It was a week from hell that nearly broke Donald Trump’s administration. By the time it was over, the president had sustained more blowback and political damage for his administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files than he did for bombing Iran last month.
“The week was a big kick in the balls,” a senior administration official bluntly notes. “It was a lot to deal with and there were many emotions.”
The end is nowhere in sight, as the president’s supporters — from MAGA influencers and Republican politicians — continue to raise hell over the Justice Department’s memo announcing the administration’s belief that Epstein killed himself in prison, and that it was effectively closing its case on the convicted sex offender and accused sex trafficker. The melodrama has clearly eaten away at the notoriously mercurial president’s patience. “They won’t shut the fuck up about it,” Trump privately vented — referring to conservative influencers and media types lashing out over the Epstein memo — according to a source with direct knowledge of the matter.
Anyone who knew anything about Trump’s base could have predicted the still-ongoing tumult. Nevertheless, Trump has managed to power-walk himself backwards into a worst-of-both-worlds scenario in which his seemingly ad hoc crisis management has only made things worse — despite his administration’s best efforts to put out the fire.
Trump has now repeatedly tried to dismiss the Epstein files as “boring,” claiming they were “made up” by Democrats. He even attacked his own supporters for caring about them, in a wild rant posted to Truth Social on Wednesday.
“Their new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this ‘bullshit,’ hook, line, and sinker,” the president wrote as part of a lengthy rant on Truth Social. “They haven’t learned their lesson, and probably never will, even after being conned by the Lunatic Left for 8 long years.”
He continued to slam the “stupid” and “foolish” Republicans who have fallen for the Epstein “hoax” while speaking with reporters in the Oval Office later Wednesday morning, as he and other administration officials were meeting with the leader of Bahrain.
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The highest levels of the Trump administration have shoveled a significant amount of time and resources into trying to contain the damage from the release of the Justice Department and FBI’s Epstein memo, the contents of which spat in the face of popular right-wing conspiracy theorists who have long claimed that Trump’s former friend Epstein was murdered to cover up the sex crimes of the Democratic Party and liberal elite. (Epstein was found dead in prison in 2019, during Trump’s first administration.)
Trump and his key appointees’ refusal to further indulge the conspiracy theories about Epstein came after the president, himself, did so numerous times, and after he personally promised to release Epstein’s client list. Earlier this year, the administration invited MAGA influencers to the White House to collect an “Epstein Files Phase One” report, a stunt that backfired when it contained no new information.
The administration’s striking change in posture regarding Epstein has not only upset his base, it has wrought havoc throughout the Trump administration itself, reigniting and exacerbating tensions and petty feuds between the most senior members of federal law enforcement. Dan Bongino, the FBI deputy director and former Epstein obsessive, nearly quit his post over the memo, and skipped work last Friday in protest.
Senior Trump administration officials sprang into action to smooth over relations between Attorney General Pam Bondi, and the FBI’s two top officials, Kash Patel and his deputy Bongino, both of whom were furious at Bondi over her handling of the Epstein investigation. Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance got personally involved with the efforts at establishing a detente, but Bongino continued dangling the prospect of his resignation. As of Wednesday, he’s still officially on the job, though numerous sources in and close to the White House say he’s torched much of his standing in the administration with his, as one person close to Trump ungenerously calls, “child’s temper tantrum.”
On Monday, after news broke about Bongino showing up to work this week, another senior Trump administration official messaged Rolling Stone a YouTube link to a scene from the Seinfeld episode in which George Costanza angrily quits his job, realizes he has few prospects, then returns to his office as if nothing had happened.
Meanwhile, Trump and his lieutenants worked to, as a White House official describes it, “put down this MAGA rebellion” that was exploding throughout the broader conservative universe. Administration officials closely monitored the overwhelmingly negative reactions to the memo by right-wing allies and influencers, drawing up divide-and-conquer style lists laying out which Trump official should reach out to which Epstein conspiracist, in hopes of convincing them to ease up on Team Trump.
The damage-control operation stretched on for long enough that Trump himself jumped in, working the phones to try to sway some of his most devoted followers to leave the Epstein issue alone. The senior-level outreach campaign verged on the kind of sensitive operation typically reserved for things like passing a major piece of legislation.
By the start of this week, Trump’s preferred cable-news outlet, Fox News, appeared to have gotten the memo (no pun intended). “People here understand that there are other topics to cover,” one network insider says. “There is the implicit threat that if you go at the Epstein issue too aggressively, you could lose access or not have your calls returned.”
Trump administration officials are still struggling to figure out how they can better mitigate the broader fallout. According to administration sources familiar with the discussions, there is internal debate about the best way forward, including whether the Justice Department should submit to calls, such as from far-right Trump ally Laura Loomer, to appoint a special counsel on the Epstein kerfuffle, whether the government should un-redact certain portions of already public documents, or whether the administration should do something else entirely.
