The Daily Beast Podcast - The Truth Behind New Trump Epstein Photos: Wolff

Episode Date: December 14, 2025

Michael Wolff joins Joanna Coles to reveal stories behind newly released Epstein photos. Together they sift through the blacked-out faces, the Mar-a-Lago-style party shots, and a younger Steve Bannon seated in Epstein’s ornate study—the man he once admitted was the only figure in 2016 who truly scared him. Wolff explains why these images are surfacing now, how both parties are weaponizing them, and why they revive long-buried questions about Trump’s ties to Epstein. Coles ends on the unavoidable question: Are there more Epstein and Trump revelations still waiting to be discovered? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Convriety your passion in a business with Shopify and bathe records of with the form of with a form of pay with a better conversion of the world. You've heard of

the best. The best conversion of the world. The incredible system of Shopify facilita the company

on your website, in the social and in any place. That is music for your own ears. No,

you'll be more your business is a super-exit with Shopify. Empeas your period

of the per month in Shopify. coms bar records. We could look at the photos that have just been released by the Oversight Committee, which give us more insight into Epstein's Lair. Would you like to do that?

Why not? Michael. Joanna, nice to see you back in the United States. I'm relieved to be back. I love traveling, but I also love coming home. And I thought we were going to kick off this morning talking about Indiana and Mike Pence's revenge. but then dropped a trove of photos from the oversight committee on Epstein. When you said this, I just had to pause a moment to think,

what was Mike Pence doing in this middle of this? And then I remembered that he was once the governor of Indiana. But that would not have been, that would not have come immediately to mind. Who even remembers Mike Pence at this point, except it turns out, I think the people in Indiana, who clearly are appalled by Trump have said they do. don't like his tone. They're not going to be bullied. They don't care about being primary. If Mike Pence was actually expressing himself in Indiana on this point?

I want to be clear on this. I have absolutely no idea. But of course he was. Of course. Right. Let's not even second guess ourselves there. Of course he was. Of course he hates, as is the experience with virtually everyone who comes into direct contact. with him. He hates Donald Trump and would like nothing better than his revenge on Donald Trump. Well, and also Donald Trump went after Mike Pence. Let us not forget in a horrifying way when Mike Pence made the right decision to ratify the election and not give it to Donald Trump. But I don't think that we should make too much of a distinction here. Mike Pence hates Donald Trump because Donald Trump did hateful things to him. But everybody.

literally, and we could push this to the 100% threshold. Everybody who has been in business, let us say, with Donald Trump, political business or otherwise comes to detest him. Yeah, I understand that, but I feel like Pence in particular was humiliated. I mean, remember the shouts, the chance of hang Mike Pence. Remember Mother Pence refusing to shake. Trump's hand. And it's a larger theme here, a whole world of people out there who want revenge on Donald Trump. And I think, I think that will, that will, that's a variable that we should

deal with at some point because it is, it is, I've always felt it will come back and finally, in the end, contribute to his downfall. Oh, the way you said downfall. No, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, Of course. And you think about other politicians not as talented as Donald Trump, who've been brought down by the fact that they just didn't have enough allies, that you need supporters at a certain point. And Trump's supporters are beginning to fall away. And you saw it amazingly in Indiana yesterday with, you know, older state representatives coming forward and saying, we don't like his tone. We're not going to be bullied. Try and primary us. It was sort of reassuring and unexpected. And yet another.

blow to Trump right now. What other people are seeing is that this is starting to backfire. Right. And there's a lot of people in Texas worried that, I mean, Texas passed that and they have, they have, they have completed their, their, their gerrymandering, but now having second thoughts about it. Right. And they turned it down in Kansas. They turned it down in Kentucky, I think. So this is, yeah, not everybody wants to be in hock to Donald Trump. And it also reflects now this whole shifting sense of what's going to happen in the midterms. You know, reapportionment is always based on prior assumptions. And the prior assumption, certainly in Texas and in other places,

is that the Latino vote has become a Trump vote. And now that looks very much up for grabs. So if that's not true, then they have created districts. That actually will go against them. Yeah. And also the ice raids, the masked men, the grabbing people in the street, the distribution of those horrifying videos on social media, I think will backfire. A catastrophe. And, you know, they just, you know, Christy Nome, of course, was just dragged in front of Congress the other day. And, you know, in her performance was, you know, was. in your face, you know, fuck you and, you know, which I can't, can't help, can't help things. They just in just, it's just this process of of again and again drawing a line. This is we're embracing

what we are doing here with the rest of the, with a good part of the country being very, you know, no matter what they think about, about immigration, being naturally ambivalent about what they see in these videos. Yeah, and also the horrifying nature of the black masks, which was perhaps intended and works in terms of making people intimidating. But that's actually not what people want. They just wanted the border to be closed. And they've closed the border, which Biden should have done and didn't do. And as a result, well, partly lost the election over it. But the ice raids are truly frightening and horrifying. And they just spread on social media,

