Today, Explained - Trump's Epstein flip

Episode Date: November 18, 2025

President Donald Trump told Congress to vote to release the Epstein files. That shows just how eager he is to close the growing gap within his MAGA movement. This episode was produced by Miles Bryan and Peter Balonon-Rosen, edited by Miranda Kennedy, fact-checked by Ariana Aspuru and Melissa Hirsch, engineered by Patrick Boyd and Adriene Lilly, and hosted by Astead Herndon. Epstein abuse survivor Lisa Phillips at a news conference with lawmakers on the Epstein Files Transparency Act outside the U.S. Capitol. Photo by Heather Diehl/Getty Images. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. New Vox members get $20 off their membership right now. Transcript at ⁠vox.com/today-explained-podcast.⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

While I want to see every single name released so that these women don't have to live in fear and intimidation, which is something I've had a small taste of in just the past few days. That's longtime Magal Warrior, Marjorie Taylor Green, who has now become a thorn in Trump's side. Today in Washington, the House finally votes on a petition for the Justice Department to release documents related to Jeffrey Epstein's case. Watching this actually turn into a fight has ripped MAGA apart. Trump has tried to ignore the issue for months. In July, he set the Epstein Files for a Democratic hoax. Some stupid Republicans and foolish Republicans fall into the net,

and so they try and do the Democrats' work. But in recent days, Trump has changed his tune. Coming up on today, explain how the vote over the Epstein Files is rocking Magal world to its core. Support for this show comes from OnePassword. If you're an IT or security pro, managing devices, identities, and applications can feel overwhelming and risky. Trellica by OnePassword helps conquer SaaS sprawl and Shadow IT by discovering every app your team uses, managed or not. Take the first step to better security for your team.

Learn more at OnePassword.com slash podcast offer. That's OnePassword.com slash podcast offer, all lowercase. Support for this show comes from OnePassword. If you're an IT or security pro, managing devices, identities, and applications can feel overwhelming and risky. Trellica by OnePassword helps conquer SaaS sprawl and Shadow IT by discovering every app your team uses, managed or not. Take the first step to better security for your team. Learn more at OnePassword.com slash podcast offer. That's OnePassword.com slash podcast offer, all lowercase.

Today, today X-Nay. This morning, I caught up with Washington Post Congress reporter Kadiogba, one of the best source reporters on the Hill. She had just come from a press conference held by three of the lawmakers who have recently pushed the White House to release the Epstein files. The press conference also featured victims

of Jeffrey Epstein, who spoke passionately about the abuse they endured and urged Congress to pass the measure, compelling the Justice Department to act. Well, as your listeners probably know, this is the day that the discharges petition will be on the floor for a vote, which means every member of Congress in the House gets to vote on compelling the Justice Department to release files for Jeffrey Epstein.

Right now, as I was walking into the Capitol, there were, I'd say, a couple of hundred reporters, bystanders, outside, listening to a press interview held by representatives Roe Kana and Thomas Massey and Marjorie Taylor Green, where they are featuring survivors of Jeffrey Epstein. We fought the president, the attorney general, the FBI director, the Speaker of the House, and the vice president to get this win. So today is Epstein Day on the hill. The discharge position to release the Epstein vows, or at least part of them, is the rarest thing in Washington these days, bipartisan.

As you mentioned, this rarely happens. And part of the reason it's happening in this case is because it seems like an instance of Democrats and Republicans coming together. Can you tell me how that happened? Okay, so, and to be clear, there are two efforts that are occurring right now to compel the DOJ to release files. They have essentially garnered three additional Republicans who happen to be women, I want to point out, to sign on to their discharge petition. And all of the Democrats have obviously signed on, essentially to push the administration to release these files. Those three Republicans are Representative Marjorie Taylor Green from Georgia. These women have fought the most horrific fight.

that no woman should have to fight, and they did it by banding together and never giving up. Lauren Bobert from Colorado. Of course we want answers. No one is satisfied with what has been received or lack thereof. No one is satisfied with the rollout of this. And Nancy Mace from South Carolina.

