A pending trade war triggered jitters on Wall Street on Feb. 3. File art: President Donald J. Trump speaks to a crowd during a visit to Dana Incorporated in Warren, Michigan on Thursday, January 30, 2020. Trump visited the state after signing a revised U.S. Mexico Canada Trade Agreement.
Washington D.C. – In a bizarre and intensifying twist to a long-running political obsession, President Donald Trump lashed out at his own supporters on Wednesday, condemning those still demanding the release of sealed documents related to the prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein as “weaklings” and “past supporters” who had fallen for what he now calls the “Jeffrey Epstein Hoax.”
The outburst, delivered in a series of angry posts on his social media platform Truth Social, comes amid mounting frustration within the Make America Great Again movement over Attorney General Pam Bondi’s refusal to release additional case files from Epstein’s arrest and prosecution. Though the files have been the subject of intense speculation for years, Trump is now attempting to cast the entire controversy as a political trap set by Democrats—and his base, he suggests, is foolish for continuing to fall for it.
“Their new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax,” Trump wrote. “My PAST supporters have bought into this ‘bullshit,’ hook, line, and sinker.”
Trump’s posts mark a dramatic shift from his earlier stance. During the 2024 campaign, he had leaned into the belief—popular among his followers—that the government was hiding explosive information about Epstein’s powerful clients. Many in his base have long believed the files contain damaging evidence against Democratic elites and Hollywood figures, and Trump had hinted that he would declassify the records if reelected.
But last week, the Department of Justice and FBI issued a memo stating that no additional records would be released, asserting there was no “client list,” and no unindicted co-conspirators against whom charges were likely. Most of the material, the memo said, had been sealed by the courts to protect victims and would not have been made public even if Epstein had gone to trial.
The memo appears to have triggered a political crisis within Trump’s own coalition. House Speaker Mike Johnson called for transparency in an interview Tuesday, despite helping block Democratic efforts to force the documents’ release. Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie pledged to force a vote to publish the files. And Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of Trump’s most loyal defenders, said the public “absolutely will not accept” the memo’s conclusions.
Epstein, a wealthy financier with powerful friends and a history of sexual abuse allegations, died in jail in 2019. Officially ruled a suicide, his death has since fueled endless speculation and conspiracies.
That speculation is now fracturing Trump’s coalition. What was once a convenient political symbol of elite depravity is now, to Trump, a nuisance threatening to undermine what he calls his “PERFECT Administration.”
“I don’t want their support anymore,” Trump wrote Wednesday. “Let them go do the Democrats’ work.”