which I think is what the Trump crew underestimated. I think they thought perhaps those would be rallying cries, those little videos. And instead, their portraits of humanity, which are really, you know, only inspire despair. No, but curiously, no effort to fix that problem. know, they go, I mean, just get more and more of these videos every day. They become, and the ICE people become more and more aggressive. The Trump people become more and more

defensive as though they, and their effort here to respond to this is to make it about ice, poor ice. These people are being are being victimized. That's a, that's a big leap to say the least. Yeah, it's a big leap. And also we're discovering that they've been in such a panic to hire people for ICE that they're not using the usual vetting processes and God knows who they're sweeping up in their hiring spree. And so you've got all sorts of people who actually enjoy wearing a mask and enjoy, you know, throwing people in the back of a car or throwing them down and zip tying them. And you can see the relish, which is also, I think, distressing. But we are... You make it sound kind of attractive, actually.

Oh, no, that's not what my goal is at all. But as I was expecting us to spend a lot of time discussing Indiana, words that would not, no one would have expected to come from my mouth. And I have spent a lot of time in Indiana. You've been in Indiana. I've actually been in Indiana. Do tell. Well, I spent one of the most fun weeks of my life, actually, at Purdue University.

Go boiler makers. One of the most fun weeks of your life? Let's unpack that. So much fun. I was staying with a friend at Purdue. This was years and years ago. and they put me up to be a little sister of sigma alpha epsilon, which to a British person was just, you know, I went to a small liberal arts university in the UK. We never heard of fraternities. I didn't even know what they were.

So what is, I want the, you were in exchange students? No, no, no. I was just staying there for a week with a friend of mine who I, an American friend of mine. And I, and she said you must, you've got to, we have this thing called rush. And basically what it entailed was a stream of very attractive young men arriving at her apartment with a rose for me and asking if I would be a little sister to their fraternity. I had never come across anything like this. You know, I was coming from a university where everybody dressed in black and was depressed. This was at Purdue, which turns out to be a gorgeous campus and it was so much fun and a huge Greek system. This was going back 40 years.

I can't believe I just said 40 years. My career, we could really just say, my career began at Indiana University. No, I don't believe it. I do not believe that. Yes, because the group of people, including someone who had been a neighbor of mine growing up, who kidnapped Patty Hurst,

were students at Indiana University. And that became the first major, actually, the first piece that I ever wrote. I was 19 years old. I wrote it for the New York Times magazine about the woman, this neighbor of mine, who kidnapped Patty Hurst and then who had gone to Indiana University in Bloomington. And this is part of the lucky. of journalism that you happen to live next door to a kidnapper. I mean, that is not something that you learn at Columbia Journalism School.

That's about opportunity and luck. There was more luck involved here because my mother had been a newspaper reporter. So I was at that point just actually a copyboy on the New York Times just trying to survive the hot dog runs. and my mother called me up and said, hey, did you see this particular woman whose name was a girl from my past, whose name was Angela DeAngelis, became Angela Atwood. Wow.

She said, Angela DeAngelis is the girl who kidnapped Patty Hearst. I said, yeah, yeah, yeah. And my mother said, no, no, you're missing the point here. This is your story. And it was. It changed my life. Wow, that is, I've never heard that story before. I've never heard the story at you at, at Purdue University.

In a sorority at Purdue. Yeah, no, I wasn't in a sorority. I was a little sister, which was they, it was affiliated somehow. Anyway, it looked like it was going to be a life of parties, but sadly I had to go back to the UK where it was not a life of parties. But I also went to, when I was at The Guardian, and I went to Indiana for a story and I drove the wrong way up the I-95.

I do remember that because this was pre-Satnav when you actually had to use maps. And I hired a car, one of the stresses of being a bureau chief for a foreign newspaper was you were constantly traveling across America, but you only had a map to do it with. So you would fly in somewhere,

I hire a car, look at the map, get confused. And I remember stopping thinking, I should be somewhere, I should be near my destination. I stopped at a gas station. He went him with the map and the guy said, yeah, yeah, you've gone, you've gone the wrong way on the I-95. Well, that's because you drive on the other side of the road. Oh, dear.

Maybe that's what it was. Anyway, I was 200 miles out from where I was supposed to be. And I can't actually remember the story, but I remember the stress of going the wrong way and not realizing because it was all interesting. Anyway. Anyway. So, Michael, we were going to talk about our lives colliding in Indiana and the amazing decision they made not to go for redistribes. but we've been pushed off schedule by this sudden dump of photos from the Democrats from the Oversight Committee, which give us more insight into Jeffrey Epstein's life and his lair.

Or not more insight. I mean, we really don't know what they are and, you know, what this is. They're kind of photos without context. Photos without. Okay. So can you give us some context? Well, maybe. I mean, I can give a little. I mean, like the first one is of Donald Trump, I would say, circa the 90s at some point, surrounded by women with their faces blacked out, which is interesting. So the Democrats are blacking out their faces. And the implication here is that they are blacking out these faces because these might have been victims, I suppose, of Donald Trump. I mean, it's a weird signal that is being. that's being sent.

