about, or that he's decided that the embarrassment
that he'll face in being so closely associated with this
disgraced sex offender is not as important as the division
within the MAGA ranks that you've talked about.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Yeah, this is the ongoing thorn in the political side
of Donald Trump. And you've said a couple of times
today there's no smoking gun. And maybe that's why this
is going to be released. I mean, we'll have to
wait and see what happens at the vote, but until then,
I guess this is also Trump's attempt to like not
this being the legacy for his presidency, we hope, maybe
his final presidency.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
The jury still out on that. It's interesting.
Speaker 4 (14:37):
I guess he must have decided that this was starting
to actually endanger his standing with the base. I can't remember.
He flip flops and reverses his positions on things like
tariffs all the time, but I can't remember such a
huge u turn from him on something that's so close
to him before. And I have to assume it's because
he really sensed that his political survival was at stake.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
We are potentially getting as Trump's day in court against
the British Broadcasting Company. He loves a lawsuit and what
he loves even more is to pay out on the
mainstream media. How's he been caught in the fray with
the BBC.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
So the BBC at a documentary on Panorama, which as
I understand, is kind of like their four Corners in
October of last year, so crucially one month before the election,
and it featured footage of Trump sort of stoking the
fires at a rally that was held immediately before the
insurrection on January sixth on the Capitol. The editing of
the video met it seemed like Trump was inciting the
(15:33):
crowd to violence by the letter of the law. If
you listen to the speech, it was spliced in an
inaccurate and misleading way. So in response to this, the
news of this has only just came out because it
was the result of an internal inquiry. The director general
and the chief executive of News resigned and they've also
issued an apology to Trump. Now, Trump says he's not
(15:54):
satisfied with that. He was on Air Force one on Friday,
giving one of his signature interviews a plane a plane stop,
and he said he plans to sue the BBC for
as much as five in US. He would do this
in the United States. The problem is that's going to
be really difficult for him to win that case. He
loves threatening a lawsuit, rarely does he follow through on it.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Basically, experts have said.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
That his claim of reputational harm is not going to
work because he did go on to win the election,
and also the US Supreme Court traditionally has recognized the
importance of protecting political speech against the threat of lawsuits,
which I do understand.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
But when you purposefully stitch words together that weren't said
in that succession, surely that's going to raise eyebrows. I mean,
the BBC is one of the most trusted and respected
news outlets in the world.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Why would you do something like this.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
It is a huge misstep on their part. I have
to be honest with you. The gist of that speech
was go to the Capitol and raise hell. Now, if
you pull out particular parts of that speech and splice
them together, I understand why that's inaccurate, and I guess
that's where they fell down. But this is really kind
of splitting hairs on Trump's part.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Okay, and finally, Amelia, I sent you a message across
the weekend and I said, look, who has finally figured
out how tariffs were?
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Trump has walked back some of his tariffs. Talk to
me about that. Do people feel like tacos?
Speaker 4 (17:14):
Taco is? Of course, the acronym Trump always chickens out.
He's done it again, except this time he did it
about beef. So basically Saturday morning, Australia time, he realized
that he was standing between Americans two favorite food stuffs,
which are burghers and coffee. He's signed an executive order
reversing tariffs on imported beef, imported coffee, and imported bananas,
(17:35):
and he considered that this was because the price pressures
on those were making consumers very unhappy.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Okay, so when we say beef, are we talking Australian beer?
Speaker 4 (17:43):
Yeah, we're talking Australian beef, also Argentine beef. But yeah,
meat is Australia's second largest export to the US behind
non monetary gold, which I did not realize.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
What are they doing with it making jewelry?
Speaker 4 (17:53):
I gave Bee, Sure, maybe hoarding it, But this means
that there's no longer going to be a ten percent
tariff on the beef that Australia exports to the US.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
That's about four.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
Billion dollars worth and apparently it's the beef that's used
in McDonald's Big Max in the.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
LA A lot of vested interest there, a lot.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
Yes, Trump is of course a big McDonald's fan.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Thanks for taking some time to feed your mind with
us today.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
The Quickie is.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Produced by me Taylor Strano, Laria Brophy and Claire Murphy,
with audio production by Lou Hill.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Mumma Mea acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast is recorded on
You're listening to Amma mere podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Hey, I'm Taylor Strano. This is Muma MEA's twice daily
news podcast, The Quickie. Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, Bill Clinton,
and Marjorie Taylor Green yep, that's a lot of big
names for first thing in the morning. And if your
brain starts to go fizzy when trying to unpack the
latest Epstein files update, fear not, this episode is for you.
