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Transcript

‘Let Him Hang Himself’ · Question Everything

0:00
Speaker 1: Trying a little something new today, something we're calling anatomy
0:03
Speaker 1: of a quote. We take one line from the news
0:06
Speaker 1: that stopped us in our tracks and get reporters to
0:08
Speaker 1: weigh in on it. This week, did a journalist get
0:11
Speaker 1: too cozy with his subject, convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein?
0:17
Speaker 2: To me, it just seems like a really slimy way
0:21
Speaker 2: to maintain a relationship with a source.
0:24
Speaker 3: I can't believe it, but I agreed with him. Oh no,
0:28
Speaker 3: send me to journalism jail.
0:30
Speaker 4: Giving a sex offender public relations advice, who is also
0:34
Speaker 4: your source, is a huge no-no.
0:38
Speaker 1: From Placement Theory and KCRW, I'm Brian Reed. This is
0:41
Speaker 1: Question Everything. Stick around.
0:47
Speaker 5: I'm Brian Reed.
0:52
Speaker 1: Our quote this week comes from that recent dump of
0:54
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein emails. The email we're zooming in on is
0:57
Speaker 1: from 2015, where a writer many of you may have
1:00
Speaker 1: heard of named Michael Wolff wrote to Jeffrey Epstein, quote,
1:04
Speaker 1: I think you should let him hang himself. The him
1:07
Speaker 1: in that sentence being Donald Trump. Michael Wolff is a
1:13
Speaker 1: longtime media columnist and book author who's built a career
1:16
Speaker 1: by cultivating unusually close relationships with the powerful people he covers.
1:21
Speaker 1: and getting unique access to their worlds, including with Donald Trump.
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Speaker 1: He's written four books about Trump and had pretty exclusive
1:27
Speaker 1: access to the White House in the president's first term.
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Speaker 1: In the recent dump of Epstein emails from Congress, Wolf
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Speaker 1: emerges as a major figure, lots of communication with Epstein
1:38
Speaker 1: over the years. In this message in question, it's 2015,
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Speaker 1: Trump is running for the Republican nomination, there's a debate
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Speaker 1: coming up, and Michael Wolf emails Jeffrey Epstein, that he's
1:50
Speaker 1: heard CNN is going to be asking Trump about his
1:53
Speaker 1: relationship with the sex offender. At this point, Epstein had
1:57
Speaker 1: been convicted for soliciting prostitution with a minor. Epstein writes
2:02
Speaker 1: Wolf back. If we were able to craft an answer
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Speaker 1: for him, for Donald Trump, what do you think it
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Speaker 1: should be? And then Wolf starts advising Epstein on a strategy.
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Speaker 1: I think you should let him hang himself. If he
2:15
Speaker 1: says he hasn't been on the plane... that's a reference
2:17
Speaker 1: to Epstein's private plane known as the Lolita Express, or
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Speaker 1: to the House, then that gives you a valuable PR
2:23
Speaker 1: and political currency. You can hang him in a way
2:27
Speaker 1: that potentially generates a positive benefit for you. At the time,
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Speaker 1: Wolf had been working Epstein as a source for a
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Speaker 1: possible book. Wolf says he's recorded about 100 hours of
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Speaker 1: interviews with Epstein, interviews that still haven't fully seen the
2:40
Speaker 1: light of day, six years after Epstein's death. No book
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Speaker 1: has been published. Wolf is now co-host of the Daily
2:47
Speaker 1: Beast podcast called Inside Trump's Head with Joanna Coles. When
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Speaker 1: the emails were released just the other week, Joanna Coles
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Speaker 1: asked Wolf about this exchange with Jeffrey Epstein.
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Speaker 5: Is there a point where you are abetting the criminal?
3:03
Speaker 5: Absolutely not. You know, I mean, I don't even want
3:07
Speaker 5: to go there. I mean, what I did was sit
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Speaker 5: at a table and put on the tape recorder. And
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Speaker 5: with every intention of telling this story, as I have
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Speaker 5: told numerous other stories.
