President Donald Trump was promptly ridiculed Tuesday after the Republican Party celebrated the White House’s war on paper straws in a social media post — a move critics quickly dismissed as a ‘distraction’ from mounting scrutiny over Trump and Republicans’ stonewalling on Jeffrey Epstein.
“President Trump is making straws great again!” reads the post from the official GOP X account, celebrating the White House introducing a rule to cancel former President Joe Biden’s plan to phase out the use of plastic straws in the federal government.
Instead of praise from Republican voters, however, the post was shredded by those calling it a distraction from releasing files on Epstein, who died in 2019 while awaiting trial on human trafficking, and is alleged to have maintained a “client list” targeting powerful figures for blackmail purposes.
“Instead of talking about the Epstein files we are talking about straws?” wrote user “American Sovereign,” who claims to share “America first independent news” to their 1,100 followers. “The golden age!!!”
User Fredrick Zoller, who has more than 3,300 followers on X and is an apparent fan of former Trump ally and white nationalist Nick Fuentes, called the post a "distraction," and ridiculed Trump’s other recent priorities as such.
“First cane sugar coke, then the Redskins, now paper straws,” Frederick Zoller wrote. “What’s the next Epstein Files distraction?”
Another user who describes themself as a disabled veteran sarcastically mocked the post, writing “paper straws… yes, these are the things that keep me up at night!”
Trump has faced increased scrutiny over Epstein since early June when a Justice Department memo shut down further investigation into the case, despite Trump and his allies pledging to unveil more details about the convicted sex offender. Trump has only drawn further scrutiny for his dismissal of critics of the memo, but has since sought to appease his base by calling for grand jury transcripts from Epstein’s case to be released.
Wow... now that's winning. 🙄
— Milenka~ (@MilenaAmit) July 22, 2025
And the slop keeps coming…
— squirrel gyatt (@SquirrelJet) July 22, 2025
Oh yeah y'all are doing as much as you can to distract from the Epstein thing huh
— Taylor York (@KaiserZelcor) July 22, 2025
Oh, well, if they're not going to release the Epstein files, at least they're concentrating on the most important issues that we all care about.
— The Dens 🇺🇲🇺🇦 (@FoxBrambleFarm) July 22, 2025