Interesting, because also, it's impossible to know because they've blacked their photos out, but they don't look that young. We can't know that, but in any other pictures that we have ever seen of Donald Trump in the 90s, certainly they don't black out the faces. Why are the faces blacked out here? Some, because, again, and they have said, we're going to try to protect people who were victims. but again, the implication being these are these are Donald Trump's victims.

And of course, these are photos being released by the Democrats, which is this other aspect of everything that is being released from the files, from the theoretical Epstein files or the theoretical material related to Jeffrey Epstein, is that it is now being weaponized by each side. Right. So which is not going to be held. in the long process of figuring out what this means and what happened and

and who to blame. Well, and it looks like it was a Hawaiian themed evening because they all seem to be wearing Luz. I think that's what they are. You know, Trump, as I've said before, at Mar-a-Lago every day is a theme day at Mar-a-Lago. So who knows if this was at Mara Lago or not, but the women are blacked out, which is sending your great message. My favorite was I was at Mara Lago once, and it was Italian night, and there were big posters with meatballs. That was their idea of the Italians, meatballs. There were pictures of meatballs.

Yes. That is hilarious. I've got to get myself to Mara Lago. I'm desperate to go. I've driven around the outside, as I've said before, but I'm dying to. go, I'm dying to go, all right, so now let's go through this, uh, almost photo gallery. We kick off with a very thin looking and much shorter head, Steve Bannon sitting opposite Jeffrey Epstein at his enormous desk.

Yeah, I can give you the background on this. So this would have been in, um, probably 2018. Bannon meets, uh, meets Epstein. Well, because you introduced them, right? Yes, I can say. I know this very well because I was the nexus for this, and that was in December 2017. So this would probably be 2018, possibly early 19. But this is in Epstein's study. The study is on the second floor of that mammoth townhouse. you know, what people say might be the largest private residence in Manhattan. Actually, Epstein said this. I'm not sure it's exactly true, but it is certainly up there.

And the study runs, you know, I mean, across the width of the house. So somewhere near, you know, I mean, approaching a quarter of a New York City block. a very baronial room, you know, a kind of, you know, a movie set. So this would be, if you were creating a Jeffrey Epstein kind of diabolical character in the movies, this is the room that the set designer would create for that character. Yeah. And then we have Bannon sitting in front of the desk. Always with his barber.

I wonder if I am in this picture and cut off. I mean, that is possible, but I don't quite remember. Interesting. Well, I always remember what you say that Steve Bannon said to Jeffrey Epstein when they met, when you introduced them, which was you were the only man I was afraid of during the campaign. Exactly. And the background, the further background on that is that Bannon was aware that 60 minutes was preparing a piece on the relationship of Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign. And that was never aired for reasons I don't know.

but Bannon was, Bannon knew of this, of this effort and was, was scared of it. Well, 60 Minutes was preparing a documentary on Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein and it never ran. Exactly. We need to find that. If there's anybody out there that used to work on 60 Minutes. Well, there was. You know, and actually the producer of that, I believe, was a man by the name of Ira Rosen, who was a, who, who Bannon knew.

knew well. Well, I think we've since had a couple of heads of 60 minutes who've been fired or resigned, so perhaps we could see the contents of that. I wonder, that's the first time I heard that story. So a very strange photo on his desk of what looks like a roll of carpet on a, can you open that photo? It looks like a pair of legs coming out of a roll of carpet on a sofa. It's kind of weird.

I can't quite see that. Oh, it's a girl lying on a sofa because there's a face redacted. And she's got like a kind of weird thing over it. It looks like she could be naked and she's got something thrown over her. Anyway, it's a little strange, given what we know now. Oh, no, you might not be there because there's only one cup on the desk for Steve Bannon. Now I'm sounding like an FBI. agent trying to analyze the photo. All right, let's go on to the next one. It's a very big desk.

No, there's a huge desk. It's fantastically grandiose, but he's only got one screen, which I'm surprised by. Great, moving along. Okay, so let's move swiftly on to the next one, which is Woody Allen and Jeffrey Epstein. And that appears to be, I don't know exactly what the context of that would be, but it appears to be on the set of one of, of Woody's movies. movies. Mm-hmm. All right. Moving swiftly on.

Trump condom, 450, I'm huge. And then a strange picture of Donald Trump's face on it. This is obviously some sort of joke. $450. Is that a lot for a condom? I don't know. I don't buy condoms, so I don't know if that's a lot or not. I watch you to continue on with this little riff here.

See where you go. Well, I don't know how much a condom cost. And I didn't know you bought them individually. thought you bought them in packs. Well, there's probably a different price for novelty condoms. Oh, novelty condoms. Okay, let's move swiftly on to this is a good photo because it encapsulates what you're always talking about, which is the allure of the private plane.

Here we have Larry Summers. Larry Summers is wife, Woody Allen, and the... I'm not sure that that's... Oh, do you think it's Alan Dershowitz? It could. It could just be a generic Jew. I can't believe you said that. I mean, I thought it was Woody Allen.

