Morning Joe - Unrelenting bigotry, lies and attacks: Joe reacts to Trump’s State of the Union

Episode Date: February 25, 2026

Unrelenting bigotry, lies and attacks: Joe reacts to Trump’s State of the Union To listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In my first year of the second term, should be my third term, but strange things happen. I am officially announcing the war on fraud to be led by our great vice president, J.D. Vance. And if we're able to find enough of that fraud, we will actually have a balanced budget overnight. It'll go very quickly. Isn't that a shame? You should be ashamed of yourself, not standing. out. You should be ashamed of yourself. That is why I'm also asking you to end deadly sanctuary cities. They want to cheat, they have cheated, and their policy is so bad that the only way they can get elected is to cheat, and we're going to stop it. We have to stop it, John.

These people are crazy, I'm telling you. They're crazy. We're lucky we have a country. With people like this, Democrats are destroying our country. but we've stopped it just in the nick of time. President Donald Trump with a slew of attacks against Democrats during his state of the union last night, including saying the only way they can get elected is to cheat. We will have the biggest takeaways from the address and a fact check on many of his false claims about the economy and a number of other topics. We only have four hours. So we're not going to be able to get to all the lies.

We're not going to be able to give you all the fact checks, but we'll do the best we can with the four hours that we're given. And the factually incorrect and very misleading lies against the Democrats and how the position he put them in last night was interesting, which is why some Democrats chose not to come. Also ahead, the reporting that the Justice Department illegally withheld FBI interviews from the released Epstein files, pages that were related to an accuser of President. President Trump will bring you the latest in that bombshell investigation. And a whistleblower claims FBI director Cash Patel's use of government jets impeded the investigations into Charlie Kirk's assassination and the Brown University shooting. We'll dig into that new allegation as we get started this morning. Good morning and welcome to morning, Joe. It is Wednesday, February 25th, along with Joe, Willie, and me.

The co-host of our 9 a.m. hour staff writer at the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire, opinion columnist for the New York Times, David French, and U.S. national editor and columnist at the Financial Times. Ed Luce is with us this morning. And so we begin. Yeah, well, why don't we go around and give our initial thoughts before we dig into it? I will say there are a couple of things that I thought were extraordinary that you wouldn't see in the other state of the unions. unless they were Donald Trump. The first, of course, was just the unrelenting bigotry, the lies, the attacking of one group, specifically, the Somali Americans, that's the sort of thing that, oh, you know, I'm not going to talk about fascism or Nazism. You just read history and see what type of regimes will pick one or two groups and blame all of America's ills on those groups.

That's one of the things that the president did. Another thing that he did was generally talking about immigration. Again, it's un-American. It goes against what the Republican Party has always stood for. It's gone against what Ronald Reagan stood for. And this continued lie, and it is a continued lie by this Republican Party, and they know they're lying when they continue to suggest that immigrants commit crimes at a higher rate than those who were native-born Americans. And every study, one study after another study, after another study shows this is a tired lie.

And yet you have an entire party that seems, large part to be based upon this lie. Speaking of lies, it's not even a fact check. It's just a straight out lie because everybody knows watching, everybody knows speaking, everybody knows in the audience. They understand Donald Trump is lying when he's saying that the price of meat is going down, the price of groceries are going down. They know he's lying when he says that he inherited a nine, you know, inflation at nine percent. No, he inherited inflation about the same rate that it's at right now. when Joe Biden left office, it's about the same as where it was there. Also, the idea that you're going to have J.D. Vance, who's going to investigate waste and fraud and abuse and corruption when his family, Donald Trump's family, has made at least $1.9 to $2 trillion personally since he came into office and this whole idea about no stock trading, add up all the money.

