AMNA NAWAZ: As pressure continues for President Trump to release files related to Jeffrey Epstein, the president's evolving answers about his relationship with Epstein and why it ended have raised more questions.

Joining us now is investigative reporter Julie Brown of The Miami Herald.

She's the author of the book "Perversion of Justice: The Jeffrey Epstein Story."

And it was Brown's reporting in 2017 and 2018 that led to sex trafficking charges against Epstein and identified nearly 80 of his victims.

Julie Brown, welcome to the "News Hour."

Thanks for joining us.

JULIE BROWN, The Miami Herald: Thanks for having me.

AMNA NAWAZ: So it's no secret that President Trump and Jeffrey Epstein knew each other.

There's videos and photos confirming all of that.

It was previously reported it was a real estate deal that led to their falling out in 2004.

President Trump has talked about Jeffrey Epstein being a creep and that's the reason he kicked him out of Mar-a-Lago.

But on Air Force One on Tuesday, the president offered this explanation for why their friendship ended.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: 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.

And then when I heard about it, and I told him, I said, listen, we don't want you taking our people.

AMNA NAWAZ: Julie, these are new details.

So what do you make about this evolution of a response from the president?

JULIE BROWN: Well, it raises a lot of new questions, I think.

Apparently, it sounds like he knew that Epstein was whisking away or having Maxwell, Ghislaine Maxwell, his accomplice, take some of these or lure some of these young women from the spa and Mar-a-Lago.

So you have to wonder.

He says people, plural.

How many others were lured away?

And what did Trump think he was doing with these people, with these young girls and women?

Or perhaps he already knew what Epstein was doing.

I mean, we just don't know the answer to that.

But it raises those questions, I think.

AMNA NAWAZ: There's also real questions about the timeline here.

The incident when Epstein was hiring away Mar-a-Lago employees was in 2000.

The real estate fight was reportedly 2004.

Mr. Epstein was reportedly banned from Mar-a-Lago in 2007.

So, based on your reporting and what we know so far, can we say for sure what led to the break between the two men?

JULIE BROWN: No, I don't think we know, because we have been told inconsistent stories.

And even the latest iteration of this story doesn't make sense.

Using the words that they were taking his people, what does that mean?

Was there more than one young girl or women, or was he also taking groundskeepers?

I mean, we don't know the answer to these questions.

And it's troubling that the story sort of has changed.

AMNA NAWAZ: We also know Attorney General Pam Bondi reportedly briefed the president that his name appeared in the files earlier this year.

Of course, the appearance of anyone's name in the files does not indicate any wrongdoing.

And we know there's a number of prominent MAGA voices and Democrats calling for the files to be released.

Do we know what could be in those files related to the president?

JULIE BROWN: Well, yes, we do.

We know, for example, that President Trump was on Epstein's plane.

And the plane manifests, or at least some of them, were part of the FBI investigation at some point.

We also know that there were message pads that were found in Epstein's Palm Beach home at the time of his arrest in 2005-2006.

And Trump's name was on some of those message pads.

And we know, of course, that Trump is in his so-called little black book, or this directory of phone numbers that had become part of the case.

So we know the three examples of him being in there.

But one would think that wouldn't be enough to block release of the material, because all that stuff is already public.

AMNA NAWAZ: What about Ghislaine Maxwell?

We know the Deputy U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche spent a couple of days down in Florida, where she is imprisoned, questioning her.

We know Congress has subpoenaed her to testify.

What could we learn from her at this stage?

JULIE BROWN: Well, she knows everything.

I mean, there's no doubt that she was the person that started or helped start launch Epstein's sex trafficking operation.

She was the person who came up with the idea of going around to Palm Beach schools, to gyms, to spas, and recruiting these girls, leaving her business card around.

And we know this because the valet who drove her to these various places testified in court that he did this.

So she knows exactly how this whole thing operated, because she helped formulate it, quite frankly.

AMNA NAWAZ: Julie, have you continued to stay in touch with the survivors?

Do they want to see the files released right now?

JULIE BROWN: I think there's some mixed emotions about whether the files should be released, because they have been disappointed so many times.

And every time that there's a hope that we're going to get closer to perhaps finding justice for them -- and that justice to them means that some of not only the other men that were involved, but also some of these enablers would be held accountable for what they did.

And every time it seems like we might be getting closer, the door slams in their face.

And I think, at some point, they're just feeling that it's never going to really become public, that somebody's covering it up because there are so many important people involved.

And so I think they have mixed emotions about how to handle that because they're afraid.

One of them did tell me: "If the president of the United States doesn't want to release these files, there must be something big in there, and that makes me very, very nervous."

AMNA NAWAZ: Julie Brown, investigative reporter at The Miami Herald.

Julie, thank you so much for joining us.

Appreciate your time.