This 'secret weapon' lets Trump and Epstein elite 'get away with anything': author

Author and journalist Anand Giridharadas identified Sunday what he called the single thing that has allowed the wealthy and powerful figures in Jeffrey Epstein's orbit to escape accountability for decades — and it's something most Americans have lost.

Speaking on The Daily Beast podcast with host Joanna Coles, Giridharadas argued the so-called "Epstein class" — a shadowy network of billionaires, financiers, professors, royals, and political operators — operates by a code of mutual protection that overrides any ideological divide.

"They just understand something fundamental that is the heart of this chapter which is that their shared interests with each other are more important to them than any ideas or principles they hold," Giridharadas told Coles, describing the conclusion of his five-part Substack series on the Epstein files.

He said the network's members "joust each other for your and my entertainment" on cable television, but "when the cameras are off… they have each other's backs." That mutual loyalty, he argued, is the secret weapon that has shielded the network from prosecution.

Giridharadas also floated that President Donald Trump may have launched the Iran war in part to change the subject from the Epstein files, which he called "the heart of the corruption and impunity of which [Trump] is, of course, one of our greatest living embodiments."

The author argued ordinary Americans, by contrast, "snipe at each other" and "assume the worst" — leaving elites free to operate with impunity.

"We've lived in an age of impunity in which people in this group, this network, can get away with anything," he said.