The New Yorker Radio Hour - Michael Wolff on MAGA’s Revolt Over Jeffrey Epstein

Episode Date: July 18, 2025

The sense that the White House is covering something up about Jeffrey Epstein has led to backlash from some of Trump’s most ardent supporters. Even after the financier was convicted for hiring an underage prostitute, for which he served a brief and extraordinarily lenient sentence, Epstein remained a playboy, a top political donor, and a very good friend of the very powerful—“a sybarite,” in the words of the journalist Michael Wolff, “in that old -fashioned sense [that] ‘my identity comes from breaking all norms.’ ”  Wolff got to know Epstein and recorded, he estimates, a hundred hours of interviews with him. After Epstein was arrested again, in 2019, and was later found dead in his jail cell in what was ruled a suicide, it has been an article of faith within MAGA that his death was a conspiracy or a coverup, and the Trump campaign promised a reveal. Attorney General Pam Bondi initially asserted that she had Epstein’s so-called “client list” on her desk and was reviewing it, but now claims that there is nothing to share. Do the Epstein files have something incriminating about the President?  “The central point from which this grew is the [Bill] Clinton relationship with Epstein,” Wolff tells David Remnick. But the MAGA believers “seem to have overlooked the Trump relationship [with Epstein], which was deeper and longer.”  The men were “probably the closest friend either of them ever had,” until they reportedly fell out over real estate in 2004. Now Trump is frantically trying to control the narrative, pretending that he barely knew Epstein. This, Wolff thinks, “may be the beginning of Donald Trump’s lame-duck years.” New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Jeffrey Epstein's death in prison and the sense that the White House is somehow covering something up is causing a backlash from some of Trump's most ardent supporters. It may be a bigger backlash than even the tariff crisis or the bombing of Iran or the astronomical deficits we're in for with the new budget. It is an article of faith in Maga Circles that Epstein's suicide was suspicious and perhaps a murder plotted by Democrats because he knew too much about something. That's the theory of it.

In February, Pam Bondi, the Attorney General, said that she had the so-called client list on her desk and was reviewing it. But this month, the Department of Justice says there is no such list. The FBI released surveillance footage from a camera outside of Epstein's prison cell when he died, but a few minutes of footage seems to be missing. The president is now yelling at his followers on social media, shut up and move on or else. Epstein, he said, is, quote, somebody that nobody cares about. Michael Wolf is the author of four books about Trump,

all bitterly disputed by Donald Trump, we should note, and Wolf says that he interviewed Jeffrey Epstein repeatedly. in the years before his arrest and his death in 2019. I sat down to talk with Michael Wolfe last week. Michael, as we're speaking, MAGA seems to be blowing up. There seems to be a huge divide among Trump's followers about Epstein and what to do about information about him. And is there a file?

Is there not a file? And at the same time, suddenly the President of the United States is saying, I'm sick of hearing about it. Let's move on. He's trying to run as quickly as possible away from the subject. So fill us in a little bit on the background of where we are now with Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump, and the MAGA movement. In 2014, just to set this scene, seeking his rehearse, rehabilitation, he got in touch with me and we had had some contact before and said, will you write about me? Will you tell me, tell my story?

How did you feel about it? Knowing the sexual crimes that he was guilty of and there men? Well, even at that point, the sexual crimes he was then deemed guilty of were, I think, I think two counts of prostitution. You know, one was within underage prostitute, but we were still very much in the context of prostitution. Now, this doesn't forgive anything or ameliorate this in any way, and I, in fact, when he said this to me, demurred. First, because I didn't necessarily think he deserved to be rehabilitated,

nor that I'm usually not a guy who rehabilitates someone when I write about them. But more to the point, I just didn't think that he would be honest in any way. And he wanted you to write about him. This had nothing to do with Donald Trump, just to be clear. Right. There was a level of constantly a level of self-exposure, as though this was an ironic act. He was a ciborite, a ciborite in the, in that,

that old-fashioned sense of I am, my identity comes from breaking all norms. I live above norms. I live outside of norms. And I often thought the men of power and influence and money that congregated around him, that they kind of admired the fact that here was a guy who was taking his own power in influence in doing anything that he wanted with it, such that they might have wished that they could do this. So all these people were living vicariously somehow? I think, yeah.

