There could be major changes happening to the White House very soon in terms of who is leading the Trump administration's operation. And part of the reason is the Epstein files. Today, major new legislation has been introduced concerning the Epstein files. There's growing concern inside the White House right now that the current folks in and around the president are not up to task if and when Democrats take over in November, as the Epstein investigation is continuing to cloud this White House and cloud this president.
Now, I have gotten messages from folks saying you talk about Epstein too much. I do want to just do a quick disclaimer. I am not going to stop talking about Jeffrey Epstein and the Epstein files because the investigations cannot stop until the survivors get justice. And well, we have some big updates for you right now, including a former Republican congressman who was just hit with a significant sex trafficking lawsuit. I speak with Oregon Governor Tina Kotek in this interview and more. Make sure if you can, subscribe, support this work as we continue to stay on the Epstein beat when no one else will. Like, comment, share.
And let's jump right into it right now because inside the White House there is growing concern that the Epstein files are not going away. That well, there has been a brief lull now that Todd Blanche has taken over at the Department of Justice, Congress is out of session. We are in peak election mode with the election literally just 20 days away, less than 20 days away now.
The White House is realizing that if Democrats take over, and regardless of whether Democrats take over in the House, Republicans are also pledging to continue the Epstein investigation. And if Democrats take over, what that means for this president is increased scrutiny, more subpoenas, more investigations, and ultimately the release of things that he probably does not want getting out there.
Some of the people he's trying to protect, including those at major banks. We're going to talk about that momentarily, but because of this cloudiness around the White House, there could be big changes coming soon. One of those changes: Susie Wiles, the White House Chief of Staff, may be on her way out, and Donald Trump has already started calling around to folks asking about potential replacements, from a New York Yankees executive, Randy Levine, to White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller. And the knives are out for Susie Wiles, but one of the reasons why, based on what I understand, is the handling of the Epstein files and whether or not this White House is up to task for Trump to be investigated moving forward. Take a listen to what political reporters had to say about Susie Wiles today.
We know the president does have the habit of calling up friends to ask what they think about his advisers and whether he should consider making changes. And Susie Wiles is the latest person in that line of questioning. Now, the reason that this is pretty remarkable is, first of all, given the backdrop that we're in right now of Republicans fighting for their lives in the midterms and some of the recent reporting around Susie's allies and her outside political operation. But it's also remarkable because, as one senior elected Republican put it to me, this is the first time that the president is asking honest questions about Susie and even floating potential names to take her place.
Yeah, and one person close to the president told me, he put it this way: it's starting to feel a lot like Trump won. And I think, you know, as you said in our intro, I think the sharks are circling, there's blood in the water. We have reporting in the newsletter this morning that those reports that came out a week or so ago about James Blair, Chris Lasavita, top allies of Susie Wiles, their foreign kind of lobbying work, those headlines really irked the president. And then the follow-up headline about Susie Wiles's daughter, Katie Wiles, also being involved there. You know, we have reporting this morning that a lot of those sharks, all of those folks that have it out for the chief of staff, were really making sure that the president saw those headlines, and it ended up really frustrating him. And you know, what we're learning is he has been calling around and asking, you know, what do folks think about...
He has been calling around. He's been asking about possibly replacing Susie Wiles. One of the reasons why are the Epstein files. There is growing concern over the Epstein files in and around the Trump White House, and even Republicans are acknowledging it right now. Republicans on Capitol Hill realize that the Epstein files issue is a major one for them. So much so that you literally have them running ads claiming that they supported the release of the Epstein files when they didn't. Take Ashley Hinson, for example. She's running for Senate in Iowa. This is the latest ad she's releasing to voters.
This week I had to explain to my boys, no, mom does not protect pedophiles. Josh Turk is lying and he knows it. Of course I voted to release the Epstein files and spent years working across the aisle to protect survivors of sexual abuse. Men like Epstein who hurt children, they'll have to answer to God. But men who lie about it to win an election, they'll have to answer to you. I'm Ashley Hinson, and...
So that's from Ashley Hinson. Now why is that interesting to me? Well, Ashley Hinson is one of the Republicans who refused to sign on to the Epstein files discharge petition. This is directly... Twitter came in clutch. They said, 'Hinson voted yes on the final Epstein Files Transparency Act but did not sign a discharge petition. She only voted to release the Epstein files when it was politically expedient for her, when everyone in the House of Representatives except Clay Higgins voted to release the Epstein files.' So they know that this is a dead issue for them politically. The White House knows it is not a good issue for them heading into 2026.
