How Evil Epstein Used Elites to Stifle the Truth | The Daily Beast Podcast

I thought he was a creepy social climber was my instinct. But at the same time, like the more she reported, the more kind of alarming it became because of the people on the flight logs. Bill Clinton is on the flight log. Ehud Barak, you know, from Israeli former prime minister, was on the phone. And then you start saying, oh my God, the guy's so hugely well connected. There were all these people who were just in this favored bank of this elite world, and they were all there for different reasons. But at the end of the day, they were all. ignoring the elephant in the room that they had no business ignoring, because after we published those pieces, there was nothing you could say.

that was ambivalent about Jeffrey Epstein's conduct. Welcome to the Daily Beast podcast. I'm Hugh Docker. I'm executive editor of The Daily Beast, and I'm in for two articles. But this is a reunion episode today. Not for me, but for the Daily Beast. I am going to be talking to the legendary Tina Brown. She founded The Daily Beast in 2008, and we are going. to be talking about stories from The Daily Beast, but more importantly, why she's in The Epstein Files.

and the amazing, extraordinary dramatic insights. that we have learned from those files about The Daily Beast. Groundbreaking reporting back in 2010 and 2011, and how Epstein tried to keep her and Conchita Sarnoff, the Daily Beast reporter who broke the Epstein stories silent. Let's get right into it. Welcome, Tina Brown. Tina, it is so great to see you.

It's so great to have you back in The Daily Beast world, which you which you founded. And I was like, we are know anything to, you know, any chance to be in the Daily. Beast world as well? A roaring pleasure. Well, we are. strangely, journalism is usually about the new and pushing forwards, but I I'm going to go on a very long trip down memory lane, I think. The Epstein Files, which has just exploded over the last, the last few days,

have been we we, you know, as. you as people will know, we are in them. Yes. And especially you are in them. And you wrote about this on your Substack. And I'll just say to anybody who has not read Tina's Substack, go to Substack, Fresh Hell on Substack. And it is just an extraordinary story of what happened with Epstein. And I'm we are we are now,

15 years, 16 years, I should say, later, finding out some of the other side of the story. Yes, it absolutely fascinating. You know, to find my myself in there, I think my favorite line is Peggy Siegel, the PR, personage who, was so heavily involved with Epstein. Much, much more than I ever knew. writing to him, like, how can we neutralize Tina Brown? I sort of love that.

I must say, because they weren't able to neutralize me or the bait Beast, which has gone on, you know, subsequently as well, you know, covering Epstein in every way that it should. But it does give you a sort of an insight into, I mean, he he he presented it to himself, you know, as this cool, you know, character who had everything under, under control. But what you see in, in the email exchanges with, Peggy Siegel over his, you know, unhappiness.

about the Daily Beast coverage. And in that time was his panic. I mean, they're panicked. I mean, and he he was, like, writing to Mort Zuckerman. for instance, the, real estate banana and, publisher, who was a very close friend of my husband, Harry's and and of mine saying, you know, when you see next time you see Tina. Brown, can you please tell her to stop this, like, sensationalized coverage that, you know, it's like he's reaching out. to everyone to try to sort of figure out how to how to shut us down.

And, you know, he couldn't. And it really frustrated him. It also, frankly, was a kind of very reptilian. feeling to see how Peggy Siegel, who always presented herself. to me as a kind of fake friend and, you know, a. sort of, you know, fighting me to screenings, right? I mean, she was an and, you know, and who had invited me to this, the famous Night of shame dinner where, she called me in the office and asked if I would go for dinner with with. Jeffrey Epstein and, you know, Prince Andrew and and Woody Allen and which had, you know,

when I told off them the story of how I shouted. across the newsroom, you know, what is this, the pedophiles ball? And yet, you know, she went she clearly I mean, she. she had backed off immediately, of course, when I shouted that and said, you know, oh no, no, no, no, this is also overblown. And I, I don't really do anything much for Epstein. And I just sort of occasionally help him with dinner parties. And, you know, what you see in In the Epstein. files is how she was absolutely scheming with him all the time. And she was clearly, you know, in his court whether she was paid or not.

I have no idea. But if she wasn't paid, I don't know why she would be, you know, his constant informer about everything we were doing at. the Daily Beast and subsequently Newsweek, when we also sort of bought Newsweek. So that's a that was a kind of unsettling feeling in the sense. that, you know, someone could be that duplicitous, frankly. But it also was just so interesting because you see how panicked he was. One of the things that is amazing and I, I should do some scene setting here.

