Top Trump Official FINALLY GRILLED over Epstein Ties

0:00 Even though Trump at one point called the Epstein files controversy

0:03 a hoax and has consistently tried to get that issue off the table,

0:07 the Epstein files scandal will menace Trump again.

0:11 His Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick,

0:13 sits for a transcribed closed-door interview

0:15 with members of the House Oversight Committee,

0:17 and you better believe we're going to hear a lot

0:19 from the people in the room before and after that interview,

0:23 and it could be very soon we see and hear what Howard Lutnick said.

0:27 The administration has been taking a lot of heat consistently

0:31 over what the survivors say is the mishandling of the files,

0:34 the partial release,

0:35 even though federal law required the full release of the Epstein case files.

0:40 But Lutnick in particular has been a problem

0:42 politically for the president on the Epstein files issue.

0:45 Lutnick famously in a 2025 interview said he cut ties with Epstein decades ago,

0:51 outraged or offended by things he heard Epstein

0:54 say or things he saw in Epstein's home.

0:56 The two were neighbors.

0:57 So, his house is like super big.

1:00 Really wide.

1:02 And uh So, he gives me a tour in the living room, big living room.

1:06 And then across from it is double doors.

1:08 I assume it's the dining room.

1:09 Yeah.

1:10 And he opens the doors, and there's a massage table in the middle Ooh.

1:14 of the room.

1:15 Ooh.

1:16 And candles all around and stuff.

1:18 So, I ask very insightful, cutting questions.

1:22 I say to him, "Massage table in the middle of your house?

1:27 How often do you have a massage?" And he says,

1:31 "Every day." And then he like gets like weirdly close to me.

1:35 Ooh.

1:35 And he says, "And the right kind of massage." Ooh.

1:40 Now, my wife is standing here.

1:43 So, she looks at me, and I look at her, and [clears throat] we say, "I'm sorry.

1:51 We have to go." And we left.

1:56 And in the six or eight steps it takes to get from his house to my house,

2:01 my wife and I decided that I will never

2:05 be in the room with that disgusting person ever again.

2:10 So I was never in the room with him socially,

2:14 for business, or even philanthropy.

2:17 If that guy was there, I wasn't going cuz he's gross.

2:22 But then the batch of files released by the administration

2:25 showed some emails allegedly between the two men,

2:28 Epstein and Lutnick, in 2012,

2:31 7 years after he allegedly cut off

2:33 ties and years after Epstein's first criminal case.

2:36 So, this will be an issue.

2:38 And Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have been

2:41 spoiling for a chance to talk to Howard Lutnick.

2:44 After telling a uh quite a tale about how he was so uh turned

2:50 off by Epstein that he told his wife he never wanted to see Epstein again,

2:55 we learn later that he in fact did go

2:57 to Epstein's Island and had lunch on Epstein's Island.

3:00 He flat-out lied to the American people.

3:03 Why did he lie?

3:05 And if he lied about that basic fact of going to the island,

3:09 what else has he lied about with respect to his relationship with Epstein?

3:14 The reason I decided to come is

3:15 because this is a very important deposition tomorrow.

3:20 Howard Lutnick had a decades-long relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

3:24 We know that he has lied about that relationship

3:26 publicly and has been caught lying about that relationship.

3:29 They were friends, they were neighbors, they traveled together,

3:33 and he's been caught in lies about that.

3:35 So, my line of questioning will focus on that.

3:38 Stirring the pot further, complicating life more for Trump,

3:41 is what Marjorie Taylor Greene said on an open

3:44 microphone a few days ago talking about how she

3:47 was pushed back upon by Trump when she tried

3:50 to talk about the Epstein files and Epstein survivors.

3:53 We got We We spent eight weeks shut down.

3:56 Remember that?

3:57 We spent eight weeks shut down.

3:58 By the way, that was to stop the Epstein resolution from getting a House vote.

4:03 That's what that shutdown was about.

4:05 Finally, they reopened the government and a brand new Democrat member

4:09 of Congress was sworn in and we got the 218th signature,

4:14 released the resolution, passed it overwhelmingly,

4:18 which was hilarious to me, watching all these Republicans, "Oh yeah,

4:22 all of a sudden I'm voting to release

4:23 the Epstein files." Push it What a pathetic joke.

4:29 [snorts] Weak men.

4:29 Oh my gosh, they're so weak.

4:30 And for the Epstein survivors,

4:31 it has been a constant kinetic fight to be heard inside the administration.

