Full Episode: Washington Week with The Atlantic full episode, 7/18/25

Jeffrey Goldberg: This week, President Trump found himself in an unfamiliar and maddening position. Some of his most enthusiastic supporters are wondering if he himself is involved in a Jeffrey Epstein cover-up. A president who rose to prominence promoting conspiracy theories now confronts a conspiracy theory about himself. The consequences for his movement and his presidency could be enormous, next.

Good evening and welcome to Washington Week. Remember way back when Donald Trump argued that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, and remember not so way back when Trump told us the Democrats and the deep state stole the 2020 election? Perhaps the lesson this week is live by conspiracy theories, die by conspiracy theories.

Far be it for me to suggest that Trump is in political trouble, he is after all one of the luckiest men in the history of American politics, but this has been a stressful week in MAGA land. It is also undoubtedly stressful and let's not forget this important point for the actual victims of Jeffrey Epstein's terrible crimes.

Tonight, we'll talk about the relationship between Trump and Epstein and about the consequences of this very strange episode.

Joining me tonight at the table, Leigh Ann Caldwell, the chief Washington correspondent at Puck, Stephen Hayes is the editor of The Dispatch, Meredith McGraw is a White House reporter for The Wall Street Journal, and Michael Shearer is a White House correspondent for The Atlantic.

Thank you all for joining me tonight. Before we get to this week's weird main event, I want to just talk for a minute about something that just happened in Congress. Congress has voted, narrowly voted, to claw back money that it had already budgeted for foreign aid, but for our purposes, I want to talk about something that directly affects us, the Corporation of Public Broadcasting, which provides funds for NPR and PBS, including this member station, WETA. And I wanted to start by just asking Leigh Ann how this all. happened and why it happened.

Leigh Ann Caldwell, Chief Washington Correspondent, Puck: So, the administration, of course, has been saying that they want to shrink the size of government, get rid of waste, fraud, and abuse. Another interpretation of what they want to do is actually just remake the country in their view, in their eyes. They --

Jeffrey Goldberg: A little project.

Leigh Ann Caldwell: A little project, which they're actually becoming quite successful at with all the things that they are doing.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Leigh Ann Caldwell: So, they picked the lowest hanging fruit, the things that are least controversial to try to claw back funding that Congress has already appropriated, just $9 billion. That is a fraction of the amount of money that Congress spends and the government spends every year.

Jeffrey Goldberg: By the way, just for everybody's clarity, only a billion of that was for public broadcasting.

Leigh Ann Caldwell: Correct. Most of the rest of it was for foreign aid and for programs overseas.

And so Republicans agreed to do it even though many Republicans were quite uncomfortable with it. Even very rural Republicans had some concerns about some of their rural constituencies not having access to emergency broadcast alert systems that come through PBS and NPR and some of the local entertainment and news information that they get and rely on in some of these rural places. But Donald Trump demanded it and wanted it, and it passed.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. Michael, the rescission process, you're fascinated by it. I know you are. Philosophically, I want to ask you all what this means. From our perspective, you know, obviously we're in the media and this is quite a historic moment. But talk about the use of rescission.

Michael Scherer, Staff Writer, The Atlantic: Yes. So, it's bad for the corporation, for broadcasting, but what I think will be remembered of this vote is that it was a test case in whether they could change the way the government appropriates money. Historically, when Republicans control the House and the Senate, you still need 60 votes to get a budget through the Senate, and that means you need a bipartisan process. In the past, it's meant that there's been deals where military gets this amount of money and social safety net gets this amount of money.

The Trump administration's goal here is to break that process and they are doing it by making it a purely partisan process. Rescission only needs 50 votes if you have the vice president, 51, otherwise. And so they're basically turning the appropriations or threatening to turn the appropriations process into a majority process in the Senate. And that's going to really complicate the whole way -- change dramatically the whole way the federal government's been budget for years.

For Republicans, you know, Russ Vought was out this week saying, we need a more partisan process.

Jeffrey Goldberg: The head of the OMB.

Michael Scherer: Yes, the head of the --

Jeffrey Goldberg: The chief budget officer of the government.

Michael Scherer: Their dream is that they, when they control the House and the Senate, that means they'll control how all the purse strings are set. They'll basically be able to cut Democrats out the process. We don't know if it's going to get there, but that was a big step they took this week.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Steve, I have to ask the obvious question, which is, what happens if they ever lose majority power? Do they then -- will they complain that the Democrats are using the same burn it all to the ground methodology that we're seeing right now?

Stephen Hayes, Editor, The Dispatch: Yes, undoubtedly. I mean, I don't think they operate --

Jeffrey Goldberg: But they're not planning for a Democrat --

Stephen Hayes: They don't operate -- no, I think from the perspective of most Republicans in both the Senate and the House, they think Democrats have been doing this all along. Democrats have been partisan. They've been maneuvering, they've been manipulating government in their favor for decades, and now it's our time as Republicans, as conservatives to come back and give them a little taste of their own medicine and not be so timid in taking the fight to Democrats on these issues.

