Is Trump’s Flip-Flop on Epstein Files Enough to Appease His Base?

After facing enormous pressure from his base, Donald Trump has ordered the Justice Department to release additional details pertaining to child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. The offering was, apparently, more than enough to get a chunk of far-right influencers back on his side.

By Friday morning, conservatives on X were abuzz, trying to find any reason to dismiss a Wall Street Journal report that Trump allegedly penned a salacious letter to Epstein more than two decades ago for the financier’s 50th birthday.

Self-described “theocratic fascist” Matt Walsh wrote on X that the letter, which was reportedly requested by Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, “screams fake.”

“The writing doesn’t sound like Trump at all,” Walsh claimed. Hours earlier, Walsh had insisted that Trump’s efforts to shed his Epstein-conscious base by deriding them as “weaklings” and as “stupid” and “naive” was the “number one way to make sure that I keep talking about the subject.”

Laura Loomer, who earlier this month had called on Trump to throw his attorney general out of the government for her role in the reprised scandal, was similarly busy defending the president by Friday morning.

“I’m calling bullshit on this Trump ‘birthday letter’ to Epstein. It’s totally fake. Everyone who actually KNOWS President Trump knows he doesn’t type letters. He writes notes in big black Sharpie,” Loomer insisted. “Trust me, I would know.”

The Journal reported that the drawing of a nude woman that framed Trump’s letter was done in Sharpie. His signature on the note, which was scrawled between the woman’s legs and resembled pubic hair, was also done in Sharpie.

And Elon Musk, who plainly accused Trump of delaying the release of the Epstein files on the basis that the MAGA leader was implicated in them, elevated a script from his AI chatbot Grok that claimed the Journal reporting was “most likely fake.” Grok cited Trump’s “strong denial” of the story and his threat to sue the newspaper and its owner Rupert Murdoch over the letter’s publication.

But not everyone on the right was sold by Trump’s meager offering.

“Last week, the Dept of Justice claimed the Epstein Files don’t exist but they’re also a Democrat hoax, and there is nothing in them except child sex abuse material,” wrote white supremacist, Hitler fan, and far-right political pundit Nick Fuentes. “Now the DOJ, under public pressure, is going to unseal grand jury testimony? Not buying it.”

On Thursday, Fuentes thoroughly mocked Trump as “fat,” “a joke,” “stupid,” and “not funny,” and said that “the liberals were right” and that the country would “look back at MAGA movement as the biggest scam in history.”

Donald Trump and JD Vance clearly didn’t take the time to get their story straight about the president’s lewd 50th birthday letter to alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that in 2003, Trump penned Epstein a “bawdy” note inside of a doodle of a voluptuous woman as part of a book of birthday notes for the financier. The president wrote that he had “certain things in common” with the child sex offender, and wished his “pal” that “everyday may be a wonderful secret.”

Trump and his team leapt to discredit the reporting—but unfortunately, they didn’t all jump the same way.

Vance took to X to defend Trump, claiming that the president’s team hadn’t even laid eyes on the letter before it was published.

“Forgive my language but this story is complete and utter bullshit. The WSJ should be ashamed for publishing it,” Vance wrote. “Where is this letter? Would you be shocked to learn they never showed it to us before publishing it? Does anyone honestly believe this sounds like Donald Trump?”

“Doesn’t it violate some rule of journalistic ethics to publish a letter like this without showing it to the victim of this hit piece?” Vance wrote in a separate post. “Will the people who have bought into every hoax against President Trump show an ounce of skepticism before buying into this bizarre story?”

But Trump went a different route, claiming that he’d personally warned the publication that he’d sue them if they published the “false, malicious, and defamatory” story.

“The Wall Street Journal, and Rupert Murdoch, personally, were warned directly by President Donald J. Trump that the supposed letter they printed by President Trump to Epstein was FAKE and, if they print it, they will be sued,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

So which was it? Was the Trump administration completely blindsided by the publication of the letter, or did Trump get enough advance warning to personally threaten them with a lawsuit if they published it? And why go to such lengths to prevent publication if the letter is so obviously fake?

