Breaking News from Pod Save America - Trump Just Openly Insulted His Biggest Supporters

Episode Date: July 16, 2025

Tommy Vietor, Jon Favreau and Daniel Pfeiffer discuss new polling on Trump's mishandling of The Epstein Files. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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of the Jeffrey Epstein case, and it is very bad for the White House. We'll dig into that in a second. But first, Let's listen to the latest spin from President Trump as he desperately tries to make the Epstein scandal go away. I know you've urged people to move on, but I'm curious, why do you think your supporters in particular have been so interested in the Epstein story and so upset about how it's been handled? I don't understand it. Why they would be so interested. He's dead for a long time.

He was never a big factor in terms of life. I don't understand what the interest or what the fascination is. I really don't. And the credible information has been given. Don't forget, we went through years of the Muller Witch Hunt and all of the different things. The Steele dossier, which was all fake, all that information was fake. But I don't understand why the Jeffrey Epstein case would be of interest to anybody. He's such a poet.

Yeah. In terms of life. He's dead for a long time. He was never a big factor in terms of life. In terms of life. I just want to flag for viewers that in that, in that class, clip, Trump is standing next to his commerce secretary. Howard Nuttick. Howard Nutlick. Did I miss Nutlick? I saw you dropped that on Texas morning.

Nutlick has been, it's sort of been like an undercurrent, but a lot of people these days are using Nutlick. Salty language. Lutnik is Jeffrey Epstein's longtime neighbor in Manhattan, and Lettnick acquired his home from a mysterious trust connected to or controlled by Jeffrey Epstein. So great optics there, huh? You don't say. You don't say. Okay, so only bad people want to talk about this. Luckily, they got two baddies with me today. I think that's what the kids mean when they say that. That's not what it means. Okay, so there's a new economist YouTube, or sorry, there's a new economist YouGov poll

that found 79% of U.S. adults think the government should release all the documents that it has about Jeffrey Epstein's case. 67% think the government is covering up evidence it has about Epstein. There's also some recent CNN polling we can get into. Dan, you and John are our resident polling junkies, gurus, whatever your word is. what's your what's your takeaway from this you gov poll i don't know whether this is sad or funny but that in this time of immense polarization the one issue that unites republicans and democrats and independence is outrage at the cover-up of the jeffrey epstein case right i mean just the you gov number is amazing right 85% of democrats 75% of republicans in every poll there's just at this massive

number of republicans there's a data for progress poll which is at 55% of republicans who have heard a lot about the epstein file disapprove of how trump has handled them like it's just We've never seen this in, we've seen Trump have bad numbers, but those numbers are usually driven by 90% of Democrats not liking what he's doing, and a majority of independence, that's what drives the polling on the quote-unquote big, beautiful bill. But to see Trump voters, self-identified Trump voters, not like what he's doing, disprove what he's doing to be concerned that the government is covering something up, is this is a watershed moment in Trump's public support.

John, CNN found that only 3% of America, are satisfied with the amount of information. It's been released about Epstein. 40% of Republicans are dissatisfied about the amount of information that's been released about Epstein. Can you think of any other time 40% of Republicans have been mad at a Trump policy? And like, is there a risk here for hacks like us who want this scandal to permanently hurt Trump?

His political standing that these Republicans are likely to be the ones, the easiest voters to get back? They might be. I mean, I've been thinking about this. Like, up until a few weeks ago and this whole thing, started or got kicked up again because of the Justice Department, I think that maybe we or the Democrats in general sort of dismissed the people who were concerned about the Epstein files as conspiracy theorists, right? And there are certainly some people who are conspiracy theorists

who have taken, you know, what's under the Epstein files to there's a cabal of democratic pedophiles running the world. Two of them are at this table. Exactly, like present company or Red Pill very much included. So, but, but, if you just take Trump's name off of it, there is a majority of the country who doesn't like when the government cover something up, who always wants more transparency from the government. And especially people don't like being lied to or being lied to in such a way that it's just insulting to their intelligence. Yeah. Like that that's what pisses people off really, really badly. Yeah, we'll get to that. and so it's not terribly surprising. I'm I was more surprised in the polling about how this is

broken through to so many people because as we've talked about a million times very hard for any messages to break through today. And there's still a good chunk of people in the CNN poll who haven't either haven't made up their minds about it, haven't heard enough about it, whatever. But it's broken through to a lot of people. And I think part of that is sort of the bipartisan nature of the way people are talking about it. Yeah, it brings together like several threads of things that drive attention on the internet. One is intra-party criticism, right?

