Donald Trump Says the Jeffrey Epstein Emails Are a Distraction From the Government Shutdown

In November 2025, Democrats from the House Oversight Committee released three emails subpoenaed from Jeffrey Epstein's estate. Each references President Donald Trump. The emails allege that Trump once spent several hours with Virginia Giuffre, the Epstein victim who also accused Prince Andrew of sexually abusing her when she was 17 years old.

In these emails, Giuffre's name was redacted. However, Republican members of the Oversight Committee released the full, unredacted versions the following day. Giuffre herself has spoken about the president in a 2011 interview and during a 2016 deposition for a lawsuit she brought against Ghislaine Maxwell. She also mentioned Trump in her posthumous memoir. Her recollection of events goes against what the emails said. Trump has since weighed in. Let's look at his response.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump accused Democrats of bringing up the "Jeffrey Epstein hoax" again because "they'll do anything to deflect on [sic] how badly they've done on the shutdown and so many other subjects." He went on to say that, "Only a very bad, or stupid, Republican would fall into that trap." He might be referencing Representatives Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) and Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), who both signed a petition forcing a vote to release the Epstein files.

The president accused Democrats of costing the United States $1.5 trillion during the shutdown, citing their antics of viciously closing the country. "There should be no deflections to Epstein or anything else," wrote Trump, "and any Republicans involved should be focused only on opening up our country, and fixing the massive damage caused by the Democrats!"

Exactly 34 minutes later, Trump took to Truth Social again to double down on what he already said in his previous post. "In other words, the Democrats are using the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax to try and deflect from their massive failures, in particular, their most recent one — THE SHUTDOWN!" Point of fact, these are not other words but rather the same words used in Trump's other posts.

Trump wasn't the only person who was scrutinized following the release of the Epstein emails. Author Michael Wolff, who covered the president's first campaign in his book Fire and Fury, was also part of the information dump. He interviewed Epstein while doing research for his book, and by all accounts, struck up a friendly working relationship with the convicted sex offender. He has also responded to the emails.

Wolff blew past the fact that he gave Epstein advice on how to deal with Trump and went straight to the president's relationship with the financier. "They shared everything," said Wolff in an Instagram video. According to him, Trump and Epstein shared airplanes, women, and business advice.

The author went on to say that he finds it curious that Epstein's public relationships have damaged so many people, but Trump has yet to be held accountable for his affiliation with the convicted sex offender. "That's Donald Trump," he says wryly. Wolff asks what many people have asked. What was the nature of Trump's relationship with Epstein? What did they do together? Anything that gets us a step closer to answering these questions is worth knowing.