Epstein Scandal Is Trump’s Weak Spot— So Why's The Democratic Establishment Still Playing Defense?

The Public Wants The Answers The GOP Is Covering Up, While Pelosi Obfuscates

"The In Box" by Nancy Ohanian

According to the new poll by YouGov for CBS News, although Trump’s job approval ratings continue to sink, 42% of Americans still approve—which seems incredible high in light of his regime’s activities. However, “views of his second term are increasingly defined by the difference between his political base, which likes what it sees, and the rest of the country, which has growing doubt. Most people disapprove of his economic policies, of how he’s handling his immigration agenda and of the way he’s been dealing with the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.

His base is so incredibly delusional and caught up in it’s own FoxNews/Hate Talk radio communication bubble that fully 30% of the country has persuaded itself that Hispanics are searched less than non-Hispanics and that even among the 64% who think Hispanics are subject to more searches than other people, 22% think that is fair.

Most respondents think Trump isn’t focusing on lowering prices enough, isn’t handling inflation well, passed a tax and spend bill that will benefit the wealthy and not their families, don’t like his tariff agenda and want him to keep his hands of the Federal Reserve.

92% of Democrats, 83% of independents and 49% of Republicans say hiss regime isn’t handling the Epstein scandal well— and even 40% of self-described MAGA Republicans are dissatisfied.

Yesterday, Susan Page reported that “After continuing to amass unprecedented power in the White House, steamrolling a compliant Congress and being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by world leaders more eager to flatter than confront him, Trump finds himself flummoxed by the case of a disgraced financier who died in a jail cell six years ago. Epstein's ghost is beginning to haunt the White House. The very tools that helped win Trump two terms— the openness to conspiracy, the distrust of elites, the eruption of a viral moment— have now turned to bedevil him… A purported ‘Epstein client list’ and the dark suspicion that powerful people are being protected has created a political firestorm stronger than the prospect of cutting an estimated 12 million people off Medicaid or the proposal to end federal funding for Elmo.”

Corbin Trent would like to see Democrats, who finally have some power over Trump, crucify him on a cross made of Epstein’s bones. But many of the elderly, infirm Democrats who control the party, see the Epstein scandal that has gripped his own party, as not much more than a distraction. Beyond shelf-life Deemocrats like Nancy Pelosi “seem more interested in avoiding this than seizing what could be a defining moment... The Jeffrey Epstein case— the parties, the island, the web of connections reaching into the highest echelons of government and business— has proven to be something the American government has not wanted to talk about. That was true during the first Trump administration, the Biden administration, and now in the second Trump administration.”

Even after Trump had him murdered in prison, Democrats preferred to protect perverts named Bill Clinton in their own party— as well as their big donors— than to use it to clobber Trump—and their donors— with. Why aren’t the Democrats moving? Political fossils like Pelosi refuse to see how the political landscape has changed since Trump moved into the Oval Office in 2017— or still believe they can turn back the clock to happy days.

“But Trump’s panic,” wrote Trent, “has reached a fever pitch. After the DOJ concluded there was no ‘client list’ and refused to release additional documents, Trump pivoted to calling the entire investigation ‘the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax.’ He's filed a $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal over their reporting on his connections to Epstein. The FBI has been instructed to ‘flag’ any documents that mention Trump in the Epstein files— a move that has paralyzed other government business. This isn't damage control. This is panic… We might have found Teflon Don's kryptonite.”

But… so far just 4 Democrats— Rashida Tlaib, AOC, Hank Johnson and Jim McGovern— have joined the effort by Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna to force a vote, via a discharge petition, on releasing the Epstein files. “Where,” asked Trent, “are the rest? Where's the rest of the Squad? Where are the progressive standard-bearers? Where are the so-called institutional reformers? If they won't sign a petition to expose child trafficking at the highest levels of power, what are they waiting for? If Democrats are staying quiet because they're protecting old party leaders or powerful donors who might be implicated, then they're not just cowards— they're complicit in the same sinister system. If this is really about transparency and accountability, why hasn't the entire Democratic caucus signed on to make this a done deal?... Democrats could be out there on every television show talking about this. They could be out there calling out the hypocrisy of this movement and its lack of transparency.”

This moment is huge, not just for stopping the momentum of the Trump administration's railroading and destructive tendencies against our government and breaking the lockstep with which the Republican Party finds itself with this president, but it's also a moment for us to peel away some of their loyalty for the 2026 elections and then 2028.

Blood is in the water. Trump's own base is fracturing over this. This is when Democratic leadership should be going for the kill. Hakeem Jeffries should be on every show demanding full transparency. Chuck Schumer should be calling press conferences. Nancy Pelosi should stop calling it a "distraction" and start calling it what it is— a cover-up at the highest levels of power. This is how Republicans would play it if the roles were reversed. They'd be ruthless. They'd smell weakness and go in for the kill.

Instead, Democratic leadership is nowhere to be found. Where are the coordinated attacks? Where are the daily press conferences demanding answers? Where's the political operation that treats this like the gift it is?

If Democrats don't pounce on this— what I would call not just a political opportunity, but a political necessity— then we lose. If this moment isn't captured and repeated, just like Republicans would be doing if the roles were reversed, and if everyone in this country hasn't heard Democratic leadership on every network, in every interview, demanding the release of every document, every email, every text message related to Jeffrey Epstein, then we're missing a massive opportunity.

Republicans would be running a coordinated blitz. Morning shows, evening news, cable hits, social media campaigns. They'd have their entire leadership team hammering the same message until it broke through. They'd understand that when your opponent is bleeding, you don't let up— you press the advantage.

We're missing an opportunity not only to separate Trump from his base but also to restore faith in government transparency. Because what we're living through right now is a faith vacuum. People don't believe in government anymore. They don't believe the system protects them. And honestly? Why should they? We've watched elite institutions let the rich and connected off the hook over and over. This could be the moment that changes that. A moment of accountability could be sitting on the other side of this petition.

The Epstein story isn't a left versus right scandal. It's a top versus bottom scandal. It's about power, about how the elite protect each other across party lines.

The American people deserve to know the full scope of the Epstein network. They deserve transparency from their government. And they deserve a Democratic Party that's willing to fight for that transparency, even when it's uncomfortable, even when it might implicate people on both sides.

If Democrats want to prove they're different from the corrupted institutions they claim to oppose, here's their chance. Stop playing defense. Stop dismissing it as a distraction. Start demanding answers. Start holding the powerful accountable— all of them.

MAGA supporters are questioning their support for Trump. But if Democrats remain sitting on the sidelines, they are committing political malpractice or part of something even more sinister.

We know this isn’t just another news cycle, right? Is it the one that cracks the whole façade? Señor TACO is trying to sue his way out of it, MAGA media is scrambling to change the subject, but even some of the QAnon crowd is starting to turn on him. You’d think Democrats would notice the walls closing in and at least pretend to lead. Instead, we get Pelosi waving it off like Epstein’s operation was a minor scheduling mishap and not a decades-long indictment of the entire elite establishment. And the rest? Jeffries may be working with his team to craft some hashtag. Schumer’s hiding behind Senate decorum like it’s a shield. What exactly is everyone afraid of? That someone might ask uncomfortable questions about their donors? Their colleagues? Their friends? The rot runs deep, and the refusal to dig it out is exactly why so many people have stopped believing anything will ever change. If the Democrats can't figure out how to turn a pedophile blackmail ring with bipartisan fingerprints into a turning point for justice and transparency, they deserve every bit of the public's contempt. They keep saying democracy is on the line. Maybe act like it instead of just trying to prove the Democrats are the lesser evil.