He Knew

Donald Trump didn’t just associate with Jeffrey Epstein, he exposed minors to him, admitted it, and now wants us to forget. But the truth is breaking through, and the cover-up is crumbling.

A glimmer of hope that the Epstein cover-up won’t go quietly into the night. For all of Trump’s chaotic obfuscation, his “I never heard of the guy” routine, his increasingly desperate song and dance about how the files are “nothing” unless they’re “tainted by Obama”, the numbers are rolling in, and they are damning.

Roughly two-thirds of Americans are following the Epstein story, a stunning level of engagement for anything outside a presidential election or a Taylor Swift tour. Even more surprising? A plurality of Republicans, 31% believe the Epstein files contain embarrassing information about Trump. That might seem modest until you remember Trump usually enjoys cult-level loyalty within his party. But the dam is leaking.

And then there’s the bombshell: 46% of all adults think Trump was involved in crimes committed by Epstein. That includes a plurality of white voters and nearly half of independents. It’s no longer just a theory whispered by “the left” or fringe internet sleuths, this is mainstream public sentiment.

Meanwhile, belief in the official story of Epstein’s death is collapsing like a prison camera system. Only 15% of Americans buy the medical examiner’s suicide ruling. Nearly three times that many believe he was murdered. In a rare moment of unity, Democrats, independents, and Republicans broadly agree: the government is hiding something. Even half of 2024 Trump voters think there’s a cover-up underway. This is a national consensus.

And Trump’s performance in all this? Abysmal. Only 16% of Americans approve of how he’s handled the Epstein files. Among Republicans, he barely scrapes 38% approval, with a shocking 24% disapproving and a third too unsure, or too embarrassed, to even take a side. For a man who typically commands 85%+ support within his party, this is a five-alarm fire.

Turns out you can’t spend years promising to release the Epstein files, then bury them in a lead-lined vault while spouting nonsense about windmills, hoaxes, and Obama, without losing people. The excuses are old. The lies are threadbare. And the files? They’re not going away.

Media outlets take note: people care. The story is resonating. And if Trump thinks he can bury Epstein like he buried truth, accountability, and ethics, he might want to check the latest polling again.

But this isn’t just a public opinion crisis. It’s a personal one, because beyond the polls and punditry lies a story of direct complicity. This is the moment when the Epstein scandal barrels through every remaining guardrail of plausible deniability and crashes directly into Donald Trump’s carefully constructed fortress of lies. Because now, it’s not just about whether Trump knew Epstein. It’s about whether Trump enabled him. And the answer, straight from Trump’s own mouth, is damning.

In one of the most grotesquely self-incriminating interviews we’ve seen yet, Trump admits that Epstein “stole” young women from Mar-a-Lago, women who worked in his spa, women he confirms were young, women like Virginia Giuffre. And he confirms that yes, she may have been one of them. Let that sink in: Trump casually acknowledges that Epstein poached a minor from his payroll, and his response is not horror, not alarm, but pique that Epstein “hired help” without asking.

This is criminal negligence. Trump ran a spa that employed underage girls. He socialized with a known predator, bragged about their shared taste in “younger” women, and then exposed his own minor employees to that predator. And the line that finally got Epstein banned from Mar-a-Lago? Not trafficking, not rape, not child abuse. Poaching staff. According to Trump, the unforgivable sin wasn’t harming girls, it was taking girls away from him.

And this wasn’t a gaffe. Trump has spent the last month lurching between contradictory defenses: “I never knew Epstein.” “I knew him but barely.” “I kicked him out of Mar-a-Lago.” “I wish him well.” He says the Epstein files are “a hoax,” unless they contain dirt on Bill Clinton, in which case they’re gospel truth. He claims he was never briefed, then suggests the files are fake, then blames Biden, Obama, Comey, and Garland for not releasing them, even though his own DOJ held them for years. And now, he’s name-dropping Harvard deans and fantasizing about changing the Washington Commanders back to the Redskins in a frothy, off-the-rails word salad meant to distract from one inescapable truth: Trump knew.

He knew Epstein targeted young girls. He knew exactly what Epstein was. And he still let him troll the halls of Mar-a-Lago. Because Trump didn’t see girls like Virginia Giuffre as vulnerable minors in need of protection, he saw them as “help.” As branding props. Disposable.

This is a political hemorrhage, and it’s getting worse. Trump’s numbers are collapsing. Independents are fleeing. Even Republicans are starting to peel away. And so he screams louder: hoax, hoax, hoax. He bolts to Europe in the middle of the scandal and tries to drown out questions with elevator music. He name-drops Clinton. He blames Obama. He tries to change the subject to sugar in Coca-Cola.

But he can’t outrun this, not anymore. For once, the conspiracy theorists and the mainstream are converging. The facts say it. The polls say it. Trump exposed minors to a pedophile, and he knew exactly what he was doing.

And that’s not going away.