President Trump probably hoped the long Labor Day weekend would help him outrun his political troubles. Instead, his absence from public view only seemed to sharpen the mounting questions about his health and fitness for office.
Unfortunately for Trump, one trouble never comes alone. The explosion of chatter around Trump’s health might have Americans questioning whether the president is up to the job, but it hasn’t distracted them from demanding the full release of the Jeffrey Epstein files. People want to know how their president was involved with the nation’s most notorious child sex trafficker — and, for once, they aren’t buying into Trump’s cynical distractions.
Where are the Epstein files, Mr. President?
After an August spent trying (and failing) to move on from Trump’s Epstein connection, Republicans have returned to Washington to find Epstein’s victims still waiting by House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) door. Far from cooling the temperature regarding the Epstein documents, the August recess seems to have given Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) time to build bipartisan consensus around their release. If Khanna and Massie get their way, Trump may soon have a black eye to match his bruised hands.
Watchdog organizations are pressing for answers, even if most congressional Republicans aren’t. Last week, the nonpartisan Democracy Defenders Fund filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration demanding the full release of all files related to the Epstein investigation — not just the same already-public documents the Department of Justice has falsely touted as “new” information. They argue, rightly, that transparency isn’t optional in a democracy, even if that transparency implicates the sitting president in potentially criminal misconduct.
Republicans used to believe that, too, but only when that transparency embarrassed President Biden and his son, Hunter. Now that we know Trump’s name appears multiple times in documents detailing Epstein’s relationships with his sex-trafficking clients and other powerful political and business figures, Republicans, apparently, couldn’t care less.
That rank hypocrisy isn’t lost on voters, including the more than 40 percent of Republicans who strongly disapprove of Trump’s Epstein bait-and-switch.
Even more worrisome for Trump, the Epstein files are one of the few issues where his MAGA base is actually less happy with him than the broader GOP. A University of Massachusetts-Amherst survey published last month found that 54 percent of Trump voters want the Justice Department to take the issue out of Trump’s hands by appointing a special prosecutor.
Despite Johnson’s best efforts, Congress returns to a political landscape even more focused on Epstein than when Republicans left. The political math is now even more complicated for House Republicans, who will need to navigate a series of high-profile hearings featuring Epstein’s victims while also juggling a looming government shutdown on Sept. 30. Those hearings have also supercharged Khanna and Massie’s effort to force a vote to release the Epstein files, with the latter filing a discharge petition on Tuesday.
House Republicans may have the votes to crush any such push for transparency, but doing so will come at immense political cost, as the party continues to struggle to project competence in a historically unproductive Congress. A July survey found that nearly 70 percent of voters — including a majority of Republicans — believe the government is hiding something about Epstein. Does Johnson really think that spitting in those voters’ faces will work out well for his party in next year’s midterm elections?
Trump’s inability to spin his way out of the deepening scandal has clearly taken its toll on both the president and his staff. His headaches will only get worse when Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI director Kash Patel testify before the House Judiciary Committee in what is expected to be an explosive and potentially humiliating exchange for the White House.
If Bondi is expecting a warm reception from her GOP colleagues, she’s in for a rude awakening from angry MAGA lawmakers, who increasingly see her mismanagement of the Epstein issue as the administration’s biggest liability. Trump recently distanced himself from any potential fallout from Bondi’s upcoming appearance, telling reporters last month that he directed her to give “everything” to the multiple House committees. Trump’s message is clear: I did my part. Bondi will have to sink or swim on her own.
Unless the White House gets serious and releases the Epstein files in full, it won’t just be Bondi who sinks. The scandal over the true nature of Trump’s relationship to Epstein now risks overshadowing the entire administration. If the Justice Department won’t show what it has on Epstein, the voters have made clear they will elect leaders who will.
Max Burns is a veteran Democratic strategist and founder of Third Degree Strategies.
