Morning Joe - Epstein emails released by House Oversight Committee appear to reveal more Trump ties

Episode Date: November 13, 2025

Epstein emails released by House Oversight Committee appear to reveal more Trump ties Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

That would not be my question. Look, I really like this lady. She's going to be an excellent member of Congress. It has been 50 days since the people of Arizona's 7th Congressional district elected me to represent them. 50 days that over 800,000 Arizonans have been left without access to the basic services that every constituent deserves. This is an abuse of power. One individual should not be able to unilaterally obstruct the swearing in of a duly elected member of Congress for political reason. Democratic Congresswoman Adelita Griehalva taking office yesterday, finally, 50 days after she won a special election for the seat previously held by her late father.

She was the final signature needed. advance the bipartisan petition to release the so-called Epstein files, which moved forward despite a remarkable pressure campaign of two allies of President Trump. We're going to dig into all of that straight ahead yesterday, became a very big day. Well, it was quite a day, and we did something we don't usually do in the middle of the day. We're usually working through the day. But we stopped with all the breaking news happening, and we were lucky enough to get a chance to see the congresswoman gets sworn in and her first speech in the people's house,

as we've called it. I'm curious what your thoughts were. You seemed like me, very moved. I was. I think I had chills for the first time since long before the last election, watching her and her floor speech. And she came ready, really ready. Like much of the women in our 50-over-50 list,

this 55-year-old mother of three was ready for the judge. in front of her. She'd been waiting seven weeks, and that delay seemed to make this moment even more powerful when she stood up there and said, gracias, and then talked about being the granddaughter of a Mexican immigrant and talking about the turn in her family from Mexican immigrant to her father who became a member of Congress that only in America, could that happen And what he did in his life to protect the vulnerable, Adelaida Grahava took the mantle last night and started marching forward with it in her floor speech. And she talked about ice raids and she talked about health care. She had the Democratic message wrapped up and won and capped it off with the fact that she's going to be the first order of business is going to be to sign that petition and to get answers on the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.

This woman is ready to go. And I think Republicans chose the wrong person to put off. Let's just put it that way. And she did sign it. And that started some pretty remarkable things moving forward in Washington. But it was yesterday it was not a one-off when she talked about her family story. Wow. When she talked about immigrants coming to this country and within one generation going

from hard scrabble beginnings to being members of Congress or business leaders. I mean, this is the message that actually Americans have embraced for over 200 years. It's what's beautiful about America. It's the message that Ronald Reagan believed in so much that in his final address to America, he talked about the power of immigrants, talked about how America stays forever young, stays forever ahead of the rest of the world, has that competitive advantage because of immigrants that come to America. See, that's not a, for those of you that are watching now and just now getting into politics over the past 10 years, and you're hearing a lot of screeching voices out

there talking about America first and keep all the immigrants out, keep all the foreigners out, that's that's actually a radical departure from America's history of of what happened on Ellis Island what's happened with a Statue of Liberty calling out across the world so what you saw yesterday that wasn't that wasn't like some one-off or something that was radically new that is as old as America itself it is the American story and whether you look at Silicon Valley now or you look at the people that came to America a hundred years ago, 200 years ago, and help make this country the most powerful on the face of the earth, understand. It starts with immigrants, but Jonathan Lemire, you know, there's

an old saying, and we see it unfortunately with teams like the Red Sox that nothing succeeds like success. One guy starts hitting the ball. The whole team starts hitting the ball. The whole team starts winning. Well, nothing, failure, though, is the same way. Failure feeds on failure. And just think about this past week. You of course have the Democrats' massive wins over Republicans last week. And the deeper Republicans dig into that. The more they tell me, the news gets bleaker and bleaker. you look deep in those numbers in Virginia, in the statewide races, in the local races. If you look in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, if you look in New Jersey, terrible, terrible news. It's like Steve Bannon told me a week ago right after the election.

Gaines Republicans made over the past 10 years gone in a night. Republicans have basically lost six seats over the past week also in these redistricting wars between Gavin News. them and what happened in Utah, some shocking numbers. I know you've seen them. A poll came out yesterday, I believe it was AP, that showed only one and three Americans, 33 percent of Americans support the way Donald Trump is running the United States government. Shockingly low numbers, and he lost about a dozen points, even from Republicans. Keep going down the list. And you see, of course, the president's approval ratings in a spate of polls have cratered into the 30s. And there you see U.S. adults, that is AP, NORC, only one third of U.S. adults agree with

Donald Trump's management of the federal government. And finally, Jonathan, Democrats in that generic ballot test, which really sort of tests the strength of each party. Republicans are further behind today, eight points than they've been in that generic ballot test, any time since the 2018 blue wave where Democrats were swept into power. So you have all of this happening over the past week, and then yesterday, boom. As I said, failure, feasts on failure. more revelations coming out on the Epstein case.

