President Donald Trump’s Oval Workplace announcement concerning the World Cup was purported to be routine, however it shortly went off the rails. When reporters pressed him on releasing the recordsdata, Trump deflected by dragging Invoice Clinton again into the highlight, repeating his well-worn declare that the previous president flew to the island “28 instances.”
However even that drained line wasn’t what had folks speaking. The viral second took a left flip as viewers fixated on Trump himself — and one alarming element that social media couldn’t cease buzzing about.
“The Justice Division can also be sending among the Epstein recordsdata over to the Home Oversight Committee at the moment, are you OK with them releasing all of them?” a reporter requested.
“Harmless folks shouldn’t be harm,” Trump mentioned. “However I’m in help of preserving it completely open. I couldn’t care much less. You bought lots of people that may very well be talked about in these recordsdata that don’t should be … ’trigger he knew everybody in Palm Seaside. I don’t know something about it, however I’ve mentioned to [Attorney General] Pam [Bondi] and everybody else, give them every little thing … the entire thing is a Democrat hoax.”
Trump made a slight pivot to say Democrats are solely utilizing the Epstein scandal to distract from his administration having the “biggest six months within the historical past of the presidency.”
“Invoice Clinton was on his aircraft … went to the island supposedly 28 instances,” he continued, insisting he doesn’t “need to convey that up, frankly.”
“You’ve [former Harvard president and secretary of the Treasury] Larry … Summers, who was Jeffrey Epstein’s greatest good friend. However I don’t need to harm Larry Summers.”
Other than his normal rambling, Trump was visibly struggling to maintain his eyes open. Viewers took discover and couldn’t get sufficient. Some even took screenshots to get a close-up shot.
One consumer wrote on Threads, “He seems to be like he’s about to break down or go to sleep standing. Biden by no means seemed this dangerous and we by no means heard the top of it from the media. Nonetheless hear it to today.” Others speculated Trump could have congestive coronary heart failure that’s progressing quickly. Whereas others requested, “what’s unsuitable with him?”
One other doubled down, “Discover he retains closing his eyes for prolonged durations of time.”
“Why is his proper eye and aspect of face drooping?” one consumer requested with no trace of sarcasm.
Trump’s bodily state wasn’t the one element that grabbed viewers consideration away from his message.
The large purple hat drew its personal outrage. One viewer famous strongly, “This level should not be missed: The present US President is standing in our Oval Workplace, carrying an enormous purple hat that refers to himself within the third particular person, with a large slogan that’s the most smug and fictitious lie ever…about himself. Idiocracy.”
One other added, “this man has to have a psychological incapacity there’s no approach.”
The struggle over the Epstein recordsdata has been entwined with Trump’s personal efforts to distance himself from the case whereas casting suspicion on former President Clinton.
However social media critics made it clear they weren’t falling for Trump’s flip of hand to assert he doesn’t need “harmless folks” to get harm.
“Why does nobody ever inform Trump to his face that he’s mendacity and he doesn’t idiot anyone? How is he allowed to hold on so clearly making up stuff?” wrote one other.
Trump’s supposed concern for folks getting harm if the recordsdata had been launched was become satire on-line. A parody social media publish appeared on Fb and shortly viral. The publish was an obvious screenshot supposed to look as from Trump’s Reality Social account nevertheless the precise deal with was “@realDotardTrump” and the account identify was Donald J. Turmp.
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The picture was posted on August 25, 2025 with the caption “That’s proper I’m not releasing the Epstein recordsdata as a result of I need to defend Invoice Clinton.”
The textual content contained in the picture learn: “We’re not going to launch the Epstein recordsdata as a result of I need to defend numerous harmless folks in there like BILL CLINTON. Now that you understand the true motive I’m certain nobody will ever ask to see the Epstein recordsdata once more, which embrace bodily proof taken from his properties, digital data and sufferer testimonies, NO ONE WILL EVER ASK FOR THE FILES AGAIN. THIS IS A DEMOCRAT HOAX. Thanks to your consideration to this matter.”
The renewed fixation on Epstein’s intercourse trafficking community comes because the Home Oversight Committee escalates its personal seek for information.
On Monday, the Home Oversight Committee subpoenaed the property of Jeffrey Epstein for a variety of paperwork, together with a leather-bound birthday e book that allegedly accommodates a handwritten message from Donald Trump.
The request, signed on Aug. 25 by Chairman James Comer, seeks Epstein’s will, disclosure agreements, monetary transactions, and the 2007 nonprosecution settlement with federal prosecutors in Florida, together with customer logs, cellphone information, and any papers that may very well be construed as a “consumer checklist.”
Comer, a Kentucky Republican, wrote to legal professionals for the property that the committee understands Epstein’s recordsdata are of their custody and that they’re ready to show them over.
The primary merchandise on the subpoena is the birthday e book, which Ghislaine Maxwell is claimed to have compiled for Epstein’s fiftieth birthday. Trump has denied experiences in The Wall Avenue Journal that he contributed a risqué notice to the e book, calling the paper’s account “faux,” submitting a defamation lawsuit, and insisting that “these usually are not my phrases, not the best way I discuss. Additionally, I don’t draw footage.”
“It’s our understanding that the Property of Jeffrey Epstein is in custody and management of paperwork that will additional the Committee’s investigation and legislative targets,” Comer wrote to the property’s legal professionals, stressing that they’d signaled willingness to cooperate. The subpoena adopted a primary tranche of recordsdata delivered by the Justice Division on Aug. 22.
But Democrats on the panel say that supply fell flat. Rep. Robert Garcia of California mentioned Saturday that 97 p.c of the 33,295 pages DOJ offered had already been launched by different companies, together with video of Epstein’s closing hours at Manhattan’s Metropolitan Correctional Heart and filings from Maxwell’s trial.
The one recent data, Garcia mentioned, had been fewer than 1,000 pages of Customs and Border Safety logs detailing Epstein’s aircraft actions from 2000 to 2014. “There isn’t any excuse for incomplete disclosures,” he mentioned. “Survivors and the American public deserve the reality.”
Republicans countered that the fabric was solely the primary installment and that extra paperwork would observe.
A Justice Division spokesman mentioned the division had already offered greater than Democrats ever requested for once they managed the panel, whereas stressing that officers had been nonetheless working to protect the identities of crime victims.
Comer himself praised the Justice Division for shifting shortly, whilst Democrats and a few Republicans pressed for broader transparency.
Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California and Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie are making ready a bipartisan maneuver to drive a vote requiring the division to launch the recordsdata publicly. “Lower than 1 p.c of recordsdata have been launched,” Khanna mentioned. “DOJ is stonewalling. The survivors deserve justice and the general public deserves transparency.”
The wrangling over paperwork has run parallel to Trump’s more and more erratic makes an attempt to distance himself from his previous friendship with Epstein whereas on the identical time accusing Clinton of far deeper entanglements.
Trump has repeatedly claimed, with out proof, that Clinton visited Epstein’s non-public island within the U.S. Virgin Islands 28 instances.
“He has by no means been to Little St. James Island,” Clinton’s workplace mentioned in 2019.
Flight logs, nevertheless, present Clinton traveled on Epstein’s jets 26 instances throughout six worldwide journeys in 2002 and 2003, however they comprise no proof he ever visited the island. Trump, for his half, appeared in flight logs too, taking not less than seven flights with Epstein within the Nineties, although once more with no indication he traveled to the island.
