VIVIAN SALAMA: For months, the White House has been doing somersaults, trying to distract from what has now become a scandal so combustible that it's creating fissures within the Republican Party.

A small but powerful group of otherwise Trump loyalists is siding with Democrats demanding the release of files that may offer greater transparency into the influence and connections of the late sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein.

And speaking of fissures, Democrats are wrestling with their own, between the moderate senators who brokered the deal to end the government shutdown and the progressive wing of the party, which hope to hold the line.

Joining me tonight to discuss this and more, Natalie Andrews is a White House correspondent at The Wall Street Journal, Nancy Cordes is chief White House correspondent for CBS News, Andrew Desiderio is a senior Congressional reporter for Punch Bowl news, and Jeff Mason is White House correspondent for Reuters.

Thank you all for joining me so much.

It was quite an eventful week, definitely.

Natalie, I want to start with you.

The House Oversight Committee released thousands of documents related to the Jeffrey Epstein on Wednesday.

Democrats first released three and House Republicans then followed and released a larger tranche.

Can you tell us a little bit about what these new emails reveal, obviously, something the White House has not wanted to touch for a while and a scandal that continues to kind of overshadow a lot of their messaging?

NATALIE ANDREWS, White House Correspondent, The Wall Street Journal: Primarily, it's the Donald Trump's name is in them, right?

This is something that he's tried to distance himself from.

And with the release of documents with his name, with his associates, you really can't distance yourself from this growing issue anymore.

You're right there.

And then also in the documents, we saw names of many other people and we saw really how Jeffrey Epstein communicated with these people in a revealing way for someone who's, you know, past -- we don't really understand his relationships with a lot of people and the documents gave us insight into that.

VIVIAN SALAMA: Definitely important to mention that just because people are mentioned in these documents, it doesn't mean that there was any wrongdoing.

But still, Jeff, the White House has been trying to bury this story for months now, and genuinely would've preferred that President Trump's name doesn't appear anywhere, even if there is no immediate suspicion of wrongdoing.

So, tell us how has the White House been acting in the last two or three days.

JEFF MASON, White House Correspondent, Reuters: Defensive I think is a fair way to, to describe it.

The White House was very unhappy with the fact that this became the story in a week when they actually see it as a pretty big success, that the shutdown has ended, and that the Republicans had stuck together, and that Democrats ended up - - or at least some Democrats ended up folding.

And then at the first briefing that Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary has, the first second after the shutdown is on its way to ending, most of the questions, or at least at the beginning of the briefing were all about Jeffrey Epstein.

VIVIAN SALAMA: I mean, she actually had that briefing scheduled and then the emails dropped that morning.

She got hammered.

MASON: Yes, she did.

And she called it a Democratic hoax, which is in line with how the president has described this entire affair.

She accused the media of sort of giving oxygen to the story.

But it's not going away, and in part it's not going away because it's not just Democrats who are interested.

It's his base.

It's the president's base.

And I think it's worth reminding everyone that it's President Trump who, on the campaign trail, promised to get all of these documents released.

And as a result of him promising that and others within his orbit saying, hey, this stuff is going to come out, that created a lot of expectation from his supporters that these documents would come out, and that there was really something interesting inside them.

And now they're not delivering it, and that is hurting him politically with a group of people that normally are willing to forgive nearly anything he says or does.

VIVIAN SALAMA: A lot to unpack as far as the response within his own party.

But first, Nancy, President Trump reacted on Friday to these emails finally coming out.

He took to Truth Social saying that he would ask attorney General Pam Bondi and the Department of Justice together with great patriots at the FBI to investigate Jeffrey Epstein's involvement in relationship with a number of people.

He listed them, Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, Reid Hoffman, and other organizations as well.

I want to since mention he has actually said that he did ask the attorney general to launch an investigation.

So, you know, this is not the first time we've seen the president go after his opponents on a number of issues, but is there anything here to these particular individuals and organizations?

NANCY CORDES, Chief White House Correspondent, CBS News: Well, just a few months ago.

