Despite his death seven years ago, the specter of Jeffrey Epstein still looms large.
Association with the sex trafficker and disgraced financier has resulted in the downfall and damaged reputations of many rich and powerful men.
On this hour of All Sides, we’re delving into who Jeffrey Epstein was and why so many supposedly savvy people get ensnared by questionable people.
Guests:
- David Enrich, deputy investigations editor, The New York Times
- Holly Peterson, Wall Street Journal "Earn Your Luck" columnist
- Ronald Riggio, professor, leadership and organizational psychology, Claremont McKenna College
Transcript
This transcript is generated with AI. To ensure its accuracy, review the audio file.
Amy Juravich: Welcome to All Sides with Amy Juravich. It's been about seven years since Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide in a jail cell. Yet the shadow of the disgraced financier and convicted sex trafficker still lingers prominently over the lives of many of his associates.
Leaders in business, education, politics, the media, and royal families have been disgraced by their association with the college dropout who had access to the rich and powerful. We're looking at the continued reach of Epstein's shadow this hour and how people like him and Bernie Madoff infiltrate and con the environs of the wealthy.
We'll begin by delving into his backstory, the backstory of Jeffrey Epstein with David Enrich, Deputy Investigations Editor for the New York Times who is currently working on a book about Epstein and his finances. Welcome to All Sides David.
David Enrich: Thanks for having me.
Juravich: So you and your team at The New York Times have been investigating Jeffrey Epstein for some time, but who or what was responsible for the initial investigation into Jeffrey Epstine? How did we all become aware of him and his name and what he was doing?
Enrich: Well, and this story goes back many years. And I think the answer you're probably looking for is Julie Brown and the Miami Herald in 2018 kind of brought this back to everyone's attention.
And this is something though that had been in the media, especially in Florida for years prior to that. And, but I think this really burst back on the scene 2018, 2019, which incidentally is around the time that my colleagues and I started really diving into the story.
Juravich: Yeah. So let's begin with something simple. Where did Jeffrey Epstein come from? Where was he born? Where did he grow up?
Enrich: He came, he grew up in a gated community in Coney Island in Brooklyn. And I don't, a gating community makes it sound like he was fabulously wealthy. That's not the case. He was solidly middle-class and he lived in a rented, half of a rented two-family home.
He, his family didn't own a car, but they went to it. He went to a good school and was very good at math and science in school. He was a gifted pianist. He started out going to college, dropped out of college, attended some graduate level classes, but didn't get a diploma there either, and becomes a high school math and physics teacher in New York City at a very prestigious private school.
And he spends a year or two there and learns he is going to be laid off. And as luck has it, at that exact moment, bumps into the parent of one of his students at the school. Who knows people on Wall Street and is impressed with Epstein's math skills and recommends that he try to get a job on Wall street and introduces him to a guy named Ace Greenberg, who at the time was a top executive at the firm Bear Stearns.
And so that is Epstein just enormous first big career break that gets him in the door at a major Wall Street firm and sets the stage for a lot of his subsequent success.
Juravich: That is really wild to think about, that it's basically an unemployed math teacher turned into what it ended up turning into. So I mean, I guess it makes you think, I know you're a journalist, you don't like hypotheticals, but if he would have kept his teaching job, what a different world we'd have maybe now.
Enrich: I mean, there are a lot of kind of what-if scenarios like that that just kind of litter the entire Jeffrey Epstein saga. But even prior to that, how did he get a job at this elite school, Dalton in Manhattan? The guy didn't have a college degree. And we know now the answer to that appears to be that he was lying about his educational background and his accomplishments.
But what if the Dalton school had actually done a modicum of due diligence on this guy they were hiring? But if Bear Stearns had done a modicum of due diligence. And this is a pattern that repeats itself over and over and again across decades, which is that there are people and institutions repeatedly that have the opportunity to figure out what Epstein was doing, and not just with his sex trafficking of women, just the frauds that he was perpetrating in the business world.
And they either decide not to pursue this or bring this to people's attention, or they just kind of look the other way and don't even recognize it because it's much more convenient. With someone like Epstein, it turns out, to just kind of profit by your association with them and rather than go down into the mud with him and fight it out. And that's a phenomenon, a dynamic that works to Epstein's benefit repeatedly across his career.
Juravich: The focus of one of your investigations into Jeffrey Epstein was how he got into the powerful position where he had the money and the access to the rich and powerful. So how did he get all the money? At first, I guess, is how I should ask it. Was he good at his job on Wall Street?
Enrich: Yeah. I mean, and of course, you know where the story ultimately goes to Ohio and Les Wexner, but the prior to that, he is, he proved very adept at, um, for a while he was a very good, uh, he was very good at math and had a very ability to learn quickly about kind of new fangled financial instruments that were all the rage on Wall Street at the time.
