Is Epstein the Final Straw for Trump’s Base?

In 2024, Donald Trump said he’d declassify and release the files the U.S. government has on notorious child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. But recently, responding to disappointment and growing demands from his base to actually release the full files, he told a crowd of reporters in Pennsylvania that “I don’t understand why the Epstein files would be of interest to anybody. It’s pretty boring stuff. It’s sordid, but it’s boring. And I don’t understand why it keeps going.”

Even among the MAGA faithful, few minds have been changed and calls to release information continue to grow.

Investigation into Epstein’s life and sudden death at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City often raises more questions than it answers. How did he go from teaching at the elite Dalton School to being a billionaire financier? Even his connections to Bear Stearns and former Limited Brands chairman Leslie Wexner don’t fully explain it, his friendships with royalty and the elite around the world, or the Austrian passport with a fake name and a Saudi Arabian address found in his home.

When he pleaded guilty to soliciting underage prostitutes, Epstein got a 13 month sentence - and was allowed to leave the jail for 12 hours every day so that he could continue working his home office. And in 2007, he entered into an agreement with federal prosecutors in Florida that he would not be prosecuted as part of another investigation. The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Alexander Acosta, later said that he was told Epstein “belonged to intelligence” and to “leave it alone.”