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Schumer vows to force vote on Epstein files as Trump changes tune

Dave Goldiner, New York Daily News on

Published in News & Features

Sen. Chuck Schumer Monday vowed to force to Senate to vote quickly on a measure ordering release of the Jeffrey Epstein files as the House prepared to overwhelmingly pass it Tuesday after President Donald Trump abruptly changed his tune on the proposal.

The Senate Democratic leader said he would use his legislative power to prevent Republican Majority Leader John Thune from potentially bottling up the Epstein bill in a committee indefinitely as a ploy to spare GOP senators from voting on the record.

“We are not going to allow them to bury the (Epstein) bill,” Schumer told the Daily News.

Schumer said the collapse of Trump’s long and strident effort to block the House of Representatives from passing the bill suggests the president may seek to use some other tactic to prevent the release of the files.

“What is he hiding? What is he scared of?” Schumer asked. “The American people, Democrats and Republicans, are asking the same question.”

Trump told reporters Monday that he favors both the House and Senate passing the bill, although he repeated complaints that the Epstein scandal was being used to distract attention from his supposed successes of his second term.

“I’m all for it,” Trump said. “You know, we’ve already given 50,000 pages….(Unfortunately), no matter we give it’s never enough.”

With Trump now backing the bill, it was unclear if any Republicans at all would vote on Tuesday against a measure that GOP leaders tenaciously fought against and stalled for months until it became clear they could not block it.

Trump’s GOP allies were expected to follow his lead by reversing their previous staunch opposition to the bill, which he had derided as part of a “Democratic hoax” until flip-flopping on Sunday night.

If the bill passes on Tuesday, as now seems very likely, it would then head to the Senate, where it had been thought to face an very uncertain future before Trump’s reversal.

 

House Speaker Mike Johnson said he hoped the Senate would “fix” the bill after its expected passage in the House, without elaborating. Johnson had previously parroted Trump’s claims that the Epstein push was a partisan ploy to embarrass the president.

Democratic congressional sources said Thune may be scrambling to come up with a new strategy because he has not told colleagues how he now plans to handle the bill.

Democrats demanded immediate action in both chambers, calling the president’s switcheroo a reflection of the widespread bipartisan support for transparency around the Epstein case.

Trump’s bowing to pressure over the Epstein scandal amounts to a rare example of him backing down in the face of opposition within the GOP.

It could signal bigger political shifts on the horizon as he battles low approval ratings, a sagging economy and a potentially ugly political environment for the GOP heading toward next year’s crucial midterm congressional elections.

WIth Republicans suffering sweeping losses in this month’s off-year elections and some polls suggesting a Democratic blue wave building, Trump may find it more difficult to force the normally fractious Republicans to bend to his will on a laundry list of political priorities.

GOP lawmakers in swingy districts might feel compelled to distance themselves from Trump on issues like health care costs and tariffs in hopes of saving their own political skins. Democrats might be more emboldened to take firm stands against Trump after spending most of the first year of his second term playing defense.

If Republicans were to lose control of the House in the 2026, it would effectively make Trump a lame duck leader for the remaining two years of his term.

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©2025 New York Daily News. Visit nydailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 

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