President Donald Trump on Wednesday seemed furious at members of his own MAGA base critical of his administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, accusing them of falling prey to a “hoax” and declaring that he doesn’t “want their support anymore.”
In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump blamed his fans for showing interest in the Epstein probe despite his repeated pleas for them to move on.
“Their new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this ‘bullshit,’ hook, line, and sinker,” Trump said. “They haven’t learned their lesson, and probably never will, even after being conned by the Lunatic Left for 8 long years.”
The president expressed frustration that the controversy is continuing to dominate the news cycle, while lashing out at his supporters for giving the “success starved Dems” a reason to celebrate.
“Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats work, don’t even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success, because I don’t want their support anymore!” Trump added.
Trump failed to mention that it was his own team who fueled his base’s interest in the files, as Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News in February that Epstein’s client list “was sitting on [her] desk.”
A subsequent memo released by her department and the FBI this month claiming that there was no evidence to suggest Epstein was killed or that he kept a client list inevitably angered his base, causing political headaches for the president and his team.
Bondi on Tuesday dodged questions about Epstein, claiming that the “memo speaks for itself.”
Trump has defended Bondi repeatedly, including over the weekend when he asked his followers to stop attacking her, saying that she was doing a “FANTASTIC job.”
“We’re on one Team, MAGA, and I don’t like what’s happening,” he wrote on Saturday. “We have a PERFECT Administration, THE TALK OF THE WORLD, and ‘selfish people’ are trying to hurt it, all over a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein.”
Still, the Epstein files controversy is unlikely to go away. Even House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), a staunch Trump ally, said “we should put everything out there and let the people decide,” telling conservative podcaster Benny Johnson that Bondi should further explain her February statement.
Epstein died in federal prison one month after being arrested on charges of sex trafficking minors in 2019, during Trump’s first term in office. While Trump has tried to distance himself from Epstein, the two men had a well-documented, yearslong friendship.