This is really bigger than Jeffrey Epstein. This is a very symbolic vote to me for every woman and girl across the country who's been abused, and abused, that they represent us. All three of them have spoken about this being the right thing to do. And you know, Nancy Mays, she has had claims with sexual abuse herself. And, you know, she's made a point to say that.

But I want to point out that this three women, just three women, signed on. And there was even pressure from the administration for them to get off of it, but it didn't deter them. These are now MAGA lawmakers who are acting independently of Donald Trump. What do you think this reveals about the current state of his relationship to his own party, considering that, as you mentioned, this is one of the rare instances of them pushing him? You know, Asset, it's hard to tell if there's any, if this is going to be a trend, to be honest with you. We saw the public display or fallout between Donald Trump and Marjorie, I was called a traitor by a man that I fought for five, no, actually six years for.

I don't know if that's isolated. I am not totally convinced that people will just start doing discharge petitions or signaling that they want to push back against the administration in a full-throated way. This could be in singular issue. It could be. I mean, the irony of all of this is that Trump came out the other day. said that he wanted members of Congress to support the measure. Truth Social.

House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files because we have nothing to hide, and it's time to move on from this democratic hoax perpetrated by the radical left lunatics in order to deflect the great success of the Republican Party. A lot of people think that that has everything to do with him seeing the writing on the wall and acknowledging that, okay, this is going to be a big vote against what he has said or called the hoax. Right. So it's been reported as trying of Trump changing his mind and endorsing it. But what you're saying is this could largely be him getting ahead of something that was already inevitable, considering the Republicans who are planning to vote for.

Yeah, like I said, the writing is on the wall instead. Okay, so what comes next? Does this mean that all of a sudden this trove of documents is going to become public? No, so that is the tricky part. this needs to, because it is a bill, it needs to go to the Senate, and then, guess what? It needs to be signed by the president. The president who doesn't necessarily love the idea. Right. But again, now he's on the winning side.

So, you know, now it'll be up to him. Well, first of all, they need to get it through the Senate. Senator Thune, the majority leader over there, has not indicated that he would do that. But we also really see pressure. like building up. One senator wrote a letter compelling him. I think Lisa Mikowski, who's a Republican out of Alaska, she has said, you know, like kind of applauded the House and said they did a good job and she wants him to put the vote on the floor. So I think it probably will get there. However, the tricky part is when it gets to the

president's desk, what he does, does he, you know, does he veto it or not? Thomas Massey in the House, who authored, the discharge petition, has said he wanted an overwhelming amount of support. I'm hoping to get a veto-proof majority on this legislature. So in that event, if Trump does decide to veto it, it'll come back to the House where it originated and they'll have to basically override the veto. It also seems as if some of this is at the Justice Department's discretion. I saw Marjorie Taylor Green mention how even if this petition goes through,

it's still up to the Justice Department about how much of these files will be released. Is that right? That's exactly right. But the real test will be, will the Department of Justice release the files? Or will it all remain tied up in investigations? And remember, this is Trump's Justice Department. So their discretion is essentially his discretion. So it's, you know, it's not clear what they'll do, what the time.

climbing is going to look like on that as well. But I have to, I just want to point out, you know, like I said, this separate effort. Some of the more salacious things that have been coming out have come from the estate. And that is something that James Comer and the House Oversight has been engineering. We're in the process of uploading those documents for full transparency so everyone in America can see those documents. So this might not be the only means of seeing the scope of these documents. No. James Comer has compelled the Justice Department, but he has also subpoenaed the estate. And the estate has some personal things. I imagine it's not clear if they were even ever turned over to the Justice Department. But we will see more information coming out of the estate as well, which should be helpful. You mentioned how rare it was to see any daylight between the Republican caucus and Congress and with the White House. And part of the reason that Trump acted here is because members of the GOP were pressured by their own base. Now, is this only happening with the Epstein Fowse? Because on this show, we've covered other areas of disagreement within the Magal orbit.

I'm thinking about criticism of his action in Venezuela or criticism of his immigration policy respect to H-1B visas. When you're covering Republicans in Congress, do you hear any riffs with the White House on other issues? Or has that mostly been focused on the Epstein files? You know, it's a great question. I do wonder if this will spark or highlight more discrepancies between the MAGA base and Donald Trump. You know, recently there's been some pushback from MAGA world about H-1B visas, right, which Trump is in support of. Does that mean the H-1B visa thing will not be a big priority for your administration? If you want to raise wages for American workers, you can't flood the country with tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of foreign workers.

