The Daily Beast Podcast - Now Trump is Really Scared By Epstein: Wolff

Episode Date: July 15, 2025

Michael Wolff joins Daily Beast Executive Editor Hugh Dougherty to unpack the chaos of what may be the first lasting MAGA civil war—and why it centers on Jeffrey Epstein. Wolff, who's authored 4 biographies on Trump, was present when Steve Bannon met Epstein. Wolff exposes the bizarre triangle between Trump, Bannon, and Epstein, including how Bannon became a key promoter of the very conspiracy he’s entangled in. Wolff describes how MAGA influencers are now caught between defending Trump and pursuing the elite-exposing narrative they helped create. He also reveals that Trump once considered pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell and had known her since the early days of his deep friendship with Epstein. As Trump lashes out on Truth Social and desperately struggles to change the subject, Wolff suggests this scandal might finally stick—or at least rattle him more than most. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

They were going to expose Epstein with no understanding that if they expose Epstein, it is very likely they are going to expose Donald Trump. So, therefore, they made a mistake by announcing that they were going to do this. Then Trump got pissed at them for this. Then they tried to cover over their mistake by saying, oh, no, there's nothing here. Pay no attention. Welcome to the Daily Beast podcast. I'm Hugh Docherty.

I'm executive editor of The Daily Beast. and I'm in for Joanna, who's taking a well-deserved vacation. But in Donald Trump's America, there is no vacation from the news. And especially right now, with Donald Trump's own base being on fire about the Jeffrey Epstein files and the fallout from what some of them are calling a massive cover-up. Now, just to catch you back up, back in February, Trump's attorney general Pam Bondi had this to say. The DOJ may be releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein. clients? Will that really happen?

It's sitting on my desk right now to review. That's been a directive by President Trump. I'm reviewing that. I'm reviewing JFK files, MLK files. That's all in the process of being reviewed because that was done at the directive of the president from all of these agencies. But now, she and the FBI leaders who Trump himself appointed have produced a memo that says effectively nothing to see here. There are no Epstein files to be released.

there was no client list, a phrase that people had been hyping in the MAGA world for years, and nobody else is going to be charged. So who better to talk about this than Michael Wolfe? He's the Daily Beast podcast resident expert on everything about Trump as the author of four best-selling biographies of the 45th and 47th president, and Epstein himself asked Michael to be his biographer. Michael, welcome. I'm just going to start by saying.

saying what on earth is going on? Can Trump seriously be at war with his own base? Well, I think for one, truly he's at war with his own Justice Department. I'm not sure I would call it war, but he is pretty pissed off at them. This is a problem of their own making. You know, and I think that Trump has, Trump has been determined to acknowledge. nor the subject of Epstein for years and years and years. I mean, literally, he seems to put his fingers in his ears and go, you know, he doesn't want to hear about it. Why doesn't he want to hear about it? Because he is vulnerable.

I mean, these were very simply, very close friends, Epstein and Trump, for more than 10 years. I mean, it may be that they were, this is the longest lasting, most serious relationship in each of their lives. You know, they were close, close, close, close friends. And that, because of what ultimately happened to Jeffrey Epstein and what ultimately he became and what ultimately he became a symbol of, is, you know, is a very precarious thing to be Jeffrey Epstein's closest friend, which Donald Trump is. So he wants to ignore this. He wants this to say, to just push this away. Epstein, yeah, yeah, I may have passed them once or twice.

But these MAGA people, who are all a little, choose your way, word. Not like you, you nor I nor anyone else who isn't involved in the, in the, isn't determined to sell a position, which they are determined to do. The elites are corrupt. The elites are pedophiles. I don't go on and on. It is deep conspiracy thinking. And I think that Trump was just happy to ignore this. It didn't really touch him. Just let it go on, let it go away. If this amuses the MAGA bunch, he's great. But suddenly it came into his, it has come very close to him because these same MAGA promoters are now running the Justice Department, and they have set this up. They were going to expose Epstein without, with no understanding that if they expose Epstein, it is very likely they are going to expose

Donald Trump. So, therefore, they made a mistake by announcing that they were going to do this, then Trump got pissed at them for this, then they tried to cover over their mistake by saying, No, no, there's nothing here. Pay no attention. And now we are where we are with this. So what are you hearing about what Trump himself is saying about this? He's obviously, as you say, in a bind. Well, he says that he's been saying it out loud, you know, and he's been saying there's nothing. Now, why are people talking about this? This is, I mean, and that's, so his mood is pure denial. Why are people talking about Epstein? There's nothing there.

I'm not a part of this. This happened a long time ago. And so again, denial, denial, denial. And, you know, Trump is very good at that. And so he is figuring that he will browbeat this subject into irrelevance. And as somebody who's watched him for so long, do you believe he's really got the power to do that over a move? that he himself in some ways created.

