Just as President Trump claimed victory, ending the longest government shutdown in the nation's history,

the release of Jeffrey Epstein's emails reignited the fight within the Republican Party that's now

threatening the president's power over the GOP. Next.

Good evening and welcome to Washington Week. I'm Vivian Salama in tonight for Jeffrey Goldberg.

For months, the White House has been doing somersaults trying to distract from what has now become a scandal so combustible that it's creating fissures within the Republican Party.

A small but powerful group of otherwise Trump loyalists is siding with Democrats demanding

the release of files that may offer greater transparency into the influence and connections

of the late sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein. And speaking of Fissures, Democrats are wrestling with

their own between the moderate senators who brokered the deal to end the

government shutdown and the progressive wing of the party, which hope to hold the line.

Joining me tonight to discuss this and more, Natalie Andrews is a White House correspondent at the

Wall Street Journal. Nancy Cordes is chief White House correspondent for CBS News.

Andrew Dissadario is a senior congressional reporter for Punch Bowl News.

And Jeff Mason is White House correspondent for Reuters.

Thank you all for joining me so much.

It is quite an eventful week, definitely.

Natalie, I want to start with you.

The House Oversight Committee released thousands of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein on Wednesday.

Democrats first released three, and House Republicans then followed and released a larger tranche. Can you tell us a little bit about what these new emails reveal, obviously, something the White House has not wanted to touch for a while,

and a scandal that continues to kind of overshadow a lot of their messaging.

Primarily, it's the Donald Trump's name is in them, right?

This is something that he's tried to distance himself from.

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