The Memo: Trump fuels Epstein furor he wants to escape
Trump's decision to sue The Wall Street Journal over an Epstein-related story, his administration's choice to bar the Journal from the group of reporters who will cover the president's upcoming trip to Scotland, and Speaker Mike Johnson's (R-La.) eagerness to avoid a House vote on disclosure of Epstein material have all given fresh fuel to the story.
The self-defeating aspect of this approach was typified by one social media post among the many that Trump has been issuing.
On Tuesday afternoon, the president lamented that the achievements of the first six months of his second term were being underplayed because 'all the Fake News wants to talk about is the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax!'
His post, of course, gave the media another reason to keep talking about it.
The sense of creeping anxiety emanating from the White House over the Epstein matter is testament to the unusual discord it has caused within the Trump base.
Trump's astonishing political comeback, from the nadir of the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, to winning the White House back last November, was enabled by the fierce loyalty of his 'Make America Great Again' (MAGA) supporters — and by a party that has grown ever-warier of crossing him.
The Epstein matter is an unusual exception. Republican elected officials have proven uncommonly willing to break with the president — or at least create some discomfort for him.
Even the Speaker has called for greater 'transparency' around Epstein, though he has more recently tried to close a perceived gap between himself and Trump.
But Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) called on social media on Tuesday for a vote on disclosing the so-called Epstein files — exactly the thing Johnson has been moving to thwart. Norman said Republicans should 'vote on it before August recess and get it DONE!!'
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) has also called for the material to be released, while Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) — who has been to the fore of the effort — is now in open defiance of Trump.
Massie noted in an X post Tuesday that he had introduced 'the only binding congressional legislation' to get the Epstein material released, and 'in return, the attacks on me intensified.'
Massie included in his message a screenshot of a Trump social media attack on him, in which the president called him 'the worst Republican Congressman' and 'A real loser!' Massie, in turn, used that attack to try to juice fundraising support from his supporters so he could 'stay in the ring.'
The big picture, of course, is that the Speaker's reluctance to hold a vote is giving more ammunition to those who suspect Trump has something to hide. Massie told reporters Tuesday morning that Johnson seemed to want his party colleagues to 'just sort of stick your head in the sand' on the issue.
It is a matter of public record that Trump and Epstein, the disgraced financier and sexual predator, were friendly acquaintances for years in the 1990s and early 2000s. Trump called Epstein a 'terrific guy' in a 2002 New York Magazine profile and also noted Epstein's fondness for women 'on the younger side.'
It's also known the two later fell out, though the precise reason has never been definitively established. Some reports cite a competitive battle over real estate, others contend Trump cut contact with Epstein after the latter behaved inappropriately at the future president's Mar-a-Lago club.
Trump's legal suit against The Wall Street Journal centers on the news organization's claim that a birthday message from Trump was included in an album to mark Epstein's 50th birthday in 2003. Trump insists the story, and alleged letter, are false.
In terms of the politics of the overall matter, Trump is reaping what his allies sowed, at least in some regard. People around Trump stoked general suspicion of all the circumstances surrounding Epstein, who died — apparently by suicide — in 2019 while facing sex trafficking charges.
The current storm was set off by the contrast between comments made by Attorney General Pam Bondi in February during a Fox News interview — where she said a list of Epstein's clients was 'sitting on my desk right now for review' — and an unsigned memo from the FBI and the Department of Justice earlier this month that contended 'no incriminating 'client list'' could be found.
That set off real angst in the Trump base, with a number of MAGA-leaning commentators speaking out.
The relatively meager polling that has been done in relation to Epstein underlines the political peril for the president. An Economist/YouGov poll released Tuesday found Americans disapproving of Trump's handling of the Epstein investigation by a huge margin. Fifty-six percent disapproved and just 22 percent approved.
Significantly, exactly 1 in 4 Republicans disapproved of the president's actions, and an additional 30 percent declined to express an opinion. Just 45 percent of Republicans approved of how Trump had handled the matter.
