The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: Trump Attacks Media Over Epstein Story

Episode Date: July 18, 2025

We review a busy week in Washington, including President Trump's response to a new report about his relationship with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and calls from the White House for more partisan budgeting. Plus, what is Trump's foreign policy doctrine? This episode: politics correspondent Ashley Lopez, senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith, national security correspondent Greg Myre and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.This podcast was produced by Casey Morell & Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for NPR and the following message comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. RWJF is a national philanthropy working toward a future where health is no longer a privilege, but a right. Learn more at rwjf.org. Hi, this is Liam from Richmond, Virginia. I'm currently petting the belly of a stray cat that has now adopted my wife and I. This podcast was recorded at 12.35 p.m. Eastern time on Friday, July 18th. Things may have changed by the time you hear it, but I'll still be giving May Pop a belly

rub. Okay, enjoy the show. That's so cute. Oh, what good in that sound. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics. I'm Tamara Keith.

I cover the White House. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And today on the show, we'll try to make sense of what is yet another busy week in Washington. Let's start with the latest developments surrounding President Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. That, of course, is the disgraced financier who faced sex trafficking charges before dying by suicide in federal custody. Domenico, can you refresh our memories about why everyone was talking about Epstein earlier this week? Well, Trump was really battling his base because his base has wanted more information to come out about his death and about this supposed client list that the administration says does

not exist. And we haven't seen a lot more information about that. His base is very upset with Attorney General Pam Bondi because they feel like that she should be releasing more information. Trump has essentially said, cut it out. You're a bunch of weaklings. We don't need to hear any more of this. I don't want the support of people who are going to be saying that they are doubtful of what Pam Bondi has released. He said he's told her to release all the credible information that exists. And on this front, I will say last night we got some more news. The Wall Street Journal published an article describing what is said was a sexually suggestive note that Trump sent Epstein

for his 50th birthday. We should say NPR has not independently confirmed the story. But Tam, what takeaways are significant about this latest development? Well, this puts a spotlight on the fact that President Trump, before he was president and before Jeffrey Epstein became a registered sex offender, was friends with Jeffrey Epstein, ran in the same social circles. They were both in New York and they were both in Palm Beach. There's photo and videos of them and the Wall Street Journal then pointed to this note from Donald Trump to Epstein that said, among other things, happy birthday, may every day be another wonderful secret. It included a line drawing of a woman's figure. And Trump spoke to the

Wall Street Journal, said this is a fake, it is not something that he did, and he is going nuclear on the journal. He is threatening to sue them. Yeah. Well, you know, and Trump said that he doesn't doodle, that this is not part of his language, even though it took reporters about five minutes to find other doodles from that time. But, you know, this is part of the Trump playbook in the way that he's responding, which is to lash out at the media, to make the media the story, to say that he had initially asked the Wall Street Journal to not report this at all.

They went ahead and did so. And he and others in the administration are blaming the media now for trying to smear Trump as he sees it. The remarkable thing about this story this week is just how much the president has been posting on social media about the Jeffrey Epstein situation. He has put out multiple messages today. He says, if there was a smoking gun on Epstein, why didn't the DIMS who controlled the files for four years and had Garland and Comey in charge use it because they had nothing? And he also said he looks forward to getting Rupert Murdoch, who owns the Wall Street Journal, to testify in my lawsuit against him in his pile of garbage newspaper, the Wall Street Journal.

We should also say Trump also asked Attorney General Pambani to release some grand jury testimony related to Epstein. I mean, is that evidence Domenico that Trump is giving into some of his critics or at least some of the demands they're making? I think it's some evidence that Trump feels like he needs to give more, that more needs to be put out there because he wants to try to satisfy his base and to find some kind of off-ramp to this story because it's been annoying. It's been something that's continued to come up and something that he hasn't been able to get away from.

But it really is a bit of deflection because it isn't about the client list, if there is one that even exists, or more information from the files. This is about something completely different. Is that going to satisfy the podcaster bros who are upset with feeling like they haven't gotten all the information they should get? I don't know. And Democrats, I should say, have been perfectly happy to glom onto this, to troll Trump, and to continue to say, hey, look at all of his relationships that he had with Epstein, quote unquote, what's he hiding? And that's been an easy thing for Democrats to do, almost like

a nanny nanny poopoo kind of trolling situation. But it's not just Democrats. Republicans in the House have made a lot of noise. In a different way. Yes. Yeah. No, but Republicans in the House this week indicated they want more to come out too. Including the Speaker of the House. Yeah. Yeah. Another story we're watching this week is the Trump administration fired Maureen Comey, a federal prosecutor who worked on Epstein's case, as well as the case of Sean

Diddy Combs. She's also the daughter of former FBI director James Comey. Domenico, what can we read into this development? Maybe the most important point there is her last name. And, you know, I mean, we should say she's somebody who had a career in her own right, right? This is not just like, oh, she's the daughter of a guy who was the former FBI director. She was a prosecutor. She prosecuted Ghislaine Maxwell when we're talking about the Epstein case. She prosecuted Sean Combs, otherwise known as Diddy, right?