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Speaker 6: But there are people listening to this that would say, well,
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Speaker 6: wait a.
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Speaker 4: Minute, you did more than just put your tape recorder on. Actually,
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Speaker 4: you were giving him media advice.
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Speaker 5: You enter into a relationship with people. You say what
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Speaker 5: they might want to hear. You are finessing You are
3:35
Speaker 5: finessing a relationship. If you are anything other than an
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Speaker 5: opinion journalist, most journalists seem to be these days, you
3:46
Speaker 5: have to make a relationship with your subject. You know, that's–
3:51
Speaker 5: and giving media advice, I'm not giving him legal advice
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Speaker 5: or advice about his crimes. You know, in fact, when
4:01
Speaker 5: I reviewed these emails some time ago because I thought, well,
4:04
Speaker 5: these will probably come out. I thought, well, okay, this
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Speaker 5: is just, you know, the usual kind of, there's nothing
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Speaker 5: that would be of any interest to anyone here.
4:18
Speaker 1: That assessment from Michael Wolff, I find surprising. I mean,
4:21
Speaker 1: ever read The Journalist and the Murderer? One of the
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Speaker 1: most famous books about our field, and it's about this conundrum,
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Speaker 1: this question that's captured in these emails. How close can
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Speaker 1: a reporter get with his or her source before it
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Speaker 1: crosses an ethical line? And how honest should a reporter
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Speaker 1: be with their source about their intentions? Another way of
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Speaker 1: putting that is a journalist ever allowed to be dishonest
4:45
Speaker 1: with a source in order to get the story. We
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Speaker 1: saw that a bunch of reporters weighed in publicly on
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Speaker 1: this email between Wolf and Epstein after it came out
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Speaker 1: the other week. And so our producer Zach St. Louis
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Speaker 1: called several of them up, each with a different take
5:00
Speaker 1: on it. We're going to start with Isaac Saul, founder
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Speaker 1: and editor of the newsletter Tangle, which we've covered on
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Speaker 1: our show. Here's our producer, Zach, talking to Isaac.
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Speaker 6: When you see that email that starts with, you know,
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Speaker 6: we should let him hang himself and he gives PR advice,
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Speaker 6: like what's going through your head when you read that?
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Speaker 2: I mean, to me, it just seems like a really
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Speaker 2: slimy way to maintain a relationship with a source. I
5:25
Speaker 2: think like from a journalism ethics standpoint, it's okay to
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Speaker 2: build a kind of Even friendship with somebody who you are,
5:39
Speaker 2: quote unquote, working in order to stay well informed on
5:44
Speaker 2: whatever their industry or political circle is or whatever else.
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Speaker 2: But when there's a candidate running for office and you're
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Speaker 2: giving somebody advice about how to win a PR battle
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Speaker 2: with them, that feels like a line is being crossed.
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Speaker 2: And I think with Epstein in particular, it's like, at
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Speaker 2: this point, he had been already convicted of at least
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Speaker 2: one sex crime. So we sort of had an idea
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Speaker 2: of who he was. And I think it just reflects really,
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Speaker 2: really poorly on Michael Wolff. There's just something really sticky
6:22
Speaker 2: about that that feels wrong. And I think he knows that.
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Speaker 6: Could you imagine any circumstance where you were close to
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Speaker 6: the source and you offered them some kind of advice
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Speaker 6: like this on how to deal with the media? Is
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Speaker 6: there any scenario where you could see that happening?
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Speaker 2: Maybe I could see a world where if I got
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Speaker 2: really close to like a member of Congress and they
6:40
Speaker 2: were embroiled in some controversy and they reached out to
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Speaker 2: me and said, you know, so-and-so reporter has like asked
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Speaker 2: me for an interview. Do you think I should take
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Speaker 2: it or something like that? I could see saying something like,
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Speaker 2: you know, I don't feel comfortable communicating advising you on
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Speaker 2: how to navigate the situation. But I don't think talking
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Speaker 2: to the press is like your best bet right now.