And by the way, I've always been against members of Congress trading stock. That's absolutely insane. But even add up right now all the money that they've made. He doesn't come close to the amount of money that Donald Trump has made himself personally, put his own pocket over the past year. So you see that and you go, well, that's kind of interesting. And Willie, I've got to say also the election conspiracies, he continues it. It's one thing for him to be doing it out on the campaign trail, lying day in,

out, lying day in and day out about election conspiracies. There's no way Democrats can win without this cheating. He says it all the time. He said it in Georgia all the time. You've got a Republican governor in Georgia that's not right. You've got a secretary of state in Georgia. Republicans says, no, that's not right. The same one that Donald Trump tried to cheat and get the 11,000 votes to win Georgia back in 2020. He keeps saying that every day. And every day Democrats are winning by 30, 40, 50, 60, 60, percentage points in races across America. We saw it again last night while this was going on.

So, yeah, there were, there was a broadcaster that said, the speech was extraordinary. Yes, it was extraordinary. It was extraordinary for many reasons. Most of them just, he did shit that no sane president would ever do. It was really, really crazy to be watching that in a state of the union address. Yeah, and it was long, too. the longest state of the union in American history, at one hour, 47 minutes, almost two hours long, broke his own record, by the way. Yes, the election lies. It's a tick that he can't get past.

We heard it in the clip coming in when he said it again. This should have been my third term, he said, suggesting that somehow the 2020 election was stolen. It does strike you watching that address in the House chamber. That's the same House of Chamber where his supporters stormed and attacked and occupied on January 6, 2021, and he since has pardoned all of those people and tried to turn the page and whitewash history on that event. You mentioned the Somali attacks. He called Somalis living in Minnesota, quote, Somali pirates who have ransacked Minnesota, talking about Somalis and Somali Americans living in the state of Minnesota. Also, just leaning into his weaknesses, talking about the economy,

on which he is very, very unpopular right now, saying the economy is at all-time highs, as if just saying it makes it so. We know that's not true, and we're going to walk through the details of what he was fabricating in that speech last night. Also talking and celebrating about his immigration crackdown, deeply, deeply unpopular in this country right now,

including among many Republicans and certainly among independents, suggesting that it had been a success. And then for me, Joe, on the question, of tariffs as well. Didn't have that confrontational moment with the Supreme Court justices who were sitting there on the front row.

He did criticize the decision without going so far as to ripping the Supreme Court as he has in the past several days. But interesting that, as he said, I don't need Congress to do tariffs. I'll do it on my own. The Speaker of the House,

Mike Johnson, leapt to his feet in applause to support the idea that the President of the United States does not need Congress, perhaps not just on tariffs, but on anything anymore. Yeah, Mike Johnson getting weaker by the day. It's like the final Harry Potter.

He just kind of keeps shriveling up. It's getting sadder and sadder. If you listen to the words that he said, I will say it's very interesting. David French, I saw, you know, there are a lot of people saying, oh, they're going to attack the Supreme Court. He's going to attack the members of the Supreme Court were there. I saw Amy Coney Barrett. and looked at Amy Coney Barrett while he was speaking, and I thought, as a woman, I probably wouldn't cross.

Yeah. She's serious about what she does. She's tough and she's serious about what she does, as are the other members of the Supreme Court. But it's interesting, he chose not to attack them, chose to be polite. It was very interesting a week after he said that they were owned by foreign interests. Yeah, that was interesting. And look, these Supreme Court justices, as you indicate, they're fine. They can handle it. They can take this. And you know what? What demonstrates that more than anything is their actual opinions. I mean, one thing that is so important about the tariff case, I don't think has gotten enough attention, quite frankly, is that this was an opinion with three justices nominated by Republicans, including by Donald Trump, three justices nominated by Democrats. So it's not a partisan kind of issue. And it demonstrated that there's a branch of American government that will show independence, and there's a branch of American government

that will retain principles when most people are just devolving to worshiping power. And I think that was a really important moment for the American people to see that this is what an actually independent branch of government looks like. And if they can do that, they can absolutely handle whatever Trump is going to throw at them there in that room. And, you know, I'm actually glad it wasn't as intensely personal and vicious and biting as it was before. But I think they walked into that room knowing it could be. At its most simplest level, last night was President Trump's biggest audience he will see all year. National audience, millions of people watch. And he came into last night, really, we went through the polls in great detail yesterday about how he has proven rating has

