You thought I was joking about the Iran War going so badly that Trump would start bringing up Epstein as a distraction.

I’ve been putting off an Epstein thread, not out of concerns over the subject matter or possible reception, but because most of the analysis so far has been awful, and I don’t want to make the same mistakes that I’m about to criticize.

Perhaps the biggest problem with the reporting we’ve seen is that it paradoxically manages to be too detailed and not detailed enough all at the same time.

On one level, this is extraordinarily straightforward, consisting of a tiny number of major points that simply need to be stated emphatically, unambiguously, and repeatedly. This is overwhelmingly a Donald Trump scandal, and any coverage that doesn’t reflect that is a misrepresentation. Unless you’re writing a book-length examination of the events, you can—and quite possibly should—stop there.

Trump’s involvement is more extensive than that of any other public figure, and the reports that have already surfaced are far more disturbing. Add to that the fact that we are talking about a sitting president whose Justice Department is giving unprecedented special treatment to the one witness in federal custody most likely to provide damning testimony against him. That has to stay in the foreground.

On the other side of the spectrum, this is a stunningly complex story that ties in with all sorts of important themes, from the rise of the super-rich, to the fundamentally corrupt culture of 21st-century finance and celebrity, to difficult questions about attitudes toward exploitation and sex—just to name a few.

This is a story with deep roots and echoes of Major Barbara and The Great Gatsby. Epstein’s extraordinary success as a social climber provides a rare window into how society worked in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Someday someone will produce a great piece of nonfiction about this—hell, it may already be in the works—but writing it would require a depth and seriousness that I almost never see in coverage of the story. It’s certainly not a suitable topic for the occasional blog post, but… here we are.

As reluctant as I am to broach the topic, yesterday’s events were so weird, even by second-term standards, that, at the very least, I had to make a note of them.

Melania Trump: The lies linking me with Jeffrey Epstein need to end today. I've never been friends with Epstein. I never had a relationship with Epstein or his accomplice, Maxwell. My email reply to Maxwell cannot be categorized as anything more than casual correspondence.

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— Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social) April 9, 2026 at 11:37 AM

It's also worth noting that the FLOTUS is coming into this with unprecedented poll numbers, and I don't mean that in a good way. 

Melania Trump’s public standing has cratered to a level never before seen for a modern first lady, plunging so far underwater that CNN’s Harry Enten called the numbers “absolutely awful” and historically unprecedented.

Enten pointed to the dramatic slide in Melania’s approval rating over time, noting that she stood at +30 in May 2018, fell to +3 in January 2025, and has now plunged to -12 in the latest March 26-30 CNN/SSRS survey.

“So at this point, historic lows for Melania Trump,” Enten said. “These numbers are absolutely awful.”

The collapse puts Melania well below other modern first ladies at a similar point in their husbands’ presidencies. According to CNN/SSRS data cited by Enten, Nancy Reagan stood at +50, Hillary Clinton at +25, Laura Bush at +46, and Michelle Obama at +42.

“If we look at this historically, the worst ever, the worst ever at this point in term number two,” Enten said.

When dealing with Trump and the fog of MAGA, it is essential that one keeps an open mind. It is tempting to explain bizarre behavior based on bad intentions, but you always have to allow for mind-boggling incompetence, shameless corruption, or almost unimaginable childishness and personal agendas.

No outside observer—and possibly no one on the inside either—can say with any certainty what’s going on here. There are, however, a couple of facts to keep top of mind when listening to this.

Michael Wolff (who, for all of his considerable flaws, is remarkably good at keeping the receipts) claims to have tapes of Jeffrey Epstein making the very charges that Melania Trump is denying. Recent FBI documents appear to back these claims up with email exchanges and sworn testimony. It is also important to remember that the Trumps are firm believers in the “best defense is a good offense” approach and have threatened multiple lawsuits over Epstein-related comments from Wolff, Hunter Biden, The Wall Street Journal, and others I’m probably forgetting. It is perhaps even more important to note that Donald and Melania have quietly backed away from, as far as I can tell, all of these legal actions—perhaps not coincidentally before the discovery stage was reached.

Most of the respectable, mainstream analysis I’ve seen has depicted this as a rift between Donald and Melania. Open mind or not, I’m skeptical of that interpretation. Other analysts, whom I tend to trust more, have suggested that the White House is trying to get ahead of some big story that’s about to break—presumably either confirmation of the claims that Wolff made or something even more damaging. Then, finally, there’s the possibility that we are observing the most comical misunderstanding of the Streisand Effect imaginable.