Bulwark Takes - Trump's Lies Finally Catch Up to Him Over Epstein Files

Episode Date: February 27, 2025

Right-wing influencers were invited to the White House and handed binders labeled “Epstein Files,” sparking a wave of conspiracy-tinged speculation. But what was actually in them? Tim Miller, Sam Stein, and Andrew Egger break down the bizarre stunt, the MAGA obsession with Epstein conspiracies, and why this latest spectacle quickly unraveled. Plus, what does it say about the priorities of Trump’s DOJ?

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This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Hey guys, it's Tim Miller from The Bulwark. I'm here with managing editor Sam Stein and Andrew Egger, who writes our morning newsletter and is taping from one of those studios where you got your pictures with your family as a child. Like a family photo. Oddly similar plant though yeah um anyway uh it's good to see you guys we're it's unclear if we're in a real society right now uh but here's something that happened today uh pictured here is a group leaving the white house with binders

that say epstein files binders full of raped women, I guess. The people holding the binders, DC Drano, Libs of TikTok. These people don't have real names. And Liz Wheeler, they're right-wing conspiracy mongers. Lots has been happening as fallout to this. It's been challenging for me to monitor that, but luckily we've got Andrew and Sam here to give us the details. So what is happening on the internet? Let me kick it to our epstein expert andrew oh yeah oh thank you yeah these are your friends right didn't you and dc drano used to used to hang

at hillsdale absolutely not no that's not a real one um although one of the other guys you did not mention who was also who also received a binder of his own was Mike Cernovich. He's just another one of these guys. The guerrilla mindset. Exactly, the guerrilla mindset man who's been hanging out in the White House press. I think he was with Pete Hegsat, right? Yeah, yeah. So what is happening, Andrew?

Could you explain to me what's happening? Yeah, okay, yeah. So this is like a longstanding kind of like red meat thing on the like very, very far conspiracy fringe of the MAa movement is i mean it's the whole epstein didn't kill himself thing it's the whole there's a big cover-up of of uh there's this long-standing basically like kind of meme on the more conspiratorial fringe side of the maga movement the jeffrey epstein didn't kill, that he is this kind of patsy for like this international ring of pedophiles and rapists in high places, and that the government

is sitting on a bunch of information concerning all of that. It's this, the Epstein files is just how that conspiracy theory is basically known. And there's this long standing kind of long running thing. It's sort of connected to QAnon, sort of connected to a lot of these other kind of fringy, some more Trumpy, some not quite so Trumpy movements online, where it's basically like, you know, they need to be released, they need to be found out, they need to be released. And a lot of times Trump has been like throwing red meat to these people, or different influencers have been throwing red meat to these people for a long time. And so I guess this today was just the latest in a series of those kinds of stunts, where they invited a bunch of MAGA influencer type people to the White House

and then paraded them out past the press carrying these binders. But it all kind of instantly fell apart and self-destructed and became super weird online, which I guess maybe Sam wants to talk about. Yeah, Sam, well, I guess before we get to how it self-destruct weird online, which I guess maybe Sam wants to talk about. Yeah, Sam, well, I guess before we get to how it's self-destructed online, I mean, I just as a human in the world am familiar with Jeffrey Epstein. I mean, and elements of this were not conspiracies, right?

He did run a sex ring. I interviewed Julie Brown of the Miami Herald, who was one of the people that uncovered a lot of this a while back, a reporter. And so one of the just questions I have looking at the binders is, I mean, like the Jeffrey Epstein files could not fit in like a single three-ring binder that you would give your child that is going to kindergarten. You can't like fit the Epstein files in a trapper keeper.

I mean, there are many, many court cases over many decades overlapping. I think the files in the online world are synonymous with some secret list of people who actually were with Jeffrey Epstein that we don't yet have access to. Keep in mind, we do know the flight logs. Those have been made public. There's elements of his diary that have been made public. There's been lists of people who have had relations with the guy. Donald Trump's on the list. Bill Clinton's on the list. It's out there.

To Andrew's point, there's always this sort of nefarious idea that, well, there's some actual real list out there. And if it's's exposed the whole system's going to come crashing down and probably the and probably the jews are the ones who are responsible for keeping it you know i've had several texts from people after the julie brown interview i did about how i under i did not give enough emphasis to the idea that epstein was a is was part of the jewish spy oh my people are all controlled. Just to be clear, we are.

