Why is Trump so mad about the Epstein story?

So now President Trump is calling the Jeffrey Epstein story a “hoax.” And — big surprise — he’s blaming Democrats and their allies in the media for keeping it alive.

He recently took to Truth Social to let us in on a little secret: “Scams and Hoaxes are all the Democrats are good at  ... Their new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this 'bulls---,' hook, line, and sinker. They haven’t learned their lesson, and probably never will, even after being conned by the Lunatic Left for 8 long years.”

What’s eating the president? Why so angry at folks who just want to keep the Epstein story alive?

Maybe it’s because when people are talking about Epstein, they’re not talking about all of Trump’s “unprecedented success” since he was reelected. “I have had more success in 6 months than perhaps any President in our Country’s history,” Trump claimed, before lamenting that “all these people want to talk about … is the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax.”

And here comes the kicker: If his longtime supporters can’t let it go, then he doesn’t want their support anymore.

Trump tossing MAGA overboard? I know — it sounds like satire, but this is real life.

“Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats’ work,” he said. “Don’t even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success, because I don’t want their support anymore!”

Right. But before we throw every Epstein conspiracy into the “Democrat hoax” basket, let’s consider a few inconvenient details that Trump conveniently left out.

For one, some of the loudest voices hyping the Epstein scandal were inside the Trump camp. The president himself, his vice president, his attorney general, his FBI director — all of them leaned into the Epstein story when it served their agenda.

As former federal prosecutor Ankush Khardori wrote in Politico, “Some of these officials, perhaps all of them, knew that there was no elaborate government conspiracy or cover-up surrounding Epstein’s crimes or his death, but they intentionally misled millions of Americans for years to make money, get Trump back in the White House, or both. And now that they’re in office, they’re dealing with the mess they made.”

That’s one possibility. Another is that there really is a list — one with names Trump doesn’t want the public to see.

Could there be a cover up? And if so, who’s being protected? The president himself?

Or perhaps, as Khardori also suggests, the Trump team believed their own hype. They bought into the conspiracies they peddled and are only now realizing there is no Epstein “client list,” no evidence of blackmail, no smoking gun. Just smoke.

So, let’s recap: There’s a list, or there isn’t. Trump’s people lied, or they didn’t. They knew what they were doing, or they were duped like everyone else. Clear as mud?

For the record, I never had much appetite for the Epstein story — except for one question that barely anyone asked: Where were the parents of all those underage girls? The ones boarding private jets to fly off to a Caribbean island to have sex with adult men they didn’t know?

Don’t misunderstand me — those men are responsible for their actions. But how did this all go on for so long without a single parent asking, “Hey, where’s my daughter?”

Now, back to the big question. If there were a client list filled with prominent Republicans, do you honestly believe President Joe Biden wouldn’t have made it public during his four years in office? And if the list were full of Democrats, Trump would have turned it into a campaign bumper sticker.

Which brings us to the obvious: There probably is no list. There never was. Trump and company pushed the Epstein story because they knew the MAGA base wanted it to be true. They wanted to believe powerful Democrats were implicated. And now, the people who fed that narrative are stuck cleaning up the mess they made.

So will Trump’s most devoted followers do what he’s now demanding — drop the Epstein story and move on? In the past, when Trump told MAGA to jump, the only question was, “how high?”

But something has changed. Many MAGA loyalists are refusing to budge. They want answers. They’re not ready to pretend the whole story was cooked up by left-wing media.

Of course, they won’t blame Trump for any of this. That’s a bridge too far for true believers who think the man walks on water. But Attorney General Pam Bondi? She might not be so lucky.

Trump, as always, is probably waiting for the next shiny object — a fresh distraction to steer everyone’s attention away from Epstein and back to where he wants it.

And liberal journalists? They’ll ride the Epstein train for as long as it’s hurting Trump with his own base. Eventually, they’ll move on — either when the story stops pulling ratings or when the next scandal drops.

Stay tuned.

Bernard Goldberg is an Emmy and an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University award-winning writer and journalist. He is the author of five books and publishes exclusive weekly columns, audio commentaries and Q&As on his Substack page. Follow him @BernardGoldberg.