Conservative influencers and personalities furious at the Trump administration's announcement that it will not release any more information surrounding disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein have repeatedly issued a warning: This will cost Republicans in the midterms.
Commentator Liz Wheeler said last week that President Trump, in dismissing anger about the Epstein matter, was misreading his base and it could show at the ballot box. Former Trump adviser and commentator Steve Bannon estimated it would cost Republicans "10 percent of the MAGA movement" and cause the GOP to "lose 40 seats" in the midterms, and the presidency in 2028.
The theory is that disappointment over the Epstein decision will depress voter enthusiasm for Trump, and by extension all Republicans, resulting in some voters who care about the issue staying home or even voting for a Democrat instead. (The Justice Department and FBI last week asserted in a memo last week that Epstein did die by suicide and did not have a client list. Officials declined to release any more details, saying information under seal "served only to protect victims and did not expose any additional third-parties to allegations of illegal wrongdoing.")
The midterms, though, are a long way away — and national Republican strategists are, for now, largely dismissing the prospect of the Epstein files being much of a factor.
One national Republican strategist I spoke to stressed that no candidate will be making Epstein a main issue, and predicted that the effect of any disillusionment with Trump on the part of voters would be miniscule. Democrats, the strategist thought, would have little ground to message on Epstein given that major Democratic figures like former President Clinton were friendly with the financier.
But while no one expects Epstein to be a top motivating issue in 2026, or the kind of thing you'll see in TV ads, it could play into Democrats' major political theme, a national Democratic strategist told me: The sense that Trump and Republicans have betrayed voters who were counting on the new GOP trifecta ushering in transparency and combating the elites — be it through their extending Trump's tax cuts and threatening Medicaid coverage, or through keeping information about Epstein sealed.
Bannon articulated that concern, saying that the handling of the Epstein matter has "disheartened the hardest core populist" base.
And we're already seeing Democrats and those on the left seize on the Epstein messaging in hopes of pulling on that thread — and poking at Trump.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) leaned in on the matter on Monday, saying Trump administration officials either "intentionally lied" or that the files contain information "that could be damaging to the Trump administration." Rep. Mark Veasey (D-Texas) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) each said they plan to introduce a resolution demanding the release of the Epstein files.
Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), meanwhile, expressed his Epstein-files-release message in song.
House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) has called for the Trump administration to release more material, saying panel Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) should subpoena Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino. My colleague Mychael Schnell caught an anti-Trump "No Kings" protest over the weekend with a new messaging line: "Release the files."
We don't have any hard data in terms of polling so far indicating that Trump and Republicans are in trouble due to the Epstein matter — but judging by the messaging from the A-list line up of MAGA influencers at Turning Point USA's Student Action Summit over the weekend, many of whom unloaded over the Epstein matter, the right-wing base is still furious.
The biggest question for the midterms, then, will be how much staying power that fury has — and how much the conservative commentators and figures who long riled up their base and pushed for more disclosures will keep bringing it up.
Trump gave pretty explicit orders to his "'boys' and, in some cases, 'gals'" in a Truth Social post on Saturday to stop attacking Bondi, expressing exasperation with Epstein still being in the news and discrediting whatever might be in the files by accusing "crooked" Democrats of "writing the files" on Epstein.
Turning Point USA's Charlie Kirk — who, according to CNN, got a call from Trump over the weekend telling him to cut out the Epstein talk — got the message.
"Plenty was said this last weekend at our event about Epstein. Honestly, I'm done talking about Epstein for the time being. I'm gonna trust my friends in the administration, I'm gonna trust my friends in the government to do what needs to be done, solve it, ball's in their hands," Kirk said on his radio show on Monday.
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones of Infowars is grappling with Trump's suggestion that the Democrats might have doctored the Epstein files.
"I dropped the ball. I didn't even think about the fact — I'm like, oh yeah, they've had the list, they've had the files for years, the Democrats would take stuff out and destroy it. Well, that's obvious. They would leave and put in and twist what they wanted," Jones said in a video posted to X on Sunday.
But Jones added: "This has put the Trump administration into a mega, massive crisis. And Trump at press conferences, the rest of it, saying don't ask questions, triggers the ultimate Streisand effect and is insane."
And activist Laura Loomer isn't letting up, either. On Sunday night, long after Trump's post, she called for a special counsel to examine the handling of the Epstein files in an interview with Politico Playbook.
Another big question: What does Bongino do? Multiple reports said he was threatening to leave the Trump administration over the Epstein matter if Bondi didn't leave — and if he went back to his national radio show and spilled on his fury over the Epstein decision, that could fan the MAGA flames.
It's possible, though, that feud cools off.
But as much as national Republicans may dismiss the potential impact on the midterms, it's looking more and more like the Epstein outrage could be an inflection point for MAGA — and the anti-establishment, conspiracy-curious sensibilities in it. We're now more than a week into the Epstein fallout, and it's still getting major attention in both conservative circles and the mainstream media, despite Trump's attempts to shut down the rebellion.
"Trump's persuasive power over his base, especially during his first term, was almost magical. Calling out obvious mistakes he made would get you an ass chewing. 'Trust the plan!' The reaction on Epstein should thus be startling to him. No one is buying it. No one is dropping it," right-wing activist Mike Cernovich posted on X.
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