The you set up The. Daily Beast, with Barry Diller in 2008. And in 2010, you published an incredible series of stories by Conchita Sarnoff, which I would urge everybody to go and read there. on the still on The Daily Beast. We're very proud that they're there. And they blew open, really, all of the elements. that we've come to know as the Epstein scandal, the the plea deal, the plane, the flight logs, the rich and the powerful,

the appalling exploitation of these poor underage girls. It was all there. And one of the things, one of the many things. that are in the Epstein files that I wanted to talk to you about is. the what you said the panic and also the the really chilling attempts. to shut this story down that I you obviously know some of that. and yet some of it was happening behind closed doors as well. And it's incredible. There's an incredible amount of documents.

There's hundreds of references to The Daily Beast. Those 45 specific references to Conchita Sarnoff, and many people. Of course. I think everybody searched the Epstein files. And sometimes you get, you know, the website is very unreliable. I just tried searching for you to find, to try and work out a definitive number. And I've had I've had one that's in the hundreds and one that's not so. I don't know what the accurate, well, accurate number is, but. these are people who were really scared of what was going to come out.

And yet here we are, 16 years later still talking about them. Yes. It is so interesting because people keep saying, you know, all the critics keep saying you know, how could these, eminent people. have gone on, meeting with staying with seeing Epstein. after the conviction, you know, the in in 2008. But that's actually not the point. I feel that the bigger story is like, why did they go on seeing. after Conchita Sarnoff series in the database?

Because, you know, in 2008, when he was convicted, he. was able to tell people, you know, who were in. who would, let's say, willfully incurious, well, you know, yes, I of course, I didn't make this overture. to this underage girl. I thought she was 16 at the time. And, you know, it was just stupid of me. And, you know, he could have he could have blown that off. And some people who were incurious might have been naive enough. to kind of think, okay, well, then, you know, that was foolish of Jeffrey, but, you know, and and appalling.

and it's awful that she was that age and so on, but he didn't really know. But after the Country to Sarnoff series and The Daily Beast, it was all laid out, because the scandal, of course, that she had revealed. is it wasn't one underage girl at all. It was multiple girls. And all of their affidavits were sitting there in the police files, girl after girl, underage girl after underage girl. Terrible stories about, you know, young girls from, you know, Eastern. Europe of age, as young as 14, you know, being flown in and.

and the kind of pipeline between the model agencies. and these young young girls and these sort of traffic. from all these places into into the Epstein web with a, you know, with a with a promise of modeling jobs and all of this. It was all there. And yet it was after those stories that they still went on seeing them now, okay, maybe they didn't sit. and read every one of the database pieces as they came out, but at the slightest. Google, if you've been thinking about, you know, would have just turned everything up. So this is what I find more egregious, frankly, is not just seeing him.

after the conviction, but seeing him after we had published this series. That is why I was so outraged when, Peggy single call me to ask me. for dinner because it was almost like my arm or proper was working. I thought, wait a minute, we've been doing all this reporting on this guy, this pedophile, this terrible abuser of women, and you are actually calling me. to invite me to dinner when you know that I publish this stuff. So that was kind of also, I think that's been sort of under, under, sort of, scrutinized essentially as it wasn't just the conviction.

It was the coverage that had followed that made that no one could say. they really didn't know. he was such a terrible person because it was all there online. And the thing that we definitely know is, who knew every word of this coverage was Jeffrey Epstein. because he was, quite frankly, obsessed by The Daily Beast. He one of the the most insightful documents is an email. that he sent to himself which listed all the things that he said where.

And I'm using his words libelous and the things that he said. were libelous, where The Daily Beast was calling him a pedophile. We obviously, you know, you are obviously absolutely right. that he was, that he was a child molester and that he committed sex trafficking. And he knew this. He knew that we would we had written this was there on Google. And yeah, I know and I mean, but you see, he didn't sue us in the end after all the saber rattling. He didn't.

Because, you know, I actually wanted to bring that point up. because we, we found in the files and I know, I know you've. you will have remembered this at the time. That his lawyer wrote directly to you, the three page letter. And I should say, it's worth pointing out to people who maybe don't know, lawyers get to invoice more money the longer they write these letters. So I didn't know that it might it might be related. But, one of the things he said was that, that you were committing defamation.

