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The Guardian
08-08-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Trump's attempts to distance himself from the Epstein files are failing
One of Trump's preternatural abilities is his apparent animal instinct to lie on the spot whenever he senses he might be cornered. His initial Pavlovian training by his mob lawyer Roy Cohn and subsequent experience in more than 4,000 lawsuits and countless scandals seem to have ingrained in him that lying, the more outrageous the better, buys him time, plays to his credulous followers as insouciant defiance, and wears down his accusers. When Trump's distractions failed to distract from the Jeffrey Epstein files, he offered a story without missing a beat to distance himself from any taint. In his tale, he was traduced by Epstein. Trump was taken advantage of, violated, despoiled. There could be no guilt by association; Trump was a victim, too. Perhaps, after claiming to no effect that Barack Obama, Joe Biden and the former FBI director James Comey had fabricated the files, he felt that he had at last found ground where he could gain some traction. Trump always designates a scapegoat, but neither Tren de Agua nor Hunter Biden would fit with Epstein. All along, Trump has missed the easiest and most obvious scapegoat. Why not blame Epstein for Epstein? Trump just needed to invent a story. He began by blurting on 28 July: 'But for years, I wouldn't talk to Jeffrey Epstein. I wouldn't talk because he did something that was inappropriate. He hired help, and I said, 'Don't ever do that again.' He stole people that worked for me. I said, 'Don't ever do that again.' He did it again. And I threw him out of the place – persona non grata. I threw him out, and that was it. I'm glad I did, if you want to know the truth.' After establishing the premise of his story, he added more detail the next day. 'People that work in the spa – I have a great spa, one of the best spas in the world at Mar-a-Lago – and people were taken out of the spa, hired by him. In other words, gone. And other people would come and complain, 'This guy is taking people from the spa.' I didn't know that. He took people that worked for me. And I told him, 'Don't do it any more.' And he did it. I said, 'Stay the hell out of here.'' A reporter followed up to ask if any of those employees were young women, an opportunity for further Trump story enhancement. 'The answer is yes, they were in the spa,' Trump said. 'I told him, I said, 'Listen, we don't want you taking our people, whether it was spa or not spa' … And he was fine. And then not too long after that, he did it again.' Then Trump was asked if one of those young women was Virginia Giuffre, who was exploited by Epstein beginning at age 16 in 2000 until she escaped his clutches in 2002, eventually filing lawsuits against him that helped break the case open. 'I think she worked at the spa,' Trump replied. 'I think that was one of the people, yeah. He stole her.' He added, 'And by the way, she had no complaints about us, as you know – none whatsoever.' Trump's self-defensive remarks were an accumulation of lies and distortions, each one at risk of tumbling on the next. Unfortunately, it was contradicted by the factual timeline. And his comments about Giuffre, the tragically abused child who bore witness, for whom he offered not a word of sympathy, depicting her as stolen property, offended the Giuffre family, who came forward to denounce his heartlessness. 'It was shocking to hear President Trump invoke our sister and say that he was aware that Virginia had been 'stolen' from Mar-a-Lago,' read the family's statement. This was not the public relations success that Trump had hoped for to lay the Epstein scandal to rest. Trump suggested in his story that Giuffre was only one of the 'people' Epstein had poached from him. In his telling, he first warned Epstein before he 'stole' Giuffre. In fact, it was Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's former girlfriend and accomplice, who recruited Giuffre and participated in her sexual abuse. There is no record of others than Giuffre recruited from the Mar-a-Lago spa. Trump's story of multiple 'people' and his warning to Epstein are baseless. Still, the ever reliable White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt stated: 'The fact remains that President Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club for being a creep to his female employees.' Trump went on Newsmax to praise her, the press secretary, as if she were the winner of a modeling contest: 'She's become a star. It's that face, it's that brain, it's those lips, the way they move, they move like she's a machine gun.' It was true Trump had not spoken 'for years' to Epstein. But there his truthfulness ended. Three years after Trump claimed he had cut his ties to Epstein for stealing Giuffre, in 2003, Trump sent him a risqué poem celebrating his 50th birthday inside his drawing of a naked woman, signing his name to represent pubic hair, according to the Wall Street Journal. 