The Daily Beast Podcast - Why Trump Legal Threat Against Me Is Empty: Wolff

Episode Date: February 4, 2026

Michael Wolff joins Joanna Coles as Trump predictably lashes out in the fallout from the Epstein files—targeting Wolff as his latest nemesis, threatening lawsuits he can’t afford to file, and insisting the real conspiracy is against him. They unpack Trump’s rambling, defensive response to questions about Epstein flights, island denials, and the newly resurfaced claim—now echoed in official documents—that Epstein introduced Melania to Trump, a detail Trump world once tried to bury with billion-dollar legal threats. From Bill Gates and elite denial to Epstein’s role as an information broker, the conversation widens to Trump’s current obsession: federalizing elections, re-litigating 2020, and quietly laying the groundwork to undermine the 2026 midterms. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is, I think, the third or fourth time over the last 10 years that he has threatened to sue me. So he has never sued me. Also, he can't sue me. What is he going to do? Is he going to sit for a deposition? Is he going to answer all of the questions that then I would have the right to ask him about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein? In the release of these documents by the federal government, there is a document here that says Jeffrey Epstein introduced. you to your wife. Do you want to discuss that, Mr. Trump? Michael. Joanna. Well, well, well, well, well.

We sit here three times. We were bound to get to this point. We were bound to get to this point. First of all, this is very nice. Where is it from? What's the label? Anderson and Shepard. Oh, it's always Anderson and Shepard. Well, three times a week we go. Where do we go? We go inside Donald Trump's head. And what do we find inside Donald Trump's head? Me, apparently. We find you. We find you.

Was there anything funnier than watching Donald Trump flying back squiffy from his dinner, the alpha-alpha dinner in Washington? Is it in Washington? Yeah, it is in Washington. Which, full of all these fancy people. Well, then he's not flying. back, one would assume. No, he's flying to Mar-a-Lago.

Oh, he's flying from? I don't know. Anyway, the point is, Donald Trump is... Al-Alfa dinner might be in New York, actually. No, it's not in New York. I know it's not in New York. I think it's in D.C. All right.

Anyway, clearly, Michael and I have never been to the al-alpha dinner, but Donald Trump has been... But my friend, Donald has been. Your friend Donald has been, or are you a friend? And Squiffy with power, we know he doesn't drink, but he seemed a little he seemed merry, are with reporters in the plane on the way back. The plane, the reporters ask him about the Epstein files.

So this is the first time he's been confronted by reporters about the most recent release of the Epstein files. Of the 3 million Epstein files. And what does he say? Shall I read it? Please. Well, they should be, because it looks like this guy, Wolf was a rider, was conspiring with Epstein to do harm to me.

and I didn't see it myself, but I was told by some very important people that not only does it absolve me. It's the opposite of what people were hoping. You know, the radical left, Wolf, he's a third-rate writer. And so we'll probably sue Wolf. That's not a friend. Well, let's unpack that. But first, that's you doing Alec Baldwin doing Donald Trump. Yes, I think so.

It's a kind of, yes. I mean, it's harder to do men. I can do a better Melania. but you are inside Trump's head. How did you get there? He's inside your head. We know that, but it turns out all along that you've been inside his head. I think the operation, I mean, let's remove me from this for a second, the operation is that when confronted with a situation,

instead of addressing the situation, he identifies someone in the situation to be his antagonist, is nemesis. And that happens to be in this situation. At this, at this moment, me. It happens to be you. It happens to be you. And then. Let's get this. So the entire Epstein thing, the, the, probably one of the worst things that has happened to his presidency. Yeah. The thing that may yet bring him down. Who is responsible for it? Me. So he also, truth socialed out. I mean, I can do, shall I do his voice one more time? Not only was a type of... No, that's what you're hooked her accent, that's wrong.

All right, here's what he said. Not only wasn't I friendly with Geoffrey Epstein, but based upon information that has just been released by the Department of Justice, Epstein, and a sleazebag lying author named Michael Wolfe conspired in order to damage me and all my presidency. So much for the radical left's hope against hope, some of whom I'll be suing.

