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Maggie on Trump’s Epsteinitis

A conversation with Times White House correspondent and presiding Trumpologist Maggie Haberman about the acute political ailment afflicting the president—and why he’s finding it so difficult to shake.

Maggie Haberman
"Trump has shown a unique ability—involving some threats, and some fear that he won’t support them and will cost them their seats—to keep people on his side. I think the Wall Street Journal story—about the birthday card to Epstein signed in Trump’s name—gave Republicans something to focus on, to defend against," says Maggie Haberman. Photo: William B. Plowman/NBC via Getty Images
John Heilemann
July 29, 2025

We are now two days into the fourth straight week in which the Jeffrey Epstein imbroglio has consumed Donald Trump’s Washington—enraging the president, engulfing his administration, inflaming MAGA Republicans in Congress, and emboldening Democrats from Capitol Hill to the Capital Grille. Any hopes Trump might have harbored that jetting 3,500 miles to Scotland for a golf-and-diplomacy getaway would grant him blessed respite from the Epstein story were dashed almost immediately on his arrival in Glasgow and repeatedly in the days that followed: by protesters brandishing placards festooned with photos of Trump and Epstein together and captioned “Best Friends Forever,” and by reporters more interested in the president’s relationship with the convicted child sex offender and accused child sex trafficker than his trade deal with the European Union (shocking, I know).