Mike Johnson may have thought he was doing Donald Trump a favor. Instead, he lit a match near a powder keg.
In a move that stunned even veteran political operatives, the House Speaker leaned into one of the darkest sagas in American political memory—Jeffrey Epstein—and tried to drag Trump out of the blast zone. The attempt backfired.
Johnson, speaking in what was meant to be a defensive posture, claimed that Trump had served as some sort of FBI “informant” against Epstein, the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender whose web of connections spans global elites. That line—far from helping—immediately blew up in his face.
“Speaker should have stayed out of session a little longer,” said one conservative strategist, who bluntly summed up what many inside the GOP are now whispering behind closed doors. “He just opened up a huge can of worms.”
The reaction wasn’t just coming from Democrats or media pundits. Republican strategist Susan del Percio, who once worked inside Rudy Giuliani’s orbit, didn’t hold back.
“That is big news,” del Percio said, dripping with sarcasm. She wasn’t buying the “Trump as informant” angle and made clear that Johnson’s remarks had only intensified scrutiny rather than deflected it.
More importantly, del Percio pointed to a crucial shift happening under the radar: Epstein’s survivors are now finding their voice together. Their unity is shifting the public narrative—and fast.
“These survivors, they’re not just names on documents anymore,” del Percio said. “They’re all connected in the same room now. That changes things.”
Trump, who has long tried to keep the Epstein scandal at arm’s length—despite photo evidence and years of rumors about his association with the predator—is now being forced into the center of the conversation.
“This is getting much much worse for Trump,” del Percio added. “And it’s not going away any time soon.”
What Johnson thought might be a clever reframing of the narrative is now being seen as a critical misstep. If anything, it forced Republicans to engage with a scandal they’ve long tried to pretend was behind them—or didn’t touch their golden ticket to 2024.
Watch the video below from MSNBC.
