An ex-Donald Trumpfanatic is speaking out against the president, tellingPolitico’s “Playbook”podcast that her faith in him eroded when he got snappy with a reporter who asked a “legitimate question” about theJeffrey Epsteinsaga.
Trisha Hope — who joined theFront Row Joes, a group of Trump devotees who follow him around to events, in 2018 — pointed toa fiery moment from a July 2025 Cabinet meetingwhen Trump interrupted ex-Attorney General Pam Bondi moments after she was asked about the Justice Department’s files on the late sex offender.
“Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?” Trump said at the time. “This guy’s been talked about for years.”
The president’s words were “like a dagger in my heart,” Hope told Politico’s Dasha Burns.
“It was like a light switch went on and a veil lifted, and I saw him for who he was, and I have not been able to unsee it since,” said Hope, whopublished a book of Trump’s posts on X (then Twitter)from his first year in office.
Hope spent weeks meeting with lawmakers in the U.S. Capitol defending Trump during his first impeachment but has since flipped on the president.
She pointed to the “600 different times” Trump has told Americans that his unpopular war of choice in Iran was “over” as another source of frustration.
“He tells us they don’t have a military, they don’t have a navy. They’re still blowing up things. It’s just all lies. You can’t believe anything that he says. And that’s scary...,” said Hope of a conflict that a majority of Americans (70%) say has “hurt” the country,according to a recent poll.
“My point of that was if we do lose the midterms and if he is impeached again, I will be walking the halls of Congress in support of that impeachment,” she added.
Hope told Burns that she put “so much into” the MAGA movement and believed Trump would be the “last hope” for America.
“I believe what he said,” she added. “I believed he cared about America, and he didn’t. He cared about himself.”
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