The Current - Pressure on the White House to release full Epstein files

Episode Date: November 13, 2025

House Democrats released emails from the convicted sex offender, shining a new light onto the relationship he had with President Donald Trump. The BBC’s North America Correspondent and co-host of the Americast podcast Anthony Zurcher joins Matt Galloway to talk about what’s in the emails and the pressure building on the White House to release the full Epstein files

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Join us. Because kids these days, we need you more than ever. Donate at GeoFoundation.com. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. As you've been hearing in the news, the longest government shutdown in U.S. history has ended. But before that vote had even begun, House Democrats were making news with three newly obtained emails sent by the convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein. The Democrats released those emails.

The emails mentioned U.S. President Donald Trump by name. Critics say they shine a new light on what we know about the relationship between these two men. The White House says the emails create a fake narrative. There are no coincidences in Washington, D.C., and it is not a coincidence that the Democrats leaked these emails to the fake news this morning, ahead of Republicans reopening the government. This is another distraction campaign. Anthony Zerker is the BBC's North America correspondent, co-host of the AmeriCast podcast. Anthony, good morning. Good to be here.

What do these emails say, and do they change what we know about President Trump and Jeffrey Epstein's relationship? Well, they suggest that Donald Trump's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein may be closer than the president's likes to admit, although you have to also understand. These are emails from Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender who is no longer alive, committed suicide while serving a prison sentence. So you're only getting his perspective on that. But Jeffrey Epstein's perspective is that he was fairly close to Donald Trump in one email to Jolane Maxwell, his assistant, who is also serving a prison sentence in 2011 talking about Donald Trump. Epstein said, I want you to realize that the dog that hasn't barked is Trump, Virginia, that's Virginia Joufrey, one of the victims of sex trafficking, spent hours at my house with him. Trump has never once been mentioned, and Maxwell responded. I have been thinking about that.

So that is an indication that Epstein seemed to think that it was interesting that Trump wasn't getting as much attention. Although I'll also point out that the White House has denied that there's any sort of impropriety there and points out also that Virginia was, was, was, had publicly stated that she, she and her interactions with Donald Trump were all above the board and perfectly, perfectly friendly. There's another email from 2019 that Jeffrey Epstein sentence. He writes that Donald Trump, in his words, of course he knew about the girls, as he asked Jelaine to stop, referring to, again, Jolene Maxwell. What do we take from that? Well, that gets that. I guess there's two ways of looking at that, right? The first way would be that Trump knew about the girls.

That means he knew about the sex trafficking and all of the criminal offenses around Epstein. There's no guarantee that that is. what was meant that by that. There's also Donald Trump has publicly stated that the reason for the falling out between he and Epstein was that Epstein and Maxwell were hiring women employees away from Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort that's in Palm Beach where Epstein also lived. He was frustrated by that. He didn't like the fact that Epstein was taking these women, these girls, away from his spa and and hiring them for himself. And so that is what Trump is publicly now.

So if you look at it that way, that also is a possible explanation. But again, all of this casts questions about what their relation was, what Donald Trump knew, and what kind of history Trump and Epstein had. The sense from some people is also, and you've hinted at this, that Jeffrey Epstein has believed that he had some information that could do damage to, Donald Trump. How should we interpret that? Again, to your point, he's a convicted sex offender. He died by suicide. He can't be asked these questions. But is there some sort of the sense of some sort of other motive going on here? There's some interesting emails between Jeffrey Epstein and Michael Wolfe, the author who has written books about Donald Trump, very prominent, who was also considering a book about Jeffrey Epstein and had done multiple interviews with Jeffrey Epstein. And

And actually, that relationship appears to have been much closer than was publicly acknowledged as well. And Michael Wolfe giving Jeffrey Epstein essentially PR and advice on handling the media. And there was one point where Michael Wolfe in October of 2016 tells Epstein, this is when Trump was struggling his presidential campaign. He was mired in his own sexual allegations, sexual impropriety allegations. He tells Epstein, there's an opportunity to come forward this week. We could talk about Trump in such a way that could garner you great sympathy and help finish him. Interested? Epstein never did an interview, but time and time again in these emails, you see Epstein talking about his connections to Trump, responding to prominent individuals who are trying to get information about Trump from him because they believe Epstein and Trump have a close relationship. And then Epstein musing about how he is the person who actually has the damaging information on Donald Trump.

and he is the one who could ultimately sink Donald Trump, although no specifics in here, no details aside from flippant remarks every so often about Donald Trump being at his house and the fact that he has pictures of Donald Trump with bikini-clad women in his kitchen. No evidence of that photo, however, surfaced in these emails.

Donald Trump said that the documents released by Democrats were, in his words, to deflect from the massive failures, in particular their most recent one, the shutdown in all caps. What do you make of how the White House has responded to these emails? Well, I think, one, Democrats clearly did release these emails, selections of these emails today ahead of time to draw attention to Donald Trump and put the spotlight on him in a way that that would get them political advantage.