And so he was good at his job. He also benefited at Bear Stearns. From this very kind of laissez-faire approach that the firm had toward ethics and compliance with the law and repeatedly got caught cheating and lying to his colleagues at Bayer, whether it was about his educational background or his expense account, things like that. And Bear Stearns repeatedly looked the other way and allowed him to keep operating for a while.
He ultimately got pushed out of Bear Steerns after his, these... Know, problematic instances became too frequent to ignore, at which point he embarked on his, went out on his own and really starts to have, really seems to have started scamming people at a small level first and then with each success graduates to bigger and bigger prey.
And, you know, the range is from just, you know he met someone after leaving Bear Stearns, he met someone. Who was a Bear Stearns client who was looking to invest some of his money. Epstein persuaded him to give him $400,000 to invest in a purported oil deal, which as far as we can tell never existed. Epsteen just abscends with the guy's money.
There are other instances where he is hired to try to recover missing money for some wealthy families. It seems like he, and he did find the money, but it seems like in the process, he took a pretty generous cut for himself with or without his client's knowledge.
He pairs up, and this is all before he gets to Wexner, he pairs up with a guy who will later spend 20 years in prison for running a giant Ponzi scheme. And as part of that Epstein clearly is pushing the envelope with this guy. His name is Steven Hoffenberg, although it's a little unclear. Exactly what his involvement was.
But what is very clear is that by the time he meets Wexner around 1987, Epstein has a very clear track record of scamming, conning, defrauding people. And he has made a lot of money in the process and he's worth millions of dollars himself, low millions, but millions nonetheless of dollars at that point. And then he meets his biggest mark, which is Les Wexnner.
Juravich: You're listening to All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking about the origins and lasting impact of Jeffrey Epstein. And we're talking with David Enrich, Deputy Investigations Editor for the New York Times, who is currently working on a book about Epstein and his finances.
All right, so you've taken me to 1987, but if he was ousted from Bear Stearns because his frauds or lies or whatever word you wanna use got too bad. How did, how did Wexner and his team not hear about that? Is that cause the internet didn't exist or why?
Enrich: Well, I mean, that is actually a good point. I mean we now think that like all this information, we all know that all this information is now at our fingertips, a click away. This was a different period.
On the other hand, I know Wexner in his own telling, one of the first things he did when he first met Epstein and was considering hiring him as an advisor, was he called two top Bear Stearns executives, Ace Greenberg and Jimmy Kane, who lo and behold vouched for Epstein. And so. This is, and Wexner has said that that gave him, that instilled some confidence in Wexler that this guy was legit.
Now, we know that Bear Stearns pushed him out for bad behavior. We know that Jimmy Kane and Ace Greenberg were aware of that. And so the mystery then is what on earth were they doing vouching for this guy after they were well aware of his malfeasance. And that is a question to which we do not have a good answer at this point.
Clearly, what we know is that Epstein remained very close with both Gridenberg and Cain, and basically until the time of their deaths, decades later. And it seems quite clear that the bond, the bonds were very tight, and we do really have a satisfactory answer to that.
And Wexner clearly himself did not do a whole lot of due diligence. In fact, he sent a guy, one of his long time, um, of AIDS to New York to vet Epstein initially. And the guy spent an hour in Epstein's offices in New York and got a really bad impression, leaves the offices, finds a payphone, calls Wexner and says, I smell a rat.
I think this guy is a fraud. And Wexler nonetheless plows ahead with Epstein. And I think does draw some comfort from Bear Stearns having vouched for him. But I think really was taken by Epstein and found something about him that I do not know, extremely alluring and almost magnetic, it seems like, to such an extent that he, within a couple short years, gives Epstein full control over his extensive finances.
Juravich: Was Epstein's really charismatic then? Have you seen videos of him talking? Is that why Wexner was taken with him?
Enrich: I have not seen videos of Epstein talking at that point. I mean, I've heard audio of Epsteen talking a bit later, and I've seen videos with him talking much later. But so we don't have a good window, or I don't a direct firsthand window into what he sounded like, or kind of his body language and things like that.
But by all accounts, he was very good. I mean he was masterful, in fact, at telling people what they wanted to hear and knowing what people wanted. And trying at least creating the illusion that he was providing that for them.
And I think Wexner, at this point, this is before he gets married, he's, you know, in his early 50s. He's a bachelor, very successful businessman, but you know works in an office where his mom is right across the hall and is a very domineering force in his life. He seems kind of lonely. It seems clear that for people we've interviewed that he did not have He was struggling to interact with women.
It seems like even though he was running this retail empire that specializes in catering to women. And Epstein, we do not know what exactly made Epstein so appetizing to Wexner in this period, but I think it is safe to assume that part of it was Epstein's kind of social graces, his ability to work a room.