'We have certain things in common, Jeffrey … A pal is a wonderful thing … and may every day be a wonderful secret.' According to the Washington Post, their relationship ruptured not in 2000 as Trump claimed, but in 2004 over a real estate rivalry to purchase a Palm Beach estate. Trump, whose casinos went bankrupt that year, somehow found the cash to outbid Epstein. Four years later, Trump sold the estate to a Russian oligarch closely tied to Vladimir Putin for double the price, at $95m. 'Don't say Russian,' Trump told a reporter from the Palm Beach Post. He urged the reporter just to write 'foreign'. Trump and Epstein socialized together for years with 'young women', some underage, and often with models, including a party for 'calendar girls' at Mar-a-Lago in 1992, where the two were the only other guests, and Trump's alleged groping of the model Stacey Williams in Trump Tower with Epstein present in 1993. Trump denies these allegations. 'Epstein enjoyed hanging out backstage at beauty pageants and fashion shows with his Palm Beach and New York neighbor and friend Donald Trump, former models said,' the Miami Herald reported. Trump himself owned three beauty pageants. He described going backstage on the Howard Stern radio talk show in 2005: 'You know they're standing there with no clothes … And you see these incredible looking women. And so I sort of get away with things like that.' Trump created Trump Model Management, also known as T Models, in 1999. T Models recruited girls as young as 14 to the US on tourist visas with lavish promises of fame and fortune, and once they arrived paid them minimally. 'It is like modern-day slavery,' said one of the models, Rachel Blais. 'Honestly, they are the most crooked agency I've ever worked for, and I've worked for quite a few.' Epstein wanted a modeling agency of his own. He admired Trump's T Models and sought to replicate it. He invested in one based in Paris operated by Jean-Luc Brunel, a model agency head who was also accused of sex trafficking. Courtney Powell Soerensen, a model, told the Miami Herald: 'Epstein had to have his slimy peons and Brunel was the ideal person to do the job.' Brunel had been the subject of a 60 Minutes exposé as an alleged sexual abuser of models in 1988. In New York, in the 1990s, Brunel lived in Trump Tower. 'The modeling agency was the perfect vehicle for Epstein to get more victims,' Giuffre said. Heather Braden, a model, told the Miami Herald she saw Brunel, Epstein and Trump at parties together frequently in the early 1990s. Brunel was charged with rape in 2021 and died by apparent suicide in a French prison in 2022, about two years after Epstein's apparent suicide. Trump had never before told his self-exonerating story about how he had broken with Epstein over Giuffre. But he had spoken publicly about his relationship with Epstein in 2002, when he rejoiced in their friendship to New York magazine: 'Terrific guy. He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it – Jeffrey enjoys his social life.' Little remarked upon in the citation of this quote was that Trump's response to the writer appears intended to offer a more positive and vivid picture of Epstein, at least in Trump's eyes, than the reclusive and serious image Epstein was trying to promote. Trump's description was preceded in the article by this set-up: 'Epstein likes to tell people that he's a loner, a man who's never touched alcohol or drugs, and one whose nightlife is far from energetic. And yet if you talk to Donald Trump, a different Epstein emerges.' Trump, always seeking to elevate himself, preened in talking about Epstein as following his example as a Casanova. Now he continues to stonewall the public over the Epstein files. Days after Maxwell was interviewed by the deputy attorney general Todd Blanche in her Florida prison, she was granted transfer to a minimal security penitentiary in Texas. Her move heightens the intrigue surrounding her deposition, which the administration is keeping secret despite calls by Democratic senators for its release. By invoking Giuffre, Trump has activated her family. They were enraged by the favor suddenly granted to Maxwell and wonder whether it is part of a deal. 'President Trump has sent a clear message today: pedophiles deserve preferential treatment and their victims do not matter,' read their statement. 'This move smacks of a cover-up. The victims deserve better.' Trump's ill-conceived story about Giuffre has undermined rather than bolstered him in maintaining control of the storyline. Sidney Blumenthal is a Guardian US columnist
The Guardian
08-08-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Trump's attempts to distance himself from the Epstein files are failing
