00:00As politicians go on their summer break, President Donald Trump really wants the focus to be on a successful first six months.
00:09He wants to highlight major accomplishments, such as his big trade deals and his big, beautiful bill.
00:17But the Epstein controversy threatens to overshadow all of that.
00:21Josh, let's start with you. Has this issue blown up because of a mishandling of the files and the optics?
00:29Well, Melinda, I mean, let's be clear here. The administration definitely has not handled this particularly well.
00:35It has been far from the mark. I would be the very first to admit that.
00:38It's very difficult to reconcile. It's frankly impossible to reconcile, for instance, what Attorney General Pam Bondi said on Fox News back in February with the recent memo that went out from the DOJ and the FBI effectively disclaiming the existence of the very files that the Attorney General said were on her desk back in February.
00:55So this has obviously not been handled well. With that stipulation aside, I think it's important to note that President Trump is a unique force of personality.
01:04He is a once a generation political figure where people are deeply attracted to his substantive agenda and I think also deeply attracted to him as a personal toward the force.
01:15And when Donald Trump is making such a concerted effort as this, he is really digging in his heels.
01:19He is trying really hard through tooth and nail to try to turn a page on this saga sooner rather than later there.
01:25I think that the conservative base, his own base, is going to follow along sooner rather than later.
01:30Again, it has not been handled particularly well, but there were just too many successes as well.
01:35I mean, based on the on the own rubric, on the Trump administration's own metrics there, whether it's the economy, immigration, victories at the U.S. Supreme Court, foreign policy victories, there really have been tremendous successes there.
01:45And when you combine that with the fact that the base is deeply loyal to President Trump as an individual in addition to his policies,
01:52I frankly do think that this saga will be behind us sooner rather than later.
