Transcript of Survivor Steps Forward to Expose All as Trump Hides Files

As we know that one of the reasons for this government shutdown is because Donald Trump and Maggie Mike Johnson are trying to prevent this discharge petition from getting its 218 signature in order to stop the release of the Epstein files from coming out. I don't want to lose sight of the survivors who are being impacted by these, I think, malicious moves that are just taking place in plain view to cover up the Epstein files, to cover up Epstein's dastardly acts. I just want to remember the powerful, powerful move when the survivors were there on Capitol Hill last month, demanding the release of the Epstein files demanding accountability. And one of the moments that stood out to me during that press conference that was held by the survivors is a survivor by the name of Lisa Phillips. I'm going to be interviewing and bringing Lisa Phillips in. Why don't we bring Lisa Phillips in now together if we can. Lisa, it's great to see you. I want to show our audience this clip, though, right here of you on Capitol Hill. I want to speak to you about your speech then, what you make of what's going on now with the cover up of these files, how that's impacting you as a survivor.

But then I also want to talk about your background, how you ended up on Epstein's Island starting as a fashion model for the top modeling agency in the world at that time, Elite Model Agency, when you were 17 years old, you then were a model for about four years or so before you arrived at that Epstein Island and you observed the trafficking there. You saw that this was not just Epstein. You were able to observe what the ring, the trafficking ring that was taking place there at the time. I want people to hear your story because I think it's important that it's told that way, not through the prism of Democrat, Republican, independent, but from the prism of a survivor of a human sex trafficking ring, and that there are these predators still out there right now who are being protected by other powerful rich men. Let me just play this brief clip of you on Capitol Hill to remind people of your incredible speech, and then let's talk about it. Let's play this clip.

A platform supporting survivors. I want to thank all of my survivor sisters who came before me today. I'll be very short. In the year 2000, I was taken to Jeffrey Epstein's Island while on a photoshoot on a nearby island. Who I saw and what I experienced there was a glimpse into a very dark and disturbing world. For years after, I tried to avoid Jeffrey, but he had introduced me to Katie Ford, the owner of the Ford Modeling Agency. Epstein's reach went to the very top of fashion, arts, and entertainment. This did not just happen to underage girls in Florida. In New York City, hundreds of young, ambitious women were abused by him. Epstein was not just a serial predator. He was an international human trafficker, and many around him knew, many participated, and many profited. And yet he was protected. So I stand here today for every woman who has been silenced, exploited, and dismissed. We are not asking for pity. We are here demanding accountability, and I'm demanding justice. Congress must choose. Will you Will you go in to protect predators, or will you finally protect survivors? Also, I would like to announce here today, us Epstein survivors have been discussing creating our own list.

We know the names. Many of us were abused by them. Now, together as survivors, we will confidently compile the names we all know, who were regularly in the Epstein world. It will be done by survivors and four survivors.

Lisa Phillips, great to have you on here. It was a powerful day. Since that day, you've seen, though, the cover-up continue. I want to know what you make of that day. But since then, It seems that the people covering this up have only dug in their heels further.

Unfortunately, everyone focuses in the media and in the press on the relationship with Trump and the cover up of just a little bit here, a little bit there, just to keep the public interested, but they're not really exposing what they really have, and they have everything. There were cameras everywhere. There were documents. They've seen the emails. They basically have gone through everything, and they're not letting the public know what's going on.

I want to Rewind the story, and then we'll catch us up to the present, because I think that so much of the way this is reported out there is through a political lens. The reality is it should be reported through survivor lens, and it should be reported through the lens also of exposing what was taking place, that this was a heinous human sex trafficking ring with hundreds It's potentially thousands of victims, underage girls, young women. You were a victim and now survivor of it. How did you end up on that island? And what did you observe when you were there in 2000? You have this great modeling career, top modeling agency, viewed as the top modeling agency, really, in the world, that one of the top modeling is in the world. And then you get an... How do you get the... How do you end up there? And then tell us, what did you see when you got there? And how did it get from getting there to the part where the exploitation was taking place?

Yeah. So my whole point of speaking out was just to get people an understanding of what really was going on in that world, that it wasn't just, Okay, I'm taking a young girl to a massage, and that was it. It was, he brought you into his world. And so I was trying to get an understanding of that. And that's what most survivors standing on Capitol Hill were trying to get the public an understanding of what really was going on. And so for myself, I was a young model living the dream in New York City, had worked really hard to get there. I had a graduate high school in Belgium. And so I just had worked my way Miami, LA, I, Cape Town, South Africa, Europe. And then I arrived in New York City. And shortly after I arrived, I booked a really big job with another girl from my agency. She was a Polish model, beautiful. And we flew to Tortola in the British West Indies, next to St. Thomas, and just spent a few days shooting there. And then we had an extra, like a free day. And the other young model was like, Well, I know this guy who owns an island nearby.

I spoke to him and he said that we can go and hang out there for the day. I was like, Oh, they're never going to let us go. So we spoke to the clients, and they were actually like, Well, go ahead. And so we We got on a boat and we went over to Little St. John's. I spent the day at the pool. At the pool, I observed an older man there with a couple of young girls. They were blonde. The girl who took me was blonde. I just started noticing I was a little out of place, but everything was fine. I got to know the girls. We played in the pool, we played in the ocean, and we actually had a really fun day. Then we got ready later on for dinner and went to this beautiful long dinner table, lots of delicious food and seafood, and had a really great time talking with the other young girls. That's when this charming man walks up and says, Hi, I'm Jeffrey, and kiss him on the cheek, sits down right next to me, and begins to focus in on me. He had already known the other girls there, so he was just asking questions and wanted to know a little bit more about my life and where I grew up.

I told him I had lived in England as a child, because my father was in the Air Force and we traveled around a lot in Europe. He said, Oh, do you want to meet a prince? And I was just like, Sure. At that moment, there was a man that was walking up. I recognized him from the man from the pool and just met him briefly. Then he walked away. Then Jeffrey would ask me questions about my family and my relationship with my father and how close I was to him. These questions that triggered me a little bit at the time because I didn't have a very close relationship with my father, and I think he could sense that. We spoke a deeper conversation that you don't normally have with a man. He made me feel really comfortable and almost like he cared about me in a weird way. I don't know. He just had this mentorship quality about him, asking about my dreams and aspirations. I felt like I had a really great conversation with him, and I felt good about the situation at that point. So I finished up with dinner dinner and then went back to our quarters and got ready for bed because it was the evening we were going to spend the night there and then head back to our island and photoshoot early that next morning.

So I remember sitting on the bed with the other young model and talking to her. Then there was a knock at the door, and one of the other young girls walked in and said, Jeffrey is ready for his massage. And at that point, I just looked at the other girl was like, What's going on? I don't know how to do a massage. She's like, Oh, well, Jeffrey just likes massages. It's what we have to do. I wasn't really expecting for you to do that, but I guess he likes you, and we're just going to have to go do it. I argued a little bit with her because I just thought it was weird. But I ended up going with her and walked across the island to where Jeffrey's quarters were in his bedroom. We walked He went into that room, and he was lying down on a massage table naked and had this little silly grin, come in, and was very playful. The energy shifted a little bit. It was now more personal questions like, Do you have a boyfriend? And asking a little sexual things. And did a real massage and taught me some massage techniques.

And It was uncomfortable. But at that point, it was just a weird, creepy massage. And then he turned over, and that's when things got a little bit dark as his demeanor changed. I didn't feel really safe anymore, and I didn't really know what was going on. I kept looking at her, and she was just looking at me like, You need to do this. At that point, that's when he assaulted both of us together in that room. That's That's basically what happened on the island. We just finished up and ran out of there.

Then where did you leave the next day, or did you go back to where you were before, where the client was?

Well, we had to stay the night there, so we went back to the room, and I remember staring at the ceiling the entire night in sleep like, What the heck does happen? I didn't really understand what was going on. I was scared to death that he was going to come back or there was going to be another knock on the and it was going to get worse. But it didn't that night. I just, like you said, got on the boat, went back to the photoshoot, did my job, flew back to New York City.

Did he try to contact you afterwards? Was there further communication or contact that took place?

