Bulwark Takes - BREAKING: Trump’s Creepy Epstein Friendship Exposed by WSJ

Episode Date: July 18, 2025

Tim Miller and Sam Stein take on the bizarre and troubling new Wall Street Journal story about Donald Trump’s birthday note to Jeffrey Epstein. The note—complete with suggestive drawings and a cryptic reference to “secrets”—raises uncomfortable questions about Trump’s relationship with Epstein, while Trump’s frantic attempts at damage control only add fuel to the fire.

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has the spicy egg mcmuffin for a limited time and lunch doesn't McDonald's breakfast comes first Hey everybody, Tim Miller from The Bulwark here. That wall street journal story that we told you was coming. Well, it's here. Headline Jeff Epstein's friends sent him body letters for a 50th birthday album. One was for Donald Trump. They detail the letter and it is truly something. I wanted to come right back on to talk to you again, but I waited 15 minutes for Sam Stein to get home from a swim meet because look at my Jimmy, not, not my swim meet, just to be clear. I am giddy. I am giddy. And I'm glad you waited for me. I did call you from the car. And I think the words that came out was you better not fucking record this without me. I need to be on this take. We have to discuss. Well, everyone who is on the video version of this boy taken watch Sam's face as I read

to him about the letter. Please. I guess a bound book. You won't be surprised. You have the Jelaine Maxwell organized this book. She went to the body is such an interesting word. Body, body room talk. It's a little body. Jeffries good friends among them. Donald Trump is the year 2003 and does she bound the book and everything is very according to the story. It's very formal and the notes bearing Trump's name, which was reviewed by the journal is body. We mentioned body like others in the album. It contains several lines of type written texts framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand drawn with

a heavy marker. Trump, the artist, a pair of small arcs denote the woman's breasts and the future president's signature is a squiggly Donald below her waist, mimicking pubic hair. So it's nice that the woman has pubic hair. It's like, I guess that's the only positive point for Donald in this whole story, it seems like. Look, he's a realist. He's a realist. We're aiming at least for the age of woman

that has pubic hair. I didn't even pick that up. That's so good. As I guess that was my point. Inside this naked woman, this drawing, this outline of a woman, and you should note that we should know I didn't even pick that up. That's so good. That was my point. Inside this naked woman, this drawing, this outline of a woman, and you should note that we should know for people who aren't familiar with this, Sam, have you ever received a Sharpie letter from Trump?

I have. I have, yeah. It was some tweet I wrote. He just scribbled over it. Yeah, Trump's famously a Sharpie drawer writer. And so I think that, again, we'll get into their denial here in a second, but the fact that it was a Sharpie drawing, when some credence to the fact that this is actually like Sharpies. Yeah.

Okay. So inside the woman, we don't know, we have, they haven't showed us a picture of this yet. That's another thing we'll get to, but, but according to the wall street journal, there's a typewritten kind of a, I guess you'd call it like a poem. What do you want to call it? It's not really a poem. It's kind of like a scene. you'd call it like a poem. What do you want to call it? It's not really a poem. It's kind of like a scene. I guess you call it a script.

Let's call it a script. Yeah, a script. Trump's kind of putting out a scene. Not a very good scene. I don't think Trump's like had a future in screenwriting, but here it is. Oh, speak for yourself. I thought that was very good.

You are titillated by it? Okay, here we go. Everybody ready? Voice over, colon. There must be more to life than having everything. And then we get Donald. Yes, there is, but I won't tell you what it is. I don't know who the you is there. I guess the reader Jeffrey replies, fictional Jeffrey, nor will I, since I also know what it is. And then Donald again, we have certain things in common. Jeffrey,

And then Donald again, we have certain things in common, Jeffrey. Jeffrey. Yes, we do come to think of it. Donald enigmas never age. Have you noticed that? Jeffrey, as a matter of fact, it was clear to me the last time I saw you, Trump, a pal is a wonderful thing. Happy birthday. And may every day be another wonderful secret. May every day be another wonderful

secret. I wonder what secrets they have, Sam. I wonder what do you think it is? I guess we're going to, if we're going to diagram this scene. Let's dive into it. Yeah. Yeah. What? So there must, it begins, there must be more to life than having everything. I wonder what that more is. You know, if it was like, if it was my mother writing it, it would be maybe, you know, faith in God or love of grand children. Family, yeah, something like that. Yeah, like, what do you think it is between Donald and Jeffrey, though? There must be more to life than having everything. I wonder what the more is. They both know it's a secret

that they have. Sure, sure. And then, and then Donald illuminates it a little bit for us by saying that we have certain things in common. Okay, let's stop there. Certain things in common. That could be anything. They could both like Peter Lugers?