If a Republican criticizes a Republican-Democrat or Democrat that always gets more attention than the dog bites man version of that is one. Two is conspiracy theories really are the currency of the internet. Like a massive part of what, of YouTube. If you go down the rabbit holes, particularly before they did some tweaks to the algorithm, them you're going to end up a conspiracy theory land.

The amount of like AI generated conspiracy theory content on TikTok is astounding. I've had a somewhat running joke slash warm take the Democrats should get into conspiracy theories. And this is like the perfect opportunity to do it. Never too late to start, guys. That's right. Sometimes sometimes I was all the same thinking of conspiracy theories that we could come up with. Here was one right in front of us this whole time. The water's warm.

Yeah, look, when you love your job, you never work a day. in your life. I also noted that CNN poll. Trump's strongly approved number is lower than at any other point. Either his first term or his second term is at 21%. That number has gotten as high as 35% over the years. Net approval is 42%. But what this is saying is the people who usually love him the most are some of the angriest.

That's also a number, by the way, that Republicans who are up in the midterms are probably looking very carefully out because when you have strong Trump approvers moving to somewhat Trump somewhat strong approvers or somewhat approvers. Flassett approvers? Yeah, that's how you get people not showing up in the midterms. Yeah, strong approval correlates what turned out. Sorry. It's okay.

So Trump is trying to scold the media for asking about Epstein, but the questions aren't going away. Here was another kind of crack at a spin or a new narrative that he tried from Tuesday. Specifically, did she tell you at all that your name appeared in the fight? No, no. She's given us just a very quick briefing, and in terms of the credibility of the different things that they've seen. And I would say that, you know, these files were made up by Comey. They were made up by Obama. They were made up by the Biden.

And we went through years of that. Saying you got a very quick briefing on an issue that a lot of people find incredibly important is a maybe not the smartest response? also who was president when Jeffrey Epstein was arrested, went to jail, and then maybe killed himself? I don't recall. I don't recall. Wasn't Barack Obama. Wasn't Joe Biden. Was Donald Trump? So Axios reported that there was a previous press inquiry about whether DOJ had informed Trump that he was in the Epstein files. According to Axios, they talked to someone in the White House who said that put the whole White House quote in a tizzy, which is interesting. and fueled distrust between the White House and DOJ and the FBI.

So, John, you and I recorded on Monday for Tuesday's POTS of America. You are saying that you think Trump is worried that he might be in the Epstein files. Isn't it more likely that he knows damn well whether he isn't or he isn't because Pam Bondi works for him? Yeah, I mean, this has been my theory all along, which is that it's not like there, I mean, maybe, but I would bet against there being an Epstein client list and Donald Trump is on the client list. I don't think that's the case. I do think in the pages and pages and pages of documents that haven't been released, a guy who has been Jeffrey Epstein's really good friend, been on his plane 20 times,

partied with him, had him at Mar-a-Lago, might be in the files. Yeah, I think that's a good bet. Yeah, that's a good bet. Elon Musk, remember when he had his first big meltdown with Trump, sort of break with Trump, he tweeted that Trump is in the Epstein files, and that's why they haven't been released. At the time, I like kind of wrote that off as Elon. shit posting. But Dan, like knowing what we know now,

should we take Elon literally not figuratively, as Selena Zito might say? What a Selena Zito reference here? Just slide that in. Trump gave her a shout out yesterday. Is your contention that Doge got access

to the Epstein files? Ooh. If anyone did. This went from Blondie to Big Balls. balls to Elon possibly also does Stephen Miller's wife know we don't know anything's possible wow Dan just broke this thing wide open like we don't know but obviously it's also in that answer Trump doesn't answer the question no not at all and he also very credible very critically says in terms of credible things implying that there may be things in there about him that are

