03/20/2026
A majority of people in the US believe that Donald Trump started the illegal war on Iran at least in part to provide a distraction from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, new polling has found.
In the survey of 1,272 likely voters by Drop Site News and Zeteo — conducted by Data for Progress — 52% agreed Trump was partly motivated by a desire to distract from the Epstein files, while 40% said this was not a factor.
Among Democrats, 81% agreed Trump was trying to divert attention from the scandal, while only 14% thought this was not the case.
Republicans mostly disagreed that the war was intended as a distraction, with 64% agreeing that Trump “was not motivated at all” by the Epstein scandal. But 26% of Republicans believe the war was at least partly intended as a distraction.
The Epstein files contain explosive allegations against sitting Republican president.
“In those files there’s highly disturbing allegations of Donald Trump ra**ing children, of Donald Trump threatening to k*ll children,” Democratic congressman Ted Lieu told reporters in February.
In one unverified claim, a woman told federal investigators that when she was 13, Trump told her something to the effect of, “Let me teach you how little girls are supposed to be,” before attempting to sexually a**ault her. The woman claimed she bit him, and that Trump then hit her and had her taken out of the room.
Some opponents of the US and Israel’s war on Iran have nicknamed it Operation Epstein Fury, a reference to the US codename for the war, Operation Epic Fury.
