The Daily Beast Podcast - How Creepy Epstein Tried to Keep His Crimes Secret

Episode Date: July 17, 2025

Tina Brown joins Daily Beast Executive Editor Hugh Dougherty to revisit the scandal she helped break wide open—Jeffrey Epstein—and how it now threatens to fracture MAGA from within. Brown, co-founder of The Daily Beast and former editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, reflects on commissioning the explosive 2010 Epstein exposé that first named names like Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew, and Larry Summers. She recalls Epstein’s chilling intimidation tactics—including showing up uninvited to her office—and explains how he leveraged social status, political donations, and kompromat to shield himself for decades. Brown also reveals that Ghislaine Maxwell was more socially visible than Epstein in the 1990s and how her husband exposed Robert Maxwell as a crooked businessman years earlier. As new revelations emerge—including that an FBI source warned Epstein “would never make it to trial”—Brown unpacks why this scandal still haunts Trump, whose bond with Epstein spanned 15 years. She describes how Trump’s recent meltdown on Truth Social, dismissing his base as “weak” and “stupid,” signals a dangerous rupture. And with MAGA obsessed with pedophilia conspiracies, Brown warns: this may be the one scandal Trump can’t shake—because for once, his base might not let him. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I asked him what he thought about the Epstein arrest and he said, Jeffrey Epstein will never make you to trial. There are towels in there. Welcome to the Daily Beast podcast. I'm Hugh Docty, an executive editor of The Daily Beast. I'm sitting in for Joanna Coles, who is on a well-deserved vacation. She is not on vacation, however, from reading your comments, and she's been texting to say just how well-informed, how engaged, and how many there are. Thank you to everybody who has commented.

We are going to have so much for people to comment on today because we are delighted to welcome Tina Brown. Tina is, of course, legendary journalist, a brilliant magazine editor, Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker, a best-selling author, and for us at The Daily Beast, the visionary co-founder with Barry Diller of our site. She is now the hottest author on Substack.

Her diary, Fresh Hell, which is out just about every week, sometimes more often, is absolute must read. And that is the reason why she is joining us today. Tina is an absolute honour to have you at The Daily Beast. Oh, it's fun for me to be back. Welcome back to this building. We still, we live in your vision. You created this site and that is exactly what I want to get into with you.

And it thrives and roars. It really does. The thing that I want to talk about is one of the greatest roars of the Daily Beast, which was a groundbreaking piece of journalism that was produced under your watch. But the reason that I mentioned fresh hell, your substack, is because you dropped an incredible set of revelations about Jeffrey Epstein, the man of the moment, the scandal of the century, a story that you continue to cover. And I want to talk about those. I want to talk about what must be the most chilling encounter that I have read about with Jeffrey Epstein, which happened right in this building where we are sitting. Yeah, it was.

It was a step. And there's just, there's so much to get into. This is an amazing opportunity to talk about Epstein, about Trump and about MAGA. I will just say to everybody, subscribe to fresh hell. It is absolutely unmissable. Obviously, subscribe to the Daily Beast as well. But, Tina, thank you for joining. Thank you for the comments.

Just to set this up, I'm going to go back in time. 1980s and 1990s, you were at the centre of the New York social scene. You were covering it. You were editing First Vanity Fair and The New Yorker. Was Geoffrey Epstein a name on your radar? You know, he really wasn't much. I mean, I had met Jeffrey Epstein. It is true because I used to attend the Clinton Global Initiative every year in September.

It happened at the time of the UN. and there was always a big opening night reception. I met at Jeffrey Epstein there because actually he was one of the first donors to CGI. So he always was there kind of working in the room. And I, you know, he's just, he was like this cold-eyed financier kind of working the crowd. Not anybody that was kind of particularly memorable to me. I do remember him as being a very, it was cold. There's a cold about his eyes.

But that's all I knew. I never really sat and chatting with him much. And whether whispers was it where there? whispers. I mean, at that time, Jeffrey Epstein, he was just a financial coffee society guy. Gilein Maxwell was a far more sort of prominent social figure. I knew her, not well either, but, you know, being a Brit and, you know, my husband had exposed her father, you know, Robert Maxwell when he was editor at the Sunday Times, he did this excoriating piece proving her father was a crook. And so I sort of, you know, I didn't, therefore, you know, you know,

eagerly chum up with Gilles, Maxwell, because I'm sure that, certainly know that Harry was a kind of, you know, bet noir to that family. But, you know, she was a lively sort of girl about town woman who you saw at book parties and literary functions and, you know, black tie evening sometimes. So I did know her a bit. But the interesting thing was she was never with Epstein. So it wasn't as if she came in with Epstein. She didn't. She never came anywhere with Epstein at that time. So, I mean, I didn't even know she had this deep relationship with him because I never saw him with her. And the other person on the scene, of course, or his now on the scene is Donald Trump. Indeed. Indeed. And I certainly did know him. Yes, indeed. I was, I sat next to him at a first at a dinner that Ivana, a lunch that Ivana gave with Anne Getty at the time.

