A Brief History of Shane Gillis Downplaying the Epstein Scandal

Shane Gillis, the comedian and friend of confessed sex predator Louis CK, earned headlines this week for his Roast of Kevin Hart joke calling out Chelsea Handler’s 2010 dinner at Jeffrey Epstein’s house. Appearing onstage with a who’s-who of famous standup comedians, like the alleged pedophile Jeff Ross, Gillis said: 

Chelsea is a Zionist. Not saying that’s a good or bad thing. Speaking of dead kids, she’s a big fan of abortions. Chelsea’s been scraped more times than the grill at Benihana. Speaking of tossing tiny shrimp into a child’s mouth, Chelsea Handler went to dinner at Jeffrey Epstein’s house in 2010. Look it up, there are articles.

This was not the first high-profile Epstein joke by Gillis, a longtime Trump supporter who has posed for multiple photographs with the president, visited Mar-a-Lago at the invitation of fans who worked there, and received a private White House tour courtesy of a former employee who worked there, where multiple Secret Service agents asked for pictures with him. He also brought up the scandal during his monologue at the 2025 ESPY Awards, joking: 

Donald Trump wants to stage a UFC fight on the White House lawn. The last time he staged a fight in DC, Mike Pence almost died. Actually, there was supposed to be an Epstein joke here, but it got deleted. Must have probably deleted itself, right? Probably never existed, actually. Let’s move on as a country and ignore that.

There’s one interesting piece of context for these jokes: not only is Gillis a huge fan of one of Epstein’s closest friends and associates, but over the last year he has repeatedly downplayed Trump’s ties to Epstein, at times explicitly hoping Trump powers through the scandal and even suggesting that Trump may be the victim of a frame job by the Democrats. 

As I’ve argued before, Gillis plays a clever game in his standup comedy, parlaying his boorish everyman persona into a sort of vessel for whatever his audience wants him to be. Liberals see a liberal with red state bona fides who’s obviously making fun of the right; conservatives see a fellow conservative who clearly hates the left. To figure out where his sympathies truly lie, all you need to do is listen to his podcast, which leaves no question. He’s always been a Trumpist, and in fact he’s so thoroughly a Trumpist that he can easily excuse Trump’s affiliation with one of the most straightforward villains of our age. 

With that said, let’s recap five occasions Gillis downplayed the Epstein scandal even as the evidence against Trump mounted. 

“If he wrote that, I'm done with him.”

We begin with an episode of Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast released on August 1, 2025,  soon after the Wall Street Journal reported on the existence of Epstein’s “birthday book” featuring a friendly letter from Trump. Gillis offers two responses to the news: one, that everyone already knew Trump was on the list, and two, that if the letter is real, then he’s done with Trump. I want to start here because, as we’ll soon see, he very quickly abandoned this promise. 

McCusker: Those letters were crazy, bro.

Gillis: Yeah.

McCusker: Do you think Trump had swag like that back in the day?

Gillis: I think he did have swag.

McCusker: Hitting up his boy? I don't know, man. That's one of those ones that's so spot-on that you're like somebody—that’d be a genius to come up with that.

Gillis: Yeah.

McCusker: "You're a beautiful enigma. May every day be a beautiful mystery for you, my friend. Stay mysterious."

Gillis: If he wrote that, I'm done with him.

McCusker: It's kind of, I mean, it is hyper swag.

Gillis: It is a lot of swag.

McCusker: To just write a pedophile a letter being like, "You're a beautiful little mystery."

Gillis: "You're a little secret. You're my secret."

"You could still be on the list and hang out with the staff, dude."

McCusker: Although those dudes, yeah, I mean, yeah. That’s—never mind.

Gillis: I like that everyone's running with the Epstein thing now.

McCusker: What do you mean?

Gillis: They're just like, "Trump's on the list." It's like, "Yeah. We all knew that."

McCusker: Yeah.

Gillis: The whole time.

McCusker: We knew it. Although everyone was holding out hope that he was with the staff.

Gillis: You could still be on the list and hang out with the staff, dude.

McCusker: Yeah. I'll be honest—

Gillis: If you went and hung out with the staff, you were on the list.

"I'm not the biggest Trump supporter. But it's like, maybe he hung out with him before he was a convicted pedo."

McCusker: Yeah. I'll be honest. I turned—I heard he was on the list, and I turned kind of a blind eye, where I was just kind of like, "Nah."

Gillis: Well.

McCusker: I knew it, and I was like, "We'll see what comes out."

Gillis: Yeah.

McCusker: I was more focused on [Bill] Gates, because I was like, "At least they didn't hang out after he was—"

Gillis: You want Gates.

