These Epstein Polls Are Brutal for Trump

Summary

Podcast Summary: Bulwark Takes – "These Epstein Polls Are Brutal for Trump"

Release Date: July 30, 2025
Host: Will Salatan
Guest: Sam Stein, Managing Editor

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Introduction to the Epstein-Trump Polls

In the July 30, 2025 episode of Bulwark Takes, host Will Salatan engages in a candid discussion with Sam Stein, the managing editor, about recent polling data concerning former President Donald Trump and his alleged connections to Jeffrey Epstein. The conversation delves into public opinion, the methodology of the polls, and the broader implications for Trump's political standing.

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Public Awareness and Attention to the Epstein-Trump Connection

Will Salatan initiates the conversation by highlighting the sustained media frenzy surrounding Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump's occasional remarks distancing himself from Epstein. He introduces recent polls conducted by reputable organizations like the Washington Post, YouGov, and Emerson, aiming to gauge American sentiments on the matter.

Sam Stein reflects on the unexpected depth of public engagement, particularly given the bizarre conspiracy theories entwined with the Epstein narrative.

“...it's involving an actual convicted sex offender, involves, you know, incredible conspiracy theories that relate to, you know, satanic pedophile rings that run the government. I mean, it's like insane stuff.”
— Sam Stein [00:49]

The Washington Post poll reveals that a significant 64% of Americans are following the Epstein-Trump saga closely, with 26% tracking it "a lot" and 38% "somewhat." An additional 24% are intermittently following the story, while only 11% are entirely disengaged.

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Poll Methodology and Credibility

Will Salatan expresses initial skepticism about the poll's legitimacy due to its reliance on text messaging. However, upon reviewing the methodology, he acknowledges the use of a panel-based approach, which enhances the poll's credibility.

“We can believe some of that.”
— Will Salatan [02:44]

This acceptance underscores the reliability of the findings, allowing both hosts to delve deeper into the poll results without dismissing their validity.

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Key Findings: Public Perception of Trump and Epstein

1. Embarrassing Information About Trump

A pivotal question from the Washington Post poll assessed whether respondents believe the Epstein files contain embarrassing information about Trump. The results were particularly striking among Republicans:

• Democrats and Independents: Majority believe there is embarrassing information.
• Republicans: Nearly split, with 31% affirming and 30% denying.

“He's been pretty well known at this point that he was on the, on the flight logs... maybe not totally surprised by that.”
— Sam Stein [03:16]

This near-even split among Republicans challenges the assumption that party allegiance would strongly defend Trump unfailingly.

2. Belief in Epstein's Death by Suicide vs. Murder

The poll further explored beliefs surrounding Epstein's death:

• Majority (Approximately 40%) believe Epstein was murdered.
• 15% accept the medical examiner's ruling of suicide.

Sam Stein shares a personal anecdote, revealing how close associates are increasingly subscribing to conspiracy theories about Epstein's death.

“I've got a very close relative... just totally buying into the conspiracies.”
— Sam Stein [05:04]

Will Salatan adopts an Occam's Razor perspective, suggesting that while suicide is plausible, the circumstances surrounding Epstein's death raise credible suspicions.

“He hung himself. They have the evidence of it. Right, but you kind of bridged it with your theory.”
— Will Salatan [07:05]

3. Perception of Trump's Involvement in Epstein's Crimes

A YouGov poll question inquires whether Donald Trump was involved in the crimes allegedly committed by Epstein:

• All Adults: 46% yes, 32% no.
• Registered Voters: 44% yes, 35% no.
• Whites: 39% yes, 37% no.
• Independents: 47% yes, 23% no.

“Was the President involved in crimes with the most notorious child sex trafficker of our era... Yes. That's wild.”
— Sam Stein [08:18]

These figures indicate a troubling level of suspicion towards Trump, transcending partisan lines and suggesting a broader erosion of trust.