And Trump was sitting. There was somebody quite boring next to me and somebody quite boring next to him. So he and I were sort of talking to each other over our lunch partners. and he was, I thought, hilarious, you know, bravado sort of swashbuckling New York character. You know, he said, oh, you know, Ivana made me go to the opera last night, you know, four hours, like Pavarotti, who cares? You know, it was like it was like that and I thought he was quite amusing. And we covered him, you know, subsequently a lot until he started to unravel his business and his divorce and then he did not like what we said about him. But, yeah, I knew him too. So I'm going to fast forward to 2010 because that was the year that you commissioned Conchita Sarnoff to investigate Jeffrey Epstein.

And we are going to put links to those stories in the show notes because they can still be read. They are absolutely extraordinary pieces of journalism. They are full of details and names that continue to resonate to this day. But can you just unpack the backstory? What brought this to? Well, it's very interesting because. I didn't know Conchita Sarnoff before. I'd been at the Beast at that point, you know, a couple of years.

I didn't know Contrida Sanoff at that point, but I was called by somebody we both knew who said that because I used to do the women in the world's summits, which were about empowering women who, many of whom had been sort of sexually trafficked or, you know, no education, etc. He thought that I would respond well to a story that he knew someone who'd written. who is a sex, was a trafficking activist, a sex trafficking activist, Comjita Sarnoff.

And she'd stumbled on this story and he thought that I should see it because he thought it was a big story and others wouldn't have the courage to publish it. And he thought that we would because we'd shown a commitment to women who had been, you know, abused. That's really why I think she made her way to me. And she came to see me and told me this extraordinary story about how she had been in the course of her sex trafficking investigations. nothing to do with journalists about activism. She had been interviewing a child sex, Mexican child sex trafficker in the Palm Beach Stockade. And during the course of the interview, he told her that a great many of these very underage

girls were trafficked to rich men, American men, in Palm Beach. And she was really taken aback because she had thought that the whole kind of route of these girls was like, you know, cartel members, etc. She didn't expect to hear that wealthy, you know, alist kind of Palm Beach people were having girls delivered to them. So she decided, and then she remembered a small item saying that Jeffrey Epstein had been arrested, and she actually did know Jeffrey Epstein, who'd asked her out for a date in New York, so the name resonated. So she decided to go to the Palm Beach police and ask if she could look at the files.

And when she looked at the files on the case, she was completely, I mean, her hair was on fire, because it turned out, Epstein had received a 13-month sentence for soliciting prostitution with two minors. but actually in the files it showed that he had there were multiple girls I think it was two dozen girls who had been who had lodged complaints about him his activities and she couldn't understand how this had got in a bargain down to such a tiny sentence of 13 months of you know where he he was able to it was a work release program it wasn't even actually behind bars that's when she thought we've got a story here and she realized she found that he'd made this sweetheart deal with the uh the attorney general there. And then the question was why. And so what the story really became was how this man, because of his contacts, his political donors, who he gave a huge amount of money, of course, to politicians, his contacts, his wealth, his pressure, you know, with his lawyers,

his willingness to humiliate and sort of, you know, totally denigrate the young girls who'd accused him had actually got him to a. a place where he could just get out with a slap on the wrist. So that was our story, really. And it was an outrageous story, in my view. You know, I mean, I think I was totally shocked. I think of someone who was obviously such a predatory pedophile could have such a small sentence. And he was back in society. I mean, that's what I began to take notice of him again. And, you know, he wasn't totally prominent. It's not like he was in the papers every day, but Jeffrey Epstein was back on the scene. You mean, you could see that. So that's what, of course, made it

very interesting to me. And so we published, I think it was a six-part series by Conchita, that was fantastic journalism. I just want to, I thought I should highlight the original headline, Jeffrey Epstein, billionaire pedophile, goes free. And in this piece, Conchita, who I had the privilege to speak to yesterday, and who remains engaged in this story, she highlighted some of the names that still resonate to this day, Prince Andrew. The connections to Bill Clinton, Ehud Barak, who was a former Israeli Prime Minister, Bill Richardson, who was a former New Mexico governor, who now the late Bill Richardson, and Larry Summers, who at the time was described as a former Treasury Secretary,

went on to run Harvard, still a prominent economist. When you saw those names, what was your feeling? Well, I was just stunned. You know, I just thought, it's a web here that we have here. It's something much bigger than I had realized. So we published the first piece, and that's when I first got a phone call. First of all, I got a call from Epstein's lawyer and making sort of noises about suing and I kind of we ignored that. Then I got a call from Epstein himself.