he did would he would he would contend or not credible incredible Well, by the way, like Mike Davis, that crazy, crazy lawyer who has been Project 2025 advising the White House from the outside, he had this long thread that didn't get as much attention over the weekend or Friday, I don't know when it was, about how here's the problem, there's a lot of hearsay, and it's not just hearsay from one person, it's like double hearsay, triple hearsay, just like the Kavanaugh confirmation, which means that like he knows what's going on in the White House. He's well, well sourced up. So I do think that they probably think there's hearsay that they don't believe is credible,

but that may implicate Donald Trump maybe not in a crime, but maybe, or just some really bad behavior. Yeah, Axios talked to another administration source who said, we think this is going to burn out, but not yet. Correct. Also, they said, pissed off Trump is no fun for anyone. So it sounds like life in the unfolding is terrible. I think what I kind of find shocking about this is I think Trump's a bad president, obviously. I don't think he's like a person of character. It wouldn't surprise me at all if he like had done something creepy with Jeffrey Epstein.

But I will acknowledge that he is one of the most successful presidential communicators maybe ever. And I would include Obama in that just because no one dominates the day-to-day news cycle like he has for the last, what, decade. But saying he got just a very quick briefing on something that his base really cares about, clinging to this fucking ludicrous notion that Comey and Obama. and Joe Biden drafted the Epstein files together, presumably on Epstein Island at some point, right? Like, it's going to get laughed out of the room by all but his dumbest, most credulous supporters. And, like, I don't know, like, Donnie, you could do better, buddy. There is an element of second term senioritis here where presidents get, they win reelection, they get full of themselves, they overreach, they lose touch with the reason why they won.

And that's manifesting itself in two ways here. One, you guys talk about this on the podcast on Tuesday, but the entire premise of Trump is that for his supporters, we believe it's bullshit, but for his supporters is that he is this wrecking ball who's going to outsider who's going to go inside and take on this corrupt political system that is for the inside. He's an outsider is for the insiders. And here he, and and a core part of that, like a data point for that worldview is that Jeffrey Epstein had all these powerful friends. He, he. and no one's ever paid any sort of price for being involved. He ran a sex trafficking ring, but no one has been convicted for participating in that ring other than Epstein and Maxwell. And now Trump is the insider protecting the powerful people by keeping this list.

So that's one. Two is he thinks he can tell, he doesn't get why his base cares about this. That's been his one political superpower. He knows what his base cares about. He's always been able to be like a yard or two ahead of them, right? to like he's not leading them he's like beating them to where they're going and here he's lost touch with that and if he because if he thinks he can blame this on obama and Biden and like with this bunch of

bullshit that's not credible to anyone he's he's he's he's missing what it's truly driving this story i think it's fascinating how he is treating his supporters and talking about his supporters and i also think it stems from how he always handles scandal and attacks right which is you've got to just alpha, the person who's attacking you, right? And so if they attack you, you got to attack them harder, you got to blame it on Democrats, you've got to find your common enemy. But now, I mean, he had this truth this morning where he went back at it again. He called the supporters stupid people. He said, my past supporters have bought into this bullshit hookline and sinker. Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats work. And I don't want their support anymore.

Wow. Wow, that is stupid. You know, Dan, to your your senioritis point about a second term president is really important because one of Trump's, the one thing he did that was genius was he treated every Trump rally like a focus group. And he would work out lines like a traveling comedian. And the moment where this really like broke through to me was when he was talking, he was making some like shitty attack on trans athletes. And he was like, wow, you guys really love the trans stuff. I didn't even know about this until a year ago.

I thought you'd love taxes, but you really love this. You know, he like reads the stage directions. And now he is just like hopping from kind of weird event to event. He's talking to the pool. He's not talking to MAGA. You know, it's like Marjorie Taylor Green's boyfriend. And then, you know, the dude from Reuters. Yeah.