And there is new legislation now introduced today by several members of Congress, Republican and Democrat: the Epstein Wall Street Records Act. It would require financial regulators, including the Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Securities and Exchange Commission, to disclose supervisory records related to Epstein and his associates to members of Congress and the American people. It would force the financial regulators to investigate Epstein-connected banks and executives for possible banking, securities, or illicit financing violations. It would mandate industry bars and civil penalties for executives who assisted Epstein's financial operations, as well as potential referrals for criminal violations to the Department of Justice, and more.
And today comes as two women have now filed a federal civil lawsuit accusing former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz and two others of participating in a federal sex trafficking scheme involving young women, drugs, and traveling across state lines. These allegations are serious and very significant, especially given the fact that Gaetz was nearly the Attorney General of the United States of America.
The 33-page complaint filed today in the Middle District of Florida, the court where I served as a law clerk for a judge there, details how the former congressman used two of his former friends to coordinate the recruitment of young women whom they supplied with drugs in order to facilitate sexual encounters, according to the lawsuit. One Jane Doe was 20, the other Jane Doe was 22 when they were introduced to Gaetz in the summer of 2017. Both of the women said they had no stable income when they were recruited by Greenberg, who is now serving an 11-year prison sentence for pleading guilty to sex trafficking of a minor.
So, lots of stuff happening right now. I spoke with Oregon Governor Tina Kotek about where things stand in her state heading into the midterms. You won't want to miss that. Make sure to subscribe to support this work if you can. Like, comment, share my conversation with the governor. Excited today to be joined by Oregon Governor Tina Kotek. Now Governor, I got to jump right in because you are running for re-election. Why should voters give you another four years?
Well, I think there's two reasons. One, we're making progress here in Oregon on some very tough issues, but it is slow and we have to keep going. So that momentum is important. And it's important to have a governor, as you know, across this country standing up to the Trump administration every single day. The Trump administration sends us a missive or directive on things they want, and so I have to decide how I'm going to protect our state every single day. We're going to go to court. We're going to say no. We're going to put things off. Here's the thing: governors are the front line right now to making sure states are not hurt. The Trump administration doesn't care who gets hurt by their policies, and governors have to stand up. And so I need to be here for at least two more years to make sure our state does not get hurt.
I do got to ask you because I've gotten some questions from folks in Oregon who say, well, I'm a Democrat. I really don't like what Trump is doing nationally, but I'm a little worried about the direction of our state. Why do you think your race is closer than say other gubernatorial races across the country?
I think Oregon is always very purple, and I think other parts of the country don't necessarily see that. We have large urban areas and a lot of rural parts of our state. We're a big state, and a lot of people are registered to vote because we believe in democracy, and we have mail-in ballots here. And so a lot of engagement, a lot of discussion. I will say that economically, it's been hard in the last year or so because we are a very trade-dependent state. And so Trump's tariff taxes have really impacted... Our businesses have paid $3 billion in tariffs since his tariff chaos started, and that has affected our ability to grow and expand economically. We are a manufacturing state. We grow a lot of products that we, you know, sell overseas. So that strain on our economy is all, I think, people are feeling it. They feel the uncertainty, and a lot of that is driven by what President Trump is doing.
You recently signed an executive order to protect healthcare access, warning that federal changes could pull billions of dollars out of Oregon's healthcare system by 2031. What does that mean for an ordinary Oregon family, and what's the single most important thing your order does today?
Well, one in three Oregon residents receive their health insurance through the Oregon Health Plan, which is our Medicaid program. And so the big ugly bill that was passed will take billions out of healthcare across the state of Oregon. So what my job is, is to make sure we can continue to cover people with the best benefits possible, because when people don't have insurance, when they are not covered and don't seek care, the expense goes to everyone. So you might be covered, but if someone is uncovered, that cost to the entire healthcare system will go up. And so what we're doing right now is pushing back. I led a governor's sign-on letter to the Trump administration about these work requirements around Medicaid. Look, if we're going to have changes, you have to give us time to implement them. Their goal is just to kick a lot of people off health insurance, and that is bad not only for Oregon but other places. So healthcare and affordable healthcare is a really big issue in this campaign as well as just right now for everyone because prices are going up. We're pushing back on insurance rate hikes, but what the Trump administration has done in terms of the exchange and Medicaid, it has caused a lot of chaos in healthcare, and we're feeling it here. And I know people are concerned. That's why I issued an executive order. We have to focus on primary care, getting the cost of drugs down, because we're going to do everything we can while we're getting a lot of, you know, bad stuff coming from DC.
