The Jeffrey Epstein Tapes and Donald Trump

Michael Wolff has got a new book on Trump coming out, and I am looking forward to it immensely.

I am sure that like his previous three Trump books, this new one will be the kind of fast-paced yarn you devour in one sitting.

I’m particularly looking forward to reading about the morning in August when I’m told Trump woke up and said to his startled campaign team: “I’ve decided I am pro-choice…deal with it…”

Michael is a very shrewd marketer and one presumes that’s why Thursday, on his podcast Fire and Fury, he aired a snippet of a recording of Jeffrey Epstein in 2017 discussing the way Trump played his senior White House lieutenants against each other, and why today, he’s releasing more in which, according to the Daily Beast, Epstein talks about his friendship with Trump – he says that for ten years he was Trump’s closest friend – and he also meanderingly talks about Trump’s salesmanship, Trump setting up his friends with models and recording the conversations for their wives to hear, in order to seduce them himself, and Trump having a scalp reduction.

The Trump campaign has called the tapes “false smears” and “election interference,” and described Michael as “a disgraced writer who routinely fabricates lies in order to sell fiction books because he clearly has no morals or ethics.”

Ok, for my money, what’s interesting about these tapes, so far, is not what they tell us about Trump – which is not really anything new. It’s all variations on a theme.

I could have told you, for instance, that Epstein and Trump were often together when meeting beautiful women, and I could have told you that Trump was a good salesman and doesn’t spend his spare time reading Tolstoy’s War and Peace. I reported here and for Rolling Stone that Melanie Walker, one of Epstein’s proteges, who became a neuroscientist and close associate of Bill Gates, originally met both Trump and Epstein in New York’s Plaza Hotel, over tea in 1992…

No, what’s interesting about the tapes is what they reveal about Epstein: they show something that’s crucial to understanding why he was able to inveigle himself into the world of the plutocracy: they show what a consummate con-artist he was.

Read on at Vicky Ward Investigates

Beware The Yard Sign Thieves!

It’s count-down to Election Day and we are all feeling the heat.

Some more than others…

How else to explain the flurry of yard sign thefts that are going on reportedly around the country, particularly out on the eastern end of Long Island.

In Bellport, a small bucolic town where I rent a little writer’s cabin, I opined at a dinner party last weekend that I was surprised by the vast number of Trump/Vance signs along the highway, because the community is full of liberal writers and artists.

My fellow dinner guests were quick to explain: there’s a dearth of Harris/Walz signs because they keep being stolen in the middle of the night. And when the frustrated owners have replaced them – forking out another $20.00 – they’ve disappeared again.

Read on at Vicky Ward Investigates

It’s Celebrity-Election-Line-Up!

This morning as I walked like a granny to my office, I was listening, as usual, to Morning Joe. Suddenly, Jennifer Lopez was in my ear, urging me to vote for Kamala Harris. Lopez is energized, apparently, because of comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s jokeabout Puerto Rico being a “floating pile of garbage” at the Trump rally in Madison Square Garden; so, she’s now going to perform at the Harris/Walz rally in Las Vegas tomorrow.

And, within an hour of listening to Lopez, I’m at my desk and a news alert flashes on my screen: I read that …oh my god…Arnold Schwarzenegger is endorsing Harris.

But, swiftly on the heels of that, news breaks of another celebrity endorsement… Buzz Aldrin.

Buzz Aldrin? I didn’t know he was still alive…but yes, he is (at 94)…and he is endorsing Trump because Trump (well, Elon really) is big into the extremely pressing voter issue of space exploration. Footballers Brett Favre and Nick Bosa have also come out for Trump. But the rapper Bad Bunny is for Harris. So too is Barbara Bush…and on it goes. It’s the game of Election Celebrity Line-Up, in which there are no real shocks – and, I’d argue, no real impact.

Are you going to change your mind about who you will vote for because of Jennifer, Arnold, or Buzz? Do let me know if so, and send in your reasoning. If space exploration is your top priority I’d be fascinated to hear all about that…

More seriously, I’m reminded that in 2016, instead of knocking on doors, Hillary Clinton disastrously spent the Friday before the election, at a concert in Cleveland, hobnobbing with Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Chance the Rapper, J. Cole – and Diddy.

Read on at Vicky Ward Investigates

Ivanka Hands the Microphone to Jared

Greetings from the ER.

Ok, so I know that sounds a bit melodramatic, but my bosses at Substack tell me that part of the appeal of a Substack is rawness and authenticity. They tell me that Substack readers like to know how the proverbial sausage is made – or not made – which is what happened today.

I was racing to my office with all sorts of ideas for today’s column when I did a face-plant on the sidewalk. How it happened, I have no idea. But I will say this: the kindness of the people who rushed to help me was one of the most heartwarming things I’ve experienced in these past few weeks, a time in which I think we’ve all felt unusually anxious.

Read on at Vicky Ward Investigates

Putting on Ayers!