It's not a focus group. And he's just losing touch. But some people who are, I think, a little more attuned to the politics of this are Republican members of Congress. So as we talked about the other day, Ro Khanna had an amendment. He forced some Republicans to take some tough votes. I think there'd be more opportunities to do that. But I did notice that yesterday, Speaker Mike Johnson signaled that he wants no part of this mess. Let's listen.

I'm for transparency. We're intellectually consistent in this. Look, Reagan used to tell us we should trust the American people. I believe in that principle. I know President Trump does this well. And I trust him. I mean, he put together a team of his choosing and they're doing a great job. It's a very delicate subject.

But we should put everything out there and let the people decide it. I mean, the White House and the White House team are privy. of facts that I don't know. I mean, this isn't my lane. I haven't been involved in that. But I agree with the sentiment that we need to put it out there. And, you know, Pam Bondi, I don't know when she originally made the statement, I think she was talking about documents, as I understood that they were on her desk. I don't know that she was specific about a list or whatever, but she needs to come forward and explain that to everybody. Not his lane. The only child porn he's involved in is monitoring his child's porn.

Socialist. It's a very different man for Mike. Covenant Eyes? The Covenant Eyes. Everyone Google the Covenant Eyes app in Mike Johnson. Yeah, look, I mean, David. Speaker Johnson will do literally anything Trump does or says, right? He's the bootlickers, bootlicker. He knows that Trump can end his speakership with a truth social post. So it's pretty notable that even Mike Johnson is like, nope, I'm out. Yeah, I mean, it speaks to what he's hearing in caucus every day. His members are fired up about this. There's, and there was a story in I read somewhere on the internet, you can remember what outlet, about how the hardest core members of the Freedom Caucus, the Maga types are, have grown more disenchanted with Trump over the course of time. Like, they still love them.

Right. They'll vote for him. But there's been a succession of being forced to vote for the big beautiful bill. Right. Sending weapons to Ukraine again. Yep. And then, uh, and now this, not to mention the bombing of Iran. And so there's just like these things build up over time and you and frustrated.

And this happened. This is once again. Trump doesn't feel like a second term president because he just got elected because we have the interregnum there. But party members start looking past the future. He's not on the ballot again. They start doing their own politics. And it gets harder and harder to keep people in line if they don't have to run on the same ticket as you in a few years. The votes have been interesting because, so Rokana had an amendment that would force DOJ to release all the files. It's like a crypto bill.

Protecting the victims, but like release everything they can. So they tried to get it on attach it to the crypto bill in committee and they got one Republican vote. Ralph Norman voted for it and Chip Roy declined to vote so that wasn't enough but it was close. Then they went to the whole floor yesterday and they tried to do a separate provision that was just can we at least debate whether we should whether the Trump administration should release the files. Not a single Republican voted for that. Now that would have sort of like waylaid the Republican agenda for the day. So they were saying it's an easier vote. And they were starting then to blame Democrats.

Like, well, this is just a partisan thing and we want transparency. But then Thomas Massey now has a discharge petition. And a discharge petition forces a vote. But it takes like 30 days. So it's like a long thing. Yeah. But I just saw Annie Carney report at the New York Times. He's already got six Republicans on the petition.

So if you have six Republicans and all the Democrats, which you would, like that's enough to force that vote. Now it's going to take a while to get there, but they have the numbers. Lowe's has the brand's trust to get the job done. You can now shop new Catalyst Fencing solutions and save big when you do 10% off when you buy in bulk. Plus save $180 on a DeWalk 12-inch dual-bevel sliding compound mitersaw. Now just $449. Our best lineup is here at Lowe's. Vela through 5-6, wall supplies last. Selection varies by location. Massey, you know, sort of iconoclastic Republican

Congressman from Kentucky. Thorne and Trump's side interestingly, his own man. Discharge position. Not as gross as it sounds. Could be helpful. So last thing, guys. I'm going to stop that. I have a few things other things in mine.