You know, now he's my best friend having met him, you know, twice or something at the CGI. You had never really spoken to him. No, I mean, no, no. He knew who I was. I knew who he was. But yeah, no. So he wasn't a friend. And he kind of was very sort of on the phone.

It was like, I just want to say, you know, you should be aware that Contrida Sarnoff is a well-known nutcase. I mean, she's been spreading this nonsense about me. You know, it's totally a ridiculous. You should kill this story. So I thanked him. I said, well, thank you very much. If you've got a problem, you know, talk to the daily beast lawyer. End of story.

And then a couple of days later, I went out to lunch. And I came back from lunch into this very glass building that we're sitting into my, you know, glass office. And sitting in my own office in a chair in front of my desk was guess who? Jeffrey Epstein and I was stunned. I mean, I stood in front of the door just kind of aghast because my question is like, how did he get past security? Because we have a security desk downstairs who apprehended me today and took my picture and they were there in, you know, in force then.

Very hard to get past those guys. I don't think people ever do. So how he got through, I don't know. I mean, he is a masterclass or was a masterclass con man. So maybe he was just able always to kind of get what he wanted. But he came up and he'd come into my office and he'd obviously. he said to my assistant, you know, where is Tina Brown's office? And then he went inside in my room. So I stood by the door and I said to him, Jeffrey, you know, what are you doing here? He said,

just stop. And he looked at me with this kind of snake eyes cold. And it was menacing. It was a really menacing. And he pointed his finger and he said, just stop. And I said, Jeffrey, you know, we are continuing to do these pieces. If you have an issue, talk to a little, just stop. He said, there will be consequences if you don't stop. And then he just got up and he left my room. And it was a very chilling experience. I mean, it was scary, actually. But we barreled ahead.

Obviously, it meant we were extremely careful with the legal readings, you know, which were very careful. But, and I fully expected a sort of, you know, a 12-barrel kind of legal assault after this. But he went very quiet. and I think that he decided that at that time this was the early days of the beast. It was also a time when there was a less of a sense of like a story going viral, you know. And I think that he decided, you know what, I'm going to wait it out, see how bad it gets. If I start to fan the flames, it might get worse. Let's see whether we can just kind of ride it out.

And he swiftly followed up with a whole kind of philanthropic charm offensive where he was constantly being quoted as having given money to various foundations, etc. And I think that one of the points then was that, A, Jeffrey Epstein wasn't terribly well known at all. I mean, he wasn't really known to anyone except, you know, the kind of social in-crow, as it were. Secondly, it was pre-Me too. And in those days, you know, those kind of stories didn't quite get the same traction that they might do, they certainly did do later. And, of course, the story was then taken up by Julie Brown in Miami Herald. And she actually built on Kat Conti's story. but that was post me too.

So, you know, it had a far bigger impact then. But it was a very unsettling experience, and you could see what a menace he could be. And how, of course, he would overpower some young, you know, 15-year-old girl. You know, very easily he was so intimidating. So, you know, it was a – I look back on it, of course, with, you know, in a very different way than how I saw it at the time. interestingly, about six months after this, I got a phone call from the publicist Peggy Siegel.

And she said to me, Tina, I want you to come to a great dinner that we're having tonight. Prince Andrew's in town. And I thought you might want to come to this dinner because I know you know Prince Andrew. She said it's at Jeffrey Epstein's house. And the other guests, wait for it. Woody Allen and Charlie Rose. So I just, I was standing out there. And I don't know whether.

I don't think Michael heard it. But we had a writer called Lloyd Grove, who at the time was working for us, and he was in the next desk. A legendary daily media journalists. He's never forgotten it because I just kind of exploded into the phone. What the fuck is this? The pedophiles ball? I said, you know, how dare you like ask me to this? Because she obviously hadn't read our pieces.

I don't know what she said. Oh, I don't know what you're talking about. I mean, that's all old stuff. That's just nothing to do. She obviously, I mean, he was still perpetrating the mist that he was an inviteable human at that point. and people were still buying into it. I am happy to say I declined. And now, of course, that dinner has become almost like a sort of, you know,

were you one of the people who went to that faint minute? Because it was like such a, I mean, part of me wishes to God I have been there. Because, I mean, what a scene, frankly. This, I believe, was the dinner that was also attended by George Stephanopoulos and Katie Coor. Indeed. And both of them have expressed grave regret for that. Indeed. said that they had clearly no idea of the intention.

I believe George Stephanopoulos said that he was fascinated by the idea of meeting Prince Andrew and had no previous or experience of Epstein and no subsequent dealings. That irritated me even more because it also meant they hadn't read our six-part series in the Daily Beast, of which I was enormously proud. But you see, that is how Epstein worked, though. I mean, the hook was Prince Andrew. I mean, the fact is that George Stephanopoulos would not have gone to dinner at Epstein's house. but he always used these people. And in many ways, you know, it's interesting.