Well, yes, I mean, he's extraordinarily good at this. I mean, it is one of his talents, secret talents. How does he do it? How does he get away with everything? So I would actually be surprised if this is the thing that finally hoists him, although it would be poetic justice on a grand scale, of course. One thing I think we all want to talk about is this extraordinary 399 word screed that Trump delivered on Saturday night on Truth Social asking what's going on with my boys and in some cases gals. They're all going after a Tony General Pam Bondi who's doing a fantastic job.

And it goes on like that. Is that the sort of act of will that he is trying to use in private as well? Is that how he speaks about this? Yeah, no, no, of course. You know, Trump speaks in public, mostly as he speaks in private. And this is what he's doing. I mean, he's not going to defend himself. And he is not going to explain himself.

He's going to treat the problem as something that he can stamp out. How does this feed into Elon raised this repeatedly after their fallout? Is that part of Trump's psyche here that this is just coming from his enemies, that he can't see it as something other than? Of course, I mean, Trump regards that it anything. Anything negative is always coming from his enemies, even if this is very clearly coming from his supporters. But pay no attention.

It's coming from my enemies, yes. And another aspect of this, of course, is Steve Bannon. And the last time you were on the show with Joanna, You talked about Bannon's slightly contentious or contended relationship with Epstein. Bannon came in to interview Epstein, and in one telling, it was for media training. Okay, well, no, no, no, let me, I want to, having been there, that telling is Bannon's telling. It's Abandon's Bologna, he is trying to cover that. It has no truth in anything.

He was there. I know he was there. I was there. I heard it all. I have it on tape, actually. He was there to prep Steve Bannon for a hypothetical television interview, ideally on 60 minutes. And I, in fact, wrote about this at some length in a chapter in my book, Too Famous, Spelling out, detail by detail, line of dialogue by line of dialogue. So this is there, this is public. And I invite anyone to

take a look at it. It's actually quite a snapshot of what went on in Jeffrey Epstein's house. But the Bannon thing, and the Bannon I think you might have said

it was a contentious relationship. I meant contended that Bannon has put forward a version absolutely claiming that he was only there in his telling to expose Epstein. Yeah, okay, that's totally wrong, completely. At any rate, they were very close friends, Jeffrey Epstein and Steve Bannon. They met in the fall of 2017. They bonded over the fact that each of them had had this,

this deep and confounding and confusing and mind-boggling relationship with Donald Trump. And they spent an enormous amount of time together and came to really, really be close friends. So this is just another kind of mind-boggling dimension of this, that Steve Bannon has now become an Epstein conspiracy theory person. And again, this is just, this is, this is, in the Trumpian world that all truth, all reality can be denied. But it can't be that denied because, as I say, I was there. I saw it. And, and Steve and Jeffrey were, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're arrested. Hold that thought, Michael, we've got to take a very quick break to hear from our sponsors.

And we are back to hear more from the Trump biographer Michael Wolfe. With Trump, one of the things that people get fast, by is that there is this world around him. And some of those people appear almost to be like enemies to him. Bannon is now saying, oh, it's going to cost Trump 10% of his base, that MAGA is going to turn against Trump. But is this just an instance of Trump wants to keep his enemies close? He wants everybody who might be a danger on his side, even if they're feuding?

Well, I think it's just they're caught in this sudden predicament. And, you know, you've, I mean, many of these, many of these guys have, have, have built their reputations and careers on, on, on, on these maga myths, including Epstein. But at the same time, they've built their reputations and careers on their devotions to Donald Trump. So they're all, they're all now caught in between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Now, Bannon's game, Bannon's asset base now is less Donald Trump and more MAGA. So he is just siding with the MAGA guys. And again, I don't know how we can do this because it's transparently clear that he, that Steve Bannon is a, is in Jeffrey Epstein intimate.

But, you know, some of this stuff is just beyond logic. Even around Trump, we've seen all these people, we've seen people that are so influential like Tucker Carlson, like Charlie Kirk. Everybody seems to be caught up in this. What's the end game? How does Trump actually force this into a new episode in the Trump show? Well, you know, I mean, he changes the subject. I mean, that's what he has always done.

And I'm sure right now he's grappling with what's the next headline which will marginalize this headline. He clearly has not yet, however, found it. One of the other headlines that are one of the other fascinating characters in all this, of course, is Galane Maxwell. And people will probably remember that when Galane was finally arrested after you, on the run. Trump rather bizarrely said he wished her well. How deep or closer relationship did they have? Was there a connection? Yeah, I mean, and also, you know, I know and I have reported in

one of my books, it's always at this point hard to remember which one, but I think my book landslide that he discussed or it came up in conversation that he, whether or not he should pardon Galane Maxwell. Now, and I've said this before, and I've seen headlines that he's had, which have billed this as high-level discussions about whether he should pardon Galane. And in fact, it was just a passing remark. So just to clarify that. But yeah, you know, I mean, he knew, he knew Galane, you know, back when he was a close friend of Epstein's, and Galane was around, you know, she was just part of Epstein's, and, you know, she was just part of Epstein's social Greece. And often with Epstein has his kind of wingman at a lot of events, and Trump clearly knew her. Now, the thing about Galane is that she has not been on the Epstein scene since 2004, 2005, when his first set of legal problems began.

