The Daily Beast Podcast - Trump In Complete Crisis Over Epstein Email: Wolff

Episode Date: November 16, 2025

Michael Wolff joins Joanna Coles as the Epstein email deluge crashes straight into Donald Trump’s White House, leaving the president uncharacteristically mute and visibly cornered. Wolff argues this is the moment he’s warned about for years—the Trump–Epstein relationship finally breaking into full view. As newly released emails hint at suppressed testimony, secret negotiations, and a “dog that hasn’t barked,” Joanna presses Wolff on why MAGA is demanding total transparency even as it risks politically detonating Trump himself. Wolff explains why Ghislaine Maxwell’s family may now be threatening leaks to pressure the White House, and why Trump’s go-to strategy—delay—may not work against a story that resurfaces again and again. What does Trump do when the one scandal he can’t outtalk finally catches up with him? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You have to have a certain kind of finesse and patience to be able to hold two contradictory truths in your head at the same time, which is to say that Jeffrey Epstein was a monster, but he had important things to say. Would you do it all the same again? Do you have any regrets about this? I have no regrets at all. I would do it exactly the same. This is the way it is done. And once more, I am the only one who has been shouting from the rooftops that the central issue here is Donald Trump's relationship to this monster. Michael. Joanna? This Epstein, Epstein, Epstein story will not go away.

It's just drenching everything. The entire country feels like it's come to a standstill. Well, and I just, just let me say, Russian, to say, finally, finally, finally, I mean, this is a story that has been ready to go on the front burner for months and months and months, if not years. It is a story that I have been pressing again and again and again. In fact, you and I, the first, before the election, together, The Daily Beast and I released tape of Jeffrey Epstein very explicitly talking about his relationship with Donald Trump. What did we get out of that? But, you know, we got a lot of, a lot of internet action out of that. The broader media crickets.

So again, just let me say, finally, it is here. This is it. Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, as I have said, over and over and over again, are the same person. And finally. And you have been at the center of this, and I want to come on to lots of the comments that we got. our last podcast, we talked about your methodology and the amount of time that you had spent with Epstein, your friendship with Epstein. Well, I wouldn't say my friendship with with with with Epstein. I mean, my, I was certainly acquainted with Epstein. We had a relationship. He was not he was not my friend like you are my friend. Okay. Well, that's that's a relief. But I want to come on to it because you've, you've been at the center of an enormous amount of criticism from. traditional media, from legacy media, from people saying that you just spent too much time with him, you got too close to him. We'll come back to that later. And again, let me, because this is obviously extremely frustrating to hear from people who did not get the story. And I've been here

before over and over again. When I went into the White House in the first Trump administration, came out with a book that described what was going on there. I got the same thing. Who was? Was I too close, was I this, that, the other thing, from people who did not get the story. So let's be very clear about this. The traditional media particularly has, you know, has abdicated their responsibility on this story or decided that Epstein was too, as people said to me, ick to do this story. Again and again and again. So I, you know, I'm like, you know, Jesus Christ, you know, please do some work. Get out of the office.

Well, it is the right word. And I can't help thinking what an earth is it like for the victims of Jeffrey Epstein to have to sit through this thing yet again to listen to a president saying this is a democratic host. But that's irrelevant. Michael, it's not irrelevant for the victims to hear the president say this is a democratic hoax. That's not irrelevant. That was my point. That was my point that you wake up every morning and listen to this stuff. Yes, but in terms of understanding the president, pinning this on the president, holding the president accountable, this has to be discussed and should be discussed.

And, you know, I suppose the victims have to relive this. That's unpleasant. Although I would think at the same time, they would also say, as I am saying, finally, Finally, so as you have frequently pointed out, Donald Trump is never silent. He is always talking. He's always talking to somebody. Since the Epstein emails have been released, he has gone uncharacteristically silent. What is going on in his head, a place we have spent so much time and it's getting darker and darker. What is, how is he thinking about how he rides this out? I mean, we heard Lauren Bowie. but being put under pressure. She was taken into the situation room, a congressperson, taken into the situation room and clearly told that they didn't want her to vote with Thomas Massey and Nancy Mace and Marjorie Taylor Green and Roe Kana and all the Democrats to release the Epstein files. He said it's a democratic hoax. He and the First Lady scurried away yesterday,

deliberately taking no questions. What is going on in his head over this whole Epstein situation? This has been enormously, enormously frustrating to him for a very long time. The fact that this is now all coming home to roost, I think is, I think is completely freaking him out. This is, he doesn't. We're at a moment in time he doesn't know what to do. He has misplayed this every step of the way. He is, I think he has no strategy. I think he has no point of view.