Percy, you know, by publishing how. when you got that, what was your reaction? Well, I felt so confident of country is reporting. I mean, you know, we had spent so long. I mean, Edward Felton tall, who was then my, executive editor. Really cool. Former Wall Street Journal, you know, a tremendously, judicious editor. You know, this is not somebody, you know, he spent so many hours, you know,

overseeing the every granular thing in this in this series, particularly as we knew that there was a very strong possibility. that we would be, you know, actually sued by bite by Epstein. So I was very confident, you know, about the reporting. and very confident in Conchita, because she is a very serious person. I mean, she was the last thing anybody could say was a tabloid journalist who was actually, campaigner against human trafficking, who had sort of stumbled on the story in that work.

That was what was interesting. is the way she got the story, not because she was a journalist hunting it, but because she had interviewed a Mexican sex trafficker in the Palm. Beach stockade in the course of her human trafficking, campaigning work. And it was this sex trafficker that said. many of my customers are people who live right here in Palm Beach. You need important business people. And that stunner. And then she suddenly had a kind of twig because she'd seen a small item. about the arrest of Jeffrey Epstein in the local papers.

in Florida and continued, had actually knew Epstein. when Epstein was about man, about town. So she knew Epstein so that she and very, very resourcefully. she then decided to go and look at, look up the case, really go into the case. And that's when she was hit in the face by, you know, all of these affidavits. from these girls. And that's when she then tried to actually she approached many people. I think she tried to do a book first, actually, but no one was really interested. And she brought it to me because we at that time, you know,

for ten years, I the produced, you know, with, with my team, the women in the World. Summit where we had done many, many, you know, great discussions about, you know, the egregious ness of, of sex trafficking, underage girls, you know, teenage marriage, all these things. that were very much a concern of the whole woman in the World Summit. And she had, you know, she thought, well, obviously we care about these topics because we're doing that. And that's actually why she decided to really bring it to me, because she thought that I would be interested in the topic, because I'd shown interest already by what we put on the stage.

And indeed, it does interest me and did interest me very much. I mean, I think it is just horrendous, you know, and everything. we're seeing since is just increasingly horrendous. I think one of the most awful things that, you know, came, you know, and I think the last batch was that pathetic picture of, of, Virginia Giuffre at Naomi Campbell's birthday party, you know, in the 90s. And she'd been dragged there by Epstein and Glenn. and really, you stunned because you look at all of these kind of big celebrities.

that are partying around in this boat, you know, with Naomi Campbell. And there's Virginia Giuffre. She looks like she's 12. You know, she looks she so clearly a child that it's kind of shocking. because everybody there must've thought this is a child. And did nobody say, like, what is she doing here? Like, who did she come with? Like, why is she here? And it seems like nobody did, you know. And that is the sort of sad, heartbreaking thing about all this, really. And indeed all the stories of the girls, because, I mean, they're just. they were so young.

Epstein was such a Satan in the way that he played on their hopes so much. You know, they all of these girls on the most of them, nearly all of them anyway, that, you know, it was about, you know, they wanted to go to college, they wanted to be paid, you know, for their green card, like whatever, or to get go to go to. a lot of them wanted to set up to go to college. and be paid to go through college. or were told that, you know, they could they could he could pay for their training. or whatever it is that they were trying to do. There was a sense of their aspirations, which is why they were. conning onto Epstein. It's like it wasn't just like he was a sugar daddy in a wallet.

Most of them were kind of aspirational girls, actually, who seemed. to kind of feel that, you know, because he was really good at that. I mean, he would say, I'm terribly interested in your art, your painting, your, you know, your desire to be a dentist. I mean, your desire to be an osteopath. I mean, he had all these kind of, supposedly paternal interests. and all that career and, you know, and he didn't give them money and so on. And so they were they became sort of hooked by their own. hope of him being a passport out of the life.

Didn't realize, of course, that he was the passport to into the life. I mean, they would never get out of the life, really, if they were involved with Jeffrey Epstein, one of the most heartbreaking pieces of FBI or police. I think documentation in there is it's just a table of the promises that he had. made these girls and in the course of sexually abusing them. And it's exactly and all those, all those occupations and aspirations. And it was when he promised he would buy a second hand car for. And it.

But what one of the things we're talking about, Conchita Sarnoff. some of the extraordinary documents that have that are in there as well. are her engagement with the US attorney's. office down in Florida in the aftermath of the well, she was reporting in the aftermath of the plea deal. and the way in which they tried to shut down her inquiries, just before she published, Conchita sent, a very incredibly detailed 16 question.

