‘Get over it': some middle America Trump supporters remain unfazed over Epstein files tumult
But in towns and cities across the US, a more complicated and nuanced picture emerges, serving as a reminder that – like any other political constituency – Trump voters are not a monolith.
Some of the US president's supporters are undoubtedly animated by the Epstein issue and urging Congress to push for greater transparency. 'It's the number one phone call that we get. By far,' Eric Burlison, a Republican congressman from Missouri, told CNN this week. 'It's probably 500 to one.'
But others seem to be shrugging off the crisis as they have so many others that seemed to threaten Trump's political career. They remain fiercely loyal to a president they believe is delivering low inflation, strong border security and sweeping reversals of progressive policies. They are willing to take White House advice to 'trust in Trump'.
That was the prevailing mood this week in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a former steel town and Democratic stronghold that swung heavily for Trump in last November's election.
'Trump is right about everything, no matter what he does,' was the blunt take of Teddy, 55, wearing a Stars and Stripes hat and sitting on a bench in Central Park in downtown Johnstown. 'Epstein – he's dead, that's it, it's over.'
Did he have no concern that Trump's name is reportedly listed in the Epstein files which have yet to be made public? 'That's a bunch of bullshit,' said Teddy, who didn't want to give his last name. 'The world should move on, get over it.'
Curt, 51, another Trump supporter in Central Park, who was recently released from state prison, expressed similar views. The only people who were in a nervous state about Trump's relationship with Epstein were Democrats, he said.
'Epstein was a piece of shit and got what he deserved. As for Trump, they haven't come up with any evidence that he actually did anything,' he said.
Pennsylvania was crucial in tipping Trump over the line of 270 electoral college votes needed to win the White House. Rural areas in the west of the state responded especially favourably to his promises to bring back manufacturing, reduce living costs and drive out immigrants. Trump won Cambria county, which includes Johnstown, by 68% to Joe Biden's 31%.
At the local Walmart, Pam, who also asked not to give her last name, said she didn't believe that Trump's name was in the files. 'Trump has morals – it may not seem like he does, but deep down he does. He wanted to protect the United States when nobody else did.'
As for media coverage of the story, she said: 'My uncle was in the Secret Service. He used to tell me that everything you see on TV is what they want you to believe, not what is actually happening.'
Trump has been under growing pressure from political friends and foes alike to release more information about the justice department's investigation into Epstein, a disgraced financier who officials ruled died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.
After Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, promised to disclose additional materials related to possible Epstein clients and the circumstances surrounding his death, the justice department reversed course this month and said there was no basis to continue investigating and no evidence of a client list.
That sparked an outcry from some of Trump's base of supporters who have long believed the government was covering up Epstein's ties to the rich and powerful. On Friday, Trump denied reports that he was told by Bondi in May that his own name appeared in the Epstein files.
Yet interviews by the Guardian in multiple states found Republicans generally willing to give Trump the benefit of the doubt – and suspicious that he is the victim of a double standard.
Gavin Rollins, a lawyer from Orlando, Florida, acknowledged disappointment in the way the administration's initial communications raised expectations but praised Trump for doing a 'phenomenal job' overall.
'I think on the Epstein thing, I wish things had been handled a little bit differently,' he admitted. 'I think the rollout was less than smooth. I would say that it's important but I also believe in giving grace to people and he's gotten so many things right.'
Jeff Davis, the Republican party chair in Greenville county, South Carolina, accused the media of using the Epstein controversy to falsely portray a divide in the Maga (Make America great again) movement.
He said: 'I think the Epstein issue is obviously critical and important but I think what most people care about is that the Trump agenda – the Maga 'America first' agenda – is being promoted. I think [Epstein is] being used as a distraction.'
Davis added: 'We can walk and chew gum at the same time. They need to pursue the Epstein thing to the nth degree but I think most people are interested in the results of the things that the Trump administration is doing, as opposed to analysing this issue from the old days.'