Yeah. This is the part of the story I really like people to understand about Epstein in his world. You're not getting away from his world. Once you've been abused by him, and I actually saw someone on the island that day, So I was in and wasn't getting away. I didn't know that at the time, but the secretaries that worked for him would call me profusely. They would call me every single day saying, Jeffrey really liked you. He thought you were powerful. He thought you were incredible. All these compliments to get me to go back and meet with him at his Upper East Side home. And I just refused every single day. It went on for months, and they were basically harassing me. And one day, Jeffrey called me, and he just said to me, Lisa, I remember what you said on the island, that your dream was to be a foreign model. And I know Katie Ford. And she's a good friend of mine, and I would love to send you over there. He told her about you, and you just need to go meet with her. And I was thinking, okay, he's not a bad guy.

He wants to help me out. He listened to me. Maybe that was just my fault. Maybe I was flirty. I don't know. I had just victims, they just blame themselves in these situations. I guess a coping mechanism just to say, Oh, maybe he's not bad. I just did what he said because it was the biggest goal for me. I told him that on the Island. And I went and met with Katie Ford a couple of days later, and she signed me up and got into Katie's world at that point, thinking at the time that I've made it, and this is the next step for me, and this is what I deserve. I just started seeing Jeffrey more in a light of a mentor and helper, like he presented himself in the beginning. Katie Ford said, I love Jeffrey, and everyone that I would meet in New York at that time also did love and adore and spoke very highly about Jeffrey Epstein at that time. I was starting to get a little confused about him, but I I never forgot what had happened.

Then what happened next? When did the communication stop with Epstein in that world? Was it around the arrest? When did communications really cease?

No, it didn't stop after that. Because now I was in the modeling industry world. There's a very well-known sex trafficking ring that was going in the modeling industry world. Jean-luc Burnell, John Casablanca, Katie, and many others that were sending young girls to Jeffrey Jeffrey. Jeffrey also would use, I know Victoria's Secret, I have a part ownership. There was a lot going on in that world. That's actually when I spoke out at Capitol Hill, I brought that into it. Some people can be aware what was going on during that time. Jeffrey would call me up and say, I have an audition for you. Put me on a plane, go travel for an audition. He was with a very powerful producer or a director at the time. I'm thinking it's an audition. Found out many years later, many girls were sent to the same producers, directors, or people in Hollywood for an audition, but it ended up being a lot more than that. I also have an NDA with a very big celebrity that Jeffrey had sent me to for a party, and later on, something terrible happened. There were things that were going on that I was just like, What is going on?

Then to answer your question, I had a young friend who was blonde, who was a beautiful, ambitious young woman who knew Jeffrey at that time. She came to me crying one day and said, You don't really understand who Jeffrey is. I'm like, I'm starting to get a… I don't understand what's going on here either. We started talking about it, and she said she was made to have sex with someone, and she just spiraled out of control. The young girls at the time, we just all started talking and started to figure out something's going on. That's when the Vanity Fair article was released with him flying with Bill Clinton to South Africa, Kevin Spacey, and then shortly after he was arrested. So he started unraveling through those years and getting more exposed in that world and people starting to figure things out. And then, of course, the major cover-ups that were happening.

So as you brought the other survivors together and all started talking and sharing these experiences, what were some of the themes, if you will, that came up over and over again? It seems that this was a highly structured an organized thing. You bribe at the island, they press you with the pool and owning an island. Then the dinner takes place where he does the routine. He seems to be asking certain questions to determine family relationships. Are you close with your parents? Things like that. Have the initial sexual assault take place, and then afterwards utilize a victim or survivor to then send to the other rich people and other celebrities, fake auditions and things like that. And again, it seems highly structured. That's why I wanted to talk to you about this, too, is just so that people understand the way this sex trafficking in an organization worked. It was methodical. There were levels to it. There were lieutenants, and there were generals, and there were different tiers of the people who young models were being pushed to to be sexually assaulted.

Yes, you just summed it up right there, and that's why I spoke out originally. You understand this is 15 to 20 years later for a lot of us survivors. So back then, we were figuring things out, but we had no idea the magnitude of what really was going on. And we wanted to get on with our lives. And most of us, we got on with our lives, became mothers. And a lot of us work in this advocacy world or became therapists. But it wasn't until he died in 2019. Until he died, it was when I realized, Okay, wait a second. Now I feel safe enough to start understanding what happened to me back then. It was always so confusing, and there was never anyone to really talk to about it. So it was Virginia And then I had Geoffrey who spoke out and said, I was trafficked. She has a long list of men. And when she was saying these men, I remember seeing some of those men. So I believed her. And I had a friend also who was trafficked to the same one. And so I said, I want to support this woman.