I think he feels cornered on this right now. You think he feels cornered? My sense of the people in the White House is that they are kind of frantic. I mean, they don't know what is true. So remember, the people in the White House are dealing with a situation in which they understand the political perils of this. He is telling them nothing. I don't, I, you know, nothing, nothing, you know, barely knew the guy still on that. He's still taking that narrative.

Which is what he always does, right? Denial. Right. And the people in the, in the White House genuinely don't know what happened between Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump from the late 80s through to the early 2000s. They don't know. because that has been whitewashed out of the Donald Trump political narrative. So Michael, who has been set aside, do you think, at the White House to go through all these emails? Do they have a team of people going through them?

Is Cash Patel going through them? Who is looking at this stuff? I mean, theoretically, but in my experience, when you think that the government in the United States and the, and the White House itself have unlimited resources to Marshall. In reality, it's all chicken with their heads cut off. They don't know. They don't know whose responsibility it is. Also, people don't want to take the responsibility

because you put yourself in the line of fire. You're going to get blamed. So I don't know what's, I don't know if they have, if they have finally put a process in place. I suspect that they don't. I remember other crises in the White House, in, in Trump's White House, in which everything, rather than coming together to deal with it, everything, in fact, fell apart. And that, the first time around, that led to the Mueller investigation. So I think it's perfectly likely that nobody is doing anything. So let me ask you something, because we've been going through them, obviously like every other journalistic enterprise, we've been going through them.

I wanted to ask you about one of them, which is sent to you from Jeffrey Epstein at the end of January in 2019. and it's got a redacted name, which we now know because the Republicans have released her name, that it's Virginia Dufre. And he goes, I think, Virginia Dufre, Mara Lago, Trump said he asked me to resign. Never a member ever. Of course he knew about the girls as he asked Gillen to stop. Now, I think most people have read that and assumed that he was asking Gillen, to stop hiring girls from the spa at Mara Lago. But you think he had actually a different meaning.

Well, you know, it just occurred to me yesterday. And it actually, I was doing a podcast with Sydney Blumenthal. In the middle of the podcast, I thought, oh, my God, yes, I know what was going on here. What was going on here is it was a moment in time. Galane Maxwell had sued Virginia, I think her name was then Roberts, for defamation. Then Virginia Roberts, Joufrey, then countersued. And this had gone on for quite a number of years. And it had finally come down to both of them having to testify to give depositions.

So both of them would be under oath and being asked about what had happened there. Now, in fact, in fact, the suit was settled at that point. So there was no public testimony about this. But I would believe that that is the reference. It comes at exactly, exactly the right point there. And clearly Donald Trump would not have wanted. Galane Maxwell to testify about, well, anything. And again, the suit was closed.

They closed it down. They settled that suit. Okay. So I want to ask you about another email that was sent from Jeffrey Epstein to Gillen Maxwell. And this email has received quite a lot of attention. It says, I want you to, this is from Epstein to Gillem. I want you to realize that the dog that hasn't barked is

Trump. Again, name redacted, but the Republicans gave the name that it was Virginia Dufrey. So Virginia Dufre spent hours at my house with him. He has never once been mentioned. Police chief, etc. I'm 75% there. Well, I just let me let me note that there is a famous Sherlock home story called The Dog That Didn't Bark. Well, do you want, but what is the analogy he's making there? Well, I think that that that may be, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, there is similar. I mean, Jeffrey Epstein wasn't the greatest reader of all time, to say the least, but. Well, he would say he was a math guy, right? I think he's saying that that was a telling thing, that at that point, at that point, there had been a lot of Virginia then Roberts had begun to

accuse a variety of people. There had been a daily mail story in which she had come. I mean, I think that that was the first story, her first expose of the experience that she had, that she had had with Jeffrey Epstein. So the fact that she wasn't that, and with this email was sent in 2011. 2011, and Gillen writes back, I have been thinking about that, which would somewhat undercut what she said to Todd Blanc. when he went down to visit her in the Tallahassee jail? I think that it is likely that Virginia, Roberts Joufrey, would have known what was going on in Jeffrey Epstein's house during that period,

and she would have seen Donald Trump there on many, many occasions. So what about the Republicans' point that she never mentions him in her book, Nobody's Girl? Well, you know, I think that the interesting thing about that book, remember, Virginia Roberts Chufre is dead. Well, she died by suicide. I mean, a tragic life. Yes, right. But anyway, she wasn't there. She wasn't there to, it's hard to hold a dead person accountable for a book that was published after her death. But it was written while she was alive. Yeah, yeah, but we all, we all.

