Deadline day

The Playbook Podcast

POLITICO

Politics, Government, Daily News, News

3.9 • 699 Ratings

🗓️ 19 December 2025

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When President Donald Trump signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act into law in November, he set off a 30-day deadline for the Justice Department to release all the files related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Now, that day has come as the Justice Department prepares to drop the long-awaited documents. But what the files actually hold remains unclear. Playbook’s Adam Wren and White House reporter Megan Messerly discuss whether the release of the files will spell the end of the story that has dominated headlines throughout the year, or if the new materials will stoke new flames.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Today on the Playbook podcast, today is the congressionally mandated deadline for the Justice Department to release the Epstein files.
0:14.1	President Trump heads to North Carolina tonight for the next stop on his affordability tour.
0:19.7	And Erica Kirk, the widow of the late Charlie Kirk,
0:23.3	endorses J.D. Vance for president in 2028. Hello, I'm Adam Wren. And I'm Megan Messerly. It's Friday,
0:30.1	December 19th. The first story driving Washington's conversation today is the Epstein files. Megan, today is the deadline for
0:39.2	the DOJ to release the files. So we know that the Epstein Files Transparency Act, signed by Trump
0:46.5	on November 19th, gave the DOJ a 30-day deadline to release its files on the Epstein investigation. The DOJ, Megan, reportedly redacted
0:57.7	thousands of pages, according to CNN. Megan, in a year where the administration has really
1:04.7	flooded the zone, this is broken through in a significant way. I'm curious, do you think there's any meat left on the bone in
1:12.7	terms of unknowns that we might get from the latest drop of the Epstein files?
1:18.4	I mean, that's the million dollar question. Folks want to know what's in those files.
1:23.4	And ultimately, I think what the White House wants here is to lay this issue to rest, right?
1:30.1	They are not happy about having to deal with this. They would much rather be talking about
1:35.7	what they see as the president's successes and honing another message on the economy. They
1:41.1	don't want to be talking about Jeffrey Epstein and yet it is a story that has
1:44.3	continued to plague them over the course of the year. At the same time, if those files come out and
1:49.5	it's sort of there's no there there, this will sort of let the White House put this issue to rest.
1:55.0	And so I think that's what they're really counting on. And then this is important to write for
1:59.5	the MAGA base. I thought it was very telling
2:01.9	that the president's chief of staff, Susie Wiles, in that now maybe infamous vanity fair
2:08.3	interview that ran earlier this week, she said that she underestimated the potency of the scandal
2:13.7	and sort of the importance of this issue to the MAGA base. And so I think we'll see
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from POLITICO, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of POLITICO and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.