4. Government Cover-Up of Epstein Evidence

Another YouGov poll question probes beliefs about a governmental cover-up:

• Democrats and Independents: Overwhelmingly believe in a cover-up.
• Republicans: 45% yes, 26% no.
• Trump Voters: 50% yes, 21% no.

Notably, there is a decline among Republicans' belief in a cover-up compared to previous weeks (down 8 points in the "yes" column).

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Implications for Trump's Political Standing

The polls reveal a dramatic decline in approval of Trump's handling of the Epstein files:

• Overall Approval: 16%
• Disapproval: 58%
• No Opinion: 26%

Among Republicans specifically:

• Approve: 38%
• No Opinion: 38%
• Disapprove: 24%

“He told them, I'm going to get this stuff out for you. ... I keep all my promises apparently. Except this one.”
— Will Salatan [10:59]

These numbers are particularly bleak given Trump's historical strong support base within the Republican Party, where approval ratings are typically much higher.

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Media and Public Interest

Despite Trump's attempts to downplay and dismiss the Epstein story, the persistent public interest—as evidenced by the polling data—ensures that the narrative remains a significant media focus.

“If I'm in the media, I'm seeing like, this is big traffic for us. People are really interested in it...”
— Will Salatan [12:18]

Sam Stein concurs, emphasizing that although Trump seeks to quell the story, its entrenchment in public discourse prevents it from fading easily.

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Conclusion: The Enduring Impact of Epstein Polls on Trump

The episode of Bulwark Takes unpacks the unsettling reality that substantial portions of the American public, including traditional Republican voters, are harboring doubts and suspicions regarding Donald Trump's connections to Jeffrey Epstein. The polling data not only challenges Trump's narrative but also underscores the complexities of public opinion in the wake of enduring scandals. As the discussion concludes, both Salatan and Stein acknowledge the resilience of the Epstein narrative in the public sphere and its potential long-term ramifications for Trump’s legacy and the broader political landscape.

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Notable Quotes:

• “It's unbelievable that among Republicans, members are willing to say, yeah, he probably had some shady stuff happening...”
  — Sam Stein [03:16]

• “This is wild... was the President involved in crimes with the most notorious child sex trafficker of our era, maybe of all time? Yes.”
  — Sam Stein [08:18]

• “He keeps saying things like, oh, there's nothing there. Why are you. Why do you keep talking about this? It's all Democratic hoax.”
  — Will Salatan [11:13]

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This summary is intended to provide an in-depth overview of the "Bulwark Takes" episode for those who have not listened, capturing the critical discussions and insights shared by Will Salatan and Sam Stein.

Transcript

[Will Salatan]

Hey, it's Will Salatan from the Bulwark. I'm here with my buddy Sam Stein, the managing editor, where we're following the Jeffrey Epstein craziness that's been going on. Donald Trump saying all sorts of wild stuff on airplane.

[Sam Stein]

Jeffrey Epstein? Never heard of the guy. What are we talking about?

[Will Salatan]

In fact, that's pretty much what Donald Trump's been saying. Never heard the guy. So we're all following this and a lot of you guys are following this, but there's now been some polling to find out on a statistical, scientific basis, what do Americans think about this and what the government's doing about it. New poll out Washington Post, couple other polls, one done by economist YouGov, another one done by Emerson last week. And so they're just trying to find out what Americans think about this. Sam, is there anything that you've noticed in public opinion that struck out to you?

[Sam Stein]