Additionally, unlike so many people that like to talk trash, I never went to the infested Epstein Island. He's looking at you, Howard Lutnik, but almost all these crooked Democrats and their donors did. Thoughts? Fabulous. Fabulous. What more? Now, this is, I think, the third or fourth time

over the last 10 years that he has threatened to sue me. So he has never sued me. Well, and you gave, I thought, a very good quote. You said this is the third or fourth time he's tried to sue me. Bring it on. I have nothing to hide. And he obviously has so much to hide. But also he can't sue me.

What is he going to do? Is he going to sit for a deposition? Is he going to answer all of the questions that then I would have the right to ask him about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein? this time on this, we know you traveled with him on this occasion and that occasion and that occasion. We know, and there are other things. So in this, in the release of these documents by the federal government, it said, there is a document here that says Jeffrey Epstein introduced you to your wife. Do you want to discuss that, Mr. Trump? So I think the chances of me being sued are remote, although having said that, just because it's a, would be a ridiculous suit doesn't mean that he wouldn't sue.

Well, and also the process, as we've discussed before, the process of delivering a lawsuit is part of the punishment, as he thinks of it, right? I mean, he doesn't think that if he sued you, it would get anywhere. Clearly, he doesn't want to sit for any kind of discovery, but just wrapping you up in a lawsuit is irritating. enough? Yes. Although for me, it would not be irritation. It would be just... It would be fun. It would be fun. It would be arriving.

But why you, Michael, lots of people have written about Donald Trump. Yes, you've written four books, which were all best zealous. Well, there's a point... And also this comment, that's not a friend. Yes. No, that's... When I heard that, I thought, were we friends? When did this take? I think you were friends when he invited you to write about him in his Hollywood house and he threw the ice cream at you.

I think that he, I suppose he thought, I mean, that would be where we, was that a moment in which we were friendly? Yes, I mean, I was a reporter covering him. I was not insulting him. So I suppose you could say it was a friendly meeting. But friends, were we ever friends? where we ever, did we ever pal around? I have a kind of, I kind of think that he thinks that. You know, when I was at New York Magazine,

he used to call me up on a frequent basis. And we would, I mean, it was always, you know, you did that story, they did this story, I should have been in it. How come? Usually people called you up and said, why did you say that about me? Right.

And then he would call up and say, why didn't you say something about me? Right. But we were, they were perfectly friendly, if ridiculous conversations. But it was transactional. I mean, he's confusing any kind of interaction as a friend because he's a man that doesn't have friends unless is Jeffrey Epstein or maybe Steve Wittkoff. Yeah, no.

And Michael Wolfe. I could be now negotiating with the Russians and the Iranians. if I had only behaved myself. If only had stayed friendly with him. Well, well, well. I mean, once I was, before he became the president a second time, I had said to one of his people, I said, let's go.

I mean, what happens if he does become president? And this person, close aid, said, well, you become the ambassador to a small country. So I think that there has been in his conception of the world, a world in which I am his friend. Well, not anymore, you're not, because now he's thinking of suing you. He's thinking of suing you. And, of course, you've absolved him somehow your friendship with Jeffrey Epstein

and you're pleading with Jeffrey Epstein to bring out information. Yeah, and let's be clear about what I'm theoretically conspiring. to do. I am conspiring to get Jeffrey Epstein to come forward with everything that he knows about Donald Trump. So the idea that that is somehow an effort to damage him, well, it is an effort to damage him, actually. And he's already president at this point. It is a, well, yes, he had This was during the first term. Okay. So this was, but this, right.

So during the first term, you were trying to persuade Jeffrey Epstein to come out with all the information he had, which would disqualify Donald Trump from being president. Well, yes. I mean, it would be, you know, in the effort, and again, in the effort not to have him be the president again, which subsequently happened. Yes, it was, I thought it, I thought, I have always thought that it is one of, the important things to know about Donald Trump is that he had this long relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, which was, you know, he's blacked out for many years. Epstein, did I know Epstein? Did I maybe pass him in the hallways at Mar-a-Lago once? And then I threw him out. It is extraordinary. I mean, the files themselves are so wide-reaching. And I'm so not a

conspiracy theorist. I'm always the person that believes the cock-up. But I now don't think he committed suicide. I mean, it's just, I feel like the fact that he was in conversations to potentially negotiate some sort of deal, which I don't think we knew, did we? That 10 days before he was found dead, I knew. You knew? Yes. I mean, I know, yes, I know the parameters of this story, and I know Epstein's lawyers and I know and have written that yes, that that was, that there was a reach out to the Justice Department to have a sit down and see what they could to begin that discussion. Okay.

