3 Ways Team Trump Went Into Epstein Damage Control (original) (raw)

Pressuring The Wall Street Journal and Other Ways Team Trump Went Into Epstein Damage Control

Photo: Aaron Schwartz/Getty Images

The last time New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan took readers inside the White House Situation Room was in April, when they revealed how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a case for striking Iran to President Donald Trump that helped put the U.S. on a path to war. That reporting was drawn from their forthcoming book, Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, which hits shelves on June 23. On Wednesday, in their first excerpt from the book, the pair returned to the Situation Room to chronicle another fraught moment in the Trump presidency: July 2025, when the president and top officials were consumed by the political fallout over the president’s past ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

The excerpt quickly caused a stir on Wednesday with Trump unloading on “laughing stock” MS NOW host Joe Scarborough following a Morning Joe discussion about the excerpt. (Scarborough later read Trump’s Truth Social broadside on air: “Thank you for chiming in, Mr. President.”) There will surely be intrigue in Washington about who spilled to the authors, though a source suggested something more extreme to CNN’s Brian Stelter: “There is a massive leak hunt underway.” It may be an extensive probe given that Haberman and Swan acknowledge conducting 1,000 interviews for the book with “campaign officials, White House staff members, officials serving in government departments and agencies, former aides, donors, lawmakers, friends and business associates” — and yes, Donald Trump. It should be no surprise that Trump, who may vilify a journalist one minute and take their calls the next, gave the authors an hourlong interview in March.

Even with Trump’s unmatched ability at diverting the news media’s attention, he and his team were apparently paralyzed by the Epstein crisis, especially given how some top Trump officials had once fanned the flames of conspiracy and the MAGA faithful wanted results. Here are three ways they tried spinning their way out of the mess.

As the Journal was preparing to publish a story on Trump’s relationship with Epstein, including news of a “bawdy” birthday letter apparently written by Trump — which he denies writing — the president called Rupert Murdoch, owner of Journal parent News Corp., along with News Corp. CEO Robert Thomson and Journal editor-in-chief Emma Tucker. “Practically shouting, the president told Tucker, who is British, that she must ‘hate America,’” the Times reported. Trump also threatened to file a lawsuit, which later he did. (After a judge dismissed Trump’s defamation suit against the paper in April, he filed a revised suit last month.) Amazingly the Journal story broke while Trump officials were in the Situation Room and, given a ban on cell phones, “a staff member brought in printed copies of the explosive report,” and the “group sat quietly reading” it before chief of staff Susie Wiles prepared a public denial that Trump posted on social media.

“This is a huge problem,” the vice-president told the group, according to the Times, and suggested releasing all the files as soon as they can, especially as Congress would otherwise force their release. In the excerpt, Vance appears as a voice of reason in urging transparency (which may raise suspicions about who talked to the Times reporters). Still, Vance is also described as pitching an off-the-wall idea for the White House to “enlist Tucker Carlson to interview Epstein’s longtime girlfriend and co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, in prison,” a scenario that “might help the president if Maxwell was willing to state that Trump had not been part of any wrongdoing with Epstein.” (Trump has long denied any wrongdoing.) At another point, the Trump team also discussed having “Justice Department lawyers question Maxwell and publicly release the transcript” and the prospect of a pardon. Communications director Steven Cheung didn’t think it was a good idea, per the Times: “Pardoning Maxwell, a trafficker of young girls, would create a huge P.R. problem.”

While Trump tried settling down his MAGA base last summer, he “told aides he was very unhappy” with supporters like Carlson, the late Charlie Kirk, and Megyn Kelly for urging the government to release information. “Kirk had held a Turning Point USA event the previous day that turned into an Epstein grievance fest, with one speaker after another bashing [then–Attorney General Pam] Bondi over her handlingof the situation,” the Times reports. “Trump had called Kirk and scolded him.” Vance was said to be particularly concerned about losing the manosphere, the largely male contingent of podcasters and commentators that backed Trump in 2024. According to the Times, officials planned to release a cache of Epstein files on a website, with now–Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche possibly appearing “on Rogan’s podcast to promote the transparency from the White House.” However, the “searchable website would not go live on their initial timetable,” according to the Times, “the version of the site they originally conceived would never be released to the public.”

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