Request for comment to them. And the the internal documentation shows how worried they were. and what one who remains an unnamed assistant U.S. attorney writes another. is stuff pending on this, so we can just take the easy way out. Oh, I didn't see that. That's. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That's I mean, you know, I've seen had them all in his web. I mean, you know, apparently he had a, you know, a mole in the police in, in the police department as well.

I mean, he. everybody was kind of there were always people who were on his payroll. I hadn't read that particular, exchange, but it is extremely chilling. And was there any explanation for why they wanted to, quote, take the easy way out? Absolutely no response. was our position is the investigation is still open and pending. And this person wrote back, how's it pending? And there it runs out. And as we know, of course, there are 3 million unpublished Epstein files.

So is the answer hidden there? We don't know. But I think what it speaks to is this incredible barrier that you, were able to overcome. to get that story published and the fear. and the, the institutional cover up that you that you came up against. Well, I mean, there's nothing like being sort of, you know, aggressive and and ignorant at the same time. I mean, it's like at that point, Jeffrey Epstein was not. this kind of mythic demon, that he is now.

Right? I mean, I had met him, you know, at, you know, in a, in a reception for and, one of the the first, Clinton initiative reception in 2005 and, and, you know, briefly. And he was just one of those rich guys, you know, percolating around and, and, who was sort of on the fringes of sort of the action, really, I mean, not. not an outsider, but someone who certainly wasn't a major figure. This is no, like Jimmy Diamond or someone. He was just a kind of.

slightly a bit of a kind of user, clearly, and operated. He had these dead eyes that I always found very, I didn't, you know, I thought he was a creepy social climber, was my instinct. I engaged with him for a few minutes and that was it. And that was the end of that. So he wasn't. You know, considered this this mighty, figure or Titan. or something in, in, in American finance and, you know, but at the same time, like, the more she reported. the more kind of alarming it became because of the people on the flight logs.

I mean, when you find that. the Bill Clinton is on the flight log, that, you know, former, ambassador Bill Richardson is on the flight rug logs that, you know, Ehud Barak, you know, from Israeli former prime minister, was on the, you know, then you start saying, oh, my God, the guy's so hugely well connected. And it was puzzling. But I also know and do you know, and I think it is true. that the interesting thing about Epstein is the whole sort of, sort of challenge around him. They were all kind of involved for different reasons. And a final and funny way.

I mean, they're the ones who are looking always. for the sex and the girls and the fact that he was such a kind of fun of, of, of just satisfying people was most kind of insidious fantasies, really. And then there are the ones that are. just trying to grift in the same way that they're he's trying to grift on them. He's trying to grift on everybody all the time for information. If not for money. And then there are people who are trying to grift on him. You know, they want to ride on his private plane. They want him to get their kid into, into, you know, into into a fancy school.

There's a case for sort of Brad Karp, who was the, you know, the erstwhile. chairman of Paul Wise, who says, you know, can you get my son, you know, onto onto a into a film job like on Woody Allen's, you know, so there were all these people who were just in this favor, bank. of this elite world that we all know very much is the way the world goes round. And they were all there for different reasons. But at the end of the day, they were all ignoring the elephant. in the room that they had no business ignoring because, after we published those pieces, there was nothing you could say.

that was ambivalent about Jeffrey Epstein's conduct. I'm just you were in that world to some extent at that time. How did people what did people say to you after you published. what you knew? As I say, because he wasn't such a big figure? There were quite a lot of people who would say, that's. a really interesting piece about that guy Jeffrey Epstein. Wow. You know, and it's like, I wonder what Clinton's involvement was. Actually, the main interest in the pieces was what was Clinton doing on that plane?

And I can't remember why that didn't blow up more than it did. And probably a big news thing happened and people got distracted, as we know. I mean, there are stories all the time and they're sort of riding along. in that kind of slightly under that level of breaking through. And that's where it rode. It rode slightly under the level of kind of bursting out. and didn't get, I don't think a great deal of TV. coverage, which I think would have helped to have it break out. It didn't it, it was just, you know, people noted it who were in that world. and in that swim and stuff, but it didn't have the same kind of,

boom, that, that, that, the series by Julie Brown and the Miami Herald had. because her piece, which was published many years later, happened. at the time when Acosta, who was, of course, the, the, you know, the Florida. prosecutor that she was writing about was then nominated for, for Trump's cabinet. So Acosta suddenly becomes a figure that people are looking at. And secondly, it was post MeToo, when I think, you know, things did change after after me too. I think that people were looking far more closely at the behavior.

of the rich and powerful. And so those two things kind of, and, you know, Julie did a great job. I mean, she brought many more, much, you know, additional great reporting to that whole story. So that's, I think, why it sort of stayed. So the swimming underneath the radar as it did. But one of the things about being preemie two that jumps out of that, that three page letter, which was the subject. of rich and powerful, was from cook on denialists who are, you know, well known, has been one of the most powerful law firms.

and was from Glasgow of who had worked for George W Bush before. He then went to work, for Kirkland. I also became Jeffrey Epstein's defense attorney. But one of the. one of the things that he wrote to you was the that jumps out was the willingness. to attack the victims, to talk about about them not being innocent. And that seems like language from another era now. But, was obviously part of the. way that this, this, this, this wall was put up around Epstein.

