VIVIAN SALAMA: Just as President Trump claimed victory ending the longest government shutdown in the nation's history, the release of Jeffrey Epstein's emails reignited the fight within the Republican Party that's now threatening the president's power over the GOP, next.

Good evening and welcome to Washington Week.

I'm Vivian Salama in tonight for Jeffrey Goldberg.

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, but I do want to turn to the government shutdown that is no longer, after 43 days, the longest government shutdown in our nation's history is over and President Trump signed in a bill into law this week to get the government reopened.

It passed because of eight senators, seven Democrats, and an independent, as well as six in the House who broke with their party.

Nancy, many Republicans are now accusing the eight senators in particular who voted with Republicans of betraying the party at the expense of healthcare and other important issues.

Explain that, how that dynamic is playing out.

NANCY CORDES: You know, there is a lot of frustration in the party right now, and it has spilled out into public view.

There are Senate Democrats who feel that, you know, the whole point of this risky enterprise in the first place triggering a shutdown was because, eventually, over time, they felt that they would gain enough leverage over Republicans to force them to negotiate and compromise over Obamacare premium subsidies that are about to expire.

And, yes, the pain was mounting.

Yes, flight delays were mounting.

Yes, SNAP beneficiaries were starting to lose very crucial food assistance, but they felt that, you know, they were getting closer to putting Republicans in a very uncomfortable situation, and that finally Republicans would have to come to the table.

Now, we'll never know if they were right or not because these eight Senate Democrats said that they weren't willing to find out that they felt that the pain was not worth, you know, the possibility of the outcome that they were seeking.

And so they went ahead and negotiated.

They did succeed in putting the issue front and center for the American people.

And polls show that, in the end, everybody kind of gets the blame for a shutdown typically, but other than that, you know, it's not very clear what they gained from allowing the government to stay closed for 40 days or so.

VIVIAN SALAMA: And at the heart of this, Natalie, were Obamacare subsidies that are set to expire, that was part of the holdout.

Where do we stand at this point?

NATALIE ANDREWS: They're still going to expire at the end of the year.

And this is part of the problem with the Congress has been legislating through tax bills that put expiration dates on policy for years.

The Republicans did it.

They did it this year.

Tax on tips has an expiration date, things like that.

So, these subsidies were put in place by Democrats when they had -- when they were in charge in Congress.

They did it the same method that Republicans used to pass their tax bill.

So, it has an expiration date and it's going to hit people are already realizing how much their subsidies or how much their healthcare is increased without those subsidies.

And it does have a trickle effect to people who get their insurance from the private sector, from their employer, because as people's healthcare goes up, they tend to not be on healthcare.

And insurers know that, and hospitals know that, so they charge more.

And if there's no action by the end of the year, then those subsidy -- or then the prices that people see on their healthcare right now will stay in effect.

VIVIAN SALAMA: Andrew, talk to us a little bit about Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

He's gotten a lot of blame from his party, even though he voted no and privately was saying that he didn't feel comfortable moving forward, but he's getting the blame nonetheless.

ANDREW DESIDERIO: I thought it was very interesting that Senator Jeanne Shaheen, who kind of led the aid of them to vote for this and was negotiating with Republicans, she would not pointedly answer the question of did Senator Schumer at least support you sitting down with these Republicans to try to cut a deal, right?

Typically, in the past when we have these crises on Capitol Hill, you would see a gang form, right?

Whether formal or informal, it would be a leader to leader conversation.

Senate Majority leader John Thune realized early on that Chuck Schumer was not going to be part of the solution to this, right?

For his sort of political benefit, Chuck Schumer had to be seen as basically fighting this fight the entire way because of how poorly he managed this back in March.

Now he has bettered his standing a little bit with his caucus.

He's not going to be forced out, right?

There's this, you know, a lot of chatter online about that.

That's not going to happen, right?

The question is, will he be able to be reelected as the Democratic leader for the next Congress?

Those elections will happen after the 2026 midterms.

I do think another element of this is really notable too when it comes to the Democratic split and how much Democrats really have been fighting amongst themselves on this issue.

Senator Shaheen, who I just mentioned, who was leading this effort, she told us earlier this week that on Sunday, when they realized that they had the votes for this, more Democrats than just that eight came to her and said, I'm going to vote for this on the floor.

And then just those eight senators from the Democratic side of the aisle ended up voting for it and it ended up getting exactly 60 votes, right?

So, if there was another Democrat that peeled off the entire deal would've collapsed.

And nobody likes to be that 60th vote when you've cut a deal like this, right, because of the criticism you're going to get.