4:37 They have been fighting for years to get copies of their files,

4:41 of records they need,

4:43 and they say they've been turned out in the cold by the administration,

4:46 and they continue to push and push.

4:49 But this is going to be a very important part of our investigation,

4:52 and it's also really important that we hear directly from survivors.

4:56 And so, at the center of our hearing is

4:59 really going to be giving the survivors an opportunity,

5:02 in their own words, and in a hearing format,

5:06 to be able to share their stories and put them into the record,

5:09 and to be able to answer questions from the committee.

5:13 Now, we have been saying for many months that at the end of the day,

5:16 this is about centering the survivors and their stories.

5:22 We've also heard that people want to hear these stories in a hearing format.

5:26 Republicans have, up to now, refused to do so.

5:30 And so, we are hosting this hearing in Palm Beach,

5:33 one of the key locations in this investigation,

5:36 to allow the survivors to tell their stories,

5:38 and to hear, of course, from others.

5:41 It's also important to note that there is so much reporting about

5:45 what was actually happening at Mar-a-Lago and the connection to Jeffrey Epstein.

5:49 Of course, all all of the work that so many lawyers

5:53 put in place to then only get overturned by Alex Acosta,

5:56 the then US attorney, in the actual prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein.

6:00 That we feel that this hearing in Palm Beach is

6:02 going to be an important moment in this broader investigation.

6:05 There's also perhaps a broader conversation about where are the priorities?

6:10 If the Epstein survivors don't feel heard,

6:12 don't feel like they are a priority inside the Department of Justice,

6:15 well what is a priority?

6:17 I can tell you the James Comey seashells

6:20 by the seashore case has been a priority.

6:22 He's back in court on Monday.

6:24 The case has been dunked on left and right

6:27 by people who think this is not worth their time.

6:30 The case is going to be thrown out, I can almost guarantee you.

6:33 We're talking about seashells on a beach.

6:36 That's what that picture is that Comey posted.

6:41 Remember, this is the president who threatened

6:43 the death penalty for General Mark Milley.

6:47 The head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

6:48 He This is the same guy who told crowds at his you know,

6:54 at his rallies that oh, that protester, punch him.

6:57 Take him down.

6:59 This president is guilty of inciting violence

7:03 and now he's using the First Amendment.

7:05 [clears throat] He's going after those who are exercising their First

7:08 Amendment rights and claiming that they're the ones who are attacking people.

7:12 I mean, he just he applauded the death of Robert Mueller, who is a patriot.

7:19 So, I I'm I'm I'm disgusted by what this administration is doing,

7:23 by what the DOJ is doing.

7:24 Todd Blance seems to be doing more of what Pam Bondi was doing.

7:29 This whole administration seems full of people who are

7:31 just following whatever this demented president tells them to do.

7:37 You're someone who's prosecuted over what?

7:39 100 mob family members?

7:41 Do you Does 86 mean murder in mob parlance?

7:46 Tell us.

7:48 Well, Caitlyn, there was a a point in my life

7:50 where I spent the better part of my waking hours either

7:52 talking face-to-face with real-world mobsters or listening to them talk each

7:56 other to each other over wiretaps or body wires or bugs.

8:00 I dealt with all five families, Gambino, Genovese, Bonanno, Lucchese, Colombo.

8:04 I dealt with bosses, underbosses, consigliere, capos,

8:07 soldiers, associates, all the way down the line.

8:09 Never ever, not once did I hear any real-world gangster

8:14 use the term 86 to refer to a murder or anything.

8:18 And God knows these guys had colorful lingo, but never that phrase 86.

8:23 I don't know where the president getting this from.

8:25 He said from some movie.

8:27 They don't use that term in Godfather or Sopranos or Goodfellas.

8:30 Maybe some way old-timey movie, but that's not reality.

8:33 The other piece of the interview you did, Caitlyn,

8:35 with the president in the Oval Office that I found really interesting,

8:38 when you asked that follow-up, did you truly believe your life was in danger?

8:41 The first thing he said was,

8:43 "Probably I don't know." And then he sort of eventually said,

8:46 "Well, I guess so, yeah." "Probably I don't know." Right there,

8:50 that's an acquittal because prosecutors have to prove beyond a reasonable

8:54 doubt that the victim believed that his life was in jeopardy.

8:58 And if the jury comes back at, "Probably

9:01 I don't know." That's a not guilty right there.

9:03 I thought that was a really important moment.

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