So the reason we're talking is that you began to interview Jeffrey Epstein at great length. I think you've said elsewhere that you have 100 hours of taped interviews with him. Yes. So just tell me about his... intelligence. With respect to real estate deals, he's a salesman who knows real estate, anything else, but no strategy. We began to talk in 2014, and I started to find this pretty compelling. So I had not yet decided to do anything, although I began to consider doing something.

And, you know, in this day and age, when you just can flick your iPhone, why would you not? Because nasty things with best friends, just tries to gain the trust, and they uses it. And then 2015 rolls around, and Donald Trump begins his political career, and I begin writing about it. And I shortly found that Jeffrey Epstein was among the most insightful people I knew or had come upon about Donald Trump and his true character. Well, you say at one point elsewhere that the relationship that Epstein had with Trump was in some ways the closest of either one of their lives. And obviously, this is Epstein talking to you about it. Right. I mean, how did they bond?

I think that they were both, both this began in the 1980s. They were both very much 80s guys, very much interested in a certain, in women. I mean, they were interested in women in money, and they were interested in the same kind of women models. That was much of the relationship, hunting women. They shared a girlfriend at one point from. almost a year back and forth. According to what Epstein told you, you say. There was a lot of, they were involved in each other's business affairs.

I think that they were each other's closest friend, probably the closest friend each of them has ever had. You're intuiting that, or Epstein said this to you directly? That was in part Epstein's characterization of this. and in the level of details that I have, it seems credible to me. Michael, is my understanding, please correct me if I'm wrong, is that you've had a hard time publishing anything about Epstein because, as you say, that publishers are very reluctant to publish you on this in particular.

You've had lots of bestsellers elsewhere. Yeah, no, I think that there's a general, the, let's call it, you know, for lack of better, the mainstream media has been highly resistant to this story. I think you wrote a piece about Epstein that New York Magazine was going to publish and then did not. No. I mean, we discussed doing a piece and then I decided I didn't want to do it because I was afraid, actually. Why? The intensity of issues that seemed to converge on anyone who was talking about Epstein, anyone who might have known Epstein was just something I didn't, I thought life is too short. So you also have talked many, many times in your journalistic career with Steve Bannon.

And he really is a big presence in some of your Trump books. He also had a relationship with Epstein. So Steve met Jeffrey Epstein in 2017. Steve was out of the White House then. And they bonded immediately. They bonded over their relationship with Trump. And in a sense, they still remain to me, the guys, the two guys who are most insightful about Trump.

And they both at that point hated Trump. That's interesting. Two people had the most insight in Trump both hate him. Yes. Well, I think that's true about most people who have any insight at all into Trump. It's actually true about most people who have spent any amount of time with Trump.

Why did Epstein hate Trump? They're falling out in 2004 was over a real estate deal. Now, I mean, yes, I've often thought that the one thing that can really inspire hatred among a certain kind of guy is a real estate betrayal. But before they fell out, they were close. And Steve Bannon said to you, as I understand it at one point, the one thing he really feared, the one thing that Steve Bannon really feared in the 2016 race was that somehow Jeffrey Epstein's name would come up. he said this to Epstein, upon meeting him, and I know this because I was standing there, the first word Steve Bannon said to Jeffrey Epstein was, you were the only person I was

afraid of during the campaign. And Epstein responded, as well you should have been. Right, as well you should have been, because what would have happened? Well, I think, you know, Bannon appreciated that Epstein held many, many Trump secrets and especially secrets about women. And remember, the women issue certainly at one point was the one thing that seemed on the verge of dooming the Trump campaign. So we've seen photographs of Jeffrey Epstein with Donald Trump, more than one. What would be so damning about that? They're young men.

