The Munk Debates Podcast - Friday Focus: Trump can't shake Epstein and Carney faces another trade test

Episode Date: July 18, 2025

Friday Focus provides listeners with a focused, half-hour masterclass on the big issues, events and trends driving the news and current events. The show features Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and bestselling author, in conversation with Rudyard Griffiths, Chair and moderator of the Munk Debates. Rudyard and Janice open today's show with the Epstein Files: how Trump's alleged birthday letter to the convicted pedophile from 2003 - just leaked to the public - has added fuel to the fire of his already enraged base. What is it about the Epstein Files that has his otherwise loyal followers up in arms? and why is it sticking to a Teflon President whose past transgressions have been either forgiven or discounted by MAGA? Trump's base has thrived on this particular story of conspiracy, and to find out their leader is complicit presents a major political problem to the current US administration. In the second half of the show Rudyard and Janice turn their attention to trade negotiations with the US on the heels of Trump's latest tariff threats. Will Canada project the type of resolve needed to face down a mafioso style of diplomacy with the US? And is it worth riding out a rise in inflation and economic uncertainty to gain leverage against Trump in future negotiations? To support the Friday Focus podcast consider becoming a donor to the Munk Debates for as little as $25 annually, or $.50 per episode. Canadian donors receive a charitable tax receipt. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue. More information at www.munkdebates.com.Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, Monk podcast listeners. The following is a sample of the Monk members-only podcast. To access the full-length edition of this episode and all of our regular Monk members-only podcasts, go to our website, www.W.Munkdebates.com and register for membership. Membership is free, and it's available for you right now at www.munkdebates.com. Hope you enjoy the program. Welcome to Friday Focus for the 18th of July, 25. I'm Roger Griffiths, chair of the monk debates, joined in studio by Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs.

So nice to be with you, Roger. Yes, in person on a very newsy day, as we like to say. So I think on the program today, we've got to talk, obviously, about the ongoing fallout around the Epstein files, his latest reporting in the Wall Street Journal of a birthday letter from a birthday, I don't know what it would be, a birthday, congratulations letter from Donald Trump. to Epstein. And then let's segue into where Canada finds itself in its trade negotiations with the United States and how maybe this increasing turmoil in the Trump administration might affect to either Canada's advantage or disadvantage with that. What is it, Janice?

It's a August 1st deadline that's coming up. We've got to, though, Janice, begin by thanking John Wilson, a new curator who's joined us. It's our highest level of membership and support, and we greatly appreciate his charitable gift. But let's dive into the so-called Epstein files that erupted overnight with a Wall Street Journal report of what you could only call, not simply a salacious letter, but a letter from Donald Trump from the early 2000s to Epstein on the occasion of his birthday that has language. in it that seems to allude to a relationship that seems much more than just casual. The letter, I don't know what words you would use to describe it, Richard, but the letter is

very warm. It's not perfunctory. It's not something that you would write if it was just a casual note that went to people and you were writing thank you notes part of your to-does that day. So there's certainly more there than a perfunctory relationship. What that more is, is frankly, speculation. We don't know. But we do know, seemingly from this letter that Donald Trump is one acknowledging a what seems like a close friendship in terms of the language. The letter itself is written within what looks like a sketched or hand-drawn outline of a woman's body that Trump has marked up, again, if this is all to be verified. The Wall Street Journal is not in possession, it seems, of the original letter. This is a family show, so I'll be careful in my descriptions here, but there is anatomy of this woman in this drawing, if it is indeed by Donald Trump, that, yeah, is what's the word, broady, body?

I don't know. It's certainly alluding to sexuality and sex. There's just no other way to put it in terms of what was drawn around this text. And then we get into the text, and there's words like, you know, were enigmas, and the word secret is kind of used in the sign-off. It's hard not to read the text and infer, or not infer, that Donald Trump was involved with Epstein in the darker parts of the Epstein world, which if you remember, Janice, was the sex. trafficking of young women to influential men. And it was within 36 months of this letter that he was arrested for the first time and charged. So this was a moment in Epstein's life when as a sex crime perpetrator, he was in full mode. And it connects Trump in terms of a timeline with Epstein at a moment where, you know, it was clear that he was acting as a pimp, as a purveyor, as an abuser. And I don't know, Janice, I think this has, this is going to have

legs. Look, let me make a personal comment, which I don't often leave my analytic role on this show, but I think you agree with me. This is disgusting. All right. This is just disgusting. This is a known trafficker in young women. That's what Epstein was about in many of the relationships that have come to. Donald Trump has made sexually explicit comments about women's bodies before. So it is not a stretch to imagine. And again, we haven't seen a letter. And no reputable news source has yet to verify the letter, as you just said. Well, this is the Wall Street Journal. Yeah, but it is the Wall Street Journal that checks. And Donald Trump is saying in one of his bleats that, you know,

he lobbied Rupert Murdoch not to publish the letter, but Rupert couldn't control his editor there. Again, just a kind of a horrible diorama of one man's perception that, you know, independent journalism is not a public good in America in 2025. But, you know, beyond, before independent journalism, let's just stop for a moment and call out what is a disgusting practice, where you take women who are young and exploit them sexually is beneath contempt. There's no words that I can really find, Rudyard. So I just I want to make that point.

Then add to this, as you rightly said, he tried to have that letter stop. He has actually in the last 10 days made an increasing effort to shut this subject down as far as he can now. It's not like Donald Trump to put in all that effort to move on and away from the subject if he's not worried that there's some vulnerability, personal vulnerability. So I find the WSJ article on balance credible. I think it'll be important to produce that letter. Sometimes somebody has it right here. That we know somebody has it. It'll be important to produce it.