The DOJ and FBI said there wasn't.

In fact, they announced back in July that there was no evidence to investigate anyone else linked to Jeffrey Epstein.

And now, today, just a couple of hours after President Trump posted that he wanted his attorney general and the FBI to look into these particular individuals, all Democrats, or, you know, people with ties to Democrats, immediately, the attorney general said, yes, thank you, Mr.

President.

We will do so.

We will conduct an investigation.

She even announced that it was going to be conducted by the U.S.

attorney of the Southern District of New York.

So, this is another case of President Trump saying, I would like my Justice Department to investigate someone who I view as a foe or someone from the opposing party and his DOJ doing it, which we've gotten used to in this administration.

But it's important to note that this is something that presidents from both parties always strove to avoid, even the appearance that they were trying to influence the Justice Department and the judicial branch.

And it's just a very different situation under Trump.

VIVIAN SALAMA: I mean, the suspicion among observers is that she's probably just being a loyal soldier, not necessarily that she knows something or the president knows something that others don't.

NANCY CORDES: There's no indication, right, that there's anything new that has arisen about these individuals who are mentioned in the documents, in the emails, just like President Trump is, because they had, you know, conversations with Jeffrey Epstein.

But as with President Trump, there's nothing in these emails that the House Oversight Committee got from the Epstein estate that sheds any new light on any kind of criminal behavior that we didn't know about before.

So, you know, and the president in his request to DOJ, basically said, hey, I want you to look at the Democrats.

Don't look at me.

In fact, he called it the Epstein hoax.

So, on one hand he's saying, this is all a hoax, there's nothing to see here, and then on the other hand, he's saying, well, maybe it isn't a hoax, maybe you need to investigate.

JEFF MASON: It's a hoax if it investigated him, right, try to move attention elsewhere.

VIVIAN SALAMA: All of this into consideration, Andrew, now looking ahead, Speaker Mike Johnson said that he is going to hear a vote on what they're calling the discharge petition to compel basically a vote to compel the Department of Justice to release the remainder of the files.

Interestingly enough, this discharge petition has garnered support from a number of Republicans, Republicans that were MAGA devotees, you know, for lack of a better term.

So, can you tell folks who haven't been following closely, who are these people and where does that stand?

ANDREW DESIDERIO, Senior Congressional Reporter, Punchbowl News: Well, it's interesting because you mentioned at the beginning that these are otherwise very fierce Trump allies ever since it was announced that the discharge petition got the requisite votes to come to the floor.

Other Republicans, like Andy Biggs, for example, right, a Republican from Arizona, a very fierce ally of Donald Trump, announced that they would actually support the bill on the floor when it comes to a vote, which is going to be probably on Tuesday.

At this point, it's a free vote, essentially, because we already know it has the votes to pass because it has a majority of signatures on a majority of members of the House.

But there is some frustration at how Republican leaders have handled this.

Jeff, you were talking about how on, you know, on Wednesday, the day the shutdown was ending, the White House wanted to talk about that.

They wanted to talk about the fact that they felt like they had just scored a victory against Democrats, and then what did they have to talk about?

Jeffrey Epstein, right?

But it wasn't just because of the emails that came out.

It was because the new member from Arizona, Adelita Grijalva, was sworn in.

Speaker Johnson had held out for almost two months on swearing her in.

He could have done that much earlier.

The storyline would've been, okay, she's the 218th signature.

It now has a majority.

Next time the House is in session, you know, that's when this vote is going to happen.

But instead, that is actually what triggered this becoming a story once again when the House finally came back into session because Speaker Johnson kept them out of session for so long.

And I will say there is some Republican frustration at James Comer as well.

He's the chairman of the House Oversight Committee.

He essentially tried to dissuade Republicans from signing this discharge petition by saying, okay, we, the Oversight Committee, are going to try to get some of these documents.

Well, these documents that got released on Wednesday that Democrats released came from that very effort that James Comer, as the chairman of the committee, initiated.