One of Trump's preternatural abilities is his apparent animal instinct to lie on the spot whenever he senses he might be cornered. His initial Pavlovian training by his mob lawyer Roy Cohn and subsequent experience in more than 4,000 lawsuits and countless scandals seem to have ingrained in him that lying, the more outrageous the better, buys him time, plays to his credulous followers as insouciant defiance, and wears down his accusers. When Trump's distractions failed to distract from the Jeffrey Epstein files, he offered a story without missing a beat to distance himself from any taint. In his tale, he was traduced by Epstein. Trump was taken advantage of, violated, despoiled. There could be no guilt by association; Trump was a victim, too. Perhaps, after claiming to no effect that Barack Obama, Joe Biden and the former FBI director James Comey had fabricated the files, he felt that he had at last found ground where he could gain some traction. Trump always designates a scapegoat, but neither Tren de Agua nor Hunter Biden would fit with Epstein. All along, Trump has missed the easiest and most obvious scapegoat. Why not blame Epstein for Epstein? Trump just needed to invent a story. He began by blurting on 28 July: 'But for years, I wouldn't talk to Jeffrey Epstein. I wouldn't talk because he did something that was inappropriate. He hired help, and I said, 'Don't ever do that again.' He stole people that worked for me. I said, 'Don't ever do that again.' He did it again. And I threw him out of the place – persona non grata. I threw him out, and that was it. I'm glad I did, if you want to know the truth.' After establishing the premise of his story, he added more detail the next day. 'People that work in the spa – I have a great spa, one of the best spas in the world at Mar-a-Lago – and people were taken out of the spa, hired by him. In other words, gone. And other people would come and complain, 'This guy is taking people from the spa.' I didn't know that. He took people that worked for me. And I told him, 'Don't do it any more.' And he did it. I said, 'Stay the hell out of here.'' A reporter followed up to ask if any of those employees were young women, an opportunity for further Trump story enhancement. 'The answer is yes, they were in the spa,' Trump said. 'I told him, I said, 'Listen, we don't want you taking our people, whether it was spa or not spa' … And he was fine. And then not too long after that, he did it again.' Then Trump was asked if one of those young women was Virginia Giuffre, who was exploited by Epstein beginning at age 16 in 2000 until she escaped his clutches in 2002, eventually filing lawsuits against him that helped break the case open. 'I think she worked at the spa,' Trump replied. 'I think that was one of the people, yeah. He stole her.' He added, 'And by the way, she had no complaints about us, as you know – none whatsoever.' Trump's self-defensive remarks were an accumulation of lies and distortions, each one at risk of tumbling on the next. Unfortunately, it was contradicted by the factual timeline. And his comments about Giuffre, the tragically abused child who bore witness, for whom he offered not a word of sympathy, depicting her as stolen property, offended the Giuffre family, who came forward to denounce his heartlessness. 'It was shocking to hear President Trump invoke our sister and say that he was aware that Virginia had been 'stolen' from Mar-a-Lago,' read the family's statement. This was not the public relations success that Trump had hoped for to lay the Epstein scandal to rest. Trump suggested in his story that Giuffre was only one of the 'people' Epstein had poached from him. In his telling, he first warned Epstein before he 'stole' Giuffre. In fact, it was Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's former girlfriend and accomplice, who recruited Giuffre and participated in her sexual abuse. There is no record of others than Giuffre recruited from the Mar-a-Lago spa. Trump's story of multiple 'people' and his warning to Epstein are baseless. Still, the ever reliable White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt stated: 'The fact remains that President Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club for being a creep to his female employees.' Trump went on Newsmax to praise her, the press secretary, as if she were the winner of a modeling contest: 'She's become a star. It's that face, it's that brain, it's those lips, the way they move, they move like she's a machine gun.' It was true Trump had not spoken 'for years' to Epstein. But there his truthfulness ended. Three years after Trump claimed he had cut his ties to Epstein for stealing Giuffre, in 2003, Trump sent him a risqué poem celebrating his 50th birthday inside his drawing of a naked woman, signing his name to represent pubic hair, according to the Wall Street Journal. 'We have certain things in common, Jeffrey … A pal is a wonderful thing … and may every day be a wonderful secret.' According to the Washington Post, their relationship ruptured not in 2000 as Trump claimed, but in 2004 over a real estate rivalry to purchase a Palm Beach estate. Trump, whose casinos went bankrupt that year, somehow found the cash to outbid Epstein. Four years later, Trump sold the estate to a Russian oligarch closely tied to Vladimir Putin for double the price, at $95m. 'Don't say Russian,' Trump told a reporter from the Palm Beach Post. He urged the reporter just to write 'foreign'. Trump and Epstein socialized together for years with 'young women', some underage, and often with models, including a party for 'calendar girls' at Mar-a-Lago in 1992, where the two were the only other guests, and Trump's alleged groping of the model Stacey Williams in Trump Tower with Epstein present in 1993. Trump denies these allegations. 