And it is bad news for the White House and bad news for Republicans defending the White House. And it raises for me a question that maybe you can answer. If we've heard from NBC in the past that Donald Trump was not in the Epstein files, if that's what Tom Winter and also our own Kindelanian said, why are they having the DOJ, why are they having the Attorney General, and the director of the FBI doing something as grossly inappropriate is trying to lobby members of Congress to get their names off of this- What do we know about that? Of this discharge petition.

It's just what, I guess, if the report's all right, why is the White House freaking out so much? this is not the behavior of someone who doesn't have something to hide. I think we can safely say that. And Joe, you and I spoke last night about all of this, and I believe my trenchant analysis at the time was, quote, really bad. And I'm sticking with that this morning. This is indeed really bad for Republicans and the White House right now. First, backing up just a step to last week's elections. As we learn more and more about it, the breadth and depth of Democrats victory. Pretty stunning. As you say, first of all, every county in Virginia, every single one was shifted move points towards the Democrats. Democrats picked up things they've never had

before, like in Georgia. In Pennsylvania, winds in Mississippi broke blue. Of course, we saw two state houses switch or remain blue in New Jersey and Virginia. And yes, the government shutdown ending a few days later took the wind out of the sales for some Democratic. briefly. I think there was, you know, some questions as the tactics there. There was some from the party base that were disappointed, and some lawmakers said as much that they felt like this was the first time the party had momentum since before the 2024 election, and they felt like they were giving it away. But even as we get a few days from that first deal, and the government, of course, officially reopened last night, there's a sense here that, okay, maybe this was

still a win for Democrats after all, that they've set up Republicans. for a tough vote on health care in the weeks ahead. The Republicans are still the party that has to own the idea of rising prices and not addressing affordability. And then yesterday, Joe and Mika, this is the bombshell of the story that simply will not go away. As hard as Donald Trump is trying to make the Jeffrey Epstein matter go away, it simply won't.

And it was sort of a panicked behavior. That's how people put it to me yesterday in the White House. When we started seeing those emails, when Trump himself, as well as some of his top DOJ officials, pushed Republicans to remove their names to the discharge petition unsuccessfully, it still was signed, it still hit the number of votes needed. There's a sense here that this story, the Epstein story, has gaining really momentum. And it's not quite clear where it goes next, but it's certainly taking a real toll on this presidency. Well, let's get to them. Thousands of emails have now been released from Jeffrey Epstein's estate. state, many of which mentioned President Trump shining a renewed spotlight on the president's

ties to the late convicted sex offender. Both Democrats and Republicans on the House Oversight Committee unleashed the never-before-seen emails yesterday, received as a result of a subpoena from their investigation into Epstein. Democrats highlighted three messages that named Trump, including this one, from Epstein himself, to his long-stime, co-eastern. conspirator Gillane Maxwell, currently serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking crimes. Epstein described Trump as the, quote, dog that hasn't barked and alleged that Trump spent hours at Epstein's home with the redacted name of a victim. In another, Epstein claimed that Trump, quote, knew about the girls. It's not clear what Epstein means in these emails, and MSNBC has not

independently confirmed any of these allegations. Republicans on the committee later released a trove of more than 20,000 emails and documents accusing Democrats of cherry-picking and saying the public deserves the full truth. Several of those emails also show Epstein focused on Trump and hinting that he had damaging information on him. Like this one from 2018, where Epstein said, quote, I know how dirty Donald is. The president who has denied any wrongdoing called this a hoax and a distraction from the government shutdown. And White House press secretary Caroline Levitt pushed back when asked about the email yesterday

by reporters. These emails prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong. And what President Trump has always said is that he was from Palm Beach and so was Jeffrey Epstein. Jeffrey Epstein was a member at Maralago until President Trump kicked him out because Jeffrey Epstein was a pedophile and he was a creep. Just a correction there, Jonathan Amir, that's not what we've read previously on why Jeffrey Epstein was bored for Moralago. Explain specifically what Donald Trump's complaint about Jeffrey Epstein was. Well, the excellent,

