Epstein Email Reveals Trump’s Decline Started Earlier Than We Thought

Jeffrey Epstein claimed that people were “concerned” that President Donald Trump was suffering from dementia as early as 2017.

In an email Epstein sent to author Michael Wolff on December 29, 2017, the alleged sex trafficker fretted that his old friend Trump wasn’t doing well.

“some at dinner with donald last night ,   were concerned about dementia.    tons of makeup.  did not recognize old friends,” Epstein wrote.

It’s not clear that Epstein was present at the dinner, but at the time, Trump was staying at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, where he gave a wide-ranging impromptu interview to The New York Times that had immensely frustrated his staffers.

Less than a month later, Trump sat for his first presidential physical exam, and White House physician Ronny Jackson claimed he was in “excellent” health—and the president reportedly scored a 30/30 on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, a common dementia screening.

But Epstein’s email offers a window into Trump’s inner circle, demonstrating just how clear the president’s cognitive decline has been to the people who know him best. Nine years later, Trump’s apparent instances of cognitive decline have only become more common—and more public.

Former White House attorney Ty Cobb recently said he believed the president’s “dementia and the cognitive decline are palpable, as do many experts, including many physicians.”

In 2017, Trump’s iconic clementine complexion was startling to behold. Now, the president wears makeup to cover massive bruises that appear to migrate from one hand to another, and doctors have theorized that the president’s discolored hands could be a sign of something much worse.

It appears that President Trump didn’t even bother to tune into Turning Point USA’s alternative, anti-immigrant “All-American Halftime Show.”

Footage taken from inside Trump’s Super Bowl party at his Mar-a-Lago golf club showed the president and his invited guests watching Bad Bunny’s halftime show rather than TPUSA’s night of Jesus Christ, Kid Rock, and country music. 

“This just proves it’s all performative,” one X user wrote, calling out Trump’s hypocrisy in not even putting on TPUSA’s halftime show. “They stoke the outrage but couldn’t care less as long as the peasants are fighting.”

Trump later confirmed that he watched Bad Bunny instead of Kid Rock, in a classic long, angry Truth Social post Sunday evening. 

“The Super Bowl Halftime Show is absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER! It makes no sense, is an affront to the Greatness of America, and doesn’t represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence. Nobody understands a word this guy is saying, and the dancing is disgusting, especially for young children that are watching from throughout the U.S.A., and all over the World,” he wrote, apparently fuming. “There is nothing inspirational about this mess of a Halftime Show and watch, it will get great reviews from the Fake News Media, because they haven’t got a clue of what is going on in the REAL WORLD.” 

But based on Trump’s own actions, it’s the MAGA sycophants who watched the TPUSA halftime show—when their own president didn’t bother—who don’t know what’s going on in the “real world.” A Grammy-winning artist, perhaps the most popular in the Western hemisphere, put on a sprawling, jubilant show and spoke in Spanish almost the entire time. Kid Rock just did some weird lip syncing.  

MAGA is fighting with itself over Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show.

President Trump crashed out almost immediately after, complaining about Bad Bunny’s singing in Spanish and calling it a “‘slap in the face’ to our Country” in an angry Truth Social post. This is despite the fact that the message on the football at the end of the Puerto Rican artist’s show was “Together we are America.”

But others on the right praised the message. Conservative influencer Emily Austin said, “Bad Bunny had the biggest stage in the world and could’ve made it political. He didn’t. He chose unity & love. You can celebrate different backgrounds and still love this country.”

A former press aide to Trump, Harrison Fields, criticized conservatives who called Bad Bunny anti-American, saying, “Last time I checked, my Puerto Rico–born grandmother was a full American citizen—and she voted for Trump.” Vivianca Rodriguez, who worked on the Trump campaign, said that Trump supporters who complained were “alienating [the] Puerto Rican conservative base.” Even Alexis Wilkins, the girlfriend of FBI Director Kash Patel, praised the “branding” of Bad Bunny’s show.

The right-wing discourse over the show also divided brothers Jake and Logan Paul. Jake, who called Bad Bunny a “fake American citizen,” was admonished by Logan, who said, “I love my brother but I don’t agree with this.”

“Puerto Ricans are Americans & I’m happy they were given the opportunity to showcase the talent that comes from the island,” Logan posted on X.

The MAGA right is probably going to fight over this instead of America’s actual issues. Some, like the president, can’t accept the fact that one of the world’s most popular stars speaks Spanish and is actually an American citizen born in a U.S. territory. Others recognize that Spanish speakers and Latinos vote too, and that most of the country didn’t switch to Turning Point USA’s alternative halftime show. The question is which side will win the argument.

Nearly 137,000 Iowans stand to lose their access to the Affordable Care Act marketplace if Representative Zach Nunn has his way.

The Hawkeye State Republican has gone on a tear against the ACA, slandering the health insurance solution as a form of modern-day human bondage while broadcasting his intention to dismantle the popular national program.

Last week, Nunn told the Westside Conservative Club that he believed the “ACA keeps people in a position of permanent servitude.”

“Let me be very clear: I am not in favor of the ACA going forward. We have a bill that will immediately end it,” Nunn said. “The ACA is one of the most destructive health care plans out there.”

Nunn maintained a similar tone earlier in January, when he told the “America first” podcast Steak for Breakfast that the Obama-era solution was a “disaster” that had “enslaved” its beneficiaries.

“The Democrats’ plan has failed, but let’s talk holistically about fixing it for everybody, not just the few people that are on the Unaffordable Care Act and have become enslaved into that program,” Nunn told the show.

The Affordable Care Act’s marketplace has had an immense impact on the way that America approaches health insurance coverage. Roughly one in seven U.S. residents are enrolled in the marketplace, according data from the Treasury Department. A record 24 million Americans signed up for coverage through the ACA marketplace at the beginning of 2025, roughly double the number of people who enrolled just four years earlier amid the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Yet Republicans have fought tooth and nail to repeal and replace the program since it was signed into existence in 2010. Donald Trump originally campaigned on the issue in 2016, promising to end Obamacare, though he and his allies have not yet been completely successful.

In July, the conservative caucus slashed $1.1 trillion from the ACA’s appropriations via Trump’s “big, beautiful” law. 

Despite the needs of his constituents, Nunn voted for the deleterious funding package, and in doing so contributed to the closure of multiple health clinics in his state that partially relied on federal funding.

They included a MercyOne clinic in Ottumwa, which is expected to close at the end of February, the MercyOne Family Medicine clinic in Traer, and the Henry County Health Center-Wayland Clinic. 

Several other Iowa clinics have had to lay off their staff or drastically reduce critical services, such as birthing clinics. Some of the impacted sites include the Pella Regional Medical Clinic in Ottumwa, the Southeast Iowa Regional Medical Center, and  MercyOne clinics in Des Moines and Mason City.

Meanwhile, millions of Americans across the country are still waiting for the Senate to pass an extension for the ACA’s premium tax credits, which assist individuals making upward of 400 percent of the federal poverty level. The premium credits expired at the end of December and have yet to be renewed.

Republicans suddenly seemed shocked that President Trump is capable of racism after he posted a video depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes Thursday night. 

On Friday morning, longest-serving Black Senator Tim Scott called the video “the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House”—spurring other GOP senators and representatives to miraculously realize that Trump’s post was indeed racist. 

Representative Mike Lawler, who represents a swing district in New York, called out the president shortly thereafter, saying on X, “The President’s post is wrong and incredibly offensive—whether intentional or a mistake—and should be deleted immediately with an apology offered.”

After Trump took down the video, Representative Brian Fitzpatrick, whose Pennsylvania district voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, posted, “Racism and hatred have no place in our country—ever. They divide our people and weaken the foundations of our democracy.

“Whether intentional or careless, this post is a grave failure of judgment and is absolutely unacceptable from anyone—most especially from the President of the United States. A clear and unequivocal apology is owed,” Fitzpatrick added. 

Representative Jeff Van Drew too waited until after Trump deleted the video and said, “I condemn racism in any form.”

“These types of videos are morally wrong. Sadly, this kind of behavior happens on both sides of the aisle, and it needs to stop,” Van Drew posted on X Friday afternoon, without mentioning Trump by name. “We should be holding ourselves to a higher standard.” 

Representative Mike Turner also waited until Trump deleted the video, posting that he “didn’t feel the need to respond to every inflammatory statement made by the White House. However, the release of racist images of former President Barack and First Lady Michelle Obama is offensive, heart breaking, and unacceptable. President Trump should apologize.”

In the Senate, a few Republicans were willing to speak out.  

Senator Pete Ricketts of Nebraska posted, “Even if this was a Lion King meme, a reasonable person sees the racist context to this. The White House should do what anyone does when they make a mistake: remove this and apologize.”

Roger Wicker of Mississippi called the video “totally unacceptable. The president should take it down and apologize.”

Senator Susan Collins, who is facing a tough reelection campaign in Maine, piggybacked on Scott’s post, saying, “Tim is right. This was appalling.”

None of these posts demonstrate any real political courage, with most coming after the video was taken down. Trump has yet to comment on his post, and after his press secretary Karoline Leavitt initially tried to downplay the video, his staff later tried to claim one of them posted it without the president’s knowledge. The apology many of these members of Congress are supposedly demanding won’t come—not that any of these politicians were likely to hold Trump accountable anyway.