But we don't want to talk about that. So anyways, today happens. And first of all, I didn't really understand why this suddenly blew up and it had to happen today. But apparently it had to happen today. And Pam Bondi was just like, I'm going to bring in some people. She previewed it last night on Jesse Waters.

She's like, breaking news. I'm going to bring in some people. She previewed it last night on Jesse Waters. She's like, breaking news. I'm going to release some stuff tomorrow. And everyone's like, okay, what are you releasing? So they invited all these influencers down. They all walked out holding these weird binders. And then people who are even more into this and care a lot about this were like, wait a second. That's not the stuff we wanted and so representative anna apollina luna was like hold up this is not the stuff i thought we were gonna get that's not right like we wanted more stuff and then pambandi's office released a letter

to betty johnson and in it they said the fbi is stonewalling our requests for all the files. And there's deep escape people. To Benny Johnson? Yeah. He broke the letter. Okay. All right. So they leaked the letter to Benny Johnson of Turning Point USA fame.

Saying that they weren't getting cooperation from elements of the FBI. And she had written Kash Patel to tell Kash that he needs to get on the people of the fbi to give her all the information and then laura loomer couldn't i'm sorry before you get to laura loomer couldn't couldn't cash and uh and and shouldn't they go before this pam and cash have like met like doesn't cash work for him why is she sending out a press release we're also in week two like it's good they've like had a meeting pick up the phone pick up the fucking phone here's kind of the here's kind of the wait hold on i'm on a roll hold on then laura loomer gets in and she's like there are no epstein files like there's nothing here and then the house judiciary committee the republican one which is like the trolliest of the trollsters, they put out a tweet.

Which is what you want at the Judiciary Committee. Yeah, they put out a tweet. They're like, look, the Epstein files have been released. They put a tiny URL. And lo and behold, it's Rickroll. And so I don't know what's going on. Let's Rickroll our audience really quick. So that's where we're at.

Now, Andrew could take it from here, but this is like clown show stuff. I mean, honestly, it's funny, but it's like also two serious elements. One is these people are actually in charge right now. This isn't like a fucking weird internet frenzy bullshit. This is the Attorney general of the united states sending a letter to the fbi director being like hey help me get these epstein files it's like you guys have real responsibilities take this seriously and the second thing is it's disrespectful to the actual victims honestly it is like he had actual victims you know this is such

a i would throw on top of that also a interesting timing that on the same day they decided to like haphazardly release the supposed Epstein files and the name of uh justice uh for victims of child sex trafficking they also welcomed alleged child sex trafficker Andrew Tate back into America landing from Romania into, where he'd been on house arrest for doing, again, allegedly sex trafficking. So some inconsistencies there. Andrew, what else are we missing here? So to me, the kind of the bottom line with all this stuff is this. They have a big part of their base that has essentially convinced themselves that the Epstein thing will not have been fully brought to light until people like Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey and George Clooney are revealed,

and Hillary Clinton are revealed to be satanic pedophiles. That is kind of like, that's the connection to all the QAnon stuff. What is Hillary doing with the, with the kids? Hillary is just responsible. Is she a lesbian in this? It might not all be sexual. You know,

there's various blood rituals involved, you know, adrenochrome, that kind of stuff. But, but, but, but I mean,

my, my point is that like, you can never, you can never satisfy the, the kind of like urge for like, quote unquote transparency on the epstein files until you have brought to light you know the entire global pedophile ring that includes all of your enemies and so that i think that is the reason why like you see this like constant

kind of cycle of like revelation but then more to come question mark like you see the guys marching the binders out of the room but then you also immediately see the pam bondy thing like but wait what's next what's the next thing what was the next card that needs to be put over the next thing that needs to be andrew how do they account for donald trump's proximity to jeffrey epstein uh that is always the same thing which is that they were bros back in the day but then they they point to the fact that that trump allegedly had had epstein banned from mar-a-lago in 2007 over some incident there and that's like that's like when he caught on or something and and uh and you know wrote wrote him out of i want to read some of some actual reporting this is what people come to the bulwark for so i'm on my girl my girl julie k

brown's twitter feed but before i get to her, have DC Drano or Gorilla Mindset or Libs of TikTok, have they revealed anything that's in the binders? You've got to give them a little time. I mean, they only got the raw documents. They've got to come through. They've got to put the poster board together, put all

the string up. Okay, well, Sam looked at that. A few things from Julie Brown, because I think this is important. Her reporting, those involved in the jeffrey epstein case for two decades fear this case and epstein's victims are being used for political purposes this isn't a news story it's a publicity stunt as a lawyer representing one of the victims um she goes on the sexual abuse of children is not funny or cause to hold up files containing their agony as if it's some celebration i don't think that she's going to shame the lives of TikTok girl on that, but it's a fair point.