explanations have changed repeatedly. We've heard versions that there was a fight over property. There's a dispute about they both were eyeing the same piece of land there. We've heard Trump say that Epstein was acting creepy towards some of the people there, the young or women who work at Mar-a-Lago. But the emails, to your point here, suggest at least in Epstein's words, and we're just based off the emails, but he's suggesting in his correspondence with others, including a writer, that he was still in touch with Trump later than Trump has said. Now, again, we don't know the specifics of that, you know, but that Epstein in these notes suggests they were in touch longer than we're told to believe. And also that Trump, in Epstein's

words, knew what was going on as Epstein was beginning to face some real legal trouble. Yeah, and he also recently said, again, because the story does keep changing. Recently, he said that Epstein stole a young woman from him. Moralago took her, took her away. Yeah. So look, as we mentioned, Congresswoman Grahalva's first act after being sworn in yesterday was to sign the bipartisan petition to release the so-called Epstein files. Members on both sides want these files released. And with their signature, that petition can now move forward in the House. Democrats cheered her on and two Epstein survivors were actually in the chamber

to witness the signing that they had been waiting for. Under House rules, Speaker Mike Johnson must now take mandatory action on the measure. He said yesterday, a vote on the Epstein bill entitled the Epstein Files Transparency Act will be brought to the floor next week. While it now looks like it will pass the House, it faces an uphill battle in the Senate. On social media yesterday, President Trump called out Republicans backing the bill saying any lawmaker, on the right supporting it was, quote, very bad or stupid and stressed there should be no deflection to Epstein. Congressman Thomas Massey of Kentucky, the House Republican leading the charge on the bill said he has spoken to colleagues about the vote. I've already had a couple of Republicans

tell my office privately that they're going to vote for it. And I think that could snowball. I mean, you know, the deal for Republicans on this vote is that Trump will protect you if you vote the wrong way. In other words, if you vote to cover up for pedophiles, you've got cover in a Republican primary. But I would remind my colleagues that this vote is going to be on your record for longer than Trump is going to be president. And what are you going to do in 2028 and 2030 when you're in a debate, either with a Republican or a Democrat, and they say, can we trust you? You covered up for a pedophile back in, you know, 2025. But, but I don't think it even is 2028. I think the conflict within the MAGA base is right now. Let's bring around MSNBC National Affairs Analyst and a partner and chief political columnist of

Park John Hilemon. Also MSNBC senior reporter, legal reporter and former litigator Lisa Rubin, also with his former state attorney for Palm Beach County, where most of this happened, Dave Aaron Burke. John Heilman, I want to start with you. You know, if it were only so easy for a Republican congressman or congresswoman or senator, as it has been since Donald Trump became president in 2017. It's been very simple. Don't make the president mad. Keep the magabase with you win primaries. It's not, I actually think that Congressman Massey may have been getting a bit of his analysis wrong because it's not worrying about what your political world looks like in 2008 when Donald Trump's gone. It's what it looks like now because the MAGA base want

they want these Epstein files released. So it's when you when you have the FBI director and the attorney general lobbying a congresswoman from Colorado saying, you know, get off the petition, and they do the same to Nancy Mace, and both of those members say no, you know right there that there is a deep divide in the MAGA base, and actually voting to cover this up, voting to keep what they consider and what they've considered for a decade, this conspiracy under wraps, actually ends up hurting you. more with your Republican base, right? Well, yes, Joe, and I would say it's a, it's actually a double, it's a hit in no matter

which direction you look at this, right? It's a, you've got the problem, which is on the, with the Republican base, if you're worried about getting primaried. On the other side, you've got a general electorate where the, the polling is overwhelmingly, I mean, overwhelmingly in favor of releasing the Epstein files, I, I, you know, You were talking before about good gets better and bad gets worse, right? Right. And how things build on each other.

If you think about what the message of the off-year elections were, they've scared Republicans, rightly so, everywhere, about the way that things are going for them, about all those counties that are shifting into the blue, about the overwhelming kind of up and down, up and down, coast-to-coast democratic repudiation of Republicans in those off-year elections. in those off-year elections. Now, think about the United States Senate where if the House does pass this vote to force the release of the Epstein files, it moves to the Senate, where I believe that the filibuster won't be in play. It'll be a straight-up-down majority vote.