And the Republican response was to release tens of thousands of pages of emails and broaden kind of the media's focus, not just on to Trump, but onto all these prominent individuals that Epstein was connected with. Now, whether it served as an effective distraction from reopening the government or if this was going to be a good news day for Donald Trump because the government was reopening, I mean, that gets to a democratic strategy. It's certainly possible, but not necessarily the only explanation. Another possible explanation is that with the government reopening, the wheels are being set in motion for a vote in the House of Representatives within the next month, mandating a release of all of the Justice Department's Epstein files. And so this was a way for Democrats to once again put Epstein in the spotlight ahead of that process because the White House and Republicans have fought tooth and nail to keep all of these files from being disclosed. They're pressured Republicans in the House of Representatives not to support this vote on disclosure. It appears

it's going to go ahead. However, they've got the sufficient support within Congress. But it is interesting to see how Democrats are able to capitalize on the attention and the media and public, which is fascinating by the story, and revolced by the story, is moving along to continue to look for more information from it. How should we understand the fact that, I mean, there are influencers within the MAGA coalition who have long pushed for the release of the so-called Epstein files. And now, as you said, the White House and those within senior leadership positions in the White House are pumping the breaks very hard to try to prevent that from happening.

Yeah, it is, it's an interesting dynamic because Donald Trump wasn't leading the way, banging the drums, and releasing these, although he is a very, very finely tuned sense of where his base is. And he said things during the campaign last year that led his supporters to believe that he wanted all of these files released as well. He encouraged that, that kind of a viewpoint. And this concern about sex trafficking and focus on Epstein among conservatives goes back, years and some very prominent individuals who are also prominent advocates of Donald Trump's

MAGA, Make America Great Again, conservative movement have been at the forefront of this. So when we saw earlier this year, Donald Trump and his Justice Department say that there's nothing more to this story. There is no secret client list that shows who Epstein was pointing his sex trafficking circle towards the benefit of. I think there was considerable anger on the right in the sense of betrayal among some that Donald Trump wasn't going along with this. And maybe it wasn't anger that necessarily caused a divide with them and Donald Trump. But it was making them think a little bit more about where Donald Trump's administration was going and what the people in it were doing. So you see people like Marjorie Taylor Green, congresswoman from Georgia, outspoken supporter Donald Trump, vote to have this vote or signed to have this vote on release the Epstein files in the House of

representatives and actually start becoming more critical of Donald Trump across the board. It's an interesting dynamic that's playing out within the MAGA movement. What do we know about this meeting that was held in the situation room of the White House yesterday with another congresswoman who backed the petition for the release of the files? Yeah, Lauren Boberg, who is a Republican congresswoman from Colorado. She's one of the four Republicans in the House of Representatives who signed this discharge petition to force a vote along with all of the Democrats. And like I said, the White House had been pressuring, trying to stop this, trying to convince Republicans not to support this movement and to not make public calls for more investigation to Epstein.

And Bobert was one of the ones who was brought into the White House yesterday prior to the filing of this petition. And it appears that the White House was trying to get her to take her name off it because all it would take is one Republican backing down from that, one of those four Republicans backing down in order to keep the petition. from having sufficient signatures. So I think it is evidence of this kind of across-the-board pressure campaign the White House was doing, along with Donald Trump taking to truth social and saying only stupid Republicans would support focusing on Epstein when they should be focusing on reopening the government and Democrats and that this was all a big distraction that Republicans, some Republicans were getting essentially suckered into supporting.

Donald Trump has done things that for any normal politician would have torpedoed their careers. You would never hear from them again. Is this likely to stick to him? You know, you say that. And yes, Donald Trump has been in the public eye for 10 years, and his road to powers lined with people say that this was the last straw that would finally break him or this is the thing that will finally bring him down and none of it has. It is clear at this point that the Epstein story is not going away. It is characterized by lulls and then flurries of activities with new revelations that incrementally move the story along. And this has happened time and time again. It happened again yesterday. I'm sure it will happen

again sometime in the future as more these documents come out. It is something that is bedeviling Donald Trump and serving as a very real distraction to what he's trying to do. And it hits, as you mentioned, it hits within his own supporters. It divides the supporters. So it is a challenge that he is going to have to be grappling with for some time. And it does It doesn't seem like this is one that he can just shrug off because the closer he gets to the end of his presidential term, the more people start thinking about life after Donald Trump. And naturally, that's how his power wanes as well. Just the last point on this. I mean, there's speculation that Trump could pardon Gilae Maxwell.

She's already been moved to a cushier prison, if I can put it that way. What is this really about, do you think? And Jolene Maxwell now has explicitly called for clemency from Donald Trump to release her from prison. It's, you know, Donald Trump has, has been very liberal with his use of the pardon power, supporters, people who said were unjustly prosecuted. So clearly Maxwell is trying to make the case that she as well was unjustly prosecuted. But it, you know, I think a lot of people within Trump's movement would be furious if that were to be the case because they see Maxwell as a sexual predator as instrumental to Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking ring. And if Donald Trump stepped in and waved his pardon pen and, and then. let her out of prison. I think that would throw fuel onto the fire, whether it would be the thing that breaks the camel's back, once again, it's difficult to say. But there's going to be instances that pardon if Donald Trump ultimately supports the release of the files of Congress passes this motion to mandate file releases. If he vetoes that, if he signs it, I mean, there are going to

be instances where there is an incredible amount of attention to Donald Trump and his role in this and what he does to either get the information out or to try to bury it. Thank you very much for this. My pleasure. Anthony Zerker is the BBC's North America correspondent, co-host of the BBC's AmeriCast podcast. This has been the current podcast. You can hear our show Monday to Friday on CBC Radio 1

at 8.30 a.m. at all time zones. You can also listen online at cbc.ca.ca slash the current or on the CBC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. For more CBC podcast, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.