Trump team to host Epstein crisis dinner as pressure mounts for transparency: Live

Tonight’s Epstein strategy meeting hosted by Vice President JD Vance comes as the Trump administration considers releasing the contents of Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s interview last month with Ghislaine Maxwell.

Two officials told CNN that the materials from the meeting with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s accomplice could be made public as early as this week.

There have also been internal discussions about Blanche holding a press conference or doing a high-profile interview, and one name that emerged as a possibility was podcaster Joe Rogan, three people familiar with the discussions told CNN. Those conversations are only preliminary at this stage, the network notes.

Rogan, who endorsed President Donald Trump in the 2024 election, has been highly critical of the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein case and previously called their refusal to release more information about Epstein a “line in the sand.”

The podcaster criticized the administration’s handling of information regarding Epstein during a July 25 episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, featuring guest Mike Baker, a former CIA covert operations officer.

“This one’s a line in the sand, because this is one where there’s a lot of stuff about, you know, when we thought Trump was going to come in and a lot of things are going to be resolved, going to drain the swamp, going to figure everything out, and when you have this one hardcore line in the sand that everybody had been talking about forever, and then they’re trying to gaslight you on that,” said Rogan.

Trump supporters grew furious earlier this month when the administration released a memo rejecting conspiracy theories regarding the official ruling on Epstein’s death as being by suicide in a Manhattan jail in August 2019. The memo stated that there was no “client list” and that no more information about the case would be released.

The Epstein files have been the subject of a litany of conspiracy theories, mostly stemming from the right.

Here’s what the Epstein schism could mean for the MAGA base:

The disgraced British socialite and former girlfriend of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was quietly transferred this week from a stricter low-security prison in Tallahassee, Florida, to a prison camp 100 miles outside Houston, Texas.

Maxwell’s new prison mainly houses inmates convicted of “white-collar” crimes and minor offenses, and they are said to be angry about her presence.

Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein who after his death was convicted of sex trafficking girls and young women as his accomplice, is opposing the government’s requests to unseal the grand jury transcripts in her criminal case.

Here’s what has been on President Donald Trump’s mind this morning (in between slapping more tariffs on India and speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky).

He lashed out at Senator Chuck Schumer, calling him and other Democrats “extortionists”:

Politically embattled Senator, Cryin’ Chuck Schumer, wants the Republicans to pay, as EXTORTION, TWO BILLION DOLLARS in order for the Radical Left Democrats to approve the hundreds of Trump Appointments who have been waiting for months, and are raring’ to go. This has never happened before. There has never, in U.S. history, been such a delay. THEY ARE EXTORTIONISTS! Republicans must create legislation in order to get out of the grasp of these Country hating THUGS. Move quickly!!! MAGA

He posted a video of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard discussing her accusations of an attempted “coup” by former President Barack Obama with Laura Ingraham, writing:

Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard: “Obama directed that a National Security Council meeting be called… They were tasked to create an Intelligence Assessment that detailed how Moscow tried to influence the election—not ‘if’—but ‘how’… They knowingly wrote things in this assessment that were false.”

More on that here, as AG Pam Bondi orders a grand jury investigation.

And he proclaimed that he had donated his salary to the White House Historical Association:

I am proud to be the only President (with the possible exception of the Late, Great George Washington) to donate my Salary. My first “Paycheck” went to the White House Historical Association, as we make much needed renovations to the beautiful “People’s House.” Great improvements and beautification is taking place at the White House, at levels not seen since its original creation. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

Earlier, he celebrated his 36 Club Championships in golf:

More context on that below:

The president claimed on Tuesday that he’d only learned about the prison transfer in news reports. Maxwell remains in prison on a 20-year sentence for crimes committed with Jeffrey Epstein, her former boyfriend. Epstein died in federal custody in 2019 while awaiting charges for sex trafficking children.

“I didn’t know about it at all. I read about it just like you did,” Trump told a reporter.

Right-wing media mogul Rupert Murdoch has agreed to give Donald Trump regular health updates in a deal to postpone Murdoch’s deposition in the president’s $10 billion lawsuit over a Wall Street Journal article about a “bawdy” birthday letter Trump allegedly wrote to deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Justin Baragona has the details.

Current and former federal prison workers are reportedly furious that Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell was recently transferred to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas known as “Club Fed” for its relatively relaxed conditions.

Josh Marcus has the story.

High-profile attorney Gloria Allred, who has represented 27 victims of Jeffrey Epstein, will hold a press event at 3 p.m. ET today with one of the survivors of abuse by the late sex offender.

According to an announcement, the victim was the first person to have documented proof that she filed a police report against Jeffrey Epstein in 1997, alleging that he sexually battered her.

At the press conference, the victim will respond for the first time to questions about recent developments, such as:

Allred will discuss what the next step should be to help and protect victims from sexual predators and what positive changes Congress should consider, given the failures of the criminal justice system to protect victims from being preyed upon by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

Judge Richard Berman had given the Trump administration until 12 p.m. ET on Friday to respond to yesterday’s filings by the victims of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell regarding the unsealing of grand jury testimony and accompanying exhibits.

He wants to know to what extent the information included has already been made public and what the government’s position is on unsealing the exhibits in addition to the transcripts.

“The survivors support transparency when it can be achieved without sacrificing their safety, privacy, or dignity,” lawyers for the survivors wrote in a letter to the judge weighing unsealing transcripts from the investigation into Maxwell.

“But transparency cannot come at the expense of the very people whom the justice system is sworn to protect — particularly amid contemporaneous events that magnify risk and trauma: the public platforming of Ms. Maxwell as a purportedly credible commentator despite her sex-trafficking conviction and perjury charges, her transfer to lower-security custody, a government request to unseal filed without conferral, and the looming specter of clemency,” they added.

In his letter to Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party’s 2016 presidential nominee, committee chair James Comer wrote: “Your family appears to have had a close relationship with both Jeffrey Epstein and his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell.”

Joe Sommerlad takes a look at what he’s referring to.