(00:36):
The latest on Trump's long standing war with a bunch
of documents and emails has yet another development. Plus, the
president is expanding his fight against mainstream media, this time
across the pond, taking aim at the BBC the caveat here,
though he might actually be in the right. As always,
(00:56):
Emelia Lester is here to unpack everything Trump this week.
Before we get there, though, here's Claire Murphy with the
latest from The Quickie newsroom for Tuesday, November eighteen.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Thanks Taylor. Opposition leader Susan Lee says she can guarantee
that she'll lead the coalition to the next federal election.
Lee made the statement on the ABC seven to thirty program,
where she was explaining the party's new energy policy. There
have been constant rumors of a threat to miss Lee's
leadership position, with potential challengers meeting outside the party room
for conversations, But when she was asked if she could
(01:28):
guarantee that she'll lead the party the next election, miss
Lee said absolutely. When pressed on one of those named
as a potential challenger, Andrew Hasty's plans, miss Lee instead
chose to focus on policy priorities. Meanwhile, Victorian Liberals could
appoint their first female leader as the struggling party ay
as the next state election, less than a year after
(01:48):
Brad Badden was chosen to head the party. The opposition
leader could face a party room spill as soon as
this morning, with a challenge expected from QMP Jess Wilson,
a former staffer to ex Federal Treasurer Josh Fredenberg. Mister
Batten was reportedly visited by a delegation of Liberal MPs
who told him he'd lost party room support with others
and calling on him to deliver the same message. The
(02:10):
Victorian opposition has slipped in recent polls despite the three
term Labour government grappling with soaring crime and state debt.
Internal tensions have been simmering since a crushing defeat at
the twenty twenty two election, spilling into a defamation lawsuit
by Liberal MP Moi Redeeming against the party's previous leader,
John Pizzuto. The party would have its fifth leader since
(02:30):
September twenty twenty one if mister Batton were to fall.
Confessed murderer Lachlan Young will finally learn his fate today
after killing his former girlfriend Hannah McGuire and then burning
her body in remote Bushland. The twenty three year old
will return to the Victorian Supreme Court in Ballarat today
where his sentence will be handed down. Young initially denied
killing Hannah, claiming her death was a spontaneous incident as
(02:54):
he took the case to trial, but after eight days
of evidence before a jury, Young admitted he strangled miss
MacGuire in the bathroom of their Sebastopol home on April five.
He then placed her body into the footwell of her
Mitsubishi Triton, drove it to remote Bushland in Scarsdale, and
set the vehicle alight. As he left the scene, Young
used Hannah's phone to send messages to her mother, Debbie,
(03:15):
claiming she was going to take her own life. He
then transferred two thousand dollars from miss McGuire's bank account
to her mother and five thousand dollars to himself. The
Crown Prosecutor alleges that Young had been abusive and controlling,
and that Hannah's death was motivated by male entitlement, jealousy
and rage. Seven time world champion Lane Beachley has been
honored for her efforts to improve women surfing with the
(03:37):
Dawn Award. Beachley was given the trophy at the Sport
Australia Hall of Fame Awards, named for swimming legend Dawn Fraser.
The Dawn honors an individual or team for their bravery,
courage and capacity to change sport for the betterment of others.
The award has previously been won by athletes including Lauren
Jackson and Yvonne Gulagong Cawley. Beachley said she felt surprised
(03:58):
to be recognized and celebrated for a career that ended
so long ago, saying she feels a bit of imposter
syndrome despite investing back the sport as heavily as she does.
