Honor and Shame in the Era of Trump and Epstein

Friends,

When Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) arrived at the White House yesterday, he was met by a Marine band, officers on horseback carrying the Saudi and American flags, and fighter jets flying over the White House in a V formation.

It was far more pomp than visiting foreign leaders normally receive.

What had the crown prince done to merit such honor from the United States?

He has helped broker a tentative peace between Hamas and Israel. But so have Egypt, Qatar, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates.

The real reason for the honor is that MBS and the Saudis are doing lots of business with Trump’s family — and this visit is part of the payoff.

It’s MBS’s effort to rehabilitate his reputation after Saudi operatives murdered Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and chopped his body into pieces with a bone saw — a killing that U.S. intelligence determined was greenlit by MBS.

But in yesterday’s joint Oval Office appearance — freighted with flattery between Trump and MBS — Trump brushed off a reporter’s question about MBS and the murder.

“A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about, whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen,” said Trump, referring to Khashoggi.

Things happen?

When the reporter then asked MBS about the finding by U.S. intelligence, Trump quickly interjected. “He knew nothing about it. You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking something like that.”

All of which raises once again the question of who is honored in this upside-down Trump era, and who is subject to shame and disgrace.

Larry Summers, who had been secretary of the treasury under Bill Clinton and a high official in the Obama White House, said Monday that he was “deeply ashamed” about his relationship with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and therefore would be “stepping back” from all public engagements as he works to “rebuild trust and repair relationships.”

New details of Summers’s relationship with Epstein emerged last week when a House committee released emails showing years of personal correspondence between the two men, including Summers’s sexist comments and his seeking Epstein’s romantic advice.

Consultants who specialize in rehabilitating the reputations of public figures often advise that they begin with a full public apology, along with a period in which they “step back” out of the limelight.

What separates consultant-driven contrition from the real thing depends on whether it involves any real personal sacrifice.

It’s not clear what Summers will have to sacrifice. Apparently he’ll continue in his role of University Professor at Harvard, the highest and most honorable rank a faculty member there can achieve. (Senator Elizabeth Warren has called on Harvard to sever ties with Summers to hold him accountable for his close friendship with Epstein.)

The same question — whom we honor, whom we shame, and who is genuinely contrite — is also relevant to Eric Adams’s final weeks as mayor of New York City, during which the pace of his foreign travel is increasing even as the city foots much of the bill. No contrition from the mayor — although he was indicted on corruption charges that focused, in part, on improper foreign travel.

And then comes Elon Musk, who — despite his reign of terror in the federal government, including a stack of court rulings finding what he did to be illegal, to say nothing of his blowup with Trump — will preside this weekend at a festive DOGE reunion in Austin at a high-end hotel where Musk often has a suite.

In this era of Trump, America’s moral authority — its capacity to separate right from wrong, and to pride itself doing (or at least trying to do) what is honorable — seems to have vanished, along with the norms on which that authority has been based.

Under Trump, the only normative rule is to gain as much power and money as possible. Power and wealth are honored, even if the honoree has greenlit a brutal murder.

The only exception appears to be pedophilia. Or close association with a pedophile, for which an earnest expression of contrition may be sufficient to get back on the honor track.

High on the list of things America must do when this period of moral squalor is behind us will be to restore real honor and real shame.

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