I think the challenge for Republicans is, at some point, they won't be in power anymore and they will have to deal with this. And what will be their arguments? I mean, their small government arguments, I think, fall on deaf ears. That Republicans have been arguing to cut funding for public broadcasting, I think, with justification for decades.

But as Leigh Ann says, you know, you're talking about a billion dollars when you're running a $1.3 trillion deficit. I would say cut everything you can cut. We need to lower the $1.3 trillion deficit. But they can't really make credible small government arguments to do these things.

Jeffrey Goldberg: I just want you to note for the -- I want to note for the record that if you continue your opposition to CPB funding, I'm taking away that mug.

Stephen Hayes: I mean, I should say --

Jeffrey Goldberg: No more --

Stephen Hayes: I've held these views consistently for three decades, including the years that my wife worked for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, but you can imagine led to some funny conversations around the kitchen table, yes.

Jeffrey Goldberg: I want, I want to move to the -- I will be revisiting this again, this subject obviously, but I want to move to the main subject, this -- let's call it a MAGA meltdown over Jeffrey Epstein. It's the first time we've really seen some nausea-inducing gyrations on the battleship that is MAGA, the political battleship that is MAGA.

Meredith, your newspaper reported just in the last 24 hours that Donald Trump contributed to a, quote, bawdy, that's The Wall Street Journal and Shakespeare, Shakespearean word, for what clearly was contained in this birthday book, contributed a passage to the -- in Epstein's honor. Here's part of what Trump wrote. It's a kind of a dialogue between the two men. I will not be performing this. I'll simply be reading this. This is according to The Wall Street Journal.

Donald, we have certain things in common. Jeffrey. Jeffrey, yes, we do, come to think of it. Donald, enigmas never age. Have you noticed that? Jeffrey, as a matter of fact, it was clear to me the last time I saw you. Donald, a pal is a wonderful thing. Happy birthday and may every day be another wonderful secret.

Deal with that, as you will. Meredith, tell us about this story that The Wall Street Journal just published. And if you don't mind, it's a pretty big assignment, but could you run through what we know about the relationship between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, just the facts of what we know?

Meredith McGraw, White House Reporter, The Wall Street Journal: Yes. Well, you know what? I'll start there. Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein had an over decades-long relationship. They both ran in very elite and wealthy circles in New York. And they've been photographed many times at similar parties. We've seen them on video together. And we know that Donald Trump was also listed on the manifest for Jeffrey Epstein's private plane going from Palm Beach, where they both have homes, had homes, and to New York City. And we know that at least one of Jeffrey Epstein's victims was actually employed at Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump's private club, when she was recruited into Epstein's circles.

But there was also at some point a falling out around 2004. This was a couple years before Epstein was first arrested. And this reporting that my colleagues have is about this birthday letter presentation that was part of a bunch of different documents that were in a leather-bound book that they reviewed the documents and it was in celebration of Epstein's 50th birthday party.

It hasn't been reported before and we know that the president did not want this letter to get out there. But now that it is, the president is suing now Dow Jones and News Corp, which I work for at The Wall Street Journal. And at the same time, it is just fueling, it's adding more fuel to the fire, I think, for this story, in general, when Trump really wanted it to go away.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. No, I mean, Trump has definitively wanted it to go away. Just watch with me for a second Trump talking about this episode, the broader episode, just the other day.

Reporter: Why do you think your supporters in particular have been so interested in the Epstein story?

Donald Trump, U.S. President: I don't understand.

Reporter: And so upset about how it's been handled. Why do you think that is?

Donald Trump: I don't understand it.

He's dead for a long time. He was never a big factor in terms of life. I don't understand what the interest or what the fascination is.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Who among us is a big factor in life?

Stephen Hayes: That's very well put.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Thank you. Well, you'll join my philosophy panel after this, after this discussion.

The -- but, Steve, frame this out for us. Trump is in a pickle in a way that he hasn't been before with at least some of his own followers. Those same followers, I would note, have today gone after The Wall Street Journal for this reporting and are -- have found their comfortable spot, if you will, going after the media. But give us your framing of this. You've been following MAGA since its inception.

Stephen Hayes: Yes. I mean, I think if you go back, you mentioned earlier some of the conspiracies that Donald Trump has gotten his base to go along with or to get enthusiastic about. You know, you can go back to Rafael Cruz, you can go back to the 2020 election, the revisionist history on January 6th as aggressive prosecutors and the FBI and Antifa. And he's been successful in convincing his hardcore base to believe him despite the fact that, you know, on January 6th, we thought we saw tens of thousands of hours of video of what happened.