You've got 13 sitting Republican senators running for re-election in 2026. We could go through the list of those people. How many of those people want to take a vote against not just the Republican base, but also about three quarters of the general electorate that wants to see the Epstein files released puts them in an incredibly difficult position. I don't think people are saying it's going to be an uphill fight in the Senate. I'm not sure that's right.

You need four Republican senators to get this through the Senate. Are there four of the 13 sitting Republican senators who are up for your election who are not going to get on the side of this issue where 75% of the American public is? where the bag of base increasingly is also, I don't really see it. Well, I mean, the maga base has been there. Like, Maga Base has been pushing this for a decade. The Maga Base has been saying that the powers that be, it's like the deep state has been protecting rich, powerful men who were pedophiles

and release the documents. That's all we've heard. Remember, Pam Bondi called the right-wing influence. over and gave them notebooks with very little inside of them, binders with very little inside of them. So it is a central issue for them. But you bring up a great point. We're all focused on the House because that's where I'm a member of the House. If they're conspiracy theorists, chances are good, they swirl around in the back benches of the House. But you bring up a great point. You've got senators.

that are going to be running. Republican senators that are going to be running. And I've seen it firsthand the things that you think should break through to the American people don't break through. During Bill Clinton's term, there were a lot of things that I thought should break through that didn't break through. And then it was a personal situation, let's just say, that broke through. And I was thinking, wait, okay, they're going to impeach him for this. But They were okay with, like, missile cells to China that, like, everybody in the DOD said he should never do. But you never know what's going to break through. This is one of those things that break through.

And so if you're a Republican senator and you're sitting fairly comfortably, maybe you think you're going to win easily, you know, by three or four or five points, you just saw what happened last week. The massive wave elections coast to coast, you saw what happened and even. Fox County, the swingiest swing county in America, practically, you'd have to be pretty stupid to say, oh, you know what? I'm going to be on the side of covering up the Epstein files. I just, I think you're right. I think as this gets through the House and goes to the Senate, there can be a lot of Republican senators who said no to Donald Trump on the filibuster that are probably going to say no to him on covering up the Epstein files. So listen, I mean, Joe, this filibuster, the filibuster thing was very much on my mind.

You know, the Republican Senate, which has almost never bucked Trump on anything, in the wake of the election results, on the off-year election results, that Tuesday in November 4th, immediately thereafter we saw, and it hasn't gotten enough attention, we saw Republican senators suddenly find their backbone on the question of the filibuster. If Republican senators gave, told Trump to pound sand in the wake of the off-year elections on the filibuster, are they really

just going to cave into Trump on an issue like this, which as you say is cutting through, most Americans still don't really understand the filibuster. I'm not sure I understand the filibuster. But everybody understands this Jeffrey Epstein story and you are going to see the survivors out in force again.

They are going to be saying, are you really Senator Susan Collins, are you really going to vote against the wishes of the Jeffrey Epstein survivors who want to see these files come out? They're going to make that case. If they have any political savvy and they have shown that they do, they're going to make that case to every swing sitting Republican senator who's in any way vulnerable. And I think it's going to be a very hard vote to resist for someone like, say, Susan Collins. I don't see it. I can't imagine Susan Collins. He's going to side with Donald Trump and against the Epstein survivors. Doesn't make any sense to me. And I think there are at least

four of them who are going to be like that. This is what the base wanted. This was about two systems of justice. This is about young girls being victimized. Who's going to vote against trying to get justice in this case of Jeffrey Epstein? That's the question. So we've talked about the politics of this. We'll take a quick break. And on the other side, we'll take a look at the legal aspects to this massive developing story. We'll be right back. into the situation room where they plan things like the bin laden raid and here they are pressuring lauren bobert to get off they did the same when nancy maize but they held when

massey and my bill comes to the floor next week which even the speaker now is saying that it will come you're going to see 50 60 maybe even more Republicans vote against him that is a huge deal not because of the work Massey and I are doing because people are sensing the weakness of Donald Trump to be willing to cast that vote against him. Congressman Rokana of California, the Democratic leader of the petition to release the Epstein file, speaking about the scene in the White House

where attempts were made to try and stop the measure. As we mentioned, administration officials met yesterday with Republican Congresswoman Lauren Bobert of Colorado. in an effort to convince her to remove her name from the petition and thus keep the Epstein petition from reaching the required number of votes to pass. The meeting reportedly took place in the situation room. This is according to a White House official and a source close to Bobert, speaking to MSNBC. Sources say FBI director Cash Patel was present.