Well, the first thing was like, I kind of wanted to know how much people were actually paying attention to this. Obviously my, the conventional wisdom would be that a huge amount, because it's not like your typical political story, right? It's involving an actual convicted sex offender, involves, you know, incredible conspiracy theories that relate to, you know, satanic pedophile rings that run the government. I mean, it's like insane stuff. And then on top of that, it's been such a cause for semi political and apolitical media. So like the, the Bro Maga sphere, podcasting networks love this stuff. And so my assumption was that it has really broken through. And I think today's Washington Post poll, it's kind of a interesting way to conduct a poll. I think they send like a thousand text messages or something like that. It does suggest it's really breaking through. It said 26% of people said they've been following this a lot. 38 said they had been following it somewhat. So if you add those together, I'm not a mathematician, journalist or not, but that's 64. I'm pretty even though. And even on top of that, you have 24% who saying they're following this a little. Only 11% of the public says they are not following this at all. You know, that might seem like, you know, people might look at them, be like, oh, well, that's seems like not that many, but that's like a huge amount for a major political story. That's a huge amount. And so it clearly is breaking through. And that's what really dies out to me. I mean, obviously we'll get into how Trump's handling this and, and the approval on that. But, you know, as a strict political matter, at first, people have to be paying attention to it and. And it seems like they are.

[Will Salatan]

Yeah. I was skeptical of this poll as soon as I saw it was a text poll. I'm like, oh, come on, text. But on the other hand, phones, you know, that's where people get their phones. Yeah. And I gotta say, I looked carefully at the methodology and what they said is it's a panel, so it's not like random link texting people. They clearly, they have the text numbers and they're using that to conduct the poll, but the selection is conventional, so.

[Sam Stein]

Okay. So, yeah, it's legit.

[Will Salatan]

We can believe some of that. Let me, let me flag a couple of things. There are three things in this poll and one thing and another poll that sort of stood out to me. Let me just hit through them and hit you with one of them to start with. This is in no particular order. This is the Post poll. Do you think the Epstein files contain embarrassing information about Trump? Okay, so obviously, you know, Democrats and Independents think so. Among Republicans, they're an even split. Sam, 31% said yes, 30% said no. That was a surprise to me. Does that surprise you at all?

[Sam Stein]

I don't know. I mean, he's been pretty, it's been pretty well known at this point that he was on the, on the flight logs, although maybe some people suppress that knowledge. And then there's been a couple reports about birthday cards or notes and, you know, greetings between the two. And there's videos that are surfacing. So while Republicans are likely to say or to defend Trump and believe the best of him, I think even in, in these times, people are willing to say, yeah, he probably had some shady stuff happening going on in, you know, prior to 2004, but that was in the past. And so maybe not totally surprised by that. Were you?

[Will Salatan]

Most of these numbers, when I looked at them, Republicans were actually way more on Trump's side, I expect.

[Sam Stein]

Because you thought you. So you thought more people should have. More Republicans should have said yes. There's embarrassing stuff.

[Will Salatan]

No, I thought that the Republicans had been. Sorry, were falling into line, like whatever Trump says. Yeah, so. So it surprised me. This was. There were more Republicans saying yes to this question than. Because I think. Because. Because usually on a lot of these polls, they're not answering the question. They're saying, what's the Trump position? What's the position?

[Sam Stein]

Right.

[Will Salatan]

And that's. So they know that the answer is Trump did Nothing wrong. But here they're saying obviously that there is some embarrassment, so reality seems to be breaking through.

[Sam Stein]

Fair enough. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Will Salatan]

Okay, let me throw another one at you. This one's not specific to Trump. Just surprised me. Do you believe the medical examiner's ruling that Epstein died by suicide in jail or do you believe he was murdered? So I looked at this question, I'm like, oh, this is a stacked question because they put in medical examiner's ruling.

[Sam Stein]

To tell you that sort of, you know, taints the jury basically. Well, it's a medical examiner. Right, right, right, right.

[Will Salatan]

So I'm thinking I'm believing the medical examiner.

[Sam Stein]

This number was crazy. This number was crazy. This number is pretty crazy. Yes.

[Will Salatan]

No, no. Okay. By 2 to 1, everybody believes he was. He was murdered. Okay, 44.

[Sam Stein]

Murdered.

[Will Salatan]

Was.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, yeah. So.

[Will Salatan]

So it's not a majority because there's a whole bunch of people who don't know. Right.

[Sam Stein]

But like, I'm sure it was 42.

[Will Salatan]

Yeah, it's like a 40, 20. And that's. So that's.