His whole game, you know, was to kind of use other names to catch the big, only the big whales that he was interested in. Because as we know, he really didn't have any clients. He only had about three clients, essentially. It didn't matter. The whole kind of charade of like knowing people

and being able to get anyone to come to his house was really all about creating the social theatre that would excite, he thought, and build credibility with the big whales that would then invest. So did you have any subsequent encounters with him? Was never another unwise invitation from... No, no.

There was no more. Well, no, indeed. I mean, Peggy backtracked. She had no idea. Then called me back and said, you're not because I was actually about to sit down and write the story up. And then I'm afraid I went out because she then called me. He said, oh, you won't write this, will you?

You won't write this? So, yeah, no, she... And then, of course, Peggy suffered a lot from the fact that she did continue to see Jeffrey and invited him to her screenings and so forth. I believe that Peggy Segal has said that she was never paid by Epstein or represented him directly, but that she helped him socially. Who knows? It kind of speaks to that appeal that you're talking about.

Listen, I mean, I think that to be in his web was to be, you know, at dinners with the likes of the people I just mentioned. So there were some people who dug that, you know. One of the, I was just talking, you mentioned Michael and that's Michael Daly, who is our senior correspondent, he's a legendary figure in The Daily Beast, amazingly distinguished journalist. And I was just talking to him, we were discussing the impact that Jeffrey Epstein has had on this web and the names of people that he has either brought down from public life, Prince Andrew.

He had a possibly terminal effect on Bill Gates' marriage. He's led to the disgrace of Jess Staley, who was a very senior and significant banker. And they've been suicides. too. I mean, there is a kind of terrible darkness around Jeffrey Epstein. I mean, there's been at least four suicides in the wake of Epstein. You know, two of the young girls died, you know, in their 30s. More recently, there was, of course, the suicide, which made quite a lot of news of Virginia Jewfrey, who was the girl, of course, who was trafficked by Epstein to Prince Andrew. And she committed suicide in Australia, age 41, having said she never would. So once again, it's like, did she commit

suicide. There's always this strange question mark around all these people around Epstein. And of course, there was another suicide of his major partner in crime who was, you know, Jean-Luc Brunel, who was the man, the French model agency owner, who really essentially was a kind of partner for an Epstein in finding girls and sending them to Epstein. You know, he was another real kind of underage shark. And he killed himself in a prison in Paris. Same way. He, not in bed sheets in his case. Well, one of the other really chilling and prescient revelations on your substack was what an FBI agent told Conchita in 2019. Absolutely.

Just seen 2019 in July, Jeffrey Epstein was arrested at Tita Burr Airport in New Jersey when he returned from Paris where he had been spending time. and it was, I was a working journalist, but at the time we were absolutely astonished to learn that this had happened. We had, many people, every outlet had covered Jeffrey Epstein extensively for the last few years, and this revelation came out entirely out of the blue. But Conchita told you something absolutely chilling. Well, Conchita and I sort of stayed in touch, and she remained like her dog with a bone, like every sort of great investigator.

She just remained outraged. Her outrage never went away anyway. So she texted me and she said, you know, I've just got, I must tell you something incredible. And I said, what's that? She said, I just heard was talking to one of my major FBI sources. And she's sourced up the wazoo in the FBI. She really is. She has incredible high echelon relationships in that, in the Justice Department.

And she said, he just said to me, I asked him what he thought about the Epstein arrest. and he said, Jeffrey Epstein will never make it to trial. There are towels in there. It's a chilling thing. I mean, I personally am of the persuasion that it was not suicide. I have always found it very hard to believe that it was because he was actually, you know, this was not long after his arrest. There was still some legal hope that he could be got out on bail.

In fact, he'd had a pretty positive meeting before he killed himself with his own lawyer telling him that he thought the child. of getting bail were, you know, getting out on bail were actually better. So he, you know, it was too early in, you know, in the moment for him to really, I think, you know, commit suicide. Not to mention all the multiple, you know, so-called coincidences of the two guards, you know, who were asleep outside, is apparently outside the cell. And so they didn't notice anything. One of them was supposedly online shopping. You know, there was the cellmate who was supposed to be there, who, everybody who's a suicide risk in Rikers always has, oh, MSCCC,

as it was, always has, you know, a co-cellmate. That person had been moved, and so he was on his own, which was quite against, you know, prison protocol, in fact. And then, of course, the missing minutes in the surveillance footage, which gets more and more murky as it was on. Just before we started this recording, those missing minutes apparently grew. Some excellent reporting by Wired magazine

had found initially that the metadata suggested that what we were told was the full video, was not in fact the full raw video and that it was at least a minute missing. There are now at least three and a half missing minutes. Indeed. And it was spliced together from other. It wasn't a single discrete piece of video. It was spatched together. And no, I mean, it's three minutes is long enough.

