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The Bulwark Podcast

David Frum: Trump and Epstein Were Best Friends

The Bulwark Podcast

The Bulwark

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 8.9K Ratings

🗓️ 19 December 2025

⏱️ 52 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Of all the images of Trump, the only times he seemed to be authentically smiling in the presence of another person was when he was with Jeffrey Epstein. The two of them had the same interests, and other people in the 80s and 90s assumed they were best friends. Over in MAGA land, a proxy war has broken out among rightwing influencers—like Ben Shapiro, Tucker, and Candace—because the economy and the party are in trouble. Plus, SCOTUS rulings and cryptocurrency have created a public corruption free-for-all, the failed tariffs are masking the shortage of immigrant-built new housing, Trump has illegally added his name to the Kennedy Center, and despite the large military build-up off of Venezuela, the administration seems to be winging it.

David Frum joins Tim Miller for the weekend pod.

show notes


Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hello and welcome to the Bullard podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. Glad to welcome back. You don't need his full bio. We've done it a million times now. He's the host of the David From show now, which I'm not considering a competitor that's not hurting my feelings that there's a new competitor in the podcast space. It's very good and very serious. You should go listen to that if you're not. It's David From. How you doing, sir? Well, it's not a competitor because the guiding philosophy of the show is no concessions to listener taste. It's just like it's just we are going there for

0:39.1

you know monetary policy trade policy. Yeah. It's the eat your peas approach to podcasting.

0:45.3

That is to certain listeners taste though. With the podcast numbers, it's like everything else.

0:49.3

It's a revealed preference. Yeah. You know, I get many, I get emails from people saying,

0:53.1

I wish you would do more, David from style shows. And then I have a historian on or something. Yeah. You know, I get many, I get emails from people saying, I wish you would do more,

1:11.3

David Frum style shows. And then I have a historian on or something. Yeah. You see the numbers go down. And it's like, well, you know, I appreciate it, though. It's important to get some peas from time to time. You know, it can't be all fried chicken. It can't be all Epstein all the time. And let's start with Jeffrey Epstein.

1:11.9

How about that?

1:13.4

In this case, though,

1:11.9

I certainly deserved the time. And let's start with Jeffrey Epstein. How about that?

1:17.6

In this case, though, certainly deserved. The files are allegedly to be released today.

1:24.1

But just before we started taping, Todd Blanche told us that we're not going to see everything, which is not a surprise to me.

1:27.7

He said this on Fox. I expect we're going to release several hundred thousand documents today, and those documents will come in all different forms. Kyle Cheney

1:33.3

has been following this closely, writes the bottom line is the Trump administration is missing

1:37.5

today's legal deadline to release the files. Blanche says many will be released on a rolling basis

1:41.4

over the next couple weeks. Curious what percentage of the total files, hundreds of thousands is.

1:46.5

Look, my guiding rule for all of the Trump presidency has been a phrase I've used over and over

1:50.9

again, and that is many secrets, no mysteries.

1:54.5

There's a lot you don't know about Epstein and Trump, and there's really nothing you don't

1:59.0

know about Epstein Trump.

2:00.1

They were best friends. The only photos you ever see of Donald Trump where he is authentically smiling

2:05.6

in the presence of another human being. He's with Jeffrey Epstein. And Putin, he hero worship.

2:10.1

With Putin, he's like the little kid and Putin is the captain of the high school football team.

...

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