President Donald Trump insists he doesn’t want to talk about Bill Clinton’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein but can’t seem to help himself whenever he’s asked about releasing the now infamous files. Trump often resorts to repeating his claim that Clinton flew to Epstein’s private island “28 times.” But this time his desperate ploy backfired as viewers honed in on Trump himself and the alarming detail that had social media buzzing.
The moment unfolded during an Oval Office appearance on Aug. 22, where Trump was announcing the final draw for World Cup 2026.
“The Justice Department is also sending some of the Epstein files over to the House Oversight Committee today, are you OK with them releasing all of them?” a reporter asked.
“Innocent people shouldn’t be hurt,” Trump said. “But I’m in support of keeping it totally open. I couldn’t care less. You got a lot of people that could be mentioned in those files that don’t deserve to be … ’cause he knew everyone in Palm Beach. I don’t know anything about it, but I have said to [Attorney General] Pam [Bondi] and everyone else, give them everything … the whole thing is a Democrat hoax.”
Trump made a slight pivot to say Democrats are only using the Epstein scandal to distract from his administration having the “greatest six months in the history of the presidency.”
“Bill Clinton was on his plane … went to the island supposedly 28 times,” he continued, insisting he doesn’t “want to bring that up, frankly.”
“You have [former Harvard president and secretary of the Treasury] Larry … Summers, who was Jeffrey Epstein’s best friend. But I don’t want to hurt Larry Summers.”
Apart from his usual rambling, Trump was visibly struggling to keep his eyes open. Viewers took notice and couldn’t get enough. Some even took screenshots to get a close-up shot.
One user wrote on Threads, “He looks like he is about to collapse or fall asleep standing. Biden never looked this bad and we never heard the end of it from the media. Still hear it to this day.”
Another doubled down, “Notice he keeps closing his eyes for extended periods of time.”
“Why is his right eye and side of face drooping?” one user asked with no hint of sarcasm.
Trump’s physical state wasn’t the only detail that grabbed viewers attention away from his message.
The big red hat drew its own outrage. One viewer noted strongly, “This point must not be overlooked: The current US President is standing in our Oval Office, wearing a big red hat that refers to himself in the third person, with a giant slogan that is the most arrogant and fictitious lie ever…about himself. Idiocracy.”
The fight over the Epstein files has been entwined with Trump’s own efforts to distance himself from the case while casting suspicion on former President Clinton.
But social media critics made it clear they weren’t falling for Trump’s turn of hand to claim he doesn’t want “innocent people” to get hurt.
“Why does no one ever tell Trump to his face that he is lying and he doesn’t fool anybody? How is he allowed to carry on so obviously making up stuff?” wrote another.
Trump’s supposed concern for people getting hurt if the files were released was turned into satire online. A parody social media post appeared on Facebook and quickly viral. The post was an apparent screenshot intended to appear as from Trump’s Truth Social account however the actual handle was “@realDotardTrump” and the account name was Donald J. Turmp.
The image was posted on August 25, 2025 with the caption “That’s right I am not releasing the Epstein files because I want to protect Bill Clinton.”
The text inside the image read: “We are not going to release the Epstein files because I want to protect a lot of innocent people in there like BILL CLINTON. Now that you know the real reason I am sure no one will ever ask to see the Epstein files again, which include physical evidence taken from his properties, digital information and victim testimonies, NO ONE WILL EVER ASK FOR THE FILES AGAIN. THIS IS A DEMOCRAT HOAX. Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
The renewed fixation on Epstein’s sex trafficking network comes as the House Oversight Committee escalates its own search for records.
On Monday, the House Oversight Committee subpoenaed the estate of Jeffrey Epstein for a wide range of documents, including a leather-bound birthday book that allegedly contains a handwritten message from Donald Trump.
The request, signed on Aug. 25 by Chairman James Comer, seeks Epstein’s will, disclosure agreements, financial transactions, and the 2007 nonprosecution agreement with federal prosecutors in Florida, along with visitor logs, phone records, and any papers that could be construed as a “client list.”
Comer, a Kentucky Republican, wrote to lawyers for the estate that the committee understands Epstein’s files are in their custody and that they are prepared to turn them over.
The first item on the subpoena is the birthday book, which Ghislaine Maxwell is said to have compiled for Epstein’s 50th birthday. Trump has denied reports in The Wall Street Journal that he contributed a risqué note to the book, calling the paper’s account “fake,” filing a defamation lawsuit, and insisting that “these are not my words, not the way I talk. Also, I don’t draw pictures.”
“It is our understanding that the Estate of Jeffrey Epstein is in custody and control of documents that may further the Committee’s investigation and legislative goals,” Comer wrote to the estate’s lawyers, stressing that they had signaled willingness to cooperate. The subpoena followed a first tranche of files delivered by the Justice Department on Aug. 22.
Yet Democrats on the panel say that delivery fell flat. Rep. Robert Garcia of California said Saturday that 97 percent of the 33,295 pages DOJ provided had already been released by other agencies, including video of Epstein’s final hours at Manhattan’s Metropolitan Correctional Center and filings from Maxwell’s trial.
The only fresh information, Garcia said, were fewer than 1,000 pages of Customs and Border Protection logs detailing Epstein’s plane movements from 2000 to 2014. “There is no excuse for incomplete disclosures,” he said. “Survivors and the American public deserve the truth.”
Republicans countered that the material was only the first installment and that more documents would follow.
A Justice Department spokesman said the department had already provided more than Democrats ever asked for when they controlled the panel, while stressing that officials were still working to shield the identities of crime victims.
Comer himself praised the Justice Department for moving quickly, even as Democrats and some Republicans pressed for broader transparency.
Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California and Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie are preparing a bipartisan maneuver to force a vote requiring the department to release the files publicly. “Less than 1 percent of files have been released,” Khanna said. “DOJ is stonewalling. The survivors deserve justice and the public deserves transparency.”
The wrangling over documents has run parallel to Trump’s increasingly erratic attempts to distance himself from his past friendship with Epstein while at the same time accusing Clinton of far deeper entanglements.
Trump has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that Clinton visited Epstein’s private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands 28 times.
“He has never been to Little St. James Island,” Clinton’s office said in 2019.
Flight logs, however, show Clinton traveled on Epstein’s jets 26 times during six international trips in 2002 and 2003, but they contain no evidence he ever visited the island. Trump, for his part, appeared in flight logs too, taking at least seven flights with Epstein in the 1990s, though again with no indication he traveled to the island.
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