Absolutely. I mean, the whole idea was, again, it was sort of preemie to is sexual. And after me, tubule began to look at victims of sexual assault. and underage girls and in a different, more, far. more sort of heated lens, if you like, as far more understanding lens. At that time, it was like these girls, you know, they were sort of semi. semi sex workers at this point and some of them were sex workers. Some of them weren't, but they all knew what they were doing. Well, I mean, it's insane to say that because they were so young.

and they had no idea what they were doing. None. And and of course, the most horrible thing about it was and we didn't really get the Dylan story. at that at that time, the Jane story was a sort of a later development, which, you know, those initial stories, it was all Epstein focused. But, you know, the fact is, is she Lane? You know, you could argue that he wouldn't have wrapped it up to almost like. the industrial level kind of pedophilia that he was doing without, you know, the, the good offices of, of, of, of Julian because it was Dylan's.

ability and willingness to now cruise around the high school spars. You know, bars, all these things. And with her upper class kind of cut glass English accent, disarm the girls who felt not threatened by this. attractive upper class woman saying that would come, you know, do come over. I've got this marvelous friend who wants to kill me. You know, they weren't frightened by. She wasn't some seedy guy in a truck. I mean, she was this very attractive, upper class woman. And that was, in a sense, part of the horribleness of that whole dynamic.

Because Epstein could send her out, and she did it with such eagerness. I mean, you know, she made this her mission to bring girls and I had a village at Epstein. Different. Epstein. No relation. Wonderful. As an investigative journalist, you know, told me that one night. because he was a friend of Julian at that time. They used to have dinner with friends. They all went to dinner at Elliott's restaurant in Manhattan, and they were also a big group having dinner. And there was a bunch of young girls at the bar. They were sort of clearly sort of, you know, sort of just about maybe some of them even had fake driver's licenses.

But, you know, they were they were young, very young and very attractive, and they were all kind of gathered at the bar. And at one point during the dinner, you know, Jane had disappeared. and like I said, looked around like, where's your anger? And he said to his, someone at the dinner. Well, she Langone said, oh, she's, she's over there by the bar. She's getting phone numbers for Jeffrey. So she, she was constantly, you know, vacuuming any space. she could find, getting these numbers, following up. I mean, she was demonically efficient, you know, in his web.

And that is why she deserved to sit in Warren in that prison, because it was really bad for it. But for Dylan, frankly, he would have found it much harder. I mean, he did depend on the sort of. Underground Railroad of of his horrible French modeling agent friend. who indeed also hanged himself in prison in in Paris. A story, by the way, which I find endlessly interesting. because it hasn't really been investigated as to his death. in exactly the same way in a Paris prison.

I should just say, by the way, that, Conchita Sarnoff, original article named John Brunel. Yes. Epstein's chief enabling companion. He was. He was so. So aside from from Jane, he. he was the other way that he got a lot of girls, you know, which was he would get them to come in to, quote, model for his modeling agency. And he did had a lot of, a lot of them coming in from Eastern Europe, Russian girls. It seems to be that, I mean, I think at that period. in particularly sort of Russian and Eastern European. girls were a big thing, you know, in this whole story,

whether or not any of those Russian girls, you know, will turn out to have been Russian assets, who knows, because they certainly penetrated every aspect of society. I mean, we saw, you know, in the Leon Black, case or a recent me that there was this, you know, Eastern European woman who accused Leon Black of sexually, assaulting her. And that became a massive case. He was also part of the, the Epstein network. So, I mean, it's all such a kind of,

scheme and scheme, you know, knitted together. that that it's going to take really quite. I think it's going to take years to really, take it all. And I mean, one of the difficulties that every one of these batches of emails. and the people in them is kind of another piece of the plot, you know, I mean, there's so many, so many people involved. that it's hard to track down the important ones. So many of those plot lines are very hard to piece together and partial.

