It wasn't that long ago when Elon Musk, who was on his way out of Doge, posted what he called a really big bomb.

The President Trump's name was in the files of the government's Jeffrey Epstein investigation.

Musk deleted that post, but a report from the Wall Street Journal this week confirmed his extraordinary claim and revealed that the president was briefed about it by Attorney General Pam Bondi in May.

Joining me tonight to discuss this, Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent for The New York Times.

Eugene Daniels is a senior Washington correspondent and co-host of the Weekend on MSNBC.

Susan Glasser is a staff writer at The New Yorker, and Jonathan Carl is the chief Washington correspondent at ABC News.

Before we tumble down this sordid rabbit hole.

Trump landed in Scotland today and took questions from the press.

I want to listen to this exchange.

I'm files No, I was never, never.

Eugene, The Wall Street Journal reported that he was in these files and he was briefed about it.

The New York Times confirmed it.

Why in the world is he denying this?

Donald Trump denied something that everyone else says is true.

I'm shocked by that, um, because he knows, he feels like it's a bad, it's a terrible thing, even though everyone who you would talk to who's an expert will tell you that just because someone's name is in these files, doesn't mean they did anything bad, right?

We know that Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein were friends.

We know that Donald Trump and him hung out a lot, right?

We know these.

We know he was on the plane at some point.

And so we, but what for what Donald Trump has clearly made the calculation that he can't be connected to Jeffrey Epstein in any way, shape or form.

And because for years he and a lot of the people that are in the administration stoked the files so much and talked about how bad they were and all these pedophiles were in these files, he knows he cannot cop to, knowing that he was in these files.

But you know, here's the thing when Pam Bondi put out what she called phase one of the Epstein files in those binders to those right wing.

Uh, influencers, those documents, which were mostly stuff that had already been out, uh, 300 or some pages.

Donald Trump's names name was in those documents.

Those documents included Epstein's address book, which had Donald Trump, and had his brother Robert, it had Ivanka, it has his ex wife Ivana had, uh, you know, whole several Trumps and also had the flight logs from some of Epstein's flights between, uh, West Palm Beach and Teterboro in New York and one to DC I think his appeared 4 or 5 times already in what we're in the so called Epstein files that were released by DOJ.

could you just talk about the bizarre, um, paradox here, I guess is what you might call it, is that at the same time that they really are desperate to escape this scandal.

They keep burrowing deeper into it.

I think Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche just spent two days in Florida with with Maxwell.

What's, what's the calculus?

I mean, if you thought this was an insignificant.

and didn't want to pay any attention to it.

They're making it impossible to ignore it.

Having the Deputy Attorney general, go down to Tallahassee, uh, for, for 2 full days, uh, to meet with Glaine Maxwell, who obviously is in prison for, for, for sex trafficking, um, is an extraordinary development and when, uh, what other case do you see like that?

And it's not just that, uh, Frank, when you think about it, there were, the Times had a great story about all the resources.

gone into this reviewing these files, saying hundreds.

I'm told it's actually about 1000 personnel from the FBI and the DOJ,000,000 people at the FBI and DOJ have been, uh, working to review these files for a matter of months.

Now, what were those people doing before they were tasked to this assignment, working on national security cases, terrorism cases, they are now, you know, they, they.

I mean, a significant part of the, of, of the manpower of our national security division has been spent looking at these files.

Peter, you, you guys have written a biography of Trump.

Can you help me understand why, I mean, there's no evidence that there's anything revelatory in these files about Trump.

Why if he's innocent, does he act so guilty all the time.

Well, we've seen that on other occasions too, right?

The, uh, Robert Mueller investigation found no provable in court conspiracy with Russia, and yet he seemed to act like there was one, right?

He seems to act very close to Russia, very admiring of Putin.

Why do you do that if in fact you don't have something wrong and by firing people like Jim Comey back in his first term.

You act like you've done something wrong, you're trying to cover it up.

And so yeah, he is his own worst enemy in this way.

He brings this on himself by looking like he's trying to hide something by denying the obvious right there as John says already out there.

It's not a mystery that his name was in these files, nor should it be because again, we already knew he was a friend of, of Epstein's.

And yet, um, he, he is acting that way, but I think it's part of his, you know, his habit is to deny, deny, deny, uh, even provable truths.

It's just never in his DNA to admit much less acknowledge or apologize.

Where does that impulse come from?

Well, I think it's from his father.

I think his upbringing to some extent.

He was taught you never ever give in, never give an inch ever.

You're a killer.

His dad would say to him, Well, killer doesn't give in.

