MAGA Isn’t Done With Epstein Even If Trump Is
President Trump is having a hard time putting to rest the conspiracies surrounding his old friend, the convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein. “Are people still talking about this guy? This creep? That is unbelievable,” Trump said at a Cabinet meeting last Tuesday.
If the president recalled his own campaign, it was not unbelievable for reporters to be asking him about the alleged sex trafficker whose death in federal custody launched a thousand conspiracy theories. On the campaign trail, Trump promised declassifications and total transparency on the life and death of Epstein, fueling the story that many allies in conservative media (and members of his own administration) had been feasting on for years. But once in office, his own team fumbled the story, promising big revelations on Epstein’s clients while just giving over old information to disgruntled MAGA influencers. Though Attorney General Pam Bondi said in February that Epstein’s client list was “sitting on my desk,” the Justice Department issued a memo last Monday stating there was no “incriminating ‘client list’” and there would be no further information coming on the matter.
MAGA-world has not been thrilled by the Epstein about-face. On Saturday, Trump posted a strange message on Truth Social asking his supporters to be nice to his appointees and move on:
What’s going on with my “boys” and, in some cases, “gals?” They’re all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is doing a FANTASTIC JOB! We’re on one Team, MAGA, and I don’t like what’s happening. We have a PERFECT Administration, THE TALK OF THE WORLD, and “selfish people” are trying to hurt it, all over a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein.
Truth Social is normally a place of extreme support for Trump, but many users began ripping into the president on his own social-media app. “We want the ELITE PEDOS exposed!” one user wrote. “You promised us that. Pam promised us that. Kash promised us that. Now it’s OUR fault bc we want that promise fulfilled.” Within Trump’s circle, there is also some dissent. His deputy FBI director, Dan Bongino — who insisted for years that there was an Epstein cover-up — is reportedly considering resigning over the mess. Elon Musk wrote on X that the president should “just release the files as promised.”
Now MAGA media figures are warning the president that the Epstein situation could be grounds for revolt. Fox News hosts like Charles Hurt are saying on the air that there are “very valid questions” that the White House still needs to answer to assuage supporters.
“Trump’s persuasive power over his base, especially during his first term, was almost magical,” Mike Cernovich wrote on X on Sunday night. “Calling out obvious mistakes he made would get you an ass chewing … The reaction on Epstein should thus be startling to him. No one is buying it. No one is dropping it.”
If the Turning Point USA conference this past weekend was any indication, there is cause for concern. At the conservative youth conference in Tampa, former Fox News host Laura Ingraham asked, “How many of you are satisfied with the results of the Epstein investigation?” The crowd responded with resounding boos, per the Washington Post.
When Steve Bannon took the stage, he shouted that it was “deeper than Epstein!” The administration’s failure to deliver was “not about just a pedophile ring and all that” but about “who governs us.”
Tucker Carlson, who continues to be a heel to Republicans in office, said that the Epstein reversal made him mad as hell and not want to take it anymore. “The fact that the U.S. government, the one that I voted for, refused to take my question seriously and instead said, ‘Case closed. Shut up, conspiracy theorist,’ was too much for me, and I don’t think the rest of us should be satisfied with that,” he said. He then presented another conspiracy theory: Epstein was running a blackmail ring for Mossad.
Related