The reason I think this is different and the reason I think this is problematic for him in a way those others weren't, is in all of -- virtually all of the other conspiracies he has either spun or embraced or amplified, they had a bad guy and the bad guy was them, with a capital T. And this was Donald Trump, the populace, the demagogue's way of saying to his followers, they're the bad people. I'm on your side. And look at all these things that they have done to you.

What makes this difficult, I think, for Trump is, in this case, he and his supporters, his advisers have been hyping this for years. They are the ones who are blocking this information about Jeffrey Epstein. They're the ones who enabled him.

And then the Trump administration comes into office and these very same people suddenly say, the deep state was right, there really wasn't much here. This is -- all of these things that we've said about this particular thing turn out to have been wrong. And that's a pretty stunning moment for a populist demagogue.

Jeffrey Goldberg: And disorienting, Michael, for his followers to see Dan Bongino now on the inside at the FBI attacking the attorney general for saying that the thing that he's been talking about all along really didn't happen.

Michael Scherer: The attorney general who just a couple months earlier had released a angry letter to the FBI director demanding that these records be on her desk and accusing the FBI of trying to conceal these records. She now says there's no need to release any of those records.

I think that --

Jeffrey Goldberg: Although now she has, per Trump's orders, asked the judge to release the grand jury.

Michael Scherer: Grand jury. But that is a very small subset of what the federal government has in his possession about what -- about Jeffrey Epstein. And it is not -- like the grand jury testimony was not what she was demanding the FBI turnover. She was demanding what she described as thousands of pages of documents, computer hard drives that were gathered as part of that investigation. And it's evident, as the Wall Street Journal's reported, that this birthday letter was part of what was the investigation found.

So, you know, Senator Durbin from Illinois came out today and said that he's been informed that FBI officials who were reviewing these documents were told to flag any mention of Trump up the chain of command as they went over it. So, presumably, it's quite possible Trump's name shows up in other records of Jeffrey Epstein. So, this may not be the end.

And so that hard turn, you know, is jarring. I think it should be said that like we know a lot about the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein. I mean, there's more than 200 people who've gotten settlements, victims who've gotten settlements. You know, we have testimony from them and others about accomplices. His former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, is in prison because of the crime she committed with relation to him. There's a lot we don't know, but the scope of what he did was enormously serious.

And so I don't think it's wrong to be curious about, you know, what else was going on with Jeffrey Epstein. What is odd is that as soon as that curiosity bumped up against Trump, it seems like the administration turned on a dime.

And that, I think, is what's problematic. They're going to try and say, well, we're going to get the grand jury testimony. You know, that could take months if the judge allows it, but I'm not sure that that's going to put this story to bed.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. Leigh Ann, I want to talk about truth and lies and the unwillingness of some of Trump's most fervent supporters to deal with -- using January 6th as one example -- deal with images right before their eyes. It's just a very interesting -- it's ultimately a small point, but it's a very interesting point in The Wall Street Journal piece.

He's -- Trump is believed to, according to The Wall Street Journal, drawn a bawdy picture in this book. Trump has come out and said, I don't drop pictures. Almost immediately, the internet is flooded with images of Trump's pictures usually of skyscrapers in his buildings. But he literally said, I don't draw doodles, or I don't draw pictures, and then here they are.

I mean, the question is at what point does it break open? At what point do people among his followers say, at least on that question, maybe he's not on the level?

Leigh Ann Caldwell: So, I think that for most of his followers, it doesn't. The follower -- the MAGA part of the party that is furious about this are not necessarily partisans. They are the people who are anti-establishment, who have been -- feel like they have been wronged and do not just -- or do not trust the system, anti-institutionalists. And the reason they found a savior in Donald Trump is because he promised to be different, to break everything and to be the truth teller. And that is why they're behind Donald Trump.

And so -- and that's what the anger about it from this small segment of that is coming from, that Trump promised so much and he is doing the exact same thing that previous government agencies and previous administrations have done. I shouldn't say administrations, but entities, government entities have done.

And so -- but I think that is a very small segment of the Trump coalition. Most of the Trump coalition is going to come to his defense. It's incredible, it's really been a test case watching all of this play out. Donald Trump says, we will release the credible information.

Now, all of a sudden, you know, this was a few days ago, all of a sudden the online, the talking point was he's going to release all the credible information. They include the word credible, which, of course, who determines what is credible, and so using that as justification that he is still this truth teller who's going to uncover. We saw that again last night with the grand jury stuff and the attacking of The Wall Street Journal. So, it's like an instant reaction that I don't know if someone like pushes some switch and a bat signal is sent out, but it's a really fascinating case study.

