Trump’s pivot on the Epstein files and his polling plunge
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 21 November 2025
⏱️ 31 minutes
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Summary
After months of buildup, Congress voted to release the Epstein files on Tuesday. President Donald Trump signed the bill into law. But language in that legislation leaves wiggle room for the Justice Department to hold back some of the files, and questions remain about how much transparency the measure secures.
Host Colby Itkowitz speaks with Justice Department reporter Jeremy Roebuck and Dan Merica, co-anchor of The Washington Post’s flagship politics newsletter, The Early Brief. They talk about this latest step in the Epstein saga and also unpack some recent setbacks facing the second Trump administration. And they answer a question from an Early Brief reader about gerrymandering in Texas.
Today’s show was produced by Laura Benshoff and Josh Carroll. It was edited by Reena Flores and mixed by Sean Carter. Thanks to Alec Dent and David Lauter.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | There's kind of this push and pull with Trump throughout the story is that at one point he had to have known that he was going to lose this vote in the House. |
| 0:08.5 | Yeah. |
| 0:09.1 | He was willing to go about this about face and backtracked on Epstein because maybe worse for him is looking weak inside the party. |
| 0:17.8 | He's had this hold on the Republican Party for years. |
| 0:25.6 | From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Report's weekly politics roundtable. |
| 0:30.6 | I'm Colby Echowitz. It's Friday, November 21st. |
| 0:33.6 | Congress voted overwhelmingly this week to release the Epstein files. But does that mean that the |
| 0:40.2 | Justice Department is going to let us see them anytime soon? That's the question and more |
| 0:44.7 | that I'll pose to my guest today. Back of the table is Dan Marica. He's the co-anchor of the |
| 0:50.1 | politics newsletter, the early brief. And we're thrilled to also be joined by Jeremy Roebuck, |
| 0:55.3 | the Post Justice Department reporter. Guys, thanks so much for joining me. |
| 0:59.2 | It's great to be here again. Thanks for having us. |
| 1:04.0 | So guys, let's start with the latest in the Epstein saga. There was months of buildup for this |
| 1:10.1 | moment. Congress votes this week to compel the |
| 1:14.8 | Justice Department to release their files on Epstein. Dan, walk us through that. You're right. |
| 1:20.7 | There was a lot of buildup. And I think that if you would have predicted the outcome that actually |
| 1:24.1 | happened months ago, you would have been shocked because two members of Congress, |
| 1:29.6 | Rokana, a Democrat from California, and Thomas Massey, Republican from Kentucky, were the main |
| 1:34.8 | drivers behind this discharge petition. And then, you know, initially all Democrats signed |
| 1:39.5 | the discharge petition, which is basically a vehicle for the party and the minority in the |
| 1:43.9 | House to force a vote in Congress. |
| 1:46.8 | And they got all Democrats to sign and a small handful of Republicans, which put them over the 218 threshold. |
... |
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