They're out and about. You may not like them. But there's no evidence I've heard that Trump did something illegal in conjunction with Epstein. Yeah, I don't, and I don't know. I mean, I don't know that Donald Trump was with any of the girls that, that, Jeffrey Epstein ultimately went to jail for. I do know and have seen, you know, a set of photographs. Jeffrey Epstein has had about a dozen photographs, Polaroids, I believe they were, with Donald Trump, with a set of girls around Epstein's pool in Palm Beach. Do you have these pictures? No, I don't. I don't. And,

And those were, they were, they were brought out of, out of Epstein's safe and returned. I mean, Michael, should we care about, why should we care? There is a likelihood that those photographs were in the safe that the FBI raided and took possession of. So that would be part of the Epstein file. That brings us to the present tense. Pam Bondi, who's now the Attorney General, of course, as well as people that are now the leadership of the FBI. They all kept saying for the entire length of the campaign that the government had to release the Epstein files. And Bondi not so long ago was asked

about this thing called the client list that was supposedly in the files. And she said, it's sitting on my desk to review. The DOJ may be releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients. Will that really happen? It's sitting on my desk right now to review. That's been a directive by President Trump. I'm reviewing that. I'm reviewing JFK files, MLK files. Then suddenly we're told that there is no such list. Michael, what do you make of all that? Oh, I think I make the, I draw the obvious inference. Pan Bondi works for Donald Trump. She is his, at least as he conceives of their relationship, is his lawyer. So my inference would be that Pam Bondi's client gave her directions. And I think he has wanted to sweep the Epstein relationship under the rug for some time. And he has managed to avoid this as an issue for him. You know, this is the last thing, the last issue that he wants to be front and center.

And do you think Trump will keep the leadership of the FBI and Pam Bonding? I would not say that her life expectancy is long. I'm talking with journalist Michael Wolfe, the author of four books about Donald Trump's political career, and we'll continue our conversation in a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick, and I'm speaking with the journalist Michael Wolfe about the Jeffrey Epstein scandal and the Trump administration. Wolf is the author of four books about Trump, Fire and Fury, Siege, Siege, Land.

landslide, and all or nothing. His books have contained some explosive revelations about Trump, often denied by the Trump people, and while aspects of his reporting have been challenged and criticized, a great deal, in fact, he's had some remarkable access to the White House. Wolf also says that he has 100 hours of taped interviews with Jeffrey Epstein from the years before his second arrest.

Epstein died in a New York jail cell, an apparent suicide in August of 2019. And what about MAGA as a movement? This was no small part of the thinking in the MAGA movement that somehow a conspiracy theory about Jeffrey Epstein and his death was all part of the systems, the deep state's ability to keep secrets and do dark and dastardly things.

How do you think this is going to play out in MAGA? And does Donald Trump care very much? Yeah, well, I think, you know, I think that they got caught on this. This is being hoisted on your own petard, you know. The central point from which this grew is the Clinton relationship with Epstein. And Clinton and Epstein had quite a strong relationship, quite a bond for about two years. So, yes, that is there.

but they seem to have overlooked the Trump relationship, which was deeper and longer. Now, I think that there's something else, and this occurred to me literally. I woke up this morning and I thought, oh, that this may be the beginning of Donald Trump's lame duck years. So we have these MAGA people who are beginning naturally to position them, as the leaders of this movement when Donald Trump exits the stage, they have to begin at some point to position themselves actually against Trump, or at least to push J.D. Vance, who would be in the frontrunner position toward Donald Trump and distinguishing themselves. And this includes Steve Bannon, obviously, who has wanted nothing more than to be the president himself.

Tucker Carlson, I mean, these are, I think they are beginning to think of what are the issues that they have to, that they can make their own. And they're, in some cases, prepared to betray the founder of MAGA? Well, I think that's confusing to them at this point. They didn't think that they didn't think that would happen. But now it has happened. What do they do? And no one knows. They suddenly can't say, oh, forget about Jeffrey Epstein. And Trump can't say, bring on the Jeffrey Epstein stuff, because he will be exposed in this. Or he might be. But so this brings me to the crux of the thing. Michael, you've written any number of bestsellers. You've won the National Magazine Award multiple times. At the same time, over time, you've gotten a lot of criticism from everybody, Stephen Ratner,

Sean Hannity, Tony Blair, Rupert Murdoch. They've accused you, various critics of inaccuracy or worse. You know these critiques. Eric Wemple of the Washington Post, among others, said you should apologize for going on Bill Marsh Show and saying you were absolutely sure that Nikki Haley, as you an ambassador, was having an affair with Trump. So you've heard these. I didn't. I didn't. I didn't say that, but that's okay. You did. Everything. David, I did not say that.