Happy Monday everyone.

So a couple of thing to unpack today.

First, thank you to the very helpful reader who pointed out to me that last week, Nick Ayers, Mike Pence’s one time “man in the swamp” and White House chief of staff, was back from obscurity in the nick of time to suck up to Donald Trump by appearing on Fox News to trash-talk Gen. John Kelly after Kelly told the New York Times that Trump occasionally remarked that “Hitler did some good things” in an interview to the New York Times. (Ayers said that this was “egregious” on Kelly’s part, and that Trump never said this; other former Trump White House staffers have meanwhile lined up to support Kelly’s version.)

Read on at Vicky Ward Investigates

Tiffany Trump’s Big Moment: Finally!

Some people have all the luck.

Consider the case of the fortuitous timing of Tiffany Trump’s pregnancy, announced last week in Detroit, by her proud father.

At first, when I read about it, I thought naively: Oh, how nice! It’s great that he cares so much about Tiffany that he wants to share this…

And then, I realized after I watched his interview on Sunday with the Saudi government funded TV network, Al Arabiya, that I was being dumb.

Tiffany Trump’s husband, Michael Boulos, is Lebanese. He was born in Lebanon and raised in Nigeria.

Detroit is in the swing state of Michigan, where there is a big Arab American community that’s voted Democrat for over 20 years, following 9/11.

But that community, according to today’s Washington Post, is now divided over whether to vote for Kamala Harris, seeing her as aligned with President Biden’s staunch support of Israel. According to the Post, many may not vote at all.

After, his speech to Detroit’s Economic club, Trump reportedly met with two local Imams, courtesy of Michael Boulos’s businessman father, Massad Boulos, who has reportedly been lobbying Michigan’s Arab Americans on behalf of the Trump campaign for the past six months.

And Tiffany’s pregnancy enabled Trump to talk out of both sides of his mouth on his Al Arabiya interview last Sunday: on the one hand saying Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu should feel free to do whatever he wants in terms of bombing Lebanon and Iran, and on the other saying that he’s thrilled he’s going to have a grandchild who is half-Arab and he wants Lebanon to be a place his family can visit.

“I’m happy about it. I have many friends who are Arab, as you say, but from different countries, but Arab, and I’m very happy about this. They’re very warm people. It’s a shame what’s happening over there. They’re the warmest people. Michael’s father’s so great; his mother’s so great. They’re friends of mine. Michael’s such a great young man. He’s such a smart guy. And they’re gonna have a baby and I’m very happy about it.”

I’ve never thought much about Tiffany Trump or Michael Boulos.

It’s possible that, until recently, neither has Donald Trump. You’ll recall that Trump’s personal assistant Madeleine Westerhout was fired in 2019 after knocking back a couple of drinks and telling reporters that Trump couldn’t pick Tiffany out of a crowd.

But that was before Tiffany got married to Michael at Mar-a-Lago in 2022 following a courtship conducted far from proletariat view, in a bunch of private members clubs in London and Europe.

Thus an opportunity arose. Coincidence?

Read on at Vicky Ward Investigates

The Art of The Distraction

Trump is nothing if not a master of distraction. He’s got the pundits on cable news hyperventilating over his very hectic weekend. His musings on Arnold-Palmer-in-the-shower, by my watch, got more airtime this morning than any other Trump story, including his cameo appearances at McDonalds and at the Jets-Steeler game, and his doubling down on Fox News of the Nazi-era phrase: “The enemy within.”

It’s a lot to chew on.

So you would be forgiven if you did not notice that, between all this, he slipped in a quick interview with Saudi Arabia’s State TV Al Arabiya, in which he was positively glowing about Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed Bin Salman. Trump calls him, “A great guy.” And also says:

I have so much respect for the king, so much respect for Mohammed, who is doing so great. I mean, he’s really a visionary. He’s done things that nobody else would have even thought about. His very long city that he’s building, he’s really doing something. He’s a great guy. And he’s respected all over the world.

So, you know where I’m going with this…

Mohammed Bin Salman is not only a guy with a questionable human rights record, he’s the main “backer” – how else to put it? – of the lavish lifestyle of Trump’s daughter, Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner.

Trump makes it very, very easy for people to forget this — and the very serious risk Kushner’s business ties pose to American foreign policy and national security – with his continual, successful poking-of-the-bear that is the mainstream media. No journalist seems to be asking him any questions about the national security risk that his daughter and son-in-law could pose to a future Trump administration, because he’s got the media exactly where he wants them: doing deep-dive research into which presidential candidate has now spent more hours working for McDonald’s.

I’d argue that journalists should spend more time studying the Instagram accounts of Ivanka and Jared and think about the deeper meaning beneath the surface imagery, which, as I’ve written here before, could be easily confused with an episode of Real Housewives of Miami.

To the unthinking and sympathetic eye, Ivanka’s social media shows the former First Daughter having a well-earned rest. She wakeboards; she foils; she golfs; she goes boating with the girls; she and Jared entertain in their new $24 million home in the private enclave of Indian Creek.