Those are unusually bad figures for Trump among Republicans.
There is nothing very surprising about the overwhelming disapproval of the president's handling of the controversy among Democrats (only 7 percent approved), but it is also telling that independents came out against his actions by a massive 61 percent to 15 percent.
For the moment, at least, Trump is stuck, and new developments are coming thick and fast. An announcement Tuesday from Bondi's social media account saying Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche would meet with Ghislaine Maxwell set off its own new round of speculation as to possible ulterior motives. In 2022, Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years for conspiring in Epstein's abuse.
Trump has tried to turn the page repeatedly. So far, unusually, it hasn't worked.
The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
17 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Analysis-Out-gunned Europe accepts least-worst US trade deal
By Mark John LONDON (Reuters) -In the end, Europe found it lacked the leverage to pull Donald Trump's America into a trade pact on its terms and so has signed up to a deal it can just about stomach - albeit one that is clearly skewed in the U.S.'s favour. As such, Sunday's agreement on a blanket 15% tariff after a months-long stand-off is a reality check on the aspirations of the 27-country European Union to become an economic power able to stand up to the likes of the United States or China. The cold shower is all the more bracing given that the EU has long portrayed itself as an export superpower and champion of rules-based commerce for the benefit both of its own soft power and the global economy as a whole. For sure, the new tariff that will now be applied is a lot more digestible than the 30% "reciprocal" tariff which Trump threatened to invoke in a few days. While it should ensure Europe avoids recession, it will likely keep its economy in the doldrums: it sits somewhere between two tariff scenarios the European Central Bank last month forecast would mean 0.5-0.9% economic growth this year compared to just over 1% in a trade tension-free environment. But this is nonetheless a landing point that would have been scarcely imaginable only months ago in the pre-Trump 2.0 era, when the EU along with much of the world could count on U.S. tariffs averaging out at around 1.5%. Even when Britain agreed a baseline tariff of 10% with the United States back in May, EU officials were adamant they could do better and - convinced the bloc had the economic heft to square up to Trump - pushed for a "zero-for-zero" tariff pact. It took a few weeks of fruitless talks with their U.S. counterparts for the Europeans to accept that 10% was the best they could get and a few weeks more to take the same 15% baseline which the United States agreed with Japan last week. "The EU does not have more leverage than the U.S., and the Trump administration is not rushing things," said one senior official in a European capital who was being briefed on last week's negotiations as they closed in around the 15% level. That official and others pointed to the pressure from Europe's export-oriented businesses to clinch a deal and so ease the levels of uncertainty starting to hit businesses from Finland's Nokia to Swedish steelmaker SSAB. "We were dealt a bad hand. This deal is the best possible play under the circumstances," said one EU diplomat. "Recent months have clearly shown how damaging uncertainty in global trade is for European businesses." NOW WHAT? That imbalance - or what the trade negotiators have been calling "asymmetry" - is manifest in the final deal. Not only is it expected that the EU will now call off any retaliation and remain open to U.S. goods on existing terms, but it has also pledged $600 billion of investment in the United States. The time-frame for that remains undefined, as do other details of the accord for now. As talks unfolded, it became clear that the EU came to the conclusion it had more to lose from all-out confrontation. The retaliatory measures it threatened totalled some 93 billion euros - less than half its U.S. goods trade surplus of nearly 200 billion euros. True, a growing number of EU capitals were also ready to envisage wide-ranging anti-coercion measures that would have allowed the bloc to target the services trade in which the United States had a surplus of some $75 billion last year. But even then, there was no clear majority for targeting the