Trump’s Epstein Problem Might Actually Stick

Teflon Don.

It’s an apropos nickname for President Donald Trump. The only president to have survived the unthinkable, everything from an insurrection and a felony charge has been shrugged off with bluster, denial, or outright fabrication. 

He has openly backed major conspiracy theories and even allied with fringe far-right activists such as Laura Loomer; whose claims have included that some US school shootings were hoaxes. 

Trump himself has dabbled in the world of conspiracy; promising on the campaign trail to release files on the JFK and MLK assassinations to appeal to the conspiracy theorists within his MAGA base.

However, the rumor-mongering and reality-bending claims that had helped him dodge accountability for so long may no longer stick. The latest bombshell in the Epstein saga, that Trump wrote convicted pedophile and trafficker Jeffrey Epstein a personalised birthday card, is haunting the MAGA administration. 

It has become a full blown credibility crisis. 

Trump made great pains to distance himself from his association to Epstein. He famously claimed that he banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago, casting himself as one of the only elites who stood up to him. Trump’s DOJ even prosecuted Ghislaine Maxwell and earlier this year, Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News that she had a list of Epstein’s clients “sitting on my desk right now”. Here, the MAGA myth was that Trump took on the pedophile elite while the Clintons covered it up.

Now, Trump has made a sudden reversal. He’s dismissed Epstein’s client list as a “Democrat hoax” and turned on those in his base who still believe in its existence, saying he doesn’t want the support of “weaklings”. This, unsurprisingly, has left him hemorrhaging support  from that “weakling” base. 

Thanks to the conspiracy Trump  fanned, 69% of Americans think the federal government was hiding details about Epstein's clients. His latest move to order the DOJ to seek court approval to release grand jury files looks reactionary, not a bold or brave statement, just late. Unless there is compelling evidence released, this move could backfire spectacularly and add more fuel to the fire. 

Trump’s political brand is built on being the guy who exposes the truth, not buries it. It hasn’t helped that former ally Elon Musk publicly suggested that Trump himself could be on the client list. 

If he’s now seen as protecting the very swamp he promised to drain, the base may finally walk away. And if they do, Trump's dream of a landslide win in the midterms will go with them.