On MSNBC's Deadline: White House, Angelo Carusone calls on Steve Bannon to release interview recordings with Epstein he’s sitting on

Carusone: “He has interviews with Jeffrey Epstein”

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published

From the July 30, 2025, edition of MSNBC's Deadline: White House

NICOLLE WALLACE (HOST): I mean, Angelo, let me come back to you, we saw you nodding along with some of Julie's reporting here. I mean, what is then the conspiracy or the search, if we want to be generous, over the missing minute about?

ANGELO CARUSONE (MEDIA MATTERS PRESIDENT): This is why before all this became a controversy that escaped the right-wing containment -- I'm so glad you said all that -- because this was the very reason why people were so mad at Bongino and Patel to a degree, because back in the day, that was what they were talking about, was that there was some kind of a setup here, because they were the ones that helped introduce those ideas to the very audiences that they turned around and said, 'We saw the files and we didn't -- and he committed, you know, he actually did commit suicide.' That was sort of what really sparked -- that was then when they first came out that sort of slowed this down. 

And what that missing minute is about is that it is a piece of material. The idea is that it was supposed to be dispositive that, 'Okay, here's the video. You see, nobody went in, nobody went out. He actually did kill himself.' But the missing minute has now become sort of symbolic in some ways for the administration's withholding of a whole bunch of other files, right? Just like the list to a degree, is really a proxy for information. A lot of people don't actually think there's a list. They just say, they use that as a shorthand for saying, 'Give us the insight into the very thing that you promised that you would do.' And that's really what I think the missing minute, at least to that audience, has become about, is less about the minute and more about the fact that the administration is playing games with them and withholding important information, to get back to what Joe Rogan was saying when he said, they're treating us like babies. 

And that's why I think now it's not just going to be an ire focused toward the administration, but I think they're going to start turning on Steve Bannon, because, remember, he's still sitting on 15 hours of recordings.

WALLACE: From what? What are Steve Bannon's recordings?

CARUSONE: He has interviews with Jeffrey Epstein.

WALLACE: That he's sitting on?

CARUSONE: Yes. That he hasn't released, that he did as part of some documentary that he was doing. And he's talked about them. He's referenced them during the big Charlie Kirk thing. He promised at some point they would be releasing them. Maybe they're going to put them into a movie, but now it's basically gone radio silent. And just this morning, Patrick Bet-David was complaining about it. Because, you know, eventually, because it is a conspiracy, they're going to keep pushing on the administration, sure, but as they don't want to, you know, they're going to keep banging their head against the wall there, but they're also not going to give it up. They're now going to start to try to pull in more information. 

So, as much as we talk about that missing minute, it is as much about that missing minute as about the fact that somebody is playing games with them and they don't like it. And that's why, in a way, I kind of compare this to glitter, it's that, it is -- you just can't -- it's everywhere now. And it will keep popping up and there will be these moments where they latch on. And that's where I think some of the energy is going to go now, is directed toward Bannon to start. 'Hey, give us the thing that you have then at least, if we can't get anything from the administration.'