And not knowing what I was getting into at the time, but I started speaking out on documentaries. And then slowly, I had to start telling my story, and I wasn't ready for it because I had so much to support the other women. I wasn't really ready to start saying I was abused, too, because I didn't understand my role in it. I always felt like it was my fault, and I didn't know how to get out of it. I just was so confused about it until we start learning about the grooming and how all these young women were just groomed by him, masterfully, masterfully manipulated and groomed by the best of all time who had enablers and all these other people helping him. And Jeffrey was a fiend. He was a sex fiend. All he talked about was sex. He had to get off six to eight times a day. Young woman going into his Upper East Side mansion six to eight times a day. And a lot of the girls knew about his creepy massages, but we didn't speak further on how... And this is common amongst serial predators. Most of the... Larry Nassar, the doctor for the gymnast, none of them, they were like, Oh, you're getting this weird doctor thing?

No, but no one spoke about it until many years later, when someone had the courage to speak up, then it's like, Oh, that's what's happening to me, too. And when I spoke to these survivors that were underage at the time, I was like, Okay, I was in my early 20s, like hundreds of others, but it was the exact same type of abuse that he was doing. It was the exact same MO with the massage turning into an assault. I just started speaking out and gain confidence through therapy. I was building into this powerful woman who wanted to make a difference. That's what led up to today.

You've spoken When you're on Capitol Hill. It's important for you and the survivors you were with to have these files released, to bring transparency to what's been taking place. Tell us why that's important, just so people It may seem obvious, but it may not be obvious. Why do you want to see those files get released and bring transparency there?

Well, really, for me, it's just because people are so confused about what's going on. Not only us survivors are still confused, but the transparency, what is really going on? Everyone makes it about Trump and Epstein. Okay, maybe there's something there, and about Epstein. But it's about this whole ring of men, the The only person in jail is Ghislaine, a woman. So where are all the other men that were benefiting and profiting from all of this? That's what makes me upset because us survivors, we know that they were there. We saw them. We know that were royalty princes, very powerful people in academia and tech, and we saw them at parties. They knew what was going on. Why aren't they exposed? And people say, Well, why are you speaking What now? Well, we're pissed off now because nothing has happened. It's just a frustrating thing for me. So I'm at the point where it's like I'm at my witz and standing on Cappalte Hill, it was more just like, look, I'm not going to sit up here and just tell my sob story like everybody else is. We need to do something about it. You think you have the power?

You don't think that we have the power, too? You don't think that we understand what's going on here? So it was really just to say, You need to do something because we also have the power to do something. And as you saw, look how many people stood up for us, too.

Absolutely. I mean, look, the country standing up for you. I mean, the frustrating thing is that most of the country standing up for you and saying, Release these files. And it shouldn't be a political thing. Just release the files and support the survivors. It should be a very simple thing. I mean, it should be the obvious thing. Now, the speaker of the House, Speaker Johnson, he often invokes the victims and the survivors. He says, The reason that we can't release these files is I'm looking out for the survivors here and the victim. He said that over, Thus, we can't release the file. What would you say there to Speaker Johnson or anybody who invokes the name of survivors as the reason why they're not releasing the files?

Well, I think there's something to be said that's very truthful when Johnson says that, it's because what they do know involves a lot of survivors that were underage and some children. So maybe in some ways, they do want to protect that. I've always said it goes very dark And so a lot of times, what they're going to release, the real evidence and the real stuff that's out there, a lot of people probably aren't really ready to see. And there are young survivors that were abused. And so in a way, there might be some protection of the survivors. We do collectively understand that. And many of us or many young women or children at the time were probably in those records or in those videotapes, from my understanding. Maybe there is some type of protection, and maybe they're just taking time to really figure out how to handle this. Then we have the very powerful people who don't want anything released as well. There's probably some protection there, major protection there.

