The "When Your Back is Up Against the Wall" Response: The Friends of Jeffrey Epstein

This week on the podcast, identifying the tactics used by some people to explain their connections to a not so good person. It's not a how to for not getting entangled in a scandal that's a little above my pay grade for this case with the alleged financier Jeffrey Epstein, but more of an analysis into the media responses. We're going to identify and then break down what people said to get an understanding of what type of response works. If you ever find yourself forcing someone you work with who is knee deep into something not so good, and when everything is cattywampus, this is an episode on what to say when your back is up against the wall. What works and what hurts? Today's viral media makes it very difficult to inoculate a name or a brand if it's attached to a negative account or news story. The more sordid it is, the more difficult it is to survive. And for people who thought that 2018 was the zenith for people's reputations spiraling out of control for their sordid behavior, MeToo, time's up. Harvey Weinstein and so on, they were mistaken. Because the summer of 2019 showed us how far up the chain a person can be to have their reputation sorely at risk and how far it could actually go even higher than anyone ever expected. On today's episode, I want to break down the responses attached to the Jeffrey Epstein case. Who said what, who did what? And a little PR slight of hand that you may not have even noticed at the end of this episode. I do not want you to think, hey, that Molly McPherson, she really set me up good for how to handle these sexual sexual accusations against me. No, not a million times, no. The case of Jeffrey Epstein is chilling. It's sickening. And as a parent of a teenage girl, of a parent of three teenage girls, it disturbs me to no end. But I am paying attention because in my world of messaging and response, and of course I want to know who the names are attached to this case. But of more value to me is what they are going to say, because the first response is the only one that matters because that's the one that everyone remembers and that's the one where people are going to check its veracity. If it's a lie, people or the press or a mix of both will uncover the truth. I like to see how the good, honest people win and the not so honest get what's coming to them. Now, last week on July 17, to be specific, I was groggily scrolling through Twitter in the Morning as my first news hit of the day. Now, as a side note, I typically go to a newspaper, but in this case I wanted to check out the news feed on Twitter because it was a big news day. The day before last week, if you remember, it was all about the squad versus President Trump. This new it gang of four progressive congresswomen are taking on Trump and his ideology. Its representatives, Presley from Massachusetts, Ocasio Cortez of New York, Elham Omar of Minnesota, and Rashida Talib of Michigan, they all joined forces to vocalize and socially stand up to racial intolerance. Now, before they went full force on Trump, they did make a pit stop within their own party. And that's where Alexandria Ocasio Cortez had Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in her sights. And those two went toe to toe on an issue because Pelosi told reporters in the traditional way of speaking to reporters in a room, a closed door session, that she was urging the more liberal Democrats like the squad of four to address their griev privately rather than blasting their colleagues on Twitter. It was a very baby boomer response and she said, so again, you got a complaint, you come and talk to me about it. But do not tweet about our members and expect us to think that that's just okay. Okay or not, it is a new way of doing business, of making opinions known about other people's way of doing business. You've heard me say it before on this podcast or if you've ever seen me speak in front of a room. It's this call out generation and they social media to their advantage. Another side note, the origin of the squad moniker traces back to a photo of the four lawmakers that was shared to Representative Cortez's Instagram account in November of 2018. It's the four of them at a table and she labeled the photo squad and the name stuck. Fast forward to the summer of 2019 and last week. And this photo has kind of created this squad idea. And it's these four women now against the ideology, as I said, of President Trump and his backers. And it all led up and culminated into this rally in North Carolina where everyone could hear and see the chants of send her back from the crowd. And if you watch the video, you can see Trump lean back to encourage the chance. And the video sound bite was born. It's these types of media moments that make me really respect how President Trump has mastered the use of media. But on the other hand, to also respect how people