Trump feuds with MAGA ally ahead of vote to release Epstein files

John Yang:

Good evening. I'm John Yang. President Trump continues to be dogged by a man who's been dead for more than six years, Jeffrey Epstein. Late yesterday, the president broke with Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a one time staunch ally former who was among four House Republicans who joined all 214 Democrats to force a vote next week on releasing the Justice Department's Epstein files.

In a Truth Social post, Mr. Trump called her a ranting lunatic and said, all I see wacky Marjorie do is complain, complain, complain. Mr. Trump left Washington late yesterday but couldn't escape the controversy aboard Air Force One. He sought to deflect attention onto political opponents.

Donald Trump, U.S. President:

It's really what did he mean when he spent all the time with Bill Clinton, with the president of Harvard? You know, that is Summers, Larry Summers, whatever his name is, and all of the other people that he spent time with.

John Yang:

There haven't been any allegations that either former President Clinton or Larry Summers did anything wrong. Jonathan Lemire is a staff writer at the Atlantic. Jonathan, we should start off by saying right off the bat there have been no allegations of wrongdoing against the president either in this.

But this story got a little gassed this week because of new material that was released. Remind us, what was it and what did we learn new about the president's relationship with Epstein?

Jonathan Lemire, Staff Writer, The Atlantic:

Well, we've been hearing about these so called Epstein files for years now, and that's not what we got this week. But what happened was a few emails were released by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee that shed some new light on the Epstein Trump relationship. We've certainly known that they were friends. These emails, though, suggest perhaps closer friends than the President would like the public to know.

And then in response to that, the Republicans put out 23,000 emails, sort of an effort to flood the zone to distract from the damaging ones that came out. Although I don't think it really worked because some of those emails also a lot of them mentioned Trump and some of them make clear that Epstein and Trump, you know, were friends and spent a lot of time together, even though they did later have a, a falling out.

What's so striking about this is it's a rare moment where Republicans are willing to defy him. Some of his most loyal allies have rebuked his calls to let this just go away. And now we seem barreling towards a vote on the House floor in the coming days.

John Yang:

Given that material that was released, the discharge petition to force the vote, what do you make of the way the President is reacting and responding to all of this?

Jonathan Lemire:

Well, as I wrote for The Atlantic this week, even some of his closest allies are puzzled by his approach. As one said to me, this is not how you act if you don't have anything to hide. It's been a major cause for so many on the right for so long to unearth these so called files.

So it does seem like the House has enough votes to pass it next week. Then it'll move to the Senate. As I've reported, Trump is considering trying to pressure senators. So perhaps it will be killed there in the upper chamber if it were to pass there too. Well, then he'll be left with a choice to veto. You assume that he would, but even that would just raise more questions.

What exactly is he trying to hide? This is sort of the number one, you know, sort of mystery in Washington right now.

John Yang:

Given all that, what effect is this having on the President, on his political standing, on his standing with Congress, with members of his own party?

Jonathan Lemire:

It's coming exactly the wrong time for Trump. It comes now at a time when the President is already at the weakest moment of his second term. His party, of course, just suffered pretty lopsided defeats in the elections earlier this month. Polls suggest that not only does the public blame Trump and Republicans more for the government shutdown that just ended.

But also they say that Trump is really out of touch on issues like affordability and prices, the things he was really elected on last year, as with the midterms now less than a year away and Trump desperately trying to not be perceived as a lame duck and trying to keep Republicans in power so he doesn't have to face a Democratic majority in the House, let's say, which would have subpoena power, you know, he's flailing and really struggling here to come up with an acceptable response to the Epstein matter.

John Yang:

There were only four House Republicans who defied him. But there are still a lot of MAGA supporters were talking about the Epstein files during the campaign. Is there any sense of any tension or any cracks in the broader MAGA coalition?

Jonathan Lemire:

I think there are. I think this is something where, you know, we're so used to the MAGA base basically cheering on everything President Trump wants and does. And if he were to say to them like this isn't important, they would listen and they'd move on.

But that didn't really hit — has not really happened here with the Epstein matter because it's been for some on the right. This has been a core belief of theirs for a long time. Jeffrey Epstein, you know, died under mysterious circumstances. That his, the list, if you will, is going to bring down powerful people and institutions, you know, largely Democrats. They think so that's a hard thing to ask your voters to give up.

And I think now that some Republicans, you know, the four in the House have taken a stand, I suspect there'll be some in the Senate who do as well. It could very easily be interesting to watch whether this really springs to life again as an issue in the sort of conservative media, because it did earlier this year. A lot of the MAGA sphere, the podcasts, the blogs, even some cable shows really seized on the Epstein matter and questioned President Trump. They largely stopped when he asked them to, but now perhaps those questions will be revived.

John Yang:

Jonathan Lemire of the Atlantic, thank you very much.

Jonathan Lemire:

Thank you.