David Remnick: Jeffrey Epstein's death in prison and the sense that the White House is somehow covering something up is causing a backlash from some of Trump's most ardent supporters. It may be a bigger backlash than even the tariff crisis or the bombing of Iran, or the astronomical deficits we're in for with the new budget. It is an article of faith in MAGA circles that Epstein's suicide was suspicious and perhaps a murder plotted by Democrats because he knew too much about something. That's the theory of it.

In February, Pam Bondi, the Attorney General, said that she had the so-called client list on her desk and was reviewing it, but this month, the Department of Justice says there is no such list. The FBI released surveillance footage from a camera outside of Epstein's prison cell when he died, but a few minutes of footage seems to be missing. The President is now yelling at his followers on social media, "Shut up and move on or else." Epstein, he said, is "Somebody that nobody cares about."

Michael Wolff is the author of four books about Trump, all bitterly disputed by Donald Trump, we should note, and Wolff says that he interviewed Jeffrey Epstein repeatedly in the years before his arrest and his death in 2019. I sat down to talk with Michael Wolff last week. Michael, as we're speaking, MAGA seems to be blowing up. There seems to be a huge divide among Trump's followers about Epstein and what to do about information about him, and is there a file? Is there not a file?

At the same time, suddenly the President of the United States is saying, "I'm sick of hearing about it, let's move on." He's trying to run as quickly as possible away from the subject. Fill us in a little bit on the background of where we are now with Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump, and the MAGA movement.

Michael Wolff: In 2014, just to set this scene, seeking his rehabilitation, he got in touch with me and we had had some contact before and said, "Will you write about me? Will you tell my story?"

David Remnick: How did you feel about it, knowing the sexual crimes that he was guilty of and their [crosstalk].

Michael Wolff: Even at that point, the sexual crimes he was then deemed guilty of were, I think, two counts of prostitution. One was with an underage prostitute, but we were still very much in the context of prostitution. Now, this doesn't forgive anything or ameliorate this in any way. I, in fact, when he said this to me, demurred first because I didn't necessarily think he deserved to be rehabilitated, nor that I'm usually not a guy who rehabilitates someone when I write about them. More to the point, I just didn't think that he would be honest in any way.

David Remnick: He wanted you to write about him. This had nothing to do with Donald Trump. Just to be clear.

Michael Wolff: Right. There was, constantly, a level of self-exposure, as though this was an ironic act. He was a sibarite in that old-fashioned sense of, "My identity comes from breaking all norms. I live above norms, I live outside of norms." I often thought the men of power and influence and money that congregated around him, that they admired the fact that here was a guy who was taking his own power and influence and doing anything that he wanted with it, such that they might have wished that they could do this, but they don't--

David Remnick: All these people were living vicariously, somehow?

Michael Wolff: I think. Yes.

David Remnick: The reason we're talking is that you began to interview Jeffrey Epstein at great length. I think you've said elsewhere that you have 100 hours of taped interviews with him.

Michael Wolff: Yes. Just tell me about his intelligence.

Jeffrey Epstein: With respect to real estate deals, brilliant. He's a salesman. He knows real estate really well. Anything else but that, he knows nothing. No history, no strategy, and then I start to say by executive--

Michael Wolff: We began to talk in 2014, and I started to find this pretty compelling. I had not yet decided to do anything, although I began to consider doing something. In this day and age, when you just can flick your iPhone, why would you not?

Jeffrey Epstein: He does nasty things with best friends, best friends' wives. He first tries to gain your trust, then uses it to do bad things.

Michael Wolff: Then, 2015 rolls around, and Donald Trump begins his political career, and I begin writing about it. I shortly found that Jeffrey Epstein was among the most insightful people I knew or had come upon about Donald Trump and his true character.

David Remnick: You say at one point elsewhere that the relationship that Epstein had with Trump was in some ways the closest of either one of their lives. Obviously, this is Epstein talking to you about it.

