Epstein Haunts GOP in Midterms as Democrats Vow Fresh Probes

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0:22 President Trump, though, he cannot shake the furor over Jeffrey Epstein. Democrats are preparing to launch congressional investigations into the administration's handling of files related to the late disgraced sex offender if they regain power after those midterm elections next week. Josh Wingrove has the byline. He's Bloomberg News White House reporter.

0:40 He joins us from Washington, D.C. Josh, they say the administration botched the release of documents. They're using the issue to hammer Trump and GOP lawmakers in key races. Who is saying what and what races are they in?

0:53 I mean, we're just seeing this come up on the campaign trail over and over, guys. In every Senate race, it seems Democrats are using this as sort of a line of attack, including in Michigan, including in Georgia, including in Texas. And it really has the Republicans sort of on the back heel. Now, the current House Oversight Committee has done an investigation on this. Democrats criticize it for not being a full hearing. Republicans defend themselves for going as far as they did. But what's clear is this is going to be reopened. It's one of four buckets that the Democrats look to be going. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, told me others include sort of family corruption issues or allegations with the

1:38 Trump family, as well as immigration enforcement and DHS. And so I think. What's clear is Democrats, as these polls sort of signal that the House seems all but certain at this point to flip, they're preparing to come after the administration on some of these files. And so the big question is, will that precipitate further releases of the Epstein cases? Will we see subpoenas? I asked them, for instance, if they're going to subpoena Attorney General Todd Blanch. They said everything is on the table. And so this one is just one that has been sort of biting at Trump's support for, you know, throughout his second administration. Right.

2:12 He pledged to release the files. What he released was deeply unsatisfying to many of what were at the time his most faithful supporters. It's been trickling out since. And of course, Trump's name itself is throughout the files. And so this is one that is going to rear its head again in the coming months.

2:28 Josh, I can't help but think.

2:31 A little over two years ago, I was in Atlanta for work, and it was when the DNC was going on. And the overarching message at the DNC was one about democracy. And there was this montage played of January 6th, and I think to a lot of people, it felt like it was really powerful. And you get to the election, and what mattered to voters?

2:56 Affordability.

2:57 Affordability.

3:01 Does this matter to voters in these key states, the way that Democrats are talking about this, or is all they care about right now affordability and maybe some recent polling shows some corruption as well?

3:13 Well, I think we're seeing Democrats tie them together. Senator Ossoff jumps to mind as someone who's been campaigning saying the reason that things are going sideways when it comes to affordability, his allegation is that the president is too focused on you know, side projects and, you know, members of the administration are enriching themselves. So Democrats are trying to bundle these together. But you're right, there's an ongoing conversation in the Democratic Party about, you know, how many sort of lines of attack to have. And one of the other extensions of that, of course, is the question of whether the president himself will be impeached or not.

3:44 And some Democrats think that that will be a trap, that that will be a distraction, that it, you know, shows them focused on anything other than day to day affordability. And so I think with the oversight, I think we'll see just a continued sort of focus on those buckets. They're going to try to keep it narrow. But you're right.

3:59 I think a lot of Democrats want to make clear that their sort of eye is on the ball. Now, where that leads it, it's not clear. Right. We're going to probably almost certainly have some measure of divided government here. The president is probably not going to be. itching to sign a lot of Democrat bills into law if it comes to that. And so, unfortunately, I think we're probably going to see not a lot of immediate action coming from the federal government when it comes to affordability. But Democrats, I do think, are having that sort of conversation right now.

4:28 It's not just on things like Epstein. It is on things like impeachment as well. And we can see that sort of maybe going instead to questions about, you know, focusing investigations on members of the cabinet instead of the president himself.

4:39 You know, Josh, I keep thinking, too, like what the risk is for Democrats. Like if people are saying also we're not in a good way, gas prices are high, we're struggling, we're worried about our jobs because of AI, you know, kids, education, so on.

4:55 There's so many things, right?

4:56 We can't afford a house.

4:58 Do Democrats risk?

4:59 They do have to have this incredible balance of, yes, we understand the importance of accountability with an administration that, I think it's fair to say, accurate to say, has really taken advantage of the system in many ways, versus let's listen to the American public because members of Congress are also put in place to make sure they're listening to their citizens and create policies that are good for their citizens.

5:23 So I like.

5:24 They're going to have to be very careful that they don't spend the next two years just going after this administration.