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Mary Smith, the party chair in Dickson county, Tennessee, said: 'If Donald Trump's name is linked to something, it's like a shark fest, whereas if it's somebody else's name attached, 'Oh, it's no big deal,' and it's swept under the rug. I get so tired of that whole focus on Trump.'
Despite Democrats' efforts to keep attention focused on the Epstein saga, some are ready to move on. James Bennett, who runs a lumber company and is Republican party chair in Calhoun county, Alabama, said: 'As far as I'm concerned with Trump, it's about run its course. I know the Democrats are the ones out there trying to put gas on the fire, but you know, the fire's about out.'
That may prove wishful thinking. Just 17% of Americans approve of Trump's handling of the Epstein case, a weaker rating than the president received on any other issue in a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll last week. Among Republicans, 35% approve and 29% disapprove, while the rest said they are unsure or did not answer the question.
Whit Ayres, a Republican consultant and pollster, draws a distinction between Trump voters who identify as part of the Maga movement and those attracted by his pledges to bring down inflation, juice the economy, close the southern border and tackle 'woke' culture.
'For the Maga group, this is a very big deal,' Ayres said. 'Many of them bought into all the conspiracy theories surrounding Epstein, whether it was the fact that he abused a bunch of kids and then covered it up or symptomatic of a widespread deep state conspiracy protecting elites and the privileged in general.
'For the other people who voted for Trump, it is disturbing but not as compelling as it is for the Maga crowd. They are more interested in whether he is going to be able to bring inflation down than they are in Epstein. That's not to say that Epstein is not a disturbing story for them, but it's more a matter of perspective.'
Yet another survey published this week again challenged the conventional wisdom. An Economist/YouGov poll found that Republican voters who identify as 'Maga' were more likely to approve of how the president is dealing with the Epstein investigation (56%) than those who do not (38%). Overall among Republicans, 45% approve and 25% disapprove, with the remaining 30% unsure.
One such Maga voter is Mike Boatman, 57, who has attended about a hundred Trump campaign rallies, including the one last year in Butler, Pennsylvania, where the then Republican nominee survived an assassination attempt. His faith remains unshaken.
'I'm backing President Trump,' said Boatman, an independent contractor from Evansville, Indiana. 'He knows more than what we know about the situation. There's more important concerns for me than the Epstein files.
'There's so much that President Trump needs to get done. He's got three and a half years to get it done. Don't get me wrong, I'm against paedophiles and whoever has done that with Epstein should be punished. But there's more important things.'
Still, the story continues to dominate headlines and put heat on Republicans in the House of Representatives. They went on recess a day early to avoid holding a vote on releasing Epstein material. Mike Johnson, the House speaker, insisted the Epstein case is 'not a hoax' despite Trump using that very word.
The president has been defiant, describing supporters hung up on the issue as 'weaklings' who were helping Democrats. 'I don't want their support anymore!' Trump said in a social media post.
This week, he sought to distract his followers by making the baseless claim that Barack Obama and his officials fabricated intelligence reports to assert that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, accusing his predecessor of treason. Next he might try something even more extreme to change the narrative.
Reed Galen, president of the Union, a pro-democracy coalition, said: 'My real fear is that he gets us into some sort of Wag the Dog thing where all of the distraction isn't working so he decides to throw up some gigantic bright, shiny object that gets us all in trouble.'
But otherwise Galen is sceptical that the Epstein scandal will have far-reaching political implications. 'To me, the flip side of this is: what difference does it make? I shouldn't say that as a means of diminishing the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein or the pain of his victims. I'm looking at this from a purely electoral perspective.
'He's not going to leave office. The midterms are 15 months, 16 months away. Do I think this is fodder for the left and the media and even the true Magas who are like, 'What's happening?' Yeah. Do I think that ultimately, a year from now, we'll be talking about this? Hard to believe.'
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The Guardian
26 minutes ago
- The Guardian
With Trump wreaking havoc, a question for the US Democrats: when will you ever learn?
