The Daily Beast Podcast - I Saw How Epstein Literally Made People Into Pawns

Episode Date: August 10, 2025

Michael Wolff, the best-selling author who was tapped by Jeffrey Epstein to write his biography spills the secrets of the pedophile—and of Donald Trump. Wolff reveals the twisted reality of life inside Epstein's New York mansion, where he had a chess set made with himself as king, then spills who the other pieces were carved to represent—as well as his bizarre encounter with Epstein's last girlfriend. He and Joanna Coles also analyze exactly what Trump means by building a new ballroom at the White House and what it says about the man in the Oval Office. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Donald Trump has used the White House as a stage set. It's a television set, a reality television show set. I'm Joanna Coles of The Daily Beast. You are joining the Daily Beast. I am here with our regular guest, Michael Wolfe, to discuss what else Donald Trump. Remember, Michael is the man who's written not one, not two, but four biographies of Donald Trump since he entered the White House. And obviously we're going to be talking about the White House and what's going on there. day, but many comments, Michael, delighting in our dissection of Jeffrey Epstein's decal from the photos published in the New York Times last week, but we left out some details. Well, I, no, I've been thinking about this. It's been on my mind that I did not tell you about the chess set. Of course he had a chess set. I always find that one of those really pompous things that people do when they have a chess set out. Well, this chest set is not like other chests.

Please tell me it wasn't naked girls. No, but it was each, the pieces represented everyone in the household. Oh, what? So what was he? What was Jeffrey Epstein? The king. He was the king. And his...

What were their little carvings of them? Yes, yes. in recognizable carvings. And the queen was his, Epstein had a girlfriend of, you know, a number of years. Epstein had a girlfriend of a number of years. Why don't we know about her? Because we don't know anything because no one knows nothing. Was she at these dinners that you would.

go to these salons that he hosted? Sometimes, but she was, I mean, this was, I mean, once we went to actually, my wife and I were in Paris and he was in Paris and then he invited us over. This is his apartment on the Avenue Foch that he's mentioned. Yes, in his, in the girlfriend, this person, woman, I'd say age 23, guessing. Okay, so 40-year age gap. Maybe, yeah, maybe 24, not over 24.

She was there, and my wife found this especially disconcerting because she didn't talk the whole dinner, absolutely silent. Many men's fantasy girlfriends. Yes. Although, curiously, he sent her to dental school. To have her teeth done or to learn to be a dentist? To become a dentist. Right, so patronage.

He's 40 years older or 44 years older. He's sending her through education. So there's a sort of my fair lady aspect to this. Very much. Very much that pygmalion sense of this. At any rate. So she's the queen? Okay, so at least she's the queen and not a pawn.

Who are the pawns? Aha. All of the pawns. How is this detail not being out there? Because, not, it's, I mean, again, this is the story that people have been reluctant to tell, refused to tell, been unable to tell, been too, I don't know. I think sometimes people don't have the language to talk about a story like this, because there is such an undercurrent of darkness.

about it too. It's darkness. I don't think anybody quite knows how to talk about this, how to talk about sex when it is so overt and so weird. Well, and illegal. And illegal. I mean, so we're, the sexual. And also, I think to just to add to that, the people sitting around the table at the salon, even to have been in his company, certainly when he died, no one would want to own up to that. Well, no. So, I mean, that's part of the problem in this story and part of the nature of the conspiracy. People who know things about this do not talk. And so the story is fueled by people who really, you know, are just speculating in the end, putting two and two together, well, this and that. And so it must mean this.

But I would love to find the girlfriend and talk to her now. We had on the podcast, last Sunday, Stacey Williams, who'd briefly dated Jeffrey Epstein when she was a huge model in New York and talked about him and the fact he was odd. And actually, I was going to ask you, you said that you had gone to tea with him and one of her memories was going to tea with him. And he was obsessed by Zabar's fruit bread. It's got pecans and raisins in it. And he had this affectation that he always had to have it with his afternoon tea. No, that was he had a series of these. of these things, kind of food fads that would come in and out.

