The YouTube Narrative on Epstein & Trump is Overwhelmingly Negative – but Fox News is Trying to Hold the Line
We analyzed over 97,000 YouTube videos that mention Jeffrey Epstein. Here’s what they show.
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Hi everyone! We’re Andrew Eldredge-Martin and Katie Workman from Ground Truth AI, longtime FWIW readers and today’s guest authors with backgrounds in Democratic paid media, advertising analytics and digital fundraising.
After seeing rightward shifts in 2024 — even in places like Brooklyn and Oakland — we realized campaigns were missing how algorithmic-driven organic content shapes narratives. So we built ClarifyAI, a narrative intelligence platform that gathers and tracks all of YouTube videos mentioning a brand, candidate or issue and analyzes the visuals, audio and sentiment expressed in each video. The Epstein files dominated much of 2025 and 2026 – so we decided to do a landscape analysis on how content covering it is persuading, mobilizing, and engaging viewers in relation to Donald Trump.
More on that below, but first…
Digital ad spending, by the numbers:
FWIW, U.S. political advertisers spent about $16.5 million on Facebook and Instagram ads last week. Here were the top ten spenders nationwide:
Unsurprisingly, Texas Democratic Senate primary opponents Jasmine Crockett and James Talarico took 2 of the top 5 spots on this list, both investing nearly $300K each on Meta platforms the week before Election Day. As we now know, Talarico would go on to ultimately secure the nomination. It’s unclear who his opponent will be in November’s general election because Republicans are in disarray and 4-term incumbent Sen. John Cornyn is headed to a runoff against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on May 26th.
Meanwhile, California’s gubernatorial race continues to unfold in potentially alarming ways and the only candidate spending enough money on Facebook and Instagram ads to consistently make the Top 10 list is (billionaire) Tom Steyer. With Primary Day less than three months away, we’ll be watching to see if and how that changes.
Lastly, you may have clocked Facebook also invested in a six-figure ad buy. Meta advertising on Meta platforms is well… meta (we’ll see ourselves out).
Meanwhile, political advertisers spent just over $9.1 million on Google and YouTube ads last week. These were the top ten spenders nationwide:
Texas’ primary election was March 3rd and this data reflects the last full week before E-Day. Still, it’s pretty wild that half of this list is made up of Texan entities. Of the $9.1M spent on Google and YouTube last week, about 1/3 of it was on ads shown in Texas alone.
Also on this list: aforementioned California gubernatorial candidate (billionaire) Tom Steyer.
On X (formerly Twitter), political advertisers in the U.S. have spent $1.3M on ads so far in 2026. According to X’s political ad disclosure, here are the top spenders year to date:
Not a blue square in sight.
…and lastly, on Snapchat, political advertisers in the U.S. have spent just under $345,000 on ads in 2026. Here are the top spenders year to date:
What if you could raise more in 2026?
Groups like Common Cause, Earthjustice, and Amnesty International are setting themselves up to crush it in 2026 with Civic Shout, and you can too.
The YouTube Narrative on Epstein & Trump is Overwhelmingly Negative – but Fox News is Trying to Hold the Line
YouTube is the largest media platform on U.S. television screens, significantly bigger than Netflix, which is #2 according to Nielsen. By number of users, YouTube is also the largest vertical video and podcasting platform. When thinking of it as a media intelligence source, it’s also important to remember that it hosts a huge sample of linear television media from all the cable channels and local broadcast stations posting their content there.
For at least the last decade, digital strategists have been sounding the alarm about how YouTube plays a central role in alt-right pipelines. After the 2024 election, reporting emphasized how the right dominates the most-viewed online news accounts and how the algorithm favors right-wing content.
And that’s a massive problem, not least because YouTube is also excellent for reaching low-information voters.
However, the virality and negativity of YouTube’s ecosystem around Donald Trump’s association with Jeffrey Epstein in recent months complicates this narrative and offers lessons for the 2026 cycle and beyond.
We used ClarifyAI to gather and analyze 97,851 YouTube videos (with 6.4 billion views) mentioning Epstein that were posted to the platform between November 17, 2025 and February 20, 2026. Here are the key takeaways.
The YouTube Ecosystem is Consistently Negative on Trump in Epstein-related Videos
Across the videos mentioning Epstein that also referenced Donald Trump, 77% of views were of content that was negative in sentiment, while just 7% of attention was on mixed sentiment and 7% on positive narratives. That’s an 11:1 negative-to-positive view ratio.
This ratio held relatively steady throughout each week in our study, ranging from 4:1 during holiday content lulls to as high as 18:1 after Epstein file releases – but it never inverted.
MAGA Voices Were Winning – Until the Files Starting Dropping and Progressive Creators Mobilized
Looking solely at political news and commentary channels, conservative commentary initially drove significantly more views than progressive content. Between November 17 and December 14, conservative creators generated 2.8 million views, while progressive creators generated only about 600,000 – that’s more than a 4:1 view ratio.
Then everything changed when the first batch of Epstein files was released on December 19. That week, progressive content drove 9.3 million views while right-wing content drove only 700,000 — a 13:1 ratio. By December 28, the gap widened to 54:1.