slipped. Overall, it slipped among independence. He's grown very weak in what used to be his strengths, the economy, tariffs. I can't imagine he changed a single mind last night. I can't imagine he won over a single voter last night. And that's bad for the Republicans who will be on the ballot this November who have to defend his policies. You know, we went through some of it already. The mild but attacks on the Supreme Court all the same. A lot of blistering attacks at Democrats, the racist remarks. It seemed about the Somalis in Minnesota. We also got next to nothing about Iran. He's saying, yes, they can't have nukes, but otherwise just said, I'd like to make a deal, but it was two or three minutes right at the end of a nearly two-hour speech where the whole world

is watching this Armada in the Middle East, wondering what will happen next with Tehran if this next round of negotiations does not produce a deal to President Trump's liking. And I was also just struck, frankly, pretty boring. Yes, it had a couple nice moments of patriotism. He saluted the men's hockey team. He singled out. He singled out. a few Americans absolutely who deserve to be recognized for their heroism at home or abroad. But it felt like a campaign speech. It felt like more of the same, Ed Luce. Like, yes, he was loud.

Yes, he was animated. I don't know, though, Ed, that it's going to change the trajectory of his presidency one bit. Be curious, your thoughts. Jonathan, I strongly, I mean, I had a lot of favorite moments in this speech, but I strongly agree with your comment on it, boring, not just the length, the hour, 47 minutes, but the predictability of the lies he was telling and the stunts he was putting. There were so many lies that at one point I thought

should we fact check, you know, whether the men's hockey team really did win a gold, because it was just sort of a flood the zone with it. Amongst my favorite moments, but I don't think, you know, this is effective campaigning, although it is campaigning, was him rolling the word affordability around in his mouth, as if it's some very strange word that the Democrats have just learned and that it isn't really a serious issue at all. I imagine Susie Wilde and others were gnashing their teeth as they watched that because this was clearly supposed to be, at least in part,

a speech that set up Republicans for the midterms as serious on questions of affordability. And he didn't really do that. He told Americans that their prices are all falling, don't believe your own lying eyes, etc. He at one point said that drugs prices have dropped 100%, which would mean they're now zero. So, you know, I can't get excited about this speech. But I'm, and I guess the fact that we're so used to these torrents of lies and the whoppingness of these lies and that it's actually boring does say something about this and about this president yeah you know it's interesting i forget the the character uh the movie character

that couldn't say i was wrong but it would just like again kind of tumble around and his mouth couldn't get it out here the president can't say the word affordability where it comes out and and this is this is this is what politics is you can give a two-hour speech or three-hour speech four-hour speech, it's going to be reduced down to a couple of seconds in campaign ads. And for Donald Trump, the ongoing problem is that most Americans say the number one problem in America is not immigrants, number one problem in America or not all the things that he said were number one problems in America. In fact, they wildly disagree with him on election integrity and so many of these other issues. But it is affordability. And he just sort of tossed it aside,

once again mocked the use of the word. So that was one problem. I got to say the bigger take though here. And it's, it's really unfortunate. And it's unfortunate for America. I think it's unfortunate for the president, too. He still thinks he can do this by himself. Says, I don't need Congress. He does. He does. Article two needs Article one. Basically, I can do this without the courts. He needs the courts. I mean, this is a president. He's been president now for five years. and he still hasn't figured out that the way to build a long-lasting legacy is we're working with Congress, passing legislation, putting things out there that will last,

that will build upon the greatness of this country, and he just can't get there. He's still saying, despite over two centuries of the United States Constitution that says the exact opposite, He keeps saying, I can do this by myself. I don't need Congress. If you don't get Congress, it gets swept away the first day in the next administration.

It's really unfortunate that he still believes he can do this by himself. I think it was the Fonz that you were talking about. The Fonds that couldn't say, I was wrong. Sorry. I'm sorry and I was wrong. No, I think also, you know, there were these Democrats who chose not to come, and I can't judge it at this point. because there's nothing normal about a house full of Republicans clapping for repeated lies, repeated misstatements, repeated misleading facts, and misleading attacks.

