White House tightens its grip on Jeffrey Epstein messaging

NBC News

4 days ago

WASHINGTON — Jeffrey Epstein is dead, but the White House can't seem to kill his story.
President Donald Trump and his aides have settled on silence as a strategy to stamp out criticism of his refusal to release files detailing the federal government's investigation of Epstein, according to a senior administration official and Republicans familiar with the White House's thinking.
For weeks, stories about Epstein, the financier and pal to political luminaries who died by suicide awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges in 2019, have been making headlines.
In a break from Trump's usual crisis communications template — which emphasizes an all-hands-on-deck approach to defending him on television and on social media — the Epstein case has been met with more restraint from the White House.
Trump himself has signaled that he doesn't want members of his administration talking about the matter nonstop, a person close to the White House told NBC News. And White House aides have made it clear that no one in the administration is allowed to talk about Epstein without high-level vetting, according to a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
"The communications office has to be directly involved in every aspect of this," the official said. "Every 'i' must be dotted, and every 't' must be crossed through us."
Trump's aides would like for the Epstein storm to pass, but they know they can't keep Trump and other administration officials off television at a time when they are trying to promote his policy wins and agenda.
The senior administration official said White House officials won't stop making appearances in the media, which will inevitably lead to Epstein questions. But they are still trying to determine how to balance defending Trump on the issue while deflecting inquiries by touting his accomplishments.
That represents a shift of sorts for a president who has generally liked his top deputies and administration officials to robustly defend him to the media, regardless of the issue.
'The questions are going to come, but whether we engage or not is part of the consideration,' the official said.
But Trump, who is accustomed to driving the news, is finding out there are limits to his ability to pivot away from an issue that has angered parts of his MAGA base, consumed news media, broken into popular culture and mobilized a Democratic Party that has been dormant and divided since he was re-elected in November.
On Wednesday, a federal judge in Florida ruled against the Justice Department's request to unseal grand jury testimony in the Epstein case, launching a raft of new headlines. Then, The Wall Street Journal, owned by Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch, reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi had told Trump in May that his name appears in the Epstein files — even though he told reporters in July that Bondi hadn't informed him that he was named.
'The fact is that the president kicked [Epstein] out of his club for being a creep,' White House communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement. 'This is nothing more than a continuation of the fake news stories concocted by the Democrats and the liberal media, just like the Obama Russiagate scandal, which President Trump was right about.'
Trump called Epstein a 'terrific guy' in 2002 but said in 2019 that they had a 'falling-out a long time ago.' He has said he had no knowledge of what Epstein was doing.
On Tuesday, Trump baselessly accused former President Barack Obama of committing "treason" because U.S. intelligence agencies found, during the heat of the 2016 campaign, that Russia had tried to interfere in that year's election to assist Trump.
Trump made the highly charged allegation in response to a reporter's question about Epstein, and it prompted a rare rebuke from Obama's office, which called the remarks "ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction."
White House officials hope to limit the blast radius of a self-detonated scandal, which Trump and members of his administration fueled by accusing leading Democrats of hiding information about Epstein when he was seeking the presidency. Bondi raised expectations among Trump supporters in February by promising to release long-sought files, telling Fox News that Epstein's client list was "sitting on my desk right now." But her own Justice Department said this month that it didn't have any such "client list," and other files remain in his administration's hands.
Trump's quick pivot to a flurry of other issues that also animate his base have contained much of the unease among top MAGA influencers. Still, political operatives in both parties see the issue as one that is hurting Trump and helping Democrats.
'Things are, obviously, different with this one,' said a Republican operative familiar with the White House's thinking. 'This has blown a bit of a hole in MAGA, so reflexive defense mode, as we have often seen in the past, won't always be the go-to. Part of the problem is that this issue has leaked into conservative media. In the past, they [White House] could expect certain interviewers to be friendly and stay on script; that's not guaranteed with this one.'
Some Democrats see the issue as a perfect vehicle for painting Trump as an elite protecting the powerful at the expense of the masses, undercutting the image he has crafted for himself as a populist champion of the powerless.
'It's the first time we've got his a-- on something for real, and it's just a clean, clean hit,' said Mike Nellis, a Democratic strategist who is working with several potential 2028 candidates. 'He can't get off of it.'
Nellis said the Epstein imbroglio could be part of a winning midterm and 2028 presidential message because it threatens MAGA's confidence in the GOP's commitment to exposing corruption. He noted that Vice President JD Vance, widely viewed as a leading candidate for the 2028 Republican nomination, has mostly stopped talking about Epstein after having agreed in an interview with MAGA-friendly podcaster Theo Von last year that the documents should be made public. (Von last week posted a clip of the comment on X and wrote: 'Yeah, what changed?')
Vance's first post amid the recent uproar came last week, after The Wall Street Journal published an article about a letter including a racy drawing that Trump is alleged to have sent Epstein for his birthday in 2003. He called the article 'complete and utter bulls---.'
But other Democrats expressed reservations over getting too far in front of the Epstein files.
'I think it's emblematic of the real lack of opportunities Dems have in this moment,' a national Democratic strategist said. 'Trump sort of gifted this, and while it's great to capitalize on it — and I'm glad people are — I'd caution Dems of thinking this is a hot ticket back to anything."
For Republicans, there is acknowledgment that it's going to be virtually impossible to turn the page on this story any time soon, particularly since it began with an internal MAGA rift.
'Short of a war or some life-changing news event,' a Trump ally said, 'I'm not sure what does the trick.'
Republican leaders in Congress have, for the moment, largely evaded a bipartisan push to require the release of the Epstein files, and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., adjourned his chamber early for its annual August recess as Democrats forced multiple difficult votes on the topic in committee.
They got one win Wednesday, when three Republicans joined with Democrats on a House Oversight subcommittee to vote to subpoena the Justice Department for Epstein files.
And with Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, of Kentucky, and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna, of California, threatening to force a House floor vote on the files with a rarely used procedural maneuver, a roll call may be unavoidable in the fall.
Kevin Olasanoye, a Democratic strategist and former executive director of the Georgia Democratic Party, said the White House's considerable attempts to divert from the Epstein saga were evident. In addition to Trump's accusing Obama of treason, the Trump administration has, in the past week, released files on the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who was assassinated in 1968, and asserted — in contradiction of past probes — that Russia didn't try to interfere in the 2016 election.
'They're throwing everything against the wall,' he said. 'This is about pointing out the hypocrisy of what the Republicans have been doing. They are saying one thing, and they are quite literally out in the open doing another."