Bulwark Takes - Epstein Victims Hold Presser; Trump Shrugs It Off as ‘Hoax’

Episode Date: September 3, 2025

Sam Stein and Joe Perticone talk the battle over releasing the Epstein files, as survivors demand full disclosure and a bipartisan push seeks a vote. Marjorie Taylor Greene turns the Trump Administration's words against them, the Republicans try to stall through the Oversight Committee, and Trump continues to call it a hoax.

All right. Hey, guys, me, Sam Stein, managing out at the Bullwark, joined by Joe Perdico and author of Press Pass and Denison of Capitol Hill. You see him there in the rotunda. That's Russell, right? No, Cannon, House Side. That's what I meant. Canon, definitely. We're talking because Joe's been on the Hill today taking in the frockis over the Jeffrey Epstein files. There has been a lot of back and forth at the White House, too, frankly. But Joe, can you walk us through the state of play? So this morning was when Thomas Massey and Rokana unveiled their discharge petition based on their resolution from earlier in July, which basically the discharge petition is a mechanism that when a bill sits for a certain amount of time, which passed over August, they can use it to get 218 signatures regardless of party to force the vote. And as, you know, we've seen Mike Johnson doesn't want this to be voted on, but they, they see. right now, they got 212 Democrats and four Republicans, so they need two more Republicans. So this would be to force a vote onto a bill that would require the release of all the Epstein files with a few exceptions for victim identity and stuff like that. Yeah. And they unveiled it with victims present at the president.

So the victims are supportive of it. That's important to say. The other thing that's happening sort of as a dual track is the oversight committee run by James Comer is subpoenaing the Justice Department for Files. They're claiming they're going to have these interviews with law enforcement officials from the past, Republican and Democrat alike, about the case. And then last night kind of came a twist where they revealed about 30,000 or so documents. But those documents were largely rehashes. What's your sense of what's going on with the oversight committee's process?

So it's being held by James Comer, who, if you remember the various Biden investigations, manages this committee in a very freewheeling, haphazard way, doesn't really plan things out. And it appears that over the August recess, they knew this was coming. Massey and Kana announced his press conference weeks ago. And everyone knew the discharge petition was coming. And it looks like they didn't prepare for it. And so Comer is now releasing, you know, these 30,000 documents, most of which were duplicates. So what it does, though, is it gives these Republicans an out to not sign the discharge petition because they can say, oh, well, you know, we're doing our.

during our due diligence. And is that going to be the only release, $30,000? Are they promising more? They're promising more and more because they're saying this is an investigation that takes time, not that they haven't had time until this moment. Not only that, but it's also this investigation, when you're talking about documents release, it's not like they're doing document production. The documents are there.

Is this strategy working, I guess I should ask? Is enough Republicans at this point satiated, placated with the idea that you'd have sort of a continuous stream of releases from the Oversight Committee and that, therefore, they don't need to do the Rokane, a time-assie thing? A little bit. So there's the Republicans who just kind of like do what leadership says. And then in this case, they're saying, like, say you have faith in the Oversight Committee, they have a resolution to express continued support for what oversight is doing that's meant to misdirect to give them in out to not sign the discharge petition. There are four Republicans. It's Massey, Nancy

Mace, Lauren Bobert, and Marjorie Taylor Green are on this discharge petition. They need two more. And we haven't seen the kind of swift support that like if they had, if this wasn't possible to do this because of procedural maneuvers, but if they had done this in July, there had been a lot more Republicans. There were originally 11 Republican co-sponsors of the original massive bill. Right. What happened to the seven? So they are waiting and seeing. So Tim Burchett was like, oh, I'm satisfied with this document release. I'm satisfied with what oversight's doing. Thomas Massey claimed that the White House has been whipping to basically prevent Republicans from signing on. When I reached out to the White House last night, an official gave a statement that, you know, this is considered a hostile act towards the administration, which is like that's the term they use. That's code for. you know, why would it be hostile? Yeah, why would it be hostile?

Unless they thought that the release would be damaging to the administration. Yeah. So there's really no point of all this stuff. But it's, it's an attempt to like, they're doing this. And it's because it's Comer-led. It just reminds me of the Biden years. They're doing it in a very haphazard way where they're just like, ah, no, no, do this or do that.

So let me just say, Rokane at this press conference. I'm going to ask you about the press conference. in a second. But Rokon in the press conference says, it's like pleading. He said, we just need two more signatures to force the release of these documents. And we have four Republicans, courageous Republicans, like Thomas Massey, Nancy Mace, who was so emotional yesterday after talking to the survivors, Congresswoman Bulbert and Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor-Green. We need just two more signatures to force the release. Tom Massey is out there saying it's shameful that they're calling this a hoax.

I think it's shameful that this has been called a hoax. Hopefully today, we can clear that up. This is not a hoax. They had this weird flyover. Were you there for the flyover? Like, it looks like an F-35. What was that like? What was going on?

