CNN
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One of the biggest questions looming over President Donald Trump’s second term right now is how much his supporters truly care about the Jeffrey Epstein files.
The distinction between caring a lot vs. a little is critical. The former could mean a sustained problem for the president that bleeds into the midterm elections and affects turnout among his typically loyal base. The latter would mean this is likely nothing more than an ugly episode that ultimately fades away.
So, now that we’ve had a chunk of time since the Justice Department released their controversial Epstein memo, how much do Republicans care about all this?
A bevy of new polls show they’re unhappy with how the Trump administration has handled this scandal and suggest it could be a persistent problem for the GOP.
The base is about evenly split on the administration’s actions, meaning there’s a higher degree of skepticism than we almost ever see with Trump. And that might actually undersell the level of lingering GOP concern.
Americans overall are negative — and the GOP is unusually split
Multiple polls show widespread dissatisfaction overall with the Trump administration’s handling of the matter.
Both Reuters-Ipsos and Quinnipiac University polling showed Americans overall disapproved of how the Trump team has handled this by huge margins: 54-17% in the former and 63-17% in the latter. (The former poll’s question was about Trump personally, while the latter was about the administration more broadly.)
So that’s just 17% of Americans who said Trump and the administration have gotten this right, in both polls. The vast majority in that group are, of course, Republicans.
But delving into the GOP-specific takeaways, the party is about evenly split — which is unusual on the Trump administration’s actions. They leaned slightly towards approving the handling of the Epstein probe, 35-29% in the Reuters-Ipsos poll and 40-36% in the Quinnipiac poll.
It’s difficult to recall an issue on which Republicans were so lukewarm about major Trump actions. For instance, even shortly after the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, an event that led many to conclude that Trump’s political career was over, a CNN poll showed Republicans approved of Trump’s response by a strong margin: 63-32%.
Being disenchanted isn’t the same as ditching someone politically, however. Precisely how much people actually care is a critical point.
There’s some evidence that Republicans are downplaying the significance of this. A new CBS News-YouGov poll released Sunday, for instance, showed just 11% of Republicans said Epstein-related issues matter “a lot” in their evaluation of Trump’s presidency. That’s compared to 36% of overall voters who said that.
To the extent that’s true, it would seem this is something Trump could move past. But polling has a persistent weakness: Respondents aren’t always totally honest with themselves or pollsters.
For instance, ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, the conventional wisdom was that Democrats’ focus on democracy after the January 6 attack wasn’t panning out and that the issue might even spur GOP turnout.
The results ultimately showed that the issue was a significant benefit to Democrats, and election-denying Republicans did significantly worse than other Republicans.
On Epstein, the CBS-YouGov poll suggests there are gaps between how much people say they care about the issue vs. what their other feelings or behavior reveals.
While it showed 50% of Republicans said they were at least somewhat satisfied with the administration’s Epstein actions, 83% of polled Republicans said the Justice Department should release all the information it has on Epstein — something the Trump administration has decidedly not done. (The administration late last week moved in court to unseal grand jury testimony. But that’s only a small portion of the information, and much of it could remain secret.)
The same poll also showed 90% of Republicans believed the Epstein files probably includes damaging information about wealthy or powerful people.
Similarly, the Reuters-Ipsos poll showed Republicans said 55-17% that they believed the federal government is hiding information about Epstein’s death, and 62-11% that it is hiding information about his clients.
Those responses suggest Republicans aren’t happy with the administration’s meager disclosures, even if they’re not looking to register that dissatisfaction when explicitly asked.
The polling also reveals that even many of those who stand by Trump aren’t doing so with a high degree of confidence.
While the Reuters-Ipsos poll showed Republicans were about split on Trump’s actions; only 11% “strongly” approved of Trump’s actions.
And while half of Republicans in the CBS-YouGov poll said they were at least somewhat satisfied with the Trump administration’s actions, just 10% were “very” satisfied.
That’s only about 1 in 10 Republicans who look at this and say they completely sign off.
The CBS-YouGov poll also showed MAGA Republicans were more likely to lean towards being satisfied (60% were at least “somewhat” satisfied) than non-MAGA Republicans (41%).
So are MAGA Republicans — the ones who have vociferously called for releasing more information on Epstein — more satisfied than their non-MAGA breathren? Or are they just feeling compelled to toe the Trump party line, at least somewhat?
Regardless, those numbers don’t mean this won’t be a problem with a significant section of Trump’s base. Those voters could sour on him, at least somewhat, perhaps in combination with other recent Trump actions they don’t love, like on the war in Ukraine.
A Wall Street Journal report last week on a letter Trump allegedly wrote for Epstein’s 50th birthday back in 2003 appeared to unite even many Epstein-focused influencers behind Trump and against the media, their frequent common enemy. Trump denied he wrote the letter and has sued the Journal; his base seems to largely believe he’s being railroaded.
But that doesn’t mean they’re satisfied overall and ready to let the issue go. The data suggest that, for now, this remains a minefield for Trump.
