Bulwark Takes - Lutnick Lied About Epstein. Why Don't Republicans Care?

Episode Date: February 10, 2026

Sam Stein and Catherine Rampell give their takes on why Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick faces zero consequences for lying about his contact with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The files reveal family trips, business deals, and charitable donations between Lutnick and Epstein, contradicting his claims that he cut off contact with him in 2005. They break down how other governments, including the UK, Slovakia, and Norway have forced resignations or investigations over Epstein ties, and why the Trump administration is shrugging off any accountability for Lutnick's lies.Posting a job is now easier than ever with UpWork at https://UpWork.com.

Hello. You're never going to believe this. Booster Juice called your name today. You can get a free smoothie or Asai Bowl. No way. I'm heading there now. Oh my gosh. You and my brother have the same name.

Okay, I'm calling him next. I'm hanging up. Booster Juice names of the day is back. Two names are selected each day. And if your name matches, you can get a free smoothie or an Asaibol. Watch for your name on the booster rewards app and social media. Must be an app member to qualify Booster Juice. Canadian porn blending since 1999.

Hey Ontario, come on down to BetMGM Casino and check out our newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. Don't miss out. Play exciting casino games based on the iconic game show. Only at BetMGM. Access to the Price's Right Fortune Pick is only available at BetMGM Casino. BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. 19 plus to wager, Ontario only. Please play responsibly.

If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Hey, everybody. It's me, Sam Stein, managing editor at The Bork. I'm here with Catherine Rampel, offer of receipts, the must-read newsletter on all the things on the economy and musical theater. Occasionally, just going to say. Don't scare people away too much. We've had a little bit of time between our last musical theater once.

I'm expecting some more of that genre for this. With your blessing, sure, sure. Today we're going to be talking about Howard Lutnik, the Commerce Secretary. And what's really been sort of an issue that's kind of like nod at me a little bit in that here's a case where a man blatantly lied about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. It's been exposed by the files that have been made public because of this Jeffrey Epstein Files Act that was passed through the house. And yet there's no professional consequences for the guy at all, none whatsoever. So, Catherine, do you want to summarize, why don't you summarize sort of what we know about his? his relationship with Epstein and how it differs from what he said, like half a year ago or whatever

was. That I will never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again. So I was never in the room with him socially for business or even philanthropy. If that guy was there, I wasn't going because he's gross. And so I look back at it as a gift. Yes. He gave me a gift. Yes.

Of a void. So, yeah. That's my story. A one and absolutely done. That's pretty explicit. Yeah. And he's like, he says he gave me a gift. Yes, avoid.

And so yeah, that's my story. A one and absolutely done. It turns out that he undercounted how many times by like several multiples. Because he seems to have had a lot of contact. friendly contact, business-related contact with Jeffrey Epstein in the subsequent years. So just to read through some of the high points or some of the highlights that have come out through this file. I would call them high points. I would call them low points.

I don't know. Flash points, some kind of point. Lutnik planned a family trip to Epstein's Island in 2012. That seems like it's pretty cozy. In 2013, a venture capital executive asked Epstein for his administration. opinion of Lutnik, and Epstein in his characteristically clipped responses, said, My Neighbor Smart. Also, in 2013, both men signed on to some sort of ill-fated investment in, and I think an ad firm, a private company. In fact, if you look at the Epstein files,

you can see their signatures are on back-to-back pages that they both invested in this company, and I think they're only like nine shareholders. Epstein donated 50,000 in 2017, to an event honoring Mr. Lutnik, sponsored by the UJA Federation of New York, which is a charity supporting Jewish causes. And in their last known correspondence, in 2018, Howard Lucknick emailed Epstein's assistant about the proposed new construction near their homes. So to recap, Lutnik said, didn't have any contact with him socially for business or even philanthropy.

And all three of those things have shown up in the. files released thus far. Right. So, yeah, at the very least, like, look, we don't know from any of this that there were any crimes committed, and I'm not suggesting that, you know, any allegations of specific crimes have even been made. But at the very least, we know that he lied. Yeah.