And I said 3 million, still unpublished, but. we have clues and we have directions and we still don't. We don't know. Just use that example of the U.S. Attorney's office. We don't know what happened next. We do know why. they wanted to close it down. And maybe the answer is in the files. Maybe it's not. Maybe it's in the next set. I know. Well, that's what's so fascinating about it. And of course, the frustration of it, because, you know, if this had been a properly prosecuted, case, you know, where two years had, it wouldn't have been spent. sort of organizing all of this evidence.

and these leads and chasing down and prosecuting a life. Jeffrey Epstein, we might have had a much better route. through it all, you know, but at the moment we're just looking. at the absolutely unfiltered product, which is the stuff of, you know, major. prosecution investigations, and you've got lawyers who ports written. Have those boards were they're sticking things up on the networks. and who people are. And, you know, but this is now being done kind of piecemeal in real time. by every journalist who can, who can get their hands on,

and has the time to pour through all these different emails. I want to just talk. One of the things that, you know, devote time. to is encouraging and promoting investigative journalism, and particularly in the legacy of of your husband, who was, you know, the greatest editor of us could say this generation. That's unfair of the 20th and 21st century. Sir Harold Evans, I have to say, he was voted that by his peers. But yes, well, quite. And, you know, we we, you know, we at The Daily Beast follow in your footsteps.

And, I should just say, to those to those watching, I am of British origin, obviously. And, you know, grew up on, on Fleet Street following in his, you know, following the inspiration on literally the trading books that he, that he wrote and what a lot of what comes out of the Epstein files. that related to The Daily Beast spoke to how. the rich and the powerful. attempt to silence the free press.

It's an extraordinary insight. into legal letters, into public relations, and even into trying to fool Google into suppressing results. It's Friday. It also speaks to the sort of the power of the club, doesn't it? I mean, one of Harry's my husband's great exposé is when he was the editor. of the Sunday Times in London, you know, in the 60s was, you know, he did expose, Kim Philby, the famous, Soviet spy who was at the top of the Foreign Office,

actually, on the, anti-Soviet desk, you know, and, of course, it then became a massive story, which we all know it's been made. into films, it's been made into, you know, the Cambridge spies and whole lot. But the thing that he came up against again and again in that story was the. the club, the upper classes, they all protected each other. They were all from the same school. They're all from Cambridge. They were Oxford or Cambridge. They were. There was this class loyalty that protected Kim Philby all that time.

Oh, he couldn't be him because of who he was, you know. And I'm afraid that is still true. I mean, that it's it's maybe less today about what school did you go to? But it's certainly about you know, where does your yacht berth and some bars. I mean that that group is now become what started as some, you know, unicorn you know, billionaires has now become an Uber race. Right. Who they're all protecting each other. The amount of wealth out there right now is so stunning.

And they're beginning to kind of forge their own, club of morals and lack of them and, and sort of feeling of entitlement that, you know, and feeding of. everything is below them, essentially, that other people have to follow. And you really get that sense in the Epstein files, I think. And even, as you mentioned, of yachts, hard luck. Nick is indeed among the people who volunteer. that he just happened to be sailing past Little Saint James.

I would like to come for lunch. So. But it was particularly delicious because of his Oscar performance. on that podcast a few months back where he said, you know, I said to. my wife, I will never. I will never go to that man's house, his car. Gross. You know, it's like, oh, and the next thing you have is like, hey, I'm going to be in the Caribbean on the 23rd or whatever. Like, can we come for lunch? You know, it's it was pretty hilarious, actually.

I mean, look, I think you know, I think, Howard, that it was. just, you know, I mean, I don't suggest in any way that Howard a lot. Nick was, you know, involved in doing anything particularly nefarious. But the hypocrisy, it was quite, was quite delicious, actually, but also speaks to what you said, the willful and curiosity. Yes. Yeah. The more feeling curiosity is like, oh, we're going to be in the Caribbean. Let's go take the kids to lunch at, you know, with Epstein. Wait, wait a minute. What about the fact we now all know that he's a multiple pedophile? You know, that he is trafficking young girls.

So he is. I mean, what on earth would you want to take your wife. and family for lunch somewhere like that? It's just the kind of. Oh, well, you know, it's overblown. Whatever. I just don't understand that he's. They certainly wouldn't think it was overblown if it was being done by, the super in that building, you know? I mean, there would be like, he's got to be locked up and, like, what the hell? And, you know, it's purely about the wealth, the lifestyle, the network.