The bigger implications here are for his own movement. This is roiling his base in ways that we, you know, I think as we've watched Donald Trump over there, really almost for a decade now. We've often asked the question, what could he do that would antagonize his base? And it seemed almost nothing. He's the Teflon man, to a degree that we'd never seen before.

Things that we would think were outrageous, just slid off his back and reinforced his base's view that he was the victim of a conspiracy over and over. People are to get him. They can't explain this one away. And that's why this is roiling his own base to the. The base has lived on the story of conspiracy.

How many years now has that been going, and it's fueled the movement. And then to find out that their leader had this kind of relationship and could have been, could have shared, let me put it this way. some of the pre-elections that I've seen, how does the base manage that? And they're not. They're cracking under the pressure, frankly. Yeah, news reports have brought up that, you know, in the 1990s is not, you know, within the decade prior to this letter. You know, Donald Trump in his 40s was dating a 19-year-old tennis star. So there is, again, back story here in Trump's history of his own predilections. There's that horrible comment that came out in the final days of his first presidential

election where he admitted on tape to grabbing women by the genitals. There are various rape allegations that have been made against him by various women, including one that was proven, at least in civil court in the United States. So I don't know, Janice, you put this all together, And you can see why, I think, over the last week to 10 days, he has been increasingly desperate to try to bury this story. And one has to wonder a couple things. One, if this letter is the first of a series of documents that someone has access to. Are there others? Will we be, will we now be treated to a drip, drip, drip?

Just to speculate, could that someone be Elon Musk? He's been commenting a lot publicly, openly on Twitter, saying Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. And how would he have gotten? Well, he had very high access in the government. He's the world's richest man. Many things, you know, are possible to a person in that position. Or maybe someone internally who's leaking or it may be, you know, co-conspirators of Epstein themselves who, who his accomplice in this, his female kind of accomplice and companion, is serving a long-term prison

sentence. She was, in a sense, denied the opportunity. Just recently. In the context of her trial to kind of fully release and declare the information that she had, a lot of that was held under court secrets. And again, I understand some of this because you don't want false accusations to, you know, to diminish. and, you know, obliterate the reputations of people who may not be involved. So this is a very messy, incomplete situation.

But the political problem remains for Donald Trump. His movement is split on this. His rhetoric that this is now a Democrat hoax. It's completely incredible with his own base. I mean, yeah, except the most diluted mega followers. Everyone knows that that's actually the kind of weakest. of excuses to come up with it. This is Russia gate all over again,

that the Democrats, according to Donald Trump, the Biden administration, planted false material into the Epstein files to then, I mean, this doesn't have credibility. No, but let's stop over that for a minute, because I think that that story tells us why this is different from anything that has happened before. Arnold Donald Trump had to do to deflect criticism

in the past, well, Obama was an evil man. Bill, Joe Biden did exactly the same thing. Look at Bill Clinton, and the base swallowed it. Hook, line, and sinker moved right on. It's the first time in a decade of Donald Trump being in public life. Never mind his career on the apprentice before. That the base has said, no, we don't believe this. you can know your explanation doesn't wash with us it is a singular i mean the story is so awful

but that's not the bigger picture of it um it is that there is for the first time a meaningful crack where the base is saying and we know this from from surveys that have come we don't believe you that's that is this must be torturous uh for the Republican Party which Donald Trump now controls. And you would have, you know, Speaker Mike Johnson, who is, you know, at best, most times a kind of lap dog to the president in his agenda, in a sense saying that he thinks that, you know, Congress should have hearings on this. And what do you do, by the way, Roger, with the evangelical Christians that are,

some of whom, not all, but some of whom strong Donald Trump supporters? How do you explain this? It's really impossible. So I think we're going to have to continue to watch this space. My bet, Janice, is that this was probably the first of a series of leaks that will start now. And someone somewhere has information. Has information and is selectively leaking parts of it that are the most damaging to Trump. So we don't know if they've led with their strongest punch first or whether.

this is a kind of taste for more to come. But I don't know, my sense is that these types of things don't end with this. This is a, now it is interesting to know that this is a, this was in a birthday book that Epstein's accomplice, Gazelle Maxwell, compiled for him. and she is indicated that she is willing and ready to testify to Congress. One has to wonder, is this something that was in her possession, maybe a digital record or something that was released and based on her credibility with the Wall Street Journal,

possibly to show a kind of chain of custody and an antecedent. Is she now, in a sense, the president's biggest threat? Is she the one who turns state's witness, right? But let me share the wildest speculation. Let's preface is by saying this is the wildest speculation because I read the international reporting on this. I'm always looking for the international dimension. So the wildest speculation is this came from Russia. Why is it coming now?

Because Donald Trump is turned on Russia. Right. This came from Russia, and this, of course, explains what everybody's been looking for, and nobody has been able to find what Russia had on Donald Trump. Let me see again. This comes from the Twitter, from the global Twitter sphere. But it is the speculation is now rampant because you are making, I think, the bigger point, which is correct.

These are rarely one-offs. Somebody somewhere. has information that Donald Trump has known about for a long time. And that's why that story has some international credibility right now. Well, Janice, let's say goodbye to our complimentary listeners and viewers. We make the first half of the show available to them each week and encourage them to become a monk donor for as little as $25 a year. You get 50 episodes, a Friday focus at full length.

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