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Speaker 2: Something like that would be sort of like squishy in
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Speaker 2: the middle, but I still wouldn't feel great about that.
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Speaker 2: What I'm seeing in those emails is him actively advising
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Speaker 2: in a way that is going to change how this
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Speaker 2: story or whatever he thought was going to happen. And
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Speaker 2: that's what feels really, really gross to me. It's, you know,
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Speaker 2: sort of thumbing the scales and Let's say Donald Trump
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Speaker 2: actually gets asked on CNN those questions about Epstein and
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Speaker 2: something that Michael Wolff does behind the scenes like meaningfully
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Speaker 2: impacts how that interview goes or what the public understands
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Speaker 2: about their relationship or whatever. Like that's a really, really
7:46
Speaker 2: big deal. I mean, this feels like not that big
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Speaker 2: of a deal because the advice he was giving Epstein
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Speaker 2: never really came into play. But there's like an alternate
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Speaker 2: universe here where Michael Wolff's sources were right. CNN asked
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Speaker 2: those questions and we get some sort of public record about,
8:02
Speaker 2: you know, Trump answering tough questions about his relationship with Epstein.
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Speaker 2: And Michael Wolff has sort of changed the path of
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Speaker 2: how that plays out by trying to advise the sexual
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Speaker 2: predator guy in the background.
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Speaker 1: Susan Zakin has a very different take from Isaac Saul.
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Speaker 1: She's a veteran journalist whose work has appeared in The
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Speaker 1: New York Times, Vogue and Salon. On her sub stack,
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Speaker 1: she wrote a piece defending Michael Wolff's behavior in the email.
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Speaker 1: Here's Susan talking to our producer, Zach.
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Speaker 7: I can't believe it, but I agreed with him.
8:37
Speaker 5: Oh, no.
8:38
Speaker 7: Send me to journalism jail. But, you know, it.
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Speaker 3: Just talked to me, that email. You know, it troubled me,
8:47
Speaker 3: but it was not a deal breaker for me. It
8:49
Speaker 3: did not invalidate any other reporting that Wolff has been
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Speaker 3: in a position to do.
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Speaker 6: So. When these first got published and you first saw that,
9:00
Speaker 6: what was your first reaction?
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Speaker 3: Well, it's not your job to help the guy think
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Speaker 3: it through. I was taken aback, for sure. But I
9:10
Speaker 3: could imagine, at the same time, this is not making
9:13
Speaker 3: excuses for this horrible journalistic sin, but I could imagine
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Speaker 3: in an ongoing conversation with a source that you have
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Speaker 3: spent a lot of time with, who is clearly dealing
9:27
Speaker 3: with issues related to his legal problems and his public profile.
9:35
Speaker 3: I can imagine sort of thinking out loud like that,
9:38
Speaker 3: but it's not his job. I mean, would I game
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Speaker 3: out scenarios with a source that I had spent hundreds
9:48
Speaker 3: and hundreds of hours if my mind was just going?
9:51
Speaker 3: You know, I mean, Michael Wolff was the media columnist
9:55
Speaker 3: I mean, I can imagine that happening.
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Speaker 6: The quote in there that kind of said, out to
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Speaker 6: me is when Epstein says, if we were able to
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Speaker 6: craft an answer for him.
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Speaker 7: Yeah, that's not good. That's not good, dude. That's not good.
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Speaker 3: But I get the very strong feeling he does know
10:16
Speaker 3: what the rules of journalism are. And he walks right
10:19
Speaker 3: up to the edge, but I don't feel that he
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Speaker 3: crosses over. I mean, Michael Wolff is a fantastic writer,
10:29
Speaker 3: and we need better writers. I think that the lack
10:34
Speaker 3: of imagination on the part of journalists can get in
10:38
Speaker 3: the way, and the lack of psychological insight. And that's
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Speaker 3: really where Michael Wolff has the edge. And I think
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Speaker 3: he's a valuable part of the ecosystem. You know, I
10:48
Speaker 3: got some blowback on this piece. I did compare Wolfe
10:54
Speaker 3: to Woodward and Bernstein.
