Punchbowl News: “Epstein has been dead for six years. But the disgraced financier has become more politically significant in death than he ever was while alive. And he’s playing an unusually large role in the day-to-day operations of Congress. The furor over the Epstein scandal shut down the House again this week…”

“As for the House’s Epstein debacle, there’s enough blame to go around — between the White House and GOP leadership. Johnson allowed Rules to pass a non-binding resolution last week, which seemed insufficient at the time and has proven so since. Johnson and House GOP leaders should’ve known this wasn’t going to be enough to calm the Epstein angst.”

“Trump is giving Hill Republicans absolutely no cover here. The White House’s posture seems to be that the House Republicans should suck it up and back Trump over Epstein.”

“By giving the White House the month until September to release documents, Johnson has all but guaranteed that the story continues.”

“Newly uncovered archived video footage and photos reveal fresh details about Donald Trump’s past relationship with Jeffrey Epstein,” CNN reports.

“Photos from 1993 confirm for the first time that Epstein attended Trump’s 1993 wedding to Marla Maples. Epstein’s attendance at the ceremony at the Plaza Hotel was not widely known until now.”

“In addition, footage from a 1999 Victoria’s Secret fashion event in New York shows Trump and Epstein laughing and chatting together ahead of the runway event.”

Tom Nichols: “Presidents are, like the rest of us, flawed human beings. Many of them had volcanic tempers: Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, and Joe Biden, among others, reportedly could sling Anglo-Saxonisms with gusto. In public, most of them managed to convey an image of geniality. (Nixon might be the exception there, but he embraced being an uptight square and his admirers found it endearing.) But all of them, regardless of their personality, had at least some notion about government, some sense of what they wanted to accomplish in the most powerful office in the world.”

“Donald Trump exhibits no such guiding belief. From his first day as a candidate, Trump has appeared animated by anger, fear, and, most of all, pettiness, a small-minded vengefulness that takes the place of actual policy making. It taints the air in the executive branch like a forgotten bag of trash in a warm house on a summer day—even when you can’t see it, you know it’s there.”

“The White House’s attempts to mollify President Donald Trump’s supporters’ growing outrage over the investigation into disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein appears to be falling on deaf ears,” Politico reports.

“Since Trump last week announced that he directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to begin the process of trying to unseal grand jury testimony in Epstein’s criminal case, Republicans and MAGA stalwarts have publicly pushed the administration to release more documents related to Epstein.”

Washington Post: “A Republican proposal would rename the second-largest theater in the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts after first lady Melania Trump, if legislation considered Tuesday by the House Appropriations Committee were to become law.”