Discussion on Trump and Epstein Files

Well, he got tired of me winning, so he joined our side.

Uh, I have no animosity toward him.

I, I regret that it got personal for some

folks, but it never has for

me. It's always been about the survivors.

What do you make of this reversal, I mean, after months of fighting to oppose it?

Well, the speaker, the attorney general, the

FBI director, the president, and the vice president could have saved us

all this

time and, and embarrassment, frankly, for our own party, uh, if they'd

just done the right thing four months ago.

Do you believe him, Congressman? I mean, for weeks he's been pushing against this.

Now he says he supports it. Do you buy it?

He's only supporting it because president told him to support it.

No.

That's what, that's what Mike Johnson does.

No, I'm talking about-

Trump, Trump

... do, do you buy President Trump saying

that he wants the House to pass this

resolution?

Well, I'm concerned that now he's opening a flurry of

investigations,

and I believe

they may be trying to use those investigations as a predicate for not

releasing the files. That's my concern.

Congressman, what do you-

Do you, do you think they'll try to block it?

Well, they will... I'm afraid they're gonna try to use a

provision of the

law that, um, allows you not to release these

materials if they're the subject of an ongoing investigation and would harm...

and the release of which would harm the ongoing

investigation.

So what do you think this is all about for President Trump?

Uh, first he was blocking this, pushing Republicans to block this for so

long.

Now he's reversing course, and he has the power to release the full

files anyway.

Well, it's pretty simple.

Uh, for four months, he thought the best thing for him

was to keep the files

secret, and somebody convinced him that the best thing for him

was to release the

files. And if they're serious about it, they should release

them right now.

It's that simple.

Why do you think he is working so hard not to get them

released for

so many months? What do you think the real reason is?

It... These files

implicate billionaires and friends of him, uh, uh, of

his, and, uh, political donors, uh, that he's trying to

protect, and Epstein also had close ties to our own

intelligence agencies and Israel's intelligence agencies.

That's why there's so much, uh, effort in trying to stop

this. And, and I do believe they'll try to stop it

somewhere else.

Uh, and that's gonna backfire on them, too.

So the president saying he'll sign it, you don't, you don't buy that?

No, I think he'll sign it. I wanna be there at the signing party.

Think you'll be invited?

I've never seen somebody not get invited to sign their own bill.

But what about just, just the personal nature of this?

I mean, a- again, he goes after you, your wife,

calls Marjorie Taylor Greene a traitor.

Let's be clear. He went after my late wife

and my current wife.

What do you think about that?

I, I think it's a new low for him, but again, we laughed it off.

It's, it's more to his detriment than mine

that he, you know, put something like

that out. But I think it was beyond the pale, and if that's what it

took for him to go that far to realize he needs to support

this instead of

opposing it, then that's okay.

And-

My... B- by the way, the, my wife has laughed about it.

She did tell me to invite Trump to the wedding, and I didn't,

so she blames me for

him getting mad.

Are you optimistic this will pass tomorrow?

Yeah, I think it's gonna pass. I think it, it...

I think it's gonna pass with a veto-proof majority.

Do you think the speaker will support it?

Um, I, I think begrudgingly he has to at this

point.

Congressman, you obviously had your differences with

President Trump in the past,

but Congressman Greene is, was one of his closest allies,

one of his strongest

supporters. What do you make of the fact

that over the Epstein files have prompted

this, such a public and searing breakup?

Well, Marjorie represents the base.

I mean, she represents what we campaigned on, uh,

more so than me even, the populist movement that, you know,

brought

Trump into the White House. And when he told his

supporters that they're no longer his supporters if they still want the Epstein

files released, he lost a lot of supporters,

but Marjorie didn't.

And she-

That's good stuff

... you know, she's in favor of finding justice for

these survivors,

and so she won the argument.

Do you think that President Trump has lost his touch on the MAGA base, has lost his

understanding of the MAGA base?

I, I think on, uh, aspects of

fiscal responsibility, on aspects of starting wars overseas and

getting into regime change, and on this case of releasing the

Epstein files, I think he has strayed away from the

things that he

campaigned on.