[Sam Stein]

No, it's 15. Suicide. So it's even. It's like a three to one almost in this one.

[Will Salatan]

Yeah.

[Sam Stein]

My theory, so my personal theory, I have not put on my tinfoil hat yet on this stuff, but I can't. I've come around to the belief that basically, like this is all based on nothing. Right. But basically, like they let him die by suicide. Like, they're like, jeffrey, go, go do your thing. We know what you, you know, go do your thing. And so I don't know if that technically means he was murdered. I don't think that technically qualifies as murder. It's just like assisted suicide or something like that. But yeah, that's a crazy number, basically. And this doesn't surprise me, honestly. Honestly, I'm not going to reveal too much because I don't want to malign my relatives reputation, but I have a very close relative who I consider a very straight shooter throughout his life who has recently been calling me up being like, what is going on with this Epstein stuff? And he's just totally buying into the conspiracies. So I assume the rest of the country, and this might be one of those cases where Democrats were probably loathe to, you know, believe the conspiracies, but now that it's become much more of an albatross around Trump, they're like kind of plugged in more and more and then they're wondering if there's some fishy stuff going on.

[Will Salatan]

Yeah, well, you know, you and I are in like 15 to 20% of the public. Like, your, Your, your relatives, like, with like, there's. There's two or three of them for every one of us.

[Sam Stein]

He's straddling the unsure slash was murdered divide. I wonder how he would come down. I'm gonna have to pull that person tonight.

[Will Salatan]

So apparently they didn't rig this question enough with the medical exam. Or maybe people are just like, well, if the medical examiner said it, that's fishy. So it must have been. But I got to say, medical examiner's in on it. I actually like your theory because I'm an Occam's Razor person. I don't believe in conspiracy. So I'm like, right, he hung himself. They have the evidence of it. Right, but you kind of bridged it with your theory. Like, yeah, he hung himself, but they could have paid closer attention and they let him do it.

[Sam Stein]

I think that's fairly. Understand that it's either like, the Bureau of Prisons was doing the absolute worst job possible, monitoring someone who is on suicide watch, like a criminally bad job, which I think may have been true, but. Or there was some sort of like, hey, let the man do what he has to do.

[Will Salatan]

Right, Right. So I kind of like your bridge theory. I can go with that. And then I don't know how you'd answer the question exactly which way would you?

[Sam Stein]

No, I think suicide still counts in that situation. But look at me, I'm bridging divides here somehow. This is incredible. Who knew?

[Will Salatan]

We're all coming together. Okay, this one is from the YouGov poll. Okay. This is separate poll, same time. This just happened the last few days. Okay. Do you think that Donald Trump was involved in crimes allegedly committed by.

[Sam Stein]

Well, I haven't seen this one. What's the answer? Said.

[Will Salatan]

So this surprised me. All adults, 46% to 32 said yes. Registered voters, 44 to 35 said yes. Whites, 39 to 37 said yes. Independents, 47 to 23 said yes. So this is not just like squiggle the little.

[Sam Stein]

Sorry, the question is involved in crime?

[Will Salatan]

Do you think that Donald Trump was involved in crimes allegedly committed by Jeffrey Epstein?

[Sam Stein]

That is wild shit if you think about it, right?

[Will Salatan]

Yeah.

[Sam Stein]

Was the President involved in crimes with the most notorious child sex trafficker of our era, maybe of all time? Yes. That's wild.

[Will Salatan]

Yeah.

[Sam Stein]

I assume that you don't want that on the resume.

[Will Salatan]

No, no. And, you know, maybe if, like, you're in the White House and you're at the TACO or you're think about what to release. Really shouldn't be. You should be in the Justice Department if you're dealing with that stuff. But the political damage at this point, you know, a plurality of voters and Americans believe that your boss was involved in sex crimes. Maybe you're better off getting the truth out. If the truth is something short of that.

[Sam Stein]

If the truth is something short of that, yeah.

