SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
President Trump is in Scotland. He's visiting his golf courses there and meeting with Prime Minister Keir Starmer. The president leaves behind sustained pressure on him, his administration and Republican leaders to release what the government knows about Jeffrey Epstein. NPR's Ron Elving joins us. Ron, thanks for being with us.
RON ELVING, BYLINE: It's good to be with you, Scott.
SIMON: And nice to be with you. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who was formerly a personal lawyer to the president met with convicted Epstein coconspirator Ghislaine Maxwell. Trump got a question of it as he had it out of town.
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UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Can you trust what she's telling him? She's a convicted trafficker who's eager to get out of prison.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, you know, he's a professional lawyer. I think he's been through things like this before. But, you know, you should focus on Clinton. You should focus on the president of Harvard, the former president of Harvard. You should focus on some of the hedge fund guys. I'll give you a list. These guys lived with Jeffrey Epstein. I sure as hell didn't.
SIMON: Ron, where do you see this controversy headed?
ELVING: It could go any number of directions, but it's not going away. It seems to travel at Trump's speed wherever he goes. He got an Epstein question getting on the plane here, another when he landed in Scotland. He flat out denied he was told that his name was in the files, as reported in The New York Times. But the basic political issue is still his big reversal. Trump had said he'd release all the DOJ's Epstein files, and then he said he couldn't because innocent people might be hurt. That's more than disappointing to a lot of his supporters. They were expecting something different. They feel they've been lied to by a lot of other people, but not Trump.
And by the way, that's why right now Congress is now down to just the Senate. The House side has just quit, gone home early for the summer - and for just one reason. Most of the members want to vote on releasing the files, a bipartisan majority. So procedurally, nothing else can come to the floor until they deal with that. And Speaker Mike Johnson has said no to a vote on the files. So he has to hope it all goes away before the fall. But right now, Epstein is the one name in the news as often as Trump, and the two are being endlessly linked in story after story, with all those chummy photos from back in the day.
SIMON: This coming Friday, another deadline for tariffs, this time for rest of the countries that were on the list released in April. That's about 150 trading partners. Will this end the tariff issue?
ELVING: We have reached deadlines before, only to see them extended or worked around, and when deals are announced, we sometimes learn there's still a counteroffer or another round of talks to come. So there have been some big deals announced with Great Britain, Japan and Indonesia, but these, too, seem subject to interpretation. So we should expect uncertainty on tariffs for some time to come, leaving their impact on inflation uncertain as well. And that's one reason Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has said he's reluctant to lower interest rates.
SIMON: The situation in Gaza is heartrending. The World Food Program says 1 in 3 Gazans are without food for days at a time. Aid organizations say many of their workers are hungry, too. Is there any hope for a negotiated ceasefire or a settlement that could let aid flow and some kind of future begin?
ELVING: Well, there always has to be hope. The sheer scope of this suffering is bringing back some of the worst memories in recent history. So it's discouraging to see the U.S. walking away from negotiations. It's in part because it's hard to see any resolution without U.S. pressure. We have to hope that even without formal negotiations, the parties are still talking.
SIMON: We remember Yasser Arafat, who was controversial. At the same time, he was influential on the international stage as a Palestinian leader. Do innocent Palestinians suffer now because there is no real Palestinian leadership?
ELVING: If only suffering alone could bring a change in leadership. You mention Arafat. The current leadership in Gaza is what emerged from dissatisfaction with Arafat decades ago. He'd spent most of his life as a warrior, but he became willing to negotiate with Israel, willing to accept Israel's right to exist in a two-state solution. In the West, many remember his role in peace negotiations. He even shared a Nobel Peace Prize for the 1993 Oslo Accords. But that also cost him among those Palestinians who preferred the harder line of Hamas. And despite all the suffering, Hamas remains.
SIMON: Ron Elving, thanks so much.
ELVING: Thank you, Scott. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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