Philip Bump noticed an interesting bit from Trump’s Fox and Friends Weekend interview:
There was an element of the discussion, though, that hasn’t attracted much attention. It centered on a question from Rachel Campos-Duffy, co-host of “Fox & Friends Weekend,” the show on which the interview first aired.
“Americans have lost a lot of trust in institutions, and I think there’s been a lot of discussion, especially online, especially with young people,” Campos-Duffy began. “How do we rebuild that trust in institutions — the CIA, the FBI — all those institutions?”
“You’re right,” Trump replied — but before he could answer, Campos-Duffy jumped ahead.
“Some people think that one way to build trust is to declassify things that everyone’s talking about,” she said. Then she offered a rapid-fire list of things he might be interested in declassifying, putatively to restore trust in institutions.
“Would you declassify the 9/11 files?” she asked, to which Trump replied, “Yeah.”
“Would you declassify JFK files?” she continued, again yielding a “yeah.” But this time, Trump appended: “I did. I did a lot of it.”
This is a good reminder that Trump had the opportunity to declassify this information previously but — particularly in the case of material related to the assassination of John F. Kennedy — didn’t.
“Would you declassify the Epstein files?” Campos-Duffy asked, referring to the disgraced financier who was linked to some prominent Americans.
“Yeah,” Trump replied. “Yeah, I would.”
Next up was a question from host Pete Hegseth … at least in the program that aired. A fuller version of the interview posted on YouTube shows that Trump had more thoughts on Epstein.
“I guess I would,” Trump continued in the YouTube version. “I think that less so because, you know, you don’t know — you don’t want to affect people’s lives if it’s phony stuff in there, because it’s a lot of phony stuff with that whole world.”
Among those who have been linked to Epstein, of course, is former president Donald Trump. No wonder he’s cautious about reminding Campos-Duffy that, hey, if you declassify things, some people might get the wrong impression.
“Do you think that would restore trust? Help restore trust?” Campos-Duffy asked.
“I don’t know about Epstein so much as I do the others,” Trump responded.
Gosh, I wonder why he doesn’t want to release the Epstein stuff? “Phony stuff” huh? Really? How would he know?
The piece by Bump is about trump sowing mistrust in institutions and it’s really on point. This is just one of the examples he used. But I find it very, very interesting that Trump is willing to spill the beans about everything in the US Government (including, as we know, plans to attack Iran and nuclear secrets) but he thinks maybe the Epstein stuff should be kept under wraps. I don’t suppose it has anything to do with the fact that most famous of Epstein’s victims, Virginia Giuffre was recruited for sex trefficking from her place of employment: Mar-a-Lago.
Nah.