I just. talked about that, that wealth and lifestyle. You you've come up against this for, you know, for many, many years of the powerful, the rich, how do we see how do we as a free press, but how do we as a country deal with. what we see in the Epstein files? Is this sense of the club and also the willingness of the club to protect itself? How can we what do we do?

It's very alarming moment. I mean, we're very dependent on on the bravery of lawyers. and of individuals who are willing to say no to things. What you discover is there are very few people who, when faced with an enormous amount of money, are not going to sort of capitulate or find a way to tell themselves, it's okay, you know, whether it's the sort of comedians going to perform. in Saudi or attend, you know, Davos in the desert, which I happen to think is. I mean, I have not forgotten Khashoggi being chopped up,

you know, and chalk an enormous amount of people have. But plenty of people are now prepared to forget it. And, it's all about the massive amounts of money that are being turned around. So I think the power of money to corrupt is, is what's really agonizing. But at the same time, you know, what's gratifying is also I mean, here's Brad Karp, right? The I mentioned him before, you know, who's the head of, Paul Wise. He was the first of the lawyers to kind of fold in the face of Trump. You know, when the Trump did his shakedown.

And, you know, I mean, it was just he had no need. I mean, if you felt like saying, okay, so you know what he said, like when we get. it was going to affect all their business, etc.. I mean, okay, so maybe their bonuses are going to go from 7 million a year to four. Is that is that a terrible sacrifice for, you know, for, for, for some kind of, professional and moral kind of, you know, rigor, it seems like it was. So it's like the sense that people have become so corroded by this money thing.

is really what worries me. And of course, it didn't really surprise me that the Brad group. Yeah. Brad Karp and Crocs up in the files, you know, asking, you know, for help for his son or whatever, because the guy's morally elastic. We know that now. And, so, so, you know, he's now had to step down, which is something I had no regrets about. But, it's quite interesting to see, who stands up in the face of things. Well, it's very often quite surprising. I mean, you never really know who the people are. who are going to sort of stand up.

I mean, I'm very impressed with Mark Kelly at the moment. He's really sort of found his voice, you know, in the face of this attempt to. shut him down from saying, you know, that that the military have to not, you know, fulfill orders that are illegal. I mean, there's just one, pretty significant ruling. Yes, John, he's won it. He's won a significant ruling from a judge. He's been the judge who was appointed by George W Bush. So we can assume, is, you know, a rock ribbed Republican. Yeah, I agree, but but, I mean, you know,

I thought I always thought he was a pretty good guy. I mean, he was an astronaut, but he's proved that, you know, he's better than that, that he's actually got a red line. in the sand where he won't go, you know, and I love it when people. kind of declare their red lines and they mean something, right? I mean, it's it's it's something we miss all. We're all sort of forgetting. I think there is a kind of moral slide, you know, which, which, which, excess wealth and, and and so on. Is, is, is leading people into I mean, I look at,

you know, what's happened at the Washington Post, and, you know, it's been very distressing, you know, to see. Jeff Bezos, who was such a good, you know, I don't know The Washington Post. for the first few years. But, you know, in the time that he's owned the Washington Post, his billions, have totally accelerated the point in that he's I forget the number. It's like it's like, what is it, 200 billion or something. Now he's he's just north of 200 billion. Yeah, north of 200 billion. It's money of such a kind of, phantasmagorical like the GDP of countries that, you know,

that I honestly believe that, you know, they've left planet Earth literally. I mean, you know, I mean, they want to. go to Mars, but I think they've gone already. I mean, goodbye they left a couple of years ago, actually, mentally and morally. So that is what I think is, is the biggest anxiety now. And I don't know how people, without the tools to fight back. I you say, well, they're not answering the question, how do you fight back? I mean, I think journalism is a critical tool here and we must back it. You know, we must.

I mean, thank God, that your the beast still roars. and that you're still doing your good, you know, smart stuff. I think that, you know, thank God that the New York Times has the Sulzberger family in charge of it. Thank God that Reuters has the Thompson family in charge of it, because they don't. have, the same, you know, sort of. cynical attitude towards truth. But they. are dwindling, you know, as, as a race. And, I think unless we do support,

investigative journalism, rigorous reporting, editing that is really prudent. I mean, we're not asking for some rash statements or we're asking. for serious, you know, undeterred. You know, investigations that really do get. at things that people don't know until the truth. Without it, we're absolutely cooked. I mean, we can't we have to support journalism. And the tragedy is the how very few people are doing. So, you know, they're just not. And, it's almost as if they've sort of given up on the idea that journalism.

at will feeding that journalism is some kind of optional extra or something, which of course it isn't. I mean, it's it's absolutely critical. And that's why I started the Truth Tellers Summit in London, which I do every May. when I'm doing it again. This May, in Harry's name, which is a great convening. where we actually valorize the journalists. It's not a kind of what I call media bloviating and fest. It's it's actually saying meet these incredible journalists. from who reporting on Maduro from exile in Miami.