I think the point Senator Shaheen was underscoring was that so many of them felt, I don't know if bullied is the right word, but they felt like there was so much pressure from the left, from progressives, to hold the line such that so many of them who came to her earlier in the day and said, hey, we're going to actually have 12 to 15 Democrats supporting this ended up peeling off by the time the vote happened and just barely got through.

VIVIAN SALAMA: I read a fascinating statistic this week that the average age of the eight senators who voted to side with Republicans was 70.

ANDREW DESIDERIO: Right.

VIVIAN SALAMA: And, you know, we were talking about the New York City mayoral race and sort of the generational divide in the Democrats who voted for Zohran Mamdani.

Did that play out in this as well?

ANDREW DESIDERIO: Absolutely.

And I think one, one of the biggest trends in the Senate over the last 10 to 15 years has been the hollowing out of the middle, right?

The middle of the Senate, Democrats and Republicans alike, centrists, moderate senators who would be at the table trying to cut a deal, trying to get out of this crisis, right?

That number has whittled down, and it is getting close to non-existent.

Senator Shaheen who led these talks and led this effort to get out of the shutdown, she's not running for reelection next year, right?

She isn't going to be here.

Senator Durbin, the Democratic whip, another one who voted for this deal, he's not going to be here either.

So, you really see that that trend sort of continuing, and I think it's reflected in the fact that, you know, these are older members.

VIVIAN SALAMA: Jeff, the Congressional Budget Office estimates the shutdown cost the nation an estimated $11 billion.

A number of polls that have been taken in the last few days show that Americans care most about things like affordability and healthcare, you know, just being able to take care of their families.

Do you feel like the White House might have underestimated how much blowback they would get?

They worked so hard to pin this on Republicans.

Nancy was just saying both parties ultimately get the blame.

But did they really understand how much blame Republicans would get at the end of the day?

JEFF MASON: Well, we were talking earlier about defensiveness.

They were very defensive on this issue as well.

Both the president and his people were frustrated that all of a sudden the Democrats have had a success on the issue of affordability.

And that was sparked, of course, by the off-year elections the other week, which this week got a little bit less attention, but it still sort of underscoring the fact that is now a strength for Democrats and it's a weakness for Republicans.

And you were asking about the polling.

The polling shows, as Nancy rightly said, that both sides are getting some blame, but more of the blame is going to Republicans than it is to Democrats.

And that's in part because of a perception that President Trump has lost -- I don't want to say lost his way, but lost his focus on the things that he promised he would do on the campaign trail with regard to bringing prices down.

And so we're probably going to see a change in message and a change in a travel schedule as a result from the president and the White House going forward to address that.

NANCY CORDES: Well, and there's the White House attempted messaging and then there's the president's messaging.

JEFF MASON: Yes, not always the same.

NANCY CORDES: And they do sometimes diverge.

Like the president said this week in an interview that he doesn't believe the polls that show that Americans are really concerned about affordability, that actually he doesn't think they are that worried.

And he has been arguing actually groceries are getting cheaper, not more expensive, gas is getting cheaper, not more expensive, and the numbers just don't bear that out.

And so that is contributing to this notion that he is not in touch with exactly what Americans are experiencing right now.

ANDREW DESIDERIO: The talk on the tariffs too on those groceries, right?

That was a sign, kind of an admission that that is a problem, right?

VIVIAN SALAMA: Well, and then sort of in the minute we have left, we're also expecting him to meet with the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman this coming week.

He has been so fixated on these foreign engagements.

He went on two trips during the shutdown, which is very unusual foreign trips, I should say, very unusual for a president to do, has had a number of these high level engagements.

I mean, Natalie, are they not getting the message quite yet?

How do you interpret that?

NATALIE ANDREWS: Donald Trump really loves going to these places where they roll out the red carpet.

It's a big move.

He likes the trade deals.

Even though he could see the reports from his advisers about the cost, tariffs are like Donald Trump's bread and butter.

He talked about doing that every day on the campaign trail.

It's really hard for him to square, I think, the effect with what he always wanted to do.

VIVIAN SALAMA: We're going to have to leave it there, sadly.

So much more to talk about in the future.

Thank you all for joining me.

And thank you at home for watching us.

Before we go, we want to take a moment to congratulate Suzanne Kersey, who's retiring this week after 50 trailblazing years here at WETA.

She's been an extraordinary colleague and mentor helping get Washington Week on the air in a variety of capacities.

Our Friday nights won't be the same without her, though we hope hers are more relaxing.

Thank you, Susanne, for your friendship and for all your incredible contributions to our show and to so many others.

I'm Vivian Salama.

Goodnight from Washington.