Reports on Trump's ties to Jeffrey Epstein cast awkward shadow over media dinner

I just want to talk about one of the most awkward moments of this dinner so far, but it perfectly exposes exactly who Donald Trump is. As if we needed more evidence, we've all been talking about this. It happened when the White House Correspondents Association awarded the Catherine Graham Award for courage and accountability to the two Wall Street Journal reporters who broke the biggest story of 2025. Jeffrey Epstein's friends sent him body letters for a 50th birthday album. One was from Donald Trump. That was the headline of that story. The exclusive reporting noted that the 2003 birthday book was compiled by Ghislaine Maxwell, now serving time in federal prison after being convicted of sex trafficking minors. It reported on the extremely weird letter from Trump to Epstein saying, it contains several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand drawn with a heavy marker. A pair of small arcs denotes the woman's breasts and the future president's signature is a squiggly Donald below her waist, mimicking pubic hair. Inside the outline of the naked woman was a typewritten note styled as an imaginary conversation between Trump and Epstein written in the third person. A conversation that had Donald Trump saying to Jeffrey Epstein, may every day be another wonderful secret. Now Trump claimed the letter was fake and sued the Wall Street Journal. That lawsuit was tossed once already, but Trump is suing the journal again. And once again, the Wall Street Journal has asked for a dismissal. Reporters Khadija Safdar and Joe Palazzolo broke that story. They were honored along with six of their colleagues who reported on the fallout inside the White House. Wolf Blitzer giving out the word noted that Khadija Safdar's family had to be relocated due to safety concerns after that story became, because Donald Trump's lawsuit exposed her home address. Just to give you just a sense of the threats people are facing. And Trump smirked. He smirked and he shrugged. I want you to know, remind you of all the backstory, but watch it for yourself. The Catherine Graham award for courage and accountability named for the legendary Washington Post publisher. And it comes with a prize of $10,000. This year's award goes to the Wall Street Journal. The journal's courageous reporting on president Trump's past relationship with financier Jeffrey Epstein triggered the release so-called Epstein files, thousands of documents that might otherwise have remained hidden from the public. And despite the president's threat of a lawsuit, the journal published a story about a provocative letter to Epstein bearing president Trump's signature. Trump quickly filed a $20 billion lawsuit against the journal, revealing reporter Khadija Safdar's home address. Her family had to be relocated. The journal was kicked off of Air Force One, but the reporters continue to file revelatory stories. Please welcome the winners of the Catherine Graham award from the Wall Street Journal. Khadija Safdar, Sadie German, Alex Leary, Rebecca Ballhouse, and Raleigh Joe Talasolo could not attend tonight. Okay. Despite Donald Trump, as we just showed you smirking as Wolf Blitzer was reading the detail about Khadija Safdar's home, the address being released and her family having to be relocated. He literally smirked during that moment, which we had not seen before. I had not seen before. We'd only seen the shaking of the hands, but despite that, she still shook his hand. She can take professional satisfaction in the fact that everything that was just said in that commendation about her reporting was true because she and her colleagues who broke that news last July set up a race by Democrats on the oversight committee spearheaded by our next guest Ro Khanna to obtain the birthday book with that creepy, creepy, creepy card. Donald Trump claims he did not write from the Epstein estate, which they did in early September. And by November, the Epstein Transparency Act had become law with strong bipartisan support, including a unanimous vote in the Senate, forcing Donald Trump to sign it and the Epstein files to be released, which in the hands of Donald Trump's DOJ and Attorney General nominee Todd Blanch is where the momentum has stalled. That is where we are. But the origin of this is definitely rooted in that story a lot. Joining us now is California Congressman Ro Khanna, a member of the House Oversight Committee. First of all, given how steeped you have been in trying to get justice for these survivors and pushing the administration for information as you watched that moment of Donald Trump smirking, what went through your head? These journalists made history. Donald Trump can't take that away from them. We would never have had the momentum to subpoena the Epstein estate if it wasn't for their reporting. The Epstein Files Act would never have passed if it weren't for their reporting. They put the survivors front and center. They gave us the idea of subpoenaing the estate. And look, they basically started the unraveling of the Trump presidency. So he can smirk, but he's at 32 percent and has lost even his MAGA base on this issue. Yeah, he has. It's interesting places where he once had was in much stronger footing. This is one of them. The economy is another one. Immigration is another one. It's you know, all of this. I like to I've been talking about the backdrops of this speech today because I think it's important to remind people. And one of them is the the hurdle to Todd Blanche's confirmation for attorney general. There should be a lot of hurdles. There are a lot of hurdles. I mean, there's