A lot of back fighting' between Bondi and Patel over Epstein files fallout

Joining us now MSNBC senior legal reporter Lisa Rubin, MSNBC White House reporter Laura Baron Lopez, Baron Lopez excuse me, and Punchbowl co-founder and MSNBC political analyst Jake Sherman. All right so I want to begin with you Jake on what's happening on Capitol Hill. How significant is this release? What is the expectation? The release is huge. I mean it's it's remarkable in a few in a few respects Katie. Number one this is a House controlled by Republicans and a committee controlled by Republicans unearthed all these emails. Like let's just let's just start with that. There's a reason that a political reason, I'm not saying it's a good or it's a good governance reason, there's a political reason that leadership usually keeps a because they want them to to execute an agenda that they agree with. But James Comer who's the chair of this committee has clearly unearthed emails that are at least embarrassing at least embarrassing for Donald Trump. That's number one. Number two this discharge petition is going to come to the floor next week. I agree it's going to there there's probably going to be a jailbreak of Republicans who vote for this because they don't want to be seen as voting against a release of documents by by Jeffrey Epstein. I had Tom Emmer on our show fly out day this morning and he said he doesn't care. He doesn't care how many people vote how many Republicans vote for this. I don't know that that's true but I do think I'll put my my analysis hat on now. I think the White House and the House Republican leadership made a bigger deal of this discharge petition than they needed to. This discharge petition once it passes the House, which it will, it's not like the documents are going to become are going to come flying out of the Justice Department. This still needs to pass the Senate. There's no sense it's even going to get a vote in the Senate. That's number one. Then Donald Trump needs to sign it. Donald Trump is not going to sign this thing. And then if he vetoes it the House and the Senate then have to overturn the veto. That's not going to happen. And then still even if even if this gets into law the Justice Department still has relatively wide berth on what it can and can and will and will not release under the terms of this prospective law. So I think politically they just made a way bigger deal of this thing than they needed to. Yeah but how much pressure are I mean Donald Trump signing it or not signing it I'll get into that with LBL. But the Senate I mean you say the Republicans there's going to be a jailbreak in the House. How are Republicans in the Senate going to feel if it gets to them and and and I mean how do they feel if John Thune never brings it to the floor. How do they feel if John Thune does bring it to the floor and then they have to put their name on a vote. Yeah remember a couple I think it was a couple months ago Chuck Schumer forced to vote a similar vote in the Senate and Republicans all voted it down so or mostly voted it down. So I they seem to be quite comfortable in voting against. So what is it why is it so different in the House? The House is a different beast Katie. I mean these are people who are elected every two years. Yeah I guess I guess you're right. I'm just trying to think of the Epstein pressure and the demand for the release of all this information and you know what exactly he was doing who knew if it is as loud as it is so much so it's going to force House Republicans to vote. Why would it not force the Senate Republicans? I mean there are some of them who are up for Yeah I would say number one I think they just they have a stiffer spine. I think that's that could be one of the cases and and they think and listen it is true that tons of documents are coming out. We now see that right. I mean it's they have if you're looking at looking at it excuse me from a pure political lens it does seem that documents are coming out which gives Republicans a place to quote unquote hide. Like why do we need this if we're getting all these documents and some of them as you were noting in the beginning are quite embarrassing to President Trump. I mean they are there they they reveal things that we did not know what I mean emails tend to about the relationship between Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump. I mean that's the basic reality of it. Yeah all right so Laura tell me about the president. If he does he see any risk does the White House see any risk in him signing a veto if it gets to him? Oh I think they would certainly see a lot of risk in that Katie. I mean right now there's a bit of a sense of inevitability here at the White House which is that look the president tried yesterday it was a last ditch last minute effort bringing Lauren Boebert the congresswoman into the Situation Room no less and I think everyone knows that the Situation Room doesn't allow phones so she would have had no ability to really record that conversation had she wanted to. But bringing them in bringing her in talking to other ones who had signed on to the discharge petition to try to get them to to take their names off of it and it didn't work and so I think that right now the White House is regrouping and trying to figure out what exactly they're going to do ahead of this vote if the president is going to do anything beyond posting on True Social. The last we've heard of him on this and the only things that we've heard from him are on True Social and he posted about some 24 hours ago calling it quote the Jeffrey Epstein hoax. Now of course this is a 180 for the president and for all of those across his administration like the Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel who all were calling for the release of these files. But I think that there is a lot of risk here Katie if he were seen to very directly veto something like this especially with his base who we know was really adamant about trying to get these files released. Why are they so nervous about this? Why call Lauren Boebert into this situation room? I think yesterday the White House believed that their best shot at trying to kill this was to get those signatures off the discharge. Yeah but why? Why do they need to kill this? Well why? I mean I think your guess is as good as mine Katie which is that essentially over the campaign trail the president said yeah I think I would do that. I think I'd be willing to release uh the Epstein files. He was never as gung-ho about it as the Kash Patels and Pam Bondis of the world or as uh even his vice president J.D. Vance who called it quote important when he was on uh you know the podcaster Theo Vaughn's podcast uh who's who's one of those big MAGA influencers who was trying to say that he was ultimately disappointed this past summer when the Epstein files hadn't been released. But I think that the reason is because obviously those emails don't look good for the president uh and their base wants this out uh and if more emails reveal at the at the very least as Jake said are embarrassing that could potentially hurt the president uh not just with his base but with independents uh who he's already suffering with for a variety of different reasons. But I was just texting with a Republican lawmaker who said that they plan on voting for this when it comes to the floor next week and I'm sure Jake is getting a lot of texts like this and they said that they have not heard from the White House and they essentially accept the fact that they think that the White House is accepting the fact that the reality is a lot of Republicans are going to potentially vote for this. The lawmaker thought it would be a sizable number and this Republican lawmaker said that they thought that the White House mishandled the entire situation especially at the beginning when the attorney general Pam Bondi brought in all of those influencers I've been talking about all those conservative MAGA influencers and handed them binders saying that they were going to release the Epstein files. So from that point on it has been chaotic and there's been a lot of backbiting uh you know behind closed doors at the White House especially between Bondi and Cash Patel.