I mean, how long did it take the Navy SEALs to get into a bin Laden house and, you know, kill everybody there? I mean, it's a mysterious question. and I don't think has been fully properly investigated. I mean, I never understood why Bill Barr, like the day after, kind of was certainly very close to the day after, flew immediately down there and spent a long time in the prison. I mean, why?

There's too many unanswered questions. And of course, now the biggest question is why, having hyped this whole question of Epstein all these years, I mean, Don Epstein, Don Trump Jr., tweeted, I think, in 2003, in a time to release the files, you know, so they were all on it.

I will say for Trump that when he was asked by Fox if he would pardon him, the full tape, if you look at it, as opposed to the soundbite, is more equivocal than what we've been told. Because we only ever see the thing

where he says, yes, I would, I would release the files. He then followed it up with quite a lot of demurring of if, it seems as if there is credible, you know,

so it was a little more, much less, you know, emphatic than when you, he was asked about the JFK files. Hold that thought. We are going to take a very quick break to hear from our sponsors. And we are back.

I thought you offered a brilliant description of this scandal and mystery that it's like JFK and Marlon Monroe. It seems that every time we pull back another layer, we just find more mystery. Yes. One of the most remarkable things is we're sitting discussing this in, 2025, the events that we're talking about began at the very latest in the 1990s, Jeffrey Epstein was abusing children. He was first investigated by the police in 2004. He signed a non-prosecution agreement 2007. He was convicted by plea agreement for only one count in 2008. And this should all be ancient history. But instead, we have a live unfolding scan.

on front of her eyes that appears to, well, certainly engulfs the president and may threaten his connection to his base. It is. I mean, you know, well, I think one thing, you know, before when you talked about the names, right, one of the things that makes the Epstein story sort of so complex is that his swirl a network of connections were often involved with him for sort of different reasons in a strange way. I mean, they were the people, because, I mean, he was a crook, Jeffrey Epstein.

You know, he was either laundering money for people or hiding money for people. He was very, very good at hiding people's money. And he knew how to do that. And there are a lot of people, I think, whose money he hid. And of course, once he'd done that, they were in his thrall. So there were the people that were, you know, they were going to him because they knew he could hide money. There were the people who were, you know, he was laundering money. There were the people who, you know, were sort of interested in his whole social stuff, you know,

in a kind of slightly comfy society, where's the action kind of way. And then there were the outright, you know, hardcore pedophile, you know, people who realized that Jeffrey Epstein could provide them with underage girls, which he did. So there's a lot of different layers

of the people around Epstein. So that when there are some who say, look, I had nothing to do with this stuff, it's true, you know, because he had a big network. I mean, when I mentioned, you know, that dinner party, I mean, they weren't all there for underage girls.

I mean, George Stuyford, It certainly wasn't. I mean, there were people who used to fraternise with Epstein who had nothing to do with those things. So it makes it sort of doubly hard to penetrate. And of course, for the untutored in kind of what social names mean, you know, for the MAGA base, it's like all these names are fancy people who were pedophiles. So that is the perfect moment to ask Donald Trump, a man who absolutely was somewhere in Jeffrey Epstein's web. where do you place him in that web?

Well, it was 15 years, wasn't it, that he was hanging out with Epstein. I think that, I think if you look, the video that you know, that very good piece of video from, I think it was CNBC, which shows them at a party to get their talking. And actually, I think it's worth getting a lick reader

to just see if you can find out exactly what they were saying to each other. But to me, the conversation was straight grabber by the pussy. It was a grabber by the pussy conversation. You know, it was a quote, they're talking together, heads together, and you know that Trump is saying, you know, he's talking and you can see that they're looking at women on the dance floor and saying, well, she's hot and, you know, wouldn't you like to do X with her? And like, you know, so there was a clearly a bond of, you know, lushe girl hunting kind of behavior.

So, yeah, I think he was very much involved with that sort of source scene with Epstein. I don't happen to think that little girls are the president of the thing. You know, I really don't. I think that he's a guy who likes, you know, we know what he likes. He likes, you know, very sort of playboy money types and, you know, models. And, you know, he's never shown a predilection for that. So I think that that's why it's complex. I think that he was hanging out with Epstein because there was a lot of stuff going on, girls, rich people.

I mean, all this, this, this thick texture of stuff that Trump is, you know, loves, frankly. He loves that kind of scene. And it doesn't do him any good, the fact that he used to hang out with him as president. before he was president. I mean, he obviously doesn't want to talk about that. It's strange to me, actually, though, that he's become so agitated about these files. Now, I mean, why is he so agitated? Is it simply that they lied for so long about what was there, you know, or his circle did, that he doesn't want to be revealed as there's really nothing here, genuinely? Or, you know, are there people in those files? I mean, is he in the files a lot and it just simply doesn't want to be there? Are there people with whom he's entangled now, who he feels he owes something to?