two senators who are the hurdles currently. But this should be one of the hurdles. I mean, given how the Department of Justice under his leadership has really failed to comply here, give us a sense. We talk about this a lot. But again, this is an opportunity and a moment to remind people of how difficult they've been in implementing and working with really on this. Jim, when we started this, it was nothing to do with Donald Trump. We were working with Marjorie Taylor Greene and Nancy Mace. It was all about the survivors. And they thought certainly Donald Trump, who had campaigned on releasing the Epstein files, would release the Epstein files. But while there have been prosecutions around the world, former princes, former prime ministers, former ambassadors, there has not been a single investigation or prosecution here in the United States, even though in those files are the names of people whose survivors will tell you rape them, abuse them, traffic them. This is not exaggeration. These survivors are saying that not a single investigation. And they still have three million files that they haven't released, even though a federal judge, because of Katie Fang's effort, has found that that's in violation of the Epstein Transparency Act. And the person most responsible, other than Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, is Todd Blanche. And he's coming and he's asking the American people to put him as attorney general. That would be a slap in the face of the survivors. And it would be the slap in the face of the democratic process. Let me ask you kind of we've been talking about this a little bit, like why Donald Trump is at this dinner, what hit, what is what is going on inside his head right now? I mean, I think the man is in the low 30s in polling. If you look across the country, he's at 28 percent in a recent poll on the economy. He's underwater on all sorts of issues. He wants people to like him. What do you think this is all about tonight? I think it's self-indulgent. I mean, I was in the green room hearing him go on and on and on about this wrestling match and and fighting ultimate fighting match in the White House. And it's just someone rambling. You know, it's someone who is understands he's unpopular, who understands he's kind of towards the end of his career. And he's almost like fighting to be relevant, fighting to still have the stage, seeing it slip away from him. You know, even I say even The Apprentice only ran 13 years, 13 years. You know, Trump is approaching a time where he's become a bore more than a fascist or something. You can't be a bore in America. And his his act is is is no longer connecting. And I think he gets that. I think he understands that he's desperate to be the center of attention. I mean, you know this. He will trash the press, but he'll court the press. He's desperate to be written about. And he'll call bookers. I mean, he'll call bookers to get on TV himself. And so it he sees himself slipping from center stage. We're just over, as I think everybody watching knows, three months from an election. If Democrats win back the House, which certainly they seem very well positioned to do, maybe even the Senate. What does that look like in terms of what can happen on further pressing to implement this law that the Department of Justice is refusing to do? First of all, the Democrats are more unified, more energized than I've ever seen us. And you see that energy every week in the Hakeem's leadership meetings. But we will require and demand the full release of the files. We will have criminal referrals under Robert Garcia's leadership on oversight of people who should face prosecution. We will actually have the survivors come and testify. Can you imagine they have not had the survivors testified to the American public? So we will get transparency here. But we're also going to have a day one agenda. Hakeem talks about first hundred days, first hundred hours where we're going to actually start tackling child care costs, health care costs, cost of living. It's going to be an ambitious agenda to turn things around and improve people's lives. And people are seeing it. That's why they start. They're starting to trust Democrats more on the economy. One of the topics that you talk about a lot, but doesn't get nearly enough attention is, of course, Ghislaine Maxwell's status. And Todd Blanche has been obviously you're in the House, not the Senate. But in these hearings, I mean, he's been completely disingenuous in answering questions on that on that topic, as he has been in general. Where does that all stand? What should people understand about the big questions? It's obviously her prison transfer is a big question. Why Todd Blanche was the one interviewing her. What else is on your mind at this point in time? Our oversight committee in a bipartisan way went down to see where she was in prison. And they described it as being on a college campus. I mean, she's getting the most lenient treatment where she gets hours to exercise and basically the easiest and best accommodations. So why does this matter? When you talk to the survivors, they're as angry at Ghislaine Maxwell as they are on Epstein. They view her as someone who abused them, who facilitated that abuse. And to see someone like that not have repercussions, it drives people crazy. It's this elite impunity, this sense that there's a different set of laws for people, if you know the president, if you know the president's lawyers, and it gets at this sense of unfairness in the system. Trump ran against all of this. He said, I'm going to actually blow up a system that's not working for you. And he's become part of that system.