This latest controversy comes amid a firestorm for the Trump administration, as the MAGA horde have demanded more transparency on the so-called Epstein files, after the Justice Department published a memo claiming that the sex criminal kept no incriminating client list. Trump’s attorney general had previously claimed to have that very list sitting on her desk. The mishap has Trump so thoroughly backed into a corner that he’s begun claiming that the so-called Epstein files are a hoax created by Democrats, and seething at his supporters for caring about the files at all.

It’s worth noting that Vance’s complaint that the letter doesn’t “sound” like Trump falls completely flat. After all, the note came just one year after Trump was quoted in a 2002 New York Magazine profile of Epstein, calling him a “terrific guy.”

“He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it—Jeffrey enjoys his social life,” Trump said at the time.

Trump’s attorney later claimed that the two had “no relationship.”

The Wall Street Journal on Thursday evening reported that President Trump sent a 50th birthday letter to infamous predator Jeffrey Epstein in 2003, containing a signed sketch of a naked woman and the ominous caption, “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.” Trump denied that the letter was actually him, on the grounds that he had “never wrote a picture” in his life. 

“The Wall Street Journal printed a FAKE letter, supposedly to Epstein. These are not my words, not the way I talk. Also, I don’t draw pictures,” Trump said on Truth Social Thursday night. “I told Rupert Murdoch it was a Scam, that he shouldn’t print this Fake Story. But he did, and now I’m going to sue his ass off, and that of his third rate newspaper. Thank you for your attention to this matter!  DJT”

That is an outright lie. At least five of the president’s own sketches were auctioned off between 1995 and 2020, suggesting that he had an obvious affinity for drawing. In 2005, a very rudimentary drawing he did of the New York City skyline sold for $30,000. In 2006, another basic sketch was auctioned off, this time of the George Washington Bridge. In 2017, his sketch of the Empire State Building was auctioned off for $16,000. And in 2020, his “Money Tree” drawing sold for $8,500. The president has “wrote” many a picture, poking a gaping hole in his defense against the Journal’s reporting. 

The Journal report also detailed a strange dialogue-style note Trump left in the birthday letter to Epstein, written in the third person.

“Voice Over: There must be more to life than having everything,” the note began.

Donald: Yes, there is, but I won’t tell you what it is.

Jeffrey: Nor will I, since I also know what it is. 

Donald: We have certain things in common, Jeffrey. 

Jeffrey: Yes, we do, come to think of it. 

Donald: Enigmas never age, have you noticed that? 

Jeffrey: As a matter of fact, it was clear to me the last time I saw you. 

Donald: A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.

This all comes as the president desperately tries to make his base, and the mainstream, forget about Epstein and his deep ties to him. But the deeper he tries to bury it, the more that seems to come to the surface.  

The Trump administration is doing damage control on the visible signs of aging in the president, as seen in his swollen legs and a mysterious bruise on his hand.

On Thursday, White House press secretary Karoline Levitt revealed that the president had emergency heart tests to figure out what was going on and was found to have a vein condition known as chronic venous insufficiency.

“In recent weeks, President Trump noted mild swelling in his lower legs. In keeping with routine medical care and out of an abundance of caution, this concern was thoroughly evaluated by the White House medical unit,” Leavitt said. “The president underwent a comprehensive examination, including diagnostic vascular studies. Bilateral lower extremity venous Doppler ultrasounds were performed and revealed chronic venous insufficiency, a benign and common condition, particularly in individuals over the age of 70.”

“Importantly, there was no evidence of deep vein thrombosis or arterial disease. Laboratory testing included a complete blood count, comprehensive metabolic panel, coagulation profile, D dimer, B type, natriuretic peptide, and cardiac biomarkers. All results were within normal limits. An echocardiogram was also performed and confirmed normal cardiac structure and function. No signs of heart failure, renal impairment, or systemic illness were identified,” she added.

Then she blamed the strange hand bruises on too much hand shaking, an excuse the president has tried many times before.

“Additionally, recent photos of the president have shown minor bruising on the back of his hand. This is consistent with minor soft tissue irritation from frequent hand shaking and the use of aspirin, which is taken as part of a standard cardiovascular prevention regimen. This is a well known and benign side effect of aspirin therapy, and the president remains in excellent health, which I think all of you witness on a daily basis here. So the president wanted me to share that note with all of you.”