So, a lot of Republicans feel like their leadership hasn't handled this issue very well.

They could have gotten past it sooner.

Again, this effort is going to die when it gets to the Senate anyway.

And now we're going to be talking about it for longer.

VIVIAN SALAMA: I mean, Natalie, Andrew says, this is inevitably going to pass in the House.

So then what happens?

Does the Senate take this up?

How does it work from there?

NATALIE ANDREWS: Probably not.

So, it will probably come up in discussions with reporters with Senate Republican leadership.

Thune, the Senate majority leader, will certainly be asked about it, but it's not in his best interest, right, to put every Republican senator on record voting how they feel about this issue.

It's dicey.

That's why a lot of Republicans in the House don't want to have to take this vote next week.

They don't want to go on record saying they don't want to see -- like how do you game that out, right?

I don't want to see the files, but wait, now Donald Trump's talking about the Democrats, so maybe I do.

But senators will be asked about it.

They may try to U.C.

(ph) it.

Democrats may try to put it on the floor and try to pass it by unanimous consent.

A Republican ally of Trump will surely object to that and turn it down, so it's not likely to go further.

NANCY CORDES: But I think this dynamic that Andrew and Natalie are describing is what really set President Trump off.

And what made him so mad that he called on DOJ to start investigating Democratic friends of Jeffrey Epstein's because it was one thing when it was just these four House Republicans signing on to this discharge petition.

But now you've got all these other House Republicans saying, well, yes, I'll vote for it if it comes up for a vote next week.

I want to see the Epstein files released, or my constituents want to see them released, and President Trump sees that as disloyalty, even though they don't necessarily want to see the Epstein files because of him.

You know, they've all argued, well, if he's got nothing to hide, then why does he care if the Epstein files get released or not?

They want them released because this is something that is important to their base.

ANDREW DESIDERIO: It's a bad vote to vote against transparency, essentially, right?

And you could see a jailbreak of Republicans as a result.

But, again, it only took those four to get it actually to the floor because you're bypassing the speaker.

NATALIE ANDREWS: And like this is an issue that's been a low-level simmer in Republican circles during the Biden administration.

And I don't know if the whole world necessarily realize that, but a lot of folks that are constituents in these Republican districts, they want to see them.

VIVIAN SALAMA: I mean, what does this say ultimately for what's going, I mean, we're talking about Marjorie Taylor Greene as one of them.

I'm old enough to remember Marjorie Taylor Greene wearing a make America great again hat during President Biden's, you know, speech and in Congress.

And now, you know, she is speaking out against President Trump.

But someone who has actually gotten more attention this week is Lauren Boebert, the Republican from Colorado, White House reaching out to her in particular, Jeff.

What was going on there?

JEFF MASON: So, the reporting was that she was meeting with the White House because they were trying to talk her out of putting her name onto that discharge petition.

She said that she didn't feel pressure and the White House's interpretation of that at the briefing that we've already mentioned was this is about transparency.

Isn't it good that the White House is giving members of Congress briefings whenever they want?

But you can do the math about why you would bring somebody into the White House to talk about this, and that's clearly why into the Situation Room.

NATALIE ANDREWS: With Pam Bondi and Kash Patel.

NANCY CORDES: Which is not normally where you'd have these kinds of political conversations.

NATALIE ANDREWS: Yes.

JEFF MASON: Indeed.

NANCY CORDES: But it's a little intimidating, right?

JEFF MASON: Probably intended that way for.

NATALIE ANDREWS: Yes.

JEFF MASON: And I think to the broader point of your question too, Vivian, is these are lawmakers who are super big supporters of President Trump and of the MAGA movement, but, no doubt, also wanting to stick around post-Trump 2.0.

And he's not a lame duck yet, but the president only has three only, three-ish years, three-plus years left in office.

These are people who want to stick around longer than that.

And their base, his base, cares about this and so they're not letting it go.

VIVIAN SALAMA: This is certainly something that we're going to continue to watch in the days to come