House Democrats are ramping up their town-hall blitz in GOP-held districts over the long summer recess. The strategy is not new, but this time they’re armed with a powerful new talking point: President Trump’s refusal to release the federal files related to Jeffrey Epstein.
The Epstein case has rattled Republicans in the White House and the Capitol, forcing Trump to defend uncomfortable connections to the late financier and convicted sex offender, while prompting Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to scrap last week’s legislative plans and mount a hasty exit from Washington to preclude Epstein-related votes.
Trump’s defiance on the files has put him at odds with the same core loyalists who helped propel him to power — a clash over a foundational MAGA doctrine that Trump himself had helped to promote. And Democrats are only happy to watch the unraveling, however long it endures, and goad it along when the chance arrives.
“Let them destroy each other. If we have to throw a log on the fire, we’ll do it,” said one House Democratic aide.
It’s not that Democrats will abandon their central message under Trump’s second term, which accuses the president and congressional Republicans of breaking promises to lower costs for working class consumers. But they want the Epstein case to complement that theme, arguing that Republicans — whether through tax cuts for the wealthy or refusing to release the Epstein files — are protecting the interests of powerful “elites” at the expense of everyone else.
“Everything that House Republicans have done, everything this administration has done since Donald Trump took office, is in defense of the elites,” said Rep. Katherine Clark (Mass.), the Democratic whip.
Republicans have shot back, wondering why the Epstein files were a non-issue when President Biden was in power.
“Democrats had four years under Joe Biden to release these documents but only started caring once President Trump returned to office,” Mike Marinella, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said Friday in an email. “We won’t be lectured about transparency by the same party that spent years hiding Biden’s decline.”
Still, GOP leaders continue to advise Republicans against holding in-person district events — “Democrats are still pretty determined to hijack our town halls and try to prevent us from having this conversation with our constituents, so I would encourage them to use other means,” said NRCC Chairman Richard Hudson (R-N.C.) — and Democrats are only eager to fill the void.
Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) is headed to Prairie du Chien, Wis., the hometown of GOP Rep. Derrick Van Orden, for a town hall in rival territory on July 31.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who has staged a national tour with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) throughout the year, is eyeing additional travel to Republican strongholds over the long break.
Former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.) joined her husband, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) for a public forum on Friday in Michigan’s battleground 10th District, where GOP Rep. John James is giving up his seat to run for governor.
And Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) has planned a series of events on GOP turf over the recess, including a July 26 town hall in Dayton, Ohio, with Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), and another with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in Nebraska at the end of August.
“People … want someone to listen,” said Rep. Suzan DelBene (Wash.), the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “And if their member of Congress isn’t going to listen, they want to make sure their voices are heard.”
Democrats have already spent the first half of the year barnstorming into Republican-held districts to meet directly with voters — a strategy launched after GOP leaders first discouraged their troops from staging such public events amid protests against Trump’s efforts to remake Washington.
Until now, the focus of the Democrats’ message has been on Trump’s domestic policies, particularly the steep cuts to federal programs like Medicaid and food stamps featured in the GOP’s “big, beautiful bill,” which was enacted earlier in the month.
The dramatic reemergence of the Epstein case has given them more ammunition to take into those public forums, not least because Republican voters — and the MAGA faithful specifically — have clamored most loudly to see the files the Trump administration is now refusing to release.
Heading into the long recess, the Democrats’ official messaging arm sent guidance to all lawmakers encouraging them to trumpet the Epstein narrative during the long break.
“Use Paid Communications To Elevate This Issue!” the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee wrote in an email blast. “This urgent issue demands that we reach as many Americans as possible.”
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) doesn’t need any encouragement. He, along with GOP Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), are the leading sponsors of a bipartisan proposal requiring the Department of Justice and the FBI to release all the unclassified records they have pertaining to Epstein.
Johnson and GOP leaders have sought to keep the bill off the floor, where it’s likely to attract some Republican support. But the bipartisan pair is hoping to force a vote through obscure procedures when the House returns to Washington in September. Meanwhile, Khanna will use the long recess to stage town halls in GOP districts in at least two states, Nevada and Georgia, where he intends to make the Epstein saga a major theme.
“We will keep up the drumbeat and then force the vote on Ro’s bill in September,” Marie Baldassarre, a Khanna spokesperson, said Friday.
Mychael Schnell contributed reporting.
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