I didn't know that. I knew that he had rewritten his will, but I didn't understand that they'd reached out to the Justice Department to see if there was a sort of compromised territory here. Yeah, and I think that's more specific. They had reached out. So this was, I mean, if you, I think to understand this properly, that would not be exceptional. Your client is in jail. Your client is being denied bail. You're looking for any opening there. So why wouldn't you sit down? So I wouldn't go that far in saying that that the Epstein, that Epstein had volunteered to sit down and say everything he knows. I don't know how. I don't think it got that far. Well, it is absolutely astonishing how many people hung out with him

and all these people that said they didn't. Melinda Gates came out today saying that she just felt very sad, that the whole situation with Bill Gates was very sad that he'd contracted, at least according to a note from Jeffrey Epstein, to Jeffrey Epstein oddly. It was obviously a note he'd written and he was trying to figure out, I think, whether or not to send it,

because Bill Gates was trying to end their relationship because he'd obviously realized this was not going to end well for him, and indeed it has not. But Belinda Gates was talking about it and just saying how sad it was, how very, very sad, and how glad she was to be out of her relationship.

Well, I would call that gloating. You would call it gloating. Now, that's interesting, and I have... I'm not sure it was gloating, to be fair, because I don't think you want people to know that your ex-husband was hanging out with Hooker's got an STD and then tried to smuggle antibiotics into your breakfast, but now it's out there.

Well, you don't want it out there, but if you want to be in any, when the marriage breaks up, you always want to be the virtuous person and have the other, your former spouse, be the not virtuous person. Well, I guess that's true, but I thought Melinda Gates was very powerful the way she talked about it and just said she felt very sad over it. Tough for his kids. I mean, yes. Yeah, I mean, to me, as I say, I say, I'm virtuous.

Bill is a pig. But let me have, I have a slightly further perspective on this, which I don't have an answer to this. But it would seem from these emails and this evidence that Epstein's relationship with Bill Gates broke down by 2013. I mean, it seems like this is for whatever happened. I mean, the position that Epstein had on with regard to some fund, anyway, all this had. come apart. Okay. I start talking seriously to Epstein about a book or an article or something that he wants in 2014. Among the reasons I say that I, among the, I ask Epstein why he wants to do this. And he explicitly says that Bill Gates has asked him to get some, um, uh, a, uh, a, uh,

have some, to get, to see if he can have something written about him that would acknowledge the other factors of his life, which is to say the other people that he knows, his interests in science, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. In other words, to, to try to in some, in some way rehabilitate his reputation. Right. mitigate his past because he spent a year in jail for soliciting minors for prostitution. Exactly. So I, and I don't know the answer to this. because I did not know that this was in 2013 that they had, that this had, that their relationship had broken down. Now, maybe they repaired it. I don't know. I know that I said, yes, I would be, I would be happy to talk about this and would would be particularly interested in doing this if, if I could interview Gates. And he said, yes, definitely, definitely. And there's some, there, there,

There is in the email chain him talking about what Gates might say and what he might want Gates to say and the meetings that he could set up. Now, this never happened. So I don't know if there was, if after 2013, this remained a kind of Jeffrey Epstein fantasy that he was still in the Gates world. or if they had repaired their relationship, or if he was trying to yet repair that relationship. Well, that's what it sounds like from the emails that I've read that have been released. And there's so much stuff that it's impossible to know where to begin. And also odd things float up like Katie Couric saying your lasagna rocked. And also she says, I know you don't think you're much of a foodie,

but your lasagna rocked. I said, yeah, no, I saw that and I thought, God, I mean, I mean, it was very hard to think of Jeffrey Epstein in the same sentence as lasagna for one thing. And of that lasagna rocking. Well, I think Katie said that she had only been there once and she was invited to a dinner organized by Peggy Seagull, where I think people were being lured in with the bait of meeting Prince Andrew. I think George Stephanopoulos attended the same debate. No news on whether or not he liked the lasagna. Right. I mean, that, I don't know.