His ability to bring Wexner into a world that previously Wexler had not been comfortable entering. And again, I don't know what the details of that look like. I know I'm being kind of cryptic. And it's not because I'm trying to be, it's just that we do not know the details.
But I do not think any reasonable observer knowing this stuff could come away with the impression that Wexners simply wanted Epstein by his side because Epstein was good at managing money. There's no evidence that Epstein WAS good at management money. And in fact, what we now know is that Epstein was stealing Wexler's money. So to me, there's got to be a fuller explanation. And my suspicion is that it involves personal stuff.
Juravich: Yeah, so in the Congressional deposition, Les Wexner said repeatedly that he was conned by Epstein, that he a con man, and that Wexler got duped by the best con man. And he insisted in his Congressional Deposition that they were not friends.
Enrich: Yeah, I think he was lying. That's, I mean, the, the we have so much evidence that they were friends or at least they were acting in a manner that went well beyond any professional boundaries and there's Wexner is a guy who, you know, in Epstein's birthday book drew a pair of breasts and made some jokes about that.
We know that when when Wexler was getting married and he was signing a prenup. Epstein sent the prenup to him in the care of a sports illustrated swimsuit model who was supposed to dress in a scanty clothing and make a joke about, are you sure you want to get married?
There are repeated instances over and over and over again where Wexner is traveling to a place where Epstein has a house. Then this is just taking Wexler at his word and is in the congressional testimony.
And so to me, there is not, again, I do not know what made this relationship tick. But I do not buy for a second that it was entirely professional. And there is just so much evidence of them associating in ways that I do do not think fit any traditional definition of what constitutes a professional relationship.
Juravich: Have you tried to interview Les Wexner for your book that you're working on?
Enrich: You know, we haven't actually made a request for the book. We've tried repeatedly like dozens of times over the past seven years to interview him for the New York Times.
Juravich: Same, same with everyone in Columbus, yeah, so go ahead, yeah.
Enrich: And I think, look, I mean, he now has not only given a statement to the House Oversight Committee, but sat for this hours long deposition where he was asked a lot of the same things we would probably have asked point blank. And so his answers kind of speak for himself.
And I just don't think that I'm sure he would disagree with this. And I'm probably going to get a call from his PR people afterwards. But like the truth is no one is just impossible to reconcile the facts as we know them with a lot of what Wexner said in that deposition about kind of how he downplayed the extent of the relationship.
Juravich: Of all the scandals and news headlines related to the Epstein files, what do you make of this being like the story of the Trump administration that won't go away? What does that make you think about?
Enrich: Well, you know, I think this is a long, this is the story that is long overdue in America to be kind of dealt with head on. And I think that there is, there's just been a lot of pent up demand for accountability here.
And I, I, think, you, know, I think there, look, there's obviously a lot of suspicion about Trump and his relationship with Epstein. We know they were very good friends for a period of time. We know that they were kind of pursuing women together, young women together. I'm not sure there's a whole lot more to it than that as it pertains to Trump.
And look, I mean, Trump, the first Trump administration is the one that brought Epstein to justice, brought Colleen Maxwell to justice. And so I know there's lots of rumors and speculation and a desire on the left to have this be the thing that like takes down Trump.
And, you know, I never say never, but we've spent, we and like countless other journalists and others all over the world have spent just, more time than I can possibly quantify going through this, looking for trying to understand the extent of the Epstein-Trump relationship. And I am not sure that there's more to it than what is already in the public domain.
Juravich: After looking into Jeffrey Epstein for so long and how much you've been doing with this, is there, what is something you still don't understand about him?
Enrich: I mean, I don't even know where to begin with that. There's so many things. And like in reverse chronological order, like I don't think we have the full story on how he died. Or at least there are a lot of unanswered questions about the circumstances of his death.
I don't think we understand the full extent of his relationship with Leon Black, who was the guy after Wexner, who was Epstein's kind of primary financial backer in the later years of his life. I think there are still unanswer questions about the 2008 plea deal. That Epstein struck in with federal prosecutors and state prosecutors in Florida. We don't, I'm not sure we fully understand that.
I certainly don't think we fully understand the nature and extent of the Wexner-Epstein relationship. And again, I am somehow managing to stick the reverse chronological order here. We also don't then going back to the Bear Stearns days, I don't feel like I understand what made these Bear Steerns executives after fortunately died out of the bank. Not only stick by him and like manage his money, but also vouch for him over and over again in many different circumstances.
Juravich: Will you have any of those answers in your book?
Enrich: I hope to, man, I hope too, but it's hard. Like, this is stuff, a lot of this is stuff that happened decades ago, obviously. And other elements of it are things that, like, people have a pretty strong incentive, I think, to not talk about.