President Trump was not there, but spoke to Bobert on the phone the day before. Bobert is one of four Republicans who signed on to the petition, along with Congressman Thomas Massey of Kentucky and Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green of Georgia and Nancy Mace of South Carolina. Now, Bobert is not the only signer. The president has tried to persuade. According to MSNBC, Congresswoman Nancy Mace has been playing phone tag. with President Trump. It's Jonathan Amir, talk is through this. I mean, it's pretty remarkable.

The New York Times reported, at least this morning, that Cash Patel and Pam Bondi were in that meeting. We'll, according to sources, we'll confirm that. But that's just so grossly inappropriate if you did have the FBI director and the Attorney General of the United States lobbying a congresswoman to get her name off a congressional discharge petition. Never heard anything like it before in my life.

And I think more importantly, for the moment, even they were unsuccessful with that. And the Times also reporting that Bobert is now starting to think because they are so desperate and they've pressured her so much over the past couple of months to do this, now she's thinking there is a bigger conspiracy, again, according to reporting by the New York Times. But again, and Nancy Mace, Nancy Mace is running for governor of South Carolina. Again, so I just, to explain to people the split in the Republican Party right now,

this. Nancy Mace wants to be governor of South Carolina. She can only be governor of South Carolina if she wins the Republican primary in South Carolina. That's one of the more conservative pro-Maga bases in America. If Nancy Mace thought it would hurt her to cross Donald Trump in that primary over the Epstein filed, she would have done it in a second. I'm just, it's pure speculation. But that's how most politicians, would behave. She didn't do it. Lauren Bobert didn't do it. Both of them are powered by the Maga Base, and both of them yesterday just said no. Yeah, a couple things here. First, yet another erosion of what was supposed to be a bright red line between the White House and the Department

of Justice. That is gone. President Trump has talked for a long time about wanting to use DOJ as his sort of personal lawyers, his personal fiefdom. That's happened. They simply do his bidding, including grossly inappropriate behavior like what was reported yesterday. But I also think it's so striking here.

It's a divergence of one of our very first divergences between Maga and Trump. They're not necessarily the same thing because I think the same is from Marjor Taylor Green who clearly has eyes on higher office. She's talked about the Senate.

There's some people who speculate that maybe it's not 2028, but at some point she might run for president. You know, that these are Republicans who are making decisions based on their own political future. and they understand they've made so much of their identity, the Epstein conspiracy. And that's what remains the foundation of all of this, is that this is a conspiracy theory

that took life on the right, that it was some of the most diehard Trump supporters believed that the Epstein matter was going to implicate Democrats, implicate institutions, implicate powerful men across the country. And they thought Trump would be the key to unlock all that, that he had vowed to put all that out there. Instead, he's doing everything he can, working really, really hard to keep things under wrap. And that's why this is raising so much in the way of suspicion. So Lisa Rubin, that's the politics of it. Let's get back to some of the legality. You've been able to go through some of these emails yesterday. And we should note there was the first batch put out by the House

Democrats. Then Republicans put out a flood, almost seeming like they wanted to distract, to overwhelm the media, overwhelm the public, to make it difficult to focus on the things that were so incriminating for Trump, although frankly, some of the stuff they put out didn't look great for him either. Why don't you walk us through a couple of your biggest takeaways from what you read? So I think one of my biggest takeaways is exactly what you just said, which is you can try to bury the needle in a haystack as the Republican majority on House Oversight did yesterday, but there were still plenty of needles that I and others on the MSNBC team found. And one of the things that I think is so curious, Jonathan, is that Epstein, while very critical,

of Trump in many of these emails is nonetheless solicitous of him, even as a presidential candidate, I want to read to you about an email that he sent in April of 2016 after Epstein and Trump were sued by a woman who says that she was sexually assaulted by both of them when she was underage. I should note that lawsuit was later withdrawn by this same woman. The truth of her allegations have never been proven. However, he is sent the lawsuit or information about the lawsuit by his lawyer after his lawyer is contacted by a Reuters reporter. This is before the filing of the lawsuit is even public. And what does Jeffrey Epstein do with that email from his lawyer forwarding the Reuters inquiry? He sends it to Tom Barrick,