So apparently, the White House was doing a flyover of jets to honor a Polish pilot that crashed recently. You have to understand that, like, they're so loud. And so it, like, deafened the entire scene. for like a good 20 seconds. And then the way these fighter pilots work is like there's four up front and then there's one, I learned this while watching the Blue Angels a couple years ago. There's always one hiding in the back and he's the one who's in charge. So once it was all over, another guy rips across.

Was this deliberate? I mean, it was to honor a down. I know I was to honor. I know that was deliberate. But the point is, is it like this Massey Conner Press conference, like we announced this weeks ago. So they knew it was going to happen at this time. Yeah. Okay. But it was a long press conference. It was more than an hour or so, you know.

And who was there? Tons of media were there. Were some of the victims there, too? Yeah. There were several of the victims. Each of them spoke for a little bit. One of them mentioned that Epstein had bragged to her that Donald Trump about his close relationship with Donald Trump. He bragged about his powerful friends, including our current president, Donald Trump. It was his biggest brag, actually. When that happened, I looked over at Marjorie Taylor Green and she was just stone face. I think we have an image of that. You can put on the screen. And it was just like, they were very clear about this. Marjorie Taylor Green, though, she did say something at the end when she was like,

she responded to the Hostile Act comment and she said, you know, and the hoax comments. And she said, the Hostile Act is what has happened to these victims. And this isn't a hostile act towards the administration. The Hostile Act has been against these women for so much. many years now for in uh the hostile act is covering up for geoffrey epstein and so that was very strange i've never really seen her use trump's own word or not tons words but the white house's own words against them right um so she seems very animated about this when she walked out some of the protesters were flipping her off and shouting boo and stuff but roe conan was like look this this is a big deal

like that she's here you know this is an exam it's an example of bipartisanship even it happens once in a blue I've never done a press conference with Marjorie Taylor Green before. We're going to listen quickly to some of the survivors speaking out at the press conference. Mr. President Donald J. Trump, I am a registered Republican, not that that matters, because this is not political. However, I cordially invite you to the Capitol to meet me in person so you can understand this is not a hoax. We are real human beings. This is real trauma. These women are real.

We're here in person. To say that it's a hoax is just not. Please humanize us. I would like Donald J. Trump and every person in America and around the world to humanize us. I don't want to send a direct message to him. I'm already scared enough. We're not going to be silenced anymore. We will be moving forward wherever we need to be.

We will be and we need to pass this. President Trump, you have so much influence and power in this situation. Please use that influence and power to help us. because we need it now and this country needs it now. They're pleading directly to Trump. Trump, meanwhile, he's in the White House. He's meeting with this Polish leader

and he's talking about the whole issue and he's, I mean, basically saying it's a hoax that it's time to move on. He was calling it a distraction, said people will never be satisfied with whatever is released. It's really a Democrat hoax

because they're trying to get people to talk about something that's totally irrelevant to the success. that we've had as a nation since I've been president. And I know that no matter what you do, it's going to keep going. Let me push a proposition by you. They're not handling this particularly well.

Like, you could just someone, I forget that was maybe George Conway, I was saying this, but like I still am confused by it. Trump could just say, look, this is a matter for the oversight committee, or this is the matter for DOJ. We can't talk about it. They're in the process of producing documents. Let's move on. He could say that.

I mean, that would be like the normal way to get around this. But instead, he acts weird and guilty about it. And he's like, ah, it's a hoax. You're just trying to hurt me. This is a hostile act. And I contend that that's like just going to be a self-inflicted wound, that this invites more scrutiny and that it's going to keep festering a little bit for him. He behaves like someone who is extremely guilty. I know.

And he might not be guilty. I don't know. Maybe he's not guilty. But he behaves like someone. who's trying to hide something yeah and it's just really fascinating the way that this has like last night was secondly the first day back in congress which was you know a couple hours but today has really had like first day of school vibes and it was like like we talked about earlier like they had weeks to prepare for this and they're just like they've just totally messed it up

in terms of momentum yeah where does it go from here i like it depends on how frightened and we saw a little bit a little bit of that from Tim Burchard, but it depends on how frightened these guys are of retribution again from Trump. They're being given these outs, but it also matters. And maybe this is a question for Will Summer is how like the online right response. Right. If they're really, really bothered by this and they don't buy it, which why would they? Because they haven't up until this point, like that continues to put the screws on a lot of these Republicans who rely heavily on the bits. Right. Well, I mean, I guess, guess the best case scenario is that the online right basically is maybe over it, frankly.

Like they cared for a couple weeks and then they're ready to move on. But either way, if you're two votes short of the discharge petition, it's going to be a lot of attention to see if any lawmakers flip. And all those lawmakers are going to be asked about it. So we shall see. Joe Perdicom, thank you so much for tackling this with us. Looking forward to your newsletter tomorrow, where you cover this as well. Talk to you soon.