Nothing is more insufferable than someone saying 'I told you so'; so please forgive me for being insufferable. On 29 September 2023, after a couple of months spent in the US, I published a column that was well summarised in its Guardian headline: 'Unless Joe Biden stands aside, the world must prepare for President Trump 2.0'. We can never definitely say 'what would have happened if …?', but there's a very good chance that had Biden cleared the way for a Democratic primary in autumn 2023 the strongest candidate could have defeated Trump. The entire world would have been spared the disaster now unfolding. 'No use crying over spilt milk,' you may say. Yes, but it's always worth learning lessons for the future. I'm back in the US now, and a recent poll for the Wall Street Journal found that 63% of voters hold an unfavourable view of the Democratic party. To put it mildly, the Democrats have a way to go. So what, given all that is happening and everything we now know, are the right lessons? The point of mentioning my old column is not to boast of some special insider insight into Washington high politics; the point is precisely that I had none. It was just obviously crazy to put up a visibly old and frail candidate who would be 86 years old by the end of his second term. For comparison, the leaders of the Soviet Union who we think of as the epitome of decrepit gerontocracy were, at their respective moments of unlamented demise, 75 (Leonid Brezhnev), 69 (Yuri Andropov) and 73 (Konstantin Chernenko). It required no special knowledge to see this and most Americans already did. By the time I wrote my column, an opinion poll had found that 77% of Americans thought Biden was too old to be president for another four years. It was only the political insiders, the liberal commentariat, the Democratic establishment, who went on agreeing with the president, his family and what was (you couldn't make this up) actually known informally as the 'politburo' of his closest advisers that he was the only man for the job. In their recent, much noticed book, Original Sin, two leading Washington journalists, CNN's Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson of Axios, argue that there was, as their subtitle suggests, a cover up. Biden's family and the politburo tried to hide his precipitate cognitive decline, confining most of his meetings to between 10am and 4pm. Even cabinet members did not see him up close for many months and in-depth media interviews were as rare as a Pride parade in the Vatican. The authors generously apportion blame to the president, his wife, other family members and his closest advisers, but there's one set of people they curiously spare: themselves and their fellow Washington insider journalists. Now, I haven't gone back over all their reporting on CNN and Axios, and there are certainly some pieces that should be cited to defend their journalistic record. But there is no doubt that American political journalists in general, and the liberal commentariat in particular, were slow and late to say what most 'ordinary' Americans had long since seen. Why? The New York Times writer Ezra Klein digs into this in an episode of his excellent podcast. Frankly acknowledging that his own February 2024 call for Biden to stand aside was 'late', Klein explores in conversation with Tapper why most others were even later. The answer seems to be a mix of ingredients: journalistic fear of losing access; the vindictive tribalism of the Democratic establishment; deference to an imperial presidency; fear of Donald Trump; worry about Kamala Harris as the presumptive alternative candidate. Fear of losing access is a professional disease of journalism. 'You felt like you were destroying all of your relationships with the White House all at once,' says Klein, recalling his February 2024 demarche. 'Yes, not just with the White House but the Democratic party,' adds Tapper. My own September 2023 notebook sums up a private conversation with a Washington-based columnist: 'Yes, Biden should stand aside. He [the columnist] can't say it.' (My note continues: 'Jill Biden could, but she likes it.') I know, also from other sources, just how threatening the Democratic establishment could be when trying to close down any questioning of Biden's fitness to serve a second term. Even in the critical articles that did appear in US media there was a kind of residual deference to the presidency, almost as though they were asking a king to abdicate rather than just another politician to stand aside. Partly this stems from the 237-year-old US constitutional device of rolling your prime minister and monarch into one. In Britain, we confine our residual deference to the monarch while the prime minister gets roasted every Wednesday at prime minister's questions in the House of Commons. Someone in Biden's 2023 state of dotage wouldn't have survived two weeks in Westminster. Then there's the fact that people were already panicking about Trump and it was somehow thought, especially after Democratic successes in the 2022 midterm elections, that Biden was the only guy to beat him. The more so since the presumptive