McCusker: I want it. Yeah.

Gillis: You want to bring him down.

McCusker: I do. I do. Well, also, apparently, it's on the record, they were hanging out after he was busted as a pedo. So I, in my head, I was going—and you know, I don't, whatever. I'm not the biggest Trump supporter. But it's like, maybe he hung out with him before he was a convicted pedo.

Gillis: Yeah.

"Do you think Trump had swag like that back in the day?"

McCusker: But is there any info on that? Did they bro down after the conviction? That's the real—

Gillis: When was the first one in Florida? Was it late '90s?

Producer: Early '10s, I think.

Gillis: Oh. Oh. Okay.

Producer: Yeah.

Gillis: It was like '07. It was under Obamna? Oh. Never mind.

McCusker: Didn't Trump spaz after the Epstein stuff didn't go his way? Didn't he, "I'll arrest Obama," as like a recovery? Such a funny thing. Like, dude, you're a pedophile. Like, "Dude, I'll arrest Obama right now." You know? Fucking like—

Gillis: "I'll arrest Barack Obama. If you guys keep calling me a pedophile, I'm going to arrest Barack Obama."

McCusker: I know. I know.

Producer: 2008.

Gillis: 2008. Okay. So that was, yeah, that was during Obamna. [Ed. note: George W. Bush was president in 2008.]

McCusker: So okay. So Epstein got busted during Obamna?

Gillis: Yeah, but all the Trump stuff is from pre- the bust. You know?

McCusker: That's what I'm saying. Did he chill with him after the bust? That's the million dollar—

Gillis: That's the big thing.

McCusker: That's the million-dollar question. Was he his beautiful mystery then? That's the question.

Even this apparent willingness to condemn Trump reflects an absurd degree of apologism: for Gillis and McCusker, “the million-dollar question” is not whether Trump associated with Epstein during the height of his crimes, but whether Trump continued associating with Epstein after his crimes were exposed. That, apparently, would be a bridge too far. 

“All you have to do is ignore it.”

A mere two weeks later, in a Patreon episode released on August 15th, Gillis was conspicuously less concerned about the letter: 

Lemaire Lee: Are you over the Epstein files yet? Are you guys still—

Gillis: Yeah, all you gotta do is not say anything about it. Trump Dog is gonna get out of this. All you have to do is ignore it. 

Lee: I finally get—

Gillis: It's crazy.

Lee: —why people get conspiracies now, it's driving me crazy.

Marshall: What? The Epstein files did?

Lee: Yeah. I didn't care, but now I care because—

Gillis: Well, no, because you're a lib, dude. Now all of a sudden that Trump's under—

Lee: I'm big lib.

Gillis: —fire for it, you're like, "We do need to investigate this." 

Lee: No, no, no. I've always been goofing about him. 

Gillis: True. We've all goofed. But, it's funny how that works. 

From here Gillis went on to defend the CECOT concentration camp in El Salvador, as we’ve discussed elsewhere.

“Trump continues to just do the best work of all time.”

Just another week later, on August 21, Gillis and McCusker briefly returned to the subject during a discussion of Trump’s tour of the White House roof. Again, they agreed that Trump could power through the scandal by ignoring it:

McCusker: …But it is tight to just get up on the roof and be like, "I'm making a big decision right now." 

Gillis: "I'm just thinking up here." He didn't even say he was thinking. He literally, a reporter yelled and he goes, "Just taking a walk." Jesus Christ. I'm back, though. That's all it takes. Give me one fucking shot of him walking on the roof. I'm like, yo, that's the bro. Forget about the list, I forgot about Epstein. 

McCusker: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Gillis: Forget about the fucking list, dude. 

McCusker: Yeah, the letter. The letter is, hopefully it's not real. 

Gillis: They didn't—Trump continues to just do the best work of all time. Never bring it up. This will pass. These fuckers will forget about it

McCusker: It will. It'll pass. It is funny just to be like, bro, man, that's such fucking old—that's old hat, man. That's crazy. That's such old news. 

A few weeks later, House Democrats released the letter.

“Some parts of the intelligence community have been trying to get him for a while.”

In a Patreon episode released on October 23, 2025, Gillis and McCusker hosted journalist Nick Bryant, who has written about the Epstein network for many years and published Epstein’s “Little Black Book” in Gawker in 2015. This was the conversation where Gillis—insisting that he wasn’t trying to defend Trump—proposed that perhaps Trump was being framed by the Democrats or the intelligence community. He also sought Bryant’s reassurance that Trump stopped associating with Epstein after the latter was convicted in 2008:

Bryant: …And I don't have Trump derangement syndrome, but we do have a president that's committed to not making sure that there's an investigation into a bunch of child molesters.

