What's Resonating: Wednesday, July 30th

Epstein, tsunamis, and Sydney Sweeney discourse

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Jul 30, 2025

We’re back with another edition of What’s Resonating – a daily newsletter from the Resonate team that delivers a data-driven snapshot of the stories, trends, and messages shaping online culture and politics.

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Now, let’s dive in.

What’s Resonating

Israel’s actions in Gaza
New Epstein ties to Trump
Aftermath of the shooting in Manhattan
Back-and-forth online over new Sydney Sweeney ads

Today’s Takeaway: Every time Trump says something about the Epstein files, we have a new opportunity to go after him. Left-leaning pages should call out Trump’s latest admission that some of Epstein’s victims worked for him, and get ready to condemn Senate Republicans and call out their involvement in this cover up when they block the latest attempt to release the files.

Email users: Click through for the full chart.

Yesterday on Social Media

🟦 Left-leaning accounts

Top left-leaning pages continued to post about Trump’s relationship with Epstein.
- The Democrats used a trending TikTok audio (“every night at dinner I’ll be there”) to share multiple pictures of Trump with Epstein. (2.5 million views, 672,000 likes, third most-liked post overall)
- Courier shared an audio clip of Trump admitting that some of the women Epstein trafficked had worked at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago spa. (542,000 views)
- The Daily Show shared a clip of Jon Stewart explaining how Trump fled to Scotland to avoid talking about Epstein. (63,000 likes)
Aaron Parnas posted seven times on TikTok about the tsunami that will affect the Pacific Islands and the US West Coast, receiving over 14 million views across posts.
- Carlos Espina also posted about the tsunamis, earning 7 million views on TikTok and 3 million on Facebook
  - Resonate’s Take: After years of video underperforming on Facebook, we’re seeing a growing recent trend of strong performance from Facebook Reels—an easy low-lift opportunity to cross-post your content from Instagram and reach a different audience.
Spencer outlined some reasons for the declining US fertility rate. (910,000 views)
Jon Stewart had a conversation with Peter Beinart about Gaza, saying “Israeli Jews are only going to be safe if Palestinians are safe.” (1.2 million views)
The Other 98% posted a meme of AOC clapping back against Trump on who was the better student. (146,000 likes)

🟥 Right-leaning accounts

Donald Trump issued a tsunami warning on Twitter for Hawaii, Alaska, and the Pacific coast. (349,000 likes, top right-leaning post)
David Harris, Jr. shared a Fox News clip on Facebook of a Camp Mystic survivor singing a version of Hallelujah written about her experience. (200,000 likes, 6.8 million views, 67x over-performing)
Turning Point USA’s Savanah Hernandez posted about the controversial Sydney Sweeney “good genes” ads (context), accusing the media of “melting down” and contrasting them to “black girl magic.” (107,000 likes)
Candace Owens continued discussing Brigitte Macron conspiracies on her podcast.” (1.3 million views, most-viewed right-leaning YouTube post)
Team Trump shared a TikTok of Donald Trump’s golf swing with the caption “Sleepy Joe could never.”

🟨 Neutral (Political) accounts

Al-Jazeera English had a trio of viral TikToks about the conflict in Palestine:
- An emotional interaction between a Palestinian girl and her father about risking their lives to get food aid. (3.4 million views, fourth most-liked post overall)
- A Palestinian family celebrating receiving a sack of flour. (3.4 million views)
- An Israeli settler shooting a Palestinian activist and filmmaker in the West Bank.
CW (Gun Violence): News pages continued covering the aftermath of a Manhattan shooting on Monday that killed four people.
- CNN showed people paying tribute to slain officer Didarul Islam. (7 million views, most-viewed TikTok)
- Brut shared a slideshow explainer of what is known about the gunman. (4.1 million views)
- The Daily Mail shared photos of office workers making a barricade.
NBC News shared a clip of a man arrested after shouting “death to America” on a UK airplane and making bomb threats against Trump. (3.2 million views)
- This was also one of the top clips on Monday, earning 16 million views for Fox News on TikTok.

🟨 Neutral (Cultural) accounts

Several top posts referenced the controversial American Eagle Sydney Sweeney ads:
- Pop Base shared a clip of Doja Cat mocking the ad. (166,000 likes)
- GenericArtDad broke down some of the complexities of the ad and reactions to it. (1 million views)
Creator Henry Smith had an informal interview with Elizabeth Warren discussing women’s rights and access to women’s health care under the Trump administration (167,000 views)
- Resonate’s take: Henry mentions in the video that his audience is majority women as part of his motivation to connect with Warren. This is a great example of a cultural creator understanding their audience and knowing when a political figure makes sense to collaborate with.
Hasan Minhaj shared a clip Monday of Neil deGrasse Tyson using the remarkable advances in human life expectancy in the last 150 years as a rebuttal against anti-science arguments. (7.2 million views, 21x account average)

Today’s Analysis: The Continued Epstein Conversation

The Epstein conversation has had truly remarkable momentum—and perhaps most surprising is how consistently the left has been able to drive it for an extended period of time.

At Resonate, we generally consider a topic notable if it earns more than 1 million engagements across platforms in a single day. Since July 7, the Epstein conversation has averaged 9 million engagements per day, with the lowest single-day mark at 2.4 million. And while the initial focus on the Epstein files was driven by MAGA, the sustained conversation has been driven by the left: 65% of all engagements since July 7th have come from posts from left-leaning pages.

Think of how unusual that is. Conventional wisdom is that Democrats are unable to win a news cycle. But every day for 23 days, left-leaning pages have kept the focus on Trump’s ties to Epstein, without fail. Just this Monday, Resonate highlighted Donald Trump’s “privilege” comment in response to a reporter’s question as an easy opportunity to keep driving this narrative, and the clip was immediately blown up by the Colbert Late Show (4+ million views each on TikTok and Facebook) and NowThis Impact (2.1 million views).

Not only is the left dominating this narrative, but right-leaning pages are struggling. The period between July 8th and July 29th marked the lowest-engagement three week period for right-leaning pages online since New Year’s Eve (a time when political social media was collectively logged off). That’s a sign that the MAGA base is not buying what their pages are selling right now, and the right has been unable to successfully change the conversation or go on offense.

All in large part because the left has been disciplined, consistent, and attention-grabbing. That feels new.

Today’s Takeaway: Don’t let up on the Epstein scandal! Senate Democrats trying to force the release of the Epstein files and Ghislaine Maxwell’s offer of testimony provide opportunities to extend this narrative online.