How Trump Is Trying to Own the Epstein Vote

It took only a weekend for President Donald Trump and his aides to go from pressuring Republicans to lay off the Epstein files to publicly calling for them to support their release.

His sudden about-face came in a Sunday night Truth Social post, moments after he stepped off of Air Force One. But the president has had multiple conversations in recent days about the Epstein saga, including with people close to him who conveyed concern about the optics of his public posture toward the Department of Justice’s files on Jeffrey Epstein, according to a source familiar with those conversations.

With a vote to compel the department to release those files coming soon and expected to pass, some feared he was hurting his image.

On Sunday evening, Trump posted on his Truth Social from Air Force One: “House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide.”

On Monday, he said he supported the bill ultimately passing the Senate, too.

“I’m all for it,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

“We have nothing to do with Epstein,” he added. “All I want is, I want for people to recognize a great job that I’ve done on pricing, on affordability, because we brought prices way down — but they go way lower on energy, on ending eight wars and another one coming pretty soon. I believe we’ve done a great job, and I hate to see that deflect from the great job we’ve done.”

The White House denies that Trump has reversed his position on the release of the Epstein files, citing its cooperation with the House Oversight Committee and the president’s call for the Department of Justice to investigate certain Democrats’ ties to the late sex offender.

“Stop getting distracted” has been Trump’s message all along, the source familiar with the conversations told NOTUS.

They said that was the root of his efforts to reach Reps. Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace, who have both characterized their support for the petition as a way to protect Epstein’s victims. Boebert was invited into the Situation Room — without Trump or classified documents — to have a sensitive conversation about what the government had actually done in the Epstein case, the source said.

The goal wasn’t to dissuade them from pushing for the release of the files, but to stop them from being “distracted” and instead focus on Republican talking points like improving affordability, the source said.

Neither dropped off of the petition, and it gained enough signatures to go for a vote.

Speaker Mike Johnson and Trump over the weekend spoke about the Epstein vote, according to a separate source familiar with the call. Johnson knew there were going to be a number of Republicans who’d vote for the bill and announced that he would put it on the floor this week, instead of when it was initially expected to come up in December.

Adding to the deluge of Epstein headlines, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said Sunday on TV that her ongoing feud with the president “has all come down to the Epstein files.”

“I have no idea what’s in the files. I can’t even guess. But that is the question everyone is asking: Why fight this so hard?” Greene said on CNN.

One Republican strategist close to the White House speculated that Greene “making their entire falling out to be completely centered around the Epstein files certainly pushed him” in the direction of changing his tune.

“The President has long been calling for transparency related to the Epstein files and the Administration is already releasing documents, regardless of the House vote that was originally being pushed by Democrats who ignored Epstein’s victims for years,” a White House official told NOTUS in a statement. “His post last night was not actually a change in his overall position on the files.

Trump previously resisted calls from his own MAGA base to share more information after his Department of Justice released an unsigned memo that said it found “no incriminating ‘client list’” from Epstein, contradicting years of conspiracy theories that it existed.

“I don’t understand what the interest or what the fascination is, I really don’t. And the credible information’s been given,” Trump said in July amid outrage that no more evidence would be made public.

He also railed against Republicans who joined with Democrats to call for more documents to be released.

“It’s all been a big hoax,” Trump said in the Oval Office one day later. “It’s perpetrated by the Democrats and some stupid Republicans and foolish Republicans fall into the net. And so they try and do the Democrats’ work.”

Last week, the president posted on Truth Social alluding to a discharge petition to force the vote on the Epstein files that was close to gaining the necessary signatures to succeed. “There should be no deflections to Epstein or anything else, and any Republicans involved should be focused only on opening up our Country, and fixing the massive damage caused by the Democrats!” he wrote.

Now, the White House hopes to move onto the offensive on the issue. On Monday, the press office put out an email asking what Democrats are hiding regarding ties to Epstein. Mentioned is Del. Stacey Plaskett — who was revealed in documents released by the House Oversight Committee to be texting with Epstein — as well as former President Bill Clinton, Democratic economist Larry Summers and journalist Michael Wolff.

Whether the vote will eventually be brought up in the Senate is unclear, though the chances are now higher since Trump no longer opposes it. But even if Republicans do bring the bill up, and it passes and is signed into law, it’s clear to Trump allies that this wouldn’t even put the controversy behind them.

The president acknowledged that reality from the Oval Office.

“You do know that, unfortunately, like with the Kennedy situation, with the Martin Luther King situation — not to put Jeffrey Epstein in the same category — but no matter what we give, it’s never enough,” he said.