The Buzz: America Held Hostage by Epstein Files: Day 184
Published 1:30 am Friday, August 1, 2025
By Jon Bauer / Herald Opinion Editor
No, President Trump hasn’t stopped talking about not talking about Jeffrey Epstein, but he did manage to squeeze in a few distractions:
Best. Boss. Evah: Remarks by President Trump that attempted to explain why he had a falling out with long-time friend — and later convicted child sex trafficker — Jeffrey Epstein, have angered the family of Virginia Giuffre, who accused Epstein of sexually abusing her as a teenager and died by suicide earlier this year. While he and Epstein were still friends, Trump said this week, Epstein “hired away” spa attendants working at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, ending the friendship. Asked if Giuffre was a former employee, Trump responded: “I don’t know. I think she worked at the spa. I think so. I think that was one of the people. He stole her. And by the way, she had no complaints about us, as you know, none whatsoever.” Giuffre was 16 when she left Trump’s employ for Epstein’s.
Mr. President, when attempting to distance yourself from a convicted sex trafficker, maybe it’s a bad idea to refer to a teenage girl who worked for you as having been “stolen” from you by said trafficker.
The windmills of his mind: During his visit this week to Scotland and during an announcement regarding a trade deal with the European Union and a discussion on immigration, President Trump detoured for several minutes, holding forth on the environmental and economic dangers of wind energy. “And the other thing I say to Europe: We will not allow a windmill to be built in the United States,” Trump said. “They’re killing us. They’re killing the beauty of our scenery. Our valleys. Our beautiful plains; and I’m not talking about airplanes, I’m talking about beautiful plains.” Trump insisted wind turbines were killing whales and birds, couldn’t be recycled, were more expensive than fossil fuels and required subsidies. “You need subsidy for wind, and energy should not need subsidy. With energy you make money, you don’t lose money,” Trump claimed.
Taken in order: The cause of the whales’ deaths is undetermined; fewer than cats; turbine blades and other components are being recycled at the end of their 20-year service life; and wind energy is cheaper than natural gas. As for subsidies, whatever remains for wind energy after the “Big Beautiful Bill” was passed pales next to subsidies provided globally to the fossil fuel industry in 2022: $1.3 trillion in direct subsidies and $5.7 trillion in indirect subsidies in not being assessed the costs for damage to health and environment.
If only there were a way for a geothermal company to harness the hot air — and methane — being released by Trump.
We’re still recovering from Elmo’s rant on X: A 42-year-old host of children’s videos on YouTube and Netflix, known as Ms. Rachel and favorably compared to Fred Rogers of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” has drawn the suspicion of pro-Israel group StopAntisemitism in an open letter that asks Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate Rachel Accurso as a “foreign agent” being paid to “disseminate Hamas-aligned propaganda to her millions of followers.” Ms. Rachel recently filmed a segment, singing “Hop Little Bunnies,” with a 3-year-old double amputee from Gaza who lost both her legs in an Israeli airstrike in 2024.
Better watch yourself, Ms. Rachel; you’re singing cute little songs about bunnies and penguins now, but soon enough the Trump administration is going to come down on you hard and suspend your federal grant for guitar picks and finger puppets until you agree to a $200 million settlement.
But we’ve got the biggest balls of them all: President Trump is overseeing construction of a $200 million, 90,000-square-foot addition to the East Wing of the White House that will include a ballroom that can seat 650 people, more than three times the capacity of the East Room now used for formal events. “For 150 years, Presidents, and many others, have wanted a beautiful Ballroom, but it never got built because nobody previously had any knowledge or experience in doing such things,” Trump said in a social media post. “But I do, like maybe nobody else.”
The ballroom will be of great use to Trump administration figures — we’re imagining Karoline Leavitt, Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — as they practice the cha cha, Argentine tango and samba when it’s their turn on “Dancing with the Stars.”
Yes, but what have we done for the wealthy lately? President Trump has proposed using some of the $93 billion in revenue that the U.S. Treasury has received from the president’s import tariffs to fund “rebates” to Americans, essentially given back what the tariffs take from consumers in higher prices. “We have so much money coming in from tariffs that a little rebate for people of a certain income level might be really nice,” Trump told reporters recently. But Republicans in Congress say that money should instead go to paying down the national debt, now at $36 trillion.
Maybe the president just needs to rephrase the proposal. Perhaps the GOP lawmakers heard “certain income level” and assumed Trump was talking about lower-income Americans, when he obviously meant those making at least a few million a year.
Fortunately, our kids’ history textbooks stop at 2019: The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History has removed references to President Trump’s two impeachments from an exhibit that featured information on the impeachments of Presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton and on Richard Nixon who resigned before Congress could impeach him, following a “content review” that the institution agreed to undertake following pressure from the White House.
The exhibit will be replaced with a display of “President Trump’s Greatest Golf Gimmes: ‘When a Putt is Obviously Going In that It’s an Insult Like We’ve Never Seen to Actually Putt.’”
Email Jon Bauer at jon.bauer@heraldnet.com. Follow him on Bluesky @jontbauer.bsky.social.
