The following is a lightly edited transcript of the November 14 episode of the Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.
Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
President Donald Trump is raging at Republicans, urging them not to join Democrats and pushing for release of the Jeffrey Epstein files. But all of a sudden, evidence is mounting that things are going in the wrong direction for Trump, with many more Republicans poised to jump on board than expected. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is now predicting that the number of Republicans who will vote to release the Epstein files next week will be a lot higher than the current four Republicans who are already a public yes. That would be a huge problem for Trump. So we’ve been thinking: What happens then? Will that cause a snowballing effect that ends up cracking White House and GOP opposition? The process that’s about to unfold is dicey and unpredictable. So we’re working through it all with Representative Yassamin Ansari of Arizona, who’s been a high profile voice all throughout this. Congresswoman, thank you so much for coming on.
Representative Yassamin Ansari: Thanks, Greg. Thank you for having me.
Sargent: So we now have emails from Jeffrey Epstein that are a problem for Trump. In 2011, Epstein wrote to his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, that one of his victims, “spent hours at my house with Trump.” In 2019, Epstein wrote about Trump that, “of course he knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop.” Trump clearly knew a lot more about Epstein and probably his sex trafficking as well than he’s admitted. Congresswoman. We have a lot more new information as well. Can you quickly sum up what we know now and what jumps out about it for you?
Ansari: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, first of all, I think that everything that we have learned from the 23,000 pages that came through a subpoena to the Epstein estate. (which is different than the Epstein files that we need from the Department of Justice)—the back-and-forth emails over 15 years really make clear that what is happening right now is an egregious and massive cover-up by Donald Trump personally and by his White House and his administration.
Donald Trump has been lying over and over again to the American people saying that this is a Democratic hoax, that he barely had any relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, pretends when asked in interviews about Ghislaine Maxwell that he barely knew her. No. Donald Trump was very close to Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. He spent countless amounts of time with him.
The emails reveal that he spent hours with one of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims, that he potentially was with Epstein on Thanksgiving in 2017, during the first Thanksgiving that Donald Trump was president. And it’s very interesting to see the trend over the course, again, of 15 years in these emails from Epstein. Epstein doesn’t seem to be a big fan of Donald Trump.
He has one line that really stood out to me—coming from a monster, coming from somebody who is one of the most evil people to have been a human being on this planet with us, Jeffrey Epstein—was that he said, “I’ve met a lot of bad people and Donald Trump is the worst.”
Sargent: Yeah, definitely not someone you want to be saying that about you. So the discharge petition has the 218 signatures it now needs to force a House vote on [the] release of the Epstein files. As you said, those are the trove of materials collected in investigations of Epstein sex trafficking.
House Speaker Mike Johnson seems to be saying this will get a vote next week. We’ve got four Republicans who are publicly for release of the files: Marjorie Taylor Greene, Thomas Massie, Nancy Mace, and Lauren Boebert. But Congresswoman Greene tweeted the following warning. I want to read it: “Next week when everyone is forced to go on record to vote to release the Epstein files, I expect the number of Republicans to be a lot higher that actually vote yes.”
What do you make of that, Congresswoman, from Greene, and what are you expecting?
Ansari: Well, this is actually what I’ve been saying all along, in terms of why Mike Johnson has done everything in his power to delay this vote and to delay this conversation, back to when he shut down Congress in July. This is going to be what breaks the dam for Republicans and their undying loyalty, and cult-like loyalty to Donald Trump.
And this is where Mike Johnson is going to lose control of his caucus, because they have all—whether it be the vote to cut Medicaid, all of the lawlessness of the Trump administration, the continuing resolution that they just passed that will give personal handouts and enrichment to eight Republican senators—they’ve all kind of sucked it up and voted for that because of Donald Trump and their fear.
But I think enough of them are going to break here, because it would just be so awful for them to go on the record and essentially vote to protect pedophiles if they didn’t—if they voted no, right?
Sargent: Right. Talk about a bad vote. How many are you expecting to break?