5:30 Yeah, I think that that's true. But whether they'll spend the next two years doing it, I think, is an open question. Because Democrats also are facing calls for action from their base and their voters. If they hand them the gavel of all these House committees, they're going to want them to do something. And the thread line on all these... cases is essentially allegations of corruption. And with the Epstein cases, it's allegations of a cover-up on the part of the administration, not only the administration, but at the time, the deputy attorney general, now attorney general, who, of course, was previously the president's personal lawyer. And so I think President Trump will enter the final two years

6:06 of his presidency with, you know, obviously questions swirling about how much influence he will retain over the Republican Party. Personally, I think it will be quite a lot of influence for quite some time. But we will see Democrats hammer that contrast jointly with that affordability message. And you're right, their potential trap or the high line that they're sort of walking along is, can they do that in a way that doesn't seem distracting or in a way that doesn't seem like just Washington infighting? Remember, a lot of people are looking at the polls, the most recent ones are basically all bad news for Republicans at this point, with some exceptions, and saying, well, things are going to flip.

6:41 But the Democratic Party's brand is almost as unpopular as Trump.

6:45 Hold on, Josh, on the polling side of this. Yeah. I think Democrats have seen this story before. Oh yeah.

6:50 They were burned in 2016. Correct. Uh, is the polling gotten any better? Like, I mean the house, the house looks gone. Many, many Republicans are saying this aloud, including like Kevin McCarthy.

7:04 Okay. Where is, where will the house be gone? Like where are they going to lose it?

7:08 The polls are signaling right now that we could be tipping on an environment where it starts getting into like really surprising districts, right? The core battlegrounds, the map has shrunk since 2018. I think that's important for people to remember. If the same vote swing that happened in 2018 that ushered Nancy Pelosi back to the speakership, the exact same swing would generate far fewer actual seats flipping. But it's looking like it could be more of a swing. And again, it can go either way. The polls have been wrong in both directions in the past. But if If this is a case where potentially polls are undersampling Republicans, and then in particular the Senate is probably much less likely to flip and will be the firewall that Republicans hope

7:44 it will be, if polls are undersampling Democrats, then a lot of these gerrymanders and districts were redrawn in an environment where you kind of assumed that a 10-point district is safe. It doesn't seem like a 10-point district is safe. The president, for instance, just announced another trip to South Carolina where it looks like that Senate race is very competitive.

8:02 A pair of former governors, one Democrat, one Republican endorsing the Democrat in the Senate race today. And so I think right now it's just like the Republicans are really trying to figure out where they can nail furniture to the ground in some races and just hope that they can hold on in what is becoming just a problematic cycle for them. Again, the Senate. Most people kind of think it's more or less kind of a coin flip.

8:25 David Axelrod and Karl Rove had an event last month or last week, excuse me, where they talked a little bit about it. And Axelrod kind of thought that they would either fall just short, Democrats, of winning the Senate, or they'd win it by a comfortable margin. He kind of sees like a binary issue where either the wave crests and they get a lot of surprise seats, talking about a Kansas or a Texas or a South Carolina, you know, who knows, or it doesn't or just falls just short of that. And then remember, in the Senate, the Democrats need to net four seats each. To flip the chamber, the path is basically North Carolina, then holding Georgia and Michigan. And then it's like, where are the other three? It's some combination for Democrats of Ohio, Alaska,

9:03 maybe Iowa, maybe Maine, maybe Kansas, maybe Texas, maybe South Carolina, maybe, you know, something really surprising beyond that.

9:10 Josh, I want to go back to Epstein for a moment because I do think about the issues.

9:15 So do Democrats. They want to go back to Epstein.

9:18 But I think about the Republicans came back to the White House with a plan. And I'm curious if the Democrats do have some comprehensive plan about thinking about what they want to do for their constituents and so on.

9:31 Where is the Democrat Project 2029?

9:33 Kind of.

9:34 Is there a plan?

9:35 There is no Democratic Project 2029 as of now. And part of the reason is because when Donald Trump was preparing all these sort of pre-made dinners to stock in the freezer that they could roll out on day one, they had one candidate they were preparing for and a team they knew, right? Democrats don't have that luxury right now.

9:51 They could have 25 or more people running for the presidency.

9:55 But when did the Republicans have that? When did they coalesce around the president in 2020? of this election, the 2024 election?

10:02 The people that were preparing the president never left him, right? It was a small group led by Stephen Miller. So the president had loyalists who were preparing a plan for basically the minute they left office in 2021. Right. So, of course, that isn't happening now. But Democrats do have buckets of stuff that they'll agree on, whether the nominee is more on the moderate side or more on the progressive side or someone who's trying to bridge those camps.

10:23 But basically their hands are tied. They will have off-the-shelf options, I assume, from an allied group. But the stars align for Trump to be prepared on day one in a way that is, I think, probably unlikely for Democrats for just a range of reasons, including that they just continue to be in a conversation of which direction the party is headed in right now. Name me the most prominent Democrat right now, other than Barack Obama, who, of course, won't be running. It's like you get 20 different answers if you ask 20 different people.