JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
President Trump continues to be mired in controversy of his own making around the so-called Epstein files. Today, the president lashed out at supporters who are calling for more information to be released about the life and death of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The president also doubled down on the false claim the Democrats created the files to go after him.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It was a hoax. It's all been a big hoax that's perpetrated by the Democrats, and some stupid Republicans and foolish Republicans fall into the net.
SUMMERS: NPR's Stephen Fowler has been following all of this and joins us for an update. Hi there.
STEPHEN FOWLER, BYLINE: Hey there.
SUMMERS: So Stephen, a week ago, President Trump asked why anyone at all was talking about Jeffrey Epstein, and now he says that some of his supporters are stupid for asking questions about Jeffrey Epstein. So help me understand what's going on here.
FOWLER: So we have come almost full circle of flip-flopping on views. Let's try to go through this. Epstein died by suicide in his prison cell in 2019 - when Trump was president - after being convicted of prostitution-related crimes and awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking. Amidst conspiracies that he was murdered and/or the government was covering up evidence of a black book of powerful people who may have done illegal things with Epstein, Trump's Department of Justice and FBI released a memo last week saying there was no evidence of that, just the evidence of Epstein's illegal things. That report was not received well by some of Trump's supporters, especially because the attorney general, FBI director and deputy director and even Trump himself all did various things to allude that once they got into power, they would uncover the truth.
SUMMERS: OK, and if I'm following all of this right, over the weekend, Trump then told his supporters to drop it. And then today, things really seemed to escalate. He lashed out in this social media post at Democrats, but also with some unusually harsh words directed at members of his base. How did we get here?
FOWLER: Well, a few different things happened. One, a lot of conservative commentators and social media influencers panicked and said this was a messaging fumble - that Trump was fighting his own base, that it wasn't good politics. Then you did have some prominent Republicans, like House Speaker Mike Johnson, say something to the degree of, yes, we want to release more files, like this interview that he gave with commentator Benny Johnson.
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MIKE JOHNSON: I'm for transparency. We're intellectually consistent in this. We - look, Reagan used to tell us we should trust the American people, and I believe in that principle. I know President Trump does as well, and I trust him.
FOWLER: Juana, Trump has not been consistent on this at all, including now claiming that the Epstein files are not real and that Democrats created the file several years before Trump took office to block his agenda. And after saying to drop it, he keeps picking it up and running with it, creating more controversy, including that lengthy Truth Social post this morning where he said that, quote, "past supporters have bought into this BS hook, line and sinker."
SUMMERS: Right. Well, OK, Stephen, we've talked a lot about what Republicans are saying about Trump's stance on all of this and the backtracking. But what about Democrats?
FOWLER: Well, Democrats have been doing a lot of things, including trying to troll Trump and Republicans. They had a vote in the House trying to get Republicans to show up on record as being against releasing the Epstein files, trying to amend other legislation. But also, polling suggests that Democrats, independents and Republicans overwhelmingly do think the government should release all documents it has about the Jeffrey Epstein case. There was a new YouGov survey this week that says three-quarters of self-identified Republicans think so. So it's a pretty easy political win to keep bringing up Trump's backtracking, and it also addresses a feeling that a lot of people have that there are people in power in the government kind of hiding information from them.
SUMMERS: NPR's Stephen Fowler, thank you so much.
FOWLER: Thank you.
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