She also points out that, as Sam did, a list has been public since 2015. All I want us to do is Google it. She wrote a book about it. That seems Black Book was public so long ago that it could be a child in school now. And let's see. And then she does note, I guess the one area where Julie K. Brown sides with the, not sides with, but like affirms

what the administration is saying is that Pam Bondi's letter to Kash Patel does have some elements of truth in it. She said the FBI has hundreds of documents in its vaults that are redacted. The Miami Herald has repeatedly asked them to justify their redactions and lift them, and that has not happened. So maybe Cash will get on that for us.

I don't know. Sam, have we seen anything from DC Drano yet? Nothing yet on DC Drano. No, nothing. Sorry. It's interesting. We'll see, though. Who knows what will come out?

I would say that, hypothetically, if you are the president and you know that your conspiracy addled followers are desperate for new information to prove that their enemies are all part of this secret pedophile ring and that you weren't like a good strategic move might be to bring in four insane people and hand them partial documents that don't mention you yeah and that might be i just i just again hypothetically if that was your motive uh to try to like get people to look over there um it seems like you know this might be a tactic you may use i guess i mean i feel like this whole thing is just a clown show and in a distraction and they'll never be satisfied there's always going to be something that's

so here okay good it's important that we have some disagreement on the book from time to time because we are often aligned a distraction from what i i hate when people call this stuff a distraction this is the thing like trump wants like there it's not like there's like trump has this master plan where he's distracting you from his secret plan underneath everything is text with trump he doesn't have subtext like this is it this is like i think this is what he cares about maybe distraction is the wrong word but i do think they constantly need to throw chum in the water to their conspiracists and if these guys i mean i think there's always going to be a bunch of people out there who just

assume that the world is run by dark satanic forces that if you just get your people in place um you'll finally get the revelations that you sought for and so when i use the word distraction what i meant is that you know these people got so when I use the word distraction, what I meant is that, you know, these people got what they wanted. They got the conspiracy loving, they need to feed their content. And they need to give them a little chum. And so Pam Bondi, literally like two weeks into the job, it's ridiculous that this is what she's focused on, but she knows that she has to throw them a little chum. And so she goes on Jesse waters and she says, Oh, I got breaking news coming tomorrow because people are agitating her to release some stuff. And then she brings in, you know, a half dozen weird conspiracy theorists to get binders because she knows that they are the ones

that would, you know, jump on it and it and feed the people who want this chump. And so you just keep going through it and keep giving them stuff. They'll never be satisfied. They'll never believe anything. There's always some dark, nefarious force hiding the truth. And we'll just go through the cycle a million times. Well, this is going to be my editor job for everybody. Because you spark a thought, Sam, about Bondi.

I mean, so far, I just feel like you're looking at the record of the DOJ, like criminals released, violent, cop-beating criminals released, like quite a few dozen. Criminals, sex-trafficking criminals brought into the country too today. Criminals, like, nabbed. Not a ton so far. I mean, it's happening under the radar, but we haven't seen a ton of, like not a ton so far i mean it's happening under the radar but we haven't seen a ton of like a ton of progress but you know it's only been a month five weeks longest five

weeks of my life and any final thoughts yeah i i think that like that is the sense in which distraction is true right like because because it's not like it's not like it's distracting these people from like some other stuff that they would like to be paying attention to what they want is distraction. What they want is this kind of like constant cycle of, of right-wing MAGA infotainment to make them feel like they are living like constantly on this progression from one thing to the next thing, to the next thing that's all leading somewhere. Right. And, and like that, that just like the constant,

constant kind of unfolding and revealing of something. They don't really know where it's going or what it's heading to, but it's the lived experience of just being able to get online and like see the Trump administration like pulling back the curtain in some way is actively like what they are looking for out of this administration is that sense that we're kind of all in this thing together getting getting to it um and and so like yeah it's it's not meaningful in that way but it's not it's not like it's distracting them from the other stuff they would like rather be paying attention to that's what they want out of the administration and that's why they're giving it to them thank you andreger and sam stein subscribe to the feed

and uh who knows what we'll find out tomorrow we'll see you guys