Ansari: From the conversations that I have had, my guess is somewhere at least 50. I think at least 50 Republicans will break because it’s just such a clear, black-and-white decision, right? Like, do you support pedophiles, or do you support accountability for the victims of the crimes?
Sargent: Right. And then are you going to support Trump rather than transparency for the sake of the victims? It’s an almost impossible vote. Have you had conversations yourself with Republicans? What have they been telling you on background and stuff like that?
Ansari: The few Republicans that I have heard from echoed that sentiment—that this is going to be the vote that is just impossible. I serve on the Committee on Oversight with Marjorie Taylor Greene, with Nancy Mace, Lauren Boebert—the members who faced relentless pressure and threats from Trump himself.
The fact that there was a meeting in the Situation Room with senior-senior-level officials and Lauren Boebert is such a tell in and of itself—that Donald Trump is not innocent here, and that probably a number of powerful people high up in the administration who have different posts are not innocent in these crimes, or at least in the enablement of these crimes.
And there’s no other explanation for it, Greg. And that’s what I find so astounding. And the American people know that. Epstein is the issue that Donald Trump has a negative 39 rating on when it comes to polls—it’s his most unpopular issue because he’s lying, and everybody knows that he’s lying.
Sargent: And so Republicans are telling you privately that this is an impossible vote. Anything really particularly interesting that they’ve confided?
Ansari: Just that this is going to be the … this has been the holdup, and this is going to be the issue that really breaks them apart—that it’s not going to be possible to show unity, that they are scared. That has been the sentiment I have heard all year—is that the threat from the White House, in terms of retaliation, is severe, whether that’s through the form of a primary opponent or just blackmail altogether.
The White House has been running a tight ship, and they haven’t really made a secret of that. They’ve openly said they control the U.S. House of Representatives. And Mike Johnson, as you know, has completely abdicated his responsibility as speaker and essentially handed the keys over to Trump himself.
Sargent: Well, presuming this passes the House, Democrats would need to get 13 GOP senators to pass it through the Senate. I don’t think that’s going to happen. But on the other hand, you’re going to see a lot of GOP senators have to decide whether they want to go on record opposing release of the Epstein files. That seems like a terrible vote. What do you think is going to happen over there?
Ansari: You know, being in politics, I have to have a natural sense of optimism—which I do. And while I have been disappointed time and time again this year, I really hope that Republicans in the Senate and in the House—but especially when it comes to the Senate vote—will make the right decision here.
Because as somebody who has sat in the room with the victims of these crimes, I cannot tell you how sickening it was to hear firsthand accounts from these victims about what they endured when they were 13, 14, 15 years old—how they were recruited and groomed by Ghislaine Maxwell herself, who’s now getting the special treatment and being waited on hand and foot in this jail that she’s in.
Their accounts, the promises that were made to them—most of the now women, but children at the time who were trafficked—were coming from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, so they were really preyed upon in this way. One of the women talked about how her mom had cancer, and Jeffrey Epstein essentially blackmailed her and said, If you do this or don’t, it’s the difference between your mom getting the treatment that she needs or your mom being killed. Even alluding to things like, I will decide what anesthesiologist is in the room. Harrowing stories.
And they made very clear that this is so big. This is such a massive, massive network that existed—the financial institutions that were involved and turned the other way to allow these crimes to happen; the rich and powerful people who turned the other way or took part. Either way, if you’re not participating in it but you knew, you are enabling it.
And that is the thing with Donald Trump. Every time I have been on many of the major network channels that we’ve been on to talk about this issue, they’re very quick to say, Donald Trump has not been implicated. Well, there are emails now that say Donald Trump spent hours with victims and knew what was going on.
Even if that is the extent of what Donald Trump did, that is a massive problem—that the president of the United States of America engaged and was part of and knew about the vast amount of crimes and the abuse of countless girls. It is just egregious. And going back to your question, if these Republican senators can’t see that, I think they’re going to see huge backlash from their constituents.
Sargent: Well, hearing you talk about that so powerfully, it occurs to me that each Republican is now going to have to decide whether they side with those people or with Donald Trump. And obviously, we all know how cultish the Republican Party has become, but come on: I mean, are you really going to side with Trump on this one?