You know, clapping for that and clapping for, in a way, it's clapping against everything that we're about. It's clapping against the Constitution. It's supporting something that is absolutely not based on what this country. is about in just one person. And that's what we're at. And it's going to be an interesting few months ahead to see if Democrats can get their footing, but also to see if some Republicans ever step up and do the right thing. Well, and we're going to talk about this later too. You have actually the United States yesterday in a vote for supporting Ukraine,

siding with communist China, siding with Saudi Arabia, siding with Hungary, siding with Hungary, siding with the worst autocratic regimes on the planet. And they chose to do that instead of supporting peace in Ukraine. So, yeah. One of many examples. It's one of many examples where Republicans, they think they can duck their head and survive this by pretending that all the things that Donald Trump is saying that are abhorrent to most Americans will somehow be overlooked.

It's not. They need to stand up and speak out. and hopefully that will encourage the president to start working with Democrats. There are also a lot of other things going on and some that might have been a bit much for the president himself. Up next, a fact check of some of the president's claims about the economy, plus the two top Democrats in Congress, Senator Chuck Schumer and Congressman Hakeem Jekreys will both join us with their reactions to the president addressed and what comes next. Also ahead, we'll dig into reporting on the Justice Department, illegally withholding dozens of records from its Epstein files release.

What we're learning this morning about those missing notes and memos, and as we go to break, a quick look at the travelers forecast this morning from Ackyweather's Bernie Rayno. Bernie, how's it looking? Miko, we're tracking a little bit of rain and snow this morning. Boston, New York City, Philadelphia. There could be a slippery covering here and there, especially around the Boston area. Do watch for slippery travel, New York State, Thruway, Interstate 80 across western parts of Pennsylvania temperatures in the 40s this afternoon. It's dry across the southeast.

We need some rain, warm in Texas. Acuether says 84 degrees today should be a normal travel day. Finally, as we dig out from the blizzard, a few minor delays this morning with the rain and snow, Boston, New York City, and Philadelphia. To help you make the best decisions and be more in the note, download the Acuether up today. Inflation is plummeting. Incomes are rising fast. The roaring economy is roaring like never before. Gasoline, which reached a peak of over $6 a gallon in some states.

Under my predecessor, it was quite honestly a disaster. It is now below $2.30 a gallon in most states. And in some places, $1.99 a gallon. And when I visited the great state of Iowa just a few weeks ago, I even saw $1.85 a gallon for gasoline. In 12 months, I secured commitments for more than $18 trillion pouring in from all over the globe. The price of eggs is down 60%. Madam Secretary, thank you.

The cost of chicken, butter, fruit, hotels, automobiles, rent is lower today than when I took office by a lot. and even beef, which was very high, is starting to come down significantly. Just hold on a little while. We're getting it down. And soon you will see numbers that few people would think were possible to achieve just a short time ago.

A lot to sift through there. As the Speaker of the House, nodded along. We'll correct some of the information you just heard there. Real GDP growth in 2025 was down to 2.2% in 2020. the last year of Joe Biden's presidency, U.S. gross domestic product grew 2.8%. The president also claimed there to have brought in $18 trillion in investment. As Morning Joe Economic analyst, Steve Ratner has pointed out time and time again on this show, the White House website itself cited only $9.6 trillion, and even that is an exaggeration relying on pledges made from

countries that may never materialize. As for gas prices, in no state yesterday. was the average below 230 a gallon. The nationwide average is 294 a gallon. Daniel Dale of CNN points out only the tiniest fraction of stations across the country have gas prices anywhere near what the president claims. While the average price of some grocery items like eggs and bread have come down, others spiking the cost of beef, notably, that has risen significantly. The president also touting a retirement savings plan, but he actually was referring to the savers match program, a piece of bipartisan legislation signed by President Biden. One more item not related to the economy. The president claimed the man accused of killing a woman