alternative was Harris, who was seen as a relatively weak candidate. And so, for fear of getting Harris and then Trump, they got Harris and then Trump. Some lessons, then, are clear. Tapper and Thompson open their book with a quotation from George Orwell: 'To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle.' But Orwell also calls on us always to say what we do see, even if – no, especially if – it's uncomfortable for our own side. There's the double test for journalists: see it and say it. For the Democratic establishment: don't try to intimidate the media into self-censorship with the argument that they are giving succour to the enemy. You would have been better served by journalists just doing their job, in the spirit of Orwell. Then: change out your old guard. Chuck Schumer, the leader of the Democratic caucus in the Senate, is older than Chernenko and rapidly catching up on Brezhnev. Oh yes, and simply listen to the people you're meant to represent. The tragedy of this whole story is that the Democrats have a profusion of talent in younger generations – from Pete Buttigieg, Josh Shapiro, Gretchen Whitmer and Gavin Newsom to New York's new star, Zohran Mamdani. They don't yet have the shared platform that could win a presidential election, but thinkers such as Klein and Derek Thompson, co-authors of Abundance, the other book of the moment, are already working up some good ideas. The Democrats can probably swing the House of Representatives in the midterm elections next year with a few fresh faces – and by focusing on the already visible negative consequences of Trump for working- and middle-class Americans. But by 2027, in the run-up to the next presidential election, they will need everything they so spectacularly failed to produce in 2023. Timothy Garton Ash is a historian, political writer and Guardian columnist
The Guardian
39 minutes ago
- The Guardian
How Trump is contorting Department of Justice into his ‘personal weapon'
As Donald Trump's Department of Justice expands investigations of his foes and ousts dozens of lawyers and staff who worked on cases targeting himself and his allies, scholars and ex-prosecutors say the rule of law is under siege in the US as the department morphs into Trump's 'personal weapon'. The justice department's politicization to please Trump was underscored by an announcement on 23 July of a new ' strike force' to investigate unsubstantiated charges that ex-president Barack Obama and top officials conspired to hurt Trump's 2016 campaign and his presidency with inquiries into Russian influence operations to help Trump win, say critics. The announcement came the day after Trump dodged queries from reporters about the justice department's failure to produce long-promised files about the notorious sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, and pivoted to blast Obama without evidence for 'treason'. Trump's conspiratorial charge echoed dubious claims by his national intelligence director, Tulsi Gabbard, who days before called for a justice department inquiry into a purported 'treasonous conspiracy'. Likewise, the FBI earlier in July announced investigations into the ex-FBI director James Comey and ex-CIA director John Brennan, which critics see as political efforts to placate Trump who has often voiced anger at them for their roles in the Russia investigations before and during his first term. Legal scholars and ex-prosecutors say Trump and his loyal attorney general, Pam Bondi, have turned the justice department into his personal law firm to pursue his political and legal agendas. 'It's not unprecedented for presidents to deploy their powers for personal ends, but no one including Nixon has done this with the intensity of Trump,' Peter Shane, who teaches constitutional law at New York University, told the Guardian. Shane added: 'DoJ is now being used as a personal weapon on behalf of Trump to a degree that is without precedent. Trump has a team of sycophants and enablers at DoJ. They're not behaving the way office holders sworn to uphold the constitution are expected to behave. 'The idea that the Obama administration fabricated the story of Russian interference has been refuted multiple times, including by the Senate intelligence committee when, under the chairmanship of then senator Marco Rubio, the committee determined that Russia had indeed launched an aggressive covert effort to interfere in the 2016 election on Trump's behalf.' Other scholars raise similar alarms. 'Trump is using the justice department to target his perceived enemies and pursue his political goals,' said Randall Eliason, a former federal prosecutor who now lectures on law at George Washington University. 