know the process of of of books and and what the changes that that might have occurred we already know that there were changes a complicated thing what she might have said to about her husband which she wanted to change or or the the the um her co-author Amy Wallace or ghost writer decided to change I don't know I have no idea what what happened there But there is also a publisher in this case and a publisher. We know that everyone is afraid of Donald Trump suing. We also know that there are other people in this book who she has been very careful about. You know, she refers to a prime minister.

Many people have assumed who that prime minister is, but she doesn't say. So I don't know. I have no idea here. I'm just trying to provide a context for why Donald Trump. Trump's name might not be mentioned. Okay, so let's pull back to the wider picture. You're saying he's panicking. He's kind of freaked out about this.

He has no strategy to deal with it. I noticed yesterday J.D. Vance, who'd been accused, and we wrote about this in The Beast, had been accused of saying nothing, then cropped up and did an interview with Hannity, during which he did not mention the word Epstein once. So what do you think is going on? there. Is this a moment for J.D. Vance? Are J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio thinking, he may be fallible, this guy? I don't understand the question. J.D. Vance may be fallible or Donald Trump may be fallible. No. Are J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio as the pretenders to the

throne sitting there thinking, I'm not going to say anything here, because let him get on with it? Well, you know, I think in the first, in the first days, there are only X number of hours. What do we have, at, you know, 48 hours, slightly more than 48 hours on this, and there is probably no strategy. I'm sure that there will shortly be a strategy. But this has caught everybody off guard. Also, I think that there's a lot of internecine Republican byplay here. I mean, the Republicans have been the ones who have now released most of these emails. So who is at who is at fault? And as for as for J.D. Vance, you know, I think he's he's looking at his own situation. I don't, I'm not necessarily thinking that that he thinks Donald Trump is vulnerable. But we have the, you know, we have the right wing of the party who is, who is, you know, has put up a steady drumbeat for, for Epstein material.

And, I mean, they, they are voting with the Democrats to release, have voted with the Democrats to release these files. That puts Vance in a very awkward position. Well, I was going to ask you about that because for people who aren't following MAGA and the MAGA various fault lines that are going on now, where is MAGA on the release of all these? Maga is ferociously in favor of releasing all of this material. Transparency come clean. Yes, the contradiction there is that this may hang Trump. And I think that's been confusing to a lot of people on the right. And the right-wing press has been pretty, I mean, in the last 48 hours, has been

not necessarily quiet on this, but their focus has been on trying to find a way to say that this does not incriminate Donald Trump, at the same time wanting to know everything about Jeffrey Epstein. So that's going to become increasingly problematic for them, I would assume. Michael, let's take a quick break for some ads. And Michael Wolf and I are back. very much inside Donald Trump's head. I want to ask you, if you're inside Gillen Maxwell's head right now, she's been moved to a jail.

We've talked about this before. She's getting preferential treatment. She's getting private workout classes. She's got a puppy. She's getting a food delivered to her cell. She's in a camp that normally someone who'd been sentenced for 20 years for sex trafficking would not be in. What is she thinking right now?

Well, she's worried. She thought she had this figured out, I would assume. She meets with Todd Blanche. She has then moved to a dramatically upgraded prison with, and I think we understand that she was now filing the papers for commutation or a pardon or going through those motions. But I think it's reasonable to assume that that deal has already been struck. specifically or softly. And so she was in a good place. Now she probably is thinking she is losing her good place.

And I suspect that's true. I don't know how Donald Trump pardons Galane Maxwell, although Donald, I might have said that about many of Donald Trump's pardons. So who knows? But nevertheless, what does she do if, if they start to renege. And what has she got?

I mean, you have talked about this repeatedly that it was, you think, coming from the M. Maxwell family, when their birthday letter that Donald Trump drew and the strange poem he wrote for Jeffrey Epstein were suddenly released in the pages of the Wall Street Journal. So do you think if her family think, well, she may not now get a part, and we have more information to put out there?

Of course. I mean, you know, I think that they have, I mean, this is a complicated thing now to thread this needle. She has now exonerated Donald Trump. I never saw him. Anytime I did see him, he was a figure of enormous rectitude. And on top of that, he's a great guy. Whatever she said in that deposition, which was basically here.

