Another tranche.

More than 3 million pages worth of the Epstein Files has been published.

The US Department of Justice says this is the last and final drop.

But there are reportedly millions more being kept from view.

So is there anything in them that actually hurts President Donald Trump?

I'm Samantha Sellinger Morris, and you're listening to Morning Edition from The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald today, international and political editor Peter Hartcher on how the Epstein files are driving Trump's war pageant.

It's Thursday, February 5th.

Firstly, Peter, welcome back to the podcast.

It has been a very long three months without you.

It was a long lunch break, but I'm glad to be back at work.

Okay.

And no better time in terms of helping us sort of work out what is happening.

First off, can you just tell us how damaging is the latest tranche of the Epstein files?

We know they amount to more than 3 million pages.

So how damaging are they to Donald Trump?

Well, there are two categories here, I'd say Samantha.

One is the category of the direct accusation.

The other is the category of what's not available, what's not been published, and what we still don't know.

In my view, the most damaging aspect is not the accusation so far.

It's the stuff that we haven't seen or haven't heard, and that the Trump administration is apparently reluctant to release because whatever evidence is produced, Trump always has a way of dismissing it or excusing it.

But he's confronting it.

What disturbs his support base and the MAGA movement most of all, is the suspicion that he's hiding something.

What harms him is that he campaigned strongly and insistently and furiously on the urgent priority of getting all the files published.

Pam Bondi, Attorney General, remember, she said, I have the file list on my desk.

I have the client list.

We're going to publish everything.

And then suddenly, when they'd had a chance to look at all this stuff, Trump said, oh, it's all a hoax.

It's a Democrat hoax.

Forget about it.

And from that moment, that really tested the faith of a lot of his more ardent followers.

They thought he was there to uproot this massive pedophile scandal that was shielding the political and business elites of the country.

And all of a sudden, they're confronted with the prospect that maybe Trump is part of that plot and is now protecting himself.

Now, if all the files were out, uh, they could Trump could confront that and deal with it.

And I should add that of what is directly accused.

So far, there is no confirmed actual hard evidence against him.

There's a lot of suggestive stuff.

The the committee, the oversight committee that's been looking at all this material says there are something like 38,000 references to Trump altogether in all the material, including the stuff we haven't seen.

But none of that has a hard confirmed accusation of wrongdoing by Trump or criminal conduct by Trump.

I mean, there's definitely no smoking gun, but should we perhaps walk through a few of the, I guess, more explosive suggestions?

Because there are some explosive suggestions.

I mean, you know, there's been a lot of media coverage, I think, on this list.

It was a list of tips to the FBI.

It's got to be mentioned, absolutely unsubstantiated.

They're just allegations.

But among them were allegations that Trump sexually assaulted young girls.

Again, unsubstantiated, completely denied strenuously by the white House.

That's just one of the sort of bombshells, I guess, suggestions that's come out of it.

So in addition, I think, is that Vladimir Putin is mentioned no less than a thousand times and again, not in association with Trump.

He's just been mentioned.

But, you know, various analysts are saying, well, this might be a suggestion that Epstein might have even been working for the Russians.

You know, maybe that there's some sort of security breach or risk there, given his association with Trump.

So do you think any of this stuff, though it is absolutely unsubstantiated, could hurt Trump?

Well, it operates not.

I don't think it operates through direct claim against him for which he could be stood up in a court of law or impeached.

I think it's this swirling cloud of suspicion and mystery because when you have suspicion, unanswered fears and doubts, your imagination does the work.

So it doesn't matter that there are no actual accusations, and as long as he is seen to be covering something up.

uh, having something to hide.

This is a problem for him.

So there are still 3 million more.

They've released 3 million pages.

There are 3 million more that they have yet to release and said they won't release.

That is the damaging part, I think, because it means that not only is this an uncomfortable and inconvenient subject for Donald Trump, but that it guarantees it will continue.

He has not been able to cauterize this wound and say there nothing to worry about.

Let's get on with making America great again.

And it's, you know, most of the half the country has already written Trump off.

They've already they already think he's contemptible, but it's his support base where this harms him.

And that's why it's so potent.

It's the MAGA people.

It's the his most fanatical supporters.

They're the ones who are now full of doubt and concerned about this.

And is there any suggestion of what might be in those remaining 3 million or so pages or files that are not going to be released.

Well, that's the thing we don't we do know that there are tens of thousands of references to Donald Trump by name in the remaining documents that have been withheld from the public.

But it's the fact that we don't know.

It's the mystery and the unknown, and that is driving Donald Trump's constant need for distractions, for large theatrical distractions, so that people don't look at the Epstein files and Trump's problem, but at what he's doing elsewhere.

He's got a lot to distract from.

I mean, the two main ones are the Epstein files and the cost of living, because Americans are really suffering.