I mean, even in House Republicans' new resolution to call on the Justice Department to unleash this information, which they did because they're getting so much pressure from constituents to do so, they have the same exact language as Trump used, release credible information.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Leigh Ann Caldwell: And so they find ways to justify.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. Will you watch with me for one minute? This is Tucker Carlson speaking about this controversy and about his frustration.

Tucker Carlson, Conservative Commentator: The fact that the U.S. government, the one that I voted for, refused to take my question seriously and instead said, case closed, shut up, conspiracy theorist, was too much for me. And I don't think the rest of us should be satisfied with that.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Steve, it's a very durable movement, MAGA, in many ways, but with a pronounced weakness for conspiracy theories. Try to imagine out where this is going, because I can't figure it out for the life of me.

Stephen Hayes: Yes. I mean, we all make predictions like this at our own peril, right?

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Stephen Hayes: I've been wrong about these things many times before. But, look, I think this is what Tucker just framed is that the challenge when the anti-establishment forces become the establishment, and that's what you're seeing here. And the question is whether sort of the MAGA crowd will go along with that. And there are certainly signs that there's resistance, pretty strong resistance, stronger than we've seen before, I think, for the reasons that we've discussed.

The remaining question is whether the Trump administration can give them another target or refocus their attention. They're trying now. Now, Donald Trump is saying, this is the Jeffrey Epstein hoax perpetrated by the same Democrats and people that you brought me to power to fight. The Wall Street Journal and the media will be another target, inevitably.

You know, there's reason to believe that he will be successful in doing this because his people want to be with him.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. Meredith, I have to ask you this. This is one of the -- one of the aspects of this that's surprising to me is that we are not talking about possible revelations that Mike Pence was secretly directing pornography films, right? This is Donald Trump of the Access Hollywood tapes, of the lifestyle that he has bragged about for decades. Why is this so surprising at all? Is it that the anti-elitist was actually hanging around in elitist circles?

Meredith McGraw: I mean, I don't know if it's that surprising. I think we've known about Donald Trump's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein for years. We've obviously heard about his Access Hollywood tapes that, you know, consumed the end of the 2016 election. And yet we're at this moment where when the story came out, it really seemed like it was a galvanizing force among his supporters. And instead of focusing on the content of the reporting or whatever was revealed, it was -- they called it a hoax, like you said, and they were very quick to dismiss it.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Is there anxiety? You're in the White House every day, every week. Is there anxiety in the White House about this reporting?

Meredith McGraw: I think at the beginning of the week, officials were trying to work through this in real time, and I think --

Jeffrey Goldberg: Oh, they were actually lobbying your bosses directly.

Meredith McGraw: Well -- and they were, you know, hoping that they could put all of this behind them. But I do think that we're seeing people like Laura Loomer, who is a right wing, you know, Trump supporter, activist, people who were calling for these Epstein files to come out and who were really pushing for the Trump administration to bring forth more evidence, are suddenly saying, whoa, let's hold up.

Michael Scherer: I think it's important to put this in a broader political frame. You know, Trump was powerful in the last election because he got people who don't pay attention to politics to vote for him. These are not political people. They don't care. They think Washington's all rotten. They don't care much about it on a day-to-day basis.

There was an A.P. poll this week that asked the question, is your life better, your personal life better under President Trump? And the numbers were remarkably low, even among Republicans, it was closer to 50 percent. Nationwide, it was around -- it was under 30 percent.

He's just passed the big beautiful bill, which is dramatically unpopular. He is headed into a budget season, which is going to be a whole bunch of fights about cutting things, like CBP and NIH and stuff like that, which are also not super popular for him. And then he has within that environment this MAGA wound that he has to deal with.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. Leigh Ann, let me go to you for the -- I want you to make your point, but I also have one other question for you, and I'm cutting into your seconds each moment. No, the -- it's just Congress is interesting. You cover Congress.

Leigh Ann Caldwell: Yes.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Congress is interesting here because they ultimately seem to line up.

Leigh Ann Caldwell: Yes.

Jeffrey Goldberg: The Republicans line up no matter what.

Leigh Ann Caldwell: Yes. But when Speaker Mike Johnson came out the other day and said that there needs to be more transparency, if anyone bet that that was going to be the thing that Speaker Johnson broke with Trump on, like I hope you won big. But it's a testament of how much pressure some of these members of Congress were already getting on this issue.

And while it's probably not going to have any impact in the midterm elections, I was speaking to a Trump -- a person close to the Trump administration who said that this could hurt Trump's brand and the brand could have a trickledown effect on how people view the Republican Party.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Well, we're going to have to leave it there. I want to thank our guests for joining me. Steve, you can keep the mug. And thank you at home for watching us.

Please check out Franklin Foer's profile of Harvard's President Alan Garber at theatlantic.com.

I'm Jeffrey Goldberg. Goodnight from Washington.