It's too early to call President Trump a lame duck. But Congress is ready to clip his wings over the Epstein files. Why it matters: Tuesday's expected House vote to release the files — over Trump's initial objections — will mark the first time this term that a GOP-led congressional chamber will so openly defy him.
- The vote's inevitability led him to change tack, bless the vote — and look the weakest he's been since his inauguration.
Reality check: Trump isn't a weak president. He wields unprecedented influence in his party, which controls Congress. The GOP base loves him.
- But Tuesday's vote will show that some laws of political physics still apply to the gravity-defying Trump, who's grappling with the karma of setting the mess in motion.
- "House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide, and it's time to move on from this Democrat Hoax," Trump posted Sunday on Truth Social, in a rare admission of defeat.
- Trump said Tuesday that "sure" he'll sign the bill if it passes the Senate and reaches his desk: "'I'm all for it."
Driving the news: Trump's Sunday statement came only after four Republicans balked at White House pressure and agreed to vote with Democrats to release the Justice Department's investigative files into the convicted sex offender.
- Several House Republicans made it clear they'd have to vote for the release if the measure made it to the floor.
- "We all ran on this last year, the president did too, and people told him there was no way a lot of us could just break that promise," one of them told Axios.
- "We were told it wouldn't make the floor — and then all of a sudden he makes this statement and gives us a hall pass," the member said. "So a lot of us are taking it."
The backstory: The Epstein files vote, which was preceded by hairline fractures of dissent within the GOP, comes two weeks to the day after Republicans suffered bigger-than-expected election losses in Virginia and New Jersey.
- The results echoed other elections this year, and reflected polls showing Trump's popularity declining as economic anxiety rises.
- And the GOP is riven by an internal feud over antisemitism and Israel policy.
Inside the room: White House staff, veterans of Trump's winning campaign last year, say they're built for the challenges ahead and, like the president, will just power through. But there's a growing recognition in Trump's inner circle that something needs to change.
- "What we lack is an enemy that unites us and divides them," one Trump adviser said.
- Said another: "The Trump team has been through worse. We survived. We know we're in this era where everything is accelerated. Just a year ago, we won the presidency, and Congress and Democrats looked finished. Now look where we are. It'll change."
A senior administration official said Trump threw in the towel because he realized the Epstein files vote was "a major distraction" that kept Republicans from talking about his tax cuts, immigration policy and peace deals.
- "Republicans are just rolling over all of Donald Trump's accomplishments and taking them for granted and talking about Jeffrey Epstein, who's been dead for years, and it's killing the party, and the president is smart enough to see it," the official said. "And he's calling them out on their bullsh*t."
The other side: Democrats on the House Oversight Committee helped push the Epstein files vote. Last week, they selectively released portions of emails from Epstein's estate to put Trump on defense. It worked.
- "If Donald Trump is serious about his support for transparency, he can release the files TODAY without additional action from Congress," the committee's Democratic ranking member, Rep. Robert Garcia of California, said in talking points prepared for his party.
Democrats also suspect Attorney General Pam Bondi might try to claim the files can't be released because, at Trump's behest, she just announced a new investigation of Democrats in the case.
- That inquiry could be used as a pretext to keep the files hidden.
- Republicans say they believe that Trump — who was among Epstein's many rich and powerful friends for years until they had a falling out — did nothing illegal and that he has nothing to fear from the files' release.
- Epstein was found dead of an apparent jailhouse suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking minors and conspiracy.
What's next: Trump has criticized Republicans for not talking enough about the economy. On Monday, he gave a speech about the economy and affordability to a D.C. summit of McDonald's restaurant owners, operators and suppliers.
- "It's true for any president that every day he is a little less powerful than before in his last term. But I would not over-interpret that with Trump," a top Republican said.
- "It's more amazing this [Epstein vote] didn't happen sooner. Only four Republicans defied him at first. If anything, it's like: Wow, this guy has a lot of power still. But he's not all-powerful."