Ansari: No, exactly. If there is one issue to break, it’s got to be this, because it is just so—but then again, the threats are going to be as immense, right? Because, again, it’s not just about Trump. I think there are many other powerful people who took part in the crimes that are now—it’s so much that it’s honestly very difficult to keep track of, Greg. And there’s so much investigative work that we are still undertaking.
I mean, the tranche of information that we got—that’s just from the Epstein estate. We don’t even have, we haven’t even scratched the surface of what’s in the files that the DOJ has.
Sargent: And to the point that you raised about the dam breaking, I think it’s worth underscoring that neither Trump nor Mike Johnson has been able to stop this train. We had Trump this week raging on Truth Social that no Republicans should join Democrats. You know, he said, “Only a very bad or stupid Republican would fall into that trap.” And he said there should be no deflections—he actually meant defections, I think—but, you know, that’s how he put it.
The White House pressured Republicans as well, as you brought up. In the Situation Room there was action. None have backtracked. Of course, there are only four, so I don’t know how much that says, but none of those have backtracked.
And Mike Johnson is clearly seeing the writing on the wall, because I guess he’s going to let this get a vote now. What does that tell us, Congresswoman, about the runaway train here?
Ansari: Yeah, I mean, they’ve done everything. You’re spot on, Greg. They’ve done everything that they can to stop this from happening. Again, I will tell you—I will give credit to the Republicans who are on the discharge petition—because that amount of pressure really would have… it’s very likely many others in their shoes would have caved, just to be quite frank, because that is not an easy thing, to say no, not just to any president of the United States, but one that is as vengeful and as desperate as Donald Trump is.
I mean, I’ve never heard a story like that—about that kind of pressure—on any issue. And so I think that did take a lot of bravery, that, you know, the three women and Thomas Massie, of course, who’s been leading this with Ro Khanna, which, you know, has also been immensely, immensely impressive.
This easily could have not happened, right? Like, this discharge petition only exists because these two members from each side got together to make it happen. But also, it’s important to point out that the subpoena also could have not happened, right? But it has been a runaway train.
Mike Johnson tried to shut down the House of Representatives. That week, we had no votes in Congress at the end of July. It was in committee meetings and a subcommittee meeting of the Oversight Committee that Congresswoman Summer Lee put out a motion and put Republicans in a corner, basically—and they had to make a vote and a decision on the spot there, because they weren’t expecting that motion to come forward.
And that’s how the subpoena came forward. And that’s why there is a bipartisan Oversight Committee subpoena. So all of this took… it didn’t just happen, right? It took an immense amount of work.
Sargent: Yeah. And it’s been months and months and months in the making. And there will be months and months after this, which I want to get to. But even if this were somehow to pass both chambers, Trump would, of course, veto it. So, you know, Trump’s going to either veto it—and it probably won’t even get to that point because the Senate probably won’t pass it, although I guess you never know—but probably not.
Still, it seems like a serious political problem for the president and the Republican Party. If you have a lot of House Republicans on record—I think we’re going to get a few dozen minimum; you say 50, I’ve heard other estimates like that—we’re going to have a number of House Republicans on record supporting full transparency on the Epstein files, even as Trump himself and all his lackeys in the Justice Department are covering them up.
That’s a bad place for them to be. And it doesn’t just end there, right?
Ansari: Absolutely. And, you know, I’ve been trying to make this distinction as well, talking about this—that even as it stands, the Department of Justice should be releasing the files because there is a subpoena. I think what this discharge petition and now the vote will do—the important thing that it will do—is add more pressure because every single member will have to be on the record on the issue.
And so it’s going to be very difficult. Like, if 50 or more, let’s say, Republican members of Congress do come out and it just passes overwhelmingly in the House, it then puts pressure on the Senate to do the same, right? It becomes very difficult for those Republican senators to hide or let cowardice overwhelm them. And then the pressure on the White House will grow even more.
I think that they think—they thought—this issue would go away. It’s not going to go away. And then, you know, then it’ll be... They could, as you know, they could end this today. There is a subpoena. The Department of Justice could release the files now. But, you know, I hope brave people from the administration will recognize… We saw in the first Trump administration that, near the end of the term, there were many who came out against the president and recognized the crimes—and that, you never know what’s going to happen.