She says she does it because she loves it, not
to be recognized or celebrated, so these kinds of awards,
stop her in her tracks a little.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Bit, Thanks Claire. Next, buckle up, friends, it's time for
another Trump date. In what feels like the longest running
political news story of all time, the Epstein.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Files are back in the news.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
And if you're thinking, but Taylor, haven't we released all
the files related to convicted sex offender and trafficker Jeffrey Epstein,
Well apparently not. Last week, Democrats on the House Oversight
Committee published never before seen email exchanges between Epstein and
to put it frank, they don't exactly paint the President
(04:53):
in a flattering light. For example, he is a twenty
eleven email Epstein sent to his co conspirator Gilaine Maxwell.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
I want you to realize that the dog who hasn't barked.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
As Trump it'spent hour, or is at my house with him,
he has never once been mentioned.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Now. Of course, to counter that, Republicans released a further
twenty thousand pages of documents from the Epstein files on
the same day, insisting what was initially released was conveniently
cherry picked. So, according to these latest released emails, it's
inferred Trump knew about Epstein's activities and allegedly was involved
(05:31):
this alone has caused a feud between Trump and one
of his biggest Republican allies, longtime Trumps Stand Marjorie Taylor Green,
telling CNN essentially their political breakup can be boiled down
to one point.
Speaker 5 (05:44):
Unfortunately, it has all come down to the Epstein files,
and that is shocking. I don't believe that rich, powerful
people should be protected if they have done anything wrong.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Then there's the Clinton of it all.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Well, the heat is being turned up on the forty
seventh president of the United States. He insists, it's the
forty second leader of the free world we should be
focusing on. Trump has insisted there be an investigation into
Clinton's alleged involvement with Epstein, namely spending time at the
private island Epstein owned where alleged sex trafficking took place.
(06:22):
This investigation was called just three days after that Congressional
committee released even more documents linking Trump to Epstein. Clinton
himself has confirmed he's been on Epstein's private plane, yes,
multiple times in fact, but he's never visited the island.
Epstein himself backed this up in one of his many
many emails.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Clinton was never ever there, never, but.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Virginia Jufray, one of Epstein's most high profile accusers, actually
saw eye to eye with Trump on something they both agreed.
Clinton was in fact at Epstein's island.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
So where does this leave us now?
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Oh and if that wasn't enough, Trump, he's also walked
back some of his tariffikes and he's.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Saving the BBC. Don't worry, I'll explain to help us
get our heads around it all.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
We're joined by Mamma Me as US correspondent Amelia Lester. Amelia,
can we start with Epstein? The files, the emails? The
mind boggles. I've been thinking about this the last couple
of weeks, about how prolific one man can be, because
it feels like there's a billion documents about as many
emails to match.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
He was a writer. He wrote a lot of things.
Speaker 4 (07:32):
Well, that's interesting because, funnily enough, I was thinking that
we have twenty thousand pages of emails and yet we
have no real smoking guns. So he managed to write
a lot of emails but not actually say very much.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Or when you think about how many emails a week
that you would write, also.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
Hopefully there's no smoking guns in there.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Tell me about the latest things that we've uncovered though
from these emails.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
These are separate from the Epstein files that we've been
hearing so much about for a few years now. The
Epstein files are held by the Justice Department. That's where
we think the client list is. These emails come from
Epstein's estate and they were subpoenaed by the House Oversight
Committee in August, but because of the government shut down,
we're just getting to them now. And what happened last
week is that the Democrats released a couple of emails
(08:14):
specifically related to Trump, and then the Republicans counter released
twenty thousand pages of emails because they said the Democrats
were cherry.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Picking, which is like a document dump, right. They do
that just to sort of blood the z ownership, Yeah, and.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Distract and take away. But what was actually released about
Trump by the Democrats was, I guess you can't call
it a smoking gum, but it was some sort of
confirmation that their involvement as in Trump and Epstein is.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
More than what we maybe once thought.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
What we knew before was that they were close friends
for fifteen years, and this does in fact confirm that
they were very close friends for a long time. Epstein
seemed almost repulsed by Trump. In the latter years, he
kept very close tabs on Trump. But it's true that
they didn't seem to speak, and there isn't a single
email here that shows that Trump was culpable of criminal activity.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
What we see is.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
That he spent a lot of time with Epstein and
potentially spent a lot of time with the so called
girls in Epstein's circle. So Epstein wrote to his accomplice
Gills Maxwell, the dog that hasn't barked is Trump victim.
The name is reducted, spent hours at my house with him.