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Speaker 7: Oh no, it's like sacrilege.
10:59
Speaker 3: Maybe I shouldn't admit this, but Bob Woodward's books, they're
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Speaker 3: so boring.
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Speaker 7: I'd much rather read Michael Wolfe.
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Speaker 3: The point was that the information from Epstein was so
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Speaker 3: important to the country and not just about whatever Trump
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Speaker 3: was doing sexually, but about his character. And the fact
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Speaker 3: that Wolf has 100 hours of tape with Epstein and
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Speaker 3: no one's publishing him, to me, it's insane. But, you know,
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Speaker 3: this is the atmosphere of fear and intimidation that's out there.
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Speaker 7: Bring it out. Daylight is the disinfectant. Somebody publish Wolf.
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Speaker 7: Bring it all out.
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Speaker 3: And to waste our time attacking each other as journalists,
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Speaker 3: I mean, I don't see the reason for it.
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Speaker 7: I'm an information junkie.
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Speaker 3: I'm a journalist. I'm a, you know, I'm a hunter,
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Speaker 3: not a farmer. I want every bit of information that
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Speaker 3: I can get.
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Speaker 6: Even if it means ingratiating yourself to a.
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Speaker 7: Pedophile?
12:08
Speaker 6: Known pedophile.
12:09
Speaker 1: Yeah.
12:09
Speaker 5: Yes.
12:10
Speaker 7: Yes.
12:11
Speaker 3: I think journalists should stay away from making moral judgments
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Speaker 3: and pontificating about morality.
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Speaker 7: I think our job is to tell the story.
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Speaker 3: We are the scruffy playwright, Shakespeare, where we are looking
12:26
Speaker 3: at all these flawed characters.
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Speaker 7: And we are also flawed, some of us more than others.
12:32
Speaker 3: And we're looking at how these tragic heroes or villains,
12:40
Speaker 3: how it all comes.
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Speaker 7: Together to possibly destroy our country.
12:47
Speaker 1: We'll be back after a quick break. So I've been
12:54
Speaker 1: sharing the different ways we've been using the Plod AI
12:57
Speaker 1: device here at Question Everything. And one way is story planning.
13:02
Speaker 7: So I know the goal of.
13:03
Speaker 1: This is to come out with like a production plan
13:05
Speaker 1: for the first episode. The plod is this sleek little
13:10
Speaker 1: Twix candy bar size thing. I just clicked it on
13:13
Speaker 1: while my editor, producer, and I were brainstorming. I think
13:16
Speaker 1: in order to get there, it would at least help
13:17
Speaker 1: me to talk through editorially what we've gotten and then
13:22
Speaker 1: how we think it lays out in multiple episodes.
13:25
Speaker 6: Okay, great.
13:26
Speaker 7: I'm plodding this, by the way.
13:28
Speaker 1: We really do use plod as a verb around here now.
13:31
Speaker 1: In this meeting... We were planning an upcoming Section 230 episode,
13:34
Speaker 1: or possibly two. I'd done a bunch of reporting and interviews,
13:38
Speaker 1: taken a trip to D.C. My team and I talked
13:41
Speaker 1: it all out.
13:42
Speaker 7: Marianne has some great quotes around that.
13:44
Speaker 1: And we worked through different theories of how the structure
13:46
Speaker 1: could go. The best way to lay out some of
13:48
Speaker 1: these complicated topics.
13:50
Speaker 7: Here would be your final episode, as you put it.
13:52
Speaker 1: At the end of it all, I clicked the plot off,
13:54
Speaker 1: went into the app. I have a whole raw transcript
13:57
Speaker 1: of the conversation, but then I was able to ask it.