Yeah, I'm sure. There was a dinner at Peter Lugers' steakhouse. I'm sure they like a nice, a nice sort of medium rare Luger steak. That's got to be it. Ice skating at 30 Rock, the Rockefeller Plaza. Yeah, they go to that rink that Trump saved and they probably hold hands. They got scarves around them, sipping hot chocolate after it's done. Maybe like strawberry ice cream. I don't

know. Something like Quaint probably. Or maybe it's young girls. And why might it be young girls? I don't know. Cause Trump said Jeffrey Epstein likes him young the year before this birthday album. But yeah, these ones are wonderful. And Trump also did like him young. How far are we? You and I were posting in our Slack about reminding us about Gabrielle Epstein.

Can we talk about this? Yeah, this is something that people forgot. OK, so first of all, let's just keep in mind a few things. This is 2003 when he writes this letter to Epstein, right? Yeah. So he's 57 years old at this point. Like, I hope I'm not doing this shit at 57. Just putting it.

Well, I don't know. I live in New Orleans. Who knows what my future holds? But 14 years ago. Okay, 14 years ago. So this is what is this? Was the Gabriella Sabatini thing. So it was a while.

1989. So he's 42 years old at the time I just totally forgot about this but someone reminded me that he's 42. He's between his first and second wife So he's a bachelor and there's a bunch of like, you know man about town stories about how he's dating Gabriella Sabatini who at the time is a tennis phenom star and She's 19 years old. And like, this is a thing that was public that we all just sort of put away and didn't really think about, but it's true.

Like I kid you not this articles, contemporaneous articles, and then articles subsequently, like tennis magazines about this, where he was dating someone who is, if I'm doing my math correctly, uh, 22 years, but she's 19 years old. It's, it's like, yeah. So you have that data point. You have the data point when he complimented the looks of his own daughter when she was in her teens.

No, she does have a very nice thing. You got the miss USA. Yeah. The miss universe. Is everybody okay? And you see these incredible looking women. And so I sort of get away with things like that. So we know that Donald had an appetite for younger girls. We know that Jeffrey did. We know that Donald knew that Jeffrey did

because he said it in an interview to New York Magazine. That's one thing we know they both have in common. Feels like that's what he's mentioning there. Could have been something else. It could have been something else. I mean, it is vague, but it's like very wink wink. I mean, if it was Peter Luger's steak, he probably said, we love that, but it's like very wink wink. I mean, if it was, if it was Peter Luger steak, he probably said, we love that Peter Luger Jeffrey,

but that's not what he said. The fictional Jeffrey replies, yes, we do come to think of it. Come to think of it. Come to think of it. That's interesting. They clearly had some rapport going on here, but it's the enigmas line that really is like. Yeah, so now we go on to enigmas never age.

Have you noticed that? So there are a couple of ways to put that. Maybe they're talking about themselves. They're both enigmas and that really. Yeah. So now we go on to enigmas never age. Have you noticed that? So there are a couple of ways to put that. Maybe they're talking about themselves or both enigmas and they don't age. Maybe it's kind of like, uh, what was the line from, um, Dazed and Confused style line? Like we keep getting older enigmas. They stay the same age. I get older. They stay the same age.