I think she said congratulations on being elected to president. So she cannot now come out and say, in fact, he's a big slime ball. So, but what can happen is that there can be more leaks. And the White House will understand that those leaks come from the Maxwell side and that the way they will have to stem those leaks, put the stopper there, is to go through with their deal. I would say that's how that will work.

Okay, so let's get back to you. We did a podcast on Thursday where we got thousands of comments. And we talked about your methodology. I would say the comments we got were split roughly around 50% saying you've got to do what you've got to do, 25% being horrified at how you got so close to Epstein and we're advising Epstein. Well, let's address that again. Can I add one more thing? And then the other thing is you've absolutely been central to a lot of the media.

So we have the New York Times saying Michael Wolf, Chronicleer of elites provided Epstein with advice on Trump's. The Guardian blurred lines how Michael Wolf aspired to be part of elite circles he wrote about. And again, you know, I have heard this all way throughout my career. And that is partly because I'm the person who has managed to get close to some very, difficult stories. You know, journalism is, is more often than not outsiders looking at insiders. I have managed to get in with the insiders, and I have returned again and again accounts that no one else has, has been able to get. And is that, you know, that doesn't mean that the way I do this is

precludes other people, the New York Times particular approach or any journalist's particular approach, but I have repeatedly managed to offer a different window into major stories than other people. Without me doing it the way I do it, we would be absent key parts of key information about key stories. And let me say the other other point, which I've also tried over the years to make again and again and again, is that there are journals and journalists do their job. I am a writer. And my job, the way I see my job, is to get inside a situation and to be able to write,

to show people and let people into an experience that they would not otherwise have. And this is not new. I'm not the only journalist who has done this. I mean, I may sometimes feel I am the only remaining journalist that has done this. But again and again, you know, whether it's, whether it's Tom Wolfe, whether it's Truman Capote, you know, whether it's Hunter Thompson, you know, there is, there are writers who seek to be as close to the experience as possible. And if that means, and let me say, because I think it's important that you have to have a certain kind of finesse and patience or and to be able to hold two contradictory truths in your head at the same time, which is to say that Jeffrey Epstein was a monster, but he had important things to say. You said earlier that you mentioned the word ick. Would you do it all the same again? Do you have any regrets about this?

I have no regrets at all. I would do it exactly the same. This is the way it is done. And once more, I am the only one who has been shouting from the rooftops that the central issue here has is Donald Trump's relationship to this monster. Do you think there's a silver bullet in these emails in the, in the Epstein files? Well, I don't know. I mean, you know, the nature of silver bullets is usually when we think that there is one, but it is usually the accretion of many lead bullets. Well, it's always good to work with a colleague who likens himself to Tom Wolfe or Hunter S. Thompson or Truman Capote. But even that, Joanna, that's annoying because you're being dismissive there.

and condescending. No, I'm not trying to do that. I have returned again and again and again. Books that have are of a level and at a insight that frankly no other journalists is delivering at this point. So how do you think this progresses over the next couple of weeks for Trump? And do you think that the, do you think Ro Khanna and Thomas Massey, do you think that their vote will get passed by the Senate so we actually finally get the release of the Epstein files? I don't know. I mean, I think that there is the, I think this is one of the things that the White House is working on now. They do not want that to happen. So, so it may not. And certainly that the, the, the Trump. the basic Trump strategy is always delayed, delay, delay, and push this out because other things will happen.

Other events will supersede this one. And that's certainly what they are counting on. Now, the thing about the Epstein story is that other events do supersede it, but it comes back again and again. does he have the power to create an event that would wipe this off the front page? He certainly does. Will he do that? Well, he will certainly try. So I don't know how this plays out in the short term.

I would suspect, however, that it will not go away, that at every opportunity it will come back. And we're going to take a quick break for a message from our sponsors. And Michael and I are back inside Trump's head. Okay, so I want to ask you one point that a lot of people made on our comments. And we got nearly 10,000 comments. So I haven't read all of them. And I won't pretend to. And I've responded to as many as I had energy to.

But I was very impressed by how engaged people were and how interested they were in your process. I think one of the lines that people are interested to get your response to is this sense that he was a pedophile. What even is it like hanging out with someone who has been accused of such egregious things, who spent time in jail for such egregious things? And is there a sort of, is there a kind of criminal that actually you're hanging out with that just, there is a line there actually? I mean, you mentioned the word ick. I don't know if there's a line there and I don't understand what line you're talking about.