'Epstein enjoyed hanging out backstage at beauty pageants and fashion shows with his Palm Beach and New York neighbor and friend Donald Trump, former models said,' the Miami Herald reported. Trump himself owned three beauty pageants. He described going backstage on the Howard Stern radio talk show in 2005: 'You know they're standing there with no clothes … And you see these incredible looking women. And so I sort of get away with things like that.' Trump created Trump Model Management, also known as T Models, in 1999. T Models recruited girls as young as 14 to the US on tourist visas with lavish promises of fame and fortune, and once they arrived paid them minimally. 'It is like modern-day slavery,' said one of the models, Rachel Blais. 'Honestly, they are the most crooked agency I've ever worked for, and I've worked for quite a few.' Epstein wanted a modeling agency of his own. He admired Trump's T Models and sought to replicate it. He invested in one based in Paris operated by Jean-Luc Brunel, a model agency head who was also accused of sex trafficking. Courtney Powell Soerensen, a model, told the Miami Herald: 'Epstein had to have his slimy peons and Brunel was the ideal person to do the job.' Brunel had been the subject of a 60 Minutes exposé as an alleged sexual abuser of models in 1988. In New York, in the 1990s, Brunel lived in Trump Tower. 'The modeling agency was the perfect vehicle for Epstein to get more victims,' Giuffre said. Heather Braden, a model, told the Miami Herald she saw Brunel, Epstein and Trump at parties together frequently in the early 1990s. Brunel was charged with rape in 2021 and died by apparent suicide in a French prison in 2022, about two years after Epstein's apparent suicide. Trump had never before told his self-exonerating story about how he had broken with Epstein over Giuffre. But he had spoken publicly about his relationship with Epstein in 2002, when he rejoiced in their friendship to New York magazine: 'Terrific guy. He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it – Jeffrey enjoys his social life.' Little remarked upon in the citation of this quote was that Trump's response to the writer appears intended to offer a more positive and vivid picture of Epstein, at least in Trump's eyes, than the reclusive and serious image Epstein was trying to promote. Trump's description was preceded in the article by this set-up: 'Epstein likes to tell people that he's a loner, a man who's never touched alcohol or drugs, and one whose nightlife is far from energetic. And yet if you talk to Donald Trump, a different Epstein emerges.' Trump, always seeking to elevate himself, preened in talking about Epstein as following his example as a Casanova. Now he continues to stonewall the public over the Epstein files. Days after Maxwell was interviewed by the deputy attorney general Todd Blanche in her Florida prison, she was granted transfer to a minimal security penitentiary in Texas. Her move heightens the intrigue surrounding her deposition, which the administration is keeping secret despite calls by Democratic senators for its release. By invoking Giuffre, Trump has activated her family. They were enraged by the favor suddenly granted to Maxwell and wonder whether it is part of a deal. 'President Trump has sent a clear message today: pedophiles deserve preferential treatment and their victims do not matter,' read their statement. 'This move smacks of a cover-up. The victims deserve better.' Trump's ill-conceived story about Giuffre has undermined rather than bolstered him in maintaining control of the storyline. Sidney Blumenthal is a Guardian US columnist
New York Times
04-08-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Heather Cox Richardson Enters the History of ‘Lincoln Portrait'
Say this about Aaron Copland's 'Lincoln Portrait': There is a lot of history to it. Completed in 1942, as the United States battled fascism and prepared to lead the world in the name of freedom, it was commissioned as a musical sketch of a historical figure. Copland scored 'a portrait in which the sitter himself might speak,' as he put it, and gave a narrator the unenviable task of reading from the Gettysburg Address, among other Civil War-era speeches, against orchestral material based on folk tunes from Lincoln's time. History has lent its echo chamber to the piece since it was written, too. In 1953, not long before a young lawyer named Roy Cohn culled Copland's scores from State Department libraries and interrogated him about his leftward leanings in a Senate hearing attended by Joseph McCarthy, 'Lincoln Portrait' was cut from one of President Eisenhower's inaugural concerts. One Republican representative who had protested against Copland's inclusion said he had 'but a passing knowledge of music,' yet favored only 'fine, patriotic and thoroughly American composers.' For his part, Copland believed that 'Lincoln Portrait' had a firm enough democratic spirit that it 'started a revolution' after he led it in Venezuela in 1957. (The scholar Carol A. Hess has called that story 'pure invention.') Typically, orchestras invite a politician, actor or cultural personality to serve as the piece's narrator. Consult an extensive discography, and you can unearth recordings with Maya Angelou, Gregory Peck, James Earl Jones and Adlai Stevenson. But what if you summoned a historian instead? Would a piece so laden with history take on a different power? Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Post
