Club Fed, A Puppy, and a Pedophile Ring: Tara Palmeri on Ghislaine’s Sweetheart Deal

The Lincoln Project

Society & Culture, News Commentary, Government, Daily News, News, Politics

4.7 • 8.4K Ratings

🗓️ 18 November 2025

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week on The Lincoln Project Podcast, Rick Wilson sits down with investigative reporter Tara Palmeri (The Tara Palmeri Show, The Red Letter) for a brutal, no-BS breakdown of the new Jeffrey Epstein emails naming Donald Trump, what they reveal about his long-denied ties to the Epstein sex trafficking network, and why Republicans in Congress are suddenly cracking over the push to release the full Epstein files. Tara walks through how Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, Trump, billionaire bankers, modeling agencies, and elite power brokers all intersect, why survivors see these emails as a “smoking gun,” and how the DOJ, House GOP, and Trump White House tried to spin the scandal as a hoax. With sharp analysis, dark humor, and a relentless focus on the victims of sex trafficking, Rick and Tara unpack the corruption, the cover-ups, the banks, the lawyers, the media enablers, and what could happen next if ALL of the reasonably redacted Epstein documents, emails, and flight-log details finally come to light.
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You can find Tara Palmeri @tarapalmeri on X, on her podcast ‘The Tara Palmeri Show,’ and on her Substack, ‘The Red Letter,’ at www.tarapalmeri.com.

Rick Wilson is on X at @TheRickWilson, on Bluesky at @TheRickWilson.bsky.social, and you can check out Rick's Substack at therickwilson.substack.com. You can check out more of LP's work at www.lincolnproject.us and on X at @ProjectLincoln.

Transcript

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0:00.0	How do you go back to your constituents and say I voted against releasing the Epstein files?
0:03.7	Yeah, by the way, I wanted to protect a pedophile sex trafficking ring.
0:08.4	Oh, okay.
0:09.8	Your task will not be an easy one.
0:12.1	Your enemy is well trained, well equipped in battlehardt.
0:16.0	There is not a liberal America and a conservative America.
0:19.6	There is the United States of America.
0:24.6	Good night. And good luck.
0:26.6	Hey, folks, it's Rick Wilson. Welcome back, as always, to the Lincoln Project podcast. We are
0:30.6	absolutely delighted to have you with us today, but even more delighted to have Tara Palmieri
0:34.7	with us, who is one of the most compelling writers about
0:39.6	a subject you may have heard a little bit about in the last few days, the Jeffrey Epstein case.
0:44.2	She's had a very broad political portfolio, but she has dug in on the Epstein case with a greater
0:50.4	degree of granulary than almost any other person. She breaks massive scoops on this on her substack, the red letter, which I really recommend
0:57.1	you take a look at.
0:59.0	And so, Tara, I want to jump right in.
1:02.1	This has been a hell of a week.
1:04.6	I know.
1:05.6	It's really been crazy.
1:06.9	I feel like that email where Gellon Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein are talking about President Trump and spending time with a victim in the House.
1:18.8	And, you know, I immediately heard from one of the survivors in the morning being like, oh, MFG, this is a smoking gun to them.
1:27.2	And it would be in the court of law.
	...

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