And I would assume that if you got the opportunity, you would have been there, too, as would most other journalists, because you're seeing something that we otherwise don't see. Now, as for this and as for what it felt like, you know, it was always a kind of, a kind of, you know, balance between. how creepy is this and how significant is this, how informative is this? I mean, as I said before, hold two contradictory thoughts in your mind at the same time. He is a monster. He has important things to say. And so you're juggling that at all occasions. You know, you're inside a story. you're to some degree inside a crime story. And that's where, you know, in cold blood becomes an interesting, an interesting context in which to see this.

That's what, I mean, there are other people there at Epstein's table who are trying to get money from him, who are in business relationships with them, who want a whatever leg up he can give them, who want maybe who want girls, I don't know. But let's draw a distinction. I was there to see this story and to write this story. Okay.

I don't want to over-egg this, but you raised a really interesting point that you're inside a criminal story. Is there a point where you are abetting the criminal? Absolutely not. You know, I am doing that. I mean, literally nothing to, I mean, I don't even want to go, want to go there. I mean, what I did was sit at a table and put on the tape recorder. And with every intention of telling this story, as I have told numerous other stories. But there are people listening to this that would say, there is no crime.

There is no, there is no crime going on there, remember. I mean, he has, he has been convicted of a crime. gone, he has gone to prison, that is theoretically something that is, that is, that has been accounted for by the American justice system. Now he is, now he is, well, for me, he had become a source, an enormously insightful source about his friend Donald Trump. I guess people listening to this would say, well, wait a minute. you did more than just put your tape recorder on. Actually, you were giving him media advice.

You enter into a relationship with people. You say what they might want to hear. You are finessing a relationship. If you are anything other than an opinion journalist, most journalists seem to be these days, you have to make a relationship with your subject. You know, that's, and giving media, of advice, I'm not giving him legal advice or advice about his crimes. I'm offering some kind of, you know, I don't even know what media, you know, it seems like, you know, in fact, when I reviewed these emails some time ago, because I thought this will probably come out. I thought, well, okay, this is just, you know,

the usual kind of, there's nothing that would be of any interest to anyone here. Well, it turns out that everything about the Epstein story is of enormous interest to everybody. And of course, not least the White House. It's just so unusual to see Trump refusing to answer questions. It's normally the thing he most enjoys doing. And he must be figuring out how on earth to deal with this. So let's come back on Tuesday. with what you're hearing from inside the White House.

But right now he's panicking, he's freaking out, there's no strategy. And as you've always said, Epstein, Epstein, Epstein, this story just will not go away. It's astonishing to think he's been on his Asia trip. He's been bombing boats in Venezuela. There's been so much going on. There might be a war now going on in Nigeria. He appears to be doing everything he can to distract from this story.

and it will not let up. And his own Congress people won't let it up. I mean, I think it's extraordinary that Lauren Bobit was taken into the situation room and put under pressure. And I think the three women who've clearly gone against, you know, what Mike Johnson wants them to do are actually pretty brave on this one. I mean, it's hard. You know, I don't particularly want to give credit to Marjorie Taylor Green, but she's been, she's stood with the victims on this. She stood, you know, clasping Roe Kana on this. It's really something which has managed to unite people.

And it's certainly going to give room for Trump's enemies. Well, let's come back on Tuesday and tell us what more you know from inside the White House. Could be a new world by then. Have a great weekend and switch off your phone. Well, there's clearly more to come on this Epstein story. It's just such a depressing story. The idea of this so-called powerful man with a network of a thousand girls and his female accomplice sitting in a prison camp in Texas.

The whole thing is sickening. If you have been, thank you for joining us. Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast. We are independent media. And we have been talking about this story for a long time. It's suddenly hit the headlines with an enormous, wave of interest and energy. Please leave us your comments. I know some of you felt I was much harder on Michael than I should have been on our podcast, which we released on Thursday, and some

of you felt that I wasn't hard enough. So keep the comments going. It's a very interesting conversation to have. I'm sure our first lady isn't having a great time over these Epstein emails either, but, as she would have a say, be beast. And thank you to our Be Beast tier of members. Herbie, Andrew Mella, Fulvia Orlando, Las Condi, Sandra Clark, Bonzo. Val, Love Francisco, Bocock, D.C. Someone wrote in pointing out that Michael had said Bobcock, and in fact it's Bocauk, D.C., so I'm pronouncing it correctly.

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