And when Trump, I guess, found out that she was working in the department and had something to do with the Epstein case, again, perhaps a deflection, perhaps has nothing to do with it, but he sees the last name Comey and we don't know why she's fired, but she was let go from her job. Well, and this is part of a much broader bloodletting at the FBI and the Department of Justice, so many career prosecutors and FBI agents and others who have even glancing associations with people who are on Trump's enemies list are out. Yeah. Well I want to shift gears a little away from Epstein. Last night Congress passed a rescission package the White House has

been asking for that cuts about nine billion dollars in funding Congress had previously approved. Yesterday Russell Vogt who runs the Office of Management and Budget put the rescissions in the context of the administration's sort of broader budgeting strategy. Tam what did we learn? First off this package is not going to be the last. Yeah. They plan to send up more rescission packages which is basically like Congress approved this funding the president signed on the dotted line but now we don't think we send up more rescission packages, which is basically like Congress approved this funding, the president signed on the dotted line, but now we don't think we want to spend that money and we're asking Congress to give it the blessing. And just to explain some basic math, these

rescission bills only require 50 plus one. It does not require 60 votes to get to passage in the Senate. Unlike most other things, they're filibuster proof. These bills funding the government have had to be bipartisan because there aren't enough Republicans in the House who will vote for spending bills. So they have to get some Democrats and in the Senate, they mathematically need some Democrats. Well, what Russell Vogt said yesterday is that he believes, quote, the appropriations process has to be less bipartisan. He wants a partisan budget process. I don't know how that works. Yeah.

Just based on math, but he believes that these rescissions, now that they've figured out that they can actually get it through, they plan to do more. Did he say why? Like, is it because they don't trust Democrats or they want to be able to get more of what they want? Yeah, they just want more of what they want. They want ultimate power. They want what Republicans want. They want the minority to have no power.

And if Democrats agree to a spending bill now, there is no reason for them to believe that it won't just be reversed two days later or 40 days later or whenever the administration decides to send up another package. This is again the Trump administration trying to find ways to exert their executive power, figure out the limits of their executive power. And as much as Congress will allow Trump to do, Trump is going to do it. And he has a Republican party that is basically fine with whatever he wants to do. And it doesn't matter to them that these are bills that have passed previously.

Yeah. Yeah. Congress has the power of the purse. What Russell Vogt, the White House budget director said yesterday is, yes, they absolutely have the power of the purse, but whatever they decide should be the ceiling, not the floor. Yeah. He wants to cut more. And Trump has the power of the party. Yeah. Okay Domenico, I'm going to give you a short break, but we'll see you back here in a few minutes for Can't Let It Go.

But first, we're going to dive into some foreign policy after a quick break. Support for NPR and the following message comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. RWJF is a national philanthropy working toward a future where health is no longer a privilege but a right. Learn more at RWJF.org. And we're back and NPR National Security correspondent Greg Myrie is with us. Hey, Greg. Hi there. So now that we're about like six months into the current Trump administration, we're taking a big picture look

at how the president is governing. And today, I want to take a deep dive into President Trump's foreign policy doctrine. Tam, I said we're talking about Trump's foreign policy doctrine there, but is there such a thing? What have you learned about the president's approach to foreign policy? There are certainly slogans, like through strength and America first. But those slogans

don't necessarily make for a doctrine or a guiding principle. And often it seems like his aides and supporters are trying to mold those slogans around the decisions that he makes rather than the other way around. Very clearly, President Trump is focused on deals, peace deals, trade deals, deals for American businesses. Many of those deals have proven elusive so far, as we've talked about on the pod many times. He also has a very personal approach. So it's about how he feels about the leaders

of the other countries. So one day, he's happy with Putin. The next day, he's unhappy with Putin. And his policy approach changes based on that. So I called a bunch of people including John Bolton, who is a former national security advisor. He served in the first Trump administration. He's obviously had a falling out with Trump since then, but he watched him make decisions, and this is what he said. He made thousands of decisions in his first term,

many of which I agreed with. But they're out there like a big archipelago of dots. You can try and connect the dots if you want, but he can't connect the dots. That's just not the way he makes foreign policy decisions. Yeah, I mean, it's quite a visual. Yeah. And so with this approach, I'd say so far it's a mixed bag. There have been successes and failures so far. Trump has certainly inserted himself and his administration in a number of conflicts, you know, probably more than many people expected. One example I would certainly cite is the Israel-Iran fighting last month. Israel launched this surprise air attack. There were 12 intense days of fighting. The

US was very deeply involved on the side of Israel, helping Israel defend itself. And then, of course, the US carried out one night of very major airstrikes. But after that, Trump basically unilaterally declared a ceasefire, and the ceasefire is holding. He certainly deserves credit for helping bring that fighting to an end. The other would be India-Pakistan fighting. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stepped in and brokered a truce there. It is important to note that in both these cases and in others, this didn't solve the underlying conflict. It stopped the immediate cause, the shooting.