But you also do have to bring in talent. Well, we have plenty of talented people here. No, you don't. No, you don't. Trump needs to get out of his bubble and back on the ground listening to the American people who elected him to work for us. His H-1B comments show how out of touch with the base he's become. So I do wonder if that will inflame some of those, you know, fractures in the party. to, you know, compel regular voters or voters to become even louder because they saw this work. I don't know if that's the case, but there is a possibility, obviously, that, you know, people will appreciate their power.

And, you know, we could see MAGA voters compelling their lawmakers to do something on H-1B visas. And who knows, a Democrat could throw another discharge petition on the floor. So it's kind of a wait-and-see game, but I do want to. that will amplify other fractures in the party. When we're back, the Epstein files themselves. Already, there's been a lot of important people getting named and blamed. Are we about to see more? Support for today explained comes from Mint Mobile.

This holiday season, Mint Mobile says they're offering a gift you won't have to pretend to like, unlimited premium wireless for $15 per month. Mint Mobile says all Mint Mobile plans come with high-speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's large. largest 5G network. You can use your own phone with any Mint mobile plan and bring your phone number along with all your existing contacts. You can get premium wireless for $15 per month. Shop Mint Unlimited plans at mintmobile.com slash explained. That's mintmobile.com slash explained. This is a limited time offer. Here are some numbers for you. Up front payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for 12 months, plan required, $15 per month equivalent if you do all that math. Apparently, that adds up to $15 per month.

Taxes and fees are extra, guys. This is the initial plan term only. Greater than 35 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. Capable device required. Availability, speed, and coverage varies. Seamintmobile.com. explain comes from Bambas. Putting on a new pair of socks can instantly feel refreshing according to Bambas, especially according to Bambas if they're Bambas socks. Bambas make socks for just about any activity. Your warm merino wools, your comfortable compressions, your cushioned running socks, and so much more, high-quality slippers, T-shirts, Mudans, Nisha Chutal, tried Bambas,

here's what she thinks. Bambas has great kids socks. I have a three-year-old. She runs around a lot indoors in her socks, and she's often slipping on the hardwood floor. but bombas kid socks have grips on the bottom and they're really great to prevent that slipping around on hardwood or tile floors. So we love those for her. They're definitely our preferred socks for our daughter. Bomba says that for every pair of bambas you buy,

they donate one to someone facing homelessness anytime you get something cozy someone else can too. According to bambas, you can go to bambas.com slash explain and use code explain for 20% off. Your first purchase, that's b-o-m-b-a-s.com slash explain, Code Explained to check out. Sport Forte Explain comes from Hydro. Hydro says their rowing machine works 86% of your muscles in one seamless motion.

Just 20 minutes is all it takes to feel results. Whether you're training hard, staying consistent, or getting a jump on the new year goals, Hydro meets you where you are and pushes you further, says Hydro. All their workouts are led by Olympians and world-class athletes, and they're filmed in breathtaking locations around the world, I'm told. Hydro's newest rower is called the Hydro Arc, and it delivers such powerful result that GQ Magazine, allegedly named it Best Rower of 2025.

Free standard shipping, 30-day risk-free trial, one-year warranty. Head over to hydro.com and use the code Explain to save up to $600 this holiday season. That's h-y-d-d-R-O-W.com. Code Explain to save up to $600. I mean, hydro.com, code explained. I mean, I see this. I like, it's so incredible. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, boom.

Okay. Xin, boom. So, today Explained is back. I'm a Stead Herndon. We have Jacob Shamsian, a business insider here. He's been writing about Jeffrey Epstein since 2019. following every twist in turn even beyond the halls of Congress. Last week, the House Oversight Committee released a trove of documents from Jeffrey Epstein's estate.