And then people to, you know, he had the kitchen staff who would, who would do these things, prepare these things, and then rush them out. And the table, you would be sitting with him, and the table would suddenly be filled with food, which you didn't necessarily want. And so it's like, what's going to happen to this food? One of the things I thought was very interesting in a piece in the New York Times, where they had the letter from Woody Allen on Jeffrey's 63rd birthday was actually a very funny description of how soon ye had basically taught Jeffrey how to entertain. And you thought,

oh, here is a man who doesn't have a wife who doesn't know how to do this and is ironically being taught by Woody Allen's wife, how to actually produce enough food so your guests don't leave hungry. No, no. I mean, that was always the case that there was either too much food, not enough food, everything was off. And never, never a drink. If you wanted to drink, forget about it. What, because he didn't drink? He didn't drink. And so that was at best an afterthought. He said, do you want to drink? Really? So people didn't go there and get drunk? No, no. I'm very frowned on if you drank. And if you, if something was produced, it was, you know, you got a half a glass of wine. Right. Small pores. You know, and no refills. But,

Back to the chess board. Right. Okay. I keep interrupting you. The pawns were the Jeffrey S. Epstein's houseman was a man by the name of Jojo. And all of the pawns were Jojo. So you mentioned Jojo last week. You said he was the man that had to open the doors, these enormous heavy doors to their house on 71st Street.

So Jojo was. So JoJo had, there were lots of Jojoes on the board then because they were all, the pawns were all Jojo. All Jojo, yes, yes. And was it a sign of honor that you got onto the chessboard? I mean, it's such a, I can't tell. Now, in the other, the key, the key pieces, the bishops, the rooks, the whatever, were the girls who kind of staffed the house. You know, there was a girl, she's not a girl.

She's clearly a woman who had done this job for a long time. Maybe she was 40, 45. Ancient in Jeffrey's terms. Yeah, I mean, she was, and she kind of was the receptionist or the appointment secretary. I have never heard of someone having a chess board of their household. old staff and their and their sort of effective leadership team. It's actually a genius gift for people. No, totally.

Totally. As a matter of fact, where was it displayed? I thought I'm going to get this for my... What, for your family or for your publisher? But then it turned out it's very expensive. Oh, it is? Because I feel like doing it for...

We could do one here at the Daily Beast, actually. I would be the porn, I would be one of the pawns. And where was it displayed? You came into, I mean, you came into the house through these doors. Poor Jojo pulling open these doors. Right. And then you went up through four or five stairs. And then so you're in the receiving area.

And then actually to the left, there's a, that was, the kind of off where the receptionist appointment secretary sat, kind of a library office. And then you're in the center, there's the big staircase. This is seven floors, this house. The big staircase, and you step into this area, which is open up seven floors. So that's where That's where that sculpture of the woman with the noose around her neck hangs down from there. And in the middle of that, there's a little seating area with the chessboard. Okay. And a very big fireplace there.

So you can't avoid the chessboard. You see the chess board. So it's the whole idea is Jeffrey's playing chess with you. Above you, for those who didn't study the photos or who missed our conversation last week, we were dissecting a piece of art that Jeffrey Epstein had in his foyer, I suppose. which is of a woman, the figure of a woman, in a wedding dress significantly, because he never got married and seemed to despise people who got married with a noose around her neck, which of course with hindsight is strangely prophetic.

Yes, no. And so in the time that I was speaking to Epstein, from 2014 to 2019, many of these things changed. There was a kind of, he would see something and then rearrange around that. It was almost a constant work in progress. So talking about rearranging and work in progress, that leads us perfectly on. It's the perfect segue to what is the president doing at the White House.

We know he is about to build a ballroom. Donald Trump is a builder. He's a developer. Is he a builder or I suppose he? Well, yes. I mean, I think he is both, you know, but all of all of the buildings of his buildings, whether he owns them or manages them, are all branded, they're literally branded Trump. But they're also branded with their decor, which is garish, vulgar.