But you know, with Israel and Iran, for example, the core issue is Iran's nuclear program. We know it's been damaged. We don't know precisely by how much. And we don't know if Iran is trying to quickly rebuild. Yeah. Those examples are ways in which Trump was given a way to, like, sort of announce a win, right? He loves to announce a win. I mean, there is probably nothing he loves more than announcing wins. And sometimes those are real wins, and sometimes those are sort of temporary wins with a lot of complications underlying

that big splashy announcement up front. I talked to another foreign policy expert named Heather Conley at the American Enterprise Institute who was like, you know what it is? It's just there's not the follow through. You know, like he likes the art of the deal, but he doesn't necessarily like the thing that comes the day after. And so she said, it's not peace through strength, like Reagan used to say, it's more like strength without commitment, because he has come in

very strong in a number of cases. You could also include the tariff policy in that. Like he comes on strong, he says, your tar gonna be 40%, but then what comes next? Yeah, and those deals haven't happened. Yeah, and I mean, there is a part of his foreign policy right now where he hasn't even been able to announce even a short-term win, right? And we're talking about the Russia-Ukraine war. What does that conflict tell us about Trump's approach overall? Well, I think it does highlight the limitations Tam has just pointed out.

It's a good example of Trump wanting a quick deal, even though it doesn't appear to be a realistic option. He had this long-standing working relationship with Putin, often praising him. He thought he could swiftly work out a deal, make a few phone calls, perhaps send an envoy, and they would sort it out. And in turn was very dismissive of Ukraine's leader Volodymyr Zelensky, basically kicked him out of the White House, but that didn't go anywhere. That didn't work.

I mean, Trump acknowledged that publicly this week, said I'd have these nice phone calls with Putin, and then as soon as I hang up, the rockets start landing in Ukraine. And after three or four times, you say, hey, the talk doesn't mean anything. So Trump formally adopted this very different stance this week. He now plans to sell weapons to NATO, which will send them on to Ukraine.

He's continuing to criticize Putin, threatening punitive measures against Russia. So this is an example where Trump thought he could do it quickly, but he couldn't. I'll just mention one other conflict, the Israel Hamas fighting in Gaza, Trump actually inherited a ceasefire on day one of this term. But that ended with an Israeli offensive in March. The conflict is now grinding on and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is as bad or worse than it's ever been. Danielle Pletka Greg, I also think it's worth noting that Trump sees the world in a different way than his predecessors do, which might give him more lanes when he comes

to foreign policy that maybe presidents before him had. Yeah, I think that's absolutely true. You don't hear Trump talking about defending democracy or the critical need to defend human rights abroad. He's just not talking often about these values. He talks in very practical deal-oriented terms. And I have talked to a number of foreign policy analysts who take this stuff very seriously. They do it for a living, and they may not agree with Trump on a lot of things, but they'll say he is realistic in that sense. And the Israel-Palestinian feud is a real example.

Every president since Harry Truman in the 1940s has tried to solve it and hasn't been able to. Well, Trump is not talking about creating a Palestinian state or a two-state solution, and quite frankly that just seems utterly unrealistic at this point. He's focused on a ceasefire and that's about as far as it goes right now. So they'll say that Trump may be more successful, at least in a small, specific nature of getting a ceasefire, doing a deal, and not really worrying about larger issues that have defined US foreign policy for many presidents and many decades.

Yeah. I do wonder though, Tam, I mean, we both covered Trump voters at his rallies ahead of the election. And something that came up a lot when I talked to voters was Trump's promise to end endless wars, right? I wonder how you think how his foreign policy agenda has sort of played out so far, how it sort of aligns with these promises and the hopes that his voters have. Yeah. I mean, I think that there was initially a lot of disappointment with the Iran strikes because it's like, you

said you were going to get us out of foreign wars. You weren't going to get us into entanglements like this. But then it was one and done. And very quickly, even people who had been critical of him, they circled the wagons and the base came back around and was like, look, he's ending wars with strength. That's what I meant when I talked about sort of the slogans getting molded around the actions. So I think that for now he has been given a bit of grace by his base. You know, it's interesting because we talked earlier about the Epstein situation where the base hasn't necessarily completely come into line. But with foreign policy, I think it's different. I think a lot of voters are somewhat less invested in foreign policy, or at least key

voters who came over to Trump's side in 2024 are somewhat less invested in major foreign policy stuff than they are in this Epstein thing. And I'll also add that every president very quickly learns the lesson that it's a big, messy world out there and you don't have control over foreign policy. Two countries start to fight and and suddenly there's calls for the US to get involved. The US does have cloud, it does have influence. Do you use that influence? Do you stay out of it? Do you risk getting dragged in for a long time? And these are things that no president can control. Very easy to do while you're campaigning, very difficult to do once you're in office.