The White House later published an email from Trump’s physician which basically reaffirmed Leavitt’s claims that everything was fine with the president’s health.

Chronic venous insufficiency occurs when one’s veins don’t flow correctly and allow blood to become backed up in the vessels, resulting in swelling.

“It’s basically not alarming information, and it’s not surprising,” Harvard Medical School assistant professor Dr. Jeremy Faust told CNN. “This is a pretty normal part of aging, and especially for someone in the overweight to obese category, which is where the president has always been. But the bigger concern … is that symptoms like this do need to be evaluated for more serious conditions, and that is what happened.”

Trump turned 79 last month.

Nick Fuentes, a far-right influencer who’s a fan of Hitler, thinks Donald Trump has gone too far.

Trump’s neo-Nazi former sidekick (no, not Elon Musk) torched the president on his show America First Wednesday night for calling his supporters that were still interested in alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein “weaklings.”

“Fuck you! Fuck you! You suck! You are fat, you are a joke, you are stupid, you are not funny, you are not as smart as you think you are,” Fuentes fumed.

“If you watch my show, you know I’ve been very critical. I’ve never been this far,” Fuentes said. “This just goes to show, this entire thing has been a scam. When we look back on the history of populism in America, we are gonna look back on the MAGA movement as the biggest scam in American history. And the liberals were right, the MAGA supporters were had!”

“When we look back in history we will see Trump as a scam artist,” he added.

To be sure, when a white supremacist says you’re right, it doesn’t mean much. But the longtime Trump supporter’s defection shows just how deep a crack Epstein has cleaved in the MAGA movement.

Despite all of Trump’s efforts to distract from Epstein, MAGA influencers just won’t stop talking about the administration’s toothless investigation. The Justice Department announced last week that the sex offender kept no incriminating “client list,” even though Trump’s attorney general claimed one had been sitting on her desk. Alex Jones, Charlie Kirk, Joe Rogan, Tim Pool, and Candace Owens have also levied attacks against the Trump administration over its shoddy work.

Seventy-eight House Democrats voted Thursday to further deregulate the cryptocurrency industry, which will help make Donald Trump rich.

The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, a bill crafted by and for the crypto industry, passed the House in a 294-134 vote, installing a new regulatory framework for when digital assets should be considered a commodity or a security. But there’s nothing clear about the so-called CLARITY Act.

While the bill provides long-awaited clarity for entrepreneurs and investors, it also grants broad exemptions for decentralized finance actors, gutting federal oversight and allowing crypto thieves, hackers, and scammers to run rampant, according to Americans for Financial Reform.

The CLARITY Act gives the Commodity Futures Trading Commission primary regulatory oversight authority over spot digital commodities, common cryptocurrencies that can be traded immediately and derive their value from blockchain as determined on the spot market, ending years of uncertainty over their regulation.

The CLARITY Act exempts certain digital commodities from registration under the Security and Exchange Commission creating more avenues to sidestep requirements to disclose information to investors and allowing for fraudsters to fundraise without a hint of transparency.

For example, under the CLARITY Act, a non-crypto company could tokenize its assets, placing all of its stock on blockchain and thus evading all SEC regulation.

The legislation includes a major carveout for decentralized finance platforms, yet another money-making scheme the president has embraced. World Liberty Financial (WLFI), is a decentralized finance platform that is majority owned by DT Marks DEFI LCC, a Trump business entity. Trump currently serves as the company’s “Chief Crypto Advocate,” and his sons and other White House employees also stand to get rich—a marked conflict of interest as the president has sweeping powers to conduct crypto-policy.

The legislation also declares that a range of digital assets such as meme coins and non-fungible tokens are neither securities nor commodities, minimizing federal oversight and investor protection. Trump has been criticized for enriching himself off of his $TRUMP memecoin, and conducting a blatant pay-for-access scheme by hosting the top coin buyers at an ultimately underwhelming gala dinner earlier this year.