14:01
Speaker 1: What's the structure we finally landed out? Lay it out
14:03
Speaker 1: really clearly for me in bullet points with action items
14:06
Speaker 1: for my producer and me. In seconds, it did it.
14:09
Speaker 1: The AI is really good. We're making these episodes now.
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Speaker 1: They'll be out soon. You should try plodding something yourself.
14:16
Speaker 1: Go to plod, that's P as in poppy seed, P-L-A-U-D, plod.ai,
14:21
Speaker 1: and use the code question if you end up getting one.
14:33
Speaker 1: Since that email between Michael Wolff and Jeffrey Epstein came out,
14:37
Speaker 1: I've been tuning into the debate over it on X
14:39
Speaker 1: and TikTok and in some mainstream publications. And the thing
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Speaker 1: that bothers me about it, I think, is exactly this.
14:47
Speaker 1: The fact that it's become a conversation about, quote unquote,
14:51
Speaker 1: capitalized journalistic ethics. When really just strip the journalism out
14:56
Speaker 1: of this situation for a second. And think of yourself
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Speaker 1: as Michael Wolff, just as a person. He is not
15:02
Speaker 1: simply being cordial to get information, in that email at least.
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Speaker 1: He is giving help to a pedophile, offering him real,
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Speaker 1: potentially valuable advice, letting Epstein refer to the two of
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Speaker 1: them together as a we. I would not be okay
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Speaker 1: doing that, just on a human level. That's the thing
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Speaker 1: that troubles me about this email. Forget the professional ethics
15:22
Speaker 1: of it all. And obviously I'm not the only one.
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Speaker 1: Last up, we have Tara Palmieri. She's the writer of
15:28
Speaker 1: The Red Letter on Substack and host of the Tara
15:30
Speaker 1: Palmieri podcast. She reported two investigative podcasts on Jeffrey Epstein,
15:35
Speaker 1: and we had her on our recent Wineshop episode with
15:38
Speaker 1: reporters who have covered Epstein for decades. Check that out
15:41
Speaker 1: if you haven't already. Search for the Epstein files in
15:44
Speaker 1: your Question Everything feed. Tara spent a lot of time
15:47
Speaker 1: with and covering Jeffrey Epstein's survivors, including Virginia Giuffre, one
15:52
Speaker 1: of the most well-known survivors of Epstein's. She died by
15:55
Speaker 1: suicide earlier this year. Tara also spoke to our producer,
15:59
Speaker 1: Zach St. Louis, and shared a very strong opinion.
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Speaker 4: I just feel like he was colluding with what should
16:06
Speaker 4: have been a source, you know, a person that he
16:09
Speaker 4: was writing about. He was giving him tactical advice. He
16:14
Speaker 4: was giving him image advice, PR advice. He was trying
16:17
Speaker 4: to help him restore his image.
16:19
Speaker 6: And so.
16:21
Speaker 4: I thought it was really disturbing. And then when you
16:23
Speaker 4: think about the fact that Michael put together a group
16:25
Speaker 4: of investors, which included Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein, to
16:30
Speaker 4: buy New York Magazine, I mean, that is pretty incredible.
16:35
Speaker 4: And I was flabbergasted when I read about that, that
16:38
Speaker 4: it was something he was planning to do back in 2003.
16:42
Speaker 4: And I thought to myself, imagine if Harvey Weinstein and
16:45
Speaker 4: Jeffrey Epstein owned New York Magazine, a very influential... magazine
16:51
Speaker 4: in New York if the voices of the women ever
16:54
Speaker 4: would have been heard. You know, I mean, there's something
16:57
Speaker 4: to be said about owning the press. And it also
16:59
Speaker 4: just shows you how Epstein really wanted to dominate every
17:03
Speaker 4: area of life from finance to academia to science to
17:07
Speaker 4: tech to media.
