Trump Wants Everyone To Stop Talking About Epstein. So Why Doesn't He?
"Mr. President, you said Jeffrey Epstein was stealing young women from your spa. Did that raise alarm bells for you?" Collins asked--an entirely reasonable question based on the president's own words. He brought it on himself.
In Scotland, Trump--sitting alongside British Prime Minister Keir Starmer for a press availability intended to focus on Trump's tariffs and trade-- the president had been asked by reporters about his relationship with Epstein. 'That's such old history, very easy to explain,' he responded. 'But I don't want to waste your time by explaining it.'
'I don't want to waste your time by explaining it'
A politician gifted enough to be elected president of the United States twice would have no problem deflecting a question like this and getting back onto more favorable political ground, like talking about the subject he'd come to talk about. Instead, Trump decided he did, after all, 'want to waste your time by explaining it,' and more than that, he wanted to throw more fuel on the fire by saying something newsworthy enough to driven an entire night of prime time cable news debate and ensure that Epstein would dominate news coverage for yet another day.
'He did something that was inappropriate,' Trump said of Epstein, and not referring to the sexual trafficking or abuse of under-age girls. 'He hired help and I said, 'Don't ever do that again,'' Trump said of Epstein and his interest in apparently under-age staff at Mar-a-Lago. '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,' Trump added.
'This is primarily a self-inflicted story, and a self-inflicted wound'
Is Trump really tired of talking about his well-documented and years-long relationship with Epstein, or not? And if not, why not? On CNN's The Source Wednesday night, host Kaitlan Collins said Trump allies felt 'surprise that they had not been able to get a handle on (the Epstein story), that this has been over a month of something that has been dogging the president.'
'This is primarily a self-inflicted story, and a self-inflicted wound, that they are dealing with, and they are struggling to get out of it,' said CNN political analyst Maggie Haberman, describing 'fatigue' among people close to the president. 'But not just fatigue with Democrats talking about it, or podcasters talking about it, or Joe Rogan talking about it, the president himself keeps talking about it,' noting that, amazingly, Trump had responded to a question about Russia by shifting to Epstein--and not in a small way, but by providing "new information that had not been heard before.
Is Trump finally 'unraveling'?
The more Trump talks, the more he gives journalists new leads to pursue, and makes it justifiable for reporters to produce new stories about Epstein. He is literally driving a story he wants to go away. In the process, he's contradicting himself, changing elements of a story he's talked about for years, and creating new questions to be answered. He's also using language that itself is newsworthy just by being strange or unsettling, like saying he'd never had 'the privilege' of visiting Epstein's private island.
To some, the inability of the president to simply find something else to talk about suggests a mental decline, in the same way he simply cannot stop long-winded diatribes about the dangers of windmills. Weeks earlier, Trump shocked his supporters by turning on them, accusing them of falling "for the "bulls--t" of the Epstein files story and insisting he no longer wanted the backing of these "weaklings."
That accusation led former Trump ally Lev Parnas, a Florida businessman and former associate of Rudy Giuliani, to conclude that Trump was 'unraveling.'
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