I mean, I did actually think of another possibility, which was like, is it more useful for Trump to know the names than other people don't? I mean, Trump is the king of leverage, right? Compromat. Compromat. It's great compromise, frankly. So that could be one thing, you know, that is there to be explored. I do think, though, that he has not understood how this is such a kind of core. article of fate for Mago. For some reason that it's worth a psychologist telling us is like they're obsessed with pedophilia

his base. I mean, it's the whole QAnon thing was all pedophilia. There was the whole thing about how Hillary Clinton was supposed to be running a pedophile ring and a pizza store. I mean, what it is about pedophilia and these people, I don't know, but they are obsessed. And I don't think it is going to get dropped. And I think that what is interesting is that the explosive tweet that he sent out on Tuesday about this is like, it's, you know, I'm.

I'm sick of this, basically. You know, it's like, and I don't care what my supporters think about, you know, like, if they don't want to be my supporters, I don't care. I thought it was a very ill-advised tweet on this part because essentially it was like he's forgetting who owns him, right? And he's mad as hell now because they're supposed to be owned by him. I mean, as we know, famously he said, I can walk down Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and my base would still love me. He finds this insurrection deeply aggravating because they're supposed to just get in line and worship him. and they're not, you know, and they on their part have begun to suspect, I mean, as Candace Owen said, I mean, with a sort of... We are finding ourselves agreeing with...

Yeah, Candice Owen... Yes, Candice Owen is suddenly, suddenly says in her thing about, it's almost as if Trump thinks his space is stupid. And I'm thinking, you think, you think? I mean, he's always thought they were stupid. That's the whole point. That's been his superpower. He has known this, you know, he knows in his heart. You think he wants to hang out with a lot of those people?

No, he doesn't, you know. So just in the last, I think this is, I think I've collated 48 hours, that explosive tweak. He's then followed that up. He talked about how people had bought into bullshit, that they are bad people, that they are weaklings, that they are stupid people. And he sought to blame the Democrats who very clearly are nowhere near. Which, even Magar, like, you know, they're not buying that. Yes. Because to be quite honest, I mean, half the people on those planes were Democrats.

I mean, I don't think any Democratic president wanted to release, you know, get any more names like Governor Bill Richardson and the whole thing that Clinton was constantly being tarred with and resident. None of them wanted to go there at all. So this is a nonsense. And it's like something must have sort of hit him in the shower or something. I can blame this on Democrats. He's too late. I mean, this has not been for him a dexterous sort of, you know, use of lying, which is usually very effective. in his side, but it's not working this time.

What do you think you've observed so many scandals, sagas over the years and reported on them so rigorously? What is it about this that sets it apart? And what is it that makes it so difficult for Trump to shake? Well, I mean, I think it's the names, obviously. It completely dovetails with the theory of his base. that there is this elite global power class who have never understood, who've always sneered and had contempt for them. And Trump is supposed to be the person who understands them and their value. You know, he was the one who saw them, as it were.

And indeed, if you, Alexander O'Pelozzi's wonderful documentary about the January the Sixers has got some great interviews with people who come at, who, the January sixers who came out of prison, you know, long before they were pardoned, who, you know, who she asks, like, how do you feel about Trump? Now, we love him. I mean, the fact, we don't care. We know he's our guy. He knows who we are. He speaks directly to us. They kept saying, you know, he speaks to us. So suddenly, it's like Trump's not speaking to them anymore. He's behaving as if they're fools. In fact, he said so. He said, you're weakly. So he's really misjudged this because he's basically telling them, he's treating them like the global elite that they hate so much, have

always treated them. This is not good. This is not who, this is not their guy. This is not the president they thought he was going to be. And it's almost as if Trump has forgotten who owns him, essentially, and is turning into a president who does things that they hate. Like, you know, he's supposed to be a get, he's done great for them on immigration. You know, they always, they love what he's done on that. But I mean, he's supposed to hate foreign wars. And what's he doing, sending, you know, arms to Ukraine now and dropping bombs on Iran. And, you know, this is not what he's supposed to be doing. So they're beginning to think what's happened to our guy.

Is he our guy? And if they start to think he isn't, that's a very dangerous moment, I think, for Trump. Because it could be a huge sort of pivot in his power because this has always been his power, that they believe that they have this intimate bond of sensibility and value to him. And if they think he's just, you know, kicking them to the curb

and calling them weaklings and just get on the train because I'm telling you, I don't think that's going to play well. Do you sense this man you sat beside that was gregarious and hilarious, do you sense he has the survival skills that he can come through this? Or is this as, as you put it, a moment that Maga splits asunder? Well, I think it ironically, and who would have thought it? Because how many times in the last decade have we all said, we'll never get away with this?