And they've been doing it, you know, and. and they're so threatened constantly all these amazing. Russian exile journalists who are in danger every day, you know, and they they put their lives at risk to just get the truth out. And they're certainly not doing it for money. There is no money in it, as you well know, as you well know. Yeah. Well, no, I mean, you know, people in journalism are really, you know, they're only doing it for because they have a passion for the truth. You know, they're not doing it, you know, to, to at to make millions of dollars. It's one of the few professions that this yeah attracts these people with.

Great, you know, vocational, attitudes to their work. And I love them to death, frankly. And, you know, I have a great passion for journalists, actually. I'm always have. I mean, I love them as a tribe, I really do. I mean, because they just. I love the way they make trouble. They get into trouble, and they just keep going, you know? I mean, it's it's, it's a wonderful thing to see. I do want to say, by the way, something I should probably said earlier, is that among the many correspondences that Epstein sent,

he also wrote to IAC, which is the parent company of The Daily Beast. And it's, of course, Barry Diller. is the, the chairman and CEO and basically owner of IAC. And Epstein's lawyers tried to go around you and go about, you know, go above your heads or whoever. They saw that. And we, I think, should be very delighted. that there was absolutely 100% backing for you. I know, from, from so actually I interesting I, I missed that, but it doesn't surprise me.

because I would like to see Epstein try to intimidate Barry Diller. Barry Diller knows who he is, what he thinks. He is not a guy who backs down in the face of threats. And he has a moral center, actually. I mean, you does. He doesn't. He doesn't need it. I mean, he is, you know, one of the things that's, ridiculous, essentially, I. mean, I, I wrote it in my, fresh hell about about the Jeff Bezos. There's like one thing we've learned is, like, we all thought that fuck you money. was to say fuck you, right when somebody tried to intimidate you.

But it seems like today. fucking money is all about getting more fucking money, right? But, I mean, Barry Diller is a is of the, mind. and and sort of self-confidence to feel that, you know, he, he knows who he is and he's, he's made enough money that he doesn't need, to be threatened. And he is not out there trying to kind of scheme. and connive for every next million. I mean, he's the he knows how to you got a center, you know, and it's not very common actually.

So yes. It's he's a wonderful person to be I mean the Daily Beast, I would very much like him to buy the Washington Post. Barry, if you're listening, he would be a. fantastic owner for the for the Washington Post. Well, Tina, we as I've said before, I, you know, we at the Daily Beast fall in incredibly big footsteps. And what, what these what these Epstein files revealed to us. was some of what we what we we couldn't have known. about the raw courage that, that Conchita Sarnoff and you showed.

getting this story out there and blowing it up into the world, and, revealing something that resonates now. more, maybe more that maybe more every day. It's a it's a crisis. And, I mean, I think you're doing great work at the beast now on this story. I think also that, it's wonderful to see the beast, you know, prospering so much in this. Well, you know, because we have to be successful in order to keep going.

So it's great. I'm so happy that the beast is still, you know, one of the one of the big voices. out there. Well, we are we are merely following your lead. And, Tina, thank you for joining us. Thank you. And hopefully the Epstein files. will reveal more of those truths as we did to come back. Thank you. Hugh. Tina, thank you for your amazing insight. Thank you for being an inspiration. We here at The Daily Beast are relentlessly scouring the Epstein files.

They threw up new information and new scandals every day. To keep up. Please subscribe here on YouTube and go to the Daily. beast.com to find out every update. And please get into the comments. There is so much to discuss, from what Tina has revealed, from her opinions on the powerful. And also, I just want to say that I have been. in the comments myself looking at it from the last episode. When I spoke to Professor Scott Galloway about his resist and Unsubscribe campaign,

hundreds of you are taking up his call to unsubscribe. Some of the biggest tech companies and try and get some leverage over Donald Trump. Some people have different views. It's an amazing, fascinating debate. There's even some limericks, which I am not going, I'm afraid to read out. because my Scottish accent does make the delivery sometimes a bit difficult. Thank you to everybody who said nice things about my accent. I will see. Apologies to those of you who are struggling with it.

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