Welcome to left, right and center, everybody. I'm David Green. All right. So President Trump says that we are wasting our time talking about Jeffrey Epstein. He has given us a menu of other controversies to chew on the names of sports teams, bogus treason accusations against former President Obama. And if you're a news organization that wants to

keep reporting on Trump's ties to Epstein, well, watch out because the president may well take you

to court. He has now sued the Wall Street Journal for defamation, $20 billion worth. The journal's

owner, Rupert Murdoch, who's named in the suit, of course, also owns Fox News, which is President Trump's

preferred news source, so not sure how that's going to all work. But we should say Trump might

have good reason to want to wish all of this away. The journal is now also reporting that his

Attorney General, Pam Bondi, warned the president in the spring that his name does indeed

come up in files about Epstein, the deceased

child sex offender. But let's just say that the Wall Street Journal and other news organizations

have rock solid reporting around all this. I'm trying to get my head around just how easy it is

for Trump to discredit stories like that and these outlets. I mean, every White House does regard the news media as

its adversary. So what makes this administration different? I think something might. And what are the

implications for democracy? So on the left today, we have Moelethy. He was communications director for

the Democratic National Committee and now runs Georgetown University's Institute of Politics and

Public Service. And on the right is

Mike Dupke. He's a veteran GOP communications guy who was White House Director of Communications at the

start of President Trump's first administration. Guys, thank you for being here to talk through all this

stuff. Let me just ask you. I mean, Donald Trump didn't just attack the Wall Street Journal when he pushed back on their reporting around Jeffrey Epstein and this birthday message that Trump may or may not have sent to Jeffrey Epstein.

Trump directly called out Rupert Murdoch, directly called out News Corp, the owner of the journal as well as Fox News. I mean,

are you surprised that he's taking on, I mean, the man who really drives the media machine

behind a lot of his own support? No. Look, the Rupert Murdoch, Donald Trump relationship,

is a long relationship.

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