Working class Americans, middle class Americans are really under pressure financially.

He promised prices would come down.

He keeps going around saying prices are coming down.

Of course they're not.

Um, inflation is still increasing in the US.

So and he's sometimes he tries to address this but he's very unconvincing.

So what do you do when you've got this huge pain coursing through the public?

You've got this awful sex scandal, um, that is sowing doubt and fear amongst your base.

You find something else to talk about?

Well, that's right, and you've just focused on this.

So tell us about what you're calling Trump's war pageant and how, you know, this is really being driven by the looming Epstein files and presumably the -61 point approval rating, which I think Trump is enjoying, if that's the word right now.

And of course, the American public's hatred of what's happening with Ice.

So tell us about the war pageant, Peter, because really, I think you're referring to how he attacked Venezuela, and then he's gone on to threaten other countries, right?

Well, there was Venezuela, but now it rolls on at a bafflingly high rate, from threatening one country to another and another and the next.

There's always it always seems there's at least one country under threat somehow or another from Donald Trump, it seems that he has a lot to distract from some of his actions.

A few have actually been rooted in reality.

The last year's strikes in Iran, for example, conducted by both the US and Israel, were about a real threat, and that was a real thing.

However, the Venezuelan mission was based on Confected explanations and justifications.

Um, and, you know, it's not just an individual operation.

It's it's the pace at which he rolls them out.

So the day, the very day that they captured Maduro, the president of Venezuela, Trump holds a press conference to take credit and talk talk it up.

And at that very press conference, without having to be asked a question about it, Trump moves on seamlessly to saying, and now we're going to get Greenland.

What's the urgency?

He's still he's still he's still basking in the afterglow of kidnapping the president of Venezuela and putting him in handcuffs in a New York jail cell.

Why the urgency now to rush to another one?

But that's what we have now.

We have Greenland, which, of course, is a territory of a NATO ally of America's.

Denmark.

Um, and but it's rolling on its Cuba.

There's always there's always a list, it seems.

Last year, uh, Trump ordered attacks, physical, kinetic attacks on seven countries.

So far, he's threatened another 11 countries.

And the, um, uh, his administration has listed 19 countries of concern.

It's the simple, um, it's the simple absurdity of the the number, the rapidity, but also the flimsiness of the pretexts for attacking these countries or threatening them.

Canada.

Canada.

Does anybody has anybody ever thought Canada truly was a national security threat to the United States?

It's preposterous.

Okay, you asked about Venezuela.

So he said they're bringing fentanyl, this hyper deadly opioid, into the US on those drug boats.

Well, Venezuela is not the source of fentanyl.

Um, the main source of fentanyl are precursors made in China, manufactured into the drug in Mexico and transshipped from Mexico, not through Venezuela.

Later he said, oh, it's the oil.

We want the oil.

Well, he came up with that ex post facto, but, um, he it was a justification for something he'd already done rather than otherwise.

But, um, the US doesn't need oil anymore.

It used to.

That was a powerful animating force in US foreign policy for more than half a century.

It's the reason they signed an alliance with the Saudis and all the rest of it, and went to war.

Endless times in the Middle East.

But now they are an oil exporter.

They have more oil than they need.

They produce 106% equivalent of their needs.

So they don't need the oil.

So what's going on?

But there's another country.

Of course we need to speak about that.

Donald Trump of course, has threatened.

And in this case it's definitely one where it isn't without reason, perhaps.

And of course I'm talking about Iran here.

I mean, that's a more credible threat, right?

He's been he's been making all kinds of threats against Iran.

And we know this is a real live issue, right?

US and Iranian officials are expected to meet in Tehran on Friday to discuss Trump's demands issued last month.

Trump has raised the possibility of regime change, he said time is running out, but he hasn't provided a clear deadline on that.

So tell us what's happening with Iran, Peter, and whether unlike Greenland and Canada, which, you know, he hasn't sort of made any military action there, and I don't know how live an issue that is.

But with Iran, it is a pretty live issue, isn't it?

Yes.

Well, he's assembled, uh, US Navy assets off the coast.

And he's made threats, explicit threats.

Um, the rationale is not clear, but Iran is a serious known threat to its neighbors, and it's the principal sponsor.

It has effectively created and breathed life into Hezbollah, Hamas for decades now.

Uh, given the money, given them arms, given them sanctuary.

And, uh, plus, it's a direct threat militarily, both to Israel.

But also the Saudis consider they don't talk about it, but they also consider and some of the other Arab states consider Iran to be a military and security threat to them as well.

So it's a real problem.

Uh, I'm not diminishing that at all.

It's just that Trump told us after the US and Israeli strikes on Iran last year, that he had wiped out its nuclear weapons program, but now he says the US needs to go and destroy their nuclear weapons program if it can't negotiate an end to Iran's nuclear research and reprocessing facilities so that one of they can't both be true.