Has there been any effort to try to talk with them or speak with the FBI? I mean, they spoke with Ghislaine, But there hasn't seen, at least up until now, I've heard that they hadn't returned the calls of survivors or haven't set meetings with survivors, because perhaps one of the ways to address all of these concerns would be to speak to the survivors directly and figure it out. Can we redact the names of the victims? And obviously, we shouldn't be showing the videos of sexual assault and rape of anybody. There's a way not to release those, but also release the names of the powerful men, because I can't see the justification for invoking the names of survivors for not releasing the information on the sex trafficking ring that's still out there today. I certainly get, let's make sure survivors that don't want their names out there or don't want their images out there. Sure, absolutely. But on the sex trafficking ring, these men are still out. These people are still, a lot of them are still alive out there, probably doing this right now.

Oh, That doesn't go away, right? That addiction, that perversion doesn't go away. It only gets stronger.

Has there ever been... Where does that stand with FBI DOJ meeting with you? Have you requested meetings with them?

We have requested, and they have reached out. I don't think they're doing 100% full effort, but they have reached out to a few survivors, and We're in the process. There is a confidential process in development that allows for survivors to share what they know with people in DC. That is an ongoing thing right now.

What do you make of it when... To your point, look, was there a Trump-Epstein friendship, relationship? Yes. Grounding this story in a purely Trumpy... Is he in the files? I I don't know. Maybe. Who knows? But the reality is he's seem to have made it a lot about himself by himself making it about. That's been the strange part is that he's very personalized this and said, This is an attack on me, and this is a hoax, and this is an attack on me. He's been one of the main people who have... I was like, Okay, we just release The survivors want the files released. Regardless of whether the President was Trump or some other person, just the fact that the President of the United States is using the word hoax, and he could maybe say, Well, I mean, as it relates to... I don't know. But he's using the word hoax around a story that you described that is catastrophic, traumatic, and has impacted thousands of women in the worst way possible. You just don't use the word hoax around this.

It's incomprehensible. Yeah, it was insensitive for him to say it like that. I do see that he is getting extremely attacked. And so now he's relating everything to him. I do wish the press, the media, would stop attacking him so much so we can actually look at the others that are involved, because when they do focus on him so much, we're not getting answers of what's going on with everyone else. So I can agree with him in that way. I'll just stop attacking him so we can shift the focus somewhere else. And I don't know if that would help or not, but I just feel like every single interview is about the relationship with Trump. And I'm trying to say there's so many more out there that we can focus on to get answers.

And what's the message that you want out there more than that? As you went to Capitol Hill, said you want the files released, you want others, in addition to Ghislaine, held accountable. Let me ask you about that before this, because we haven't talked about Ghislaine. Ghislaine's acted like she knows nothing about this and that she barely even knew what was going. When she spoke to the DOJ, she acted like she was not anywhere What did you make of that interview?

It was infuriating. Ghislaine was the mastermind. I know in the '90s, everyone, from what I've researched and I've been told that she was the mastermind in the '90s. I think other people took over this whole operation in the 2000s, but she knows everything. I mean, everyone who was involved knows that she knows everything. I think she Grace is just trying to save Grace at this point so she can get out and be free. But there's a lot of survivors that were affected by her and abused by her. They're not standing down, and they will not let her be released. There will be a very big site.

What message do you want to send to everybody out there? You have a For Survivors podcast. You're going to be one of the people leading the Sexual predators accountability institute, which is a nonprofit to help other survivors. So you made this also part of your life work. So what other message do you want to send out there to people?

Well, my message is always for survivors. Just to own your story and be able to speak out and try to get the justice that you really deserve, whether it's the litigation or just through healing. And on Monday, Governor Newsom signed the assembly the bill, 250, which reopens the California adult window for another two years, starting on January first of 2026. So that's a big deal. That's a great start in the right direction for survivors to go back, whether it's 10, 20, 30 years, and be able to go after and get justice for what happened to them. So I always stand for survivors. My podcast is about survivor voices, and that's my mission.

Thank you so much for sharing your story with us. I know it's hard to go back into some of those areas. I should say, I don't know as a man, but I can't even imagine. There's no words for me to describe what you've been through other than for me to thank you about what you're doing to bring attention to this. When the website goes live for the Sexual Predator Accountability Institute, we'll make sure to promote that here and tell other survivors where they can go to contact you as well. Thank you for sharing your story, Lisa. We appreciate you.

Thank you so much.

Lisa Phillips, everyone. Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to 6 Million watching. Be sure to add the Midas Touch podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast for new updates every single day.