who as you know and some of our viewers know, was the chairperson of the 2017 Trump inaugural. He today is an ambassador, remains a close friend of Trump. And he writes, nuts. But I thought you guys, should know. Why is Jeffrey Epstein being so solicitous of Trump and the Trump campaign in April of 2016 when both before and after he is telling close people in his life that Trump is a bad guy? I'm going to read to you from another email that he sent to Larry Summers in February of 2017, Larry Summers, the former Treasury Secretary and President of Harvard. He says, I have met some very bad people, none as bad as Trump. Not one decent cell in his body, so yes, dangerous. And he has conversations of that nature over the years repeatedly with a series of journalists two in

particular, Michael Wolfe and also Lyndon Thomas of the New York Times, who wrote that infamous 2002 profile of Donald Trump, of Jeffrey Epstein, in which Trump is quoted as saying that Epstein likes beautiful women, perhaps as much as I do, many of them on the younger side. Landon Thomas goes to Jeffrey Epstein as Trump becomes a serious presidential candidate and says, everybody is asking me about this because I wrote that. What should I tell them? And Epstein comes up with anecdote after anecdote to share with Landon Thomas and says, you should tell them that Donald Trump, when he would come over to my house, once almost walked into a glass door because he was so fixed.

on looking at all the young girls in the pool. So there is definitely not in these documents to date any evidence of criminal wrongdoing by Donald Trump. But is there plenty of circumstantial evidence that Donald Trump may have known what Jeffrey Epstein was up to? Absolutely. And Caroline Levin, the White House press secretary yesterday, sort of telling on herself when she said that was the reason that Trump evicted Jeffrey Epstein from Mar-a-Lago.

That's an explanation we've never heard from either Trump or his. representatives until yesterday, John? Yeah. And, you know, it's so, it's interesting. You have, of course, the legal side of this, what can be proven, and then you've got the political side of this. And John Heilman, there's a huge difference there. And so legally, there's nothing in these documents that have suggested, that prove anything definitively. There are some things that suggest he spent a lot more time around Epstein than he said in the past. There's a lot of embarrassing things in here politically. But again, nothing legally, but these are two separate things. And that's why one of the things John Lemire and I were saying last night was, like, how stupid of the Republicans

to release over 20,000 documents thinking, oh, we're just going to send a blizzard of documents out. And that'll make them ignore the ones that Democrats released earlier today. No, you just gave reporters another week of stories, including one where Jeffrey Epstein volunteers to be a conduit for Russia between Russia and Donald Trump and explain Donald Trump to Russia. And so, again, there is the legal side, which again, let me say again, NBC in the past has reported, Kendallanian, our Kindleinian has reported that there's no evidence of any wrong. doing by Donald Trump in the Epstein files? Well, you have that, but then you have the political side of this, and then you have the White House acting guilty, whether the president's guilty

or not. Right. I think what the reporting says, Joe, to be really specific, what Tom Winter and Delaney and Ken Delaney have reported the past, is that Donald Trump's name doesn't exist on an Epstein client list, and that's obviously super important. I think that we don't really know there's about what is in the Epstein files more broadly defined related to Donald Trump. And I'm not suggesting there is any evidence of wrongdoing. I just don't think any of us know that. We know that the DOJ at Trump's direction went through all the material they have.

And I believe that there's been a bunch of reporting that suggests that Trump's name is all over the Epstein files in much the same way as we saw in these e-O.J.' mails yesterday. The question throughout this entire thing has been political, Joe, and it is precisely this. Donald Trump has been paying a political price for covering up these files, by refusing to release them as his base wants and as the overwhelming majority of Americans want, for months now. He's been taking on water over this. Politicians do not do things like that if there's not a good reason. And the reason has to be that he believes that whatever is in these files would be more damaging

to him politically than continuing to stonewall them. Does that mean that he is in some way there's some wrongdoing that would be exposed? No, but either the cumulative weight of the embarrassment of what is in there or the weight of the embarrassment to allies of his, to friends of his, to other rich people that he wants to protect. Some combination of things has caused Trump to decide that this pain that he's enduring right now is worth it because the pain of full release of the files would be even worse. That is just logical. The only question is, what exactly would that pain be the result of? What is there? That is what we all still don't know and what we still need to find out.