So let's assume Trump was exaggerating the first time.

Let's assume there is credible evidence of of a return to nuclear research with the potential to make the Iranians insist their research is all nuclear power, not nuclear weapons.

But let's let's assume that there is an intention.

There's certainly a capability to produce nuclear weapons.

Well, that's certainly a legitimate cause for Trump.

We know Trump has announced that a US armada was moving towards the country with great power, enthusiasm and purpose.

This is very recently.

And flight tracking data and satellite imagery actually confirmed that the United States has actually expanded its military presence in the region.

And in recent weeks, diplomats from Turkey, Egypt, Oman and Iraq have been sharing messages between Iran and US in a bid to avoid an escalation.

So, I mean, are we under threat here?

I guess for there being a regional escalation, like, are we sort of reaching some sort of tipping point, or is this sort of one of these just, you know, prolonged Trump threats just to, you know, get a tariff advantage out of somebody?

Yeah, it's hard to know, uh, because Donald Trump will will sally forth and make a series of threatening noise and sounds and beat the war drums over one particular issue or country, and then he'll drop it and only to return to it weeks or months later.

So it's very difficult.

Uh, anybody as mercurial as he is, and irrational as he is, is simply impossible to know.

I would point out, though, that whenever there's any war going on in the Middle East, which unfortunately is a near-constant, there's always the potential for spilling over.

There's always the potential for regional, uh, regional conflagration.

Trump says he wants to get rid of the ayatollahs and change the regime.

If they don't come across with his demands, the demands which have changed one week to another.

Um, he's he's initially it was about the protesters.

You have to stop killing protesters.

It's difficult to believe that Trump is deeply, uh.

Wedded to this high principle.

Because when two US citizens were murdered by his agents in Minnesota, his initial reaction was to demonize the American citizen protester who was killed and to justify the Ice agent.

So is this a heartfelt, um, cause for Trump to make war on Iran?

No, but it could be.

It could be a handy pretext.

The nuclear research establishment is probably a more realistic and real.

A justification for Trump striking Iran.

It's a low cost operation for the US.

In fact, it's a common factor of all his operations, his military and or even quasi military operations.

There are only countries that don't have the power to hit back physically at the US.

He doesn't hit countries that can actually harm the US in return.

And I guess, you know, we're talking about a time when it seems like almost every day there's a new bombshell article with allegations against Trump that might put him under increasing pressure.

You know, we spoke before about how his approval rating has absolutely plummeted.

And the cost of living, of course, is absolutely hammering American voters.

But, you know, just 3 or 4 days ago, there was a bombshell in the Wall Street Journal which revealed that a sheikh in the UAE bought a secret stake in Trump's cryptocurrency venture totaling a whopping $500 million.

This was on the eve of Trump's inauguration.

And this was only, I think, months before Trump gave the okay to the UAE to access 500,000 of America's most advanced AI chips per year, which the Biden administration had previously blocked over concerns that this might pose some security risk.

You know, these chips could end up in China.

So I guess that also perhaps is is applying some more heat to Trump that he may want to deflect from.

Well, yes, he'll have no end of problems, um, to the nature of government.

And I should add, he's not the first or last president or leader anywhere in the world to try to deflect attention from a problem by talking about some other issue, real or confected.

But yes, he has a lot to try to run away from, hide from, distract from.

And over the months ahead, we've seen, well, we've already seen that one of the mechanisms he uses is these, uh, unjustified and some, in some cases unjustifiable, uh, foreign incursions that suddenly become high, urgent priorities.

Notably coinciding with the release dates for Epstein Files.

So there are a lot of countries that are or should be anxious about how the US might treat them over the next 1011 months.

The more problems Trump has, the more he might decide to take out.

Take them out on foreign countries and really, only Moscow, Beijing and Pyongyang can rest easy about that.

Well, okay, Peter.

Well, it's great to have you back.

So as always, thank you so much for your time.

Always a pleasure, Samantha.

In other news today, Clive Palmer has backflipped on a previous denial that he spoke with former Trump strategist Steve Bannon during the 2019 federal election.

But the billionaire mining magnate maintains he did not collude with the US alt right figure on his disruptive $80 million advertising campaign.

Australians are accessing a controversial technology that ranks embryos created during IVF based on disease risk and traits such as intelligence, height and hair colour.

And Tuesday's interest rate rise may not be enough to bring inflation under control, with economists warning that the psychological impact of the move may weigh more heavily than the financial impact.

Today's episode was produced by Josh towers.

Our executive producer is Tammy Mills, and our podcasts are overseen by Lisa Muxworthy and Tom McKendrick.

If you like our show, follow the Morning Edition and leave a review for us on Apple or Spotify.

Thanks for listening.