Gillis: Would you say there's a chance that Trump is trying to hide that investigation because he knows the people that would release it would use him as, they would maybe insert him more than he was into it? You know what I mean? Like they might weaponize it against him if you let the Democrats lead the investigation. Now I'm just playing—

Bryant: No, that's entirely possible. I think what Trump is hiding—Trump might be involved. I mean, with Epstein, people pretty much knew what—John McCain's widow was being interviewed about Epstein and she said that everyone knew what Epstein was about. So it's not like a secret what Epstein was about. And Trump hung out with him for a long time.

Gillis: Now the thing I've always been told is he stopped hanging out with him after the first time Epstein got caught in Florida. 

Bryant: No, it was before—so there's two stories about that…

[...]

Bryant: I mean, this whole thing could be taken care of really quickly if the Department of Justice had the will. If Pamela Bondi and Kash Patel weren't lying their asses off, this could be taken care of. 

McCusker: Yeah, that was the one thing that kind of sunk them, when they were asked directly like, "Were you told to warn Trump if anything came up indicting him or alleging that he was involved?" And they were like, "Why are you even asking me this?"  Which is like, dude, it's a yes or no, man. Just say yes. 

"I am not defending Trump again, but it's like there's an idea where he could be, the intelligence communities have been trying to get him."

Gillis: But that's also the thing where it's like, I am not defending Trump again, but it's like there's an idea where he could be, the intelligence communities have been trying to get him. Some parts of the intelligence community have been trying to get him for a while. It's like, who knows, under the last—if they slid some fucking names in there of like, "Well, Trump did this also. You just add it to the fucking file." And then when he's like, "I'm gonna release it," and he opens it and it's like, "Oh, shit, they said I did a bunch of shit."

McCusker: "They got me." The letter, what do you think about the letter? No, true. That letter—

Gillis: He was obviously, he was boys with him.

McCusker: Yeah, exactly. But say the letter's not real, that would've scared me. If I was a president and they came up with a thing like, "Yo, this guy wrote this." I'd be like, "Fuck this."

Bryant: You guys think the letter is real?

McCusker: I don't know. I honestly don't know.

Bryant: I have a hard time believing that Rupert Murdoch would've published it without vetting it. And if you look at the birthday book and the other entries, it's consistent with what's in the birthday book.

Gillis: So you believe the letter's real?

Bryant: Yeah, I do.

McCusker: Can he draw like that? That was kind of fucking impressive, honestly, taken out of the context.

Gillis: I mean, he probably had a kid do it.

Ha ha! Funny. A kid.

“Yeah, that motherfucker probably did it.”

Finally we come to a Patreon episode released on November 20. In this conversation, McCusker expresses sympathy for Trump’s struggle to prove he’s not a pedophile; Gillis suggests that Epstein’s emails aren’t quite so incriminating for Trump; Gillis concedes that Trump “probably did it,” then says it’s just so hard to believe anything; and McCusker says look, it was the ‘90s, there were babes on an island, it’s not like they were 10-year-olds:

McCusker: Everything right now is all centered around finding out who the hell are pedophiles. We're in a McCarthy-era panic of pedophiles.

Gillis: It's time to figure that out. Shut up, Piggy.

McCusker: What?

Gillis: I said shut up, Piggy. Don't even bring that up. Shut up, Piggy.

McCusker: The whole country rests—

Gillis: Getting hit with the craziest allegation possible and just going, “Shut up, Piggy.” “Did you fuck kids and suck President Clinton's dick?” “Shut the fuck up.” No comeback. “Shut up.”

McCusker: You can't go "No." Or you could just go, "Yeah, as if."

Gillis: Yeah, dude. You guys are fucking upset. You wish, dude. What are you, a fucking freak?

McCusker: Pedophiles. I don't even like kids like that. He's gotta really start the game plan. How do you handle it? Because they're really—

Gillis: Just die in the next three years?

"That would stink if you get all the way to the tippy-top and everyone goes, 'Pedophile.'"

McCusker: Dude, if you Google—

Gillis: That's exactly—you hit the Joe Pa[terno].

McCusker: Yeah, but then—

Gillis: When the allegations get too hard, you go [choking noises].

McCusker: Yeah.

Gillis: “And I'm out. This world sucks dick.”

McCusker: The problem is, dude, if you're a super—he's a super rich guy and at that point it's like he's going for legacy. He's like, I'm in the historical books. It's Roosevelt. That's the ultimate apex of just alphadom. And it's like, "I'm about to die. I gotta make sure everyone's not calling me a pedophile." So that would stink if you get all the way to the tippy-top and everyone goes, "Pedophile." That's a fucking nightmare.