To me, it looks like Woody Allen, but it could be Alan Dershowitz. I know that Woody was never, well, he never goes anywhere without Sunni, and he's never. Well, Sunni could be in the other seat opposite him. You can't see who's in that seat. Possibly. And then I believe that is Larry Summers' wife. Belissa knew the poet who Jeffrey Epstein was financing one of her poetry. projects? Yeah, a poetry magazine, I believe, yes. Okay. And Harvard is doing yet another

investigation into the relationships with Epstein. I was talking to someone from Harvard over the weekend who was explaining that they were all very excited to see what comes out of that. All right. Now we have Jeffrey Epstein and Bannon, like teenage girls, taking selfies of themselves in the mirror. Mm-hmm. Okay. Where is that? You know, and again, I don't, I don't exactly know.

I don't recognize that. But, you know, I mean, I've spoken before about how close they became quickly, very close. And their bond was Donald Trump, that they both had such deep, and to say the very least mixed feelings about Donald Trump, that they immediately became friends because they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they just had an inexhaustible conversation on this subject. Okay. It looks like it could be a book party because there's a pile of books there. Oh my God, is that fire and fury? Michael, is that fire and fury? Oh, my God. It certainly is. This is at some kind of a book party or or.

No, it wouldn't be. I mean, I mean, Epstein certainly never went to a book party and Bannon certainly never went to a fire and fury book party. But I remember, I do remember now that, um, um, um, um, as a novelty item, Bannon, Epstein got Bannon to sign a whole bunch of fire and fury. Okay, so maybe they would. So it's probably would be very valuable now. I don't have one. Well, I'm sure we can get you one. No, no. I mean, I have fire and fury. It's getting one with a Bannon signature. No, no, I understand. I bet we could find one on eBay.

Steve Bannon, if you're listening, would you sign one for us? Sold these on email? No, I think someone else. No, maybe EPST. I think someone else maybe got one. Maybe the FBI now has. Well, maybe they were given away with a huge condom as a sort of party phase. Yes.

I think they could have done a little gift bag of Trumpabillia. All right. Oh, now this is an interesting picture. This is Richard Branson, who's really escaped from the Epsteinia of it all, where other men have been fell. But here it is. And that's another point here, you know, that these photographs will now cause everyone enormous problems. But we don't know the people who are not in these photographs.

So in other words, it's entirely random. Who surfaces, who doesn't? Right. Just because you don't surface doesn't mean you weren't there. Right, but we've got new people who were there. And I think the guy next to Richard Branson with his hand on Branson's right shoulder. That is, that's Dean Kamens, who's a tech guy famous for, what are those things called? The Segway.

The Segways. Yes, yes, exactly. And not the guy who owned the Segway and went off the edge of a cliff in it and died. I think Dean Kamenst is still with us, although I could be wrong about that. But I remember when the segue was introduced, it was introduced at a TED conference circa 2000, 2001, where everybody got a chance to drive one of these actually fairly scary machines. I mean, but that's from me. Anything to drive seems scary.

We don't want you on one of those. Although now they seem to be relegated to tourist. Yeah, no, no. It was at that moment in 2000 or 2001, it was going to revolutionize the world instead of just theme parks. Right. There was a lot of excitement,

and I believe it was on, like Donald Trump, the cover of time. It was the vehicle that was going to transform the way we move. All right, but they look very happy here. We don't know. We're assuming this is Jeffrey Epstein's island. It certainly looks tropical. could be Florida, I suppose, or it could be NECA, Richard Branson's Island.

That we don't know. We don't know. Tropical is all that we can say. And then there's another photo here with a woman whose face is redacted. Do we have any sense of who this is? Is Jeffrey Epstein, Woody Allen, and then is this Kathy Rumler, the General Counsel of Goldman Sachs, who's got caught up in this? So if I had to guess, I think that this might be. Epstein's girlfriend at the time.

It was a woman he sent through dental school. Okay, so it's a dentist, a mystery dentist. Yeah, and that looks like Woody Allen, but you know, it also strangely looks like Bill Gates. It's definitely Woody Allen. But you're right, it does look like Bill Gates, who I think crops up in a later photo. and long, very long stemware on those glasses.

Quite, those are, first of all, you can't put those in the dishwasher. And secondly, they look inordinately delicate to drink water from. So this would be the dining room, the famous dining room table, which everyone sat around. So there are going to be other people here at this table. Well, first thing, if that's, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, Woody Allen is here, Sunni would be there also. But that table was typically there would always be, you know, from half a dozen to a dozen people around the table. Okay.

Moving on. Now, this is Eva Dubin, I think, former Miss Sweden, correct? You know, I can't, I mean, I've met her on a number of occasions, but I can't say for sure who this is. but yes, it could be. And both Donald Trump. It certainly is Donald Trump. Well, Donald Trump, whose hair at that stage is sort of Auburn and Jeffrey Epstein both looking lasciviously at whoever this blonde is. Okay, moving on.