See which Senate Democrats voted to advance the bill below:

1. Pete Aguilar - California
2. Yassamin Ansari - Arizona
3. Jake Auchincloss - Massachusetts
4. Ami Bera - California
5. Brendan Boyle - Pennsylvania
6. Nikki Budzinski - Illinois
7. Janelle Bynum - Oregon
8. Salud Carbajal - California
9. Mike Conaway - New Jersey
10. Lou Correa - California
11. Jim Costa - California
12. Angine Craig - Minnesota
13. Henry Cuellar - Texas
14. Don Davis - North Carolina
15. Suzan DelBene - Washington
16. Cleo Fields - Louisiana
17. Shomari Figures - Alabama
18. Lois Frankel - Florida
19. Laura Gillen - New York
20. Jared Golden - Maine
21. Dan Goldman - New York
22. Jimmy Gomez - California
23. Tony Gonzalez - Texas
24. Maggie Goodlander - New Hampshire
25. Josh Gottheimer - New Jersey
26. Adam Gray - California
27. Josh Harder - California
28. Steven Horsford - Nevada
29. Chrissy Houlahan - Pennsylvania
30. Jonathan Jackson - Illinois
31. Julie Johnson - Texas
32. Ro Khanna - California
33. Raja Krishnamoorthi - Illinois
34. Greg Landsman - Ohio
35. George Latimer - New York
36. Kevin Lee - Nevada
37. Mike Levin - California
38. Ted Lieu - California
39. Zoe Lofgren - California
40. John Mannion - New York
41. Lucy McBath - Georgia
42. Sarah McBride - Delaware
43. April McClain Delaney - Maryland
44. Kristen McDonald Rivet - Michigan
45. Rob Menendez - New Jersey
46. Dave Min - California
47. Jared Moskowitz - Florida
48. Seth Moulton - Massachusetts
49. Kevin Mullin - California
50. Jimmy Panetta - California
51. Chris Pappas - New Hampshire
52. Nancy Pelosi - California
53. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez - Washington
54. Nellie Pou - New Jersey
55. Josh Riley - New York
56. Raul Ruiz - California
57. Patrick Ryan - New York
58. Brad Schneider - Illinois
59. Hillary Scholten - Michigan
60. Kim Schrier - Washington
61. Terri Sewell - Alabama
62. Mikie Sherrill - New Jersey
63. Lateefah Simon - California
64. Eric Sorenson - Illinois
65. Darren Soto - Florida
66. Greg Stanton - Arizona
67. Haley Stevens - Michigan
68. Marilyn Strickland - Washington
69. Suhas Subramanyam - Virginia
70. Tom Suozzi - New York
71. Shri Thanedar - Michigan
72. Mike Thompson - California
73. Ritchie Torres - New York
74. Derek Tran - California
75. Gabe Vasquez - New Mexico
76. Marc Veasey - Texas
77. Eugene Vindman - Virginia
78. George Whitesides - California

The CLARITY Act is just one stage of what House Republicans have termed “crypto week.” Lawmakers also passed the GENIUS Act Thursday, which will grant “hundreds—perhaps even thousands—of American companies” the power to issue their own bespoke cryptocurrencies, unleashing financial chaos, according to Berkeley economist Barry Eichengreen. The bill passed by a vote of 308-122, with 102 Democrats voting in favor.

This story has been updated.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was caught in a blatant lie Thursday over Donald Trump’s nonsensical threat to place 100 percent “secondary” tariffs on Russian exports, if Moscow failed to resolve its issues with Ukraine in 50 days.

During a press briefing, Leavitt stumbled when asked to account for the president’s paltry plan to impose tariffs on Russia. She’d previously claimed that U.S. sanctions “preclude any meaningful trade” between the two countries, as a means of explaining why Russia was exempt from the president’s sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs.

“Why now? And why do you think that that would make them cave, and come to some sort of peace agreement as it relates to Ukraine?” asked one reporter, pointing out that there was just $3 billion worth of trade between the U.S. and Russia in 2024.

“Three billion dollars is still a lot of money,” Leavitt replied. “And it’s not just tariffs, it’s the secondary sanctions that will be implemented in 50 days.”

But that is the complete opposite of what Leavitt had argued just three months ago. Similarly, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had told Fox News that it wasn’t necessary to place tariffs on Russia because, after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, trade between the U.S. and Russia had effectively dried up.

But that excuse was always bad. While the nearly $3 billion worth of goods from Russia was smaller than other key U.S. trading partners, it was still more than the trade with several countries Trump levied tariffs against, including several uninhabited islands that each received a 10 percent tariff rate.