'The guiding principle for any DoJ prosecutor has always been loyalty to the constitution and the rule of law. Under this administration, it appears that the primary job requirement for any DoJ prosecutor, up to and including the attorney general, is loyalty to Donald Trump.' The premium that Trump has placed on loyalty at the justice department was revealed early by his choices of Bondi as attorney general, Todd Blanche as deputy attorney general and other senior officials. Bondi, an ex-Florida attorney general, helped defend Trump in the Senate during his first impeachment, and Blanche was his lead counsel in New York where Trump was convicted in 2024 of 34 felony counts for falsifying business records to hide payments during his 2016 campaign to a porn star who alleged an affair with him. The justice department's drive to please Trump was evident in July when Bondi fired about 20 departmental employees. They included support staff and several prosecutors who worked on January 6 cases for special counsel Jack Smith, who charged Trump with improperly retaining hundreds of classified documents after he left office in early 2021, and for engaging in an 'unprecedented criminal effort' to stay in power after his 2020 election loss. Notably, Bondi this month abruptly fired without explanation the department's top ethics official, Joseph Tirrell, and Maureen Comey, a key prosecutor in New York who had worked on charges against Epstein and is James Comey's daughter. Several senior justice department and FBI officials were ousted in the first months of Trump's second presidency. For their part, Trump and Bondi have been blunt about axing lawyers and staff they deem political foes for allegedly politicizing the justice department against Trump. In February, for instance, Trump ordered the department to oust all remaining 'Biden-era' US attorneys, claiming the department 'has been politicized like never before' under Biden. In a similar vein, before taking office Bondi pledged during a confirmation hearing to eliminate what she blasted as 'the partisanship, the weaponization' of the Department of Justice under Biden. Some ex-prosecutors say Trump's charges that he was the victim of justice department weaponization stem from his penchant for conspiratorial thinking. 'The inane claims of weaponization we hear from Trump and his associates are particularly extraordinary because Trump regularly calls for the criminal investigation and prosecution of his political enemies,' said Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor who is now a law professor at Columbia University. 'Baseless claims of crimes by his political opponents have always been a staple of Trump's rants. But now that he is president and has picked justice department leaders for their loyalty and not their competence or integrity, the risk of abusive investigations grows.' The justice department's intense focus on targeting Trump critics was evident after Bondi became attorney general when she quickly issued a memo establishing a 'weaponization' working group, say critics. Barbara McQuade, who teaches law at the University of Michigan and used to be a federal prosecutor, said Bondi's memo actually 'weaponizes law enforcement and undermines public confidence in government' because it pushes a 'false narrative' about the two special counsel investigations of Trump. McQuade stressed that 'federal grand juries returned indictments in both cases, meaning that they found probable cause that the crimes were committed.' Other justice department veterans have been appalled at its transformation including the wave of firings. Stacey Young, who spent 18 years as a federal litigator at the Department of Justice before leaving voluntarily in January, launched the group Justice Connection to help remaining justice department employees deal with ethical and legal headaches and find jobs for those who want to leave. 'These unprecedented firings at the justice department are growing exponentially,' Young told the Guardian. ' They happen with no notice and no opportunity to be heard, in violation of the Civil Service Reform Act and due process. Many people, and even their supervisors, have no idea why the firings targeted them or why now. Employees now wake up each day wondering if they're going to be next. 'It's screwing with people's lives, and it's also creating a culture of fear among the entire workforce. DoJ leadership is making clear the ability to keep your job is not tied to your performance, your expertise, or your commitment to uphold and defend the constitution.' On 24 July, three justice department officials including Tirrell who were abruptly fired this summer, filed a lawsuit against Bondi seeking reinstatement and back pay arguing that they were axed improperly and without cause. Other ex-federal prosecutors say the department is now being weaponized to please Trump. 'There is literally no reason to fire these people, other than to continue molding the department into Trump's personal law firm,' Mike Romano, an ex-justice department prosecutor who left voluntarily in March after almost four years working on prosecutions of Trump allies who stormed the Capitol on 6 January 2021. 'Trump and Bondi are bringing us back to the spoils system, where the government is not staffed by merit but based on favors, and is not staffed with experts, but with hacks and cronies. As a country, we decided almost 150 years ago that the spoils system is terrible and corrupt.' Further, Bondi and Trump have stepped up attacks on judges who have rebuked justice department lawyers for presenting arguments in court that were specious or failed to respond to judges' queries, several of which have involved the administration's hardline anti-immigrant actions, say critics. 