By Ben Meiselas
Donald Trump is in a full-blown meltdown. There’s no other way to describe what the country has witnessed today as the White House and the broader MAGA apparatus erupted in panic over the newly released emails from the Epstein estate that implicate Trump and the forthcoming vote to release the Epstein Files.
Instead of addressing the substance, Trump launched into a frenzy of late-night and early-morning posts declaring that “everything relating to Jeffrey Epstein is a hoax.” He announced, without legal basis, that he is “hereby launching an investigation into the hoax” and ordering the Department of Justice and FBI to investigate Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, Reid Hoffman, and even JPMorgan Chase. According to Trump, Epstein’s crimes were “a Democratic issue,” and he intends to devote “all of the resources” of federal law enforcement to target Democrats. (Side note: Not sure that’s the best deflection as he too was a Democrat during the height of Epstein’s criminal activity).
The more he deflects, the more he tries to focus the attention on others, the more devastating it appears these files are for Trump. Have you heard of the “Streisand Effect”? Trump is taking that to a whole other level. Perhaps we should call it the Trump-Epstein Effect.
The emails obtained by the House Oversight Committee, documents Republicans spent years blocking, show Epstein and his brother joking about keeping “your daughter away from this guy,” referring to Trump, a chilling warning coming from a man running the most prolific child sex trafficking operation in modern history. Other emails show Epstein boasting to a former prime minister of Norway that he was giving advice to Russian officials about Trump ahead of the Helsinki summit. Another describes Trump as “the dog who hasn’t barked” and places him at Epstein’s home alongside known victims.
These aren’t rumors. These aren’t political attacks. These are written communications from the center of Epstein’s operation. Emails Trump and his allies desperately hoped would never see the light of day.
And Trump’s panic is palpable.
Trump’s social media feed morphed from stunned silence into a torrent of lies. He claimed that the DOJ released “50,000 pages of documents” in response to the scandal, when in reality, no new documents have come from DOJ at all. The only new releases came from recent Congressional subpoenas to the Epstein estate.
Meanwhile, MeidasTouch was the first to break a huge scoop this morning related to the Epstein Files. Twenty-four survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s crimes, have issued an emotional and urgent appeal to the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, demanding that Congress vote to release the files. The letter was also signed by at least four women who’ve accused Trump of sexual assault or misconduct.
And Trump’s lies today go far beyond Epstein. Trump insisted Thanksgiving prices were “25% lower than last year,” even as Americans face record-high costs. He declared that “gas is at a five-year low,” another easily disproven fiction.
As I reported, Trump has ordered Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to force all 42–44 million SNAP recipients to reapply for food benefits, creating a massive bottleneck that will almost certainly push vulnerable families off the rolls. Meanwhile, internal polling from the National Republican Congressional Committee, yes, the Republicans’ own polling, shows voters who care most about the economy now prefer a generic Democrat by double digits. For the first time in two years, the GOP’s own data shows a wipeout approaching.
The panic isn’t isolated to Trump. Speaker Mike Johnson scrambled onto Fox News to claim Democrats are “manufacturing some sort of hoax,” even as the evidence sits in plain view. Johnson argued that if Democrats “really cared,” they would have released the files years earlier, but the simple truth is that Republicans controlled the committees, blocked the subpoenas, and shielded Trump every step of the way. Not to mention that many of these documents were sealed due to the ongoing court cases and investigations into Epstein and Maxwell.
Trump’s meltdown has even begun destabilizing U.S. foreign policy. Iran reportedly seized a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz. China is shifting exports away from the United States. Members of Congress are warning that Trump is exploring military action in Venezuela without making any public case to the American people. The world is recalibrating to a president too consumed with his own scandals to manage global crises.
And now, the repercussions are spreading. Ghislaine Maxwell’s attorneys have signaled they are preparing a habeas petition, exactly as I predicted the moment Trump began calling her prosecution a “Democratic hoax.” She will use the president’s own words to challenge her conviction, arguing that if the government itself says Epstein’s crimes were invented by Democrats, why is she in prison?
This is what happens when a president prioritizes self-preservation over truth, accountability, or the rule of law.
Trump is not behaving like an innocent man. He is behaving like someone who knows the public has seen only the first sliver of what’s in the Epstein files, and that the full truth within the actual files could destroy what remains of his presidency.
The panic is real. And for the first time, Trump seems to know it. Like this post, share, and let me know what you think below. We’ll continue reporting every fact and every development as the news unfolds. If you find our reporting valuable and are able to support, consider joining now as a paid subscriber.
