Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff said it best when he posted on social media, “Did anyone really think the sexual predator president who used to party with Jeffrey Epstein was gonna release the Epstein files?”
The “Epstein files” are central to MAGA mythology. Right-wing influencers have long pushed the belief that powerful—and potentially criminal—Democrats are being protected by the deep state; the files release would surely help air out all that dirty, depraved laundry and ensure consequences for those who’d worked to hide the truth. President Donald Trump’s expectation, then, that his base will now fall into line and accept that there’s no list, no evidence of blackmail, and no accountability goes against everything they stand for.
Trump and his administration had previously promised to make public whatever the Justice Department had on the notorious sex trafficker, who died by suicide in federal prison in 2019. Attorney General Pam Bondi had released a “first phase” of declassified Epstein documents in February and said at the time that a rumored “client list” was “sitting on my desk right now” awaiting review.
So when Bondi subsequently failed to release the promised list of Epstein’s clients, MAGA erupted, calling for her firing. FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, a former podcaster, was so distraught that he threatened to quit. When Trump tried to soothe the “boys” and “gals” in his base with some gentle parenting on social media, many firebrand voices weren’t having it.
It’s the most substantial erosion of confidence in Trump by MAGA leaders—and the rank and file—that we’ve seen. Steve Bannon, Trump ally and host of the War Room podcast, has warned that it will cost Republicans as many as 40 seats in the House in next year’s midterms.
(Other prominent voices, including Fox News, have been following the new orders, which is only serving to highlight the cracks in the base.)
The uproar is so intense that for the first time, Trump seems set back on his heels. He ranted—without evidence, of course—that former FBI Director James Comey and former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden had “made up” the Epstein files, which he dubbed the “Epstein hoax” on Truth Social. He turned on his own followers, saying only “pretty bad people” would be duped by the scheme.
Looking to history, Jim Kessler, co-founder of the center-left think tank Third Way and longtime D.C. insider, explained that revolutionary movements often splinter and toss aside one leader for another. “The MAGA movement is full of people who hate each other and are rivals,” he told the Daily Beast. “They may not turn on Trump, but could turn on people adjacent to him, like Bondi.”
It’s become an expectation among beleaguered Democrats that MAGA loyalists will stay with Trump no matter what. “That might be true of some,” said Kessler, “but MAGA Americans consider themselves independent truth seekers. They see Trump as one of their own, but when that self-perception is threatened, as it is by Epstein, they will turn on him.”
“They’re unlikely to say, ‘I guess I was wrong about Epstein, and there was no list.’ They’re more likely to say, ‘People in power are the same,” continued Kessler, quoting lyrics from rock band The Who’s hit “Won’t Get Fooled Again”—“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”
For a leader whose brand is entirely about opposition to the “old boss” and the establishment, that’s a serious problem.
MAGA lost confidence in Trump before over the lockdowns put in place during the Covid-19 pandemic—not to mention the vaccine mandates. It’s why he lost reelection in 2020, though he then did what most thought impossible, building a winning campaign around that failure that attracted even more voters to the fold.
Now, though, Trump has finally met a truth he can’t ignore. He partied with Epstein. The photos don’t lie. Whether or not there’s a list and whether Trump is on it, we don’t know. He can order documents unredacted and released, but it will never be enough. There are too many unanswered questions and too many vested interests to take anything on faith. He’s in a box of his own making. (Of course, if there’s anything actually incriminating, it will never see the light of day.)
House Democrats this week tried multiple times to force a vote in Congress requiring Bondi to “preserve, compile, and publish” the Epstein files. A bipartisan proposal put forward by California Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna and Republican Rep. Thomas Massie is currently drawing support from both sides of the aisle. As representatives head toward the August recess and summer town halls, Trump’s broken promise will be top of mind for voters. And so will his meltdown.
The post Opinion: The ‘Epstein Files’ Are Forcing MAGA Faithful to Eat Their Own appeared first on The Daily Beast.
