Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein: Why MAGA loyalists are abandoning the president
Trump's Truth Social posts backing up Pam Bondi's claim that the Epstein files were much ado about nothing showed that same brutal disregard for his devout fans. They had taken him seriously ? What fools!
He tried to subdue his MAGAcolytes – his 'boys' and 'gals' – by ordering them not to 'waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about.' He said that those who are focused on the 'Jeffrey Epstein hoax' are 'selfish people,' 'PAST supporters' and 'weaklings' who had been 'conned by the Lunatic Left.'
If his fans couldn't focus on how great he was, better than 'perhaps any President in our Country's history,' Trump pouted in a post, 'I don't want their support anymore!'
One 'gal,' a Texan named Rosie, said she was brokenhearted. She replied on Truth Social that she has four daughters and 'can't even begin to comprehend the flipped narrative that 'it was so long ago' 'why are we still talking about this' and 'nobody should care.' These victims were some ones daughters, sisters, nieces, granddaughter. Someone's child. Please reconsider, sir.'
Donald and Melania Trump with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell in 2002. Credit: Getty
He has lost some of his base's trust by refusing to deliver the goods, or to acknowledge that he used people such as Kash Patel and Dan Bongino to whip up the frenzy against the paedophile who gave rides to Trump and Bill Clinton on his plane dubbed by some the Lolita Express.
Trump bonded with Epstein years ago, although it's not clear if Trump knew the extent of Epstein's predations. He told New York Magazine in 2002 that Epstein 'likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.'
This past week was the first time Trump had such a dramatic rift with his supporters, who are often compared to a cult.
Trump, who rose to power with the help of Fox News, threatened Emma Tucker, editor of Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal , trying to stop its story about a bawdy letter and drawing he allegedly contributed to a 50th birthday book that Ghislaine Maxwell compiled for Epstein.
'I'm gonna sue The Wall Street Journal just like I sued everyone else,' he said in a call Tuesday with the Journal. (He filed the suit on Friday.) He denied that he ever drew an outline of a naked woman with his name scribbled in a salacious spot, along with writing an insinuating wish to Epstein that 'every day be another wonderful secret.' (What had to be kept secret, Donald?)
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'I don't draw pictures,' he wrote on Truth Social, denouncing the 'FAKE letter' in the 'Fake Story.'
But Trump's lies – such as the one about his uncle at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Unabomber – are falling apart almost instantaneously. It immediately came out that he was a 'high-profile doodler,' as Tyler Pager put it in The New York Times , and that he donated drawings to charity in the early 2000s.
On Thursday, Trump posted that he had asked Bondi to produce 'any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval.' But judges usually keep such testimony secret. It was hilarious to see Trump hiding behind the judiciary he has tried to sideline.
The president, hoping to redirect the ire of the base back to its favourite chew toy, the mainstream media, posted that the Journal is a 'Disgusting and Filthy Rag.'
Natalie Winters, a reporter for Steve Bannon's War Room podcast, told Bannon that the Journal story made her feel 'gaslit' by the administration. 'I thought the DOJ had nothing related to Epstein,' she said. 'Well, this story sort of contradicts that. So why don't we release it? It's maddening.'
Twisting conspiracy theories into a Gordian knot of hate, Trump is claiming some Epstein files were 'made up' by Barack Obama, James Comey, 'Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration' and 'Crooked Hillary.'
It's tough to blame the deep state when you are the deep state.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times .
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