The key sign Trump is losing the plot over Epstein

Time was when Americans had to venture to movie theatres to watch their summer blockbusters. This year actually marks the 50th anniversary of the Steven Spielberg epic Jaws, the smash hit that created this seasonal genre.

Now, though, it is Washington rather than the waters off Amity Island that produces the most compelling drama. It can be watched from the comfort of your sofa by flicking between the cable news channels and by taking occasional glances at Donald Trump’s own media outlet, Truth Social, which regularly produces the most outlandish plot developments.

In 1975, it was a man-eating great white giant that lurked in the deep. In 2025, for President Trump, it is his old friend and party pal, the convicted sex offender Jeffery Epstein, who haunts him from the grave. Trump, who usually revels in being the executive producer of his own presidency, has lost control of the storyline. Though his tenure is not in peril, you can almost hear John Williams’ anxiety-inducing soundtrack in the background.

Donald Trump and his future wife, Melania, with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell in 2000.Credit: Getty Images

The head of the MAGA movement is trying to subdue the biggest revolt yet from his MAGA base. A billionaire whose political rise was fuelled by popularising a racist conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not born in the USA now looks to many of his supporters like the conspirator. The self-proclaimed slayer of the deep state stands accused of becoming its mouthpiece. The exposer has become the suppressor.

Trump is flailing. Little over a week ago, The Wall Street Journal reported that he had sent a “bawdy” letter to mark Epstein’s 50th birthday in 2003 that featured type-written text framed by his doodle of a naked female body. Rather than draw pubic hair, Trump allegedly scrawled his signature. “Happy Birthday – and may every day be another wonderful secret,” his greeting allegedly concluded.

This week, the Murdoch-owned Journal published another explosive exclusive claiming Justice Department officials had reviewed a “truckload” of Epstein-related documents and seen Trump’s name “multiple times”. The president, the paper reported, was informed of this by his Attorney-General, Pam Bondi, back in May, although being named in these documents is not necessarily a sign of wrongdoing.

The timeline is important because, at the start of July, in a two-page memo, the Trump Justice Department announced an end to its Epstein investigation, having purportedly found no “client list” of men to whom young women had been sex-trafficked. That “nothing to see here” announcement sparked the MAGA revolt.

Trump, incensed by their display of disloyalty and independent-mindedness, called his followers “stupid” and “foolish” for buying into a “bullshit” Epstein “hoax”. In his first, feeble stab at a deflection strategy, he claimed it had been fabricated by Obama, Joe Biden and “Radical Left Democrats”.

To make sense of this MAGA meltdown, it helps to excavate the roots of Trumpism. From the moment the New York tycoon descended that golden escalator, he appealed to Americans angry at being deceived over the war in Iraq and betrayed by the failure to prosecute Wall Street executives deemed responsible for the 2008 financial crash. To a cohort who hated the idea of a black presidency, Trump’s birtherism was instantly seductive.

Also, there was overlap between Trumpism and QAnon. This far-right conspiracy posited that Trump had emerged to vanquish a secret cabal of cannibalistic child molesters protected by the deep state, who thirsted for the blood of their young victims in the hope of achieving immortality. QAnon supporters believed Hillary Clinton, Trump’s opponent in 2016, was involved in an elite paedophile ring, hence their delight in hearing Trump lead chants of “lock her up”. It would be wrong to overstate how many Trump supporters bought into this quackery. Likewise, it would be a mistake to underplay how conspiratorialism helped him reach the White House.

Epstein, in a Venn diagram of modern-day American conspiracy, is where a lot of circles intersect. He was a Wall Street money man (although quite how he accumulated such wealth remains a mystery). Among his one-time friends were members of the globalist elite, such as Bill Clinton. After being given a sweetheart plea deal in 2008, sparing him from serious prison time after police in Florida had investigated allegations he sexually molested underage girls, there were understandable suspicions he had been granted special treatment. When he died by suicide, having been put on round-the-clock suicide watch, the conspiracy mill went into overdrive – again, justifiably.

Many in the MAGA movement yearned for Donald Trump to seize upon the Epstein case as a chance to eviscerate the deep state. Instead, they got a two-page memo from the Justice Department saying case closed.

The scandal speaks of a paradox at the heart of Trumpism, a movement in which a flashy billionaire became a working-class hero. Always it required a leap of faith to expect a one-time friend of Epstein’s, who had judged Miss Teen beauty pageants, spoken repeatedly in a sexualised way about his daughter Ivanka and boasted on the Access Hollywood tape about sexually molesting women, to become a moral crusader. Trump claims his friendship with Epstein ended in 2004 because he thought he was a “creep”. Around the same time, they fell out over a property fight.

The scandal also exposes political dynamics at the heart of Trumpism. First, how he has brought fringe thinking into the conservative mainstream. Second, how MAGA relies as much on a visceral hatred of opponents as it does on adoration of the leader: the loathing of Obama, Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris. Among the reasons Trump lost to Joe Biden in 2020 was because this avuncular, grandfatherly figure – and white man – was harder to demonise.

By threatening Obama with prosecution, Trump’s latest attempt to subdue the MAGA rebellion relies on the same hate-based political business model. Obama, alleges Trump – without citing any evidence – is guilty of “treason” for sabotaging his first term in office by fuelling claims of Russian meddling in his 2016 election victory. This is Trumpism at its rawest and most foundational. Playing the race card from the bottom of the pack.

Nick Bryant, a former BBC Washington correspondent, is author of The Forever War: America’s Unending Conflict with Itself.

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