I mean, the charitable thing, the charitable interpretation of this is, and this is what they're saying, well, you know, that business venture, that was sort of a Cantor Fitzgerald thing, Lutnik just has to sign this. It's perfunctory part of the business side. he really wasn't involved. Fine, whatever. But they were living next to each other. They clearly knew each other. They planned a family trip together.

There was money exchanged the $50,000 check. I mean, this is not like a one-off. And certainly the 2005 interview that he did with the post, or sorry, the interview he did with the post about cutting off relations in 2005 is bullshit. It's just bullshit. And all those things that you listed happened after Epstein was in some legal drama in hot water.

So what's fascinating me about this is that in a lot of other times and certainly other societies, this would be, you know, cause for real pressure to resign, if not preemptive resignation. The minister, the government minister, top official would say, you know, I've become a distraction. I got caught. You know, like, I'm going to resign. And they would do it strategically, frankly. They would do it because if you're the, in this case, the Trump administration, you want to show that you're taking this stuff seriously. you need to sort of have, for better or worse, a human sacrifice in this case, you would say Howard Lutnik.

You got caught. Especially given the fact that Trump himself appears tens of thousands of time in these files. Way more than Lutnik, yeah. Yeah. And so it would be a very easy thing for the administration to do to say, look, just to prove that we take this stuff seriously and that there's a difference between whatever kinds of engagements the president may have had with. Epstein and more incriminating or more nefarious seeming engagements. Like we're going to say, cut this guy loose, throw him onto the bus, and we'll show that we, you know, we care about the victims in this.

I don't know. They're like there could have been a way to do this. And it may yet happen, to be clear, the fact that Lutnik's name was not blacked out in these files, whereas some other friends, you know, I don't want to say other Johns or whatever. We don't know. We don't know what they did. But there are other people who certainly had like slimy seeming interactions with Epstein that were blacked out.

So the question is, why did they leave him in? I don't know if it was deliberate or not. The other question is why aren't they doing what you and I think would be sort of a normal course of business to do, which is cut, Lettnikoff? Yeah. And I have a couple theories. One is, well, first is they have no pressure to do it from. their own party. So we'll play a clip of Tom Massey, who was behind the bill to produce these files. He's been one of the only Republicans who's been calling and pushing for the release.

He is, like, quite literally the only Republican who has called for Lutnik to resign. He said this on CNN inside politics. Trump's Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik said that he and his wife decided around 2005 to cut ties with Jeffrey Epstein. But the latest release shows that there was some correspondence after that, even after Epstein pleaded guilty to sex crimes in 2008. What questions do you have about Lutnik's ties to Epstein and should he come before Congress and testify? No, he should just resign.

I mean, there are three people in Great Britain that have resigned in politics. The ambassador from Great Britain to the United States. The prince lost his title for less than what we've seen Howard Lutnik lie about. Look, Howard Lutnik clearly went to the island. believe what's in these files. He was in business with Jeffrey Epstein. And this was many years after Jeffrey Epstein was convicted, you know, lightly sentenced, but was convicted for sexual crimes. So he's got a lot to answer for, but really he should make life easier on the president, frankly, and just resign. If this were Great Britain, he'd already be gone.

All right. So there you have. You got Massey. The other people now on the Democratic side have said, like, you know, Adam Schiff today, called on Lutnik to resign. But there's not much pressure at all whatsoever. Conversely, you have a lot of Republicans who are willing to just sort of let him skate. So let's listen to James Comer, who's the head of the Oversight Committee. He was asked today, this is Monday, if he would haul Lutnik in to testify because they're having all these other people testify, including Bill Clinton. Here's what Comer said. Does the committee have any plans to subpoena Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik, given the revelations about his relationship?

We're going to try to get these five nailed down. We've got a lot of very important people we're trying to bring in to answer questions. We don't want to do anything to jeopardize the five that we have on the book. So we'll see what happens here and we'll move forward. All right. So there's very little pressure for him to do it on the public. But the other reason, and this is what I want you to noodle on, is if you give up Lutnik, it obviously raises the question for the administration, well, you have to cut ties to Lila Musk, right?