like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez use social media to go toe to toe. So someone who works in the media and works in social media. It's fascinating to me to watch a day like that, a momentous day in the history of the call out era taking place on social media and traditional media. Now back to that day. After scrolling through the Twitter feed, I saw a link to a Vanity Fair magazine article. And they had published a story the night before with a byline by Gabriel Sherman. The headline was bold. It read more like the first line of an impending hurricane news story rather than a headline about a convicted sex offender. But it was a grabber. It said, it's going to be staggering the amount of names as the Jeffrey Epstein case grows more grotesque. Manhattan and D.C. brace for impact. But it wasn't the headline that only got my notice on Twitter. It was the pulled quote used in the Twitter post that someone had shared. It said, it's going to be staggering the amount of names. It's going to be contagion numbers. How's that for a colorful quote? Now, that quote was offered by David Boies. He was the lawyer for one of the Epstein accusers who happened to be a former locker room attendant and at Trump's Mar a Lago. Now, do you see the spread of the virus here? He attributed that quote to a person involved with the litigation against Epstein. My money is on Boies as the owner of the quote. He didn't want the quote attributed to him, but he wanted to inject it into the story to show the massive impact of how this story will have on the people connected to it. Because after all, he's the attorney representing all one of the victims in the case. Now, the Hurricane Jeffrey Epstein story was coming ashore rapidly with this huge, tumultuous media splash, with the criminal case following close behind. So to catch you up on the story of Jeffrey Epstein, if you don't know, is that at the time of this recording, he's a few weeks out from being charged that he was sexually abusing and trafficking dozens of underage girls. In the early 2000s, there was a federal indictment that charged him and his employees with paying dozens of underage girls to engage in sex acts with him at homes located in Manhattan and Palm Beach, Florida, but also using some of these victims to recruit additional girls for him to abuse. I hate this story. Now, this is the point in the story where the names start to connect the men who are ensnared in the Epstein story and where the contagion becomes infectious. A week earlier, on Friday, July 12, the owner of Mar A Lago again, President Donald Trump announced that his labor secretary, Alex Acosta, had resigned after all of the increased scrutiny over his role as the U.S. attorney in Miami when he secretly negotiated a rather lenient plea deal for Epstein to only serve 13 months in jail with daytime release. Like, in other words, he could leave jail during the day. And he also avoided a federal trial for state prostitution charges over his involvement with these underage girls. So at the time of the sentencing, even the Miami Herald described the plea deal as a deal of a lifetime. So here's where we can start to chart the response from people, and they're mostly men who found themselves ensnared by the Epstein story. First, in Secretary Acosta's resignation letter to President Trump, he stated that the president's agenda must avoid any distractions. So the tactic there, he was going to dilute rather than defend. And the context. This is nothing more than a distraction. Next, a newly surfaced video emerges online of President Donald Trump, though he wasn't president at the time, with Jeffrey Epstein at a Mar A Lago party where it was reported that it was found. The video was found in the NBC archives. So, you know, someone went to the computer and said, could someone please enter the name Jeffrey Epstein into our video file to see if we have any video of him? And boop, this arrived. So the video doesn't show any wrongdoing by Trump, but he is seen standing next to Epstein and having a very animated conversation. They're pointing, and even though we don't know who they're pointing to or what they're pointing to, it could be girls. And then he's seen dancing with his arms around the waist of women's. And in fairness, they all look of age in the video, but the optics are not good, you know, one for Trump's proximity to Epstein, nor for his dance skills, for that matter. It's just a bad video. With Epstein in jail awaiting word now if he would receive bail, at the time this video came out, Trump had to distance himself quickly. So then in an Oval Office press conference, President Trump was asked about his relationship with Epstein. His response was not unexpected.

Well, I knew him like everybody in Palm beach knew him. I mean, people in Palm beach knew him. He was a fixture in Palm Beach. I had a falling out with him a long time ago. I don't think I've spoken to him for 15 years. I wasn't a fan.

