Bring On the MAGA Revolt
It's been a no-good, very bad week for President Donald Trump, all thanks to the ghost of Jeffrey Epstein, a man, in Trump's words, 'who never dies.'
Since attorney general Pam Bondi released a memo declaring there was 'no incriminating 'client list'' from the Epstein case files, the fallout has left Republicans apoplectic.
Trump, after promising his supporters for years that he would release the list and information about what really happened when Epstein died in a Manhattan detention facility in 2019, is now dealing with something far greater than a failed campaign promise: It's a MAGA revolt.
In recent days, members of Trump's core base, from influencers to activists, have turned on the administration. Laura Loomer—a conspiracy theorist with a direct line to the president—called on 'Pam Blondi' to resign. 'Someone needs to be fired for this,' Loomer wrote to her 1.7 million followers. Jack Posobiec, the Pizzagate conspiracy theorist, called for a formal commission. 'I will not rest until we go full Jan. 6 committee on the Jeffrey Epstein files,' he said at the Turning Point USA conference over the weekend, a major meetup for younger members of the base.
While Trump and his staff may publicly insist there's nothing to see here and that there is no problem with his core base of supporters, Trump's advisers and Republican strategists believe otherwise.
A Trump adviser, who requested anonymity to discuss their thoughts and internal deliberations about this, said there's a legitimate fear in the president's inner circle that the Epstein revolt among the base could create 'a headwind going into the midterms.'
'Nothing that we do is going to satisfy the base,' they tell WIRED. 'Even the best-case scenario, an unsatisfactory answer. So by putting wind in the Epstein sails from the beginning, we have created this problem for ourselves. An own goal, if you will. Which we can't undo.'
'This is not a policy or even a political issue,' Republican strategist Matthew Bartlett tells WIRED, 'but it's something much, much larger … it's a massive, massive problem.' Bartlett, who served in the State Department during the first Trump administration, said his recent group chats about this could be summarized best as being a mix of dread and MAGA telenovela.
Cracks in the House GOP have also started to show. 'We should put everything out there and let the people decide it,' said House Speaker Mike Johnson, in perhaps his most notable break with Trump to date, on a podcast. Other vocal members like Anna Paulina Luna of Florida suggested the FBI release more information, while Lauren Boebert of Colorado called on the Department of Justice to appoint a special counsel to investigate.
'This one is being taken seriously, but it's being followed like a soap opera. I'm not sure that there's any definitive calculation as to how this plays politically in the future because it is so asymmetric in nature,' Bartlett tells me, referring to the gulf between the base and Republican staffers over how much they care about the Epstein saga.
It could very well be a classic case of the dog who caught the car. While Trump could theoretically wiggle his way out of this one, the lack of a clear strategy for clearing the air on Epstein, combined with the ever-increasing agita among his core supporters, has left the president's advisers stupefied.
'Why they suddenly don't want to reveal anything, I have no idea,' a second Trump adviser tells me. 'I don't know why the administration is doing what it's doing.'
Bartlett says 'there's only one answer on this,' which is to release everything. But that clearly isn't happening anytime soon, if ever. (There are a variety of reasons why releasing the materials in full may not be possible, such as personally identifiable information about victims. In the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump said Bondi should release 'whatever's credible she can release. If a document is credible, if a document is there that's credible, she can release. I think it's good. It's just really, it's just a subject—he's dead, he's gone.')
Even then, Bartlett and others are skeptical as to what could put the base at ease.
'Donald Trump's outsider campaign, from 2015 on, was based largely on this deep erosion of faith and trust in our government and institutions,' Bartlett explains. 'And this is a crescendo moment around it, both around some of the people, the nature of the story, the people that are allegedly involved, and now the government's response or lack thereof. A feeling is so much stronger than a thought.' Photo-illustration: WIRED Staff; Getty Images
Already, damage control is underway. The timing of the Epstein debacle couldn't have been worse for the influential Turning Point USA Student Action Summit over the weekend, where attendees were vocally furious about the handling of the case. Conservative activist Charlie Kirk, the leader of Turning Point USA, asked the crowd if they thought the so-called Epstein files were a big deal. Everyone, he noted, raised their hands.
He then completely changed his tune after a reported call from President Trump, according to CNN.
'Honestly, I'm done talking about Epstein for the time being,' Kirk said on his podcast days later. 'I'm gonna trust my friends in the administration, I'm gonna trust my friends in the government to do what needs to be done, solve it, ball's in their hands.'
The MAGA faithful are furious not just about Epstein but also other broken promises, as WIRED reported earlier this week. But the bungled rollout of the Epstein materials, Trump advisers tell me, goes back to February, when the White House gave conservative influencers binders full of materials that were mostly already public information about the disgraced financier and charged sex trafficker.
Even some of the crucial podcast bros who helped push Trump over the top in 2024 are adding the handling of the Epstein case to their growing list of regrets. To voice his discontent, Andrew Schulz, a podcaster and comedian popular with young men, shared a screenshot on Instagram of the explosive WIRED report about likely modifications to the Epstein raw prison tape.
The more time passes, the further the freakout oozes past the diehards in the traditional MAGA base.
The Epstein toothpaste, the first Trump adviser says, can't be put back in the tube—which is especially ironic, given that Trump stocked the top ranks of federal law enforcement with Epstein truthers. And after Trump's 2024 campaign relied on, and buoyed, the conspiratorial MAGA base on its way to victory, the overeager staff who decided to arm conservative influencers with binders may have been just the latest mistake.
Even Trump seems to be at a loss for what to do next. In what could mark a turning point in the president's otherwise ironclad relationship with his base, he appeared to call out MAGA world in a Truth Social post on Wednesday: '[The Democrats'] new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this 'bullshit,' hook, line, and sinker,' the president wrote on his own social media site. 'They haven't learned their lesson, and probably never will.'
The White House did not return a request for comment, including on whether the president thinks anyone who doubts him on Epstein is no longer MAGA.
There are plenty of variables and unknowns left in Trump's second term. But given the particular fervor and salience of this issue among his most dedicated supporters and much of the conservative ecosystem, this increasingly seems like a moment marking a distinct epoch.
Call it Trump 2.0 B.E. and A.E.—before Epstein and the subsequent revolt, and after. The Chatroom
Do you know anyone in your life who has been invested in the Epstein saga and may have thoughts? Or, perchance, do you work in the White House and have a tip?
Send your thoughts to mail@wired.com. WIRED Reads
Want more? Subscribe now for unlimited access to WIRED. What Else We're Reading
🔗 The President's Daughter-in-Law Hosts a Weekly Show on Fox News. To Call It 'Propaganda' Is Too Kind: A great deep dive into the mechanics of Lara Trump's Fox News show, which I record every week. (Media Matters)
🔗 How Fox News Massaged a Trump Interview: Fox News removed a key caveat from Trump's answer about declassifying the Epstein files from an interview over the summer, and it has a whole new valence amid the current MAGA revolt. (Semafor)
🔗 How Popular Is Donald Trump? A notable finding here: 39 percent of Americans have no opinion on Trump's handling of cryptocurrency, while 37 percent similarly have no opinion when it comes to the president and AI. (Silver Bulletin) The Download
On last week's Uncanny Valley podcast, my politics teammates and senior writers Makena Kelly and Vittoria Elliott share more about their DOGE 2.0 findings with senior politics editor Leah Feiger. Listen here.
That's it for today—thanks again for reading. You can find me on Bluesky, via Email, or on Signal at Leak2Lahut.26.
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