Donald Trump vs The Wall Street Journal
Americast
BBC
4.2 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 24 July 2025
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Since returning to office Donald Trump has followed a familiar playbook when confronted with unfavourable stories in the press, often ending in a large lawsuit. That was exactly the case with the Wall Street Journal, subjected to a $10bn suit after they published a story about Trump’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
But even after the lawsuit, the Journal has continued its reporting on the story, this time alleging that Donald Trump is named in the ‘Epstein Files’. The story makes clear that being mentioned does not imply any wrongdoing, and the White House has called it “another fake story” by the Wall Street Journal.
Will the president’s usual strategy against the media work this time, or is the Jeffrey Epstein story the one he can’t control?
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HOSTS: * Sarah Smith, North America Editor * Anthony Zurcher, North America Correspondent
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This episode was made by George Dabby with Grace Reeve. The technical producer was Michael Regaard. The series producer is Tim Walklate. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, AmeriCasters. I've got a question for you. What do you really think about AmeriCast? |
| 0:04.5 | The team at the worldwide headquarters are doing some research to find out what you like and indeed what you don't like. |
| 0:11.7 | So if you want to help shape the future of the podcast, you can answer some questions. |
| 0:16.0 | The link is in the description. |
| 0:18.3 | And if you want to type it into your browser, you can do that as well. |
| 0:21.6 | It's b.it.ly. That is bit.ly and then forward slash Americast Feedback, all one word. |
| 0:29.5 | Bit.ly forward slash Americaast feedback or one word. But now though, time for another episode. |
| 0:36.6 | BBC Sounds, music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:40.2 | Donald Trump has a really familiar playbook |
| 0:42.5 | for how he handles difficult or unflattering news stories. |
| 0:46.6 | First of all, he declares it all to be fake news. |
| 0:49.3 | Then he says he's being targeted by the mainstream media |
| 0:52.6 | because he represents a threat to their established order |
| 0:56.1 | and he persuades all of his supporters that he's being victimised by these agents of the |
| 1:00.8 | establishment and the deep state who are out to get him personally. |
| 1:05.9 | And normally this works a treat. |
| 1:08.5 | They all rally behind him. |
| 1:13.7 | But for the first time, it's proved to be really ineffective over this Jeffrey Epstein story that just will not go away. His own base are |
| 1:20.7 | furious that his administration are refusing to publish the so-called Epstein files. |
| 1:26.5 | And the latest reporting from the Wall Street Journal |
| 1:28.9 | is that he's been told his name appears multiple times in those files. So there's a suspicion |
| 1:36.0 | that maybe that's why he's not publishing all of this material. He's launched a huge libel |
... |
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