President Trump's tactic, distance rather than defend. And the context, hey, I'm like anyone else. Who knew him in Palm Springs. I'm one of many people who socialized with him, but in my case, I have not spoken to him in 15 years, and for good measure, I was not a fan. This response does deviate from an interview that he gave to New York magazine in 2002, where he called Epstein a terrific guy and a lot of fun to be with. And he also noted that Epstein liked women on the younger side. Ouch. As the questions about Epstein's connections and crimes and money and victims increase, the testimony in his case is providing a look into how this case will play out and a pressing question. Who are the other people who are at risk and risk exposure by being linked to Epstein? Now back to the Vanity Fair article. They mentioned LinkedIn co founder Reid Hoffman. He was mentioned as a person who hosted a party for an MIT neuroscientist, Ed Boyden. So two names that are quickly added into the mix and then they're dropped. At this dinner, it was reported that Elon Musk introduced Epstein to Mark Zuckerberg. So now we're only partway into the paragraph of the piece, and we already have three tech titans who are mentioned, and their response is, well, first, Mark Zuckerberg. His response was offered by one of his spokespeople, and they said Mark did not communicate with Epstein again following the dinner. That's it. Admit, then distance and that context. I met him once at a party and I never saw him again, which means I never attended a following party with Epstein. Don't ensnare me in this mess. Next, Elon Musk. In an email response to the Vanity Fair story, he responded, I don't recall introducing Epstein to anyone, as I don't know the guy well enough to do so. Epstein is obviously a creep, and Zuckerberg is not a friend of mine. Touche. Several years ago, I was at his house in Manhattan for about 30 minutes in the middle of the afternoon with Tallulah. And it says there, this is Tallulah Riley. It was ejected as she was curious about meeting the strange person for a novel she was writing. We did not see anything inappropriate at all, apart from weird Art. He tried repeatedly to get me to visit his island. I declined. What's Musk's tactic? Dis rather than defend. And he uses lots of details. So the context. Epstein is creepy, he's strange, and he owns weird Art. I only went to his house to help a friend because she was curious, and it was only for 30 minutes. So we have a lot of details there. And despite repeated requests to join Epstein on the island. Musk declined because he knew something was off with the guy. Oh, and by the way, I hate Mark Zuckerberg. So at this point in the story, a label is attached as a rather foretelling one that the people who will ultimately be exposed in this whole Epstein affair could include the Davos crowd. So that's people like Larry Summers, Steve Bannons, Bill Gates. Another name in the mix is the famed lawyer Alan Dershowitz. Now his name is all over the story and his response is not often used in the age of permanent digital content loquaciousness. In other words, he loves to speak a lot. I think he says if he gives more information, the more the better, because people are either going to forget or just get confused. His first line in this story, I want everything to come out, explanation, point. I'm not afraid of anything because I did nothing wrong. So he. This was in response to the article. So the reporter had said that Dershowitz called me a minute after he emailed him for comment. Now again, like Musk, he goes into detail how they had met in 1996, where he was introduced at a party in Martha's Vineyard. And I love this line. This woman begged me to meet Epstein. She told me, here's a smart academic, Dershowitz. And a few days later, Epstein invited dershowitz to a 59th birthday party at a mansion in Ohio. And Dershowitz says it's a tradition that Jeff invited the smartest person he met that year. He told them I was the smartest. So there's another tactic to inject his intelligence. At any rate, these two have remain close for years. And another response that Dershowitz said is he strenuously denied ever participating in Epstein's underage sex ring and said he was always in the presence of his wife. And then he stated, I got one massage and it was from a 50 year old Russian woman named Olga. That's a great line. And I kept my shorts on and I didn't even like it. I'm not a massage guy. Are you laughing hearing that? Like I laughed when I read that. So Dershowitz here is painting himself as someone who, yes, met him a long time ago, but he's more like a passing acquaintance rather than a tight pal. Now to the boy's response when he discussed Dershowitz's version of what happened. These two don't like each other. By the way, I just wanted to add this piece because it's kind of funny, if anything else, but that according to Boies, he said the Olga woman doesn't exist. Epstein barely kept women around who were over 25. It's a figment of Allen's imagination. So he took a massive dig at him. But now Dershowitz is someone. The tactic that he is using is the devil is in the details. In other words, the context in every response that he has is, I have nothing to hide, therefore I will tell