on a train in Charlotte last year was in the country because of open border policy. Suspect, though, actually was born in Charlotte. So Jonathan Lemire, in a speech that is two hours long, those are just four or five facts checks, as Joe said at the top of the show, we could spend all four of our hours doing that. But interesting that the president trying so hard to lean in to the economy, which is a real weakness for him right now. Yeah, no question. And I'm continually struck by just how there's such a disconnect with what he says and what most Americans are feeling and therefore telling pollsters. As you say rightly, Willie, I mean, he's really underwater on the economy right now, which in 2024, that was sort of his central campaign pledge

was to get prices down, to battle inflation. You know, he always paints a rosy picture of the economy in his first term, and it was pretty good. Nowhere near as good, as he says, but it was pretty good, and he did a good job selling it. So Americans had this sort of nostalgia for it pre-COVID. You know, and now he's not delivering what he promised. And that fact check was good.

He also went through, he ticked through a couple things where prices have dropped. It's true hotel rooms have gone down slightly. Most of the other things he mentioned haven't. They've been slight increases or stayed flat. And, you know, President Trump in his pre-politics life and certainly here in office, as he knows the power of repetition. He knows the power of saying, same thing, over and over and over against. We're trying to assert his own reality, convincing others and maybe even himself, what he's saying is true, even when it's not. And Joe, that was last night that this felt like a rally speech.

This felt like something he would say at any other time. You know, he said it maybe a little louder with a more, you know, grander backdrop at the state of the union. but it's simply not true, and Americans know that. And outside of perhaps his hardcore base, you know, who will believe anything he says, most Americans know the economy is not booming, like he says, prices are still high, they're still hurting. Well, you know, you're talking about he's always done this. It reminds me at the beginning of morning, Joe, you know, when the apprentice was out,

he would fax to us, or I think it was faxes, he would fax to us. So here are the ratings for last week. apprentice, number one again. And he would circle it. And it would be like number 18 or 19. And it sit there and I'd like, I don't understand. Mika, can you? What?

I don't understand. And we'd keep going back and forth. And pretty soon we just figured out. No matter what it was, it facts it say, Brentis, number one again. Well, you have the same thing that's happening here, except we're talking about the future of this country. And look at the economy.

I mean, the economy grew at a faster clip under Joe Biden, I think all four years than it did last year. I grew at 2.2 percent. And mind you, there are a lot of countries who would gladly have an economy that grows at 2.2 percent, though I will say our stock market lagged behind most stock markets worldwide. But, you know, David French, I've been to quite a few of these things. And I will say that if a president got up and just lied through his teeth, I wouldn't be sitting there clapping like Mike Johnson and like the other Republicans. This goes back to our tribe. Like, how do they clap?

I mean, yes, we can talk about the demigragory. That is absolutely shameful. We can talk about all the things that are absolutely shameful. But here we have just simple facts. When Donald Trump says the price of beef is going up and they are going down and we know it skyrocketing going up and they applaud, that's pretty much a lie. They're lying to their constituents. They're lying to America when Donald Trump talks about these other issues, when he talks about inflation and oh, we inherited 9% inflation from Joe Biden and I brought it down. That's a lie.

I even saw Stephen Moore going out and tweeting something. Again, a member of, you know, the old tribe who I used to work with on balancing the budget and cutting taxes. But you go through on the economy lie after lie after lie after lie after lie. Donald Trump says that that's what he does, right? That's what he does. So the question is not what he does. It's the reaction by Republicans' reaction of our former. tribes members and they sit there and they jump up and they applaud for things they, I'll tell you what,

in all my years there, I did not stand unless I wanted to stand. And if somebody was lying, if, you know, a Republican president was lying, I would cross my arms and I would grimace and I would stay seated. These people don't do it. Joe, you're really hitting on something important here because from the beginning, from the beginning of this Trump phenomenon, you've had Trump and Trump is Trump. It was the same kind of speech he's been giving forever and ever. But what gives him power is the love that the people have for him. That's what gives him his power. And the thing that was so telling is it's not just this applause. It's also this, it looks like delight, actual delight that they take when he says some of

these things, and especially when he engages in these very personal attacks from that podium. So it's gone from, and we've said this a thousand times, people saying, I'm voting for Trump in spite of all of that. I don't like all of that, but I like other things. To the reality is now a lot of Trump's core base and right there in that chamber was, you know, were the representatives of Trump's core base, that Trump's core base loves him because of all of this. But, you know, I think the American people are getting tired of it again. They got tired of it before. I think they're getting tired of it again, perhaps a little bit earlier.

