Trump Approval Rating Drops as Epstein Backlash Grows

Early signs bode ill for Trump after his base soundly rejected his attempt to smooth over the Epstein affair this weekend.

Trump in recent days has faced a revolt from his base over his Justice Department’s July 7 memo that Jeffrey Epstein had not kept a “client list” and that there had been no foul play in the disgraced financier and sex trafficker’s death. Top officials in the Trump administration had previously elevated Epstein-related conspiracy theories, promising full transparency on the matter and to release the supposed client list.

Trump on Saturday took to Truth Social to dispel MAGA outrage—which includes calls to fire Attorney General Pam Bondi—by insisting that the Epstein files are “Radical Left inspired Documents” created by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden, and that the administration ought “not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about.”

The president’s message evidently fell flat among large swaths of his supporters. Major MAGA media figures have registered their dissatisfaction with the statement, and the Truth Social post was Trump’s first ever post on his platform to receive more replies than likes—indicating that users gave Trump an earful over it.

A Morning Consult poll conducted from July 4 to July 10—a period during which the Epstein news broke and began to resonate (not to mention other developments, such as the passage of Trump’s “big, beautiful” bill)—seems to indicate a backlash against Trump. The polling firm, which collects data on global leaders’ approval ratings, has Trump at 44 percent approval and 50 percent disapproval between July 4 and July 10. This represents a six-point dip from a month earlier.

This reversal, of course, can only tell us so much, as the poll records favorability and unfavorability generally, rather than issue-specific data. But since it was conducted, Trump further stirred the pot with his Saturday plea on Truth Social. While we’ll have to wait for clearer quantifications of the backlash against Trump for the Epstein fiasco, MAGA rancor over the matter seems more clamorous than ever, with no sign of quieting down any time soon.

President Donald Trump forced his way onto Chelsea’s Club World Cup victory celebration on Sunday, much to the chagrin and confusion of everyone involved. He was booed mercilessly. 

Trump, as the host country representative, was only meant to hand the English club their trophy and exit stage left after their 3-0 victory over Paris Saint-Germain. Instead he lingered on stage, completely ignoring FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s obvious attempts to get him to leave the platform, situating himself right in front of Cole Palmer, who was named player of the tournament for scoring two of England’s three goals. 

Palmer looked particularly confused in the moment, and later confirmed that to reporters. 

“Naw, I knew he was going to be there, but I didn’t know he was gonna be on the stand where we lift the trophy,” Palmer said. “So I was a bit confused, yeah.” 

Chelsea Captain Reece James echoed his teammate’s sentiments. 

“It probably highlights how big the tournament is, the coverage for the tournament final was huge,” James said in response to a question about Trump’s presence. “And yet, answering your question: Before they told me that he was gonna present the trophy and then exit the stage … I thought that he was gonna exit the stage but he wanted to stay.” 

Aside from being another excellent example of the president’s general hubris, Trump crashing Chelsea’s victory celebration also showed his impressive lack of situational awareness. Boos rained down on him throughout the event, and although he was undeterred, the tension highlights both Trump’s unpopularity and the controversy surrounding the U.S hosting of the Club Cup and the 2026 World Cup amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants and outright hostility to allies.  

Earlier this week—in a story that reads as a perfect encapsulation of abuses by Trump’s immigration enforcement—masked ICE agents roughed up and detained a 71-year-old U.S. citizen volunteering as a legal observer to monitor them at a federal courthouse in San Diego.

Grandmother Barbara Stone says she was documenting the detention of asylum-seekers with the group “Detention Resistance” at San Diego’s immigration court when she was baselessly accused of pushing an officer. Multiple masked agents then pursued Stone, grabbed and handcuffed her (leaving bruises), confiscated her phone and purse, and detained her for over eight hours, she says.

Once Stone was released, ICE returned her bag but kept possession of her phone. Why? Stone says an ICE agent compared the situation to “a drug bust where they keep a drug dealer’s phone because I had used it in the crime.”

But the only “crime” of which Stone says she’s guilty is documenting immigration enforcement. If this is true, the episode would track with other apparent attempts by ICE agents to avoid accountability of late, for instance, by wearing masks so they can conduct raids and arrests anonymously.

In a statement to a local outlet, ICE accused Stone of assaulting an officer, citing “a 700% increase in assaults” against its agents over the last year (a statistic the agency uses to justify agents concealing their identities, as well).

That 700 percent increase, it should be noted, is a somewhat misleading way to say there have been 79 alleged assaults against ICE agents this year, compared to 10 in the same timeframe last year. Meanwhile, ICE interactions have become dramatically more frequent and aggressive.

