President Donald Trump escalated his attacks against members of his MAGA base who are imploring his administration to be more transparent regarding the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Trump described Republicans criticizing him and Attorney General Pam Bondi for overpromising and underdelivering on the federal government’s files on the Epstein investigations as “stupid.”
“It is a hoax started by Democrats and it’s been run by the Democrats for four years,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday at the White House. “It’s all been a big hoax. It’s perpetrated by Democrats. Some stupid Republicans and foolish Republicans fall into the net, and so they try and do the Democrats’ work.”
The first federal criminal investigation into Epstein, the late convicted sex offender financier, started in 2005 under former President George W. Bush, with Trump’s former labor secretary, Alexander Acosta, as the lead prosecutor when he was the U.S. attorney for Miami in Florida. The second started in 2019 under Trump, though there were other civil cases against him between 2008 and 2022.
Trump again stood by Bondi, who told Fox News that Epstein’s alleged client list was “on her desk” in February before the FBI announced last week in a memo that no such list existed.
Trump said Bondi already gave “credible information” on Epstein. “What more can she do?” he said.
Trump’s comments come as the likes of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) have publicly supported a House Democratic push to compel Bondi to release the entirety of the Epstein files as MAGA proponents, including conservative provocateur Laura Loomer, come under pressure from the administration to stop talking about the matter.
“Obviously, this is not a complete hoax given the fact that Ghislaine Maxwell is currently serving 20 years in prison in Florida for her crimes and activities with Jeffrey Epstein, who we know is a convicted sexual predator,” Loomer told Politico of Epstein’s accomplice, Maxwell. “This is why I said, and I’ll reiterate it again, the best thing that the president can do is appoint a special counsel to handle the Epstein files investigation.”
Trump has been ramping up his rhetoric against his critics over Epstein, calling those demanding more information about him “bad people” on Tuesday.
Then the president took to his social media platform, Truth Social, earlier Wednesday to refer to them as his “PAST supporters” and the Epstein case as “bulls***.”
“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,” he wrote.
( @realDonaldTrump – Truth Social Post )
( Donald J. Trump – Jul 16, 2025, 9:43 AM ET )The Radical Left Democrats have hit pay dirt, again! Just like with the FAKE and fully discredited Steele Dossier, the lying 51 “Intelligence” Agents, the Laptop from Hell, which the Dems… pic.twitter.com/KUR7C5YAvC
— Donald J. Trump
TRUTH POSTS (@TruthTrumpPosts) July 16, 2025
Trump has repeatedly defended Bondi from criticism related to Epstein, even from her own Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino, who last week considered resigning over his agreement with his agency’s findings. Bongino and his superior, FBI Director Kash Patel, had themselves encouraged more transparency with respect to Epstein when they were MAGA media personalities and before they became part of the president’s administration.
Democrats have sought to leverage the MAGA schism, proposing not only legislation but congressional hearings as well.
“I rise today to demand that Donald Trump and our attorney general come clean to the American people and release the Epstein files,” House Oversight Committee ranking member Robert Garcia (D-CA) said on the floor Wednesday. “It’s obvious that somebody is lying and someone is trying to hide something.”