Michelle Cottle

So as always, things may change by the time you hear this.

But give me your basic reaction, David.

Jamal, did you have deep thoughts on this?

So, David, as you noted, this is not the first piece of evidence we've seen of Trump's sexual degeneracy.

I mean, we've had the Access Hollywood tapes going way back, the birthday card for Epstein, multiple allegations by women of his bad behavior.

But nothing seems to stick or at least stick in any way that actually has repercussions for him.

So...

Do we think, or what would it take for this time to be different?

Is it just the accretion or would there have to be something, you know, earth shattering?

So this week, a new Democratic congresswoman, Adelita Grijalva, was finally sworn in after weeks of delay.

And there'd been all this grumbling about how she's long vowed to provide the final necessary signature on a petition to force a House vote on whether to compel the Trump administration to release its Epstein files.

Which, of course, it was promising to get to the bottom of this for its people long ago from day one.

But, you know, that's changed.

So as Grijalva is finally being sworn in, there's this news that Trump is now, like, putting the screws to Lauren Boebert, one of the few House Republicans—

who has been willing to do the right thing in this regard and sign on with, you know, transparency group.

But the minute it looks like that they might have kind of the momentum to get this moving again and force some revelations, Trump jumps in and is like squeezing people, which I don't know how you can look more guilty.

I mean, it's just like it's like they're handling this as poorly as possible.

Is there a logic to this other than they just don't want?

people to know what's in there.

That's what I want to get at next, which is that if, as it looks like, there is a House vote on the Epstein files, this is going to force Republican lawmakers to make a very uncomfortable choice between supporting their constituents who want transparency and not going against Donald Trump, who does not want these files released.