In mid-November 2025, as the U.S. House of Representatives considered a petition to force a vote on whether the government should release files related to the sex trafficking investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, a claim (archived) circulated online that White House lawyers were reportedly worried that Reps. Nancy Mace and Lauren Boebert were preparing to release audio recordings of phone calls with President Donald Trump about the documents.
In the calls, according to the rumor, Trump allegedly “begged, bribed, threatened and cried,” asking the representatives to “reverse their votes on releasing the Epstein files,” apparently in reference to the discharge petition that required 218 signatures from representatives to force a vote on releasing the files.Â
The petition reached that threshold on Nov. 12, after House Speaker Mike Johnson swore in Democrat Rep. Adelita Grijalva of Arizona. Four Republican representatives, including Mace and Boebert, signed the petition, House records show.
One Facebook user who shared the claim wrote:
BREAKING: White House lawyers are reportedly worried Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace recorded their phone calls with Trump where he begged, bribed, threatened, and cried for them to reverse their votes on releasing the Epstein files.
In addition to Facebook, variations of the rumor spread on X, Threads and Bluesky (archived, archived, archived).
The claim originated from a source that describes its content as satire, though some readers appeared to interpret and share it as a factual recounting of real-life events. Mace herself (archived) replied to a post with the claim, “President Trump didn’t beg, didn’t bribe, didn’t threaten and certainly didn’t cry. I hope he sues the s*** out of you!”
The claim came from (archived) The Halfway Post — an X account and blog that describes its output as being humorous or satirical in nature. Its X bio states that it is “comedy and satire.”
In other words, there was no evidence of the in-question phone calls, nor was there any indication of the representatives supposedly releasing such audio (archived, archived, archived, archived).
While this specific rumor was fictional, a handful of news outlets, such as Axios and The Hill, reported that the Trump administration did attempt to convince Mace and Boebert to remove their names from the discharge petition. Snopes has not independently verified the details of those attempts, or whether they included phone calls, as of this writing.
We reached out to the White House press office to ask whether Trump met with Boebert or Mace, or if he spoke with them on the phone, about the discharge petition. We await a reply to our query.
Boebert wrote (archived) on X on Nov. 12 that she met with White House officials, though she did not say what they discussed. She also reposted (archived) commentary by a Colorado news network that read, “It appears Rep. Lauren Boebert did a brave thing today and deserves all our thanks.”Â
Boebert reportedly told (archived) CNN’s Manu Raju in mid-September that she was would not remove her signature from the discharge petition.
According to a CNN report, Mace reportedly sent Trump a message outlining why she continued to support the discharge petition. On Nov. 12, Mace wrote (archived) on X that “the Epstein petition is deeply personal,” and the she would “NEVER” abandon “other survivors.”
Johnson said on Nov. 12 he hoped to hold the mandated vote on whether to release the documents the following week.
Snopes has addressed other satirical claims by The Halfway Post in the past, including rumors about historic laws supposedly requiring Trump to restore the demolished East Wing of the White House and dating apps that allegedly threatened to reveal Republican users if the Supreme Court overturned same-sex marriage.
For background, here is why we alert readers to rumors created by sources that call their output humorous or satirical.