15-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Post
What ‘insecure' Barbara Walters was really like off-camera — and how she convinced Oprah Winfrey not to have kids
Barbara Walters was the first million-dollar woman on TV. But behind the scenes, the legendary interviewer and 'The View' founder was a difficult and calculating star who did not have 'the strongest moral compass,' according to her book editor Peter Ethers. 'She was obsessed with three things: She was obsessed with money, fame and power,' he reveals in a new documentary 'Tell Me Everything,' streaming June 23 on Hulu. 15 Barbara Walters worked tirelessly to become the first million-dollar woman on TV. Bettmann Archive 'A lot of the relationships she developed were career moves, and she was a pretty transactional person,' Ethers added of Walters, who passed away in 2022 at age 92. This included striking up a relationship with Donald Trump's mentor, the notorious lawyer Roy Cohn, who helped get her father's tax evasion charges dropped. Even though Cohn was gay, the pair considered getting married. 'Roy Cohn was famous, so he was worthwhile to Barbara,' Post columnist Cindy Adams, one of Walters' closest friends, says in the documentary. 'Barbara was famous so it was worthwhile for Roy. They were two people who loved PR. 'Did they really do anything together? I don't think so,' Adams says with a chuckle. The film unites colleagues and friends to speak about the woman who made it her business to talk to everyone from Taylor Swift to Fidel Castro, Richard Nixon to Monica Lewinsky — subjects who were not always happy with the turns Walters's interviews could take. 15 Walters and notorious lawyer Roy Cohn considered marraige — even though he was gay — a new documentary reveals. Penske Media via Getty Images 15 Oprah Winfrey reveals in 'Tell Me Everything' how Walters' life made her not want children. Harpo Productions But her fame came at a price, as she sacrificed much of her personal life for her career. 'I used to say to her all the time, 'I wish you could enjoy your success as much as the rest of us.' I don't think she ever did,' former 'Nightline' co-host Cynthia McFadden, a longtime friend of Walters, told The Post. 'Like many people who rise to the top, Barbara really had two competing drives,' McFadden added. 'She was unbelievably self confident. She had nerves of steel — she could not have done what she did otherwise. But she was also deeply insecure about what she should wear, where she should eat, where she should go. 15 Walters adopted Jackie with her former husband Lee Guber in 1968. 15 The pair had a fraught relationship through the years, but friends said they loved each other. Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images 'That combination kept her in a highly competitive state and sometimes she was not able to enjoy her success. That's, to me, so sad. I was certainly proud of her, but I don't think she ever felt she'd arrived.' Oprah Winfrey, who followed in Walters' footsteps by elevating the celebrity interview to an art form, reveals that watching Walters with her adopted daughter, Jackie, helped her decide not to have children. 'She had a charged, complex relationship with her daughter and I could see why. It's one of the reasons why I never had children,' Winfrey says in the film. 15 Walters started her TV career as a 'Today Girl' at NBC, where she was not allowed to ask one question until her male co-host had asked three. Bettmann Archive 'I remember her telling me once that 'There's nothing more fulfilling than having children' and 'You should really think about it,' Winfrey recalls. 'And I was like, 'OK, but I'm looking at you -— so, no!'' McFadden told People it was Walters's own relentless ambition that complicated the relationship with Jackie, now 56: 'She couldn't understand someone like Jackie, who wasn't racing to the top. They were just so dispositionally and physically unlike each other. It was a struggle.' The 2024 biography 'The Rulebreaker: The Life & Times of Barbara Walters,' by Susan Page, claimed that, as teenager, Jackie was 'drinking booze, popping Quaaludes and smoking pot' and that 'at thirteen, she would sneak out of the apartment in fishnet stockings and a miniskirt to party at Studio 54 and return home at four in the morning.' 15 Walters' second husband was theater impresario Lee Guber. 15 Walters and Merv Adelson, seen here in 1988, were married twice. Getty Images After Jackie ran away from home at 16, Walters hired a Green Beret soldier to track her down in New Mexico and deliver her to an 'emotional growth school' in Idaho. Jackie was 8 years old when Walters signed a deal worth $1 million a year to co-host ABC's evening news program with Harry Reasoner — who reportedly created a hostile work environment for her. The documentary includes footage that takes viewers back to Walters' first days on TV. In 1961, she joined NBC's 'Today' show as a 'Today Girl' after a short-lived stint in advertising which she quit after, Walter said, her boss became 'overly amorous.' 