President Donald Trump has forgotten amid the Jeffrey Epstein maelstrom that his base owns him and not the other way around, according to legendary journalist Tina Brown.
The long-time media powerbroker and Daily Beast founding editor told The Daily Beast Podcast that Trump’s response to MAGA’s fury has only served to alienate him from some of his most ardent supporters.
“It was like he’s forgetting who owns him, right?” said Brown, who first met Trump and Epstein when they were all at the center of the New York social scene in the 1980s and 1990s. “And he’s mad as hell now because they’re supposed to be owned by him.”
On Tuesday, the president ripped into his own supporters for continuing to demand answers about Epstein, who died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. The Department of Justice and the FBI formally denied there was an Epstein “client list” earlier this month and insisted that he died by suicide, not murder.
“My PAST supporters have bought into this ‘bulls–t,’ hook, line, and sinker. They haven’t learned their lesson, and probably never will, even after being conned by the Lunatic Left for 8 long years,” Trump wrote.
Brown, who founded the Daily Beast with media titan Barry Diller in 2008, called the post “ill-advised” because it shows the president has confused the dynamics of his relationship with his supporters.
“I mean, as we know, famously he said, ‘I could walk down Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and my base would still love me,’” she told Daily Beast Executive Editor Hugh Dougherty. “He finds this insurrection deeply aggravating because they’re supposed to just get in line and worship him.”
His base seems to finally be coming around to the fact that he thinks they’re stupid, she added, and they’re not buying it when he tries to pin the Epstein scandal on Democrats.
Brown noted that Candace Owens had written: “‘It’s almost as if Trump thinks his base is stupid.’ And I’m thinking, you think? You think? He’s always thought they were stupid. That’s the whole point. That’s been his superpower.
“You think he wants to hang out with a lot of those people? No, he doesn’t.”
Trump’s efforts to claim that the Epstein fury is some kind of Democratic plot to undermine him is too ludicrous to convince his supporters. “Even MAGA are not buying that,” Brown said. “Something must have sort of hit him in the shower or something, ‘I can blame this on Democrats.’ He’s too late… This has not been a dexterous use of lying, which is usually very effective on his side. But it’s not working this time.”
MAGA supporters are beginning to wonder if Trump—who they felt spoke to them directly instead of showing them contempt like other elites—really is their guy.
“Suddenly, it’s like Trump’s not speaking to them anymore. He’s behaving as if they’re fools.
“He’s really misjudged this because he’s basically telling them—he’s treating them like the global elite that they hate so much have always treated them,” she said. “This is not good. This is not their guy.”
The scandal could be the tipping point that finally starts to erode “Teflon Don’s” power, Brown added.
“It’s very dangerous moment. I think for Trump… This has always been his power—that they believe that they have this intimate bond of sensibility and value to him,” she said. “And if they think he’s just, you know, kicking them to the curb and calling them ‘weaklings’ and ‘just get on the train because I’m telling you,’ I don’t think that’s going to play well.”
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