That email did not sound like that. That party, which was, I think, in 2011, was a big event. It was not a sit down and have lasagna. Lazzania would not have been on the menu in a glamour bash. That was, in fact, a cocktail party. I imagine that Prince Andrew wouldn't want lasagna. I think he's used to eating grouse, grouse or nothing for Andrew, formerly known as prince. But maybe lasagna is a secret word.

You know, a lot of people called me over the weekend and say, and say there's a lot of mention of pizza there. I'm bringing the pizza. What was that a byword for? It's all depressing. And what about Peter a tear at longevity? I said, probably a pizza. Probably a pizza.

What about Peter? Ateer, CBS's new longevity guru, who it turns out, according to our reporting, had declined the opportunity to go and spend time with his very ill young baby son because he was hanging out with Epstein. Peter Atier, who wrote Outlived, the longevity expert whose friend Jeffrey Epstein did not, in fact, prove his thesis about longevity? No, but he might have. I mean, I think he had his longevity interfered with.

You think he was killed? No, no, no, no. I'm just saying it was if he had not died by his own hands or someone else's hand, he might be here for decades, decades beyond. Well, we should. I don't know. But I do know that that guy, that longevity guy, was also caught in this, and I have seen people do this,

and I've seen people around Epstein do this and people in other situations, in which somebody talks in a way that you really perhaps wish they would not talk. And then you sort of follow in, you sort of get into the patois of talking about, this guy talks about women and in a kind of in a way a that you shouldn't talk obviously but in in a way that sounds incredibly awkward like that and I was reminded of the of the grab them by the pussy moment when Billy Bush agrees right it sort of ingratiates himself with Trump because you're with

someone that says someone something so outrageous that you're trying to and I remember remember when Epstein would say this kind of stuff and he said things that you assumed actually were to shock. And would you push back? Would you go along? How would you react to this? Do you know how you can react to it? You can just go, mm-hmm. Well, that's what you do end up doing.

Of course, you sort of look away. This guy dove in and he was... He was... Well, he's lost his sponsorship of the David protein bar as a result. Barry Weiss is doggedly stubbornly hanging onto him. Though I don't know how you watch him on television and take his advice seriously when you know that he declined to spend time with his ill little baby boy. How do we know this?

Because we put the date line together. So he's saying that he can't get back to see his son in hospital, he's fantastically busy working in New York. In fact, he's making, according to the emails, he's making plans to see Jeffrey Epstein. So it's another dissatisfied wife. I would not want to be Mr. Ateer right now having to deal with Mrs. Ateer,

never mind having to face all the sponsors that are going to pull out of supporting you. It's quite a difficult one to come back from. Happily, his book was a great big bestseller. Let's hope he saved some money. A great big bestseller. Yeah. Anyway, several, many, many copies sold.

Well, at least, I have been given at least three copies, which is a lot of that book too. Which is like, okay, what's the message here? Yes, I think I know what the message is. What is the message? They want people want you to live. Or people think I'm old, yes. Well, you're young. You're young in investigative spirit.

And now a word from our sponsors. And Michael Wolfe and I are back. Well, you know where we are. We're inside Trump's head. I want to go back to the Melania thing, just obviously because it's apropos of precisely what my dispute with her is about. And let's remember, I said, and I think I said on this podcast, or I indicated that there was a view, certainly, that Epstein had introduced her to, to Trump. Or at least within, I think I actually put it in more milder terms that they knew each other from the same social circle. And then she obviously, her lawyers then said, well, we're going to sue you for a billion dollars because you said that.

But in these documents, it is very, very precise. I mean, someone, and we don't know exactly who because it's redacted, but it is someone saying Jeffrey Epstein introduced Melania to Donald Trump. Yeah, no, it's absolutely clear from that. Well, it had been taken down by an FBI agent, I think, right? Because it was written in very procedural language. Yeah, I don't know. Well.

