Donald Trump is fuming.
As the president marked six months in office this week, the MAGA civil war over the Epstein files continued to dominate the news cycle, leaving the White House scrambling to find a way to stave off a growing political firestorm.
It was a sharp contrast from a few weeks ago, when Trump almost couldn’t stop winning. Among other things, he had secured the numbers in Congress to pass the so-called “big beautiful bill”; launched a bold military strike on Iran; and strong-armed CBS owner Paramount to settle a multi-million dollar lawsuit.
Now the late child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein continues to take oxygen away from Trump’s big plot-point: that his second term presidency has been “the most consequential” in U.S. history.
“The Radical Left Democrats are doing everything in their power to distract and obfuscate from our GREAT six months of service to America,” Trump posted Thursday night after The New York Times revealed that his name had appeared on a contributor list for a book celebrating Epstein’s 50th birthday.
“As things are revealed and, I hope will take place quickly, you will see that it is yet another Democrat CON JOB.”
Behind the scenes, and in public, the White House has gone to great lengths to try to mitigate the controversy surrounding the Epstein files - and the MAGA rebellion within Trump’s ranks.
Social media has been flooded with frenzied posts on everything from trade deals with Japan and rants about the Washington Commanders to AI-generated videos of Barack Obama getting arrested.
A strategy of media restraint and high-level vetting has been deployed, with aides making it clear across the administration that all major inquiries about Epstein should go through the central communications office first.
In a particularly wild diversion tactic, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard even declassified a slew of documents that had been collecting dust for years, to accuse former Obama of a “treasonous conspiracy” to subvert Trump’s 2016 election win.
Meanwhile, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who was Trump’s trusted counsel during his “hush money” trial, was deployed on Thursday to meet Epstein’s convicted associate, Ghislaine Maxwell.
Blanche is a less contentious figure in MAGA world than Attorney General Pam Bondi, and the aim of this outreach, according to administration officials, is two-fold: to see if Maxwell has “credible evidence” about the crimes of her former boyfriend, but also to “get ahead” of the issue after a Congressional committee voted to subpoena her.
Asked if Trump was concerned that the Epstein files would continue to detract from his agenda, a source close to the president insisted he had “moved on,” noting that the matter was now with the Justice Department, which had applied to the courts to unseal Grand Jury testimony.
“He has bigger fish to fry,” the official told the Daily Beast. A few hours later, Trump fired off another angry post about Epstein on his Truth Social account.
Part of the problem, insiders admit, is that Trump is at loggerheads with his base, who want the Epstein files released and fear that there’s a cover-up to protect others who may have been involved in his heinous child sex network.
That makes it much harder to change the narrative, even for a president who has made an art form of flooding the zone and moving on to the next big drama.
“The president operates from the perspective of what benefits him personally or financially, so in situations like this, neither he nor the team can figure out what that is,” one veteran GOP strategist told the Daily Beast.
As for how the administration has handled the matter? “It’s not been anyone’s finest hour,” he said.
Signs of frustration spilled over in the West Wing last week, days before Trump was to mark his six-month anniversary in office. He had just returned from Pennsylvania, where he had helped secure $90 billion in new investments for AI infrastructure.
The next morning, he had an unprecedented Oval Office meeting with the Crown Prince of Bahrain, followed the next day with an East Room ceremony with families who had lost their loved ones to fentanyl, as he signed new laws to crack down on the lethal drug.
But much to the president’s chagrin, not one cable network covered the bill signing ceremony live-to-air, thanks to the Epstein saga, said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
“He has followed through on his promises to the American people,” Leavitt lamented, “and he doesn’t like to see Democrats and the mainstream media covering this story like it’s the biggest story that the American people care about.”
However, part of the mess has been of Trump’s own making. Earlier this month, for instance, the president, who came to office promising to release the Epstein files, turned on his own base, portraying them as gullible “weaklings” for pursuing the issue.
“My PAST supporters have bought into this “bulls--t, hook, line, and sinker,” he said in an extraordinary Truth Social rant. “They haven’t learned their lesson, and probably never will, even after being conned by the Lunatic Left for 8 long years.”
This merely fanned the flames of MAGA rage, with some even burning their trademark red caps and posting images on social media.
“Trump was elected in 2016 partly on a pledge to ‘lock her up’,” said conservative commentator Matt Walsh, referencing MAGA rage over Hillary Clinton’s emails.
“Arresting and prosecuting powerful and corrupt people has been a core issue for MAGA since its inception. That’s what the Epstein issue is about. And it’s why the base can’t and won’t just drop it.”
The big question is what happens next. Despite attempts to quell the issue, House Republicans joined Democrats on Wednesday for a high-stakes vote demanding the release of the Epstein files.
Outspoken Republican Thomas Massie is working to force a floor vote on his bipartisan bill that would compel the DOJ to release all of its Epstein documents.
Democrat Senator Ron Wyden, who has been investigating Epstein’s financial network for years, is demanding that Bondi probe $1.5 billion in potentially suspicious money transfers involving the disgraced financier, which may have been used to fund Epstein’s sex-trafficking network.
Meanwhile, outside the beltway, South Carolina Republican Ralph Norman has warned that the issue “won’t go away”. At the same time, Missouri Republican Eric Burlison says that transparency over Epstein files is “the number one phone call that we get - by far.”
Six months into Trump’s first term, there’s a quiet fear inside the administration that the worst is yet to come.