15 Walters interviewed Muammar el- Quaddafi from his tent in Tripoli, Libya, in 1989. í©ABC NEWS On 'Today,' she was only allowed to ask a question of a guest after her male co-host had asked three. She joined ABC's '20/20' in 1979 and stayed there for 25 years, scoring interviews with stars including the actor Christopher Reeve after he was paralyzed in a horseback-riding accident. In 1999, Walters's interview with Monica Lewinsky drew about 50 million viewers — an interview that, Winfrey unhappily admits in the film, Walters stole from her. She had an infamous feud with glamorous fellow ABC star Diane Sawyer, and the film reveals it was so bad that the two kept to different floors at work. 'Barbara felt that Diana was given advantages that she wasn't,' McFadden told The Post. 15 Walters scooped an interview with Monica Lewinsky from Oprah Winfrey, in 1999. ABC '[Sawyer] was more beautiful than [Walters] was, she was married to this fabulous man [director Mike Nichols]. [Walters] was always chasing after Diane … it was hard. 'I have never known any two women who worked any harder than those two.' McFadden said much of the angst came from Roone Arledge, who ran the news division by encouraging 'rough competition,' though the two women later became friendly. 'She was undermined and maligned by her male colleagues relentlessly,' David Sloan, Walters' longtime producer at ABC, told The Post. 15 Walters infamously quizzed a young Taylor Swift about her love life in 2014. ABC News But it instilled a 'fearlessness' that 'benefited her in the booking game,' Sloan added. 'When one of her competitors landed something that she wanted, she could be very determined — for example, calling [the interview subject] sometimes while that interview was actually being taped. 'Barbara's ambition to get the world's biggest, most famous names — for example, the Queen of England, the Pope, Jacqueline Kennedy — never came to pass, nor did they for anyone else. But her fierceness in the booking game got her the gets perhaps more than any competitor.' 'It's important that we don't denigrate her competitive side and determination,' McFadden noted. 'She never stopped. She picked up the phone and she wasn't waiting to be presented with her next interview.' 15 The interviewer had a rocky relationship with ABC News co-host Harry Reasoner that led to her leaving for '20/20.' Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images Walters went on to create ABC's daytime show 'The View' in 1997 at age 67. She was still as fierce as ever — in the documentary, Bravo's Andy Cohen recalls how she 'lunged' at him when he joked about her not having watched the movie 'American Hustle' because she was old. ''How dare you insult me on my own show,'' he recalls her saying. 'I got my ass handed to me by Barbara Walters.' Walters was married three times: to businessman Robert Henry Katz from 1955 to 1957; theater impresario Lee Guber (1963-1976), with whom she adopted Jackie; and TV producer Merv Adelson twice, from 1981 to 1984 and again from 1986 to 1992. 15 Walters with President Richard Nixon. 15 Cynthia McFadden said the person Walters was most nervous of was Katherine Hepburn. í©1991 American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. 'She liked being important to a man. She didn't have patience for somebody who was stupid,' Adams says in the film. 'She didn't love it if you were nobody, either — you had to be somebody.' Her other romances included Alan Greenspan, the former Chair of the Federal Reserve, and Virginia Senator John Warner, whom she later interviewed alongside his wife Elizabeth Taylor. The film also touches upon her affair with married Massachusetts Senator Ed Brooke. Of that relationship, Adams recalls, 'We all said 'Barbara, what are you doing? This is not quite right.' She said, 'Oh no, but he's so exciting and he's so great.'' 15 Walters founded 'The View' and is seen here with a plethora of the show's early co-hosts. Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images Walters eventually stopped the affair to prevent scandal, she later said. 'She was not a perfect person, but I had a tremendous amount of admiration for her,' McFadden said. As for her daughter, McFadden told The Post, 'They both did their best. They disappointed each other and they loved each other … I don't doubt for a second there was love between them.' Jackie does not appear in the film, and Imagine Entertainment exec Sara Bernstein told The Post, 'We know she is very private, but she didn't try to stop the film.' In the end, though, there is the axiom 'work doesn't love you back.' 'I think she felt that her greatest accomplishment — her peerless career — led to her greatest regret, because it often required her to sacrifice any semblance of a personal life. Or even a normal life outside of the glare and the fame,' Sloan said. 'In her apartment, she had a needlepoint pillow that was embroidered with this saying: 'Once upon a time, when there was time.' That was revealing, I thought,' he added. 'Barbara pretty much only had time for this storied career. Choosing one over the other was a sadness at the end of her life. She knew that.'