U.S. digital services which European citizens enjoy and for which there are scant homegrown alternatives - from Netflix to Uber to Microsoft cloud services. It remains to be seen whether this will encourage European leaders to accelerate the economic reforms and diversification of trading allies to which they have long paid lip service but which have been held back by national divisions. Describing the deal as a painful compromise that was an "existential threat" for many of its members, Germany's BGA wholesale and export association said it was time for Europe to reduce its reliance on its biggest trading partner. "Let's look on the past months as a wake-up call," said BGA President Dirk Jandura. "Europe must now prepare itself strategically for the future - we need new trade deals with the biggest industrial powers of the world." (Additional reporting by Jan Strupczewski in Brussels; Christian Kraemer and Maria Martinez in Berlin; Writing by Mark John; Editing by Nick Zieminski) Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
17 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump fired him over white supremacist links. Now he's leading the US Institute of Peace
Darren Beattie, a top State Department official who was fired from the first Trump administration after speaking at a conference attended by white supremacists, has been appointed to lead the U.S. Institute for Peace, an independent nonprofit funded by Congress. Beattie, who will continue serving as U.S. Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy while leading the institute as acting president, has a history of inflammatory views. The former academic has lauded eugenics-style population control and mass sterilization, praised the Chinese Communist party and dismissed its repressive campaign against the Uyghurs, claimed the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol was a conspiracy by federal agents, and wrote on social media last year that 'competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work.' 'We look forward to seeing him advance President Trump's America First agenda in this new role,' the State Department said in a statement on Friday. The Trump administration has tried to exert control over the peace-keeping organization as part of the president's radical restructuring of federal agencies and diplomacy. In February, the president signed an executive order slashing most of the group's staff, part of a wider effort to drastically change U.S. tools of foreign influence and diplomacy that also saw the administration gut the U.S. Agency for International Development. The following month, Elon Musk's so-called DOGE initiative seized the peace institute's headquarters with the help of police and the FBI, ejecting staff from the building. Staff members then sued over the takeover and mass firings, and a federal judge in May temporarily blocked the Trump administration from dismantling the institute. The administration then appealed, and a federal appeals court in Washington last month returned control of the building to the administration as the legal process plays out. In March, Democratic members of Congress wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who sits on the board of the U.S. Institute for Peace, expressing alarm over Beattie's appointment in February to his diplomatic post. 'Darren Beattie's white nationalist loyalties and public glorification of our adversaries' authoritarian systems make him unqualified to serve as the top diplomat representing American values and culture to foreign audiences,' the members wrote. The Independent has requested comment from the State Department and U.S. Institute for Peace for comment. After his dismissal from the Trump administration in 2018, Beattie returned to the government two years later, with the White House appointing him to the Commission for the Preservation of American Heritage Abroad, a body that preserves historical sites, including those related to the Holocaust. The Biden administration forced Beattie's resignation from the commission in 2022. Beattie isn't the only Trump staffer welcomed back into the government after controversy over their views. Marko Elez, a DOGE staffer who previously praised eugenics, declared himself 'racist before it was cool,' and said he wanted to 'normalize Indian hate,' according to reporting from The Wall Street Journal, resigned from the administration in February, but soon found a new position in the Social Security Administration.
