Trump faces MAGA midterm warnings on Epstein
by Emily Brooks - 07/15/25 8:00 AM ET
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.
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https://thehill.com/newsletters/the-movement/5400909-trump-epstein-midterms-maga/