I mean, that's part of the thing. And it may not, this may, of course, not be true. But that's, that's, that characterizes so much of. of what has been in this recent drop of Epstein files. What's true, what's not true. All right. I'm just going to read the bit. And much of this memo has been redacted,

but something put in contact with an agent named Paolo Zampauli who worked with ID models. Redact, redact, redact. Sempoli was trying to buy elite models with Epstein. Epstein introduced Melania Trump to. Donald Trump. Epstein was visiting Zampoli at the agency when they were casting auditions for models. Epstein was looking through portfolios and saw photographs of her wearing only swim bottoms.

Well, actually, we don't know that was Melania because the name was redacted. But it definitely says someone and Zampoli were at a nightclub with Epstein who was there with a woman who redacted believed was makes no sense. It's all redacted. You can't understand it. but very clearly it says Zempoly was trying to buy elite models. Epstein introduced Melania Trump to Donald Trump. Yes, and we know we've seen that other email of Melania writing to Galane.

We saw Melania writing to Galen saying she can't wait to get back down to Palm Beach. And then we see a few weeks later, actually, Galen's response to Melania calling her sweepie. Right. And in that same first email, Dear Gee, is. It's dear G, congratulations on the great article about J.E. in New York magazine. And the photos of you look great. Right. So, all right, we've got the fallout of for Epstein. We've got an Amada heading to Iran. And we've got Donald Trump fiddling with the elections. Yeah, no, I think that this is the, this is the headline story. The headline story is that Donald Trump has called. for elections in the United States to be federalized.

Right. What does that even mean? Well, it means he's taking over the elections. Remember, the elections in the United States are state by state. They're run on a local basis. And every state has little differences in how they do it because that's how it's done. Their elections are not federal. They're state by state.

And he wants them national. So he's in charge. And then he would be in charge. Now, of course, this is Donald Trump running at the mouth as he always does. Does it have any meaning? Perhaps not. But it might. And certainly we know, and there has been now an observable pattern, that he's obsessed with these coming midterm elections, as well he should be.

And he has tried, there was the redistricting effort in him calling for states to redistrict in a way that will give him a clear advantage in the House of Representatives. Well, and he also sent Tulsi Gabbardin to oversee FBI agents going in and taking the files from the 2000 election in Fulton County, Georgia, where he's obsessed with proving that he actually won the election. Yes, back to 2020. Yeah, back to the big lie that he won, the incredibly brave Brad Rassenberger, who refused to give him the 11,000 votes after Trump had called him and said, I need you to find me 11,000 votes. Brad Rassenberger went public with it. He said, I'm not doing it. It was a whole to do, but Trump has maintained that he won the 2000 election.

And then Trump was subsequently indicted in Georgia over this behavior, of which he has now maintains that that was, that was an effort, a politically motivated effort to defeat him. Essentially, that was election interference. Why is he still so obsessed about 2000? Why does he care? He won 2024. Why can't you focus on what's happening now? But I because I think it is the mechanism by which he interferes in the 2026 election. This is the thing. This is the device, the rhetorical device, the legal device in which he takes steps to give himself a 2026 advantage. Well, and the other remarkable thing about Tulsi Gabbard being there and she had no reason to be there, even Todd Blanche, the number two at the Justice Department, our friend, because he went down to interview Gillen Maxwell and, of course, was Trump's personal lawyer during all his various legal affairs

before he got reelected. I feel I know. She doesn't need to be there. I actually feel I know Blanche because I sat in the trial in New York and watched him. You know, I mean, I spent what was that six weeks sitting, you know, five to ten feet away from this guy looking at him constantly and thinking. that's the worst job anyone could ever have. Well, it turns out not necessarily,

because now he's number two, a very corrupt DOJ. But even Todd Blanche said there was zero reason for Tulsi Gabbard, the head of national intelligence to be there. The reason, of course, was that she was there at the behest of Donald Trump. Right. And then she called the president when she was there

and had him on the phone with FBI agents, which is a completely. No, no. There's supposed to be complete separation between the executive and the FBI agents. And, of course, another boundary broken. Yeah, I mean, what we have here is the beginning, a pattern of him trying to interfere in the next election. So, and he, I mean, this will get, this, he is going to ramp this up. So we are really looking at the possibility that this election will be undermined by the president of the United States. Yeah, it's incredible. And also, even if all he's doing is sowing doubt about the process, that's enough to make people think, yeah, maybe this isn't right.