It doesn't apologize, doesn't acknowledge, doesn't say they did anything wrong, doesn't acknowledge that there's some, uh, you know, that he made a mistake in being friends with Jeffrey Epstein.

Uh, Susan, you wrote an excellent column in The New Yorker about this scandal, and I want to quote from it.

This scandal then is not the revelation that Trump was friends with the sexual monster who exploited underage women since it is not a revelation, nor is it that the president lied to the American people, something he does with remarkable frequency.

No, the novelty here is that millions of Americans who knew that Trump was friends with such a horrid man and voted for him anyway.

now appeared to have decided that in choice between Trump and a favorite conspiracy theory, they may just stick with the conspiracy theory.

Of all the many Trump scandals, why is this one that seems to be the one that has gained traction and gripped the media and apparently tormented his base in the way that this has.

Yeah, I think that's a really important question for us to be asking, Frank, uh, you know, if you think about it, in, in an administration where every day there's some new outrage or controversy where you could argue that the scandals get to the core of who we are as a country.

OK, we're talking about uh uh a convicted sexual offender who has been dead for 6 years, uh, who was prosecuted, arrested, prosecuted, sent to jail.

We're talking about the Deputy Attorney general spending two days of his valuable time, uh, going to interview the also convicted accomplice of that long dead sexual offender, right?

So on some level, it's just, it's a perversion of our politics that we are talking about this and it reflects, of course, very poorly.

on the man in the White House who was friends with uh such a person, but I just think it tells us something about the nature of Trump's alliance with the MAGA movement that he's both a leader but also a follower of them.

He's unleashed so many lies, conspiracy theories, diversions, untruths, and that this particular one resonated so deeply with a portion of his base that they are willing, at least for now, to even do what they're not willing to do on any of the other many lies and conspiracy theories that he is foisted upon them.

I think it's quite interesting to wonder whether this is a breach that could widen over time or it's a one-off.

And I think we don't know the answer to that yet, but it's notable that some members of Congress who stick with Donald Trump through the most outrageous untruths are demanding answers from him that he doesn't want to give right now.

And part of it is this scandal, the Epstein.

Trump of it all is goes at the heart of kind of what the Magaba is about, which is powerful people doing things behind closed doors, um, and the rest of us being screwed out of it, right?

And usually Donald Trump is on the side of the people that are getting screwed, right?

Usually, Donald Trump is talking about how, you know, the, the lowly man and woman are losing out to these um these interests in Washington DC and people are defending and protecting them, we have to stop those people.

But now, they are seeing Donald Trump seemingly being one of the people doing the defending and the protecting of the powerful people and him being one of the powerful people themselves.

That's why I think he can't shake it, because, and at the end of the day, this is, they, they love a conspiracy theory, right?

Over and over and over again.

This is one that you, when you talk to people, um, the, the pedophile rings of alleged pedophile rings in.

It's a basic and also remember the pizzeria let's be clear here that, you know, we act as though these poor people were misled, and now they're shocked.

find out like that Donald Trump was friends with Jeffrey Epstein.

They've known that for years.

OK. How many times have you know, we inflicted upon our viewers or our readers' images of Donald Trump and Jeffrey, the video of him partying, that's from the megaba though is upset now, not because they think Trump was friends with Epstein.

They're, they're upset because they thought that the Epstein files would tell them something about other people, about other rings.

They didn't want to actually target Trump per se.

That's sort of collateral damage in a way.

They thought it would be.

Telling about Bill Clinton would be telling him about other famous and, and, you know, raised the expectations.

But look, there's a fundamental question that I'm amazed is not really been directly addressed in so much of, of how the story has unfolded.

Why is Todd Blanche in talent.

Why?

What is the purpose?

Just a basic question.

The White House hasn't answered, so I, I think that, I mean, my understanding is there's really, there's really only one explanation, and then that is, He's trying to go and produce what all those FBI agents couldn't produce when they're looking through the files, trying to get some dirt on the president's.

enemies.

So it's a desperate save the conspiracy.

Glas there.

What, what do you have?

Do you have, you know, give me, give me the evidence on Bill Clinton and the island.

Give me the, you know, I mean, what else could it be?

Well, I think it's important to note just quickly on this that Donald Trump has already Dangled publicly the prospect of a pardon, and I think that's very significant.

I mean, I can't think of some, you know, uh, someone who has more incentive to lie or to to tell Todd Blanche what he wants to hear than someone who's in jail for a very long sentence, who Trump has said he was asked directly about it.

He said, I can't, you know, I'm not doing anything right now, but I have the power to do it and I think he repeated that.