I think we’re in very uncharted territory. And I’ll just say, let’s expect the unexpected.
Sargent: I think that’s a wise way to think about it. What happens next? I want to ask a little more about that. Politico reports that the White House is on its heels over this. Axios calls it a fiasco of Trump’s own making. He and his loyalists seem to think they can weather these votes and then maybe everyone moves on, they think. But do Democrats have any plans or tactics they can use after these votes to keep the pressure on? What is that going to look like?
Ansari: Well, in the Oversight Committee, I can tell you Oversight Democrats are not going to stand down. We have incredible leadership in Ranking Member Robert Garcia and the entire team. You know, we all meet regularly as Oversight Democrats, and we’re not backing down.
I mean, we are planning, you know, additional individuals to call forward to come testify in front of Congress. There have been calls—we need to see Ghislaine Maxwell testify in front of Congress. We’re not going to allow her to get a pardon from the Trump administration, which is clearly the direction they’re headed down with the treatment that she’s getting and the whistleblowers that released some emails about that to the Judiciary Committee.
And I expect, Greg, that more whistleblowers will come forward. I think that this is so vast, and the crimes are just so widespread, that more and more people will feel empowered to come forward and either share information that they have with us. More victims may come forward. The victims have shown incredible bravery. I give them all the credit in the world because, again, I cannot imagine what it is like to tell your story in the face of such rich and powerful people and organizations and corporations.
But what they are doing will inspire more to do the same. And as people inside the administration or the FBI—folks who’ve taken part in these investigations—see that the dam is breaking and that progress has been made, I think that we will have more information upon us.
Sargent: So in addition to Maxwell, who would oversight Democrats like to bring in for more testimony? Who are you planning to bring in?
Ansari: I think the heads of financial institutions, or individuals who were involved in financial institution leadership roles during the times in which they were looking away from these crazy transfers and sums of money that were being exchanged—I think that’s going to be incredibly important.
One of the efforts that should be made is debate about this and discussion in the Financial Services Committee. This is something that Mike Johnson has been trying to prevent. I think we also need to have people like Prince Andrew come before the committee and before Congress and speak and answer questions about what is going on.
But I think Ghislaine is the top priority—and then, you know, individuals who are coming out in these emails as well. There’s new information that all of us are learning every single day about who Epstein, Maxwell, and Trump associated themselves with.
Sargent: Can I ask, just to be clear, House Oversight Democrats are planning to try to bring in heads of financial institutions as well as Prince Andrew? That’s the plan?
Ansari: This is something that I believe should be done. Discussions are being had. We are all learning ourselves every single day, new information as well. And I think that it’s important that these conversations are had.
Sargent: Final question, just to wrap this up. This is going to become an issue in the midterms. I would expect a lot of these vulnerable House Republicans, they’re going to have to vote for release of the files. Otherwise, they are screwed in my view. But we’ll see what they actually do. But presuming that Democrats take back the House, you’re currently favored. It’s not a sure thing by any means, but favored. If that is to happen, if Democrats take back the House, you then see another level of subpoenaing going on from House Democrats on this matter, wouldn’t you? What would that look like?
Ansari: Absolutely. Then we would have full authority and control over the subpoenas, because we know every single Democrat will vote to subpoena anyone who we believe may have been involved with this. So you can absolutely expect that the moment we take back the House of Representatives—and Robert Garcia becomes the chairman of the Oversight Committee—we will hold the people who were involved in perpetrating and enabling these crimes, and this cover-up, which is a crime in and of itself.
The cover-up is a massive, massive crime that is taking place before our eyes, and we will hold the administration accountable. We’ll bring Pam Bondi forward. We’ll bring Kash Patel forward. And we will bring, again, everyone who has been implicated forward and get to the bottom of this—to finally, after decades, have accountability for the victims.
Sargent: Clearly this thing’s not over. Congressman Ansari, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us today. It was really, really illuminating.
Ansari: Thank you so much.