Trump Savages His Own Base Over Epstein Questions — While His Decades of Ties to the Predator Haunt Him
Donald Trump, already an adjudicated rapist and a convicted felon, has now turned his fury on his own supporters — for daring to ask questions about his long and sordid history with Jeffrey Epstein.
On July 16, amid growing calls from Republicans and MAGA influencers for transparency about Epstein’s client list, Trump lashed out at his base, calling them “weaklings” and accusing them of doing “the Democrats’ work” by continuing to press the issue. “Their new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax," Trump declared on Truth Social. He went further in person, saying that Republicans questioning him were “stupid” and “foolish” and that he no longer wanted their support.
A Decades-Long, Intimate Connection to Epstein
Yet the questions his supporters are asking are not without reason. Trump’s friendship with Epstein goes back to the 1980s and 1990s. They were close — so close that Epstein told journalist Michael Wolff he was Trump’s “closest friend for ten years,” according to The Yale Review. Together, the two prowled parties at Mar-a-Lago and elsewhere, “hunting women,” as Wolff put it.
Wolff recalled seeing a photograph, shown to him by Epstein, of Trump with two young topless women at a party — their ages unclear but “they looked young” — and noted that Trump had a stain on his pants, which he suggested could have been biological evidence of sexual activity. Epstein himself said Trump “tried to seduce the wives of his friends” and was “a horrible human being” despite being “charming,” according to The Yale Review.
According to Michael Wolff, Trump’s friendship with Epstein reportedly ended after a dispute over Palm Beach real estate, but Epstein represented to Wolff that he continued speaking with Trump during his first White House term — a claim that startled even Wolff, who later shared excerpts of Epstein’s recordings with The Daily Beast.
Lawsuits, Adjudications, and Unsettling Allegations
Trump has never been criminally charged in connection with Epstein’s crimes. However, in 2016, a civil lawsuit was filed by a woman alleging Trump raped her at one of Epstein’s parties when she was 13 — though the case was later withdrawn. And the shadow of Epstein loomed over Trump’s rise to power: a 2002 New York Magazine profile quoted Trump saying, “It is even said that he [Epstein] likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
Separately, Trump has been formally held to account for sexual abuse. In 2023, a New York jury found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll, awarding her $5 million. When his attorneys argued that the jury had not technically found him guilty of “rape” under New York law, Judge Lewis Kaplan clarified that the jury’s finding “necessarily implies that it found that Mr. Trump forcibly penetrated her vagina,” describing the act as rape in its common understanding.
Trump’s appeal of that verdict failed in 2025 when the Second Circuit affirmed the judgment, according to CNBC.
In all, at least 27 women have publicly accused Trump of sexual misconduct over the years — from groping to forced kissing to entering dressing rooms of undressed teenagers during his time owning beauty pageants.
MAGA Turns on Trump — And He Turns on Them
Trump’s base, particularly its QAnon-leaning faction, once idolized him as the man who would “drain the swamp” and expose a cabal of pedophiles. But when the DOJ, under his watch, refused to release Epstein’s alleged “client list,” Trump endorsed Attorney General Pam Bondi’s decision to keep the files secret, as reported by NPR, and attacked his own supporters for pushing the issue.
Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Laura Loomer criticized his about-face, calling for transparency. In response, Trump dismissed the Epstein story as a “hoax,” told his supporters to stop “wasting time” on it, and labeled those who persisted “weaklings” and “stupid,” according to NPR.
For followers who spent years believing he would expose a satanic cabal, the betrayal stings. Journalist Mike Rothschild observed in NPR that they are “trying to reconcile two things that both cannot be true at the same time” — their faith in Trump and his apparent efforts to suppress Epstein revelations.
A Pattern of Misogyny & Violence
The Epstein connection fits seamlessly into Trump’s broader pattern of misogyny. A leaked Access Hollywood tape revealed him bragging about grabbing women “by the pussy” because “you can do anything” if you’re a star. Former White House officials like John Kelly and Miles Taylor documented Trump making sexual comments about his daughter Ivanka, calling her “hot” and discussing her body in front of staff, according to the Seattle Times.
A BBC documentary chronicled his pattern of pursuing women as young as 17 at parties. And Michael Wolff reported Epstein mocking Trump as “foolish” and “innumerate,” but still intimately familiar with — and complicit in — Epstein’s world of power, sex, and secrecy, as detailed in The Yale Review.
Can You Blame Them?
Given decades of documented misogyny, a friendship with Epstein that Epstein himself called close, adjudications of sexual abuse, and repeated patterns of predation and cruelty toward women — is it any wonder that even Trump’s most loyal followers are beginning to ask uncomfortable questions?
And is it any wonder that Trump, faced with this mountain of smoke, erupts in anger when they suspect there might be a fire?
For a man who once promised to shine a light on the shadows, Trump’s fury at his base for peering too closely into his own darkness only raises more questions.