17:08
Speaker 6: This plan to buy New York magazine, have you tried
17:12
Speaker 6: to verify it in other ways? I'm just curious about
17:14
Speaker 6: like how how likely that seemed to be to happen
17:17
Speaker 6: and how serious they were about it.
17:18
Speaker 4: Well, the deal was done. And then New York Mag's
17:22
Speaker 4: owners at the time backed out. It was widely reported
17:24
Speaker 4: at the time, but the New York Times brought it
17:26
Speaker 4: back to earth in Sean McCreesh's latest piece. And I
17:31
Speaker 4: thought I should dig into it a little further. And
17:34
Speaker 4: that's what I found when I was speaking to a
17:36
Speaker 4: source that was involved, that Michael was tasked with bringing
17:39
Speaker 4: in a group of investors. Pretty incredible. Clearly, Michael Wolf
17:43
Speaker 4: had spent a lot of time with him. He wrote
17:46
Speaker 4: a piece about Epstein, and he even showed him the
17:49
Speaker 4: piece in advance, which you're not supposed to do, of profile.
17:53
Speaker 6: I know that you're, you know, obviously you're somebody that's
17:56
Speaker 6: in touch with a lot of Epstein's victims, survivors. And
18:00
Speaker 6: I'm wondering if any of them have brought up this
18:02
Speaker 6: Michael Wolff stuff with you.
18:04
Speaker 5: Oh, yeah.
18:05
Speaker 4: It's disturbing to them. The going into business with a
18:09
Speaker 4: source is a huge journalistic no-no. The showing a source
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Speaker 4: what you're going to write about them in advance, a
18:14
Speaker 4: draft copy, is a huge journalistic no-no. And then on
18:18
Speaker 4: top of that, giving a sex offender public relations advice,
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Speaker 4: who is also your source, is.
18:25
Speaker 7: A huge no-no. I mean, all of it.
18:27
Speaker 4: They're all in their own ways. They really solidly image
18:32
Speaker 4: of our business, for sure. I've never done anything like
18:35
Speaker 4: that with any of my sources.
18:37
Speaker 6: Yeah, I was going to ask you that. Is there
18:39
Speaker 6: any world in which you could ever imagine doing anything
18:41
Speaker 6: like this?
18:42
Speaker 7: Definitely not.
18:44
Speaker 4: It just makes me wonder why he hasn't published his
18:46
Speaker 4: tapes yet with Epstein. He claims nobody wants them, but
18:48
Speaker 4: everybody's self-publishing now. He could self-publish. Show us the tapes, Michael.
18:57
Speaker 1: We wrote Michael Wolff to see if he wanted to
18:59
Speaker 1: weigh in for this episode, but we didn't hear back.
19:02
Speaker 1: He did have one more thing to say on his podcast, though,
19:05
Speaker 1: about the email.
19:06
Speaker 5: I have no regrets at all. I would do it
19:08
Speaker 5: exactly the same. This is the way it is done.
19:20
Speaker 1: Today's show was produced by Zach St. Louis and edited
19:22
Speaker 1: by our managing editor, Kevin Sullivan. Last week, you may
19:27
Speaker 1: have heard our special episode where Representative Jake Auchincloss encouraged
19:30
Speaker 1: you all to call the chair of the House Energy
19:33
Speaker 1: and Commerce Committee. and urge him to put Section 230
19:36
Speaker 1: reform on the agenda for a hearing that happened just
19:39
Speaker 1: this Tuesday. I know a lot of you did call
19:41
Speaker 1: and email. I heard from you on various platforms. Unfortunately,
19:45
Speaker 1: it did not work this time, but don't be dispirited.
19:48
Speaker 1: I was really excited to hear. how engaged everybody got,
19:51
Speaker 1: and I think we just have to keep pushing on this.
19:53
Speaker 1: You can watch my full interview with Representative Auchincloss over
19:56
Speaker 1: on Substack at questioneverything.substack.com.
20:00
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20:02
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20:08
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20:11
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20:14
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