I mean, all the way. This is the moment. This is it. It's the moment. I mean, from the moment he said, you know, John McCain, was like a loser. You know, it's like every time you thought, well, that's the end of his career. Never was.

And to his supporters, that's Trump derangement center. Absolutely. Tar people. So it's never, he survived. I mean, look at all the lawsuits he survived. I mean, he was supposed to be crushed by all of these, you know, lawsuits during the last four or five years. He won every one of them or he got away with one of them.

And the ones he didn't win, it hasn't mattered. So he has been this Teflon creature. And, you know, he's shot and he isn't. You know, I mean, it's like he's been. absolutely untouchable. And who would have thought that it's this, you know, tawdry old scandal that might be the tipping point? I don't think any one of us would have said,

if you were asked any of us, what is the thing that will finally be, you know, a bridge too far for the Maga Bays to turn on him? Well, none of us would have said that Jeffrey Epstein scandal. Just hold that thought. We are going to take a very quick break to hear from our sponsors. And we are back. If you were to go back to 2010, that moment that you commissioned, I'll just repeat my point there,

there was a scandal foretold. Almost all the details of what we know about Epstein are in this extraordinary series. What would have made it more resonant? What would have made people understand it? Or is it something that? I think it was the moment, it was too early. You know, sometimes when you're first, you're too early. People were not interested enough in him at that point.

You know, I mean, there are plenty of stories about, you know, sleazy socialites or whatever that you read, but, you know, you don't know them, you know. I think perhaps obviously if I, you know, if it had happened when I was the editor of Vanity Fair, I could have probably made a bigger noise with it. You know, don't forget the Daily Beast was a young, you know, a sort of, you know, renegade site. that had not, you know, been on the scene that long. So, you know, had it been published in the New York Times, perhaps it would have had. But I sort of somehow think it wouldn't because people weren't that interested in Jeffrey Epstein.

I think what people were really interested in, and the sort of story moved to that, which was like what was Bill Clinton doing on that plane, you know? So then that became that story. What do you... One of the things that you wrote about on your latest fresh hell on Tuesday night is but Dan Bongino. Yes.

who is an extraordinary avatar for what is happening inside MAGA. He's a deputy director of the FBI, a position that in normal times would be held by somebody with extraordinary law enforcement experience. He is, admittedly, a former police officer and secret service agent, but he's really known for being a podcaster. And for expressing robust right-wing views would be one way to put it. and somebody who had absolutely fueled the Epstein fire. But he is now, and I just want to highlight the way you express it, a tattooed snowflake. He was absent, missing without leave, absent without leave from FBI headquarters was because of days.

Yeah, absolutely pathetic, wasn't it? I mean, I think that he hates the job. I mean, he really has made no secret of that because it's so much easier and, PS, much more lucrative to be sitting in your basement bloviating and grabbing rumors out of the air and putting them out there and getting adulation for it and, you know, big bucks, then it is to be sitting as he put it in a white office at 7.30 in the morning like, hello, that's what most people do. Yes. You know, and sort of working. I mean, he said, oh, I don't deal, I don't deal in rumors anymore. You know, I deal in, you know, we have to deal in evidence. Yeah, you, you, you, I guess what?

what happens when you deal in evidence. I mean, this rumor mongering goes out the window. So he's in a very difficult position because all of his life has been about undermining the FBI. And it's been about, you know, propaganding absolute rubbish on the airways. And now he's in the, you know, the most kind of forensically fact, you know, driven organization in the country, essentially, which has to be about backing up what you say. So he's in a very difficult situation. And I think it's quite obviously he's so much rather back in his basement bloviating and getting big checks.

Is he – obviously, we don't know if he's going to stay or go. And I should say we are taping this a few – enough hours before it's going to go out on air that anything could happen. I think he's toast already. I mean, you know, one thing one learns about Trump is you have to listen very carefully to his endorsements, like his fulsome endorsements, and his fulsome endorsements of Michael Wals, you know, who was part of Signal Kade. and the next thing is, you know, wait a bit and then suddenly, bam, he's out of there. I think what Dan is, is toast because, you know, Trump says, he was asked like, well, is he still imposed, you know, is he still? And he goes like, yeah, I think he's doing well.

I think that, yeah, I think he, you know, I actually, I loved his show. I used to go on his show a lot, you know, I mean, that's not an endorsement at all. It has a kind of sinister vagueness to it. And I think he's, he's already decided that he's going to go. And I don't think that Dan Bondino will care much. I think that he will go back to his basement. Who else are you? Who are you looking at next as avatars for this scandal?

