World

North America

Epstein fallout

Opinion

The desperate calculation behind Trump’s backdown over the Epstein files

Cory Alpert Former White House staffer November 17, 2025 — 6.46pm

It’s almost difficult to remember now, but in 2021, Donald Trump left his first term as one of the least popular presidents in American history. Weeks before he left office, not entirely willingly, his supporters stormed the US Capitol, and much of the democratic world recognised in him and his movement an existential threat.

He lay dormant for a while but then re-emerged like a growing storm. Much of his second rise was fuelled by his fall, a kind of political trampoline act that left observers scratching their heads and historians of populist putsches clanging the alarm bells.

Donald Trump had

See Full Page