Congress Orders Trump to Release the Epstein Files

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. In a dramatic vote on Tuesday, congressional Republicans overwhelmingly approved a bill that president Trump spent months trying to kill that will now force his administration to release all of its files related to Jeffrey Epstein. Today, the story of how a rebellion started by a handful of Republican lawmakers became a party wide mutiny against the president and a defining moment of his second term. It's Wednesday, November 19. Oh, good morning. It's a little chilly coming from Florida. Not used to it. I know everybody sees us today as grown adults, but we are fighting for the children that were abandoned and left behind. This is who you're fighting for. This is who congress is fighting for. This is who the house of representatives are fighting for. I wanna kick this off right, and I wanna address I was a child. I was in ninth grade. I was hopeful for life. I was only 14 when I first encountered Jeffrey Epstein, and my daughter is now almost at that age. At 14, what we endured was real. The truth has been buried in sealed files and hidden records for far too long. The Epstein files transparent Alone, But together, we are feared. Emotionally, this process has been distressing. First, the administration said it would release everything, then it fought to release nothing. Let me be clear. This is not a hoax. I beg you, president Trump, please stop making this political. It is not about you, president Trump. I voted for you, but your behavior on this issue has been a national embarrassment. Because survivors spoke up, because of their courage, the truth is finally going to come out. And I also wanna thank the courage of two of my colleagues in particular. Both of them have suffered, as you know, extraordinary political consequences for what they did. And I wanna hand it over to my colleague, representative Thomas Massie. I wanna start by thanking the survivors. I mean, they're giving everybody hope in this country. We're gonna get justice for them. That's gonna happen today in the people's house. We had long odds, but we had some brave women on the Republican side. They were pressured in ways that you cannot even imagine, and they stood strong. My colleague Marjorie Taylor Greene is one of them who's here with us today. These women have fought the most horrific fight that no woman should have to fight, and they did it by banding together and never giving up. And that's what we did by fighting so hard against the most powerful people in the world, even the president of The United States. And he called me a traitor for standing with these women. I wasn't a Johnny come lately to the MAGA train. And I'll tell you right now, watching this actually turn into a fight has ripped MAGA apart. It's about 10AM on Tuesday morning. …