In the weeks since Leavitt offered her limp excuses, Trump’s impotence in facilitating peace talks between Russia and Ukraine has become increasingly clear, and his promises to end the fighting have disappeared beyond the horizon.

The Trump administration is attempting to square up Donald Trump’s stray attacks on his Epstein-concerned supporters, arguing that the president doesn’t deserve criticism after he insulted his supporters for expecting updates on the Jeffrey Epstein case.

At a White House press briefing Thursday, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted that the Epstein “hoax” that Trump keeps referring to is strictly the idea that Democrats “ever wanted transparency when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein,” deriding it as an “asinine suggestion” that Democrats sought answers about the prolific child sex trafficker.

But if Trump and his party want transparency, they have a funny way of showing it. On Tuesday, Republicans unquestioningly fell in line to support their leader’s narrative that there’s nothing to see here, blocking a Democratic-led effort to release the Epstein files. The final vote was 211 to 210—just one dissenting Republican would have tipped the scales.

“The president has been transparent, he has followed through on his promises to the American people, but he doesn’t like to see Democrats and the mainstream media covering this like it’s the biggest story that the American people care about,” Leavitt told reporters, referring to Trump’s alleged connections to a man that orchestrated an international network to abduct children to his island in the Caribbean for the sexual gratification of his upper-class clients.

Instead of focusing on the despicable alleged ties, Leavitt told the room full of reporters that she wanted them to take pity on Trump.

“The president has been working so hard this week,” she said.

The botched rollout of the Epstein files has continued to plague the Trump administration. A Morning Consult poll conducted earlier this month found that Trump’s popularity had tanked by six points since the Justice Department contradicted Attorney General Pam Bondi on the existence of Epstein’s so-called “client list.” A YouGov/Economist poll conducted earlier this week found that the majority of Americans—67 percent, including 59 percent of self-identified Trump voters—believed that the Trump administration is “covering up evidence relating to the Epstein case.”

In the wake of the scandal, Trump has repeatedly offended key portions of his base who believed his repeat campaign promises to make the details of Epstein’s case public, referring to them as “stupid” and accusing “naive Republicans” of being “duped” by the Democrats.

High-profile conservatives, including Elon Musk, have speculated that the administration’s continued delay in releasing the Epstein case files is due to the fact that Trump himself might be implicated in the documents, a suggestion that was buttressed Wednesday by one of Trump’s former employees, who claimed to have witnessed the socialite duo partying with young women in the late 1980s and referred to Epstein and Trump as “pretty good buddies.”

Remember that up until Trump assumed his grip on the Republican Party, it wasn’t uncommon for politicians and their dynasties to be unrooted by the mere suggestion of impropriety.

A hacker has revealed that the Trump administration illegally deported dozens more people to El Salvador than they reported, and those additional people have not been seen or heard from since, according to 404 Media.

President Trump’s decision to deport more than 200 men on three planes to El Salvador’s CECOT megaprison in March was met with public uproar and a block from a federal judge, but to no avail. Many of those men had no criminal record whatsoever, and none of them received due process. Now, thanks to a hacker who infiltrated the flight manifests of GlobalX, the airline carrying out the deportation flights, we know that the Trump administration lied about the number of people on those planes, and we have no idea where they are. 404 Media has begun to publish the names.  

“We have this list of people that the U.S. government has not formally acknowledged in any real way and we pretty much have no idea if they are in CECOT or someplace else, or whether they received due process,” said Together and Free executive director Michelle Brané, whose organization works with families of people detained by ICE and the Department of Homeland Security. “I think this further demonstrates the callousness and lack of due process involved and is further evidence that the U.S. government is disappearing people. These people were detained and no one knows where they are, and we don’t know the circumstances [… ] For almost all of these people, there’s no records whatsoever. No court records, nothing.” 

She also added that the government’s secrecy has made it difficult to confirm if the hidden names on the flight registry actually made it on to the flight, and if they did, where they were taken after they landed.  

“[The government is] not disclosing it and they’ve presumably been sent to a prison or sent somewhere by the U.S. government on a plane and have never been heard from since,” she said. “We have not heard from these people’s families, so I think perhaps even they don’t know.”