All right. And then pictures here of more women's faces redacted. Again, the implication that they are victims. And then I think there is Bill Gates on the left. Does that look like Bill Gates to you? Yeah, I can't, I can't see. I can't make that out. It looks like Bill Gates on the plane.

Not someone who would have needed a ride on a plane with Jeffrey Epstein, because I'm sure he's got his own planes. You know, that's true, but people never pass up a ride on someone's plane, even people who have planes, because then they are aware that it is someone else paying for the fuel. Okay, moving on to the next, I love this picture. Prince Andrew and Bill Gates.

And Prince Andrew just, what is he thinking there? He's thinking, how can I get some money out of this man? How can I come up with a sponsorship for Bill Gates? Something to do with Pitch at Palace. Yeah, and I can't imagine where this is. There was, you know, of course this, the Epstein party, which I think it was in 2011, and it was a party ostensibly for Prince Andrew, though as much a kind of get out of prison party for Jeffrey Epstein, but in which everybody,

literally everybody in New York attended from Barbara Walters to George Stephanopoulos to Charlie Rose to, you know, a full set of names of people. So again, that, you know, that moment in time in which, I mean, now everyone, you know, now the context is how could you? But at that moment in time, it was how could you not, apparently. Right. And it's got a four seasons vibe about it. I don't know if that is the four seasons, but it's got a kind of modernist that would. Or is that a curtain in the background or? I'm not sure, but it's got a sort of power vibe about it.

I don't know. I mean, it was so, you know, I mean, Epstein, like so many wealthy men, is so often about controlling his environment. So he never was any. He didn't go out in public. And you can say he didn't go out in public because he was a pariah. But he was also didn't go out because it was all about control. People came to him. Right. He built these environments from his airplane to his multiple homes because it was a control thing. Right. And both of these gentlemen look like they need to lose a few pounds. And Bill Gates has definitely lost a lot of weight since this photo. And I don't know about Andrew.

Andrew's jacket is straining there. Second button can't get done. And Bill hasn't even tried to do up his buttons. Well, this is pre-weight loss drugs. Yeah, pre-GLP ones. And a word from our sponsors. And Michael Wolf and I are back. Where else? Inside Donald Trump's head. Okay.

And then we have Bill Gates hugging the pilot. Is this the pilot that gave evidence against Epstein? Yeah, I have no idea. I think this might be the plane that Donald Trump borrowed inadvertently during the campaign. you know, it probably would have been, yes, actually. And in that story, so during the campaign, they were in Montana, I believe, and the Trump plane was broken. I mean, one of the themes of the 2024 campaign is that Trump, is that his Trump's plane

was always breaking and it put him into a greater fury than anything else. forget sinking polls at the time or forget anything political. It was the plane and the fact that it might be out of order. And at one point, they were in Montana. They had to go to Colorado, I think, possibly Aspen. But they had to borrow, they had to lease a plane. And then that plane turned out to be Jeffrey Eppelin. Epstein's plane, which they learned about because somebody, media people were following

tracking on this. And so in the middle of the flight, somebody put it together that this was that this was Jeffrey Epstein's plane. And it was a very, very bad flight, very bumpy, very, um, um, turbulent, that sense of, that sense of end at the, the last moment. And with, um, with Trump screaming, I'm going to die on Jeffrey Epstein's plane. The irony that they rent a plane and it turns out to have belonged to Jeffrey Epstein. All right, moving swiftly on... And this story is in my book, All or Nothing. Just if you want more tales of the campaign, I can give you limitless ones.

Well, we always want more tales from the campaign. But I love this next picture because there is something particularly strange about people who didn't go to college wearing a Harvard sweatshirt. And obviously he gave a lot of money to Harvard and helped people's kids get into Harvard. That we know. And he was so, I mean, the only thing, you know, that I would say is that he was so brazen about it, so unashamed of it, that that sense of, of, of being a wannabe kind of changed the context. It was as though

it was though he owned Harvard. So funny. Again, that thing of being manipulative in plain sight. So I didn't go to college and wearing a Harvard shirt and... Yeah, and it was like I can do this

because I bought it. I bought not just the sweatshirt but the entire university, which is, I guess, what Harvard is now panicked about. Yeah. And also, Alan Dershowitz here looks subservient in the photo. He looks very Uriahepe-ish, sort of holding his hands like that.

Yeah, and let me just that other, you know, point that I like to emphasize in the Dershowitz context, because there's a lot of sense in the commentary that, you know, Dershowitz is the ultimate, manipulator, that, you know, that, that Epstein's grand manipulation involved hiring Alan Dershowitz, the, the most famous lawyer in the land. But Epstein would say, at one point, Epstein said to me, he said, I will give you the best legal advice. Hire Alan Dershowitz and do just the opposite. Well, and Alan Dershowitz, who said he did get a massage, but he kept his underpants on. Here we are again. We've got Bannon, a heavier Bannon at this point, definitely heavier with Woody Allen.