And, unlike the awkward years of her father’s presidency – remember when Christine Lagarde rolled her eyes when Ivanka tried to insert herself into a conversation with French President Emmanuel Macron, and British PM Theresa May at the G20 summit – the couple is now wanted at the parties of the global elite! Perhaps Christine Lagarde is not issuing them an invitation, but as a consolation prize there’s the Ambani wedding in India, and Kim Kardashian’s 43rd birthday party!

It all seems to be going so well for the couple…

Read on at Vicky Ward Investigates

 

Let’s Look at the Map. Trump May Not Need Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Readers of this newsletter know that whenever I want to educate myself on Republican political strategy, I turn to Sam Nunberg, Trump’s first campaign advisor who is as endearing for his bluntness (listen to the moment when I try to interrupt him and he shuts me down) as he is for his pets. He is pictured here with his new puppy, Harrison.

My takeaways from this latest q and a which you can listen to here and read the edited version below are as follows,

Sam’s perspective is:

1 – Trump has the advantage because Kamala is the incumbent and has not successfully separated herself from Biden.

2 – There’s a limit to the effectiveness of paid media — i.e. at a certain point you reach everyone, and the surplus $300 million the Harris campaign has raised possibly makes no meaningful difference.

3 – The map. This is the most interesting take-away of all. It does not look the same as it did in 2020. Arizona and Nevada are likely to go for Trump this time, Sam believes. Why? In Nevada — which has not voted Republican since 2004 — it’s immigration. Republican pollsters believe that the Nevada unions are now intensely concerned about illegal immigrants taking their jobs. Sam thinks Arizona flips to Trump because of the border. 2022 mid-term data showed the flip in House seats in New York and Florida happened because voters, especially suburban and exurban women voters, prioritized crime and the economy over abortion and January 6th. For the same reason, Sam thinks Trump takes North Carolina. And Georgia. And Wisconsin. Which means he can afford to lose Michigan and Pennsylvania to Harris.

Read on at Vicky Ward Investigates

Surprisingly, Challengers Is Challenging To Watch

It feels like the times could not be much more grim. The news from college campuses, I have to say, is utterly dispiriting. When we live in a world in which you cannot have a civilized, safe exchange of ideas, especially on university campuses, it’s deeply troubling.

You are going to be hearing a lot more from me on this topic.

Meanwhile, I’ll give a gentle plug to my Audible podcast, Pipeline to Power, which I launched in the fall, and is all about the struggle around the First Amendment on college campuses. Please take a listen.

As for something completely different – that I banged out last night because I was somewhat exercised, as you will see – here are my thoughts on Zendaya’s new movie, Challengers, which I wasted three whole hours Saturday watching. (I’m including the minutes spent on popcorn-buying and previews.)

I’m writing this so you don’t make the same mistake.

Which you could do, easily, if you read the reviews in the New York Times, The New Yorker, The Guardian, and the FT. If you read these, you’d think Challengers is a ground-breaking, fun, erotic suspenseful sizzler about a love-triangle, sex, and tennis.

Who wouldn’t want to see that to decompress?

Plus it’s centered around Zendaya, a 27-year-old phenomenon, who can sing, act and model the heck out of couture. Whatever she wears, no matter how complicated, how many buckles, zips, and patterns, I’ve noticed that, unusually for a small, slender person, she always manages to wear it, and not vice versa.

Challengers is reportedly the vehicle she chose for herself to transition from a child star to a serious, grown-up one. The movie was supposed to come out last year, but suffered delays, which is why you’d have to have been living under a rock not to know it’s just been released. On Saturday afternoon the movie theater I was in was mostly full.

Spoiler alert: Don’t read on if you don’t want to know what happens.

Read on at Vicky Ward Investigates

What I’d Ask Trump Trial Witness David Pecker:

My takeaways so far from the Trump Trial:

We’ve had a worm’s eye view of the inner workings of two worlds: the first is that of America’s sleaziest tabloid, the National Enquirer, and the second is several meetings in Trump Tower, with an emphasis on goings-on in the office of Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney.

Both views are so-far through the lens of the first witness, David Pecker, the former CEO of American Media Inc, (AMI), the company that owned the Enquirer. Pecker – his real name – is a mustachioed man who appears to be literally and metaphorically dripping with grease.

(I’d forgotten, until this week, that I met him once, many years ago. He appeared in my kitchen in New York’s West Village, to ask if I would be interested in relocating to Florida and running one of his magazines. I gave him a cup of tea and politely told him “No”).

I’m not sure how he had gotten to me, but we’ve learned in the last few days that the National Enquirer can get to pretty much anyone given that its numerous “sources” were high-level and included Donald Trump. The businessman Ronald Perelman, bafflingly, is described in a throw-away line as a “client” of Pecker’s in the 1980s.

Client of what?

Read on at Vicky Ward Investigates