And, like, one thing I'm very confident in is that there are still some very powerful, wealthy people out there who still have a lot of secrets that they're trying to hide and are very worried that if those secrets... Stop being secrets, that it could be very damaging to them, whether that's reputationally, financially, legally. And so, I mean, this is kind of a, it's hard reporting. And, but like I am obsessed with this, obviously, and my colleagues are as well. And so we're going to keep looking for answers.
Juravich: We've been speaking with David Enrich, Deputy Investigations Editor for the New York Times, who's currently working on a book about Epstein and his finances. Thank you so much for joining us on All Sides today.
Enrich: Thanks for having me.
Juravich: And coming up an insider's look at the world of the rich and powerful and people who associated with Jeffrey Epstein. That is when All Sides continues on 89.7 NPR News.
You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. Author F. Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote, "'Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. Because of their wealth and privilege, they are thought to be smart, but if they're so savvy, how do people like Jeffrey Epstein and Bernie Madoff infiltrate their world and con them?'
We're looking at the lingering shadow and influence of Jeffrey Epsteen this hour. Joining us now is author and journalist, Holly Peterson. She writes the "earn your luck" column for the Wall Street Journal, and has been called one of the sharpest observers of how the ultra rich live. Welcome to All Sides, Holly. Thank you so much for having me, Amy. So this hour was inspired by your column in the Wall street Journal. How did Epstein snare so many otherwise savvy people? So what's your takeaway after writing that? How did he do this? How did you snare so smart, savvy people.
Peterson: Well, I think first of all, it's important to delineate. I really tried to focus on the people who weren't after the sex, whether they were total perverts or just wanted like pretty 20-something women, right? So a lot of people, when they say, why were people hanging out with Epstein, they say sex, but so many people weren't after that, so what were they after?
And my two headlines are, they went to his table for dinner out of greed, because rich people and powerful people, when they hang out with each other. They usually get stuff, they get connections, they get a show funded, they got a book published, they get money for their fund, 100 mil here and there.
And so it was greed, but also FOMO because these immensely powerful people are basically super neurotic and wanna stay powerful. So if all these important people are going somewhere, it's like rich person FOMOs. The two headlines are greed and FOMOS, if it wasn't sex.
Juravich: All right, so yeah, greed and fear of missing out. You spoke to people who said Epstein's powers of seduction could be intoxicating. Did you figure out what made him so spellbinding? Was he charismatic? Was he a good talker?
Peterson: You know, I've read so much about this guy, as I think we all are starting to have done, but I've I've, I read something about MIT professors who said at 24, he was just brilliant. He knew so much, even though he was uneducated in many ways.
And so I do think he was probably very brilliant, but I think he immensely manipulative. He used his brain to manipulate those. Who he figured out what people had as their major vulnerability, and he went after it like a serpent. With a young girl, it was a history of abuse and she needed money and some sort of happy future.
And Glenn, you know, went and found these, Glenn Maxwell, his cohort, went and these young women, and then Jeffrey could abuse them or take advantage of them and promise them things. It's all they wanted in life. It's things they never believed they could attain. So they stayed around him.
As for the other people, you know, it was a guy who really needed funding. It was someone who wanted another book published. It was a megalomaniac talking head who'd go anywhere just to, you now, kind of suck up to the right people and go to more conferences and Davos.
You know, he didn't invite like the CEO of Goldman who was a totally happy, normal guy, right? He was inviting people who wanted something, who were voraciously seeking more success, more money, more power. And he would seek people they wanted to meet around the table. So you'd kind of be crazy to say no, you know?
Juravich: And you didn't actually know him, but you observed him. You were at the same cocktail party one time. What was your impression? Do you remember that cocktail party well?
Peterson: Listen, I am unfortunately in the late 50s era of my life and Ghislaine Maxwell is my exact same age. So I knew her quite well for all the women who were professional women, kind of on the upper east side who were out and about, we all knew Ghislane. Hundreds of us knew Ghilaine.
She was everywhere. She was at book parties. She would have dinner. She would cocktail parties. I mean, she was just kind of the big gatherer of people and just like the "Holly Golightly" who went everywhere, right? And so she was having a cocktail party at her house, actually, for Prince Andrew. And I thought, okay, I've never met a royal like that. I'll go.
And Jeffrey Epstein was across the room in a tracksuit, like one of those Nike loose kind of hoodie tracksuits, sweatsuits, I should say. And he was just kind of weird, but he was mesmerizing. He was one of these people who kind of stood there and everyone was looking at him. He has some weird power. I mean, he really did.
I think people have weird powers that are just unbelievably mesmerizing to other people. It can be bad and it can be good. I mean I think, people like President Clinton had a just completely alluring personality, right? People like to talk to him, he was a crazy extrovert. I think Jeffrey had a lot of those qualities plus brilliance, plus this evil manipulation.