Michael Wolff: Right.

David Remnick: How did they bond?

Michael Wolff: I think that they were both-- This began in the 1980s. They were both very much '80s guys, very much interested in women. They were interested in women in money, and they were interested in the same kind of women, models. That was much of the relationship, hunting women. They shared a girlfriend at one point for almost a year, back and forth.

David Remnick: According to what Epstein told you, you say.

Michael Wolff: They were involved in each other's business affairs. I think that they were each other's closest friend. Probably the closest friend each of them has ever had.

David Remnick: You're intuiting that, or Epstein said this to you directly?

Michael Wolff: That was, in part, Epstein's characterization of this. In the level of details that I have, it seems credible to me.

David Remnick: Michael, my understanding, please correct me if I'm wrong, is that you've had a hard time publishing anything about Epstein, because, as you say, the publishers are very reluctant to publish you on this in particular. You've had lots of bestsellers elsewhere.

Michael Wolff: No, I think that there's a general-- Let's call it, for lack of better, the mainstream media has been highly resistant to this story.

David Remnick: I think you wrote a piece about Epstein that New York magazine was going to publish, and then did not.

Michael Wolff: No. We discussed doing a piece, and then I decided I didn't want to do it because I was afraid, actually.

David Remnick: Why?

Michael Wolff: The intensity of issues that seemed to converge on anyone who was talking about Epstein, anyone who might have known Epstein, was just something I thought life is too short.

David Remnick: You also have talked many, many times in your journalistic career with Steve Bannon. He. He really is a big presence in some of your Trump books. He also had a relationship with Epstein.

Michael Wolff: Steve met Jeffrey Epstein in 2017. Steve was out of the White House then, and they bonded immediately. They bonded over their relationship with Trump, and in a sense, they still remain, to me, the two guys who are most insightful about Trump. They both, at that point, hated Trump.

David Remnick: That's interesting. Two people that had the most insight in Trump both hate him.

Michael Wolff: Yes. I think that's true about most people who have any insight at all into Trump. It's actually true about most people who have spent any amount of time with Trump.

David Remnick: Why did Epstein hate Trump?

Michael Wolff: Their falling out in 2004 was over a real estate deal.

David Remnick: In Palm Beach.

Michael Wolff: Yes. I've often thought that the one thing that can really inspire hatred among a certain kind of guy is a real estate betrayal.

David Remnick: Before they fell out, they were close, and Steve Bannon said to you, as I understand it, at one point, the one thing he really feared, the one thing that Steve Bannon really feared in the 2016 race was that somehow Jeffrey Epstein's name would come up.

Michael Wolff: He didn't come to me. He said this to Epstein upon meeting him. I know this because I was standing there. The first word Steve Bannon said to Jeffrey Epstein was, "You were the only person I was afraid of during the campaign."

David Remnick: Beccause what would happen?

Michael Wolff: Epstein responded, "As well, you should have been."

David Remnick: "As well, you should have been," because what would have happened?

Michael Wolff: I think Bannon appreciated that Epstein held many, many Trump secrets, and especially secrets about women. Remember, the women issue certainly at one point was the one thing that seemed on the verge of dooming the Trump campaign.

David Remnick: We've seen photographs of Jeffrey Epstein with Donald Trump. More than one. What would be so damning about that? They're young men. They're out and about. You may not like them, but there's no evidence, I've heard, that Trump did something illegal in conjunction with Epstein.

Michael Wolff: I don't know that Donald Trump was with any of the girls that Jeffrey Epstein ultimately went to jail for. I do know and have seen a set of photographs. Jeffrey Epstein had about a dozen photographs. Polaroids, I believe they were, with Donald Trump with a set of girls around Epstein's pool in Palm Beach.

David Remnick: Do you have these pictures?

Michael Wolff: No, I don't. They were brought out of Epstein's safe and returned--

David Remnick: Michael, should we care about-- Why should we care?