Is this Jeffrey Epstein's home, I'm guessing? It is. And I kind of remember when this picture was, or the context, that Bannon wanted a picture of, that was a Bannon achievement. have himself in a picture with Woody Allen. I'm sure at this moment he's not thinking it was such an achievement. Well, and in the background we've got a little

it frankly looks like a child's easel although it could be a whiteboard what you know one of those whiteboards that mathematicians used to whip up equations. Epstein had whiteboards all over the place. I mean he was always

getting up. I mean there was something very didactic about Epstein, always as though, and remember he was a spent the period as a teacher. He was always explaining, always diagramming, illustrating. It's got a slight goodwill hunting vibe where you expect him to get up and start doing weird equations that you can't understand. Yeah, no, no, and it was. And he was actually, let me say, a very good explainer. you would I mean he would start talking about

about various numerical things especially in the context of a business and what a business might be facing or the economic trends and you would get lost and then he would diagram it and you would say

oh yeah I thanks get it a bit like having someone explain crypto to you And you're like, oh, I get it. And then five minutes later, you're like, I'm not sure this makes sense. All right. Then we have Donald Trump on a plane with someone whose face is redacted.

Yeah, again, and that is the implication here that this is Donald Trump's prey. I don't know. Right. And he's got his tie loosened in a slightly loose way. Yes, unusual. Yeah. Normally we see him. with that big knot at his neck.

And here it looks like he's sort of deliberately undone it for a bit of action. But Epstein used to say that Donald Trump always wanted to ride on Epstein's plane because of saving the cost on his own plane. Yeah, I hadn't thought of that, of course. All right. And then final picture signed by none other than Bill Clinton with Gillen. Maxwell between Bill Clinton and Jeffrey Epstein. And then a woman on Bill Clinton's right, who we haven't been able to figure out who it is yet. Now, it's curious that that woman's

face is not blacked out. And then the other curious thing is that it looks remarkably like a young Hillary. It really looks like a young Hillary, doesn't it? And then who's the man next to her? She may not be redacted because she's married to the man next to her. Well, she might not be redacted because she's very clearly a woman and not a girl? You know, that's a, you know, I wouldn't want to count on that estimation by the, by the young men who staffed the Democratic committees. What does that mean? In other words, if you're going to redact all the faces of all of the women, you might as well do it across the board. I mean, how do you know what that, that woman, she might not look.

young, but she looks, I don't know. I guess if she's a wife, but even that seems like an odd distinction. Well, she's not redact. Again, you know, we have this stuff and it is just, and it is being released in no, in no particular fashion. It's all random. And in the end, we're left with, with evidence, stuff that is submitted as evidence, but we don't know what it's evidence of. And it's so extraordinary to look at this picture and look at how happy and powerful they appear in the photo. It may not have been, but the photo says one story. Epstein died in jail by suicide, we think.

Gellon Maxwell serving 20 years, although she's been moved from a jail to a prison camp in Texas, as we know. Bill Clinton, fairly untouched by the Epstein crisis, given. how much he rode around on Jeffrey Epstein's plane, and we don't know about the other two people. Okay, and then we have what looks like a warranty, the photo of a warranty, for something called the jawbreaker gag. Michael, did you come across a jawbreaker gag

when you were hanging out with Epstein? I have no idea what this is. I'm just trying to... It says always observe a person who has a gag in their mouth. Speaking of context, the little would help here. Yeah, never leave that person unattended, it's a choking hazard. Wow.

I don't know. Is the implication that this is an S&M thing? I don't know what this is. Yeah, let's move swiftly on. It's a bit grim. Certainly a choking hazard. And then I think this looks like

the kind of glove that Gillen Maxwell liked. I'm you're going to have to go further than that. I mean, I'm just stumped. I have not seen one of these before, and I edited cosmopolitan. What is it?

I have never seen anything remotely like this. What is the, what is these? Neither have I. One of what. Well, can you see it? Are you looking at it? I am looking at it. It's obviously a glove for stimulation.

I would call it a stimulator. I don't know. All I can tell you is I edited Cosmopol. my own. I never saw one of these things. I see. But I do think that Gillen was on top of her sexual toys. I mean, when you read the Nobody's Girl, the Virginia Juffery book, she seemed to be imaginative when it came to toys in the bedroom. Okay. And what does this say? Complete, what does that say? Complete Shibari, which looks up like, again, this is all sort of S&M stuff. I'm, I'm serious.

out of my depth. Yeah, I'm out of my depth on this one. Anyway, let's move swiftly on. I've had enough of this. It's all a bit grim. But it's more grist to the mill for the Democrats. And Trump is not having a good week. You don't want photos of you with women's faces redacted.

