Welcome back to Barf Bag.
It’s been a tough week in MAGAworld as President Donald Trump keeps trying and failing to get his supporters to move on from the Epstein Files. The continued conversation about his past friendship with financier and sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein has people discussing a lot of other things Trump has said in the past, like comments about his own daughter, Ivanka Trump.
We’ll get to that in a second, but a brief recap: In February, Attorney General Pam Bondi promised to release a bunch of new information about the Epstein case and even claimed that she had his client list on her desk for review. Then, in early July, the Department of Justice said there is no “incriminating ‘client list'” and that Epstein did die by suicide in 2019, which caused MAGA to lose its collective mind. Shortly after that, Deputy FBI director Dan Bongino threatened to resign and Megyn Kelly suggested Bondi could lose her job, or that Trump blessed a cover-up. On Tuesday, Bondi held a press conference about drug arrests and got mad when reporters kept bringing up Epstein.
On Wednesday, Trump referred to people who wanted transparency as “weaklings.” He added, “my PAST supporters have bought into this ‘bullshit,’ hook, line, and sinker.”
Cut to Thursday evening, when the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump wrote Epstein a “bawdy” letter for his 50th birthday in 2003, when they were still friends. His letter was one of many collected in a leather-bound commemorative book compiled by Ghislaine Maxwell, who is in federal prison for sex trafficking. Trump had reportedly been pressuring executives not to run the story and even told the WSJ in an interview that he would sue them.
What did this letter bearing Trump’s signature say? Well, we first need to say what it reportedly looks like. Per the WSJ: “It contains several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand-drawn with a heavy marker. A pair of small arcs denotes the woman’s breasts, and the future president’s signature is a squiggly ‘Donald’ below her waist, mimicking pubic hair.”
Now here’s the text:
“Voice Over: There must be more to life than having everything.”
Donald: Yes, there is, but I won’t tell you what it is.
Jeffrey: Nor will I, since I also know what it is.
Donald: We have certain things in common, Jeffrey.
Jeffrey: Yes, we do, come to think of it.
Donald: Enigmas never age, have you noticed that?
Jeffrey: As a matter of fact, it was clear to me the last time I saw you.
Trump: A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.
Huh!
For absolutely no reason at all, here’s a list of disturbing statements Trump has made, or reportedly made, about his own daughter:
- 1997: “Don’t you think my daughter’s hot? She’s hot, right?”
- 2003: “My daughter, Ivanka. She’s 6 feet tall, she’s got the best body. She made a lot money as a model—a tremendous amount.”
- 2006: “I’ve said if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.”
- 2013: Wendy Williams asked Ivanka, “What’s the favorite thing you have in common with your father?” Ivanka answered, “Either real estate or golf,” while Trump added, “Well, I was going to say sex, but I can’t relate that to her.”
- 2015: “She’s really something, and what a beauty, that one. If I weren’t happily married and, ya know, her father . . .” [non paywall]
- 2016: “Dr. Oz said when Ivanka Trump came on stage, ‘It’s nice to see a dad kiss his daughter.’ Trump responded that he kisses her every chance he gets.”
- 2017-2019: “Aides said he talked about Ivanka’s breasts, her backside, and what it might be like to have sex with her, remarks that once led [former White House chief of staff] John Kelly to remind the president that Ivanka was his daughter.”
One of these?
— Real Wings Have Bones (@realwingshavebones.bsky.social) 2025-07-18T03:58:53.045Z
Plus, here’s a bunch of other interesting reading about Trump and young women and girls who aren’t related to him.
Oh, and on Friday, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said his office learned that Bondi pressured the FBI to put 1,000 employees on 24-hour shifts to review the Epstein documents in March, and those agents were told to “flag” any mentions of Trump. So we’ll see you back in this nauseating news cycle next week.
Trump-related barf:
- Office of Management and Budget director Russ Vought said the Trump administration could make even more massive cuts to federal spending by using a legally murky tactic called a “pocket rescission.” [HuffPost]
- People being held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers in at least multiple states are complaining of food shortages, spoiled food, and hunger. [NBC News]
- ICE declared that millions of immigrants facing deportation are no longer eligible for bond, meaning they would have to fight their cases from inside detention centers. Previously, many had the opportunity to persuade an immigration judge that they were not flight risks. [Washington Post/CBS News]
- The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services signed an agreement giving ICE access to the addresses and ethnicities of 79 million people enrolled in Medicaid so ICE can locate undocumented immigrants. [Associated Press]
- Customs and Border Protection agents can have gang tattoos as long as they’re covered, but immigrants with alleged gang tattoos can get shipped to foreign gulags. [The Intercept]
- The National Republican Congressional Committee is fundraising with “Alligator Alcatraz” merch. [HuffPost]
- Health Secretary RFK Jr. wants Canada to pardon 400 ostriches exposed to bird flu in order to study them. What could go wrong? [Politico]
- Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) talked about not wanting to be on Trump’s naughty list as if he were Santa Claus. [Bluesky]
- As an example of MAHA‘s, the White House touted an April Fool’s Day tweet from an In-N-Out Burger fan account claiming the chain had switched to “100% beef tallow.” [NOTUS]
Non-Trump barf:
- The office of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) won’t turn over emails with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, saying some contain “intimate and embarrassing” information that is “not of legitimate concern to the public.” [ProPublica]
- News of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton‘s wife leaving him for cheating on her led to a great fundraising day for his Senate campaign. [NOTUS]
- Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) posted that she fought for a Duluth prison to stay open because “these good paying jobs that are vital to the local economy.” [Bluesky]
- The Washington, D.C., landlord of Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) is trying to evict the Congressman over $85,000 in allegedly unpaid rent. [Washington Post]
- Former Democratic National Committee chair Jaime Harrison said things could have gone differently in the 2024 election if Democrats had the loyalty “Republicans have for Donald Trump.” He just launched a podcast and his first guest was *spins wheel* Hunter Biden. [Semafor]
- Former Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is using money left over in her campaign coffers to pay for event tickets and ski passes for a private security detail to follow her around. [NOTUS]
This has been your weekly Barf Bag, thanks for reading!