I mean, it's a kind of signature. vulgarity. It's marble, it's gold taps. Yes, and he's very, yes. He's very devoted to this. He sees, he sees the meaning in this. It's kind of vaguely, vagus, modern, I suppose. I mean, you could. Well, it made me think of your comment about Roger Ailes that Roger Ailes said about Donald Trump that he was trapped in 1965 and that symbolized wealth in 1965. Yes. I mean, he's never heard of the word minimal. No, right. And very rat packish. That's what... Very rat package. You know, but also very devoted to this brand. You know a Trump building.

And I think, so the White House and the difference is, you know, most presidents go into the White House. The White House is not their home. And they recognize that and understand that they are at best temporary residence. Right. And normally they change the drapes in the Oval Office. maybe they changed the carpet. Right, but with a great deference to the White House in what it signifies and who owns it, which is the people. It used to be called the people's house. I think it was Theodore Roosevelt who changed it to the White House at the beginning of last century.

No, yeah, the beginning of last century. So, but you have a completely opposite impulse with Donald Trump, to own it, to make it his, to leave it in a condition that people will always associate it with him. It's absolutely fascinating. I mean, he can't change the White House to the Trump House, but would if he could. And who knows? But in theory, he's doubling the size of it.

He's doubling the footprint. And it will be forever known as the Trump Ballroom, I suppose. Yeah, forever. And that is, this is all very much, you know, most presidents think of their legacy in other ways. And I think historic and metaphysical ways, he thinks of it in terms of physical ways. Yes, this is going to be the Trump ballroom. This is the Trump look. This is the Trump house. I am going to, I'm going to will it to be mine with all of this, you know, all of these gold charge keys. And I wonder if former presidents look and think, why on earth did I think so small when I was there? I mean, the one thing I will say is having been to, I've been to the White House,

you know, many times over my life as a journalist, it never gets old. I'm always incredibly excited to be there. And there's something incredibly charming about its understated nature. It's sort of small when you get there. You're surprised at small. The one thing I will say is it doesn't have a very big entertaining space. I was there for the state dinner in, I once say, 2014 for the French president. And I was frankly astonished that you had to get into little golf carts and go down to a corner of the White House land where there was a tent erected and it felt less special. I mean, they'd done lots to decorate it and it was flowers everywhere. And it was fabulous, partly because it was an incredible group of people. But I was very surprised.

that this was the White House and this was the entertaining space. Because I think the biggest room there only hosts 200 people, which isn't very much. I mean, I've always found this. And I've always found that that had some amount of appeal and, in fact, charm that it was one of the few spaces in the American power structure that was not overdone. Fair, fair. You know, the West Wing. I mean, the West Wing is really. like a college admissions office.

It's so strange how it's almost like a sort of bad English bed and breakfast because there's sort of all sorts of little rooms off little side staircases. No, and I was so. No flow. An architect would say it has zero flow. Oh, God. Or it actually has remarkable flow because when I was there, so I was in the West Wing for about seven months at the beginning of the Trump.

first term, which is my book is, Fire and Fury is about this, this experience. And I used to often sit in, right, in this, in this, um, couch on the, I know that couch. What, you mean, where you come in, you come into the

West Wing, you sat on the couch, waiting for someone. And then everybody has to come around that. That's, that's actually a, a pass-through area. It's not a reception area. Everybody walks through. And while I was there, there was a Trump redecoration.

I mean, because you sat there and I went in, it's incredibly doughty. And as I sat there, in a matter of fact, once I was there and the couch that I was sitting on, I had to get up, so it could be moved out. But then they moved in furniture, which all looked like it came from a Trump hotel. Well, it probably did.

Probably did. Probably did. Probably did, right? And he would have been able to rent it perhaps to the, there's bound to be some way that he's making money from it. So what do we think about him doing this? Of course, and hugely significant that he's using the East Wing, traditionally the first lady's domain, to turn it into a ballroom. No, well, I think it's probably an added advantage to take away her space and then no one can ask where she is. You mean Melania? Yes. Indeed. So Melania's missing or she's refused to turn up. So he's taken her space and he's turning into a 600-person ballroom?