In fact, there is nothing. I didn't mention Nikki Haley. The implication might have been that, but that was anyway. Okay. And you said even when you were asked about these critiques, and I work in a world in which everything is a lie and everything is a performance, if it rings true, it's true. So there's been this critique of you that you're perfectly

aware of, it seems to me you're sitting on a hundred hours, you say, of tapes of what's potentially journalistic dynamite. What do you find that's the most dispositive and the most damning about Donald Trump vis-à-vis Epstein? Well, I find Epstein's descriptions of Donald Trump to be pretty eye-opening at any rate. from how he picked up women to... I think he called him a horrible human being at one point. He did. And there was one point at which Epstein says, you know,

says the problem with Donald Trump is he has no scruples. I always thought that was a... But I hasten to add, this is Jeffrey Epstein. No, no, but I hasten... But I hasten to add, if Jeffrey Epstein thinks a person has no scruples, they must really have no scruples. Or conversely, that Jeffrey Epstein has no right to pronounce on anybody's character. Well, you know, I think that that's part of the resistance to this story, why the media, the mainstream media, the New Yorker. New Yorker has had no stories about Jeffrey Epstein at great length.

And that is, and I think one of the issues is, is the mainstream media, having completely demonized Jeffrey Epstein, he cannot then be a witness against the president in the United States. So I think that there's been this incredible awkwardness about this story. But this is a thing. There is a context. There is a story to be told here. But let me say that virtually, everybody, everybody, every network, every major news outlet, every streaming service, at least a significant number of book publishers have turned down this story. And most recently, a publisher of mine who generally would be interested in anything that I wanted to write. And double day, yeah. And the rest of the response was, this is too icky. So now, I think that that may now change. Finally, Michael, is it your intention now to go through these tapes where immediately,

and I think a lot of people would invite you to do so, in particular, where it has to do with the politics of now? Let's forget Jeffrey Epstein's life story and biography and the rest. But just in terms of the relationship between the two of them and what it does or does not reflect on the press in the United States, at the moment, seems like something of an imperative to a journalist. I have done this at some length before, and this managed to have no impact whatsoever. Will it have an impact now? Well, I am trying to tell exactly that story now. Michael, how would you characterize this relationship? What was the texture of that relationship?

What was the uniqueness of it? Well, I mean, I think the texture of the relationship was that these were too, you know, incredibly amoral. You might call them loath guys who were out for money and for a good time. And that was the nature of their bond. But I think the complication is having created this Epstein conspiracy or this Epstein demonization or setting Epstein, which certainly the MAGA people do, pretty much everybody does, as the worst person who has ever lived. And then to have a situation in which it becomes clear that the worst person who's ever lived

his best friend is the president of the United States, Donald Trump, you know, I think that becomes a political complication for everyone involved. I can't quite tell how you feel about Jeffrey Upsen. On the one hand, you know, you make it very plain that you're hardly approving of his life and his behavior. But when some people say it's the worst person in the world. David, let me tell you, I'm a journalist. Yeah, you're not his lawyer. And I am the person here who is probably is certainly the journalist closest to this story.

And that's my job, if someone would let me do it, to tell this story. Michael Wolf, thank you. Michael Wolf's most recent book is All or Nothing, How Trump Recaptured America. We spoke last week. I'm David Remnick. Thanks for joining us this week. next time. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Yards, with additional music by Louis Mitchell and

Jared Paul. This episode was produced by Max Bolton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul, and Ursula Summer. With guidance from Emily Boutin and assistance from Michael May, David Gable, Alex Barish, Victor Gwan, and Aalah Deccat. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund. The big question of this Trump administration over and over again has been this. Can they really do that? Can they reinterpret the 14th Amendment? Can they ignore district court rulings, dismantle the education department, revoke Rosie O'Donnell's citizenship? All of us have questions about the administration and its legal challenges and how the courts are ruling on them. So to answer

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