The House is expected to pass a bill Tuesday requiring the Trump administration to release all records related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a landmark moment for an issue that just won’t go away for President Donald Trump.
After fighting passage of the bill for months and facing certain defeat, the president threw his support behind it at the last minute on Sunday. “We have nothing to hide and it’s time to move on,” he said.
Mr. Trump’s last-minute support for the bill helps mask House Republicans’ first major rebuke of the president since he returned to office in January. Dozens of people were expected to break with the White House and vote in favor of the bill, to meet public demand for information about Mr Epstein’s ties to the US elite, including Mr Trump. (Mr. Epstein died in prison in August 2019.) And it comes amid a difficult few weeks for the president. Declining poll numbers, economic headwinds and recent tough elections for the Republican Party have him looking to reset the fundamental issues — messages he’s repeatedly bitched about on the Epstein issue are distracting.
Why we wrote this
The House is set to pass a bill calling for the release of Jeffrey Epstein’s files. This represents House Republicans’ first major break with President Trump this year — a divide somewhat masked by his last-minute support for the measure.
“Let the Senate look at it, let anyone look at it, but don’t talk about it too much,” he said at the White House on Monday, saying “it’s all a hoax” designed to distract from his economic achievements.
“All I care about is Republicans getting back to the point, which is the economy,” he posted on Truth Social on Sunday evening.
The president could easily order the release of the records himself. His steadfast refusal to do so, after repeatedly promising to do so during his 2024 presidential campaign, has led to an ongoing problem with voters of all parties. This includes a significant subset of his Make America Great Again supporters, who have long been obsessed with Mr. Epstein’s crimes and believe they are part of a much larger conspiracy. More than three-quarters of Americans, including two-thirds of Republicans, want all records related to Mr. Epstein released, according to a PBS News/NPR/Marist poll released in October.
The subject has clearly animated a part of the MAGA base which, for the first time, is in disagreement with the leader of its movement. Republican strategist Doug Heye says deep concerns about this “have always been present in the heart of Trump’s base” and won’t go away.
Mr. Heye cites evidence of this on the ground, among die-hard supporters of President Trump. Last summer, the strategist was in Lake Ozark, Missouri, a deep-red rural vacation destination, and visited a store called Teresa’s Trump Shop. He asked the woman who was working that day to release the Epstein files. His response: “What’s the problem? »
Growing pressure for a vote in the House
The issue has put Mr. Trump at odds with much of his supporters since the Justice Department released a two-page memo on July 7 declaring that no “client list” exists and the president urged his supporters to move on.
Shortly after, Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California and Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky teamed up to organize a discharge petition in an effort to bypass Republican Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana. With 218 votes, a simple majority of the House, the bipartisan duo could force a vote on the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which would require the Justice Department “to release (in a searchable and downloadable format) all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in the possession of the DOJ related to the investigation and prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein.” The bill received powerful support from many of Mr. Epstein’s victims.
Mr. Massie, along with the three other Republicans who voted with the 214 Democrats in favor of the petition – Representatives Nancy Mace of South Carolina, Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia – all faced harsh criticism from the White House.
Mr. Trump is supporting a primary challenger against Mr. Massie, and on Friday the president posted on Truth Social that he was withdrawing his support for “‘Wacky’ Marjorie,” a former close ally who has recently opposed the president on several issues. Administration officials, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, met with Ms. Boebert in the situation room last week in an effort to persuade her to withdraw her support for the release request. Mace, currently running for governor of South Carolina, is also said to have been pressured to remove her name from the petition.
During his appearance Sunday on ABC News’ “This Week,” Mr. Massie said Tuesday’s vote could result in “a deluge of Republicans” voting in his favor, potentially “100 or more.”
Mr. Trump’s last-minute about-face and support comes as a relief to many House Republicans.
“Last week was concerning because there would have been a lot of division,” said a House GOP operative who requested anonymity so he could speak candidly. “Trump trying to open the debate and say ‘I support liberation’ is a smart move. We expect a large number of members to vote in favor. … [The White House] I probably read the writing on the wall and saw that this was going to pass.
This issue has tied up House Republicans for months, locking up the lower chamber. President Johnson sent lawmakers home for more than two months – including the entire government shutdown – and refused to swear in Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva after she won a special election in September. Ms. Grijalva was the 218th signature to push the discharge petition across the finish line and force a divisive vote on the Epstein issue.
What role for the Senate?
Although Trump’s shift obscures how many House Republicans were willing to break with him on the issue, it could spur Senate Republicans into action, keeping the issue at the forefront of the news. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has repeatedly refused to promise any action on the bill, but Mr. Trump’s decision to stop publicly fighting it could change that calculus.
“Trump jumped on a train that had already left the House station to try to show that there was nothing there,” said Ron Bonjean, a former Republican adviser to Senate leadership. “If there are 400 or more votes in the House for this, then the Senate will feel more pressure to act.”
This vote comes at a historically low time for the president.
Mr. Trump’s approval rating is the lowest of his second term: 55% of voters disapprove of the job he is doing, with only 41% approval, according to Nate Silver’s polling average.
Republicans are coming off a beating in last November’s elections, where they suffered double-digit losses in elections ranging from New Jersey and Virginia to Georgia, Pennsylvania and California. The 2026 midterm elections are less than a year away, worrying Republicans in swing districts and states.
This situation is largely motivated not by the Epstein files, but by economic concerns. Voters identify the cost of living as the top issue and give President Trump low marks on the issue.
Trump also under pressure on inflation
The president is showing signs that he knows he needs a change of direction on this front. He reversed course and repealed a number of tariffs on basic food items over the weekend, and he has sought to refocus his rhetoric on cooking issues in recent days.
It’s unclear if this reset will work. His predecessor, President Joe Biden, attempted similar cost-cutting rhetoric, even going so far as to call his major legislative achievement the “Inflation Reduction Act.” Yet voters kicked his party out of the White House in 2024, largely because of their dissatisfaction with cost-of-living issues.
If Mr. Trump wanted to release the Epstein files and end the fight, he could do so at any time. His decision to fight their release for months has only fueled speculation about why he was released — and raised questions about what he may not want the public to see.
The vote comes after the House Oversight Committee, which is conducting its own investigation into Mr. Epstein, on Wednesday released more than 20,000 documents it had obtained from Mr. Epstein’s estate. Mr. Trump is mentioned nearly 1,000 times in the documents, alongside other figures such as former President Bill Clinton and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. In a 2019 email, Mr. Epstein wrote that Mr. Trump “knew about the girls.”
Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein were friends from the 1980s until at least the 2000s. Mr. Epstein is a “great guy,” the president told New York Magazine in 2002, adding: “He’s a lot of fun to be around. They even say he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and a lot of them are younger.”
There are photos and video footage that show Mr. Trump socializing with Mr. Epstein and his former partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, who was sentenced to prison in 2022 for helping Mr. Epstein abuse young women.
Mr. Trump said in 2019 that the two men had “fallen out” more than a decade earlier, after arguing over real estate in Palm Beach, and Mr. Epstein allegedly hired spa guests away from the president’s Palm Beach club, Mar-a-Lago. After Mr. Epstein’s arrest on sex trafficking charges in 2019, Mr. Trump said he was “not his fan.”
Cameron Joseph reported from Washington and Story Hinckley from Richmond, Virginia.