Juravich: You wrote that he, on purpose, liked to wear the sweatsuits when everyone else was dressed up because it drew attention or made him stand out in a way he liked.
Peterson: Yeah, I mean, I don't care who you are. I don't care if you run a company. If you're going to a cocktail party for Prince Andrew, you're gonna rush home and get dressed up or put on, you're even gonna go to a store nearby and put on a proper shirt if you don't have one on. No one's gonna walk in in a sweatsuit. And that was his kind of screw you. You know, when someone's such a rebel and weird and alluring, you pay attention to them. And that's what he wanted. He wanted eyes on him.
Juravich: And it's strange that it seems like when the Epstein List came out, there was that back and forth where people don't want their name in it, but also want their names in it. It's like a badge of honor, like if your name's not in it then that means Jeffrey never talked about you, but right, would you agree with that?
Peterson: You know, it's really important for your listeners to understand that the kind of power elite of Manhattan is a very small group of people. They kind of circumnavigate the globe and they're running businesses and they are running publishing houses and some of them are extremely loaded and rich and some are just extremely powerful because they run a magazine or a foundation that gives away tons of money.
So it's this kind of extra of power and money. And they go to Davos and Aspen Ideas and they hang out at fancy cocktails and the Hamptons and Nantucket, New York. And it's really honestly a rather small group and they are all seeking power.
And those are all the people who were in the black book which by the way was the Lynn's black book. It wasn't Jeffrey, it was people she wanted him to meet. So there are dozens and dozens and thousands of not hundreds of people I know who are in that black book like myself who never met Jeffrey Epstein.
Yeah, when it came out, people were like, I'm in the black book. Oh yeah, me too. It kind of was like super perversely some sort of sense of like, I matter in this group. Like I'm one of those people who would be a coveted guest even with an unsavory host, you know?
Juravich: You're listening to All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking about how Jeffrey Epstein managed to ensnare so many wealthy people with Holly Peterson, author and journalist who writes the "earn your luck" column for the Wall Street Journal.
So your column, how did Epstein snare so many otherwise savvy people, also caught our attention because one of those people he snared is Les Wexner, a retail mogul. His name is on quite a few buildings here in Columbus. A man who has made a lot of news for his ties to Epstein.
In his deposition to members of Congress, he said over and over again that Epstein conned him and that they were not friends. Do you believe, Les Wexner, when he says that they are not actually friends?
Peterson: I don't really believe any of these guys. I mean, I don't care if it's a dinner. I mean I just, I really don't believe anyone. I believe there are people like Brad Karp who ran one of the most important law firms in New York who got snared in this because he wanted his kid on a Woody Allen film set. Like people wanted things, right? And Woody Allen was coming, right. So is Brad Kharp lying? I don't think so.
But is Les Wexner who paid him, how much did he pay him? Over $100 million, right? Yeah. And saw him all the time and he's all over these emails, right, and doing business. I mean, why are these people paying Epstein if it isn't nefarious, right. I mean that's something that's really important to understand, you know.
I grew up in Manhattan and my father started out in a Greek coffee shop and he ended up a well-known person on Wall Street in the government. So I understand how these people tick, right and I know how they interact and the ones who are ethical and kind of normal and maybe very, very ambitious but aren't gonna like compromise things.
You know, you pay your, I mean, how much do your taxes cost if you don't do it on tax, you know, on some tax app? I mean at the most they're what, four or $10,000 for someone with, you know a significant amount of income coming in. And for these large family offices and these large businesses, I've asked a bunch of them, these family offices that have billions of dollars under, that they're running and controlling, it's about $1.5 to $2 million a year for taxes.
And so fees, to have people do the taxes. So why Leanne Black would pay him $180 million for tax help or why Wexner would pay him a hundred and whatever million. For business help, it just makes no sense. And as evil and inside and nefarious as people think the wealthy and powerful are in New York, they do abide by laws.
And the tax code is not actually that complicated. And neither are business transactions. If you do investment banking with Goldman Sachs, you pay them a fee. If you're in a hedge fund, you pay a 2% free for them to manage your money. I mean, it's just like. It's transparent. People know how business is done in New York, right?
And there's rules and there's lawyers and there're conventions and there are regulations and there is an SEC, right. So this whole idea that these big shots are paying $150 million to one guy who was doing nothing that anyone can understand is unbelievable and incredible, as in not credible. You know, so I know I don't believe Lex Wexner and I don't believe Leon Black. I don't believe people pay $150 million to help with your taxes. It just doesn't happen. Leon Black's own firm, Apollo, said they paid about $2 million annually for taxes. So why do you need to pay someone $180 million more?
Juravich: Studies show that the rich get richer because they hang out together. Do you think that was a part of the attraction of Epstein or someone like Bernie Madoff? Simply because they had these gatherings, they knew people, the wealthy hang out together, it reminds me of like American Express's tagline, membership has its privileges. So is that a mantra you would use? Yeah.