Or you can't be talking with Steve Bannon, right? Or, you know, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had some interactions with Epstein. Why are his okay? And Howard Lutniks were not. And it's become this thing where if you get rid of one person, if you try to push one person out, even if it's for lying or anything else, it raises natural follow-up questions about why not this other person. Yeah, fair. Again, you could say we're drawing the line at the fact that he,

lied, right? That he lied to the president. He misrepresented. Like, the only true transgression that Donald Trump recognizes is a betrayal of Donald Trump. So they could cast it that way. But they don't care. Like, I think they don't care. And to your point that in a normal administration, they might say something like, this is a distraction. This whole administration is a series of distraction from more upsetting and incriminating distractions, right? It's like everything is a distraction from everything else. The Epstein files are a distraction from what's happening in Minnesota. Are you one of the people who thinks these are all deliberate distractions? No, no, I just mean that Steve Bannon said flood the zone with shit. I'm saying in that sense,

we're flooded. We're flooded. We're dead. Like, we're drowned already. And beyond that, the idea that something could be bad simply because it is a distraction. from everything else that the Trump administration is doing, it's just it's not a thing, right? Right. Bulletwork takes is sponsored by Upwork. Scaling a business takes the right expertise at the right time. Upwork helps growing teams quickly bring in specialized freelancers

so you can move faster and take the business to the next level. And believe me, I know how much of a hassle it can be to find the right candidate. Upwork is a one-stop platform to find hire and pay expert freelancers across web and software development, data and analytics, marketing, business operations, and much, much more. Upwork helps grow your business by giving you fast access to specialized talent across 125 and more categories so you can fill skill gaps, launch projects faster, and scale support up or down without committing to full-time headcount.

You can browse profiles, review past work, and get help scoping the role so you can hire with confidence and get started quickly. With Business Plus, you can do. access the top 1% of talent on Upwork. With AI powered shortlisting, you'll get matched to the right freelancer in under six hours. No endless searching required. Visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free.

That's upwork.com to connect with top talent, ready to help your business grow. That's upworg.org.com. Upwork. In other administrations, they might say, we want to keep the public focused on our message of X, of how we're bringing health care to people, how we're cutting taxes, or whatever is the thing that is actually their most important priorities. Here, there is really no priority that they want to draw attention to. It's just a whole bunch of shit all over the place.

And some of it is shit that their base loves. Some of it is shit that their base doesn't like. but the idea that it would be problematic or even a fireable offense to have done something that distracts, that is embarrassing in some way. I think it just doesn't exist in quite the same way, no? No, I think you're right about that. I'm a little bit worried about how often you just said the word shit. I'm sure the YouTube filters will catch that one.

No, it's all right, fine. You put together, so just to give people sense, we're not making this stuff up, in normal administrations in other governments except for ours, people would suffer professional consequences for this. So Catherine, because she's very good at her homework, went through and found examples of this happening in real time in other countries. I can't pronounce any of these people's names, so I'm going to leave it to Catherine to summarize just how sweeping the damage has been across different governments. So just as an example, the prime minister of the UK, Kier-Starm, or his job is at risk right now.

And he's not even implicated in any of this directly. The issue is that there were other people whom he has appointed or theoretically covered for or what have you who did have contact. So Morgan McSweeney, who's the chief of staff to the prime minister, resigned under pressure on Sunday after days of political upheaval over his role in the appointment of a different guy. Peter Mandelson, who was a friend of Jeffrey Epstein, who was a friend of Jeffrey Epstein, who was a, the ambassador to the United States. Again, this could bring down the British government. Yes, it could bring down the British government. You have the, so yeah, so the UK ambassador was ousted.

You have a Slovakian national security visor to the prime minister. I will not. No, no, who's that? Can you, what's the name? Okay, can you at least try? I do not want to insult our Slovakian listeners, but it looks kind of like Lajkak. Lajkak. I don't know.