Yeah. All right. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Greg. My pleasure. All right. We're going to take a quick break. And when we get back, it's time for Can't Let It Go. And we're back. And welcome back to Medico. Thank you for having me back. It's time to end the show like we do every week with Can't Let It Go. This is the part of the show where we talk about the things from the week that we just can't stop thinking about, politics or otherwise. Domenico, can we start with you?

What can't you let go of this week? Sure. I know I talk a lot about baseball on this podcast, but I'm going to do it one more time. And that's because this week was the All-Star game and it was a lot of fun. Honestly, I was watching the game and it looked like it might get tied. And I was like, what are they going to do if it's tied? They've seemed like they've used up all their pitchers. That's a problem.

Um, they started to say that the game would not end in a tie, but it would also not go to extra innings. And I said, well, what are they going to do? And they came up with this really kind of clever fun thing where you had three batters on each side have to come up and Whoever hit the most home runs in three swings won the game So it's like the home run derby. Yeah at the end of the all-star in a mini version and it was dramatic It was it was two to one. How typical is that? I don't think it's a typical the first time it's ever happened

So I can't let it go But you know was pretty dramatic because the American League was winning two to one after the first set of hitters and then came The Phillies Kyle Schwarber who if anyone sees him He looks like somebody who's like 55 years old and has been playing softball his whole life He's just like mash his home runs with beers and cigarettes. But he's not, he is like a tank, but he is a phenomenal home run hitter and he comes up and just dramatically all three swings he hits a home run and the American League guy could not catch up after that they win yada yada he gets MVP, National League

wins. It was just kind of fun it was was a fun, it seemed like a fun weekend. And I kind of also just like love that Major League baseball is sort of a young sport now. Like there's a lot of new all-stars, fun young players. They're allowed to sort of like show their personalities. I just kind of love that. So Ashley, what can't you like of? So what I can't like of this week

is a crime story out of Finland. But it's not like a murder. Recently, police in Helsinki received a call about a man who had stolen a city bus. This man had taken over the bus while the driver, I guess, stepped off the bus for a short break. This man then proceeded to drive towards like the city's downtown.

And he even managed to pick someone up from a bus stop on what was described as a 10 minute joy ride from police. And it turns out, I mean, this is gonna be a surprise to no one, this man was drunk. I want an interview with a passenger. That's what I want. Yeah, what a great story. Some drunk guy, commandeered the bus,

and I got on and made it out okay. Wow, there was also some story about someone who like went for a joy ride in a plane, which is a very different situation. I thought this was like delightful, you know? I'm from Florida and Florida man stories that start with a drunk man end up in really weird and kind of dark places, but I thought this was delightful.

And when he was interviewed by police, he told them that stealing the bus was an impulsive spur of the moment idea. I love when an impulsive thought takes over. All right, Tam, what can't you let go of this week? So we all know about kiss cams. They're charming, you know, at a ball game or apparently at a concert. So there was a Coldplay concert this week where they start putting happy,

loving people up on the Jumbotron. And I think we should just listen to what happened in this TikTok. Oh, look at these two. All right, come on. You're okay? Oh, what? Either they're having an affair or they're just very shy. So it turns out. Yeah. So what happens? This couple, very cozy, shows up on the kiss cam, but instead of kissing, she like covers her face and turns around, he ducks. Yeah, he had his like arms around her waist. They see each other in on the kiss cam thing or whatever, and just both like went off.

Absolutely mortified. Now, the thing that I couldn't let go of with that story is the response to it where there was a statement that was going around the internet that everyone thought was from this guy who happened to be a CEO of a company. Oh, and she happened to be the chief people officer of the company. Well, head of HR, yes. And the statement that everyone thought was from him was actually generated by AI. Oh my god.

It's not something he put out. He runs an AI company. I just thought Chris Martin, this lead singer, narrating their avoidance was a cold play. Oh, and we end it with a dad joke. Thank you, Domenico. I feel like you gotta sneak one in every time. I have to do my job.

Yeah, I know. I have a reputation to maintain. It's what you're brought here for. All right, that's a wrap for today. Our executive producer is Mathonia Maturi. Our editor is Rachel Bay. Our producers are Casey Morrell and Bria Suggs. Thanks to Krishna Dev Kalmer.

I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.