But enigmas, enigmas is such a like peculiar word to describe oneself or even to describe, you know, young girls like why call them enigmas? I don't get it. It's weird. I mean, obviously the whole thing is weird. Maybe they are trying to describe how they don't like them. They see themselves very as enigmas. Jeff Epstein is certainly an enigma. And at the time, he has a ton of money. Nobody knows where it comes from. Right. And he's about five years away. No, even less. He's now he's much four years away from he's arrested in 2006. So this is three years away. Yes. He threw his way from getting arrested from running a child

sex trafficking ring. So I guess so he certainly is an enigma at the time. Um, Hmm. Yeah. I mean, the whole thing, the whole thing is bizarre. And then, um, what the other thing is that the reason to think it might be real is that Alan Dershowitz also apparent, according to this article, wrote an entry in this bound birthday book, which is so funny. I mean, and he, he's like, he didn't deny it. He just says, I don't recall writing it. It's been a long time. So I think the, I think the book is real. Well, I mean, who knows.

The version letter included a mockup of a Vanity Unfair magazine cover with mock headlines, such as who was Jack the Ripper? Was it Jeffrey Epstein? I guess that's interesting because at this point it shows that there is some, you know, some media scrutiny on Jeff and his behavior that the Dershowitz is upset about. So, you know, people could have conceived. We had some ideas that there were some things that media reporters might look into. Anyway, Dershowitz letters in there,

this Trump's letter, we should, we should really though dial in on the final line of it. Sure. Happy birthday. And may every day be another wonderful secret. Right. Another wonderful secret. What again, what secret does he think? Do you think he's talking about there? You know, it's not like it's so cryptic, but he also calls him a pal in that last line. I mean, yeah, pal is a wonderful thing. Let's not lose sight of like, there is that element of this, which is, and I guess because we're so far down the rabbit hole here, but like they were pals. Like this is not a minor matter. Like whatever you think about the word enigmas and what the secrets are and what they have

in common, the certain things they have in common. Like he is there calling him a pal. He has written him a birthday letter. Like they were clearly in this moment where Epstein is doing horrific stuff and is getting press scrutiny. Donald Trump is there with this dude calling him a pal. Like at the bare minimum, that seems like notable to me. But we're so far past that matter.

It does. I just, the wonderful secret thing is just like, again, could it be something else? Could they be talking about some other kind of secret? I guess. But you're writing this letter to a guy who is carrying this massive secret. Right. But the fact that he's trafficking and taping underage girls. And we know that Trump sort of knows this because a year before the letter in 2002 is when he gives the quote to New York magazine being like, he likes the girls really young. Yeah. He loves to party. So Trump knows the reputation.

I mean, the man has a secret island where he's, he's trafficking women to, to have sex with like a weird, I don't think that's the thing they have in common. We probably would have known. I don't think that's the thing they have in common either. I'm just saying that like, if I was writing a letter to somebody, if I was writing a letter to like, you know, one of my buddies, and they had like kind of this well-known secret, but it's a little bit more PG, you know, like maybe that was a secret. Just a touch more PG.

Like let's say they got drunk one time, went to Vegas, got married and it was like divorced. And then it was like only I knew it. So I happened to be on the trip and I wrote when it's 50th, I just wanted to tease them a little bit. And I was like, remember that wonderful secret that we have, you know, like, okay. So, but it's just like, remember when you married enigma? Yeah. You don't mention a wonderful secret unless there's a share. I guess it's possible Jeffrey Epstein has some other secret, him and Donald have some other secret besides the secret sex dungeon that he has.

It seems likely the secret sex dungeon is the secret they're talking about. I think at this point it's worth sort of noting, well, definitely noting that Trump has denied this. He says it's fake, right? And JD Vance, what was the Vance tweet? Yeah, I've got both of them. Let's actually read the Trump quotes. I think the Trump quote is pretty relevant here. Trump denied writing a letter or drawing the picture. This is not

me. This is a fake thing. It's a fake Wall Street Journal story. I never wrote a picture in my life. I don't draw pictures of women. It's not my language. It's not my words. It seems like a guy who's panicking kind of to me like that. Like he's, he's, uh, contraposing different pictures of women and not a presidential lexicon. That one's a, that one's gotta be a first, right? Yeah. Then he goes on. I'm going to sue the Wall Street Journal. Like I don't know. Then he goes on. I'm going to sue the wall street journal. Like I sued everybody else.