“It’s a mess, and nobody seems to know if the next attempt to make things better with the base will just make things worse,” one Republican operative briefed on the situation says.
But one thing many Trump advisers can agree on is that the president isn’t doing himself any favors with his personal communications blitz to put the Epstein business to rest.
Over the weekend, after the president introduced his since-repeated claim that the Epstein files were authored by “Obama, Crooked Hillary,” and other Trump enemies, and therefore it should not be a matter of concern to his base, one Trump administration official conceded: “He is making it very hard for some of his biggest supporters to not think that maybe he really is in the Epstein files.”
The far-right glitterati were not impressed with Trump’s Epstein jiu-jitsu.
“Barack Obama wrote the Epstein files? LOL. This is outright embarrassing,” Candace Owens wrote on X. The former Daily Wire correspondent also sounded off on her podcast. “The Epstein scandal is definitely terminal cancer for the MAGA movement,” she said, adding that “there’s just no making anybody forget about the Epstein scandal.”
The Trump administration is certainly trying. The president over the weekend reportedly called some of the MAGA influencers who had been criticizing Bondi’s handling of the case, including Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA. Kirk appeared to fall in line on Monday. “Honestly, I’m done talking about Epstein for the time being,” he said on his podcast. “I’m gonna trust my friends in the administration, I’m gonna trust my friends in the government to do what needs to be done, solve it, ball’s in their hands.”
So did Benny Johnson, who, like Owens, was incredulous over Trump suddenly claiming that Obama is responsible for the Epstein files. Johnson wrote on Monday that he “just got off the phone with a top federal law enforcement contact,” and could report that the administration had heard the voice of the people and to “expect more disclosures.”
Dinseh D’Souza — the right-wing filmmaker and Trump ally behind 2000 Mules, a documentary about the conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was rigged — argued on his podcast this week that “even though there are unanswered questions about Epstein, it is in fact time to move on.”
Owens may be right about the scandal’s staying power, though. There are scores of MAGA influencers — from Loomer, to Megyn Kelly, to Dilbert creator Scott Adams, and beyond — who are still incensed over the memo. Gen. Michael Flynn, a leader in the MAGA conspiracy theory community who briefly served as Trump’s national security adviser during his first term, on Wednesday published a lengthy plea for Trump to take the issue seriously. Even Kirk demanded more from the administration on Tuesday, a day after he said he was done talking about Epstein. “We’re not moving on,” he said.
Republicans in Congress aren’t moving on, either. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told Benny Johnson on Tuesday that he’s “for transparency,” that he supports the idea of currently incarcerated Epstein partner Ghislane Maxwell testifying before Congress, and that “Pam Bondi needs to come forward and explain it to the American people.”
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), meanwhile, told reporters he doesn’t “trust” what the Justice Department is saying about Epstein. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), one of the most notorious conspiracy theorists and MAGA diehards in Congress, told The New York Times that the DOJ’s memo is “a full reversal on what was all said beforehand, and people are just not willing to accept it.”
Democratic lawmakers, meanwhile, are doing everything they can to make hay out of the Epstein chaos. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) earlier this week introduced an amendment to the GENIUS Act, a crypto bill, compelling the release of the Epstein files.
This did little to suppress the surge of hard-right suspicions that the GOP and the president’s federal appointees have something to hide, and are out to protect their boss.
“We are always looking for openings, and right now, Trump is doing this to himself,” says Pat Dennis, president of the Democratic research group American Bridge 21st Century. “Something that we are seeing now as part of the strategy is making sure people know: if Donald Trump doesn’t have your back on this — which has been such a big part of Republican Party and MAGA lore for years — what else does he not have your back on? Does he not have your back on Medicaid? On Social Security? On the economy? On public safety issues? It’s a powerful opening that, again, he created himself.”
Indeed, over at American Bridge, they have long had a file on the “File.” Dennis adds that during the 2016 presidential race, including when the Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio camps were collecting and distributing their Trump-related opposition research, “we started noticing … the weird Trump-Epstein connections.”
He adds: “This is something that’s been of interest for years, and we have some research at American Bridge we are happy to share to help remind people and keep them informed.” The American Bridge president says that over the past week, “we’ve been sharing this kind of messaging with a number of our allies, including influencers with large followings,” both in “the progressive space” and elsewhere.
It’s unclear how Trump and his administration will proceed given that, as of now, the scandal doesn’t seem to be abating anytime soon. The president seemed to pass the buck to Bondi while speaking with reporters on Tuesday. “She has handled it very well, and it’s going to be up to her,” he said of his attorney general’s handling of the case. “It’s going to be up to her. Whatever she thinks is credible, she should release.”
Bondi was asked later on Tuesday about Trump saying she should release what is credible. “Our memo speaks for itself,” she said. “I haven’t seen all of his statements today.”
From Rolling Stone US