I mean, it's really, it's really scary stuff. No, I mean, let's look at the stakes here. If he loses the midterm election. Which he says he thinks he's going to do. Yes, he is in trouble. Right. I mean, he is in profound trouble. He said he thinks they will impeach him. Yes.

And it may be, it is functionally, if not the end of his presidency, it kind of comes to a stop. Well, and Steve Bannon said, and I think some conservative conference, you know, we will all be in jail. That's literally what he said. We will all be in jail. So therefore, understanding those stakes, what does he do? And what can he do? I mean, it is not that he is going to change course, look at the polls and say this immigration enforcement is unpopular. We better stop doing it. We better stop threatening Greenland and whoever else we're threatening. Very unpopular. The economy better do something about. that. He's not going to be able to do any of those things. He either he either won't know what to do vis-a-vis the economy or is unable to reverse course just because that's not what he does. Right. He doubles down. So the only other way to approach this election is to steal it.

Right. And is to undermine the entire process. And of course, as you've seen, said, you know, they rule until there is resistance. They get away with as much as they possibly can and then they pull it back. So by him saying, we're going to federalize, nationalize elections, the fact that they fiddle with a couple of states, if that's what it actually comes down to, is enough. Yeah, no. And again, it is that thing. We do too much. We get dinged on it and we pull back by 50%, but we're still 50% of where we're still 50% of where we would have otherwise have been. Yep, no, it's very, very scary.

It's scary, weird, weird times. And once more, a commercial message. And Trump author, Michael Wolfe, and I are back inside Trump's head. Putin. Let's talk about Putin. Because he gets some mentions in the Epstein files, too. Yeah, no, I mean, I mean, and remember, Putin floats over so much of our political time. What's Trump's relationship with Putin?

What's Melania's relationship with Putin? Who she talked to, we know, for the children who were taken from Ukraine. She got six of them back. And also, obviously, she comes from Eastern Europe. This is not unfamiliar territory. Though strangely, there was no mention of Vladimir Putin in the Malania, the documentary. But what was Jeffrey Epstein's relationship with Putin? relationship with with Putin and then I'm going to add another element on this which is Brett

Ratner's relationship with Putin. Brett Ratner, the director of the Melania documentary. Yes, the director, the, um, me-tud director. The wholly discredited director of all the directors that she could pick. The most discredited director in Hollywood is the one she picked. But let's get to that in a minute. But go to Jeffrey Epstein. There's a lot in these files, a lot of you can track his interest in Putin, his, the hints of his relationship with Putin.

Well, he's organizing, visiting Putin. Yes. And I know that at one point he described to me that he had gone to see Putin. and he had described the circuitous way that he had gotten there, that he had taken his own plane to Helsinki, as I think I remember, but it may have been somewhere else. And then he had shifted to another plane that had been sent by Putin or a Russian plane. I mean, he was kind of fascinated by this.

It was very spy-ish, which I think he had, he regaled me, and I assume many other people with this adventure. And then I said, I said, well, what did you talk about with Putin? And he said, he said, money, of course. And which is obviously credible. And then Epstein had this thing that, that, that, that, that, people who had money outside of the formal banking system. And let's assume a lot of Putin's money was questionable and dirty, whatever. And that's what, so they couldn't, see, couldn't put it into, you know, J.P. Morgan.