And Dave Ehrenberg, I guess my question, as you look at all of this, is you look at all of what's in these emails as a lawyer, as a prosecutor, the part of the problem here is that Jeffrey Epstein, and I would suggest many of the people corresponding with Jeffrey Epstein, are all liars and all really unreliable narrators. So one of the questions here is how many of these emails can be taken at face value, given that many of the people who are involved on either side of the to and from subject line are people who, you know, you wouldn't want to put up, put them on a polygraph because they'd probably fail. Yeah, it's a good point, good question. But keep in mind in 2011, that's when you saw perhaps most damaging email. That's the one or Jeffrey Epstein

called Trump the dog that didn't bark. That was well before Trump ran for president. I mean, if perhaps it was before the initial attempt, but not the serious one in 2016. So what incentive would Jeffrey Epstein have to lie back then in that email? This, as you correctly said, is all a self-inflicted wound because Trump should have gotten in front of all. Instead, I kicked the guy out of the club. He's a creep. And yes, I was friends with him, but I'm going to do radical transparency and release all the files because the cover-up can be worse than the crime. There is no evidence in here of a crime by Donald Trump, but he sure actually. acting like there is, and the controversy isn't going away until they release the files.

Gleine Maxwell is in there. She's a perpetual liar. And in the email, she says that she does know, does know that Trump was at Epstein's home. And yet during her testimony in front of Todd Blanche, she said she can't recall ever seeing Trump at Epstein's home. So she's trying to get a pardon, a commutation. Right now, she is so toxic that I don't see that happening now because she is, again, not only a sex trafficker, but a liar. And then finally, the other person I think really who loses in all this, not just Trump, not just Gillesne Maxwell, but also Michael Wolfe is a journalist who apparently is serving as a volunteer publicist for Jeffrey Epstein in these emails. He's giving Epstein tips on gaining leverage on Trump. Why do you do that

for a pedophile. So there's so many unanswered questions here and lots of new momentum for a controversy that just won't go away. Yeah, Dave. So you obviously, you've been in Palm Beach County and you've been in the state attorney's office for quite some time. You're familiar with your predecessor. You're familiar with so much of this stuff in a way that most Americans just are not. talk about your insights on what we saw yesterday and where you believe. Again, I know you won't wildly speculate, but where does this go next? Yeah, well, Joe, just for clarification, I got to the office about six years after the Epstein case was done. It was three state attorneys before I was there. Oh, wow. But there's, yeah, but still, it was the office that I had run six years by

I got there. Now, where is it go from here? Well, you know, Epstein wrote that Trump had spent hours at his house with one of the victims. And so that is a big question here, which victim the Republicans are saying it's Virginia Jufre, who then in her book and in public statements said Trump did nothing wrong. And so there's a conflict. Is this referring to Virginia Jufre that perhaps it's not? And if it is, then there is dispute there. also in the emails that said that Trump, of course, knew about the girls. Well, that needs to be fleshed out because did he know about the underage girls being involved with sex trafficking or did he know that Epstein liked young girls?

Trump said as much in a magazine article years prior. So these emails are all, yeah, they're all putting Trump's attempts in a harsher light to keep the Epstein file under wraps. So when Trump meets with Bobert in the situation room to implore her to vote to keep the file's secret. It looks less like a political calculation and more now like a cover-up. Yeah, Donald Trump wasn't in there. It was actually... Just phone calls. He was trying to call people. Yeah, calling. But reports are, though, again, the attorney, New York Times, the Attorney General and also the FBI director. Former

state attorney for Palm Beach County, Florida, Dave Varenberg, thanks for being with us, and we will get back to you. One other thing, too, we've just been checking on. We were talking about how many Republican votes in the Senate would take to be able to get that. We're pretty certain. Allie is reporting that it's 60. Pretty certain that it would be 60.