you everything and more. And the more attention grabbing, the better to distract from why you were asking me these questions in the first place. Moving from the Vanity Fair piece, because you can find more names attached to this case other than Vanity Fair. One of the names that comes up a lot, none other than former President Bill Clinton. Now, when Bill Clinton was attached to this case about a week and a half ago, he did a very New age response. He did not respond directly and he chose to put it in the hands of a spokesperson and in that spokesperson's Twitter page and not President Clinton. So he, the spokesman had stated that Clinton knew nothing about Epstein's alleged crimes. He made a point of saying that he pled not guilty and that President Clinton knows nothing about the terrible crimes that he did plead guilty to in Florida some years ago. So the response here is he is sticking to the truth and that's it. You are not going to find that response on Clinton's Twitter account. Posting to a spokesperson account is the only savvy way to get the message out without having to say it directly. Clinton's tactic delegate to digital the context. I know you expect a response to me, so I'm going to provide one. However, note that I am speaking via spokesperson, which means no further comment. Now, as far as President Clinton and his wife Hillary, my guess is that you will not hear the name Clinton again in the news for some time. That is, until Chelsea gives birth to her third child in August. You'll probably see a photo. You're not going to see a live response by any means, but after that, they will go dark. Now, the last name in the mix, and there are so many that are likely to come out, but the last name in the mix for the podcast is Prince Andrew, the Duke of York. Now, it's been reported that Prince Andrew has been connected to Jeffrey Epstein for years. But Andrew's most dangerous entanglement is that he's been placed on these islands when these parties have taken place. And there are photographs to prove it. His loyalty to Jeffrey Epstein could be his downfall. And it has reportedly been going on for decades. And he's never been challenged by the Queen, the Prime Minister, or the British press because they are constrained by some of the world's most stringent libel laws. But that's going to start to change because the British Royal family needs a little distance from this Mess in the U.S. so this month, the palace was more forceful in their response. They stated, it is emphatically denied that the Duke of York had any form of sexual contact or relationship with Virginia Roberts. Now, she is an underaged woman who is involved in this case. They had said that in a statement last Sunday. And any claim to the contrary is false and without foundation. The Palace's tactic flat out denial the context. Well, it's emphatically denied that the Duke of York had any form of sexual contact or relationship with Virginia Roberts. Dead stop. So my theory here is that there is another tactic at play, a bit of subterfuge to distract the pressure and the public's attention from Prince Andrew. How about a huge news story about wearing jeans to Wimbledon? How about expenses for the updates of a home at Frogmore Cottage? How about a story about the difficult duchess who refuses to name the godparents to her son, the seventh in line to the throne? So I think that we may see an uptick in negative Meghan Markle stories, the Duchess of Susse, that aren't started officially by the palace, but are there nonetheless. It makes for a perfect distraction for the Duke of York's entanglement with Epstein, which brings me back to the beginning and to the first person who I mentioned entangled in the whole Epstein saga, Donald Trump. Now, I've mentioned in the past on the podcast, in many of my talks and in person and in interviews, that Donald Trump is a master in the art of media relations and in the art of television. President Donald Trump knows how to communicate. He really is the great communicator of the modern age. Earlier in the podcast, you heard the response from President Trump when he was asked about his connection to Jeffrey Epstein. And then if you notice, last week, the story was no longer about Donald Trump's connection to Jeffrey Epstein. It was about his connection to the squad. Because now Trump was pitting himself against these four representatives to create a show. And oh, what a show it was. Because without a doubt, if you look at all the news stories of last week and into this week week, the story was not about Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein anymore. It was about Donald Trump, the squad, race relations, and it culminated at a rally in East Carolina University that made a lot of news. And it happened to make that other story go away to focus on the other names attached to the story. A distraction, perhaps. What better way to divert attention than to create a new story? And better yet, a viral one. And even better yet, with optics. You have sound, you have chance. You have red hats. You have things that will make people take notice and create that fissure between your base and, well, everybody else. This tactic. A distraction.

Omar has a history of launching vicious anti Semitic screeds.

Sam.