Michael Wolff: There is a likelihood that those photographs were in the safe that the FBI raided and took possession of. That would be part of the Epstein file.

David Remnick: That brings us to the present tense. Pam Bondi, who's now the attorney general, of course, as well as the people that are now the leadership of the FBI, they all kept saying for the entire length of the campaign that the government had to release the Epstein files. Bondi, not so long ago, was asked about this thing called the client list that was supposedly in the files, and she said, "It's sitting on my desk to review."

Speaker 4: The DOJ may be releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients. Will that really happen?

Pam Bondi: It's sitting on my desk right now to review. That's been a directive by President Trump. I'm reviewing that. I'm reviewing JFK files, MLK files.

David Remnick: Then suddenly we're told that there is no such list. Michael, what do you make of all that?

Michael Wolff: I think I draw the obvious inference. Pam Bondi works for Donald Trump. She, at least as he conceives of their relationship, is his lawyer. My inference would be that Pam Bondi's client gave her directions. I think he has wanted to sweep the Epstein relationship under the rug for some time, and he has managed to avoid this as an issue for him. This is the last issue that he wants to be front and center.

David Remnick: Do you think Trump will keep the leadership of the FBI and Pam Bondi?

Michael Wolff: I would not say that her life expectancy--

David Remnick: Is long.

Michael Wolff: Yes.

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David Remnick: I'm talking with journalist Michael Wolff, the author of four books about Donald Trump's political career. We'll continue our conversation in a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.

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David Remnick: This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick, and I'm speaking with the journalist Michael Wolff about the Jeffrey Epstein scandal and the Trump administration. Wolff is the author of four books about Trump. Fire and Fury, Siege, Landslide, and All or Nothing. His books have contained some explosive revelations about Trump, often denied by the Trump people. While aspects of his reporting have been challenged and criticized a great deal, in fact, he's had some remarkable access to the White House.

Wolff also says that he has 100 hours of taped interviews with Jeffrey Epstein from the years before his second arrest. Epstein died in a New York jail cell, an apparent suicide, in August of 2019. What about MAGA as a movement? This was no small part of the thinking in the MAGA movement that somehow a conspiracy theory about Jeffrey Epstein and his death was all part of the system's, the deep state's, ability to keep secrets and do dark and dastardly things. How do you think this is going to play out in MAGA, and does Donald Trump care very much?

Michael Wolff: I think that they got caught on this. This is being hoisted on your own petard. The central point from which this grew is the Clinton relationship with Epstein. Clinton and Epstein had quite a strong relationship, quite a bond for about two years. Yes, that is there, but they seem to have overlooked the Trump relationship, which was deeper and longer. Now, I think that there's something else. This occurred to me, literally, I woke up this morning and I thought, "Oh," that this may be the beginning of Donald Trump's lame duck years.

We have these MAGA people who are beginning, naturally, to position themselves as the leaders of this movement. When Donald Trump exits the stage, they have to begin at some point to position themselves actually against Trump, or at least to push JD Vance, who would be in the front-runner position, toward Donald Trump and distinguishing themselves. This includes Steve Bannon, obviously, who has wanted nothing more than to be the president himself. Tucker Carlson. I think they are beginning to think of what are the issues that they can make their own.

David Remnick: They're in some cases prepared to betray the founder of MAGA?

Michael Wolff: I think that it's confusing to them at this point. They didn't think that would happen, but now it has happened. What do they do? No one knows. They suddenly can't say, "Oh, forget about Jeffrey Epstein." Trump can't say, "Bring on the Jeffrey Epstein stuff," because he will be exposed in this.