Peterson: Amy, there is absolutely no question scientifically proven that people, whether they're rich or not, who hang out with rich people or richer people get richer themselves. I mean, you can be an underprivileged kid in a school. If you have rich friends, it can be a public school. The chances of you having a higher income when you're older than your other friends in your city poor neighborhood are enormous. Middle income people who hang out with people who are richer. Almost always have higher, not always, but have a much greater propensity to have a higher income.
And of course, rich people hang out with rich people. Of course, of course. You're not just like meeting literary agents or an editor here and there, some middle employee at a pharmaceutical company where you'd like to think about doing some business.
I mean, this was like the CEOs, publishers, chairmans of huge networks, monster anchors. You know, so if you say, listen, I got a show for you, you know, it's not like you have to pitch it to 15 teams and get 15 agents before anyone pays attention to you. You know the head can say, oh, this woman has a nice show. I'd like to, let's give it a pilot if we can. You know just fast tracks everything.
Same thing with investments in your firm. I mean, if you're with a guy who's worth billions, you're looking for a hundred million and you have 10 minutes to explain why you have this startup. You know, that just cuts all the red tape.
Juravich: A recent New York Times essay referred to Jeffrey Epstein as a dark connector, someone who makes it easier for wealthy people to move between their public obligations and private desires. You know, they're otherwise known as fixers. Do you know if Epstein maybe had some power and some sway over these people because he was a fixer for them, the dark connector?
Peterson: He wasn't a fixer that, I mean, these people could have met the other people on their own. The issue was he made it so easy. Your kid wants a job with Woody Allen. Woody Allen will be at dinner on Tuesday. Why don't you come over? Okay, you have this book. No one wants to publish it. Listen, I had a random house coming over.
I mean he just made it, he made these gatherings with 10 to 20 people at his table. So easy. I would say he greased the wheels rather than closing the deals. You know, he would just make it easier for people to, you know, whether it's greed or ambition, to get what they wanted.
Juravich: Leaders in business, education, politics, the media, royal families have all been disgraced by their association with Epstein. Do you believe any of them feel any remorse?
Peterson: Well, of course they feel remorse, you know, that their names in these emails and, you know, all this stuff, and they look really bad. I mean, you if I don't honestly entirely blame someone for going to dinner because you're trying to get your kid a job, you're trying to your book published.
I think a lot of people out here in the country, whether you're trying to getting your kid into a crowded nursery school or a church, or you want to get into some camp, or want to. Do something, you kind of sometimes have to suck up to people you don't really love and the whole notion of sucking up and isn't really fun and you feel kind of greasy after it.
But you know, we all do that to some extent. Of for the people. Pretty innocent of anything as in didn't really connect with him afterwards. Certainly didn't say anything salacious on emails and just kind of wanted to check it out. It wanted to meet someone. Of course they feel remorse of their names in the press but if they were just doing that, I don't think it's the worst thing in the world.
I'm not exonerating people, but 90% of the people were having sex. They were perverts. They were breaking the law. They were doing other things. So I think we need a totem pole of Horrible behavior of the people who were at the dinner some I can kind of understand it I think we all can kind understand it out of curiosity or something But once you're emailing him and saying, you know, don't worry about this conviction with the 12 new new lady or new young girls You know, you'll beat the rep once you cross that line.
Absolutely I mean you should just quit your job and hide into a rock and go help people for the rest of your life I mean once you are trying to once you downgrading someone's you know, charges by 12 year olds to, you know kind of a joke or something to gloss over. You were definitely on the dark side.
Juravich: Well, just to end on, why do you think that Jeffrey Epstein has fascinated the public? Like his shadow continues to loom large over the news. It's the story that won't go away. Why do you that is?
Peterson: There is a one main reason that I'm absolutely positive of Amy. The whole notion, I mean, this whole country is torn apart, right? There's no middle-class left. So you have the 1% and you have a 99%. And basically 98% of the people in this country are feeling disenfranchised and they're working too hard to make a living that makes them okay for college loans or whatever, right?
And the notion is that these wealthy, powerful people. You know, get insider access. They don't pay their taxes, they help each other, they don't deserve it, it's all unfair. It's like this locked system that no one can penetrate. And it's actually true because 98% of the people in this country are having a terrible time making a living and sustaining their families and paying college loans and all this stuff.
And they see all these people who, you know for whom everything's so easy and they're all hanging out with each other. And then all this comes out about all their Inverted sex and breaking laws and it. It just confirms the general American thesis of why the inequality exists in America. And it's true.
It's these people have created this massive wealth, this massive web of connections that other people cannot penetrate. And so that's why the story keeps going on because it's truth. It's proving a thesis.