As you said, I want to just dial in really quick on the, I never wrote a picture in my life. Um, obviously, uh, just a little flub there by our very elderly president, but, um, it's funny going around since that quote came out, is this, this is hilarious. Amazing. Is this woman in Ohio. She solicited doodles from celebrities to auction for charity. So she had to write a letter to them, will you send me something you've drawn and I'm

going to auction it off and we'll give the money to charity. She was doing that in 2004. So the year after this supposed body doodle was drawn and she, uh, she, she sent these solicitations out and she said Trump was the first person to send his drawing back in. And, uh, it was this little, we'll put it up on the screen here. Uh, it was this little hand drawn, uh, skyline with his signature pubic hair there at the bottom. I don't get this. I don't get this. How did he even stumble upon this auction thing? Like, where did this come from? And he and like why he felt the need? Let's assume this is real. I don't

know. But let's just assume for this real. Who knows what's real anymore? I'm going to assume it's real. What the fuck is he doing? He was born as a fake business man. He's a fake business man. Celebrity just put his name on buildings and he liked attention. He replied to people's messages. If you look at this drawing, it's so good. Is that a road? I think that's a curvy road with like cabs in it and there's like little stars and a moon. It's just like, what was he doing with his life? It's unbelievable. All I'm saying is that's one mark against the saying that he's never wrote a picture in his life. Yeah, but I will say there's no woman in that picture unless those stick figures are women.

That's true. There does not appear to be any woman in the charity picture. Or any cubic hair or any small breasts. But okay. So that's his defense. Before I get I'd leave it before I get to JD. Do you have anything else on Trump? No, I'm just looking through. I'm looking through this tweet right now. And there's other doodles that he has Betty white. No, there's a Betty white doodle. That's not Trump. Oh my God. That's a great doodle by Betty white. Now the guy, he liked a good skyscraper. I'll just say that he liked a very rudimentary sky skyscraper. Okay. JD, JD, a little hotter. Well, this is so performative. I love it. The vice poster in chief always begins every post with some like condescending broke clear thing.

Like he's got it. He never just can say what he means, which is, Oh, I just, anyway, he begins like this, forgive my language. You know, we're not, you're typing, you know, you don't have to do this thing. Well, like you accidentally cussed and you say, forgive my language. You just, you just cuss or not. Anyway, forgive my language, but this story is complete and utter bullshit. Right. WSJ should be ashamed for publishing it. You should know something about shame. Where is this letter? He asks, would you be shocked to learn they never showed it to us before publishing it? Does anyone honestly believe this sounds like Donald Trump? So I'll answer the last question first. Yes, it does. It kind of does.

It does sound like Donald Trump. Yeah. The guy that bragged about grabbing women by the pussy in the tape, it does kind of sound like him. Yeah. So I mean, I guess it's a little cloying for Trump would be my one argument in the JD thing. A pal is a wonderful thing is the one sentence that doesn't ring very Trump to me. It reads like someone who's not good at writing trying to be like a flowery and, you know, a good writer. And he's like, Oh, this sounds like a good line. Look, JD is just it's like, I mean, so ridiculous. Yes, it sounds like Trump. We know it sounds like Trump because he was talking to Epstein a year ago about all this stuff. It's on it's's like, I mean, it's so ridiculous. Yes, it sounds like Trump. We know it sounds like Trump because he was talking to Epstein a year ago

about all this stuff it's on. It's in New York magazine. It's like we, we see him on tape. It sounds like Trump in, but this is the playbook and we know it's coming and whatever, like obviously I think the journal had to run this piece. I want to get into media ethics of this and why they had to run this piece. And I think this is a good jumping off point. I have one more JD Vance tweet is about media ethics. So let off point. Journal has run this piece. Great, great, great.

I have one more JD Vance tweet. It is about media ethics. So let me just finish what he wrote and then you can go. Yeah. Because he writes, doesn't it violate some rule of journalistic ethics to publish a letter like this without showing it to the victim of the hit piece, Donald Trump being the victim there, the president of the United States? Will the people who have bought into every hoax against President Trump show an ounce

of skepticism before buying into this bizarre story? No. Is he saying, so he's saying that the letter is fabricated. It doesn't exist. The journal reports that it's in the DOJ files. And that's in the journal's piece. Unless I'm reading it wrong, I'm going to go up to the top again. Pages from the leather bound album assembled before Epstein was first arrested in 2006 are among the documents examined by justice department officials who investigated Epstein and Maxwell years ago, according to people who have reviewed the pages. It's unclear if any of the pages are part of the Trump administration's recent review, but the journal's reporting that they're in a DOJ file. I mean, what are we talking about? I don't think,

