President Trump’s propagandists are getting more frantic in their efforts to spin away the scandal around the Jeffrey Epstein files. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, unsurprisingly, has been the most creative of all. Speaking to reporters, Leavitt fobbed the whole fiasco off onto the FBI not once but twice, as videos posted by Acyn Torabi show. Leavitt said the same thing twice: You should ask the FBI. That’s plainly an effort to shift this mess to FBI Director Kash Patel. All this comes as Trump’s approval ratings have just hit a new low. And those things are related: The Epstein scandal is perfectly suited to damaging Trump in all kinds of hidden ways. We talked to data analyst G. Elliott Morris, author of a new piece on the Epstein mess for his Strength in Numbers Substack. He explains why Trump is at a low point in the polling averages, how the Epstein fiasco is being perceived by voters, and why it’s uniquely suited to striking at the heart of Trump’s political strength. Listen to this episode here. A transcript is here.
PODCAST
Trump Press Sec Throws FBI Under Bus Amid Brutal Epstein Poll Fallout
As Karoline Leavitt knifes the FBI in the back in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal and Trump slides to a new low in polls, a data analyst decodes the numbers and shows why this mess is so neatly suited to damaging Trump.

Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt in Washington, D.C., on July 21