Wired magazine reported that, quote, metadata from the raw Epstein prison videos shows approximately two minutes and 53 seconds were removed. from one of the two stitched together clips, the cut starts right at the missing minute. Now, remember, DOJ in concert with this memo saying there is no Epstein file, released this video from Epstein's prison cell area from the night he died,

that they said proved that he killed himself because no one entered or exited his cell. Now, I don't know what any of the words in that Wired Magazine tweet means. I haven't been able to read the article because their paywall is so fucking annoying. Even though we're subscribers. We pay. But it sure sounds like the kind of thing people who think there's a cover-up we'll seize on. And I just like, I can't, I always go back to my experience with Benghazi. A bunch of insane shit got reported about Benghazi.

For example, that Obama watched the attack live via a drone feed from the situation room didn't happen. That there was a quote-unquote stand-down order from the White House telling the U.S. military not to rescue those guys. Insane. Never happened. That we blamed the. attack on the Innocence of Muslims video, that YouTube video, that it inflamed the entire Muslim Arab world. But in this case, we were just worried that, you know, an attack on a consulate in Benghazi

would undercut our narrative about fighting terrorism. So that's why we, like, right? All of that was bullshit. But people believe it to this day. It's an article of faith on the far right to this day. And a lot of this stuff we're talking about, like this wired magazine thing about the missing minute, like it just feels unfixable. Yeah, I mean.

this is where the fact that you have an administration full of pathological liars becomes an issue because even me, even if you're like, all right, what do you actually forget about parsonship, you don't like Trump, whatever else, like, what do you actually believe about the three minutes of missing tape? My natural inclination would be like, I don't know, it's fucking three minutes. Why, that doesn't make any sense. It's fine. It's fine. But with Donald Trump and Pam Bondi and all these assholes are in government, like, I don't know. I can't say that for sure. I also started thinking, Imagine, just imagine if Obama or Biden or any Democrat was president right now and what Donald Trump would be doing. Oh, my God.

With that, he would have the number, what is it, two minutes now, three minutes, whatever. He would have that exact number in seconds and he would just be posting it like 10 times a day. It'd be a line in his stump speech. He'd be going out there. It's like, it's like the Hunter laptop thing. He'd be like, where's the missing 236? No, it would be Obama's birth certificate. Where's the long form video?

Yep. That's exactly right. It's exactly right. Look, I am not a conspiracy theory guy, even though I may want to become one for political purposes. But, like, I don't know about this missing data. But here is what we know, right? Put aside all the conspiracy. Here are the things that we know happened.

Jeffrey Epstein had it, was connected to a gazillion powerful people. He was famous for having parties with young girls that he was sex trafficking, both in his houses and his islands. He was able to separate some of the things. the richest people in the world for millions and millions of dollars for reasons so no one can fully understand. One of the people he was closely connected with was Donald Trump. Donald Trump, who in 2003 told New York Magazine that he loved Jeffrey Epstein, he had been friends on them for a long time, and Jeffrey Epstein loved young girls. Yep. He is in many photographs of them over the years.

He has visited with him in his house. Jeffrey Epstein has come, has been on, they've been on each other's planes. They have been to each other's houses. We know that Pam, Bondi said that they were going to release the documents. She then released some documents called Phase 1, implying there was a Phase 2 or Phase 3 or More Faces. She said that the Epstein client list was on her desk. Not long after that, she sends out a note saying, no such thing exists, and we don't want to talk about it anymore. What can you draw from that? I don't know, but the politician most closely associated with Jeffrey Epstein over the years is Donald Trump. He's also the person determines whether the list comes out or not, or the documents come out.

I don't know. I think the explanation you take from that is Obama almost got away with it. He wrote such good. We all created such good files that we almost had it. And then Pam Bondi figured out that it was a scam last second. Beautiful files. Dan, I'm going to read the verbatim quote from Trump to New York magazine about Epstein. I've known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He's a lot of fun to be with. It's even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do. And many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it. verbatim quote from Donald Trump in like 2002. All right. I think that's it from us. Ben Rhodes and I covered the allegation that Jeffrey Epstein is a Mossad agent or asset on Pod Save the World this week. We also excerpted that, just that section of Pod Save the World on the Pod Save America YouTube channel.

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