Something like that. Yes. I mean, I just, you know, let's not put, he's turning it into a hotel event space. I mean, that's, you know, that's the kind of thing that in any one of these hotels, he rents out, rents it to whatever conventioneer of the moment comes along. I mean, this is not, you know, I mean, certainly the plans that we've, that we've seen suggest it's no better than that. And he initially said it was going to cost $100 million, because he raised this idea in his first term, right? He's revisited it, as we know, he's revisited lots of his ideas, which he didn't get around to doing in his first term. Now he's figured out how to get them done. And he says that it's going to cost $100 million or now $200 million, but $100 million will be picked up by sponsors. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure you can't say what this is. I'm sure it will be 400 million. And I'm sure the grift involved here will be historic.

Michael, hold on one second. We're just going to take an ad break. And we're back with Michael Wolfe. I'm not sure I would want to be a contractor on this project. I'm pretty confident given his history of stiffing contractors and then suing them because he says they haven't done the work. Would you want to be a contractor on this project? I mean, normally it would be a wonderful thing to have on your resume that you'd worked on the White House.

On this one, I would be concerned I wouldn't get paid. Well, it's not only getting paid, but to be associated with creating this blemish on this historic, structure. What was that phrase that then Prince Charles used about Oh, the monstrous carbuncle.

When they redesigned or when Yes, there was an addition going to be put onto the National Gallery which is, as we know in Trafalgar Square in London, so hugely important and looks down the mall actually to Buckingham Palace and he was outraged because it was going

to be a modernist. I think he called it a carbuncle on the nose of an old friend. Yeah, exactly right. A monstrous carbuncle on the face of an old friend. British architects were historical. But in this circumstance, Donald Trump has at least kept it within the framework of what the White House looks like. I mean, the architects, McCleary, are known for their sort of classical design. I mean, arguably, it would have been more interesting to bring in someone else. It will be a Trump design by the time this is finished. I mean, you know, I mean, few architects or architects with a sense of design and tradition and proportion would, A, work for Donald Trump and do what he wants done. I mean, already the Oval Office has been.

Chukka eyes, Lipsized, vulgarized, vulgarized, gold eyes. Yes, sexed up in an appalling way. I mean, everybody is appalled except for Donald Trump. Yeah, it's very liberarchy. I mean, I mean, this is again...

I just probably see he doesn't have a piano in the Oval Office with some guy just tinkling the ivory's. To your point about it, being rat packy? I mean, this is again one of those those kinds of things which everyone with a modicum of upwardly mobile good taste is appalled at. But as we know, since Trump hotels and Trump buildings have regularly been, or at least at periods, been oversubscribed, I mean, there is a population that thinks, God, this is how. Well, and I'm sure there are lots of people that visit the White House or presidents or diplomats

who come in and are a bit disappointed by it because we know certainly in countries with dictators that often one of the ways they display their power is by having enormous palaces. And there's something so deliberate and understated, as we've said, about the White House. and the charm of the White House is not being like that. Yeah, I'm not sure if they're, if there, I mean, the thing about the White House, even though, you know, you feel it. You feel this is, this is the White House. I mean, it kind of takes your breath away. I know.

I always feel very emotional when I haven't been there since Donald Trump has become president, but I always felt very emotional going there. Last time I was there was in Joe Biden's final year. And it's a beautiful space and it's beautiful at Christmas, the tree, are lovely, not the blood trees that Melania did, but the other trees. And this goes beyond, beyond this. You know, Donald Trump has used the White House as a stage set. I mean, this is very much, you know, all of those things in the Oval Office of all those people packed around him.