It had to be, it had to exist somewhere outside of the formal, of the formal financial systems in the world. So then, Epstein would say that that's where he came in. And people like this wanted to talk to him or were willing to talk to him or trusted talking to him because he was disgraced. So he would describe, he said, that's the. advantage of disgrace. Everybody knows that I am not in the pocket of a government or of a financial institution or of a corporation. I am the only, he would say, free agent at my level of finance. Okay, so there's been a lot of people, there was a big piece in the Daily Mail saying that Jeffrey Epstein was a Russian agent. My interpretation of looking at so far what I've seen is that

that he was sort of an agent for everybody and nobody? Well, he was an information purveyor, an information nexus. That's what he did. He gathered as much information as he could, and then he retailed this. Okay, so there was a fascinating bit in an email exchange he has with Peter Mandelson, where he's basically saying to Peter Mandelson, who unbelievably was the business secretary at the time, you know, don't tax bankers bonuses. And then there's a back and forth, and Epstein wants Mandelson to tell him before

Mandelson tells Jess Staley, who was a friend of Epstein's and then the CEO of Barclay's bank. Clearly so Jeffrey could tell him. So it made it look like he had the information first from the British business secretary, who Jess Staley should have been talking to probably every day. No, I mean, this was what is at the center of Epstein's enterprise and his attractiveness is that he knows a lot of stuff. So he was well informed and he shared information. He was basically a high class gossip. Yes. Well, let's make the distinction between intelligence and gossip. And there is not always a distinction. but there often is.

This is intelligence. We've vetted it. We've arrived at a conclusion that it can, that it is trustworthy at a, at this level, at a 90% level, at a 100% level, at an 80% level. I mean, it's information that has gone through the system. And then there's gossip, which is somebody calls up Jeffrey Epstein and says, and then. And then. I like that noise.

I like that kind of sound effect. And then he repeats it to someone else. So, and I think that is much more the case. And I know that the information, and I went to Jeffrey Epstein for the information he could provide. And I would say often it was very good information. But it was often, maybe at a somewhat lesser level, lesser maybe 30% of it was ridiculous. It didn't pan out. He had gotten it from God knows where, and it just sent you down a rabbit hole in which you accomplished nothing. So was he being paid by the Russians? Is that one of the reasons why he seemed to have so much more money than anyone could figure out how he got it?

I mean, he perfectly well could have been paid by the Russians. He perfectly well could have been. I mean, there are, there are, there are, are less now, but there certainly was at some point in time, lots of Americans who were paid by the Russians. So that's not illegal. That's not even disreputable. Wait a minute. Lots of Americans being paid by the Russians. What do you mean? Well, I mean, in business. Yes. Right. You know, I mean, you know, in, you know, and lots of business deals or. Well, or just giving advice. I mean, you know, I mean, I think you would find a, of, of, of American investment banks and consulting firms who were no doubt paid by Russian entities. So that's not necessarily, that's not a smoking gun. And I don't know if he was paid by the Russians. And actually,

Epstein used to say that he was very careful not to take money from, from anybody in a dubious position. But then he would say, that does not mean I did not give them advice. So what did that mean? I don't know. Also, what on earth were Jeffrey Epstein's definition of dubious be? Well, let me hear. I just give you one example. So I once had dinner with Jeffrey Epstein in, this was in Paris.

And my wife and I were in Paris. And we just kind of coincidentally ran in. into Jeffrey Epstein. Actually, I could go further with this. Jeffrey Epstein used the swimming pool at the Ritz in Paris as his kind of health spa. And in the swimming pool at the Ritz... We probably thought he would find models there. Well, he went to.

Actually, we saw him in the swimming pool at the Ritz. We ran into Jeffrey Epstein, who was there with, I think, two women. They were not underage women, but they were certainly two women in their 20s. But at any rate, this resulted in a dinner invitation. And we went to dinner at Jeffrey Epstein's house in Paris. And the other guests there, to go to the disreputable point, was the guy who ran the ports in Djibouti. No, I just want to My suspicion would be

that all of the world's corruption might well converge on the port of Djibouti. I think it's possible. I think it's possible. And also I can't imagine how would you even open a conversation with someone who runs the ports in Djibouti? What did you say?

It must be very busy, difficult job, how big are the containers, tell me about some plight? chain. Well, actually, curiously, the man who ran the ports of Djibouti, apparently at one point in his career had been out of favor and he was put in jail. So Jeffrey Epstein and the man who ran the ports of Djibouti then talked together about their experiences in jail. Except that I think Jeffrey's experiences would have been quite different because he was allowed out for work release six days a week.