And you cannot lie your way out of people's experiences. They're going to still believe their own experiences and believe their own eyes, more they're going to believe what a president says in a speech. And the backdrop of these moments that we're looking at right now was the story that broke late yesterday about a batch of Epstein files that were. not released by the DOJ, apparently withheld, that claim the president was involved in some sort of assault of a minor. So that was swirling around as the president was on stage in the hall of the house, getting clapped at by scared Republicans. So Ed Luce, you have a piece

that talks about Donald Trump's state of mind being a global risk. Explain. So I think as we've just been discussing, we're all very aware of his serial lying, his sort of compulsive lying, which in itself is not a sort of 25th Amendment thing. It doesn't prove you're irrational. But others encouraging you to believe your lies. Now that's a whole different level of seriousness. And we saw with all those repeated standing ovations, that that is what the GOP as a whole is doing. Trump always chickens out, which is a phrase, an acronym coined by a colleague of mine, works when he understands the risks involved. So if he understands that, you know, China has a bigger bazooka, it can shut off rare earths. He will then climb down because he's got good information. My concern is that with the sycophants, the sort of cabinet of people,

Yongyang sycophants that he's got around him, including Pete Hegsseth as defense secretary, that as we are staring in the face of a possible Middle Eastern War of Choice, that Trump is not being given the full facts. Now, that's his fault for selecting people who tell him what he wants to hear, not what he wants to know. But this could lead to a very, very consequential decision that could harm him, first of all. So I think my piece, although it might be seen as hostile, is actually a very helpful piece, which is you need truth tellers around you. Who are these truth tellers?

Where are they? Because people who serve a president need to give an honest appraisal of the options in front of him. I don't think he's getting right. And therefore, I don't think Trump is being served. No, it's not normal what we saw last night. Not being. Not being served. He needs good people around him. He needs a good person at the DHS, not somebody who lies repeatedly, not somebody that goes from scandal to scandal to scandal to scandal. He just needs good people around him. The job is too big for any one person, and it's too big for Donald Trump. And if he doesn't believe it, he needs to look at his approval ratings. And it's the same thing with, it's the same thing whether you're talking about Iran, if you're talking about,

domestic issues, he needs people around him to help him pass legislation that will give him a lasting legacy. U.S. National Editor at Financial Times, Edluse, thank you so much. His new piece is online right now. An opinion columnist for the New York Times, David French. Thank you as well. And coming up on Morning Joe, the latest on the ongoing saga surrounding the Epstein files, as we just mentioned, we'll show you the brand new reporting from MS now regarding missing

documents and how they include allegations against President Trump. Morning Joe, we'll be right back. With respect to Epstein, our investigations led to where we're making these documents public, and we're seeing accountability. We're seeing some of the most powerful people in America and in Britain and in other countries that are having to resign their positions. They're leaving their offices in shame. I think as more transparency happens and more people see what happens, and we can answer some questions. I think you're going to see more accountability in the, in the Epstein theft. That is the Republican chair of the Oversight Committee, Congressman James Comer,

taking credit for the release of the Epstein files, despite continued resistance on Capitol Hill and from the White House to get everything out in the open. We are learning new details this morning about documents missing from the Epstein files, including interviews with a woman who leveled accusations against Donald Trump. MS now has confirmed. the Department of Justice is withholding notes and memos from several FBI interviews with a woman who previously accused the president of physical and sexual abuse when she was a minor. NPR reports more than 50 pages of documents related to the allegation are missing from the DOJ's

public database of Epstein files. As we have long noted here, being included in the files does not necessarily confirm any illegal activity and President Trump has denied any wrongdoing. Joining us now, MS Now, senior legal reporter, former litigator Lisa Rubin, also former U.S. Senator and MS Now political analyst Claire McCaskill. Good morning to you both. So Lisa, you've been reporting on this story intensely on the last 24 hours. If you can just kind of bring us up to speed about how this was discovered and what it appears is missing from the publicly released Epstein files. Well, let's start, Willie, with where this story starts, which is in some 2025 FBI internal documents where the accusation against President Trump was aired.

