A former White House official says President Donald Trump’s lengthy Truth Social post urging supporters to drop the Jeffrey Epstein issue is a clear sign he’s feeling the heat.
“He has to be panicking right now,” said Sarah Matthews, who served as a deputy press secretary during Trump’s first term, in an interview with MSNBC on Sunday.
Her comments came in response to Trump’s fiery weekend message, where he lashed out at MAGA loyalists still demanding answers about the late sex offender’s alleged “client list.” Trump dismissed the controversy as a distraction and pleaded with his base to move on.
“Let’s keep it that way, and not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about,” Trump wrote, calling Epstein “a guy who never dies.”
But Matthews says the post reflects deeper political anxiety inside Trump’s camp.
“The thing is, he campaigned on this,” she explained. “He said that he was going to release the list, and now his supporters are demanding he follow through.”
For months, Trump and his inner circle—including Vice President JD Vance and Attorney General Pam Bondi—made Epstein’s rumored client list a central campaign theme. Bondi even claimed in February that the list was “sitting on my desk,” ready for public review at Trump’s direction.
However, following a Department of Justice memo last week concluding that no such list exists, Bondi reversed course—sparking fury among MAGA supporters who now feel misled.
Even longtime Trump ally Elon Musk fanned the flames, suggesting last month that Trump might be stonewalling because his name appears in the unreleased files.
With mounting backlash from his own base and critics circling, Matthews predicts Trump will soon pivot to a familiar tactic: diversion.
“If I had to make a prediction,” she said, “I think that he is going to try to shift the news cycle this week by either saying something very controversial or doing something controversial. Because he does not want us to be talking about Jeffrey Epstein.”
Despite Trump’s efforts to shut the story down, the Epstein firestorm appears far from over—and may be shaping up to become a defining crisis for his second term.
See the full MSNBC conversation below: