Trump, Social Media Influencers, and The Epstein Case

Brian Lehrer: A Daily Politics Podcast

WNYC Studios

Public, 2020, Election, Brian, Journalism, News Commentary, Daily News, Radio, News, History, Wnyc, Lehrer, Daily, Politics

4.4 • 663 Ratings

🗓️ 3 September 2025

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We look at how the media, including social media, is part of President Trump's approach to politics.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	From WNYC Studios, I'm Brian Lerer. This is my daily politics podcast. It's Wednesday, September 3rd.
0:15.2	Is Donald Trump weaponizing social media to enforce his desired policies, or are conservative social media
0:23.2	influencers doing more to influence and enforce their policies on him now?
0:28.2	Maybe this morning's news conference with 10 alleged Jeffrey Epstein victims, led by one Democrat
0:33.1	and one very MAGA Republican in Congress, is an example of that.
0:37.8	Ben Smith, co-founder and editor-in-chief of the news organization Semaphore,
0:42.4	has a new column called No More Yes Minister,
0:45.6	how Trump and social media broke the bureaucracy.
0:48.9	We'll talk about that now.
0:50.7	Maybe some of Ben's other recent columns and whatever revelations might be coming about alleged abusers
0:56.2	other than Epstein, but enabled by Epstein, from this news conference. So far, nothing like that has
1:02.3	emerged from the reports that I'm seeing. As Ben Smith's bio page reminds us, he has previously
1:08.2	been the media columnist for the New York Times, the founding editor-in-chief
1:12.2	of BuzzFeed News, a political reporter for Politico nationally, and the Daily News in New York.
1:18.6	His new column on Semaphore is called Washington View, which he says is designed to help readers
1:24.2	understand the Trump administration as it seeks to remake the U.S.
1:27.7	government and American society and reshape everything from private enterprise to global
1:33.2	trade. Ben, always good to have you on. Welcome back to WN.YC.
1:37.0	Yeah, so you left out longtime Brian Lear, a listener and fan, but it is nice to be back
1:41.7	on here in a little while. Glad, glad to hear.
1:47.8	To what end does Trump want to break the bureaucracy?
1:51.3	Is it really the independence of the bureaucracy, an authoritarian project to make sure
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

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

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