And specifically, an accusation that when the alleged victim was 13 to 14 years old, she was physically and sexually assaulted by President Trump. But we didn't know where that allegation came from. Obviously, the victim's name is redacted in an FBI PowerPoint presentation as well as a spreadsheet. What we then learned through an independent journalist named Roger Sullenberger was that this woman also had come to the FBI's attention many years prior when she first made an allegation also against Jeffrey Epstein and that she was interviewed by the FBI during that period of time. We have since, through a human source, confirmed that the woman who is named in those 2025 FBI documents as having made the allegation against President Trump is that same woman who in 2019, accused Jeffrey Epstein of sexually assaulting her also when she was 13 to 14 years old when Epstein rented a vacation home near her home. She says she was hired as a babysitter.

She went to a home and discovered a man named Jeff with no wife and no children for her to babysit, but that he repeatedly sexually assaulted her over a series of encounters. And I want to say one other thing, and that's about the missing documents. That woman has a unique numerical identifier on some of these documents. There is an index, the Department of Justice, produced as part of the Epstein files, that correlates to something given to Glenn Maxwell during her criminal trial. It's called a 3,500 index. 3,500 is the statute that relates to the production of prior witness statements in a criminal trial. Using that unique numerical identifier, we then searched for each of the 15 documents that is apparently attributed to this woman and prior statements made on her behalf.

And we found seven of them, as did NPR, as did Roger Salenberger, as opposed to all 15. And among the things that are missing are handwritten notes from and memoranda that were ultimately written by the FBI with respect to three additional interviews that the woman gave to the FBI in the summer of 2019. We don't know that that is where she erred her allegation against Donald Trump, but we do know that in the one interview for which we do have a memo, she didn't say that Donald Trump assaulted her. She noted that she had met him once without any further elaboration. She also showed the FBI a picture of Jeffrey Epstein that was sent to her when a friend of hers in whom she

had confided as a child put two and two together and said, is this the guy? Is this your Jeff? And she said, yes, but she was reluctant to show the FBI agents that photo. Why? Because as the FBI agents wrote in the memo, it was a widely publicized photo of Epstein and Trump together, her lawyer explaining that she wanted to crop the photo before she showed it to the FBI due to fear of retaliation and not wanting to incriminate someone else. So the big outstanding mystery, Willie, is we know this is the same woman who made that allegation against Trump, but we don't know when and how into whom she made that allegation against Trump. We expect that we would find it in the memoranda or handwritten notes or both of these three outstanding interviews. And according to NPR and now MS now reporting

the allegation was about an incident in 1983 when this woman, now woman, was 13 years old. 13 puts her in about eighth grade. What is the possible explanation right now that you and NPR have presented to the Department of Justice 53 pages or so of these missing documents, missing interview notes? How are they explaining that? They're not really. Willie, what they've said in a statement is that no documents, were deleted. And they have insisted that to the extent that documents were withheld under the

Epstein Files Transparency Act, there were sort of a series of rationales for them. They could have been withheld out of respect for victim privacy. They could have been withheld because they reflect privileges or they could have been withheld really, I think for no other reason. I've been trying to like rack my brain for the reasons that they articulated in that statement. But here's the problem. Nobody is saying that they were deleted. That's not the accusation. I think the assertion that we in NPR are making is that they were never produced in the first place and inexplicably. And I want to harp on the privilege point for a second. The Department of Justice did not have the right under the Epstein Files Transparency Act to withhold things on grounds of privilege.