As you say, the implication is serious. And Indiana said no, we're not going to. to do restricting. We're not going to do district. What's the word? We're not going to do redistricting. What's happened to me? I've got jet lag. And Kilmar Abrego Garcia is back home or was on his way back home last night. The government having failed repeatedly to find any reason to arrest him. Well, they keep finding reason to arrest him, but he keeps being the courts say it is not legal. reason. Right. So that feels like a win

for the Democrats. And then Venezuela, what on earth is going on in Venezuela? We've got a huge aircraft carrier parked there. Hexeth may or may not be guilty of war crimes. We're waiting for the video to be released. I think the Venezuela thing, I think Trump is looking for

a win there. And the win would be regime change. If he pushes Maduro out, he will claim that as a win. And I'm trying to think if it is, I mean, Maduro is a bad guy. Maduro is definitely a bad guy, but America's history of regime change, certainly in the last 20, 25 years, hasn't been, hasn't worked. I mean, clearly, actually, the interesting thing is, is how mega people react to that. You know, because, you know, clearly a pillar, a mega people, a maga pillar is that America first we really shouldn't be expending any capital no less war powers on on

countries in which we have nothing at stake and and we have relatively we don't certainly don't have much at stake in Venezuela. So again you know when we see these mega these mega riffs developing being almost by the day. And I would say that's a hard, that would be a hard one to justify. Well, and it's the sort of point that Marjorie Taylor Green made in her, when she was going around on her resignation tour, that this is, as you say, it's not America first.

It's not make America great again. Yeah, well, I think, you know, in anything, you know, in the Marjorie Taylor Green thing, I always think that this is, you know, she's a, whatever the point of attention that can that she can focus on her, she will grab, and it's not just her. It is all MAGA people. You know, the front ranks of the MAGA movement are attention getters, all of them. Right, Nancy Mace being another one.

Yes, all of them. And they really don't. I mean, if you think about it, they're loyal, they've all grown up or achieved what they've achieved. on their basis of their loyalty to Donald Trump. But they are not really loyal to Donald Trump. They are all really singularly in this for their own game. Right. And let's take a commercial break. And Michael and I are back inside Trump's head.

I want to send a message to the White House about Donald Trump's concealer on his hand. He's using the wrong shade. and he's not using a powder on it. So it looks as if you were to shake hands with him, you would come away with makeup. I mean, it's very strange why he's doing that. Obviously, he's doing it to cover up his bruises, which we assume are, and maybe wrongly,

but we assume are from some kind of intravenous treatment he's having. But the way he slathers the wrong colour foundation on his hand is strange. I can give a little context here because, you know, obviously the physical Donald Trump is a, is a major part of the Donald Trump brand. And he doesn't let any, it's as though you're not, you're not supposed to acknowledge this, that this is, that this is a significant part of what the man does and thinks about because nobody is allowed into this. You can't say anything about his hair. You can't say anything about his suits. You can't say anything now about his hands. And this is different from other politicians who, you know, there's always somebody fluffing around saying, you know, oh, try this

tie or, you know, or brushing the dandruff off the blue suit. Never with Donald Trump. Trump, never can you address the hair, never can you address the color of his face. So I am sure that this, that that makeup, he is, he is busily applying himself, you know, sending, you know, I don't know who he sends out to get it, but. But it's the wrong color. Just getting the right color. There's 48 shades of concealer and foundation out there. I think Natalie Hart actually goes out to get it. Well, Natalie, maybe she's trying to send a message to us because there's no skin match there.

Why is Melania has sophisticated, you know, she understands makeup. They don't speak. So that's not. There was a very strange video that Melania released last night of her and Donald Trump coming down the stairs at, I think, the White House for the congressional ball. big Christmas event, and yet it had been slowed down, which made him look even slower and older than he has been looking over the last few weeks. That seemed strange signaling too. We don't know upon whose signal that is. Maybe that was also released by the Democrats. Maybe they're just maybe. Maybe. Anyway. Anyway. Anyway. It's not been a good week for Donald Trump. And even

his efforts to do what leaders always do when things are going bad domestically, which is to try and create some drama abroad. It doesn't feel like Venezuela is making sense for them. No, but we ought to, and we may not have enough time, but I think we should get into, come back to Ukraine, Europe, and Russia. Because I think you can make a case that this is the pivot. It doesn't matter. Everything else is actually probably of lesser importance than what might add up that history might see as the as the earliest days of war in Europe. So now we have been really trivial spending all that time on the Epstein photographs when you're right, what's at stake here is a new world order where it's not clear.

that Western powers are going to are going to sustain. Well, it's not clear that the Donald Trump administration, which let's point out will not last forever. But it's not clear that this administration would defend Europe. So the key pillar

of post-war, post-World War II history may no longer exist, the key assumption of World War II history, post-World War II history, may not exist. So we had John Bolton talking with Hugh on the Daily Beast podcast on Wednesday about this very thing, this strange foreign policy document that the White House put out, which seemed, you know, John Bolton said it was completely clear that Trump hadn't read it. It's possible he might have read the introduction, but it was a 30-page document, which, as you say,

