“Not to be trusted.” A “betrayal.”
This is how some young people on the right have characterized President Trump and his administration’s response to the Justice Department’s latest release of Jeffrey Epstein files. For them, the Epstein story is something of a full-circle moment in their political lives — a reason they cast their ballots for Mr. Trump in 2024 that has calcified into anger and disillusionment.
“We started out not trusting the government, so we voted for Trump and for something new,” said Kai Schwemmer, 23, a student at Brigham Young University and a member of the Utah Federation of College Republicans. “And now, we’re watching him turn into the same thing we’ve had for all this time. If a populist, right-wing president is not to be trusted, what does that leave you with?”
Drawn to Mr. Trump for his pledge to take down the political elite, Mr. Schwemmer is among those Gen Z conservatives who cast their first-ever ballots for Mr. Trump to see a disruptive outsider enact a sweeping political reset.
But they say their faith in Mr. Trump has diminished in recent weeks as they have observed the administration’s response to the Epstein scandal. For his part, Mr. Schwemmer thinks the president has demonstrated a “lack of seriousness” and a pattern of “obfuscation” as communications related to Mr. Epstein have revealed a globe-spanning web of ties to powerful figures in politics, finance, professional sports and the arts. Included in the recently disclosed files are the names of six current administration officials, Mr. Trump’s among them.
To be sure, there are other issues preoccupying the minds of young conservatives, including cost of living and immigration. And some are prepared to ride out the story line and remain loyal to the president.
Matt Wallace, a 27-year-old crypto influencer in South Florida, said Mr. Trump had done “more bad stuff lately” than he would prefer to see.
“But we owe him a lot for what he’s done,” Mr. Wallace said. “I don’t call it support, I call it appreciating the president.”
Still, he added, “he needs to release all of the Epstein files immediately, no question. He can’t be protecting people just because they’re his donors.”
Ella Maulding, a 22-year-old conservative who lives in Mississippi, urged the same. “We won’t be moving on from this,” she said “We want to see this administration take down the establishment, drain the swamp and prosecute elite rings of predators.”
This is a striking moment of disillusion for some young Republicans in an already cynical segment of the Trump coalition. As alarms over the Republican’s midterm chances continue to sound, the president may be sowing discontent among a constituency he worked hard to court in 2024.
Despite Mr. Trump’s campaign promise to immediately release an “Epstein client list,” the president has over the past year dismissed the scandal as a “Democratic hoax” and a “never-ending saga.”
In recent days, Mr. Trump said he was tiring of the affair entirely. “I think it’s really time for the country to get on to something else,” he said during a news conference this month.
When mixed with young voters’ concerns over affordability, the response has painted a picture of a president more aligned with the so-called “Epstein class” than with his base, said Lucas Holtz, a senior adviser at Third Way, a center-left think tank often critical of the Make America Great Again movement.
A December survey sponsored by Third Way and conducted by HIT Strategies found that over a third of young Republican men viewed Mr. Trump’s opposition to releasing the full files as “very concerning.” The poll suggests that the Epstein investigation is a concern for young male voters across the political spectrum. Overall, well over half the respondents said it was very concerning, including more than three-quarters of Democrats and more than half of independents.
In a statement, Abigail Jackson, a spokeswoman for the White House, argued that the president had “done more for Epstein’s victims than anyone before him.”
As to the young conservatives in his coalition, she added: “President Trump continues to deliver on many campaign promises that are important to young voters — stopping Biden’s inflation crisis, cutting taxes, making homeownership more accessible, bringing good-paying jobs back to the United States, and he’s just getting started.”
Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, the Republican who, with Ro Khanna, a Democratic congressman from California, has pressured the administration to release all of the Epstein files, said he believed young voters possessed an acute sense for when someone is being disingenuous.
“Everyone gets trained to accept a certain level of B.S.,” Mr. Massie said in an interview. “When you’re younger, that detector is far more sensitive. And this is an issue where the B.S. being spewed by politicians right now is easily detected.”
Ms. Maulding, who supported Mr. Trump in the 2024 presidential election, the first she was old enough to vote in, is part of a generation that formed its political consciousness as the investigation of Mr. Epstein, a convicted sex offender who died by suicide while awaiting federal trial in 2019, loomed large.
It was this event that “kick-started” her interest in politics, she said. Today, she aligns with the America First wing of the conservative movement — which sits to the right of the MAGA movement — and hosts a podcast focusing on her anti-porn and anti-immigrant views.
Describing the protection of vulnerable women and children as the “ultimate hill to die on,” Ms. Maulding said she felt a sense of “betrayal” over Attorney General Pam Bondi’s combative appearance before the House Judiciary Committee last week, in which Ms. Bondi refused to apologize to survivors of Mr. Epstein’s in the hearing room.
“She couldn’t care less about the trauma and pain of the victims,” Ms. Maulding said.
Mr. Massie suggested that a politician’s stance on the Epstein scandal could function as a “magic mirror” for young people on the right determining who to support.
He urged them to “write off anybody who is not actively supporting this cause,” Mr. Massie said. “Hold up that mirror and see what people are saying. A lot of people are being exposed as hacks right now.”
Young conservatives are beginning to scrutinize the anti-establishment pundits and influencers who once fanned the flames of Epstein-related conspiracy theories and story lines, noticing a stark difference now that some of the files have been released.
Take the Student Action Summit hosted by Turning Point USA in Tampa, Fla., in July. Addressing several thousand young conservatives in the audience, a marquee list of conservative commentators — including Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson, and Stephen K. Bannon, the former top aide to Mr. Trump during his first administration who is seen in the files advising Mr. Epstein on how to weather the resurfaced allegations that he was a serial pedophile — argued that the Epstein files represented an existential issue for the MAGA movement.
“Epstein is the key that picks the lock on so many things,” Mr. Bannon said, addressing the conference during a fiery speech, as he called for an investigation led by a special prosecutor. “It’s a time for choosing. Now.”
Half a year later, many of these voices have appeared reluctant to weigh in further on Mr. Epstein. Some of the right’s preferred podcasts and livestreams, dependable outlets for outrage and conspiracy theories about the so-called deep state, have largely avoided discussion of the latest document releases.
In the rare instances when Mr. Epstein is invoked as a political concern — such as on the nightly stream of Nick Fuentes, the young white-nationalist pundit — it is often to promote antisemitic views.
“I don’t know what to make of the radio silence,” said Stryder Bigler, 23, who oversees a network of young far-right content creators in Phoenix. “I do know that it’s deteriorated our trust for these new media figures. Slowly, they’ve become the establishment media. They’re essentially like Fox News now.”
These onetime Trump supporters say they have begun to look beyond the president’s movement toward figures and ideas oriented even further to the right.
They are looking to politicians like Mr. Massie, a frequent Trump critic, as well as James Fishback, a candidate in the Republican primary for governor in Florida who is running against a Trump-endorsed candidate on an anti-tech, anti-immigration platform that includes calls to eliminate the H-1B visa program in the state.
Mr. Fishback, a 31-year-old investment firm chief executive, has called for the “public execution” of anyone convicted of sex trafficking crimes in association with Mr. Epstein.
“We’re tired of moderates,” said Ms. Maulding, who noted that she had been following Mr. Fishback’s campaign. “He’s bold, and that’s what we really need right now.”
Mr. Bigler seemed to agree. “Why should we continue with the MAGA coalition if this was the result?” he asked.
Nathan Taylor Pemberton is a reporter covering politics and culture for The New York Times.
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