That's not one of the grounds for withholding a redaction recognized in the act. Nonetheless, the department took upon themselves the right to withhold things for privilege. That's something that Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said they were doing when he, he first announced this drop of almost three million pages. It's unclear to me at best and very dubious at worst why any interview memoranda or notes taken by the FBI of an interview of an alleged victim would ever be privileged. It's like law school 101 that if I'm the FBI or the Department of Justice on one side of the table and I've got an alleged victim on the other, nothing that we are exchanging

between and among us is privileged. maybe there's an aside from my lawyer as the alleged victim that I have to redact. But there's nothing about that memo that is so privileged that it would justify withholding it in its entirety. So we don't have an adequate explanation right now from the Department of Justice. The one other thing I want to mention is that this spreadsheet that I was referring to earlier, I suspect that there are similar problems with respect to other witness statements. That spreadsheet is 63 pages long, it references more than 540 witnesses that were interviewed in the course of the Epstein and Maxwell investigations. You think that if we took a deeper dive that we might discover

that other important, crucial witnesses have statements missing, I'm guessing that we will. So, Claire, this seems like a really big deal. We obviously don't know about the specific allegations towards Donald Trump. So let's set that aside. But the fact that there are so much information, these documents missing. Democrats, as you might imagine, are seizing upon this. Congressman Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, says that the DOJ, quote, appears to have illegally withheld Trump-related interviews, other Democrats, saying they're pressing the case as well.

And at minimum, right, as a political story, this is just going to further the questions. What are they hiding? Why has every step of the way has DOJ tried to run, seemingly tried to run interference for Donald Trump, there's the legal matter, but there's also a political one. None of it seems good for the White House. Yeah, and we've got a DOJ now that is obviously ethically challenged in terms of how they're handling court orders and the things they're saying in court. We now know that they're also incompetent in terms of a cover-up because the information

that are in the documents that Lisa just ran through, it is obvious that three of the four memos around four interviews they had. And by the way, law enforcement typically doesn't interview someone four times a potential witness unless they believe it is worth following up that there is something there they need to try to uncover. So the idea that they've left these three memos on the side of the road and think nobody's going to notice is so incompetent. And Todd Blanche gave three reasons. Lisa just went through them that the documents would not be there. One, that they're duplicative. Well, that must be what they're going to hang their hat on, that since they gave one, the other three are duplicative. But there's no way that there's not something in there about Donald Trump.

Two, that there's privilege, absolutely ludicrous. Any one-year law student would know, that's a ludicrous assertion, or that there's an ongoing investigation. And he's already said from a podium that there's no more investigation going on. And then finally, I think it's important to remember he said they've released all they're going to release. So this is going to continue to be a hole they keep digging for themselves, making it worse and worse and worse. And this is a blockbuster discovery that they're going to have to explain, if not to the American people now, to a court a lot later. And it's hard for DOJ to claim that they're an impartial arbiter here when literally DOJ headquarters in Washington, D.C., has a giant banner of President Trump's face hanging on it, like other government buildings in D.C. that is true. Claire, before you go,

give us some of your takeaways from last night's State of the Union. Well, you know, there was so many, first of all, it was a terrible speech. If that was a high school speech final, you know, I'm being generous when I say D plus. Very boring. Can't imagine there isn't a huge drop-off

of people that were watching at the beginning and just said I've had enough. But the thing that struck me maybe the most was how lack, his lack of self-reveve, awareness on some of the things he talked about. And the one that really stuck with me was him calling members of Congress corrupt. When he started going into the Stock Act and all of that, and does he not realize we all know what his family is doing right now? They're making billions of dollars off crypto and all of the other schemes they have going. This is the largest corrupt

grift in American history. And he's standing up there lecturing the Democrats about the Stock Act. It was, you know, such unbelievable nerve this guy has. I was just angry the whole time that I had to watch it. All right. Former U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill, thank you very much for coming on again. MSN. Now senior legal reporter Lisa Rubin. Thank you as well.