[Will Salatan]

So the fact that they aren't putting it out, it makes you wonder. All right, let me, let me throw in one more. This is also from the YouGov poll. Do you think the government is covering up evidence it has about Epstein?

[Sam Stein]

I mean, that's got to be what, 95. Yes.

[Will Salatan]

So yeah, Democrats overwhelmingly yes. Independents overwhelmingly yes. Republicans 45, 26 yes. Trump voters, people who voted for Donald Trump in 2024, 50 to 21. Yes. The government is covering up Epstein.

[Sam Stein]

Can you find what's the trend here? I want to know, are Republicans now moving towards a yes, something's happening, a cover up's happening, or are they moving away from it?

[Will Salatan]

Away? Good question, Sam. Okay, this is the most, because the trend numbers, there are no trends, by and large, except on that question among Republicans. So a week ago, Republicans by 53 to 14 said the government was covering up. This week, Republicans 45, 26. So down 8 points in the yes column, 12 points in the no column.

[Sam Stein]

So they're rallying, rallying around the flag. Right. I mean, that's what they're doing. Trump has told them, you know, move on and they're kind of moving on. Well, at least a portion of them. Yeah. That said, let me throw one at you from the post. Okay? This is just the approval of Donald Trump's handling of the Epstein files. Okay. This is bleak. Total approval was, I believe, 16%, 58% disapprove, 26% no opinion. Then if you do with the cross tabs, if you just look at the Republicans, all Republicans, only 38% approve of his handling of the Epstein files. 38% have no opinion, 24% disapprove. That's just Republicans. I mean, independents, it's 8% approve, 63% disapprove. Those are bleak numbers. And especially Republicans, it's usually like, you know, 85, 15 for that guy. So not going particularly well for Trump.

[Will Salatan]

Yeah. I mean, the context for these people is he told them, I'm going to get this stuff out for you.

[Sam Stein]

Right.

[Will Salatan]

And so to the extent he doesn't, they're pissed off because it was, I keep all my promises apparently. Except this one.

[Sam Stein]

This one.

[Will Salatan]

And he's also doing this big dance about how not just that, he's not just being silent and not releasing them. He keeps saying things like, oh, there's nothing there. Why are you. Why do you keep talking about this? It's all Democratic hoax.

[Sam Stein]

He says there's nothing there, and then he says if there's anything there, it's tainted by Barack Obama and James Comey, but it's nothing. But if there is anything, it's definitely tainted and there's nothing.

[Will Salatan]

Yeah, but, like, if you're a Republican who want these files out, not only are you not getting them, but you're getting this song and dance and the story keeps changing. I wonder if that's like, fishy to people, you know, like, there's nothing there, but now it's like, well, it's fishy.

[Sam Stein]

To people like Joe. Fishy to, like, Joe Rogan and those people. For sure. I mean, the, the real diehards are going to just buy whatever he says. I mean, they're willing to, like, give Jelain Maxwell pardon at this point, so they're going to, like, die. They're just going to go with the flow. But I think real people or people who aren't, like, totally beholden to maga, as you can see in these numbers, they just are not buying it. And we'll see if it. We'll see if that sticks. But this has been, what, three weeks now, more than that of this storyline. And it's, I mean, that these are bad numbers.

[Will Salatan]

Yeah, yeah. And there's enough, I mean, if I'm a media or organization looking at these numbers to ask, is the audience still interested? Well, first of all, I've got actual data on who's, like, watching the show. Right. But, like, Trump wants this story to go away.

[Sam Stein]

Right.

[Will Salatan]

If I'm, if I'm in the media, I'm seeing a, like, this is big traffic for us. People are really interested in it and be like, the public, the public opinion. You can. We can see people are interested in it for sure. So. And so for that reason, the story isn't going to go away as much as Trump is trying to make it go away.

[Sam Stein]

I agree with you.

[Will Salatan]

Yeah.

[Sam Stein]

All right, ma'. Am.

[Will Salatan]

All right. Thanks, Sam.