It was a sweetheart deal. As I understand it, he had spent six months in jail and then was released. But he did say it was not as bad as it appears in the movies.

And I'm sure it wasn't as bad as it appears in Djibouti. But I said to the man who rounds the port of Djibouti, and what were you in for? Right. And he said, Oh, terrorism. But I wasn't the terrorist. It was really the other people. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness me. The life you have lived, Michael Wolf.

Well, no wonder you're inside Donald Trump's head. No wonder you are inside Donald Trump's head. Now, what's happening with the Kennedy Center? Marble armrests are what happening with the Kennedy Center. You know, I think the Kennedy Center will be destroyed. Do you? Yeah. Oh, I mean, I think that he is going to take this down. I mean, I think that he is pissed that everyone has, or that so many, so many people have said, we're not going to have anything to do with the Donald J. Trump Kennedy Center. Right.

The opera. The state. The Donald J. Trump. Kennedy Center. Right. Yeah. So Renee Fleming just pulled out. Philip Glass pulled out.

The national opera has left the building. So this is an act of revenge. He's now going to close it down. I think he will close it down. I think he will break it down. I think he will build something else up. And it will be a venue for, what's that ultimate fighting thing he does? UFC?

Yes. So you think the Kennedy Center, the National Arts Center. The Kennedy Center as a cultural institution is, over, finished. Wow. All right. Well, I've got a limerick to read us out on,

but I went to see the play Oedipus over the weekend on Broadway, which I'm very late to. I know everybody's been the sensation of the Broadway season, but it's set, it's rewritten, the myth of Oedipus is rewritten

by Robert Ike. I don't know how you pronounce it. I think it's Iki. And I wanted to read something because it starts with a politician. Every say Oedipus. Well, you're say Oedipus? They say Oedipus in it. And that's the English pronunciation and it's an English

cast. Yes, right. And it came from, and it's a very, it's very well done. It came from the West. Yeah, Mark Strong, Leslie Manville and Anne Reid. But I was going to read you apart from the beginning. So Mark Strong, Oedipus is a politician, as we know. He's running for office. And he, and it starts with a video, which is like a kind of political ad. for him. And he goes, final thoughts on the way things are. I think what everyone thinks, we're sick. The civic body is ill. And that isn't trees and chemicals, it's lakes, it's us, it's us, we're sick. The water got poisoned and we got used to the taste. And while we were sleeping, while we were staring into our palms, they deliberately dragged us back in time. Backwards to a time when the rich were rich and the poor were poor, backwards to when people weren't like, who were, who

weren't like us, deserved persecution backwards until rumours and lies were the same as truth. And we've seen that in this campaign. And it was just a relief to go and see a play that had been reworked to fit what we appear to be living through. It will be interesting to see because it really hasn't started to happen yet that this time is reflected in theater movies fiction. Yeah, well, it was the first time I'd seen something that really spoke to the Times, and it's had tremendous reviews, tremendous reviews, tremendous reviews, it's had great reviews. I don't think you can, after you've read that, I don't think you can go to a limerick. All right, I'll save the limericks.

We've got a high cue, though. The high cue from Lila is rather, I think we should support our creative class, our community. So I'm just going to read Garfrey, we're going to give you a break this week, but we're going to read Leela's haiku on the art of chaos. Impulse sparks the blaze. Don pirouettes through the smoke. Chaos is his art. I don't think it's art.

Chaos is his art. Chaos is his lifeblood? Yeah, I mean, chaos, it's, I mean, you wouldn't call the chaos of a child, and I have a four-year-old, art. You would call it just chaos. Well, I think she means it's his skill. You know, I know. I know, I know. But it's, yes, I mean, it is his, it is his result, really. I mean, that's what happens here.

But the idea, which is the idea that I'm always pushing back against, that there is any plan here, that there is any method, that there is any strategy, that there is any intention. Yes, there is an intention. The intention is to focus all attention on him, like a child. If you have been, thank you for joining us. Don't forget to subscribe to The Daily Beast. Leave us a comment. You know, we love to read them, and I answer as men as I possibly can. We're independent media,

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