MAGA wanted it. Trump promised it. They fell for it.
Jonathan Chait spotlights the Trump con now in play:
Some of Trump’s most devoted worshippers chose the very issue of Epstein’s misdeeds and supposed cabal of elite backers as the fantasy onto which they projected a valiant role for their hero. Trump was meant to courageously release all of the available evidence for public scrutiny.
MAGA wanted it. Trump promised it during his 2024 campaign. They fell for it.
With the House back in session, Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) provided the final signature needed on the discharge petition filed in September by Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and backed by Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California.
Having failed to coerce GOP Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Lauren Boebert of Colorado into removing their names, Trump is lobbying furiously to strip Republican votes in the House and Senate from the bill ordering full release of the Epstein investigation records.
Tokyo Rose Garden claims the Epstein emails released on Wednesday “prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong.”
Someone in the White House Press Office needs to coordinate better with the Oval Office. Trump later in the day claimed once again that the Epstein matter is a hoax. Presumably, including the emails that “prove” his innocence.
Chait offers:
Are the Epstein files suddenly real? Or are some of them real (and vindicating) and some of them fake (and incriminating)? All we know is that Trump wants us to stop talking about the subject. That’s usually what you want when the subject includes evidence that you have behaved in a manner beyond reproach.
The more President Flop Sweat and his team of propagandists struggle to cover up the Epstein investigation documents, the more public interest in seeing them will swell. Whatever it is he’s desperate to conceal — whether sexual exploitation of teens or money laundering with Russians — Trump is spinning like a dervish:
“The Democrats are trying to bring up the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax again because they’ll do anything at all to deflect on how badly they’ve done on the Shutdown, and so many other subjects,” Trump posted on Truth Social.
“Only a very bad, or stupid, Republican would fall into that trap. The Democrats cost our Country $1.5 Trillion Dollars with their recent antics of viciously closing our Country, while at the same time putting many at risk — and they should pay a fair price,” Trump continued. “There should be no deflections to Epstein or anything else, and any Republicans involved should be focused only on opening up our Country, and fixing the massive damage caused by the Democrats!”
But despite President Donald Trump lobbying hard to try to crush the vote, as more and more embarrassing details about his relationship with the deceased financier and sexual predator continue to trickle out, he is probably unable to stop it in the Senate either, analyst John Heilemann told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Thursday.
“No Republican is going to want to be seen covering up for the most vilified pedophile in recent American history,” said anchor Joe Scarborough. “Then what are these Republican senators going to do when the White House starts saying, hey, kill the Epstein files? We want to keep them away from your voters, your constituents, the people that are going to vote for you in 2026. I don’t think it’s as open and closed of a political situation as some people are suggesting right now.”
“13 Republican senators, sitting Republican senators up for reelection,” said Heilemann. “You’ve got, in addition to that, a bunch of female Republican senators who aren’t up for reelection right now … the words of the Epstein survivors will be ringing in their ears. You have people like Joni Ernst and Thom Tillis, who both are retiring. It doesn’t take that much work to to get to even if … as Ali is reporting, if the threshold on this vote is going to be 60, it doesn’t take that much work to get you to the number.”
“If you start to put together the relatively moderate establishment Republicans, the female Republican senators, and Republican senators who are retiring and may not be totally in love with Donald Trump and kind of are looking for some way to, as they walk out the door, reclaim some of the reputation that they lost by by being overly loyal to him over the course of the first and second terms,” said Heilemann. “I don’t know, I might — maybe I’m a dreamer and obviously things are, It always turns out to be tough to get anything through the Senate on a 60-vote threshold.”
I’m still not confident that the White House won’t respond to a congressional demand to release all the Epstein documents with “the dog ate my homework.” Why should Trump start complying with the law now?
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