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If Donald Trump is trying to convince Americans that his name is not among those who were “clients” of child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, and that he did not have sex with underage girls, he is doing an incredibly poor job.

Of course, to those who have really been paying attention, Trump’s incriminating behavior should hardly come as a surprise.

More than 20 years ago, Trump had already called Epstein a “terrific guy” who is “a lot of fun to be with,” and remarked that “it is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

When Epstein was later unmasked as a sexual predator of girls as young as 14 years old, that quote alone should have rung alarm bells.

Although the two men with similar tastes and a professed friendship allegedly had some type of falling out years later, the president’s more recent statements regarding the disgraced financier, who died in a prison cell during Trump’s first term in office, should also raise eyebrows.

For example, in a bizarre interview, he wished Epstein’s associate Ghislaine Maxwell well right after she had been charged with recruiting and grooming underage girls.

Then, in a sit-down with Fox News, which the right-wing network heavily edited so as not to alarm Trump’s core supporters, he hemmed and hawed when asked whether he would declassify files related to Epstein.

Fox, which made it sound as though Trump would unreservedly make public Epstein documents, knew what it was doing.

The (valid) belief that the rich and powerful could get away with systematically sexually abusing young girls was one of the main reasons why Trump’s message of “draining the swamp” was so appealing to the network’s viewers, and watching the then-candidate fumble what should have been an easy answer would not have been a good look, which is why that part of the interview went unaired.

Still, nothing could have prepared the MAGA faithful, whom Trump had successfully conned into believing that he was on their side, for the events of the past week.

On multiple occasions, the president has made it very clear that he has no interest in pursuing the Epstein matter any further, and that he wants his supporters to move on as well.

In the absence of an ulterior motive to keep the files out of the public view, this would be a stunning misstep from Trump, who is usually so good at understanding the motivations of his base and what he has to do and say to get them to blindly follow him.

On Wednesday, he took things to another level, when he insinuated in a social media post that this was all just some ploy of the Democrats to damage him, and accused his supporters of falling for it.

“Their new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this “bullshit,” hook, line, and sinker,” Trump wrote.

After being on the receiving end of critical comments on his own social media site for other posts on the topic, the president chastised the people who got him into the White House for only wanting to talk about Epstein.

“Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats work, don’t even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success, because I don’t want their support anymore!” Trump concluded, essentially saying that people should only back him going forward if they are willing to let the Epstein matter go.

Of course, there is a simpler explanation than that Trump is badly misreading the room, shooting himself in the foot, reloading the gun, and then shooting himself in the foot again.