Juravich: We've been speaking with Holly Peterson, author and journalist who writes the "earn your luck" column for the Wall Street Journal. Thank you so much for your time today, Holly. Thanks, Amy.
And coming up, we're going to talk with a psychologist about how the attraction of people like Jeffrey Epstein and Bernie Madoff persists. That is When All Sides Continues on 89.7 NPR News.
You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. According to podcaster and NYU professor Scott Galloway, the rich are protected by the law, but not bound by it, while the rest of us are bound by the laws, but not protected by it. This could possibly explain why people like Jeffrey Epstein and Bernie Madoff, and even President Trump, are able to hold such sway over the rich and powerful.
Joining us to talk about the almost cult-like devotion these people inspire, we have Ronald Riggio. Professor of Leadership and Organizational Psychology at Claremont McKenna College in California. Welcome to All Sides are On.
Ronald Riggio: Yeah, glad to be here. Thanks.
Juravich: So do you think that the Epstein files have continued to loom large over the current administration and they're in the news cycle and it won't go away, bringing people down who have a connection to Jeffrey Epstein, like why do you this story never goes away?
Riggio: Well, I think, and your last guest kind of got onto that, I think that in this era of inequality, that people are glad to see sort of the rich and powerful fall to stumble, and so there's an interest in that. We think of celebrities, the Mel Gibson kind of thing a few years ago and all those sorts of things. And so I think there's interest in... Watching these powerful people fall.
So in leadership, you know, Americans have this kind of weird thing. We put our leaders on a pedestal, and, but we like to see them get knocked off that pedestal too, because that kind of, you know, it's almost like things are sort of evening out.
Juravich: Well, as a psychologist, would you classify Jeffrey Epstein as a narcissist, a psychopath? Is there a word to diagnose him without having met him?
Riggio: Yeah, well, definitely most people who are in these kinds of powerful positions and are self-interested are narcissists, right? We know this, that many leaders are narcissus. And if you sort of think of it as an inverted you, a curvilinear relationship.
That you know almost all leaders have a little bit of narcissism. It's the ones that sort of get to that extreme where they where it starts to become sort of toxic narcissism or what we call grandiose narcissism and I think Epstein, I think President Trump, I think they you know show the more grandiose narcissistic tendencies. It's all about me and other people are just really there to be manipulated to, you know, to my benefit.
Juravich: What do you think the difference is between someone like Jeffrey Epstein and his hold he had on people versus some what we see from someone like President Trump. President Trump has a hold on members of Congress and he can he can have a hold over the media and the way things play in the media. How do you how do you have the juxtaposition between those two how Epstein worked versus how the president works?
Riggio: Yeah, in many ways they're different. I mean, you know, by virtue of being president of the United States, Donald Trump has immense power and people are drawn to power. Jeffrey Epstein didn't have that kind of, you know high level power by virtue of his position, his was much more his ability to connect people, to get things done and then his reputation.
One of the things that we know in leadership is that we sort of equate success with good leadership, if you're effective. And Epstein seemed like he was getting things done. And so I think people thought he was effective and they followed him, treated him as a leader. But that doesn't mean good. I think there's a difference between being successful and being good. And now we're talking about being morally good.
Juravich: Our last guest said that savvy people were taken in by Jeffrey Epstein because of two reasons. She said greed and FOMO, fear of missing out. So I wanted to get your take on it. Why do supposedly smart, savvy people get taken in like people like Bernie Madoff or Jeffrey Epsteine?
Riggio: Well, I think what they're offering, financial rewards, sexual rewards, right? All of those kinds of things are enticing to people. But there's a lot of biases that we have in how we process information. And so I think a lot of these rich and powerful people.
Just engage in what we might sort of call cognitive laziness. They don't do their due diligence. They just sort of take things on faith. So somebody says, oh, this guy Epstein can do good things for you financially, or Epstein can connect you with people, or Epstine can provide these sort of sexual favors. Now we're getting more on the dark side of what's going on.
But I think that they didn't just think things through. And there's lots of evidence that suggests that people You know, they don't engage their brains in a lot of instances and don't analyze the situation thoroughly. They just go ahead and assume that things are gonna happen the way they expect them to happen.
Juravich: You're listening to All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking about the cult-like attraction of people with Ronald Riggio, professor of leadership and organizational psychology at Claremont McKenna College in California. Confirmation bias refers to recalling information that confirms your beliefs and ignoring contradictory evidence. So does that come into play here? Did people ignore Epstein's truly bad side because of what they wanted.
Riggio: Yeah, I think that connects to what we were just talking about, that idea that you look for information that confirms what you already believe. So, you believe, for example, that on the financial side, that Epstein can provide these kinds of things. Other people are vouching for him, saying he's able to do good things. And so you look for that information, but you don't look for the disconfirming information. You know, people who maybe got ripped off by him, you know, you don't look at the people who failed. You look for successes.