Gillis: It is a nightmare.

McCusker: I would be tossing and turning every night, just going, "Dude, I'm gonna die in a year. Everyone's gonna think I'm a big fucking pedophile. I worked so hard."

Gillis: I saw a thing and I didn't see it from anything real, but wasn't he like, "Yeah, go ahead, fucking release 'em." The files.

"These are looking like Trump tried to slow-roll the vote? But that's, you know, fake news media."

McCusker: That's what I thought. But then it was kind of like don't—

Gillis: No, I thought recently Trump Dog was like, "Go ahead."

Lee: Well, he has to sign the thing.

Gillis: And then I think a couple Dems blocked it. Now that's something I saw.

McCusker: I think Dems are calling for it now.

Gillis: That's not a real thing.

Lee: Nobody blocked it. He has to sign it so that they can release it.

McCusker: Yeah, I think they'll put it out. They have to have—someone has to have the inside info. You know what I'm saying? Also, you know what's funny? Prince Andrew was just stripped of all of his princely status or whatever. Aand I think they read, they must have got the full doss and were like, "Brother." I think Queen Elizabeth read the emails and was like, "Oh my." They kicked him out. They de-princed them, dude. He's the artist formerly known as. He's just a symbol now.

Gillis: The rapist formerly known as. 

McCusker: Yeah, so it's all coming out. There was.

Gillis: These are looking like Trump tried to slow-roll the vote? But that's, you know, fake news media.

"That's the ultimate Trump going, 'For real. Stop. Please stop.'"

McCusker: Well, the problem is he could have had emails. He was broing down.

Lee: Who?

McCusker: Then some of the emails are Epstein being like, "Trump's out of his mind." They're kind of rolling it like, "You see what Epstein says." Like, well, don't go by him as an credible source. He's a pedophile.

Lee: Yeah, but—

McCusker: I hope pedophiles are being like, "I can't stand that guy," if they're talking about me.

Lee: If there's one credible source, it is the guy.

McCusker: I guess, man, I don't know.

Gillis: Who are we talking about?

Lee: Epstein.

McCusker: Epstein, because they're quoting him now as a big source thinking, well, guess what else Epstein said.

"Again, I'm not defending nor non-defending him. It's just like it's the nineties, everyone's partying. You go to the island and it's not like it was ten-year-olds."

Gillis: Well, those emails are a little—the ones I read looked like the ones from 2016 is where he starts to be like, "I can get some political capital out of this. What do you need to know about Trump?" All of a sudden, he had a bunch of stories about Trump. When the email's older than that, I didn't see too many that were—

Lee: No, the older ones were nice. He was like, "Trump told Ghislaine to stop, and—"

Gillis: That one no one's talking about.

Lee: Yeah.

Gillis: That's the ultimate Trump going, "For real. Stop. Please stop."

McCusker: I know.

Gillis: No, I haven't seen one about that. I'm not trying to defend the man, but—

McCusker: Nobody knows is the question. That's the thing. I would hate for people to just be like, "Oh yeah, for sure. You're a pedophile," without having definitive proof.

"There's babes there. They're not 12. You have no idea."

Lee: I think about it. I like to think about it as he's not the first president pedophile.

McCusker: No.

Lee: Yeah. It's just—

McCusker: Let's be clear, too. Again, I'm not defending nor non-defending him. It's just like it's the nineties, everyone's partying. You go to the island and it's not like it was ten-year-olds.

Lee: Then you come up with Miss Teen USA.

McCusker: Well. LeMaire, that's a great point. I'm telling you, every now and again, he's knocking them out of the park.

Gillis: Yeah, that motherfucker probably did it. Yeah.

McCusker: I mean, that was the—yeah. Again, it's obviously, it's horrendous.

Gillis: We'll see. It's just hard to believe anything.

McCusker: Yeah, and that's the thing too.

Gillis: That's the tough part.

McCusker: That was the argument I've heard made to me. It's like, bro, if it was the ‘90s, you and your boys have the island. There's babes there. They're not 12. You have no idea. Then it's like, yeah, but some of them were punching on him and shit. There's emails where some of them were beating them up where you're like, bro, what the fuck, dude.

[...]

McCusker: I mean, it's truly a political Rubik's Cube. It's like he's just so—no one knows what to do with it. Everyone's just trying to twist it to their favor and be like, "Yep, turns out Trump's the ultimate pedophile." Trump's like, yeah, no, you guys are.

We've come a long way from “If he wrote that, I’m done with him,” don’t you think?