That victim's name has been confirmed to be Virginia, who
(09:25):
is believed to be Virginia Giffrey. But the odd thing
is that Virginia Jiffray maintained, both in her deposition and
then in her posthumous memoir that was released this year,
that she never saw Trump do anything wrong and certainly
did nothing wrong to her.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Which is interesting, right, Virginia Giufrey obviously one of the
most well known accusers against Epstein. For her to be
named in this email, which we now know has a
bit uncovered, it's no longer redacted to put her in
Trump in the same room but to not say that
he has done anything wrong is different to what we
all sort of associate Trump and the Epstein files with.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
Right, yes, I think we would have expected to see
something implicating him more directly. I'll just run through to
other emails that kind of semi implicate him. The first
was an email that Epstein sent to himself in twenty nineteen,
which is odd to send an email to yourself. I
don't really know the circumstances behind that, but Epstein wrote
to himself that Trump met a victim who worked at
(10:20):
Mara Lago, but that he never got a massage from
that person. The name was redacted, which is another sort
of interesting email to send yourself.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Yeah, he's documenting it, almost.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
Yes, and you would presume that he would want to
document the worst things that Trump did. And then, finally,
in an email to the journalist Michael Wolfe, he writes,
of course Trump knew about the girls, as he asked
Julaine to stop. This is all very confusing. We don't
get anything directly implicating Trump, but we do get a
confirmation that he was very close to Epstein, and certainly
(10:52):
that Trump must have understood what Epstein himself was doing.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Okay, so then what do we do with all of
this similiar I feel like every time the Epstein files
or Epstein's name comes up and then news, a lot
of people just tend to sort of melt away because
there's two much to sort of sift through. This kind
of just proves what we already knew. That Trump and
Epstein knew each other.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
It does, and that they were friends, but we knew
that already. Well.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
One of the names that has also come up in
recent weeks is Bill Clinton. He does want the files
that specifically named Bill Clinton to be brought to the surface.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Tell me what's going on there.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
That's a weird one. So basically, Mark Epstein, who's Jeffrey's brother,
sends him an email in the late twenty tens, first
of all inquiring about whether he's still pre diabetic. I
guess he was dealing with some medical issues, but then
asking if Jeffrey can send putin the photo of what
we presume to be Donald Trump blowing Bubba. Now, Buba
(11:48):
is Bill Clinton's nickname, and this could all.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Just be a joke, but it is very odd.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
Yeah, Bill Clinton is all over the emails and a
bunch of other Democrats too, including LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman and
the economist Larry Summers.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Right. We've also seen Ruf's Amelia amongst Republican and Trump.
For a long while now, there's been many arrange of
issues that have seen Republicans sort of turn away from
Trump and from the Marga movement. It feels like the
tide has really begun to turn though. Even the most
loyal Trump supporters are beginning to break away from that camp. Margaret,
I'm thinking about Marjorie Taylor Green as probably the latest
(12:23):
she's gone on the record now to say that the
Epstein files were kind of the final nail in the
coffin for her relationship with Trump.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
Things are moving very quickly there. She was under immense
Prussia last week to say that she wouldn't vote for
the release of the files in the House, and Trump
even summoned her to the White House situation room, I think,
basically to threaten her and tell her that if she
did vote for this, then he would ensure that she
lost at the next election. It doesn't seem like she's
revising her vote the votes coming this week, but over
(12:51):
the weeknd something interesting happened. Clearly Trump got to her
because on Sunday US Time, she came out basically with
an olive branch for Trump. She said she still greatly
admires him, respects him, and she apologizes for her role
in stoking divisive politics.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
And what about Trump now himself almost backflipping on these
Epstein files. He's now told Republicans to yes vote in
favor of releasing the Epstein files, which is not what
he's previously said.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
It's so strange given that last week he was going
to all that effort to pressure Madori Taylor Green to
revoke her vote in favor of releasing the files. Look
to me, this just emphasizes my sense that there actually
isn't a smoking gun in either the emails or the files.
