From the moment he descended down that golden escalator nearly 11 years ago, Donald Trump has survived countless controversies that would have ended the political careers of virtually anyone else.
At times his political style might be described as a sort of controversy blitzkrieg, that when people are bombarded with several outrages simultaneously, it can be difficult for any one of them to stand out. And whenever a particular controversy is too much for “teflon Don” to easily brush off, he and his staff will use all means to distract and deflect away from it.
Trump’s chief advisor Stephen Miller has shown himself more than capable in this area. Take, for example, an October 2016 press conference in which Trump hosted women who accused former President Bill Clinton of sexual assault and harassment, just two days after the infamous Access Hollywood tape was leaked with Trump bragging about his own sexual assaults of women.
Miller and his Breitbart associates further responded by publicizing alleged murders committed by immigrants in graphic, obscene detail, again to redirect attention away from Trump.
But there is one controversy Trump has struggled with more than any other: his prior relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. At times, MAGA politicians have appeared to grasp at straws to explain the Trump-Epstein relationship, with House Speaker Mike Johnson laughably suggesting last year that Trump was actually an FBI informant before quickly walking back on that claim.
Trump officials had insisted for some time that files on Epstein’s associates would be released, with Attorney General Pam Bondi saying in February 2025 that a “client list” was “sitting on my desk right now to review.” The administration made a big show of inviting pro-Trump social media influencers to the White House to receive binders labeled “The Epstein Files: Phase 1.”
But a big show is apparently all this was. While influencers like Laura Loomer were in uproar over photos of Bill Clinton in the Epstein files, they’ve maintained dutiful silence about Trump.
Despite extensive redactions that blacked out entire pages, the allegations made against Trump so far are upsetting beyond belief and demand further investigation. This includes recent documents in which a woman told FBI agents she was assaulted by Epstein and Trump when she was between the ages of 13 and 15 and received threatening phone calls for years to keep quiet.
Another woman quoted in the files claimed she and other girls were sex trafficked by Ghislaine Maxwell at Trump’s golf course in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., and that it was rumored girls who went missing had “been murdered and buried at the facility.”
No amount of Trump crying about a “Democratic hoax” will overcome questions about his relationship with Epstein, especially when he has stocked his administration with conspiracy theorists like FBI Director Kash Patel—someone previously unapologetic in calling for Epstein’s associates to be arrested but who now claims there’s “no credible information” Epstein ever trafficked minors to anyone other than himself. To any extent Trump has ever wanted to expose any of Epstein’s associates, it’s only been for his own political gain.
In light of these attempts to cover up Epstein and Trump’s relationship, some have gone so far as to claim Trump is attacking foreign countries to distract people from the sex scandal.
Some critics have sarcastically renamed “Operation Epic Fury” as “Operation Epstein Distraction.” A recent poll from Drop Site News claims a majority (52%) of Americans believe Trump attacked Iran to distract people from the Epstein files.
Shaiel Ben-Ephraim, an analyst with Atlas Global Strategies and a former Israeli diplomat, told Al Jazeera that Trump “needs a distraction from [his domestic issues] in the form of a war” and that Google searches for the Epstein files have “plummeted” since the U.S. and Israel struck Iran.
Republican Congressman Thomas Massie and Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley have both made comments suggesting the Iran war is meant to distract people from the Epstein files. And a video from a D.C.-based activist claiming the war is only about the Epstein files has garnered well over 1 million views on Instagram and X.
What to make of all this? Is the United States truly going to war with Iran to get eyeballs off the Epstein files? Such a premise would make for a great episode of Shonda Rhimes’ Scandal, but it’s far too simplistic for real-world politics.
Did Epstein, speculated by some to have connections to Israeli intelligence, collect such damning blackmail on Western world leaders that they have no choice but to back Israel’s war efforts? Sounds like an entertaining James Bond-esque spy movie, but it’s a poor substitute for geopolitical reality.
Anyone calling the attacks on Venezuela, Iran, or any other country a “distraction” from the Epstein files are themselves distracting blame for the war away from where it belongs: U.S. imperialism.
Whatever crimes the Iranian government is guilty of, in the eyes of monopoly capitalists Iran’s chief offense is not subordinating to U.S. imperialism. Further charges include being a part of the rival BRICS economic alliance and having cut off American access to its oil since the 1979 revolution. Iran is the last remaining impediment to U.S. monopoly control of the resources of the Middle East.
The same Trump administration that has healthy relations with authoritarian regimes like El Salvador and Israel, and sends secret police to terrorize our neighborhoods, would gladly welcome the current Iranian government with open arms if only it aligned itself with the interests of U.S. capital. And because this won’t happen, the MAGA government, encompassing the most imperialistic elements of U.S. capitalism, has sought to destroy Iran as a capable regional state and replace it with a subordinate, but no less authoritarian, regime.
Trump himself was more explicit in his true reasons for attacking Venezuela, which likewise apply to the current attacks on Iran. Less than a month before the Jan. 3 raids in Caracas, Trump told reporters: “We want it back. They took our oil rights—we had a lot of oil there. As you know, they threw our companies out, and we want it back.”
Also, the idea that Trump would need to go so far as to kidnap or kill a head of state to distract people from the Epstein files is absurd. Media companies like Fox, Newsmax, Sinclair Broadcast Group, and others already serve as little more than MAGA bullhorns. The pro-MAGA billionaire Ellison family controls CBS News and is poised to own Warner Bros. and CNN along with it. Trump hardly needs to jump through hoops to have his ties to Epstein downplayed in the press.
And lastly, who’s to say people are truly “distracted” by this war? Did people just up and forget their president used to be close friends with the world’s most infamous sex offender? Are we to truly believe, as the analyst Ben-Ephraim would tell us, that the Iran war will serve as a “distraction” from how poorly the U.S. economy is for working-class people under Trump? Somehow I doubt people will be unable to connect rising gas prices at the pump with the war in the Middle East that Trump has started.
It is true, however, that Trump thrives on distraction. His politics revolve around distracting working-class people from the economic and political realities surrounding them. And progressives would be better off than to encourage such distraction by misrepresenting the aims of U.S. imperialism.
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