Trumpworld’s Epstein deniers are trolling the American people
Related Video: Trump Team DENIES Epstein Birthday Letter, Trump Calls It A ‘DEAD ISSUE’ (Originally posted Sept. 9, 2025)
If you have ever spent any time on a discussion board, you know that trolls are the bane of the online world. These are the people who continually interrupt your attempts to have a serious discussion with bad-faith arguments and insistence that you “prove” obvious, well-established facts. Worse, once you take the bait, they either simply refuse to accept the evidence provided or move the goal posts and try to get you to prove something else.
Discussion boards — at least, those that want to survive — have a low tolerance for these trolls and quickly ban them. If only we could do that in real life.
Troll culture has become a hallmark of President Trump and his supporters. Insisting that Trump won the 2020 election, even though there is zero actual evidence for this, is a classic example of trolling. But denying that Trump wrote the letter in Jeffrey Epstein’s “birthday book” is even more ridiculous than that. Unlike determining who won a presidential election, this isn’t a complicated exercise. The evidence for and against is clear-cut and easily accessible to everyone, and it takes about 30 seconds to explain.
The document in question came directly from Epstein’s estate in response to a congressional subpoena. Not even Trump is claiming that the book and the letter aren’t more than 20 years old. So for it to be a forgery — as Trump claims — someone would have to be running a very long con indeed. Who would even imagine planting a fake letter in Epstein’s birthday book so that it could be used to embarrass Trump if he someday became the president? Certainly not Democrats. Trump himself was a Democrat until 2009.
There’s also the problem that Trump is mentioned multiple times in birthday letters written by Epstein’s other friends. Some of these mentions are just as damning as Trump’s own letter. In one example, the author claims Donald Trump “purchased” a “fully-depreciated” woman from Epstein for $22,500. Apparently this was something of an event in Epstein’s circle, as there’s even a picture of one of those giant novelty checks with Trump’s name on it.
Some of Trump’s defenders, like House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), claim the letter is a fake and imply that this isn’t the Trump they know. That’s odd, because that’s exactly the Trump everyone else knows.
This is the man who bragged about grabbing women by their crotches “because, when you’re a star, they let you do it.” This is the man who stands accused of having an affair with a former Playboy bunny shortly before his son Barron was born, and another affair with a porn actress shortly afterward. This is the man that a civil jury found liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll in a department store changing room. If Trump did get an erotic massage from one of Epstein’s victims, it would shock no one.
So when people like Johnson, Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) and Caroline Leavitt, America’s answer to Baghdad Bob, tell you they don’t believe the letter is real, they are lying. You know it and they know it. There’s no point in asking these people for their honest opinions. You might as well interview a parrot.
The worst part is that these people are actively contributing to the spiral of cynicism and violence in America. I didn’t agree with a lot of what Charlie Kirk had to say, but he was exactly right about this: “When people stop talking, really bad stuff starts. … When civilizations stop talking, civil war ensues. … What we as a culture have to get back to is being able to have reasonable disagreement — where violence is not an option.”
You can’t have an honest conversation with someone who ignores even the most obvious evidence in favor of bad-faith lies. And denying the reality of the Epstein letter isn’t “reasonable disagreement,” it’s Orwellian nonsense. “The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
It doesn’t have to be this way. We choose which voices to elevate. But the American press needs to grow a spine and recognize that there is a difference between taking sides in an argument and refusing to let people get away with ridiculous, bad-faith lies.
The press can do this when it wants. When Kristi Noem bragged about killing a misbehaving puppy, she never heard the end of it. Digging into her facile rationalizations consumed every interview despite her repeated attempt to change the subject. Eventually, she abandoned her book tour altogether.
The press should be doing the same thing with the Epstein deniers. Heed Kirk’s warning. Ban the trolls from public life, and let’s have an honest conversation.
Chris Truax is an appellate attorney who served as Southern California chair for John McCain’s primary campaign in 2008.