Fox News host Jesse Watters, who once claimed to be “leading the charge to expose Jeffrey Epstein’s list of fixers, clients, and famous friends,” tied himself in knots on Thursday night as he attempted to explain to viewers why Democrats are in the wrong as they call for President Donald Trump’s administration to release Epstein-related documents.

Trump offered a campaign pledge, albeit a wishy-washy one, to “declassify the Epstein files,” which he has not lived up to in office. Now, House and Senate Republicans have stymied Democratic congressional initiatives aimed at forcing additional Epstein disclosures while Trump demands that his supporters move on from the story. 

For Watters — who spent the last six years discussing Epstein across more than 100 episodes of his programs and denounced the “powerful people [who] want to keep you from knowing about Epstein’s world” — the real villains here are the Democrats, because they are allegedly late to the story and acting with impure motives.

Watters complained on his July 17 Fox prime-time show that “Epstein used to be a forbidden word for Democrats,” but “now they can't get it out of their mouth.” He went on to ask why the party is suddenly “so focused on the Epstein files, of all things.” 

“The left doesn't care about Epstein, they never have, and they definitely don't care about the victims or the corruption or the cover-up,” Watters concluded. “They're just now doing the opposite of what Trump does.”

Watters’ argument is indistinguishable from that of the White House, as indicated by the clip from press secretary Karoline Leavitt that he aired amid his gripes. It also raises more questions about Watters’ commitment to justice for Epstein’s victims than it does about the Democrats’.

It is certainly true that the left and right have modeled different versions of concern for Epstein’s “victims or the corruption or the cover-up” since the disgraced financier’s death in jail while awaiting trial for child sex-trafficking in 2019. 

The left’s version involved conducting a meticulous, yearslong congressional investigation into the sources of Epstein’s money and successfully prosecuting his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, securing a 20-year prison sentence for her crimes on Epstein’s behalf. 

The right’s version did involve MAGA propagandists like Watters doing a bunch of discourse about how Trump was about to blow the case wide open by releasing the Epstein files. But at the same time, the movement’s decision-makers wished Maxwell well and then fired her prosecutor; hired the lawyers who secured the sweetheart federal nonprosecution agreement that allowed Epstein to get out of prison and allegedly sexually abuse more underage girls; and ultimately reneged on releasing more Epstein documents.

Your mileage may vary as to which of those fact sets demonstrates real “care about Epstein.”

I also think it’s true that Democrats and progressive commentators are talking more about the Epstein case after the last two weeks of revelations. Consider:

• The Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation released an unsigned statement about the Epstein case which contradicted past statements by the attorney general, FBI director, and FBI deputy director.
• The FBI deputy director reportedly skipped work in protest while contemplating resignation. 
• The fracas triggered a MAGA revolt which featured calls from Trump allies for the attorney general’s removal.
• Trump responded by ordering his supporters to cease discussion of the “Epstein Files,” which he alleged had been “written by Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration.” Everyone seems to assume that this argument, which contradicted past MAGA theories and for which the president provided no evidence, is a bald-faced lie.
• The president subsequently claimed that he didn’t understand why his supporters were so interested in the Epstein saga because it is “pretty boring stuff”; described the Epstein controversy as a “Hoax,” a “SCAM,” and “bullshit”; and said that MAGA influencers who talk about it are “weaklings” and “stupid people” who are “wasting their time with a guy who obviously had some very serious problems, who died three, four years ago.”
• The Wall Street Journal published a story revealing that Justice Department officials who investigated Epstein and Maxwell reviewed an album Maxwell made for Epstein’s 50th birthday which includes a “bawdy” letter bearing Trump’s name which concludes: “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.”

I don’t think it is surprising that that sequence has led to increased interest in the Epstein case.

The question, I think, is why those events have made Watters — someone who claims to be interested in exposing Epstein not due to political expediency but because of the victims, corruption, and cover-up — less interested in talking about it.

Why can’t Watters take the left’s “yes” for an answer? It seems quite obvious that the reason is that Trump wants him to say “no,” and Watters is a shill who does what he is told.