Charlie Kirk says ‘I’m done talking about Epstein’ after Trump called him over weekend – UK Times

The marching orders have been received, and some of Donald Trump’s most loyal foot soldiers in the MAGA media ecosystem are already dutifully falling in line.

After the right-wing uproar over the Justice Department’s Jeffrey Epstein memo hit a crescendo this weekend after the president’s Truth Social post calling for the MAGA base to let it go and leave Attorney General Pam Bondi alone, key Trump ally Charlie Kirk declared on Monday that he was “done talking about Epstein” for the time being.

Kirk’s announcement comes a day after he spoke to the president on the phone to express his support for Bondi, according to CNN. Bondi has come under extreme fire from MAGA critics, including Kirk, who have blasted the attorney general for releasing an unsigned memo last week concluding that Epstein had no “client list,” died by suicide while awaiting trial, and did not blackmail prominent figures who allegedly took part in his underage sex trafficking.

“Members of the president’s inner circle have also reached out to some of Bondi’s critics to essentially ask them to ramp it down, noting that Trump, at this moment, was not getting rid of his attorney general,” CNN added. “Sources cautioned that while Trump was currently still supporting Bondi, things could always change.”

Trump privately doubling down in his support for Bondi comes after he took to his social media site on Saturday afternoon to complain about his “boys” and “gals” continuing to obsess over the Epstein case, adding that files related to the disgraced financier were “written by Obama” and “Crooked Hillary” and were therefore not worth “caring about.” He added that his supporters should cease calling for Bondi to be fired over the memo.

“They’re all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is doing a FANTASTIC JOB!” Trump blared on Truth Social. “We’re on one Team, MAGA, and I don’t like what’s happening. We have a PERFECT Administration, THE TALK OF THE WORLD, and ‘selfish people’ are trying to hurt it, all over a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein.”

Over the weekend, Kirk – the founder of MAGA youth organization Turning Point USA – hosted the group’s Student Action Summit in Florida, which saw many of the attendees raging about the way the Trump administration has handled the Epstein case. While much of the anger was directed at Bondi, who once claimed she had the deceased sex offender’s long-fabled “client list” on her desk for review only to now claim it doesn’t exist, the president himself also faced pointed accusations of hiding Epstein’s supposed co-conspirators.

“In 2016, we trusted the plan with Trump, but now Trump has become the deep state. What is more deep state than covering up for pedophiles?!” one SAS attendee exclaimed before referencing Trump’s lengthy past friendship with Epstein.

Kirk, along with other MAGA luminaries, devoted much of their time at the conservative confab to criticizing the White House’s handling of the situation while warning the president that he risked alienating many of his most devout supporters by dismissing their concerns of an administration “cover-up” on Epstein.

“Do I think this is the end of MAGA? No. I’ve never said that,” Kirk told the Washington Post over the weekend. “Do I think the extra 10 to 15 percent of [less inclined to vote] bros that are trading crypto and wake up at 2 p.m. every day … do I think they’re going to be, like, ‘Screw it?’ Yeah. That’s a huge risk.”

However, by the time Monday’s episode of his podcast came around, Kirk made it known that he was going to heed the president’s orders to shut up about the fiasco.

“Plenty was said this last weekend at our event about Epstein,” he stated. “Honestly, I’m done talking about Epstein for the time being. I’m gonna trust my friends in the administration, I’m gonna trust my friends in the government to do what needs to be done [and] solve it. Ball’s in their hands.”

Reiterating that he had spoken at length about the matter at the TPUSA event, the Trump loyalist asserted that he was going to concentrate his attention on other issues, such as the president’s latest announcement regarding the war in Ukraine.

Amid the infighting behind the scenes, which has seen the FBI’s deputy director Dan Bongino – a former MAGA podcaster who, along with FBI Director Kash Patel, trafficked in Epstein conspiracies before joining the administration – threaten to quit after falling out with Bondi over the Epstein memo, Kirk also expressed his support for the DOJ and FBI leaders.

“Everyone knows my opinion about the Epstein thing, the messaging fumble. I would love to see the DOJ move to unseal the grand jury testimony. I think that would be a big win. I would love to see that,” he proclaimed.

“And I’m gonna trust my friends Kash Patel, Dan Bongino, my friend Pam Bondi. All these guys. I’m gonna — Todd Blanche — I’m gonna trust them to solve it. Ball’s in their court,” Kirk concluded. “I think that there was plenty of, let’s say, speeches that were directed towards this topic this last weekend. So we don’t need to spend our valuable time on this program relitigating it.”

Blanche, the deputy attorney general, took to social media on Friday to defend the department’s handling of the memo, adding that he worked closely with Bongino and Patel on it and they all signed off on the final draft. “The suggestion by anyone that there was any daylight between the FBI and DOJ leadership on this memo’s composition and release is patently false,” Blanche tweeted.

Even though Trump has publicly said Bongino is in “good shape,” CNN has reported that the ex-Fox News host “largely excommunicated himself” from the administration and that the president is “infuriated” over his threat to quit, making Bongino’s relationship with the White House “basically untenable.”

Meanwhile, Kirk is hardly the only one in the pro-Trump media universe who has heeded the president’s call to ignore the Epstein files despite the intense blowback from his conservative base.

Fox & Friends, Trump’s favorite morning show, didn’t once bring up the issue during its three-hour broadcast on Monday while MSNBC’s Morning Joe mentioned Epstein over 100 times and Bondi an additional 80 times. In fact, through the early afternoon hours on Monday, Fox News had yet to mention Epstein.