This revelation only underscores the disappearings and the lies that have come to define the Trump administration’s extrajudicial immigration crackdown. We went from looking for “the worst of the worst” to openly admitting to indiscriminate detainments and deportations based on racial profiling. 

The Trump administration has yet to comment.

“It is critical that we know who was on these March 15 flights,” ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt told 404 Media. “These individuals were sent to a gulag-type prison without any due process, possibly for the remainder of their lives, yet the government has provided no meaningful information about them, much less the evidence against them. Transparency at a time like this is essential.”

Here are the names 404 Media uncovered of people who were on those deportation fights, who were not on the government’s own list of deportees, and who have been unheard from since: 

Manuel Quijada-Leon

Irvin Quintanilla-Garcia

Jose Ramirez-Iraheta

Josue Rivera-Portillo

Jorge Rodriguez Gomez

Mario Jeavanni Rojas

Edgar Leonel Sanchez Rosales

Brandon Sigaran-Cruz

Miguel Enriquez Saravia

Abraham Hernandez-Mania

Jean Morales-Loaiza

Nelson Alfaro-Orellana

Jhonnarty Pachecho-Chirinos

Cristian Alpe-Tepas

Jordyn Alexander Alvarez

Jose Alvarez Gonzalez

Wilfredo Avendano Carrizalez

Jose Gregorio Buenano Cantillo

Istmar Campos Mejia

Jose Chanta-Ochoa

Keider Alexander Flores Navas

Noe Florez-Valladares

Miguel Fuentes-Lopez

Roberto Interiano Uceda

Jose Lopez Cruz

Diego Maldonado-Fuentes

William Martinez-Ruano

Osmer Mejias-Ruiz

Iran Ochoa Suescun

David Orantez Gonzalez

Ariadny Araque-Cerrada

Elena Cuenca Palma

Maria Franco Pina

Mayerkis Guariman Gonzalez

Wilmary Linares-Marcano

Scarlet Mendoza Perez

Ofreilimar Peña Boraure

Edilianny Stephany Rivero Sierralta

Dioneli Sanz Aljorna

Anyeli Sequera Ramirez

Yanny Suarez Rodriguez

Karla Villasmil-Castellano

While Donald Trump tries to completely dismiss Jeffrey Epstein’s child sex ring scandal as a Democratic “scam,” his administration has quietly axed a key office related to investigating human trafficking.

The White House hacked 1,353 positions from the State Department on Friday, gutting parts of the agency that don’t align with MAGA values, reported Mother Jones. Those include offices focused on promoting democracy, ending genocide, quelling political extremism, and combating human trafficking.

Employees at the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, known as the TIP Office, believed that they would be spared from State Secretary Marco Rubio’s cuts, which were permitted by the Supreme Court last week after months-long delays. They were under the impression that their office would be folded into the Office for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. They were wrong: half of the office’s full-time civil and foreign service employees were effectively terminated by reduction-in-force notices Friday.

The cuts reduced the office to about 35 people—a third of its staffing levels from seven months ago, thanks to Rubio’s plan and Elon Musk’s deferred resignation program. Those who were not laid off were informed that they would be reassigned and given a pay cut, according to Mother Jones.

“Everyone was caught off guard,” one source familiar with the cuts told the magazine.

“The sheer number of cuts has really decimated the office,” they continued, underscoring the enormous brain drain and loss of expertise and international connections that the cuts will induce. “That takes years to build up. It’s not like you can just reassign a few people in the office and somehow it’s going to work.”

But the Trump administration has defended the cuts. A State Department representative justified dismissing federal employees en masse on the basis that “the world has changed.”

“As we looked comprehensively across the Department, we saw that many of these offices had served an outdated purpose, had strayed from their original purpose, or were simply duplicative,” the spokesperson told Mother Jones.

Trump and his associates have ideated paring down the federal workforce since he was on the campaign trail, with details of diminishing the executive branch explicitly laid out in Project 2025. Trump appealed to fiscal conservatives to advance the cuts, claiming that his administration was focused on driving down the federal budget in order to reduce the deficit.

But that has not been the case. Instead, Trump pushed several exorbitantly expensive policies in his “big, beautiful bill,” including a whopping tax cut for the wealthiest individuals in America at cost to the middle and lower classes that is estimated to add trillions to the budget.