but this is of course why Trump went crazy two days ago and said, Oh, you know, this is Comey and Obama, Hillary of like plant to loss. All right. This is also goes to where this whole like, cause you're a, you're a real journalist, Sam. So, you know, this is why I think JD's also leaning in on this. Isn't it a journalistic ethics? Don't you have to show this to us before you write it? Why didn't they even show it to us? And I guess that's the one part of this might be a legit question that I would have is like, why didn't the Wall Street Journal publish the whole picture

if they have it? I knew it. What do you make of that? There's, there's, there's, look, I don't know the process by which they did this. So this is just speculative, but there's plenty of, you know, honest reasons for why you wouldn't show primary documentation or publish the primary documentation in a piece like this, right? Like, for instance, they could reveal the source of the letter, right? Like, there could be, you know, the actual page itself could have some sort of, you know, writing on it that clear that makes clear that they got it from someone or something like that, like, or metadata or something

like that. And so they might just be doing this as a means of trying to protect their source. And it's possible, for instance, that they were given this letter on conditions that they could see it authenticated, but couldn't publish it. That happens all the time. And then you're left with a choice of, well, we know it's real, we know it's authenticated. We can only get it under this condition. Do we publish it? And in this case, obviously, 10 times out of 10, you are journalist, you are journalistically bound to publish a letter of this newsworthiness. Like it's just not even remotely a call.

Presuming you have authenticated it. Now, on the issue of, you know, what's gonna happen after this, like we know how this goes, right? They're gonna just cry, you know, cry goes, right? They're going to just cry, you know, cry foul, they're going to say it's fake, they're going to say it's shady journalism, they're going to sue the post, they're going to, they're going to call it a hit piece, they're going to call it a hoax. Yeah, all the maggot people are going to just go crazy on the journal,

because this is the playbook they run. And this is the expectation. And frankly, in a weird way, they probably will benefit from this. Right? Like, they'll just have a boogeyman say, oh, they're just smearing us. Yeah. I mean, the thing, but whatever, whatever is that like, you already see like the Megyn Kelly's of the world coming back around. And like, and it might be a way to get the MAGA folks on side to be like, Hey, look, see, they're coming after Trump over this. Now you can't criticize them over it anymore. I do think there'll be a little bit of that.

I talked about this in the teaser video when we heard this was coming. Sam, what do you make of Trump calling the journal at managing editor to try to get her to not run it? I mean, I think that's pretty noteworthy as well. 100%. I mean, it shows, to me at least, that shows that he actually thinks it's real and that

he knows it's incriminating. If he thought it was a bunch of baloney, he could have said, go ahead and run it. It's fake. Have fun. I'll sue you. I don't care. But that's not what he did. And I think everything that he had said in the days prior to this indicate

that he understands that this is significant because he's acting so erratic about this stuff and he's going off about, you know, all this stuff is definitely a hoax and it's fake and that's just laying the predicate for, he knew this was coming, that was laying the predicate to make this piece into another dossier essentially. And this is what they did after Access Hollywood too, right? Remember initially he was apologetic about it, but then within a couple days he was like, or maybe it was more than that, but he was like, is that really my voice? Is that really my voice?

This is just a playbook. They're going to do this. Again, I do anticipate that there's going to be a rallying around the flag element to this among Trumpers, But frankly, whatever, like you, there is a clear public interest in having these, these data points out there. Like we do need to know the extent of how close he was to Epstein. It does say a ton about Trump himself, where he came from, who he associates with, or who he did associate with. And it explains what key figures in the administration are now doing, right? Like they are consumed by the Seppstein saga. This is a huge puzzle

piece in that. Indeed. We have certain things in common, Samuel. We love enigmas. We're sick and we're sick. We love enigmas. We love to do YouTube's when enigmas rise to our attention. No wonderful secrets here, everybody. As we learn more, we'll keep you posted. And there'll be much more on this story in the coming days. So we'll see you soon.

Later. Bye.