In the Epstein Saga, Trump Is His Own Worst Enemy
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I'm Dan Barry, and I'm a long-time reporter with The New York Times. I've been here for 30 years and I've seen a lot of things change. I was here before there was a website. But one thing hasn't changed at all, and that's the mission of the New York Times. To follow the facts wherever they lead. And if that means publishing something a government or a leader or a celebrity doesn't want aired, that's not our concern. If you believe in the importance of fact-driven reporting, you can support it by becoming a New York Times subscriber.
This is The Opinions, a show that brings you a mix of voices from New York Times opinion. You've heard the news. Here's what to make of it.
I'm Michelle Cottle. I cover national politics for Times Opinion. And I'm back this week with my usual partners in crime, the fabulous columnists, Jamel Bowie and David French. Guys, how you doing?
Doing well, Michelle.
Doing okay. That's not very convincing, Jamel. Why only okay? Do I want to know? Or are we going to come back to that?
I'm just tired of being in hotel rooms, as viewers may have noticed.
Yeah.
You know, you're the hardest working man in opinion. This week, I feel that we need to dig in once again to the Epstein files. 23,000 of them. I assume that both of you have read them all, every single word?
I've read as much as I can stomach. Let me put it that way, Michelle.
I mean, I have to say... I found the whole thing completely vomitous. And I just, I'm so over this whole thing. But, I mean, bottom line, it sure seems like President Trump knew a little bit more about Mr. Epstein's predation than he had previously acknowledged.
Just saying, if not, you know. That honestly seems like a bit of an understatement. I mean, his by his own account and by Epstein's own account, like they were close friends for over a decade. And it seems like every single bit of circumstantial evidence we get access to. Like, I'll put it this way. Nothing has ever emerged to suggest that Trump didn't know at the very least what was going on. Right. Nothing. Right. Everything that's ever emerged relating to this suggests quite strongly that Trump was like very aware of what was going on and may have even participated. Right. That's where the evidence falls.
Not so much. I just I can't handle Jamal.
Not so much anything exonerative. And these emails are just another example of that.
We're taping on Thursday morning. So as always, things may change by the time you hear this. But give me your basic reaction, David.
Yeah, I mean, I would say this just advances a already terrible story incrementally in the more terrible direction. So let's put this in a larger context. So you've had a situation where we've had reporting about the Donald Trump, what was it, birthday greeting, where he allegedly drew the outline of a naked woman around a poem or some sort of very... What was very obvious, like the content of the text there, it was very obvious that if that was from Trump, that Trump was signaling that he knew exactly all that was going on. And then you have the transfer of Ghislaine Maxwell to a far more favorable accommodations, reporting that she is now experiencing even worse. favorable accommodations within the context of the more favorable accommodations, getting special favors even at this new prison.
Then we get emails that indicate that Trump may have spent many hours alone with a victim. Now, Republicans pushed back on that and said that this victim, who's a known victim, person in sort of the Epstein story who passed away not long ago that she had said that Trump had never done anything inappropriate. But once again, we had more evidence of connection to Epstein and Trump, more evidence that Trump seems to have known, as Jamel was saying, at the very least seems to have known a lot about what was going on. And so it turns out that Donald Trump is not big surprise, some sort of avenging angel against sexual misconduct. No, it turns out that all of the available evidence indicates that Donald Trump, when it comes to sex, is really a really depraved man.
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