ICE’s numbers unfortunately deserve further scrutiny, as the agency has been defining “assault” quite loosely. In another high-profile arrest of a U.S. citizen, for example, ICE last month detained New York City Comptroller Brad Lander for assault—an accusation not unlike when a schoolyard bully accuses his victim of getting in the way of his fist, as Washington Post columnist Philip Bump put it.

One might add, to this list of questionable ICE allegations, its new claims about Stone.

Anti-woke podcaster Andrew Schultz is coming to the same realization as thousands of other American voters over the last six months: President Trump lied to them.

“Everything [Trump] campaigned on I believe he wanted to do. And now he’s doing the exact opposite thing of every single fuckin’ thing,” Schultz said on his “Flagarant” podcast Thursday. “There’ll be people that like, they’ll DM me and be like, ‘You see what your boy’s doing? You voted for this.’ I’m like, I voted for none of this!”

Schultz has been an ardent supporter of Trump for some time now, even having him on his podcast as a guest during his presidential campaign. He continued on.

“He’s doing the exact opposite of everything I voted for. I want him to stop the wars; he’s funding them. I want him to shrink spending, reduce the budget. He’s increasing it. It’s like everything that he’s said he’s gonna do, except sending immigrants back—and now he’s even flip-flopped on that … ‘Maybe he will stop these wars.’ No. ‘Maybe we will see what’s up with this Epstein shit.’ No.”

Strangely, Schultz isn’t the only one surprised by the gap between Trump’s campaign promises and his actions as president. Fellow Trump supporters like Elon Musk are baffled by Trump’s wanton spending on the budget bill, while Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is dismayed at Trump continuing the endless wars. And MAGA members far and wide are shocked and upset over the administration’s effective dropping of the Epstein case. It seems like a shift is coming, but it may be all too late.

The Trump administration’s complete dismissal of the Jeffrey Epstein case continues to backfire as some of the most intense, involved members of his voting base think they’ve lost him to the “deep state.” 

As the Student Action Summit conference hosted by Charlie Kirk’s right-wing Turning Point USA group kicked off on Friday, multiple MAGA loyalists expressed anger and exasperation with President Trump’s handling of the case that has dominated much of the conspiratorial far-right.   

“It’s not about just a pedophile ring and all that. It’s about who governs us, right? And that’s why [the Epstein case] is not gonna go away,” MAGA godfather Steve Bannon yelled from the conference stage. He then went on to detail just how important the case is to the deep base. “For this to go away, you’re gonna lose 10 percent of the MAGA movement. If we lose 10 percent of the MAGA movement right now, we’re gonna lose 40 seats in [20]26, we’re gonna lose the presidency, they won’t even have to steal it … because [the Trump administration] will have disheartened the hardest core populist …”

Trump supporters who felt that the president was the answer to years of liberal and neoconservative deep state corruption are now reeling, feeling lost and confused as their knight in shining armor turns his back on one of their most important issues. 

Bannon turned to three young conference attendees and asked them for their take on the situation. 

“We need to, we need to enforce the laws of this country and you know, like you said, Steve, there’s no better question than who rules America. It’s not the people. So we need to obviously have the declassification of the Epstein files,” one said before Bannon chimed in. 

“You don’t think Donald Trump as president — you would tell Donald Trump in the Oval Office that you think there’s an open question, with him as commander-in-chief and doing all he’s doing, you would actually tell Trump you don’t know, you question who rules this country?”

“I definitely would because it’s a blackmail ring and anybody who wouldn’t is not paying attention. Simply put, Epstein himself said that he was best friends, on the stand, with Donald Trump. So anybody who thought that these files were going to get just declassified because we pressured him enough or you voted harder enough is just lying to yourself frankly.” 

The young man continued on. 

“In 2016, we trusted the plan with Trump, but now Trump has become the deep state. The exact thing he we voted him in—” 

‘Why do you say he’s become the deep state?” Bannon asked.

“What is more deep state than covering up for pedophiles? Why would you go to that island? Why? Tell me why would you go to that island? Why would you go on the plane? … Why his top donors—why are his top donors neighbors with Epstein?”

It seems that Trump’s most ardent supporters are finally asking the important questions. And while some in the MAGAsphere zero in on Attorney General Pam Bondi, others grasp that the one person with the most power over the case, the one person who could even come close to validating any of their theories, is Trump. And he has expressed no interest whatsoever in doing that. In fact, he can’t even believe that his base is still talking about it. And as we approach one full week of uproar, it’s clear that the Epstein thing won’t be going away anytime soon. 

“The only way this Epstein firestorm passes is if the 5 to 10 to maybe 15 percent of the Trump movement, the Pepes and the hardcores, many of whom are in this audience, just say, ‘I’ve had enough of it,’” Bannon later proclaimed. “The Epstein situation gets down to one basic question: Who governs this country? Is it a shadowy network of intelligence, MI6 Saudi intelligence, the Mossad, CIA … or do the people of the United States govern?”