Before the December 19 release, the progressive story around Epstein was abstract and speculative, while MAGA creators were already defending Trump. Then the file release, even in its heavily-redacted form, gave left-of-center creators a clean and concrete narrative about Trump’s negative associations with Epstein that they rushed to spread, while many right-wing creators went quiet and struggled with how to respond. The right did eventually attempt to respond. During the week of February 1, right-wing political content received 40.2 million views, driven by videos from Sky News Australia (8.3M views), Benny Johnson (7.6M), Candace Owens (2.5M), and others. But even at the MAGA high-water mark, opposition voices still outperformed them by a 1.6:1 view ratio.
The Biggest Creators Covering Trump’s Associations with Epstein
Who drove negative narratives on Trump:
Since the first Epstein file drop, MeidasTouch produced 104 videos and Brian Tyler Cohen produced 74. MeidasTouch and Brian Tyler Cohen alone account for 122.1 million views in our study — more than the entire right-wing commentary ecosystem combined (89.8 million views).
On the other side were Trump’s defenders, which formed a specific coalition: Fox News, right-wing commentary channels, and (surprisingly) some entertainment creators.
Fox News drove 22.5 million positive views defending Trump against his ties with Epstein — more than the entire right-wing commentary ecosystem combined.
Remove Fox, and Trump’s positive coverage drops by half.
Also yes, you read that right: ClarifyAI assessed some content from CNN and MSNBC as positive for Trump. This is due to “balanced” or “both sides” coverage, such as this MSNBC (now MS NOW) short with 2.9 million views showing Rep. Massie and AG Pam Bondi in a heated but even exchange where Bondi defends the DOJ and accuses Massie of “Trump derangement syndrome.” Similarly, this CNN short with a million views shows new photos of Epstein’s island and then credits Trump for signing the bill that released the files – without mentioning his alleged ties to Epstein.
It’s notable that legacy media’s default “balance” framing functionally produces positive coverage for the person under attack.
Entertainment voices are a wildcard. Gaming streamer Asmongold, for example, drove 8.3 million positive views on Trump and Epstein. In this video with 1.5 million views, he suggests Trump acted as a “whistleblower” to help convict Epstein. Entertainment channels that dip into political content can move meaningful numbers — they’re not the core defense infrastructure, but they matter at the margins.
Do the Epstein Files matter to Republicans or just Democrats?
In our past YouTube studies on 2025 election candidates and content mentioning ICE, ClarifyAI’s media analysis has shown the direct impact of digital narratives on public opinion, usually with a 1-2 week time lag – but in this study we don’t see that, at least among Republicans.
Between July and December 2025, Republican approval of Trump’s handling of the Epstein investigation rose from 45% to 58%, according to Economist/YouGov polling. During that period, the administration released very little information, missed its congressional deadline, and the documents that did emerge contained potentially damaging Trump connections.
This is why Fox and similar right-wing creators supporting Trump are deeply important: they enable him to operate in a media ecosystem that is only hostile to him, not unilaterally negative.
For comparison, we also analyzed videos mentioning Epstein that contained narratives about Prince Andrew’s associations with him. We found that 99.97% of views were negative and almost no one posted anything defending Prince Andrew. Only 248,000 views were positive, compared to 915 million negative views — a ratio of more than 3,600-to-1. As a reminder, the same ratio for Trump was “just” 11-to-1.
We were surprised by how little conservative media posted on this story – perhaps intentionally, to avoid spreading narratives that require Republicans to play defense. Conservative audiences hear less about the Epstein files, and when they do, they hear about it from sources like Fox News and MAGA commentators who downplay, defend, and distract from the evidence.
Key Takeaways
Progressive creators such as MeidasTouch and Brian Tyler Cohen displayed remarkable agility, producing over 170 videos to seize the Epstein narrative. This high-volume and quick mobilization achieved a massive view ratio over conservative content, showing that progressive creators can dominate the digital conversation and saturate Democratic and left-leaning independent audiences when they move with speed.
Despite this volume, penetrating the Republican bubble remains a hurdle. While YouTube views reached an 11:1 negative ratio for Trump, his GOP approval actually rose, protected by a media ecosystem that reframes or ignores damaging evidence.
Legacy media’s “both sides” framing may be validating the preconceptions of Republican and right-leaning independent viewers, offering them a narrative reprieve that reinforces existing beliefs.
Sentiment toward Trump on YouTube seems remarkably negative and consistent overall, and not just in relation to Epstein. In a separate study analyzing all the YouTube videos mentioning Trump from September 1st through the end of 2025, we found a 4:1 negative-to-positive view ratio – which is identical to his 4:1 Epstein-related sentiment ratio. This suggests that the YouTube information environment surrounding Trump is consistently negative across topics and the Epstein issue may not be an outlier.
What if you could raise more in 2026?
Groups like Common Cause, Earthjustice, and Amnesty International are setting themselves up to crush it in 2026 with Civic Shout, and you can too.
Join COURIER and 3.14 Action on March 12 for MAHA & the Midterms: How Trump and RFK Jr.’s Agenda Costs Americans.
This live conversation will examine how political choices are reshaping healthcare access ahead of the midterms. We’ll break down how Trump, RFK Jr., and the broader MAHA agenda are impacting public health, who benefits, and what’s at stake for families across the country.
Featured Speakers include:
Hank Green, Author + Creator
Dr. Mary Trump, Psychologist + Author
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Over 700 accounts since 2020 banned for life and or restricted. Have millions of posts at this point. You guys have your work cut out for you lmfao
Oh I'm sure the 6 YouTube channels of mine were at least 90k plus posts alone ffs