'There are certain things lawyers should avoid doing because they are sure to pique the ire of federal judges,' said ex-federal judge John Jones who is president of Dickinson College 'These include patronizing, temporizing, lying and making baseless arguments. The Trump DoJ lawyers have hit them all before multiple judges.' Likewise, Emil Bove III, a key Trump defense lawyer in 2024 who was the justice department's number three for several months before Trump nominated him as a federal appeals court judge that the Senate recently approved, was cited in one whistleblower complaint for telling department lawyers they could flout court orders to further Trump's immigration agenda. More broadly, scholars and justice department veterans see the Trump administration breaking sharply with historical norms and rewriting history to burnish Trump's image. 'The firing of the January 6 prosecutors and the pardons of the Capitol rioters are all part of an effort to whitewash what happened on January 6,' said Eliason. 'The goal is to portray the rioters as the true victims and falsely suggest that the law enforcement professionals who pursued these cases did something wrong. 'A key foundation of our constitutional system is adherence to the rule of law and the independence of the justice system from politics. That's all being discarded by the Trump administration.' Shane likewise stressed that 'Trump has placed his own lawyers in key justice department positions, expecting them to continue thinking of themselves as personal lawyers for Donald Trump, not government lawyers for the president as an office-holder bound by law.'
Reuters
39 minutes ago
- Reuters
Kremlin plays down Trump submarine order, urges caution on nuclear rhetoric
MOSCOW, Aug 4 (Reuters) - Russia said on Monday that everyone should be "very, very careful" about nuclear rhetoric, responding to a statement by U.S. President Donald Trump that he had ordered a repositioning of U.S. nuclear submarines. In its first public reaction to Trump's comments, the Kremlin played down their significance and said it was not looking to get into a public argument with him. Trump said on Friday he had ordered two nuclear submarines to be moved to "the appropriate regions" in response to remarks from former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev about the risk of war between the nuclear-armed adversaries. "In this case, it is obvious that American submarines are already on combat duty. This is an ongoing process, that's the first thing," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. "But in general, of course, we would not want to get involved in such a controversy and would not want to comment on it in any way," he added. "Of course, we believe that everyone should be very, very careful with nuclear rhetoric." The episode comes at a delicate moment, with Trump threatening to impose new sanctions on Russia and buyers of its oil, including India and China, unless President Vladimir Putin agrees by Friday to end the 3-1/2-year war in Ukraine. Putin said last week that peace talks had made some positive progress but that Russia had the momentum in the war, signalling no shift in his position despite the looming deadline. Trump has said he may send his envoy Steve Witkoff to Russia on Wednesday or Thursday. Witkoff has held long conversations with Putin on several previous visits but failed to persuade him to agree to a ceasefire. The Kremlin declined to say if his latest proposed trip was taking place at Moscow's request, and did not say what it hoped might emerge from it. "We are always happy to see Mr Witkoff in Moscow and we are always happy to have contacts with Mr Witkoff. We consider them important, meaningful and very useful," Peskov said. Trump, who frequently promised to end the war within 24 hours while campaigning for the U.S. presidency last year, has spoken admiringly of Putin in the past but voiced increasing frustration with him of late. Russia has stepped up the ferocity of its bombing attacks on Ukrainian cities, while three brief sessions of direct peace talks in Turkey have yielded no progress beyond exchanges of prisoners and war dead. Some security analysts in both Russia and the West have criticised Trump for escalating an online spat with former president Medvedev - an arch-hawk whose statements are frequently designed to shock and provoke - to the point of publicly discussing U.S. nuclear deployments. Peskov, however, said Russia did not see Trump's statement as marking an escalation in nuclear tension. "We do not believe that we are talking about any escalation now. It is clear that very complex, very sensitive issues are being discussed, which, of course, are perceived very emotionally by many people," he said. Peskov declined to answer directly when asked whether the Kremlin had tried to warn Medvedev to tone down his online statements. "The main thing, of course, is the position of President Putin," he said.