completely shifts the idea that America would protect Europe. Is this J.D. Vance's whole theory, is J.D. Vance driving this? No, I doubt it. But I think this is a good question. I mean, the question, I mean, what's driving this? And the under the context of that document was, you know, was really not, not, war and not Russia and not geopolitical, the geopolitical positioning of the U.S. or its allies, the, the, the, the context was immigration. And essentially that was that was the, the message. Immigration in Europe had undermined, had had transformed Europe into something that, that we, we, we, we, we, white people who, we white people in America, no longer had interest or faith in. So, you know, I've, I detect the hand of Stephen Miller here. Well, we should come back on Tuesday and talk

about it in more depth and we should both read the 30 page document because it does, it's certainly sent ripples of real alarm across Europe. Yeah, no, I, I have read it. I mean, it's I mean, it is kind of extraordinary, unless it is also meaningless, which is so many of the documents that come out of Trump world are meaningless because he doesn't read them. And nothing really matters except what matters to him. So it's a, it's again, a context problem. Well, and I think for Europe it matters, right, because it's giving them insight into something, they'd always taken for granted, which was American support. That's not going to necessarily come now from Donald Trump.

Ferretically, except we don't really know, which is the other thing about Donald Trump, just because his administration makes a pronouncement, that does not mean it is, in fact, the policy of the administration or, in fact, it means what it says. Right. And we haven't even talked about RFK's pull-ups at the airport. Can you do a pull-up? I definitely can't do a pull-up. Well, I think he did.

He struggled for 20. No, I could not do 20. I could do one. Okay, well, one is better than none. All right, Michael, we've got more questions for Melania. Okay, and you're supposed to be telling us what's happening? And I will, and I think I've been, I'm on a leash on this, but Monday I think I'm being let off the leash.

Monday you're being let off the lawyer's leash, I'm assuming, so you'll be able to tell us what's going on. So we're trying to do certain things, but we have to do them with, we can't announce them until they're done. But Monday we should be able to talk about this. Okay, good. Well, we've got some questions from people. Here's one from christen-in. subpoena the parents of Melania, perhaps christenin didn't realize that Melania's mother died, and asked them how they got to know Melania was dating Trump

and also how the process of their permanent US visa went with or without the help of Trump. That's a good question. We've talked a lot about Melania's own visa, but let's hear about how her parents came to live here. This is from Jean Simonez, 8908. When it comes to questions for Melania, it would be interesting to learn anything at all about what happened to her mother, where her mother was when she died, and what medical problems she had before she died? I don't know if that's relevant. This may be going far afield, but possibly, yes. This is from Kara Baker. Please get historical Melania information from her sister. I don't know if

she'll be honest or not, but I'm pretty sure she knows Melania's backstory. I didn't know Melania had a sister. No, good point. Did you know she had a sister? I did not. Okay, well, maybe she doesn't. But many people do. Right. I have a sister. You have a sister. And I have a sister. Yes.

Questions for Melania. Has Trump household, NYC, Florida, L.A. ever employed an undocumented worker? You know, I think that we know the answer to that. And I think the answer is yes. Okay. Well, then we need to know about that. Ask Melania.

This is from Elaine, 57. Ask Melania, how many facelifts has she had? I don't know if that's relevant. I think she looks pretty good, actually. I always think she looks elegant. Canyon Flynn, question for Melania. When you met your future husband, were you more attracted to his appearance or his personality?

Just goes to show how interested people are in this. No, you know, I think. I think because this relationship remains fundamentally mysterious. Unknown. Yeah. Unknowable. Yeah. A lot of questions about her immigration status, about her documents, about her family's documents.

People are really curious about this. No, you know, as they well should be. I mean, Donald Trump has built a career on the basis of his views on immigration when clearly he is married to to someone who's presence raises all kinds of questions. Well, and his first wife was an immigrant too, right, Nirvana. They both had very thick accents, both Melania and Ivana. Right, which goes to our other discussion about Europe, Russia, and I'm eager to come back to this.

Right. Well, I am interested in whether or not Malania is still speaking to Putin about the children. that got stolen from the Ukraine. And Melania, if you're listening, come on, help your husband get the right fit for his hand concealer. It's not that hard. It's not that hard. Just take a picture.

You could take a picture of his hand and match it against something online. You know, as I keep trying to tell you, the truth is she couldn't care less about that or about anything having to do, I suspect, with her husband. Well, my question for her will be what's going on with your husband's. hands. Are you confident that he's in good health? Just throwing out for good measure. All right. If you have been, thank you for listening to us. I feel like we've wandered everywhere this morning. And enjoyed it. And enjoyed it. It's great to be back. Don't forget to subscribe to the Daily Beast podcast. Thank you. We hit over 500,000 subscribers. I buried the lead. So exciting

while I was away. I woke up to the news. Very exciting. And please leave us a Comment, get all your friends to subscribe, and what else? And we should thank our top-level members. And they are Sandra Clark, Methinks, Travel with Carl, Andrew Beaver, The Cappanator, Harry Clark, Dawn McCarthy, Daniel Dogglover, M. Griner, Fulvia, Orlando, Herbie, Andrew Melor, Lazz Cande, Bonzo. Val Love Francesco. Andrea Hoda.

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.