But again, even that's interesting. And this is what's interesting about it, John Heilman. That you saw what Burchett tried to do in the House where there's a voice vote. He wanted to voice vote. And then people would just do a voice

vote and they could release the files, nobody'd be on record. There's an objection to that. Right. Because Democrats want Republicans to go on the record. Now, somebody text me a minute ago asking the question, if everybody's so certain this is going to die in the Senate, then why are they raising such hell about it like going through the House? I'll tell you why. because when it goes to the Senate, first of all, think about all the Republicans that are running for office, that are up, one, what is it, one third of the Senate that's going to be up in 26. Nobody on that list, no Republican is going to want to be seen covering up for the most vilified pedophile in recent American history. So they're right, you know, they don't want to be in that position. And I'm sure the White House knows, like a lot of Republican operatives know, that when that vote comes to the Senate, it's going to be, it's like you, like we, we were talking about, if they're brushing Donald Trump off when he comes to the Senate lunch to demand Republicans kill the filibuster, and he even has a Republican senator laughing out loud at him, according to the Atlantics, Mark Leavovich, and an extraordinary.

story. Then what are these Republican senators going to do when the White House start saying, hey, kill the Epstein files. We want to keep them away from your voters, your constituents, the people that are going to vote for you in 2026. I don't think it's as open and closed of a political situation as some people are suggesting right now. 13 Republican senators, sitting Republican senators up for re-election. You've got, in addition to that, a bunch of female Republican senators who aren't up for election right now. All of them will have a compelling, we'll be hearing the words of the Epstein survivors

will be ringing in their ears. You have people like Joni Ernst and Tom Tillis who both are retiring. It doesn't take that much work to get to, even if the threshold is, as Alley's report, if the threshold on this vote is going to be 60. It doesn't take that much work to get you to get you to the number if you start to put together the relatively moderate establishment Republicans, the female Republican senators and Republican senators who are retiring and may not be totally in love with Donald Trump and kind of are looking for some way to as they walk out the door reclaim some of the reputation

they lost by being overly loyal to him over the course of the first and second terms. I don't know. Maybe I'm a dreamer, and obviously things are, it always turns out to be tough to get anything through the Senate on a 60 vote threshold. But this issue, Joe, to your point earlier, has cut through in a way that almost nothing else has. It is the rare bipartisan issue in the Trump era. It is a thing that is both overwhelmingly favored by the main, by the overall electorate by the general electorate and also overwhelmingly favored in an intense and passionate way by the Republican MAGA base. That is a really unusual set of politics on this. And I just don't think as the temperature rises and the focus on this shifts to the Senate, I just don't think

it's at all a foregone conclusion that this thing is going to die there. Well, and Alex was just telling me, hey, start with John Kennedy from Louisiana, who has said, we need full transparency on this. Then go to Susan Collins, Rand Paul, Tom Tillis, Joni Ernst, and others, as you said, people that are getting out of here. And I will say again, looking at Nancy Mace. You're going to also look at Republicans who are running statewide, who may need support of the MAGA base. And this is one of those things again. There's some wicked cross currents here where you've got to decide, are you going to cross the president? Are you going to cross the Maga Base? For the Maga Bay, this has been their issue for a decade. Absolutely. Now, Lisa, one more item for you. Later this

morning, a federal judge will be hearing arguments about whether Lindsay Halligan, the U.S. attorney, handpink, picked by President Trump, was lawfully appointment appointed when she obtained indictments against former FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. So Lisa, what more can you tell us about today's hearing with Lindsay Halligan? Well, Miki, you just noted one of the things that's most unusual about it, which is it's a twofer, right? Both Leticia James and Jim Comey are having a joint argument together in front of a judge from the District of South Carolina who's been purposefully selected to hear this question of whether Lindsay Halligan is law. appointed in the Eastern District of Virginia. That's because no judge in the Eastern District of Virginia is sort of unconflicted here, given the preponderance of cases that each of them

have with the U.S. Attorney's Office, but also because the statutes that are set up here for the selection of U.S. attorneys in the absence of a Senate-confirmed one involved district judges themselves. So we're going to see Judge Cameron McGowan Curry, a senior judge from the District of South Carolina, come up to Alexandria of Virginia today, where she will hear. From two of our nation's best lawyers, I would guess, Pat Fitzgerald and Abby Lowell working in tandem together to argue that Lindsay Halligan had no right to bring either of the indictments against Tish James or Jim Comey, big potential reverberations coming from this. And of course, Halligan is the fourth Trump appointed U.S. attorney to be facing these arguments. Three others have had court decisions against them, finding that they too were unlawfully appointed. And none of them did what Lindsay Halligan. Of course, Mika did here, which is to be the only person to sign each of these indictments. Not looking good for the Eastern District of Virginia's home team, meaning Lindsay Halligan today. But I will certainly let you know

after the argument in Alexandria. And I'll be watching. All right. MSNBC senior legal reporter Lisa Rubin. Thank you very much.