Donald Trump is in bunker mode – avoiding questions at what few events he’s had on his schedule and jetting off to Florida – but behind the scenes his White House has been scrambling to get ahead of the Epstein scandal again
Donald Trump is in bunker mode. He has no events on his public schedule today, and aside from a handful of Truth Social posts, he hasn’t made unscripted remarks in public for several days. Later on he’ll jet off to Florida for the weekend. Not since Congress dealt him the double blow of releasing tens of thousands of Jeffrey Epstein’s emails, and then passing a petition to release even more. Meanwhile, he’s been curiously silent on his row with the BBC over footage from Panorama which it’s (dubiously) claimed was misleadingly edited. Auntie last night said sorry to the President, but heavily indicated it was unlikely to be paying damages.
But has the affair soured Trump’s fondness for old Blighty? Read on and see.
Meanwhile in Trumpworld
- “UK is not a friend of the President”
- Trump spirals over Epstein
- What happens next?
- Bishops bash Trump
Here’s everything you need to know.
1. Trump aide says “UK is not a friend”
A senior Trump aide says he doesn’t think the UK is a friend to the United States, or to the President. ‘Border Czar’ Tom Homan made the extraordinary remarks outside the White House earlier today, when asked about the UK no longer sharing intelligence about boats in the Carribean Sea. The halt on information sharing is said to be due to the UK being nervous that the deadly strikes against alleged Venezuelan drug boats in recent months are illegal. Homan accepted the issue was “out of my lane”, but said: “I don’t think the UK is a friend to this country and friend to the President”
(Regular readers may recognise Homan as the guy who has been accused of taking $50,000 in a brown paper bag from an undercover FBI agent, posing as a businessman looking to gain influence in the Trump administration. He denies any wrongdoing.)
2. How Trump responded to the Epstein files in public
Until today, the President’s primary responses to the Epstein drop had been a handful of slightly panicky sounding Truth Social posts, mainly accusing Democrats of using it to “deflect” attention away from the Shutdown coming to an end. On Wednesday, after the emails were first published, he abruptly ended an Oval Office spray without taking any questions, which is almost unheard of for him.
And last night he held an Executive Order signing in the East Room rather than the Oval Office, allowing him to sweep out of the room and away from shouted questions from the press corps. But today he went a little bit more unhinged – saying he was going to order the Attorney General and FBI to investigate several people named in the files – including Bill Clinton – but not himself, of course.
“Now that the Democrats are using the Epstein Hoax, involving Democrats, not Republicans, to try and deflect from their disastrous SHUTDOWN, and all of their other failures, I will be asking A.G. Pam Bondi, and the Department of Justice, together with our great patriots at the FBI, to investigate Jeffrey Epstein’s involvement and relationship with Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, Reid Hoffman, J.P. Morgan, Chase, and many other people and institutions, to determine what was going on with them, and him,” he wrote. “This is another Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, with all arrows pointing to the Democrats. Records show that these men, and many others, spent large portions of their life with Epstein, and on his “Island.” Stay tuned!!!”
3. How Trump responded to the Epstein files behind the scenes
Behind the scenes things have been a bit more frantic. There have been reports that Trump personally got in touch with Republican members of the House, hoping to encourage them to remove their names from an official petition and thwart moves to release even more files. Lauren Boebert, a Colorado Republican who signed the petition to put the release of the files up for a House vote, was summoned to a meeting in the White House Situation Room – usually reserved for classified briefings and for the President to monitor military strikes. Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI director Kash Patel were also at the meeting to discuss her support for releasing the files. Later in the day, Adelita Grijalva, the Arizona Democrat whom Republicans had stalled on swearing in for nearly two months, finally took the oath and immediately signed the petition, pushing it over the threshold for a House vote.
4. That’s not the end of the story…
It’s not a done deal yet. It will most likely pass the House vote, but it then has to be approved by the Senate, which is far from a sure thing. And then it has to go to the President for his signature. He could choose to “veto” the bill – formally refusing to sign it. Or he could just “put it in a drawer” and kick it into the long grass. But either of those would leave him open to accusations of a cover-up, and prompt more questions over what exactly is in those files.
5. Todd Blanche acknowledged that the files undermine his interview of Ghislaine Maxwell
George Conway, a lawyer and podcast host, tweeted pointing out that the emails in the Epstein release show that “Todd Todd Blanche’s questioning of Ghislaine Maxwell was either (a) completely incompetent; or (b) intentionally crafted not to elicit facts incriminating Trump. Either way, he is not fit to serve as Deputy Attorney General of the United States.” Blanche responded: “George, you’ve never been confused for a trial lawyer, and these kinds of posts explain why. When I interviewed Maxwell, law enforcement didn’t have the materials Epstein’s estate hid for years and only just provided to Congress. Stop talking. It’s unbecoming.”
It was a punchy response – but it did at least acknowledge that Maxwell’s answers were heavily contradicted by the evidence in the documents released this week.
6. Bishops bashing Trump
Apparently urged on by the Pope, a number of senior Catholic bishops in the US released a video condemning Trump’s “inhumane” ICE immigration raids.
“We feel compelled now in this environment to raise our voices in defence of god-given human dignity,” one Bishop said. Another added: “We oppose the inhumane mass deportation of people. We call for an end to dehumanising rhetoric, whether directed at immigrants or law enforcement.” Ouch.
7. Karoline Leavitt claims climate change is ‘based on a fallacy’
Karoline Leavitt, The White House Press Secretary, the face and voice of the Trump administration, says climate change is “based on a fallacy.” Attacking Gavin Newsom, the Democrat governor of California, she said on (where else?) Fox News: “Gavin has done so much damage to his state, with the ‘Green New Scam’ and with this utopian pursuit of climate change that is just so false, it’s built on a fallacy, and he’s built up energy costs [so much] that people are fleeing the state.” Almost all scientists disagree with her.
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