So whether Trump saw her after that. And that was a point at which Trump's relationship with Epstein broke down. So I don't really know and have no insight in what his relationship with Galane would have been after that. How big a moment is this for Trump? Is this one of those moments that is going to be defining or do you think he can reset? All moments for Trump. are big moments. The remarkable thing about all of these big moments is how quickly we forget them. So the question, will this be, will Jeffrey Epstein somehow stay around Donald Trump's neck?

Will Jeffrey Epstein somehow cause him real damage? You know, I don't know. Ask me in a couple of weeks. and if it's still hanging around, then we'll say, man. Well, I'm sure Joanna will be poised to ask that question in a couple weeks' time. How, what goes on inside Trump and around his circle when he's in this situation, where he's trying to come up with a new idea? Does he ask people for ideas? Does he? Well, you know, he doesn't ask, you know, he tests things out on people.

what about, you know, what about that idea we should take over Canada? Maybe we should do that right now. What about, what about, what about? And then everybody says, well, yeah, you know, taking over Canada, always, always a good fallback. So it's that kind of, that's kind of thing. And he will either invent something or something will, some advantageous moment will occur. I mean, this is what he's looking for,

but he is clearly thinking about how do I change the subject. One of the aspects that's come back again and again and again in this is the connection between Epstein and Bill Clinton. And the first thing that Donald Trump posted on what was then Twitter after Epstein died in prison was a link to the Clinton, and the bogus claims that the Clintons had killed many people. And is this something where Trump's just going to go back to the well? Is he going to be back?

He was back blaming the Clintons on Friday, on Saturday night. He blamed Obama. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he always goes back to the well. So, yeah, he'll try that and see how that goes. You know, but that's just one of those those profound.

Ironies, yes, Jeffrey Epstein had a close relationship with Bill Clinton for a couple of years. Absolutely. But he had a closer relationship with Donald Trump for far longer. How do you feel Trump has been able to slew off that closeness? It's a totally mystery to me. I mean, you know, I think it's partly, partly the media in general has given him a And there may be something, if I had to deconstruct this, that Epstein has been so demonized by the media that the idea of connecting him to the president of the United States somehow feels, I don't know, disrespectful. I don't know.

It remains an incredible mystery to me. Is this a moment where Trump might be so. scared that he is going to be connected? Yeah, I mean, I think he's very, he's, yeah, I think he's been, he's been scared for many, many years. When Steve Bannon met Jeffrey Epstein, the first time, the first words that Bannon said to Epstein were, you were the only person I was afraid of during the campaign, meaning the 2016 campaign. What does that tell people who are? watching Trump now, how should, if you were a Democrat, is this an attack that is worth making?

If you're a Trump ally, is this something to try to bury? How are people going to, how are people going to parse this? Knowing that there is some degree of fear, what can anybody lay this on Trump, or is it down to his own reaction? Well, yeah, I mean, yeah. I mean, I think it can be laid laid on Trump. I think it's, it's, it's glaring, it could not be more glaring. Again, hiding in plain sight. Does, will he be able to shake this off as he has shaken off so much? You know, probably. I mean, but, but, but who knows? This is, this is, this is, this is pretty vivid and pretty specific. These guys were

the best of friends for a very long time. They are each formative in the other's life. And is Elon perhaps the person that is going to drive this home? He's been desperately trying to push Epstein on his ex-platform, but

does he still have juice inside to try to force that among the MAGA base? Well, I don't know if he is juice inside. I don't know. what inside is. You know, I mean, the other thing, the other confusing thing is that the MAGA people have always been against Elon. Therefore, are they now allied with Elon? That's confusing to me. Another part of the confusion in all this on who's doing what to whom and for what reason. Michael, nobody could have more expertise on this subject. I've got one last question. What is

prediction for what happens next? You know, I've given up predicting Trump a long time ago. Well, I know you will be back with us. Whenever, whatever happens next, it's been a fascinating insight into what has been possibly the first MAGA Civil War to manage to last over a weekend. And we're waiting with bated breath for the next development. Thank you for joining us. Thank you.

See you soon. There we have it. A scared Trump? A crisis in his own party. A civil war with his base. Can he escape? Is he going to be free with one bound? Or is this an albatross around his neck? We are going to be following every bit of the action at the Daily Beast.com.

Please subscribe. And we are going to be back later this week with another person who's had an extraordinary encounter with Jeffrey Epstein, Tina Brown. The founder of The Daily Beast, the legendary magazine editor. she is going to be speaking about the creepy moment that Jeffrey Epstein turned up in her office. Once again, thank you for subscribing. Hit the subscribe button. Share this with your friends. Share this with your enemies.

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