Because we've had this parade of extraordinary names. Well, I think the banking piece of it still hasn't really been looked at as closely as it might. I mean, obviously, Jess Staley is the guy who knows more than anyone, essentially. He was the banker at J.P. Morgan who then moved to. to be head of Barkle's bank, but he was, he managed, you know, he was the kind of the guy who managed the Epstein account, you know, and he also, his emails are very incriminating. I mean, he clearly had more than a money managing relationship with Epstein and his will. So there's a lot, I think, that he hasn't come up with. And I think he's not a dead story in that there might

come a point when he starts to sort of talk and talk and talk to get some change. in his predicament, whatever it might be. So I think the banking part of it is very, very interesting. I mean, I think we have to have a sort of really sort of an autopsy on the way that Epstein died again. I mean, what is the reason for these tapes being spliced together? I mean, somebody knows who did that. And so let's go back in terms of reporting and find out who's the guy who spliced the tapes and who was he reporting to and what was he asked to do.

because that's a very mysterious circumstance. I think one of the things that you were absolutely right to put at the very heart of that reporting back in 2010, and I hope that we continue to do it at the beast, is the victims. There are, according to the Department of Justice's allegedly final memo, as many as a thousand young girls were victimized. Yes. And of those we know, as you,

as you were just highlighting that at least three of them are dead by two sides of drollable it's a toll of tragedy. It's a total tragedy. I mean, this is one of the things that absolutely appalled Conchita when she went through those first police files that, you know, that two of the girls, you know, were 14 years old who were shipped in from the Balkans, you know. I mean, this is really heinous. And I think that the Dufrey story remains, Virginia Dufrey does remain a very interesting story

because she was at the heart of this case. You know, she's the one who brought down Prince Andrew. She was there for years with them. She's the one who really sort of helped a finger, Jelaine, as an accomplice. So her story, like, she suddenly commits suicide in Australia. I mean, I know she'd been having a rough time. You know, marriage has gone very bad,

and her husband, she alleged, you know, was abusive towards her. But it's, there's too many questions, again, about that. And what Virginia knew, I noticed that the sort of the day after her death, you saw people, two people carrying boxes out of her apartment. And I thought to myself, well, I wonder what those, I mean, two specific boxes and you think, who made the decision to go in there right away and take these two boxes out? There's more there than we know. And I think that story has got more legs in it. And for Donald Trump, what's your prediction? He's going to have to come up with a better

version than he is at the moment, you know. I mean, he has got to be made to understand this is not something he can blow off. So what does he do? I mean, is he going to, we don't know what's in those files. If there's nothing in the files, as he says, then why not release them? There is something in those files he does not want to see out there. And how he gets around that, I don't know. I think it's a really knotty issue for him. And I don't think it's going to go away. I think he will try to do things that will distract everybody. I think he can drop a bomb on Moscow or he'll do anything you can't

to try to change the subject. But I don't think this particular story can be expunged like he usually does. Well, Tina, thank you for coming and talking to us. Thank you for being part of it, for setting up the Daily Beast. I'm just going to say again,

the six-part series is an extraordinary work of journalism and it stands not just a test of time, it shows the direction of travel. Tina, thank you for commissioning it. What fun for you back here. Thank you for an extraordinary set of insights also into Donald Trump, a man who I do not think is going to be inviting you to dinner in the near future either.

I'm afraid I've burned a lot of bridges in fresh hell. But I will say that the beast is alive and I'm so, so thrilled at the current regime. I think it's finally got its kind of gusto back. It's always been a wonderful sight, actually, even in periods which has been less, you know, less good than others. but right now it's on fire. So congratulations to you. And thank you so much for giving us the vision and the DNA. Thank you.

And we so much appreciate it and cannot wait to welcome you back when I think my much more distinguished co-host, Joanna Coles, will be asking the questions. Well, Joanna and I go way back, so that'll be fun. Thank you, Tina. Bye. Wow. What an extraordinary interview. Thank you to Tina Brown for bringing incredible insights,

jaw-dropping revelations. and some of the most incredible details about what is undoubtedly the scandal of the century. To keep up with the latest developments on Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump, and that scandal, subscribe to The Daily Beast. It could not be easier. We will keep your praise. Just go to the www.

Thedailybeast.com, and you will be instantly up to date with what's happening. The other subscription that you must make is Tina Brown's fresh hair, on Substack. It is the hottest thing on substack right now, and I cannot wait to devour its next edition. And finally, thank you to Joanna for letting me sit in her seat, as she would say, Be Beast. The Daily Beast podcast is produced by Devin Rodgerino and Anna Vonusson and edited by Jesse Milward. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studded The Daily Beast podcast at thedailybeast.com slash podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode,

consider becoming a Daily Beast subscriber. Subscribing is the best way to feed the beast and support all of your podcasts as we cover what might become the darkest timeline. Head to the DailyBeast.com slash membership slash podcast and sign up today.