David Remnick: He might be. This brings me to the crux of the thing. Michael, you've written any number of bestsellers. You've won the National Magazine Award multiple times. At the same time, over time, you've gotten a lot of criticism from everybody. Stephen Ratner, Sean Hannity, Tony Blair, Rupert Murdoch. They've accused you, or various critics, of inaccuracy or worse. You know these critiques. Eric Wemple of the Washington Post, among others, said you should apologize for going on Bill Maher's show and saying you were absolutely sure that Nikki Haley, as UN Ambassador, was having an affair with Trump. You've heard these--

Michael Wolff: I didn't say that, but that's okay.

David Remnick: You did.

Michael Wolff: David, I did not say that. In fact, there is nothing. I didn't mention Nikki Haley. The implication might have been that, but that was-- Anyway.

David Remnick: You said, even when you were asked about these critiques, you said, "I work in a world in which everything is a lie and everything is a performance. If it rings true, it's true." There's been this critique of you that you're perfectly aware of. It seems to me you're sitting on 100 hours, you say, of tapes of what's potentially journalistic dynamite. What do you find that's the most dispositive and the most damning about Donald Trump vis-à-vis Epstein?

Michael Wolff: I find Epstein's descriptions of Donald Trump to be pretty eye-opening, at any rate, from how he picked up women to--

David Remnick: I think he called him a horrible human being at one point.

Michael Wolff: He did. There was one point at which Epstein says, "The problem with Donald Trump is he has no scruples." I always thought that was--

David Remnick: I hasten to add, this is Jeffrey Epstein, giving character judgments.

Michael Wolff: No, but I hasten to add, if Jeffrey Epstein thinks a person has no scruples, they must really have no scruples.

David Remnick: Or conversely, that Jeffrey Epstein has no right to pronounce on anybody's character.

Michael Wolff: I think that that's part of the resistance to this story, why the mainstream media, the New Yorker, has had no stories about Jeffrey Epstein at great length. I think one of the issues is the mainstream media having completely demonized Jeffrey Epstein, he cannot then be a witness against the President of the United States. I think that there's been this incredible awkwardness about this story, but this is the thing. There is a context. There is a story to be told here. Let me say that virtually everybody, everybody, every network, every major news outlet, every streaming service, at least a significant number of book publishers have turned down this story. Most recently, a publisher of mine who generally would be interested in anything that I wanted to write.

David Remnick: Doubleday.

Michael Wolff: The response was, "This is too icky." Now, I think that that may now change.

David Remnick: Finally, Michael, is it your intention now to go through these tapes immediately, and I think a lot of people would invite you to do so, in particular, where it has to do with the politics of now? Let's forget Jeffrey Epstein's life story and biography and the rest, but just in terms of the relationship between the two of them and what it does or does not reflect on the President of the United States at the moment, seems like something of an imperative to a journalist.

Michael Wolff: I have done this at some length before, and this managed to have no impact whatsoever. Will it have an impact now? I'm trying to tell exactly that story now.

David Remnick: Michael, how would you characterize this relationship? What was the texture of that relationship? What was the uniqueness of it?

Michael Wolff: I think the texture of the relationship was that these were two incredibly amoral, you might call them loathsome guys, who were out for money and for a good time, and that was the nature of their bond. I think the complication is having created this Epstein conspiracy or this Epstein demonization or setting Epstein, which certainly the MAGA people do, pretty much everybody does, as the worst person who has ever lived. Then, to have a situation in which it becomes clear that the worst person who's ever lived, his best friend, is the President of the United States, Donald Trump, I think that becomes a political complication for everyone involved.

David Remnick: I can't quite tell how you feel about Jeffrey Epstein. On the one hand, you make it very plain that you're hardly approving of his life and his behavior, but when some people say he's the worst person in the world--

Michael Wolff: David, let me tell you, I'm a journalist.

David Remnick: Yes, you're not his lawyer nor his priest.

Michael Wolff: I am the person here who probably is certainly the journalist closest to this story. That's my job, if someone would let me do it, to tell this story.

David Remnick: Michael Wolff, thank you.

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David Remnick: Michael Wolff's most recent book is All or Nothing: How Trump Recaptured America. We spoke last week.

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