How The Epstein Drama Changes Politics for Trump and Congress
Brian Lehrer: A Daily Politics Podcast
WNYC Studios
4.4 • 663 Ratings
🗓️ 24 July 2025
⏱️ 23 minutes
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| 0:00.0 | This is Brian Lair's Daily Politics podcast from WNYC Studios. |
| 0:09.9 | It's Thursday, July 24th. |
| 0:14.8 | I'm Bridget Bergen, senior reporter in the WNYC and Gothamist Newsroom, filling in for Brian this week. |
| 0:20.6 | We're going to start |
| 0:21.5 | things off with the news out of Washington, and specifically the seemingly endless news cycle |
| 0:27.7 | about Jeffrey Epstein. The late financier died by suicide in the Manhattan jail in 2019 |
| 0:33.9 | while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. |
| 0:43.9 | Releasing the files related to his case was one of President Donald Trump's rallying cries on the campaign trail. But when Trump's own Justice Department and FBI walked back the idea that there was a client list of elites who participated in Epstein's sex trafficking scheme, the response from the MAGA |
| 0:55.9 | base was swift and angry. And the news keeps coming. Just this morning, there are reports that |
| 1:02.9 | back in May, Attorney General Pam Bondi met with the president and told him his name appeared |
| 1:08.1 | in the Epstein files. The controversy has tied Republicans in the |
| 1:12.0 | Hill in knots House Speaker Mike Johnson on the heels of passing the president's domestic |
| 1:16.6 | tax and spending bill cut business short this week, sending members on summer recess to prevent |
| 1:22.5 | Democrats from forcing any votes to release documents from those files. With an eye towards next year's midterm elections, will this rift bring deepened between |
| 1:33.0 | House Republicans and Trump? |
| 1:35.1 | And for Democrats, will boosting this conspiracy theory scandal give them an opening to make a comeback. |
| 1:41.2 | Well, joining me now to unpack this ongoing story is New York Times congressional |
| 1:45.2 | correspondent Annie Carney. Hey, Annie, welcome back to WNYC. Thank you for having me. Wow, Annie, this has been |
| 1:52.1 | quite a month. President Trump signed that so-called Big Beautiful bill back on July 4th. It feels like a |
| 1:58.3 | million years ago. That was a major win for him in the House |
| 2:01.9 | House Speaker Mike Johnson. And then the Epstein Rumblings came. When do you sort of pinpoint this |
| 2:09.2 | news cycle really shifting on the hill back to this, you know, six-year-old news story? |
... |
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