I'm sure somebody's going to correct us in the country. comments. But anyway, you know, he had to resign over Epstein links. You have an investigation in Norway over the former PM over alleged Epstein links. And then you have other kinds of investigations, I think, happening in Poland and maybe Turkey, if I'm remembering correctly, where they're trying to make sure that there were no girls or women trafficked. Didn't the Dalai Lama have to put out a tweet over the weekend or was that a fake tweet? I saw the Dalai Lama tweet. I missed I did not have anything to do with Jeffrey Epstein. Anyway, there have been other figures in the United States who are not governmental

figures who have had to pay some professional consequences. So like Brad Karp, who was the chair of Paul Weiss, a big white shoe law firm here in the United States, he had to step down. I mean, Paul Weiss has had some other problems independent of this, but those revelations clearly did not help him. The NFL said it would investigate Epstein's relationship with the, with the, Giants owner, Steve Tish, who had exchanged sometimes crude emails with Epstein about potential dates. Very crude. Very crude. So there are some other figures who have been shamed and may have lost some

position of authority or status, but curiously not within the U.S. government. It's happening in other governments and in private firms. And also like Bradcarp is one notable case, but like it also is, it also is true that he's one of very few business leaders at this point who's suffered consequences like Kathy Rumler, for instance, who is the top lawyer at Goldman Sachs. This has been an incredibly humiliating series of exposures around her relationship with Epstein. And as far as I'm aware, Goldman has not released her from her responsibilities. I guess the long and short of is that we live increasingly in sort of like a consequence-free society where, you know, to your point,

It's just like you kind of, at least our political leadership has calculated that if you just sort of stay put and survive the scandal or just try to, you know, ride out the scandal, you'll probably will survive it. Well, that was the lesson that I think Donald Trump learned from Roy Cohn, right? That Nixon could have written it out if, in fact, he had just dug in his heels and said, no, I'm not going anywhere. Yeah. And that that's what Donald Trump does. that's what everybody around him does. Access Hollywood tape is a great example of this. Everyone's saying you got to go, you got to go.

And he said, fuck you. And he was right. And the new cycle will move on. So, well, this is why I think it's important for Democrats to really pull on the Lutnik thread because Donald Trump can't be shamed, right? He's never going to back down on this or anything else. I don't know that Lutnik necessarily will voluntarily, but he may become, a big enough problem for the administration if, in fact, you have more investigations, you have,

you find out that there's more to it than just that he lied. Yeah, but that's why the Comer quote that we played up top is significant. There's no pressure points on these guys, right? If it was a Democratic-controlled house and they wanted to just, like, throw them up there, haul them up there, maybe you could see these moments mattering. But like, if you have a compliant Congress who's just not going to press the matter, I don't really see where it goes. I think they keep beating the drum.

And at some point, it may break through that it's not just Trump who was paddling around with Epstein. It was, you know, the Epstein class administration, right? That like multiple members of this administration thought it was cool to hang out with Epstein, to do business with Epstein, to engage philanthropically with Epstein in some respect. And it's not just a one-off. It starts to look a lot more like what it is, which was basically a cabal of these elites who thought that they were bulletproof, who thought that they can do things with impunity. And I just think it reinforces what I see as a relatively correct narrative that is true of this administration, not just in terms of its members' willingness to engage with Jeffrey Epstein, but in lots of other respects acting with impunity. and disregard for more vulnerable people. Well, we'll see.

Catherine, thank you for doing this. I appreciate how much you dove into the world leaders around the globe and how much you said the word shit. Sorry. Sorry. No, I loved it. Thank you so much. It's great.

Don't apologize for it. Everyone should subscribe, honestly, to her newsletter receipts. It's awesome. It's so good. Every edition is a banger. And if you're not, subscribe to the, Bulwark, subscribe to that. Before we go, two announcements.

We have a couple live shows coming up. If you got to get your tickets, Minneapolis. We sold out the first night. We had to do a second night. So come join us on the 18th in Minneapolis. It's going to be awesome. Hopefully we have some cool people there. I'm trying to get it's at the Patangas Theater in Minneapolis.

And then we're going down to Texas. We got March 18th in Dallas, March 19th in Austin. Take a look for tickets there. See if you can grab them. If you're in Texas, we'd love to see you folks. Appreciate all you guys do for us. Appreciate your support. Subscribe.

Talk to you later.