Juravich: Do race, does race and gender play a part in who is influential? Like who ends up being the one everyone's looking to.
Riggio: I don't think race so much, but definitely gender does, right? We have, and particularly we look at leadership. I mean, the majority of powerful people, you know, if we talk about Fortune 500 CEOs, we talk people in elected political positions, you know predominantly men.
And so, you know males have this sort of advantage because when we think about somebody in a leadership position, somebody we should. Follow the prototype that we have is is a male, right? So so that does definitely give give you an advantage. I mean, the fact that we've never elected a female president in the United States just confirms that.
Juravich: That leads me to thinking about the history of people being drawn to authoritarian leaders. Why are they so attractive to people? Why do people want to follow them?
Riggio: Yeah, it's very clear that many people, not everybody, but many people do want the sort of authoritarian leader, and the term we use is strongman leader, which gets back to the gender issue. And you know, that might be sort of in our evolutionary history, right? The idea of the alpha male, you know?
And I think a lot of people, when they're thinking about a leader, they look for somebody who can protect them, protect them from harm. And when, under threat, for example, Um, you know people look for that strongman leader. So go back to Uh 9 11 and if you think about george w bush as president You know the sort of jury was out people didn't have a lot of faith in him but then once the u.s was under attack after 9 11 all of a sudden his Evaluations of him went up. He got re-elected later. He was seen as more powerful because of that desire for people to have a leader who will protect them. Under that threat, they sort of were more drawn to Bush.
Juravich: Back to the people who were attracted to or conned by Epstein, is there a term in psychology for someone who thinks they're untouchable because they're wealthy and powerful? Like, someone who truly doesn't think they will get caught.
Riggio: Yeah, so there's a leadership ethicist, an ethicist Terry Price, and he calls this exception making. He says that what happens, and this is the dynamics of power, he says that when people become very, very powerful, they start to believe that the laws that apply to everyone else, to go back to your original quote when we opened up here, the laws that apply to everyone don't apply to me, that I'm above the law.
And you sort of see this, right, informally. A celebrity gets pulled over by a police officer and the first thing they say is, don't you know who I am? I mean, that idea that you're above the law. And I think that is what causes a lot of the misbehavior of bad leaders, of negative leaders.
Juravich: Why don't people have a fear that their association with someone like Epstein will bring them down? I guess until it does, years later. People are probably afraid now, but they weren't afraid 20 years ago.
Riggio: Yeah, I think again, it goes back to that idea of we so much want the positive outcome that we're not thinking about the alternatives. We're just sort of plowing ahead. These individuals are plowing at saying, you know, I'm gonna get financial returns. I'm going to have all of these sexual opportunities, all of kinds of things.
With Epstein, and they don't think about the drawbacks. It's like, this is what I want now. And part of it might be that exception making too. Well, you know, other people, it might happen, bad things might happen to other people. Other people might get caught, but certainly not me.
Juravich: Yeah, and you were talking about the gender aspect, and you mentioned the ultra male thing. We're hearing a term nowadays called manosphere. And this promotes masculinity and opposes feminism. How does that play into the attraction of leaders? This this idea of masculinity is better? No feminism.
Riggio: I mean, I think it's sort of regressive. I think we're going back to earlier times. And I mean there's even talk now in sort of conservative circles about why do women have the right to vote? And this idea that you're hearing from conservative, the sort of MAGA world of Well, a wife should just vote the same way that her husband does, and so maybe they don't need the vote. Maybe the husband could vote for them, that kind of thing. And that's ridiculous, absurd.
Juravich: Well, just to end on, we've been talking about power and having control and a hold on things. Other people have tried to replicate President Trump and his actions without as much success. So do you think that this movement that President Trump has right now will be done when he's done, if no one can replicate this power?
Riggio: You know, he's sort of a singular individual. I mean, you know, he really is sort of masterful bully, right? He has this ability to, you now, to attack. He's always like an attack dog, he's always on the attack. And... You know, so I don't know.
And then there's also this cult of personality, the whole sort of celebrity status that was built up around him. The celebrity both in terms of being, you know, on a reality TV show, "The Apprentice", but also this idea, this sort of celebrity idea that he was this terrific businessman, terrific successful businessman.
And so he has all of that sort of aura going for him. And then the fact that he's this sort of outrageous bully, which makes him effective because people don't wanna be in his crosshairs. So I think that combination, I don't think you're gonna see that combination in anybody else. I don't see anyone else that have the combination of the celebrity and the outrageous.
Juravich: We're gonna have to end it there. Yeah, we've been speaking with Ronald Riggio, professor of leadership and organizational psychology at Claremont McKenna College in California. Thanks so much for your time today. Sorry, we ran out of time. Thanks for joining us. This has been All Sides on 89.7 NPR News.