Yahoo
17 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Mike Johnson says Ghislaine Maxwell coming clean on Epstein case would be ‘a great service to the country'
Speaker Mike Johnson called on Jeffrey Epstein's accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, to come clean and told Americans that he "hoped" she could be trusted as he faces the growing uproar around the White House's handling of the investigation. Johnson appeared Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press, where moderator Kristen Welker asked him point-blank if the convicted sex-trafficker girlfriend of Epstein could be trusted to accurately testify about the crimes she and Epstein committed. Epstein was awaiting prosecution for sex trafficking underage girls after a previous conviction on similar charges when he died in federal custody. Maxwell has been thrust back into the spotlight as the MAGA base has grown frustrated with President Donald Trump and his administration's shutting down of the so-called Epstein files release. Last week, a top Department of Justice official met with Maxwell about the case. "Well, I mean, look; it's a good question. I hope so," Johnson told Welker in response. "I hope that she would want to come clean." "I hope she's telling the truth. She is convicted, she's serving a 20-year sentence for child sex trafficking. Her character is in some if she wants to come clean now, that would be a great service to the country. We want to know every bit of information that she has." The House Oversight Committee voted this week to issue a subpoena for Maxwell after the Justice Department announced its own plans to speak with her. Agency officials did so for nine hours between Thursday and Friday, after making a statement seeming to confirm that her testimony hadn't been aggressively sought before. Some have called Maxwell to testify and suggested she should be given a pardon for sharing what she knows about the Epstein case. She was convicted of sexual abuse against minors and sex trafficking for helping Epstein carry out crimes. Johnson touted the Oversight subpoena favorably Sunday, casting it as evidence that GOP leadership supported efforts aimed at transparency. The Trump administration turned speculation about Epstein's death and the so-called 'Client List' of his co-conspirators into a raging wildfire in early July. The Justice Department and FBI published a joint memo explaining that future releases from the files would not take place, and that the list of Epstein's accomplices was not found. Epstein was rumored to have cultivated personal relationships with many powerful men and institutions. Critics of the president have alleged that a cover-up is in the works regarding the Epstein files. Democrats have hammered the president for his reversal, and a pair of scoops from the Wall Street Journal have reported on the president's connections to Epstein, to Trump's fury. The newspaper reported the contents of a message allegedly penned by Trump to Epstein as part of a 50th birthday celebration in 2003, including allusions to a shared 'secret' between them. Trump firmly denied authoring the note, and sued the Journal and its reporters in response. A second article from the Journal days later reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi informed Trump in May that he was mentioned in the Epstein investigation multiple times, but it was not clear in what context. The White House called that story 'fake' and has repeatedly insinuated that Democrats including Joe Biden tampered with evidence while Trump was out of office. Being mentioned in the files does not mean wrongdoing, and hundreds of names are reportedly included. The lead GOP co-sponsor behind a House resolution that would force the Justice Department to release the entirety of its collected evidence related to Epstein said Sunday that his push was to help the convicted pedophile's victims and would only grow stronger in the coming weeks. Earlier on the same network, Rep. Thomas Massie appeared alongside the resolution's lead Democratic co-sponsor, Rep. Ro Khanna, as the two promoted a resolution that would force Attorney General Pam Bondi to release 'all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials' related to the Epstein and Maxwell investigations. Massie told Welker that 'the release of the Epstein files is emblematic of what Trump ran for' and explained that the president's MAGA base expected results. 'There seems to be a class of people beyond the law, beyond the judicial all thought that when Trump was elected, he would be the bull in the china shop and break that all up,' said Massie. Massie went on to say that the Trump administration had lost his trust on the issue after publicly supporting transparency around the investigation, then doing an abrupt about-face. The administration is now calling on its supporters to move on from the issue and focus on hashing out issues with the 2016 'Russiagate' investigation instead of Epstein. Top administration officials, including Vice President JD Vance, also spent months calling for the very releases the Justice Department says it won't authorize. 'People who were allegedly working on this weren't sincere in their efforts,' Massie said. 'Somebody should ask Speaker Mike Johnson, why did he recess Congress early so that he didn't have to deal with the Epstein issue?' 'Politics is the art of the doable. There's enough public pressure right now that we can get 218 votes and force this to a vote on the floor,' said Massie. He also firmly rejected a DOJ memo explaining the administration's position against further releases of information from the Epstein files, despite the very public promises of Bondi and others to do the opposite. In the memo, agency officials said that explicit imagery involving children was 'intertwined' throughout the files collected by the Justice Department. Some have said the files should not be released to protect sex-abuse victims of both Maxwell and Epstein. 'That's a straw man [argument],' Massie responded on Sunday, after Welker read part of the memo. 'Ro [Khanna] and I carefully crafted this legislation so that the victims' names would be redacted, and that no child pornography will be released.'
