There’s no great mystery as to how and why much of Donald Trump’s base has focused obsessively on conspiracy theories surrounding the late millionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who died behind bars in 2019 while facing federal charges of child sex trafficking. The right has fixated on the story because members of the president’s team, for all intents and purposes, told them to.
Some made the comments before they took office, others during their tenure, but from Attorney General Pam Bondi to Vice President JD Vance to FBI Director Kash Patel, some of the high-profile and powerful figures in Trump’s orbit stoked these fires for years.
Now, they’re trying to put that fire out, telling the right that the conspiracy theories aren’t true, and rank-and-file conservatives clearly aren’t pleased with the reversals.
It was against this backdrop that the president held another White House Cabinet meeting, where a reporter asked about the controversy. As NBC News reported, Trump tried his best to shut down the entire line of inquiry.
Trump criticized a reporter for asking a question about Jeffrey Epstein after the DOJ put out a memo saying there was no evidence that there was an ‘incriminating ‘client list,’ which prompted anger from right-wing personalities. ‘Are people still talking about this guy, this creep?’ Trump said, seemingly frustrated by the attention being paid to the subject over others he and his Cabinet members were emphasizing. ‘That is unbelievable.’
The president went on to suggest that the reporter was wasting time with his question, given that there were more important things to talk about.
Q: Your memo yesterday on Jeffrey Epstein left some lingering mysteries. Could you resolve why there was a minute missing from the tape on the night of his death? Trump: Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? People still talking about this guy, this creep? Do you want to waste the time?
— FactPost (@factpostnews.bsky.social) 2025-07-08T16:36:35.389Z
It was a curious response. For example, the idea that the Q&A should focus exclusively on more pressing matters was contradicted by Trump using the same gathering to talk about Joe Biden’s handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal four years ago and his thoughts on interior decorating at the White House.
For that matter, the president made it sound as if there was no point in relitigating the recent past, despite the inconvenient fact that (a) the Justice Department’s memo on the Epstein investigation came out just one day earlier, making it quite timely; and (b) there’s little Trump loves more than relitigating the recent past (see his near-constant focus on his 2020 election defeat, for example).
That said, the underlying point of Trump’s overly defensive reaction to a reporter’s question seemed to be part of an unsubtle strategy: He apparently wants the public discussion to end as quickly as possible. As The New Republic reported, several congressional Democrats apparently have a different approach in mind. House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin, along with 15 more of the 19 Democrats on the committee, demanded in a letter Tuesday that Attorney General Pam Bondi release ‘Epstein file’ documents mentioning President Donald Trump. The letter, which rails against Bondi for potentially withholding information that would embarrass the president, comes as the Department of Justice earlier this week released a memo closing the case of Jeffrey Epstein, and concluding — to the chagrin of many MAGA hard-liners — that there was no list of clients maintained by the sex offender and disgraced financier. The correspondence came one day after Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon said online that Bondi’s handling of this mess “reeks of a coverup.” I don’t imagine Bondi will respond to the House Democrats’ request in a constructive way, but the effort is itself notable because the story is crossing partisan and ideological lines in ways we don’t often see. The loudest pushback to this week’s developments in the story has come from the right, but it’s not congressional Republicans, who are usually aligned with the GOP base and its interests, demanding more information. Rather, it’s progressive Democrats in the House who are seeking answers to the questions conservatives are asking. All of which suggests Trump’s efforts to end the conversation aren’t going as well as he’d like.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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