You know, that's the, you know, the Oval Office, again, when in the past was regarded as a kind of very special place to be. Right, held with reverence. And now it's like, it's a television set, a reality television show set. And even even the Oval Office, when he's there, I mean, it actually is,

it's first thing, it's filled with people at all hours. filled. You know, I mean, in the past, there were, you know, meetings of the most particular kind. Now it's 20 people, 30 people, 40 people packed in there, and they're all there to listen to Donald Trump. He sits behind this desk and he goes, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So, I mean, it's a kind of combination of a talk show and... So the whole of the White House is basically being reconvened as a television set. I mean, where is the room?

Is it the cabinet room where he has that long table and he puts all the cabinet ministers around it? Exactly. Because I was rewatching his series The Apprentice this weekend, and I couldn't believe how similar it all was to how he behaves when he's sitting at the cabinet table. And the way that one of the devices in the show is to tell each of the candidates running to be his apprentice that the other candidates don't like them. And so he'll go, Sam, you know, Bobby and John say you're terrible. And it's exactly as you describe how he manages his cabinet and how he manages his advisor. So he says, you know, Hexeth.

Cash Patel doesn't like you or whatever. And then everybody's on edge. Everybody hates each other. Everybody's in competition with each other. It all comes back to The Apprentice. I know this isn't new thought, but re-watching the show on Sunday, it was so obvious. And now, of course, he's redesigning it as a television set. No, I mean, you know, and I think the Apprentice point is a good one because nothing changes.

Everything that he's done he's done before. So when, you know, that whole idea, and this is also an important point. Historically, we have always understood that the White House changes the person in it. Right. And that's profound. And so profound that you can actually see the change. Yeah, Obama went gray. On people.

It does something as it should. So the Trump thing is the exact opposite of that. This is such good analysis. He is changing it. And, you know, the people who have known Trump when he went into the White House the first time said, actually, he behaves here no different from the way he behaved in Trump Tower. And then when he went to Mar-a-Lago, it was he behaves no different than he behaved in. in the White House, which is the same as he behaved in Trump Tower.

So he just doesn't change. And in fact, Michael, hold on one second. We're just going to take an outbreak. And we're back with more conversation with the author Michael Wolfe. If you can see that most presidents, you can see that they have changed. He didn't. He literally looks the same. Same hair.

I mean, of course, it's all phony, but... Slightly different hair. I was studying his hair this weekend and thought, oh, it's gone from being that sort of orangey color. It had a sort of purple rins to it this weekend. I don't know if he's changed his shampoo or he's changed his hair stylist. It's definitely changed a little bit.

It's flatter and it's thinner. And against certain lights, you can see what it looks like because he's probably bald. He's probably... Oh, no, I described it. I had actually, I think in one, in Ivanka describing it, and there is literally nothing there.

And then it's pulled up in this very complicated way. And so no one else is allowed to touch this. I mean, he actually does this. I really don't think anybody would want to touch it. I really, really wouldn't want to touch it. All right. So a final question for you. Last week, he fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Erica, I'm going to get her name right. Makentafar, complicated name to say, who appeared to have done nothing wrong whatsoever. Trump, by the way, regularly mangles everybody's name. True, but I don't want to be like that. I was trying to get her name right. But you can imagine how he this name in his mouth. Well, I'm still laughing at the idea that he calls him.

Neil Bouvet email. Yeah, that's a great detail. She had done nothing wrong other than serve up statistics that weren't flattering to his economy. And so he immediately got rid of a shot the messenger, as it were. But this has a wider significance. This is more about his misunderstanding of numbers. Well, I mean, I think it's information. In other words, if he doesn't like the information, it's the information that is wrong.

