Greetings, everyone. I'm Simone Sanders Townton in for Stephanie Rule. Welcome to the

nightcap. It is day 180 of the second Trump administration. Tonight, the president followed

through on his threat to sue people involved with the Wall Street Journal's story detailing a

lewd birthday letter he allegedly

wrote to Jeffrey Epstein in 2003. Trump has told the newspaper that the letter is fake.

And NBC News has not independently confirmed its existence. Now, he has accused Dow Jones News Corp,

Rupert Murdoch, and two Wall Street Journal reporters of libel and slander.

A spokesperson for Dow Jones responded with a statement, quote,

we have full confidence in the rigor and accuracy of our reporting and will vigorously defend against any lawsuit.

Meanwhile, at the president's direction, the Justice Department has moved to unseal the grand jury transcripts from both the Jeffrey Epstein and Galay Maxwell investigations.

For more than a week, McAworld has, they've been in turmoil, calling for the release of the so-called Epstein files, despite Trump's calls for his base to move on from what he calls a nothing case.

But according to Politico, the journal's new reporting about the relationship between Trump

and the disgraced financier has moved many MAGA figures to jump to the president's defense.

With that, let's bring in our nightcap.

John Allen is here, senior national politics reporter for NBC.

Liz Winstead is here, founder and chief creative officer for abortion access front and co-creator of The Daily Show.

Foreign policy expert, Hagar Shemali, is here.

She was the Syria and Lebanon director at the White House and was with the National Security Council for the first two years of the Syria crisis.

And former New York prosecutor and civil rights attorney, Charles Coleman Jr. is here.

All right.

Everybody's here at the table.

Thank you all for being here.

...