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Robert De Niro Slams Trump's ‘Unacceptable' Movie Tariffs at Cannes Film Festival Opening Ceremony
Robert De Niro used his Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or acceptance speech to address President Donald Trump's promise to impose 100% tariffs on the films shot outside of the U.S., saying the issue should concern the world – not just American filmmakers. 'Now, he has announced a 100% tariff on films produced outside the U.S. Let that sink in for a minute. You can't put a price on creativity, but apparently you can put a tariff on it,' De Niro said, who took the stage to receive an honorary Palme d'Or award. He went on to call on attendees and others watching to take a peaceful stand against Trump's political missions. 'Of course, this is unacceptable. All these attacks are unacceptable, and this isn't just an American problem. It's a global one. And like a film, we can't just all sit back and watch,' De Niro, who's never shied away from sharing his thoughts about Trump, said. 'We have to act now. Without violence, but with great passion and determination. It's time for everyone who cares about liberty to organize, to protest, and when there are elections, of course to vote. Tonight, and for the next 11 days, we show our strength and commitment by celebrating art in this glorious festival.' Cannes Film Festival Jury President Juliette Binoche also shared her thoughts on Trump's tariff plans, which she referred to as the president's way of rescuing the country and his own behind. 'I understand that Trump is trying to protect,' Binoche said before a group reporters during Cannes's opening press conference. 'For us, we have a strong community of filmmaking on our continent in Europe … I don't know what to say — I can see that he's fighting to save America and to save his ass.' She added that she's not 'acceptable to answer' questions related to Trump's interest in considering TV and film tariffs for projects shot overseas. Back on May 4, Trump announced plans to enforce a 100% tariff on films produced outside of the country, mentioning in a Truth Social post that the United State's film industry is 'dying a very fast' death because of the incentives foreign countries offer filmmakers to shoot on their land. Strong, who is among the nine members of the festival's 2025 Cannes Competition jury, and starred as Trump's former advisor Roy Cohn in the 2024 film 'The Apprentice,' didn't weigh in Trump's tariffs plans, but shared that the real-figure he played helped pave the way for Trump's entry into the White House. 'Roy Cohn is the progenitor of fake news and alternative facts, and we're living in the aftermath of what he created,' Strong said. He continued: 'I think that at a time when truth is under assault, where truth is becoming an endangered thing, the role of stories and cinema here at the temple of film; the role of film is incredibly critical. It can combat that entropy and communicate individual truths, societal truths, and affirm our shared humanity. What I'm doing here this year is in a way to counterbalance what Roy Cohn was doing last year.' Cannes Director Thierry Fremaux also chimed in, saying film and TV will find a way to overcome Trump's proposed tariffs. 'Cinema always finds a way of existing and reinventing itself,' Fremaux said. 'The idea that American Cinema would be penalized by foreign countries, I think that is an idea worth discussing.'The post Robert De Niro Slams Trump's 'Unacceptable' Movie Tariffs at Cannes Film Festival Opening Ceremony appeared first on TheWrap.
