In February, Attorney General Pam Bondi rolled out “The Epstein Files: Phase 1” to a group of MAGA-friendly influencers. Bondi promised the Trump administration would release the “full and complete Epstein files” and provide full disclosure on all details of the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking investigation – but then backtracked by early July. The decision by the Department of Justice and FBI that “no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted” outraged Trump supporters. Prominent Republicans – including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and former VP Mike Pence – also called for greater transparency about the Epstein findings.
President Donald Trump continues to downplay how his administration handled the disclosure of the investigation into Epstein’s activities. But weeks of headlines about this story suggest a growing rift within the GOP over the Epstein files.
Tracking media coverage of ongoing developments in this story is one way to gauge the fallout. On other controversial issues, Trump has managed to maintain friendly coverage from conservative outlets like Fox News, Breitbart, and the New York Post. How has he fared recently, given the allegations of his close ties to Epstein and conspiracy theories of a U.S. government cover-up. Understanding how media outlets frame Trump’s connection to the Epstein case helps clarify the degree of loyalty the president enjoys.
The conspiracy theories deepen
The administration’s refusal to release the files has not only angered Trump’s base but also provided ammunition for Democrats.
Given this backdrop, to what extent are news outlets linking Trump explicitly with the Epstein case? How are conservative and right-leaning outlets facing the uncomfortable task of addressing Trump’s potential vulnerability?
How I did my research
To answer these questions, I analyzed headlines from the most widely read news outlets in the United States (including a handful of British sources popular with American readers) using the MIT Media Cloud database. I gathered all headlines for articles mentioning Jeffrey Epstein between January 1, 2019, and July 25, 2025.
My analysis combined traditional methods, such as tracking article volume and using keyword searches to detect explicit mentions of Trump, with newer techniques involving large language models (LLMs). These models have become promising tools for social science research, particularly for text summarization or text classification tasks, due to their high agreement with human coders.
Here, I use Google’s Gemini model (version 2.5 Pro) to categorize headlines by theme and determine the presence or absence of criticism directed at Trump. I then summarize findings by news outlet.
What I found
First, the data shows a dramatic surge in Epstein-related coverage in July 2025, after the Trump administration said the matter was closed. Headlines were significantly more likely to explicitly link Trump to the case than in any prior period.
Media coverage initially peaked after Epstein’s death in federal custody in August 2019, rose moderately again in late 2021 during the trial of his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, then spiked dramatically in July 2025 following the Trump administration’s decision to cease any further release of case-related files. By July 25, the coverage approached the 2019 peak.
Second, are left-leaning media outlets driving this spike in Trump-Epstein linked coverage? Not entirely. While outlets like MSNBC and CNN frequently reference Trump explicitly in Epstein-related headlines, more conservative media such as the New York Post, Fox News, and Breitbart do so frequently as well. To be sure, the total attention to the Epstein case varied significantly across outlets, with highest coverage seen in MSNBC articles.
Of course, the mere mention of Trump’s name does not imply that a particular article is critical of Trump, or how his administration has handled the Epstein case. LLMs can help give a closer look at the actual content of the headlines, beyond who was mentioned.
“Political fallout” was a key theme
Overall, Gemini described the “main focus” of the article themes in July 2025 headlines as follows: political fallout & strategy (37%), legal & investigative proceedings (16%), MAGA & right-wing concern (13%), and Trump-Epstein direct relationship (2%). This query found 31% of headlines were focused on other issues.
My analysis shows that the distribution of article themes was generally comparable across these outlets. The “political fallout & strategy” theme clearly dominated the headlines. The MAGA backlash or criticism of Trump was the primary focus of a significant number of the July 2025 headlines. Notably, even at Trump-aligned Fox News, 12.6% of articles explicitly acknowledged or reported on the MAGA backlash, a figure very similar to the overall average.
Using binary classification via the LLM to detect overt or implied criticism of Trump in headlines, I found clear ideological patterns. Outlets such as Buzzfeed, the Guardian, and MSNBC were most consistently critical. In contrast, Reuters, Fox News, ABC News, and the New York Post were among the least likely to feature headlines that criticized the president. CNN has been more critical of Trump than conservative outlets like Breitbart and the New York Post, and also more than the New York Times. However, the differences between mainstream outlets (such as the New York Times) and conservative outlets were not as pronounced as might be expected.
Overall, the analysis underscores some ideological predictability: Media outlets behave rationally and politically. But these findings also refute simplistic assertions that Trump-sympathetic media entirely avoided criticizing Trump over the Epstein case.
A split in the MAGA coalition?
Perhaps surprisingly, the drama over the Epstein files is one of the few controversies that has pierced the right-wing media ecosystem. Even Trump-friendly outlets have engaged critically with the issue. (Of course, the U.S. media landscape has been quite partisan, and the partisan gap is likely to continue.)
This Epstein story is remarkable for how it splits Trump’s coalition. Even loyalists within the MAGA base are demanding full transparency about Epstein’s alleged sexual abuse crimes, his death in custody – and his relationship with Donald Trump. These demands signal a rare fracture within Trump’s generally cohesive base.
Trump’s hold on his supporters, while formidable, is not absolute when the issue directly contradicts the anti-establishment identity that binds them to him. Forced to grapple with uncomfortable questions about Trump’s connections to the very elites they distrust, Republicans now report low approval of Trump on this specific issue. Has criticism of Trump finally hit its mark?
Jan Zilinsky is a 2025-2026 Good Authority fellow.