So what was in those files? So there's this email exchange between Gila and Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein, and this is at a time this 2008 and 2007 Florida investigation is in the past. Jeffrey Epstein went to jail just before 10 this morning. He pleaded guilty in open court. He agreed to serve a total of 18 months in the Palm Beach detention facility, 12 for felony solicitation of prostitutes, an additional six for procuring persons under 18 for prostitution.

He could have faced life in prison for allegations with underage girls, but the prosecutor in the case, Alex Acosta, struck a more lenient deal. He takes a non-prosecution agreement and shuts... There are all these civil lawsuits from victims trying to overturn this agreement because they weren't informed of this settlement and non-prosecution agreements between Jeffrey Epstein and prosecutors. Epstein's victims, Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2, alleged federal prosecutors entered into an agreement without their knowledge

and then covered it up until just days before Epstein entered his plea in court. Also at the same time, Virginia Jeffrey starts speaking to media about her time with Epstein and the abuse that she endured. I was trafficked to other billionaires. I was trafficked to politicians, professors, even royalty. So Jeffrey Epstein is in the middle of this firestorm that, you know, is really just beginning.

In this email to Maxwell, who's under scrutiny, he refers to Trump as a dog who has embarked. Okay, this first email starts with an email from Jeffrey Epstein on Saturday, April 2nd, 2011. He emails Gleine Maxwell saying, I want you to realize that that dog that has embarked is Trump. What does that mean exactly?

I don't know. The dog that's... That hasn't barked. Interesting. And so, you know, a lot of people take that, as well as a couple other references to Trump and the emails, to mean that maybe Trump knew something about what was going on, which of Trump is, of course, denied. Over the weekend, we saw the Internet explode over a particular email that I want to ask you about. It came out in this latest trove, and I think it speaks to the vagueness that you're talking to, specifically when it comes to Trump. Now, in this email, Jeffrey Epstein's brother told him to ask former Trump advisor Steve Bannon whether Russian President Vladimir Putin, quote, has the photos of Trump blowing Bubba.

Now, I am sure you saw this on all the feeds this weekend with a lot of guesses about who or what that might mean. Have you guys heard about the Bubba theory? We have to talk about the Bubba email. Donald, who's Bubba? I don't know. Yes, you do. Bill Clinton, right?

Yes. And is it true that you blew on his saxophone? Little ditty about Bubba and Trump. Two political rivals that got it on when the lights were off. What do we know? Look, I don't know. If you look at other emails between Mark Epstein and Jeffrey Epstein, there are a lot of, like, trading memes. They're very jokey.

I think, you know, a lot of people thought, does Bubba mean Bill Clinton? because Bill Clinton is referred to as Bubba in other contexts with Jeffrey Epstein. I did ask Mark about this. Who is Bubba? What's going on here? And all he would tell me is that Bubba is not Bill Clinton. Jeffrey Epstein's brother clarified to you that he was not meaning Bill Clinton. Yes.

In that email, he did not mean to suggest that Vladimir Perugan has photos of Donald Trump performing oral sex on Bill Clinton. But beyond that, he wouldn't explain what that remark was. I did not have sexual relations with that. President of the United States. This group of docs came from the estate, though, right? What does that mean in terms of the origin? And what can we take away from that? Yeah, so I think that's a really important thing to remember.

What the House Oversight Committee has been releasing over the past week and also before them the months before are stuff that they've subpoenaed from Jeffrey Epstein's estate. We, for example, got a copy of that infamous 2003 birthday. a book from the House Oversight Committee with a purported Trump letter. This weird, gross image of a woman with Donald Trump's signature where the pubes would be. Trump is denied. I don't do drawings. That originally came from the estate. But when people talk about the Epstein files, I mean, the definition of Epstein files has changed

over the years, but they're generally referring to what the Justice Department has. The Justice Department, you know, when they arrested Epstein in 2019, they executed search warrants in his mansion in Manhattan and in the U.S. and his home in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Today, we announce the unsealing of sex trafficking charges against Jeffrey Epstein. The victims, all underage girls at the time of the alleged conduct, were given hundreds of dollars in cash after each encounter, either by Epstein or by one of Epstein's employees. His mansion on East 71st Street was raided early Sunday morning as agents hauled out multiple bags of evidence from disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

They took something like 70 electronic devices, iPads, phones, computers, hard drives. And they have all this stuff. And that stuff that the Justice Department still has in its possession, we still haven't seen it. This discharge petition is about releasing those DOJ Epstein files. So, you know, the estate stuff is really interesting and really amazing, but it's, I think, nothing compared to what the DOJ has. So when we think about the Epstein files, are we talking about one set of documents from the DOJ, or what is it to mean? The way I think about it, you know, there's just stuff that Epstein Estate has.

There's certainly these DOJ documents seized by the FBI. There might also be other documents that the FBI has. For example, you know, there's some victims who've said that they've called the FBI as early as the 1980s or 1990s talking about how they were abused by Jeffrey Epstein. And they were ignored. So maybe there's sort of documents. and the FBI showing how they, you know, screw this up. There's certain underlying records related to investigation of Epstein's death. You know, I've filed FOIA requests for all this stuff. I know some other journalists have filed FOIA requests and I've gotten nothing. It looks like

the house subpoenaed of the DOJ and they've gotten nothing. And hopefully the DOJ will soon be releasing them. So we're not talking about one set of documents more so than an entire maybe treasure chest coming from different sources throughout the federal government. government agencies investigating. Yeah, who knows, maybe also intelligence agencies, the federal aviation, you know, agencies might have flight records. There's a ton of stuff. You know, the investigative reporter, Julie K. Brown, who broke a lot of these Epstein stories, said recently that she thinks some of these leaks might be a message sent by Gillen Maxwell to show her leverage over President Trump that these leaks might actually be coming from her.

To be honest with you, I suspect they're coming from Maxwell's camp. And I do, suspect that the whole thing that happened with Prince Andrew losing his titles, I suspect that that was a message that was coming from her camp saying, you know, we have this stuff, we have information. What do you make of that theory? Do you think that some of these leaks could be related to figures like Glenn trying to get their message out there?

Sure. I'm not so sure about that. I mean, I respect Julie enormously. I talk to her about this stuff sometimes. and she obviously knows a lot. I don't know if that is what's happening, if like sort of if the idea is like Gila is sort of trying to send the message to Trump saying,

you know, I have info on you and, you know, you better pardon me or else. I mean, certainly like this email that we just saw with the dog who hasn't barked that came from the Epstein estate, right? I mean, is the obscene estate working with Gila and Maxwell behind the scenes to facilitate the stuff? I don't really see it. But, you know, certainly Gila and Maxwell,

well, has been moved to a cushier prison. There's no doubt about that. There are a lot of reports that she's getting really good treatments. You know, is it about something that Gillen knows? You know, I don't know. That's that, that's one of the questions. You know, as we heard earlier in the show, Congress is likely to release more files. What are we, do we have any sense of expectation of what could be coming out in these files? I would expect to see more emails and text messages, like the stuff that we've just seen now. I think I would be. personally really interested in seeing a lot more financial records. We really don't have a great accounting. We know some pieces about how he made his money, the $630 million estate that he left with.

And some internal JP Morgan documents we've seen in litigation show that his accounts had over billion dollars in transactions. And that number is just enormous, hard to wrap my head around. And I think sort of answering that first, how did that money get there and where did it go, is really going to lead to the other answers. This moment obviously marks a pivot from Trump in the White House asking Republicans to support this discharge position. Do you think this will set a new narrative around the Epstein files? Can there be a – is there ever a moment of a smoking gun or something that turns the page on this issue? to me I think you know the whole idea of the DOJ releasing all these files this is just an enormous amount of material we're going to see a lot of documents for a long time personally I think this is sort of like a JFK assassination type type thing where we're just going to be talking about this for decades there's going to be a ton of records people will go through for decades people will come up with the conspiracy theories and there'll be more as a more legitimate reporting I just think this is just one of those things that that's going to be a sort of

of a big deal in American history. Jacob Shamsian of the Business Insider. Today's show was produced by Mousbrien and Peter Balinan-Rosen and edited by Miranda Kennedy. It was fact-check by Ariana Aspuru and Melissa Hirsch. And our engineers are Patrick Boyd and Adrian Lilly. I'm Astead Herndon, and this is today Explain. Thank you.