And I mean, there's a story that's, I think, I think from yesterday about his poll numbers. And he's, you know, the poll, his approval ratings are like, you know, in the high 30s, I think. And he's pronounced that they're 70. Well, he was on CNBC last week saying that his approval ratings were 71%, I think, in the general population, 94%. among Republicans, which is clearly untrue. No, and there was a moment in the campaign. I remember this was one of his close aides related this to me, and then he was going, his favorite poll is Rasmussen

because it's always the most favorable to him. And then he began to pronounce Rasmussen has me up by 10%. And then one of the aides said, actually it's it's it's a Rasmussen has you up by 1% um and then and then he said well call Rasmussen tell him he's wrong um it's I'm up by 10%. So and of course there's the the numbers you know whenever he's he you know the crowd sizes you know crowd sizes all can be and the AIDS will sell you know what's the size size of the crowd well do you want the actual size or the Trump size and it can be sometimes 10 times.

And then they have to go out and find a reporter who will report that number. Because if they don't, then Trump is, you know, goes crazy, you know, fake news. How could you have done this to me? So then they have to do that. But in it's always, it's never to believe the numbers. Now, I think partly that's a real estate thing because, you know, real estate people are always, you know, I mean, how much is this worth? Well, it's worth. Right. Well, and he famously started his buildings. I think we said this last week on the 13th floor, so that it would be the tallest building in Manhattan, right?

Right. Or you could live on the 110th floor when it was really the 92nd floor. Right. But, you know, and I remember at one point, Steve Bannon said to me that not only was he semi-literate, he's enumerate. The numbers just don't mean anything. They have meaning to us for one, two, three, four. They don't have those, that, that meaning. to him. So he just makes them up? Yeah, he just made, yeah, completely just makes them up. Didn't Jeffrey Epstein tell you, and I think I remember this from one of the tapes that we played last November before the election, that Donald Trump actually couldn't read a balance sheet? Exactly. I mean, the thing that Epstein said he was good at actually was buildings, which is what he's going to do in the White House. Right, right. But that he actually couldn't

understand a balance sheet. No, yeah, absolutely numbers. And then he went on, I mean, Epstein said he lacked executive function and part of that would be the organization of information, which he doesn't do, which is not. It just, it's all information is at best free floating and reformed to whatever he wants it to be, including numbers. So I think that the Joe Kiernan on CNBC actually corrected him and said that's not your poll numbers. Kept correct it. Right, kept correcting him. Does the president, does he understand that his poll numbers are low, or his approval ratings are low? Does he just not hear it?

Does he just, in his head, believe there, 94% among all Republicans? I think that he genuinely believes it, because that's what numbers are what he wants them to be. The whole idea of the stolen election is, is the result of these of this numbers people tell them numbers and then he weaves them I mean I've sat with him why he goes over these numbers and it's just fantastic you think what is he talking about can you push back can you say what are you talking you absolutely cannot push back because what happens if you do well he doesn't listen to you

and then he talks over over you and then he gets irritated with you I mean And this is not, you cannot push back on anything, not just numbers. I mean, it's the other thing about Donald Trump. It's first thing, it's all broadcast. So you don't even have the opportunity to push back. There is no moment in which you can insert yourself. And then if you do, you know, you're fired, essentially, with the poor commissioner of the BLS. Which takes us back to the Apprentice the series.

You're fired. Michael, thank you very much. It's all so interesting. I find it very therapeutic going through this with you. And I know our viewers on YouTube do too because they write and they write and tell us. And in our next podcast, we will be, we'll go through some of the comments actually that are coming in, which are pretty interesting. I'm eager to hear them. Well, if you have been, thank you for.

joining us. Don't forget to subscribe to our channel on YouTube and subscribe to the Daily Beast for the up to the moment, up to the second drama that is coming out of D.C. And we will be back next week with Michael Wolf to dissect what else but the Trump administration. All the fire, all the fury, and we're still in the siege. I think that was at least two titles of your books. I could throw in, it's all or nothing. And then we've only got the third one. What was the third one called. Landslide. Landslide. Okay. So we'll see you, we'll see you back next week. And don't forget. A landslide of misinformation. A landslide of misinformation. I like it. All right. And don't forget, as the first lady would have us, be beast. And big applause to our producers, Devin Roderino, Anna von Erson, and our editor, Jesse Millwood.

Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studded the Daily Beast podcast at the Daily Beast.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.