He does say, we have nothing to hide. That's what
he truthed on Sunday night, US Time. I don't even
(13:42):
know if the Senate's going to vote to release them,
because he's been so firm about not letting anyone deviate.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
So is this succumbing to party pressure then, or is
this Trump going No, Really, I have absolutely nothing to hide.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
I think it's really weird.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
Taylor, I'm not quite sure it's either that he has
realized that there's nothing in these documents that he has
to worry about, or that he's decided that the embarrassment
that he'll face in being so closely associated with this
disgraced sex offender is not as important as the division
within the MAGA ranks that you've talked about.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Yeah, this is the ongoing thorn in the political side
of Donald Trump. And you've said a couple of times
today there's no smoking gun. And maybe that's why this
is going to be released. I mean, we'll have to
wait and see what happens at the vote, but until then,
I guess this is also Trump's attempt to like not
this being the legacy for his presidency, we hope, maybe
his final presidency.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
The jury still out on that. It's interesting.
Speaker 4 (14:37):
I guess he must have decided that this was starting
to actually endanger his standing with the base. I can't remember.
He flip flops and reverses his positions on things like
tariffs all the time, but I can't remember such a
huge u turn from him on something that's so close
to him before. And I have to assume it's because
he really sensed that his political survival was at stake.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
We are potentially getting as Trump's day in court against
the British Broadcasting Company. He loves a lawsuit and what
he loves even more is to pay out on the
mainstream media. How's he been caught in the fray with
the BBC.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
So the BBC at a documentary on Panorama, which as
I understand, is kind of like their four Corners in
October of last year, so crucially one month before the election,
and it featured footage of Trump sort of stoking the
fires at a rally that was held immediately before the
insurrection on January sixth on the Capitol. The editing of
the video met it seemed like Trump was inciting the
(15:33):
crowd to violence by the letter of the law. If
you listen to the speech, it was spliced in an
inaccurate and misleading way. So in response to this, the
news of this has only just came out because it
was the result of an internal inquiry. The director general
and the chief executive of News resigned and they've also
issued an apology to Trump. Now, Trump says he's not
(15:54):
satisfied with that. He was on Air Force one on Friday,
giving one of his signature interviews a plane a plane stop,
and he said he plans to sue the BBC for
as much as five in US. He would do this
in the United States. The problem is that's going to
be really difficult for him to win that case. He
loves threatening a lawsuit, rarely does he follow through on it.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Basically, experts have said.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
That his claim of reputational harm is not going to
work because he did go on to win the election,
and also the US Supreme Court traditionally has recognized the
importance of protecting political speech against the threat of lawsuits,
which I do understand.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
But when you purposefully stitch words together that weren't said
in that succession, surely that's going to raise eyebrows. I mean,
the BBC is one of the most trusted and respected
news outlets in the world.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Why would you do something like this.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
It is a huge misstep on their part. I have
to be honest with you. The gist of that speech
was go to the Capitol and raise hell. Now, if
you pull out particular parts of that speech and splice
them together, I understand why that's inaccurate, and I guess
that's where they fell down. But this is really kind
of splitting hairs on Trump's part.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Okay, and finally, Amelia, I sent you a message across
the weekend and I said, look, who has finally figured
out how tariffs were?
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Trump has walked back some of his tariffs. Talk to
me about that. Do people feel like tacos?
Speaker 4 (17:14):
Taco is? Of course, the acronym Trump always chickens out.
He's done it again, except this time he did it
about beef. So basically Saturday morning, Australia time, he realized
that he was standing between Americans two favorite food stuffs,
which are burghers and coffee. He's signed an executive order
reversing tariffs on imported beef, imported coffee, and imported bananas,
(17:35):
and he considered that this was because the price pressures
on those were making consumers very unhappy.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Okay, so when we say beef, are we talking Australian beer?
Speaker 4 (17:43):
Yeah, we're talking Australian beef, also Argentine beef. But yeah,
meat is Australia's second largest export to the US behind
non monetary gold, which I did not realize.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
What are they doing with it making jewelry?
Speaker 4 (17:53):
I gave Bee, Sure, maybe hoarding it, But this means
that there's no longer going to be a ten percent
tariff on the beef that Australia exports to the US.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
That's about four.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
Billion dollars worth and apparently it's the beef that's used
in McDonald's Big Max in the.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
LA A lot of vested interest there, a lot.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
Yes, Trump is of course a big McDonald's fan.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Thanks for taking some time to feed your mind with
us today.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
The Quickie is.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Produced by me Taylor Strano, Laria Brophy and Claire Murphy,
with audio production by Lou Hill.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Mumma Mea acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast is recorded on
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